Please join in a moment of centering silence, so we can be fully present with each other this morning. Now let's get musically present with each other by turning to the words for our in-gathering hymn, which you'll find inside your order of service. That always sounds better with the Meeting House Chorus helping us out. Good morning everybody and welcome to another Sunday here at First Unitarian Society where independent thinkers gather in a safe nurturing environment to explore issues of social, spiritual, and ethical significance. I'm Steve Goldberg, a proud member of this congregation and the proud owner of a brand-new haircut and it is my pleasure to offer a special and happy hello to those of you watching or listening at home and a warm welcome to any guests, newcomers, or visitors. If this is your first time at First Unitarian Society, I think you'll find it's a special place. And if you'd like to learn more about our special buildings, we usually offer a guided tour after every service. Just gather over here by the windows and we'll take care of you. Although today we might not have a tour since we have a parish meeting instead, which I'll talk about in a moment. Speaking of taking care of each other, this would be a great time to silence all those pesky electronic devices that you simply will not need for the next hour. So thanks for taking care of that. And as you're doing that, I'll remind you that if you're accompanied this morning by a youngster and that young companion would rather enjoy the service from a more comfortable and private space, we offer a couple alternatives. One is our child haven in the back corner of the auditorium and then some comfortable authentic Frank Lloyd Wright seating in the commons right outside the doorway. The service is brought to us today as it is every weekend by a wonderful team of volunteers whose names you are going to hear and someday we could read your name if you join that team and if you volunteer. I'm sure that they would appreciate your help and you would appreciate the notoriety of having your name announced from this microphone. The names we are about to announce include on the sound system, Maureen Friend, thank you Maureen. Thank you to Anne Smiley for being our lay minister, to Pam Winnie for being our greeter upstairs, to Patricia Becker, Doug Hill, and Don Lamb for being the ushers of this unruly crowd, and to Chip Quaddie and Gene Hills for hosting the hospitality and coffee, and to Nancy Webster for generously donating the flowers that you see behind me. Just a couple announcements before we begin the service. The first announcement is that immediately following today's service at approximately 12.15 p.m. we will have our parish meeting right here to talk about a financial update and some other issues that I know you're going to want to get involved with and understand. But the first thing to understand is that at 12.15 you get to enjoy a wonderful buffet lunch served by the world-famous food haulers. So you're all invited to the parish meeting immediately after this service today. And speaking of days, the cabaret countdown continues, 90 days until April 22nd, Friday evening, where this entire facility will be transformed into one huge musical talent show as well as food and wonderful fundraising auctions to support an organization we all love so well, First Unitarian Society. The last announcement involves something that you're about to witness and it includes the children from our religious education program parading their banners and helping us see the essence of what they've been learning and discussing and experiencing in their religious education program. So you'll have a chance to see some colorful banners. You'll have a chance to see the kids and their instructors. You'll have a chance to hold your applause until the end, which we ask you to do. And as you see these young people parading, remember, this is the next generation of independent thinkers here at First Unitarian Society. So I know you'll want to applaud them warmly after the parade is over. So end of the announcements, please sit back or lean forward to enjoy today's service. I know that you will find it will touch your heart, stir your spirit and trigger one or two new thoughts. We're glad you're here and we're glad that the parade of the religious education program banners is about to begin. Let's go. Our opening words are from the 20th century novelist and poet D.H. Lawrence. This is what I believe that I am I and that my soul is a dark forest and that my known self will never be more than a clearing in that forest and that gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self and then they go back again and that I must have the courage to let them come and to let them go. I invite you to rise in body or in spirit for the lighting of our chalice. Please join me in the words of affirmation that are printed in your program this morning. An energetic spirit, openness to new possibilities, intentionality of purpose, widening circles of caring, deepening commitment to personal growth, which leads to faith in action. These are the marks of a healthy, spiritually alive congregation. Let them be marks of ours as well. And now on this fine January morning, please turn to your neighbor and exchange with them a warm and friendly greeting. Please be seated. Once a month, we generally set aside a few moments at the beginning of the hour for the sharing of joys and sorrows. The time for members and friends and even visitors to our congregation to relate to the entire gathered community, some special event or circumstance that has affected your life or the life of someone close to you in recent days or weeks. General announcements, news items, and partisan appeals are not appropriate during joys and sorrows. And so for the next few minutes, anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium, light a candle in one of the two candelabra to my right or to my left, and then using the microphone provided by Anne Smiley, our lay minister, share your name if that feels comfortable as well as a brief message. Please note that our services are webcast, so listeners are not restricted to the people sitting in this auditorium. You may also step forward and wordlessly light a candle of commemoration and then simply return to your seat. So now I would open the floor for the sharing of these important matters in the life of our community. My name is Michael Watkes-Bomir, people are dying in our lives. It's the first wave of this sort of thing that we've experienced just reaching the age of 60. Disconcerting doesn't begin to cover it too soon. I'm Doug Thurlow, and this is for my mother Barbara, who is a lifelong Unitarian, or Universalist for many years before Unitarian, and for very many years she was a church administrator at the Unitarian Church in Augusta, Maine. So she passed recently and this is for her. Hello, my name is Gwen Harmon. I've lost two long-time friends in the last couple of months, so I'm still thinking of them, and I've passed now a year's anniversary, I guess, of my own daughter's death. So, I agree with the gentleman that said, think things are going too fast, and I told my remaining daughter that I did not want her to die before I did. I'm very pleased to announce that my daughter, Isla George, was born two months ago today, and I'm very grateful to be back out in society. This is my first time back here since she was born, and I was thrilled to be back. Hi, my name is Ellen Roney, and I like this as I think about my daughter's struggles. Hi, my name is Scott Lotus, and I'd like to light a candle for my grandfather today in West Virginia, who was the central father figure in my life, and I also like this candle for my mother and uncle who are attending to him now, and what are likely his last weeks and days. Hi, I'm Kathy Niebuhr Leithrup, and my mother just turned 91 this couple days ago, and I know it's her positive energy, she calls it prayers, that helps save my daughter and Richard's daughter. Thank you. And if you will write light one more candle to signify all of those joys and sorrows that may have occurred to you as others were speaking, and we hold those with equal concern in our hearts. And now I do invite you to rise once more and body or in spirit as we sing our next hymn, number 128. All that is our love. Please be seated. It has been our pleasure for the past two weeks to have as our guests, persons involved with the UW Odyssey program, and there has been a table out in the commons describing the work that they do. And we have also been pleased that Emily Auerbach, the director of that program, has recruited people from the Odyssey program, alumni, to assist with our services. And so this morning we welcome Renee Robinson, who's going to be sharing with us a powerful poem by the late Maya Angelou.  You may write to me down in history with your bitter twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? Cause I walk like I've got oil wells pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, with the certainty of tide. Just like hopes springing high. Still, I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken, bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops weakened by my soulful cries? Does my heartiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard? Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines digging in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words.   But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise that I dance like I've got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame, I rise up from a past that's rooted in pain. I rise. I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, welling and swelling. I bear in the tide, leaving behind nights of terror and fear. I rise into a daybreak that's wondrously clear. I rise, bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave. I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. Members are also rehearsing for our All Music Sunday at the end of March on Palm Sunday, actually. So they're leaving for yet more work this morning. So we appreciate all of your efforts. Powerful poetry, powerful music, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The reflections are inspired, at least in part, by a conversation that I had a number of months ago with a gentleman who spoke a few moments ago, Michael Buttmas-Bomier. And we were talking over a number of different topics, and this is what emerged. I'm not sure it's exactly what Michael had in mind, but we'll see. Ralph Waldo Emerson, yes. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1829. He immediately accepted a call to the Second Unitarian Congregation in Boston, Massachusetts. But then over the course of the next three years, Emerson became increasingly disenchanted, both with his work in the parish and the movement he served, which at the time left him very little room for personal spiritual expression. Writing to his brother Charles, Emerson noted that up to that point he had written and delivered 146 sermons. How many, but not one. Although something less than orthodox, the Unitarianism of the first half of the 19th century was still in many respects respectable, traditional, and conservative. Preachers were expected to be cultivated and scholarly, but not especially original. Like all good Protestants, Unitarians looked almost exclusively to the Bible for inspiration and edification. For the young Emerson, who was not yet 30 when he tendered his resignation from Second Church, for Emerson the relationship was far from satisfactory. Increasingly he felt hypocritical as if he were leading a false life. And so cutting ties after three years was an immense relief, and he celebrated his liberation with a short poem. I will now live out of me. I will not see with others eyes my good is good, my evil ill. I would be free. It was a big risk that he took. Ralph Waldo Emerson was not born into wealth. His father was also a minister, and he was trading a secure, prestigious, and remunerative position for an uncertain future. But henceforth he had resolved to live life completely on his own terms. Now Emerson had already begun keeping journals, journals in which he copied passages from his wide-ranging reading, passages that struck him as profound or significant. And these were accompanied by half-formed but potentially fruitful ideas that had occurred to him in the course of his investigations. The young minister's love of reading and writing persisted unabated. But without a pulpit, how could this passion translate into a livelihood? Fortunately Emerson's spiritual crisis coincided with the rise of the Lyceum lecture circuit, which proved to be the perfect vehicle for his prolific pen. In the years that followed, Emerson became a sought-after public speaker, able to expound on a wide variety of interesting subjects. He was quite successful. He had found his niche, but then in 1838 he was invited to address the graduating class of his alma mater, Harvard Divinity School. He accepted the invitation. He seized the chance, recognizing it as a golden opportunity to instruct a new generation of unitarian clergy in the virtues of fresh independent thinking. Let me admonish you to go alone, he told the graduates. Refuse the good models, even those which are sacred to the imagination of men. Dare to love God without mediator or veil. Yourself, a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity. At Harvard, Emerson dilated at length on the shortcomings of the historic church and of conventional preaching. Since leaving the ministry he had become increasingly convinced that the ultimate locus of religious authority lay within the individual. And so in another place he wrote, the hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbance can shake his will, but pleasantly and as it were merrily he advances to his own music. The reaction to Emerson's Divinity School address came swiftly. Speaking for the unitarian establishment, Andrews Norton, perhaps the most formidable intellect of his generation, Andrews Norton dismissed the young upstarts arguments as an insult to religion. All true Christianity, Norton said, must appeal to the Bible, its recorded miracles, the church and its established authorities, or it is not worthy of the name Christian. There can be no intuition. There can be no direct perception of the truths of Christianity, Andrews Norton scoffed. Ralph Waldo Emerson was no provocateur and he was deeply mortified by this particular sermon's critical reception. And that controversy in 1838 made a lasting impression demonstrating to Emerson the lengths to which society will go to bring unconventional and original thinkers back into line. Self-reliance, perhaps his most notable and oft-quoted essay was a direct result of and a rejoinder to the rebukes that he had received. Now Emerson insisted even more strenuously that ultimate authority resides here with the individual. I remember, Emerson wrote, an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued advisor who was want to importune me with dear old doctrines of the church. And on my saying, what have I to do with the sacredness of traditions if I live wholly from within, my friend replied, but these impulses of yours they may come from below rather than from above. I replied, they do not seem to me to be such. But if I am the devil's child, I will live then from the devil. No law can be sacred to me, but the law of my own nature, the only right is what is after my own constitution, the only wrong is what is against it. Ralph Waldo Emerson's influence on our own self-understanding has been considerable, even if his essays don't make for gripping reading these days. As Americans, we have prided ourselves on being independent-minded, no longer beholden to ancient institutions, hereditary nobles, authoritarian religions like our more deferential European cousins. And so accordingly, the citizens of the United States have, in significant numbers, been drawn to populist anti-establishment politicians like Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryant. And moreover, native religious movements, Christian science, free will, Baptist, Pentecostal, Freethought, they all place a high premium on personal insight, personal inspiration. And Emerson himself spoke very highly of Quakerism, considering it to be the ultimate Protestantism because it privileged individual inspiration and insight. Now, interest in Emerson's thought has waxed and waned over the decades, but in recent years, it seems increasingly to have come back into vogue. And this is partly a consequence of certain scandals that have further damaged the credibility and eroded the authority of traditional institutions. And so we all know that today, trust in government, in the established church, in corporations, in healthcare providers, even in science, is at or near an all-time low. And as a result, a substantial number of Americans have been drawn today toward political insurgents like Ted Cruz, the man most despised by his Senate peers, and Bernie Sanders, who originally ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democratic Socialist and an Independent. It doesn't end there. Many of us ingest supplements and adopt diets that are based on our own private research on certain hunches rather than a physician's advice. We forsake faith communities intending to blaze our own idiosyncratic spiritual path. As consumers, we opt for products that advertisers promise will set us apart and make us seem special. As Andrew O'Hare has observed, these days everybody gets to pick and choose their own beliefs, their experts, their own evidence. It is something like the crisis of meaning that Friedrich Nietzsche foresaw in the 19th century when he proclaimed that God was dead. The foregoing is relevant to our own lives and to our self-understanding for two reasons. First, the confidence that we place, a high value that we place on private insight and self-reliance can lead to some rather serious problems. On the other hand, such confidence can, at other times, provide the resolve that we need to stand up for what is right. Knowing the difference can be tricky. The second point to consider is whether the Emersonian ideal is really attainable. How much of our thought is truly original? To what extent are the conclusions we reach and the decisions we make arrived at freely, independently, probably far less than we would wish to think? But back to the first point. Recent developments attest that the exercise of private judgment isn't always advisable, nor is it particularly profitable either to ourselves or to the society at large. Opportunistic politicians trading on the low repute of America's traditional institutions pander to the audience, telling listeners, you are the American people, you know best. And thus, if a person wants to stake out a position on climate change, immigration, the harvesting of fetal body parts, evolution, wants to stake out a position that flies in the face of the facts, hey, it is your God-given right as an American. You can believe anything, no matter how foolish. Individualism, David Callaghan says, individualism has thrived in a society where old institutions are on the defensive, and the new individualism, he says, has emerged within a social order that does little to counterbalance its worst effects. Our mainstream media contributes to the problem by routinely suggesting that all opinions are equal and that fair and balanced means giving credence to perspectives that are at best dubious and occasionally just plain wrong. A lot of what passes for informed opinion on television is anything but informed. But in the absence of fact-checking or in-depth analysis, Americans in significant numbers continue to cling to rather nonsensical notions. And disconfirming evidence, it's easily ignored. When challenged, media mavens can simply change the channel, search the internet for a site that reassures them that their instincts were right in the first place. And it certainly doesn't help that so much disinformation and so much deceptive data has been circulating of late. Stanford University's Robert Proctor has coined a term for this. It's called agnotology, a neologism. Agnotology is a combination of the words agnostic and ontology. He defines agnotology as, quote, the study of willful acts to spread confusion and deceit usually for the purpose of selling a product or winning a favor. Agnotology is most effective when the public really doesn't understand the concept or an issue, which means that vested interests can exploit that ignorance to their own advantage. Tobacco companies that downplayed the dangers of smoking. Fossil fuel firms that dispute the data on climate change. Politicians who exaggerate the threat of Muslim or Hispanic immigrants. These are examples of agnotology at work. And ultimately this serves to reinforce people's confidence in their own personal biases by suppressing important and vital evidence. Now fortunately there is another and more positive side to the story. For there are indeed occasions when it is vitally important to stand by and to act upon one's convictions. And so earlier we heard in the service this powerful expression of self assertion by the late poet Maya Angelou. You may shoot me with your words.   And one could cite other examples of individuals whose passion for truth and justice proved stronger than the conventional wisdom and the customs that may have prevailed at the time. James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Shirley Chisholm whose quotation is on the front of your program, Tony Morrison, all of them refused what Emerson called the good models.  Likewise, Rachel Carson, James Hansen, E.O. Wilson. These three jarred the scientific world with claims concerning pesticide poisoning, climate change, biological determinism respectively. And Alan Turning, the World War II code breaker, godfather of the computer age, immortalized in the recent film The Imitation Game. These four went out on a limb to promote their views and those views have despite all opposition stood up to scrutiny. And we are indeed fortunate to have individuals of that caliber who trusted themselves enough to push their ideas to the forefront of their disciplines. Trust in self and confidence in their own insights serve them well, can serve us well at times. And yet such deep substantial trust can also make it hard for us at times to adjust our outlook, to alter our opinions, even when it makes eminent sense to do so. Emerson was himself quite resolute and quite unreceptive to any form of correction to repeat a statement that he made earlier. If I am the devil's child, I will live then from the devil. No law can be sacred to me but the law of my own nature. That which is right is that which is after my own constitution. That which is wrong is against it. I hope we could all agree that that's just a tad extreme. Suggesting, as it does, the wholesale rejection of social accountability. We need to be careful, William Siegel wards, for many of these inner guides seem to speak at random, giving wrong or unhelpful advice, even leading the seeker astray. Jane Austen, the great British novelist, chimes in, what wild imaginations one forms where the dear self is concerned and how sure to be mistaken. Austen's point is a good one, for when it comes to the dear self, we are often mistaken. We imagine that we arrive at our opinions independently through intuition or rational deliberation. We've had ourselves on the back for making these free autonomous decisions, somehow imagining that the better angels of our nature have informed our choices. But as Siegel says, care is called for here. For what psychoanalysts call the id or the shadow, that also affects our thinking and our behavior. And that darker side of human nature is highly susceptible to manipulation by outside forces. Commenting on fascism's powerful propaganda machine after World War II, Eric Frome wrote that we humans have become prey to a new kind of authority, automatons who live under the illusion of being self-willing individuals. The Stanford philosopher René Girard has also raised questions about our independent thinking. He says quite often we human beings fall under the sway of our magnetic desires, this natural tendency to imitate and to embrace what others are doing or modeling or what they want. Girard argues that when we choose an idea or a commodity, it's not necessarily for its intrinsic merits, but simply from our observations that others want it to. We are imitative beings par excellence, and our wishes and values therefore are often not our own. They are something put into our heads from the outside. And all of this suggests, Emerson notwithstanding, that no one really dances to his or her own tune. Yes, we may enjoy a modicum of autonomy, but for the most part we are creatures of our physical and social environments, relational beings, as it were. In one sense, this is really good news, sobering, but good, because it means when we are wrong, when we are misguided, it's like placing a wager on a slow horse. We stand to lose a little money, but hey, our ego can remain intact. If there's a better horse in the stable, we can bet on that horse in the next race. We must always be willing to go back to the drawing board, revisiting the positions we have previously staked out, and there is nothing diminishing about that, because for the most part, our convictions are socially constructed to begin with. Let them go. It's also helpful to have someone trustworthy who can look over our shoulder as we consider and reconsider our options. As the Buddhist teacher Marina Kaplan suggests, we need the help of an external guide to provide a mirror for that which we resist seeing, but which is absolutely necessary for us to know. And that is one of the functions that an open and inclusive faith community such as this one can provide. An iron string. Trust thyself, Emerson said. That's the iron string. But you know what? An iron string is really hard to bend. An absolute trust in self. That can prove to be just as rigid, just as inflexible. And so in maturity, I have found it useful to take my convictions seriously, while at the same time holding them lightly. And that tension can prove to be uncomfortable at times, but it's a tension that we can learn to live with. Blessed be I. And as mentioned earlier, our offering today will be shared with the Odyssey Project. And I hope you will be generous on their behalf this morning. Please rise in body or in spirit as we sing together our closing hymn, number 293. May our tongues refuse to speak when we are tempted to express hasty or harsh opinions, when we would elevate ourselves to the judgment seat to weigh the acts and the thoughts of others. When challenges do come, may we act with a sense of humility and a realization of our own limitations. Let us do our duty with intelligence, patience, thoroughness, our opinions tempered by sympathy, tolerance, and ever broader vision. May it be so. Please be seated for the postlude.


about Bennett and he take AV2 points. One that their negotiations just the old boat cannot be until the 17th by taking their time. I'm sorry to say I agree with him on that. I think my hand probably needs both of them. How about you get him to go up and visit the man's deal and throw it right? For you and me old time when I was leader and I think it'd be good for them to hear his views. Well I think that's an input. I think it'd be excellent. I think it'd be wonderful if you'd have a dinner party and have them raise hell with each other. And have them married to invite the all-sops and the full brides and the man's fields and then get you one of the couple, Bill. Bill Bundy and the two Bundy boys to listen and Mr. Allsup to each other. No they wouldn't man's field. He didn't invite. He just talked but he would hear some things and tell Allsup he just think it's very good that we have a balanced deal point here and that you think it'd be good for full bride and tell him full bride and man's field talk and every meeting I have and we can't win any wars unless they're on base.  Well I think I must say that just as I think Whitman has a little effect on me when I talk to him, I think he would open a door maybe to full bride. Well I'll make him do it. I would just say now I just want you to in your own eloquent way the president does, want you to open a little bit of the door. I'd prepare him on a little of the economic things we're doing make him read my speech so he can answer when they go to Sam. I make that try to talk to him. He would look at my speech and say now Joe you take this and read it for just one reason. When full bride starts telling you about his full bride plan you can say I've got your plan and it's in effect out there and we're doing it and but you can't do it unless you've got to protect the people that are doing it. They kill them you keep putting in many gardens when they're shooting at your house and show them the other side and then try to get full bride aboard a little bit. Man sick. Now Tom just taking a weekend Mr President he was what does Bill say about Vietnam these days? He? That's why the first one was. That's right only we did that. What do you think about that ammunition depot night pull last right in the shed? I don't think he knows about that. What those seven meags were doing last night? He's just looking it over I think just getting ready to sock us. You think you could possibly milk out of that? He'd be better if you'd make I think you'd make I think it'd be where you can see really what he recommended. Make that something you ought to shove and see what they say about it and make them write one back for it. Say we want one answer to it. It might be. Sir I have a lot of complications she doesn't want cameras and I don't want television either and I try to talk about it but the key some of the subs since you can't talk to kids. I think that I just think it's terrible I tore it out debating and I'm against us inciting them and I'm against us inviting them and I'm against us encouraging it I'm against us uh uh applauding it and I think you're going to have enough free speech and criticism and so forth without urging it and and insisting on it and phrase it I don't I don't think it's president of the United States Mack or Bundy either or Secretary of State ought to be debating hammer with crack box. I just think it's bad enough to debate with Fulbright but who don't you really have to have but I think when you get out there you lift it up where it becomes a national invitation for revolution because one thing talking to him I went out and spent I spent nearly every day talking to some of them but when you go out and go to debate with them that's a little different to because you get to man with a beard and he comes out he's got no responsibility absolutely nobody he has to report to and White House does and I don't want you reporting to uh to Mendel River I'm just against it uh because I know what he does were you in there the other day and he demanded Bob tell him what he's going to do yeah I thought Bob handled it perfectly good by just saying well I just can't discuss that with you there's some things that I'm above you on but I think it's good to talk to the the all stops and breathe them right into Fulbright but that's a lot well anyway if you can think of anything what I really think our role in the world is to avoid uh to have enough power to prevent dying at 40 with disease and starving to death and growing up in acres now that's my conception of what our leadership ought to do I'm doing trying to do it at home I would like to do it abroad if they'd let me I'd like to take my 50 billion that we're spending on defense and I like spend 10 or 15 billion of it in these countries where they died 35 in the africans and the ages of the world and I would like to do something about health and education and all these things that are desirable but uh I'd rather tell those kids that the Peace Corps started some of this but they got to carry it out and their responsibility because some of them have some social consciousness and you might get it Lawrence Rock fellow some of them out of these things uh out of the St. Albans Cathedral and so forth I think Lucy's got more social consciousness than I had when I finished the high school so I'd like for them to be willing to share and divide and so forth but I don't want to say that one of the greatest moments of my life when I tuned in that television and I heard that hand Morgan though but I don't think he's that good or I don't think Schlesinger is I think he's a little cute uh but I don't think very wise at all but anyway Dex got that and I told him to manage it down and that you can find a good lead that the kids would that would be good for the kids while you might use some of this uh some of this uh Harvard uh faculty stuff there you go again well if the dean of faculty can't give me a paragraph that will feel to some of these people I gotta make four speeches myself that's not a good idea no you just you just get that how you speak you tell me how to speak here okay I'll talk to you later then all right sir


Let me draw your attention to one of the early development compacts that the country was thinking about on the eve of independence. You know the famous Karachi Declaration which was the Congress convention of 1931 in Karachi and there was the so-called Karachi resolution of Karachi Declaration which for the first time was trying to highlight in a very brief manner some of the core principles which should guide the onward march of the nation after independence. After that we had a much fuller version of many of the themes discussed there in NPC National Planning Committee which was set up in 1938 with Pandit Nehru as the chair of it. But soon after that we had the breaking of the second world war and Nehru was put behind bars and many others sort of were engaged with all kinds of other challenges and hence it was suspended. The work of NPC was suspended. Subsequently after the second world war we had again a slew of very useful and fruitful discussions about where we should be headed, what we should be doing and so on between 1944 and 1949 or so finally culminating with the Planning Commission which as all of you know has been now done away with. We have something called the Niti IO. So I don't want to get into all these different moments but I just wanted to start with one or two very critical ideas which were put forth in the Karachi resolution. Let you know permit me to quote from that. This Congress is of opinion that to enable the masses to appreciate what Swaraj as conceived by the Congress will mean to them. It is desirable to state the position of the Congress in a manner easily understood by them. In order to end the exploitation of the masses political freedom must include real economic freedom and then it goes on. Now that in some sense is the crux of what founding mothers and fathers of our country visualize and much of what was being discussed has to do with dimensions of economic freedom. So an obvious question which one would like to ask are we anywhere close to what one can consider even rudimentary economic freedom for very large sections of the population. Now since you are discussing small and marginal farmers etc many of you would be aware of it. If you look at the most recent farmer situation assessment survey and look at the average income of an average cultivating household from cultivation. Sometimes they have some other sources as well but if you just look at the average income from cultivation for an average household the annual income it is 36,000 rupees. We are talking of 3000 rupees per month right average debt for an average cultivating household is 46,000 rupees. So for an average cultivating household they're actually talking of an extent of indebtedness of an order of 10,000 rupees. If you take into account income from all other sources it's quite possible that in the cultivating household as you know you know somebody is in some pity production small shop shops and raising dairy or poultry farm you know if you take into account everything else then the average income comes to about 76,000 per annum right which gives them a net income taking into account all the sources if you just for debt as well then we are talking of barely 30 yeah or thousand or so and that's the sort of situation we are talking about now what do we expect of course of course the all that is there there's disguised unemployment there is unemployment there is you know a whole lot of other things but we are talking of still you know close to if you're thinking in terms of dependence on primary sector right and we are talking not only of workers but also those who are dependent we are still talking about 65, 66 percent of the population being primarily dependent on the primary sector. So for all of us whether as academics as bankers and you know many other segments of particularly public provisioning it becomes an extremely important question to ask are we really honoring you know what we thought come 80, 90 years ago should we are founding vision the same document you know this is this is the first document where fundamental rights and directive principles etc were mentioned and discussed I will not go into many of the details I just want to raise just a couple of issues there right with respect to labor for instance the document said the organization of economic life must conform to the principle of justice to the end that it may secure a decent standard of living so obviously with that number which we just discussed you know we need to ask can we call it decent at all or how far are we from a notion of decency says that the state shall safeguard the interests of industrial workers and shall secure for them by suitable legislation and in other ways a living wage healthy conditions of work limited hours of labor suitable machinery for the settlement of disputes between employers and workmen and protection against the economic consequences of old age thickness and unemployment I will not read very much more from this document to you but just reflect for a moment on this paragraph right and we can see how removed we are from what we had pledged what we had promised to ourselves and so on so I think our development challenges what we are doing in terms of our economic strategy right whether the shift was good bad ugly from certain kind of macroeconomic strategy till 1980s and then what we started doing from early 90s onwards no I think it to me it seems very obvious that we should try and assess these with respect to some of the core promises that we have made to ourselves right article 39b it says that you know of the constitution that every citizen must have adequate means for a decent livelihood adequate means now which could be either job that all of us hold in this room or some assets landlessness in this country if you go by the more realistic assessments and not by sort of questionable estimates that we have we are talking of approximately 44 percent of rural population being landlady actually increased from over a short period 10 years or so from about 35 to 44 percent so people are losing their land critical means of livelihood and so on right so there is something which is happening in the economy in spite of all our effort you know a few good things that you try and do yeah in spite of that the broader direction possibly is one which should make us sit up and get worried rightly this whole issue of ultra left violence was mentioned if you do a simple gis mapping right it's a bizarre thing the richest pockets in India are also the poorest in terms of the income that people are enjoying from that and almost all of it is tribal dominated population by dominated I do not mean more than 50 percent but you know the substantial portion of the rivals so it is a very interesting thing which is which should again as I said bother us and the richest pocket poorest people you know why why why we put up in that kind of scenario clearly all this has to do with the questions of economic policies the questions of what we have been doing through a variety of public institutions including our bank right now if you look at what has happened as regards the access of the small and marginal farmers to the banking segment right look at various official sources which you have and most of you know the numbers increasingly they are being the access right people who work on these things that they actually paint a pretty frightening picture of what has happened if you look at for instance agricultural laborers you know about 20 25 years ago even agricultural laborers had some access to better access to the formal banking sector even when they did not have collateral and so on which becomes a necessary condition right now the percentage of agricultural laborers who have access to formal sector has gone down drastically so these are some of the obvious challenges which I thought we should begin by flagging then I want to come to the larger global context within which you know we also need to look at India and as all of you know that the situation in the last decade or so in particular has been a difficult one right in terms of the basic indicator and what are these basic indicators growth employment poverty and these are some of the basic indicators that we can get into much more nuanced good quality indicators like quality of education quality of health etc but even if for the moment we choose to start with the more sort of gross kind of indicators not very nuanced indicators there is near unanimity that the world has been in a pretty distressed state at least for the last 10 years or so you know this whole business of economic and financial crisis as all of you know as bankers 2007 onwards what started in the US spread to the rest of the world and that is considered to be a period of the downturn from which we have not really emerged in fact the latest trade and development report which was released very recently and I just got an overview chapter from there to raise a couple of issues with you this report which is called trade and development report 2017 beyond austerity towards a global new D and it actually starts with a very good quote from Martin Luther King 50 years ago at New York Riverside Church Martin Luther King made a passionate plea for a more equal more just more peaceful a more dignified world calling for a radical revolution of values King concluded we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing oriented society to a person oriented society when machines and computers profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people the giant triplets of racism extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered now that is unfortunately the phase we have been in for a pretty long time not only for the last 10 years but for almost 40 odd years or so right beginning from early 1970s if you look at the global story in India it's roughly about 25 years or so to be do a few small good things but along with that we possibly are also doing very large terrible things now whether this is with respect to your sector or economic policies and so on and how do we just these good or bad I would say let us go back to 1931 let us go back to our constitution and nothing can be more sacred as a book to all of us than our constitution I think that possibly should be kept up there and any other religious book way below that right if that is our value system and then we start judging it with respect to that then I think we are in a serious serious sort of difficulty in terms of claiming that we are on the right track I think it should be a major concern and with with with respect to that just to flag you know two three important things so if you look at for instance what's happening to some of the core macro indicator and if you look at growth for instance during the last decade or so we know that growth continues to be in a fragile zone right every once in a while we talk of some green shoots here some green shoots there but almost every agency tells us that you know this is a difficult story that continues you know if we look at the story of Anika if you're interested I can give you growth figures for all the major countries all the major if that comes up during the discussion but for the moment it will not get into that if you look at employment story we are told that for the last 25 years we are talking of jobless growth whether it's World Bank whether it is untat report whether it is ILO whether it is OECD you know you just name it everyone is agreed on this that we basically have had a long period of jobless growth closer home if you look at India you know he sort of in 2010 11 it was agreed that since our job data is generated with huge lag you know and the major source of our job data is national sample survey organization reports on employment unemployment poverty etc large surveys are conducted once every five years so the last one actually was 11 12 so it was agreed and decided that we should have some way of figuring out what is happening year to year so ministry of commerce decided it was given this responsibility that okay you produce this report through with the help of labor bureau and through labor bureau on what's happening to employment and so on as all of you would know government's official estimate is that every year 10 to 12 million new job seekers currently enter the labor market right the promise by the party in power you know just before elections was that given also the backlog and given the number of new entrants we should aim at producing 20 million jobs a year two crores so that the backlog can also be taken care of and the new entrants can be accommodated you know this was one of the major plans of the campaign by bjp and the sort of party which is in power at the center now let me just give you some numbers right all these decent jobs and good jobs which are supposed to be made available 11 12 given this requirement of at least 10 to 12 million right country was barely producing about 11.5 lakh new jobs net jobs additional jobs this is what the labor bureau tells you that was already a period when things were in the economy getting into some difficulties and even though china and india did weather the storm of the global crisis much better than most other countries amongst large economies but we're on the job front you're sort of not doing well even then what was the data for 2015 16 after which incidentally the government has told labor bureau not to do this survey anymore this has been stopped right what is the figure 1.5 lakh 11.5 lakhs in 11 12 1.5 lakhs in 15 16 now where are we headed after this the kind of situation that we have in many of our urban pockets in terms of crime in terms of you know sheer desperation of various kinds etc so as in the larger global story so in India even though India in terms of growth rate has done better than most other countries in the developing world as well with reference to large economies and so on where are we located right some of you might have read this newspaper report from Maharashtra this is about one month old report where this tribal boy kind of is unemployed is with one of his friends has some local hooch etc you know then asks his friend for some food the friends is look you know there's nothing in my kitchen what can I do right he goes back to his little shack or hut asks his mother that give me something mother says there's nothing you know you haven't got anything for last several days no jobs no nothing and we have been hungry for the last couple of days right he pounces on his mother opens her heart takes it out mixes some pickles with that and it's just I mean the extreme dehumanization that we can push a person to now not saying that this boy was evil right but an instance of cannibalism and it's produced by the system that of course is a huge extreme but we have a situation let's say in daily where you know some 30 years ago 35 years ago when I came here as a student you really saw security guards it was really reserved for very high and mighty okay now go to any tiny little colony these days you have guards in two shifts three shifts and so on security has have been the fastest growing employment in this landscape of no employment otherwise and who are we trying to protect ourselves from our fellow brothers and sisters fellow citizens earlier sort of government at the center had the finance minister home minister portfolio holding very eminent citizen Mr. Chidambaram I I don't like naming people in such conversations but sometimes it is unavoidable what did he launch vis-a-vis Central India he called it operation green hunt who were we trying to hunt the dispossessed adivas now that becomes the mindset of those who are supposed to be the guardians of the country of the constitution etc then we are in a very very difficult situation it's a very sorry state of affairs in that sense if you look at many other challenges this report which I was mentioning earlier this uncad report that he talks about says that extremely disturbing fact that in spite of all the misdeeds the finance capital continues to rule the rules continues to be in the driver's seat in the most powerful country in the world you know as I put it there is a revolving door between the wall street and the white house those who are ruling the wall street become advisors to whoever it is mr. x mr. y doesn't matter the economic policies that we have by and large is towards the benefit of a very narrow segment 0.01 percent 0.1 percent and so on forth you know there are all kinds of in the last decade or so I'm sure you're very frequently in newspapers in your own writings in your own sort of conversations have heard things like one percent versus 99 percent economists like Joseph Stiglitz who are talking about this massive inequality Thomas Piketty you know who has recently talked about how inequality in India today is as bad as it was during 1920s and 30s this is that from 1950 to 1980s you know it really had come down very significantly and early 90s onwards the trend changes now all these obviously are connected with the kind of policies that we have pursued including the banking policies no as you know your sector extremely well I need not remind you that even the definition of direct and indirect was changed in terms of priority sector lending and what was the net outcome of that basically creating difficulties for the smaller character right so I just earlier also mentioned that I don't really want to get into the nitty-gritty of the banking issues because you are the master you know everything I need to learn from you but some of the broad messages which we get from what this sector has been doing unfortunately in spite of all your efforts it has tended to go in a direction which may not be very welcome so what are the things that we need to do it's extremely important to think of strategies towards recovery of the economy with the focus on employment inclusion etc now for that recovery regulation is fundamental and sometimes regulations can generate bad outcomes we know that and that has a lot to do with the political economy and as was being mentioned all kinds of influences are at work but unfortunately even in a sort of relatively deregulated economy those influences seem to be extremely powerful if not more powerful in a lighter way and since the nation is talking about it right now all of you know about their share right how some 50,000 becomes 80 crores in one year right now clearly some you know in a deregulated economy huge amount of political peddling must have been done nobody's questioning the fact as you know right so if you look at simply the penalties which many of the biggest players have agreed to pay Morgan Stanley for instance last year it agreed to pay 900 million US dollars admitting wrongdoing okay and said all right so 900 million dollars is like peanuts for you know Morgan Stanley right company after company amazon and so on forth if you look at several rulings in last two three four years and this is all right fine but all this is happening in the era of what is you know deregulated decontrolled kind of global economic regime so it's not the case that you know regulation creates rents and creates all kinds of wrong doings and so on when the deregulated regimes can probably do much worse so regulation is something which must be brought which ought to be brought back in the global economic system it is extremely important to have an overall strategy which is aimed at recovery recovery not only of GDP growth rate because you can have growth rate but if there is no employment if there are no jobs what is the point of that growth we really need to focus on you know where the jobs can be created for instance if you look at Indian economy India's economic enterprises the latest economic sensor is 2014 it tells us that we have 585 million enterprises of which barely 0.278 percent not even 1 percent not even half percent the quarter of a percent is in terms of numbers is large or organized sector and all of you know the definition of the organized sector in India 10 workers would move rest 99 percent plus is unorganized enterprises any economic strategy needs to reach out to them help them if we are interested in inclusive development if you're interested in jobs and so on right at the world economic forum you must have seen in the news none other than Sunil Bharti right he says the top 200 companies are shedding jobs top 200 companies in India are shedding jobs laying off people and he was saying that if that is the case then what will what what must be happening with the rest of the economy which is connected with us we need to think about it and unfortunately what was the response of our one of our ministers who responded no we should not be worried about that those who get shed off they will become entrepreneurs is that is that the way to think about how we are going to revive the job situation the employment situation etc you know we have been carried away by slogans like startups every bd and pun vendor is a startup right and that startup has been there since times immemorial right are we concerned about them at all shouldn't we be concerned about all these startups and should we be concerned only with you know startups which begin from 50 000 and end up with 80 crores and these are some of the questions which we need to ask NPA was mentioned all of you know that close to 100 biggest players account for close to 70 percent of the NPA in the country should we trust them anymore if we are really interested in addressing the challenge of NPA right of course you know this bankruptcy law and you know the way these potentially may have some good implications yeah I don't know how long it will take I mean to clean up this whole NPA situation all of you probably know it better than I do the difficulties there etc but sometimes we say you know all this is because of all these irresponsible formats now how dishonest can we get I remember when this Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee scheme had to be launched and you had a number of economists some of them are part of the economic advisory council of the prime minister today they said that this will ruin India this will destroy India India will be finished you know this will cost 278 000 crores somebody said 1 lakh whatever whatever even at that point in time close to 600 lakh crores was all of you know exemptions of various kinds right I mean that was the story even then so at that point in time it just as it happens I you know this was a closed door meeting but somehow I I was included in that meeting as an observer and so on right there where this meeting was was happening and members of planning commission they were saying no no no it's impossible we can't go ahead with the scheme and so on forth and one senior congress leader he after many rounds of conversation where everyone seemed completely opposed to it he said listen madam wants it pull stop immediately the tone of the planning commission changed everyone started saying no no no we have to find resources to ensure that this happened the nation did not go bankrupt because of that it's not the case that that scheme put such massive burden and so on forth you know in 2007 I was doing a small survey in Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh and I came across an elderly lady she was more than 70 year old in 48 degrees centigrade picking the mud from one place to another and I just asked why are you doing this she said this is what keeps me alive right so we really need to put in perspective that's why I started with Karachi resolution and Karachi declaration you know when we say that country is doing good or bad or ugly I mean what are the benchmark how do we assess these right and then we ask okay what kind of strategies might work better towards those goals with that let me stop if you have any comments questions clarifications interventions I will be very happy to engage with you and thank you for this opportunity thank you for your attention


This is how a contouring tutorial would have looked back in 1930. In 2012, Kim K posted this now iconic photo that would forever change the way everyday makeup users approached foundation. While often credited for making contour a household term, she by no means invented the technique. It's time to sprinkle a little substance into our beauty routines by learning the roots of your favorite trends, who history's earliest trendsetters were, and how to rock the looks they inspired. Sheep mass! Before it's over, you'll be asking, can I borrow that? And now for the highlights of contouring history in under 90 seconds. The art of accentuating the angles and shadows of your face has been a trick of the trade since Shakespeare. Throughout the 1500s, actors got on stage with soot and grease on their face so the audience could see their emotions for plays like Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet. Thankfully, the chimney sweep look died with the birth of artificial lighting, but it wasn't until stage actors started migrating to film in the early 1900s that contouring, as we know it, began to take shape. And it's all thanks to a Jewish immigrant from Poland named Max Factor.  Talk about precision. But there's another stage we have to mention when we talk about modern contouring. Drag queens have been slaying makeup since... well, since the existence of drag queens. And some of the techniques we use today come straight out of their bag of tricks. Who better to dive in to the lowlights and highlights of contouring than with former clown and current queen, Miss Bill? Hey, bitches! Let's do some... We're gonna contour today and highlight. And it's gonna be perfect. I feel like your makeup is definitely different than how I do highlighting and contouring. I want you to help me help everyone watching on how to approach. We're gonna teach all of you how to get a mug like this. And like this. Well, this is the before. Like this. And maybe just keep watching. So, when you do your highlighting under your eyes and on different parts of your face, how many shades lighter do you go? For drag makeup, we really want to crank up the drama. Okay. So, I go two to three shades opposite of my regular foundation for this one. So, it looks like you have a pretty good... I do about one to two shades. You do two to three. Yes. So, that's a big difference, I think. But I feel like this is just a little bit more wearable for me. But if I want to pump up the volume, I think I would try it. I always put some right in the little center of my forehead on the little ball of my chin as well. Nice. Ball of the chin? Yeah, right there. Perfect. And I will also put some right there, right above my upper lip, because I want to have those... So, I'll put a little bit of the contour right here on my chin, because I really want to...  But then I'll put it over here on my Adam's apple too, because I've got this big masculine Adam's apple. And I really just want that to fall away and disappear. Okay. So, I'll put some of the darker contour makeup on there to make it disappear. So, this kind of seems a little bit daunting. I know, sitting at home, you might think this is just too much, but it's not actually. It's just playing with color. We're doing a little bit of a dark color to kind of hug the things that we want to accentuate, and then we're bringing out the things that we want to highlight with a lighter color. So now, I'm going to take this blender here, and I'm just going to blend away. I imagine you're probably going to want to have a nice, soft look when you're blending your makeup, but I like to have a really nice contrast. So, what do you think of my blending so far? I think that your blending is looking really nice. It looks like you have missed a couple of spots, though, so you might want to check yourself in the mirror again, girl. Not a burn. No, not a burn. It was a read. You got to get on with it. What is a read? A read is when it's kind of like a low jab, but it's like we get along, we love each other, so you're not actually offended. So, how do I read you? Well, you... That hair color is very minty. That was not a good read. I'll work on it. That hurt just a little bit. That's when you know it's a good read. Well, that one was really good. I'm like crying. Minty hair? It's a little minty. Okay. Now I am just using a brush to kind of buff out all of my different lines that I've created, and I'm trying to just marry it all together. I don't want anything to look too harsh. However, if that's your vibe, then do it. Amen. Okay, we're going to do rules over here. You do you. Okay, so we're so close. I just need to set my under eyes, and I know that you probably set a lot, right? I set multiple times. I set after I block my beard. I set after I do my foundation, and then I set after I do my highlight and my contour, too. So I'm doing a lot of setting. I'm going to set under my eye. So it looks like you have some of the same processes as I do, but I've got this really strange technique that I like.  You're lying! No, I swear! Bring me the sock.  Smells incredible. There's no rules in makeup, and I can set mine however I want. Well, I want it back. Oh, you're going to do it? Go right ahead. Oh, please, the drama. You would make a perfect drag queen. So typically I set my makeup for about five to ten minutes, five minutes if I'm running out of time, and around ten minutes if I've got some time to spare, and I've got all the time in the world, I want to know more about you. You know, I've had quite a journey, and it started off with gymnastics, believe it or not, but gymnastics led to clowning, doing slaps, trips, and falls, and then I went on two national tours with the circus, and as circuses have been closing in America, I've had to rebrand who I am as a clown, had a hard time at first, because I needed a drag mother. I don't know if you know what that is, but aspiring drag queens usually get linked up with an experienced drag queen. I taught myself everything at home, and I recommend that other people, you know, have that journey, and explore on their own, and teach things themselves, too, because the sense of ownership that you get over yourself when you've taught yourself how to do everything is, like, way better than when you have to give the credit to somebody else. Okay, so YouTube was your drag mother? Yes, YouTube was my drag mom! I really love that, that's amazing. Thank you. So now let's blend, right? Let's blend, we gotta blend because you'll just be looking whack, and you go out unblended. I really notice that you're brushing with the lines of your face, too, and you're not really, like, fighting the makeup, but you're helping just distribute it even more evenly on your face. So this is the anti-read? This is the anti-read? This is, like, the compliment? Compliment, the compliment. Okay, I am officially done. Thank you so much, Ms. Bill, for teaching me about drag makeup and helping me step up my contouring game. We want to know what are your contouring troubles, so leave us a comment down below, letting us know the toughest part of your contouring makeup routine. We'll see you very soon.


I grew up here in Bela Bela with my grandparents here who didn't go through the old system of residential school, so they spoke a lot of Heizutla, and I grew up learning it or hearing it. And then my other grandmother, my mother's mother, she was the language teacher in the school and took me under her wing to become a language teacher myself. Later on I went into digital archiving at our culture center, listening to the old people before my time doing interviews like this, and they talked about our territory, our traditions, our medicines and everything. I got to learn all that over that time. Even through all this I was learning to sing, dance, and our culture. I became a speaker at our potlatchist. Song composer was maybe ten years ago when I first actually started participating and organizing the whole potlatch on my own, and then I started teaching. I took on my first teaching job in 2009 here in Bela Bela, teaching Heizutla. It was alright. I taught the younger kids the nursery and kindergarten, five and six-year-olds. So they learned a lot, but after I finished teaching I only taught for the one year with them, and maybe one year after I was working on another project. I watched their progress and they weren't learning anything else. These teachers here, their curriculum limits them sometimes. They teach vocabulary rather than conversation. Most of our people already know a lot of words, but they can't talk to each other. Learning through the book and through the text would be an easier way to learn languages that way, but to the children should be just talking to them and telling them what these are, telling them stories in the language, how to do certain stuff. So that's why they have different programs like TPR and different kinds of methods of teaching, but overall they don't, if you only use one it's not gonna work totally. There's always gonna be gaps in each of them. So when I started teaching in Rivers Inlet week, that's what I tried to do was over a week long process. I do one little bit of each kind of method, also teaching them what would you call it? Other aspects of our culture, stories, history, law, art, potlatching, dances, and the kids they know everything that I taught them. They remember I saw one of them just last week and I was quizzing them, seeing them, and he remembered, he remembered everything. Right now I'm trying to learn our language. I don't speak it that fluently. I could carry out a conversation but I hear words that I don't know. So right now my main focus is in trying to catch up to myself. For most of my 20s I didn't do anything on the language. So now it's gonna try to catch up and learn again. I remember when we were 23, we had to sit down with one of the young bucks here in Bella Bella. I might have been 26 and we told them that we're getting old in our years. We're not old yet but you're still young. It might be easier for you to learn the language. So we're putting it on you, learning the language. And he did. Rory Housley, that's who we talked to. We had to sit down with him and he's worked hard. He blows me by when he says some words I didn't understand in the context of what he's talking about. But I don't know all the words that he's saying. There's a lot to learn and what you teach. Even myself don't know at all. I am still learning a lot of our old ways that have been lost. And they call us traditional knowledge keepers or something like that. To be a traditional knowledge keepers means that it was handed down to you by somebody. I read it from a textbook. Notebooks and anthropologists put together the gaps that our people did remember and did pass on. But the idea that it should be not on these knowledge keepers, that it should be general knowledge to even our own people, that they all need to know these ways. One of the ways that you would see it evident in today's when we have a potlatch. And the potlatch is that go until two or three in the morning.  There are things that our people don't know anymore. And they need to learn it too. As far as the it's the same that goes for those people that want to learn of our ways. There's details that our people don't know in general. And all our people have different values to our values. Aspects to our culture. There are some that are good hunters like my father and his family. Or my mother and her family were good with their language and culture and traditional medicines. And that's pretty much how everybody is around here. They have one or the other. I think it would be a full understanding of the ancient beliefs of our people that we need to recover and teach those values. I don't know if we can stitch it together is what it would have to be. I would hope that majority of our people have an understanding of their own people, their own families, cultural background. Or even a want to know you see some of the cultures that are around us. They're learning their culture so fast that they're forgetting the nuances that aren't that are important. Now they have the backtrack and they're causing ripple effects throughout their whole nations. So when our nations need to get to that stage that they should work together and or have a greater majority of the people to understand our ways, like people spit out their word, the Guialas. They can't even say it right. They don't have a full understanding of what the Guialas is. It literally just means to where you sit. And from my understanding of why they called it the Guialas, because it points out to our people and where we ranked and things and what our prognosis and priorities of our people are. So you didn't just, you weren't just high ranking.  You had to take care of them all. Same with the lower class. They had their own rights, their own names, but they had less land I guess to deal with. I guess the best idea is to do what the Gomeshwas did and do a book. Gather all our cultural leaders and get them together. Make a book of our ways, Guialas. Write it out. Share it like that. Share the history, share the stories. Share with all of us and know that we don't. We don't. We share it all the time with everybody, but do they recall? Remember it? At least it's written down. Because it's a lot that we do have in our heads. Because we were talking, we were joking that one time when we went to New York, you had all the cultural leaders in one plane. What if this plane went down? So that'd be my best guess. Write our own book. Write our own law book, I guess.