everyone. I'm Marco Rogers. I'm a software engineer and I've had a pretty successful career in tech for over 10 years. Kind of an anomaly in comparison to the kind of experiences that Shola was talking about earlier. And that's kind of why I'm here. I want to talk to you today about what it took for me to succeed as a black person in tech. And I'm going to speak on my personal experiences. This talk is going to be pretty personal. I'm hoping that people will recognize some of the experiences that I had that it might resonate with them. But I'm also hoping that all of us will find something a little bit more important and larger in my story. So we'll see how it goes. The title of the talk says conforming to succeed, but it could have easily been called how to become one of the good ones. You know, that was an alternate title suggested by my wife. Before I get into that, a quick note on what it means to be successful, what I mean by I'm successful. I'm definitely not rich by any means, but I get paid pretty well. I got a nice engineering salary. I've had no major breaks in my employment for this whole 10 years. No problems getting jobs. That's been awesome. And I just bought a house in one of the most expensive places on the earth right across the bay over there. I also kind of reached this rarefied air where like I don't get money back from my tax returns anymore. Like that's over, right? In fact, the IRS they come and like dip into my pocket some more every April, which is like just rude. But I'm very, very fortunate to be where I am and I don't take it for granted for a second. The issue with this is that it's a very different place from where I came from. I changed a lot on my journey to get here. This audience probably knows that there aren't a lot of people who look like me who've made it to to where I am. I've met a lot of other black people in tech over my career, but I also have watched them get crushed, you know, give up, get pushed out, just disappear from this industry. And at some point I needed to reconcile what made me different from those people. I had to figure out what it was, why I was still here, and why I also didn't feel like it was that hard in certain ways. Otherwise it was actually really, really hard. But I had to figure this out. I'm going to go back. Let me start when I was young. Before high school, the schools that I went to were predominantly black. I saw people like me everywhere and that was a very kind of comfortable situation. But at the same time I was also like awkward and like an introverted kid. So I spent a lot of time like by myself and feeling like I was really different. And that's kind of a common story for a lot of people who might end up gravitating, gravitating towards a computer. But I got good grades. And eventually I got identified as gifted. Whatever that means, you know, schools are kind of always looking for kids with potential and then like elevating them above the rest of the class. So I got put in these special classes. I even got bused to special schools to do this gifted thing. And suddenly there were only a handful of black kids like me who were among this group of gifted people and way more people who didn't look like me. I was too young to think about it too much at that time. But what I did learn is that some of us are chosen to be different when we're pretty young. And what that means among other things is that being chosen involves being separated from other people that are like you. And that defined my early school years feeling separated, like I was being moved. So, you know, after my first year of high school, my family moved and I went to a new school. It had a good mix of ethnicity, but it was mostly white. And there I made a big choice. I was one of the new kids. So I had to like pick my faction, you know. And my first friend in that school, the first friend I made and who was my best friend throughout and still is. She was a white girl. Of course, it was heard and decided that we were going to be friends because I was quiet and awkward and terrible at talking to people. And I was mostly fine with that. But, you know, as this friendship progressed, I was kind of quickly presented with that dilemma called the lunchroom, you know, in high school. And so you walk in and there's kind of a cliche, but it was totally true. There's like these there's like two tables over here, like all the black people, right? Whatever faction they were in, they were all sitting together. And then over here is my friend waving at me, telling me to come over and sit with her, her white friends. And it was weird. But I chose to sit with her. I chose to sit with my new friend. And I made that choice with most of high school. Now, I don't mean to sound dramatic, right? But it's high school. So it's always kind of dramatic. But I made a choice that day. And I didn't choose blackness. I wouldn't say that I rejected my blackness. That's too strong. But I didn't choose it. I kind of put it on the back burner. And even then I understood that that was a significant thing. It had a profound effect on my whole high school experience. But I was young and stubborn. And I told myself it didn't matter that much. I was already weird and different by myself anyway. So it's cool. But choosing to move away from that blackness had a cost that I wouldn't really understand for like a long time. So graduation rolled around. And I had decided to go to college and work with computers. How did that happen, right? Like I actually didn't didn't do anything with computers previously. Well, remember that I'm on this like magical gifted track where you have to be invited first. But then once you do, they give you all kinds of like help and extra attention and stuff. Right. So my senior year in high school, they had a budget to get laptops for one class of students. And that was my class. We even got to take them home for personal use, like explore them and learn and I just kind of became fascinated, right? But I didn't realize at that time was I was one of the only people of color in that whole school who got the opportunity to be inspired by computers that day. I still don't know why it was chosen. But I was and I started to understand that being chosen also meant leaving more people that look like me behind, right? If I was going to keep moving forward, they weren't invited. Fast forward, go to college. I went to Georgia Tech in downtown Atlanta. It's important to know that Atlanta is full of black people. Like you see them everywhere, four or five people you run into. It's amazing place. But when I stepped on to the Georgia Tech campus, they seemed to disappear. I knew that a significant number of them went to Georgia Tech, went to my school, but I could not find them. You see, I had I had not chosen them, right? So I was now on the outside. And I didn't get whatever like trail of breadcrumbs you were supposed to get to find out like where they meet and like what they like to do and like, you know, how they dealt with the trials and tribulations of college life. I was basically on my own. They definitely weren't hanging around the College of Computing where I spent 18 hours trying to learn how to code. So I look back on college as like, just like a gauntlet of learning how to conform, learning how to like what people expected me to be. And experiencing culture shock in college is a common thing. But that doesn't mean it's not painful. And in my case, it wasn't just like jarring experiences. I was like changing into a different person.  And I learned to like pick up and I started picking up all the like technical jargon, you know, and this is a thing, right? Like I started speaking differently, not just using the words, but speaking differently. I'm from the deep south, right? I'm from from Georgia, grew up outside of Atlanta, and the backwoods. So my accent was like for real, right? But what I found is like, there's a look that people give you, you know, when they when they're presented with a young black man with a southern accent that's trying to talk to them about like compilers and data structures, they get this look, where it's like deep confusion and dissonance, when they're trying to figure out how to judge you and they can't. And eventually you just learn to like, you know, save them trouble, just talk however they expect to hear it, right? So my accent and a lot of other stuff about me just started to kind of fall away. I remember one year I came home, and I went to apply for a summer job. I was in the waiting room with this older guy, we were chatting about the job. And one point he just stopped, he looked at me, he's like, you don't sound like you from around here.  I didn't sound like I was from around here. But I was. My mom lived 20 minutes away, right? But he looked at me and, you know, when he heard me talk, he couldn't tell anymore. And that hurt. It stayed with me for like a long time. And I've dealt with some burden to that experience pretty much ever since. So I don't want to, I don't want to sit here and pretend that all this stuff just like happened to me, right? And I had no agency in the change that that I went through. This pressure to conform is very real. And we're shaped by it. But I also had a hand in the shaping, right? Like we choose how do we how we react to some of these things. So far, things I think have been pretty tame. Lots of people from different backgrounds might relate to some of these stories. But I'll tell one more topic story.  So I was part of this computer programmer culture now.  And just being generally terrible to each other. One of my formative experiences started when I wandered into some channel. And I got into this debate about religion. I wasn't too personally invested in this discussion. I was just, you know, like I was just taking a stance and trying to support it. Because that's what you did. That's what you had to do.  Like there was those are highly prized among nerds. I didn't want to be left out. So I practiced. But what I wasn't prepared for was like, how debate goes in the world of like anonymous internet forums. See, I made the mistake of thinking that these were like humans that deserve respect. And they were going to show me the same kind of respect.  And I was like harassed and you know, it's one particular guy. He was relentless. Like he would not leave me alone. And I didn't even understand how we had gotten to this point where he was like, he like hated me so much. But I was getting angry. I was like, you know, like, look, where I come from, you don't talk to people like that unless you want a problem. Okay. Like, you don't talk to people like that unless you want a problem. So I'm saying.  So you know what that means, right? So I asked him if he wanted me to come and solve his problem in person. So you know, you can you can kind of see where this is going, but all he had to go on was like text on a screen. So he gave me his name in dorm room and he told me to come over.  It's about to go down. Um, I showed him this guy's room and I was heated. Um, I told him, you know, step from behind that keyboard and like say the same things you were saying before, right? Told him to stand up. Y'all, when I tell you that this kid was terrified. Like, he did not know that this was what was going to happen to him.  He did not know how he got there. He had no idea. Um, it was, it was pretty, you know, it was pretty ridiculous. Um, there was some confusion while he kind of figured out who I was. But once he, once he figured out who I was, and you know, he, I was the person he had just been talking to. Um, that's when I learned that it was actually me who had the wrong idea, right? So like, you know, none of the stuff that you say online is supposed to be serious, right? Like, it's just what people do when they debate online. But if we met in person, we're supposed to like sit quietly and like have a poke and like talk like civilized people. Everybody knew that. Except me, apparently. Um, I debated throwing this story in but I definitely wanted to throw it in. But it's kind of disappointing. There was no fight. Um, see, I was embarrassed, right? I realized that part of the reason this scene was so entertaining to all the people around me was because of my ignorance. I didn't know what was expected and I had like blown things out of proportion. So so I went home. I went home feeling like who I was and where I came from was an embarrassment. I went home feeling like if I wanted to hang around these people, if I wanted to be successful, I couldn't be this person anymore. I had to be somebody else. And so I decided that from that point on, I couldn't be easily offended.  Um, I mean, this is yet another decision that has big consequences for black people. Um, by the time I graduated college, I wasn't at all prepared to work as a computer programmer. But I was very prepared to act like I belonged, right? I had been conditioned to go into this like alien culture and like assimilate to prove that I deserved to be there. And I did have to prove it. At this point, I want to pause because some people might be a little confused. I thought about whether I should throw this disclaimer in but it seems like I'm using the term like conform to succeed and like conforming to like whiteness interchangeably. I know that that lacks nuance and I apologize for that but it's on purpose. Um, we know that this this tech culture is full of like mostly white men and as such, they define a lot of the culture. But what we don't think about that often is the further you are from from whiteness, the further out of your comfort zone you have to go in order to to succeed in order to conform in order to do what is expected. Uh and sometimes the the racial component of that comes into like sharp relief.  Um and maybe it's maybe it's not malicious. Maybe they're actually friends but it can get very serious and sometimes very cruel. Um either way, the purpose of this game is uh for people to decide if you're cool to have around. Right?  Uh and if you get offended, you lose. Um it might be you know something simple like that that old gym like oh you're not like most black people. You're one of the good ones. Right? Um I heard that and I was like oh thanks sounds nice. Um and they genuinely like think that's a compliment. Um maybe you know the test aren't always meant to be hurtful but sometimes they get very real and that's how I find myself this last story. I find myself like hanging around a group of friends while they like tried to remember every racist joke they had ever heard to see if I would get angry because you remember I had told them that I couldn't be offended. I had learned that lesson right so I was like nah I'm good. Um you know I was supposed to like stay stoic and let it roll off my back and if I was really cool I was supposed to like laugh and like make them feel like really comfortable and telling that it was cool. Um that that I made it through that but it it didn't go well. Um and I I lost some friends behind that but in general this game right this game that gets played um I'm sad to say that I got real good at it in general. I progressed to like the highest levels of of letting people treat me a certain way and act them like it was cool. Uh see for me and I'm I'm betting for like a lot of black people being good at this game it feels like it's required for success. Um and I just bought a house in one of the most expensive places on earth so I guess I'm winning I guess. Um but this is more than a game right there's a threat behind it. The unspoken part of this game says if you weren't one of the good ones you might not be here and they get to define what good one means uh and I have certain point I realized that I have been chosen to be one of the good ones way back way back in elementary school they just called it like gifted right um I want to wrap up. This story was like very personal um but I want people to hear and think about it as we kind of continue to talk about diversity and uh bringing more people of color into tech. We need to be careful to remember that this is not just a numbers game. You know I'm here because I'm a good engineer but a lot of black people can do the technical things that I do. There could be a lot more of them here doing what I do but maybe they're not willing to conform the way that I did. Maybe they're not willing to feel distance from their culture and their people in order to make it here. Maybe to some of us success is not worth being forced to make excuses for like racism and terrible behavior we're subjected to all the time. The way that things are a lot of us pay a price to be here. It's a steep price and sometimes it means like cutting into your very identity in order to conform to what this industry expects you to be. So when we talk about being more inclusive I also think it needs to be about finding a way to lessen that burden of conformity. We need to allow people to arrive at feeling successful and still be able to recognize themselves and where they came from. Because just because you like leave the door open for somebody doesn't mean that they feel welcome and it doesn't mean that they can walk through and be unchanged. That's it. Thank you. I appreciate your time.


Although their sashes and uniforms may be different, the citizens of Sasebo who gathered in Mitsuha Park were united by a commitment to safety in their community. In addition to local organizations and police, Sasebo area sailors represented the Navy's commitment to crime prevention and traffic safety. It's extremely important that we maintain a very strong relationship with the Japanese. Most sailors do quite well. And sometimes when we do have a few speed bumps, it's in our best interest to be able to work well to resolve any issues quickly. Through continued involvement and community relations in our host nation, Sasebo sailors aim to be good neighbors and preserve the partnership of our two countries. Petty Officer Michael Sanchez, Fleet Activities Sasebo, Japan.


What's false is that Do-yeon only shows edifying educational material. That is false.  And actually when Do-yeon started, because it was invented before TikTok, of course, some of the first videos, the most popular videos, were just good-looking women kind of dancing around, kind of like musically, like that app, like in a music video way. And now I do believe the most popular tab probably is the fashion tab, where it's a lot of good-looking dudes and women just doing stupid, just, you know, just doing the TikTok F-boy stuff. It's the same stuff.


Thank you, Chair, for giving me the opportunity to present this paper. Whose topic is migration, remittances, and remittances in Senegal? Effect on labor supply and human capital of household members left behind. Here is the outline of the discussion. We'll talk about the motivation of the paper. We'll talk about the literature. The focus of this paper, about the methodology, the results, and finally the policy implications. About the motivation of the paper, this says that international migration in Senegal has attracted increased attention from the government and development partners. Indeed, several migration-related institutions have been created. The main concern of the government is how to channel remittances' flows toward more productive circuits. Indeed, some studies, like that of the African Development Bank in 2008, indicate that in Senegal only 11% of families use remittances to fund productive remittances. If you look at the level of remittances in Senegal, you can see that Senegal is and you compare it with other African countries. Senegal is in the top 10 remittances in the South African countries. In the CFA zone, Senegal is the first recipient country in terms of volume of remittances. In 2003, the level of remittances was 1,652 million, which represents 11.2% of GDP. International migration in Senegal is basically motivated by the need to look for better conditions, the need to address the unemployment issue. We know as well that remittances have been found as useful and effective in reducing poverty. You have some reference here. Then it means that migration and remittances could potentially have a role, could potentially impact labor market participation and human capital development. We have two sides. We have a negative side and a positive side. Tertially, on a negative side, migration and remittances, which are a number of things of revenue could generate a state of dependence. We know the parasitism effect in the literature, which reduces the labor market participation of household members left behind. What about the positive effect? Migration could contribute to improve human capital development by helping household members left behind to increase expenditures on education and on health. What is the main message of this paper? This paper tried to investigate how migration and remittances affect labor market participation and how remittances affect human capital development in Senegal. I recently received a comment asking me why you integrate both migration and remittances and why you want to look at the effect of both variables on labor market participation. The reason is that depending on whether the migrants living abroad have or not a job, left-to-behand members might receive no remittances or return or high levels of remittances. So there is a high uncertainty in the connection between migration and remittances. They might not lead to the same result. This is why it is important to investigate both. In the literature, as you know, the effect of migration and remittances on labor market participation was found to be inconclusive. Some authors found positive effects while others found negative effects. What about the effect of remittances on human capital in the literature? Most of empirical literature on this issue have found a positive effect of migration on human capital. Only few papers have found a negative effect of migration on remittances on human capital. What is the focus of this paper? The effect of international migration on labor market participation for the case of Senegal has not been investigated. Look at this paper found on CC. They do not focus on labor market participation. Only the paper by Schumann, 2013, has explored the impact of remittances on labor market participation. But Schumann used a binary specification of labor market. But where are our papers trying to use a set of econometric models? About the effect of remittances on labor market participation, past studies did not make a differentiation of the level of remittances, making a decomposition of the level of remittances in order to understand how this effect labor market participation is important. As it might help know that the effect of remittances on labor market participation might depend on the level of remittances and not only the status of resaving or not remittances. And this issue has received little attention in the empirical literature. So we are going to use the World Bank's household and migration remittances household survey in 2009 to investigate this issue. Well, about the effect of remittances on human capital for the case of Senegal, we have not found a systematic econometric investigation of this issue for Senegal. Previous issues, as I said before, have focused on total consumption expenditures, like the paper by Jain and Jain in 2008. We are not going to focus on consumption expenditures, we are going to focus on expenditures on education and on health. And as well, we are going to make a differentiation of the level of remittances to see how both the level and the status of resaving remittances affect human capital. About the methodology, the first model is the effect of migration on labor market participation. We use three techniques. The first one is the probate model. Here you can see that E is what? E is the observed variable which indicates whether individual i is employed or not in the labor market. M is the migration-related variable that takes the value of one if individual i lives in a household with migrants and zero otherwise. X is the, we control for the individual and household characteristics as the household size, sex, age, marital status, etc. Z i is the potential covariate. According to Roth and Tiberty 2016, the literature on migration considers basically migration networks as one of the influential and observable variable. For example, Taylor at 2003, then these also consider the migration, define the migration, use the percent change of migrants to the total population as a proxy for migration networks, which is the covariate. The network variable, of course, is computed using the data set, the Senegalese migration remittances household survey by the World Bank. The second technique used is that in the same, in the model one is what is called the analogous switching probate model, because here both the dependent variable and the main independent variable of interest are dummy variable. So the ESP is switchable. The ESP considers two different regimes. In our case, we have a regime with migrants and a regime without migrants. T i is the criterion function which help determine which regime the Asian faces with migrants or without migrants. And here you have the binary outcome. We are going to estimate the correlation coefficient in these mistakes, which will help us assess the impact of migration on labor market participation. The third technique in model one is the propensity score matching approach. Here the outcome is the probability of participating through the labor market, while the treatment is the probability of migrating. The impact is assessed as the difference between what is observed or treated and what is not observed or not treated. About the model two, which is on the effect of remittances on labor market participation, we use as well a simple probate model. The first technique is defined as above. R is the log of per capita remittances here. As well as I said, we use various levels of remittances and we generate different dummies. You have dummy zero, which means that the household receives no remittances. Dummy one, the household receives more than 100,000 remittances. Dummy two, the household receives more than 200,000 remittances. Dummy three, the household receives more than 300,000 remittances. So we have tried to make a desegregation, a decomposition of the level of remittances. The second technique for the second model is the IV probate model, because the simple probate does not correct for under genetic problem, does not address under genetic problem. To address this issue, we use the IV probate model and as we say it, Z is the instrumental variable, which has a migration network defined as above. Second technique is the propensity score matching. The outcome is the probability of participating to the labor market, while the treatment is the probability of resaving remittances. And finally, the third model, in the third model, we use two techniques. The first one is OLS, X point is per capita expenditures on education and per capita expenditures on health, R is per capita remittances. We use as second technique the propensity score matching. So with regard to the descriptive results, what we have, we found that households with migrants participate less likely to participate in the labor market compared to household with migrants. If you look at the mean, you have here 0.58 and here 0.52. So households with migrants, they are less likely to participate in the labor market compared to households without migrants. We found as well that households with migrants have smaller total per capita expenditure compared to households without migrants. This implies that households with migrants are basically poor. We found as well that households with migrants have higher level of per capita expenditure on education and health compared to households with migrants. This is basically what we found from the descriptive statistics. Regarding the econometric results, this table is about the impact of migration on labor market participation. With the probit model here, you can see the negative and significant effect of migration on labor market participation. Here is the marginal impact. What does it mean? It means that being a household with migrants having a migrant in a household will lead to a 9.4 decline in labor market participation. This is the first technique. Regarding the endogenous switching probit model, you can see here that the war test is significant. This confirms the presence of endogeneity. This validates as well the selected instrumental variables. Then you can see as well that, as I said in the methodology, the correlation coefficient. Row zero is the correlation coefficient with the first regime with migrants. What does it mean? You can see that this correlation coefficient is negative but not significant. It means that a member of a household with migrants does not have a significantly different probability of participating to the labor market that a member of the household randomly selected from the sample. Row zero is the correlation coefficient for the second regime. It means the correlation coefficient for households without migrants. You can see that the coefficient is negative and statistically significant. It means that a member of a household without migrants has a higher probability of participating to the labor market than a member of a household randomly selected from the sample. If you compare the two results, you can see that households with migrants will have the lowest probability of participating to the labor market compared to households with migrants. Overall, the overall result is the same that we found with the probit model, like migration reduce labor market participation. The propensity score matching, you can see that with regard to the treatment effect, we don't have a significant effect here. Why we have significant effect with the not treated, the untreated? It means that households with migrants are less motivated to participate to the labor market while households without migrants are strongly motivated to participate to the labor market. This support as well as the negative signs between labor market participation and household. I have only five minutes so I have to run two minutes. Okay, time constraint. Here I found basically with all methods, I found a negative effect of remittances on labor market participation very quickly. This is the effect of remittances on expenditures, on education and on health as well. Here as well we found a positive effect of remittances on expenditures on education and on health with less and with the propensity score matching method. So basically with regard to policy implications, what we can say is that as migration and remittances reduce labor market participation, the question is whether migration should be, should continue to be considered as a developmental strategy. Maybe what the government and another policy issue is that another important implication is that as migration reduces labor market participation, it means that migration and remittances might not be viable solutions for employment, for household with migrants. So the government may provide maybe direct subsidies or social protection. Thank you for your attention.


From Hollywood, it's time now for Johnny dollar This is Hector, Mr. Dollar Hector Hector, Nirkley at the Drakely Arms Apartments You were here night before last inquiring about the late mr. Morgan. Oh, yes, I remember what can I do for you? Mr. Nirkley, oh, it's really quite the other way around all right. What can you do for me? Why can't you give it to me on the phone I'll tell you exactly why mr. Dollar Oh for the love of people And why not a month ago the best friend I had in the world drove his car off a cliff into the Pacific and his body's still out There in the ocean somewhere. It's never been recovered. It turns out he was $80,000 shortness accounts I can't find the money. You know the woman he was running around with before his death I can't find out anything and now if I want some it All right, I'll be there in 30 minutes Tonight and every weekday night Bob Bailey and the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator yours truly Johnny dollar From special investigator Johnny dollar location San Francisco to the home office eternity mutual insurance company Hartford, Connecticut Assignment the confidential matter Expense account continued item nine a dollar and seventy cents taxi from my hotel to the Drakeley Arms Apartments a Snooty high-priced joint where Ed Morgan had lived during the last four months of his life Ed Morgan a pipe and slippers bachelor who'd suddenly and strangely turned to champagne cocktails and high-living Who is head of an insurance claims office had found a way of swindling his employer out of $80,000 in four months? And who died a month ago as mysteriously as he'd lived This was the man who at the moment was my assignment who's past I was supposed to uncover And he was also the man who'd been my lifelong friend. Ah, you did make excellent time Now look if this turns out to be a run-around so help me out All right. All right. You said you had some very important information that couldn't be discussed over the phone Well, it could have been discussed of course, but well this information has to do with one of our guests mr. Dollar a Certain lovely young widow whom you seem most concerned about the last Nikki Barrett quite as she come back as she here I'm afraid not then. What is it first? I must ask you what your intentions are toward mrs. Barrett Well, I'm not gonna marry her leaves. I hardly thought you were all right, then what's the point simply this I Happen to be in a position to put you in touch with mrs. Barrett. You know where she's hiding out hiding out All right, I'll drop the implication you know where she is. I do. Well, then let's have it Why do you wish to find her? Because she's the only lead I've got on the Morgan case She and Edward thicker than thieves during the four months before his death and she was with him the night He was killed earlier in the evening at least are you going to have her arrested? No No, I just want to ask her some questions. I've got no case against her Not yet at least mr. Dollar can I depend upon you in one very important respect? What's that? Under no circumstances must you let mrs. Barrett know that I told her where she is What's the matter afraid the board of directors would bust you to bellhop and strip off your gardenia? That is not amusing Nor too improbable as a matter of fact after all the watchword of the Drakely arms is discretion. Yeah. Well, all right It's a deal. I won't tell her of course. There is one more little detail now what well the last time you requested information from me Mr. Dollar you were kind enough and generous enough Really, this is a bit awkward. What is it Hector? Is the gardenia fun getting low? Well, you did say as I recall that it was merely an item in an expense account. All right Here's another 20 bucks. Oh, thank you, sir. Now. What about Nikki Barrett? We just received a letter from mrs. Barrett. She asks that her mayor be forwarded to her in care of american express Panama city panama Item 10 20 dollars gratuity item 11 388 dollars and 45 cents hotels and telegrams Incidentals in san francisco and plane fare to panama I'd sent wires ahead before I left the states It wasn't until after I cleared customs and was heading for the american express office That I was certain the messages had produced any results Dispense of me. Please. Yeah, you are uh, senior johnny dollar from the estados. No, that's right Captain Garcia Ramulio of the panama federal police as usual. Oh, glad to know you captain. I am honored senior We have received your telegram And I have been instructed to cooperate with you very intensive. Well, it may take just that Now about the woman I described in the telegram the senora barrett Oh, son the mother. What a beautiful woman. So I've heard you have not uh had the pleasure of Acquainting her not yet the best of your life is before you in that case Then I'll speed up and get to it. So you've already located her. Oh, but of course, senior She has not um changed her name as you think perhaps So it was more simple. Good. Glad I didn't cause you too much trouble trouble Senor merely to gaze upon such a one is worth the lifetime of trouble Which is exactly what it caused a couple of guys. I know Such hair such lips. Yeah, well, uh, what do you say? Forgive me, senor. I am carried away with it Well, where is this living little doll staked out at the moment? She is registered at the hotel primesso room 17 Uh hotel primesso. This is something most unusual. I'm thinking. What do you mean? The primesso is one hotel very small, which is uh Locate on the waterfront Is most for sailors fishermen. I see the beautiful tourist or one would think to find in a hotel of More elegance. She may be deliberately staying away from the tourist belt. Yes, sir. It's in your Who can tell the reasons of a woman? Yeah, is she living there alone? So I have been informed You expect someone with her. I don't know what to expect. I don't even know why she came here I'm moving in blind Life is most difficult at times You didn't talk to her. Did you let her know you were checking on her? Please, sir. Sorry captain. I had to be sure She is most entirely without suspicions. Good. Good. Well, I suppose I'd better check into a hotel first Then what are your plans, senor? I don't know exactly. I'll talk to her try to get some answers And from there on I'll just have to call it as I go I hope this lovely lady has not involved in some Serious crime. I hope not too But I wouldn't bet much on it Item 12 8 dollars taxi flant rate for the rest of the day And by the time I checked into a hotel and showered and changed the rest of the day didn't have long to go The hotel promesa was on the waterfront as captain Garcia had said and some distance from town But although it wasn't a tourist trap neither was it quite the sailors flop house I've been led to expect it was built native style with bamboo shutters and wide verandas Half buried in a thicket of mango and banana Five bucks bought me the desk clerk's undying affection and two minutes later. I stood unannounced at the door of room 17 It's about time. I ordered that ice at least it I thought you were the bellboy. No The name is johnny dollar Johnny dollar mind if I come in mrs. Bird what for? Well, it would be more comfortable than trying to talk out here in the veranda What is it you want to talk about a friend of mine Name of ed Morgan All right Come on in Sit down mr. Dollar. Thanks I'd offer you a drink, but there's no ice and it isn't this kind of heat. I don't care for a drink. Thanks You'd think it would cool off after the sun goes down, but it doesn't at least not very much Sometimes a breeze comes up from the from What are you staring at mr.  How do you know I came all the way down here? What do you mean? Maybe I live here No I've heard of you before ed mr. Morgan used to talk about you was it ed or mr. Morgan You don't miss much. Do you I try not to It was ed as you undoubtedly knew. Yes, I know But I wasn't sure why Why why he lost his head Now that I've seen you I can understand Who wouldn't please I'd rather not talk about it mr. Dollar Ever since that terrible accident. There's been only one thing I've wanted To forget well, I'm sorry to have to bring up unpleasant memories mrs. Barrett, but I've got to ask you some questions The night of his death. What time did he leave you? What do you mean? You were together earlier in the evening You left the bar at the draggly arms together at nine o'clock But shortly after midnight when ed ran his car off a cliff into the pacific. He was apparently alone We went to dinner then he brought me back to the apartment house He was going to half moon bay to see a client That's why he happened to be on that road. I don't want to talk about it mr.  I see Well, it's uh, it's too bad it didn't work out with all the wealth ed had and the beauty you have Why I I had the idea that he just worked for an insurance company and lived the way he did Oh come on mrs. Barrett Well, actually I didn't really consider it. My husband had left me quite well off How long were you married before he died? Only 10 months Oh, you do have bad luck, don't you? I don't think this attitude of yours relax Here have a cigarette. I don't smoke Oh Do you mind if I do? No, of course not Thanks Do you have a suite here mrs. Barrett or just this one room just this room why? Oh, then this door must lead to the bath. What do you think you're doing? Empty huh, of course it's empty Then the other possibility is that closet stay away from there When I came in there was cigarette smoke in the stubs in the ashtray. There's no one here. Stay away from there Oh, look mrs. Barrett turning out the lights may be romantic, but it's not the idea I was still conscious with groggy And I couldn't seem to get off the floor I heard someone moving Heard the door to the veranda open and close I shook my head tried to clear it and finally staggered to my feet and found the light switch Nikki buried it was cowering back against the wall staring at me scared but not saying anything. I stumbled toward the door The veranda was empty. There was no sign of movement in the shadows So there was somebody hiding in that closet. No There wasn't anybody here. I'm the one who hit you. You'd have to have a fist three times your size Forget it. I know the game now. I should have known it a lot sooner There's only one person in this world who tears cigarettes apart and shreds the paper that way no the two of you in on it together They didn't find his body because there wasn't anybody to find He's still alive. He was right here in this room That was ed morgan Oh, here is our star to tell you about tomorrow's episode of this week's story tomorrow A search for a dead man who intends to stay dead And who's willing to kill to do it Join us once you yours truly Johnny dollar Yours truly Johnny dollar starring bob bailey is transcribed in hollywood written by less crutchfield It is produced and directed by jack johnstone Be sure to join us tomorrow night same time and station for the next exciting episode of Yours truly Johnny dollar Hugh brundig speaking


Hi everybody welcome I am very proud to be here today to sign House bill can you hear me I am very proud to be here today to sign House bill 168 the stolen valor act into law this bill let me just give you a little background this bill will make it a crime to impersonate a soldier to impersonate a veteran of the armed forces or a recipient of a service medal or decoration in order to gain access to benefits resources job opportunities that we set aside specifically for veterans or people who have served the legislation is really important right here in Pennsylvania we have the fourth largest veteran population 900,000 actually over 900,000 people one out of every 12 Pennsylvanians is a veteran in our Commonwealth in our country we have set aside as you know certain benefits certain resources job opportunities for our service members so that we as a society can pay in some small way the gratitude that we owe to our service men and women and our veterans for the sacrifice that they've made on our behalf for someone to fraudulently present themselves as worthy of the benefits of you know and the gratitude that the men and women of the armed forces have earned that's really inexcusable it's actually offensive to the memories of our veterans and it should be offensive to everybody in Pennsylvania so that's why I think this legislation is so important we must make sure that in Pennsylvania we're doing all we can to protect the benefits and resources we set aside for our veterans and service members so that they are never compromised and that those benefits are not sent to people who are not deserving the penalties for this action that we signed into law today will make people think twice the hope is before deciding to attempt fraudulently to gain some of those benefits for themselves we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to our veterans and members of the armed services they protect us they service they keep us safe they don't blink in the face of danger and they're prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to safeguard our way of life they do all of this without expectation of reward or recognition and there's really no way that we can repay the debt that we owe them but through actions including safeguarding the benefits the things that we do for them things that were we're actually trying to protect with the stolen valor act we can show our appreciation for what they do and for we can play a small part in showing that gratitude so let me just one here let me just take the the opportunity to say that the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs the DMVA we are doing a lot of things to try to make sure that we are trying to say thanks in concrete ways to our veterans our programs aim to connect veterans with all the services care program options they need in one place the DMVA again we know that we can't repay the debt that we owe but through our work to support veterans and their families back home we can show them the gratitude they deserve and have earned so I want to thank every Pennsylvania service member and veteran for their service to our community to our commonwealth and to our country and I pledge that we're going to continue to do all we can to provide you the veteran with all the benefits and resources you have earned we'll stop those who decide selfishly to attempt to benefit from the work that you've done so let me just thank senator Tony Williams isn't here he was the one who first introduced the legislation that representative Rick Saccone's amendment was passed unanimously by both chambers but both Tony and representative Saccone for your really good work in getting this important legislation passed Chris Sinaito is also a prime cosponsor Steve you were prime cosponsor to yes so all three of these folks really deserve our thanks for actually trying to protect our our veterans and service members so thank you very much for your your support and for your hard work on this and leadership now I will take questions on topic from the podium then I'm going to go over and sign the bill with Chris and Rick next to me Steve you can stand there too and then I will take off topic questions in the gaggle off on the side afterward are there any questions on this bill yes Dennis I mean it's it's a big enough problem that we we want to I'm actually not sure how big the problem is but the the issue is if it happens once that's a big problem because no one should feel empowered to to actually come and claim there's someone they're not especially when it comes to claiming that there's someone who actually offered to lay their life down for for us that's that seems to me the height of arrogance and hypocrisy so so if it happens once that's too often I don't know Rick do you have the numbers to hell often this happens I don't have all the numbers but we've had a number of cases in Pennsylvania we had one in Berks County we've had a couple across the state where people representing themselves as veterans have raised money or have used their veteran status to try to gain advantage and they were caught on it and called on it and so it has happened here in Pennsylvania and as the governor said this bill will hopefully be a deterrent now that people know that we're out there looking for him and there's there is a penalty for that yeah it makes it a third-class misdemeanor no I can't can you put that yeah that's misdemeanor I think it's up to a thousand dollars less than less than a year in jail I believe I have to check that anything else okay I'm gonna go sign the bill and I have some pens here and then I'll take questions off topic over here straight ahead okay look straight ahead Steve's gonna sit down okay thank you thanks for taking time


What's up guys, Rexxen34 back with another video. Today we have another epic search video. This is technically the first video. Search for the Star Eater. We have 42 first edition Judgment of the Light packs. Inside you can pull the Secret, Ultimate, and Ghost Rear Star Eater. I want to pull all of them. But we're searching mainly for the Ghost, the others would be pretty awesome to pull. So before we get started, the giveaway for this video, the last of the cards that were sent to me to be given to you guys. Two comments for Legend of Blue Eyes, Dragon of the Wicked Knight, Ravenous, Crocodragon Arctis, Lopter Shadow of the Generator Boss, Heavy Forward, and Titan Cider Secret Rear. So a lot of eternity code cards and some LOB cards, all you have to do to be entered in the giveaways. Like the video, be subscribed and let me know which is your favorite version of Star Eater. Ghost, Secret, or Ultimate Rear. We will see one example today so I can show you guys. And let's get into it. All right, here we go. There is one good comment in here. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but I'm sure we'll see it. Then there's an incredible comment, Madolche Chickalates, so yeah, we might be singing and dancing a little bit today. And there's some decent rears. Gusion Carnation, Googly Eyes, and Umbrella Horror. Yes, we got 42 packs, we're not going to go too crazy, I'm taking forever to look at them. We're going to be looking for the goods. The Ultimate Rear, the Ghost Rear, the Secret Rear. Here we go. Pal Labyrinth, Googly Eyes, Drum Dragon. All right, Umbrella Horror, here we go. Bujinfodil, Calibrator, Underworld, Bujinki Quillen. Not Krillin, but Quillen. Cheap, cheap, cheap. That's incredible. Incredible guard. So there's our first super rare, Bujinki Quillen. Super rare, not bad. I'll take it, Bujinki Wolf. All right, Ice Princess, Zero Art, XYZ Agent, Shark Caesar, Junk Blader, XYZ Reception. Oh baby, we almost skipped it. Madolche Chickalates, Chicka Chickalates, Chickalates, Chicka Chickalates, Singing with me, Chickalates, Chicka Chickalates, there we go. So that's good. We're going to try and hit as many of those as possible to make this an epic opening. All right, here we go. Let's go. XYZ Agent. I have a feeling we're going to see a few of those. Colt Wing, there's the good common we're looking for. Besides, of course, Chickalates. Herald of the Purple Light, there we go. I think that might be pretty decent, actually. Yeah, this is a $1 super, which is not bad, because there's not a crazy amount of value in this set. So really, there's not a lot of stuff coming out of here that's like very expensive. We're opening it to get the star reader and any nice little value back is nice. Okay. Calibrator, Ishborg Anchor, Intercept Tomato, Super Defense Robot, Sonic Booth, Dustin. Oh my goodness. There's so many cool comments in here.  Incredible. Ambush and Turtle. We've got to love that guy. All right, so far, two supers. We've got a nice common. See if we can step it up. Number of Horror and a Monkey. Okay. Only one Chickalates so far, so that is a little disappointing. A little disappointing, to be honest. Mechafan and Beast Cold Wing, we've got two of those. Nice. Intercept Tomato, Miss Bird Colossalus, and Madolche Chickalates. Chickalates. There we go.  I guarantee it. Yeah. Take that one to the bank. Chickalates. Here we go. William Fidel, Calibrator, Torbless the Forbidden Well, Spell Recycler, Googly Eyes Drum Dragon. That's a funny card. Okay. Let's go Star Eater. Turtle. Mechafan and Beast Warburlin, and Bershingi Wolf. So far, we haven't hit over Super Rare, so we're starting a little slow. That's okay. We got a lot of packs. Umbrella Horror, Mechafan and Beast, Conquerruta, and Zell Rort. Super Rare. Okay. Nice. Next pack. What can we pull? I'd have a Judgement of the Light. Pretty new-ish set, but at the same time, not that new. Oh, Ultimate Rare, guys. Can we be the Star Eater? Oh my goodness. I pull this guy every time. I pull this three times now. What in the world? Three of the Ultimate Rare, Pujinte Sucenovo. So that's weird, but at least it's an Ultimate. Okay. I've pulled that guy three times. Here we go. Flying Sea, The Atmosphere, Number 104, Yellow Dustin yet again, Ugly Piece of Toast strikes again. Next pack. Oh, that one didn't come out very easily. I know what they say about packs that don't open easily. And it's not true. Okay. Okay. So far, Ultimate Rare, four Super Rares, two of the good Common. So pretty good. I can say we're doing all right. Ward. Oh, whoops. Madochee Chickalates. Chickalates. Chickalates. There we go. Three of those, Reversal and Calibrator. All right. Three Chickalates. It's been a pretty good opening so far. Junk Blader, Black and White Wave, Number 66, Master Key Beetle, Super Rare. All right. Another Super. Where are the non-Supers? We have one Ultimate, which is good. Same one we've pulled every time though. It's like the only one I've ever pulled out of here. Maybe I've pulled another one, but I don't remember it. Crupted Keys, The Calibrator. We've seen the Calibrator a lot. Ooh, the Colt Wing. Play set of that. That's nice. That's our Serif Sword. Trap Tricks, A-Tracks. Cool. Bujinti. Suzanowo. We pull this thing every time. An Ultra Rare and Ultimate Rare. This is a troll. This is crazy. All right. So that's pretty weird. So there's our Bujintes. They can hang out up there. That was like a nice car. That'd be good. But it's not very good. I think the Ultimate Rare version's like $0.20. Or the Ultimate Rare. The Ultimate Rare's more. Intercept Tomato. Crupted Keys. And Work. All right. Okay. Can we pull something besides the Suzan? The Bujint Suzan. That's all we're pulling. Bujint Suzan. Here we go. Crane. Colt Wing. There we go. And Sword. Here we go. We got a lot more packs. Can we turn this around? It's not been horrible, but it hasn't been great. Calibrator. Trap Tricks A Tracks. Lord Starleague Lord Galaxian. Cool. Nice Super Rare. There's some really cool looking supers in here. That's nice. Judging the light. Can you please the lesses with something epic? Come on. Fishbowl Yanker. If that was a Ghost Rare Bujinki, I would totally pull it. Can we pull an epic Star Eater? Any of the versions at this point would be great. Fishbowl Yanker. Bujint Carnation. Ooh. A Colch. A Coach Soldier Wolf Bark. What? He's a coach. All right. Secret Rare. That's our first one. So I'll take that. Coach Soldier Wolf Bark. Pretty cool. All right. Interesting. Never seen that card ever. But pretty cool. Reverse Glasses. The Calibrator. Intercept Tomato. Caffeine and Beast. War Blurring. Another one. And another Star Leeds Lord Galaxian. Man, there's a lot of trap chicks in here. That's pretty cool. There we go. Doubles on that guy. Definitely a cool looking one though. Here we go. Fishbowl Yanker. Intercept Tomato. Limit Dragon. Confronting the sea. Googly Eyes Gum. Drum Dragon. Come on, baby. Give us an epic pull. Destroy that pack. Come on, Star Eater. Let's go. Colt Wing again. Oh, there's the good rare. Nice. And a number 66 Master Key Beetle. Didn't I already pull this? Yeah. Doubles on this guy again. So two double supers. Interesting. And then we got basically a double with this Ultimate and this Ultra. Colt Wings. We're getting a lot of those. That's nice. Good value back. Bujin Fidel. Number 102. Bujinki Ward. Okay. Come on. What do we got? About 15 packs left. Maybe a little bit less. We still got... Man, we've opened a lot. And we still have a lot left. Corrupted Keys. Googly Eyes Drum Dragon. Where are the Chickalotes? We only have three Chickalotes in the whole video. This is crazy. Is it short printed? Probably because it's so epic. Vaim Betrayer. Vertical Ending. Archfiend Emperor. Star Eater. Secret Rare. So we found it on the first video. Just the lowest rarity, Secret Rare. But I'm still happy about that. Check that out. Check that artwork out. That's really cool. Star Eater, Secret Rare. In our first search for the Star Eater, now we have to find the Ultimate and the Ghost. Definitely our best pull so far, I'd say. Here we go. It's not super expensive, but pretty cool. Bujinki Wolf. Googly Eyes Drum Dragon. It's just such a funny name. Alright, more trap tricks. Here we go. Madolche Chickalates. Chicka Chickalates. There we go. Number four, baby. The Madolche Chickalates counters up the number four. Star Serif Sword. Bujinfidel. Okay, it looks like we got about ten packs left. Eleven, including this one, I think. Here we go. Ghost Rare. Let's go. Number one, oh four. And Transmodify. Another Secret Rare. There we go. Another Secret. So three secrets in one video and an Ultimate. That is pretty awesome. Let's get these out here. And only one Ultra, surprisingly. So that's not bad. One of them being Star Eater, which is pretty awesome. Spell Recycler. Ooh, not that guy. Ooh, Chickalates, Chicka Chickalates. And then Ice Princess. And more importantly, a Madolche Chickalates. Make sure you guys are singing that song. I want to hear it. Okay, it's going to be hard for me to hear it. Do you have to sing really loud? Okay. Google Eyes Drum Dragon. Come on, baby. Tour Bus. Coach Captain. Okay, I've never heard of this archetype. Coach Captain's The Bearman. He's a Coach Captain, though. So there we go. There's another Ultra Rare. The pulls are going pretty well.  Ultimate Rare, I would love to see another one of those. Here we go. Oh, now they're coming in waves. Chickalates, Chicka Chickalates. Here we go. Very epic. That's our, what, sixth Chickalates? Let me see. Oh, never mind. Only five Chickalates. So pretty epic. Here we go. Let's pull something else epic. Corruptor Keys. Oh my goodness. A play set of the Starleague Lord. Our third one. Pretty cool. All right. What do we got? We got six packs left. Can we pull something epic? Sonic Boom. Googly Eyes. Bujingi Wolf. All right. Five packs left. Our last five chances at a Star Eater Ultimate or Ghost Rare. Let's see what we can do. Confronting the C. The Latalia Princess of Cherry Blossoms. Okay. All right. Let me know, guys, if there's also any other valuable comms or anything that I'm missing. Because I probably am missing. I think some of the rares are left a little bit more. So I'm setting them aside. I'll check them out. But here we go. Four packs left. Cheap, cheap, cheap. Three packs left. Can we pull an epic? Star Eater Ghost Rare. That would be the goal. Here it is. Googly Eyes Drum Dragon. Brotherhood of the Firefist. Shape, sister. Pretty cool. It's a nice ultra rare pull. Pretty cool looking. Two packs left. Can we pull something insane? Hit the like button, guys. For luck. 42 pack opening. Here we go. Mega Phantom Beast Cold Wing. Nice. Bujingi Crane. Trap Tricks Trap Hole Nightmare. Nice pull. Okay. It's come down to this. The final pack. We open 41 packs. Can the 42nd pack bless us with a ghost rare? Hit the like button for luck, guys. Let me know in the comments if you believe we can do it. Here we go. Bujingi Fidel. Shark Caesar. Limit Dragon. Okay, last card. Spell Recycler. All right. Oh, and it ends the right way. Madolche Chickalates. Chickalates, yeah. That's a good way to end it. So for this video, let's go over what we got. For our pulls, we got one, two, three, four, five, six Chickalates. That's a good video right there, just on its own. Then for our other nice commons and rears, we got one of this guy, unless I missed one. We got six cold wings. Good value. For our supers, we got Trap Hole. Him. Harold the Purple Light. Quillen. Key Battle. We got two of those. Three Galaxian. For our other pulls, we pulled Ultrarare Shape Sister. Super Rare Talia. Coach Captain Bearman. Transmortify Secret. Star Eater's Secret Rare. Pretty amazing. Coach Soldier Wolf Bark. Bujinte Susanavo. And the Ultrarare Bujinte Susan. So pretty epic pulls. I hope you guys did enjoy the video. Make sure you guys like the video for a chance at that epic giveaway and comment below, what is your favorite version of Star Eater? And yeah, I'll see you guys later. Thanks for watching. Peace.


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Okay, this is Larry Pesavito, setting in for Billy Ray Valentine Capricorn for today's update of what the markets are doing. It's a very quiet day. We've got the Dow Jones unchanged, S&P is up a couple of points, that gold is basically unchanged, and just about everything is real quiet. With the exception of all the other commodities, we got the S&P up 150, Dow Jones up 100. Can you believe a 6% higher in the NASDAQ today, boys and girls? Gold up 40 bucks. The only things that are down today are corn, soybeans and wheat, the things that you really need to eat, because guess what? The inflation is over, or at least that's what we're telling us, and anyone that wants to believe that stuff, may the force be with you, because I have a hard time believing it, but everybody that wants to buy it, please go ahead. Be my guest. All I know is that we had something major today that I've been waiting for for a long time, and that is that price level of $39.30 in the S&P. That was the 382 retracement of a whole range going back to January 4th. Now, if you get a chance today, set in to listen to our good friend Jim Boss, Financial Cycles Weekly. He will be our guest, and always has some good things to look at, and being two days after a solar eclipse, I'm sure he's got some probability factors in there that will give us some good indication, so stay tuned for that. Remember, folks, we're up almost 1,000 points at one time in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and 6.5% on NASDAQ. Now, the other thing is the bond market has exploded to the upside. We're now 500 handles, 5 full handles higher, and 5 points in the bonds, which is $5,000 higher, so we're having a relief rally in the Treasury bonds also, so stay tuned, folks. In the old Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times, and that is a curse, so we'll see what happens. Fortunately, our curse is blessed. We have Tommy O'Brien taking care of us, so we're in good shape. All right, we'll take a little break here, coming back with the regular show. Remember, today's guest on my show will be Tim Boss, Financial Cycles Weekly, and we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.


What's up guys and welcome to yet another episode of Buzz with Stars right here on SPM Buzz. In case you have not subscribed just yet, please make sure you do because I mean why not. My good name is Ms. Kithingi and today I am hanging out at, sorry guys, I am hanging out at Tundis air studio. Yes, I'm getting to use to the name you know and it looks very beautiful the setup is and also I am hanging out with a star. His name is like a tank twister, the Meru in me, but his name is Gerald Langiri. Gerald, how are you? I'm good very well. Have you been? It's been a long time. It's getting there.  So yes, unlike, you know, in the past when it was just seen as a hobby or you know, I think you do as a by the way, I think now we're getting a point where, you know, some casually be proudly stand up and say I'm a filmmaker and I found my taxes. I found my taxes. So like, yes, I am actually are someone who actually is, you know, adding to the revenue of this country. So as a filmmaker and I'm proud to do that as well. Yes, 100%.  Well, I've been actively in the film industry for the past 10 years now, I think 11 years. This is this year, 11 years now. Yes, fully committed, fully dedicated, because I believe I'm not going to pass on who believes in, you know, establishing one thing first, make it grow. Once it can fly on its own, that is when I can think about doing other things. I clearly believe of that because for me to mean at the same time here, you are, but yes, head of an actor, then become a casting director. And then now I'm a location scout and manager as well. I'm a producer now as well. So I'm growing into the industry to maybe one day become a fully fledged producer at some point. Yeah. And I mean, 11 years is quite a good experience. It's a journey. That's a whole lot of time. Yeah.  Whoo. The most challenging thing being a Kenyan actor. I don't know, because I think at the level where I've reached right now as an actor, things are a bit easier for me, opposed to when someone is starting out.  But as you grow into the journey, as you grow into the career, as you grow into the industry, things become a bit softer and easier for you because once you create a name for yourself, once you create a brand for yourself, then you almost get sought after. Yes. So things become a bit easier, slowly and just easy. I remember my first four, two, three, four years during my career, I almost quit because things are not as great as they are now, so to speak here. Do you feel like we have like many acting opportunities in Kenya right now? And there'll be many more with Netflix coming in, with Showmax coming in, with all these digital platforms coming in. There'll be many more opportunities for people, for actors actually in the industry. And like it's about when we used to rely on, you know, the citizens, the NTVs, the KBCs, and, you know, like there are very few channels there where you as an actor, if you really have to be an actor, then you have to be either on Citizen or NTV or KBC or KT or whatever, you know. Here comes DSTV, here comes Meshah Magic, here comes GoTV, here comes MNET, here comes Netflix, here comes Showmax. So right now in the commissioning shows for us. So yes, unless when you act on Vivo now, you're not really good at what you do. Work is there. I mean I totally agree with you because we have the digital platforms right now. You can do your own thing and put it up on YouTube and people will actually just watch.  I don't know, like there are people who are actually creative enough. The Asiads, you know, like there are people who are creative enough.  So don't blame the industry, don't blame you get keepers, don't blame you godfathers, don't blame, it's totally up on you because there are so many opportunities out there right now for an actor to or a filmmaker to try and make money off it. You just have to be creative after all.  You get, yeah. Okay, a person to talk to about this. Ezekiel Mutua is back on, you know, music now. He was in film before, yeah. Looking at it, looking at it how it is, as it is now, you know, it affects you whether he's in music or film. What are your thoughts about his reappointment on this other side? Look, Ezekiel Mutua is a friend of mine, so I really can't talk bad about him, you know, like, but he just needs to be more open to the creative world and the art world. He needs to stop living in a world where he feels everything needs to be in a certain way. He needs to stop putting people in a box. That's what I think Ezekiel does. But then again, he doesn't do it out of his own, you know, because there are loads in Kenya, so I'll add him because where he is and the position is in, to try and change the loads as well, because you really can't restrict a creative mind. It really can't, what is right to me that will be, you know, to be right to someone else? But again, that's why I'm a creative, because I need to speak my mind how I feel it, how I see it. So that's the only limitation where me and Ezekiel Mutua, like, just let us be as creative. Let us create. Put the loads and measures in place of who watches, whatever things we're watching, the quantity we're watching, but let us still create it. Because whatever happens to me doesn't necessarily need to appeal to the next person though. You know, like, we all have our own minds, like the American industry or the Hollywood industry has everything for everyone. You get. So why are we being restricted in Kenya to just create content of a certain nature? You get. Like me, I have shows on YouTube called Shit Happens. If I was to take a show to Ezekiel, probably in Gebania, in the forest in Gebania, House of Lungula, you know, okay, at least for the year proof, like 18 plus, but there was not nudity, there was nothing as much. So I think we're still in an industry or in a society where some things are not allowed. They are done, but they're not allowed in the public image. So in a sense, we're kind of hypocritical about it. Exactly.  Do you feel like, you know, some of this aspect of resistance to such change comes with age? I mean, they make probably not understandables. I agree. And now we're actually fighting with Generation Z. You know, like, I don't know, am I mute anymore? Or I don't know. I'm at seven years old now. I don't think I'm mute anymore. But at least the 80s and the 90s children grew up in both generations. So we have the older generation who feel some of these things are wrong. We have the Generation Z who are open to everything and anything. And then we have us generation who are like, let's adapt and let's accommodate everyone. So yes, maybe it is a generational thing. But then also the world is evolving. Things are happening. LGBTQs, for example, are things which were really hidden and fringe upon. But here we are now living in a world where they are out there with their own rights. So I think we need to adapt some of these things. You might fight it, but for long as it's happening and going on, we need to just be open to whatever it is. That's coming up. Okay, okay. Now Gerald Selina is coming to an end. How has been the ride? How has been the experience? Five and a half years later, six years maybe, I don't know. That is a lot. 970 episodes. Someone told me that they're like, Gerald, usually, no. I do show 30 more episodes. You're doing a thousand episodes. And they didn't think until someone actually put the numbers on it. Like that is a lot of episodes. It's a lot. It's emotional. I don't know how to express that because again, that was our main bread and butter for a lot of about 60 people casting crew. So right now we are jobless. Once the show airs, we are jobless. But it's been an emotional journey. It's been a tough journey. It's been a life-changing journey. But above everything else, we set standards. Like really hit the roof and the ceiling and we flew with it. It's never been done before in Kenya. This was our first. I show that airs every single day, every day, five times a week. Like it's been, it's been wow. It's been wow. Up and down. So like for me, it's mixed film because yes, one, we are using a show which we really loved our bread and butter, but on the other hand my fans of Mongia. I don't know. So there's so much mixed action towards the show ending. Would we love for it to continue? Of course we would love it continue. As someone who works for the show, I would love for it to continue because again, that is where I get my bread and butter. Exactly. But now because also, you know, it's, it's time to go look for greener pastures and look for something bigger and something new and something, you know, yeah, yeah. Talking about those comments on social media, like you as a person, when you saw those comments, what, what came in your mind? I stopped reading the comments on you, on Facebook and on Instagram. I really stopped it the way. I also follow the comments a lot just to see what's going on. And then at some point they became so hateful like, no, but you guys have a channel.  You can change the channel in time you want. Why is it because still, and as much as the show is ending, tonight we are hosting that season finale and the house is full. Basically means we still still have fans. Me, I've gotten DMs and I've gotten charts and focus from people telling me why is the show ending though. So there's still those people who really vividly follow the stars of this show, follow the story of the show. Again, like I said, it's mixed feelings because then, you know, then again, it is already man. Exactly. And also, I think it's about time we gave some other people a new opportunity to just, you know, run with it. Yeah. So, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's mixed feelings. I'm happy. I'm sad at the same time, you know, at least now when a pressure me talk up because that show had pressure, hey, shooting Selina is not maintaining those standards for five years was not easy. Yeah.  Yeah. What next? Yeah. Kimalizia, Gerald, I know you've made so many friends on set. I'm sure you've, you even met some, some of them before you came on set. Yeah. Who was your favorite on that set? And don't say no one. My favorite cast member. Yes, cast member. Oh, I grew really close to Cody. Okay. Helen Kelly actually became really friends in a manner she looks mean on TV. They came really, really, really good friends. I think everyone, me, I think I got along with everyone. Like, I don't think they said who I really had beef with, or, you know, so to say, in terms of crew, there's a lady called Mary. I'm really close friends now.  That is why it's kind of hard to just let this go because you know, I just couldn't have to, couldn't have to say, you know, but you wouldn't have been a family. Because despite work, the team buildings we had, the goings, the outgoing needs to have every single day, like we literally became a family. You spend more time with your own, with crew than your own wife in the house. So it really became a family. We became really close. So this is basically a family breaking up, which is again, like I said, women's feelings.  But at the same time, we're literally breaking up a family here. Yeah. So everyone became, I don't know, but Tokodi, the Putakamau's became really close because of that, because of the show. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So what next for you, Jared, after Selina? Well, luckily for me, I have been, should I say poached or picked up? I am now on a show called Kina as the casting director. Yeah, season four going onwards. I am now the new casting director for a show called Kina. Perfect, Jared. We can't wait to see who you cast on Kina.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for speaking to SPM Buzz. All right, guys. That was Jared Langiri right here on SPM Buzz, Buzz with stars. Thank you so much for watching. My good name is Miss Kithingi. Until next time, it's goodbye.


This is Politics for the People, welcome to joining us. I'm your host Stephanie Stoll Dalton. Our topic today is the persistence of our toxic politics and who and what for. You know we have a panel of discussions for this topic and I'd like to introduce them. We have Jay Fidel and we have Karen Buzzer today and I'd like to start with asking Jay, how have toxic politics as we've mentioned in the title of the show has it any boundaries in the current climate? Is there any boundary for it you can imagine? Not yet. You know we're waiting. We're waiting to see God rails. We haven't seen them you know. Is there nothing the GOP won't do and we haven't found the limit yet. It's outrageous what they do and it's destructive to the country and I find it interesting that you know people who probably finished high school, some of them college, some of them have actually traveled, not many. They take the position that they don't take a position and the important thing for them is to remain in power and to support the club, the GOP club and Trump, I guess especially Trump cult. And so in the process they really don't do anything for the country and it's amazing, A, that they they can do that. They don't care. They simply do not care and B is that the system you know voting and responding to constituents doesn't seem to affect them. I find it amazing so many places in the country where this republic is doing completely destructive things to the country and then anybody who finished high school would see that. People apparently don't see it and don't do anything to control them. You would expect their constituents would be lining up outside their door in their local offices and talking about federal delegations in their local offices and banging on the door. That's happened in the past obviously and it does affect it has affected their votes in congress but that doesn't happen now. They do whatever the GOP wants them to do. The GOP is very well organized but it's only to achieve power and to retain power and to feed its own needs, say needs for power. So the bottom line is that what we have is a government that is completely ineffectual, congress that's completely ineffectual because you don't have the senate and because of mansion and cinema and you have the house by a thin margin and the likelihood of course this is the you know the baseline of our discussion that in November the probability is that the republicans who are very well organized to win elections by hook or crook emphasis on crook you know will control both houses and then we'll see no god rails at all. I mean god knows what kind of strange bills they will pass at Trump's suggestion. So as I understand it Stephanie the point of the show today is to ask whether there are real indications that this is changing and there are some indications that it may be changing. I think we dilute ourselves to think that those changes will carry the day. Well you know in in addition to the lack of any qualifications whatsoever if I hear you correctly there's also absolutely no policy plan there there's no platform so so in addition to no no know how no experience being brought to it we have we have no plan for. Well there is there is policy I think I think the democratic rhetoric overstates that this policy the policy is anti-immigration isolationist populism the policy is racism a bigotry the policy is you know don't take care of the disadvantaged in any way the policy is let the 1% thrive and let the rest of the country go to hell. The policy is to I guess for a lot of people the support the dictators overseas including Putin and the policy is all you know negative wrong destructive policy that's the policy it's just not without policy it's just awful awful policy. Well you know I this toxic politics coming out of that circumstance and being built by that implied platform I suppose and policy and and with examples such as the RNC censure of the GOP members who are serving on the January 6 committee has has this toxicity escalated to unexpectedly higher levels Karen I mean like has it grown up? Yeah I would say so yes when they're censoring their own members that's pretty toxic and you know it's all based on whether they fall in line with Trump and his coup or not you know if he if they don't support the coup then you know they're out if they support the coup then they're in although there does seem to be to be honest some breakage with a line recently there are a few Republicans Mitch McConnell is the most prominent one who's starting to suggest he doesn't want Trump back so the question is I guess who would who would they run if not Trump would there be somebody that could follow the same in the same lines as him the other thing with Trump is of course his legislative issues whether he will be in jail or what will be the status will be a criminal you know violating a a felon of some sort so we don't know until then what how the cards play out. You know can I jump in on that we had a show a couple months ago where we looked at the likelihood that Trump would be caught by all this by all these you know lawsuits and potential prosecutions and all and I made a list of 50 tactics that he might employ I think the last one is that he would move to Russia and and take all the classified information with him that was my last but you know there were like 50 things that he could do we haven't even started that list yet there's so many things you know intimidation of witnesses intimidation of jurors and intimidation of judges you know claiming it's all a witch hunt having his people get out in the street and protest there's so many things that he could do to derail all of that so although you know the liberal press tells us that there's progress made in in those investigations in New York and I guess in Georgia and the liberal press tells us that you know there may be prosecutions of one kind or another coming down the pike because of the insurrection as you said Karen his insurrection it belongs to him it's his baby all the way you know the query whether it's going to catch up with him we don't have that much time but in the meantime and on the other side of that coin the republicans we can never forget this any day of the week the republicans have been busy busy busy dismantling our voting system and they have done a remarkable job you got to hand it to them you know whether democrats you know complain and and blame and you know talk high high policy and high high moral values fact is the republicans have already done a really good job in screwing up the voting system and really that's that's the issue of the day from now till after november 2022 whether the voting system has enough left to work well and in regard to Karen's comment about mcconnell being maybe a tiny little green spot in this in this dear dearth of any positive signs at all but um he was critical of the the rnc's chastising the the members on the january 6 committee and um is it true that as trump then said to um the world in his way now that the senate leader does not speak for the g.o.p and neither does he speak for the vast majority of the voters for the republican cause so um let's see let's go back uh karen can you talk to that did he is that true that he said that and what's the value of that comment from well i think it's very valuable because he took a stand not only against trump but against the republican national committee who you know said that it was a normal i forgot how they phrased it it was a normal political activity to stage a coup or whatever uh and they got a lot of pushback from those remarks including um not just mcconnell but a lot of other uh like um uh mit romney i think pushback and there was other republicans who pushed back against those remarks so uh but one of the things i did happen to look at recently was just speaking of voting restrictions as j brought up a minute ago there have been a lot of voting restrictions put in place but conversely even though we don't hear about it uh there there's also uh voting expansion occurring in a lot of estates through the democratic states so both are happening at the same time we hear a lot about the restrictions and i think the scary part of the restrictions is the intimidation of the electors who are you know trying to keep it impartial like they've had a huge mass resignation of people who are you know working in the voting arena like the electors and they they're afraid because they're getting all these threats and intimidation i think that's really horrible that you know they can't even uh have a fair election without being intimidated or a threat their family's being threatened but there have been some laws passed and that is according to what i found 25 states have expanded voter access particularly through voting making it easiest to register automatic voter registration in some states whereas that's true the there have been some states who went the other way you know the usually the southern states which they've removed the mailboxes so they can't put their ballot in mailbox and they've uh done i think that's the drop box you're referring to the drop box right right the drop box right and they purged a lot of people from the rolls they gave uh they put in place as part of their new legislation deadlines on when you could vote or when you registered a vote so a lot of people didn't know about the deadline so like they kicked in georgia like half the voters off because they missed the deadline so they're doing stuff like that but it's interesting they have so far failed their big goal according to the brennan center they introduced 440 restrictive voting laws but the ones that failed were the ones that attempted to exert partisan control over the election results where the officials like brad raffensperger um you know they wanted them him to call the election for trump and he refused so that's kind of where the pressure point is right now i think well they they're they're trying to elect republican acolytes to those offices to raffenberg burger's office all over in every state and they and they put them on the ballots and these guys are absolutely unqualified and they're absolutely not impartial they're partial they're republicans and they're and their sworn duty is to screw up the election um now i just want to mention i i saw something on one of the um the channels that i do watch uh it was a uh non-profit an org by the name of uh run for something run for something dot org run by a woman named litman that's all i remember but this was a very worthy organization because they were running candidates against these g.o.p acolytes um and and they were trying to beat that initiative um you know in every state where it has appeared um and i thought to myself you know we talked about last time we definitely we talked about deciding where you would put your money to make a difference and that is an organization where you could put your money to make a difference it's a pressure point as you said it's a pressure point and if we can't have a clean vote you know i mean if there's confusion people won't vote at all if there's fatigue call it political fatigue they won't vote they've given up a lot of people in 2020 um the people voting because they were somehow activated and that carried today not not not a sweeping result but it carried today uh clearly what's going to happen in 2022 it may not be the same right result uh it may be that people are really tired of all this toxicity um they're tired of the the daily fight they're tired of the lies and and they've kind of given up and then they find things like the republican effort to um control the secretary's secretary of states um and you know with people who are sworn to destroy the voting system there's all these efforts that we find that trump has made and could again try although he doesn't have the power of the white house he could again through his acolytes try to find ways to do the same kind of terrible things and so i think it's and of course then there's confusion there's confusion as to which of those bills that karam was talking about which passed and which didn't pass and which prevailed in what state and what are the rules are there dropping boxes or not um can you actually have your vote counted this i swear there's going to be huge confusion even if you stop all these efforts right now today uh here in february um i think the confusion will last right through election day and so that's a factor to consider as to what is going to happen here and there is election day going on okay so today in texas it's early voting it started today and it started with at least 40 percent of the the mail-in ballot applications which are due tomorrow being rejected and disqualified and sent back so my question is jay doesn't this apply to republicans as well as democrats is this not as inconvenient one way as the other um uh who's happy about a logical point of view you would think it does but you know they are attacking people on the wrong their view of the wrong side of the racial equation they're trying to de-friend even disenfranchise uh african-americans uh latinos uh anyone that's um not a republican they they have made a calculation i'm sure this is not you know a wild effort this is a calculated effort that although this may affect some republicans too by and large it's going to affect more democrats that's amazing and more minorities i should say but everybody gets old no matter who you are and gets those same difficulties to deal with and this these are not the days of a literacy literacy test i mean and i was thinking that might be another reason but that that's not the same kind of club that they had many many or even a century ago but it's been going on for a long time so good well okay so that so you were asking about or talking about what this is looking like and going to be in the effect so what what do you think this voting outcome in texas will mean to the politics and will it increase the toxicity or lessen it or what what what what are you seeing coming out of this since texas is evidently up first here what are we going to find out you're asking me or karen um oh karen yeah let's go over to you okay well uh texas was one of the ones that passed the most restrictive voting laws so it's not surprising uh i don't know per se exactly what they passed but uh they were consider their four states that passed the most restrictive that was georgia iowa texas in florida so i think uh they're going to continue to try to politicize the voting process just like they did with covet i mean it seems to be that's a major strategy is to politicize everything that doesn't seem like it was political before it used to be just a process that we followed and you know that we went to the doctor and got a vaccine but now uh it's politicized and used as a kind of issue to fight the other side with so i think it's um not a good sign but i do think that if we look at these candidates as you mentioned stefanie that have been placed on the ballot against this the state um the secretary of states who have vowed to um state with trump then uh that's a huge defeat for democracy there's no way around it but you know the other thing that's interesting with the uh trump thing is if if he was if he was if the election was fraudulent then all the congress people were fraudulently elected not just him so the whole congress would so no one's even mentioned that like uh uh the republicans that got elected also be considered you know if it's fraudulent it's fraudulent not just that's not what he would say though he would say is that the fraud is being done by the democrats and the republican the public and congress people um that they were properly that's what he would say because you know the man lies he's a pathological liar and when you identify a pathological liar i don't know about you guys but you know i i have met pathological liars you know and the old question after you watch them for a while is how can you tell when they're lying and the answer is when their lips are moving um okay i think it was one of the factors stefanie that we have to consider and uh let's call it the the canada phenomenon let's call it the the bridge the bridge to canada phenomenon you know that was largely organized by the GOP here in this country and you mentioned florida florida was among the states um it was recently um a a tabulation of the money uh that flowed into canada for that protest and it was uh you know certain certain states were prominent in the money that came from those states to support to create that protest so i would say the protest was created in the united states by the GOP and the money came from states like florida and maybe texas too uh to support and and foment that unrest and i mentioned all this because i think the GOP it goes beyond what we were saying early on about the toxicity these guys are dedicated to bringing the country down i you know it's just completely madness it's madness it's it's out of germany in the 30s it's out of this world but people go along with it because they don't see it well it's a cult and so what we have here is uh six or eight months and although some elections are happening right now we have a period of time in which it is entirely possible that the truck phenomenon or something like that some kind of what do you call it economic insurrection or maybe another real insurrection in the capital or something like that if we sat here for a while we could think of some things that they could do will take place before november and that will absolutely affect the calculus well now i wanted to ask you and and karen about the what you're mentioning here with people dis unqualified dis unqualified for the positions and there seems to be no no a bar at all um is this it is this due to what um i've seen um described as g.o.p embracing the the pickup truck and uh gun rack voters group and so that these are the people that are stepping in and trying to run for office even if they participated in the january 6th assault but um is this something that's going on and why they're not noticing that only trump lost the election all the rest of the republicans won their 2020 election so i mean there's one huge fact out there and it's an irony that the one guy that lost it's just been having a fit ever since and is about ready to destroy our country so um jay can you respond to that uh as to um the pickup truck and gun racks group i love documentary movies there's one documentary movie i want to say it's on prime called the gilded age and it's an examination of the years after the civil war until 1900 in this country and of course that's when we had our industrial revolution that's when carnegie you know uh and vanderbilt carnegie for steel vanderbilt for railroads and ultimately john d rockefeller for oil and they controlled the country and and wall street they controlled the capital of the country it was quite remarkable without income taxes or estate taxes how wealthy they became as against the ordinary person and in that period and the movie goes into this it's and i studied the subject in college and i didn't know a lot of the things the movie taught me um is that we we wound up with a divisiveness by the year 1896 uh where uh william jennings brian wrote wrote uh he uh he ran for the populace the people's party which had been developing over the past decade or so um and uh william mckinley uh ran for the capital concentration in wall street and it was a kind of um attorney point it was a mandate what did what did this country really want did it want to be controlled by the people and the populists in in the center in the hinterland of the country those guys who ride around with the shotguns in the back of their pickup trucks those guys uh and don't and don't care much about what happens on wall street or um would it be controlled by wall street um and mckinley won and um and and that's kind of where the movie goes it's very interesting i i was aware of that in some vague way when i when i studied at college but now i'm more aware of it and and i think that has stuck with us and that had that has pervaded the 20th century and probably still now today there are a lot of people who would like us to be a liberal country a democratic country a country that cares the biden type people um but at the end of the day it's the capital that counts and in the process you have this tremendous division that started in the 19th century yeah um you know between the the cities the coasts the business sector and the agricultural sector in the hinterland well you know um i think that we could go back and talk a little bit about mcconnell after that interesting point jay but um karen was trump's comment threatening to mcconnell the one we mentioned earlier about how he doesn't speak for anybody no matter that he's the said the senate leader um and and um is is is is mcconnell mcconnell getting threatened by trump and also those who are you all have all talked discussed those running in primaries as trumpers who promised to not mcconnell out if they win i think at least two of them have made a promise about that or or or that they they may danger um the gop majority what do you what do you think about mcconnell mcconnell and trump are definitely at odds right now and uh in fact he has a new name for him turtleneck or something i can't remember what he calls him he's you know how he always comes up with these derogatory names he has a name for mcconnell down and uh so he gets on the media and and you know uses that and so um and then i think mcconnell was one of the ones if you remember after the um coup the attempted coup that he stood up and said that that was wrong you know at the vote afterward and he kind of caved after that but i think he's going back to that um point of view i don't think he wants to see trump and again and so he's going to try to use his power to make you know if he such that he has uh to make sure that he doesn't come back mm-hmm it's an interesting interesting element there is that if you accept um you know the the common view that mcconnell is only into his own power that's what that's what he lives for you know i mean i would like to say like good literature that people change you know in good literature people change and you see the dynamic of human development and it's you know it's always the study in good literature well i don't think mcconnell changes i think he's into power he was into power then and he's into power now um and uh i think the reason that he dishes on uh on trump is that um he thinks that ultimately trump is going to attack him i mean at home in an election and and unseat him so it doesn't a it doesn't matter if he attacks trump and b he's got to gird his loins he's got to solidify his position and he thinks it's the smartest thing to do in terms of the next election for him yeah very good right well we um are out of time and i thank you panelists jay fidel and karen buzzard uh for this wonderful show discussion without much more to say maybe next time i am stephanie stole dalton your host for politics for the people we'll see you next week thank you and aloha