Now we present Herbert Marshall as the man called X. The Friday night feature on NBC's five-show festival of comedy, music, mystery, and drama. Transcribed for you by the makers of Anison for fast relief from pain of headache, Neuritis neuralgia. By Canon Towers, famous for color, for design, for durability. Among towels, America's number one best seller. And by R.C.A. Victor, world leader in radio first in recorded music, first in television. Herbert Marshall as the man called X. Wherever there is mystery, intrigue, romance in all the strange and dangerous places of the world, there you will find the man called X. No matter what you now take for headache relief, we urge you to try Anison for the incredibly fast relief these tablets bring the next time you're suffering from a headache. Now the reason Anison is so wonderfully fast acting and effective is this. Anison is like a doctor's prescription. That is, Anison contains not just one, but a combination of medically proven active ingredients in easy to take tablet form. Thousands of people have received envelopes containing Anison tablets from their own dentist or physician. And in this way discovered the incredibly fast relief Anison brings from pains of headache, Neuritis or neuralgia. So the next time a headache strikes, take Anison for this wonderfully fast relief. Anison, A-N-A-C-I-N. Anison, at any drug counter in handy boxes of 12 and 30, economical family size bottles of 50 and 100. Port-au-Prince Haiti, like many cities of the world, is a mixture in sharp contrast of the old and the new. And up to date, airport serves its commerce and modern business buildings line its streets. But deep in the jungle and even in the plantations outside the city, the drums of voodoo still sound their pagan rhythms in the night. And again, the well-dressed man who steps from a limousine at the entrance of the government building is a product of the new. But the thing that awaits him is as old as terror itself. Call for me here at 3, Ronaldo. Good morning, Your Excellency. Oh, good morning, Doctor. I'm a lovely day, isn't it? Yes, it is a perfect day. Tell me, sir, have you? Look after your excellency. Huh? Zombie? No, wait, no, no, no. Tell me, sir, are you Your Excellency? Are you, Phyllis Lee? Your shooting was not very well timed, Captain Andre. Eh? What do you mean, Dr. Weimar? I mean, perhaps it should have been 10 seconds sooner or else not at all. Five assassinations in three weeks and every one of the victims are government official. I just phoned the Haitian consul a few minutes ago, Chief. Says the whole island's in a turmoil down there. Well, what gets me, Kenneth, is business about zombies. A walking dead. Why, it's right out of a dime novel. It's ridiculous. All right, Chief, you don't believe in zombies, and I don't. But a lot of the natives in Haiti do, and that's the point. Oh, I know, there's still plenty of superstition left in the world, but this whole thing just doesn't make sense. I've seen it done before in Ceylon, the Sudan, India. It's a matter of hypnotism and drugs. It creates a perfect assassin with no thought for his own safety and only one idea in mind, a kill. But why? Assuming somebody is doing this in Haiti. Why? Well, all the victims have been government officials. It looks like an attack on the government itself. Yeah. And the little hot spots have a habit of turning into big ones. Sure. Serbia, Spain. All right, Ken, go to it. Somebody stands to profit by this. The problem is to find out who. And the answer? Well, I guess I better look for it in Haiti. So long, Chief. Sir, are you Mr. Ken Thurston? Oh, yes, that's right. Captain Andreas, is that your service, sir? Oh, how do you do? I've been assigned to escort you to General Brock. General Brock? The general commands the Department of Police and Military Affairs. Oh, yes. Tell me, have there been any new developments? No, sir. Not since his Excellency, the finance minister, was killed in front of the government building two days ago. As I understand it, there hasn't been one of these zombies captured alive. That is correct. They're like mad dogs. One cannot take chances. Oh, it might be a well-taking chance to be able to question one of them. Well, so far there's been really no opportunity to capture one of them. I see. These affairs happen so fast that... That... What is it, Captain? This man coming towards us sees a special investigator hired by the consulate in New York. A terrible nuisance, really. Oh. Permit me to introduce myself, sir. I am Jose Cacahuate, my cop. South American agent of North American Van Lines. From Tucumcuri to Tallahassee, Chatanuga to Cucamonga will hold anything anywhere in... All right, Pagon. Take off that phony beard and come up for air. I can't take it off. I'm in a secret service. Well, that's one branch of government you should know all about. You've been running for several years. Mr. Thurston, that's my bread and butter you're stepping on. What are you doing down here, anyway? Well, I'm investigating this zombie business. Whatever that is. Oh, sure. Well, now, my dear... Captain, do you happen to have any ideas as to what may be behind this mess? Well, nothing definite, Mr. Thurston. There is a general feeling that the plantation owners may be responsible in some way. The plantation owners, why? Well, they've had very little voice in the government in recent years. Control has been in the hands of city politicians, so naturally... And when did you become a political commentator, my pet? Malu. Malu, this is Ken Thurston, Miss Broussard. How do you do? And Mr. Zell Schmidt, you know, of course. Sure. Higher pay.  Andres, I'm terribly sorry to break in on you this way, but I did want to remind you about dinner this evening. Well, I'm not sure, Malu. General Brock has assigned me his liaison to Mr. Thurston. Well, then, by all means, bring Mr. Thurston, too. You will come, won't you? Well, I... Oh, please. If you like Creole cooking your love Haitian food. All right.  Don't mind confessing that it's relief to have you here, Mr. Thurston. I'm a man of action myself, and the mystery leaves me floundering. Well, this is all a mystery to me so far, General Brock. Possibly these cased records may help a little. Well, I hope so. I hope so, but they don't make sense to me. Five men in a row, struck down on the streets without any rhyme or reason to it. Oh, I think there's a rhyme and a reason. A matter of finding them. Well, I hope that happens soon, sir. One more murder will mean martial law, and then the whole business will be dumped right on my shoulders. Yes, I see what you mean. General Brock, have you considered the possibility that one of our own men may be involved in this? Well, that's ridiculous, sir. Police and army are absolutely trustworthy. Well, I know that's the usual theory, but... I can vouch for them to a man, sir. Something else, General. This idea of the plantation owners being responsible. Is that a possibility? Well, a possibility in theory, I suppose, but not in fact. Why, some of them are my best friends. Find people, all of them. I see. Well, I'll look over these records and talk with you later. Well, I dare say we'll find time tonight at dinner. You're coming to Miss Boussa's, too? Yes, yes. Fine girl, Mala. Wonderful person. Wonderful. Well, good luck, Mr. Thurston. Call on me if you need any help, sir. Thanks, General. I will. Over here, Mr. Thurston. Well, secret agent Zell Schmidt. Still wearing the beard, I see. I need the money, Mr. X. How did I know what I was getting into? When I heard they were having trouble with zombies, I thought somebody was watering the liquor. Well, what do you think now? I think I'm scared. There's a good reason to be, too. Chance of being turned into a zombie at any moment. Oh, don't say that.  Hmm, come to think of it, I guess they're safe at that. Mr. Thurston, I... Pagon, what's the tie-up between Mala Boussa and Captain Andreas?   Why, Mr. Thurston, she's practically got him hypnotized. This is my only guest whom you haven't met. Mr. Thurston, Dr. Weimar. Oh, Dr. Ender. I knew Dr. Weimar in Vienna before the war. Carl, I think his name was. My brother, Mr. Thurston. He is no longer living. Oh, I'm sorry. Sakaipir, wasn't he? Yes, with a specialty in hypnotherapy. Oh, your field, too, Dr. Weimar? It was, originally. My practice here, however, is primarily medical. I see. It's such a lovely night that I decided we'd have dinner on the verandah. Oh, wonderful. We'll go out through the side doors. General Brock. Yes, my dear? Would you and Andres like to leave your firearms in here? Oh? I'm not really so dangerous that you have to be honest. On the contrary, my dear, you are so completely dangerous that mere firearms wouldn't do us the least bit of good. Obviously, General Brock. This way, Mr. Thurston. Thanks. You're all right. It is lovely out here. I wouldn't trade it for all the rest of. But what's the matter, Mr. Thurston? No, the other's just listening to the drums. Oh, yes. Voodoo drums or signal drums. Opinions vary. Miss Imala, you excuse, eh? Oh, yes, Granaloo. Is a proof of with you if me go now? Of course, Granaloo. I'll see you in the morning. Good night, Miss Imala. She's been with me for years. Devoted. A wonderful woman. But where's she going? Well, she has a little house of her own in the bush. Holds voodoo ceremonies in it, I'm quite certain. A lot of natives still believe in it, you know? As they do in zombism. Yes. Shall we sit down? You on my right, Mr. Thurston. Thank you. Andre's there. Well, thank you. And you on the other side, General Brock. Thank you, my dear. Dr. Weimar, over here. No, wait. Look. Wait. Yes. Look, what's the devil? His eye is grassy, fixed. It's a zombie. Now, now get back. I can hold his attention. Swing this chair. Inside, Captain Andre, let's get our guns. Just one swing, now, and up. Good timing, Mr. Thurston. He's knocked unconscious. Stand back, everybody. Where is he? Where did he go? No, Captain. Put down that gun. No, don't. There was no need of that, Captain. The man was unconscious. It wasn't a man. It was a zombie. You can't take chances. You'll, well.   It's the only way to, the only way to. It's all right, Andre. You come in the house with me now. You did the right thing, my dear. You were right, of course. Mr. Thurston, the boy was hasty. But confounded you don't understand the pressure of a surrender out here. Maybe not, General Brock. But I don't understand why you've never captured one alive. Well, yes, I know. But, oh, confounded, I'd better go see what's eating them all. Mr. Thurston, am I correct in assuming that you noticed the same thing I did? I saw something, Dr. Weimer. That's fantastic, though. Is it? Good night, Mr. Fester and my daughter. All right, Pager. You can come up from under that table now. I'm only hired to investigate these zombies, Mr. Thurston, not to fight with them. Well, so that's what they look like, eh? Some of them. The other one here tonight looks different, though. Other one? Sure. Captain Andres. Huh? Didn't you notice him when he ran out here and shot this man? He had the eyes of a zombie. We will continue with the man called X in just a moment. Now for some news of a special event, news that deserves and gets a fanfare. Right now is the time to get famous cannon towels. Big cannon towel sales are booming all over town. They're packed with value. Don't wait. Get to your store today and get in on these great money-saving cannon sales. Cannon towels give you the most for your money. Cannon towels absorb more, wear longer, stay lovely longer. You'll need more towels for summer. Get famous cannons now. The big, fluffy, thirsty towels in every size. Bath towels, hand towels, and wash clothes to match. Complete ensembles. 18 beautiful colors to choose from. More people buy cannon towels than all other towels combine. Get the most for your money. Get cannons.  Now to continue with the man called X, starring Herbert Marshall with Leon Balasco as Pegan Zelschmidt. Five assassinations in three weeks and the island of Haiti is swept by a wave of terror. One word is whispered over and over on the plantations and through the dark years. Zombies, the walking dead. Ken himself was an eyewitness to killing number six. And now he and Pegan make their way cautiously through the midnight bush, heading for the heart of a voodoo or a old, old granaloo. What do you want with this granaloo woman anyhow? Just checking. That zombie came out of the bush about a minute after she went into it. And she may be a voodoo leader. She's devoted a... Wait a second.  Jeepers, creepers. Let's get out of here, Mr. Thurston. Please come on up here where I can see you. Oh, it's too late. Come on, Pegan. I've been waiting for you, Mr. X. Why, granaloo? My people out there in the hills, they ask what will be done to save them from this terror. And I have not known what to tell them. Then what will you tell them now? That you have come. You knew I would come. And you know who I am. How, granaloo? There is still much knowledge in the jungle that has never yet been found. Have you found the answer, Mr. X? Yes, I found it. But I don't know yet how to deal with it. You will. My people will be very happy when I kill them. I thought they're on the brink of that. Your pigeon English was all put on. One must play many roles in this life, Mr. X. Yes, I know. I will speak to my people now. Good night, granaloo. Come, Pegan. Wait for me in the car, Pegan. I'm going to stop in at the house. Mr. Thurston, wait. No, no, the gun isn't necessary, Mr. Thurston. I wasn't waiting here to threaten you. The thing is, I'm, well, I'm scared. Yes, I can understand how you would be, Captain Andreas. You see, tonight is the second time something like that has happened. You mean shooting first and thinking later? It's not like me, Mr. Thurston. I don't understand it. I don't understand it at all. You want to understand it, Captain? Yes, no matter what the answer is, no matter what I've got to find out. All right, listen. Come with me now and don't say anything to anyone. Stay at my hotel tonight, and in the morning we'll go see Dr. Weimar together. I don't trust Weimar. You don't have to trust him. Trust me. He's rather far under the drug now, Mr. Thurston. And the trance too is about as deep as I care to take him just now. Well, it's entirely up to your judgment, Dr. Weimar. I'm a little out of my field here. Then I think we might try for some of the phrases, some of the commands that were given him when he was hypnotized previously. And do you agree, Mr. Thurston? Yeah, go ahead, Dr. Captain Andreas, can you hear me? Yes, sir. I can hear you. And do you understand who's here with you and what's happening? Yes, sir. You're Dr. Weimar, Mr. Thurston is here, and you've hypnotized me. A part of me is asleep. A part of me is awake and listening to you. You called it a dissociation. Yes, sir. Now the awake part of you, Captain Andreas, is the part I'm talking to. It's the part that remembers, remembers everything, including the last time you were hypnotized. Yes, sir. I remember. What were you told at that time, Captain?  How were you told? What were the words? You can hear the command now. What is it, Captain? What is it? Kill all zombies after they've killed. Kill all captured zombies. Forget you were told this. It's almost as though a woman were talking. You can't always be sure, Mr. Thurston. He's been given a lot of commands to forget. It's going to take quite a lot of work to get it out of him. Well, I'm afraid I'll have to leave him in your hands, Dr. Weimar. I've got an appointment with the General Brock. Those case records, then, Mr. Thurston, no use to you at all, so it seems, eh? Well, not much, anyway, General Brock. Oh, I've got a few hazy ideas, but nothing really worth mentioning. That's too bad, too bad. I've managed to stall off martial law until tomorrow morning. That's about as far as I'll be able to push it. Well, that still gives me some time. Time? That's the enemy I've fought all my life. Action is the thing. Which accounts, I imagine, for all these trophies on the walls, eh?  Collected in Central Africa over a good many years. Nothing any fool couldn't do. But, uh, here is a trophy for you, Mr. Thurston. Oh, yes. What is it, polished quartz? No, it's rutile. Beautiful job of cutting, isn't it? I attached it to this watch chain so I could swing it like a pendulum. Watch it glitter. Glitter this way. Back and forth. Back and forth. Notice the fire in it, Mr. Thurston? The play of lights deep inside the stone. Yes, it's fascinating. I could watch it for hours, glittering, centralating, shifting, changing, patterns of light as it swings back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, yes, I see. Makes me drowsy sometimes. Sleepy. My eyes get heavy like yours are now. Yes. Heavier and heavier. Sleepier and sleepier. So sleepy you can't open them. Sleep, sleep. And now you're sound asleep. Yes, sound asleep. You can't open your eyes, Mr. Thurston, you're sound asleep. I'm sound asleep. Sleep. Good. Mr.   Hypnotism is such a simple art. You ought to learn more about it.   You won't remember being hypnotized. You'll forget all about this. But when the time comes, you'll carry out the commands.  Yes, I understand. All right. Now listen, I'm having a little dinner party at my residence this evening. The same group that was out at Mallard's last night.    And here is the signal. I'll say, doesn't it seem a little hot in here? Good. And now I'm going to wake you up, Thurston. At the count of three, you'll be wide awake, and you won't remember any of this. Understand? Yes, sir. All right then. One, two, three. Natives of that particular area polish the stones by some method or their own. I never could discover how they did it. That's very interesting, General. Well, I guess I better get back to work. Oh, by the way, Mr. Thurston, I'm having a little dinner party here at my place this evening. Like to have you join us. Fine, what time? Oh, let's make it 8 o'clock. All right, General. I'll see you later. Then I swore before I came here tonight that I keep the dinner conversation off that subject, and here we go again talking about what? Zombies, naturally. Would somebody please pass the salt? Well, it's a little hard to ignore your subject. It's called six deaths in a row. What have you found out, Mr. Thurston? Any results yet? Well, it depends on what you mean by results, Captain Andres. None of these would have led to what General Brock would call action. Well, unfortunately, I'm being forced into action. Martial law goes into effect at 8 o'clock tomorrow orders of the cabinet. It's the old familiar pattern and a bad one. Armed guards everywhere, a curfew, law courts closed, bulletins, orders in force.  For most people. For most people? I'd say for everybody concerned. Not necessarily, Mal. I came down here with one idea in mind. To look for the person most likely to profit from this zombie terror. Well, I found that person pretty quickly. It wasn't really much of a problem. I say, doesn't it seem a little hot in here? The problem was deciding how to deal with the situation. Mr. Thurston, doesn't it seem a little hot in here? Not to me, General Brock. But what I said was, doesn't... I know what you said. I also know a few things about hypnotism. Enough at least not to fix my attention on a shiny pendulum. All right, Captain Andres. General Brock, I have here a presidential warrant authorizing your arrest. But Captain Andres, I bid. Look, first, and as a zombie. They're gone, please.  First, and as a zombie. General Brock, Dr. Weimar worked in the captain for five hours today. Your number one mop up zombie is unzombified. This way, General. March. All right. This way. Dictatorship by way of martial law. Was that his idea, Mr. Thurston? Of course, ma'am. It's an easier way than revolution. Well, one thing at least. There won't be any more of those zombies now. No, maybe not the kind he was creating. But there are other kinds. They're fighting and killing and dying all over the world. Millions of them. Mindless and blind, they... They follow just one command. Kill, destroy, kill. And yet who's really to blame? The zombies themselves? Or the men who create them? Our star, Mr. Herbert Marshall, will return in just a moment. Here's a word from RCA Vector. That word is Fairfield. And RCA Vector's superb new Fairfield. RCA Vector's superb new Fairfield is the last word in console television. It's better looking in every way. Better looking television. RCA Victor television that has been quality proven in over two million homes. It's 17 inch television with clear, bright pictures. Steady pictures that are locked in place by RCA Victor's exclusive eyewitness picture synchronizer. Better looking cabinet too, for in the Fairfield RCA Victor stylists have captured all the charm and dignity of classic design. Every line, every detail of this fine furniture piece exhibits the craftsmanship for which RCA Victor is famous. And it's beautifully figured doors can play such an important part when the set is not in use. Yes, the Fairfield is better looking in every way. So next chance you get, step into your RCA Victor dealers. See and hear the exciting new Fairfield. You too will discover that the RCA Victor Fairfield is better looking in every way. Oh, here is our star, Mr. Herbert Marshall. Thanks for being with us. The folks you heard in tonight's cast were Barbara Fuller, DJ Thompson, Will Wright, Lou Merrill, Stan Waxman, and Bill Conrad. Next week, a man and a girl and a plot that sent Kane halfway around the world on one of the most exasperating cases he ever tackled. And speaking of exasperation, of course, Leon Balasker will be there as Pagon Zeltsmith. Join us, won't you, when next I return as the man called X. Good night. The Man Called X is the Friday Night Feature on NBC's 5-Show Festival of Comedy, Music, Mystery, and Drama. Transcribed for you by the makers of Anderson for fast relief from panopetic neuritis neuralgia. By Cannon Towers, famous for color, for design, for durability. Among Towers, America's number one best seller. And by RCA Victor, world leader in radio first in recorded music first in television. The Man Called X, starring Herbert Marshall, is a J. Richard Kennedy production with music composed and conducted by Felix Mills. Tonight's story was written by Les Crutchfield. All characters and incidents on this program are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual characters or incidents is purely coincidental. Be sure to hear the magnificent Montague with Monty Woolley, formerly heard on Friday, now brought to you as the Saturday Night Feature of NBC's All-Star Festival. On station, this is Jack Latham saying good night for The Man Called X. William Bendick stars in the life of Riley. Enjoy it on NBC.


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The whole board is just buttery, buttery smooth. Hey, what is up guys? It's Josh here today. I wanted to do a review on my Backfire G3. Now I actually picked up the Backfire G2T right when this whole pandemic thing came out. One of the reasons I got the board is because I like to review stuff. I wanted to put a nice video on YouTube, maybe jump into the e-skating realm, things like that. But right when I bought the G2T, it became discontinued. I was like, okay, I'm reviewing a discontinued board.  Put the board through a lot of stuff and by the end I really didn't maintain almost anything on it. I didn't double check things. I didn't grease up the parts that you're supposed to grease up or any of that stuff. And the Backfire G2T kicked out about a thousand miles, which is pretty good considering that I wrote it under like all conditions. I wrote it on the sand at the beach, not in the sand, but there was so much sand around the beach that it was getting in the wheels. I wrote it for work and they put these sprinklers so I'm riding through water, things like that. So I'm gonna really take care of this board. Hopefully I can get it more than a thousand miles, but I really like the thousand miles of the G2T. G2T was my first board ever and I absolutely loved it. Everybody who stepped on the G2T just loved it too. Was so sold on it. I had a buddy of mine who wanted to create his own e-skate and was actually like making fun of me.  And then even he was saying, nah, like I'm only gonna buy this stuff because this board just does everything you want it to do. Let's jump over to the G3, which I think is actually better in every single way. In the G2T, I only had them in the front. This kind has both of the really, really good trucks in the front and the back and it just provides an amazing, amazing, amazing carving experience. Even my buddy who's used to the Mini Meepo, he hopped on this board and he was like, wow, you can really carve with it. It really just gives you almost like a 3D way of carving. I just absolutely love the two caliber two trucks and I really think that that's gonna set it apart from other e-skates as well just because of how good these trucks feel. The board is bigger, longer and wider. I actually think it might be a little bit taller. I had to get used to this at first because I'm used to how long my wheels are and how the turning and the carving feels based on how long the wheels are. It took me a second to get used to it, but overall, I gotta say that I do like it and when you get into great situations, when you're going high speed and you're carving and maybe you slip the extra length and the width, it's just gonna be more stable and it's gonna really provide you what you want in those crazy situations where you are going fast and you are carving and so you hit a rock. It just feels more stable and bigger. I was also looking at it and I'm like, well, this doesn't look like a big board. It doesn't look like oversized. It kind of feels a little bulky and big, but like I said, you could carve so easy with it. It really just doesn't look as big as it is. It looks like a normal board, which is what I want. I don't want this huge, gigantic board. The lights on the side are a nice plus. They're kind of like a little flex. Some people, the new thing is to put lights on the board. It's kind of nice that these are put in there and you can also turn them off to save battery too. Sometimes you want to look a little better. Sometimes you're going in the dark, so it's kind of nice for other people to know where you are and maybe even see a little bit of the surrounding areas with the light. I do like that option. It is a premium option. I could do without it, but I do like it. This board is very, very smooth, like I was saying before. I don't know if it's just those caliber two trucks or everything else, but the whole board is just buttery, buttery, smooth. I really, really enjoy it. By far the smoothest board that I've ever ridden. I think this is going to be a standard on all boards to come. Backfire had their strongest setting, their fastest setting was technically turbo mode. And in the G2T, you only had 30 seconds of turbo mode, which would cause a lot of problems. I would basically not even use it. And on top of that, the turbo mode wouldn't work once you were below three bars. So it was like half the time it wouldn't work. And then when you forgot on the 30 seconds, like if you forgot that you had the turbo mode on or you're flooring it with turbo, when it goes out of turbo mode, it'll jolt the board. So it will still come out of the best of the turbo. Now it's a full turbo, absolutely. Love it. It's kind of leaving on turbo most of the time just because of the acceleration on the uphill. That's really where you need it. I use my E-skate at work and it's very, very, very crowded. So sometimes I'm waiting for a car to go and then they'll let me pass. And the extra acceleration really, really is nice. Also going uphill, my buddy has the Mini Meepo 2. It's really, really strong. And I think I was able to go faster than an uphill with this board, although his board is a little bit border. That cost the turbo, absolutely do love it. So this board is 100% balanced. I know this is kind of a weird thing to say, but with my backfire D2T, one of the sides was much nicer than the other side. So one side was more tight with the transducer, the other side was more loose to, let's say, by switching from two feet to regular or by Spursa. One side is just gonna be a little loose. This was the G2T. My G3 is 100% balanced, so I just wanted to put that out there. The G2T, although it had that slant, I loved it still and I had no problems with it. I'm just saying that the G3 is 100% balanced, like I want it to be. This board is supposed to be kind of like a flexi deck. And when you see it online, people jumping on it, it seems really, really flexi. However, it's really, really stable. I do weigh like 195 pounds. I'm a little heavy, but this one really felt stable. It really doesn't feel springy. Maybe if you get into a situation where you're pushing it really hard, it will give a little bit, but it doesn't really feel like that. It feels very, very stable. Almost more stable than my G2T, which is a stiff style deck. And apparently the G3 Plus is gonna be stiff too, but this one is supposed to be more flexi. I just find that the flexiness helps to absorb kind of chatter. I don't really feel like it's making me lose any stability. I've only really tried Mepo boards and backfire boards, but I really enjoy the ease into acceleration that you get with a backfire. My friends, Mepo, it's very, like, as soon as you push the power up, it just takes off. As soon as you put the brake, it just breaks. You know, it's very blunt and very quick. I could get around it. It's not the worst thing, but I really do enjoy the premium feel of being able to ease into acceleration and ease into brake. It just is a much more smooth and predictable experience. I enjoy it. I like the new charging port and USB. The way they put the charging port in this one is much more... It's just much better on the G2T. The charging port was on the very bottom of the board, so you'd have to plug it in, and then the cord would be basically running up against the ground. Now the charging port is sideways. It's not under the board, so you could set the board up normal and just plug it on the side. Basically, the charging is a lot better. The turning on of the button, the button's a lot smaller, which is nice because I just feel like you're gonna have less issues with it, it's gonna get scratched less. Overall, just a really good redesign of absolutely everything that they possibly could with this board. I know this is kind of expensive. If you're into e-skating, I would get this one or the G3 Plus, but if you're somebody who's just getting into it, right now they got the G2s, and they updated the G2s so that they're just a little bit better than they were before. I think they have some of the new features of the G3 and the new G2s, so if you're looking for a budget board, 100% would recommend the G2. Fantastic. I basically had the G2T. Some things were better on it, some things were worse on it compared to the new G2. I 100% am loving the G3 so far. I think I'm on maybe 50 miles or something so far, but I've ridden 1,000 miles on the other one, and I could tell really quick right away pretty much all I would need to know about this one, so maybe I'll do a review around 500 miles or 1,000 miles, but anyways, guys, that's been my review of the G3. Highly recommended, so, so nice. Hopefully by the next time this one kicks out, backfire will have a better board or we'll update it. That would be great, but anyways, guys, let me know what E-skate you're writing down below. Let me know what videos I should do next. One of the 25,000 subscribers, and I couldn't do that. Anyway, guys, I hope I'm having a great day out here. Hopefully having a great day at home. See you all in the next video. Peace.


Welcome to All Hands Update. I'm Petty Officer Mara Timberlake. These are your headlines from Around the Fleet. Chief Petty Officers identified as Fleet Subject Matter Experts, or SMEs, are encouraged to apply and participate in upcoming advancement exam development. SMEs are critical to ensuring sailors are being tested on current, relevant and important advancement examination topics. For more information, visit the Naval Education and Training Command website. The Navy General Library Program announced the arrival of the Navy eReader device to the surface fleet December 5th. The eReaders are being introduced to enhance leisure time while promoting professional growth. They contain most of the titles in the C&O's professional reading program, including fiction, contemporary and bestsellers that appeal to both men and women. For more information about the program, visit the Navy Library website.


Okay, thanks everyone. We're just going to go through quick introduction because you have three presenters today and And then I'll go through the presentation in three parts. So that's what though if you can introduce yourself I'm Kentaro Matsumoto from KDDI in KDDI. I'm doing cloud architect Hi, this is the Wesaka I'm coming from the NEC I'm a general manager of the Platon service division. Thank you Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is Pierre Mathis director of telco solutions globally at Red Hat and Basically my responsibility to charter Red Hat is to work with all the tier one operators globally and partners in the telco ecosystem The way I got into Red Hat was before the Red Hat I was it through a company called Inavance and then we got acquired by Red Hat and Inavance was at the time the 7th largest open-stack contributor And so we're doing a lot of really interesting advanced thing And we were doing this with about 50 engineers So it's pretty remarkable with the amount of people how we were able to transform In the way we were contributing code. We're really happy that we made the transition to Red Hat And I'll show you a few things of how these emanated into the platform But the first thing I'd like to announce is I mean, this is fresh off the press As you can see dated May 8 in Tokyo So we announced today that we successfully completed Our trials with NEC and KDDI on their next-gen platform for IOT and 5G So it's great to see how far open-stack has come along And now we're really looking to do bleeding-edge things on the open-stack platform So it was a very very successful launch Namely, you know if I go back to my days of open-stack version 6 I remember you know at Verizon and AT&T really struggling with the various components of open-stack I remember vividly Keystone kept crashing because it was flooded by the network I mean, and if you look at where we're at today with open-stack, it's been pretty remarkable And one of the things that I don't know if people understand is this was a frustration I had a while back was how do we have people Participate in the upstream and downstream in contribution to open-stack and you know a lot of times You know companies and telcos view us as kind of the brokers To help them to get the features and functions and open-stack But what we really want to do is to go ahead of this and have a collaboration model and a platform to do so And so you know a lot of times people don't understand the mechanism Of how the secret sauce gets made an open-stack right how do we take it from trunk package in an RDO And then package it into our red-out open-stack platform that takes a lot of time and you know One of the things that we work really really hard is to make sure that we take the bugs and the fixes and make sure We have stable code and that takes You know a good six six months to do so you know one of the ways to speed up that process is Through the next platform that we're going to be launching soon is around DCI so it's taking the concept of CI CD and Basically baking it in into a platform into open-stack And this is what we've really worked hard with the NEC team And I think it helped in the evolution and the deployment of open-stack at in the KTDI implementation and so this enables us this platform that we use with partners enable us to Essentially participate so when we see when we have bug fix we're able to put it into the platform Another thing that we're able to do is if you see through the repository We have this continuous integration repository and this is where we put all our tests, right? We put a rally tempus browbeat and we even put our certification from red at inside a test And so the benefit of this is that we use the notion of triple o under cloud over cloud And this is where we work with our OSP director to basically run those tests The beauty of this is that you used to take about a month or so to Certify open-stack we can now do it over a weekend And so this has been very very effective in deploying and managing and now what we can start doing is test Continuously right we don't have to wait for the next version if we do something from a VNF perspective We need to add we can then test how is this going to break where the things are going to break what version and so we have a Very efficient way of collaborating with our partners in making sure that we have a way to basically do the patches and fix upstream and then downstream as part of our open first stream first strategy So this has been a very very successful platform and we're going to see a lot of this So the plan for red hat is to bring this into the mainstream In version 12 and so you'll see a lot of that coming in the near future But this is one of the areas. I think was very beneficial for us to working and collaborating So this is what I had for the moment So I'll hand it over and then maybe we can go dig Through the NEC piece and then we're going to go through the KDDI Talk a bit about the architecture and then we'll open up for Q&A sessions. Okay Next turn so I will explain the NEC cloud system OSS building model. First of all reason why NEC to collaborate Adapter Red Hat OpenStack platform because we have a Over the 10 years relationship to support the Open Mission political system from the line-ups operating system support right now We are supporting a open-source open-source platform so This is a OSS based cloud infrastructure building solution we call the NEC cloud system and as you know the OSS is a OSS that means you can download and you can integrate by yourself But it's very difficult to optimize for users demand NEC have a lot of experiences to integrate and to manage by ourselves NEC launch the public cloud solution since 2014 and NEC announced to promote and accelerate OP NFV solution with a Red Hat since 2015 and then We are Announced a NEC cloud system 2016 such kind of way we are We have some knowledge how to Integrate and manage and operate to use open-source software That is not only open-source but also the XAVIX type of monitoring system and the bacula type of backup system so NEC integrates such kind of a proprietary Open-source software to realize cloud environment so NEC provide three type of services winds up building integration service and Second one is a support service NEC is a one of hardware vendor Definitely we can support our NEC server storage network, but Our hardware not so popular out of Japan Such case maybe user want to use as a third-party hardware Server storage network, but NEC cloud system or support such kind of much vendor platform to integrate open-source and then Do you know that if user want to launch the cloud environment by themself They don't have enough management knowledge NEC have such knowledge and NEC provider such managed service by NEC itself or NEC are offered to adopt our knowledge by full customer environment such kind of way Open source is an open source everyone can use that but if user want to use or this Open-source software environment by themselves NEC can help this Environment Next slide is a NEC cloud system and the NFV stack This is a very busy, but the base is Etsy NFV architecture Our right side is a mono area NEC network provider this mono capability and then our beam Red Hat OpenStack platform present this beam capability and NFV area Red Hat virtualization that is a KVM or Red Hat support it and SDS software defined storage area we adapt Red Hat to safe storage and Network area NEC is a one of Pratchina member of OpenDirect we adapt the OpenDirect SCN controller to that and Teleco area are Their key factor is a high performance or we provide a DPDK OBS DPDK and the SRO IOV type of pass-through network Capability such kind of way NFVI and the beam NEC cloud system cover this area and Top of Box which is OSS, VSS area NEC network provider this capability and NFV VNF NEC itself has a several VNF, but You don't want to use another other third-party VNF Definitely, we can support such or third-party VNF on board Next slide is a overview of NEC cloud or solution Left side is a NEC cloud years which is a Public cloud solution We have a two type of environment one is a HA which is based on the VMware and Second one is a standard which is based on the open stack and the right side NEC cloud system is a on-promise cloud solution We have a three type of On-promise cloud solution one is a build OSS building model Second one is a commercial products building model. This is a VMware base and the cloud platform suite is a Vertical solution to realize a cloud solution such kind of way NEC support Public cloud and on-promise Cloud and we can definitely support the hybrid cloud environment and then NEC support the SOR type of applications Environment and the SOE type of cloud native application environment by this NEC cloud solution and The OSS or part we collaborate with the red hat and we adapt Open stack and the safe and the open shift and the answerable open shift. So as you know the User want to realize that is not only ears, but also the parts and the sauce such kind of way We need to adapt the more Upper side solution To for customer demand such kind of way we can support Such kind of requirement Next slide. As you know the open stack Will release two times per year Version up is a very serious issue And the user don't want to stop the current system NEC or try to achieve rolling upgrade without Zero downtime So Several steps are there But we prepared some automation tool which is presented by Ansible Prevok This operation will be done by within the one hour Such kind of way We are prepared some Best practice and we contribute to this Process and the tool to the upstream So next slide is an ongoing project with KDDI After my presentation Matsumoto-san will explain in detail Right now we're collaborating to project With KDDI. Why is a distributed monitoring and analysis project? And the second one is a zone migration project Especially zone migration project. We are contributing open stack watcher project to realize a How can I say If you want to Maintain answer hardware some VM need to move to the another hardware that is not only VM image but also the data image Watcher have some capability to realize such kind of Requirement we are but before watcher Okata cycle watcher version not enough to realize such kind of capability NEC contribute to new Enhancement to realize such zone migrations capability and we hope to To adapt and Apply this our new technology Pike cycle I hope Yeah Excuse me. I'm Kentaro Matsumoto from KDDI So we had a big POC open stack POC with Red Heart and NEC and Today I will introduce about our achievement This is my agenda of my 10 minutes. So about KDDI and Overview of this POC and what we achieved in POC So at first about KDDI So, do you know KDDI? So could you raise your hand if you know KDDI? Okay, thank you very much. I'm happy so many people know my company So I'm in home. I feel home though. It is United States anyway we are second biggest telecom company in Japan and Our main business is Japanese domestic and mobile, but we are doing global business so we have over a hundred offices all over the world and We have many data centers We call it telehouse. So we have 45 data centers all over the world Okay, next topic Overview of this POC So at first as background we have hundreds of internal IT systems Separately on different hardware. So it is a typical silo type structure so we spend We spend a lot of cost for operation and maintenance So we need to reduce these costs so this is our concept of new infrastructure We will have huge hardware pool maybe it will be thousands of servers and We developed infrastructure process communicator and using this We can easily assign hardware to OpenStack environment or VMware ESXi environment or bare metal environment So many systems on huge one hardware pool We will reduce the cost of management and using this We developed OpenStack POC environment and we did various kinds of tests to check if our workloads can learning can run on OpenStack environment for example, we did IPv6 test and Maruchi site authentication test and so on But today I want to introduce these three things Our special achievement first is flexible hardware assignment and second is harder maintenance without service outage we call it zone migration and Distributed monitoring and analysis So first thing we achieved is flexible hardware assignment So Let me explain about use case So in this use case, please see the picture There is OpenStack environment and we are running application number one and number two and We want to run new application number five but We don't have enough Resources enough servers on OpenStack environment So what can we do at first? We add hardware from hardware pool to OpenStack IS environment by IPC for extension and Next Configure these hardware as OpenStack compute node or OpenStack controller node or SDS like safe in OpenStack environment, so we can Do by a setting or install operating system install operating operating systems we can install Middleware and configure various kind of things and ready to use And at the last we can run new application number five on new compute nodes This is a concept or Flexible hardware assignment and if we want to quit application number five We can easily remove hardware from OpenStack environment and return it to huge hardware pool Okay Second thing we achieved is hardware maintenance without service outage. We call it zone migration So as background We already have IS environment and we have many IS tenants owner of applications if we want to Do maintenance of hardware for example bias problem or KBM security problems We have to negotiate with our tenants application owners about Maintenance because we need sometimes we need Reboot the hardware and if These tenants are not cloud native applications It there is service outage So for us it is very hard to negotiate a lot of tenants about maintenance So we are thinking of this structure. So let me explain this use case so in this use case There is OpenStack environment and We are running application number one and application number two and we want to do hardware maintenance of OpenStack environment, so what we can do So at first add hardware or OpenStack IS environment for maintenance and Configure these hardware as compute nodes and next move Applications application means virtual machines or shinder volumes So these move these applications to new compute nodes or strategies Like this So after that the left side compute nodes original compute nodes There is no application no virtual machines or no Volumes so we can do maintenance very easily so So there is original zone and we add maintenance zone and we move Resources workloads from original zone to maintenance zone. So we call it zone migration So to realize this structure we use various kinds of OpenStack technology technologies like Nova live migration, Nova cold migration, shinder volume migration and to schedule these migration we are using OpenStack Watcher project as Wesaka-san explained and So we have a plan to contribute this structure to OpenStack upstream And last thing we achieved is distributed monitoring and analysis So usual monitoring system like Xavix there is monitoring servers and there are monitoring agents and Monitoring process is running mainly at monitoring servers but in this structure monitoring process is Running at monitoring agents each compute node and only result is sent to central DB So monitoring process is distributed to each computer node So we can realize Real-time monitoring and it is very scalable solution So we have dedicated a session about it on Wednesday At noon distributed monitoring and analysis for telecom requirements So if you have an interest, please come to this session So I explained about POC result So now Using this result and experience we got We continue to design and Develop our new IT infrastructure Thank you Any questions? Yes, I would just ask you to go to the microphone That would be great because we're recording. So want to record the questions as well So at this right, there's a diagram called DCI. Correct. What DCI stands for? Oh Distributed continuous integration Same for CI right continuous integration continuous development. So that's that's how we call Any other questions? That was an easy one Okay, great Fred Herman from red app I'm curious about the pool of hardware you have and the kind of connectivity you have set up in order to be Able automatically to allocate resources like that to open stack clusters and so on I mean, is it a special all these hardware already interconnected together? So basically, you know, so friend so Essentially if I understood correctly, so you want to know the interconnectivity Between the various nodes and are they are pre-configured or do you add the hardware and the network? Or you just add pools with an existing network infrastructure So how how is KDDI? Managing this Let me answer very roughly Of course The physically all servers are connected to physical network So we can dynamically set up a virtual network Maybe be run of excellent these kinds of things. So and we can Assign hardware and separate each tenant Answer your question. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you You know one of the things we we didn't talk about you know, I think a lot of times and I've seen this Not only KDI, but a lot of other Partners and clients is you know the notion that we think that NFV and going down the NFV path is just a technology play and What we see what we tend to see is There's a lot of Transformation occurs from a process standpoint. How do we work? How do we work in agile teams, right? So that there's a big change of how we collaborate together So the process is one of them, but also You know the mindset and what we can do with this, right? And so one of the key things with this NFV platform is really how can we go faster to market with new services and new? platforms and it really changes the way how we drive business and You know for a lot of clients NFV is a very transformational project Both how we work inside the company and how we develop and deploy new services And that's something I think we kind of glance over a lot We think that it's just a technology play but actually it really changes the culture and the way we do things inside the company and also from a business standpoint of how we deliver services faster and And you know at first a lot of clients think that you know open stack is really a cosplay And actually it turns out that it's a revenue play Because it enables you to develop and deploy these services at a much faster pace and cadence and you know If you ask the telcos today, you know Who are they competing with and a lot of them will tell you the folks that they're competing with are really the fangs or the Bat depending on which side of the ocean you are the fangs or the Facebook Amazon Netflix and Google and then you know You got the the the Baidu 10 cents and Ali Baba over on the other side And so you have this pressure and you know and they use NFV functions to deploy these new services in a very very effective way And this is why I think these projects are very exciting to see them emerge is that we're gonna start seeing a lot of new Services coming from these platforms from KDDI the question for the KDDI Person, so this is gonna be a POC right then when this model or this technology gonna be deployed into the production system Okay, I'm not sure so fan it is but maybe soon Very lovely answer sorry He must be a KDDI customer Yeah, right, so I think That's it no more questions going once going twice. All right soul. All right. Thank you very much


So what about the multiplication of mixed numbers? We can perform the arithmetic of mixed numbers using our two theorems. Any quotient gives us a mixed number, and any mixed number can be converted into an improper fraction. Actually, there's no good reason why we'd want to do this. So, for example, if we wanted to multiply 5 and 3 eighths by 12 and 2 fifths, we could convert our two mixed numbers into improper fractions. Our theorem says that 5 and 3 eighths will become the improper fraction, and 12 and 2 fifths will become... So our two mixed numbers become two improper fractions, which we could multiply. But since our first step is multiplying 43 by 62, we might not want to do that. And in fact, finding the product this way will be painful, and so let's see if we can find a better way. Instead, we'll use an area model for multiplication. Now, if you are very lucky, you were taught how to multiply two numbers this way. If you weren't so lucky, you were taught some other algorithm. But in either case, here's an overview of how an area model works. This is based on the idea that the product A times B is the area of a rectangle with length A and width B. So if I want to multiply 27 by 45, we'll draw a rectangle with the width of 27 and a length of 45. The area of this rectangle will be equal to the product 27 times 45. Now, it defeats the purpose of using the area model if we just multiply 27 by 45. The reason that the area model is useful is that we can break the sides up into smaller, more easily managed pieces. So this length 45, well, that's 40 and 5, while the width 27, well, that's really 20 and 7. And this means our original rectangle can be broken up into four smaller rectangles whose areas are much easier to calculate. So this rectangle has width 20 and length 40, so its area is going to be 800. This rectangle has width 20 and length 5, so its area will be 100. This rectangle has width 7 and length 40, so its area will be 280. And this rectangle will have width 7 and length 5 for an area of 35, and the area of the rectangle will be the sum of the areas of all the smaller rectangles. So the product will be 1215. So how does that work with mixed numbers? Well, let's go back to our problem. We want to multiply 5 and 3 eighths by 12 and 2 fifths, so we'll start with a rectangle that's 5 and 3 eighths wide by 12 and 2 fifths long. Remember that a mixed number is the sum of a whole number plus a fraction, so this 5 and 3 eighths really is 5 and 3 eighths. Likewise, the 12 and 2 fifths is 12 and 2 fifths. So let's pull those numbers apart. And now our original rectangle can be broken apart into four smaller rectangles. And that gives us the areas of four rectangles to compute. So this rectangle, which is 5 by 12, has area 60. The area of this rectangle will be the product of 2 fifths and 5, which is 2. This rectangle here is 12 by 3 eighths, so that area is going to be the product 12 times 3 eighths. This last rectangle has width 3 eighths by length 2 fifths, so its area is going to be the product 3 eighths times 2 fifths. And so the product will be the sum of all of these areas. Now, we can add the whole numbers together, 60 plus 2 plus 4 is. We'll need to add those fractions together, 1 half plus 3 twentieths. Well, we'll add those together and get 13 twentieths. And so our final answer, 66 and 13 twentieths.


Community property states. So we've seen before that we could have some unusual kind of situations or different situations, depending on the state law, whether the state is community property or not. This could come into play, for example, if you have a married filing separate situation. So if you're looking up rules for married filing separate, remember the filing status is here. We've got single or non-married statuses, which could be single, head of household or possibly qualified widow, widower, or they change the name to, but anyways, the qualified widow, widower, or if you're married, you've got married filing joint, married filing separate. When applying the rules for married filing separate, which is a more unusual kind of situation, you might have to take into consideration, you should take into consideration whether you're in a community property state or not, because that could change the way you're gonna be allocating. So community property states include Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. So if you and your spouse lived in a community property state, you must usually follow state law to determine what is a community income and what is separate income. So for details there, you can see form 8958 and publication 555. Nevada, Washington, and California, domestic partners. So a registered domestic partner in Nevada, Washington, or California must generally report half the combined community income of the individual and their domestic partner. So you can see form 8958 and publication 555 for more information. That they're rounding off the whole dollars. So you can round off cents to whole dollars on your return and schedule. So you note when we actually do the calculations in the tax forms, usually we're not adding the pennies, we're doing some rounding to the whole dollars. If you do round to the whole dollars, you must round all amounts. So obviously we're gonna be consistent with rounding to whole dollars because these are kind of estimates in terms of taxes being an estimate in general and the cents being typically in material with regards to the whole calculation that will typically be a good rule to go by. To round drop amounts under 50 cents and increase amounts from 50 to 99 cents to the next dollar. For example, a $1.39 becomes $1, $2.50 becomes $4.00. If you have to add two or more amounts to figure the amount to enter on a line, include cents when adding the amounts and round off only the total. Again, that's probably a fairly small, so for example, if you started adding up the dollars without the pennies versus adding the pennies and then rounding after you come to the total, it's probably gonna be a fairly insignificant dollar amount. There's dollars like money?  So if you are entering amounts that include cents, make sure to include the decimal point. There's no cents column on the form. So in future presentations, we'll get into a little bit more of the general categories and reporting the general categories, W2 income, and then we'll take a look at the interest income, the dividend income, capital gains income, and most of those are often have their own schedules. So that's why we kind of talk about them when we get to their own schedules that will feed into basically the income line.


Well, thank you all about to bring down this theme. I thank you all very much for coming on out. Turns out I enchantment of a committee called the Health Education Labor Extension today, which, among other issues, deals with the Older Americans Act, which is the program that provides funding for the Contragett Field Program and the Ilsan Field among other programs. So I simply would like to discuss with you in an informal way some of the issues that seniors are dealing with, what the federal government can do to improve the situation, and to tell you that we're working hard to significantly increase funding for the Older American Act. I know many of the senior centers that provide congregate meals and meals and meals that happen on time financially, but the cost of food is going up with kinds of allocations to get in from the federal government or not. So we're conscious of that and then try to do our best. I don't know, do we have any volunteers here who work on meals and meals? I want to thank you very much. The work you're doing is one of the issues that seniors deal with, especially if they're my closest house, is the issue of loneliness. And meals and meals not only provides nutritious food, but also provides the opportunity for somebody to be isolated and child with somebody else. You cannot overstate the importance of it. So let me just open it up and ask you what's on your mind, on any issue, but maybe let's start on senior issues number one, place you'd like to go. What's on your mind? Okay, we have one more right there. Hi, thank you. Just to connect in relation to your comment about the seniors being isolated, I am a volunteer with the Central Vermont Council on Aging. And they have a wonderful program where it's called Creative Companions. And what we do, and they provide the Council on Aging, provide the crafts, materials, the watercolor panes, and provide volunteers like us to connect with these seniors who are, I wouldn't say really isolated, but to be, to connect with them, to help them be creative in crafts watercolor painting. So I would like to try to find out the best way to even spread this type of program across Vermont. I'm sure it's not just Central Vermont. That's a great idea. I mean, one of the things that I learned a long, long time ago when I was mayor of Roehlington is that you steal good ideas. So there are, you know, the city is doing something that makes sense, you steal it. And I'm sure that there are senior centers in this state are doing great things and others can learn from what others are doing. So that's a great idea. Oh, by the way, Haley, where are you? Okay, Haley and Beth work in my office. And if you have any questions or comments. Jake is here too. And Jake is here too. Okay. All right, other thoughts on any issue, but stay on seniors and we'll go. Yeah. Mary Alice, hold on. Mary Alice Visby from Montpelier. I'd just like to say that as an 87-year-old person and someone who voted for you years and years ago. I know that. I've been around for a long time, but now I can't afford assisted living. It costs over $6,000 a month and they want you to pay for two years before you go on Medicaid. And there's just a real lack. I've been subsidized housing, which is great. I love my apartment, but I can't find anybody to help me. There's no helpers. And this is a real severe problem all around the country. Mary Alice, in one sentence, put this here where I haven't seen you. In one sentence, you've summarized a lot of issues that are out there. Housing is a crisis for seniors. Housing is a crisis for the whole country. And assisted living is a major, major issue. Without going through a whole song and dance, there was a bill last year called Build Back Better, which would have provided well over $100 billion into affordable housing, including senior housing. We lost it by two votes. So we're working on it. And the issue of home healthcare of getting, let's stay on that issue, what Alice is talking about is that people who are home sometimes need help for somebody, maybe to cook a meal or make the bed or help them with a bath. Is that an issue that we're seeing around the community? Yes, yes. All right, Alice, who else wants to talk about that a little bit? You want to say a word? I work for SASH support services at home. And thank you for being a supporter of that. And over the last 10 years or so, in SASH there's people primarily who are living in affordable housing around the state. And we have a wellness nurse who's preventative, not providing services like that. But we are seeing the acuity of our residents who are staying at home longer, but also there's no place for them to go even when it might be a better choice. So just. The issue of home healthcare is a real, real crisis. And it's fighting the overall crisis of healthcare in America in general. All right, who wants to, let's segue into healthcare. What do we think about our healthcare system? Wonderful, flawless, easy to navigate, inexpensive, plenty of doctors available to come and meet them. Okay, what else needs to know about the, yes sir. So I work with seniors that are blind and visually impaired. And in the OAA there's some wonderful identification of special populations. Individuals who have vision loss at times are twice as likely to develop chronic conditions like diabetes and cardiac issues. And vision rehabilitation services can help those individuals to reduce the likelihood of developing those conditions as well as reducing social isolation and depression that's related. Is it possible in the reauthorization of the OAA to help identify special populations like the visually impaired seniors to make sure they get the services they need? Thank you, thank you for your suggestion. All right, healthcare in general, what are the problems that seniors sort of interview of helping them to? Now let me start off with a simple issue, prescription drug costs, is that an issue? Yeah. All right, who wants to tell me about the cost of prescription drugs? Affordable? Unaffordable, yeah. All right, but what do we know about it? What are some of the problems we're running into? Just the cost, the cost of prescription drugs is ridiculous. Give me some examples. Well, my family lives in Canada, so I can give you an example there of what they pay for prescription drugs, the same drugs we have pretty much, and they're nowhere near the prices we're paying here for prescription drugs. This is an issue that my committee is working very hard on with some success. Let me talk a little bit about it. Diabetes is a major, major crisis in this country. And the cost of insulin has been extremely high. We put enough pressure on the three major manufacturers of insulin products to substantially drop their prices. So that was one thing. Just recently, I've been on the phone in the last month with the CEOs of some of the largest drug companies in the world who make asthma and OPCD inhalers. Anybody here know anybody who uses an inhaler? The price of inhalers in the United States, as this gentleman indicated, far, far, far higher. It depends. It's a complicated system. You have good insurance, it may not be that bad. If you're buying out of your own pocket, going to a drug store, it could be very, very high. Much higher than it is in Canada or in Europe. We spoke with a lot of pressure on these manufacturers. They're going to be dropping their price. The three major ones count at $35. Nobody in America will be paying more than $35 out of pocket, as opposed to paying hundreds of dollars, which is a big step forward. Just this morning, actually, with yesterday and today, we're dealing with ozempic. People know what ozempic is. It's a drug used to deal with people with diabetes and with weight loss. A lot of people overweight in America. Apropos your point, in Canada, the product we think is sold more or less, or about 300 bucks. Ozempic in America is sold for $1,000. In other countries, it's less than $300. So it's made by a company called NoHo Notice, and we are speaking to them, we'll be speaking to them, and asking them why they're charging us so much more for this product, that so many people want and need compared to other countries. And the problem is not only that people who need it can't afford it. The problem is Medicare's going to go bankrupt if they have to pay these outrageous prices. So it's an issue for the federal government, it's an insurance, I talked to the guy who's had a United Health recently, and they got a problem. If they cover it for weight loss, it'll raise premiums substantially. So we are working hard to answer the question as to why in this country, we pay so much more, many times more, sometimes 10 times more, 20 times more, for the same exact product that other people in other countries pay. And the answer is that in all these other countries, they have one form of a national healthcare programs which guarantee healthcare for all people, and say to the drug companies, you want to do business here, we're going to negotiate prices, we don't. And up until recently, drug companies could charge any price they wanted for any reason, sunny outside, raining outside, or double the price, it doesn't matter. No explanation needed, it's just to make as much money as they possibly can. We're beginning, beginning to make some progress on that. We passed the bill called the Inflation Reduction Act which included in it an important provision which will allow the federal government through Medicare to begin negotiating widely used drugs. So they're going to sit down with the drug companies and say, sorry, you can't charge us 10 times more, you're charging Canadians this, you're charging the French people that, that's what you're going to charge us. That will lower prices. It's a step forward, we've got to go a lot further than just 10 drugs. But it's a step forward, we can probably, the other thing of important steel that you should know is that if somebody has a chronic problem and takes a lot of drugs, right now the cap, we move forward in that bill to put a cap on what seniors can spend out of pocket at 3,500 by 2025 it's going to go down to 2,000 dollars. You with me? So that means no senior in America will have to pay more than 2,000 dollars. Now I want to see that the president mentioned if you saw his state of the union address. They use that number to cover all Americans. And that would be a huge step forward. Imagine if nobody in America had to spend more than $2,000 out of pocket with description drugs. That would be a good thing, yes? Okay, so that's kind of what we're working on. It's going to be a real fight because the drug companies are extremely powerful. They are unlimited, they are all right now. We're not going to let them. They are very powerful. Okay, other questions, I see a hand way back down. Yes, I'm a retired nurse.  Let's get you a mic. Sorry. Thank you. I'm a retired nurse and it's at one point we got onto the pharmaceutical companies to lower price, to allow generic drugs. And what they did was they stopped making them because they said they couldn't afford to make them anymore. And so we were caught without the medications unless we went somewhere abroad. I've studied it a little bit, I'm not an expert. The pharmaceutical industry, the whole drug industry is unbelievably corrupt and unbelievably opaque in the sense that nobody knows what's going on. It's hidden, all of these things hidden. So you got a drug, I'll give you an example with the generics. The theory is somebody comes, some company comes up with a new drug, a good drug and they get a patent. They say, okay, this is yours for X number of years. Just yours, there cannot be any competition. You make your money back and so forth and so on. But after that time, there can be generics on the market. So what do you think these companies do? They tweak, they change the color of the pill, they change it just a little bit and they say, see we've changed the pill for another 10 years and that's the way to keep generics out. There's a lot of stuff that goes on. The goal of which is to make sure that these guys continue to make huge profits until you do it. Imagine drug companies, I think the top 10 drug companies last year made 100 billion in profits. They're making money, handle with this, pay their CEOs tens of millions of dollars. It's a real racket, it really is. It's a terrible thing. It's something we're working on to try to adjust. By the way, while you're mentioning a nurse, one or the other, issues that we're dealing with. I wanted to say a few words on this. Everybody here should know a couple of facts. Number one, the United States is the only major country on earth, not to guarantee healthcare to all people that's right. So our friend who has family in Canada, somebody ends up in Montreal in a hospital for a month. What's the bill when they come out? Usually that. Nothing. And you know what? In Canada they spend half as much per capita as we do on healthcare. Half as much, why is that? Because you don't have insurance companies and drug companies making huge profits. They spend their money, it's publicly funded, on providing healthcare, is what we should be doing. So aside from everything else, we spend $13,000 for every man, woman, and child on healthcare. Can you believe that? $13,000, that includes Medicare, Medicaid, what employers are paying, what you're paying out of pocket, $13,000. Double what any other country is paying. So that's an overall issue that we are trying to work on. All right, other questions on healthcare? Yeah. I'll wait for the mic. All right, here it comes. Hey Bernie, my name is Erica, and in addition to being a senior, I've been listening to you for 48 years. That is when you first presented when I was in high school. And I work for- And you have this little program across the street. I know, I'm the Director of Volunteer Services at Age Well, which is one of the area agencies on aging. And one of the things that you have an opportunity to advocate for in the bill is that there is a huge need for more money for food and for transportation. Because here's what we see. I have over 700 volunteers that deliver meals on wheels every single day, and there are many other people in here. 700. I have over 700 volunteers that deliver meals. We deliver close to 258,000 meals a year. Where was the statewide? This is the Northwest Quadrant, Addison, Chittenden, Grand Isle, and Franklin County. I have 1,000 volunteers that make it possible for us to support older people to be able to stay in their homes. Because just like this woman was talking about that she can't get help with assisted living, well, if you can't get help for assisted living and you're lonely and you don't have a way to cook, or you don't have a way to get to the grocery store, who are you gonna turn to? You're gonna turn to the area agency on aging, and if you're lucky enough, they're gonna have a volunteer that they can match with you that's gonna go in and help provide those services for you. I will tell you, I am also the director of transportation for our organization, and what I hear constantly is, why are people going to their medical appointments? They can't get there, Bernie. There is not adequate transportation for all the seniors to get to their medical appointments. If they can get to their medical appointments, they can't get their prescriptions. And in the old days, every pharmacy was fully staffed and they could deliver the prescriptions to your house. Now the pharmacies have limited hours, they're cutting their days, they don't have the ability to deliver the prescriptions. So transportation and money for food, nutrition, these are basic, basic things. Erica, our goal is, we got, I believe over 40 co-sponsors on legislation that are double funding for the older women. And that's not a radical idea because over the years, funding for the older Americans, that's not kept up with legislation. My support is not way up, funding is not. So your point is we'll take the transportation, it's special needs, very important. Okay, other questions, yeah. Hi Bernie, I manage the Feast Senior Meals program for the city of Montpelier. Which program? Feast, the city of Montpelier. And I'm a social worker with a history in long-term care and short-term care, rehabilitative care. And I talk to a lot of people in the city of Montpelier and Berlin where we serve, who can't afford to stay in their homes because their property taxes are increasing. Why should property taxes increase for someone on a fixed income? When there are second and third homeowners in our state and there are people selling homes for over $500,000 that aren't being taxed adequately. And can that be a solution that's addressed by cities and towns because the state doesn't have really the power to legislate that? Well, I think it's a national problem. And the issue that you're raising has a lot to do with why the property tax is a major source of funding for education. God didn't create that. Property tax does not fund the military, does not fund a lot of things. It's a regressive tax for just the reason that you get. I don't want to give a long speech about a lot of things, but if you look at the overall tax system in America, what you find is that the effective tax rate of working people, of a truck driver or a nurse, is in fact higher than it is for a billionaire in America. So you've got large corporations out there also that pay very little because they have all the lobbyists they write the tax laws. So what you need is major reform of our whole tax structure in America, which at a time of massive income and wealth inequality. Any of you know that right now, there is more inequality in America than there has been. You've got three people on top who are more wealth in the bottom, half of American society. And these guys manage to avoid paying their fair share of taxes to a whole bunch of schemes that account for some lawyers. So that's what you've got to change. You've got to change the priorities of America, the way to change the tax system. That ain't easy. If you're taking on these guys of enormous power, they like it the way it is, they don't want to pay their fair share of taxes. They rather have some little old lady in my affiliate pay more in taxes than she can afford than them paying their fair share. But that's what we've got to try to do. All right, let me get the people up and ask the first question. Sir, right here. You've got Mike coming up. I also work with the visually impaired and you mentioned that they're going to try to double the funding for all the programs and some of those that affect us. The problem that I've seen and I've been here for over 30 years is that we're a minimum aid state. So even if you, so we haven't seen an increase in over those 30 years, and even if you doubled the funding, we still wouldn't see it. Hopefully you can look at increasing the minimum aid. The chairman of the committee is aware of that. I mean, that raises the whole, you know, we are a small state and very often you'll find legislation out that some of the largest states don't like go minimum funding, that a state has got to receive a certain amount of funding. That's what the benefit states like. Okay, hold on. Thank you. I'm Tom Simmons. I'm the nutrition and wellness director of senior solutions, which the council on aging for southeastern Vermont. We were a little smaller than them. We only do 165,000 meals on wheels every year. But I'd like to piggyback on the tax issue and the volunteer issue. And this may be small, but it's important. A lot of our volunteers are seniors and our fixed incomes themselves. They are putting in our rural routes in the Deerfield Valley, in the West River Valley. They are putting hundreds of miles on their cars every month just to deliver these meals. If they were paid staff, they'd be able to get reimbursed at 67 cents, which is the IRS, which is what is permitted. But because they're volunteers, if we pay them more than 14 cents, which is nothing, we have to issue them a 10.99 and they have to pay taxes on it. That's the IRS rule for volunteers. That's got to change. Well, paying your volunteers 14 cents. No, I'm not. I'm paying them more than I should be. But we've been told. I mean, we've been told straight out. The IRS rule is 14 cents for a volunteer. Anything over that, if you trip the $600 a year mark, you've got to issue a 10.99, they've got to pay income tax on it. And they're putting hundreds of miles on their car every month. This just doesn't make sense. No, it is. These are heroes and heroines. They should not be taxed on their liberty. All right, thank you. Okay, other thoughts? Yeah, ma'am. Hi, Bernie, I'm Vicky Brooker. I'm just thrilled that you're here. Thank you. I was the director of this center for a couple of years and now I'm a grateful senior who visits here a lot. And I recently found out that the SASH program has hired a mental health wellness coordinator. And when I met to meet her, she told me that the program was funded with money that you had obtained. I just want to put in a plug for all mental health funding and services for seniors. I think I know from personal experience that there are many, many of us who suffer from and struggle with mental illness. And I know that it's all interrelated and that isolation creates depression. And so I don't have any answers. I just want to put in a plug to say that's so vital and thank you for your work in that area. Thank you. I got to tell you, mental health is a huge issue. Not just for seniors, it's an issue for young people. Pandemic that we went through has only made a very bad situation worse. I go into schools occasionally and we talk to teachers and guidance counselors. Teachers tell us, you know, we're not teaching English, we're not teaching Spanish half of our times. Trying to mentor the kids and deal with their emotional needs and their parents' handling problems. We're country in trouble. That is no question about that. We don't have enough mental health counselors. What Sash does, which slotted in Burlington at the Cathedral Square, right? Yes. We've worked with them for years. It is common sense.  And God forbid you need an operation in a hospital. No problem coming up with $100,000 to $200,000 we need. But if you need to see a mental health counselor or if you need to see somebody coming into your house to make your bed or to cook a meal, we don't have the funds to do that. That's a distorted and broken system. So Sash has the radical idea about, you know, radical idea that you provide that preventative care that you make sure people are available. How hard is it to imagine that if you're in a senior center complex, senior housing, that you have a nurse on duty who can help people with their prescription drugs. So when somebody is ill, you can deal with them so they don't have to end up in the emergency room or in the hospital. It is a no brainer. As a nation, we spend 5%, 6% of our overall budget on what we call preventative healthcare, keeping people healthy. Other countries spend 12, 15% of their budget. And you keep people out of hospitals, you keep people out of emergency rooms, you keep people out of use expensive drugs. That's the fight we're taking right now. But this mental health, let's thank you for raising it. And I know sometimes people are reluctant and a little embarrassed to talk about it, but mental health is a serious, serious issue. Nobody should be embarrassed talking about it. Who wants to talk about mental health? What are some of the issues, particular issues maybe to seniors or grandkids, maybe dealing with? Yes. Mike? Yes, I want to talk about that, about the fact that I had a nervous breakdown and wasn't able to get jobs for a long time, had to go on disability when I was 68. And I had a husband who was providing me with a good income. I was a stay-at-home mother for many years, but I was also a social worker in long-term care facilities and I have been working on healthcare reform since I was in college in the 1950s. I'm now 87, so I'm older than a lot of you here. And I just wanted to say that our meals program is terribly underfunded and it is awful, but I also want to mention the fact that a state-based Universal Healthcare Act is coming to the Senate and it is in the house and I have contacted you and haven't heard back yet as to whether you will sign on to that. And Beth told me, Beth told me, no, this is in the United States. It's Ed Markey in Massachusetts is going to be introducing it next week. So you need to sign on by Friday. All right. And I know you don't usually sign on, but Beth told me you don't usually sign on. But I wanted to ask you personally, please sign on, we need all the senators we can. Oregon, Washington, California, and Vermont all have state-based groups that are ready to get in there. And even President Biden has said he is in favor of that rather than national. Although, let's get back to mental health issues if you want. Do I see a hand? Over there, over there. Oh, back there. Okay. Hey Bernie, Julia Burgess and the SASH coordinator for actually this building. And I just wanted to personally thank you for the SASH emotional wellness clinician and just let you know like it's, we've only had her on board for a month and she's full capacity with people. And I also- So the need- The need is definitely there. And I also wanna ask you to support SASH for all program and try to expand it throughout the state. And this is the ideas of the SASH program that have for seniors to all families, including kids and doing a lot of that. I think we are, I think we've gotten some money for that from Brown Road, did we? Yes. Yes. Okay. So yes, the answer. Look, we have got to do a lot, lots more in preventative health. That's what SASH is about other programs as well. Other thoughts? Mental health? We wanna move on. All right, what else you got? The housing problem, we know it around, Greg, if you could. Right now, I'm dealing with a disabled person. She's deaf and finding a facility for her is I've checked every state agency. I've gone to them, I don't even call them because they don't answer their phones. They don't answer you. And we are at a standstill now. She's living in her home that has no heat, no water, rats are, because the garbage is piling up and I couldn't find a facility for her.  So, there's just no facility for her anywhere at this point. What I would like is, if they're offered, Jake is writing you the information. Yeah, I've written up my coverage in a letter. Okay, good, very good. So we will, we have a very, very good staff that gets on the phone and tries to do bureaucracies and do what we can, can't always succeed. But we have a staff that works very, very hard trying. And you're raising the border issue. We have a major, major housing crisis, we know that. And we're trying to deal with it in Washington and I suspect the legislature and governor are as well. All right, other questions or thoughts? All right, let me just say this. First of all, let me thank all of you for being here today and be all of you who are working with seniors and the disabled. You're doing God's work and we appreciate it very, very much, I think. Sometimes as a nation, we get our priorities very backwards. We get tax breaks, the billionaires, and we forget about the elderly and disabled children. Some of us are trying to reorient those priorities. And I think very often we forget that, unbelievably, in America today, you've got about a quarter of seniors who are trying to get by on $15,000 a year or less. And I'm not quite sure how anybody gets by on $15,000 a year, about half the seniors are trying to get by on $30,000 a year or less, that ain't a lot of money either. So it's hard, but I just want you to know that there are some of us at Markey being one of them and me and others who are trying to change the national priorities, and we're very appreciated, very appreciative of all the work that you are doing. All right, so with that, let me thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you.