It's really exciting now. Four years ago, this started off as being just this little nothing of a thing. Two years later, it started growing and growing and growing and growing. People started becoming more aware of what was going on. The third year it got bigger and bigger. And last year, we started thinking, how can we get more people to come here? Because we've opened local poets. And we wanted to see what it would be like to have some people come out of town. So we wrote a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. They gave us some funds. And now we're really excited because on this fourth year, we're going to be bringing people in from all over the country. And the first one, I'm not going to explain or introduce. I don't know. I don't have a mind right now. First of all, we'd like to thank the New York State Council on the Arts for giving us the funds for our Deaf Poetry series. It's a very valuable contribution. We'd like to thank writers and books for allowing us to use this space for the last few years. We'd like to thank Jim Cohen, who's a hearing poet, who saw the possibilities of Deaf poetry in Rochester. And he kind of gave us the start. So we'd like to dedicate to him. I think he wasn't here because she took over some interpreting duties for Susan Quinlan so that Susan could meet with our poet this evening.  Voicing tonight will be Susan Quinlan. Did I spell that right? And for the Cold Sea, it will be Marie Bernard. And now the person who will introduce will be Robert Panera. He's been teaching at NTID. He was the first Deaf teacher in the area to English and drum and all kinds of things. He's really been into it for a long time. And he was a poet and Gala deaf and good friends with models from a long time. So we'd like to have him introduce. I thought, remind me of the crystal ball. Gag is a young word. It has the whole future of force. Yeah, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh. I think very amusing what happened to you in the future. So for a reason. I had a hard time book reading my new papers often. He's a person who was going to speak. Oh, I forgot how many years ago, but famous poet. Two days. We had a one-for-work spot. What was the student? And he brought him to the road faster. And a one-for-experience with him. The future of deaf poets and him. Put together. And again, the next day, he came here to speak. I couldn't match it. Half of it went before. I was there to do it after last month. See why it's so successful. See how the career of poets went on. Speak a little bit. For many of you who were born, I was at Canada. Canada University. No student. And my wife, a coon, was two years ahead of me. He takes me. Love poets for you. Love the drama. Love the space bar. Where you meet different students. With all the type of plays. On the stage. We had a coon one time. Miles the coon. Come in my room. I said, Bob, I want to show you something. I need to act out on a Friday night. For the L.S. Two to three years. What? Yeah, that's for the test. The seventh work penalty they brought on tour. Teaching me, teaching myself. It was invited to the faculty of M.S.S. State in 1970. It's a great new program. That on the campus with Canada University became director of a theater. Sign line was called. Sometimes when he's signing, half you notice. I'm going to tell you a story about Rodney. I really don't feel comfortable with that. Okay, is everybody ready? Wait a minute. So I'm Miles. Well, I'll tell you, it was, see, about 17 years ago. Well, first of all, when I went into college, well, let me see, I'll tell you. So do people still use your full names? Do you know my full names? I used to. I used to tell people my full name. Frederick. Miles Cooney. Mr. Eric. Frederick. Mr., people would say. I have to call you then? I'd say, ah, you don't have to call me Mr. But that's my full name. So I had to spell out, I am. God, I am State of California. And I figure spelled all of it. So I would do that all the time. And then finally, it seemed that Miles became enough. So I stopped. I liked it. So Miles was enough. It's a lot easier. And then about 17 years ago, I went to a meeting for RID. And I was taking care of the money for Washington's RID. And a woman, a single woman, she wasn't married yet. And she had an adopted son.  He was a black boy and he was deaf. And the woman was white. And the mother introduced me to the little boy and said, that's Mr. Miles. And he only used the letter M and made a Z with it. So Miles has been my name sign. So hello, I am Miles. I'm happy to be here. I'm going to go back in time. But first I want to know if I'm doing a good job or not. The interpreter is doing a good job or not. If I only saw three, I might worry a little bit. But I saw four, so I guess it's okay. So can you turn up your volume a little bit? Can you speak a little bit louder? Okay, that's just perfect. So now I want to explain a little bit about me. When I was small, I was hearing, you know, like this. And then when I got a little bit older, oh, I lived in California. It was a small town. And I went to the same doctor while I was growing up. And he was only about a block away, so I could walk there to see him. And you know, he'd give me the complete physical and test everything. And it was really easy for me. So everything was fine. I was happy. And I'd go see him regularly. And then something was wrong. And so he decided he needed to buy a bigger practice and it meant moving far away. So I lost him. And so I had to find another doctor. Well, hang on to that, okay? So then about, let's see, two or three months later, I became deaf. My ears were turned off and it happened during the night. I got sick. It just happened. I was taken to the hospital. And the way that it found out is because my father always read the newspaper to me, the comics. And my mother would tell me, go let your father read to you. And my dad told me, stop whispering. Or I told my father, stop whispering. And my father was surprised. And he thought something was wrong. So he took me to the hospital because he was speaking normally. In the morning, the nurse came in and she let the blinds up on the window. And she said good morning. I heard nothing and only saw her lip movements. It felt just like a silent movie. There was no sound. I was devastated. It hit me immediately that my hearing had left me. I could hear nothing. I didn't hear when the blinds went up on the window. So that's important. Remember that too. So then for two years I read everything. My father didn't want me to go to school for the deaf. And he didn't know where to send me. And when he did find a school for me, I felt like I was plopped into this new environment. I wanted people to help me, but I didn't know any sign language. It was really awful. It was bitter and frustrated. And then one day, I caught my first sign. I loved it. Well, suppose there was a boy there. And he signed what to me? Back. I was curious to know, what does that mean when you look at him? And he told me he meant yes. I was thrilled. Wow. My first sign. So I thought, okay, school's not so bad. And the teachers would say, Eric. I was surprised that the teacher had asked me what to say. I had just learned sign. I had been hearing myself. And I realized that it was a deaf sign. And that's why. Anyway, the teachers who worked there didn't sign very fluently. They signed enough to get by. It was really horrible. It was a slow process for me. And it seemed that the others didn't sign really fluently. For me, it took forever. But I hung in there until... Also, I was very shy at that time. I was a simple person. But the only thing that I really loved when I was young was playing football, but I couldn't. I was too young. The other kids would think I was really smart because I could write really well. And I thought, oh, that's no big deal. And they tended to avoid me. I was really lonely. But I kept on reading and writing and suffering and hanging in there. And then later, my teacher said that next month there was going to be a senior play. And I thought, what do you mean? Why are you telling me there's going to be a play? The teacher said, you know, I wanted to act. And I thought, me? On the stage, people looking at me, no way. I can't. I felt that maybe I had a heart attack and died. Just the thought of it, no thanks. And the teacher smiled and said, well, if you want to graduate, then I said, wait a minute. If you're going to put it that way, then I guess I'll have to change my mind. I do want to graduate, so okay, I'll be on the stage. But guess what? We had to create the play ourselves. So I thought, wow, I have to make up my own things. So this was in 1938. And when I was finished performing, the kids all came up to me and said, wow, that was great. I like that. That was the first time they paid any attention or gave me any kind of praise. So that continued with me from 1938 till now. So I went into Gallaudet. And in my freshman year, Bob already told you about Jabberwocky when I made up that poem, when I translated it. Some of it are some real signs. And they were good signs a long time ago. But some of it was different, like these sort of hand movements. Maybe like water. But I did some of my own hand movements. And I really had no coordination. So I knew that I needed to just go ahead and let go and try it. I wanted to be involved in things there. And I knew I didn't really have the skill. So I searched inside of myself for something that I could perform. And I found the poem. And it seemed, well, it was interesting. It was nothing I had ever seen before. So I showed it to Bob and signed it for him. And he was totally in awe. The other people also were really shocked at it. And asked me, what are you doing? And I'd show him the poem. And they'd say, but it doesn't mean anything. And I'd say, I'm signing exactly nothing. But I was very successful with it. Another boy did beat me in the contest that Bob was talking about. His poem was about a bowl going in water and being inspired. But after that I was invited to perform. And he wasn't. So I guess because it was successful anyway, I wasn't away. So I traveled and performed. And did Jabberwocky. Then later, during my sophomore year, I was in arsenic and old lace. So do you want to know why I picked that play? Because I wanted something new at Gallaudet. They always tended to do the same old kind of thing.  So I had a sauce on top of it. I wanted something new, something thrilling. So I had read that play during the summer. The summer before my junior year, not 43, 42 Bob. And I read it right before my junior year. And it seemed to fit what I was looking for. So I showed it to some people at Gallaudet and explained my ideas. And everybody thought, nope, you can't do it. And there was a vote. It was five to one. And the one person didn't count so we kicked him out. So I sent a letter to the writers and I said, I'd like to use this play. And they sent it back and said, sorry, no. It's not available for any production of any play until it had been on Broadway. I was furious. So I typed a letter. And I sent the letter. I emailed the letter back to them and said, well, what about me? I'm one of the best signing language editors in the world. And it seemed that the letter was given to somebody who was higher up on the totem pole. And we were accepted. It went through a telegraph system, a postal system, not like what we have today. But they said, fine. We'd like for you to do it and we'd like for you to use our set. And to do so in February. And I was in Washington D.C. at the time. And I thought, wow, am I supposed to take control here and get things set up? Oh my God. I didn't expect that. I thought I'd have to act in it and take charge of it. No way. But I thought about it and I made some other phone calls and it seemed like there was enough time that it was postponed until June. So there was enough time. And I told them, oh, I'm sorry. I just understand you. February is not enough time. So they told us to go ahead and practice it. And when we were finished, then we could come to Broadway and do it at the Fulton Theater. I thought, Broadway. Broadway. For my life, I've always thought that the best theater is on Broadway with the lights around the marquee. And I thought, I can't take this. This is silly. So I picked someone who would be really the best director. Do you know? He's a small man. Fred? Frederick. Frederick. Hughes. Frederick Hughes. Jim McArthur. The Jim McArthur that is named after him. He was a champion in football about 1920s, 30s. He was the coach when the football team was champions. So anyway, I ran and knocked on his door and explained the situation. And I said, look at me, look at me. I want to explain this. And he was saying, well, I asked him, can you help me? Before he had been in a club with us, he had helped us set it. Bob was in it too. Really, there was no drama major at that time, so it wasn't a class, it was a club. So I said, would you help us? And he said, what? And I was so nervous, I could barely get it out. And I said, well, the drama club wants to give a play. And we're wondering if you could direct it. And he said, no. Me? I teach all day, I'm so busy. I'm sorry. I'd like to, I appreciate it, but I can't. And I said, well, I'm sorry. I'm scared to drop my phone. I guess we got him. Then I met the president of the hall and asked him for permission. And I explained the situation. And he said, no, sorry. No. And I said, why? Are you afraid that we're going to go to New York and ruin it? Broadway is professional. And he said, they're going to make fun of you. I was boiling inside. I was smoking. I was so upset. Do you know Jonathan Hall? Have you heard of him before? Do you know him? He's the son of President Hall. So I asked him to organize a meeting with the faculty and staff. And there was a meeting. And they all voted, yes, we'll go. So first we went to New York and just to discuss business. That was with Howard, Lindsay, and Russell Krupp. We just talked business with them. We were staying in a hotel. It was really kind of nice. It was expensive. And we would go to their office to talk business. And they said, are you going to go to the play? And then when you're finished, when we're done, you can come to our dressing room after the play tonight, and we'll talk more. And when you go eat in a hotel, just sign our names on the credit. That's all. Go ahead. And we thought, wow. So we were so excited that night and we ordered everything that we could. It was really sophisticated. And then when we were finished, they brought the check to us and we brought out our credit card. Very technically signed his name. The waiter looked at it, looked us up and down and said, I've never seen you before. So the waiter went and called and found out that we really were with the writers. And then he was very nice to us. And that was the first time in my life, and the only time in my life that I felt I was of a upper social class. So we were in the third row center at the time that night. It was really the best seat in the house. During the first act, Russell Krav came down the aisle and he waved to us. Is everything alright at the end? So just fine. And every single guest thought, who's that? Wow, that was really important. First thing I felt so proud. Then when the play was done, we went and discussed business some more. Talked about what time things would happen and all that. And then Frederick said, do you want a drink? And I said, sure, I had a whiskey sandwich and I was only 19. And you know that it was forbidden that I would drink a Gallaudet. So... He said, give me the milk. And Howard said, oh, go ahead, nothing will fail. So we went ahead for a beer. Alright, so we went and rehearsed and then when it was time to perform in New York, we came and acted and what Bob said was successful. I did not borrow Boris Karloff's shoes. He asked me if I wanted to use his lucky shoes. But they were size 13 and I only wanted size 10. And I said, oh, fine, fine. So he gave them to me. But they were too big. So then I felt better. They fit. And I could walk in and he asked me, do they fit? And I said, oh, fine. Why were they lucky? Because he used them the first time he had become famous. So ever since then he'd used them. They had been his lucky shoes. He said, Miles, tomorrow you can use my dressing room. Use my shoes. You can use my costume.  And maybe a volume would help you. Oh, that leg. It was a little bit silly that I couldn't do it myself. But it seemed to be the plaything to do. Thank you, Ben. I went ahead and act. And it was successful. My pitches were all over the place. All over in the U.S. My head was getting big, you know. But what do you think happened? When it was over I came back to Washington D.C. and I got a fight with my girlfriend. And my head straight back to its normal size. And she made me feel small again. You know what I mean? She insulted me. Then I came back to where it was before. But anyway. And my senior year at Gallaudet, remember I told you about the doctor that I visited regularly when I was a child? Okay. It happened during the summertime. And it was the summer before my senior year. I got a letter that said that I needed to go to... I need to report for my physical. For World War II. I thought, well, fine, although. So I went. And the doctor for my physical was the same one that had been my doctor when I was a child. I thought, well, I've known him. This is fine. Any talk I'd have read him, it was easy. And my voice was still normal. Because I had lost my hearing when I was 10. So by the time I was 20, I still spoke the same. He asked me, I was college. I said, fine, check me over and let me go. And at that time, the president was... I was president of the student body. I was the president for the student body of the boys at Gallaudet. And I got a letter that said, please report to World War I. Because my physical was a 1A. I thought, me? 1A? I was shocked. And the doctor who had signed it was the one that I had known when I was young. And I thought, oh no. Should I tell people? Or what? I... I mean, I can't challenge a U.S. Army, can I? I mean, I go to Germany. Maybe I'll become a general. Although, well, okay, then a lieutenant. So I went and... I thought maybe I'll go to Germany and take over Hitler. So I did go. And the first place that I went to, I was sitting in the first row. And I saw him say, Mal's Coon. I raised my hand. I passed. And the next thing was that I had to go to Courtney. And lines were extremely long and turning all around the corners. It was awful. Do you think that the armies, like people take a break? Never. They're always working. So I stayed in lines and was patient. And they used a stick. Gave me a stick with the nail in it to pick up papers and trash. So I didn't mind. I walked around and picked up papers threw them in the garbage. And some of the soldiers were playing football and I loved it. So I watched for a while and somebody came up to me. Someone strikes on his arm and asks, are you off? And I said, no, and he yells. And even though I didn't hear it, I knew he was out and out. He came closer to me yelling and yelling. And I hadn't heard it. He started tapping me on the shoulder and I said, sorry. And he said, are you deaf or something? Well, yes. What?  You've got to get out of the army. I'll fix you. So he took me to the doctor and I got to cut in the line and he said something to the doctor. And the doctor looked me up and down and said, I don't know what they were saying. So the doctor called me over and told me to take off my clothes. So I did.  The doctor walked around me and everybody was looking at me because everybody was new to having that discuss too and they were all laughing. The doctor walked around me and said, yes, your dad put your clothes back on. Go home. Now, how did he know by looking at me new that I was deaf? Well, anyway. So I put my clothes back on. First, I talked with one of the sergeants and he told me I needed to go see someone with two stripes and I was going up and up the line of length of order and finally I was told I had to be able to hear 20 feet away and I had no right to be there. So they told me I could go to work in a war factory. So I went back to Gallaudet. My tail was beneath my legs as I went back to Gallaudet and I saw another man who had been in line with me and he had got kicked out walk too. Why? Because he had flat feet. So I wrote a note to him and said, why did the doctor why did the doctor throw me out? How do you know I was deaf? And the man said easy because he walked behind you and he said, sorry, buddy. Of course if I was hearing I would have had some sort of pain on my face so that's how we do our stuff for sure. So that's how the doctor helped me so that my army career was only one day but we think it was one full day full day. From morning to night. Okay. Now I want to show you some of my poetry and I'm going to start with Jabberwocky. Do you want to see it? But first of all, I'd like to explain. This won't be the same. This won't be the same as what you see Lufan do because with his body and his face it just looks real different but for myself I do it a little bit differently every time. And sometimes I'm wonderful and sometimes I stay to be honest with you but really it depends on my mood so like with my wife this morning she was giving me when she wakes me up she says Eric's your coffee is ready and sometimes I look like this when I wake up so that's what my animal looks like but then sometimes she says God, I'm going to bastard you're late and then my animal looks like this and I pounce out of it so gee I wonder what my mood is tonight so you guys ready? which was brilliant and slippy toes with gyre and gimbal in the way all mimsier were the boroboves and the mummerah of grey Aaron the jabberwock his son his jaws that bite his claws that scratch he wear the jub-jub-burn and Sean the frumius vendor smash to cook his borefoot sword long time the manks of foe he sought and so he stood under the tum-tum tree in thought while an aphish thought he stood the jabberwock with eyes afraim came whiffling through the tumby wood one and two and through and through the borefoot blade went snicker-snacky he took his head and left it dead and he went and went glumping back thou hast slain the jabberwock oh come to my arms you might be a mish-boy Kalu Kale he charled in his joy was brilliant and slippy-tongued did garr and gimbo in the wake all mimsy were the morrow-groves and the morrow-roves sometimes they change the way, you know for example I went to Detroit y'all know where Detroit is Detroit, Michigan and you know what that town is famous for? the Alhambos they're automobiles and so this is what my animal looked like with the lights and the smoke billowing out the back so it really depends on where I go so now I'm going to take a break and I'd like to play a game with you I know you appreciate this game and don't sit on your hands I'm going to ask you to be attending and participating in this game I know you guys will all enjoy this when a joke's on somebody else but when I pick on you, please don't jump out this is a game I use for teaching sign language and drama and English all three of these attention back up here eyes directed up to the front I want to explain how this game works usually I use this with a small group or five and five or six and six and this is a game for all ages you'll see how it works as it goes along you'll be challenged but you can't sign and you can't speak but I'll show you all how it works so you can sign it you can do whatever I'll ask you to do a few things and let's go first I'll show you one of these if I show you this oh and then I'll show you the verb and then obviously me I'm pointing to me but I can't sign mine mine whatever well you have to stop me you don't understand what I'm saying okay fine just stop I'm unflappable okay you guys ready are you ready don't hide your hands I want to volunteer you get the idea what I'm trying to do here I'm trying to give you you yourself the opportunity to be creative okay this is the last one that's a hard one it's the right word just add to that a little bit come on now you have any other ideas you know the newspaper they talk about John Doe what comes after John Doe stop stop you know how the ball sets me to a T that's Clark Gable that's a big part of my game Panera already took up 3 hours I promise if you're else have you have gotten a Gallaudet before do you remember Dr. Fusfield he used to teach psychology do you remember him Fusfield anyway he taught psychology and he signed for psychology and he signed for hypnotic he learned psychology and I had his class at lunch it was all over every day I tried to rock myself to keep myself away but it was no good I go out every day one day he got in with me I went out as usual and I woke up there was a story going on up front but it wasn't my class it got up and left me there so I was extremely embarrassed and the teacher came up to me and said Mr. Mouse may I suggest tomorrow that you bring it below I could have crawled out of the room but anyway I want to show you how you can change a poem and we're going to do one called The Cat first I'll sign it in PSE and then I'll sign it in ASL and then I'll sign it out oh kittens is that eventually it becomes a cat the trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat I think that's a little bit bad the trouble with kittens is that eventually it becomes a cat you have to change the language now we have another example called the centipede the sign that you use for centipede put it around here that's a good one I'll sign it for centipede we obdicate the centipede a bug we really do not need a sleepy time it leads to paths straight from the bedroom to the bath and if we stop there it is not and if it is it makes a spot in the centipede a sleepy time it leads to paths into the bath and if we stop there it is not now I want to work on a poem that I made up myself and we call it San Francisco have you ever been to San Francisco one, two, few of you okay so here I'm trying to show you how to use fingerspelling and fingerspelling can be incorporated into a poem what does San Francisco have the bridge what else does it have the hilly streets right there's a bay San Francisco bay hilly streets fog okay and cable cars okay I first wrote this poem in 1966 it was it was when I was working for a play with NTD and we were in San Francisco Bob saw it at that time but I changed it over the years I think it's improved too so here we go with fingerspelling San Francisco you are not a city you are a dream your people are not what they seem your people are your people are princes and kings come from all over the world to do fabulous things in San Francisco you are very elegance the way your people dance you're up and down streets with their mixture of Chinese and Italians and Greeks your crazy cable cars your restaurants give a touch of romance to you San Francisco San Francisco you will never grow old you are frozen in time a city alone a sonnet of sand and stone with a sea-splashed rhyme San Francisco beloved dream of mine okay I'd like to share a secret with you I have a health problem I have Malzheimer's disease Malzheimer's disease it means that my mind is a little bit shot you saw that when I showed you Jabberwocky you know the first time I showed it and thought I was a genius the other one third thought I was insane and the last third couldn't really decide what I was doing so hang in there with me and now I want to have a young lady volunteer to come up here who would do that come on somebody volunteer anybody you okay if I were to first of all it's a very old problem I found this when I was much younger and I had a full head of hair and a much smaller mouth many of them and it's a very romantic problem and I have to admit I'm very romantic I've never changed and I'm very old fashioned I developed this poem a long time ago and then later I translated it into ASL and I wanted a girl to volunteer for the first one and then I want another girl to volunteer for the second time okay can I have your attention up here okay when I'm finished with her we'll go on to you okay I'm going to have your attention because I flew here a long way to see you if I were king I'll love if I were king what tributary nations would I bring to Neil before your sector and swear allegiance to your eyes your lips and hair beneath your feet what treasures would I bring you would have the sun and the moon to wear the stars your necklace on a string the world a ruby for your finger ring if I were king let those wild words and wilder dreams take wing deepen the words I hear a shepherd sing a simple ballad for the silver air a love that always finds your face more fair I could not wish for thee any godlier thing if I were king I don't bother if I were king now this is my way I've done this several years if I were king I'll love if I were king what tributary nations would I bring Neil before your sector and swear allegiance to your eyes your lips and hair beneath your feet what treasures I would bring you would have the sun and the moon to wear the moon to wear the stars your necklace on a string a world those wild words and wilder dreams take wing deepen the words I see a shepherd sing a simple ballad a silver air a love that always finds your face more fair how many wives do I have their name is Legion why? because I killed a few of them and this is part of the play that I acted and this is just before King Henry VIII proclaims his will to have so are you ready shall I go on? okay this is so hard to do to put pen to paper Anne must die she must if things are to go as planned if they're to go at all if I am to rule and keep my sanity and hold my England off the rocks it's a lee shore low time and the winds the Spanish rocks a bear go back to it Henry go back to it keep your mind on this parchment you must sign you've condemned mad no ways of peasants she's struck out a few herself or driven you to do it it's only that a woman held in your arms and longed for when she was away and suffered with her and waited for the outcome of her child's death no, she promised me an heir write it down and when the headsman will cry out suddenly look, look there and point to the first flash and she'll look not knowing what it means and a sword will flash in the flick of the sun through the little bones in her neck and she'll look soon and it will be done what will it seem to them I was like when I did this it will be written and studied the history of kings are never secure the letters they have hidden secret ciphers are unraveled and chuckle over he loved her and he had her and he killed her the letters will be printed but one of the stolen left letters is where I played a fool and there's a heart drawn at the bottom of one and in the heart A, B, the board is imprinted Henry Rex seeks A, B and no other no, she betrayed she betrayed me and now seek her death but I felt like when I loved her less and less she loved me more but she betrayed me and in my anger she betrayed me a special request for me anything that I forgot you permit me to do this you permit that just a little this is not Peter Cook I'm like so I'm definitely proud of my job the first man who did this was now working for Disney and he worked many, many years and was very frustrated and he's been drawing cartoons ever since so let me show you this this isn't only for me coming up soon so watch for the advertisements if you want to sign up our mailing list there's all different kinds of people coming up there's going to be a couple people from Montreal they're going to do some French poetry for us we're going to be in January I think put your names down, we'll send you some postcards and you can come to get it thank you


Good evening to you. I am Justin Al-Kadunyeh and this is the News Now on PLOS TV Africa, or begin from Abu Jaab. President Mohammed Buhari says public service is a position of trust which demands the total commitment of those in service. The president made the declaration at the Made in Addition of Niger Excellence Award in public service, held at the presidential villa. Addressing the awardees and their guests, the president portrays the need to be patriotic and efficient in serving humanity and the nation by identifying corruption, nepotism and political patronage as some of the vices obstructing public officials. He therefore urged public servants and people in leadership positions to ensure they shun such vices and embrace decent veggies so as to be counted among those who distinguish themselves in service. I am truly delighted to witness this Made in Addition, the Nigerian Excellence Award in public service, a private sector initiative organized by the best strategic media in collaboration with the office of the secretary to the government of the Federation to recognize excellent service delivery by public officers towards the transformation of our country, Nigeria. I want to thank the best strategic media communication consultants, publishers and ardent supporters of this administration for this initiative and for deploying one of the best indices to determine the level of performance of public officers. I know that public officers will be challenged to perform above board now that they know they are being monitored by the people. At present, issues in corruption continue to affect the civil sciences in many countries around the world. Several reasons of these issues still exist because of the deeply rooted problems like nepotism, chronicism, political patronage, as well as lack of transparency and accountability. When I got the letter inviting me for today's program, I said, what? I have to commend those who are addictions that when people are working for society, there should be appreciation in world or in any era from. They always say that those who are more is giving more is expected from them. You have selected for the first on the live television been worse all over the world. The only thing is that we promise that we will continue to do more for humanity. The medical officers, doctors, nurses and paramedics, some of them have to die to save us. We have this experience with the COVID during the Ebola. And if you remember, this lady, Dr. Amayo, of course, thank you very much, remember us very well. Who saved this country from the spread of Ebola? People have expected more of you. This was to more, to work for the people. But at the end of the day, what makes me see the look? If you're working for the people, you have nothing to lose. You recognize and that makes you happy. Some people may walk. All you hear is criticism, criticism. But when the government identifies you that you have made a contribution while you're giving the opportunity to serve, I can tell you, this guy is unlimited. And don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Hot zombie bronze and lots of gore. It's worth a watch. It did look like there's lots of practical effects. It does look like there might be some good practical effects. It looks too scary for me. I'll go see it but I'm not really expecting to like it so much. Maybe I'll love it but I'm a little doubtful.  Like you don't get pissed drunk and watch Ghostbusters like six times a year.


Hi everyone, I'm Elie from AutoDS and welcome back to another trending product video. This month, we are covering December and in December we've got a pretty big holiday coming up and we've also got some seasonal changes. So before we get to our products, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you can always stay up to date with what's trending for your dropshipping store and give this video a like. Alright, let's get to it. Our first product of the day, or should I say products, is Christmas decorations. So people really go all out for this holiday. They love getting very, very festive and very into it. I mean already from November 1st, I've been hearing Christmas songs playing in the supermarkets so people really love to get into this holiday and they get into it pretty early. So you're going to want to start listing these now. You have a bunch of different Christmas products to sell here. You've got wreaths, stockings, ornaments and tree decor, outdoor Christmas decor that could be lights, blow up things that people put in front of their houses and also indoor Christmas decor. Target has a very organized way of putting all their little Christmas niches here so I definitely recommend checking it out and listing a whole bunch of products from here. You really can't go wrong when it comes to Christmas. Santa's coming to town! Alright, our second product of the day is heated socks. It's getting chillier outside. It might even snow. And this is just a really good trending product to sell now. So people could use this at home. They could use that for outdoor sports like skiing, hockey, whatever it is where you need to stay warm and you're in a cold environment. It's definitely a good product. I might even try these out the next time I ski, who knows. And for this item, I would recommend listing more than one in your store because people might want to buy these in multiples. That way if you have one in the wash, you could pull out your second pair. You never know. You've got to be strategic about warm feet here, you know? And another little extra tip I have for you guys, you're going to want to list variations because you want to attract as many customers as you can. So what you can do is you can download the AutoDS extension and you could collect all the variations that are on this page. So for example, we've got 43 products here. You can export it as a CSV file and then upload that CSV file to your draft section in AutoDS and that way it just saves you some time. You don't have to upload this one by one to your draft section. You'll have those all sitting there and you could upload them to your store whenever you want. Our third product of the day is cosmetic display cases. You can find them over here on AliExpress. They're a low ticket to mid-range ticket item. Some come with shelves. Some are specialized for different kinds of makeup. I put this into two different dropshipping product niches, one being beauty and cosmetics and the other being home organization, which are both great niches to sell in. And this is just a really trending product right now. So if you want to see some sales, I definitely recommend listing this in your store. And once again, you're going to want to list at least 20 to 30 different options in your store so you can attract as many customers as possible. So yeah, make sure to list variations and make sure to think about different makeup types that these cases go with because some are specialized for nail polish. Some are just for lipstick and some are just general that kind of contain everything inside of it. So you're going to want to make sure that you're looking at all the different details that you could go with. All right. Our fourth product of the day are portable baby changing pads. Now this is an evergreen product, which means it's not only good for the winter and you know, December. People are buying these year round, but this is definitely a product that we see drop shippers making great returns on and that's why I definitely recommend you start listing this one in your stores now. If you want to attract a larger audience of buyers with this product, here's what you got to do. You got to consider all the different styles. You see here, you've got different patterns, some with clouds and arrows, little cute details like that that you're going to want to pay attention to. You're also going to want to pay attention to the material of the mat itself and you're going to want to consider different features that it might have like when some of them have more pockets than others, some of them have dispensers for wipes and things like that and definitely parents are going to be looking at these different features and they're going to want to choose what's the best product for them. So definitely make sure to be considering everything when listing this product. All right. Our fifth product of the day are turtleneck hoodies. Now personally, I've never really liked turtleneck so much and you know, my hair usually does the job for me and warming up my neck, but a lot of people really love this style and this is definitely a product worth selling and a little fun step for you guys is that e-commerce makes up 50% of clothing sales. So that means people are essentially buying as many clothes online as they're buying in stores. Just a little interesting fact for you guys. But anyway, this is definitely a good product to start selling in these upcoming winter months. It's getting colder outside and this is just something cozy and warm that people can wear and you're going to want to list different variations, different styles, some for men, some for women. Definitely grab all of these, use that Autodesk extension I mentioned and you should be good to go. And drop it in the comments. Let me know if I'm alone here. Do you guys like turtlenecks or don't like turtlenecks? I want to know. Yeah, I know it's sexy woodhouse. That's why I bought 10. Our sixth product of the day is heated throw blankets. Okay. This is definitely a product I can get on board with. They're super cozy. They come in all different kinds of price range. You can get them kind of lower ticket and mid-ticket range. I recommend listing in all ranges so you can attract all kinds of different consumers here. You also have different patterns to consider and different weights and sizes. So you're going to want to look through all of these and see what works in your stores. But this is definitely a good product to go with in these upcoming colder months. Our seventh product of the day is an umbrella holder. A quick little tip for this one, if you want to try to make a little upsell, you can sell this along umbrellas that are pretty cheap to list and the two and two kind of go together. So if you want to make a little bit extra on your sale there, that could be a good idea. Anyway, when it comes to anything, kind of furniture, any aesthetics in the home, people always have different styles so you're going to want to consider that. You've got modern looking holders here. You've got some for cat lovers, I guess. You've got some that are a bit more rustic and wooden like this one over here and some that have more chill vibes and are a bit more bohemian like this wicker basket. You're definitely going to want to list a whole bunch of these, test what works out for you and just remember people are different so not everyone goes for the same style of things and you're really going to want to list a whole bunch of different variations here. Our eighth product of the day is the coffee pod carousel. So more and more people are using these coffee pods as their method of making their morning coffee. This is horrible. It tastes like cat litter. I think it tastes delicious. And they're going to need somewhere convenient to store their pods rather than just throwing them all into a drawer. So you've got a bunch of different options that you could go with. Some, the carousel that spins all the way around. You've got this little pegboard thing that's made out of bamboo. You've got some that pull out like drawers and again it kind of ranges in price here. It's kind of very low ticket to mid range. I think going up at most to $25.  I'm over on Alibaba so I'm seeing a bit more. So I'm seeing some cheaper price options here. By the way, all of these suppliers so far that were mentioned throughout this video are all compatible with AutoDS. So if you're an AutoDS user, don't need to worry about this. You can go to the exact pages that I'm going to and grab any of the same products that you're seeing here and upload them to your store. The next product we have for our December list is portable heaters. This is great. You could use them at home. You could bring them over to the office wherever you need it. They're pretty convenient as they're in their name. They're portable. You've got small ones here that you could put right on your desk have them pointed at your face. You've got larger ones and definitely ranging from mid to high ticket items. I recommend again listing within all the price ranges, but you're going to want to list those higher ticket items because you have an option to make a way larger profit margin when you do that. And you're going to want to list a whole bunch of variations because you've got some cute designs here. Some that look like cats and then some that look like cannons. But yeah, definitely a good trending product to go with. Our 10th and final product of the day is this mop and broom organizer. This is a great product that goes into the home organization niche. I've definitely mentioned before, but it's a great niche to get into. Plus over here, we've got some lower ticket items. So it makes it a really easy buy for most consumers. They're not really overthinking this one. And you're going to just see some easy sales going with this product. Honestly, I just bought this one myself a month ago and it's been really convenient to have. It just makes everything look neat and cleaner. So I definitely understand why this product is trending as I was really happy to find it myself. All right, so that's our list of the top 10 trending products for December. I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I hope you guys start listing these products in your stores so you could see some awesome sales this season. Thank you guys for watching. Make sure to subscribe to the channel and I'll see you guys again in next one's video. Bye for now.


Income tax 2023-2024, marginal and average tax rates. Get ready and some coffee so we can lessen the sting from the tax man's smack with income tax preparation 2023-2024. In a prior presentation, we discussed different types of taxes, including a flat tax and a progressive tax, noting that the federal income tax is a type of progressive tax. However, we also noted that most taxes in practice can be thought of as kind of in between a flat and progressive tax. Or in other words, if we think of a spectrum, the flat tax on the left-hand side, the progressive tax on the right-hand side, we can imagine a strictly flat tax where, as income goes up, we just apply the same rate. However, once things become more progressive, then you can basically always get more progressive from that point in time until you tax like 100% of income, which means you're back to basically a flat tax at that point. So if we're in the realm of a progressive tax type of system, you're going to hear language such as, do we want to make the system flatter? You can talk in terms of the flat side of things, flattening out the taxes, or less flat, meaning you're going to be moving away from the left towards the progressive. Or you can use the progressive terminology and say, I'm going to be speaking from this point of view. If I'm in the middle, I'm going to make things more progressive or I'm going to make things less progressive. Those are the directions that you can go if you're already in the middle with some kind of progressive tax. Now, as we go to the right, making things more progressive or less flat, that usually comes along with more complexity in the tax code, such as more layers of different types of taxation. Usually when we move to the left, that's going to obviously have less complexity as we flatten the code. So as different administrations come in and try to put in policies, some will talk about flattening the tax code, which means they're trying to simplify the tax code typically. And others will talk about making the tax code more progressive, which means they're going to try to add more layers or increase the tax rates possibly at the upper layers would be the general idea. First, a word from our sponsor. Yeah, actually, we're sponsoring ourselves on this one because apparently the merchandisers, they don't want to be seen with us, but but that's okay.  Anyways, like our crunchy numbers is my cardio product line. Now, I'm not saying that subscribing to this channel, crunchy numbers with us will make you thin fit and healthy or anything. However, it does seem like it works for her. Just saying. So, you know, subscribe, hit the bell thing and buy some merchandise so you can make the world a better place by sharing your accounting instruction exercise routine. If you would like a commercial free experience, consider subscribing to our website at accountinginstruction.com or accountinginstruction.thinkific.com Now, if we have four more years of what we currently have, we might not have any of that, but instead we'll just get like a deduction for, I don't know, chocolate chip ice cream or something like that. And then maybe another inflation reduction act making fuel and energy more expensive. What was explained? What is inflation again? I forgot. Anyways, so the general idea here is that once we have the progressive tax system in place, then we have these this issue of what's the actual rate of tax that we are paying. Because now we can think of the average tax and we can think of the highest tax or what we would call a marginal tax rate, which is kind of an economic term. This becomes really important because you want to be able to communicate clearly how much tax you're actually paying and you also want to be able to plan going out into the future. So how does this materialize? So we see that we have a progressive tax system. We have different tax rates as as the income goes up and we have to have different tax rates depending on filing status because single filers will of course have less income than head of households. In other words, if you put it, I mean, sorry, then Mary, if you put two people together, then you would expect that their potential for income is doubled. However, I mean, again, that becomes more complex because it depends on family structure and kids and all that kind of thing. But that's the general idea, right? You've got a single person, you've got double the people, they might make twice the income. And then we've got the head of household and the married filing jointly. We'll talk about them later. Let's remove that for now and just think about the single filer to make it easy at this point to think about the concept of an average tax rate and a marginal tax rate, noting that the 10% is at this range. So from 0 to 11,000. Now note when I'm talking 0 to 11,000, we're talking about taxable income. This also becomes confusing because this is the bottom line of the income statement. So we're not talking about the top line, what you put in what your W2 wages were, for example, you still have deductions from their standard deductions itemized deductions. We'll talk about that later. But when we're thinking about applying the actual tax, we're talking about the taxable income credits also also complicate the whole situation as well. But we're saying, okay, we have the taxable income 0 to 11,000, that can be taxed at the 10%. If we move up to the 12%, that means that we're not taxing everything at 12%, back down to 0 at 12%. We have everything up above this level being taxed at 12%. So now we have two tiers. Now the benefit of that is that that makes kind of sense, right? Because now you're going to say, okay, we're going to just tax at this rate on the lower level. And then if you make more money, we'll tax more. That means there's a disincentive to make more money over a certain level. But it kind of makes sense that if your income goes up, then if they tax all the income at 12%, if you made one more dollar, 11,001 dollars, and then all your income jumped up to 12% instead of 10%, you would have a huge disincentive not to make that extra dollar. But if it's only that one dollar that's going to be taxed at 12%, then I'm not as fearful of working more to make that extra dollar that jumped to the next tax bracket is not as big a deal. However, it is more complicated to calculate on our end because now, of course, we have this tier and this tier. So the tax software will do that for us when we do the tax preparation. However, your goal, our goal when we're doing our own taxes or someone else's taxes is to feel that we're comfortable that we did it correctly. So it becomes more and more explaining what is happening in the software, deconstructing what's happening in the software so we can tell the client and or ourselves what exactly is going on here, right? Instead of just being blindly following the software in which case we're probably going to have more anxiety because we don't know if the software is actually doing it correctly or not, right? So then if we go to the 44,725 up to the 95,375, then we're jumping up to the next tax bracket. Okay, so that's the general concept of what is going up. We're going to keep on jumping up to these higher tax brackets. The software is going to basically take care of that. So the actual tax preparation should be fairly easy. We're going to have to be able to explain this concept to the clients, however, in terms of how the tax is calculated. So the client's going to want to know, well, how much tax am I actually paying?  And we can capture that number with, of course, the average, right? We can try to say, okay, I'll give you the average tax. And the average, it's kind of like if you've ever seen Rocky Balboa's old movie, but he's a boxer and his trainer would say, he says, I see three of them out there. And the trainer says, hit the one in the middle, right? That's what the average is, right? You've got the bell curve. You hit the one in the middle, which is great for explaining the tax rate. Now, again, it's not perfect because it's still really quite complicated to try to explain to someone how much tax they're paying on a percentage basis because it's not on their gross income. It's on the net income. And then the credits also really kind of muddy up the picture. But when you're attempting to do that, the average tax rate is the way to typically go. That's the one that's going to try to capture how much tax that you actually paid. So like I say, the Rocky advice, the trainer's advice to Rocky the boxer is usually good because once Rocky said, okay, I'm going to hit the one in the middle, he went out there and won. However, there are times when just hitting the one in the middle isn't the way to go. So we'll talk about that in a second here. The average tax rate is pretty easy. We can take the taxable income, which isn't the gross income. It's the taxable income and divide it by, I'm sorry, we'll take the total tax and divide it by the taxable income. So if the total tax that was paid was 20,000 and the taxable income was 100,000, then we take the average tax rate, which is 20%. Now the average tax rate is by definition going to be in between all of the tax bracket rates that we actually use to calculate the tax because it's somewhere in the middle, right? The average is somewhere in the middle. So the highest tax rate would be higher than that amount. So when would that be important? Well, that's going to be important whenever there's a change in the taxes. And this is where the complexity comes into the code. Because again, a lot of people say, oh, the tax code being complex is not a problem because me as a tax preparer, all I do is plug it into the software and the software takes care of it. It's not a problem. And I've heard that argument like at CPA firms and whatnot, and it's just, it still kind of boggles my mind that because obviously where the complexity becomes a problem is trying to project into the future, which all businesses, individuals, households need to do. So even if the software can magically calculate it really easily, you still have the issue of trying to project what's going to happen in future years where the software doesn't even have all the information. The changes to the tax law, the changes to the tax rates, we don't know if that chocolate chip ice cream is going to be deductible in the future. We don't know if the inflation reduction act is going to make us pay $1,000 for a tank of gas or something. We don't know what's going on here. So it's kind of hard to predict into the future. Now, when you are predicting into the future, you don't want to pick the one in the middle. You want to use the marginal tax rate, the tax rate of the last dollar of income. And so we use marginal. That's like an economic tax, an economic term. So in economics, the general idea would be you want to make the decision from the point you are at to the next decision that is being made. In other words, if you're looking back to all the money that you spent in the past, you're going to run into a sunk cost effect. The question is, what's the step to take from here going forward? And when you're looking at the tax rates, if I'm at like a 24% tax bracket, my average tax might have been down here at 20%. But if I'm making more money, if I'm going to make more money or less money, then I can't budget based on how much tax... If I'm going to make another $100,000 next year or whatever, then I can't...  The next thing that's going to happen from this point in time is going to be at a tax rate of 24% and then go up to the next tax bracket of the 32%. The next dollar is not going to be taxed at the average rate of the 20%. So when we're actually thinking about activities, what we are going to do from this point in time, the marginal tax rate is the one you typically want to at least start with and then move up the tax brackets from there depending on what's actually going to happen in the future. So it's kind of like with Rocky, it doesn't work all the time. Hit the one in the middle, great advice doesn't work all the time because if your opponent takes a quick dodge to the right, then if you hit the one in the middle, you're still... Because your vision's blurred, that's not the one anymore because now he's on the right. So now you got to hit the one on the right, which is the marginal tax rate. And that's where we are with this one. And if Rocky had that advice, he would not have gotten hit in the face so many times, I think. I feel like if he was a little bit more sophisticated in that advice. So that's the general idea. So the average tax rate, great tool to try to explain this whole progressive tax system in one number to help people understand where their taxes are. It can be misleading, however, because then when they earn more money, they're going to use the average tax rate. It would be the natural thing to do. I'll hit the one in the middle, try to use the average tax rate to calculate how much I'm going to be paying in the future. But no, that will be wrong. You will drastically under withhold if you do that. When you make decisions, you have to make them on the margin, the 24% rate. So if you're going to make more money, you got to start there. If you're going to make less money, you still got to start there because you're going to drop down bracket by bracket. So if you make a few thousand dollars less or whatever, you're going to have to say you were taxed at 24. So your taxes are going to go down more dramatically than they otherwise would on the average tax rate. So that's the general idea. We'll make this more concrete with some examples in tax software shortly.


Hi guys, it's Monica. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm gonna share with you a wig review and This one is Henry Margu's Katie wig and oh my gosh. This is such a fun Summer look. I love it. So if you're curious, stay tuned Thank you so much. So Henry Margu's Katie This was sent to me for review and I am super excited to share this with you So before I get into my thoughts, let me just do a turn for you So you can see what Katie looks like on all sides. So this is my right side. I I'm just loving how the sides are longer and the back is stacked I I just love that look absolutely love that look. So this is the back as you can see Here is my Left side so I have won this wig I've tucked her behind my ears. You guys know I'm an ear tucker, right? And I like that So she looks really super cute that way, but she also looks cute one tucked and one in the front This looks to me. This looks like I'm ready to go have fun. I'm ready to go walk the beach I'm ready to go out to dinner. I'm ready to go to a nightclub. I'm ready to go have fun I just think this is a timeless beautiful style chic stacked cut Feathered neckline. Oh my gosh. I love that neckline. I love the look the feel the fibers are amazing as I'm going to show you the inside of the cap right now so you can see exactly what the cap looks like. Oh My gosh, you know Henry Magoo is known for their lace fronts and This is no exception. So this has a mono part and it has a Lace front that goes right to your ear tabs. It has closed lace ear tabs a stretchy cap open-wefted a little bit of a nape here and Then you have the adjustable velcro straps to cinch it up or cinch it down a little bit of a permatease You can see the permatease right here But I think this is the perfect amount of permatease for this hair. So I'm going to put her on and Share with you the rest of my thoughts about her So Henry Magoo is definitely known for their wonderful lace fronts and as I said Katie is absolutely no exception She is beautiful.   Oh my gosh now the color I have Katie in is in 25 gr 25 gr is a golden blonde Highlighted with a highlighted blend sort of hints of strawberry as they say in chestnut roots again these roots look at them Super natural look super natural. This wig is a basically a shake-and-go I took this right out the fibers are synthetic Henry Magoo's cap size. They say this is average and I'm me I wear I have a lot of Henry Magoo wigs and I mean they fit perfect I have a 22 inch circumference.  I think this is so cute So the color is more of a warmer color. It's got that strawberry blend in it So you can see 25 gr golden blonde Highlighted equal blend I think of supple hints of strawberry and some chestnut in the roots Super super cute. If you if you like a more ashier tone, I think oh my gosh I don't even know how many different colors Henry Magoo has this comes in a ton of different colors So I'm sure there's gonna be something for everyone. I'm gonna superimpose some of the outside shots I took just so you can see it in natural light But I think this is So so cute again. This was sent to me complimentary in exchange for review So I could share it with you. Let me give you some of the dimensions on the bangs the bangs are four and a half now It's always amazes to me when I read the sizes of a bang I had one that I just reviewed that went way down and they said it was a three inch So I don't know, you know, I have a you know from my forehead to to my eyebrows I'm right about a four. So I would say this is Spot on this is spot on so it's about four and a quarter The ear tabs around the ears about five and a half or five and a quarter the nape is one and a quarter or three three quarters three fourths The top is three between three inches and six and the sides of between four and six and a half and the back It's about six and a half The weight on this baby is two point seven oh super super light So I think this is awesome Great look love it. I was so surprised perfect for the summer Check out the different shades if this one isn't right for you for me. This is a little bit warm But gosh, I love it. I love it. I just love the style Love the style. So anyways, thank you so much for joining me and thank you so much for all your support all the time And again, if you have any questions about this piece reach out to me a little more than happy to answer it You can pick this up in any top retailer that carries Henry Magoo check it out your favorite retailer I'm sure has this week. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in my next video