Our next presenter was a front-runner for the Dutch Pirate Party, and she is now a privacy advisor for startpage.com. The talk is about the lessons of the past five years when she was fighting for digital rights as bits of freedom, which is the Dutch equivalent of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Please welcome Ansila van de Leest. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining my talk tonight. This shot is a very special occasion for me because it's kind of a five-year anniversary for me of my privacy activism. I started in 2012 when I joined this community and tried to fight for our common ground. I'd like to share with you my lessons of the past five years. They haven't always been pleasant, but I do try to keep it positive and share with you some knowledge that maybe you can use in your own life. I started in 2003 with my own internet company because I was quite a technology optimist. I saw all the possibilities that technological advancement and the internet had to offer, and being a young person and seeing all these opportunities, I didn't think twice and just jumped on it. It was a beautiful time, and it was really a time when the internet was still kind of new. It wasn't all around us. Internet was kind of somewhere, like you had to go there. You had to log into a computer and find your way around. There was no Google, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, so it was very decentralized, so you had all these nice little niche hubs that you could join, and the niches would never meet. It wasn't so simple as you would just type in a name in the computer and get all the information out of it. It was much more mysterious. You much more had to work to find your way around it, and that was something I really enjoyed. Then one day, after 10 years of working as a model through my own website, I got a really bad throat infection, really bad ammonia, and being self-employed, it was quite an inconvenience because it actually put me in bed for a couple of weeks on end where I couldn't talk, and having to make phone calls and stuff just wasn't an option. I literally had to just lay down and wait for it to be over. Naturally, I was very bored, and I started reading on a topic that had my interest for quite a while, which was privacy, and development in privacy, and namely digital rights. So I started reading and reading and reading, and after like two weeks of this reading, I kind of thought we're in this most incredible time when we have so much freedom, so much liberty, we have access to so much information. As a worldwide, we've never been in this situation before, where you don't have to be rich or privileged to have access to this much information, like literally anything you want to know is on the tips of your fingers. And I started to realize that, and it also became kind of apparent, that the powers that be are not always too happy with that development. And you could kind of see the cracking down of a free internet and the conversation starting of how good is all this freedom that we have. Namely the case of Chelsea Manning, I think we can all remember clearly, where she leaked her video through WikiLeaks, collateral murder, and she was deemed the criminal, because she had made information public that should belong to us, considering it's our tax money that pays for essentially war crimes. So I started realizing, like, what a unique time we were in, we are in, and that if we didn't fight for the right to keep access to this information and to have the freedom of reading whatever you want to read without being constantly monitored, this was the time to fight for it. And after that, my ammonia disappeared, but I couldn't really go back to just running my fun little company that it was truly enjoying and making good money with, but I really felt like, okay, I grew up with the liberty of the internet, and I'd really like the next generations to have that as well. So there was no turning back.  And it's been quite an uphill battle. We've had some gains and a couple of disappointments, of course, and I've tried a couple of different avenues of fighting for a similar goal, freedom of information and digital privacy. So I started in 2012 after I recovered from my ammonia. I joined the digital rights organization, Bits of Freedom. I'd been supporting the work for a while, and they'd asked me to host a T-shirt contest before, and I saw that they were really struggling to get in enough donations to continue their work, and they literally said that out loud, like, if we don't get enough donations, we can't continue our work. So I shot a message and I said, is there anything I can do to help? And I said, sure, you can retweet and stuff. I said, well, I've already done that. I've already donated. Is there anything more I can do? I feel like you're lacking a bit of communication with the people who should be supporting you. So can I help? And to my surprise, I said, all right, join us. So I did. In my mind, this was like a learning experience, and I was just trying to help out a cause that I felt strongly about. I signed for six months, and it was very clear from the start that I would go on and go back to my regular business after six months. However, does anybody know what significant thing happened in 2013? Snowden. Two weeks after I quit Bits of Freedom, I was in New Zealand and I got all these phone calls and messages online of people saying, there's this guy, he's in the news. You would really like him. You really like his message. I'd been talking about government surveillance for quite a while, and people would think that it was overblown and a bit of a conspiracy thing, but now Snowden came out and, lo and behold, there it was. So all of a sudden, I got a lot of messages from people saying, oh darn, you might have been right about that government surveillance thing. This is kind of worrying. So I was planning on going back to my regular job, but from this moment on, once again, no going back. The lessons that I learned from Bits of Freedom that I want to share with you is powers in the numbers because I really noticed that for every lobbyist Bits of Freedom sends to Brussels and talk to politicians, you're literally up against an army of Google lawyers who get paid royally and are not ashamed to throw a lot of money into nice dinners and favors to politicians. And that is really like a very unfair battle because it's basically one lawyer for all of us against an army of lawyers for a corporate that doesn't even reside in Europe. Another challenge that we had was accessible language. When you're working with an NGO that has mostly lawyers, that language tends to be pretty high-brow, so it becomes really difficult to communicate with people who are less educated or simply not as smart and talk to them in a way that you can educate without talking down to them. This was really pretty difficult and I think it's something that we still haven't really resolved as a community. Another thing I ran into was ignorance of politicians. I hosted a workshop in Parliament on how the internet works. Literally, this was the name of the workshop, how the internet works, just the basics, because you got to start somewhere and it was just absolutely shocking how little politicians knew. Not only that, they're actually quite scared of the topic because they know they know nothing about it. So they're scared to join and instead of telling people getting told how things work. And I was quite shocked how little they knew and the level of knowledge within Parliament which later motivated me, of course, to do something about that, which I'll get to later. And funding, as I already mentioned, you're really dependent as an NGO of favors of people and getting in donations or do you spend money on communicating that you need donations or do you spend money on doing work and it's like a pretty fine balance. Then there's the issue of taking money from clubs like Open Society Foundation where you kind of have to wonder at a certain point in time when one institution funds all of the civil rights organizations, are you not posing a risk just by being dependent on one foundation? This is something that, in my opinion, is not talked about enough. Accomplices that we had were absolutely raising awareness. It's small steps and it's really difficult but every step in the right direction is a step in the right direction. Starting the conversation, like simply having a spokesperson be on TV when something happens and explaining what the deal is and explaining why civil rights and digital rights are important and also legal reference point. If you want to know what the ins and outs are of a certain case or like a new law that's being passed, it's really nice to have a platform that you can refer to that you know has really checked out their stuff really well. So, closing the chapter of bits of freedom and all the challenges that it posed, I wanted to continue my fight but in a different way. I felt like it needed definitely a little bit more asking, a little bit more activism. I was lucky enough to be asked for a couple of different political parties and after going through the their documents I settled for an unlikely choice namely the pirate party. I think this kind of stemmed from my experiences with bits of freedom where we always had to be very polite and nice and not very activist because you are talking to politicians and you do have to wear suits, etc. etc. And I felt like no, I feel very strongly about this and sometimes you want to take some risks as well. So and I also felt it really needed like a new political party because the establishment was not going to take this topic seriously. I could kind of already tell when talking to older politicians. So I joined local politics and our slogan kind of was politics needs nerds and this was actually quite a fun time because we were quite a small team and we were quite a small team and there was quite a lot of trust because we knew each other well and it was easy to visit each other and like go for meetings so at the time it was a lot of work, a lot of hard work but in hindsight it was actually quite a breeze compared to national politics. So the lessons from that is small team corporation will bring you much further quicker so when you're on a deadline it's really easier to have a small team of people that you can really trust and maybe you don't like every single one of them but at least you know their weaknesses and their strengths and you can delegate a little bit. On a local level in politics turns out voters are really up for an experiment they're not as afraid to lose to put everything on the line so even though the pirate party has less policy proposals on a local level you find that voters are more open to trying something new and trying a different thing so it was really easy to go and talk to them and convince them that maybe the pirate party was a really good choice and we also found that media was quite sympathetic with us they kind of thought we were kind of fun and gimmicky and new and they were reporting around the clock on politics so we were kind of a fun story to take along and especially the media that was trying to be hip and edgy gave us a lot of attention which was great so the accomplishments that we had was actually our first pirate got elected on the local level of Amsterdam West for the city council of Amsterdam we were actually short of 182 votes which is like nothing that's like one day of firing one radio interview one house party something like one extra volunteer maybe that was it so it was on one hand we were really happy that we really did accomplish the first elected pirate in Holland on the other hand short of 182 votes that really hurts I can tell you another accomplishment that we really did have was it was really easy to form bonds with other organization and groups that were fighting for similar causes so say the commons community that is fighting for commons ethics we have a good cooperation with them because it was really easy to get to know them embodying with voters simply going door by door being in certain places and firing and people seeing your face really helped to create trust so politics local level was a nice appetizer we accomplished a few things we had fun it was great and after that I actually left to Berlin for a little while because the info security community in the Netherlands is very small to say the least and I noticed that even some of my Dutch friends were moving to Berlin because they're simply more of a community feeling there and because it's a cheap city as opposed to the big cities in Holland there's more room for experimentation and there's less pressure to make a lot of money so hence more room to be experimental and fight for important causes that might not make you money so Berlin I would come back to that in a little while because there were some important lessons in there that I'd like to share with you that are quite connected to the community that we're sitting here with today so 2016 I wasn't actually planning on being a frontrunner it kind of just happened that way I was asked to join the debates and I did and I thought it'd be valuable for our party to at least have debates between different options of being a frontrunner to my surprise my personal favorite as a frontrunner stepped down and actually basically asked the Pirates to vote for me I really wish he'd consulted with me before he did that so so so there I was I was now a frontrunner for the Pirate Party after being elected by our members beforehand I wasn't sure if we were going to make it but I kind of figured it's absolutely worth the fight we have to at least try and worst case scenario we've learned a lot which I can't lie, that's true so this was our campaign poster we had some other ones as well with the eye patches which caused a huge debate was this one too serious were the other ones too silly were we being too subversive or trying to fit in too much it was really hard to please everyone of course you never succeed so the lessons from that there were a couple of ones there were a lot but there's a couple of ones that I want to share with you today beforehand I'd explicitly said that we should really make a choice whether we even wanted to talk to mainstream media or just go full on with an online campaign unfortunately we did opt to kind of try to do both with a very limited amount of people a small team and we quickly learned that the mainstream media was kind of proactively ignoring us and even after the election there were actually like a couple of articles in newspapers that said hey, during the election campaigns we talked about all the political topics except for any digital developments digital society and technology they even admitted themselves sometimes there was a call that said there were not enough women in politics and then they would name the women but they would just name the second woman on the list of an establishment party so that was kind of weird because there were two three new political parties all three of which had a woman as a front runner and those were ignored so that was really kind of interesting development that was going on there in the end I really wished we would have gone to social media and I think there was a small window of opportunity for that because you can already tell that there is no going around facebook you can't go without facebook you can't go without twitter you have to be out there even on the platforms that you are actually fighting against because otherwise you're simply invisible however facebook is making it harder and harder to be visible to your audience even if they liked your page they're still trying to get you to pay to even be noticed so I think we're going from platforms that were pretty clear cut you have a profile, people like your page and they get updated with whatever you have to say to basically facebook through algorithms deciding what they allow their users to see and whatnot and in some cases actively pushing you to pay to even get your message out there so I don't know what that's going to be like in the next election cycle in four years because I really wonder if even online there won't be that much room for new parties that simply don't have so much money to throw to platforms you can imagine in the case of being the pirate party even paying facebook for a sponsored advertisement is of course a huge debate it's like a huge moral debate within our party excuse me thank you we eventually opted oh yeah we eventually opted for a couple of ads that we thought were really important but I can tell you it felt really really wrong to give money to facebook to fight them another challenge that we ran into with the pirate party was organization because you know pirates are nerds and hackery types and some of them can be quite anarchist and that's one of our strengths as well that we have a lot of stubborn fighting people who like to think for themselves that really is one of our strengths at the same time it becomes a challenge to get everyone together especially when it's a larger group of people let's say 2000 pirate members to all head in the same direction and also at a pace and with some timing that is complementary towards each other eventually we found a way to do that it's called a whole arctic system of organization which I think it really holds a lot of potential for organizing activist groups in the future however when we discovered that the system was even out there and a possibility it was a bit too late to truly implement it within our party so this is why it happened that a lot of our pirates were very kind of stale and not participating through the election campaign and then the last two weeks individual pirates had organized so many things basically that we didn't get attention for any of them because there was simply too much going on because I guess last minute everybody woke up and thought oh shit elections is going to be in like next month I better organize something so it was also going to leave people free to come up with their own initiatives at the same time you have to keep them accountable sometimes there are certain events that are being organized that don't fit necessarily with the other pirates and it causes a huge internal conflict because some pirates are simply more left-wing and others are more right-wing or more libertarian so that brings me to the polarization and the nuance of the message that you're trying to bring across when there's a lot of pressure on and so many people trying to communicate a message it's really hard to do that without being polarizing while keeping the nuance so for example in the last month there were a couple of pirates in the women's rights march which was also a little bit of an anti-Trump march that was hugely unpopular with the other half of the pirates who didn't feel at all who couldn't identify at all with the women's rights movement so that was one thing another thing was we've often been accused of being a one-issue party digital rights and that was sometimes held against us as a negative as a matter of fact I think that with a new political party it's really smart to be a one-issue party and you can come much further with that as has been shown by the Dutch political party, the animal party the name says it all they're a political party and have actually been hugely successful in ten years time and now they're big enough that they can elaborate on their basic principles and that is really something I'd like to see for maybe not the pirate party but a digital rights party that it is a one-issue party at the last minute in our program some things were added about durability, sustainability and the environment forming and again that was a topic that was not at all supported by a huge number of pirates and caused a lot of internal conflict in hindsight it was added to the program but we didn't actually have the knowledge the deep-seated knowledge that we do have on digital rights issues like when we go into the realm of debate with other politicians we have no insecurity that we know exactly what we're talking about and they know very little that is not the case with environmental issues there's a couple of parties that are very well read on environmental issues and they're just much better at winning that debate so why would you even go into that contest another thing that happened which is a bit gruesome but I do want to share it with you because I think it touches upon a lot that's going on in our community when I was running for about two months as a front-runner something happened with the Berlin pirates where one of the elected pirates in Berlin killed himself and a colleague of his in a pretty gruesome way and obviously it was quite a shock to us not in the least because I just lived in Berlin for a while and I didn't know this person personally but I did know a lot of people that worked with him closely and I'd also been asked to join the Berlin pirates and I'm really happy I didn't say yes to that so this was quite a shock to us because we had known within the air party that there were some people who were having psychological issues and you kind of tend to hope that it just goes away and having a brutal murder of one of your teammates not only involving himself a suicide but on somebody else a completely innocent person was at least for me a pretty brutal wake-up call and I pushed pretty hard within the pirate party to have a counselor or at least somebody that you could go and talk to if there was something going on or if you suspected that somebody was not doing well the worst thing about this Berlin thing was that people had known that this person was carrying some mental issues with him for a long time and they asked him to leave but never had anybody really put his foot down and said listen you have a bit too much issues and it's dragging the rest of us down and it's actually becoming kind of dangerous so I really hope that I know there's a lot of people in our community struggling with depression, being bipolar etc etc and I really hope that we can have this conversation in a more serious matter talk to each other about what happens when you see that somebody is struggling and how to help them and also when you feel like maybe they're posing a danger to somebody else how do you handle this do you kick somebody in this case out of a political party or are you just happy with the volunteers you can get no matter how challenging they are to collaborate with alright last week a Dutch girl from the pirate party after a long battle with addiction drowned in the canal in Amsterdam and she was a very devoted volunteer for a party so this is an issue that's not going away and I think we should really not wait with this conversation alright that was a bit heavy-hearted sorry but I did have to throw that in we did a contest a couple of things we forced other political parties in our political campaign that they had to talk about digital rights or at least take a stand and a couple of parties jumped on that and I actually got a promise from one of the politicians from the other parties in 1966 that he was going to be the pirate in parliament so I'm keeping an eye on him and hoping that he lives up to his promise the party of animals all of a sudden started saying that they were the political party that was best for privacy rights and they were fighting hard for privacy rights as soon as they got elected they actually installed a law that said that in slaughterhouses there had to be cameras on employees always everywhere alright I'm all for animal rights and like all against animal abuse I find that absolutely abhorrent but there must be better ways to do that and we definitely raised awareness on these topics just to show that there were alternatives other parties out there that you could vote for that had new and fresh ideas so what now after five years I started in 2012 after five years of fighting the battle for freedom of information and digital rights I have some ideas on how to go forward and I'll share with you what I'm going to do with my life and hopefully inspire you to see what you can do in your life if you do find these topics important and you don't necessarily want to go down the exact same road that I've been going down so the solution is going forward when I first started there was a lot of talk about we should organize crypto parties and we should educate people I've really come to find that that is a battle that it cannot be won because simply programmers and consumers they do not speak the same language and there's not enough money going around in all these projects to add like good design or educating or like help desks etc etc so sure you can download PGP or like Thunderbird and implement encryption but then when you run into a problem and you're not a techie as a matter of fact maybe you don't even like technology it's just something that you just have to do to find your job, your kids and getting a mortgage and you don't know who to call or who to ask because none of your friends are using any of that either it becomes a real pain because you can't just go to your you don't always have the time to go to your local hacker space and say hey guys I have this little problem so I really find that easy to use tools that protect privacy for consumers with basically the click of a button that is up to us to develop we cannot ask users to simply put hours and hours of time into learning something that is probably not up their street and they may never truly understand information accessibility I really run into this with bits of freedom where people would call us just simply for information and for the longest time on Twitter like I felt like a live help desk like I would get so many questions I could literally I should have put up a Patreon account and just ask money for it but I didn't but I you can really tell like once people start to think about the topic of privacy and they want to do something about it they have so many questions so that is the thing taking care of each other making sure that we are doing well and also making sure that we have good guidelines on how to handle things that come on our path I'm going to say something that might be unpopular but I'm going to do it anyway I'm pretty not so pleased with the way Shah has handled the Jacob Applebaum story I find it a little bit too easy to spread rumors without any actual factual evidence and ban somebody completely from a community I find that when these accusations take place of sexual misconduct it's a very serious conversation that needs to take place but it shouldn't be one-sided you shouldn't be able to point a finger at somebody and say I don't like the way this person is behaving and then have them completely excluded from a community that they have contributed a lot to I don't think this is the right way to move forward because tomorrow it can be any one of us so I'd really like to ask the Shah commission to re-examine and re-evaluate their decisions in that part of community building trust so right now I'm a privacy advisor for StartPage.com which as I said I think is one of the solutions having super easy tools for consumers and I was totally surprised that StartPage has been around for 10 years and it's a really great alternative for just typing a search in Google it doesn't give you Google search results but it doesn't send all of your data to Google it's really as simple as just going to the web page just like you would do with Google and I'm so surprised that many people don't even know this exists so I'm going to work hard to change that for the next few years and I think there's definitely something like gateway tools like signal StartPage like very easy to use tools that make people feel like oh there are things I can do relatively easy to protect my digital information and it doesn't cost me any extra time or anything also I feel like the more products are out there they're easy to use and protect privacy that are privacy by design the bigger the chances that other companies will start doing the same and there will be some healthy competition on this topic building stronger communities I'm an advisor for I'm almost done I'm a privacy advisor for the Beehive Tech Campus in Arnhem which is on the other side of the Netherlands and this is a former panopticon prison which we are in the running for as basically a huge hacker community we really there's all these things in the circle here are those windows are all prison cells and they can be remodeled to be actually you're laughing at the irony of this aren't you yeah being in a panopticon prison and fighting for freedom that's basically our goal so all these former prison cells can be remodeled to have rooms to rent and in this way you can actually invite people from all over the world to collaborate for a couple of months on say privacy projects and have it be fairly low cost and build up a strong sense of community that doesn't only have the technical know-how but also carries over the ethics behind all of it if you'd like to know more about look up behive 42 and I'm working on my own information platform called OPEQ for OPEC because I feel like there's really necessity for having a central place where there's a lot of information around privacy and also offers a couple of solutions is just really get the conversation going and for people who have questions it's an easy place for them to go to I've been tweeting about this topic for many years but now of course all that information I mean it's out there but it's not archived so I'm hoping to work on a little bit more of an archive for the next five years offering fun solutions so there's actually some clothes and stuff that are for sale now I think I saw somebody here I think there you go with like a I don't know if that's like an RFID jacket I've seen them around where you can basically put your phone or your cards in your jacket and it offers an RFID protective layer so not to have your data stolen there's also like paparazzi scarves where you put on a scarf and it's decorated in a way that if there's a flash on it you can't see your face so people like creative people artists and designers are coming up with like some pretty innovative ways to fight things like facial recognition cameras so I really think that we should show that sometimes it can be fun to think about practical things that might appear boring at first sight and I'm really hoping to educate people about the fact that privacy is a lifestyle privacy is not like a button that you can click on and off it's like a thousand small decisions that you make every day when you go to the store and they ask you can I take your postal code do you say yes or do you say no when you take your children to school and they say oh we took a lot of fun pictures today and we put them on Facebook what do you say when you go to the doctor and they say are you okay with putting information in the electronic patient file are you going to say no or what do you do when you get a whole list of questions that are all very nuanced maybe it's like many questions a day that you need to have an answer to or at least should have thought about before so my talk started with be smart, safe and happy and I really like that we go into a future where we we keep human rights values within a technological realm and we don't see the separation between technology technology and and human rights I also think that we're going increasingly into a world where everything is connected on the internet with the internet of things your files being stored digitally where the divide between real life and online is no longer there and I really hope that we find better ways to deal with using fun platforms and sharing economy without being a victim to the surveillance capitalism platforms I really think we need some strong European alternatives and I'm really happy with the new GDPR regulations in Europe that are taking place now and I hope it will bring some really strong financial incentives to come up with better solutions be smart being humble is usually the smart way to go because very often when we as a community try to educate people who are not as technically savvy they feel they already feel stupid for having to ask and for realizing that they don't know and they don't know that much about this topic so being really humble is absolutely key with this topic and you know trying to offer to help where you can and another tough lesson for me the past five years has been that I now really truly believe in focusing on the positive because everything you focus on grows bigger the more negativity you bring in your life the bigger it gets and I think it was Mother Teresa who once said that she was invited to anti-war protest and she declined and she said you know what if you name your protest a pro-peace protest I will join pro-peace march and I've slowly come to realize that there's some real truth in that like if you tell people Facebook is bad where are the alternatives what else are they going to do if they want to keep in touch with family overseas so I hope we can really focus our energy on positive alternatives until they get so big that we just don't need all that stupid survey shit anymore and be happy because hey you only live once or maybe not we'll find out eventually but you're here and it's important to have fun otherwise we're not going to last and be okay with yourself that you're doing what you can and trying to make the right choices and helping where you can and you're not going to save everybody or maybe not going to accomplish all the goals that you have in mind but it's really really hard to be able to look at yourself in a mirror it's really important to look at yourself in a mirror and be able to say I really did my best to fight for something that I believe in so thank you very much yeah well you can ask me questions now or find me on Twitter if you're shy but I don't bite any questions from the audience or suggestions for Antela? I think they're all tweeting now we're like hi it's Erika from New York so having worked in the not quite mainstream media for the past 10 years I can't imagine what a horror show it must have been having to deal with them for something that your career depended on so I wanted to ask you what can legitimate journalists do who are less and less in the mainstream media but still here what can we do to help with digital rights activism globally? yeah from my point of view fighting for a really important cause being in the prior party and being completely ignored by the mainstream media it makes you pissed really I kind of had a hunch before I started the whole project worse than I it was so blatant so rude I mean it was just insane I had to work next to those people for years on the other hand I don't want to bitch too much about it because I do realize that a lot of genuine well meaning journalists are really trying hard and are on insane deadlines smaller and smaller pay free lands, no job security etc etc so I realize that journalists are also really having a hard time I think we have an opportunity right now where if you are genuinely doing a great job your work will be seen there are some platforms some technological platforms in development which I think you know all about so I think technology is part of the solution and right now we live in very interesting times where you can't actually set up your own donation platform and literally ask people to donate for your article if they find it valuable and that is of course an opportunity that journalism has never had before and I think in the end it will probably kill large titles and I hope more power to small journalists who are really sticking their neck out to bring a good story ask for money anyone else we have a winner hi I'm Kace you touched upon a problem I would summarize as herding cats I think it's a big thing in hacker community also in open source lots of competing projects trying to do the same thing I think with Pirate Pata you have a unique challenge there and you told a little bit about it but maybe you can tell a bit more do you have any tips on how to do that yeah so I did briefly touch upon it unfortunately I can't really elaborate right now but there's a very interesting system called Holark Holarchy Holacracy Holacracy and I actually went to a course to learn how to set this up and I think the basis of Holark Holarchy is that you make people accountable not for the person it's really really important to see the person separate from the function that they're doing so that when you when they're doing something wrong or something goes right you can talk to them in their function instead of talking to them as like your hankie and I don't like you personally that's not the case is your hankie and you are on press on the press phone and you're really doing a shitty job of course you should pose it more politically correct than I'm doing right now which might explain why I didn't make it as a politician but it's really that's really I think the key and also you know as a community you need to be strong and you need to really just have the balls to tell somebody but you're just not doing a good job and usually the worst part is usually these people who are occupying a space that they're really bad at are really good at other things so they're not only are they occupying a space doing something they suck at they're not doing the thing they're great at so it's a complete waste of their talent and their resource cool yeah I'm implementing all that courtesy of my company I think it's great for organizing existing groups yeah exactly well hopefully you can do some talks on that and like because I think we really as a community within a prior party but also just activist groups we really need it thanks I think it would be great to have a talk about that anyone else in the audience have a question or suggestion for Anzilla can I have a warm welcome applause then please


Early in the off-season talked about going good to great. At this point, how close does this team to great? And does it take two more wins to get there? Well, I think that we have certainly improved. I think we've made progress. Something that we focused on a while back is just trying to continue to improve each and every week. So how close we are, I don't know that. I know that we're going to do what we've done for a long time. And what we know is to prepare, to try to go in and play with confidence, and execute, try to build momentum throughout the week, and see if it can translate to the game, and then be ready to make adjustments as the game goes on. B to get a team to, I don't know. I know, you're on fire today. Backing up, nobody wants to ask any questions. Apparently, B to get a team to keep improving. It is a long season, and that can be tough for some teams to do. What we've talked about it, you kind of recognize it in the middle of the season when the injury report gets a little longer. Guys play a lot of snaps, and we talk to them about ways of improving physically or mentally. And we feel like the details of the meetings and the walkthroughs, some of those little things that don't take a lot of physical exertion is something that we thought we could do to improve, because either you go out and training camp and have a bunch of reps, or practice against another team, or have a lot longer individual, or one-on-one periods, those are obviously the easy ways to improve. It's, and then when you get into November, in the back part of the season, how do you continue to improve when you don't have the ability to run 50 or 60 plays? Just be. I'm sorry. Are you done? Sorry. Go ahead. Coach, do you feel you've improved and grown as a coach? Well, I mean, I try to do that. I mean, I tell the team, like the coaches, we're going to need our best efforts every week to game plan, to give them a plan that they understand, that they're confident in, and that they have trust in. We have to improve each and every game and how we go out there, and what's new. You always write down questions, at least I do, and I know that the staff does, is what's the game plan run? What's the game plan pressure? What's the punt rush of the week? What are the, and so that now our players, we have to be able to say, hey, here's what it is. They're copycatting something that somebody did a few weeks ago, or this is the pressure. This is the front that we're going to see that's new, so that our players, after the first series, can understand, hey, this is the game plan that they've worked on all week, and you're going to see similar plays off of formations that we haven't seen from this team in a while. So as far as my improvement, I just try to come in every day and do things to help the team win and be prepared. What have you seen from the Chiefs? You face the Chiefs, obviously, over the season. What have you seen them make improvements, and what are the challenges? They're very good defensively. They're playing very hard. I think the scheme is what it is, but the players are playing hard. They believe in each other. They've been noticed, and as you watch, their effort to the football and the way that they chase and the way that they tackle, those are great compliments to Spaggs and his staff. And obviously, Andy, as the head coach, they're explosive on offense. They're athletic. They're fast. It'll be a huge challenge. What is this offense deck for an offense? We don't do comparisons or predictions. So I'll answer whatever you want, but I'm not going to compare anything. Sure. Maybe just in terms of how explosive, touched on it a little bit, how explosive this Chiefs off. It is, and it can score from any part of the field. They have roles, and they have guys that they like to do certain things. I think the thing that I appreciate the most about watching Andy and their offensive players is that I know what the diagram in the book looks like, and a lot of those routes and plays don't really look like those diagrams. Travis, for example, he's put the personal touch on a lot of routes. I would say every route that he runs, there's going to be something to it that probably looks a little different than most tight ends. Tyree Kill, obviously, the speed and the explosiveness, they have plays that they like for Sammy. And Patrick does an amazing job of getting everybody involved and using the weapons and his ability to get out of the pocket and extend plays. That was a big factor in the game the other day, his ability to gain yards and chunk yardage outside the pocket. It's these teams that have high-ranked defenses. Arthur has drawn up good game plans. What are you most impressed by? Are you impressed by his ability to just, in the games, preparation during the week, the communication with the players when you dissect what Arthur has done well? What would you say the biggest strength is? Well, I think it's been very inclusive. I think that the entire staff has done a great job of getting the information to him and helping all of us sit down and come up with a plan. And there's run game meetings. There's play action pass meetings. There's third-down meetings and red-zone meetings. I think the ability to have a great relationship with the quarterback is something that's important. I think the ability to recognize when to go fast and when to go on the ball. I think that's something that has helped us here at the later part of the season. When conditioning may be a factor. And when we talk about all those things, the physical reps that you can practice with and how much do you run the players? Because here's the GPS and they've run this many miles or they've gone this many yards. So I think the ability for us to recognize when's a good time for us to get on the ball and not huddle, and then being able to, obviously you have to be able to see how the flow of the game is going. We had one on third-down. The operation in which we get the call in, I think is something that's critical. And when we haven't had many of those, I think that it's decisive with the call that he wants. These last two weeks you haven't needed a ton from your passing day because you've hit plays like the Leaf Touchdown and Firks are in the New England game. How much of that has matchup driven the last two weeks or is that just kind of something you've had to adjust as the games are going on? Each and every week is different. So I think that the ability to hit big plays, the ability to score in the red zone, the ability to run the football, to not turn the ball over, those are all critical things. And so we'll have to go in with a balanced plan and then see how the game's being played and how it's going and do everything that we have to do to try to win it based on our plan and how it looks. And if it's working, then we'll have to, obviously stick with what it is. And then if it's not, we'll have to make adjustments. The offensive line as a whole is obviously playing well, but that left side seems to really be coming together. How have you seen that whole process of Sappfold and LaWon just come together and play the way that they're playing? Well, we can't put any more money over there. I know that, so I think the time that Taylor missed, it was probably naive of me to think that that could just happen in two days of practice, but I think that there's a comfort level. And with those guys over there, we've talked that the teamwork required to work in combination with a guy next to you, whether that's in the pass game and they're running a stunt or they're running a game or they're a pressure or the combination in a run game, whether you're on the back side or the front side to work through a player to another, those are things that we are gonna need to have. And I think Nate's development and Jack's really steady play and then Ben, kind of the glue that holds everybody together. Did you see the push? I know you talked about the Patriots game, you saw the line of scrimmage move. Did you see that again, watching the film, especially the run game on Saturday night? Yeah, I think there were times, certainly, where that happened early in the, I think it was our second drive. I think we ran a zone play and probably gained eight or nine or 10 yards and Derrick's falling forward for the last two or three yards and I think that's the push that when you see that early in the game, when both teams are, I guess, as close to fresh as you can be, those are positive signs. Some of it's by necessity, but some of your younger guys in the defensive back end and the secondary have had to play more because of injuries down the stretch. How much more prepared do you feel they are to face Mahomes this time than maybe they were thrown in back in November? Well, I hope that everybody's more prepared. I hope that everybody's gotten a little bit better at some technique or some coverage that we're running. And then it's not always, I mean, necessity. Like everybody will have so many guys on a roster and the guys that are active have to have a role in the game and to be able to get Amani and Dane in there and whether it's Ty Smith or LaShawn or a Dory coming back, I mean, we need everybody and it was good to see some of those guys show up and make plays. How do you develop that culture because in this run, you've gotten contributions from all 53 to create the culture where those guys have the expectation to contribute and help you win games? I mean, I think that that's where, I mean, everybody's striving to be a starter, everybody's striving to be the best player at their position. And also, I think we've gotten contributions from guys that have been on the practice squad from August and early September to say, you're not here just to look at a card and run a play, you're here to work out four or five times a week with Frank and his staff and to get yourself as mentally and physically ready to play all the way up until Saturday, whenever John and I could bring you up to the roster and we've had guys that have improved and when we've seen that improvement and we felt like they could help us, we've done everything we could to get them onto that game day roster and guys have really taken advantage of their opportunity. With Guy O with Correa in particular on improvement, how much have you seen him grow? He talked after the game about kind of moving out of trying to make too many plays and just focusing on doing, is that a big thing with him here as he progressed? Well, it's a big thing for everybody. You know, I think that we all want to make plays, we all wanted to do things that help the team, but sometimes we stray from that and when we try to do too much, I think as players it's a coordinated system in all three phases with 11 guys needing to be in 11 spots doing their job. And so the one thing I'll tell you about Kamala is I absolutely love his effort and his intensity in which he plays. So guys that play hard are always gonna have a lot longer leash when it relates to me and how I perceive them. And I know that he plays extremely hard, he cares about the team and so that's why he's out there playing for us and then we'll keep coaching him up and see if he can help us again this week. How did they along do and I guess with Jay-Anne, does it just kind of wait and see how the week goes? Two questions. David, you know, I think when I said after the game it didn't feel like it was too big for him. It didn't look that way.  He played, I think, aggressive. I think he played physical. I think he triggered.   Again, there's things that we'll need to coach him on and then moving on to Jay-Anne. We don't practice here for a few days. We'll meet today, but we'll see how he progresses. Jarrell Casey's been here a long time and he's been through some really bad times and now some pretty good times. Now, how satisfying is it for you to see a veteran who's met so much in this organization play well and get to this point? I can't say enough about his leadership and he was voted as a captain by the team. He has done everything that I've asked him to or Dean and his coaching staff. I mean, when you're somewhere for a long time and you're used to it a certain way and new faces come in, I'm sure that could always be a bit of a challenge. Jarrell's never done anything but put the team first and anything that we've asked him to do. And so when people like that have success, you're excited for him. When you flip on the tape, AJ's gone up against, throw the stats away, but just the tape, AJ's gone up against two of the best corners in the league the last couple of weeks. What have you seen from him and his ability to get off against those guys to get over it? I mean, AJ just keeps working every week. I love his attitude. We've handed him the football. We've thrown it to him on short routes. One of the huge plays at a game was a third down play where catches it in traffic, gets up field, doesn't try to run sideways, runs a guy over, gets a first down and we're able to score a touchdown on that drive instead of settling for a field goal. So it'll be a new challenge this week for him and they mix coverages and they'll play post-safety. They play Tampa and they'll blitz. So every week's a new challenge, I think, not only for AJ, but for the entire team. What's changed for you in the red zone? Two and seven, I think, in the red zone in the post-season. What's been different with your guys? You know, I think we've been close. It's not like we have, I mean, we've been pretty close and I know we went from wherever we were last year, which was probably high, one, I know where it was. And so I don't think it was like just awful. You know, maybe have a play here or play there or quarterback that gets out of the pocket or whatever it may be. So I think that we're trying to understand maybe what we're doing and the players are executing very well and that'll be a huge key to force them to kick field goals like we did last time. I think with any running back, when you look at the workload Derek's been getting the last few weeks, you look and say, that's a lot. Is there something unique about him that gives you confidence that he's going to be able to withstand this 30 carries week after week? Yeah, he comes to me and says, give me a ball. Like I could only take him for his word. And I mean, you know, when he looks over and says I need a break, he gets a break and then, you know, we go from there. But I mean, he's durable, he trains. I mean, he's one of the best conditioned players on our team. When you watch him in April and May and June and that's how he trains and that's how he's built. You guys are at the games. I mean, it's not very often.  He got caught after he ran 50 yards the other day and he was a little tired and we gave him a break, put him back in and, you know, it means a lot to him. You know, I mean, he's become a very good leader for this football team.  The last three games you've gotten opportunities to get Marcus on the field with the offense. How valuable is that in terms of creating a moment of confusion or uncertainty, maybe, for a defense? Well, we'd just like to try to have a role for everybody that's active in the game. And Marcus, you know, not only had a role in the game and will continue to have role in the game, you know, helped us prepare last week. You know, I know that, you know, he'll do the same thing this week and he's been very supportive of Ryan. And so we'll keep finding ways for him to help us during the games. Was there a moment of the season that you felt this thing turn around to where you are now or foresaw this evening as far as they are now? Just try to take every week, you know, as it comes and try to find a message to the team that I feel like is something that we can relate to that week and then try to find keys that'll help us win and keep them consistent throughout the week and try to continue to prepare the players. I don't know where, you know, what that moment is or what that point in time, it's a long season. It's a difficult season to try to get to this point. What if anything you say to this team about dealing with success given that so few guys have played this deep into a season? I wouldn't start changing the things that we've done up until this point. You know, that's going to be the message. How important is it for an offensive coordinator to kind of be willing to take the risks and to know when to take the risks and I guess how has our third maybe changed throughout the season in that regard? We always want to be aggressive.  There's some things that you have to take into account but I think you also have to have a level of aggressiveness in any business to succeed. You have to take some sort of risk if you want to win and you want to get to the top. Some of the guys said after the game the other night that this team is as close or closer than any team they've ever been on. Do you sense that compared to some other teams and how valuable is that, especially this time of year to play for the guy next year? We spend a lot of time together. It's hard for me to sense that. I feel that. I'm in a different, I guess, position than when maybe I was a part of teams. I feel that this is a close team. I feel they play hard for each other. I feel like they have the trust in one another to hold each other accountable, starting to see a lot of those conversations between players and in coaches. I ask them to hold me accountable and then any other coaches accountable because we put a lot into it and we're here together a lot. What's the example of then holding you accountable? As far as just scheduling or a call or something I'm coaching or something I'm teaching, I mean ask Logan, ask Ken, ask one of the three musketeers that sits up here. They'll give you examples. They're always on me. But those guys put a lot of work in it and those guys that play hard, that care are great teammates. I'm open for suggestions. You talked about the moment not being too big for guys. Well, this is the AFC Championship you played in a lot of these games.  How do you help your guys avoid that because it just gets bigger each step? I think you have to realize kind of where we've come from and how we've gotten to this point and realize that it's actually worked that our belief in this team and this belief in what we're doing, the confidence in which we're playing with, the preparation in the meetings and on the practice field, the execution during the games and the ability to build momentum throughout the week and try to ignore some of the noise that happens outside this building is what's gotten to this point not about what lies on the other side. I understand playoffs are always difficult when you're stretched and this amount on the road. We don't have to because I already knew what it was going to be when we left for Houston that as long as you keep winning there's not a seventh seed for us to host so we were going to be on the road and I guess that was a nice way to put it when we... because our playoffs started when we left for Houston just the way that the situation presented itself that if you go on the road and you win you're going to go on the road and play another team and if you win you're going to go on the road it was an easy path. They didn't have to worry about if we were going to be home or anything else. Is Humphreys likely to practice this week, do you think? As likely as anybody else when Wednesday comes. Last one. Seven touchdowns in a row for Kansas City yesterday. When you see something like that in a football game and the momentum turn like that what do you preach to your guys of how they can get on the road? You've been out there as a player and you've seen it there's plays that happen and there are only five or six of them that happen during the game that you're going to need and the message is just because you give up a play you're still playing. Just because they got the ball in the 30 yard line doesn't guarantee them a touchdown but there can't be any panic there can't be any flinch that's when you need your leaders and your coaches to get everybody to kind of take a deep breath and figure out that at that point in time you don't need any cheerleaders you need players and coaches that can get players a call and then players can go out there and execute and not have any panic.


Welcome to the Darren Marlar radio show. That's me, Darren Marlar. You can find me online at DarrenOnTheAir.com. That's D-A-R-R-E-N on TheAir.com. When you're there, you can actually click on the mobile app tab, and you can download my free mobile app, and that way once the show is over, if you want to get a podcast of the show, you can listen to it there. Coming up on today's show, Michigan Troopers, they did not have to go very far to make a drunk driving bust in our brain-on-drug story. Got question impossible coming up, how fast can you run? One man tried to run 100 miles per hour, and reached a moment of duh. Got the useless fact on the way, the most attractive catwoman of all time, in my personal opinion. She celebrates her birthday today, we'll tell you who that is. Imagine your lawnmower cutting grass using only a beam of light. Details coming up, and what types of friends, the types of friends you have, what does that say about your personality? I'll let you know here in just a bit in our weird holidays today. Warning, portions of the following program may try to sell or promote something. And believe me, those are the most important portions of the following program. Bad posture can make your neck creak and your shoulders ache. For recent research, it shows that your slouch might be making you a grouch too. In a recent study from San Francisco State University, slouchers reported increasing feelings of depression and lower energy, which is odd because typically I slouch because I'm depressed and tired. Taking a look at today's weird, wacky, strange, zany, odd, bizarre, quirky, unusual holidays. Today is Wednesday, August 16th, 2017. You now have 130 shopping days until Christmas, and today is Stay Home with Your Kids Day, today to support and encourage stay-at-home parents. If you're already at work, just call up to your boss and tell him, hey boss, Darren Marlar on the radio today, he said you're supposed to stay home today with your kids, so I'm going to go home. I'm sure your boss will completely understand.   Today is Remember What Your Spouse War The First Time You Met Day. If anything was designed to get husbands in trouble, it is this day, am I right guys? Personally, I do remember what my wife was wearing that very first day we met. She was wearing a red and white polka dot dress. At least, I think it was red and white. It may have been stripes. Then again, kind of think of it, she could have been wearing blue jeans and an orange shirt. Oh, doing a crap, I'm in trouble. Today is National True Love Forever Day. Only a woman's true love could get past her husband not remembering the special things, like what she was wearing the first day you met. And it's National Friendship Week. And the type of friends you prefer, that reveals a lot about your personality. And it would take too long to go through the list, but I have posted it on my blog. If you want to find out what your friends say about your personality, you can do that right now in my blog at DarrenOnTheAir.com. Darren is spelled D-A-R-R-E-N. Imagine your lawn mower cutting the grass using only a beam of light. Details on that coming up here in just a bit. I'm Darren Marlar. Welcome to the program. If you like scary stories like ghost stories or Bigfoot Loch Ness Monster, Unsolved Mysteries, that kind of thing, well, you might like my podcast called Weird Darkness, which I post just whenever I get an opportunity. And you can find all the episodes at DarrenOnTheAir.com. Well, itching. It is contagious, believe it or not. To be exact, itching is highly contagious. Even when you're not touching that person, just watching them, watching them scratch, you're likely to start scratching too. In fact, just listening to me telling you this right now, it may have caused you to itch and then scratch. Am I right? See? We've long known that laughing and yawning can be socially contagious, and if you see somebody yawn, well, you yawn. If you see a group of people laughing, chances are you will have the urge to laugh. Well, the same thing is true for scratching. Previously, researchers assumed this was all in our minds, and now research from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, they've proven that contagious itching is hardwired into our brain. It's not a form of empathy. The next time you scratch or yawn in response to someone else doing it, remember, it's really not a choice, nor is it a psychological response. It is hardwired into your brain. So, what's the point? Well, the discovery might help scientists understand the neural circuits that control socially contagious behaviors. Of all the TV shows and movies about Batman, which is your favorite catwoman? Well, my favorite catwoman is celebrating her birthday today. I'll tell you who that is coming up. I'm Darren Marlar. If you want to like me, poke me, tweet me, follow me, stalk me, you can find links to all of my social media at DarrenOnTheAir.com. A German company, they have developed a two-seat convertible lawn mower, and it does away with old-fashioned blades or wires, and it slices grass by laser. The advantage is that the machine cuts the grass so finely that the pieces can simply stay on the ground as fertilizer. The manufacturers say that the lawn mower is powerful enough to be registered for road use, and it would cost as much as a fine car around $30,000 for a lawn mower.  Want to make your neighbors green with envy? Have a green lawn. In February, imagine while everybody else on your block has brown grass, yours can be lush and green with the help of Crudco's always green lawn paint. With just one coating of always green lawn paint, you'll have the green, green grass that you've always wanted, and your neighbors only wish they had. And for our coastal customers, turn your green lawn into white snow with our Snow White lawn paint, just in time for Christmas, and it washes away with the next tropical storm. Crudco's always green and Snow White lawn paints, giving you the lawn of your dreams while making your neighbors green with envy. A study at Harvard University says that young boys who play with action figures that have big muscles and flat rock-hard abs suffer from low self-esteem. So if you give your son a Barbie doll instead, that's better for his self-esteem? Why does that not sound right? It's the birthday wrap-up for Wednesday, August 16th, celebrating birthdays today from beautiful girls, ordinary people, and the TV show Leverage, which was just a blast to watch. Timothy Hutton is 57 today. You know her as ER's Dr. Kerry Weaver, Laura Eines is 58 today. From waiting to exhale, contact, House Della got her groove back, Angela Bassett is 59 and doesn't look a day over 45. She looks amazing for her age. Producer and director James Cameron from Aliens, True Lies, Titanic and Avatar, he's 63 today. TV's Kathleen Gifford is 64. From the TV show Family Matters and also Die Hard, Reginald Vel Johnson is 65. From Will and Grace, you know her as Tina. Also from Desperate Housewives, she plays Sophie Bremmer. Leslie and Warren is 71. You know her best as Chief Brody's wife in all of the Jaws movies. Lorraine Gary is 80 today. And actress from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Catwoman on the Batman TV show Julie Numar is 84. Your question for today is a question if possible. Queen B's will only sting this one particular living thing. What is it? Again, Queen B's will only sting this one particular living thing. What is it? I'll have the answer for you later on in the show. If you like a few laughs after the show, you might want to check out my Daily Dose of Weird News. I've got a new episode every weekday and you can find them at DarrenOnTheAir.com. So you're out for a brisk walk around the neighborhood and then a pavement-pounding runner zooms past you. When it comes to your heart health, is that brisk walk really as good for you as a rung? Well, the short answer is, yeah, it is. Researchers from the American Heart Association found that walking is just as good as running when it comes to lowering your risk or heart disease. When the AHA team analyzed the health of some 48,000 runners and walkers, that is a big sample size, they were mostly in their 40s and 50s and found that mile for mile brisk walking was just as effective in lowering the risk for type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and blood pressure. Did you catch the key phrase there? Mile for mile. So that is, both runners and walkers still have to put in the same mileage to reap the same heart health benefits. So while it may take an average runner under 30 minutes to run 3 miles, it'll likely take a walker more than an hour to do so.  How fast can you run? Well, one man tried to run 100 miles per hour. How do you think he did? Well, if I tell you that it's today's moment of duh story, does that give you a clue? I'll have that for you coming up. Hey, if you like to be a part of the show, I'd love to get an email from you. You can email me anytime about anything at DarrenOnTheAir.com. Well, in Halloween, it's still more than two months away, but apparently that did not deter three people from putting on costumes to shoplift at a Pennsylvania Walmart. One was dressed as a bull, one as a werewolf, and a third as a gorilla. They stole more than $560 in merchandise, but fortunately they were caught. Now, they tried to blame it on the bull market, calling it gorilla marketing, but police weren't liking that explanation. Candy gets better, kids. Candy gets wonderful. I love candy. It's so good. But there's some bad candy out there. Remember going trick-or-treating? Remember getting the bad candy? You ever get a popcorn ball? Remember those? You're like, why would anyone make this and give it to a kid? What is that? That's the popcorn ball. I made it myself.  That's what you need. That's sick. That is sick. You ever get those wax lips? Remember? Wax lips. You didn't know what it was.  You're like, what are you eating? I have no idea what I'm eating right now. What's it taste like? It has no flavor whatsoever. It's just getting bigger. I was like, chew it. You remember those wax bottles? Those wax bottles with that liquid? What was that? Power steering fluid? What was that we were drinking? Fantastic.  It's amazing. Remember the brown taffy and the orange wrapper? Wasn't that the word? Tastes like peanut butter and hair. Remember that? I love what they call candy now.   Fun size is a whole bag of Snickers. Just jam together. The big Snickers loaf. That's what I want for Halloween. A Snick-a-loaf. That's what I want in my bag. I don't want no popcorn ball. Snick-a-loaf. Weekends were made for Snick-a-loaf. You know what I'm talking about? Performance boosting drugs, powered prostheses, and wearable computers. They're all coming to an office near you soon. But experts warn in a new report that too little thought is being given to the implications of a superhuman workplace. Yeah, I mean, think about it. If you're going to be a superhuman office worker, how can you change into your super suit if you don't have a telephone booth around anymore? I'm Darren Marlar and if you'd like to keep up with everything I do, you can sign up for the Marlar Sheet. It's my free newsletter, which you can sign up for at DarrenOnTheAir.com. Well, how fast can you run? Well, a Paul Paul Michigan man, he became lost in the Calhoun County countryside and his car became stuck in the mud of a field driveway. Well, the man whose name is unknown and shall be here to refer to as the individual, he tried to push his car out of the mud and he realized he just couldn't be in two places at once. So he weighed the accelerator down with a metal toolbox and then proceeded to push on the back of his rear-wheel-drive car. Well, the plan worked. For the car took off and eventually reached a speed exceeding 100 miles per hour across a muddy cut beam field. Here's where the individual committed a second moment of duh. He gave chase. Like he's going to catch up to a car going 100 miles per hour. The car actually became airborne at a couple of places, so we can only imagine the guy trying to run 100 miles an hour and attain enough speed to take off. The car eventually did come to a stop because it ran into a tree. Today's question impossible again. Queen bees will only sting this one particular living thing. What is it? The only thing that they will sting is other queen bees. Now you know why they say there's no room for two queen bees in the same household. If you'd like to get social with me, you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Mines.com, LinkedIn, Instagram. Links to all of my social media can be found at DarrenOnTheAir.com. Well, when it comes to bargain hunting, women rule. Not a big surprise there. I'll go shopping if I have to, but I'm never looking for bargains. I'm just looking for whatever I'm shopping for and then coming straight home with it. I go hunting. I don't go bargain shopping. A recent study shows that a substantial 60% of female shoppers are more interested in getting a good deal than quality merchandise. Only 31% were more fixated on finding superior made goods. Now, men, we were almost the exact opposite. 50% of us were more interested in quality while 43% said the price mattered most. But the ad week media Harris poll numbers also showed that our preferences change as we age, and we become increasingly interested in quality over cost. Price trumped quality by 58-33% in people ages 18-34, by 53-44% in people ages 35-44, and by 51-47% in people ages 45-54. And in the folks who are 55 and over, the trend reverses. Most 49% prefer top quality stuff. Only 44% put the price first. My wife, she's always telling me, hey, look how much money I saved shopping. The more you save, the more somehow I seem to spend. It's the big price buster clearance sale now at Marvin's department store. With savings, you won't believe. How about women's apparel, now 15% off? Children's clothes, 18-20% off. All men's wear on sale, you save 25%. Kitchenwear and appliances now 35-40% off. Yeah? Well try shoes 50% off. That's half price. Oh yeah? In that case, I've got greeting cards and school supplies, 51-55% off. Did I say 50? I meant shoes are 60% off. Watching 60, no, 65% off. Toys, 80% off. 80? All clearance jewelry, 95% off. 96. 97. 98. 105% off. What? I'll give you 20 bucks to come take these shoes home. You can't do that. Just watch me buster. Oh yeah? Yeah. It's clearance time at Marvin's. The sale is on and the gloves are off. Michigan troopers, they did not have to go very far recently to make a drunk driving bust in today's Brain on Drug Story coming up. I'm Darren Marlar. If you'd like to catch up with the show, maybe you missed a past episode, you can find the podcast at darronontheair.com. Well, a secret elite section of Tinder has been running for at least six months now. This is the first that you've heard about this. You are not one of the elite. Tinder Select, it's by Invite Only and it's aimed at CEOs, supermodels, and other hyperactive, upwardly affluent types. In other words, all of the uppity conceded people, you'd be miserable dating anyway. Are you looking for the love of your life? This is Dr. Clark Neal. I created meharmony.com. Meharmony.com is all about hooking you up with someone who is only interested in the things you like. In my past relationships, I tried compromise and found out it just wasn't for me. Thanks to meharmony.com, I found someone who's only interested in doing things I like to do. Before meharmony, I never knew how much fun it would be to watch soap operas, the view, and the woman's channel, but now I feel like I found my soulmate just as long as I do everything she wants me to do. At meharmony.com, we match up couples using only one dimension. It's all about me. Now we'll not be watching any football games because I don't like football. That's fine, dear. Now clean the house, get into the kitchen, fix dinner, and bring me some bonbons. Right away, my love. Log on to meharmony.com and soon you'll be singing. With smartphones in hand, we are having a hard time dropping our workload when 5pm rolls around. Even after an eight-hour day, many employees report checking emails and taking work-related calls after hours. Having constant access to our mobile communication streams attacks on an excess two hours of work a day.  You know what, I would actually be fine with all of that just so long as I'm allowed a four-hour lunch break. Important assignment, important assignment. Did I make it clear that your job is at stake? You've never been out of college. You don't know what it's like out there. I've worked in the private sector. They expect results.   Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements. Of course you hate it. People work here. If you like scary stories, you might like my show Weird Darkness, which you can find by clicking on the tab Weird Darkness at DarrenOnTheYear.com. Well, it's time for today's Brain on Drugs and Michigan Troopers, they did not have to go very far to make this drunk driving bust. Authorities say the suspect drove onto the lawn of a Michigan State police post in Paw Paw, Michigan. Troopers that is report the driver was visibly drunk and had vomited on himself. According to the troopers, the man picked the wrong spot to stop and rest. Police say he has a history of drunk and driving arrests and his blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit. A recent report says Americans commuting to work lose over three billion hours sitting in traffic delays every year.  And now with the station editorial, here's Connie Suvater, friend of the general manager. Okay, so I'm Connie Suvater and today I'd like to talk about road rage. I'm against it. Something should be done about it before it becomes a problem. Why don't we just get rid of it? I mean road rage is wrong. I know lots of people do it but that doesn't make it right. Johnny Mathis said it best when he said, chances are though I wear a silly grin at the moment you come into view. So let's put an end to this road rage business. That's my opinion. I'm really sorry if I seem harsh but this road rage stuff really gets me angry. Take care. If you'd like to listen to any of my past shows, you can find them on my free mobile app. Just click on the mobile app tab at DarrenOnTheAir.com. Well, when you go to sleep at night, do you ever get those involuntary muscle spasms? They're actually pretty common and they're harmless. They're known as hypnic jerks or sleep starts. And the spasms, they kind of make you feel like you're falling or you've suddenly been shocked awake. Does that sound familiar to you? Well, most experts speculate that these jerks happen as a result of your nervous system relaxing as you're slipping into sleep mode. It's also possible that neurons misfire because the brain misperceives the muscle relaxation as actual falling. Well, hypnic jerks might occur more often when you are stressed out or sleep deprived or if you work out or have caffeine closer to bedtime. If they are regularly disturbing your ability to fall or stay asleep, though, you might want to see a sleep specialist because they could be linked to an underlying disorder like restless leg syndrome or even sleep apnea. If you want to like me, poke me, tweet me, follow me, stalk me, you can find links to all of my social media at DarrenOnTheAir.com. Darren has spelled D-A-R-R-E-N. Had a great time on the show with you today. I hope you did as well. I'm going to leave you with this thought. In 1938, a hurricane threatened the New England coast. People feared that the railroad bridge at White River Junction would be destroyed, and the danger was averted when some thoughtful person backed a line of loaded freight cars onto the bridge. The bridge withstood the force of the winds because of the weight that it bore. The weight of your responsibilities may rest heavily upon you right now, but that weight may be the very thing that keeps you from being swept away by the storm of life. Good night, ladies. Hit it, sweetheart.


step-by-step guide to legally teaching English in the Czech Republic Though quite bureaucratic for non-EU passport holders, it is by no means impossible to get permission to work and stay legally in the Czech Republic Depending on your country of origin, the process will differ slightly, but the following should give you a good idea of the process involved Step 1 Understanding the visa situation Firstly, a business license Secondly, permission to stay in the country in the form of a long-term stay visa The process of acquiring these two things can be a bit complicated as you can't really have one without the other Listed here is a general outline of what you will need in order to apply for a long-term stay visa in the CZ Some of this, you can gather before you leave for the Czech Republic, but other things you might need to hire someone to do for you Or else try to organize them once you get here if you are allowed to enter the Shenzhen zone without a visa Step 2 Documents you will need You will need to have a bank statement proving you have accessible funds to support yourself while you are awaiting the legal right to work You will also need to show a bank or debit card with which you can access said funds This must be translated into Czech You will need to fill out a visa application form, although the form is in English in Czech, it must be filled out entirely in Czech Hello Google Translate, as well as an application for a business license This means registering yourself with both the health insurance and social insurance authorities and then contributing monthly to both of these ones Your business license and visa are valid You will need proof of a clean criminal record from your country of origin How this is obtained differs from country to country, so it is best to contact your nearest Czech embassy or consulate for advice You will need a landlord statement, also in Czech, stating that you have an approved permanent address in the Czech Republic You might not be able to get this before you arrive, but it's a good idea to start looking around early and maybe ask an agency to help you Your passport must have at least three months of validity left on it after the visa expires from the time your visa is granted So if you had a passport valid for six months at the moment your visa is approved, you would only get the visa for three months You will also need proof of health insurance valid for the time that your visa will be valid This can be purchased online but must be accepted by the ministry so have a look at their website, see below, and then shop around The embassy might also be able to suggest an accepted provider Step 3 Get your TEFL certification While it isn't necessary to have a TEFL certification to legally work in the Czech Republic, you will have a much easier time finding suitable positions with a certificate and will also earn a higher salary If you want to live and work in the Czech Republic as an English teacher, we recommend that you start your TEFL TESOL course at least one year before your desired start date in Europe If you choose an in-class course, you will receive your certificate within about four weeks An online course usually takes anywhere between two and six months This depends on how much time you have and how quickly you work through the units Keep in mind that even if you complete a TEFL in-class course in Prague, you will still have to apply for your visa from outside of the country However, employers will certainly appreciate your in-class teaching experience in the Czech Republic and your experience with local students While in-class courses were much preferred in the early days of EFL teaching, online TEFL courses are now just as valued Keep in mind that employers usually only hire teachers with a TEFL certificate of more than 100 hours of study That's why we recommend the following course options 120-hour TEFL TESOL course 220-hour master package, 470-hour professional package Step 4 Be patient, persistent and flexible Generally, Prague has the largest market for EFL teachers, but competition is fierce Be flexible and look beyond this glorious capital city Brno, Astrova and Pilsen are among the biggest cities and also offer jobs for TEFL qualified teachers Step 5 Apply for jobs Once you have your TEFL certificate in hand and understand the local job market, you are ready to start your job search All enrolled ITTT students and alumni have access to our lifetime job assistance, including our job boards We have an extensive network of recruiters and schools in the Czech Republic to allow you to choose the job offer that suits your needs You can also find a lot of vacant teaching positions in the Czech Republic via a quick Google search However, not all of them will be legit We have a couple of tips on how you can spot a TEFL job scam For example, you should never have to pay for job placement This also includes recruiters Schools reach out to recruitment agencies looking for a new teacher and then the school pays the recruiter upon hiring a teacher A teacher never pays a recruiter We work with a range of renowned recruiters who specialize in the TEFL market and we would love to connect you with them Are you ready for your Czech adventure? Apply now for your TEFL TESOL certification course and start teaching in a matter of months Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad Send us an email or call us toll free at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today