I'm very pleased to be in Melbourne to join about 300 volunteers at the returned Australia Volunteer Network. Wonderful to see so many volunteers who have had marvellous experiences overseas, coming back, sharing their experiences and hopefully wanting to go off overseas again on some future posting. It's really good to have so many people coming here. I think we've always got about 300 people who have come to Melbourne to be part of this. Not only to share their experiences but also to workshop and to look at ways that potentially they can personally develop from their experience. The volunteer program started in 1952 and it started small but it's really grown. We've had about 13,000 people, 13,000 alumni from this program and that's absolutely fantastic. Most of our volunteers operate in the Indo-Pacific area, as one would expect. This is our region. This is where we operate most of our overseas development assistance and our volunteers come from right across the spectrum. They're professionals, they're technicians, they're teachers, they're doctors, you name it and we've got them because they're plugging into vitally important roles of providing technical assistance. They volunteer because they want to volunteer. They volunteer because they love what they're doing and that of course exudes not just confidence but warmth, understanding and very much results in building those vitally important people to people. Our volunteers are the face of Australia abroad. What we really would like is for people to come back home and tell their story. We want them to talk about their positive experiences, to encourage other people, to want to think about being a volunteer.


and welcome to Business in Hawaii. I am your host, Galen Yanagida. My guests and I are live from our home offices on Oahu Honolulu. Oahu Hawaii, sorry, if you want to tune in to any of Think Tech Hawaii shows live, we are at www.thinktechhawaii.com. And while there, please subscribe to our programs and get on our mailing list. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to share with you stories of local businesses by local people. Our guests share with us their expertise, trials and tribulations while building successful businesses right here at home. In the Think Tech studio today is executive director of the Society of Human Resource Management, Hawaii chapter, Karen Smith. Karen, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. How are you? How are things going? You know, it's been really, really good. I work out of my house anyway. I have a home office. And so for that, it's not been so unusual. But of course, we're all ready to get back and have a meeting in real life again. And you know, I think human resources professionals historically are known as people, people, that will get together and be able to rally a meeting or employees or what have you. So I'm sure, as I feel, that as human resources professionals, we're ready to see each other in person. Yeah, the group's been really great. Of course, everyone's embracing Zoom, right? Everyone's on the video calls. But they've even adopted some of those after hours where we would get together as a happy hour just to debrief and tell each other what's going on informally. So our board's been doing that, and we're reaching out to committees this couple of coming weeks to incorporate them as well. Very nice. Very nice. So Society of Human Resource Management, or SHRM, for short, tell me about the organization. SHRM is a trade association, basically, for HR professionals. They've been around, I don't know, probably 30 years in Hawaii in some way or another. And there's been lots of changes and incorporations. They've, you know, different things have happened. But basically, it's to support the industry so that we have true professionals, and we give ongoing continuing education, that sort of thing. So for our viewers who are not familiar with the field of human resources, tell us a little bit about what human resources does or what human resources professionals do. I guess, you know, it's different things to different people, but it really, they just take care of the people in the organization. And that starts before you even get hired. When you're recruiting, you're bringing in someone, you don't have anyone for the role, straight on through to making sure everyone gets their paychecks, they get their time off correctly, and when they leave the organization to make sure that they get those corporate benefits and everything that goes with coming the transition. So it's kind of a life to death in every organization. Wow, wow. So from recruiting and hiring and firing and all the good stuff in between. Yeah, exactly. It's just taking care of the people, which we all say, and I really do believe in any organization, if you don't have people, you don't, or any company, I guess, the people are the lifeblood, right? And there's so many of, well, I guess all of us for the most part use HR, right? I mean, like that's our experience. I was sharing with you a story previously. Can I tell that story? Yes, please do. I love that story. Oh, I know, I worked for this uber, uber wealthy woman one time and we would fly private jets to Naples and her family just had tons of money. And she was really a little lost. She didn't embrace the corporate, she liked the dress up of the corporate world, but she really didn't know how to plan her day or anything like that. She just really didn't have needs. And finally, it kind of got to be a stressor role entertaining her. So after about a year and a half, I went in and I sat down and I said, let's say her name was Julie. Julie, I have loved working with you and we've gotten a lot done with these different projects, but now that we're in this lull, we don't have a project. And I really feel like I need to go find a project and you need to find a project. And so, and I'm sweating.   Not paying any, she's like not responding.  So, you know, and I've already talked to them and I've been smoothed out. And I get to the end of my little prepared speech, terrified, she's gonna be, you know, freaked out and she says, I don't know him. I had not talked about a man at all. And probably at the end, she said, HR, I ain't never heard of him. And honey, haven't, but the rest of us know HR. We've all been, kind of like JR, I don't know him. You do that so well, I love that. Exactly. So it's just part of most of our world. You know, if we know, if we want to get a job, we've got to jump through those hoops to get through. So in the spirit of truth transparency, of course for our audience, I am an HR professional myself. And I, you know, it's such an unusual time.  I mean, and we've been, you know, we've been talking about that a lot community-wise. But HR professionals now are facing things that they might have never thought that they would be facing during their careers. Can you tell me a little bit about how that hits HR professionals and what have they been doing? I mean, is everyone silent? Are they vocal? Yeah, it's hit everyone a little bit differently. And it's very interesting. During those happy hours, I get to be a fly on a wall of all the different people sharing what's going on in their organizations. Some of them have sent everyone home, they're riding it out. Some of them send people home. They applied for the PPP loan. They got the loan. They've brought people back slowly. Then they have to figure out, you know, because you only get like eight weeks worth of pay.  Who do we terminate? It's been very confusing. Laws are confusing anyway. And you don't want me to tell you about them, but I do know that with the EIDL and the PPP, they've been kind of redefining them ongoing as they've happened. And so our professionals are really taxed with pivoting. I know we're all using that word pivot, right? But it's so true to think you have a plan and to put it in place. And then the law gets defined a different way that morning. And then you've gotta figure out what to do by the afternoon to be responsive to someone who is just trying to get a paycheck, just trying to pay the rent. So it's taking, and so many of them have been worried about taking care of their employees, which is so heartbreaking and sweet because they do care about them. Then there's other discussions about some people are paying their people to stay at home, right, just pay them straight out to stay at home. And then others are saying, well, we're doing everything we can to bring them in, give them work to do, but there's a liability to having people in the office and are we taking care, what's sanitation measures, those sorts of things that we have to worry about. So it's a completely mixed plate to use a white term. What's going on right now? So are the decision makers on what to do with that? Normally the HR professional in the organizations, are they making those decisions about, do we pay them to stay home? Do we bring them back under the PPP? Do, and then what happens to them after the eight weeks? So our HR professionals do know the law and so they are being looked to by the executives in the companies. Usually you would have a response manual. A lot of people like with active shooters, right? We had to scramble after the first of those happened and write those response manuals. But for the most part, I would hazard a guess that pandemic response manuals are few and far between in our Honolulu community, right? I just don't think a lot of people have, they might have small guidelines, but completely what's fleshed out. So yes, I think they're looking to our HR professionals as well as the business owners and their insurance agents and you're really having to pull from all resources. What are human resources professionals doing about their employees who are impacted directly with COVID as a health concern? The one, the employees that are in the workplace? The employees who actually are diagnosed with COVID are HR professionals chiming in on how they're managing that? So before coronavirus even hit, Sherm Boy had an amazing conference or talk on it. We've got that together in like a week. And yes, that was one of the things that was covered on how to handle some of the people, but for the most part, people that are diagnosed or being handled, like if they're coming in through the airlines or being hit by that quarantine. So the HR professionals don't have to address that directly, right? Or if they're going to the hospital, there are protocols in place already. So I don't think it's falling on the shoulders of our HR professionals, but definitely they need to be prepared as some people don't always follow guidelines that have been set out for them. So yes, and no. So interesting. Do you find that a lot of companies that are represented by your membership or by your board, whoever are having these conversations, were they prepared to move their workforce remote or perhaps their essential businesses and they're still operating under their specific location Sure. I can't speak to everyone, but from what I've seen, yes, they quickly pivoted, quickly moved their people off. There was a discussion at one of those happy hour meetings about how if you had tried to set protocol and if you had written a manual about how we would move online workers, remote workers out, what would need to be done, it would take six months to a year to get that approved. But there was no time. So that happened in two weeks in March. That's just that, you know, everyone had to be responsive. And I think I have not seen a business in Hawaii be interrupted for the most part that didn't have employees staffing, right? If you call a bank, you get an answer. If you call most companies, the phones are being answered, the services are being provided. So I feel like, yes, I feel like Hawaii's done a good job with that. There are just so many, so many things that I'm sure HR professionals are dealing with right now. And I have a ton of questions for you, but I also wanted to talk to you and ask you about the organization from a nonprofit standpoint and perhaps, you know, how are they impacted and what are some of the things that they are doing to address that. However, we need to go to a short break. So I'll ask you a few questions and we'll return. We are going to take that break now. This is Business in Hawaii. We'll see you back here shortly. Hello, Ha. I'm Lillian Kumi, host of Lillian's Vegan World, the show where we talk about veganism and the plant-based diet located in Honolulu, Hawaii. I'm a vegan chef and cooking instructor and I have lots of information to share with you about how awesome this plant-based diet is. So do tune in every second Thursday from 1 p.m. Aloha. Welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii. With me today is Executive Director of SHRM, Karen Smith. Welcome back, Karen. When we went to break, well, we were talking about a lot of things, but it's a very interesting time to understand what human resources professionals do. And the site of human resource management, or SHRM for short, the Hawaii chapter, is a membership group of human resources professionals. And I was so happy to hear that you folks are coming together and talking about the issues that you folks are dealing with. Is there anything that really stood out to you that just was so unusual? Unusual for the SHRM? For human resources folks, and with a normal conversation. I mean, yes, we're dealing with a pandemic and human resources professionals aren't... We didn't prepare for that, but is there anything that anybody just is absolutely unprepared to deal with or perhaps afraid of having to deal with? Of course, I think one thing that caught people off is with the different changes that came through with the government's funding, that additional $600 a week and unemployment is great for our people, but sometimes the hurdle to get people back to work. I shared with some people the other day, I have a friend in another state, she makes good money and her job offered her her job back at 75% pay, but she was making more on unemployment than to take that 75% pay back. Of course, she took her job back, but it is a little of a hesitation and so I know some of... I have other organizations, they're all business owners and they were saying when the issues hit the first couple of weeks, they were central businesses and even before they said the central businesses can stay in business, they were having trouble with their workers trying to convince them to come back because it seemed like a lot of people, not necessarily from anything other than maybe they wanted just to home with their children, maybe they were afraid for their health and with those additional funds, they could afford to. So there was that little blip that I didn't expect, I guess. So it sounds like human resources professionals are struggling with, of course, needing to bring their workforce back in order to receive forgiveness on, say, PPP loans and then, of course, consenting those workers to come back. That seems like a conundrum, right? I mean, you have the money to bring them back, you're obligated to bring back 100% of your workforce, but then they say no. Do we know what happens? Well, that's the beauty of people, right? Everyone can respond to things in the way that they, it makes sense to them and we don't always, we can't always predict and we don't always know, but we do want to support those individuals and make sure they feel safe and that their family is taking care of. That's the most important point of the employee's right because then if they have that security, then they can be better workers. What I love about our conversation today is that, well, I would love to speak with any business owner or human resources executive about what they've been experiencing and how it's different from their normal day-to-day. What I love about talking to you is, of course, that you are ear to the ground with many businesses and in fact, the other arm to that is that you're also managing a nonprofit and I'd love to hear about how as a nonprofit organization, you've been impacted and perhaps what things you had to do to, again, pivot on that. Right, so yes, actually I'm the president of the Aloha Society of Association Executives and that's all the nonprofits in the community that would belong to that group. So it's an association for associations and of course we're all looking at our budgets that we had, most of this had just approved them in January and then to be hit with this, we have to readdress. For SHIRM, one of our biggest expenses on that budget this year is a executive leadership program that we're trying to implement and coincidentally, it's exacerbated how important this program is. It's basically a cohort of HR professionals who want to take their leadership skills to the next level and nothing was borne out more than this pandemic who had skills and who didn't, who needed them, what companies needed them and what companies didn't have them. And so we hope that this program, we have three consultants who are coming in, it's not written, this is completely created for our organization. We hope to launch it the first of next year and we think it's gonna be a great program but too bad we didn't have it last year to provide for these people right now because they could definitely be using the resources for sure. Oh, but I think that just like you said, it sort of separated the HR professionals from the strong from the weak and where organizations may want to help their human resources professionals develop into those leaders that will be able to guide them through our next, well hopefully not anytime soon next disaster, pandemic, what have you, but I think the timing is perfect and very strategic. That's amazing. Yeah, we're excited. But just like I mentioned active shooting, there's always going to be something that's going to challenge just the nature of the business, right? And so that's why it's so vital to have someone in your organization looking out to make sure that you're protected. Some people think that HR is just writing paychecks and firing people and that could be furthest from the truth, right? So you also represent a number of nonprofits or a association of nonprofits and I know that quite frequently a lot of nonprofit major fundraisers happen probably around this prime of year. Have you seen many nonprofits having to change their plans and what do they do about their major fundraisers and has Sherm experienced something like that? Yeah, definitely. So our state conference committee is one of our largest fundraising events and it's one of our largest educational events every year that people are certified with their Sherm certifications that show that they have skills and they need to upgrade those certifications. Every year that's provided in October at our state conference. So we're planning for that and we've signed contracts and they all say a force majeure or a pandemic response in the contract. But you can't insure against fundraising. You can make sure you don't lose money but it's hard to get insurance that says I will get this money even if I don't have this event. And also for the education component we desperately really need to have that event. And so we're concurrently planning two events. We're planning our live event like we always have and we're planning a pivot of a virtual event. There's a lot of organizations that had to immediately jump on the virtual bandwagon and they've had amazing success. People have really enjoyed what it could be and they're evolving that but there's a limited number of companies that support that in the US and a lot of them are getting sold out. So it'll be a challenge. You know what? We've got a question from a viewer. Okay. This is our lucky day. Okay, so it says although the legislature is not in session right now what legislative HR and workplace changes would you want them to act when they come back? That is a very good question. I am new to SHIRM and new to working with their legislative committee. So I'm not sure, I hesitate to answer that question. So sorry, just because I'm not quite certain. Yeah, an excellent question. Sorry. You know, if I may I think that a couple of things are gonna come back like they always do.  And it comes back in different forms and then in its development, you know, through the legislative process it runs out of time and so they carry it over to next year. So I think that's always something that's gonna come back and I think it may come back a little stronger now especially since we might see some of our workforce with ex extenuating illnesses from perhaps even, you know, COVID related illnesses even into the next year.  And then of course we have FFCRA which expires in December. But I imagine that employers are going to be very motivated to have something permanent written into these laws that would already be in place so that they, some employers know what to expect and what their obligations are gonna be. But you're right. That was a really, a really great question. Karen, I could talk to you forever because I know you do just a ton of things and the great work that Sherm does. But I'd love for people to know how to get in touch with you, how to find out more about Sherm. Can you tell everybody how to find you or how to find Sherm? Yes, for sure. So go to our website, ShermHawai.org is probably the best place but we're also on Twitter, I think ShermHawai50 and then LinkedIn, ShermHawai and Facebook, ShermHawai and Instagram, ShermHawai. Fantastic. And one more plug for a Sherm State Conference. Can you give us some details on that? It's gonna be... Wow. So the conference has not, they've not disclosed. We have an amazing keynote and we have an amazing special guest this year. So really two things that I can't say just yet. They haven't put it out, but it's exciting. Yeah, I know, right? I don't wanna mess up the marketing plan. It's October, and if we're live and in person, it'll be back with the convention center. I'm so excited to hear more about that and I'm sure that everyone will be delighted with your new website that you put in so much work too. So thank you very much. Again, thank you so much for joining me today. I wanted to thank the production staff back in the studio. If you want to be a guest on the Business and Hawaii Show, please email your request or like on the bottom of the screen. The Business and Hawaii Show airs every other Thursday and we look forward to seeing you here in a couple of weeks. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for hosting, Daylin.


Welcome to In The Studio, I'm Maria Contreras-Tabbit and my guest today is Rob Davis, the Mayor of Davis. How did that happen? Good question. Well, I'm so happy to have you here with us today. Good to be here. Because you are my inspiration. Several years ago I read an article on the front page of the Davis Enterprise. Do you have any recollection as to how many years it's been? 14. So it was more than a few years ago. Yeah, 2003 I think it was. And it was all about you and your family and the topic was? Well we had decided to sell our car and go car free and some folks at the newspaper thought that would make an interesting story since we were a family of four living in Davis. With no car? Right. We got rid of our car, we had one and we got rid of it and we decided to use our bikes and our feet to get around town and so there was interest in understanding how we did that, what that meant, why we did it, questions like that. Why did you do it? Most people would think you'd be crazy to give up your car. Yeah, yeah people still do I guess to some extent. I think there were a few things. One is when we moved here from the East Coast we realized that we were using our car less and less. But we were also as a family kind of discussing ways to simplify our lives. The pace of life was just frenetic. We had an adolescent teenager and it seems like we were running off in all directions all the time and so we were having discussions about how to simplify things in general. And we started seeing the car kind of as the great enabler of all that busyness and so we started experimenting with using it less and less over the course of a month and then at one point we realized that we weren't really missing it, that we had made a transition away from needing it and so we just decided to go the rest of the way and get rid of it. Wow, I'm impressed and the article really impressed me and it's impressed me that you've done this for so long and so many of your family members went along with this change in lifestyle. I know it made a big impression on me in that we decided to go car light or divorce the car part time and again less and less by keeping one of two cars covered that car got used less and less and at a certain point it needed an expensive repair and it was the perfect time to decide to let it go. And it is nice for people to realize that they have the option, they don't have to go total abstinence, they can work in a car if they want to or even just decide to use the vehicle less by maybe batching their errands and outings or changing a car free day. That's how it started for us and then of course we we had to make a transition in terms of you know the big question people always have is well how do you do shopping? And that was an issue we had to deal with. We looked in and experimented with a variety of ways of moving ourselves and our goods across the city and we were able to learn over time what worked best for us and of course the technologies changed so much now that we're even doing it differently today than we did it then. But it is possible to carry quite a bit of stuff on a bike efficiently, especially here given the weather, it's flat, the distances are not great. And so it's doable and it didn't even take a lot of research or time to figure out the best ways for us to do that. I think one of the benefits that I found is time that I would have used in addition to a busy day spent on exercising, I could eliminate. There was no more need to have to spend any time exercising. I had enough of that built into just my day to day getting from one place to another. And I also found that it enabled me to say no to overextending myself because you have to factor in that time that maybe it's going to take you a little bit longer. But I understand that statistically that it takes the same amount of time or sometimes less to use a bike in trips that are six miles or under to use a bicycle than to drive. And think about that when you're out there looking for a parking space or having to stop at the gas station first and that sort of thing. So I think that's true. I think it simplifies a lot of areas of life. I mean, until you do it and actually you're in a situation where you don't have to think about caring for a car, because cars do take a lot of care, there's a lot more simplification than when one might realize. Oh, yeah. Average cost of operating a vehicle is $10,000 a year and those are AAA statistics. So Rob, you've done this great job of making yourself a living role model to other people. We didn't set out to do that. R-O-L-L, R-O-L-L. If you were to envision Davis in the future, what would that look like to you transportation-wise? Well, I think people want choices. And I think there are many choices. And I think one of the things that we're finding is that with e-bikes, electronic bikes, with the bike technologies, the extended frame bikes that are now available and have been for some time at an affordable cost with the different trailers, that really, people have a lot of choices about moving themselves on bikes even as they age. And so one of the things that I am really happy to see is that at sort of both ends of the life cycle, young kids, people with young families who can put their kids and their goods on a bike, and then older folks who maybe have some mobility issues but can still move around because of electric assistance, straight electronic bicycles, I'd like to see people using all of those things even more. I mean, there's been a huge change in the years since we did this. I see many more people with two or three kids on an extended bike, even babies, not just in trailers anymore, but actually with parents or guardians on the bike, it changes the whole dynamic of the relationship. Because no longer is a child behind you in a trailer. They're with you. You're engaging in conversation with them as you move across the space. No longer is the choice between having to get a bike with varying gears. Now you can have an electric assist bike. And so really, I think in addition to hoping people would walk more, I think just availing themselves of what's there now, currently in the market, much less expensive than a car. And you throw in a little bit of quality rain gear. I mean, it was raining when I left the house this morning. It was raining heavily. I arrived at my office dry. I've gone to meetings where people who arrived in cars would arrive wet and I would arrive dry. Because again, we think about the technology we need to keep ourselves dry. And so those things, there's very little adjustment to a lifestyle that's necessary to go that direction. And that would be my vision is that more people would try it. For reasons you said too, I think the health factor, I just think it's a very low impact aerobic exercise. And there's no doubt that it enables people. I think there's been research done on people with Parkinson's that getting on a bike enables people even who are in declining health to maintain balance, to maintain a healthy lifestyle. And I think the advantages haven't even been fully enumerated yet. And as you mentioned, healthy lifestyle, for me, I know that one of the most important things that lead to a healthy lifestyle are connection to people in the community. And when we're on our bikes and we make eye contact, there's physiologically a spark that happens that keeps us going. And it makes our community safer. And it harks back to when my family first moved to Davis, which was back in 1960. And of course, when you went down the street, you would expect to see somebody you know, and you would make eye contact with them and say, good morning, or wave at them. And I love that particular aspect of being out there. You must get that a lot as mayor of our community. I mean, it is a great way to meet people. It's a great place to have meetings with people. It's a great way to spend an afternoon with a friend who you need to catch up with. These are ways that we can get together and solve problems together. I know it sounds maybe a little corny, but I do a lot of meetings on bike. I meet people. I show people our city. I'm able to get out and express a lot of the vision that I have for the city by riding around with people, hearing what they want me to see and talk about while we're together on a bike. And I think the physical spaces that are created by an automobile, the barriers that are created, obviously make that very, very difficult unless you're in the car with someone, whereas being side by side or together biking through a city like Davis is actually a very pleasant experience where we can have a lot of engagement. You've led some of those. I mean, I've built relationships with people by going out on rides with them and having those conversations. Yeah, I think exploring a way of being together in these spaces as we're moving across them is something that more of us should have an opportunity to do. I've also read statistics that show that communities where more people ride bikes have lower crime rates because our eyes are on the street. People see us. We recognize people. We recognize who belongs in the neighborhood. Maybe somebody's new. We might stop, say hello and that sort of thing. So I love just the fact that we make these connections when we're out there seeing each other. And I know of myself as a bike rider on most days in Davis, I assign a couple days a week when I know I have to use my car maybe to do some things I can't do on the bike or choose not to do, that I always see people I know that I don't feel that sense of road rage that I feel when I have that anxiety from being at an intersection that's piling up and maybe it's rush hour traffic and somebody did something they weren't supposed to do. I never have that feeling of road rage when I'm on my bike. I feel connected to everything that's going on around me. You can hear things, smell things. It's just a totally different experience. Well, whenever I did a speech for the incoming Hall of Fame inductees last year and it was about 300 people in the room and I just asked people to call out when I'm on a bike, I feel. And words like joy and freedom and I feel like a child and I feel young and I feel happy, words that really express that sense of freedom of just kind of a lost joy that we have as kids of autonomy. Remember that first time you got on your bike and you were able to ride without your parents? People rediscover that when they're on a bike and I think after you've done it for a while you kind of take that for granted but it is part of an overall healthy community where we're also giving ourselves time to move out of the constraints of technology and be able to just be out in the air, out in the sunshine, even out in the rain in a childlike way. Those are things that make us all healthier in addition to the social elements that we were talking about earlier. And I particularly appreciate the fact that I don't think I've ever seen you riding your bike out there with headphones on or using your cell phone. Well, then maybe you haven't seen me. I don't ride with headphones. I just don't see the point. I don't run with headphones either. There are times when my phone rings and I have to take a call, but I'll usually stop. Pull over, thanks. I don't text while I ride. That's the good way to be a good role model. So in the future, people that come to our community, thousands of new people come to our community every year, whether they be students or staff or just new residents because it's a wonderful place to live. What would you do to encourage people to get into the lifestyle? Because it's not as easy as just walking into a bike shop and buying a bike. I think there's a lot more to it. Yeah, I don't know if there's a whole lot more to it. I mean, I think it is to look at your routine and ask people who have been here for a while what would be the best, safest, quickest way to get between here and where I typically go on a bike. If you talk to local folks, I guarantee you they will help you develop a route that will be low stress between pretty much any two points in the city. Low stress, fairly quiet, fun, relatively few crossings of major arterials. Talk to us. We have a city booth at the farmer's market once a month and I really enjoy it when new folks come and say I just arrived in Davis, I live here, I need to go here. How do I do that? And I can get out a map and I can show them a route that will work for them. And there are a lot of people that are moving across this town that love sharing their experiences of the best way to go from point A to point B or point A, B, N, C. And then from there it's just discovery. Once you do it, once you have that way that you know and feel confident in, then you begin experimenting. And after a while, exploring the city and figuring out ways to get from different places to different places becomes almost like a game and it can become a very enjoyable thing. Even things that we used to talk to our kids about I bet I can get here faster than you can by going this route and we'd have rules that we would use to make sure that everybody wasn't pedaling as hard as we could. But it became a way just to say, how do we think about our city? How do you view it differently if you're on foot, if you're on a bike or if you're in a wheelchair? And I think it behooves all of us to understand how people experience movement in this space because this is our home, this is where we live and we do need to move through it. That's right, streets are for everyone. And not just for cars, not just for bikes, all of us. Everybody needs to get to food. Everybody needs to get to school or to work. So thank you for joining me. The bike campaign is looking forward to coming out with a new transportation guide and bike map that will make it easier for everyone. We're looking forward to having this posted on the city of Davis website to make it even easier for you to get around. Thank you for joining me today here at In The Studio.


But this weekend, Joe Biden signed a bill that provides $40.1 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine. The Senate passed it on Thursday and the House passed it a week before this flew through so fast you would think the United States was under attack. But we have watched over the last three months U.S. hearts and minds being driven upside down into thinking weapons is an answer and brings us to peace. I remember the day the Iraq war resolution went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of which Biden was chair. And instead of doing his job and saying no to Bush's lies, Biden said we need to bomb Iraq to peace. I count out you can't bomb anything to peace and was arrested. So lessons were learned and there are no lessons learned in the last 20 years and I see Janine's joined us. Janine, I'm just welcoming everybody and giving a little context, thanks for joining us. So, but 21 trillion of taxpayer dollars has been wasted. We see yet again the media driving a frenzy to war using the same playbook as the past where the people were fooled and later told the truth. But those lessons don't stick. So as I said earlier, we sent out an alert this week for our community to ask the media to quit calling for more war and instead plans for peace. And Lola will keep posting that link. If you haven't signed it, please do. The media has weaponized our compassion and empathy. So the weapons companies and their investors can make more money. The U.S. once had 25% of global GDP and now it has 16%. So it's only remaining power is militarism and it is using it with our tax dollars to bring us to the brink of a nuclear war, not just with Russia, but their real goal is China. So I'm thrilled to dive into how this happens with Janine today. Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy and Reporting and the host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show, Counterspin. It's a weekly program of media criticism airing on more than 150 stations around the country. You can also read her articles. It's a lawn and common dreams and truth out in so many other places. She was also a contributor to Code Pink's Iraq Tribunal on the lies and costs of the Iraq War and wrote an essay for our book, Stop the Next War Now. In it, to stop the next war, she talked about how Bush took the nation's grief and anger and turned it into the support of an illegal immoral war. And here we go again. Welcome, Janine. Yeah, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure and in some ways my sorrow to be here in conversation with you again. You can hear me, I'm assuming, based on what I've said. Yeah. I just want to say you're one of my heroes.  And can we just start? Not on air. No, we just start by you telling us how you got called to do this work and how given the contortion of the media that seemed to just get worse by the year, you stay so fierce and inspiring in your work. Well, thank you very much. I very much appreciate that because I don't feel fierce every day. And it has been 30 years or so that I've been doing this work. And sometimes people say, you are trying to improve corporate news media and the way that they represent human beings and debate in this country. And so you're obviously failing, right? And the truth is if we woke up every day and judged ourselves at fair and our work by whether the New York Times was doing a better job being genuinely a force for democracy and free speech and a free flow of information, genuinely representing the public's view on critical information and stories like war, well, then we would think we were failures, right? But fair has always seen ourselves as a public education effort as much as a media criticism effort. And I do believe and it's maybe what I need to tell myself but it's also what I do believe is true is that in 2022 as compared to 1986 when fair started, we do have many, many, many more people recognizing the influence that corporate media have on their brains and their hearts and their understanding of political possibility. And we have more people who are unafraid to just straight up disagree with that narrative. Even though it is so hegemonic and so everywhere, we have, I think, many, many more people who say, yeah, I know it was in the paper, I still know it's not true. And what's more, I have other sources that I can look to to give me a counter narrative to explain the world to me in a different way. And I like to think that fair and counterspin have had something to do with encouraging people to ask those questions and to feel dissatisfied with the news media that they're getting. And then the other piece of it has been to redirect people to other sources of information. So if our point is to make the New York Times better, well, all right, but if our point is to encourage more and more people around the world to speak above and around and without corporate news media and to understand the influence that those media have in sort of co-opting our thinking. Well, then in that case, I think that we have come some way since 1986 and even from the Iraq War when we last talked, even though Gali, it's a disheartening time, absolutely. Well, thank you for starting us off with that optimism because I do agree with you and that's why you are one of my heroes is that in the face of, we say we can't inward till we end the war economy and you can't change the media until you change the war economy because they're just serving it. That's right. But what we can do is pull people away from being used by it. And you've really done an excellent job of that and you're a great teacher around that which I'm gonna bring up some of the teachings you talked about in the book of like how we do that. But so let's just, yes, more people know, but let's just look at the media a little bit about how is the media the same or different in this drive to war on Russia and China than it was with Iraq? Has anything changed? Well, what's interesting is that while on the surface things have changed, the message hasn't changed. So if for example, the question is exceptionalism, is US exceptionalism and the kind of us versus them framing that is really one of the main primary. And if anyone just takes anything away from this today in terms of what should I be looking for when I read corporate news media, it's that us versus them framing that I think you should look out for. The idea that there's an us and that is defined by geopolitical boundaries and that there is a them and that not only are they defined by geopolitical boundaries, there is also an implied moral distinction. We are good and whatever we do, how many other people at harms, it's in service of good. They are bad and they intend harm and whatever they do, it's in the service of harm. And I say that and it sounds very crude, but the truth is it's that crude. And when you look at news media coverage, whether it's on TV or in the paper, that's the question you should always be asking yourself, who are they presuming is an us and who are they presuming is a them? And if we take away anything else, it is that we should always be in our brains reframing to find a different us, which is human beings, everywhere around the world, who are affected by war, who are outside of power, who are just trying to live, who are not driven by hatred. And there's a them, which is the governments in the main that want to profit both politically and materially from making us fight one another. So to the extent that we can bring a framework to every news media outlet and story that we read that says, I assume that killing people is bad and that is the last thing that I would want to do. And so what is the argument that I'm being given here that is driving me to want to do this worst possible thing and who are they telling me is threatening me and who are they telling me I should identify with? And I think just asking those questions every time is always gonna be an appropriate first response. So that kind of US exceptionalism, when we do it, it's different. We're seeing that a lot and we're seeing it in particular with Russia and Ukraine and just one example that I'll give and I know folks will have other ones has to do with weapons, for example, has to do with, in this case, cluster bombs. We had NBC, this is February of this year, talking about Russia committing war crimes in Ukraine and saying that they seem to be using cluster bombs. And then they quote someone from Human Rights Watch saying, we think cluster munitions should never be used at all. So they cite a human rights expert as though they value that human rights expert and their expertise. And then the NBC correspondent goes on to say, yes, cluster munitions are banned by 110 countries, though not by Russia or the US. So they acknowledge, but then immediately that's followed by still the US hasn't used them since the first Gulf War over 30 years ago. They're used by the Russians in Ukraine, another sign of this war's growing savagery. So that's doing a lot of work there, right? That comment, you're just home watching TV. That comment's doing a lot of work. First of all, it's false, just straight up false. The US has dropped cluster bombs on Bosnia in 95, on Afghanistan in 2001 and two, and Iraq in 2003, you know, in Yemen in 2009, it's just false, right? But about the use of cluster munitions by the US. But moreover, the US has refused to join, has refused to sign the convention on cluster munitions that would ban their use, their use, their production, their transpire or their transfer or their stockpiling, right? So when NBC says these weapons are particularly savage, savage is an interesting word. Russia is savage for using these weapons. The US, oh yes, the US did use them, but we figured out that it was wrong until we stopped using them and all of that is false. Well, that's doing a whole lot of storytelling, right? That's doing a whole lot of storytelling about who is a savage, about who's using weapons, about who has agreed that certain weapons are unacceptable. And it's both false and misleading. And one thing that I would note is that when you call media out on this as fair does, you know, back in 2015, we had to write to the New York Times and say, you were pretending as they were that the US was following the provisions of the convention on cluster munitions and they wrote a correction because they knew it was false, right? But as everyone listening knows, fewer people read the correction than read the original story. So you have this narrative that says that we, whatever we do are in service of peace. Whatever war mongering we do is in service of ending war, whereas whoever else it is, in this case, Russia, they are simply trying to continue war because in this case, they are savages. And the other thing that I would note that also affects this is debate. Who gets to speak? And we talk about this all the time. Who are the sources? Who gets to come on the nightly news? And here is where we see, and folks can go to fair.org and look up the latest with regard to Russia, Ukraine, with regard to various stories. But what we find even up to today is that we are still overloaded with former military, current military, pentagons, weapons manufacturers, representatives, people who are former generals who are now on the boards of weapons manufacturers, but that may not be disclosed. And so we still have a conversation about the potential for war that is shaped overwhelmingly by people who profit from war. And it sounds crude, it sounds simple, but when you watch the debate, it sounds like it's nuanced. It sounds like they're having a complicated conversation about history and diplomacy and what needs to happen. But what we as viewers need to understand is that in fact, in many cases, the majority of the participants in those mainstream news media debates are people who have a vested interest, who literally make money from war continuing, from the sales of weapons and from an overriding sense that war is the answer to whatever fear or anger that we have. So I will say again, there's details, there's subtlety, but overall the message is just as deep and crude as that. And it's about news media with the debate that they curate and who they allow to speak, telling us overwhelmingly that there is no other solution for any problem that is presented geopolitically than killing, than war. And diplomacy is weakness. And we have to have other spaces and grow other spaces to have the other kinds of conversations that we obviously and clearly need to have. Well, in the piece that SAU wrote for Stop the Next War now, and also the part of the debate you talked about was I think you said there were like 383 papers that were pro-war and only three that were going against it. I wonder if there is even one major mainstream media outlet that's speaking out against why this isn't working and why we not even calling for diplomacy. I don't know, have you seen one? You know, I couldn't tell you frankly of an outlet that has editorially suggested that there is another response apart from a military response. And let's just add Jodi that, you know, when we're talking about violent responses, sanctions are part of that. You know, when media present economic sanctions as an alternative to a violent intervention and what their meaning is blocking all food and medicine and needed supplies to people, we shouldn't get that twisted either. You know, I think we can ask ourselves straightforwardly, are we talking about harming the civilians of another sovereign country in the world? And what is our pretense for doing that? And the idea that the choice is between a violent military intervention or supplying or helping another country's violent military intervention or simply denying needed supplies to the civilians of that country, let's not be confused that those things have different wildly different impacts. Obviously, you know, there is difference there, but at the same time that the bottom line questions are the same. Why are we as United States citizens being told that it is up to us to harm human beings like us in another country in order to force them to have a different leadership? It's just, it's a bottom line question that we have to be countering and that corporate media get up every day, every day, every day and encourage us not to question. Well, and then we question why things like Buffalo happen when we say violence and murder is the only answer. It trickles down into other people's hearts and minds to be used also. It's the modeling from the top that trickles down. But, you know, another thing you said in your essay was that facts were important. And I wonder, you know, what do you think would be different if the media would have covered Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and the US drone strikes in the same way they have covered the war in Ukraine? Well, it's an interesting question. We have found, for example, that in the Iraq war, there was very little interest in civilian casualties, in Iraqi civilian casualties. Whereas in Russia's war on Ukraine, there has been a laudable and tremendous interest in Ukrainian civilian casualties. And there has been a tremendous amount of focus on civilians who are caught up in the war, you know? And one of the things that Julie Holler from FAIR found was that when we were talking about the first week of the Iraq war and Nightly News was mentioning civilian casualties, they were not talking about civilian casualties. They were mostly talking about military casualties and they weren't talking to civilians about that, you know? Also, they weren't talking about the US as being responsible for those civilian casualties. So when they covered Iraqi civilian casualties, the idea was these people have been killed by either war, you know, or by other Iraqis. When we look at Ukraine coverage, Russia is named as the perpetrator in every single one of the 28 mentions of civilian casualties that we saw looking at the early coverage of the war. So would it have made a difference if US media had connected US military to all of the civilian casualties in Iraq?  I do believe that people are influenced by human beings they see on the news, human beings who are being harmed and they wanna know who's harming them, you know? But at the same time, you know, you had US media saying specifically in the Iraq war, yeah, you can show Iraqi civilians, but make sure that every time you show them, you point out that they're kind of to blame for it, you know, and the same with Afghanistan. Every time you show Afghan civilians being harmed, make sure you make it clear that things would be worse. So I don't know. Well, I mean, we have a journalist, we have a journalist in prison for exposing what happened in Iraq.  And that was because of a whistleblower. Absolutely, absolutely.  And this is why fair doesn't say news media never reported on civilian casualty here. News media always said that casual leagues were, we don't do never and always because you can always find a counter example. You can always find one story that did a great job, that did a complicated job or a nuanced job. We're talking about, what do you see on the front page? What do you see when you turn on the TV, the nightly news and what is the framing of that story? And I think, I don't think anyone who is a regular news consumer would deny that there is a difference between the way that the Iraq war perpetrated by the United States was covered in terms of civilians aren't being hurt, weapons are all, you know, very careful and directed and not hurting civilians. And the way we're covering Russia and Ukraine where isn't it terrible civilians are being harmed? Russia is obviously, you know, violent and savage because of what they're doing evidenced by what they're doing, we can see that this framing is different. And I think it's a question of how grown up do we wanna be as US people? Do we genuinely think that everything the US does is good and everything any other country does is bad? Like is that the story that we need news media to tell us or can we actually handle reality and make difficult political decisions about what we wanna do as citizens living in a country that is an imperialist violent country that does many, many things that we disagree with. Yeah. Well, so, you know, a disservice, like do you think the media has made US citizens stupider? I mean, when you don't get to see the truth, like I say, if you didn't get to see what happened when your country was bombing and maiming and, you know, if you don't get to see the results of sanctions as people are starving to death in Iran and Venezuela and Cuba and you don't, I mean, are you not really made unintelligent by the media?  There's a film out that shows how the Chinese have taken everyone out of poverty was produced by PBS and now is being censored because it makes Beijing look too good right when the US wants Beijing to look bad. What have you seen a change and how easy it is to affect US citizenry through mainstream media? Or do you find that it's just always been pretty much the same? I guess what I would say, going back to kind of where we started, if anything, corporate media, I believe have become have doubled down on their weird, you know, centrism, uber-alice, pro-military, like the New York Times is, I just don't, I don't think corporate news media are getting better. And by that I mean, I judge media by whether they are rising to the occasion. And we are in a very, very, very, very, very, very, very particularly difficult occasion in terms of attacks on democracy. And so what I see is corporate news media failing, big time, hugely to respond to the attacks on free speech, the attacks on democracy and the attacks on the free flow of information. That's just a major failure. At the same time, if I'm looking at the big picture, I do see more independent media, more other news media that you can even be pointed to from stories in corporate news media, you know, they're not a monolith, they're great reporters, but there's never been a substitute for informing yourself independently as a citizen. So it's difficult for me to say whether corporate news media have gotten better or worse because the situation, the landscape has changed a tremendous amount. Certainly I feel that they are, I feel they're doing worse because I feel that there are more is being asked of them and they're failing bigger and more impactfully, you know. At the same time, you can go out there and you can find other sources of information and the truth is you always needed to do that. The truth is there was never a time when you could read The New York Times and imagine that you got the whole story of the world. There was never a time when you could watch Walter Cronkite, you know, God bless and imagine that you got an understanding, you know, of what was happening in the world and the US's role in it. That was not the case. So is it more fractured now? Do you have to work harder as a news consumer? Absolutely. Are the news media that are harming us more powerful, more concentrated? That's also true. So we have to work at a number of levels, the policy level to break up the big dominant media to fund and support independent media.  We have to talk around and without news media right now, right now. And we really have to decode and deconstruct and not believe the narratives and the stories and sometimes even the information that we are getting from those big media. So there's a question from Avatar Drake Decker, I think. She asks, like, what are some of the hardest challenges that we're facing today in journalism? And do you recommend any resources to learn or groups to volunteer to in order to make a positive impact? You know, I guess what I would say is that I do think there's a lot of energy and newness at local media at that level. I was very excited by a project that sort of started at FreePress, but it's not really a FreePress project. It's the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium and it's about using public dollars to fund hyper-local media. And not only do I think that that's a place where there's an absence of information and where that information is immediately usable by people, I also think it's a space for young journalists who wanna start working and doing stories that immediately have an impact in their community. You know, I really do believe in local media as a way to start talking to one another, as a way to continue talking to one another and to grow journalists, you know, and start them speaking truth to power. Well, that's good that you have a lot of hope in journalism because sometimes we look at it and we that we're not sure journalism even happens very, it's so rare sometimes. You know, it's gotta be where you look. And honestly, focusing on local journalism has been a tremendous source of hope for me. You know, honestly, if it was about every day waking up and reading the New York Freakin' Times, you know, it would be a different kind of disheartening. But I think a lot of folks have learned that a lot of big media simply don't speak for or to them. And they are finding and creating other outlets. And I think we shouldn't overlook that. It can be super, super meaningful. And as we learned with social media, big media will just look to you to start, this is why every other story in your mainstream Newdy outlet is something they saw on Twitter, right? Because they are looking for other sources of news and of resources. So grow it wherever you are and let them come to us. Yes, cultivate your local peace economy. It starts at home. So yes, I think that, you know, we'll respond to everyone who RSVP'd for this with tools to do a letter to your editor in your local newspaper. Thank you for that. Yes, Janine. Absolutely, and folks can ask me. I'm J. Jackson at fair.org. You have questions or thoughts or things that we can weigh in on. And I'm super happy to respond to folks. Well, so I have a question now from Steve Roddy. Stephen Roddy who says, thank you so much, Janine. You've definitely educated me all these years, one of the most insidious aspects of our media system is how it is able to smear Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Venezuelan sources as so-called state-sponsored, which therefore it's so fact it was 100% propaganda. And then to denigrate those countries' population as, you know, benighted when they support their governments. Yet in fact, many, even perhaps most people in those countries are often much better informed than we are and that their media are often full of excellent balanced reporting that we should be paying attention to in order to understand the world. In other worlds, how do we encourage international media literacy, especially now that so much of it is accessible in English? Well, I just encourage it, straight up encourage it. And Venezuela is an excellent example. I remember a guest from Venezuela visiting the fair office 15 years ago and talking, and I'm sure it's different now, but talking about the Venezuelan media landscape that was, yes, a lot of it was private and a lot of it was state-sponsored. And then there were some spaces that were designated for civic organizations, for religious organizations, for labor organizations. In other words, there was a conscious idea of trying to have a diverse landscape of media in terms of ownership, right? So I think that, but when I would travel to South America and say, we think it's great that your state sponsors media, they would say, oh no, state-sponsored media is bad, right? You want private sources because private is more free. And I was like, yeah, give it 30 years and we'll talk about how corporate commercial sponsorship is more free than state sponsorship. Obviously it's contextual. Obviously it's different in different situations, but I do think the idea of talking about a mixed landscape of ownership. First of all, recognizing that structure, ownership structure does determine content. The idea isn't that content we're gonna demand that it'd be smart or it'd be clever. It has to do with who signs the checks. It has to do with who is this outlet accountable to. So we do need to recognize the importance of structure and then think about having a landscape of differently structured media outlets. It's something to talk about. Back to US exceptionalism, we can only ever do it the way that we do it in this country. Well, no, actually you can look outside our borders and see the way that other countries do it and some, maybe you like it, maybe you don't but there are other models. There are other models that we can look to and we should look to because we are not a fixed thing. We are a country in motion. We are a society that's aspiring to democracy. We are not there. And so we should be open to trying different kinds of models and different kinds of communities and different kind of structures as we get to the kind of place that we wanna live in. Thank you, yes. And I think the structure piece of knowing the goal of the structure itself. So the goals of the structure even of the United States that serve the rich and seem to serve the militarism. But here's a question from Christopher. He says, when criticizing or deconstructing the media, how can we avoid feeding or being perceived as aligned with the ultra-rights stop the steel fake news narratives? Well, you know, content in your conversation, you know, once you get past slogans, it gets less difficult to delineate what you're actually for. I can guarantee you that when you talk about your issues with news media being corporate ownership and sponsorship and a relative absence or marginalization of public interest voices, you will lose a whole lot of folks and you will immediately be in a deeper conversation. So the truth is, it is difficult to have real conversations with real people about real work.  But when you're actually talking to a person and they're like, well, how is that different from the right wing saying this, that or the other, you're in conversation and your answers and your responses come from the context of your conversation and what you are actually trying to achieve in that moment. Why are you talking? Why are you talking to this person? If you're asking me, how do I shut people up on Facebook when they say this and I wanna say that? I don't have an answer for you frankly because I'm kind of over shutting people up on Facebook as being the way forward to changing our society. I actually think that the work is in real conversation on real projects talking to real people. And that is very important to have talking points and it's very important to have your debunking information together. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful and I will definitely provide context and resources for this person. But my general thing is it's not about what can I say to disabuse this person of their ideas about media. I just feel that that doesn't work and that in general, we need to be talking about how do I work with actual people to make actual change in the world? And that once you're doing that the need for magic slogans and things disappears. That is so important. I almost want you to repeat this because more than anything what you've talked about and how you've built there is because it's the place we can go and you teach us and you do it, like even on your show you're disarming with your ironies and you have such a great sense of humor and a way to look and turn things over without being making it a reality. And that's what I'm trying to do. I think you were, without being making it the other and you started about not making it the other and I think you did that about the big picture but it's also about us intimately about how do we make a difference? And we need to build a movement that has the, I mean, for me it has the love, not the hate has peace, not the war. And that starts with how we communicate too. So, again, being able to be local, share the truth, find the truth and share it and in essence be the media ourselves but not needing to be right and be in a fight with each other. So, absolutely, you wanna say about that because I think that is, I know that we get angry and we get frustrated and people are dying and we're watching the lying and we're watching what's being used with our tax dollars and it frustrates the heck out of us but what you're saying is so important. I'm not not angry. I mean, I don't wanna confuse anybody about that.  It's really not that at all. I really am about what's effective, you know and what's not effective at making me feel better for 10 minutes but what is might have an effect of impacting a broader circle and of making real change in the world. You know, so I'm all for not holding back for expressing what you genuinely feel but I do think that at a certain point, well, I do think that doing that can wear some of us down to a nub frankly and you feel that you've been fighting all day and you don't even know what you have to show for it. So I do think that there is, it's very much worth trying to figure out where are people coming from? A lot of it is fear, a lot of it is fear and can we get above that level of conversation and try to offer something different, try to offer a different narrative, a different storyline, a different way of seeing the world that has something that can engage people. And I don't think of that because it's not out of weakness, it's out of strength and it's out of a genuine desire to make a better vision because we can do better. We can do better. And one of the things that makes me maddest about corporate media is the way they lie to us about us and what we believe and what we're capable of. So what I want is for folks to talk around to one another around media so that we can find a new place of conversation and that's not easy, it's not easy. It means talking to people you don't agree with, it means talking to people longer than you might want to but there isn't another way. And I think all of us who are feeling frustrated and sad, we recognize we need to find a different way forward and the different way forward is community. Well, and I think that answers a lot of the questions that we've seen about how do we be different than the right in calling this out? And that is exactly to answer all of those questions in the chat, the way to be different is not to be the slogans, is not to be hate, is to be in the conversation. We don't have to try to be different from the right. The right, I mean, it's not complicated to be different from the right. If you're having a hard time figuring out how to be different from homophobes and racists and what can we do? You are different, right? You're in this call, you're different from the right. The question is how do you build with other folks like you to get our voices out there and to make a difference in the world?  You don't need to have that in your brain as a, that's not your competition. We're just trying to figure out how to make a better world, how to use the resources that we have and how to support one another. All right, so all those questions that you've had about getting attacked because you're being like the right, she gave you the perfect response. And just before we finish, there's just tons of questions about where do you go? Where would you recommend going? We say fair, but are there other places that you find really reliable that you go to often for the truth that you need to share? I always wish I had a better answer for this. And I always kind of go to the somewhat lazy one, which is you have to do it yourself. I do go to common dreams, I go to truth out, I go to lots of sort of resources that can bind, you know, lots of outlets. But I honestly, I read the New York Times, I read the Washington Post, I read all kinds of outlets. But what I do, and I will say this, I don't try to read a newspaper and learn everything that happened today. You know, what I do is I genuinely, I generally start with a story. And then I have questions about that story and I wormhole that story. I pursue that story. And that I might wind up on an Indonesian website, for example, as I have recently. I might wind up, you know, on a Filipino website that I wasn't aware of until yesterday, but I'm following a story and I'm trying to get different views on that story. So there isn't a single outlet.  But you have to make a book list, a list of lots of different ones. And then also follow stories, follow your questions rather than imagining that there is a single source that can provide you all of the answers. Thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing your wisdom and your heart on all you do every day. You're inspiring. And we rely on you a lot at Code Pink as we have for the last 20 years where we can go. And so just a reminder to everyone, we'll send you a note after this with a way that you could just write a letter to the editor, the good first start in your local paper and talk about what you wanna see, that you wanna see plans for peace and the weapons don't, when war is nothing, when's a war and whatever else you wanna share, keep sharing places to find news in the chat and to name deepest gratitude and to all of you who joined today for trying to find the truth and share the truth and lead us to a more peaceful and loving world. From now, one of the really important things right now is that we be visible because that's one of the things the media covers what's visible and we haven't seen a lot of visibility of peace activists in the last couple of years, we haven't been able to disrupt a single congressional hearing for two and a half years. So we clearly haven't been covered because the only way peace gets covered is if you disrupt the war narrative. And so there's an opportunity for everyone to join us in DC on June 18th with the Poor People's Campaign to bring up, how do we end militarism, poverty and racism? And let's be in the streets together, it's time to be visible, to be bold and to stand up and be seen. So you can join us at Code Pink together and we put it in the chat for you. Please sign up and join us because we are the media. And I think that's, you know, Ginny basically said to us, we need to do our own research. We need to, you know, be intelligent ourselves and then we can share it. So deep gratitude everyone. Onward, note to peace. Thank you all very much. Thanks, Ginny, for all you do.