This test checks your listening, reading, grammar, and vocabulary. All you have to do is fill in the blanks with the best answer. Ready to begin? Get out a piece of paper and number it from 1 to 21. In a moment, you will hear a passage written in English. Then you will see the text of that passage. It has been divided up into sentences. Every fifth word has been deleted from the text. Your task is to fill in the blanks with the missing words. Only one word per blank. Good luck. Listen as I read the passage. How technology is changing investigative reporting. News reporters are increasingly using technology tools to cover stories in new ways. One kind of news gathering is known as open source reporting. This is when reporters use publicly available materials to help them tell stories. These can include satellite images, video from mobile phones or security cameras, and social media information. The field of open source reporting is still very young. But some major news organizations have already created separate news teams to center on technology-based reporting methods. The New York Times newspaper has established an investigative reporting department that specializes in open source reporting. The Washington Post recently announced it was adding six people to a special video for N16. Ready for the quiz? Here it is. For the first two blanks you will have ten seconds. Write your answers on your paper. Ready? Begin. Next five blanks. Twenty-five seconds. Next three blanks. Fifteen seconds. Next five blanks. Twenty-five seconds. Next six blanks. Thirty seconds. Here is the whole passage. You have one minute to review and revise your answers. Okay, here are the answers. How technology is changing investigative reporting. This is the title. Here are the first answers to the blanks. News reporters are increasingly using technology to cover stories in new ways. Here's how you score it. If you have a perfect answer, you get two points. If you have an acceptable answer, you get one point. Next five blanks. One kind of news gathering is known as open source reporting. This is when reporters use publicly available materials to help them tell stories. Next three blanks. These can include satellite images, video from mobile phones or security cameras, and social media information. Next five blanks. The field of open source reporting is still very young, but some major news organizations have already created separate news teams to center on technology-based reporting methods. Next six blanks. The New York Times newspaper has established an investigative reporting department that specializes in open source reporting. The Washington Post recently announced it was adding six people to a special video forensics team. Here is the complete passage if you'd like to review it to check and see the words in context. Okay, let's calculate your score. How did you do on the test? Here's what your score means. If you got 42 points, that's perfect. Wow. That's nearly impossible. 38 to 41 is excellent. Great. Your top notch. 28 to 37, very good. Your English skills are quite high. 20 to 27, good. Not bad. Keep trying to improve. Hope that was helpful. If you liked this, please give us a thumbs up in the comments section below. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our channel to get more quizzes and information like this. Thanks for watching. If you have ideas for our next video, please let us know at the link below. Please check out our websites for more information and activities like these.


Yeah, toppy TV is your boy Astro One of the most painful yet poignant lessons I've ever learned in my life is the only way to To win a rigged game is to not play Unfortunately when you're in the Premier League That's not an option. I Don't know whether it was blatant ignorance or just corruption or maybe just a big recipe of both But that game turned on a dime today It changed in a way that it naturally shouldn't have at the 18th minute and and the outcome was obviously gonna It did it happened the way it did. Okay, it happened the way it did and all I can say is that No matter how hard this is no matter how difficult it has become Grueling and excruciating in its nature.   Okay? um We're in a rigged game They wanted their ratings Okay, that's why the title race is closed. That's why the relegation scrap is the way it is Gotta have them ratings, baby. You got to make that money at Almighty dollar at Almighty pound greed is good Or at least the people in charge think it is and that's why they behave the way they do the conversation About the dysfunction of Everton football club.


to the side that I want to go. Now, if I'm going lefty, I don't need to change my lead leg. I'm gonna foot change. Come on, kick in right here and start to elevate when I kick. You guys have all just kind of learned how to do it to your back leg side. So all we're gonna do is we're just gonna change our lead legs. All right, we're gonna change our lead leg. We're gonna step right here to the toe and we're gonna foot change. And when I foot change, I wanna think about kicking in between this guy's legs if I can, and kind of hook in between their legs. So I'm gonna change my lead leg, I'm matching toe to toe. All right, I'm gonna foot change and when I foot change, I'm kicking. See, I'm kicking and clearing out and starting to spiral into this guy. Now, this is pretty, pretty about as advanced as we're gonna get with our slide buys because we're balancing on one foot, we're pivoting on one foot and we're guiding this guy's head body and arm body. All right, it's a lot of basic skills. They kind of mount up to make this a really, really good attack. And Gorgary, Russian guy, he was amazing with this. We'll do it with our palm up here in a little bit, but we're gonna stay with our pinky pressure for now. So pinky pressure, toe to toe, and I'm gonna foot change it. Look how I bring my hips when I foot change. I'm foot changing, and then I'm slide, but I'm kicking. And I'm turning and hopping in and I chase that way. And chances of me ending up right there in a turk, it's gonna be a real slim on a good guy. All right, but we're combining a lot of really good skills together. I can bump and foot change too. I just gotta change my lead lead. I'm gonna foot change and bump. Boom, right here and then I'm kicking in. See how I still got my collar right here and I'm kicking in. Now, if I don't get the full kick in the elevation, I still chase, no big deal. Okay, change my lead, foot replace, I kicked out, he circles out, just chasing the weight, just like I would on a normal slide by. So I'm just giving you tons of skills and variations to learn how to slide a guy by, okay? Because I'm like outside step, just kind of traditional slide by, and then on my left side, since I already got my right leg lead, that's why I foot change, okay? And that's where I get my kind of crowd kick in. You don't remember these drills? We do our overhoop drills and we continue to kick that guy out. We're doing a little comfortable in here, elevating this guy. That's what all those skills drills are for. Being able to elevate, kick and rotate. Have I already written? So again, starting your most comfortable slide by position that we practice, okay? I'm gonna match lead legs, okay? Outside leg, outside leg. I'm gonna foot change and when I foot change, it was just like our pirouette. I'm going up, crunching down. Coming up, crunching down 108, all right? So when I foot change here, I'm coming up, right here, and then I'm crunching down, okay? Chest over my lead leg toe. And I'm chasing that backside. And the more pressure I have, I got that pressure in here, changing my lead leg. Looks really, really smooth. And all it is is a pressure release with my foot change, my technique of sliding from the armpit to the tricep elbow, opening my chest, bending at the waist. Am I boring you? All right, we'll pay attention. Question, are we good? Let's go.


He says he doesn't want to be in a relationship, but wants an ongoing relationship with me with exclusive friend with benefits. He says he has strong feelings for me. Is that possible? Yeah, yeah, it's possible. If all you want is a friend with benefits situation, then you can be, a guy can feel a lot for you and only want a friend with benefits situation. It's one of the confusing things that a lot of women kind of throw out there because there's a lot of women out there. And what they think is, if I'm in love, nothing else matters. And so they feel it for a guy and they just go, right? And they will be like, okay, well, you know, red flags all over the place, says he just wants to be friend with benefits, but we're in love, so let's do it. And maybe I can convince him, maybe he'll want a real relationship to please me and for me because he's so in love with me. And that's rarely, that's rarely how it works. For most guys, if they, like for guys, commitment tends to be a really kind of like serious issue, right? Like it's like, okay, you know, he's telling you, like I just want a friend with benefits and I know that I don't want anything more because of usually it's some kind of baggage that he has from his past, right?  And those things are pretty ingrained in his mind. And so you are like, love is all that matters. And he's like, I'm in love, but you know, I don't want to end up getting hurt again or getting hurt like my friends did or whatever. And so he's willing to let that obstacle stand in front of him no matter what. And what ends up happening a lot of times is women just end up getting hurt because they think that something's gonna change and then they're getting physical and so they're just getting more and more and more attached while the guy is like, I told you from the beginning that this is what I wanted and nothing else was gonna happen and now you're turning it into something else. And it happens over and over and over again.


There are things happening in the world which affects every life. It's my intention, it's my vision, my blessing that you must ride this. It doesn't matter where you are, you don't have to believe or disbelieve anything. You just have to experiment a little bit. You must learn to ride the tsunami of Mahashivratri. How's that Guru? I've been following you for quite some time through YouTube and I also follow the spiritual practices that you offer. But as a non-Hindu, I don't know if I can relate to Shiva. Is Mahashivratri still relevant for me? How? Mahashivratri is of significance because of the planetary situation.   Fortunately, we, the human beings are the only ones who have attained to this possibility of keeping our spines vertical when we wish to. Those of you gone down wherever you are, time to keep it erect. Because on this day, there is a natural upsurge of energy. Doesn't matter what religion you belong to, what culture you belong to, if you have a spine and it is vertical, you can immensely benefit. But even if you're an invertebrate, you can still benefit. Well, there is a lot that we can say about this as to how it happens.  But especially if you were a sailor a hundred, two hundred years ago, where you were depending upon the sails, the tides in the ocean determined where you go and when you go. Tides essentially means because either a full moon or because of new moon, those two to three days, the entire ocean rises. Millions of trillions of tons of water rises. You must know this, ninety-six point five percent of water on the planet is in the oceans and it rises significantly on that day, on those few days rather. This is also one of those days. So all the fluids in the world are rising. When the ocean can rise yourself, wherever you are from, whatever culture you are, whatever you believe or disbelieve, your body is nearly two-thirds water. When the ocean can rise, do you believe the water in you doesn't rise? Is it possible? Because you're not born in India, it is not rising for you. It does. Anyway it does. If you are conscious, you can make use of it for your well-being. Of the twelve to thirteen Shivaratris that appear in a calendar year, this is called Mahashivaratri in the month of Magha where it has maximum impact on the system, simply because of the tilt and the position of the planet in relationship, both with the moon and particularly with the sun. So what you believe and disbelieve, what culture you come from, what you look like, doesn't matter. There are things happening in the world which affects every life. Mahashivaratri is one of them, it affects every life. Those who are conscious can make use of it to become exuberant ecstatic lives. You also know on full moon days and new moon days, those who are unfortunately, those who have unfortunately lost their mental balance and who are in serious conditions, let's say in institutions, those days all the institutions take extra extra care because those days, once madness is also exaggerated. Because this is not about madness or meriditiveness, it is just an upsurge. When there is an upsurge, when there is a big wave, if you know how to ride the wave, it will be great joy. If you do not know how to ride the wave, you will get crushed by the same wave. Somebody who is an expert wave rider, his dream is a tsunami. He would like to ride it, but the word tsunami would strike terror in most people's minds. So this is the same way, there is a little bit of a tsunami within you. It's my intention, it's my wish and my blessing that you must ride this. You must ride this towards your well-being. You must ride this to become an exuberant, an ecstatic human being. It doesn't matter where you are, you don't have to believe or disbelieve anything. You just have to experiment a little bit. If you're against experimentation, because you're attached to some dogma, some fundamental belief systems, well, you can still experiment. But if you're against experiment, obviously you're fearful of the truth. Truth is not a bad thing. Truth seems to threaten you only because you have invested heavily in falsehood. If you have not invested in falsehood, what is the problem with truth? That is the best thing that can happen. But truth can dismantle things that you have invested in. This is a brief life. There are only two things to your life. When it comes to your experience of life, the profoundness of your experience. When it comes to your activity, the impactfulness of your activity. This is all there is to life. Rest is all nonsense made up in your head of wealth and fame and this and that. This is all in your head. There are only two things, profoundness of experience and impactfulness of action. This is all there is to our lives. If you want this, if you want to craft your life in such a way that you determine how profound your life is and how impactful your actions are, then you must make use of these forces. You must learn to write the tsunami of Mahashivratri.


Okay, bonbonim and bonbonot, I hope you are all having a sunny weekend. The narcissist has a false self.   To understand the occult, occult psychological mechanism behind this, look no further. Watch this video by Moa Semvaknin, author of Malignan Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited in Other Books, a former visiting professor of psychology and current member of the faculty of CIAPS, Commonwealth for International Advanced Professional Studies. Now, let's delve right in. Both narcissists and borderlines have a false self, but our conception of narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder is undergoing a sea change. I was reminded of that yesterday when I started to watch a television series titled A Crowded Room. It's an amazing series and I will not spoil it for you by telling you what it's about, but once you have listened to this video, watched it and then watched the television series, you will immediately see the connection. Narcissistic personality disorder is much like the old conception of multiple personality disorder. It's an unintegrated, non-constellated system of self-elements, self-states, ego elements. It's as if someone blew up a grenade in the middle of an otherwise what should have been a unitary self and then we have all these fragments and shrapnels all over the place. That is the internal landscape of the narcissist and it is very reminiscent of the old way we used to conceptualize multiple personality disorder. We no longer use the phrase or the term multiple personality disorder, but it still is a very good visualization or depiction of the narcissist state of mind or internal state. Borderline personality disorder nowadays is more like dissociative identity disorder or to be more precise, OSDD, OSDD is a form, a variant of dissociative identity disorder. Dissociative identity disorder is the modern successor of multiple personality disorders. In both cases, narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. In both cases, we are dealing with dissociative post-traumatic conditions with an external regulation of ego functions, effects, moods and even cognitions, the narcissist and the borderline. Hand over internal functions that should have been internally carried out. They outsource these functions. They hand them over to someone else, the intimate partner in the case of the borderline and almost everyone else in the case of the narcissist and this is known as external regulation. Before I proceed, I recommend that you watch the following two videos, is borderline multiple personality, BPD and OSDD and narcissism multiple personality disorder dissociative identity disorder, question mark. Now the links are in the description, in the description is under the video. Let us revert to basics. What is the main role of the false self? Why does the traumatized and abused child create the false self in the first place? The false self is compensatory. It compensates for some inadequacy, some lack, some deficiency. It protects the child's true self, which is hurting, crying, shy, fragile, vulnerable, cowering in the corner, trying to avoid the blows of fate, the abuse and the trauma. Gradually the child divorces his own body, derealizes and depersonalizes in effect. Then he begins to delete hurtful and painful memories. The child becomes dissociative. The false self is an extreme form of dissociation. It is an imaginary friend which had been transformed gradually into a divinity, a godlike entity whose main role is to isolate the child, to coset the child, to protect the child from the vagaries, exigencies, dangers and risks of the outside world as reified in the child's parents or caregivers, protection, a protective shell that's one function of the false self and in order to carry out this crucial function of protecting the true self, what's left of it, the child, the false self has to pretend to be all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect, brilliant, able to foresee and foretell and predict the arbitrary, terrifying and capricious behaviors of the adults surrounding the child. So this is the false self and today I'm going to emphasize the false self's protective function. Now let me be clear, the child's true self is sacrificed in this process, in the process of creating a paracosm, a virtual reality, artificial environment, with a godhead figure which is the false self, the true self atrophies and then dies. It is no longer psychodynamically active. The true self cannot be revived in therapy because there is nothing there, it disappears and leaves behind a hole in the shape of the true self, a void where a person should have been. There is a vacuum, an emptiness, but the false self is ill-informed. The false self wrongly thinks that the true self is still alive and well and in need of protection. The false self is inertial, it acts as if the true self is still its charge, its protégé, its subordinate, its child if you wish. So the false self assumes parental functions over a child who has long been dead. You know these heart-rending, heart-wrenching, heart-breaking scenes where a mother still carries the corpse of her dead child, refuses to let go, pretends that it's still alive, that's the false self. The false self carries in its arms the dead body, the corpse of the true self, insisting that it's still alive. There is an inversion here. The false self says, if I let go, if I abrogate my protective function, if I no longer do my job, the narcissist will die without me.  The false self convinces itself that it is crucial for the narcissist's survival.  I must therefore be strong, non-compromising, resilient, intransigent, and empowered. The false self derives power from the equally false belief that it is somehow maintaining a spark, a shred of life, in the dead body of the child, the true self. The false self, therefore, is anxiolytic. It reduces anxiety. As the main function of the false self is to prevent regression into borderline emotional dysregulation. When the false self is disabled or deactivated, for example, during narcissistic modification, the narcissist begins to resemble someone with borderline personality disorder. For example, the narcissist becomes heavily emotionally dysregulated. The narcissist begins to develop suicidal ideation. He begins to resemble a borderline. The false self aims to prevent this. It protects the narcissist. It doesn't allow the narcissist to devolve into a borderline state. It stabilizes the narcissist's sense of self-worth using narcissistic supply as a kind of drug. It regulates the narcissist's emotions and moods. It controls the narcissist's cognitions via the distortion known as grandiosity. All this is intended to keep the narcissist alive in a homeostatic equilibrium, so that the narcissist doesn't deviate too much from some kind of mental center of gravity. In a way, the false self mummifies the narcissist, kills him, kills the narcissist, or at least takes away the narcissist's life force, prevents change and transformation and learning because the false self is terrified of the possible outcomes. The narcissist does the same to his victims. Everything that's happened to the narcissist as a child and everything that's happening to the narcissist in adulthood induced by the false self, all this the narcissist does to his victims. He doesn't allow the victim to separate. He doesn't regard the victim as a separate entity exactly as the narcissist's real mother, biological mother did not allow him to separate. And he mummifies, he drains the life force out of his victims in order to stabilize them around an idealized image. He coerces them into conforming to an idealized snapshot of themselves in his mind, internalizes them exactly the way a spider kind of weaves his web around an errant fly. So this is one of the roles of the false self and like all mental constructs, the false self is self-preserving, the false self doesn't want to die, he doesn't want to be disabled, he doesn't want to be deactivated, he wants to live, it wants to thrive, he wants to be empowered, he wants to be strong, he wants to take over, he wants to control. The false self is an entity. That's why perhaps people compare narcissism to demon possession. It is an entity distinct from the true self and this entity wants to live, it has a wish to live, it fights back anyone who threatens its existence. And this is known in therapy as resistance. Resistance is refusal to admit to treatment, to accept insight and to transform oneself because pathological structures within the mind are fighting back, resisting, refusing to change or to be reframed or to be reconceptualized. The false self regards intimacy in all its forms, for example in therapy, not only in a romantic relationship, the false self regards intimacy and of course therapy which is a form of intimacy is not only threats but also as competition. Intimacy and therapy threaten the narcissists because they bring about hurt, the hurtful, the painful, they result in potential heartbreak or a hostile takeover, merger and fusion. They're not good. The narcissist as a child has learned to associate intimacy and positive emotions with negative outcomes. The false self is there to prevent a recurrence of these negative outcomes. The false self is there to protect the narcissist from heartbreak, from pain, from hurt, from being taken over, from dependency and so it regards therapy and intimacy as threats but it also regards them as competition because therapy and intimacy offer the narcissist a chance at emotional self-regulation, a coherent sense of self-worth and then if the narcissists were to internally self-regulate and if the narcissists were to develop a stable sense of self-worth, there would be no need for the false self anymore. It would obfinate the needs for narcissistic supply and grandiosity when you are mentally stable, when you self-regulate, when you are self-aware and self-accepting and self-loving, you don't need grandiosity, you don't need to regulate from the outside via narcissistic supply so you don't need the false self. This is exactly what cold therapy does, the treatment modality that I've developed called therapy which should be administered only by licensed practitioners mind you, not even I can administer cold therapy. So this is the thing, the false self competes with alternatives to the false self, more benign, more healthy alternatives, it doesn't allow the narcissist to heal, to learn, to transform, to progress, to grow, to develop all these things, threaten the very existence, continued existence of the false self and it doesn't let the narcissists go embark on this path, on this journey of self-discovery and then self-remediation, no way. The false self wants the narcissists to be essentially sick, needy. The false self wants to control the narcissists' perceptions, sensory inputs, cognitions, emotions, it's like tentacles, like this alien that snatches the narcissists and its tentacles reach into every nook and cranny of the narcissist mind, it wouldn't let go and it fights back ferociously whenever there's any attempted intervention, whenever the narcissist is loved by an intimate partner, whenever a therapist tries to help the narcissist, whenever the narcissist attempts to develop discipline and self-regulation, whenever the narcissist finds a good friend to confide in, the false self steps in and destroys the whole thing, ruins it, pushes the alternative sources of regulation away, doesn't allow the narcissist any solace, any saccour except those provided by the false self, the false self is monopolistic. When the narcissist has a friend or intimate partner or even a therapist, the narcissist emotionally invests in them, catexes in a normal state, I mean normal, a typical pathological narcissist, catechs only the false self, he emotionally invests only in the false self, he's in love with the false self, he promotes the false self, he believes the false self, he trusts the false self, he relies on the false self, it's all the false self to the point that the narcissist identifies with the false self, introjects the false self, incorporates the false self and becomes the internalized false self, the narcissist disappears into the false self, that's an act of extreme merger and fusion, codependent act, the false self wants the narcissist to be codependent upon it, he doesn't want the narcissist to have autonomy or agency or independence of mind or critical thing, he doesn't want any of this, he doesn't want the narcissist to develop continuous memory, he doesn't want the narcissist to have an identity, he wants to own the narcissist and to make sure that the narcissist is so paralyzed, so enfeeble, so crippled that the narcissist only recourse and only hope would be the false self, it's like these insects that inject the prey with poison and then the prey is paralyzed and the insect comes much later and eats the prey, so this is the false self, when there is a diversion of catechesis, when the narcissist begins to emotionally notice or invest in others, the false self gets very agitated, alarmed, irritated and aggressive, this diversion to the therapist, to an intimate partner, to a newborn child, to a parent, to a good friend, this generates a lot of envy in the false self, this is a peculiar kind of envy, it's a strange kind of envy, because the false self envies not only the therapist or the intimate partner or the child or the friend, the false self doesn't only envy outsiders, the false self envies the good object inside the narcissist, when the narcissist finds an intimate partner, when the narcissist is loved and cared for and listened to and embraced, when the narcissist has a friend, a child to love, a parent who loves him, the narcissist begins to develop a good object, inside the narcissist there is a perpetual permanent bed object, you're unworthy, you're ugly, you're stupid, you're inferior, narcissism and the false self compensate for this bed object, had the false self not existed, the narcissist would have gotten in touch directly with the bed object and would have committed suicide, the false self is the only thing that stands between the narcissist and borderline suicidal ideation, but other people, a good therapist, a loving intimate partner, a compassionate friend, they can create inside the narcissist gradually a good object telling the narcissist, you are lovable, you are worthy and this good object replaces the bed object, modifies the bed object or fights the bed object or somehow limits the bed object and the false self feels very threatened because should the narcissist develop a fully functional good object there would be no need for the false self and the false self would atrophy and die exactly the same process that has happened to the true self, so the false self does not allow the narcissist to develop a good object, he envies the good object, he feels threatened by the good object and he destroys the good object, this is the narcissist self-defeat and self destruction, therapy and healthy intimacy, non-dependent intimacy, a friend, a lover, a child, parents, even mentors, these kind of relationships which involve good intimacy, the kind of intimacy that induces personal growth and development, therapy is one example of such intimacy, this kind of intimacy is also pushed towards the emergence of a core identity, when you're exposed to intimacy you develop boundaries and you begin to see yourself through other people's eyes in a healthy way, there's a good object developing, a good object develops, a core identity is formed, you don't need to forget so many things, your memory improves, this is very terrifying as far as the false self is concerned because this core identity utterly substitutes for the false self, replaces the false self, this newly emergent identity feels like a threat and this threat is coming from the outside, it's external, it's imposed in a way and so the narcissist learns to identify external objects, one of the main, one of the main dynamics and functions of the false self is the conversion of external objects into internal objects, snapshotting is a function of the false self, but intimacy, love, caring, compassion, guided growth and development in therapy or otherwise, they create a healthy core, false self is no longer needed and the narcissist potentially would be able to discern the separateness and the existence of external objects, the false self cannot allow this, intimacy, healthy intimacy constitutes a repeated narcissistic injury because it threatens the false self, the seat of grandiosity and because intimacy involves vulnerability rather than omnipotence, when you're intimate with someone you're naked, physically sometimes, mentally and psychologically all the time, you're emotionally naked all the time or there's no intimacy, words, shortcomings, failings and limitations are the foundations of true intimacy, so this is a negation of grandiosity, it's the opposite of grandiosity, it's touching the core of shame, vulnerability, fragility and inferiority at the heart of narcissism and the false self is dumbfounded and horrified by this possibility, so the false self doesn't allow the narcissist to become truly vulnerable, for example it forces the narcissist to confabulate, confabulation retards intimacy, destroys it, the false self fights back vehemently by inducing twin anxieties, the famous twin anxieties which are common in borderline personality disorder, abandonment anxiety, separation insecurity and engulfment anxiety, also known as enmeshment anxiety, these are the twin anxieties, when push comes to shove, when the threat of intimacy becomes very real, for example in therapy, the false self can't take any chances, it regresses the narcissist to a borderline state, renders the narcissist way more dependent on grandiosity and other protective mechanisms, threatens the narcissist with emotional dysregulation and provokes in the narcissist twin anxieties of being abandoned by the false self or being engulfed by the false self, it's as if the narcissist, the false self reminds the narcissist, this is how you're going to feel in my absence, this would be your experience if I'm gun, if I'm dismantled, if I'm destroyed by intimacy and by therapy, this is going to be your daily existence, your pedestrian experience, your quotidian experience, so don't even go there and the false self amplifies aggression and grandiosity to remind the narcissist of the alternative, so the false self creates two scenarios and exposes the narcissist to both, when the narcissist comes across potentially real and healthy intimacy, whether in therapy or in a romantic relationship or because he has a newborn child or he reconciled with his parents or whatever the case may be, the narcissist is exposed to this potential, the false self immediately stages and produces two movies, two theater plays, the narcissist experience without the false self and the narcissist experience with the false self, the false self generates a scenario where it is disabled and deactivated and reminds the narcissist, if I'm gun, if you let them deactivate me, if I end up being disabled, you're going to be anxious, you're going to be emotionally dysregulated, you're going to be dysfunctional, but if you resist intimacy, if you push back against therapy, if you negate love, if you behave in ways that destroy relationships, interpersonal relationships, then I have on offer, says the false self, two solutions for you, aggression and grandiosity, the false self impairs reality testing via the fantasy defense, via the shared fantasy, so he creates, he tells the narcissist, you don't have to do real intimacy, you don't have to be vulnerable, you don't have to take these risks, you don't have to do any of these things, you can be aggressive, you can be grandiose, you can impose a shared fantasy on your targets, you can entrain them, brainwash them in effect, you can coerce them, there's no need to collude with them, collaborate with them in your own destruction, you can remain godlike and still have these people in your life, so why not? I, the false self, has the solution for you, the newly, the false self fights these new processes by tempting or seducing the narcissist to default back to familiar patterns of coping and strategies of survival, aggression, grandiosity, divorce from reality, impaired reality testing, the shared fantasy, outsourcing ego functions, paranoid ideation, psychotic ideation, all these undermining, undermine, destroy challenge, making possible interpersonal relationships with relatively healthy or more healthy people. Don't forget another thing, many of these solutions are forms of self-supply, the false self reminds the narcissist, you are self-sufficient, you're godlike, you're self-contained, you don't need anyone, you don't need to change, you need to transform, you're perfect, paranoia for example is a form of self-supply, the paranoid tells himself that he is at the center of some maligned conspiracy, that he's the focus of attention, that the world revolves around it, that he's sufficiently important to be noticed and then to be conspired against, this is all self-supply, it's one of the main tools, paranoid ideation, it's one of the main tools of the false self, when confronted with the existential threat of togetherness, nearness, proximity, connection, love, the false self doesn't allow the narcissist to experience any of these things and now I would advise you to watch three videos on this channel, narcissism is theater, more on the false self, narcissism is false narrative and false self and loving gaze, adulating gaze, false versus true self, what about the borderline, I started by saying the borderline is a false self as well, yes but it's different to the narcissist, it is equally grandiose, it refrains and falsifies cognition, distorts cognition, the borderline's false self is also reliant on others especially intimate partners for external regulation but it's not the same as the narcissist, ironically the borderline's false self is much less disruptive, much less obstructive, much less controlling, much less pernicious, much healthier than the narcissist and that's why I think that narcissistic personality disorder is a much worse mental condition than borderline, no wonder borderline resorts spontaneously in the majority of cases in in one's forties and I recommend that you watch the following videos trapped in fantasy worlds of narcissists borderline, loving the borderline in her fantasy, borderline's six fantasy but flees to reality, borderline versus narcissists idealization fantasies, all the links are in the description, the false self masquerades as a protector of the narcissist, the only thing that stands between the narcissist and ultimate psychotic disintegration, emotional dysregulation and possibly suicide, the false self is the father figure, the mother figure, the mentor, the false self is the source of all knowledge, of all power, the false self bridges memory gaps, the false self is there when the narcissist is helpless as a child, the false self is godlike, the false self keeps broadcasting to the narcissist, you don't need anyone else, I render you self-contained and self-sufficient, this is a solipsistic construct, it is the false self that prevents the narcissist from interacting meaningfully with other people or even perceiving other people as other not as internal objects, it is the false self that drives the narcissist to the verge of psychosis and beyond, the seat of hyperreflexivity is in the false self, the false self is the most pathological mental structure that I'm aware of including schizophrenia, it is in my view more extreme than schizophrenia, that's why I keep saying narcissistic personality disorder is a dissociative post-traumatic condition that involves psychotic elements and literally a smattering, a sample of every other mental health disorder I'm aware of, it's the narcissist is a walking, talking, ratification of the diagnostic and statistical manual and the international classification of diseases combined


Hi, my name is Danny, and welcome to Esoteric Moment. Today, I want to talk about the difference between inner grove work versus outer grove work. Both is a word that can mean many different things to many different druids, and it kind of depends on your personal practice, where you learn druidry and if you belong to any order. So keep in mind that I don't represent all druidry, just my path and the druids that I've worked with. Grove can mean many different things. Typically, it can mean the group of people that you're working with for rituals or celebrations during the different seasons. It can be used a bit like the word coven. Grove can also mean the actual physical place that you're doing ritual at, that you're working in. And that grove is typically a grove of trees. Perhaps it's a circle of oak trees on a hilltop. Maybe it's whatever little tree you can look at on your balcony in an urban setting. It might be that outdoor space. Maybe you're even lucky enough to have a stone circle to work in. That might be your grove. Grove can also mean your inner sanctuary. It can be the place that you retreat to in your mind, in the other world. And we're going to go into the difference between that inner place, that realm that you've got you within yourself and whatever outer space you're using to do work. Your inner grove is a place that is easily accessible no matter where you physically are. A place that you can retreat to for meditation, for healing, for meeting with your ancestors, for work with guides, connection to physical mundane places you might never go to. It is really whatever inner workings you do. For me, the inner grove is part of the other world. It is that bridge realm between the mundane physical world and the things that lie beyond. The ancestors realms, other parts of the universe. When I go into the other world, I physically take time in the mundane world to create a sacred space, to prepare myself physically and mentally for relaxing, for really doing the work that's ahead of me. There is some preparatory work that I do. When I go into this inner world, I am looking for the solitude and peace that, for me, my inner grove starts with a wooded circle that is right at the beginning of the forest. And there are many paths from this inner grove in the forest. There are paths that lead to teachers that I've met, guides. There are paths that lead to other sacred spaces or destinations in the inner world. There's a path that leads to my personal place of power. It's kind of a center working space that I can use as a touchstone, a foundation for what other journeys I might have ahead of me. Sometimes that might be the only place that I stay in the other world and in my inner grove. Sometimes I work outside of that space, but it is really kind of the container and beginning part for whatever inner journey and work that I do. It's highly useful to cultivate this inner space in order to go deeper and allow yourself a touchstone. The inner world and your inner grove is going to be a reflection of you personally. It is going to be filled with the symbols, the sense, the sensations that you need in order to delve deeper into your practice. And it'll change as you change and your practice changes. One of the things I appreciate about working with OBOD is that they have familiar pathways into getting into inner grove work. And they have many practices and ideas that can help people develop this regular routine on how to reach this place. But they're very careful not to corrupt your inner world. They don't force upon you this vision that it has to look one way or the other that it has to be in the woods or it has to be on a hilltop or that it has to have Celtic music playing in the background. You know, it's your inner landscape. You want to make sure that it is always your space and that the ideas and influences around you impact that space, but don't turn it into someone else's landscape. It needs to always remain a reflection of you. And I'm not saying that means you control every aspect of this inner space. I really believe firmly that the inner grove is connected to this other world and that it is the bridge point that allows you to go in all of these mystical directions. And there's a lot that you don't control in that space and in that realm, but it is still a reflection of you. So it's important to not try and control it too much or, you know, create some vision that you think it has to be and put it there. Inner grove is different from outer grove work. Your outer grove work might be in a natural place or it might be on your balcony, but the key is that it is firmly rooted in the mundane world. Doesn't mean that there isn't magic and doesn't mean that it isn't sacred, but that's the whole point. You are firmly rooted in the natural world, in the physical space, in the eating and breathing and living and dying that is all around us. But outer grove work is also where you probably are meeting with other druids or teachers or even your gardening club, whatever community that you have around you that helps you connect and stay grounded in the physical natural world. That's going to be a part of your grove work, your outer grove work. The outer grove work is focused on community, connection and the natural world. Both the inner grove and the outer grove take dedication. You cannot neglect one for the other. You need to visit both regularly. The inner landscape that you cultivate and your connection to self is directly related to the outer world, the community you form and the relationships that you engage in. If you overcompensate in your area of self development, you eventually reach a point where without the foundation of community and relationships, you will suffer and your practice will suffer. Vice versa, if you focus only on community organization and your outer grove work, you plant a million trees, you cultivate all the natural spaces and you are focused purely in the mundane natural world and that connection there, you will reach a point where you suffer because the personal inner work hasn't been done and you won't have the energy and strength to continue growing in your community and the outer grove work you participate in. Also keep in mind that one might be more pagan seeming to you than the other. Your inner landscape might be full of mysticism and very magical feeling or it might be the five minutes that you meditate every night and you say what you're grateful for. The outer grove work might seem the most magical to you for you do high ritual and you wear druid robes and you learn how to do public ritual or you're planting oak trees or connecting with the Oum in their physical real breathing forms outside. You're developing community. That might be where the power and magic and growth lies for you. It doesn't matter what shape or form these two workings take in your life. That's not the important part. The important part is that both are a reflection of you and that you develop and work within both the inner and outer landscapes equally as an ebb and flow at all times but generally we want to make sure that our inner grove and our outer grove have just the same type of dedication and enthusiasm that really makes your practice what it can be. In the comments below I would love to hear whether you feel like your practice focuses more on work in the inner grove or whether it focuses more on the outer grove. Right now whatever moment in your life or practice your feeling I'd love to hear kind of which part is more of an emphasis in your life. Thanks for watching and as always may you find peace in the sacred grove.


Oh, Becca writes question. If you two have sex on the third date without being said to be exclusive, and then he said he's going with the flow, is that a bad sign? If two people have sex on the third date without it being exclusive, or the words it's exclusive, and then he said it's going with the flow, is that a bad sign? So I have a rule of thumb when it comes to sex, and this is my rule of thumb. Write this down, the acronym is CARES. Here, let me write it down for you. Hold on a second, C-A-R-E-S, CARES. There it is on the YouTube screen, there it's on the Instagram screen. All right, CARES. The C stands for do not have sex until you feel comfortable, comfortable, comfortable.  You should never be careful of alcohol consumption that might lower your boundaries. So be in a state of feeling comfortable. The A stands for be aware of the consequences. If you bond easily to a man, having based a man, especially on a third date, if you bond really quickly, be aware of the consequences because here's the thing. First off, having sex once doesn't require exclusivity.  The R stands for real intentions. Learn his real intentions, okay?  The E stands for exclusivity. Ladies, I'm gonna tell you something. I'm very upfront in the dating process. I tell women very early on, if we're dating and we are intimate together, I'd like to be exclusive. How do you operate?   And the S in cares, C-A-R-E-S, the S stands for safety. Now, that could mean wearing a condom, that could mean getting STD tests, okay? But make sure you're safe, just like comfortable, it's safety as well as comfortable.   Like I said before, the person who cares the least or the person who makes the least effort is the one who retains the power in relationship and that's unhealthy power in relationship. And I'm not a big proponent of unhealthy power in a relationship. Can I please get an amen? I feel like a preacher. Thank you so much for that question, Becca, that was a great question.


Good morning everyone. This is a joint hearing with the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development and Vermont House General and Housing and Military Affairs Committee. We're here today to go over a report done by Joint Fiscal Office Joyce Manchester on the unemployment insurance and some issues during COVID that she's going to outline for us. So Joyce, good morning. Thank you for taking time to meet with us and we appreciate your work and are looking forward to what you have to tell us. Very good. Good morning to everyone. I'm happy to be here. I haven't met some of you except now virtually, so maybe that will change someday. For the record, I'm Joyce Manchester from the Joint Fiscal Office. So I've been tracking periodically the characteristics of people who are receiving unemployment insurance benefits in Vermont. So this comes from data from the United States, the US Department of Labor, and it's released to the lag. So today I'll be talking about data from November of 2020. But this is the most recent data that we have. Just for a brief reminder, the unemployment insurance system is the traditional system that you all have heard about over the years. It serves mainly people who have wage income and who have a history of employment. So you have to have worked for the last five quarters. You have to be employed by an employer and so forth and so on. So that's the population that I'll be talking about today. Unfortunately, we do not have similar data talking about characteristics of people on the brand new PUA program. That's the program that serves the sole firefighters, self-employed, and so on. So we don't know about those folks, but we do have lots of data on people who are getting the traditional or the regular, whatever you call it, unemployment insurance system. So I can give you some headlines and then we can delve more into the details and please speak up or stop me as we go through. I can't see everyone, but if you make some noise, I will be happy to answer questions. Okay, so here are three headlines. First off, for the week ending November 14th, 2020. So this survey happens during the week that contains the 12th of each month. So during the week ending November 14th, 2020, about 73% of people receiving traditional UI benefits in Vermont were women. So that's 7,500 people out of the 10,400 receiving UI benefits. We'll talk a lot more about that in just a minute. Second headline is that older Vermonters comprised greater shares of UI recipients than was true for the United States as a whole. So we have somewhat higher percentages of older Vermonters on UI. And thirdly, workers in the accommodations and food services sector made up 26% of UI recipients and the nationwide average was 15%. So that says we have a lot more people in Vermont who are employed in the hospitality sector. Could I just remind members to mute themselves, please? Thank you. Thanks. Right, so we shouldn't be too surprised that there are higher percentages in Vermont on accommodations and food services sector, but that's quite a big difference. And a quarter of the folks on UI are in that sector. So Amy, if you could share that issue brief on the screen where I'm going to refer. Did someone have a question? I'm happy to share it, Joyce. Do you want to share it so you can control it or do you want me to share it? So true confessions. I tried to share a document earlier this week and was unable to do so. Okay, no problem. So that'd be great. Joyce, I have a quick question. You said to jump in. Is that really okay, Mr. Chair? Please. Okay. This is Emma Mulvaney-Sannick from Burlington. Hi. I'm just curious why either Department of Labor or whoever collects the data on the self-employed numbers, why that we can't look at that data either yet or will we be able to at some point? So I don't know the answer to that question except that I do know that all folks who are dealing with unemployment insurance are overwhelmed these days. So this survey of regular UI beneficiaries has been in place for decades, years and years and years. And to start up a new survey of a new population would take considerable time and effort. So that's that's as much as I know. Okay. So let's, nope, I don't want the addendum. I want the issue brief that's dated January 6th. So it's the other document, please. Oh, okay. Just one sec. Thanks. Nope, that's still the addendum. Huh. I'm seeing the issue brief on my screen. So let me see. Maybe I've got the, how about that? Is that the right one? Nope. No. Okay. That's, those are the only two I have. This one says issue brief on my screen. Are you seeing something different? Yes. We're seeing the addendum. Is that it now? No. I'm not sure what's happening with my screen sharing. So this doesn't say issue brief. Well, now we're just seeing the list of documents from the committee website. That's what I'm seeing. Different screen. All right. Hang on just a second. I have two screens going. So I think that's the problem. Let me get back down here. Sorry, everybody. Usually this is a little more seamless. Is that the correct one? Yes. Very good. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Sure. Okay. Let's, let's scroll down to that figure at the bottom of the page. Do you want me to keep going past this? Yeah. I want to see the full figure. I'm seeing only a little top piece of it right now. Okay. There we go. Great. Perfect. Okay. So what you're looking at now is a figure that shows shares of recipients of UI benefits first by gender and then by age. So Vermont, of course, is in green. Those are the green bars and the US average is in light blue. So you can see that in November, we had a much smaller share of men receiving UI about 27% versus the national average of about 48%. And we had a much higher percentage of women receiving UI. So that's the 73% versus the average for the country at 50%. So that's the big difference that caught my eye. But then I looked also at age groups. And you can see that things are a little bit different in Vermont than at the national level. We have a little bit smaller percentages of younger people and pretty close in the middle ages. And then at the higher ages, you can see that Vermont has more people receiving UI as a proportion of the total than the US. And part of that comes about because we do have more older people in the state. And we also have a higher labor force participation rate in the state for people who are 55 and older and especially 65 and older. But as a result, we do have those higher proportions receiving UI benefits. Did someone have a question? Joyce, Representative Kalaki has a question. Sure. Thank you. The elder thing you answered for me. Joyce, how do you look at that data about the number of women? It's so startling. Yes. Do you posit? Have you thought about that? Absolutely. So the next 25 minutes will be spent on that. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yes, we're going there. Okay. So let's move on to the second page of that issue brief, please. Okay. So you can stop right there. Good. Okay. So in the first paragraph here, I do talk about the fact that it's quite surprising to see such a large share of women. And I began to explore that issue in this issue brief. You can see that here I'm talking about the difference between this recession, the COVID-19 recession, and the Great Recession, which happened back in 2008, 2009, 2010. Back then, we had what was called the man's session because so many men were unemployed and receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Back then, the problem was that construction and the finance industry were really shut down. And so lots of those folks were losing jobs. And now, of course, we have a very different situation because of COVID-19 in which people are staying home. They're not traveling. They're not eating out. They're not shopping, et cetera, et cetera. And so the industries that are most hit are the hospitality industries, accommodations, food services, and perhaps retail. But in any event, those sectors where women are the majority of the employees.  We also have the consideration that women often tend to be the caretakers, the caregivers, I should say, for both young children, school-age children, and also older adults. And during these months, many child care centers have been closed or operating limited hours. Schools are operating sometimes irregular hours, or they're all remote or whatever. It's often the woman in the household who needs to take care of the children. We have other women who are taking care of older adults who may be especially vulnerable to COVID-19. And finally, yes, sure. Representative Troiano has his hand up. Very good. I did take it down. Joyce, you just answered my inquiry that it was, it seems to me that women taking time off from work to supervise and educate their children at home must have had an impact on these numbers. Absolutely. Yes, indeed. Unfortunately, in the data, we can't tell why women were receiving unemployment insurance benefits, whether they lost a job because of their employer shutting down or whether they left their job because of children or older adults related to COVID-19. But we can certainly surmise that that would be a big part of the story. Okay, I talk a little bit about older workers, but I don't have a lot more to say about the older workers. Let's scroll down to the very bottom of the page so that we can see that table. So here's where I look at the shares of people on UI from their sectors, from their employer groups. And I find that in Vermont, 26% of people receiving UI benefits are from the accommodation and food services sector versus almost 15% in the US. We also have somewhat higher percentages in health care and social assistance and in educational services, but it's not that different. It's what, a point or two, a percentage point or two different. So it seems to be the accommodation and food services sector where we're very different from the rest of the country. Okay, I'll stop for a second there and see if there are questions. And then we can move on to the addendum, which has a little bit more information about cyclical trends in the male-female shares of UI recipients over time and also the sectors that contribute to UI recipients over time. Hey, Representative Kimball. Hey, Mr. Chair. Joyce, thank you very much for the presentation. Just a question on the pure math. If it's 26% of the UI recipients are in food and lodging, what percent of the employee base is in food and lodging? So it's 26% of the unemployed, but do we know how that stacks up? Yeah, I don't know that off my head. I have looked at those numbers before and I just can't tell you what they are, but I can find out. Thank you. Hey, Representative Mulvaney-Stanek. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks, Joyce. Just another data question, no surprise. I'm just curious because unemployment is only really the picture of people who, as I understand it, in the last week were seeking employment and, well, if you could maybe define that for me, because I'm curious about the underemployed, so the folks who are discouraged workers who aren't being counted, and how we can get a bigger, more accurate picture of, in this case, women in particular and BIPOC women in particular who are not working and yet aren't being counted in these figures. Right. So in normal times, you are correct that the unemployed and people who are eligible for unemployment insurance include only those who are actively looking for work. So it is still true that the official unemployment statistics look only at people who have actively looked for work in the past week. So Vermont's rate of, whatever it is now, 3.8% of their bounce is low because it looks only at people who have actively looked for work. Okay. However, the CARES Act, CARES 1 back in March, allowed states to waive the requirement that people be actively looking for work in order to receive unemployment insurance benefits. And Vermont chose to waive that requirement. So it is true that we have many people on the traditional UI roles and also on PUA roles who are not actively looking for work because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So A lot of noise. Turn. Okay. So let's see. If you're really interested in the difference between the numbers who are receiving UI insurance and the numbers who are counted in the unemployment statistics, I wrote an issue brief back in maybe October on that topic. So I can send that along. But I'm just making a note. Right. What we don't know is the number of people who are discouraged workers who are not receiving unemployment benefits and not looking for work, right? So they are officially out of the labor force. They're not counted among the unemployed. They're certainly not employed. They're just not in the labor force, right? So we do not have statistics on those. We know that the number of employed, so either actively looking, I'm sorry, either actively working or actively looking for work has decreased dramatically. That's meaning that the number out of the labor force has also increased dramatically, but we don't have information about who those folks are, unfortunately. And Joyce, do you have any other issue briefs that would give a snapshot of the number of women in the workforce, maybe if prior to the pandemic, just for another reference point, just to help fill in that gap? I'm a new legislator, so if these exist, just point me in the right direction and I'll head there. Right. So I don't think I've written an issue brief on that topic, although I can certainly show you where to find the data on the Vermont Department of Labor website. Yes. Okay. Representative Blumlee. Well, Emma actually asked one of the questions that I wanted to ask. I think that there have been a number of reports that have come out over the last two months that demonstrate that a lot of women have dropped out of the workforce altogether, which has a significant impact on, well, on individual families and on a state like Vermont that is so small and dependent upon trying to use every drop of talent that's available to us. And I am wondering, we may not have the data on those who have completely dropped out of the workforce, but I guess I am wondering if JFO and or commerce are exploring ways to better understand who has dropped out of the workforce in the state and prioritizing efforts that would focus on those workers. Right. So if we had the data, JFO would love to explore those issues more deeply. I do not know that there is data available to look at characteristics of people who are out of the labor force, except to think about women and men in the labor force prior to the pandemic and then women and men in the labor force after the pandemic and look at the difference. Right. So we could certainly do that. I think people at the Vermont Department of Labor are trying to analyze some data, but they are just so overwhelmed with keeping up with unemployment benefits that they have not a lot of time to do the analysis. So yeah, I am happy to look into the differences in the labor force over time. That would be a good thing to do. I also want to say that some women who have dropped out of the labor force are receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Right. So right now under those special rules, because Vermont waived the requirement that they be looking, they could be out of the labor force and still receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Now that provision, the allowance that says you do not have to be looking for work in order to receive UI benefits may end at some point. And we expect it to end sometime. Who knows when, but at the moment, it is certainly true that there are some out of the labor force who are receiving UI benefits and PUA benefits for that matter. Right. Representative Parsons. Thank you. My question was just in these numbers, is it calculated in the traditional unemployment benefit who has been denied? I am just curious if this trend of women in the workforce carries over to when people apply for the benefit, is it the same in the denial process? Right. So again, we don't have data on the denials. So these refer to benefits actually paid out. So these are recipients of UI benefits. Generally speaking, when I've been looking at the number of initial claims, as they call them, your first application is called an initial claims. When I look at the initial claims that roll over into benefits the next week, generally I see 90, 95% of those folks moving forward. So there are some denials, but they make up a relatively small part of the numbers. So I'm sorry, we don't have good data on denials. Representative Walts. Thank you, Chair, Mark. Joyce, I'm having a real hard time wrapping my head around some of these numbers and really wondering how PUA fits into this. Are some of the people who are being counted as unemployed? Could some of them be getting PUA benefits? I don't know how they fit. Yes. So let's see if I can give you some recent numbers about the shares of people on unemployment insurance. I have to find the right spreadsheet here. Here we go. Okay. So I have numbers from last week. So these numbers were just released yesterday. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have the numbers for last week. I have numbers. Let's give you numbers on average for December. So in December, I have to do some quick averages in my head. Okay. In December, we had about 11,000, let's call it, let's call it 12,000 people receiving UI benefits in December. Those are traditional UI benefits. We also had, let's see, about 8,500 people receiving PUA benefits. Okay. So it's what, three quarters of the number? So those folks would stack on top of the UI recipients. So we have a total of about 20,000 people. Is that right? So what I'm trying to get my head around is how many people we have, but reporting is unemployed, but they're not getting any benefits whatsoever. I'm just not seeing a clear path to that. Exactly. And I worked very hard back in October, November to try to figure that out. And I just sent that issue brief to Representative Kimball, which means I should be able to find it easily. Yeah, here we go. Okay. So, oh, that was released on November 21st. So I can send this to Amy and she can put it on the, let's see, she can put it on the website for the committees if you like. Thank you. Sure. And Representative Martin. So, Joyce, I know you mentioned you don't have a ton of information on the data, but I'm curious to know what you might have for information on PUA benefits for dairy farmers. I know like in April, there was an overage crisis where milk was being dumped and things like that. So I'm just curious to know how many farmers may have benefited from that if at all? I would love to be able to say that I could find the data for you, but we have no data on characteristics of people who are receiving PUA. So it's possible that eventually the Vermont Department of Labor will have the time to look into that. But honestly, I don't know if they are collecting data on the sector from which those folks are coming. So I just don't know. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. Are there any other questions for Joyce at this moment? Representative Bloomley? I apologize. I just wanted, I think that Emma had asked on her earlier question about what we may know about BIPOC for Monters and their particular experience of unemployment. Right. So the data on race and ethnicity and that sort of characteristic in Vermont is extremely limited. And I'm not sure why. I've asked the Vermont Department of Labor folks and have not received a response from them yet. It turns out that about half of the data in Vermont does not identify race or ethnicity or those characteristics. So we just don't know very much, unfortunately. And if I hear back from Matt Berowitz and Cameron Wood over at DOL, I'll certainly let you know. But it is surprising that we are missing data for 47% of the UI recipients. Well, and I just, I wondered, what does that mean? Does that mean that the unemployment forms that they're filling out are different in different offices or that there's a okay. I don't know, unfortunately. Any other questions? Okay, Joyce, we can continue. Okay, Amy, let's move on to the addendum. Okay. And in the addendum, I'm just trying to better understand how it is that we got up to 73% of UI beneficiaries in Vermont being women. That was surprising to me and it turns out that it should have been surprising to me. Whoops. We want the addendum now and that's still the issue brief. Yep. I'm sorry. It's too small for me to see clearly. One sec. That's still not it. That's the addendum. Yes. Ooh, that was it. No, that's the old one. Oh, this is embarrassing. Okay. Well, I appreciate you sharing your screen because otherwise I'd be in trouble. Okay. I think we've got it now. Do we? Nope. I'm still seeing the issue brief rather than the addendum. This is just odd. Okay. I wish I could see the screen before I share it. Nope. Yes, that's the right one. There we go. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Very good. Okay. So the first page is just trying to say in words what you're about to see on pages two and three. So let's move down to page two where you see the red and blue figure. Yes. Okay. Now, don't get scared by this chart, which looks a little bit like spaghetti on a plate. So what I wanted to look at is in normal times, how do the shares of men and women receiving UI over the year vary? And so I went back to the beginning of 2018. And so what we're looking at here is 2018, 2019, and then 2020. You can see the months marching across the bottom of the chart there. And of course, I'm looking at the proportions of recipients of unemployment insurance in Vermont. So the solid blue line represents the proportion of men who were receiving unemployment insurance benefits. Again, these are just traditional benefits. And you can see that in February 2018, we got up as high as what 76%, 75%, something like that. So normally in the winter months, we have a very large share of people who are receiving unemployment benefits who are men. And that makes sense because of hard winters in Vermont, meaning that construction industry workers are not on the job for the most part. So we have a lot of construction workers receiving UI benefits in the winter months. And you can see at the same time, if you just go down the chart at the bottom there, you see the solid red line.  And that's quite low. It's about 25% in February of 2018. And then if you move across the chart, you can see that that blue line dips in the summer months. So in July and August, we have a very low proportion of men receiving UI benefits and a somewhat higher, what 57% maybe, who are women in the summer months. Now the dashed lines represent the proportions for the country as a whole, the US as a whole. So you can see the same seasonal patterns, but less pronounced. Okay, now when we move to 2018, from 2018 to 2019, we see the same pattern. So higher proportions in the winter, lower proportions of men in the summer. And that continues into February of 2020, when we had a pretty high proportion of men and a lower proportion of women. And then the pandemic hit and the red line goes curfewy. It goes sky high. So now we're looking at October, November of 2020, over on the right hand side, the solid red line is showing you that 74% in October, 73% in November were women on the UI roles. And the share of men was much lower. I didn't mention the word she session previously, I should have done so. But many people are calling the COVID-19 recession the she session, because it is hitting women proportionately more severely. So that's exactly what you're seeing with that high red line all of a sudden in 2020. Are there questions about that chart? Joyce, I'm just wondering when I'm looking in October, November, traditionally, we start seeing the rise of unemployment in men, and we're not seeing that like we did in 2018 and 2019. And there was a really big dip down of unemployment in men throughout the summer and then even into the fall. I'm wondering if we understand what is driving that. Yes. So one thing you need to remember is that I'm looking at the proportion of men and women who are receiving unemployment benefits. And this sort of hides the numbers. But in a usually year in 2018 and 2019, we had about 6,000 people receiving unemployment insurance benefits in the winter months, and only about 2,000 people receiving them in the summer months. So these are proportions of different numbers. And then when we got to the pandemic, all of a sudden, we had 20,000, 24,000 people receiving benefits. So you can still have lots of men 25% of 20,000 is what 500 people. So that's still a lot more men who are receiving UI benefits in the fall than was previously the case in 2018, 2019. But we just have so many more women who are receiving UI benefits that it swamps the men's share. Does that help? Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Sure. Okay, good. If everyone's ready, we can move on to the next chart on page three. Oh, boy, that's really small. I apologize. Okay, so what I'm trying, that helps, thank you. What I'm trying to do here is to think about the shares of UI recipients who come from different industries or different sectors of the economy over the year. So I chose February and August of 2019 to try to see differences in where people are coming from who are receiving UI benefits. So along the bottom, we have different sectors. Yeah, that's good. So we've got agriculture, forestry fishing, hunting, mining utilities. And then you see that big spike, the blue spike is February 2019 under construction. Okay, so that means a lot of people among the what back in February 2019, it was 5000 people receiving unemployment benefits and 35% of them came from the construction industry. And you can imagine that most of them were men, right? So that fits in with the high share of men during the winter months, unusual times. You can see the orange line represents hot August. And in August only 5% of people receiving UI benefits were men, right? So most of them are back at work. If we keep moving to the right across the chart, we're looking at manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, it keeps going. I will pause until I get to way over on the right. You can see accommodation and food services with that spike, that orange spike going up to about 20% in August of 2019. Now, I don't have a really good explanation of this because you would think that lots of people would be finding work in accommodation and food services during the month of August in Vermont. However, you have to remember again that this is among a smaller group of UI recipients. So if this is 20% of, I guess there were about 3000 people receiving UI benefits back in August of 2019, that's only about 600 people, okay? So remember previously we were talking about construction workers in February making up a third of 5000. So what's that? I don't know. That's like 1800 or something. It's a big difference. So we're looking at shares on this chart and you have to translate back into numbers if you want to think about how many Vermonters were coming from a certain industry and receiving UI benefits. You can also see a difference there in healthcare and social services and in educational services. So remember this is August and there may be some educational workers who are looking for work in August. Are there any questions about this chart? It's still pre-pandemic. This is still 2019. Absolutely, 2019. So again, I'm just trying to get a notion in my brain about the sectors that are feeding the unemployment insurance system in a normal year. So we hope going forward that right now we have this, well, we don't have the data for January yet, but we imagine we still have a very high percentage of women on the UI roles. But as the hospitality sector recovers, we hope that those women will be able to go back to work. The big question here is what happens with child care and school-aged kids and older family members? Will they be able to go back to their usual child care school, etc. arrangements? So that's one big question.  So this is the end of my presentation. I'm happy to discuss other issues or other questions if people have any. Okay, Representative Parsons. Thank you. I just had a question, Joyce. If any of the side-by-side comparisons were done with Vermont against other states that are similar, I know we took a much stronger position on closing things down and things like that, which seems to have been the main driver of the differences here. Have we looked at other states that were similar in comparison to our lockdown as opposed to the nation as a whole? We have not. We being I have not. It would take some data work and if time allows, I would love to do that. Do you have states in mind that you'd like to see? Not at the top of my head. I just know that some of the states were more comparable to the path we took in dealing with the pandemic than others. And if the numbers bear out the same for them as well. And you're especially interested in the women's share or the sector share. Yeah, I'm just curious because there's a huge difference in yes. I'll leave it at that. Yes, the women's share of the unemployment. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Representative Nigro. Thank you. My question might to some degree come from a similar place as the last one, but looking at the figures and talking about the sectors that have been impacted, it makes a lot of sense to me that women have been most impacted and are making such a large percentage. What I'm curious about is specifically why we're so much different than the rest of the country. Why the impact has been so much larger here. And I understand we might have a bigger restaurant and lodging industry and that might be some of it. Do you have any other insights about that? Is our percentage of workforce participation for women in Vermont typical? Is that pretty standard across the country? Or do we have a higher percentage in normal times in the workforce that are women? So what I remember is that we do have a higher labor force participation rate for women than many other states. I can't tell you exactly what the numbers are, but I do remember that it's higher. So that would account for a small piece. But even if you add all these pieces together, you can't explain 73% versus 50%. So something else is going on. Representative Kalaki. Thank you, Chair. And Joyce, looking, I'm still looking at your figure two that you just recently shared with us with the February and August 2019 by sector. Do you have the data yet for February and August 2020 to see how the pandemic shifted these by sector or not? The data do exist. I should warn you that the way the data are presented is by month.  There's no nice time series constitutional data set. So yes, I can look at 2020 and see how things were different. Yeah, I'm guessing the accommodation and food services sector would be shooting way up there. Yeah. And for my background in the arts, it seems that since the arts all shut down completely, February, that the arts sector will certainly change the numbers in the August numbers. And I just wondered if what else shifted? Okay. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions for Joyce? Chair Stevens, anything to add? Simply thank you, Joyce and committees for meeting. This is disturbing information on its face and I appreciate you diving down into it as best you can at this time. But it really gives I've never seen any figures like this or I've never seen such a disparity like this. And it really puts a picture on one of the pictures that we're dealing with in the pandemic. So thank you for putting it together. Thank you for sharing it with us. And I think we'll be able to use this as just as a really important touch point moving forward as we try to deal with the economic recovery. Representative Kimball. I'm only wondering, Joyce, if one of the charts we showed where the trends of men and women and the cycles and going through, which is very helpful. But then you talked about the numbers of the number of unemployed men as high as it would have been at this time of year in previous cycles or higher. I just wonder if you could, without much difficulty, you could tell me if it's too difficult, instead of percentage actual numbers, numbers for that particular so we can see what that looks like because the number of women unemployed versus the one number of men, that's where I think we'll see the huge departure. That would be great. That's a good idea. Thank you. And I should thank Representative Kimball. He actually asked questions that prompted me to do the charts in the addendum asking about the cyclical patterns of men and women's shares over time. So thank you for that. And yes, I grumbled while I was pulling down the data, but it turned out to be a pretty interesting set of charts. So thank you. Very informative. Okay, Representative Mulvaney Stannick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And this is just probably a newbie question as well, but I really appreciate all the work that JFO does to pull the numbers. And I wonder how legislators overlap policy, dates of policies being implemented and tried. So COVID relief funds, there were two waves in 2020 and one included relief money through businesses, of course, that's a small portion for women in minority or BIPOC owned. It was a very small portion. And just curious to me like how we can also bring that into the conversations to know this big piece of policy was tried. And then we saw the unemployment impacts within the next month or two just to line things up. And I don't know if that's a part that your office can offer. But as we look forward to the next wave of COVID relief funds and other policy changes, I think it would be helpful for me at least to align those to really be able to say, this made a meaningful impact or we didn't do much. We just were very general in the in COVID relief, for all sorts of reasons, general in the response. And we didn't target these kinds of populations and looking to other states too who've tried that because this is a really important thing for us to stay, in my opinion, say laser focused on because women are clearly experiencing the economic grunt of this pandemic. And we need to be responsive and strategic in how we do more recovery. Right. So that's a really interesting question. And I was listening to folks from ACCD talk about the economic recovery grants earlier this week in Senate economic development. And they revealed that they are working on a report that will come out, I believe in mid February, that will identify characteristics of businesses that received the economic recovery grants. So that I believe will identify women owners, I believe that they were they were asked the question. I believe the answer is yes. JFO doesn't have access to that information that was confidential to ACCD. So we won't be able to look at the data ourselves, but we'll be certainly interested in their report. Now regarding other programs like PPP, the big federal paycheck protection program. I don't know if ACCD has lots of information about characteristics of recipients. I simply don't know. So that's a good question to ask the ACCD folks, or maybe it's DOL that would have information. I don't know. Yeah. And I think within some of within the categories of grants, and especially when we had pots of money out for different organizations, and with the women owned and minority owned businesses, some of those were moved into the regular grants because they needed more help. So it's not going to give us a complete number, but it will give us some data on what we're looking for. Right. So I saw that Representative Byron just made a comment that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, might be a good place to look for some data on those questions as well. Yes. Anything else for Joyce? Stephanie? Representative Byron? I'm just a comment about the looking into the data of the programs that have already, and the grants that have already been provided. And a large part of those grants were not for sole proprietors, but that small portion of grants for women and minority owned businesses sole proprietors could apply for those. So it's going to be difficult data to sort out and to compare apples to apples and apples to oranges. It's just going to be a tough one, I think, doable, but it's not going to be straightforward. Right. So you're talking about the many buckets of different sources of help for businesses. Absolutely true. Yeah, it's going to be years before we have a complete picture, I think. Representative Kimball just cited a number of 42%. Would you like to talk about that? Sure. I believe ACCD in November, I believe, provided a report to the committees on economic development both the House and the Senate and which they reported geographic distribution, industry distribution, gender distribution, and also by race. So I'll hunt that down and share with this group so that you can have that information. That was before the final round of grants were made. So it's still preliminary, but that was for all the grants previously. So it's pretty good information you can see as to how it's distributed across different demographic sectors and size of business too. I had forgotten about that. So thank you. Anything else? I want to say thank you all for your comments. This is great and it's nice to know that people are really interested and I will investigate some of these ideas. It's very good. Thank you very much Joyce. We appreciate your work and joining us this morning and appreciate the General Housing Military Affairs Committee joining us. It actually lightens your load up a little bit Joyce by having our two committees join and I appreciate Chair Stevens asking to bring his committee in with us. I think anytime we have the opportunity to do that, I think we're better off because there's always questions that other committees may ask that we may not ask and I think we have some good information and some good discussions that we need to have to understand better how we can help our women employees. Tom? Yeah and just following up on that Chair Marcotte, I really appreciate you letting us crash your committee hearing today. I think the joint hearings are something to keep looking at, especially in our two committees where we deal with the same issue perhaps from a different side and you know but taking the time and really lessening the time needed from in this case, Joyce, to have to do the same presentation twice. This is something that I think is a real positive in Zoom Peelier here and so if we can you know share and not just on this issue but I think there are other issues that I'd like us to make sure that we keep those channels open through this as long as we have this technique. Why not? I agree. Thank you and thank you for having us. Thank you. Thanks once again Joyce. We appreciate it and thank you members for your input and your time and your good questions.


The first of the aspects or ingredients of our theology of science is that the Biblical edition affirms that our relationship with nature and our conceptual intellectual relationship with nature, as well as our practical one, go back to the dawn of human culture, dawn of writing, poetry, of thought. will have thought. We will be looking at examples we have seen, the birth of wisdom in that ancient poem from Proverbs 8. Let's just turn to the Psalm, momentarily, Psalm 104 is an important creation Psalm. Let's pick it up at verse 19, where it talks about the connectivity of the dynamics of the heavens to human cycles. dweud o'r cyfrifiadol, a dda'n ddfl hotsgo'r pyfyn. Dwi, twyd y bryd ddaf nhall, dwi'n sgrifennu, ac ddaf yn ddod a ddwch ar gerfodol y bydd hon i ddoch yn ni mwy o'r paru a dda i fyny'r rhywfyr ar gol. Hysb hyn o'r gwneud a ddw i'r peidiol, mae'n nhirion i'r ddaf i gymredu onsig. Yn'r rhain' yma gwybodaeth i allan, i gyd-gwybodaeth i gwellzi. How many are your work, O Lord.  We have there the conception of understanding of how the rhythms of the human and animal world are connected with the cosmic rhythms of moon and sun and earth.


What's going on everyone Sam here with late in sports cards. We're doing 2022 Don Russ elite football hobby three box break number three random teams Here's a look at your randoms As always you can find these on the website under the results tab as well as the Lincoln chat Here we go. I got chrome dust in my throat or something Yeah, right mom.  That's a filler to a tag-of-a-lo at a 399 Dolphins Omar on the back Desmond Ritter Falcons rookie elitist Jamison Williams to 999. There you go. Lions. That's elitist Lawrence Taylor going to the Giants He's got turn of the century as Nicoby Dean for the Eagles 30 out of 49 Louis L on the combo hit there followed by a Britton Brown for the Raiders for out of 24.  I like DJ Morris Yeah, I'll take one Thornton to 399 Patriots Moxie Trey Lance on the second year There you go Niners Congrats, Sam Fran Playmakers Herbert Garrett and Jay Jettus. 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