Aging is a complex process involving changes in both physical and mental health. It is associated with decreased muscle mass and strength, increased fat mass, and decreased bone density, leading to impairments in physical functioning and increasing the risk of non-communicable diseases, immobility and disability. In order to address these issues, it is important to understand how these different aspects of aging interact with one another. This can be done by examining the relationships between muscle mass, bone density, and fat mass, as well as the effects of aging on physical performance. This article was authored by Maria Spanidocchi, Konstantinos Giugini's, Maria Menzola, and others.


Welcome to the latest episode of In the World of Winooski. Today we're dedicating time to reflect on the past year of COVID-19 in Vermont, the impacts on Winooski, and what we have learned that will take forward to build back stronger. I'm joined by city manager Jesse Baker, Winooski School District Superintendent, Sean Mannon, and the Executive Director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Amila Mrodzanovic. Last March, oh, thank you all for being here. Last March, I recall just experiencing a lot of uncertainty and confusion as we abruptly made shifts to city operations. I saw, I'd heard about the school operations changing and heard a little bit from you and Amila with USCRI. So I wonder if you could each just spend a moment sharing a bit about those early days and what did you have to do? Like how, what changes did you have to make to adapt? Can I start with you, Sean? Sure. I think what has underlined this whole time and really started in earnest for us that middle of March was the uncertainty. So we had the pandemic starting, we had anxiety rising around very immediate and personal health needs. And then we had kind of state level concerns about overloading the healthcare system as we had seen starting to happen in some other states and even other countries across our globe. And so at the local level, that was very difficult to not have any clear guidance about what we could do. And it basically was then given to the locals to make decisions until that weekend before when the governor made the statement to dismiss schools. But the two weeks leading up to that were really, really difficult because people were just kind of living in a very reactive, very emotional, anxious place. So from a leadership perspective, we were managing human behavior more so than we normally do. And at the same time, we were trying to make plans to move to a model of learning that we were not so familiar with. We had a lot of the infrastructure already in place in terms of laptops and chargers and all that good stuff. But the ability to learn and to teach online was not something that we had done a lot of, we dabbled with. So that kind of typified our early days of those two weeks were something like I've never experienced. And I know people in our organization have never experienced either. And in the end, I'm really proud of our community and the commitment, the pace which would they move, the care with which they moved and keeping students at the center of all that throughout. Thanks, Sean. Amila, your team does a lot of direct service provision with residents in Manuski. Tell us a little bit what that was like. Well, similarly, thank you first for inviting me to take part in this conversation. Similarly to what Sean said, the two weeks leading up to the governor implementing the emergency order and ordering all organizations that our client facing to go into lockdown were very anxiety, very intensive, very, very stressful. As our model, our culture is to be welcoming to our clients, we don't operate, although we should by appointment. We have an open door policy and families come in as their needs arise. Whether it's as for something as simple as looking at the piece of mail that they received or something more substantial. So very quickly, we understood that our whole culture would, in the way we provide services and support our families would shift, would have to shift pretty immediately. And so once we close the office, our work takes place in the community, in people's homes. So very early on, we had to take steps and put in the effort to reach out to as many families as possible and how people understand what were, as much as we understood at that point what we were up against and the immediate impact. And then very, very early on, many families were impacted by layoffs. So our services, and it became thinking back, I'm actually feeling it physically. It was all hands on deck. It did not matter who was, whose job is what at that point, for myself, everyone, we were helping people with unemployment claims and applying for other support services, whether it's food stamps or accessing food, communicating with landlords and employers. And then the big issue of how do we bring the information about this monster that COVID-19 was coronavirus in the culturally and linguistically appropriate manner to various communities. So I will just mention that it was two people, two community members, Alison Seeger and Muhammad Jafar got together very early on and said, let's record a video in Somali and let's put it out via social media. And from there, but that was just one language. And then they pulled other partners in, including Sean and his team and the city and ALV. And what was started by two people is today known as the Vermont Coronavirus Multilingual Task Force. We have a YouTube channel. We have put out 400 plus videos in 14 different languages from everything, A to Z COVID-19 and vaccine. And so our work, our culture shifted and we are still officially closed. The office is closed. We have five staff going in at staggered schedules, but our work has very much continued, all in accordance with safety measures, but our work cannot stop, couldn't stop. Yeah, I mentioned that we have five staff Yeah, you mentioned the Multilingual Task Force and I know that that's been a critical group and getting information out to folks who need it. You and your organization, I have heard about the countless hours that you all spend even on the weekends trying to make sure that things are getting where they need to go. And I know, Sean, yourself, members of your staff, there's just this going above and beyond, you've seen the need to do like food delivery or I know faculty was going to check in at students' homes when they hadn't heard from them. So definitely have seen shifts in what your standard operations may have been before. Jesse, can you talk briefly about what the city had to do to pivot? Sure, thank you for having me and thank you Sean and Amila for being here as well. So the three things that I really think about when I think back to March and our pivot on the municipal side was one teamwork. I remember a night very early on, but right before the state of emergency was declared, huddling over a conference table with Sean and his leadership team and me and my leadership team trying to figure out what was happening. We wouldn't do that today, but it really felt from the beginning like things are changing really fast. We have this very heightened level of anxiety on our teams. We're all in it together. How can we support each other through it? And I think that's always been a strength of this community and I think that really came out in those early days. The second thing from a municipal perspective was regional support. Early in March when we kind of saw something was coming, the managers across Chittenden County met and started to craft plans for if our department went down, if we didn't have a wastewater treatment plant operator in place, how we would share services and basically do that off the books, just figure out who needed what and be there to support them to do it. And then third in March for our pivot was really focusing on our first responders, our emergency, our essential workers, those folks that couldn't go home that needed to be staffing the fire trucks, the police trucks, the ambulances, the wastewater treatment plans required daily testing. Somebody had to come in and do that. So how did we ensure that those folks who were going to continue to be out in the world could do that as safely as possible to ensure the public safety here in Winooski? It is crazy to think that it has been more than a year now and we still have it returned to our previous operations. I wanna go back to, I like what you shared, Jesse, about huddling with the school leadership team at the conference table. And I know that that grew into a weekly check-in with our partner organizations like USCRI, ALV, the Housing Authority, et cetera. And, Jesse, you have done a great job of facilitating those meetings and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how that came together and how, through that group and the other huddles that you pulled together, we were able to support during our outbreak in June as testing came out and how we've been able to leverage our partners here in Winooski to get services out. Sure, thank you. So the Winooski, I think one of the things we should acknowledge about how privileged we are in Vermont is to have leaders at all level, especially at the state level who are really data-driven, science-driven and best practice-driven. So in the early days, one of the things that we were encouraged to do was look at the CDC best practices around pandemic response and understand at the community level how we support. And one of their best practices was convening regular check-in times to share resources, check-in times with executives to share resources. So I think, I didn't actually go back and look at this, but I think in the last week of March, we had our first Winooski leadership briefing which brought executives from the city, school, nonprofit partners like Amila, ALV, our big housing partners, our medical providing partners, our faith communities, our business communities, bringing all those executives virtually together to share information, share quick updates, things were changing really fast. And again, really thinking at some point, we might need to share ability. So if one organization's finance department was not able to function, could another organization's finance team step in? That was really kind of the initial goal to share information, ensure that people had the resources they needed and be able to pivot quickly. So we held those weekly for six months, just as a check-in time for leaders to come together and share information. That model really worked and became something that I think is now ingrained in our culture. We were also able to amend it and add in a few more partners when we had the first community spread outbreak in June. So at that point, we started daily, what we called huddles with first thing in the morning with the Vermont Department of Health and our community partners in the school. And again, really use that time to share information, make sure our families were getting the services they needed through people who had the culturally appropriate, linguistically appropriate abilities to do that, made sure they were compensated for doing that work and really were able to very quickly wrap our hands around families who were experiencing trauma and sickness and stem that tide, bend that curve, make sure our community stayed healthy in the future. So really thankful for all those leaders in our community who came together and spent time in those meetings and huddles with us. Yeah, and Sean and Amila, both of you have been there this whole time and I think have done a lot of the advocacy to kind of shift how information or how services were getting out there. So we'd love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, I'll start Amila if that's all right. Cause I was taking some notes while Jesse was talking and I'm like flowing back to all of these memories in the year that some of them I thought I'd forgotten, but I think that the beginning with the Winooski Leadership Briefing Group that was foundational and genius to do that. Thank you, Jesse. And it was kind of, to me, it was a couple of steps. It was bringing people together, decision makers to communicate and then to prioritize. And it was also a place for leaders to get support from each other. And so that led us to, well, I'll use an example to walk through this. Example would be food security. So what we maybe didn't realize originally in our silos was there was a lot of food resources out there. And so for us to get together to coordinate between all of the Vermont Food Bank, the school district, ALV, USCRI, the Winooski food shelf, we realized like, okay, we're doing okay. Like food security is in pretty good shape. Then we can move on to another challenge to try and meet another need in the community. But the briefing teams then led to having this collaborative trusted group in place. So when we hit June and there was an outbreak, it wasn't relearning. It was, okay, let's get down to business. Let's figure out how we support our community and solve these challenges and support everyone. And then that led to December when the school district was in the middle of it and we had to go to remote learning. We felt very supported by everybody in doing that. That then led to vaccination clinics and this group advocating and bringing in the Department of Health and getting decision makers, policy makers at the table to meet the specific needs of our community really around limited English proficiency folks and BIPOC folks. And I think that has been one of the greatest achievements throughout this by the leaders across our community and all of our partners is those kinds of steps that got us to prioritizing our most vulnerable people who were disproportionately affected by COVID-19. That was so well said. Sean, the couple of things I would like to, I guess, emphasize is the, well, first kudos to you, Jesse, and gratitude for your leadership and for bringing us all together and moving us forward and your advocacy on behalf of all Winooski residents and really all Vermonters, whether it was around access to testing or now the vaccine, it's, you've been an inspiration to say the least. Also what you said, Jesse, about all of us as Vermonters being so privileged and for myself, who came to this country as a refugee being so lucky to end up in Vermont and to have the state leaders who are still listening and hearing what we who are on the ground, community-based organizations, are identifying as needs, as barriers to access services and really implementing our recommendations. So grateful for that. The other really unique sort of, but I'm now hearing it's happening in other states, but I'm gonna say we did it first, even if we didn't, is implementing, it started with testing back in June, implementing testing sites, where, going where people are and doing it in the way that is, it feels welcoming and it feels safe. So doing it in the parking lot, in front of the O'Brien Center, which is where people are familiar with that space and feel safe. And then with the vaccine, once the vaccine rolled out, having it in the locations in both Burlington and Muskie, that feels safe and welcoming. That has made a huge difference. As we know, in some of the refugee communities, there is a lot of myths, not only refugee, this sort of permeates borders. It's not unique to any community group, but there's a lot of myths, a lot of sort of stigma around the virus itself and now the vaccine. So having those, clinics in the place that feels safe and with having it staffed by people who are community members, trusted community members and interpreters has made a huge difference. Amela, what you were just describing about trying to lower these barriers or doing this advocacy through testing through the vaccine clinics, even when it came to the messaging and supporting folks in quarantine, et cetera. I think about coming out of this pandemic and moving forward and I think the leadership briefing, the huddles, the work that's been happening collaboratively is just a really good exemplar of why culturally we are starting to focus on diversity and inclusion and wanting to have more voices involved. Having these meetings with so many different stakeholders there, folks who are actually in touch directly with different members of our community and different families. I've heard so many issues raised that I wouldn't know about otherwise because they're not the things I'm experiencing and just being daily reminded that everyone's experience is different and valid and we need to address all of those. Do the best we can to try to support everybody. I think that I'm feeling a little bit heart one by that, but I wonder if you all wanna share something else that you're thinking about how you're gonna move forward on a very basic level. I've enjoyed having residents being able to call into a city council meeting instead of showing up. I'm sure there are so many other things, so whoever would like to start first. I guess I'll just add. What I'm hoping to hold on to is those relationships. I think we strengthened, we had solid relationships to begin with which allowed us to be a strong community from the beginning, but the depth of them now and the true trust in each other and trust in messages and what we need to do to make our systems more anti-racist to make our systems more equitable is at the foundation now and the relationships and the trust we have in place across our community now to continue to do that work. I feel like we made a huge leap forward in that in the last year and I really look forward to seeing that continue post pandemic and so many other things we could do together. I'm really looking forward to seeing all of you in person. And I echo what you said, Jesse, those relationships will continue beyond this situation. Vermont has been a welcoming state, when Husky has been a welcoming city for refugees for over four decades and this last year has strengthened those relationships even more and has made us all more nimble and able to respond quickly to almost anything that came our way, we found a way to address it and to make sure that our community members are being supported. I will not miss daily 8.30 huddles. Well, yes, completely 100% echo, affirm the relationships that have been built and to continue those deep in them and for the benefit of our communities. The second thing I think that we need to kind of keep the heat on a little bit is what we've learned about. It has revealed a need for a universal approach across our systems, health, education, employment, et cetera, to provide equitable access through interpretation, through translation, through the needs for transportation, bringing things to people and that requires investment. And so much of what we did this year was out of pure human commitments, tireless energy to our community. And if we don't build the system moving forward we will end up in this position again. And so I think all of us as leaders need to continue to advocate for that, for the investment at the state level, at the local level so that we create those universal systems that are gonna provide better access, more timely communication and so forth to the people in our communities that deserve that. That's really well said, Sean. And I think it's making me think about how in the past, maybe we've been less universal and less collaborative, we get sort of held up by the structures that we already have. And only in this like very visible, tangible crisis we move beyond that in some aspects. And it would be easy to let that go as the sort of the urgency falls away. And it is something that we'll have to keep our eyes on. I think that's also a great thing to keep in mind as federal funding is flowing to our state over the course of this year that we should be thinking about like how can we make these systemic change, how can we use this money to make these systemic changes and continue to improve the way we're supporting our residents going forward. I also just wanna recognize the importance of both formal and informal community leaders. I think that's another aspect of this collaborative approach and having many voices is knowing that there are already folks out there who I can't reach everyone in the city and my methods of communication can't reach everyone. So being able to lean on folks that already have those relationships is incredibly valuable. And to Jesse's point earlier, like compensating people for that work, recognizing it, there's just a lot that we can take out of this. So I just really wanna express like deep gratitude to all of you for all of the work that you've been putting in. And I know we'll continue to do. And I think, and this is just a, there's only four of us here, right? There's been so many people involved in carrying when we see through this and know that we will continue to do that. And I look forward to maybe in July-ish seeing folks out and about in town. So thank you so much.


And welcome back beatbox fam. It's KO here and on today's tutorial. We're gonna be learning the tongue click Yeah, so you know the drill guys this tutorial has brought you any value hit that subscribe button and turn on the little Notification bell so that you get notified whenever a new video comes out and as always smash that like button baby The tongue click right made famous in the new school by you know Jean and Wawa by being able to do their Super fast tongue clicks right so how do you get this move right first and foremost know that it's gonna take a long long long Time to build up the the strength and muscular endurance in order to do super super fast clicks So with that being said let's get to it So what you're gonna want to do you're gonna want to take the technique of closing off your air passage and apply it to Your tongue okay, so let me explain that a little bit right so what you're gonna want to do is instead of you know Sucking in air and closing off your air passage down here When you do that naturally you're gonna feel your tongue, you know rise up to the roof of your mouth and So then you know you feel the suction right when you go hut You're gonna feel suction now squeeze that T or D on the roof of your mouth and then you want to let go Through the middle of your tongue Like right here Right there. It's probably gonna be really weak at first guys You know as with every single technique you learn, you know It's gonna it's gonna start off slow, but once you get the fundamental sound You know once you understand the concept behind the sound then I mean you've got it It's just repetition repetition repetition So another thing you can do with this technique guys is you can change you can change the sound of it You know with a lot of other moves, you know when you go at or oh And you change the shape of your mouth Those are big contributors to also changing the shape the sound of a technique, right?    So let's go on every beat every beat, right?  I'm gonna go one click Two clicks one click two clicks, right? You'll see see guys. So that's how that's one technique That's one technique you could use in order to try and get your your tongue clicks to go really fast, right? Is you're gonna start getting used to going fast if you alternate, you know one click two clicks between each beat And then maybe do one click two clicks two clicks two clicks one click to still allow your Your tongue to get a little bit of rest, but then eventually maybe You're able to go, you know the entirety of the the measure with you know just doing and then eventually build up to some like Wah-wah or Jean speed, you know, you know Those are the tips for practicing that I have for you guys if you have any questions at all guys leave them down below You know, I love to answer your questions and as always guys, you know smash that subscribe button Please guys it helps the channel a lot. Thank you so much, and I'll catch y'all in the next video


My name is Ozan Tarapur. I am the South Asia Research Scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. I'm here at the US Institute of Peace talking about the Quad, which is a grouping, an informal grouping, comprising four countries, the United States, Australia, India and Japan. So the Quad is an informal grouping that's intended to coordinate on regional policies in the Indo-Pacific. Originally it was founded as a response to a humanitarian disaster, the tsunami of 2004, but since then it was resuscitated in 2017 as a way essentially for the four countries to share their strategic assessments of what's happening in the region and then it really pivoted a little bit in 2021 with the advent of leader-level summits and continuing foreign minister meetings where they started to not only discuss what was happening in the region but to actually put forward a positive agenda of policy work, things that they wanted to deliver to the region that the four countries would coordinate on, what they often call international public goods. So everything initially from delivering COVID vaccines to people across the region to coordinating now on regulations for telecommunications technology and climate change etc. There are a couple of key actors or groups of actors that I think the most important in how the Quad does its business. The first is the states of the region across the Indo-Pacific and here I'm thinking mostly of countries in Southeast Asia, members of ASEAN who have greeted the Quad cautiously but so far without any significant resistance. You might expect a little bit of resistance because ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a long-standing institution in the region that has really been the hub of regional institution building, regional political organization. When the Quad came along there was a sense that maybe it would seek to supplant ASEAN and so there's a degree of caution among ASEAN members about what the Quad is trying to do and where it will go, its trajectory but I think so far because the Quad has gone to great lengths to include ASEAN members in its deliberations and its discussions, those cautions have those sensitivities have been elade which leads me to the second main big non-Quad audience which is China. Now China has responded to the advent of the Quad initially by sort of dismissing it as a non-event as something that doesn't matter but also putting out a narrative that the Quad is there to provoke this security competition to introduce Cold War style thinking to the region, unhelpfully divide the region and that I think suggests to me that Beijing is actually concerned about what the Quad represents and what the Quad is doing. What it represents is a grouping of countries that are coordinating to put forward a vision of the region that is distinct from that is an alternative to China's vision of the region and I think that concerns Beijing. Part of the Quad's agenda does address security issues that are commonly regarded as non-traditional security issues so they for example will discuss maritime security in the form of illegal fishing for example or they will try and build maritime domain awareness so that countries across the region know what is happening in their exclusive economic zones etc. The Quad does do things that are I think security activities it's just important to understand that these are non-traditional security activities and things that are not traditional military activities that might suggest that there is an adversary. The Quad has been very careful to say that what it does as part of its agenda both at the leader level and the foreign minister level is about providing things security goods like maritime domain awareness that the whole region can use indivisibly.


Welcome to Overheard at DAV Job Fairs, a series where we answer frequently asked questions, bust myths and give tips on how to find meaningful, fulfilling work with employers who value military service. One of the biggest challenges for transitioning service members, veterans and even military spouses is translating your skills to the civilian workforce. But make no mistake, the skills and experiences you gain from military service are valuable additions to any employer. However, civilian employers need help understanding military experience. That's why you have to be your best advocate and know how to translate your skills. Start by making your list of experiences and accomplishments in the military. What skills and attributes do those accomplishments highlight? Leadership? Organizational skills? Strong work ethic? Those are all things that any employer values. Now ask yourself, how can I apply those skills and attributes to the role and industry I'm interested in? That's how you translate your skills. Still need some help? Visit jobs.dav.org where you can search thousands of job postings by typing in your MOS or military job title.


Hadidya from East Vietnam. My name is John Lewis from East Vietnam. And my role is as a system analyst but as well as a DHS to implement it. I'm coordinating the East Tim deluzophone community which is also called South Digitus. I'm a director now for East Vietnam leading DHS to implementation in Southeast Asia and Pacific Islands. I had about DHS2 when I was in my university studies. I started engaging myself, went around, asked about it and at least they were cooperative enough, shared me the link to DHS2 fundamentals and I started to learn more about it and I would say everything started from there. I think I started getting involved with the East group in 2003 into the master program and then I went to Oslo in August. Stayed there for one year and then we came back to Mozambique and then I had one year field work and then I started writing the thesis and then finalized it in 2005. 2000 when I was interviewed for as a software developer to join HISPA India project and one of the small consultancy in India. So I was appointed as a system developer for DHS2. As the DHS2 team we managed to support our Ministry of Health in implementing the DHS2 country-wise and it's the key system that is used by the Ministry of Health in Tanzania in data collection and of course I think we have had a lot about COVID since 2020. We came up with a portal that supports booking so it's called Pima COVID where you just have to go in, you book, take your date for sample collection, then you get into the National Lab, take the sample and afterwards you don't have to go back to the National Lab but of course you can be sent just inflicted right away via the system. The DHS2 conference is an event where there is a lot of sharing experience and then a lot of users, implementers, donors they attend then we get there and then we share all our experience from the implementation side and also from the user perspective. When we started HISPA India I was the only person and then like we grew to at the national level for the entire country and I guess that was the key event for me. You take a small NGO operating in a very small constituency in one particular village to move to the national entity and working with the Indian Ministry of Health. A lot honestly speaking because since I've started using it or since I've started knowing about it it has proved to be a very very flexible platform. It was initially aimed just for health information systems. We managed to extend beyond healthy but even using it in agriculture sector as well as water. So I would say it's a very flexible platform and it can support a number of use cases as we have had different use cases from different countries. The East is a feminine, we have been supporting many countries and then I get to know several people that they share the same challenges. For example, Hasi and Mozambique then we go and then you find that same challenges you find here you also find in countries like Guinea-Bissau or Santone. So it has been to me it is a community, it's a family. For me it's an ideology which basically thinks about how best we can try to use information system in health settings and how best we can try to get the right tool to write people. And DHR is to what we believe is a tool which helps the health administrators and people to make a decision at the local level and as well as the national level.


This study analyzes the expansion of solar energy in Iran, taking into account political, economic, social, and technological factors. Due to the prolonged sanctions on Iran, the development of clean energy power plants has either been halted or significantly reduced. Therefore, this study aims to identify barriers to the expansion of solar energy power plants and to simulate solar power plants using PVSWST, photovoltaic system, software. The study is unique in its approach of combining technical analysis with social sciences to facilitate the implementation of solar energy expansion in remote areas. This study focuses on two specific areas with high solar radiation, namely Darab and Mabod, which are located in Fars and Yazd provinces, respectively. Solar energy can be generated in these two areas due to their unique locations with high levels of solar irradiation. To achieve this goal, the technical analyses focus on simulating the performance of a 9kWp, kWp power output of a system, grid-connected polysilicon, poly-C, photovoltaic plant for Darab and a 9.90kWp plant for Mabod. The simulation is conducted to obtain maximum electricity production and This article was authored by Armin Resnju, Arzouga Zanfri, Paul Alberg Ostergaard and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


In Matthew chapter 15 verses 32 through 39, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now continued with me three days and have nothing to eat, and I do not want to send them away hungry lest they faint on the way. Then His disciples said to Him, where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to fill such a great multitude? Jesus said to them, how many loaves do you have? They said seven in a few little fish and He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground and He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples and the disciples gave to the multitude.  Now those who ate were 4,000 men besides women and children and He sent away the multitude, got into the boat and came to the region of Magdala. Now I'm going to give you an introduction, we'll move into it, but I have a lot of practical applications as a matter of fact at the conclusion I'm going to give you several practical applications to this particular Bible study, but let's remember its context in order that we might understand what's taking place. We know that as we've been studying through Matthew that Jesus is now in a region called Decapolis. The Decapolis was on the eastern side of the Jordan River, it was a place where there were ten cities, mostly Gentile and very pagan and so Jesus is there in the Decapolis and He is ministering and as He's ministering multitudes continue coming to Him. So as we begin let's ask the question, how come so many people felt so comfortable coming to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why would crowds gather to Jesus Christ so regularly? As I mentioned to you as we've gone through the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew has two words He uses quite often. One is the singular multitude and the second is the plural multitudes and He speaks concerning multitudes coming to Christ quite often and they did so from the very early portion of Jesus' ministry. So the question again is asked why would crowds gather to Him so regularly? Why were people so attracted to Him? Let me begin by saying that there are reasons why that would be so. The first reason is He's approachable. Jesus Christ was approachable. People knew that they could come to Him, they knew that it was safe to approach Him. As you read your Bible you'll see that a variety of people who were outcast in the society of Israel actually would come to Him. People who were lepers for example. The woman with the issue of blood would come to Him. A syrophoenician woman, these were all outcasts and yet every one of them would come and ask that He might heal them, that He might lay His hands on them, that He might do a work for them. I think of a paralyzed man who was brought to Jesus by his four friends. So we know that Jesus was approachable and people came to Him without fear and without intimidation. It seems to me that sometimes religious figures like to have others intimidated by them, honoring them, respecting them, even fearing them. But Jesus wasn't that way at all. Jesus was approachable. You could approach Him and speak to Him. He would minister to you. You could talk to Him and you would know that He was giving you His full attention and the people would come to Him because He was approachable. He invites us to come to Him. He says, come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. That's an invitation. In John 7 verse 37 it says on the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out saying, if anyone thirsts, let Him come to me and drink. And so why would people come to Christ? Why did multitude show up? Well, first, because He's approachable. Secondly, He was capable. I would never go to somebody for help who could not help me. Why would I go to somebody for help who had no capacity to be of any help to me in my need? And yet the Bible tells us that He is very capable. In Psalm 146 verse 5 it says, happy is He who has the God of Jacob for His help, whose hope is in the Lord, His God. We have the God of Jacob for our help, and He was able. He was able to meet any need. He was able to heal any disease. It says in Matthew 4 verse 23 that Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of diseases among the people. He was not only approachable, He was capable. He also is gracious. He is loving and gracious. He wouldn't reject them when they came. Later in Matthew 18 we're going to see at verses 15 and 16 that they brought infants to Him that He might touch them, but when the disciples saw it they rebuked them. Jesus called them to Him and said, let the little children come to me, do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. In Psalm 145 verse 9, the Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all He has made. He is approachable, He is capable, and He is compassionately able. He is an enormous, He is a person who can minister to the people in their needs, in their time of needs, and an enormous crowd, a multitude, has gathered, and there He is, and there He remains with them. When we look at this passage before us, verse 38 tells us that there were 4,000 men, not including women and children. Verse 32 says that they had been with them for 3 days and their food supply had been exhausted. And so Jesus seen them and He has this compassion, as He says, I have compassion on the multitude. As He sees them, He doesn't want to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way. Mark 8.3 says, if I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way because none of them, because some of them have come a long distance. So what is the God that we serve like? In a time when people say you serve God, but what is your God like? Our God is compassionate. Our God is motivated by compassion towards those in need. Isaiah 40 verse 11, He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His bosom and gently lead those who are with young. Matthew had already told us in chapter 9, 36, when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep, having no shepherd. And so the God that you worship, the God of the Bible, is a God of love. He's a God of compassion. What Jesus is doing is He's awakening in His disciples a genuine faith in God, as well as imparting to them a heart for people. When asked, what is the great command, the answer is, love God with all of your heart, soul strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Love God and love others on these two commands, hang the law and the prophets. If they're going to reveal accurately the ways of God, they need to have faith and they need to have compassion. So that means as a disciple of Jesus Christ, those are two virtues, two attributes that every believer should have. Remember that Paul in Romans chapter 8 verse 29 said it's God's intent to conform Christians into the image of Jesus Christ. Remember that Jesus selected 12 ordinary men who were to be with Him constantly and He was mentoring them. And so these men who were at the Lord constantly heard His words, they witnessed His works, they studied His doctrine, they worked alongside of Him, they ate meals with Him, talked to Him, they would laugh with Him and cry with Him, they asked questions of Him, they were constantly simply with Him. So that tells me that His ministry was both taught and caught by His men because He spent that much time with them. So you see, we are to learn what to be, what to do, and what to say as His ambassadors. And they were especially to learn why they were to be to do and to say the things that they were learning. Now God is very personal. We need to remember that. He is very personal and Jesus revealed Himself to His men in a very personal and powerful way. We saw in Matthew 13 for example verse 11 how He said to them, it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. I'm revealing to you what others are not learning. In John 15 verse 15 He will say, no longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing. I've called you friends for all things that I heard from my Father. I have made known to you. I've shared with you in the past, perhaps some of you might remember this concerning a a church that was in Strasbourg, France that was severely damaged by bombs during the World War II. And there was a beloved statue there in the church. It was a statue of Christ and it had survived even though a ceiling beam had fallen across the arms and broken the arms off. A local sculptor had offered to restore the statue without charge, but the people decided to leave it as it was because they said without hands this is a reminder of what God wants to do through us. It reminds us that God does His work through His people and His people very often would be called His earthly hands. He appointed some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the work of ministry. And so the Lord is enabling us to serve Him, to be His ministers and all. And so they need to learn that. He intends His disciples, His followers, to be like Him. Jesus says in Matthew 10.25, it's enough for the disciple that he be as the master and servant as his Lord. And so this kind of loving compassion is to be an earmark of a follower of Jesus Christ. Paul learned that he discipled his ministers to have compassion and concern for the lost. Look at some of the men that he discipled. You could look at the man named Titus, who was a pastor over a church in Crete. And Paul, when he was speaking concerning Titus, who would be what is called a son in the faith. When he spoke concerning him, he said in 2 Corinthians 8.16, I thank God who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you. And so a minister is to have concern for the welfare of those that they serve. And Paul said, God has put in Titus' heart the same kind of love that I have for you. When he spoke concerning Timothy, who was also a son in the faith, he said in the book of Philippians chapter 2, verses 19 through 22, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him who takes a genuine interest in your welfare for everyone looks out for his own interest, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the gospel. He said, I have no one else like him who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. He says, but Timothy has a genuine interest. So a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ has a heart of compassion for those who are hurting. You see, Jesus intended to produce a community of people who loved him and who also loved others. And it's the love for God and love for people that is to be an earmark of the body of Christ. Now I don't know if I can say this properly. I said it for a service and I'm not sure whether it came out the way I intend it. So I'll try it a second time. I was speaking to a pastor the other day, a friend of mine, and he said, you know, his desire is to have what we call, he said, a Jesus. He says, I want to have a Jesus people community and I'm teaching my church that a Jesus people community. And I said, well, be ready for your church to shrink. We have to paint people. Be ready for your church to shrink. And he said, what do you mean? I said, listen, I said, you need to know the society that you're ministering to. The society that you're ministering to doesn't want to be a community. The society that you're ministering to wants to be entertained, wants to receive something without having to give something. I said, they don't want community so much. What they want is something else. They want personality. They want entertainment. They want the show. I said, that's what you're dealing with. When you begin to teach biblical Christianity to this age, be aware of the fact that there are many people who will leave your fellowship to go somewhere they don't have to serve. They don't have to give. They don't have to do anything they just have to take because that's what's taking place today. It's very unhealthy, but that's what the church is like today. People will keep unto themselves teachers having itching ears. They will be voluntarily turned aside from truth and turned into fables. What you're going to end up with, instead of a church that you think is going to be powerful and reaching, it's going to become a community of people, but it not necessarily is going to be appealing to others because the others who are coming are going to say, I'm not getting what I could get somewhere else because they're consumers, not the church. Be aware of that. The Lord Jesus Christ came to produce a community of believers, not people who say Sunday I go here, Wednesday I go there, other days I go here, other days I go there. No, a community of believers who actually love one another, know one another, grow together, serve and support and do those things that churches are supposed to do. And that's what Jesus Christ wants in the church. But when you teach that message today, what happens is people say, I don't want to do that. I don't want to have to do that. That sounds legalistic to me where it's a freedom and all of that. And we find some reason to reject what the fact is. And the fact is is we're supposed to be serving the Lord together and we're supposed to have love for God and for one another. Somebody said this and I like it. He said, a man may be a good doctor without loving his patients, a good lawyer without loving his clients, a good geologist without loving science. But he cannot be a good Christian without love. And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ would have. And he's issuing to his men a ministry challenge. He's saying this, listen men, there's a need. How are you going to meet that need? Now, we've already seen that before. He had done a similar miracle. He had, he had fit even a larger multitude. Had they learned anything from what they had previously seen and previously done? Here's something for you to remember. Repetition is often the key to learning. My mom kept saying something to me that took me at least a year. It was no less than a year. It took me at least a year to learn. She said the same thing over and over again to me. It took me a year to learn it. And you know what she was saying? She was saying, David, I was a baby. She'd say, David, I know what she was talking about. It took me a year. She repeated it every day and I finally said, oh, and she says, David, she's speaking to me. Some things take time to learn. She had other names she called me, but I'll just stay with David. Repetition is how we learn. Things that are said over and over and over again. That's how we learn. And when you read your Bible, you might find this interesting. I could multiply this, I choose not to, but there are numerous, numerous passages and lessons Christ gives that are actually found in various places that he actually said more than once. I'll give you a couple of examples to make the point. Again, repetition is how we learn. For example, Jesus said, all things are possible, right? But he said it in different places at different times. For example, in Mark 9, 23, to the father of a son who was demon possessed, he said, all things are possible to him who believes. But later on in Mark 10, 27, in response to the rich young ruler and his encounter with him, and then the disciples asking a question of him, he said, with God, all things are possible. All things are possible. So he said the same thing more than once. He said, a prophet is without honor more than once. In John 4, verse 44, a prophet has no honor in his own country, but it's repeated in Luke 4, 24 when he said no prophet is accepted in his own country, different places, different times, same words. When you look at the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew 5, 6 and 7, you'll see that the essence of that was repeated in what is called the Sermon on the Plain that is recorded in Luke chapter 6. Jesus repeated the fact that he was going to die, be buried, and resurrected from the beginning of his ministry in John chapter 2 and then over and over again as the day came or was approaching for him to die, bury, and be resurrected. He said it in Matthew 16, 21, Matthew 17, verse 9, Matthew 17, verse 23, Matthew 20, verse 19. He repeated himself over and over again because many teachings are repeated throughout his ministry. And so we saw that he had already fed the multitude 5,000, but we see that once again he's going to be feeding a multitude this time 4,000. So the men need to learn something through these miracles. And so as it says in verse 32, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now continued with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry lest they faint on the way. Verse 33, his disciples said to him, where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to fill such a great multitude? Same kind of question they had asked before. You see, this kind of miracle had occurred before, but they had yet to learn what Jesus wanted them to know. They needed to learn to see the need, and they needed to learn how to meet it. And so they asked this question of him, where can we get enough bread in the wilderness? The wilderness is dry. The wilderness is barren. It's like a desert without sand. Where are we going to find food for them? Now the other miracle feeding that Jesus performed had not settled in their understanding. They didn't understand the power of Christ, though they were witnesses of it daily. They had yet to understand who he truly is. They were still motivated, even blinded by unbelief. You see, they saw the multitude, but they did not see the man. They'd seen him. He's still the storm. He walked on water. He cast out demons. He heals. He fed the 5,000, but they still can only see what is before them, and they have yet to learn what it means to walk by faith. In 2 Corinthians 5, 7, Paul made it clear we live by faith and not by sight. So they state the obvious. We don't have resources. We're inadequate. There's no way that we can meet this need. And so what does Jesus do? Well, verse 34, how many loaves do you have? They said seven and a few little fish. Take inventory. They do so, and they come up short. Seven bread cakes and a few small fish is all that we have available to us. And so he commands verse 35. He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground, giving us insight into his organization. And then, verse 36, he took the seven loaves, and the fish gave thanks, broke them, gave them to the disciples, his disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitude. So they all ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets full of the fragments that were left. Now, those who ate were 4,000 men besides women and children. Let me give you some practical applications to this. I want to give you several. What do you learn from this miracle? What do you learn? We'll begin with the most obvious. The world is always going to be dry and barren, a place where nothing supplied by that world will ever satisfy us, as promising as the world seems to be. When we pursue it for our eternal needs, it will always be empty. You see that with people in Scripture who at one time professed the faith in God, who walked away. A great example is a man by the name of Demas. When you see Demas, he's mentioned in the New Testament three times. Twice he's spoken of as a traveling companion of Paul. But the final time that you see him is found in Paul's last letter, 2 Timothy. And Demas is mentioned in chapter 4, verse 10 in this way. Paul says, Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica. The last thing you ever hear of a man by the name of Demas is he loves this world. He loves this present age, and he's deserted. That's why in 2 Corinthians 4, 18, Paul would say, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. So one, you can go after the world that you want. It will never satisfy you. You can look at some of the people that are representing what wealth can produce. Some of the most miserable people that you'll ever see are the ones who have everything that the world seems to offer. You know, the multimillionaires who never have enough. The millionaire has said, is asked how much is enough in his response. It's a little more. The eyes of man are never satisfied. The water of the world only produces more thirst. You can have as much as you think you want, but like Jesus said to the woman at the well, anyone who drinks of this water will thirst again. You can have the education and the success, and you can have all of those things, and they in and of themselves, it's not like they're bad. I'm not here saying you shouldn't work hard. I'm not saying you shouldn't have goals. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have retirement. I'm not saying any of that. So please, I hope it doesn't come off that way. What I'm saying is, if I pursue those things as ends in themselves, I'll always be empty because they cannot meet the deepest needs that I have because I cannot buy things like peace. I cannot buy something like love. I cannot buy joy. I can't do that. It's not something that I can go and buy. It's something that is freely given to me by a relationship with God. And so the number one thing you need to remember is the world is a wilderness, and there's nothing there to supply a need. You also need to remember that Jesus has the ability of meeting our needs. That's why he looks up and gives thanks because he's revealing the source of blessings, and the source of blessings is from God. In James 1.17, James said, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights who doesn't change like shifting shadows. A third thing that we see is that he is filled with compassion for those who are in need. What good is it to have all power but to not use it to be of help to those who are in need? Psalm 111 verse 4 says, he has made this, his wonderful works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. Another thing I get from this passage is he's ready to meet my need, even before I realize that he is willing to do so. Isaiah 65 verse 24, beautiful verse, it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer. While they are still speaking, I will hear. God's aware even before I'm aware, and he's already prepared to meet that need. Now a fifth thing that isn't so obvious is found in verse 35 where it simply says he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground to receive the blessing required simple obedience. If they chose not to do what he was saying, they would not have been blessed. And that sometimes we forget. Verse 35 reveals an act of obedience. He commands them to be seated, they were. You see there are times when we are simply not in the place where we should be because of disobedience and thus we don't receive the blessing God wants to bring. Notice he also intends his disciples to care for other people. He didn't bless them so that they could keep the blessings to themselves. It's been said the church is the one institution that has been established for loving concern of others. That's what the church is supposed to do. So the disciples distribute the food to the multitude and you can only give that which you have first received. Now in revealing our lack of resources and helping us to see his abundance on our behalf, we're able to trust in him. Jesus said in John 15 verse five, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit. Why? Because without me you can do nothing. And then you see in verse 37 they all ate and were filled. That word filled is you can use the word that we don't use anymore and I'll use it anyway just because we never use it. The word glutted. When's the last time you're talking to somebody and say, man I was glutted. We don't use that word. The word glutted means fully satisfied, filled to the top. And you say, I don't think I've ever been, yes you have thanksgiving.  You're hoping nobody notices that that's why you wear the shirts out, right? And you're just eating, oh so good, so good. You want some more? No, I don't think we've got some pie.  I didn't ever hurt anybody, right? A little pie. You want some more? No, I'm full.  And you are satisfied.  And that's what it's saying. It's saying that God's blessings are not simply satisfying. They are super satisfying. And they need to understand that. They ate and they were completely satisfied by what God provided for them. So God is able to satisfy our deepest longings. He meets our real needs, each and every one of them. In Isaiah 55 verse two, the question is asked, why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good. Let your soul delight itself in abundance. The Lord is able to satisfy. Listen, material blessings are great. I thank God for material blessings. I know you do too. I know you do too. I thank God for having a bed that I can sleep in for a pillow that I can rest my head on. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful that I can drive a car. I'm thankful that I have a home. I'm thankful for the meals that I eat. I'm very thankful for the clothing that I wear. I'm grateful for all of that. I certainly wouldn't want you to ever think that I'm one of these ancient hippies who come up and say, bad material, you know, watch out for the materialism. Listen, we should be aware of materialism. It destroys us, but we also should be aware of the fact that God does bless us. And I thank God for the blessings that it brings into our life. But I have also realized that no matter what you have, it can't satisfy what you really need. It really can't. It's nice and it's pleasurable, but it's just a thing. It's a thing to be used and discarded later. The things that really matter are relational things. You know, the things that really matter are things that are pertaining to our community relationship or to our personal friendships. You know, it's having a dear friend that you can speak to and have coffee with and share your heart with.  Those are relational things. Those things matter. And though it's nice to be able to go out for a cup of coffee or it's nice to have a meal. And I appreciate that very much. What really matters more is simply being with that person. So those things matter. And when it comes to the spiritual, the thing that matters the most is having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, having sins forgiven, sins forgiven. Because you can wake up in the morning and you can remember what you've done in the past. You can wake up. The enemy has a way of reminding you. It's almost like, I'm not saying he is, it's almost like he's standing at the foot of the bed just waiting for you to wake up. Then you kind of open your eyes and say, hey center boy, what were you just dreaming about? That was a sin. You know, that was a sin. Or what did you do last week? You know, what did you, doesn't the enemy have a tendency to try and remind you and your flesh conspires with the enemy? Your flesh conspires with the enemy. You'll never be any different. You'll never be any better. You were an alcoholic. Then you're going to be an alcohol later on. You say you went forward. You gave your heart to Christ. You know that's baloney. You've done that a thousand times. When is it going to really work? You're not any different at all. You still have the cravings. You still want that. You still want to see that. You see the commercial. You see the woman you want to be with her. You're not married to her, but you lust for her.   And that's what the, he does that. He does that. There's no doubt about it. And your flesh conspires. And then you say, that's true. I've always been, I might as well go back to the slop that I've been in. That's a lie from the devil. It's a lie. If any man be in Christ, it's a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. I have a, and that is, that is not just some preacher just preaching. Listen, before I'm a preacher, I'm a person. And I know what my flesh conspires with the enemy to do. I know for the longest time, it doesn't have any more. Thank you, Jesus. But for the longest time, the first thoughts I'd have in the morning when I woke up were sins that I committed. And I would wake up saying, God forgive me. God forgive me. And I had to remember, I am forgiven. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses you from all sin. I am forgiven. I am forgiven. I don't have to be motivated by guilt. I am motivated by gratitude for what God has done. And God provides for you. So yes, thank you, Lord, for a car. Thank you for shoes that I can wear. Thank you for a shirt on my back. Thank you for relationships. Thank you for all of that because it comes from you.  Bless you, Lord. I thank you. But that is not what makes me who I am. What makes me who I am is my relationship with you. I am a sinner washed by the blood of Jesus Christ, born again on my way to heaven, not by works of righteousness, which I have done, but according to your mercy, you washed me. And I thank you for that. You see, that's how Christianity is. That's what it is. And so we need to understand that. And so we need to remember that our bread is from heaven and Jesus is the heavenly bread. Finally, a couple of things and I'll close with.  God's blessings are not only adequate, but they are generous. And the goal of ministry, and this is what I'm going to close with with this in one last thought, and I'm setting you up because I really got more to say. No, here's something for you very practical, but very, very basic, but very, very important. Remember this, very basic. The goal of ministry, what these men need to know, and what we need to remember, the goal of ministry is for people to worship God and not his disciples. Keep that in mind. And I'll tell you what I'm saying. In an age where there are no heroes, very few Christians have a tendency of looking to a hero figure that they can trust, whether it be an evangelist, whether it be a pastor, whether it be some figure that is well known in the Christian world, and we have a tendency of following after them. And very subtly, very subtly, we put more trust in them than they ought to have. It is not that your spiritual leaders should not be respected. Spiritual leaders ought to be respected for handling the Word of God, and Paul said, and they ought to receive double honor for that because they handled the Word of God, and they care for your souls. They ought to be respected and honored. And as a pastor, I appreciate respect. Respect is the way you say to me that you love me, and I thank you for that. I really do. But again, the reason I am open in this pulpit is to remind you that I am just a man who fails too. I need a savior, and his name is Jesus. He never fails. I can and have 35 years of pastoring this church. I have disappointed more than my share. I'm sure of that. Not my desire, but the fact. That's a bottom line reality. Did I want to hurt somebody? No. Did I want to cause them to cry? No. Did I? Yeah. I want to be the perfect husband. Am I? Yeah. No, am I? It's a woman God gave me. No. Do I? Of course. I want to be the best dad. Am I? No. No. Do I want to be? Yes. Do I fail? Yes. I want to be the best grandpa. Will I hurt my grandbaby someday, disappoint them? I'm sure I will. Why? Because you want to hurt them? No, because I'm a sinner and sinners fail. That's why sinners need a savior. Jesus never fails. And that's why my eyes are on him. That's why. Keep your eyes on the Lord. It's not the disciples that should be respected to that degree. It's God who brings the blessings. He never fails. Keep that in mind. And finally, he sent away the multitude, got into the boat, came to the region of Magdala. He dismisses the crowd, and it goes to the western shoreline. That would be, yeah, western shoreline of the Sea of Galilee into a place called Magdala, where Mary Madeleine came from, because he doesn't need the crowd attempting to crown him king. They'd already done that before. Doesn't need that a second time. He has much ministry to perform, and he moves on.


So I very rarely get to talk about good news on this program because usually there isn't much good news But believe it or not I actually have a little bit of a dose of hope for you and it is it's pure raw Hopium that you can inject directly into your veins and This is some good news regarding the fight to stop climate catastrophe And this could be the start of something very very Significant so for more on this we go to Jessica Corbett of common dreams who explains Climate campaigners worldwide are celebrating after a Dutch court on Wednesday Ordered fossil fuel giant Royal Dutch Shell to cut its carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030 compared with 2019 levels a Historic ruling that activists hope is just the beginning of holding the oil and gas industry accountable for driving the climate Emergency this is a landslide victory for climate justice said Sarah Shaw of Friends of the Earth International our hope is that this verdict will trigger a wave of climate litigation against big polluters to force them to stop Extracting and burning fossil fuels This result is a win for communities in the global south who face devastating climate impacts now the first of its kind ruling Which shell told the Wall Street Journal it expects to appeal came from the district court in the Hague and is the result of legal Action brought by Friends of the Earth Netherlands along with over 17,000 individuals and six other Organizations the individual co plaintiffs and groups which included action aid both ends Fossil Vrij and L Greenpeace Netherlands Jonger in milieu actif and the Waden Virengin I'm not even a try. I'm so sorry for butchering that demanded that shells emissions reduction goals aligned with the Paris climate Agreement which aims to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 the court orders Royal Dutch Shell to reduce its CO2 output and those of its suppliers and buyers by the end of 2030 by a net of 45% based on 2019 levels the court said according to agents France press Royal Dutch Shell has to implement this decision at once So I know that this seems insignificant right now and perhaps at this moment It isn't going to amount to that much right? This is just one court who's saying one company has to comply with this reduction in emissions Having said that though as the article pointed out this could be the moment where the damn bursts open We just needed a little bit of a leak and Now the floodgates may be opening up But we don't know but I want to get to some reactions from individuals who have been following this Bill McKibben writes Wow Wow Wow Dutch court orders Shell to cut the absolute level of its carbon emissions almost in half by 2030 This could be game-changing Jillian Ambrose who is a journalist for the Guardian who covers energy and the fossil fuel industry writes It is genuinely hard to overstate quite how big a deal this ruling is for Shell and the oil industry Shell said it plans to appeal the quote disappointing decision of the Dutch courts But it might be a better use of time to figure out how to make these carbon cuts Roger Cox lawyer for Friends of the Earth Netherlands said this is a turning point in history The first time a judge has ordered a large polluting corporation to comply with the Paris climate agreement This ruling may also have major consequences for other big polluters Sarah Shaw from Friends of the Earth International added our hope is that this verdict will trigger a wave of climate litigation against big polluters to force them to Stop extracting and burning fossil fuels. This result is a win for communities everywhere who face devastating climate impacts now So in other words, this is kind of a signal to smaller countries in the global south who are already dealing with the climate crisis to say hey this case Showed that you can actually sue because you deserve to have a planet That is habitable free of pollution and in your area these polluters who are absolutely decimating yours your countries your states You can actually now take action and be successful now the last thing that I want to share the last reaction that I want to Share is a video from the attorney in this case or one of the attorneys I'm assuming and also the director of Friends of the Earth International. This is what they have to say about this This is a historical moment for all of us for the first time in history a judge has ordered One of the largest polluters to stop contributing to dangerous climate change The judge was crystal clear Shell Causes dangerous climate change and Shell should stop immediately with doing that It's a clear signal to all polluters in the world. You should get your act together This is a major victory for the planet for the 17,000 co-planetives the millions of people that have supported us in this court case for my three kids that now have a Clear perspective on a safe and healthy planet and future and for all children in the world I am a happy man today. I think the word the world looks a bit brighter today than it did yesterday I think this is a groundbreaking and historical verdict. We're very happy with that obviously We also think that this will have a ripple effect in other jurisdictions And we expect a lot of similar climate cases around the world against the big polluters So, yeah, this gives this gives us also a hope that the energy transition that needs to speed up and needs to speed up Quickly can actually happen Through these forceful measures So happy that way here. So look this might not amount too much in the end Perhaps Shell appeals this ruling and they win perhaps this doesn't actually trigger Other litigation against these fossil fuel companies that is a possibility But also it's very possible that this is a turning point as climate activists like Bill McKibben are saying It is possible that this could actually be the start of a wave of litigation against The biggest fossil fuel extractors and polluters, you know around the globe this could be the moment Where we look back in history and say that was the start of when we saved the planet. I don't know We don't know we don't know what's gonna happen. Nobody has a crystal ball. Nobody can read the future But what I do know is that for all the cynicism that's inside of me This is at least giving me a little bit of hope That with the little bit of time we have left Maybe it's possible that we stop the worst of what climate change has to offer again Maybe it's too late, but maybe it isn't but what I do know is that this is definitely fantastic news and I will take it


We just got news that Mac Miller's former drug dealer was arrested in connection with the death of Mac Miller for selling him some drugs that contain fentanyl. I am a recovering opioid addict and I want to discuss this and discuss the pros and cons around these types of laws. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. If you're new to my channel, what I'm always trying to do is take different topics going on in the YouTube community or pop culture or just in the world and try to see what lessons we can learn from them to improve our own mental and emotional well-being. A couple things that I'm really passionate about are mental health and addiction recovery. So if you're into any of that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And do me a favor. YouTube, the algorithm does not like us talking about drugs, addiction, recovery, mental health and things like that. So do me a favor. If you find any of the information in this video useful, please share it on social media, all right? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, whatever your thing is, all right? I'm going to be sharing some things and it might save some lives, all right? And by the way, while you're at it, follow me on social media at the Rewired Soul over on Instagram and Twitter. Feel free to DM me anytime if you have any questions or you need me to point you in the right direction for some help or some resources, all right? But yeah, it's been, I don't know, it has been about a year since Mac Miller passed away from an overdose. So Mac Miller had his struggles with addiction and I can definitely relate. He had some clean time, he ended up relapsing and yeah, the drugs took him out. So those of you who don't know me, by the way, hi, I'm Chris. My clean date is June 23rd, 2012. So a few months ago, I just celebrated seven years clean. My drug of choice was prescription opioids. So these types of subjects really hit close to home for me. So I'm also pursuing my CADC, which is a certified alcohol and drug counselors licensing. And I've worked in addiction treatment for a little over three years and I've worked with literally thousands of people struggling with addiction. And when I see this happening in the news, I feel like we need to talk about it because yes, Mac Miller's drug dealer got arrested and a lot of people are talking about it. Like, yeah, awesome. But I want to talk about some of the pros and cons behind this. So those of you who don't know what fentanyl is, like the overdose rates for opioids, it's it's not getting any better. It's actually getting worse. And one of the main reasons is fentanyl. So you have like your standard prescription opioids with their potency and things like that, which you can overdose on, right? And then you have heroin. But then there's fentanyl, which is actually a prescription drug. And that is, I believe, 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin. OK. And what's been happening lately is that it's been being mixed with other drugs. Like some people are pressing it with prescription drugs. Like, I believe it was Lil Peep who passed away. He was taking Xanax and there was fentanyl mixed with the Xanax. This is happening more and more, but people are mixing it with heroin as well. And it's killing a lot of people. And I'll say this as a recovering drug addict and my drug of choice with prescription opioids, I'm really confused. And if you have any information on this, like, let me know down in the comments below and know I'm not trying to get you in trouble. But like, I'm confused as to why they would mix such a stronger drug because and here's just, you know, me being an addict, right? Like, you have to pay more money for stronger drugs, right? And it doesn't make sense why dealers or even, you know, whoever's manufacturing this would mix this with other drugs. One, because you're like giving them more powerful drugs. But two, we know that it's killing people.  You know what I mean? Like, it's just a really confusing scenario for me. But yeah, like as a prescription drug addict, I used to get a lot of pills that weren't what they said they were. I would often have to like Google them and say, OK, is this what my dealer said they were selling me? But yeah, the government has been cracking down a lot on this. And and we're trying to find solutions, right? Tens of thousands of people each year are dying from prescription drug overdoses. So they've been cracking down a lot on doctors, right?  And Johnson and Johnson just had to pay a huge settlement as well. A lot of doctors have been getting in trouble for overprescribing and everything like that. So they've been cracking down a lot. And one of the ways they've been cracking down is in some states or in some counties, they're making the dealer responsible for this and they can be charged with I don't know if it's murder or manslaughter, but like, is this a good thing or a bad thing? So something that we need to talk about is there are many dealers who are addicts themselves and they're not in a good place of mind. And like, I'm trying to think of what I like, if I died, if I were to have died from some of my drugs, like, what I want my dealer to go to jail, you know, for my murder, right? I think about that. And like the thing is, and it's different, but many addicts like myself, like we were suicidal, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I was going to take anything I was, you know, taking way more than I should have been taking. I was mixing it with alcohol and other drugs and everything like that. And, you know, some of my dealers were addicts themselves and some dealers are selling drugs in order to pay for their own addiction. And something that a lot of us are against is, you know, criminalizing people who are struggling with the disease of addiction when they should be getting help. So I look at this and I'm like, OK, like, but what if their dealer is an addict as well? And they were just trying to fuel their habit and they didn't even know. So I'm hoping, you know, these are like case by case basis is.  They do not care if you die, whatever, right? They're just scummy human beings. You know what I mean? But like I said, there's other dealers who are just trying to pay for their own habit. But here's one of my main concerns about this in quite a few states. They've changed laws and please, please, please. This is why I asked you to share this video. There are laws that have been passed where if you call because your friend or someone you know is overdosing and you call it, you cannot be charged with anything, right? Like they've passed laws to try to hopefully save some more lives, right? So when you have this amazing new law where you can call, say that your friend is overdosing and not getting any trouble for it, like that's a good thing. But if we're, you know, saying that you can be charged with the murder of somebody for supplying them the drugs, it makes it tricky because even though this law was passed where you can call in if somebody is overdosing, there's a lot of people still afraid to do so, right? Like, and that's one of the issues. Thousands of people each year are dying just because someone didn't call. Like working in treatment when I was working in treatment for three years, I had over 70 people die from overdoses. And in a lot of those cases, there were other people around or who knew. You know what I mean? So it's not necessarily this whole black and white thing. Like I don't I don't know. And I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments below on what you think about this, like when I look back at my addiction and my dealers, I had one dealer who was like super shady and like he's, if you don't know drug dealers, like this dude was like your typical drug dealer. All right, like he's who you would expect. But most of my drug dealers, since my drug of choice was prescription drugs, a lot of my drug dealers were like old ladies, like no joke. And plus, like I ain't no gangbanger or anything. So I was like, OK, this is safe to get my drugs from old ladies, right? And some of them were just selling their pills to pay their bills.  And I'm like, would I want them arrested? And then sometimes I look at it like myself, like I would never I would never classify myself as a drug dealer. Like, but I used to be the middleman a lot. Like I had a lot of friends who were using drugs too, but they didn't know where to get them. So they would give me money. I would charge them a little bit of a markup. So I would buy drugs from somebody else, get more drugs for myself. And then I would sell those to other people. Like would I be responsible? You know what I mean? So these are just things that I think about. And I think we all need to think about them. And again, we have the elections coming up next year, something that I haven't heard talked about much from anybody is the opioid crisis. We hear a little bit about mental health here and there. But we really need to talk about these things because the opioid crisis has been going on for years now and it's not slowing down. It's killing tens of thousands of people. So the last thing I want to talk about is Narcan. OK, like those of you who don't know what Narcan is. So like Mac Miller and many others die from opioid overdoses. And what happens is that drug, it it attaches to certain receptors in the brain that can lead to the different symptoms of overdose, which can cause breathing issues, vomiting, choking on vomit, just all sorts of things. Right. What Narcan does, it pretty much instantly reverses the effects of opioids, all right? It's in a few different forms. It's in, you know, some of it's a shot. Some of it's like this like mechanical shot, they go, there's another one. It's a nasal spray, all right? And it acts almost instantly. So a lot of EMTs have Narcan on them, right? A lot of firemen have Narcan on them. In some places, police officers even have Narcan on them. I want you to go out and research where you're from because there are many places that are starting to sell Narcan over the counter, where you don't even need a prescription for it, all right? How much it costs, I'm not sure. But if you have a loved one in your life who is struggling with an opioid addiction, keep Narcan in the house, all right? There are also many organizations like here in Las Vegas. I went to a free Narcan training and I got certified and everything like that. And the organization gave us free Narcan too. So research this in your area. Like if you're living in an area where there's a major opioid problem, I almost guarantee there are places out there giving out free Narcan. But like I said, like you might be able to save someone's life if you have an an opioid addict in your life, all right? But anyways, yeah, let me know your thoughts down in the comments below about what you think about Mac Miller's drug dealer being arrested. And yeah, don't forget to share this video because hopefully there's some information in here that might be able to help some people. And maybe we can get this conversation going, all right? And real quick, for those of you who are interested down in the description, down in the pinned comment down below, I write books, eBooks. And I'll put a book down there. It's called Caught in the Crossfire. I wrote that for anybody who has a loved one struggling with addiction. There's different intervention strategies and everything like that. But it's mainly for you to keep your head on straight, whether or not the other person gets clean. It's only three bucks. I'll link that down in the description below. All right, but anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing and a big thank you as well to everybody supporting the channel in other ways, like buying my books, buying merch, all that kind of stuff. It really helps out. All right, thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.


Live from New Orleans, it's theCUBE. Covering VeeamON 2017, brought to you by Veeam. Welcome back to VeeamON in New Orleans, everybody. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante and I'm here with my co-host for the week, Stu Miniman. We're going to talk cloud service providers. Cloud is obviously a very hot topic this week at VeeamON. Matt Chesterson is here, he's the CEO of Offsite DataSync and he's joined by William Bell, who's the Vice President of Product Development for Cloud and Enterprise Services at PhoenixNAP. Gents, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. So, let's start. What's happening at VeeamON?  What are you guys seeing this week? We're seeing the same thing. So, today is officially cloud day at VeeamON and some great announcements that are going on. So, new product announcements with V10, so we're excited about that. William, anything you'd add to that? Yeah, I mean, the general session this morning covered so much around cloud and what that's going to mean to the end user at Veeam, right? And how the ecosystem is being built and working both with the hyperscalers and guys like us. So, so much talk in the industry about the big, really the big three, maybe you throw a China cloud in there or a Japan cloud in there. How is it that folks like you all can differentiate from the likes of AWS and Azure and Google? Maybe you could start building- Azure, yeah, service. I think that's really the key is that customers need a help. You mean I could talk to you? You could talk to me. We can actually help you achieve an outcome that you're looking for with your business. That's not something that you're going to get from a hyperscaler, period. You don't have a little device I can put in my house that I talk to instead? No, no devices, no books, no operating systems to install. So, your value prop is really high touch. High touch, right? High touch, for us it's high touch global, right? So we can help you do the same things that you're trying to accomplish anywhere in the world talking to the same people, right? And that's our kind of commitment. Okay, and yet you've also got infrastructure behind that. We do. So why wouldn't you, for example, what could a viable strategy be say, hey, I'll put that high touch in front of AWS or Azure? Sure. Why not? Well, for us it really comes down to margins, right? At the end of the day is that we derive margin from infrastructure just the same way we do from the service angle of that, right? And so if it's only service and there's no margin on the infrastructure, it's a tougher business to scale, right? We also can capture markets that are uncaptureable, right? This isn't a cloud business for us, right? We're data center owner operators. We're doing things that customers need that are not cloud-centric. How about you guys, Matt? And a little different story here. You guys are more specialist, right? Yeah, a little bit different. So service is always important. We've taken the approach with the public clouds of kind of going with the tide. So layering products and services that go with that. Example today, or yesterday I think it was announced with the scale-up backup repositories being integrated with storage like Glacier. I'm sure there's a product play in there for a service provider like us so that we can offer that as a service too. So kind of taking that momentum and working with it. So integrating with what's already going on. It's going to be a tough tide to fight if we don't kind of direct it in the way we want. So we're going to take that and going in the direction of how can we use it and how can we benefit from it. Yeah, Matt, can you build on that Veeam as a partner? I think as Peter McKay told us, 30% of their business is to the, you know, thousands and thousands of service providers they have.  Yeah, good questions, Stu. What Veeam's doing, they make it very easy for us as partners in the cloud, of course, so that when something's delivered, they make it cloud-available as well. So as you can see, users of Veeam can direct their backups and archives to the cloud private public, but they've also made that available and are going to make that available for us. So they're a great partner. They always think about cloud and cloud first so they don't just develop a product that can be used in and around service providers, but that we can take and capitalize from it as well. So, William, what I want to add on there, you're also a VMware partner and maybe talk to what it's like being a VMware and Veeam and do you go beyond the VMware piece too with Veeam? Yeah, so I mean, in Veeam's ecosystem, it's very VMware and Microsoft are very important to both of them, right? And because of where Veeam started, Hyper-V's a large part of their business and growing still very rapidly part of their business, right? And so we're forced to address both sides of that. When we go to build our own infrastructure, when we're going to offer our own services, we've made a commitment to VMware today, right? And we're building services around that ecosystem, including the stuff that's happening with Veeam. But let me talk about Veeam as a partner, right? Veeam has been singularly the best manufacturer partner that we've worked with up into this point. Maybe it doesn't mean that somebody else, maybe not tomorrow, but at least up into this point, they've helped both of our businesses really grow. I couldn't agree more. And grow in branding and grow in product diversity and grow all over the place. Explain that more. What are they doing? Is it simplicity? Is it pricing? Is it community hub? It's dedication to us as a partner. So you hear of partner relationships in the community. Veeam has taken it to a new level. They're truly a partner with us. They care about how our business is doing and how they can develop us and how they can find out what we don't have experience with and then help us. So design a program or introduce us to the right folks or make the right alliance relationships. So they genuinely look at it. So are they a channel for you or are you a channel for them? Both. Yeah, sometimes you don't know. The lines are not exactly clear and that's good. Yeah, I think that those unclear lines mean an increase in all kinds of things for both of our companies mutually, right? We're here. We started together in this Veeam ecosystem three and a half years ago, I guess now. And as the first five service providers that were teamed up with Veeam. And we're also both standing here with gigantic platinum sponsorships at their show because it's become that important to us and our business. And you guys, you sell to your customers that do and everything. They got one of everything on their floor. I'm sure diverse. You've seen a bunch of folks on stage this week. We saw Microsoft today, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. We saw Cisco yesterday. What kind of relationships do you have with the big whales? So we aligned really well with Cisco. In fact, that's what we power our networks with and we use their Cisco UCS series for everything we power in our data centers too. So it's great to see them here and interact with the team and they're a great partner for us. And HPE Nimble Storage is our other clear cut top partner, right? And with this ecosystem, there's a great marriage there both on the integration side, but from powering these Veeam powered cloud services like Offside Backup and Zask Recovery requires a lot of storage, right? To take that data in and hold it and replicate it and do things with it. And so our partnership with HPE Nimble's large. In some of the expansion that we're seeing of Veeam talked about the kind of new 10 years where they're going. Some of that is as a service. So how do they talk about that dynamic of potentially being competitor now to the 18,000 great partners that they've had? You know, I think a lot of it's caught up in a bit of semantic problems, right? In semantic issues. Veeam is doing a lot of things that are going to enable services and as a service. I don't see them building solutions that would compete, right? They have a great example of what it looks like to do that with Veeam Cloud Air being set to VMware centric partnership. That was a headwind that they were unable to overcome even at the size of VMware, right? Going out and building and being a service provider and building an infrastructure service, trying to take their software company and become a service provider. It doesn't work. Same for us. Well, I'm not going to go start building backup software. So if you think about the meta, the mega phases of cloud, and it's, do we've been doing this for a long time? And I think back to the early Veeam worlds that we did. We had so much discussion around cloud. And back in the early days, it was kind of, you know, after Amazon announced, you know, AWS and cloud sort of got coined. It was an experiment. It was for startups and that was, you know, pretty clear. And then in sort of 2008, when the economy tanked, a lot of CFOs said, all right, shift CapEx to OpEx. And that was sort of the next phase. And then coming out of the downturn, a lot of lines of business said, hey, we got cash. We need speed. Let's go and start to invest. And then after that, IT sort of embraced it and now seems to be whatever term you want to use, cloud broker or just they've sort of captured the religion and they're not hanging on to LUN provisioning anymore as a practice.  Was it different ways? Maybe William, we could start with you. So our first product line was a 250,000 square foot facility in Phoenix, Arizona, right? Building a Colo, the network access point. That's the heritage of the Phoenix Snap, right? The name.  Everyone had already decided they didn't want to build data centers. Like right in 2010, everyone's like, you know what, $10 million to get my data room up, no thanks, right? But they were committed to buying hardware and we took advantage of that and grew that business. And we started to address the OPEC side, you know, in 2012 kind of moving forward. And at least we believe we're prime positioned because at the end of the day, it's going to be both. All OPEC's is not the answer, right? I truly believe that. And that's part of that hybrid story as well. And Matt, what about you guys? I mean, you're again, being specialists in all kinds of things, DR, recovery, et cetera, did you take a different journey? Yeah, Dave, we did. And I heard the term even this week, born in the cloud. If it makes sense, we're a cloud company that had that vision from the beginning. So we didn't build the facility, but that's certainly what we do is leverage space power bandwidth that we partner with, with switch and supernap facilities for our data centers. And we believe that customers are and will continue to move into the OPEC model, into the cloud. So both production workloads and DRAS backup as well. It's interesting to see that mixed, especially as things from EMA are announced that that really becomes one. So the workloads of DRAS are soon within 15 minutes or 15 seconds can become a production workload. So if customers aren't necessarily moving their infrastructure to the cloud, it's going to happen one way or the other, whether it's the model of they don't want to purchase hardware any longer or they've had some sort of failure or disaster, they're going to move that way. Right, yeah. I want to let you speak a little bit more about your customers. There was a great line I thought from Mark Rosevich, which said that the C-suite doesn't come asking for infrastructure as a service. They want to figure out how to take their business to the next level. Where are your customers in that kind of cloud strategy and how are you helping them along that journey? Yeah, we have a discussion with them. We try to understand what their business objectives are and what they're trying to achieve by either pushing to the cloud or understanding what the cloud is. And there's a spectrum there from, as I mentioned before, backup, disaster recovery as a service, infrastructure as a service. And not all things line up to one single service or way you can put it in the cloud. So we try to understand what their business objectives are and say it's going to make the most sense to put some of the workload in the cloud, but some applications stay on site and you have a DRAS replication to get them off site. So really engaging and understanding what their businesses are and getting out of the hood of what they're trying to achieve. Yeah, I think that at the end of the day we are focused on a hybrid future, right? We truly believe that customers will search for the cloud experience, the business optimization for a period of time where they're saying, you know what, I don't care, I want this outcome, go get me the outcome. At some point it will come back. They will be like, okay, we have the outcome. How can we optimize this outcome? Are we spending the right amount of money to achieve this outcome? And the moment they do that, they will find that OPEX purely and blatantly, if you just say I'm all in, I'm always on, I'm only OPEX, you will spend more money on that over time. If you pick and choose the things that you are incapable of doing or would cost you more to do through CAPEX and staffing, then you can basically position both of those things to maximize value. Horses for courses, gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thanks very much. Of course, thank you guys so much. Appreciate it, absolutely. All right, keep it right there, everybody, Stu and I will be back with our next guest we're live from Veeam On 2017, this is theCUBE.