Podcasts about European

Welcome to Lewes, Delaware, the first city in the first state!  Located in southern Delaware on the Delaware Bay in Sussex County, Lewes was the site of the first European settlement in Delaware. Originally settled by the Dutch in 1631 and named Zwaanendael, the colony was wiped out by the Lenape in 1632.  A second attempt was made in 1663 by the Dutch, but the settlement was razed by the by the English in 1664.  After one more failed attempt by the Dutch, the English settled the area and established the town that would ultimately become Lewes.  The town has become a vacation spot popular with residents of nearby Washington, DC.  Lewes is also home to one of nine remaining American lightships.  Lightships were used as floating lighthouses in areas that weren't suitable for lighthouse construction.  Lewes has been called home by six of Delaware governors, more than any other town in the state.  We hope you enjoy our trip to this awesome town!  Apologies for our constant slaughtering of the the town name, which should be pronounced the same as Lewis.  

Kate Chopin - The Awakening - Episode 3 - Edna Pontellier Battles The Forces Without Only To Meet The Forces Within!   Hi, I'm Christy Shriver and we're here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.    I'm Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is our third episode discussing Kate Chopin's controversial novella, The Awakening.  Week 1 we introduced Chopin, her life and the book itself.  We talked about what a stir it made during her lifetime ultimately resulting in it being forgotten and then rediscovered midway through the 20th century.  Last week, we spent all of our time on the vacation resort island of Grand Isle.  We met Mr. ad Mrs. Pontellier, as well as the two women who represent got Edna, our protagonist, two alternating lifestyles.  Edna Pontellier, we were quick to learn, is not a happily married woman.  Her husband is outwardly kind to her, but readers are told outright that love and mutual respect was never part of the arrangement between these two.  Edna is indulged by Mr. Pontellier, for sure.  He gives her anything she wants in terms of money or material, but in exchange, she is his ornament, an expensive hobby, a pet even- something to be prized- or as Ibsen would describe it- a beautiful doll for his doll house.      The story starts in the summer at the vacation resort town of Grand Isle, Louisiana.  While vacationing on the island, Edna Pontellier experiences what Chopin terms “the awakening”.  She awakens to the understanding that she is not a pet or a doll in the doll house, and just like Nora in the The Doll's House, she decides she really doesn't want to be one anymore.     No, I guess if that were the only thing to this story, we'd have to say, Sorry Kate, Ibsen beat you by about 20 years.  In Ibsen's story, Nora awakens when her husband, Torvald, turns on her over money.      That's a good point, what awakens Edna in this book is not a marital crisis over money.  It is a crisis that awakens her, and it totally informs how she views her marriage, but it is a crisis concerning her husband at all that is the catalyst.   She is awakened to her own humanity by discovering her own sensuality.  I want to highlight that this awakening isn't overtly sexually provoked.  No man comes in and seduces Edna; she does not go off with a wild vacation crew.  She is left vulnerable, if you want to think about it that way, because of loveless marriage, but she is sensually and emotionally provoked through three  very different relationships- all of which affect her physically as well as emotionally.  The first is with a Creole woman, Adele Ratigntole, one with a younger Creole man, Robert LeBrun, and the third with the provocative music of Madame Reisz.  Experiences with these three awaken something in Edna that encourages maybe even forces her to rebel- rebel against her husband, against the culture, against the person she has always been, against the roles she has played, against everything that she has ever known.      The problem is- rebellion only takes you so far.  You may know what you DON'T want, but does that help you understand what you DO?  And this is Edna's problem.  Where do we go from here?     And so, in chapter 17, we return with the Pontellier's to their home in New Orleans.  And, as we have suggested before, New Orleans is not like any other city in America, and it is in these cultural distinctives of Creole life at the turn of the century that Chopin situates our protagonist.  But before we can understand some of the universal and psychological struggles Chopin so carefully sketches for us, we need to understand a little of the culture of this time period and this unusual place.  Garry, tell us a little about this world.  What is so special about Esplanade Street?    Well, one need only Google tourism New Orleans and a description of Esplanade street will be in the first lists of articles you run into.  Let me read the opening sentence from the travel website Neworleans.com    One of the quietest, most scenic and historic streets in New Orleans, Esplanade Avenue is a hidden treasure running through the heart of the city. From its beginning at the foot of the Mississippi River levee to its terminus at the entrance of City Park, Esplanade is a slow pace thoroughfare with quiet ambiance and local charm.  According to this same website, Esplanade Street, during the days of Chopin, functioned as “millionaire row”- which, of course is why the Pontelliers live there.    It actually forms the border between the French Quarter and the less exclusive Faubourg Marigny.  At the turn of the last century it was grand and it was populated by wealthy creoles who were building enormous mansions meant to compete with the mansions of the “Americans” on St. Charles Avenue.    “The Americans”?    Yes, that was the term for the non-Creole white people.  The ones that descended from the British or came into New Orleans from other parts of the US.     Esplanade Street was life at its most grand- there is no suffering like you might find in other parts of New Orleans.  The Pontelliers were wealthy; they were glamorous; these two were living competitively.      The first paragraph of chapter 17 calls the Pontellier mansion dazzling white. And the inside is just as dazzling as the outside. Mrs. Pontellier's silver and crystal were the envy of many women of less generous husbands.  Mr. Pontellier was very proud of this and according to our sassy narrator loved to walk around his house to examine everything.  He “greatly valued his possessions.  They were his and I quote “household gods.”    The Pontelliers had been married for six years, and Edna over this time had adjusted to the culture and obligations of being a woman of the competitive high society of Creole New Orleans.  One such obligation apparently centered around the very serious etiquette of calling cards and house calls.  This is something we're familiar with, btw, since we watch Bridgerton.  It was something we saw in Emma, too.  Garry, talk to us about the very serious social business of calling cards.     Well, this is first and foremost a European custom during this time period. It started with simple cards designed to announce a person's arrival, but as in all things human, it grew and grew into something much larger and subtextual- and of course, with rules.  During the Victorian era, the designs on the cards as well as the etiquette surrounding were elaborate.  A person would leave one's calling card at a friend's house, and by friend meaning a person in your community- you may or may not actually be friends. Dropping off a card was a way to express appreciation, offer condolences or just say hello.  If someone moved into the neighborhood, you were expected to reach out with a card, and a new arrival was expected to do the same to everyone else.      The process would involve putting the card on an elaborate silver tray in the entrance hall.  A tray full of calling cards was like social media for Victorians- you were demonstrating your popularity.    For example, if we were doing this today, we would have a place in the entrance of our home, and we'd make sure the cards of the richest or most popular people we knew were on to.  We would want people who dropped off cards to be impressed by how many other callers we had AND how impressive our friends were. The entire process was dictated by complicated social rules, and as Leonce explains to Edna, to go against these rules could mean social suicide.     It could also mean financial suicide because business always has a human component.  The function of an upper class woman would be to fulfil a very specific social obligation and this involved delivering and accepting these calling cards.  Every woman would have a specific day where she would make it known she was receiving cards, and the other ladies would go around town to pay house calls.  In some cases, a woman might remain in her carriage while her groom would take the card to the door.  During the Regency era like in Jane Austen's day, there was a system of bending down the corner of the card if you were there in person, and not if you were sending it, but by Chopin's day, I'm not sure if that was still a thing.     The main thing was that the card would be dropped off on this special silver tray. If it were a first call, the caller might only leave a card.  But, if you were calling on the prescribed day, the groom would further inquire if the lady of the house were home.  A visit would consist of about twenty minutes of polite conversation.  It was important that if someone called on you, you must reciprocate and call on then on their visiting day.      Well, the Tuesday they get back, Edna leaves the house on her reception day and does not receive any callers- a social no-no.  In fact, as we go through the rest of the book, she never receives callers again. This is an affront to the entire society, and an embarrassment to her husband; it's also just bad for business, as Mr. Pontellier tries to explain to his wayward wife, let's read this exchange.    “Why, my dear, I should think you'd understand by this time that people don't do such things; we've got to observe “les convenances” if we ever expect to get on and keep up with the procession.  If you felt that you had to leave this afternoon, you should have left some suitable explanation for your absences.      One thing I find interesting.  Mr. Pontellier assumes that Mrs. Pontellier is on the same page on wanting the same things as he wants, and what he wants is to keep up with the procession.  They'd been doing this for the last six years, and doing it well.    Another thing I notice is that he doesn't rail at her for skipping out. Mr. Pontellier, unlike her father, even as we progress through the rest of the book, is not hard on her at all.  In fact, he's indulgent.  The problem in the entire book is not that he's been overtly abusive or cruel.  Read the part where he tries to kind of help her fix what he considers to be a serious social blunder.    Page 60    Well, if taken in isolation, this exchange doesn't seem offensive, and I might even have taken sides with Mr. Pontellier if it weren't back to back with this horrid scene of him complaining about his dinner then walking out to spend the rest of the evening at the club where he clearly spends the majority of his time.  You have to wonder what is going on at that club, but beyond that.  Edna is again left in sadness.  “She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of tea garden below”.  (On an aside, if you've read Chopin's story, the story of an hour, you should recognize the language here and the image of this open window).  Anyway,, Here again we have another image of a caged bird, or a person who is looking out in the world but not feeling a part of it.  “She was seeing herself and finding herself in just sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars.  They jeered and sounded mournful notes without promise, devoid even of home.  She turned back into the room and began to walk to and from down its whole length, without stopping, without resting.  She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her.  Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet.  When she saw it there, she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it.  But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the little glittering circlet.  In a sweeping passion she seized a glass vase from the table and flung it upon the tiles of the hearth.  She wanted to destroy something.  The crash and the clatter were what she wanted to hear.”    She's clearly angry…and not just because Mr. Pontellier complained about the food and walked out of the house.  She's angry about everything.     Never mind the fact that we are never told what goes on at this club, but there are several indications in different parts of the book that Mr. Pontellier may be doing other things besides smoking cigars in crowded rooms.  Adele even tells Edna that she disapproves of Mr. Pontellier's club.  She goes on to say, “It's a pity Mr. Pontellier doesn't stay home more in the evenings.  I think you would be more- well, if you don't me my saying it- more united.”      Although I will add, Edna quickly replies, “'Oh dear no!' What should I do if he stayed home? We wouldn't have anything to say to each other.”  - the fact remains that MR. Pontelier does not see any need to nurture any sort of human or intimate relationship with Edna- theirs comes across as a cordial business arrangement, at best, with Edna in the position of employee.      True, and although I don't know if this is the right place to point this out, but in terms of the sexual indiscretions that may or may not be going on when Mr. Pontellier is at the club, there is likely a lot in the culture at large going on under the surface that a person from the outside wouldn't immediately be aware of.   Edna is naïve at first to all that goes on in her Victorian-Creole world.  There just is no such thing as “lofty chastity”  amongst the Creole people, or any people I might add, although Edna initially seems to believe that in spite of all the sexual innuendo in the language, nothing sexual was ever going on.  There are just too many indications otherwise in the story that that is not the case.  The reader can see it, even though Edna cannot.     True, and if you didn't catch it on Grand Isle, in the city, it is more obvious, and the farther along we go in the story, it gets more obvious as well.  Mrs. James Highcamp is one example.  She has married an “American” but uses her daughter as a pretext for cultivating relationships with younger men.  This is so well-known that Mr. Pontellier tells Edna, after seeing her calling card, that the less you have to do with Mrs. Highcamp the better.  But she's not the only example.  Victor basically details an encounter with Edna of being with a prostitute he calls “a beauty” when she comes to visit his mother..ending with the phrase that she wouldn't comprehend such things.  And of course, most obviously there is the character Arobin with whom Edna eventually does get sexually involved, but his reputation has clearly preceded him.       Well, Edna's awakening to all of this would explain part of her anger, but  there is more to Edna's awakening then just Leonce, or the new culture she's a part of, or really any outside factor.     Yes, and it is in the universality of whatever is going on inside of Edna that we find ourselves.  That's what's so great about great literature- the setting can be 120 years ago, but our humanity is still our humanity.       I agree and love that, but let's get back to her setting for a moment. I think it's worth mentioning that the 19th century culture of the Creole people in New Orleans is messy and complicated in its own unique way.  It's fascinating, but for those who are not of the privileged class, life was often a harsh reality.  The world, especially in the South, was problematic for people of mixed race heritage.  So, and this is more true the closer we get to the Civil War and the Jim Crow era, but those who called themselves “white creoles” had a problem because of the large existence of the free people of mixed race ancestry in New Orleans.  There was a strong outside pressure to maintain this illusion of racial purity, but the evidence suggests this simply wasn't reality.  Let me throw out a few numbers to tell you what I'm talking about.  From 1782-1791, the St. Louis Catholic Church in New Orleans recorded 2688 births of mixed race children.  Now that doesn't seem like a large number, but let me throw this number out- that same congregation at that time same only records 40 marriages of black or mixed race people.  Now, I know Catholics are known for having large families, but I'm not sure 20 women can account for 2688 births.      No, something feels a little wrong.  That number suggests another explanation may be in order.      Exactly, and by 1840 that number grows from 2688 to over 20,000 with mixed raced Creoles representing 18% of the total population of residents of New Orleans.  And if that doesn't convince you, here's another indicator, during this same period many many free women of color were acquiring prime real estate in New Orleans under their own names.  These women had houses built and passed estates on to their children, but notice this detail, the children of these mixed-raced women had different last names then their mothers.  We're not talking about small amounts of property here.  By 1860 $15 million dollars worth of property was in the name of children with last names that were not the same as that of their mothers, oh and by the way, a lot of that property was in the neighborhood where Edna rents her pidgeon house just around the corner from Esplanade street- in other words around the corner and walking distance from millionaire row.      Well, that's really interesting, and I guess, does add a new dimension to the subtext in the language for sure.    Well, it does, and it is likely something readers of the day would have certainly understood, more than we do 100 years later when the stakes of identifying as being of mixed raced heritage are not the difference between freedom and slavery.  But beyond just that, it's an example of cultures clashing.  Edna represents an outwardly prudish Puritan culture coming into a society that is French, Spanish and Caribbean- very different thinking.  This is a de-facto multi-cultural world; it's Catholic; it's French-speaking; it's international.  She doesn't understand what she's seeing.  And in that regard, her own situational reality is something she's realizing she is only beginning to understand, and she comes into it all very gradually. She is not, in Adele's words, “One of them.”  In fact, there may have been irony in the narrator in Grand Isle suggesting that Robert LeBrun's relationships every summer were platonic.  His relationship with the girl in Mexico we will see most certainly is not, but nor was his relationship with Mariequeita on Grand Isle, the girl they meet on the day they spent together.      Indeed.  You may be right- perhaps there is a real sense that Edna has been blind, and perhaps not just to her husband but by an entire society that presents itself one way but in reality is something entirely different altogether.  When she visits Adele and her husband at their home, everything seems perfect- of course.  Adele is the perfect woman with this perfect life.  Adele is beautiful.  Her husband adores her.  The Ratignolle's marriage is blissful, in fact to use the narrator's words, “The Ratignolles' understood each other perfectly.  If ever the fusion of two human beings into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their union.”      Do you think it's sarcasm again?  Was it truly perfect, or just presenting itself to be perfect?     It's really hard to tell.  Maybe they have worked out a great life together.  I think there is a lot in this passage to suggest they are truly happy together.  Edna even expresses that their home is much happier than hers.  She quotes that famous Chinese proverb “Better a dinner of herbs”.  The entire quote is “Better a dinner of herbs than a stalled ox where hate is.”- meaning her house has better food but she thinks of it as a hateful place- whereas this place is the opposite.   Poor thing- she sees her reality for what it is.  I still see a little sarcasm in the narrator's language, but even if Adele is every bit as perfect as she seems, and even if her home is every bit as perfect as it seems, and even if her husband is every bit as perfect as he seems, in the most real of ways, that could all be true and it wouldn't matter.  E    Precisely, The Ratignole's life can be every bit as perfect as it appears. and it wouldn't make Edna want it any more.  Edna leaves Adele's happy home, realizing that even if she could have it it's not the life she wants.  She wouldn't want that world even if Leonce loved her.  It's just not for her.  The problem is, that's as far as she's gotten with her problem solving.  All she knows is what she DOESN'T want.  Her new world is a world of negation.  She wants to quit, and so she does.  She absolutely disregards all her duties to the point that it finally angers Leonce enough to confront her.    “It seems to me the utmost folly for a woman at the head of a household, and the mother of children, to spend in an atelier days which would be better employed contriving for the comfort of her family.”    An atelier is an artist studio.  It' seems Edna has left all the responsibilities she had as a housewife as well as a mother.  And let me add, Edna was never dusting, cooking, or bathing her children.  She has several house keepers and nannies.  But now, she's not even overseeing what others are doing.  Instead, she's devoting herself entirely to painting.  And surprisingly, Leonce doesn't even have a problem with that in and of itself.  Edna tells her husband, “I feel like painting.”  To which he responds, “Then in God's name paint!  But don't let the family go to the devil.  There's Madame Ratignolle, because she keeps up her music, she doesn't let everything else go to chaos.   And she's more of a musician than you are a painter.”  Yikes, that may be honest, but it does come across as a little harsh.  I know.  I think it's kind of a funny line.  To which, Edna has an interesting comeback- it's like she knows it's not about the painting. She says, “It isn't on account of the painting that I let things go.”  He asks her then why she's let everything go, but she has no answer.  She says she just doesn't know.  Garry, do you want to take a stab at what's going on with Edna?   Well, I do want to tread carefully.  What is fascinating about this book is not so much that Chopin is arguing for any specific course of action, or warning against any specific set of behaviors.  She doesn't condemn Edna for anything, not even the affair she will have with Arobin.  Instead of judging, Chopin, to me, seems to be raising questions.  And it is the questions that she raises that are so interesting.  Edna is desperately trying to rewrite the narrative of her life.  There is no question about that.  But that is an artistic endeavor, in some ways like painting or singing.   I guess we can say Chopin is blending her metaphors here.  Edna doesn't want to be a parrot and copy, but she's living her life exactly the way she is painting- it's uncontrolled; it's undisciplined; it's impulsive.  I'd also say, it's rather unoriginal.  There is no doubt that the social roles offered to her are restrictive.  There's no doubt her marriage is a problem, but as we get farther into the story, it's hard to believe that even if all of these problems could be rectified that Edna would be able define a life for herself.  We, as humans, are always more than a reaction to the social and cultural forces in our world- I hate to get back to the word we used last week, but I can't get away from it.  Even under strict social norms, which I might add, Edna is NOT under for her time period- she is after all one of the most privileged humans on planet Earth at that particular time in human history, but even if she were under severe restrictions, she, as a human, still has agency- we all do.  Yes- and to use Chopin's words from chapter 6, Mrs Pontellier was beginning to realize her position as an individual as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world WITHIN and about her.  I think that Edna is like the rest of us in that it's easier to understand and manage the world about us as opposed to the world within.  At least I can SEE the world about me- how can I see within?  How can I understand myself?  And so Edna goes to the world of Madame Reisz having discarded the world of Adele Ratignolle- the world of art, the world of the artist- which is where Edna goes in chapter 21.  I would argue that she sees it as the polar opposite of Adele's reality.  There is the Adele version of being a woman- a totally objectified, sexualized but mothering type of woman= versus this version of womanhood who is basically asexually.  Perhaps Madame Reisz isn't a woman at all- she's an artist.    Except that world, the world of the artist, comes with its own share of difficulties nevermind that it is simply more uncomfortable.  Reisz' house is described as “dingy”.  There's a good deal of smoke and soot.  It's a small apartment.  There's a magnificent piano, but no elegant food or servants or silver trays for calling cards.  She cooks her meals on a gasoline stove herself.  Let me quote here, “it was there also that she ate, keeping her belongings in a rare old buffet, dingy and battered from a hundred years use.”  True, but there is also  the music and when the music filled the room it floated out upon the night, over the housetops, the crescent of the river, losing itself in the silence of the air and made Edna sob. The art is otherworldly, and there is something to that.  Something attractive maybe even metaphysical.  I want to talk about Kate Chopin's choice of music.  I don't think we noted this in episode one, but Chopin was an accomplished pianist.  She played by ear and read music.  She held parties, almost identical to the ones she described Madame Ratignole throwing in the book with dancing and card playing.  Music was a very big deal to Kate Chopin, so when she includes specific music in her writing, she's not just dropping in commonly used songs, she uses artists she likes for specific reasons, and in this novel, the pianist Frederic Chopin is selected intentionally- and not because he has the same last name, although I did check that out- they are not related.  Garry, as a musician yourself, what can you tell us about Frederic Chopin, the Polish composer and pianist?  Well, let me make this comparison, Frederic Chopin's music in his day was the pelvis gyrating Elvis' Rock in Roll of his day.  It was provocative.  19th century attitudes towards this type of harmony driven romantic music would seem hysterical to us.  They were seen as sensual and a destructive force, especially for women.  This may even be Chopin's sassy narrator playing with us again- Frederic Chopin's music is definitely driving sensuality in Edna. To say Kate Chopin is using it ironically is likely taking it too far, but I don't know, maybe not.  This narrator has been ironic before. The main undeniable connection is that Madame Reisz plays Impromptus.  Impromptus are improvisational music.  Frederic Chopin wrote only four of them in his career.  The one Kate selects here is called Fantasie-Impromptu in C minor- it's the only one in a minor key that he ever wrote.  You can pull it up on Spotify and hear it for yourself.   It is full of rhythmical difficulties.  It's very difficult to play. It's quick and full of emotion.  There is banging on low notes at times, thrills and rolling notes going faster and slower at others points.  Frederic Chopin, by the way, was a very temperamental person and in some ways shares a lot of the personality quirks of Madame Reisz. But he did have an interesting philosophy about music that I really like and does connect to our book.  He is recorded to have said this, “words were born of sounds; sounds existed before words…Sounds are used to make music just as words are used to form language.  Thought is expressed through sounds.  And undefined human utterance is mere sound; the art of manipulating sounds is music.”  Interesting, music is thoughts as sounds.  I like the expression “undefined human utterance” especially in regard to Edna because she absolutely cannot get her thoughts out nor is she willing to share then with anyone.  She expresses more than once that her inner world was hers and hers alone. She can't get her thoughts out when she talks to Adele; she can't get them out when she talks to her husband, and she can't get them out even with Madame Reisz which would have been a very safe space for her to express herself.  At the end of chapter 21, she's sobbing at the music and holding in her hands a letter from Robert LeBrun crumpled and damp with tears.   It would have helped her to have found someone to talk to, maybe the Dr. Mandelet that Leonce goes to in chapter 22 for advice about how to help his wife.    What we find out from Leonce's conversation is that Edna has withdrawn from every single person in her world.  She won't even go to her sister's wedding.  What the doctor sees when he goes to dinner at their house is a very outwardly engaging woman but an inwardly withdrawn one.  The Doctor wonders if she's having an affair, but she isn't.    She is, to use the title of the book, One Solitary Soul.  As a human being, there are only so many types of relationships we find meaning in: we have our parents and birth family, we have our intimate relationship, we have our children (if we have any), we have our professional relationships, and we have our social friends- at least one of these has to be working for us.  Edna finds no satisfaction in any of them.  She doesn't have a trusting relationship anywhere.    Yes, every single relationship in her life is basically a burden.  Edna is trying to relieve herself of every single responsibility in the world hoping that getting out of relationships will help her expand her identity.  The problem is getting RID of responsibilities is not really the answer.  To find meaning in this world you must DO something worth doing.  Something that takes strength and energy.  Something you can be proud of.  Of course as a classroom teacher, that is what we do everyday.  It's not helpful to give students high grades or marks for nothing.  It weakens them.  When you give them a difficult task and then they are able to do that task, they grow, they get strong, they learn they are capable of even great responsibilities.  If you want to get strong, you have to take ON responsibilities- you have to practice strength training, Edna goes the opposite way here.      Edna does look for models, and if she wanted a career path, or a professional life like we think of in  our era, Chopin threw in a character that could have served that function.  It's what I see going on in  the chapters about the races.  Edna is actually really good at horse gambling.  She knows horses.  She knows the horse-racing business and knows it well.  The text actually says that she knows more about horse-racing than anyone in New Orleans.  In fact, it's her knowledge about horses that puts her on the radar of the man she eventually has the sexual relationship with, Alcee Arobin.    Let's read the section where we see this relationship, if we want to call it that, take shape.  Arobin had first seen her perform well at the tracks and to use the narrator's words, he admired Edna extravagantly after meeting her at the races with her father.  Mrs. Highcamp is also a completely different version of a feminine ideal, although neither Edna nor the narrator seem to think enough of to give her a first name.  This confused me some when I read this because in my mind, Mrs. James Highcamp would have been this type of a liberated woman that Chopin might want to have Edna admire.  She's clearly sexualy liberated, but beyond that she's worldly, intelligent, slim, tall.  Her daughter is educated, participates in political societies, book clubs, that sort of thing.  But nothing about Mrs. James Highcamp is alluring to Edna at all.  She suffers Mrs. James Highcamp because of her interest in Arobin.   Let's read about these encounters between Arobin and Edna.   Here's the first one  Page 86     So, Arobin becomes fascinated with Edna, in part because she is so smart and different from other women.  At the end of that evening, they dined with the Highcamps. And afterwards Arobin takes Edna home.  The text says this “She wanted something to happen- something, anything, she did not know what.  She regretted that she had not made Arobin stay a half hour to talk over the horses.  She counted the money she had won.  There was nothing else to do, so she went to bed, and tossed there for hours in a sort of monotonous agitation.  And so the relationship with Arobin is born out of boredom.    Yes, the dominant movement in Edna's life is always drifting towards boredom.  Edna wants to rewrite her social script, but she can't seem to define what she wants.  She has trouble speaking, so she has no words to write her own story.  She doesn't want to be a mother; she doesn't want to work except in sunny weather; she has an opportunity with Mrs. Highcamp to get involved with political or literary women; but that doesn't spark her interest.  She could make a name for herself at the races, but the money doesn't motivate her- she's always had it and in some ways doesn't seem to know a world without money.  So, she's going to default into this relationship with Arobin.  I'm going to suggest that she is again playing the part of the parrot.  Messing around with Arobin is just the kind of thing she sees men doing.  It's what Victor does; it may be what her husband does; it is likely what Robert is doing down in Mexico, so she's going to try to mimic male behavior since she hasn't really found a female model she's interested in emulating, and Arobin is an opportunitiy for this.    And yet, she's self-aware enough to not be seduced by Arobin.  The first time he really tries to make a move on her by kissing her hand, this is what she says which I find insightful,  “When she was alone she looked mechanically at the back of her hand which he had kissed so warmly.  Then she leaned her head down on the mantlepiece.  She felt something like a woman who in a moment of passion is betrayed into an act of infidelity, and realizes the significance of the act without being wholly awakened from its glamour.  The thought was passing vaguely through her mind, “what would he think?”  She did not mean her husband; she was thinking of Robert LeBrun.  Her husband seemed to her now like a person whom she had married without love as an excuse.  She lit a candle and went up to her room.  Alcee Arobin was absolutely nothing to her.  Yet his presence, his manners, the warmth of his glances, and above all the touch of his lips upon her hand had acted like a narcotic upon her.  She slept a languorous sleep, interwoven with vanishing dreams.”  Garry, is there a connection between Edna's boredom with her new life and her desire to pursue this relationship with Arobin.   Well, again, Dr. Kate Chopin is playing the psychologist.  Science has absolutely confirmed there is a relationship with boredom and risk-taking behaviors.  In other words, the more bored you find yourself, the more likely you are to do something risky.  It's one reason teenagers are so prone to dangerous behaviors like drugs.  They don't know yet how to cope with personal down time.  They can't manage their own boredom.  Bored people don't know what they want to do.  They also score low on scares that measure self-awareness.  Bored people can't monitor their own moods or understand what they truly want.  And here's another characteristic that should sound familiar in the life of Mrs. Edna Pontellier, notice that last line “vanishing dreams”, Edna is not dreaming.  She's not working at writing a script for her life..structuring a story for herself.  Her dreams and not building anything, they are vanishing.  That's not good.  And it's not that doesn't have illusions, she does, but a dream is not an illusion.  Dreams are what inspire us to do something different. Both a dream and an illusion are unreal, but an illusion will always be an illusion- it has no chance of becoming real; out of dreams new realities are born.  We are not seeing Edna dream.  Her dreams are vanishing.    Which brings us to the place where I want to end with this episode- chapter 26 and Edna's decision to move out of her husband's house.  I mentioned that this book is constructed with the archetypal 3 in mind at every point.  Edna has been living on Esplanade street- the wealthy gilded cage life, and she doesn't want that.  She has visited Madame Reisz's apartment, but she doesn't seem to want that- it's, and I quote, “cheerless and dingy to Edna”.  So what does she do? She moves two steps away from Esplanade Street, to a house Ellen calls, “the pigeon house.”  Pigeons are the oldest domesticated bird in the world.  They never fly far from home- homing pigeons is actually a term. She's building an illusion. Edna is going out of her husband's house to a place around the corner, but is she really building a new life of any kind?  What is this about?   Edna describes it to Madame Reisz, this way,  “I know I shall like it, like the feeling of freedom and independence.”    But is the feeling of freedom and independence the same as actually having freedom and independence?  Well, obviously not.  They are worlds apart.  But Edna lives in feelings.  She works when she feels like it.  She plays with her children when she feels like it, and now she admits to Madame Reisz that she's in love with Robert LeBrun, who by the way is coming back.  And when she finds that out she feels, and I quote “glad and happy to be alive.”  And what does she do after that, she stops at a candy store, buys a box to send to her children who are with their grandparents in the country and she writes a charming letter to her husband.  Her letter was brilliant and brimming with cheerfulness.  I'm sorry, but Edna frustrates the feminist in me.    Well, Edna is struggling for sure.  She can't connect with people.  She can't identify a dream worth pursuing.  She can't write her own story.  There is no doubt that a lot of this has to so with cultural and social forces at work in her world.   These are powerful forces.  However,  it is not the outside forces of her world that will do her in.  Edna is smart.  She's beautiful.  She's charming.  She actually has a lot going for her, especially for a woman during this time period.  If Chopin had wanted to write a story where a woman breaks free and soars, she has a protagonist who is positioned to do that very thing.    But she's in a mess.  And maybe that's why she's so relatable.  Many of us have made messes of our lives.  We have an incredible ability to screw up, but  humans are also incredibly resilient.  Look at Chopin's own life as an example.  In some ways, she's both Adele Ragntingole and Madame Reiz, at different points in her life she'd been both.  She may even have been Mrs. James Highcamp to a lesser degree. Why is Edna struggling here?  Well, humans are incredibly resilient, but you know what else we are- we are social beings.  Let's revisit that original book title, “One Solitary Soul”- it's my experience that no one gets out alone- not even the rich, the beautiful or the smart.  No one gets out alone.    Ah, Edna is strong enough to confront the forces without, but who will help her confront the forces within?  And so next episode, we will see her confront those internal forces.  There are no more female characters to meet; no more male characters either for that matter.  We will see Edna confront Edna alone, and we will see what happens.  Thank you for listening.  If you enjoy our podcast, please share it with a friend, a relative, your classmates, your students.  We only grow when you share.  Also, come visit with us via our social media how to love lit podcast- on Instagram, facebook and our website.  Feel free to ask questions, give us your thoughts, recommend books.  These are all things we love.  Thanks for being with us today.  Peace out.         

Benjamin and Sami are back after a short hiatus! The duo explain their mysterious absence before jumping back into whatever it is that makes the Unnamed Automotive Podcast so unstoppable. This week Benjamin describes his experience in the 2022 Audi RS e-tron GT, the speedy alternative to the Porsche Taycan and his first high performance EV experience. Does it make the right noises for an RS badged model, or does that even matter as battery-powered cars consistently eclipse their gas-powered rivals? Sami then shares his thoughts on the European market after having spent two weeks abroad, including some fun road trips in the 2022 Toyota Yaris Cross. The subcompact crossover is quirky and efficient, and managed to impress it's fair share of fans. Benjamin follows with an explanation of what it's like to tow his Datsun Z track car with the new 2022 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Will his wallet will ever be the same? Finally the pair wrap up a secret, sticky, sweet feature that's only our die hard fans will really appreciate. Listen, like, rate and enjoy!

In this episode, Apple Inc. is testing future iPhone models as early as iPhone 15 that replace the current Lightning charging port with the more prevalent USB-C connector, according to a leading supply analyst Ming Chi Kuo, a move that could help the company conform with looming European regulations.  We'll discuss this news and go … Continue reading Episode 178, iPhones preparing to move to USB-C; WWDC 2022 makes final preparations to begin Monday, June 6 →

This week on Historia Obscura: how Mexico fought against European superpowers in order to preserve its republican government. Special thanks to Patreon subscribers Barbara and Tom! Subscribe to my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historiaobscura! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/historiaobscura/message

What you'll learn in this podcast episode As the business world makes an overdue shift from shareholder to stakeholder capitalism, is it possible that we will see an erosion of innovation? How does a company's purpose impact its success? In this episode of the Principled Podcast, LRN Chief Advisory Officer Ty Francis MBE talks about how corporate purpose and stakeholder capitalism fuel innovation with Mark R. Hatch, CEO of clean energy startup SiLi-ion, Inc., an instigator of the maker movement with the founding of TechShop, author of The Maker Movement Manifesto and The Maker Revolution, and researcher on the influence of “organizational purpose” on innovation and business transformation at Pepperdine University. Mark has dedicated his career to educating the business community on innovation and advanced manufacturing and has spoken at the White House on these topics. Listen in as the two discuss what it means to help people—and companies—around the world do the right thing.   Featured Guest: Mark Hatch Mark R. Hatch is an advanced manufacturing entrepreneur, writer, and sought-after speaker and advisor on innovation, the maker movement, digital strategy, and advanced manufacturing. He has held executive positions for innovation, disruptive technology, entrepreneurship, and intrapreneurship in various industry sectors. Mark is the CEO of clean energy startup SiLi-ion, Inc. and an advisor to Studio MFG, an advanced spatial-web innovation consulting and manufacturing design firm. Mark has dedicated his career to educating the business community on innovation and advanced manufacturing and has spoken about these topics to various audiences—including the White House, TEDx, Global Fortune 500 firms, and Harvard University. He has appeared on prominent media outlets such as ABC, CBS, NBC, Bloomberg, CNN, and Fox, and has been quoted in Bloomberg Business, FastCompany, Forbes, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle among other publications. An avid researcher on the influence of “organizational purpose” on innovation and business transformation, Mark is working on his DBA at Pepperdine University and is a faculty member for digital innovation and strategy at Pepperdine's Graziado School of Business. He is also an entrepreneur in residence at UC Berkeley. Mark holds an MBA from the Drucker Center at Claremont Graduate University and a BA in economics from UCI.   Featured Host: Ty Francis Ty Francis MBE is a Welsh-American business development, operations executive, and subject matter expert in Corporate Governance, Ethics, Compliance and Culture and is currently LRN's Head of Advisory Services, and a member of the Executive Team as a Special Advisor to the CEO.  Ty has utilized his expansive network of industry experts and thought leaders to help companies enhance corporate character, culture, D&I and transparency and has launched E&C programs and forums in the US, UK, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Brazil, Singapore, Brazil and the Middle East. He spent over a decade in New York City where he was EVP of Global Programs at the Ethisphere Institute and prior to that led the Corporate Board member business at the New York Stock Exchange's Governance Services division.  In 2019, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Business by the UK's Solent University for his outstanding contribution in the field of corporate governance and international trade. In 2017, Ty was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), by Queen Elizabeth II, in recognition of services to business.  Ty also studied at Stanford's Rock Centre for Corporate Governance and Oxford University's Said Business School and is a Certified Compliance & Ethics Professional (CCEP).    Principled Podcast Transcription Intro: Welcome to the Principled Podcast, brought to you by LRN. The Principled Podcast brings together the collective wisdom on ethics, business and compliance, transformative stories of leadership, and inspiring workplace culture. Listen in to discover valuable strategies from our community of business leaders, and workplace change makers. Ty Francis: As the business world makes an overdue shift from shareholder to stakeholder capitalism, is it possible that we'll see an erosion of innovation? How does a company's purpose impact its success? Hello, and welcome to another episode of LRN's Principled Podcast. I'm your host, Ty Francis, Chief Advisory Officer LRN. Today I'm joined by Mark Hatch, an accomplished entrepreneur, advanced manufacturing expert, and sought after speaker on topics of innovation, disruptive technology, and the future of work. Mark holds an MBA from the Drucker Center at Claremont Graduate University. And is presently pursuing a DBA, a doctor of business administration, from Pepperdine University. We are going to be talking today about corporate purpose, stakeholder capitalism, and what it means to help people, and companies around the world do the right thing. After several successful decades in business, Mark is now researching the influence of organizational purpose on innovation and business transformation at Pepperdine, while simultaneously serving as CEO of the clean energy startup, SiLi-ion, amongst other things. Mark Hatch, thanks for joining me on the Principled Podcast. Mark Hatch: Thank you very much, Ty. It's great to be here. Ty Francis: Okay so, for those of us saying to ourselves, "Where have I heard this name before," please tell us a little bit about your professional history. Now, we know you as the founder of TechShop, and an instigator in the maker movement. What else? Oh, yes, you've spoken at White House about advanced manufacturing, and at the Clinton Global Initiative, something my wife [inaudible 00:01:58] was actually involved in during her time at Swiss Re. Mark Hatch:   Oh, how fun. Ty Francis: Yeah, she was at Swiss Re for about 10 years and worked very closely with President Clinton. So, that's a name, it's all too familiar in my household. But I also know you're involved in the Singularity University, which sounds very Star Trekky, which is an interesting side note, especially since we're talking about purpose today. So, I've given an overview, but can you give us a little bit more about your backstory Mark? Mark Hatch:   Oh, hit a couple high points. I'm a former green beret, so I was in the army for three years coming out of high school, which was quite entertaining. And then, I started my first company, an interactive multimedia company back in '80s. One of the things I've discovered that I'm really good at is jumping into something way too early. And then, getting beaten up for years and years until it becomes the obvious next thing. The interesting thing about that interactive media though, was that John McAfee of McAfee Antivirus was one of my first investors. I actually got to know John before he became infamous, I guess. I spent a little bit of time at Avery Dennison, a big package goods company. A little bit of time at Kinkos, where I launched the e-commerce portion for Kinkos. And pulled T1 lines around the United States to wire them all up. Spent a little bit of time doing a health benefits ASP and so forth. But most people, if they know who I am at all, is from the maker movement days wrote a couple books in it, and spent a lot of time traipsing around the globe trying to get people to make things again. Ty Francis: Well, I want to touch a couple of those things. So now, you aren't the average professor, as we've just heard, because you've got some real bites to your bark. Within what you just told me, I did read that you raised over $20 million and turned TechShop into that leading brand in the maker movement, growing it from 1 to 12 locations. And more impressively membership and revenue 20X in five years. I got that right, 20X? Mark Hatch: 20, yeah. As long as you start from a very small base, it's really easy to hit those high numbers. Ty Francis: I think you and I have got a different definition of the word easy.  If that wasn't impressive enough, you also grew that $200 million business at Kinkos by 18%. But I think more impressive than that, and someone who runs a P and L you cut costs by 15 million in a single year. Mark Hatch: In a single year, yeah. Ty Francis: That is both impressive. And I get, your students get a kick out of all that experience. We had a pre-conversation before. And I mentioned that I'm lucky enough to know Sir Richard Branson. And he told me years ago how he went into a bookshop, and pulled a bunch of books off the library that were about business. I think the first 20 he counted, none of the authors had actually been in business, or run a business, and were anecdotal at best. Looking at what you've done and what you've succeeded, how has that happened? And how has that paradigm shifted to you now? Mark Hatch: One, I do actually tend to live in the future. It's a bad habit. I've got a very, very clear view of what I believe is going to happen. And I clearly did not take my desert training in the Special Forces very well, where they beat into your head, never mistake a clear view for a short distance. It will kill you. So, I saw interactive multimedia early. I saw dot com early. I've seen many of these things. What I managed to do with TechShop was raise funds, and grow the base quickly enough so that we actually survive for a solid 10 years. But what I do is innovation. My entire career has been on the edge between in a research and development, or the most recent trends, and then commercializing them, turning them into something that a consumer can understand, and acquire. Ty Francis: So, I am seeing a Star Trek theme in all of this, by the way. Seeing into the future. A Q-esque type person here. But this is fascinating. And you, obviously, have an incredible foundation [inaudible 00:06:08] what you are doing, looking at the past, predicting the future. But I do want to tap more into the research you're doing at Pepperdine. And as part of your DBA, again, I'm looking at this and I have an honorary doctorate, and I feel very, very small right now. Mark Hatch: Congratulations. That's quite impressive actually. Ty Francis: Yeah, but apparently when the air cabin crew asks if there's a doctor on the plane, I'm not allowed to raise my hand. When they say, "What can you help this person with?" I can say, "Well, I've got an interesting anecdote about business." So the DBA you're pursuing right now, I mean, I particularly admire the notion of going back to school for an advanced degree. I've had a limited amount of business success. And during the lockdown, I took three courses, one at a side business university at Oxford, one at Stanford, and one at the London School of Economics. The recurring theme through all of those courses... One was executive leadership. One was DEI and leveraging business through it. And the other was international relations and global politics. Organizational purpose was a common theme through all of those postgraduate and diplomas. And it was fascinating how that was a theme, and linking back into business. So, I want you to talk about your work on organizational purpose. But first of all, can you give me, or us a definition of your definition of organizational purpose? Mark Hatch:    There are like three versions of what purpose means. But to get a little bit technical, the short version is really simple. Like the single word, the single concept is why a corporation exists. That's what purpose means, why? Now, usually, when you use the term, what is your corporate purpose? You're not thinking of the single thing that the word means. You're thinking of a corporate purpose statement, or a development of a series of concepts. Or, as they say in business speak, it's a construct. So, I have adopted George et al's from 2021, which is interesting. Most of this good work has happened just in the last few years. So, purpose in the for profit context captures the essence of an organization's existence by explaining what value it seeks to create for its stakeholders. So, you're creating value. But then he goes on and defines it a little bit more, which I like. "In doing so purpose provides a clear definition of firm's intent, creates the ability for the stakeholders to identify with and be inspired by the firm's mission, vision, and values, and establishes actionable pathways, and an inspirational outcome for the firm." Sorry, that's very technical, but that's the best broad version that includes mission, vision, and values, which people tend to associate with purpose when you ask them what a corporate purpose is. But let me back up a little bit. So, the reason I got intrigued with this was, well first of all, I'm very purpose driven personally. I was, usually, involved with technologies that I found intriguing, and could improve humanity in some way. But my experience at TechShop was at a completely different level. People were joining because of the purpose of this idea that we could remake our lives by going to a shop that had, basically, democratized access to the tools of the industrial revolution. We were giving the average Joe access to tools that they had never had access to, unless they were 80 years old, had come up at three machine shop or something. But we were giving them laser cutters, and 3D printers, and so forth.  And I personally got a level of satisfaction out of that. And I got my staff members to perform at levels I had never seen before. We had members that are evangelists. I mean, it seemed like sometimes they would go out on the street and tell people, "Have you heard of this place? You've got to come in." We had this one member, he quit his job. And he didn't have a great job to begin with, but he quit his job as a night watchman, came up and couch surfed. Like that was a thing for a while, couchsurfing.com where you could go and spend the night at somebody's house randomly. This was well before hotel folks came along. He would evangelize each couch that he slept on became a member, like not the couch, the people. Every place that he went, we got new members. And we thought about maybe paying him just to hang around, and sleep on a new couch every night because he was our best attractor. And so, this got me really interested in this concept of what is your corporate purpose? And how does it play out and impact the organization at large? Ty Francis: I think the biggest question that we have, and I have is when people are talking about this concept, how organizations are dealing with this, how are you articulating this to companies, to brands, to leaders, and how to actually put this into practice? Because many of the conversations I have with boards, with GCs, with anyone, they understand the problem. They see what's happening. They read and they see blogs, and they have conversations with the fellow board members. But it's actually the tangibility of creating a strategy that puts this into place. And something they can follow. I guess what's the sticky sauce? What's the magic wand that you throw over your clients, your peers on how do I actually put this into play? Mark Hatch: So the research that I'm doing specifically came out of kind of the question, how do I deal with the naysayers? How do I convince a board, or a C-suite folks that are like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever. I've got my ESG guy and they're going to keep me between the lanes, and everything's going to be fine." I started down this path as like, what do we actually know about corporate purpose? Where did it spring from? Actually, I go all the way back. What's the original concept of a corporation? Where did that come from? And it goes all the way back. It's crazy. It goes all the way back to pre-Babylonian times. And I won't bore you with all of that, but it turns out you couldn't have a corporation without having a purpose of some kind. It wasn't allowed. The state would not allow it. The king would not allow it. I've got a great quote out of the Law of Corporations 1702, "The sole purpose of a corporation is to improve the society and support the king." Full stop. You can't say, "Okay, I'm here to do like, blah, blah, blah. And I'm going to make this." No, no, no, no. How are you going to help your customers? How are you going to improve society? And how are you going to support the king? And if you don't have an answer to that, I'm sorry, not only will I not give you corporation, if I happen to have given you one, and you have strayed too far, I will shut you down. And this was actually the norm up to about 1880 globally. And there's this great quote. It was Massachusetts Bay Company and they charged this poor sod 200 pounds for overcharging his customer. And then, on Sunday morning, the preacher got engaged talking about the egregious greed, and what can happen. And it was simply against the law. And then, things changed with the 14th amendment, some other bizarre things. But we've had this like weird era, and that's how I would describe it, between 1886 to about 1950, we were set loose. You didn't have to have a purpose at all. You actually didn't need any purpose at all. You could just go down to Delaware and say, "I want to set up a company." And they go, "Great." They still would ask, what are you going to do? And so, in your mind, you had to at least have a customer, or somebody you were going to steal money from. You had to have some idea. So even today in your charters, you have to say, "Okay, I'm going to be in this industry segment," which by the way, you just send them a note and that can change. But about around 1950, that started to shift. So, that was a long winded way of saying, so how do we deal with these guys? And what I wanted to do, and what I'm doing is I'm a practical guy, I'm a practitioner. I don't want to sell them something that doesn't work. What does that mean for your purpose? And so, I'm really intrigued with this idea of empirically based management tools. How do you know something works? Not one of those 19 books that Sir Branson was talking about, but the one that comes out of the trenches. So, I've gone back and I've done a fairly significant review of all of the literature on corporate purpose. What's actually known from a theoretical perspective from doing interviews, which I don't put a lot of weight into because you get what you want out of your interviews. But actual empirical work that's been done in this space. And it turns out those corporations that do have a purpose that's more than simply serving customers, they have substantially superior financial returns. And actually, I think your firm is an example that promulgates that point of view based on research you guys have done in the past. Ty Francis: Our tagline is, principle performance. And I'll add that some research we did last year echoes most of what you're saying. I mean, all of what you're saying. My own advisory team released a report alongside our marketing team. And we called it our LRN Benchmark of Ethical Culture, which is a multi-year, it's a collaborative research effort, which draws data from nearly 8,000 employees, 17 industries, 14 countries. And that study conclusively proves that ethical cultures don't just protect corporate reputations, but they propel the bottom line. Companies with the strongest ethical cultures, strongly outperform by approximately 40% those with weakest ethical cultures. And that was across all measures of business performance, customer satisfaction. You talked about employee loyalty, innovation, adaptability, and growth. It's very simple, and you can make a lot of links to this. But if you keep people happy, if people believe in what you are doing, they will stay. If they stay, they will not leave. If they will not leave, they will not take IP with them. They will not go somewhere else. So, all that money you've invested in hiring them, training them, making them better people they will not take that somewhere else. Mark Hatch: Yeah, your brand positioning, your ability to [inaudible 00:16:32]. The theory is actually pretty well illuminated. Actually, the step that I'm taking... I think we have, in fact, proven that having a higher purpose can, or will result in superior financial success. So, there's my answer to the naysayers. This is really simple besides being the right thing to do, and to feel good about yourself, and your company when you go home at night, and you talk to your kids about what you're doing, your returns are higher. But the next question that I asked is, okay, show me how? Just throwing a purpose together and announcing it from the mountaintop is not the right answer. Now, we are getting results, so kudos to the companies that are executing. But I'm trying to answer the question, okay, how do you operationalize a superior purpose? What are the actual specific financial drivers that create superior firm performance? Innovation, and then specifically radical innovation is historically the largest way that firms create superior returns by far. There are other ways of doing it: brand, financial management, operations, Six Sigma, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the number one way of improving your financial performance is actually to do innovation. And then radical innovation in particular. That's my little chunk that I'm chewing on is can I show that firms with a higher aspirational purpose actually get superior innovation returns and superior radical innovation returns? And the quantitative numbers have come in. I'm now working on writing it up. And it's clear like it's 0.0001 chance that it's false. In fact, a higher purpose does drive radical innovation in a very significant way. It explains 30% of the variance of that. And like 35 to 37% of all variance in your innovation. It's huge. So, my answer is, okay, install, purpose, and innovate. Point this amazing effort that you've created, point this missile down the range at radical innovation because you're going to get an enormous return out of it. Ty Francis: You've actually answered the next question I was going to ask about, what this means for the future of business, and what is your vision for how company leaders can apply these insights? As you said, it's not enough for somebody to read in a book about what's happening. It's how they can relate that and put that into practice to change the dynamic of their own companies. We're not just talking about this. Investors are asking companies point blank, define your purpose. What are you doing to make the world around you better? Larry Fingers, writing to CEOs every single year. In the UK, the banking industry are asking, "Yes, we get it. You're raising capital for people, but what else are you doing?" It's a little bit, what have you done for me lately kind of thing. Mark Hatch: We've come full circle now. In 1886, we decided, okay, you don't have to have a purpose. But now, we are rewriting the laws. The SEC in the US, the UK, as you mentioned, the French have done it. The Italians have done it. The Germans did it ages ago. But there's an enormous amount of pressure now on corporations to be able to explicitly measure what their social good is. They don't necessarily call it your purpose, but that's what they're getting at. When I came at this, of course, I have the context of working at Singularity University as a speaker. And I know, I know a friend of mine is Salim Ismail, who's driving this whole exponential organization's effort globally. And, in it, he said, sidebar conversation. "So Mark, I've tried to do these exponential innovation efforts without a massively transformative purpose at the beginning of the effort because the corporation was like, 'Yeah, you're making me feel kind of weird about this idea of changing the world and all that. We're an X company, let's just do the execution part and skip the massively transformative purpose part.'" And he said, "Every single time we did that, it failed. Every single time. We got nominal innovation out of it." And it actually makes sense when you think about the internal resistance of individuals in their risk profiles. Typically, you go to work and you want to have things normal. And then, what's going to happen all day long, and you're competent and so forth. But when you start doing innovation and, particularly radical innovation, you don't know what tomorrow looks like. You don't understand who your customer is. You don't know what the value is per se. And you're thrown in the deep end and you got to figure it out. Now, it's not quite that bad, but it is substantially different than your day-to-day. And it's hard. Doing radical innovation is the hardest part of being in business because you don't know how it's going to come out. That as a background, is like, "Oh my goodness, you're kidding me. You just told me that one of the keys to being able to execute this isn't actually reaching for the stars." It's not like, can we get a 15% increase in this? Or can we cut costs by 10% or 5%? It's can you cut cost by 50%? Can we double our market share? Can we open up an entirely new market segment? Just saying those words creates a new tension in somebody's head. You bring them in and say, "Okay, we're going to get 10% here, and 15% there." And everybody goes, "Oh cool, I don't have to change anything. I can go back to my desk and keep stamping those pieces of paper. And I'm good." You come in and say, "I want a 50% increase. And I need a 30% reduction over here," actually you've lost the audience because for the next five minutes, all they're going to be wondering is whether or not they have a job. Am I qualified to do this? That's what got me going. And we live in the most exciting time in all of human history. We've got more technologies coming on stream in amazing and radical ways, and how they're interacting with one another is absolutely stunning. So, this is the best time in all of human history to do radical innovation. This is the best time to go after actually deep purposes. And I feel sorry for these corporations who are going, "Okay, let's try to get a 12% bump over the next two years." They're doomed. In my mind it's like, forget it. You and I and others in this world are going to teach the executive suite that radical innovation is possible, it will drive the bottom line, make them feel better and will, in fact, change the world. And I'm proving it empirically. That's kind of what I'm excited about. Ty Francis: It reminds me of a quote that was a famous NFL coach. And I can't remember it now and I'll come back to you by the end of the podcast. But it was about reaching for perfection that you'll never attain it. But on the way down, you will hit excellence. And I think this is an area why people aren't reaching for the stars is surprising because it's that competitive advantage. When we talk about how this is a competitive advantage, not just on a social scale, but on a business scale, we've been talking to board directors. We had a collaboration with a group called Tapestry Networks. We spoke to 40 directors of publicly traded companies, I mean 40, 50 companies. And they represented about 70 or 80 different companies across their different board positions. We did this specifically to talk about purpose and culture. We released the findings in a report called Activating Culture and Ethics for Boards late last year. And the results, albeit mostly predictable, the boards want to put culture at the top of their priority list, but they still don't fully understand how to measure it. The refreshing part was that they see that the paradigm shifted from board members having a nose in, fingers out ability to more having nose and fingers in because they are starting to see this as a competitive benefit to having both strategy and culture and purpose aligned. And with that, I think they're seeing they have a better understanding of what corporate purpose should be. I think we're trying to see a tangible move in the... I'm using quotation marks here, a "tone from the top" conversation on how boards are impacting priorities, and are influencing culture. So, how does that help your research for what you are doing now for the future of work? Mark Hatch: You've done the surveys, you know what the answers are. But what I'm trying to do is start a small renaissance around, prove it to me. What are the actual ways that you operationalize it? It's like, okay, employee retention. Okay, measure employee retention. But don't just measure employee retention, invest in your employees. If you know that they're going to hang around longer, don't just sit on your hands, and say, "Oh cool, they're going to be here longer. Woo hoo." No, no, no. What that means is you can't actually invest in them in ways that your competitors can't. That's operationalizing this idea of this competitive advantage, invest in your customers, invest in your brand. What are you doing specifically to drive your brand in relations in a deeper way? You've created this competitive advantage. You've got this great purpose now sitting on the shelf. Great. How are you going to operationalize it? And can we measure it? That's my point. It's can we actually measure it and see what the returns are? Ty Francis: The measurement, that's the trick. Everyone knows what they should be doing, but they don't know how they should be doing it. Mark Hatch: And if you don't measure it, then you don't care about it. Ty Francis: Wasn't that the famous misquote from Peter Drucker what you can't manage, you can measure, or the other way around? Mark Hatch: Right. Ty Francis: So we've been talking a lot about boards and purpose, but we know the SEC, and we're talking about the US. Obviously, although I'm American, I'm also Welsh. So, I'm curious if your research extends to Europe, or other regions. I mean, is this universal? Or is it just stage one USA, stage two [inaudible 00:25:55]? Mark Hatch:    It does work at least in the UK. So, I chose my sample's 50/50, US/UK. 50/50, male/female. Native English speakers, try to control for some other variables. This is clearly true in the UK and the US. My suspicion, obviously, is that it's true in a lot of other parts of the world as well. Other research suggests that it is at least pan-European. Gartenberg's work and others. Gartenberg did some quantitative research that had 500,000 companies in it from around the globe. And they were able to show empirically that purpose does, in fact, drive superior financial returns, similar to what your research did. Ty Francis: When you're talking about this corporate purpose, I've noticed working in the States for a long time, that there is in the States and, to a certain extent, in the UK as well, there's a shareholder driven purpose kind of alignment where there's in broader Europe, France, and Germany, and Italy there's more of a stakeholder driven perception. So, there you see in Germany where you've got the different kind of board levels, and with the very straight labor laws in France, you are seeing that connection between leadership, and the employee base having to be aligned because they've got no choice because if they don't like what their companies are doing, they can change it, and quite dramatically. So, that would be interesting to see how that dynamic between the UK and the US, but then certainly further afield of that, how the European companies and organizations are actually using this corporate purpose vehicle to their competitive advantage. Mark Hatch: Right. One might hypothesize that corporate purpose, that's a fundamental driver. But how you operationalize it may vary from region to region. Maybe brand is a better tool than radical innovation. Maybe employee retention is a better one. I'm not sure. I doubt it, frankly. I think innovation is one of the fundamental things that you do as a business. Drucker would say, you're not even an entrepreneur, if you're not doing innovation. You can call yourself a businessman, but you're not an entrepreneur. And so, I suspect that innovation. And then as we're moving, again, the opportunity set available now to innovate is phenomenal. Radical innovation, it should be a fundamental strategy for any business that's trying to drive purpose into their organization, and with their stakeholders. Ty Francis: Well, before we sign off, and before I get a raft of my very angry American listeners asking why this British guy is talking about American football? It was Vince Lombardi, [inaudible 00:28:28]. And his quote was, and I'll see if I can get this right, "Perfection's not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence." Mark Hatch: Yeah. Ty Francis: So Mark Hatch, this has been a fascinating conversation and one that we have merely pricked the surface of. And I'd like to have you back to talk a little bit more definitively, especially when the research is done, to look at those results. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me today and us on this episode.       My name is Ty Francis. I want to thank you all for listening to the Principled Podcast by LRM. If you have enjoyed the conversation today, please do give us a top rating on your favorite podcast app. Goodbye for now. Outro: We hope you enjoyed this episode. The Principled Podcast is brought to you by LRN. At LRN, our mission is to inspire principled performance in global organizations by helping them foster winning ethical cultures rooted in sustainable values. Please visit us at lrn.com to learn more. And if you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen. And don't forget to leave us a review.

In Episode 40 of the Unsackable Podcast Manuel Veth, Filippo Silva, and Josh Deming are back. This week they chat about Erling Haaland leaving Borussia Dortmund, Robert Lewandowski potentially heading to Barcelona and debate whether there is more than one Ronaldo. Stay up to date with all things soccer-related with Unsackable: A Soccer Podcast! Every Monday & Friday join hosts Adrian, Manuel, Filippo and Josh as they break down the biggest stories and results from around the world of soccer. Monday: Reviewing the weekend results from several leagues around the world, breaking stories and transfers. Friday: Reviewing the midweek European results as well as looking over the winners and losers. Podcasts are available at Google, Spotify, Apple Podcast, iTunes & ALL Podcast Apps! Draftkings.com PROMO Code TPPN for SIGNUP Bonus & Weekly Deals! If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/ /NJ/NY/ PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.

Stevie Clifford is joined by Cammy and Adam to look back on Rangers momentous European run leading up to Wednesdays Europa League Final against Eintracht Frankfurt. IbroxRocks.com twitter.com/ibroxrocks app.IbroxRocks.com Produced by David Edgar A Playback Media Production playbackmedia.co.uk Copyright 2022 Playback Media Ltd - playbackmedia.co.uk/copyright

Welcome to the shitshow! Jeff and Joey have been all over the map so the two take a second to catch up before hopping into recapping round 1 of the NHL playoffs. They cover their must watch round 1 matchup Tampa Bay versus Toronto, if the Leafs can break the dry spell, why New York and Florida are in trouble, underrated St. Louis, why Calgary versus Dallas is a snooze-fest, the Avalanche beating the brakes off of Nashville, and much more. Last, for #NoDumbQuestions Joey covers the prospects the Seattle Kraken are targeting and the two debate who they should take with the 4th overall pick and Joey vies for a position in the organization as a European scout before sharing why he'll be watching the IIHF World Championships. Ending, as always, with the Chirp of the Week. Subscribe: On All podcasting apps, rate & review on iTunes, Apple Podcasts and Spotify! Presented by The Hockey Podcast Network with new episodes every week.  Follow us on Twitter and Facebook at @KrakenPod Release the Kraken! #SeaKraken   NHL Teams: Anaheim Ducks Arizona Coyotes Boston Bruins Buffalo Sabres Calgary Flames Carolina Hurricanes Chicago Blackhawks Colorado Avalanche Columbus Blue Jackets Dallas Stars Detroit Red Wings Edmonton Oilers Florida Panthers Los Angeles Kings Minnesota Wild Montreal Canadiens Nashville Predators New Jersey Devils New York Islanders New York Rangers Ottawa Senators Philadelphia Flyers Pittsburgh Penguins San Jose Sharks Seattle Kraken St Louis Blues Tampa Bay Lightning Toronto Maple Leafs Vancouver Canucks Vegas Golden Knights Washington Capitals Winnipeg Jets Draft Kings disclaimer: If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NH/NJ/NY/OR/ PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.

Louisiana prolife bill, Rand Paul, Baby Formula, and guns …and more on today’s CrossPolitic Daily News Brief. My name is Toby Sumpter and today is Friday, May 6, 2022. We are just days away from the last stop of our CrossPolitic Liberty Tour in Phoenix, Arizona. I would love to meet you in person in Phoenix, on May 19th. I will be joined by Chocolate Knox, the Gabe Rench the Water Boy, Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church, and Political analyst Delano Squires, who’s made appearances on the Blaze, and the Tucker Carlson show. Tickets are only $20, and we’ll be talking about the Five Stones of True Liberty. Sign up now at crosspolitic.com/libertytour. https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-led-louisiana-house-fails-to-pass-bill-abolishing-abortion Ben Zeisloft at the DailyWire reports: Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives failed to pass a bill that would have abolished abortion by applying homicide laws to women who procure the procedure. The Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act (HB813) — which has gained national and international media attention — recognizes “the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all unborn children from the moment of fertilization by protecting them by the same laws protecting other human beings.” Accordingly, it applied state laws about homicide to children in the womb. Last week, lawmakers on the Louisiana House’s criminal justice committee approved the bill by a 7 to 2 vote. However, after legislators approved an amendment on Thursday stating that “the pregnant female shall not be held responsible for the criminal consequences” of seeking an abortion by a 65 to 26 vote, State Rep. Danny McCormick — the Republican who sponsored HB813 — asked to pull the bill from the House floor. Louisiana Right to Life announced its opposition to HB813 ahead of the House vote because it applied criminal penalties to mothers who procure abortion. Likewise, Governor John Bel Edwards (D-LA) — remarking that his “Catholic Christian faith” teaches him to be pro-life — followed suit in opposing the legislation. “I felt I had to join my voice to the chorus of pro-life organizations against HB813,” he said in a statement. Pro-life activist Abby Johnson recently condemned Louisiana Right to Life for opposing HB813. “Either the preborn are fully human or they aren’t,” she saidon Twitter. “When abortion is illegal, people must pay the penalty for killing their children. These children deserve justice.” Replying to Edwards’ opposition to the bill, Johnson said, “Well, well, well. Look how many pro-aborts you have made happy!!” Brian Gunter — the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Livingston, Louisiana, who was instrumental in organizing other Christians in the state to support the legislation — told The Daily Wire that Edwards “believes there are no circumstances under which a woman should be held accountable if she knowingly and intentionally kills her preborn child.” “HB813 protects a woman who is coerced into an abortion and prosecutes the person who forces her to have an abortion,” he said of the bill in its original form. “If Governor Edwards believes the preborn child is just as much a person as the born child, then it is absurd for him to suggest that the preborn child should be discriminated against and denied equal protection under law. No one should be allowed to murder preborn children without consequences.” Last week, Gunter remarked to The Daily Wire that Louisiana’s current pro-life trigger law — the “The Human Life Protection Act” — only penalizes abortionists with $1,000 fines, even though animal cruelty is fined at up to $25,000 in Louisiana. https://thehill.com/news/senate/3486654-rand-paul-objection-delays-40-billion-ukraine-aid-package/ Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) hit the brakes Thursday on bipartisan hopes that the Senate could quickly pass nearly $40 billion in Ukraine aid before leaving town for the week. Paul objected to a deal offered by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer(D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would have set up votes on Thursday afternoon on the funding and on an amendment from Paul, who wanted to include language in the bill to expand an Afghanistan inspector general role to include oversight of the Ukraine funds. Paul blocked the votes because he wants his language inserted into the text of the bill instead of having to take his chance with an amendment vote, which could be blocked. The stalemate will delay the Senate’s passage of the Ukraine package until at least next week, and potentially beyond. “There is now only one thing holding us back, the junior senator from Kentucky is preventing swift passage of Ukraine aid because he wants to add, at the last minute, his own changes directly into the bill … He is not even asking for an amendment. He is simply saying my way or the highway,” Schumer said. “Ukraine is not asking us to fight this war. They’re only asking for the resources they need to defend themselves against this deranged invasion, and they need help right now,” McConnell said. Paul, however, warned about the pace of spending, arguing that “we cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy.” “Americans are feeling the pain [from inflation] and Congress seems intent only on adding to that pain by shoveling more money out the door as fast as they can,” Paul said. Did you know that more than 75% of those raised in evangelical, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches don’t pursue any kind of Christian higher education? Surprising isn’t it. Cornerstone Work & Worldview Institute is seeking to provide a new, exciting, and affordable option for Christians. Their mission is to build Kingdom culture in the workplace by equipping their students in a Trinitarian worldview and vocational competencies. Their low-cost full-time program offers integrative course modules, internships, and mentoring so their students can finish debt-free with vocational preparation, a robust faith, and financial potential to build strong godly families and homes rooted in their communities and churches long-term. Visit their website at www.cornerstonework.org to find out more about enrolling. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/baby-formula-shortage-abbott-recall/629828/ Derek Thompson at The Atlantic: America’s baby-formula shortage has gone from curious inconvenience to full-blown national crisis. In many states, including Texas and Tennessee, more than half of formula is sold out in stores. Nationwide, 40 percent of formula is out of stock—a twentyfold increase since the first half of 2021. As parents have started to stockpile formula, retailers such as Walgreens, CVS, and Target have all moved to limit purchases. Three factors are driving the U.S. baby-formula shortage: bacteria, a virus, and a trade policy. First, the bacteria. After the recent deaths of at least two infants from a rare infection, the Food and Drug Administration investigated Abbott, a major producer of infant formula, and discovered traces of the pathogen Cronobacter sakazakii in a Michigan plant. As a result, the FDA recalled several brands of formula, and parents were advised to not buy or use some formula tied to the plant. That brings us to the second cause: the virus. The pandemic has snarled all sorts of supply chains, but I can’t think of a market it’s yanked around more than infant formula. “During the spring of 2020, formula sales rocketed upwards as people stockpiled formula just like they stockpiled toilet paper,” Lyman Stone, the director of research at the consulting firm Demographic Intelligence, told me. Then, as “families worked through their stockpiles, sales fell a lot. This oscillation made planning for production extremely difficult. It was complicated to get an idea of the actual market size.” Meanwhile, Stone’s research has found that an uptick in births in early 2022 has corresponded with a “very dramatic decline in rates of breastfeeding” among new mothers, which pushed up demand for formula once again. In brief: Demand for formula surged as parents hoarded in 2020; then demand fell, leading suppliers to cut back production through 2021; and now, with more new mothers demanding more formula in 2022, orders are surging faster than supply is recovering. Finally, the third factor: America’s regulatory and trade policy. And while that might not sound as interesting to most people as bacteria and viruses, it might be the most important part of the story. FDA regulation of formula is so stringent that most of the stuff that comes out of Europe is illegal to buy here due to technicalities like labeling requirements. Nevertheless, one study found that many European formulas meet the FDA nutritional guidelines—and, in some ways, might even be better than American formula, because the European Union bans certain sugars, such as corn syrup, and requires formulas to have a higher share of lactose. Some parents who don’t care about the FDA’s imprimatur try to circumvent regulations by ordering formula from Europe through third-party vendors. But U.S. customs agents have been known to seize shipments at the border. U.S. policy also restricts the importation of formula that does meet FDA requirements. At high volumes, the tax on formula imports can exceed 17 percent. And under President Donald Trump, the U.S. entered into a new North American trade agreement that actively discourages formula imports from our largest trading partner, Canada. America’s formula policy warps the industry in one more way. The Department of Agriculture has a special group called WIC—short for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children—that provides a variety of services to pregnant and breastfeeding women and their young children. It is also the largest purchaser of infant formula in the United States, awarding contracts to a small number of approved formula companies. As a result, the U.S. baby formula industry is minuscule, by design. A 2011 analysis by USDA reported that three companies accounted for practically all U.S. formula sales: Abbott, Mead Johnson, and Gerber. Look, it can be a real blessing to have baby formula for any number of legitimate reasons, but in general, there’s a God-given supply of baby formula ordinarily available through breast milk. Remember, we slaughter babies by the millions through abortion. This shouldn’t be a crisis. If women embraced motherhood, if men embraced fatherhood, if sex was reserved for the covenant of marriage, and if our culture celebrated the motherhood as the highest calling of a woman, sure it would be a blessing to have alternative nutrition in unusual circumstances, but if women were not so concerned about getting back to work, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Lies, Propaganda, Story Telling, and the Serrated Edge DNB: This year our national conference is in Knoxville, TN October 6th-8th. The theme of this year’s conference is Lies, Propaganda, Storytelling and the Serrated Edge. Satan is the father of lies, and the mother of those lies is a government who has rejected God. We have especially been lied to these last two years, and the COVIDpanic has been one of the central mechanisms that our government has used to lie to us and to grab more power. Because Christians have not been reading their bibles, we are susceptible to lies and weak in our ability to fight these lies. God has given us His word to fight Satan and his lies, and we need to recover all of God’s word, its serrated edge and all. Mark your calendars for October 6th-8th, as we fight, laugh and feast with fellowship, beer and Psalms, our amazing lineup of speakers, hanging with our awesome vendors, meeting new friends, and more. Early bird tickets will be available starting in the middle of March. Go to FLFNetwork.com and click on “Come to the Conference.” https://notthebee.com/article/a-federal-court-just-ruled-that-californias-under-21-prohibition-on-semiautomatic-firearms-is-unconstitutional-and-the-court-cited-the-revolutionary-war-as-precedent- California's ban on semiautomatic weapons sales to adults under 21 was ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court on Wednesday... The court agreed in a 2-1 decision with the argument of the Firearms Policy Coalition, which brought the case challenging the law that took effect last July, saying it infringed on the Second Amendment rights of adults between the ages of 18 and 20… "America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our Revolutionary Army," Judge Ryan Nelson wrote for the appeals court. “Today we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.” The Psalm of the Day: Psalm 72 https://open.spotify.com/track/3tJNqzPNBKzIag3yQnLqG0?si=6b841d37db2141ba 0:00-0:43 Amen! This is Toby Sumpter with CrossPolitic News. Remember you can always find the links to our news stories and these psalms at crosspolitic dot com – just click on the daily news brief and follow the links. Or find them on our App: just search “Fight Laugh Feast” in your favorite app store and never miss a show. If this content is helpful to you, would you please consider becoming a Fight Laugh Feast Club Member? We are building a cancel-proof Christian media platform, and we can’t do it without your help. Join today and get a $100 discount at the Fight Laugh Feast conference in Knoxville, TN Oct. 6-8, and have a great day.

Louisiana prolife bill, Rand Paul, Baby Formula, and guns …and more on today’s CrossPolitic Daily News Brief. My name is Toby Sumpter and today is Friday, May 6, 2022. We are just days away from the last stop of our CrossPolitic Liberty Tour in Phoenix, Arizona. I would love to meet you in person in Phoenix, on May 19th. I will be joined by Chocolate Knox, the Gabe Rench the Water Boy, Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church, and Political analyst Delano Squires, who’s made appearances on the Blaze, and the Tucker Carlson show. Tickets are only $20, and we’ll be talking about the Five Stones of True Liberty. Sign up now at crosspolitic.com/libertytour. https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-led-louisiana-house-fails-to-pass-bill-abolishing-abortion Ben Zeisloft at the DailyWire reports: Members of the Louisiana House of Representatives failed to pass a bill that would have abolished abortion by applying homicide laws to women who procure the procedure. The Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act (HB813) — which has gained national and international media attention — recognizes “the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all unborn children from the moment of fertilization by protecting them by the same laws protecting other human beings.” Accordingly, it applied state laws about homicide to children in the womb. Last week, lawmakers on the Louisiana House’s criminal justice committee approved the bill by a 7 to 2 vote. However, after legislators approved an amendment on Thursday stating that “the pregnant female shall not be held responsible for the criminal consequences” of seeking an abortion by a 65 to 26 vote, State Rep. Danny McCormick — the Republican who sponsored HB813 — asked to pull the bill from the House floor. Louisiana Right to Life announced its opposition to HB813 ahead of the House vote because it applied criminal penalties to mothers who procure abortion. Likewise, Governor John Bel Edwards (D-LA) — remarking that his “Catholic Christian faith” teaches him to be pro-life — followed suit in opposing the legislation. “I felt I had to join my voice to the chorus of pro-life organizations against HB813,” he said in a statement. Pro-life activist Abby Johnson recently condemned Louisiana Right to Life for opposing HB813. “Either the preborn are fully human or they aren’t,” she saidon Twitter. “When abortion is illegal, people must pay the penalty for killing their children. These children deserve justice.” Replying to Edwards’ opposition to the bill, Johnson said, “Well, well, well. Look how many pro-aborts you have made happy!!” Brian Gunter — the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Livingston, Louisiana, who was instrumental in organizing other Christians in the state to support the legislation — told The Daily Wire that Edwards “believes there are no circumstances under which a woman should be held accountable if she knowingly and intentionally kills her preborn child.” “HB813 protects a woman who is coerced into an abortion and prosecutes the person who forces her to have an abortion,” he said of the bill in its original form. “If Governor Edwards believes the preborn child is just as much a person as the born child, then it is absurd for him to suggest that the preborn child should be discriminated against and denied equal protection under law. No one should be allowed to murder preborn children without consequences.” Last week, Gunter remarked to The Daily Wire that Louisiana’s current pro-life trigger law — the “The Human Life Protection Act” — only penalizes abortionists with $1,000 fines, even though animal cruelty is fined at up to $25,000 in Louisiana. https://thehill.com/news/senate/3486654-rand-paul-objection-delays-40-billion-ukraine-aid-package/ Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) hit the brakes Thursday on bipartisan hopes that the Senate could quickly pass nearly $40 billion in Ukraine aid before leaving town for the week. Paul objected to a deal offered by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer(D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would have set up votes on Thursday afternoon on the funding and on an amendment from Paul, who wanted to include language in the bill to expand an Afghanistan inspector general role to include oversight of the Ukraine funds. Paul blocked the votes because he wants his language inserted into the text of the bill instead of having to take his chance with an amendment vote, which could be blocked. The stalemate will delay the Senate’s passage of the Ukraine package until at least next week, and potentially beyond. “There is now only one thing holding us back, the junior senator from Kentucky is preventing swift passage of Ukraine aid because he wants to add, at the last minute, his own changes directly into the bill … He is not even asking for an amendment. He is simply saying my way or the highway,” Schumer said. “Ukraine is not asking us to fight this war. They’re only asking for the resources they need to defend themselves against this deranged invasion, and they need help right now,” McConnell said. Paul, however, warned about the pace of spending, arguing that “we cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy.” “Americans are feeling the pain [from inflation] and Congress seems intent only on adding to that pain by shoveling more money out the door as fast as they can,” Paul said. Did you know that more than 75% of those raised in evangelical, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches don’t pursue any kind of Christian higher education? Surprising isn’t it. Cornerstone Work & Worldview Institute is seeking to provide a new, exciting, and affordable option for Christians. Their mission is to build Kingdom culture in the workplace by equipping their students in a Trinitarian worldview and vocational competencies. Their low-cost full-time program offers integrative course modules, internships, and mentoring so their students can finish debt-free with vocational preparation, a robust faith, and financial potential to build strong godly families and homes rooted in their communities and churches long-term. Visit their website at www.cornerstonework.org to find out more about enrolling. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/baby-formula-shortage-abbott-recall/629828/ Derek Thompson at The Atlantic: America’s baby-formula shortage has gone from curious inconvenience to full-blown national crisis. In many states, including Texas and Tennessee, more than half of formula is sold out in stores. Nationwide, 40 percent of formula is out of stock—a twentyfold increase since the first half of 2021. As parents have started to stockpile formula, retailers such as Walgreens, CVS, and Target have all moved to limit purchases. Three factors are driving the U.S. baby-formula shortage: bacteria, a virus, and a trade policy. First, the bacteria. After the recent deaths of at least two infants from a rare infection, the Food and Drug Administration investigated Abbott, a major producer of infant formula, and discovered traces of the pathogen Cronobacter sakazakii in a Michigan plant. As a result, the FDA recalled several brands of formula, and parents were advised to not buy or use some formula tied to the plant. That brings us to the second cause: the virus. The pandemic has snarled all sorts of supply chains, but I can’t think of a market it’s yanked around more than infant formula. “During the spring of 2020, formula sales rocketed upwards as people stockpiled formula just like they stockpiled toilet paper,” Lyman Stone, the director of research at the consulting firm Demographic Intelligence, told me. Then, as “families worked through their stockpiles, sales fell a lot. This oscillation made planning for production extremely difficult. It was complicated to get an idea of the actual market size.” Meanwhile, Stone’s research has found that an uptick in births in early 2022 has corresponded with a “very dramatic decline in rates of breastfeeding” among new mothers, which pushed up demand for formula once again. In brief: Demand for formula surged as parents hoarded in 2020; then demand fell, leading suppliers to cut back production through 2021; and now, with more new mothers demanding more formula in 2022, orders are surging faster than supply is recovering. Finally, the third factor: America’s regulatory and trade policy. And while that might not sound as interesting to most people as bacteria and viruses, it might be the most important part of the story. FDA regulation of formula is so stringent that most of the stuff that comes out of Europe is illegal to buy here due to technicalities like labeling requirements. Nevertheless, one study found that many European formulas meet the FDA nutritional guidelines—and, in some ways, might even be better than American formula, because the European Union bans certain sugars, such as corn syrup, and requires formulas to have a higher share of lactose. Some parents who don’t care about the FDA’s imprimatur try to circumvent regulations by ordering formula from Europe through third-party vendors. But U.S. customs agents have been known to seize shipments at the border. U.S. policy also restricts the importation of formula that does meet FDA requirements. At high volumes, the tax on formula imports can exceed 17 percent. And under President Donald Trump, the U.S. entered into a new North American trade agreement that actively discourages formula imports from our largest trading partner, Canada. America’s formula policy warps the industry in one more way. The Department of Agriculture has a special group called WIC—short for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children—that provides a variety of services to pregnant and breastfeeding women and their young children. It is also the largest purchaser of infant formula in the United States, awarding contracts to a small number of approved formula companies. As a result, the U.S. baby formula industry is minuscule, by design. A 2011 analysis by USDA reported that three companies accounted for practically all U.S. formula sales: Abbott, Mead Johnson, and Gerber. Look, it can be a real blessing to have baby formula for any number of legitimate reasons, but in general, there’s a God-given supply of baby formula ordinarily available through breast milk. Remember, we slaughter babies by the millions through abortion. This shouldn’t be a crisis. If women embraced motherhood, if men embraced fatherhood, if sex was reserved for the covenant of marriage, and if our culture celebrated the motherhood as the highest calling of a woman, sure it would be a blessing to have alternative nutrition in unusual circumstances, but if women were not so concerned about getting back to work, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Lies, Propaganda, Story Telling, and the Serrated Edge DNB: This year our national conference is in Knoxville, TN October 6th-8th. The theme of this year’s conference is Lies, Propaganda, Storytelling and the Serrated Edge. Satan is the father of lies, and the mother of those lies is a government who has rejected God. We have especially been lied to these last two years, and the COVIDpanic has been one of the central mechanisms that our government has used to lie to us and to grab more power. Because Christians have not been reading their bibles, we are susceptible to lies and weak in our ability to fight these lies. God has given us His word to fight Satan and his lies, and we need to recover all of God’s word, its serrated edge and all. Mark your calendars for October 6th-8th, as we fight, laugh and feast with fellowship, beer and Psalms, our amazing lineup of speakers, hanging with our awesome vendors, meeting new friends, and more. Early bird tickets will be available starting in the middle of March. Go to FLFNetwork.com and click on “Come to the Conference.” https://notthebee.com/article/a-federal-court-just-ruled-that-californias-under-21-prohibition-on-semiautomatic-firearms-is-unconstitutional-and-the-court-cited-the-revolutionary-war-as-precedent- California's ban on semiautomatic weapons sales to adults under 21 was ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court on Wednesday... The court agreed in a 2-1 decision with the argument of the Firearms Policy Coalition, which brought the case challenging the law that took effect last July, saying it infringed on the Second Amendment rights of adults between the ages of 18 and 20… "America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our Revolutionary Army," Judge Ryan Nelson wrote for the appeals court. “Today we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.” The Psalm of the Day: Psalm 72 https://open.spotify.com/track/3tJNqzPNBKzIag3yQnLqG0?si=6b841d37db2141ba 0:00-0:43 Amen! This is Toby Sumpter with CrossPolitic News. Remember you can always find the links to our news stories and these psalms at crosspolitic dot com – just click on the daily news brief and follow the links. Or find them on our App: just search “Fight Laugh Feast” in your favorite app store and never miss a show. If this content is helpful to you, would you please consider becoming a Fight Laugh Feast Club Member? We are building a cancel-proof Christian media platform, and we can’t do it without your help. Join today and get a $100 discount at the Fight Laugh Feast conference in Knoxville, TN Oct. 6-8, and have a great day.

The boys are back to take another look at the last 7 days in Scottish Football and what a week it's been! Rangers in to a European final, Celtic 'Cinching' the title for the 10th time in 11 years, relegations, promotions and play offs... we LOVE Scottish Football! Another punter attempts to win the pies with piesports.com, Grado has 3 Riddles and Team Mates this week comes from Jamie Murphy!

This year, France is celebrating Portuguese culture with concerts, exhibitions and performances from the country's top artists. To mark the occasion, FRANCE 24's culture show Encore! takes you on a musical voyage to Lisbon. The Portuguese capital has a sound like no other European city, where a boom in music influenced by African beats is eroding social barriers and making waves internationally.

Matthew Shollar, co-founder of Transcend Cruises, talks with Alan Fine of Insider Travel Report about his brand new European river cruise charter company focused on groups with its first radically designed ships coming out in 2024. Shollar says he's ready to work with travel advisors to identify the group and charters hidden within their existing client base. For more information, visit www.Transcend.Cruises. If interested, the original video of this podcast can be found on the Insider Travel Report Youtube channel  or by searching for the podcast's title on Youtube. 

Thoughts from the Berlin hotel conference, where economic worries took the shine off what has, so far, been a strong recovery. But the global majors are setting such worries aside, helped by the return of the US market to 2019 levels, or even better. The laggard is China, where frustrations over the Chinese government's Covid-19 lockdown policy are becoming evident - and forcing Chinese hotel groups to keep cutting back. Will they sell up their European operations?

Indigenous writer and historian Nick Estes on a new report by the Interior Department that says at least 500 Indigenous children died at Indian boarding schools run or supported by the U.S. government; Calls grow for President Biden to grant clemency to imprisoned Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier; Journalists in Mexico are being killed with impunity in record numbers; European peace activists oppose Finland’s plans to end decades of neutrality and join NATO. Get Democracy Now! delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for the Daily Digest: democracynow.org/subscribe

About the guestAn artistic force in the broadest and most creative sense of the word, Darin Atwater's career has encompassed the roles of composer, conductor, pianist, record producer, artist, arranger, film composer, vocalist, entrepreneur, educator, and arts advocate. As a master inventor of musical hybrids, he has blended American pop, soul, Hip Hop, jazz, classical, and gospel music into many dazzling fusions, traversing virtually every medium, including records, live performance, radio, and television--literally reinventing the symphony orchestra in America.Born in Washington, D.C., Atwater made his orchestral debut as both composer and pianist in May 1995 with the National Symphony Orchestra performing his own Piano Concerto. The following year the National Symphony and the National Cathedral Choral Arts Society premiered his Proclamations. In 1997 he accompanied Kathleen Battle and the NSO for the re-opening of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall along with a performance that summer with Jennifer Holiday and the NSO for the PBS national broadcast of A Capitol Fourth. engagements with major orchestras, In Performance at The White House, European tour, and world premieres of his numerous compositions followed. As a guest conductor he has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, M phis Brass, and the Columbus Symphony. Atwater appears regularly with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis as both guest conductor and composer. From 20042007 Atwater served as Composer-in-Residence with the Baltimore Symphony. This collaboration produced many evening length works that have become staples in the repertoire. Among th are Song in a Strange Land, Evolution of a People, Paint Factory, Southern Folk Sketches, God's Trombones, and a ballet, Ghetto Safari. As solo artist, Atwater presented annually for the Steinway Series presented by the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. He was vocalist, pianist, and arranger with the U.S. Air Force Band for America's Veterans; A Musical Salute on PBS. Most recently, Atwater performed a solo piano recital for the grand opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the first artist to perform in the Oprah Winfrey Theatre.In 2000, Atwater founded Soulful Symphony, an 85 member orchestra with vocals made up of mostly African American and Latino musicians. After 10 wildly successful seasons of sell-outemperformances in a joint venture with the Baltimore Symphony, Soulful Symphony entered into a historic partnership with Broadway Across America. Soulful Symphony delivered another three seasons of sold outemperformances at the Hippodrome Theatre before a triumphant return to the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to celebrate 15 yearstaking an entire culture and setting it to music. The 2009 my Award(r)winning Soulful Symphony with Darin Atwater is one of the longest running pledge specials, airing currently nationwide on PBS/APT.Atwater r ains a strong advocate for Arts, Culture, and Music Education. He served on the board of Maryland Citizens for the Arts, testifying before the House and Senate for state and national funding. Through his work with Soulful Symphony, Atwater has lectured and spoken to countless schools along with hosting open rehearsals that has accompanied every concert since the inception of the organization.The critics' praise has been unanimous: The New York Times described him as composer with a muscular imagination. The Baltimore Sun wrote, Atwater has an uncommon ear for instrumental coloring and the urban beat. The Philadelphia Inquirer writes, Atwater has created a musical antidote for the malaise gripping classical music and is a unifying vessel for a dozen or so genres of music in the commercial and art realms The Washington Post adds, From the first few chords, his music sets itself apart, otional and riveting. Among his many honors and recognitions, NBC named him in The Grio 100: History Makers in the Making. Ebony magazine dubbed him one of the 30 Leaders of the Future, and the Baltimore Business Journal placed him on their exclusive 40 under 40 list. Atwater received The Prestige Award by the State of Maryland foremindividuals who bring prominence to the region along with Legends and Pioneers Award by The Afro American Newspaper and The Vision Award from Maryland Public Television. He was profiled on an ABC special for Entertainment Studios We are the Dream following President Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and the late Ted Kennedy.Along withemexpanding the cultural footprint of Soulful Symphony, He is scoring two feature films along with recording his debut album with a label releaseemscheduled for the summer of 2017. 2016-2017 seasonThe Truth In This ArtThe Truth In This Art is a podcast interview series supporting vibrancy and development of Baltimore & beyond's arts and culture.Mentioned in this episodeDarin Atwater - Kennedy CenterTo find more amazing stories from the artist and entrepreneurial scenes in & around Baltimore, check out my episode directory.Stay in TouchNewsletter sign-upSupport my podcastShareable link to episode★ Support this podcast ★

Indigenous writer and historian Nick Estes on a new report by the Interior Department that says at least 500 Indigenous children died at Indian boarding schools run or supported by the U.S. government; Calls grow for President Biden to grant clemency to imprisoned Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier; Journalists in Mexico are being killed with impunity in record numbers; European peace activists oppose Finland’s plans to end decades of neutrality and join NATO. Get Democracy Now! delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for the Daily Digest: democracynow.org/subscribe

The RSA Conference, the world's leading information security conference, will hold its annual cybersecurity conference June 6-9 at The Moscone Center in San Francisco. 50,000 people in the industry -- from vendors and company executives to policymakers and academics -- will converge to talk about current and future cyber and privacy concerns, ideas and solutions.In this episode of the Look Left podcast, Davida Dinerman speaks with award-winning cybersecurity and privacy journalist Mathew Schwartz. Since 2014, Mat has been with Information Security Media Group, where he now serves as the executive editor for DataBreachToday and for European news coverage. For a preview of what will be new and exciting at RSA 2022, check out these highlights:02:31 - The ISMG team that will be at RSA04:56 - After a two year in-person hiatus, what is Mat looking for at RSA this year?06:29 - 2022 trends in cybersecurity08:45 - The latest coverage areas for ISMG12:02 - Burnout factors impacting CISOs14:49 - Changes in RSA through the years19:40 - The evolution of today's cyber threats20:52 - Mat's “shock and awe” approach to covering RSA26:41 - Mat's advice for first time attendees at RSA30:38 - Having fun at RSA

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's collective-defence deal with Swedish and Finnish leaders represents a shift in the European order—and Britain's post-Brexit place in it. Our correspondent visits Great Zimbabwe, a long-overlooked archaeological site of stunning proportions whose secrets are only now being revealed. And a look at the weird sensory thrill of ASMR through a new exhibition. For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's collective-defence deal with Swedish and Finnish leaders represents a shift in the European order—and Britain's post-Brexit place in it. Our correspondent visits Great Zimbabwe, a long-overlooked archaeological site of stunning proportions whose secrets are only now being revealed. And a look at the weird sensory thrill of ASMR through a new exhibition. For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today, I am blessed to have here with me, Dr. Lana Morrow. She is an award-winning functional medicine neuroscientist, Founder, CEO, and creator of the THINK system and is an expert in dopamine, executive functions, and neurotechnology.  She has worked with students, diplomats, actors, European royalty, and Fortune 500 CEOs in Manhattan, Paris, and Rome. Engaging with students and professionals, Dr. Morrow improves their attention, mood, and academic and sports performance. She has been featured in the New York Times, Panorama, RAI 2, and various other media. Known for her innovative and caring approach, Dr. Morrow helps many achieve optimal potential with advanced approaches. Dr. Morrow founded THINK Interfaces in order to create non-invasive, non-pharmacological methods for remediation of attentional and movement related disorders. She is passionate about helping her clients elevate their cognitive performance, longevity and memory. She is a Galileo2000 Award winner, and recognized as a pioneer in brain computer interfaces and neuroeconomy.    Dr. Morrow earned a doctoral degree in cognitive neuroscience from Sapienza University in Rome, Italy, was a visiting researcher at the Sorbonne in Paris, and completed her post-doctoral training at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, performing EEG-based brain mapping techniques in dopamine research and at Columbia Presbyterian hospital.  Her skills also include treatment of learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder and the differential diagnosis of complex brain disorders. As a neuroscientist, she conducts research collaborations with major universities in Europe and the United States. In this episode, Dr. Lana Morrow speaks about the inspiration behind her career as a neuroscientist. One of Dr. Morrow's passions is helping children with ADHD through neuro programs disguised as video games. Then, we dive into dopamine and what you need to know about this powerful neurotransmitter. Dr. Morrow reveals brain hacks you can start doing right now that will increase your dopamine levels. Tune in as we chat about Dr. Morrow's work in helping people overcome debilitating issues and how your thoughts can create new brain cells.  Purchase Ari's new book Eat For Energy here: https://bit.ly/3Fka6VB Free 7 Day Keto Challenge May 9th 2022. Register your free spot here: https://kka.mykajabi.com/keto-challenge Get Keto Flex on Audible for Free (New Customers Only): https://adbl.co/36d6A24 Get Keto Flex on Audible here for current customers: https://adbl.co/3699lBm / / E P I S O D E   S P ON S O R S  PureForm Omega Plant Based Oils (Best Alternative to Fish Oil): http://www.purelifescience.com Use ben4 for $4.00 off. Paleo Valley beef sticks, apple cider vinegar complex, organ meat complex & more. Use the coupon code KETOKAMP15 over at https://paleovalley.com/ to receive 15% off your entire order. Upgraded Formulas Hair Mineral Deficiency Analysis & Supplements: http://www.upgradedformulas.com Use KETOKAMP15 at checkout for 15% off your order.  Text me the words "Podcast" +1 (786) 364-5002 to be added to my contacts list.  [00:45] The Inspiration Behind Dr. Lana Morrow's Career as a Neuroscientist  We don't choose our vocation; it chooses us. For Dr. Morrow, she is on a mission to make humanity stronger.  Eventually, Dr. Morrow opened a private practice in New York City and worked with many ADHD children.  Countless ADHD children also have congenital heart issues; therefore, they can't take stimulants.  So, Dr. Morrow started to create video games; in reality, they are neuro programs. She likes to bring the fun into healing.   [08:15] Understanding Dopamine 101: The Pathway To Pleasure  Dopamine is a style of neurons anatomy. A neuron is comprised of long sausage-like connection accents. A key and lock system enables the dopamine or any other neurotransmitter to flow from one end of the presynaptic to the postsynaptic gap. Dopamine is popular because it is responsible for our reward system.  Once your vagus nerve is stimulated correctly, you will have a flow of dopamine, which is crucial for your wellbeing.  [13:40] Brain Hacks: How To Improve Your Dopamine Levels  Turn off your phone for three minutes. Go barefoot on the grass. Take a look at the sunshine. Move your head to the left and the right in the sun.  Spending time in the sun will regulate your melatonin and regulate your inner lining of mitochondria.  [28:40] How Dr. Morrow Has Helped People Overcome Debilitating Issues Dr. Morrow's system has helped 82 traumatic brain injury clients. She will get rid of people's mental fog and anxiety and increase mobility.  Everyone can get themselves out of massive trauma.  It's so important to support each other.  Dr. Morrow has helped people get rid of their ADHD and ADD.  Plus, she helps people improve their focus.  [41:40] Find Out More About Dr. Morrow's Work With The Brain Email: DrMorrowTeam@thinkinterfaces.com Website: https://www.thinkinterfaces.com Find Dr. Morrow on Instagram: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlanamorrow/. Overall, we all want to get to the next level.  Dr. Morrow says it's all about bringing your mind and your body into synchronicity.  [43:40] Your Thoughts Can Create New Brain Cells - Remember To Practice Gratitude With your thoughts, you can create new neurogenesis, which creates new brain cells.  If you have 60,000 thoughts per day, those are 60,000 opportunities to put your body in a healing state. You can look younger, look more muscular, feel stronger, and be healthier through keto.  Gratitude and ketosis work incredibly well together.  AND MUCH MORE! Resources from this episode:  Check out Think Interfaces: https://www.thinkinterfaces.com Follow Dr. Lana Morrow LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanamorrow/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlanamorrow/ Email: DrMorrowTeam@thinkinterfaces.com Join the Keto Kamp Academy: https://ketokampacademy.com/7-day-trial-a Watch Keto Kamp on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUh_MOM621MvpW_HLtfkLyQ Watch Keto Kamp on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUh_MOM621MvpW_HLtfkLyQ Free 7 Day Keto Challenge May 9th 2022. Register your free spot here: https://kka.mykajabi.com/keto-challenge Get Keto Flex on Audible for Free (New Customers Only): https://adbl.co/36d6A24 Get Keto Flex on Audible here for current customers: https://adbl.co/3699lBm / / E P I S O D E   S P ON S O R S  PureForm Omega Plant Based Oils (Best Alternative to Fish Oil): http://www.purelifescience.com Use ben4 for $4.00 off. Paleo Valley beef sticks, apple cider vinegar complex, organ meat complex & more. Use the coupon code KETOKAMP15 over at https://paleovalley.com/ to receive 15% off your entire order. Upgraded Formulas Hair Mineral Deficiency Analysis & Supplements: http://www.upgradedformulas.com Use KETOKAMP15 at checkout for 15% off your order.  Text me the words "Podcast" +1 (786) 364-5002 to be added to my contacts list.  *Some Links Are Affiliates* // F O L L O W ▸ instagram | @thebenazadi | http://bit.ly/2B1NXKW ▸ facebook | /thebenazadi | http://bit.ly/2BVvvW6 ▸ twitter | @thebenazadi http://bit.ly/2USE0so ▸clubhouse | @thebenazadi Disclaimer: This podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast including Ben Azadi disclaim responsibility from any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not accept responsibility of statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guests qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or non-direct interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician.

US equity futures are indicating a higher open as of 05:00 ET. A bit of a relief rally on Friday following some heavy selling as Central bank policy remains in focus with markets taking encouragement from Fed Chair Powell reiterating support. European equity markets opened higher following broad strength in Asia. Companies Mentioned: Roper Technologies, Toshiba

Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Support The Daily Gardener Buy Me A Coffee    Connect for FREE! The Friday Newsletter |  Daily Gardener Community   Historical Events 1815 On this day, Mary Russell Mitford wrote about the changing times in a letter to her friend, Sir William Elford, English banker, politician, and amateur artist. Our grandmothers, when about to make a beau-pot (A large ornamental vase for cut flowers.), proceeded, I fancy, much as their gardeners when clipping a yew hedge or laying out a parterre.  Every stalk and stem was in its place; tulip answered tulip, and peony stared at peony.  Even a rebellious leaf was reduced to order, and the huge bouquet spread its tremendous width as flat, as stiff, and almost as ugly as its fair framer's painted fan.  We, their granddaughters, throw our honeysuckles and posies into their vases with little other care than to produce the grace of nature by its carelessness and profusion.  And why should we not...?   1896 Death of Nora Perry, American poet, newspaper correspondent, and writer. In her poem, What May Be, Nora wrote, When the days are longer, longer, And the sun shines stronger, stronger, And the winds cease blowing, blowing, And the winter's chance of snowing Is lost in springtime weather. Here's an excerpt from her poem, The Coming of Spring. All this changing tint,  This whispering stir and hint  Of bud and bloom and wing,  Is the coming of the spring. So, silently but swift, Above the wintry drift, The long days gain and gain, Until on hill and plain— Once more, and yet once more, Returning as before, We see the bloom of birth Make young again the earth   1906 Birth of Enid Annenberg Haupt, American publisher and philanthropist.  The president of the New York Botanical Garden called Enid, The greatest patron American horticulture has ever known. Enid was one of eight children; her parents, Sadie and Moses, had one son and seven daughters. Her father was the founder of a large publishing empire. Enid followed in his footsteps and became an heiress to the large family fortune. Enid's first marriage ended in divorce. Her second marriage to Ira Haupt launched her philanthropic activities and introduced her to the world of gardening. When they got engaged, Ira gave Enid a cymbidium orchid. Enid was immediately enthralled by it. She told Ira that for her wedding present from him, she would be very happy with a gift of 13 cymbidium orchids. Enid's brother, Walter, put her in charge of the magazine Seventeen in 1953. During her tenure, Seventeen magazine was more popular than Glamor and twice as popular as Mademoiselle. At one point, more than half of the teenage girls in the United States were reading Seventeen magazine. Enid ran the magazine until 1970. When Enid died in 2005, she had donated more than $140 million to charities. Her favorite charities involved gardening. This is how Enid became known as "the fairy godmother of American horticulture" and "the patron saint of public gardens." One of Enid's most significant gifts was to the New York Botanical Garden. Over her lifetime, Enid gave them over $34 million – $5 million of which was dedicated to restoring the stunning Victorian glass greenhouse now called the Enid Haupt Conservancy. Without Enid, the greenhouse would have been demolished. After she retired from Seventeen magazine, Enid learned that the Soviet Union was considering purchasing River Farm, the 27-acre property once owned by George Washington as part of his Mount Vernon estate. The news was abhorrent to Enid. In 1973, she donated a million dollars to the American Horticultural Society to buy the property with the stipulation that it would remain open to the public. In November 2020, the American Horticultural Society attempted to sell River Farm for $32.9 million. AHS Board Chair Terry Hayes argued that selling River Farm was the only way to effectively carry out its national mission of “connecting people with plants and to help all Americans learn about sustainable gardening.” The move caused a rift on the board after five board members — Skipp Calvert, Tim Conlon, Holly Shimizu, Marcia Zech, and Laura Dowling — argued that it was "not only morally and ethically wrong, but... fraught with serious legal issues.” A year later, in the fall of 2021, the AHS officially took River Farm off the market. The AHS board had shrunk to the five board members who had fought to keep the historic property. In a statement, they said River Farm would remain as the permanent headquarters of the AHS and as a green space open to the public in honor of Enid Annenberg Haupt.   1823 On this day, William Bartram, American botanist, ornithologist, natural historian, and explorer, wrote in his diary that there were, numerous tribes of small birds, feeding on the aphids on the apple, pear trees - towhe buntings building their nests in the garden. Sharon White summarizes William Bartram's May garden life in her book Vanished Gardens: Finding Nature in Philadelphia (2011). May was misty sometimes with a morning wind and cruel with cold rains for a week "injurious to vegitation and to the farmers. Wheat just begining to ear appears to be blasted in many instances," and young birds drowned in their nests on the ground.   Now and then Bartram's notations look different, smaller script, less detail.    In the last year he kept the diary his writing scrawls across one page as if his hand slipped.   The green twig whortleberry is in flower on May 6 in 1802, and the next May he records that a bullfrog swallowed: large mole instantly. That May there was hard frost on the seventh that killed the young shoots of trees and shrubs.    Grow That Garden Library™ Book Recommendation The Multifarious Mr. Banks by Toby Musgrave This book came out in 2020, and the subtitle is From Botany Bay to Kew, The Natural Historian Who Shaped the World. Toby Musgrave is a plant and garden historian, independent scholar, and consultant. He is the author or coauthor of eighteen books. By the way, a multifarious person has many sides or different qualities, and you can see for yourself that Banks was a tremendous personal force in Toby's introduction: Sir Joseph Banks was only twenty-five years old when in 1768 he convinced both the prestigious Royal Society and the bureaucratic Admiralty that he should join HMS Endeavour as expedition natural historian. He personally paid a fortune toundertake the three-year voyage led by James Cook, and en route became the first European to make an extensive study of the natural history and anthropology of Tahiti,' New Zealand and Australia. He is said to have had an affair with the 'queen of Tahiti' and, upon his return, he jilted his fiancée. Later, as a close personal friend of King George III, he persuaded the monarch that he was the man to develop the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. Under Banks's leadership it became the world's leading botanic garden, a position it still holds today.   This book is 386 pages of the biography of Joseph Banks and all he accomplished during his incredible life of adventure and botany. You can get a copy of The Multifarious Mr. Banks by Toby Musgrave and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $39.   Botanic Spark 1907 Birth of the English author and playwright Daphne du Maurier (“Mor-ee-aya”)(books by this author), who was born in London. She was the middle daughter of a well-to-do family of creative bohemian artists and writers. Her father was a famous actor and a favorite of James Barrie - the author of Peter Pan. Daphne's writing inspired Alfred Hitchcock - especially her novels Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and her short story, The Birds. In 1938 Daphne published her popular book, Rebecca. It has never gone out of print. During the pandemic in 2020, Netflix released their movie version of Rebecca starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, and Kristin Scott Thomas. In Rebecca, Daphne writes about the beautiful azaleas that grow on the estate at Manderley. And she says that the blooms were used to make a perfume for its late mistress. Yet, most azalea growers know that this is likely an example of artistic license since most evergreen azaleas have little to no fragrance. That said, some native deciduous azaleas can be very fragrant. In the opening pages of Rebecca, Daphne's narrator vividly describes the wild and wooly garden of Manderley: I saw that the garden had obeyed the jungle law, even as the woods had done. The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard thing that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another, the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners.   Daphne du Maurier incorporated gardens into many of her books. Her daughters recall that their mother loved flowers and flower arranging. Their home was always filled with flowers.  Yet, in her book, The King's General, as in Rebecca, the garden can feel like a dangerous place at times. I was a tiny child again at Radford, my uncle's home, and he was walking me through the glass houses in the gardens. There was one flower, an orchid, that grew alone; it was the color of pale ivory, with one little vein of crimson running through the petals. The scent filled the house, honeyed and sickly sweet. It was the loveliest flower I had ever seen. I stretched out my hand to stroke the soft velvet sheen, and swiftly my uncle pulled me by the shoulder. ‘Don't touch it, child. The stem is poisonous.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener And remember: For a happy, healthy life, garden every day.