Good evening. I'm Emily. I'm Jessica. My name is Yuri. I'm Potensia. And I'm Arnold. This evening we will be talking about the housing cost in Burlington. Did you know that in Burlington has a population of roughly 43,000 people and yeah. 20,000 of them being students. And today we're just going to attempt to discuss the topic of housing markets and how expensive the homes are here at the current time. And how it's pushing a lot of people out of state because they simply can't afford to buy houses, buy home in Chiddon County because they just don't make enough. Earlier today we were able to talk to one of the real estate agents that currently works with one of the local firms here. And what he has described to us was that currently the market is extremely competitive. All the houses that are being put on the market are being sold within days or even hours in some cases. And that if you are looking for a home you potentially have to make a life-long decision. So spending a quarter million or half a million dollars and live with it for the next 30 years. And you have to make that decision within hours or minutes even. Which is insane to think about. What else did we learn from that guy? Well, one thing that I found out is that housing prices have been the same basically since 1997. They haven't gone down very much, but they've only gone up. They haven't, nothing's fluctuated here. Absolutely, that's a great point actually. That's one of the things that he brought up to us is that we have seen a house market increase here. Especially within the last five years. Their homes on the market there are listed at about 270 to 275,000. They were purchased at 275 years ago and they're being sold at 340, 350. And they're gone within days with no renovations being done to them or anything like that. Which is insane to think about. Also on top of that, Vermont is the highest, one of the highest states in the country. It's 13th for highest housing prices in the country. But I mean there's not that many people here, which is why it confuses me. Also there's 600,000 people that live in Vermont in general and in New York City it makes sense that it's expensive because there's so many people living here or living there. But here in Vermont that number confuses me. Absolutely. In our opinion there are certain things that we can do to try to lower the cost of housing here. Because it's simply just pushing a lot of people out, especially young people that can't afford to live here. We spoke about that it's unfortunate that a lot of people want to stay here because of many wonderful things that the state has to offer. But they're not getting paid enough or the job market is just not here in order for them to afford to start a family here. And they're kind of forced to be pushed out. And there are things in place that the state is known for many zoning restrictions and building permits that you have to kind of follow through. Act 250 being one of them. Even then I support the act zone because it's preserving the natural beauty that Vermont has to offer. But at the same time it's preventing us from building more and therefore having more housing for people that need it. There's Bernie Sanders in 2017 I read an article about this.  And that's only increased the homeless population. And also on top of that because when they cut the agencies spending money to rebuild houses, apartments and put money back into the government, in order to live reasonably in Vermont you have to make $22 an hour. Which is insane if you think about it. $22.40. Well some of the ways that they've tried to help reduce the amount of people who are homeless was with the Section 8 funding. So I was researching and throughout the United States roughly 4.8 million low income households are relying on Section 8 housing. And basically Section 8 housing is paying the difference because they are also paying for the rent, but they're paying for the difference that they can't come up with. And so a lot of the people who do rely on it because even when we were on the streets interviewing people, the homeless guy that we interviewed, he was waiting for Section 8 to go through. He said he was on the wait for over two years and he wasn't sure whether he was going to qualify or not, which was kind of surprising if you think about it. For somebody who's homeless and it's been homeless for a long time to even worry about qualifying for Section 8 is worrisome I'd say for sure. Well another thing about that is that employment since 2016 hasn't changed. It hasn't gone up and it hasn't gone down. There's no jobs providing people who need, I think in order to have Section 8 housing you need to have some sort of income a little bit. But how are you supposed to do that and how are you supposed to qualify for a program when there isn't an influx of jobs? Absolutely. Nothing's happening. Totally. Totally. Well yeah and that's the issue you know is that it seems like the job market is almost non-existent. You know we have a hard time placing people. So the working class is just forced to leave out because you're also forced out of that bracket to afford a home. If you're not making over $25 an hour you're kind of forced to buy a home for $200,000 and $200,000 in Vermont unfortunately just gets you an extremely old home. That needs a lot of work. Think of what $200,000 gets you in North Carolina. It's a brand new construction.  It's a risk unfortunately. It's almost of a pleasure. It's like buying a car. Once you buy a car it loses value. Absolutely. You should be able to have the same value. Absolutely. I mean the one great thing about our state is that our value, your property value will hold for the most part because the economy is extremely strong. Even during the when the housing market crashed and the market here only went down by like 6 to 7 percent. That's what I'm saying. So it didn't really affect us that much. It was almost nonexistent. But it is a problem absolutely to touch up on affordable housing. I would like to see these major real estate companies or these major development companies to maybe write up a business plan of some sort. We need to build more eventually to provide more housing for people to stay in the state. There's a fact on here. Do you know where the fact sheet is? I'm not sure. It's about the Burlington has the smallest, tallest building in the nation. Yeah. And that's like it's an old people's home I believe. Yeah. Which is, you know, well, and that goes back into the act 250 that it's preventing us from building upboards.  You know, it's preserving our state and its beauty. But at the same time, you know, density is not the type of word that we like to use here and our officials like to use. It's not, you know, we don't like density. We want to stay away from it and that just preventing us from, you know, keeping young professionals here in the state of Vermont. You know. Well, I mean, I've thought many times about leaving Vermont because last year I paid $1,700 for one bedroom apartment on Church Street, which is a lot of money. Absolutely. Especially for me because like, you know. Yeah. So renting costs, you know, we looked at the median, an average cost to rent like a studio was $900. I think one bedroom was $1,100. Two bedroom was $1,300. But I'm also what I'm saying is back on your point is that I'm paying for a pretty crappy place. It wasn't anything nice. The same amount of money down south will get you a lot more. Yeah. Pretty much. Absolutely. Absolutely. I just have roomies, but, you know. Well, it's insane. Like we were talking to Ruslan. I mean, that's how competitive the market is in Chittenden County alone where, you know, if you want to live close to Burlington, you better be ready to spend over $300,000 and it's going to be not a perfect home by any means, which is insane to think about. Yeah. But yeah, totally. I'm also like looking at back to this in Chittenden County, like the demand versus like the need. So like there's a high demand and there's just not enough houses for everyone to buy. Like once upon a time, people wanted like the big houses, lots of yard and all that. But like those houses are racked up really expensive now. So like most people want to buy houses in the 200, 300 range, but they have to either compromise what they're going to get or they'll have to pay for a really long time. Yeah. So like people are literally choosing if they want to spend that money within hours, like you were saying, because they only have that much time because they're competing with so many other buyers now. It's insane. And then we also spoke about potentially raising the minimum wage in order to kind of deflate the prices. But then that would raise a concern with the local businesses around the area because that would potentially put them out of business because as our state loves to be local and organic, that's what succeeds here. And if that were to happen, then those local businesses are not going to be able to pay their employees $15 to $19 an hour. So we'll see a lot of local businesses going out of business. That's the problem is that in order to lower, in order to build more, what I'm saying is that that would solve a lot of things. If we brought more jobs and more stuff into the, to build more houses, you would have more jobs and that's more of an economy. It would just work, but I forget what ACTU said. It's not allowing people to do that. Yeah. So to wrap up this discussion, we'd like to leave you with some open-ended questions to kind of think about. And so do you think that what you pay for your house is worth what you receive? And how can you make housing more affordable in Burlington, or how can we even improve Burlington? Thank you.


I have two projects. One is titled Fabrication and the other is Lavender Girls. Fabrication is a set of amorphic fabric sculptures and they invite a conversation about LGBTQ plus legislation from six different countries. It's from both a personal perspective as well as an international and global stance. On the other hand Lavender Girls is a series of abstract paintings and they focus on lesbian representation in 21st century cinema or the lack thereof. For the exhibition I will be displaying nine of these paintings and I will be displaying six, hopefully seven sculptures. Initially it was my curiosity about the legal rights of the LGBTQ plus community around the world. I've lived in a lot of different countries and I wanted to know how other people felt about their own legal rights. So I reached out using social media during the pandemic to find out if other people wanted to be a part of these sculptures. I wanted to create something that would give a visual interpretation of the legal rights of different countries. I didn't really mind where. I really wanted to do the Czech Republic seeing as I'm living here right now. But mostly I wanted to have another conversation with somebody about how these laws directly, tangibly and personally affect their everyday lives. So the sculptures for fabrication will be representing the countries England, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Cameroon, Hungary, Mexico and hopefully if I have enough time the United States of America. For Lavender Girls I was actually inspired by this book, Growing Up Gay, Growing Up Lesbian. And the stories inside it were fantastic and I had so much to learn and I had these incredible authors like Audre Lorde and Nancy Garden telling me their stories inspiring me so that I didn't feel alone. And then I wanted something that was a little bit more mainstream. I was like everybody watches movies, everybody goes to the cinema. Where are we? Where are the lesbians? Where are we in 21st century cinema? I began to do a little bit of research. I wanted to find out where we were and I wanted to go international. I wanted to see if it was something that I could find across the globe. And we are there, a fraction of us. It's going really well. All the paintings for Lavender Girls have been completed months ago so they are sitting ready waiting to be exhibited. For the sculptures a little bit slower. I have completed four out of the seven and I'm hoping that by the end of today I'll have finished the fifth. The initial challenges were definitely to do with being able to finance everything. I've ordered over 125 metres of fabric. I've ordered over 75 litres of glue which can get really quite expensive. And then at the moment with the run up to the final exhibition the biggest challenge is actually structurally. The fabric isn't heavy but being able to get it to levitate, being able to get it to hang in the right ways when I don't have the exact space in the room right now is a challenge. We don't get into the gallery space until four days before as well. So even though I can put it up here best I can it's going to be a different environment for the actual gallery. So yeah, having it completed, having to try it out beforehand, having it structurally sound, much more complicated than I had anticipated. Meranoia is a transformative journey of patterns, of disassembling routines and structures and mapping networks. It'll be a four day exhibition. The opening is on the 17th of June and there you'll find levitating swathes of fabric as well as a corner dedicated to nine lavender girls paintings. We have a website which would be amazing if you could check us out. My Instagram is at monica underscore mills. It would also be amazing if you checked out the documentary Lavender Girls which is on Vimeo. And we also have online interviews. There's going to be a podcast coming out and if you do have any further questions or request any more information we would love to see you at the event. And you can also contact me through any of my social media.


Okay, this is Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedel. It's a given Wednesday afternoon. We have our chief scientist show. It's Mike DeWert. And we're talking about technology. Think Tech Tech talks. Hi, Mike. Welcome to the show. Aloha, Jay. Good to be here. Thank you for having me on. Well, it's nice to have you here because we have some work to do. We have to try to figure out what to tell the people about the factors of expansion of the virus. That's what it's all about. We need to know where this is all going and we have to get a good handle on it. And frankly, I don't think we're getting much of a handle from our leadership. So we need you to help us understand what kind of algorithms we should use and what kind of numbers they produce in terms of what's going to happen with the spread of this virus. So tell me what you have been doing to identify the algorithms and the numbers. Well, I've done medical research, but I'm not epidemiologist. Let me preface it that I'm not a professional epidemiologist. But last February, end of February, I started to get concerned when I saw the cases in China and how they were doubling every four days and how it had started to spread to the rest of the world. So I numbers. China had started to get a handle on their epidemic, but I assume that the rest of the world wouldn't get a handle on it. And so if you bring up slide two in my presentation, you'll see what I predicted back in February. So in February 26, which is where this orange vertical line is, I made a prediction, which is this curve, this gray curve you see. The little orange dots on the curve are data so far from the website healthmaps.org COVID-19, which is pretty up to date. Several times a day, there are consortium of several universities and hospitals, international, trying to keep us abreast of the best information. And scarily to me, my predictions in February, that the rest of the world would do nothing effective. And the cases start to double every four days and the rest of the world are true, which means that every two weeks, this is going to get 10 times worse. So if we have 100 cases in Hawaii today, we'll have 100 times as many and 10 times in two weeks. And if you have a one in 10,000 chance today of meeting somebody with a virus, you have a one in 1,000 chance in two weeks and a one in 100 chance two weeks after that. One in 10 chance after that, it just gets really bad. So what factors do you build in, what factors, sorry, you're finished and I'll ask you my question. No, no, go ahead, go ahead, Jake. What do you build in, like for example, the benefit of containment, the benefit of social distancing, you build in masks and gowns and gloves, do you build in all these things people want to try to ameliorate to you at the odds? Well, so what we have is a naive population, immunologically naive, that has never been exposed as a virus before. So everyone is susceptible. Everyone pretty much is susceptible all over the world, no matter what your race and ethnicity whatever is. There's nobody who, there's no herd immunity. There's, we've never been exposed to this before, we don't have a vaccine for it. So all you can do is slow it down. The ultimate number of victims is going to be what it is, which is probably Germany is estimated 60 to 70% of the population. I went conservative and estimated 100% will be exposed and actually catch the virus. If we go to, I did do some predictions for Hawaii, if we go to slide three, I think it is. Oh, yeah, this is my source for the data for Hawaii in the United States. I did a Bain search and Bain will give you the provenance of their data at the bottom. So, but the first thing that shows up there is how many cases in Hawaii, how many cases the United States, how many cases worldwide. This is pretty consistent worldwide with what HealthMaps.org gives. And I just take a snapshot at nine o'clock every day to, you know, just see how it's going. Then on the fourth slide, I put up the numbers, what I expect for Hawaii. So the gray curve is the world. The yellow curve is the United States. It's the same scale as the world, but Hawaii is on the right scale. We have a little over a million people, 1.3, 1.4 million or so. And that black curve shows what I expect for Hawaii. To the left is cases to date. So to the left of the blue curve is the cases to date. The United States and Hawaii are both increasing faster than the world average. The Dublin's in the United States like every three days, which is intolerable. I mean, we're going to hit a crisis in a few weeks that way. I'm assuming that both Hawaii and the United States will slow down to doubling every four days like the rest of the world. And that's not good enough. So if we go to the slide after that, let's see. Oh yeah. So and the reason that it's not good enough, even if it's slowed down every four days, in about a month, we're going to have 11,000 cases in Hawaii according to this projection. And we only have like 550 ventilators in the whole state.  We are out of ventilators in a month. That's when the real difficulty will be with the healthcare system.  So what can we do to flatten the curve? Well, I'll show you what's flattening the curve of me. Let's go to the next slide after that one. Oh, I'm sorry. Here's my, I already mentioned these numbers, but we have, like I say, today we have one in 10,000 viruses. We'll have the virus in Hawaii. A random guy last time said at the grocery store said, why is everybody worried? Yeah, okay, whenever they want to 10,000 has to be an exposed. Sure, you're not worried. But in two weeks, it's one in a thousand. By end of April, we're going to be a thousand people dead of the virus and, you know, close to a hundred thousand people infected. And we're going to say, well, why the heck didn't we do anything? And so we'll see what you can do. The slide after that shows what we might be able to do. So the red curve is what they call the curve on new cases versus time. They talk about flattening the curve that's what they're talking about. The red curve is just the slope of the cumulative data I showed earlier. And that curve is showing if we don't get a handle on slowing this for doubling every four days, a case down, we're going to hit almost 60,000 new cases a day per day in Hawaii by the end of May. It'll fall after that just because the virus went out of victims.  We can't even handle 1000 new cases a day with a situation now. If we slow it down to every eight days, we delay the peak until July. So we buy ourselves six weeks or so to come up with an effective treatment so we don't overwhelm the healthcare system. If we can slow the rate of doubling down to every 12 days, we buy ourselves until early September probably. We're still not talking enough time for a vaccine. So on the next slide I'll summarize the situation. We can buy ourselves some time. Vaccine won't be ready in time for this epidemic. It takes at least a year, maybe a year and a half to be sure it's safe, effective, and can be produced. I've heard people blithely speak of herd immunity, but for herd immunity to be effective, you have to have a vaccine or you have to have everybody already caught the disease. Most people have to have the disease or been exposed to it and overcome it for there to be any herd immunity. So when you hear people talk about herd immunity, they'll save us. No, they won't. We can hope for better treatments and there's a lot of people working on better treatments that can soften the impact of the disease. So you don't have to put sick people on ventilators so that you can keep them home reduce the rate of which they expose other people. That's what we have to hope for. It still will take weeks to months to validate that those are safe. I used to take quinine for leg cramps. FDA, that was 30 years ago, FDA said don't do that because the side effects are worse than the disease. So there's a problem. If you really want to stop the spread of the disease, you have to medicate everybody who has it and that medication has to be safe. You know, quinine can cause liver damage, kidney damage, eye damage, hearing loss. The list of side effects goes on in therapeutic doses. So we do need better treatments. We've got to give the healthcare people time. And the only way to do that is for us to pretty much slow the transmission from person to person by staying home. Wash your hands. Don't touch your face. All the standard advice. But that will buy us time. It probably will not reduce the ultimate number of cases.  But that's, we just got to have the self discipline and the compassion for each other to stay home and reduce the transmission rate. And the economy is going to have enough strength somehow to allow us all to stay home. But let me go back a little bit. Used to be. So these charts are fairly alarming. Yeah. That's why you're not sitting there. Yeah. Sorry. And what's interesting was what you just said is that you can flatten the curve, but at the end of the day, you're still going to have the same number of cases, unless there can be, you know, a vaccine before you make this analysis. The same number of cases and the same number of deaths, whether you have a sharp uptake or flatten the curve, is that right? There will be fewer deaths because you'll lower the rate at which the cases come into the healthcare system. That gives the doctors a better chance to, in their triage, to save some people that wouldn't have been able to save otherwise. And the other thing is if you overwhelm the healthcare system, you end up reducing transplant patients. You end up reducing cardiac patients care. You end up reducing care for all kinds of other diseases, infectious diseases, as well as kidney failure from diabetes. You'll get even more deaths if you don't slow this down, because we'll overwhelm the healthcare system with COVID-19 cases and everyone else will be denied care and the carnage will be. Right now, if it was just COVID-19, we'd face a doubling of our death rate for a year. With COVID-19 plus the overwhelming healthcare system, we could triple the death rate. You can blithely say if it was war, we would accept those casualties. This isn't a war. We're a civilian population. We can't ask everybody, granny, grandpa, the people with asthma, to take those casualties. It'll be the most vulnerable people to take most of the casualties. So we've just got to slow this down, give the healthcare system a chance to save the sickest people and to be able to treat everyone who has other things besides COVID-19. Okay, many questions. Let me go back to the doubling effect. So you made a survey using Bing and then you had some statement of authority on the charts you used. And that's different from what we've heard. I mean, or at least what some people have heard. I have heard these numbers before. But how authoritative is this? Fundamentally, how do you make this calculation of doubling? Right. You look at the cases. I looked at the cases in China before they implemented their controls. Their reported cases doubled every four days. That's cumulative cases. Not people who are necessarily in new cases. But that's an exponential growth. And I'll talk about how it's a logistic function, an exponential function, but there's no logistic function, exponential function is insignificant to about one third of that risk population is infected. And the ultimate authority are the data. Go look at chart two again, and you'll see how the data are tracking the prediction. So those little orange boxes, that's the data from February 20, well, for the epidemic so far worldwide. I made this prediction the gray curve on February 26 and the data are sadly tracking it for a month. The data are tracking it an hour on it. The orange boxes are the orange boxes was your prediction. And then the line right next to you the gray line was my prediction. The orange boxes are real data. Okay, got it. Got it. So here we are. And if the if the orange boxes keep on following your prediction, will be at a million, a million cases worldwide by what can we see that one more time? By by June 6. No, we'll have a million cases by by by first of April. It's going to double. So it's right now worldwide. We're at something like almost over half a million cases if it doubles again, we'll be there. So in four days, we're going to be there at a million cases worldwide. Now a million out of seven half billion is saying, man, it's only less than 10000. But the point is, we'll keep doubling, especially in the vulnerable populations in India, the refugee populations in Syria, all the displaced people from Argent from Venezuela, and some of the other places we have for refugees. And then those cases, if you don't protect everybody, if you don't try to give everybody health care, nobody's safe from this, because this virus will spread in the vulnerable populations and inevitably jump to the less vulnerable populations. So. So going back to that chart again. So if I went further to see what the numbers were, say at the end of the timeline, which is June, June 6. What, what does that actually work out to? That's the world population. Yeah, I made a very, very pessimistic assumption that China's controls would see us to be effective once they start getting reinfected from outside China. It's not everybody. Oh, sorry. I misread it. That's a billion, more than a billion. Yeah, that chart tops out of seven and a half billion people sometime in June. That's assuming everybody is susceptible and the controls in China see us to be effective. And of course, the United States is poised to become the biggest caseload in the world. You know, sometime in the next few days, we're going to overtake Italy. But then once India. Because we have a fragmented, disjointed healthcare system that has not been able to do contact tracing and really quarantine people who have been exposed to the virus. What I just, from my understanding, what's been successful in Korea and Taiwan and Singapore is that really diligent contact tracing. Somebody comes down to the disease because diagnosed with a disease, they have volunteers who will go out, unemployed volunteers, because they've locked down their economies, who will go out and do the contact tracing and make sure those contacts get tested and then quarantined as needed. And that really slows it down. The governor of New York has already said he can't do contact tracing. There's just not, there's too many cases already. They don't have the resources. And we have a chance in Hawaii to do that. We've got to jump on it. We've got to really start testing as much as we can, not just the really sick people. The people who have been exposed that you can slow this transmission curve. I don't want to be right. I don't want to be right that we're going to have billions of cases of this disease in six weeks. Because if we do, if we think the world economy is hurting now, it's, it'll be really, it'll be a depression. It'll be really much, much worse if we let this happen. We can take a hit for a while. But we got to, we got to give the doctors time to get treatments, you know, effective treatments out there, safe and found treatments. Great concern for Hawaii because it falls right. Can we see the numbers on Hawaii one more time? Which chart was that? Yeah, four. Yeah. So the black curve is my prediction for Hawaii. So to the left of the blue line, the vertical dotted blue line, all that is real data, the real data. And Hawaii has been doubling every three days. I don't think that will continue. I think that our quarantine and measures are shut state down measures will be pretty effective. But I'm only assuming it's going to slow it down to once every doubling every four days. I have very little confidence that the U.S. as a whole will slow down, but it might slow down to once every, but even if we slow down to once every four days, like the rest of the world, we're, we're, we expose everybody in Hawaii by middle of May. And we're facing a catastrophe. So we have to hope we can slow it down to way slow it down. Like every eight days might not be enough because only gives us till July or so. And the problem with slowing it down, so when you slow the exponential growth rate down, it seems like nothing much is happening. People get complacent because there aren't very many cases, but that exponential inevitably starts to build cases and then you're back in a crisis. We have to stay vigilant even if we do slow down to the caseload because unless we do that, we run the risk of having the exponential take a hold again. So even if we slow it down to every eight days doubling, we're still facing 30 or 40,000 cases a day in July. And if we slow it down to every 12 days, we're still looking at 20,000 cases a day in September. It'll be nothing in May, apparently, be very low, but it will, you know, the math just leads to the inevitable conclusion that it's going to get very, very bad eventually. That's in Hawaii. That's pretty scary. Yeah, it's sobering. It's sobering to actually be able to do math and see the consequences of an action. And then even the consequences of action are scary. Even if we can slow this down, we're still looking at scary caseloads and we're hoping that we're buying time for the medical community, the research community to come up with, like I said, safe and effective treatments. I don't think we'll buy enough time for a vaccine. Well, going back to the notion of testing, that's been in some discussion between David Ike and Bruce Anderson, director of health and also Josh Green about how important that is. But by itself, what do you do with testing? Everybody says, in order to figure out what to do, you have to know where you are. You have to know how many people have it. How does that work on a mathematical basis? Well, testing alone will do a lot. You've got to have testing coupled with effective treatment and contact tracing. I mean, of course, China is an authoritarian state, but in democracies like Korea and Singapore, Korea and Taiwan, they've been able to actually have volunteers go through and do the contact tracing. So if you have too many tests positive for disease, you ask them to self-quarantine and then you find their contacts and get them to self-quarantine. And you have to have policies in place where people aren't going to be, medical bills aren't going to kill them if they get a diagnosis of this disease. They have to be not afraid to get tested because right now, of course, you can refuse any treatment. You are allowed to refuse any medical treatment, including the medical test. People have to not be afraid to be tested. They're not afraid that the financial ruin from their medical bills are testing. This stimulus bill, this rescue bill, the Congress and Senate are going to actually finally get done will help with that. But here in Hawaii, we actually have to somehow have boots on the ground, volunteers or wherever to help people make sure, A, if they get tested, that you can trace their contacts and inform everybody they've been in contact with that they need to get tested. Then you've got to really convince people to self-quarantine when that test proves positive. And that's so testing alone is not enough. You've got your testing plus contact tracing plus self-quarantine. And then we have a chance of slowing this down. And I've been impressed with Josh Green's statements on this to this effect. So let's talk about the average Joe. Let's talk about me. Okay. I've been good in following the rules for the most part. And you too, you're on the show by remote. So am I.  If I do the right things, I won't get it. And I'm not sure why I feel that way. I just feel that if you follow the rules, then you should escape the problem. Is it true what I've said? Can I engineer this personally? So I simply don't get it? You could greatly reduce the probability you'll get it soon. It's like, I'm sorry, I don't want to give you false hope. It's like seasonal cold, you know, everybody gets a cold in the winter. And you expect to get a cold in the winter for most people, it's nothing. This disease is, you know, orders magnitude more serious than a cold, but it's not Ebola. You have a 1% chance of dying if you get it. And that's if you're vulnerable. And so what you want to do is you want to reduce your chances to get in it, so that you have as long as possible before you are likely to get it. And then you have a better chance that there will be an effective treatment or that the hospitals won't be overwhelmed and you do need to go. And you're buying yourself time to have access to the effective treatments. I can say I expect I'll get cold this winter. Now I expect I'll eventually get COVID-19. I wash my hands, try not to touch my face. That's the hard part, not touching your face. I don't have to work at home because I'm in the defense industry and I'm allowed to go to work, but we are working from home. Every one of us who can work from home is working from home because it's important to slow this down enough. So and we got to slow it down a lot. You said they're 1% fatality, but if you're vulnerable, but isn't it that if you are vulnerable out of the sample, it's more than 1%. In other words, we can immune compromise. It's like 15% or so. Yeah, that's right. Then it's less than 1% if you're in your 20s, but you're still not immune from dying even if you're in your 20s. So on average, it looks like around 1% on average. It could be, you know, some report says highest 3%. I don't think that's true. I think the cases have been underreported. And we're seeing that report now that it looks like the on average for the whole population, it's around 1%, which still makes it way worse than the seasonal flu and even worse than the H1N1 swine flu that was in the 2008, maybe on a par with the 1918 flu epidemic that killed so many people, killed more people than World War I did. Let's talk about self-help and see if that fits in the picture and improve the odds, which are really dreadful.  It's hard to get them. There's no tests around. Hard to get them. I suppose in fluid tests, you want to watch yourself very carefully. You want to watch for the telltale symptoms and that's about what you can do with that. On masks, we have a show later today about a guy who's making masks on the big island. That's good. He's fabricating masks. It's the best he can and he's creative and he has this kind of manufacturing mentality about it. I suppose anybody can do that. But they say that the masks help the other guy. They don't necessarily help you, the fellow who's wearing a mask. Is it still worthwhile, you know, finding a mask, making a mask? Well, so I've considered making my own mask. I can't sew with the darn, but I'm thinking about turning my t-shirt double them up and making bandanas out of them. The value of the mask is it promotes awareness. It may slow transmission. If you have to be infected, it may slow transmission to other people. And you may not know you're infected because you may not, you may be early stages, not showing symptoms yet. But it also promotes awareness.   And your mask reminds you of that.  So you certainly want to, you can help yourself by taking a precautions. The mask is helpful from psychological as well as some physical points of view at preventing transmission. And like I say, if I could make masks, I've already made a few. What about the ventilator thing? A lot of people don't try to weather this at home because they may not have the opportunity to go to a hospital. One reason or another and maybe the old adventure field or whatever it is. And so there are a lot of people going to try to tuck it through, tuck it through with, you know, and take a lot of cold medicine, symptomatic relief. And the breathing thing is of some concern.  Would that help you, you know, breathe and not? I hadn't thought about CPAP machines, although they're probably going to be a short supply too. They could help. I mean it won't provide oxygen, but it will provide some positive airway pressure to help you keep your lungs inflated. And the ventilators provide oxygen too. And they're having to run them pretty close to maximum oxygen and maximum pressure to save some of the people who need them. But if you can reduce that with CPAP machines, maybe I'd like to see some data on that. I'm doing breathing exercises because I have a paralyzed level of cord. I'm more susceptible to pneumonia than some people are, than most people are. So I'm trying to do my breathing exercises to keep my lungs clear. The important thing is to keep it from running down your throat and getting into your lungs.  There's some instructional videos about lung exercises. They'll be keep your lungs clear. You can do those kinds of self-help and they will, they may help some, you know, you want to make sure the virus, if it's confined to your nose and mouth, it's not probably going to be a big deal. Even you may have a fever, but it won't get into your lungs. Once it gets into your lungs, that's where the problems start. It's like, how does that work?  And then fluid builds up and you wind up suffocating. That's what happens. Yeah, your immune system sort of works for you and against you there. Your immune system responds to an infection by sending these neutrophils in, and other immune cells too. But the neutrophils make a protein, an elastase protein, an enzyme, an elastase enzyme. What that enzyme does is it cuts the chemical bonds that the proteins of bacteria and viruses use to latch on to your cells. So the neutrophil elastase tries to protect you from the infection. The problem is in your lungs, the neutrophil elastase also cuts the bonds that hold your lung cells together. So now your lung cells are being pulled apart by the very defense mechanism your body was trying to use to protect you from the infection. And so now your liver makes an enzyme called a neutrophil that counters the neutrophil elastase, alpha one antitrypsin and some other. So that antitrypsin counteracts the effects in your lung cells of the elastase. Not everybody makes the same amount. So some people, and we don't necessarily know who would advance, are more susceptible to damage from their own immune system than others. And so I'm not sure the epidemiology here, how that's working with this particular virus, but then you end up with lung scarring, then you end with COPD, inflicted on you by as much by your own immune system as by the virus. So some people are just more vulnerable. And that's a lifelong problem. If you're walking out of it with COPD, that's going to shorten you. Yeah, yeah. Permanent. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. No, I'm agreeing with you. I'm agreeing with you. Okay. Well, it's complicated. Everybody has to make his own thing on this in terms of dealing with those factors, delaying the onset, if you will. And if necessary, you have taken the right steps.  If I, you know, it's hard not to touch your face in the ordinary course.  I'm just pointing my cheek. My cheek is not an entry way to the eye or the mouth or the nose. I don't know if the ear counts the same way. Maybe the ear also leads to the sinus. I don't know if that's, but if I touch my cheek, these little buggies, do they have the opportunity to actually crawl up my cheek or crawl down my cheek and get into a more vulnerable spot? Or is that really a not concern? Yeah.   Now, I'm not an expert on this virus. I don't know how, if it can actually crawl through, but if it's on, once it's on your face, there's a better chance it'll get into your mouth or into your nose or into your eyes. So really, don't pick your nose. Don't bite your nails.  Keep your hands away from all those vulnerable spots that have mucus membranes that, you know, then would connect to the rest of your internal mucus membranes. How about washing your face? Wash your hands. Why not wash your face? Sure. Why not wash your face? Well, yeah.  The evidence is that this COVID-19 virus falls apart when it's exposed to soap or detergent. So that's a good strategy. Wash your hands, then wash your face.  You've got to really understand if you have had pneumonia in the past, know you're susceptible to pneumonia, get to be extra vigilant. If you are intimate with somebody, you live with somebody who is susceptible to pneumonia from your past experience and be extra vigilant. You really got to understand your own body as much as you can, and then take the precautions. Like I say, wash your hands, then wash your face. Like I have to put eye drops, think of that cataract surgeon, put eye drops in four times a day. Wash my hands thoroughly, then put in the eye drops. So yeah. Well, it's interesting because, you know, the community around us is under great stress. The economy obviously is under great stress, but I think what I hear from, you know, if you want to save yourself, you have to pay attention to your own health first. And that's what really holds in terms of survival. Yeah. The health of you and the people you live with, you've got to pay attention to both of that. Because if your spouse or kids... That's a very complicated issue. There was an article in The Times, I think, was it yesterday about somebody who was taking care of her husband, who was in the same house or apartment, and they had to divide the place up geographically, so she didn't run across him too much. And the idea was that she should avoid being infected by him, but at the same time, the practicality, they had to live together for his benefit to stay alive.  It was care at an exponential level, 24 by 7, to make sure that he's taking care of and you don't catch it. It's hard to do. Yeah. And there's a lot of people in the caregiver position. There's already people in the caregiver position because their loved ones have Alzheimer's or kidney disease or something chronic, heart disease, something that keeps them from doing things for themselves. And it's just will amplify those numbers of cases. And we'll see more divorces because of it. I mean, if you dress on the marriage, if you have to stay apart for extended period of time, or if you want care from your spouse, and if you see them because they're afraid to get the disease, then that's a big stressor. And there have been cases like that. Hopefully, the disease now isn't going to lead to a lot of that, but it will lead to some of it. Yeah. So people, yeah, you have to be aware of what's going on with your loved ones because you don't want to add more stress to the relationships than you have to. I just have to face the reality of it. And we have to learn about it. The way I see it is ThinkTech has had more than 50 shows on the subject of one aspect or another. Yours is a great contribution. I hope we can come back and talk to you some more as the line goes up the hill that way. Well, I'm going to keep tracking the whole thing. I'm going to keep putting those little boxes on the chart and I hope to see it start to bend over soon. I guess we don't have a year. We don't have months. We have six weeks to get this under control to give our health care providers a chance to save the rest of us. So we've got about six weeks. Easy to say, but some of the parts of control that we've talked about are simply not available to the health care system and the state. They're probably not going to, sorry to say, they're probably not going to come in six weeks. You think we'll be well out of it for extra beds or ventilators within six weeks? I doubt it. I think we'll be out of those. Yeah, I don't feel good about it. I try to stay health as long as I can. And I'm actually talking about, should I go out and try to get the disease now while they're still ventilators? I don't think that's a great idea. Why don't we leave it there? There's some dark humor in there. Mike, don't worry, our chief client is here to thank you. I don't think I understand where this scourge is taking us. Thank you so much. I wish I could bring better news. Thank you. Thank you.


The Equitable Life Assurance Society presents this is your FBI This is your FBI the official broadcast from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation presented as a public service by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and the Equitable Society's representative in your community fathers and mothers of America attention please Upon the training you give your children today depends the future of America our system of free enterprise personal liberty and democracy Cannot exist without educated and enlightened citizens In about 14 minutes our sponsor the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States Will have some helpful suggestions for parents if you wish to equip your children to take advantage of all the opportunities the future offers Don't miss this important message Tonight's FBI file death for a draft Dodger No other soldier in the world is prouder of the uniform that he wears that the American soldier Nor grumbles as much because he is in it That is an American boast because we are proud of the fact that we are not traditionally a nation of goose-stepping professional soldiers But we are instead a nation of peace-loving people who cherish the handshake for more than the hand salute Therefore none of us censors the young man who answers the call to uniform with a good healthy American grumble Nor do we censure the parent who joins him in it But we do condemn the young man and the parent who as in tonight's case from the files of your FBI Who conspire to evade that call? We condemn them in the name of those millions of Americans down through the 170 years from Bunker Hill to the Bulge who likewise grumbled at the call to duty But who gave or stood ready to give the last full measure of their devotion to it In the Davenport home at Great Bay Long Island Richard Davenport the third a member of what they society pages of the New York papers called the Long Island set is sitting Despondently in the library. Here's put steps in the hall and calls out Is that you mother? Yes, Richard. Have you got a moment? Why thought you'd done sailing with Lanny Hartford. Well, I I'd planned to but There was some rather distressing news in the morning mail. What do you mean? Look at this Greetings from the president The draft board has ordered me to report for my physical There must be some mistake. No, I'm afraid there isn't I'm to appear two weeks from today Well, I never heard anything so outrageous in my life. What do they want with you? The war is over I know you've already made your sacrifice working in that defense plant buying bomb They don't consider that essential any longer. That's why I'm being called.  You've done your bit. Let them let them call in some of the riffraff young men with no future Put them in the army now now mother. There's nothing we can do You'll run a lot. Oh Poor darling. You're being so brave. No, I'm not really honest I I don't want to go and I'm going to see to it that you don't mother What can we do? I don't know but there must be some way to keep you out and I am going to find it On a morning several days later at the Davenport home, Mrs. Davenport brings a breakfast tray to her son's bedroom Richard dear, huh? Wake up darling. Hmm. Well, what is it? I have your breakfast tray here.  Please. I wait a minute. I have some very exciting news Hmm. It's about you're going into the army. I found a way to keep you out What did you say the army isn't going to accept you now come on wake up and listen to what is this? Well, I went to a dinner party last night as Helen Brockton. Hmm. Her son is just about your age Yes, but during the war he did a magnificent job in a defense plant just as you did Uh-huh, and a few weeks ago. He also received a call from the army He went down for a physical and they wouldn't accept him. Oh mother. That doesn't save me finish. Please dear There was a special reason why he wasn't accepted There's um, there's a doctor that Helen met a few weeks ago He gave her son some sort of a treatment so he couldn't pass the physical examination. Oh And darling we have an appointment to see him the first thing in the morning Mrs. Davenport was not the only one who had developed a personal interest in the doctor Earlier that morning in the New York field office of the FBI Special agent Greg was summoned to the office of assistant to the agent in charge barns You sent for me, mr. Barnes. Oh, yes. Come in Greg Just received a general bulletin from Washington. You can start working on. Yeah, what is it? Manny's wife posing as a doctor and a nurse assistant. Oh, yes, the case just came to light out in San Francisco Several months ago the fake doctor helped a couple of young men to flunk their army physicals Thought that went out when the war ended. Well, there's evidently a market for it still Here's a full description of a couple and photos are on the way How do they operate well the familiar pattern they administer increasing doses of a drug until the so-called patient has a simulated heart condition And after he flunks the exam they bring the heart back to normal with a counter agent Well, what I meant was how does he manage to operate as a doctor? Oh, well in, California He used a forged diploma from Golden Gate Medical and a forged state license. I see Did they skip out of California? Yes, and so far there's no lead on whether gone. What's our move? Just in case they're headed east how about checking with the army here for any recent rejections because of bad hearts, okay? Particularly young men from well-to-do families right get it right away Greg Hello my dear Now where have you been why? This is Brockton sending a patient over to you. Oh, this is Richard Davenport the second She'll be here any minute with her son Richard the third that calls for a Shakespearean couplet by there Oh, but I have more important words for you. What are you talking about? I have this day concluded negotiations for the purchase of a 23-room house For a house nestling high among the pines and the glorious Adirondacks. How many drinks have you had? Mirrored my love. We've planned right along the establishment of a private sanatorium. Yes, but of course the purchase of the property has rather done in the exchequer So we shall spare one or two more lads the inconvenience of going into the army and then as the saying goes blow And that should be Richard the third now then cut out the Avon accent and start making like a doctor Yeah, I'm the devil. Oh, oh, yes, of course. This is brought in just telephones.  Thank you. Come along with you. Very well mother This is dr. Boone. Good morning, madam. Hello, doctor. I am I hope you don't mind mrs. Brockton telling me About everything. I'm sure I can rely on your discretion mrs. Davenport Of course you can I place my reputation and my personal fortune at stake each time I perform such a service I'm sure of that and I'm willing to do it only because I believe that the sons of our better family should remain in the position To which they are born. It's for the good of our society. How right you are doctor But because the risk is so great to me. I feel that I should be properly compensated. Yes, of course My fee is seventy-five hundred dollars. Oh Where oh well you were required or in advance you may arrange with my assistant to pay half of it now and the other half the next Time you come in It would be necessary for your son to remain here, of course for perhaps a week to allow Dr. Boone. Yes, and is there Is there any possible danger in the treatment? I mean if it were administered by a charlatan. Yes But by me a physician none whatsoever May I come in mr. Barnes? Oh come ahead Greg. I've checked on three hard cases so far that the army reject it But they're all legitimate. I'm getting a couple of more this afternoon See the bulletin early this morning from Washington and relayed from the San Francisco office. Oh, they got a lead Yes, the fake doctor bought a used car from deal of air about the time he disappeared must have bought it for traveling He did he went to st. Paul. How do you know? Mason in the st. Paul office just called the doctor sold the car to a dealer there four weeks ago and booked space on northwestern airlines for New York the same day well, how does Mason know the check transportation office is there the airlines ticket agent recognized the photos I see What what names did they use? Dr. Randolph Boone and ms. Mildred Totten. Hmm, and I'd rather start checking the airline here for a lead right How are you feeling today? Not so good doctor I'm having trouble getting my breath. That's a natural reaction Have you been taking your pills regularly? Yes, sir every three hours last month. Yeah May I see you a minute, please? Surely, excuse me mr. Davenport, of course What do you want mr. Davenport in your office you sit upon seeing you what about I don't know well I better find out you stay in there with him. Okay, I'll be back in a minute Well, good morning, mr. Davenport. Good morning, dr. Boone. What can I do for you? Well, it's been three days doctor I thought I'd come over and see how my son is doing. He's doing splendidly splendidly Could I possibly see him? Well, he's sleeping right now. I'd rather you didn't disturb him and you're quite sure he's all right Certainly certainly very well, then I'll come back when he's over by the way mrs. Davenport Yes I believe you were to take care of the other half of the fee when you came in Oh, oh, yes, of course. I I can make you out of check right now. No checks, please That's why my assistant had you go to your bank for the cash the other day mrs. Davenport I can't afford to run the risk of any written record But transactions are this oh, I'm sorry. I quite So if you don't mind making another trip to your bank now. Oh, no, not at all doctor. I'd be glad to Yes, one of the patients. It's time for his next treatment. Oh very well. You have to excuse me mrs. Davenport Of course, I'll be back from the bank as soon as I can doctor and the balance you recall is Thirty seven hundred and fifty dollars. That is correct. I'll see you later doctor Now what's the matter Mildred? You better think of something quick. What? Something's wrong with young Davenport. Come on, hurry But What is it? He passed out breathing heavily. Good heavens I think he's in a coma. You never saw one. It's just the same. You better do something and do it quick Richard Richard That's not gonna do any good. Maybe you'll know what to do then might be a good idea to call a real doctor Are you kidding? Richard What good do you think slapping is gonna do? Well, sometimes it brings people out of a faint.  I'm trying to. You don't remember something you'd reason to read in those medicals. Oh the love of heavens, shut up Look I'll return in just a moment to tonight's fbi file Now Time for our three questions and answers on education First question How much more does the average man with a college education earn during the course of his life than the average citizen of this country? Would you say ten thousand dollars more? 25 thousand dollars more in actual fact college men earn a total of 72 thousand dollars more during their working years than the average american Nevertheless the greatest advantage of education is not measured in dollars In every community a high proportion of the civic and social leaders are men and women whose native abilities have been developed by college training That's why thousands of far-sighted parents make sure of their children's education by means of an equitable educational fund Second question. What is an equitable educational fund? It is a plan that includes these important features The equitable educational fund makes sure that money for education will be ready when your child is ready If you die the educational fund becomes fully established If you are totally and permanently disabled the educational fund continues to build up without any further payment Educational costs are spread out over many years instead of being concentrated in a few last question How much will it cost to send your son or daughter to college? That question is answered in a memorandum recently prepared for equitable society representatives It tells the cost of tuition board and lodging in 192 leading american colleges In addition, it summarizes the long range opportunities open to educated men and women in 29 industries and professions such as architecture dentistry engineering chemistry life insurance social service Information that every parent should have Your nearest equitable society representative has a copy and will be glad to show it to any sincerely interested parent Call him tomorrow. You'll find him in the phone book under equitable society. That's e q i t a b l e The equitable life assurance society of the united states And now back to the fbi file death for a draft dodger The criminal fraud has been found practicing deception for profit in almost every vein of business and professional life in america And it is inescapable that from time to time he should make his appearance even in the medical profession And no one is more eager to expose him than are the members of the profession themselves For of all the professions There's his founded on perhaps the most sacred of all trusts The safeguarding of human life It was a doctor whose identity shall remain a secret in the files of your fbi It was a doctor who first exposed the criminal quackery of the imposter in tonight's case and set the fbi on his trail It was shortly before the pseudo dr. Boone's drug administrations produced their fatal result in his improvised clinic on long island That special agent greg stepped up to the counter of the baggage check room in new york city airline terminal Are you in charge here? Yes, sir. I'm a special agent of the fbi my credentials Well, what can I do for you sir about four weeks ago a middle age man and woman came to the terminal by limousine from LaGuardia field they reached here about 10 a.m They had six pieces of luggage and they went first to the northwestern counter to make an adjustment about Excess baggage charges. I see Now the clerk over there seems to remember the man asking where he could check the bags for the time being And the clerk directed him to your counter Would you still have a record of the bags being checked here? Even if they were picked up later not if he picked them up himself But if he had somebody else picked them up or had them delivered somewhere we'd have a record of that. I see Now tell me uh Do you recognize the persons in these photographs? Oh I don't recognize her But Yes, sir. That's him. All right. How do you know? Well that goatee in those glasses on that ribbon Yes, he had six bags like you say, but he only checked four Then a few days later an expressman came for them. I got it all down in my book here Uh, what date was that day the 10th of last month and I'll find it sure Eight Nine uh, here it is 10th Dr. Randolph boom Yes, we sent the bags to great bay long island. Good. Let me have the street and house number Well, just don't stand there looking at the body.  They're both certainly rather well, but do you realize that boy's mother's going to be back here any minute? Oh, let's go into the office Well, I think this is a propitious time for us to retire to our sanatorium in the adirondacks Did you pick up the sanatorium stationery at the printers this morning? It's on the desk there What name did you give me? Dr. Beaumont was very nice Look, we're never going to get out of here before his mother arrived. I don't intend to my dear But what do you expect to tell her? Yes, she is now just come in she'll wait a moment What are you doing preparing for our interview but but that's ether. That's right Well, what are you hand me that sterile face mask quickly? here Now ask mrs. Davenport to come in milden Okay I got back from the bank as quickly as I could dr. Boone Here's the rest of your feet. Oh, thank you.  Yes, of course, then I may see him now Well, the boy is he's still asleep, but I see no harm and you're having a look at him Oh, thank you so much. But mrs. Davenport. Yes It's quite important that the air he breathes be as germ free as possible So I must ask you to wear this sterile face mask. You won't mind. I'm sure. Oh, certainly not to face the other way I'll tie it on. Thank you There we are That's right Oh, no now just breathe deeply mrs. Davenport. That's it breathe deeply There And now Mel, did you see why I did not intend to leave without seeing mrs. Davenport? This must be the reception on the horns, but we're not waiting greg. We'll knock once on this private door here and then go in Let's go Uh-huh. That's like a hasty exit. You must have cleaned up there greg. Huh?  Yes And no wonder Look what that woman on the floor See what's in the back rooms while I look after I'm afraid mrs. Davenport that there's not much that anyone could offer right now in the way of comfort Richard my son. Oh my son. We've already put out an alarm for the man and woman, but uh Well, as far as you're concerned, that's rather a futile gesture. Oh, I was really guilty nothing I killed him just as surely as if I'd given him the drug myself. It would have been my duty to say that mrs. Davenport I'm glad you've made it unnecessary for me, too But there is one more thing I must say no matter how ungracious it may sound This is america mrs. Davenport Her rights and privileges belong to all of us in the equal measure and so to her obligations Your son has paid a great price for shirking his duty, but At that he's more fortunate than you He doesn't have to think about it anymore. Mr. Barnes. You want me greg? Please excuse me I found this in the desk drawer. What is it? A receded bill for some printing dated this morning. Oh, what about it? Look at the name on it Dr. Beaumont, I'm going over to see the printer. All right Mildred my dear, we couldn't have chosen a more dramatically appropriate moment for our arrival here I'm tired. Look across to the east Young rising sun already rose tending the waters of the lake spread below Marks the beginning of a new day, and I'm hungry. Woman. Have you no poetry in your soul?  Very well, let's get out my dear And who might you be my special agent for the fbi and you're both under arrest Now look here whoever you are This is who we are and unlike yours our credentials are not forged Yes, but the printer in great bay long island had a poor memory But fortunately printers always keep a sample of whatever they print This letterhead told us where to find you and a plane helped us beat you here a new day Why you stupid fool For the death of young richard davenport through the criminal administration of drugs The pseudo doctor was sentenced to life imprisonment For her complicity in his illegal practice of medicine and for consenting to violate the draft laws The wife is now serving a long term in a penitentiary Now I'd like to read you an important message prepared especially for this program by mr. J. Edgar Hoover director of the federal bureau of investigation The uniform crimes report bulletin containing tabulations from police departments all over the country has just been published It reflects the greatest increase in crimes since we first began compiling figures in 1930 During the war years more persons age 17 were arrested and fingerprinted than in any other age group In the past six months, however a shift has occurred The 21 year olds now lead in arrests They are the juvenile delinquents who have grown up during the war years This emphasizes that now as never before Parents must do everything in their power to make their homes a place of learning As well as a place of living We of the fbi have been happy to lend our assistance to this program As it is one way of enlisting your aid and assistance In our never-ending fight for a more secure america In just a moment we will tell you about next week's exciting case from the files of your fbi But now again, let me remind you to check with your equitable society representative About the safest and wisest investment a parent can make for his children's future An equitable educational fund Without obligation, he will also show you the equitable society's memorandum on the costs of higher education And some of the opportunities it opened You'll find your equitable society representative in the phone book Under the equitable life assurance society of the united states Next week we will bring you another colorful story from the files of the federal bureau of investigation The diamond-studded double cross The incidents used in tonight's equitable life assurance society's broadcast Are adapted from the files of the federal bureau of investigation However, all names used are fictitious and any similarity thereof to the names of persons living or dead is accidental Tonight the music was composed and conducted by frederick steiner The author was frank fairies And your narrator was dean carlton This is your fbi is a jerry divine production This is milton cross speaking for the equitable life assurance society of the united states And the equitable society's representative in your community And inviting you to tune in again next week at this same time When the equitable life assurance society of the united states will bring you another exciting story From the files of the federal bureau of investigation The diamond-studded double cross On this is your fbi This is abc the american broadcasting company


adding an editing text. In many places in Moodle where you can type in text, you will see Moodle's purpose-built editor known as ATTO. We see it here in a topic section summary. Many of the icons you'll know from word processing or other online programs, but some may be unfamiliar. The link icon allows you to link text to an external website or an uploaded file. So, for instance, if we select the text BBC Talk French and then click the link, a pop-up appears allowing us to paste in a URL or web address. The text will change colour, but note that the link will only work once you've saved your changes. The ATTO editor automatically saves what you type, so if you have to leave it for a while or you accidentally go on to a different page or lose your connection, you don't have to start again. The ATTO editor also allows you to drag and drop images directly into the text box, something we look at in another video. Two other useful icons are here. They help ensure your text is designed well to make it accessible for everyone on all devices, including people with restricted site who use screen readers. If, for instance, we paste some information from Word, different colours and different font styles, when we click the accessibility icon, we see many warnings about our poor design. If you really want to use different colours and different font styles and you know about design, you can change your text editor, if your admin allows, by going to the user menu top right, clicking on preferences, and then editor preferences. Technical people might use plain text if they want to add code. TinyMCE is an alternative editor, which many people know from other online software such as blogging software. If we select it, you can see what it looks like. Again, the hamburger icon top left allows you to expand the toolbar for more options. However, TinyMCE does not have the same features as ATTO, and for that reason we suggest you use Moodle's own editor ATTO.


Hi, it's Bridget. Hey, welcome to Above Life Channel. The purpose here is to inspire your spirits and to fill you with hope. Today we're gonna have a conversation with Betty White. Betty White actually has another video here on the playlist at Above Life Channel, so check that out. We did channel her very early on this year. So today I thought it would be a good idea to talk to a comedian and also someone who has very strong opinions and viewpoints regarding women given the current events in the United States of America. I think this is a good way for me to be able to really feel into and galvanize some of that support that some of the women perhaps might be needing and feeling right now that need to really rally and what that looks like. Okay, so we're gonna have a conversation with Betty White. Betty, can you come on in, please? They are one of the original Golden Girls who was also on other shows like Boston Legal and Hot in Cleveland, I believe it was. And the only reason why I know you were on Boston Legal is because I just saw that last night, one of the episodes. So last night or the night before, anyway. So very funny, you're so funny. I know you've had a rich career and so a lot of respect for your body of work. Today I'd love for you to give us some inspiration. You lived a very full life. You experienced a lot of, you have a lot of experience being a woman in Hollywood and a woman comedian at that. So it would be really great for you to share a few words with us about women and who we are in your words. And she says, I think you want, perhaps would want me to be funny. She says, which makes sense, I'm a comedian. I don't think it's a time to be funny. First of all, I would like to say that women have made great strides as far as equal opportunities there have been tremendous gains. I don't want to overshadow that or make light of that. But there's a long way to go. And you can't stop. You cannot stop. Okay, so I'm asking her in my head. I'm having a little conversation here. I'm asking her about advocacy. Well, how do you, what do you mean? Like we can't stop. Yeah, stop what? She said, believe in. Okay, we can't stop believing like the journey reference for low everyone. We can't stop believing women. Don't stop believing according to Betty White. Seriously, she says, seriously, there are ups and downs. It's always like that. She says it's always like that. Politics is unpredictable. And what comes and goes with that is just behaviors. She says, behaviors of people who don't believe what you do are always visible. It's always obvious. She says, when people don't believe that you should be paid equally, just for example, she says, people who believe that you shouldn't be paid equally. You're not going to change their mind just because you pass a law about it. She says, you can make conscious efforts to support initiatives. She says, incentives in your area, in your local community with advocacy groups who will promote and support women's health. She says, women's reproductive health, that is Betty White, women's reproductive health. And she says, it doesn't matter what I think you should do. It matters what you need to do. And she says, it's so easy to sit back and that's my phone. She says to judge people. It's so easy to judge, isn't it? It's so easy to judge. She says, look at the reality TV that you watch. She says, look at all of how just television has changed over the years and how there's a whole culture that is built upon watching trainwrecks in order to be able to criticize the trainwreck. It's entertainment. Unfortunately, she says that gets mixed in with the society's values and beliefs and it creates just this big mess and where people don't have a sense of humor.   She says, everyone should be required to do stand-up. Everyone should be required to bring some joy into people's lives and to completely humiliate and criticize everyone. She's like an equal opportunity to criticize and humiliate everyone.  It's so ridiculous when beliefs are imposed upon other people. And she says, whatever it might be, there's two things you should never talk about, politics and religion. So what are we gonna talk about? She says, politics and religion.  She uses the word cultural things. She's referring to diversity I think is what it looks like, like the civil rights and all that as well. Yes, she said, it's all mixed in. It's all mixed in. You can literally talk about anything as a comedian and you'll get death threats. She says, that's what happens. And she says, however, that's a way to bring in to the conversation, the absurdity of the varied viewpoints around any topic, pick anything she says, pick anything. And she literally, she's so blunt. She literally says like blacks and whites to bring that in. She says, and she says, my last name is white. I am quite the white person. And yet I had privilege, yes. And at the same perspective, and she says at the same rate in Hollywood as a woman, you can forget about getting any sort of jobs that could be filled by a man even at like a comedy club. She says, they never took us seriously as comedians. It never took us seriously. We were the butt of many jokes, she said, but she says people like, she's saying herself and like John Rivers, capitalized on the novelty at first of being a woman in Hollywood that is funny, a funny woman. She says, and then she's showing me other people. I don't know who Rose, is there a Rosie career? I don't know who this is. There's some older people, older women.  And she's saying, if it weren't for them, it wouldn't have paved the way even for an opportunity for someone like me.  You're set the stage for many women to have a voice and to be cast in roles that and have storylines that represent women who are in different forms of life, who choose different things, who are in different stages of life, who aren't just the young, beautiful women, but who are also older and in their lives. And in addition to that, the storylines for the things that you were involved in, taking something very a very serious issue like gun control, for example, and then creating the opportunity to have a, almost like such a stark contrast around it, around it using the kind of absurdity in your face humor that she's like, it kind of protects the issue in a way where it's a safe way to acknowledge wow. Oh my gosh. Oh, that was funny, but it's not really funny. It's funny, but not funny is kind of how she's saying. So you can get real human issues using humor. And she says it's a great way to bring things in to the conversation. She's like into the community, into the context of society is to use humor. And she's like, it's an incredible way to slowly start to chip away at old behavior patterns. And she said, it's not just the beliefs or the values of people, because you can't change that. She's like, you can't change somebody's mind, but you can change their behavior because you can force things to not be acceptable, which unfortunately, she's also showing us the flip side of that coin is things that once were gifted and granted as a right can also be taken away.  She says, we know that's not true, but the simple dramatic contrast to a woman that gives birth to a child and the child as it grows into a teenager, who then is all of a sudden not this cute little beautiful baby anymore and is a sassy mouth and you can't just smack them because that's illegal. And she says, everything's illegal and she's saying, but yet it's almost like, she says, it's almost like they need to fill the prison system with parents who are frustrated with their children and take dramatic action. Okay, there's a lot here. And she's saying, there's a lot to be said.  And then she's saying, supporting as simple as supporting companies that don't support dissolving your rights or that not like, it's weird because she's saying it's the opposite way and I'm trying to capture it. And it's hard to capture it exactly with Betty White here. She's saying basically, so purchase from companies, organizations and support organizations, companies, products, where the organization doesn't make a habit of supporting political elections in ways that are adverse to you or like don't support those and find other companies, even if they're big corporations to support.  And to support then not just the big companies that affect policy or get politicians in office but you're supporting the opposite, which is companies who are more grassroots or more connected to their communities and then are more reflective of the community. So whether it's a diversity reflection of diversity in culture or whether it's a reflection of products or things that really support women. And she's like, I'm not just talking about marketing. She says, I'm talking about really do your research and if you can get things that are companies in your area that you know are allies of the values that you have and actually take action like support, maybe they support the local pride grade or maybe they donate money to a women's shelter or things along those lines. Just like going to a church and giving money to a church that gives money to these causes, it's the same thing, but you have to be much more conscious and intentional about it. She's like, you have to make effort, it takes effort. You can't just blindly purchase something online. You have to know what that company's spending their extra money on, who are they supporting when it comes to politics. And she said, I know that takes a lot of work to do that, but you have to do it. That's how you educate yourself.  Time and money, those are the two big things that influence people, especially in America because it's a capitalist society. She says, you take somebody's money away or waste their time, you just see how happy they are not. She says, I know it really stinks. I know this stinks. She says, I know this is just, oh my gosh, Betty, I can't show them that. There's an imagery, I see, I'm clairvoyant, so I see with my third eye. So when I'm channeling, I see imagery. That's what clairvoyance is. And she literally is showing me a very, what would be considered a very, I'm not saying inappropriate, everything about Betty, you are super like, not appropriate. If we're just hanging out and talking, having margaritas or something, it would be not that appropriate. So she's showing me a weapon, like a saw-off shotgun. So shock value maybe for me to make that connection between what we value as a country and what we don't. So she says, yes, Bridget, women are, it is clear that there are some that would like to see women barefoot and pregnant at home in the kitchen and never leaving the house. She says, just to serve the men, right? Yes, so there are people that do view women as second-class citizens in America, in the US. She says, that's, it's sad. She's like, it's awful, it's bad, that's bad. But it's the truth, it's just the truth. And she says, for years we worked trying to just get a fraction of what the men are paid. She says, you see it in sports now too. It's really, it's pretty drastic, the pay and salary difference, she says, pretty drastic. But believe it or not, we've made great strides. And she says, the time is not to quit. The time is not to just throw your hands up and walk away. And it's also, it's not, I don't like this reference because energetics, usually it's not like a war. I don't like the term and energy you guys. I don't like to use the term war, like to fight against something because that creates this agitation and aggressive energy that is like a good and bad and only one can win kind of five. And that's hard to do with energetics because then you're amplifying that violent kind of negative tendency. But she literally is reflecting to a battle. And she says, it is a private battle for many to come to a place where they understand what their own belief systems are as opposed to how they were raised, like what their parents told them or their church told them, what their doctors told them, whoever it is, their college professor told them. She says, we have so many, this is Betty Wade, we have so many views of ourselves through other people's eyes. It's really important to take the time to know what your viewpoint is and what you believe for you. And she says, that's what choice is all about, what you believe for you. She says, this is what you can focus on. This is what you can do. Choose what's best for you and be loud about it. And she says, you don't have to fight and get angry. You can come together in unity and show your alliance for women as a people, as leaders, as not just advocates for change, but the example and the embodiment of what that means.  And she's like, it's true, we need men to do that. And sooner or later, when the people in power figure out that you need men to also create babies for women, there'll be some interesting conversations about what to do to the man in regards to pregnancy. And I literally see a list of child support and healthcare access long-term until the age of 21, helping with education. I see all of these things. She's just making a list, here's all the things. It's not just punishment by pregnancy. She said that, not me. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. I am so gonna be strong up for this, buddy. And she's like, Bridget, it's your platform, use it. That's the point of all of this.   As long as you know who you are, do you?  Do you know what is true for you? Do you want me to tell you what's true for you and expect you to change your belief system and just support what I believe instead of your own? Would you like that? Would you like for me to tell you? I'm not going to. I'm not gonna tell you what you should do.  I'm not gonna do that. I can barely pick my own dinner. Oh, Betty, I got lots of opinions about this. I'll have to do a video on my fairy grasshopper YouTube channel about it. I think Betty is, she's matter of fact. She's very confident and there's a lot of courage here. So you as a woman who are watching this, regardless of where you fall on the issue of abortion, whether you are in the camp of pro-life for yourself or pro-choice for all, you have a right to your opinion and your view. I'm not gonna tell you what you need to do and what you shouldn't do.  I'm not the creator, the power, the source.  Is that good, Beth? Is that good, Beth? Is that good? Is that good enough? And we can still be friends. As long as you don't come over and try to dress me a certain way or tell me that I shouldn't wear these earrings. As long as you don't come into my house and take away these, I don't like these earrings. They're jade or tell me that I can't wear this ring from Disney World because it's kind of offensive to you and it bothers you that it's on my body. Yeah, I don't want that.  That's kind of weird, right? It's a little weird, isn't it? It's a little weird trying to live somebody else's life for them. It would be nice if we did have kind of a template for the perfect people and how best to live life. But the fact that we're humans, my friends, kind of voids everybody of that. Nobody is perfect because we're people and we have a mind that's an ego mind that thinks we know better than anybody else, which helps us in making our own discernment and decisions but doesn't give us that right to make others. It's complicated, right? We can still be friends. Totally fine with that. Hey, thanks, Betty, trailblazer for women. I love it, it's awesome. Because that's what I do in my private coaching, work as an intuitive life coach, inspiring your spirit, billing you with hope. That's the point, because it's your life after all and you get to live it. I'm not gonna tell you what you can't do with your body. Do not tell me. I mean, you can tell me because only I know what's best for me. That's what confidence is, that's what courage is. That's what self-love means. This is Bridget with Above Life Channel. Thank you so much for listening to this particular watching, this particular video here with Betty White in the afterlife. This was actually recorded in June of 2022, June 26th, to be exact. Two days after the Supreme Court shared their ruling on the overturning of low versus late. That was the inspiration to record this video with Ms. Betty White. Thanks for being here.