Hey guys and welcome back to my YouTube channel. My name is Dapo Waleesmal. Guys in this video, I wanna discuss Bitcoin. How should you go about trading Bitcoin in 2021? Should you be trading Bitcoin at all? If indeed you wanna be trading Bitcoin, what are the best strategies to use to be trading Bitcoin? And of course, I'll be giving you my honest opinion about the whole cryptocurrency industry and obviously, listen to what I have to say so that you can make the most informed decision possible. I know a lot of you guys have made some money from Bitcoin. A lot of you guys have lost a lot of money from cryptocurrency. So that's exactly what I wanna be speaking about today in this video. But before I get into that, all you need to do is smash the subscribe button, drop me a like and yeah, that's all you need to do. All right guys, so I'm gonna give you two seconds to do that, do that right now. Smash the subscribe button right now. Smash the like button and then yeah, all right, good. Let's get into the video. Hey guys, it's me, Dapo Waleesmal guys. Like I said earlier, I wanna speak about Bitcoin, right? So you guys have been following me for a while on YouTube. You know that I like to trade the Forex market predominantly. I'm a Forex trader, like I'm a technical analyst, right? So I've been getting a lot of questions about Bitcoin. Should I buy Bitcoin? Should I trade Bitcoin? Well, okay, not even Bitcoin, cryptocurrency in general. What crypto should I be trading? How should I buy it? You know, and stuff like that. Now guys, I want you guys to sit back and really listen to what I have to say today because today I really wanna speak from my heart. As you know with everything, every single piece of content I put on my YouTube channel, I always like to speak from the deepest part of my experience. I'm not gonna speak about what I don't know.  I'm gonna speak about what I know, what I've experienced before. Now, when it comes to the cryptocurrency industry, I need to give you guys a little bit of history and background and then we can go into how to go about trading Bitcoin. So I need you guys to listen, right? So I first discovered cryptocurrency as far back as 2014 and I bought some cryptos actually. I bought five Bitcoin, I used to own five Bitcoin and Bitcoin was so cheap at the time. I remember actually using two of my Bitcoin to buy a pair of jeans on the internet. I used two of my Bitcoin to acquire a pair of jeans on the internet. That's how cheap Bitcoin was. And then I just forgot about Bitcoin. So 2014, 2015, and then 2016, Bitcoin started to actually gain some momentum and I was like, all right, cool. I wasn't even paying attention to it because I was trading forex. Forex has always been my baby. It's always been what has put food on the table for me, right? So, you know, and then 2017 came and Bitcoin just started to go berserk. Like Bitcoin did like a thousand percent in the span of what, four, five weeks, okay? And before I knew what was happening, everybody was screaming Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin. Now you have to understand that I bought five. I used two to buy a pair of jeans in 2015 and now I have three left. So there was just something in me like I never really looked at Bitcoin. I mean, I opened the chart. Okay, what actually happened in 2017 when I went back to check my Bitcoin chart? I've seen an analysis that I've done, okay? And I found out that the analysis was, ended up playing out, like the analysis was correct because I did the analysis as far back as maybe 2015. I was trying to make sense of the financial instrument, Bitcoin. So I tried to use my forex knowledge, my technical analysis skills, and I did some analysis, but it just wasn't looking all that great. Anyways, fast forward to 2017 when everybody was screaming Bitcoin, I decided to open up my chart to actually see, because I don't rely on what I watch on TV. I don't rely on just daily news. I like to look at the charts because the charts always have always guided me in the right path, they've always given me the full picture. So I went to my chart and I found out that my analysis had played out and then indeed Bitcoin had rallied. I'm like, all right, cool. That's pretty interesting. So I had about three Bitcoin. However, going into 2017 December, I wasn't really comfortable with, I don't really know. The way everybody was just screaming about Bitcoin, Bitcoin, I just wasn't comfortable with it. So at about, I think on the 23rd of December, or 22nd of December, if I'm up to 2017, I liquidated all of my cryptocurrency positions on Coinbase. I had three, Bitcoin was trading about $19,000 something. It was, trust me guys, it was a lot of money. I didn't realize, it was a lot of money. I didn't realize when I was buying Bitcoin, I didn't think it would ever get that big, but it did. Made like so much money of that. I probably, it was a lot of money, right? If you do the math, three multiplied by, that was almost $60,000 that I made in 2017 December. But the question is, why exactly did I sell Bitcoin at that point? I sold it because I just wasn't comfortable. Now guys, you have to understand, the year before in 2016 December, there was a popular Ponzi scheme that was going on in West Africa. It was called the MMM scheme. And MMM was basically, it was a Ponzi scheme, borrowing specific deposits here, they guarantee 30, 45, 50% return every month. You don't have Ponzi schemes go. And what happened was the Ponzi scheme MMM had crashed just before Christmas. You know, so I was like, hmm, this Bitcoin thing, I don't think I want to hold it throughout Christmas because I feel like, because you have to understand something guys, around that period, when it starts approaching festive, when it gets towards the festive period, people want to start liquidating whatever assets they have because they want to go and spend time with their family, they want to buy new clothes, they want to celebrate Christmas.  I sold and liquidated all my Bitcoin positions. Guys, you will not even believe what happened. I think it was a few days after Christmas, Bitcoin, it reached this peak of $20,000 and Bitcoin just started to collapse, tanked. So I noticed that when Bitcoin was on its way up, $13,000, $14,000, $15,000, $16,000, $17,000, $18,000, $19,000, even up to $20,000. People were buying, people, I know people that bought Bitcoin at $20,000. And then Bitcoin, what happened with Bitcoin peaked at $20,000 and absolutely collapsed. A lot of you guys already know this story, but I'm getting somewhere with this, right? And Bitcoin absolutely tanked at $20,000. I was like, shit, I saw people losing like a lot of money. I imagine if you spend 20K just to buy one Bitcoin. Bitcoin dropped, so this is 2017 December, fast forward into 2018 January, February, March, April, May, June, by June of 2018, Bitcoin had dropped to $3,000 per coin. Think about this, you had bought one coin at $20,000 because, and I remember very vividly, people were screaming, Bitcoin is gonna get to 50K, 100K, I'm gonna be rich, I'm gonna be rich, I'm gonna be rich, all that bullshit, right? And then imagine people who bought one Bitcoin for $20,000 and then by June of the following year, Bitcoin was trading at $3,000, $3,800. Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, if I just look at my chart, let me see, guys. Bitcoin did drop and came all the way back down to, yeah, look at this, $3,850. I'm correct, I have my figures right. $3,850 USD was what Bitcoin dropped all the way from $20,000. Freaking crazy, man, if you ask me. And I was just feeling sorry for those guys. And guess what happened, guys? When Bitcoin dropped to $3,800, everybody stopped talking about Bitcoin. I wasn't hearing any gist, nobody was talking about Bitcoin, nobody was talking about cryptocurrency, everywhere just went silent. I was like, hmm. And then we come back into 2020. Fast forward into, so throughout 2018, 2019, Bitcoin is just like going 3K, 7K, 8K, 9K, 10K, we come back, 7K, 8K. You know, it's just trading around that range. Everybody's quiet about Bitcoin. I'm not seeing gurus on YouTube talking about Bitcoin. I'm not seeing, so what I'm trying to say here in essence is, when things go bad, everybody goes quiet. When Bitcoin is popping, everybody's talking about it. You need to be very careful because to me that sounds like a pump and dump scheme. Okay? It doesn't sound like a reliable asset to me if you ask me. All right? I'm not saying you shouldn't trade it. I'm not saying you cannot make money. I have made, I will be a hypocrite to tell you not to trade Bitcoin because I made a lot of money from trading Bitcoin. I mean, I had, I liquidated my position in 2017. You know, so, however, it is always good to understand both sides because when you understand both sides, you're not negatively or positively charged. You're able to centralize your emotions and you can then make the best decisions possible. Okay? You have to understand that nobody talks about Bitcoin when Bitcoin is, like when Bitcoin, when things are going bad, only when things are going good.  Okay? This thing is not exactly a reliable asset, but I mean, if I know it's not a reliable asset, but they're still trading opportunity in this thing. So what I'm going to do is, I'm not going to, I know that there's a possibility of it going bad. So what I'm going to do is, if I wanted to invest $100,000, I'm not going to invest an entire $100,000 in this because it is not reliable. So I'm going to invest a setting portion of my investment, maybe 10 or 15% and I can put it towards Bitcoin because Bitcoin cryptocurrency is classified as a very, very volatile and risky financial instrument. Okay? My point here is don't go dumping all your money into cryptocurrency. First of all, it has no historical financial backing, backed by nobody, no central bank, backed by none of the instruments that we're aware of, backed by no government. Okay? You can make money off this, but you have to understand that, listen, if I'm going to put my leg in the deep end, let me put my toes. Let me sit on the side of the pool and only put my leg inside because I know I cannot swim. I want to get a feel of the water, make it, you know, just a little bit. However, I'm not going to put my whole body inside because I can drown. This is the exact approach I want you guys to use towards Bitcoin. Anyways, back to what I was saying. So then we get to 2020 December. Now again, Bitcoin, so that the time I'm recording this video is January of 2021, Bitcoin got out of the way to the roof. Now Bitcoin has hit $40,000 and guys, I saw the same pattern again. When Bitcoin was going all the way up to 20K in 2017 and now Bitcoin has gone all the way to 40K, during the rise of Bitcoin to these record highs, I have noted the same behavioral pattern amongst human beings. Everybody's talking about it and everybody's making the same mistake. Everybody's buying at the highs. Everybody's buying at the highs of Bitcoin. Ridiculous. You should not be doing this. I know people that bought Bitcoin at 40K, man. As I write, man, I'm talking to you, Bitcoin has pushed back all the way down to $32,000. That's what Bitcoin is trading at. So if you bought when the hype was high, the rest assured you are in negative as we speak, okay? And people are like, yeah, but guys, some people are like, hey, don't worry, we'll go back up again. I'm like, all right, cool. But you have to remember that when Bitcoin hit 20K, 11th of December, 12th of December. Oh yeah, I remember when I saw my Bitcoin, it was early on in December, 2017. It was before it started to collapse. Bitcoin hit its highest point on the 18th of December, 2017. Right? So people bought Bitcoin at 20K on its highest point. It did, Bitcoin did not return back to 20K until second of December, 2020. Do you know what that means? I'm looking at, if I'm not mistaken, I'm looking at almost a three-year spread, right? I'm looking at almost, did it take Bitcoin three years to go back to its previous highs? Let's say two years. Maybe my math is a bit off. Let's hope my math is a bit off, because I'm saying 2020 December minus 2020, 2020 December minus 2017 December. Isn't that three years? Did it take Bitcoin three years to, so if you had bought Bitcoin at $20,000 in 2017, you would have been in negative in loss for three years. Oh my goodness, what are people doing? This is crazy, man. Oh my days. And there we are again. People are buying Bitcoin at 40K and Bitcoin is pulling back. Oh my goodness, it's not looking good, you know? And let me also shed some light on the history of Bitcoin. Guys, you have to understand that cryptocurrency was created by some dude called Satoshi Nakamoto.  Nobody even knows, even the CIA, the FBI, nobody know who the hell Satoshi Nakamoto, whoa, whoa, we don't even know what his real name is, man. Who is this guy that created it? It could be me, like I could be Satoshi Nakamoto. Let me tell you what did I did, so that you guys can understand this Bitcoin thing and get into your braids, man. The guy stayed, because right now I'm recording this video from my flat, I stayed in his house on his desk, thought about, you know, a different financial world. He went online, the guy hired programmers to build this. He hired some of the best programmers in the world. They built the blockchain system, you know, and all that. They built this, built that, and then he hired a very good marketing company to start marketing his program, his product that he had built. So, you know, and then what's next in everybody's saying, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, what's this Bitcoin thing? What am I hearing about this Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, the guy just in his house has built something. The guy is in charge. He's in charge of the cryptocurrency world. One guy, I'm not comfortable about that shit, man. I ain't comfortable about that. Like the guy, one guy in charge of the whole thing, literally, the guy has got unlimited Bitcoin. Okay, I know Bitcoin fans are gonna come to my comment and bash me. You don't know anything about this.   So it's easy to, I remember, because I used to go for like cryptocurrency seminars. The one thing they will tell you about is ease of transaction. It's easy to send money from this node transaction, but to leave me, like if I wanna send money from my Barclays account to somebody's Barclays bank account, Barclays doesn't charge me anything. There's no transaction fee on that. Barclays doesn't charge me anything. Even if they charge me, like it's nonexistent. I can't, I don't feel it, I don't see it. So you telling me about transaction charges and make any bloody sense to me? Do you get what I mean?  And you have to understand, if I put 1,000 pounds, if I put 20,000 pounds in my Barclays bank account, I'm not gonna wake up one day and the money is 3,000 pounds. If I put 20K in Barclays, December 2017, December 2017, and I came back December 2020, my 20K is gonna be 20K. My 20K is not gonna go from 20K to 3K.  Listen, I worked for an ICO, an initial coin offering, just like Bitcoin. You guys know that there's so many types of Bitcoins. It's Ethereum, Lithium, all this, da, da, da, da. People are creating these coins. Guys, people are creating currencies. Doesn't that scare you guys, man? I worked as a marketing consultant for one of the ICOs I cannot mention, one of the coin offerings. I know what it takes to sell a coin.  We raised $50 million in three months for that initial coin offering. Nobody one day asked us, what is this currency backed by? What is the backing? Everybody was very concerned, more concerned about how much money they were gonna make. And guess what, who made the money? Because after this January of 2012, December when Bitcoin hit its highest point, December 2017 slash January 2018 when everything was at its highest, the whole cryptocurrency industry crashed. The prices crashed. So even the coin we were selling at the time, the value was literally almost wiped out. But guess who made money? The people who owned the coin. We made $50 million, I'm telling you guys. 50M, they were the company I worked for at the time, made $50 million from people. So guys, you have to understand that. You have to try and ask yourself, where is the real money in this cryptocurrency? The real money in this cryptocurrency are the people that are selling the services that are selling your ability to buy Bitcoin. Okay, let me not get into, you see I get very emotional when I talk about this because I just can't understand how mass human psychology works. It just baffles me because everybody, and guys, I'm gonna leave you with one thing. You want to be careful when everybody's talking about something. You want to be, especially when it comes to an opportunity, a financial opportunity. You want to be very careful. When everybody's out, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, that's when you want to be very, very aware, aware. Warren Buffett has a saying that has stuck with me throughout my entire financial trading career. He says, you want to be fearful when everybody's greedy. Everybody's greedy, they are buying, buying, buying, this way you want to be afraid. And you want to be greedy when everybody's fearful. Okay, anyways, enough of all that. I'm gonna paste a Bitcoin chart, and we're just gonna do a quick screenshot because I don't really want to go into, I'm gonna do a quick analysis on Bitcoin and I'm gonna post a chart on here because I've already spent about 21 minutes on this video, ranting about cryptocurrency and stuff like that. I'm just gonna post a little picture of what Bitcoin is doing at the moment and I could potentially show you guys areas where you can buy Bitcoin so that you're not buying at the top. I'm just gonna try and make sense of this on the chart, okay? I'm gonna try and make sense of Bitcoin on the chart. But yeah, guys, Satoshi Nakamoto built a blockchain and the guy's just chilling somewhere. Imagine how many Bitcoin that guy has. The guy's unlimited Bitcoin. He makes it, as far as I'm concerned, the guy's the richest motherfucker in the world. See, the guy can print. They're telling me, oh, Bitcoin, the guy can print as many Bitcoins as he wants. Who is gonna fact check it? Nobody's gonna fact... See, guys, let me explain it to you. In the US, the US government has kinda like checks and balances when it comes to how much money they can print. If they print too much, there's inflation. You know, they're setting economic parameters that they watch out for when they're printing money, right? Same thing with most central banks in the world, okay? Most of these currencies you see in the world are backed by something, either backed by gold, they're backed by a certain quantity of something, right? Perceive value, you can say. However, the perceived value has something that is backing it to a great extent. But when it comes to Bitcoin, you know, it's just hype, okay? It's just hype. Will I be trading Bitcoin? I'm not really sure. Should you be trading Bitcoin? Feel free. You can make money off Bitcoin. Right now, I feel there's a strategy that I wanna share with you guys that I noticed about Bitcoin. Anytime we get to a very record high, we always drop drastically. So if you have access to a good broker, my broker that I use is called Infinox Capital. The link is gonna be down there below. You can sell Bitcoin at its highest. You will make a lot of money. But even looking for areas to buy, okay, you can buy Bitcoin when it's really, really cheap. These are the only strategies I can think about. You can buy it when it's really cheap. Right now, 33K, we don't know where it's going. I feel it's gonna drop even further.  So that's my strategy for Bitcoin. How should we trade in Bitcoin in 2021? I know this is not exactly the video you expected to see. You expected me to say, okay, based on this news. And you know me, I'm part of crypto forums. And most of the guys that are, most of the owners of these forums are talking about, when they come to analyzing a crypto, they have to consider a lot of fundamentals. They have to consider technicals. Like, there are so much is going on. News from here, what China adopted, what the US adopted, all this, Goldman Sachs is building a crypto trading desk this year. Guys, in 2017, when Bitcoin was doing very well, I saw on the news that Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan were building a crypto desk. What does this mean? They were opening an entire trading department for cryptocurrency trading, 2017. However, when Bitcoin crashed in 2018 January, all the way, most of 2018, I wasn't hearing about this desk, so-called desk anymore. All the good things that people were saying about cryptocurrency, I wasn't hearing about it anymore. Why? Everybody ran and was hiding. Okay? So this to me looks like a very, the whole crypto industry looks like a very bad move I'm gonna take it, right? Very bad move I'm gonna effect. Everybody's doing it. Let's just do it. Let's just do it. It's gonna be the future of it. Like, if cryptocurrency becomes the future, if Bitcoin becomes the future tomorrow, and I never bought any Bitcoin now, I will not look into the future and regret anything. I would not, because I would say to myself, I was standing true to my values, okay? I was standing true to my values. I was not interested in something that I didn't feel was reliable enough. Guys, you have to understand that I'm a money manager. I manage a lot of money, and I manage a lot of money, and I have a lot of responsibility to my clients in terms of risk. I'm a very, like, what really drives me is risk. I'm very, very calculated when it comes to risk, because as a foreign trader who has lost a lot of money, trust me, risk management will become part and parcel of your DNA. So, as I leave you guys in this video today, I can, trust me, I can speak here for like the next 15 minutes about this Satoshi guy. You know what, should I even tell you what's really even I'm learning me about the whole thing? I wish I was the Satoshi guy. I'm honestly like, I'm just angry. I might say, why did I not think about this? Like, I would have made so much money and I've probably owned my own Burj Khalifa by now. Burj Al Arab or Burj Khalifa. Two of them, in fact. And I built my own Dubai.  It should not be me that built the blockchain and I'm chilling while everybody in the world is just bashing their head. Today is going to be the future. Who will be the future? It's going to be, I'm just going to be chilling, printing unlimited cryptos, you know?  Supply chain, you know?  You did it. You put the whole world in a state of frenzy. You build something and you've successfully confused everybody. Even the central banks, I get confused. Even the very, I saw a tweet from Elon Musk the other day. Elon Musk was saying, he put a picture of him just minding his business and then a picture of Bitcoin beside him. How he just minding his business and Bitcoin tempting him, you know? So if people like Elon Musk can be tempted by Bitcoin, you know, that just goes to tell you that Satoshi, like a motor built something amazing here. So guys, I'm gonna end this video on this note. My strategy for Bitcoin is wait till it drops really, really thin. Wait till it really, really, really drops. To me, it looks like a pump and dump scheme. Wait till it drops really low, okay? So in this case, maybe look at this, this might drop. If we take out 30K, the next major support is 24K, after that is 20K. So I'm gonna look maybe if it drops to 20K, 19K, I might potentially look for buying opportunities. Although I can see strong support at 30K. So we can bounce off at 30K, but if we bounce off at 30K, it's still a bit too expensive for me. Maybe if we pull back into about 22K, 19K, yes, I might be interested in trading a bit of Bitcoin. However, I'm trading for trading purposes. I don't believe in the instrument. I'll just be getting in. I won't be risking a significant portion of my trading portfolio, not at all, you know? So all right guys, on that note, if you found this video very helpful, this video was from my hard best belief. If you found this video very helpful, drop me a comment below. Tell me what are your thoughts about Bitcoin? What do you think about the cryptocurrency industry? I would love to hear what you have to say. Drop me a comment below and I'll catch you guys in my subsequent video. Yeah, for those of you who are forex traders who wanna learn how to trade the forex market like a pro, the link to the forex mastery course is also gonna be down below. I'll see you guys in my subsequent videos.  I'm gonna go into the gym to go and pump some metal. So I'll catch you guys in my other videos. Take it easy and peace out.


Indigenous Peoples and local communities' land rights and the role in the management of Tropical Forest has been a priority in Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative right from the beginning in 2008. Since that time, we have seen a growing body of documentation demonstrating Indigenous Peoples and local communities are the most effective guardians of Tropical Forest. It is now clear we will not be able to limit global warming or the loss of biodiversity without securing their land rights. This is why we joined in with other bilateral donors and philanthropic foundations to scale up support to Indigenous Peoples and local communities. As part of our delivery on the pledge made in Glasgow, we are increasing direct support to Indigenous Peoples' organizations. We also work to ensure that when channeling funds through intermediaries, this happens with the participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and in line with their priorities. Our parliament and our taxpayers will still want to know how the funding is used, but we will support capacity-building to enable that and strive to simplify procedures. In this way, we hope to be able to partner with Indigenous Peoples and local communities on more equal terms and to enable mutual learning and accountability. Thank you.


worth going ahead and getting started. Not familiar with whether the meeting needs all of the Robert's rules of order pieces that a school board meeting would have and I'm assuming it doesn't, but if it's supposed to and I'm not doing that, this is all Jim's fault, just so we all know. But so I think we can consider the meeting called to order and the first item on the agenda is public comment. And obviously once we're done with this piece, Sue and Keisha are gonna take over and rock us from there. So are there any members of the public who would like to speak at this time? Hearing none, I will go ahead and pass it over to Sue and Keisha. Thanks so much, Mara, that was probably a lot easier than you thought it would be. And so I think that still means though, given the number of people in here and some unfamiliar names and faces, that there are still people who are here from the public. So we just wanna make sure you know that there will be a segment where we go into smaller breakout groups and ask people to share stories and we invite you to participate in that as well. I think it's a little bit less jarring if the public is there to not be kind of flies on the wall for something pretty intimate and to feel welcome to share your own story about why this topic matters to you. So we just wanna make that clear now and appreciate your engagement in this topic. Sue and I do this work across Vermont, particularly we have done this work outside of Vermont as well. But certainly we have seen an increase in soul searching and people engaging in the community and wanting to understand these topics better in the wake of George Floyd's murder. And just as we acknowledge that thousands more black and brown Americans have lost their lives in the pandemic than in a disproportionate way to white Americans. And that these confounding elements of what's happening in society along with other things going on in politics and recent elections certainly have us all on edge emotionally and in terms of trying to hopefully better understand one another in our communities and in our state. So we really value the committee staying engaged with us and being part of this work. We value people from the public working with us as well and we value the community and the kind of city leadership and school leadership for making this conversation possible. So I just wanted to start there. We really wanted to make this first meeting about building trust and getting to know one another and sort of forming guiding principles and norms rather than kind of jumping right into the charge of the committee, which is significant. But I think that could really get people in a kind of different space than they need to be to hear one another on such an important topic as the safety of our young people and how we keep our community safe and how we keep a common trust with one another. So with that said, I just wanted to pass it over to Sue to have people introduce themselves. And sorry, it was just getting ready. If you are coming in after I made this announcement, we suggest and sort of hope that you will put in your name, your name that you want to be called, like your first name and how it might be pronounced or if it's a nickname and your preferred pronouns. And Sue might have some of that repeated, but it would be good to help remind people. Thank you, Kasia. Welcome everybody. We're so happy to be with you. And we, as Kasia said, she and I have been doing similar work around the state and doing some of this work in New England as well. I just want to re-edit right. It's a really trying time for a lot of us and we are hoping that tonight we can kind of pause and take a deep breath and really set the stage for this group that's about to embark on some very important work together. And so we're going to talk a little bit in a few minutes about how we're going to approach this, but the very first thing we want to do are some introductions.  We'd like to invite you to share your name, what you'd like to be called, your connection either with the school or with the Montpelier area. We want to ask you to share one thing people might not know about you. And then the third thing is we want you to just briefly, if you can, say why it matters to you to be part of this committee that's just forming.  So I'm just going to go across the screen and Mara, I'm going to begin with you. Awesome, thank you. So my name is Mara Iverson. I use she, her pronouns. I work for outright Vermont in my professional job. So one of my most fervent passions is advocating for LGBTQ plus young people. I am on the school board. A thing that not everyone might know about me is that Halloween is my favorite holiday and so we're just coming off of 31 days of the best time of my life, except for it was weird because COVID so it was weird good days. And I think that there was one more, oh, why we want to be involved in this work. I'm really excited and interested to be having a conversation about what justice in school looks like for youth because holding youth when mistakes are made and holding ourselves in space when something isn't going as well as we want or situations don't feel good. Those are the times I think that we most need to really consciously choose how we're going to be together and I'm excited to have that conversation. Thank you so much. And Edie, I'm pleased if I pronounce your name incorrectly, please say it so we have the right pronunciation. Hi, I'm Edie. I use she, her, he, him and they, them pronouns. I'm a genderqueer and a spec student at Montpelier High School. I'm a junior. Something else about me. This feels like a very uninteresting thing to say, but I love my dog. I really love him. And I just wanted to put that out there about myself. And it's important to me to do this because even as an LGBT student, I do my best to recognize my own privilege and I want to give to my community knowing that. Great, thank you so much, Edie. And Will. Hello, I'm Will Alexander, he, him. I'm the faculty chair of the Writing for Children and Young Adults Program at Vermont College. So that's what I do here in town. And that's also indirectly my connection to this. I serve on the diversity, equity and inclusion committee at the college. And I'm, most of my job is talking to a whole lot of YA writers. And so the business of creating things, adults creating things for teenagers and presuming that we know what teenagers need and not always being correct about that presumption. And many of the debates that we've been engaging with as a nation, as a community have been focused and intensely present in the field of YA literature for a while. And so I'm, yeah, I work with we need diverse books. Sometimes I'm used to that. I'm used to this conversation and I'm thrilled by the opportunity to have that conversation in a, in a way that really directly matters. So, thank you. Thank you so much. And Susan. Hi, my name is Susan Koch and I am a teacher in the Montpelier Rocks Berry School District. I've been teaching first grade and kindergarten in Montpelier for 12 years now. And I've been teaching in different Vermont schools. And I also live here in Montpelier. I'm comfortable with the she, her pronouns. And I have children that have gone through the Montpelier Rocks Berry School District. So I have wearing a couple hats here. It's really important to me to do this work because I think it's really important for kids to feel safe. Otherwise they can't access learning and I'm in the business of learning. So that's why I really was eager to be on this committee to ensure that our learners feel safe. And one thing that you might not know about me is that I am very interested in throwing and catching a boomerang. And I have done that several times in my life and I'm still working on it. And I don't know why but I find it really interesting. Great, thank you. And Jen. Sorry about that. Hi, everyone. I'm Jen Wall Howard and she, her and I am the assistant principal at Montpelier High School. I was asked to be on this committee because I've been at Montpelier High School for 27 years and to bring my experience with all different, I guess, waves of whatever happens in our society from my perspective at school. I am glad to be here though. I would like to hear other voices. We're pretty isolated at the school. Of course we see students all the time but I don't get to see community that often. So I'm glad I'm gonna be part of this. Something you don't know about me. Well, nobody really knows me here except maybe Eliana a little bit and Amanda. But I'm a drummer in a Kletzmer band. That's my secret world here. Thank you, Jen. And Joan. Hi, everyone. I'm Joan Javier Duvall. She, her pronouns. I've lived in Montpelier since 2014 with my spouse and are now almost seven-year-old who is a first grader at Union Elementary School. Let's see, there are probably lots of things you all don't know about me. I know a couple of people, but mostly not any of you. I grew up in Chicago and I'm a second generation Filipinax. My parents both immigrated from the Philippines in the mid-70s, which is an important part of my life experience and identity. I guess I wanted to be a part of this committee for a lot of different reasons. Partly, you know, I've in my, what you could say is a short time here in Montpelier, feel like there have been a number of ways in which conversations about racial justice and inclusion and safety have come up. And it just feels like a really important conversation and one that really calls on us to listen really closely and deeply to one another and to, especially those in our community who might not always be listened to. And that feels like a conversation I really want to be a part of. Thank you, Joan. Emma. Hi, my name is Emma Bay-Hanson and my connection to the community runs pretty deep, but I am currently a new member of the Montpelier Roxbury School Board. I've been serving since about May. And, but I'm also a parent. I have two kids in the district, one at Union School and one at Main Street Middle School. And I'm also an alum, so I graduated in 1995. And I think my math serves me correctly that maybe Jen was there when I was at Montpelier High School, but I don't know in what capacity. That's right, yep, I was there. So something you might not know about me is I have driven across the United States of America eight times and why does it matter to me to be involved in this? It just feels like, first of all, my background is I was a high school social studies teacher up until last year. And for me, being a lifelong learner and then also encouraging children in particular teenagers, and I was very, very happy to see how many of our local students applied to be on the board. And I think it's really important for them and for the whole community to engage in the democratic process. And so I see this as a time, there comes times in our culture, in our history, where we need to sort of step back and examine some of our systems. And I think this is one of those times. It's important to amplify voices and perspectives of marginalized people. And I think we can all agree that in the media these days, we've been seeing a lot happen with people of color in regards to police officers. So when I heard that members of our local community were feeling some tension with the school resource officer, I felt like it was time for us as a community to examine our values around that role and listen to these voices. Thank you, Anna and Catherine. Hi, I'm Catherine Nunnally. I have a first, a fourth and an 11th grader in Montpelier-Rotsbury schools. We've lived in Montpelier for five years. And gosh, it took me a long time to think of something. And this is not very exciting, but in college I started out as a fashion merchandising major. So I really enjoy design, but I ended up as an English major, which is really my first love of reading books and writing. Why this is important to me to be on this committee. I've always thought of myself as an adult, as an edifier, somebody that builds people up and a connector, a bridge builder. Or I've striven for that. I don't know if people think of that of me, but I think that's a really important thing for people to be. And it just seems like there is a lot of hostility, a lot of assumptions being made. And I just wanna use this opportunity to unify and also to have people's voices listen to and I wanna learn from that and really create a solution to the problem. Great, thanks Catherine and Amanda. Hi everybody, my name is Amanda Payne. I use she, her pronouns. I am a school counselor at Montpelier High School. I just started this job in September, like September 1st. So pretty new, although I was at the high school a couple of years ago in a part-time capacity. I'm also a co-advisor for our school's GSA, our Gender and Sexuality Alliance.  Super resonated with me. And gosh, why am I doing this? My job is to support all students and create a safe environment for everybody and create a culture of respect and inclusivity. And I have a very strong passion for restorative justice. I'm involved in restorative justice in a lot of ways and really thinking about how to create a restorative culture that really just brings everybody in and doesn't throw anybody out. That makes sense. So I'm really excited to hear from everybody on this committee and learn a little bit more. Yeah, got it. Great, thank you. And Eliana. Hi there, my name's Eliana Moorhead and I'm a senior at MHS. Something you might not know. I can do like 50 push-ups at once. So that's fun. I wanna be here because I'm excited to reevaluate the relationships that we wanna see and be a part of in our school and just spreading to the rest of the Montpelier community as well. And a few summers ago, I did this project in New York City where we sort of like looked at alternatives to incarceration and that sort of I've wanted to bring that to my school since then. And I think that this is the perfect time to do that. I mean, oh, I have them, but yeah. And sort of just like looking at the actions that people take and the stories and experiences that influence them. And so we could kind of hold it together instead of just making everything so boxy and strange. But yeah, that's it. Thank you, Eliana. We appreciate you being here. And we're gonna go to you next, Zach. My name is Zach, he's here with pronouns. I'm a sophomore at MHS. So that's my connection. Something you might not know about me. I have lived in five different states. Some of those states multiple times. So I've moved around a lot. Yeah, and why I want to do this is I think really what Edie mentioned, like as a way of giving back to the community in ways that I can and ways that will promote restorative justice, along with calling people in instead of calling them out to create more of like a inclusive community, I think is very necessary in learning environment. Yeah. Thanks so much, Zach. And Tony. Hi, I'm Tony Fakis, I prefer, you know, key him pronouns. And I was asked to be on this committee to see and just to be as a resource essentially from the city's perspective. I retired from the Montpelier Police Department and I graduated from Montpelier High School in 1984. And my older sisters also came up through the Montpelier School System and I live in Montpelier. So I just love, absolutely love what I've been hearing so far, inclusion, restorative practice, all these things. And personally for me, I'm just anything that I can do to help bring this community together more so and almost tune out the national conversation, if you will, because it doesn't reflect the values of Montpelier that I'm so proud of. And as far as anything unusual about me, well, I have a real interest in underwater archeology and a dive master. And so the preservation of our underwater cultural resources and history is important to me. So that's it. Thank you, Tony. And Pierre. Hello everyone, my name is Pierre Cotton. I'm the new guy on the block. I'm the assistant principal at Main Street Middle School but also I have a lot of connection. I actually received my masters at Union Institute and University with Emma B. Hansen. And I spend a lot of time in Montpelier when I was a cadet at New York University. Something that's, I guess, interesting about me or people really probably don't know is that I think I live in two worlds. I was raised in Regime Beach, Virginia, with my grandma, lived in poverty in the hood and kind of worked my way out and went to college. And my goal in high school was to graduate just high school and never knew that I would be here now. So I feel privileged to be on this committee. But living in two worlds is, I'm married to a wonderful woman, I have a blended family and able to have really great conversations about, and she's white, about race and equity and unity. I think the problem is we're not having conversations with each other and we're really communicating and not just one side, I think every side. One reason that I wanted to be on this committee is that I would tell the students and the faculty at my school that my job is to make sure that everyone feels and is safe physically and mentally. And since I've been an administrator, that's been my number one goal. So I think that this committee will definitely give us some answers to do that. So thank you for your time. Great, thanks so much, Pierre and Jay. Hi friends, my name is Jay Erickson. I'm comfortable with he-him pronouns. In my official capacity, I am the representative of the Montpellier City Council on this committee, but I should feel like it's also worthwhile adding that I worked with the school district in 2017 and 18 as the project manager for the new playground at UES and had a lot of interaction with the SROs throughout that process. I'm also a father. I happen to have a one boy at Union, one boy at MSMS and one boy at the high school all at once this year. So I think I bring a unique perspective to this process but I'm excited to listen and learn to all of your perspectives as well. If there's one thing I would add is or that you might not know about me is given the pandemic, boy, I miss popcorn on Friday. I miss being a part of, as a parent, being able to go and be a part of the school community because that's what I love. I love so much about Montpellier schools that we are such a community. And I think that informs my perspective as we start this process. So I appreciate being here and I appreciate all, everybody else being a part of this process, thanks. That's great, thank you. I've made a note to myself another time we're gonna find out what popcorn Friday is. So I believe we've had everyone on the committee introduce themselves and I think you're all here except for Jim Murphy who I know is going to be here a little bit later. Did I miss anyone on the committee? Okay, we have four guests that I'd like to also give them an opportunity to just very briefly if you can introduce yourselves and I'll start with Amanda. Hola, everybody, my name is Amanda Garces. I am a Montpellier resident member of the Just School's Initiatives and also a parent of an elementary school and a preschooler. I am really happy to be here to see this work ahead. And just one thing that I wanna say is that this is not just a conversation by the national conversation. These things do happen here in Vermont. These things do happen here in Montpellier. We are not isolated and I just wanna make sure that it's out there. If this is not so I'm like, image of what's happening out there is happening here and we need to do things for change. Thank you. Thanks Amanda, I really appreciate that because we are gonna be talking about the things that we can affect change on. And so Julia, would you like to do a quick introduction? Hi, I'm Julia Shepitz. I use she they pronouns. I am a parent in the district of a first grader and I'm also a therapist in private practice and a social worker. And I work with a lot of teens, middle schoolers and teens. And so just to build on what Amanda said, making sure that we sort of realize the impacts not only of the things that do happen in our community as well as the national conversation that does and the national, it impacts our children in terms of though they're watching it and they're experiencing it and they're experiencing the trauma of the national conversation as well as well as the incidents that do happen here. So here sort of with my trauma informed lens listening. Okay. Thanks Julia. Peter, can you unmute yourself, Peter, there you go. Okay. Peter Kalman, he, him, I'm a lifelong retired educator, taught at all levels from elementary through graduate school and in urban areas, rural areas and suburban areas. And I just want to second what Amanda said, these kinds of communications issues are in every state, in every town, throughout our society, because our country was founded on slavery. Thank you, Peter. And Jolinda. Hi, sorry, I was in the dark so I figured I'd shut my audio or video off. Hi everyone, I'm just kind of listening, observing as long as I can. Let's see, my connection is I am a parent of two UES kids, first grader and preschooler. I'm on the board of Partners in Education, the nonprofit of the caregiver groups and just a resident of Montpelier and someone in love with the town and the community.  I just want our schools to feel safe for everyone thanks. Thanks Jolinda and Kelly. Kelly, are you with us? Would you like to introduce yourself? Okay, we'll come back to her if she doesn't actually like to introduce herself. So thank you for the introductions. I know that takes a little time but tonight we're actually going to go slow tonight so we can go fast later and just make some of those connections. I'm going to share the screen for just a moment and I just want to share a little bit of information with you. If I can kind of make an announcement there we really try to monitor the waiting room and make sure there's not a disruptive force that appears in the meeting. So we tend to look for people to have their names, et cetera. There's someone in the waiting room that's name is identified as Dash in parentheses that says cartoonist maybe it meant to be cartoonist but I don't know. Does that ring about to anybody because I asked that person to email me or change their name to get into the meeting so I just wanted to check. Oh, okay. Oh, no. I think her son changed her Zoom name and it's a community member named Meredith Warner. So I'm not sure. I was also noticing a couple other additional members of the public that are present that weren't called upon so I don't know if we can take another minute but there was, I think there's Chad and Caitlin. Thank you, Emma. I missed a few people. So Chad and Caitlin, if you want to do a quick introduction, that would be great. Sure. I'll do a quick one. Hi, my name is Chad. This is Amber. We moved to Montpelier a year ago and she is a kindergartener at UES. We're very interested in the conversation around community safety, school safety, how they all connect. I was deeply involved in these conversations in Brattleboro where we lived for 14 years. So very grateful that these conversations are happening and happy to participate in whatever way we can. Thanks. Great, thank you. And Meredith is now here. I am sorry, Meredith. I kind of asked if anybody knew a dash in the room so people have heard a little bit about you. Sorry, sorry about that, kids. Oh, and we're just introducing ourselves as I'm quite interested in being here tonight. My name's Meredith Warner. I live in Montpelier. I have kids. I'm interested in what's going on in the school district. So I thought I'd check it out. Thank you for having me. And Emma, is there anyone else that we missed that you noticed or are we good now? There was, I'm taking notes. So I was taking notes of everybody who was present. And there was, Caitlin Browner Moore was present, but it looks like she left the meeting. So. Okay, okay. Well, if anyone else comes in, we'll have them introduce themselves. So we wanted to share just a little bit of information. Tonight, basically after we do this introductory stuff, we're going to break into two groups and just have a chance to give you a chance to share some of your stories and experiences. And then we'll talk about next steps. Before we dive into those conversations, Keshia, I just wanted to share with you, we did introductions. Some of the guiding principles that we felt were really important when the school district approached us about potentially helping with this work. We felt that in order for your committee that has some really important work to do to be successful, here are a few principles that we felt were important. Of course, we feel it's that students have to be a central focus throughout the work, that it's important to prioritize people who come from the most impacted communities around the issues that are being discussed. We thought it would be good to have a well-rounded group of folks with both formal and informal decision-making power. It's essential for this kind of work to have time to build relationships and trust so that when you get to the places where you might not all agree on solutions, you have a foundation to fall back on. It's important to establish and honor group agreements to guide the work. And that the identification of shared values is a really important step to inform your recommendations. Again, if we can find some values that you hold together that will help you if you're having disagreements about strategies. And then finally, we think it's very important for you to have opportunities to look at data and research so that our conversations can be informed by that. And having said that, we're going to go to the next slide, which is just giving us a chance to establish some group agreements. And these are things that the group will fall back on, norms, ways that you all wanna interact to be successful. And so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to get out of here so that I can actually add to this. And I just wanna invite people in the group, if you have suggestions for how you wanna conduct yourselves as a group to help people feel like they can have a frank and productive conversation, say what they need to do the work that you're here to do together. So I'm going to pause and allow you all to suggest them and I will write them down. Sue, while people are thinking, maybe Jim and Beth could introduce themselves who just came in and started this. Hi, Jim. Yeah, hi, yeah, hi all. I'm gonna go off camera for a bit again. Yeah, I'm Jim Murphy, I'm the chair of the board. I'm sorry, it's late, I had to actually teach a class till just now. And yeah, no, sorry, this is the beginning and very glad to be here. But I'm one of the three board members on the committee. Great, great. And Beth. Hi, I'm Shabnam Beth Nolan. I am a parent at Union Elementary, the three kids in our school system too at the elementary school one coming in eventually. And I use she, her pronouns. And I also am a person who identifies as a woman of color, Middle Eastern. And I'm not sure what else you were hoping for for introductions, but I am glad that this conversation is happening. I've also been involved with the Jeff Schools Initiative here, I'm not clear. Thank you, we're happy that you're here. And so first names, do you prefer Shabnam or Beth? That's a great question. Depends on the audience, I'm happy with either. Okay. If you want to just write in your preferred name for tonight's meeting, then we'll honor that. So thank you. So somebody just texted in the chat that one of the group agreements they would like to suggest is listen for understanding. So I've added that. Other suggestions? I would say speaker choose me, especially. No, no. Okay. So Mara is asking who speaks first, whenever possible, let the first voice in response to a question be from a person historically marginalized in our culture. I'm gonna try to copy this and put this in. Kasia, maybe you can check the chat and those suggestions for me. Okay, I didn't see anything coming. They might be chatting to you. Oh, they're chatting to the host. So I'm going to just shorten this a little bit and take the context, but keep the idea. Okay, other ideas? I would say just go step up and step back. I mean, participate, but also make sure that you give lots of room for other people to be heard and to participate as well. I've definitely heard that without a kind of physical ability language included as take space and make space as well. And I saw that Shabnam also mentioned the ablest language. So just anything. And I also, I am going to suggest one that all ideas get a fair hearing. Anything else? I like, go ahead. I like assume best intentions. I often frame let us honor intentions and attend to impact just so that we're holding both the intention and my impact. I see a chat, I can be helpful there. Well, someone wrote this to me privately so I won't name them, but it was a great suggestion. They wanted to clarify, listen for understanding as listen to understand, not to respond. Someone also chatted, avoid jargon. Love it. Very helpful one. It's hard to say confidentiality when we know like Orca's filming and stuff, but we will have small group breakouts. And Orca, I hope you're aware. We're not having Orca like sort of go into a small group breakout. So cool. Then those stories, we're asking people to break out in small groups where you can share more intimately. And that then hopefully would be confidential if you have a takeaway to share to the larger group. Either get permission from the person or make it really general about your reflection of something that's non-identifying to that person's story. Can I, I just, sorry, sorry to interrupt. These are public meetings subject to open meeting law. There's only certain things that can technically be occurring confidence. So while we, I think it'd be careful about what we say, technically everything needs to be in the open to be a compliance of the law. So just be aware of that. Is that Jim? Yes. You have to work it into one group or how does that? I think, I've been facilitating meetings within other districts with public access and they have not gone into the breakout groups and those conversations have not been decision-making conversations, but conversations to help people share stories. And so we're hoping that that works. Okay, Jim, does that sound like that could work for you? Yeah, no, it definitely does. I mean, Orca does not need to be there, but we can't, I don't think we can exclude people from those conversations who want to be there. And, you know, if someone really wants to know what occurred in those conversations, it's not protected. Right, and we, and just to clarify, we are going to invite everybody who's on this call to be in the breakout group, so that people on the committee and our guests are all going to be able to be part of those conversations. I did want to clarify just because it was not at the beginning. And I think most people on the call understand that these meetings are going to be recorded by Orca Media, which is a local public broadcast station. And we don't know how and where it will be used right now, so it could be posted on YouTube as their local channel is typically done, like all of the school board meetings are posted to their Orca YouTube channel. And then it also might be posted publicly on Facebook or Instagram or the school district website. So everyone should just enter every meeting with that understanding that everything that is being said and divulged and the things you don't know about me are all part of the public meeting. Okay. So we will right now not put Orca in a small breakout group. Anyone who's here from the public is welcome to go into those breakout groups. If Orca, if you have a problem with that, whoever is filming, you can write to me privately in the chat and we can discuss or you can say what you need to say. I also just want to keep track of the chat and someone had also written stay present. So kind of try to limit device and use and multitasking. Someone also asked a great question about how we will make decisions. And I think we can wait until the next meeting. That's a great topic that has a lot of other some agreements I think involved. So let's wait on that for next meeting. It's a great question. And someone is asking about having to jump off and getting the meeting recording. So Orca will be present for the whole time. They just won't be in a breakout group. So I think you will be able to see much of the rest of the meeting besides the breakout groups from the recording. So what I'd like to suggest in the interest of time is that we start with these agreements and we can revisit these next time we can add to them. And I've also just put them into the chat box so you can refer to them. And again, the purpose of these is to try to help us have the most frank and productive conversations that we can. So if everyone's okay, could I get a thumbs up from people if you're okay with the agreements that we just came up with together? Okay, I'm doing a quick scan. I think people look like those agreements are going to work. So thank you for that. So now we're going to break into two groups and we're going to have about 20 minutes in these small groups to share some of our stories and go a little bit deeper and then we'll all come back together. And so I'm going to, I'm just looking here to see. So I'll be in the first group and in case you'll be in the second group, I'm going to open these rooms and we'll come back together in about 20 minutes. Can I just say the questions for everyone? Oh, sure. I also had those in the presentation to Keisha, if you want me to share that for just quickly. Sure, I'll put them in the chat too. So everyone has them before they go. And we'll say them out loud, I think, you know, as well the video screen will show on Orca, but the small groups are discussing what experiences bring you a sense of safety and belonging. What experiences make you feel unsafe? What are your experiences with local police? And how have current, and I didn't quite sort of catch this framing Sue when we were going over the agenda, but I take in experiences with growing up in LA with the LAPD into my life with local police. So, you know, I just want to know it doesn't have to be local police that you are referring to. What experiences with the police do you have? Because for many people of color and marginalized folks, they take all their experiences with the police with them everywhere they go. And how have current events impacted your sense of safety? How have issues of bias, racism, and bullying impacted your sense of safety? Again, if you are a member of the public, we invite you to participate as fully as members of the committee because your experiences are really relevant to the work that they're going to be doing. Thank you, Kasia. And so if you are able, Kasia, to put those in the chat, also there they are, wonderful. Okay, so now with that, we will go into our rooms.


words at war out in the South Pacific Ocean there was great faith and a lot to be learned in the last two months of 1941 and in the first four months of 1942 there was great faith the United States will never let the Philippines go we'll show those Japs what it means to play in the big league we'll have reinforcements any day no Lexington is off the coast we're getting planes tomorrow planes it must be ours and a lot to be learned disperse your battleships never anchor in a straight line pretty straight lines excellent targets disperse your airplanes to a number of small scattered landing fields no line formations when on the ground straight lines like the clay pipes in a shooting gallery one two three four five clay pipes in a shooting gallery with a Japanese eye behind the gun four six eight ten planes in a straight line down there and a Japanese eye behind the gun above them the Japs can't fight why they can't even shoot oh they can't even shoot they call it Pacific words at war the national broadcasting company in cooperation with the council on books in wartime brings you another in its series of radio adaptations of great books of this war each week at this time we bring you selected dramatic episodes from some of the most stirring of our war inspired literature tonight story they call it Pacific by Clark Lee distinguished foreign correspondent they call it Pacific Japanese occupied Shanghai China late in November of 1941 I was sitting at a table in a nearly deserted tea room opposite me was American born Sergeant Jimmy Matsui of the Imperial Japanese Army Jimmy we call him and now Jimmy is glancing cautiously around the room he leans closer to me across the table I have a message for you from the Colonel Mr. Lee what is it Jimmy it was at the Colonel's suggestion that I asked you to meet me here the Colonel says he believes that you appreciate Japan's national problems he has grown to like you personally even though your newspaper stories have been highly critical of Japan's conduct in China they could hardly be otherwise the Colonel has been informed that you have recently made inquiries as to whether the Japanese barracks near Shanghai would be used as an internment camp for Americans in the unfortunate event of war between Japan and America I certainly made no such inquiries then perhaps you should have oh I see what you mean when you have some more tea no thanks it has also been called to the Colonel's attention that you plan to go to the United States on home leave in about two months well that one's true enough all right why not it's been five and a half years since I left San Francisco Lord two years in Hawaii the rest of the time in China and Japan the Colonel takes the liberty of reminding you that there have been no regular trans-specific ship schedules from Shanghai for some months there is a possibility that after the next ten days there may not be any way to get out the powder keg is just about almost certain to explode shortly and blow up the Orient with it Mr. Kurosu who is now in his way to Washington will tell Mr. Hull that Japan is anxious for peace and Japan's terms terms that cannot involve surrender of any of the territory which Japan has taken in the past four years at the cost of so much blood and treasure and Mr. Kurosu will be told that Japan's terms are impossible and then we'll go to war what about yourself Jimmy I'm here for the duration or until I get killed and there is a fat officer watching us from the other side of this room I think you had better go goodbye Jimmy I won't see you until after the war unless we happen to come face-to-face in a trench but I won't forget what you've told me and thank the Colonel for me when I walk across the room playing the door open here is the sparkling afternoon sunshine and crisp fall air of Shanghai rickshaw rickshaw one dollar for go chop chop corner Sishwan Road footshow road on our way now to the Dutch Lane ticket offices to the streets of Shanghai Shanghai of Japan's new order Shanghai China with Japanese soldiers on the sidewalks jostling Japanese girls and kimonas we're approaching the Garden Bridge and there are Japanese soldiers on century duty I'm not allowed to ride past these centuries so I get out of the rickshaw remembering to douse my cigarette they stare at me with what we call the China face corners of the mouth turned down chin thrust forward get out they seem to be saying get out of the rickshaw get out of Shanghai out of China get out of the Orient the Pacific for this is Japan's new order well I'm getting out if I'm lucky I'll get space of some kind on the Manila then tranship to the president Coolidge I'm getting out to Joan but I'll be back Mr. Lee Mr. Clark Lee Mr. Clark Lee Mr. Lee over here please Mr. Lee is dancing in the pavilion plug it in right here at this table will you boy I'll take it for him yes sir here you are sir hello who oh mackay radio yes now this is Melville Jacobi of Time Magazine mr. Lee is with my party yes all right I'll take the message for him go ahead yes yes all right shall I read it back to you here it is Clark Lee AP Manila desire you remain in Manila Kent Cooper AP New York right thank you well did you hear that senior Lanes it is unfortunate Clark is looking forward to getting home for a little while I know and I am sorry for myself to hear they come now I thought he would be my traveling companion on the Coolidge hello Clark glad you could come Roberto so you've already met Mel Jacobi yes we have been chatting may I introduce Mrs. Jacobi and Lee this is senior Roberto Lanes of the Argentine Embassy in Tokyo how do you do a Mrs. Jacobi after the first round we drop last names shall I order it now boy I'll have a Tom Collins no same for me please and I will have the same Tom Collins all around well do you enjoy your dance was wonderful but everybody on the pavilion is talking war it seems most of them are leaving on the Coolidge tomorrow I'm glad to get out maybe you ought to stay here in Manila Clark if you do go home you might not be able to get back in turn Clark isn't going darling don't be depressing of course he's going what are you talking about Mel the radiogram from Kent Cooper I just took it over the phone you wanted word for word Clark no don't bother I can imagine I'm sorry I'll forget it Emily and I'll hang around with you two honeymooners until the shooting starts if you don't mind Roberto give my regards to the Golden Gate William too bad we cannot do that together well we can toast it here here are the drinks I'll change that toast for a bit on I say here's to the first Japanese attack let him come to Manila show the Japs what it means to play in the big league the mail you've been here for some time we're in good shape here in the Philippines aren't we all it seems so I'd say there are some two divisions about 30,000 Americans besides the Filipino scouts how about our air force I should say there must be around a hundred planes 35 fortresses and the rest pursuits maybe has a handful of PBY patrol bombers that's not much but if anything breaks America can fly bombers out in three days now and Manila Bay is mine and no enemy ships can ever get in there under the guns of Gregor Gregor itself of course is impregnable sounds good do you mind if I ask what do you think General MacArthur and Admiral Hart will do if what is declared you'll hit them and hit them hard not waste any time about us what do you think Mel you bet now heavy bombers will probably attack Formosa and Hainan Island mess up the enemy transports before they reach Luzon Admiral Hart's patrol planes will spot the enemy ships and the subs and destroyers and cruisers will tear into them any Japs survive to reach the islands American forces will mop them up on the beaches and chase them back into the sea well it looks pretty good how about another drink boys and girls well it's getting pretty late none for me the clock it's two o'clock and I think we ought to get upstairs and get some sleep Roberto shall we see you before you sail tomorrow I certainly hope so coming upstairs clock no I think I'll stay and have a nightcap with Roberto see you in the morning right this morning good night good night good night well Roberto and we say goodbye tomorrow it'll be for the duration any idea where you'll be sent next I have no idea no I think I would like to go to Washington you like United States the United States of North America yes I think Argentina should know more about your people you are such delightful hypocrites you may be right at that Roberto of course I am but you have a sense of humor and that is the great saving grace always tomorrow how dare you tell me what to do your just a policeman a fellow peonel policeman well go ahead arrest me don't want to not a very good to see you try every American for the ruling race here you are nothing but dirt do you understand me dirt I'll show you you can take that from me this is work I must ask you to go upstairs to your room and who are you I'm the manager don't you remember sure sure you're all right but then he's trying to arrest me I'll fix that dirty no no no where are you going cloud I want to talk to the constable but she was the wrong one never mind her I want to congratulate that constable come on and you have been telling me me amigo that the Chinese in Hong Kong and the natives in Malaya and Burma will not fight for the British when war comes because the British have mistreated them and offer them nothing now perhaps you are aware why Argentina says no when the United States asks for naval bases sergeant sergeant I'd like to shake hands with you I'm Clark Lee of the Associated Press certainly mr. Lee this is Senor Roberto Lanes of the Argentine Embassy in Tokyo I am Milario Francisco of the Philippine Constabulary they both want to congratulate you sergeant Francis Gohm for the manner in which you behaved in the face of that woman's insults the lady was not herself mr. Lee we of the Constabulary are expected to understand those things yes well it's very tolerant of you sergeant but it's time she learned how to conduct herself properly in these islands she's an American sure to act like an American I do I'm an American mr. Lee target neat rows of battleships and neat rows of planes Japanese bombers and machine gunners sweeping in from the sea find them without difficulty place Pearl Harbor time morning of December 7th 1941 from alarm through fear the hatred requires no great mental effort for Americans the angry men shaking their fists at the sky cannot pour the splattered blood back into torn bodies right overturned battleships or straight and twisted steel you cannot damn the torrent of little men with big machines sweeping southward through Indochina to Thailand Malaya and Java eastward to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii then westward to the Philippines we wait in the Philippines for our turn and wonder what has happened to that precious plan we talked about so bravely our heavy bombers will attack from most in Hainan Island and mess up the enemy transports before they reach Luzon Admiral Hart's patrol planes will spot enemy ships in our subs destroyers and cruisers will tear into them then a Jap survived to reach the islands American forces will mop them up on the beaches but it doesn't happen that way we can't do that you see there has been a Pearl Harbor yes but the United States has not yet officially declared war no you're sending our bombers up from Clark Field and Nichols Field in the Philippines they can't go anywhere we haven't yet declared war the pursuit planes are up all right but they'll be down for lunch all of them and they'll all line up in pretty even rows just in time as the Japanese zeros hurl themselves out of the sun I'm afraid I'm really and truly afraid forget it darling we're doing all right doing all right don't you think so no he doesn't and you know it Mel our airfields have been bombed and our planes wrecked Manila's been bombed twice Japanese transports have landed soldiers on Luzon Clark saw some of them in action himself and the naval base at Cavite has been bombed and badly damaged if they smash Cavite they can smash Karegid or to our Cavite hold out all right there's nothing much to worry about Emily except keeping a pretty head it's just a matter of time by the minute that first bomb fell on Pearl Harbor the United States got moving from all over the country those big bombers are flying to San Francisco I'll hop to Hawaii and then on down to Australia and up here I'll be here within a week the aircraft carriers will ferry pursuit planes out from Hawaii out the window at Cork Cavite over there I thought I saw smoke maybe bombers overhead again probably not though I didn't hear any sirens we ought to go you ought to be working it's nothing to do now you could be writing up that adventure of yours last week up in Baguio I never will understand how you got out of that one nor I that's just it what's use of writing it all right it anyway it's no good Mel not even Hollywood would go for it all that stuff about being surrounded by the Japanese fires and falling off cliffs and nearly stepping on landmines and just not getting killed at Tarlac and the rest of it still melodramatic that's irony for you here we are in heaven what is it Clark what happened can be they just blow up right in front of my face and on the morning of December 24th 1941 Manila newspapers carried the headline Manila declared a ciudad abierta Manila declared a ciudad abierta in the streets and in restaurants and in offices I heard the people of Manila discussing this new turn of events what is this city that abierta this open city it means that we are removing all our forces from the city and asking the enemy not to bomb it they purposely to safeguard lives and prevent destruction of that which we do not have the forces to defend does it mean that the enemy is coming here what has happened to our army why did the Navy men blow up Cavite that is a mystery but our army is fighting well have you not tried to communicate maybe it would be better if we would fight the Japanese in the streets and from our houses as they didn't know they so maybe we should fight them with their knives and bolus and clubs maybe it would be better to die fighting than to let them kill us later at their leisure after all if we hold them for a few days help will be here from our big brother they believed oh how they believed they knew that the big brothers would come they knew that the United States fleet would come plunging proudly up through the islands throwing airplanes inland from the decks of its carriers blasting the Japanese transport units to kindling wooden bits of torn flesh and out on baton they believed they're fighting here on baton side by side the American Army and the Philippine Army the aviators without planes now man rifles and machine guns and the sailors from Cavite without ships or a naval base now man rifles and machine guns they're fighting out here side by side on a dusty little peninsula called baton and they believe stage you hear the latest story about what actually happened at Pearl Harbor within four hours after the attack American planes located in Sancta Japanese carriers that launched the bombing and fighting planes against Hawaii that sounds like us all right I'll buy that report yeah now here the army's got transport jammed with troops and a way to wake on it now they'll knock the stuffing out of those Japs and sink all of our ships quick they say a convoy left Pearl Harbor yesterday with reinforcements for us but keep that under your hat will you and they're gonna have plenty trouble getting through what the United States has never done to fight yet hasn't I'll get here okay I came over to baton from Corregidor where I left Mellon Annelie Jacoby to report from the front lines I wanted to see those Navy guys especially I wanted to see how the Navy fought a land battle well they're fighting it all right losing more men than they should because they don't know how to take cover because they don't know Japanese trickery that they're driving them back back toward the sea with a mortar I come up on the other side of the ridge now and there's plan to Frank Bridget surrounded by five army field telephone sets and using them all at one time yes right his center is on a heavy machine gun fire he can't hold out long captain woman is here with me now just got here some other guy just came up oh it's Lee hello Clark you sighting hello commander what would you give to be in an airplane right now so he's turned out to be a comedian Paris you have nine rounds right hello Jack Jack hold on kid I'll give you some help in a minute Paris you've got nine I look you've got to make you one count you can't miss loger how it's a Clark this is Captain Wormann Art meet Clark Lee get out of here you two guys will you like it lieutenant Jackson out of that crap down there Paris I don't know your reporters came all the way after the shooting line sometimes got pretty risky we've got some of our dead along this path gonna bury him soon they don't bother him no I've seen funny I won't be much more of this convoy came in yesterday give us those men in the ammunition we'll run these jabs off the tan and no time flat that was just one little freighter out of three of the try to get through Captain Wemeth not a convoy what's that just one little freighter I'm living on correct though I saw it you're a dirty liar sorry captain I know how you feel alright Lee I'm sorry forget it how long you're gonna stick around we're leaving tomorrow on a freighter we're gonna try to get through to Australia we'd like to stay but the sensors won't let our stories go out watch your step along here some more bodies who's we I'm going out with Mel Jacobian as well I know him time magazine yes that's right it's got married to me some girl with an odd name yes Annaline yeah she's great to must be say look here hmm look at this one oh that's too damn bad I knew this soldier look at that row of machine gun holes they almost caught him in half I've seen him somewhere but I can't sure you're half and Sergeant Harrio Francisco the Philippine Constabulary used to be on duty at the Manila Hotel State Army forces in the far east office of the Commanding General to whom it may concern this will identify mr. Clark Lee mr. Lee is a representative of the Associated Press and has been accredited by this headquarters he is now traveling on a special mission with military approval all military organizations are directed to render every assistance to aid him to his destination Douglas MacArthur commanding general think that'll do it Clark yes sir I'll give you the same thing from LG Kobe when you board a ship to leave the islands if you're lucky enough to make connections throw away your uniforms your guns passports and all diaries and identification papers when you get to say boo look up the names of some businessmen and learn enough about them to enable you to assume their identity if you're captured we'll follow those orders strictly sir well goodbye Clark I hope you'll make it say goodbye to Anna Lee for me goodbye sir good luck and Clark yes sir we will fight as long as we can hurt the Jap but unless we get reinforcements the end here will be brutal and bloody the princess ahead straight out into the China Sea for about 10 miles then turn south along the coast of Luzon Eastwood in the darkness as the Japanese city of Manila those would nervous days and nights but we reached Australia at last to learn the general MacArthur had got there before us we saw him later in Melbourne and the bitterness in his heart was reflected in his face bitterness in his heart was reflected in his face few days later in Melbourne and Lee Mel and I were saying goodbye as a huge one Clark here you go again I'm not going to say so long to you Mel nor do you and Lee when I get to Sydney I'll phone you to let you know if these orders to visit New Zealand still stick if not I'll wait for you there well if you do go on to New Zealand Clark remember to look around for a line of retreat from here we can always get to Tasmania and then to the South Pole if the Japs come it looks like the only way out of New Zealand is to Easter Island and then to Chile and that's quite a long jump in a canoe you two are always talking about ways out of places I'm glad to see for a change you're both starting to go north in the direction of the Japs let's start the counter offensive of our own what's this about north where you bound for Mel just a few short hops with General George to inspect Australian airfields don't worry Clark I'll be here waiting for your phone call from Sydney I'm waiting in my hotel room in Sydney the trip to New Zealand is on after all now that eternal telephone again maybe it's the Navy calling to confirm airplane transportation hello Clark Emily what is it what about you Emily Mel Jacobi was dead and I went on I went on through many scenes of a bloody pageant in an ocean they call Pacific this next scene is far removed for there before me now the skyscrapers of San Francisco the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life there are three other scenes which I hope to live long enough to witness I want to be there when General Douglas MacArthur raises the American flag of a Karegador again and then halls it down and with his own hand raises the flag of the Republic of the Philippines symbol of a nation which is one it's right to life by learning how to suffer how to die I want to be with Generalissimo was shun Kai-shek when he marches once again into Nanking after the last jab has been killed or driven from China and I want to see Jonathan Wainwright and Joe Smith and Arthur Wyrmuth and some Filipino scouts and Vandergrift and his Marines ride down the main streets of Tokyo and with Admiral Halsey and his sailors drive in tanks and armored cars across the moat and enter the Imperial Palace while American airplanes fly overhead and clouds so thick that they blot out the rising Sun of words at war we have dramatized for you portions of the popular book they call it Pacific by Clark Lee it was adapted for radio by Neil Hopkins one of the NBC script staff Clark Lee was played by Les Damon Melville Jacoby was Sam Wanamaker Annelie Jacoby was Joan Alexander other members of the cast were Fay Baker Ed Begley Bernard Lenro Lewis van Rooton and Lon Clark the original music was composed and conducted by Frank Black the production was under the direction of Joseph Losey next week words at war presents episodes from the last days of Sevastopol by Boris for Yatikov vivid account of the fall of that Soviet Crimean port words at war is brought to you in cooperation with the council on books in wartime with a national broadcasting company and the independent radio stations associated with the NBC