James, first of all, a two-part question. First, how do you feel after this game? How did you feel going into it? And second, how do you feel? What do you feel the Nets have shown about their toughness in a game like this against a chippy team like Detroit where you out-rebounded them 49 to 36? I feel good. Had a couple of days to get my neck right and how to bang them knee as well. So just trying to make sure that I was good there. But they were a scrappy team. They played like they had nothing to lose. They were aggressive. They made big time shots. For us, I'm just happy to come away with a win. I think on this road trip, we already knew going into it is going to be difficult. But to come away two out of three is a solid road trip, especially with our circumstances and what we got going on as far as injury. So we could have done a lot better job of finishing the game earlier. We gave them opportunity after opportunity. But gutsy won for us, and we'll take it. And we just got to move on to the next.


The next item of business is a statement by Dorothy Bane, Lord Advocate, on diversion from prosecution. The Lord Advocate will take questions at the end of her statement, and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on the Lord Advocate up to 10 minutes, Lord Advocate. On 17 June 2021, the Scottish Parliament passed a motion on tackling drug-related deaths. In relation to myself, as a new Lord Advocate, the Scottish Parliament indicated that, firstly, it would support a review of guidance on recorded police warnings, and secondly, a statement on the principles and practicalities of diversion would be beneficial. This is my first opportunity as Lord Advocate to address the Scottish Parliament, and I welcome the chance to do so on such a significant and important issue. I recognise the extent of the public health emergency that we face in Scotland and the ability of prosecutors to help. It may be useful at the outset if I set some context. In Scotland, prosecutors act as gatekeepers to the criminal justice system, and, subject to some limited exceptions, it is the duty of the police to report a case to the prosecutor where they believe that there is sufficient evidence that an offence has been committed. It is then for the prosecutor to decide what of any prosecutorial action is in the public interest. One of those limited exceptions to report to the prosecutor is the recorded police warning scheme. The scheme provides officers with a speedy, effective and proportionate means of dealing with low-level offending. Officers may choose to deal with low-level offences by issuing a recorded police warning. As Lord Advocate, I issue guidelines to the police in relation to the operation of the scheme, including which offences may be considered for a recorded police warning. Those guidelines are set by me, acting independently of any other person. They extend beyond drug possession offences and are therefore properly confidential. However, I can confirm that the guidelines previously permitted the police to issue recorded police warnings for possession of class B and class C drugs. At the time of the debate, the guidelines were already under review. The review examined drug possession only case outcomes. I have considered the review and I have decided that an extension of the recorded police warning guidelines to include possession of offences for class A drugs is appropriate. Police officers may therefore choose to issue a recorded police warning for simple possession offences for all classes of drugs. In confirming the extension, I was to make four things clear. Firstly, the scheme extends to possession offences only. The scheme does not extend to drug supply offences. Robust prosecutorial action will continue to be taken in relation to the supply of controlled drugs. Secondly, the recorded police warnings do not represent decriminalisation of an offence. Recorded police warnings represent a proportionate criminal justice response to a level of offending and are an enforcement of the law. Thirdly, neither offering nor accepting a recorded police warning is mandatory. Police officers retain the ability to report appropriate cases to the procurator fiscal and accuse persons retain the right to reject the offer of a warning. Finally, neither offering a recorded police warning nor reporting a case to the procurator fiscal prevents an officer referring a vulnerable person to support services. On that final point, prosecutors working with fellow members of the drug task force have played an important role in the development of a pilot scheme to support such referrals. The scheme was launched in Inverness at the beginning of July 2021 and is led by Medics Against Violence. The purpose of the scheme is for individuals to be referred to a mentor to provide support at the first point of contact with the police. Such support is available whether or not an individual is subsequently reported for a criminal offence. Turning then to the principles and practicalities of diversion, I am aware that the term diversion is used in many different contexts. I will describe the long-standing Scottish system of diversion from prosecution. When any case is reported to the procurator fiscal and there is sufficient evidence, prosecutors will apply the principles set out in the published Scottish prosecution code. Prosecutals will exercise their professional judgment and identify what, if any, prosecutorial action is in the public interest. In identifying the appropriate outcome in the public interest, prosecutors take into account a range of factors, including the nature of the offending, the circumstances of the accused and where relevant to the impact on any victim. The range of options available to prosecutors includes formal warnings, financial penalties, diversion and prosecution. There is simply no one-size-fits-all. Each case will be considered on its own facts and circumstances. Diversion is an alternative to prosecution. Diversion is a process by which prosecutors are able to refer a case to social work or other identified agency as a means of addressing the underlying causes of offending when this is the most appropriate course of action. In 2019, the Len Lord Advocate reviewed prosecution policy and directed that diversion should be considered for all individuals reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service where there is an identifiable need that has contributed to the offending that can best be met through a diversion scheme. Prosecutors will consider all the circumstances and determine an appropriate outcome in the public interest. Where the prosecutor is satisfied that the public interest would be best served by an offer of diversion, they refer the individual to social work or other agreed agency, who then assess whether the person is suitable for diversion and report the assessment to the prosecutor. It may be that a person is assessed as unsuitable for diversion, for example where they have declined support or they require no intervention. In those cases, prosecutors will then decide what alternative action, if any, is required. Where a person is assessed as suitable, prosecutors refer the individual for diversion. Any decision to prosecute the person is normally deferred until the completion of a diversion programme of support. Any diversion programme should be tailored to the needs of each individual and provide the opportunity to meet the underlying causes of their offending and ultimately prevent re-offending. At the conclusion of the diversion programme, the results are reported to the prosecutor. Where the programme has been successfully completed, the prosecutor will routinely decide that no further action is required, and that is the end of the matter. Following the 2019 review of prosecution policy by the then Lord Advocate, the numbers of diversions offered for a single charge possession case increased significantly, from 57 in 2017 to 18 to 1,000 in 2020 to 21. The increase in the last year alone represents a doubling of the offers of diversion, despite the challenges that are faced and posed by the pandemic. Not every individual who uses drugs will be suitable for nor require diversion. Some accused persons will simply face a warning or a fine, and it may be that an appropriate and proportionate response is just that. Approximately two thirds of people reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, where the only offence reported is possession of drugs, are dealt with by alternatives to prosecution, with the vast majority of those being offered a financial penalty. Any alternative to prosecution, warnings, fines or diversions, are offers only. An accused person always has the right to reject such an offer, and there will be cases when prosecution is the appropriate response in the public interest. Where an accused person is subsequently found guilty by the courts, in turn, the courts have a range of sentencing disposals appropriate to the individual accused and offence. The range of options available to police, prosecutors and courts reflects the fact that, in Scotland, there is no one-size-fits-all response to an individual found in possession of a controlled substance or an individual dependent on drugs. The most appropriate response, the smartest response in any drugs case, must be tailored to the facts and circumstances of both the alleged offence and the offender. Scotland's police and prosecutors are using the powers available to them both to uphold the law and to help to tackle the drug-death emergency. Thank you very much indeed, Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate will now take questions on the issues relating to her statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions with any member who wishes to ask a question. Please press the request-to-speak button now or as soon as possible those joining us remotely should press an R in the chat function. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I warmly welcome the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General to the Government benches today. I thank them for advance sight of the statement and also pass apologies for the tardy arrival of members of these benches. The statement came through a little bit late. That is reflective of the fact that the Government gave no indication of the nature of today's statement and the content, despite it being a relatively major policy shift. I believe that this Parliament needs to rightly scrutinise the gravity of a decision like that made today. That should be the content, I believe, of a full debate, not of a question-and-answer session like we have had. Scotland's drug-death crisis is our national shame, but surely the way to tackle it is by improving access to treatment and rehabilitation, not to dilute how seriously we treat the possession of class A drugs, deadly drugs like heroin, crystal meth and crack cocaine, the scourges of our streets and the scourges of our society. The answer to our drug-death crisis is treatment, not de facto decriminalisation by the back door, as is the case today. Sadly, nothing has been said and today's statement will stop drug deaths. Nothing that has been said today will guarantee access to that needed treatment, something that our right to recovery bill is calling for. May I ask the Lord Advocate on this matter? There is a very fine balance between possession of drugs and drug dealing. How are police officers expected to enforce this new guidance? May I ask what consultation was had by the Government with Police Scotland before today's announcement and decision was made? Finally, will Parliament get a say on any of this, with a full and proper debate on the matter and a full and proper vote on a decision like this, a decision of such importance and magnitude? Thank you for the question, Mr Greene. The causes of the death, drugs-related deaths in Scotland are complex and the reasons people take drugs are complicated. No one measure is going to reverse the appalling levels of drug-related deaths that you so rightly refer to. The criminal justice system has a role to play in reducing harms caused by drugs to our communities, both in terms of disrupting the activities of drug dealers and ensuring that where appropriate help is offered to vulnerable individuals. There is a significant distinction to be made by those involved in the supply of drugs and those who are drug dealers who destroy communities and those vulnerable individuals who are addicted to drugs for a whole variety of reasons, many of which relate back to real difficulties in their background, significant problems in their childhood and vulnerabilities that are none of their own making. There is a significant distinction to be made between what I am talking about today, which is the possession of drugs and supply. That is an important distinction. My point is that it is important that the criminal justice system responds appropriately to the individual who is caught in the possession of drugs. Diversion that I pointed out in my statement represents an opportunity to engage with potentially vulnerable individuals in a productive way that attempts to address the causes of their offending and prevent re-offending. Diversion is a criminal justice response and is not a replacement for community treatment and support. Recorded police warnings are a criminal justice response and it is not de facto decriminalisation. The success of diversion is dependent on a number of factors. The quality of the information provided to prosecutors regarding the individual's background and potential vulnerability, the engagement of the individual and the availability of effective diversion schemes, the establishment of community justice Scotland, which provides significant opportunities to enhance the use of diversion across Scotland and establish a consistent approach to the availability of diversion schemes tailored to those experiencing drugs or alcohol issues. I am going to have to ask you to slightly brief our responses. We have a lot of questions to get through. Thank you. I think that it is a very welcome statement this afternoon from the lawyer advocate and I recognise her commitment to supporting a proportionate and reasonable response to the drug deaths crisis that we are facing in Scotland. This weekend, the recovery walk Scotland takes place in Perth, and last night I attended a civic reception to welcome them to Perth. I heard from people who are living through their recovery, who only underlined that they need to make it as easy and as possible to get treatment and that those in need of support can approach services without fear of judgement or reprisal. I believe that this announcement today will help towards that. The Lord Advocate will be aware of the growing support that there is for safe consumption rooms and I am looking for some clarity on whether anything within the statement would help with enabling the establishment of those on a more formal footing. As she has described, we know that it is not enough to do what is announced today in isolation, that diversion from prosecution needs to be backed with access to services on the ground and good links with police and those services. I noticed from the notes that diversion as an outcome has doubled in the past year. What discussions has the Lord Advocate had with partners to ensure that there is enough resources to deliver on that? Can she finally confirm that Police Scotland is already familiar with the police recorded warning scheme and that this is an extension of that scheme? Lord Advocate. I can confirm that the police are familiar with the recorded police warning scheme. The recorded police warning scheme has been in place in Scotland since 2016. The alteration or the change in guidance that I have provided in relation to classy drugs is again the police are aware of the extension that I have described today in relation to recorded police warnings. The extension of recorded police warnings is not linked to any proposal to establish drug consumption facilities. That is an entirely separate scheme or that is an entirely separate proposal to the recorded police warning scheme, which is an entirely separate scheme designed as part of a proportionate criminal justice response to lower level offending. In relation to the availability of suitable support following on diversion, I understand that that is in place and that it has been significantly supported by the criminal justice, I just get the name of the organisation, I can't quite remember the name of it, but what has happened is that there has been significant involvement of the criminal justice system and that there has been engagement through the procreative fiscal service and prosecutors with the appropriate agencies that deliver the schemes that will assist in the rehabilitation of those who are dependent on drugs and in circumstances, I am confident that the step that I am taking today relates to diverting individuals for possession offences by virtue of recorded police warning systems will assist in the process that is under way in order to try and bring to those individuals who really need it the help and support to get off drugs and to go forward and become useful members of the community. Lord Advocate, I am conscious that we are eight and a half minutes in and we have covered two questions. We are going to have to have sink sink questions and the sink answers as possible. I recognise that it is not always possible, but we have covered a fair bit of ground with the statement already. I call Audrey Nicholl to be followed by Russell Finlay. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I welcome the Lord Advocate to the chamber this afternoon. Can I ask the Lord Advocate to clarify the criteria behind whether a person is or isn't suitable for diversion? Prosecution policy on diversion is that it should be considered in all appropriate cases where there is identifiable need that has contributed to offending. An accused person's need may be identified as a result of information provided by the police or the criminal justice social work to prosecutors or be evident from the circumstances of the offence. Dependency on drugs may be unidentifiable need. Today's statement claims that those who reject a fiscal fine as an alternative to prosecution for drugs possession can be prosecuted. Yet, in 2018-19 pre-pandemic, only one in three of those who rejected those went on to be convicted. Does that new guidance mean that more people caught in possession of drugs will simply be let off the hook? I do not accept that. As I have indicated, the proposals and the underpinning rationale for the statement today is that what has been done is to ensure that any criminal justice response, or any dealing of those cases by the criminal justice process, is tailored to the needs of each individual and provides the opportunity to each individual to meet the underlying causes of offending and, ultimately, prevent re-offending. I welcome the Lord Advocate to her role. We have heard a lot previously about diversion schemes elsewhere in the positives of those. We have also talked about drug misuse being more a public health issue than a criminal justice one. Is it actually the case that Scotland is indeed leading the way in establishing diversion from prosecution by bringing such an individualised tailored approach to possession of drugs, as has been announced by the Lord Advocate today? Diversion from prosecution schemes have long existed in Scotland. They are administered by the procurator fiscal under the direction of the Lord Advocate rather than by the police. However, the establishment of community justice Scotland has provided a significant opportunity to enhance the use of diversion across Scotland and to establish a consistent approach to the availability of diversion schemes across the country and their use in appropriate cases by prosecutors. Further to Claire Baker's question, will the Lord Advocate give clarity to those supervising drug consumption rooms who are saving lives, will they be safe from prosecution and on the grounds that the 1971 act does not preclude supervision of safe consumption and, after all, people are saving lives? I think I indicated at the outset that recorded police warnings and the issues that I am dealing with today are very different and distinct to drug consumption rooms. In 2017, the then Lord Advocate was asked by Glasgow City Health and Social Care partnership to confirm by way of guidelines, letters of comfort, protocols or a formal policy that the health board, council and their staff, partners and organisations and service users of proposed drug consumption rooms would not be prosecuted for a broad range of potential offences, including, in my view, some very serious offences. The then Lord Advocate considered the proposal carefully and reached the conclusion that the public interest objective in consumption facilities was a health rather than justice one. However, in relation to what was asked of him, the then Lord Advocate concluded that it was not possible to grant the request. What the Lord Advocate can do is make decisions as to whether or not a criminal offence will be prosecuted. The Lord Advocate cannot make an activity lawful, nor is it open to the Lord Advocate to grant in advance immunity from prosecution. The Lord Advocate responded to the specific proposal and request. I agree with that response to the specific proposal and request made. Any future proposal would require to be considered on its own specific merits, and I certainly would be prepared to consider any such future proposal, but it has to be specific, it has to be underpinned by evidence, and it requires a fresh reconsideration. Can the Lord Advocate outline the considerations that led to the decision to expand the scope of the RPW scheme? We have heard about police forces in England who are diverting individuals for possession offences at the point of arrest. Can the Lord Advocate outline why that process cannot be adopted in Scotland? In relation to the question about police forces in England who are diverting individuals from possession offences at the point of arrest, there are a limited number of police-administered diversion schemes in operation in England and Wales, and those diversions, however, I would say that the diversion in Scotland predates those schemes, and in Scotland it is prosecutors who administer the schemes, not the police, and in Scotland prosecutors act as the gatekeepers to the criminal justice system, and with limited exceptions it is prosecutors, rather than the police officers who determine how a case should be dealt with. As I say, there is no one size that fits all. In relation to offering diversion to everybody who is dependent on drugs, or should we not be offering diversion to everybody found in possession of drugs, again, I say that one size does not fit all the circumstances, and not all persons found in possession of drugs are dependent on drugs and would be suitable for diversion. So, what we need to do is look at the most appropriate response in a particular individual case and identify whether or not we can understand what is brought about the individual's offending and what we can do to prevent re-offending. Insofar as what we have considered about the question of diversion, we have looked at how those offenses have been dealt with by police and by prosecutors, and we have identified that, in the majority of cases, simple possession offenses are dealt with through non-court disposals. It is that understanding of the way in which the prosecution of those types of offenses is dealt with by the courts and, indeed, the decision-making of the prosecutors that led to a review of the diversion policy and led to my statement this afternoon. I am grateful to the Lord Advocate for coming to the chamber today. It follows a Liberal Democrat request back in June, backed by this Parliament, for such a statement on this matter and for such a change. The Government has insisted for years that diversion has been key to their approach, but we have just discovered that it only happened 57 times in 1718. That begs the question as to why we are imprisoning the same number of people for possession that we were a decade ago. Thousands of children are affected by parental imprisonment and drug use. Both are adverse childhood experiences. What guidance is the Lord Advocate giving to connect families to support when users encounter law enforcement? Lord Advocate. I have said before that the role of the prosecution service in Scotland is a role that requires them to consider whether or not the system can assist in reducing the harms caused by drugs to communities, disrupting the supply of drugs and delivering where it is necessary support to those vulnerable people who are caught in possession—those who are vulnerable who are caught in possession of all different classes of drugs. The fact that there has been an increase in diversion relates specifically to the review that I mentioned in my statement in 2019 and the understanding of the powerful impact that so many childhood experiences can have on individuals and the powerful impact that economic and social circumstances and indeed poor educational circumstances can have on individuals who find themselves addicted to drugs and alcohol and other difficult other such things. It is the case that there is an increase in diversion. It relates probably to the understanding of the real vulnerability of the individuals who are caught often in possession of drugs. It is understanding that there is an appreciation of the need to engage with the potentially vulnerable people to provide a productive way out of the difficulties that they have, identify the cause of their offending and to assist to prevent re-offending. Thank you Lord Advocate. I have five more questions that I need to get through. I intend to get through them, not least because we finished portfolio questions slightly early, but I would appreciate slightly more succinct responses if at all possible Lord Advocate. Christine Grahame is followed by Pam Gothel. Many addicts are indeed victims of things that have happened in their life, and I distinguish that clearly from those who supply. I welcome diversion where appropriate is tailored to the individual. Does Lord Advocate agree with me that diversion is certainly not a soft option, but there is a chance that the addict can break the destructive habit, and it is not something that prison can often achieve? I agree that diversion is not a soft option. Diversion involves a commitment by an accused person to engage with social work and a tailored programme of support. At the conclusion of the diversion programme, social work provides prosecutors with a report on accused persons level of engagement. Prosecutors reserve the right to take prosecutorial action in appropriate cases. However, in most cases, accused persons recognise the opportunity that diversion represents to help and tackle the causes of their harmful behaviour. Lord Advocate, your statement says that recorded police warnings do not represent decriminalisation of an offence. However, Police Scotland guidance states that recorded police warnings seek to have a positive impact on individuals by not criminalising them. Lord Advocate, are those two statements contradictory? The recorded police warning scheme represents a proportionate and timely criminal justice response for officers to use in appropriate circumstances, but it is still a criminal justice response. The recorded police warning scheme involves the police identifying a sufficiency of evidence indicating to an individual that the recorded warning system procedure is open to them. If the system is accepted, the warning stays on the record for two years and it is available to the police to consider when the individual may come in contact with the criminal justice system again. In addition to that, it is available to prosecutors to consider also. I simply reject that what has been said, that it is de facto decriminalisation, is simply not for the reasons that I have explained. I welcome the Lord Advocate to the chamber for the statement and I welcome that statement. I am very pleased to see the extension of the recorded police warning guidelines to include possession offences for class A drugs as appropriate, meaning that possession of all classes of drugs is now covered by RPWs. That is a very important step on the way to ensuring a public health approach to the drugs crisis that Scotland faces and to decriminalisation of possession of drugs. In her statement, the Lord Advocate— Question, please, Ms Tatman. Coming to that, thanks. The figures for diversion offered for single charge possession cases standing at 1,000 for last year. Can she tell us how many of those diversions resulted in a successful completion of the diversion programme, i.e. when prosecutors decided that no further action was required and more generally what the value of those diversions has been in terms of better outcome for the accused, their families and communities, and the costs saved by the criminal justice system, freeing up resources for other support systems? Lord Advocate. Thank you for the question and thank you for the support for the review of the recorded police warning system, which I recognise, as you have, that is tailored to the needs of each individual and provides the opportunity to meet the underlying causes of offending. You have asked a number of questions about the figure of 1,000 diversions in the year 2020-21, including the extent to which they were successful and the response by prosecutors. I think that you asked a number of other questions that I did not have time to note, but I cannot specifically answer those today. I am prepared to write to the member to indicate a response to each of those individual questions as quickly as I can. I am sorry that I cannot give the precise answer to that series of questions this afternoon, but I undertake to do so. That is perfectly acceptable. Stephanie Callaghan, to be followed by Katie Clark. Lord Advocate, you spoke earlier of providing mentoring at the first point of contact with police. Can I ask what evidence is available that mentoring reduces re-offending? As far as mentoring reduces re-offending is concerned, the system that is in place in Inverness that has been there since July 2021 is probably the way in which we would be able to understand the benefit of the referral to a mentor. The purpose of the scheme is for individuals to be referred to a mentor to provide support at the first point of contact. I suspect that the best way in which to identify the benefit of mentoring at the first point of contact is to see the consequences of the scheme that is lodged in Inverness at the beginning of July this year. Insofar as the evidence that is available to all those who have considered those issues is certainly good evidence to support the suggestion that immediate referral to someone who provides help, support and direction is far more beneficial than processing an individual through the criminal justice process. I welcome what the Lord Advocate has said about criminal justice responses. In the past, the problem that the courts have often experienced is a lack of resource when it has come to looking at alternatives to custody. I am pleased that she is now satisfied with the resources that are in place. What does she understand are the financial implications of the statement that she has made today, particularly in relation to putting appropriate support in place for the most vulnerable individuals? In relation to the financial implications of the statement, the member must appreciate the position that I hold, and that is Lord Advocate, head of prosecution service. Understanding that role, I look to identify the way in which the criminal justice process can assist the needs of the very vulnerable people who are often coming into contact with the police in relation to those types of offences. The resources that I have and the work that has been done by prosecutors has been done extensively and well and thoroughly investigated and thoroughly supported by the evidence base that has allowed me to make the statement today. Insofar as the funding that is available to others such as the Scottish Courts Tribunal Service, I am not in a position to advise on that today. If there is a particular question relating to the issue that the member wishes me to answer, I can respond in writing, given the limited time that we have available for this particular question.


Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential, my name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MusicTeacher.com and in this video we're going to be looking at the St James Amp Plugin and talking about the differences between the EL34 Amp and the 6R6 Amp. Now both of these amps have very different sounds and very different applications, so if you're trying to figure out which one is best for you, in this video we're going to try and answer that question. So everything you hear is going to come from the St James Plugin Suite. So in the pre-effects I do have the default setting for the compressor which is switched on, this is just the default sound as you load up the plug-in and in the post effects I have some reverb on, not going to be touching the EQ and I'm not going to be touching cab rig all in this video. Only thing we will be tweaking is in this amp panel view, we're going to be going from the EL34 Amp which is this one to the 6R6 Amp which is this one. Both amps have clean and overdrive channels so I'll be going between those two and the overdrive channels on both amps also have a voice switch which adds an additional gain stage so we'll also be using that as well. Not really going to make many other tweaks to the amps because we're really just talking about the key differences between the two tube types and why you might choose one of each. So we're going to start with the EL34 Amp. EL34 tubes are predominantly more of a British sounding amp so if you think of the EQ sound we're going to have more of a pronounced mid-range not as much emphasis on the lows or the highs the emphasis sits in that mid-range so all of the great classic British amps are usually based around EL34 tubes or a similar variant of that something like an EL84 which is in a very similar total ballpark so what the EL34 will offer you as I said is a very mid-range focused tone this is great for classic rock blues and more British sounding heavier styles of music so think 80s and the way the British heavy metal tones those are in the wheelhouse of the EL34 sound now this particular EL34 amp is not really a high gain amp it's got plenty of gains to classic rock and others rock styles but this isn't really designed as a metal amp if you wanted more gain out of this you could go into the pre-section and add the overdrive pedal to give it a little bit more of a kick. So when we hear a clean EL34 amp what we're expecting is a full-bodied clean with lots of mid-range focus it's going to be a very warm and balanced sound. When you kick on the overdrive channel of an EL34 amp this is going to push you more into a kind of blues rock classic rock territory then if you want to go even further into more high gain classic rock sounds go to the second voice and that will add another gain stage. So the EL34 is great for some of those rootsy more classically voiced British sounds and if you go over to the 6L6 amp what we're now going to get is more of a focus on the lows and highs and less so on the mids. The typical American sound is known as more of a mid-scooped sound so you've actually got less mids it's kind of the opposite to a British sound a British sound would actually have a lower low and a lower high but a boost to the mids American sound would have the opposite they have higher highs and lows and less of the mid-range so it's sort of the EQ spectrum opposite. So clean this is going to be great for tight percussive funky stuff so this works great with single coil sounds but then also in humbucker positions it's a great tiny clean sound for strumming. Now the gain side of the St. James 6L6 is much more far-reaching than the EL34 so what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to adjust the gain control slightly here so if I go to the overdrive channel and I bring the gain down to about here so it's very very low what this is going to give us is a nice bluesy American crunch tone but then as we increase the gain it actually gets a lot more saturated very very quickly so even on the halfway point there's quite a lot of gain here. So that means the 6L6 amp is actually great if you want to play heavier styles of music if you're playing metal or real hard rock this is the gain range that you're going to be needing. Now if we go to the second gain voice we're actually going to take this to another level so there's even more gain here and as you can see the gain control is only on halfway so as you can imagine that would be great for real high gain styles now just for contrast I'm going to completely crank the gain so as you can imagine that would be the perfect amp for anyone playing higher gain styles of music. So to summarize EL34 is going to be warmer more mid-focused great for classic rock and bluesy styles of music. 6L6 is great for pristine cleans but also those high gain sounds if you want some real crushing high gain sounds 6L6 all the way but the 6L6 does also have some really cool low gain sounds on tap as well. So there you go there are some of the key differences between an EL34 and a 6L6 amp sound so when you're crafting your ideal guitar sound this is a good jumping off point in terms of picking an amp and having a good starting point. If you're thinking more classic you're probably going to be happy with the EL34 if you want modern tight and especially if you want high gain the 6L6 is the way to go. Let me know down below in the comments what your favorite is between the 6L6 and the EL34 amps in the St. James plugin suite. I'd love to hear which ones you guys are using for your own sounds at home. Don't forget to check out Blackstar Amplification on YouTube for more videos just like this and if there's anything you'd like to see us talking about with the St. James plugin let us know down below in the comments. Don't forget to check out MusicTeacher.com if you're looking for a great guitar teacher in your local area. They've got a huge network of teachers waiting to help you guys out. Thank you so much for watching as always and I'll see you soon.


Hello everybody, Andrea Mayesky here with Dental Tutoring. So this is video, I guess, number two day in the life of a dental hygienist. My last one, my first video, was me just simply showing you guys what I take to work. My loops, like the type of makeup I wear that doesn't come up on the mask. My name tag, my name tag. So this is, I guess, the official video where I start talking about my day as a dental hygienist. Because as I mentioned before, when I was a new dental hygienist, even a student, it was just nice to hear what other people go through, their experiences with patients, dealing with difficult patients, how you handled it, because it takes time to get experience. It takes time to get comfortable in knowing how to handle every situation. I can honestly say now, after 14 years, that I'm comfortable handling a little bit of everything I have seen and heard almost everything. And I do have bad allergies today. So if you guys can see that my eyes are red, I have not been crying. It's just really, really bad allergy. So I apologize. But okay, so I'm going to try to keep this short and sweet and not too long. So it's 10 28 in the morning. So I'm just going to keep an eye on the time for you guys. I don't have a script or anything. So I'm just going to kind of talk about my day and I'm sure as I do more and more of these videos of day in the life of dental hygienist, I will get kind of a routine going, okay? So if you guys want to hear about something, if you have questions, comments, please make sure to comment below. So, okay. So I worked yesterday. So I typically work Tuesdays at the same office. It's anywhere from three till seven 30 or two till seven 30 or even three 30 till seven 30. It just sort of depends on the day and the shift. Well, yesterday was a perfect example of I was scheduled from three till seven 30. And my first patient canceled and I do like to check in with the receptionist a couple hours before to just kind of ask her what time I start because I tutor full time. So I don't mind coming in later. And I also don't mind coming in earlier if she needs me to see a patient who just hasn't been able to come in, you know, or who we are typically booked four months in advance, which is awesome. But if there's a patient that just really, really needs to be seen, I'm happy to help out right with some notice because I do tutor full time, which means I'm busy, but I can also move things around if needed. So anyway, so I had sent her a text a couple hours before and she said actually your first patient canceled. Your first patient isn't isn't here now until four o'clock.  I know a lot of hygienists might have a problem with that because less pay. But I don't mind. I don't mind starting later. It means I can maybe have a coffee in the afternoon. So I was actually pretty happy. So anyway, so I got there. I usually arrive half an hour early because that allows me to to get in, you know, to put my stuff away to put my shoes on to use the washroom to get some water. I'd like to look through all of my charts too at the beginning of the day. I do check to see that all of the appointments were scheduled properly, you know, like sometimes I will look in the computer and it says a nine month recall. Yet I check the ledger and the ledger is what shows you all of the appointments that the patient has had before. And I will see that, oh, well, they had a nine month recall last time and that was only four months ago. So actually this would be their four month cleaning because they would not be covered for a nine month recall in four months, you know, so I might change things on the computer so that it it will say actually today is a four month cleaning and not a nine month recall. So a the dentist is aware that she doesn't have to come in to do the check and that we charge accordingly because if it was a recall appointment, we would charge a recall, a half a unit of polish depending on how long the appointment is usually about two and a half units of scale or three units of scale. A recall exam, if they need x-rays so we typically take x-rays it depends on the patient but but either every once a year or once every two years even once every three years it depends on the patient. So if I were charging x-rays, we take four bite-wing x-rays if I'm doing that and some patients do get fluoride every year depending on if they if they always have a lot of cavities then yes we would give them fluoride at every checkup exam because it's usually not covered at the perio appointments but sometimes it is again, you never know, you have to check the insurance. But um anyways you guys so to make a long story short on that I will check to make sure that the appointment that it says in the computer is indeed the appointment for today. Now as a new hygienist this is hard for you to do because you don't have experience yet of you know insurance policies, how often the patient's coming in, how often they're coming in for a checkup because sometimes even if they come in for a cleaning every three months they might be covered for a cleaning and checkup every six months or it could be a cleaning and checkup every nine months or every year so you don't know that. It takes experience. I feel lucky that I was a dental receptionist first so I do have that knowledge on insurance a little bit things change a lot and then I was a dental assistant and then a dental hygienist and then a restorative hygienist so I do feel like I have a well range so I do know a little bit more but anyway so I do arrive half an hour early but okay so what happened yesterday was my four o'clock patient so she was having LA so local anesthetic with the dentist first and then I was seeing her actually at 420 but at four o'clock she wasn't here so the receptionist called and you know asked if she was coming and I guess she completely forgot about her appointment so she just kind of strolls in about 40 minutes later okay her appointment was an hour long so I obviously couldn't see her in 20 minutes you really can't do too much and it was it was local anesthetic with the dentist and quads one and four I believe so even if you wanted to do something there's no point because if you if you give local anesthetic to the patient well it's going to take at least 10 minutes so then you have 10 minutes to clean no but we had another hygienist working that day so what happened was I actually took her first patient and then she took that patient who I was supposed to see but even then even with moving things around she only had about 40 minutes to do a cleaning so what I would have done is said to the patient well we can't see you because you're 40 minutes late you had an appointment I apologize but we can't see you so let's just read book but the receptionist being so nice she did end up seeing the patient and the and the hygienist the other hygienist saw the patient but she could only do 40 minutes of work so she was able to give the dentist was able to give local anesthetic and she cleaned one quad instead of two okay so let's just kind of how we do things again if it was me I would have sent the patient home because I feel that they need to learn to show up on time when I have an appointment I show up half well not half an hour early but I show up about 15 minutes early it's I myself have an appointment whether it be to the dentist whether it be the chiropractor anything I show up 15 minutes early so I don't understand people who show up late things happen you know if you're coming from out of town um in our away and you got hit by traffic then yes I do think that we should accommodate you we might not be able to do everything but that's not our fault we have other patients who are waiting to see us right but anyway so that's just kind of how we handled it so that's a good explanation of different ways and different ideas to handle that patient who shows up 40 minutes late okay but I'm sure I'll have more stories about that because it does happen um but that was easy um so I saw um a patient of the other hygienist we each saw actually three patients that evening because it was a shorter shift so normally we'd see about five patients um in the morning and then five patients in the evening but since I was just working that kind of evening shift it was only three patients so easy stuff um but I want to talk to you guys about that patient that I saw so he was nice he seemed fine um but he was due or he is due for his complete oral exam next time so how it happens at least in my office is we do a complete oral exam every three years because that is what insurance covers and it's a good idea to have one so a complete oral exam is is when you do um the bite wing um the bite wing x-rays you take a panorax if needed um and you take an anterior and um an anterior pa of the top and the bottom you do all of the charting so like a new patient exam you look to see the existing conditions in the melt so if they have composites if they have a meldoms if they're tethered tipped crowded if they have attrition you would do the probing so pretty much everything that you would do at the new patient exam so it does take about a half an hour you know to go through everything um we take intraoral photos also but I like doing the complete oral exams because it does give us an overall look of the patient you know because otherwise we might be seeing the patient every three months or every nine months but we don't have that overall look so if things change we don't necessarily know because we didn't make a note of it before so anyways we do that every three years but um this dentist took over a practice of um another dentist who retired and he has never done complete oral exams a lot of his patients didn't even have a new patient exam yeah so having me explain to a lot of patients oh you know we are doing a complete oral exam the next time and they go whoa whoa what's this okay it's a complete oral exam it's no big deal it just takes a little bit longer we look inside the mouth we look to see your existing conditions so that we know what um meldoms you have what composite fillings you have if you have crowns you know we just like to go through everything to make sure that your chart is up to date because things change some patients still go whoa whoa i've never had that what is this what is that well it's covered by insurance so i don't see the big deal anyway but i guess it's the fear of the unknown or some patients go okay sure who you know what whatever i come here do what you have to do that's awesome um it's just the main reason why i tell them is because it does take a little bit longer so i want them to know how long to book off you know for their next appointment but this particular patient that i had he was just like no no i don't i don't need that i'm okay um and actually he didn't say this to me he said it to the receptionist um i explained everything to him in the room um and i i usually actually book their next appointment in the room so then that way i can tell them how important it is because it does happen where the patient will go up to the receptionist and go oh i don't know i don't have to come every three months i'm fine and the receptionist goes okay what so i i like to book appointments in my room so then that way they don't have that leeway of listening to me and then not the receptionist but i'll talk about more about that in another video but anyway so i was going to book his complete oral exam but i was running behind and that's what the receptionist is there for to book appointments so i thought that it'd be okay for her to book it for me and she's awesome she's fine with that so i brought him up to the front he didn't have questions things seemed fine he was a nice man but then the receptionist came to me afterwards and she kind of said to me like oh did you not explain the complete oral exam to your patient i i go oh yeah i did you know well like why do you ask um and she said well sorry allergy um she said well he was really upset he didn't understand why he needed a complete oral exam he said he's never had one he doesn't want one never mind i was like whoa okay like we're not doing a complete physical here like what's the big deal but a lot of patients if they've never had one i guess they're a little bit fearful i have no idea but so anyways he did book it so um when that happens you know it is up to the patient of course just leave notes in the chart i left a note on behalf of the receptionist just saying um um our receptionist talked to this patient you know no news mentioned um about the complete oral exam he declined because he felt he didn't need it and i put that in quotation marks um so he's just having a plain recall exam the next time because he did have his his four and a half month cleaning with me yesterday so he's having a complete or sorry the recall exam the next time because we see him for recalls every nine months so yeah that's all you have to do that's it done but it will happen okay it will happen um but then i just want to talk about one more patient at the end of the night that i had and then i will stop the video because it's been already 20 minutes i think actually no sorry now i kind of forget what time i started oh darn no i think it was 10 30 right so okay so it's been about 10 minutes so not too bad but anyway so for my last patient so this is what i would like to talk to you guys about too so this is a patient who she her last cleaning was a year ago not that long yes i know we say they have to come in every six months oh my goodness a year is such a long time it's really not you guys um but anyways her last appointment was a year ago um her teeth looked fine she's 29 she looked great you know i didn't expect there to be a lot there but this is a great learning experience for all of you guys um is that sorry i just had something pop up pop up on my screen her teeth looked fine i was like okay she was booked in to have local anesthetic with denis first and i kind of thought why is she having local anesthetic it's not like it's been 10 years i don't see the big deal right i looked in the x-rays i didn't see any calculus you know spurs in the x-rays so again i'm like why is she like sometimes i feel that dentists want to give local anest anesthetic just for the heck of it i don't know or the patients hear that we can give them local anesthetic and they won't feel pain so they just want it i wouldn't want a needle if i didn't have to have one but anyways so that's what i'm thinking is okay well we're going to give her local anesthetic all right and the appointment was for only quad one so i'm thinking okay her teeth look fine like what's the big deal here what am i missing but ten as soon as i checked with my explorer oh my god she had heavy black tenacious calculus rings of calculus pretty much around all of her teeth not thick enough to show up in the x-ray though but it was hard like i could tell that that was going to be hard to remove so either she builds up calculus really fast in a year yes a year is long but not long to build up that type i mean i don't know but i've seen patients before who haven't come in in three years and they don't have that victimaceous tartar anyways um so yeah it's a good thing i checked because here i'm thinking oh this is going to be so easy so the moral of the story is even if if things look healthy check underneath the gums because they might not be so anyways so i'm glad that the dentist froze quad one because i needed it i had a full hour to clean quad one and i needed it her gums were bleeding so much i couldn't see a thing so that that will show you very unhealthy um i did a probe to just kind of see what i was what um what i was working with in quad one five millimeter pockets her interiors have threes and four so that's too high so she needs a good cleaning for sure so i used the piezo first because keep in mind too she has local anesthetic so she's frozen she can't feel anything so do not think oh i don't want to hurt her you know she's frozen do what you have to do so i used the piezo first um amazing i and then i moved to my hand scalers and the gums were just bleeding so much i couldn't see anything i couldn't see anything so it's all by feel bleeding so much but i do always ask the patients how they are to so i'll clean maybe two teeth and then go oh how is everything so far oh okay awesome or you know oh it feels fine you know always ask them and keep in mind too with all of her bleeding you would think that she'd be uncomfortable she'd be sore but she was under local anesthetic so she didn't she she didn't feel that right so anyways just so much bleeding i was using piezo i was i was using hand scalers piezos hand scalers back and forth because i couldn't see at least with the piezo i could see but with the hands um hands hand scalers in my opinion you can get in there a little bit more so i do like to use both but every time i took out my hand scalers i couldn't see because the gums were just bleeding so much but anyways i did do a great job i cleaned all of quad one i sat the patient up and you know i like to ask them how how they did she's she's um she's never had local anesthetic with her two cleanings before so i did let her know so it will feel pretty frozen for the next couple hours it could be half an hour it could be two hours it could be six hours everybody's different but just eat soft foods tonight because you can't feel or sorry it was the right side you um you can't feel um the one side so just be careful if you drink anything too hot you might not be able to feel it until later and then you might go out i burned my lip you know so so we froze quad one so her lip would feel numb um and then i did say you know plus just so you know as i was cleaning the gums were bleeding a lot so that's a sign of them not being healthy but you have come to the right place because with us cleaning everything that will help to make things healthy again so see what i did there so i told her bad news the gums were bleeding a lot really unhealthy but i'm happy to see you because i can make things so much better i always like to give them positive news because if i'm that hygienist who says to them your gums are bleeding so much i couldn't see a thing it was disgusting this can't happen they're not going to want to come back if i was being yelled at i wouldn't want to i wouldn't want to come back like who are you are you my mother i would not want to come back so i like to be honest though and tell her the gums were bleeding a lot um and i said so if you um as you should be but i said start to floss every single night but as you're doing that the gums will still bleed a lot but don't be alarmed it's just because the gums need to toughen up so please keep up with it the bleeding will become less and less once we have everything clean okay um but i am so happy that you came in today because we are we are off to a great start i am excited for you to have everything cleaned up you know at some point because it will look amazing but don't forget to brush and to brush and floss so you know i kind of do that it helps you guys and then the patients leave happy they know that you are helping them they know that they need to do good work at home they know all of that okay so i left that day feeling pretty good i'm happy that i had that harder case at the end of the day because you know it's trickier to do perio because you have to get right in there and it was just nice to have that at the end of the day so that wasn't too bad you guys so yeah i did take about 45 minutes so thank you guys for watching please comment below and let me know your thoughts you know are you a student who's nervous to see a difficult patient are you still in clinic seeing a difficult patient right now where you have to tell them your teeth are horrible what are you doing but always be positive or are you a dental hygienist who's like ah that was easy or tell me some weird patient you know experiences that you've had you know i still don't understand why patients get so concerned about a complete oral exam maybe it's the name complete oral exam maybe they think we're doing a complete exam on them or something i have no idea but just some weird things right so it's nice to talk about it's nice to hear comments let me know and if you guys like these videos i will keep doing them so make sure to like make sure to subscribe and i'll see you guys in the next one thank you so much for watching


speaker giving his testimony is Peter Phillips. He's a political sociology professor Sonoma State University. He is the author of 14 project censored yearbooks from 1997 to 2011. His most recent book is Giants, The Global Power Elite. Seven stories press and I'm pretty sure Peter was a director of the projects. Are you there, Peter? Okay, Peter, you were the director of product censor for many years, I believe. Fourteen years, yeah. Fourteen years, okay. And Peter, I love you, man. Take it away. Well, thank you, Frank and Rachel for an inspiring program. I've really been enjoying the last few hours I've been here and I know you've been here all day so I will do this as quickly as I can. The main point of my book, The Giants, The Global Power Elite, was that if we look at what the Cold War and the US military empire is about, it's primarily the protection of concentrated global capital and the ability for people with money to move it anywhere in the world to invest without any interference from other governments or local populations. That's what a military empire is about, what it's for. That's the primary reason. So driving this engine of global wealth concentration are giant transnational investment companies like BlackRock who control $7 trillion worth of capital. In 2017, there were $17 trillion investment companies that were collectively worth $41.1 trillion in capital. There's about 20 now and it's closer to $50 trillion. These firms all directly invest in each other so there's this huge cluster of centralized capital managed by only 199 people. So part of my goal in my book was to say who are these people that are controlling this $50 trillion worth of wealth and what are they doing with it and who helps them. So when you think about Jeff Bezos, worth $100 billion or more, he's incredibly wealthy. But what we're really talking about is the idea that the mantra that Occupy gave us, the 1% versus the 99%. But even 1%, several hundred million people in the top 1%, is still a huge amount of people out of $8 billion in the world that they own almost everything. And so what we're really talking about is who are the managers of this money? How do they get the U.S. military empire to support them? What are the policy makers in the direction? So these these elites and there's about six or seven thousand of them who go to Davos that go to the big World Bank forums and all of that. They're the core of the transnational capitalist class and global capitalism. These elites interact through governmental policymaking organizations, privately funded by large corporations, which include the Council of 30, the Trilateral Commission, and the Atlantic Council. Now the Atlantic Council just came out with a policy statement on China. They want to see regime change there in the next 20 years. They had come out with a policy statement on Putin. They wanted to see regime change in Russia. So you have a policy group funded by corporate money that's making recommendations to governments, the NATO intelligence services, security services, the Pentagon transnational government groups, as to how they're going to manage global capital and what needs to be done. And that includes regime changes around the world. So they also inform they also talking to G7, G20, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the National Bank of Settlements. This is very core. It's global massive amounts of money involved, trillions of dollars worth of wealth, and the power elites are in support of capital investment. They're collectively embedded in a system of mandatory growth. Failure for capital achieved continued expansion leads to economic stagnation, which could result in depression, bank failures, currency collapses, and mass unemployment. The power elites are kind of trapped in a web of enforced growth that requires ongoing global management and the formation of new and ever expanding capital investment opportunities. They really would like to get into Siberia and invest there wildly. They want total control and penetration around the world. That's what this capital is essentially about. So the biggest problem the global power elite face is that they have more capital than there are safe investments and opportunities. So this can lead to risky speculative investments like the subprime mortgage, the backhoe that we had in 2008 and almost total collapse of the world economic system, but also it leads to permanent war spending. A major part of the profits and the continued growth for global capital of 50 trillion is war spending. So wars meet that goal.   And so we see that. And then also the continued privatization of the commons. So everything that we hold in commons is up for grabs and privatizing. So the world's total wealth is estimated about 250 trillion. So we say, well, 50 trillion is the only part of that wealth. But that's true. But this is the free floating money part. This is a concentrated global capital money that can be invested basically anywhere that they can get a good return. And so that is what drives our military. That's what drives our governments. It drives all capital governments. And it drives the motivating force behind the intelligence agencies and what they're doing worldwide. So we have 80% of the people in the world are living on less than $10 a day. And the poorest half of the global population was on less than 250 a day. So the inequality is just massive. It's incredible. And there's more than 1.3 billion people in the world live on $1.25 a day.  And that's a staggering loss. 10 million fatalities a year just from chronic hunger and hunger that we have more than enough food in the world to feed everybody. Hunger is a failure to distribute that food where people can eat it and have access to it. But there's in my book, Global Power Elite, I identify 300 people individually with their bios, their net worth, where they went to college, how they're interconnected, what policy groups they're on. This is the they when we say they are doing this to us. And I for years heard, you know, they did this, they did that, they assassinated Kennedy. This is who benefits from military empire and global power. And these are the activists within that system, these 300 people. So I think it's really important to know who they are and to be able to act on that in a real open way. It's sort of like pulling the covers off the global elite and saying, this is who they are, and we need to be in their faces about what's happening in the world. So the danger is that global power elites will fail to recognize the inevitability and economic disasters. Capitalism will collapse again. And next time we may be in for for global war that goes along with that, massive unrest and starvation. We already know what a pandemic can do to the world. And so these are very important issues that we all face. So without significant corrective adjustments by the global power elite themselves, mass social movements and rebellions will occur and they have to occur. They will occur and expand and challenge the global power elite who already many of them are seeing the writing on the wall. That's what the Davos refit is all about. We're going to remake capitalism and have the top corporations of the world take care of everybody. That's not going to solve it. That is not going to be the end all and solve that whatever. But it requires action at all levels. I'm certainly inspired about all the people here today. We need to be aware of who the elite are and what they're doing. And we need to be challenging them very openly, very directly in person whenever possible. And that's and following a common code. And I in my book with the reprinting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I think is one of the best moral instruments out there for us in terms of a guidance for whatever social action we're engaging in. So I'll rest with that. Thank you. And with that he rests. Thank you. And your testimony will be submitted into the record. Thank you very much. Next Frank. All right. Thanks Rachel. Thank you Peter.


And I'm thinking, I know what he did wrong. Basic technical error. He came over and he tentatively asked for permission to join at the table. Simple rookie error, I know what I have to do. I just have to open and as I'm opening, pull the chair out and sit down and plonk myself down there. Yeah, that's right. That's all it's simple. Okay, so I go over and I go, Privyet, my only word of Russian at the time. And it's because I'm like, because how assumptive is that? How good am I to recognize that she's Russian and say one word of Russian?   This girl does not even look at me. She goes like this, stands up and walks off. Yeah, and around me, and there's like 30 people sitting around me and they all burst into peels of laughter. Yeah, and my students are over there watching me too and going, is this part of the game? Playing hard to get, huh, James? Nice, yeah. So I've just been brutally, like there's bad rejections and then there's that.   Yeah, this girl didn't acknowledge my existence. I do not exist to this woman. Later on we found out why we're walking around the island and we see her walking along with a man with star tattoos on his knees and looking very, very large and covered in nice scars.  And no matter what we did, it didn't matter. It was not gonna work. That aside, in that moment, I'm sitting there and everyone is laughing at me. I'm sitting basically in my underpants, yeah. Hotest woman in the world has sauntered off, yeah. And what I do is I stand up and I go like this. And then I walk back to my students and I said, who's afraid to go and talk to some guys? Not me. And they went, yeah, let's go do that.  And like over and over again or something they're always trying to get these quantifiable ideas of like, how long was it until you felt happy with yourself or at what point do you know that you're really gonna be good at this and all these questions that are grappling for this idea of a moment when you feel satisfied or that you know what you're doing or how many and all this kind of shit, never happens. This was five years into my career as a professional seduction coach after I had slept with many, many, many women which none of us will ever say the number of, yeah. This kind of stuff will continue to happen to me. Thank God, because that means I keep getting to experience those moments of in that moment when I felt humiliated, I felt embarrassed, I felt all those things. No, I didn't because I remembered what I tell my students in that moment, I felt a whole bunch of bubbling funny sensations in my body and my mind immediately wants to latch onto them and give them meaning. That's humiliation, that's rejection. Your career's finished.  No, I just fell a whole bunch of stuff.  Definitely all I could in that situation and therefore I walked away with growth.   You cannot, it'll just be too demoralizing. But if you take each of those experiences as an individual point in time, for me, each approach is the only approach. Each girl I'm speaking to is the only girl I've ever spoken to. That's my mindset. In that moment when I'm there with her, I'm not thinking about I'm practicing this to get to the next one, just me and her. And then whatever the outcome of that is, I'm gonna breathe through it. I'm gonna take labels off it. I'm gonna feel it for what it is and then I'll be having my breakthroughs. Then I'll have growth. Thank you very much.


So with all of the James Charles Tati Westbrook drama going on I couldn't help but think about all the other people who are caught in the crossfire of this thing. So in this video I want to talk about Tanimojo but more importantly see what kind of lessons we can pull from this thing. What is up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel what I like to do is take a look at what's going on in the YouTube community and try to turn this mess into a message because my personal philosophy is what good is consuming all of this content all the drama all the things happening but we're not trying to see how we can apply it to our own lives. So if you're into that stuff make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah I have just video ideas and topics just going crazy in my head and like again the purpose of these videos is to explain the situation explain what's going on and just like how I think about these I think about all the other situations I'm like I wonder if there's any lessons that we could pull from this thing because one of the issues that a lot of us struggle with is when we're in friend groups right like when we have a group of friends and this person doesn't like this person or this person doesn't like this person or these these two people have beef like what's going on and Tanimojo is kind of caught up in the middle of this thing. So with this obviously you know when this first started kind of bubbling up and Taty Westbrook first made her Instagram live stream against James Charles there was a lot of you know speculation and things like that of people taking sides and more has come out but Taty Westbrook even addressed like Shane Dawson being in uh you know in uh in a video with her and then playing around you know with makeup and everything and then Jeffrey Starr you know he's he's talked about some situations so I'm gonna make a video I'm going to make another video just explaining like cancel culture James Charles and like what what should his his sentence be right like when we look at these situations when anything blows up what should somebody's sentence be like I don't know if any of you watch Coffee Break but he has a whole thing on public shaming and everything like that but anyways it's got to be rough losing these friends because one of the first times I had no idea who James Charles was but I was a fan of Shane Dawson I remember when Shane Dawson did his mini series with Jeffrey Starr that's when I was introduced to James Charles right when uh James Charles went over to Jeffery's house and they did up Shane Dawson and everything like that and most recently you know Tanimojo has had James Charles back when it comes to the Gage Gomez situation um Tanimojo was you know she she she publicly was there for James and she also like even deemed Gage and like Tana is pretty right or die right and now I just can't help but think because obviously Tanimojo's friends with Shane Dawson and everything like that and it gets all complicated with this network of friends so what I want to talk about is when when somebody's going through something like somebody in your friend group like I think I think it's really easy for people to just stop and like turn their back on somebody and it's really easy to do these things but I don't know I've had my my criticisms of Tanimojo in the past but she's this really like ride or die type of person and what's interesting about Tanimojo too is that like she is very against cancel culture she's been very vocal about that right and when it comes to friends like I I am somebody who is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic and I get it man like I get it like you guys and here's a thing like I in my past like in my younger days when I was addicted to opioids and alcohol like I did things that might be I don't know objectively or for some people subjectively worse than what James Charles did I was not a great person I was not a great human being right and I could kind of empathize with him because a bunch of people cut me off when I first got sober I had very few friends right but I did have a couple ride or die friends who stuck by my side like they realized like I screwed up and that I was trying to get better but here's the thing like one of my best friends one of my best friends in the world who I grew up with she's like a sister to me when I went into the hospital like almost seven years ago to this day that I'm recording this video I went into the hospital with congestive heart failure like a 10% chance of living all these other things and when I got out and I got sober and I started getting on my feet like she basically told me she said Chris I'm here for you like you've been screwing up I'm here for you but listen like this is your last chance with me if you don't get your act together I'm done and like that that really helped me out because it was a form of accountability I already lost other friends so like it wasn't this kind of like idle threat I knew friends and family members would cut me off if I didn't get my act together right but she gave me like this this one last chance because she knew that I understood the severity of my situation and like one of the things that we always got to be careful of when it comes to sticking around with our friends even after they've screwed up is teetering between the line of supportive and enabling right like when we stick around when somebody keeps screwing up when we stick around when a person doesn't change when we stick around through all of that now we're enabling them right and I don't know like that that's kind of what I'm curious about when it comes to tanimojo and the dynamic with James Charles like will she stick around no matter what because we all need ride or die people in our corner we all need people in our corner who are going to be there for us no matter what hell I've made videos about gypsy rose blanchard recently gypsy rose blanchard has people in her family who's like have her back obviously you know much different situation but like we all need somebody so like tanimojo I'm hoping is going to be there for James because he's he's lost a lot of people recently but is she going to stick around even if he doesn't change you know what I mean but the last thing I kind of want to touch on in this video is just how friend groups can get broken up and all of this stuff and this is a difficult situation for anybody if you've ever been in this situation like I'm thinking about all of the different people involved in this because all these friend groups are intertwined and and here's the thing like I'm looking back at my own history of like friend groups and like things happening and all those other things and at the end of the day I think for a lot of us you know forgiveness is huge empathy is huge giving people another chance like having these conversations it sucks for these people because it's all played out so publicly you know and and here's a thing like if I were to put myself in somebody look in somebody's shoes right in somebody's shoes like in the situation a Shane Dawson or tanimojo or whoever it is I would I would totally understand in Tati's realm right in Tati's corner like listen I understand why you've got to be done with James I understand that that makes sense to me you know what I mean but on the other hand it's like I'm still I'm gonna talk to him and see see if there's any change or anything like that that you know he's willing to make or anything because at the end of the day only time's gonna tell with this situation only time's gonna tell like James Charles just released that that apology video yesterday and to be honest to be honest like a lot of people are like saying how awful it was I've seen many apology videos on my day that one wasn't too bad all right but we we we struggle with this like black and white thinking a lot of a lot of the time and while James Charles has had all of his screw-ups over this time and it seems like Tati like was much more hurt than some other people might be in the situation less more stories come out but at the end of the day like we need to realize that there are great areas and something that I just keep trying to teach people is that we need to separate the behaviors from the person you know what I mean to like just condemn somebody for their behaviors and not understand like you know that that people grow people change and everything and hell it might take James Charles years for that to happen you know like I've had I have had people in my life come back years later and just understand that I'm a new person I'm a different person but hell like for some people it took years it took people years to forgive me but at the end of the day at the end of the day like with everything that James Charles is going through right now like I would hope I would hope that somebody like Tanimojo like at least sticks around for him because I can see other people separating themselves from him like or they can't even publicly defend him because the hate mob will just come for them but I hope I'm hoping for James Charles mental and emotional well-being behind the scenes that somebody like Tanimojo is at least there for him you know what I mean because again at the end of the day we all need somebody in our corner no matter what we're going through all right but let me know down in the comments below have you ever struggled with this where you're in a friend group and you know something like this happened and you're forced to or you feel like you're forced to take sides or anything like that or like how have you dealt with that situation because this is something that happens to a lot a lot of people all right but anyways that's all I got for this video if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you're new make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I'm always trying to take this mess and turn it into a message and a huge huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon you are all amazing and if you would like to help support what I'm doing here get your name on these beautiful credits and get access to our monthly q&a and some other perks and benefits click or tap right there all right thanks again so so much for watching I'll see you next time


We begin by praising Allah, the Lord of the worlds. We praise him and we seek his aid and we ask for his forgiveness and we seek his protection from the evil of ourselves and from the evil of the world.  Allah has, we praise Allah as well for bringing the hearts together on this auspicious day of Jumu'ah, a day that we all know is a day of gathering. And this day of gathering is both a reminder and a warning. It's a reminder of our first gathering, our first gathering in the world of souls on Yum Al-Ast. On that day Allah asked us, Al-Astubi Rabbikum, am I not your Lord? And we all testified and we all took the covenant and we said, Bala, indeed you are. And so this day of Jumu'ah is a reminder of that day and a warning of the upcoming day of gathering on Yum Al-Qiyamah, when we will again be brought together before our Lord and we will be asked whether we remain faithful to that original covenant, that primordial covenant. We come in now with a new month. We enter into a new month called Rabia al-Awwal. Rabia al-Awwal in Arabic means the first spring. It's a season when flowers bloom, when animals leave their hibernation and it's as though the world comes back to life after having been dead in winter, hence the dead of winter. And spring is a season of rebirth, as is Rabia al-Awwal, as we all know, because Rabia al-Awwal is a month known for celebrating a birth, and that's the birth of our beloved messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. This is not an event or an occasion that is insignificant. This is not an occasion or an event that we list on the calendar, wave at it as it passes by, and continue with our daily lives as they are. This is because in our religion, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is not just a deliveryman. He's not just a messenger who brought a message from the king of kings and then left. And unfortunately, this widespread misconception amongst the believers is something that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding, a fundamental flaw with our akhida, with our basic beliefs as Muslims. And this is because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is ma'asum. He, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is infallible. He is free of sin. He does not commit mistakes. He does not commit errors, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And because of that, he is not just the messenger, he is the message, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. This is our akhida. This is fundamental to our belief as Muslims. Allah Azza wa Jalla says in the Quran, وَمَا يَنْتِكُ عَنِ الْهَوَى إِنْهُ وَإِلَّا وَحْيُونْ يُوْهَى He, your companion, the messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, does not speak from his whims. He does not speak from his desires. It is nothing but revelation revealed. It is nothing but revelation revealed. In other words, when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would speak, whether it was about religious matters, whether it was about worldly matters, whether it was about family matters, he did not speak from his own ego. When he, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, spoke with his blessed tongue, his blessed tongue was perfectly aligned with the divine tongue. Hence, it was revelation revealed. Our mother, Lady Aisha, our brother, Allah Azza wa Jalla, famously described him, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, by saying, كان خُلُكُهُ الْقُرْآن. His character, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, was the Qur'an. And in another hadith, she, Allah Azza wa Jalla, said, كان الْقُرْآن يَمْشِي فِي الْأَرْبَ. He, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, was the Qur'an walking on land, walking on the earth, meaning that he, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, fully embodied the Qur'an. He was not just the messenger, he was the Qur'an, he was the message. The rank of our beloved Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is so high that Allah said, وَرَفَعْنَا لَكَذِكْرَكْ And we elevated your mention, we raised for you, for your sake, your mention. And we also know that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is called Ashshara'ah. He is the law giver. Even though in reality it is Allah who gives the law, it is Allah who reveals the Ashshara'ah. But the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is called the law giver because Allah says, وَمَا آتَاكُمُ الرَّسُولُ فَخُدُوْهُ وَمَا نَا هَاكُمْ عَنْهُ فَانْتَهُ Whatever the Messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam has brought, take it. Whatever he has prohibited you from, cease it. And even more explicitly, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam also says about this Prophet, من يُطَئِرُ رَّسُولَ فَقَدْ أَطَاءَ اللَّهُ whoever obeys the Messenger, has obeyed Allah. He Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is not the Messenger, he is the message. لقد كان لكم في رسول الله أسوة الحسنة verily you have in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful exemplar. And another example of this is إنسورة الفاتحة many of the scholars of Tafsir when they come to the ayah اهدين الصرات المستقيم the ayah that we recite I believe 17 times every day. The scholars of Tafsir explain that guide us onto the straight path or guide us on the straight path means guide us to the Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And so the straight path is the Messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. It's not his example, it's him himself Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And so knowing the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam loving the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and following the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is of the essence of this religion. To know him is to know Allah because in knowing him you know his commandments and you know his prohibitions and they aren't abstract they're embodied, they're lived they are they're fully embodied in the human experience. And so there's no path to Allah there's no gaining Allah's nearness there's no entering Allah's presence except through this door of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and through knowing him not as an abstract concept not as someone that we pray that we pay homage to once a year and then forget no through knowing him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam as someone real as someone that as though we can see him in front of us and loving him as Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam because when we do that we recognize his beauty Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam as inward and outward beauty and we recognize all the good he has brought brought to humankind mankind at large and also to each of us particularly In kuntum tahibbuna Allah fatta bi'a'uni yahbeb kum Allah wa yaghfir lakum dunu bakum if you love Allah follow me Allah will love you and forgive your sins ahulu qawdi hadha wa astaghfir Allah hali walakum wa lisa iril muslimi infas tawfiruh innahu wa laghfir rahim Bismillah walhamdulillah As-salatu wa s-salamu ala Rasulullah As-salatu wa s-salam Many people feel that their iman their practice it ebbs and flows sometimes they feel strong in their faith sometimes they feel strong in their practice and but other times they feel weak other times we want to do better but we find ourselves unable to without the power to without the motivation to without the discipline to sometimes we'll hear a lecture hear a hadith maybe hear a khutbah and we'll feel connected to Allah but then we'll go home and the dunya will distract us family and worldly and other worldly concerns and because of that we'll fall back into the bad habits that we promise ourselves in that lecture that khutbah that yes I'll break and sometimes this ebb and flow because it keeps happening there's a expansion and then a constriction expansion and then a constriction and expansion then a constriction because it keeps happening sometimes it can become a little bit depressing a little bit sad because nothing seems to change in the long term but there is a important hadith to know that inshallah can soothe this cause of sadness can soothe this anxiety because in this hadith we see that even the sahaba brother Allah Anhu would experience the ebb and flow of this expansion and constriction and it's narrated by Abu Khairah brother Allah Anhu and other narrations they say khandala brother Allah Anhu that he once said to the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam O Messenger of Allah when we are with you when we are in your company when we're in your presence our hearts become light and you remind us of paradise and you remind us of the fire and they become as though we're seeing them with our own eyes but when we leave you our families, children and property they busy us and we become forgetful so how did the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam respond he said by God in whose hand is my soul if you remain consistent as you are with me and in remembrance meaning in remembrance of Allah angels would shake your hand on your beds and on the streets but step by step yahandala moment by moment yahandala and so the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's advice was gentle he advised us to be gradual to work on ourselves step by step and this working on ourselves was tied was hinged on two considerations one was that he Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned remaining in dhikr and the other thing he mentioned was to remain as you are with me if you remain consistent as you are with me were his words Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in other words if you remain with the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam then you will remain in that state if you keep the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in your heart his example at forefront of your mind in remembrance of Allah by remembering that he is watching you and that you intend in every moment to obey him and therefore that and you recognize that in obeying him you are obeying the Messenger Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and you recognize that in obeying the Messenger Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that that can only happen if you're aware of his sunnah in every moment of his life Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and that if you are aware of his sunnah Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam then he was always with you in your heart then that is the key to gradually coming out of this ebb and flow, to gradually becoming better Muslims and to eliminating these habits. The best way to know the Messenger, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, as is well known, is through knowing his Seerah, through knowing his character, his Shamail, and this is a month of knowing his character, of knowing his Shamail, his characteristics. Because when you know his Shamail, you know how he treated children, and so you learn how to treat your children. And when you know his Shamail, you learn how he was generous with people, with his wealth, with his money, and with his knowledge, and so you learn how generosity looks like when it's embodied. And when you know his Shamail, you come to know all of the minutia of his daily life, and so you come to embody those minutia, and you become prophetic in that way. The Beloved always obeys his Beloved. The Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in an important hadith says, The Prophet, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, Really the most beloved of you to me, and the closest of you to me in station, on the Day of Resurrection, will be the best of you in character. And he, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, also said, إِنَّمَا بُعَتُوا لِهُتَمْيِ مَا مَا مَا مَا كَارِمَا الْأَخْلَقْ as only sent to perfect noble character. Noble character is the secret of the Shamail, because through attaining the Shamail, through understanding it, through knowing it, and through embodying it, then you become beloved to the Beloved, and you become nearer to the one who is nearer to Allah, and therefore you become nearer to Allah. The Shamail then is a glimpse, it's a depiction of that prophetic heart that we're all trying to attain.