Mr Speaker, I rise to provide Parliament and the people of St. Lucia two statements on the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports activities and plans as we seek to not just join the fight but continue to do our best in communities to deal with the scourge of crime. And so Mr Speaker, first statement will be on carry the Commonwealth Heads of Government Declaration of the Year 2023 as the Year of Youth. Mr Speaker, the year 1985 is iconic in the history of youth development in St. Lucia. It was in that year the United Nations declared as the International Year of Youth. It was under this declaration that the National Youth Council NYC was founded on the 14th of April 1985 led by then youth activists Honourable Justice Mario Michel. Mr Speaker, the NYC was incorporated through an Act of Parliament in 1997 with the mission to harness the talent, energy and creativity of St. Lucia youth and transform these into a potent resource for individual, community and national transformation. Minister, just hold on a minute. Is the speaker, not me, the one inside there on? Yes, I will say it myself twice. Which is not always a bad thing. Okay proceed, minister. Mr Speaker, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting held in Kigali, Rwanda in June 2022, Heads of Government sealed their commitment to ensure the Commonwealth's attention is firmly fixed on the empowerment of young people for a declaration that 2023 will be the year of the youth. Young people represent more than 60% of the Commonwealth's 2.6 billion people. The 2023 declaration comes on the heels of the devastating global pandemic that released a tsunami of health, education, economic, social, employment and safeguarding challenges and aims to get youth development on track for global care development goal deadlines. The Ministry of Youth Development and Sports has taken the lead to prepare for the commemorating of the Year of Youth 2023. The lead committee comprises officers of the youth division, along with the National Youth Council, once the new executive is fully activated. Mr Speaker, the lead committee noted the surge in crime and gun violence in the country. Therefore, the emphasis for the Year of Youth will be on safety, security and peaceful coexistence. The theme emanates from one of the pillars of the national youth policy which aims to empower young people and communities as agents of peaceful and safe national coexistence. Hence, a number of initiatives and activities will provide knowledge, skills and practice that will prevent and reduce crime in communities. While the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports forms the core committee, we are formulating local organizing committees, LOCs for each constituency with inclusion of the youth worker, the district youth and sports council, the students council, the social transformation officer and the representative from the police. All LOCs will be community-based and will be responsible for the planning and executing of activities within their jurisdictions. Mr Speaker, the Ministry is working hard to forge partnerships with national, regional and international organizations and institutions including private sector and faith-based organizations for resource mobilization. Our mission is to pursue the goal of safety, security and peaceful coexistence in communities as young people take centre stage to address the issue of crime and violence prevention as we mark the Year of Youth in 2023. Some of the activities on the calendar include the peace campaign initiative to include tick-tock challenges, jingle or song competitions, inter-district debates, district activities in terms of monuments to signal the celebration of the youth, presentation of the national youth policy and action plan and the launch of skilled 758 app amongst other activities. Mr Speaker, I take this opportunity to call on all youth and sports organizations, uniform groups, faith-based groups, concerned youth activists among others to work together for an enduring initiative which will become a legacy for this declaration of the Year of Youth. Let's all play our role to bring back peace and safety in our communities. Mr Speaker, I venture into a parliament statement on an alternative sports initiative in St Lucia. Mr Speaker, during my campaign, I championed the need for the development of non-traditional sports in St Lucia and as part of my platform, I did indicate that if elected, I would ensure that alternative sports programs will be developed in St Lucia. I continued that faith because I believe there is merit to provide avenues for the involvement of more people who are not inclined to participate in the more established and traditional sports such as football, swimming, basketball, cricket and the likes. I recall people having no faith in this promise and pronouncement and shrugged it off as just another camp in top that would have not materialized or be followed through. I am here today elated and beaming with pride because the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports have been able to bring this to fruition. On Friday December 2nd, the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports launched our first ever alternative sports season which will run from December 10th, 2022 through to February 26th, 2023. Mr Speaker, the Ministry developed a holistic program geared towards both locals and foreigners as we believe this can enhance further our tourism product allowing St Lucia to welcome visitors to its shores for other reasons than just sea and sand and adventures. Additionally, productive linkages can be established with several key sectors including agriculture, fisheries and of course the blue economy. Mr Speaker, given the importance of this program, an alternative sports officer was recruited in the month of July 2022. This officer's main role was to develop a program reflective of the input of all key stakeholders to ensure its effective execution and implementation. In doing so, Mr Craig Gustav was charged with the responsibility of formalizing the activities of young people involved in alternative sports on the island. The consultation with alternative sports practitioners throughout the island included horse racing, St Lucia Dats Association, the St Lucia Chess Association, the Paintball Club, Association of Assorted Motoring Advancement, the St Lucia Motorx Club, the E-Sports Club, Sound Club, General Automotive Fraternity to name a few. Mr Speaker, during this season, we expect to create an atmosphere to attract more citizens' involvement, particularly those who may not be inclined to partake in the more physical traditional sports such as football and cricket. This is yet another initiative set to be undertaken by the ministry to get more young people off the streets away from a life of crime. Mr Speaker, the introduction of this program to St Lucia is not without its challenges. Many of our partners have identified the absence of established and suitable venues for such events. This means that ancillary services such as lighting, portable toilets and seating will be brought in to any identified venues hosting these events. Notwithstanding this challenge, we have started preparing venues that can be a-marked for these sporting activities. I look forward Mr Speaker to your support and Parliament's support in this new initiative as we explore alternative avenues for the development of our young people. Mr Speaker, the first event will be a car show with the inclusion of all other motor sports, super motorbikes, etc. to be held in Roddy Bay on this Saturday from 5 pm. All of Parliament is invited to enjoy the talents and the activities of our young people. I thank you.


Merci, Michel. Permettez-moi tout d'abord de remercier Thierry de Montbrial et le staff du World Policy Conference. C'est un très grand plaisir d'être ici et j'allais dire d'être ici physiquement et de retrouver des collègues, des personnes et des experts que j'ai eu l'occasion de retrouver à Marrakech. Merci à vous. So I will give this ten point of healthcare providers. I am a physician. I am the CEO of a hospital which had to take care of thousands of patients since February last year. And I would like to share with you our perspective. I would like to insist on three points. Number one is how important is to have a coordination of healthcare providers. Number two is, as was said, the problem of the question of anticipation of what can be a pandemic. And number three is a technology. But just before, I cannot know what is going to happen. I cannot say that we have to have gratitude for all the nurses, all the doctors which were at the forefront. In my hospital I had nurses who just came out of the school. They were 20, 22 years old and they had to fight first line with this war in fact. And we had hundreds. In fact, we had more than 100 of our doctors and nurses which were ill, some of them very seriously. Thank God we had no death casualty. But there was some death casualty. So we have to have our gratitude for this person. So let's come with the course. I am a physician. I am a physician. I am a physician. I am a physician. And we had no death casualty. But there was some death casualty. So we have to have our gratitude for this person. So let's come with the coordination of healthcare providers. What makes the fight effective is a coordination between general practitioners and hospitals. Between the private sector and the public sector. Something which is not obvious. Most important was the coordination orchestrated by public agencies in France, in the Paris region which is approximately 10 million people. You have l'agence régionale de santé, the regional healthcare agency. And they played a key role in distributing the protective drugs when there was a shortage of drugs. In distributing the masks when there was a shortage of masks. In triaging the patients and in at some point making the decision to evacuate some patients from the Paris area to other regions. This was paramount. Second is anticipation. In anticipation for healthcare providers there is a scheme at the level of hospital and it's called emergency plans. Unfortunately for France we had emergency plans which appeared to be very effective following the terrorist attacks in November 15. So we know how to deal with an influx of wounded or death. And we had to reactivate these plans for the pandemics. It's called le plan blanc, the white plan. And this was the case for all French hospitals. Number two of course in terms of anticipation, equipment, personal protection equipment. I remember very well at some point in our hospital we didn't have enough masks for everybody. And I can tell you that I felt very bad with the idea to send a nurse and doctors into a room of a patient without the masks. Then of course there are the respirators and the drugs. More important is anticipation for infrastructure. Today in Germany or in 2020, sorry, in Germany there was in terms of intensive care unit beds per 100,000. The number for Germany was 34. The number for France was 16. The number for Italy was 8.6. And so the decision to increase this number of beds or not to increase is of course paramount. Because either you get these infrastructures or you don't get them. And this is key. Even more important in terms of anticipation are the skills. You can have the respirators, you can have the beds, but if you don't have the properly trained nurses and if you don't have the properly trained intensivist doctors who worked in reanimation and this takes 7 to 10 years to take this person. So it's a long run that you have to do. Number 3 is technology. So I'm not an expert, but everybody understands that getting the vaccines in less than a year was unprecedented. Jean just alluded to big data, digitisation, data governance. It's very clear that it played a role and that it will play an even more important role. We all know that medical progress for wars, unfortunately. Let's say that it's a good side effect of wars. I remember very well during the first Gulf War there was a sending from medical imaging cities literally from the battlefield to the vessels, to the US Navy vessels with hospitals, and from there to Germany. And this was able to make a better triage of the patients and to evacuate the patients. In the years after the US Army healthcare system invested one dollar out of two in digitisation. Today hospitals are completely digitised. We share images, we share data. And this was really a very important move and clearly linked to the benefit of the war. I would like to conclude on another point which is the weight of politics for healthcare providers. Of course, if you are in charge of a hospital, what is paramount is the amount of money that the nation will spend. Let's say in terms of GDP, if you are at less than 10, more than 10, of course it has an impact and we all understand and we all follow year after year how much the government et cetera will invest in healthcare. But in the case of the pandemics, it was much more immediate, it was much more consistent. Let me give you one or two examples. Moldating vaccination. Before France has been resistant to vaccination for whatever cultural reason, but before the summer in health French hospital, the level of healthcare staff which were vaccinated was around 60%. Then the government and Macron decided to put that mandating vaccination for all healthcare staff in the hospital. Today we are at 96, 97%. So it had an immediate effect. The effect of politics was absolutely immediate. Number two, as Jean said, was fighting disinformation. Today, the reality of intensive care units in France is that we get patients in which refuse to be vaccinated for all these crazy reasons. So we have to fight effectively disinformation. We have to reinforce, of course, the cooperation at the international level, as Juliette said, because we know that if we don't help, if we don't work with Africa, we will have the consequence in the future of not having been able to work properly with our African colleagues. And finally, I would like to say something. Of course, what we have learned over the last year and a half is that the state has reinforced their role and probably rightly so, but let's not fight in the future the previous battle. What is emerging very rapidly today is the GAFA. The GAFA today are not today prominent players in their healthcare, but they will be. They will be in the next 5 to 10 years. They will play a very important role. And so let's not forget these things and not just fight the battle of the past but also the battle of the future. Thank you. Thank you very much, Robert. And thank you for, among other things, stressing again the importance of anticipation and preparedness, which other colleagues have already also discussed. Clearly, too many national plans have been underfunded and too many countries haven't have lacked solid preparedness. This is a key issue. Many countries have preparedness plans, but these plans are not funded. And this is why one of the first aims of this international financing facility that the G20 is discussing, that the independent panel has been proposing, is to fund preparedness across the world. And then in an interdependent world, we need to be mutually accountable for how we prepare. And this is why on the initiative of France and Germany, among others, in Geneva, we're now discussing a peer review of preparedness in a UN-driven mechanism similar to what's happening at the Human Rights Council, where countries would be reviewed by peers every year or every second or third year for how they move into preparedness. Thank you very much again.


Please note that this video has sexual health content. Let's look at the female reproductive system in humans. So on the right you can see where the reproductive system is located. And on the left we have a zoomed in version of that. So let's look at the different parts of it. Let's start by these overlooking things. These are called the ovaries. What do ovaries do? Well, the ovaries, one of their main jobs is to create egg cells. Create egg cells, which are basically the female gametes. And it turns out that once girls obtain puberty, basically when their sexual organs start maturing, the ovaries will release roughly on an average about one egg per month. And just to be more clear, you see, whenever girls are born, they already have lots and lots of immature eggs in their ovaries. There are lots of them, but it's only when they hit puberty. That's when those eggs start maturing. And then we find that about one egg is released per month. And if you're wondering, well, we have two ovaries, so will that be two eggs released per month? No. In general, it will be still one egg per month. You can kind of imagine one month, this ovary will release the egg, the next month, this ovary will release the egg. So they will alternate. But of course, there will be, there could be times at which, you know, both the ovaries might release the egg. So you might have two eggs. That's totally possible. But in general, it's usually one egg per month. All right. What else do they do? Well, they also secrete some very important sex hormones like progesterone. And estrogen. This is something we've talked about in great detail in our videos on endocrine system. But it's basically these hormones that help in the development of the secondary sexual characteristics in girls during puberty. And it's also these hormones that actually regulate the number of eggs that get released from the ovaries. Okay. So let's say this is that mature egg which has been released. Where does it go now? Well, it enters into this tube. It's a very, very thin tube. And it's also given a name. This tube is called the oviduct. Ovi-duct. And if you look at the name carefully, the duct means a passage, kind of like a passage. And ovi means ovum, meaning egg. Egg is called ovum, right? So it's a passage for egg. That's what it literally means. It also has another famous name. It's called fallopian tube. Fallopian tube. Both names are very commonly used. So we should be familiar with both of them. So what does the oviduct do? Well, it basically pushes the egg all the way into this bag-like structure. An elastic bag-like structure which is called the uterus. In common language, it's also called the womb. This is where the baby will be during pregnancy. And if you look below over here, you can see the opening to the uterus. This opening is also given a name. It's called the cervix. During the childbirth, when the baby has to come out, it's the cervix that needs to open up. And finally, we see the vagina.  So roughly, these are the parts of the reproductive system. But let's come back to that egg and see what happens once the egg enters into the fallopian tube. What happens over there? Well, as I said, the fallopian tube starts pushing the egg, starts pushing the egg, and starts moving it all the way towards the uterus. Now, once the ovaries release the egg, they will signal the uterus and tell the uterus, hey, I have released the egg. That egg might get fertilized anytime. We need to prepare for it. The uterus says, alright, I'm going to prepare for it. And as a result, you will see that the lining of the walls of the uterus start getting to become thicker. It starts to become rich with blood. Well, why does that happen? Because as we will see that if the egg gets fertilized, then it requires nutrition. And the egg will get the nutrition from this blood. And that's why the uterus is basically preparing itself for fertilization. Alright, what happens next? What happens next really depends upon whether there are sperms present here or not. So let's say there are no sperms present over here. Alright, then what will happen is that this egg, which has been now unfertilized for quite a while, that egg cannot survive for too long. After a couple of days of release, we will see that that egg will disintegrate. So it has a pretty short lifetime after it has been released. It needs to get fertilized or it will just get disintegrated. Now, once it gets disintegrated, the ovaries will tell, okay, that egg is not fertilized. It tells the uterus, you know what? Uterus, you can get rid of that lining. We don't need that anymore. So then the uterus will now start getting rid of it. And the way it does that is that it starts shedding it out of the system. And so as a result, you will now see blood coming out from the vagina. And this is what we call menstruation. And so during this time of menstruation, that bleeding might last for a long time, it might last from two to four to five days. It depends on the individual until all of that is gotten rid of. And then the whole cycle can continue again. And therefore, menstruation happens almost every month. All right, but now let's consider what if there were sperms present? So let us go back a little bit. Let's keep that egg again. All right, so let's say this time there was sexual intercourse and there are sperms present. What happens then? Then you can see lots and lots of sperms will enter into the vagina. They will come through the cervix. They will enter into the uterus. In the process, a lot of them will die. And eventually they may divide into two halves. One will try to go this way in search of the egg. Another will try to go this way in search of the egg. Again, a lot of sperms will die over here. This is not an easy journey. But eventually the fittest of the fittest sperms will be able to finally go and meet with that egg. And fertilize that egg. So let's say one of that sperm undergoes and fertilizes the egg. Meaning what's going to happen is that the sperm is going to release its genetic material into the egg. And once that happens, we will say the egg is fertilized. After that, no more penetration can happen into the egg. Almost all of the other sperms will die out. And as a result, we'll now end up with a fertilized egg which is called the zygote. The zygote is basically the fused egg and the sperm. And then as the obiduct pushes the zygote towards the uterus, we will see the zygote starts dividing. From one cell to two, from two to four, from four to eight, and so on and so forth. Until they reach the uterus, we will find that the zygote now has converted into a ball of many, many cells. At this point, we will no longer call this as the zygote. Now we will call this an embryo. So let me write that. Now this ball of cells is the embryo. And of course, over here, the eggs are shown to be much bigger than the width of the Philippian tube, just so that we can see it. Obviously, the eggs are smaller than the width of the Philippian tube. Anyways, after this, we will now find that the embryo will firmly attach itself by deeply embedding itself into the thick wall of the uterus. This is what we call as the implantation because it's implanting itself and then it starts getting nourished from this particular blood. And now the embryo can keep on growing and growing and growing.  And you know, for me, when I studied this, what blew my mind is that this means that all babies and all of us, including you and me, we at one point of time were a single-celled zygote. That is something truly hard for me to comprehend, truly mind-boggling. Anyways, before we wind up the video, a couple of interesting tidbits. One is that when a zygote converts into an embryo, sometimes it converts into two embryos, splits into two embryos instead of one. And he guesses what happens because of that. That's when we get identical twins. And nobody knows, even till date, when or how that happens. There are some theories, there are some hypotheses, but so far we have no clue why certain, sometimes zygotes do that. So that gives us identical twins when we come from a single zygote. On the other hand, sometimes what can happen, as I already told, sometimes you can have two eggs present in the ovary, that's totally possible. And if both the eggs get fertilized by two different sperms, then again we will have twins, but they will be non-identical twins because they came from two different sperms and different eggs. They have a little different genetic makeup. They will be just like any other siblings, just that they will be born at the same time. So non-identical twins. And the last curious question you could have is as this embryo starts growing into a bigger and bigger baby, its energy demands, its nutrition demands, its oxygen demands, they all start increasing. How does the mother take care of that? Well, this is where we will see slowly the uterus start developing a very specialized tissue to take care of all the baby's demands, which is what we call the placenta. But of course, we will talk about the placenta in more detail in a future video altogether. So let's quickly go ahead and summarize what we learned in this video. The ovaries create egg cells about one mature egg per month after puberty. Once the eggs are released, they are collected by the fallopian tube which pushes the egg towards the uterus. After the release of the egg, the ovaries signal the uterus to prepare for a fertilization happens. And so it prepares by thickening the lining of its walls, richly supplied by blood. And if the egg doesn't get fertilized, then after a couple of days, the egg disintegrates and this lining is shed off over a span of few days where she will start bleeding and that's what we call the menstruation. And since the cycle repeats every month, we call it the menstrual cycle. And on the other hand, if it does get fertilized, then we call that a zygote. When the zygote moves towards the uterus, it starts dividing into many, many cells and by the time it comes to the uterus, it becomes a ball of cells which we call now an embryo which firmly implants itself into the wall of the uterus and starts feeding off from the blood and that nourishes the embryo and the embryo starts growing.


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebrakes.com coming at you with a full 16 box master case break of 2015 Panini Donneress signature series football random team break number five from jaspyscasebrakes.com some pretty pretty solid stuff in here you know I mean sure it's an older product so sometimes you'd be like wow remember that guy and then sometimes you'll get that so this should be pretty cool I'll be a hell of a randomizer big thanks all of these folks for getting into the action really appreciate it and all 32 teams are in let's roll it let's randomize each list 11 times five and a six and 11 the final time after 11 we've got Greg down to Asa and five and a six eleven times for the teams and 11 the final time after 11 times we've got the Philadelphia Eagles down to the Dallas Cowboys I think I got it yeah I got everybody right yeah all right so Greg with the Eagles Asa with the Chiefs Charles last bottom mojo Green Bay Packers Jesse with the Vikings Dan with the Patriots Jesse with the Niners Asa with the Dolphins Michael with the Bucks West with the Colts Nick with the Rams William with the Broncos Barry with the Lions and Panthers Asa with the Falcons Edwin with the Jags Daniel with the Browns Ryan with the Cards Daniel with the Hawks Allison with the Chargers Jack with the Giants Jens with the Jets Asa with the Colts Cole with the Bills Buffalo Barry Roberts with the Steelers Jesse with the Saints Justin with the Bangles Ryan Harold with the Ravens Kevin M you got my Raiders Kip Kip Ray what's going on Titans for you Asa with the Redskins Brian with the Bears and Asa with the Dallas Cowboys let's order these alphabetically by team any trades and remember fresh case right here and I think we got another fresh case of that 2015 Donner's SIG series on the store too this is break 5 and so the next one is in the store jaspyscasebreaks.com any trades that's right Kevin you got my Raiders many want the bangles Justin has the bangles up for trade number 2015 was the James Winston Marcus Marriota Amari Cooper so on and so forth draft class Ravens are also up for trade supplies here okay they're surprisingly is it's only four out of the box but there's actually there's a lot of boxes yeah all right Ryan's gonna pull back on the trade trade window going once trade window going twice and trade window closed so we got Nick over there you see the back of his head on the camera there what are you doing about your that hair is getting long there Nick yeah I just bought a groom kit self-grooming wow and we may need a I may need to use that I might just shave my head yeah I don't know if I can get away with it no maybe I might not be able to as well or maybe just like a what's what's up what's a four the four yeah could just be like kind of like a I can just go fuzzy head all right there's everybody right there like I said we got another one of these in the store so check it out Nick's gonna help pack stack there I'll take take one so you can see sort of expanded camera view on the Nick cam above my head properly socially distance some Mandalorian sure that's a nice yeah oh target has those oh oh okay this person complimented it wow post office person liked it too I like it I like it too it is a badass show yeah it just makes our words great again Aaron Donald nice good start right here for the Rams Nick Anderson with the Rameli another Sean Mani and we think we pulled like 12 in the last case one too many Nick Anderson though is the beneficiary of this one this time it was an Oregon State fan out there Timothy Wright that's true might still might still move the needle for Oregon State fans Timothy Wright for the Lions Barry Roberts then we got Marcus Golden Cardinals that'll be for Ryan and the Redbirds there you go nice little nice little like a crosshatch cross stitch kind of stack there all right Curtis Martin nice he's got an excellent auto yeah jets yen remember I said you can get some surprises out of here you can get surprised like for every Marcus Golden you got maybe a handful of Marcus Golden's you'll end up with something nice like Curtis Martin there's Darren Reeves for the Chiefs that'll be for ASA in Kansas City we got Hewley Kakao how how holy Kakao Saints that's a mouthful that goes to Jesse and we've got Jersey and autographed James and Crowder RPA for ASA and the Redskins right we've got Jesse James the outlaw going to Barry Roberts and the Steelers for the Niners we got Jimmy Ward Jesse with the 49ers Jersey and Otto Sammy Coates another Stealer for Barry Roberts we got Levi Norwood Chicago Bears Brian Evans with Da Bears Scott Chandler Patriots Dan Tyson got a Jaguar peeking out there Jersey not over shot green Edwin Hack with Jacksonville we got a Xavier roads one out of ten we need more Xavier roads in XR football look at that that's just his autograph XR Vikings that'll be for Jesse and we've got JJ Nelson Cardinals Ryan and we've got Randall nope Harold Carmichael I just saw an R in the shadow and I just yeah I just saw old eagle and I was like I wanted Randall cunning and Harold Carmichael's old-school though he's pretty cool Greg with the Eagles what are they bringing this back that logo is fire so so can't they just kill a logo I mean I guess you I mean I guess you can't change logos every year maybe that's kind of annoying but I don't know maybe at least for like a third uniform or something third Jersey Coney Ealy Panthers Barry Roberts we've got Michael Pruitt more Vikings for Jesse and we've got Jersey and Otto Carlos Williams Buffalo Cole with the Bills are we watching NCIS Los Angeles Dayline friends Shark Tank Tim Brown there's my boy Tim Brown nice one for Kevin and the Raiders oh someone was mentioning oh it's in the Redondo Beach now someone mentioned that earlier oh oh she's running he's running up tackled not as traditional tackle she didn't more like a grab and then took her down it was like an arm tackle yeah nice one Kevin love this guy Tim Brown where were Dondo beaches this are you familiar with this area okay well now I'm curious you got Kembrill Tompkins who was mentioning that car chase earlier was it Benedict I think Kevin Benedict might have been mentioned a car chase I didn't think it was still happening alright another Raider for Kevin they moved away from chase coverage what's what's NFL Network in that Jerry McKinnon Jesse I don't have direct TV's all right Max Williams purple teams right they're Vikings for Jesse and then Ryan for the Ravens who are we learning about here on NFL Network a lot of knowledge to be had here oh Tom exploring the most memorable cold brother playoff game in sports history blah blah cowboys and Packers all right Malcolm Brown Patriots that'll be for Dan Tyson and the Pats Scott Crichton Vikings Jesse team well that looks cold Christian curksi Browns I don't remember Christian curksi at all Daniel Anderson with the Browns alright there he is curksi we've got Tevin Coleman nice three-color patch and autograph 27 out of 49 that's a Falcons edition going to ASA John Brown Cardinals Ryan that's nice patch in there too I agree Carlos we got Robert Herron Michael with the Bucks Desmond Lewis Bills Cole Buffalo and we got Jay Ajay rookie Jersey and autograph that is for the Dolphins ASA with the Finns we've got this stack points we got that so that'll be randomized to someone in the break this stack stack right here the redemption down there I know these are expired but I think Panini will trade them for you in most cases I think for for points it's not that better than nothing Brandon chef sheriff Shreff Brandon Shreff take two and next up is Brandon Shreff Redskins it's gonna go to ASA and the Redskins we'll fix that in post all right we got Rashid Haigman going to ASA and the Falcons got Jersey and Otto Devin Funches bunches of Funches Barry and the Carolina Panthers Sharif we'll pick we'll fix that in post there's Antoine Goodley Cowboys ASA with the boys we got Conor Shaw Browns Daniel Anderson Brandon Coleman for the Saints that'll be Jesse and the Saints and Trey Wayne a lot of Vikings in this case here and that'll go that's a yet another one for Jesse T Stefan digs another Viking Wow rookie Jersey Prime senior series more Vikings right over there too nice so yeah expired but for a player of this caliber especially I'm sure I'm sure Panini will do something there for you another Viking Scott Crichton whole stack of Vikings more Raiders there's another Kembrill Tompkins Kevin with my Raiders oh a book Duke Johnson Vince Maley there you go Daniel Anderson with the Browns I have a slider box we'll take care of that a second Anthony Barr another one another Viking a blue horseshoe Jarell Freeman Colts that's gonna be for West Thomas Clive Walford and I had high hopes for Clive Walford but then but then Darren Waller happened so many years later Darren Waller was what I thought Clive Walford was gonna be there's Nelson Aglour so Clive Walford will go to the Raiders Kevin and Nelson Aglour is currently on the Raiders but this RPA will go to the Eagles Greg we got Greg Jennings Dolphins that's ASA with the Finns right yeah ASA Finns Jalen Strong Jersey Nato Texans that'll be for ASA as well and a five out of five Steve Young wow I told you this these these signature series cases there's another one up right now they're full of surprises like this like you'll just be going through Jalen Strong's and Greg Jennings's and you know Jarell and then all of a sudden you know Conor Shaw's and then all of a sudden boom five out of five Steve Young punches you in the face Jesse Triplett with the Niners there you go Jess all aboard the Big Head Express whoo-hoo out of fives and under get that train whistle that is nice here's another old-school quarterback coming at you look at that Bob Greasy for the Dolphins ASA with the Finns there's Troy Nicholas Ryan with the Cardinals or Mario Edwards Junior that goes to the Raiders Kevin I think Mario Edwards still still on the team pretty sure he is still still putting in effective downs Jersey and autograph Jeremy Langford Bears that goes to Brian Evans more Vikings yep Anthony Barr right we have most of the Vikings offensive linemen and then like all these defensive guys to their entire linebacking core and then all of a sudden boom five out of five Steve Young punches you in the face Bryce Butler Cowboys edition that goes to ASA Blake for Jesse and the Niners redemption Jaguars Ben Koyak Edwin in the Jaguars we have Trevor Riley Jets that'll be for Jens and the J E T S Jets Jets Jets Jersey and Otto Matt Jones Redskins ASA ASA all over the place picking the right teams in this one a lot of hits and finally we've got a ram that's gonna be Corey Harkie got some good penmanship there and the redemption is gonna be Buck Allen rookie Jersey signature series is that Raven Buck Allen to go to USC Javorius Allen yeah fourth round pick out of USC Ravens in that particular year that goes to Ryan Harold and the Baltimore Ravens all right and there's your break ladies and gentlemen 250 points right there unfortunately not Jack sorry not this time but I guess there is a consolation prize in those points let's grab everybody's names here let's put them in here name on top after six gets 250 points and sixth and final time after six we've got Jesse what a break for Jesse there you go when it rains it pours man there you have it Joe for Jaspy's case breaks calm I'll see you next time for the next break bye


So, before I introduce our guest speaker, I wanted to do a commercial. Is this the part where we read? Not yet. The word vitality contains within it the root word vitas, which means life. And we in the Connecticut conference have, as one of our mission priorities, congregational vitality. We think we're going to experiment with something that has not to our knowledge been done in a very long time. And that is we are going to have a revival. The Connecticut conference of the United Church of Christ is going to have a revival. Now our young people have been having youth revivals for five years and they have an unbelievably good time. Those adults who have been to those revivals would give testimony to the good time that is had at revivals and at the last one the question was posed why do the youth get to have all the fun? So we're going to have fun. The full conference community is going to have some fun. And our first ever adult, you all come revival. November 6th and November 7th. We think it's going to be so good that you're going to come the first night and want to come back for the second night at First Congregational Church in Bloomfield at 7 p.m. Our preacher for the first evening is our own Reverend Michelle Hughes, our ACM. And our preacher for the second night is Reverend Ken Samuel. So we hope that you will come and be revived by the spirit of God. November 6th and 7 p.m. in Bloomfield. It is now my privilege and honor to introduce our speaker this afternoon. Reverend Doerr-Hauer and I met. We were doing the math in 2004 when we were both serving as ACMs, associate conference ministers for Connecticut and the Missouri Mid-South Conference. Do you ever have one of those moments where you meet someone and you know they're going to be your friend? So I had that moment with John and we have been friends since our first meeting. We were commissioned along with Sheldon Culver to work on behalf of the Council of Conference Ministers to work in addressing people who were trying to take churches out of the United Church of Christ. And one of John's books, Steeple Jacking, was a result of the research that we were asked to do and in on behalf of the Council of Conference Ministers, in that encounter I got to go to John's home in St. Louis, Missouri where I discovered lots of things, where I discovered some things about John that I would never have known because when you go to someone's home you learn an awful lot about them. And I discovered that John had either an obsession or a real devotion to collecting sports memorabilia. I am not making this up. He could open a museum of sports memorabilia with a particular emphasis on a particular team called the St. Louis Cardinal. Go Max! Go Max! I got a story in a minute. So I have come to know John as a man of deep faith, a man who loves the United Church of Christ and believes that our best days are in our future and lie ahead. He is a generative thinker. He is a person of deep and abiding vision. He is trustworthy. He is an advocate for justice for all of God's children. And he has a deep commitment to the Spirit's movement in our time. John is, for me, one of the embodiments of what leadership for the Church of God's future looks like. John cares about his family. Ask him about what it's like to become a Grandfather. We share that now. He will show you pictures of Jacob if you request it. You don't have to request it. Today's conversation with us, and there will be some question and answer after John has addressed our gathering, which he has titled, A Future in Which We Matter. So please join me in welcoming my friend and our newly elected General Minister and President, the Reverend Dr. John. So I have a deep appreciation for the rootedness of the Connecticut Conference. But in order to measure imbalance with that, the level of my resentment, I need to know, is this a Yankee crowd, a Red Sox crowd, or a Mets crowd? Go Mets! Go Mets! Go Mets! Go Mets! For the Yankees in the fan, for the Yankee fans in the room, I just want to bring up 1964. For the Red Sox fans, I'll bring up 1967. 1965! Dagger to my heart, 1985. So, and Jell, you mentioned the Mets. I'll have you know, my son is now 30 years old. His first complete sentence, I am so proud, was the Mets are Ponsky. I may or may not have had a t-shirt at the time without the Mets. 2004! Yeah, I knew something was going to be 2004 and 2013, but 1967 has more lasting memories than that. And 2004, first time in 89 years, I would have been a big Red Sox fan, but for the fact that you were playing my beloved Cardinals and swept us in four games. On a more serious matter, I do want to talk about the future of the United Church in Christ and why I keep saying everywhere I go that the Holy Spirit envisions a future in which we matter. This afternoon, I want to talk to you about my commitment in answering the question, how do I see our future unfolding in a way that I say with confidence that our best days are ahead of us? This evening, I'm going to switch from the how to the why. Why the United Church of Christ. And I want to say before I begin in answering the question how that what I'm about to unfold for you is my commitment to living out the future of the United Church of Christ. And I want you to hear as I unfold this a call to you to be risk takers, to be innovators, to use the ingenuity and creativity that you are blessed with to answer the question, what is your commitment to the future of the United Church of Christ? And I also want you to hear before I begin that it's time for our narrative to shift. And when I talk about our narrative, I'm not now just talking about the United Church of Christ, but those of us who remain committed to the proclamation of a gospel that with its ability to change lives will remain relevant and credible and vital to the future, not just of the institutions that we're called to for taking mission on behalf of, but to a world crying out for a shalom yet to be fully realized. It is not my belief that the faithful proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only pathway to shalom, but it is sure my belief that a faithful proclamation of the gospel is a pathway and it's our pathway. We must continue to give ourselves to it as fully and holy as we can. And so here's what I'm inviting under my leadership the United Church of Christ to undertake. I call these my 90-day initiatives. Now please, don't hear me saying that I'm going to pull this off in 90 days. What I am saying is that I want to expend a lot of energy by first 90 days building a firm foundation and infrastructure to realize these goals. And it is my belief that the undertaking of these things, in addition to what other creative, entrepreneurial, inventive minds are going to offer, it's my belief that the undertaking of these things will help secure a strong and firm foundation for the United Church of Christ and the gospel that we're called to proclaim. The first initiative is still speaking 2.0. I promised myself once I was nominated that within the first 90 days I would visit with Michael Jordan and ask him the question, if we were to refresh our brand identity, what would that look like? Michael Jordan, if you don't know, it's not the Chicago Bulls Hall of Fame, it may be a basketball club, I mean he is, there's another Michael Jordan walking around the streets of Manhattan who runs an advertising firm called 31 Lengths. And he was the genius that inspired by Ron Buford and Bob Chase helped launch the first still speaking campaign, which I think to this day remains the single most galvanizing moment in the life of the United Church of Christ. It reminded us what we were birthed to do and gave us a message that not only we were proud of but committed us with one voice, maybe for the first time to doing the same thing with and for each other. It was an amazing moment. Kent talked about us meeting as ACMs in 2004, literally the day we met, still speaking launch and CBS and NBC announced that they would refuse to air the commercials that we had bought at 34. That was the day we met. And our first reaction was how dare they, but a week later we were like, thank you because it turned $1.2 million of advertising into about $14 million worth of advertising. That really is the genius of Michael Jordan. He knew how to capture an audience and captivate a people with a message that articulated what we were about in our core. And so it was that within literally my first three weeks, I flew to Manhattan and had my first meeting with Michael Jordan. It's like he's been waiting for this conversation. He got in on this because he loved what Ron Buford and Bob Chase had to say about what the United Church of Christ was. And you realize that when I talk about keeping the United Church of Christ vital and relevant, I'm not saying that for the sake of preserving the institutional identity of the United Church of Christ, but to make sure that the movement of which were a part remains vital. And Michael's a part of that. He's all in on that. And the 31 lengths, what does that remind anybody in the room of? Somebody has to know this. It's the length by which Secretariat won the third leg of the Triple Crown back in 1973, right? And what Michael Jordan, it's important that you know this because this is who we're asking to do the next round of advertising and public relations and marketing and branding and identity for us. He remembers watching that as a child, as I remember. And Secretariat coming down the stretch was so far ahead of the field that the cameras couldn't get the rest of the field in the picture. And so, whereas you would usually, the producer of that show would focus on the finish line with a close up, the camera kept going back and panning further and further out. And it took a while, but eventually it panned out far enough that the rest of the field was in the picture. And because Secretariat kept expanding the lead, the camera had to keep panning further and further out. And he said, Secretariat made the rest of the field look like they were running backwards. He says that's how he wants to function. He wants to be so far ahead of the field that he makes everybody else look like they're running backwards. And this is the one who's going to develop, still speaking 2.0 for us. We already know a couple of things. First of all, Michael Jordan came last week to Cleveland, interviewed conference ministers, interviewed board of directors, interviewed national staff. He's in the process now of interviewing national leaders. He wants to capture our content and our tone and make sure he gets it right. The first thing that we know about still speaking 2.0 is that we're not going to launch with a national ad campaign. It's a very costly way to do it. And 10 years ago, there was no Facebook. There was no Twitter. And it was, although expensive, it was the most expedient way to get your message out to the masses. Well, we don't need that anymore. What we are going to do is produce a toolkit for local churches. And every local church in the United Church of Christ will be invited to partner with us in rebranding the United Church of Christ 10 years after the still speaking initiative was launched. This is going to do a couple of things. It's going to remind your leaders at 700 Prospect in the national setting of the church that we don't do things to our churches. We do things with our churches. And it's going to provide us with an immediate feedback loop that we really didn't have the first time we launched this. So you're going to be able to tell us in real time what's working for you and what needs to shift in order to make our voice relevant. So still speaking 2.0. The question that Michael is asking in addition to getting our content and tone right is what's the new edge? 10 years ago we were willing to stand in the space and declare marriage equality and LGBT rights a part of the mission life of the church. And for a long time we stood alone in that space. And it's no accident that our doing that as vocally and visibly as we did produced 10 years later the fact that every state in the country is now a marriage equality state. So the question Michael wants to ask is what new ground do you want to break? You who from the days of your birth were breaking ground that others didn't see as tillable. What do you want to do now? We've got a couple of guesses but that's all they are. We are a part now of a movement as I said in which the gospel is a meaningful pathway to God's vision for Shalom. And it's about time that the United Church of Christ express itself in full partnership with our interfaith brothers and sisters around the globe. I'm going to mention this moment in the second initiative but I want to bring it up now. Last week the leaders of your denomination issued a letter that went first to the conference ministers and then all of the churches identifying that in at least 20 cities across this land white supremacists were gathering in one night to present protests outside of mosques, temples and houses of worship for our Muslim brothers and sisters. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a second. That letter within four days got over 90,000 hits on memes that were created on our social media outlets. Now, translate Michael Jordan's brilliance into providing every church in this country with material like that and we've got a possibility now of putting our voice in the marketplace of ideas that I think has the potential to shift the game and make us real players in this movement which brings me to the second initiative. I'm calling upon the leaders of this denomination to organize once a month in the year of 2016. That means 12 events. I'm calling upon the leadership to organize 12 events, one a month in 2016 that calls us to fully realize our call to be a bold public witness. When we speak, things change. When we speak with the integrity of our missional calling and purpose the world has the potential to change. We've seen this over and over and over again. We did it as abolitionists. We did it as suffragists. We did this as leaders in the labor movement. We did this in the civil rights movement. We did it with Black Lives Matter and I want us to ask the question if we're to be taken seriously as a part of this movement with a big bold public voice how do we speak in such a way that the world in fact takes notice of our speech? So a big public event is not an announcement to the press that says the general minister and president John Doar Harrow will be speaking next Tuesday in the Homestad Chapel on the environment and climate change. What I say may be important it may have the potential to change the world but nobody's listening to that. What if instead we called Jim Antal and said Jim Antal on Earth Day we're going to gather outside the U.S. Capitol and we want you to get Elizabeth Warren, Bill McKibben and Desmond Tutu to either show up or produce a statement declaring that climate change is the issue of our day and the United Church of Christ has something to say about it. What if in July, late June early July when the Republican National Convention is held across the street from our headquarters, Marshae Greer, who runs our social media campaign for the national setting creates a Twitter hashtag and a Periscope account and deploys hundreds of youth and young adults to live tweak the Republican Convention. People are going to take notice. So I want us to imagine what 12 months of calculating smartly, sophisticatedly the branding of our voice looks like. Now I'm going to go back to that letter I wrote last week. In addition to doing this we are in the process of writing a 48-hour response protocol which calls upon the leadership of the United Church of Christ when something like Charleston happens when something like Ferguson happens to have a meaningful statement of our churches into the press within 48 hours. Without yet fully realizing those protocols we test drove those last week when Paul Rauschenbush on the Huffington Post produced an article announcing to the United States that not only are these white supremacists gathering outside these Muslim temples there's not a single church voice or denominational voice that's even taken notice or responded. We said we got 48 hours. We exchanged a few emails within the collegium. I was assigned the task of drafting something sent it back to the collegium they've edited, sent it to our pick team they've edited. Forget about 48 hours within 4 hours we had that letter after our conferences. And within the hour we were looking at Facebook posts and tweets talking about that letter and asking one another what's going on in your neighborhood we're going to gather here who's with me. Now again, within 3 days 90,000 people responded to those messages in High Ridge, Missouri about an hour out of St. Louis a small rural town a Muslim family walked into the worship about 10 minutes late. Imagine you're a mother and father with two young children in High Ridge, Missouri imagine if you're that couple the courage it took to open that door walk in interrupt the service and in the middle of the service ask the pastor if you can speak that's what they did they said they saw that letter and were so moved because for the first time in their lives and in the lives of their children they saw a Christian voice standing up in solidarity with them and all they wanted to do was say thank you they stayed for the service they stayed for the fellowship hour afterwards and in the intervening days they've been called by about 12 of those families to see how they're doing and to invite them back for a service sometime we can do this our voice matters and if we remind ourselves we remind ourselves that speaking with clarity with integrity with alacrity and with purpose we can and we will change the world so that's the second initiative the third initiative is already underway we just opened the pilot phase of this yesterday a group of 28 national staff members invited the entire united church of christ in all of their covenant settings into I think it works out to about 189 per and are committed starting November 9th to making random phone calls to every local church in the united church of christ now we didn't realize this until we did the math we can finish calls to every local church at least by next synod possibly within the first year and the point of this conversation we've developed scripts and talking points and templates and protocols is not to give into the temptation in the conversation to say I'm so and so from the national setting of the church let me tell you what I'm doing that you should be excited about which is our default mode right but to ask the question what's going on in your world that you're proud of that you're excited about and that we need to know about and if appropriate at the end of the call say is there anything that you would like us to lift you up in prayer for we gather every Wednesday at Amistad chapel for prayer and we promise to lift those churches up in prayer when we do so and it may be that in that conversation a story or two emerges that we know can't be contained and so we're going to deploy our communications team to write and tell those stories and broadcast them so that we begin to get a feel for what's going on in the life of the United Church of Christ that the Holy Spirit is willing to invest in and so that every one of those whom you deploy in your national setting reminds themselves who it is we do this for and why we do this and again reminding ourselves that we don't do things to our local churches so it's time to rebuild and restore the trust in the covenant partnership between our local church and the wider church and that's intended to do that the fourth initiative is both a by-product of the doctoral work that I did in my privileged studies and one of the reasons why I not only felt called to this position but in then being called to it I had to live out my commitment to this I believe that there are two competencies in this partnership with the Holy Spirit that the United Church of Christ must develop in order to fully realize what the Holy Spirit envisions in our futures part of our mission of undertaking if you've read the book Beyond Resistance you know what the first competency is it's time for Enlightenment Era the traditional minded congregational United Church of Christ people to become culturally competent in the postmodern world because the gospel is as relevant to postmodern years as it was to Enlightenment years and the modalities that the church has utilized successfully for the last 500 years we all know are insufficient to meet the needs of the coming generations so that's the first competency the second competency that I think the United Church of Christ has to fully undertake in order to be relevant, in order to be credible and in order to be successful is to wrestle with white privilege George Lipsitz has written a book called The Possessive Investment in Whiteness we love that title of white privilege is not something that we maintain by accident there is a continuing and ongoing possessive investment in that my research, my doctoral research wasn't just in white privilege studies but specifically white privilege and its effect on the church and we have been a part of an ongoing sacred conversation on race for the better part of the last decade please don't hear this as a replacement of that but a continuation of that commitment to be in sacred conversations on race but focusing this time in particular on the dynamics of white privilege and our ongoing investment in those dynamics and I have promised that by September of 2016 when many of our churches are starting their new Christian education programs that we will provide to every covenant partner in the United Church of Christ curriculum material that affords them the opportunity to engage in safe, meaningful and substantive conversations on the impact and dynamic of white privilege whether this is coincidence or just the spirit working or vision out I don't know but within two weeks of arriving in the office I got a call from Erdman's publishing house and they wanted to produce or to my next book and asked me to pitch a couple of ideas one of them was on white privilege and I now have a contract with Erdman's and the hope is that the book will come out in September of 2016 at the same time that curriculum material will come out so that's the fourth initiative the fifth initiative and we've already begun building the infrastructure for this we've got the blessing of your board of directors last week to undertake this it's a strategic planning initiative that will unfold in two phases and I needed the board to declare whether they wanted phase one to be completed in six months with a report at their March meeting or one year with a report at their October board meeting and they're just I gotta tell you they are alive with excitement about what they see as a new day in the United Church of Christ and they said get that report to us in March we are building for this first phase a task force of under 40s so over 40 need not apply the task force is asked to answer one question now let me pause they're not going to answer the question they're going to uncover the answer to that question and the question is if the United Church of Christ is to be a relevant partner in this movement to change the world what do we need to look like in 10 years we are going to ask them to skew the data under 40 now I want to be very careful here that does not mean we're not interviewing anybody over 40 but we are going to give different way to those under 40 and we're not giving them any more direction than answer the question they'll use our card team to develop survey materials to go out broadly they'll do one-on-one interviews they'll do focus groups and small group discussions and their job is to come back in March to the board meeting with a clear answer to the question what is the relevant United Church of Christ look like in 10 years we're also asking them don't just interview those who are already members of and invested in the United Church of Christ talk to those partners who will be a part of this movement with us and ask them for the sake of the movement what do you need the United Church of Christ to look like in 10 years and I've already said this to our board once we get that we start phase 2 and test their courage because there's two ways to get there right look at what we've got and say how do we take this and figure out a way with this to get there in 10 years or say if you could start over and build the most effective efficient way to get there what would you build now those are big questions and that's phase 2 how do we get from who we are to where we're called to be to be sure there will be challenges risks that require enormous courage and patience because this isn't going to happen with the first try or the second try or the third try or the fourth try I said it said the call to the United Church of Christ is to prepare to fail which doesn't mean our mission will not succeed it will prepare to fail is a call to the innovators among us to start taking risks I can remember this is almost 15 years ago driving down the highway and there was somebody paid for those black and white billboards black background white script and it was a pithy quote it was always God or Jesus and the one that I passed read what would you be willing to do if I told you you wouldn't fail that's the question put to us today what are we willing to do put the question to you for the sake of the gospel in partnership with the Holy Spirit who has not and will not abandon us what are you willing to do


Hope you guys welcome back to another one. If you're new to the channel, I am Gold Pony, I do new car truck SUV reviews on YouTube. And today we are in the new 2021 Lexus RX350 courtesy of Bobby Ray Hall Lexus in Mechanicsburg PA. For more information on their inventory, please feel free to check out the link in the description box below. And so wanted to check this one out today because of course it is a Lexus that does have above average reliability according to consumer reports, which is a heck of a start. Lots of new standard safety as well for the 2021 RX. So I'll get more into that later in the video, of course. And so in this video, I will be testing out and going over everything about this one from acceleration to braking, the steering feel, ride quality, sound system, exhaust clip, rear leg room, all of that fun stuff. So having said all of that, what do you guys say? Let's just go ahead and jump right into it. And as always, let's start with pricing. And so there will be a few different configurations you can go with for the RX 350. First one being the base setup, starting at $45,170, RX 350 all-wheel drive for $46,570. Then there is the F Sport for $48,650, F Sport all-wheel drive for $50,050, Blackline Special Edition for $49,335, and Blackline Special Edition all-wheel drive for $50,735. But regardless of trim level that you go with, the power plant on the RX is going to be the same. Powering this beast is a 3.5 liter naturally aspirated V6, putting out 295 horsepower at 6,300 RPM, 268 pound-feet of torque coming in at 4,700 RPM, power sent to front wheels or all wheels through an eight-speed automatic with paddle shifters, which you guys know we will of course be testing out. And a little bit here, zero to 60 time comes in at approximately 7.3 seconds, with MPG numbers coming in at 20 in the city, 27 highway for the front-wheel drive, 19 in the city, then 26 on the highway for the all-wheel drive. But since then, before we do any kind of paddle shifter acceleration test in the RX 350 here, I did want to mention the drive modes. Drive mode selector is going to be located directly behind the cup holders. They will include normal, eco, sport and sport, plus adjusting things like the shift points, the throttle response, and the steering sensitivity as well. And so having now rambled all of that off to you guys, what do you guys say? Let's go ahead and find a straightaway. And let's put the paddle shifters here to the test first. I did want to mention, if you push the shifter all the way to the back and to the left, that is going to give you that full manual shift mode, allowing me full control over the shifting. So therefore, that is what we are going to do. Let's find a straightaway. Let's see how quickly these paddle shifters will react for us here. All right, in three, two, one, go. Whoa. Holy cow. All right, paddle shifters, there is a delight to them without a doubt. Didn't expect them to be quick reacting, quite honestly. There is a luxury SUV after all, but wow, that acceleration, that took me by surprise. This is the NAV6. I most definitely didn't expect that. I mean, NAV6s can be quick, but this was dang quick. Definitely not going to have any issues in merging onto the highway. I guess that kind of counts as our acceleration test as well, because that was fun. That acceleration was fun. Paddle shifters, not really, but the acceleration. That was nice. I like it. But so anyways, to go along with that acceleration, as always, braking is equally important. So upfront, you will find 12.9 inch ventilated front discs. In the back, 13.3 inch solid rear discs. As far as that 60 to zero stopping distance goes, comes in at 123 feet, which is plenty respectable for the RX. As far as braking feel goes, no issues there. It's not spongy or squishy or anything like that. So no issues with the braking feel on this thing. Touching on suspension and handling, upfront, you're going to get an independent McPherson front suspension. In the back, independent double wishbone type rear suspension, front and rear stabilizer bars. Did want to mention though, in addition to that, if you were to go with the F Sport trim level, you will also get tuned front and rear performance dampers as well as my very favorite adaptive variable suspension. Why is that one my very favorite? Because it gives you the very best of both worlds. Let me tell you why. Actually monitors each shock absorber individually, adjusting to the road imperfections, giving you that very smoothest ride possible. But it also tightens up the suspension during heavy cornering, giving you better handling then as well. So whenever there is an option for that adaptive variable suspension, no matter what manufacturer it is, always like to recommend that one because you really can tell the difference. At least I can really tell the difference night and day at this point, between if you were to get the variable suspension versus if you were to not get it. So it is a big difference in my personal opinion. But in the end, the ride quality on this particular RX that we have today is amazing. I don't know if it's because I've been testing non-luxury SUVs lately, but the ride quality on this RX is brilliant. Well done Lexus, as expected I guess. But also cabin noise. That's another thing I immediately noticed. The only thing I'm really getting as far as cabin noise goes is the bird's chirping, which isn't a bad thing to me. I don't know, I got bird food in my backyard. It's really not a bad thing. So cabin noise is wonderful. The RX is definitely isolated. You don't hear a whole lot of exterior wind noise coming into the cabin. You guys could probably tell I am driving right now and there isn't a whole lot of noise coming in. So that's definitely a good thing. As far as steering feel goes, you kind of adjust it based on the driving modes that you put it in. So if you prefer a heavier feel to the steering, just put it in that sport mode. And if you don't, take it out of the sport mode, you can get a looser feel to it. So really gives you the best of both worlds. I guess you could say yet again. And as far as visibility goes, I could see perfect. It really is quite good when it comes to visibility on the RX. So no issues there whatsoever. But in addition to that, you also get rain sensing windshield wipers coming standard on every single trim level. Essentially what that is, is whenever the RX detects any kind of mist or rainfall, it's gonna automatically turn on this windshield wipers for you. It's kind of like automatic headlights. It's just one less thing you have to worry about. So that's definitely a big plus as well. And in addition to that, if you wanted a head up display for even better visibility, that goes for $600. That is optional. But that's gonna project your speed and speed limit up onto your windshield as well as some safety features as well. Better helping you keep your eyes on the road. So again, assisting with visibility there too. But that about rounds out the performance segment of this review guys. Let's now go ahead and take a look at the exterior of our brand new 2021 Lexus RX350. All right, so here she is you guys, the new 2021 Lexus RX350. Finished in eminent white pearl, which is a $425 paint option by the way, in case anybody was curious. It is a pretty cool paint color, especially when you get up close. But let's go ahead and start up front on this one. First wanted to mention a little bit on the F-Sport side of things, although we don't have it. There is a F-Sport specific front fascia. If you were to go with that trim, also F-Sport specific front grille then as well. But LED headlights do come standard for all trim levels across the board. It does come with the automatic feature as well, meaning when it starts to get dark at night, those headlights are going to turn on automatically for you then there. LED daytime running lights also coming standard. But did want to mention an optional headlight configuration called triple beam LED headlights. That goes for $1,675. That not only gives you auto leveling, but adaptive front lighting system as well. I love that. Cause what that is is when you're going around a bend at night, those headlights are therefore going to swivel based on the direction of your steering angle, better help illuminating what is around that bend. So you're less likely to hit a deer or a squirrel or a bird or whatever. So that's definitely a little safety feature in itself. I suppose you could say just to the bottom, silver aluminum accenting on that front lip that is going to come with all trim levels. And to the sides you guys could probably see it. There are some front air curtains there helping direct air around the wheel and tire combination as well for a little better air dynamics. But nonetheless, let's go ahead and make our way now to the side of the RX. All right, so now since we are around to the side of the RX, first thing I wanted to mention, starting up top, those aluminum roof rails, they are an optional, they are with an optional package with the power mooner. If we do have that package today, because otherwise roof rails actually do not come standard on the RX, but you can get them like we have here today. But floating roof line, I also love that design towards the back. You guys can see that rear privacy glass, of course, coming standard on the RX as well. Taking a look at the side mirrors that are power folding auto dimming side mirrors. They will be heated with LED integrated turd signals as well.  We finished in gloss black, I should say. So a little differentiation there. Taking a look down at the wheel setup, 18 inch double five spoke alloys are going to be the standard configuration for the RX. However, if you were to jump up to the F-Sport, that will jump up that wheel size as well to 20 inch 10 spoke alloy. So again, a little different configuration there. And actually I think I like the side profile to the RX the very best. Definitely a good looking side profile to this one. But now let's go ahead and make our way to the back. So now since we are around back of this one, body-colored shark fin antennae all the way to the top there. Rear spoiler with an integrated brake light as well. Just below that, LED tail lights do come standard across the board. Absolutely love that. Also should mention rear window waper also coming standard. But I will say one thing the RX does a little bit differently than most other SUVs out there. They don't actually put the rear window waper on the glass itself because of course that is going to impede visibility. What they actually do is tuck it up under the rear spoiler. I don't know if you guys can see that or not, but it is up under there. So when you turn it on, it actually comes down and swipes from left to right from the top rather than the bottom. So a little different configuration there. I like it better again because it doesn't impede rear visibility. So that's a good thing. Of course you got the RX 350 badging on the back as well and F-Sport badging if you go with the F-Sport trim level. Of course, just below it all then, dual exhaust outlets with chrome tips. So I do believe you guys know what we have to do next. As always here is that exhaust clip. All right, you guys, so now since we are around back of the RX, when it comes to opening that rear liftgate, it is a power liftgate that does come standard. You can actually get a kick sensor hands free power liftgate. That is a $150 option. If you wanted to go that route, we do actually have that option here today. So that is pretty cool. But once opened up cargo capacity comes in at 38.4 cubic feet. If that was not enough space, there's receipts do of course, fold down, bumping that up to 58.5 cubic feet. Then that is a 40, 20, 40 split. In case anybody was curious about that. There is no in-floor storage. However, if you lift up underneath of that cargo area, there is a full-size spare tire as opposed to the fix-a-flat. So in case anybody was curious there, and that is a good thing. 12-volt power outlet coming standard in that cargo area as well. There are a couple grocery bag hooks down there, tie-down anchors as well. There is a 12-volt power outlet as well, and a rear cargo cover then too. And I don't want to forget the first aid kit. Lexus always does that. They put a first aid kit in the cargo area. I always find it pretty cool because I don't find that on any other manufacturers. So I don't know, it's pretty cool. Then making our way up to the rear legroom that is going to come in at 38 inches even. So for reference, I'm an even six feet tall. This is how much space I had in the second row there. Heated second row seats are going to be optional. If you wanted to go that route, there is a rear center armrest with cup holders. You simply press a button and that'll open up for you then. Rear ventilation does come standard. You have dual USB charging ports back there as well. That is the big one for me. And if you wanted to go with rear window sunshades, although we don't have them today, they are optional. So you can get them for the RX350 if you wanted to go that route as well. So rear seats are plenty fine there. But then making our way up to the front seats of the RX, power adjustable driver and passenger seats do come standard. New luck seating material is going to be the standard configuration. However, perforated leather finishes are going to be optional. Heated and ventilated front seats, again optional for $640. We do have those today. Heated front seats by itself is going to be a $440 option. You do get much enhanced bolstering with the F Sport seats. And let me emphasize this a little bit. I literally mentioned this. I feel like in all of my reviews, out of all of the seats, out of all of the 500 plus cars that I've experienced at this point, F Sport seats are still my favorite. They are the most comfortable seats out there without a doubt. If you have a bad back, you don't need to look any further than Lexus F Sport seats. They are the best. We don't have them today. These seats are plenty comfortable, but the F Sport seats are better. They are the very best seats out there. But anyways, then take a look at the steering wheel. It is tilt and telescoping. It is leather wrapped and you can get a heated steering wheel. That is a $150 option. We do have that again. When it comes to the startup, let me first start by showing you guys the key here. You do have your Lexus logo on the one side and when you flip it over, lock, unlock that button to pop the rear hatch and the panic button, of course, but it is essentially all keyless entry with a push button start. So all I'm going to do is simply put my foot on the brake and press that engine start button located just by the driver's right knee there. And so once started up, tachometer is on your left speedometer on your right. There is a small digital display front and center, which can be controlled by using the steering wheel mounted controls on the right side of the steering wheel, giving you things like your average miles per gallon at any given time. There is going to be a compass. You have some radio information, safety information. The list goes on. So basically everything you could possibly want up on the digital portion at least of those gauges and taking a look at overall interior quality. A power moonroof is going to be optional. Again, it comes with the aluminum roof rails like I was mentioning for $1,350. Dual zone climate control comes standard. Auto dimming rear view mirror also standard. Wireless phone charger adds $200 if you wanted to go that route. Also wanted to mention there are several different options. If you guys go to Lexus website, you'll see that. You can configure this in so many different ways. There's so many different interior color options. There's different trims and finishes. There's walnut trim. There's sepal wood trim. I probably didn't say that right, but we have one or the other here today. So we got some kind of wood trim. It looks good. But perhaps my very favorite part and maybe this is going to sound a little bit weird to you guys, but the headliner, the headliner is so soft. It's so ridiculously soft. I absolutely love it. It doesn't feel like a suede headliner, but it feels like a super soft headliner. It's light years better than most everything else that I test. I don't know why I'm so particular about headliners these days, but it's very nice. I will say that. Also, of course, just in front of the shifter, you have an electromechanical parking brake, dual USB charging ports, 12-volt power outlet, another little slot to put your smartphone if you wanted to. There are also dual cupholders. And perhaps my favorite part about those dual cupholders is when you press down the one side of the cupholder, you can do that for super tall drinks. And if you have a super short drink, you can actually push the push button in between the cupholders. And that cupholder is going to raise back up for shorter drinks. So I do like how Lexus thought about the tall drinks out there. So that is pretty funny. That's pretty cool. Well thought out, Lexus. Overall, of course, you guys know it's a Lexus. I like the throwback analog clock up front here. So all in all, it's pretty darn good interior quality as expected. But now let's go ahead and make our way to the infotainment screen because there's a couple of different setups here. There is an eight inch color touch screen display that comes standard, but then there is the 12.3 inch color touch screen display that is optional that we actually have today. But it will say, either way, you still get an Android Auto Apple CarPlay, which is a big one, meaning if you have a smartphone, just hook it up to the RX and you have free navigation displayed up on that screen even if you don't get the factory navigation. So that is pretty cool, of course. The factory navigation, by the way, gives for $2,285, which you don't really need these days because if you have a smartphone, you have data, then you get it for free. So you can also check out your weather information up there. There's some driving statistics, how many miles you have left until you hit empty, your climate control information, and of course your radio information as well. And by the way, when it comes to these sound systems, there are a couple of different options you have to choose from. There is the nine speaker sound system, which comes standard, which is the one we have today. And then there is the 15 speaker, Mark Levinson sound system, which goes for $3,365. That comes with 835 watts. That's pretty ridiculous. And I've tested that sound system. It's pretty darn good, but we don't have that one today. We actually have the nine speaker. So let's go ahead and turn on the radio see what we got playing today and let's test out the clarity of this one. Actually, not that bad. I kind of like it. Not the Mark Levinson good, but definitely a very good sound system for the RX without a doubt. More than what you would need for an RX basically. But so anyways, last thing I wanted to mention to you guys on that tech display is when you do put the RX in reverse, you will find a rear view camera coming standard. It doesn't take up the full screen though, which is kind of a bummer, but still it is there. And there is a panoramic view monitor which goes for $1,365, which gives you an additional bird's eye view if you wanted to go that route as well. But it's always that is going to lead us into safety. And so IIHS top safety pick first thing I wanted to mention when it comes to this one that pretty much says it all right there. Front side, side current airbags do come standard. There is a driver's knee airbag as well. In the back, you're going to have latch AKA lower anchors and tethers for children for the rear car seats, rear child door locks, tire pressure monitoring system, the new standard safety for the 2021 RX. This is the big change for 2021 basically. Blind spot monitoring system with rear cross traffic alert now comes standard. And power folding auto dimming sign mirrors now also comes standard on the RX 350. But that's the new stuff also standard across the board is going to be a pre-collision system with pedestrian detection, lane tracing assist, lane departure alert with steering assist, road sign assist, dynamic radar cruise control, which is always a good one. Automatic high beams as well. I love that feature by the way you guys, I use that every single morning you essentially just hit the button and it turns on your high beams when there's a car coming in the opposite direction. Then it puts it back to regular low beams and then it puts it back to high beams once that vehicle is gone. It's super convenient. Let me tell you, but in addition to that there is also an intuitive parking assist with rear cross traffic breaking option that goes for $565 if you wanted to go that route. But overall, when it comes to my final thoughts here of the RX 350, the new standard safety is great. I definitely will say that safety all around really is great for this one. It's an IHS top safety pack after all. Great reliability of course. This is a Lexus, great ride quality. When it comes to cabin noise, that is great as well. I keep using that word, I don't know why, but most comfy seats in existence as well if you were to go with that F-Sport trim level as far as constructive criticism goes. There is a lot of optional stuff on the RX, especially at this price range that should be coming standard. Like for instance, heated seats. You can get heated seats on most Toyotas without having to opt for any options. So that is kind of interesting. Also a power moonroof. A lot of trim levels of the Corolla will give you a standard power moonroof. I'm thinking it probably should be standard on the RX then as well. So I would have liked to have seen some more standard stuff on the RX. And in addition to that there is quite a bit of competition in this particular segment as well when you include the Porsche Macan BMW X3 and Genesis GV80, which is kind of a little bit bigger than this. So I don't know if it's really the same competition but still quite a bit of competition, similar price ranges for all of those. So overall in the end, the RX is really great at what matters the most. I would put it that way. So reliability, safety and seat comfort. There's probably the top three most important things to me, so although I would have liked to have seen a full digital gauge cluster in this one, I will say that as well. But anyways, that is about it for this one. Let me know what you guys think of the RX 350 in the comment section below, because I do read them all. It's pretty interesting. I like the conversation. Also, feel free to follow me on social media at the bottom of the screen, so you can see what's coming next on the channel before it actually hits YouTube. Be sure to hit the subscribe and the bell notification button if you're into new car reviews. That is what we do every single year all day long. And that is about it for this one. Do appreciate you guys watching more than you know and I will see you guys all in the next video. Stay Gold.


So, Robert Siegel, the question is, why would we invite the CEO of the American Hospital in Paris to a conversation on healthcare in Africa? And Robert's a business leader, ran the GE health business in France before taking on the CEO role and has a very interesting perspective on healthcare generally, but also healthcare in Africa, if you would, please. Yes, thank you, Brian. First of all, I would like to thank the organizer, and certainly Thierry de Montbrial, for organizing this session. Who can imagine that we will aim at a better world without having better health? It's impossible. So, healthcare is certainly a founding block of better healthcare. So providing healthcare, if you want to deliver healthcare, whether in France, in the United States or in Africa, you need basically three things. Basic infrastructure, water, electricity. Then you need healthcare infrastructure, buildings, equipment. And finally, you need human infrastructure, nurses, technicians, and of course, physicians. When you look at Africa today, 47 countries, the situation is of course very diverse. If you look at Maghreb, for instance, there is infrastructure. There is basic infrastructure, and certainly there is healthcare infrastructure. If you look at data regarding the physicians, for instance, and you look at how many physicians you have by 10,000 population, in Maghreb, in Nigeria, you have 18 doctors, Morocco 7. If you look at South Africa, you are at 9. But now, if you look in between, the situation is not the same. It would be below 5, and it can go as low as 0.5 physician per 10,000 people in Nigeria. So there is clearly a problem, a quantitative problem. These progress, however, are there. And yesterday, we heard Prime Minister Koulibali, who mentioned that the middle class is going to be 800 million people in 10 years. And this middle class is looking for healthcare. And in general, again, who can imagine that in all these countries, solid growth and social justice will occur without solid healthcare? And so in this mood of making progress, I would like to point to two specific domains. The need for quality is number one, and the need for accountability is number two. Need for quality, let me go back to the problem of physicians. Even if you say that in the country, you have 8, 10 doctors per 10,000. By the way, for France, we are at 30 for 10,000, in the United States, it's 26. But so you need to have the good doctors. You need to have specialists. It's not only, there are certain countries in Western Africa where you have three gastroenterologists for the whole country. So you need to train all those specialists. The second point I would like to stress on regarding quality is hospital and healthcare managers. It's not an issue only for Africa, believe me, it's an issue wherever you are in the world in France, as in any other country. You need good hospital managers. And this point points to my second point, which is accountability. There is no shortage, or there are financing and financiers around the world. It can be public, it can be the WHO, it can be the Gates Foundation, so there are money. But all these people are asking the same question, and it can be, of course, private sector, of course. But they're all asking the same question. If I invest one euro or one dollar whenever, what is a return on investment? Who is accountable for this money? I am ready to put a lot of money, but I want to be sure that there is a return on investment or a value for money, call it whatever you want. So I think that for these two challenges, quality and accountability, technology is an answer. Not the only answer, but it's a very important answer. And let me be a little bit more specific. Number one, technology, of course, is completely linked to modern medicine. In any hospital, in any clinic, you need now modern imaging, MR, CT, you need an operating room with tools that can deliver on the needs. So this is one. Now I would like to point to information technology. Information technology is transforming our world, maybe at the cost of the carbon, as was said before, but it's transforming the world. And it can be used in several ways. One of them is simply organizing digital education. I spoke about the need to enforce and enhance the education of physicians. We are organizing in our hospital every year what we call the gastro-training, where we train gastroenterologists of Africa in sight. And at the same time, we have a digital link with several countries in Africa where people can watch, participate to this. And there are a myriad of initiatives for this digital education. Now another point with digital is continuum of care. And this is very important. Today what I see and what we're discussing in my hospital, we get a lot of patients coming from Africa, but in many cases, sorry, it's too late. As simple as that. We cannot do a good service for these people. So having tele-radiology, tele-medical conferences is a tool that is able to triage the good patients and to avoid to get patients for which you cannot do anything. And once you've treated the patient, you have to follow up on this patient. Because you can imagine that you need to follow with local doctors and the local infrastructures. So this is digital information. But you can even think forward, leapfrog. Let me just say something concrete about artificial intelligence. We are using today in our hospital artificial intelligence with mammograms to detect women's which are at risk for breast cancer. It's used with genetics and it's used with mammography. So today in the Western world, artificial intelligence is a help for the radiologist. But you can imagine that tomorrow in Africa, you have a mobile unit with MAMO, no need for a radiologist. The MAMO is sent to the cloud, an artificial intelligence program, and is able to detect as simple as that and to point to women which are at risk for developing cancer. So this is becoming real now. It's not just a dream, it's becoming real. And finally, the last point about technology, I come back to accountability, it's data. If you are digital, you have more and more data, you're accumulating data. And we know today that in the real world, in the Western world, accountability now is simply data. It's the fact that you're not just speaking with explaining nice things, you show to control a ship data. So if we put and develop those digital infrastructure, the accountability and the capacity and the will of the payers to sustain the effort will increase. I will just finish with this point. In my previous life, industrial life, it was an American company, and the company understood at some point that it was not what was good in America, was good for other continents. And there was a lot of efforts which were done for in China, for China, in Asia, in India for India. We can exactly imagine the same for Africa, in Africa, for Africa. And yesterday, we had President Kagami, which was there, everybody knows the IT success of Rwanda. You can perfectly imagine that some solution, local solution, are invented in Africa. And because we are close to the market, to the needs, we are cost effective, and they are good for Africa. But tomorrow, and this was what happened for in China, for China, and in India, for India, those products which has a beginning where only good for those markets became good for the entire world. So maybe step one is maybe in Africa for Africa, but step two is why not everywhere in the future? So I am optimistic for Africa. Thank you, Robert.