Hi, how are you guys doing? My name is Dr. Adluri. I took the step two CS program here at MetSmarter, and I just found about this online, and it's been great so far. What I like the most, if you're taking step two CS, is it gives you a basic breakdown of each component that you need to practice on. History taking, physical, closure, patient note, along with the idea of a simulated CS room and patients, which really helps you get a feel of how the actual test is. If you really need some practice, you really need some guidance in terms of what you need to focus on, what you're lacking. This place is great for that, and you also get enough of simulated real world practice that's beneficial as well. The instructor here, Dr. Shake, was great. She gave me feedback when I needed to. She gave me positives and negatives and told me what to work on. Gave me extra homework, gave me documents to look over, and different tips and tricks that really helped me out. Like, without having some certain mnemonics to get to a certain case, it's kind of hard to judge her, so she kind of gave you a lot of the tips to get along with it. Typical day for a CS course is go over some mini cases, high yield questions, and then you go into the simulated room with a simulated patient, go over cases there, and along the way, you kind of break down what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong, along with the patient note, and each time you do more and more practice, you kind of fine tune it. I would definitely recommend MedSmart or someone else, especially if they're taking step two CS, because you definitely need some sort of real world simulator practice, and this is the best place to get it.


Alright, there's been a lot of conversations around Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the murder of her mother. She's serving a 10 year sentence. Recently she wrote a letter to fans, which I'll talk about in this video. But I have what might seem like an unpopular opinion about this case that I want to kind of discuss with all of you. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, something that I'm really passionate about is mental health and any topics that kind of involve it. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell, especially because I'll be doing some videos on Gypsy Rose Blanchard and that entire case. So I just released a video earlier this morning about Gypsy Rose Blanchard being engaged in prison. So if you want to check that out, it's up in the info card. So make sure you go watch that.  Like maybe I'll make a full video about it. But basically she was the victim of Munchausen by proxy. Like she had a traumatic childhood. We all know this. This is very true. And like here's the thing. I often check in with myself because I see myself as sometimes too empathetic. And maybe it's because I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I've worked in treatment and I've seen how childhood trauma can lead to addiction. And then addiction leads to other terrible things. And there's a stigma around addiction. So I empathize a lot with addicts, but also with a lot of criminals, right? Because a lot of them had crappy childhood growing up. So as I've been making videos about Gypsy Rose Blanchard and seeing the comments, seeing comments on other videos, seeing articles being written about it, like Gypsy Rose Blanchard has this massive following. There was a massive outcry of people to get this woman released, okay? This woman who pled guilty to second degree murder of her mother. While her ex-boyfriend did the murder, Gypsy Rose Blanchard was very much involved, okay? And a lot of people want to see her release. They feel bad for her. They feel terrible for her. But I'm sitting here and I'm thinking I'm like, is there some hypocrisy going on? Or is there a double standard going on? Like if you look, if you look, so first off, the United States has a massive prison population, an insane prison population. And when you look at most of the people who are incarcerated, they had traumatic childhoods. Like that is a fact, okay? Not many people who have an amazing life growing up, like turn to crime, whether it's, you know, using or selling drugs or robbery or violence or murder or whatever it is. Like most people have a traumatic childhood. So I'm sitting here and I'm thinking I'm like, why are people, and I want to just have a conversation with you like, why are people so adamant about having Gypsy Rose Blanchard released early because they feel bad for her? We have so many other people locked up where you could argue the same thing. And not only could you argue that, but most of them didn't commit murder. You know what I mean? So Gypsy Rose Blanchard just sent out a letter to her fans because her, her father is trying to get a petition signed to get her released early. So she wrote a letter to fans saying like, hey, here's how you can help me get out early. And I'm sitting here wondering like, hey, I'm like, this is like, I don't know, like a murderer having fans telling them to help her get released early. Like, I'm just, I'm just trying to look at this like, like logically for a second. I'm like, wait, how many murderers could get petition signed to get them released early? Okay, now, I hate to make the the the analogy because I know Gypsy Rose Blanchard is nowhere near as bad as somebody like Ted Bundy. But Ted Bundy had fans. Okay, like at the end of the day, Gypsy Rose had her mother killed.  Don't know if you watched it. Like I've just always been fascinated with serial killers and things like that. It's just, I don't know, it's crazy. It's crazy serial killers cults. I'm just interested in that stuff. So Mind Hunters, if you haven't checked it out on Netflix, go check it out. Season two, I think might be coming out this year. I'm not sure. But anyways, it's about when they first started like investigating serial killers and it's first game serial killers, the name and it's based on like true events. So one of the serial killers that they interviewed to try to get inside the mind of serial killers is Ed Kemper. Okay, so Ed Kemper, if you don't know who he is, he was known as I believe the coed killer. So he started out, he started out. He had a very abusive traumatic childhood. He ended up growing up and raping and murdering his mother in a brutal way. I believe he may have also murdered his grandparents, and he then went on to murder more people, all stemming from a traumatic childhood. That dude is in prison for life, right? And I'm sitting here. I'm like, okay, so this guy had a traumatic childhood. He ended up killing his mother and then killed more people. Like what's the difference between him and Gypsy Rose Blanchard? I can only think of a couple differences. One is that he didn't get caught for a while. So my question is, would Gypsy and her boyfriend would have, would they have gone on to kill more people, right? Because of her trauma and everything like that. The second one that I can't help but think of is, and here's my opinion on this. I think more people are sympathetic to Gypsy Rose because of this. And please tell me if I'm wrong. I believe they're more sympathetic to her because the case is so strange. And there is so much attention put on her case and her upbringing. Like when have we ever heard a story like this? Like we hear a story all the time about people getting locked up for like murder or other crimes, right? But when, when else, like it's happened before, but it's very rare. Like when else has like someone been a victim of munchaus of my proxy, been forced to be in a wheelchair, forced to use a feeding tube, shave their head, pretend to the public that, you know, they have all these illnesses. When does that happen? Right? So I look at this and I'm like, okay. So if these other murderers, if these other people who killed their parents, their abusive parents, if they were in those same circumstances and got that much public attention, would they be treated the same as Gypsy Rose Blanchard? I want you to ask yourself that for a second. And here's the other, the other topic I want to bring up is, does anybody remember JC Dugard? So those of you don't know who JC Dugard is. She is a woman who was kidnapped when she was a child. They thought she was, she was maybe dead. She was missing forever. And the couple who kidnapped her, they kept her in their backyard, right? And the man, the man ended up raping this young woman when she was older. She got pregnant and had his children. Okay? This went on for years. And they finally, like it was, that was a crazy case. And they finally found her and realized who she was. Like her and the kids were like, I think at a college, like trying to convert people to some religion because the guy who was part of the kidnapping was like super religious.  So JC Dugard did not kill that couple, right? And like, she had a very traumatic experience. So I'm not a lawyer or anything like that. But like, again, I make videos because just the way our minds work and the way our logic works just really fascinates me. And when that happens, I'm like, I want to make a video and have a conversation about this. Because I'm always trying to figure out like, why is this thing different than this thing? Like why, why are we so sympathetic to Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her childhood trauma that led to murder, but we're not sympathetic to the other killers who had traumatic childhoods and all the people who are currently in prison where you can argue that their crimes, right? Their crimes can be associated with their childhood trauma and how they developed. Why are they not getting as much sympathy and empathy and a chance to be let out, right? Like, I don't know. I don't know. Let me know your thoughts on this down in the comments below because it's just really, really interesting to me, all right? But again, I do have some more videos planned on this entire case. I am going to be diving into the topic of Gypsy Rose Blanchard being a victim of Munchausen by proxy. I'm going to talk about like, what might have led a person to do that. And again, like, I think one of the reasons why I want to talk about this too on my channel is because the elections are coming up. All right? The elections are coming up next year and I am a firm believer that we need prison reform because right now with the way that we have privatized prisons, people getting locked up and it seems like the punishment doesn't always fit the crime. We are, you know, enslaving these people rather than rehabilitating them and trying to get them back in the society. So when I see these cases like Gypsy Rose Blanchard that are outliers and like you have thousands of people backing her up to try to reintegrate her back into society while they're people serving years in prison for like having weed. Like I want us all to kind of sit back and look at this stuff and look at politicians who are running for president and say like, okay, like I don't know. Maybe we should look at prison reform as a whole because a lot of people are going through terrible childhoods and that is the reason why they do some screwed up stuff when they get older. All right? But it doesn't get rid of a personal accountability. Let me clear that up. Anyways, let me know your thoughts on all these subjects down below. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos and a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing and if you would like to sign up, become a patron, get involved in our monthly Q&A, get access to some other perks and benefits. You can click or tap right there. All right? Thanks again so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time.


What's going on everybody got Kyle here relating sports cards, and we are ripping two boxes of the new 2023 top Star Wars galaxy chrome These are both going to be for drew our Good luck, mr. Drew. Let's see what we got here Star Wars You guys like I said, we've got five boxes Star Wars going after this then we got Patrick Colby Taiyuan and Zauri on the On the queue right now, so do have some space guys if you want to get something ordered Got some space for today. No personal tonight guys over on channel 2 So if you guys are looking to get something going today definitely get going soon here I'll be here till three though, so we got some time for sure It is Aqua this one is going to be for LOM to 199 on the Aqua He's called the Darth Vader and the bounty hunter set Bunch of different ones in this set for LL win there the odd couple is a refractor It was daybreak on Hoth and IG 11 another one of the bounty hunter set. Hi, it's a 75 We got a wave of a Tuscan Raider Tuscan Raider Tuscan under twin sons Not what I was expecting that to be called Tuscan Raider to 75 refractor These are cool the art of the dual original variation cards. These are sick. That's set the variation set It's another AT-AT refractor Come on drew. Let's see some fire man got autos in here. They've been really tough to hit it seems though There's a Boba Fett squad of bounty hunters refractor Darth Maul Jacked up Darth Maul And that one is Ray the odd couple. Yeah, I know can that they are man that they are we got Oh, that's a cool one Grogu and Mando on the refractor. That's a cool-looking card. I haven't seen that one yet Yeah, that is funny man Got a Luke there and Star Wars poster return to the Jedi refractor. That's a clean card there very clean design There's a refractor Chewie One is in battle ton and Chewie the atomic Atomic is the Emperor Palpatine that is sick the masters of evil That's a cool-looking set a card right there atomic to 150 Atomics look Great in this set man really really good Nice one there masters of evil and another of the bounty hunter insert refractor rain core They are Chris. They are man. I agree completely. There's a refractor Han or um, yeah, Han and Leia There's another variation there. There's a refractor. This one is beggars Canyon Yeah, they've been nice the last two years man. Both sets are really good Refractor this is an upset wookie upset wookie refractor bulb effect coming out of the Sarlacc pit and Mon mothma factor Chewie and haunt. That's a cool card. Is that a poster? Shiny return that's sick Refractor is the Ewoks attacking and another poster card return to the Jedi All righty there mr. Drew that'll do it for box one We got box two. Let's see if we can get a sketch here Maybe auto some really nice stuff. Good luck Drew. That is low-bot sketch variation. There's Tuscan Tuscan twin sons refractor. What's this one called projection? Oh Seem was Interesting in the movie is refractor of bucket of bolts. That's the Millennium Falcon And we've got Harris and doula and aqua is going to be to 199. We got Padme Padme to 199. That's a cool-looking card there anime women of Star Wars posters that one like that Keep it going here. We got three more after this one as well. We'll keep the Star Wars going. There's Tatooine another Another poster there turn of the Jedi poster. There's Darth Vader and Boba And now when it's another women of Star Wars the Queen's handmaidens. I did not see me. What was that from I? Did not see the dual auto There's a salacious salacious be crumb. Is there I was the galaxy the two two different years galaxy, right? Yoda's hut and another return of the Jedi poster. That's a cool-looking poster I'm gonna always reminds you like Lord of the Rings Mount Doom There's Lando a little over an hour Lambo Little over an hour if you want to get something going got plenty of time It's a little over an hour. I'd say right now Refractor Darth Vader got a that's another one of the Darth Vader in his bounty hunter set. I got you Timmy Got aqua nice one there to 199. It's a hoth from the air.  Yeah, nothing crazy long in the queue. So say about an hour or so Refractor that one is a dyad in the force Kyloon Ray Refractor Hoth from the air and that one is gonna be boss boss Darth Vader in the bounty hunter set. We got a wave to 99. That's a sick one there reunion That's Obi-Wan and Darth Vader That's 16 from the movie to 99 there on the wave. That's a nice-looking one. Take that And Luke and what up Jason? What up Jason? What's going on? What up Wahoos? What's up, man? How you doing? Yeah, $20 on the under That's hilarious Let's take that action with you get ripping here. There's a Boba Fett on the hunt What's going on Wahoos? How you doing man? Always good to see you There's a Luke refractor another nice one righty that'll do it for you there, Mr. Drew Two boxes of Star Wars galaxy had some nice refractors in there some cool very cool ones We'll get those right out to you. Thank you


The Head of NCB's conference has been very useful as this is an annual event you meet colleagues first of all from all over the world with networking and building the very good network. In addition the content of the programme has been excellent. It gives you a perspective of the Interpol organisation as a whole but also very specific areas and the development of the organisation. It's important for Norway to be a member of Interpol due to the fact that we are a small country in a very northern part of Europe. We have a Nordic cooperation we have very close to Europe to the EU and the Schengen cooperation but as of today when you see the really security threat worldwide and also the threat assessment based on from the EU you see that the main issues on security is really the organized crime serious organized crime we have also the migration as a challenge and also the counter-terrorism. So for us it's to be a part of the rest of the world and Norway Norwegians are traveling more than ever so that's why we also need to reach out down under and also the far east.


Just as Doug Steadman was describing the Budco contribution of the land, the reason you had difficulty hearing him was that there was a Budweiser truck just going down a street here, which is one of the great ironings, I think, of the morning, or just the gods are smiling upon us even. I wanted to just fill in one other detail that might be of reference. I don't think it's been documented anywhere that at that presentation before the Texas Highway Division that we did that led to the funding, there was a phone call made to Jeff Wentworth by Jocie Strauss who had been one of the developers of the Las Casas Foundation whose son, of course, is now Speaker of the Texas House. But we think we owe a debt of gratitude to Jocie Strauss for making that phone call to Jeff Wentworth to show up because actually that Jeff Wentworth and John Saunders, the city councilman from San Antonio at the time, were there endorsing the application that we were submitting, I think gave us a leg up over some of the other presentations. I don't think that's been documented anywhere before. There's been some issues of why we really want to talk about the railroads related to the bridge. Well, there are several reasons we need to do that. The railroads have influenced this neighborhood. The neighborhood here has certainly influenced rail services you've already heard and the railroads in general have influenced San Antonio growth generally, which means that this neighborhood in San Antonio has had its own role in influencing our local growth as well. The history bridge has been a fundamental part of the dynamic all along, but to really appreciate that it's useful to appreciate a little bit about the history of railroading in San Antonio. Railroad didn't come to San Antonio until 1877. We were the last major city in North America to receive railroad services. An accident of history and geography that we can perhaps go into could have happened earlier, but for the Civil War. There were discussions nationally in the 1850s, of course, of a transcontinental route, and there was some debate about whether it should go a northern route, as it ultimately did, as you know, from Omaha to California, or whether there should be a southern route. But when the Civil War erupted that put the southern route out of the mix, had there been a southern route it likely would have influenced railroading in San Antonio, but because of the Civil War it didn't happen and it didn't come here until 17 years after the Civil War broke out. In 1877, the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio Railroad inched its way finally into Bear County and into San Antonio, and the railroad line from the East ended at Hastry. Ironically enough, right at Hastry was the end of the railroad line in 1877, long before the bridge. The switching yard there with six tracks under the where the bridge is now between Bear and the roundhouse as it fanned out in that area. The original station, which BL has some photographs, it'll show to you, the original station was built opposite where Caranza's grocery is sort of on the Sherman Street side of that embankment there just down from the roundhouse. That station served as the focal point for passenger railroading in San Antonio for many years until Sunset Depot was built in 1903. The idea of that station going in ended up inspiring a lot of commercial development along Austin Street and really was responsible for a lot of what happened in this neighborhood as far as residential growth as well. Caranza's grocery actually dates from that period of the old wooden station. The new station was built further south, of course, after the decision was made to extend the railroad further west from from Hastry, and of course, as you know, as you have to go south, if you're not going to go through the Central Business District, which of course was not possible even in those days, you had to go south before you went west. As it turns out, that turn where you go from an east-west direction along the Pan Am Expressway there, roughly paralleling that to a north-south direction, that turn within a matter of a hundred yards or two is the sharpest turn in the entire Southern Pacific system in this part of the country, and that ended up leading to a derailment. Actually, folklore has it that there was more than one, but we have photographs that you might have already seen of the derailment that took place in the 1970s. The railroad saw right-of-way as it was being extended south of Hastry finally, and the city granted that right-of-way in exchange, as Doug Steadman mentioned, for a bridge to be built to serve this part of the community, so that this facility hill and the government hill and other neighbors wouldn't be isolated from downtown. Well, the trade that was made was to award Walnut Street to the Railroad for all track and purposes. As you know, streets on the near east side of town are named after trees. There's Live Oak and Chestnut. There was Walnut, Cherry, Mesquite, Hackberry, Olives, and on up. Well, Walnut Street doesn't exist anymore, but those of us who grew up in the neighborhood can remember street signs. In fact, there were no houses, or maybe one or two houses, where hobos lived or something along the railroad tracks there. But Walnut Street, and there might still be signs, I don't know, suggesting that is the railroad track. And when you wanted to offend somebody to call on the hobo or something, you would say that they lived on Walnut Street in San Antonio. That was one of the things that we remember from growing up. And in any case, this development of the railroad locally inspired San Antonio's growth enormously. And San Antonio became the largest city in Texas, influenced by several factors in the early 20th century. The Galveston, the Galveston, the Hurricane in Florida, of course, but Galveston convention, Galveston had been the largest city for a time. San Antonio was the largest city until the 1930s or so. San Antonio grew, the population here grew five times over, multiple like five times from 1900, the turn of the century into the 1930s. This population grew from 50,000 or so, just under 50,000, actually just about 40,000, to a quarter of a million by the 1930s. But by then we were, and had been, eclipsed by Houston and else. But the railroads are what made it possible that enormous growth, that enormous growth would not have been possible without the railroads and without H.S.T. Bridge playing the role that it did. There was a reference made, the question about the role of the explosion at the S.P. Shanks, which took place in 1912, my new 1912. That was the same year at the H.S.T. Bridge opened. So the bridge witnessed, the preparations of the bridge, witnessed some major events in local history. This was the largest industrial accident up until that time in Texas, and it's only been eclipsed by the great Texas City explosion, the ammonium nitrate corn products explosion in 1947. But it remains the largest explosion of a railroad boiler altogether in the country. The reason it happened was that, as you know, the process of creating the steam involves building up a lot of, or powering the engine, what really amounts to the external combustion engine, which is sort of the steam engine as opposed to the internal, involves building up a lot of pressure. That pressure has to go somewhere, usually a relief valve will end up releasing that pressure. In this case, the two relief valves were shut off so that the pressure became so enormous that the steam engine became a bomb for all practical purposes. It blew up in early March of 1912, blasting shrapnel for 10 blocks or more, 10 block radius around the roundhouse, which meant that the shrapnel and debris would have hit us. If we happen to be playing in Loughborough Park, and as John Tite had described, it was a force powerful enough to knock his father as a child to the ground more than 10 blocks away. But explosion was heard for 20 miles around, and you could practically hear the explosion, and it's again, it killed 26 people, injured dozens more, more than 40 people were injured, and it leveled adjacent houses and buildings, and even injured people who were affected by debris falling through their roofs and collapsing their houses around them. That's how serious it was. Circumstances that led to it are really compelling to explore, and I think bear more investigation. There was a strike going on at the time, and there were strike breakers who were manning the engine there, necessarily not what they were doing. And that is the official line, and I'm not going to weigh in one way or another on that because the record is highly ambiguous. One of the things that isn't though, that is also rather curious, is that there were a significant number of minority employees there who perhaps had been hired as strike breakers. When you look at the newspaper accounts at the time, they identify, it's interesting, they identify the positions of those who have been injured, but if they happen to be black or Mexican-American, they're just described as Negro or Mexican in the newspaper. And the description of those who were killed, not a majority of them were minority employees, there's a significant larger number than you would have expected at such an industrial site at that time in history, and of course the late-run rest might have had something to do with that. But it's a fascinating part of our overall history, and BL has some photos that can enlighten you a little bit more about that. Last thing I want to talk about is the description of the newspaper account of the injured and dead gave addresses of where if people lived, they were all from this neighborhood. Most of them were Mesquite Street, Pine, Olive, and so on. They were neighbors here, and people lived near work, of course, in those days, made a lot of sense, but that is an area of some considerable controversy. The realm that you have photographs of is the other big, one of the other big events in the neighborhood, affecting the railroad generally. There's practically a 90-degree turn in less than a couple hundred yards there. This derailment placed the accounts that I've read, the descriptions I've heard suggest that it was an Amtrak. The early days of Amtrak were in the early 70s since that national passenger railroad corporation was formed, I think in 71. Even though that engine has Union Pacific markings on it, and this is the image of it that some of you have seen, that train was obviously speeding, and there was a speed-related issue, but there was also a weather-related issue. There was the winder that was still on the ground, as you might have noticed in those photographs. Speed limit was 15 miles an hour, which was really slow for a train. They moved the switching yard, so I had time to fashion that, but that was the speed limit then. I don't think it's much higher than that now. That train that ended up in Austin Street obviously was out of control, so they might have applied the brakes too late and ended up sliding literally off the rails. If you look at Austin Street right near Duval, where that takes place, you'll see an embankment with the tracks right at the very edge of it. When you're on the train, part of the train is practically over Austin Street there, so it's really sort of amazing. It's comparable to riding Amtrak along a river valley or something, that you really can't see what's supporting you, and all you see is Austin Street as you're making that turn. In fact, call that steep embankment the Levy, and it has been known as that in local railroad lore for a long time. Forcibly that 73 derailment didn't result in any loss of life, just a lot of embarrassment and a few people needing new jobs as a result. And according to folklore, there have been other such near misses or derailments that were not highly publicized in that location as well. Back of Hastry Bridge, just as we conclude this, I want to mention that the bridge itself was owned by the railroads until 2007, from the time they were constructed before they were moved here, as Doug Stetman suggested, in 1881 until 2007, they were in the hands of the railroad, which reluctantly gave them up. Anybody who's dealt with a railroad knows that their railroads are very slow to move and are very difficult to negotiate with or to get an agreement from, and the railroad didn't necessarily want to surrender that bridge to the public. They did, and it's our legacy. They have equipped that bridge to the community here, and it's up to the citizens of San Antonio who have been entrusted with the future, and all of our leaders to protect that request and that legacy, and we hope to be up to the task. One final point to mention related to railroad history in San Antonio that I think is also important, I'm a big Amtrak advocate as you know, is the numbering of the trains that come through San Antonio. Amtrak numbers its trains according to their sequence and historical significance within the system. Well, the Sunset Limited trains that come through San Antonio are Amtrak trains number one and two. So that we have a significant railroad legacy to protect here in San Antonio. Michael Meyer who is the former chairman of the San Antonio Rail Heritage Museum which operates and maintains the Indian 794 down at Sunset Station is a local rail historian who is going to offer some other insights and can maybe answer questions that you might have about local railroad history. I must also say, and I'm embarrassed to say this with BL standing here, that the photographs that I circulated of the derailment came from the Texas Transportation Museum website. BL maintains a very fine website as well for his museum. The competing museum contributed the photographs that you've seen. Sorry about that. Hey, it happens. It happens. I'm talking about Amtrak. I want to just make one point, a quick point before Mehdi is introduced by Marisol. And that's that San Antonio is the only city in Texas that has two long distance trains operating through it. The Dallas and Houston each have one. Fort Worth has that short train that goes up to Oklahoma City, the Harlem Flyer. San Antonio has the east-west train number one, number two. The Sunset Limited, of course, which is, as we noted, one of the more historic trains in the system. And also train number 21 and 22, which is the Texas Eagle, which leaves every morning from Sunset Station a few blocks away there to Chicago. And you get to Austin on it. If you leave 7 in the morning, you get to Austin at 9. It's a great commuter coming back from Austin. And back here at 9 o'clock, it leaves Austin at 6.30 in the evening. It gets back here at 9 p.m. So there is already commuter rail between San Antonio and Austin. There's only one train a day each way. But that's all you need if you plan very carefully. So consider that. Thank you. Yes, sir. No, that doesn't exist anymore. The tracks, there was a train, just a trolley car that went into, that's operated by the Museum Association, I think at one point, or the Transportation Museum before, actually, moved out to Wettmoore. On those tracks along Jones Avenue, those tracks, in fact, went to the station. The original location of the station that we've been talking about just in the neighborhood here. So the trolley cars that were in place in San Antonio were focused on moving people from the train station around the city, or through the rest of the city. So you can still see remnants of those trolley car tracks. But the dinner train, which was using some of those tracks for time, doesn't exist anymore.


Sospiró mi ocid, que a mucho había grandes cuidados. Fabló mi ocid, bien e tan mesurado. Grado a ti, señor, padre que estás en alto, esto me han vuelto, mis enemigos malos. Allí piensan de aguillar, allí sueltan las riendas. A la hechida de Vivar, o vieron la corneja diestra. Entrando a Burgos, o vieron la siniestra. Meció mi ocid los hombros, engrameó la tiesta. Albriz y Álvar Fáñez, cachados homos de tierra. Eso fue desde la primera página de la manuscripts de The Song of the Cid, el Alcanto de Amigo Cid. Y es la primera página de la documentación que tenemos, de la manuscripts que tenemos, pero como la mayoría de los textos que hemos traído en esta clase, es un fragmento. Estamos perdiendo una página o dos antes de esto que explica por qué el Cid Rodrigo Diaz es exiledado por King Alfonso. No hemos dicho eso en el poema. Tal vez ha ocurrido en la primera página, lo que nos ha perdido ahora. Pero estamos perdiendo algunos contextos necesarios, alguna introducción necesaria. Y eso ha sido uno de nuestros temas en esta clase. Tenemos fragmentos de tabletas de clay, tenemos individuales de parcheón y de manuscripts de vela de todo lo que hemos traído, y esos fragmentos nos leave con gatos que tenemos que cumplir con nuestra propia conocimiento. Y nosotros intentamos usar el conocimiento histórico, el contexto histórico, a lo largo de lo que podemos, pero a veces no tenemos nada, pero no el contexto histórico, el contexto personal. Pero la historia de la backstory de por qué el Cid ha sido exiledado, no es el único contexto que se ha perdido por la mayoría de nosotros, en la escena medieval. La historia de la escena medieval es algo que en Estados Unidos y incluso en Texas no hemos podido aprender en la escuela alta cuando aprendimos la historia de Anglo-Saxon, de Anglo-Saxon y de Jutes, invadiendo la isla de Breton. Tenemos mucho más conocimiento de la historia de Inglaterra que la historia de España. Pero eso es infortunado, porque la historia de España es muy interesante. Es una de las especies medievales de España, la historia de España en la cual el poema de la escena o la canción de la escena de la escena es emergente. Así que, vamos de vuelta en la historia de España a los 8 a 6 años antes de la Comuna Era, B.C.E. A este momento, tenemos una población de personas viviendo en la Peninsula Iberiana, que es moderno español y portugués. Y estas personas se referirán a los iberianos nativos. Las descendencias son todavía ahí, las basques de España no son indoeuropean, es decir, no es relacionada con las lenguages de moderno español o alemán, o inglés, o incluso slovic, o gris. Estas son las lenguages de indoeuropean, pero podemos traer sus orígenes a un común origen, pero no podemos traer las basques a ese común origen. Así que eso nos dice que las basques han probablemente sido ahí muy, muy largo tiempo. Y en el 8 a 6 años de la época, los Celts, o los gals que, contra la popularidad, no aparecieron en Irlanda o Brita. Los ancestros de Irlanda vinieron a Brita desde la frontera de modernidad en Alemania y Francia, en estas áreas norte de las Alps. Y antes de que se movieran al menos en Irlanda, se movieron a la Peninsula Iberiana. Y es de la Peninsula Iberiana que parecen ser migradas, y la población de los Celts vinieron a Irlanda. Así que los Celts de Irlanda vinieron a España o a Europa occidental de España. Y ellos dejaron sus nombres en lugares como Galicia y en el puerto de Galicia. Este es el nombre latino para este puerto en el área de Iberiano-Gal o Galicia. Porches Galicia es donde tenemos el nombre Portugal. Y el norte de Portugal en el puerto de Iberiano-Gal es un territorio que se referirá como Galicia. Esto viene directamente desde el nombre de los Celts. Durante esa misma época o durante esos años de los 700 a 500 años, también tenemos la costa mediterránea de la Peninsula Iberiana que se ha servido por los Fenicios y los Gris. Estaban mercados con grandes navíes para proteger a los colombianos. Establaban trade por la mediterránea. Y esto fue el distinto de las colombianas durante la mediterránea antes de la ciudad de Rome. Pero en este mapa vemos el finicio de los Fenicios, including Carthage. Remember, we talked about this when Dido came from Tyre. She's referred to Tyre and Dido in Tyre or Tyre is on the coast north of Israel, on the far east side of the Mediterranean. But they settled areas all the way to the western end, all the way to the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula. While they were doing that, the Greeks were establishing these territories in red, these colonies that are marked in red. They would then become points of dispute during the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome. And this is when Hannibal leads his armies across the Straits of Gibraltar and up through the Iberian Peninsula and the Carthaginians who again remember are descendants of the Phoenicians. The Carthaginians are at war with Rome and instead of just sailing directly across and attacking the Italian Peninsula Iberia. Hannibal had a lot of allies in Iberia that supported him against the Romans but when the Carthaginians were eventually defeated that meant that all those states that supported them were points of contention. There were battlegrounds all up and down the Iberian Peninsula not just in Rome and not just in Africa. Also remember that the Macedonian Greeks had allied themselves with the Carthaginians against the Romans and when they were defeated those Greek territories as well as the Phoenician territories or Carthaginian territories all fell into under the sway of the Roman Empire. After they took over this territory the Romans founded the city of Valencia. This was a Roman settlement in the very beginning and it's a city that's still going to be around it's still around today and this is the city that El Cid will eventually conquer and make his own kingdom. The city of Zaragoza that name has an interesting history that's a gradual that name Zaragoza evolved from the pronunciation Caesar Augusta remember Augustus Caesar was the first emperor of Rome this city was named after him around the year 12 BCE and Caesar Augusta over the centuries becomes pronounced as Caesar Augusta Zaragoza and it still bears that name Zaragoza today. This is another city that's very relevant to the Song of the Cid part of the geography of the Song of the Cid. After the Roman Empire sort of fragments and is overrun by the Visigoths and beginning of the year 410 when the Visigoth King Alaric sacks the city of Rome it's these territories that the Visigoths move into they sort of make a deal with the Roman Empire that they'll settle in these territories until the Hun in modern day France and in return for defending these areas they're sort of granted these matters throughout the Roman province of Gaul and Hispania and so they found the city of Toulouse in modern day France as well as Toledo in modern day Spain these are Visigoth names and Toledo to this day is also going to be an important city remember that the Visigoths descended from the very same people from whom Beowulf descended the Geats or the Gauls they came eventually in the remote past they came from Geatland in modern day Sweden and remember that story in the Saga of Froth Kraky when Thorier Hounsfoot becomes king of the Gauls simply because he's big enough to sit in this giant throne that nobody else can fill that's how they choose their king seems like a pretty ridiculous way to choose a king well unfortunately for the Visigoths they weren't very good at coming up with a way to choose a line of succession when one king dies who's going to take his place instead they end up just fighting each other frequently and this infighting continues in the Visigothic kingdoms in Spain so we have some very unpopular rulers that are constantly at war with each other and this ends up weakening the Visigoth hold on Spain and France and it does not instill loyalty of the local population and as a result of this disunity we have a weakened sort of fragmented series of kingdoms to use our previous term a series of chiefdoms which are all sort of independently gathered around individual chiefs or individual kings but there's no sort of way to unify these large scale armies the size you would need for the say a nation state and this leaves them vulnerable to invasions coming from the African continent starting in the year 711 the Muslim Berber tribes invade from the Umayyad Caliphate they come across the straits of Gibraltar in fact the name Gibraltar literally translates rock of Tahrir the name of the Muslim general leading the invasion into Spain and so just a sort of refresher remember that Islam starts on the Saudi Arabian Peninsula or the Arabian Peninsula and spreads first into territories of the Byzantine Empire and the Persian Empire precisely because these two empires were so exhausted from fighting each other that they were left weakened and they didn't tend to defend themselves from desert frontiers because they didn't think anybody was going to cross the desert and attack them from that direction and they were able to do very successfully so the Arabs Arab Muslims invade the Byzantine Levant modern day Israel and Phoenicia they invade the Byzantine territories of Egypt and they move all the way through North Africa into an area dominated by a group of tribes that are like the Arabs very good at moving very quickly on horseback across very difficult terrain and they are very good at sort of making a successful life thriving in dry desert environments well between the years 711 and 788 these Arab and Berber Muslims go on what starts out as a raiding mission into Hispania into these Visigothic kingdoms and they find themselves far more successful than they thought they would be a conquer apparently they just went into raid and realized that because of the disunity in the Visigoth kingdoms and the fact that the most powerful Visigoth king whose name was Roderick he was up in Galicia he was in the northwest corner with all of his army trying to put down a revolt up there and so he was about as far away from his capital at Toledo as he could be so this left Toledo open to attack and disunity because of the resentment toward all the infighting between the different Visigoth factions the local population had to choose between remaining loyal to the Christian Visigoths and by the way the Visigoths weren't even Catholic Christian they believed in a particular heresy or what the Catholic Church called a heresy that belief separated them from their Catholic population as well as their other religious populations in that area and so the decision for the local people do we side with Roderick and the Visigoths or do we accept these new invaders was kind of an even choice one way some went the other and so the Arab invaders had an easier time winning over these individual cities than they thought they would and they continued to push up through the Pyrenees mountains into the Frankish empire before they were finally defeated and sent back across the Pyrenees mountains at the battle of Poitiers so that left the southern two thirds basically of Spain as part of this Muslim union of kingdoms that's usually referred to as Al-Andalus and besides all of the people of Greek descent of Phoenician descent of Carthaginian descent Visigothic descent and Celtic descent you've also got now a range of religions you have Christians of different nations we'll call them although some of these were considered heretical living and worshipping in the same cities as people of Catholic or Orthodox faith now you also now have Muslims and besides this we also have a significant Jewish population which is left over from the time when it was a Roman territory and so after the Jewish diaspora in the first century of the common era a lot of Jews were forcibly removed from Jerusalem and a lot of them came to this other Roman territory so you have different types of Christians different types of Muslims and you have a Jewish population as well which forces Al-Andalus to become a relatively open society even when it's under Muslim rule Christians are allowed to worship at Christian churches Jews are allowed to worship at Jewish temples they do have to pay a sort of tax here's my the payment I have to pay for not being Muslim so it wasn't all total egalitarian it wasn't a totally open society but it was much more open religiously open than most other places in Europe were at this time and so that brings us Al-Andalus exists in one form or another ruled over by one Caliphate or another until the 11th century in the time of El Cid but to understand El Cid not only do we have to understand the population and the religious ethnic political background we've also got to understand the particular infighting between three brothers in particular or rather two brothers in particular that's going to help us understand who Rodrigo Diaz is and why he is in this antagonistic relationship a King Alfonso so even though we can divide Spain or between Al-Andalus the Muslim controlled area and the Christian controlled areas at the the northern end of the Iberian Peninsula each of these areas is fragmented into different kingdoms these different kingdoms are frequently referred to as Taifa it's a kingdom that is at war with the Iberian kingdom sometimes they are at war sometimes they broker a temporary peace so that the two of them together can go and fight a third kingdom sometimes a Muslim kingdom will unite with a Christian kingdom against another Muslim kingdom sometimes a Christian kingdom and because of this constant fighting between these different factions and these different geographic regions this is referred to as the fitna your Maria Rose Minicol in your introduction in the Burton Raphael edition a translation of Song of the Sid compares this to the wild west in the American 19th century and it's a good comparison there's no single law out there there's it's one faction against another and at the time of Elsid's birth the most powerful faction the kingdom of Castile Leon which had been united by a guy named Sancho and Sancho had inherited the kingdom of Castile from his father but his brothers his brother Garcia inherited the territory of Eglisia his brother Alfonso inherited the territory of Leon and Sancho was not content to just rule over one of these territories he wanted the other two as well basically goes to war with his brothers he takes Eglisia from Garcia he takes Leon from Alfonso and he sends Alfonso into exile in a Muslim held Toledo and one of the reasons Sancho was so successful was because of this young soldier of his and I'm talking young he was a teenager at the time and that is Rodrigo Diaz from the city of Vivard this is who will later be known as Elsid and Elsid is a very real and very strategically expert soldier and later a general and he helps Sancho retake these territories from his brothers but as part of this family tradition it seems Alfonso seems to have had his brother Sancho assassinated by one of Sancho's own soldiers and probably paid by Alfonso but such that Alfonso could pretend and after Sancho was killed Alfonso then inherits the entire kingdom and that means he also inherits Elsid and all of his brothers army but as you might imagine if there is suspicion that your new king assassinated your old king especially the old king to whom you are very much loyal to you can imagine that Elsid and Alfonso aren't going to get along very well and yet Elsid really has no choice except to serve his new king Alfonso unless there's some way he could prove this murder and then have Alfonso removed from the throne which is unlikely now Alfonso realizes that there's a threat in Elsid Elsid is someone who is the key to his brother's success and if you get this general turned against you then your position as king is unstable he sends off Elsid to do diplomatic work sometimes to exact tribute from some of the other kingdoms both Christian and Muslim he'll send Elsid and an army in one case he sends them down to the kingdom of Seville which is a Muslim kingdom and while Elsid is there collecting tribute from the king of Seville to be paid to Alfonso another Castilian noble Count Garcia Ordonez as we see referred to repeatedly in the text as Mysid's enemy we never told why he's Elsid's enemy, we just told that he is but we look at the history we see that at the same time while Elsid was sent down to Seville Count Garcia Ordonez was sent down to Granada with some other Castilian nobles and it at that time while they were down there Granada invaded Seville this might have been planned exactly but it sort of seems like Elsid was sent on a suicide mission he was supposed to be down there when Seville was overrun or maybe he was supposed to sort of sit back while maybe he was just a decoy for Alfonso while these other nobles got the kingdom of Granada to go invade Seville but if that's the case he never got the message and he actually helped the king of Seville defeat Granada so here's where we see this previous antagonism between Garcia Ordonez and Elsid that shows up is extremely important in the text of the song of the Sid but is never fully explained and because of this Alfonso exiles Elsid this is the historical reason for his exile and it's clear that Garcia Ordonez is behind this he's telling Alfonso that Elsid has defied you or shown himself to be a threat by attacking the nobles of Castile and for this reason Elsid has given enough time to pack his things and choose his loyal followers and leave the king of Castile and probably Alfonso probably thought this was going to be the end of him he was just going to go somewhere else and never be a military threat again but Elsid becomes known as the Doctor of Battle Compiductorus precisely because this is the one thing he is an expert at, he is not going to stop fighting he's not going to stop being this successful general so he goes to the Muslim Kingdom of Zaragoza and becomes a mercenary but not just a an ordinary foot soldier mercenary he's somebody who the Muslim kings recognizes a very accomplished general and the Kingdom of Zaragoza goes to war with the Kingdom of Barcelona and Elsid is in the employ of the Muslims in Zaragoza and so he goes to fight this Christian Kingdom and this is where he earns the name Said which is the Arabic term for the Lord or the Commander your superior officer is your Said and this is where the word Sid comes from frequently in the historical documents it's Elsid Thucid the Lord or in the Kanto de Miocid because it's a term of affection it's not just my Lord in the sort of formal sense but it's somebody to whom these soldiers feel very committed feel very loyal but this is also the origin of the this is also the the historical kernel of the narrative version where Elsid fights against the Kingdom of Zaragoza Meanwhile while Elsid is working for various Muslim kingdoms Alfonso tries to retake Toledo and he's successful at first he's very successful he keeps pushing south and conquering these Muslim taifa kingdoms and so these taifa kingdoms as much as they dislike each other they try to unify, they realize that if Alfonso pushes down the center he'll divide them and so they call for help they invite the King of the Almoravid Berbers this Muslim kingdom, this large kingdom called an empire in North Africa and as much of an open society as Al-Andalus had been that had allowed Christians and Jews to continue their own religious practices had even allowed them to be promoted in the government military and this sort of thing the Almoravids were much more strict conservative fundamentalist jihadists, they sort of ended a lot of these open practices that the Al-Andalusian Muslim taifa kingdoms had promoted but by creating this very authoritarian hierarchical power structure they're able to unify a lot more people and a lot more soldiers and use them much more effectively on the battlefield so they actually defeat Alfonso and defeat him very badly at Toledo, so that sends Alfonso back to Castile and even then Alfonso realizes this might be the end of Castile, they might just continue to follow him all the way back and take over the Kingdom of Castile and Lyon so he has to make amends with El Cid he invites El Cid to come back out of exile if El Cid will help him defend Castile against the invading Almoravid Berbers who are now united with the taifa kingdoms the Muslim kingdoms of southern Spain so El Cid agrees under one condition and that is anytime he takes over a Muslim territory that's not part of Castile Lyon he gets to keep that territory and so Alfonso really has no choice so he agrees to El Cid's terms and after El Cid is able to repulse the Berber advance the Almoravid advance to the north he then turns east and conquers the Muslim city of Valencia which remember was this ancient Roman city and he holds Valencia until his death now it's possible that he would have lost the city of Valencia if he had lived longer because it was under siege at the time he died but he died in his bed, he didn't die on the battlefield it's possible even that he died because of a lack of nutrition due to the fact that Valencia was under siege and so their food and medical resources were lacking but the point is he was never defeated he never died on the battlefield so from this history comes the material that will be adapted first in the oral tradition first this is going to be the subject of songs just like every other text we've read or almost every other text we've read it goes into the oral tradition first so there was some historical conflict between the characters but these become adapted into narrative and in that narrativization process a lot of things are changed now we have a lot of sort of higher concepts takeover and a lot of the specific facts are adapted changed edited to fit the narrative goals of the authors, the singers and eventually this is whatever form these songs take they're eventually sort of recombined into a single larger narrative in the cantar de mio sit so maybe these were three individual songs because they have been each third of the larger cantar is referred to as a canto maybe each one of these was coherent and unified in its own maybe each of those is composed of lots of other songs scholars debate the same way they debate whether or not Beowulf came from lots of different songs, whether the Iliad and the Odyssey came from lots of different songs and lots of different authors but we have this interesting line at the end of the text at the very end in the Burton Raphael edition it says on page 247 this is the tale of my seed, the warrior and here my story is done may God grant paradise to the man a men written out by Parabot in the month of May in the year of our lord 1207 so we have this document written in the year 1207 and it's written by someone referred to as Parabot and we have a historical Parabot shortly after this time who's a lawyer and the fact that Parabot is a lawyer and we have a lot of legal proceedings almost a theme a resolution instead of battlefield conflict resolution or instead of infighting and backstabbing the kind of thing that he defined both the Muslim Taifa kingdoms and the Christian kingdoms all the way back to the Visigoths instead of getting revenge on each other you handle your issues legally even if it's a trial by combat that would tend to indicate that this poem is very much structured by somebody expertise in medieval Spanish legality, law codes but we don't know if Parabot was somebody who took all these fragmented ideas and composed the poem itself or if he's someone who adopted the poem as it already existed and just added a few things remember this term from Beowulf or if this is just somebody who transcribed it because the line says make God grant paradise to the man who transcribed this book now does that mean that Parabot transcribed it from someone else and transcribed is not translated it's not right, it's not adapt it is just say look at this text over on this document and write it down on this document is that all Parabot did or did Parabot have more creative control we don't know so we have a little bit more information than we do with a poem or work like Beowulf similar to the situation we were in with the Atrahasas text the last lines attributed to someone named Ipik Ayya well is Ipik Ayya the author or is he just someone who wrote it on this particular tablet was he someone who was making creative adaptations to it or was he someone who was just writing down his lessons which is the reason why we have so many of those Atrahasas tablets just like Gilgamesh people would practice writing transcribing without actually adding anything themselves we don't know we don't know how much creative control Parabot had we don't know how long this poem had been in its present form before this manuscript was written but we can tell that it has been shaped with particular artistic goals in mind with particular political goals in mind and your your edition if you have the the Burton Riffel translation that introduction written by Maria Rosa Menikal compares this to like American westerns but also to other national epics when she says the SID has particularly strong kinship with other national epics that recount mythologized historical events believed to be vital to the formation of a people or a nation central to many of these is an acting out of this passage from the almost wild universe of Unruly Frontiers and their attendant injustices into the new world the new community, the new nation where a newly crystallized society is instead governed by laws and where justice reigns and so the frequent themes we see in western movies and old novels from the 19th century is moving from the wild west where it's an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth they kill one of yours, you kill one of theirs transition from that legitimate third party or objective law enforcement where a judge will decide who's the aggrieved party and whether or not this other defendant is guilty or not and that's very much a theme in the song of the SID we have this guy who's unstoppable on the battlefield he's been wronged by people we see that he's been wronged these guys are underhanded, ignoble even though they are the nobles and he could easily ride into Castile and defeat not only the Carriones but even King Alfonso himself but he doesn't do that even when he has the opportunity he tries to do things by appealing to justice by appealing to this the rule of law that he sort of strengthens by obeying it by not challenging it and so we have this sort of national epic where Virgil took the content material of the elite and the Odyssey and made it very Roman by adding the ideal of Piatas of duty so when Neas isn't this sort of tricky figure the way Odysseus was he's somebody who has this very Roman virtue of obedience to the gods, obedience to his destiny and by extension to the empire that he will eventually conquer similarly El Cid has his own sort of Piatas but it's not exactly Piatas it's this patience this willingness to withhold, revenge immediate action in order to seek the best outcome for everybody not just for himself and by calling it an epic this I'm going to call this description leads us to recall the epic that we've used in the past remember that in the epic of Gilgamesh in the Iliad and the Odyssey our standard definition was that an epic was a long narrative poem written in an elevated style presenting characters of high social rank and national importance and adventures forming an organic whole through the relation to a central heroic figure and through the development of episodes important to the history of a nation of people every one of these criteria and characteristics as well this is maybe not a hero of imposing physical ability but he's somebody whose strategic ability makes him very important, he's obviously of historical significance he journeys over a Y geographic area he overcomes constant conflict and the supernatural forces are minimal but remember the angel Gabriel appears to him in a dream and says you will never be defeated so there is an element of supernatural intervention a very original innovation that this poem will change that has been a constant through each thing we've read so far and that is the main character is not of the nobility and that is a major element for the theme of this poem he's not one of the close relatives of the king so even in the small chieftains like in the Anglo-Saxon and Norse and Danish worlds in Beowulf there are a few of one king and he's close relations with another king he becomes a king himself and of course in the Aeneid Aeneas is not one of the sons of Priam but he's a distant relation of the family Odysseus is a king Achilles is a king Agamemnon is a king and of course Gilgamesh is a king he's a part of this upper class and they're the only ones considered important enough to be the central protagonist of an epic but El Cid is not El Cid is born to the common class the non nobles and this is something that's thrown in his face consistently by the lords of Caryon the Infantes of Caryon by Don Garcia and others and this poem compares his nobility a nobles traits the patience, not only is he successful in war and financially successful but he's also patient, kind to his men he shows loyalty to the king even when the king is clearly a lesser man and the poet the narrator tells us as much that a greater man was sent into exile by a lesser man but this is a commoner who has all these characteristics that supposedly everybody up until that time thought whereas the nobles we see are underhanded they're liars, they're backstabbers and they're not even very good with managing the money that they inherit or fighting on the battlefield these are the things that supposedly they're better at and they're clearly worse at everything the only thing that they have more of than El Cid is arrogance it's just this sort of self-righteous narcissism and so all of these elements are clearly part of the cultural background in which this Romancero these ballads are focusing and then someone whether it's Parabot or someone else combines them all into this narrative that forces us to look at these different conflicts these different identities these different philosophical issues that are relatively new to this very diverse and open society but also a society that's given to constant conflict where different factions different kingdoms are constantly in conflict but now we see a lot of old ideas that are coming into conflict with new ideas and all of these things sort of form the texture the fabric that the various poets and singers that came before them are weaving together in the song of the Cid and so with the next lecture I want to talk about the characters' identities the larger sort of national religious identities and compare that to the individual goals and how those goals come into conflict in the poem of the Cid


Okay, so here we're at the base of the cliff that was far in the distance when we first started. So he moved south half a kilometer or so. And what we're looking at is pieces of slabs of mudstone which has fallen off the cliff. It's the best place to see exposure to the fossils. And there are three fossils that we want to focus on here. One of them is these little things that look like a backbone, vertebrae. These little things that look like the vertebrae that are here in these little round bits. These were the stems of what we call crinoids. And their common name is sea lily. And so the stem is what holds up in a big flower on top. We rarely see the flower. But these stems are very abundant around here. The second very common fossil here is something called a bryzoan. And that is like a beautiful lace that would just catch things in the sea as it came through. So it's a beautiful lace. And if you look closely here, you can see little bits of lace. These bryzoans are very common. These crinoids are very common. And then the other is this spirifer brachypod, this big shell here, which we can see millions of them over here. And if we look over here, we can see a beautiful shell there that's a brachypod. And so the deal is that we really only see three fossils here in great abundance. And if we look at a slab like this one here, we can see that this is a death assemblage, which means that these things which are not pelagic, they're not swimming around in the sea, they're benthic. They live on the ocean floor. And so that when there's a storm or a slump, they could just bury everyone. And that death assemblage means it tells us exactly what was here. And what it is is a large abundance of only three species, which means that there's something fishy. I don't mean fishy, I mean something unusual about this environment that only three species could adapt to it. And those that adapted to it could go absolutely nuts because there were no predators. So that these things went really bonkers here because it was so cold. And so if you look at the ecosystem and you define all of the species that are here, you can tell if there's something unusual about it. This does not have the diversity we see in, for instance, the tropical environment. It's completely different. So this is another indicator of what's going on here.


Now more than ever, we want you to feel safe coming to Mid-Michigan Health Emergency Departments to seek your emergency care. As an emergency physician, I want to remind you of some symptoms that should prompt you to seek emergency care right away. If you're having chest pain, especially if this is new or different chest pain than you've ever had before, you should seek care immediately. If you have any symptoms of stroke such as numbness or weakness in an arm or a leg or facial droop or difficulty speaking, call 911 immediately. Remember that in these two circumstances, time is of the essence. Every minute counts and our treatments are more effective if we can start them earlier. Also, if you should have an accident or other mishap and you fear that you may have broken a bone or you have a cut that needs attention, please come to the emergency department right away so we can take care of. I understand that there's a lot of concern around the current COVID-19 pandemic. I want to assure you that we are taking extra precautions and all of our staff has been trained to prevent the spread as much as possible. We have a special triage process where every patient that comes to the emergency department is screened. Anyone with respiratory symptoms has a separate waiting area. We have increased disinfection in all of our patient care areas. All of our staff is wearing masks and appropriate PPE to make sure that both you and they are protected. Thank you for entrusting us with your care. Remember, we're here for you. Mid-Michigan Health is your go-to place for emergency care.


Well, we're back. Some of you may have just seen my latest video that just premiered and normally premiere on Sunday, but just decided to do it here today. So that's what we did. Should I wear the glasses? No. Hello, Dean. What do you think? Oh gosh, my. It's Friday. Not that I don't love what I do because I do.   And I try not to work on the weekends, even though I could, because I love it. Okay, what? Why is it like I look at the screen and it's opposite? So, okay. How's everyone? It's like, clearly, I haven't talked a lot today. So if you don't know, I just got back from a 10 day trip to the South Island and amazing. Like, if I'm being honest, I wasn't totally looking forward to it because I was tired and just like, I don't know that I could be bothered with all this. And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not. But I did, we did some tramping in Mount Cook, which was my favorite.  I think all the other times that I tried to go, it's very touchy because, you know, sometimes you can't see the mountain or the weather, just like the two days before we went about the weather was horrible. And then we were, we literally left a day early because the weather was coming in. So we're like, and we're out because we're camping. And yeah, so you kind of got, it's kind of hit or miss. And so you should definitely go but it's hit or miss. It was highlight, the picture that I have on the slide that was me walking to the hut. Amazing. What do you guys think of huts? Do you stay in the huts? We don't generally stay in the huts. We'll book like, normally the huts will have like campsites next to it and we'll book that because it's weird. But as we were walking to the hut, we ran into some people that couldn't stay and they gave us their spot. And let me tell you, I was happy for that. I was happy for a bed and not being outside in the rain. So in the cold, it was really cold, like really cold. And so I was like, oh my gosh, thank goodness for the hut. Now I know why people do this. So yeah. So anyway, let's talk a little bit about the digital economy. Like, what do you think? Like, are you guys involved in the digital economy? Are you on social? Do you have businesses? Like, where are you? Like, do you use AI? Do you use AI in everything that you do? Because I do. I mean, it's so funny because I get so many compliments from people. Oh, I really like this video or I really like this and yep, five minutes on AI. That's what it was.  Oh, nice.  So yeah, I'm just like, oh my gosh, how are people not doing this? How do people just not have YouTube channels? How do you not have a YouTube channel? I don't, I don't even watch YouTube. When people asked me to be on YouTube, my TikTok community, they were like, please be on YouTube. We need more long form content. This was before TikTok had anything past 60 seconds. And so I was like, oh, I guess I could do that. I'm like, but I don't want a video edit. I don't, you know, and so I just did. I just didn't listen to my own beliefs about something that I never did, because it's what I always tell my kids. Like, I don't want to hear about you not wanting to do it if you haven't tried it. So I tried it and it's the best platform out there. So quickest way to make money. I mean, I was monetized in four months. I mean, sometimes it takes a year, but I think that the restrictions are lower now. Yeah, they've lowered them making it easier to be monetized. So you can literally go on YouTube, talk about whatever the heck you want, and you can get paid for it. And you don't have to change what you're talking about. You just have to talk about something.  You know, I mean, it's a, it's definitely more effort and you need more patience to make significant money, but no investment, zero dollars, nothing. It's crazy, you guys. Welcome, Victoria. So yeah, how's it going? So I have a lot of people, if you guys are moving to New Zealand, a lot of people are coming into my membership right now. Like, I just think everybody's flooding into the country because it's quite easy. There's a lot of visa options and a little bit easier than it has been in the past for people to come in. So get in to the membership if you want help with moving here, everything you need to know to set up life and thrive here, cultural training, access to me anytime you have a question. We're doing a live Q&A next week and I'll probably be having immigration teams join me online calls so that you can get all of your questions answered right there. So, and I'm capping it because I don't want to have too big of a community where I can't be personal and spend a lot of time so I'm, you know, it's going to close. So if you want it in, now's the time. Let's see, let's see, let's see. And I'm giving my community a free gift that I found on my trip in the South Island and so probably shouldn't have said that. That was going to be a surprise. Okay, we'll see if any of them watch this, then they'll know. It's okay, I'm not going to tell you what it is even though it's sitting right over there. And no, it's not one of my products, not my cookbook. There are some cookbooks left if you want one. Link is in my description. Let's see what else. I am going to offer, and this is true and it's not public yet. I'm going to offer 10 spots of 30 minutes of marketing strategy one on one with somebody with 10 people at cheap like 20 bucks because I can't stand what I'm seeing out there. It's like really bothering me. I've been coaching in marketing for, well, I mean, I've been teaching it my whole life, but I've been coaching mainly businesses in New Zealand and oh my gosh, I have no idea. But like the, the success that they've had after actually having a strategy is enormous, enormous. In fact, one of my clients have maybe selling their business and it was because of their marketing. They were so impressed with them like because they looked at it as being cutting edge in New Zealand. It's not taken off like it has in other countries.   So 10 people, that's it. Because what I'm going to do is it's not just 30 minutes, like you're going to send me your business and your handles and like your questions.  And so I'm excited about that because I just don't, I've been hesitant to make my own digital marketing course because it doesn't always apply to everybody.  Because that may not be right for you. It may not make sense. I mean, I have clients who doesn't even make sense for them to be on social media because of what they do. And like, so it really just comes back to getting the right strategy. So if you have the right strategy, and then you can focus on the only the platforms that makes sense for you, where your audience is, and then it's not just social media. I generally talk mostly about organic marketing, but I mean, there is a place or paid ads for sure, especially if you're a product or you don't have much of an audience. But you got to be strategic about that. And there's so much cool software out there now in utilizing. And so also I train my clients on how to use AI to do it. Because well, you know, you don't have to know how to do it anymore. You don't have to hire a social media manager. Don't hire a social media manager, please. You know, how many of my clients try to make me be their social media managers. And like, I would be really good at it. This is why I was like, I would be really good at it. But it's almost like a parent to a child. I know that it's not what's best for you. And so I don't do it. You need to learn it yourself, because you don't want to have to always pay for it. And it's not necessary. And your audience needs to connect with you and not with me. And so, and I'm just like, oh, and so the whole like, I think I just struggle in the whole area of marketing, like, I just feel like there's so many cool, like digital products and courses that I could come out with. But I'm just bent on what I really believe to be true. And really, I can't, I'm not going to do something that or try to sell something that I don't truly believe in. And so that's why I've been to coaching, because coaching is like completely customizable to the to the person. And that's what you actually need. And so the first step in the coaching is the strategy is like, what should you be doing? And so that's why I'm going to do that. I'm going to give 10 people 20 bucks. I'm going to do a strategy for you. And you don't have to learn how to do it from me. There's a really great website called Google.com, YouTube.com, where you can say, okay, so if we come like, for example, let's let me just walk through this. If any of you have a business and want to just like put it in the chat, I'm happy to just kind of off the cuff, initial thoughts, just so I can use example for teaching. So let's say we decide that like Facebook and YouTube are the two channels that make sense for you and your social media. And in terms of your website, your messaging might need a little bit of work and your on site SEO might need a little bit of work. And so just having the 30 minute strategy call, where I tell you that that's what you should do. Because I have like an enormous amount of knowledge that I'm filtering through and then coming out with what you should do. So you don't have to do all that. You don't have to listen to somebody on TikTok is trying to sell you on TikTok ads or this, it might not make sense for you. So this is a point, this is the point. So I'm just going to tell you what it is that you need to do. And then then you could go to YouTube.com, Google.com and how to do really good Facebook, how to do a Facebook fan page, how to do a Facebook group, you know, it's all free.  Like I am, it'll take you a lot longer coming with somebody that has all of it. He just like in an hour just narrow it down is very valuable. Hello, hello. Today, the topic is the digital economy. And we are talking based on I just launched new YouTube video, you can watch it later on that. And so I'm just talking about the fact that I'm giving 10, what am I doing? 10 marketing strategy, 30 minute one-on-ones with me for 20 bucks. We're just going to go change because this is just me getting out there and just like helping. I just want to do that. I just want to do that. And then you can continue to coach with me if you want, but you don't need to. You don't need to. Like I'm, oh my gosh, I mean some people might need to, but anyway, that's, that's what I'm thinking. Sorry. New selfie stick.  I pull this out and they freak out. It's so funny. Oh, let's do this on our trip. It's so funny. So a new way to torture your teenagers. Get one of these probably on Amazon for $10 or less. But this one's cool because do this. Where do we get this? I think I got this at the warehouse. Hold on. Yeah, the warehouse. Okay. Okay, here we go. So it's like a tripod. They're never very good. You know, like the real tripods are better like this. See how you could get started on social media like boom. You know, probably at the warehouse. This was probably like $50. Welcome to New Zealand. Okay. Any questions that you have about marketing, about New Zealand, about traveling? I've been helping a lot of people with their travel plans. So I might start like a consulting on travel because oh, people just need to know. I've been now officially everywhere in New Zealand, every region. So if you want to know where to go, some of the local secret spots, I should just do literally a digital product in all the local secret spots because I don't probably know all of them, but I know big ones and that would probably be cool actually. So many ideas.


Tēnā koutou katoa. Nā mihinui ki nā mana fenoa o tenei rohe, nārātu te mana, nārātu te fenoa, hemi mahana moto rātu manaaki. Hēre mai te Māori me te moeotanga o tātu tipuna. Hēre hēre ana tātu e nei afina moto aonei. Tēnā hoki katoa te ātiāwa moto afina maia matu. Ko nā alps te pae maunga. Ko iza te awa. Ko waka re re re re rangi. Aotearoa te waka. Ko tiamana aho. E noho ana oki te fanganui ātara. E mihi ana ki taku faiapao penny moto aroha. Ko mātin toku ingua ko tino haotutu aho. Ki ora katoa. So I felt like I wanted to do this because I've been in so many mihi's and I always wanted to understand. Many of you have not been experiencing the culture of this land and I hope that helped a little bit. Thanks for bearing with me.  But my privilege also includes that I grew up in the very early days of the internet and I experienced an internet that was peer-to-peer that didn't have monolithic companies selling your data and impeding upon your privacy. I was there when the web was born and I witnessed how companies, which I shall not name, took control and today have this control. And so I set upon the journey being a context switcher myself who takes on way too many projects all the time and hardly ever sees any of them through to completion. Onto a journey of re-decentralisation and I started working with people that care, that help re-decentralising the web such as Alana and her team and such as many of you out there. As a matter of fact when I came to New Frontiers seven months ago it was going to be like all about decentralisation until I realised that first of all, a lot of you are too, so that is not a unique selling point that I had left. And I also felt really, really small and one of the sayings we had at the last New Frontiers was that if you think you are small then try spending a night with a mosquito. That really stuck with me and led to me registering with the EHF and doing this process of application which I think everyone of you should do. Sorry EHF. I learnt that what really makes me tick is that not only do I want to re-decentralise the web, I want to empower our children to become makers and not just takers of the technology that shapes their lives. And I want to do this through open source, open standards, open protocols, everything I've ever done needs to go in this direction and everything I will ever do. I will not back any business case that makes money of proprietary IP. I want to do this through education projects such as Code Club Aotearoa, teaching small kids in school to get their hands dirty with tech or tech kids who are doing maker spaces at conferences or TV tronics, paper electronics that make tech so accessible to people. And finally we need to create alternatives because we can't just say don't do that, don't do that. Similar to how you should put a compost bin in front of your yard and simply ask your people around you to donate your food waste, we should be using alternatives that are simply better and the rest will follow. So my name is Martin Noreira, Tena koutou, Tena koutou, Tena koutou katoa.