Yo, what's up YouTube? RealisticGaming here and I just want to give a huge shout out to everybody that was in the live stream yesterday It was super awesome and super fun as always playing some Roblox with you guys And yeah, I just want to say I appreciate you guys for being there and it was a fun time and big shout out to all of you guys All right, so today we are back on Panchito matrix channel and we're gonna be reacting to his Okay Bob as part of your promotion you'll take the graveyard shift Oh my god, my dream come true Yeah, the best part is you'll pay me 40 bucks for the shift dude. He has to pay to work. Aye aye captain Just be careful here The robots act very weird at this at these hours All right, so it seems like they have animatronics at the Krusty Krab SpongeBob doesn't need psyched anymore Dude, he told him he has to pay him to work With the security system I can watch every single room in the Krusty Krab Oh, so it's actually like FNAF and SpongeBob the security if you want to say Cool Creepy dude This will be very boring Hey, yo, why did the door just open and shut on itself? Looked like electrical faults I don't know SpongeBob Squidward's gone Where's SquidBob?  He's not Dude, he's in the kitchen. There it is Oh, that was terrifying Better keep watching Now the plankton one is gone Plankton's robot is missing dude.  Oh, that is creepy Yo, this might be one of the best like What What the heck was that Dude, what was that on the body just instantly just closed the door Okay, the power seemed like it came back on that's a good sign. Now the mr. Krabs robot There it goes another he's not even phased about it no more. He's like screw it.   Krabs It weighs her camera in the restroom to begin with Wait, how is he even pooping if he's a robot? Wait, what is that? Is that a newspaper? Wow, so you're just gonna spy on him SpongeBob. Come on Hot. Are you kidding me? Mr. Krabs shaking out the robot ladies Patrick's robot is gone. Oh man. This is getting out of control What? Why is Squidward twerking, bro? Wait, what? Just knocked them over These robots are getting weird. Yeah, they're getting freakishly weird, dude Okay Oh man It just seems like they're out of control now Hey, that's some good aiming Oh, man Where the heck comes those robots? Dude, they all just attacked SpongeBob at once and ate him Freddy Fazbear was watching it. That was weird. All right, so there is a part two.  We didn't we all know you killed him Small violin My money Of course he cares about his money Oh, man What's up, Karen Mr. Krabs is arrested and now you can roll bikini bottom. Yes, but I have to make up a plan You need to hire some personnel to work at Chumbucket first That's a good idea Dude so plankton was behind all of this.  I'm plankton. I know you're unemployed now Do you want to work at the Chumbucket? Oh, man. Yes, I do When should I start? Tonight at 7 p.m Wow, this guy's a genius. He just he's hiring all the extra employees from Cab 7 p.m Okay, Squidward all you gotta do is watch the Chumbucket during the night without sleeping. Okay plankton. I will Call me mr. Plankton. Remember. I'm your boss now Sorry, mr. Plankton There's a surveillance camera system at the next room go there and watch out for the Chumbucket Okay, I'm out of here. They say this place is creepy at night He just left He left him there by himself Oh, so now it's Squidward's turn. Okay. Let's take a look Oh, that is totally not creepy. Oh, it's uh the hat This will be very boring My robot is just as hot as me Wait, what's in that last box? It just moved. What the heck was that? I must be it must be my imagination I'm like rebooted seem like the generator is malfunctioning good thing this uh pc has a power supply Patrick is gone Where the heck did that Patrick robot go? He'll tell me he's gonna be in the restroom Okay, good There it is Why did he have a it it's face? Let's keep watching Plankton is gone This is not looking good Squidward You need to get out of there, man. I think it's so creepy. I'll go to an awful He just got jumpscared by his own robot Dude, he just keeps getting jumpscared. Shoot. I need help. Are you asleep, mr. Plankton? What's face? What else could I be doing at 2 a.m? The robots are acting very weird I'm on my way Oh, okay I wonder if he'll get there in time. Oh great. Now mr.  Dude, he just He's just cut him in half Please don't go in the restroom. Wait that last box is open That better be a SpongeBob one bro that box was sealed He's here banana. Oh, it's handsome Squidward Dude, you got SpongeBob's arm and plankton in there I knew it was a SpongeBob robot Just had to be I don't see any robots What's happening? Yo Squidward To your right Dude, how does he not see them? Wait someone Oh the SpongeBob Bob. I thought you were dead So, uh, did I? Sandy found my corpse and took me to her lab Through surgery and metalworks.   Let's get out of here. Let's get out of here, Squid Cool. Yes, get back here Whoa, that was pretty dope I did not expect SpongeBob to come back as a cyborg And have all those cool gadgets. All right, you guys well there I believe there's a part three and a part four. Let me know if you guys want to watch those parts We could definitely want to react to those later on Well, thank you guys for watching. Thank you guys for the support and I will catch you on the next one. Peace


Gleidio i fy friwr 35 am, oym ni ychydig i'w ddechrau i ddaligau boeddwn escribau yn ywindgaff연 y Llyfriddorol Cymru.  No points have been raised on the draft bus services improvement partnerships objections at Scotland regulations 2024. Is the committee content with this instrument? Agenda item number three, we're considering eight instruments subject to the negative procedure. No points have been raised on SSIs 2023, 364, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371 and 372. Is the committee content with these instruments? In relation to SSIs 2023, 364, does the committee wish to draw its correspondence with the Scottish Government to the attention of the criminal justice committee as it provides further information on how the instrument delivers the policy intention and on factors that are relevant to the Scottish Government's consideration of the compliance of the instrument with convention rights? In relation to SSIs 2023, 366, does the committee also wish to draw its correspondence with the Scottish Government to the attention of the criminal justice committee as this and the revised policy note, which resulted from the correspondence, clarifies the policy intention? Thank you and with that I'll move the committee into play.


The President of the United States. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. Clay and Jim Robinson, Senator Long, I appreciate this opportunity to join you in commemorating the 25 years of service of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. This office was organized in 1962, and maybe you've been told that already, to enable the Executive Office of the President to provide leadership and coordination in the conduct of our trade policies. I want to extend a personal word of congratulations to Clayton Yider for the terrific job that he's been doing, along with the rest of you, in championing the cause of free and fair trade among the nations. Clayton, I'm grateful for all you've done. The U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, the Uruguay Round Negotiations are two examples of the outstanding contributions you and your staff are making to achieve a more open world trading system. You've got a lean, mean fighting machine here, Clayton. All working Americans, as well as consuming Americans, rely on the talent and the dedication all of you put into your job. You've got a team of which to be proud. I understand that a new fellowship you've just been told about and I've just learned about has been established to provide advanced training for your U.S.-T.R. negotiators in honor of Senator Russell Lone. He served for 15 years as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and was always a champion of responsible trade policy. Senator, I hope our future negotiating team will be as tough and responsible as you always were. I heard a story recently about two fellows who were always on the same team. They played baseball together all the way from the sandlot games through high school and college and finally right into the major leagues and then tragically one of them died. It was about a month after the funeral and his buddy got a phone call, picked up the phone and heard his friend's voice and he said, what, is that you? And so he said, yes, don't be afraid, I just want to tell you what heaven is like. Well, he says, oh, okay, what's it like? Well, he says there's good news and bad news. He said, the good news is there's baseball up here. And he said, and I'm playing second base just like always. Well, he said, what's the bad news? Well, he said, you're slated to pitch this coming Tuesday. Well, there's bad news and good news about trade. Bad news is that the trade deficit remains far too high and we must remain absolutely diligent in our efforts to bring that deficit down. And that's the bad news. The good news is that solid progress has been made. The latest figures give us reason for hope, not reason to let up, mind you, but reason for hope. September figures released last week show both an $800 million increase in exports and an $800 million decrease in imports. The trade deficit dropped by $1.6 billion down to $14.1 billion, the best showing in four months. Manufactured exports were up a strong $1.1 billion. Progress against the trade deficit is taking place in a wide front and in every major trading market. The trade deficit with Japan dipped slightly, and it's still far from satisfactory, but better than the previous month's $4.9 billion high. At the same time, imports from European countries or the European common market, I should say, fell by $400 million while exports rose by $325 million. Perhaps one of the greatest misconceptions about today's economy is the idea that our country is no longer producing those products that somehow America's becoming deindustrialized. With a paraphrase marked twain, the reports of the death of America's industrial base have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, as a percentage of real gross national product, manufacturing has remained almost constant since 1960. Now, that's not to suggest stagnation. In fact, we've been living through a time of great change in American manufacturing. Foreign competition, which is one of the positive and indispensable roles such competition plays, has spurred on our domestic producers to improve quality, bring down costs, and to invest in state-of-the-art technology. One of the goals of our economic recovery program early in the administration was to encourage much-needed investment in America's manufacturing infrastructure in order to meet foreign competition.  Our working people are still the most productive in the world because they've got the modern tools and equipment needed to keep them competitive. In fact, worker productivity in manufacturing grew at an annual rate of nearly 5 percent since the recovery began. Now, that's the right way of protecting American jobs, and it seems to be working. Manufacturing output during this expansion has increased 37 percent, and while the service sector has grown faster, manufacturing has still moved forward. American profits are up, and those September figures tell us that manufactured exports are 20 percent higher than a year ago. These positive figures underscore the importance of sticking to a responsible program to bring down the trade deficit rather than succumbing to irrational calls for protectionism. This is especially true when the volatility of the stock market is all too apparent. How many times does it have to be repeated that the smooth, holly tariff helped bring on the Great Depression before the protectionists will back off? When I hear about some of the protectionist ideas floating around Capitol Hill, I can't help but recall a quote that is attributed to Yogi Berra, it's deja vu all over again. Well, we're not about to let anything that will destroy our country's economic well-being happen all over again. I recently received a letter co-signed by 38 members of the Senate pledging to oppose enactment of economy killing protectionist legislation. Now, that's the kind of letter I enjoy getting from Capitol Hill. What we must do now, and much of this falls on your shoulders, is make certain that our manufacturers get as fair a shake overseas as importers get here. Now is the time to be opening markets and hammering out agreements that will increase the flow of trade and not restrict it. So we're all counting on you to be aggressive in promoting the interest of our country and in furthering the cause of an open and fair trading system. All I can say is I have absolute confidence in you and I appreciate the fine work that you're doing. I couldn't help but see when I came in some signatures up there, and I can't resist an opportunity to autograph. I will. I have to tell you all that one of the reasons why I'm so anxious to do that was back in those days when I was in show business. I was on Fifth Avenue in New York walking down the street, and a man about 30 feet ahead of me coming this way stopped, pointed, and he yelled, I know you, I see you all the time on its screen and on television, and he starts toward me, well you know New Yorkers, they all kind of stood back on the street, everybody stopped, and he came down the lane between him, reaching in his hand pocket for a pen and paper, and he's talking all the time and he gets there to me, sticks out the paper, and the pen and says Ray Milland. Thank you all and God bless you.


Income tax 2022-2023, lifetime learning credit tax software example. Let's do some wealth preservation with some tax preparation. Here we are in our example Form 1040, populated with LASERT tax software. You don't need tax software to follow along, but it's a great tool to run scenarios with. You can also get access to the Form 1040 related forms and schedules at the IRS website, irs.gov, irs.gov. Starting point, we got the single filer Mr. Anderson living in 90210 Beverly Hills, W-2 income 100,000, standard deduction 12,950, taxable income 87,050, tax calculation then at the 14774. We're not going to have any withholdings because we're just going to be concentrating on the tax calculation at this time. We're now looking at the education. Credits specifically of the lifetime learning credit. Remembering that when we're thinking about these education credits, we will typically first see if we can qualify for the American Opportunity Credit because the credit is generally a higher credit, but it's more restrictive to qualify for it. And if we can't qualify for that, we're going to focus then on the lifetime learning credit, which is our point of focus. Support Accounting Instruction by clicking the link below, giving you a free month membership to all of the content on our website, broken out by category, further broken out by course. Each course then organized in a logical, reasonable fashion, making it much more easy to find what you need than can be done on a YouTube page. We also include added resources such as Excel practice problems, PDF files and more like QuickBooks backup files when applicable. So once again, click the link below for a free month membership to our website and all the content on it this time. You will also generally get a tuition statement form 1098T from the Educational Institution, the college box one saying payments received for qualified tuition and related expenses. This usually being the baseline number to figure the qualifying expenses to calculate the education credits, whether that be the American Opportunity Credit or Lifetime Learning Credit. However, also realized that this form is going to the IRS. It's similar to a W-2 form reporting wages from an employer, which is also going to the IRS. But this box one here might not tie out exactly to the expenses that you're going to be using to calculate the credit because it might differ depending on your circumstances. Unlike with a W-2 form where the box one, which is the federal gross income, pretty much better match what's on the tax return or the IRS will probably have an issue with it. In this case, the IRS wants to have the form even if this box one doesn't tie out exactly to the expenses used to calculate the credit because at least this form tells the IRS that you did indeed go to college verifying it with this third party form. Alright, and then we got box four adjustments made for prior year. Box five scholarship or grants, which would have to be taken into consideration, possibly being reducing the number of qualified expenses to calculate the credit. Adjustments to scholarship or grants for prior year. Check if the amount in box one includes amounts for an academic period beginning January, March, 2024. That's that cut off kind of situation. So you paid for it in this case in 2023 in our case in 2022, but the college doesn't start until the next period of the following year. And then check if at least half time student. That's going to be a qualification that will take people out of qualifying for American opportunity credit, but you may still qualify for the lifetime learning credit. Check if a graduate student that will also oftentimes make you ineligible if you're a graduate student, meaning you've already done the first four years of college for college for the American opportunity credit, but you might still qualify for the lifetime learning credit and then insurance contract reimbursement and so on. Alright, so given that information, let's go back on over and let's add a education item. Alright, so the data input, I'm going to say it's for the taxpayer. And we're going to say these are items that will basically disqualify us for the most part for the American opportunity credit, which will default us to the lifetime learning credit. Let's first start with the American opportunity credit so we can compare and contrast it to the lifetime learning credit. We've got cool you that's where we went to school and this is the federal ID number. And then we've got the amount of the $4,000 and we'll keep it at that. So this 4,000 of qualified expenses is the maximum amount which will cap out the credit for the American opportunity credit, but not for the lifetime learning credit. So let's check it out. So if I go to the forums then nothing happened because of because if I go to page two, no credit happened because we're over the threshold for the income threshold for a single filer. Therefore, I'm going to bring the income down a bit. Let's bring the income down to like 75,000 for example. And then back on over and we're going to say, okay, now we're at 75,000 minus 12,950 gets to taxable income 62,050 page number two tax 9,274. And there's this is the credit 1,500. This is the American opportunity credit, not the lifetime learning credit, the other educational credit. And then 1,000 is the refundable portion of that credit as we discussed in a prior presentation. Now, if I go then to form 8863, we could see the calculation, the refundable American opportunity credit. You have the refundable part of it, the 1,000 and the non-refundable part down below. If I go to page number two, we see in essence, the information sheet to basically tell us whether we're looking at the American opportunity credit or the lifetime learning credit. Okay, so now let's pull it over and say that one of these things don't qualify so I can't get the American opportunity credit. So the non-qualifying factors include student was not enrolled in a screenwriting class. Gold at least half time for at least one academic period that began in 2022. So if that was the case, if I check that out off, we're going to say, all right, now it took us from the American opportunity credit to the lifetime learning credit. So that's what I mean about the American opportunity credit being a bigger credit, but more restrictive to bring us down to the lifetime learning credit. Now if I go then to page one, we can see the calculations is only calculating for the non-refundable education credits, which includes the lifetime learning credit and the credit amount is far less. If I go to the form 1040 page number two, we can see what's being pulled in here at the 800. There is no non-refundable portion for the lifetime learning credit as there is for the American opportunity credit. So we have a much smaller credit with that $400 amount. So notice if I go back on over and I increase this amount, if to max out the credit, I would need 10,000 of expenses, qualified education expenses to max out the credit to max out at 2,000. If I go back on over and I add more expenses beyond that 15,000, it's not going to go up any higher because it's been maxed out. So you need the 10,000 of the lifetime learning to max out at the 2,000 maximum credit as opposed to the American opportunity credit where you can max it out with 4,000 expenses, the maximum being 2,500. All right, let's go back on over to the education credits here and just note that if I check off any of these other boxes, same kind of thing, if I uncheck that one and then check this one, student completed first four years of post-secondary education. So they already basically did the undergraduate stuff and now they're like a graduate student, which could be indicated on this form here where it says that they're a graduate student. So this is the one they check off if they didn't do the half-time student. So that might be informed to you on the tuition statement. Check if a graduate student, meaning they've already done the first four years of education. So then once again, they would be at the lifetime learning credit. If I uncheck that, you could tell because if I uncheck that, now we're at the 1,000 plus the 1,500, which would be 2,500 as opposed to the 2,000. So let's go and check this one. Student was convicted before the end of 2022 of a felony for possession of distribution of controlled substance. So they put that one in there so that would disqualify you for the American opportunity, but not the lifetime learning. And then this one, you could force the lifetime learning credit here. So let's go back to the top one, just check one off. Now also note that down here with the tuition and fees, it's more restrictive on the tuition and fees. So it's more likely with the lifetime learning credit that the information to calculate the credit will basically be on the 1098T because books and things like that that you need to be purchasing for the lifetime learning credit basically have to be paid to the institution and be required to be done so. And therefore that's why this one books and supplies only for the American opportunity credit, the AOC, not the lifetime learning credit in that situation. So it's actually more restricted in terms of the expenses that can qualify towards this dollar amount, which would cap at the $10,000 than the American opportunity credit, although the lifetime learning credit is more broad in being able to qualify to at least take the credit. Also note that if you've got a scholarship or something like that that was tax free, then you didn't pay any taxes on it, which would be reported in scholarships and grants. Then you might have to basically reduce this number by the amount of scholarship and grants. And the general idea to my mind on the rationale for that is that the scholarship and grants, if they're not subject to income tax, then you'd be double dipping if you also got the credit with it. But also just realize that if you have a situation where you could include it in income and if you could include it in income and get the credit, sometimes the credit might outweigh the fact that you didn't have to include something in income. So you want to kind of keep that factor in mind. Let's actually do an example so you can see what I'm talking about here. So I'm going to change the income to $35,000. So we've got $35,000 of income, $12,950 standard deduction, $22,050 taxable income, Page 2 calculated the tax to $444. We've got the education credit coming in at $2,000. So that leaves us with the $444 of tax. Now let's imagine that we got a grant. If we got the grant of like $7,000, let's say, well then if the $10,000 were my education expenses and it was tax-free, then I may have to reduce the $10,000 by the $7,000. And so now if I go back on over, I would only got $600 of the lifetime learning credit, right? But I got the benefit of not having to include the $7,000 in income. So that's good. So now I still have the same income number, but I don't get to include the full $10,000 that was paid because part of it was from money that was like free money. So but then the question is, well, what if I was to include it in income? Can I include it? What if I was able to include it in income? Would the credit outweigh the benefit that I got from not including it in income because credits are worth more than a deduction, even though it's not a one-to-one situation here because we're calculating the credit based on the expenses. So it's not like a dollar versus a credit versus a dollar deduction. We're using those expenses to calculate the credit. I'd need $10,000 to get a $2,000 credit, right? So we can say, okay, well, does that make sense? Let's write this down. I'm going to say, well, it's starting off here. It would be at $600. And my tax is at the 1-844-1844. And let's imagine then we're going to say, okay, now let's imagine that I'm going to include this 7,000 in income if I could, and then get the full 10,000 of a credit. So now I'm going to get the 10,000 of expenses, which will calculate up to the full maximum $2,000 of a credit instead of $600 of a credit. But I have to include 7,000 in income to do that, let's say. So now I included 7,000 in other income just for the purpose of the example here. So we had 35,000. Now the money was no longer free. I'm going to say I included it in income to get me at the 42,000. So that's not good for taxes, because now that's going to increase my taxable income after the standard deduction. We're at the 29,050 taxable income, page two, calculating the tax at $3,284. But now instead of a $600 credit, if I can get that full $10,000 of expenses, I can maximize the credit at $2,000. So now the credit would be at $2,000 after this, and the tax is at the 1,284. So 1,284. So we have a difference of this, right? So it's kind of confusing as to whether or not it would be beneficial. I have embarked on a beneficial friend. To do that, but sometimes you want to kind of keep that in mind and see if it would be possible to basically calculate something towards the credit versus getting basically the equivalent of a deduction if it wasn't included in income. All right, let's look at the income threshold. So if I go back on over here, note that if the income goes up above $90,000, then the credit's going to disappear, right? So if I bring my income up and I go from, if I go into like the 80,000s, then I still have the 2,000. If I go anywhere over 80, it's going to start to phase out 85,000. It starts to phase out. And then if I get to the 90,000, then the credit is gone. Those numbers are in essence doubled. So when you get to 180,000 if married filing joint, that's when the credit basically disappears for the married filing joint. On the other side, if I bring things lower, if I say my income was like 20,000 and I go back on over, that means page one, we've got our 20,000. So we only have, after the standard deduction, 7,050 taxable income, page number two, we only have a tax of $708. So the credit wipes out the tax, but I don't get any of that refundable portion. So there's no refundable portion of the lifetime learning credit as there is for the American Opportunity Credit. If I was to go back on over, for example, and say, what if I qualified for the American Opportunity Credit? Then it would take me to zero and I'd still get that $1,000 refundable portion to it. So there's the income thresholds. Let's go back to the lifetime learning credit and let's bring the income back to like 75,000, 75,000. Now let's imagine that Mr. Anderson is a head of household filer with a dependent, John Anderson here, who is going to school. So the dependent now being the person who's going to be qualifying for the credit. So same basic scenario, 75,000 this time, 19,400, because now we're assuming head of household as opposed to 12,950 single gets the taxable income, 55,600 page number two, 6,382 on the tax. And we get, of course, the 2000 of the credit. We're still maximizing the credit out, assuming the $10,000 of qualified expenses, but not for the taxpayer this time, but rather a dependent. Now if you add another dependent, notice there's a maximum of the lifetime learning credit. So I can't have another dependent claim the lifetime learning credit. Let's check that out. But we can have another dependent claiming the American opportunity credit. So now I'm going to have Jane in here also going to the same school. Let's say that she doesn't qualify for the American opportunity credit, but she does qualify for the lifetime learning credit and the tuition is 10,000 again to max it out for Jane. So if I go back on over, no, no difference, no change, nothing happened because we can only have one of them qualify per basically return. So we're still maxed out of the 2000. But if I was to say that Jane qualified for the American opportunity credit, then I'm going to go back on over now. We have a substantial difference on page number two. It's at the 3500 here and the 1000. So again, if I if I change it so she doesn't qualify lifetime learning, you only get one lifetime learning per back to 2000 per return. But if I was to kick it up to allow her for the American opportunity credit, now you've got one lifetime learning credit, one American opportunity credit, not for the same student. However, not for the same expenses. So you got to apply the expenses per social security number, one credit per social security number, American opportunity credit. You can have multiple people claiming that, but the lifetime learning credit, you're limited to one lifetime learning credit per return, which is kind of strange. But we're going to go back on over so you can see the calculations here. And then on page number two, this is kind of like the questionnaire that helps you to see whether or not you qualify for which other which credit. So did the student receive a form 1090 80 generally you should have had to receive that. Did the student receive 1090 80 from this institution for 2021 enter the institution's employer identification number, which you need at least for the American opportunity credit has the American opportunity credit been claimed for this student. For any for prior tax years. If no, then that would be good you could still claim the American opportunity if yes you go to the lifetime learning was the student enrolled at least half time for at least one academic period and so on. If yes, you may be able to do the American opportunity if no stop go to line because you're going to go to the lifetime learning. Did the student complete the first years four years of post secondary education and you can see this one on the second one here. That will in any case that's going to be another requirement for whether they get the American opportunity credit or not. What's the student convicted of the felony and so on. And then down below you could see it's going to lifetime learning in this case. Page number two. You can see it's going to the American opportunity and that information is what's pulling on to page one where we have the refundable portion of the American opportunity so it's not broken out specifically to make American opportunity versus lifetime learning. It's the refundable portion of the American opportunity and then the non refundable education credits includes the non refundable part of the lifetime of the American opportunity credit and the lifetime learning credits the general idea.


Queensland's State of the Environment report, or SOE, presents a comprehensive picture measuring the extent and condition of Queensland's environmental assets and pressures facing these assets. The report is a legislative requirement under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 and the Coastal Protection and Management Act 1995 and is updated every two years. This is the seventh report for Queensland and the second to be published in a web-based format. It's a snapshot of the current state of Queensland's environment. It's been compiled as an interactive web-based product based around five major themes, biodiversity, heritage, pollution, climate and human settlements. To provide the comprehensive level of reporting required, each of these themes is divided into sub-themes. Biodiversity has four sub-themes. Heritage has three. Pollution has four. Climate has two. And human settlements has one. Each of these sub-themes reports on the extent and condition of that particular environmental asset and the key pressures it faces. The actions taken to protect, maintain and restore environmental assets are reported on in the SOE summary and management responses document. Let's take a closer look at the five themes. You can navigate through the website at your own speed to find the theme or themes you're most interested in. Queensland's biodiversity is reported on under four sub-themes. Terrestrial ecosystems, freshwater wetland ecosystems, estuarine and marine ecosystems, and species and habitat. Biodiversity simply means the variety of life, the plants, animals, microorganisms, the enormous diversity of genes in these species and the different ecosystems found here in our state. So why do we report on biodiversity? A healthy biodiversity is essential to provide ecosystem services. That is the benefits provided by ecosystems that contribute to making human life both possible and worth living. Equally, we protect nature simply because of its intrinsic value. We all have a responsibility to protect it now and for future generations. The three heritage sub-themes discussed in the report are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Historic and World. It's important that Queensland's unique heritage places, its rich Indigenous history and five World Heritage properties are protected and recorded for future generations. These buildings, objects and sites of cultural and environmental significance represent important places and experiences of the people who came before us. Pollution affects us all. It impacts the environment, our health and results in economic costs. The pollution theme is separated into the following sub-themes, air quality, water quality, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. All forms of pollution can cause harm to native species and their habitat and impact on the scenic amenity of Queensland's natural areas. Air quality is considered a measure of the purity of the atmosphere and an indicator of a community's well-being. Water quality is defined by its physical, chemical, biological and aesthetic characteristics. A healthy environment is one in which water quality supports a rich and varied community of organisms and protects public health. Water quality in a body of water influences the way in which communities use water for activities, such as drinking, swimming or commercial purposes. The waste sub-theme discusses five waste types. Household, construction and demolition, commercial and industrial, litter and illegal dumping and trackable waste. The volume of waste landfill, recovered or recycled, is further analysed. The economic, environmental and social costs associated with waste generation and disposal are also discussed here as a sub-theme. Because greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming, it's important too that it be reported on. It becomes the fourth sub-heading under pollution. Queenslanders are concerned about climate change and their strong public interest in taking action. This sub-theme is separated into seven sectors. Stationery energy, transport, agriculture, land use, land use change and forestry, industrial processes, fugitive emissions and waste. Climate is the fourth major theme of the State of the Environment report and has two sub-themes, climate observations and coasts and oceans. Queensland's climate is strongly influenced by seasonal variations, such as the location and intensity of the summer monsoon and year-to-year fluctuations in the global climate system related to the El Nino Southern Oscillation phenomenon. Climate is linked to the oceans and it should be remembered that much of the weather experienced on land has its origins over the oceans. Monitoring sea surface temperatures around Queensland is important in terms of extreme events, such as the number, formation and development of tropical cyclones and east coast lows. Warmer than average sea surface temperatures increase the risk of these events. Changes in the coupling of the global ocean climate systems are already having substantial and important ramifications for the world's coasts and oceans. Human settlements is the fifth major theme of the State of the Environment report and has one sub-theme, urban. Human settlements are a major driver of environmental change, putting pressure on the natural environment. This theme focuses on urban settlements, which are home to the majority of Queenslanders. The way population growth and expansion occurs can affect our communities and quality of life. It can also cause changes in land use, not just in urban areas, but also in adjacent rural locations. The next update of this report will be released in 2020 and will include rural settlements. Information in the report will help the community, industry and government work towards improving environmental management and the sustainable use of our environmental efforts. Queensland's web-based State of the Environment report has been compiled around five major themes. Explore, Share, Learn. Queensland's State of the Environment report is more than just a report. It's a resource.


Welcome to our internet audience to today's installment of the women and gender performance lecture series. My name is Melissa Craddock. I'm curator at the body museum. Before I introduce today's speaker, I'd like to invite my colleague associate curator, Brooke Norton to read a statement on behalf of the museum. We would like to begin by acknowledging that Berkeley, California is on the territory of the Hoot Shoon, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenye alone. We respect the land and the people who have steward it throughout many generations, and we honor their elders both past and present. We're living in a moment that warrants deep reflection on our past and present across across many global contexts, equal access to health care, education, fair wages and human rights is contested on the basis of sex and gender identity. To bring to light these timely issues to serve a broader public audience online, and to connect to the local community that it serves. The museum is taking action to become a more inclusive, welcoming and equitable institution that practices the philosophy of radical inclusion adopted by its parent institution, Pacific School of Religion. One of these steps is the creation of public programming. In the future series, we hope to highlight new and established scholars who are engaging with risky marginalized topics concerning women, gender performance and sexuality in the past. We invite you to participate in these programs that so that together, we can listen, learn and work towards creating a more inclusive museum community. Thank you for joining us today. It's now my pleasure to introduce today's speaker. Pratima Gopala Krishna is the Provost Early Career Fellow in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. She's a historian of late antique near Eastern Jewish communities. Her current research focuses on labor and the household and the interconnections of agricultural and domestic economies. She received her PhD in religious studies from Yale University with a certificate in women's gender and sexuality studies. In fall 2022, she was an educational and cultural affairs junior research fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. The title of her talk is domestic labor and status in the late ancient Near East. Dr. Gopala Krishna, the floor is yours. Hello everyone. Thank you so much to the Bade Museum and in particular to Dr. Brody and Dr. Craddick for inviting me to participate in this lecture series. I have been a viewer and an admirer of the museum's previous lecture series. So it is an honor to be included in this year's wide ranging program on women and gender performance in the ancient Middle East. As Dr. Craddick just explained, I am a historian who works on the late antique Near East and I work a lot with a corpus of Jewish texts known as rabbinic texts, as well as material culture. And some of my recent research also addresses itself to early medieval textual and documentary evidence, in particular the Cairo Geniza. For today's talk, I am focusing on gender and labor in Roman era Palestine during the first few centuries CE. I would like to introduce you to a text that exemplifies some of the challenges of talking about gender and labor in the ancient Middle East. Because it indulges our ideas about women's work or what we might call domestic labor as static and unchanging over time, as a backdrop to social and economic transitions, rather than as a shaper of those transitions. And that's a habit of thinking that I'm really hoping to shift. I'm going to argue that once we set aside any pretenses to using this text to reconstruct daily life as such, we can actually say quite a bit about how the economic value of free and enslaved women's work may have shaped familial and social relationships, both within and beyond the household. For me, it all started with this list, which I will now read out to you, and perhaps it may even be familiar to some of you. These are the labors that a wife performs for her husband. She grinds, she bakes, she washes, she cooks, she nurses her child, she prepares the bed and she works in wool. If she brought him one enslaved woman in her dowry, she does not grind or bake or wash. Two, and she does not cook, and she does not nurse her child. Three, and she does not make the bed. Four, and she sits in an easy chair. Rabbi Eliezer said, even if she brought him 100 enslaved women, he may compel her to work in wool, because idleness leads to lewdness. Rabbi Shimon Ben-Gamliel said, a man who takes a vow preventing his wife from doing labors must divorce her and give her her ketuba, that's a marriage settlement, because idleness leads to dullness. This is from a second century CE rabbinic Jewish composition known as the Mishnah, and right away you might notice a few things about this text. First is this interchange of labors between the wife and the enslaved women she brings in her dowry. The text presents a highly stylized account of how wealth and status affect a woman's relationship to labor. With the wife being released from more and more labors as she brings more enslaved women in her dowry. Second is this construction that the wife does these labors for her husband. This turns the husband into the recipient of the wife's work, and it makes the husband wife relationship, the spouse relationship central to the construction of the household. So in practice households may have taken a lot of different forms that may not have had necessarily both spouses living for instance. The text also makes the husband into the sole recipient of the labor even though in practice, he would presumably not be the direct or sole beneficiary for labors like cooking, baking, breastfeeding and so on. Third is that the list itself is presented in an anonymous editorial voice, but then we have these specific opinions attributed to these two sages Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Shimon van Gomel. In particular Rabbi Eliezer says that spinning wool is labor that a woman cannot escape no matter how many enslaved women she brings in her dowry. These are all things that we could talk about in great detail, I have written about them in other places, I'm happy to discuss them further but for today's talk. I want to focus on the list of labors itself. This might seem like a strange choice. After all the list feels like the kind of vaguely plausible collection of tasks that a woman might do. There's much more to say than that. This is a good place to pause and talk about this text the Mishnah and these people the rabbis. In the wake of two failed revolts and from 66 to 70 CE and from 132 to 135 CE. In the wake of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, Jewish society in the newly reorganized Roman province of Syria Palestine underwent a series of political, economic, social and religious transformations. In the face of these changing political and social regimes, several diffuse reactions may have emerged among sub elite Jewish populations of Roman Palestine. The plastic tradition retroactively referred to as the rabbinic movement was one such emergence, at least during the first few centuries CE, the rabbis were a group of marginal importance in ancient Jewish society. They enjoyed very little formally recognized authority as a group or individually beyond beyond the kind of their their own circles. Nevertheless, it is clear from their work that they see daily life as a worthy and urgent topic of interpretation so they're addressing themselves to a much wider range of of society and a wider range of topics than what their their reach might suggest in in actuality. This is the context for the circa 200 CE emergence of the mission, which is often called the first rabbinic book. The mission is not, it's not a law code, it's not a law collection. We might describe it as a compilation of opinions akin to the digest. As we just saw the mission of renders opinions, both in the anonymous voice of the editor and in the voices of individual named sages. In addition to these statements that also contains lists, disputes, anecdotes, biblical exegesis descriptions of rituals, especially associated with the defunct temple cult and much more. And then a note on the thematic organization of the mission of the mission is divided into six sections or orders on overarching topics like agriculture festivals women, civil damages and so on. These orders are then divided into track dates on topics such as the Yom Kippur ritual of the high priest practices of Shabbat and the holidays marriage contracts divorce and manumission documents and much more. Although the mission draws on build the material to frame its treatment of these very topics. The material itself is organized alongside organized along thematic rather than canonical lines. This thematic ordering cast along shadow in kind of the history of Jewish interpretation because the mission and a roughly contemporary compilation known as the Tosefta became the object of iterative study and commentary. And this process of study, much of it was oral resulted in the compilation of two Talmudim, the Palestinian Talmud or your your shami and the Babylonian Talmud or the Bob Lee. And along with various works of Midrash, a form of biblical interpretation spanning from the third century to the ninth century CE. These works all together make up what is referred to as the classical rabbinic corpus. The mission exhibits a few features that contribute to its textual character and that also shaped the methodological challenges inherent in reading these texts. The text makes virtually no reference to contemporary historical events. On the other hand it is shot through with historical memory. This is clearest in all the track dates pertaining to the defunct temple cult. The mission is also clearly produced by and for an insider audience so it generally does not offer a programmatic discussion of any topic, but instead assumes a readership that is familiar with the, with their terms and can jump right into the middle of a discussion. These peculiarities mentioned up to now shape the horizon of what kinds of questions one may ask about that list of labors that I began with. On the one hand, the mission is an underappreciated text for the social and economic history of the late ancient Near East. On the other hand, there are challenges in reading it because it resists easy historical contextualization, and this list of labors is no different. The labors halfway through a track day on marriage and the rabbis do not define the term that they use for labors, they use this term Malachot, they don't define what they don't explain kind of what this list denotes. The rabbis had little influence beyond their immediate circles so this text can't really be understood as carrying anything even remotely akin to legal force in ancient Jewish society or in actual households. However, the significance of this text doesn't depend on our ability to determine whether or not it was somehow implemented in people's households. And this is where I find it really helpful to look to kind of borrow from Marion Holmes cats who works on early Islamic juristic texts and has written about domestic labor in that context, writes about a very similar methodological challenge and says that we must use the terminology and logic of these texts as objects of inquiry in their own right, rather than as imperfectly transparent media for the reconstruction of realities beyond the text. And so it was in some ways the trite nature of the list that drew me to it. The list reads like the kind of thing that could be as true for medieval Iraq as for ancient Egypt. And in truth, our ideas of domestic labor tend to look that way, timeless and unchanging. As someone interested in gender and labor. I wanted to see if I could historicize this list if I could make sense of these choices and situated against its will perhaps in a specific place and time. Here's what I will not be able to do. I will not be able to explain or psychologize why the compilers of this text chose these seven specific labors or why they put them in this particular order. There are certainly many theories about what the order of tasks means. One of them is that perhaps the latter tasks like breastfeeding and making the bed 10 more intimate perhaps than the earlier ones like grinding or baking spinning wool which again is the last item in the list is obviously, you know it has a special place in this list. And it's also special because according to Rabbi Eliezer at least a woman cannot be released from it no matter how wealthy she is. So all these theories about the order of the of the labors say important thing to have merit they say important things about the different kinds of physicality involved in these labors the different demands that they make on someone's person or time. But my goal here is not to provide the definitive explanation of the organizing principle behind this list. In part because I'm not sure that such a principle exists. Here's what I can tell you, for all of its fascinating choices. This list of housework is not sweet generous. Atomic juristic discussions of wives labor also often contain enumerations of what these labors might consist of. So one passage defines indoor work or I'll hit my partner as meeting bread, cooking, sweeping spreading bedding, drawing water, if she has it and all of the housework. The other one references grinding flour, cooking food, making flower up have a something out of order here. But the slide has a correctly spinning weaving meeting bread cooking and sweeping and then the other one is grinding flour cooking food, making, making the bed that should say attending the house which is sweeping it out and spreading out the bedding. The list I began with is not even the only list of labors. It's not even the only list of Malachi within the mission itself. The list of a wife's Malachi comes from a track date about marriage, but another track date on Shabbat contains an equally enigmatic list of 39 Malachi that one may not perform on Shabbat. Here they are the 39 labors I'm not going to read all of them out. But you can see here that, you know, they are clustered around particular they're kind of live various tasks involved in the process of, of baking a loaf of bread, starting growing and threshing and grinding all the way up meeting and baking. This one is these are kind of clustered around the process of making a garment. So, again, there are theories about what this list of 39 means where does it come from. But, you know, as we can see here there's no kind of immediate association with certainly not with women specifically, nor with, nor with the household. So, the list of seven also felt vague and inadequate to the mission as own earliest readers so I have a text here from the to sefta, which is that companion compilation that I mentioned, which sometimes comments on the mission and sometimes includes material not preserved in the mission. And you can see here that these earliest readers so they actually quote the mission that they say labors at the wife does for her husband that's in the mission. Well, it's not actually comprehensive they just didn't name the other pattern you know there's obviously more than this they just didn't name everything else they just named the seven. So, rather than look at our list of labors from from to vote as a vague but plausible enumeration of what wives might do. Instead of looking at it as this a historical but ultimately unobjectionable list of women's work. I want us to understand this vague possibility as a key characteristic of lists of housework. In fact scholars of housework have noted even in modern empirical context that when housework as a concept is is ill defined one of the ways that it is, it is operationalized is is in this kind of list form is rendered into this list form. And these lists of housework often retain an unfocused quality, even as their individual contents are often taken as self evident and their choices about what to put in and what to leave out. But there's no, there's no attempt to kind of define housework as a category. This is where we come to the inherent difficulty of defining this thing that we might call domestic labor. When socialist feminists of the 1960s and 1970s, posited that something called domestic labor could be theorized. One of their key insights had to do with understanding the household as a site of production. This entailed approaching housework and childcare as labor processes and asking questions about the nature of these processes. How or if they created value and what this value was. It also entailed thinking about the relationship between production and reproduction and thinking about how domestic labor was key to the process of reproducing labor power. These discussions of domestic labor were enlightening in many respects but they also raised some puzzles. One puzzle was whether the category of domestic labor ought to include childbearing and childcare. This is fundamentally also a question about how to define reproduction. So is reproduction simply the biological act of procreation or is it in fact all the activities required for the maintenance of daily life, kind of necessary for social reproduction. And while these critiques identified the societal need for domestic labor and then showed how these needs were met by women's work. It did not succeed in explaining why specifically it was women associated with this labor, nor did it really account for how human agency played into this increasingly abstract process. The other puzzle for me is the use of domestic labor as a concept when talking about the ancient world. In other words, how well does this concept travel. The Mishnah uses the term Malachol, which as I just mentioned has no particular association with either homes or women. The Islamic sources use this term al-khidmalatatina, which is translated as indoor work. I have also used, you know, referred to this, referred to this list as a list of wives work, women's work, housework and so on. None of these terms are perfect, but all of them play a heuristic purpose because they each get at part of the issue in defining this concept. When I refer to domestic labor, I am placing this labor implicitly within a domestic realm, whether that's work done physically in the house, but then what exactly is a house. Or perhaps it's defined as work that is done for domestic use. When I refer to wives work in this list, when it says these are the ways that a wife does for her husband, it's placing this labor within a particular web of familial relationships. And when I refer to women's work, I'm placing this concept within kind of ideologies of gender and propriety. My question for the remainder of this talk is, how can the contents of this list of this Mishnahiq list help us theorize domestic labor better for the late ancient Near East. And I would like to answer this question by focusing on the first item from the list, namely grinding green. The reason for that is that the work of grinding green is rooted in domestic production, and it can show us that what we think of as domestic labor or wives work was not work that that we need to rescue from the obscurity of unpaid work. Instead, we're dealing with a time before this work was artificially separated from the market and made part of a private realm. In other words, we're dealing with the time before domestic labor became domestic labor. In order to appreciate why grinding green was an industry rooted in domestic production. Let's discuss some of the technological changes in grain processing that were happening during the first millennium CE and the Eastern Mediterranean. Beginning as early as the Neolithic period and for several millennia thereafter, the predominant category of tool for processing grain was the saddle corn. The most common version of this consisted of a lower rectangular stone and an upper rubbing stone, not unlike a rolling pin that was moved back and forth to crush the grain or the other item. The last few centuries BCE, however, saw the development of several more efficient milling technologies that changed the face of grain processing in the region. Three new styles of mills began appearing in the Levant as early as the Hellenistic period, but most became well established in Palestine during the first few centuries CE. First was a lever mill that came to be named the Hopper rubber or the Olympus mill. There are several morphologies and types for this mill, but one standard type consists of rectangular lower and upper stones. And the upper stone contains a rectangular depression with sloping sides that ends in a slit through which the grain is fed. And the upper stone is connected, is attached to a wooden rod, and the lever movement of the rod is what made the operation of the Olympus mill possible. And one end of the lever was either fixed to a vertical pin or we have some in situ examples where it was actually attached to a niche in the wall. So again, you could move it by, you could operate the mill by moving the lever in an arc motion. The Olympus mill originated in the East, maybe in Greece or Anatolia, but the rotary mill on the right here seems to have originated in the Western Mediterranean at around the same time. The rotary mill also consists of two stones with a hopper mechanism in the upper stone, but the two stones are round in shape and the mill is operated through a circular movement rather than a lever movement. The rotary mill was much slower to move east, and it seems that the Olympus mill remained dominant in the Levant throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods. And then I should also mention here the simultaneous use of the Olympus mill and the rotary mill may have led to the development of the Pompeian mill or the donkey mill, which archaeologists first encountered in Sicily. This mill has a conical lower stone, which you can see in the back of this picture here and then this hourglass shaped upper stone. And this mill could be powered by a draft animal so it was several magnitudes more powerful than the Olympus mill. Although the first three centuries CE saw a great deal of technological change in mill types in Palestine, the history of milling is not a straightforward one about progressively more efficient mills replacing earlier manual technologies. Nor is it a story of women's household work turning into professionalized men's work. This is partly, you know, partly borne out by the fact that rotary mills become popular and remain popular long after the more powerful Pompeian mills are available. But for the for the first few centuries CE were really mostly dealing with Olympus mills and then occasionally Pompeian mills in urban context or the continued use of old fashioned saddle corns in rural contexts. Olympus mills exemplify how what we label as commercial baking was born of domestic production. Although grinding stones and archaeological context are usually found in secondary use, the few in C2 examples of mills illustrate the difficulty of distinguishing between a domestic and commercial production. So at Gamla, for instance, an Olympus mill was discovered in a workshop adjacent to a domestic quarter, and the excavators describe the installation as larger than usual for larger than usual for domestic flour production. But it's also clearly very close by it's adjacent to a wing labeled as a domestic quarter so it suggests that we might need to think more expansively about this concept of domestic flour production. And in the textual evidence, there's not a clear kind of gender gender binary that maps on to different kinds of technology so if we don't see this instance of men are depicted using this kind of mill and women are depicted using this other kind of mill, at least when it comes to Olympus mills, rabbinic texts depict both men and women using this using this mill type and we see that here in in the Tosefta we see the rabbis depict two women grinding at an Olympus mill, which is referred to as a hand mill. And we also have all these texts about Olympus mills as domestic installations. These texts are concerned with the mill's placement within a room, and they describe the distance from any shared walls with the neighbor's domicile. They describe the status of the mill in case the property is sold and so on and so forth. So again we can see how this mill is really rooted in domestic production. So I said I wanted to look at this case study of grinding grain to think about how can the form and contents of this list help us theorize domestically but this concept of domestic labor better for the ancient world. So the point of this of this little survey of grinding technology is not to offer historical contextualization for its own sake. Instead, archaeological and textual evidence about grinding green can push us to take a more critical posture between more critical posture towards the distinction that is often made between unpaid work done at home and commodified work done outside at home. So this distinction between paid and unpaid work has for a long time governed how scholars conceptualize of domestic labor in the in the late ancient Near East. So scholars will often refer to how to the cultural and economic decommodification of female labor, including this text from Q2 vote. These are saying that the rabbis are participating in in decommodifying women's work by kind of restricting it within within the home. And specifically, this this text and this term Malahot is understood to establish non-wage work done at home in opposition to a woman's earnings outside the home. The problem with this distinction is that it presumes that the rabbis themselves understood the home as the site of decommodified labor. I would like us to be more skeptical towards this assumption. As I mentioned before, we're not dealing with a time before domestic labor was pushed into a private realm. We're dealing we're dealing with a time before domestic labor was pushed out of the private realm. We're dealing with a time before it was kind of severed severed from severed from the economy. So that's, I think the problem with this distinction between decommodified work at home and commodified work outside the home is that it doesn't match. It doesn't match the clear the clear value that the clear economic value that the rabbis themselves seem to have understood as understood as kind of characteristic of the work that women did they understood this work as clearly valuable. Let me say a few words now by way of conclusion. So I spent some time today talking about this list of labors that appears in the second century composition. The Mishnah, the list casts a long shadow in the history of Jewish interpretation. And if the mission as goal was to provide an impression of neutral description, then it has absolutely succeeded in creating that impression. The list has long been read as a banal description of the kinds of work that women might do. I want to suggest that the list can be more than that. The rabbinic corpus presents a series of methodological challenges. It offers an underappreciated textual vantage point into Roman Near Eastern society. And the rabbis are patently interested in matters of daily life. However, it is not always evident how to historicize this material or how to put it into conversation with other textual sources or into conversation with archaeological evidence. The list of labors exemplifies several of these pathological challenges. As a description of daily life, it feels vague, plausible and incomplete. Even the mission as earliest readers found this list and unlikely and inadequate encapsulation of a wife's work. The Tzefda says by way of explanation that the Mishnah only mentioned seven categories of labors didn't mention the rest. As it turns out, vagueless of housework is not an enterprise unique to the Mishnah. In the absence of definitions of these terms like Malachol or wives' work or women's work or enslaved women's work, we get this operationalization of housework into list form. The point of the list is not to serve as a prescriptive ideal for what women ought to do. The significance of this text doesn't lie in whether or not it was enforced or practiced in an actual household. We would be better off not reading it as either a prescriptive or a descriptive account of daily life. Instead, the form and contents of the list can help us theorize the concept of domestic labor and consider how well this concept might travel in the ancient world. I explored this question today through the case study of grinding grain. In the Mishnah, this is the first to go in this fantasy of labor that is seamlessly transferred from the wife to the enslaved women. The text does not mention where this grinding happened or with what tools or who it was done by, who else was involved in the process, but how and where is a key part of the story about grinding grain in the first millennium CE. New technologies came to the Eastern Mediterranean during this period, but they don't fit into this narrative of linear technological progress. And they don't fit into this narrative that we often want to impose of a transition from domestic to professional production or vice versa. In addition, the technological shift doesn't map easily onto a gender binary, doesn't map easily onto this technology is associated with men or women. My takeaway here is that the case of grinding grain is productive as an instance of labor rooted in domestic production that really shows us that we don't need to be in the business of rescuing free or enslaved women's work as productive. And I think this has often been something that we've felt like we needed to do, we felt like we needed to kind of say actually this work, you know, kind of retrieve how important this work was. But I'm finding instead that the work plainly carried, the work was plainly recognized as economically valuable in at least the sources that I'm looking at. So my question really is, you know, how can we, how can we read textual and archaeological evidence together to actually take this recognition of this works value. So it's not enough to just say, hooray, we showed that it's valuable. But what can we say about how the kind of the recognition of this works value shapes social and economic relationships both within and beyond the household. And with that, I am excited to hear your questions and thank you so much. Thank you so much for this fascinating talk. It gave me a whole lot of food for that. I'd also like to invite the YouTube audience anyone see who is watching live to contribute questions or comments you might have into the chat so that we can ask Dr. Gopal and Krishna. But I'm going to start with a couple questions of my own. And I think I'll start sort of at the more granular level and then build up to a broader set of issues in order to directly relate to some of your concluding remarks that you just talked about. So right at the end of the talk, you were problematizing the assumption of decommodification of household labor. I'm wondering how if and how women's housework was understood as a direct economic contribution to the household, and whether that was put in numeric terms or other other terms of value. It was valued differently and I think the answer is no based on what you just said but if it was valued differently to the domestic labor, based on who performed it whether an enslaved woman, or a wife who did or did not have enslaved women laborers with her household. You're muted. Thanks. Thank you for the question. I want to start by saying that I think I think the claim about the decommodification of wives work comes mainly from the rabbis treatment of textile work, and it has to do with, you know, it's kind of it's kind of placed in the opposition to, you know, even work that is done for pay or even work that is kind of, you know, attached to a kind of a monetary some wages will have you is still placed under the control of the husband so this is kind of a rabbinic opposition to to take waged work and place it under the control of the husband. So, it's really important to to what specifically when we're looking at at this corpus. We're looking at, you know, conceptual innovations that the rabbis have come up with to to place different kinds of work into into this, you know, into their into their kind of vision of of household exchange. And that that's really where this opposition between commodified and decommodified even comes from there's that additional layer of, you know, these are the term is specifically described as, you know, the kind of the decommodifying and kind of doing the work of decommodifying labor and it's placed into into contrast with this other word for, you know, for kind of clearly wage, waged work, but that waged work is still being placed under your masaya time, it's still being placed under the control of the husband. And that that is also related to to your question about is, you know, how is this work valued.  We can do with that what we will it's hard to kind of contextualize in in isolation, but even more interesting is the fact that you know the terms that the terms actually use there for that kind of waged work. It is, it is a term that is that is considered applicable only to wives and daughters and enslaved men. Only the, you know, wives daughters and enslaved men are the only ones who do that kind of wage to work because that is the kind of wage work that is actually under the earnings actually belong to the patriarch, that is different from, you know, the. So it's a very specific definition of waged work as well so that's that's something to kind of keep in mind that the, the this narrative of the kind of the scholarly narrative of the decommodification of women's work emerges because of I think it emerges out of this. The specific mechanics of how textile work is managed, and I'm really interested in what happens when we look at other look at other kinds of work. Thank you. Something that you were just saying is spurring a little bit more. Oh, so Aaron, did you have a question I see that you just turned your video on before I get into my other question. Yeah, sure, if that's okay if I just sort of jump in. First of all, proud to me thank you so much for such a fascinating talk. It stimulated many, many thoughts, not my time period so I know we all use that sort of excuse, but thinking more from a kind of bronze and iron age framework. You know, I think, and I love to hear you in this more of a kind of statement but I'd love to hear you comment on it, because I think we can sort of complicate that binary of paid and unpaid labor in that, you know, the sort of framing of domestic production is that not everything was used within the household. And so, you know, there are opportunities there for, you know, quote unquote household work to generate surpluses. And for those surpluses to be bartered sold, whatever so that's kind of a category that's, you know, so it is that paid labor or is it unpaid labor. And, you know, I think it creates a third category, which is, you know, sort of mediates between those worlds. Anyway, I would love to hear you kind of think through some of what I've just talked about. I think the management of the surplus is kind of at the heart of these kind of definitions of what is defined as paid labor or unpaid labor. I guess my, you know, if I could kind of address one one kind of statement to one group of people it would be to say that we should be and I think this is what you're what you're pointing out as well we should be a little cautious about how we define terms like paid work and unpaid work we shouldn't kind of take those. We shouldn't take that that kind of binary for for granted, especially when it's being presented to us on a platter by our sources. That is especially when we should be very suspicious of it. So I think I think the this question of things that either don't fit into that binary things that I think this is. I've encountered that kind of middle space more. Actually I've encountered it with granny granny so I just bring didn't bring those texts today but I've encountered that kind of middle space of things that things that are now classified as paid or unpaid in several of the specific specific labors that I mentioned on this list, which is why when you put them into in the in the conversation with which is why which is why I think I want I want to think about you know what can the list do for us to actually nuance the concept of domestic labor rather than to kind of accept that Malacho means, you know, a certain kind of decommodified labor in opposition to a to kind of a wage economy, the wage economy is in the household to. Yeah, it sounds like also what you're saying relates to some of your other work on subsistence and maintenance within the household and how the grinding of grain contributes to of course the production of bread which then feeds and maintains the household. Yeah, that's a good way of understanding that middle ground that helps to clarify it for me and also helps to bridge. I think some of the evidence that Aaron is thinking of from earlier periods where we see similar kinds of practices and play. Yeah, within that within the household context. So another question that I have has to do with lists and the role of lists more generally within rabbinic texts. So the list there in the mission for example, are they typically economic or labor focused and how do these lists of housework and labor fit into listing more broadly and can we consider a subgenre within these texts. And if you could allow absolutely. Yeah. List, I mean, I would say the rabbis in general but the mission in particular make liberal use of lists, all kinds of different contexts. I, you know, the list of 39 labors is obviously interesting because it uses the same exact term but you can see how I mean, it's hard to say what the relationship between those two lists is or if they're, you know, how, if there's kind of if they're defining this term a whole differently from each other but certainly, there's no necessary association between between There's no particular association with with houses or women in the in the Shabbat list. I think the, the interesting thing about about this particular list, you know, when you list things. It kind of gives the items in the list and intrinsic value it makes them worth relisting again. And I think that's kind of how this list starts to take on a life of its own. I really, I really do think it was kind of a, I don't think there's some deep meaning to the list I guess you know it's, it's the product of this oral process of study at some point it got written in this farm.  And I think we would all just, we could all free ourselves by just saying there's no there's nothing kind of, there's nothing intrinsically kind of there's no kind of secret to kind of solving what the what what the seven items are and I think that's why it's so helpful to find you kind of bring in these lists of housework from, you know, seven, eight centuries later from a different corpus just to say, yeah, it is kind of that thing where you're just like, oh, you know, cooking and you know, baking and grocery shopping and you know a few other things I guess I don't know, because to actually describe everything that goes into the maintenance of a household but of course, you know, it's going to be kind of, you know, very difficult to do exhaustively. So, I think, I think what's, what's interesting about about this list appearing, you know, what's interesting about this is, you know, it gets written in this form and then much like, you know, I think the list in the mission, it's, it's this by virtue of being written down like this, it then kind of becomes, you know, because it's written down and because it becomes worthy of relisting and revisiting. It, it gets, it kind of takes on a life of its own, well into, you know, medieval, early modern, later legal literature, people are always trying to come back to this, to this text to kind of, to kind of work out their ideas of kind of gender and propriety and what, what, you know, what a wife ought to do. On a similar note, could you comment a bit more about what at least to me I sort of gathered as being a special significance within that list on spinning and weaving, because as you mentioned, even women who had it enslaved laborers still had to perform that work, as opposed to some of the other items on the list that, that she no longer had to perform. So what, what is your interpretation of the significance of, of spinning and weaving and textile production within domestic labor. Fortunately for me, I mean textile labor is, is the, the aspect of this list that has probably been, been written about the most. That's also the place where, so Miriam Peskovitz, spinning fantasies is kind of the, the book that deals with this most directly that really, as I said, this, this idea of decommodified work at home in opposition to paid work, which is then also kind of, you know, put under the husbands control that whole case is built is built on on textile work. The, when I talk about, you know, there's not a clear gender ideology in the kinds of technology used. That's also, and I'm saying that partly in response to this situation seems to have been with textile work where we do have examples of texts, you know, depicting women working on more old fashioned, we moral fashion looms, and men working on kind of the newer technology that was actually more in use in Roman Palestine so we do have this archa, archa, archa, archaization of, of work done by women in this realm of textile work. We also have, I think, this, I think stronger case for kind of gender division in, you know, between kind of spinning and weaving spinning as something done by women leaving as something done by men. So a lot of what I'm saying about about grinding grain a lot of the possibilities that I'm pointing to about, you know, what can this, what can this, how can this help us see, see the, the late ancient household a little differently. I'm saying a lot of this kind of in, in response to to house scholars have, have used textile work specifically to, to kind of come up with, come up with, come up with this idea of what the ancient household was. So if the, you know, if, if I'm talking about the household as, you know, if I'm interested in kind of thinking about the household, what, when does, you know, how does a modern times economy or waged work invade the household. All of that is kind of in response to the opposite tendency that that scholars have had when talking about textile work, where it is kind of described as, as kind of restricted to the home decommodified, strongly gendered associated with sexual impropriety, all kinds of things. Interesting. Thank you. Associated with sexual propriety, sorry, not impropriety. An important distinction. Such a fun one. Well, Dr. Gopala Krishnan, thank you so much for a wonderful talk, and it really has enriched the series as well. And I think we're at the end of our Q&A session. So, besides, again, thanking you for such a stimulating presentation. I'd also like to let our audience know that the series is continuing of course in April. And as usual, we're meeting. Our next talk is going to be on April 6th, Thursday at 930 a.m. California time when Dr. Solange Ashby of UCLA will be presenting on the topic of women in ancient Nubia. So again, I'd like to thank today's speaker and to look ahead to several more talks to follow in the rest of this academic year. So, thank you all and thank you for coming and and this wraps up our hat tip also to.


All right, so last time we talked all about the basic definitions of discrimination training. We talked about behavior being under stimulus control. That means the behavior is more likely in the presence of a discriminative stimulus than the app since it kind of changes the probability of the response. We talked about discriminative stimulus itself, which is a stimulus that's present when reinforcement is available for a response. And S delta is a stimulus that's present when the response will not contact reinforcement or when extinction will occur. And a discriminative stimulus for punishment is a stimulus that's present when punishment is going to occur if you emit a particular response, sort of like a cop waiting in a speed trap. The last thing we ended on was talking about discriminated behavior. We say that that behavior that is more likely to occur in the presence of a stimulus, a discriminative stimulus, is a discriminated behavior or a discriminated response. So a behavior that likely only occurs in the presence of that particular set of circumstances. But when we're talking about these words, when we keep using the expression discrimination, it's really important to kind of delineate what that means or discriminate how the language that we use in ABA differs from everyday language. So in behavior analysis, when we talk about fostering a discrimination or telling the difference between, we really mean behaving differently in the presence of this stimulus than that stimulus. So if I were to present you, for instance, with two different items, and I were to say, what is the color of this item, what is the color of that item, which one of these is red, right? If you are more likely to select this as the red item, then we kind of see that you're telling the difference between them. And when you reliably select this as the red item, no matter which side I place it on, right, you're demonstrating a discrimination between the colors that I'm presenting you. Other examples that this could be, for instance, taking an umbrella with you on days when the weather is overcast, it might even be like, how do you get around on campus? Well, you know that when you're in this parking lot, go left to go to the dormitory, go right to go to the library, so you're making that choice there. And you choose to go one direction under certain stimulus circumstances. You choose to go a different direction under different stimulus circumstances. This discrimination language used in behavior analysis is very value neutral. It simply refers to making a choice based on the amount of available reinforcement, right? In the presence of a discriminative stimulus, we emit the response because it will contact reinforcement. In everyday language, discrimination means something very, very different. When we talk about discrimination in everyday English, we're talking about a preferential treatment given to certain groups of people based on some characteristic that they have.  This could be a person's age or their skin color. It might even be their religion. So we kind of see an echo of behavior analysis there because when we talk about everyday discrimination, when we talk about treating people differently by some immutable characteristic that they cannot control, we're essentially kind of saying we're treating people differently based on that characteristic. So based on that particular stimulus that they possess or that they embody, we treat them differently than others. Remember that in behavior analysis, discrimination is not a value-laden word. It's simply meant to indicate that there's a delineation or a separation. There's a telling the difference between. It's not meant to indicate in any way that something bad is happening. Some examples, some everyday examples of discriminations might be, for instance, when you're driving and you're presented with the light on top or the light that is red, if you're colorblind, you may not be able to easily discriminate the colors. You know the light on top typically tends to be red and that one means you need to stop. But when you're driving, right, you've got the same environmental stimuli. You've got the lights are present. In this case, the green light is on and this communicates to you that you should go. If you were to emit the other responses there. So if you have a red light and you drive through, the red light is an S-delta or even an SP for driving through the light. If you do that, punishment is available. Either in the form of an accident or in the form of a ticket. Vice versa, if you stop at a green light, you're likely to contact some averse of social consequences because people are going to tell you about yourself when you stop at a green light. So we see that there's an element of discrimination there. You're telling the difference between in the presence of a red light. Red light is a discriminative stimulus for stopping. The red light is an S-delta for driving through. So two different responses. That's a complex discrimination in the presence of a green light. That's a discriminative stimulus to drive. If you drive through a green light, reinforcement is available. If you stop at a green light, punishment is available. So green is an SP or discriminative stimulus for punishment for stopping. I like to ask students when we're in the face-to-face course, you know, what does the yellow light communicate to you? And it's always really funny to see the difference between folks. Some folks will be like, it means slow down or express caution. Like, don't go crazy. Don't go very fast. And other students will shout, it means go faster so that you can get through the light before the light changes. So it's always interesting to see how people respond to those differently. Another example of everyday discriminative stimuli could be, for instance, the signage that goes on restrooms. There are very different consequences for walking into a restroom with the shape here that has this little cape behind the figure, as opposed to the one that doesn't. So if I, because I appear, you know, to the audience as a very female individual, if I walk into the men's room, there's going to be some uncomfortable responses. People are probably going to stare. Maybe they'll ask me to leave. So if I make the wrong choice here, if my behavior is not under stimulus control and I am equally likely to go into either restroom, I might face some consequences. Remember, we learn these through experience. Let's do a couple of vignettes. So if I were to present to you the question, what is five times five? This particular question is a discriminative stimulus for one response and one response only. This question sets the occasion for you to give one response, which is the answer 25. So you would admit the verbal response 25. And the reinforcer in this case would be me saying, yes, exactly. That's correct. Now we would say that stimulus control is demonstrated when the learner is much more likely to say 25 in the presence of that question than when they give me any other number. Remember, because stimulus control means that a behavior is much more likely in the presence of the stimulus than in its absence. And it kind of drowns out all of the other responses. This question would be an S delta for any other number. So if I said what's five times five and you say 42, that answer would not contact reinforcement, but be careful because stimuli are not one-dimensional. Stimuli don't serve only one purpose. Their stimulus properties can vary as a function of the contact. So if I'm presenting you, for instance, with this letter, I'm presenting you with a shape on screen. And I were to change the antecedents for your response. If I were to say, for instance, what color is this letter? You would give me a very different behavior. You would probably say something like blue or Robin's egg or something like that. You would give me a very different response to the question, what color is this? Then you would give me if I said, what letter is this? If I were to say, what letter is this? That's a different SD. And you'd give me a different response if your behavior is under stimulus control. So be careful that stimuli aren't just magical. They don't just pull responses out of people. They don't just have one function. They have multiple functions based on the discriminative stimuli that are present, the context of the question, the context of the stimulus and under what circumstances you're looking at the stimulus. We'll do a couple of other stimulus control examples. So imagine that you make a new friend, Suzanne, you see her again on the quad. So the SD in this case is you're, you know, physically on the quad. And then now she's present. She is a stimulus that is present in your environment. So if you want to hang out with your friend, Suzanne, you might call out to Suzanne like, hey, Suzanne, I see you. And the response there would be potentially her stopping and making contact with you. We see stimulus control demonstrated when you're more likely to call her by her name than any other name. So for instance, you call her Suzanne, not hey Janet or hey Steve or whatever. Cognitive psychologists would call that remembering, right? We see that under those circumstances, you omitted the response that would contact reinforcement. You remember her name or rather your behavior is under stimulus control. The presence of your friend is an S delta for other names. So calling her Francine or Suzanne or no, Suzanne is her name, excuse me. Calling her Francine or Steve or hey, you may not contact reinforcement. Now, Suzanne is the stimulus that is present when you emit the response. That's the difference between an SD and an EO. The SD tells you where to emit the response. It tells you that reinforcement is available. The establishing operation changes the value of that reinforcer, right? Establishing operations increase the value of the reinforcer. An abolishing operation decreases the value of the reinforcer. So let's do this again, but let's add in that fourth term, the motivating operation. In this case, you've got that same person, Suzanne, but your friend accidentally picked up your wallet when you guys were having lunch together and she walked away with your wallet, but you need your wallet because it's got your wolf card in it, right? So now you see Suzanne on the quad. She's still the SD, but now it's much more important to get your wallet back from her. So you may be much more likely to give out a really big response, like really shout her name. This changes the value of her as a reinforcer. And that discriminated response is still calling her Suzanne, but her having your wallet makes the reinforcer much more powerful because you got to get it, got to get that wallet back. So Suzanne turns, she sets the occasion for you to ask you for her wallet. This is an establishing operation. What about circumstances that would decrease the likelihood that you want to talk to Suzanne? So remember, abolishing operations decrease the likelihood that you will want to contact that reinforcer. Imagine instead that your friend Suzanne and you work together on an assignment. She copied your homework. Now you've both gotten in trouble for unauthorized work together, maybe plagiarism.  Well, now you see Suzanne. That part of your learning history, getting in trouble for being around Suzanne, her getting in trouble with the Dean of Students Office, could dramatically change the value of her or anything she can do for you as a reinforcer. Now I haven't filled in the behavior here because people may respond differently. Some people may say, okay, seeing Suzanne increases the likelihood that I'm just going to ghost her. I'm going to walk past her and just ignore her, right? So the discriminated behavior in that case would be maybe changing direction or kind of covering your face or pretending that you're on your phone and not seeing her. And that increases the negative reinforcing value of not having to talk to her because it allows you to escape or avoid her. Some other folks that I presented this scenario to have said, oh no, Suzanne and I need to have a conversation. So in this case, it doesn't actually decrease the value of Suzanne as a reinforcer. Instead, you might increase the value of confronting her and starting a fight in the quad as a potential response. So it really depends on the learning history of the organism, how they're going to respond to the situation. But remember that an establishing operation increases the value of a reinforcer and abolishing operation decreases the value of the reinforcer. And you just have to look to see what it's going to do in these different contexts. We talk about reinforcer value as being separate from where and when you emit the response. Where and when you emit the response is the SD. The value of the reinforcer is the establishing or abolishing operation. So these are just some examples. Let me know if you guys have any questions. And coming back, we'll talk a little bit about cognition and how stimulus control is related to the psychological concept of cognition.