Hi babies! Mama Dukes here with a product review for you guys today. Today's product review is going to be on a billet canvas 3001, CVC Not to be Confused with the 3001C. The athletic heather and the heather black are 90%, heirloom combed ring spun cotton 10% polyester. The heather prism colors are 99% cotton, 1% polyester. Heirloom combed ring spun cotton means that it's processed longer to make it softer. That's where you get that buttery softness from. The 3001CVC has a retail fit and also unisex sizing which means it's not gender specific, male female, anybody can rock this style. It also features cover stitch collar and sleeves. The cover stitch is beneficial for stretchability and to hide the raw edges. It also features a shoulder to shoulder tape seam so it lays flat. See how this seam sticks up right here? This seam lays flat which makes it more comfortable. It also has side seams to resist twisting so that it stays put. And you know one of mama's favorite features, the tear away tag. That way you can create your own merch, you can place your own label right here. In my opinion the 3001CVC is an awesome choice for anything that you want to do as far as crafting is concerned. You can bleach dye, you can tie dye, you can spray paint, you can use htv, heat press, your options are endless. This is a premium t-shirt with a buttery feel. What I also like about this garment is the heather component and it gives it a heather feel so it's more like washed out vintage. You know what I mean? Love that about this t-shirt. So my rating for this shirt from a 1 to 10 is a 10. Thank you for watching guys. See you next video.


Item number SCP-009-J Object Class Fun for Ages 2 and Up Special Containment Procedures This book belongs to Alfie Jacobs, a Foundation First reader's book, copyright 2013, Dr. Wondertainment Press. Description SCP-009-J is missing. Where has it gone? Is it under the table? Was it sat upon? Is it there on the ceiling? Is it under the rug? Was it gobbled right up by a quantum pill bug? Did it run through the tunnel? Did it fall down the stairs? Was it sent back in time to a carnival fair? Did it get on a train to a faraway place? Is it locked in a falsified beacon from space? Did it fall in the ooblet and data expunged? If it clogged up the sink, will it have to be plunged? Just where has SCP-009-J gotten to? Oh wait, that's right. SCP-009-J is you.  Everything is okay. SCP-010-J is an unimportant entity that is not going to turn anyone's iteration of reality into a lifeless blob of primordial sludge. It is not cognitive hazardous, not info hazardous, non-toxic, and does not even technically exist. Contrary to dangerous and libelous rumors, SCP-010-J is not made of black holes, as that would mean we'd already be dead, right? Right? I didn't think so. So you can stop worrying about it being made of black holes. Now, you are 500 times more likely to be shot execution style in a back alley by this newt than be harmed by SCP-010-J. That's science. No containment procedures are necessary, as SCP-010-J is not a threat and nothing to worry about. Look at the fuzzy kitty. He's not worried. Why should you worry? SCP-016-J is a ballistic missile approximately 2.4 meters tall and 0.3 meters in diameter. Rude comments have been spray painted on all parts of SCP-016-J.  SCP-016-J is capable of telepathic communication with any living being within 4 meters. After continued insistence from SCP-016-J and agreement from researchers that SCP-016-J's destruction would improve workplace morale, a test of firing SCP-016-J was conducted. During the flight, SCP-016-J greatly reduced in size, measuring 0.5 meters long and 0.15 meters in diameter 2 seconds after launch. Upon impact, SCP-016-J failed to explode. When questioned about the test results, SCP-016-J responded, quote, this never happens to me, end quote. Item number SCP-016-J object class SCP-017-J is a temporal anomaly which is, in essence, a field of time displacement. The field can cause time displacement in measures varying from 15 minutes to 3 hours. The only subject seemingly affected by the field is SCP-017-1-J, the human female named Barbara She is 67 years old, of above average means, and is an annoyingly good health. She has the seemingly preternatural ability to externalize blame, particularly on members of her family. The subject also displays a remarkable inability to read a clock or watch. Her residence falls within the area affected by SCP-017-J. When the subject is intending to leave her residence, the temporal field activates. She then experiences the time displacement, making her between 15 minutes to 3 hours late to every goddamn thing I have ever invited her to. SCP-095-J is a typeface, initially developed by the b***** corporation. SCP-095-J has a memetic effect on most viewers, causing irritation, increased blood pressure, and in severe cases, depression, anxiety, and massive data expunged, leading to b***** civilian deaths. Between b***** and b***** percent of SCP-095-J viewers, however, will become carriers of SCP-095-J, known as SCP-095-J-1. Using the typeface in all digital and printed communications, no matter the intended tone. See Archive 095-J-4 for instances of wills, suicide notes, and two declarations of war set in SCP-095-J. SCP-145-J is a sharp brand, 1000 watt R-21LC commercial microwave whose use can cause one of several anomalous effects on what is placed inside of it. It doesn't heat anything. It burns everything. The edges get roasted, but the center is still frozen. The whole damn thing is ice cold, but the plate it's on is molten lava hot. Smoke. Lots of smoke. The tray doesn't spin. The tray alternates between spinning clockwise and counterclockwise. Oh, correction. It's supposed to do that. Never mind. All requests to disassemble SCP-145-J in the hopes of finding the source of its anomaly are uniformly denied. Because if it doesn't work afterwards, then we don't have anything.  To date, SCP-145-J has resulted in 141 cases of first-degree burns, including 63D Class, 56th Junior and Senior Researchers, 21 Mobile Task Force Agents, and 105. I call that one 0-5 now. No 7. No 29 times a day. Oh, and we have to go to the park, too. Can we go to the park? Please, please, please. Can we go to the park? Description. It's a big, shiny, green ball, and I love to play with it. Sometimes he tries to trick me when he hides it behind his back, but I am smarter than him. We go out in the front lawn, and he throws it back and forth, and it's awesome. And what's that motherfucking mailman doing here?  Will you throw it in the pool? Please, please, please. I love when you throw the ball in the pool, and I go get it. Yay! A dendo. I love the pool! Item number, SCP-Safe-J. Object Class, Safe, Euclid, and Keta. SCP-Safe-J is a set of three safes. SCP-Safe-J-A is a safe safe. SCP-Safe-J-B is a Euclid safe, and SCP-Safe-J-C is a Keter safe. The safe safe is safe for testing, and needs no extensive containment. The Euclid safe is safe so long as it's not near the Keter safe, in which case only the safe safe can return the Euclid safe back to safe. The Keter safe is never safe. It's in-progress containment procedures attempt to keep this safe as safe as the safe safe, but the Keter safe will never be as safe as the safe safe or the Euclid safe. Current staff assigned to the SCP-Safe-J safes are Dr. Safe, Dr. Euclid, and Dr. Keter. Dr. Safe is in charge of the safe safe, Dr. Euclid is in charge of the Euclid safe, and Dr. Keter helps with both the safe safe and the Euclid safe. The Keter safe is overseen by all three doctors, and it takes the combined efforts of Dr. Safe, Dr. Euclid, and Dr. Keter to ensure that the Keter safe is as safe as Dr. Safe safe safe, and Dr. Euclid's Euclid safe. SCP-004-J is Stanley Nichols, a certified public accountant, graduate, University of Michigan, 1978. The anomalous properties of the entity manifested after the job was awarded during mandatory psych and low-level amnestic administration. The staff were assigned to the task, flatly refused to administer amnestics to the entity, claiming that SCP-004-J was, quote, a real visionary, end quote, and that, quote, it would be a waste of drugs and a needless capex hit, end quote. Their holistic approach to purchasing and leveraging the growing internationalization of the supply chain has caused a sea change in our view of the synergistic possibilities to creating a budget-conscious deliverable, leading to a paradigm shift to crowd sourced. It appears the entity was in my vicinity briefly. SCP-004-J has a distinct cognitive hazardous field that will interfere with thought processes, overriding thought patterns with new ones that encourage growing a business through a set of jog and commonly used by sea-level executives known as buzzwords, while also impairing the ability to think critically. SCP-007-J is a blueberry muffin which belonged to Foundation Officer Evan prior to the discovery of its anomalous nature and its subsequent designation as an SCP. The anomaly occurred during a phone call Officer Evan received, which required him to leave the room. While stunned observed by Officer Blake, SCP-007-J, which Officer Evan had left unattended on his desk, planning to consume it after his phone call, believing it to be an ordinary muffin, disappeared by unknown means, leaving only a residue of unknown properties on Officer Blake's lips. The residue left on Officer Blake's lips was identified as crumbs from SCP-007-J. It is currently unknown how or why SCP-007-J left its mark upon Officer Blake, but medical analysis has revealed no long-term effects. SCP-4389-J is a powerful anti-memetic anomaly, which is believed to have the physical form of a piece of medieval artillery. Junior researchers and D-Class personnel are unable to observe SCP-4389-J, but accept its existence when made aware of it. However, Site Directors and members of the Overseer Council both cannot perceive SCP-4389-J and refuse to believe that it exists. You have one new message from Site Director Anderson. It has become apparent that you and several of your colleagues believe that there is a certain anti-memetic entity being contained in Site-19. This is not correct. There is nothing in the containment chamber which is seemingly designed to hold SCP-4389-J. I have previously sent this email to several other junior researchers, who all refuse to admit that SCP-4389-J is not real. They ignored the truth, so I am going to make it extremely clear in this message. There is no cannon. Hi there, I'm former Site Director and current volleyball coach O57. Now, you may know me for my but today, I'm here to tell you all about the amazing new world of liquid product SCP-025-J trademark. Using the latest and greatest technology, we've condensed every peanut butter-flavored cosmic horror into convenient bottled size. It's thrilling, educational, and the taste is to die for. Kids love it, and parents are there too. Crack open a can and there's instant K-Class Chaos. Now, it's a tiny containment unit, and look, flying through the air, it's cracked into your best pal skull. Wowee. SCP-025-J trademark, a $69 value, can be yours for only two easy payments of $29.99. Thank you for listening.  Please become a patron or visit our merch store at the link in our bio to support our work. Secure. Contain. Protect.


This video is here to provide tips and tricks on how to record the best video and audio using your smartphone or laptop From home DIY style. I'll provide supplemental links in the description And of course if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. Alright, so first things first You're gonna need to be inventive. Get innovative. No smartphone tripod No worries let the internet guide you search for smartphone tripod hacks or smartphone stabilization Or just go watch this amazing video by Seth's bike hacks Next up is lighting go to the good light if we can't see it We won't care avoid direct overhead. We look hollow. It cast shadows watch out for harsh backlights or silhouettes There we go soft diffused lights what we're going for try out this technique bloggers use walk around your house Assessing the light and background here. We've got decent light, but I'm not so attractive background and a dog for distraction Again decent light, but the background is a bit. Oh are too bright keep going Okay, we're getting somewhere the lights nice. I think I can work with this we can work with this Here's a shot of where I found the good light. I'm lit from the front and the right I'm back far enough that the lights diffused and soft otherwise I'd use a white sheet or maybe my blinds to control the quality essentially whatever space you're committed to Find the good light Another essential tip is to give your scene some depth. Don't go smushing yourself up against a wall Ah much better. We can work with this Another thing super important is your angles our devices, especially laptops are designed to Unfortunately produce a terrible perspective in its natural state Explore and find what suits you eye level and slightly above are great options. These angles are more slimming and less So grab a stool or a stack of books do whatever you've got to do to find that sweet spot If you live in a windowless house, or you cannot find a spot with decent light Add some when I'm confined to my home studio I use a secondary monitor as my primary light source and I just set the desktop background to white But you could add a book light or a clamp light. I didn't have a decent lamp So here this lady's got a good one Sandwich whatever device you're using to record yourself between you and the light Remember you're going for nice soft even lighting. You may have to move your light source closer or further away Next up is composition and background Take your time Find what you like consider the story you want to tell or the vibe you want to put out there tidy up your background and omit anything that's not adding but possibly Distracting from your message. I'm not saying you need to rearrange But just be mindful Now that you're feeling good about your scene consider how your story is best told If you look off camera, be sure to give yourself some looking room If you're going to address the camera directly be sure not to let your eyes wander Maintain that eye contact and here's a couple of more examples of why it's important to take the time to craft your scene Antlers should be intentional not accidental and one real quick thing I really must address is please remember that you're on camera Try to be aware if you're fidgeting or You're welcome Audio much like video if we can't hear it. We're not gonna care Grab a box put some extra pieces of foam Maybe a towel and how about a tablecloth and boom? You've got a vocal box. Okay. This is me coming to you from outside the vocal box And now here we are speaking inside the vocal box I've turned my phone upside down so that the microphone is facing up and slightly towards the back of the box See me. Now some of you may have a stronger version to being on camera But that's okay. You still have a story to tell think B-roll all the same rules apply Go to the good light consider composition and take your time move slow. Don't forget to stabilize Show us your loud and demanding co-workers and all their distracting ways Whatever the view is like from where you are we'd love to hear from you Okay, so we're at the end I'm coming to you in a terribly cluttered space on top of three books using my secondary monitor as my primary light source I do have an overhead light on and it's a completely different color temperature as my monitor and the light coming in from this window to my left I've got no headroom. I'm dead center Right in the middle of that composition. This is a studio. This is a workspace and it's part of my story What's I trying to say I think I said it I think I said it Know the rules, but it's okay to break them. I'm not even using a microphone or a vocal box If you're looking for ways to be more creative and want to get into video editing Why not try out recording some of your own professional sort of Narration or voiceover using one of the homemade vocal boxes and then splice that in to some of your B-roll or Put all three together this journal entry kind of gritty kind of style mixed with your supremely recorded voiceover At with some pictures spliced in Yeah, don't put all that pressure on yourself.


The Independent International Electoral Commission has issued certificates of return to the governor of Canoes State Abercabella Yousif and his deputy, both of the new Nigeria People's Party, NNPP, following their victory in the just concluded 18 March 2023 humanitarian and state assembly polls. All 26 Canoes State Houses of Assembly members elected were also given the certificate of return by the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ambassador Abdul Zango. The governor now, of course, in his acceptance speech promised to use democratic tenants to revive all sectors in Canoes State, especially infrastructure, in order for the people to enjoy the dividends of democracy. He said, the party recognised the challenges ahead and will do everything possible to surmount them. He also commended the media for the neutral role they played during the politicking before and after the elections. Joining us to discuss what lies ahead for the Canoes State governor is Ladikwell Johnson. He is spokesperson to the presidential candidates of the NNPP, Senator Robin Musaq Cwankwa. Thank you so much, Mr Johnson, for joining us. Good evening. Great. It's interesting that we're looking at Canoes State, a stronghold of the presidential candidate of the NNPP, Robin Cwankwa. Interestingly, inauguration day had some hiccups for the governor in Canoes State. We saw the state collapse, which was very scary for many who were watching. But then, of course, that's just a tiny little worry compared to what he has to deal with when it comes to Canoes. But let's talk about his predecessor. The former governor was known for a lot of things, including cases of corruption that had not been dealt with, maybe because of the immunity clause. But what can we say is the first thing that the governor of Canoes State will have to deal with as he assumes office? Thank you. Well, I think he has a lot of things that he has to do. You can't do everything at the same time, but he made the initial appointments. He did that immediately. I think he's gone to the, I think it's the NDLA or about the drug problem that they have in Canoes and in the North as a whole. And he spoke to the immigration dinner that already they had started on the first day to restore some of the street riots, et cetera, et cetera. So, and then I think yesterday he made appointments into, well, he had done into the Pilgrim welfare board. He made appointments into the urban renewal board and different things. So things are moving very quickly. He will have to do that. Unfortunately for us, we know where we left Canoes some eight years ago before Gwbdnogandirge took over. And we know where we are at at the moment. I think the debts profile at the moment is about 240, something beyond Naya. A lot of government properties were sold apparently to friends and cronies, things like that. So the government has to do those things and as well face a growing sort of insecurity in the states from people who unemployment is high and different things. So there's a lot to do and I assure you that he has already hit the ground running. He will do that and he will face it. He's a very experienced person and he has an experienced team around him. I'm sure that in the next few days we will begin to hear his appointments as for commissionerships into the various ministries, etc. So they're going to hit the ground run. Let's break down the conversation. Yes, you've talked about his experience, but then of course in a state where the major political parties have always held the reins. So he, whether we like it or not, is the first time in this regard. It's the first time for the NNPP. Of course I'm guessing that there will be a lot of roadblocks because people are not used to a different party, whether it's the APC or the PDP holding the reins in kind of state. But let's start by looking at education, which was a stronghold or rather a forte of the presidential candidates of the NNPP. This is one of the things he boasted of when he ran the state. He talked about also making sure that the state had money in its coffers. How well do you see the governor dealing with the issue of education, especially knowing that the education statistics is low when it comes to the North? Especially for the girl child and not just having education but safe spaces to study. It's one thing to try to encourage people to go to school. It's another to make sure that going and coming back from school is safe. What's the governor going to do in that regard? Yes, but firstly let me just say. Yes, it's the first time for the NNPP. It's not the first time for Abercabir Yusuf. If you recall, Rabbi Concozo was in the PDP and was one of those that led the exodus from the PDP into the APC. At that time it was the first time for the APC. Abercabir Yusuf was a commissioner for works at that time. The flyovers, the bridges, et cetera, that were built around that time were his handworks, the master plan and everything. So he's well experienced, very experienced about it. Now as you say, education is the forte of the Cwamposia movement. They believe in empowering the people and one of the major ways to do that is through education. Now especially, as you mentioned, girl child education. When Concozo was there, his second term, he did a lot with the girl child. Free school uniforms, dedicated buses to get the girls from home to school and back. Of course free feeding, things like that. And I see that, I definitely feel that the new governor, Abercabir Yusuf, will probably follow in the footsteps of what Concozo did regarding education and maybe he won't take it further. I do know that with the debt burden, it will be slightly difficult. But it's about priorities. I believe that overall you will see that infrastructure will increase maintenance of the existing secondary schools, primary schools and what have you will be done. And you'll see that they will go into the human capital aspect of it. Employing more teachers and ensuring that there's continuing education for the teachers and those who are going to train the students. One of the things he's done immediately that I forgot to say was that I think a few days ago, he said he was going to reopen the training institutes, there about 40 something of them that Concozo had established, that they had established before they left government eight years ago. And those institutes were totally abandoned by the erstwhile Governor Gandujay. So I think that with that you see that primary school, secondary school, tertiary education will be going on. Then you have also had emphasis on training schools, entrepreneurship schools, institutes, training institutes. And because one of the things the governor realizes and has said is that they realize that they have lots of people in the population that need retraining so that they can be employed. And that is why you see that they're going to work on ensuring that these institutes are there to retrain people who are elderly people or who have worked before to give them and equip them with new skills so that they can be employable or re-employable. And with that as well comes a lot of work towards investments coming into counter states. They have a lot of work to do. Thank you for leading me to my next question because I was going to talk about foreign direct investment and of course bringing, I do not know if there's a, because the states that have investments, burews or their departments, sometimes agencies of government who try to bring or attract investments, investment promotion burews, yes. What do you think the governor is going to do in terms of attracting investments to Cano state again knowing that Cano is, whether we like it or not, one of those states to be watched, especially when it comes to electoral or politicking. And the fact that states now have to, one way or the other, try to see how they can raise their revenue one way or the other, how is he going to also look in that direction or do, I mean, what would he be doing? Well, one of the first things I think he will do is to move swiftly to improve, to broaden and improve the revenue base of Cano. I believe that Cano, we all know that Cano used to be, used to be the gateway to the north, to northern Nigeria. It was the commercial capital of the north. Now, unfortunately, if you look at the IGR or what was declared anyway, it's about two billion a month and for Cano that is just not good enough. For the projects they want to run, for the way they want to empower their people with healthcare, Medicare and also education, they're going to need funds. So he has to do that. The fact that you have a market there and a market of millions of people is something that will attract investors. Improving the security of the state will also attract investors into Cano. And then, as I said, it is a gateway state into the rest of northern Nigeria, especially when you remember, recall the textile industry and all the industries that they had there. So they have a lot of work to do in trying to improve infrastructure so that these businesses can begin to come back into the state. I know that he has started already to talk to people, to talk to investment blocks, to begin to try to entice people to come into the state to do a lot of work. He did a lot of work after he was elected even before the swearing in. And I'm sure that people will begin to see effects or results of the background work that they've done, the team in Cano. So I am positive. I am positive. I pray that Nigeria as a whole begins to turn around. But I am positive that even as the country turns around, you will see that the positive indices regarding unemployment, regarding growth, regarding security or insecurity and then gradually education and whatever. I think that gradually we will see these things going up. The indices will improve in a positive direction. Let's talk about something that's very important to us because, you know, when we were growing up, we were told that we will be the future. Most people are still waiting to be, but then let's talk about our youngsters here. You mentioned briefly at the beginning the drug problem, which Cano is really associated with. And most of the people who are the corporates are young people, young stars. And you cannot talk about it because I heard the NDLE talking about the fact that the drug related issues are now tying to insecurity. And so you can't separate that.  And most of these young idle people have taken to drugs. Aside from just palling with the NDLEA, how does the Cano government hope to make sure that these young people are not walking around idle? Because, I mean, it's not just the issue of unemployment or underemployment. It's not just a Cano issue. But if we have this high number of people who are addicted to drugs, then of course the state does have a problem. So it's a three-pronged issue. You're going to have to deal with the idleness of underemployment and underemployment. You're going to have to deal with the insecurity that comes with it. And of course dealing with these people who are, you know, drugies for the want of a better way to describe it. Where does it even begin to start from? If you were opportunity to advise the governor on how to go about this, what would it be? Well, the first thing is a sort of a zero, almost zero tolerance, as we say.  I know it's a federal body, but you encourage them, you empower them, give them incentives to crack down on those who are distributors and sellers of these hard drugs. Now, the other thing we mentioned earlier is the various training institutes. And then you have to spend a lot of money on rehabilitation. Either for psychiatric institutions or drug rehabilitation institutions that government has to invest in. And there must be a lot of orientation. He has to make sure that families do not feel too ashamed to come up to say that we have a son, we have a daughter who has a drug problem. It must be seen as a societal problem, one that the community must face together. Because as you said in your question, Maria, it is tied directly to the turning around of the economy of society and many other things as well. You have someone who is brilliant, who is meant to contribute positively to the economy and to society and to the community, and that person is a drug addict, that person becomes hopeless. So these are very important issues that must be faced. And you need money to face these things. You need the will. I know they have the will to face these things. And you need the cooperation of society as a whole. That's why I said that a lot of orientation has to go into it. And I'm sure that it's a thing that you don't really have to do a lot of things at the same time. Gradually you begin to see the improvement within the community. Well, all of these things that you have, of course, speculatively spoken of, we're hoping that these will be able to begin to tick some of the boxes for Canusthe. But I want to say thank you. Llyr Gruffydd Johnson is a spokesperson to the presidential candidate of the new Nigerian People's Party, NMPP Senator Rabiu Mosoqankoso. Thank you so much for speaking with us. Thank you. All right. And that's the show tonight. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation. Don't forget you can also catch up on our previous episodes of the program Plus Politics. Just go to Plus TV Africa on YouTube, subscribe, like and follow all of our programs. I'm Mary Anna Cunn. Have a good evening.


First things first, I will plot the design on my dress form using my draping tape. I also mapped out the gray line on the front and back areas of my dress form. After plotting and mapping out the design, I will prepare my fabrics for draping. But before draping, I made it sure to square the gray line on my fabric. Now, it's draping time. I simply matched the gray line on my fabric and the center line of my dress form and painted the fabric in place. Notice that I snipped out the fabric to ease the tension. First, I will copy the torso part. Using my pencil, I simply traced the design lines on my fabric. Next, I traced the bust part. And lastly, I traced the back design on my fabric. After tracing the design lines from the dress form, I will true my patterns using my rulers and mark the important notches. After that, I transferred the patterns on my paper and gave each pattern my preferred sewing allowance. I am going to use this skin tone satin for the bodice or shell. And cut the patterns on the grain. I also cut individual French laces to each shell pieces to place on top. Using a fusible web, I've used the shell pieces with the French laces to combine it as one. For the sewing, I started first with the front shell pieces. After attaching and sewing the front pieces, I attached the back pieces. For the lining, I also used the same patterns. And same with the shell pieces, I've sewn first the front lining pieces and later on attached the back lining pieces. Before sewing the shell and the lining together, I prepared three bias loops. Two for the straps and the other one is for the back loops. I am going to pin the straps on their designated areas, two straps in front and two loops for the back. And I've sewn in the straps and the loops before attaching the lining. So now that I have attached the straps and the loops, it's time to attach the shell and the lining together. And here is the top for the gown. The straps go inside to the back loops and I simply tie the straps together. For the mermaid skirt, I will use the patterns that I previously created for my tutorial. In case you didn't check my tutorial for mermaid skirts, I will put the link up here and on the description box. And here are the shell pieces for the mermaid skirt. By the way, I used touches satin. And it is time to sew this. After attaching all of the panels together, I've sewn in the invisible zipper at the center back of the skirt. After sewing the zipper, I am going to attach this horse hair at the hem to emphasize the plounces or the flares of the skirt. After that, I've pressed the hem to give it a clean finish and tucked the horse hair at the seams to secure in place. For the lining, I am going to use this basic skirt pattern. And before I attach the skirt lining, I will attach first the top and the skirt together. After that, I will attach the skirt lining at the waist and at the zipper seam. And there you go, here is the final result. And thank you guys for watching my sewing vlogs. And please guys, don't forget to give this video a huge thumbs up. And if you're not subscribed yet to my YouTube channel Lama Deliz, please hit the bell button and share this video to your friends. And I will see you guys again on the next sewing vlog and on the next tutorial. A pianto.


for years in Hollywood and games, the bad guys, they were always these World War II-era Nazis. They were the bad guys. And then something interesting happened. It's all I said with the clash of digitalizations. Let's give them a round of applause. I want to start out rather oddly by saying, I'm not really sure if I agree with my own thesis. Now, let me explain. The work I'm presenting today is stuff I left out of my doctoral dissertation on radical Islamic thought. The dissertation is based on a research project I started over 10 years ago. And from field work I did five to six years ago. This is not an overview of that work. This is a sliver of regret. So when I started, there was no Islamic state of the Iraq and the Levant. It literally arose around me as the people I was focusing on were becoming less and less relevant. People like the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, and even Orthodox Salafis, the so-called Wahhabis, were becoming less and less significant in everyday political life. Also becoming less relevant was the leading Western modes of analyzing Islamic radicalism, the real politic, political economy people, the fancy deconstructionists, postmodern discourse analysis people. They were all becoming less significant in everyday political dialogue. The academics are doing well in their respective departments, but they're irrelevant for the public at large. I argue here today that the introduction of new technologies within particular political moment produces cultural orientations that will drive future conflicts. The Islamic state is, or almost was, a Twitter state. Supporters for it started in the internet, made alliances with unlikely bedfellows, former Baptist, disgruntled jihadists, moderate rebels, and eventually took the mantle from traditional radical Islamic groups like Al Qaeda. There was no similar coup in the intellectual analysis of the shift. The dominant intellectual paradigm that explained the conflict between Islam and the West was most properly phrased by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington as the clash of civilizations. All analyses of the conflict are basically either the clash or reactions against the clash. The clash is a geopolitical thesis that integrates long sweeping historical developments with cultural stereotypes to explain current political conflicts. This is actually an identical style of analysis that Osama bin Laden uses in his own view of the world. The basic idea is that the Islamic world and some understanding or definition of a modern, liberal, and to be explicit, Judeo-Christian, mostly European world, has been in conflict for a really long time. These two worlds share an inevitable collision course. For Huntington, the future of war is not a conflict between clearly defined nation states. It's a war between cultures. Huntington is one of the central figures of the neo-conservative movement, and his argument is today the standard classical theory of international relations taught in colleges and universities across the world. And let's face it, it's racist. And if it's not racist, it's at least bigoted. Actually, my internal conflict with my own thesis has to do with these two terms. People who work on political linguistics are now debating these terms after the last election. You see, the history of racism, particularly like here in Germany and the United States, were devastating for both countries. The American Civil War and World War II are the bloodiest conflicts in human history. And of course, these wars were not primarily about liberating black slaves or saving Jews from the Holocaust. But in the aftermath of those wars, the take-home lesson was that these people should be treated equally, and we need to think about the role of bias against certain kinds of people. It took over 100 years after the Civil War for a black man to be president. The United States got there after an intense internal discussion about discrimination and civil rights. And about, at the end of the day, appropriate cultural representation and public conduct. Of course, the last election really put in perspective how far the US really went in terms of social progress. But for today's talk, I want to talk about blackface, the painting black of a usually white person's face. You might not know the image on the left, but it's the most famous example of blackface. It's Al Jolson in the 1927 film, The Jazz Singer. It was the first feature-length film that had synchronized sound, meaning you can now hear what the actor says instead of having text-ompli-cards like you did in the silent film era. Actually, they decided to keep title cards for the narrative and use synchronized sound for the songs, making this also the first musical film. At the time, it was one of the most technically difficult movies to screen. When people want to talk about the relationship between technological evolution and its relationship to social progress, you can't do much better than The Jazz Singer, as an example. The main character himself goes through a social transformation of sorts, via a placard when we're told that the protagonist's name was Jackie Rabinovitz, the son of a Jewish canter, the person who leads the Jewish congregation in prayer. After a conflict with his father for performing jazz music in a beer garden, Jackie Rabinovitz changes his name to Jack Robin, and starts a successful career as a jazz singer. So it's a Jewish person who integrates into American society, but misrepresents himself as a black person on stage. This is the first major American talking film. Note, this is 1927. Over the course of the 20th century, the roles of Jews in Europe and American society becomes a huge source of anxiety, contention, and point of distinction. American racism dealt with the legacy of slavery and the forced immigration of people from Africa and the Caribbean. European racism, particularly after World War II, has to deal with the self-identifying and no-choice ethnic community, the Jews, who have been in Europe for hundreds of years. Just to put this in perspective, Jews were in Europe before the Hungarians were in Hungary. There were Jews in Croatia before there were Croatians. This, of course, has to do with Christianity's relationship to Judaism, the recognition that there is both a continuity and break with the teachings of Judaism, particularly when it came to the question of ethnic determinism, i.e., you're born Jewish, but you're baptized and then confirmed into Christianity. On a cultural level, it took the devastating experience of the Holocaust to make Jewish identity normal, even as the religious and ethnic components became divorced, or at least uneasy. And here, I put Witte Allen as an example of a highly conscious, self-preferential, and intelligent Jewish cultural expression that is non-religious but still very Jewish. Racism is, in a sense, an act of hostility against people of different races. But bigotry is closed-mindedness. It's prejudice towards someone. It's something that's kind of under the radar. It's really something like that Jewish comedians like Witte Allen, but also David Letterman, Mel Brooks, really paved the way for cultural understandings of Jewish difference. And I really like the Billy Crystal quote, I'm not a Jew, I'm Jewish-ish. The Muslim example is a little trickier to untangle because it's playing itself out now. On the one hand, if we follow Huntington's clash of civilizations, the Muslims have always been at war with Christians and Jews. Since it came after both religions, the purpose of Muhammad's message is the ultimate annihilation of Judaism and Christianity. Whatever Western majority we have after World War II, it's just a relatively peaceful bubble in a massive, boiling cauldron of conflict. The Cold War is just a blip, a little misunderstanding in the history of human political thought. And of course, Huntington's intellectual buddy Francis Fukuyama around the same time also declared the end of history where neoliberal capitalism has forever defeated communism and socialism. In this vision of the world, there are absolute winners and losers, that there is an end game. I disagree. And I think people need to look at racism against Arabs and bigotry against Muslims as a development of modern attitudes towards other people who are obviously different with the legacy of black Americans and European Jews playing itself out in the discussion of Muslims. There is a race and religion component, one you can't transcend, I can't stop being Arab, but on the other, you're declared religion in a modern constitutional democracy. You have the right to worship any way you see fit. Here, I want to point to the work of Aziz Ansari who recently is taking the lead on how appropriate representation of Muslim Americans should take place. And he does kind of a moderate approach. I'm gonna go a step further than Aziz and say that the way Arabs and Muslims have been represented in film, in TV shows, and in video games will one day in the future be seen in the same way that we see blackface today or when we see anti-Semitic cartoons. We're just going to have this kind of revulsion. Actually, if that is not the case, then the clash between Muslims in the West would still be ongoing and that there is no final showdown, no winners or losers, a state of perpetual war. As I told you, I'm internally conflicted about this. It's a world where post-modern parody like Team America, World Police actually played itself out in reality and did not work. Anyway, now let's get to the video games. With this kind of audience, I'm actually kind of glad that I don't have to do too much explaining about what a first-person shooter is. When I was a teen growing up in the 90s, these were called first-person shoot-em-ups, so it was even more explicit. The basic idea is that you experience a game from the point of view of the main character in an immersive, three-dimensional environment represented two-dimensionally. This is kind of like the technical holy grail of gaming for many years in the same way that sound was for silent film, to make the game as realistic or immersive as possible. And it's basically the framework that was adopted for virtual reality and probably future forms of media consumption. First-person shooters are surprisingly old. Probably the first was Maze War. This is the white strip to the right, and it's 1973. It was on a Xerox machine and the screen was barely legible, so this is actually a printout of a screenshot. And you can already see the main characteristics of how 3D planes are represented using 2D lines to show perspective. The object of the game was to go through the maze to find the eyeball, your enemy, as it were, and if you find him facing to the side, you can shoot and kill him, but if the eyeball is facing you, then you're dead, so that's like a kill shot. You're dead here. Top-center is a spasm, or a space flight simulator. It was in 1974 in the University of Illinois, and it was very much influenced by Star Trek. That's the one in this top-center. Unlike Maze War, you are not restricted by the rules of gravity or moving on a single plane because you are floating in space. And left of that, we have the flight simulator Air Fight, and the U.S. military starts using the technology developed in Spasm to simulate flying almost immediately after it was developed to create a fighter jet flight simulator. The bottom one, we have the Bradley trainer from the point of view of a tank which was made by Atari under a special contract with the U.S. Army in 1981. So the military application of what is conceivably a game came early in the life of first-person shooters. And I want to dwell a little bit about the following question. What is it about full immersion and heightened depictions of reality that lend itself to militarization? Or even more generally, to violence? Because the first real killer app of the first-person shooter world was incredibly violent.  Wolfenstein 3D, which started off as shareware and got a little more cleaned up when it became public. The basic story of Wolfenstein 3D is that you played the role of William B.J. Blakowicz, an American spy of Polish descent who was trapped in a Nazi prison. Your first mission is to get out of the prison in Castle Wolfenstein, depicted 3D point of view like the standard format we now have. And basically, you get to shoot Nazis as much as you want.   And in the final episode, entitled Die, Führer, Die, you get to fight Adolf Hitler directly in a bunker under the rock stag. Okay, this is what it looks like when mutant Hitler dies. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert. There. I'm sure a lot of you already know this Godwin's Law. It's the rule in a flame war where one side compares the other side to Hitler, the debate is effectively over.  How bad the person you are talking to on the internet, they're never really as bad as Hitler. Wilfenstein is kind of operating on Godwin's Law to legitimize its violence.   So it all builds up for a really good cause. But remember, the lab thing where they were making mutant soldiers? After the immense success of Wilfenstein, the creators ID Software make their second series Doom where you play an unnamed space marine who kills space demons. I feel like the creative team must have realized that the carnage of Wilfenstein was still against humans, right? Like even fictional or historical Nazis are people too, maybe? So there's a kind of limit to the kind of carnage you can have. And the Doom series introduced networking multiplayer action.  What's important for the talk is that Wilfenstein and Doom represent a break in first person shooters where games grounded on reality and fantasy start using technology in different ways. Obviously this has to do with how creatives are managing the appropriate representation of violence in these games. If you want to maximize gore it seems that like fantasy is the way to go and a particular kind of fantasy that involves non-human like space demons, aliens, whatever. In public discourse, when they talk about violence in connection to video games they're usually talking about this overall genre of games and not say Mario Kart. The closer it comes to reality, the more controversy it causes the more it gives us this kind of uneasy feeling. Doom is also one of the first games to be modded. Modded means modified where code of the game is mess with to change gameplay, characters, patterns, whatever. Extensive modding is another feature of this genre that doesn't exist in say role-playing games or puzzle games and one of guests who an early modder of Doom was the United States Marine Corps. In 1996 the commandant of the U.S. Marines issued a directive and I'm quoting here from Wikipedia to develop the use of wargames for improving military thinking and decision-making exercises. So they modded a version of Doom to develop a simulation where you're part of a four-member Marine fire team. The game focused on mutual support, protection of the automatic rifleman, proper sequencing of an attack, ammunition discipline and succession of command. These are like sort of basic Marine things that they need to develop. And the default like mission was the destruction of an enemy bunker again reviving the Hitler bunker scene. Although they also use other scenarios such as hostage rescue in a foreign embassy. And this apparently started as an internal thing but they gave away the mod for free as a kind of recruitment tool and for troubleshooting. This is something we'll discuss later. After Doom we're going straight to Halo. We're skipping Unreal, Quake and Half-Life. If you know anything about gaming let me tell you I just insulted a whole bunch of people. Actually, more or less I'm going to bookmark Halo's cultural content for later, kind of my conclusion. And just say for a moment that Halo is a big surprise or an outlier for many trends in the genre. For instance, it made Microsoft a major player in the video game world. You know, the Microsoft that makes Microsoft Office. Yeah, that might be it. Another thing, there's almost zero gore. The emphasis in Halo was gameplay mechanics and multi-user networking. It was smooth and somehow that smoothness made killing your friends even more fun. The single-user game was actually pretty good as well. It had a space opera scale and feel to it and it has and still commands a massive fan base and is one of the most successful products ever for Microsoft. For many people this was the gateway drug for other video games. But if we go back to the split, let's go back to the reality games. Those that were based on historical events and here the call of duty line becomes the dominant line but it was actually a rip-off of a series called Medal of Honor that was developed by the director Steven Spielberg. And like Wolfenstein 3D, all these games use World War II as a backdrop. Call of Duty had both European and Asia-Pacific theaters of the war. These were very much adult games in terms of storylines, look and feel. If you know older men who play first-person shoot-em-ups then they usually play these sort of games and they're very much associated with your grandpa's first-person shooter. Details like the correct kind of pistol or rifle were meticulously represented, so were historical battles. The overall theme of these games is patriotism. The stories in these games are very much an homage to the greatest generation. And of course you only get to play as a soldier from one of the allies, usually for the US military, but you also in later games can be British, French, Polish, even Canadian. And you get to play Russian even though that felt a little bit transgressive, but you never got to play a German soldier or a Japanese soldier because obviously these are the enemies. And not so ironically, this series is popular in Japan and I'm really curious what gamers are thinking when you're effectively shooting against the digital representation of your grandparents. It's like uneasy. And these games were comparably only moderately successful to their next iteration called Duty Modern Warfare. These games follow the realism-patriotism formula, except instead of doing World War II, they did it for current conflicts. I'm going to be diplomatic right now and say that the Middle East is featured prominently in these games. But I also want to say that over 250 million copies of this series has been sold. You heard right, that's a quarter billion. In fact, they're in that most people in the developing world use pirated games, so these numbers aren't even included and you can play up to four people simultaneously using one copy. The genre itself lends itself to multi-user play. It might be a conservative estimate that in a world of seven billion, like half a billion to a billion people have probably played Call of Duty. There are other games that show current conflicts like Counter-Strike, Rainbow Six, Battlefield, but in terms of influence and social impact, very little in terms of media compares anymore to Call of Duty. Even Hollywood, because unlike a Hollywood movie, you can't be passive while playing a first-person shooter, not when you're immersed in the middle of a firefight in Iraq using virtual replications of actual weapons you could conceivably using in real life, or play Capture the Flag in the streets of Paris and call in aerial support. We're kind of a long way in the cultural conflict spectrum from mutant Nazis or even a Jewish-American musician wearing blackface. Now you can be in a situation forced by the game itself to shoot innocent civilians in a Russian airport. This actually got the game banned in Russia and caused a whole lot of controversy.  That's just par for the course. That is effectively the game. And you know what? As an Arab guy, I'm really divided because I really like playing these games. But the saving grace was that after Modern Warfare 2, you can play an Arab soldier fighting against the Americans. And I hope this doesn't get me on a no-flight list now. I spent three years in graduate school where all I wanted to do was kind of play the conflict I was studying. It simulated those things I knew very little about, like fire team formations, why certain gun equipment configurations work, and really why American soldiers use so much tech in the battlefield. It's because it's a really unfair advantage. I realize I'm not the only one who caught on with this line of thinking. In the field, a big criticism of al-Qaeda in Iraq was their inability to change the realities in the battlefield.  You see, the technology itself doesn't care who's using it. And I also realize that the other side has its advantages as well. Some are defending their land and others took crazy risks to get to the fight. Sometimes a golden AK-47 and a suicide vest is all you need to win a game.  War in this context is a highly psychological game. All you really need is the right tool for the right objective. But what does winning mean when you're able to play again and again? The weapon you choose says so much about your personality. You're willing to deal with the inaccuracy of an AK for the satisfying thumping recoil when you actually make a hit. You feel the propulsion of the bullet in your hand and those vibrating controllers as it penetrates the target. You can be a virtual representation of the kind of warrior you want to be. This is also a war of stereotypes, no doubt, filled with mostly angry young men around the world, playing out the clash of civilization scenario and replicated in tabloids and cable news of an intolerant Middle East with power-mad dictators and zealot radicals. Yeah, that's bin Laden holding two saws. The first player, shoot him up with online multiplayer is not just about being violent, it's about picking sides. There are modes when it's a free-for-all or lone wolf, but they are nowhere as popular as the team-centric games. And on a meta level, the fighting sides know this. This is more than a mod. This is the US Army's main virtual training and propaganda environment, a game called America's Army. And as you'd expect from the Army branch, it's actually kind of on the dorky side, this is the screen for planning a battle, meticulous detail like Army usually does. And of the radical Islamic organizations, the one that had the most developed video game infrastructure as it were was Hezbollah. The theme of the Special Forces series is to protect Muslim lands from Israeli invasion. So along with Hamas, the only organization with an official video game. But note that Hezbollah also makes like slingshots, so you know, about the same kind of level. I need to apologize, I could not find a pick of little American kids playing America's Army. I'm sure it's because parental controls are really severe in the United States and kids never get to play with these sorts of games. Hezbollah is also changing who perceives the enemy, who perceives as the enemy, as the battlefield is changing in the video games. Here, for instance, is a mod under development that has Hezbollah fighting Daesh or ISIS in Iraq or Syria. And even the name here is trying to be insulting by saying Daesh invention, it's implying that ISIS is not a real thing. It's a bid'ah in Islamic kind of theology. The mod, however, that first got my attention was called the call to jihad, the Dawah of jihad, which is a play on call of duty. And instead of modern warfare, it's called torturing unbelievers. I saw Salafi, yeah. I saw Salafi kids in Saudi play this video game in the background when I was doing my field work. And what was really interesting, like just in the corner of my eye, because I really couldn't be paying attention to them, was how much attention was paid to changing the narrative, but all the pieces of the game were already there. And I really wanted to bring one of these games here, but hacking consoles is actually very technically difficult. And when I got to the point where I could buy a hacked Xbox that could run the game, I was told that the game server is in Syria, and it's been down for a month. So if I bought it, I have to wait until it's online. And it's actually, I also talked to contacts in the intelligence community about it, and they all advised me to stay away because there's currently an investigation about who set up the game servers because it was possibly used by the Tassana brothers before the Boston Marathon bombing. And from the reactions I got and the people I talked to, my personal read on the situation is that someone's making a lot of money investigating something that's probably irrelevant. I'm going to make a racial generality in the sense that I have no empirical data, but I'm going to say what will sound largely true. The relationship between violence and masculinity is very much racially defined within the context of U.S. and Western culture, and effectively the creators of these games. And let me abstract a little bit about representation of race and violence. For instance, like when a Black or Latino man commits violence, it's for what I term as hedonistic goals. They want to be the bigger drug dealer, bigger pimp, the bigger gangster. The point is that they commit a violent act in order to enjoy the spoils of that violence hedonistically within the political network or system of the United States. When Muslim men commit violence, it's political violence. Muslim men commit violent acts of terrorism for world domination, the rise of the caliphate, to smite kafar and unbelievers. On the other hand, they commit violence for all sorts of reasons. From being serial killers, to advancing the corporate ladder, to getting life insurance from their dead spouse. When violence seems over the top, they're always labeled as insane. So like the Columbine shootings or James Holmes in the Dark Knight Aurora shootings. But this is also a kind of violence which is allowed when white men are saving the world. For instance, soldiers in Iraq or Jack Bauer in the streets of Washington, D.C. Here we have a kind of a messiah complex. When white men are committing violence, they are putting their lives on the line. And furthermore, women and children are objects to be saved. It's righteous violence. In a sense, it extends all the way back to the American War of Independence or perhaps even Christianity when it was interpreted in Europe in the Middle Ages. Within this matrix, we need to think about how long-term persistent efforts affects perception. The interface between an operator and the drone is now a simulacrum of a video game and not vice versa. Drone operators were recruited from the gamer community and it was revealed by Michael Haas and other former drone pilots. Bow Duarte, the Navy's top UAV commander, publicly expressed that a big part of the problem with civilian casualties and drone attacks isn't necessarily pilot error. It's just that the pilots were used to shooting targets that look and walk a certain way due to video games. He compared it to canine units and military dogs like attacking someone by mistake. So every Arab or Muslim-looking male now looks like a threat. I think the concept of military-aged male as being a valid target is rife with sexism and bias towards a particular appearance. You can now shoot a drone missile through a moving car window. A target like literally that big. But that doesn't make me feel safe. Besides the knee-jerk accidental killings, I think it's interesting to note that the first American citizen to be killed in the official limelight without trial since the American Civil War was Enwar al-Awlaki, along with his teenage son in a separate attack in Yemen. Obama was president and directly authorized the order. Now this guy lives on in YouTube as the primary ideological Imam of the Islamic State. You may not be able to respawn in this game, but the internet never forgets. Even Halo, the space opera fantasy happens hundreds of years in the future. The enemy are depicted as theocratic religious zealous, known as the Covenant, who are willing to risk their lives for what they believe in.  It's literally tech versus religion. We today live in democracies where free speech is largely protected, except in Germany where anti-Semitic speech is prohibited for obvious reasons.  As someone who enjoyed these games, a solution I can think of is that there's no reason why these settings of these games can't be anywhere. Imagine in a multiplayer game, the map you play by default is a virtual representation of your current location. When you play someone else, you take turns attacking each other in their own neighborhoods. There's already stuff in this direction, but if you keep thinking of the Middle East as a war zone, it will remain a war zone. If you keep thinking of Arabs as terrorists, well, I think the outcome is obvious. One model for ethical gameplay I've encountered is the small indie game, This War of Mine, which was based on the 1994-96 siege of Sarajevo. Here you play a group of squatters who are basically fighting to survive in the midst of a war zone. Most of the time, you're figuring out logistics like firewood, gas, food. I think if you want to make realistic video games, you might as well go all the way to show the suffering. Why not show war from the point of view of victims? I think these games would be really exciting as someone who's been in the middle of an bombing campaign. Nothing gets your adrenaline going, but I hope you guys never have to experience this in real life, and thank you very much.


Good morning, everyone Welcome to today's session. I hope each of us had a good weekend as Still our students are logging in. Can we start the session with a word of prayer? Let me pray. Let's pray Dear God, we thank you. We praise you. We love you. We honor you. We glorify your name Lord We submit ourselves and this day the session especially in your hand Lord, we pray that You will minister to each one of us. You will teach Lord, I pray that you will cover me and you will put your words into me And you will speak to each one of us Lord with clarity with the insight from your word and You will give us your understanding Lord as We study your word of Father Holy Spirit of God I pray that you will minister to each one of us in the place where we are Lord. Thank you father I surrender ourselves and the session in your hand in Jesus mighty name. We pray amen Amen, amen So today we're going to study on the inter-testimonyl period Yes, we are going to see the different types of error that was present and that 400 silent period So during the 400 years the inter-testimonyl period especially God's people experienced a significant challenges and a spiritual decline So this 400 year period was character characterized by six Historical errors. So what are they? They were the Persian era which ruled from 397 BC to 336 BC and then we had the Greek era from about 336 to 323 BC and then the Egyptian era about 323 to 198 BC and then we had the Syrian era and then the Maccabeean era and then the Roman era with the time period well the Syrian era was 198 to 165 BC and the Maccabeean era was from 165 to 63 BC and then the Roman era was from 63 BC to about 4 BC. Well, we can study what happened with the Persian era era This era actually dates Persian conquering the Babylon in 536 BC Yes, we're going to study. I'm not going to go deep into the history But then a few information that each of us needed for us to understand the significance on each era. We'll cover them Yes So as it continued into the early years of this inter-testimonyl period We see that first thing that the Persia Contributed to the people of Israel as a foreign policy We need to remember that the history of the people of Israel like once in the Solomon Goes off the scene the kingdom as in the last class we started after the Solomon rule The kingdom was divided into two that is the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom The northern kingdom eventually was called as Israel and the southern kingdom was known as Judah And we know the capital city of these places the northern kingdom is right in Israel The capital was Samaria in the southern kingdom. The capital was Judah The northern kingdom the capital city was Judah and that was Samaria Well, the northern kingdom of Israel was scattered all over What happened was the northern kingdom was conquered by the Assyrian and the southern kingdom was conquered by the Babylonian And what happened after they conquered these two places? They took Israelite as captives and they scattered them throughout the region wherever the Syrian Empire was and the same goes with the Babylonian Wherever the Babylonian where they scattered the Israelites there So wherever the settlement where they're so Persia eventually You know conquer even the Babylonian and when they do They foreign policy was to let the people of Judah return to their homeland. So when under the Persian rule Some of the Israelites returned back to Jerusalem with the leadership of Israel and later Again, there was a certain batch of exile returned back through the leadership of Nehemiah So we see that God used Persia to deliver Israel from the Babylonian captivity We also see that when we study the book of Daniel and this allowed the Jewish exiles to return back to their land for what they Rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem and also they rebuild the temple of Jerusalem and they restored back the worship at the temple You choose note something happened once I can please How do I unpin? Once I can please Yeah, sorry about it. I by mistake clicked on the pin for Abu Bakr and now I released it. Okay So what happened? So these significant things that happened during the Persia Let the people of Israel do and it all related to the foreign policy So about 100 years after the close of the Old Testament from the book of Malachi to the New Testament there was a complete silence and During the season we see the Judea continue to be under the Persian territory under the governor of Syria, but the high priest exercising a measure of civil Authority so the Jewish people were allowed to observe their Religious tradition without any governmental interference So we see and later we see The Persian attitude was a little bit tolerant about the Jewish Worship related to their worship the traditional style of following But later the Jewish people were pretty much left undisturbed by the Persian during this period And what happened in the time of the Greek era? So between 334 BC and 331 BC Alexander the Great defeated the Persian king derives the third So there was a three consecutive battle and that gave him the control of the land of the Persian Empire So what happened now? Alexander the Great has been regarded by the historians as the greatest conqueror of all types And he was far away from the central figure of the brief period and he conquered the Persia The Babylon the Palestine the Syria the Egypt as well and as some of the Western India although he only reigned over the Greece for about 13 years and he died at a very young age when he was about 33 year old but He left a great influence Which even lived after his death They cherished the desires of Alexander that he found to be the worldwide empire Unified with a common language. There should be a single custom and a civilization But what we see under his rule was a great influence influence about the Western Western world to speak and study the Greek language and This process was called as Hellenization including the adoption of the Greek culture and their Religion in all parts of the world So what we see here is the Hellenism became so popular and It persisted and was encouraged even through the Roman era and the New Testament times So it was Alexander's goal to bring a Greek culture to the land yet conquered and he wished to create a world United by the Greek language and thinking So this is a very crucial element that Greece brought to the table. So what did the Greece do they bought? They made sure that there was a common language and there's a common religious impact on the people and They want to be implemented among the places where they ruled and read So there was a faithful Jews Resisted strong influence of this pagan polytheism although the Greek language was sufficiently widespread by 270 BC but Resulted in bringing about a Greek Translation of the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament into the Greek translation and This was known as Sector Gent with this we will move on to the next era that is the Egyptian era I hope we are getting it. Are we getting it? I'm not going too fast. I'm going it slow And I'm giving the main information that we could get from each era Is it okay, or am I going too fast? No, ma'am, it is fine. It is fine. Thank you. Thank you for confirming said, okay Now the third one we are starting on the Egyptian era, which was between 323 BC to 198 BC When the Alexander the great died in 323 BC The Greek Emperor Empire became divided into four segments under his four generals So under the Alexander there were four generals one was Ptolemy the second was Lyceumus and the third was Cassander and the fourth was Salamis now Ptolemy Sotter the first of the Ptolemy dynasty Received Egypt and soon dominated the nearby Israel So he dealt severely with the Jews at the first but toward the end of his reign and on the rule of the Ptolemy Philadelphias Was a successor the Jews were treated favorably And it was in this season or in this time The Septuagint was authorized. That is the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament Well, the policy of this toleration followed by the Ptolemy's By which the Judaism or the Hellenism co-existed they both co-has existed peacefully But at the same time It was very dangerous for the faith of the Jews What happened? gradually During this period Jewish people started to worship The influence to become more External than the internal worship. So this was very dangerous for the Jews So there were two religious parties emerged during this time who are they? Pro Syrian Hellenism party and the other was orthodox Jews So there was always a struggle between these two groups and This resulted to the Polarization of the Jews along the other areas that is the political cultural and the religious Sectors well, you also see the Jews had prospered until you know the near end of the Ptolemy dynasty when the conflict between the Egypt and Syria Escalated well what we see here is Israel was again caught in the middle When the Syrian defeated the Egypt the Battle of Panion in 198 BC Judea was conquered by Syria now we move on to the next era that is the Syrian era Which took place between 198 BC to 165 BC now what happened under this era Under the rule of the Antiochus 3 the great and the successor Celus's fellow factor Flow flow pattern. Yeah, I'm sorry if I'm not pronouncing it correctly kindly. Excuse me Well, the Jews came under this Control of Syria What happened here is they treated Israelites very harshly. They were rude to them They didn't allow them to worship in the way they had to and there was a local rule under the high priest and all the reasonably well until the Hellenizing party decided to have a person person they favored So it was Jason who replaced the high priest favored by the orthodox Jews and they brought this about by bribing Celulus's successor Celula Celulica's successor was Antiochus So this set up a political conflict that finally brought Antiochus to Jerusalem and he was very angry and Then 168 BC he set up about you know He went went about to go and destroy and every distinct Jewish fate He forbade it all the sacrifices and he outlawed all the rights of Circumcision and he canceled the observance of Sabbath and he went ahead and he also stopped the offering of sacrifices in the temple and he He also disallowed the feast which they celebrated yearly Additionally, he also destroyed the nearby Destroyed the nearby copies of the Hebrew Bible. So Jews were forced He also went to an extent of forcing the Jews to eat poke or un Religious food which was under which was against their belief and also he forced them to Make sacrifice to their idols to the pagan gods and his final act of all these Was you know and also he went towards Desiccrating the holy place by building an altar in the temple and offering the sacrifice for the god of Zezos So many Jews died in This season due to persecution perhaps. We also see reminder of God's way of working with man is needed at this point We see man seeking God's help at the season He creates or allows these type of desperate situation and then he makes the man call unto the God the creator to help Same way sometimes when we face the situation these days, isn't it? We also see that there are some desperate situation that has been created in our life in our city in our country Where it is beyond our man's ability and we seek God to intervene To help us the same thing happened then and We see how God was simply setting the stage for the coming of his deliverer Jesus the only Messiah Though he was silent, but he was working behind the scene and we see that during this time God's plan everything was in God's plan There was nothing hidden. God was not wondering. What should I do now? No, everything was in God's plan But there was silence, but still everything was according to God's plan with this We will move on to the next error. That is the Maccabean era from 165 BC to 63 BC We see an elderly priest called Matthias he was from the house of Hassemen who lived with his five sons in a village near northwest of Jerusalem and when a Syrian official tried to enforce the pagan sacrifice in that village Matthias Revaulted and he killed the renegade Who tried or who offered a sacrifice he slew the Syrian official and fled to the mountains with this family he fled And then what happened? The when he fled the very act of this Matthias and his sons made some of the faithful Jews to join him And they also went along with him to the mountain and The history says that one of the most noble demonstration of the holy zealous To honor God was found in Matthias The very act of him so after the death of Matthias three of his sons carried on the maccabean revolt in So the three sons where the first one was Judas any ruled from 166 to 160 BC and then Jonathan is another son who ruled from 160 to 142 BC and the last son was Simon who ruled from 142 to 134 BC and these three men had such success that by 165 BC they had retaken Jerusalem Lends the temple and restored the biblical worship and this event Commemorated even today as the feast of dedication And which is also known in the Jewish culture as Hanukkah Which we also see that in the book of John chapter 10 verse 22 Where Jesus was entering the temple during the feast of dedication When we read that John chapter 10 verse 22, so we see that Though they were fighting against the Syrian continued an outline area, but the Jewish people finally received their independence during the leadership of the Simon who ruled in 142 BC and Under his rule the Jewish had the freedom to worship and practice their religious custom And there were also two parties who co-existed during this time. Those were the Pharisees and Sadducees With that we will move on to the next era. That is the Roman era Which took place from 63 BC to 4 BC So the independence of the Jews ended in 63 BC when a Roman general called Pompey conquered Syrian and ended Israel and entered Israel What happened? when Arti Aristo blueless second of Israel claimed to be the king of Israel Locked Pompey out of Jerusalem and the Roman leader He took the city by force and by doing so he reduced the size of Judah So what happened? Antipa was appointed as Procurator of Judah by Julius Caesar in 47 BC as some of us Will recall that Antipa's son was Herod eventually he became the king of the Jews around 40 BC although Herod the great as he was called during that time Planned and carried out to build on to the new temple in Jerusalem He was a devoted Hellenist and hated Hasmonean family until he went and killed the descendants of Hasmoneans including his own wife the granddaughter of John hike Hierarchanus and as well as his two of his own sons he killed Remember this Herod was the man who was on the throne when Jesus was born in Bethlehem So we we should know like How his rule would have been when he can kill his own wife and two sons for him The political power was very important. So during this era We see the Pharisees believed in the strict Hadarans to the scripture that is the written law and As well to the misna that is the oral law which sought to apply the written law to destroy Written law in everyday life. Whereas the Pharisees was strongly Connected with the scribes with the Sadducees Well, the Sadducees were strongly related to the high priest The priest seemed to have tended toward the more of the social political and earthly aspects of their position Well, this position was obviously more attractive toward the well these social-minded Jewish leaders so we see the rule of Romans and Under this rule among the Jewish people there were two Two parties that is the Pharisees and Sadducees and their rule continued even in time of Jesus. So lastly the Roman brought in Many many advantage During the era. So what did they brought they brought the law they brought peace among the city They also stabilized the government rule they brought in a system among their rule and also they also brought slavery and Like we see that the Romans brought the roads they built the roads all over the empire And they were freeway builders of their days and what happened was these roads connected the empire to her together and that was Very important where to spread the gospel this helped the mission of the disciples to carry the gospel into all the world So God used each of these various nations to fill up the time and Also prepare the way for the Messiah was to come the one that they had been Hoping and waiting for If you also see in John chapter 1 verse 10 to 11 we see that when but when he came The Messiah whom they were waiting and hoping for when he came They did not recognize him or receive him. So with this we just went towards the 400 years of the silent period But it was God's purpose it was God's purpose for them to remain silent because God did send many prophets before Many messengers before but people never heeded their voice So what did God do? God remained silent. They also called us the dark period But even during this time Though God did not send any messenger, but God was working behind the scene He was Jay Jess paving the path for the Messiah to come to send the messenger that was John the Baptist in the New Testament He comes He comes and after that the Messiah is on the way So with this we can move on to the New Testament. That is The four gospels we can we can discuss on the introduction of the four gospel But before that, I would like to know if there's anyone would like to share add-on to what we said Please feel free What we discussed you can add on or share something Class please feel free. It shouldn't be like very monotonous. Please feel free. You can unmute and speak. Yes Please go ahead Nikki Hi pastor, I just wanted to know I Have always been confused by the 400 years of silence of why God chose to do that But I want to know if there's any other biblical reference way Maybe is there any reference or connection to the time when they were in Egypt or me any other kind of connection or Logically, I'm not able to make any sense of why there was silence and how the people went about in that period of Search Thanks. Thanks Nikki. That's a good question. But then yes God There's no scripture or so between the 400 But then the timeline from the book of Malachi to to the New Testament You know the history says as a timeline and then there's a 400 and exactly if you see The history says for 25 years of silence, but then you know, there's always a variance between the time period They say for some says 400 some says 425. So exactly They just say 400 years, but then There was silence because the people did not heed to the Prophet's voice God did send many prophets We see Isaiah Jeremiah Daniel and many other prophets were there Malachi Amos all the major and minor prophets that we studied in the Old Testament They were telling the Jews in the exile or People who were Left out in the region God sent these prophets for them to repent Come out from the pagan culture, but then people never heard Heeded the voice of these prophets. In fact, they also stoned them the rebuked them They call them the mad people they rejected them Literally we see Jeremiah cry and weep out, you know to let them know to repent and come out But they never heeded and we also see when we studied the book of Ezekiel, you know how we enacted himself He tied his hands he tied his legs to show that you are in bondage. You need to come out of it But then people never heeded their voice. So that is how it was they were so much a Deaf to the voice of God, but later, you know when we study the history of this 400 period when People literally were seeking for the voice of God through the prophets, but then there were no prophets during this time There were no prophets God stopped talking to people through prophets Malachi was the last So what happened some of the people When you when we study the history, we see that some people say that so much we have sinned Our sin has grown so much that it has made our years deaf to the voice of God Or it has made God stop talking to us anymore through So this was the extent that the sin had grown among the people and people started realizing that Even when they were going through different errors under the different rule. Yes Jewish people with You know, they had their own set of trouble. They were persecuted. They were ups and downs in their life Yes, there was certain time they had freedom certain time. They didn't have freedom. They could not worship God You know, they had to go different season in each rule But each rule paved a path for the man to seek God to cry out to God so that When God when God talks to them or when God sends a messenger, they will hear they will repent Because God tried doing it many times among Through the major and minor prophets, but then the people did not hear them So what happened during the season?  I hope this answered your question. Nikki. There's no actual verse Or any scripture what happened in 400 years, but that's how because it was silent. That's how this 400 years have been Said it is silent from the book of malachi to the start of the new testament was 400 and change years And it was a silent period for the dark period they say Yeah, yes, Prasthit. Thank you just Quick thing. Is this why some people also say that prophecy is no longer the new testament Is this the reference they give like I've heard some people say but I mean, I believe in prophecy just clarify No, I didn't understand. What was that? Sorry. No, some people say that prophecy and miracles and all were dead What will happen only in the old testament? I've heard some old preachers say that is is this the reference they usually give because of this I'm not sure. Nikki They were comparing to or relating to exactly. I don't know. I've not heard anything as such So I'm not able to say exactly what exactly they were pointing out to but then All the old testament prophecies. That's what we will be studying when we study The introduction of the four gospel of the new testament that all the prophecies of jesus from the old testament Way fulfilled in the new testament through jesus everything All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So any other questions Or anything that you would like to add on see i've not gone into deep history of each one because it becomes too much of theory And what is required for us to understand what would have happened in the intertestinal period is what I shared but then You're free for more understanding because in our class we have different students So to cater to everyone, I've just taken up the important points But then if somebody is interested in more of social and would like to know in depth in the background I would request recommend you all to please do a research and learn more. Yes And so that you get a greater and deeper understanding on each era And yes, I have a question. Yes. Yes, please So we discussed about certain eras which uh occurred during the intertestinal period and is that the reason why the new testament was written in Greek or was the new testament written in hebrew also One thing we see that The new testament was written in greek because the greek has well established by then and they had the common language They also translated the hebrew of old testament into greek at certain period We discussed when we were sharing and yes, the new testament was written in greek because the common language Was well established as greek because of alexander that great And yeah, so so the speaking language was Aramic and Yes, yes, so even when we see jesus spoke aramic Speaking language was aramic, but when it was written it was written in greek All right. Yeah, thanks Thank you. I'm back. Yes Is is my voice clear or is it breaking? It's very clear. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Sometimes because of the net Poor connection sometimes it breaks well if there's anything as such you can please let me know Okay, anyone would like to add on because the time is up We have another 10 minutes. I don't think in 10 minutes. I can start the introduction to the gospel anyone would like to share add on And we can study on the introduction to the new testament or to the four gospels tomorrow Okay, so if anyone i've studied through these error, would you like to add some point? Understand that you're okay. Was there any question? Anything from the class that you would like to Yes, brother lubega, please go ahead It is a question Yes, please It is it true that uh, that guy they call was it anti anti course the fourth Went ahead even to slaughter pig in the In the temple because There was a rule Just give me a minute, please see, um Yes, you're right. His full name was I was just searching for his full name. His full name was No, uh, they Celusias Celusias was a successor of Antiochus epiphanes and under his political conflict where he brought in this slaughtering of pig in the temple and he forced the Jews to Eat the pork and he made them to sacrifice to their pagan god so it was Celusias who was the successor of Antiochus ep Epiphanes epiphanes Lubega did that answer your question? Yes, thank you so much pastor. Thank you. Thank you We see another question from said Wanted to know that we worship a god Oostrinity father son and the holy spirit. I was thinking like Are we worshiping the god of jews? Yahweh Or somebody else what difference between Jehovah and Yahweh? Both are the names of god Both are the names of the father Uh, in in jewish culture, they would uh, you know, it is the different way like, you know Both are the same name of god Jehovah or Yahweh. It is different Uh Hebrew I guess they called as Yahweh and in fact they used to not call Yahweh it is In Hebrew it is known as Yahweh Wadi So, uh, even when they write in the scriptures um The scribes when they write in the scripture They would so fearful to write the name of god You know even to write they used to go have bath wash their hands and then come and write Yahweh each time and that too not in the full form for example, uh, if the uh, if the spelling was why Hey, H W E H They used to write it as Y iPhone H Or a not H Y iPhone W iPhone H something like that They used to miss few letters in between for example if they had to Uh, if they had to uh mention god, they used to not write G O D with a capital G They used to not write that way. They used to write G iPhone god So when they read You know, they used to give all reference reverence to that name They had so much of fear to the very name of god, even when it comes to uh, Jehovah They used to write J E H space H something like that. They used to not write full They had a lot of reverence and both relates the same. It's the father who is I am Sid did that answer your question? Yes, ma'am. Thank you ma'am for the information Okay Yes, this is more to uh, yes, please go ahead brother Lou Bega In fact, it's because of the lack of vowels that we get a combination of names like Jehovah Yahweh in the same spelling because you know the Greeks at at first Is it the Greeks? No the Hebrews In the Hebrew language at first they were not putting their Vowels so because of that lack of vowels. This is where we get the difference in names. We get Jehovah. We get Yahweh in the same spelling. Thank you pastor Thank you. Thank you brother Lou Bega for adding that. Okay, Sid maybe one of the reason that is also there Anyone else would like to add on to something in today that we studied in line with what we covered today Before we could close our session with a word of prayer. Okay. I see Silence. Okay. Well I hope this was this class was interesting to each one of us and very informative So before we could end the session, can I request one of us to please close the session with a word of prayer? Rosalind, can you close the session with a word of prayer? Thank you lord Jesus. Hallelujah lord. Wonderful lord Jesus. We want to thank you father. Thank you for this Wonderful session that we had lord even You know lord even or maybe we haven't understood it clearly, but holy spirit. We need your guidance We need your help Help us guide us enlighten our eyes of understanding that we may understand whatever we hear in this session lord And not only be the hearers, but also that also the doers of the word lord We thank you and we bless our dear pastor anoint her lord and use her mightily. Thank you once again. Jesus Amen Thank you so much for joining in today's session. See you all tomorrow same time. God bless. Thank you Thank you. Good place