Hey Virgos, welcome back to the channel. Here are your weekend love messages. Okay, it's Kelly from House Virgo If you're new, please do click like share and subscribe If you want to get a personal reading there's a link in the description box below this video Hi everybody in the chat and yo happy birthday Virgos and for those of you celebrating a birthday over this weekend Congratulations, hope you have a lovely birthday weekend. Okay, so first card that fell out here Seven of cups Virgo, so you're kind of like hmm your hmm. Okay The first thing I'm feeling here is you are trying to figure out. Well, somebody ghosted you For some of you not all of you somebody got ghosted You are trying to figure out Why I feel like over this weekend I feel like some of you might get ghosted by somebody over the weekend Or you have been and you're trying to like figure out. Okay. Well, are they working? Are they traveling? Are they with somebody else? Are they at home, you know what like what is going on with this person? Okay? And I really feel like your intentions here is to try to like find out if They're receiving attention from others Now I feel like some of you are trying to fill in some gaps here Okay, because you don't know and so the gaps that you're feeling are Worst-case scenario gaps, right and I feel like a lot of you are thinking that Whoever ghosts you or has ghosted you Disappeared on you isn't Responding isn't talking isn't saying nothing.  What happened? Okay? And we're gonna get into this person, but I just want to see you know, what's going on with you right now Okay, so some of you are like all this person's on top of the world. They're very happy They must be enjoying their life without me You know, they're getting lots of attention and accolades and I have a major Little white alien ghost here on the cards because they're reflective So, yeah, I kind of feel like you're in this position like, okay, they're getting a lot of attention They're high on their horse. Maybe misses or mr. Big Ego.  Okay? So you're in kind of like worst-case scenario They've they're with somebody else. They're living their best life.  Just be like don't tell yourself nothing just totally like Redirect your energy back into yourself and enjoy your weekend Whether it's your birthday or not. Just be happy Virgo. Don't be sweating trying to solve the mystery like Who are you like? You're not are you a detective in real life?  I don't give enough what anybody is doing. They're either with me here They're not right. So Don't be trying to you know, get up all in your dreams or trying to Have these illusions or or think worst-case scenarios. Don't think best-case scenarios. Just don't think just don't think about it Okay, so I feel like that's a real strong message for some of you. Let me see what else is going on here Okay. Yeah, see because you're gonna put a lot of burden on yourself.   Okay What else? Gosh, yeah travel away move away from this stuff.  That's what I feel like your message here is for you Let's take a look and see This coaster Casper the friendly or non-friendly ghost Okay, let me see. Oh Okay Ten of cups Hmm. How are fun? He's pentacles. Oh my god and the night of cups. Okay So this person's energy is basically like all across the board love opportunity marriage relationship commitment Following procedure order. Okay Is this person making an offer to you Virgo is this person What's going on? Why do they have all this they have such major beautiful energy? Okay so I'm telling you not to think about anything but I Do feel like this person is going to reach out I do feel like they're you know, whoever they are if they ghost you or they forget to Respond back to you. I feel like they're gonna. I do feel like there's an offer this person wants to Be with you All right, Taurus energy here Let me see What is going on because whoever your person is or whoever this person is There's a lot of unknowns in your head and in your mind about somebody here, you don't know what to think I Feel like there's so many options. You might think this person has a tremendous amount of options They don't They might display or make it seem like they do and I'm not trying to say that this person isn't You know worthy of that or anything like that. I just I just feel like This is all in like in your head. Okay, or this is something that this person has Projected on to you or made you think or made you feel like they have like tons of options and they can't choose and they're I I don't feel like it's really coming like for some of you could be coming from a sense of insecurity But I don't really feel strongly. I feel like it was projected and you're just kind of like yep Let me claim that let me own that like why Why? Why are you not seeing somebody? For like who they really are were they tricking you? Where they giving you like some kind of disillusionment If they're not if they've ghosted or if they do ghost over the weekend that is part of the Thing to make you kind of get up in your head about them, but this person's like They want to give you like they want to give they want to invest in This whole love thing this whole opportunity this this happily ever after Okay, and I do feel like Maybe that was if you knew this person before maybe it was something that they did in the past and you kind of like went with this narrative I don't know what's going on here with this person Let me see Let me see this the Hierophant This message it is so strange Okay This person is really okay Whoever your person is right who you're listening to for this reading is to be somebody maybe you started dating you're connecting with Could it be a past person? Maybe I'm not seeing any past energy here, but this person is like Incredibly committed to their work Okay, but I also feel like they're here like they're all about Happily ever after putting the effort and the energy in Okay, how like all about that and Working really hard to be able to hand you this pinnacle to be able to give this to you now Virgo Some of you I do feel like I said you're not it feels like you're not just you might not be so sure about this person if they if so if you've been connecting with them for a while it very well could be that There's been some ghosting or some like the weird Non-consistent energy with them in the past and It's really taken a toll on you and now you're kind of like I do see you getting out of this Putting an end to the struggle and the burden and just you know move it on here for somebody This could be somebody new though with the ace of pentacles You could be connecting with somebody new over this weekend You might connect with some especially if you go traveling or you do something or you just in your car And they can pick you up or something But whoever this person is okay new or old It's like the energy especially with this mercury retrograde because that's what we're looking at This mercury retrograde brings back people that you want back and people that you don't want back, okay? So that may just say I feel like spirits like don't ask any more questions, but guess what I need to get into this chariot Okay Page of wands So it feels like Virgo. You're taking your energy that is kind of like being unsure if this person's committal or not Because you you really don't you may not get a vibe that they are or you may get a Vibes that they Some alright. I'm just gonna say that some of you are fantasizing about someone and you're not really seeing them for who they are and That fantasy could be Good or it could be positive or negative Some of you could have it in like running a fantasy in your head that somebody is not really interested in you and not you know Doesn't love you or doesn't Want to pursue a relationship with you. So if if you're in that position where You just feel like this is not gonna work and you want to put an end to this burden and struggle I see you over the weekend Just kind of like moving forward and maybe communicating with Others over the weekend that page of wands.  This is somebody like a recommitment to a love relationship, you know with that retrograde like I said yesterday And over this past week someone is like no I'm ready. Let's do this. I Don't see you making any decisions, but we'll have to see Virgo, we're gonna have to see let me take a look now if there's gonna be like if you're gonna have the choice of two or Okay, oh This just flipped out. I look for you everywhere. Okay, so I feel like somebody's kind of like seeking you out right now Or will be over the weekend while starting now through the weekend.  This is a Seeking energy. Okay, let me see what else going on here What the heck Alright, we're getting these cards today. I hid who I really am from you. Oh my goodness If somebody was masking in or in a relationship or pretending and that's what I was saying I kind of felt like there was this energy of someone who was projecting and making you think something That really wasn't the truth They were either making you think that they weren't interested or they were making you think that they were Either way that was masking They were hiding and who who is this person deep down This is somebody who wants this full-on happily ever after with you Okay, even if they were so they could have been saying they wanted that Okay But not really showing up just kind of disappearing a lot or they were Saying that they didn't want that but then they were always around so yeah a little bit of dissonance happening with this situation over this weekend with this person I feel like well, I Feel like that's Kind of an energy if this is somebody you're connected to how they always were There was masking or there is masking showing up here yet. I don't know. I feel like this pinnacle Showing up here is more like no, this is the real deal here. You could touch it. You could feel it Okay, let me see what else is coming up here for you Okay This is what I was saying. I can't even believe it sometimes new love or Recommitment to love is developing this gonna go what is good. I'm feeling it I'm feeling this for a go There's gonna be like Options here for you with that salmon of cups like I don't know who to choose. I don't know what to do Yep, I don't know what to do This is a burden. This is stressing me out That's what I feel it's going on here with you and you're like, I just want to be king in the castle Queen on the throne.  I'm not really I'm very nice, but I do feel like You know what? It's just gonna be I don't know They're telling me bait and switch But I feel like you're the one with the bait and switch and I you may not even be doing that on purpose So my goodness Virgo, we will be together again in case I'm used to past person point blank period And that's just gonna show up because it's Mercury retrograde All right, and also somebody New love too. It's one or the other you're gonna find out over the weekend.  Oh my gosh. There's somebody like coming They're just showing me like somebody posting happy birthday to you for those of you on social media and This is like, whoa, where they came from where they come from Asking and then there's somebody who's wishing you a happy birthday Who okay? Now they're giving me this like social media thing There's somebody wishing you a happy birthday who is not who they say there. There's a masking someone You may have been interacting with for a while Who you think is like one person, but it's actually your person under a different name is such a creep factor right there Okay, retreat. It's time to disconnect from the world Okay, Virgo. I feel like You're just kind of like let me just pull myself back a little bit here because I feel like you don't like you're not Can be able to make any kind of decision and when in doubt do nothing, right? And I kind of feel like that's your energy over this weekend. Oh my gosh, and then you've got the wedding card That's all up here. I gotta ask like I seriously need a court card because I have to know who is this person who is Like coming in with this real deal Thing because I know you guys are like, who is it? Who is it?  Hold on Give me a court card Give me a court card. Okay King wants some of you. It's a fire sign Aries Leo Sagittarius Okay New let me see who's the old Who's the past person? And they could have that in their chart. So keep in mind if it's not their son's sign Okay All right. Well, there's the king of swords always shows up They were Gemini Aquarius. So you got a past person coming in and you got somebody new coming in. Okay? Past person is air sign. They got air energy within them new person fire bold aggressive That kind of thing. Okay, so I feel like You know, take it if it fits if it doesn't just leave it All right, I'm gonna pull some other messages though If it doesn't resonate for you guys for the weekend only crap cards that fell out engagement ring Healthy choices. Okay and coffee cup. So, all right, there's definitely and love Okay, so there's definitely gonna be an energy here of Yeah, you're gonna be having coffee with someone There's a date There's going on a date this weekend as well. Okay, there's a love match on conditional love or something along those lines But like the healthy choice is making a decision like self-care. That's best for you Okay, I feel like if you're going on a date with someone this weekend There's definitely going to be some kind of offer Proposal or some doesn't have to be like if you meet someone the first time and they're like, oh, I want to marry you I feel like they're just saying it in jest, but they really really like you And if for some of you I do feel like there's gonna be some type of communication From a king from a sword an air sign over this weekend, okay Who is like I'm gonna I want to invest like let can I pay first? Let's go out to dinner. Let's connect Okay, there's an offer coming through from this person These readings they get me sometimes because I'm just like why is it always all over the place? Why is it like it feels like a lot lately? Because you know murky rich grays not really good time to be dating, but I feel like Or getting back with past people, but they tend to come back And I just feel like during these retrogrades especially there's always more than one option Because a lot of you I feel like during the retrograde.  They can come back all they want now.  Let me see what your other messages are This is such craziness Sometimes Virgo. I just I want to take a break From your readings because there's so much intensity every time with your readings. Okay, the struggle is over and that's for you That's what I said the ten of wands the struggle like you're like I'm not doing this. I'm not struggling I'm just going to go have my weekend. I'm going to go do my thing. I'm not overthinking I'm just putting it out of my head and just thinking about something else. Let me paint this wall this weekend Or maybe I've got like I'm going to go get some flowers I'll work on my garden. It's like it's not even you don't even want to think because it over it over burdens you Okay, so you're definitely going to put an end to some kind of struggle and just enjoy your weekend I see you doing that whether somebody's coming in or not Yeah, because it makes you angry like the weekend is basically like a no-win situation.  This is like years of using these.  Okay, that's just the name of the game But there's a link below the video if you are interested in getting these Cards so this material gift like if somebody's coming in you're gonna get a gift for your birthday for some of you Okay, or you received one or you've got one coming up and it's like Somebody like I'm just putting this on about you know, I'll deal with you later. I like I've got stuff I'm doing whatever I'm doing this weekend and I just don't want to You know, even if you go on a date with someone over the weekend, like you're not making any decisions Okay, especially if you've got somebody else showing up as well Okay, look at this the self-card.   Just live and let live this weekend. It's just like it is it is what it is That's what I feel like your message here is it it is what it is Can't do anything someone wants to be with you. I don't know I'm just getting this strong energy of like escapism getting this energy of like I'm getting out of here I'm getting out of town. I'm just going to enjoy my weekend And well come back on Monday and I'll sort through this pile of papers You know what I mean, so let me see what your moonology message is here Okay, bring love into the situation this okay, some of you could be connecting with an Aquarius Bring love into the situation. This is like peace love joy community happiness, okay Towards yourself and friends and other people if you're like I'm not dealing with Any decisions about relationships or anything like that over the weekend. I'm just going to enjoy myself.  That's definitely Capricorn energy. Whatever you're doing in your life working at working towards working for There's payout coming for this Okay, and a new romantic cycle begins. Okay for some Could be connecting with a Libra. A new romantic cycle is beginning And this is what's happening over this weekend, and I feel like that's why you're like Mm-hmm struggles over. I can't make any decisions right now about anything or anyone. I'm just going to do what I do and that's just Doing you right I Think I'm going to make like bloopers shorts for every time I drop these Okay Alrighty, so we have Aries showing up Pisces as per usual Leo and Taurus Okay Aquarius Virgo Cancer and Capricorn again. All right 77 Strong number 101 again. It's crazy. This 101 keeps falling together. Here's the one. Here's the ten 101. I keep Seeing 101. All right. I'm also getting 7 3 1 4 Significant number Okay, someone's born in November and someone is 40 years old and Hmm There's a 107 could be an address 107 someone lives at 107 Okay It's so strange. Hold on a minute. I'm trying to decipher this message Okay, so now they're telling me It's 7 1 0 1 7 1 I don't know what that means 7 1 0 1 they're not telling me if it's like What it relates to 111 again or 11 1 Okay, so I'm all right there. I'm getting there and getting a strong Sagittarius vibe And I'm also picking up area code 515. I'm picking up also 31 3 1 so maybe that's like a phone Like plus 3 1 Give me again with the one 10 101 also Somebody's getting 5,000 pounds or dollars Monetary value 5,000 they're telling me so yeah I guess if you were trying to get some kind of money or something or maybe it's a gift or something's coming through They're telling me 5,000 All right, whose birthday is May 15th? May 15th Okay, that's very interesting. Oh All right, let me get into I want to see your Chinese signs really quick for your weekend Who's showing up this weekend? Okay, got a year of the horse Year of the rat year of the ox Horse again year of the goat And year of the tiger as usual it is the year of the tiger.  Energy is crazy I am just hearing Expect a really nice gift if you have a birthday for the birthday people over this weekend All right, so we have a goldfish Goldfish I'm sorry.   I did say 5,000 if you get $5,000 or pounds or whatever for your birthday like share the wealth You might find a hundred dollar bill or they'll be put in an envelope for you or you might find one just on the side of the street Or in a coat pocket, you're going getting all your winter clothes ready. You're getting out those jackets For those of you who are coming into the winter and we also have Hmm. All right, this is strange. They're telling me. I Don't even know if this is possible I'm hearing strawberry orange Strawberry orange Orange orange. I'm in South Jersey. We say orange Strawberry orange It I'm hearing hybrid something hybrid Okay, I don't think that's possible to mix Strawberry and an orange. Maybe it is. I don't know if somebody's done that. Maybe you'll see that over the weekend That's so strange Could be like a strawberry orange sherbet or some kind of flavoring for something eating ice cream or some kind of Okay, now they're giving me What's it called? Is it Disney in Florida Or the the dolphins play with the the beach balls What the heck's that called? I can't remember you can post you know what it is. I guess it's Disney I don't know. I thought there was another name Aqua world or something. No Well, it's in Florida But it could be other places as well. All right, and you've got a plane you've got a 747 Some of you are going on a trip. You're taking a flight. You're booking tickets. You're gonna fly this weekend You're you're you're doing it or you're booking it further in advance for somebody's booking tickets There's there's flight. There's there's flight travel Okay, somebody might be coming in if you have a birthday this weekend flying in to see you Could be anybody You might be flying to see someone else if you're traveling or picking someone up arrival deport departure airport kind of stuff over the weekend if any of this resonates for you and By the way, goldfish. I just heard goldfinger Okay, isn't that like a James Bond? Maybe somebody seems Jim or James Gold a gold finger.  Wow I don't even know what to say to that. I don't know that getting a Getting or giving okay, and I mean for some of you this could be like For the guys, especially I'm just hearing You may not be receiving somebody getting down on their knee bending down and giving you like a bend a knee Proposal, but for some of you this may just be like I want to get married. Let's go pick out rings that kind of thing Okay, very traditional And that's how this person is showing up here very traditional Even if you're not a traditional person, this is like no we're doing in the church. We're doing it in front of the Pastor or the priest. That's this person's energy. All right. All right. All right. I could go on and on But I did 35 minutes. I think that's all right um, you know what? It's the weekend. Actually, um, I'm it's not right. I'm gonna add a little bit more. I'm sorry you guys I'm like all over the place I just feel like there's so much scattered energy here for you All right, let me see what other messages just give us just give Virgo a few more messages here Let's just a little bit more. What else does Virgo need to know? The harlequin true feelings are masked you guys I said there was masking. Okay. So whoever was masking Yeah, this is it. Okay Whoever was masking is unmasking They're true feelings. That's what I was saying.  I hate that. There's like this. Look at this light Ding um Yeah, your luck is going to change here. There's big shift happening here That's something you've been wanting New or old. Okay. The forces of nature favor you the green man. I mean, maybe somebody's last name is green man Um, I don't I've never met anybody with that last name. So Yeah, some of you, um Forces of nature Oh, they favor you. Oh, that's Virgo energy. That's what they're just saying The forces of nature Virgo energy earth energy Stay grounded. That's what they're trying to say to tell you stay grounded Get your feet into the dirt Remember this weekend and ground yourself pull that energy up from the earth Okay, that's that is the force of nature that favors you. Yeah, you got to stay grounded I don't know if that's a warning or what Okay, the mystic circle your abilities will be enhanced Some of you might be psychic. I don't know. There's something connecting here with nature That's going to connect you with some psychic abilities or manifestation Or the things that you are trying to have in your life or manifest in your life Especially when you're blowing out your birthday candles if you are All right, dare I do this? Yes. I'm going to bring out this deck I don't usually do this. This is a rarity because my sponsors probably Won't allow it, but I have to I have to pick up this energy. I'm just being called To give you this this deck these messages from this deck.  That's way too. Yeah, my Uh way TMI Sorry you guys. I got to keep it a little bit PG punish me. I've been really bad. I feel like somebody here I want you to punish them sass but it's like This is kind of like fantasy Who is this person? Damn, how did I start liking you so much? This is somebody who's like To not expect to Or is not expecting to fall in love Okay, I don't know. You could be meeting this person over this weekend and they're like Damn Like they fault that's why I was saying in the beginning this person's energy is kind of like, uh, you're the one I'm going to marry Okay You're the one I'm going to marry I mean this person I feel like Yep, I wonder if it's too soon I mean somebody's here really gonna have to think this thing for you Leave the underwear at home Okay I keep fantasizing about what I'm gonna do to you later. Holy moly. I don't think these cards are all right I mean if you could see I'm not gonna say it but these are the two cards that First fell out. I don't feel like I'm gonna say that Yeah, I don't feel like I'm gonna do that But you see it quick glance Um, I will show you a couple others though, but I'm not gonna say what they are But just so you know, there's somebody here who's like feeling Is okay, tired of waiting They want to rush Okay, if you don't hear me talking it's because I'm just showing the cards.  Give me the green light and I'm on it Somebody's really jonesing for you Okay, that's it. I'm done. No more of this. That was fun. I hope you have a fun weekend I hope you have a fun flirty exciting weekend with someone Because I feel like that's gonna be Even though Virgo like as far as making any decisions. I feel like you're just kind of like Like I'm not making any decisions about commitment or marriage or anything that I just want to have a fun weekend I just want to enjoy myself and have a good time so Get busy Virgo. Go do it. Have a good weekend you guys I'll try to do a um reading for friday I'll see how things go because I might just want to do a bonus, but I'll see but if not I will see you guys on sunday. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and also Join my channel 999 membership Where you can get early access to these videos where I upload them early before the usual time And you can join my private facebook group 999 a month and personal readings as always link below. All right, you guys take care


How much is a human life worth? Ideally, we'd like to think there's no price tag, and each precious life is of inestimable value. But there are limited resources and policy decisions to be made, which leads to fascinating papers like this. The cost effectiveness of 500 life-saving interventions, with $587 to be exact, was some costing more than $10 billion per year of life saved. Overall, the average intervention cost $42,000, which is how much it costs to save a year of someone's life, putting flashing lights at railroad crossings. So how could you justify not installing them? Well, you could save more lives with the same money if you added grooved pavement on highways. But if you really cared about saving drivers, you could save nearly 100 times more lives investing the same money in media campaigns to encourage people to wear their seatbelts. But if you really want value, if you want to prevent bangs for the least bucks, there are some interventions that save more resources than they cost. Yeah, most interventions cost $10,000 or more per year of life saved, but check out these. They're not just cost-neutral. They mean you can save lives by saving money. Talk about low-hanging fruit. Studies, for example, suggest workplace wellness programs can generate savings, not just saving more than you're spending, but potentially tripling your money by investing in wellness. But since employee participation is almost always voluntary, this introduces the specter of selection bias, where healthier people are just drawn to wellness programs in the first place. And indeed, during the year prior to a wellness intervention, those who would later sign up already had lower medical expenditures and healthier behaviors than future non-participants, so no wonder they could end up doing better than their non-participating colleagues, even if the wellness program had zero benefit. Thankfully, there are an increased number of randomized controlled trials of wellness programs to see if we can prove cause and effect to answer the question to workplace health promotion programs work. Particularly important, given that the workplace wellness industry is now a multi-billion dollar industry. One of the most recent randomized controlled trials was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Thousands of employees were effectively randomized to a workplace wellness program at BJ's Wholesale Club. And although program participants reported they were engaging in more positive health behaviors, such as getting regular exercise, there was no significant differences in clinical measures of health or health care spending and utilization. The author suggested we may have to temper our expectations about the financial return on investment that wellness programs can deliver, at least in the short term. Now, some argue that even a break-even program that is one that does not impose additional costs to the company but produces significant population health improvement might be a worthy investment, but perhaps the growing evidence that demonstrates limited or no concrete wellness program effects should encourage wellness companies and employers to critically assess the programs and try to improve them. In a survey of 162 company wellness programs, for example, only a third offered nutrition counseling. And even with counseling, it's more than simply trying to convince people to take better care of themselves. It requires that the organization creates an environment where leading a healthy lifestyle is the default option. What are they promoting in the company cafeteria, for example? What's being served up at meetings and in vending machines? Yeah, a lifestyle management program at PepsiCo failed to save the company money, but somehow I doubt one of the components of PepsiCo's wellness program, Healthy Living, was telling employees not to eat or drink any of their own products. In fact, if you go back to that BJ's case, yes, a few percentages more employees said they were more regularly exercising, but when it came to nutrition, it was a complete flop in terms of things like drinking less soda or more fruits and vegetables. No wonder their health hardly budged. In a systematic review of systematic reviews on the effectiveness of dietary workplace interventions, the average improvement in fruit and vegetable intake combined was 0.7 portions a day. No wonder these programs aren't doing better. In Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote that workers are less likely to be productive when they're frequently sick than when they're generally in good health. Sickness cannot fail to diminish the produce of their industry. Maybe they just need more produce than 0.7 servings a day.


Since becoming president, I've been able to visit when I've been thinking of having Air Force One wire to play Sweet Home Alabama. I'll just stand here and wait until the police arrive to Washington and out among the people. Unfortunately, I can't stay too long as Bill Dickinson, Sonny Callahan, and Jerry Denton know Congress is still in session. And there's no telling. We'll have a direct effect on your lives and those of all Americans. On the jobs you can get, on the taxes you pay, on the kinds of schools that your children are going to go to. I have a feeling that... ...to send Bill back. Big process. Doesn't that allow them to serve a governor who believes in fair play? To my mind, Senator Denton is nothing less than a national treasure. Too many times, and I just have to tell you, it always does something to me to stand next to a hero. Jerry Nancy and I were in Sacramento on that day that a plane brought you out from over seven and a half years of torture in North Vietnamese prison camps. And like millions of Americans, we watched that moment until... ...first of income tax of nearly 25% Then we didn't pay taxes. Making it impossible for inflation to push you into a higher, higher tax practice in the workforce. Which inflation had been moving, and those in Washington would get a tax increase every year. In our country, and every sector of our economy shares in the national prosperity. Already, Jerry and I have worked to help Alabama. I think some talk that once our tax reform program is in place, the rates will be new respect for America, around the world. Women in uniform, we've seen morale soar as we've given them the pay and the training that they've always deserved. Then Jerry's answer is that I ask you to cast a vote that will help me to be the president you want me to be. But even more, I ask you to cast a vote for yourselves. I think of them. I think of that little story about the three fellows that came out one day to get in their car and found that they were locked up. The keys were inside. And one of them said, well, let's get a wire coat hanger. I've straightened it out. None of us can do that out here. I think we're stealing the car. The third one says, well, we better do something. Because it's starting to rain in the tops down. We appreciate what you have done for our country and what you continue to do.


Chapter number 85 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Poetry of Life. Poetry is more than verse making, more than the jingle of words, more than the sing song of meter, sunshine and flowers, brightness and joyousness, the harmonies of the passions and the inspiration of love. These are the poetry of life. Without poetry, life is a treadmill, a veil of tears, a dreary waste. Even religion is only a crucifixion, a death to sin, if we have not the resurrection into the new life of joy. Many of us make hard work of life by bending our backs too much. We get dirt in our eyes by keeping them too near the desk and we get narrow-minded and selfish by a narrow radius of vision. To become truly rich, we must stand in the dignity of our manhood, walk in the integrity of our calling and run in the rhythm of a poetic nature. Out of harmony is out of spear. The dignity, integrity and poetry of life are all lost by in harmony. Only the ashes of disappointment are left. But with these, we can dance at our work and turn irksome duties into joyous privileges. Instead of moping in the valley of the shadow of death, we may live in the sunshine where beautiful flowers and luscious fruits and delicious sweets grow. Yes, yes, we might as well live in light as in darkness. Make a joyful song as a funeral dirge. Live amid glory as shame. With a radiant countenance, a beaming eye and a loving hand, we can do more work and have more to do. We can get more out of life and have more life to enjoy. We can scatter more sunshine and have more left for ourselves. Christ came to bring to every toilet heaven. Let us get into it quickly. It is here and here only that we find the poetry of life. End of Chapter 85. Chapter 86 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. On being earnest. Of ten men who fail in life, nine men fail for want of zeal, earnestness, courage, where one man fails for want of ability. This half-heartedness, this lack of zeal, this timidity, this shrinking from duty and hard tasks is seen on all sides and among all classes. But I tell you boys and girls that the least enviable people in all the world are those who think that nothing is particularly worthwhile. That it does not matter how much a thing is done if it's only done with. Who dwell along in a shabby sort of way, considering only their own ease with little sense of responsibility and with no shame in being shirks.  Every girl should do the same. Don't be satisfied boys and girls to be jellyfishes with only a capacity for drawing and nourishment and lingering on until your time comes to die. Be vertebrates, people of backbone, purpose, aim, enthusiasm, earnestness. At a public dinner, President Roosevelt asked Governor O'Dell of New York if he knew anything worth doing that was not hard in the doing and the governor could think of nothing. As a rule perhaps there is nothing and yet things once hard in the doing becomes easy as skill is gained by repetition. Be in earnest, be faithful and resolute and it will act like a tonic giving light to the eyes, springingness to the step and buoyancy to the heart. Don't be overcome by your circumstances no matter how distracting a man's surroundings may be. He may yet be able to focus his powers completely and to marshal them with certainty if he makes up his mind to do it. If things go hard with the self-mastered man or boy, he will be able to trample upon difficulties and to use his stumbling blocks as stepping stones. If a great misfortune overtakes him, he will simply use it as a starting point for a new departure, a turning point for more determined effort. He may be weighed down with sorrow and suffering, but he always starts anew with redouble determination to do the thing he has set his heart upon doing. He will not be discouraged. He will not give up. He will fight it out to the end. Put him in prison and he will write the pilgrim's progress. Deprive him of his eyesight and he will write the Paradise Lost. It was the spirit of earnestness which fired the soul of Martin Luther at the Diet of Varnes, who after being urged to recant said, Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. It was the spirit which characterized William Lloyd Garrison, the champion of the abolition of slavery, who when he was urged to stop fighting slavery exclaimed, I will not equivocate. I will not retract. I will not be moved one inch and I will be heard. So be in earnest boys and girls at home, at school, at work, and at play. It will help you a thousand fold. End of chapter 86. Chapter 87 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This Liber Fox recording is in the public domain. Young people and life insurance. Every little boy and girl and of course, every man and woman of the colored race in America should carry a life insurance policy of some kind in some reliable company. In this matter, the old people as in some other things ought to set the example for the young. But there are some reasons growing chiefly out of their previous condition of slavery, why our mothers and fathers have not as a rule taken very largely to the business of having their lives insured. But because our parents have been negligent in this matter, there is no reason why the younger generation should be. Life insurance is a good thing boys and girls. One of the best things in the world. American life insurance companies alone pay to policyholders or estates of policyholders over $100 million annually. Only a very small and almost insignificant portion of this vast sum goes into the hands of colored people and for the reason that very few colored people carry life insurance policies. Now, use a little common sense about this matter. Whatever is good in life insurance for other races is good for our race. Whatever in life insurance benefits, other races will benefit our race. In business as an education, whatever is good for a white man is good for a black man. I would therefore urge every boy and girl to join a life insurance company and where your mothers and fathers are not insured, I would urge you to do your utmost to persuade them to join at once. For one reason, a life insurance policy is not expensive. You might as well talk of the expense of buying bank stock or the expense of putting your money into a savings bank or any other safe place as to speak of the expense of keeping up a life insurance policy. It is accumulation and not expense. Every dollar put into life insurance is a dollar saved to yourself or your estate. For another reason, life insurance is a good business investment. Carefully collected statistics on file in Washington City prove that investments in life insurance are much safer and yield much larger returns than money placed in a savings bank. When you are older, you will perhaps be able to make these comparisons for yourself. For the present, you can take my word for it. A third reason life insurance is cheap. You can in an instant create a capital of $1,000, though you may be ever so poor by laying aside only a few cents a week. Young people chew up and drink up and smoke up and frolic up more money every week than would be sufficient to protect them against the rainy days that must come to everybody. And then, life insurance has a character value. It makes a young man a better man. It makes a young woman a better woman. That is to say, it makes them more economical, more business-like, happier, and I believe it will make them live longer. It's high time that black boys and girls were learning these things and acting upon them. When God commanded us not to serve money as a false God, he did not say that money would not serve us. And I beseech the boys and girls and the old people, too, to exercise some foresight and the same good sense about life insurance that other raises exercise. End of Chapter 87 Chapter 88 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Little Sailor Cat In September, 1893, grouped on the Fall River Line pier at the foot of Warren Street, New York, there stood a party of 23 sailors waiting for the Puritan to take them on to Boston. The central figure in the group, a short, thick-set man with bronzed and grizzled mustache, stood erect with arms folded over his chest. Upon the solid foundation, thus, made nestled a little white kitten. The man and the kitten were the Boston contingent of the crew of the steamship City of Savannah, which had been wrecked the week before on Hunting Island off the South Carolina coast. The story of the beaching of the steamship and of the taking off of her crew by the City of Birmingham had been told in all the newspapers, but nothing had been said about the cat, so the Boston Herald said. Before the shipwreck, the cat was nothing more than an ordinary ship's cat, and the captain had named him mascot, but that was the end of his distinction. After the disaster, nevertheless, all the sailors swore that the kitten was as good a sailor as any of them. He's a wonder, said the short, thick-set man, serving the cat proudly. Nobody thought of him in the rush, but he got there just the same. He climbed the rigging in that gale like an old tar and held on for hours. He wasn't a bit frightened, either. Only he would catarole when he got hungry. We were on board off the boat 50 hours after she struck before the sea was such that we could be taken off in boats. At night, the captain ordered all the crew into the rigging and made us stay there. We each took a piece of rope and lashed ourselves on, so as to keep from falling off when asleep. That's what the captain said the string was for, but I never slept at all. I don't think many others did. The cat got along without any rope and she was there in the morning all right. When we got away at last, nearly crazed with thirst and so faint that we could hardly climb down the Jacob's ladder into Birmingham's boat, that little fellow climbed out of his nest rigging and wanted to go too. We were glad to take him. End of chapter 88. Chapter 89 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This lip of Vox recording is in the public domain. Advice to little Christians. One, be punctual and regular at all the services of your church. Two, give close attention to the pastor in the public service. Here is me good preachers. Three, whenever you are aided by a sermon, tell the pastor about it. In this way you will help him more than you think possible. Four, do not neglect morning and evening prayer at home. Prayer daily for God's blessings upon the preaching and other labors of the pastor. Five, in the world let your life so shine before others that they may be led to glorify your Father which is in heaven. Let your light shine. Six, invite your friends to attend divine services. A drawing congregation is as good as a drawing preacher. Call for your friends often. Seven, remember day by day that you are not your own but have been bought with a price and that you are Christ's servant. Watch and pray. Eight, if any service is required of you in the church or in the Sunday school, do not shirk it. Always say, I will try for Jesus' sake. Nine, in the prayer meeting, speak briefly and to the point. If you pray, ask only for what you want. Be short and direct. Ask and ye shall receive. Ten, never subscribe more than you are able to pay and be sure to pay whatever you promise. Whether much or little, give it cheerfully. God loves a cheerful giver. Eleven, having found eternal life, use all appropriate means to develop Christian character. Prayer, reading the Bible, attending church and Sunday school, reading good books and Christian newspapers, keeping the best company. All these will help you. End of chapter 89. Chapter 90 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. A Word to Parents Children are a gift from God. Children are a heritage from the Lord. It depends largely on parents, whether they become a heritage of honor and delight or of sorrow and shame. It is not simply incumbent upon parents that their children be well cared for, fed and clothed, properly educated and so forth. But more than this, they are to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This being true then, the highest aim of rearing children is not simply that they may win success and command respect in the world. Respect and success are greatly to be desired and sought, but beyond them and beyond everything else is the highest and chiefest aim of parental love and care that their children may honor and command the righteousness of God in the life that now is and magnify the glory of God in the life that is to be. This is the mark and prize of their high calling. Admitting this then, the early conversion of children is all important. But if they are to be early converted, is it not wise, nay, absolutely essential that mothers and fathers prepare the way by restricting their natural impulses by which they are led to desire indulgences in the gay vanities of life? Is it not positively wrong for parents to indulge that pernicious and destructive delusion which some allow of permitting their children to have their own evil way in the hope that in due time they will in some way see their error and turn to the right path of their own accord?   Now, in your home, in the management of your children, are you doing the best you can to show what a Christian family should be? How is it, my friends? I'll leave that question with you. End of Chapter 90. Chapter 91 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This Lib of Arts recording is in the public domain. A helpful message. Life is too short to spend any time on a book that is not worth reading. But when you read a good book, you will be richly repaid if you stick a sort of mental pin in sentences that especially impress you and return to them again and again. If the book is your own, it is sometimes helpful to market neatly here and there and to copy some of the nuggets of thoughts.  From a book of the writings and speeches of a New York preacher, Dr. Maltby D. Babcock, who went a year or two ago to The Better Land, I have culled the following sentences that hold, I think, a helpful message for boys and girls as well as for old people. Look out for your choices. They run into conduct, character, destiny. To make the best of things is the right way to let things make the best of you. Pay as little attention to discouragement as possible. This is the only world in which a Christian can suffer. Whenever you feel blue, remember that God loves you and think upon some kindness if no more than sending a flower to someone or writing a note. If you can help anybody, even a little, be glad. Do not let the good things of life rob you of the best things. What have you done today that none but a Christian would do? End of chapter 91. Chapter 92 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Unseen Charmer Carl Brickerman, a collection clerk in an Uptown bank in his accustomed daily routine, found it necessary, among other things, to call by telephone the downtown brokerage firm of Hope, Good and Co. One day he missed the familiar feminine voice which had usually responded to his calls. But the new voice seemed sweeter and much more passionately penetrating. For two or three days, Brickerman was puzzled. Not only because of the change at the other end of the phone, but also because of the strange and unaccountable fascination which the new voice possessed for him. At length one day, almost in desperation, he turned aside from his regular business inquiries to ask, Where's the other girl? Which other girl? Asked the malifilist's voice over the articulate wire. But one who's used to answer the phone and the Hope Goods explained Brickerman. Promoted came the response with a merry little laugh. And you have her old place? Asked Mr. Brickerman, somewhat encouraged. Yes, for a while. Said the same still small voice at the other end and sounded more and more sweetly to the would-be masher. Well, said Brickerman, laughing the while. I used to call her quite well and would like to meet you face to face if you don't mind. I'm so charmed with the music of your voice. I'm sure I should be perfectly entranced with the magic of your face. A merry peel of laughter from the other end greeted this sally. The young man continued, I used to come down some days about four o'clock to see Margie. Will you, my unseen charmer, grant me the same high favor? Why, certainly. Come any day, answered the sweet voice, which had so strangely bewitched the young man. In ecstasy, Brickerman shouted back, I'll be down this afternoon. Brickerman hung up the receiver and chuckling with delight.  By three o'clock he had arranged his toilet and stood before the mirror, the finishing twirl to his budding moustache. He brushed his clothing the second time, brushed his hat, and figuratively speaking, arrayed in purple and fine linen, he sailed forth. He boarded an elevated train bound for the downtown district. On his way down, he tried to picture to himself the kind of a girl he should meet at the Hope Goods. Would she be tall or short of stature, blonde or brunette, above 21 years of age, or only sweet 16? The quick arrival of the train at Park Place put a period to Brickerman's revere. He went tripping across a few blocks to the place where all of his hopes had been centered during the past few hours. In fact, days. Arrived there, he stepped into the front office where Margie had formerly presided. It was the same snug and cozy room, but he failed to behold there the eager expected young lady. Instead, he ran amok a chubby little boy with a ruddy face and curly hair and perhaps not more than 14 or 15 years old sitting in Margie's place. Brickerman was visibly embarrassed. He did not know where to begin or what to say. He twitched nervously at the glove in his hand and he finally stammered, Mr. Hope, good in? No, sir, said the boy. Can I be of any service to you? Brickerman's face turned blood red and great drops of perspiration stood out upon his forehead. The accents of the little boy startled him for they were the same that had been wafted to him almost daily along the wire with which he thought he had been enamored. In the midst of his confusion, he managed to say, hoping almost against Hope, that his identity had not been discovered. Well, er, er, I'll call again. And without waiting to hear the unseen charmer speak again, he hastily retired with as good graces as was possible under the circumstances. End of chapter 92. Chapter number 93 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Our country. Boys and girls, we are all American citizens. The last one above. This is our country as much as it is the country of any other race. And we should love it and fight for it as our fathers have loved, fought, and died for it on many a battlefield. We may be the descendants of Africans, but we are citizens of the United States. This is our home, our country. Let us believe it in spite of what some foolish people say. Therefore, I'm going to give you one or two sentiments which you should learn early in life in order to stimulate your patriotism. One, may the honor of our country be without stain. Two, may the glory of America never cease to shine. Three, may every American manfully withstand corruption. Four, may reverence for the laws ever predominate in the hearts of the American people. Five, the sons and daughters of America may their union be cemented by love and affection and their offspring adorn the stations they are destined to fill. Six, may the growth of the American Union never be prevented by party spirit. Seven, the boys of America may they be strong and virtuous, manly and brave. Eight, the girls of America may they prove to be such in heart and life as will make them worthy mothers of a strong and noble race. Nine, health to our president, prosperity to our people, and may Congress direct its endeavors to the public good. Ten, may peace over America spread her wings and commerce fill her ports with gold. May arts and science comfort bring and liberty her sons enfold. End of chapter 93. Chapter 94 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The don't care girl.   Nobody has anything to do with me. She is the worst girl in the world and she will never come to any good end. Every girl who is a law unto herself in regards to all that she says or does is certain not only to bring upon herself the condemnation of those whose good opinion it is worthwhile to have, but she will most certainly incur the punishment of a just God. And sometimes I'm sorry to say, I think that when a girl proudly declares that she doesn't care for the good opinion of others, she does so because she knows that she's already lost all right to that good opinion. It is wrong boys and girls to undertake to run roughshod over the so-called prejudices of the public. It is a foolish thing to take the light and try to shock people by your boisterous and unladylike and unbecoming conduct. Every really wise and nice girl does care a good deal for the good opinion of others and particularly for the good opinion of persons older than she is. She recognizes the fact that the law of conventionality and of good society are based upon what is right and what is proper and that no girl can with propriety set them at naught. Some girls go so far as to say that they don't care what their own fathers and mothers think. The wild girl who says this is setting at defiance not only the human parental law but also the law of God which plainly commands children to obey their parents. Haven't you ever seen a don't care girl? She's nearly always reckless in manner and speech. She is bold and defiant. She is impudent beyond mention and she is very fond of ridiculing girls who do care a great deal what others think about them. No matter whose children they are no matter what school they have attended these don't care girls are no good and good girls ought not to associate with them.  I'm hoping to see the day when the don't care girls will have passed out of existence and then all of our girls will be of the refined and womanly kind who do care a great deal about their conduct their manners and their morals. I don't want my daughter to associate with any other kind. End of chapter 94 Chapter 95 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Negro Heroes No true history of the American continent can be written without giving due credit to the part which brave Negro men have played on the field of battle and the defense of liberty. At the head of the list of great Negro soldiers stands unquestionably Toussaint Louverture the emancipator of Haiti the little republic to the south of the island of Cuba. This black hero who never saw a soldier until he was 50 years old crossed swords with the great Napoleon who is said to be the greatest general the world has ever known and he outwitted that great warrior. Wendell Phillips a great oration places the names of Toussaint at the head of the list of all of the world's great leaders and statesmen above the name of even our own George Washington. Next comes Christmas Attics who was killed in the Boston massacre on the night of March 5th, 1770. His blood was the first blood shed in the cause of the American independence. John Adams and Daniel Webster both date the beginning of the American independence from that terrible massacre. Later on when the Revolutionary War came the Negro played a valiant part in many individuals one just fame. For instance, Peter Salem and Salem Poor both distinguished themselves at the Battle of Bunker Hill and at other points. Today a monument stands on Boston Common erected in honor of Christmas Attics Peter Salem, Salem Poor, Samuel Maverick and James Caldwell. All the boys and girls now living know about the heroism of Antonio Maceo in behalf of the freedom of Cuba and how that brave general laid down his life or his own people shortly before the United States in 1898 took up arms in defense of Cuban liberty and drove the Spanish tyrants out. Of course there were many colored soldiers who took notable parts in the work done by our country during that short and decisive war. It is even claimed on good authority that the black soldiers save the regiment of rough riders which was commanded by the intrepid Colonel Roosevelt who afterwards became governor of New York and president of the United States. But before the Spanish American War the Nero's had given good account of themselves on many a well fought field in the War of 1812 and again in the Great Civil War. In the Civil War which resulted in the restoration of the Union and the freedom of the slaves there were 186,000 colored soldiers. Today a monument stands on Boston Common also in memory of the 54 Massachusetts Regiment of the United States soldiers. This was a colored regiment which was commanded by a gallant white man named Robert Gould Shaw. He and a large proportion of his command were killed at Fort Wagner, South Carolina in July 1863. In the Civil War we were not allowed to have our own officers all the officers being wiped. In the Spanish American War this was changed and we had over 200 officers including some as high as colonels and two paid masters with the rank of majors. When another war comes we are going to have some generals as well as colonels and captains and majors. Some of the little boys who are reading these words may be called on to render this higher service for the country and the race. I hope boys if it should be so that you will be prepared to give us good an account of your stewardship as those who have gone before. I hope you will learn a good deal about the lives of the great heroes above named and about others whom I cannot stop to mention now. In this way you will gain inspiration for the future. End of chapter 95. Chapter 96 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Frederick Douglass to young people. Shortly before he died Frederick Douglass made a tour through the south among other places he visited Atlanta University. At that place he made an address to the young people. It is so full of hope and help that I wanted to place it where every ambitious black boy and girl in America can see it. It has never been published before except in the Bulletin of Atlanta University. Mr. Douglass said, my young friends, I see before me an assemblage of young people full of the blood of youth just entering upon the voyage of life. It is an interesting spectacle to me as to us all to meet such an assembly as I see before me this morning in an institution of learning, of knowledge and of ethics and of Christian graces. I experience great pleasure in what I see today. There is no language to describe my feelings. It was no mere image that John saw and described in the Apocalypse. It was a new heaven and a new earth indeed. When I look back upon the time when I was a fugitive slave, I recollect the evils and cruelty of slave hunting. No mountain was so high, no valley was so deep, no glen so secluded, no place so sacred to liberty that I could put my foot upon it and say I was free. But now I am free. Contrasting my condition then and now, the change exceeds what John saw upon the Isle of Patmos. The change, vast and wonderful, that came by the fulfilling of laws. We got freed by laws, marvelous in our eyes. Men, brave men, good men, who had the courage of their convictions were arrested and subjected to persecutions, moms, lawlessness, violence. They had the conviction of truth. Simple truth lasts forever. Be not discouraged. There is a future for you and a future for me. The resistance encountered now predicates hope. The Negro degraded, indolent, lazy and different to progress is not objectionable to the average public mind. Only as we rise in the scale of proficiency do we encounter opposition. When we see a ship that lies rotting in the harbor, it seems yawning, its sides broken in, taking water and sinking. It meets with no opposition. But when its sails are spread to the breeze, its top sails and its royals flying, then there is resistance. The resistance is in proportion to its speed. In Memphis, three Negro men were lynched, not because they were low and degraded, but because they knew their business and other men wanted their business. I'm delighted to see you all. Don't be despondent. Don't measure yourselves from the white man's standpoint, but measure yourselves by the depths from which you have come. I measure from these depths, and I see what Providence has done. Daniel Webster said in his speech at the dedication of Bunker Hill Monument. Bunker Hill Monument is completed. There it stands, a memorial of the past, a monitor of the present, a hope of the future. It looks, speaks, acts. So this assembly is a monitor of the present, a memorial of the past, a hope of the future. I see boys and girls around me. Boys, you will be men someday. Girls, you will be women someday. May you become good men and women, intelligent men and women, a credit to yourselves and your country. I thank you for what I have experienced today, and I leave you reluctantly, and shall always carry with me the pleasantest impressions of this occasion. End of chapter 96. Chapter 97 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in a public domain.  He was a boy on a farm, the son of strict parents who never unbent into friends and comrades, but had iron ideas of parental duty along the lines of restraints and gave large doses of the catechism and the Ten Commandments, interspersed with much fault-finding and complaints of the waywardness of boys in general and their own boy in particular. As a consequence, the boy chafed against the High Dam, burst its bounds early and came to the city with a zest for freedom and a reaction to the restraint he had undergone and an admiration for the fast life. This was by way of reaction from his disgust for the farm and its slow ways.  Human nature will continue to be human nature and boys will continue to be boys. Youth will long, and naturally so, for variety and amusement. The house in which parents never unbent in sympathy with their children's longing for a little brightness and jollity, where work goes on in unretrieved monotony and home means only a place to sleep and eat in. Such a home sends its boys and girls to the city before they are panoply to meet its temptations. Either this or else it hardens and saddens them into mere machines or beasts of burden. Books, music, flowers, games, social clubs, cheerful pictures, love and sympathy, these will bind the young heart to home and right living and will obviate the necessity of the high dams of restraint. End of Chapter 97 Chapter number 98 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Lola Janey. A Good Fellow He was a good fellow. He spent his money like a prince. There was nothing too good for him to do for those with whom he kept company. He lived rapidly and had no thought of tomorrow. He burned the candle of life at both ends.  Ah, how insincere and empty is the title of Good Fellow when it is applied to the man whose money is always on tap for those who are desirous of having a good time. And how corrupt and undesirable are the so-called friendships which spring from a lavish expenditure of money? Boys, the roof over your heads covers the best fringe you could possibly have on earth. Those who slap you on the shoulder and say hilariously, Good Boy, our seldom ever worth their salt.  That's all. Real happiness in this world comes, if at all, from living right and doing right.  End of Chapter 98 Chapter 99 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Future of the Negro My dear boys and girls, I have written nearly 100 stories for this book and I have not said one word about the so-called race problem. I have done this on purpose. I believe that the less you think about the troubles of the race and the less you talk about them and the more time you spend in hard and honest work believing in God and trusting in him for the future, the better it will be for all concerned. I know, of course, that the sufferings which are inflicted upon the colored people in this country are many and grievous. I know that we are discriminated against in many ways on common carriers, in public resorts, and even in private life. The right to vote has been taken away from us in nearly all of the southern states. Lynchings are on the increase.  What shall we do? There are those who say that we must strike back, use fire and torch and sword and shotgun ourselves. But I tell you plainly that we cannot afford to do that. The white people have all the courts, all the railroads and all the newspapers, all the telegraph wires, all the arms and ammunition, and double the men that we have. In every race riot, the Negro would get the worst of it finally. But there's a higher reason than that. We cannot afford to do wrong. We cannot afford to lose our decency, our self-respect, our character. No man will ever be the superior of the man he robs. No man will ever be the superior of the man he seals from. I would rather be a victim than a victimizer. I would rather be wronged than to do wrong. And no race is superior to the race it tramples upon, robs, maltreats and murders. In spite of prejudice, in spite of proscription, in spite of nameless insults and injuries, we cannot as a race afford to do wrong. But we can afford to be patient. God is not dead. His chariots are not unwielded. It is ordained of God that races as well as individuals shall rise through tribulations. And during this period of stress and strain through which we are passing in this country, I believe that there are unseen forces marshaled in the defense of our long suffering and much oppressed people. They that be with us are more than they that be with them. What should we care then? Though all the lowlands be filled with threats, if the mountains of our hope and courage and patience are filled with horses and chariots of divine rescue. End of Chapter 99, Chapter 100 of Floyd's Flowers by Silas X. Floyd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by Lola Janney of Northern Virginia, September 2019. The Training of Children My last words shall be to parents. Many parents neglect the training of their children until the boys and girls have grown to be almost men and women. And then they expect all at once to develop them into well-rounded characters, as if by magic. Others fix upon a definite time in life, say 10 or 12 years old, before which time they say it is unnecessary to seek to make lasting impressions upon the minds of children all unconscious of the fact that the character may have been long before that period biased for good or evil. I say it deliberately. It is a deep and abiding conviction with me that the time to begin to shape the character of children is as soon as they begin to know their own mothers from other mothers, or as soon as they become awake to the events which are taking place around them. The farmer who has the notion that his child can wait does not dare to let his corn and cotton wait. He has observed that there are noxious weeds which spring up side by side with the seed he has planted and marvelous to say the weeds outgrow the plants. They must therefore be cut down and kept down or else they will ruin the crop. Side by side with your tender babe in arms there are growing down, dear mothers, the poisonous tears. They are rooted already in the child's heart and unless they are stricken down pretty soon they will dominate the child's life. And of course there's only one way to destroy evil that is to plant good in its stead. If there is one untenated chamber in your child's heart inhabited, I pray you, with nobler and purer thoughts which before long shall bring forth fruit unto God. Satan does not wait, I assure you. He never allows a vacancy to remain unoccupied in anybody's heart, old or young. He rushes into empty hearts and idle lives and sows tears thicker than the strewn leaves of autumn. It is an old and senseless and barbarian custom which has taught us that the child can wait or must wait. If anybody must wait at table to be served it is usually the little child who may be the hungriest of all. If someone must remain away from church or Sunday school it's often the youngest child who perhaps needs most to go. If someone must be kept out of day school it is the smallest child of course and during the year that he remains idle he may receive impressions and learn lessons that will mar his whole future life. Let us have done with this barbaric practice. Make room for the children. Give them not only the first place but the best place. In almost any city in the south any Sunday in the year you will find more children, more boys and girls outside of the Sunday schools than you will find inside. There's a loud and crying call sounding from the past and from the future and bidding mothers and fathers to be more diligent in the matter of having their children embrace opportunities of growth and spiritual culture which are almost within a stone's throw. If mothers and fathers will not hear and obey this clarion call I believe that they will be brought to account for it in the day of judgment. Not only so but in the years to come they will be compelled to wail out their sorrow over prodigal sons and daughters who might have proven to be ornaments to society and to the church if their parents had devoted half the care upon them that they expended upon colts and calves, kittens and puppies that grew up with them. In all earnestness I implore those to whom God has given winsome little children to begin early as early as I find it possible to train their young lives for God in heaven. Let their little voices learn early to list the precious name of Jesus and be attuned to sing his praise. If you leave them this legacy there is none greater. There will come peace and joy to your old age and the light of heaven like the golden glow of a radiant sunset will rest on your dying bed. And now as I close these stories there comes to me across the intervening space of silence and of tears fond memories of a sweet and patient mother. I cannot remember when she began to talk to me of Jesus nor read to me the word of God. I remember well when she taught me how to read and the old fashioned blueback spelling book is as plainly before me now as in those long past days. But long before that I had heard her read the Bible and raised her voice in prayer for all whom she loved and to date those memories live when a thousand busy scenes of afterlife lie dead and when old age comes on if God should spare me to be old the memory of my mother's words and her reverential prayer will be the brightest of all the joys that shall light up the evening of my life. And of chapter 100 end of Floyd's flowers or duty and beauty for colored children being 100 short stories gleaned from the storehouse of human knowledge and experience simple amusing elevating by Silas X. Floyd. Thank you.


Test does that work great. Can you guys hear me, too? All right So I was told to give the AV guys a thumbs up and apparently I did that and I was the first guy that managed to do that today So I'm really happy about that Unfortunately, this is the second-last talk for today. So do enjoy it and welcome Lee With me who is a software engineer and open source enthusiast and I think he certainly won the prize for the most comprehensive bio there But he's going to talk about Python as a service or platform as a service in Python. So Please welcome Lee. So hi, I'm Lee. I do not work for Mozilla I'll just start with that because you'll see why later But I've been in Python for a few years now and I've been doing Django websites in my own time for various people as well as myself and I sort of was looking at what I could do and How I would host them because Like everybody I probably started with well like there like a lot of people I started with that ModPython Do not use today So I'll just go over what I'm going to be talking about today. So I'm going to talk about what is a platform as a service My approach and a few alternatives that are out there and what I think might be important in the future So what is platform as a service? Initialized as PAAS it's where You're provided a runtime environment and You operate within that environment only This is different from say what you might call cloud computing Which is often referred to as infrastructure as a service where you get a virtual machine and then you can set up your own runtime environment within that Almost all of the particularly commercial ones are built on infrastructure as a service because it gives them a great way to scale out and It really is about providing the Facilities that are needed by your app and not having to worry about managing the operating system or The database server or something like that And as this diagram nicely points out it's very much used as a way of delivering software as a service applications Just because it's allows the people focusing on selling that not to have to worry about the levels below So you concentrate on the bit that you do well So in a Python context What does this look like well most of the time it is a wsgi service. It's a whiskey the web service gateway interface In some environments, you're really just given an htdb socket that you connect to and then you run your own wsgi server on that Mainly because there's kind of a few different ones out there. So the most common Whiskey interface is mod whiskey and Apache. Who runs that? Few people. All right, who runs Great new unicorn People who runs you whiskey Slightly more interesting Who runs something that's really unusual and not one of those? Okay me The service also tends to provide a variety of services that are just injected straight in that are available straight away without configuration and generally they're injected through some sort of configuration or environment variables Or something like that and databases is the key one among those So you don't have to go set up a database Access and things like that and generally just provided it You can also get other services like caching services caching servers Mail server mail relay, etc And almost always they're inside some sort of virtual environment and be a virtual mpm And that allows that multiple Customers on the same platform often. There's some sort of containerization or some sort of isolation So there's no You're not fixed to the libraries that are provided you can choose your own Yeah, so my approach and don't worry. I'll come back to the slide Is to bring together a few open source pieces and put them together So I use engine X as the sort of front-end web server and that just does static media and then proxies on to Circus D which provides process management and socket management and you'll see that's my WSGI server Get version control fabric and cuisine and Django environment For retrieving the configuration So I use it to host a variety of sites, of course my own Rec file check, which I hope which I'll be talking about in the lightning talks tomorrow a Not exactly secret project a failed start-up a Civic hackathon website a Gov hack project from this year And all on one virtual machine with one gig of RAM and one CPU for less than 30 dollars a month so By having using your resources efficiently you can get a lot into a single small virtual machine And that's one of the advantages of doing it this way. There's a single only a single web server and it's relatively lightweight It's not quite as complicated as sorry not as quite as heavyweight as Apache's WSGI mod WSGI Damon workers And there's lots of optimizations. I could make which I haven't done yet So just going back to the approach. I'm now going to go quickly through some of these and I Talk about how they fit together so Most of the sites I well all the sites I host are Django web applications So they have a separation of static files and media Media is files that get uploaded by the user and static are provided by the application itself Since they're not changing once they're uploaded. They're provided out through engine X That means there's no overhead of Python being involved in delivering those files And engine X just everything else. That's not one of those two directories has just forwarded on to a Socket on circus day So it has this sort of architecture for How are they connected together and? circus Manages sockets and workers what it calls modern No words gone, sorry So you can have a circus basically means you Define some open sockets and it listens on them and it will pass The socket when it receives a connection onto a web worker when it's when it makes a request when a When a connection is made on it And then you there's a variety it can monitors the workers and if You can say increase the number of workers and it will Spin up another one and if one crashes it'll restart it And so it does sort of that process monitor management like Supervised D The web workers I use a tool set it's sorry once they're back circus and tool set are both projects of Mozilla They I believe they use it for their own some of their own services that they've developed Jocette which apparently is French for sock which makes sense with sockets. It's designed for Basically running WSGI apps. It doesn't need to be Django. It can be bottle or whatever and it specifically is designed to pack up the sockets that are provided by circus and Run HD very simple HTTP server on it that then sends the request on to the WSGI app that it's running So it's very very small footprint for that particular server. It's very very simple Has some neat options, which I haven't used around using different back-end so it supports things like waitress and Some of the other ones which I can't remember off the top of my head, haha But I'll just quickly run over the circus config sort of sounds a bit odd at this stage But hopefully this makes it a little bit more concrete. So The first thing we've done here is to find a socket for BD web So it's listening on local host There's no point talking to the internet on a particular port 8080 in this case And watcher. That's the name I was looking for We've also defined a watcher and this is one of the processes that circus will manage and if if it crashes it'll be restarted and You can also change the number of processes So you can see here. I'm running a Virtual M called M Come on mouse ah So we run to set out on the virtual M that we're running on we pass in this the file descriptor for that socket And so it's listening on that and then it runs my WSGI application So very simple Set up for that server use sockets basically says replace this with the actual socket ID that's used Because you can also use it use a set up a watcher. That's just watching an application That's not passing any sockets to it So you could run your readers under that if it crashes, it'll be restarted Or your salary workers or whatever We define number of processes So this is set to one because I'm not many people look at my website unfortunately But you can this is where it initiates of the the number it'll start to You can then use commands like circus control incora BD web and it will start another one. So it'll be two We define the user to run as and this is pretty one of the key parts of the my setup is that I have each Each application I host I have on its own user and this provides some isolation between the different Applications and if one's compromised, hopefully it limits the the scope of the any problems And I also separate the user that runs the application from the user that owns the code and deploys it And we also provide a couple of an environment variable For the Python path, which just happens to point to the directory and it just makes all the includes and imports a bit easier Yeah, so it's that so deployment I keep on my code and get and The deployment user but I mentioned I generate an SSH key for it without a partner without a password Yeah, it doesn't have a passphrase so that when I do my Scripting of the deployment it can use that SSH key to retrieve the code from get And the way that I automate that Script automate that deployment as I use a fabric and cuisine. So fabric is a fairly low-level Run shell commands on a remote system It uses the param eco SSH library internally It's written in Python the code your the actual script is in Python and you should be able to see that on the next slide When I give you an example Cuisine is a plugin that goes on that extends that and it provides much higher level interfaces So it hands things like write this file read this file add this add a user install this package Install this Python package if into the system Python and So it ultimately for me when I did go to deploy my big digital website I just type this command here very very simple just one time to enter goes fetches it for this is the update command updates from From get and runs a few more commands just to set up all the environment. So Here's my fabric script or some fact similarly of it so we define a task and this is those the tasks that's on the command line and We define the host the so the set of hosts that runs on Fabric provides this and it has a variety of ways of doing this including setting up things like server roles Sets of hosts and things like that. So there's quite a variety of ways of defining which host is you can also define it on the command line and then my Python method that it actually calls and in this case, you know the update up CD changes into a directory runs get pull Rights the dot environment which I'll come back to in a bit and runs the post-upgrade steps at the bottom Now the method as function at the bottom Which basically just runs a whole lot of stuff checks if a file exists or run run run run So it runs all the managed check managed migrate managed by a click static And then at the end it does a circus reload BD web and it does this in a really neat way So if I have say two runners are two two processors set up on in circus for my BD web It will start a new one Tell terminate the oldest one start up another new one and then terminate the next oldest one So it'll without Interruption and keeping at least two running at any one time. It will basically provide continuous service So zero downtime updates If the update actually works in that way and the old version works when when the migration migrations have been applied little trick to learn to Yeah Yeah, let's not do that This is sort of the deployment side so you can see we've got a few more A different commands that are coming out of cuisine Do ensure make sure a directory exists and you can provide a a an owner You can see that it sets up a set of media Owned by different users so the run user has to own media because it has to write into it Okay We do our Get clone to actually download the code right then we run the same post update steps And we write the configuration and more configuration more configuration keeps going and going and eventually reloads everything and it starts running So it's a fabric is a really neat way of remotely executing commands and Cuisine makes it a lot easier to define at high level, you know crack this user create this directory write this file so the the last of Sort of the key components in my environment is Django environment So this isn't actually specific to Django despite its name But the key thing is do not store secret key or DB passwords or AWS keys In your settings file that you then commit to public SVM or get or anything like that That's a really bad idea. You will have a bad day one eventually So Django environment allows us to separate those Key settings, and this is I find it quite useful for separating out when we run on say different hosts that the host specific settings go into and Either come from the environment or from a particular file that we write The dot-in file that I mentioned before And it has a whole lot of path details as well. So Reading from So, okay quick question who here has read the 12-factor apps manifesto Few people okay for those that don't know There is this thing called the 12-factor app And it's basically a way of deploying scalable a set of suggestions for how to deploy scalable Web applications think originally coming from out of the Ruby community. I think So we might be able to correct me on that but basically it suggests that all the changeable configuration should come in environment variables and and Haruku is a good example where that actually happens so they provide your Your database configuration is provided to your app through an environment variable. I Was particularly when I was first setting this up I was writing commands on the on the remote command line by hand Having to remember to put in environment variables kind of hard So being able to read it from file is really really handy So this is what the top of my settings.py file looks like and a lot of my Django applications so report environment and Root here is Set up as the root directory of the project that I'm deploying so the file It's too up from the way that file is so one up would be the directory that files in the settings.py file is in And once the one above that which is where hopefully my managed or pi script is for example and environment is set up to be the Read the environment variables and we also set up a Casting and and default value for debug default to off for debug And then we read it from read the rest of the settings from file And so you can see how further down the bug we just loaded up from in because there's a default set It'll always work But secret key here. I haven't said there's no default set there or anything so If it's not provided either from the environment or from file It'll actually throw a improperly configured exception Which is very handy particularly for secret key because you want that to be you know there And you also don't want it to be committed in code It also has a variety of other helpers Django environment also has a lot a few other useful helpers Django Db, sorry is one of those which takes by default looks for a environment variable or a variable from your file called database URL and it parses the URL into the Various dictionary of settings that are required by Django And here I've set the default here so that in development. I don't have to set it to something useful so it just defaults to An SQL like database in the root of my Of my checkup Which makes it very handy So you can also see how you could use root root plus say templates in your template directories or root dot static const or static or whatever you want to call it in your static directories and Mf can be used for anything a default gives you back a string, but you can get Bulls floats Integers a few others There's also a couple other helpers like I think there's cash. There's one of the newer ones that are in there and very much that's very very much based on DJ DB URL, I think the package was called and there's a variety of other ones that are very similar So they sort of brought them all together in one place Which I think is a really really neat tool So here's an example of an infile dot infile. So debug to false. Yeah, debug to false And know that it definitely is not my secret key, but you can sort of see how the database URL is set there passing through the database user the password the host name and the schema And sports a bunch of things including the Geo Django databases and everything like that You don't have to have a dot infile. You could set them as environment variables say you could do that in your In your circus config So I set the Python path there because I really needed to But you could do that but Haruku does it this passes it through environment variables So it actually provides quite a lot of flexibility using Django environment So one last look at the approach Yes So it's quite it's not sort of a single thing that I've when I have it sort of a collection of tools that work very very well together So some alternatives Yeah, I mentioned Haruku a couple of times Google App Engine gondor OpenShift they're all sort of ones you can go out and buy hosting with Couple you can run yourself Honsho Honsho is written in Python and it is basically a How to describe it it is a Python re-implementation of a Ruby tool called foreman and Foreman is pretty much what Haruku provides So roundabout But it is kind of a neat way I think it's kind of neat in one sense that you can run in pretty much the same environment that you deploy in and you're testing All your development Whereas I tend to run slightly different environments, but I have a explicit testing environment Separate and there are a couple other sort of Platforms as a service out there OpenShift is in both columns because I believe you can get it hosted from Red Hat, but it's open source so You can Run it yourself Cloud Foundry is another one that's open source. I'm sure there's others. Does anybody want to yell out a suggestion? No, I think it's most of them So very quickly the future can't mention the future without mentioning Docker or containerization, which is Similar sort of things, but basically stronger separation, but not complete separation But better control of the environment Hmm Maybe one day I'll do that, but it wasn't really around when I set up my environment and system D provides a lot of this sort of Process control and socket activation like circus does so I Haven't yet had a chance to have a decent look at it But it may well have the sort of Pieces of the puzzle that would mean that we wouldn't need circus Probably still need sure see it because we need something that actually translate HTTP into something sensible and you probably still need You know what maybe not and it was still wasn't around when I set this up. So There's some links and is there any questions? Gonna run around with the microphone. Yes, I will so Is it on I hope so I can't hear myself here up here. That's really bad So first of all, let's thank Lee for his talk please and then if there are any questions We have about five minutes Am I going to build a docker? container for my setup Not in the near future because I haven't managed to get it running yet Docker that is I'm much too busy in my day job Any other questions? I was just curious if you tried reducing the size of the VM you're using and What stage it might just not work for you So, I was sort of wondering just how far you could go Yeah, so Part of the limitation is just how many apps I'm running and and how they use that memory That's a gov hack one actually was crashing out out of memory When somebody did the wrong thing quite often It's not actually running just a very second, but normally it would run. Okay. I have been down as low as about 300 meg and and Honestly, the hosting I provide is the great people but still not that much cheaper so It very much just depends on how much memory your process ends up using Circus is very small to say it is extremely small couple hundred K most Sorry, I just thought I should say this as well as you were talking about alternative providers NZ parks website is sponsored by gondor.io which is They provide the hosting kindly and they provide a similar issue of is to harrick They do you something up there mentioned get tags. Yes, I probably should be using that but it's just me that pushes So I just run off master head I'm just wondering how you would manage your environment files Would you keep them in a separate get repo or and how do you how do you handle the difference between the environments if you have? They have this production. How do you do that? That's a good question and something that on occasion I struggle with So there's been a variety of different ways That I've done it sometimes I've The top of my favorite file has the passwords and stuff to find in it Which is committed into a separate get repository The not the greatest solution The most common one is that I don't actually write rewrite it every time I Do an update. I only write it on the first one and I transiently create passwords and Set up the database set up the hosting set up everything and It's just written into the dot-m file and that's the only place it exists after once that call once that script is finished and that works okay as well and Eventually, you don't want to put it in a database that I can secure somewhere off site so Ultimately, it's one of those things that just about every tool struggles with I know that you know people starting out with say puppet or something like that often end up hard coding passwords in it because it's the easiest way to do it when they're just learning and Yeah, it becomes tricky and You learn as you move forward So it's probably the one weakness about the way that I have my fabric script set up We got time for about one more question and if there are no questions, please think