So I wrote that It's funny to hear your words than somebody else's voice. It's I really couldn't figure out what he was gonna say for a while Crazy glue Thank You Michael Great introduction. Can we stop there? I'm just before I Give my introduction. I wanted us to thank Elizabeth Hastings Because I work with Elizabeth all year long. She's getting embarrassed because I'm talking about her Sorry, Elizabeth. I work with her all year long. We talked two or three times a week on the phone She does more for this program than all the rest of us put together. I just thought we should honor her Well, I feel badly that I won't be reading from my most recent book the other readers seem to be reading from recent stuff but I sent it to the publisher last Thursday the day before I drove down here and It was a commission book called learning at the speed of light About online learning in higher education. I just you know, I just couldn't decide which 10 to 15 pages of its 460 that you'd enjoy more So I'm not reading from that Next time Sonya and Rachel Bash And Karen Osborn and I will be on a panel this coming Thursday called managing the mess putting together a book of prose And so I thought tonight I would read from the book. I'm going to talk about in that panel. It's called saving Troy a year with firefighters and paramedics in a battered city and As the subtitle suggests this is a book with a chronological structure A sort of overwhelming immersion journalism project that I spent 18 months writing with these guys The first 12 I spent writing to make this book and the last six the Union hired me to write to do a video For them. So I made a training video and shot about 90 hours of video for the six months that I wrote it is To say the least a really really really gritty book. It's not just guts inside a wall It's pretty all the way through And I'm going to read an excerpt from it part of chapter five Which I've never read in public before and the reason I have not read it is that there's some racially offensive language Spoken by one of the characters And up to now I just I just didn't feel like I wanted to add something to the world that was hate filled And I just I don't know. I just didn't feel like doing that. I know it exists. It's out there We see it on the news every single day but it seemed like You know the events of the last year especially The racial situation has gotten so ugly that ignoring it's not going to help I think we have to look at it and we have to point it out all the time Even if it's just somebody you're having lunch with who says something divisive or hate filled like say don't say that You know the enemy is not the people as far as I'm concerned The enemy is the bigotry that exists and our writing can somehow expose the bigotry and get it to change You know, maybe if you will stop doing all this stuff heroin heroin okay The slight man about 20 with a neatly trimmed goatee Stops for a second to spit the words out at the nurse and then he resumes his pacing This room is small. Maybe only 8 feet square so we can just take a few short frantic steps Before he has to turn and go back It's hot too and he pulls his scarf free and unzips his jacket keeping his eye on the nurse the whole time Okay, okay, that's what we need to know. We have no idea the nurse is saying Holding her hands out in front of her to keep him at a safe distance Jeff Gordon the new lieutenant paramedic on the first platoon Knocks a couple of times and then opens the hospital examining room door They sent me in here to all right come on in the nurses. I need some men in here anyway an Older man still wearing a paint spattered car hard coat buttoned right up to his neck has been watching quietly from an empty corner of the room His face is ashen except around his eyes where the skin is pink and swollen Suddenly he takes a step into the center toward Jeff and he points at him. What happened to my son? Although Jeff at six feet tall and over 190 pounds is a head taller and probably 30 year About 30 pounds heavier than this clearly older Definitely a much smaller man Jeff jumps back in surprise against the closed exam room door Well, I don't know who was in the apartment Jeff answers quickly There were two other people in the apartment when we got there Josh and Abby the younger man says wait a minute Tim the older man tells him It was Josh and Abby dad they take heroin Tim says having to pace around his father now There was a girl and a guy in the apartment Jeff says the engine company was there We pulled in right behind them, but he was in full cardiac arrest when we got there.  She's been leaning against the examining table for support But now she grabs Tim's arm to steady herself in her words burst out and sobs. He didn't do them We did everything we could Jeff says frozen in place With his back still against the exam room door. We worked on him for are they here Tim interrupts He stops pacing shifts his feral brown eyes back and forth between the nurse and Jeff The police are at the scene though. Those kids are here. No, they're not here. They're not here the nurse says You're so upset. It's just not sinking in now.  Yeah, I'm all right. He says looks down at his mother. Don't worry about it. Mom. I'll get those bastards Suddenly Tim starts for the door. I'll be back soon.  His father says I'm gonna get those motherfuckers. You stay here. I need you here.  Look out. I'm gonna get those fuckers. He tells her Stop it. You're all I got left. I need you stop at the father shots and he throws his arms around his son from behind Tim slumps a little now and turns Reaching out for his mother bringing her in and then all three stand in the middle of the small room without moving For half a minute the only sounds of the muffled howls of the woman crying into her husband's coat Hang on to each other the nurse says hang on to each other. This is what you need. Hug your parents They need you right now, buddy. I Want to see my son the father says firmly looking up Tim pulls away from his parents and wheels around to face the nurse again his eyes glistening with rage Where is he? Can we see him? Just a minute just a minute. She says we have to The mother turns now and holds her hands out palms up to the nurse My son didn't do drugs. He told me he didn't do drugs. Was it drugs Tim wants to know? We can't tell you at the nurses We're not sure Jeff breaks and they'd have to do an investigation into the death You know to determine that we've called the coroner the nurse is saying overlapping Jeff's words the coroner is going to do an investigation Yeah, we had no way of telling at the scene. You know why why he died or anything Jeff says Well, I want those kids brought down. I know they're dealing drugs.   Don't worry about it.  Tim demands of his parents now. We stopped spacing and stares at both of them. Didn't I? Jeff's knuckles gripping the brown clipboard with his half-finished pre-hospital care report on it are stretched white Today is New Year's Day It's Jeff Gordon's first day riding as a lieutenant and paramedic firefighter with a first platoon and he has been paired as Threatened with Don Kimmy on medic 2 All of which now means just the officer in charge on all advanced life support calls in the city of Troy When the first is working and that means Don isn't Apparently Don changed his mind about bidding off the shift when Jeff came on but he hasn't given anyone his reasons for staying Everybody on the shift is waiting for the fireworks to begin Earlier this morning huge slabs of ice and the Hudson River just beyond the low-income tailor apartments had been shoved into haphazard geometric stacks by a Coast Guard ice cutter and the slabs ragged angles were Shifting ominously in the Sun as the second call of the day came in over medic 2's radio Man down on 14th Street full arrest The first call had been at the tailor apartments one of Troy's infamous public housing projects for a woman with a broken jaw Walter Don said as you walked out of the building Referring to the woman's husband who towered over her in the unframed pictures tacked onto their living room wall We've been here before for the same thing. Walter's are regular Domestic abuse and a full arrest both before noon on the 1st of January. What a great way to usher in a new year Two police officers the crew of engine two and two kids and their late teens a boy and a girl We're in the 14th Street apartment when we got there Mark Fleming the captain on engine two was dragging another teenager by his ankles Into a cluttered filthy living room is Don and Jeff hurried into the apartment a Wide glaring line of blood and sputum Streaked across the olive wall to wall shag carpeting running from the boys face all the way back to the second room on the right off the hallway As Mark dropped the kids feet he backed into the round for Micah coffee table an Empty you who bottle tottered and then fell off under the rug The table as well as the ratty couch with no cushions next to it We're both littered with glasses half full of orange juice or dark soda Overflowing ashtrays opened in empty CD cases Crumpled napkins and paper plates with jelly smears and sandwich crusts on them Look at that shit coming out of his nose. That's all blood. See it. I don't know if he's got a head injury or what Don said Jeff knelt down next to the body and felt for a pulse. Yeah, he's cold too. He answered There was nothing there when you when you came in right mark. I mean he wasn't Don asked standing back surveying the whole scene What's that mark said you found him in the bedroom? Yeah, he was just lying on the bed. We pulled him out into the hall One of the cops was standing in the kitchen about 10 feet away with the two teenagers Jeff looked up at them and the kids looked away Nobody knows anything, huh? Jeff asked. Nope. Don answered shaking his head. I Don't know what he did last night. The boys suddenly offered. Were you with him last night? Don asked I was with him at the beginning of the night, but then we Okay, hold on for a second Peter Jeff said Pete Fleming Mark's brother and a hoseman on engine two had been performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation CPR since his brother dragged the kid into the living room But Jeff had some leads hooked up and needed the body to be still so we could read the heart monitor You got a sisterly or what Don asked? Oh, man? Very very flat Jeff answered and the green line moved horizontally across the heart monitor screen with no hint of a spike Remorseful remorselessly flat as the metal edge and a wooden ruler Okay, Don said pulling on his latex gloves kneeling down on the other side of the body opposite Jeff We don't know what's going on here. So let's do what we can. Let me take a look Even though Jeff was officially the paramedic in charge of this call He was still 32 years old with a baby face that fooled a lot of people in the thinking he was even a few years younger For a 22 year veteran like Don youth in this case didn't have to didn't add up to pragmatic knowledge As far as he was concerned his experience made him the one in charge Let's just run the thing Don said the thing Don was talking about was the full arrest algorithm an Algorithm is any particular procedure for solving a certain type of problem Remo the regional emergency metal medical organization the Hudson Mohawk Valleys Publishes a handbook of regional treatment protocols and procedures each year as a supplement to the statewide protocols published by the emergency medical services program of the New York State Department of Health These required handbooks established the baseline of standardized treatment protocols for EMTs and paramedics And are intended to establish a model or minimum standard by which all patients should be treated by emergency medical care workers in the state Remos cardiac arrest management algorithm for a patient with a systole or the absence of all cardiac electrical activity Begins with CPR Then moves through intubation and establishment of IV access and stops after administration of epinephrine and atropine Drugs which might get the patient's heart going again When paramedics finish all that they should transport the patient to the nearest hospital The remote does state the following in the fine print Some patients may require care not specified here in this algorithm should not be construed to prohibit such flexibility What Don and Jeff had this morning required flexibility? We don't need some suction. I think Don said and Pete Fleming ran out to the medic rig to get the suction kit I'm going to set up a lactated lactated ringer as Don Jeff said let me know when you're ready for drugs We'll put them down the tube This don worked to set up an intubation tube Jeff started in IV in the kids right arm with an 18 gauge needle The cop in the kitchen began to question the boy who had volunteered the information a minute before Did you see him this morning? Yeah, I woke him up.   Listen. Hold it. Listen Pete came back in with a suction kit. All right Pete. Thanks. Let me cure this clear this crap away and you can bag them All right, Don said I just wanted to make sure it was in it's got a ton of shit coming up A red and white froth has been running continuously from the kids mouth and nose And now it was oozing around the intubation tube Don just set up moving the way lava moves Jeff has two brothers in the Troy Police Department Peter and Paul Paul had been on the scene earlier, but he had gone outside to talk to neighbors and now he was back Full arrest Paul Jeff said to him. It's been down for a while. There's roommates here, but they're not saying much, you know Don was trying to suction off enough fluid to stabilize the intubation tube. I need that white tape Don said You got some of that heavy white stuff mark? Pete started to get it, but Don called his arm. Let mark get it.  Jeff asked Hang on a second. Don't start the compressions yet.  What is this shit? Paul motions to the boy in the kitchen Paul motions to the boy in the kitchen Hey, bud. You got a back door I can get through because I don't want to disrupt these guys I don't live here. The boy said he suddenly looked terrified Meet me out front. Paul said All of a sudden the dispatcher's voice blared from mark and jeff's portable radios Attention all units engine one and the rescue squad are responding to number seven seven zero third avenue Between 121st and 122nd streets for an EMS call Time is 12 0 4 Jesus turn that down. Will you jeff don said? Jeff lowered the volume on his portable radio The back doors nailed shut the boy said I don't live here. You don't live here. Paul said not to live here You know this guy. Yeah Well, who lives here? He lives here Who else? He's got two roommates, but they're home on school break How old is he? He's 19 You don't know anything about his history at all jeff asked I just know he's asthmatic What were you guys partying last night? What happened? Paul wants to know Yeah, the kids said we were partying with them last night and we came back here this morning We weren't with them all night though. So I don't know the boy said The speed continued to bag to pump air into the kid with a bag valve mask Some of it got trapped inside his torso And the skin on his stomach began to bulge tight with the strain Suddenly Pete stopped bagging and vomited off to the side Donnie I got that epinephrine here jeff said I'll set you up an atropine Did you find him on the floor? Paul asked the boy We were here We went to bed and then he was in the chair when we came out because I heard him like not breathing right It wasn't breathing right. So we woke him up It took a while and he woke up and then he was up for a while and then he went to bed And we went to bed in his friend's room and a while later I heard more of him breathing You know breathing wrong like he was And we tried to get him up and wake him up and he wouldn't so we stuck him under the cold shower But he still didn't wake up And then we called you guys Don let me know when you're ready for that epi jeff said all right.   This is all black and blue Don was pointing to red swollen spots on the kid's arm See this here See that this mark here that mark there. He's got marks all over him jeff got on the horn Is he breathing at all paul asked?  It just fell apart. No. No, he's not breathing Paul began to walk around to the other side of the dead kid and don pointed to the discarded needles on the floor Watch your feet there. Okay. I don't know what this guy's got or what you know Paul moved back to the front door and turned to jeff So when you got here, he wasn't full arrest when we got here. Yeah, jeff answered 201 send the supervisor up here. All right paul sent into his radio Two mohawk ambulance drivers come in the door and don motion again behind them.  Yep all set whenever you are Let me just get this. I want to do this on another epi and then we're out of here Go ahead and wrap them up Another epi donnie. Where are your sharps jeff asked right behind me Two of them. Yeah, I see two. All right. I got another one makes three. This one here is four Jeff said and he collected the discarded needles Don pulled the clear lactated ringers bag up higher and made sure mark kept it taught so they could keep replacing some of the fluids the kid had lost Keep that right up there mark. I want the gravity to help take the fluid down keep pumping it as we go don said Showing him how hard he wanted the iv bag squeezed Jeff stood up and looked around as the mohawk drivers finished packaging the kid I'm just going to leave that sharp right in his arm don.  All right, set it up and then we'll both be going St. Mary's or samaritan one of the ambo guys said Samaritan we already called him don answered. Yeah, let's get going. We'll be there in five minutes Somebody grab that oxygen Jeff held up a stethoscope and asked on if it was his and don nodded Then don stopped for a few seconds and wiped the sweat off his face with a towel Scrippy at heart along his skin and then wrapped the towel around his neck It's the two ambo drivers wheeled the kid on onto the stretcher Don stared blankly down at the mess of discarded catheter parts plastic caps occlusive bandage wrappers strips of bloody clothing and other junk scattered on the rug He kept his face expressionless as he looked over at jeff Did you talk to anybody yet don said? No, not yet. Jeff answered. I've got the apcor though. So whenever How old did they say this kid was? 19 In the trauma room at samaritan hospitals er the doctor on duty asked how long the boy had been down How much epinephrine atropine had been delivered at the apartment And enroute in the ambulance thought maybe two milligrams of narcan might be a good idea He looked somewhat resigned at the stage of the situation as he watched the flatline trudge relentlessly across the monitor Finally decided to give the kid one final effort I'd like to defibrillate him anyway once just to try it. He said We'll defibrillate him once we'll give him one round of drugs and that's it So one defib just go right ahead to 360 one after the epi one after the atropine If there's no response, I'm going to call it A few minutes later at the nurses station Jeff was explaining why the police were called to the apartment in the first place On an unattended death and that's considered an unattended death at the house, then we have to call the police Even though those people were there In this case because there was nobody else in an official capacity there It's considered an unattended death and the police have to go and investigate check for foul play Nine times out of ten it's routine where an older person dies or whatever, but in this case This is obviously not a routine type of death just because of his age or for no other reason But they may find any number of things at the house now drugs or who knows what they're going to find The cop who was with Jeff's brother at the scene came over and held up a driver's license for the nurse behind the desk He had a fake ID in his wallet the cop said because he's only 19. He's got his brother's ID He pointed to Jeff and said After you guys left the girl gave us his real name. It's Robert. The brother is Tim. This is his ID The kid we've got here over here is Robert Coates Then the cop handed a phone number to the nurse and walked back to the trauma room The nurse picked up the black phone that hung on the wall behind the desk and dialed the number Yes, is this the Coates residence? Yes. Yes. I'm looking for the parents of Robert Coates, please Who might I be speaking to? Yes, and your name is Well, um, we need to get in touch with them right away. This is Samaritan emergency calling Well, your brother's here in the emergency room and you need to come here and we'll explain calm calm down We're Samaritan hospital come to calm down Who is that Jeff asked? Brother the nurse answered Hang up on you Yeah screaming he didn't even find out why his brother's here. He was screaming just because he's here at all What's it gonna be like when he gets here? She wondered and looked up and down the hallway I feel like the cops to be here when he shows up Back in the exam room looking into Jeff's unfocused eyes It isn't hard to believe that he's remembering everything that led up to this moment The father is sprawled in an empty corner trying to cry quietly now His head jerking convulsively every time a loud sob escapes The mother is up on her feet pleading with the nurse I want to see him. All right. Can I go see him? She asks You can go see him the nurse says as soon as you calm down just a little bit She looks uncomfortably over at jeff The mother turns to jeff now too Just on the possibility on 14th street. Where was he found? 2236 jeff says is that where he lives? That's his home Okay, the mother answers he would have like three silver earrings Yeah, jeff says he did Now the mother turns and moves distractedly over toward her husband beginning to mumble He's an rpi student Okay, so so it is robert coats. It's the same robert coats. I just wanted to make sure I hope josh is happy He'll be happy tonight tim says Do you think you're calm enough now the nurse asks? None of the mantras are Listen, he doesn't Well, mrs. Coates. He's intubated. He has a tube down his throat. That's what looks bad. Okay. All right. Come on. Come on The nurse takes the mother by the arm and moves her slowly toward the door and jeff steps further into the room out of the way Come on.  She says let mr. Coates just sit there until he feels better. Don't get him up By the nurses desk don kimmy is watching the nurse lead the mother and brother toward the trauma room door As she opens it mrs. Coates falls against the jam and says That's not him under there. Is it? Jesus christ don says Now she starts into the room and says to the nurse just wake him up. Just get him up. Okay Don turns to the ER doctor who's filling out his own report now and says You remember that guy at christmas that young guy 25 or so? He had three kids.  We worked on him 45 minutes. Anyway Don motions toward the trauma room just like this guy. We worked on him a long time too


Rwy'n ei ddod i'r Cwmysig dros Ymgyrch. Rhyw o'r cwmysig dyfyniad yng Nghymru i'r rhesoedd. Rhyw o'r cwmysig dyfyniad yng Nghymru i'r rhesoedd, fyddwn i'n ddiddordeb yn gilydd iawn i gael ar gyfer y cyfrinsi frym oedd am penhau i ysgolwyr yng ngheilio efo'r Brexit. Rhyw o'r gwrthig efo'r cyfrinsi fyddwn i'n gwyllennu, rwy'n gael i'r cyfrinsi dweud dwych chi'n dweithio i fynd ynogw expiren ymghefnidig i gael i'w dweithio ar gyfer y bywel neu'i gael i'w dweithio ar gyfer y byel gair unedag ddwy Μirk Australia? Oes fod gan fynd i'w dweud i'w dweud i'w dweud i'w dweud i'w dweud i'w dweud i'w dweud i'w dweud of mutual respect, that is not what is happening. I have said all along that the consent of this Parliament to any removal of this Parliament's powers, even for a temporary period, must be a matter of fundamental principle. Let me spell out to the chamber today what it is that this Parliament is being asked to sign up to. We are being asked to sign up to an agreement that would allow the powers of this Parliament in areas that really matter, such as agriculture, fishing, the environment, state aid, public procurement, for example. We have been asked to allow those powers to be removed for a period of up to seven years without the consent of this Parliament. That is something that every single member of this Parliament really must consider. Perhaps instead of nonsense about the fact that, according to Ruth Davidson, this Government is somehow being unreasonable. Surely there is a duty on all those members of Parliament who think that we should sign up to this agreement to set out clearly and in substance why they think that it is reasonable. I would give Ruth Davidson this opportunity today. If she thinks that the agreement that we are being asked to sign up to is reasonable, will she take the opportunity here in this chamber today to read out the sections of the UK Government's amendments that deal with the consent of this Parliament? I challenge her to do that. Let's see if she's confident enough. Ruth Davidson. Ruth Davidson. Ruth Davidson, the powers in dispute are powers in areas that this First Minister wants to send directly back to Brussels. If she thinks that she's helped to provide certainty this week, why has she blocked a deal that would have done exactly that? Why has she put in her own political goals first? The UK Government didn't get everything that it wanted this week and nor did the Welsh Government. Yesterday, the Welsh financial secretary, Mark Drakeford, said that it has meant compromise on both sides. That is the art of negotiation, and I believe that the outcome is a mature agreement between Governments that is respectful of each other's interests. It sounds reasonable to everyone else. Why is it that the First Minister alone doesn't get that? Ruth Davidson asks why that matters. Let me give a few examples of the real implications of us agreeing to what has been put before us. For example, if we were to agree this, it would allow for a period of up to seven years, for example, the UK Government to dictate new arrangements for farm support in Scotland. It would allow the UK Government to force us perhaps to lift our ban on GM crops, which is so important to our environment and the reputation of food and drink. It could restrict our ability during that period to properly tackle obesity and alcohol misuse. It could force us to relax—they do not like hearing this—food standards regulations and perhaps open the door to US chlorinated chicken and anything else that was demanded in a trade deal. That is just some examples of the real implications. I know that Ruth Davidson did not accept the opportunity to read out the sections of the UK amendments. Let me do that, because it is important. This is what this Parliament is being asked to agree to. The UK Government cannot lay regulations to take away the powers of this Parliament unless the Scottish Parliament has made a consent decision. It is so far so fair, perhaps, but then it will go on to define what a consent decision is. That would be either a decision of the Scottish Parliament to agree a motion consenting to the laying of the regulations or a decision not to agree a motion consenting to the laying of the regulations or a decision to agree a motion refusing to consent to the regulations. If we say yes, they will take that as consent, if we say no, they will take that as consent and if we say nothing at all, they can take that as consent. Its heads win and tails we lose. I do not think that any self-respecting member of this Parliament should give those proposals the time of day, and this Government will not do that. Let me say this, Presiding Officer. If that means that we are the only party prepared to stand up for the rights and powers of this Scottish Parliament, then so be it. Ruth Davidson I am not sure that the First Minister did herself any favours saying that this would stop her tackling obesity in Scotland. That does no favours to her argument. She is the only First Minister in history who wants to talk about the powers she does not have. The bizarre thing is that the SNP could have claimed victory this week because it asked for powers to be devolved to Holyrood and not all held in Westminster and they got it. It asked for a sunset clause on regulations on devolved powers and they got it. It asked and demanded that any deal be by agreement and they got it. All of us in this chamber express concerns about the original proposals put forward, whereas Lord Hope, one of Scotland's foremost judges, said this morning, is now being addressed in the amendments. Is it not the case that it does not suit the First Minister's political purposes to make a deal? She is dancing on the head of a pin in order to find reasons not to. The First Minister Ruth Davidson said that what we have been offered is an agreement where we would have to consent. That is manifestly not true. I point her again to the amendments that have now been lodged that would allow the UK Government, whether we agree or not, to go ahead and restrict the powers of this Parliament in vital areas for a period of up to seven years. I think that it is for every member of this Parliament to decide whether they think that it is reasonable for the powers of this Parliament to be removed for a period of seven years without our consent. That is the question that each and every one of us is going to have to answer. As we do that, we are going to see what every party in this chamber is made of and where their priorities lie. The fact of the matter is that I have said that consent is fundamental at every stage of this process and I stick to that. I will not sign up to the restriction of the powers of this Parliament for a period of seven years without our consent. We have also offered solutions. There are two of them. Clause 11 could be removed. The effect of that would be that we would agree to sign a voluntary agreement, which is what the UK Government is saying that it will do. There would be equity and respect on both sides. Clause 11 could be amended to give this Parliament the proper right to consent. If the UK Government does either of those things, then we have a deal. It is perfectly reasonable. Let's see if Ruth Davidson has any influence whatsoever on her UK colleagues or, as usual, if she is simply going to do whatever she is told. The First Minister has talked about claiming to be reasonable multiple times there, but the reality that we have seen this week is that nationalist MPs on the floor of the House of Commons are turning on their erstwhile friends in Wales, accusing them of capitulating. Does that sound reasonable to her? We have seen this week the SNP revert to tight, the same tired old lines from a party that is not even trying anymore to reach out to people across Scotland. There is a deal to be done here. The Welsh have backed it, other parties in this chamber back it, business wants her to back it, so I say to her, for once will you do a deal in the national interest and not your nationalist interest. The deal is not in the national interest. That's why I won't sign up to it and that's the difference between me and Ruth Davidson. I don't agree with the decision that Wales has arrived at, but I respect the right to take it. That's the nature of devolution. Surely Ruth Davidson is not suggesting that the policy of this Parliament should be decided by the Welsh Labour Party for goodness sake. Ruth Davidson appears to be oblivious to the current constitutional settlement. Right now, before a section 30 order can be passed, changing the nature of the powers of this Parliament has to agree to it. It can't be done without our consent. All we are reasonably putting forward is the proposition that that same rule should apply to any regulations restricting the powers of our Parliament because of Brexit. I know that Ruth Davidson's view is that we should simply let Westminster do what it wants. That's why Ruth Davidson is so shamefully silent while her party deport British citizens. It's why she is so shamefully silent when her party imposes the rape clause on women and forces more people to food banks. It is one thing to put up with grotesque Tory policies in areas that are outwith our responsibility. That's bad enough. We should not ever open the door to that in areas that are our responsibility. This Government will not do that. As I said earlier, if that makes us the only or the last party prepared to stand up for the rights and the powers of this Scottish Parliament, that is exactly what we will do. Question 2, Richard Leonard. Can the First Minister tell the chamber last year in Scotland on how many occasions did an emergency 999 ambulance take longer than one hour to arrive on the scene? I don't have that precise information to hand. I will write to the member with it. What I do know is that our ambulance service does an excellent job for patients across the country. In doing that, it is joined by all those who work in our national health service. This Government is supporting our national health service with additional resources. There are more staff working in our national health service. We will continue to support our NHS, and that will include those who work so hard in our ambulance service. Richard Leonard. The answer to the question that I asked is 16,865. That is more than 16,000 people waiting more than an hour for an emergency ambulance. People in serious need of urgent care. People like Margaret Goodman from Socky in Clackmannanshire.  She told me that just before midnight on Saturday 9 April, her husband Gavin found her curled up in excruciating pain. Her palliative care nurses came, declared it an emergency and phoned for an ambulance. Three times they phoned, two hours they waited, and with no ambulance in sight, Gavin got in his car and drove Margaret to Forth Valley hospital in Larbott himself. First Minister, because they turned up on their own, rather than in an ambulance, Margaret was not automatically admitted. She had to wait in a packed A&E late on a Saturday night, so she was not treated with morphine until 3 o'clock in the morning, and she did not see a doctor until 7 o'clock. First Minister, this is simply unacceptable, is not it? The circumstances that have been outlined by Richard Leonard, yes, I would say are unacceptable. Clearly, I do not know all of the circumstances, although Richard Leonard has shared a great deal of information there. I will undertake today to personally look into the particular case, and the health secretary will do likewise. We expect the highest standards of care for patients across the country. On occasions where that does not happen, it is very important that lessons are learned and applied for the future. As Richard Leonard will no doubt be aware, the Scottish Ambulance Service has recently implemented a new response model, which is designed to make sure that ambulances get to the most serious cases as quickly as possible. The second phase of that model was implemented in October last year. The issues that Richard Leonard raises are, of course, hugely important, and I will personally look into that and be happy to correspond with him once I have had the opportunity to do so. Richard Leonard Thank you, First Minister. Margaret Goodman is in the gallery today. The debate about our NHS is not just about statistics. In the end, it is about real lives and real people like Margaret. Out in the real world, Scotland's health service staff are being failed. Those district nurses, our hospital doctors, those ambulance crews, they are all being failed, failed by your Government and Scotland's patients, they are being failed as well, including people like Margaret. First Minister, how much more failure must people endure before you finally realise that we need a change in our national health service, starting with a change of your health secretary? First Minister, can I recognise Mrs Goodman's attendance here today? If she received care that was not of the standards that she expected from what Richard Leonard has outlined today, it certainly appears that that is the case. Of course, she deserves an apology and I offer that to her. I will arrange for the health secretary to meet personally with Mrs Goodman this afternoon if she wishes to take up that offer. More generally, I do not accept Richard Leonard's characterisation. Of course, I accept that those who work in our NHS are working under extreme pressure. That has always been the case and continues to be the case, but we are putting records sums of money into the health service. We see record numbers of people working in the health service. Of course, as demand on the health service increases, we need to not only invest but also reform the way that the health service works. Next week, I understand the third part of our national workforce plan, focusing particularly on primary care and the wider primary care team, which will include district nurses, which have been mentioned by Richard Leonard, will be published. There is a great deal of work under way to ensure that our NHS is able to meet those challenges and that this Government will continue to support them every step of the way. We have three constituency questions. The first is from Richard Lochhead. The First Minister might recall that we passed legislation in 2016 that means that fatal accident inquiries will now be mandatory for military deaths. As a result, my constituent, Jimmy Jones, and myself are meeting the Crown Office on Tuesday to put the case to them. There should now be an FAI into the RAF tornado's crash in the Murray Firth in 2012 that tragically claimed the lives of three aircrew. Where we will present new evidence to make the case for the issues to be properly examined in a Scottish court in a fully transparent manner following the internal inquiry that was conducted by the Military Aviation Authority. I do appreciate that decisions and FAIs are solely a matter for the Lord Advocate, but will the First Minister recognise and join me in paying tribute to the tenacious and determined campaign by Mr Jones, who has the support of the bereaved families? My thoughts, and I am sure that the thoughts of all of us remain primarily and firmly with the families of the victims of the tornado crash. Tragedies like that are a reminder of the risks that are undertaken by our armed services even when they are away from the front line, and I think that all of us should have that in mind at all times. Richard Lochhead has noted decisions regarding fatal accident inquiries are a matter for the Lord Advocate and rightly a matter for the Lord Advocate, but I hope that the meeting that he refers to is productive. I am very happy in this chamber today to recognise publicly the contribution that Jimmy Jones made to the framing of the new legislation that passed in 2016. Liam Kerr, as reported in today's press and journal, in my region there is serious public concern over a shortage of fire engine cover in Aberdeen, with appliances routinely stood down due to a shortage of crew. Today's joint statement from the FBU and the service states that processes will be improved. Can the First Minister tell the public what processes these are and what the improvements will be, and does she agree with ACO Ramsay that action should be taken to strengthen local decision making, as more centralisation is not the answer? Yes, I do believe in the importance of local decision making, and indeed deployment decisions, including the provision of fire appliances, are an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. In relation to the situation in Aberdeen, I know that the fire service has described it as a short-term issue and has also confirmed it. I think that it is very important that there has been no situation where crews had not arrived as quickly as possible to incidents. The fire service, I understand, has met the FBU to discuss the issue in Aberdeen, and following the meeting, the north divisional organiser of the FBU said that he thought things were moving in the right direction. Following our meeting, he said, in the assurances that we have been given, we think that things are now moving in the right direction. I hope that the member will welcome that. As I said in relation to the national health service, in the last series of questions, all of us have a duty to support our firefighters as they do the vital work that they do. The First Milk has announced that it will sell torieline cremery on the island of Arran, opened by King George VI in 1946, and Mull of Kintyre cremery, leaving workers and suppliers shell-shocked in the words of NFU Scotland. Torieline produces high-quality, traditionally made cheeses winning a best cheddar in the world awards in 2013. Can the First Minister say what the Scottish Government's response is to those successful cremeries and premium bands being sold with their operations moved to Wales and Cumbria? What can be done to minimise the impact on those who work at the cremeries and the local supply chain, including Arran and Kintyre farms? The announcement by First Milk to sell Cambeltown and Arran cremeries is very disappointing. By their admission, the iconic products produced by those cremeries do not fit with their longer-term strategy. However, the potential sale of the sites offers an opportunity for the right approach to be taken in terms of future ownership to achieve a sustainable future for the cremeries for farmers and for local communities. The rural economy secretary I know is already working with officials to explore all possible options to save those cremeries, and that involves engaging fully with local agencies, partners and, importantly, the farmers themselves to work with any potential investors so that we can try to find a sustainable and viable way forward. I know that the rural economy secretary would be happy to meet Kenny Gibson to discuss the matter further. People everywhere have been shocked and disturbed at the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. It is regarded as the world's most severe humanitarian crisis at present, with tens of millions of people in need of help. It is directly caused by Saudi Arabia's blockade and bombing campaign. The Scottish Government has contributed public money to the disastrous emergency committee's appeal in response to that humanitarian crisis. Members of the First Minister's party have joined Greens and others in opposing the UK Government's arms deal with Saudi Arabia, which will continue to make that situation worse. Why, then, is Scottish Enterprise also giving public money to the world's largest guided-missile manufacturer, Raytheon, which supplies Saudi Arabia? Is there not an immense contradiction between showing that legitimate and urgent concern for the victims of a humanitarian crisis caused by the brutality of the arms industry while still funding the arms industry? First, I agree with Patrick Harvie's comments about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the causes of that. I do not think that there is any disagreement between us there. Let me turn to the specific question about Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government's responsibilities. I want to be very clear about some of that. First, we have to recognise the importance of aerospace and shipbuilding sectors in particular to the Scottish economy. In total, it employed 16,000 people in 2016. That is an important point. The Scottish Government and our enterprise agencies do not provide funding for the manufacture of munitions. Our agency's support is focused on helping firms to diversify and develop non-military applications for their technology. We have been very clear in our expectation that the UK Government should properly police the export of arms and investigate wherever concerns are raised. I am always happy to discuss those issues with individual members of Parliament and would be happy to discuss it further with Patrick Harvie, but I hope that that is of some reassurance to him. There must be a great many businesses out there of all shapes and sizes throughout Scotland who could benefit from that public investment in non-military activity, generating jobs and economic activity without the consequences of funding the arms industry. Raytheon is not the only example. We have also seen a significant amount of money. There is still some lack of clarity in the detail that the Scottish Government publishes, but it has been reported that £6 million has been received by Leonardo, previously known as Selex, again from Scottish Enterprise, a company that is involved in supplying the weapons being used by Turkey against the Kurds in Afrin and elsewhere. There is an immense contradiction, surely, between what we say about the world stage, humanitarian crises and the need to move away from military interventions that make those situations worse not better, while continuing to fund the self-same businesses that profit from that activity. Glasgow City Council is also apparently promoting an arms fair at the moment that involves undersea technology, the kind of weapons that the Scottish Government and many of the rest of us continue to oppose in relation to Trident. Surely, it is time for an ethical investment policy that moves away from the arms trade wholesale and invests instead in sustainable and ethical businesses. First Minister, it is important to focus on what Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise in particular investment does. As I said in my first answer, the Scottish Government and our Enterprise agencies do not provide funding for the manufacture of munitions. We have been very clear that our support is focused on helping firms to diversify and develop non-military applications for the technology that they use. Patrick Harvie mentioned a company called Leonardo, and it featured in the media at the weekend. Scottish Enterprise has supported Leonardo, which is a company based in Edinburgh, to diversify into non-military markets. The investment included supporting the company to target opportunities in blue light and civilian markets. Through that funding, Leonardo developed a radar system for launch by the Norwegian Search and Rescue Service and also helped them to secure a contract with the Royal Canadian Air Force for a system that protects aircraft from heat-seeking missiles, so defensive use of technology, not offensive use of technology. Those are important issues that Patrick Harvie is raising. I absolutely recognise that. However, if we are going to have a proper debate about them, one that recognises our ethical responsibilities, which I take very seriously, but also recognises our responsibilities towards economic development, it is important to be clear about what Scottish Enterprise investment does. I hope that what I have said today is something that Patrick Harvie will reflect on, but I am, of course, willing to continue to discuss those issues, as Scottish Enterprise will be with members of Parliament who are interested in those issues. 4. Willie Rennie When Keith Neist's maternity unit was downgraded, local mothers were promised that there would be enough capacity at Regmore hospital in Inverness. Last week, we heard that Emma Moffat was forced to endure a 260-mile journey to the central belt to give birth because Regmore was full up. I have raised that before and was told by the First Minister that safety was the priority. However, for an expectant mother, how can a six-hour journey down the A9 be safe? Can the First Minister answer me that? I think that it is important, and I know that Willie Rennie will accept this point. I think that he accepted it at the last time. The decision to change the status of Caithness maternity unit was made not by Scottish ministers, but by NHS Highland, specifically on safety grounds. That decision was informed by a review that they commissioned after the death of a child in September 2015. Mothers who are deemed at low risk will be able to give birth locally—that is an important point to stress—but higher-risk mothers will give birth in Regmore. That decision was taken on safety grounds. Of course, any mother who is required to travel any distance will be advised by midwifery staff on how to transport babies. Advice is already available in other formats. Those are, again, important issues, but it is really important that we understand that the safety imperative that lies behind us in NHS Highland is very cognisant of the needs and concerns of those who have to travel to Inverness when, understandably, they would prefer to give birth locally. Willie Rennie Minister has promised that people in Caithness, that Regmore would be strengthened. Little did they know that that meant being sent to Livingston. Campaigners say that parents are now thinking twice about whether to have a family. What a devastating failure of Government health policy that is. At the weekend, the chairman of the BMA said that services across Scotland are deteriorating and that patients are suffering. 99 GP practices are closed to new patients. Last week, I raised the tragic failures on mental health services. Others raised failures on primary care and emergency care. Even SNP backbenchers spoke out. Today, we have heard about the case of Margaret Goodman. Of course, there is the closure of the children's word at Paisley. How bad does it have to get for the NHS before the First Minister accepts that change is needed at the top? The health secretary has got to go. Willie Rennie quoted the BMA. The views of clinicians are hugely important. His quoting of the BMA suggests that he thinks that, too. He then mentions the children's word at Paisley, which was a decision informed by the views of the clinicians who work with sick children. Willie Rennie cannot really have it both ways. The BMA also said at the weekend that it recognised the record resources and staffing in our national health service. Yes, there are pressures in our national health service. Demand is rising on health services, not just in Scotland, but right across the developed world. That is why we are investing record sums, but it is also why we are doing the hard work to reform the way that our health service delivers. The last part of the workforce plan that I mentioned earlier on that will be published next week is looking at the multidisciplinary teams that are needed, particularly in primary care. On the important issue of maternity services in Caithness, I hope that all of us would agree that what is most important of all is that pregnant women receive safe and high-quality care. On occasions where women and babies are required to travel to ensure that best possible care, we have a network of special baby care units. The Scottish Ambulance Service, which is operated by the Scottish Ambulance Service, provides a safe and effective service for patients who require support from an augmented clinical team. Those are important issues, but safety and the views of clinicians have to be given priority. For the part of this Government, all of us, the health secretary, me and the whole Government will focus on supporting our NHS through the investment and reform that it needs to continue to provide the high-quality services that it does, services that continue to attract record high patient satisfaction levels. We have some further supplementaries. The first from Miles Briggs. First Minister, this week, breast cancer patients, including my constituents, in Lothian stepped up their campaign to make the secondary breast cancer drug Projetta available on the NHS. Women in England have access to this drug, but Scottish patients still do not. Over a year ago, the Scottish Government committed to introducing a better system of negotiation to the cost of this new medicine. When will we see this system put in place? What can the Scottish Government do right now to help to make a deal happen to make Projetta available for Scottish women? First Minister, to make a point that I have made several times in this chamber before, decisions on access to medicines are not taken by ministers, they are taken by the independent processes that we have in place, the Scottish Medicines Consortium in particular. The member mentions that this drug is available in other parts of the UK and not in Scotland. There will be other drugs where that is true in reverse. Those are independent processes, and I think that all of us should respect the independence of those processes. Of course, it is the responsibility of Government to provide proper funding. We have invested nearly £200 million since 2014 through our new medicines fund, and that has seen access to new medicines increase in recent years. We continue to work with the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry to build on that as we implement the recommendations of the Montgomery review. I absolutely understand the views of cancer patients who want access to that. Officials are undertaking discussions with the pharmaceutical company to try to achieve a solution. The company needs to continue the dialogue with the national procurement in order to bring forward a submission at a fair and transparent price. At a price, that is no worse than the price that they have offered in England and Wales. As I said earlier, those decisions are independent decisions. They are rightly independent decisions, but this Government, through our funding and the reforms of the Montgomery process, will continue to do everything that we can to ensure that patients have access to the medicines that they need. Christina McKelvie Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I know that there are members of a brand new young gypsy traveller assembly watching in the gallery today, and I would like to welcome them to the Parliament and say that the Equality and Human Rights Committee is looking forward to meeting with them in the future. I also know that they are meeting with the Cabinet Secretary this afternoon. However, does the First Minister agree with me that it is time that we ensure that, in Scotland, the well-used phrase of discrimination against gypsy travellers has been the last form of acceptable racism in Scotland becomes an issue of the past in Scotland? Christina McKelvie Let me offer a warm welcome to the young gypsy travellers who are here in the gallery with us today. The gypsy traveller community continues to face prejudice and discrimination. I hope that, across the chamber, we can all agree that it is absolutely unacceptable and that it has no place whatsoever in a modern and inclusive Scotland. As Christina McKelvie knows, we have set up a new ministerial working group to drive improvements for the community at a faster pace. I am delighted that the young gypsy traveller assembly has been invited to speak at the meeting of that group next week. The cabinet secretary will meet our visitors today this afternoon, and I hope that the young gypsy traveller community will be regular visitors to this Parliament in the future because they are most welcome. Neil Findlay At the brief valley medical practice in my region, all of the GPs have resigned and there are zero applicants to take over. Patients from Stonyburn will no longer have a GP in their local health centre. If they do not have a car, they will force to travel at a cost of £4.50 a time on the bus to another already under pressure health centre. Across Lothian, 40 per cent of GPs have closed their waiting lists, training places go unfilled and the system would collapse without locums. The health secretary has overseen a disaster in general practice in our communities. For the sake of patients in places such as Stonyburn, will you ask her to stand aside and bring in someone who will get a grip of this disaster in general practice? The Opposition might want to continue to play politics with this. We will continue to focus on the hard work of supporting our national health service and delivering for patients. There are a range of actions that the health secretary is taking to boost recruitment into general practice. We are also working to build the multidisciplinary teams that support GPs. Of course, the new GP contract will go a considerable weight at addressing some of the concerns that GPs have been expressing. The member mentioned training places. I do not have the exact figures in front of me, but the fill rate of training places this year—if memory serves me correctly—is higher than it was last year, suggesting that those actions are starting to have effect. There are challenges facing health services all over the UK and indeed all over Europe and the world, but we will continue to focus on providing the investment and taking the action that allows us to address those challenges and ensure that patients continue to have record high satisfaction in the services that they depend on. Murdo Fraser Thank you, Presiding Officer. It was announced on Monday that the resist to say, Brugge ferry service is to be scrapped following a fire on the current vessel. This is a ferry service that has operated since 2002, first as a passenger and freight service and more latterly as a purely freight service. Its loss will be a significant blow to the fife economy and the wider economy of the east of Scotland and reduce connectivity between Scotland and export markets in Europe. What discussions has the Scottish Government had either with the current operator of the service, DFDS, or any other operator about the possibilities for reinstating the important link? The transport minister spoke to DFDS, the current operator of the ferry earlier this week, and has also had discussions or officials, certainly have had discussions with 4th port to look at the range of possible options that might be available. It is deeply disappointing and regrettable that the service has been withdrawn by the current operator. I was involved not long after I became First Minister in discussions with that company to secure the future of it, so the fire obviously was an unforeseen circumstance that is regrettable, but we want to make sure that we export all options to get a service running again. I will undertake or give that an undertaking that the transport minister will keep members of Parliament updated on the progress of his discussions, but there is an absolute determination if it is at all possible to see a service running again. To ask the First Minister whether the UK Government's EU withdrawal bill has been adequately amended to meet the approval of the Scottish Government. No. We are lodging with the Parliament a legislative consent memorandum, which will set out in detail our remaining concerns about the UK Government's proposals. Crucially, it also offers solutions that would protect devolution, be consistent with the current devolution settlement and enable us to reach agreement. The bill has so far not been adequately amended. The latest changes, as I said earlier on, allow Westminster to override this Parliament and constrain its powers for up to seven years. Even if this Parliament votes not to give consent, the UK Government can turn that refusal into what it calls a consent decision in order to overrule the will of Parliament. The Scottish Government could not recommend approval to a measure that undermines devolution in such a fundamental way, but we will continue to work to see if agreement can be reached. Even now, I hope that we can reach an agreement. Ash Denham, the First Minister for that answer. If I am understanding this correctly, according to the amendments that were published yesterday, even if the Scottish Parliament expressly refuses consent, let's say that every single MSP in this place votes against having its hands tied by Westminster on matters to do with fishing or the environment or GM crops, the UK Government could take that express refusal as the green light that it needs to go ahead and impose those restrictions anyway. Surely no party that has any respect for this Parliament or for the devolution settlement could sign up to that. Ash Denham is right in her interpretation. The amendments are public every member of this chamber—I hope that before there is any vote on this, every member of this chamber will pay close attention to those amendments. It is not a requirement under those amendments for the UK Government to obtain our consent. It is simply a requirement for them to allow us to make a consent decision, but a consent decision could include a decision by this Parliament to refuse consent. If we say no, they can go ahead and do it anyway. That is a pretty strange definition of consent, and it is not one that I have previously been familiar with. We have put forward two potential solutions. I heard Jackson Carlaw when I put them forward before saying that we want a veto. What we want is that, under one of those proposals, if clause 11 was amended to allow consent of this Parliament, that would simply reflect what is already the arrangement for other orders such as section 30. It is not something unprecedented—it is not something that does not exist—or, if clause 11 was simply removed, we would enter into a voluntary agreement, which is what the UK Government is offering to do to us, so we would both trust each other. However, what the UK Government wants is for them to have a voluntary agreement and us to have our powers restricted by law for seven years. No self-respecting MSP in this chamber could possibly sign up to that, but if we were to come together and make clear to the UK Government the basis on which a deal could be done, then we would get a deal. I think that the biggest question—I can understand why the Tories are not bothered about this—is that they want Westminster to be in charge. I cannot understand for the life of me why Labour would agree to this. We hear a lot, do we not, about the supposed influence of Ruth Davidson. Here, we have an opportunity to put it to the test. If Ruth Davidson has got an ounce of influence, we will get a deal, but I suspect that she will just roll over and do whatever her Westminster bosses tell her, as usual. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government is doing to support children from families with a parent who has an alcohol or drug addiction. The First Minister We are currently providing £600,000 a year to the Cora Foundation. The Cora Foundation supports Scottish voluntary organisations to deliver vital on-the-ground support to children and families across Scotland, affected by substance and alcohol use. The investment that we are making in strengthening child and adolescent mental health services will further improve the support available. Of course, it is better to seek to prevent the damage occurring in the first place than to treat it, which is why any response to alcohol harm needs to include preventative measures such as minimum unit pricing, which I am pleased to say will be enforced in Scotland from Tuesday next week. Brian Whittle I thank the First Minister for that answer, and I think that we have to accept that Scotland has an issue with its poor relationship with alcohol and drugs. We know that dependency is often a contributing factor in families experiencing domestic abuse and neglect. NSPCC says that there has been a 30 per cent increase in calls to its help line over the welfare of a child due to a parent misusing alcohol in the past year. We recently heard of the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, supported by the shadow health secretary, John Ashworth, who announced a £6 million package of funding to help children with alcoholic parents to get support and advice. I wonder whether the First Minister would consider doing likewise for children in Scotland and perhaps go even further and also include children with parents of other similarly destructive addictions. The First Minister As I indicated in my original answer, we already provide funding to organisations working in this field. The Cora Foundation mentions £600,000 a year to support children and families facing these issues. We also provide £280,000 in this year to Scottish families who are affected by alcohol and drugs, to support families across Scotland, who are affected by a loved one's substance misuse. That includes signposting children and families to services and contacts in their local area. We already fund a range of organisations to do that work, and we will continue to look at ways in which we can support them. It is absolutely right to raise issues about the impact of drug and alcohol misuse. I absolutely recognise the responsibility of the Government to take action in that regard, but prevention is, as I said, better than cure, which is why the comprehensive nature of our strategy to tackle alcohol misuse is so important. I think that the introduction of minimum pricing next week, after a delay of so many years being caught up in the courts, is such a positive step forward. In years to come, I think that it will be something that this Parliament will be really proud of. John Mason I wonder if the First Minister would agree with me that the third sector has a very important role to play in this. For example, safe families for children, which operate in the east end of Glasgow. As often, families will be more willing to engage with the third sector. First Minister Yes, I agree very strongly with that. I appreciate all that our third sector and voluntary organisations do in the support that they provide, and I see evidence of that in my constituency. As I have already said, alongside important local partnerships, the Scottish Government provides funding for a number of organisations at national level, including, as I indicated earlier, Scottish families affected by alcohol and drugs who support families across Scotland dealing with those issues. Those are important organisations and those working at local level are just as important as the national organisations that I have referred to. Thank you very much, and that concludes First Minister's questions. Parliament will be suspended. Business will resume at 2.30, but I would invite all members to gather again in the chamber for one o'clock, and we will be able to hear from President Matarica.


So I'm Captain Hans Kohler. I go by my call sign Prank. I'm a pilot in the 90th fighter squadron at J-Bear, Alaska And we're out here flying the F-22 you can see behind us in support of Northern Edge So we're here in King Sam and Alaska PAKN supporting exercise Northern Edge We're flying the F-22 you can see behind me out of here to join airplanes from other bases Both north in the J-Park and east in the Goa. This airfield is significant because it's a contingency airfield We do not normally fly fighters out of here And so we've had teams work very hard to prepare the airfield and the cells You can see behind us for the fighters to arrive as well as a out-based joining as I said those fighters from other Airfields out in the exercise fight airspace This training and this airfield is relevant in that we are Demonstrating our agile combat employment with teams from numerous bases here participating to both prepare this airfield bring in the aircraft and then Each day execute the missions both from an aircrew maintenance and support perspective Yep, so training here and flying out of this outbase has been definitely a significant for generating lessons learn both in the build-up of the base bringing people and supplies out here as well as the daily missions for us Just some hard chips of being outside of your normal contact And home station procedures have all added more difficulty So the lessons learned from that as well as the experience for each of the aircrew and support personnel of the difficulties Flying out of here are definitely going to contribute to going forward and further a contingency operations


Good to see you back for what happens to be a hundred one hundred and seventy seven human humane architecture show here on think tech Hawaii, which is our first show in this happy human humane new twenty twenty one year, and we're broadcasting live once again from half around the world, meaning from back in Honolulu with hello you the solo. Hello Martin and hello everybody who's watching welcome to twenty twenty one and we're doing this right in the midst of something very auspicious, which we are about to talk about in just a second. But if you look at the pictures to the right of us, you'll see you seeing fireworks in Germany and me seeing fireworks here in Honolulu for welcoming in the new year, hoping that it's going to be a better year than twenty twenty ones. And they were both not supposed to happen because we're both in more or less lockdowns we're actually just entered a very tight lockdown again. But no one was supposed to shoot fireworks, but people didn't regardless you took the picture at the very bottom and Suzanne son took the one at the very top. So anyways, and today is actually a national holiday here. It's epiphany, but actually should be a holiday over there because something way more sorry, you Christians, you know, don't get me wrong, but there's something way more important happening right now over there in the United States of America. And let's get to the next slide because talking fireworks right now, we're worried about firearms and hopefully not anything coming out of them at the Capitol in Washington, DC to sort of right. Yeah. And in fact, literally just before we started the show, I was reading out loud what some of the news reports are in which the pro Trump supporters are actually literally storming and inside and disrupting the electoral vote. Count that's supposed to be going on right now claiming that Trump has actually won and Trump has not one Trump has lost. But he has whipped people up to go to his side and disrupt things claiming that he's still going to be president. And that's what unfortunately we're experiencing right this minute on January 6 2021. Exactly. So we're not proud of these boys.  That's right. Try to try to do better and win again next time. No, no, let's let's stay political and go to the next slide because what does architecture have to do with politics in vice versa. And thanks to my mom, we're actually brought to my attention last time we were celebrating my dad's birthday. She was bringing to my attention about Vladimir Putin, who it's probably safe to say, you know, he's not a Democrat. He's not democratic, but the opposite. He's a dictator, one of the too many we have in the world. And we just got rid of one in our country, Donald Trump. So here, again, is an announcement of him building these monuments and architect building these monuments for Vladimir Putin. And then there is this interesting news article to the right side, which is basically quoting which we can call for the best. The Chameleon architecture from the past, Philip Johnson, but the worst and opportunist, who was rather scarily close to dictators and sympathetic with with the Nazis. And that was Philip Johnson. And so in an interview that this architect here, Wolf Precks, who's a founding principle of the architectural firm of cold people, Blau was actually saying it doesn't matter for who I'm building, you know, it's about what I build. Let's go to the next slide, because then and further interviewing him. And here he is at the very bottom right, we have to say the ones my age at the point where we're in school and postmodernism was over, and he's what's supposed to be. He came up with his rather refreshing provocative ideas. Here is a sort of, you know, yeah, pretty scary and in a good way, deconstructive remodeling of an of a rooftop apartment in Vienna, and here's Wolf Precks now up in age, where he's reflecting and basically blaming the younger generation that I'm very close to because I'm mentoring them and I'm honored to do that. And he's blaming them for not having any visions. Fairly, he also blames himself and said, we haven't really gotten anything accomplished. And let's look at some of that stuff that he himself thinks he really maybe wasn't doing so well. So next slide. And what are we looking at the solo? Well, you said this is what this is a near to or part of the complex that was originally constructed for the Munich Olympics in 1972. And I looked at this building and said, what on earth is that? And it's mostly composed of very shiny, reflective metal panels. There's one little bit of glass that's visible at the bottom is sort of a triangle.  And this puzzled me when I first saw this, this kind of a quick sketch on maybe a cocktail napkin of what he was trying to do. To have something kind of floating and some, some, I don't really know, you can try to explain that if possible. But the original 1972 structure, which is this interesting swoopy thing that suspended from poles, almost like a giant circus tent would have been in the United States, is still there and is still interesting and usable. And this new structure, which was built as a, like a convention center or an auditorium or like a gathering place, is much more just there to look funny and look interesting and look sort of billowy and not necessarily rigid. And buildings like this, as you have said, are the work of star architects who in some cases just simply want to do something that looks quirky and is not necessarily that useful or sensible. Yeah, we can say to that regard, we agree with him that he has failed because he wanted to like be in the tradition of that, you know, great, ingenious engineering marvel of the Olympic tent structure by Fradi on Günter Beynisch, which looks as fresh these days as, you know, back then 50 years ago, while his and it's authentic. It's like what you see is what you get. Well, here it's most likely a steel structure, but it's all mass graded, right? It's covered up. It has makeup on and that to that degree is truly formalist and has little to no performative measures. Go to the next slide because and at this point, we want to let the audience know that as much as possible, we pull from personal either archives, as in your case, with your great archive of professional and personal or as walking around and I witnessing things and I happen to be in Frankfurt around. I think it was during my Arizona time. So sometimes in 2013 or 14, where I was seeing this project under construction, which is the European Central Bank towers also by Cobb Himmelblau. And Frankfurt has a recent history, you know, a modern marvel, which we talked about before at the very bottom right, which is the commerce tower by Lord Norman Foster, which is really trying to push that very sort of power and money dominated typology of a high rise into a more ecologically sensitive and responsible dimension. And that was in the early nineties and some two decades later. Next slide, Wolf Precks came in and won a competition for this basically fossil monument here, which, you know, tries to, again, as you said, look kooky, look funny, it's twisted and morphed and turned. And at the next slide, but on a performative level, what we see here is the white sheets in the back is actually the construction workers boarding the building up when it was under construction. So it wasn't even totally hermetically completed. And again, I'm not wearing my collar here for decoration because we have snow here pretty heavy these days. And it's really cold and this being next door to me in my country. This time of the year, it might actually make sense because when the sun might come out tomorrow again, this might, you know, perform as far as solar gain. But then in the summer that isn't I remember at Frankfurt is funny because, you know, the Iron Man being in Hawaii, there's actually a German one in Frankfurt. And some years ago, all the athletes were so happy to perform under cooler temperatures in Frankfurt, and we actually had it hotter at that point than in Hawaii. We had a huge wave and it was like in the hundreds. And then, oh, my God, we wish we would have been still in Hawaii. Yeah. So once again, you know, here, here he is at the beginning or fairly into the new 21st century doing basically fossil formalism, which is wrong. So yeah, and you pointed out, you pointed out to that in Germany and a temperate climate where it gets cold for a good portion of the year, it may be useful at times to be sealed into a glass box, which will heat up through solar energy. But that's not true 100 percent of the time. So for the rest of the year, where you don't want it to be a heated up glass box, like a greenhouse to grow plants. And that's something that is very prominent in temperate climates. Glass greenhouses are created to grow tropical plants in cold climates because they gather and conserve heat to keep tropical plants alive when there's snow outside. So sometimes that works, but that's not true 100 percent of the time for the whole year. Yeah. And for sure not in Hawaii, because this is how the buildings look that we predominantly see popping up in Honolulu left and right. And they're totally wrong. And here they're pretty, pretty wrong, too, because the summer is coming next. And then these are wrong, too. Speaking of European Union gets us to the next slide, because this is a lady we've been talking about quite a bit. She's now the head commissioner of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen here, who's currently struggling with COVID as we all are and with getting us as much vaccine as possible right now. But she's also promoting something here that you found interesting, right, that we quoted at the very top left. Well, she said that she thinks it's time for a new Bauhaus to be created. And I wondered what she meant by that term. Now, the Bauhaus for those who don't know is was an art school and an art movement and a construction movement, design movement created in Germany in the early part of the 20th century, 100 years ago, actually. Very forward thinking. And also what I said, what does that mean? You said that you thought that what that meant is a comprehensive, all encompassing type of new attitude in which you design for everybody and you try to affect as much as possible of daily lives to improve them. So I think what she's saying is a new spirit, a new going forward of not only unity, but looking at everything holistically to improve everybody's lives. And certainly this would take into account climate change, energy usage, etc. Absolutely. And that being said, you know, the United States continue to be the strongest ally of the European Union. She's obviously much looking forward to the Camilla and Joe Biden administration now because that's the reason why the Proud Boys are so freaked out because as it looks like the Democrats are about to win not just the House, because that was in their hands, but also the Senate now. So that gives, again, the Biden-Harris administration much more leverage to be in line with Fundalign. She also calls it the new European Green Deal. And that's obviously referring to America as well. So it goes both ways, right? Right. So next slide is getting us back to America. And again, here's Camilla Harris up there. And again, Ursula is a woman, Angelism is a woman. Many of the other nations who are led by women have actually proven to do better in many ways also during COVID. So hopefully next time we're long overdue to also have a woman leading us. But again, now it's teamwork between Joe and Camilla. That's that's already as good as we can ask for at this point, right? And again, also, we want to say our friend, Ron Lindgren, who is who we're going to have next with us again on air in the volume two of this show here, reminded us of the tragic fact that of the 350,000 casualties of COVID in the United States, 250. So two thirds are basically the wisdom parts of society, the 165 and older, and that's really tragic. And here, luckily, here, the two presidents that we still have around Jimmy, the oldest president ever, and then Joe, you know, running us next. We're really happy to have them around. And, you know, we see a certain, you know, relationship between the two of them and Joe basically reconnecting to what what Jimmy did. And let's go to the next slide and talk more about that. And also, we want to remember the many that we have lost again, especially of that wisdom age group. This is my dear mentor, Bill Bonner, without, you know, whom I wouldn't be where I am and I probably wouldn't have known about Hawaii. Of course, I knew where Hawaii is, but more vaguely. But when I came back to teach in Nebraska and he took me under his wings, he basically always told me about his dream place, which is Hawaii. And he was vacationing there forever in the past and continued to go there. These were the times when he had his wife, Debbie, and their friend, Becky, out there in Kauai, twice. This was us out there. And next slide, going back to the glorious days of the 70s, Bill was instrumental. He started teaching in 72. And he was the environmental engineer of the building that probably has informed and impacted me the most, which is the 1976 National Bank of Commerce by IMPAY in Lincoln, Nebraska. And you see at the very bottom right, the achievement of Bill together with IMPAY, this beautiful fusion of at that time, granted, the 70s were still fossil, you know, principally, but this beautiful fusion of all systems, acoustical, air conditioning, lighting, sprinkling, structure, everything collapsed into this beautiful blend of reflective ceiling plan. And needless to say, IMPAY, we have a treasure of IMPAY. And that's we are referring to with this image from your archives, which shows it before, right, before construction. And that is East West Center. That's right. That's right. And go to the next slide. And this is this is the building here. We see the next generation R&T, the meant the bore up there at the very top left at the east fenestration of the building that is sculptured in a way that it keeps the sun out. So this building basically is between the big awakening of the first oil crisis at the beginning of the 70s and was completed in 1976 and is fully demonstrating that even under not so good political leadership of Nixon at the beginning, you know, architecture was, you know, not, you know, giving up and trying to do its very best. And then obviously when it was completed, then Jimmy picking up from there and really fostering environmental concerns and consciousness, right? So this is a brilliant building. And I once gave out the task in talking Chile and my background picture is a picture from the construction originally, and now it's being, you know, below freezing here in Nebraska, even more with a wind chill, I can't even tell you. It's like it feels like 30 below. So they were building this through the winter and this is port and place concrete, buff colored concrete and how in the world did they make this happen to pour through the the winter and the freezing? Why do we say this and why we don't have that? So we should, you know, really be very happy and feel honored to be able to to be able to build under the more privileged circumstances, constantly perfect, you know, temperature. Right. Nothing freezes here. Exactly. Next slide. Talking marvels from the 70s. This is a 1975 building by Harry Wees in Chicago. And that caught your interest, right? Yes. And this is interesting because it needed to be placed in a prominent location. So it had to be architecturally rather distinguished looking, particularly considering that it is a high security prison. So the response to that requirement was to build this very sharp edged triangular high rise that is distinctive looking because it's got these very skinny little windows that could only be a maximum of five inches wide. That's for security purposes, but it ended up looking interesting and looking like an old fashioned IBM computer punch card, which the architect acknowledged was part of what he wanted to do. And it became a striking looking building, despite or partly because of the nature of what it was doing. It was housing hardened criminals that had to be kept under high security. Yeah. And next, well, stay with this slide for a second here. Just like Wells Fargo Bank and Lincoln, Nebraska, this was basically pigmentant. So the color was basically mixed into the concrete, which I poured in place in this sort of buff color. It was actually imported from Texas. And next slide is when I was back in Chicago a while ago and my buddy from school, Dan Kubrick, basically drove me around and I asked him to drive back because I was hoping that what I saw wasn't real, but it was real. And was that the solo? Well, unfortunately, they've painted the building this kind of buff mustard color. And for some reason, it's true, even here in Honolulu, people feel the need to update concrete, plain, concrete, brutalist buildings by painting them this same yellowy color. That's happened here in Honolulu. It happened to the federal building downtown with the federal courthouse. It happened to the Kaiser Clinic in central Honolulu. It happened at the UH. And for some reason, uniformly, everybody thinks they should do this. They should not. They should leave the building as it was designed, but also because once you paint something, you have to keep painting it. Therefore, you are putting yourself in a situation of constant maintenance, which the plain concrete did not require. Yeah. Yeah. And talking like, you know, finding a sociotel explanation for that. While in the Jimi era, it was about authenticity, right? It was about the real starting with the movie actor, Ronnie Reagan, and continued to be through Trump, even more to an extreme surreal level. It was all about the look and the faking it, right?  So similar with the building that just threw the makeup on the fake over it. And we basically covering up its authenticity. And next slide, again, I once had the situation. I was also banking in this is back to Nebraska. This is the lobby down there and I happened to be in the lobby and I saw them doing some test paint on some of the counters. And I basically freaked out in a woman that turned out to have something to say, basically asked me. And when I came back next time, they had scraped off the test test paint and basically tried to wash it, get the grease out, because it was where the in the summer, when the short pens and the skirts, you know, the legs were leaving their grease in the concrete, right? We're washing this out and luckily, because, again, you cannot make something like that. This is like, again, me, the Americana, these buildings would have never happened in Germany. We lost the war for good reason. Thank you. And we were traumatized. Some modernism was stiff and this very proud her rowing is was only able to be possible in America, only in America. The next slide truly shows us, Bill, here he is taking the students and me out to where the cutting edge technology is. This is out to the prefab concrete industry in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. And you see these huge highway trusses, double T with these amazingly, you know, flimsy and thin flanges there. And again, picture up there. We have that, too. We have that out there. A great specific walking mountain precast out west at Campbell Industrial Park. And why did Bill show this to us? Next slide, because he wanted to prevent this, right?  And we'll talk about more about that next week. But this just didn't start yesterday or with the Trump. So it's preceding Trump. This was at the end of my period days, so somewhere before 2010. And here you can see this basically, you know, small bank branch being basically a composite structure, the canopy out there is steel being make up and masqueraded with these exquisitely done precast panels that don't try to be they're not allowed to be what they are extremely modern and progressive, but they they need to become this sort of neoclassical masquerade. Yeah, it's preposterous.  Exactly.  And this is when I saw Bill last, when he was visiting us in our rather boy headquarters. You see him with my dad at the very bottom right there. And we took him to all the historic marvels of Dresden here. Right. And this is where the old stuff comes from. And that's where it should be long.  But when you go home, like to America, you take it home and you take home from it what you want. And then you interpret that. And that reminds us of one person in architectural history who is probably embodying that sort of mentality the most. And that gets us to the next slide. And that is who? Well, that's Louis Kahn. And I am pay, who you see at the top was one of his big fans, who was very influenced by him. And you pointed out that here is a documentary about Kahn, which was done by his son. You see his son with him in the photograph in the lower left. I have not seen this this film. You took your sons to see it when they were very little. And as you pointed out, they saw you crying with emotion to see the work of this man and to find out about his life. Yeah, very much so. And again, in the movie, Nathaniel, who you see here at the very bottom left with his father and happy new year, Nathaniel, we have a chance to get to know him when we brought him to you age to basically show the movie and have a Q&A after that, never forget that. And basically in the movie, basically he goes out to interview for various reasons. He didn't have the chance to get to know his father a lot. So he wanted to get to know him through the ones who have been around him. So he was asking all the famous people who are still around. And one of them was I am pay. And we probably have to do a show about him because of the footprint in and he passed away in the very honorable age of 102 last year. And that was some years ago, but he was already up in age. And when Nathaniel basically said, well, I am why in the world you have built so many more buildings that my dad has and great buildings. No doubt on that one. Why are you so keen on the projects of my father? And basically I am pay is very taken. He basically said it's not about quantity. It's about quality and none of my projects. And talking Washington, DC, there's the National Gallery right there on the mall, which is an I am pay building and there it's a beautiful building, right? But he basically said none of my many buildings get anywhere close to the quality of the work your father has done. So he was an absolutely big fan of him. Go to the next slide and another one of my dear colleagues. And before that, at my student days, he saw us here. Professor in Lincoln here wrote this book here and talking books. Next slide, the history book he had required us to have in the history class was the one at the very bottom right. And the author was Charles Jenks, we see up there. And he was a landscape architect by training and also with some practice as we see on the other side. But in the book, he was basically pretty much always bitching about Khan. And I found this sort of weird that I was a student. So I wasn't quite sure why and what. And I hadn't seen any of Khan's work at that point, right? And so I was sort of and, you know, now recently some years ago when I came back and was, you know, on eye level with Keith, I said, why did you assign that? And he basically said, Martin, I was a victim of circumstances of side guys. We're like postmodernism was at least, you know, over at least theoretically, but still somehow there. So we're like kind of lost and, you know, and that was that was what it was. By the way, Jenks passed away as well, I think, last year. So another one we lost. And next slide, talking about losing. I think we're getting to the end of the show, but let's still try to, you know, at least scratch the surface of what we want to talk about. Because here, Jay's repeated guest, Kevin Newt, basically brought this to our attention. And what is that? So this is a series of student dormitories at a college in India by Khan, using red brick in a very reasonable manner, using brick in a way that it, as he points out, brick wants to be used. This is a classic. This is a complex of buildings. And this college has decided that are said that they were planning to demolish most of these. And there was an international outcry against that. And people pointed out, no, you can't just throw most of them away and just keep a handful of them as examples. The integrity of the entire project needs to be preserved. And so far they have agreed that, yes, that we're not going to tear these down, which is a triumph for preservation of this architecture. Yeah. And the next slide is again, it's just showing we were like outraged. And this is the project that embodies everything, you know, tectonically and technologically that Khan is so famous for. And next slide, this is an exception to the rule. But none of us were able to have seen that in real. So we had to pull this from the web here, but it shows how timeless that is and how appropriate it still looks like. And the next slide shows pretty much the plan.  But again, give me a break if there's a will, there's a way. And as you said, this big outcry internationally in the community basically made them change their mind. So another proof of evidence back to politics, we, the people, right, have the power, we just have to use it. Right. And on a closing note, talking typologically, as you said, these are dorms and why could dorms to be of, you know, could should be, you know, in the center of attention for us in Hawaii disorder. Well, because there's a threat to demolish some of the UH dorms and that is exactly the same situation. These are outstanding buildings that you pointed out are very useful because you actually lived in one of them when you first moved here. And we need to, again, assert ourselves and say, we need to keep these and don't just destroy them for something which is not going to be as good. And also is probably just going to look pretty and look interesting rather than be useful and reasonable and appropriate. Exactly. And particularly it's Kaikendorhal that we see up there, which is not a dorm, but a classroom building, but by Takashi Anbi, so a true treasure to keep. So please, our bosses at UH reconsider that and as well, again, as you pointed out, you know, I had spent, I was privileged to spend my first week in Hawaii when I came in 2012 in an IMP dorm, which is basically Hal and Manoa up there and it's a beautiful building. So again, go back, reflect that, research that and then go back to the drawing board because again, we don't want to see again what we see at the intersection of University Avenue and King Street, right? Nor again, what they're proposing for up there on Dole Street, where the creek comes down, right? These are pretty scary, hermetic, invasive creatures. And again, go back to these masterpieces that we have just next door because Hal and Manoa is right there. So with that, once again, happy humane, new 21. Hopefully again, everything stays peaceful there up at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. And we look forward to have democracy back and we'll reflect more about learning from the past for the future and starting out with volume two of this next time and sharing another Lucca building that we actually have with this and we want to share how it had some impact on us. So with that, thank you and see you next week.