And the fact that you brought that to the federal government, like no president's done is, I think, pretty significant. Right, even right against the chair over there. There you go. Well, who's- Hi, how are you? Hi, how are you?  Our usual safety measure here. We're all for it. Very helpful. A good example of big government. No, personalized government. Seeing the individuals' problems. Well, as you recall, we had a conversation just last week, and this will be somewhat in the nature of following up and elaborating on some of those points. On the domestic side, as you look ahead, is tax reform the biggest specific domestic goal? Oh, no, I think it's a very important one, and I think it's been a long time coming. If there is a way I know how complicated and difficult it is. I haven't seen any evidence of what they're going to come up with. They've been studying it for a long, hard time, which indicates how difficult it is. But we do have a tax system that, first of all, when you have a system that can have at least $100 billion estimated, that is not being collected from people who legitimately owe it, there is a flaw. And there certainly is a flaw when you have a tax system that has become so complicated that even the government has to warn people, the kind of people who normally go down to the tax office with their papers and fill out their tax form there. And the government has had to warn the people that not even the government employees understand the regulations enough that, in other words, the people will still be at blame to blame, even if that's the way they've made out their tax. Well, I think it's time that we applied ourselves to doing something about that. But no, it's a part also of the whole economic problem that faces us and the thing that we've been working on, and I think we've made a good start with our economic program. And this is a case now of going further with it. If, for example, in the, just to throw one figure out at you, our estimate of what we have saved, business and the people, the consumers, just in the reducing of needless regulations, we estimate over a 10-year period about $150 billion savings to the people, not the reduction in government costs. And things of that kind reveal what a fertile field is out there. Will you insist that whatever tax program you finally settle on and propose, whatever tax reform, be presented, when you present it, that it be revenue neutral? It has to be. Yes, I've, as a matter of fact, if anything, I would hope that if we really could broaden the base that we could even make it a little on the taxpayers' side that it would be more than neutral that they would actually individually get a break. One thing above all, I won't stand still for anything that, under the guise of reform, is just another way of saying the tax increase. So this is designed not to have any impact on lowering the deficit, the tax reform package? Well, only in the sense of that $100 billion out here we're not getting now, that that might help. But the real impact on the deficit must come from continued growth. And there again, taxes figure. I believe that our tax cut was a major factor in the recovery and the expansion that we're having. And I tried with my fingers once before some of you to explain what it is. If we can, at the same time, we bring down the rate of increase in government growth in spending. At the same time that with the growth in the economy, the overall revenues for government increase because of that economic growth, not because of any rate increase. There's got to be a point up here where those lines come together. And when they do, you have a balanced budget. Do you think it's possible to close the deficit gap without cutting back on entitlement programs? You've ruled Social Security out, let's say Medicare and some of the other. Well, let's look at Social Security for example. I know there are a number of things that are called entitlement programs. All of them must be looked at. In the case of Social Security, I claim that Social Security cannot be linked to the deficit in any way. This program is based on and totally funded by a payroll tax dedicated to that purpose alone. So if you reduced in some way Social Security, that money would simply go back in the trust fund or you would wind up having to reduce, if you could, the Social Security payroll tax. But in no way is that, I know that Social Security is counted in to the entire budget. But since you have an earmarked special tax that is totally supporting that, then it isn't responsible for the deficit. You said the other day that on foreign policy now, that you wouldn't buy the Russians back to the bargaining table indicating you would not make any particular concessions. But what do you do? Just wait them out, confident that they'll see the light themselves. No, we're going to keep that. I just meant, and I want to make sure that this is understood, that in buying them back to be in the position that they would be able to say that they forced concessions from us simply by refusing to negotiate. That would be the worst thing that you could do if you're going to have ongoing negotiations. But what we want them to understand is that if they will present to us whatever it is that they were unwilling to discuss in ours or whatever it is that they wanted to add as an item for discussion. Fine, we've told them over and over again. We're flexible. Here's an example. We went at them in the intermediate range missiles. And since we are supplying the allies with a deterrent at their request, and the request was approved by the previous administration, so we're carrying out what had already been approved, and the Soviets already had in place more than a thousand nuclear warheads targeted on our NATO allies in that theater there. And yet they don't want us to come in and provide the allies with a deterrent. And we said, then why don't we agree to a nuclear-free zone? Why don't we come to the point of neither side having any at all of those intermediate-range weapons? And the Soviets wouldn't negotiate that, but they did indicate that maybe they might listen to reductions. And we said, all right, fine. We'll tell you now that we still, our ultimate goal would be to hope that we could arrive at a nuclear-free zone, 0-0. But in the interim, we'll be very happy to sit down and discuss with you a reduction of the number of weapons of that type. And they still walked away on the grounds that they'd bought half our proposal. They'd bought 1-0. We were to be 0. And they would continue to have a monopoly on the weapons there. And there was no way that we could hold still for that. Do you think there's a need for a kind of super arms control coordinator in the White House who would report directly to you and Bud McFarland and Secretary Schultz? I'm surprised to see this subject brought up, something of that kind. We never really sat down and said or asked ourselves, is such a thing needed? Would it be advantageous? Would it add anything or not? We've talked many ways of how to approach the Russians or what is the best way. We've volunteered proposals to them. And I did to Gromyko about how can we maintain a continued conversation here? What would be pleasing to them? Have, like we did in the Middle East, have some special emissary or not? So there's been no agreement of anything of any kind in that. So I couldn't rule it out or rule it in if we sit down and talk about it. And that sounds to them as if that's something they might want to get along with. Fine. Prairie fire, that marvelous phrase back from 1967. You used it again in Sacramento this week. I guess that's another way of talking about political realignment or political sea change. Do you have the feeling that what's happening out there with your reelection by what we gather is going to be a pretty large margin? Is such a sea change? Is it bigger than Ronald Reagan? How do you describe what's happening there? Well, remember what the prairie fire term was used in connection with? It was the whole philosophy of government that is at issue right now. As I said, California was a perfectly imitator of what was happening at the federal level. The runaway government spending, the runaway government authority, the more and more intrusiveness in the part of... I said once that if Washington caught cold, California sneezed. So what I was talking about then was the reforms that we started here in California to get more authority back in local government here, to reduce government spending and the rapid growth of it. All the things that we're talking about with regard now to the national scene. And that was what I said when I said the prairie fire, that if we can succeed, if we can do these things, we can start a prairie fire. Well, I think in a way maybe there has been some prairie fire that reached the shores of the Potomac. One, for example, our reform of welfare. Nothing had ever been done in the country. Such as we did here. And I think that the fact that we have the federal government for four years now that has not been talking about spending programs, which was always the subject of discussion before the last 50 years, but the discussions and the debates have been over cuts. How much do we reduce? What do we eliminate? But now you're going to have that burning for another four years. At least you anticipate. We anticipate. I think we can take a poll in this room and we'll all anticipate. I'll throw a little kindling on the fire if I can. But has it become bigger than your own personal victory? I hope so. I think what we're seeing out there is... I've never taken it personally. I think what we're seeing is that a lot of people who more and more felt the hand of government on their shoulder and a restraining hand, not urging them forward, more and more awareness that the government was getting unmanageable and beyond their control and certainly unmanageable as to cost, stopped to think that the federal government in 1974, the Congress adopted this plan supposedly to get control of the budget. And I don't think we've had a budget since. So I think this is what's happened. The people have seen an opening and they've said, yes, let's carry it through. Do you think this is a beginning, more evidence of a long-lasting political realignment? This what looks to be a large victory today on top of your victory in 1980? Well, again, for the philosophy, yes. I don't think the people having seen that some changes could be made.  Of course, whether they do or not depends to a large extent where your party goes in the coming years. Now, there's been some speculation which got into print. I don't think you've ever been asked about it directly to the effect that you would consider midway through a second term stepping down and letting George Bush carry it forward. I don't know where that came from, either, and it was a surprise to me. No, I haven't considered anything of the kind. And wouldn't? And wouldn't. But what do you think of the idea of the incumbent helping to choose his own heir? Are you for that in principle or against it as you enter your last term? If you look back, you'll find that I have avoided that very much. And I think that's a decision for the people to make. You wouldn't endorse George Bush for the nomination before the nomination? I'm not even going to let myself think about that. I have the greatest admiration for him. He has been, I think, thinking of a vice president as a partner of the presidency. I can't recall any history that I know about that is equal to his participation in government. But now, if the years go by and the time comes around, there are choices to be made. That's something I haven't thought about or faced. You rarely talk about what you feel about being president. Could you tell us what are the one or two things that you have found most satisfying and fulfilling as president? What are the one or two things that you have found most frustrating or disappointing? Well, I think the frustrating and the disappointing thing is trying to get the ponderous wheels of the legislative process in motion on things that you feel desperately need to be done. The other one, maybe it comes down to smaller things than great legislative battles or anything. The ability sometimes to have brought to your attention, even if it's an individual case or something, and to be able to do something about it. An individual case of personal hardship, is that what you mean? Yes, and to, say, rectify some injustice that's being done, those are wonderful and rewarding moments. Surely getting the 25 percent tax cut must have been pretty hard. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Many times, I can't deny there are things like that. You go back upstairs feeling ten feet tall and you've actually made something come true. Well, right now, for example, take a look with all of the so-called deficit and everything. We came in with government increasing its rate of spending over 17 percent a year. And it's down around 6 percent a year now. Well, when I think back over the last half-century of this just skyrocketing of government costs and then to see that that line that was going up that way has least been brought down here, well, it makes you feel you can bring it down a little lower. Mr. President, thank you very much. How's Mrs. Reagan? How's Mrs. Reagan? Is she feeling better? Well, it's a funny thing. I'm kind of concerned. She seems to...she feels a little unsteady yet she really hurt herself. It was in the middle of the night there. I wish her our best. Well, you know how the fault took place. Not exactly. Well, the luxury of the hotel and all and one of those were very attractive. Looking, the bed is up on a platform. And in the middle of the night she got cold and there was an extra cover in the room and she got up and forgot all about that platform and the next step went out and there was nothing there. And she did a header into a chair and she's got quite an egg concealed under her hairdo. Well, as I say, we sure are our best. I will. Thank you very much, sir. Congratulations. You must feel ten feet tall today. I do. Thank you, gentlemen. Who is that? Who is that in Montana? A guy named Cosens is running against Volkus. Against Volkus? Is he leading him? He's running against Volkus. That's the sleeper that I think. Volkus. Somebody told me that we might have a shot at that. Well, you know, he was a guy that we thought we might be able to. But then he called. The senator came back to me and said, I need to recruit a good candidate. So I wrote the rate. Of course, let me see. That one is only two hours difference. This one's only one hour difference. This is very early. I wouldn't back put anything in the last few months. I really wouldn't. But these races here in West Virginia, evidently, is very good. Kentucky, which we didn't, you know, we didn't go in. If we could win that one, wow. All right.


And his pledge, of course, being one rooted in the spirit tradition here at the University of California was to paint the big sea. And so we're taking you up on that offer this afternoon.


there is a way that the global population can feed itself in a far more sustainable and healthy way by going local and that actually continuing in the direction that industrial agribusiness in the global food system is taking us is deadly and it's becoming more and more dangerous, more toxic. Helena Norberg Hodge is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, a very special episode for World Localization Day brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Helena is a pioneer of the new economy movement, a recipient of the Alternative Noble Prize, the Arthur Morgan Award, and the Goy Peace Prize for contributing to the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide. She is the author of the inspirational classic Ancient Futures and Local is Our Future in 2019. She is co-author of Bringing the Food Economy Home and From the Ground Up and Producer of the award-winning documentary, The Economics of Happiness. Helena is the founder, director of Local Futures and the International Alliance for Localization and a founding member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Eco Village Network. I could go on for days because she has been in this arena talking about these things for a long time and has done wonderful things. She's an author, a filmmaker, on and on. Helena, welcome to the episode. It's so nice to have you. Thank you. Very happy to be here. We really are doing a special edition in honor of World Localization Day and kind of to promote, raise awareness for you to draw as many listeners and viewers to come out and participate. Officially, it starts May 15th, not just a couple of days from now, goes till June 20th I hear. And then is the official World Localization Day on June 20th or June 21st this year? It's actually this year 20th because that's a Sunday. But we have nominated the 21st, the summer solstice, that's a perfect day to celebrate localization because it's about, among other things, that reconnection to nature that we would hope when people are out of COVID and so on that they can celebrate outside together. It's beautiful and it's combined with not only great speakers, great philosophers, kind of food events, wonderful guests and personalities who have deep thoughts, farmers, food producers, and just those who are really concerned about our earth and connecting as communities and building these local futures. Your book, Local Is Our Future, I've got it right here holding it up in the camera, is a wonderful book and I want to touch upon that and maybe another podcast and go deeper as well as some more things of the happiness economy. I enjoyed your films, your documentaries or films that you've done, as well as your thoughts on local economies, the economics of happiness and really Local Is Our Future, I've been promoting it and talking about it to my friends and fans and listeners for a while. It came out in 2019 and there's really a lot of tools that if you go to localfutures.org to empower people with reading films and reports that can be downloaded where they can understand that. Do we want to get into this movement? How do we understand what's the whole verbiage around it? But what I'm really trying to frame is you've been doing this for four decades at least, 35 plus years maybe going on 40 for a while, and we've just experienced, we're still experiencing it to some respects, coming out of the pandemic hopefully. A lot of craziness, Black Lives Matter, the pandemic, the inauguration, the racist against Asians, and on and on I could go, has any of that work prior that you've done, that experience and what you've written and done filmmaking, helped you to weather this crazy time any better as it's proven to be a more resilient model for life? Well, absolutely, and I think it's helped so much to know that despite enormous pressures from the top down, essentially national governments taking their marching orders now from global banks of corporations, they're trying to pull the whole planet, pull the people of the planet in a completely unnatural direction. It's fundamentally about taking us further away from nature, by taking us away from any connection with the natural world where we live, is taking us into an ever more urban environment where we are crowded together on top of each other, but we don't know each other, because community has been broken down, we don't even look each other in the eye when we're in the big city, we're in a smaller town or community, we do, and there's usually a bit more interdependence. Now, doesn't mean that in the big cities we couldn't revitalize a fabric of interdependent community, but it requires an economic shift, because this economic path pushed by global businesses that is taking us further and further away from any sense of dependence on human beings. We're becoming more and more locked in a system where we can't even talk to a human being.  What it's doing is creating terrible epidemics of depression, anxiety, and fear, and of course with COVID, you know, that fear was reinforced and we were sort of locked down in our homes, very bleak picture, but for me, why I feel fundamentally optimistic is that I see even under those pressured conditions, all the evidence I need to know that human beings actually long for connection, they prefer to be collaborative. Just remember that, that we're doing not to believe that most human beings, if they could live in a more collaborative way, they would prefer that. They don't want to be struggling and elbowing their way to the top and worrying constantly about how they're going to put food on the table and have a roof over their head. That brings the worst out in human beings and human beings do become more fearful and greedy in those conditions, but what's happening in this localization movement that we are trying to make more visible and that we're trying to strengthen is that once people recognize some fundamental truths about the way we live now and about the opportunity to right now, wherever we are, choose to reconnect in human scale ways with independent businesses, with linking producers and consumers, especially farmers and consumers, once we start reconnecting in that way in terms of human scale interdependence, what we're witnessing is essentially a restoration of humanity, what it is to be human. We are seeing that particularly starting with the most fundamental issue of all, the most fundamentally important sector, which is how we produce our food, what we're seeing all around the world now is a growing local food movement. It doesn't recognize itself necessarily as part of the global movement, but you were saying I've been at this for almost four decades. I'm afraid to tell you it's actually 45 years now and because I've been at it for so long and I was from New York to Los Angeles and Portland and Vancouver and then Paris and London and Stockholm and also in Eastern Europe and Japan, South Korea, China, India, working with colleagues in South America and Africa, so very, very global experience. And I've been witnessing firsthand the growth of this movement. I've helped to pioneer it in many places, including America, and it's just so wonderful to know that despite the fact that we are swimming in a sea where the pressures are driving us apart and where heavy subsidies for old food from far away make this food artificially cheap, people are making the effort to heal their own bodies to want and understand the need for healthier food and for a healthier environment. And it's a magical formula. When you shorten the distance between the farmer and the consumer, you're creating a structure where the market pressures for diversified production. Now this is a formula for naturally creating organic production. The unnatural fossil fuel based industrial food economy has been a disaster from beginning to end. It came in, particularly after the Second World War, with this supposedly cheap oil, which of course cost us wars and millions of lives and still continues to be a reason for violent conflict around the world. But this oil, which had been used for the war machinery, was turned on the land. And even in countries like Sweden, my native country, you saw people pushed off the land, replaced by big machinery using lots of oil and on bigger, bigger monocultures. The people themselves were shoved into cities, into high-rise apartments, again using lots of fossil fuels for the cement and for the heating and air conditioning and all of that. In these unnatural conditions, the land was basically destroyed. Monoculture is deadly. Nowhere in the natural world do you find monoculture. It's a human creation. And I should say in human creation, because it comes from a system that most individual human beings are not even looking at. But as part of a big wheel, they become little cogs in a machine turning in the wrong direction. That's how I see it. And so in these unnatural conditions, when you create monocultures, you have to use chemical fertilizers. You end up having to use pesticides, herbicides, fungicide, because it's so unnatural and you get all kinds of imbalances. When you add monoculture, you're also much more threatened by a particular pest or some hail or some wind or too much rain. You can lose everything. So the fear drives the farmer then to try to protect themselves with more and more chemicals. We already created dust bowls in that way. In America, it was very clear. And yet huge subsidies and pressure because it favored big business. This pressure continued to push us in the wrong direction. Now, what we're seeing is that when people turn that formula around, so it's exactly the opposite direction towards smaller farms with more people on the farm, less energy, less technology and more diversity. Just unbelievable healing happens. In many cases, we're talking about increasing the yields, the productivity of food production, sometimes by a factor of 10, sometimes even more. But more important, well, I don't say more importantly, but just as importantly as seeing that there is a way that the global population can feed itself in a far more sustainable and healthy way by going local and that actually continuing in the direction that industrial agribusiness in the global food system is taking us is deadly. And it's becoming more and more dangerous, more and more toxic. In that global system, most people don't know food is being imported and exported. At the same time, the US exports about a billion and a half times of, yeah, it's a billion and a half times of beef every year. They total around an import about a billion and a half times of beef. England exports as much milk and butter as it imports. Australia exports wheat to the UK and imports wheat from France. You have an insanity going on where countries are routinely importing and exporting the same product. Why? It's entirely because our governments have believed that GDP will grow through more global trade. Now, we also have in the global food system, food flow routinely to the other side of the world to be processed or to be washed. I discovered this first in Sweden when I came back from many years in the Himalayas and I found that in 1977, I think it was, in Sweden, they were sending potatoes to Italy by road to be washed, put in plastic bags and then sent back again. Now this type of thing is happening by air and apples flown from the UK to South Africa to be washed, fish flown from the US, from Norway, from Australia to China to be deboned and flown back again. Now, most people don't know about this so I do believe that if we can do everything possible to circumvent a corporate media that doesn't want us to look at the truth of this unbelievable inefficiency and waste and pollution from the global food system especially, that is from the global economy generally. If we can get this message out, I have no doubt that we could see a turning towards both social and ecological healing quite rapidly because we're talking about working with the needs of people and with the needs of nature. I'm monologuing you so much but I'd like to just add that part of this picture is so important for us to see that this same turning towards more localized economies, not just around food but food is the central most important area to shift for environmental reasons. But for social reasons, if we shift away from the globalizing path towards the localizing path, supporting not just local food but independent businesses, start working with those organizations that are developing local finance strategies, providing local energy systems, providing more localized and by that we mean more preventative healthcare. It's more localized because people are more actively involved in learning about how to keep themselves healthy. A lot of that has to do with healthy food, nutritious food, it has to do with exercise, it has to do with peace of mind. These recipes are all part of this localization movement. Very importantly, it is very important, it's the recognition that this turning is essential to avoid a even further leap to the right politically because what's happening is that this same system that wastes so much energy, creates mountains of plastic, uses all that energy, creates climate change. That same system is creating huge financial insecurity for the majority of the world's population. The financial insecurity now is extending to the middle classes. There is a fear of being able to provide for one's children, even a roof over one's head, some kind of future, some kind of education that's going to provide for the children. As people become more and more fearful, they become more and more reluctant to take environmental issues seriously and they are very vulnerable to the demagogues who stand up and say, we're going to grow the economy for you, we're growing it for you, we're going to make your country great. Forget about this climate nonsense, forget about the Amazon, just follow this growth agenda. That growth agenda is structurally linked, every country structurally linked to making fewer and fewer people richer and richer and more and more people poorer and poorer in real terms. This clarity about the basic structures of the global economy are vital to strengthen the localizing economy movement and where it's happening, we see the benefits. So I'll stop there in case you have some questions. You're absolutely fine. So we're both very much systems thinker, so I really appreciate you going deep and giving us kind of that bigger view, that step back of and making sure we understand that we need to get into that. I not only have you receive reviews, but on your board of one of your organizations, Fritz Hof Capra is there, I'm an alumni of Capra courses and systems view of life as well. So I appreciate you giving us that big perspective and understanding of that because it's so important to really see what's going on locally, even though we have this global view, so this global local or this world view of the problems we're facing. And some people probably find that difficult because we're talking about local economies, local futures and how we can better build infrastructures, different infrastructures for those local communities, community food webs, community infrastructure to make those strong, especially in times of pandemics, especially in times of climate crisis. And so I love that you address that. I want to go back to the question, but before we do, I want to just touch on a couple of things. So most people really don't understand that economics are the current economic models that we're seeing around the world are all failing. They have bubbles and then they burst and then we go right back to the same economic model that burst or had a problem. But our world's oldest, longest running and most successful economy is an agrarian society and what you touched upon as being the basic fundament. It's not only one that's the oldest, longest running, most successful, it's also the dual edged sword because it's the one that affects human health and environment the most. And it's the one that's been not just bastardized, but it's really been manipulated on this global scale where we're shipping potatoes out and shipping potatoes in to be sold and many other products as you touched upon. It's also the largest employer of women and girls. It's the least paid, it's the least educated, the least digitized and there's some issues in that model that a lot of people don't realize until we hit a pandemic or until we hit some hard times how basic of a not just system of an economy that is and important it is for us. It's the basic needs of humanity, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the physiological needs, breathing, food and water, that's our basic source and it's also the basic measure of the basic resource of human energy. So humanity's energy sources is a caloric unit which is a measurement of energy. I don't want you to count calories, but that measurement of energy is food at what regulates our body temperature, what keeps us going and doing that and we're getting less health, more issues, more problems in our world regarding this caloric intake and food because of these global systems, because of high process and because of the nutrient loss in our soils. And so I love that you're touching upon that as the foundation of where we need to go and how we can start to fix and repair this problem. We've seen this unique time for the past 12 months or more of the pandemic and that's what I wanted to go back to. Have you seen not only from your work before, now that there's more doubling down or more awareness, more people approaching you saying, now I get it. You've been talking about it for 45 years. Now I'm connecting this web of complexity that I've actually been participating in a system that's hurting me in the long run, that's actually limits to growth, that's going to end sometime if we don't fix it and get this stability on the local level. And so if you have any stories or anything you can share of what you've seen, some experiences are people who've reached out to you and said, boy, we want more information or we see this occurring. Now is the time that this movement's even growing more. Yeah, we're absolutely seeing. We've seen a very clear increase since 2008 with the financial crisis, but particularly after COVID. There's just no doubt that all around the world people realized the vital importance of their food. And there were many instances of the supermarkets, the mainstream system, not functioning, running out items, and the local systems provided an increase their productivity. And it was wonderful to also hear from local farmers that are now in farmers markets I helped to start and that they were able to actually triple their production because they were working with local people who were happy to do some extra work so that their community could eat. And I love the fact that most of them didn't increase the prices at all, even though it was such a high demand and they could easily have done so. It was wonderful to see all kinds of different businesses and individuals turn around to start getting engaged in the food economy. I mean, as a woman here as a choir, she started delivering food to people and it became a small business. There were many restaurants around the world that suddenly became food hubs where food could be delivered and then from the grower and then delivered to the consumers. And as part of that whole awakening of the importance of food, there was also this awakening to the joy of growing food and producing some food. So there's a shortage everywhere, buying little chickens because people wanted to keep chickens as a shortage of seedlings. There was a shortage of also things like yeast because people started baking bread at home and it was really a very clear awakening, not only to the importance of but the joy of more localized food systems and a community. There were so many examples of people reaching out even in COVID lockdown through the internet to make sure that the people in their neighborhood were looked after, the elderly and the frail. And of course we've also heard that there was more domestic abuse and there were many people who were frustrated and depressed and angered but in that very difficult situation which shines through it is how in crisis so many people responded very positively and very responsibly. And by the way I'd like to recommend the book Humankind if you haven't heard of it. It's a very important book and I'm thrilled that it's got out and reached a relatively wide audience because it's substantiating what I've been saying you know again for these four and a half decades that by nature we prefer to collaborate when we don't enjoy competing and fighting to survive. It's not you know every child is born is asking to be valued to be nurtured to be loved and and when children will see that care of love generally they learn how to become loving and caring people. That's so beautiful you know Carl Sagan said it very nicely the astronomer he said there's this growing collective consciousness that sees the earth as one organism and an organism divided amongst itself or fighting against itself is doomed and it is so true what you just said we are so connected to the biome of our earth we are all earthlings we're all on the same spaceship earth moving in the same direction distant cousins so to say kin and if we're fighting against each other we're doing we really need to realize that not just that we're all in the same spaceship earth but these local communities to reconnect with each other and to cooperate and collaborate and I this could go deep and I and I don't want to we'll save that for our next podcast but you know there's a lot of neoliberalism neo-darlinism which is really survival of the fittest natural selection only the strong survive and severe competition and that's not how our world works our world works like Lynn Martin Lynn Margolis said who is Carl Sagan's first wife she said we're on a symbiotic earth and and like she worked with James Lovelock as well the there is we're connected to that biome that microorganism and it's a symbiotic earth in collaboration and cooperation that that we're all working in harmony as a almost as homo symbios and so I really love that you make those connections and you you speak about that and that that's really this is a beautiful time for us now because of world local localization day which is June 21st but for May 15th to June 20th you will have events and speakers and food events all over the world going on and I kind of want to go back to last year what was experienced but basically just to explain to the listeners it's a day to inspire awareness about how localizing economies can strengthen communities and lead to greater ecological health human prosperity key participants in the past and last year were Russell Brand Jane Goodall my god Jane Goodall Brian Enno, Noam Chomsky and I could go on Vandina Shiva Fritzl Capra, Daniel Wall Christian, Daniel Christian Wall and many many superstars or wonderful people who I feel are wonderful and doing good things for the planet and they're bringing not only their philosophies their feelings on where maybe this new social framework is going for humanity and how we embrace that locally but there's no one better to speak about that than you about what maybe we could look forward to this year and maybe what surprises if you could tease us and help us a little bit more to understand yeah but this year we have decided to in a way decentralize so that our colleagues around the world are organizing events in their own languages now on six continents you know and working from you know Tokyo to Benin or Kenya, Peru, Mexico so all around the world people are organizing events in their own languages starting May 15 and until mid mid June and then we'll have a taster of some of that in a program that we're running from the 15th of June to the 20th and we're trying to reach every time zone with some of these programs some of which will report back from around the world and others will be events that we create this year Russell and his wife Laura Brand will join us he quoted me quite a lot in his book revolution and he's really a very important figure because he understands both the political need for decentralization or localization and you know it's it can also be called anarcho syndicalism but really localization is what he meant he also has become very aware of the central importance of an embodied grounded spirituality and that's as I see it that's a shift towards really deeply learning from more feminine deeply embedded ecological indigenous societies and that's where all my knowledge comes from and my teachings work from having had that deep experience for many years as well as living in Sweden and America and Germany and learning to speak a lot of languages so I've had the opportunity both to go very deep into indigenous culture and very broad global experience but so this you know me client is also joining us and we have the main thing about having some people with well-known names is that we're really really wanting to raise the status of and to show the many cross routes to efforts that are so significant they're so systemic they really demonstrate what we call the economics of happiness which is really the economics of localization but it's so difficult to get them into the media you know the corporate media doesn't want a systemic path of solutions it's happily encouraging us to view everything as a separate issue and it's particularly dangerous as we can see now through the social dilemma and so on algorithms really it's not really about people it's the systems we built where we've wedded technology to money we've wedded this system to an extraction that really benefits almost no one but in material terms and money terms we can see this obscene you know um you know situation where a few individuals even in covid earning billions and trillions of dollars now so we've got to really step back to look at that bigger picture and as I say once we do when we put on lenses we contrast the localizing path with the globalizing path we'll see that one of them is about competitive pressures and speed taking us further and further away from nature and from human beings from human control the other one is subsuming economic essentially economic transactions the creation of money the regulation of interest and and the mechanisms through which society is in charge of the economy rather than the economy shaping society that's what localizing is about it's a process it's not about reducing everything down to some village level it's not about only doing things in some tiny villages it's happening as much from big cities as it is well more from big cities actually than it is from tiny villages but this process has a very clear and very concrete trajectory whereby people start supporting independent local businesses they start seeing that when you're supporting those players in your community the benefits come back to you so I I feel very privileged that I can tell people that if you want to get involved with localization you're actually looking for a path for your own inner psychological and spiritual healing as well as for social healing as well as for ecological healing and we want you as part of world localization day to spread that so that these initiatives can happen all over the world some people think it sounds contradictory it have world localization day no this is not about some isolated selfish thing I'm just going to look after myself this is about a paradigm shift and a structural path that is beneficial to the human population to mother Gaia and also I want to add that in terms of the social healing what we are seeing is that when people start relating to people who have a face and a name whom they know so it might be you know John who's running that shop down the street it might be Mary who's the the health worker it might be might be you know someone from a different culture from a different race but they are people they are not labels they are not those nasty immigrants or those Muslims or those people who are inferior because they have dark skin no these are people you know so what I'm seeing is that as you become more interdependent with people as you know them it's the prejudice starts falling away you can't have this general label for the individual you know the distances and the fear that's what produces the prejudice and even the violence and the rise of some very nasty neo-nazi sentiments and so on it's the fear and the separation and being actually manipulated by this inhuman system and remember that those algorithms that are polarizing us in social media are algorithms that are polarizing the whole world distorting the crisis of everything in the marketplace because we are allowing a casino the trade in money through algorithms that second by second are searching to amass as much wealth as possible into fewer and fewer hands and what's profitable is destruction health connection love are not profitable but ill health is and this is also just crazy that we measure GDP in a way that really literally means that we are on a path of destruction if you stay healthy it's not good for GDP you need chemotherapy year after year you need pharmaceutical drugs year after year GDP goes up you stop buying them GDP goes down it's all about commercialization so it can sound maybe very challenging to change that big system but i keep hammering on about it to try to get people to listen to the message that when you reduce all that to a scale where you live in your community in your city and you start engaging with localization you're actually on a path that takes you in exactly the opposite direction i think you know the statistics also are that right now in the food economies of the world the smallholder farms actually are home to 95 percent of agricultural biodiversity the giant monocultures are destroying it systematically and as i said before increasing time at emissions and toxic pesticides genetic engineering life is safe the the farmers markets are markets where the farmer can get about 80 percent of what you spend for your food in the supermarket they get if they're lucky 10 percent so you're starting to see a win-win strategy for healing the economy and healing the earth yeah there's been a big huge issue around turning food into a commodity and we really saw a big push in that in 2008 where all during the financial crisis were all big investments shifted to anything to do with the food system and during an economic downturn and during the pandemic we see time over time it's growing trillions of dollars every year regardless of whatever downturns because it is a basic sustenance but on the flip side of that is companies and investors are turning that into commodity and they don't have any idea of how to produce food and so they they've been in essence cheapen food and when you cheapen food and turn it into an investment you've cheapened life and you're investing against yourself in the long term and that's just a it's a horrific down downward spiral that needs to be changed and fixed and i i appreciate you addressing that and speaking about that i i i've love i mean you've had depot chopra you've had dr zack bush um who talks about the microbiome and many other wonderful things i i've had on the podcast before maria rhodale who wrote the organic manifesto of rhodale institute and and that and talking about regenerative organics and or organic farming and different methods but in 2015 the united nations came out and said we have in essence 70 harvests left at traditional industrial agriculture high industrial agriculture 70 harvests well the new number now just kind of on the tail end hopefully of the pandemic is now less than 45 harvests left on traditional industrial agriculture is ruining our farms it's we're doing our our waterways and many many other horrific things and as you said it so correctly the small holder farmers and those who implement regenerative organic practices agro forestry agro ecology new methods of healing the soils but also fixing our waterways and not using pesticides and those things are really those who are not only turning into carbon farmers and and kind of healing our soils and capturing carbon but they're also giving us better food there's higher yields and there's much more return on that and even those who are stuck in in these concrete jungles in the urban cities growing your own food or even if it's a victory garden or in your kitchen or on your terrace is like printing your own money it's it's a way of freedom it brings you joy and it can connect you again to how vital even if it's just sprouting that just that process can take a shift in your life to connect you back on the right path to where you need to go and so i love everything you're talking about and what you're doing i want to encourage all my listeners to go and and and view your website of world localization day i'll put the links in the show notes descriptions and just participate take part of it be empowered in a new movement in an old movement actually but one that maybe they haven't heard of hopefully will reach a lot of people who haven't heard of it but are ripe to to hear the message now that they've experienced all sorts of craziness in the world and saying these old systems aren't working for us anymore we need something that really works for us and now that goes back to my first question for you it's really i see that all those 45 years of work and what you've talked about have been telling us about a model that could have worked this whole time and now we're seeing it emerge as something that's actually more resilient and has the ability to heal our world in many different ways and connect humanity one to another and so i really thank you for that is there anything else about world localization day that you would like us to know or it's important to for us to watch out for i guess i i guess i'd like to just stress that we see it as a process and that it's not about blaming people who aren't eating 100 local food in most parts of the world you can't you might be eating cotton or tobacco or something if you eat local it's it's a relative term it's about the shift in direction and it's about joining that movement with people in your community so urging people to think of you know two quite different strategies one of them is to right now look around where you live and see if you can find some localization initiatives ideally starting with food it's the biggest healer but there are many others their business alliances finance and so on as i said also help us with what we call big picture activism and that's getting this bigger picture out a lot of people are talking about systems but they don't have access to an analysis of the global economic system which has become this massive man-made system a lot of people talk about this patriarchal racist misogynist and and it was from the beginning but a lot of people are now running it who are in government pushing a continued deregulation of global business and finance while they're over regulating local business and while they're squeezing local and national businesses for taxes and with regulations they're removing the regulations of the global monopolies that don't pay tax now so we would like big picture activism to also help get out this message so we do build a moment for policy change now that isn't going to happen overnight but i think we could have a big aha wake up and that will mean understanding that both democrats and republicans have been pursuing fundamentally the same economic policies it will mean waking up to the fact that what we call growth is not actually growth for the nation or its people nations are actually getting poorer vis a vis this floating empire in this casino economy and these global giants they don't belong to any place that's the whole point about localization so i think what we have to offer is almost like you know a phd in localization if you become interested in that you should come to our website because we have materials that range from the grassroots initiative we're coming out with a local action guide also with all kinds of examples of what you can do at the local level but we are also addressing that bigger picture that is about building up a momentum for genuine policy change which will for my point you only come once the social and environmental movements sing from the same hymn sheet and we really need to really need to understand that the welfare of the planet and the welfare of people are completely linked and it's tragic that we're getting hurted often by corporate think tanks into maintaining a narrow view of a particular issue and that keeps us separated and fragmented so there's a huge opportunity for very meaningful change at the policy level and there's already all these examples at the local level which you can join right now one thing you could do is to organize what we're calling a local food feast this is something we're aiming to have about a thousand of these around the world it can be anything from you if you're in covid lockdown deciding to cook a meal maybe for yourself and family maybe have a zoom dinner with a friend maybe on the other side of the world discussing the importance of local food cooking a meal that's primarily from local ingredients no fundamentalism but thinking about where the food comes from if there is a farmers market in your area maybe you could buy it there and and it's anything from that small individual thing to people closing down whole streets and having hundreds of people in a sort of potluck shared local food meal it's some restaurants are putting on a special celebration of world localization day and even you know having some music and entertainment and talks about the vital importance of strengthening local food economy so you could go to our website and sign up to do one of those local food fees to support this worldwide movement that would be really wonderful we'll put all the links in the show notes description for sure absolutely and the website is worldlocalizationday.org and you can reserve your place you can also sign up to do the food feast and have a have a nice event there as well as it's really nice it's kind of pay as you as you can system that you have set up which is very nice and fair that it's to each and everybody's needs to join I will definitely be there listening in and I hope that our our listeners and those who we promote it to will join as well because it'll be a wonderful event I really thank you and hope that we can take a deeper dive very soon after things calm down after the 20th 21st and and that we will go deeper into your book and some other things on talking about economics in general and moving a little bit into some deeper dive discussions on what you've been doing with for 45 years and why we haven't jumped on the boat yet to figure it out and and how that movement's going because I have tons of questions there I'm sure some of them will be answered in the world localization day thank you so much thank you thank you so much bye


We caught up with Bill Riddle, who emceeded the banquet at the NCHA 2015 convention last night. Great job, Bill. Thank you. Thank you. I had a lot of fun.  Well, the good news last night was those were the guys that I've known for a long, long time. Some of those trainers that we put into the Riders Hall of Fame were before my time. We did a little research on those guys, too, and I've known a lot of those guys for a long time and we've had a great relationship, and those stories are true. They're not something we've made up. They're true and they're fun and they're interesting for the audience to hear about what actually went on. How important is it to recognize the contribution of these people, especially the three member inductees last night? Well, the importance in that is that, you know, people do a lot in this organization and there's a lot of criticism, seldom do we ever say thank you enough. The members hall of fame is an award that you can't win. It has to be bestowed. It's bestowed because you've done something beyond the ordinary for this organization. It's important that we always honor the people that do that. You know, recognition for what you do, it doesn't matter who you are. You like for somebody to say, hey, that's a good job. And what we're saying to those guys, hey, that was an exceptional job that you did for us. And particularly because most of the things that they had done was bring about some difficult changes for the long-term benefit of the industry. So, you know, they really put in the hard yards. Well, what last night almost turned into was cleaning up. And when I say that, we went back and we looked at the riders that had been missed for one reason or another that actually had about the same credentials of many of the older riders back before 1997. We really didn't have criteria and it was really kind of a who do you think should be in there. So we tried to fix that. And then with those past presidents for some reason, you know, we've always just gone on who wrote the letters and asked, well, we looked up and this year we had letters asking that we put those guys in the Hall of Fame. And there are three of our ex-presidents who truly deserve to be there and had just been passed over. I don't know. I don't think it was intentional. It just had been passed over. And it was fun to gather up the guys that had made the hard calls. And Sam and James were in a tough spot because the economy wasn't good and the association was weak at the office. And they really had to perform to put us through. And on a personal level, you know, you have been in the industry with these guys for a long time, their friends. How did it feel to be a part of giving them recognition? Well, that's that's the pleasure that, you know, it was so much fun for me to get to be the guy that led the thank you that led them into the members Hall of Fame. That was a lot of fun for me to do that. Oh, you did a great job. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you.


Let's talk about Bell's spaceship paradox, first put forward by, you guessed it, Deewen and Beren in 1959. So here's Alice, and she has just bought a brand new shiny spaceship. And here's Bob with a brand new spaceship of their own. Now Alice and Bob won't take their spaceships for a spin, so they get together like this while their friend Carl watches jealously from the ground. Alice and Bob stretch a rope between their ships, which Carl measures to have length L in his frame. Carl sees these ships start off stationary, and then they fire up their engines and fly off to the right, accelerating at the same rate. So Carl always sees Alice and Bob have the same velocity as each other, but that velocity is constantly increasing. Now beforehand, Alice and Bob made some predictions about what they thought would happen. So Bob said, let's look at things from my reference frame. So initially at the start, Alice and I start off a distance L apart. Now we always have the same velocity, so even as we accelerate and start moving, we will stay a distance L apart. So obviously the rope will not break. Now Alice had a different idea. She said let's look at things in Carl's reference frame. So Bob and I start off a distance L apart, and we always have the same velocity. So from Carl's point of view, we will stay a distance L apart. However, due to length contraction, the rope should shrink to a size L on gamma. So as we go very fast, the rope should break. So who do you agree with?


Your Excellences Distinguished participants, legends and gentlemen It's a privilege and great honour to be a part of this esteemed gathering for the place potential conference 2018 in this captivating city of Dubai. On behalf of the Republic of Zimbabwe please allow me to express my utmost gratitude to the host of this event. I am also obliged to ratching my sincere congratulations to the ITU management led by the Secretary General, Mr. Olin Jauu, for organizing this well-prepared conference. I believe that this conference is a landmark occasion where we take stock of our achievements towards the vision 2020 and whose outcomes we map our aspirations towards the attainment of the 2030 sustainable development goals. For Zimbabwe, the year 2030 is a watershed year as we have also set ourselves to have attained upper mid-income country status by 2030. With regards to the vision 2020 targets, we are doing our best in fostering growth of the ICT sector where we have witnessed unprecedented growth in the use of internet bandwidth. We have achieved 86% 3G population coverage in our quest for an inclusive information society. We are using our universal service fund to roll out community information centers in all corners of the country, connecting schools and health centers mostly in rural and remote areas. On the demand side of things, we have deliberately directed our efforts on reducing cost services by maintaining a cost-based tariff regime, mandating passive infrastructure sharing and establishing a national internet exchange point which will double up as a regional internet exchange point. We have also embarked on massive training, education and awareness programs for broadband consumers targeting the remote areas so as to build confidence and enhance security in the use of ICTs. On the innovation front, we have started disbosing startup funds for SMEs in the ICT sector following the successful launch of the innovation fund in March 2018. Looking into the future, we are saying Zimbabwe is open for business and we cherish building partnerships and concerted collaboration to take us to the desired level. Our target is to grow our economy by at least 14% year on year on a sustained basis with broadband as our linchpin. Ladies and gentlemen, having said all that, it is my great pleasure to present to you Dr. Kosmas Zawa Zawa. He is well known to most of you as our candidate for the post of Director Telecommunications Development Bureau. Kosmas is a diligent, versatile and humble man. He speaks several languages and has diplomatic experience within and outside the ITU. With almost 20 years of experience in the development sector. Some of you have worked with him in disaster situations and I'm sure you can testify that he is undoubtedly a strategic asset to the ITU who deserves your support. We are offering Dr. Kosmas Zawa Zawa to the ITU as a token of appreciation for the support that we've enjoyed and also our commitment to the work of the union. We are counting on you to support our offering to the union. I thank you.


This is Captain Nathan Reckley-Faxmarsh Fire Brigade doing back burning operations in Allendale, Tasmania, 7th of January 2013, helping the Allendale Fire Brigade with acid protection.


Photography is like most art forms and it should be pursued because you enjoy it. But occasionally, you know, you can find yourself in a rut. There are roadblocks that get in your way to freely and easily enjoying your photography. This is last weekend while I was trying to recover from attending two birthday parties for toddlers on the same day. I was scrolling through Reddit and I came across this thread by a user called SandyMartin07 and if you watch the channel, Sandy has it, right? So this is kind of what they wrote, over the recent years I have fallen in love with landscape photography more and more and my passion for backpacking and some good luck has helped me get some good images on quite a few trips. However, in the last few years, I haven't been able to travel as much due to the thing we don't talk about and other things, so that motivation in my photography has been fading. Additionally, I rarely get any appreciation from my social circle for the photographs that I take and I share at times on social media and I feel hardly anyone recognises the effort that went into making one image. Now I realise fully that social media shares should never be the objective of photography as we do it for our own gratification and our willingness to freeze that moment in front of us. However, it does feel nice when people recognise your effort even to a small extent and it adds to your motivation to try even better next time.  In that thread, there were some really useful suggestions and in particular one jumped out of me straight away and because it's really something that isn't often suggested as an idea about starting to be motivated in photography and that's actually printing your photographs. These days, of course, the majority of our images end up simply as representations on a screen and for genres like landscape photographs, seeing your image as like a little 12 inch picture on the screen is totally different to seeing it as a gorgeous 40 inch print up on your wall. And so I think you need to have your images printed at some point in a larger format. So I don't mean like an 8x10 or something, but something that is suited to the genre because it gives you a whole different perspective to your photographs. You know, once you see them that size, you're going to start to connect with them, to interact with them and to see them in a completely different way, even though that you took them.  Now, obviously your C types are kind of pricey, but if you can't afford a C type, then just you know, think about something a little bit off center, you're gonna have to compromise on quality just a little bit. But even something like this, this is a project or not probably, this is an option that I had at the studio. So this is what's called a foam export, he says, trying to not get in the wall. And that's 30 by 20. And it didn't cost me very much. I think those back in the day probably like, you know, 20 pounds, 30 pounds, if something like that. And of course, the beauty of that is that you don't have to actually frame it. It can go on to the wall as is. So even if it's something like that, we're sure, okay, appreciate the image qualities can be a bit lower, but print it out man, see, see what your works like big, don't just be content with just, you know, the little screen, do it and see what happens. Of course, if you have a body of work, then you could possibly think about having an exhibition or something. There are loads of places around where you could probably rent some more space or some gallery time.  Do it. Is it going to give you an idea that you have something to actually do with your photographs? That idea of having something to do with your photos is probably why I feel a lot of people struggle with feeling constantly motivated in photography. Because often, there isn't really an end result. And this is especially true for people from whom photography is simply a hobby. In the past, this affected me a whole heap, especially after I'd left further school where I had gone from an environment where people were constantly giving me work to do, the end of assignments. So there was a goal to being into a real world where this is before I was working properly as a photographer, where I didn't really have an aim. So I was kind of aimless. And the more that I stayed being aimless, the more the motivation kind of slipped away a little bit to take photographs. So what I should have done is to look at creating a project, you know, something to give my photography purpose and for me to work as a goal. This is hardly revolutionary, however, I feel that a lot of people, they bite off more than they can chew. So like the 365 project is a prime example of this, you know, that's I'm going to take a photograph every day for an entire year. And you know, I think that's a real problem. If you're lacking motivation, taking on a project that is going to require an entire year to complete is too much. It's a huge commitment.  If you're not motivated to take one now, do you think after 365 days you're going to feel even more motivated? No, it's going to be a chore. And it's something you're going to do just because you're supposed to do it. And ultimately, you know, photography should be fine. You should you should take photographs because you want to, you know. And so rather than, you know, biting off this massive project, which ultimately doesn't really, I don't think, help you improve very much, you are going to, I think, do better if you find a project that is challenging and it needs to be challenging, but also has a short lifespan that you can do it reasonably quickly and and a bit of it's a process that you can do again and again. So this is kind of what you want to do in. And I found that there are two exercises that are extremely beneficial with this. And certainly have helped my photography in the past and and I have talked about them in the learning to see course, but if you've not signed up for that, I'll just talk about briefly here. So there's the 36 frames project and the alphabet exercise. So the 36 frames is that you can take anything, any sort of subject that you want and photograph it in 36 completely different ways. The reason which is 36 is because that was a role of film. 12 is too easy. You know, 24 is kind of is a bit hard, but 36, 36 completely different ways of photograph in the same object is going to challenge you. It is going to be hard, but it's not going to require your commitment of a year. So when you have this thing, you focus on that one tiny thing. It forces you, it forces you so strongly to think about the ways that you can photograph it and take you in directions that you may not have normally thought about and pushes you to explore all the tools in your photographic arsenal, if you if you will. Now, I did earlier last year, I did a video about this 36 frames project in in in more depth than the whole video. And the response that was was absolutely fantastic. It was great to see the positive feedback and the impact that it had on challenging people to improve their photography. And I'll link to the video at the end of this, if you're interested to go and check it out. The other episode, the other episode, the other exercise is the alphabet exercise, which is about finding letters that occur naturally in the world around us. You may have done something similar at some point.  And if you do that, then you can start spelling out words. You can spell your name and, you know, your wife's name, your kid's name, lots of stuff. Now, that might feel just it's a little bit cheeseball, isn't it? But so what, you know, this is this is the whole point is that these are simply exercises.  This is a vital thing to train your eyes to see the world in a different photographic way than just blindly accepting what is in front of you.  You may feel a bit silly by doing it, but it's going to help you to remember that there is opportunity around you everywhere you look. Going back to basics is probably one of the greatest ways of rediscovering motivation within your photography.  You were simply you embraced the notion of pointing your camera at something and just getting a picture back. It was that simple. In 2002, I still had my film camera and I was I was coming up against technical perfection on online, you know, in the early digital environment. And I was seeing a lot of that early digital work that look it looked polished and it looked professional, I suppose, in a way that my efforts on film didn't for some reason. I felt that because I didn't have access to those high power digital high power into the digital cameras and computers do actual, you know, online, not online, you know, actual Photoshop processing and why have you that I felt somewhat disinclined to be taking photographs because I didn't think that they would be up to snuff or at least I didn't think they would be up to wear. I thought those should be. In those days, I was involved on a website called Deviant Art and I was talking to this young lady and she said that her art teacher had told her to go and buy a camera called a Holger, which she had to go and purchase from Hong Kong. And this plastic camera had basically no settings. It was shoddily put together. It had light leaks. You need a gaffer tape to hold the thing actually together.  But she showed me the images that she had taken with this camera and I was immediately I was excited about it. So I rushed off and I went online and I tried to find a Holger. And eventually I found one, you know, I had to get all again also from Hong Kong, because this was before the craze for toy cameras really got going. So it was quite actually quite difficult to get hold of one. And this is this is the boy here. I mean, I don't often show here on the channel. But yeah, this is the little Holger. This revolutionized a lot of the way that I looked at photography. Anyway, so, you know, I got myself some 120 film and I loaded it up and it was like it was like the brakes had been lifted or a weight and the weight had been taken off of my shoulders and that I was photographing without any concern for technical perfection or the right exposure or is this focus correct? Because none of those things were under my control with this piece of plastic. All of this got me back to the idea of photographing with the simple pleasure that I did as a child and it re-kicked start my photography. And in fact, I can still see the echoes of what happened then in Edinburgh with my photographs that are lingering in my style to this day. So that's like 20 years later. So, you know, that's kind of the thing that I think ultimately is a heart of this. If you're not having fun, you need to find ways to kind of reinvigorate having fun in your photographs. And as one of the posters did say on Reddit, we get so wrapped up with this idea that we want people to recognize the efforts that we put in that we kind of focus too much on that because no one is going to care about the effort that you put in to your photographs. They don't care that if you used a holger to take a picture or that if you got as there was an article in F-stoppers up into some sort of, you know, one of those paraglider things to a 4,000 foot thing so you could get a unique photograph that nobody's ever seen. Does that make the picture any better than the one that you take with a piece of plastic? I have certainly never heard of anybody looking at photographs or lusting over the images because of the effort that the photographer put in. People respond to the visual things in the photographs and the things that you put there that make them feel something. Going back to those basics is just a great way of removing all the shackles that we get lumbered with.  Just let the camera do its thing. Just concentrate on the image itself on what's in front of you rather than all the technical gubbins that goes around it. See what happened? Experiment and just, you know, have fun, man. The poster, you know, they mentioned that they also enjoy the chance to travel and to take photographs and because they only did once, you know, a couple of times a year, that they took a long time to make sure they got the right pictures when they were there and they haven't mentioned it in their post but one of the things is that there's a roadblock there. There's a couple of things that they have mentioned that tell me that they are subconsciously sort of sabotaging their motivation because they're looking at this from an idea that there need to be certain things in place, that there need to be criteria that have been met before you can take a photograph and in this OPs, in the posters case, it was kind of, I'm going to the mountains, I need to go to the landscape. So think about your own photography, think about where you traditionally take photographs or you feel comfortable taking photographs. If you're outside of that, what's holding you back? What is the roadblock that you might not be aware of that is bursting your bubble of motivation? Now, if you are a landscape photographer, you may feel that you need to go somewhere that landscape photography is traditionally taken to work as a landscape photographer. But I'd like you to think about two famous Adamses, Ansel and Robert. Both of them took landscape photography and in extremely different styles and they did travel to go to their respective landscape photos, but you know, and so Adams went to places like Yosemite in New Mexico and Robert Adams stayed in local urban areas, you know, close to him in Colorado. It's an interesting thought to imagine how if you transplanted one Adams for the other, how they would have reacted, how they would have photographed each other's respective sort of patch as it were. So I think you need to kind of think about how you can combat the idea of the roadblocks that are setting up in front of us, that if we're not in our native photographic habitat, then we can't photograph things. So possibly one of the best ways to do that is to throw out a convention, throw out all these preconceived ideas about what we photograph in genres. I have a book about road trip photography in America and there were two photographers in there who created a road trip on bedsheets. You know, they've taken the sheets and they photographed them like some sort of mythical landscape of the American West that feels like a road and all of this without leaving a room. So mix things up, photograph things in different ways. And if you're not able to get to the mountains, then photograph a tree in your backyard and you know, like as a portrait. Just mix up your vocabulary and see what happens. Just change things around. That 36 frame challenge is a fantastic way to improve your photography. And I've linked to the video here, which talks about it in more depth.  Because I've been waving my finger at it. Anyway, thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon.


What is your Super Bowl prediction? Oh man, we're going to win the Super Bowl this year. Knock on wood. Super Bowl, we're going to f***ing go all the way, duh. I'd love to see the Panthers, they make it so hard to be a fan. Bills versus Buccaneers, Bills man. I'd agree with that, Bills Bucks. Probably Buffalo, Los Angeles. Who takes the win? Buffalo. Bills. Over who? Over the Chiefs. Can't be that.


Here we are at our R&D test lab in Belgium, which is where the headquarters of Econation are. We also have facilities in China and Morocco. And this is a place where we develop the next light experience, because indeed Econation is the leader in daylight technology and provides energy solutions. These energy solutions are based on a technology-driven financial model. Technology-driven indeed, because it's based on these light capture skylights, they provide real savings based on daylight, and they work excellent in a subsidy-free world. Indeed both our technology and our business model are independent from subsidies, are independent from the energy grid, work wireless, and they don't require any investment at all from our customer. And that's what really makes us unique. Someone once said innovation is about the ability to convert an idea into an invoice, and of course that's true, but innovation is about so much more than that. For us at Econation we look at a concept and then the innovation for us is not to improve this concept by 10%, but really making it 10 times better. 10 times better and that is why we reinvest all of our profits in growth and R&D. We reinvest it in R&D because that is really our lifeline, it's our future, it's our core business. It is why we want to develop the next best thing in daylight. It is why we want to change the game. We want to change the way how people and companies look at light and perceive light and use light. So we reinvest in R&D but also in growth because at the end of the day it's about sales. Was it not about sales? I mean I wouldn't be an entrepreneur. First of all our light catcher technology is about real savings. Once we integrate this technology into industrial buildings it is the all-day light sensor that will decide to switch on or off the light feelings. So we decide and no one else. That way with just one small light catcher we can save up to 4000 kWh each year and reduce the carbon emissions by 3 tons per year. Now apart from all these savings and all these benefits plus providing healthy light sensors for people, for animals apart from all this we can for each light catcher have a direct impact on the life of 10 families in the poorest region of the world by providing them with daylight in those places where the sun never shone before and that way every day we can make our own small impact and change something for the betterment of the world and that way every day we can make meaning and that's what we should do.


You know, we talk about the same thing every day, guys. I want to keep it short and simple. Stick to your process. In my opinion, don't be scared, man. If you're scared, don't even trade at all. Go learn, because it's like coming into mixed martial arts or boxing or kickboxing, scared.  You know what I'm saying? You train with scared money, it means you're not ready.  Remember that cash is also positioned, guys. Wait for the opportunity to come. And so in these markets, what I always talk about, like, dude, it's crazy. All the things that are running right now are all IPOs. And so you should either avoid the newly issued SPACS IPOs and just stick to the low-hanging fruit stuff, right? Stick to the easier, more predictable place.


Hello all, I am Dr. Sohail Javed. I am an emergency physician in Manipal, Jainagar. Well, Diwali is around the corner and in this beautiful location, I would like to give you a few tips on how to handle some injuries which happened during Diwali. More importantly, we see a lot of firecracker injuries, minor injuries and sometimes major injuries because of burns. I will tell you first about firecracker injuries. What is the first thing you should do? Firecracker can cause burns to the face, facial burns and can cause burns to the hands, legs, anything like that. First thing you should do is put the burnt area in running water for at least 10 minutes. If any rings on the fingers are there or any jewels are there, all those things have to be removed because once the swelling develops, we will not be able to remove it and that can cause more harm. Any cloth or anything embedded into the burnt area, do not try to remove it off. After the cleaning, just put a very clean cloth over that area and go to the hospital, nearest emergency immediately. What you should not do is using ice cubes or very ice cold water because that can cause cold related injuries and which is not good. More importantly, you do not use sanitizers before using firecrackers because they are inflammable and they can increase the burnt area. Coming to major burn injuries, the first thing you should do is try to extinguish the fire with a lot of water, abundant water, buckets and buckets of water. Do not do it with a blanket because that increases the burnt area and causes more harm. After that, again cover the person with a very clean blood sheet and go to the hospital immediately. Please make sure that you do not remove anything embedded into the burnt area which can cause more damage to the tissue. Well, COVID is also going on still, we have to remember that. So, in that point of view, the smoke which is created from the firecrackers and the pollution can actually create more and more air results in the environment and help the virus in spreading rapidly. Coronavirus is still around us, so we have to be very careful, take the same old precautions, please wear your masks. Social distancing becomes even more important because in this festive season, crowding increases that we have to avoid. The third most important thing which comes to my mind is that all this firecracker related smoke, the air pollution causes more harm to the patients who have recovered from the COVID and also patients who are having COVID right now. Other people like elderly citizens, people with asthma, people with COPD, children with wheezing tendencies, these people are prone for respiratory ailments and also prone for COVID. Thank you.


How's it going guys? Welcome back to another JHR review and today we got kind of a novelty funny one I haven't done one of these in a long time. This is called handy cat by What's that say right there? Archie McPhee Archie McPhee So let's go ahead and look at this box First of all, we have a little bit of a tree and a kind of standard kind of classic, you know picket fence area It says on the side right here, handy cat And then on the back it gives another example of what it's going to look like on the fingers Let's go ahead and open this up and see what it's all about So it comes inside of a little plastic packaging. Let's go ahead and pull that out Looks as though it's kind of stacked in here. We have a little cat head right there as you guys know I love cats, so I'm really excited to try this out Gonna be kind of funny. All right, so we have these here now I'm assuming that I just got to kind of put these on my fingers. I'm not sure which one's supposed to be the head though I think the middle finger supposed to be the head. Oh, no, my finger there. My paw is rolling away, so I don't think I did this the right way. This is kind of terrifying Meow meow meow My paws are literally upside down. I do not think I'm doing this right. Okay, there we go and then we kind of Don't know if I can turn my body around always. Oh, this is this is just not right. Oh, man I have an unmanual focus right now so I can get the whole thing in there So I think right here is clear Oh, this is so weird trying to like Indif independently move my fingers I like he's rocking on Yeah I'm so sorry I cannot with this. This is hilarious. Okay, that looks more like a cat Hold on. Hold on. Let me see if I can puppeteer it Now he's cleaning his face Hold on. Hold on. Oh, this is disturbing. I can't this is uh Just one of those things that I cannot hold my composure for at all Yeah, that is uh, that is something But it looks the most like a cat when you kind of put all your fingers together like that Very interesting. What do you guys think? Kind of getting a kick out of this Might try to play the piano while wearing this that'd be interesting just kind of Be like a like the old style mean piano cat But yeah A huge shout out to my patreons. Thank you guys so much for your support You guys are awesome If you found this video humorful go ahead and uh comment rate and subscribe and as always I'll see you In the next video Meow