I'd like to make my presentation about MiGTA's identity and vision. Probably most of them, most of the dispart identity and vision were explained by the foreign minister. Therefore, probably some part is overlapped with the foreign minister. We think that it is quite a natural phenomenon for MiGTA to appear in the international arena. MiGTA believes that the rapidly changing global power structure and more functioning world financial and economic system newly arising complicated global challenges like cyber security threat and ineffective global governance require a new and innovative approach and partnership to provide a programmatic and constructive solutions to these challenges. This belief leads to us to identify the attributes and characters of MiGTA and the rationale of the composition of its members. The five countries of MiGTA are active players in the regional and global setting. They share universal values and have a substantial will and capability to contribute to addressing the challenges which the international community is facing today and will face tomorrow. Therefore, we members of MiGTA define its identity as a new model of partnership for our global future. This new model of partnership is not necessarily still exclusive or closed. Rather, it is an evolving, open, inclusive, flexible and informal entity pursuing the public goods for the benefit of all humankind. In this respect, we always welcome value-added and constructive engagement from other members of the international community, civil societies and academic networks. We will reflect the voices of others in moving the process forward and forcing ahead with collective wisdom, common solutions, mutual benefits and prosperity. With such identity of MiGTA, I will elaborate vision of MiGTA as follows. First and foremost, MiGTA is pursuing a catalyst or facilitator in implementing global governance reform. The effective and efficient global governance is a request of our time to address all the challenges of today and tomorrow. We will launch initiatives to reform the global governance. In doing so, MiGTA will serve as a bridge between the developed and developing countries. Second, MiGTA will contribute to finding solutions to regional and global challenges of today. In this regard, we pursue to serve as a close regional constitutive platform to complement the efforts of regionalism to find pragmatic and creative solutions to regional challenges. We have already addressed the issue of migration in Syria and Myanmar and Ebola outbreaks. And also, we will increase the connectivity of regional networks and help each other to communicate with regional bodies. MiGTA also contributes to the global issues of counter-terrorism. As Foreign Minister said, a development cooperation, climate change, cyber threat, etc. We are committed to joining in national, regional and global efforts to prevent and respond to terrorism such as IS and will promote cooperation on cyberspace through a network of cyber security experts of MiGTA countries. In the area of development cooperation, Australia and Korea hosted the first and second MiGTA development cooperation workshop in 2014 and 2015 respectively to strengthen cooperation focused on the post-2015 development agenda and financing for development processes. Also, we will actively participate in the process of conference of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC to be held in Paris this December. Third, we will play the role of an agenda-setter and assume a constructive role to identify future challenges and find solutions to them. We will make joint efforts for building norms, developing guidelines, sharing best practices and forging collective responses to the new challenges. From above said identity and vision of MiGTA, we can understand the reason why one of the most prominent contemporary scholars Professor John Eikenberry of Princeton has noted that in a world of deepening geopolitical lifts, MiGTA gives the world order a new geopolitical heft. From the very first stage of MiGTA back in 2013, Korea has proactively contributed to the consolidation of MiGTA. Recently, Korea hosted the fifth foreign ministry's meeting last month's May to reunite efforts to solidify its identity and its vision. Korea also will host a speaker's meeting in Seoul next month to connect our efforts to the parliament's cooperation of the MiGTA member countries. In concluding, I sincerely thank you for your attention to my presentation and I'd like to invite Najib, Ambassador of Indonesia, to deliver Indonesia's perspective on how to promote MiGTA cooperation. Thank you.


We're here at ITU Telecom World 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand, and I've got the great pleasure of being with Dr. Makisa Kituyi, who is the Secretary-General for UNTAD. Kituyi, thank you very much indeed for being with us in the studio today. Thanks for having me. I'd like to start off by talking a little bit about UNTAD's role, and perhaps you could tell us what is UNTAD's role in supporting the digital economy globally. Okay, one of the things that we've done for some time now is that we're the Secretariat of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, and a large component of this work has to do with digital economy. And secondly, I have a division which has for some time been an important world player in quantifying e-commerce and the information economy. We are assisting with the development of instruments for measurement of electronic training and its impact. And secondly, we have been among the main partners with ITU on the WUSIS program, particularly on the development and monitoring of e-business. So these are some of the routes that bring us to the table, as it were, on e-commerce. Now, there is a lot of links between ICTs and sustainable development. I just wanted to ask you, why do you think that's important? How do you think that they can help? All right, first of all, ICT as an enabler for enterprise and for inclusion is a cross-cutting enabler across all the pillars of the SDGs. And secondly, as a standalone, as one means of implementation, pillar number 17, goal number 17, ICT is critically important for a number of reasons. One, if you look at new jobs in the service industry, most of them are driven by ICT. Secondly, ICT-based service jobs are more gender-blind than the traditional jobs. That means that there's a greater, even without affirmative action, there's a greater participation in the enabling of women and younger women particularly in the ICT-driven service industry than in other industries. And unlike traditional jobs, ICT-based jobs are gender-blind in remuneration. So there are all these major strengths. Second level of importance is the phenomenal ability of ICT to keep developmental generations in inducting different pockets of incompetent production into a great engagement in the global economy and improving margins is phenomenal. I mean, just look at an example. ICT may bring the possibility of inter-threading identification of goods and markets, but the vehicle that comes to pick goods that have been identified for the market delivers to the village consumer products at much lower price because of reduced overhead of transport in a way that everybody benefits. So we see ICT as a great enabler and a potential tool that can un-bottle a lot of the energies that exist in the different sectors of the economies. Are you taking the time out of what I'm sure is a great business schedule to be here at ITU Telecom World? What's the value of attending events such as this for you? Well, a number of things. First of all, I believe very strongly that we in the UN community must reach out to the diverse audiences, governments, industry players, private sector, civil society to understand the vibe and to define collectively what are the challenges of converting opportunities into real-field games. And we cannot do that unless we use platforms like this put into public scrutiny the thinking that we have and listen to the views particularly of interested players if we're going to make sense and if we're going to deliver on our mandate of having impact where it's most needed. So that's what brings us to this kind of forum. Thank you very much indeed. That's my pleasure.


Hi Lara, I'm in a hurry. Yes, you look like you're in a hurry. Yeah, absolutely, and I only got a few minutes to spare. Perhaps you could help me. Of course. Can you tell me what time it is? Yes.


Dear students in this module. I'm going to get you inside the blast How does the blast algorithm work in? This module we will understand it in a step-by-step manner with the help of an example But to start with let me Go through the background on what was the purpose of using blast So the blast algorithm can help you to search and compare By alignment various types of nucleotide and a minus it sequences So on one side you have the query sequence and on the other side you have a database So this database and the query sequence can be a nucleotide or a minus it Sequence set and it depends on how you want to perform the blast and there are multiple types of blast that you can take Now to help you understand how blast works. Let's take a look at this example So here you have a query sequence So this is the first thing that you need to have while performing blast So as I just mentioned on one side you have the query sequence while On the other side you have a database So as you can see here your query sequence is an amino acid sequence in this case a very small peptide So the first step in the blast algorithm is to make a list of all possible words What does it mean? So let's say if this is your sequence Then you can have PQG a word of length 3 or QQ QGE or GEL or ELV So you can make words of Length 3 So here you go. I've listed down PQG QGE GEL and ELV that is the four combinations or four words That could be formed by looking at this sequence So once you have obtained all the words from the sequence Then you need to score them So how do you score? So you simply put one sequence Versus One word and you fill up the matrix the alignment matrix using Lawson 62 matrix The block substitution matrix So you can obtain the score for each word one at a time. So here you have computed the score for PQG and put it here Next you compute the score for QGE and Then you put it here and So on and so forth. So once you have computed the alignment score for each of these words Then we set a threshold. So the threshold essentially means that We select Those words Which have a score greater than some value X So in this case X has been chosen to be 11 so the only two peptides or two words that have a score of greater than 11 are PQG and GEL so you select them like that Okay, so once you have selected these words now you need to mutate these words so PQG Needs to be mutated such that One amino acid is changed at a time So PQG can be PEG PHG and many others So once you have mutated The word then you score again. So as you already know PQG had a score of 15 here right so the mutated Words are also scored and if you do that you will find out that PEG has a score of 13 So now you have PQG and GEL that you got from the first Alignment and now you also got PEG which has a score of 13 GEL had a score of 12 PQG had a score of 15 so in this way you create You mutate these words For all possible combination of amino acids and you calculate their scores and remember Those scores are selected which are above the threshold So in the end as I just mentioned we got three words with us So now we go to the database with these three words and search the database so the words that we have are PQG GEL and PEG So in the database We find where we get a hit a hit essentially means where we get matches for these words within the database So once we have a hit, let's say if this is the protein from your database and we get a hit for PQG Then we try to extend this alignment Okay, so let's see how we how we do that. So if your query had this sequence and Your database Give you something like that Then you can see that there is a match of one word and there is a mismatch here between I and E So it compute the score for this four a Mino acid window and the scores for each position Are given here and the high scoring pair or the HSP. This is simply called an HSP is The sum of This score. So this is about 20 so your PQG I Has a score of 20 Now if you have Two HSPs within the database, so this was one and let's assume that at some other position you get another HSP so now if the distance between them is less than 40 That is 40 amino acids Then you perform full dynamic alignment on the query and hit sequences So this means that we need to compute the full alignment because this is probably a very good match So in this way blast reduces the computational cost by simply comparing full alignments for closely located HSPs Last is available online and you can use it to quickly sort and align and compare the nucleotide and protein sequences The results are tabulated for you and you can look at the details of the statistical evaluations as well


Oh my gosh, so we're live in Little Park. Here we are at CCTV's 37th anniversary. Rain Kramer, you were there at the very first one. Do you remember? Vaguely, in the garage, in Manuski. Try not to miss a party. Exactly. So, and also we're just reminiscing about how you were an intern with us many years ago, though we can't remember that quite either. And you had some very special assignments. Tell us about those. I had to cover a ribbon cutting in the Old North End. And it was just, you know, you would call and say, be there at this time. There'll be some people there. Make sure you get everyone. And then the new intersection in Essex Junction. That was a big one. That's right. Very little detail. Just go there and get something. And then I don't remember if I had a camera person or not. You must have. Yes. I didn't, I don't know how great I was at the interviewing. Mostly I was just covering what was happening. But some, every once in a while I had to do an interview. Well that's what we do at CCTV. We cover what's happening. That's exactly. And that's why we love CCTV. Exactly. Now tell us a little bit about what you're doing now. You're in Costa Rica, right? You've come to visit from that beautiful country. I have. I wonder if there's a public access there because it would be amazing if there was. I'm going to look into it though. Well they say it's the happiest country in the world. Is that true? Do you think? People are really happy. It's really nice. It's much slower. There's still a lot going on. But you know, everyone has to remind themselves about the pure life, Pudavida. So you just, if you feel yourself getting tensed you relax because that's what's going on down there. And what about your impressions of coming back to Burlington? Well coming home to Burlington because you grew up here and walking around, especially now post-pandemic, what are your observations? I always love coming back to Burlington. Obviously the demographic, the diversity is so much different than when I was growing up here. So that's always great to see. Yeah, I feel like Vermont is the best place on earth. So I feel lucky that it's my home to come back to. I know. I'm so glad. So can I give you an assignment? Sure. Did you find me another person to interview? Yes, I would love that. I would love that. All right. Bring them over. Thanks. All right, thanks. Raincramer. Bye. Bye. So we're here celebrating, as I said, CCTV's 37th anniversary. I'm Lauren Glendavidian. And we're at Little Park, which is a beautiful park in Burlington's Old North End at the intersection of Archibald Street and North Winiskey Avenue right across the street from our town meeting TV studios. And thanks to Wi-Fi that VTEL provided to us for the neighborhood to use if they needed it. Oh my goodness. We are going live. Hello, my friends. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. So I'm going to let you hold the microphones. You got this. I got you. How's it going? It's good. So tell us a little bit about, I'll hold the microphones so you can just be on the other side, because normally when you do your shows, the My Brother's Keeper shows, you're running the interviews. Yes. Indeed. We are writing the shows. Yes. So tell us about who are the most interesting people you've talked to this year, even though it's been remote, you've had some, I think, really good and meaningful interviews. Tell us a little bit about those. Yeah. We have a couple of people on the, I think one of the most memorable one for me personally was, I think, was a commissioner that came on to speak to us. And yeah, it was just nice to get his perspective of things that were going on at the time. Was that the Secretary of State, Jim Condos, or someone else, commissioner, a city counselor or? Yeah, I think city counselor. Something that had to do with the police department. Yeah. Oh, I think the police commissioned. Exactly. That's right. Yeah. Did you tell me what was interesting for you about that? It was interesting. He was explaining more about the police work. I mean, we didn't know that much stuff about the police in the community. Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like you've learned some things that you didn't know. Yeah, a lot, actually, a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you've lived in other countries, right? So you have some experiences and you have some perspectives that are new and different in terms of what's happening here. So you want to talk a little bit about what you're learning and finding out by your experience here? I mean, sure, we're from a different place and haven't been here for very long. So I guess our, like, the people that also haven't been here for very long that are like me, I guess, in a way, during these shows, we get a perspective of the people that have been here for quite a while or born here and whatever. So I think, yeah, it's nice to get that perspective and I could kind of try to understand. Yeah. Like trying to understand more about here. Yeah. Yeah, because there are things that when you live in a place a long time, you think everybody knows, right? And then when you come, when I moved here from New York City, I found there was this whole kind of Vermont way of thinking that was not like I thought in New York City, but I didn't know what it was until I ran into it, right? Yeah. Right. And then I was like, oh, that's what you think? Okay, you know, it was kind of a surprise. Yeah, sure. Exactly. So you've been going to BHS this year? Yeah, in Macy's now. In Macy's? Yeah. I think that's kind of a strange school experience, right? Yeah, but you know, it's better than nothing. Better than online, that's for sure. Yeah. Better than online, yeah. So you've all been able to be in person together? For two days, yeah. Two days a week. Just two days a week? Yeah, really strange too. That seems like barely enough. It seems like a big tease to just go for two days. Yeah, but we are done now. Okay. School's over. Yeah. Wait, what are you doing this summer? I'm trying to do a summer program in school and work too, but I'm not sure yet. Yeah, well, you just got out of school, right? So you're just figuring out, what are you going to do this summer? Got a trip going down to New York for like a month, and then I'll be back and continue working. Fantastic. Do you have family down there? My mom's friend actually. Oh, great. My family's just friends. Yeah, good. Oh, yeah. That'll be fun. Yeah. Get out of town. Well, thanks so much for your work. Thanks for the My Brother's Keeper series. Thank you too. It's a big, well, we really appreciate it, and it's just fun to have you involved. Yeah. So thanks a million. Yeah, thank you so much. I hope to do more. All right, good. Awesome. Outside. The real, yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh, it's so awesome. Ben Joseph. Oh, look it. Come on over here before you go. Ben Joseph, what are the long running folks here that have been producing shows since we're up in that studio that we can see? Remember that? Remember your first show? I remember. I'm not, well, I can't say I remember the first show, but I remember a lot of them. I remember your questions were very long. Because you had a lot.  And I remember I said, shorten those up, Ben. I'm doing better now. Yes, you are. I'm doing better now. I do the question. I make outlines, and I show them to the guest. And I say, these are the questions I'm thinking of asking. Tell me if something you don't want to hear, or would you want to change, make additions, corrections? And I found that the shows go much better now. Yeah. Yeah, because they've had a chance to think about what I'm going to ask. And so no one's surprised or embarrassed. It makes for a better show. And what have you been focusing on with your programs? Just let folks know. Well, well, there's been a lot of talk about the legalization of marijuana and the consequences of marijuana consumption. I'm about to do another interview with a doctor who's been very familiar with this stuff. And I think it's something the public should have a better awareness of. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I'm working on right now. And you're also on the North Hero Select Board, is that right? I'm on the Select Board and the Planning Commission. Oh, wow. Yeah. Are you allowed to be on both, apparently? Yes. Yes, you're allowed to be on both. In fact, yes, I'm allowed to be on both. It's been interesting. I bet it has. How do you think the North Hero Select Board might be different than the Burlington City Council, for example? Oh, yeah. You didn't tell me you were going to ask that question. I'm not going there. No, I... Well, I think it's, you know, it's a three-person Select Board. It's a small town, not a big city. It's a five-person. Oh, it's five. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. See a little civics lesson. Yes, indeed. Yeah, it's interesting. It's very interesting. I'm... And now we've got all this stuff going on about what's going to happen with all this federal money that's going to be available to the municipalities. Yeah. And so we have to decide, you know, how we're going to do that. That's going to be hard. So, do people in North Hero Treat you like you're from away? Oh, yeah. Sure. I, you know, I... Yeah. I mean, I've only been here 30 years.  Oh, yeah. He's from away. You know, that's okay. That's all right. It doesn't hurt my feelings. No, I'm sure it doesn't. But it is kind of a, it's a fascinating phenomenon that we have, even if we've been here a short time or a long time. Yeah. We're defined by whether we're in or out. Yeah. Well, it's just something that's, yeah, that's the way it is. I mean, it doesn't always mean it's hard to get things done, but sometimes it does. Sometimes you wonder. Yeah, sometimes you wonder. Although, you know, Howard Dean appointed me to the, to the bench, bless his heart. I've only been here five and a half years, and it's been okay. It was really a great job. I loved it. Well, and also you got to make TV at Channel 17. Time meeting TV. You didn't even live here like a year. That was the best part. Exactly. Because we're about access. So thank you so much. Thank you. It's good to see you. I really appreciate your support. See you all. Yeah. Thank you so much, Ben. So yeah, it's been 37 years since our first show, since we persuaded the Vermont Public Service Board that the cable company should set aside these community channels, the public and the educational and government access channels for public purposes. And 37 years ago, tonight, give or take a couple of days, we were watching some hapless cable company person try to put our tapes in the playback machines so that they would air. And we were sitting around at the video cafe watching that happen. And finally the images flickered on and public access TV was born in this part of Vermont. And now there are 25 centers all over the state who are considered essential services funded by cable subscribers and community supporters. And it's just a very exciting time for us.  There's a lot of community supporters. You know, Rain Kramer obviously didn't do her job to find me another person to interview. So I'm going to go off and let Aiden do a little panning while I find another guest. Hold on a second. It's like Ben too. And then I've got Erin, her mom, Erin Malone, which you might come over here. So we're going to have a quick, quick little interview. Yeah. Come on over here. We're going to pan. Hi, Angie. Chair of the CCTV Board. Thank you so much. Of course. Good to see you. Great to be out. And what about a spot? Well, I never realized that this tree actually had grown up as much as it had since they built this park. Wow. Did you know this park was named after George Little and Alain? And they were big supporters of the community land trust, which owns this park or gave it to the city. And this was a building. This spot that we're sitting on was a building. Oh, interesting. And there was a man here who when we were moving big heavy furniture up into the first studio we had, we wrangled him to help us put that heavy plywood up those stairs. Always helping neighbors in the old North End. I know. Yeah. Now, Erin, you are too.  That's my baby working to help neighbors. Yeah. Connecting people. Connecting people in the corner of North and North Willard. And how's it been going during and post-pandemic? Well, it's not exactly post-pandemic, but how's it been? It's been a long year with a lot of wildcards. And I guess we just kind of focus on what we always do, which is just connecting with people, being safe, and getting them the things they need. So it's been good. It's been all right. It's been all right. Yeah. And then tell us, just tell everybody a little bit why CCTV is important to you. CCTV is important to me because it's a place for community members to learn about, to access local government through meetings and voting and also to find a place to share their stories, whatever they are. It's also one of the few, like this park, non-commercial public spaces in the city of Burlington and in our community. So we love CCTV and we're here to support. Well, we really appreciate all your support. Thank you so much. Happy 37th year. Whoa. And thank you, Joseph and Marie for helping. Hello. Hello. There you go. Oh my gosh. That's so great. Yeah. All right. We'll see you. Yeah. Have some more chips. Oh, there's some bird food. Hey, hold on a second. I'm going to talk to Barb. Barb, come on over. I'm so glad you did. I wanted to come and say hi. Oh, I'm so come on over because one of the things I love about you is that you go to California in the winter, but you're still watching the South Burlington City Council. I was just talking to Charlie about that and about how grateful I am that you all have figured out a way because I was there live the other night for a few minutes, but then I had to go somewhere else and then I could go home and watch from home and whenever I can't get there, you make it happen. So thank you. You're welcome. Town Meeting TV. That's what I came to say is thank you Town Meeting TV and we're grateful. So what's happening in South Burlington? You're getting a news manager. We're very excited. Jessie Baker starts on July 1st. Yeah. And I've met her just in passing, but she seems wonderful and she comes with, you know, great background in government across the state of Vermont and I think she'll bring a, you know, it's always good to have a new energy. So it'll be, I think it'll be a, be a good thing and we've got lots of things happening in the city and we'll just keep moving in a positive direction. Well, South Burlington actually is a relatively young city, isn't it? And it's only had maybe three or four city managers if I'm not correct. I've been there how many years? 15 years. So Kevin would, was the second. Jessie will be the third, but I wasn't really involved until the last few years. So Kevin's the only one I've really known and Tom Hubbard is a great deputy city manager and we're losing them both. Yeah. So. Well, Chuck Hafter was before him and Mike Flaherty, who was one of the sort of, on the first councils was, helped us found Town Meeting TV. And in fact, I'll never forget. And he's pretty, you know, I don't know if there's a street named after him, but he's like that kind of guy, right? But I'll never forget. I was having a hard time negotiating with the cable company for some things and Mike went in and I sat there and he and the cable guy, they settled it in a few minutes. Great. I know. That's what we need. I know. And I just watched that. It's like, okay, good. You got those two guys just sitting there and getting it done. Got to have your friends help you out. Got to have your friends help you out. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a big player in starting Town Meeting TV. Well, may it ever be so. Yeah. And may Town Meeting TV ever be so. Well, thank you for your support. We are glad you are here. Thank you. So I talk about you in California. People say, what are you doing? It's 3.30 on Monday afternoon. I'm going to Town Meeting TV. What do you mean? Yeah. I got to go to Town, you know, I got to go to City Council tonight. Exactly. So, and it's all because you make that happen. Thank you. So thank you. And thanks for stopping by. You betcha. Happy anniversary. Thanks. Okay. Okay. See ya. All right. So there's one of our big fans from South Burlington.  You're seeing some of the great people that are here. Look at those beautiful people. Kathleen Swanson, I need. Yeah. We can get Margaret. I just want to show. Show. I want to show Kathleen Swanson. Kathleen. How are you? I'm good. So we have a challenge grant, right? We're in the middle of our anniversary campaign. And we have a $10,000 challenge grant. And I would encourage everybody to go online. If you support free speech, local media, in the work we do at Town Meeting Television, please go to cctv.org and make a donation. Look at all these beautiful people here. And we're making it happen. Getting the information to the people because information is power. Well, and now more than ever. Now more than ever, exactly. The local getting the municipal meetings, the neighborhood planning assemblies, all of these things are so important to the health of Burlington and the other communities that we also serve. And during the pandemic, we brought those public hearings to the people. I know. And archived them, recorded them live, and archived them, and as did media centers all over the state. That's right. So it's been a great year, actually, for community media, I have to say. I mean, it's been a tough year for everybody, but we've been able to keep the wheels of democracy grace. Exactly, exactly. And in the meantime, we're archiving our 37 years of material and we need money to help support that too because that's history. We want to archive the history of the greater Burlington area. 41,000 programs. 41,000 programs. There's some gems. Yeah, people here when they were much younger. Yeah, exactly. All right. Yeah, find me another guest. Yeah, that would be really good. So Aiden's behind the camera. Aiden White, and you can't see him, but I just want to say, Aiden, that having this year, especially to work with you, has been fantastic.  And all the meetings that we cover and all the productions that we do, you're just so creative and it's just a pleasure. And I think you started as an intern, didn't you, or a volunteer? You started as a volunteer and worked your way up. And now you were a film producer and now you're running CCTV productions. And that's the way we do it here. We just try and build these pathways of success for people to be successful and speak their mind, including our beautiful Margaret Harrington. Margaret, hello, how are you? Six feet apart, better than six feet under, right? There's a motto. Oh, my gosh, it's great to see you. Well, as you know, hello Aiden out there. It's been 14 years since I've been doing shows here at Community Television and Town Meeting TV. And most important of all, the Center for Media and Democracy, which I appreciate so much. And so I'm continuing my nuclear free future shows, doing one on Monday. I've continued my focus shows and I'm hanging out living here in Burlington. And getting by, it's a sad time and yet it's a triumphal time now that people are getting together here in the little park, right? Opposite where the studio is, the closed studio is, and of course we have a heart broken about the closing of North End Studios, which was so much a part of the building and had so many wonderful programs for everybody in the community. So, well... Tell me what this year of some of the interesting programs that you've done that really stand out in your mind, the interviews that you've done. Well, at the moment, I prefer to talk about the... not the estrangement, but the fact that my grandchildren and my second daughter and her husband are so far away in another state and I have not been able to see them yet and my granddaughter graduated from high school and there was no ceremony for that and we couldn't go to that. So, it's been a difficult year as far as being separated from friends and family and so it's also given me a different perspective on how things are done. In fact, Center for Media and Democracy, what I used to call Channel 17, has changed so much and we're adapting to the changes in the programs. You know, for instance, you had a WCAX article about vaccines being given at the Riverside Health Center, which I have attended, well, I've attended the health centers in Vermont for over 15 years and the people who were treated there were not given the vaccine at all but suddenly four millionaires, millionaire politicians, show up at the community health center and they have a poster on the wall about giving vaccines out but that's the whole point for me for the Center for Media and Democracy is to get the truth out and the full story out about what's really going on because politics, in fact, formal politics unfortunately, all the millionaires are now is only a very small part of our lives. Our lives, our living and breathing lives here on this earth is very different. It's the communication between our loved ones and our community and that is still going on even through this terrible coronavirus which has hit other places much worse than Vermont is horrible here in Vermont with the senior centers and the nursing homes, the nursing home story will be told in the future by young journalists who will come forward and say what really has been going on in the nursing homes in Vermont and all over the country and how the aged population is so far down in the priorities of our nation even though we have politicians who are in their 80s and are still carrying on with careers of politics and one of my shows coming up will be the return of the term limits people who are advocating for term limits in elected offices. There is some reason why offices are, people are elected to offices for two years or six years, enormous six years. So I'm looking forward to programs that I'm going to be doing in the future and I appreciate very much being able to do my programs on channel 17, Center for Media and Democracy for the past 14 years for my program Nuclear Free Future for the past six years for my program Focus and I'll... To have you working with us it's just been a joy. We're really, really grateful. Thank you Lauren and I appreciate your presence very much and I appreciate the staff's presence. I miss seeing you all in person and doing the shows and the studio. It's been an enlarging time I realize for you guys and also many of my friends there. So it's a mixed feeling I have today seeing some familiar faces here but... So best of... Great to see you Lauren and looking well and best of luck in the... It's going into the 38th year, right? Yeah, my gosh, I know. It's hard to believe. It's hard to believe I was ever that young. Yeah, but thank you. What is a major... What is a major personal thing about this year? Well, I think that just the tremendous loss has been quite overwhelming. Just a sense of loss of the whole period I will say I've kind of liked not... I've liked the retraction I've liked sort of having no fear of missing out You know everybody's been home so we're all home and I think that it's very exciting actually because I'm an extrovert to come back out into the world You know, I think there's some of us who are just happy to stay in this, you know, the small universe but I like being out in the world and I'm so energized to see everybody and... and I just am incredibly proud of the work that folks at CCTV have done you know, my co-workers keeping democracy going during a very difficult time they've figured it out really quickly how to get those meetings online within like three days by March 15th, we figured it out and people have been in their bedrooms running meetings, you know I mean a lot of these people are young and they live at home or they live with roommates and they're running a TV channel virtually from their bedrooms and that I think is amazing and Roark who runs Town Meeting TV has done I think an incredible job holding everybody together you know, I mean I get some of the credit but really she and the team have done all that work and I've done a lot of policy work and we've had some good success in the legislature and I think, you know, in the next couple of years we can restructure telecommunications taxes so that we have other funding sources besides cable for this work so that's the part so we actually I think have made some real progress in the past 15 months so I'm very proud of that how do you look forward into the future? what changes are you going to drag into the not drag but bring in? well I think we'll see, you know we'll be going back into the office after Labor Day so in the meantime we have this little outdoor studio because of this great wireless connection that VTEL has given us, donated us so I think that doing more outdoor TV is going to be great because I think the studio is really a dead zone personally so I just like the idea of us being outside I'll look forward to that it'll be fun! thank you Margaret, thanks for asking thank you, give my best to Lenny yeah, thanks Margaret Harrington, that's fantastic so Aiden, how are you holding up? pretty good all right, let's see, is there anyone else? yeah, let's interview Miles Miles wants to do an ethnography of CCTV, we're going to ask him about that, how are you? nice to see you likewise, thanks for having us hey everyone! we're so glad you're here yeah, absolutely so I was just thrilled that you're thinking of doing an ethnography of CCTV tell us a little bit about that project yeah, so the idea is because I got to know Dan Higgins through Luis Favonco and then your name comes up a lot and the trajectory of number one this being a local institution number two, I think with my own interest of wanting to become more active in the community and looking at places where community gathers where media is gathered and then teaching a class called community media and wanting to do a case study about CCTV, it seemed like a natural progression to say okay, what's the deep dive what are the everyday workings of a local institution like this what can we learn about community development or community building through a place like this so the idea of ethnography is as we know making sure that the perspective is told whose perspective it belongs to so making sure putting yourself in somebody else's shoes for lay person's terms and really just like a deep history of how this came to be it's just like it's a local treasure that's nice of you to say thank you so much because it really is I mean you think about the archives that we have and really the community weaving and sometime we were talking about the other day that community media is what we do but it's really just the tool for community building and I've heard Megan say this too which is the idea of you maybe don't need to watch the full meeting and maybe Dan said this too you don't need to always be fully engaged but it's nice to know that it's there and if it can prompt somebody to go out and join and watch it and you think oh that meeting is happening maybe I should just go to it and obviously the pandemic has put a little bit of a hold on things like that but I think that the philosophy of the process and not the product is really something that we've lost sight of in media so I think it's quite relevant to maybe revisit that which is really important and then the archive itself I think is the one thing that is like if we're going to talk about the every day there's no, I don't think you can turn to any other place other than that archive to get a good glimpse at what the every day has been like in Burlington for the last 30 years and it's not sound bites it's just the meetings I mean it's the community events and the interviews yeah people like this showing up providing a space people talking and now I know that this is probably going to live and who knows however long from now maybe somebody needs a sound bite and you know it's like you just don't know I mean look at what happened with the burning footage yeah that was awesome I know well and that happened also with the Howard Dean when Howard Dean ran for president the Howard you know the opposition about all the tapes it was tapes then and then the Dean campaign and then the Times came and watched it and it was just it gave a profile of Howard that was very different than what the prevailing idea was at the time well and get this I'm working on a project about the Our Family Boat House and it's like type in Our Family Boat House in the archive and what shows up interview from 1994 of Ida Our the grandmother of Charlie and Christine and it's like the mother sorry and it's like my god like imagine if that footage wasn't out there I mean that's going to bring so much texture and allow the story to be told in a way that just wouldn't be able to be told in 2021 Rob Riber did that I remember and Rob worked with us was so good just sitting on the porch and talking to people it's important and again provide the space this place has provided a lot of space for people to talk and I think talking to Megan a lot too about the idea of free speech and allowing people to be able to express their points of view and then allowing people to have different points of view you know it's like we're facing a really interesting time right now with how divisive things have gotten and how it's become sound by culture and that's quite it's hard it's hard to dissect any information on a sound by it I think it's also become very narrow in the information we consume and so we're not I think culturally we're less tolerant of views that we don't subscribe to echo chamber echo chamber is very easy your bottomless feed on instagram is going to express all the same values and viewpoints and it's very rare to get out of that you'd have to very intentionally follow people that have very different viewpoints to be able to get a broad swath cast a wide net so to speak and I think that is really the challenge in the community media in this period is to keep those conversations make them very central to the work invite people with different points of view to the work and host those conversations and so it's interesting and I've had Megan did this in my class when she comes and speaks to the class but she has a really good knack of asking other people questions when they're supposed to be asking them questions about having an event like this in this space and coming out of the pandemic, how's it feel? It's great, well it's great to be outside in this little park I was just saying to someone when we started Tami TV in 1990 this was a building and it's been this park people hang out of this park but this tree is so big, I mean I even think it's shady and beautiful so I'm really happy to have everyone out and it's really great it's a real snapshot of all the different people that are involved in what we do we've got a long standing volunteer here oh my gosh there you go here, Miles you interview her alright, no so she's gonna freeze up alright alright, I don't know if I'm not good with an interview with a mic in my hand, I'm normally behind the camera alright Jordan, give us some context where are we, what brings you here today? yeah, we're at the little park across from the studio they're hosting their 37th annual anniversary rather just gathering with people and having a good time keeping safe, staying outside but enjoying everything they were able to accomplish this year great, and quickly moving along if we're going to talk about your role and what you've done with CCTV what brought you to CCTV I guess I should rephrase Center for Media and Democracy or Town Meeting TV talk about your history here and why you're here talk about why you're here today, about your history yeah, two years ago now I started interning with them for the live at 525 shows on Friday evenings at Uber over here from my dorm it was great, really loved that and I did that for about a year and a half also helping with so just the live shows doing that over the summer also doing the semester and then pandemic hit, that kind of stopped so just kind of stuck around and then in my spring semester at UVM worked on a project, somewhat through UVM but also with CCTV with Winooski students just making community media between Burlington and Winooski and so there's Dan I think you should meet Jordan because have you met Jordan in person yes Dan, come talk to us please let's get you nice to see you, not on a zoom yes, I know how's your project going? it's good, we kind of wrapped up the interviews at the end of the semester and then now we're just kind of editing the footage and seeing what happens as we head into the summer I had this morning I had a two hour long coffee with Louise and he was very impressed with all of you yeah, we sent him our progress report on how the project was going last week so he recently heard about how things were going but yeah, it's been great well, I'm looking forward to seeing your final you're making videos, right? yeah, we're taking those interviews and putting them into some sort of video kind of over the summer myself and the two other UVM students we were all at this point split up since we've all graduated but we're still working on something with the two Winooski high school students we hope to do something at some point this summer some sort of public screening are you doing something in Winooski where people that aren't part of it can see it? yeah, that's our plan we did about eight interviews with people and so we want to invite them back to whatever public screening and then we also just want to invite community members whether they're related to the school district or not, just community members outside of the district, it'd be great to have everyone see what's going on yeah, I think this year is really good too because it's the legacy year of Winooski and their theme is empowerment and opportunity so your project fits right nicely into what the legacy group is trying to pull off I don't think they know what you're doing yeah, yeah so Jordan, what is a lesson that you've learned from Dan's work? yeah, I think a lesson from your work is just making sure not to take from the community but actually working with the community, you talk about photographs you don't just take photographs of people, you actually work with them to make photographs that's something we tried to incorporate in our project and also Miles has brought into our class I've taken a class with Miles at UVM a couple times I know it's very incestuous CCTV it all comes full circle, my friend yeah, but we didn't want to just go into the community with a camera and knowing how intimidating that could also be we wanted to actually collaborate with the people which is great we're making that distinction yes, exactly you're going to want to take this mic away from me otherwise I think you're doing great but I didn't want to leave you hanging, thank you Miles no thank you I'm like I said hopefully here to stay thanks for calling me over providing the space as we say well anthropologists unite sort of my feeling it's great to see you I'm glad I could be here so have some chips all that in a bag of chips okay, that's fine is anthropology your major? no, I majored in film with a minor and applied design and music so just interested in anthropology but stayed with studied film yeah one of our success stories exactly, thanks it's great to see you have some chips we have chips, we don't have regular food come on over Dan, one of our founders did you throw your weight around during your interview? I didn't throw much weight around I was waiting for Kathleen to come out with a little shot of whiskey or something it always used to make the interviews go easier, I guess you're not doing it out here in public one of the secrets of channel 17 and town meeting TV that you just don't know yeah, we greased the wheels that's what that is I guess this is the new tequila the new tequila exactly, it will rot your brain just like alcohol, believe me so Shay Todd, and I think you know Shay, welcome thank you, it's great to be here, happy birthday everybody thank you very much yeah, Dan was there, we had at the video cafe the first one 1980 what? I know, that was a great night I'll never forget that night one of the things that Shay has been doing is working with local media and journalists all around the country and I think you have something to say about the timeliness of community media today what comes around goes around what once was old is new again I mean, what's fascinating is that what you're seeing with sort of the collapse of local journalism, in many cases in this idea of news deserts is that what's happening is actually community journalism and helping to put the power of storytelling into the hands of the community itself is actually now becoming really the thing within local journalism and is actually seeing as the model by which you can create sustainable local models for journalism, sort of not just public access but like general sort of hyper local digital news sites so it's fascinating and this is where philanthropic money is going at the local level, the national level people are awake and realizing that this kind of both just local storytelling but also visual and sort of storytelling is crucial and critical and it's not just who is in the story but who tells the story and I think that's also part of community media and sort of the tenets of it was really sort of putting the power of this media and this sort of civic engagement into the hands of those folks who are often most impacted by the stories that are So you're not just reporting on something but it's actually working with the community and they're telling their stories and that's kind of what public access has been about but yeah, increasingly it's becoming important that there are marginalized people that don't have to have their story told for them they have a chance to Yeah, I mean and that's you know, it's long overdue and what's amazing is to sort of see that there's so many lessons and sort of what I sort of bring to these conversations at the national level but that are happening in local places whether it's Colorado or Ohio or Detroit or wherever is that this kind of model well how do we do this? Do you have a public access station? You should maybe collaborate with them they have training and tools available they could be training your reporters some of your community members in fact there might already be people have shows based on the topic you want to cover and so they're like oh hadn't thought about that because it seems to be it sort of fell to the background and this sort of became part of civic infrastructure that was sort of not really didn't get its due and now it's sort of coming back again that this is sort of you know what was being envisioned here in the 80s was not just so forward thinking that it was for its time but like it's come back again after we've tried all these other models that collapsed because everyone kept trying to get bigger and bigger and bigger thinking that was the way to make things sustainable long term because it was a house of cards and so now you know a lot of communities are paying the price for it but you know hopefully there's this way to kind of fill that gap it's a long way to go still but in a place like Vermont especially in Burlington we have a strong access network that can kind of help buttress against some of that those news deserts and that news information sort of vacuum So you're keeping track on the national level of these projects what they're doing or? No, so up until February I was working for a national working for a national project called the Compass Experiment which was a partnership between McClatchy News and Google on doing digital startups in underserved communities where there had been a loss of information a loss of news and since then I also do consulting work with other organizations that support news sites like that and a lot of it's on basically trying to help them think through like how do they do outreach how do they do community engagement and both as a sustainable revenue model but also as a way to do better journalism I know it's very exciting work and it's good to know that it's come around again it's hard to sort of say oh what we're doing is new and shiny because we've been doing it for four decades but you know it is the function of building community and using media is now more than ever more important where the whole culture has become very different than it was 40 years ago I mean the young generation is so connected with Black Lives Matter and the whole like in Wineski the school the whole school system is all the kids it's an anti racism focus and it's coming up against the school boards and it's really interesting what's what's happening with that next generation they're very conscious of the opportunities we have to have a better kind of life than we do now I mean I think that that's I mean I'm not putting it in the most accurate way but it makes me hopeful when I see my daughter and your kids the work that they're doing to build community in a meaningful way and to sort of see this they're seeing this as a vehicle they can see themselves reflected in this kind of work and it is funny because it's hard to say like gosh so what we've been doing all this time is now new again it's kind of you know you should have been like wait a minute how does that happen but at the same time there's still ways to improve and always like and making sure that you're actually reaching all the people who really should have a voice and should be reflected and telling important stories because I think part of what we also forget is not just about the stories but what we also know from the archives is that this is also part of like archiving like on an ongoing basis the ongoing story and the ever-evolving story of a community and especially here where there is so much dynamic change just because there's so many colleges because because of new Americans and sort of and being a refugee resettlement area there's this constant dynamic where new businesses and new families are coming in all the time and that so the story almost has to be retold consistently to new people but not in a stable way and this helps to kind of you know provide that and often sometimes be a way to tell stories back home you know wherever home might be from once they came it's a way to sort of you can share this now because of the internet you can share this information more rapidly and almost instantaneously they can almost watch live depending on the time of day right so it's a powerful medium that you know that you know there's still a lot of issues in terms of ensuring its long-term success you know and support and that sort of awareness that it is part of that civic infrastructure and I think that's our next challenge is part of that so it's not taken for granted in that way but actually seen as this sort of new fabric of how we actually don't just tell stories but actually engage, make decisions, come together and you know try to plan forward. Thank you that's beautifully said. And thank you Dan. And thank you for watching. Thank you for making this thing continue for 40 years. Well it's really not because just of me, it's all the people that have ever worked here and that so many of them are here so it's been our pleasure. Yeah, thank you. This is Aidan White Man Wonder right there. Fantastic. So thanks so much for watching Happy Anniversary, Happy Free Speech for the people and by the people Town Meeting TV and CCTV Center for Media and Democracy. Thanks for watching.


In 2013, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service entered into a cooperative agreement with the South Dakota No-Till Association and IGRO, SDSU Extension, for delivering the latest soil health and productivity technology to South Dakota farmers and ranchers. A series of two local events were held in South Dakota, in Lemon and Fort Penn. So I'm a captive audience in South Dakota and how many of you have ever been to Gear One, two, three, four. Well, you know, that's kind of like me. I've only been to Lemon three times. So we live in the same state and we don't know each other. And I think that speaks to the diversity in our state. And I just love it. Our state has so much to offer and experience. And so, yeah, I was asked to come and talk about interpreting soil tests and so forth. The last question I asked Dr. Lehman and Dwayne chimed in on that. It's kind of a serious issue because these soil test recommendations are going to, I'm going to show you, tell you should put on phosphorus at different soil test levels. And what I'm hearing is if we're in a long-term no-till situation and we have soil microbiology and fungi in the soil, we can tend to keep those soil test levels lower. And so that suggests that there's a set of different calibrations for no-till and we don't have that. And so what I'm going to do is go through and discuss what we do have and we'll call it that. But it's a very intriguing thought, these long-term no-till soils. So what are the reasons for soil sampling? There's several of them. Obviously to determine the current nutrient status of the soil helps you determine more accurate nutrient application rates, keeps you from losing yield, from having under-application of nutrients or soil test levels, prevents over-application, saves you money, provides the ability to track soil nutrient trends over time. I'm going to show you a graph about that from my farm. Soil cost testing is minimal compared to the cost of fertilizer, isn't it? It's just the time and finding someone to go out and get it done is kind of the hard part there. It's a tool used in site-specific soil management, grid sampling, zone sampling, diagnosing problems. That's the next one there, number eight. If you have an area in the field that's got a plant health problem, it could be nutrient-related and soil testing and plant tissue testing help you to do that. And then the last one on the list, we do have to realize that we live in a world with other folks. And we call everyone a stakeholder. Everyone has input and is concerned about our environment and our planet. And so protecting the environment using soil testing to do that is an excellent way to help do that. So the soil nutrient trend part, here's my farm. Soil test phosphorus over a lengthy period of time, way back to 93. It's an average of all fields that were tested for each one of those years. And you can see that, well, this is a big drop, but I only soil test half of my fields every year. So this half had a little bit higher test than that half. So this half here is again appearing here and then it's appearing here and here. But the overall trend is what? It's up. Soil testing is not perfect. You have field variability. When you take a sample one year and you go back and sample it, again, the next year there's variability. Where do those cores come from? So you have that variability. And then you have laboratory variability, too. Labs aren't perfect. Each test has a variability that they know. Some tests have less variability in the lab than others. For instance, the sulfur test has huge variability. It's really not a very good test, but we still can use it as a tool. The zinc test is really accurate in the lab. You can repeat those numbers over and over. So when you take into account the variability, seeing trends like this doesn't surprise me. And maybe it does surprise you, but that happens. And so the importance of tracking over time where you're headed is a really good tool to do. And I'm going to discuss phosphorus later, but we really want to manage our fields in that medium range, 10 to 12. And I'll discuss the probabilities of a response to phosphorus application so you understand that. But just kind of keep that in your mind, that 10, 12, maybe 14 part per million range. There are two types of soil tests. There's ones that provide absolute values and ones that are related to an index. Ones that are absolute values are nitrate, nitrogen, sulfur, and chloride, where we measure the amount of nutrient at the time of sampling. And that can change with water movement through the soil, microbial activity releasing more nitrogen and sulfur and things like that. So those are the mobile nutrients that are reported in absolute values. You have so many pounds per acre. The ones that are related to indexes are basically the non-mobile nutrients. Those used to be reported in pounds per acre, but that was changed always back, 15, 20, 25 years ago. As it was confusing, a grower would say, I have 15 pounds of phosphorus in my soil. Well, you really don't, but that's the way the test was reported. And so it was switched back to a concentration report in part per million. And that concentration is related to an index where the soil fertility researchers went out to a number of fields, sampled the soil, measured the phosphorus, and then applied rates of phosphorus, and looked at where the responses were coming. And so that response is related back to an index, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. First of all, I want to air this out, the soil testing labs. We have two in South Dakota right now. There's one that just started in artesian called AgVision. I don't know, maybe some of you know his name. He retired from SDSU and he's managing that lab. AgLab Express in Sioux Falls is the one I helped start for a couple years when I had my midlife crisis. I left the university and helped them do that, which was a good experience. Then there's AgVise Labs, we're in Benson, Minnesota, Northwood, North Dakota, War Labs in Kearney, Nebraska, and Midwest Labs in Omaha. And there's a whole bunch more. But these are the ones I think that I wanted to mention because they're really close to us in South Dakota. So given that, I'm going to show you a soil test report form. And I tried to hide the name up here, but you can see what it is. But anyway, that's why I showed you the slide of all the labs. I don't want to be biased and say one lab is better than another. I just want to make that clear. So you get back a soil test report form from the lab and you look at that and all that fine print, you know, what does all this mean? And you know, it's really difficult to understand for some folks. But basically a soil test report form is I've divided into five areas. And the first area is just the general soil information, you know, who took the sample, for who, when it was taken, what field it is, all that type of stuff. They even give you a map if you want to draw a map. Then you have the laboratory results section and interpretation. You have the other soil test results, organic matter, electrical conductivity, soil pH. For those that like looking at base saturations, that's in that area too. You have the recommendation section. And then you have statements. That's that fine print at the bottom. And you should read those. There's a lot being said there. So I'm going to try to go through each one of those sections. And obviously I've done this one here. No secrets, just a lot of information. And this is the stuff you have to fill out on the form when you submit your sample. So if you don't put some things on your form when you submit your sample, you're not going to see it back. And so if you haven't kept track of what samples are what, you might be confused a little bit. So do a good job of filling out those forms for the lab. That next section is the lab, the nutrient analysis and the interpretation. And I've just kind of highlighted it here out. And so we have nitrate nitrogen here and phosphorus, potassium, chloride, sulfur, boron, zinc, and the rest. And so you see the analysis here. There's about 48 pounds of nitrate nitrogen in that top two feet. And then they give you an interpretation. They call that low. I honestly don't know where interpretations for nitrate nitrogen come from. But they've kind of just did that. The important thing is the interpretation for the rest. I think it just fills in their table here and it makes it look good. But the interpretations for phosphorus and potassium really mean something. That's that index. So you can see that phosphorus is in medium here and I'll talk about that in a little bit in the future here. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the nitrogen part. In South Dakota we use a rate calculator. It's the yield goal, which is very important. You have to do everything in this calculator the way we recommend or that calculator falls apart. So the yield goal is very important.  Take the average times 1.10, 110% or 115%. Because yields are going up, aren't they? We're getting better at managing our fields, more technology. That's how you come up with a decent yield goal. You don't say I want 250 bushel corn every year. And I think that's where this has been used the wrong way. The yield goal is past history times an improvement factor. Then we have an end coefficient. These are the coefficients that we currently have, 1.2 on corn, 2.5 on wheat and so forth. The reason soybeans and alfalfa are on this list, we know that we don't need to fertilize those crops with nitrogen. But if you're a large animal feeding operation and you have a lot of manure to get rid of, you can apply nitrogen to those two crops and get rid of your nitrogen if that's what you want to do. It's not probably a good economic choice, but it's being done. And then we subtract soil test nitrogen. That's what we just seen right here, the 48 pounds per acre.  I'll show you the table for that. And then we have current recommendations say we add 30 pounds back for no-till. Well, there's a lot of questions with that one. How long have you been no-tilling? We really don't know when that should go away. We're working on that a little bit and I have a graph to kind of point in the direction. But the reason for adding that nitrogen back is that when you switch to no-till, you're really immediately building carbon back in the soil. And that carbon and nitrogen ratio in the soil wants to settle on a ratio. And so it's requiring some nitrogen as well. So at some point that carbon and nitrogen ratio will even out if you will. And this 30 pounds extra for no-till should go away. It shouldn't be needed anymore. But then if you start pushing cover crops again, you're going to push your carbon again. And so that balance is really hard to get at. But we've got some data that kind of shows that. Here's the legume credits. Soybeans is 40, alfalfa here depending upon the stand really dictates the credit. And if you're no-tilling, we cut those credits in half because you're not oxidizing the soil. You're not mineralizing nitrogen out of the organic matter. You're building it up so we take less of a credit when we're no-tilling. And hence the second year we also cut that in half too from the time we take the first credit. So here are the two studies we did on no-till, where we had tilled systems side by side, randomized side by side with nitrogen rates applied, randomized across that. That's a very difficult study to do. But we had a couple of sites that we could use. Here are the yield response curves given the different nitrogen rate across the bottom. And you could see that the no-till curve is coming to its peak there at a little bit later time than the conventional till. And by golly, we had two of these studies that were going for six, seven, eight years. And the difference is about 30 pounds. And so that's where that 30 pounds came from. At this time, we did this. We thought, well, boy, this has been a no-till quite a while. Really, that wasn't true. We've got no-tillers now 20 to 25 years. So this is a really short-term no-till. So the question is, when can we stop adding that 30 pounds? Well, we found a graduate student and we have a site at the Southeast Farm that's been in it about 24 years. And she's working on that. And this last year, they had an early and late-season hybrid planted. And then the two-tillage systems in the two-year rotation, they also have a three-year. I'm kind of lucky to get this data, I feel privileged. But anyway, there's four response curves there. The yellow and the green are the no-till. And the red and the blue are black are the conventional till. First thing that you can see is the response curves for the no-till are more steep, aren't they? So we're getting greater efficiency to nitrogen application in the no-till with those lower rates. Because we're not doing that tillage and we're not mining that soil organic matter with the tillage. But what's really interesting is where they're peeking out at, they appear to be at the same place. So maybe when she gets done with her study and analyzing this data, maybe we can come up with a recommendation that for longer-term no-till, that adding 30 pounds goes away. And so I think this data really shows that that... We kind of thought that's the way it was. You know, the science would say that, but really we need to have the data. And I think that's what this is saying. So the end coefficient history in South Dakota has been this. In 75, it was 1.4 for corn, 82, 1.3, 91, 1.2. We missed 2001. And so coming to 2015, we've done some work. And I'm going to show you a little bit of those results. And I think it probably can change again. But I do talk in other parts of the state and the rest of the North Central region is using a price-racial approach. And I try to sell the fact that our calculator gives you more flexibility. There's more inputs to put in it. It's more farm-specific, if you will, field-specific. Where the price-racial approach is they take all the studies, combine them together, and then you change the price of corn and the price of fertilizer, and it gives you a rate. The point I was trying to make is the difference when you change those prices isn't a lot. We're talking less than 10 pounds. And so hence that our calculator really gives you more flexibility. It's more input. You have to do a lot more work than just going to a table on the internet and filling in your numbers. But our calculator, I think, gives you more flexibility. So in 2013 and 2014, we had these sites for corn in South Dakota, red being no-till, yellow being conventional-till. These are the response curves for 2013, which look really messy. That's the way nitrogen data looks. Some respond, some don't. And that's part of how nitrogen dynamics work. But what we're looking for is an optimal N-rate at each one of those sites. And so this is a site from Brown County. This is the yield response curve. You can see here at no nitrogen, we got 126 bushels. And up here at 120 pounds, we got 177 bushels. So a nice response. What we do is we do a linear plateau calculation where essentially these yields up here are not different from each other. There's a different number there, but when you do statistics comparing the replicated data, they're not different. So we draw a linear function here on the responsive part of the curve. And then we draw the plateau where those two meet. We come up with about 98 pounds of N was the optimal N-rate at that site in that year. Then we do our calculations. And so the coefficient was just over one. So we did that with all of those sites in 2013 and 2014. And in 2013, our coefficient averaged one. You can see the great variability there. And then that's just the way it is. Certain factors would play into that. You really need N-rate studies on your farm every year. And we can't do that. Some farmers probably can figure that out, but we try to get as many sites out there to get this coefficient as strong as possible. 2014 fewer sites, all of them no-till, same coefficient, about one. And then if you look at no-till and conventional till, the coefficients are the same. So I think we can go from 1.2 to 1. If we look at the phosphorus on the soil test recommendations, I mentioned that interpretation is kind of important. Dr. Malarino from Iowa State, the phosphorus and potassium leader, I think in the country, says we do a disservice by putting a number on the soil test report farm. But you paid for that and you want to see your results, don't you? It's really all about the interpretation. What level are you at? Are you at very low, low, medium, or high or very high? That's really what the recommendation is based upon. And so if you look at phosphorus and potassium interpretations, either for Olsen-P or Bray-P, a medium-test Olsen is the same as a medium-test Bray. When we get these arguments as you get closer to Minnesota and Iowa, some grow, or you got to do Bray, you got to do Bray, you got to do Bray. You get a higher number with Bray than you get with Olsen. But it's measuring the same thing. It's measuring that soil's ability to supply the plant with phosphorus is really what it's doing. And so if you're in the very low category, which is this range, 0 to 5 for Bray, 0 to 3 for Olsen, there's greater than an 80% chance you will get a yield response if you apply phosphorus. If you're in the low, it's about 60 to 80. The medium is 40 to 60, high 20 to 40. And if you're in the very high category, there's less than a 20% chance. So it's really about this index. It's related back to that. And if you think about the size of the response, this 80% chance of response, those responses are usually a lot larger than the ones you get if you're in the very high category. Okay, so now we have lower commodity prices. It doesn't seem like fertilizer prices are coming down to meet those levels, but they have a little bit. This really is important. It's important all the time. But it seems when there's more cash out there, we tend to buy more insurance. And so this is one thing that we can use to manage better. Here are those corn responses to that phosphorus index. 197 sites in South Dakota. I have added in a few from surrounding states for a total of 261 sites. If you're in that very low category, a number above 100 is a response to phosphorus application. There's that greater than 80% chance of response. You go to low, those dots aren't as high as they are, as high. So larger responses, still a lot of responses, but getting lower. You go to medium, a lot smaller responses, fewer responses. You go to high, hardly any deviation from that 100, which is a relative mark where the check plot and the plot you applied phosphorus to had relatively equal yield. And then you go to very high, and what do you see? Hardly any responses, and then the magnitude is really small. Okay, so that's where that index comes from. Very low, low, medium, high is all these tests that were done. And this is historic. This just isn't in the last few years. This is in the last 30, 40 years, maybe 50 years. Here's a study we did at the Northeast Farm long-term study started way back in the 90s, where we have plots where we put on all nutrients, NPK and zinc, plots we just hold off N, plots we just hold off P and so forth. And over time we've drawn down that soil test phosphorus level, it's at a one PPM Olsen. The yield is 114 bushels, where we had all the nutrients, it was 153 bushels. So a huge response, and the high probability. Here's the soybean response to the phosphorus index, basically the same as the corn. Basically the same thing. We had spring wheat plots at the Northeast Farm, same thing where we applied all the nutrients, hold off one in the presence of the others. Where phosphorus hasn't been applied for many, many years, the soil test is at five, and you can see the response. 78 bushels where we had phosphorus, 49 where we didn't. You can also see those other plots that had phosphorus, the variability in the soil test is real, the sampling and the testing, because they should all be about roughly the same, except for the no-n. Our yields on the no-n have been reduced too, so we're not as removing as much phosphorus so that test is higher. But you can kind of see the trend there for those other nutrients, there's no response. In the first part of this study there was tillage, but they've been no-till for the largest part of the study. And it's still going at the Northeast Farm, I'm fighting to keep it going, but we had it going last year. Okay, I'm going to go to the non-nutrient mineral soil test results section. I know it's small, sorry for the small screen today, but we have organic matter there which is an important test. Track that over time. Your salts, soluble salts here, and then pH. I'm going to discuss those as well. You can see that on my farm I don't look at the base saturation. It's just there because folks are driving the system and they want that test so the lab provides it. Here's a response of organic matter in an eroded landscape. When you're down around two, we're getting about 100 to 125 bushels and you get up at over four, it's about 175 bushels. So organic matter, very important. You can also use that organic matter, you know, some of our chemical labels have restrictions. And so you can use it for those decisions as well. Soil pH, long-term studies at Brookings, looking at crop response. This is corn to soil pH. We see here about 5.6, 5.7. The yield differences aren't that great above that point, but below they are. And so our recommendations, I hope that's the next one here, are related to a buffer index. And what a buffer soil test does is it really is stressing, I always say stressing, but it's really looking at the reserve alkalinity in the soil. Soils are constantly weathering. And so is that soil going to release more alkalinity and that pH go up? Or isn't there as much alkalinity there and that pH going to stay the same? Well, so that we do a buffer to kind of test that or stress that soil, I like to say. And so when we're above buffer index of 6.5, it's just a pH measurement, but we've added a buffer to the soil solution and just measured pH. So above 6.5, no lime wrecks, and if you go down or the buffer index goes down, then that lime wreck goes up. Electrical conductivity interpretation, you know, if you're farming where there's some salt in the landscape and, you know, all what we're talking about today, cover crops and everything really help to reduce that, use your water more efficiently. But we do have some areas and so that electrical conductivity is used to diagnose those. And exchangeable sodium percentage as well to see if those salts contain sodium. Then you got the recommendation part of the soil test report form. This lab provides three crop choices so you can play around a little bit, you know, put different crops in there or put the same crop with different yield goals. But if you've done a good job at determining your yield goal, you really shouldn't need different yield goals. You should go with the one you've determined, right?  And you really got to understand, ask a lot of questions to those labs well, how are you developing your recommendations? You know, why would your lab recs be, this P and K maintenance is a good example, why would they be higher than the university ones? And they'll give you their answer. But I would go back to the fact that the university ones are based upon stuff like this. Lots of data, okay, based upon lots of data. So that's the recommendation portion, and you know, those labs have all these XYZ plus two minus three packages, and you have to figure out which ones to check. Do I need sulfur? Do I need zinc? Okay, and I'll point you in the right direction on some of that here. But they give you that rec in pounds per acre of that nutrient that's equivalent in that fertilizer. So reviewing these soil tests and nutrient recommendations is really important. So there's a difference, or there can be differences between university recs and someone else's recommendations. And I would point you to our EC 750 publication, our fertilizer recommendation guide. It's stored on the web right there, but basically if you Google SDSU soil fertility EC 750, it'll come up top of the list. You don't have to write all that down. If you can just remember that search and you can get it there. That guide needs to be updated really bad. I am not the soil fertility faculty person on campus. We don't currently have one. And so I think one of the duties for that new person will be to take a look at this, I hope. So how do you tell the difference between what a lab rec would be and what a university rec would be? Well, you go to EC 750. Here's the phosphorus table for wheat. Here's that index. Soil test levels there, very low to very high. We have a yield goal there, and you can see what the recommendation would be. Or if you want to hone in really tight, every table has an equation and you can put your numbers into that equation. So you can discern between a university rec and a lab rec.  So use that EC 750 for that. And then the statements portion on a soil test report form. Caution, seed place fertilizer can cause injury. Nitrogen credits granted here. They have crop removal information. They explain what their broadcast and maintenance guidelines do. So you don't necessarily have to ask this lab. They explain what they do. Well, I'm going to hone in on that seed place fertilizer statement there. Ron, Dr. Gelderman, I think is really one of the highlights of his career, 42 years at SDSU. He did a lot of work at evaluating different crops with different amounts and types of fertilizer placed in the furrow. Did a lot of work with that. And this is the results from that study. This is wheat. And so you can see three fertilizer materials here. Urea, potash, and DAP, Diimonium Phosphate, 1846O. I think that's what that is. And the rate of the fertilizer material and then its effect on relative stand. So where we didn't put any fertilizer with this seed, we got 100% stand or close to it. And then as we started applying DAP with the seed at higher rates, you can see what happened to stand. Well, different fertilizers have different effects on seed germination. Urea is really hard on it right here. Here's that curve. And potash and DAP being about the least. And there's all kinds of more information that Ron did in those studies. And you can get the spreadsheet to help you look at different materials and different crops at the soil fertility website. It's called the fertilizer seed decision aid. And so there's a spreadsheet there that you can get at to look at that. It's kind of interesting. So with that, I'm done. Am I early? Just a little bit.  It's always hard to tell how many to throw in. And that's what I had today. So if there's any questions, I can try to answer them. If not, what do you got planned? Yes, that's a really good question. Because in EC 750, is there a place to know or check whether you need boron for your crop or zinc for your crop? And in the EC 750, if you go like to zinc, it'll discuss which crops you should be concerned about for zinc. It'll discuss boron. It'll discuss calcium and those things. So you can get that information out of EC 750. That's a good question. Sure.


So if you go and read Martin Luther King and so forth, you will realize that Martin Luther King is much good as he was bringing and extending in his life. He was aspiring to be as Christ-like as he could and Mandela was aspiring to a higher state of awareness that so was Gandhi. So my heroes I realized were all struggling and aspiring. So I became more interested in what they're aspiring to. So in the course of miracles what that did was it was coming from the master himself and he was basically saying he said basically David you know you're psychotic, you've had a total break from reality meaning heaven in Nirvana. You've had an absolutely total break.  When I said in the Bible it's impossible to serve two masters. You cannot serve both love and fear. And you're schizophrenic, you're listening to multiple voices in your mind. You're hearing many multiple voices. Every day when you walk out on the street, you're hearing all these different voices.  You are absolutely hallucinating a world that doesn't have any existence whatsoever.  Now what would you do if you had to deal with somebody who was psychotic, schizophrenic and was hallucinating? They need some major help. And what I discovered was as I the more I started to read the course I thought wow this is describing my mind. I may have heroes, I may even think I know what social justice is and I certainly did because how else would I be an activist without having a strong thread of social justice moving inside my heart. There's a part in the course. There's actually a subsection of one of the chapters where it's titled The Justice of Heaven. And when you read that section in the course, The Justice of Heaven, he will basically tell you that there is no justice in the fragmented world that you perceive and there never will be. He's not saying you can hope to reach a goal of social justice at one point. He's saying you are going after a ghost. You are chasing a ghost. And that had a big impact on me. I one time watched this video called The Story of A Course in Miracles and it had Milton Friedman was in it. This is a speech writer for the president of the United States, William Whitson who was a former general, Pentagon general who was working as an ambassador for the United Nations to China. I got to watch people with one lady worked with dolphins. What I loved about that story of A Course in Miracles was I got to see a range of people throughout the human condition all trying to practice A Course in Miracles. And what really got me was when I heard a politician like William Whitson who ended up marrying the publisher of The Course Judy Skutch say the most impactful line for him from A Course in Miracles because he had spent his whole political life trying to make the world a better place. His whole political life fighting for social justice, he said the most powerful line for him was when Jesus said seek not to change the world. Seek rather to change your mind about the world. That is what I mean by we have to come to an admission that we have a perceptual problem. If we're looking through a kaleidoscope of cracked perception and we're trying to get activated about certain things and certain people then we have to realize we are still part of a cracked perception, a hallucination and the reason why we're not happy is because we're still so bought into this ego belief system. Now another thing that helped me was this idea that everything that involved social justice revolved underneath on the belief in victimization. And I started to work with The Course and I kept going through it every chapter and I go through the lessons and I go through it over and over and over and what Jesus was saying in there he says beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated. I thought that's amazing. He's calling this is like a temptation so what I perceived as social injustice as people taking advantage of other people as people being mistreated all over the place he was saying that's a temptation and it's a temptation to look, continue to keep looking through that darkened glass instead of turning within to the Holy Spirit for a unified perception of the world. So the hardest thing to swallow about A Course in Miracles seems to be this perceptual problem thing because the ego has already done a strong convincing job that's your human your time and space you're stuck in it like a fly stuck on a flypaper you're stuck in it and there's all of this injustice around you everywhere you look and it doesn't matter whether it's it's your your mother giving you a frown or it's somebody being beaten in prison it doesn't matter whether it's a tone of voice when you're expecting a happy loving tone of voice and you hear a harsh condemning tone even just a tone of voice it hurts the only justice is the justice of forgiveness which is what I was talking about earlier all things work together for good it's the highest state of mind there is to reach a state of perfect acceptance and when you see something and your emotions well up like that's just not right which happens as we watch the news as we watch movies as we're interacting our families in our in our work environments but that's just not right what the Course is saying is like you're never upset for the reason you think you're never upset with what you perceive is happening you are upset by your interpretation of what you perceive is happening and then through his workbook he's going to show us that everything that we perceive is an interpretation and as long as we have egoic interpretations we're going to be upset so for me when I really decided to practice the Course I would latch on to a series of lessons that just resonated in my heart and people have asked me what did you do when you faced all kinds of temptations when you got upset when you were disturbed when you were angry fearful guilty shameful all those things I would practice lessons five six seven eight almost like a cadence he goes like here you go what do you think about that five six seven eight I'm never upset for the reason I think I'm upset because I see something that's not there I see only the past my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts talk about a reorientation whenever I would get upset about anything I saw on the news in my family with my partner with my cat with my three-legged cat whenever I would get upset my three-legged cat tripod I would still have to work it back to five six seven eight I'm never upset for the reason I think and you see how practical that is it's almost like Jesus is saying here you're having a tough time I understand that but I'm going to give you some real practical lessons to help lift your mind out of the the judgment and the darkness that you feel