Welcome to another edition of Celebrate Life. Actually, this is a special edition of Celebrate Life. We're, again, blessed to have with us Roseanne Greco, and this is part two of Roseanne's life. So as if you have watched our first show, we ended with Roseanne's undergraduate school landlord suggesting when Roseanne mentioned that she would like to go to graduate school that one way to have it paid for would be to enlist in the service. And so we ran out of time after that first interview. So today we're gonna pick up her life from that point forward and great to have you here again, Roseanne, and thank you for being on the show. Well, thank you. This is episode two. Episode two. So take us from there. Yeah, so wow, God. You think I was in my hundreds by this life experience. So at this point in the story, friends, I did join the Air Force. I did, and I can't remember if we chatted last time, but when Mrs. Sussman mentioned the military pays for your advanced degrees, I wasn't aware that there were four branches of the military. So that's how unconnected I was with the military. And in those days, I opened up the yellow pages to find the recruiting office and I went down and I actually spoke with all four branches, Army, the Air Force and Marines. This was back in the early 70s. So things were quite different as far as how the services wanted or didn't want women in their ranks. So the Air Force was the one that offered more opportunities for women than the other services. I mean, the Marines were looking for a few good men, Navy, only if you were a nurse. And so it was between the Army and the Air Force and I picked the Air Force, which would be in a long-winded story, which I'm not gonna go into. But so I went down to officer training school. I think I may have mentioned this in the past. I didn't know that there was a difference between officer and enlisted. I was oblivious as to how the military operated because I had gotten my bachelor's, my recruiter. I think he must have had his quota of enlisted people because he said to him, well, you have a college degree. You know, you could go in as an officer. Didn't know what an officer was, but anyway. So I said, well, fine. And then I got into my specialty. There's a name for it. I won't go into the acronyms, which was intelligence. The late folks think of that as spy work, which it is. Because there were only three options I was given at the time. One was in the personnel field which I thought was more administrative, which it was. And the other was in education where we were teaching, which I was gonna be as a nun. I said, nah, I don't wanna do that. So I thought being a spy would be pretty cool. So that's how I went into intelligence. And so I was in San Antonio, Texas. That was where officer training school was. I don't remember. Did I tell you about the Playgirl episode? I don't think so. Okay, so as you recall in my earlier story, I ran a foul in the convent. All right, well, I also initially right in officer training school, which is 12 weeks. Sort of ran into a troubled area with the military for the opposite, well, not the opposite reason, but my flight commander and I only knew this because some of the guys came, there are very, very few women, by the way. Very few women. I think there were 20 of us in the class of hundreds, 20 women, but a friend came and said, the captain doesn't think that you will be suited for the military because he believes you're too holy. And the reason he thought that is that one of the first things we had to do was write a paper on our experiences with the first week or first few weeks of officer training school. And they had us do all kinds of stuff. I mean, cleaning and stuff like that, making our bed, I can make a very, very good bed to this day. But my paper was about how easy it was. And I said in that paper, because I had been in a convent and the stuff that happened that I had done in the convent, and I think I told you I was always doing toilets, cleaning toilets with toothbrushes. And so I made some sort of remark about, there's a piece of cake. And so that's how he learned I was in the convent. And that's how he came to the conclusion that because of that, I'd never make it in the military. So I had to somehow prove I was not good. And so what I did was in those days, there was a magazine called Play Girl. I do not know if it's still around. So I got a copy of Play Girl and I put it in my military textbooks. And we had a lot of classes where it was like an auditorium style. And I made sure the guys around me when I opened my textbook, saw the naked men and Play Girl in there so that they would think, well, she's not all that high, it was holy, holy. So I got through that hurdle. I didn't do anything until, I mean, it wasn't, but anyway, so I was commissioned a second lieutenant and then I was sent to Thailand, which was my first assignment, which was a incredible experience at the time I was, well, first time, well, I was out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, but because I had been to officer training school. But anyway, so, and then I had subsequent assignments. My intention was only to be in there for four years. That's the commitment an officer makes.  And I did, so I went to night school because obviously I had a full-time job. And I did get my master's relatively quickly. But when I was at the point where my commitment was up, that's the time when they promote you and promotion to captain, I was a second lieutenant, first lieutenant is pretty automatic unless you do something really bad. And there's a huge pay increase. And so the money that was coming in, I thought, whoa, you know, I don't know, I don't have any source of income and no job to go to. So I thought I'd stay in, you know, while I was pursuing other, you know, seeing what I could do. So, and then I never intended to make it a military career ever. I was in it, within it for the money. I was in it for the, you know, so the Uncle Sam would pay for my education. Right. And at every point where I was thinking, okay, well now, you know, now's the time to get out, I either was dating somebody I really liked or I was in a location I really liked where I've just been promoted, which is like, what, promoting me? Yeah. And so 29 years, four months and four days later, I retire as a full colonel. Now, it was not easy. So I'm not going to try to, this was a better roses because it certainly was not because in the military in those days, it's, although I hear it's pretty bad for women now, it was not easy for a woman because mainly in those cases, because we were so new and there was so few of us. I think, I don't remember, but I think they were required to take women, you know, for some congressional reason or whatever. So it was a case of in almost, almost all, but almost all initially until I became more of a senior officer. I was, I was assigned to units that didn't want women. I mean, I was, I remember one of them after I, my first assignment after Thailand was in Omaha, Nebraska at strategic air command. And I remember the boss I was going to, he said, he told me right out, you've never had a woman here. I don't want you, but I got to take you. And so that, so I mean, but that was the kind of stuff. But even when I became a Lieutenant Colonel, which is right before a Colonel, the man I worked for who was a Marine Colonel, this was in the Pentagon, you have evaluations every year and so we went in for my face-to-face evaluation. It was closed door, he and I. And he said to me, I don't think women belong in the military. And I said, what do you think about, and I forget how we refer to him. I think we said blacks, I don't think African-Americans because we worked side-by-side with people of different colors and stuff. And he said, well, as long as there are men. So I'm telling you, those the kind of, the portals that went through, most of my career and I got promoted a Colonel. I was working for a guy who was to evaluate me and whether I was suitable. And that's how you got promoted through your evaluations. Gotcha. So it was, but now, so that was the stumbling area. I also, by the way, formed groups of women even when I was a second Lieutenant to band together because there were so few of us. And my like, I don't know, the non-infused sense of social justice or whatever always came to the forefront. And when I saw these things happening, I knew it was unjust. I knew we were treated differently. What we're doing, you know. I mean, there were quotas on how many of us could be promoted, et cetera. So I formed groups of women all along the way so that we could support each other and do push backs. You gotta be really careful in the military. Military is not democracy. And so, and also they can put you in jail too, really. So it's not like a regular employer and you can't quit. So that helped to have the support of other women. We're all experienced the same thing. Sexual harassment was prevalent. Oh my God, I've been hit upon and pounced upon and, but I had good, remember my first story way back when I was a child and all that. So I had developed skills. And I had a knowledge base of these kind of things. And at that point, I became very savvy on how to extricate myself through talking. I had a whole different lines, whether I had BD or, sometimes that's, I threw that out, I didn't, but, but I mean, there were ways I was, so I, so that was, yeah. So that was my military career. Now, let me tell you the great part of the military career. There were lots of great parts. It taught me so much stuff that I do to this day. It's sort of tied in with the training and the convent about putting others before yourself that you have the mission, you have a job to do. That's paramount. You are not important. The job is important. The mission is important. Do your best and you keep doing it. In the convent, it was perseverance and fortification and that you come last. And the military is very, very similar to that. Excellence in all we do, the mission before and everything else. And so that's probably, that formed who I am today and why I am so darn persistent when I do things and stick with them and try to do them well. I mean, I have some lessons in the military about what we call not doing your homework. Some pretty, I look back, geez. Where I was gonna have a presentation to the general and I hadn't fully vetted it and it fell apart. I mean, I think that's some reasons why I didn't get promoted to general because I got poor evaluations because I hadn't done my homework and I couldn't answer the questions that I had or the individual who was preparing it wasn't prepared. That didn't apply in the military. So those were things that I took away, I failed a lot. Oh my God, if I look like, well, I am successful. I was a full, I didn't get elected. I got elected city council, blah, blah, blah. But boy, the failures were monumental and many more than the successes. Did the military see failure as an opportunity to learn? No, no, no, no. They've come around now. No, no, in fact, it was usually one strike and you're out. I think they have realized they were losing a lot of good people because if you make a mistake once and then you kick them out, you lost all the investment because I'm very highly educated thanks to the military. No, it used to be if you had one negative thing on your evaluation, it could prevent you from being promoted in the military, it's up or out. If you do not get promoted, you are out. Oh, wow. And you don't leave the mill, even if you were in, once again, things may have changed, but you get zero, nothing, no money at all. If you don't make it to, in those days, it was a 20 years, all right?  But if you, and I saw them do this, kick out people right before they reached 18 years in service and they left with nothing. No retirement. Nothing, no retirement, nothing. Now the military did contribute to Social Security, but most of us, if after 18, you're not Social Security eligible at that age. So yes, it was, yeah, and I got some bad reports, which surprised the heck out of me when I was promoted, but actually I was one of the best ones at my job. I always knew more because I went way into the details that the guys didn't have, and the jobs I worked, looking back on it now, were incredible. At the time, of course, I didn't have any basis of comparison, but once again, I never planned. Once again, I choose to stay where I was because of who I was dating, or where I was. And so I was in the Washington, D.C. area. I was dating somebody, can't remember who, but I wanted to stay in the Washington, D.C. area. So I was looking for a job. I was at Andrews Air Force Base at the time, and I was in social actions, and that's when I was doing racial and sexual harassment complaints, anyway. And I wanted to stay in the area, and another woman, another female woman, she said, well, she knew somebody who they were looking for a woman because they'd never had a woman before, and they needed one to go into arms control. Didn't know anything about arms control. But anyway, I went in and I spoke to the guy who was a Navy commander, and they chose me, and I think it's, well, I don't know why they, well, I don't know, they chose me. Then I ended up not really paying attention to what the job was. Once again, I just wanted to stay in the area. I would have taken any job. Nope. I ended up on the start talks, the strategic arms reduction talks. Wow. And these were right after SALT, strategic arm limitations talks. That was under Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan was the president at the time, and he was renewing the nuclear weapons. And so I ended up in the office that ended, that was on the delegation with the Soviets, in those days we called them Soviets, introduce strategic nuclear weapons. Wow. And so I knew more about strategic nuclear weapons and I was actually toward the end called a recognized expert. And so I was on the delegation that went to Geneva, Switzerland multiple times to negotiate the reduction of nuclear weapons. Wow.  I was at the table. I mean, I was, there was the ambassador, the US ambassador, the Soviet ambassador, all of the staff. And I was one of those people, have you ever seen meetings in the back chair where they turn around and they get in from you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember sitting there, the only woman in the room. Wow. Thinking, I'm from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Yeah. And I am in Geneva, Switzerland. Negotiating arms. Soviet generals and ambassadors. Wow. And the other thing that was sort of humorous is because I was the only woman, I was always right there because the US side was sort of pushing me up, you know. We got lucky, we got a woman. The Soviets had no women whatsoever, but I was an oddity. And because we had a lot of social functions, you know, I was, you know, at social functions. Anyway. And I think, I don't know if I told you, I got more. Well, I'd better be careful what I say here. Anyway, the Soviets talked to me a lot. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All men. Interesting. I was in, anyway, so, so I was doing that. And then later on, I did other arms control negotiations. I was in Vienna, Austria. And that was to reduce conventional weapons in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which obviously, and then I was on another delegation and that was on anti-ballistic missiles. And that is the, we used to have them, I don't want to get into too much military stuff. We negotiated, we, the US negotiated with the Soviets about treaties that we have signed. And this was on the anti-ballistic missile treaty. So I had, and then afterwards I had a job at the UN. This is when I was working for Colin Powell, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon on humanitarian issues. And getting supplies to countries that were, you know, needed humanitarian assistance. So, there's more. Amazing. Amazing. Anyway, that's the story. Jose, a question for you. Did you ever supervise men in your years of... All the time. Yeah. Out of the go. Mostly men. There weren't anyway. Yeah. So yes, I, an officer is a supervisor right off. So I had, of course I worked for men. I'm trying to think I ever worked for a woman. Oh yes, I did. I did work for a woman early on. But anyway, yes. So I worked for men and for women, very, very few women. I worked obviously with men, very few women. And I supervised mostly men. And then later on, as more women came in the service, women. Women would often seek me out because especially when I became a senior officer as a mentor and advice. Yes, absolutely. How did that go? How did they respect you? Well, interesting. The women generally did. Yes. The men, it was, especially in the beginning, early on, I remember sometimes, I don't remember where I was. I was out walking with one of my sergeants and we walked and somebody didn't salute me. I mean, you have to salute right? He called him out. So I'm just giving you an example. There was sometimes, I had men that didn't like being supervised by women. I had men who were my subordinates who wanted to, who hit on me. So it was a vast array. Yeah, yeah. As women became more, as more of us came in the service, the men got to know women and they worked with them. And we always, the women, always thought the problem with some of the other services, especially the Marines, who didn't have very many women. They were notoriously adverse to having women. Yeah, yeah. They had bad, not good relationships with women. It's because they didn't work with them. They didn't know them. But I saw in the Air Force, the more we worked together as a team, the more we got to know each other and respect each other.  You go to a job, a new location, every three years with new people. And it was always starting from the premise that you don't know what you're doing. Whereas the men, it was default, of course they know. Interesting. Yeah, but the more we worked, the more of us that were in there and worked together, the more accepting the men are the women. Gotcha. So, okay, so 29 years, four months and four days, was that? Yes, that's what I get paid for, so I know. My retirement is based on 29 years, four months and four days. And then what, what was the next job? So the reason I didn't go to 30, which is the maximum amount, and I was up for general at that time. And let me tell you, I was still mouthing off and stating my concerns and issues, mostly about women's issues, but other things too.  Maybe I would have made general had I stayed in, but a defense contractor made me an offer I could not refuse. And it was, one, I was a senior officer, so I had a lot of connections. And I was very well respected. And from my knowledge and stuff, I don't know if people like me personally, but whatever. No, I think some people, mostly some people did, but so they may be an offer. And it was contingent on though, that I was hired before my security clearance would have lapsed, you have to renew your security, I had a very, very high security clearance. And every few years, you have to renew that or else it goes away. And it's tens of thousands of dollars to get somebody cleared. They do whole background investigations and stuff. And that's money to a defense contractor.  And then, and once again, I didn't know what I was gonna do. Right, right, right. I don't know what I qualified for. Oh, I can negotiate nuclear weapons. All right, is there somebody out there? So I didn't think I had the skills because I was content, I would do so much that specific work, but I didn't realize I had leadership skills and all that kind of stuff. So I took the defense contractor job and that's why it's only 29 years, not 30 years. And I did multiple things there, one of which was cybersecurity. And learned a lot, I can't talk about anything, but all of my jobs, almost all my jobs were top secret and compartmented information. So I did that for a few years until I met my beloved husband, my now husband at a dance. And taking ballroom dancing. So I stayed, I intended to only work there for a while, but then until I was vested, and then I got, I didn't even know about the stuff. They matched my, Ironman and stuff, and stop option stuff anyway. Anyway, now that's why I'm living this luxurious home. That's wonderful. Did you move to Vermont soon after that? Yes, as soon as my husband was able to retire from his job, he had to say, well, he was in food industry, a store called Giant. And in his, he would not be eligible, well, he wouldn't get his pension unless he served his 30, well, served, worked for 30 years. And so after Higley and I became a couple, and decided we're going to get married, we needed to wait. So we lived in, we were living in Bowie, Maryland at the time. And as soon as his 30 years was up, then that's when we, well, I had already told Higley, I was moving to Vermont. If he wanted to stay with me, he had to come to Vermont. Poor guy, he wanted to retire in the Southern air. So as soon as Higley was able to retire is when we went to my dream state, the place I had dreamed about since I was a little girl. Is that right? Yes, yes. Okay. I'd never been to Vermont. I'd been to Vermont once for a day, back in the, gosh, 80s, I guess, on a trip to New Hampshire, actually, but we thought, let's see what Vermont is like. No, as a little girl, I saw pictures of Vermont in Pennsylvania. I thought that was the most beautiful place in the world. And so anyway, and as an adult, I learned more about Vermont and its liberal attitude and caring for each other, environmental, and that's a really, really droomy to the state is the stewardship of the environment and how it seemed to me that Vermont is really understood and cherished the environment and protected it. And I thought that's what I want to be, you know, so. Yep. So, yeah, so that's got us to Vermont. Yep, oh, wonderful. So you got here and the city council that you were a member of in South Burlington which seemed when I think of your life, in many ways brings together a lot of different parts of you, that the social justice, the leadership, caring about people. Tell me about running for office and choosing to run for office. That's a big step. That was another one of these didn't plan for it, didn't really think it through. If you've been listening to me, I don't really sometimes.  So after I got here, remember I came here because of the environment and then I started looking around and I saw how they were building and it reminded me of most of the other places I've lived in particular, Maryland, the place I lived most recently. And I was getting a bit concerned because I thought this didn't fit with what I thought I knew of Vermont. So I was talking, once again, I'm pretty, through my life, I didn't know a lot but then I learned a lot and that's sort of what I realized. Yes. Military all the way up. So I thought I gotta learn how city government works because I don't know how this is happening. So I started going to city meetings. I didn't have any idea what a city council was. I should be embarrassed to say that publicly but I did not know what a city council was. I didn't know how cities were governed. So I started going to meetings and in the course of that I learned, right? But I also learned that most people don't go to city meetings. Very often I was the only one in the audience or maybe one or two other people or some people came to say things about their concern and then they would leave and I'd stay there because I wanted to hear everything. So some of the people, well, I was there all the time. So one of the city counselors at the time approached me and said, there's an opening on the city council, the individual who was in that seat is not running for it. She asked me, would I consider running for city council? And I remember once again, oh God, I said, how much time commitment is it? And she lied, no, she didn't lie. She said, well, she said it's two meetings a month and I thought to myself, well, I've been attending these city meetings, you know? I said, I can do two meetings a month, you know? Oh, gosh. Yeah, well, anyways, so I thought, okay, well, how do I do this? I learned you have to get signatures to be put on the ballot and I did that.  I was not gonna do any lawn signs, not gonna do any flyers because of the environmental impact. I always thought, oh, how do you do all that stuff? Flyers are everywhere. So I thought what I'll do is I'll try to get my message out by writing letters or maybe getting people who know me to write letters. This is a little bit before the social media is back in 2011. And people will read that. That will be good enough. It'll be the electronic transmission in New Zealand, who I am and what I stand for. And then there were candidate forums and stuff. I also didn't go door to door. Cause I don't think I'm good one-on-one with people. I don't know. But South Brunton is a big city but it's even bigger now. But I decided and I didn't spend any money. I didn't take any contributions. Some people didn't. Nope, nope. Very unconventional. Yeah, very unconventional. And so I took out, I think I took out three ads, three ads in the local newspaper, in the other paper, which I paid for, right? But the whole total thing came to $500 or something. I mean, we're not talking. Remember, I didn't have any lawns on the flyers. That was my only expense was those three ads. So, and I got elected. I couldn't believe it. And my vote was one, two, three, four. I got 1,234 votes. No kidding. Wow. I got 800 something. But anyway, so that was another surprise. Like I got promoted in the military was, really? So then I became a city councilor. There were five, there still are five city councilors in South, in South Burlington. And doggone it, wouldn't you know that right after I got on the city council, well, the first thing I did in the city council was piss a lot of people off because I start speaking about the environment and about the destruction of the natural world through developments, housing developments and how I'm seeing what's happening, seeing happening in Vermont, what I've seen in this other states that I've lived in. Sure. And how detrimental it was. And at that time, I was not even thinking about climate change. I was more thinking about the benefits of nature. You know, well, the beauty and... Right, right. I mean, for our soul, I have now become much more informed that a tree is magnificent and beautiful. And I always looked at it as from the aesthetics of that. But now I realize it's way beyond beauty. We will not be alive if we cut all our trees down and pave over our meadows and our forests because they are the ones that are keeping us alive. I just had a fun fact. I just learned that a mature tree, about 50 years old, provides enough oxygen for four human beings for an entire year. Wow. We get our oxygen, but anyway. So I start talking about, we got to stop this development. We got a, and somebody said, oh, what you need is interim zoning. Didn't know what interim zoning was. I do now, but I think it was a pause to try to see how we are going forward as a city. The idea was, I had been a strategic, among other jobs, a strategic planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the military. So I understood planning, and I saw what South Bronton was not planning. We were just doing without an end goal. And if you don't know what your end goal is, then you'll never know when if you achieved it or if you're not meeting it or whatever. So I thought this was a time to plan, to look around, assess, which is what we did. All right, so that pissed off a lot of people. Wow. I bet. Mostly developers, real estate, the business community that are very lying. They, well, I don't think they like me, but whatever. And so that mired the city, well, mired in controversy that I caused, but a lot of good came out of it, but anyway. And then going into the next year, 2012, is when they elected me the Chair of the City Council after having been on the Council for one year. I had just been elected the Chair of the City Council when the Air Force came up with their environmental impact statement on the F-35. Right. I did not know anything about the F-35. When I retired the military, I retired. And I never wore my uniform again, except for two occasions. One, when I was in Washington, they were dedicating the Air Force Memorial. And two, when I ran for Adjutant General a few years ago, related to the F-35, that's the only time I've worn my uniform since I retired. And I'm allowed to wear my uniform, but that's no provision on that. Right. But I hung, I said, no more military. I have done that. I wanna focus on other aspects, primarily the environment. And the other counselors came to be and said, but you're the only one with military background. I understand the terminology. I mean, I understand the military. Right. And it needs sense. Yeah, yeah. For somebody else to take on the F-35. But so that started, I don't know, what year is it now? That was 2012 and we're still doing it. 10 years, yeah. That started my efforts reluctantly at first to address the F-35 issue. And just as I did in every other thing I did, I read that entire report. Yeah, very thorough. I knew early on, early on, I bet I knew more about the F-35 than the people at the guard. Yeah. I bet you I did. Yeah. I knew more than most people because I did my homework and I read the link. And it was instant, if you read it, well, nobody will, but it was about 6,000 pages. Wow. And it was clear, if you look at the facts, and this is where a lot of my frustration still comes to this day, is I look at facts. That's what I've been trained to do. If your emotions out of it, you get your subjective opinions, you don't deal with that in the military. You look at the facts and you make decisions based on the facts. And I naively thought, of course, they're not gonna put this here. Look at what the facts say about the impact. It was overwhelming. It wasn't a nuance. Wow. I naively thought the facts would matter. I still naively, well, I'm not naive anymore. I also think the facts about climate change should matter. Of the facts that we should do this and not do this should matter. They don't. So, I came out against the F-35, the city of South Burlington came out against the F-35. Then we had to change a council primarily because I think, well, primarily me, and interim zoning and my stance on the F-35 until the council was overturned, my seat wasn't up, so I was not defeated. When my term was up, my sentence, I chose not to run because I realized at the time, and I still think this, I could do more on the outside. Because city council work is a lot of work. But anyway, and after I left the city council, I sorta de facto became the leader of the opposition for the F-35. As the years went on, as people dropped off of the fight, we were hugely successful, hugely successful. Most people don't think that, but we were. We convinced the Air Force not to put the F-35 here. I know that for two reasons. One, I had a whistleblower that called me early on to tell me what was happening behind the scenes. I tried to make that information public. I was, the governor made fun of me. Who is this? You tell us who told you this kind of stuff. And I can't say, no worry about who said it. This is what they said, once you focus on the facts and you can verify it, but anyway. So it wasn't until we sued the Air Force years later and they had to release their documentation on what they did as they selected South Burlington that we read in that documentation that the Air Force had in fact realized for a number of reasons. One, from their own findings. From the facts I read, that Burlington was not the place for the F-35. And then you put on the 1,000 emails, letters that they got from the people, especially the people who lived in the area that were against, overwhelmingly against it, 88% or so. They put that together and they also looked at operational things. I'm not gonna go into the details. And they came to the conclusion that Burlington was not the place. They also realized they made a mistake. And that's the thing I was trying to make known early on, the Air Force made a mistake in how they scored the bases. Burlington was given a false high number. And that was, so anyway. So all of that convinced the Air Force not to base it here and then Senator Leahy called the head of the Air Force, the chief of staff of the Air Force and said he wanted the F-35 in Vermont and we had the F-35 in Vermont. Wow. A few years after they made the basing decision, we learned that the F-35 has been designated by the Pentagon as a nuclear weapons delivery vehicle. It's gonna, in fact, they're building a brand new nuclear bomb just for the F-35. And when we learned that, which they never told us in the EIS, the environmental impact statement, to me, it was, holy crap, this was my business in the military. I know nuclear weapons. I know nuclear war. I know what happened. I know how you target. We try to make that known. That's, hence, when I ran for adjutant general to try to get that information out. And Senator Bernie Sanders sabotaged that. He came back and wrote a letter to the, to Mount Pylir, because we were trying to get the house and the Senate and Mount Pylir to ban the basing of delivery vehicles, nuclear weapons delivery vehicles in Vermont. The House, the Senate passed it. The House did not, mainly because Senator Sanders said, what, it was back to, don't listen to, he didn't use my name. Don't listen to what they're saying. You know? They're not gonna, you know, and so of course if a Senator does that. And so Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Patle, he are the reasons that we have the F-35 and the reasons they continue to be here and they do not need to be here. They can go, lots of other places. So. Did they, was there a suggestion by the Air Force where it should go? Yeah, actually they selected, not a suggestion. They wrote the decision. It's called the record of decision. They wrote the record of decision for South Carolina. Wow. McIntyre, Air Guard Base, South Carolina. Yep, that's- Wow. Yep. So I mean, you can read it. I knew that before because the whistleblower told me that. But then the court documents that the Air Force had to release because the judge told them to release it. You read it in there. So it's not hyper, I mean, I'm not making this up. Right. But anyway, so. You know. Another great success and a great failure because you have to be here and people are suffering because of it.   Of course not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want you to understand. Yeah. To appreciate that there's a lot of folks that you were speaking for. Oh, absolutely. What I find, what I learned in the military was leadership. What I find lacking in a lot of places is leadership. And it's because we don't realize we have power. In our voices. Right. And I think you have to, well, I believe, you have to have somebody that leads other people to find their voices, to speak up. We have huge amounts of power. I've seen this throughout. I remember when I was going to those city meetings early on, when I was the only one in the audience, they were talking about something. It was population, I think, which is a few other issues. And I was the only one in the audience. And I raised my hand and I said, but you're freezing it this way. What if you phrased it this way? And they go, oh, yeah. And they changed it. And I thought, holy crap, they made a change to one of our city documents based on something I just said. If I didn't know it before, it was indicative that the right voice at the right time and is very powerful, but it becomes more powerful when you have a lot of voices at the right time. Speaking of, remember the whole convent, perseverance, persistence, you can't just speak up once and you have to keep doing it. Even when you think you're redundant or they're gonna dismiss you, you've got to keep doing it because no social change has ever happened without the people and persistence. So yeah, no, my gosh, of course I didn't do it by myself, but I often come up with the ideas. And often enough, I get to work the ideas. I come up with them. So here you are today. What's the next chapter that Roseanne correct goes like? Okay, so I've been involved in lots of organizations, mostly environmentally focused and social justice focused. And I came to the conclusion of a few months back that I can't do it all, you know?  The second motto is that, and it's not for me, you know, it goes back, is that I can't do everything, but I can do something. And I won't let what I can't do stop me from doing what I can. And I find that I was involved in so many things and giving it little pieces. I was jumping from jump to cots to the food shelf to the, you know, all right.  I've got some time. Okay, so how do I wanna spend that time? And I decided the thing, and this goes back to, you know, growing up as a little girl in the rural areas of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is that the environment and nature is part, well, we are nature, you know, but that is my passion. That has been my passion for a long time. That's what prompted me to run for city council. The F-35 interjected itself and I was diverted, you know, for many years, but I decided that's where I'm gonna focus my attention. And the more, and I'm really, really informed as I always am on environmental impacts, is in particular how we use or abuse our land that has survival consequences for the human species. And so that's where I'm going to focus my attention. That is right here in South Burlington, you know, think local, act local. I can't do anything about the war in Ukraine or the forest fires, the tree cutting in the Amazon. And thinking about those and worrying it doesn't do a darn good thing, it doesn't do anything. But I can do something here in South Burlington where I live. And by the way, changes are easier at a lower level, at a municipal level. So I'm focused on saving the land in South Burlington. That's my focus. That's what I intend to debate the rest of my life for. That's wonderful, Rosanne. What an arc of life that, you know, from your father who was the coal miner, speaking of the environment. Yes, possible. All the way to where you are today. That's beautiful, yeah. And I also do my own personal stuff too, by the way. You know, I, you know, we have taken personal actions in our way of living and our houses net positive, not just net zero, net positive. I have the, you know, through the thank goodness for, you know, the military and the retirement income. I had the ability to have solar panels and heat pumps and so forth. I made a plug-in car, you know, no gas powered utilities and stuff. So I've done, you know, That's wonderful. And it's not an either or by the way, you know, sometimes they make it seem, you know, the big corporations have to do it. Change in a light bulb, you know, it's both of us. If we both, if individuals don't do it and if big corporations and national levels don't do it, we're not going to, our children and grandchildren are not going to survive. And so anyway, yeah. Well, thank you. So we're at towards the end of our interview here. Is there anything that about your life about you that you would like to share with the audience that we haven't touched on yet?  And one other thing, and that is, you know, if you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you. And, you know, I can't do everything, but I can do something. I won't let what I can't do stop me from doing what I can. And the other thing that I think is, as I'm adding on to that is we have power. Individuals have power. We should not give up because we think we have, our voice is too small. We're just one person, you know?  Yeah. What would just one person, one person, they don't do it by themselves, of course. Right, right. But if we only will grasp our power and use it, and use, and what I'm saying is our voices. Yeah. That can transform the world. Like firmly believe it, think big, act bold, you know? Yep, good for you. Well, you've done, and you've done some amazing things. I admire your work and your life, Rosanne. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Gary, for giving me this opportunity. It's caused me to think about my life and what comes next. You know, not over. Please, God, no. We look forward to that. All right. Well, again, thank you very much for being with us. And see you around the corner. Thanks, Gary. All right, yep, bye-bye.


Well before we throw it to intermission we've got a very special match and it is the Bell Time Challenge Gauntlet featuring one Ring of Honor superstar Brian Malonez. Let's see first. Let's see who drew number one. Wrestling fans, hello and welcome back to the Bell Time Club. We've got a very special match right here. This is the Bell Time Club Challenge. Earlier on we saw Bell Time Club Commissioner. Commissioner is smooth. Interrupted by Ring of Honor star. One half of the bounce is Brian Malonez. Listen, I just want to explain this. Brian Malonez calls himself the kingpin. This is the type of guy that would make Wilson Fisk carry his bags. You're going to see a show in there, but he's going to be brutal. As I was saying a second ago here, so we had Commissioner smooth issuing the challenge to Brian Malonez. If he could pass the Bell Time Club Challenge, if he could run this gauntlet, then he would be a member of the Bell Time Club. As we see the first entrance, young Gabriel Danger. This young man shows a lot of promise, but I think we know how this is going to turn out. Yeah, I think he's barking up the wrong tree. I saw this gentleman backstage. He's got a lot of confidence, but Brian Malonez might as well be a redwood walking in that ring right now. Brian Malonez is an unstoppable force in that wrestling ring. He's proved himself time and time again. Here we go. And to reiterate your point, Drew Kazoo, this is show and prove. Winning your end. Just an absolute monster. Like I said, I mean, young Gabriel Danger, I give him a lot of credit for wanting to try, but you know.   Let's see here. All or an elbow tied up Malonez just... It's not nice to laugh at the misfortunes of other Kazoo. Well, I just hope young Gabriel Danger can make it out of here on two legs and not have to be carted away. Oh, look at this. Wait a minute now. We see some quickness. He threw a couple of strikes here. Nice drop kick, but had almost no effect on the kingpin as Danger. Hard down to the mat. Uh-oh. Oh, no. Oh. All right. Well, Gabriel Danger's night's over. Oh, that was quick one. Yeah, one down. For the prize, Brian Malonez is dishing out the punishment. Anderson Gonzalez. All right. We see young Anderson Gonzalez now making his way to the ring. Let's see if he's able to put a dent or even just a small crack now in Brian Malonez, who seems to steamroll through this competition here. Oh, yeah. Made short work of Gabriel Danger. Look at his center. I mean, this is a walk in the park for Brian Malonez. You're going to remember this man is used to being on camera all the time. He's a superstar. Just look at that's right. And look at the look on his face. It's just like no effort at all for him. Oh, my God. Absolutely. You know, this is more of an execution instead of an exhibition. This is a great show. And he's running through this gauntlet. Like it's no issue at all. Hit him with the rear view. This is basically a day off for the king fan here. Yeah. Just absolutely. Oh, my God. Oh, man. Good night. Who's next? That's it. Let's bring out the next victim. I mean contestants. Well, he's making men to eat a grown man here. I mean, we don't know. Okay. We've got young Sam foe now. Look at this. Getting the crowd riled up. He's ready. But this looks promising. He's straight out of Game of Thrones.  But he does have the conviction. He looks like he wants to win. He looks. Well, we all got the conviction. But who gets the alloy? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. No mystery. Malonez is at. Oh, wow. Oh, boy. He's just belittling Sam foe. comparison to fictional wizard Harry Potter now being made by the Bell Time Club faithful. I guess he kind of does look like Harry Potter. You better conjure up something huge because Brian Malonez is just walking through every single person who enters that ring like it's nothing. He hasn't even broken a sweat. He's literally just getting warmed up. Like this is child's play for him. Oh, wait a minute. What's this? Look at foe. Wow. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. All right. I spoke too soon. I would say Brian Malonez is breaking a sweat. But that would mean he's swinging too hard. He's not barely doing anything. This is getting difficult to watch. Honestly. There you go. Somebody help this young man back to the dressing room. He's wearing like a Tyson fight. They might as well be picking stock boys at this point from Stop and Shop. And we've got now. Oh, now wait a minute. Folks, we have got the silver back. Christopher, things could change here. As I've heard before, the mood is about to change. Ladies and gentlemen. Malonez now.  Give it a try. Wow. Wow. Look at this. The big man, Krista Silva, just putting all of his weight into Brian Malonez. And Malonez isn't budging. Malonez taking requests from the crowd. This is just getting ugly. Oh, wow. He killed a beard down here. I'll tell you, for a big man, this young Krista Silva can move. He felt that one. Bright future for this young man. But unfortunately, we will not be seeing any of that tonight. Oh, what's going to happen here? No. He's not going to. Uh-oh. Everyone holds. Seismic shift. Unbelievable strength by the kingpin, Brian Malonez. My drink shook. Oh, boy. Oh, no. Oh, that's got to be it. Goodbye. Two, three. Wow. Brian Malonez is putting on a clinic here for the Feltime Club. Is there anyone left? He's bulldozed everybody. You're next participant. Uh-oh. There's more. I'm not one of them, though. So there's only your next participant. Being accompanied to the ring by Doc Ozone. Uh-oh. Great. Oh, wait a minute now. This is really going to get interesting. I'll tell you, Haggerty's lucky he's not in there. That's financial. I don't know. Haggerty probably got 20 pounds on Ike. Oh, Jesus. Doc Ozone now bringing Ike down the ring. What do we got here? What's going on? Let him off the leash. Wow. He's got the bite mask. He better be careful that Haggerty better be careful he doesn't get bitten. Tell you, that could be the key to victory here. Maybe take Malonis out. Maybe Ike can change the fortune to Doc Ozone. He was out here earlier and didn't fare well. Could be. Excellent point. Look at the look on Malonis' face now. He's like, are you kidding?  It could happen. A little cathouse here. I think it will happen. Let's see. We've seen a lot tonight. What on earth is Ike doing right now? I don't know. He's just buying himself some time before the inevitable mulling is going to take place. Very unorthodox style here by Mr. Ike. We should just welcome Brian Malonis for the Bell Time Club right now. He's passed the challenge with flying colors. Oh yeah. Absolutely.  He should be anointed right away.   Happy I am to be here. But how especially happy I am to not be in that ring looking across at the kingpin, Brian Malonis. Ike is just the best right now. Wait a minute. Oh, here we go. Wait now. Ike has been the most successful thus far. Tell you what, he could, is he going to put the big man to sleep? Will he be able to either choke him up? Wait a minute. Oh no. That's it. That's it. Goodbye. Good night. Two, three, well. Welcome. Ike has been eliminated. Welcome to the Bell Time Club, Malonis. Here it's a day gone for the day. Oh my God. Final participant. Just a minute now. Run it. Check. And look at this. Say, say run it. Hey. Say run it. Hey. Say run it. Check. Run it. Yeah. Run it. Hey. Hey. Run it. Run it. Run it. Hey. Say run it. All right. What an interesting. Loose bumps from that introduction, especially from Chris Rivers. Oh my goodness. Chris Rivers now fired him up. And things are really going to change now because we've got all broke. And look at this.  Here's where the test really begins. Well, Malona's one of the challenge. He's got one now. All broke. Brandino Davis is commanding that ring right now. You think he's thinking twice about his problem membership to Belltime Club? He could be now as we see Davis. Vicious shots now right in front of the Belltime Club faithful. Guys, now we have a real test for Brian Malona. Absolutely, Donny. This just got interesting. Oh, huge boot. What was a walk in the park just became a trip down a dark alley. I don't know how this is going to turn out now for Brian Malona. Belltime Club faithful letting everyone know how they feel. And we can't repeat that, but yeah, that sentiment's exactly. Belltime Club youth here making their parents very happy. Exactly. Belltime Club youth here making their parents very angry here as they voice their opinion. But all pro, Brandino Davis now in a bad way getting his head draped over the ropes there, choking the life out of him.  Yeah. That rally was short lived. I mean, he had the best hype man I've ever seen, but I don't know. Wait a minute. Up and over. Davis, up and over again. Hold on. Big shoulder tackle using that football background. Oh, no, guys. Here we go. One, two. Wow. Oh, and Brandino Davis kicks out. Wow. That is a lot of weight to come down on a human being. Brandino Davis tremendous intestinal fortitude shown to kick out of that. Oh, yeah. And look at Malona's now a different look on his face now. Warm, beaten, frustrated. Yeah. Malena's just taking a little bit of a jaunt around. This is his mistake. Listen, you've been on a big stage. Mr. Madison Square Garden. Just get in there and do your job. Here's where you need to remain focused on what's on the line here. A prestigious spot in the Bell Time Club. You're right, Joey Business. He needs not to focus on who's outside, but to focus on who's inside the ring with him. Well, I'll tell you right now. He has got that death lock applied in boy. I'll tell you that hurts like there is no tomorrow. Especially with the size and strength of Malona's. Right. Just all that pressure on there.  How disrespectful. Such disrespect. I'd say for most of us that's the last place in the world you want to be there on the receiving end of those shots by Malona's. But all pro Brandino Davis isn't your average competitor. He's not your average man. He's got a lot of fight left in him and he ain't going out like that. Oh boy. Oh. You just said the wrong thing Malona's. Oh, absolutely. That'll turn the tides. Yeah. That clothesline was downright violent. Nothing, nothing, but Brian Malona's is used to these kinds of challenges. Used to this kind of competitive nature. He has got it from the best around. Not to say the Bell Time Club isn't the best, but this guy's on a different level and he came here on his day off. Just remember that. Yes, he did. But he's making a rookie mistake right now. I mean, oh. Oh. Oh, ow. And that's what happens when you lounge around it. You don't stay on the aggressive side and try to win the match and earn your prize as part of the Bell Time Club. Yeah, he got a little too cocky if you know what I mean. I don't know. Oh, sorry. Wow. Unbelievable strength there by all pro. Just a one. Just one. That's a statement. It is. One, two. Yeah, that was a close. That was a long two, folks. Long, long two. Well, I guess Malona's starting my waltz in here and just getting himself a membership to Bell Time Club. Brandino Davis definitely has other thoughts, other ideas, and he has got the better of the kingpin right now. If I was, if I was Malona's, I'd be thinking about the dues that I got to pay with this membership because. Wait a minute. There we go.  As I was saying, I would be thinking about the dues because, listen, he might want to rethink this because Brandino Davis has no pushover and we got a lot more like him. That's evident right now. Obviously everybody here, all the Bell Time Club faithful, everybody watching them on YouTube. What fight? Oh, wow. That is a long way down in our hearts. Oh, folks. One, two, three. Well, Brian Malonis has passed. Well, Chris Rivers trying to hype him up.  You got to like that. What unbelievable fight, intestinal fortitude shown by Brandino Davis, folks. That was nothing less than impressive. Wait a minute. Our permission has come up to join us. That was a clinic. It is official. Brian Malonis. I'm going to give him a standing ovation. Welcome to the Bell Time Club, Brian. That was unbelievable, folks. What a great match. What a fantastic encounter that was. Brian Malonis passing the Bell Time Club Challenge. Unbelievable action.


September is Navy Suicide Prevention Month, and the 21st Century Sailor Office is launching a year-long engagement across the Navy. The new message, One Small Act, encourages sailors to support their shipmates every day. You know, although we recognize that September is Suicide Prevention Month, our efforts are ongoing. It's not just something that we do one day in a month, it's Navy-wide. And September we use as a way to just re-energize our efforts across the fleet, provide messages, tools and strategies to help sailors connect with sailors and realize that it does make a difference, One Small Act at a time. For more information visit their website and remember One Small Act can save a life.


Welcome to exchange for media. After three months of complete lockdown, June has come as a respite for our economy. Markets have started to open, production is getting back on track, and we are hopeful that addicts will follow us soon. Hoping to leave the worst behind us. We today are launching our new series, Get Set and Grow. And a good start is half done. With me today is one of the tallest global leader of the industry, Mr. Mark Reed, CEO WPP. Welcome to the show, Mark, and thank you so much for doing this for us. It's a pleasure, Nazian. Thanks very much for having me on your program. Thank you. We're so glad that we are starting this show with the leader of your stature who can guide the industry much better on how to recover from what we all have gone through in the last three weeks, three months. So my first question is about that, that considering that most markets have started to ease restrictions, where do you see growth opportunities in the current business scenario? I think what we have to understand about what's happened in the last 12 to 14 weeks is really an acceleration of the trends that were taking place already in the economy, the rapid digitization of industries, the move online, the growth of the world outside of the United States, even some of the social movements. And I think that COVID has really brought them into start relief, and particularly the digitization of the economy, I'd say, we see statistics. I think in India, the e-commerce sales have grown four X in some parts. And so I have to think about it as an acceleration of trends. And so that's where the growth opportunities come from, it comes from shifting your business online, it comes from growing your e-commerce capability, comes from communicating, using social media. We've seen the growth of some of the platforms in India, and India's a really interesting market, but you've got both sort of the best of the West and some to set the best of the East. You know, I've seen the growth in online payments in India, this is like Paytm doing extremely well. So I think that's where you look for the growth, you look for the growth in the future. In digital. We are going through, yeah. Okay, so you're saying digital is the new main media and COVID has just expedited the process of we moving towards digital even faster than we were in 2019. So in these three months, all the whosoever in the agency have spoken to have been speaking about making recovery plans for the clients. So what according to you is a good recovery plan for a client at this moment. What all should we consider of? It talks to the acceleration of the trends, doesn't it? Because I think, you know, at one level, you say the growth is in digital, but you have to think about what's happening in the economy in the way in which we shop, the way in which we communicate, the way in which we educate our kids, the way we pay. It's hard to think of something in the economy that has not in some way moved much more rapidly online. And that's going to have an impact on jobs. It's going to have an impact on the retail sector. It's going to have an impact on office space, on universities and education, on many, many different sectors of the economy. So I think there's two things for clients to think about. You know, when they think about their sort of recovery plan, which is both sort of recovery, but also how they renew their business. And we said to clients, you know, there's three phases to this, that's going to react to what you do in the short term. There's recover, how do you get back to growth? And then there's, you know, renew. How do you renew your business to be ready for the environment in the future?  You know, I think there is a good reason for clients to be in market, which is in a period of great change, you have to understand what's going on with consumers and how it's behavior changing. But I think the really fundamental question is, how do we, how do they renew their businesses and how do we help them do that? And I think some of the changes we've made at WPP in terms of bringing together our sort of agencies like Wonderman and Jay Wood Thompson to form Wonderman Thompson and VML, YNR, and actually the historic strength of Ogilvy as a brand with a very integrated offer enables us to give clients a range of an integrated solution that's not sort of siloed in analog and digital, but actually enables them to, you know, really think holistically about how to transform their business and connect with consumers in new ways, which I think ultimately is what they're going to have to do. Many markets that Group M operates in, they started to open before India and you must have been observing the trends there. So what kind of predictions or what kind of suggestions can you give to Indian market? Look, I think that the recovery is, I think the recovery is gradual and I think you have to get very specific about how things recover.  Are they comfortable walking down the street?  And many people are not, you know, I think at the heart of this is the human tragedy and more than 400,000 people around the world have died of coronavirus to date and that number looks like it's increasing. And while the pandemic is under control in some parts of the world, there's other parts of the world where it's not having a very serious impact on people's lives.  And actually, some of that's driven by a desire of people not to get back onto public transport but to get in their own car. We're seeing the same thing in the US, you know, speaking to an auto manufacturer earlier this week who said they've seen sales, you know, up 5% in May, year on year and some of that's pent up demand. There's other parts of the economy where you're not gonna have that level of pent up demand. And I think that it's gonna take time for industries like tourism and travel and hospitality to recover and for people in those sectors to go back to work. So I think inevitably, you know, the recovery is going to be gradual. And whilst we might feel that the second quarter this year has been the toughest quarter, you know, I think questions remain on how quickly we'll come out in the third and fourth quarter. And I'm very much, you know, people have sort of extremely complicated ways of describing this. I'm sort of in the Nike swoosh category. You know, it's gonna be a gradual recovery as confidence builds and people gradually get back to work and it's coordinated on a global fashion. And you know, that's saying that there's not a recurrence in the second half of the year in some form of second wave. Now, you know, evidence suggests that that may well happen. You know, if we don't get a vaccine and while there's talk of having a vaccine in September and October, you know, I think that that's, you know, looking on the optimistic side, given, you know, the four to five year time horizon typically taken to generate a vaccine. And I think pharmaceutical companies could be one of the heroes of the situation if they can deliver that in time. So I think people are watching nervously.  You know, I think, you know, we've said to people in London and New York and I think the same would be true in Mumbai and New Delhi. You know, it's probably gonna be, you know, September, October, before we have meaningful numbers of people back in the office and it may well be delayed because at the end of the day, we can do our job remotely or from home. And I think to some extent, it's our responsibility, you know, not to put more people back on public transport, not to put people back in densely populated offices to do what we can to help to fight the spread of the virus. But to come back to your original question, look, I think it's a gradual recovery and but those clients that, you know, stay in market and look at what's happening in consumer behavior and are ready will be those that do the best. Cool, but 19 has changed the scenario by 360 degrees. You know, a lot of things have changed. We all have never worked from home for this long. So how have conversations with clients changed post pandemic? Yeah, I mean, what clients say to me is, you know, the work has got, you know, we're working in a more agile way, in a faster way. The work has got quicker. Decisions are being made faster. The creative work is just as good, if not better. And I think you hear that that repeated actually many service businesses in investment banking, in management consulting, that actually, you know, people have learned that they can work remotely like this. And they've said, you know, let's not go back to the old way of doing things when this finishes. Now, if this carries on very much longer, we'll have forgotten how to do things in the old way by the time we do go back. And I think to some extent, that's sort of going to be the progression. You know, people are going to go back to work so gradually that actually many of the ways of working that we've experienced over the last four months will just be the way in which we do things. You know, I can't imagine, you know, flying overnight to have a client meeting or to go through a review meeting. You know, we have all learned that things can be done, you know, very differently. And that's probably good for, you know, my health and my family life and the environment and saving money and number of other things. Yeah, at the same time, you know, much of that has been enabled because we've been in offices for the last hundred years. So I think there still is a role for the office. It will just change. I do think that people will work from home more in the future. It's the number one question I get asked on town. This is very specific to your conversations with clients. You know, what kind of problems are they coming with or what kind of solutions are they looking for? Where do they want to spend their money now? So what has changed for this pandemic? I think the conversations with clients are more strategic because they're asking more fundamental questions, which is like, how should I communicate with customers at the moment? Should I communicate with them? You know, what do consumers want to hear and should we be speaking? And I think that, you know, what we've said to companies is that, you know, actions speak louder than words. But if you are taking the right actions and I think many companies are, then you should communicate what you're doing to customers. And I think that that's important. That many companies, you know, have gone out of the way. You know, we did some work for Colgate in India, giving people sort of remote dental consultations. I think that's a very relevant communication. We've done a lot of work promoting the use of masks. You know, the mask force campaign from Ogilvy, then make your own mask at times in India from Wonderma Thompson. And I think those pieces of work show, you know, the role our industry can play. So I think that's one thing the clients are saying. The second thing I think is that those clients that can sell to typically sell through digital channels and therefore they're looking for, you know, digital campaigns or campaigns in digital media. And so there's a big shift in that direction to communications closer to the purchase point. And so those clients are thinking in a fortunate position that they can sell online. They're doing it and actually many clients are figuring out how they can get online much more quickly. And we had, we worked with a chain of retailers in the US and developed, you know, in two weeks a whole e-commerce platform for curbside delivery. So there's a lot of innovation taking place. And I think that's the other thing you hear from clients is let's just try things out because what's the downside? We all have suffered huge losses and we're cutting costs from wherever we can. In such a scenario, how much will agency business suffer if at all? Or do you think pandemic will make the role of agencies even more important for clients? Well, yeah, clearly in the short term, you know, our business is going to be impacted and you can see that, you know, impact in our results in the first quarter we pulled out what happened in March. And, you know, I think that that is a unfortunate reality of the situation that, you know, to some extent is beyond our control or beyond anyone's control. You know, we are in a fortunate position as WPP and in our industry that we can continue to work. But clearly budgets are impacted in a number of sectors, you know, much more in hospitality or travel and tourism or luxury than they are in, you know, package goods or technology or healthcare. That's about 50% of WPP's business globally. So, you know, I think that there's going to be an economic impact. And I think that that's going to be, you know, a temporary impact of Q2, Q3. And then the question is, how quickly do we get back to, you know, 2019 levels in our industry? And I think, you know, that's going to take a bit more time. If I can ask you a question about CanLine, I mean, the can was cancelled last year and now they're starting this can traditional thing. How should the festival change ahead of its return in 2021? Do you think it will be the same in the way it was or you suggest some changes? So I think, you know, we supported the decision by the organizers to cancel the festival this year and not to try to hold it again in October. And I think that that was the right decision. You know, we are great believers in award shows and in recognition for the award. And I know it's important for the creative community and it's important that we celebrate the impact that our industry does. Clearly, I think when Can comes back in 2021, it's going to come back in a different form. And I think everyone understands that, you know, more elements of it will be online. I don't know that as many people will travel to the South of France as used to. And we'll probably see, you know, another degree of scaling back of the festival from what we saw in the past. I mean, we've also got CES, the Consumer Electronics Show coming up in January. And if we start to plan for that, I think it's going to be difficult to see how that's going to take place really in a major way in January either. And those are sort of the two, I'd say, the two key events or become the two key events in our industry. One, sort of CES, more celebration of technology and its impact on marketing in the world and Can Lines, which is celebration of creativity. Which after all, I think is what, in a sense, WPP is about the combination of creativity and technology. So, you know, I think we'll miss Can next week. We have a special edition of WPP TV going out for the day. Yeah, we'll just talk about that. Yeah. I hope you watch WPP TV. Yeah, so I think, you know, we launched it as a way of bringing people together across WPP. It runs for about 45 minutes a day, four days a week when we feature creative people, some of the work, some of the leaders from around the world. We run one on Monday, sort of time for Asia, one on Tuesday, time for Europe, one on Wednesday, time for the United States and Thursday, time for Latin America. And, you know, it's been a great way of bringing people together. Some sort of, you know, some celebrities, some industry figures. And I think that, you know, although we're all sort of physically separated, in many ways, we sort of feel digitally more connected than ever before. And it's a sort of odd thing about the last, you know, three to four months, isn't it? So this is basically to, you know, boost the morale of the employees, you know, just to make them feel connected. Probably, I mean, boosting morale might be going too far, but I think it's about connecting people, about celebrating the work, about bringing people together. Motivating.   Everyone, you know, there's more webinars, you know, you can spend the whole day on a webinar, if you have nothing better to do. So... I'm hoping to do one with you soon, if you can take out some time for us. Okay. You wish to make on air. Yeah, yeah, we will love to do a live thing with you. So I spoke to Srinni during the lockdown, and he highlighted how much work WBP agencies were doing despite the lockdown, particularly creative agencies. So what were the operational challenges that most of your agencies faced during these times of lockdown? Yeah, the operational challenges were sort of, I'd say much less than we would have imagined. You know, I think, you know, historically, if you think you did an office move, you might take six months to plan it. Suddenly, we did an office move over a weekend. And, you know, we sort of sent everyone home, if that's the right word, or asked people to work from home March 16th, by which time actually many people would locally already made similar decisions, because we'd encourage people to work from home for some time, but we mandated it March 16th. And I think, you know, it's gone extremely smoothly at one level, perhaps that shouldn't surprise us, but I think that has been good. Now, I think we have to recognize it's not easy for people. And for every person, you know, typically senior people who live in houses with gardens that sort of rather enjoyed the last three to four months, there are many people who have found it very, very difficult, you know. Single parents, working parents, people living alone, you know, the least, the less advantaged in society. It's not, it's not in any way easy. And, you know, I know that many of our people really do want to come back to the office where to see their friends and to see their colleagues and to be together for that sense of community. And so I think that despite people being, you know, while some people, you know, never want to go back to work, there are many, many people that really, really do want to go back to work. And I think we're going to have to start to soon to think about how we can bring people gradually back into the offices, you know, ensuring that they're safe and they can get to the office in the safe way and they're set up in the right way and this voluntary, but I think that we can manage all of that. Mark, before we close, what would be your final word for the industry and advice or, you know, something that you want us to leave as in thinking before we wrap up? I think ours is an optimistic industry. It's an industry that's connected to people and to ideas and to the art of the possible. And I think we have to look into, you know, the current situation that we find ourselves and look for the great opportunities, look for the things we want to change, look for the good in the world and, you know, really try to, you know, help our clients get through this. You know, we're not on the frontline of the response, but I think as an industry, there's many things that we should be proud of in helping companies and health authorities and organizations communicate during the pandemic. And I think we need to look at that in the future. I think it's brought, certainly it's brought WPP together as a company in ways we wouldn't have imagined before. And I think that that will be a good thing and from collaboration, you know, we'll get better results for our clients and ultimately, you know, we exist to help our clients, you know, to help the people that work for us and help in the community case in which we live, you know, and use the power of creativity to do that.  Mark, thank you so much for taking out time for us and speaking to us. There's a lot that a lot of people in India would learn from this interview and inspire. Thanks again for your time and we wish you all the best. Stay safe. Well, thanks very much for having me and, you know, I really appreciate the questions and I really appreciate the work that, you know, all of our people do in India and our clients for their support and, you know, I wish our whole industry and everyone in India the best as well. It's a fantastic country and a fantastic economic market and I'm sure we'll all get through this and come out the other side in a good place. Thank you, Mark. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thanks, Mark.


Let's talk a little bit more about the beliefs of Javier Millay because he does have very strong beliefs. You mentioned him in the context of Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban. There's a tendency to kind of like lump all these people together, which I think is a mistake and part of what we're going to disentangle a little bit here. I watched a 2019 TEDx talk that Millay gave, which was really an ode to capitalism. We're going to play a bit of that and then discuss Millay's intellectual framework a bit more. It'll be subtitled in Spanish and for the audio only podcast, I will overdub this in English. But here's Javier Millay at TEDx in 2019. It's three chapters because in the middle one is studying and deepening this, the novel is emerging in different ways. The first thing that fell in love with capitalism and freedom was basically that it's a machine to get people out of poverty, that it's the machine to prosperity, that it's the machine to well-being. But of course, when one advances in this idea, it's with detractors, detractors that accuse the system of being unfair. So that's the button down, rational sounding Millay, and he sounds very much like a libertarian economist there. We'll get to some of the spicier stuff soon, but Eduardo is a fellow Argentine libertarian economist. What can you tell us about Millay's economic ideas? Well, at the beginning, he was an econometrist. So he believed in planned models and just studying statistics, you can foresee what the future would be. So he was working for corporations trying to give them some kind of sense of where the markets were going, but without a solid base of understanding, I don't know, Israeli Kirchner or the good economists explaining Hayek that what is the dispersed knowledge in the economy. So he didn't have too much knowledge related to it. But once he started to study Mises Hayek, Rodbert in Argentina, Benegas Lynch, that he was the promoter of Austrian economics, so he little by little started to believe in the market processes and he started to buy them. So it's true. What he's saying in his TED talk, what he's saying that he really learned how the markets operate and also he started to realize how capitalism transformed the world in the last two or three centuries. So when he saw that, what he saw the effects of the industrial revolution and he started to realize that the type of life we live today are a consequence of changing ideas. And a little bit of John Locke, a little bit of Jefferson, a little bit of Benjamin Franklin, a little bit of John Adams, and Alexis de Tocqueville. I don't think he really read them in deep, but he got that feeling. And after that, Argentina that has been a fascist and socialist country for several decades, suddenly he discovered that the idea that necessity creates rights, the idea of social justice, the idea that the world is fixed, and when you make money is at the expense of somebody else, he started to discover that all those ideas are wrong. I don't know how deep his knowledge is related to these justice issues, but I really think that he has the proper sense of life. He become little by little a kind of individualist. He's still a little bit altruistic, a little bit mystic in some approaches, but the sense of life is individualistic. He's in favor of, if you ask him how to interpret and defend property rights, he can do it. If you ask him about your right to look for your own happiness, he knows how to justify that. So I think that compared with some other politicians, he's a strong leader understanding some issues. His character is too strong for my pleasure. The way he speaks, he looks like Benito Mussolini, but still the way he approaches subjects is pretty good. The way that he's been portrayed here by the US media is, I just pulled it together a little montage of headlines. Argentinian far-right outsider Javier Malay posts shock win in primary election in Argentina. A new Trump rises, far-right populist Javier Malay is the biggest vote-getter in Argentina's presidential primary. New York Times far-right libertarian, so they did describe as libertarian, but a far-right libertarian wins Argentina's presidential primary. Then I just want to dig into the New York Times description of his policy positions here for a second. He says that they say that besides his ideas about the currency and the central bank, which is something we're going to get to later because that's central to the Malay candidacy, I think, but they say he has proposed drastically lowering taxes and cutting public spending, including charging people to use the public health care system, closing or privatizing all state-owned enterprises, and eliminating health education and environmental ministries. That all sounds to me like fairly straightforward libertarian policy. The Spanish newspaper El País had a rundown of some of his positions on social issues, but marriage between people of the same sex. For me, marriage is a contract between private individuals, says Malay. Homosexuality. Sexuality as lived is a personal choice. Drug legalization. They say that Malay is in favor of drug legalization because consumption is an individual action. They say the same thing here about gender identity. Malay's kind of spicy statement here is, do you want to perceive yourself as a cougar? Do it. It doesn't matter to me as long as you don't make me pay the bill. Don't impose it on me from the state. He wants to deregulate the legal arms markets, which means allowing legal firearms ownership. He says he's not an advocate of the Argentine military dictatorship, although he is taking a look at what Bukele is doing in El Salvador that may or may not be of interest to him. I should also mention here that he supports a referendum to undo Argentina's recent abortion rights law. He's anti-abortion. He's also trying to wage some of the same gender studies, schools fights that are raging here in the US. The last thing here is he's expressed a natural alliance with figures like Trump and Brazil's Bolsonaro because he's on the side of anyone against communism and socialism. I was saying earlier to Eduardo that I don't think it's particularly illuminating to say that Trump equals Bolsonaro, equals Orban, equals Malay, especially because Malay, while we may have some criticisms of him, does look different from the rest. Gloria, what is your overall reaction to the far-right characterization of Javier Malay? I agree with Eduardo that it is important to understand Argentinian history in order to understand the massive ignorance that there is, especially in Latin America, of what the libertarian movement portrays. For example, myself. I was graduated from Universidad Francisco Marroquín, UFM. I did an internship at the Cago Institute. I've dedicated my life for the libertarian principles and to diffuse them not only in Latin America but elsewhere in the world. Now I have people saying that I am not a libertarian because I don't want the state getting involved in issues like abortion, gay marriage, drug legalization, opening borders not only to products but also to people. They tell me that I have become a Marxist because of this. If I can fall into the category of Marxist because the understanding of what libertarianism is in Latin America is so vague, of course you're going to have confusion all over the planet on what Javier Malay portrays. Personally, let's go every subject that you touch because I think that if we start focusing on policies instead of focusing on individuals we dismantle the populism that there is. I don't like analyzing politicians as dogmatic messiahs. I like analyzing policies to see how the policies are more or less libertarian. I think the more that we do that, the less fanatism and dogmatism we're going to have and I think we're in a world that highly needs that for the Putin's, the Bolsonaro's, the Trump's, but also the Chavez, the Ortegas, the Evo Morales, the Lulas of the world. We have people going blindly after people, after leaders, instead of going very strict after policies. When Javier Malay says to you that gay marriage is something he doesn't believe because he doesn't believe that the state should regulate marriage, I say, well, then what's the proposal going to be? Is a straight marriage going to be something from the past? Is he going to take away the state in every marriage? I don't think so, right? But it's a really nice way of saying I'm not going to touch the issue. So advancing in sexual liberty and liberty to love whoever you want to love in Latin America, I think is a huge one. And also differentiating that from using the state to educate people and indoctrinate people in things that you don't want kids to be indoctrinated. That's why the state shouldn't get involved in education. Because if the state is Nazi, your kids are going to be Nazis. If the state is communist, etc. And if you go out to drugs, when he says, well, everybody is, you know, allowed to consume whatever they want to consume, that's okay. But drugs are not only about consumption. It's also about who is producing them. And we know as a fact that the drug cartels from Colombia to FARC to Mexico, all the cartels have finance socialism of the 21st century, right? It is one of the pillars. And we as libertarians in the region have been saying for decades that unless Latin America legalizes, decriminalizes the production of these substances, we are not going to have transparent politics. Because it's a super highway of financing all these leaders without any accountability, without any transparency.  He's also like retrieving himself as a libertarian into taking action in these issues, right?   I don't care about the drugs. I just want my money to be a healthy money. I just want to do business in a healthy way. I want my savings to be, you know, guaranteed. And I understand that because Argentina has one of the worst inflations that you can have. And when the economy, you know, it's, it's, it's pushing ahead, then of course, that you're going to be okay. So that's where we need to ask ourselves if Javier Millet comes to power, is he going to have a Congress that will support him into opening up to the markets? Because Argentina currently is one of the worst countries in the world in the index of economic freedom. So you need to maybe dollarize it to open up to new currencies, including cryptocurrencies, which are big in Argentina, but they are illegal. There's there are two different prices of dollars in Argentina. The black market one and the one that the government uses. So even in economy, we have to ask ourselves, what is he going to be capable of doing now regarding abortion? It is true that nowadays, Argentinians, conservative Argentinians that support Javier Millet and another leaders like him have paid more than 30,000 abortions yearly with their taxes. Since abortion was something that started to be a state introduced or managed in 2021, from the policy of 2020, December 2020, right? So you're talking about 30,000 abortions yearly and uprising. So when he says that he's going to take that back, he could also have the stance of a libertarian, which are not understood in Latin America, because you can be a libertarian and be against the state paying for abortions, but taking away the state so that the market offers them. Unless we as libertarians communicate properly, what are the libertarian ideas Javier Millet and other leaders will be portrayed by the media as super far right. Now, the last issue that I want to discuss, supporting Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro, and Putin has become a one deal package in Latin America. And we have been called not true libertarians when we, and I mean we like me, Antonella Marti, the Libertarian Party of Spain, or even Objectivists in Enron Center Latin America where Maria Eduardo sister, it works when you say, wait a minute, I don't think that Trump is having libertarian stance or Bolsonaro, you get crucified in social media. And people tell you that unless you are with them, you are not a true libertarian. So I think that we have to understand, what is it that, differentiates Javier Millet from a Ronald Reagan Christian, a free market guy, from like a true libertarian. And the only way of doing that is analyzing what libertarian policy needs. But so when I look at that list of his stances on social policies, I would agree with you that the abortion issue is a big wedge, I mean that's a wedge even within the American Libertarian movement. There's division on that topic. I think you're saying that at the very least, a libertarian could, or you think that the correct libertarian position would be no state funding for abortion, but allow people to make their own decisions there, is that less? According to the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, which is already from 2011, 30% of libertarians are pro-life, what we would call anti-abortion. 70% are pro-choice, which I think is also, as Anne Rand accurately said, you can have a pro-life statement for abortion. But even in the pro-life libertarians, they do not agree that you should criminalize women and put them in jail because abortion should be considered a crime. There are interviews where Javier Millay and people who support him have said that we should use the state and the machinery of the state to criminalize women who go under abortion. How does that enter the umbrella of libertarianism? Even by anarcho-capitalist, I say to them, how is it that you don't want a state, but you're going to have a private police that is going to persecute women and their uterus? How is that going to work? They don't have a straight answer, but they want to make abortion something that the state criminalizes. And then just so I understand on these other topics where he seemingly is in alignment with libertarian philosophy on drug use or sexuality, you're saying that he's okay with drug use, but not offering a policy like we need to end the prohibition of drug sales in Argentina. Or in the case of gay marriage, he's saying people can do whatever they want, but he's not actually advancing an equal protection for gay couples in Argentina. I just want to make sure I'm understanding your point. Is that a correct summation? Absolutely. It's like if libertarianism is all about individual rights equal for everybody, right now in Latin America, the lesbian, gay, trans, they do not have equal rights in markets. For example, if you're not married, you don't have the benefits that straight couples have in order to have inheritance in order to go to a cell phone company and get a family package for all your family. If you're talking about two lesbians, they don't get those benefits in the market. You know what I mean? So those are things that marriage gives you individual rights for straight people that right now the LGBT community does not have. I think that as a libertarian, you can move forward to that. Even if you say that marriage shouldn't be something that the state should regulate, okay, but let's be equal to everybody. And then your libertarian platform should be, let's get rid of straight marriage and let's make marriage something that only the market does. But then what happens? You can have a celebration of a gay wedding, but you cannot use lawyers or anything to protect your rights. That is the thing in Latin America. The same with prostitution. Javier Milay can say, well, there's the sexual market. You can do whatever you want. But if you don't decriminalize prostitution, prostitution keeps being something that the black market operates in criminalization. It's like if in the United States, during the prohibition, you would have a candidate saying, hell, people can drink whatever alcohol they want to, but he's not willing to end the prohibition. What do you think of that critique, Eduardo? And after this, we're going to bring in a couple more Milay clips so that our audience can really get a sense of the kind of rhetoric that he uses to advance his ideas. But what do you think of Gloria's critique of Milay's social positions that maybe he kind of throws a bone to libertarians, but he's not actually advancing policies that are going to increase social freedom in Argentina? I think that Gloria is 100 percent right. Need a perfect description of the way Javier thinks. I'm pretty optimistic. I think he was a kind of middle of the road, a little bit collectivist, and he started to understand the benefits of individualism and liberalism five years ago. And he's smart. He's very passionate. I think his sense of life is conservative, but he's becoming more an individualist. Regarding abortion, for example, his last declaration, his last speech says that, okay, I will not penalize abortion. I'm not in favor of that, but I want to stop financing abortions, and that's going to become a little bit very consistent with the libertarian ideas. I don't know if maybe his next declaration is going to say the same, but it seems that he's running little by little a way of conservatives. But at the same time, I'm afraid that that can also happen with economic principles. The idea of closing the central bank, that for me is a great idea, the idea of reducing all taxes. We had 167 taxes, and he suggested to stay with six or seven taxes to reduce the size of government to 20% of the PBI expenditures. So all that, he has been very aggressive, very consistent. But for example, his last declaration, he said that he doesn't want to keep financing the cognizant, the science research. And the whole country went after him saying, you are going to stop financing research in science and culture, things that are so important. This is a broken country with people making, I don't know, $3,000 a year. So with people searching in the garbage to eat, you have 45%, 50% of people in poverty. So a good president would come and say, we are going to cut all expenditures. We will have a healthy money and a very, very short budget. So we are trying to advise Javier that if you really gain the presidency, just to act on principle, just a very small government, very consistent, and not enter into those social issues that Gloria described so well. He's a guy who's suffering his infancy a lot. He was being beaten by his parents, and he's full of, I don't know, emotions that overflowed him.  And I think that's really possible because little by little we grow. I don't know if we'll be able to see it, but they have expectations. But for the moment, if you compare me, Lei, with, I don't know, Patricia Bullridge or the candidate for the Cristina Quixote and Mr. Massa, you see a guy with a different sense of life. I resent also some of his conservative positions. And I think that, of course, they are going, they are not going to help him to his position. But compare what we had in the past is something.