We're looking for the facilitators to take two minutes maximum, give us the nutshell of what the conversation was, and the four priorities. Remember though, everybody listening? Remember, nothing is lost. We're building a bit of a pyramid here. We started last month with a lot of brainstormed ideas. We focused those brainstorms into these concentrated conversations. We're still brainstorming. There's a lot of mixed-up thinking going on as we look at this. A lot of chaos in it. That's okay. The next stage is to take the priorities from tonight, line them up, look at the granular stuff that didn't make it into that priority, and how things were said in all the different rooms that mean something important for us to remember. Line those up to bring those back on the 7th, either here or some other building in town. We'll do a lot of mourning on this. We hope you'll come back, line up, make choices in these ideas for the hard priorities for action that will look to the city, will look to the existing nonprofits, and will look to what needs to happen in terms of citizen engagement and leadership to drive the work forward. So thank you all for being here. I want to start real quick, and we'll start with emergency planning and the warning system with Christine Halifax. I was up here. So we definitely had Sarah's words bringing in our mind about how we need to be open to doing things differently, and we had to work as one team. We had a really good conversation, and what was most gratifying is that the folks who were interested in this topic were really focused on solutions of what we can do right now. Here's a flavor of what we talked about. We had three sort of name buckets and underneath it, so number one was adequate warning and notice so people can help each other in businesses. One of our main ideas was coordinate and mobilize volunteer responses ahead of time. Have a trained group of volunteers with a paid person who can help and get notification out. We talked about the critical way of getting notification in various ways. Leveraging systems already in place. Think meals on wheels. All of us who have school-aged children get those calls from Libby Bond Steel about all the updates. How can we leverage systems like that? We talked about having a siren, which could also be good for other crises like fires. And also, there was a really big focus on the next bucket, which was accessibility of info and notifications. I knew that word was going to get me. Greater specifics in what action to take for what emergency. So resources and info is ready to go before an event strikes. What can we do to plan now so that when a crisis strikes, we have the resources to communicate with people in a way that's accessible to all with handouts, making sure that they are available to everybody. Also, we talked about Vermont Alert. We also talked about more frequent communication. And we wanted to think a lot about elderly populations with the door-to-door work. Also, people experiencing homelessness and how to have a really robust system to support them. The last bucket is having dedicated resources with professional support with training and finances is critical. So folks may remember CAN, re-envigorating or evolving CAN, which was really dividing our neighborhoods into 26 communities, and then having some really hyper-geotargeted local information to people so that instead of giving broad alerts, people may have gotten that might not be relevant if you live on Berlin Street versus Elm Street, but creating really geotargeted, specific, actionable information for people. The other idea which was great was pivoting city resources who maybe do with the parks or the trees to have them pivot into emergency personnel who could go door-to-door and perhaps evacuate folks on Elm Street. The overarching theme was needing to educate, practice, and get more connected to bring everyone along. I really liked our group. We were pretty jazzed. Thank you. They were quite wordy, though. Okay, let's go to the next group. Are we aware of our food systems and food security? If that wasn't a message. Oh, it's called. All right. So I had a chance to facilitate the group on food systems and food security. We came up with a few ideas to bring to all of you this evening. The first is a short-term idea to put a Montpelier liaison on the Farm to Plate Steering Committee to incorporate longer-term food resilience and feeding ourselves into our local city planning processes. The second is to support the Feast Program in the short term with more money and resources and in the long term to identify a permanent location for a permanent city farm. The next one is to create a public media campaign to tell the stories of what's happened to our farmers and how vulnerable they are in disasters to raise awareness and raise donations across the state. And then finally, we had a political one starting at Grassroots Political Campaign to change our state's agricultural budget with an eye and an emphasis toward small-scale community-based farm operations that await for... A leadership for recovery and resilience. Hi. We had an excellent conversation on leadership, and I think it really starts with the idea... First of all, I'm showing up. Thank all of you for being leaders and for being here tonight. We talked about the idea that leadership is really a reflection of our values and that processes like this can help us clarify our values and what are our share values and we shouldn't take for granted that we know what they are, that we should continue the conversation and figure out what it is that we believe and what we want to stand up for and that the leadership will come from that. The one thing we did agree on, though, a number one kind of value is an idea of colossal inclusion, meaning that everybody needs to be a part of this process and everybody's voice needs to be heard. In terms of specific action steps for leadership, the kind of leadership that we're going to meet moving on to the future, there was real interest in the creation of a non-governmental hub of leadership that would really take two tracks. One, the short-term recovery. What are the resources available to everyone that needs help right now in kind of navigating that? With the expectation that short-term is two to three years, right? And then the other track would be a long-term vision towards resiliency, so that there would be this one entity that would be responsible outside of the city that would remember working collaboratively to move those two tracks forward. Another action that we had was really fostering and empowering the things that worked, things like neighborhood connections or mutual aid societies. And then the last thing was just really leadership is going to require coordinated communication so that there's a single story that we're all apart. Thanks. Like health and well-being, Joe Ramon? So we looked at what community is, and we started with the definition that well-being and health is creating personal attributes within the individual and conditions within the community that promote well-being. Generally, looking at community connections, love, compassion, empathy, the more of that, the more we will be well. We came up with three priorities. One was housing. Short-term, nimble, quick homes for all before winter. That would take a real concentration, but we can do it. The longer term is more housing that everybody eventually has housing and with the spectrum of accessibility. Second priority, mental health. Recognizing and understanding mental health, the trauma that we all are either affected by personally or among our friends and family. And being educated and knowing the services is a lot that's going on and we want to keep that up for the long term. And the first responders are doing a great job. And then for long-term mental health, we want to create more third, they call it third spaces, where peers and people can go to connect in all areas, in all parts of the people in Montpelier and the surrounding communities. And our last priority was big. It had to do with water, air, and we want our community detoxified. Cleaning, the short-term is cleaning. Testing, becoming aware as a community and individuals on how to do things, not just, I do one way, you do the other, but that there's a standard. And the long-term is that we work with the Department of Health to set up clear goals and standards for testing our buildings, our homes, and our streets. And resilience. Well, thank you, Paul, and good evening, everyone. In our group, we talked a lot about some specific ideas on how to bring financing to the challenges that we're going to face. But ultimately, we came up with sort of two broad areas of consensus. One was on simply quantifying the cost of the flooding. And I think of that, or we thought about in both the recovery aspect, which was more immediate, and then the resiliency aspect of it, which was more long-term. And obviously, some of that work is being done at the state level, but thinking about how can that work be done at the local level, and coming up with a big dollar amount in terms of the quantification we think will help mobilize efforts to achieve that big, audacious fall that potentially we established for ourselves. So both that recovery and that resiliency, understanding that one is much quicker than the other, but that both are important to quantify and to respond to. And then on the financing side, thinking about opportunities for advocacy both at the federal level for more funds for the state and for the city. Thinking of advocacy with FEMA so that there's more flexibility in the way that a federal disaster money is going to be used, both for cities but also for individuals. And then advocacy for the state level as well, that funds that have already been allocated for certain projects or certain programs potentially be reallocated to flood recovery and flood resilience. And then the potential for additional revenues, whether through some sort of financing mechanism like bonding or other revenues that have come into the state, thinking about state level addition as well. So those are the big, big broad themes of our discussion. The river corridor, Alyssa Sherry. Okay, so we, our conversation was very broad, very much like our watershed, I would say. It ranged from understanding the data, what we should expect from the future with rainfall and climate change to where our flood plains are and what that means for flooding, to other models from wet areas like the Netherlands and learning from those models. To living with the river and looking at natural options related to giving the river some more room to move around so that the water would be absorbed, to taking a regional approach to looking at the watershed. And we've talked about engineering options as well related to removing or adding dams or other engineering structures. We talked about economic incentives and giving folks incentives to create areas where perhaps on farms where the water would be able to be used to seep into the ground and leaving those spaces open and undeveloped or untouched. And we talked about looking at considering how to fund the actions we need to take, which will take short-term and long-term planning. But our top priority that we kept coming back to was how do we slow the river down and looking at short and long-term ways of doing that from wetlands to plantings to buyouts to removing concrete to being very strategic about the most important short-term and long-term options. We talked about a lot of things supporting downtowns There's a lot of things we need to do today and there's a lot of things we need to do over the next several years. We tried to kind of prioritize the short-term. The short-term is a little different than the way Ben defined it. Our short-term is really neat now, the next few weeks, the next few months and what we need to do in the longer term, which is going to take obviously more time. The priorities the group came up with were looking at organizational structures to add capacity like hired staff and harnessing all the volunteer power that we have in the community and where it's needed now. So trying to look at that structure and organizations like Monthly Alive and try to figure out how to put that staffing and volunteer spirits into place. The other short-term priority is organizing events and promotions in the downtown is kind of like a large, there's a lot of ideas around this from art projects to Oktoberfest to just celebrating our downtown once again, even though we're not fully open. So as we're going through this phase from where we're at right now to start to bring people back downtown and celebrate through music and events on the street. The longer-term priorities are looking at kind of the built environment and hardening buildings, elevating, mitigation and adaptation of the built environment and buildings downtown. And then finally, long-term priority is finding and advocating for more grant funding for downtown in general, which is inclusive of businesses and property owners and whatnot. Recognizing that loans was loudly clear that it was not going to be a solution for many of our business owners that they needed much more funding and so to kind of look into and investigate ways that we can provide additional funding so they don't have such a burden. That's it. City Infrastructure, John Popan. We had a robust discussion. Thank you to our team for that lively discussion and to our resource team members. This is not, I would say, an order of priority, but instead from sort of specific to broad ideas to address city infrastructure. You know, we have an eye-opening moment where someone from the city described how close the water came to coming over Dog River Road and infiltrating the wastewater treatment plant. And so that goes as a priority for the group is it would be catastrophic for our city financially and environmentally if water was to get over to that wastewater treatment plant. We've got to take steps to really protect the wastewater treatment plant out there on Dog River Road. Number two, we talked about the dam. Wrightsville and the job that Wrightsville did and there is a sense that Wrightsville can actually even do a better job to protect bomb pillar. Some of that is about operations of the dam. Some of that is about investments in turbines to allow for more flow. It's also about managing the watershed above the dam to really just sort of slow the flow of water into that dam as well. So that's number two. Number three was about sort of the green infrastructure in downtown Montpelier. I think what really helped encapsulate that for folks was the description of the amount of water flowing in the Wienewski and the North Branch. Those two flows were simply more than the river could handle after the confluence. Obviously that's something that we have to figure out how to allow that river to have more room and more capacity to move when it comes together at that confluence here in Montpelier. Finally, we talked about re-envisioning our downtown, rethinking our downtown. There was some reference to the conversation we had maybe six or seven years ago in the net zero competition and those visions for our city. We need to have, pull those plans back and have that kind of conversation about re-envisioning Montpelier. And then finally, and I know some of these overlap with some of the other conversations tonight, but governance really came up as a topic and was prioritized. The government we have now is not probably equipped to deal with the circumstances we face now. So we need an agile governance that can adapt and it's probably not just about the city of Montpelier. That's about working across the lines. It's about working as a region and working with the state to really adapt to new circumstances. So thank you. Lauren Howard on Action in the Face of Climate Change. This is so exciting. So our group of solving the climate crisis, but we did come out with some really clear ideas, some big picture, but a lot of things that we can act on immediately. So four buckets that we identified. One, we talked about the city declaring a climate emergency. We thought this could be an organizing and education tool and also could be a place where we come together to identify urgent steps that the city could take and that the city could advocate that the state could take things like holding fossil fuel companies accountable for paying for the cleanup. We also talked about potentially creating a community carbon footprint assessment, a goal that we could build together as a community that would again be a way to educate and engage people and help us track progress and give everybody a stake and a way to participate in our climate action. And then we talked about our two biggest sources of carbon pollution in Vermont, which are transportation and our heating sector. And in transportation, we talked about some really immediate things we could take like painting our streets to make them more bike and pedestrian friendly, you know, up to state advocacy for improving our public transit system. So we have a suite of ideas there. And then finally, we were talking about how do we help people transition to non fossil fuel heating systems, especially people rebuilding now, incentive programs, education, regulations, expanding district heat. So, you know, how can we immediately be helping people rebuild and then also helping people longer term transition out of fossil fuel heating? Thanks. A huge round of applause for all these facilities and the work is going to be done tomorrow. It wasn't just a second. I want everybody to be thinking towards the seventh, but first I want to give Mark, Sam, Vance the opportunity to speak for just a second about what's going on with all of you. I can't be hoping you can hear me. I am here on behalf of the community Montpelier hub, the flood response hub downtown. Our whole team. Up here is thank you and ask for your help. So, time to thank everyone. Thank you for all you did. We were just sending you places. You did. Thanks very much. And we need your help. We're still here. We've been there every day since the flood happened and we're still open and we're looking for guidance on what we can do in the future to help in that long term recovery. Let us know what we can do. We're there at 12th Main Street and we're also online. We have a new resource for communication. Montpelierhub.com. You can volunteer there. You can request help. You can let us know what you need and how we can do it. But we've got so much energy. We've created something beautiful. Let's keep it going together. Thank you. This is Kate Eglis. Kate Eglis. The city of Montpelier for hosting this community dialogue. Sergeant and armed speaker of the house, Pro Tem, all of them were behind this and gave us the building. Orca for their tech support. Where's Chris? Thank you. Starting topics for conversation. We got a ton of work on the table. We learned so much tonight. There's a lot of detail in this that we're going to need to sit through and then try to aggregate, cluster, analyze some of the things that are partial priorities and extended priorities that maybe can be seen in a cohesive, more of a platform position. So we're going to do some of that work. But thank you to them. Thanks to the resource folks who came and the facilitators who lent their expertise through the topics tonight.  Each person who's here is here because you're part of our democracy.  That this experiment that we live in, of democracy, is still real here. You know, the Calvin Fulmage quote says, if it's gone everywhere else in the world, we'll lend them some, right? Let's keep that in our hearts. Let's not pretend that doesn't mean something to them all. So thank you for being on the line. It's easy in desperate times to lose faith that talking and planning and this kind of work in a community means it. Truth is the help comes to those who help themselves. Those who line up with common purpose and set collective direction succeed. Those who line up and advocate and push and drive powerful community responses to challenges win. We cannot wait here to be rescued by somebody else. Some say Montpelier is never going to be the same. And it won't. Let's recognize that many people are suffering right now in our community because of the truth. But we also need to know that we're going to go back better. That this dynamic place with its amazing and talented people, so many of, some of them are here, some of them are here right now. But this place and these people will build a better future. We're not going to be defeated as a community. We will recover. We will find creative new ways to be resilient in the face of the climate change era that we live in right now. It's going to take time, grit, suffering and sacrifices. But we can only will one direction. And that's the rebirth and renewal of our community. That's the task for our generation. It's always the task and we do it together. So thank you for being here and being part of it. Look to see you at the next event and let's line up for action. Thank you so much.


I welcome members to the sixth session of the Scottish Parliament 2021-2026. Proceedings for members' oaths and affirmations are now resumed, and I will begin by reminding members yet again that we are still observing physical distancing measures, and members should take care when entering and leaving the chamber in particular. When this particular meeting is suspended, I would encourage all members or ask all members to leave by the exit on my right to allow cleaning to take place. I want to call each member in turn and invite you to either take the oath or to make an affirmation. If you are able to, members should stand when I call your name and to repeat the oath or affirmation after the clerks. We are going to begin with Mr James Dornan. Mr Dornan is the member for Glasgow Cuthcart, and we will make an affirmation. I, James Dornan, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare in a firm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her hairs and successors according to law. Mr Dornan, that was flawless. I will encourage the other members to wait till the clerk has read out and repeat. However, if every member is as good as Mr Dornan, there is no need. I am going to call Sharon Dowie. This is a member for South Scotland and will take the oath. I, Sharon Leslie Dowie, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her hairs and successors according to law. I, Jackie Dunbar, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare in a firm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her hairs and successors according to law. I, Jacqueline Edith Elizabeth Dunbar, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare in a firm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her hairs and successors according to law. I, Jacqueline Edith Elizabeth Dunbar, do solemnly, sincerely declare in a firm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her hairs and successors according to law. I, Jacqueline Edith Elizabeth Dunbar, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare in a firm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her hairs and successors according to law. I, Jacqueline Edith Elizabeth Dunbar, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare in a firm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her hairs and successors according to law. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. I, Annabelle Ewing. Felly, dyfodd ddau'r wir. Rydw i'ch ddweud o'ulamol am hyn, ddau a ddydd i'r wir. Felly, ddau i'n eu cyflomanydol i'r unrhyw, i'i jedw i'i ddweud. Felly, i'i ddweud i Fyreidd y Sgwrth Gwein. I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. I'm going to call Mr Jim Fairlie. Mr Fairlie is the member for Perthshire South and Kinrossshire, and we'll make an affirmation. I, James McGregor Fairlie. Do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm. That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Russell Findlay. Mr Findlay is a member for West Scotland and will take the oath. I, Russell Findlay. I, Russell Findlay. Do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. I call Joe Fitzpatrick. Mr Fitzpatrick is the member for Dundee City West and will make an affirmation. I, Joe Martin Fitzpatrick. Do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm. That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Kate Forbes. Ms Forbes is the member for Skye, Lochaber and Bandanoch and will take the oath. I, Kate Forbes. I, Kate Forbes. Do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance. Do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. Do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. So help me God. I, Kate Ellisatch, will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I, Kate Ellisatch, will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I, Kate Ellisatch, will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I, Kate Ellisatch, will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I, Kate Ellisatch, will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. Elis-Ach, Hwyrichyn a Gysytanysgyn, Erreyr yn Lough, Marsyn, Cwtichmwy y Yei. Murdo Fraser Mr Fraser is a member from Mid Scotland in Fife and will take the oath. I, Murdo Mackenzie Fraser. I, Murdo Mackenzie Fraser. Do you swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance? Do you swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance? To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. So help me God. I call Megan Gallacher. Ms Gallacher is a member for Central Scotland and will take the oath. I, Megan Gallacher. I, Megan Gallacher. Do you swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance? Do you swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance? To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. So help me God. I call Kenneth Gibson. Mr Gibson is the member for Cunningham North and will make an affirmation. I, Kenneth James Gibson. I, Kenneth James Gibson. Do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm. Do sincerely and truly declare and affirm. Do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm. Do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm. That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance. That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance. To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Pam Gosal. Ms Gosal is... Sorry, I've been out of order. Sorry, Ms Gosal can sit down again to panic. I call Jenny Gilruth. Ms Gilruth is a member for Mid Fife and Glenrothes and will make an affirmation. I, Jennifer Madeline Gilruth. I, Jennifer Madeline Gilruth. Do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm. Do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm. That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance. That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance. To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Maurice Golden. Mr Golden is a member for North East Scotland and will take the oath. I, Maurice Charles Golden. I, Maurice Charles Golden. Do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance. Do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance. To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. To Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. So help me God. This time I will call Pam Gosal. Ms Gosal is a member for West Scotland and will take the oath. ac yn y,'Nid Gweithio Llywodraeth a'r a ware'r wrth gwrs, ac yn y,'Nid Gweithio Llywodraeth' ac yn y,'Nid Gweithio Llywodraeth', ac yn y'r ni yw myfod. I, Mary Gougeon, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. Christine Grahame. Ms Grahame is the member for Midlothian South, Tweedale and Lauderdale and will make an affirmation. I, Christine Grahame, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Rhoda Grant. Ms Grant is a member for Highlands and Islands and will take the oath. I, Rhoda Grant, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I, Rhoda Grant, do solemnly, truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Neil Gray. Mr Gray is the member for Ayrgyn Shots and will make an affirmation. I, Neil Charles Gray, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I, Neil Gray, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and carry true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Jamie Greene. Mr Greene is a member for West Scotland and will take the oath. I, Jamie Greene, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Ross Greer. Mr Greer is a member for West Scotland and will take the oath. I, Ross John Greer. My oath is to the sovereign people. I, Ross John Greer, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Mark Griffin. Mr Griffin is a member for Central Scotland and will take the oath. I, Mark Griffin, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. Mr Halcro Johnston is a member for Highlands and Islands and will take the oath. I, Jamie Halcro Johnston, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Rachel Hamilton. Ms Hamilton is the member for Edgwick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire and will take the oath. I, Rachel Hamilton, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I, Rachel Hamilton, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Emma Harper. Ms Harper is a member for South Scotland and will make an affirmation. I am a Harper to solemnly sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I am Harper to solemnly and truly declare that I will be loyal and true to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors after the law. I call Claire Hockey. Ms Hockey is the member for Rutherglyn and will take the oath. I, Claire Hockey, I, Claire Hockey, to swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. I call Jamie Hepburn. Mr Hepburn is the member for Cumberland, Alden, Cullscyth and will make an affirmation. I, James Douglas Hepburn, do solemnly sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. I call Craig Hoy. Mr Hoy is a member for South Scotland and will take the oath. I, Craig William Hoy, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God. So help me God. Thank you very much colleagues. That concludes this meeting. I congratulate you all on becoming Scotland's MSPs for this session. I'm going to suspend the meeting and ask you all to leave for this exit and to go and sign the register. Thank you. This meeting is suspended.


Welcome, Anna Loha. I am Mark Shklav, the host of FinTech's Law Across the Sea program. Today we're going across the sea of current events with my guest, Joshua Michaels. Sometimes the polarizing noise of the world and even our Hawaii seems like waves pounding on the beach, drowning out the voices of those calling out to others. Josh Michaels is an attorney who has been shouting over those waves and get out his message concerning his view of current events in the world. To do this, Josh and his friend Ryan Little co-founded the Blue Hawaii podcast, which Josh says rants about the daily news. Josh has also written articles for various publications concerning many current issues, and he's not shy on social media. Josh wants his voice to be heard and to reach others in the community. And to be clear, all the comments that Josh makes today on this program are his personal views. Josh, welcome. Good to see you. I want to start off before we get into your views. I want to focus a little bit and talk a little bit about you. You're at the beginning of your legal career, having passed the bar in 2015, and you still find time to shout out to others about current controversial issues. And before we discuss your particular views on those issues, I want to ask you, why do you do it? We want more of these to shout out over the waves so others will hear you, especially in these polarized times. Oh, thanks so much for that gracious intro, Mark. It's great to be with you. I like shouting over the waves a lot more than screaming into the void, which is what it feels like sometimes. So on a blanket level, sure, there's a healthy dose, especially with the podcast with my friend Ryan and I, there's a healthy dose of overeducated millennial narcissism that drives a lot of it. And that's probably the social media too as well. But essentially, well, we found Ryan's more of an extrovert. I'm more of an introvert. For him, we need to reach out to build connections with people and help each other understand what's going on. For me, I need somebody to validate sort of like, am I seeing this? Is everybody else seeing this? Are we going crazy? And around the time of the false missile alert, that's when it occurred to us that like, well, as far as out in the world, you know, two random Howley lawyers from Hawaii sharing view, when, if at any time at all, could we be interesting to the outside world? And that's when we decided to take the plunge. As for the writing, that is, you know, as the, as the son of an English teacher, I've always, I've always turned to words to express myself. I never got the STEM gift for understanding how the world works. But for me, rather than, you know, I write, I write these things, I put them out there. I'm not necessarily trying to persuade anybody, but a lot of times that's how I think through issues myself develop, you know, develop the thoughts and sort of put it out there and hopefully get feedback. Good and bad. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of feedback, I mean, is it always positive or is there a negative feedback or both? Oh, sure. It's, it's yeah, a healthy, a healthy, robust mix of both. The, the, I would say the show, the podcast has been on hiatus since, since the turn of the year, but overall, probably I'd say 90% positive of that 90%, 85% was the friends and family, unremittingly positive. I'm not going to tell you anything negative about it, etc. Some positive, you know, the most helpful suggestion we got starting off was, especially for, for people listening in the car with their windows down on busy streets, you may want to start, you know, putting a little bleeper over some of the, some of the rhetoric of the, of the, of the few, you know, quote unquote negative comments beyond, beyond, you know, the, what's left on the internet anonymously describing, you know, opinions about some of our speaking voices or, etc. The constructive, there was a lot of constructive criticism at least. So people, you know, yes, the haters hate as they say, but even the haters, I think, wanted to see us try a little bit harder.  And well, I guess the other good thing about this is people are talking. Sure. People are communicating with each other. And I think that's important. And so that, that's a byproduct in a way.  Okay. Now, I want to focus on some of the particular issues that you believe are important to shout about. Sure. You know, you, you have shouted that there is danger in romanticizing history with reference, particular reference to MAGA. And there's also the danger in recency bias. Now I want, you know, what are you talking about? What, what is romanticizing history and recency bias? Explain those. Sure. So there's sort of, there's sort of two sides of a coin in terms of how history, historical memory influences culture, especially our political culture. You know, recency, the, excuse me, the idea of romanticizing history. It's obvious with, you know, the Donald Trump 2016 campaign MAGA. A lot of what Donald Trump did, he made a lot of the things that have been subtext in our politics for a very long time. He made them explicit text. And the, the, the clear romanticizing history, the idea that everything would be fine if we could go back to some imagined time in our history. When, you know, back in the 1950s, let's say everything was better, everything was gravy. And this is, you know, Donald Trump is not a unique phenomenon by any means. Just he's a product of this particular time and these particular moments that we found ourselves in.  Recency bias is the, is the other side of that. Recency bias is the idea.  This is, this is human psychology, the focus on our immediate experience, what we know about what is going on and what just happened, what is freshest in our minds, that is most informative to us going forward. So the, this is why, for example, this is, this is what enabled Hillary Clinton to, to rebut, make America great again with America is already great. And sure, in a certain school of thought, recency bias, that, that makes a lot of sense. But that, that did not resonate with nearly as broad spectrum of, of the populace as she would have hoped. And the, the Yale University historian, Timothy Snyder, explains these contrasting systems. On one hand, you've got the pre-2016, the, the Obama, Clinton, West Wing, Aaron Sorkin sort of model, recency bias, where history is linear. This is the, the famous Martin Luther King quote, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. The idea that there are some bumps along the way, but by and large history is constantly a series of us figuring out things, getting better, more and more people entering the marketplace of ideas, entering society, there's only one way to go but up. And the reason that so often, when society hits these breaking points, you know, every, every few generations, great recession, World War II, World War I, the reason that the people on the linear train don't necessarily see that coming is on the other side. And this transcends left-right ideology. This is, this is different people find themselves in different, this is just human, you orient yourself into one of two ways. The other side of that, the, the romanticizing history side, history is not linear. History is a story, a cyclical story of us versus them. And us, we are our people, our glorious history, both suffering, a lot of suffering is great for the narrative, but, but you know, also unredeemed promise. And if we could just get rid of them, if we could just keep them away, not let them into our business, everything will work out.  He's going to be like the great redemption that, that free, you know, restores America. For a certain other side, let's say like the, the, you know, not necessarily grounded in history, but maybe a little, a little too much MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, he's, you know, he's basically the reincarnation of Hitler. And the idea that like the, this is, this is human, this is dualistic and this dualistic nature, our dualistic nature in general is exacerbated by this partisanship where it's all or nothing, it's everything is great or everything is terrible. There's no, and the idea of being aware of both of these biases and the goal, hopefully the goal is to try to assess the situation as clearly present situation as clearly as you can, knowing the history that led you there, how you got there. And, and what it means in terms of, you know, history is more than just facts, history is the meaning of like, what does it mean? What does it mean to be here in this moment where we are, rather than what does it mean for ideology? Like, what does it mean for all of us, irrespective of the view you take on it? And how do we figure out how to live together? Yeah, you know, you know, so what I hear you saying is that the danger of these, that neither of these are good on their own. And, and, and they, they create a polarization. And that's what I hear you saying. Some people want to go back in history. And some people say, I know everything's all right, but they're really probably is sounds like a middle ground that should be reality. Is that am I seeing that correctly? Yeah, I think so. I think the danger of any time. And, and again, on totally unconsciously, you know, nobody, nobody looks at situations and thinks themselves, I'm going to impose my ideology onto the situation for a lot of us, depending on, you know, our childhood, our backgrounds, our experience, our conditioning, how we've made our way in the world.  It's just sort of that's the way things are. That's, you know, especially the more and more atomized and fragmented our communities get, and you only know your, your immediate surroundings. And so, and so, and it also sounds like Donald Trump really saw a avenue on this romanticizing history. I mean, that, I mean, he saw that there is a, a group of people in our country that that appeals to that that theory appeals Absolutely. Those buttons, he, you know, agree or disagree about a lot of things, but the man has a talent for identifying an audience's buttons, what buttons to push to invigorate the audience for good or for bad. But, you know, he did not happen in a vacuum. He had plenty of, probably the most, the best example of a model of how this thought, this, this ideology has been harnessed over the past few decades. Rupert Murdoch, his media empire throughout the anglosphere, the UK newspapers, our Fox News, the Australian, the Australian media ecosystem. The, he figured out pretty early on, there was a lot of money to be made stirring up a particular kind of nativist left behind grievance that feels under siege.  And, and it's, now it, it kind of comes together for me now that those are really good points. And I can now see what appeals to people on, on this idea of romanticizing history. And it actually has been taken advantage of and taken advantage really of people too, right? I see. Now, look, we can talk for hours on this topic, but I want to talk about a few more of the things that you've raised that you've shouted about and in our time here, just to cover a few of the ideas because, but that was an important one. That was a good one. Now you've also talked about something that's really interesting to me, and that's right wing populism.  What are you talking about? Again, tell me, explain that to me, because I do see a lot of oligarchs around the world and haters. And it's coming up in that, you know, I grew up post war in the United States and World War Two and trying to figure out how can this happen? So what are you talking about? Well, exactly like you say, you know, approaching the end of World War Two in the post war era, you know, when you're up in the idea of the old established international world order was left in tatters. It was a conscious and unconscious decision by America to sort of be the world guarantor of security and to uphold what, you know, the quote unquote, post war liberal international order, the idea, you know, without getting too much into this, the idea Western, the Western model of democracy is inevitable. That's going to hold up forever. And this is sort of redoubled upon once the Soviet Union falls. Francis Fukuyama famously declares the end of history. Right wing populism, we've seen this resurgence, you know, not just Trump, even before Trump, the Brexit vote in Britain. We've got cousins, similar around the world, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, Orban in Hungary. The idea is right when right wing populism is, it moves beyond simply conservative rule. You know, we've seen, you know, the George W. Bush administration, for example, the quote unquote neoconservative following in a tradition, still, you know, plenty of violations of international law, international norms, but within a, you know, within a more traditional model of what was acceptable governance of the right wing populist model, we see it's not just that the people, you know, the voters are getting those emphasis on, you know, this is what the people want, et cetera. And that's what enables them to sort of rally around a leader who will say, ah, the elites will never accept you. I am your voice. What the right wing populism really does, it empowers the leader as the sole representative, the true voice of the people. And those people empowered, who are empowering that leader, those are the only true people that matter in the, in the, in the, in the country or in the state or in, you know, the only true patriots, the only real Americans, so to speak. There's that, there's also a misinformation, like you say, like, you know, a lot of oligarchs are involved, a lot of money is moving around in the media. There's a lot of, you know, whether it's the Fox news model here, where for long, you know, where there's a direct feedback loop between the White House and what's going on in Fox friends in the morning.  This ties into a whole other conversation about declining trust in media, but I won't, but yeah, this, this, these, these, all these things come together in this sort of stew of, you know, right-wing populations to the point where they're not all identical, but there's a lot of rhyme, a lot of rhyme in the reasoning and how these, and how these systems come together. And I see there might also be kind of a connection between romanticizing history, and I mean, it's kind of connecting to me a little bit, I think, and the rise of populism, where I hear you saying that, that the leaders take advantage of that in order to gain power. Sure. And, and, and so, why do people accept that? I mean, I guess, I guess, I, all right, I understand you're saying they were romanticizing the history, so people are accepting it because of that. I think that possible, is that, is that, am I on the right track? I mean, these fractures, these, these, you know, these big movements, they don't happen in, in healthy, well-running societies, you know, the, the, it's only in, in the dire, in the direst straits, so to speak, is when these opportunities, you know, is when people will turn to the promise of, the promise of security, the promise of stability. And also, by that same point, and this ties into all sorts of things like QAnon, like trying to get people vaccinated, the idea that like, you can't really convince anybody with facts anymore, because facts, like the intellectual knowing of a fact, you know, approval fact about politics, is not as important to folks. Folks don't want to be actually informed, folks want to feel informed, and even more than wanting to feel informed, people want an ideology, and especially ideology, a coherent way of understanding the world that's tied into community. If you can provide somebody community and meaning, even more than, you know, food, water, shelter, sex, people with meaning and community can do a lot of great things. They can do a lot of terrible things too, depending if you activate those base human instincts, those human emotions, those human needs. And again, when, you know, when, there's a reason these things happen, you know, at particular moments, you know, whether it's financial crisis, some other, you know, enormous political disruption leading to a loss of faith in the established order, it's only that, or those dire circumstances that even make these alternatives credible to the average person. And you say that people are trying to feel basically secure in their community and in their country. And then, and you also talk, you mentioned that it doesn't happen, maybe in a place where they are already in that category where they're feeling healthy. Now, is there a, is there a, is there an example of that or a world leader that is in that situation? I think in terms, in terms of creating a healthy, like, I guess, the opposite of a of this right wing populism. For a long time, you, a lot of people could have pointed to the Scandinavian style democratic socialist welfare states. But even those are starting to, to get a lot of friction in terms of a populist pushback anti-immigrant sentiment rallying of us against them. Probably in terms of lead models of leaders who are willing to sort of try to transcend the political skirmishing that makes, if your only concern is getting re-elected and staying popular and inflaming your base, that's one thing. Politics by media. You could point to Finland, you could point to New Zealand, you could point to, it's really the countries that don't make the news, I imagine, are the ones that we would want to look to for models of stability. Okay. All right. Now, I want to move on now. It's all starting to connect, you know, all these issues. It's funny.  So there's, you know, it's all about, it's all about balanced perspective. Okay. Well, you also shouted out a question. How can we learn from the past and prepare for the future while living in the present? I mean, I think that addresses what you just raised. So what's the answer to that? Is there an answer?  So really, I think it comes down to the, at the individual level, reading, trying to find out as much as you can, doing it like your show, building these connections, building bridges among like-minded people, and hopefully, building enough consensus about among the folks who are not already agitated, the folks who are not, are not fired up, you know, criticism is loud, but, but respect is quiet, as they say. So like, I guess, I guess it's hard to, it's hard to avoid, you know, it seems, it seems like I might, on some level advocating for like, going monastic or going into like a hermitage in the woods, like, no, but like, we still have to engage in society, but we have to do it in a way to sort of transcend the, the, the political media kerfuffle. It's a dead end, I think. Well, I hear you saying this is like an individual personal obligation of everybody. And I, and in order to, and not abandon society, we have to think about it some more ourselves, and make some distinctive choices based on our own thoughts, not just go along with a mob, if you will. It's not, it's not easy. It's, it's not easy at all. Much easier to join the crowd. Yeah. Or to tune out all together. Just to say, a pox on, a pox on everyone's house. Yeah. Is, is there anybody in the world today that is a teacher that is putting forth these ideas out there? Or is, I mean, is this something that we all have to learn on our own? I think, I think a teacher can be wherever, wherever you find knowledge, you know, the saying when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and that can take a lot of different forms. And sometimes it's a, it's a, it's a human source. It's maybe, maybe it's a YouTube video or something on think tech, or maybe it's you encounter a, an old, you know, philosophical text or a spiritual scripture passage that you haven't encountered since you were a kid and it speaks to you. It can be any number of things that we encounter. And I think, you know, different things are going to speak to different people and, and, and that's going to be, I think up to the individual to decide what teachers they want to look for, what they need to be taught more and knowing, knowing where their, where their gaps, their own, their own deficiencies, not deficiencies, that's a little harsh, knowing where one of the hardest things we can do is being, is becoming aware of where we need improvement or where we can improve. Okay. So that is a intellectual consciousness choice. Now we, in a couple of minutes we have left that you've also mentioned, I know you, you like Martin Luther King and you mentioned a quote from him. And one of the quotes that you mentioned is we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Now that is, that, that's not necessarily intellectual. It's, it's almost spiritual or internal. What do, you know, what does that mean to you? And is that really possible? I mean, is that naive? It's absolutely naive. It's, it's perhaps hopelessly naive. But at the end of the day, I mean, you could, one could argue that the, the, the bleakest horrors of the 20th century and some of the bleak ones of the 21st are, were caused by the human attempt to focus purely on intellectual, intellectual improvement or self-improvement or to the point, to the point of fervent purification without any counterbalancing of spirituality, of psychology, of empathy, of the things that make us all so desperately human and ordinary and flawed and in need of community, in need of all these things that politics alone cannot necessarily provide.  And the, you know, to the little, it's a little distasteful to use the term whitewashing of that history. But when the only quote being trotted out consistently is like color of skin, not content of character and the idea that like, and that, that, that segue, I don't want to segue us all the way down back into romanticizing history and we're running out of time. But we have to look with, there's, there's something beyond there's, and whether it's, whether it's Dr. King or any of the stories we think we know, there's, there's history beyond that, that we can all look to and be inspired by and learn from. Well, I want to thank you for talking with me today. I've learned a lot and I hear you saying that there's really, we have to somehow combine intellectual and human spirituality together in order to maybe cross the seas together. And I hear that's what you're, I think that's what you're trying to shout out across the waves. And there's, there is noisy waves out there. How hard it could be, right? But thank you, Josh. Good, good to have you. And thank you so much, Mark. It was a real pleasure. Aloha. Take care. Bye-bye.


Hello everyone. Happy Saturday. Max is in a different location on... I don't know about you, Sarah, but the music didn't play for... I think it's... I think it played. Did the music play, guys? Did you hear me? It played for me. Do you hear me? Well, Max can't hear me. I hope everybody else can hear me. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. We can hear you. I can. I can hear you. Okay. Yeah, I can hear you. Oh, okay. You can't hear me. I can hear you. I can hear you. No? Okay. You just couldn't hear the music. Okay, let's see who's here. Are we... are we lagging though? Is there a big lag? You have a lag. I couldn't... no, I couldn't. Wow. What a morning. What a morning. What a morning. Okay, let's see who's here. So we have John, Donna, my mom. Yes. So there was no music for everybody.  Wow. There was no music, really? Oh, that made me sad. Juned her music. Greg didn't hear music. So I think Max is a little laggy. Maybe the storms that are happening. Yeah, there's a storm where she is, so... Let's see, we also have Thomas here, Hillary. Just keep going like there's... Bye, Max. See you later. She'll probably figure it out. So Sharon, Tommy, Chris, June, Jonathan, and Lynette. Let's see, what else? Thomas, and I think that's everybody. Well, Max is not on her usual computer day, and there is a storm. So she's blurry and laggy. That is why. What can you do? So did you want to try to do the question of the week, Max? Or... okay. All right, so let me see if I can share my screen. If not, we can just talk about it. Oops. Here we go. Oops. If you could time travel, where would you go? When would you go? Really interesting question this week. Pam Wade in the Facebook group says, $17.95 to be with at the birth of my third great grandfather, to find out who his parents were. And amazingly, there were a lot of people who wanted to be at the birth of some great, great grand or whatever, which is fun. I don't know that I would actually want to be standing in the room while my great, great grandfather was born. That would be kind of awkward or weird, but you know, to each his own. Let's see. Back to the 1700s when my dad's ancestor settled parts of Bristol County, Massachusetts, and the Society of France to see how things were. We had people saying they wanted to go back to... A lot of people wanted to go back to Massachusetts during the starving times or during the Plymouth and all of that. I'm like, no, not really. Don't want to go back there. Wouldn't want to live through that. No. And a lot of people said that as well. Robin McGrath says, I remember sitting in my great grandmother's lap. Her nickname was Aunt Busy, because she was always so busy. She was a justice of the peace and loved politics. I would love to chat with her. So back to the 1890s, probably. Joseph Phelps says he's where he's supposed to be, and he doesn't want to travel. There you go.  I have no idea who she was. She was talking to Ian Mitchell, I guess. Hello. Didn't mean to do that. Victoria Jane, 1920s, New England, New Brunswick, Canada, and New York to learn who my paternal grandfather is and meet all of my great-grandparents. This is a good one. Kevin Gerard Eccles says he wants to get drunk with his second great-granddad, James Eccles. He died in 1926. It'd be helpful to ask him who his grandparents were, too, as Hedderbrick Wall there, no further paper trail. All right. Sheila Smale, 2005, to put all my money in Apple, get more dogs, and stop taking life so seriously. That's pretty funny. Kelly and Theresa Young, I'd like to go to 1600s New England and help my witch ancestors fight the power. Good luck with that. If, yeah, no, good luck with that. I would want to do that. Linda Van Duce and I would travel back as far as I could and meet each one of my grandparents. It's a lot of people took this as that they could only travel back to one place. So that's interesting. There are just a couple of people who said, I want to travel back to this place and then to that place, and then I'm going to go over to this place, which would be fun to do.  That was another good answer that people said.  Here's another one, Kimberly Palmer writes, 1630, Massachusetts Bay Colony. I want to see what my ancestors saw, but here's the point here. Note that it would be interesting to visit, but I would want to live there. No, no, no, no. And this is the only one, only person who said this was Bob Crabb. I want to travel 30 years forward to see how my kids are doing, what the James Webb telescope discovered, where a unified theory ever came to be if nuclear fission became a reality and if government entities ever developed the courage to address climate change. That's an interesting answer. He wants to go ahead in time, but if you only go ahead 30 years, are you going to run into the possibility of meeting yourself? And what would happen if that happened? If you met yourself, would there be a singularity and the universe would start all over again? You never know. So had lots of great answers on the Facebook post and there was actually a best answer chosen in our GDG post, which is I would visit every brick wall ancestor in NASA and it gave me a source for their life events so I could quote them here, which is Jonathan Boyer. That's a good answer and it did answer that he left a comment. I can think of two places I'd like to go and they're North Carolina. He wants to meet his grandparents, bless them, talk so often with me sharing stories of people that they knew who lived back then and stories of others they did not know, but I felt I would like to know. So cool. Second one is 1970s at my childhood home with my iPad. Can I take my iPad to sit down with my dad and get him to tell me the stories of his wartime experience and record it because he was too self-absorbed and foolish to ask him when he... Let's see. The deeter said that he would go back in time, step by step and visit and talk to all of my ancestors one by one. Here's another one who had multiple places that he would like to go in times and if it were possible, I would like to take a photo of each one since most of my ancestors are from Burma I would not need to change much in location. Pretty cool. You mentioned just taking out your phone when you do travel all the time and take a photo of them and then... First, I'm an artist. She may not take you where you want to go where you are new. That and the three is a bit problematic. Plus, she has a translation field. Am I here? Here's the page one away. Are you in? Okay. Okay. Are we all all done? That's a question of the week? I think so. Mags is lagging. But I think, I'm surprised you didn't see anybody say this to go back to when the 1890 census was destroyed and save it. Save the 1890 census. That's what I, one of the things I might do. So, and we did, I guess we did kind of lose Mags. Well, while we lost Mags, we can go into our profiles of the week, which, and I'm also getting beamed by the sun again. It's just the time is changing. So, I'm getting beamed. People did say that. Oh, yes, Mags didn't talk about those. That's what I would do. So, let's share my screen. Oh, now she's gone. I will share my screen. Okay. So, baseball favorites. So, this week we are featuring to celebrate the World Series. Our main feature connection is Mickey Mantle. We'll just go from there. Hopefully, Mags come back at some point. If not, we'll just be by ourselves. That's okay. Just so you know, I can't see your comments if you're commenting stuff, but I'll try to go back to see them. So, Mickey Mantle, born 1931 in Oklahoma, died 1995 in Dallas, Texas, professional baseball player for the New York Yankees. Also known as the Commerce Comet and the Mick. Let's see. He played for his entire career for the Yankees and he was a center fielder and first baseman from 1951 to 1968. He was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century team in 1999 and inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Okay. So, that's our main feature connection Mickey Mantle. Next we have Don Mattingly, more than 1960s. And then Deanna, the youngest of five children. He was an American professional baseball first baseman, coach and current manager of the Miami Marlins. Nicknamed the Hitman and Donnie Baseball. He spent his 14-year career playing with the New York Yankees and later managed the Los Angeles Dodgers for five years. I've seen the Miami Marlins play since I am from there. Next we have Pete Rose. He's an all-time Major League Baseball Leader. He's the all-time Major League Baseball Leader in the amount of hits, which is 4,256 games played 3,562 at bats, 14,053 singles, 3,215 at outs. 10,328 and won a whole bunch of awards. World Series Titles, Golden Gloves, National League of the Year, Most Valuable Player. And he played for the Cincinnati Reds, the Philadelphia Phillies, Montreal Expos, and the Cincinnati Reds again. Cut is Pete's Rooms. Next we have Jackie Robinson. Born in 1919 in Georgia. Most widely known as the baseball player for the Brooklyn Dodgers who broke Major League's baseball color barrier in 1947. He was not the first black professional baseball player, but he was the first in Major League Baseball. He played for six World Series teams and earned six consecutive All-Star Game nominations during his career. And in 1947 he was named the Sporting New Brickie of the Year Award. He was also strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and he played himself in the biographical film, the Jackie Robinson Story. Next we have Jackie Mitchell or Bernie Beatrice for 1913 in Tennessee. So let's see. In the spring of 1931 Jackie attended Norman author Albert Fields Baseball Camp in Georgia. Started school three years earlier working with children. He developed into professional training ground including some students who were already professional players. Jackie was the first woman to attend. Shortly after Jackie was signed as a pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts as a Southern Association and AA team by owner Joe Engel. She was noted for curbing sinker or drop ball. Jackie first took the mound in an exhibition game against the Yankees on April 2nd, 1931 after striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in seven pitches. She walked Tony Lazarie and was retired to the bench for the remainder of the game. Very cool. And then apparently there's a video on her profile of Jackie striking out Babe Ruth. I guess Mag is not coming back. How sad. And I see what you guys have been saying. Hold on. Let's see. Let's see. So you're just saying how close... Yeah, tell me how close you guys are. And then I'll just keep going through and then we'll do the photos and unless Mags comes back we'll probably be a short morning. Okay. So next we have Joe DiMaggio born 1914 in California. Nicknamed Jolton Joe and the Yankee Clipper was an American major league baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. So we have two New York Yankee people so far in our profiles. He's perhaps best known for his 56 game hitting streak from May 15th to the July 16th in 1941 a record that still stands. He was a three-time MVP winner and all-star in each of his 13 seasons. During his 10-year with the Yankees the club won 10 American league pennants and nine World Series championships. And then we have Alex Ferguson born in 1897 in New Jersey. Was an American major league baseball player and one of the first forkball specialist in ball history. Forkball, forkball. What is forkball? Let's look that up. Oh, it's a type of pitch and baseball related to the split finger basketball. There you go, mine's something new. We have Johnny Bench born in 1940s, 1947. He was a 1965 valedictorian of Banger High School. Played both basketball and baseball while growing up. He was named Allstate in baseball and was drafted by the San Diego AAA Cincinnati farm team of the Pacific Coast League. And he played his rookie year with the Cincinnati Ritz. And we have Daniel Staub born in 1944 in Louisiana and died 2018 in Florida, West Palm Beach. He was an American professional baseball player and television color commentator. He played in major league baseball for 23 seasons as a right fielder, designated hitter, and first baseman, a six-time Hall-star known for his hitting prowl wrists. And he was an original member of the Montreal Expos. And he was inducted into their team Hall of Fame for the 1986 for the Mets. He also played for the Mets. We have two more. So we have Honis Wagner. Magda sent me a message saying she's not coming back because her leg is very bad. So we'll just, we'll just keep going. So Honis Wagner, born in 1874 in Pennsylvania, known as the Flying Dutchman. We, hey guys, there's a team. I don't know. This reminds me of one of our Thon teams, Flying Dutchman. So he was an American baseball shortstop who played 21 seasons in major league baseball from 1897 to 1917, almost entirely for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He also won eight batting titles tied for the most National League history with Tony Gwynn. He also led the league in slugging six times and in stolen bases five times. And he was nicknamed the Flying Dutchman due to his superb speed and German heritage. And we have our last one, Tom Siever. Born in California in 1944. He's nicknamed Tom Terrific and the franchise. And he is a former major league baseball player, Pitcher. He pitched from 1967 to 1986 on four different teams, primarily noted for his time with the Mets. During his 20 year career, he had 311 wins, 3,640 strikeouts, 61 shutouts, and a 2.86 earned run average. And in 1992, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the second highest percentage ever recorded. Very cool. Those are all of our profiles of the weeks. Let's go back and see what you guys are saying. To anybody see how close I was, I can go check. Do my mom say how close she was to people? My mom is 23 degrees from Joe. Oh, Greg is leaving by Greg when he left earlier. Who married Marilyn Monroe? John, what did I miss? Now, Tommy says his connection has changed since he first made his post, which is likely people will go on and see the profiles of the week and then start working on them and then new connections will be made. Well, a lot of them are through my mom's side and Robinson through my dad's side. Oh, DiMaggio married Monroe. Okay, thank you. I should have probably known that, but I'll just clarify. Well, my mom also said early win is my dad's distant cousins and a picture for the White Sox. So those are our profiles of the week. We'll do the photos really quick. And then I'll do a brief update for the weekly tree challenge and then we will head out as, you know, when I'm by myself, you know, I have you guys chatting with me in the chat, but it's not the same for Mag, when Mag is not here. Okay, let's look at the photos. This week, the theme was reunion. Hold on, let me show the screen again. Reunion. Hold on, people are probably posting family reunions. So we have Josie Smith Cavill and children's spouses. She realized I'm not logged into Weekie Tree. That's funny. That's a funny photo. Where is that? In Plymouth, Massachusetts. James Sims. Big family photo. Birgely family reunion. That's a good photo. No animals. I don't see anybody in the windows either. Only have William Nelson and White Sox. Oh, look, and I was going to mention this. If you're tagging people, doing, you know, saying back to left, you know, the order of where people are. So very good. I mean, if you don't know, you don't know, but will Kathleen share this one with us? Her family. World War II-39 bomb group reunion. Very cool. In Richmond, Virginia. Nineteenth birthday in reunion. Another reunion. Some of them are recent. Some of them are old photos. Nice mix. Minnie Belchock-Galloway and family. And then the, actually included in the scan. Who's in the photo? I mean, 28 photos, so a lot of people upload this stuff. A 10-B reunion. The kid is not interested in the photo and he's reading. Miller family reunion. I almost thought this might be at the dog at the bottom, but it does not. Cooksea reunion. Red family. Indiana 1937. A car. I wonder if this was a, oh, first son being tiger reunion in Oregon. The same one. Okay, this is the same. Yeah, the son being tiger's reunion. It's pretty cool.  They're on a big rock in Pennsylvania. And we have William Satan Young. Senior and family. Dallas, Texas. That's a nice one. That's a big family reunion. And British Columbia, Canada. The given family reunion. It's the women of the family. That's a fun photo doing. Oh, look, a dog. Look, guys. They're doggy. How cute. I wonder if it was a female dog. Here comes my cat. Perry family reunion. They're all labeled. Well, they're numbered. We're not sure. But it's a cute photo. You know, surviving children and Mary McLean. It seems like there's more people listed here than, oh no, just kidding. It almost seemed like there were more names than there were people in the photo. Some grandkids in West Virginia, 1954. That's a lot of grandkids. Those are all her grandkids. We saw that one. Entrain family gathering. Oh, that's cute. I think she uploaded it three times. Oh, June uploaded this one. Thanks, June. And that was it. Those are all our photos. All of our photos of the week. Let's see. See what you guys have said. Well, apparently Thomas, his close connection was DiMaggio. Well, because Marilyn Monroe is a cousin of his. That's cool. I think this is Maggs cheering me on. Or someone cheering me on. Doesn't say the name. I've been to one family reunion in Pennsylvania when I was in middle school. My mom took my sister and I and was our big German side over there. So that was cool. I think we have a photo. Oh, yeah. My mom talked about it. Well, that was back in 1973. We also had one when I was young. So not as far away. That was in 2006. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes. So let me give you. So this week we are working on Roberta Estes. And she's a big name in in genealogy. If you're not, no, she also she's DNA explained. I believe she does a lot of DNA work and Mindy gave me an update for you guys. So we don't have a lot of brick wall points yet, but we've been carefully scrutinizing all the profiles, making sure they are accurate, their sources, and all the connections are correct. And we also found a few interesting records that we haven't in the past. So check out Wednesday while we wrap up the week for Roberta Estes. Should be should be a good one. Should be a good one. Roberta is a good also always have been a fan of wiki tree. She's some presentations on wiki about wiki tree to good friend of Mags. And yeah, so check out on Wednesday for that. So and then next Saturday, same time, same place. I won't be here next Saturday. So be Mags and I know Julie or Aowyn or Mindy will come on, but I'm going to be out of town. I won't be able to bring my laptop, unfortunately. So I won't see you guys next week. We will see Mags. Mags had her computer was being torn apart and so she was using her laptop. So but she should be all set for next week. I'm actually going to an Oktoberfest thing today. Funny, I have some Oktoberfest time. I will guess I'll see you guys in two weeks, but I'll be around if you need me. Until next time, guys. See you. Goodbye. So sad that Mags has to leave.


When you genuinely care about someone's rest and you care about if they eat, I think that that's just, I don't feel like it gets more submissive than that where it's like you're taking yourself out of it. But like as far as like the closest love I think of having a child is like the love I feel for my partner. And it's scary for me to think that it'll change once I have the child.  These are your words. It sounds insane. Cause I know it is my words, but it sounds crazy. What's going on everybody? Popping in to give a shout out to the sponsor of this video that you're watching right now, Squarespace. Now it's still early in the year, a little bit, you know, pre-summer. So it's time for you to get started on that next big idea. And if you're gonna do a big, do it with Squarespace. Build a website, launch an online store, use their mailing list and other marketing tools to get that big idea started. Squarespace is an all in one platform to build a beautiful online presence. So go to squarespace.com slash shambudi to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Again, that's squarespace.com slash shambudi to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Oh, I know, I know, I know. I don't know why you're feeling away. Why, what do you mean? Look at you. I'm nervous. No, why?  Never, never. I'm so nervous because I'm like, oh my gosh, what are we gonna unravel today? Even though I know that everything we talk about is gonna be needed for people to hear, especially from me, because you said I would never think you would be like that. I would not. And that's interesting to me. So you know why?  That's what I said. My first and foremost comment to you was I've known about you for over a decade now. Oh, thank you. That to be said, my perception of you has been career oriented, me first, not in a negative way, but kind of like the person who's like, I'm no good to you if I'm not good to me. And it's interesting you say that, me first. I'm not even like that. I think that it seems like that because of how I hustle, but even when I hustle, it's not even for me. All right, so let's bring it back to the basics. What is the art of being submissive? First step is get with somebody who wants what you have to offer. I think love and submission is a tailored fit. It's not a one size fits all. So I can only tell you what it means to me. Now for me, it's complete selflessness. I am satisfied in serving. I'm a servant. And I watched my mother serve all my life. And it was rain, sleet or slow. I think we talked about this on the phone. My mother's love for my father wasn't conditional. It's not my responsibility, but it's your joy. It is my joy. I love to see him eating the meal that I cook. I love seeing him sleep easy. Like every night, like clockwork, I scratch this man's back to sleep. And I know when he's asleep because I can tell when his breathing changes. And some people might think that's psychotic, but that's like, I just know that's when I'm like, oh, I can stop now. But I find joy in being your rest. And it shouldn't be conditional. A part of that lack of conditions too means that you do your duty joyfully regardless of what's being done for you. That's it. I do my duty joyfully regardless of what is happening to and for me. You know, now some days I might be more cheerful than others because I have my own stuff going on.  You know, I'll cry in the shower and keep it moving. You know? But in the art of submission from me, because I can't speak for everybody, is being joyful about it. You know, that want of, and I think it, not even just a want, the power of knowing that you, you have the power to make someone's day better. And that's a choice. Yes, better and easier. That's a choice that you have to make. I always make the choice to do it. I always make the choice to do it. I like to give, I like to allow my person to lead. They know, especially like when it translates in the bedroom, I like to feel dominated.  Oh my gosh, no, I don't like to be taking advantage. I like to feel, that's okay. I like to be degraded. Yeah. Those are languages that I like and I accept. I do, but if I'm comfortable and if I trust you. So just know what that means. Know that dance with your partner. I think of relationships and submission and being submissive is like, it's like an eight count. Know that dance. You better know that five, six, seven, eight. One, dishes clean. Two, laundry. Three, if you have a long day and you fight in the world, you would never come back and fight me. You would never come back and walk into a space that is not welcoming you, you know. Do you think that this is controversial in some capacity? Absolutely. To some, it could be enabling.  And I told him how that made me feel and he was like, of course they're gonna say that. They don't have nobody doing that for them. How did it make you feel? It made me feel like maybe I am. But at the same time, that's my love. So if you don't understand it, you know, it's not, I'm not loving on you for you to get it. That's how I love. And whoever I love is gonna get that benefit. Yes. There was a time where, you know, women needed men for everything. We couldn't even open up a bank account, you know. And now it's like, women are really in their bag where they're like, I have my own business. I'm doing this. I don't need, I don't need a man for nothing. Like basically, like, can I be frankly?  I don't. You know, and I can say those words, but I want one. So my brain wants to understand the exchange here. Because it's not, no, you're doing great.  Like I don't ever feel like I'm giving for the sake of giving and I'm not receiving for the sake of receiving. I'm receiving being like, well, I deserve this and I'm giving being like, you deserve this. So there's that exchange happening.  And the things that you feel like you deserve, you'll say that. 100%. How will you say that? I need you to step up in these areas. I need to not worry about this.  I need more affection. I need more love. If we're gonna be sexual, here's the things that I need to like feel more sexual. And in return, I invite that like, so we have a lot of conversations. Does he receive it well? I think everybody has a problem with being told that they're not doing enough because we always go to like, well, I'm already doing X, Y and Z. So I think that there's, there can be, I wouldn't say that he's always arms wide open, but he always suggests. But so I guess when I'm listening to your relationship style, I'm like, if we kind of broke it down into like to-dos specifically, like what does a submissive woman do for her man? Everything. What does that mean?  And I pretty much read his mind. So it's like, I know you and I study you. Like, I know how you are in the morning. I know how you are about midday. I know when you're in this mood, what you need. Like before you can ever ask me for something, I'm already on it. I mean, he's spoiled.  I'm just like, girl, he's rotten. I'm like, he's spoiled rotten. Like he's rotten. But I love that. Like I want him to be there. I think my biggest flex is how I treat my man. You know what I mean?  It's kind of messed up. What are you getting from all that you're giving? What are you asking for in return? You know, it was interesting. And you saw my reaction when I was like, you say that, you asked for that. You know what I mean? I think that I have gotten better at saying the things that I need. But if I don't get it the first time, I don't like to say it again. So would you do what you're doing for a broke dude? What do you call broke? Requires your financial support as well. No. No. No. I mean, I think to be broke, you can be some great lover, still very romantic, still very emotionally supportive. But I'm just like asking about that. I wouldn't even know that. I wouldn't even know that he's all those things. Because I think there's a lot of people who are financially stable, who are broke minded, and I can't get down with that either. So let me just clarify the question. What are the requirements from a man to bring to Jazzy in order to get this level of love from you? I think it's how you make me feel. I have to feel safe with you emotionally. I have to, you have to excite me. I need edge.  But I also need some edge. And I also need a man that is like, you know, like I am most submissive.    What'd I do?  But it's like someone who was a very, you know, you can be emotional and then be soft and things like that. But I still need you to have a little sprinkle of that edge. Do you need an alpha male? Yes, only, only. And you know, and I think men are confused on if they are or not. And if you are confused, you're not one. What is an alpha man? I think in my experience of an alpha male, it is somebody who is respected, you know, walks in the room and everybody just kind of like feels their presence.  No. No way. I mean like, I think anything goes for sure if you're comfortable with the person.  I'm just like, I would have never done this, but you know what? I'm comfortable with this person and I feel safe. Do you have an example? Ain't all. You're like having an example? Yeah, that. Do you do it for you or do you do it for them? I do it for him because for me, I'm not at a place where I like it yet.  Knowing what your values are, knowing what your role in the relationship is, being joyful about it, that's also a big part of it too. But I would assume that there is a line where it can get dangerous and chaotic. So when you think about that, like as a submissive person, what do you have to be mindful of to ensure you're not being taken advantage of? Lovers and friends, lovers and friends. I'ma take you on a trip, baby. I don't pretend, I say. Thank you so much for watching that video. I gotta remind you guys again, how much we love Squarespace. I mean, our whole family loves Squarespace.  Shan, Lauren, me, and I'm sure Ry you will when she gets old enough. Listen, Squarespace is the most user friendly, even for me who has no idea how to code. I find that I can customize the websites to my liking, however I want, and they have amazing templates. I mean, beautiful templates, stunning templates. I mean, modern templates, things that if I were to go to a website, I would think a super duper high tech coder made this website. And if you have a mailing list, look over to Switchin' over to Squarespace because it is the most cost-efficient one that I've found so far. And I've used a lot of them and they can get pricey. Head over to Squarespace.com and start playing around for free. And when you're ready to launch, go over to Squarespace.com slash Shambudy to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Again, that is Squarespace.com slash Shambudy. Save 10% off. Let's go. Let's get it. Let's go. Let's get it. Let's get it. Let's get it. Let's get it. Let's get it. Let's get it. Break in the back. Break in the back. Head out here for that.