So there's this trend that I've been seeing on YouTube lately that I really like I find it entertaining where other youtubers will rank Things that you know are of interest to them characters in game of thrones fast food restaurants other Youtubers and I thought that since this is a political YouTube channel It would make sense for me to kind of do my own ranking of the 2020 Democratic Party Primary contenders and as you can see here. We have the different categories We have the s tier which is obviously the best its top tier and then we have the f tier which Obviously is the worst of the worst now. This is not me ranking them based on numbers I think that we all know that Bernie Sanders is my first choice But this isn't me saying this is my number one my number two so on and so forth This is essentially me just categorizing the candidates based on how good they are So let's go ahead and get started Okay, so the very first one we have here is Governor of Washington J. Inslee thus far. I'm not super impressed by him. He hasn't really laid out Anything other than saying that he wants to tackle climate change, which is phenomenal This is a really important issue But the problem is that why would we opt for him when there are other people who are better when it comes to this issue? I mean Bernie Sanders is championing the Green New Deal Tulsi Gabbard has introduced her own climate change Legislation the off act. So why would I choose him over them when there are better people on this issue? But nonetheless the fact that he wants to raise awareness about this issue is still important So he's certainly not asked here. He's not the worst of the worst, but I'm gonna put him in about mid-range I'm gonna put him it as C here because You know, I just I I'm not interested in what he has to say If you're only talking really about one issue and you don't have the credibility needed on that one issue Okay, so the next person here is Mike Gravel former Alaska senator meme god and I've said this before in the program. I actually agree with his platform more than pretty much anyone else Better it's better than Bernie's it's better than Tulsi. He's just objectively speaking So in my view this really is S tier because he has the gold standard He has the best platform in my view and he goes further than people like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard Even when it comes to their strengths like he supports not using drones Which is something that is incredibly important to me. He explicitly is saying that Chelsea Manning Edward Snowden and Julian Assange should be pardoned now Tulsi Gabbard has also spoken out about this But just overall when you look broadly at his platform I think he has the best now I feel comfortable putting him in the S tier because he actually doesn't want to be president But just objectively speaking if I had to rank the candidates based on how good their platform is I mean, if I don't put him in S tier, I feel like this would be a crime next person Andrew Yang So I like Andrew Yang. I was part of the Yang gang from the beginning I have an Andrew Yang pin or actually two of them over here And I think that he is extremely honest. He's truthful. However, I just don't agree with The policy ideas that he's proposing. He doesn't support Medicare for all He's in favor of a public option instead and I'm worried about his version of universal basic income I think that if you're introducing universal basic income and it's supplementing existing Social safety net programs and you don't have to choose between UBI and social security I would support him a lot more. He'd be like Nearly top tier for me, but because he's not doing that yet until he proposes a plan to You know improve social security lift the tap the cap on taxable income Then you know, he's not he's not a first choice for me. We'll just say that So I'm gonna put him in B tier because he still has a lot of great ideas like ranked choice voting and whatnot But you know his main pitch of UBI I don't agree with the way he wants to implement that moving on. We have Mary Ann Williamson, so this is someone overall who I think she's a really nice person She doesn't support Medicare for all she made this clear in an interview on the Jimmy Dore show and If you don't support Medicare for all I just I'm sorry, I lose interest in you I lose interest in you, but with that being said she still has one strong policy that I really do support She believes in reparations for American descendants of slavery now I actually think her plan is fairly meager. She's pitching a hundred billion over 10 years so 10 billion per year and I think that they're owed more than that. I think we can do better and also I don't know that she's been Explicit about that being a check So I don't know for sure like I previously gave her credit for being the best on this issue But I'm not a hundred percent sure so I'm gonna put her in B Because this is the tier where you have one policy that I really like but overall I just can't get behind you because you don't Check the boxes that I need you to check namely Medicare for all and also I think she needs to lay off the platitudes because it is irritating to me She talks a lot about you know love and whatnot, but you've got to read the room This is not an election where running on love quote unquote love whatever you want to mean by that is gonna win Like we are in a burn shit down Era in politics. We don't feel love. We feel hatred and we want someone who's going to destroy the establishment And you know, I said the same thing about better or work with his platitudes So the same is gonna be applicable to Marianne Williamson next person here Elizabeth Warren, so I Like Elizabeth Warren However with that being said the problem that I have with Elizabeth Warren is that she Won't unequivocally support Medicare for all. I mean she's Cosponsored Bernie's Medicare for all bill but anytime she's asked about it. She runs away from it She says well Yeah, I also co-sponsored you know a public option bill and lowering the age of Medicare down to 55 and I don't like that However, I still think she's a phenomenal candidate. She proposed Canceling some student loan debt She keeps coming out with these really innovative policy ideas that I hadn't previously thought about and I like her The one thing that scares me about Elizabeth Warren is I don't know that she'd have the political courage To fight for anything like we saw how she didn't have the courage to endorse Bernie Sanders She didn't have the courage to stand up for the Standing Rock activists back in 2016 when they were being brutalized by militarized police So I worry about her willingness to fight with that being said I still think that she is good enough To be an a tier because I genuinely believe that she's principled Fighting for what she wants to get implemented is a whole other story, but with that being said You know, I like Elizabeth Warren next person Eric Swalwell, so this Felicia is one of the 1000 centrists who is running and basically he's running on gun control Which is an issue I can get behind but every single candidate supports gun reform So this isn't really something that you're really setting yourself apart with like when it comes to someone like Tulsi Gabbard I think it's incredibly brilliant for her to run on Ending regime change wars because you have like one or two other candidates if we're being extra charitable Who believe that we should do this. So that's innovative. This isn't very innovative to me And also he's more of a centrist. He doesn't support Medicare for all He's just not great overall.  They're certainly worse out there, but he just you know We can do better than Eric Swalwell next person is Bernard I am a brother of the Bernard you all know it looks like you know behind me a Bernie Sanders fan club But Bernie Sanders is someone who I've supported since 2010 when I saw his epic filibuster on the house floor and I just I just knew that this guy was principled and the More you dig into his record the more you love him. He supports Medicare for all He's the strongest on Medicare for all which is my number one issue and for that you've got to give it up to him Now there are things that I Disagree with Bernie Sanders on he has got to improve when it comes to Israel Palestine But with that being said sadly, he's still one of the best He doesn't support BDS, but he still is more forceful and condemning Israel and what they do to Palestinians the way that they Killed them indiscriminately he called Netanyahu a racist and also he has previously stated he'd Kind of support drones now He did make it clear that he'd take precautions to minimize civilian casualties, but nonetheless just end the program It's illegal Congress has not declared these drone wars. So the executive should not be able to unilaterally wage war This is the whole point of Bernie Sanders, you know touting, you know his bill on Yemen, which was fantastic But with that being said these disagreements aside, they're not deal-breakers by no means and these are just a couple of disagreements I agree with Bernie Sanders on the overwhelming majority of Policies and I think that he's the one person who actually knows how to get his legislative agenda implemented in the event He becomes president. He's the only person who truly wants to get us to social democracy And even if his platform in and of itself is not as good as microbells just out of pure strategy out of consistency He's definitely S tier phenomenal candidate as you all know I mean, it's not like I have to convince you guys because you already know how I feel about Bernie, but he's great Next person another Felicia here. We have Tim Ryan now Tim Ryan If you'll recall he challenged Nancy Pelosi in I believe 2016 or maybe it wasn't 2016 basically he was running against Nancy Pelosi to be speaker But even if we don't like Nancy Pelosi as progressives because she's a conservative if you could believe it He was challenging her from the right. So he's a conservative. I see no reason why he wants to run I don't think there's really a place for him So I'm going to put him In the F tier he's basically the worst that we can possibly do I don't care and really he's not that much different from Eric Swalwell Swalwell here But I mean, what are you running on like at least with Eric Swalwell? He has something that he's running on like he says I want gun reform because that's the one thing that won't offend the plethora of Special interests that contribute to his campaign because he's not gonna be taking money from you know, GOA or NRA But I mean it's something what is Tim Ryan offering? What is he running on? I don't know I don't know what it is, you know incrementalism more neoliberalism No, thanks. So not not cool with him Beto. Oh Rorick. This is someone who He's bad He's just so bad He's pretty much an empty vessel. I feel like he doesn't have any ideas any platforms and if you put him in power What he's going to carry out his agenda will essentially be dictated by his advisors He'd be the left equivalent of Donald Trump. Now. He has some great ideas. He wants to legalize marijuana Awesome.   He has nothing So I'm gonna put him in the C tier Certainly not the worst of the worst certainly not the best of the best. I'm kind of I Kind of want to move him to D tier Because he's really bad. Yeah, I'm gonna move him. I'm gonna move him to D tier just because I Don't know what he's running on besides legalizing marijuana, which I support.  He's someone who tried to challenge Nancy Pelosi From the right and that failed spectacularly. I believe he got booed by his own constituents at a town hall He recently came out against Medicare for all and said he supports a public option In addition to the ACA I just I don't I don't know why he's running There's no really one signature issue that sets him apart So he goes in the F tier the only reason why and to be clear the reason why I'm not putting swallow In the F tier is because I mean these guys don't have something that they're running on that is noticeable at least again Swallow says guns that's something that tells me that you have one reason why you're running Even if it's something that isn't that innovative, you know, or wouldn't be super transformative. It's something, you know So credit where it's due but yeah Moulton is one of the Felicia's the next person is Wayne Masam now. This is someone who I don't know too much about But I will say this he is basically an incrementalist. He doesn't support Medicare for all He you know, he wants to get dark money out of politics He he's more of an incrementalist with the exception of one policy that is Amazing he goes further than Elizabeth Warren when it comes to student loan debt cancellation He actually straight up is adopting Jill Stein's policy We take the 1.5 trillion that 45 million Americans or 44 million Americans hold cancel all of it full stop Now for that I'm gonna put him in the B category Because that is such a bold thing to run on that I've got to give you credit there because if you are running on something that bold that really does set you apart Like look at these people we have in the B category. We have Yang He's running on UBI which I support in theory just not necessarily his implementation. We have Williamson who supports reparations Um, I think it's not the best reparations proposal that we can come up with it's still something that I support And we have Masam with Student loan debt cancellation. So in the beat here what I kind of see here Based on my own trend of categorizing these people is they're by and large You know, they have one big policy that really sets them apart from the rest of the field And I think it's fair to put Masam in this category So we have Amy Klobuchar another Felicia candidate um, I Don't know why she's running. I don't know why she chose to eat salad with a comb and I will never get past that. I'm sorry never ever ever Going to get past that I Don't know where to put her. Let's see. She's certainly in the Felicia category I think she's part of the white men who should be running as one person But with that being said she actually is proposing some policy ideas She's like a boring version of Elizabeth Warren where she's talking about, you know, having these savings accounts for your tuition, it's incredibly bad just incrementalist neoliberal nonsense, but I mean, it's she's trying I guess so I'll put her in the E Category I guess I Don't know see She kind of it could go either way she could be in the f category She could be in the e-category, but I'll be extra kind and I'll put her in the e-category just because she has given me joy Because of this salad with a comb kerfuffle that I can't stop talking about and thinking about next person John Hickenlooper he watched porn with his mom f He also compared Bernie Sanders policies to Stalin's So I think that he's just not a bright guy former governor of Colorado. I think would know the difference between Stalin and Bernie, but nonetheless he is Fanning ignorance here and he watched porn with his mom nope Kamala Harris Oops, I just flipped her. Sorry. Hang on. Okay Kamala Harris She is someone who I consider her the best of the worst She's definitely a corporate Democrat, but she stands out among all of the other corporate Democrats because She I believe is more politically astute She's more savvy when it comes to strategy and she knows that she has to do two things One she knows she can't piss off her donors in the Democratic Party if she wants to win But she also knows that she can't piss off progressives like Hillary Clinton did if she wants to win So she's savvy She knows what she's doing and she's certainly more charismatic than the other corporate Democrats I'm gonna go ahead and put her in the seat here If there was any Democrat that stood out or really that Remained, you know, let's just picture this situation where it is March and there's two candidates left and Bernie was there obviously running against another corporate Democrat, which is what I think will probably happen That's how the race will be consolidated One progressive one corporatist. I would hope it's Kamala Harris because at least She is better than the rest of them Okay, next person Kirsten Gillibrand pretty much the same is true for Kirsten Gillibrand She comes out in favor of really bold policies like abolishing ice But at the same time even though she knows like Kamala that she can't piss off progressives and her donors Simultaneously and she's trying to walk this fine line. The problem is that She goes against her own better judgment like she just had a fundraiser with a big pharma executive That's completely unacceptable in 2020 in an anti-establishment election So for that she's not as good as Kamala Harris in my view She also doesn't want to get rid of the filibuster and I just don't think she's as malleable as someone like Kamala Harris like worst-case scenario Kamala Harris is elected. Well, that's actually not the worst-case scenario But in not the best case scenario where Bernie is elected I think that Kamala would be easier to persuade to do certain policies Then Kirsten Gillibrand because when she's elected I feel like she just pretty much told us to fuck off Whereas with Kamala Harris. I think she would be more Mindful of the fact that she needs to maintain the support of the progressive base if she wants to be, you know, effective as A leader because if you lose our support, we're not going to make phone calls for you We're not going to come out and canvas for you. So Harris knows this Harris is more aware. She's more in tune with the base. I think So for that reason, I think that Gillibrand she kind of is in this detail. We're just not great, but not the worst Next person Tulsi Gabbard now Tulsi Gabbard is someone who I really really admire She is just She carved out this lane for herself And you've got to give her credit. She's running on Ending the regime change wars now like Bernie Sanders. I don't think she's perfect I wish that she would include ending the drone war as part of her platform But with that being said, she's pretty much An amazing candidate. She's nearly perfect. Now. I do have other criticisms of Tulsi Gabbard But none of them like Bernie Sanders are deal breakers But with that being said Tulsi Gabbard for my number one issue. She doesn't speak to this enough She's one of two people that hasn't backed away from medicare for all But what I'm looking for is for her to explicitly say we need to do away with private health insurance companies Because that's really the way that you secure a very stable single payer system now She doesn't necessarily have to say let's make private insurance supplemental insurance illegal But I mean the goal is to craft a single payer system That is so good that they basically go out of business And when it comes to you know more elective procedures things that you might need to finance like braces or breast augmentation, for example things that aren't You know of concern for your health. I mean you finance that so you don't really need insurance for that either But with that being said, I'm not going to get too nitpicky because Tulsi is phenomenal She's an amazing candidate. I'm going to put her in the a tier now She's here with Warren for me and I kind of feel like she's a step above Warren in my view like I've been struggling genuinely about who's my number two if there was like a tier between s and a Um, I would probably put gabbard there and leave Warren in a and the main reason why I do this is because Gabbard doesn't run away from medicare for all like Warren And gabbard is also someone who is strong like I genuinely believe that If she says we're gonna end regime change wars if she gets elected She's ending the regime change wars and if the establishment and media want to fight her on that She's not going to back down from that fight because I believe that tosi gabbard She has political courage. She endorsed bernie. Warren did not she went to standing rock in 2016 Warren did not so gabbard really she sets herself apart by being bold by being strong by being courageous and by Really just having this amazing platform when it comes to ending regime change wars And if you watched an ad that she put out where Somebody went to one of her rallies and was crying Because of her stance on regime change wars and how much that meant to this person She really had this intimate moment where she hugged that person. It was phenomenal. Tulsi is really she's great So she's definitely a tier um With elizabeth warren Okay, john delaney One of the felicia's who should be running as one person F tier he really is not running on anything and there's No excitement for his campaign like if you look at some of the photos that he's posting On his twitter, there's like five people that show up to his events like literally I don't know why he's running. He uh He's just seemingly an anti trump person and wants to get elected to restore decorum Okay, but what does that do for us? You're gonna do the same Largely, you know, largely the same policies as trump but nicer Who cares? I want change and he doesn't want to change the system. So he's basically worst of the worst um next person Julian Castro, um I'm gonna put him in c I think that this guy is a weasel But he's not the worst of the corporate democrats He actually is paying lip service to the idea of medicare for all However, I don't believe he had actually implemented. I don't believe he would fight for that He's Talking a big game when it comes to reparations Don't believe he'd actually push for that. In fact, he criticized bernie for not going far enough on reparations when he basically Signaled support for the same thing that bernie sander supports. So this guy is a weasel But without being said, I think he like kamala knows he needs to at least At a minimum at a minimum pander to progressives and I don't like being pandered too But you've got to give him credit for the effort at least I guess um Actually, I'm kind of I'm kind of rethinking c Do I move him To d yeah, I'm gonna move him to d. This dude's a corporate democrat. He came from obama's administration He's a corporate democrat Okay, next person pete buddha judge um He is d actually, you know what? He may even be e Actually, no, no, I'll tell you why i'm gonna put him in d. So even though he's a centrist He does have some good ideas that I support First of all, he supports getting rid of the electoral college Don't need to support him for that though because elizabeth warn agrees. He also Has a really good court packing plan that would add six more justices to the supreme court But also move to depoliticize the supreme court. I really like that plan. However He's not going in this category in the b tier with masam Williamson and yang because the problem with buddha judge is even though he has this one policy that I really like He also has some ideas that I absolutely disagree with like first of all, he's not great on venezuela He basically is pro meddling.  In fact, you know what? You could make the case that he belongs in e tier basically because of that vote for um Or the vote against Amy klobuchar's bill and it's funny that she's lower than him To allow us to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, but the difference is that he cosponsored medicare for all Will he actually deliver medicare for all his president? No way because he's already moved away like kamala Harris from it But he's just a lot more corporatist than someone like kamala Harris. I think and they're both corporatist, but There's something unique about booker and that he's such A slime ball that I really don't believe anything that he has to say um So with kamala, I believe that she'd get in and she'd try to maintain At least some level of support from progressives like she'd offer us a few concessions whereas booker would just be Another democrat like bill clinton and obama where he's just going to work to appease his donors So we've got a couple left Joe biden. Joe biden is f tier He essentially is the worst of the worst. In fact, if I could put him in a lower tier than f I would do it because joe biden has basically been on the wrong side of every single issue While bernie sanders was protesting segregation He was making speeches in favor of segregation Functionally he was on the wrong side of history when it comes to doma. He voted To federally ban same-sex marriage Now he's come around and I welcome your evolution, but nonetheless At that time bernie sanders was on the right side of that issue He voted for nafta. He was in support of the tpp. He voted for permanent normal trade relations with china He's basically a hawk. He's a conservative corporate democrat And this guy is a paper tiger.  Well, we're replicating the same strategy that cost us 2016 Right and I say us Loosely because I don't necessarily associate myself with democrats. I'm more of an independent but I have to register as a democrat because I'm in a closed primary state So I'm not going to be able to vote for bernie if I don't register as a democrat So temporarily at least for all intents and purposes. I'm a democrat and if we don't beat him We replicate the same strategy in 2016 put up a corporatist who we know trump has the capacity to defeat Not a fan Last person here Bennett he's a senator and he's another felicia basically running On the same thing that the rest of the felicia's are running on I'm gonna put him in f tier and largely for the same reasons that you know, I I categorized Seth Moulton and tim ryan here as well um He just isn't really running on anything. It's more incrementalism It's you know, these half measures and if you're not running with these big ideas to fundamentally change the system Or if you come up short there if you're not running with one really strong policy proposal Then why are you even running? So in this category here? F and e these people these Eight people should all be running as one person because They're functionally the same thing and I'm fully aware of the fact that you could almost put Buddha judge and a work here But because they have a couple of good ideas like you know, we have abolishing the electoral college legalizing marijuana also legalizing marijuana That's why they're kind of in this category um And with the e category, you know, we have these neoliberals proposing incrementalist ideas But I mean it's something these guys aren't doing shit. They're basically just They're running because they're running There's no driving Core ideology behind them. They're vacuous. They're vapid. They're you know, They're not talking about policies. What are you running on? Why are you running? So overall, let's just kind of take a moment here because we have Everyone now And for the most part as you can see just overall I'm not too uh, big of a fan of most of the contenders Half of the field is in, you know, these lower tiers because They suck. They're not great. But in this higher tier, you know, it's You're never going to have a candidate who is perfect who agrees with you on everything. But with these four candidates We're pretty damn close.  I mean you have bernie sanders Who is a revolutionary who actually wants social democracy, which in my view is important And just getting us on the trajectory of social democracy Even if he gets one one hundredth of his agenda implemented I think is better than what everyone else is proposing You have elizabeth warren and tulsi gabbard who I would love to vote for in the event they won I would enthusiastically support either one of them And then you have mike ravell who has a phenomenal platform But doesn't actually want to be you know president But if he's going to promote progressive policy ideas on that debate stage I'm behind it. And then you have people who I generally admire probably mesam less so than yang and williamson But you know, there one bold idea isn't enough to get my support And then you have these mid rage candidates who are just Yeah Don't like them. But um, they're certainly the best Of the worst here. So that is My thoughts on this. I'm curious to know how you guys rank the candidates and listen I'm fully aware of the fact that Many people will disagree with this and you can disagree Um, you could really make the case in some instances that the e people belong in the f tier You can make the case that warren and gabbard belong in the s tier You can make the case that sanders belongs in the a tier and mike ravella alone should be in the s tier There's a lot of ways that you can cut it. But this is just my personal view By and large these four candidates here They're my people. I like them and um I think they're great. So I know it's going to kind of be like a pain in the ass to type this out in the comments But I am curious to see how close we agree and I also want to know What other political commentators think so I hope to see kyle kalinsky rational national jimmy door niko house tim black kim iverson anna kasperian michael brooks I want to see everyone do the same thing. Um Just because i'm i'm curious because You know, this is it's tricky We have so many candidates running that I think that these types of exercises It is helpful because when you kind of can put them all out here like this and really visualize What tier they belong in and how good of a candidate they are I do believe it is helpful But with that being said people are probably going to disagree with this and that's perfectly fine. Um, but you know This is this is my categorization. This is how I rank the candidates Um, but I'm curious to know what you think and I'm sorry, you know I don't like name drop dropping other political commentators because You're almost always going to leave someone out which pisses people off So if I left you out, then um, I don't mean any harm by it. I I'm not doing that on purpose But um, you know, I I'm curious to see how other people would categorize the candidates my next thing I think is I'm thinking about ranking them just one through 21 or 22 however many people are running And seeing, you know, who's my number one and who is my number 22 um Because that's something that's also interesting, but I'm still genuinely struggling when it comes to who's my um Number two or number three if you include, you know Gravel But I don't really put him as my number one because he doesn't actually want to be president So I've ranked Bernie is number one and I'm still I go back and forth between Warren and Gabbard because on one hand I like Warren's student loan debt cancellation plan But I like that Gabbard talks more about regime change wars I trust that Gabbard will fight and has more courage than Warren. So it's a struggle for me. You know, um I've I've gone back and forth. So I don't know how I would rank them I'd probably still tie them overall because they're both excellent candidates and I like them both very much I bought t-shirts for them both. I bought buttons for them both and I love them. But, you know, Bernie is definitely my number one um and Yeah, after that it gets a little bit tricky But anyways, I'm gonna stop talking. This is my rankings


I'm publishing, and we're very, very excited. She led a great master class yesterday. She's been kind of meeting people over time, so this is the culminating event. Tomorrow night she'll be at the ICA, so if you're around, go check that out. And so, a little bit of housekeeping. We are live streaming this event, so you are being live streamed. And it'll be available once the event is over at howlround.com, part of HowlRoundTV. Lives inside the Office of the Arts. If you don't know the website, go check it out. And also, in case of an emergency, exits are located there and there. Please go down the stairs and peacefully away from the building. All right, and so now I'm going to hand it over to Kimberly McLaren of Writing Literature and Publishing to get this started. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. I'm okay. No, I won't use the microphone. I just wanted to say that we're really excited to work with the Office of Arts and Arts Emerson as part of our WLP reading series. Sorry, it's been a long semester. I just wanted to give you a heads up that for our part for WLP, this is an annual reading series. And this year we've had an extraordinary year ending on a high note. We began with Jeffrey Renard Allen. We had the poet Richard Blanco. We had Roxanne Gay, which was a really great experience. And now we have Claudia Rankin. And I want to have you keep in mind that we're going to be bringing in more talented poets, writers, SAS next year. I can announce that we're bringing in Teju Cole, which is very exciting. And also we're bringing in Michael Cunningham. And we have two others that we're on that we're constantly currently negotiating with. So please keep an eye out for the posters and the newsletters and come and take part of this reading series, and experience these writers, poets, SAS playwrights who are working at the top of their game and coming here to interact with you, and with some students and with the members of the public. So if you're not on our mailing list, please get on our mailing list so that you will be informed. I want to thank the Office of the Arts for this extraordinary time, Fresh Sound Foundation. And especially David Dower. I want to thank Maria Condor, the chair of WLP, and Ross Ball, the dean of the School of the Arts, and everyone for all their support. And I'd like to introduce my colleague, Wendy Walters, who's going to introduce our guest speaker, reader for tonight. We'd like to, Wendy is an extraordinary scholar and well versed in Ms. Rankin's work, and I thought it would be appropriate for her to do the introduction. Dr. Wendy Walters specializes in African American literature. She teaches here, obviously. And in the larger context of diaspora studies. She's the author of archives of the Black Atlantic, reading between literature and history, and at home in diaspora. Black international writing. She's been a non-resident fellow at the Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, and has published articles in Calalu, American literature, African American review, novel, critical arts, and many other publications. She's published chapters in the books, Borders, Exiles, Diasporas, and Diasporic Africa, a reader, as well as has entries in the Oxford Companion to African American Literature, Black Writers, and the critical response to Chester Himes. Wendy is an extraordinary scholar, a great colleague, and a great mentor, and a friend, and I'm pleased to introduce her to you all. Thank you so much, Kim, that was very nice. I'd like to begin this introduction by noting the powerful student protest that occurred yesterday at Emerson. We all witnessed and took part in a courageous and saddening reminder that the past and the present are not so distinct. Any of my students in the room will recognize when I quote Ian Boccombe's specters of the Atlantic and say, time does not pass, it accumulates. When I think of the affronts, insults, and exclusions students have been talking about since I came to Emerson back at the turn of the last century, it saddens me to know that today's students who are only in kindergarten back in 1999 are still facing the same affronts, insults, and exclusions. The language has not passed, it has accumulated. I had to leave yesterday's protest to meet a student who's working on an Afro-Futurist story about Rosewood, Florida, a thriving black community that was leveled, burned to the ground by white mobs in 1923. In her research into Rosewood's history, though, my student has found that the reporting about Rosewood in 1923 shares the same language as reporting about Ferguson in 2014 and now Baltimore in 2015. The language has not passed, it has accumulated. Who better to turn to when we seek to understand this accumulation of language than a poet? How does this painful accumulation of language continue to shape the world in which we live? Claudia Rankin's poetry asks this question repeatedly and her work teaches us the myriad ways that language matters. Her book, Citizen and American Lyric won the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry and was the first book ever to be named a finalist in both the poetry and criticism categories. A judge from the NBCC Poetry Committee wrote, citizen uses the realm of the lyric to critique the terms by which we live. In citizen, our bodies and our racial selves are not isolated or even present tense, but also communal, unconscious, historical. Indeed, the specters of the Atlantic return in multiple ways in citizen as the violence of past centuries continues to haunt our present. Claudia Rankin writes, quote, yours is a strange dream, a strange reverie. No, it's a strange beach. Each body is a strange beach. And if you let in the excess emotion, you will recall the Atlantic ocean breaking on our heads. Citizen's final two pages depict a famous 19th century painting which happens to be in the Museum of Fine Arts, just down the road from here, JMW Turner's slave ship. As you may know, the painting depicts the 18th century slave ship Zong after the captain and crew threw into the sea 132 living African captives. Claudia Rankin's reproduction of the painting portrays the entire painting with ship and background. And then next to it, a second image, the foreground of the painting, depicting the humans thrown overboard as she implores us to attend to this drowning. Perhaps this excess emotion called up by the memory of drowning in the Atlantic is again, as it was in the 18th century, a righteous rage. In section six of Citizen, Claudia Rankin presents the poetry of one of our contemporary archives, CNN, on August 29, 2005, during Hurricane Katrina. Is the government's lack of response to that storm urinating at sea another more recent deliberate drowning? She writes, quote, have you seen their faces? We are drowning here still in the difficulty, unquote. Poetry is one of the places we turn to find a way to communicate the difficulty we are still in, to rescue each other from drowning in it. Citizen holds the distinction of being the only poetry book to be a New York Times bestseller in the nonfiction category. And it was a finalist for the National Book Award, longlisted for the Penn Open Book Award and was selected as an NPR best book of 2014. Claudia Rankin's other books of poetry are Don't Let Me Be Lonely, Plot, The End of the Alphabet, and Nothing in Nature's Private. And she's co-edded several anthologies. In 2014, she was a National Book Award finalist and received poets and writers, Jackson Poetry Prize, and she's been awarded fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Land and Foundation. It's my great honor and pleasure to introduce Claudia Rankin. Good evening. It's been such a pleasure being here. I want to thank Wendy and David and Pauly and Kevin, and you for being here. I thought that tonight I would do something a little different than what I have been doing. So we worked on a video for you, my husband and I, and so I thought we would start by showing two videos that are in Citizen and in New York. So that will take about 15 minutes, and then I will read you. On the train, the woman standing makes you understand there are no seats available, and in fact, there is one. Is the woman getting off at the next stop? No, she would rather stand all the way to Union Station. The space next to the man is a pause in a conversation you are suddenly rushing to fill. You step quickly over the woman's fear, a fear she shares, you let her have it.   He has had to think about it so much he wouldn't call it thought. Another passenger leaves his seat and the standing woman sits. You glance over at the man. He is gazing at the window into what looks like darkness. You sit next to the man on the train bus in the plane waiting room anywhere he would be forsaken. You put your body there in proximity to adjacent to alongside the end. You don't speak unless you are spoken to and your body speaks to the space you fill and you keep trying to fill it except the space belongs to the body of the man next to you, not to you. Where he goes, the space follows him. If the man left his seat before Union Station you would simply be a person in a seat on the train. You would cease to struggle against the unoccupied seat when, where, why the space will lose its meaning. You imagine if the man spoke to you he would say, it's okay, I'm okay. You don't need to sit here. You don't need to sit and you sit and look past him into the darkness the train is moving through a tunnel. All the while the darkness allows you to look at him. Does he feel you looking at him? You suspect so. What does suspicion mean? What does suspicion do? The soft gray green of your cotton coat touches the sleeve of him. You are shoulder to shoulder the standing you could feel shadowed.  And it might be too late for that. It might forever be too late or too early. The train moves too fast for your eyes to adjust to anything beyond the man. The window, the tile tunnel, its slick darkness. Occasionally a white light flickers by like a displace sound. Across the aisle tracks roam Harvard World. A woman asks a man in the rose head if he would mind switching seats. She wishes to sit with her daughter or son. You hear but you don't hear, you can't see. It's then the man next to you turns to you. And as if from inside your own head you agree that if anyone asks you to move you'll tell them we are traveling as a family. Something is there before us that is neither the living person himself nor any sort of reality. Neither the same as the one who is alive nor another. What is there is the absolute calm of what has found its place. Every day I think about where I came from and I am still proud to be who I am.  Perhaps the most insidious and least understood form of segregation is that of the word.  Arise directly to the level of tragedy. Notice too, illustrations of this kind of racial prejudice can be multiplied indefinitely, clearly. The Algerians who in view of the intensity of the repression and the frenzied character of the oppression thought they could answer the blows received without any serious problem of conscience. And there is no black who has not felt briefly or for long periods with anguish, sharp or dull in varying degrees and to varying effect, simple, naked and unanswerable hatred. Who has not wanted to smash any white face he may encounter in a day to violate out of motives of the cruelest vengeance to break the bodies of all white people as low as the dust into which he himself has been and is being trampled. No black who has not had to make his own precarious adjustment. Yet the adjustment must be made, rather it must be attempted. Do you think two minutes from the end of the World Cup final, two minutes from the end of my career, I wanted to do that? Each decision gave rise to the same hesitation, produced the same despair. No one is free. For all that he is, people will say he remains for us an Arab. You can't get away from nature.  Let him do his spite. My services, which I have done, shall outtongue his complaints. When such things happen, he must grit his teeth, walk away a few steps, allude the passerby who draws attention to him, who gives other passersby the desire either to follow the example or to come to his defense.  He knows something about himself and human life that no school on earth and indeed no church can teach. He achieves his own authority and that is unshakable. This is because in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words. We hear, then we remember. The state of emergency is also always a state of emergence. But at this moment, from whence came the spirit, I don't know, I resolved to fight. And suiting my action to the resolution, what we have here is not the bringing to light of a character known and frequented a thousand times in the imagination or in stories.  This thing was there. We grasp it in the living motion. What he said touched the deepest part of me. The rebuttal assumes an original form. This endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority contains for all its horror, something very beautiful. Daily we share the same elevators, streets, corridors, stairways, sidewalks, highways, arenas, restrooms, lobbies, subways, in short, all public spaces. Even when access is gained by a ticket, the true price of the ticket is dependent on an implicit trust. The understood question is always, can I trust you? We signal indicating our desire to change lanes on the freeway. We cross streets without stop signs by catching the eye of the driver in the moving car. We drift off in waiting areas. We are dreaming on planes. We depend on those around us to keep us safe. This is our unspoken agreement between us, between strangers, our civic contract states. We will act in each other's best interest for no other reason than we are here together. Do you have an emergency? I'm at the barricade Walmart. There's a gentleman walking around with a gun in the store. Is he got pulled out? Yeah, he's like 20 other people. What do they look like? He's a black male, probably about six foot tall. Okay. Blue shirt, blue pants. The alliance we pledged is to one another. Assurance is taken. Can I trust you? Assurance is taken. Different from and similar to each other. Whatever the precise thinking behind the question, the question is asked deep within us. We recognize that inevitably I am going to have to put my trust in you. We are circling the understanding that daily we have to take a leap of faith regarding you. In order that we can go on believing in our mobility, trust is what pledging and allegiance secures. Public trust relies on both an implicit understanding and a mode of seeing. Someone is paying attention. Someone is watching. See.          Hey nothing. Say something because we will trust you. Peace of mind gives us the ability to move through our day without fear. It keeps us in our rhythms. It gives us an air of confidence regarding an illusion control of the world around us. We drift off in waiting areas. We are dreaming on planes. We understand what will happen next. And this is crucial to a sense of well-being, even if this control is no control at all. When something occurs that disallows a taking for granted of one's own safety, when something happens, when that thing happens. So what's your business with me right now? I want to find out who you are. There is no problem, that's the thing. And let you know, why do I have to let you know who I am to let, who I am isn't the problem. Well I don't have to let you, well I know my life first off. Secondly, secondly, I don't have to let you know who I am if I haven't broken any laws. Like I told him, I'm going to New Horizons to pick up my kids at 10 o'clock. I was sitting there for 10 minutes. Like not before he walked up to me or anything. He walked up to me a minute after and got irate with me. So first off, that's a public area. And if there's no sign that doesn't say this is a private area, you can't sit here, no one can tell me I can't sit here. That's the case and I can't sit here. The problem is I'm black, that's the problem. No it really is, but I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not sitting there with a group of people, I'm sitting there by myself. Walking by. Walking by and doing what? By making people nervous. By walking by? Wow, walking by having your hands in your pockets and making people nervous to call the police. What is snowing outside? Okay. I'm fine or how about you? Walking with my hands in my pockets. Walking. In discomfort and loss of comfort, we might lose an ease of movement around another. The perceived inability to trust another. No one wishes his or her sense of trust violated. Each time we pass through our public spaces, the question presents as a gentle nudge against an unconscious reliance on public trust. Would you, could you, should you trust? We are dozing in airports. We are dreaming on planes. As we daily move through our streets and our parks across bridges in the aisles of stores anywhere and everywhere we live. A simple truth and a basic understanding exists. When I walk toward you, it's one of the reasons I'm interested in. As we turn to each other, it's one of the reasons I'm interested in. Each second inside our unspoken question is one of the reasons I'm interested in. Can I trust you? So, my brothers are notorious. They have not been to prison. They have been imprisoned. The prison is not a place you enter. It is no place. My brothers are notorious. They do regular things like wait. On my birthday they say my name. They will never forget that we are named. What is that memory? The days of our childhood together were steep steps into a collapsing mine. It looked like we rescued ourselves or rescued. Then there are these days each day of our adult lives. They will never forget our way through. These brothers, each brother, my brother, my dearest brother's dear heart. Your hearts are broken. This is not a secret, though there are secrets, and as yet I do not understand how my own sorrow has turned into my brother's hearts. The hearts of my brothers are broken. If I knew another way to be, I would call up a brother. I would hear myself saying my brother, dear brother, my dearest brother's dear heart. On the tip of a tongue, one note following another is another path, another dawn, where the pink sky is the bloodshot of struck, of sleepless, of sorry, of senseless shush. Those years of and before me and my brothers, the years of passage, plantation, migration, of Jim Crow's segregation of poverty, inner cities, profiling of one in three, two jobs, boy, hey boy, each a felony. Accumulate into the hours inside our lives where we are all caught hanging. The rope inside us, the tree inside us, its roots are limbs, a throat sliced through, and when we open our mouth to speak, blossoms, oh blossoms, no place coming out. Brother, dear brother, that kind of blue. The sky is the silence of brothers all the days leading up to my call.  I'd say goodbye before anyone can hang up, don't hang up. My brother hangs up though he's there. I keep talking, the talk keeps him there. The sky is blue, kind of blue. The day is hot, is it cold, is it cold? It does get cool, is it cool? Are you cool? My brother is completed by sky. The sky is the silence, eventually he says, it is raining, it is raining down. It was raining, it stopped raining, it was raining down. He won't hang up. He's there, he's there, but he's hung up though he's there. Goodbye, I say. I break the goodbye. I say goodbye before anyone can hang up, don't hang up, wait with me, wait with me though the waiting might be the call of good-byes. I wonder, don't. He went away, and now he's coming back to save me. I just want to get back to the floor. This one? That piece in the book is followed by this, what I just read. This was the most difficult image to get the rights to use, because initially the Fulton Archives said no, they said they can't have it. Because they were afraid of what people would do with it. Basically, rehang the more people images through the image. We called another day hoping for another person. This other person said that they would agree to read the book. They agreed to read the book, and then they gave us permission. I was nervous to actually ask them if I could remove the body. I said, can we remove the body? They said, sure. Because that was the point of contention. That was the thing that gave them anxiety. We removed the body, because I was only interested in this, in complicity, in whiteness around white supremacist actions. That's it. That's in the text. It's the lynching of Thomas Schiff and Abram Smith, August 7, 1937, in Marion, Indiana. It looks like Indiana was preparing itself for a long time for its recent activity. Since I'm in Boston, I thought I would read this, when I was inspired by Robert Lowell. Sometimes I is supposed to hold what is not there until it is. Then what is comes apart the closer you are to it. This makes the first person a symbol for something. The pronoun barely holding the person together. Someone claimed we should use our skin as wallpaper, knowing we wouldn't win. You said, I have so much power. It's insane. And you would look past me, all gloved up in a big coat and fancy fur around the collar, and record a self saying, you should be scared. The first person can't pull you together. Shit. You're reading minds. But did you try? Tried rhyme? Tried truth? Tried epistolary untruth? Tried and tried. You really did. Everyone understood you to be suffering, and still everyone thought you thought you were the sun. Never mind our alightness. You too have heard the noise in your voice. Anyway, sit down. Sit here, alongside. Exactly why we survive and can look back with furrowed brow is beyond me. It is not something to know. Your ill-spirited, cooked, hell on Main Street, nobody's here broken down first person could be one of many definitions of being to pass on. The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.  Maybe you don't agree. Maybe you don't think so. Maybe you're right. You don't really have anything to confess. Why are you standing? Listen, you. I was creating a life study of a monumental first person, a Brahman first person, if you need to feel that way. Still, you are here, in here, and here is nowhere. Join me down here in nowhere. Don't lean against the wallpaper. Sit down and pull together. Yours is a strange dream, a strange reverie. No, it's a strange beach. Each body is a strange beach. And if you let in the excess emotion, you will recall the Atlantic Ocean breaking on our heads. I wanted to read that for you. And I'll show you the image you referenced. That's the Turner that you own in your midst. A song and then the detail of the Brahman. Do you know that Ruskin was the first person to own this? And when it was first shown, there was a poem that went along with it. I've always loved Turner, because he's so moody. I feel like I see a reflection of myself. The question that I asked many people, while I was working on this book, was, can you tell me a moment when you were moving along in your day and with a colleague, with a friend? And something happened that threw you out of that moment. And most of the stories that people remembered happening to them, I had an equivalent story. So in that sense, it wasn't a surprise. But there was one story told to me by a professor in Northern California. And she's a good friend of mine. And I said, no way. She said, way. The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling. You have only ever spoken on the phone. Her house has a side gate that leads to a back entrance she uses for patients. You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked.  The woman standing there yells at the top of her lungs, get away from my house. What are you doing in my yard? It's as if a wounded Doberman pincher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? She spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that's right. I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. I asked my friend, what happened next? She went to the appointment. Way. She went to the appointment. And then I asked her what happened next. And she said she went home and she left. And then she wrote a letter to the therapist saying, I can't come back. And I said, so you made another appointment. But I totally understand it. I say that without any judgment at all because I would have done exactly the same thing. Maybe. I mean, now I wouldn't. But at the time I might have. I would have to walk into exactly the same scenario, not to do the same thing. But it could present itself in another way because I could see myself as moving forward. You're in the dark, in the car, watching the black tarred street being swallowed by speed. He tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there. You think maybe this is an experiment and you are being tested or retroactively insulted or you have done something that communicates with the K conversation to be having. Why do you feel comfortable saying this to me? You wish a light with her in red or a police siren would go off so you could slam on the brakes, slam into the car in the head of you, fly forward so quickly, both your faces would suddenly be exposed to the wind.  It is not only that confrontation is headache producing, it is also that you have a destination that doesn't include acting like this moment isn't inhabitable, hasn't happened before, and the before isn't part of the now, as the night darkens and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going. I am going to end. Actually, I wanted to show you this is Kate Clark. I saw this image many, many years ago and our bodies are so incredible. I am always marveled. And it stored itself. And then I was working on Citizen and I was just telling John I was in Wyoming in New Cross and I was sitting at my desk writing and I was looking out the window and I heard a deer and I thought, I'm going to join them. So I got up and I went to the door and the first click the door made meant that every face looked at me. So I thought, all right, I'm not going to join them.


Hello people of the internet, my name is Johnny and welcome back to another FNAF News video. This time we're talking about the FNAF movie. That doesn't happen very often, and also what doesn't happen very often is the fact that not only do we have FNAF movie news, it's good news. There's no delays, there's no rewriting of scripts, at least I mean we hope so. Basically Jason Blum had an interview at the South by Southwest Film Festival Convention, and he talked about the FNAF movie and what's going on with it, because if you forgot the movie has been in development heck for the longest time. But we finally got some good news out of Jason, we have a little bit to walk with as well as more news coming very soon, which I will also make a video about that when it comes out. But we're gonna focus on the quick interview clip right now, and let's hop into it, subscribe if you want to stay up to date with more FNAF news, hit the like button, let's hop into it. So quickly I will explain the development heck that has been the definition of FNAF movie. So back in 2015, yes it's been that long. Right in between FNAF 3 and 4's release in April we got news that the game would be getting a movie adaptation. Scott was gonna walk with Warner Bros to bring the game into a movie adaptation. What could go wrong? Turns out a whole bunch of stuff. Not a whole lot of progress was made with Warner Bros and eventually in 2017 we got news that Blumhouse would be creating the movie instead. So after about two years at Warner Bros, the movie wasn't making a whole lot of progress. There were delays, there were complications, a whole bunch of stuff. And so in 2017 we got an official tweet by Scott proving that they've moved on to a new company and now they're walking with Blumhouse. And much like Warner Bros, not a whole lot of progress was made in the next coming years. Basically all the news we got for three years leading up to 2020 was we're writing a script, it's gonna be great. You're excited for the FNAF movie, right? It'll come out eventually. So yeah, it's pretty safe to say the fan base was kind of losing interest but then in late 2020 we finally got official words from Scott that they finally had found a script. He made a reddit post on November 20th 2020 saying bad news about the FNAF movie. And I think we all know the post by now it's a bunch of scraps, screenplays for the movie and finally at the end we get the mic screenplay. Basic setup. Hmm, this makes sense. Why didn't I think of this before? Problems. Actually, this is a good mix. It has the best pieces from all of the previous screenplays, not really any problems here. All the right characters, all the right motivations, all the right stakes. Verdict. Yeah, we're going with this one. It's fun, it's scary, and it has a great central story. Oh right, on to the bad news. The bad news is that there won't be any more screenplays to add to this list since we are officially going with the mic screenplay. Filming starts in the spring. So there we go. After five years in total, three years at Blumhouse we finally have a script and they were gonna film in spring of 2021. And then we got no news about the movie throughout the entirety of 2021. Spring came and went and so did summer and it wasn't until September 2021 we finally got another update and it really wasn't what we were hoping to hear. Turns out they scrapped the mic screenplay and on top of that they had no director anymore. So that was a bummer. Not only did they not film in the spring, they also didn't even have a script. They didn't have Chris Columbus, the director anymore, and now they had nothing. Over time we got tweets here and there from Jason saying that he was determined to get the FNAF movie up and out. But no concrete news until today. Where long intro out of the way, right, long recap out of the way, let's move on to the new news where Jason Blum had an interview at the South by Southwest Film Festival Convention 2022 and he talked about the film. And so without further ado, let's watch the interview. On Freddy's we are, this is it, we are dangerously close. I will say that we are dangerously close. I'm just saying we're dangerously close to more news. Dangerously close. So that's could certainly be in 23. Our big, so that was the clip. Now you may be thinking, Johnny blocks, what the hell was that? He barely said anything. Well, he did say that we are quote dangerously close to more news about the film, which honestly, as a FNAF movie fan, we just got to take them to the tiniest things. Now you notice the person who was doing the interview after Jason said we're dangerously close to news. The interviewer went director, producer, you know, like he was trying to get Jason to say a bit more. But Jason didn't bunch. He just kept saying we're dangerously close to more news. Now I don't know about you, but I take that as they have a big announcement coming and they will hopefully announce a script, producer, director, all those big things. Because you can tell Jason's confident, right? He's like, we got big things coming, you know, we are dangerously close to more news. He even goes on to say that it could come out in 2023. We'll talk about that in a bit. But yeah, he just seems so confident that this news that we are dangerously close to is going to be pretty big. If it was something small, like, oh, yeah, you know, we've nailed down a new director or a producer or a script, I feel like he would have just said that in the interview. Unless they have more bigger stuff to announce. I'm not saying it's like a trailer or a movie poster or anything like that. But I do think it's going to be something that'll get fans hyped. I don't think they filmed. I'll be straight up, honestly. But I think the most likely explanation for why he didn't answer those questions is because he wants to share them with the rest of the big news, which will hopefully be filming dates. So even though we don't know what the big news is, I do think it's going to be something pretty hyped, like a final script or a producer director. I feel like it has to be at least one of those, as well as a filming date. I do think we're going to get a filming date pretty soon. At least I hope so. But yes, I definitely do not think we are anywhere close to a teaser or a trailer of any kind or like a poster. It's definitely not going to be something like that. But now let's talk about the 2023 release date, because I've seen some people say that he's talking about the news will be revealed next year, when obviously no, that that's not the case at all. Dangerously close is not seven months away and then some in 2023. No, that's like a few weeks, maybe a few months from now. When he says that could be 23, I do think he means the film could be released in 2023.  So I do think that this big news will be something that will, you know, push the movie forward. Again, whether it be director, producer, script, what have you, or a filming date, it's going to be something that'll push the movie forward because there are so many doubts about the film. But I think the best thing about all of this is that Jason is confident that we will get a movie. He said it on Twitter, you can tell by the way he speaks and his posture. And I think that's important. It's also important to realize there's a lot of people still hyped for this movie. FNAF is a massive IP way bigger than it was in 2015, even at what some people consider to be its peak. With the release of security breach, we have hit a brand new peak. And if they can capitalize on all the discussions about FNAF and SB and all the new fans, I don't know if that really made sense. But I think you realize what I'm trying to say. I do think it's going to be something big. I can tell that Jason's confident about the news, about the movie as a whole. And I have seen people who are like, I don't know, I'm very doubtful with the track record of the film. But I think this is our shot. But that is going to do it for today. Once we get that new news, of course, I'll let you know once it comes out. I'm curious. Let me know in the comments down below, are you still even excited for the FNAF movie? Who do you want to see in the movie? Like casting, cameos, Easter eggs, things like that. How do you feel about the new news we're going to be getting very soon? Also, how do you feel about that maybe 2023 release window? Tell me how you feel in the comments down below and I will see you all on the flip side. Goodbye.


Good morning, I'm Gavin Beget and I'll be teaching the International Merge Control Module in the Lent Term. Just a little bit about the faculty for the course, I've been practising a competition law with a heavy emphasis on a virtual control and an international law firm for the last 20 or so years and I've now just been a pointy bill so I'm also a member of the UK Competition Commission. I'll be joined by Bill Allam, who has also had an extra decade on me. I think he's had over 30 years of experience and actually is widely recognised probably as one of the leading competition lawyers in the UK and he is now also a member of the Competition Appeal Tribunal in the UK and also teaches the competition at a land here in Cambridge as well. We'll be joined by Albertina, who I'll allow briefly to introduce herself. My name is Albertina, I'm a university senior lecturer and I'm a graduate of studies in law and then a fellow girl from college I've been in Cambridge since I was a PhD student and I've been teaching in the faculty since 1997 and I've been teaching consistently in the LL competition law course since 1999. I'm also been delighted to have the opportunity now to become a wall with the MCL and to work alongside Mr Allam. In the competition course in the LL, for those of you who will attend the subject forum tomorrow, there is one part of the syllabus that deals with larger control that that's made in with an EU sort of spongy whereas this course, as Mr Allam will tell you in a moment, has much more to compare to that version. So I look forward very much to seeing the course in the LL. Thank you. So between us, we hope to give you a good balance between academic rigor and the law behind merger control but also an insight into the practice of merger control. I think merger control is particularly a subject where a practitioner perspective can give you a real insight into how places are actually conducted. So what is merger control? What are we talking about? It's talking about transactions when you're doing corporate transactions, the need that certain transactions will need to obtain clearance from the competition authorities and we'll be focusing in particular on international transactions, international M&M and global deals and more and more we're finding that competition authorities are interviewing. When I first started out down the road of competition law 25 years ago, competition law was perhaps a little bit more of a technical area, wasn't quite so well. Now it is right at the forefront of corporate transactions. I think CEOs, senior partners, finance directors are really focused on merger control. If they're doing a transaction, particularly if they're doing a global deal, they want to make sure that they can get that deal through and it's not just a process issue. Processes are very important and we'll be talking about getting those processes right but actually, substantively, the deal can end up on the box if you don't get it right. Even this year alone, I mean, pretty unusually, the European Commission has already prohibited at least three major transactions. So taking example, the Deutsche Bursa proposed merger with the New York Stock Exchange was prohibited by the European Commission and that means that all that energy and resource in putting that deal together was completely lost because the competition authorities stepped in and prohibited. We also saw the UPST-18 merger prohibited and Ryanair tried for the third time to buy a new bus. First time it was blocked, the second time it drew its tent and the third time it got blocked again. I think Michael O'Leary, the Chief Executive of Ryanair, might have now got the message but no doubt that a lot of employers are making quite a lot of money on Ryanair's attacks to big for our business but anyway it's been prohibited now pretty much for the third time. But actually there being, if you see your roles as corporate transaction lawyers, getting about what and making sure that client is aware of the risk and then manage the risk successfully both in terms of the corporate documentation but also in terms of managing that antitrust process, the competition process and understanding how best to maximise the chance of success through that process is critical for the success of the successful transaction. Now I think it's a fascinating area, I'm passionate about it and hopefully I can share some of that passion with you. One of the reasons I'm passionate about it is although there's a lot of rule and there's plenty of cases, a lot of it's administrative law so it's created by decision making by administrative bodies rather than by courts we'll be looking at some court cases but actually there are fewer court cases in this area probably than in many other areas you might study but it also gives you a window onto some other disciplines such as economics and government affairs, so I'm no economist I have no formal training as an economist but I deal with economists all the time and actually understand it because when you're reviewing transactions and trying to work out which transaction gives rise to a competition issue and which doesn't, economics provides you with the framework within which to analyse that and don't worry, I'm not going to ask any of you to become economists and I can hardly do that because I'm certainly not one but actually understanding some of the tools that economists use is really critical and actually it's really quite fun, I really enjoy understanding some of those principles of macroeconomics and industrial organisation which actually influence the way competition policy is developed and applied and I do think that's interesting the other area that is interesting is understanding the political influences that inform some of the decisions in an ideal world your competition authority would be completely immune from political influence and in some countries it is more immune than others in other countries it is heavily influenced by political and policy developments in a wider field and understanding those influences is also really interesting we're certainly not going to become lobbyists and public affairs consultants but actually understanding how those influences can shape decisionally in the area is also I think a really interesting and fascinating aspect of this area of law so in terms of the focus of the course it is very much an international course as Albertina said we really will be focusing on global transactions and the application of merchant control rules around the world however in order to move you would just try and deal with however many countries around the world it would be a pretty shallow course because you just touch on one country and then move on to another and really never get to any depth so we will focus on European merchant control and in a way use that as the starting point we will be trying to understand merchant control and policy in depth and we will use that as our favourite but throughout we will be using international compulsive and also if we think about one of the three major jurisdictions in the world four or five years ago there were two major jurisdictions in the world from merchant control the US and Europe and we will therefore also be covering the US and so a new human partner will actually come over from one of the lectures to actually give you some first hand insight into the way merchant control is applied in the US but actually over the last few years another jurisdiction has developed a sort of the third global channel and that's China and so we will also have one lecture which will be focused on China and we will be looking comparatively at the US and China and other countries around the world as we analyse and look at European law and I will actually deal and deliver the Chinese aspect myself as it happens I've been leading the China competition practice at my law firm over the last four or five years and going up to China I feel four times a year over that period so fortunately I'm in a position to give you some insights directly on myself as a child and I think if you ask most people and we know most businesses which jurisdiction you're most worried about at the moment it will be China and I think it will have some very interesting and entertaining discussions around Chinese merchant control and its implications for any man around the world so there are also in terms of the structure of the course we will kick off with an introductory lecture on the competition or in the past perhaps as part of an undergraduate degree some may have come across in practice and the point of the introduction is to level the play for a little bit so you all understand the basics of competition policy and in fact you might ask some interesting questions about what is the point of competition policy, why does it exist why do we have these laws in the first place and this is one of the themes throughout the course if I was going to design a new competition law how will it look like, what would be the best features of a competition law and it's not just a purely philosophical academic question because there are countries around the world introducing a competition law everywhere so they are actually actively thinking about how do I best design a competition law and in particular a merchant control law so we will have that introduction then we will do about four lectures on merchant control starting off looking at jurisdiction where and when do we need to file to what extent from a practical perspective can we avoid filing other ways we can structure a transaction which means we don't have to file and I'm also looking at process and procedure which is as a transaction lawyer is fundamental. We'll then spend two lectures looking at actually how we review transactions and looking at some of those economic tools and which transactions are likely to give us competition issues we'll then turn attention to the US for one seminar China for another and then we'll wrap up at the end we'll do some consolidation but also we'll talk about how you actually as a corporate lawyer how you can manage the entity trust risk that is so worrying the chief executive and the general counsel on how you can manage that as a documentation or how you can put all the risk onto the other party doing a transaction and throughout we will try to use case studies there's a lot of global transactions that we can use as case studies some of which would have been involved with personally and can get under the skin of those transactions so hopefully there'll be a lot of interesting live work and case work we can do during the course the exam will take place at the end of the letter it will be closed book and we will be asking to do three questions out of five or more or something around that in two hours although we assure you that although you can bring a card to the exam you won't need it Any questions?


This study develops an aerosol data assimilation and forecast system using WIF chemistry and 3D-VAR to assimilate GOSI-AOD and surface PM observations in Northeast Asia at 15 km resolution during the Corus AQ intensive observing period. The simulation domain covers Northeast Asia at 15 km horizontal resolution, and the assimilation and forecast skill is evaluated for the Korea U.S. air quality, Corus AQ, intensive observing period. Observing system experiments, OSEs, are conducted to examine the changes in quality of assimilation and forecast skills sensitive to the assimilated observational input data. The baseline model simulation underestimates AOD and surface PM concentration in most regions, in which the assimilation of satellite and in situ data improves the mean biases and spatial distribution. Moreover, it improves the forecast skill of the surface concentration of PM10 and PM2.5. The results from the OSEs indicate that the assimilation of GOSI-AOD only slightly enhances the forecast skill. However, most of the skill improvement comes from the surface PM assimilation, showing a practically useful level of skill until 12 hours from the initial state. The marginal improvement in the PM10 forecasts by the GOSI-AOD suggests the non-negligible difference between column representing AOD and the surface PM concentration. This article was authored by Gang Han Kim, Sun Hee Lee, Jung Ho Im, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.