Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we're discussing a very significant international development. We're looking at how the Adani group has actually managed to get a clearance from the Queensland government in Australia for their cold project. And to talk about the kind of timeline of this entire deal and finally the kind of repercussions that this project is going to have on Queensland, we have with us Paranjoy Guha Thakurthasenia journalist and Paranjoy, you've been following this issue very, very closely as well. And my first question is that many people on the ground are saying that the Queensland government has finally given in to the kind of bullying that Adani has been doing for to get the clearance for this project. So what has actually happened? How do you see the significance of this clearance? Alright let's take a few steps back. On Thursday the 13th of June the Brisbane where the Queensland government is headquartered gave the approval for this project together with the approval that came from the federal government based in Canberra. Now you must remember that this project was initially proposed almost a decade ago. It was at that time described as the world's biggest greenfield coal mining project and among maybe the top 10 or 12 in the world a project of its kind. Since then what was originally proposed it has been fairly drastically scaled down and the reason why it has been scaled down is on account of the opposition by environmental groups. I'll give you some figures to highlight how it has been scaled down. Initially it was proposed that over 10,000 people would be directly employed and many times that number would be indirectly employed. Now the company says that 1,500 individuals would be directly employed and roughly 6,750 would be indirectly employed. Now the writing on the wall was very clear. Today Mr. Gautam Adani is predictably exultant. He is very very happy. I quote what he said. He said today our remarkable journey of conviction, resilience and commitment in Australia enters a new phase. The Queensland Premier Anastasia Palace-Coucou had been backing this project. She said she was fed up because the federal government had been taking its time and you must remember that over the last 18 months there have been at least a dozen different versions of the groundwater management. Now why is this very significant? Why is it very significant is because of a number of reasons but before I go into the environmental aspect, let me flag two or three political points. It became fairly apparent that this project would come through. Not only because it was going to create jobs, maybe not 10,000 jobs but 1,500 because in Queensland this is going to be the first coal mining project of its kind in more than 50 years. Remember this is the biggest investment by an Indian company in Australia historically. But the point that should be noted is that when in May the Liberal National Coalition won a surprise victory, nobody was expecting it. It was a third consecutive three-year term, beating anti-encompassing sentiments and the Prime Minister Scott Morrison, he defeated his political opponent, Bill Shorten, who is the leader of the opposition and he was heading a Labour Party-led coalition which included the Greens which were very, very vehemently opposed to the project. And the Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been a supporter of the mind like the Queensland Premier. So in that sense once there was the political situation changed in May, one should not have been surprised that this happened. Now you must remember that there were very, very strict environmental guidelines which had to be approved of. And one of the important things and this is why the project is very significant that this is a very, very remote area and many would consider to be actually the last of its kind, one of the last unspoiled desert areas of its kind in the world which has one of the largest desert Oasis which is the Dungmabula Springs complex. Secondly it's also worth noticing that this area is very close to the Great Barrier Reef which is the world's greatest coral reef system, it's a world heritage site, it's a very, very popular tourist destination, people from all over the world, it generates a lot of jobs also. So it was not just the environmental activists and by the way the other important thing was it was very important and a plan it took some time that it was only recently approved that it was important to protect the habitat of the black-throated finch which is a very, it's an endangered species of bird. And last but not the least, I mean just a day before, Thursday before this came, the Australian Conservation Foundation won a major case against the federal government because while evaluating Adani's North Galilee water scheme and its plans to pump out about 12.5 billion litres for from the Sutter River over the following two years of negotiation that's near the mine site called the Carmichael Mine Site and the federal government was hauled up by the court saying they had not properly assessed the representations and submissions given by over 2,000 members of the public. Last but not the least, two other points. Initially this coal mine was going to be 60 million tons a year then it came down to half the size less than half, 27.5 and initially it's going to be I think 8 to 10 million tons a year. In terms of costs, first it was supposed to be close to 8 billion, 7.8 billion dollars now it's down to 1.5 billion dollars and almost all of it is now going to be funded by Adani himself because the banks are not willing to loan. Why the banks are not willing to loan? Because there are huge risks involved. The international prices of coal have not gone up, the coal is no longer fashionable, people are moving towards solar and so when in the Paris Climate Agreement Australia pledged to cut down its emissions by 26% the period is 2005 to 2030 many people believe it's hypocritical that it should be supporting this big coal mining project and pledging something else into the international community. So now you're picking up on the kind of reactions that are coming in from environmentalists as well. So there were huge protests and all of this was would you say that this was ignored and this hypocritical stance was then taken? How has this happened? How has Adani group in terms of their influence has managed to convince this deal to get clearance now? Okay let's not underestimate Mr. Gautam Adani's power influence. We know in India how he is rightly wrongly perceived to be an industrialist who is very close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The fact is even in Australia he is you know his has become almost like a test case. I mean he to the environmentalist he's the big villain to those who support him. He's this great creator of jobs. But the fact is interesting this first mine would actually pave the way for the establishment of six other mining projects. In fact many argue that given the fact that international prices of crude oil as I beg your pardon not crude oil thermal coal have not really gone up in recent times the view is that this project becomes viable only if those five six other new projects come up and importantly the railway line which is supposed to connect that mining area the Carmichael mining area to the port which is the Abbott Point port which is roughly 400 kilometers away. Now initially Adani wanted to build the entire railway line but now I think he's going to be building about half but the it's yet to be finalized let me put it this way because that coal yeah it's going to be exported and much of it Adani at least hopes would be to India to his own power projects which are some of which are located in the coastal areas and he as you know is and controls the way in which ports are many many many ports function including the Mundra port which is the country's biggest private port. Yeah so with this development now and keeping all these factors in mind how do you see this planning out in the sense that when do you see this actually taking place and do you actually see that irrespective of the protest this project is actually going to now take off. Yeah at least that has been claimed by the CEO of Adani Australia he's he's he's saying we are ready to go we're going to start right now. The point is Adani Australia CEO his name is Lucas Tao he's saying we're going to go right away and and and they're going to start work immediately but I believe that they may not be able to proceed at the phase that they originally thought and I think at the same time the environmentalists they're not going to give up that easily. Of course. I think they're politically very influential and also they are in that sense far more resourceful and let's see what happens the the the railway line is yet to be finalized the the local the original inhabitants their association had also protested but it seems somewhere along the line the promise of jobs is really what has prompted both the Queensland government and the Australian federal government to give it because everywhere including this country you know when you promise jobs to become politically popular let's wait and watch and see whether the the promise of new jobs and and a revival of the economy of that part with the very remote part it's the the the north the northeastern part of Australia whether those considerations prevail over considerations where coal is no longer the preferred mineral for generating electricity world over all over the world in Australia in India in China everywhere across the world there's a movement towards now towards renewable sources of energy and then finally at the end of the day the economics of it all I mean I mean at the end of the day you're going to export that coal to other countries in the world but but what happens to if the price of coal doesn't go up and what happens to the economics of it all and how you're going to fund it all because as we know banks across the world refused to fund it even Chinese banks at one stage thought would bail that project out it hasn't now Adani has no choice but to fund the entire project if you recall there was a very controversial meeting in March 2015 around the time the group of 20 countries met in and Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Mr. Gautam Adani and Mrs. Arun Dhoti Bhattacharya who was then heading India's largest bank the State Bank of India signed an MOU or Memorandum of Understanding to extend a loan of about a billion dollars for the project which never finally came through it was never formally approved by the State Bank of India so clearly it's not just the environmental aspects which are contentious and controversial it's also the economics of the project which are now I mean which are being questioned and how bother that project would be time alone can tell how these considerations would play out so on that note if the economics of the project and the promise of jobs how is all of this going to play out we're leaving you with these questions and we will keep following the project more closely thank you for enjoying for joining us and giving us insights to the project and how it has actually transpired over the years thank you for watching


Have you heard the strange tales of the Whistler? There's much freedom as a squirrel in a cage. Martha is a cold mercenary devil, but I'll have freedom beginning tonight.  Friday night and again CBS presents the Whistler. Know many things for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. And so I tell you tonight, the amazing story of destiny. At a long table in a New York office sits a little man. He is slightly bald and thin and 45. A mild-mannered, reticent little fellow named Milton Strong. But Milton is anything but strong. For the past 25 years he has worked in the office and now as a bookkeeper, is earning the stupendous salary of $35 a week. Milton can't understand why no one appreciates his ability. Milton has grown a bit sour, but he's never had the nerve to ask for a raise. Today, however, is going to be different. His wife has started him out with a lecture. And Milton is going to face the boss in a manner both clear and strong. Mr. Gouldreit, I'd like to have a word with you. A word? Mr. Gouldreit, it has long been my decision to approach you on this subject. But for various reasons, a sense of reticence has bad me be silent. How long did it take you to memorize that, Milton? I am 45 years old. I've worked hard and long and faithfully for this company. That's right, Milton. I'm aware of that. You haven't missed a day in all that time. In fact, our efficiency expert is getting out a booklet and he's using you as the feature. I came to this firm as a lad of 20. And in all the following 25 years, I asked for very little. I did my work well. Sure you did, Milton. And the company appreciates it. I now draw salary of $35 a week. And I thought that if, after all this time, 25 years, I could see your way clear to afford... Go on, Milton. To afford... Well, I'm not getting any younger. Well, Milton, strange as it seems, I've just come from a meeting of the department heads. Mr. Unger is the head of the accounting department.  Oh, yes, here it is. Yes, here's his recommendation regarding you, Milton. Oh, yes. Yes, Mr. Gouldreit. He recommends that you be retired and have salary as of the first of the month in consideration of your long service and loyalty to the company. Retired? Oh, but that can't be. Retired? That's what it says here. But I don't understand. I'm only 45. I know when it's retired until it... Why, you should be tickled to death. It's like a pension. And then I came here to ask for a raise. A raise? Well, how could that be possible when your department head suggests retirement? Oh, I see. Why, you should be tickled to death. I'd be, and you get two weeks full salary and two weeks vacation besides that full pay. You know, Milton, I can't envy you. So, I'm fired. Fired? Why, that's crazy. You've been honored. Good night, Mr. Gouldreit. Good night, Milton. After Saturday, you've got nothing to worry about, nothing. And so poor Milton's strong walks out of the big office and starts home. All the way, his feeling of apprehension increases. His wife, Martha, what will she say? It was his wife who stirred him to the point of demanding a raise.  Home to certain death at the hands of Martha. Yes, yes, it's me, Martha. Well, where on earth have you been? Can't you ever get it into your head that when I say dinner will be ready by six, I mean it? Well, the things happen sometimes to delay me, Martha. Delay you? Huh. I'd like to know what could happen to make you this late. But, you see, I took some time to talk to you. What do you mean by coming in this house with that mud on your shoes?  Yes, I forgot. Yeah, you'd forget your head if it wasn't tied on. Yes, Martha, I'll take them off. And what do you mean coming into the house smoking that stinking pipe?  Yes, Martha, but I started to tell you. Oh, go on out. If you insist on smoking, do it outside. I'll put it out, Martha. I'll put it out. The dinner's cold and you can eat it that way. Martha, I couldn't help it. I went to talk to Mr. Goofright about the raise. Yeah, well, what happened? Well, you see, I'm a little along in years. Along in years? Is that what he said? No, he didn't say it. The head of the department had made a recommendation. For what? Well, now, don't get excited, Martha. I went in to ask for a raise. As you said, and well, everything had been arranged. What did you get the raise? No, I've been retired on half salary. Retired? Retired? At your age?  Why did you accept? Why? I accept. What could I do? Oh. You went in to ask for a raise and you let them throw you out right into the ashes. Oh, what could I do? It was all arranged? Tired at half salary, 1750 a week. And you stood there like a nitwit and let them put that over on you. But, Martha...  What could I do? You let them push you around for 25 years. You could have been a Goofright's job right now. But you were afraid to open up your mouth. I went to his office to demand a raise, but he beat me to it. Yeah, that's always been the trouble, Milton Strong. Somebody's always beat you to it. Spoke up first. Huh. Retired. 1750 a week. An old man. And how are you going to manage on 1750 a week? Well, I suppose I can find something else. I'd like to know what. I'll find something. And until I do, well, your sister left you $1,500 left. What did you say? Nothing. That is to be... If you think I'm going to touch a dollar or that money, while you're still able to stand on two feet, you're crazy. Until I get something... It's in the bank and it'll stay there.  Yes, Martha. I'll go outside. You want anything to eat? It's on the kitchen table. I don't want anything. What? I'll eat it later. After a while, Martha. I want to think. Think? Huh. Don't worry yourself out. I'm going to bed. Good night. Good night. I said good night. Yes. Good night, Martha. Good night. His long past midnight, and Melton has been sitting by the window, staring into the night. Resentment has taken hold of him and slowly grown into hatred and revenge. Terrible thoughts surged through his brain. Why should I tolerate so? Why should I stand idly by and be pushed around by everyone? Be little by the firm. Bulldoze by Martha. She's not her wife. She's a cold mercenary devil. A quill and a cage. Appreciation. Loyalty. 25 years of it. And what do I get? But I have freedom. I will have it.  I'll go far away. No one will ever know what has come of me. Trembling in anticipation, Melton goes into the small kitchen, opens a drawer, and steps softly to Martha's room. Opens her door and stands listening to her easy breathing. Then... Melton leaves the house and wanders about the streets till dawn. Then at 10 in the morning, he steps into the bank. Good morning, Mr. Strong. Oh, I'd like to cash this check, please. I see. Purchasing some property, Mr. Strong? Well, yes. Well, just a second. Just a second. Uh-huh. Very well. How do you want it? Oh, but it doesn't matter. Perhaps the small bills would be best. Well, yes, of course. This is good. Three, four, three, two... There you are. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Several days later, Melton's Strong gets off a train in a western state. Hecks a small bus for a little mining town 50 miles away. Here in this vast desert country, he will begin a new life, a life of freedom. He will change his name, change his destiny. Melton's Strong has ceased to exist. A new man is born. The little bus bounces into Oroville. And two hours later, he is chatting with a prospector in the gold plate bar. Well, I'll tell you, partner, I've been here a couple of years and I haven't struck much yet. Oh, I found a little pay dirt. Enough to get along. Uh, there's supposed to be quite a lot of gold here, isn't there? Oh, sure. It's here. It's all over. Sometimes you're striking a day or so, then sometimes you work for years. If a man ain't got capital with his own, well, somebody's got to grub-steak him. But it's here. Yes. In other words, it's a matter of being optimistic. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yes. Well, I think I'd like to try it. Of course, I don't know anything about mining. Oh, you don't have to know in this country. It's easy. Anybody can tell gold when he sees it. Where are you from? Los Angeles. I had to come here. The doctor said I should get away from the ocean air. You don't look sick. I was fortunate to have a check-up in time. I'd like to find a place and try my hand at it. You mean by a place? Yes. Well, I got a nice place, three-room cabin, good water, and there's ore there. You got the patience. You mean you want to quit? Well, no, I don't want to. But I'm out of funds. I owe everybody in town, so I ain't got a choice. And the fellow who gets it will probably be the one to hit dirt in a week. Is it far from town? Well, 25 miles. Kind of lonely for a fellow alone. But could I see the place? Sure. I ain't been up there for a week, and staying here in town while my wife went to Sacramento to try to raise a little money from her uncle. She just got back this morning. She's doing a little shopping now. Did she raise any money? No, just enough to eat on for a few weeks. But we decided to pull out. Besides, I hurt my arm last week. Oh, but I'd like to look the place over. Well, here I am. Believe me, I'm ready to go. I'm dead tired. Oh, Kate, this is a gentleman who wants to look the claim over. I thought we might take him with us now. Oh? Well, sure. Why not? This is my wife, Kate Rogers. How do you do? Stranger here? That's right. Well, then let's be on our way. I'm sure you'll like the place. The car's just around the corner. Do you want to get your bags? They're up by the door. I haven't been to a hotel yet. That's good. We'll be to the place in about an hour. This is it, friend. It looks fine from here. Then have a look inside, and tomorrow my husband can take you over the claim. There are three rooms, living room, bedroom, kitchen, and a fairly good size. Well, that should certainly be enough for one man. You're not married? No, no, no, I'm alone. Just a minute, I'll light the lamp. No electricity up here. Now, the nails are modern for that matter. Well, I understand. Yes, it's very nice. I like it. Plenty of good water for drinking and sluicing. The air's wonderful. That should interest you. Air? Something wrong with you, Stranger? Yes, well, just a little touch of lung trouble. Oh, by the way, Mr. Rogers, how did you injure your arm? I noticed it's in a sling. Oh, it was my own darn fault. Kate warned me about digging on that ledge. I fell off and... Well, I didn't break it, but the cuts just don't seem to heal up. Oh, I see. Now, to get back to the property, I'm pretty sure there's ore on it. Rich ore. And there's plenty of game around here. Come on, take a look at the bedroom and the kitchen. This is the bedroom. Please, please! Oh, it's a mannequin. Look, Steve, look! Yeah? Look, steady, Kate. Take it easy. But who? Who is he? I don't know.  Dead? He's been shot. No blood around here that I can see. Must have been shot someplace else and made his way to our place. But who is he? I don't know. Never seen him before. According to his clothes, I'd say he was from out of town, man from some city, wouldn't you say? Yeah, he must be. About 45 or 50, I'd say. Steve, we better go back to town and get the sheriff. Yeah, I guess so. Somebody should stay here. You'll have to drive me in, Kate, unless you can drive, mister. Oh, no, no, no.  Uh, you mind staying here? No, no, no. I'll stay here. Then come on, Steve. Let's go. For 20 minutes after the departure of the prospector and his wife, Milton stares at the body of the dead man. Then slowly the realization comes upon him. The man is about his own age, his own size, from the city. The most amazing thing of all, he looks like Milton. A stranger, no one knows his name, but no one knows Milton's name. He hadn't mentioned his name once. Suddenly he steps to the body and goes through the pockets. He finds identification, Harry Jacobs. Then in another pocket, he finds... Good Lord. Money, bills, what there must be. Why, there's $20,000 here. $20,000 knows who he is. Quickly, Milton reaches a decision. He exchanges papers with the corpse of Harry Jacobs, replaces some of the money in Harry Jacobs' pockets, and keeps some for himself. Then, two hours later, the Rogers return with his share. Know who he is, Sheriff? I never saw him before. I didn't say he was shot about 10 or 12 hours ago. How long do you think he's been dead? Maybe six hours. Well, from all appearances, he wasn't shot here. We ain't been here for a week, you know. Well, let's see if he's gotten any identification on him. I'd say he was from out of town, from the city. Who are you? Oh, this gentleman is our guest. He's looking the place over with the idea of buying it. I see. This man's name is Milton Strong. New York City. Wait a minute. Look at this. A package of banknotes. Money, wrapped in bands. They read the printing on those bands. First state bank of Oroville. What do you know? This must be the fellow that robbed a bank in town this afternoon. What? Robbed a bank? Sure. Ain't you heard? Killed a cashier and got away with 20,000. The vice president shot at him, but he got away. There's probably somebody with him. We don't know for sure. How much they get from the bank? 20,000. How much is it there? Well, let's see. Hey, there's only 10,000 here. What do you make of that? So far as we know, there was only one bandit. What do you suppose the other 10,000 disappeared to? Well, maybe you had a cohort after all. Milton's strong, eh? Well, we'll just get back to town and notify the authorities in New York. The authorities? What about his family? The police in New York will take care of that. Well, that's that. I'll return the money. You can bury him, Rogers. Bury him? Here? Certainly. What else could we do? There's no one to take her in Oroville. Body wouldn't keep any time in this heat. Well, thanks, Rogers. I'll be getting back to town. Thanks, Sheriff. Yeah, eh? Did you say your name was Stranger? Hmm? Oh, it's, uh, Jacobs. Harry Jacobs. I see. Well, so long, folks. The next morning, Milton's strong, the bank bandit, is buried in the sand at the edge of a claim. Yes, Milton's strong is no more. He is now known as Harry Jacobs. In the afternoon, Rogers shows him over the property and explains his potentialities. He still hasn't decided, and after dinner, leaves the cabin again. Where's he gone now, Steve? Oh, he's wandered around by himself, trying to make up his mind if he wants a place. Sure is strange acting, Galut. I'm just a bit suspicious of him, Kate. He said he came from Los Angeles. But how do we know? Yeah, that's right. How do we know? I don't think he's here for his health. And I don't think he's a darn bit interested in prospecting. Steve, what do you think? Tell me. Well, I... Oh, I went all over the property again. Yeah?  I'll take the place. Yeah? Well, now I'll tell you, Kate and I have been talking things over, and, well, take good deal to buy the place and finance the workings properly.  Yeah? You got the money with you or in a bank? Yes, I have some with me. Enough, I'm sure to handle the deal. You say you came from Los Angeles? Yes.  A little too quiet for my likes. Don't talk much. This won't happen in Los Angeles. Oh, what do you mean? You said you came here for your health. If it's lung trouble, as you said, then... why don't you cough any? Oh, well, you see... Yeah, got any identification on you, Jacobs? Oh, yes, yes, of course. I'd like to see it if you don't mind. Yes. There you are. Hmm. Harry Jacobs. New York City. New York, eh? What'd you say to Los Angeles? Well, I came from New York to Los Angeles. I wasn't in California very long. And you got plenty of cash with you? Oh, yes, yes, enough. How much do you want? Oh... 3,000 will do it. Three? Well, that seems like a large price for this place. You want it, don't you, Jacobs? Real bad? Oh, yes, yes, I'd like to have it. All right. You and me will drive into town the morning and have the lawyer drop the papers. Yes, all right. Yes. Well, I think I'll go to bed now. It's a bit late, so good night. What do you think, Steve? He's got the cash with him. This place ain't worth 3,000. I know. But if he's got that much, then he's got a lot more. Shall we... well... I could slip into... No. Just leave everything to me. But Milton doesn't sleep well. The strange attitude of Rogers and his wife makes him uneasy. Next morning, he is up at 8 and finds Kate Rogers in the kitchen. Oh, heck. Good morning, Mrs. Rogers. Morning. Where's Mr. Rogers? Why, he... he drove into town to get the lawyer. He didn't want to disturb you so early. What? He's going to have the papers made out and bring them back with him. Oh, I thought he couldn't drive. Well, his arm's so much better. He figured he'd be all right. How soon will he be back? He should have been here half an hour ago. Nine o'clock. Well, there he is now. How about some breakfast? Oh, yes, yes. Oh, so you're up. Are you, Jacob? Yes. Did you get the papers arranged? We don't have to sign any papers, Jacob. I won't be selling the place. Why not? I don't have to. I'll have all the money I need in a few days. But you said that you... I haven't been to any lawyers. I've been to the sheriff's office. Send a wire to New York. And I got an answer. What? A wire? Well, what about it? Put up your hands, Jacobs. Put them up. You may be a mile-looking little guy, but I'm taking no chances with a killer. What did you say? You want it by the New York police for banditry and murder. Oh, no. But it's a mistake. There's the telegram. Your description. Rated. Yes, sir. Harry Jacobs, 45 feet six, as per your description, wanted for robbery and murder of bank messenger. $10,000 reward. Did or lie. $10,000 reward. Get that? No, no, no. It's all a mistake. You don't understand. I understand, all right. You and your partner came out here to hide out. Probably robbed a half dozen banks in a way. Pardon? What pardon? The fellow we buried the other day, that Milton Strong, the sheriff said there must have been two bandits. And there was only $10,000 on him. What'd become of the other $10,000? I tell you, I had nothing to do with a hold-up. You carry too much cash on you, Jacobs. If you've got $3,000, you must have more. You were too anxious to get this place, and it ain't worth more than $1,000. Yes, but you're wrong, Rogers. You're going back to town with me, Jacobs. I'm collecting that $10,000 reward. No, no, no, no. Please, no. Don't take me back. I can't go back to New York. I can't. I can imagine that. They'll fry you. You've got to listen to me. You've just got to... Search his stuff, Kate. He's got the money someplace. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I've got the money. Here it is. The money from the bank. There. Gee, that's it. The same bank wrappers. There. It's $10,000. No, there's more. Another $1,000. The $10,000 of the wrappers belongs to the bank. The rest is mine. That's all we need to know, Jacobs. Come on. And I hope the sheriff don't spill this before you're locked up. The town would tear you to pieces. No, look, look. Just listen to me. I swear I never saw that dead man in my life. I did come here to get away from embarrassing circumstances. I wanted to lose myself. After you went to the sheriff, I searched the man's pockets. I found his identification. And because he resembled me, I switched his papers with mine. And then, then I found the money. I decided to keep some of it. I am Milton Strong, and the dead man was Harry Jacobs. What a story. Who'd believe that? Don't send me back to New York. There's no reward for me. The troop will come out, and you wouldn't get a dime. Now, here. You keep this money. I took from the robber, and let me go. No one will ever know the difference. Oh, no. I'm not that dumb. I'll turn you and the money in and collect a reward. I'd rather get it legally. Come on, Jacobs, before the town gets wise. And this handed over to the sheriff and locked up in the flimsy jail. They've wired New York and a detective with extradition papers as flying west. But unfortunately, the word has gotten around town that the jail holds the murderer of the bank cashier. The crowd of men, silent men, has gathered in the front of the jail. I don't know what we're going to do about this, Rogers. Are you sure you didn't say anything about it? I didn't say a word. I don't know how they found out about it, but maybe some of your deputies talked. I warned them not to say a word. I don't mind crowds that shout and yell. But I'm afraid of the crowd that just stands and says nothing. Are you sure on the warpath? Hmm. That detective from New York should have been here an hour ago. I sent a car to meet the plane. Maybe the plane was late. Yeah. Well, if the crowd starts anything, somebody's going to get hurt. Hey, you fellas better get your shotguns ready. It might break out any minute. All right, bring it over. Oh, Jacob, you got anything more to say? Well, I've told you that I'm meltin' strong. I had nothing to do with the bank holdin'. Well, that crowd looks silly, so I guess it better put you back in its cell. Wait a minute. Here comes your car, Sheriff. It's about time.  Don't let that crowd know what he's doin'. Right, Sheriff. I get you. Sheriff Talbot. That's right. And I'm glad they're glad to see you. Lieutenant Clark. Yeah, I know, I know. Now, let's get down to business. That crowd outside's going to get impatient pretty soon. Can? What do they want? What they call justice.  But I wanted to be sure he was Harry Jacobs. He had identification on him, but he claims he's meltin' strong. Meltin' strong? Yeah. We buried meltin' strong several days ago. He found part of the bank money on his body. Meltin' strong? Yeah. But if he's really Harry Jacobs, I'd prefer you get him out of here and deal with him in New York. I had one lynch in here, and I don't want another. But he isn't Harry Jacobs. I knew Harry personally. He ain't Harry Jacobs. No. But he is meltin' strong. Harry Jacobs was a professional holdup, but not meltin' strong. Then we really buried Harry Jacobs. What do you mean? I took this fella to my claim with the idea of selling it to him. Yeah. We found a dead man in my cabin. I came after the sheriff, and this fella claimed that while we were gone, he exchanged papers with the dead man. Well, from all appearances, that's just what he did. But why should he do that? Well, meltin' strong is wanted in New York, too. I... I want to tell you what he did in New York, too. I... I'm wanted in New York? What for? As if you didn't know. Well, what's he done? What's he wanted for? Hey, that crowd is starting. Get him out of here. Hurry. Out the back way. The car's waiting. Let's go, meltin'. You can catch 1133 now. Stoll him off as long as they can. All the way back to New York, Lieutenant Clark will not talk. They ride across the country in utter silence. And three days later, Milton sits in the office of Inspector Burns of the New York police. Milton, on the morning of July 20th, did you cash a check at a bank at 21st and Lexington? Yes, I did. A check made out to you by your wife? Yes. Are you sure your wife wrote that check? Well, yes, yes, she did. Why did you leave town the same day? Well, I went on a vacation. Why didn't your wife go with you? Why? Well, I... I wanted to be alone at his... You might as well tell the truth, meltin'. You haven't a chance to get out of it. No, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. Sorry, Milton. But we have proof. We have a witness. A witness? Yes. Bring in the witness, Lieutenant. Come in, please. Where have you been, Milton? Martha! Why didn't you let me know where you were? Please, please, Martha. Let's not talk about it here. What are you doing in Arizona? I was just taking a little vacation. I was going to write you. I tried to buy a cabin in the mountains for you and me, Martha. For us. What? Don't you dare light that pipe. No, no, no, no. No, Martha. I had quit smoking. I wasn't even conscious of what I was doing. And what do you do about your rubbers? You know what's raining. Well, I took them off outside, Martha. Come on, Milton. Let's go home. I have a few things to talk over with you. Yes, darling. Well, come on. Get up out of that chair. Yes, yes, darling. Just a minute. What about this charge, this check forgery? Forgery? Oh. I wrote that check. I remember the whole thing, though. Then what about the charge of white desertion? He's come back, hasn't he? But we brought him back. Well, I wrote the check so he could make a down payment on a house. But like the child he is, he wanted to take a trip and hunt gold. He's always been at an adventurous and so on. Well, go on, Milton. Get along.  Go on. Go on. Yes. Darling. Well, good day, gentlemen. It just goes to show you that no man can escape his destiny. No man can change fate. And when he attempts to do so, he only conjures up far worse conditions for himself. Poor Milton's strong ran away from things and ended up at the starting point, back with Martha. But he's happy now. Martha's nagging is now sweet music to his ears, because Martha really loves him. Out west they almost latched him, nearly took his freedom away. But Martha saved him. She lied for him. Yes, Milton did forge that check. He was even going to kill Martha. But he got cold feet the moment he walked into a room. But Milton will be a good boy now. In his search for so-called freedom, he came close to the jaws of death. Lucky Milton. CBS has presented the Whistler. Original music for this production was composed by Wilbur Hatch and conducted by Ivan Dittmarz. The Whistler is written and directed by J. Donald Wilson and originates from Columbia Square in Hollywood. Next week, same time, I, the Whistler, will return to tell you another unusual story. Good night. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.


You know, if people don't respond with empathy, when you share your smaller vulnerabilities, the chances are they will not respond with empathy when you share your bigger vulnerabilities, and you'll get hurt. Stop being vulnerable with people who do not respect or deserve that from you.


Europe starts in Préchol. Dear friends, I'd like to invite you to come and visit Préchol historic royal town in the east of Slovakia. There are many historic sites like Calvary or Sajdmanic complex. You can take a look at a copy of Shrut of Turin in Greek Catholic temple. If you prefer adventure, you can explore unique opal mines which are old in the world or the many castles in the area. Music Laras should not miss very popular, good festival. Préchol is simply a good place to live.


Yes, recording in progress. It's the only place in the world that's progress. Right, let's set sail, shall we? Absolutely. I'm at your disposal. Apologies for the hassle. No, not at all. It was easy. It was easy for Jordan. Dr. Sam Vaknan, hello to you. Yes, hello. Thank you for having me. So late in the day. Thank you for coming on. When were you first diagnosed a narcissist? Can you tell us? I was diagnosed twice in the span of 10 years by two different psychologists or diagnosticians. So it's a pretty safe diagnosis, I would say. But I hope this conversation is going to revolve around the disorder rather than me. Yes, but we'll do it bit by bit. So the diagnosis for all of us, Sam, how to spot them, people like you if you like, what are the signs, please, if you wouldn't mind? Well, it's not so much self-centeredness as you would tend to believe.  It's more to do with a desperate attempt to obtain attention, positive attention or negative attention, in order to regulate the internal landscape of the narcissist. The narcissist needs you to pay attention to him. He needs to be seen in order to stabilize himself, stabilize his sense of self-worth, stabilize his self-esteem and so on and so forth. That's the immediate, immediately discernible feature. The second thing is the asymmetry. The narcissist is interested in himself much more than he's interested in you. He's a bad listener. He would tend to veer the conversation back to himself. The third sign is that he lacks empathy. You tell him something about yourself and it's harrowing and it's sad and he doesn't flinch, he doesn't react. We call it reduced effect display. It has no display of emotions or effect when he should have. The fourth sign is that he tries to exploit you somehow. He tries to take something from you. The narcissist's world is very transactional. And he would discard you on a dime if he reaches a conclusion that you have nothing to give him. And the currency, the narcissist seeks, as opposed to the psychopath, for example, is narcissistic supply, attention, adulation, admiration, ups and this infamy being feared. The psychopath, and it's very important to distinguish the narcissist from the psychopath. The psychopath doesn't care about other people. He doesn't need other people. He does not depend on other people to regulate his sense of self-worth and his self-perception and self-image. The narcissist has an inflated grandiose self-image, which he needs to maintain with input from other people. The psychopath doesn't. The psychopath is goal-oriented. He wants money. He wants sex. He wants contacts and connections. He wants power, et cetera, et cetera. So I could say that the psychopath is a caricature of a normal human being. It's a normal human being, rich, large, gun or eye. While the narcissist is a void and emptiness and absence, not in many respects, not human at all. And that's not me saying this. That's the father of the field, Otto Kernberg. I was reading the list of characteristics, some of which you've described, common to narcissists, Sam. And I thought, I know people like this who are nevertheless good deep down. They may act narcissistically, crave attention, hate to be questioned, want to be right, but they might also protect their children. They wouldn't steal their loyal to their friends. So what are they? Are they also narcissistic like people? They are not narcissists. It's an excellent question. The word narcissist has been devalued, has been depreciated, is banded around erroneously, applied to people, used to label and castigate people and insult people and so on. Narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder is a clinical entity. It's a disease, exactly like COVID-19 or tuberculosis. It's a disease and it has to be diagnosed very carefully. It's usually a series of tests that take a few hours and then take a few days to interpret structured interviews, talking to friends and family of the narcissist and so on and so forth. So we do have, there is something called narcissistic style or narcissistic personality without the disorder. That's been first described by a famous psychologist by the name of Lance Perry. And later Theodore Millen described people who have narcissistic traits, they have narcissistic behaviors, they tend to react with narcissistic defenses, and yet they are not full-fledged narcissists. You're right. They have a good core. They are pro-social. They are communal. They have families. Their lives are stable, more or less. They have a career. They pursue goals in the socially acceptable way. They sublimate, et cetera, et cetera. These are not narcissists. These are, I don't know, a-holes or they could be very hypersensitive to rejection and criticism or what have you, but they are not narcissists. The narcissistic personality disorder is a pernicious, dangerous alteration in the personality of the patient in early childhood, the inability to complete certain critical psychological processes. And consequently, the narcissist is a half-baked human being. It's not complete. It's an incomplete human being. And the narcissist is dangerous because of this, because he's unable to perceive other people as human being. He doesn't have the tools. He doesn't read cues properly, and he regards other people as avatars, as extensions of himself, as instruments. He functionalizes them, instrumentalizes them. He objectifies them. And people with narcissistic style don't do this. They may be unpleasant. They may be reactive. They may be defined.  They don't do this. People with narcissistic style. I know you don't want to talk about yourself, but aspects of you must be germane. I've seen your YouTube channel, and you have a very charming persona. So narcissists, in order to succeed with other people, must like raciopaths and psychopaths sometimes have charm, great charm attached, surely. Narcissists are far less charming than psychopaths. Social path, by the way, is not a clinical word. It's a media type word. It has no clinical meaning. Even psychopath, it's a disputed label, very disputed. For example, you won't find the word psychopath in the diagnostic and statistical menu. There's a lot of debate as to what is what and who is who. Charm is more typical of the psychopath. The psychopath uses charm offensive because he's goal oriented. And I'm saying he because majority of psychopaths are not men, the male. The narcissist is much more akin to an autistic person. He is so into himself. He's so buried in his mind that he tends to confuse external reality with internal reality. He appears to be very clueless. He appears to stumble about. He becomes coercive, and then he becomes malleable and mellifluous. He shifts, he shifts between behaviors, which are socially acceptable and behaviors that are utterly unacceptable, anti social. The narcissist reminds me very much of Frankenstein's creation, kind of a golem who kind of stumbles through life, attempting to extract by any means a narcissistic supply from people. People tend to confuse narcissists with psychopaths very much so. And the reason they tend to do this is because there is a subset, a subgroup, subtype of narcissists known as psychopathic narcissists, or malignant narcissists. These are the narcissists that reach the headlines. These are the narcissists that call incur or inflict the most damage. These are the visible narcissists that's a tip of the iceberg. And because they are both narcissists and psychopaths, we call it comorbidity, when the two disorders exist in the same person, that creates a lot of confusion. Because people tend to look to celebrities and famous people as examples, for examples, or they tend to look at their own environment. And they tend to impute certain traits and qualities to narcissists because they came across a psychopathic narcissist. Narcissism is a stealth subterranean phenomenon. The typical narcissist is a junkie, is an addict, preoccupied 100% with his next fix of narcissistic supply. He doesn't have time to be charming or anything else for that matter. He doesn't have time to fulfill social roles, to be a husband, to be a lover, to be an intimate partner, to be a good worker, and so on. He's just, he's a junkie, simply. He's just into obtaining supply by any means possible. And so charm may come into it, if it works, but it's absolutely not necessary. And even I would say not common, narcissists are not charming, they're obnoxious, they're repulsive, but psychopaths are charming, you're right.  I'm a psychopathic narcissist, not a narcissist. I've been diagnosed with both disorders. Right, I'm glad we've nailed that down. And so when most of us talk about narcissism, we actually mean psychopathic narcissism, whether we were aware of that or not. Exactly, yes. The narcissists that you see, the celebrity narcissists, the politician narcissists, the serial killer narcissists, the narcissists at your workplace who make your life hell, these are all psychopathic narcissists. And they're usually goal oriented. They're usually very good at obtaining their goals, attaining the accomplishments they seek. They are very charming, they can put on a facade, they're very misleading. They are not prone to fantasy, the narcissist, narcissism is a fantasy defense. The narcissist inhabits a lullaland of fantasy, and he cannot tell the difference between his fantasy and reality. For example, his grandiose, he perceives himself as godlike. And he, he's delusional about this, he cannot be convinced otherwise. And so the narcissists you come across are typically psychopathic narcissists. How big a subset of narcissism is psychopathic narcissism then, because that's what we're mostly aware of. Not only I cannot give you an answer to this, I cannot even tell you how many narcissists there are. There's a huge debate as to the prevalence and incidence of narcissistic personality disorder in society. The numbers go anywhere from 1.6% in the diagnostic and statistical manual, edition five text revision, which was published a few weeks ago. Anywhere from this to studies that show that narcissistic personality disorder is is diagnosable or diagnosed in three to 6% of the population. There's a complete disagreement about this. And also there's a disagreement as to the percentage of these narcissists who are comorbid. In other words, who have other mental health disorders, such as for example, borderline personality disorder.  There are no statistics, but I can tell you this over the last 26 years have constructed a database of 1,910 now this morning, 1,910 people diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder by a qualified diagnostician. They respond to a questionnaire of 638 questions. It's a version of the MMPI. It's a test, a common test. They respond to this questionnaire and then annually, those of them who are to collaborate, not all of them do. Finally, they respond to a follow up a follow up test. So I have, I have, I have a pretty unique database. I'm negotiating now to hand it over to the university. I have a unique database of narcissists the largest in the world by far. And I would say based on my database, which mind you even saw is very small. Based on my database, 3 to 5% of psychopathic narcissists and the prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder in society at large would be between 2 and 3%. I think, I think these are the correct figures. So you're describing a class of people who are essentially miserable and vulnerable in all sorts of ways.  Can narcissists have successful relationships? No, that's a very long question and a very short answer. Narcissists can not have any kind of relationships and not only intimate relationships. How can you have a relationship if you don't perceive the existence of other people, if you're solipsistic, if you're buried in your mind, if you have no ability to conceptualize the existence of other minds. In other words, no ability to construct what we call a theory of mind. How can you have relationships with other people if you can't do intimacy because you don't have empathy. If you have no interest in other people because you're too preoccupied with the maintenance of the precarious house of cards that passes for your personality. How can you have a relationship of functioning, functional relationship with other people? If your sense of self-worth fluctuates wildly and you are subjected to problems in self-perception, self-image, you have an impaired reality testing, you perceive reality totally wrongly, you're delusional. How can you be in contact with other people or maintain a relationship with other people if you are in the throes of mood swings and mostly depression throughout your life when you are unable to obtain supply. How your narcissists are exploitative, they are transactional, it's a given take operation. They discard other people because people to them are commodities, they're interchangeable, they are sources of supply. The narcissist seeks, looks for three, what I call the four S's that is sex, safety, supply, sadistic or narcissistic and services. And if you provide the narcissist with two out of these four, two out of the four S's, you're in regardless of who you are, who you are, it doesn't matter to the narcissist. What matters is, can you provide the goods? It's a little like having a relationship with an internet service provider, more or less. And so, it's all the narcissist is as distinct from the psychopath. The narcissist is far less embedded in reality and you're right that the narcissist is constantly miserable in a state of dysphoria. This used to be disputed until about 10 years ago or even five years ago. Many, many people, including many, many scholars were saying, no, the narcissist is happy, go lucky. The narcissist is self-assured and has enormous self-confidence and what have you. Today we know this is not true. The recent iteration of the diagnostic and statistical manual describes someone who falls prey constantly to depression, who is critically and addictively dependent on input from other people. The narcissist is pro-social, not like the psychopath. The psychopath is anti-social. The psychopath is defiant in your face, couldn't care less. He devalues you because he holds you in contempt. He is reckless. He is reactant. He is emacious. He hates authority. That's the psychopath. The narcissist depends on you. He needs you.   He needs your drug. So, narcissists are actually pro-social. You mentioned a very critical word. You mentioned the word vulnerable. Again, until the end of the 1980s, there was this misconception or misconception of narcissists as egocintonic. In other words, as comfortable in their own skins as daring do, as entrepreneurial, as risk takers, as novelty seekers, as there was this misperception of the narcissist as a psychopath in effect. And then in the late 1980s, two scholars by the name of Akhtar and Cooper came up with a description of the covert narcissist or the vulnerable, fragile, shy narcissist. And today we begin to believe that the narcissist who is overt, daring do, courageous, takes on the world, in your face, Donald Trump type, that's not a narcissist actually. That's probably a psychopath. And that the only real narcissist is what used to be called a covert or vulnerable narcissist. It's a narcissist who is very insecure, very passive-aggressive, very fragile and weak, very vulnerable. A narcissist who is hiding, a narcissist who is in concealment, a narcissist who leverages and uses other people, other, for example, uses psychopaths to obtain supply, etc., etc. In other words, we believe that the only real type of narcissist is a compensatory narcissist. A narcissist who deep inside has an inferiority complex, believes himself to be inadequate and deficient, is ashamed, driven by shame, and compensates for this by presenting a facade, a facade of grandiosity, imperturbability, sang foie, a facade of see if I care, I'm untouchable, I'm superior, you're all inferior to me, etc. But that's a facade and easily, easily crackable, easily broken with any hint of disagreement, of criticism, of failure, of defeat. In other words, narcissism is reconceived now as a post-traumatic condition and trauma always induces a lot of shame and guilt. And these don't go away. And narcissism can be easily described as a prolonged grief syndrome.  Grieves what could have been. Grieves the lost potential. Grieves the absent self-actualization. It's a child in grief, a traumatized child in grief. The closest you can get to understanding the narcissism. And there's nothing to do with the psychopath. Psychopath is not like this. It's a totally different thing. We're talking with Dr. Sam Beckman. It would seem hard to arrive or assemble the facade of grandiosity. It seems that the narcissists you're describing wouldn't get the reassurances and compliments they so desperately need because you're talking about people who sound like they're the leeches on society, maybe the mentally unwell, addicts, criminals, unemployables, a kind of subclass, really, Sam. No, that would be psychopaths, actually. There is a subtype of psychopath known as Factor 1 psychopath who end up the way you have just described. The typical narcissist is internally insecure, feels inadequate and inferior, a lot of shame, some guilt, vulnerability. It's very vulnerable to any hint of criticism and disagreement. But has a lot of bombast and braggadaccio and he is boastful. He presents a facade of invulnerability and grandiosity. He tends to impute to himself accomplishments which are incommensurate with real life, with his efforts and work. He tends to regard himself as much more important than other people. So if he works in a team, he would attribute to himself the accomplishments of the entire team, et cetera, et cetera. So he goes about presenting what we call the false self. It's a concoction. It's a concoction. It's a narrative. So that person, understand, so that person would not achieve though, like a psychopath in business or politics or other arenas. That person is too vulnerable to use that word again to achieve properly. Indeed, we are beginning to realize that the vast majority of narcissists are prone to disappointment and consequently to depression and so on so forth. The new description there is in the diagnostic and statistical manual, the text revision published a few weeks ago, there's something called the alternative model, the alternative model of narcissistic personality disorder. And when you read this alternative model, you get the picture that I am describing, and you are encapsulating well. A failure, a failure, someone who attempts to be a psychopath, but fails. You can easily be described as failed psychopathy. It's someone who wants to garner recognition, attention, adulation, admiration, keeps trying by presenting a false self, a fake facade, but keeps failing. Because it keeps failing is in a state of depression, dysphoria, disappointment, and so on. This is the narcissist life, actually. Is narcissism treatable? No. Narcissism is not treatable because it is not an add on to the personality, it's not a plug-in. It is the personality. My personality is deformed beyond reconstruction in early childhood. And so what can be done is some behaviors, abrasive behaviors and social behaviors, autistic behaviors if you wish, and lack of responsiveness to social and sexual cues and so on. These can be modified and taught. These can acquire better tools to cope with this environment. And the narcissist can learn to behave in ways which are more socially commendable and acceptable. But the core of narcissism is untouchable. I've developed a new treatment modality. It's called cold therapy, which seems to have a positive effect on the narcissist's need for narcissistic supply, on the narcissist's false self and grandiosity. But it does nothing else. Even this therapy, which is seriously, it's nuclear, it's nuclear weapon. I re-traumatize the narcissist. Even this therapy has very, very limited and honestly pretty disappointing outcomes. The rest is untouchable, the lack of empathy, the inability to conceive of the existence of other people, the confusion between external, the external world reality and the internal world, which is essentially psychotic. It sounds a lot like psychosis. The exploitativeness, the rapaciousness, the predatory nature of the narcissist, luckily the narcissist seeks only supply, but he's still as predatory as the psychopath when it comes to obtaining supply. The inability to maintain long-term interpersonal relationships, which this makes the narcissist very similar to the borderline. So all these cannot be touched, let alone modified. Are social media creating more narcissists, making society more narcissistic? Or is it just amplifying narcissistic-seeming traits, Sam? Social media to start with, bring out narcissists. It's a way for narcissists to obtain supply in a way which is devoid of most of the risks of face-to-face interactions. As narcissists are ill-equipped for intimate face-to-face interactions, or not intimate face-to-face interactions, they're ill-equipped to deal with real-life humans. And so social media allows the narcissist to leverage his best aspects, for example, his intellect, if he has one, or his body. If he uses his body to obtain supply, we make a distinction between cerebral narcissists. So narcissists who leverages his intellect and intelligence to obtain supply, and somatic narcissists who uses his body to obtain supply. But both do well on social media without the attendant risks. So social media brings out, out of the woodwork, the narcissists. That's one thing. Social media is narcissistic by definition. So it brings out the narcissistic aspects. Clinically speaking, it's called narcissistic defenses. It brings out the narcissistic aspects of otherwise totally healthy people. And yes, it would tend to reward and enhance these aspects. In other words, if I had to summarize in one sentence, might be too late for this, but I'll try. Social media enhance and encourage the formation of narcissistic styles or narcissistic style in users. So users would tend to adopt a narcissistic style, but it doesn't make them narcissists. So social media has no impact. Clinical impact cannot have because narcissism forms in very early childhood. Narcissists would presumably haunt the dating sites because they can get their needs seemingly met without necessarily giving themselves away, initially in face-to-face encounters. You'd meet a lot of narcissists on dating apps. Yes, we don't have statistics, but it tends to reason that narcissists would gravitate to dating apps, social media, and certain professions, by the way. For example, we do know that among surgeons, doctors, medical doctors were surgeons. There's a higher preponderance of psychopaths than in the general population. Similarly, there's a higher preponderance of psychopaths and narcissists among chief executive officers in the corporate world. These are studies by Robert Hare and Babyak. And so it tends to reason that narcissists would gravitate as water does when it's given a channel. They gravitate to dating apps. That renders dating apps seriously dangerous. These, I think, dating apps are infested with narcissists and psychopaths. And whereas narcissists have a problem putting on a facade for long because their grandiosity takes over, they feel challenged. Whenever they're criticized or you disagree with them, the mask falls and they show their true face. And narcissists can hold a facade for a few minutes, but a psychopath can hold a facade in the long term. So psychopaths, for example, gaslight you, which means challenge your perception of reality in a very convincing manner. Psychopaths future fake, they make false promises about the future to vulnerable women, for example. They are dangerous types. What the narcissist does, which is also extremely dangerous. The narcissist developed something called the shared fantasy. He would offer you, if he deems you a social supply or a potential intimate partner, he would offer you a fantasy of togetherness.  It's irresistible and irresistible proposition. So both narcissists and psychopaths offer you a future and then renege, they just go away and you're left heartbroken and sometimes penniless. The psychopaths would tend to take your money as well. And dating apps are major vectors of the transmission of these two viruses, psychopathy and narcissism. And there are a lot of the people doing the ghosting on the dating apps. One minute you know them, the next minute they're gone. Ghosting, breadcrumbing, all these techniques, they are very typical for example of psychopaths. Psychopaths sold you.  It's called future faking.  People generally on dating apps and people generally on the internet, not only dating apps, because of the anonymity that the internet affords. An anonymity is not divulging your name. Anonymity simply means that you have not been in an intimate interaction with another person. So this anonymity, even if I know your name, here we are talking right now, but you're still anonymous to me. And I'm anonymous to you. So this cover of anonymity allows people to behave in ways that which they would never, never contemplate in real life situation. The internet radicalizes behavior, causes people to escalate. The internet makes people a lot more aggressive and competitive. The internet pushes people to behave in narcissistic and psychopathic manner ways, even if they are totally not in real life, even if they are totally healthy and balance and stable in real life. Because the internet is constructed in a way which rewards aggression, brevity, lack of discourse or lack of proper argumentation and debate, suppression of critical thinking and immediate gratification. These are all narcissistic and psychopathic traits.  You have to adapt. You have to adapt by becoming more of these two narcissists and psychopaths. Okay.  In Israel, back in 1995, you were found guilty with some other men of securities fraud and you ended up in jail. But it was also a blessing and disguise for you, wasn't it? There was not disguise. It was a blessing, an unmitigated one. It allowed me to get diagnosed. I was diagnosed before, but for the first time I came across the fact that whatever it is that I have is destroying my life. And so typically for me, because prior to that, I've been a physicist and so I'm into intellectual endeavor from age nine. I started to attend university at age nine. So typically I took on the challenge and I started to study personality pathology and then cluster B and then narcissism. There was nothing at that time. It was 1995. There was nothing online. My website about narcissistic personality disorder was the first website on this topic and the only one for nine years. All six support groups for victims of narcissistic abuse were managed by me and owned by me. I coined most of the language in use today, including narcissistic abuse, hovering, flying monkeys. I mean, you name it. I coined nine out of 10 of these phrases. And I did all this, not because I'm so altruistic, I was trying to help people. I was not, and I still am not. But I did all this because I was trying desperately to understand myself, to get to grips with what had happened to me and to try to make sure that it never happens to me again. And indeed, ever since then, it was a long time ago, mind you, was 30 years ago. Ever since then I've switched fields. I became an economist for a while, but then I moved to psychology. And ever since then, I'm studying these disorders and trying to find cure as if possible, or at least amelioration and mitigation of these disorders. But why did you change? Are you honest now? Has there been a big shift? Well, the previous strategy didn't work, did it? So out of self-interest, complete self-interest, I have shifted. And now I'm the antithesis of what I used to be. Yes, but deep down, are you? Or are you just clever enough to have seen the error, tactical area of your ways, and you are acting against type now? Yeah, that's closer to reality. I am much more in self-control than I used to be, because I was not self-aware before. Now I am self-aware. So much more in self-control, but it's all self-interested. It's all a set of strategies which yield the best outcomes. I'm optimizing myself as I go along. Now, criminals don't realize that being honest is a far more self-efficacious strategy. It's as simple as that. And helping people brings many more rewards than not helping people. So I've chosen to help people and I've chosen to be honest and I've chosen to be an academic, a professor of psychology in several universities and so on. I've chosen all these strategies because they work. They work, not because of any shifting values or beliefs or any sudden evolution of morality or none of this. It's simply self-efficacious. But inside, are you as doomed as you always were? I mean, are you happily enough married now? Are you happier with your life? You seem to project confidence and contentment, but does that exist? Confidence, yes. Contentment comes as a surprise. I've always been confident. I have 190 IQ and three separate tests over 30 years, so probably it's true. 190 IQ does endow you with a certain advantage and that's not grandiosity that happens to be real. So I've always been extremely self-confident. I trust my intellect to provide solutions to the problems that my personality poses. So there's a battle between my intellect and my personality. But my personality is immutable or my personality pathology is immutable, cannot be touched or changed or modified in any way, shape or form. The only thing you can do or I could do is superimpose a veneer of social acceptability and socially commendable activities, which is what I'm doing. But the conflict between the absence that I am and the presence that I wish I were, this conflict is still ongoing. I was denied as a child. I was not allowed to become. So I never became. I remained a promise or a dream and I'm an unfulfilled one. I understand that. But if your personality, I understand what you're saying, but if your personality is immutable, then why? I can see that you're clever enough to have seen the error of your ways and use a new modus operandi. But why should you now care about the more hopeless and hapless narcissists among us? I can see that you can describe them very well and you've built up the big database, but do you really care about them? No, I care about no one. I'm incapable of caring. I'm incapable of positive emotions. Narcissists, even not psychopathic, regular narcissists are incapable of accessing positive emotions. They're capable of accessing negative affectivity, in other words, envy, anger, but they are not capable of accessing any positive emotion, caring, love. None of this is accessible to the narcissist. So where is the hope in your life then? Is there none? Hope, I regard hope as hopeium, as a junkie's drug, no less pernicious than narcissistic supply. Hope is used to manipulate and socially control the masses. It's false, it's counterfactual and I try to avoid it to the best of my ability. But you want to stay alive and succeed though? I am alive and I am increasingly more and more successful. We're having this conversation aren't we? Yes, so aren't you, doesn't that give you a degree of satisfaction? I can see that the need would be enormous, but doesn't that actually propel you as well? You're satisfied to a great extent with who you are now? Narcissistic supply is a drug, and when one consumes the drug, as a narcissist, one is elated and euphoric in it. It's a drug, but it's the drug. The locus of the euphoria, the locus of the elation, the locus of the fake happiness or exact happiness is not in the narcissist. It's in the drug, in the process of consumption, exactly like with the typical junkie. The locus is in the coke, the locus is in the heroin or the amphetamine. It's not in the person. That's why you need more of the drug time and again. So if narcissists cannot find happiness and in that sense they are like, as you say, the addict always needing the next fix and a bigger and bigger one perhaps. There is no hope for them. So your mission is really to alert the rest of us to these people in society and tell us to beware of them. I've been doing this since the mid-90s. I realized that, and I've been doing it alone for 10 years, as I mentioned. So until 2004, I've been the only, the lonely voice, warning people against narcissists and so on and so forth. And then there were second generation, third, fourth, many of them never heard of me, but they're still carrying my work forward. I can identify the genes that I had created. They are my intellectual children. And so yes, I've spent my life warning people, but again, not out of care, not out of empathy. Not because I want to save people or help them, but because it garnered the narcissistic supply that I needed.  It was a given supply in the short term, but I end up in prison. I end up losing $40 million and my wife. It seems to be a bad strategy. So let me adopt another one. And that is a strategy of helping people, not for their sake, for my sake. I know you started not wanting to talk about yourself, but you're a fascinating study, even though, as you say, you're a kind of psychopathic, successful narcissist rather than the other kind. Very good of you to give us your time and to chat and to explain narcissism and your view to all of us. Thank you very much. I want to say one last sentence with your permission. Sure. We tend to place a lot of emphasis on motivation. Why is he doing what he's doing? Why is she doing what she's doing? And I think it's the wrong emphasis. I think we should be very concerned with actions and a lot less concerned with motivation for two reasons. First of all, we are very unlikely to get it right, to get the answer right. And second, we don't know a lot about motivation. People themselves don't know the first thing about their own motivations. And psychology as a pseudoscience knows very little about motivation. Tivation is an obscure field open to a lot of misinterpretation. And so why don't we all lay off this? Why are you doing this? Or lay off the motivation side and focus instead on actions. I have helped tens of millions of people throughout the world. That's a fact. Since I started in 1995, it's easily verifiable. I had the only website on this topic. And today there are support groups for victims of narcissistic abuse with 250,000 people and 500,000 people all over the place. So tens of millions of people all over the world have a language they can use to describe their experiences, a language that I had created. And my work has helped them to cope. Now, why did I do this? Frankly, who cares in my opinion? Who cares? Thank you for giving me your time. Well, as you say, it's wise to judge people by their deeds, not by their words or what lies beneath the deeds sometimes. All right, lovely. Thank you for that clarification. And thank you for your time again, Sam. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. You too. All the best.


NATO says it can deploy 3.5 million soldiers if attacked NATO in accordance with its new defense plans can deploy 300,000 soldiers in the first month of a potential attack on the block while the total number of the alliances military personnel could reach 3.5 million people chair of the NATO military committee Admiral Rob Bauer said according to Sputnik media outlet If we are talking about collective defense you do not have the time to prepare for an attack if the attack happens And it is not us planning the attack It is the opponent planning the attack if they attack you have to be ready Therefore, we need more soldiers at high readiness We are talking in NATO as a whole if Finland and Sweden have joined of about 3.5 million soldiers in the alliance So the 300,000 is the number that we foresee at high readiness available for basically the first 30 days If it is necessary Bauer told reporters at a press conference with Norwegian chief of defense general Eric Christopherson In July NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said that the block approved new defense plans at the Vilnius summit under which NATO Would have 300,000 soldiers at high readiness and member states would invest at least 2% of gross domestic product annually in defense


Hey guys, Realistic Gaming here and we are back on Percy and the Beast Productions channel because you guys just can't seem to get enough of this sort of fallout stuff. We are going to continue off the videos in order. So last time we did watch episode one, which was the Brandon Baeblast. And now we move on to episode two, Boko Comes Home. It is pretty short as you can see. So in this video, we might just watch episode two and three, just so the video could be long enough, you know, over eight minutes and whatnot. All that YouTube stuff that YouTubers do. And guys, if you guys want to shout out on the next video, make sure to like, comment, subscribe. Like these awesome people have done already. All right, so let's begin with our first video. Oh, cool. So it's actually the intro for like every other sort of fallout video. That's pretty neat. Oh my God, James. That scream is funny. Oh, the duck. He is shaking. Under his nuts and bolts not fall out, dude. It's a Percy and the Beast production, then go check him out, subscribe to all that good stuff. And of course, Timid Thunderbolt. Dude, I get excited to watch these. There's like little movies. We got a call from an amazing figure about Boko. We found out he came back to Zelda after taking a good strain from the mainland and went straight to Brandon Ducks. All right, Boko. See you, man. All right. So there goes Boko with all the goods. What's up with his face? Oh, he's admiring the beautiful skies. Oh, that's not good. Is it? Somebody should have warned him, dude. Oh, they're going to be mutated, aren't they? I freaking knew it. Dude, they messed up my boy Boko, man. All right. Well, that was very unfortunate for Boko, man. He should have just gone somewhere else. All right. So since episode two was kind of short, we are moving on to episode three for this video, which is James Tragic Demise. Muk Bun Bakery. It sounds too similar, man. What happened in 2021 when the lockdowns began? It was okay. It couldn't believe it. Edward was still there. He was scared, and some of the coaches were badly burned, but he was okay. Edward was low on cold, but he did have enough water left to make it to Tidmouth. If engines would be hiding anywhere on the island, it's there. You got the sad word. We believe in you, buddy. Why is it just staring at him? Weirdo. Is that who I think it is? That is James. We were shocked to see James pull up to the station with empty coaches. He seemed pretty pent up about something. Since he was taking his anger out on Edward, we didn't know what was going on in his mind at the time, but Joseph told me they left half of their train at the platform. Instead of getting them all aboard before the blast hit them, but by the way he was acting, James definitely saw something the rest of us didn't. Hey, sometimes you got to make a little sacrifice, as you know. Not Ford. After laying about in the station for about an hour, we thought it was time we left. Felix and I were talking about how scary it was to run away from such a distance that we've all decided to entirely ditch the idea of going to Tidmouth and head straight to the Vickers down bridge. And off they go. Ho-ho. Boy, zoom in on you, man. Fast and furious. Part 10. While we were heading down the line, Edward had to stop the water. Felix made sure James didn't slow down and shot right past us, hoping to get across to the mainland. However, they went on the wrong line and went straight to Sundry. Noobs. I haven't seen them since. It took the wrong track. Frickin' noobs. The heck is all that stuff, man? It looks like ancient. Wait, is he mutating? He is. Let's head on to that. Dude. It seems like James Briggs gave out at the end there. All right, you guys. While those were sub-soda follow-up videos, part two, episode two and three, now we do have... Did he make a new one? Oh, he did make an episode nine. So we do have about what? There's nine episodes. We've seen three. We have six more to catch up. Well, if you guys want me to continue, to keep continuing off the series, you know what to do, man.


close to the fire even down in the San Jose area. Quality alerts and air quality warnings and you can smell the fire outside. So I'm making sure I take my medicine. I'm not going out unless I have to. My heart just breaks for all of those people who not only lost everything but the family members who lost loved ones. It's just been horrible. In this case, compared to years past, because let's be real, I live in California. We have fires and earthquakes all the time. Usually wildfires, you know, out in the forested areas, they sometimes get close to or into a town. Always devastating, but in this time it's an urban wild. It's just completely devastated. So many people. But I had to go out and run errands today. So a couple things I had to do. So I'm a medication with me and I've got a mask with me if I need it. Very hazy outside and it smells like burning wood. First of all, we were shooting for dark with silver and we didn't get that, but how pretty is this color that we did get. And really quick, look at this fancy bathroom with proper stalls with big doors on them. It's just shocking to me. It's just so pretty. Anyway, all right, that's it. I'm gonna go try to run a couple more errands and then I'll be done. So we're in Staples looking around. I actually need something specific, but how cool were those things that I just found in the front of the store and on clearance? Don't forget to check the clearance bins and the sale bins. Plain one-subject notebook for an upcoming video project. And the cheapest one possible. I see one right here. $1.49. That works. I probably won't get anything besides the notebook, but you never know what you're gonna see back here. Here's our storage. We've got them on clearance. It's probably a time to get one. Okay, so as you saw, I was in Staples. It is Friday, October 13th. Yes, Friday the 13th. And I'll adjust the volume on some of these clips so that you can hear me because I was kind of whispering in Staples. I'm pretty sure they don't like it when you film in there. But they had some interesting things on clearance. If I needed them, I would have got them. There were some interesting things there. I didn't need them. So I literally only bought the one notebook I went in for. I know, right? Shocking. Next door to Staples, we have a Ross dress for less, which is a discount like department store for those of you who don't know. And I went in there. There were some interesting things. Again, didn't see anything I needed and couldn't live without. So, you know, I was just kind of getting steps in. That's all. So now I'm going to go pick up the mail and then head home for lunch. That's it for right now. I'll be back home. After getting the mail in my notebook, I can have some lunch now and maybe do a little work over there. I actually have an idea for this page. And instead of, I have a particular pair of images I want to use. And instead of redrawing them, because I know I've done it once already and saved it, it was part of Crazy Island University and journaling Crazy Island style. So I think if I can after lunch and find them on the computer, I'll just reprint them and collage them on. It might be easier. All right. And I also, you know, went outside to do all this stuff and we're still having air quality issues because of the fires here in California. And I came home and I'm a little bit raspy and want to cough a lot. So I need to stay in the house for a little bit. Yep. I'll be back. I think it's technically Santa Clara. It might be San Jose. Anyway, we're out to dinner. They're having Oktoberfest. So, yeah. Just, you know, it's a German place. Meat and potatoes. So it's all good. All right. I'll be back. Hey everybody. It is Saturday, October 14th. It's about just about 1230. And I've been up since the crack of dawn this morning because I couldn't sleep. But I got a bunch of business, share things, posts done on social media, my daily thoughts done early if not on time, a bunch of stuff over in my year 2017 done. I got an art journal page done that's drying. I'll share it with y'all in a bit. And I'm here watching an episode of Border Wars. I know. I don't know why I have a fascination with it, but I do. So anyway, I am just relaxing and I've done my Inktober sketch for today. And I will share that with you in a bit too. I thought it's pretty cute. The prompt for today is fierce. So, and I also shared some thoughts on Inktober on my blog on my website and also in my email newsletter this morning. And I'll put links to all this stuff, you know, as usual in the description so you guys can see it. And I hope you join me on my journey because it's gonna be fun. And that's it for right now. I'll be back. Okay guys. Here is the promised Inktober page in my sketchbook that I'm doing for the sketchbook project, which I'll include the link for it and Inktober in the description below along with my blog post about both of these. So anyway, and that there's yesterday's. It's turning out super cute. So I'm going to go into the art room and I will show you the, our journal page I did this morning. Here's the journal page. Didn't it turn out cute? It was super easy. Some paint on the background. These pieces were sent to me in Happy Mail. I had this little card with a quote on it, a little bit of messy journaling with my favorite journaling pen, a plain old big crystal pen. Works great on almost all surfaces. A little bit of stenciling and a magazine picture. And that's all. And I just love the way it turned out. Isn't it cool? And the quote says, you must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be. Isn't that the truth? All right. That's it for right now. I'll be back. Oh, you talk. Come on. You taking my picture? What kind of dessert are you going to get? This desert? Yeah. I don't know yet. You don't know yet. I have to figure that out. Hey guys, it's Sunday afternoon. It's just before three, October 15th. And we're just at home today getting things done, you know, doing minor things around the house. The husband's right now going around the house, removing screens and washing windows. We have one screen that we're going to, I think, take over and drop off to get repaired this afternoon because that's got to be done.  I did go slap some paint on a page. So, and I may continue to work on it as the day goes on. We'll see. I still have to do Inktober for today, which I haven't done yet. And I'm just watching on my iPads either. Border Wars. I'm wearing my new essential oil necklace that I got. It's like a locket. And inside, there's a little piece of felt that you can put a couple drops of oil on. And I got a fabric mask in to wear for days when, you know, I'm in an environment that is aggravating my asthma. Right now, that's like the whole state of California because everything's on fire. But y'all know what I mean. It's not the most attractive thing. I did get a couple of, you know, brightly colored cotton ones because if I've got to wear it then, you know, it might as well be interesting looking. I think that's it for right now. It's kind of a quiet Sunday. We haven't done much this weekend other than go out on Friday night for dinner to Harry's Hofbräu, which if you're watching this clip, you've already seen that footage. Really, there's nothing really much going on. I'm meeting again with one of my former Michael students tomorrow morning at her house to continue to work on and coach her on some art stuff. And after that, I might go run a few errands. But again, nothing super exciting right now. Kind of a quiet week. And that's it for right now, though. I'll be back. October 16th. And I was supposed to be meeting with a student this morning at her house for some art coaching, daily art practice coaching. And I don't call them art lessons because we don't really do a lot of that. It's mostly coaching her through techniques and how she can incorporate a daily practice or frequent practice into her life as part of dealing with her personal issues, which I won't get into. And seeing if that'll help her, which she believes it will. Anyway, so my appointment with her got rescheduled until 4 p.m. this afternoon. So I am headed to Morgan Hill, California. I do have a charcoal particle mask with me in case I need it. We are still suffering from the fires and the aftermath in California. With only what I came in for, not my feathers. Except white feathers. Next time I might just have to order them at Amazon. All right. So I only said I was going in for feathers, right? Yeah. While I didn't fail miserably, I did fail. So I will share with you what I got. Well, we'll just do it right now. I'm not going to hold them up or anything. I'm really kind of anti-hauls. But I did not get any of the things I didn't really need. You'll see in the footage right now that I got a few things. I did find the feathers. I got the last two packs of white feathers, as I said. And I found some Tim Holtz word stickers. Big chat. So it's a bigger word rather than the little tiny ones. I really like his word stickers. FYI. A big fan of them. And so I got that. Those I will definitely use. And there is a particular brand of metallic paints in the model section where they have the model cars and stuff by Vallejo.  They're about $3 a bottle. Really great, fabulously metallic colors though. So I got a few colors. I don't think I have. Hope I don't have. And they got the last two packs of white feathers.  They had a butterfly and bug pack. So I got that. I don't have that one. Something else I really like using rather than fussy cutting out butterflies all the time, which drives me crazy. I got some clips from their $2 bin. They have, they have $2 bins anyway. They had paper clips with tassels on top and paper clips with pom poms on top. So I got one of each. Those will be really cute in my little junkie mixed media journals that I'm working on. Everything really is for projects that I'm working on. I just kept seeing things that, ooh, that would be good. Ooh, that would be good. So I know you all have been there. I try to really curb that most days. So now we're going to head over to, since we're down here and I want to go to Target rather than driving all the way home, I'm going to go to the target that's down here in Morgan Hill. I need to get a couple things.  My Target parking lot. But here are the clips that I got. These are the ones that I showed you on the clips where I was in the store. These are really cute. And then I got these ones too. My two packs of feathers. These are the Big Chat stickers. So they're much bigger than the regular. So cool. So I got a pad of those. These are the, what is this called layers. But this is his botanical layers.  And these are the metallic paints. They're by model, format model making and they're by Vallejo, but they're an acrylic paint. And I've gotten a few colors of them before and they're really fabulous. So they have flat, regular colors, but I like the metallics. So anyway, I used a coupon. Let's go into Michael's. I'm eating Target now and see what we can find. I do have asthma. Let's strain up the phone before. I do have asthma. So some weeks are better than others. And with all the fires going on in California, even though they're not super close to me, their quality over the whole state is not great. And we do have a new one that I heard about in the Santa Cruz area, which is closer to me than the not too bad. I don't, I don't know. I heard about it late. To go run some errands. I'd really like a couple of days at home where I don't have to do anything but get the mail. So run a few errands I need to today. I need to go to a grocery store across town to get a particular food item that I like that they're always out of at the store by me. I need to go to the office supply store. I have a project in mind and I need to go to the bank to deposit a check. So yeah, all those things. I need to do a journal page today when I get back and I want to experiment with the project that I have in mind. And I have to scan some artwork for the Etsy shop. So I'll, and all of it pretty much except for the journal page has to do with the Etsy shop. So I've got to work on that.  So if you've been waiting for stamps or stencils or artwork or anything else, now is the time. I made a wrong turn. Oops. For those that don't know, I get lost a lot. I wish you all could see how hazy it still is outside and gross. I don't know if that's going to show up on camera or not. Guys, how are you today? So I got up this morning and I've had my workout. What time is it? It's 10, 20. And I am just kind of lazing around and cooling off post-workout. I haven't really done much else to be honest, but I woke up to my Etsy shop kind of going crazy. So I have a number of orders to fill. Wahoo, yay, finally. Let's hope that momentum keeps up. I guess putting it everything on sale was a good idea. And FYI, everything is on sale. You don't need a coupon code and it's on sale until Halloween. So the link for the Etsy store is in the description if you want to go shopping. I have a number of things here on my desk that I need to list, which I haven't done yet. Some of which I just finished last night. So I made these little sketchbooks out of 70 pound drawing paper and then the cover is actually a file folder printed, cut to fit in my printer and then printed with some of my artwork. On some of the signatures, the paper was from a spiral bound notebook. So on some of the signatures I left, you know, I just left that top. I unwound the paper, took the spiral binding off so it's not torn or anything, but the holes are there. I just left them because I don't know about you guys, but the holes don't bother me. So I'll be putting pictures and everything and hopefully getting these listed in the Etsy shop today. They're pretty cute. I'll be filming a tutorial too for those of you who can't afford to buy them or don't want to. And they're super easy. No sewing. I used a stapler. So you could take the staples out and stitch them when you buy, if you buy one and you choose to do that, that's you could do that. But they're just little sketchbooks. So anyway, I also got it. There was some sort of Apple antitrust settlement with Amazon ebook thing. I don't know. I do read a lot. I have a Kindle. I've had one for years. I've been buying ebooks for years and years and years since before there was Kindles. I've been buying PDF ebooks and I woke up to a large credit in my Amazon account. So okay, that's good. I can use it through April 2018. It won't last that long. So yeah, there's a couple things I've been wanting, but I haven't bought for myself yet. So I bought them this morning and the rest of it will just sit there for when I want to book or I need to order coffee or something. So it's been an interesting morning. So I'm going to go grab some product from the stash of inventory in the garage and get the orders wrapped up. And then I guess I should probably take a shower and actually put regular clothes on and not workout clothes. Yeah. And then I have artwork to scan still because I haven't done it yet. And besides putting the little sketchbooks on the Etsy store, I have to scan some artwork and put that in the store too. So I got stuff to do. All right, that's it for right now. I'll be back. Okay, I whittled away a big bunch of this afternoon working on some Etsy listings. And you know, I just had some fumbling, crazy errors with getting the digital scans done and formatted correctly for Etsy. And it wasn't the listings that were the issue.  Then I had to scan it at a high enough resolution to be interesting, but not so high that it's too big for Etsy. And then I had to make a thumbnail and then I had to make sure that when I made the thumbnail, it didn't overwrite the original file like you can see where this is going right. So it's done now. Now I can go get my mail and mail my Etsy shipments out. Yeah. So anyway, I'll be back. Hey guys. So it has been a weird, crazy, long day as you've seen. And an interesting week. I did manage to get an art journal page done today. And I did somewhere reorganizing in here now that I've gotten rid of some things. I'm moving stuff around. So hopefully it's easier to find. I ordered a few of these. Let's see if I can show you quite easily. See this five drawer? Oops, right. That, not the stencils. This five drawer little thing, plastic mini drawer thing here by Sterilite. I'll try to remember to put a link for it in the description below. They're kind of hard to find. But of course, you know, the easy thing is to just go to Amazon. I've said it before in conversations and probably here on the vlog that it's hard for me to go out in some cases because there's something always that my asthma will react to. So it's not that I don't ever go out. I do. But I just limit the times that I do to something that I really want to do that's going to be fun. Shopping around for a particular thing like these drawers and like not finding them. That's not fun. I'd rather just order them. So you can get them on Amazon. You can buy one or like a case of four and they're really nice to be able to organize all your little parts in your art room and have them sort of put away and you'll notice like unclutter your table. Look at my table. But yet they're still right there and you can get them. So that's just fabulous. So I've spent some time today doing that and you know it's a constant thing in your art room and your creative space where you're cleaning and purging and reorganizing and it's a never ending cycle because as soon as you think you have it I said this earlier to somebody as soon as you think you have it down pat then you buy something new or acquire a new supply and then you got to start all over again. I spent some time this afternoon helping out on a live broadcast with Wendy Mason and her friend Roz. That was a lot of fun. I haven't actually been live on camera in a while so that was you know spur of the moment kind of thing so that was fun. But yeah it's been a fun week. It's been a pretty good day. Yeah it's just you know I don't know. I'm glad it's the end of the day. I've done my Inktober drawing. I did the journal page. I have to share on social media yet but I will. I think that's it for right now. I you know it's yeah it's been a weird week. I'm blaming it on the eclipse because since we had the eclipse might just feel off. Does that make sense to everybody or is it just me? I have a friend who had brain surgery this week.  I don't know how that happens but she made it through. She looks like she's going to make it through the surgery and she's already up and walking around. It's only been a couple of days. So you know more power to her. I hope that she makes it through all the treatments going forward. She's going to have to have and yeah so anyway send some good energy out there. I know I'm not going to mention names but just send some good energy out there to people like her who are sick and ailing right now because I think they need it. All right that's it everybody. Have a great week. A great week. A great week. Don't forget to try to get your steps in. Eat right and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. Maybe make some art. All right that's it for right now. I'll talk to you later. Bye guys.