Happy Wednesday! Finally, we are going to be breaking down our overview of the Apocryphon of John. Again, if you would like to go deeper into these discussions regarding the missing Gospels or the banned or heretical Gospels from the Bible, then please join us on The Dark Outpost with David Zublik on Tuesday evenings. Otherwise, please sit back and enjoy this overview of the Apocryphon of John. Now before we get started, I do want to apologize for any background noise that you may hear. There is a lot going on in the city's day and there's not a whole lot that I can do to get rid of the background noise. So I do apologize if it is inconvenient to you. Again, nothing I can do to stop it. I am right in the middle of Atlanta, Georgia. So just please bear with us as we go through this text. Another thing before we get into the Apocryphon of John, normally I would read through the text that we're studying, but I'm not going to do that with the Apocryphon of John simply because the Apocryphon of John is a deeply, deeply, deeply spiritual book and I feel like we can kind of give a synopsis of it without reading through it. Because it is so spiritual, I do encourage you, however, to read through the Apocryphon of John on your own. And once again, I would really like to thank all of my patrons for continuing to support this channel and support my work. If it were not for our patrons, we would not be able to do what we do. So again, thank you so much to all of you. If you would like to help support the channel, there is a link down in the description box below. So let's start to talk about the Apocryphon of John. Once again, I want to reiterate that when we talk about the Apocryphon of John or all the other missing Gospels, we do go deeper into the discussion on the Dark Outpost. There is a lot that I am limited to say on this platform. As you all know, us content creators on this platform do have a lot of boundaries and censorship has been amped up. So we have to be very, very, very careful about what we say. There was a lot that we discussed on the Dark Outpost that I am not going to be able to bring up in this episode. So I really do encourage you to go on over to that platform if you want to go deeper into this study. So the Apocryphon of John is also known as the Secret Revelation of John and the Secret Book of John. Apocryphon means Secret Teaching. By many scholars, this is also considered to be a continuation of the Gospel of John as in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I also want to note that with this Gospel, there are scholars who have spent their lifetime studying it. What we cover today will be a brief summary of ideas presented by scholars who focus on this Gospel, the Gnostic Gospels, and Jewish mysticism. If you would like more resources to further your own dive into the subject, I will be more than happy to provide them to you. Some will be listed down in the description box below. This is by far one of the most misunderstood texts due to the crux of this text being one of Jewish mysticism. So mysticism comes from the word mystery or secrets. And again, Apocryphon means a secret teaching. The scholars that I used mainly for this research was Dr. Justin Sledge, Dr. Karen Key, and Dr. Elaine Pagle. So first let's review the history of this manuscript. So we know that there are four surviving manuscripts. One was purchased in Egypt in 1896. This is part of the Berlin Codex. Three copies were found in the Nag Mahdi Library in 1945. And I also want to note that of the four copies remaining, there are slight variations between each copy. Most of this is really insignificant though.  So it doesn't change the actual context of the Gospels. Now two copies were shorter than the others. The longer copies carried a list of demon names, not found in the shorter copies. So basically two copies, a more extended version with more names than the other two copies. All four copies were found most likely to be written in the fourth century. However, it is believed by scholars that the first copy of this Gospel was written before 180 AD. So going back to look at early Christian Dumb and the Apocryphon of John. So as stated by Dr. Elaine Pagle, when the Nag Mahdi Library was first discovered in 1945, scholars did not know what to do with it. Many scholars thought that the text was just weird. They knew that these books had been missing. They had heard of these books in other early Church Fathers writings, but they had never actually seen these texts. And they are very, very, very different from what we know of the canonized Bible. So they were kind of left scratching their heads a little bit. And it was Dr. Helmut Koster, who was one of the first scholars to start to recognize patterns in the text that represented very early, unedited sayings of Jesus spoken about in the early Christian movement. He believed the Gospels of the Mag Mahdi Library held some of the earliest sources of Jesus' teaching, hypothesizing that they were written as early as 20 years after the death of Jesus. Our first book from the Nag Mahdi Library we studied on this show was the Gospel of Thomas. We will see some crossover from Thomas into the Apocryphon of John regarding imagery understood by ancient Jewish culture that, of course, would have then bled into early Christian culture. The Apocryphon of John is a Gnostic Gospel that historians believe was one of the most important Gospels to the early Christians. Why do scholars and historians believe this? Well, Dr. Justin Sledge says that only four remaining copies found might not seem like a lot to us today, but we have to take into context what we have remaining from antiquity. So we virtually have no remaining copies of the canonized Gospels. Very few are left of the original copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And if we also look at other manuscripts like the Iliad and the Odyssey, more secular manuscripts, we have very little left of those original copies too. So if we put this into perspective, finding four copies is huge and points that this book was probably heavily circulated in early Christian communities. Following this lead also opens up a world of Jewish heritage, again, that Jewish mysticism that existed in the early sect of Christianity that has been eradicated from our faith today. And going deeper into that topic again is something I can't go over on this platform. So please go over to the dark outpost because we do go deeper into that on David's platform. So Irenaeus, we spoke about him on our last Gospel. If you can't remember a lot about him, then please refer back to last week's episode. I will include a list of all the past Gospels in this description box anyway, so you could just go down there and click the last episode we did regarding the topics. And also my last video on Friday over Polycarp, I talked a little bit about Irenaeus in that episode as well, which I will also include a link to that in the description box for you too. Irenaeus has hated this Gospel. He placed this Gospel as heresy along with other Gnostic Gospels, culminating in his life's work as a massive smear campaign against these Gospels and the Christians who use them. So again, the early Gnostics did not call themselves Christians. That is a name that historians and scholars have given the Gnostics in order to separate them from the Orthodox faith, which was the faith that won out in the end to show the trajectory of what we know as Christianity to this day. But these Gnostics did not call themselves Gnostics. Again, they were simply Christians. The thing that Irenaeus has hated about these Gospels was that they were teaching sayings or secret teachings, again, apocryphons. And this idea that Jesus taught his disciple secret knowledge or esoteric mystery. Irenaeus rejected this idea. He wanted the Christian faith to be unified under one controlled teaching. So Irenaeus was of that whole idea of secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets are for everyone. He didn't like the idea that there were disciples, apostles who had had private interactions with Jesus. He claimed it was heresy to believe Jesus gave his disciples special teachings. However, his claim that secret teachings never happened between Jesus and his disciples is debunked by the book of Mark, the canonized book of Mark. We find this in Mark 4, 11 through 12. It says, he told them, the secret of the kingdom of God has given to you, but to those on the outside, everything is said in parables so that they may be ever seeing but never perceiving and ever hearing but never understanding. Otherwise, they might turn and be forgiven. So we know from here, he's saying that on the outside to the outer world, Jesus taught the general public through parables. But with his disciples, he taught them one on one with different or more in depth knowledge. Before the discovery of the lost gospels, we had the parables teachings found in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but not the secret teachings as Mark does not say what these secret teachings were in his gospels. Scholars believe the lost gospels were never supposed to replace any gospels, but merely supplement them. The only two secret teachings or apocryphon teachings we see in the Bible are from Paul and John who wrote Revelation. Now, many Christians believe that the John who wrote Revelation is the same John as in the gospel of John and as in this apocryphon of John, whereas there are other Christians and scholars who believe that John who wrote Revelation is or was a different person altogether. We do know that the apocryphon of John and the gospel of John are the same John, though. In my opinion, doesn't really matter. Doesn't matter who wrote Revelation, in my opinion. It's the message that that matters. So things we need to know in Greek. So EDEO is to know from exterior sight. So intellectual understanding is EDEO. Everything you learn in school, 2 plus 2 is 4. That's EDEO. People, when they have multiple degrees, a PhD, doctorate, masters, whatever, their undergrad, that's EDEO. That's intellectual understanding. But Gnosis is inner knowledge, like the Gnostic, the inner knowing that's heart understanding. Now, during this time it was believed that EDEO or intellectual understanding was the elementary level of understanding. It was the lowest common denominator. I myself know a lot of people who are very prideful and egotistical about the amount of degrees that they have. And in having all those degrees from schools, they lack no inner knowledge. They're book smart. They're not street smart. And here we see that being book smart is the lowest common denominator. It's elementary. It's the beginning. But having Gnosis, having inner knowledge, that's the supreme form of knowledge. Now Gnosis, the beginnings of Gnosis can be taught to somebody, to start to contemplate different philosophies. However, to achieve Gnosis is something that the person has to achieve themselves. So the Orthodox belief of Christianity, they only wanted the EDEO. They only wanted the intellectual knowledge. They didn't want the Gnosis. Early Christian theology, however, had both EDEO and Gnosis. The canonized Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John again hold that EDEO, that elementary under standing. The banned Gospels carry then the Gnosis. So the canonized Gospels give us knowledge of Jesus. Who was Jesus? Where did he come from? What did he look like? X, Y, and Z. So we understand that intellectual knowledge, that EDEO, of who Jesus was. But the next step in this faith back in early Christendom was then understanding who we are. Who are you? And this is where the Gnostic Gospels come in. So Dr. Elaine Pagel brought up the idea that Irenaeusus was not necessarily against the Gnostic Gospels, even though he wrote about them as being heresy and tried to get rid of them. She believes that Irenaeus was convicted in his beliefs and getting rid of the Gnostic texts because of persecution. Again I will insert our video on Polycarp that we did on Friday to understand a little bit more about what was going on to Christians during that time. Irenaeus, again, was a Greek bishop who was a missionary in France, then it was called Gaul. He had seen his teacher, Polycarp, burned a life at the stake. So for Irenaeus' protection was necessary. Dr. Elaine Pagel even brings up the whole saying we either hang separate or hang together. He was trying to unify the faith in order to make the faith stronger in order to protect the people being persecuted. Possibly he had PTSD. We know that PTSD or trauma responses causes people to do things and say things and believe things that under normal circumstances they probably would not do say or believe. So in that perspective I guess we can have a little bit of compassion for Irenaeusus that he was just literally living in trauma. And of course back then they didn't understand post-traumatic stress disorder or anything like that but we understand that more now. So after the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century this was one of the books that could get you burned at the stake for owning. This cracks me up. In a very cynical way it cracks me up because we never saw Jesus burn anybody at the stake. But once Christianity was or became a state religion under Constantine y'all know how I feel about Constantine. Constantine was not a saint. He was a psychopath. History books are wrong. The controlled narrative given to us by the government, by the church is wrong. Constantine was awful. But the fact that they would then go and by wars over this it tells you right there they weren't practicing a Christian faith because Jesus didn't hurt anybody. But even though you could be burned at the stake for owning this book or reading this book or teaching this book scholars believe this book was still heavily used into the eighth century so the seven hundreds by Christians. That just shows you again how important this book was to the original Christian people. So within this book as we talked about in the Gospel of Judas we get into Scythian theology and Jewish mysticism. So the Scythian theology is a more extended version of the Genesis story, the creation story. And that's what we see a lot with the Apocryphon of John. And I find this very, very fascinating and as I said on the dark outpost at this point in my own faith I'm not taking an opinion on the Scythian theology. I just find it very interesting and very fascinating and something very important for us to look at and review because this Scythian theology used to be a part of our own faith. It used to be taught in the Christian churches. So in order for us to understand where Christianity came from and how it evolved we need to know this stuff. Regardless of as we accept it as fact or not we still need to know it. So let's start by looking at Genesis 4 25 from the canonized Bible and Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and called his name Scyth. For God hath anointed me another seed instead of Abel for Cain slew him. So according to Jewish heritage Scyth was born to Adam and Eve after Abel was murdered. Eve believed Scyth had been anointed by God to replace Abel. It is through Scyth's bloodline that we have Enoch and Noah. Now my original intention was to go through all the Scythian banned books in order. However I think we need to jump into the Old Testament next week to start looking at the book of Jubilee. This is because we will get a more detailed understanding of Scyth's story and the Scythian theology. Jubilee was also banned by Constantine for being heretical. Jubilee was banned even though Jesus does reference it and we'll get more into that Jesus's references of Jubilee when we actually look into the book of Jubilee. So according to the Scythian theology Scyth is the grandfather of passing on knowledge of the true God, so the Gnosis. The Scythian story is part of Jewish heritage. It is really important to understand moving forward. The early Christians would have been familiar with the Genesis story as it relates to the complexity of man's fall. We also have to acknowledge the Council of Nicaea. We're trying to purify the faith by basically scrubbing the majority of the heritage from it. The disciples as well as Jesus would have grown up with this particular creation story and we'll see this in the apocryphon of John. Jesus is a huge part of the Scythian creation story and that's all I'm really going to say on that. Again that whole issue if you know what I mean I can't talk about on YouTube sadly because of censorship. So again please please please go to the dark outpost if you want to hear more about the scrubbing or the purifying of the Christian faith if you know what I'm talking about. I also want to point out that we only find the Jewish mystical teachings in the sources that the church calls heresy. In my opinion this is something that every Christian needs to consider when studying these texts. My mother used to tell us all the time that the Jewish people were God's chosen people and it was our job to always protect them. So the fact that this faith was scrubbed and purified from this says a lot to me about these Canaanites who now run the church and have run the church since the fourth century. We also have to remember the Catholic Church especially the Catholic Church role in World War II. Which side did the Catholic Church support and I'll let you do that research yourself. So again this is why we cannot absolutely cannot believe something is heresy just because someone tells you it is. Okay there is a deep complex and dark history here with the founding of the official church. In my opinion the removing of this text isn't to protect anyone but the bloodline families that control the church today. There is more to the story than meets the eye. In my opinion as well seminary schools are dirty. They're corrupt. So even if your pastor your preacher is a good person they've probably been taught some pretty horrific things and that's been happening for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. So if anything 2020 has taught us this great great awakening has taught us we can take nothing at face value even things I tell you do not take it face value.  You need to go and research all of this for yourself. Do not take anybody else's word for it. Do not take your preacher's word for it. Do not take my word for it. Do not take scholars word for it. Research for yourself.  So there are themes to understand in this text and these are certain themes that I took from Dr. Karen King from a lecture which I will post that lecture in the description box below for you if you want to go deeper into this. So we understand that this is a very complex text that revealed teachings from the Savior or Jesus to his student John after Jesus's death written to teach readers to be alert of hidden messages and meanings in scriptures so basically to read between the lines. It was written to expose the deceptions of the lower world rulers. It was also used to separate people into two groups. Those who understood or had noses and those who did not understand. Those who did not understand were still under the deception or the spells of the demonic rulers. We can see this in our own society today. We have those who get it, those who are awake most of you on this channel get it. You understand that everything we see now is an illusion, that we're leaving humanity is now leaving the matrix, the matrix that was designed by lower world rulers like Lucifer. All right and those who do not understand.  This text also talks about God's true nature being a mystery which I've talked about a lot in my own opinion. We cannot understand who God is because we are human. God is beyond humanity.  Therefore our own mortal minds cannot possibly understand God. And one of the mistakes that we make when we fall short of God is when we put human opinions and personality traits on to God when God is not human. This also exposes the true names of the enemy. Again I told you in some of the longer versions of the Apocryphon of John we do have a list of demon names. The true names of all these lower world rulers have been hidden from the masses for a reason. For example we're going to see the name of Satan is Yeldeboth. Yeldeboth is his real name. In spiritual war wars strategies of concealment are used by both sides. We see this today in the art of war which is a book that was written that's being used by the White Hats to this day and by Mr. T number 45. President number 45 he is using the art of war. This text also teaches the practice of silence that silence is golden. It shows an incredible amount of God's compassion to humanity.  Again we see the idea with the cure quote unquote the cure the V word the cure for the beer bug right? We see this coercion to force people to get this cure. When the main rule of the cosmos is free will you cannot you cannot break free will so we know that's why we know it's not going to work because you can't break free will. Alright this also offers knowledge of one's true nature as part of the light not a part of the world of chaos. We also learn that man is made in the image of the divine and the body is made by the lower world rulers. The body was created to enslave man to the lower world so the lower world could harvest man's divine spark. So let me explain that again that our natural state our bodies our world was created by Yelda Beth. But where it says we were created in God's image that's not our body that's our spirit our divine spark our consciousness in fact in the Hebrew text in the Bible where it says in God said let there be light. Back in the early days the Hebrew speaking people would have understood that word light as being divine spark not light as in the sun but that divine spark that soul that lives in both human beings and animals the light behind somebody's eyes that is where we are created in God's image. According to Dr. Karen King this apocryphon of John is the first full Christian story. Themes of the text this again comes from Dr. Karen King is Christ revelation of God in the divine world in the origins of the universe and humanity. The nature of evil and suffering the body the path to salvation and the final end to all things. So with that being said I'm going to give you a bit of a brief summary of this story. I'm not going to read it again I would really like for you to read it for yourself. The story itself is way more complex than the words on the paper there's a lot to talk about. Once again I will put links down in the description box to hear more scholars talk about this. There is also different perceptions taught by different scholars. So not even scholars agree on everything talked about in this gospel. So again this is just a brief brief very brief synopsis of the story of the apocryphon of John. The most important theme I believe for us right now in this moment studying this gospel is to understand or start to understand the complexity of the creation story and the Scythian theology. If you are interested I do read through the apocryphon of John again on the dark outpost. If you want to hear it read through and talked about from the text itself once more please go and visit that platform on Tuesday night so you can get here a deeper discussion on these banned gospels. So the apocryphon of John starts off with Jesus's disciple John going to the temple. This is after again after Jesus has been crucified and ascended up into heaven. And he's mocked by a Pharisee at the temple for following Jesus and then John runs off into the mountain side to have a little pity party. Of course he's heartbroken he said his world has been turned upside down kind of having a woe with me moment or probably more appropriate to say a come to Jesus moment because then Jesus appears to him. Jesus appears to him in a great light. At first John doesn't recognize that it's Jesus but then he realizes it's Jesus and Jesus tells John that Jesus is going to tell John the whole truth of our creation. The first part of his speech he's talking about God that the idea of God is boundless that there is no words in human vocabulary to even describe what God is. That we can't even use words like perfect or divine because even those words themselves mean nothing compared to the majesty of God. He then goes on to say that God is able to create on himself. He can co-create within himself so he expands his own self God's own self to create a female counterpart so the yin and the yang of male and female. This then is called Barbello and we talked about the Barbello from the Gospel of Judas. This was also mentioned in the Gospel of the Holy Twelve where Jesus referred to God as Father Mother. That Father Mother that light is Barbello. In fact in the Apocryphon of John there is a quote that says her light reflects his light. It is a perfect unity. From the Barbello and of course I'm skipping over a bunch of stuff because this is a brief overview but from this Barbello that's where we get the creation of the Son or the Christ. At this point it's not called Jesus because Jesus's name only comes into play when Jesus takes human form as a man but the Son is then created from the unity of Father Mother or Barbello and we saw in the Gospel of the Holy Twelve where they would like chastise Jesus the Pharisees saying like you are not even old enough how do you say that you're wiser than Abraham or Moses and Jesus would say I'm far older than there I've been here I've been around longer than Abraham and Moses and this is where we get that from that Jesus's spirit his soul was already in existence before humanity was even here on this earth. Throughout the Apocryphon of John we go through a huge creation of the cosmos or the cosmology. We see the creation of different angels that have different names different lights that are coming from the Barbello family as it were. We also see the first Genesis story where there is a creation of Adam of an atom in the sky. Think what you will about that aliens, extraterrestrials, angels who knows doesn't really specify in the text that's up to every individual person's own opinion. Well then one of the lights that come out of this family one of these angels these lights her name is Sophia and Sophia is the name for wisdom she is the angel of wisdom but in this wisdom she has ignorance where she starts to procreate within herself and doing this she creates an entity called Yell the Buff. Okay so she did not have the permission of God to create from herself but she did it anyway in ignorance. Wisdom and ignorance creates Yell the Buff. Well the Yell the Buff has a slight divinity to him even though he was not created by God. Yell the Buff then falls down into the lower realms because he was not created by God. Yell the Buff then thinks he is the only God. Sophia eventually sees the mistake she's made and she goes back and asks for forgiveness and God forgives gives her and welcomes her back into his his kingdom but we have Yell the Buff here who then tries to create to an inversion a mockery of the cosmology that God had created and doing so he creates man. Adam, 80 a.m. the one that's in the this is where we pick up from the Genesis story in the Bible see how much was taken out of the Bible now we're starting with the Bible but this this Adam that he creates is is lifeless because Yell the Buff doesn't understand how to create how God creates it he can't give the divine spark he only has his own divine spark from his mother Sophia he cannot give it to other people because he is not God he is not of the light and so at this point God sends some of his entourage down to have a little chit chat with Yell the Buff and backing up a little bit in the creation of 80 a.m of that Adam with Yell the Buff it goes into grave detail about how Yell the Buff has 365 demons under him that he can help create these people to serve him so he created this man to look like the the Adams the Genesis of the cosmos to now serve Yell the Buff or Satan okay but he cannot again give a divine spark so God sends he sees these poor creatures this Adam that has no life that Yell the Buff has not created and so God decides to step in and he sends his his entourage his angels to go down there and have a little chit chat with Yell the Buff well in doing so they trick Yell the Buff into breathing his divine spark from his mother Sophia from wisdom into Adam so Yell the Buff does that and basically gives up his divinity at that point and replaces that with Adam so now Adam as an Adam and Eve is more divine and is more powerful than Yell the Buff okay it was all a trick a trickery from God so now this body these natural bodies that we are in that were once totally dominated by demonic forces are now luminous with the light now this again is a very very very brief breakdown of the Apocryphon of John it goes into a whole lot more detail about this whole battle but we start to understand where the issue lies as human beings in our own creation since Yell the Buff mistakenly gave us his divinity he's now trying to keep us enslaved in the bodies that he created in order to harvest that divinity for himself this is the battle between good and evil God and Satan or God and Yell the Buff it's all for that divine spark we see this with harvesting ceremonies that certain Canaanite families still do to this day you want to play for the dark side you're going to have to give to the dark side the dark side doesn't give without getting in return the dark side can't give without getting in return God doesn't ask for anything in return God gives so when Jesus came down to earth Jesus had already made the decision to come down to earth to be in Jesus's body to explain this to human beings this gnosis that your body even though it luminates now because there is a divine spark within it that is consciousness that is divine that is God that belongs to God your body is still a body in a world of chaos created by Yell the Buff by Satan again the Gnostics knew this the Gnostics knew who they were where they came from and where they were going they knew they weren't their body they knew they weren't their identities they knew that divine spark within them was the thing that was eternal and was the salvation of God I mean think about that in this story Adam was created by Yell the Buff and God just could have left it he could have just like left this lifeless body with no soul down on earth to be Yell the Buff slave for eternity but he stepped in and gave us divinity and then he stepped in and Jesus came down and gave his body to try to make another deal to release humanity now regardless of whether you believe this story is a legitimate story or a metaphor an analogy of what's really going on again doesn't really matter at this point to me what matters is that we are valuable we are so valuable that the underworld rulers don't want us to know how valuable we are so we knew we would fight back we knew just how special we were we wouldn't let them push us around the way that they have but the most beautiful thing about today's world is that we are starting to wake up we are finding these lost gospels we are starting to understand this a little bit more even in the practice of yoga we know that our Purusha our soul is what's eternal not our property are our nature and anybody who is of any type of faith that's of the light i think we need to be reminded that from time to time that we don't belong to this world Jesus even said that his kingdom is not of this world and i think it's pretty cool regardless of whether this is accurate or not again i don't really have an opinion on the accuracy of this or not it's just interesting the sephian theology this idea that the sun that replaced able through Adam that was given the divine spark of life through God and cain who had chosen through his actual mother lily to serve lucifer the canaanites the israelites and through seph we are still living that freedom in our divine spark so that's what we're going to leave it today with the apocryphon of john again please please please go read this for yourself again if you want to find here me read through it with david zublik follow the link in the description box below again the next band of gospel our book it's not a gospel we will be covering will be the book of jubilee which is also called little genesis in order to get an even deeper understanding in the sephian theology before we return back to the gospels that are involved in this sephian theology just so we have i have a better understanding you have a better understanding and if you did grow up jewish or if you did grow up with this at the inherited i would love to hear from you about what you know about what you heard growing up because we absolutely did not grow up with this in the presbyterian church and i'm assuming in a lot of other churches no one was taught this story so i'd love to hear your story as well i hope you guys are having a fantastic week so much is going on now in our lives the best truly is yet to come thank you so much to josh mckay for doing our music and thank you again to Todd Roderick for helping me get this out to you guys and i will talk to you soon bye


and welcome to Hawaii Together on the ThinkTech Hawaii Broadcasting Network. I'm Joe Kent, Executive Vice President of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. I'm filling in for Dr. Kaili Iakina. He's the president and CEO. Well, the conflict in Russia and Ukraine has sent oil prices soaring, especially in Hawaii, where gas prices are among the highest in the nation. Many blame those higher prices on the Jones Act, which makes it more expensive to ship in oil from the US mainland. On March 3rd, the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to grant Hawaii a Jones Act waiver for fuel imports. And on March 8th, US Representative Ed Case also sent a waiver request to the president. Here today from Washington DC to discuss the situation with us is Grassroot Institute scholar and Kato Institute policy analyst Colin Grabao. Aloha Colin. Aloha. Thanks for having me on the program. So Colin, can you explain this? Well, what is the Jones Act first of all, and why is it an issue right now? The Jones Act is a 1920 law that essentially states if you want to transport cargo from one part of the United States to another part of the United States by water, that the vessel used to transport that cargo, be it a ship, a tugboat, basically anything that floats, has to meet four conditions. That's that the vessel has to be US flagged and registered, has to be mostly owned by Americans, has to be mostly crewed by Americans, and has to be built in the United States. So what this means is that all foreign ships or even US flagships have to be built in another country, which is say 99% of the ships out there can't be used to transport goods within the United States. So that means less competition and then which drives up costs. And then also these Jones Act ships are incredibly expensive to build as significantly more expensive to operate than their foreign counterparts. All that adds up to very high shipping costs. Now, you asked why is it in the news now? Well, Jones Act is in the news lately because the United States has imposed sanctions on purchases of Russian oil. And despite being the world's leading producer of oil, we still import foreign oil to meet our energy needs. And the big picture, including from Russia. Now, in the big picture, Russia accounts for just a few percent of our overall oil use. But for Hawaii, it's much more significant. In fact, according to a 2020 report from the Hawaii State Energy Office, since 2010, Hawaii has imported the majority of its foreign crude from Indonesia, Libya, and Russia. In fact, in 2019, over 90% of the foreign crude import into Hawaii came from just two countries, Libya and Russia. I think Russia was 30 something percent and Libya was 50 something to percent. And then according to Representative Ed Case, go ahead. Now, why is that though? Is why is Hawaii shipping in so much more oil from Russia than the mainland US? Yeah. So that's an interesting issue where we produce a lot of oil. We actually export oil to other countries. In fact, we sent it to China, but we're importing it from Russia. In fact, in 2019, Hawaii imported none of its oil from other parts of the United States. Why is this? I don't think we can answer that question without talking about the Jones Act. Essentially, once you factor in the cost of using Jones Act compliant ships, it doesn't make sense for Hawaii to buy oil from other parts of the United States. It basically becomes cost prohibitive. And this isn't just my opinion. There was a 2014 report from something called the Hawaii Refinery Task Force. And they noted the operator of a Hawaii refinery stating that domestic supplies of energy were not competitive in part due to Jones Act restrictions and the cost in using Jones Act compliant ships versus foreign-flying ships. So right now, we have a situation where Hawaii, they may have been using a lot of Russian oil. They need to find replacements for that oil because they can't use it anymore because of these new sanctions. And basically, they're going to look abroad into other countries rather than buying from the United States because the Jones Act basically puts that off the table. This is making the price of our gas higher. I mean, we're already seeing gas soaring that's due to geopolitical factors, but this just makes it higher. So is this Jones Act thing only about gas or does it affect the price of other things in Hawaii too? Well, the Jones Act by mandating the use of ships that are very expensive to build and operate impacts the cost of transportation. And the caucus transportation impacts basically everything we use because so much of what we use has to be transported to us from wherever it was made. And that's especially true in the case of Hawaii given its geographic isolation and things that we transport to it for long distances. So getting shipping that is efficient as inexpensive as possible is very important for Hawaii. And the Jones Act doesn't provide that. And let me just add here that when we think of Jones Act making things more expensive, yes, it doesn't mean we go to the store, things cost some percentage more, but it goes beyond just things to get the store. Remember, we're talking about energy. So that means the energy used to power your car to heat or to cool your house although Grand Hawaii have a nice climate. So you don't have to use a ton of energy. All of that, these are air conditioning you all over the place. And Hawaiian Electric, just Hawaiian Electric's just announced that it was going to increase prices now. So consumers are going to be hit again. Part of that is because of the higher cost of oil. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So why is the shipping, can you explain again in basic terms, why is the Jones Act shipping so much more expensive than shipping with ships that are built overseas? There's a few factors that go into that. One is just the cost of the ships themselves. As I mentioned earlier, Jones Act ships are very expensive to build. So we're talking about energy. Let's look at tankers. Tankers, what's called a medium range tanker. This is on the smaller end of the scale. One of those overseas costs about $40 million to build. In the United States, it's a minimum of $150 million to build. So we're talking roughly four times more for the ship. That's a difference of a minimum of $110 million. Is it someone has to pay for? And consumers are going to pay for a lot of that. But then after you get the ship itself, you have to crew it with Americans. American unionized crews command much higher wages than what you find in other countries. But it also goes beyond that. Also, if you put your ship under the US flag, it means, for example, if you want to repair your ship, you repair it in a foreign shipyard, you get hit with 50% tax. So this is another cost that American ships have to bear that foreign shipping does not. So you add all these things together and the end result is very expensive shipping. So they're more expensive to build. They're more expensive to man. But there's also fewer of them too. And doesn't that also raise costs? Well, that's right. Right now, there are currently 94 Jones Act ships. Something in the neighborhood of 45,000 to 50,000 ships in the world. So literally, something like 1.2% of the ships in the world are available to Americans. 99.8% of the ships are off limits, essentially. So you have less competition, that's going to mean higher prices. And what about for oil? How many of those ships are involved in the type of ships that would ship oil to Hawaii? So right now, there are, I believe, 56 tankers in the Jones Act fleet, ocean-going ships. But of those 56, the majority of those are used to transport products. We're talking about gasoline and jet fuel, things like that. There are only, I believe, 11 ships in the Jones Act fleet that are dedicated to transporting oil. And those are mostly used to transport oil from Alaska to refineries on the West Coast. Now, somebody might think, well, why don't you just take some of those tankers that are used for refined products and just fill them with oil? And you can do that.  Well, you got to scrub all that crude oil out. And that's not easy. And that involves some costs. And also, again, those ships tend to be smaller. And so you fill a smaller vessel with crude. It's not as efficient. So it leads to higher costs as well. I see. Well, President Biden banned the import of Russian oil last week. And although even before that, PAR Pacific Holdings, which owns Hawaii's only oil refinery, had said it would stop importing Russian oil as soon as the last tankers under contract make it to Hawaii. So how will those actions affect Hawaii of the abandoning of Russian oil imports? And how will they affect the entire US, including Guam and Puerto Rico? Well, as I mentioned earlier, Hawaii is in a situation right now where it's been using Russian crude for something between a quarter and a third of its oil needs. And now that's off the table. It has to look for something else to replace that with. And when Hawaii looks around the world, it basically has to say, well, the US is off the table. We can't really use that. The Jones Act makes that prohibitively expensive. So when you have fewer options, it's less likely that Hawaii will get the best bargain. We'll get the best deal. We'll get the best deal on its energy supplies. And that goes, you mentioned Puerto Rico and Guam. I can't speak to Guam as much. I'm not as familiar. But I know that last year, for example, Puerto Rico, they're kind of in the same situation. Depending on the month last year, their sourcing from Russia was anything from, I believe, 10% to 30% of its petroleum needs came from Russia, which is kind of absurd when you think about the fact that Puerto Rico is next door. It's much closer to the US mainland than Hawaii is. And the US is at energy superpower. But again, like Hawaii, it's basically cost prohibitive. So they have to turn to foreign sources. And I have to stop and just remark about the fact that it would be easier and cheaper for Puerto Rico to get energy from the US mainland if it wasn't part of the United States. Being part of the United States actually makes it more difficult and more expensive to get energy despite being part of the same country. It's just a very absurd situation that, of course, Hawaii also finds itself in. Well, when you think about the Jones Act, it often is like looking at economics upside down. Some things don't seem to make sense. What has been the reaction of pro-Jones Act groups to the waiver requests? And what are they saying? And how would you respond? So last week, a group called the American Maritime Partnership, which is essentially a group that represents companies like Matson and Pasha, which transport operate ships going to Hawaii, they lobby for the Jones Act. That's what the AMP does. That's literally all they do. They just exist to try to keep the Jones Act in place. They sent a letter, unsurprisingly, to the Biden administration opposing any waiver of the Jones Act stating that such waivers are unnecessary because currently there are Jones Act compliant tankers available to transport oil and fuel and waivers who are just outsourced jobs and undermine national security. But to me, this argument kind of misses the point. The issue isn't so much that there aren't any tankers to be had. It's just that they're so expensive that they make the purchase of U.S. oil and fuel cost prohibitive. I'll point out, by the way, that former Coast Guard admiral Paul Zuckumt, who wrote an op-ed in the Star Advertiser last week praising the Jones Act, well, just a couple of days after publishing that op-ed, he was also quoted also in the Star Advertiser saying that a Jones Act exemption for Hawaii so they could buy U.S. fuel. Well, that might be sensible. So it seems that not even some pro-Jones Act folks are completely buying the argument that the American maritime partnership is disoffering. That's interesting. And the Jones Act has been waived in the past for national defense or emergencies or shortages. Is that correct? It has. We do have past examples. So most recently was last year when the colonial pipe during the colonial pipeline outage and that pipeline was shut down the lungs along the East Coast. So there was a need to find alternative methods of moving fuel to where it's needed. There were two waivers issued. Now, these were not broad waivers. These were for specific ships. Basically companies applied for permission. They said, please can we use a foreign ship to move this fuel from the Gulf Coast up to different points along the East Coast to where it's needed. And for two ships, there were waivers granted. Before that, back in 2017, there was a 10-day waiver of the Jones Act issued for anyone transporting goods to Puerto Rico. This is in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the hit in September of 2017. And before that, you find other examples of natural disasters. There's some hurricanes that hit Texas that same year. Hurricane Sandy that hit the New York, New Jersey area about a decade ago. It's often waived. And so chances may be positive for a waiver now. But we have a fewer question that came in. He asks that the process to request a Jones Act waiver supposedly takes a long time. Did either the Grassroot Institute or Representative Case invoke this process? Or is there some procedure available to bypass all of this? So what's the best way to get a waiver request through? So there are two ways of getting a waiver. One way is if the Secretary of Defense requests a waiver for the Jones Act, it's automatically granted. The issue with that path is that it has to be, according to the law, in direct support of military operations. So that's a pretty high bar to clear. The other path to getting a waiver is someone such as the Grassroot Institute or anybody can request a waiver and say, I want to move this from point A to point B. I need a foreign ship to do it. Well, two things. It has to be on national security grounds. You have to approve that this supports national security. And also the U.S. Maritime Administration does a survey of all the ships out there, and they have to conclude that you're right. There are no American ships capable of doing this. So you have to meet kind of those two criteria in order to secure a waiver through that route. I see. Well, but there's also the option of Congress doing something or the President doing something. Is that right? Well, Congress can, yes. Congress, if they pass a waiver, yes, there is no national security standard that has to be met. Congress can do whatever it wants and can have the waiver as broad as it wants. Unfortunately, the President can't issue a waiver. The President can request to kindly ask the Secretary of Defense to ask for a waiver, but the President himself does not have that authority. So again, the two methods are Secretary of Defense, which is part of the executive branch, and then also other people can request a waiver, provide that there are no ships available, and it's in the interest of national security. I see. Well, I want to also ask about some of the, some more objections that we've heard to waivers and this whole process. I mean, one objection is wouldn't waivers only benefit the oil companies? Okay, you get a Jones Act waiver. It's easier to ship oil around, but are we really going to see that at the pump? Well, I think that there are many factors that affect the cost of gas and what you pay at the pump. Transportation is one of them. In a competitive market, I have to think that lower costs translate down to the consumer, because if you just tried to keep those profits for yourself, someone else would come in and undercut you. So I don't think that maybe you can find short-term examples of that, but in the longer term, I think that, you know, in a competitive marketplace that the lower costs ultimately translate into lower prices that benefit consumers. Right. The market has a way of getting profits actually to the consumer in a way, as long as there's enough competition. What about the strategic petroleum reserve? We've heard a lot about Biden releasing the strategic, so 30 million barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve. Would we get a Jones Act waiver for that? There have been waivers in the past for the strategic petroleum reserve and for the transportation of that petroleum to where it's needed. I think it's unlikely we'll get one this time, because again, last I checked, there were a few Jones Act tankers available, and I think that the Biden administration, which is strongly supportive of the Jones Act, the last thing they're going to do is waive it unless they absolutely have to, unless there's no alternative, and I don't think we've reached that point yet. And I just haven't seen any indication from the administration indicating an interest in waiving the Jones Act for that purpose. Another question from a viewer. What about the president granting a waiver through executive order? I am not familiar with that, any waiver being granted by executive order. As far as I know, the only two waivers you could obtain are through the two methods that ask that I mentioned earlier, so I'm certainly not aware of that ever occurring. I see. I did some research into whether the president has ever done an executive order to waive the Jones Act, and it seems like something may have been done during Pearl Harbor, but I'll have to look at that more. In any case, what would you say about the measure? Go ahead. I was just going to say, of course, we ended up suspending the Jones Act during World War II. I see, yes. And what about the national defense argument now that we're on this topic? What about those that say, but we need the Jones Act for national defense? I mean, we've got a conflict in Russia and Ukraine. Some say that we need the Jones Act more than ever now. Yes, we do hear those kinds of arguments. I think if we look at the issue just strictly in the context of energy, because that's what we're talking about right now with the Jones Act, the national security argument plainly doesn't make sense as the Jones Act is literally a big reason why Hawaii has found itself dependent on Russian oil and sourcing it from there instead of the US mainland. Let's remember, the Jones Act is basically a tax on domestic commerce. If you import something from abroad, it's not subject to the Jones Act. It just makes it more expensive for Americans to do business with each other and trade with each other. So it's a distant center to domestic supply chains. How is that good for national security? But in fairness to Jones Act supporters, we should look at the argument more broadly. Supporters typically argue that the Jones Act means the United States has robust shipping because you can only use American ships. And it means we have lots of ship building because those ships have to be built in the United States. And it means that we have mariners in time of war that can crew ships for sea lift purposes. Well, that's the theory, but I don't think it holds up to scrutiny. US shipbuilding is so expensive and uncompetitive. I mentioned earlier, $40 million for a tanker versus $150 million for a tanker. There isn't much demand for it. Last year, there were literally zero Jones Act ocean-going ships delivered. In the entire country, there are only two ships under construction. These are two ships for Pasha that were supposed to be delivered in 2020, but still haven't been delivered yet. And then there also aren't very many Jones Act ships out there, just 94 as I mentioned earlier. And in wartime, it would be difficult to use those ships because if you take those ships and the military uses them, well, who's going to transfer goods to Hawaii or Puerto Rico or other parts of the United States? And then as far as mariners, there was a 2017 government study that concluded we're about 1800 mariners short in a best case scenario to crew our ships in time of war. And it turns out that forcing US ship operators to pay four or five times more for new ships is a pretty poor way of trying to promote the domestic maritime industry. But let's settle that aside for a minute. If you're not working, the Jones Act just isn't fair in a national security context. If the idea is to provide national security for all Americans, they should be paid for by all Americans. Right now, we have a very small percentage of Americans, those live in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam. They're paying a wildly disproportionate part of the bill to keep these US ships, mariners and shipyards in operation. That's not right. If we need ships and mariners for national security to be paid for by direct subsidies funded by all Americans from our taxes, we shouldn't just have a very small percentage of Americans foot the bill if this is really all about national security. We had another comment come in. The American maritime partnership in its statement to the president also said a waiver would benefit only oil traders, not the American consumer. We might have covered that, but what do you think about that statement? Again, I think that I think in a very, very short term, that might be true. You can think of scenarios where you have a high price of oil and someone can get a foreign ship and then take advantage of the lower cost and pocket that difference. Because as more and more people enter that market and try to take advantage of it, you're going to see that premium decrease. And again, a competitive marketplace ultimately is going to drive down prices and consumers will benefit. US representative Ed Case of Hawaii has asked the president for a waiver as well as the Grass Street Institute. Now, what are the chances do you think that the Jones Act would actually be waived for fuel imports? Right now, I'll be surprised if it happens. The Biden administration, as I mentioned previously, they strongly support Congress, including from the other three members of Hawaii's congressional delegation. I think it would be a more powerful signal if Hawaii's congressional delegation in unison made this request. But unfortunately, Ed Case is kind of the lone wolf on this issue, the lone ranger, I should say. So unfortunately, I think the power of a special interest will triumph over what's best for Americans and the residents of Hawaii in particular. Well, that was quite a whirlwind romp through the Jones Act landscape right now. But I wanted to make sure our viewers knew who you were. So now at the end of the program, I want to just talk a little bit about your background. Again, Colin is a Grassroots Scholar and Kato Institute Policy Analyst. But what's your background and interest in the Jones Act too? Well, I started at Kato in September of 2017. And that is when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. In fact, I believe the first op-ed I ever wrote for Kato was about the Jones Act in the wake of Hurricane Maria and the need to lift it so we could get relief to Puerto Rico as quickly as possible. And when you first read about the Jones Act, it seems like a pretty straightforward law. Ships have to meet those four conditions. And that's it. But when you really start to dig deeper into the law and really try to make sense of it and assess does this law make sense? Is this a good law? It just takes you down this rabbit hole that it's fascinating. It's disturbing just how badly Americans have been led astray and some of the poor arguments behind it. So here I am years later and I'm still looking at the Jones Act and looking all the different ways that it hurts this country. It's definitely a rabbit hole type of policy issue. But what would you want our viewers to walk away with from this discussion? Well, I just want them to walk away with perhaps a few lessons. One here is we're talking about the Jones Act because Hawaii is importing or has been importing so much Russian oil. But if this crisis didn't come up, I think most people in Hawaii, certainly most Americans, and I assume not even most people in Hawaii would be aware of that fact. So we're aware of that fact because it's in the spotlight. But I think it's good to step back for a minute and think about all the other ways that the Jones Act impact life in Hawaii and hurts the residents of Hawaii. Again, it's the things you buy in the store. It's the energy that powers your home, powers your car. It's the price of jet fuel at the airport. All these things come together. The businesses in Hawaii are less competitive. I know the Grassroots Institute of Hawaii has given the example before of Kaloa Rum. They get hurt by the Jones Act because they have to import bottles and labels and things like that from the mainland. They have to pay more. If they want to ship it back to the mainland, they have to pay more too. That means they're less competitive. That means fewer jobs. So it hurts Americans in a myriad of ways. Well, in the bottom line, it makes Hawaii's cost of living more expensive. Thanks so much to Colin Grabo, a Grassroots Institute scholar and Kato Institute policy analyst. And thank you for watching Hawaii Together.


How do we know when is the right time to make a decision? Move too quickly and the decision may be ill-informed and appear hasty. Wait too long and time has cast its vote and the decision is removed from your control. As results-driven leaders, we are biased toward action and problem-solving. When our people present us with an issue, our first instinct is to craft an immediate solution, usually informed by incomplete data and biased by past experience. We frequently overvalue decisiveness and equate our ability to decide with strength and effective leadership. But what if the best decision is no decision at all? At least not yet. A question I've often heard good leaders ask is, do I need to make this decision now and if so, why? Being deliberate about the timing of our decision-making is the sign of a thoughtful leader who is more concerned about consequential outcomes than checking the box. Lead well this week.


My name's Regan. I get ten a day on expenses from a detective bureau run by a guy named Anthony J. Lyon. They call me the lion's eye. With Jack Webb as Jeff Regan investigators stand by for hard-boiled action and mystery and thrilling adventure in tonight's story of The Lost Lady. You'll find it in Hollywood, jammed in between Van S. and Wilhelm right off the boulevard, Taft Avenue. Starts at a furniture store, runs for about a block and then crosses Franklin. What happens to it after that? I don't know. I only go as far as the gray apartment building on the even number side, about the first thing you see. Figures that the guy who built my place never read the earthquake laws.  Well, that's where I live. Apartment 308 in the back where I can keep an eye on a brass drain pipe and a tired-out palm tree. I got a coffee pot in the bed that comes out of the wall. It isn't much, but the phone company had to have an address. That's where I was last Monday night, about eight o'clock, when Cleveland fans were running up a house tab in an apartment above me when the phone rang. I thought it might be somebody from Boston who was the lion. Regan, I'm calling you from the office. I stayed late tonight. You should have joined the union. We got a new client. Yeah. Her name's Isabel Sanchez. I just talked to her. You make a date? She flew in from Mexico City tonight on American Airlines. She needs help. They're saying that about the Democrat. Comes from a fine family, lots of influence in Mexico. Try the State Department. She came all the way to Los Angeles to see her sister, but she's disappeared. Did you tell her about the missing person's bureau? I told her about you. What do you mean? You're going to find her, sister. I'm no St. Bernard. You'll do till I can feed one. Besides, she could... What's that got to do with it? Remember the Pan American. Yeah, well, don't make up a contract. I already... What else did you get? She'll tell you the rest. Don't you ever ask questions? That's yours. Is that all? That's it. I hope her check bounces. Don't... You can tell that the lion only stayed in the school long enough to learn how to spell dollar. It took me about 20 minutes to get over to her hotel. Isabelle Sanchez had a room on the sixth floor. I found it on the Wilshire side. 610 at once. She was a tall blonde girl, not the least bit pretty. She had a mouthful of good-looking teeth, but she never learned how to use them in a smile. No, Mr. Reagan. That's right. Come in. Please, excuse me. I'm still unpacked. Come in. All right. I'm so glad you're here. I suppose Mr. Lion told you everything. Your sister's missing. You want to talk to me? Yes. Oh, it's terrible. An awful vacant feeling. I was so looking forward to seeing Carmen again. We were very close. You talk like you don't expect to see her. Something might have happened to her. Like what? I don't know. She's always been so independent and... well... strange. Well, a lot of people have their own ideas. I'm embarrassed telling you this. You've got to tell somebody. Well, Carmen left home against my father's wishes. How old is Carmen? 22. What was the guy's name? What do you mean? Come on. I got to have it all, lady. There was a man in it. Yes. Martin Chambers. From here in LA? Carmen met him once in Mexico City. He thought she was in love with him. When was this? A year ago. She followed him back. Yes. He took a long time to catch up. I've been very concerned about Carmen. I received this letter from her a few days ago. It's the first word since she left home. Here. You can see it's not much. He asked me to come here. I took the first thing. What about this address? There's no such place. I want their rights on the airport. Who sent you to us? You're in the phone book. Is that all you got? Well, I have a picture. It isn't very good. There's a snapshot here. Blonde, huh? A little darker than mine. At the same height, we wore each other's clothes. Who else did she know? Just Martin Chambers. Oh, no. Now, wait a minute. She mentioned a doctor Menlo in her letter. Did she need a doctor? She just said he'd been very kind to her. That isn't very much to go on. I know, but you will follow every lead. Yeah, sure. What are you scared of? Why do you ask that? It's a warm night. You got the shakes. I had a long trip. Oh, yeah. I forgot. You know this Chambers? Yes. You like him? No. What's that you got there in your hand? An evening gown. Why? All our story was smooth, but the clothes didn't fit. All the labels that showed said New York City. I went downstairs to a phone booth and I got ahold of a friend of mine in the CAA. He checked into it and he told me that nobody named Isabelle Sanchez came in on that Mexico City flight. The whole thing looked phony like a fan dancer in long underwear. Well, it was about eleven o'clock when I got over to the lion's place. It was a cold night, but the lion looked warm. What do you want, Lincoln? I'm busy. You know, I've been looking at that Sanchez, Dean. Tell me about Lamont. No, I'm going to tell you about it right now. It's no good. What do you mean? It's another bum client. She gave me 200 bucks. Her clothes are out of New York. Maybe she came the long way. She didn't come in on American. So she's got a donkey. All you got to do is find her sister.  Let me worry about that. Well, you can start now. Here. What's this? It's a letter and a picture. That's all the lead I got. Now, wait a minute, Lincoln. What about our contract? New Year's is coming up. You'll need confetti. Do a thing like that. We got a moral application. And 200 bucks. I'm thinking of our reputation. I've given our word. Take it back. That girl's a stranger in a foreign land. She came to us for help. Oh, stop it, will you? There was a quarter in the bay.  You'll get not a line. We can... If she came up with Kelp, you'd ring her out for iodine. That's enough. We got a case and you're going to handle it. You're going to handle it. I quit. I know this girl looks suspicious, but we have to give our clients the benefit of the doubt. Why didn't you send her to missing persons? I'll keep this picture and check with her first thing in the morning. You follow up that memo in the letter. Well, a guy named Chambers has got priority. Who's that? The girl's got a love story. It's getting cold out here. Check me in the morning. I'll do that. Remember, Regan? We always work hand in hand. Yeah. That's why I never wear a ring. Well, it was too late to do anything else, so I went home and pulled that bed out of the wall. The next morning, I found a Martin Chambers listed in the city directory with an address on Laurel. It turned out to be a two-story apartment building about the color of a bride's blush. And it was wrapped around a swimming pool the size of a bird bath. Chambers' name wasn't on the mailbox, but a skinny guy with a load of bed sheets told me I could find a manager in apartment 15. When she answered the door, her voice sounded like a beer truck in low gear. Hello, Sonny, looking for an apartment? You got one? No. Come on in. We're having some coffee. You want some? No, I'll pass. You don't know me, do you? I just got here. I played the phallus in 26. Ah, them was the days. Write it up and sell it to the movies. Damn, slobs. Central casting had called me in four years. You got a card? Afra, SAG, and the Musician's Union. I played French horn. None of them call me. I figure it's a record band. I'll talk to Petrello.  A third husband gave it to me. By the way, what are you doing here, Sonny? I'm looking for a man named Martin Chambers. What do you want him for? Talk to him? Cops. No. The day that guy moved in, I had him picked for a jiggaloo. His hair was too curly. Some women like that. Not me. I used to have to chase him around the swimming pool to get his rent. You're using the past tense. Where is he now? Forest lawns. That's one way to break a lease. He got boozed up about six months ago and drove off Malibu pier. Took him three days to fish him out. Straighten his hair? Yeah, sure did. Oh, wait a minute here. I kind of like you, Sonny. You get around, don't you? Yeah, when the weather's good. Ever run into Louis B? No, not yet. If you do mention my name, will ya? What is it? Just say that goalie McMaster's was asking for him. He'll remember old goalie. How could he forget? Callison 26. When I left, she was thumbing through an old variety. She looked unhappy like a banjo player with a paper pick. Well, what she told me about Chambers took the leading man out of the picture, but there was a bit player named Menlo. Well, I called the office of the Paul Menlo, but they said he wasn't in that day, so I drove out to his address in Encino. It was a ranch house poured all over the top of a hill. From the looks of the place, Dr. Menlo must have been getting overseeling for his cough drops. I parked my car by the gate and followed the flagstones up to the front door. When I pressed a button, I heard something that sounded like chamber music. The door opened in the middle of the second course. Good morning. I want to see Dr. Menlo. Your name, please. Regan. You'll have to call the doctor's office, Mr. Regan. I already did. And they must have told you that the doctor doesn't see any patients at his home. Yeah, well, I'm not sick. Keep it up, and you will be. Beat it, pilgrim. No, I came here to see the doctor. You don't want to see you.  Once I hit a guy in the ear, it busted his leg. Doc! I can handle this guy, Vicki. Stop that. Get out, Pat. Be in the back if you want. You ever been a referee? I've been a lot of things. Come in, Mr. Regan. I apologize for him. He's so eager. Isn't this better? No, everybody's eager now. Anxious is a better word. Hmm. I like blue surge. It's an effect on me. You the doctor's helper? I hold his stethoscope. My name is Vicki Starr. I'd like to see him. He's busy. Where do I wait? It might be quite a while. Vicki, just open the bottle. Well, and I'm right on time. Paul's not sociable like me. He drinks alone. He gets more that way. Let me entertain you. What can you do? Watch. Oh, no, no. Easy, baby. I don't know how to fix a fracture. I've already got a man that can do that. I want one with brains. What's the matter with the doctor? He keeps his and Cole's storage. Hasn't used him for a long time now. Oh, I don't know. He's done all right. Good place. He'd be selling papers if his wife hadn't left him a good insurance policy. What, you like his money? Don't get me wrong. I like being secure, but the girl has feelings, too. Mm-hmm. In the beginning of the show. I'm glad I met you. Why? We're going to have some nice afternoon. It's football season. I have some free time. Why don't you hear me on the piano, for instance? Now, I don't sing. I'll teach you. Paul says I should have an outside interest. Oh, keep looking. He'll find one. You smile, garbage. You talk nasty. You started this conversation, sis. Max is still in the kitchen. I came here to see Menlo. You didn't say what about? I'll tell him. There's the phone. Call and make an appointment. Yeah. Oh, Vicky, who is it this time? His name's Regan. He hasn't got a business card. Have Max Romard. You, Dr. Menlo? Yeah. Should I turn all my patients over to another doctor? Yeah, well, I know one you forgot. Tell me who? Carmen Sanchez. Go ahead, Vicky. I'll talk to him. Watch yourself. Paul, he doesn't know how to be nice. It'll only take a minute. I'll crack the mic. The nurse. She's out of uniform. We're casual. You said I had a patient named Carmen Sanchez. Who told you that? Somebody she knew.  Friend. You heard some wrong information, mister. I never heard of Carmen Sanchez. I read about you in a letter. There's still been another Menlo. No, there's only one with a license. You're big, too. 25 a day? 10. I work for another guy. Who? Lion. Lion's eye. Okay. You're still at the wrong house. You want to show me your files? Why not? Learn. Okay. Now, keep it duplicated at home. Help yourself. Want a drink? Too early. You don't mind if I have one? No. Anything? Not under Sanchez. No. Now, do you believe me? She could have used another name. Got any ideas? Lion girl, 5'4", brown eyes. He's not. Do you ever know a man named Chambers? Yeah. He's in high school. Back in Denver. Grover Trot. That doesn't help. I'm sort of retired now. That's what Vicki said. Nice girl. Talks to everybody. You satisfied? Not yet. Don't munch it. Always glad to help out. There's easier ways to make a living. Yeah, I haven't got a wife with an insurance policy. A year ago, I'd have broke you in half for that. Now, it doesn't matter. You can find the door. I'll be back. Don't bother, Regan. Doctor will be out. I left him sitting there with a glass of rye in his hand. It wasn't much of an interview, but there was a story somewhere. What Menlo didn't have in his files, he was keeping in his head. I figured he might open up if I showed him that snapshot in the letter. Well, I drove back to town. I put in a call to the lion. Nobody answered at the office, so I went home. When I opened my door, I caught a loaded taboo. Isabelle Sanchez was wearing a dress she must have put on with a shoehorn. He's got the nicest janitor. He thinks I'm your sister. Where'd you meet him? He was in the lobby when I came in. I've been waiting for you. Yeah, well, we got an office, you know. No one answered when I rang. I wanted to be sure and see you before I left. Taking a trip? I leave for Mexico City first thing in the morning. Well, it was a short visit. It was long enough. What about your sister? That's what I came here to tell you. I found Carmen. Oh, you did? Oh, rather, Carmen found me. I feel foolish now, calling in a detective service and all that. Why? Well, Carmen came to my hotel about noon today. And you imagine she's been looking for me. Last night, you said she didn't have an address. Well, that was another silly thing. Only a firm estate. He's not very good at details. Where is she now? Well, she's out buying a few things and packing. I've convinced her to come home with me. All right. Now you want to know what I found? Well, I know. Should I? I have my sister. You were worried about a man named Chambers last night? Carmen told me she hasn't seen him for months. Did she tell you about her doctor? No. I met him. Only you said he never saw her. Oh, is that so? Well, Mr. Regan, I do appreciate your services. Please thank Mr. Lyons for his kindness. I'm sorry. I won't be able to see him. He's going to be sorry, too. You're giving this envelope for the $100 in it.  It's for all the unnecessary trouble I've caused. And, Mr. Regan, it's all confidential. You read the contract. I wouldn't want any of this. You're wrong. You know some of the wrong kind, do you? Doesn't everyone? Right here, there. This is a mistake today. No, I didn't. Good. It's all over. I didn't see you. What kind of file? Dead, not claimed. What do you mean? Comments. You were listening to the story of the lost lady tonight's adventure with Jeff Regan, the investigator. Before we continue with tonight's story, here's an important message from the Adjutant General's office. The Army Nurse Corps Reserve still has commissions available for graduate registered nurses between the ages of 21 and 45. If you believe you qualify for a commission in the Army Nurse Corps Reserve, apply to the Adjutant General, Washington, D.C. And now, back to the story of the lost lady and Jeff Regan, the investigator. Well, there are enough angles in this thing to write a new geometry book. Isabelle Sanchez came to Los Angeles to find her sister, Carmen. She called in the lion who started me digging. A doctor named Menlo out in Encino used a milk bottle for a jigger. He was heavy on green stuff but light on memory and gave me nothing but an ice cube. His girlfriend, Vicki, was a little different. She gave me a warm glow, but I still drew a blank on the missing sister. Then Isabelle walked into my place and said she found Carmen and called off the chase. That's about when the lion rang and said that he found her too, only his version was a little different. She was holding down a plot in the county cemetery, even dead a year. I caught a cab and I went over to her hotel.  Yes? I'm looking for Isabelle Sanchez. Are you a friend? She won't think so. She's not available. All right, I'll wait. What I mean is, could you come back later? What's wrong with her now? Well, you see... All right, come on, Buster, let's throw it in gear. Are you a guest of the hotel? No. Could you please tell me the nature of your business? I want to see Isabelle.  Regan, international detective viewer. She's a client. Oh, come in. I'm Dr. Stanwick, the house physician. She need one? Not anymore. Look for yourself. How long has she been this way? Two hours, I'd say. The fellow boy found her a few minutes ago. She drank a lot. Alcoholic poisoning. Yeah. Oh, Mr. Regan, on the thing like this, occurs naturally we don't like it to get around to the other guests. You'll use discretion, I presume. I'll be as quiet as she is. Thank you, Mr. Regan. We appreciate it. The elevator's to your right. I got a good memory. How are you doing? What are you doing here? I've come to talk to our client. You don't need a Ouija board. Whatcha mean? She's dead. Why'd you let that happen? She wouldn't have done you any good. Whatcha talking about? Yeah, all right. You go to Isabelle. You say her sister's buried on the county, but it'll take a little cash to keep it out of the newspapers. Not so now. Go back to your contest blanks. Big shot. That Sanchez team didn't come from Mexico, and she wasn't rich. I told you that yesterday. All right, we'll close the Sanchez case. Oh, no, we won't. It's still wide open. Where are you going? To buy an air wing. Well, I went down to the Hall of Records. It's a frown building off-temple. It leans over like an old lady with a short cane. I took the elevator upstairs, and I walked down to vital statistics. The place was empty except for a guy sitting behind the desk. He had on a black suit with dust on his shoulders. His fingernails were dirty, and he was reading a dictionary. He must have been at a good part because he looked mad when I nudged him. We're not out of thoughts. Quick shove it. I want some information. That's what I'm here for. I'm a public servant. Now, let's get to the death files, will you?  You got a lot of stuff from births and marriages. Ask me something about that. Carmen Sanchez died a year ago in August. Tell me what's wrong. Okay. I'll just spell it. Just like it sounds. Sanchez. Cetatine. Salas. Tanaki. Sanchez. That's what happened to old Sanchez.  Get the Sanchez. All right. I got the Sanchez. Carmen. 22. Data death. 837. Alcoholic poisoning. She drank a lot. Who signed the certificate? P. Menlow. Empty. Thanks. Next time, make it something hard. All right. Try this. Menlow's wife died about the same time. Masters. Marie. Melbourne. Babbitt. Babbitt. Menlow. Sylvia. 349. 247. Alcoholic poisoning. Certification. P. Menlow. That guy can't keep a patient. Well, I left when I went back out into the street. It was almost five and the traffic was heavy. I started to cross the street to a sandwich shop on the corner. A yellow cab raced me to the sidewalk, but I won. I went inside and a skinny waitress with peanut-colored hair brought me a cup of stale coffee and a burnt hamburger. I sat there and I tried to figure it. It was like swimming through a tidal wave and hip boots. Three deaths from the same thing in Menlow's name on every one of them. Well, the answers weren't in the coffee cup, so I went home, picked up my car and drove out to Menlow's place in Encino. The drive was nice and so was the reception. I built a fire. I forgot the marshmallows. And we'll think of something else.  I'm still looking for your doctor. Let me take care of it. No, I want to see him. And you'll have to wait again. When's he going to climb out of that bottle? We had dinner at a place on Ventura. Paul found the bar. He'll stay till it closes. I better go there. Questions again? Maybe. I know some swell answers. How about you two? I've worked for him a long time. One year. How did you know? This is my night off.  Isn't it terrible? Anything can happen. How do you like it? You're away? That's better. Now, let's have a nice quiet evening. Just you and me. I had a feeling you'd be back. Is that why you wore that? Like it? Well, you've got talent, lady. Just go with me.  You don't look underfed. Why didn't I meet you sooner? We didn't travel in the same crowd. Let's start over. Do you keep his files? What's that got to do with us? They'd never pass inspection. Are you talking about something I should know? Carmen Sanchez. What about her? She died. Menlo signed her death certificate. Paul's lost love, patient. He's not very good. Did I tell you I played the piano? He told me some other things. Did I? They make a good story. I don't like stories. Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. I thought we were going to have a nice quiet evening. The girl walked in his office one day and dropped dead. Good opening. Why'd she do that? Alcoholic poisoning. She was a nobody named Carmen Sanchez. The story's getting dull. There was a snapshot in her pocketbook. When did the action begin? Right now, lady. The doctor's wife had an insurance policy. He convinced her to take a trip. Why do you want to do a thing like that? So he could pull a name fix and collect his wife's insurance. He had a body. No one will ever believe this, Sloth. He buried an empty box. How do you know? I'm going to have somebody dig it up. What about the body? He turned that over to the county. Everybody lives happy ever after. Don't you like him, Angie? You're going to have to take up a harmonica, lady. Why? The gas chamber isn't big enough for a piano. Who's going to the gas chamber? You, maybe. An insurance fraud's one thing. Murder's a longer rap. You haven't touched your drink. I don't like mine that strong. Now come on, lady, get your coat. Max! I thought you were alone. I lied. Hello, Reagan. You look excited. It's tough, Max. Yeah, it's easy. Sloth and he must. He's in a white room on the trip, Andy. I tried to move my hand, but it felt like a grand piano. So I just lay there.  Vicki was there. Max. So was Menlo. If I'd have had a deck of cards, you could have played a Pinappa game. Menlo looked kind of upset. Like an ostrich with a sore throat. He had a needle in his hand. I get the shakes. You're all right, Paul. Now go ahead. Just like Isabella. You should have stayed out, Reagan. I wanted one more.  I hate to see the nice ones go, but it'll all be over in a minute. All right, Paul. Give me a drink, Pinky. Never mind. Hurry up. Gonna have a drink. You're too slow, Max. Yeah. Keep away from me, Max.  Put down that gun. I told you to keep away. Menlo slugs with Kara Max, but Vicki shot Menlo twice. And his knees knocked together. He began to pitch around like a toy balloon in a hurricane. He dropped his gun, but he held onto the needle. Then he slumped forward and made a grab for Vicki, and they both went down. He jammed the needle into her arm. The same stuff you used on Isabelle? Yeah. I'll straighten them out. Reagan. He'd never make it. Please, Reagan. Give me five good reasons. I got Vicki. I'll never use a needle again. And you only gave me two. Well, we didn't hear from the suburbs, but there were enough ballots to make it an election. How much I'd got the insurance commissioner down there, and he threw in a vote. Seems that Isabelle Sanchez was Menlo's wife only. Her name was Sylvia. When a dame named Carmen Sanchez dropped dead in his office, Menlo got kind of ambitious. He talked his wife into the switch, and, well, everything might have worked out. Except one night when he was seeing elephants, he told Vicki the whole thing. He set the squeeze play with Max and the dugout. When Sylvia got back and saw how things were, she called herself Isabelle Sanchez and went to the lion with a story about a lost sister. I was hired for scare work, and when she figured they had enough, she called me off, but it didn't take. And you know the rest. Well, the insurance company issued a fee for exposing it to fraud, and the lion got his picture on page one. It was right next to Vicki's. He was wearing one of those French swimming suits. The lion said, that'd do us a lot of good. It did. We each had a free bathing suit. Jack Webb is featured as Jeff Regan with Herb Butterfield as Anthony J. Lyon. It's CBS at the same time next week for more hardball news. Next week for more hardball action and mystery with Jeff Regan, the investigator. Written by E. Jack Newman and Larry Roman. Produced by Sterling Tracy. The role of Vicki Starr was played by Yvonne Patey. Lorraine Tuttle was Isabelle Sanchez. Ken Christie played Dr. Paul Menloff. And Larry Dobkin was Max Brenner. Original music for this program is by Milton Charles, Bob Stephenson speaking. This is CBS The Columbia Broadcasting System.


I'm Ron Smith, extension entomologist at Auburn University. I'm here today with Dr. Scott Graham, and we want to talk a little bit about stink bugs in cotton. And let me just say a few things up front. Stink bugs really became a pest in cotton. Once the weevils were eradicated, and we went to the genetically altered cotton, the BT cotton, so we really eliminated a lot of the need for hard chemistry. And the stink bugs have come in and filled that window. Now, stink bugs, as far as scouting for them, we don't do it quite like we do some of the other insect. But if anybody remembers the old days of the bull weevil, we didn't look and count bull weevils. We looked and see the damage on the squares. Well, stink bugs are similar to that. We don't necessarily look for stink bugs because they're very hard to find in the field. They'll get away from it. But what we do is, since we know they feed primarily on bulls or almost solely on bulls, then we examine bulls. And beginning about the third week of bloom, we are in a critical window for stink bugs in the season. And that lasts really through about the sixth week of bloom. We have a really, really good threshold there. We won't, after the third week of bloom, we don't want to see any more than 10% damage to the internal damage to the bulls for the next four or five weeks. So that's our sensitive window. And that's when most of our bulls are being set on the cotton plant. So that's when we get our greatest return from stink bug injury. Now, as far as scouting, we want to select bulls from the plant and examine bulls about 10 days old. That'd be about a quarter in diameter. And we want to burst those bulls. If when you're picking them and selecting them, you want to get a bull that's a little spongy to the touch. And that way you can press it between your thumb and fingers and burst it open. Look internally for warts or any sign that the stink bug pierced the bull wall or maybe even a little bit of stained lint, which is going to result in either an entire bull being damaged or damaged lops that will never go through the picker at harvest time. So that's it. With stink bugs, we have to use a very hard chemical. And that normally at that time of the year, that's either a pyrethroid at a high-label rate or a bydron. It's basically our two choices, I think, in Alabama on stink bugs. OK, here we are, prep for Alabama about the middle of July. And we're beginning to change our focus now to some stink bugs. And just want to talk about a little bit about how we're going to scout them. We pull some quarter-diameter bulls that are still kind of soft and mushy to the touch. Those can be easily crushed between the finger and the thumb. And what we're going to do, we're going to look for internal injury. That's a real important thing. It's OK to look for the external dark circle incisions that the stink bug has made. But the real important thing is what's happening inside the bull when the stink bug is feeding. And some examples here in my hand is we'll see the lint will begin to stain. And show an off color or a brown color if it has internal feeding damage. And I think that's just bull rod organisms that's been introduced into the bull. You see what the stink bug's trying to do is get in there to feed on the seed and get some protein out of it. So we're looking internally in quarter-diameter bulls that could crush by the hand. We're looking for internal discoloration on the lint. And the other thing that we want to look for is Dr. Graham here is going to hand me some that we found. We'll have warts on the inside of the bull wall. I don't know if you can see them here, but all of these have the bull trying to try to seep to try to heal itself. And there'll be warts on the inside of the bull. And sometimes you won't see a wart, but you'll actually see where the mouth part of the stink bug went through the bull wall. Any of those may cause one or more lobs to deteriorate, maybe a whole bull to be deformed or hard locked in harvest time. And that's just something we don't pitch. That's the reason we like to keep our threshold during the peak of the fruiting season, the bullset season from weeks three through about six. We want to keep our damage from stink bugs to 10% or less.