Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast every Wednesday on CodePink YouTube Live, 4.30 p.m. Pacific, 7.30 p.m. Eastern. Today's episode is The War Against Puerto Rico Continues. Political and economic tensions within the U.S. occupied Latin America and Caribbean nation of Puerto Rico have resulted in another major uprising led this time by teachers and other workers in the public sector. A national strike is scheduled for the 18th of February. This has come after a teacher fell asleep at the wheel when leaving his third job and he died in that car accident. I want to give all of you a little bit of background leading up to the strike on February 18th before I introduce our next guest. And you'll recognize her. She's been with us before. So let me just share a few things. In 2016, U.S. Congress imposed a financial oversight and management board, FOMB, as part of the Puerto Rican Oversight Management and Economic Stability Act, PROMESA, P-R-O-M-E-S-A. So there's two organizations that are mouthful to say. So this was formed to rule the Commonwealth or colony, as some of us call it, and impose IMF style austerity measures to pay off an illegal debt. And we'll talk about why the debt is illegal. This came at the request of the current PNP governor, Piola Rusi, when he was the resident commissioner under PDP government, governor, excuse me, Padilla. Since then, there have been numerous protests and a massive uprising with some features of a color revolution that forced the resignation of then governor, I hope I say this right, folks. Rossello of the statehood party, protests against the austerity measures have begun again in response to the FMOB's actions. The FMOB has been heeded by none other than Natalie Giresko, former Ukrainian minister of finance 2014 through 2016. She implemented the largest IMF program in the institution's history, the impact of which severely harmed the Ukrainian people in 2017. She was sent to Puerto Rico to do the same as executive director in interim revitalization coordinator of the FMOB. And again, the FMOB was set up by the United States Congress in 2016 and it is officially called the Financial Oversight and Management Board. So joining us today to discuss all of this and most importantly the strike on the 18th later this week and how all of us can can help support that. So joining us today is return guest Monisha Rios. She was with us last fall, some of you may recognize her. She is a Puerto Rican psychologist and social worker. So Monisha, I'm so happy you had time to join us today. So it was great to talk with you. Yeah, I'm really, really happy to be back talking with you, Terry, especially right now. Well, this is a, this is a big week. And yeah, I think I was sharing with you before we went live that when I was putting my notes together for today's program and, you know, we were looking at the title and the title was, you know, the war against Puerto Rico continues and it probably should be more appropriately named the 124 year war against Puerto Rico continues. So, meaning, you know, referring back to the more 1898. So, let's talk about this week specific, let's talk about what's happening on February 18, and then back up from there and give the audience. Let's give them some real solid in from, you know, historical context as to what has led to this management of debt crisis I hate to say debt crisis is really the management of it that's that's disastrous. So, this Friday on February 18, we're having a national strike in Puerto Rico. So, all employees, the majority of employees from the public sector are tired of living under austerity they're tired of their pensions being stolen their salaries being stolen and the wage slavery the injustice associated with that the hike in electricity bills because of privatization, the loss of jobs because of privatization and so on and so forth the closure of schools the closure of our universities, and on and on and on and on and on and on. We're going to the streets to say that we've had enough. And also to call for the resignation of Pedro Pierluisi, who is the governor that you mentioned, one of the. Well, that would be huge. I mean that we start to have him out of office but it's not going to be the complete solution. One of the things you, you mentioned to me. Before we went live is that the minimum wage has for restaurant workers the minimum wage for restaurant workers has not been raised in 30 years. Yeah, about yeah like 31 years or so. So they're relying on tips in a country that's been severely whose tourism industry has been severely depleted with coven and the result of the hurricanes and on and on and on. What are they participating in the strike on the 18th as well as everybody. Everybody. Yeah, they had their own strike to on Valentine's Day. Oh, okay, that's right I do apologize. This, the strike was kind of the match that lit the fire is was the death of this teacher that, or that was the real motivation to do the strike now. The death of the teacher who died in a car accident fell asleep at the wheel of his car, created an accident in which he died and he was working three jobs. I just, I would just exhausted coming home from work. Is that I mean, is that normal at this point for people to be working three jobs. I mean I suppose you're lucky if you can even find one job right now. Yeah, and you know it's been building up over time. It has been talked about a national strike for a long time before his passing, but it just sort of pushed people over the edge, especially because, you know, leading up to the recent imposition of the debt readjustment plan. There were protests teachers. The same workers out there demanding that the, and I apologize for my neighbor's dogs, but everyone out demanding that you know this dictatorial fiscal control and management board stop overruling the will of the people and our own elected officials. I'm questionably elected of course but that's the nature of the colonial relationship and the nature of the imposition of these austerity measures and that what happened to this, this teacher is the lived experience of austerity and colonialism. Gosh, I have like, I'm thinking of like five things simultaneously now that I want to ask you and expand on. So let me just start with the debt itself and the FM OB because Puerto Rico is not a sovereign nation, it's a commonwealth is the nice word for it, a commonwealth in reality, a colony. It's not a sovereign nation. So because of that, it cannot take on debt or sovereign nation debt. The debt actually belongs to its parent, the United States, and I don't say that to be derogatory just as a, you know, is looking at this as an umbrella, you know where Puerto Rico is not on equal footing. It's not a state in the union and it's not an independent nation. So how I can just really see how people, how Puerto Rican people are just really upset. The nation is burdened with an enormous debt with enormous debt service. Those of you living there are not considered sovereign people of a sovereign nation so you have no say in taking on the debt much less how the debt is managed. And in 2016, the FM OB was created by an act of Congress of which you have no representation in Congress because you're not a state union. So it sounds much like saying that I mean that's I mean you wouldn't run your household that way. You know, an individual person would never run their household that way much less, you know, looking at an entire nation of people being managed this way. It sounds and it sounds just really crazy as I'm describing this to you and our audience. So can we talk about that a bit about the sovereignty and national sovereignty, the independence and free association, because these are things that I, you know, I get caught up in as well, especially since I know you and I have talked about this before but it's really important to understand sovereignty independence free association. So, before I jump into that I, it's really interesting to mention that promessa this the Puerto Rico. I'm not going to get the acronym. I got it. Okay, thanks. Where to read. Yeah, why would you want to remember. oversight management and economic stability act from a doesn't that sound nice. But the way part of how promise I came about was because current governor Pedro Pier, we see, along with who was resident commissioner at the time just like you said in the intro, under governor body. He, along with a representative from the Puerto Rican government bank went and petitioned Congress to do something like this in 2015. And they carried with them a report that they had commissioned from former World Bank economists who assessed what we know to be an illegal debt that does not belong to the people of Puerto Rico. And it made recommendations on how Puerto Rico could resolve this debt, which, as we know, leads to International Monetary Fund style debt restructuring that we see happening all over the world. And so, you know, coming back component is the imposition of austerity on a nation and its people. Exactly. That's the key component. We put that in the context of colonialism and in the context of sovereignty, right. So Puerto Rico is sovereign when it's convenient for the United States. And this is why this is why, you know, the creation of the freely associated states status that we currently have which in itself is a lie. We have never freely associated ourselves with the United States because we've never had the opportunity to decide for ourselves through a truly self determining process on whether or not we even want that. So the imposition of all of this has been done without the consent of the people, the corrupt members of the Puerto Rican government to, you know, just like how in all of these other countries that are basically vassal states for the United States, you have your corrupt government officials who whose values and worldview align with that of the settler colonial empire. And they want to profit from that relationship and we have similar players in the Puerto Rican government. And once again, it's these people working together to take on illegal debt, selling things that they don't actually have the right to sell to the same hedge fund vultures that have been buying bonds from other countries and setting their peoples up to fail. Argentina being a recent case. Yep. And Ukraine and and so when it comes to sovereignty for Puerto Rico, we are an occupied sovereign nation. And the question over free association versus independence means that as an independent nation, we would have full control over our foreign policy. We would have full control over our military, or, you know, whether or not we allow a foreign military to be in our country, such as the United States, whereas a compact of free association would allow, in theory, some political and economic sovereignty to exist. But it would continue to allow the United States to determine our foreign policy, and to keep its military here. So what the compact of free association would do would be to maintain basically the same relationship that we have, we would just have a little bit more freedom. I cannot not even, but this is not even a statehood status. No, no, it's not even that. I don't even talk about statehood because to me that's not an option, but some people believe that as an activity colonization but it's just the completion of colonialism. Yeah, integrate as a state look at Hawaii. Oh, look what happened to Texas after the album.  Yeah, that's like, you know, just like how women throughout history have been bought and sold as property after war.  That would be no different. It's the same thing just with a country, because we never had to say ever, ever when the United States went to war with the Spanish Empire to conquer its conquered territories that included Puerto Rico, Cuba, Philippines, Guam. The two empires decided what happened to us. The people of Puerto Rico and Guam and the Philippines and Cuba did not have any say we didn't have a vote. There was no play the site. So, you know, you were, you were the property of one empire passed off to the next. And you can go and still are. Yes. So this you mentioned when we were talking about, you know, this debt and vulture funds, hedge funds and I, you know, mentioned Argentina and our audience may, you know, really remember the law, the lawsuit that the US hedge funds filed against vulture funds filed against Argentina and that lawsuit was settled in New York inside the United States when the investments were actually made, you know, outside of the United States. But this is, and you jumped in and said, well, the same as Ukraine. And so we should talk about Ukraine because Ukraine is in the news today. You know, as a very volatile subject, literally and figuratively at the moment. So let's talk about what happened there and the replication of the project in Puerto Rico and by the same people. This is very interesting. It's fascinating to me when you brought that up. I should probably know that but I mean, Well, I mean it's a lot of these things are just so buried underneath everything else that's happening it's hard to keep track of it all. Well, intentionally buried. Yes. You would argue. Yeah. Yep, I agree. And so part of what was intentionally buried is that the after the US backed coup in Ukraine. Natalie Jarresco, who was a former State Department employee, she is Ukrainian American, and she was appointed finance minister after the coup. Prior to that also she, aside from her stint at the State Department she also was, she did economics type of work for the US Embassy in Ukraine. She was, I can't remember if she was a founder or just a CEO of Horizon. I need to look it up. I apologize. Horizon Group or Horizon Capital or something like that. Oh, yeah. Horizon Capital. Horizon Capital. Yeah. And that was part of a larger a larger group called the Western New Independent States Fund, which targeted Ukraine and Moldova. And was funded by the United States and other European nations. So this is the individual who, who after the coup, who had already had a presence through, you know, finance capitalism funding fascism in Ukraine, who later after the US had their puppet in power in Ukraine was appointed as finance minister. And the same austerity measures. She's the one who, who negotiated and implemented the, as you said in the intro, the largest IMF nonsense in that institutions history. And it resulted in the same things that were going through here, the, the harm to the well being of the working class in Ukraine. And it was debt in Ukraine that the people didn't want either didn't want themselves. It was this imposed government that wanted it. And things sold to bondholders. Yeah, these faceless people and corporations who just buy countries in order to then hold them hostage through debt. It's, it's all evil. To put a face to that word, I would put it on. It is evil. It is. Yeah, it's a grab for capital. It's also a grab for natural resources and public institutions and an infrastructure because all of that is is held as collateral on the loans and then the country back and then guess what it's all privatized the private corporations come in the global capitalists come in and buy it all up and privatize it. And Greece is another excellent example of the failure, when the dire poverty that that system creates very quickly and very deep poverty. So the selling off of the land, definitely, I was reading that that was part of the motivation and the pressure to sell off farmland in Ukraine and Ukraine is known as the bread basket right. So selling off all of the farmland. Again to private industry. Yeah. And foreign investors. So is the land being, well I suppose it is I think we've talked about this before the land in Puerto Rico, the same thing happening. Oh, gosh, yeah. It's that's never ended. It just seems to be accelerating now because the way that real estate is working so the tourism industry in the real estate industry.  Oh, is this a country that I want to live in. You know, let me see where I want to buy my third home or retire to retire to. It's not that usually, well there are a lot of people who call themselves expats here but they're also the crypto colonizers that are buying up every single inch of Puerto Rico to turn it into their crypto to utopia. They call it port Portopia. And, but people like myself and people who who are less resource than I am. We can no longer afford to live here so it's it's yet another version of all of the forced migrations that the US has implemented and imposed upon us in these 124 years. Like through operation bootstrap and so on. And now it's just another land grab. Because of these austerity measures, it makes the land even more available.  What's the word I'm looking biodiversity, you know, taking, taking away a key parts of our forest key parts of our beaches key parts of our rainforest. So they can make hotels. And this is an issue that that a lot of the audience is probably well aware of but you know you mentioned the austerity and capitalists and foreign investment and, and the resource the land grabbing for resource this is happening all over And what happens is people are financially forced out of their homes you have to sell you end up selling for pennies on the dollar, which someone who is, you know, capital rich can just come up and buy an entire neighborhood, especially if it's homes on the beach, and they're, and then start building your four and five star resort that only a very small percentage of the world's population can participate in that project and everyone else, if they're even if they're lucky enough. And I say that sarcastically, you know, can be a house key, you know, can can clean the rooms and bust the dining room tables, if they're lucky, though, and they'll have to learn how to speak English in order to be able to, to get one of those jobs. So really, it's this upward push of capital and this downward spiral for average people, workers, even middle class people, not just working class people middle class people too are effective. Very heavily by this. So this isn't in large part, which being protested on the 18. This is why this gentleman who died in the car accident because he fell asleep at the wheel was working three jobs. And so something else that people who are watching and listening should know is it's not only that the land is getting bought up, and, and all of these businesses are being taken. Basically, the opportunities that we have, we would have to develop ourselves develop our own nation are being stolen from us. Also by the working class in the United States, because not only do they buy up the land and the properties not only do they start up these businesses. Most of the time they also bring their own workers. When you go to be a case and you go to a lot of the restaurants in Esperanza, which is predominantly owned by colonizers, all the businesses are owned by colonizers, you go into a colonizers restaurant and you're greeted by white American workers, the pantheists and the Puerto Ricans maybe work in the back in the kitchen. Yeah. And oftentimes a lot of these people will come in here and they will advertise for jobs and they don't want even an accent, not even the hint of an accent you have to speak perfect English as if you were born and raised in the United States. So, yes, so it's all it's a very interesting dynamic with colonial tendencies within the US working class that doesn't get addressed, just like how our, our electrical workers union got scabbed by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers chapter 222 in Florida. Wow. Wow. So this is, I mean, for this is really, this is really, really deep. I feel like we're just peeling, just peeling away the very top layers of the onion regarding this, the subject so this would lead me to say, this is the, this is and we, and we talk about this a lot. And this is really important about that the movement needs to be a class war, and not a race war, and this keeping people separate working people specifically middle class people to separated over race, language calls and other cultural issues is, is a tool. We're way back to plantation days in the states that they are the definitive in specific separation of, of white cotton pickers over, or over the black people picking cotton. And that's still, I mean what I'm hearing from you is that basically still exist. It's just a difference just instead of a cotton plantation it's now, you know, in the electric in the electrical industry in the energy industry, but it's the same thing. And it's, it's always been the case for Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico has always been exploited. Even but I mean this is the nature of the exploitation anyways right just as you said like the, the intention is to divide us and weaponize us against each other and set us up in a hierarchy where we are exploiting one another to make their exploitation of all of us possible. And the same is true in relations between the settler colonial state of the United States, and its colonies. And so sometimes you know that whole concept of labor aristocracy is true. It's true. And it's unfortunate, because we need to be in solidarity with each other. Right. Yeah, it's a, it's a way to keep everyone from thinking about class and economics. And yeah, and of course, I would say people in the electrical unit union in Florida thinking well this is a good job opportunity for me and Puerto Rico and not necessarily or not necessarily thinking they're taking a job away, but that you're thinking it's an opportunity for, for me and we don't take that next step and say well what does this mean for all of us in the big picture and we're you know we're intentionally taught not to think that way for centuries now. So if there was a real mother or fraternity, or whatever a non sexist way I could say that if there were real, if there was real solidarity among workers. Ideally, the, that that chapter would not have scabbed our union here. They would have said no, we're with them, we're not crossing the picket line. Well, I don't know what happened. But to me, I do think you know the psychology of it that the psychological and emotional impact that happens on people is exactly that we get put into survival mode. And it's all about like, I need to feed my kids and keep the roof over my head and the lights on. Sorry. The opportunity is, you know, in Puerto Rico not yet. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So when did that happen. That was earlier, more toward the summer, or after the hurricanes, when yeah this was recent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, this was recent this was during our struggle against the privatization of our electrical grid. Yeah, yeah. Okay, which we talked about last fall. Yeah, and I will share that with with the audience the link to that particular episode was a great, it was a great conversation and another great one, another great. So let's talk about solidarity among workers and various unions, because this is clearly the case in Puerto Rico there is solidarity among the working people, and that solidarity is coming together in a huge action on the 18th of this week. It's really beautiful. And I can show people what that looks like. So, in this article from radio Isla, this is from what is today today from today. There, this talks about the strike. And it says Union and social organizations informed that they will march this coming Friday, February 18, demanding from the government a fair salary for public servants that dignified retirement and zero privatization. We returned to the streets to demand from the government salary justice, a dignified retirement and zero privatization. And they go into the details of the March.  We will be making our presence felt from morning hours in the different work centers, we will send a clear message to Governor Pedro Pierluisi and the legislature that the teachers and the working class of the country have clear objectives and we will fulfill them. That is from Mercedes Martinez spokesperson for the teachers Federation. Angel Figueroa, Jeremy, your president of UTIR, which is the Electrical Workers Union added that the union will be decreeing a 24 hour work stoppage starting at 10pm tonight. Thursday night. Yeah, our retirement, despite being a trust is also being threatened by the fiscal control board and its austerity measures that will lead us to misery, plus the privatization of generate of our generations will have further increases in energy costs. We will be on strike for 24 hours and we invite all the people to join this march in the same way that we joined in October and send a clear message against Luma and the privatization of power plants. We joined the demand of the public servants and of the country for better salaries and a dignified retirement. Now is this happening across the country. Yes. How can. So this is the 18th and how can those of us in the United States support and uplift this action on the 18th. Well, first of all, where can we learn more about it and then what can we do. There are a lot of places you can learn more about it. It so going on Twitter and or any social media and just looking for national strike in Puerto Rico hashtags like battle national. Well it's all over Puerto Rico Twitter. Okay, so that's one way of following we can share that. People can follow a group called a call to action on Puerto Rico, New York, Puerto Rico resistance, the Puerto Rican Independence Party. There's, there's many different ways of getting information, and I'll also share another way that people can support so there will be a rally in New York at the same time that the nighttime rally is happening in Puerto Rico in San Diego. Okay. And this is a rally in solidarity with the worker strikes. Oh, great. And it's at Union Square, South New York City at 5pm on Friday, the Friday. Excellent. For people who are not in New York and can't show up to the rally, if there are not rallies in your respective locations, then definitely please go to social media, take pictures of yourselves with messages of solidarity and support. Oh, we can promote that. Social media. Yeah. With, you know, hashtags, hashtag Puerto Rico, hashtag Paro Nacional, hashtag. Yeah. Oh, excellent. And then continue the conversation like we're having this wonderful conversation and thank you again for making the space and amplifying what's happening here. We need to continue these conversations. We do. We do need allies in the US to, to get to the root of why this is happening, you know, and support us in our struggle for independence. Or also self determination if people are more comfortable with that word, but something to keep in mind around that is that word is actually being weaponized against us as well. Yeah, because we're as an occupied sovereign nation. We have consistently experienced us interventionism and our internal affairs, which includes election tampering which includes not allowing a truly self determining process to occur. Without interference from our colonizers trying to influence this way influence and sway the vote and then use whatever results from the corrupt process that they impose upon us to create a narrative that Puerto Ricans want statehood when that's not actually true. You know, this is a theme that and for those of you who watch our program, you know, regularly. This is a theme that keeps coming up particularly this past year, 2021 where there were. We saw so many presidential and national assembly elections throughout the Americas, and I have the very good fortune and luck to it to be an observer in a number of countries last year. And the results went predominantly, the majority leaned progressive to leftist, and I would say my own personal observations. People voted citizens of sovereign nations voted to preserve their national sovereignty voted to preserve their natural resource sovereignty, including beachfront land and voted for governments that had an economic plan to develop all the people of their country, and not just one specific demographic. And so this is what needs to happen in Puerto Rico to help you get there, because it's happening all over the Americas. I'm happy to say it's going to be a struggle for everyone to build this project that's overtly, you know, emerging in front of us. But, but it's happening.  You have to bring the story to Puerto Rico now. Yeah, you know, yeah, because it is happening in Latin America and the Caribbean. I want to before I let you go, Monisha. I want to share a couple of questions because I have let me see who's on our YouTube chat. Here's Julio Manez. Manez. Am I saying that right Julio. He says, um, he wants to know about military US military in Puerto Rico, and also in Brazil the fascist Bolsonaro is cutting all the gains of the workers and promoting privatization. He is implementing a neoliberal government and is destroying the Constitution with amendments. So, you know, this is what I mean, we've talked about this this evening and we've and we're seeing that, you know, in the countries that have leaned including in Colombia as another example of this Honduras was, and is now, you know, has elected a government for themselves that may very well, you know, bring them a new future. It's an opportunity for them. So I would say for Brazil, there's some hope to in this in 2022 you have you have elections coming up and we're going to have to help change that government to help help the people change the government themselves. So, and there was a question. I can't let me see if I can find it. I thought I saw a comment about the US military. Oh, hold on a second. Okay, here, this is from Julio also, are there US military bases in Puerto Rico, and are there problems with drug trafficking like Colombia. Of course, the huge tourism trade that comes as well. Yes, there is. The US military is still here. And, and even though in, we have one of the relocatable over the horizon radar systems that the US uses to supposedly curb the drug trade. And in the island of Vieques where my family's from and where I've been living for a while until now. There's, there's absolute drug trafficking, sex trafficking, all of the trafficking and yeah so US military's presence here has only caused harm, which I encourage people to learn more about the history of Culebra and Vieques to learn about that. And they, you know, just like we do see in Colombia and other places in Latin America, the drug trade is part and parcel to the US's interventionism and how they often fund their interventionism. So, which is not a new model by the way, not a new model. Those of us are old enough to remember the Vietnam War we know that the war. The not real war that didn't really exist on Cambodia and Laos was all, you know, financed by the heroin trade coming from the Golden Triangle into the United States. So it's not a new model. Unfortunately, it's not it's a proven model that is a model that the US is used to finance, you know, black operations and non congressional approved interventions. We also facilitate our depopulation. Yeah, it creates such an unstable unsafe environment that people don't want to raise their families here. Yeah, which is the same thing that happened in Honduras, who's president who's former president who was in charge of that narco state was arrested yesterday, and may very well be extradited to the United States. So there are possibilities Monisha we are seeing things you know throughout the Americas this this shift, you know, to a more to a multilateral paradigm it's really happening before our very eyes and and again I will say you know just being in a number of countries last year. We really did vote to preserve their natural sovereignty, national sovereignty and their natural resource sovereignty, and that is something that, you know, we need to help uplift for people in Puerto Rico as well. And so again show our audience that flyer what they can do on Friday the 18th. Aside from checking social media for national strike Puerto Rico. So here we go this is in New York Union Square. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you Monisha. I want to remind our audience that you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean code pings weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region we broadcast every Wednesday for 30pm Pacific 730pm Eastern. So catch us on Apple podcast, and be sure to catch code pink radio code pink radio broadcast on WBA I out of New York City, and WPFW out of Washington DC every Thursday morning 11am Eastern, and that also is available on Apple podcast so. Thank you. And thank you for coming back, and I'm always so happy to talk with you. And we're all with you in solidarity, and there's so much more that we can do. And so let's stay in touch. Let's have you come back. Yeah. Yeah. Be sure to to watch us next week.


In one great example of working in civic engagement and denizen engagement, I guess, is our spring block program, which is a term we've used now for 34 years this spring. It's a field-intensive practicum of four clustered classes, which are Kotat, currently by myself and Wendy Walker, and a team of undergraduate assistants who've taken the class the previous year. And it's all that anyone is doing. Nobody has any other classes, so it's a fabulous formula that John Miles arrived at back in 1980 to enable a thoroughgoing kind of student engagement. In some ways, I think it is very much like the student co-op houses that we're part of, for example, actually today. Right now, they are planning the meals that they will be cooking for the whole group when we go out to Susia Island in the San Juans to prepare for when we go back, when our students, our 22 students, will be split into three groups, each with a different high school partner, and they'll be responsible for conducting a week-long environmental education program for those students. So, to prepare them for this experience, where they're going to be cooking together, eating together, working together, learning together with their students, they've had to have some prerequisite classes, but we also have long-standing relationships with our community partners, with schools that will be with out there, and we have to help our students get to know those. So, we put them in those classrooms as observers, the preceding quarter, in a related class, and we have them meet with the faculty. We have them learn the relevant policies, for example, risk management policies that the schools have. We have them learn what the current curriculum is so that they can connect with the curriculum they're going to develop to what the students have been learning and what they're going to be learning. And we have them go into the classrooms and conduct games and activities to get to know the students, get familiar with them a little bit. We also have been developing community among this group of students themselves since the preceding quarter when we have a preparatory seminar, so they're very oriented to what's going to be happening. We've gone through the basics of what they're going to be doing. So, they've been experiencing building community, for example, being on the ropes course out at Lakewood in one of their small group configurations and working together, discovering each other's capacities, having fun but also, in their words, coming to a whole new level of trust. One student said before trust was a concept, now it's something real, and they are going to depend on each other. They're going to go through a storming phase where they have to rub up against each other's rough edges and maybe soften them down, figure out how they're going to adjust their personality quirks to the rest of the group, how they can work with each other in terms of their strengths. So, they're prepared already as a community and then they have to make community with the high schoolers while they're out there. This year they'll be embedded, so to speak, with their high school groups camping with them and eating with them. So, that's part of the preparation. Of course, they also have to have something to teach. They're preparing natural history talks for each other and they have to make an original lesson, which is something they need to know something about. So, usually it's something based on some previous coursework where they are taking some knowledge they have but making it very place specific. There's no point in going to Sushi Island to teach geology if you could do the same lesson back in the classroom in Botany or any other ecological concept. So, how do you use the place? And this allows them to connect that larger-than-human sense of self to what they're doing and to their learners. So, it's not only that the learners come away understanding more about the ecology, it's the learners also come away with some insight and excitement about the natural world. There are many amazing little things that you can learn that light the flame as the phrase is about education. It's not the filling of the pale but the lighting of the flame.


Hello everyone and welcome once again to another edition of the Red Brown and Williams real estate show. I'm Shannon Deskins along with Jennifer Brown Day. And Jennifer, as the weather warms up and we move into summer, I think all the schools now are pretty much out for summer. They are, which means houses are feeling really small all of a sudden. I'll bet you're right. I bet this is a big time of year for listings. New listings. It is. It is. It's a big time for listings mainly because everybody's had the spring to go out. They've cleaned out their closets and they've gotten the yard spruced up. So now is when everyone feels really comfortable with the pictures being taken and that kind of stuff for new listings. So we have a lot of great new listings and then it's a great time to buy because of course you're a little bit freer with your schedule in the summer plus like we mentioned those houses are feeling pretty small now that all the kids are home. Yeah. Well you mentioned something that made me think it's probably a good time now to check your website again if you haven't because you talked about when they would get their pools open, when the trees bloom, a lot of people that may have listed for the first time in the winter now want new pictures taken because the houses are more attractive. So if you've looked through the website before and you thought, ah, try it again, that same listing is going to look totally different right now. Exactly. There are a lot of pictures that are being updated with the new weather and everything's bloomed and green so it's a great time to go look. All right. I'm going to let you look at five listings today that we've got that we're going to feature today and the first one is in Floyd County. It is. This one is in the Daniels Creek area and if you're familiar that's kind of coming from Parkfield going towards Allen will come up on your right is where Daniels Creek is. Which is very convenient to US 23 because you get that country feel if you're familiar with Daniels Creek you're kind of out in the country but within just a minute or two you're right on US 23. That's correct. That's correct. But you're in the same place as in Prestonsburg and Parkfield. Like you said, this is a neighborhood down in Daniels Creek but you kind of are away from everything. You can't see 23, you can't hear 23 but you're very close to 23. So it's a great location. Right. And the good thing about this one is it's a price reduction. So we've featured it in the past but it's always worth mentioning when the home owners say, hey, let's just drop that price a little bit. Exactly. This one's had a recent price reduction. was actually taken down to 230 and when we tell you everything about this house you'll know this is a goodbye. Right well right off the bat you're looking at size you're over 2,000 over 2,100 square feet with four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms so we were talking about families and needing room to grow if you need to grow this would be a house to grow into. Absolutely and this is one it's got one of the bedrooms I know this is important to a lot of people the master is actually on the first floor with a private bathroom so you do have that first floor bedroom and then your other three are upstairs all the bedrooms have walk-in closets which is also a very popular feature but then you're talking about the privacy of that you know that master on the downstairs and everything having a walk-in closet upstairs well look at your backyard you've got privacy inside and outside of this house you've got a fenced-in backyard. Yes and if you look at the pictures and we included a back picture simply because you can tell how big the yard is from that picture you've got a private deck again it's all fenced and we're standing inside the fence so you can't see the fence but we're kind of standing right inside right there and plenty of room if you wanted to do a pool if you wanted to add a swing set if you wanted to have pets you have plenty of room for whatever you'd want to do in this backyard. And the price on this one is like we mentioned $230,000 it's just been reduced and this one is in banner so all the things we talked about the convenience to us 23 and all the conveniences with this particular home is one you'll definitely want to get scheduled and look at so give you a call. Absolutely they can give us a call in the Pikeville office that number<PHONE_NUMBER>. And when you do call them mention 106-699 that is the MLS number for this particular listing and they'll get your showing schedule. We will. Okay now moving into the city limits of pineapple for this next listing this one is not far from our television studios on Peach Orchard. Not at all we're sitting very very close to this listing right now and but this one is a fairly new listing and like you said it's up here on the hill off of Peach Orchard and this is another one I'm excited to share because of the price so hopefully we'll save it for the end yeah so everybody has to has to watch the entire presentation before they get it. It does have a really nice deck and that deck goes around the side into the front so you can easily very accessible to the kitchen if you want to put a grill out there and grill out a lot or anything like that you have access to that deck and it's almost like another room which we've talked about before with other houses. Right except it doesn't count on the square footage but you've got that feel it just makes your living space that much bigger. Exactly. But as is on the inside you still have two bedrooms and a bathroom with an office space 12 almost 1200 square feet so a nice house and with all the students and professionals that move into pipe well this would be great for for a student or if you're looking at maybe wanting to rent to some students or people at the hospital in the banking industry because it turns over a lot so be great investment property. Absolutely this would be a wonderful investment property for someone who's in that line or if you're wanting to get started like you mentioned it's a two bedroom one bath the office space it could actually be a third bedroom depending on how you wanted to do it it doesn't have a closet so of course we don't have it counted that way right but you could market it that way for rental or something like that if you wanted to and easily have three roommates in there you know paying paying a lease. Right and then we talked about you know teasing that price a minute ago we're under seventy thousand dollars for this listing in the city limits of Pikeville that's possibly a three bedroom so if your wheels are turning whether it's you and some friends are like hey we need to do this or you're thinking well we could rent this and make some money definitely give you guys a call for this listing. Absolutely you can give us a call again in the Pikeville office that number<PHONE_NUMBER>. And any of these listings that we're talking about always go to your website to get information on these and other things like that maybe in that neighborhood. Oh absolutely our website is of course accessible all the time it's www.rbnw.com which I think it's on the screen so everybody can see how it's written down. Okay now moving on let's stay in the city limits of Pikeville but a lot of people wouldn't know that this home was in the city limits. Exactly this is one we were talking about the privacy off the deck with the last one but this is one that you actually have the privacy off the deck you're not in the city but you're still in those city limits. Right and what we're talking about is 5-4 so if you're going up Chloe Road from the city side it's going to be on your left. Correct but and the good thing about you know still being inside the city limits is you know a lot of people don't realize you how great this is until you need it but it's police and fire protection. Exactly you get the city amenities with having the privacy of being in the county so it's kind of the best of both worlds and but you can see from the pictures this is a really nice size house. It's on a nice size lot it's about three-quarters of an acre and again a fairly private location the house is almost 2600 square feet that includes three bedrooms and two and a half baths which is a really nice size house and again like one of the other ones this one has another first floor master so you've got the first floor master private bath walk-in closet and then your other bedrooms are upstairs. And then if you look at this one and in the pictures on the inside I mean you've got the fireplace you've got the hardwood flooring I mean so it just has that feel of a country home that cottage feel out and then looking at it you can see around it you know that it is in a secluded area. Right correct and this one like you said with all the touches on the inside there's a lot of wood touches and they've done a lot of wood trim the stairway is completely wood and it's open to that living room which is a cathedral ceiling the two-story tall stone fireplace I mean it really gives the feeling of kind of a long cabin without going kind of over the top with it. And definitely without the price which we'll get to in just a second but one thing I do want to mention because we teased in the middle in the beginning of the show schools out well you've got your pool this is the first one we've had on the show today with a swimming pool. Absolutely and we have a really good picture of that in there as well it's an above ground swimming pool it does have a deck built around it. All right this one you can look it up on the website or call I'm sure the Pipeville office can field that one. Oh absolutely we'd be more than happy to that number again 437-2333. Or go to rbnw.com and you'll be able to find this one look it up 106087 and the price on this one for everything we just told you in the city limits 189.9 so if you're in that market definitely give them a call go on the website and they'll be able to hook you up. Absolutely. All right now moving on the next one is actually outside the city limits on Biggs Branch so if you're going toward Elkhorn City on route 460 this will be on your left. That's correct and then it's about a mile and a half up Biggs Branch. The house will sit on the right as you go up and you can tell in the picture it also kind of sits by itself almost up on a little mole you have a little bit of privacy right there sits on about two acres you get the ranch house which does have it's a three bedroom two bath with a garage. The bonus with this one is you also have and we've got a picture of it also included an unfinished structure that's also on this property. Now the condition of it or anything we're not gonna we don't know so let's have to someone to figure out but you either have the start of another house if you wanted to do that or you've got the space for a really nice yard if you want to just to take that out. And this one is three bedrooms and two baths and it's a ranch home which is a attractive to a lot of people to have everything on one level with no stairs. Exactly and this one again has the private master has a private bathroom with it and then it needs some updates and the the seller is very much aware but there's it's kind of one of those situations they don't want to have to do it. Right. But this is one you could go in throw in some new carpet throw in a new countertop and you could easily have your dream house if you wanted it. So you're saying channel your inner HGTV. There you go on the shows they also make a very big deal about front porch or outdoor space. This one has a gorgeous front porch that overlooks Biggs Branch. You kind of like I said you sit up above it so it's a really nice view of the creek. This would be a great one if you like the outdoor space. This is a great location if you like that area between Pikeville Elkhorn City anything that direction this is a great great place. All right the price on this one one twenty three nine and this one's located on Biggs Branch. All right now moving to the last listing that we've got today. This one I love because it's acreage. It's not just a little acreage it's two hundred and twenty five acres. Exactly we save this one for the last just for you. This is one that sits out towards Sydney so we're going the other direction on 119 and you take the Sydney exit and then it's about four miles up North Big Creek. Okay and if you're familiar with the new 119 I mean it is a great four lane highway that has just sped up being able to get to Williamson West Virginia or even look beyond that Charleston and Huntington or even closer than ever but then you're still convenient to Pikeville. So this is a great location it is and like I said it's only four miles off that exit or probably four and a half once you're actually coming off the exit but it has the acreage two hundred and twenty five acres which I think you mentioned. It also comes with two houses so there's a lot that you're getting with this property. I mean you're getting let's look at house number one. It's a brick ranch home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms and that's the main home on this property. Yes and it has a bonus with it unfinished full basement that is a actual garage you can pull into it you can literally drive to the other side of the house in the garage it's a big open space and it has a lot of the charm from the 60s it's been it's been well maintained and that kind of stuff that it really does have a lot of charm and a lot of the stylings of the 1960s. Right and then house number two on this listing is a 2000 double wide that it's a good size double wide it's a 28 by 52. Yes and another three bedroom two baths you can tell in the pictures I included a picture that shows both of them the house sits to the left the double wide sits to the right you can see all of the land in front of it that is all flat very usable there's additional flats off to the side of the double wide and then it goes the hillside up above both of them includes the barn that you can see in the pictures includes about three acres of fenced pasture land includes many flats you could garden on there's just so many possibilities. This one's going to be attractive to a whole lot of different people for a whole lot of different reasons. Exactly a lot of times that we get to that point we have extended families that we want to live close to us and this is one you get them both for and I will say under under $200,000 correct this one was again just reduced reduced to $195 which is a great price for everything that we just went over. Yeah I mean you've got a house you've got a barn you've got pasture land you've got a second home and you've got 225 acres at your disposal and the area here is kind of like a rolling hill it's not the big steep mountains all of this is accessible. Absolutely. Let's give the website again. Okay that way they can look this one up and find it. Okay the website is www.rbandw.com and this one is 105744 and I guarantee this one's going to get some calls too many opportunities there not to. Well we hope so we're ready start calling now. All right I'm going to step out and let you do real estate minute. Today's real estate minute is focused on the appraisal process during a purchase an appraisal is a type of property value evaluation that can be completed only by licensed or certified appraiser a realtor cannot complete an appraisal in their capacity as a realtor which is a common misconception. Typically the appraisal is ordered by the lending institution of a buyer which is also who would receive the results from their appraisal report. Any questions you have about the buying and selling process including the appraisal process should be directed to your realtor or lender and as always Ray Brown and Williams Real Estate Services would be proud to assist you with your real estate needs. Thank you for joining us for another show we hope to see you again soon.


What's going on guys, it's your boy DPJ here today with another Destiny video and today we have top 5 hunter supers of the week and if you guys do enjoy the video, do smash that like button as I really appreciate the support. Submit anything bad I should have got to the email address linked in the top of the video description and I'll catch you guys on that next one.


No population on the planet is as water distressed as the Indian population. You have seventeen percent of the world's population and about three point five percent of the world's water resources. On an average, forty percent decline has happened in all the rivers in the last fifty years time. So the Rally for Rivers, one thing it changed in the country is whenever you talked about water augmentation, people talked about check dams, people talked about variety of river linking, doing this, doing that. Now we've changed the conversation in the country in the last three years, everybody is today talking about vegetation. If river water has to be augmented, it can be enhanced only by increasing vegetation. You gave a missed call for that one simple act we bow down to you, because we moved the governments because one hundred and sixty-two million people gave that missed call. In a democratic nation, if people are not behind something, those things will not happen. When the government saw the people are behind it, they immediately took it up in right earnest and it has become an official recommendation for all the states. For you to give some picture of what it means is no movement ever in the history of this planet or history of humanity has ever got the support of one hundred and sixty-two million people in thirty days time. Few states have gone proactive and we have MOUs with six states including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Assam, Chattisgarh, Punjab and Gujarat for which on-ground work we are doing in terms of surveys and preparing detailed report. We have right now one project on our hands in Yavatmal in Maharashtra which was unfortunately known as the suicide capital of India where maximum number of farmer suicides happened. Yavatmal region where there is a Vagari river, we have taken up this fifty-four kilometer length of this tributary which covers about two hundred eighty-five square kilometers of river basin. Now we have a government sanctioned project with a budget of over four hundred crores. Right now as a first phase the implementation will start after this monsoon. Our first objective is the suicides must stop. In a matter of three to four months or maximum six months, every one of these families will have a phone number that they can call in moments of distress and we will act. Apart from that we will... we are... we are changing the landscape by largely bringing about horticulture and agroforestry in the region which will greatly augment the farmer's income and also in about ten to twelve years time the Vagari river should be in a much better condition than the way it is right now. So this project is already on the ground. We took the various existing schemes in the government, consolidated this and made this into a river project which is both economy and ecology. This is the significance of Rally for Rivers. Basic significance of Rally for Rivers is this, ecology is not against the economic well-being of the people. Economy and ecology have to go in hand in hand, how to do our economics in a ecologically sensitive way. This is the important thing. When I was speaking at the UN I said I want to officiate the marriage of economy and ecology. Only then we will produce something significant. As a part of this we launched decade of action on March 22nd in United Nations and we are also part of the UNEP World Environment Day. If you don't do the right things now it'll be too late. Just think of these numbers. India has 160 million hectares of arable land. Of this 104 million hectares of arable land is under distress, soil distress. This has been our greatest achievement in this country. No matter what happens our farmer has been growing food for us. Never in the last 70 years have we had, we had a famine. This ability we are taking it away simply because we're literally putting the, you know, pulling the carpet from underneath because we are taking away the soil. We are taking away the strength of soil. Soil decides almost everything about us, particularly the water is determined by what kind of soil you have, how rich the soil is. And people are talking about carbon sequestering and this and that and whatever. For everything vegetation is the answer. Every kind, it's not only about trees. Variety of vegetation is necessary for the rivers to flow. I thought before we fall dead we must make this happen. What do you think?


Closing the show floor. You can hear that in the background. Bill McDermid just gave a speech. I'm joining with my co-host. I'm Dave Vellante at wikibon.org and John, we heard McDermid. He was on message. He was, as Bill always says, he was well co-offed, looking sharp. You know, a very handsome guy, really, you know, passionate about what he's doing. But it was really, it was staged on the stage. You wouldn't expect anything less in front of 17,000 people. We're going to have Alice Williams come on and we're going to talk about kind of what we heard in the keynote. We were all kind of sat in there and you sat in the house, Alex Williams. Hey, Alex. How are you? Okay. First of all, the opening video was awesome. Yeah, the sound system was amazing. The opening video was amazing. I think it was better than the NAB cube with the cube we had at NAB, which was a great sound system. But this one, I think, blew it away. Yeah, I think so, too. But the video was fantastic. Bill McDermott's intro was kind of like, very lesbian, very actor. He's like, what represents him? Yeah. I'm not like a Shakespearean.  Yeah, yeah. The commentator would make a lot of hair comments. But it sounded like a cube interview. Yeah, it did. Mobile transformation, consumerization of IT. Yeah. What did you think of the keynote, Alex? I think it was one of the best customer events I've ever been to. I think primarily because of the talk show format and the professionalism that they really took to a new level compared to last year, when they had kind of a funny, kind of an interview style that they tried to do with Bill McDermott. But this year, I mean, we got to see Coinstar, Ace, Hardware, and Burberry talk about how their businesses are really changing, how they're really being affected by data. And I thought their examples were great. Yeah. Interesting. I think it's critical that SAP demonstrates some proof points beyond its core supply chain business. And it's clearly trying to do that. I mean, Ace is sort of the classic, but the examples that they were using were all about, hey, we know everything about the customer and business analytics. I think, though, John, you said it's like a cube interview. I think the difference is that when you had McDermott on, you got him talking about Oracle. He wasn't mentioning the competition out there. I was totally scripted. You can see the different camera angles. They had the crane. And they also had the guy with the camera. You can see the notes. She had all the notes there.  Well produced. She was totally produced. But hopefully, we can get him on the cube and ask him some of the questions that our audience is more interested in. Oh, yeah, for sure. I heard we're going to get McDermott on the cube. So both watching out there. McDermott, Schnabe, certainly going to come on. Oliver Boosman told me in the audience. I'm sorry. I have a quick word with him. He's definitely coming on. Right. But I did see them in the crowd. And they said, yeah, thumbs up. So we'll see. Tomorrow or Wednesday, the CEO's in there. But I felt the presentation was fantastic. I mean, I just love the language that they're using. I love the fact that they recognize that there's so much disruption. Love the fact that it's like one consumer now. That is huge for them. I mean, for any enterprise to say one consumer essentially really is a good message. What are some of the underlying themes, Dave, that you heard out of that keynote? I mean, one of the things I heard was kind of like the transformation of the database in many ways. Where McDermott at one point said, we can help you with your relational database issues, which was really a code for where after you were. To me, Alex, three things stood out. McDermott said he talked about speed, simplicity, and personalization. Now, those are three things that are not normally associated with SAP. And so clearly McDermott and company are trying to transform the messaging, the company. And that's really the emphasis is they got a lot of dough, they got a lot of resources to make it happen. The other thing was 197,000 customers. That's a big number. I hadn't heard that before. He broke things down into little chunks. My first chunk was the things that the key highlights to me, Alex, were consumer revolution. He mentioned that point. Macro forces are converging. We're talking about this society. And the social connectivity were three kind of clumped together. Intimate, right? Intense social connectivity. I like this selection. It was more sophisticated too. It wasn't just about Twitter or Facebook. It was about kind of this new world where it's everywhere. It's part of the business process. We need to think differently. As the Burberry exec said, she said, when I grew up, to succeed, you need to speak English. For this younger generation to succeed, you need to speak social. And I thought that was a good way of putting it, where it is all in this little device. And that's where IT is right now. Yeah, and it's some real actual use cases of social. We used to hear about enterprise social and sort of behind the firewall social. This is really trying to connect social with revenue generation. The other thing today that I thought was cool is that he said that consumers are in charge. That was a direct quote. He really emphasized that. He's totally driving it. We've always said in the queue here that consumers are driving the change in the enterprise. That's coming from the consumer market. That is the social market. That is the mold. And it wasn't the Facebook hype. It was legitimate productivity message. He also mentioned innovation cycles are shrinking. Sustainable competitive advantage. He took the best of the hipster social mobile cloud and turned it into enterprise language. Yeah, very much so. He's not a big joke teller, but he did say tongue in cheek early on, if you're in the 18 to 25 sector, you're more likely to have a smartphone than you are a job. And catching some of the times, he had a lot of questions from the interviewer about the economy. He's obviously bullish on the economy. Let's face it, neither of those individuals were struggling. He also brought up the business model thing, which I thought I'd hit another mark there. He said reinventing business models is a critical board level conversation everywhere it goes. But then he highlighted that with a point by saying thinking from the end consumer in, not in company to the consumer. And that was a really nuance. He was a nuance that was kind of highlights the fact that the business model of the future is about consumer first and engineering it back into the company operations, not the other way around, which was the IT practice. That is the consumerization of IT and the disruptive business model aspect. Again, validates our points over the past two years. And you can see it on the show floor too. I mean, look at the presence that mobile has on the show floor. It's gigantic.  We go to EMC world with Citrix Synergy. We're Oracle Open World and numerous others. I think that SAP definitely takes that message, John, that you were talking about just now from the consumer in, not the other way around, more serious than any other company we follow. Do you agree with that? Yeah. I think, well, this year the messaging is a little tighter around, again, the language around business with around this trend data that last year was different. They would put a stake in the ground. Last year to me was stake in the ground, mobile social, the real mobile database feed and mobile message. This year it's going to be about the apps. It's going to be about the productivity. It's going to be about the business model. So I do think that they're leading the way. And I think, you know, like we were talking earlier about Citrix, how there's a huge difference between coming to Citrix and SAP, but yet so similar. Both have active online communities, but SAP is just dwarfs Citrix in terms of relevance. I mean, I felt this year at Synergy as an example that Citrix was just, they had all the elements. It was just kind of like blah. It wasn't popping. It wasn't like, wow. It was that they had virtualization. They had cloud. They had all these things. It was, you know, it was cool. But it wasn't, I didn't fall out of my chair. Here, with McDermott's showmanship, Schnabe's product focus and kind of their execution, it makes you go, wow, I like these guys. They're marching in the right direction. I tweeted. You do like McDermott. He's very personable. You'd buy from him. You'd buy from that guy.  It's still like an angle. It's true. We were talking about big data all the time. McDermott, I think, mentioned it once last year in his keynote. He probably said it at least 10 times. He showed the dashboard off, and that was pretty much big data. And again, that was a highlight for the folks out there who didn't see the key. And I tried to get a picture, but I couldn't get the resolution with the phone. But he was showing an iPad demo. It was really fantastic. And that is the kind of dashboard I think executives want to run their business. That's a big data application. That is analytics. That's speed of date. That's HANA. That's everything that Alex would have posted if we could talk about that. So that's big data. One thing I think that we need to watch with SAP is there is a little, there is kind of like this hero complex that we're seeing with HANA. And it's important, I think, to look at what's underlying. What are you talking about that? Well, I think it was developed by HASO. And so HASO came in, and he developed this technology. He has his own team. So they have very kind of a separate organization internally. There's the threat that in memory could become commoditized to some extent. But there's also the concern, if you look at, for instance, how they're going to bring HANA to the cloud, and how are they developing their apps in a HANA environment, in a configured environment, versus what they're doing with the ABAP platform as a service and the Java platform as a service. And so I think that the messaging was great. I think that the truth will be told in the details. Well, Jeff Kelly was on earlier, and he was saying that SAP did 160 million euro in last year in HANA revenue, which is about north of 225, maybe 250 million. So that's pretty substantial. He felt like it could double this year or more. So two or three years, you're talking about a billion-dollar company, a billion-dollar component of the company. With SAP's multiple five to $7 billion in market cap right there around HANA, and it could grow substantially higher than that. I think this is where success factors is really going to be interesting in how it can further help with this synergy. Because if Lars can bring together a team, and it looks like he's doing that, it looks like Samir Battelle is working directly under Lars, and Samir is the one I really respect, they're developing this real cloud-up mentality. And that is going to be really important if they are really going to move into really the forefront of technology innovation. They're partnering with Amazon Web Services. So how much do you know about Success Factor? So they pay 3.4 billion. And Success Factor, my understanding is it's relatively narrow around talent management. And SAP's got its own sort of core HR management that's two stovepipes. Now they got a challenge in bringing those things together. We saw how long it took Oracle with its Fusion apps, about six years to bring those apps. Now Oracle is a lot more complicated situation here. But what do you know about that? Do you have any intelligence or sense as to how that's going? Does it need to be integrated? SAP core HR doesn't have self-service, Success Factor does. It seems to me it was a cloud play essentially. Yeah, well let's start with the people first, with Lars in particular, and the impression that Lars has had on SAP internally. He is shaking things up. If you've seen Lars in action, he runs on the stage, he yells and he throws his fists in the air and he says, sales, sales, sales, sales, sales. And that's been a little bit disruptive to SAP with this conservative culture. Sounds like Caso. Yeah, well what that has allowed is to do, what that does, it provides some disruption in the company, but it also gives him kind of a foundation where he can work upon. I think it's interesting if you can look at SAP, if they can build a collaborative platform with social as a kind of a key component and integrate other apps like Streamworks into it. And they're starting to do that. For instance, Streamworks now has collaborative analytics integrated into it. And it'll then have HANA be able to push information into that as well. If you can start building that into the success factors environment, then you might have something pretty powerful. And if they can create that unifying underlayer, that will be helpful. But it's really complicated to understand and decipher what the actual SAP cloud strategy really is. Yeah, so you see that as more strategic. So you compare that to, for instance, what a workday is doing. I mean, they're just selling, right? I mean, it's a cloud app. They've got great mobile apps. The talent management and the mobile apps, it's all there. And they're selling today. Now, I thought the success factors isn't, but it's more narrow. Yeah, and that's where the cultural shift will be really critical because the issue that I'm hearing that SAP has right now is around how they treat developers, right? And the developer factor is critical here because they need to be able to just kind of push out technology so people can develop. And what they've done, in some respects, they started cannibalizing existing mobile technology. They developed that was developed under John Wookie, who left the company to go to SAP. And he had developed actually some really, really beautiful innovative applications. Sorry, John Wookie left to go to? To Salesforce, to Salesforce. And last week, it was just announced that he will be leading all mobile development at Salesforce.com. He did some really interesting stuff here at SAP. He developed kind of these on-demand apps that were looking really, really sharp. But he left, and still there's kind of this question about, okay, well, what is that direction with those mobile apps? How will they treat developers? Are they going to be able to create a platform that developers can work upon at a nominal cost to simplify the licensing? They can start to really get those things in shape. And they're making progress, so then I think you'll see some impact. So what are you looking for in the next couple of days, Alex? Well, tomorrow we'll hear about cloud, and I think we'll hear more how cloud will fit in with success factors. We'll also hear more about mobile, and I think we'll talk about that mobile app developer landscape. I think we'll hear more about how they fit with companies, and how they fit with Amazon Web Services. It was really interesting to hear in one of the sessions today that one of the mobile executives talk about Amazon Web Services, and he was like, rah, rah, rah, Amazon Web Services. And, you know, and you think about it, SAP is in kind of a good situation. You know, they can choose to go with Amazon Web Services. They can go with that, you know, kind of that very kind of lightweight kind of cloud environment, as opposed, you know, they're not a systems company, right? They're purely a software and services company. So I think we'll hear more about, you know, about the kind of advance in thinking. So, for instance, we compare that with sort of Oracle Strategy with the Oracle Public Cloud, on the whole thing. John, you were mentioning earlier Workday. Vishal Sika was sort of trashing Workday, talking about, you know, they're building their own. Well, I mean, he didn't know, and then all of a sudden he went on to elaborate on Object Store. I don't know what they're using. SAP Ventures and its custom database. So we kind of knew that. Yeah, so are you saying, Alex, that SAP Strategy is different? They're not going to try to own that whole cloud infrastructure. I believe that that seems to be the case. It's going to outsource that and focus on the application layer. And that might have some downside to it. So much different than Salesforce and Oracle and Workday and a lot of the other SaaS vendors. Is that right? I think, you know, I make a delineation between Oracle and SAP as an Oracle really is a systems company. They sell the hardware and the software. IBM sells the hardware and the software. Salesforce is they're still pretty much a pure app developer. And that really, I think, gives them some advantage. Now, you could say that actually, you know, they could be boxed out because, you know, companies like Oracle and IBM, they're really focusing on data center consolidation and they can control the enterprise that way. I'm not so sure. Yeah. I think they're trying to bank on innovation. And you know what, you know, and I think a good anecdote example of that is in how they've adopted iPads and mobile devices internally at SAP. I did an interview with Oliver Bruceman about a month or two ago. And they have more iPads being used internally with other mobile devices than any other company in the world except for one telecom company in Korea. Cool. I'm talking about Steve Jobs. What are you doing? Why? We're sports fans, right? What makes a great team? Well, they build internally, right? You have a good team internally. A good farm system. That's an encouragement here from SAP. Good. We're here at Sapphire now, 2012. We're in Orlando. We're here with Alex Williams and John Furrier. This is Dave Vellante of Wikibon.org. You know, now's a good time probably to mention. You got questions. A lot of this terminology might be new to you. Go to Wikibon.org. Go to siliconangle.com. Check out services angle. Check out DevOps angle or new site siliconangle.tv. These are resource. Everything we have on there is made available for free. You got questions. Hopefully we have answers. Tweet us. We have two sites you want to look at. DevOps angle for developers. And also services angle for more of the business. CIO and Alex works and contributes and manages the team to do those sites as well. Jeff Kelly and Wikibon. We're all over those areas. And we're excited to be at SAP Sapphire for the third straight year. Independent coverage and we would not be possible to bring our teams here and our engineers, Markers and Hopkins, Keyin and others. It wasn't for the generous underwriting support of SAP and EMC. Those guys have supported us for three years and allow us to expand our mission and our vision and I want to thank those guys.  Any things you're looking forward to tomorrow and tomorrow is going to be a packed day, eight hours. This is a sea level show and I love to talk to the customers who come on and hear about what they're doing. They really talk about their business challenges and how they're driving revenue and it's a different mindset. A lot of suits here at this event. Sometimes they're a little button down but it's serious business here and so looking forward to more of that action tomorrow. Alex, anything that you're looking forward to? Oh, I'm just excited to hear the keynote tomorrow. I especially want to hear what Lars has to say. I think that's going to be pretty entertaining. Okay, we'll have a wall-to-wall coverage. You're going to be seeing it on atsiliconangle.tv. This is the Cube, our flagship telecast. Again, we take our team and go into the hallways. We find the stories. If we can't have them here inside the Cube, we'll go out and get the top stories here at SAP Sapphire, Orlando. We'll see you tomorrow.


So why do you need a mailing list as an artist? Well, number one, you own it, right? You don't own social media and those platforms could shut down at any time. Number two, you really, really, really want to build trust and connection with your audience. And number three, hmm, you want to sell stuff, right? Surely that would be one of the main reasons for having a mailing list.


More often than not, you know, when we get a client or we get a brief or get a project, like, you know, we like to think that we're going to have all these assets and we're going to have all these things to work with, but sometimes you got to get scrappy. It's tweaking your brain to do a lot with a little. Like, you know, they just might mention this tiny detail about like their history of like, you know, maybe how their business got started.  What does that look like as a color? What does that look like, you know, as a shape? I chose to get a BFA in studio art. So I did painting and photography and sculpture and mixed media drawing everything under the sun really, even to this day, like I see it come through in my work from, you know, the beginning process to making these like physical brain dump collages where I feel like is a great start for anybody really just about stepping back and listening to the person and what they have to say. They're also going to offer you insight, you know, to things that you never would have thought of in the beginning. The host of our Made in America series, Scott Shigiyoka, I'm making a website for him and I've got a really awesome photo that Amber shot wondering if there's something that we can do it to give it a little more, a little more razzle dazzle. So this is the original shot. I think it's great. I love his body positioning. And then for the website, the color palette is definitely like the complete opposite of that, right? Like it's bright. It's in your face. It's just, it's everything that Scott embodies as a person. And I think he's going to love it. Yeah, I love all the color in that layout. It's amazing. But this, yeah, this photo is just kind of like, it's a little flat, but I wonder if you change the like shift the color on his shirt to something that has like a little more saturation and maybe like is like a color harmony to what you're doing. I think that would be pretty cool. What do you guys think of the orange? Yeah, I think that would fit nicely in your color palette. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Yeah, it's good. So sure. So, so to the point. I dig the orange. I think the orange might be our, might be our winner. Okay, you guys seriously thank you so much. I'd love to just hop back on in a few days and show you the finished piece and see how it turned out. Yeah, that's good. So my main thing about it that I wanted to convey through the type was this like swallow effect that you get when you're actually free-seeing down a mountain. And the issue that I'm running into is do you think that I could get away with doing the eye in chicks so that it kind of stacks better and it looks a bit more like aesthetically pleasing and it's more balanced? I just like to dive in like feet first and you know a lot of the time for me I'm just you know in my adobe programs like whether it's photoshop or illustrator and I'm just option dragging things and making like 80 bazillion different versions of something. I just wanted to show you the finished piece, make sure I was doing your work justice here. I did a little bit of this kind of like background fun manipulation too with it and everything just ended up coming together really seamlessly. I'm super excited to show Scott. It looks great. I like how it turned out. The color matches perfectly. All right you guys you're awesome. Thank you again so much for for doing this.


and you would be surprised my dear brothers and sisters how many times I ask young men on what you know I ask them they're single why don't you get married and usually the most common answer I get the most common excuse I tell them brother you know you should get married you're 20 21 22 23 I think this is the perfect age for marriage why don't you get married the most common answer that I usually get is what money say it I'm not financially capable I'm not well established financially yet and that's why he doesn't get married or sometimes you'll find the girl or her father they will reject the proposal of some brother because they're not fully established now what do they mean by fully established they mean he has to have a house he has to have a nice car he has to have anywhere from 50 to $100,000 in a savings account and the whole nine yards and he has to have a good occupation a good you know job occupation making at least 70 80 90 thousand dollars a year only then yes this person is ready for marriage so it's all about money money money wealth wealth that's all what matters in the marriage now here are two points about this brothers and sisters about this excuse number one you find that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the Quran he says that do not make money an obstacle money should not be an obstacle like I said the the leading factor of young men not getting married today is what is money it's because I'm not well established yet the Quran brothers and sisters says do not make money an obstacle Allah says any a corner of a car out you're gonna have a lot of fun if they are not doing so well they are in need Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will take care of them and you would be surprised not only this Islam Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala say that don't make money an obstacle but in fact our hadith indicates that amongst the actions that make you richer and wealthier and increase Allah sustenance and risk to you as marriage can you believe that it has the opposite effect you would think if I get married I'll have to now not only support myself support another person so I'll be worse financially Islam says no get married Allah will increase your rizq you see there are many Amal you could do special dua special Salat specials things to do so that Allah increases your rizq your sustenance amongst those actions is marriage I saw up to nine a hadith from the holy prophet and the imams all saying this in one hadith a man comes to Rasulullah he tells him ya Rasulullah I'm in need I'm not doing so well financially what is the Rasulullah tell him go get married this young man is surprised one hadith says he came the next day the third day Rasulullah tell him the same thing he would he thought Rasulullah wasn't getting what he was telling him so he objects to Rasulullah how would he mean get married he tells him get married the hadith says he got married and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala increases rizq Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala increases sustenance and he started to do better off now now this we read in the hadith and we read in the Quran but unfortunately we do not always trust this you know this fact how is it that if I get married and if I'm not well established yet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will increase my rizq I'll give you an example from today right now studies and statistics prove this point I don't know if if any of you have read about this but there is a term in economics called the marriage wage premium has anyone heard about that Google tonight writes three words marriage wage premium what is the marriage wage premium labor economists they say that a married man begins to make much more money than a single man as soon as he gets married he starts his his income starts to skyrocket how much more they say anywhere from 10% to 50% as soon as he gets married nothing changes same job same work the only thing that change is his status from single to married with that change of status his income increases his wage increases up to 50% and this is called the marriage wage premium and there are many studies performed by economists trying to understand why this phenomenon exists why why the married men make more than single they bring you two identical men they are the same age they have the same degree from the same college the same race the same background the same everything the only difference between them one is single the other is married the single man makes 50% more what does this prove to you and you go no fucker I you know them Allah from Allah and Subhan Allah they say those same man as soon as they get divorced once again their income falls down Subhan Allah as long as you're married there is a guarantee there is a push there's something that's helping you now is it because married men are more motivated than single man is it because they know that they have a spouse they have to provide for and thus they have a sense of responsibility and work harder there's many there's many you know theories about that but the point is then married men make more money than single man and this proves that point that we should not make money an obstacle Allah says it in the Quran we don't trust him but once we see an economist saying on this is when we say it's right we have more trust an economist than we have an Allah unfortunately so so brothers and sisters the holy Quran says do not make money an obstacle Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala will help them now of course we're not saying just go and you know sleep in your house Allah send them money no do what you have to do go to college get a degree go get a job but if you're not doing so well that shouldn't prevent you from getting married you're working you're trying to get there Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala will help He'll give you the push and help you so this is the first point do not make money an obstacle the second point that we have to keep in mind brothers and sisters is why is it that our marriages have to be so extravagant why is it that we have to spend so much on our marriages why is it that we have this perception that I have to be well established and then only then get married who said this is correct sometimes there are certain beliefs that we have that the Quran says ma'a anzara Allahu bihanum sultan Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala never taught us this we have this belief we have this idea that I shouldn't get married until I'm fully established where am I getting this from who said this is correct why can I rent the first few days the first few months why can I live in my parents basement why can I live in one room in my parents house if there is a private bathroom for it what's the problem with it why does it have to be a expensive car and a house and a you know nice job no before I got married I was living in a small room with a shared bathroom and she was living in a small room in a shared why is it that now we want to live together has to be so extravagant why what's the reasoning behind that what's the wisdom behind it yes it's good but if I can't why should that prevent me why can't we start simple living in one room sharing the same kitchen with my parents or her parents what's the problem with that is there anything haram with that is there anything wrong about that why is it that we have this perception that no I have to have my own big house or my own apartment and my own car and job and honey why were we getting this from do we follow a whole bait or we follow other people if I follow a little bit I'm a shea of a big they're telling me this is correct incorrect how many brothers I know when they got married they lived in a room there was a room a small room and a bathroom besides it and they lived in their parents house a few months after that a few years after that they were financially capable of renting or buying that's when they moved that what's the problem with how much marriage would be easier because of that brothers and sisters why can't we make our marriage is simple and then you have the weddings how much do we spend on weddings an average Australian you know how much they spend on a wedding just Google it thirty six thousand dollars do you know how many people they are discouraged of getting married just because they know they don't have thirty six thousand dollars who said I have to have a big lavish wedding why can I have a simple wedding that costs one two thousand dollars or even less why will that make me a better person will that take me closer to Allah if I spend more and more on weddings I remember I heard I'm sure you heard of about this a couple of years ago there was a I don't know if he was a Muslim but an Arab person here in Australia he spent some you know some number I can't even remember millions of dollars on his wedding it was the most lavish wedding of all time what was the number on a couple of hundreds of millions something like that I don't remember a billion one billion one million I spend one million dollars just on a wedding it's panel I go and see that person probably his divorce right now such a marriage that begins with such a you know lavish way of millions of dollars on a wedding do you expect it to last when it's just based on materialism money wealth it's not gonna last obviously I read in in the news a few maybe a year ago there's a couple in Turkey they get married they have saved I don't know twenty thirty thousand dollars for their wedding subhanAllah they make such a noble decision before the wedding do you know what they do they cancel their wedding they take that twenty thirty thousand dollars and they make a food drive for the refugees the Syrian refugees they were able to feed twenty thousand refugees instead of having a lavish wedding you see do you think that is better or having a lavish wedding they cancel the antenna lulbair hattatum faqum maa tahabu twenty thousand refugees were fed rather than having a wedding that you have two hundred three hundred people invited who said I have to have a lavish great wedding and thousands of people and spend thousands of dollars and run the biggest hole where are we getting our ideas from who's teaching us this if we are Muslim and we are followers of a little bait tell us this is wrong and subhanAllah studies as statistics prove the more you spend on your wedding the less your your marriage will last read about it there is a study by emory university in the u.s. it shows that those people that spent less on their weddings their marriages last much longer than those that spent more those that splurged the more you spend the more likely your marriage will not last the more simple your marriage your wedding is the more it will last but when I have a baby I'm a Salam tell us this unfortunately we say oh these are just hadith in the book we read them for Baraka for blessing when it comes to applying them implementing them in our lives we feel and at the end of the day I'm the one that will benefit from these a hadith and from these teachings of our weight they won't benefit why would they care if I followed their teachings or no their teachings are for me to benefit from brothers and sisters