Very good evening to all our friends and welcome to the Hindu News Analysis of Shankar IAS Academy for the date 28th December 2020. We are happy to inform you that the second test batch of pre-storming 2021 program of Shankar IAS Academy has already started and it is the prelims test series for the upcoming UPSC preliminary examination 2021. Our pre-storming program is India's first full-fledged artificial intelligence supported preliminary test series. All the required details are provided in the description of this video and also in the comment section. With this, let us start our news analysis for today. The relevant news articles taken up for today's discussion from five different editions of the Hindu newspaper along with their page numbers are given here for your reference. Also, the handwritten notes in the PDF format and timestampings for all the news articles taken up for today's discussion is given in the description box and also in the comment section for the best interest of the viewers. Now let us start with our first news article. Now this news article is from the editorial page. So far we have discussed about the hardships which are caused by the COVID-19 pandemic but today's article throws light on vaccine distribution system and also on the role of the private players in vaccine distribution. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See, India plans to vaccinate 300 million people against COVID-19 over the next six to seven months. The government is planning to give its priority to the healthcare workers and other frontline workers followed by everyone who is above the age of 50 years. So this will mean that roughly 20% of the population will be vaccinated by July or August 2021. And most of the vaccines that are currently in the spotlight requires two doses. So due to this reason, the government has to acquire at least 600 million doses. Fortunately, the Pune's Serum Institute of India is the world's largest producer of vaccines and there are even reports that the government has already made a deal with the Serum Institute to acquire 500 million doses of the vaccine. Also, there are other vaccine options which includes the Bharat Biotex Covaxin and the Russian Sputnik 5 and know that both are under clinical trials. So if there are no last minute problems, the government will not have any problems in acquiring the required numbers of doses. So the problem of acquiring vaccines is not an issue. Then what is the issue? What about the distribution? See, there are a few issues which need to be discussed here. The most important is the principle underlying the triage scheme which was adopted by the government. See, triage means the assignment of degrees of urgency to decide the order of treatment of many patients. In the current case, it is to determine which group should be vaccinated first or who should be given the priority. See, the government's strategy of giving priority to frontline workers and also the elderly people is in line with the practice which is followed by the UK and the US. And know that the logic behind this is to protect those who are most likely to be affected or infected in the future as well as those who are most vulnerable to the health consequences of this infection. And it is to be noted that a vaccination drive such as this should have two objectives. First is providing the protection to those vaccinated and the second is to minimize or at least slow down the speed and spread of the viral transmission. For example, the priority given to health care professionals satisfies both these objectives as they have a high level of exposure and they also act as active disease vectors since they interact with large number of people. But on the other hand, the priority given to older people may not actually minimize the total social and economic cost inflicted by the virus. See, the author says that the elderly people are less mobile and have a lower level of social interaction and hence they are less likely to spread the virus. On the other hand, a younger person who interacts with a large number of people is both more likely to be infected and also to transmit the infection to others. So this suggests that densely populated areas like Dharavi slum should receive far more attention than they are likely to get under the current strategy. So it means the dense areas as well as young people should be vaccinated with priority in order to stop the virus spread. Then comes the important problem of involving private hospitals that is whether the government will allow private players in the vaccination process. See the government's procurement strategy seems to depend entirely on domestic resources and to rely entirely on public resources for distribution without the involvement of private hospitals. Moreover, the government plans to bear the entire cost of vaccination which is very important and also appropriate as crucial health facilities should be accessible to all. But here the question is should the government allow private players to sell vaccines and make profit? Any such government approval enables the rich people to jump in the vaccination queue. But this will inevitably attract criticism that the government is serving the interest of only the richer groups of society. So the government should ensure that allowing private players will not decrease the availability of the vaccine to the poor section of the society. Another potential benefit of allowing private players is by vaccinating more people, the spread of the virus can be slowed down. Now next, the author talks about the pricing of the COVID-19 vaccines. For instance, it is said that for the European Union, the company Moderna is charging $18 per dose while the Pfizer's price is 12 euro. But in contrast, Indian newspapers have mentioned that Pfizer is contemplating a price of $37 per dose in India. Now see this, it is almost three times that of what European Union is paying. As India is a very big market, India should bargain hard and should get the vaccines at a reasonable price so that we can ensure that every citizen of India is vaccinated. So this is all about what the author has to tell about the vaccine distribution system and the role of private players in vaccine distribution. With this, let us move on to the next news article. Now let us take up this editorial article which was written by MK Narayanan, who was a former national security advisor and also the former governor of West Bengal. See as we are close to the wake of a new year, the author suggests some of the do's and don'ts that has to be adopted in order to make 2021 to be an era of ease for India. So let us discuss this editorial article in detail. See the author splits his message into two parts, that is in the first part he mentions about the various challenges faced by India in the ongoing year which still remain undersold. In the second part, he suggests some measures to overcome it in the way ahead. First let us move on to the first part of this editorial where the author points out some of the undersold challenges of India. First comes the COVID-19 pandemic which affected almost all strata of the society, irrespective of differences and which also resulted in a significant number of fatalities. Now the author points that, in spite of updates regarding the vaccines from various platforms, there is no remarkable change in its way out. Now another prominent situation of unease was caused by the unprecedented situation with China in the eastern Ladakh which resulted in the death of many Indian soldiers and this resulted in a break or pause in the India-China relations. Similarly another area to be focused is India's economy which at present is in recession. India has further slipped down from its place in the global indicators like the Human Development Index and also the Global Economic Freedom Index. Now let us see in brief about these two indices. See the Human Development Index is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development. When we tell key dimensions of human development, it includes a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and having a decent standard of living. And here the scores of these three Human Development Index dimensions are then aggregated into a composite index using geometric mean. This was created to emphasis that people and their capabilities should be the major and ultimate criteria for evaluating the development of a country and not its economic growth alone. The Human Development Index can be used to question the national policy choices asking how two countries with the same level of gross national income per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. But here we should note that the Human Development Index simplifies and captures only a part of what human development entails and it does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment etc. Now talking about the Global Economic Freedom Index, see this index is published in the Economic Freedom of the World and it measures the degree to which the policies and institutions of countries are supportive of economic freedom. Personal choices, voluntary exchange, freedom to enter market and compete, and security of the person and privately owned property etc. are considered to be the cornerstones of economic freedom. Here note that 42 data points are used to construct a summary index along with a gender, legal rights adjustment which measures the extent to which women have the same level of economic freedom as men. The degree of economic freedom is measured in five broad areas and this includes size of the government, legal system and property rights, sound money, freedom to trade internationally and finally regulations. Now let us come back to the editorial. See the other undersold challenges pointed out by the author includes India's internal problems such as the nexalate violence, resentment caused by the altered status of Jammu and Kashmir, then West Bengal assembly elections and also the relationship between the center and other opposition ruled states. And the challenges also include political polarization, engineering defection, vitriolic public discourse, diminishing role and utility of the parliament and also the legislation especially those that aggravates an already decisive policy like that of the anti-conversion laws and the recent farm laws and farmers agitation. On knowing about the undersold challenges that created a sense of unease during the year 2020, let us now move on to the next part of the editorial in which the author suggests some measures to overcome them and to restore a sense of ease in the upcoming year 2021. Initially, he remarks that restoring India will be a tough task due to the question of where to begin with. However, going further, he mentions some of the means through which it can be achieved. Let us look at them one by one. See with the aspects of electoral success, popularity and the absence of serious competitors in the opposition, the ruling party enjoys the freedom to undertake major changes which includes structural and economic shifts. So, the person in authority play a key role in deciding the future of India in 2021. This shows that the need to deliver on promises and to understand the seriousness of new challenges relies in the ruling government. Hence, effective leadership with the aim at achieving tangible outcomes with the ability to deliver on current issues proves to be a key role in restoring India. Now, when it comes to India's foreign policy, especially in relation with the current standoff with China in Ladakh sector, India should think of better options which are available to resolve the ties. Here, the author notes that the conflict can work on to India's disadvantage and moreover, it has got the capability to enable many of India's neighbors to play China against India. So, because of such reasons, it becomes mandatory for India to come up with a whole new set of paradigm of ideas based on which further actions can be formulated. The next focus should be on improving the economy. Here, the author suggests that India should enhance its competitive advantage in face with other nations, especially with those that perform better than us in various global indices. It is important for India to enhance its export capacity and to avoid the notions which suggest India to look more inward than outward. India should also focus in making the best use of its diverse strength by using its ability to utilize all the available opportunities. The author also notes that equal attention should be paid for job creation, especially for the youth who are India's most abiding assets. The government must take urgent steps to set right the disruptions in the labor market, which was caused by the pandemic and other contributory factors. Creating new jobs in new industries grows to be the need of the earth. The importance of measures like stimulating demand, which ensures the growth of job opportunities should not be underestimated. And finally comes the need to restore confidence in the constitutional properties, practices and principles of the government in the upcoming year. Here, the author notes that measures affecting an improvement in central state relations, particularly between Delhi and the states ruled by the opposition parties, should be focused. Effective cooperation between the governments of the center and the states must be restored as early as possible, so that the confidence can be instilled about India's democratic future. Now with this we have come to the end of analysis of this news article. Now let us move on to the next news. Now we have this advertisement from the West Bengal government. See the government of West Bengal is planning to build a deep sea port at Tajpur at a cost of 15,000 crores. So this will be a greenfield project and will be the state's first deep sea project, which is expected to give employment to around 25,000 people. So in this regard, let us now see what is a deep sea port and we'll also see what is meant by greenfield and brownfield projects. See a deep water port is different from regular ports in respect of the depth of the water. A deep water port is usually made up for the usage of very large and heavily loaded ships. Here the depth of the water helps get them access to the ports. Know that regular ports are by and large of recreational types where the water is not more than 20 feet deep, whereas deep water port is compatible with the large heavy loaded ships, which may require the water depth to be 30 feet or even more. Currently, India does not have many deep water ports, so the union government and other state governments are developing greenfield deep sea ports. Recently, the government approved the Vadawan port in Maharashtra as the 13th major port of India. And the two largest container handling ports in the country are the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and Mandra Port. Also, we have the Virgingham International Sea Port in Kerala. Now let us see what are greenfield and brownfield projects. See greenfield project means the company which is going to start the project will start the project where a prior project do not exist before. This means the project will be started afresh. In infrastructure terms, the projects on the unused lands where there is no need to remodel or demolish an existing structure are called greenfield projects. Now what are brownfield projects? See the projects which are modified or upgraded are called brownfield projects. This means if we start a new project or investment over a pre-existing project, then it is a brownfield project. Now let us see some of the examples of greenfield projects. See building a new production facility in a foreign country. It refers to investment in manufacturing, office or other physical company related structure or group of structures in an area where no previous facilities exist. Now taking the example of a brownfield project, when we purchase or release an existing production facility in order to launch a new production activity, then it is known as a brownfield project or a brownfield investment. So in this discussion, we show about deep water ports, greenfield projects and brownfield projects. With this, let us move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this news article which talks about the inner line permit. In this context, it is important for us to know what is this permit, who issues this permit and what is the basis upon which this inner line permit system exists. See this inner line permit is based on Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873. This system mandates special permission for entry into the ILP states by Indians from other states. Therefore, this permit system regulates the visit of Indians to states where the ILP regime is prevalent under this Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873. Now what is the objective of this inner line permit system? See the main aim of ILP system is to prevent the settlement of other Indian nationals in the states where the ILP regime is prevalent. And this is in order to protect the indigenous or tribal population of those particular states. Now let us see what are the states where such a permit system exists in India. See as of now, this system exists in four states of India which are Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland. In December 2019, Manipur was added into this existing ILP system. So this means citizens of other states require the inner line permit for visiting these four states. And know that the permit is issued by the concerned state governments. Now pressure groups in the northeast view this permit as a shield against the entry of illegal immigrants. So this is the permit system for Indians. Now what about the permit system for foreigners when it comes to notified protected areas or restricted areas? See here when we see protected areas, it refers to areas declared as protected areas under the foreigners protected areas order 1958. And restricted areas refers to restricted areas declared under the foreigners restricted areas order 1963. So these are the protected areas or restricted areas for entry and stay of foreigners. For both protected areas and restricted areas, if they fall on states, then the appropriate authorities from either the central government or state government will be issuing the permits. And as of now, the protected areas or restricted areas are present in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and the Union Territory of Jumman Kashmir. So it can be said that mainly the international border areas and other sensitive areas are under the protected areas or restricted area system. And this is to restrict the presence of foreigners in such areas. Now with this information, have a look at this question with reference to the Inner Line Permit System. Consider the following statements. The first statement reads, it aims to prevent settlement of other Indian nationals in the states with Inner Line Permit regime. Yes, this statement is correct. Now the second statement reads, it is implemented under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 1873. Yes, this statement is also correct. So in this question, we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Since both the statements are correct, the correct answer for this question is option C, both 1 and 2. With this, let us move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this opiate article which deals with Sudan. It talks about the influenced give and take involved in the recently concluded Sudan-Israel deal. Remember, Sudan is the nation that hosted the 4th Arab League Summit in 1967. This summit was held in Khartoum in Sudan after the six day war involving Israel in June 1967. And in the last day of the summit, Khartoum resolutions were issued. The resolutions included the famous three no's against the Israel. That is no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel. Sudan's stance has now changed almost after a duration of around 53 years that it will normalize relations with Israel based on a deal brokered by the United States of America. And in return, very recently, Sudan was removed from the US designation as state sponsor of terrorism. Here, the author is critical about the Sudan's present government that such a position of Sudan must be based on the will of its people and not based on the interference by a superpower like United States of America. So, in this context, let us see a few important information about Sudan. See, Sudan shares border with six countries. Let us see them in counter-clockwise from the top. They are Egypt, Libya, Chad, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea. And interestingly, many may not think that Sudan has a coastline. See, it has a maritime boundary of around 835 kilometers with Red Sea. Until 2011, geographically, Sudan was the largest country in Africa. In 2011, Sudan and South Sudan. This happened in the mid-July 2011 as the then 10 southern states of Sudan voted overwhelmingly to break away from Sudan. Now, when we talk about the climate of Sudan, know that Sudan experiences rare and occasional rainfall in the far northern desert. In the southern part of the country, there is relatively abundant and frequent rainfall. And the rainy season is of 6 to 9 months in the southern part of the country. In most years, the central Sudan has got enough rain to support agriculture. But there was a lack of rain in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. And this has caused severe drought in the country. Dust storms accompanying the arrival of the annual southwestern rains in May-July months are common in the central and parts of the northern Sudan. And this reduces the visibility and causes much discomfort to the population. The main temperatures and the daily maximums of temperature are generally high in Sudan. In the desert areas, the temperatures can be cool at night. And there are severe environmental problems in the country because of desertification, deforestation and land degradation. So, these are some of the information with reference to Sudan. Now, have a look at this question. It is a country in the African continent. It shares maritime border with Red Sea. Its capital is in Asmara. The above description refers to which of the following countries. See, the correct answer is Option D, Eritrea. Now, see, the capital of South Sudan is Juba, capital of Sudan is Kartham and capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo. With this, let us move on to the next news. Now, see this third question. It is with reference to this news article which talks about the attempts of the forest department of Tamil Nadu in treating an injured elephant that has been found roaming in the Bukkapuram, which is a buffer zone of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. Here, kumkis will be deployed in case if there is no considerable improvement in the elephant's condition. In this context, let us have a brief understanding of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and kumkis. See, the Mudumalai Tiger Conservation Foundation, a Tamil Nadu trust, has been established in accordance with the provisions of the section 38x of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, which was amended in 2006. It is located in the Nilagiri district of Tamil Nadu, which is at the tri-junction of three states including Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It plays a unique role by forming a part of the Nilagiri Biosphere Reserve, which is the first biosphere reserve in India declared during 1986. The climate of Mudumalai is moderate with cold weather during December-January and hot conditions during the months of March and April. Now talking about the flora and fauna, the reserve contains tall grasses, bamboos of giant variety, valuable timber species like teak, rosewood and several species of endemic flora. Its animals include tiger, elephant, Indian gore, panther, sambar, spotted deer, barking deer, mouse deer, common langur, Malabar gen squirrel, wild dog, mongoose, hyena and a wide variety of more than 260 species of birds. And know that 8% of bird species which are found in India are recorded in Mudumalai. So, this is about Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. Now let us see what is meant by kumki. See, kumki are specially trained captive elephants which are used in various operations like to trap wild elephants, scare them into the forest and sometimes to rescue or to provide medical treatment to an injured or trapped wild elephant. The term may be more specifically applied to trained female elephants which are used as decoys. They are trained by expert Mahots, some of who are from the Kartanaika tribal community who are known to have intimate knowledge and understanding of wild elephants. And know that they are not same as the other captive elephants. As per the forest officials, even though there are more enquiries for kumkis, they are used only after the traditional methods are exhausted. So, this is all about Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and kumki elephants. With this information, have a look at this question. It is a previous year prelims question which was asked in 2014. Consider the following pairs, Dampa Tiger Reserve and Mizoram, Gumti Wildlife Sanctuary and Sikkim, then Saramati Peak and Nagaland. Which of the above pairs is or are correctly matched? See here the correct answer is option C, 1 and 3 only because Gumti Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Tripura and not in Sikkim. With this, we have analysed all the relevant news articles from today's The Hindu newspaper. Now, let us move on to the practice questions discussion section based on today's news analysis. Now, see this first question. Consider the following statements. Statement 1 reads, Tajpur Port in West Bengal will be set up as the 13th major port of India. See, this statement is incorrect because Vadaven Port in Maharashtra is said to become the 13th major port of India. Now, the second statement reads, the Tajpur Port once developed will boast iron and steel exports from Kharagpur. See, this statement is correct. Know that Tajpur Port is situated in West Bengal and will serve the regions of Kharagpur, Burduan, Purulia, etc. So, here we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Since first statement is incorrect and second statement is correct, the correct answer for this question is option B, 2 only. Now, we have two means practice questions. Please write your answers and post it in the comment section. Our feedback will be given in a reasonable timeframe. Now, we have come to the end of analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the discussion of practice questions. If you like this video, please press the like button, comment, share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for more videos and updates related to civil service preparation. Thank you.


You need a financial advisor with the freedom to focus on your specific needs. Whatever your goals, Reid Potter can create a game plan tailored to you. Call Reid at 432-0777 at Pikeville, Kentucky to learn more. Pikeville High School's Teen 2 Care Club has received the Unite Club of the Year Award. The club is led by Kelly Scott and she has recruited over 100 students to the club. So Ms. Scott got me interested in class one day. She just asked me and I was just thankful to be able to get back to the community. And the good it sees to come out of people and how it just impacts others. While getting community service hours in a pandemic wasn't easy, the club still found ways to help their community. It was tough. It was the COVID year. And, you know, we were in school part time and half days and all these different crazy things. And for us to have still gotten in over 200 community service hours, that was just crazy. So last year, you know, we did Valentine's, we did Christmas cards. A former student of ours is in the Marines. And so we actually did Christmas for him and his entire platoon. This year, the club has done several projects including treat bags for healthcare workers, a food drive and a sock drive for the homeless shelter. They are currently working on a new project for kindness month. This month is February. It's kindness month. And so the students are doing four random acts of kindness. And then they have to upload their pictures of their kindness to get their credit. And it's just real exciting to see what kids can do in our community, what they can do when they're given the chance. Out of 135 Unite clubs, only 10 receive the Club of the Year award. When you think about all the good that each one of them do, it just adds up. And so, you know, our slogan is, be kind to yourself, be kind to each other, and be kind to the world. And so we always want to try to, you know, make sure that we're in a good place and then share that goodness and kindness with others. Despite facing challenges during the pandemic, the teens who care club continue to make a difference in the community. For Mountain Top News, I'm Breanna Robinson.


I would say, in my life, it's a question of discernment and it's also, it's your life's work. I mean, for all of us, that's our, we're just saying our life's work to discern between those two voices.  And because of the ego, it seems like the voice of the spirit is pushed out, ground up. The ego speaks first, the ego speaks loudest, that's why we need a lot of discipline and a lot of mind training and a lot of discernment. The simplest, most direct way to discern between the two voices is what Jesus calls the one right use of judgment. We used to think that judgment is an entirely negative thing. He says there is one right use of judgment. And the one right use of judgment is the question, how do I feel? So that's a good start. How do I feel? A lot of us were trained not to pay attention to our feelings. It became so intellectual, so cognitive, so into rational kind of thinking of everything that we were divorced from our feelings. And that was, that's the kind of family, biological family that I projected out. No one in that family ever in all those years asked me how I was feeling. I was always told what to do, what not to do, what was right, what was wrong. What to eat, what to eat more of, what to eat less of, what the bad things were, what the good things were. And when I get home from school, I walk in the door, you know, I'm dragging the door some days. That question, how do you feel, was never asked. I think it was more like that John Bradshaw joke about, great but there's a feeling loose in the living room. You know, it was so devoid of feelings that just nobody talked about feelings. You could talk about the weather for 10 minutes, half an hour if you wanted. You could talk about sports scores. There were all these things that you were allowed to talk about, but feelings was not one of them. And so for me, just to begin to get in touch with the feelings, like how am I really feeling about this? Is a good inroads toward that discernment and that intuition. Now how do you say that? I will say that the ego is sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. It is ingenious. And what it does is it generates an entire range and set of emotions and sensations that feel good. That are all part of its system. So when you're asked the basic question, how does it feel? Well, it's going to come in there with its best feel good, feel good, you might say, disguise of how you authentically feel, much, much deeper. Because the mind is very deep. And then the subconscious mind, as we walk away the least, it generates a lot of emotions that are like pseudo good, but aren't really good. For example, pleasure and pain. In this world, it seems pretty easy to tell the difference between pleasure and pain. And in the course of miracles, Jesus says, it's impossible to seek for pleasure without finding pain. Oh, now we're starting to unveil some of the ego's tricks. And Jesus also says that the ego does not want you ever to let that into awareness. Because as soon as you get that into awareness, you're going to start opening the miracles and not fall into these tricks of seeking and not finding. If you knew that every time you seek for pleasure, you're actually seeking for pain in a disguised way, you would stop it. If you went, every time you went to the cooking jar, you got an electric voltage. Or think how I would change sexuality.  Well, I would start using those studies with rats when they start to go for the cheese and they start to get a jolt every time. It takes us a while. The Holy Spirit doesn't use those kind of tactics, but it takes us a while to start to raise these deep truths and healing principles in our mind to the point where we can voluntarily say, ah, the miracle offers me everything that I want. Pleasure is fleeting. We all know that. It's temporary. It should tip us off our way because it's still fleeting in temporary nature. And pain is fleeting in temporary as well, although at times it can still be very chronic. So for me, that's part of this gradual, gradual work of discernment over the years where, you know, if I see something that I desire is going to bring me pleasure, the Holy Spirit is like saying, here, I need your attention over here. Remember, you're a miracle worker and we've got some important miracles to do over here. And nothing is ripped away. I can't say that this has been a journey of sacrifice. I don't feel like, ah, I follow the Spirit and now it's just blah. Totally neutral. Nothing. I feel nothing. You know, I feel the joy and exuberance of the Spirit from all this following miracle. But also, there's been lots of, I call them like, whims, lots of beautiful little things that came in along the way which were just kind of like little signs and symbols like, thank you for following me. Thank you for devoting your mind to discernment. And it definitely has not had the deprivation to me. I don't feel like I can say, wow. If all of the Spirit found happiness and joy and peace and freedom, but it had a tremendous cost, I can't say that. You know some people do say, well, it cost me, it cost me this and this and this. I can't sit before you and say that I feel like it's cost me anything. It's been like a free gift. It was the ignorance of believing in the ego that was filled with costs. That was costing everything. It was costing me the awareness of everything. So it's a great question and it's one of those that it takes a lot of deep introspection and deep inner work to really start to come to that clarity. Is there a way to ask in the moment, what is true and what is original? Yeah, I mean, when I first started off, I think consciously on the spiritual journey, it was like around, probably around 1984 when I really kind of got into it. And I would often ask, sometimes it was just a prayer in my heart, but often times it was asking. And the first way that the Spirit reached me was when I would see a movie or read a book or read a rhyme, hear a song or something.  It was a very kind of experiential, hard experience to start with for me. I would just read a certain line and the tickle would go. Or I would hear something on a movie or on the radio or something and the tickle would go. So then I started to follow the tickle. I've lived in 10 years of university and I knew that this tickle was not intellectual. It's a sure. So I followed the tickle and then the tickle would then surely lead me to the Course.


So, Jordan Peterson's daughter, Mikayla, just released a video over on her YouTube channel discussing some things that are going on within the family, as well as Jordan Peterson checking himself into a rehab.  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 try to do is take different topics going on in the YouTube community or pop culture and try to see what lessons we can learn from them to improve our own mental and emotional well-being. And two things that I'm really passionate about are mental health and addiction recovery. So if you're into any of that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And real quick, we're going to be talking about mental health. We're going to be talking a lot about anxiety because that's one of the reasons Jordan Peterson checked himself into rehab. So if you're struggling with anxiety, be sure to check out my book, Rewire Your Anxiety. I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. And although I'm on anti-anxiety medications, they're non-narcotics. So this whole book, a lot of it, I dive into the neuroscience, I dive into the pros and cons of medications, but there are a lot of coping skills in there as well to help you manage your anxiety. So the link will be down in the description and in the pinned comment below. And it's available in both e-book and audio book format, all right? So before I jump into this topic about Jordan Peterson going into rehab for becoming addicted to his anxiety medications, if those of you who don't know me are probably like, who the hell is this guy? What are his qualifications? So hi, I'm Chris. I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. And I've been clean for seven years, okay? My sobriety date is June 23, 2012. All right, not only that, but I was working in a dual diagnosis, drug and alcohol treatment center for a little over three years. We had every level of care from detox to a partial hospitalization program to inpatient, outpatient, aftercare. And I'm currently pursuing my CADC, which is a certified alcohol and drug counselor's license. All right, so I have a lot of experience, kind of know what I'm talking about, okay? So I will link Mikayla's video down in the description below. It's sad, man. It's also a really sad story. So Jordan Peterson's wife, which is Mikayla's mom, she was diagnosed with some pretty serious cancer. And that's, that's stressful for any family. And on top of that, Mikayla discusses how, you know, during one of the surgeries, there was a medical mistake. There was like a one in 20,000 chance and it happened. So it's very stressful, like Jordan Peterson is worried about his wife, you know, dealing with this terminal illness and watching her go through this pain. So I believe Mikayla said his doctor prescribed him clenazepam. And that's an anti-anxiety medication. For those of you who don't know what that is, it falls into the medication class of benzodiazepines. So it's in the same category as medications like Valium and Xanax, all right? So I'm on an anti-anxiety, anti-depression medication. It's Prozac. It's previously on Lexapro, but these are non-addictive substances, all right? And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second.  And some of them, some of them are just in denial, all right? So these medications, like, they, they, they make you become dependent where your body needs them in order to function. So based on what we know about Jordan Peterson, I wouldn't even necessarily just assume that he's an addict. What we do know for a fact is he became dependent, all right? So one of the issues in current times is we prescribe medications all willy-nilly. One of the reasons they prescribe benzodiazepines is because they're fast-acting, all right? They're also known as tranquilizers. They go straight to the limbic system in your brain to kind of chill everything out. But Jordan Peterson tried to get off of them as, as his life circumstances started to chill out. He tried to quit them cold turkey, which is something you should never do with benzodiazepines because the withdrawal was so bad. This is why he checked himself into a rehab, all right? So one of the reasons I'm so frustrated is because months ago, a few months ago, I made a video about Suboxone. Those of you who don't know what that medication is, it helps people come off of opioids. So my drug of choice was prescription opioids. I actually didn't use Suboxone when I got off of it. But if it was an option, you best believe I would. But all I was trying to do in my videos was explain to people like just know the risk of long-term Suboxone maintenance.  Like I am not anti-Suboxone. I am not anti-medication. I just want people to be equipped with the proper information. And the proper information is medications like Suboxone will become addictive or make you physically dependent.  This is why we recommend short-term Suboxone maintenance. All right? Now, you don't have to listen to me. Do what you want, boo. But you might run into a situation like this. But when it comes to Jordan Peterson and the benzodiazepine he was on. So like I said, in my book, Rewire Your Anxiety, I discuss medications. And like I said, I am on an anti-anxiety medication, but it is not a benzodiazepine. But withdrawal from this substance is so dangerous. The two most dangerous substances to get off of because of the dependence are alcohol and benzodiazepines. Like those two coming off of those without medical supervision can lead to death or seizures. OK, like whenever people DM me and stuff like that and like, hey, you got any tips about, you know, quitting this substance? I'm like, yeah, get medical help. Like I used to teach my clients this like we don't give out awards. All right. We don't have like an annual award ceremony where we hand out trophies to people who quit cold turkey, like see a damn doctor. All right. Like when I was working in the treatment center, we had one woman who was addicted to benzos for years. And even under medical supervision, even with anti-seizure medications, she had like four or five seizures her first month. So thank God she was out of facility and under medical supervision. There was another time when I was teaching a group and there was this one kid who was clean for like, I think a month and a half or so.   But I'm just teaching a group and he just turns stiff as a board, falls out of his chair and starts having a seizure. So like just know I'm not anti-medications, but I do try to teach people how to look for every other option before looking at benzos like Xanax or Valium or what Jordan Peterson was on, Panazepam. All right. So the second part of this video, it's going to come off a little insensitive, but I just want you to know this is nothing towards Jordan Peterson or his family or anything like that. Like this is a devastating, brutal situation to be in. What I'm about to talk about is it's mainly for a certain group of people on the internet who just has the whole conversation about mental health just twisted. All right. So those of you who don't know earlier this year, I was canceled. I had hundreds of thousands of people coming at me and saying, you're not allowed to talk about mental health. You're not a mental health professional. You're not licensed. You don't have a degree. Like this is a situation that we need to look at. OK, Jordan Peterson is a psychologist. OK, he has a degree in psychology, helping people with their mental health. Not only that, but he's a professor. He teaches other people how to get a degree in psychology. All right. Aside from that, he has also wrote a bestselling book called The 12 Rules of Life, trying to help people out there deal with suffering. OK. And how to become better people. And even this man, even this man had to turn to a substance that has made him develop a physical dependence because he didn't have the tools necessary to deal with this devastating, inevitable life experience. So again, this is not a dig at Jordan Peterson. What I'm trying to say is, listen, you guys, like maybe it's possible that people without a degree know what they're talking about. OK. Because like I said, I've been clean and sober for seven years. Turning to those types of medications, no matter what happens in my life, is not an option. Like if my beautiful girlfriend Tristan dies, if my son dies, if my mom or dad or my friends die, I cannot turn to those substances. So maybe, maybe you might want to listen to me because I figured out a few ways to deal with the chaos of everyday life without having to turn to a substance. All right. And some of you might be thinking, well, Chris, you've never had someone close to you pass away. And that is false. When I first got sober and I met with my my first sponsor, we were talking about reservations, like what's something that could happen in my life that would make me go back to drugs or alcohol? Immediately, I was like, if my grandma dies, like I said, if my grandma dies, I'm going to relapse. Like she was the most important woman in my life. She meant the world to me. I grew up thinking nobody loved me or wanted anything to do with me.  She loved me unconditionally.  And I'm so grateful that she got to see me get sober. But just a few years ago, she passed away from Parkinson's disease. And I just got a call one day saying, you know, she's going to be in hospice and she might live for another month or maybe another year. And I had to deal with that pain, that anxiety, that sadness without taking a single drink or a drug. All right. So I'm not here to toot my own horn or anything, but I just want to have you guys let that sink in for a little bit. All right. There are people like Jordan Peterson who have made a career out of helping other people, but even they have to turn to pharmaceuticals in order to manage the suffering of everyday life. So there's people like me as well as many other who have a ton, a ton of experience and have figured out ways to manage our mental health in different ways. All right. So I just want you to think about that real quick, because like I said, the frustration comes from the hate mob that attacked and said like, Oh, well, you don't have a degree or a license. Clearly, clearly I figured something out. So if you don't want to listen to me and my mental health advice and what I have to say, that's totally cool. But I just want you to sit back and reflect on that for a minute because of a psychologist like Jordan Peterson has to check himself into rehab because he developed a dependence to anti-anxiety medications. You might want to ask yourself who you're taking all of your advice from. All right. But anyways, like I said, don't forget my book, We Are Your Anxiety is out. If you have anxiety and want to learn ways that I've been able to cope with my anxiety without having to turn to different substances, check it out. There is a ton, a ton of tools in there. All right. And it's available in both ebook and audiobook format. All right. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge, huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon and a huge thank you to everybody who buys my books and things like that because that helps support the channel as well. All right. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.


This study found that white blood cells, interleukin-6, and high sensitivity C-reactive protein levels decreased after appendectomy for non-perforated appendicitis and perforated appendicitis. Additionally, the authors observed that the time from the onset of abdominal pain to the surgery was significantly longer during the COVID-19 pandemic than before it. This article was authored by Kubeelay Gurunlughlu, Gokminz Rarsis, Mehmet Aslan and others.


This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. It's a noon hour on Thursday again folks, Ted Rossen here in our Waimanalo Beach Studio of Think Tech Hawaii with our weekly show, Where the Drone Leads, where we bring our viewership great information about the emerging technology, regulations, policies and procedures and people associated with this expanding world of drones. And today we're having a kind of a book ending affair here. We've got Kat Swain at the AOPA, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association standing by in sunny but cold Maryland right now. Kat, welcome to our show. Well, thank you. I wish I could say sunny and warm like they're in Hawaii, but not quite. It's a little cold here in Maryland, but thanks for having me. Even if it's sunny where you are, it's still going to be cold. And that won't change until about April or so. Pretty much.  That's for sure. And we're enjoying the tropics and so next time you'll have to actually come out here. But anyway, so we have Kat from AOPA in a really unusual development in my mind within AOPA, the AOPA, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, a legacy organization dealing with basically people and pilots and the utility of aircraft is now reaching down into UAVs, unmanned air systems, drones. But to have that happen is a really significant measure, I think, and mark for the rest of us because that says that somebody outside this business is really recognizing the potential value of it and the potential reach and breadth that the technology and the business might have and therefore AOPA needs to get involved. So Kat, tell us how AOPA made that determination, made that decision to get involved and to start having a segment of your business associated with drones. Well, certainly. Again, thanks for having me. Now, as the commercial UAV, when we had Section 333 kind of propagate back in 2013 and then with the launch or adoption or implementation of 107 in August of 2016, AOPA has always, I wouldn't say always, but we've been at the forefront of a lot of the formation talks of 107 kind of, I guess, behind the scenes. We didn't launch our drone membership until February of this year. So that's kind of when we had our, I guess, public outcoming, so to speak, into the drone space. But we had been doing a lot of work in DC with the FAA, a lot of the arcs and everything trying to formulate some of the drone regulations and making for safe integration. So it's not like we had really been new to the space. I guess it was we were new to the public in the space. And when I came aboard AOPA, I've been a member ever since I was 16 years old. I'm a manned pilot and CFI, flight instructor and drone pilot and 107 remote pilot. But when I came aboard as an employee in March of 2016, the organization brought me on board and said, Kat, you know, we want to welcome drone pilots to the community. Our name is Aircraft Owner and Pilots Association. 107 gave remote pilots a pilot certification. So they're pilots just like manned pilots were just unmanned. So it's a new class and certification in drones or aircraft, according to the FAA. So realistically, it was it was really the perfect community for them to join us as we work through this growth of safe integration into the national airspace. So I thought it was the perfect fit. That's a really cool thing. And I must say that I think I first joined AOPA in 1963 when I got my commercial. And I was just reviewing some of that today. And back in those days, we had we were just excited about the new miniature vacuum tube radios we had in the airplanes. And we had the the leers and the and the narcos and the aero ears and such. And I've just found out today that those are now considered antiques. Those are miniature vacuum tubes. I won't date myself to the the days of Lorraine and everything else. But but yes, we have come a long way in with new technology. It's it's just like when when we saw the adoption of helicopters into general aviation back in the day and more and more people in general aviation started that it was just another piece in aircraft and pilot in the community. Same thing with the remote pilot. The only difference is where they control the aircraft from their aircraft is still flying in general aviation airspace. That's exactly right. General aviation airspace and that brings in a couple of other interesting perspectives, at least from what I can see, there's probably more RPA or drone pilots registered today than there are fixed wing pilots. I would or man pilots I would assume or if not, it won't be long. And if all the people out there who actually are operating drones actually got their certificate, we'd see probably twice what we have today on the books. So the body count is going to go way up in terms of membership and need for representation and need for education and need for standards. The point of view they're all coming from is quite different from what we have in the legacy aviation business, where you come from a situation where the training is not just the book learning or passing the test, but it's also practical tests that goes along with and so that the two go together. Whereas in the world of RPA is there is no practical test required. It's strictly a airspace regulatory orientation in the test and the practical experience is acquired by some other means. So anyway, we have a different channel of entry and we have a different frame of mind of the people coming in that channel. So education and getting people to understand policies, procedure standards, the way aviators think and this sort of thing and the way the airspace is operated is going to be quite an interesting challenge and it's really cool that you guys are there because if there's probably nobody better equipped to think that through with an AOPA. Well, I appreciate that and I think that there's you know, there's other organizations out there that support corporate 107. There's organizations out there and we won't name them all of course, but organizations, longstanding organizations that support RC hobbyists, which I'm a member of, I've flown RC since I was little. So I think all of us have a place all of our organizations have a place to help this movement of safe integration, to help the growth of drone industry without stifling the innovation of course, because like you stated, it's it's different entry points. I kind of view it as kind of a three entry point system, you know, you have the 107 commercial operators, then you have the what I call traditional RC hobbyists that have come up through maybe the ranks of AMA, the Academy of Model Aeronautics and then you have kind of the new what I call the new generation hobbyists, the one that goes and buys it from let's say an amazon.com or a big box store. That's the person really that I think all of us are trying to reach out to to help educate because those are the people that really have no aviation connection at all. So those are the drone operators, the hobbyists or that getting ready to be the new entry points into 107 that have no aviation background or connection.  So those are the people I think that is not just AOPA, but all of this in the drone space, all the associations and organizations have a responsibility to help educate. That's exactly right. And so determining what that educational material is and the orientation of it, the entry point, what the objective at the end of the day is for education, is it compartmentalized into certain categories or is there like a standard endpoint? That's a lot of things that are that are being discussed. And we have a lot of interest in understanding how you're thinking about that here in Hawaii, because we have a situation where we have some commercial providers of 107 training, for example, we have a lot of backyard conversations, things that help people get ready on a on a private basis. We have a budding system within the university and the community colleges we have to generate in order to provide training for professional operators in the construction industry or the maritime industry and such. And we haven't done any of that. We can see that we need it, but we haven't actually got to that point yet. So having knowledge of whatever you guys are doing and thinking about your roadmap, you sharing your roadmap, if you can with us would be fantastic. We can start populating and testing. We do have a workforce situation out here in Hawaii.  They can get a 107 for sure. But in terms of the real knowledge you need beyond just the airspace issues, how do you actually operate? What happens in faults occur? What about when there's a potential conflict or something like that or something goes wrong? These things are what you learned in the practical domain. And we really need to figure out how to train them and have them ready for that when the hiring comes around. So that's going through our minds right now. But you mentioned airspace and low altitude airspace. Of course, the FAA, UAS integrated pilot or integration pilot program, which we all just submitted our applications for last Thursday is is coming around in between March and May when the awards will start coming out. I'd like to know what your thoughts are on how that program is viewed in terms of kind of forcing out this issue of low altitude integration and who owns the airspace? Is it the FAA on the airspace? Is it the local jurisdictions, which is the porting function here? How do you guys see that and how do you see this IPP program assisting and pulling all that together? You know, AOPA is part of the drone advisory committee. So we're deeply entrenched in helping a lot of that regulation and a lot of that roadmap move forward. But that's it's not an easy process. You know, you brought up a lot of good points that there's, you know, we're so used to federal preemption. So we're used to the FAA controlling airspace from the blade of the ground all the way up to the top of the sky. And that's never been an issue in manned aviation before. But when you have the UAS community, that that is an issue because we can we can take off and land pretty much anywhere, you know, given given permission. And so it's it's not as easy to say, OK, well, federal preemption is the law of the land. And that's the way it's going to be state and local tribal. Sorry, you don't have any any role in this in this space. There has to be some type of compromise. And I think that's where you saw the birth of the pilot program come out of. We we all realize that there has to be some kind of compromise. There has to be a role for state and local and tribal governments to play in the UAS space. We can't just simply say that the way that we've done things before is the way that we're going to do things now, because it doesn't always work with new technology like UAS. So with the pilot program getting ready to launch and I was excited to hear from the FAA at CES this week that they are moving forward. I think that they have over 200 applications completed and getting ready to select. I believe they said 10 people or 10 organizations for the initial rollout. So I'm excited to see what that's going to mean. I still think that when I say I AOPA that federal control of the airspace is a must to some degree. However, there has to be some type of compromise for state and local. You have some type of enforcement or let's say launch and land areas areas of let's say overflights of a public gathering, something of that sort. There has to be some type of protection and control mechanism for that. I do believe and I'm hoping that through the pilot program, you'll see some of that develop. We'll talk about a little bit more after our one minute break here. Kat, you're right back. It is still the Thursday noon hour, folks. Ted Rawlson here in Waimanalo Beach with our show where the drone leads and our guest in Maryland is Kat Swain from Aircraft Owners and Pilot Association, AOPA, first time flyer on this show, but we'll get you back again sometime, I'm sure. And by the way, Russ Bakers in town and we're all heading down for a town hall meeting at six o'clock down at the airport tonight. So that's the bookend. We have AOPA on the show today at noon. We have the boss here and flesh and blood on in the evening. In fact, when you mentioned that AOPA had just started about a year ago, publicly talking about its involvement in UAS, but had been working behind the scenes privately for some time, that's interesting to hear that because my first contact with AOPA having anything to do with UAS was when we had a town hall meeting out here in Hawaii that Melissa McCarthy McCaffrey came out for and we had it down at the Capitol was called the Aviation Caucus and I was struck by the fact that in this Aviation Caucus half the discussion was about unmanned air systems and here AOPA was leading the discussion. So that was certainly a welcome surprise and a good one. But back to the question we were discussing before the break and at the break, coming up with a model for how a local jurisdiction or a combination of local jurisdictions and local could be all the way from a state, the entire state like here in Hawaii to a tribe or to a city or to something that's less than state in scope, how they would have the knowledge and the capability to manage the situations that occur in air operations, albeit low, then 200 feet 400 feet your choice, is still an obligation, it would put on them an obligation that they don't have today. I think they manage roadways pretty well, you know the two-dimensional stuff, they got that figured out. Adding that third dimension and the additional issues required, if you just can imagine a department of transportation and wherever it is you might think of where you get your driver's license, this quadruple the size of that to handle the airside of it, the usual laws of scaling would generate something like that. So or the way we put it here is okay if we had one drone over Honolulu we got that figured out. Two drones, well that's interesting, I wonder who owns the second one, 500, a thousand, this becomes a a complicating complex situation very very quickly. I think you bring up a good point and I'm hoping that some of the research and the data that we'll get from the pilot program will help kind of scope that out and tell us what direction we need to go when it comes to federal and then state, local and tribal. You know we ever I think everybody can agree in the drone space that we can't keep doing the same thing that we are doing with you know this this kind of patchwork of state and local laws with each state and then within the state you have cities putting up different ordinances for somebody that's for let's say a 107 operator that's you know regional or local that's not so difficult for them but if you consider a lot of these companies that are trying to do nationwide drone as a service or whatever type of nationwide drone company trying to disseminate and trying to abide by all the different and state knowledgeable of all the different drone laws that are out there is a little mind-numbing so you know it kind of reminds me of the insurance business when I was in the insurance business a ways back trying to keep up with everything in state and local you know for the for the drone space there has to be some type of compromise it's different this is where it's different than manned aviation you know in manned aviation state and local has a place to I don't want to say play but a place to be when it comes to the airport environment of where airplanes take off and land in the drone space that's obviously different because we're not restricted by that same airport authority so you know I'm hoping to see you know and I've heard from from the FAA that within once this pilot program launches within a year that will have some good data to start making some decisions based on that so well that's good and I don't want to have to pull out the crystal ball but I really think it's you know it's kind of the wait and see what kind of happens with this pilot program certainly we're all sitting when with anticipation of how the awards are going to go and how they'll how we'll execute in fact in our particular case the state of Hawaii is one of those applicants and we realize that the first six months of this is going to be a lot of dialogue just like we're having right here with our stakeholders all over the place and stakeholders come on in our in our state in four different counties and they all have different social political situations that affect how people think and how their needs are stated so we really have to get down to the community and the needs and has to be accepted by the community and actually voted on by them to a large extent and so this requires a lot of a lot of patient outreach and mental testing as well as physical testing and starting at the 107 level what's wrong with 107 what how does that have to extend and how do these agencies all interact with each other in terms of management and then you start putting in like some of those legislation we've seen in the past has put in like offset barriers like 500 feet back from a waterfall or can't approach invasive species by closer than 200 feet or something well who's got a 200 foot yardstick and where was that yardstick calibrated is the is the calibration laboratory certified minutes all those questions that as you know how they tumble in aviation and so when you put limits on and physical measurable parameters in now you have to also provide some way to do the measurement and that's not a real practical thing so I'm equally anticipating that we're going to learn a lot from this in fact that's what what the head of US integration engineering at the FAA said at a conference we had it in Santa Fe, New Mexico just a month ago he said we hope or success to us would be a giant locker full of data that's right and wrong stuff that works stuff that doesn't work it doesn't matter a locker full of data that is produced by public private partnerships pushing as hard as they can into this frontier and so that was kind of an interesting really open-minded statement as to what success would look like I think it's kind of true I mean we're in a space with a new technology still I mean you could say it's it's not new anymore it's been around but I mean as far as the 107 space being new and the regulatory world being new and 107 you know there's there's very limited data when you look at the history of the FAA and everything involved I mean even so far as to look at different different segments of UAS I mean for instance let's say UAS insurance and how an insurance company would would write the risk for UAS commercial insurance they have no actuary data to go based on so very limited actuary data so they're just taking a small scope so I remember when that first came out insurance companies were were basically ensuring UAS like manned aircraft which is a little crazy in my mind but that's the only data that they had to go on so that's how they were ensuring the risk now of course they're they're accumulating data as they as UAS has been around and they have other other stuff to look at and they're able to ensure the risk properly but it's kind of the same aspect when you're looking at the FAA they have limited data to go on so they have to do their risk assessment and safety assessment that has to be based on historical data so you know there's a there's a little bit of you know you can you can toss it up in the air and see if it flies but realistically when you're talking about safety of people and property on the ground you know you've got to have a equivalent level of safety built in that's an interesting observation that again in that case did not have a model for how to generate insurance policies and such we have come across something here in Honolulu this interesting a lot of the most of our property all of our drones in the small drone category all run on licensed public network communications 2.4 5.8 that kind of thing and they work fine out in the field out in the remote areas where there's no interference but you get in a dense urban core when there's a lot of cell phones going off and a lot of routers talking to each other and such who force full and so the ability to get any range out of them is extremely limited or said the other way RFI RF interference can shut them down in a heartbeat with a very close range in a way we hadn't anticipated so spectrum management and signal to noise ratio those technical terms that people who are operating these things don't necessarily know about are going to be important for us to pull up and I hope that the IPP program shows that as an air and issue and there's got to be other ones as well well for example performance in a crosswind if you miss a way point can you get back to it well maybe not and so there's a there's performance standards there's going to be a spectrum standards is going to have to be a radar climb and the youth but unfortunately we're going to get right back into aviation it's all about the technical parameters to make something work in a complex environment when you have to adjust for falls and that is the picture that I think we're going to find exposed through the IPP process but certainly we and the other 200 participants are going to do the best to generate that locker full of data and so we'll we'll look for your continued I'm excited to see what happens yeah no you know we have almost at the end of our time here but I wanted to ask about what how AOPA sees the future coming what besides the IPP what do you see as a big issues coming in in 18 we ought to be thinking about you know I think a lot of it like I like I said in the beginning is the education and outreach part and that's that was one of our primary goals is to get out there and educate we started first and foremost with free seminars that we basically gave and provided to the local flight school community nationwide and said OK flight schools here's 107 seminar data with guides and everything will help you market will help you do all that part to get that message out to your local community so we started that that was very successful this past year now what we're doing though is kind of switching to more of an online digital format so that we can reach a bigger audience because we saw that audience was very large but we could only reach them there in the local areas so since that was such a popular seminar and popular outreach we're making that an online presence in 2018 and also building out additional safety content and educational content for all specters of 107 that is really interesting you know on this show we always like to get something out of it that people can take home with them and such I'd like to take that one home in terms of getting access to the AOPA generated general awareness and specific issues of discussion in whatever form they're available in webinars or online resources to work within our own university system here and then the community colleges and then the schools so tell me how I do that I mean I'm a card carrying AOPA member and didn't know this definitely well we are putting everything up on our website right now so AOPA.org and under drone pilots we'll have all the online resources available to you like I said we're in the process of moving the seminar from an in-person seminar to an online and that'll be done this quarter and then we're also building up a whole library of video content for our membership and also for our non-members as well because it's important to like I said not only educate our AOPA members but also provide that outreach to the UAS community to those people that might not know about aviation that really need to know about the airspace that they're flying in so that outreach is so important to not only our membership but also have the responsibility of helping educate the entire UAS community that needs it. Now that's a good point I would offer that 99% of the drone or UAS community does not know about AOPA so we'll do our best to help them out here but I as a member can get access to that material on the website can my friends who are not members can they get access to some of that material? They can get access to some of that as well so we've also provided pilot protection services which is a legal services in-house legal services protection for our membership only. That is a benefit as an AOPA member so that if there's any type of questions would it guards to legality of 107 or goodness federal enforcement action against 107 or 61 pilot operating as a hobbyist you know our legal staff is here to help answer all those questions. That's great well I think we're going to spend some time digging into that and finding what's available because it's probably expressed in such an understandable way compared to a regulation and that's really useful for getting people's attention if they can understand it they'll do more. If they can't understand it it makes it kind of cumbersome. So Kat Swain at AOPA the senior executive in charge of UAS integration at AOPA integration at UAS Futures thanks so much for coming on our show. We really want to get you back on again. Every quarter is going to be a whole new renovation of some kind that we need to hear from from AOPA. Thanks for having me I look forward to coming on in the future. Well we'll tell Mark about the show this afternoon we see him down at the airport tonight. Sounds good tell us in Aloha. Aloha and thanks for coming on the show. Thank you have a good night. See you all next week folks. Hey that was that was really cool. You know longer than 30 minutes. Say again. I said we needed longer than 30 minutes. We used to have to talk about. Yeah I know we used to have 45 minutes but nobody no network want a 45 minute format so we got it to half an hour and you know you get through 10 percent of what you want to talk about but we hit the good stuff. And very good.


I wanted to ask you because Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she does not support Medicare for All. She's been very vocally against Medicare for All. However, you know, we are seeing a lot of people lose their jobs and thus lose their employer-based health insurance. We're living through a pandemic. Florida is one of the worst states. Has Debbie Wasserman Schultz at all changed her position on Medicare for All even a little bit? No, not at all. In fact, she refused twice to even meet with the members of our progressive caucus that we're trying to talk to her about Medicare for All. She had her totie, of course, meet with them at one point, but really didn't give them the time of day. She has zero, zero intention or interest in single-payer health care, zero. She takes money from Big Pharma and she takes money from the private health industry. This isn't rocket science. What's infuriating about it really is that she never misses an opportunity to drop her breast cancer survivor card on the table and really play this sort of like how hard it was for her and she survived breast cancer. I'm not negating that. It's just infuriating to me that she doesn't think we're all deserving of that same health care that she got.  Before this pandemic hit, back in 2019, when everyone was making this argument, I shouldn't say everyone, but the corporate Democrats running in the presidential primary were saying that people loved their employer-based health insurance. They never responded to the fact that 68,000 Americans per year were dying according to a Princeton study because they didn't have health care. That was a relatively conservative estimate, but now it's got to be worse. We don't know what the numbers are, but we can only anticipate that the number of people dying because they don't have health insurance is going to increase. The number of people who are uninsured is going to increase. I think that Medicare for all to not support it was indefensible in 2019, but in 2020, I've been arguing that if you don't support it now, you're just insane. Even putting corruption aside because we do know that there's conflicts of interest. There's donors, interests who are influencing Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, but even in spite of that corruption, if you don't support it, then that's just inhumane at this point. You lack human empathy. To talk about being a breast cancer survivor, that's great.  Because maybe they can't even get checked to see if they have a cancer of some sort. There's no type of preventative health care for people who don't have health care. It's deeply frustrating. If you were elected, you would be another co-sponsor to the Medicare for all act. What are people saying in your district as you've been campaigning? I know you haven't probably been able to have much person to person conversations maybe over the phone, but what's the response to people when they hear that you support Medicare for all? It's like everywhere else in the country. What, 72%? I'd say that our area pretty much mirrors, I would say it's pretty close to mirroring whatever the national that percentage. Most people, when they are presented with it in a normal manner and not in a way where do you want to lose your insurance?  When you presented to people as a fact-based scenario, I would say close to three quarters. I would say close to three quarters of people support Medicare for all. And yet our employee does not see fit to give us what we want even though she gets that health care. So we pay for it for her to have it, but she doesn't think we can have it. How people do not feel inspired to pick up pitchforks at this point, I don't understand. I won't even debate Medicare for all anymore with anybody. I just won't. That is now in the way with flat earthers or creationists. It's with the people that don't even warrant a response anymore. I am so done with it. It's ridiculous at this point. I'm really glad you said that because I totally agree. We're beyond the point of selling and debating Medicare for all. We know it's the best option. Medical experts have endorsed Medicare for all. I just shared an article to Joe Biden on Twitter from Physicians for National Health Program. Now it's just a matter of give it to us. We want it. And especially now during a pandemic, I think that our arguments make sense to where it's not even an argument. It's just common sense. Now it's just a matter of one will Congress and government in the United States actually give the people what we need and want. I'm glad that you said that because it takes a level of delusion that is comparable to that of flat earthers and other conspiracy theorists to think that Medicare for all isn't the option.  It's a distinction without a difference at this point. But either way, it's not acceptable. And anyone who doesn't support Medicare for all, they've got to go. They're just okay with people dying. Like that's basically what it comes down to. You're okay with people dying if they don't have healthcare. And that's completely unacceptable, especially if you are from the Democratic Party and you claim to have the moral high ground as Debbie Wasserman Schultz does, which is a joke. But I mean, nonetheless, she still claims it.


Alright guys, so with the release of iOS 17 it comes hundreds of tweaks, updates and features. I'm not going to go through all of them. In this video I'm going to showcase my top five features with iOS 17 that I find practical that you guys can start using straight away. So let's just get straight into it. Number one is this brand new feature called standby mode. This essentially will create like an always-on digital clock which you can use with widgets. Once you have your phone connected to your charging cable or a MagSafe charger, you lock the screen, you turn it sideways and it will have an always-on display of a very nice looking, widgetized display. So let me show you how it works. Okay, so with standby mode we go into settings. You'll see a new option there called standby. You go ahead and turn that on. What that will do is when you lock your screen and plug your charger in, turn the phone sideways and mount it in that horizontal position. It will give you a very nice standby display. This is essentially another advanced version of always-on. You also have the option to make it into night mode. So if you want to set this next to your bedside table at night time but you don't want it to be too bright, as soon as you turn night mode on, this will give it a red tint and it'll be less bright than it would be that normally. And if you want to also wake up your phone, if it detects motion around the phone, then you can set that on. I think I would leave that generally off especially when I'm using this as a bedside table display so that if you move nearby to the phone you don't want it to keep brightening up and hitting your eyes whilst you're still trying to sleep. But let's go ahead and see how it looks with just the standby mode on. And there are three different layouts. So now that the phone is locked and sideways just plug in the charging cable and here is the standby display. So you can cycle through the three different profiles of the standby display. This is the default one where it's a split screen with multiple widgets. So you've got one left and right. If you cycle, this will give you your cycle through of your photos app with the clock just there and the date. And the last one is a very large digital clock there. If you wanted to edit any of these, all you need to do is just hold down and then you have the options to cycle through which widgets you want to display. Of course, having a clock is probably going to be the most common one. You can also add more. So as you would with home screen widgets, there's plenty of different options that you can add. If you didn't want a clock, you can also just have other pieces of information, maybe your contacts and battery health information for your Apple devices, calendars and things like that. You even have the option to add some notes app. So pretty much the options are exactly the same as you would expect for your home screen widgets. But there's also a lot of standby widgets that will be available on the app store from third party providers that you can also add directly from there onto the standby profile. When you hit done, there you see whatever you selected, you can also cycle through by swiping up and down from that selection of widgets that you've added. And I like having this view with the calendar as well. I think it's just a very convenient way just to see the date and time at the exact same time. If you cycle through, of course, this will cycle through your photos and then you can change the large clock as well to be digital or analog, whichever you prefer. And there's also lots of different options that you can set via the app store with third party apps. And that's how you can use standby mode, which I think is one of my favorite features of iOS 17. Number two is the option to auto delete two factor authentication SMS messages. So you know how you would sometimes need to log into a certain website or app and it requires to send you a four digit, six digit code via SMS. And you have to enter that into the application. You sometimes get a pop up to say you copy this from messages directly when you're already on that app, which also is a very nice feature. Most of the time you will then go back to SMS app just to delete that message. So you don't have that code just sitting there in your messages app. This can automatically delete it once you've copied it into an app that uses that code to log in. That is a really nice feature. So let's take a look how that is. So for this, it's very simple. You go to settings, passwords, password options. And then in here, there's a toggle called cleanup automatically, which will delete all the verification codes in messages. Once you've copied it and pasted it into the relevant app. So very straightforward and easy. But it is one of those features that is extremely time saving. Number three is offline Apple Maps. I've always been a fan of Google Maps more than Apple Maps. But now that Apple Maps has this nice feature of cropping offline versions of a map, I think I'm going to start using it a lot more, especially when I go abroad and maybe I rent a car. Or if I'm in an area which has very low internet connection and services, I may want to just use and switch over to using an offline map, which you can crop and use directly from the app itself. Let's take a look. So when you first open Apple Maps with the new update, you'll get an introduction to offline maps, which is like this. Let's go ahead and hit continue. You can see it's created a little crop. You can also access this by going to your avatar icon on the top right going to offline maps and then searching for a location and selecting the size like this with the cropping of where you would like to be offline. So in the UK, let's say for example, I want to drive around Newcastle. And just in case I don't have any signal or internet connection, then I can just download this whole area and then hit the download button there. You'll then start downloading and then it will be added to your downloaded maps in your profile settings there, under offline maps. If you go there, you'll see it's now downloading. There we go. It's now downloaded. And then you can access that anytime and start navigating around that particular area very easily. And this is perfect for when you go on holidays. If you want to just drive around with your rental cars, download an offline map like this and it'll be very convenient. Of course, Google Maps also has this feature, but this being introduced to Apple Maps and the way they've done it with this cropping feature, I think is actually a very nice UI. Number four is Safari profiles. So if you use Safari on your phone quite often and you use it for work, for personal reasons, they've made some really good updates to this as well. And there's something called profiles that you can use to segregate between personal tab browsing and work browsing and any other types of differentiation of your searches directly from the Safari app. Let me show you how that works. Safari profiles I think is a really great feature. So when you do open up Safari, you'll see there's some profile tabs along the bottom. So I have work and six tabs, which are my personal tabs. And of course, you have private browsing there, which is locked via your face ID. And this is a really great way to distribute and have separate profiles that will have their own history, their own grouping, your favorites, everything like that as if it's its own separate browser. So then if you wanted to then just open up tabs relating to your own personal searches, you do that there. And then you can switch over and open up tabs that relate to your work, your office or anything like that. And you can also transfer some of these over between different tabs as well. So if I wanted to just hold this down, I can go to move to tab group, and then I can select work. And this will now be there in my work profile. And you can also create as many profiles as you want. When you go into your settings under Safari, you go to new profile, you select this, you can change the icon, the color, give it a name, and that will appear on your Safari. In Safari itself, you can actually go into the menu item there and then switch between either of the profiles you've got. And then you can create another empty tab group directly from here, which is also a very convenient way to distribute all of your different searches, your favorites, depending on what you would like to do. What I like about the private browsing tab as well with the profile that they've now enabled with iOS 17 is having it locked via a face ID or passcode. So if you are browsing privately, and this is convenient, so for example, if you've forgotten to close your private browsing and you've just closed Safari, if you leave your phone just on the desk, anyone goes back and open Safari, they will be able to access it. But now that it's locked with face ID, if I go back, you saw that it asked me to unlock it with my face before anyone else can see what you've been browsing. So these are all the Safari profiles. And I think that is a really nice update to browsing. And last but not least, number five interactive widgets. Up until this point, you can create a lot of widgets on your phone. But to do anything with them, as soon as you tap that widget, it will open up the widget in this full app. And you can't really just do certain things inside that widget on your home screen. Now you can with something called interactive widgets. So I'm going to showcase a sample of one interactive widget. But I also have another video coming very soon of my top five interactive widgets from the app store, which I know you're going to like. So make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss that one. Let's go ahead and take a look. So with interactive widgets, like I mentioned, if you tap any widget that you used to use before iOS 17, it will just open up the app that the widget originated from. This is an interactive widget where now you can actually tap within the widget and things will actually happen without the actual app opening up. So I have this widget called to do list. And I'll be covering this in one of my top five interactive widget app videos coming out very shortly. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss those ones. Now I can tap my to do list here with any of the items once I've actually completed them without having the need to open the widget into its full app. So if I tap this, you can see I'm now interacting with the widget itself. And I can just do that from the home screen. And I don't need to leave the home screen at any time. And you can obviously go ahead and create more to do list items on the app by just tapping elsewhere on the widget itself, like so. And then you just hit new reminder and create as many other interactions as you'd like. And I'm going to be testing out a lot of different scenarios with lots of different interactive widget apps. And I think this is a really big step up in the widget game for Apple. So that's it guys. Those are my top five iOS 17 features that I've started using on a daily basis. Let me know which ones you like to use. There's tons of them. There's plenty of different options. You may have seen plenty of videos already. Make sure to drop a comment down below of your favorite feature of iOS 17. So everyone else can read about that. Make sure to subscribe. I've got lots of top five different iOS 17 related videos coming out very soon. Like this video and I'll see you at the next one. Take care.