Podcasts about General Jackson

NEON COWGIRL  "The Neon Cowgirl-towering over Broadway like the patron saint of heartbreak in downtown Nashville as she smiles coyly over her shoulder in red cowboy boots-watched me grow up. Basking in her glow, I walked wide-eyed into the Ryman Auditorium as a 16 year-old, clutching my ticket. Later that night, dreaming of standing on that stage,  I drifted off to sleep in the bunk of our home on wheels at the KOA next to the Opry. When I was 18, she saw me flipping through Loretta Lynn CDs in Ernest Tubb Record Shop after performing the breakfast and lunch shows on the General Jackson showboat with my parents and brothers in our family band, The Neilsons. At 25, she watched me running all over town, meeting up with other songwriters-writing, writing, writing-before I had to fly back home to Canada again. At 30, I returned as a newlywed on my honeymoon, flying in from New Zealand where I'd moved for love, holding hands with my new husband in Hatch Show Print, introducing him to her like a family member. A decade passed without her as I built a life on the other side of the world and raised 2 babies. My heart raced as I returned to her once again, to showcase at Americanafest, playing to 12 people at 3rd and Lindsley. 5 years and many showcases later, I swear she smiled right at me as I stopped to point her out to my two children as we walked past her, through the doors of the Ryman to finally perform for the first time. NEON COWGIRL represents a lifelong dream of chasing Nashville and country music. I've loved her my whole life, even when she breaks my heart over and over again."   This weeks guest = Tami Neilson - through much hard work,  fierce determination and drive has begun to make all her dreams come true. She is blessed with a voice that's been described as "a fire breathing R&B belter" by Rolling Stone. Tami has now played the Ryman, sung a duet with her hero Willie Nelson. Travelled the highways and cities of the USA and Canada in an RV  with her NZ family,  so they could experience where she came from and the places on the planet she was singing about. Her latest adventure was opening for Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan as part of the Outlaw Music Festival.  Dreams DO come true. She's done all this while dealing with health issues and her brother Jay's recovery from major surgery. 

Today on Welcome to Cloudlandia, Our discussion unravels the surprises of Ontario's geography, the nuances of tariff wars, and the timeless drive for ambition, ensuring you're well-equipped with insights into how technology continues to redefine the global landscape. Discover how NuCom's innovative app is revolutionizing sleep and relaxation. We dive into the specifics of how its unique audio tracks, like "Summer Night," are enhancing REM and deep sleep, all while adding a humorous twist with a comparison to Italian driving laws. With separate audio for each ear and playful suggestions for use, you'll learn how this app is setting new standards for flexibility and effectiveness in achieving tranquility. Finally, we ponder the evolving nature of trust in a world increasingly dominated by AI and digital interactions. Drawing inspiration from thinkers like Jacques Ellul and Thomas Sowell, we discuss the societal shifts driven by technological advances and the potential need for encryption to verify digital identities. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We discuss the intriguing journey from Ontario's cottages to the realm of international trade, focusing on how AI is reshaping trade agreements and challenging the predictability of global politics. Dean explores NuCom's innovative app designed to improve sleep and relaxation through unique audio tracks, highlighting its effectiveness in enhancing REM and deep sleep. We ponder the evolving nature of trust in a digital world increasingly dominated by AI, exploring how we can maintain authentic human interactions amid rapidly advancing generative tools. Dan shares a humorous story of two furniture companies' escalating marketing claims, setting the stage for a discussion on capitalism and the importance of direct referrals in business. We delve into the impact of technology on society, drawing insights from Jacques Ellul and Thomas Sowell, and compare AI's transformative potential to historical technological advancements like the printing press. Dean highlights the importance of personalized market strategies, exploring how personal solutions can evolve into valuable products for a wider audience. We explore the concept of ambition and agency, discussing how adaptability and a forward-looking mindset can help navigate new realities and unpredictable changes in the world. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: Ah, Mr Jackson. General Jackson. General Jackson. Dictator Jackson Dean: Now there's two thoughts that are hard to contain in the brain at the same time. Are you in Toronto or at the cottage today? At the cottage, look at you, okay. Dan: Yeah, all is well, very nice day, yeah, except our water went out and so we can't get it fixed until tomorrow morning because it's cottage country. Till tomorrow morning because it's cottage country. And you know, this is not one of those 24-7 everybody's available places on the planet. Dean: Where do people in cottage country go to get away from the hustle and bustle of cottage country on the weekends? Dan: Yeah, it's a good question. It's a good question. It's a good question they go about two hours north. Dean: It feels like that's the appropriate amount of distance to make it feel like you're getting away. Dan: In the wild. Dean: Yeah. Dan: So we're having to use lake water for priming the vital plumbing. Dean: The plumbing you have to do. Dan: You have to have pails of water to do that and we'll do. Even though it feels like a third world situation, that's actually a first world problem. Dean: You're right, you're exactly right. Dan: Yeah, yeah, beautiful day, though. Nice and bright, and the water is surprisingly warm because we had a cold winter and the spring was really cold and we have a very deep lake. It's about um the depth meters on the boats go down to 300 feet, so that's a pretty deep lake that's a deep lake. Yeah, yeah, so here we are here's a factoid that blew my mind. The province of Ontario, which is huge it's 1,000 miles north to south and it's 1,200 miles east to west has 250,000 freshwater lakes, and that's half the freshwater lakes on the planet. Isn't that amazing? Dean: Yeah, I heard a little. There's some interesting Ontario facts. I remember being awed when I found out that you could drive the entire distance from Toronto to Florida north and still be in Ontario. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah, If you go from the furthest east, which is Cornwall a little town called Cornwall to the furthest west, which is a town called Kenora Right, kenora to the furthest west, which is a town called canora right, uh, canora. It's the same distance from that as from washington dc to kansas city. Oh, that's amazing yeah I had a good. Dean: I had a friend who was from canora. He was an olympic decathlete, michael sm. He was on the Olympic decathlon team and that's where he was from Kenora, kenora. Dan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of big. I mean most of it's bugs, you know most of it's bugs. It's not, you know, the 90% of the Ontario population lives within an hour 100 miles of the? U, lives within an hour a hundred miles of the US. Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean that's it's if you go from the east coast to the west coast of Canada. It's just a 3,200 mile ribbon, about a hundred miles high that's really can't. From a human standpoint, that's really Canada. Everything else is just bugs yeah. Dean: So it's very. I guess you've been following the latest in the tariff wars. You know again Canada with the oh yeah, well, we're going to tax all your digital things, okay. Dan: Okay, yeah, okay we're done. Yeah, we're done. That's it Good luck Stay tuned. Dean: We'll let you know how much we're going to charge you to do business. I mean, where does this posturing end, you know? Where do you see this heading? Dan: Well, when you say posturing, you're Well. Dean: I don't think I mean it's. Dan: There's a no. It's the reworking of every single trade agreement with every single country on the planet, which they can do now because they have AI. Yeah, I mean, you could never do this stuff before. That's why using past precedents of tariffs and everything else is meaningless. Dean: Well, here's an example. Dan: If the bombing of Iran, which happened in recent history, iran which happened in recent history, if that had happened 30 years ago, you would have had a real oil and gas crunch in the world. Everything would crunch, but because people have instant communications and they have the ability to adjust things immediately. Now, all those things which in the past they said well, if you do that, then this is going to happen. Now I don't think anything's going to happen, Everybody's just going to adjust. First of all, they've already built in what they're going to do before it happens. You know, if this happens, then this is what we're going to do. And everybody's interconnected, so messages go out, you know they drop the bomb, the news comes through and in that let's say hour's time for everybody involved. Probably you know 10 billion decisions have been made and agreed on and everybody's off and running again. Yes, yeah. Dean: Yeah, it's amazing how this everything can absorb. Dan: I think the AI changes politics. I think it changes, I think it changes everything. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Dean: Agreed, yeah, but, but, but not necessarily in any predictable way, mm-hmm. Right, exactly. Dan: Yeah. Dean: But meanwhile we are a timeless technology. Dan: We are. Dean: I was rereading you Are a Timeless Technology. Yeah, these books, Dan, are so good oh thank you. Yeah, I mean, they really are, and it's just more and more impressive when you see them all you know lined up 40 of them, or 44 of them, or whatever. I'm on 43. Dan: I'm on 43. 43 of them yeah, I'm on 43. I'm on 43. 43 of them, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This one's called Always More Ambitious, and we talked about this in the recent In the free zone yeah. In the free zone that I'm seeing ambition as just the capability platform for all other capabilities. Dean: Yes, you know, you have ambition and you know or you don't. Dan: And then agency goes along with that concept that, depending on your ambition, you have the ability to adjust very, very quickly to new things. For example, getting here and, uh, it was very interesting. We got here yesterday and, um, we had an early dinner. We had an early steak dinner because we were going to a party and we didn't think that they would have the kind of steak at the party that we were right, they didn't have any steak at all. Oh, boy, and they had everything that I'm eating steak. The reason I'm eating steak is not to eat the stuff that's at the party. Right, exactly, yes, I mean, I'm just following in the paths of the mentor here, of the mentor here, anyway, anyway, um, so you know, all the water was working and everything, and when we went to the party we came home and the water didn't work and it's some electrical connection you know, that in the related to the pump and um and anyway, and I just adjusted. you know, it was still light out, so I got a bucket and I went down to the lake and I got a bucket full of water and I brought it up and you know, and I was really pleased with OK. Ok, scene change. Dean: Yeah right, Exactly yeah. Scene change. Dan: Ok, you, you gotta adjust to the new one, and I'm new reality, right yeah, new reality. Okay, what you thought was going to happen isn't going to happen. Something is going to happen and that's agency. That's really what agency is in the world. It's your ability to switch channels that there's a new situation and you have the ability not to say, oh, I'm, oh, why, jane? You know, and you know that long line of things where, maybe 10 years ago, I was really ticked off and you know and, uh, you know, you know, I checked if I had any irish whiskey, just to to dead dead in the pain. Dean: All right. Dan: Yeah, and I just adjusted. You know? Yeah, this morning I took a Pyrex you know, the bowls you use to mix things, the mixing bowls you know, yes and I just filled it up with water, put it in the microwave. It still works, the microwave. Went and I shaved, you know, and. Dean: I shaved Right. There you go. Dan: Yeah, you can do a washcloth bath if you need to. Warm water, yeah, but the interesting thing about it is that I think that you don't have agency unless you have ambition. In other words, you have to have a fix on the future, that you're going to achieve this, you're going to achieve this, you're going to achieve this, and it's out of that ambition that you constantly develop new capabilities. And then the other thing is you utilize all the capabilities you have if something goes you know goes unpredictable. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And my. Dan: Thing is that this is the world. Now, I mean, you know and so, and anyway it's, it's an interesting thing, you know but I'm really enjoying. I'm really enjoying my relationship with perplexity. I'm sort of a one master, I'm a one master dog. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: Like I listened to Mike Koenigs and he's investigated 10 new AIs in the four weeks since I talked to him last. Dean: He's doing that there. Dan: I'm just going developing this working relationship with one. Dean: I don't even know. Dan: If it's, is it a good one? I don't even know if perplexity is one of the top ones, you know, but it's good for my purposes. Dean: Well, for certain things it is yeah, for just gathering and contextualizing internet search stuff. But you know I look at Mike, as you often talk about Joe Polish, that you know. You don't need to know everybody, you need to know Joe Polish. I just need to know Joe, anybody you want to meet, you just mention it to Joe and he can make it happen. And I'd look at Mike Koenigs like that with AI tools. We don't need to know all the AI tools. Dan: We just need to stay in touch with Mike. Dean: Mike and Lior and Evan, you know we're surrounded by people who are on the. Dan: Yeah. And Tom Labatt do you know Tom, yeah, well, tom has created this AI mindset course that he's doing. And and he he comes to every one of our 10 times. Our connector calls, you know the two hour Zoom calls. So we've got every month I have two for 10x and I have two for FreeZone and and he's in breakout groups and every time he's in a breakout group. He acquires another customer. Dean: Right. Dan: And then I'll have Mike talk about what he's discovered recently. His number goes into chat and you know know, 10 people phone him up and say what's this all about? And it's amazing the, the uh, what I would say the um, um progress in our strategic coach clients just acquiring ai knowledge and mindsets and capabilities just by having one person who I just get him to talk to on a Zoom call. Dean: Yeah, it's pretty amazing yeah. Dan: I think this is kind of how electricity got foothold. Did you get electricity in your house? Yeah, yeah, yeah and you have electric lights. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and you have electric lights. Yeah, yeah, I do, yeah, yeah, you know, it's, you know. And then all sorts of new electrical devices are being created. Dean: Yes, that's what I'm curious, charlotte about the, the, uh. What were the first sort of wave of electrified uh conveniences? You know that. Where did we? Where did we start? I know it started with lights, but then. Dan: Yeah, I think lights obviously were the first. Yeah, yeah. It would have taken some doing, I think actually. I mean, once you have a light bulb and they're being manufactured, it's a pretty easy. You can understand how quickly it could be adapted. But all the other things like electric heaters, that would take a lot of thinking. Dean: Before what we're used to as the kind of two or three prong, you know thing that we stick into the wall. Before that was invented, the the attachment was that you would plug it into the light socket. Dan: Oh yeah, that was how you would access the electricity. That's right, you had a little screw in. Right, you had a little screw in that you could put in. Yeah, I remember having those yeah. Dean: Very interesting, that's right. Dan: Right, yeah, yeah. And then you created lawn wires that you could, you know you could you know, it's like a pug, but you needed something to screw into the light socket. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, very, I mean it's, it's so. Yeah, what a. What a time. We had a great um. I don't know if we recorded um. We uh, chad and I did a vcr formula workshop the day in toronto, in toronto, yeah, and that was a really the first time we'd done anything like a sort of formalized full-day exploration. It's amazing to see just how many you know shining a light for people on their VCR assets and thinking of it as currency and thinking of it as currency and it's amazing how, you know, seeing it apply to others kind of opens their eyes to the opportunities that they have. You know, yeah, it was really I'm very excited about the, just the adaptability of it. It's a really great framework. Dan: Have you gotten? Your NuCom yet? Dean: I have absolutely. Dan: I really love it what's your favorite? I have different. First of all, I use the one at night that sounds like crickets. Okay, yeah, you know, it's 10 hours, you can put it on for 10. It's called Summer Night and it's got some. There's a sort of faint music track to it. But my aura, I noticed my aura that my REM scores went up, my deep sleep scores went up and the numbers you know. Usually I'm in the high 70s. You know 79, 80, and they jumped to 86, 87. And that's just for sleep, which is great. So I've had about two weeks like that where I would say I'm probably my sleep scores I'll just pick a number there but it's probably up around 50, 15, 15, better in all the categories and that and. But the one thing is the readiness. The readiness because I play the trackster in the day. But the one thing is the readiness, the readiness because I play the trackster in the day. But the one that I really like to have on when I'm working is ignite okay yeah, it's a. It's a really terrific. It's really terrific, that's right I haven't used any of the daytime. Uh, yeah, the daytime yeah, yeah, and then the rescue is really great. Okay, yeah, and you know For people listening. Dean: We're talking about an app on iPhone called NuCom N-U N-U-Com, yeah, and it's basically, you know, waves, background music. I mean, it's masked by music, but it's essentially waves. Dan: Apparently. We were in Nashville last week and David Hasse is experimenting with it. He says what they have is that they have two separate tracks. I use earphones and one track comes in through your right ear, one comes and your brain has to put the two tracks together, and that's what uh, so it elevates the brain waves or kind of takes the brain waves down. And there's music. Dean: You know the music yeah over and uh, but I noticed mentioned to me that the music is incidental, that the music has nothing to do with it. Dan: No, that's exactly right, it just gives your brain something to hold on to Attached to yeah. And then Rescue is really great. I mean that one. Just you know if you have any upset or anything, or you're just really busy, or you're enjoying anything. You just put it on, it just calms you right down. Dean: Did you notice that the recommendation on Ignite is to not use more than 60 minutes a day? Dan: Yeah, I doubt if I do. I think it's about a 14-minute track. Oh, okay, yeah, interesting, yeah, but that's a suggestion. Dean: Yeah, it is a suggestion. That's right, that's funny. Dan: Now what you're talking about. There is a suggestion. That's right, Now what you're talking about. There is a suggestion. Dean: That's all suggested. That's right. Dan: That reminds me of I was in Italy, I was on the Amalfi Coast and Italians have a very interesting approach to laws and regulations, you know. So we were going down the street and I was sitting right next to the bus driver, we were on a bus and a whole group of people on the bus, and so we come down to a perpendicular stop. You know you can't go across, you have to turn, and the sign is clearly says to the, and the driver turns to the left, and I said I think that was a right-hand turn. He said merely a suggestion. I love it. Dean: That's great. Dan: Merely a suggestion. Yeah, that's funny, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's funny. Have lawsuits, you know, like something like this. I mean, it's a litigious country, the. Dean: United States. Dan: Yeah, and so you know they may be mentally unbalanced, you know they may be having all sorts of problems. And they said why don't we just put in recommended not to use it more than an hour? So I think that's really what it is. That's funny. Yeah, Like the Ten Commandments, you know, I mean the suggestions yeah, there are ten suggestions, you know, yeah, yeah, but break two of them at the same time and you're going to find out. It's more than a suggestion. Yeah, fool around and find out, yeah I think in terms of book titles, that's a good bit. Pull around and find out. That's right, exactly. So what would you say is uh, just going on the theme of pulling around and find out that you've discovered is that there's things with AI that probably shouldn't go down that road. Dean: Anything. Just philosophically, I'm more and more resolute in my idea of not spending any time learning the particular skill or learning the particular tool, because I really, if I look at it that fundamentally, if you think about it as a generative tool or as a collaboration, creating either images or words or picture or uh, you know, sound or video, that's the big four. Right, those are the underlying things. There's any number of rapidly evolving and more nuanced ways to do all of those things and you're starting to see some specialists in them now, like, I think, things like you know, eleven Labs has really focused on the voice emulation now and they're really like it is flawless. I mean, it's really super what you can do with generated, uh, voice. Now even they can get emotion and I think it's almost like the equivalent of musical notations, like you can say, you know, uh, you know pianissimo or or forte. You know you can give the intention of how you're supposed to play this piece. Uh, so you get a sense that they can say you know whispers, or quietly, or or excited, or giggles, or you know you can add the sentiment to the voice, and so you just think, just to know that, whatever you can imagine, you can get an audio that is flawless of your own voice or any voice that you want to create. You can create a. There is a tool or a set of tools that will allow you to prompt video, you know flawlessly, and that's going to constantly evolve. I mean, there are many tools that do like. It's kind of like this race that we're all in the first leg of the relay race here, and so it started out with Sora was able to create the video, and then the next you know, the VO three, you know less than a month ago, came out and is the far winner by now. So any time that you spend like learning that technical skill is I don't think that's going to be time well well spent, because there's any number of people who could do those things. So I think I'm more, you know, I'm more guessing and betting that imagination is going to be more valuable than industriousness in that. Dan: One thing, and I'd just like to get your take on this, that the crucial quality that makes human things work, human activities, human teamwork and everything is trust you know, and that you're actually dealing with something that you can trust. Ok, and I'm just wondering if the constant evolution of artificial intelligence is going to encourage people to make sure that they're actually dealing with the person in person, that you're actually dealing with another human being in person. Well, I see that in contact with this person or you've got some sort of encryption type mechanism that can guarantee you that the person that you're dealing with digitally is actually the person? And I'm just wondering, because humans, the need for trust overrides any kind of technology. Dean: I agree with you. I mean that's. I think we're going to see, I think we're going to see a more. We're going to react to that that we're going to value human, like I look at now that we are at a point that anything you see on video is immediately questioned that might be especially, yeah, especially if you, if it's introducing a new thought or it's counter to what you might think, or if it's trying to persuade you of something is. My immediate thought is is that real? You know, you know, I just wonder. You know what I was? I was thinking about Dan. You used to talk about the evolution of the signs. You know where it said the best Italian food on the street? Yeah, the evolution was in the town. Two furniture companies, yeah two furniture companies Best furniture. What was it? Dan: Yeah, best furniture companies, best furniture, what was it? Yeah, best furniture store on the street. So the other one comes back and says best, you know best furniture store in the town. And the other one says the other one comes back, state the other one comes back country. The other one comes back Western Hemisphere, the other one comes back planet, the other one comes back solar system and finally it's so far out, it's in the Milky Way. And the other one comes back and says best store on the street. Dean: Right, exactly, and I think that's where we're. I think that's where we're. Dan: Yeah. Anything to differentiate anything to differentiate, I mean the other thing is differentiation. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah and yeah, so no. I go back to Hayek. He's an economist, fa Hayek, and he said that he was talking about capitalism. And he said the big problem with capitalism is that it was named by its enemies. It was named by the whole group of people. You know, marx was the foremost person you know and he, you know, wrote a book, das Capital, you know, and everything else, and they thought it was all about capital. And he says actually, capital is actually a byproduct of the system. He said what capitalism is is an ever expanding system of increasing cooperation among strangers. He says it's just constant going out from ourselves where we can trust that we can cooperate with strangers. And he says most places in history and most places still on the planet, the only people you can trust are our friends and family our friends and family. That limits enormously cooperation, eliminates collaboration, eliminates innovation, eliminates everything if you can only trust the people that you know. He said that basically what capitalism is. It's got this amazing number of structures and processes and agreements and laws and everything that allow you to deal with someone you don't know halfway around the planet and money is exchanged and you feel okay about that and you know, there was a great book and I've recommended it again and again called the One-to-One Future. I've read it. Dean: I've read it. Yeah, yeah, this was written back in the 90s, yeah, and that was one of the things that they talked about was this privacy, that, and I don't see it happening as much, but we're certainly ready for it and and going to appreciate having a, an intermediary, having a trusted advocate for all of the things you know. That that's that we share everything with that one trusted person and trust them to vet and represent us out into the world. Dan: It's really interesting. It would have been at a Free Zone workshop, because those are the only workshops that I actually do, and somebody asked. Babs was in the room and they said that you know how many of your signups for the program you know, the last 12 months and you know we had just short of a thousand a thousand signups and you know, and we know what the influence was because we have the contact we have the, you know, we have the conversations between the salesperson and the person who signs up, and somebody asked how many of them come directly from direct referrals. It's 85%. It's not the only thing They'll read books. They'll see podcasts. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah and everything like that, but it's still that direct referral of someone whose judgment they totally trust is the deciding factor. Dean: Yes, yeah, amazing, right, and that's. Dan: I mean, here we are. We're 36 years down. We're using all kinds of marketing tools. We're using podcasts, we're using books. We're using books, we're using social media. And it struck me one day. I said how do people know me on social media? I said I never use social media. I've never. I've never. Actually, I don't even know how to. I don't even know how to use social media. Dean: I wouldn't know how to get on and everything else. Dan: So I went to our social media director and I said um, how am I on social media? He says dan, you're out there, there you're doing every day you're doing 100 things a day you know you know. and he went down the list of all the different uh platforms that I'm in and I said uh. I said oh, I didn't know that. I said, do I look good? He said oh, yeah. He says yeah, nothing but the best, but I'm just using it as a broadcast medium. You know, I'm not using it as an interactive medium. Right Well, I'm not. We're using it as an interactive medium, but I'm not. Dean: Right. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah, that's all that matters, right, I mean, and it's actually you, yeah, it's your words, but you're using, you know, keeping, like you say, somebody between you and the technology. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, always keep a smart person. Right A smart person between yourself and the technology. Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan: Yeah. So yeah, I was at the party. I had this party that was sort of a beach, had this party that was sort of a beach. You know, we have an island, but there are about 15 couples of one kind or another at the party last night, most of whom I didn't know, but I got talking and they were talking about the technology and everything like that. it was about a three person and myself and we were talking and they said, geez, you know, I mean it's driving me crazy and everything like that. And one of them said, dan, how are you approaching this? And I said, well, I'm taking a sort of different approach. And I just went through and I described my relationship to television, my relationship to social media, my relationship to the you know, my iPhone and everything else. And they said, boy, that's a really different approach. And I said, yeah, and I said you know we're growing, you know the company's growing, and you know everybody who needs to find out. what they need to find out is finding that out and everything else. So yeah, but I don't have to be involved in any of it. Dean: Right, yeah, you know, you're proof that it's. You can be in it, but not of it. Dan: Yeah, I think that's part of the thing. Yeah, but there's kind of a well, we're probably on this podcast, we're developing sort of an AI wisdom, because I think wisdom what matters is that you can adapt a particular strategy and just think of it, you know, and just stick with it. There's just something that you can stick with and it doesn't cause you any harm. Yeah, the one thing that I have learned is that the input between me and perplexity has to be 50-50. And the way I do it, dean, is I trigger everything with a fast filter, so I'll do the best result. You have just one box. I put the best result. You have just one box, I put the best result. That becomes the anchor of the particular project that I'm working on with Perpuxy. I'll just take it and stick it in there. Then I'll write one of the success criteria, okay, and then I'll take the success criteria and I said okay, now I want to create two paragraphs. Okay, so I've got the anchor paragraph and I've got this new paragraph. I want to take the central message of this success criteria and I want to modify whatever I wrote down in the lead and bring it back as a 100-word introduction where the success criteria has 50 words. Okay. And then what I'll do is I go to a mindset scorecard and I'll start creating mindsets and I'll take a mindset and I said, okay, I want to take this mindset and I want to change the meaning of the two paragraphs and it comes down and then after a certain point I said okay, let's introduce another. So I'm going back and forth where it's delivering a product but then I'm creating something new and inserting it into the product, and it's kind of like this back and forth conversation. Dean: You're using perplexity for this Perplexity yeah. Yeah. Dan: Yeah, and it has a really nice feeling to it that it's doing some magic. You know it's doing magic tricks. It's carrying out instructions instantaneously. You know three or four seconds. And then I read what I wrote and then it gives me a new idea. Then I write down the idea in the pass filter or the mindset scorecard and then I insert that new idea and say, okay, modify everything above with this new thought, and it's really terrific, it really works really great, yeah, okay, and you know it's, and what's really interesting about? I'll go do this. And then, down at the bottom, it creates a unique summary of everything that we're talking about, and I didn't ask it for a summary, but it creates a summary. Dean: That's amazing, isn't it? Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah, this is. You know. I really enjoyed the new tool that we did in the FreeZone workshop. This time I forget what the tool is called. Dan: I had three. I had the six-year your best six years ever. Was it that one we also? Dean: had. Always More Ambitious, always well, always more ambitious was great too, but yeah, that uh. But that six year your best six years ever is. That's such a good thing that if you just imagine that that's the, the lens that you're looking at the present through that, you're always. It's a durable thing. I try and explain to people I've had this framework of thinking in terms of the next hundred weeks is kind of a the long-term like actionable thing that you can have a big impact in a hundred weeks on something. But it's gonna happen kind of a hundred days at a time, kind of like quarters I guess, if you think about two years. But I've really found that everything comes down to the real actionable things are the next 100 hours and the next 100 minutes. And those I can find that I can allocate those 50 minute focus finders that. I do those sessions, it's like that's really the only. It's the only thing is to the extent that we're able to get our turn our ambitions into actions that correlate with those right that align, aligning our actions with our ambitions because a lot of people are ambitious on theoretically ambitious, uh, as opposed to applied ambition. Dan: They're not actionably ambitious. Dean: Actionably ambitious. I think that there's something to that, Dan. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And it's frustrating yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I think that's a really good, theoretically ambitious, but not actionably ambitious, yeah, and I think that's a really good theoretically ambitious but not actually ambitious, yeah, and I think that theoretically ambitious just puts you totally in the gap really fast. Absolutely Okay, because you have no proof, you're never actually You're full of propositions. Yeah, I'm reading a book. Have you ever read any of Thomas Sowell? I? Dean: have not. Dan: Yeah, he's a 93, 94-year-old economist at Stanford University and he's got 60 years of work that he's done and he's got a great book. It's a book I'm going to read continually. I have about three or four books that I just read continually. One of them is called the Technological System by Jacques Hulot, a French sociologist, jacques Lull, french sociologist, and it does the best job of describing what technology does to people, what it does to organizations, when they're totally reactive to it. Dean: You know in other words. Dan: They have no sense of agency regarding technology. They're just being impacted, and it's really good. He wrote it probably in the 60s or 70s and it's just got a lot of great observations in it. Dean: And. Dan: I've read it. I've probably read it. I started reading it in 1980, and I've probably read it three or four times. One book fell apart because there was so much notes and online Really Wow. Yeah, the binding fell apart. Dean: What's it called again? It's called the. Dan: Technological System. Dean: The. Dan: Technological System. Jacques, you know Elal and there's quite a good YouTube interview with him If you want to look it up. It's about 25, 30 minutes and very, very, very engaging mind. He really gets you to think when he talks about it. But the book that I'm talking about right now, this is Thomas Sowell. It's called Intellectuals and Society and he said if you take all the intellectuals in the world and you put all their sense of how the world works, at best it could represent 1% of the knowledge that's needed for the world to run every day the other 99%, and he calls it the difference between specialized knowledge and mundane knowledge. Okay, so specialized knowledge is where somebody really goes deep, really goes deep into something and then develops. You know, if the whole world would just operate according to what I'm seeing here, it would be a better world. And he says, and he said that's the intellectual approach. You know, I've I've really thought this deeply, and therefore what I want now is for someone to impose this on the planet. So, I feel good. But, he says what actually makes the world work is just everybody going about their business and working out rules of, you know, teamwork, rules of action, transaction work. And he says and intellectuals have no access to this knowledge whatsoever because they're not involved in everyday life, they're off. You know they're looking down from a height and saying you know, I'd like to reorganize this whole thing, have the mundane knowledge are now being able to really get multiply the value that they're just getting out of their daily interactions at an exponentially high speed and that the intellectuals are probably. The intellectuals are just if they're using AI. They're just doing that to multiply their theories. But they're not actionable ambition, they're theoretical. Theoretically ambitious right, yeah, yeah. Dean: Yeah, that's really interesting looking at the uh, you know, I think that there's, you know, kind of a giant leap from proposition to proof. Oh yeah, in the in the vision column is like that's it's worth so much. Uh, because intellectually that that's the. It's a different skill set to turn a proof into a protocol and a protocol into a protected package. You know, those don't require creative solution and I'm finding the real like the hotspot leverage points, like in the capability column. It's ability is the multiplier of capability. Dan: Yeah. Dean: You know, because that then can affect capacity and cash, you know. Dan: Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you take it. I mean never have human beings had so many capabilities available to them but do they have any ability to go along with the capabilities? Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: And I think that that part of that ability is to recognize it. You know, vision ability to recognize the excess capacity that they have, you know. Dan: And. Dean: I think that that trusted you know. Dan: The leverageable point in the reach column is the you know a heart level, like an endorsed uh being access to somebody else's um, to somebody else's trust level yeah, relationships yeah it's so it's amazing like I just like that I've seen so much opportunity AI introduced chat, gpt, that we're at a major this is a major jump, like language itself almost. I often go back and say I wonder who the first tribe? That was probably a tribe that developed a language so that they could communicate. You know where they could keep adding vocabulary. You know they could keep adding vocabulary and that they must have just taken over everything immediately. They just totally took over just because of their speed of teamwork, their speed of getting things done. And then the next one was writing when they could write. And then you have another jump, because with writing came reading and then the next one came printing. You know, and I thought that when the microchip came in and you had digital language, I said this is the next gem. But digital language is just a really, really fast form of printing actually. It's just fast, but artificial intelligence is a fundamental breakthrough. So, we're right at the beginning. Gutenberg is like 1455, and it must have been amazing to him and the people who knew about him that he could produce what it would take, you know, a hand writer would take months and months that he could produce one in a matter of you know hours. He could produce in hours, but as many as you wanted. Dean: I wonder what the trickle down, like you know the transition, how long it took to eliminate the scribe industry. Dan: Well, I will tell you this that they have statistics that within 40 years after Gutenberg there were 30,000 presses across northern Europe. So it took off like a rocket. You know it took off. And I mean, and you know, and it I mean in the next 150 years, we're just pure turmoil politically, economically, culturally in. Europe after that came and I think we're in that. We're in that period right now. We're feeling it, yeah, I think so too. Everybody's going to have to have a newcomer. Dean: Yeah, that's right. Dan: Probably on rescue all day 60 minutes at a time, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway. What have we gotten today? What have we? What's the garden produced today? Dean: Well, I think that this, I think we had this thought of, I think you and I always come the two types of abilities. Well, the capability and the ability. No, theoretically ambitious and actionability Actionability- Theoretically ambitious and actionably ambitious. Dan: The vast majority of people are theoretically ambitious. Dean: They're not actionable. Yes. Dan: I think that's a good distinction. Dean: I do too. That was what I was going to say that level and I think that the you know, when you see more that the I think, being an idea person, like a visionary, it's very difficult to see that there's a lot of people that don't have that ability. But you don't, because we take it for granted that we have that ability to see things and and have that uh, access to that. It doesn't feel like you know almost like you can't uh, you've got the curse of knowledge. We know what it's like to constantly have vision and see things, that the way things could be, um, and not really realize that most people don't have that, and I think it's we discount it, um, or you can't discount it by thinking, well, that that can't be do you know what I? mean that there's got to be more to. It mean there's got to be, more to it. Well, that's the easy part or whatever, but it's not and that's yeah. I think that the more I saw Kevin Smith, the filmmaker, the director. He was on there's a series online called the Big Think and they have, you know, different notable people talking about just their life philosophies or the things, and he said something that on his, the moment he decided to move into being kevin smith professionally, that that, the more he just decided to double down on just being more kevin smith for a living it's like he's really without using the words of unique ability or those things that that was the big shift for him is just to realize that the unique view, vision, perspective that he has is the more he doubles down on that, the more successful things have been for him. Yep, yep. So there's nothing you know, you've been Dan Sullivan professionally or professional. Dan Sullivan for years. Dan: Yeah Well, 51, 51. Yeah, yeah, uh, it's created all sorts of tools. I mean uh you know, I remember the psychiatrist I went to the amen clinic to receive my um add diagnosis, you know because he's got. He's got about seven different types of ADD. Dean: Yes, which one do you? Dan: have. Yeah well, mine's not hyperactive at all. Dean: No me neither yeah. Dan: I mean it takes a lot to get me to move, Anyway, but mine is the constant being barbaric. It's sort of I'm thinking of this and then all of a sudden I think of something else. Dean: And then. Dan: now I've got two things to think about, and then the third one wants to join the party and everything else, and meanwhile I had something to do this morning and I just blew right past it. Dean: Anyway. Dan: Right, yeah, so anyway, but I had filled in. There's like 100 questions that you have to fill in online before they'll even accept you, and you know what's your day look like. You know mine pretty relaxed, good structure, everything like that. But the test, they do all sorts of brain scans. They test out concentration, they test out how long you can maintain attention on something. They do it at rest, they do it after exercise and everything like that. It's about three days. There's about nine hours of it that they do. And so we got together and she said you know, if you look at how you answered our questionnaire, online and you look at our test. These are in separate universes. They don't have any relationship to each other. To each other. She said I've never seen such a wide span between the two. So well, I'm sorry, you know we just pretty soon we got to what I do for a living and I said well, I create thinking tools for entrepreneurs. And so I told her, I gave her a couple of examples and she said well, I don't know who else you created these for, but you sure created them for yourself. And that's really what we do. Is that what we are best at in the marketplace is what we're trying to figure out for ourselves? Dean: Yes, I think that's absolutely true. Dan: We sell our therapies to others, that's right. We want to see if our self-therapies go beyond ourselves. Dean: Yeah, exactly. Dan: Yeah, yeah, all righty. Dean: Okay Dan. That was a good one, yeah, are we on next week? Dan: Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, Perfect, perfect, okay, I'll be back. Dean: I'll meet you here. Dan: Okay, thanks Bye, thanks Bye. Thanks for watching.

  Big corporations and predatory lenders have always hated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ever since it was established 15 years ago. And repeatedly during that period, the bureau has proved its worth by establishing and enforcing commonsense rules that target exploitive practices and help protect average Americans when they're making big purchases and borrowing […]

Show #2230 Show Notes: 2 Timothy 2: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Timothy%202&version=KJV ‘Strive’: https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/strive Sherman’s March: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/08/thomas-dilorenzo/the-american-way-of-war-2/ General Jackson’s Farewell address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkqZncVDxN8 Dave Daubenmire, a veteran 35 year high school football coach, was spurred to action when attacked […]

We are a little late with this one but this was an episode we recorded on the day General Thomas Jackson went to be with his Savior and King. Twitter: @DixiePolisPod Gab: @Dixiepolis Email: Dixiepolis@protonmail.com https://a.co/d/eGdzoZt

This week Bill and I have a special guest with us, he's been here before and we always love to have him, he's the one, the only, my good buddy, Jon Parshall.This week we are going to take a step back from the battlefront, into the backwaters if you will, to discuss some of the leaders of WATCHTOWER, the men who made the decisions, for better or worse, that propelled, and sometimes didn't propel the all-encompassing campaign.Talking PointsGhormleyNimitz nominates Ghormley as COMSOPAC for future operations in April 1942Ghormley had previously acted as a special naval observer in Britain and desired to stay in the European theater.Highly intelligent and a savy negotiator, he had almost zero tactical command experience.He had never held an operational post despite being a Vice AdmiralGhormley was in over his head as COMSOPACGhormley receives word to prepare for what would become WATCHTOWER and immediately greets it with pessimism. Nimitz showed a lot of confidence in Ghormley initially.  Essentially granting him free reign to establish himself and his operations to prepare for the offensive.The very next day, Nimitz received a copy of a letter from Ghormley to King that stated that the timeline for the operation was “unrealistic” and that both Ghormley and MacArthur were doubtful as to the success of the operation and had the “gravest doubts” about the plan.This had to have shaken Nimitz's confidence in Ghormley as a leader.Regarding the July pre-invasion meeting: the sheer fact that Ghormley declined to attend this incredibly important meeting personally should have been a red flag.Despite being told by Nimitz to command “in person” Ghormley sends Callaghan.This pattern of non-personal leadership causes issues right away…The issue of Turner and Fletcher going after one another in the July meeting over how long the CVs should remain in the area is one example of how things turned to shit quickly.Ghormley “suggested” to Fletcher to leave 2 VF Squadrons on Henderson if the field is ready. BUT…if enemy CVs appear then they are the priority.  As a result of this confusing memo, Fletcher thought he had the approval to maneuver independently and Turner thought that COMSOPAC had assured him that Fletcher would cover the landings until Henderson was operational.  Had Ghormley been present, his intentions would have become known by his own voice.  But alas, that was not to be…After Savo, which you could technically throw blame on Ghormley, Ghormley acted scared and ordered his surface forces all the way back to Noumea, 1000 miles away.He told Nimitz he could not protect the sea lanes requested air support.In truth, Ghormley had no fucking clue what was going on…In messages to Nimitz, Ghormley constantly pleaded for reinforcements, always stating that the forces on Guadalcanal were just barely hanging on…Consistently, Nimitz urged Ghormley to be more active…yet he sat on the Argonne and roasted in his hot quartersMost of his message stank of anxiety and near desperation, and he never seemed to know what was going on.Had he gone to Guadalcanal, maybe just once, he would have had a better understandingNimitz decided to visit Ghormley on September 25 he arrived 3 days later to find the logistics situation a complete mess.When Nimitz met with Ghormley, the latter's physical state shocked Nimitz.He was pale, and gaunt, he had dental problems, lived aboard an old, cramped ship with no air circulation and refused to acquire land space for his HQ because of the French not wanting to give the land over to him.Nimitz flew to Guadalcanal the next day, returned to Noumea and told Ghormley how optimistic the men were, and urged him to be more assertive.When Nimitz got back to Pearl he asked some of his staff if Ghormley should be relieved. They all agreed.Halsey was preparing to reclaim his old position aboard CV6, when Nimitz nominated him to King to replace Ghormley.  King replied with one word.  Approved.Nimitz ultimately believed that Ghormley was too timid and out of touch.  Not to say he was physically scared, but he was too timid to commit forces that were needed when they were needed at the right place.HalseyHalsey takes command on October 18.  He reads the directive from Nimitz twice to make sure he is reading it right and then exclaims, “Jesus Christ and General Jackson.  This is the hottest potato they've ever given me!”Morale amongst the fighting men ashore and at sea immediately goes through the roof once word gets out that Halsey is in command.Halsey enters the fray at the most critical time of the entire campaign.  His leadership, fighting spirit and bull-headedness are exactly what the doctor ordered.Almost immediately, Halsey asserted himself.  He seized land ashore and set up a permanent base of operations, which pissed off the French.Then, two weeks after he took command, he got in a plane and flew to Guadalcanal.The Marines ashore ate it up.Before his Guadalcanal vacation, however, his forces became engaged in what would become Santa Cruz.

This week, we are back discussing the events that led up to Indian Removal. John Ridge gets married, schools get built, and General Jackson gets angry. Please feel free to send any feedback, comments, suggestions, or questions to chautauquareview@gmail.com Enjoy!

Matt's back in town to cover a special concert Matt Bailey is back in Nashville a month after we covered the 2022 CMT Music Awards. This time, he's in attendance of a Music Memorial for Jeff Carson, who passed away from a heart attack in March at the age of 58. Michael Ray, Wade Hayes, Ty Herndon, Lee Greenwood, Heath Wright of Ricochet, Craig Campbell, Rhett Akins, Tracy Lawrence, John Berry, Halfway to Hazard, Danielle Peck, T. Graham Brown and War Hippies performed at the Nashville Palace. Don McLean made a surprise appearance to perform "American Pie." After retiring from country music in the mid 2000's, Carson pursued his other lifelong dream and joined the Franklin Police Department where he remained a dedicated officer until his untimely passing. Carson had begin to revive his music career as he was working on new music at the time of his death. Last year, Carson spoke with us about his latest single, "God Save The World," which we premiered the video digitally in early 2021. The concert was a charity event to benefit the Law Enforcement Assistance Partnership (LEAP), a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to sworn officers of the FPD during unexpected life events. Matt chatted with Ray, Herndon, Greenwood, Wright, Lawrence, Berry, Peck, Brown, and McLean on the red carpet. Before the interviews, Matt and I discuss other aspects of our joint trip in April 2022. We had the honor to cover the Grand Ole Opry our first night in town which included performances by Sara Evans, Tenille Townes, Riders in the Sky and Nate Smith making his Opry debut. Our last day in town included an afternoon ride on the world famous General Jackson showboat where we enjoyed a concert from the Tennessee Legends, where some of Nashville's finest musicians and singers shared the stories and songs from the pride of Tennessee. Full audio is streaming below. Be sure to subscribe to The Music Universe Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Howdy! This week, we're headed west – the Wild West, to be exact. Featuring characters such as Liver Eating Johnson, the Blues Brothers, Big Phil, and Uncle Dick Wootton, Alix takes us on a quick tour of survival cannibalism on the American frontier. TRANSCRIPT https://castinglotspod.home.blog/2021/12/02/s3-e6-land-part-vi---the-best-of-the-rest-of-the-wild-west/ CREDITS Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis. Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett. Logo by Riley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1. BIBLIOGRAPHY The Blues Brothers. (1980). [DVD]. Directed by John Landis. United States: Universal Pictures. ‘Boone Helm'. (2021). Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boone_Helm Coel, M. (2012). ‘The Indian…', in Chief Left Hand. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 94-109. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ptNcTmQ5RpEC&pg=PA97#v=onepage&q&f=false Edwards, E. (2012). ‘Cannibals in the Family', in Early Reagan. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing, pp. 30-31. Available at: http://www.ibiblio.org/sullivan/CNN/RWR/Anecdotes/aneccannib.html Gregory, H. The Belle and Boone Helm. (2021). Directed by Caitlin McWethy. [Cincinnati Fringe Festival, 4-19 June]. Hafen, L.R. (1936). ‘Mountain Men – Big Phil, the Cannibal', Colorado Magazine, 13(2), pp. 53-58. Available at: https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2018/ColoradoMagazine_v13n2_March1936.pdf Haward Bain, D. (2000). ‘Manifest Density'. Review of A Newer World by David Roberts. New York Times, 27 February. Available at: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/27/reviews/000227.27bainlt.html Hernandez, A. (2019). ‘‘Big Phil' the Colorado Cannibal', Denver Public Library Research News, 31 December. Available at: https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/big-phil-colorado-cannibal Holzwarth, L. (2019). ‘Episodes of Cannibalism throughout History', History Collection, 13 October. Available at: https://historycollection.com/episodes-of-cannibalism-throughout-history/15/ Idaho State Historical Society. (1993). Site of Utter Party Massacre. Reference Series, no. 233. Available at: https://history.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/0233.pdf ‘John C. Frémont: Death of the Aged Soldier and Explorer at New York.' (1890). Daily Alta California, 83(14), p. 5. Available at: https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DAC18900714.2.41&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1 ‘John C. Frémont'. (2021). Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Fr%C3%A9mont Kuroski, J. (2021). ‘They Killed His Wife And Burned Down His House – Then Liver-Eating Johnson Hunted Them Down And Ate Them', All That's Interesting, 1 October. Available at: https://allthatsinteresting.com/liver-eating-johnson Langford, N.P. (1912). Vigilante days and ways; the pioneers of the Rockies; the makers and making of Montana and Idaho. Chicago, IL: A.C. McClurg & co. Available at: https://archive.org/details/vigilantedaysan00unkngoog Lawrence, D. and J. Lawrence. (2012). ‘Indians, Emigrants, and the Army on the Overland Trails: An Interview with Michael Tate', in Violent Encounters. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, pp. 75-98. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vm21xq3f01oC&pg=PA94&lpg=PA94#v=onepage&q&f=false ‘Levi Boone Helm (1828 - 1864)'. (n.d.). WikiTree. Available at: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Helm-1612 McArthur, S. (2012). ‘Indians and Armies', in The Enemy Never Came. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 87-102. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7AhrH9yu7oMC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97#v=onepage&q&f=false McLaughlin, M. (2008). ‘Cannibals in the West', Journal of Sierra Nevada History & Biography, 27 October. Available at: https://www.sierracollege.edu/ejournals/jsnhb/v6n2/cannibals.html Moulton, C. (2010). ‘Dreams of Gold on the Starvation Trail', True West, 26 June. Available at: https://truewestmagazine.com/dreams-of-gold-on-the-starvation-trail/ Online Highways. (n.d.). John C. Frémont. Available at: https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h714.html Palmquist, P.E. and T.R. Kailborn. (2000). ‘John C. Frémont', in Pioneer Photographers of the Far West. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 247-251. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Nne4L9h27RsC&pg=PA247#v=onepage&q&f=false Rea, T. (2004). ‘The Pathfinder's Lost Instruments: John C. Frémont's Cavalier Attitude Toward His Scientific Apparatus', Common Place, 4(4). Available at: http://commonplace.online/article/the-pathfinders-lost-instruments/ Roberts, D. (2000). A Newer World. London: Simon & Schuster. Silbernagel, B. (2020). ‘Disaster struck when ‘The Pathfinder' got lost in Colorado', Daily Sentinel, 28 December. Available at: https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/disaster-struck-when-the-pathfinder-got-lost-in-colorado/article_aab73eea-46f5-11eb-b95d-772495186f85.html Sweger, J.K. (2006). ‘The Blue Brothers' Deadly Trek into Gold Country', Wild West, June. Available at: https://www.historynet.com/the-blue-brothers-deadly-trek-into-gold-country.htm Taliaferro, J. (1828). Supplemental account of some of the bloody deeds of General Jackson, being a supplement to the ‘Coffin handbill.' Northern Neck, VA: John Taliaferro. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.18601400/ Weiser-Alexander, K. (2020). ‘John “Liver Eating” Johnson – Mountain Man and Lawman', Legends of America, December. Available at: https://www.legendsofamerica.com/liver-eating-johnston/

The Bell Witch haunting is one of the oldest American hauntings on record and it is the subject of this week's unpleasant dream. -- Cassandra Harold is your host. EM Hilker is our principal writer and researcher with additional writing by Cassandra Harold. Jim Harold is our Executive Producer. Unpleasant Dreams is a production of Jim Harold Media. You can find EM Hilker's original article HERE. Sources & Further Reading: 1868 article in the Courier-Journal: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/7660018/the-courier-journal/ An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch by Martin Van Buren Ingram https://web.archive.org/web/20021022185219/http://bellwitch02.tripod.com/the_red_book.htm Bell Witch Folklore Centre https://web.archive.org/web/20020924085754/http://bellwitch02.tripod.com/ Bell Witch Cave official site http://www.bellwitchcave.com/ Pat Fitzhugh's Bell Witch site http://www.bellwitch.org/story.htm The Bell Witch Poltergeist by Joe Nickell https://skepticalinquirer.org/2014/01/the-bell-witch-poltergeist/ The Terrifying True Story of the Bell Witch http://thesouthernweekend.com/bell-witch/ PODCAST TRANSCRIPT The Bell Witch haunting is one of the most famous American hauntings on record, not only for the extent of the hauntings but because it is credited as the only American haunting to result in the death of a living person. John Bell Sr died 200 years ago, and much of the haunting occurred years prior to that.  To date, there are a half dozen movies based on the story with more having been influenced by it; there is a doom metal band called Bell Witch, and several songs by other musicians based on the tale. It has spawned other stories and even traveled in a slightly altered form to become folklore in Mississippi, where several Bell children settled in their adulthood.  The story itself is the story of the Bell family. In the very early years of the nineteenth century, John Bell Senior came to Robertson County, Tennessee with his wife, Lucy, and their young children. They settled along the Red River, near the modern town of Adams. Bell had been a barrel-maker in his youth, but had decided to turn to farming. He was quite successful in this, and by the time of his death, his farm would boast more than three hundred acres of land. He developed a good name for himself as well, and would eventually become an elder at the local church (though later he was excommunicated for unscrupulous business dealings). He had a good life along the Red River for well over a decade, he and his wife had nine children, and they were well-liked as a family.  The “family trouble”, as the Bells would one day call it, began late in 1817. In the earliest days of the haunting, a strange creature was spied around the Bell's farmland by a number of people. A strange mixture of dog, sometimes two-headed, and rabbit. It was large and dark and utterly unsettling. The Bell family's slave, Dean, saw this same creature, among other bizarre and supernatural sights, multiple times on his walks in the evening to visit his wife on a nearby farm. John Bell also reportedly saw the creature lurking around on occasion. In early 1818, seemingly supernatural activity had started within the farmhouse. The children would report hearing the sounds of rats gnawing on their bedposts in the night, but upon examination neither rat nor bite mark could be found. After this came knocking sounds and the heavy rattle of chains being dragged across their wooden floors. Sounds that all the family could hear. In time, the children would be bitten at and scratched and pinched by the air itself. Their bedsheets would be yanked off their bed as night. Pillows snatched from under their sleeping heads and thrown to the floor. John Bell Sr woke one day to find his mouth paralyzed. One of the most famous parts of this story, or perhaps infamous, is the treatment of the Bell's daughter, Betsy. All sources seem to agree that she was an uncommonly beautiful girl, and perhaps this is why the increasingly violent manifestations, allegedly those of a witch, centered around her. She was pinched and scratched more and worse than the other children, leaving her black and blue and bloody. Her hair was yanked and she was kept awake at night. She was abused and miserable. The family tried to relieve her suffering by having her stay with friends and family, but the abuse followed her wherever she went.  By contrast, the entity was utterly enchanted by Lucy Bell, the mother of the family. Lucy was a well-liked woman, but it seemed especially enthralled with her. It lavished her with adulation, brought her fruit and nuts when she was sick, and sang her praises. Author Pat Fitz Hugh quite correctly points out that this can hardly be called genuine kindness on the entity's part, given the emotional suffering Lucy would have endured in watching her family be harassed and abused. All the while, John Bell became sicker and sicker, and no one was sure what ailed him, or how to cure him of his mysterious malady. In desperation, the Bell family reached out to their good friend James Johnston for help. He and his wife agreed to spend a night in the Bell's home. Having been as harassed and abused as the Bells had been throughout the night, they agreed in the morning that it was an authentic, malicious spirit. Around this time, the entity began to whisper to them. Barely-heard snatches of a disembodied voice at first, and then growing in power as it appeared to be getting stronger and stronger. When asked who it was, it claimed at various times to be “Old Kate Batts' witch” (Kate Batts herself was alive and well; she allegedly had a sharp tongue and a wicked temper, and was said to actually be a witch).  At other times she was the spirit of a disturbed grave who had lost a tooth under the house (though no tooth was ever found).  On Another occasion, she claimed she was the ghost of a poor murdered peddler. And yet another time, the ghost of an immigrant who had buried treasure nearby (no treasure was ever found, despite the wild goose chase “Kate” led them on). It is said that in 1819 Andrew Jackson, the then army general who would go on to be the seventh president of the United States, had heard stories of the Bell Witch. Given that the Bell's sons had served under him, he chose to visit the farm itself to investigate. The beginning of this part of the story is the same in all versions -- Jackson and his men found their carriage wheels stuck fast on their way to the farm, and nothing they could do would loosen them. It was the work of the witch, who spoke to them: she would see General Jackson later that evening. The stories differ here: one version says that the general and his men went straight on past the farm house, never to meddle in such things again. The other, more heroic version, states that Jackson did indeed continue on to the Bell homestead.  While there, one of his men who claimed himself to be a “witch layer” was harassed and humiliated by the witch. Regardless, Jackson himself stayed the night, speaking with both the family and the witch herself long into the evening.  It is also said that 1819 was the year in which the witch began to threaten to kill “Old Jack” Bell, who was by this time incredibly weak and fading fast.  In 1820, this threat came to pass. John Bell Sr allegedly was fed a mysterious substance by the witch, after which he died. This substance was later tested on the poor family cat, who promptly died as well, leaving no doubt as to what sort of substance was in the bottle. The witch, not yet finished with “Old Jack”, sang ribald drinking songs loudly at his funeral to the family's dismay. The haunting did not immediately stop with John Bell's death. The following year, the Witch implored and nagged at Betsy until she called off her engagement to her fiance, promising to go away for seven years. Betsy did so, perhaps fearing that her love would die as her father had. The witch was, surprisingly, as good as her word.  The witch kept her word to return to the family, as well. She returned to Lucy and the boys in 1828. In some versions of the story they simply changed tact and chose to ignore her entirely rather than engage with the creature who had killed their father. Following this, she simply left. In other versions, she and the boys discussed philosophy and civilization, before she again left. In some versions, she told them she would return to their descendants in 107 years.  Interestingly there actually was a descendant of the family, a Dr. Bailey Bell who was alive 107 years later and was fascinated by the lore of the family witch. He wrote a book on the subject in 1934. If the witch did return to him in 1935 as promised, however, he went to his grave a decade later without telling anyone about it.  There may have been another return of the witch that hadn't been announced to the family: in 1868, somewhere near the Bell farm, a man named Mr. Smith claimed to have occult powers from the witch. Tom Clinard and Dick Burgess alleged that he had been practising witchcraft on them. They claimed that he had made them see old grey horses and hobgoblins in the night. They proclaimed proudly that if they could do it all again, they would kill him again. They had been attempting to arrest Smith for his use of witchcraft, leading to the conflict that resulted in Smith's death. They were found Not Guilty. In 1880, the Bell Witch's work was attributed to a haunted house in Tennessee, where clangs and bangs were heard, but no speech from the witch as with the Bell family. There were accusations of fakery, none of which were solidly proven.  There's also the Bell Witch Cave. The cave exists on what was once the Bell's property, and in COVID-free times is open to the public. It doesn't have a place in the original story, but since that time it HAS been and continues to be, the site of numerous phenomena. The Witch herself once rescued a young boy in the cave who had gotten stuck, and it's said that the cave was where she resided when she wasn't tormenting the Bell family.  Our primary source of information for the inside happenings of the Bell Witch haunting is a book published in 1894 by Martin Van Buren Ingram, called An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch. Ingram calls himself a compiler of data in the preface of the book, some of which was “written by Williams Bell, a member of the family, some fifty-six years ago, together with other corroborative testimony by men and women of irreproachable character and unquestionable veracity.” Ingram himself makes reference to news articles of the day, none of which survive. The legend survives through oral tradition as well. In addition to the stories still told in Tennessee, the tale of the Bell witch made its way to Mississippi, with some of the names and motivations changed, where it's still told today. The young heroine of the story is now called Mary, and a love story has been added, but the story remains very much intact.  Pat Fitzhugh brings up the possibility of John Bell Sr's illness and death being due to a neurological disorder, rather than the evil work of the witch (however much and loudly she took credit for it at the time). The science of neurology, despite the concepts being two hundred years old, was still very much in its infancy in the 1820s. It would be 50 years before electrodes would be used to study neurology, and all the advances that they would bring. Bell's symptoms mirror those we now know to be those of neurological illness, though of course without the patient to examine there's no way to know for sure. Skeptic Joe Nickell believes it possible that the whole haunting was a hoax perpetrated by Betsy, as another example of “poltergeist faking syndrome”. Ingram himself admits that two of the Bell brothers took frequent boat trips down to New Orleans around 1815 - 1818, where they learned ventriloquism, which they then taught to their sister Betsy. Certainly the timing of the early days of the hauntings lines up with the acquisition of their new talent. Ingram himself does not believe this theory to be true, pointing out that the hauntings brought no good to the family.  It's impossible to say whether this was a legitimate haunting or an elaborate trick that coincided with the neurological illness of John Bell Sr., ending in his death. All witnesses have been dead for well over a century, and the original farm house fell into ruin long, long ago. All we can do is speculate, and wonder if the world will hear from “Old Kate Batts' witch” again one day. 

Join us as we talk about Deutschland 83. This eight-episode German television series became the most-successful foreign language drama ever aired on Channel 4 in the UK. In episode 6, "Brandy Station", Martin wants to stay in East Germany after returning for his mother's kidney transplant. General Jackson is taken hostage. You can find our playlist of the music featured in the series on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2f2j6jRgvIOaAXXHHIOfeM?si=269b116a2de54a65 and on Amazon Music https://music.amazon.co.uk/user-playlists/d665e8944f604ed58e892ddb8fa8063cengb?ref=dm_sh_d565-baff-b1ad-9620-1ac8a  

Edited for the Man of God Network Podcast, a ministry of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, Owensboro, KY -Stonewall Jackson urged Doctor Broadus, saying to Doctor Jones- -Write to him by all means and beg him to come. Tell him that he never had a better opportunity of preaching the gospel than he would have right now in these camps.- He promptly replied that he would be glad to come- that he had been seriously and prayerfully considering the question- and that he had only been prevented from entering the army before by a doubt as to whether his feeble health could stand the exposure of camp life- but that he would at least try it as soon as he could make his arrangements. When I met General Jackson a few days after the reception of Doctor Broadus's letter, and told him that he would come, the great soldier said in his characteristic phrase- -That is good- very good. I am so glad of that.-

9,679,764 SARS-COV-2 cases worldwide with a total of 491,095 deaths. The USA has 2,444,488 cases with 124,897 deaths. Alabama tops the scales at 33,717 cases. Baldwin County seems suspiciously COVID-19 free-ish. The White House CoronaVirus Taskforce had a press conference today for the first time in months in response to the resurgence of new cases around the Country (Florida and Texas in particular). Fairhope City Hall closed yesterday when it was discovered a staff member who attended the City Council Meeting this week was positive for COVID-19 and potentially infected others. Responsibility, Fairhope and other municipalities in the area have canceled 4th of July fireworks. The SEC and NCAA demand the State of Mississippi remove the confederate battle flag from being displayed as a portion of their state flag; Capt. Raines, as a native, weighs in. We watch Matthew McConaughey have an uncomfortable conversion that launches us into such a nebulous argument that it led to the discussion of not releasing this video, but in the end it is an honest disagreement based on race, history, bias of positions, and perception. According to cited sources 1,000 people are killed at the hands of law enforcement each year when being taken into custody. Of these 25 % are black (African American) when this demographic only represents 13% of the population. But take into consideration that his demographic also commits 50% of all violent crime….we disagree, enough said (See Time Magazine, John McWorter assoc prof of English at Columbia University). We watch a police video from Dallas, Texas of Tony Timpa’s death (a mental patient who called the police for help). No malice on the part of law enforcement here, just a complete lack of training in this area of interaction. And then we go back to Ferguson, Missouri related to the death of Michael Brown and hear from Officer Darren Wilson, the only person left alive to tell the tale. In the meantime, monuments and statues are going on the bonfire. Teddy Roosevelt is too controversial for New Your City and protesters were “shooed away” after trying to topple Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square in Washington D.C. Columbus is in the cross-hairs, even though one of the most famous black (African American) intellectuals in the world, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, believes that the discovery of the new world and the reunification of the “People of the America’s” with the rest of the world was “the most important thing to happen to our species in recorded history”. And we give you a little backstory on how Andrew Jackson’s treaty of Ft. Jackson with the Creek “Redsticks”, after the Fort Mims massacre (1813 Baldwin County, Alabama), ceded lands to the Whitesticks (allies of the US) which is the site of the Poarch Creek Indians (PCI) Gaming’s Wind Creek Casino. During the Pensacola Campaign, General Jackson and Mrs. Rachel Jackson stayed at Montpelier for three months, the plantation home of James Manual Earle in North Baldwin County. He also gave his famous speech rallying his troops from “Jackson Oak” at the now abandoned settlement of Blakely, Baldwin County, Alabama which is a National Historic Site.

Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, stops by to discuss his new book Countdown 1945, the state of American politics, and the intersection of technology and journalism. Show Notes: -Chris' new book Countdown 1945  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In early 19th Century Robertson County, Tennessee, the family of John Bell Sr., found themselves afflicted by paranormal phenomena – an apparently conscious entity that had the ability to manifest speech from an unseen source, assume a form, and throw objects. This is the tale of the Bell Witch.Join Ansir & Sophia as they assess the historical events and debate the cases for fraud, poltergeist activity, demonic oppression, and witchcraft.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/InquirersintotheStrange)

Episode 120: Jackson heads to Washington to shake things up as our 7th President. --------- Please be sure to subscribe and tell your friends! Leave us a review on iTunes and reach out to us on social media! Twitter: @ateachershist Facebook: A Teacher's History of the United States Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/ateachershist/ Website: www.ateachershistory.com Artwork by Christopher Piret

ZASA Magazine — You met him at the Zambia Night in November, now get to know him and his family in this exclusive interview. We sat with His Excellency, General Jackson Miti to discuss this new chapter as Zambia’s High Commissioner to South Africa – meet the First Family of Zambians in SA.

Professional accordionist and multi-instrumentalist, Jeff Taylor, grew up in Batavia, New York, and began playing accordion and keyboards in his dad’s band when he was 10. He studied classical piano at the Eastman School of Music and was leader of a small jazz/rock group when he was in the Air Force in Ohio. He has lived in Nashville since 1990. Taylor counts among his performing highlights his two years as bandleader at the Ryman auditorium for the musical production Always, Patsy Cline, hundreds of shows as bandleader at Opryland theme park and on the General Jackson showboat, The Skaggs Family Christmas Tour, and many appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, backing numerous artists. He has recorded with Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, Harry Connick Jr., Keith and Kristyn Getty, Amy Grant, George Strait, The Chieftains, Martina McBride, Buddy Greene, Vince Gill and Ricky Skaggs. He was a featured artist on the Ricky Skagg’s and Kentucky Thunder Instrumentals CD that won a  Grammy in 2007 for Best Bluegrass Album. Besides excelling on accordion and piano, he also shines on the concertina, penny whistle, mandolin and bouzouki.Jeff Taylor performs as a member of The Time Jumpers, along with Vince Gill and also some of the best musicians in Nashville. The Time Jumpers are an award winning Western Swing band from Nashville, Tennessee, with two awards from the Association of Western Artists, one from the Western Music Association and two Grammy nominations! This group of Nashville’s studio elite has evolved from casual jam sessions at the Grand Ole Opry to performing on the main stage, and becoming THE Monday night destination in Nashville,.Their individual recording and performing credits cover virtually the entire history of country music, ranging from Slim Whitman to Carrie Underwood, and their members have recorded extensively with artists in other genres as well, from Barbra Streisand to Megadeth. The Time Jumpers appear, regularily, at The Station Inn,  Nashville, Tennessee.Jeff Taylor, performs on the accordion, along with the great Vince Gill and The Time Jumpers

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria wiped out the electricity on the entire island of Puerto Rico. Six months later the lights are still off for too many people. In this episode, by hearing highlights of Congressional testimony from Puerto Rico's government officials and through stories of Jen's recent trip to the island, learn the good news and the bad news about life right now on Puerto Rico. Please Support Congressional Dish Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD028: Crisis in Puerto Rico CD147: Controlling Puerto Rico Additional Recommended Listening The David Pakman Show Additional Reading Article: Needs go unmet 6 months after Maria hit Puerto Rico by Danica Coto, AP News, March 20, 2018. Article: Six months after Maria, the hardest hit city in Puerto Rico is still being ignored by AJ Vicens, Grist, March 20, 2018. Article: The battle for paradise by Naomi Klein, The Intercept, March 20, 2018. Report: U.S. executive appointed head Puerto Rico power company by Dalissa Zeda Sanchez, Caribbean Business, March 20, 2018. Report: Puerto Rico legislature sends education reform to governor's desk for enactment by Genesis Ibarra, Caribbean Business, March 20, 2018. Report: Gov presents Puerto Rio justice, agriculture reorganization plans, Caribbean Business, March 20, 2018. Article: 'We are the forgotten people': It's been almost six months since Hurricane Maria, and Puerto Ricans are still dying by John D. Stutter, CNN, March 15, 2018. Article: Puerto Rico reforms could boost GNP by 1.5 percent: Jaresko by Daniel Bases, Reuters, March 14, 2018. Press Release: Committee seeks answers on corruption at Puerto Rico Power Utility, House Committee on Natural Resources, March 12, 2018. Report: Recycled proposals in Puerto Rico's fiscal plans by Luis J. Valentin Ortiz, City & State New York, March 11, 2018. Article: 'This city has been ignored': Yabucoa, ground zero for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, still reeling by Rick Jervis, USA Today, March 11, 2018. Article: The role of private investment in rebuilding Puerto Rico by The Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC, March 8, 2018. Opinion: Puerto Rico? Guinea pig for water privatization by Britt Fremstad, Public Citizen, 2018. Article: Why Puerto Rico is pushing to privatize its schools by Mimi Kirk, City Lab, February 27, 2018. Report: Citigroup drove Puerto Rico into debt. Now it will profit from privatization on the island by Kate Aronoff, The Intercept, February 21, 2018. Report: Hedge fund-driven austerity could come back to bite the hedge funds driving it in Puerto Rico by Kate Aronoff, The Intercept, February 3, 2018. Article: Privatization won't fix Puerto Rico's broken power utility by Lara Merling, NACLA, February 1, 2018. Press Release: Bishop statement on Puerto Rico fiscal plans, PREPA privatization by House Committee on Natural Resources, January 25, 2018. Report: Puerto Rico governor seizes opportunity created by Hurricane Maria, plans to privatize electric power by Kate Aronoff, The Intercept, January 24, 2018. Article: The peril of privatizing PREPA by Vann R. Newkirk II, The Atlantic, January 24, 2018. Report: Puerto Rico to sell off crippled power utility PREPA by Daniel Bases, Reuters, January 22, 2018. Report: Puerto Rico utility workers charge that federal government is hoarding reconstruction supplies by Kate Aronoff, The Intercept, January 16, 2018. Article: PREPA "Warehouse 5" was no secret by Alex Figueroa Cancel, El Nuevo Dia, January 16, 2018. Article: Energy answers marchincinerator: the struggle continues by Leysa Caro Gonzelez, El Nuevo Dia, January 16, 2018. Report: Armed federal agents enter warehouse in Puerto Rico to sieze hoarded electric equipment by Kate Aronof, The Intercept, January 10, 2018. Article: Puerto Rico said 64 people died in Hurricane Maria. A new report puts the death toll over 1,000 by Aric Jenkins, Time.com, December 19, 2017. Report: Nearly 1,000 more people died in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria by Center for Investigative Journalism, Latino USA, December 7, 2017. Law Firm Post: Did you lose money investing in Puerto Rico bonds with Morgan Stanley financial advisor Robert Dennison? by Erez Law Firm, December 6, 2017. Article: The lineman got $63 an hour. The utility was billed at $319 an hour. by Frances Robles, The New York Times, November 12, 2017. Article: Ex-Morgan Stanley broker at center of Puerto Rico bond disputes by Bruce Kelly, Investment News, September 28, 2017. Report: Maps: Hurricane Maria's path across Puerto Rico by Sarah Almukhtar, Matthew Bloch, Ford Fessenden and Jugal K. Patel, The New York Times, September 26, 2017. Article: Incinerating the future: Austerity crisis threatens wetlands and economic opportunity for Puerto Rico by Adriana Gonzelez, The Planet: Sierra Club, August 14, 2017. Report: Puerto Rico's Fiscal Control Board spent $31 million in fiscal year 2017 by Julio Ricardo Varela, Latino USA, August 2, 2017. Report: SEC probes Barclays, Morgan Stanley bankers over Puerto Rico by Martin Z. Braun, Bloomberg, June 28, 2017. Report: Puerto Rico Senate approves bill to eliminate debt audit commission by Cindy Burgos Alvarado, Caribbean Business, April 18, 2017. Article: A glimpse of Natalie Jaresko by Jose A. Delgado Robles, El Nuevo Dia, March 29, 2017. Article: Ukraine must fully implement IMF Program, says former finance minister by Mitch Hulse, Atlantic Council, April 14, 2016. Article: How free electricity helped dig $9 billion hole in Puerto Rico by Mary Williams Walsh, The New York Times, February 1, 2016. Article: Puerto Rico - a way forward by Anne O. Krueger, Ranjit Teja, and Andrew Wolfe, GDB.PR.GOV, June 29, 2015. Article: Meet the woman overhauling Ukraine's economy - and born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago by James Ellingworth, Business Insider, March 1,2015. Article: Proposed Arecibo waste-to-energy plan gets EPA nod by Michelle Kantrow, Energy Answers, May 10, 2012. Research Paper: Does private management lead to improvement of water services? Lessons learned from the experiences of Bolivia and Puerto Rico by Susana Maria Cortina de Cardenas, University of Iowa Research Online, Spring 2011. Resources DESMOG Blog Info: Edison Electric Institute Energy Answers Resources: Puerto Rico Resource Recovery and Renewable Energy Project International Monetary Fund Bio: Anne O. Krueger International Monetary Fund Blog: Ranjit Teja LinkedIn Profile: Noel Zamot, Federal Oversight Management Board USDA Report: Arecibo Waste to Energy Generation and Resource Recovery Facility Arecibo, Puerto Rico Sound Clip Sources Hearing: Hurricane Recovery Efforts in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, Power Utility Officials; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, November 14, 2017. Witnesses: - Natalie Jaresko - Executive Director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico - Jose Roman Morales - Associate Commission and Interim President of the Puerto Rico Energy Commission - Ricardo Ramos - Executive Director of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority - Julio Rhymer - Executive Director of the US Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority 53:40 Ricardo Ramos: Many of the fallen poles fell because of the additional weight of infrastructure that originally was not supposed to be there, so the grid itself is old—are new. Design standards account for an amount of additional infrastructure for communications and other, but many of the poles were—they had communications because some local law of Puerto Rico permitted the common right-of-way usage, so we had to allow telecom companies to put the telecommunications cables there—but the pole itself not necessarily was designed to those standards. 59:10 Natalie Jaresko: So, as you know, Madame Chairman, the board took an action and filed in the Title III court to name a chief transformation officer. The court ruled yesterday against us in that action, although we have not yet seen the written judgment, so I can’t comment on it in detail. Hearing: Hurricane Recovery Efforts in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, Governors; Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Witnesses: - Donald Jackson - Deputy Commanding General of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Civil and Emergency Operations - Kenneth Mapp - Governor of US Virgin Islands - Jose Roman Morales - Associate Commission and Interim President of the Puerto Rico Energy Commission - Ricardo “Ricky” Rossello - Governor of Puerto Rico - Bruce Walker - Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability 38:20 Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy Bruce Walker: PREPA, with the limited crews that it had—I will point to this map over here—made an early decision to have to tie the southern portion, where the generation is, to the northern portion, where the load is. And in doing so, they made a key decision to construct the 230 kV line from the south, bringing it up to the San Juan area, the Bayamon substation. On the map, you can see here, from down here, wrapping up through here, that that align is going to appear all the way over to here. What was important about that was that one decision and the efforts made by PREPA, with limited staffing, enabled the power to be distributed to where the load was and in conjunction with the other big decision, which is the next slide, Jennifer, the Army Corps, working with PREPA, installed two 25-megawatt generators at the Palo Seco generation plant, and that, in conjunction with the rebuild of the 230 line, enabled power to be distributed to the northern portion to start picking up commercial and residential customers. Those two efforts were monumental, given the facts and circumstances. The installation of this generator was, with the letting of the contract and the install—and I was at Palo Seco when this was being put in—and the work that had to be done was really incredible—we had fantastic support from PREPA in coordinating it particularly with the re-laying and the coordination with the Army Corps. 1:10:00 Governor Ricardo Rossello: We have several flaws in terms of the design, aside from having antiquated power plants. Most of our generation was done in the south, yet most of the people and most of the consumption is done in the north, so you lose about 12 to 15% in the transmission, going northward. It is time, it is an opportunity, to rethink that, where do we have that generation and make it better? Piggybacking on Senator Cassidy’s comments, I think it is an opportunity also to leapfrog in renewables. I’ve envisioned us leapfrogging to 25% renewables in Puerto Rico and recognizing that there are some mitigation strategies that we need to put in place. That is why we have worked with the PREPA governing board to have a group of thought leaders that can actually help us in the design, looking forward, and specifically looking where this could happen. Last-mile events in Puerto Rico are very important. It’s important to consider the terrain. Puerto Rico’s not flat; it’s got a mountainous region. And so we will be very aggressively pursuing that we get to 90, 95% of energy consumption and energy generation, but that last mile always takes more time because there are sort of remote areas of the island. This is an opportunity to make microgrids in Puerto Rico so that they can be sustained in different areas. And, lastly, adding to this whole component of renewables, I think it is an opportunity to look at this from a bottom-up-and-a-top-down approach. With the collaboration of FEMA, we were able to, for the first time in the STEP program, allow that either a power plant generator be added to the house or a renewable battery-pack solar combo be added to those homes in the STEP program. Now, we expect that there will be about 80,000 homes that will be introduced in the STEP program. Think about what that means if half of them decide to go with the renewable battery-pack route. It means that now you have the starting conditions to actually think about things like a virtual power plant in Puerto Rico, where you can have smart distribution of the energy; and where some days it might be cloudy in some areas in Puerto Rico—it’ll be sunny, certainly, in others as well—and that energy can be distributed alongside, of course, a complement of utility-size and industrial-size generation, which I envision, Senator, should start transitioning from petroleum-based generation, which is costly and, of course, more harmful, to liquid-gas and so forth generation. So, those are, in a nutshell, what we envision the sort of future grid of Puerto Rico looking like. 1:34:15 Senator Catherine Cortez Masto: It’s my understanding under the Stafford Act, it’s Section 406(e), that limits the use of federal disaster-relief funds for repairing, restoring, reconstructing, or replacing a public facility or private nonprofit facility on the basis of the design of the facility as the facility existed immediately before the major disaster. Now, my understanding of that, then, is that all of the talk that I’ve heard today, which is important talk about new infrastructure—burying lines, looking at how we add renewable capacity—that is something that is not going to be addressed through the funding, through the relief, that comes from the federal government. Is that correct? And I guess I’m asking Mr. Walker and General Jackson, is that your understanding? Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy Bruce Walker: That is my understanding. As I mentioned earlier, we’re doing emergency restoration work now. A number of the things that have been mentioned here, if the Congress approves additional appropriations, those would be opportunities that we could further, you know, build into— Masto: And that’s—are you asking today, then? That’s what you’re asking Congress today, additional appropriations outside of the Stafford Act be able to set up new infrastructure and do just what we’ve heard today, because we know another hurricane’s going to come through, or some other disaster. I think it’s just the way the climate is today. Is that the ask today from the governors? Governor Ricardo Rossello: To amend that, could you repeat the question, Senator? Masto: Sure. So, the Stafford Act limits the amount of— Rossello: Yeah. Masto: —money that you’re getting from the federal government for disaster relief to repair and reconstruct. Rossello: Yeah. Masto: It is not for new construction or new types of renewable energy or burying lines. So, are you coming today for additional funds outside of the Stafford Act, outside of disaster relief? Is that what I’m hearing today? Governor Kenneth Mapp: Yes. Yes, because under Stafford, if a system connected to the power generation isn’t damaged, it can’t be touched. If it’s cost effective, it can be mitigated, but the whole power system is all connected, and so if we want to change to more-efficient renewables—wind, solar—if the generation system hasn’t been damaged, then we can have an exclusion. So we will need changes in the language to permit that. Rossello: Yes. We are, we recognize what the limitations of FEMA funding are within this, so we’re asking for additional funding so that we can get that flexibility as well and actually rebuild better. I mean, again, you can discuss whether it’s a good idea or not on the context of the merit of the energy and the structure, but it is really just a bad idea to rebuild a system that is frail over again, spend good taxpayer money in that, because you’re going to have to do it once over again. 1:44:34 Senator Mazie Hirono (HI): Based on your estimates, how much are you asking Congress to fund in terms of the kind of modernization, resilience, etc. that you would like to see in Puerto Rico? Governor Ricardo Rossello: Yeah. It’s about $17 billion in damage estimates. Hirono: One year? Rossello: No. For the bulk of the process. Hirono: Seventeen billion dollars? Rossello: Yes, that’s right. Hirono: And is it your—well, I know that you hope that Congress will authorize that, and do you think that authorization or the funding to occur in one year, or is it over a period of time? Rossello: No, it would be over a period of time, of course. 1:53:28 Senator Bernie Sanders (VT): Puerto Rico is struggling with an unsustainable 75-billion-dollar debt and $49 billion in pension obligations. More than one-third of that debt is held by Wall Street vulture funds that are getting interest rates of up to 34% on tax-exempt bonds they purchased for as little as 29 cents on the dollar. Is that correct, Governor? Governor Ricardo Rossello: Yep. Hearing: Puerto Rico Recovery Challenges; House Natural Resources Committee, November 7, 2017. Witnesses: - Natalie Jaresko - Executive Director of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico - Angel Perez Otero - Mayor of Guanynabo, Puerto Rico - Noel Zamot - Revitalization Coordinator of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico 22:30 Natalie Jaresko: As the committee is aware, the board has recently named Noel Zamot as chief transformation officer of PREPA, with all the powers of a CEO and reporting to the board. We believe this is absolutely essential both to restoring service as soon as possible and to creating a sustainable, efficient, resilient, and fiscally accountable power system for the island. While the board is confident, the PROMESA, coupled with fundamental aspects of bankruptcy law, gives us the power and responsibility to do as we have done. Some parties are vigorously contesting our authority in proceedings before the Title III judge. To avoid uncertainty and lengthy delays and litigation, congressional reaffirmation of our exercise of our authority is welcome. 23:08 Natalie Jaresko: We have also implemented a contract-review policy as a tool to ensure transparency throughout the government, for the benefit of the people of Puerto Rico and all stakeholders. The policy applies to all contracts in which the commonwealth or any covered instrumentality is a counterparty, including those with the federal government, state governments, and private parties. The policy provides that all contracts of 10 million or more must be submitted to the board for its approval before execution. In addition, the board retains the authority to adopt other methods, such as random sampling of contracts below that 10-million-dollar threshold, to assure that they promote market competition and are not inconsistent with the approved fiscal plan. 26:48 Noel Zamot: I will retain key leaders on my staff to enable speed and effectiveness in our decision-making. I’d like to highlight two key roles. The chief operations officer will be responsible for day-to-day operations of the utility. This will initially be a senior leader from within PREPA but will be augmented by an industry executive identified in conjunction with input that we are receiving from the Edison Electric Institute. 27:41 Noel Zamot: I’ve also identified key executives to serve on a board of advisors. These are CEOs from public and private utilities who have generously volunteered to bring their considerable expertise to help with this task. I will also rely on an internal group of world-class experts from multi-national utilities, the energy sector, academia, and more. 28:22 Noel Zamot: Puerto Rico’s energy strategy calls for 50% renewables by 2040, with a balance of natural and LP gas mix; regional grids, with generation close to demand; physical hardening and control systems to provide resiliency; and widespread distributed generation, all wrapped by an empowered and accountable energy regulator. PROMESA is clear in its guidance to attract private capital to achieve this end state. We need to do just that, not only for generation but to attract innovative capital solutions from the private sector for transmission and distribution as well. 43:42 Representative Raul Grijalva (AZ): Do you or the board hold a view that, relative to Title V, waiving or eliminating additional federal environmental safeguards like NEPA or regulations will accelerate the recovery in Puerto Rico? Ms. Jaresko, you and then Mr. Zamot, if you don’t mind, as well, answering the question. Natalie Jaresko: I certainly believe that further expeditious permitting is a requirement. I’m not an expert on the individual sets of permitting, but I want to underline that it’s both federal, commonwealth, and municipality permitting at all levels. It needs to be expedited for any private-sector investment to become a quick recovery. Grijalva: Okay. Mr. Zamot, do you think that’s needed? Noel Zamot: Thank you, sir. My view is that economic growth and fast-tracking projects is not inconsistent with being good stewards of the environment, and we have a very robust process within Title V and within the working group that we have set with the government to ensure that we, the residents of Puerto Rico, are very respectful of that. Grijalva: If I may, sir, let me just follow up with you. You cite the proposed trash incinerators an example of a project Title V that could come to fruition, but I see an example of why Title V, in this instance, doesn’t work. Public comments about the project are overwhelming in opposition. It’s opposed by both mayors’ groups, representing all the mayors in the island. It was stalled in part because it couldn’t get a permit to drain 2.1 million gallons from a protected wetland. Farmers and residents concerned about the effects on their health, that it could undermine recycling programs that are in place. It flooded during the hurricane. We have a before-and-after situation, that’s up on the screen. It flooded during and released some of the hundreds of tons of toxic ash that could release, in the future, toxic ash into surrounding neighborhoods. And it requires a major loan from the federal government to go forward even though it’s fully privately funded for 67 megawatts of power. Is that what we can expect in terms of Title V critical projects? Zamot: Sir, there are many voices that, obviously, in a democratic process, voice their concern with such a project, but there are equal number of voices on the positive side. We don’t look at this project in Arecibo necessarily as even a power project. It is really a waste-management project. Puerto Rico has a critical, essentially a crisis, in waste management and landfill use that has been identified by the EPA, and that is why the EPA has actually been supportive of this program. 47:30 Representative Doug Lamborn (CO): Is it safe in assuming that pretty much 100% of the electricity generated in Puerto Rico today is from burning fuel oil? Noel Zamot: Sir, I would say it’s 96%. There is approximately 4% that is renewables in Puerto Rico right now. Lamborn: And as we know, fuel oil is very expensive and very dirty. Zamot: That is correct, sir. Lamborn: So, I like the plan. I think you said by 2040, 50% renewables, 50% natural gas through liquefied form. Zamot: That’s correct. Lamborn: Have you identified investors who are willing to make that huge investment in a LNG terminal? Zamot: Sir, there are a number of investors that are actually very bullish on Puerto Rico’s long-term prospects, and we and the board and specifically in my role as revitalization coordinator, we receive a lot of proposals, a lot of questions about how people can bring innovative capital solutions using private capital to bear, to benefit, the reconstruction of the grid and the people of Puerto Rico. Lamborn: Well, I would really urge you to keep pushing in that direction because I don’t think nuclear or coal is going to be a solution. Renewables are great, but to provide that much electricity in that short of time is unrealistic. So I welcome the discussion about LNG. 50:30 Representative Doug Lamborn (CO): And the last thing I want to ask you about is that 800-million-dollar project, and the ranking member referred to it: burning waste to create electricity. Is my understanding that that would be privately funded and would not need government subsidies of any kind? Noel Zamot: That is correct, sir. It’s entirely privately funded. Some of the capital structure includes some federal loans, but there is no money from Puerto Rico, and it relies on relatively new technology that is respectful of emissions. 51:53 Representative Grace Napolitano (CA): The incinerator would be built in an area in Arecibo previously contaminated by a battery recycling plant, and it was flooded during the hurricanes. Has the area been tested for lead, arsenic, and other contaminants? Noel Zamot: Ma’am, I do not have the specific details on what work has been accomplished to date, but we do know that the company that is planning that work has done extensive mitigation pre-work— Napolitano: How long has the plant been there, that it hasn’t been tested? Zamot: Ma’am, I do not have that information. Napolitano: Would you mind sending the answers to this committee— Zamot: Yes, ma’am. Napolitano: —so we can understand that. And how does the Energy Answers Arecibo, LLC plan to prevent their landfill from being flooded by future hurricanes? Zamot: Ma’am, could you repeat the question? Napolitano: How do you prevent landfill from being flooded by hurricanes? Zamot: That is an engineering question that I’m not prepared to answer right now. I would imagine that that has been looked at in the permitting that the company has received to date. Napolitano: Okay. When and—how and when does the company plan to bury the toxic ashes generated by the incinerator? Zamot: That is being currently discussed with the current Puerto Rico administration. Napolitano: Is, let’s see, how many Puerto Rico municipalities refuse to send trash to the plant incinerator? Zamot: I think the answer to that is many, because that represents a threat to current waste management in Puerto Rico, which the EPA has identified as a critical need to address. 1:19:36 Representative Steve Pearce (NM): Now, one of the problems that I see, just as a former business owner taking a look at it, one of the reasons that residents had to pay such a high rate is that certain entities didn’t have to pay for the electrical power. One of those would be the hotels. So are they still exempt from paying their power? Natalie Jaresko: Each of the economic development plans that Puerto Rico implemented over the years had individual tax agreements— Pearce: I’m just asking about the hotels. Jaresko: —between businesses and energy. Pearce: Are they still exempt? Are they not exempt? Jaresko: Some of them are, yes. Pearce: Some of them are exempt. Jaresko: That’s correct. Pearce: Now, also, cities were also exempt, and so city governments were exempt prior, according to what I’ve read. Noel Zamot: That’s correct, sir. 1:38:50 Natalie Jaresko: The board certainly considers privatization as one of the options going forward. There’s a question that remains open to see whether it’s privatization of the entire power sector, meaning generation transmission and distribution or some select part, or whether it just means bringing in private sector to compete and bring down the cost and bring up the efficiency of electricity. We’re looking at all of those as we define this fiscal plan for PREPA. 1:49:50 Representative Raul Labrador (ID): You stated that prior to the hurricane that the board possessed the authority to execute its mission and deliver on the underlying mandate Congress set with PROMESA, but with the devastation, you allude that those tools may be inadequate. So please tell us why does the board currently have—does the board currently have the tools necessary to facilitate efficient and effective recovery? Natalie Jaresko: I will try to be clear. I believe the board has the tools, that PROMESA gives us the tools. That said, when there are disagreements, the use of those tools ends up in costly and time-consuming litigation. Today more than ever that time and that cost is not helping Puerto Rico, so we asked for clarity of the tools that we have—whether it is in the appointment of a CTO through Title III, whether it is the implementation of our contract-policy review, or whether or not it is the implementation of the fiscal plans in full when certified. Labrador: So, what else do you need to be successful? Is there anything else that we need to give you to be successful? Jaresko: I think we would appreciate a legislative affirmation of those and/or conditioning of appropriations on those powers as you see fit. 2:11:11 Representative Garret Graves (LA): The governor recently proposed a law to address emergencies and disasters. Part of that law would allow, basically, eliminating or waiving sales tax in Puerto Rico. Are you aware—is that proposal on your radar screen? Were you consulted? Natalie Jaresko: No, we were not consulted. And I am aware that there has been a problem because of the lack of electricity and the collections of the sales-and-use tax. However, as electricity comes back, the collection process should also return. Graves: So you were not consulted. You were not aware on the front end. If ultimately the governor certifies that this is in compliance with the fiscal plan and you determine otherwise, what happens then? How does that play out? Jaresko: Well, I would hope that they would consult prior to putting that policy in place because it is something that can have a direct adverse fiscal effect, and it could be not in compliance with the fiscal plan. If they certify that it is, as you described, then we have a situation which could potentially, again, lead to difference of opinion in terms of what our role is in PROMESA. And it is very difficult for us, once it is certified by the government as being in compliance, if we disagree, to reverse that. Graves: I’m sorry. Say that last part again. Jaresko: If the government certifies that the executive order or law is in compliance with the fiscal plan, it is difficult for us to reverse that. Graves: Your hands are effectively tied. Do you think Congress should revisit that in terms of something that you believe causes economic harm or undermines the objectives of the fiscal plan but you don’t have the ability to actually help reset that? Jaresko: I think it should be very clear that the intent of PROMESA was for us to be able to stop things that were having an adverse effect on the fiscal plan, yes. 2:26:37 Representative Luis Gutierrez (IL): Arecibo incinerator, Mr. Zamot, I would hope you would talk to Secretary Vilsack because you seem to have a different perspective than he does, since the loan from the USDA is through the Rural Utilities Services. In other words, the money is not in order to do something with waste management; the money is to create energy. But you said to us earlier—and correct me if I’m wrong, if I misunderstood—that the purpose is one of for garbage, basically, disposal, and not for energy. How do you see it? Is it garbage disposal or energy? What is the primary purpose of it? Noel Zamot: Sir, the government of Puerto Rico has a letter out, and they consider that plan in Arecibo to be both a provider of energy— Gutierrez: But when you said primarily, you said primarily. Zamot: The plan at Arecibo, where about 2% of the aggregate electrical demand— Gutierrez: Okay. So primarily, I heard you—and we can go back to the record—you said that it was primarily; yet, they are asking for a loan between half a million and 750 million dollars. And let me just assure you and everybody here: Given the fact that the government of Puerto Rico already owes over $2 billion, unless Mrs. Jaresko’s going to use some of her skills to eliminate that debt, I don’t see how we’re going to do that. And in the last 25 seconds, because I want to focus on this issue with you, do you believe that the control board has such power that you do not have to take into consideration the concerns of the duly elected mayors of the cities that will be affected by the incinerator? Or do you feel you need to consult with them before you make a decision going forward? Zamot: Sir, in 9 seconds, the statute provides for a public comment period that in conclusion— Gutierrez: So, you don’t believe. You do believe that you’re supreme. You’re kind of a dictator over everything. 2:32:05 Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez (PR): You say that the board has the power to name a chief transformation officer to take over the management of PREPA, and at the same time, I know the state government, state legislator, the governor is against that. And you filed a motion in the court to allow that to happen. Do you have the power or you don’t have the power to actually name the coordinator board? Natalie Jaresko: Thank you. We believe we do have that power, and that’s why we filed that petition in court. We believe we have that power under Title III as any representative of a debtor, and the board is named the representative of the debtor, in the law in PROMESA, to name a chief restructuring officer, a receiver, a chief transformation officer, as we call it. Gonzalez: So, sorry to interrupt you, but then you don’t need any change in the PROMESA law? You don’t need any power to make that happen, because that’s the question this committee is doing. What do you need in terms of helping the people of Puerto Rico to recover power? I think that’s the main question. If we were a state, we will not have you. If we were a state, we will have full funding in all federal programs, and now that’s a problem all territories got. Jaresko: The board believes that in appointing this CTO will help us move more quickly to restoration of power. That is the only reason the board took this position, and they took it at this time. 2:43:30 Representative Luis Gutierrez (IL): Mayor, thank you very much for being here with us. Could you tell us your annual salary? Mayor Angel Perez Otero: My? Gutierrez: Yes. *Otero: 96,000. Gutierrez: $96,000. Mr. Zamot? What’s your annual salary? Noel Zamot: That’s a matter of— Gutierrez: I’m sorry? Zamot: Sir, that’s a matter of public record. Gutierrez: How much is it? Zamot: I think it’s in the record, sir. Gutierrez: Just—can’t you tell us how much it is? You know how much you’re getting paid. Why are you so reluctant to give us—this is a committee. Just want to know how much you’re getting paid. The mayor was very forthcoming. Zamot: The board found a competition competitive compensation of $315,000. 2:55:30 Representative Luis Gutierrez (IL): So, I’ll ask Mrs. Jaresko—I didn’t get to ask you—what’s your annual salary? Natalie Jaresko: $625,000. Gutierrez: $625,000. Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)  

When we hear The Battle of New Orleans General Andrew Jackson is perhaps the first person who comes to mind. His name would become immortalized in story and song defending the Southern city that had only become a part of the United States just over a decade prior with the Louisiana Purchase. Yet, in late 1814, it was Daniel Patterson who foresaw the British attack on New Orleans. In the middle of September he lead a force to the Southern Louisiana Base of the notorious Jean Lafitte at Barataria Bay, where, in routing the pirate, he laid claim to his ships, bringing the French-American Pirate to the aid of the American cause. General Jackson wanted Commodore Patterson to sail with his small makeshift fleet to Mobile Bay to engage the British. Patterson would refuse. To engage the vastly superior British navy there would allow for them to bottlenecked. His small fleet at that inlet to the Gulf of Mexico, making them an easy target. Instead he set about laying the defense of New Orleans. By December 12th sixty British ships under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, Commander-in-Chief of the North American and Jamaica stations anchored 14,450 soldiers and sailors in the Gulf of Mexico. The British would begin their move on New Orleans. It would be Commodore Patterson’s defense that would delay the British. With a small, rag-tag band of ships that were no match for the power of the British fleet now in the Gulf he would push back, in the hopes that the reinforcements would soon arrive. It would save the city from being overrun by the British. Still, on December 27th, 1814 the USS Carolina, a schooner launched only 2 years prior from Charleston, South Carolina, would take heated shots from the British in an effort by the Royal Navy to destroy the resistance of the American force. The crew would be forced from her as she caught fire, and eventually exploded. It would be the last ship in Patterson’s little fleet that had caused the British so many difficulties in trying to lay claim to New Orleans. Yet if they thought that the destruction of the Carolina would have opened the door wide for an invasion of the city they would be sorely mistaken. Despite losing the last of his fleet that day Patterson had largely been effective in what he set out to do. He bought the time that the Americans needed for reinforcements to arrive. At the defense of the city, Patterson, a naval officer now with no ships any longer, would find his place offering artillery support to his compatriots, once more contributing to the decisive American victory that would push the British from Louisiana. Praised by Jackson, had it not been for Patterson, there would have been a distinct possibility that New Orleans would have fallen. What that would have meant is perhaps a mystery as the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed to end the War but was yet to be ratified by the US government. Regardless, for his efforts Patterson would go on to be promoted to Captain and would serve in the Mediterranean Squadron in command of the USS Constitution, the flagship of Commodore John Rodger’s Fleet. He would continue to serve in the Navy until his death in 1839 at 53.

Episode 24 - Halloween is just around the corner so Pete, Sean, and Will are joined by the perfect guest - Eric Striffler, creator of many fun and scary projects including Nyctophobia (an immersive and interactive theatre experience) to pitch a historically revisionist supernatural horror film titled "Bell Witch". Originally released October 24th, 2016. Based on a supposed true story (or urban legend), James Woods as President Andrew Jackson on his death bed recalls the time in his youth he encountered the poltergeist that oppressed the Bell Family of Tennessee. We flash back to a young General Jackson, played by Matthew McConaughey, as his team battles a menacing witch hell bent on terrorizing the Bell household. Conceptualized as a Netflix original movie produced by The Duffer Brothers, we present to you the horrifying true to life story of the "Bell Witch". Next Monday we continue pitching our Halloween themed movies, with a "Werewolf vs. College Football Team" horror sports film, joined by special guest, Fangoria's Editor-in-Chief Ken Hanley and his pitch for "Havasu Nights". We encourage our talented listeners to create posters of our latest pitch and please send them to any of the social media outlets listed below. Email us at: pitchitmoviepodcast@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/pitchitmoviepodcast Instagram: www.instagram.com/pitchitmoviepodcast Twitter: twitter.com/pitchitmoviepod Subscribe and Download on iTunes: goo.gl/cKStzC Subscribe and Download on Google Play: goo.gl/eZHLJp Subscribe and Download on Stitcher: goo.gl/jAecf5

ICR takes a trip down the Cumberland River on the General Jackson Show Boat lunch cruise. This is a must do if you visit Nashville, the food and entertainment was top notch, its worth it.

It has been referred to as the “Home of American Music”, “America’s Musical Showpark” and promised “Great Shows, Great Rides and Great Times”. The park originally opened  with 120 acres of rides and attractions. It opened on June 30, 1972 and remained open until December 31, 1997. At the parks peak in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the park enjoyed the attendance over 2 million guests annually. Welcome to Opryland USA. Opryland USA, which was usually referred to as Opryland was born due to the popularity of its namesake The Grand Ole’ Opry and the move of the Opry from its long time location at the Ryman Auditorium to its current location at the Grand Ole Opry House. But before we tell the story of the park, we’ll tell the story of The Grand Ole Opry itself… Stepping back it in time we go back to the Roarin’ 20’s, 1925 to be exact. The Grand Ole Opry started out as the WSM Barn Dance. What was WSM you may ask? WSM was an AM radio station owned by the National Life & Accident Insurance Company. The radio studio was housed on the fifth floor of their building in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. In October of 1925 the station began a program featuring “Dr. Humphrey Bate and his string quartet of old-time musicians”. A couple of weeks after the program aired WSM hired what would become their long-time program director and announcer George D. “Judge” Hay. Hay wasted no time, after coming on board he quickly recruited the seasoned 77 year old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson and then on November 28, 1925 and re-launched the WSM Barn Dance, and although the phrase would not actually be mentioned on air for another 2 years, that date is credited for being the official birth date of The Grand Ole Opry. During the 1930’s the popularity of the program led to many artists, who would later become country music legends, performing on the Opry as well as the length of the Saturday night show being extended to 4 hours. Being broadcast at that time at 50,000 watts, the show became a staple in homes in 30 states eventually becoming a national show when it was picked up by NBC Radio in 1939. All the time this was happening, the live audience of the show grew quickly leading the show to being moved from its original studio to larger and larger venues to accommodate the audience size. Eventually the audience grew to such a size that measures were taken to control attendance by charging a 25 cent admission charge. That, having little effect to dissuade attendance, led to the show being moved to the Ryman Auditorium. It was during the Ryman years that music legends such as Hank Williams (who was eventually banned in 1952 due to his alcohol problems), Patsy Cline, Roy Acuff, The Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells, Minnie Pearl and many others came to be frequent performers on the Grand Ole Opry Stage. The Opry’s growing attendance numbers due to its popularity along with deterioration issues with the Ryman Auditorium led to the decision to find a new home for the show. It was decided by WSM, Inc., the operator of the Opry that it would be relocated nine miles east of downtown Nashville, on a tract of land that was owned by a sausage manufacturer (Rudy’s Farm) in the Pennington Bend area of Nashville, it was also decided to build a theme park and hotel/convention center with the new Grand Ole Opry House becoming the crown jewel of the grand entertainment complex. Ironically, the theme park would open on June 30, 1972 prior to the Grand Ole Opry House debuting there on March 16, 1974. The park would receive its original name from WSM disk jockey, Grant Turner’s early morning show, Opryland USA, with its own name honoring the stars of the Grand Ole Opry. Although the Grand Ole Opry had always dedicated itself to mostly featuring traditional, conservative Country Music (with only a couple of exceptions); Opryland USA’s overall theme was more of a generalized blend of American Music consisting of bluegrass, gospel, jazz, pop and rock and roll with the theme carrying through not only to the rides but the shows as well. As a matter of fact the Rock N’ Roller Coaster was a opening day attraction. WSM’s bet paid off in a big way as the entire complex proved extremely popular and spurred its first expansion in 1975. In a move that would fit right in with culture of the park the “State Fair” area was created featuring carnival games, the Wabash Cannonball roller coaster, the Tennessee Waltz swing ride and the Country Bumpkin Bumper Cars. As would become the norm because of the parks limited size, the park would have to remove an attraction in order to add a new one. In this case it was the park’s buffalo exhibit that would disappear in favor of the new attractions. But the Wabash Cannonball roller coaster would prove to be one of the favorite rides at the park until it’s closure 22 years later. In a setback for the park for its 1975 season, not too long before the park was set to open the Cumberland River experienced a large flood that inundated most of the park with some areas submerged by up to 16 feet of water. Fortunately, the park was able to recover from the flood quickly with the opening day being delayed only for one month, but on a sadder note several of the animals from the petting zoo did not survive the ordeal. Attendance continued to grow throughout the 1970’s and into the 1980’s partly due to the parks location and its ability to draw guests throughout Tennessee and several surrounding states being that there were no other comparable parks within a reasonable driving distance. Most other parks such as St. Louis’s Six Flags over Mid-America, Charlotte’s Carowinds, Atlanta’s Six Flags over Georgia and the northern King’s Island in Cincinnati were a 4 to 6 hour or more drive making them impractical for a day trip. As park attendance grew and attractions grew, it ushered in the need for a hotel in order to keep guests onsite for more than a day. In 1977 the Opryland Hotel, a large resort hotel, was built next to the park. Then in 1979 the Roy Acuff Theater next door to the Grand Ole Opry House in the plaza area and was the primary venue for the theme parks premier musical events and productions. In a shrewd business move the theater was actually built outside the park’s perimeter and while because of this you did not need theme park tickets to attend events, productions held there usually did require separate tickets from park admission and in most cases drew day guest’s from the parks to the events as well as the general public, thereby increasing the park’s revenue. In 1982, things changed for the Opryland complex in an abet, “Grand” way. The parent company of WSM, Inc., (National Life and Accident Insurance Company, later NLT Corporation) was absorbed by American General from Texas. Unlike it’s predecessor, who had benefitted from the advertising value and name recognition of owning and supporting the Grand Ole Opry, American General had no experience with or running an entertainment business and furthermore had no interest in running a theme park nor the broadcast business. It almost immediately set about the task of finding a buyer for all of NLT’s former entertainment assets and approached some of the larger entertainment and hospitality corporations such as MCA, Anheuser-Busch and the Marriott Corporations about the possibility of selling them all as a “package” deal. While some potential buyers were interested in individual parts like the theme park, the hotel, or the Grand Ole Opry itself; no one company was interested in buying them all at once. After a time, American General began considering that the only way they would be able to divest themselves of these properties would be to split them up into different entities. As fate would have it, just about that time Gaylord Broadcasting Company of Oklahoma City stepped in and bought nearly all of them lock, stock and barrel. The Opryland Complex, the WSM radios stations and it would have bought the WSM-TV station as well had they had not been at their limit of television stations that they were allowed to own by the government. After the purchase was complete, the name was changed to Gaylord Entertainments Company. In fact, Ed Gaylord, who was then heading the media empire was instrumental in Opryland’s acquisition. Mr. Gaylord, as it turned out was a huge fan of the Opry and spearheaded the effort to purchase it and keep it intact. As an added bonus, the acquisition also included then fledgling WSM cable network, TNN (The Nashville Network) and its production division Opryland Productions. TNN has since gone on to become a television network dedicated entirely to Country Music. For a number of years TNN’s offices and production facilities continued to be located on-site in Opryland as well as one of its shows, Nashville Now (then later Music City Tonight) was filmed in the Gaslight Theater within the park itself and the park was often used as a backdrop for numerous concerts and performances of popular country music stars. With Gaylord now owning and backing the park and the enthusiastic leader of the parent company as a fan, the future looked bright for Opryland USA…and for a while at least it would be, but the clouds were beginning to gather. With the purchase of the park now behind them, 1982 would bring more expansion to the park but with growth would come more growing pains due to the limitations of space. Future expansion from this point would mean that for every new addition to the park, something would have to go. In 1984, a third roller coaster arrived in the New Orleans area of the park. It was named “ The Screamin’ Delta Demon”. A second, yet more subtle park gate was also added adjacent to the parking lot as well for the 1984 season. As the 1980’s pressed on, the park would face an issue that it never really had to deal with before…competition. As I had mentioned earlier the park had faired well during the 1970’s and early 1980’s because, while other attractions did exist in Tennessee and it’s surrounding states, there we’re no direct competitors that equal to Opryland USA using te same model. But that was about to change with the opening of kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Kentucky and the former Silver Dollar City in Pigeon Forge, Tenessee rebranded and improved to become Dollywood, a partnership between the Herschend Brothers and singer, songwriter and actress Dolly Parton. Now with two other parks within driving distance and both competing for Opryland’s guest’s the park stepped up it’s game by committing to making annual changes to retain it’s local and out-of-town guests and adding major attractions such as the General Jackson Showboat (which still continues to operate to this day near Opry Mills), they also added new roller coasters and water rides until the end of the decade with the opening of the “Chaos” roller coaster.  In 1992 the Chevy-Geo Celebrity Theater opened and for two seasons the performances here were included with the regular park admission. Then in 1994 and 1995 the park began up-charging guests for the concerts held in the theater. Then in a short-lived attempt to capitalize on the success and revenue of the Chevy-Geo Celebrity Theater, Opryland added two more venues; Theater By The Lake and The Roy Acuff Theater each, receiving renovations and expansions, and added them to the concert series and billing it as Nashville On Stage. However, it turned out to be “too much of a good thing by creating more supply than there was demand for the live entertainment” and due to the lackluster sales the multi-venue concert series was moved back to the Chevy-Geo Celebrity Theater serving as the single concert venue inside the park. Many other things were promoted to bring visitors to the park such as the taping of several weeks of the popular Mark Goodson Game Show “Family Feud” featuring some of the biggest stars in country music at the time including, just to name a couple, the Mandrell’s and the Statler Brothers. Also in reference to TNN’s coverage of NASCAR and Opryland’s designation with NASCAR the annual “TNN Salute to Motorsports” would take place one weekend a year at the park starting in the early 1990’s and continuing until the parks final closing. Large events were held in the late years of the park, for example the Grizzly River Rampage was used as a course for the NationsBank Whitewater Championships, which (in 1995 alone) served as a qualifier for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. After the events were completed, the course was drained and a temporary Halloween attraction—"Quarantine", tied into the storyline of the neighboring indoor roller coaster "Chaos"—was constructed in its bed and would run during the halloween season from1995 through 1997. In 1995, in what would come to be the final large attraction would open at the park, The Hangman roller coaster was opened. Also starting in 1994, Gaylord began investing heavily in the rejuvenation of the downtown Nashville entertainment district. The company renovated an old and dilapidated Second Avenue building into what became the Wildhorse Saloon and was also behind the major rennovation and reopening of the Ryman Auditorium. With the investment made in the downtown entertainment district they began to offer a water taxi service between the downtown district and the theme park and solidified the connection between the two areas by renaming the theme park as Opryland Theme Park and using the existing name of Opryland USA as the figurehead name for all of Gaylord Entertainment’s Nashville properties. Now with all of the investment going into the area and a new coaster for the park you would think that would signal good things for the future of the park but short-sighted planning and baseless decisions would soon signal the beginning of the end for Opryland theme park. For a moment, we’re going to step back in time to 1993. At the time the theme park had grown to 200 acres in size. Let’s put that in perspective. For those of us who are familiar with Disney’s theme parks let’s compare Opryland Theme Park’s 200 acres  to Walt Disney’s Magic Kindom Park coming in at approxamately 142 acres or Disney’s Hollywood Studios Theme Park at 154 acres. Granted EPCOT is over 100 acres larger at 300 acres but I think you get the picture. Opryland at the time was not a small theme park by any means and still needed room to grow. However, that was not to be. A project that would put the final nails in the preverbial coffin for the theme park was to be called “The Delta” and it would be started in 1993 and would open in 1996. The project was huge, in fact it was the largest construction project up to that point in Nashville’s history. It would add a massive new atrium, 1,000+ guest rooms and a new convention center to the Opryland hotel. It  would also come to occupy almost every single square foot of land that would have allowed the theme park to grow and evolve. Coming back to late 1995, the Gaylord company management at the time had turned a scutinizing eye towards the theme park, and perhaps a bit of predjudice. Nashville’s climate while pleasant throughout the majority of the year, prrevented the park from operating during the winter except for a short run during the Christmas season. The park was also only able to open on weekends during the spring and fall. But the park was open daily during the summer season. According to reports, it was shown that attendance to the parks did somewhat plateau throughout the 1990’s. However, the actual number of visitors to the park made the park profitable, but obviously not profitqable enough for the executives running the company at the time. In 1997 Gaylord management decided that a move back towards it’s core hospitality business was in it’s best interest and in keeping with this directive, it was decided that the Opryland Theme Park property would no longer make a return on investment equal to what was desired for it’s properties and was unlike to do so in the future. Which in light of the consuption of property from the construction of The Delta, seemed to be a self –fufilling prophesy. Either way, one thing was clear, Opryland Theme Park’s journey was coming to an end. In 1996, a third park gate was finally added near the "Chaos" roller coaster, which allowed pedestrian traffic between Opryland Hotel and Opryland Themepark for the first time in the parks history. Previously, hotel guests wishing to visit the amusement park would have to take a shuttle running back and forth between the hotel and the entrance of the park. At the end of 1997 the "Christmas in the Park" season was promoted as "one last chance" for the residents of Nashville to see Opryland Theme Park, but guest arrived to find that only a very small portion of the park was open for the season, many of the larger attractions were already being dismantled. Then abruptly on December 31, 1997 the gates were locked and Opryland USA began to fade from reality into history. As it so often happens in the wake of closing an amusement park, efforts were made to sell off the larger rides and attractions to other parks to recoup as much revenue as possible from the dying park and in some cases they succeeded in others, deals went bad leaving some dismantled rides to either sit in outdoor storage and deteriorate or being sold off for scrap… an end not befitting the memories, laughter and fun times that they had generated for so many years before. The park site was cleared and paved over and relegated to serving as the parking lot for Opry Mills and the Grand Ole Opry House while construction of the mall took place on the site of the Theme Park’s parking lot. Opry Mills opened in May of 2000. But for a time some vestiges of the park remained, as a few still do today for those who know where to look. A long, short concrete levee wall that once separated the State Fair, The New Orleans and the Riverside areas is still visible and from the McGavock Street entrance you can still see the remains of the embankment which once supported the rails for Opryland’s railroad. The administration building that was located however briefly outside the gates of the park was moved near the Cumberland landing docks and serves as offices for the General Jackson and the Music City Queen riverboats. Quite a bit of the Opry plaza area remains intact and for that matter open for business. The Roy Acuff Theater, The Grand Ole Opry Museum, and of course The Grand Ole Opry House herself have remained in regular use before, during, and after the demolition of the park. It should be noted as well that the Grand Ole Opry show also returns yearly for a limited seasonal run at it’s original home at the Ryman Auditorium.  The buildings that once housed Roy Acuff’s and Minnie Pearls Museum became administrative offices for WSM radio and as for the Gaslight Theater it is still the only building that is still standing from inside the gates of the them park and has been used for Gaylord’s annual ICE! exhibit for a time, as a rental facility for television production, and for various other events. Though all of the rides had long since gone, the man-made channel for Grizzly River Rampage remained as a visible reminder of the park for fourteen years until Gaylord, in clearing the area for a new events center razed the course…and with that the last recognizable feature of Opryland Theme Park was gone. While many people have called for the park to be rebuilt, it was not to be. The time of Opryland Park had pasted. For it is now, like so many other parks ever to remain destined to operate only in the memory of those who can’t forget the fun they had in Opryland, USA. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Echoes Of Laughter. You can listen to this show as well as all of our other shows by visiting us at our website at: ithrivehere.com and of course at echoesoflaughter.com. Please remember that if you like our shows we ask that you subscribe to them and give us a positive rating on iTunes, after all that is how other people are able to find our shows as well. If you would like to help support our shows like this one, check out the show’s show notes where you can find books and other products from Amazon.com relating to the topics of our shows. When you click through our link it won’t cost you a penny more to purchase products, but we will make a small commission that helps pay for the cost of producing and hosting these shows for everyone to enjoy. Thank s so much for joining us and don’t forget to remember the laughter…

Today we'll be joined by Major General Anthony Jackson, USMC (ret.), Lt. General John Castellaw, USMC (ret.), and retired Republican Senator John Warner, who also served in the Marine Corps and as the Secretary of the Navy from 1972-74. Each will discuss his views on America's energy future and the need for advanced biofuels in the military. Tune in to hear what our armed forces are doing to conserve energy in every facet of their operations, and how military bases are generating impressive amounts of clean, green energy. Most importantly, listen in to learn why today's military leaders are so driven to help our nation become self-sufficient in meeting our energy needs, and in the words of Maj. General Jackson, why we need to decide as a nation that we will no longer be content to shed American blood for oil.

Today we'll be joined by Major General Anthony Jackson, USMC (ret.), Lt. General John Castellaw, USMC (ret.), and retired Republican Senator John Warner, who also served in the Marine Corps and as the Secretary of the Navy from 1972-74. Each will discuss his views on America's energy future and the need for advanced biofuels in the military. Tune in to hear what our armed forces are doing to conserve energy in every facet of their operations, and how military bases are generating impressive amounts of clean, green energy. Most importantly, listen in to learn why today's military leaders are so driven to help our nation become self-sufficient in meeting our energy needs, and in the words of Maj. General Jackson, why we need to decide as a nation that we will no longer be content to shed American blood for oil.

PART IV.THE WAR ADVANCES NORTHWARD.III. Lee advances from the Rapidan General Lee, it will thus be seen, had proceeded in his military manoeuvres with the utmost caution, determined to give his adversaries no advantage, and remain in front of the capital until it was free from all danger. But for the daring assault upon General McClellan, on the Chickahominy, his critics would no doubt have charged him with weakness and indecision now but, under any circumstances, it is certain that he would have proceeded in the same manner, conducting operations in the method which his judgment approved.At length the necessity of caution had disappeared. General Burnside had gone to reinforce General Pope, and a portion of McClellan's army was believed to have followed. ''It therefore seemed,'' says General Lee, ''that active operations on the James were no longer contemplated,'' and he wisely concluded that ''the most effectual way to relieve Richmond from any danger of attack from that quarter would be to reenforce General Jackson, and advance upon General Pope.'' In commenting upon these words, an able writer of the North exclaims: ''Veracious prophecy, showing that _insight_ which is one of the highest marks of generalship!'' The movement, indeed, was the right proceeding, as the event showed and good generalship may be defined to be the power of seeing what is the proper course, and the decision of character which leads to its adoption.General Lee exhibited throughout his career this mingled good judgment and daring, and his cautious inactivity was now succeeded by one of those offensive movements which, if we may judge him, by his subsequent career, seemed to be the natural bent of his character. With the bulk of his army, he marched in the direction of General Pope the rest were speedily ordered to follow, and active operations began for driving the newly-formed Federal ''Army of Virginia'' back toward Washington.We have presented Lee's order for the attack on General McClellan, and here quote his order of march for the advance against General Pope, together with a note addressed to Stuart, commanding his cavalry, for that officer's guidance.HEADQUARTERS ARMY NORTHERN VIRGINIA,_August_ 19, 1862.SPECIAL ORDER No. 185.I. General Longstreet's command, constituting the right wing of the army, will cross the Rapidan at Raccoon Ford, and move in the direction of Culpepper Court-House. General Jackson's command, constituting the left wing, will cross at Summerville Ford, and move in the same direction, keeping on the left of General Longstreet. General Anderson's division will cross at Summerville Ford, follow the route of General Jackson, and act in reserve. The battalion of light artillery, under Colonel S.D. Lee, will take the same route. The cavalry, under General Stuart, will cross at Morton's Ford, pursue the route by Stevensburg to Rappahannock Station, destroy the railroad bridge, cut the enemy's communications, telegraph line, and, operating toward Culpepper Court-House, will take position on General Longstreet's right.II. The commanders of each wing will designate the reserve for their commands. Medical and ammunition wagons will alone follow the troops across the Rapidan. The baggage and supply trains will be parked under their respective officers, in secure positions on the south side, so as not to embarrass the different roads.III. Cooked rations for three days will be carried in the haversacks of the men, and provision must be made for foraging the animals. Straggling from the ranks is strictly prohibited, and commanders will make arrangements to secure and punish the offenders.IV. The movements herein directed will commence to-morrow, 20th instant, at dawn of day.By command of General R.E. Lee:A.P. MASON, _A.A. G_.HEADQUARTERS CRENSHAW'S FARM, _August_ 19, 1862._General J.E.B. Stuart, commanding Cavalry_:General: I desire you to rest your men to-day, refresh your horses, prepare rations and every thing for the march to-morrow. Get what information you can of fords, roads, and position of the enemy, so that your march can be made understandingly and with vigor. I send to you Captain Mason, an experienced bridge-builder, etc., whom I think will be able to aid you in the destruction of the bridge, etc. When that is accomplished, or when in train of execution, as circumstances permit, I wish you to operate back toward Culpepper Court-House, creating such confusion and consternation as you can, without unnecessarily exposing your men, till you feel Longstreet's right. Take position there on his right, and hold yourself in reserve, and act as circumstances may require. I wish to know during the day how you proceed in your preparations. They will require the personal attention of all your officers. The last reports from the signal-stations yesterday evening were, that the enemy was breaking up his principal encampments, and moving in

PART III.ON THE CHICKAHOMINY.III. The Battle of the Chickahominy On the morning of the 26th of June, 1862, all was ready for the great encounter of arms between the Confederates and the Federal forces on the Chickahominy. General Jackson had been delayed on his march from the mountains, and had not yet arrived but it was known that he was near, and would soon make his appearance and, in the afternoon, General Lee accordingly directed that the movement should commence. At the word, General A.P. Hill moved from his camps to Meadow Bridge, north of Richmond crossed the Chickahominy there, and moved rapidly on Mechanicsville, where a small Federal force, behind intrenchments, guarded the head of the bridge. This force was not a serious obstacle, and Hill soon disposed of it. He attacked the Federal works, stormed them after a brief struggle, and drove the force which had occupied them back toward Beaver Dam Creek, below. The Mechanicsville bridge was thus cleared and, in compliance with his orders from Lee, General Longstreet hastened to throw his division across. Hill had meanwhile pressed forward on the track of the retreating enemy, and, a mile or two below, found himself in front of a much more serious obstruction than that encountered at the bridge, namely, the formidable position held by the enemy on Beaver Dam Creek.