Podcasts about Granted

JOIN US as we discuss Scotty Morrow.RIP to the victims

Ninja Nurse Book: https://amzn.to/42n9Fqz TKF -KFP Blend 1.Leaders 2.Ando Mierzwa 3. Saturday Mental Meals Shurite Troy June 26-28 2026 https://shuritebujutsu.com/seminars%2Fevents Support A Kids Dream https://gofund.me/e745a0e7 Injuries, ailments and bruising are part of being a martial artist. Sore muscles, joint tweaks and broken bones can happen in martial activity with many variables dictating the outcome. We want to identify the most important variables or potential risks. The injury rate in martial arts is similar to other contact sports. In a study, # Comparison of Shotokan Karate Injuries against Injuries in other Martial Arts and Select NCAA Contact Sports By John-David Swanson, Ph.D. Department of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, Salve Regina University, Newport, RI 02840 Martial arts has "myriad physical and mental benefits. Physical benefits include improved balance, meaningful exercise, and the ability to protect oneself against a physical threat [2]. It is also a physical art, with flowing movements that support one's connection to his/her movements." A review of research revealed there is a 1 in 5 chance of being injured in a shotokan tournament and 1 in 4 chance of being injured over the course of time training. The mean percentage of reported injuries thru 10 studies 1. Contusions 47% 2. Epistaxis (nosebleed) 20% 3. Laceration 14% 4. Sprains/strains 3% 5. Concussions 2% some as high as 7% the most injury-prone arts appear to be Jujitsu (97.5%), Aikido (51%), and Kung Fu (38%), followed by Judo, Karate, and Tae Kwon Do which all were at 20-21%. The least injury prone martial art of those studied is Tai Chi (14%). Which I define as the Wellness versions, but may include pushhands and some strengthening work. Over a 16 year NCAA research study, the only collegiate sport that had a higher injury rate than shotokan karate was football witha 36% injury rate. Soccer and ice hockey following respectively. The major risk factors for injury in the Martial Arts are the 1. time spent in training, 2. age of the participant, 3. the experience of the participant. 4. Specifically, it was found that overtraining, and older and inexperienced participants presented the highest risk of injury. As you might imagine, these factors compound, so an older, inexperienced person has a much higher percentage of getting injured. Professor Swanson states, "The single most important factor in preventing injury is the education and experience level of the instructor [14]. This indicates the requirement of having a strong organizational “apprenticeship” or instructor qualification that includes specific instruction in warm up and cool down procedures, injury prevention and the mechanisms of prevention, the ability to determine overtraining, the ability to give appropriate advice to students in the implication of techniques in both execution and results of delivery" Segways to why this is an important book, Ninja Nurse by Peter Jones. The Essential Guide to Injury Management in Martial Arts. It is available on amazon, goodreads and several other locations. Contributing to the validity of this 300 page book is that Peter is a nurse, has over 30 years of multi-martial experiences and deposits volumes of this information into one book. Ninja Nurse is an excellent guide to all aspects of injury prevention or reduction in martial arts. Chapters include health screening, risk assessment, and aspects of the training environment. Also, You Get a deepdive into children and to combat sports. It also includes true stories, useful links, and where to find important forms if you have a school. Peter takes you through a process, how to: 1. Reduce and prevent injury 2. Treat injury 3. Learn from the injury The book emphasizes content for the instructor. Peter walks through potential problem actions such as : 1. Breakfalling 2. Striking and padholding 3. Chokes and strangles As I read through the book, I noted that Peter provides you a good idea of what a legimate martial arts first aid kit might look like. Granted, any is better than none. However, This is particularly useful if you are not sure on how to build your martial arts first aid kit. Then please, make sure that you can use everything that is in it. https://www.nationalcprfoundation.com/courses/standard-first-aid-3/. $12.95 2 years Reality Moment: Indiana Personal Injury Lawsuit Involving Karate Kick Moves Forward. Kicking Held Bags, Johnny the jackass has already been warned twice about trying to crush people, and on third, gets a lady, jump kicks her when she wasn't ready. she injures her knee in the fall that required surgery. She has sued Johnny, and the court has stated, "an individual's actions during a particular exercise or drill in a practice session can be viewed as “within the range of ordinary behavior of participants in the sport” or whether it is dangerous is for a jury to decide." It continues, "Responsible trainers and athletes keep themselves aware of both the risk of injury and the steps to prevent them." My understanding is that the injured lady is only seeking damages from Johnny Jackass and not the martial arts school. My guess would be that they did things as close to right as possible, except for yanking johnny on his second warning. Ninja Nurse is an excellent clinical reference broken into areas, such as: 1. Spinal injury 2. Chest 3. Neck 4. Limbs 5. And smaller join injuries. Peter discusses Mental Health Awareness and there associations to problems in your training hall. Depression, anger, bi-polar students will bring unique concerns that you can reduce with awareness. Peter states, "consider an acute mental health episode like an acute injury." Iain Abernethy said, ""it focuses on how to ensure training partners don't get hurt and how to help them if they do." Jamie Clubb says, "this is as an exhaustive work on the subject as one could hope to find." I would tell you that this book addresses a critical area of any martial arts training center. Its value is well worth more than the cost. Thank you Peter. References [Shotokan and Other Martial Art Injury Rates](https://thesportjournal.org/article/comparison-of-shotokan-karate-injuries-against-injuries-in-other-martial-arts-and-select-ncaa-contact-sports/)

I love spontaneous podcasts. That's what happened today with Randy Barton. He's a Diné (Navajo) artist and is just a very interesting man and a very unique and important artistic voice. He has a great story. He moves from the reservation to Winslow, AZ and gets into  hip hop culture and graffiti at a very young age. He runs with this, and it becomes the story of his life. Randy lays it all out in our conversation.This is one of those that you should watch on YouTube. Granted, this is an ART podcast, so they're all better with added visuals, but also because he's just such an animated individual. It's fun to be in his presence. He has a magnetism that you just can't put into words, but you know it when you feel it.I got to watch Randy do a live painting this summer and it was amazing to see. He's just so multi-dimensional in his creativity, from traditional art, to graphic design, to fashion, to dance, to music, to filmmaking. It was a really fun, interesting, and overall dynamic podcast that just happened out of thin air. After speaking with him for an hour or so, I like to think that's how Randy's life is. Things are naturally spontaneous for him and he's the type of person that - when he feels something, he just does it. So anyway, I had a great time, and I think you will too. This is Randy Barton on Art Dealer Diaries Podcast episode 370.

Ep. 161 Patrick Brogan: Lean In and Don't Take It for Granted Our hosts kick off this week talking about things they weren't great at when they first started, and Bryan shares his conversation with Patrick Brogan. Patrick shares his role at ArtsQuest, an organization that grew from an 11-day music festival to a 10-acre arts and culture campus, the SteelStacks. Patrick shares his journey in the arts and his over 20 years with ArtsQuest, encouraging folks to take it in and enjoy it all.  Patrick Brogan is the Chief Programming Officer at ArtsQuest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (https://www.artsquest.org/). Follow us on social media and let us know your thoughts and questions - https://linktr.ee/nobusinesslikepod Our theme song is composed by Vic Davi.

We really don't hear too many stories about "The American Dream" anymore. As I mention in the intro, Oksana's story comes as close as you'd expect to it. From a musical talent in Siberia to an amazing business in Los Angeles, it's certainly been an interesting road for her. And you'll hear about it in this interview. Granted, I don't normally do episodes about businesses, but hey, last week's with Arthur Frischman ("The Long Island Sign Guy") was about a guy with a business who became a viral sensation on social media. Will that happen for Oksana? I guess it's a wait and see for that, but I certainly wouldn't bet against what this lady can do. Thanks for coming on the show, Oksana!Oksana's info: Websites- https://oksanamanagementgroup.com/about-oksana/ , https://oksanaenrichment.com/ , https://oksanamanagementgroup.com/Social media: X:@omg_oksana , Facebook & instagram : @omgoksana; YouTube: @oksanabellaYou can hear Oksana's music on Apple Music! https://music.apple.com/us/artist/oksana-kolesnikova/285060259Catch "Sherpa Selects" on Saturdays. It's the episodes you tried to avoid the first time around!More thanks: Intro/outro:https://www.yourimagingguy.com/Music Credits/Voiceovers: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bruce Goldberg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ( aka Lord Mr. Bruce); other Voices: The Sherpa-lu Studio PlayersYouTube: @sherpalution5000 @sherpalution-Instagram; @sherpalution1- TikTokLink pages: https://linktr.ee/sherpalution or https://chirp.me/sherpalutionHere's our website: https://shows.acast.com/the-sherpas-podcast-picksYou can support this show...FOR FREE!!! All you have to do is listen here.Email:jimthepodcastsherpa@gmail.comSupport:Review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.**AI disclaimer: Any use of artificial intelligence in the voiceovers that may be used in this show are strictly for entertainment purposes. They are not used to mislead or disparage the content in this podcast, any guests, or the podcast platform that you are listening on. But I, as your Sherpa, have faith in YOUR intelligence as a listener, and know that you were already aware of this. Thanks for listening!Become a Rebel of the Sherpalution! Please subscribe to the show (for free) through your favorite podcast listening medium, so you don't miss an episode. (What if you miss one, and then we have a test????) If I'm not on your favorite medium, let me know, and I'll bribe my way on it! (That's assuming I actually have money...) Also, please reach out to me through my social media channels or email address. I'd love to hear what you think.And PLEASE let me know if there's a podcast I should be checking out...even if it's one you host! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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A judge has approved Sean "Diddy" Combs' request for a fast-tracked appeals process, just four days after he began serving a 50-month sentence in a federal prison in New Jersey for two interstate prostitution convictions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the evening All Local for November, 3 2025.

''I'd like to think we'll be there or thereabouts''GAA Manager Davy Fitzgerald joined Dave for a chat about the new season of Ireland's Fittest Family.

Hi Listeners. I'd love to hear from you. Send an email to Janet@jesteinkamp. It is not possible to respond to your Fan Mail posts directly.Hi Listeners, Welcome to this safe, judgment-free space to find support, explore new perspectives, and better understand your estrangement circumstances. Regardless of where your relationship sits on the Continuum of Estrangement, you'll find encouragement and reassurance. If you've ever wondered how to move between being a mom to your adult child and a grandma to their children—especially when estrangement or tension is involved—this episode is for you.I'm Dr. Janet Steinkamp, and in this episode I will help you understand and explore the powerful differences between your role as a mom to your adult child and your role as grandma. I'll provide reassurance that each role matters and how clear boundaries can actually strengthen family bonds. You'll learn how to move (flex) back and forth between supporter and emotional anchor to a safe haven for grandchildren. We explore ways to rebuild trust after distance seeps in or silence becomes a fact.Finally, we learn how to nurture relationships with your grandchildren without undermining your adult child's confidence and trust. And! Not feel exploited or taken for granted.Grab your notebook, get comfortable, and let's unpack what it means to love well in both roles—so you can grow stronger and find comfort knowing you're not alone.Related Episodes:When Our Adult Children Ask for Space: What It Really MeansUnderstanding Emotional Boundaries with Estranged Adult ChildrenHealing the Hurt: How to Rebuild Trust After EstrangementHow to Communicate Without Pushing Your Child AwaySupport the showFor more information, please visit:  https://www.WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway.com to find resources, strategies, and tips to prepare for repair! I'd love to hear from you directly. Send an email to Janet@jesteinkamp. ***It is not possible for me to respond to your Fan Mail posts directly.#FamilyEstrangementPodcast #ParentReconnection #EstrangedAdultChildren #ParentChildReunification #ReconnectingWithMyChild #EstrangementExpertThe continuum of estrangement discussed today can be found at https://www.togetherestranged.org/levels-of-estrangement.The stories, examples, reflections, and perspectives shared in this podcast are based on my professional work as an estrangSupport the showFor more information, please go to https://www.WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway.com to find resources, strategies and tips to prepare to repair! The continuum of estrangement discussed today can be found at https://www.togetherestranged.org/levels-of-estrangement. The stories, examples, reflections, and perspectives shared in this podcast are based on my professional work as an estrangement coach and my personal estrangement journey. Any examples, characters, or stories referenced are either drawn from my own lived experience or represent a composite of multiple real-life situations shared with me over time. The intention of this podcast is not to accuse, label, or defame any individual but to provide insight, validation, and support for those navigating the complexities of family estrangement. All opinions expressed are my own and are shared with you, the listener, from a place of healing and learning.

In this episode, Bob Ryan, Gary Tanguay and Jeff Goodman discuss the Celtics' start to the season and take a larger look around the NBA landscape. And Bob explains why he has loved what he has seen from Payton Pritchard this season & advises Celtics Fans to not take the starting Point Guard for granted. The Bob Ryan & Jeff Goodman NBA Podcast is Powered by 

This episode we start to get more into the material culture of the period with court fashion, as we look at the court robes that went along with the updated court ranks.  Granted, we only have a few resources, but from those it does seem like we can construct at least a plausible idea of what the court may have looked like at this time. For more discussion, check out the blogpost:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-137   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is Episode 137:  Courtly Fashion. In the New Year's ceremony, the court officials lined up in front of the Kiyomihara Palace, arranged by their relative court rank, dressed in their assigned court robes.  The effect was impressive—the rows of officials painting the courtyard like the bands of color in a rainbow, albeit one with only a couple of hues.  The fact that they were all wearing the same style of dress and black, stiffened gauze hats only added to the effect.  The individual officers were all but lost in what was, at least in outward form, a single, homogenous machine of government, just waiting for the command of their monarch to attend to the important matters of state. We are covering the reign of Ohoama no Ohokimi, aka Ama no Nunahara oki no mabito no Sumera no Mikoto, aka Temmu Tennou.  Last episode we went over the changes he had made to the family titles—the kabane—as well as to the courtly rank system.  For the former, he had consolidated the myriad kabane and traditional titles across Yamato into a series of eight—the Yakusa no Kabane.   These were, from highest to lowest: Mabito, Asomi, Sukune, Imiki, Michinoshi, Omi, Muraji, and Inaki.  By the way, you might notice that "Mabito" actually occurs in Ohoama's posthumous name:  Ama no Nunahara oki no mabito, which lends more credence to the idea that that kabane was for those with a special connection to the royal lineage. Besides simplifying and restructuring the kabane, Ohoama also reformed the court rank system.  He divided the Princely ranks into two categories:  Myou, or Bright, and Jou, or Pure.  For the court nobles the categories were:                Shou – Upright                Jiki – Straight                Gon – Diligent                Mu – Earnest                Tsui – Pursue                Shin – Advancement Each category was further divided into four grades (except for the very first princely category, Myou, which was only two).  Each grade was then further divided into large, "dai", or broad, "kou". And this brings us to our topic today. Along with this new rank system, Ohoama's administration also instituted a new set of court sumptuary laws. Some are vague in the record—we can just make assumptions for what is going on based on what we know from later fashion choices.  Others are a little more clear.  We'll take a look at those sumptuary laws, particularly those that were directly associated with the new court rank system, but we'll also look at the clothing styles more generally. To start with, let's talk about what we know about clothing in the archipelago in general.  Unfortunately, fabric doesn't tend to survive very well in the generally acidic soils of the Japanese archipelago.  Cloth tends to break down pretty quickly.  That said, we have fragments here and there and impressions in pottery, so we have some idea that there was some kind of woven fabric from which to make clothing out of. And before I go too far I want to give a shout out to the amazing people at the Kyoto Costume Museum.  They have a tremendous website and I will link to it in the comments.  While there may be some debate over particular interpretations of historical clothing, it is an excellent resource to get a feel for what we know of the fashion of the various periods.  I'll also plug our own website, SengokuDaimyo.com, which has a "Clothing and Accessory" section that, while more geared towards Heian and later periods, may still be of some use in looking up particular terms and getting to know the clothing and outfits. At the farthest reaches of pre-history, we really don't have a lot of information for clothing.  There is evidence of woven goods in the Jomon period, and we have Yayoi burials with bits of cloth here and there, but these are all scraps.  So at best we have some conjecture as to what people were wearing, and possibly some ability to look across the Korean peninsula and see what people had, there. There are scant to no reliable records from early on in Japanese history, and most of those don't really do a great job of describing the clothing.  Even where we do get something, like the Weizhi, one has to wonder given how they tended to crib notes from other entries. There is at least one picture scroll of interest: Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, or Liáng -Zhígòngtú.  It is said to have been painted by Xiao Yi in the early 6th century, and while the original no longer exists there is an 11th century copy from the time of the Song Dynasty.  The scroll shows  various ambassadors to the Liang court, including one from Wa.  The Wa ambassador is shown with what appears to be a wide piece of cloth around his hips and legs, tied in front.  His lower legs are covered in what we might call kyahan today: a rather simple wrap around leg from below the knee to the foot.  He has another, blue piece of cloth around his shoulders, almost like a shawl, and it is also tied in front.  Then there is a cloth wrapped and tied around his head. It's hard to know how much of this depiction is accurate and how much the artist was drawing on memory and descriptions from things like the Weizhi or Wei Chronicles, which stated that the Wa people wore wide cloths wrapped around and seamlessly tied As such, it may be more helpful to look at depictions actually from the archipelago: specifically, some of the human-figured haniwa, those clay cylinders and statues that adorned the burial mounds which gave the kofun period its name.  Some of these haniwa are fairly detailed, and we can see ties, collars, and similar features of clothing. These haniwa primarily seem to cluster towards the end of the Kofun period, in the later 6th century, so it is hard to say how much they can be used for earlier periods, though that is exactly what you will typically see for periods where we have little to know evidence.  I'm also not sure how regional certain fashions might have been, and we could very much be suffering from survivorship bias—that is we only know what survived and assume that was everything, or even the majority. Still, it is something. Much of what we see in these figures is some kind of upper garment that has relatively tight sleeves, like a modern shirt or jacket might have, with the front pieces overlapping create a V-shaped neckline.  The garment hem often hangs down to just above the knee, flaring out away from the body, and it's held closed with ties and some kind of belt, possibly leather in some cases, and in others it looks like a tied loop of cloth.  There is evidence of a kind of trouser, with two legs, and we see ties around the knee.  In some cases, they even have small bells hanging from the ties.  Presumably the trousers might have ties up towards the waist, but we cannot see that in the examples we have. We also see individuals who have no evidence of any kind of bifurcated lower garment.  That may indicate an underskirt of some kind, or possibly what's called a "mo"—but it could also be just a simplification for stability, since a haniwa has a cylindrical base anyway.  It is not always obvious when you are looking at a haniwa figure whether it depicts a man or woman: in some cases there are two dots on the chest that seem to make it obvious, but the haniwa do come from different artisans in different regions, so there is a lot of variability. We also see evidence of what seem to be decorative sashes that are worn across the body, though not in all cases.  There are various types of headgear and hairstyles.  Wide-brimmed and domed hats are not uncommon, and we also see combs and elaborate hairstyles depicted.  On some occasions we can even see that they had closed toed shoes.  For accessories, we see haniwa wearing jewelry, including necklaces (worn by both men and women), bracelets, and earrings.  In terms of actual human jewelry, early shell bracelets demonstrate trade routes, and the distinctive magatama, or comma shaped jewel, can be found in the archipelago and on the Korean peninsula, where it is known as "gogok".  Based on lines or even colored pigment on the haniwa, it appears that many of these outfits were actually quite heavily decorated.  Paint on the outfits is sometimes also placed on the face, suggesting that they either painted or tattooed themselves, something mentioned in the Wei Chronicles.  We also have archaeological examples of dyed cloth, so it is interesting that people are often depicted in undyed clothing.  There is one haniwa that I find particularly interesting, because they appear to be wearing more of a round-necked garment, and they have a hat that is reminiscent of the phrygian cap: a conical cap with the top bent forward.  These are traits common to some of the Sogdians and other Persian merchants along the silk road, raising the possibility that it is meant to depict a foreigner, though it is also possible that it was just another local style. If we compare this to the continent, we can see some immediate difference.  In the contemporaneous Sui dynasty, we can see long flowing robes, with large sleeves for men and women.  The shoes often had an upturned placket that appears to have been useful to prevent one from tripping on long, flowing garments.  Many of these outfits were also of the v-neck variety, with two overlapping pieces, though it is often shown held together with a fabric belt that is tied in front.  The hats appear to either be a kind of loose piece of fabric, often described as a turban, wrapped around the head, the ends where it ties together trailing behind, or black lacquered crowns—though there were also some fairly elaborate pieces for the sovereign. As Yamato started to import continental philosophy, governance, and religion, they would also start to pick up on continental fashion.  This seems particularly true as they adopted the continental concept of "cap rank" or "kan-i". Let's go over what we know about this system, from its first mention in the Chronicles up to where we are in Ohoama's reign. As a caveat, there is a lot we don't know about the details of these garments, but we can make some guesses. The first twelve cap-ranks, theoretically established in 603, are somewhat questionable in their historicity, as are so many things related to Shotoku Taishi.  And their names are clearly based on Confucian values:  Virtue, Humanity, Propriety, Faith, Justice, and Wisdom, or Toku, Nin, Rei, Shin, Gi, and Chi.  The five values and then just "Virtue", itself. The existence of this system does seem to be confirmed by the Sui Shu, the Book of Sui, which includes a note in the section on the country of Wa that they used a 12 rank system based on the Confucian values, but those values were given in the traditional Confucian order vice the order given in the Nihon Shoki.   The rank system of the contemporaneous Sui and Tang dynasties was different from these 12 ranks, suggesting that the Yamato system either came from older dynasties—perhaps from works on the Han dynasty or the Northern and Southern Dynasty, periods—or they got it from their neighbors, Baekje, Silla, and Goguryeo.  There does seem to be a common thread, though, that court rank was identifiable in one's clothes. As for the caps themselves, what did they look like?  One would assume that the Yamato court just adopted a continental style cap, and yet, which one? It isn't fully described, and there are a number of types of headwear that we see in the various continental courts. Given that, we aren't entirely sure exactly what it looked like, but we do have a couple of sources that we can look at and use to make some assumptions.  These sources l ead us to the idea of a round, colored cap made of fabric, around the brim that was probably the fabric or image prescribed for that rank.  It is also often depicted with a bulbous top, likely for the wearer's hair, and may have been tied to their top knot.     Our main source for this is the Tenjukoku Mandala Embroidery (Tenjukoku-mandara-shuuchou) at Chuuguuji temple, which was a temple built for the mother of Prince Umayado, aka Shotoku Taishi.    This embroidery was created in 622, so 19 years after the 12 ranks would have been implemented. It depicts individuals in round-necked jackets that appear to have a part straight down the center.  Beneath the jacket one can see a pleated hem, possibly something like a "hirami", a wrapped skirt that is still found in some ceremonial imperial robes.  It strikes me that this could also be the hem of something like the hanpi, which was kind of like a vest with a pleated lower edge.  Below that we see trousers—hakama—with a red colored hem—at least on one figure that we can see.  He also appears to be wearing a kind of slipper-like shoe. As for the women, there are a few that appear to be in the mandala, but it is hard to say for certain as the embroidery has been damaged over the years. That said, from what we can tell, women probably would have worn something similar to the men in terms of the jacket and the pleated under-skirt, but then, instead of hakama, we see a pleated full-length skirt, or mo.  We also don't have a lot of evidence for them wearing hats or anything like that. The round necked jacket is interesting as it appears to be similar to the hou that was common from northern China across the Silk Road, especially amongst foreigners.  This garment  came to displace the traditional robes of the Tang court and would become the basis for much of the court clothing from that period, onwards.  The round necked garment had central panels that overlapped, and small ties or fastenings at either side of the neck to allow for an entirely enclosed neckline.  This was more intricate than just two, straight collars, and so may have taken time to adopt, fully. The next change to the cap-rank system was made in 647, two years into the Taika Reform.  The ranks then were more directly named for the caps, or crowns—kanmuri—and their materials and colors.  The ranks translate to Woven, Embroidered, Purple, Brocade, Blue, Black, and finally "Establish Valor" for the entry level rank. The system gets updated two years later, but only slightly.  We still see a reference to Woven stuff, Embroidery, and Purple, but then the next several ranks change to Flower, Mountain, and Tiger—or possibly Kingfisher.  These were a little more removed from the cap color and material, and may have had something to do with designs that were meant to be embroidered on the cap or on the robes in some way, though that is just speculation based on later Ming and Qing court outfits. Naka no Ohoye then updates it again in 664, but again only a little.  He seems to add back in the "brocade" category, swapping out the "flower", and otherwise just adds extra grades within each category to expand to 26 total rank grades. And that brings us to the reforms of 685, mentioned last episode.  This new system was built around what appear to be moral exhortations—Upright, Straight, Diligent, Earnest, etc.  And that is great and all, but how does that match up with the official robes? What color goes with each rank category?  Fortunately, this time around, the Chronicle lays it out for us pretty clearly. First off we are given the color red for the Princely ranks—not purple as one might have thought.  Specifically, it is "Vermillion Flower", hanezu-iro, which Bentley translates as the color of the "Oriental bush" or salmon.  In the blogpost we'll link to a table of colors that the founder of Sengoku Daimyo, Anthony Bryant, had put together, with some explanation of how to apply it.  I would note that there is often no way to know exactly what a given color was like or what shades were considered an acceptable range.  Everything was hand-dyed, and leaving fabric in the dye a little longer, changing the proportions, or just fading over time could create slightly different variants in the hue, but we think we can get pretty close. From there we have the six "common" ranks for the nobility.  Starting with the first rank, Upright, we have "Dark Purple".  Then we have "Light Purple".  This pattern continues with Dark and Light Green and then Dark and Light Grape or Lilac.  Purple in this case is Murasaki, and green here is specifically Midori, which is more specifically green than the larger category of "Aoi", which covers a spectrum of blue to green.  The grape or lilac is specifically "suou", and based on Bentley's colors it would be a kind of purple or violet. The idea is that the official court outfits for each rank would be the proper color.  And yes, that means if you get promoted in rank, your first paycheck—or rice stipend—is probably going to pay for a new set of official clothes.  Fortunately for the existing court nobles at the time, in the last month of 685, the Queen provided court clothing for 55 Princes and Ministers, so they could all look the part. And the look at court was important.  In fact, several of the edicts from this time focus specifically on who was allowed—or expected—to wear what.  For instance, in the 4th month of 681, they established 92 articles of the law code, and among those were various sumptuary laws—that is to say, laws as to what you could wear.  We are told that they applied to everyone from Princes of the blood down to the common person, and it regulated the wearing of precious metals, pearls, and jewels; the type of fabric one could use, whether purple, brocade, embroidery, or fine silks; and it also regulated woollen carpets, caps, belts, and the colors of various things. And here I'd like to pause and give some brief thought to how this played into the goals of the court, generally, which is to say the goal of creating and establishing this new system of governance in the cultural psyche of the people of the archipelago.  From the continental style palaces, to the temples, and right down to the clothing that people were wearing, this was all orchestrated, consciously or otherwise, to emphasize and even normalize the changes that were being introduced.  When everything around you is conforming to the new rules, it makes it quite easy for others to get on board. The court had surrounded themselves with monumental architecture that was designed along continental models and could best be explained through continental reasoning.  Even if they weren't Confucian or Daoist, those lines of reasoning ran through the various cultural and material changes that they were taking up.  Sure, they put their own stamp on it, but at the same time, when everything is right in front of you, it would become that much harder to deny or push back against it. And when you participated in the important rituals of the state, the clothing itself became a part of the pageantry.  It reinforced the notion that this was something new and different, and yet also emphasized that pushing against it would be going against the majority.  So court uniforms were another arm of the state's propaganda machine, all designed to reinforce the idea that the heavenly sovereign—the Tennou—was the right and just center of political life and deserving of their position.  Getting back to the sumptuary laws and rank based regulations: It is unfortunate that the record in the Nihon Shoki doesn't tell us exactly how things were regulated, only that they were, at least in some cases.  So for anything more we can only make assumptions based on later rules and traditions.  A few things we can see right away, though.  First is the restriction of the color purple.  Much as in Europe and elsewhere in the world, getting a dark purple was something that was not as easy as one might think, and so it tended to be an expensive dye and thus it would be restricted to the upper classes—in this case the princely and ministerial rank, no doubt.  Similarly brocade and fine silks were also expensive items that were likely restricted to people of a particular social station for that reason. The mention of woolen rugs is particularly intriguing.  Bentley translates this as woven mattresses, but I think that woolen rugs makes sense, as we do have examples of woolen "rugs" in Japan in at least the 8th century, stored in the famous Shousouin repository at Toudaiji temple, in Nara.  These are all imported from the continent and are actually made of felt, rather than woven.  As an imported item, out of a material that you could not get in the archipelago, due to a notable lack of sheep, they would have no doubt been expensive. The funny thing is that the carpets in the Shousouin may not have been meant as carpets.  For the most part they are of a similar size and rectangular shape, and one could see how they may have been used as sleeping mattresses or floor coverings.  However, there is some conjecture that they came from the Silk Road and may have been originally meant as felt doors for the tents used by the nomadic steppe peoples.  This is only conjecture, as I do not believe any of these rugs have survived in the lands where they would have been made, but given the size and shape and the modern yurt, it is not hard to see how that may have been the case.  Either way, I tend to trust that this could very well have meant woolen rugs, as Aston and the kanji themselves suggest, though I would understand if there was confusion or if it meant something else as wool was not exactly common in the archipelago at that time or in the centuries following. The last section of the regulations talks about the use of caps and belts.  The caps here were probably of continental origin:  The kanmuri, or official cap of state of the court nobles, or the more relaxed eboshi—though at this time, they were no doubt closely related. In fact, a year later, we have the most specific mention to-date of what people were actually wearing on their heads: there is a mention of men tying up their hair and wearing caps of varnished gauze.  Earlier caps related to the cap rank system are often thought to be something like a simple hemisphere  that was placed upon the head, with a bulbous top where the wearer's hair could be pulled up as in a bun. The kanmuri seems to have evolved from the soft black headcloth that was worn on the continent, which would have tied around the head, leaving two ends hanging down behind.  Hairstyles of the time often meant that men had a small bun or similar gathering of hair towards the back of their head, and tying a cloth around the head gave the effect of a small bump.  This is probably what we see in depictions of the early caps of state.  Sometimes this topknot could be covered with a small crown or other decoration, or wrapped with a cloth, often referred to as a "Tokin" in Japanese.  But over time we see the development of hardened forms to be worn under a hat to provide the appropriate silhouette, whether or not you actually had a topknot (possibly helpful for gentlemen suffering from hair loss).  And then the hat becomes less of a piece of cloth and more just a hat of black, lacquered gauze made on a form, which was much easier to wear.  At this point in the Chronicle, the cap was likely still somewhat malleable, and would made to tie or be pinned to that bun or queue of hair.  This explains the mention of men wearing their hair up.  This pin would become important for several different types of headgear, but ties were also used for those who did not have hair to hold the hat on properly. Two years after the edict on hats, we get another edict on clothing, further suggesting that the court were wearing Tang inspired clothing.  In 685 we see that individuals are given leave to wear their outer robe either open or tied closed. This is a clue that this outer robe might something akin to the round-necked hou that we see in the Tenjukoku Mandala, where the neck seems to close with a small tie or button.  However, we do see some examples, later, of v-necked garments with a tie in the center of the neck, so that may be the reference..  Opening the collar of the formal robes was somewhat akin to loosening a necktie, or unbuttoning the top button of a shirt.  It provided a more relaxed and comfortable feeling.  It could also be a boon in the warm days of summer.  Leaving it closed could create a more formal appearance. The courtiers also had the option of whether or not to wear the "Susotsuki", which Bentley translates as "skirt-band".  I believe this refers to the nai'i, or inner garment.  This would often have a pleated hem—a suso or ran—which would show below the main robe as just a slight hem.  Again, this is something that many would dispense with in the summer, or just when dressing a bit more casually, but it was required at court, as well as making sure that the tassles were tied so that they hung down.  This was the uniform of the court.  We are also told that they would have trousers that could be tied up, which sounds like later sashinuki, though it may have referred to something slightly different.  We are also given some regulations specifically for women, such as the fact that women over 40 years of age were allowed the discretion on whether or not to tie up their hair, as well as whether they would ride horses astride or side-saddle.  Presumably, younger women did not get a choice in the matter.  Female shrine attendants and functionaries were likewise given some leeway with their hairstyles. A year later, in 686, they do seem to have relaxed the hairstyles a bit more: women were allowed to let their hair down to their backs as they had before, so it seems that, for at least a couple of years, women under the age of 40 were expected to wear their hair tied up in one fashion or another. In that same edict, men were then allowed to wear "habakimo".  Aston translates this as "leggings" while Bentley suggests it is a "waist skirt".  There are an example of extant habakimo in the Shousouin, once again, and they appear to be wrappings for the lower leg.  It actually seems very closely related to the "kyahan" depicted all the way back in the 6th century painting of the Wo ambassador to Liang. Even though these edicts give a lot more references to clothing, there is still plenty that is missing.  It isn't like the Chroniclers were giving a red carpet style stitch-by-stitch critique of what was being worn at court.  Fortunately, there is a rather remarkable archaeological discovery from about this time. Takamatsuzuka is a kofun, or ancient burial mound, found in Asuka and dated to the late 7th or early 8th century.  Compared to the keyhole shaped tombs of previous centuries, this tomb is quite simple: a two-tiered circular tomb nestled in the quiet hills.  What makes it remarkable is that the inside of the stone burial chamber was elaborately painted.  There are depictions of the four guardian animals, as well as the sun and the moon, as well as common constellations.  More importantly, though, are the intricate pictures of men and women dressed in elaborate clothing. The burial chamber of Takamatsuzuka is rectangular in shape.  There are images on the four vertical sides as well as on the ceiling.  The chamber is oriented north-south, with genbu, the black tortoise, on the north wall and presumably Suzaku, the vermillion bird, on the south wall—though that had been broken at some point and it is hard to make out exactly what is there. The east and west walls are about three times as long as the north and south walls.  In the center of each is a guardian animal—byakko, the white tiger, on the west wall and seiryuu, the blue—or green—dragon on the east.  All of these images are faded, and since opening of the tomb have faded even more, so while photos can help, it may require a bit more investigation and some extrapolation to understand all of what we are looking at. On the northern side of both the east and west wall we see groups of four women.  We can make out green, yellow, and red or vermillion outer robes with thin fabric belt sashes, or obi, tied loosely and low around the waist.  There is another, lightly colored—possibly white, cream or pink—that is so faded it is hard to make out, and I don't know if that is the original color.  These are v-necked robes, with what appear to be ties at the bottom of the "v".  Around the belt-sash we see a strip of white peaking out from between the two sides of the robe—most likely showing the lining on an edge that has turned back slightly.  The cuffs of the robe are folded back, showing a contrasting color—either the sleeves of an underrobe or a lining of some kind.  Below the outer robe is a white, pleated hem—possibly a hirami or similar, though where we can make it out, it seems to be the same or similar color as the sleeves.  Under all of that, they then have a relatively simple mo, or pleated skirt.  The ones in the foreground are vertically striped in alternating white, green, red, and blue stripes.  There is one that may just be red and blue stripes, but I'm not sure.  In the background we see a dark blue—and possibly a dark green—mo.  At the base of each mo is a pleated fringe that appears to be connected to the bottom of the skirt.  The toe of a shoe seems to peek out from underneath in at least one instance.  They don't have any obvious hair ornaments, and their hair appears to be swept back and tied in such a way that it actually comes back up in the back, slightly.  They appear to be holding fans and something that might be a fly swatter—a pole with what looks like tassels on the end. In comparison, at the southern end of the tomb we have two groups of men.  These are much more damaged and harder to make out clearly.  They have robes of green, yellow, grey, blue, and what looks like dark blue, purple, or even black.  The neckline appears to be a v-necked, but tied closed, similar to what we see on the women.  We also see a contrasting color at the cuff, where it looks like the sleeves have turned back, slightly.  They have belt-sashes similar to the women, made of contrasting fabric to the robe itself.  Below that we see white trousers, or hakama, and shallow, black shoes.  On some of the others it is suggested that maybe they have a kind of woven sandal, but that is hard to make out in the current image.  On their heads are hats or headgear of black, stiffened—probably lacquered—gauze.  They have a bump in the back, which is probably the wearer's hair, and there is evidence of small ties on top and larger ties in the back, hanging down.  Some interpretations also show a couple with chin straps, as well, or at least a black cord that goes down to the chin.  They carry a variety of implements, suggesting they are attendants, with an umbrella, a folding chair, a pouch worn around the neck, a pole or cane of some kind, and a bag with some kind of long thing—possibly a sword or similar. The tomb was originally found by farmers in 1962, but wasn't fully examined until 1970, with an excavation starting in 1972.  The stone at the entryway was broken, probably from graverobbers, who are thought to have looted the tomb in the Kamakura period.  Fortunately, along with the bones of the deceased and a few scattered grave goods that the robbers must have missed, the murals also survived, and somehow they remained largely intact through the centuries.  They have not been entirely safe, and many of the images are damaged or faded, but you can still make out a remarkable amount of detail, which is extremely helpful in determining what clothing might have looked like at this time—assuming it is depicting local individuals. And there is the rub, since we don't know exactly whom the tomb was for.  Furthermore, in style it has been compared with Goguryeo tombs from the peninsula, much as nearby Kitora kofun is.  Kitora had images as well, but just of the guardian animals and the constellations, not of human figures. There are three theories as to who might have been buried at Takamatsuzuka.  One theory is that it was one of Ohoama's sons.  Prince Osakabe is one theory, based on the time of his death and his age.  Others have suggested Prince Takechi.  Based on the teeth of the deceased, they were probably in their 40s to 60s when they passed away. Some scholars believe that it may be a later, Nara period vassal—possibly, Isonokami no Maro.  That would certainly place it later than the Asuka period. The third theory is that it is the tomb of a member of one of the royal families from the Korean peninsula—possibly someone who had taken up refuge in the archipelago as Silla came to dominate the entire peninsula.  This last theory matches with the fact that Takamatsuzuka appears to be similar to tombs found in Goguryeo, though that could just have to do with where the tomb builders were coming from, or what they had learned. That does bring up the question of the figures in the tomb.  Were they contemporary figures, indicating people and dress of the court at the time, or were they meant to depict people from the continent?  Without any other examples, we may never know, but even if was indicative of continental styles, those were the very styles that Yamato was importing, so it may not matter, in the long run.     One other garment that isn't mentioned here is the hire, a scarf that is typically associated with women.  It is unclear if it has any relationship to the sashes we see in the Kofun period, though there is at least one mention of a woman with a hire during one of the campaigns on the Korean peninsula.  Later we see it depicted as a fairly gauzy piece of silk, that is worn somewhat like a shawl.  It is ubiquitous in Sui and Tang paintings of women, indicating a wide-ranging fashion trend.  The hire is a fairly simple piece of clothing, and yet it creates a very distinctive look which we certainly see, later. Finally, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that almost everything we have discussed here has to do with the elites of society—the nobles of the court.  For most people, working the land, we can assume that they were probably not immediately adopting the latest continental fashions, and they probably weren't dressing in silk very much.  Instead, it is likely that they continued to wear some version of the same outfits we see in the haniwa figures of the kofun period.  This goes along with the fact that even as the elite are moving into palaces built to stand well above the ground, we still have evidence of common people building and living in pit dwellings, as they had been for centuries.  This would eventually change, but overall they stuck around for quite some time.  However, farmers and common people are often ignored by various sources—they aren't often written about, they often aren't shown in paintings or statues, and they did often not get specialized burials.  Nonetheless, they were the most populous group in the archipelago, supporting all of the rest. And with that, I think we will stop for now.  Still plenty more to cover this reign.  We are definitely into the more historical period, where we have more faith in the dates—though we should remember that this is also one of the reigns that our sources were specifically designed to prop up, so we can't necessarily take everything without at least a hint of salt and speculation, even if the dates themselves are more likely to be accurate. Until then, if you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  

This week on Ministry Minute, we delve into the message entitled “Don't Take It For Granted.” We discuss the importance of not taking God's grace for granted, reflecting on the freedoms we have to worship, pray, and read the Bible compared to persecuted Christians worldwide. We emphasize the need to appreciate our spiritual blessings and actively share the message of Jesus Christ's salvation. #JesusLovesYou #Grace #MinistryMinuteDon't Take It For Granted | Ministry Minute EP287Romans 10:9:That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.We all have sinned, we all have made mistakes, but in spite of our imperfections, a perfect God sent His Perfect Son to die for those very imperfect sins, so we can have eternal life. THAT'S REAL LOVE. THAT'S JESUS' LOVE. In order to receive this forgiveness you must confess and repent of your sins and accept Jesus Christ into your heart which you can do by saying this prayer wholeheartedly:Dear God,I confess and admit that I am a sinner, and I ask that You please forgive me and save me. I renounce and repent of all my sins, iniquities, and wrongdoings. I confess that Jesus, You are LORD, and I believe with all my heart that You died and rose again. I put my complete faith in Your finished works on the cross and I believe because of Your Blood that was shed, my sins can be forgiven. I ask that You be the Head of my life and the LORD of my life from this day forward, and I ask that You please help me to live for You all the days of my life.In Jesus Name I Pray,Amen.I'm Saved, What's Next:- Be Baptized In Jesus Name- Be Filled With The Holy Ghost- Live A Holy LifeJesus Is Soon To Return— BE READY!!#Christianity #Christian #Jesus #Bible #God #Faith #JesusChrist #Church #love #Bibleverse #Gospel #prayer #HolySpirit #Godisgood #pray #biblestudy #Scripture #hope #truth #religion #JesusLovesYou #worship #grace #JesusSaves #amen #blessed #Christianlivinghttps://www.joshuahopkinsstudios.com/ministryminute

No ifs, buts or maybes. No excuses. No shoulda coulda woulda. Scott Robertson needs to come home from the Northern tour undefeated. 4 zip. Grand Slam in tow. Am I expecting too much? Hell no. This is Razor's mid-term exam. After being awarded a 4 year contract by NZR, an oddity in itself, the faith must be repaid. Repaid to the NZR but most importantly to the fans. Granted, World Cup victory is the ultimate measure of any international rugby team's worth, a multitude of 4-year cycle result sins can be erased with success in one tournament, but NZ rugby fans won't wait that long to taste Razors pudding. The proof of his tenure's success is how tasty the spoonful is at the end of this tour. Soured by only one defeat will leave us all asking questions of the chef. This is a mini–World Cup. The last pool game, then a quarter, a semi and the final. Not that the Welsh will be in the WC final but hey. Short of the locks, this team is the best that the AB's can muster. Their edge has been keenly sharpened on the whetstone of a pulsating and competitive Rugby Championship. They've had a couple of weeks off to breathe and reset, a swag of cavalry has returned and now we wait to see if Robertson has unlocked the door to international coaching success. He's had a couple of years. He's trialled many a player, many a game plan. He's had his share of failures, the much maligned fourth quarter impotence for example, his inability to retain coaching staff, and he oversaw arguably the worst 40 minutes of All Black rugby in recent memory, the horror show in Wellington against the Springboks. So he's been given rope, plenty of rope, what's he going to do with it? Tie himself in knots, fashion a noose, who knows. I do know though, that 4 nil is a necessity for this side and this coach, and no correspondence will be entered into. Scott Robertson needs to come home from the Northern tour undefeated. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tinubu Revises Self On Pardons Earlier Granted To Murderers, Kidnappershttps://osazuwaakonedo.news/tinubu-revises-self-on-pardons-earlier-granted-to-murderers-kidnappers/#Law #Nwike #Oniarah #Ozehekome #Sanda #Tinubu ©October 30th, 2025 ®OPresident Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria has issued a revised policy actions over the 2025 Presidential Pardons he had earlier granted to 175 persons, some of whom were convicted murderers, deadly kidnappers; which included Maryam Sanda, who had spent barely six years and eight months at the Suleja Medium Security Custodial Centre after she was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging over the killing of her husband, Bilyaminu Bello in Abuja who she stabbed three times repeatedly, this, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his earlier presidential pardon granted to the 37 years old convicted and condemned murderer, Maryam Sanda, had asked her to go home free because of her children, but, following public outcry and condemnation, in the revised version of the presidential pardons signed into law on October 21, 2025 and made available to the public by the Presidency on Wednesday October 29, 2025, President Tinubu commuted the death sentence to 12 years imprisonment, although, the Presidency never mentioned the total numbers of people granted the presidential pardons, but, the list of beneficiaries made available by the Presidential Spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, indicated that only 86 persons were granted the presidential pardons, and Maryam Sanda apparently spelt as Maryam Sunda was last on the list, and the names of earlier beneficiaries like Kelvin Prosper Oniarah, were not seen in the revised edition of the list, maybe, the names were omitted due to excessive public outcry that Prosper Kelvin Oniarah was a convicted notorious high profile gang leader of a deadly kidnapping group that were widely stated to be responsible for the kidnapping and subsequent killing of a former Anambra State Deputy Governor, Chudi Nwike, kidnapping of a prominent legal practitioner, Mike Ozhekome on August 24th 2013 along Benin-Auchi road and during the kidnapping operation, the gunmen ambushed and killed four police officers including the Divisional Police Officer, DPO of Ehor Division who led the police team in an attempt to rescue Mike Ozhekome, outside that, the 44 years old Oniarah was also stated to be responsible for the kidnapping of a Judge in the Edo State Judiciary; a top female official of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS; among other several members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC and security agents and Oniarah was also stated to carry out several armed robberies and kidnap operations in Delta, Edo, Rivers and Anambra States, maintaining operational base and detention camps in Warri and Kokori Community in Delta State, Ugbokolo Community in Benue State, Benin City in Edo State, and Aba in Abia State, that on 18th September, 2013, Oniarah issued a 60-day ultimatum to the Federal Government of Nigeria to release some of his boys who were arrested by the Department of State Services, DSS or he would wreak havoc on innocent Nigerian citizens, and, on 25th September, 2013, a combined security team of the Nigerian Army and DSS operatives arrested Kelvin Prosper Oniarah, a convicted notorious terrorist, kidnap kingpin and armed robber, who had been on the wanted list of the security agencies, and he was subsequently sentenced to 20 years imprisonment which he had spent 12 years in prison before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had initially made an attempt to release him. #OsazuwaAkonedoBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/osazuwaakonedo--4980924/support.Kindly support us for more productivity and efficiency in news delivery.Visit our donation page: DonateYou can also use our Mobile app for more news in different formats: CLICK TO DOWNDLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY STORE 

//The Wire//2300Z October 29, 2025////ROUTINE////BLUF: ANOTHER STABBING STRIKES BRITAIN AS TENSIONS REMAIN HIGH. WAR CONTINUES IN MIDDLE EAST. HURRICANE MAKES LANDFALL IN JAMAICA.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-United Kingdom: Another stabbing was reported this morning, which resulted in the murder of a woman at a residential address in Brixton. One male assailant was arrested for the murder at the McCormick House in Tulse Hill, after being tased by responding officers.Middle East: The war continues as before, with a large-scale bombing campaign being undertaken in Gaza. PM Netanyahu stated that he ordered "forceful strikes" to be carried out in the region, which mostly were carried out in Gaza City and Rafah. Approximately 82x casualties were reported as a result of the strikes.Analyst Comment: The reason for the airstrikes is not entirely clear, IDF officials cited some unnamed incident in Rafah, but did not go into any further detail. Either way, once the strikes were complete, the ceasefire was declared to be on again.Caribbean: Overnight Hurricane Melissa made landfall on the island of Jamaica, with widespread devastation being reported throughout the nation. Large-scale flooding was also reported in Cuba after the hurricane made landfall there a few hours later. So far, the scale of the disaster is not fully known in either nation, as it will take some time to understand where the hardest-hit areas are located.-HomeFront-Mississippi: This morning local authorities clarified the details of yesterday's escape of medical research monkeys; initial reports that one monkey remained at large were untrue. A re-count revealed that actually 3x monkeys remain at large in Jasper County.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: In the United Kingdom, the victim of yesterday's stabbing attack has been identified as Wayne Broadhurst, and a vigil was held in Uxbridge overnight. The two other victims have not been identified yet, however one was reportedly a 14-year-old and an older man who remains in critical condition. The suspect was also identified as Safi Dawood, from Afghanistan.This attack has once more inflamed already high tensions, and so far no high ranking official in government has even acknowledged that the brutal attack took place. The Migration Minister is so far the only one in government to acknowledge the attack, and he only did so to condemn any misinformation about the event (but notably not actually stating that any misinformation was occurring). In any case, ignoring the crime like this has dialed up anger to new heights, and the various "counter" movements gaining traction around the nation have been cause for concern as well. These "counter" movements have mostly spoken for themselves in terms of highlighting what's going on throughout British society.Concerning the Kebatu case from a few days ago, details continue to be released that make the situation worse. Kebatu was deported to Ethiopia immediately after his recapture, after which he recorded a video explaining what happened from his perspective. His testimony included the detail that he did become aware that he was wanted during his escapade throughout London, and that he tried to turn himself in to a uniformed police officer. According to Kebatu himself, the officer ignored him and drove off. Granted, this is the testimony of a rapist and illegal migrant, so the sourcing is not exactly the most reliable. Nevertheless, this testimony does align with the public details of the scandal as it unfolded and has caused a lot more focus on the response to this scandal.Analyst: S2A1Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground//END REPORT//

Join us LIVE for a Dominion Worship experience and a message from Pastor Prentice. #EncounterPurpose #TakingDominionPartner with UsThank you for your generosity! Your support helps us spread the message of Christ. Give securely here:https://dominionchurches.com/givingConnect with Our iCampusJoin our iCampus for live streaming, resources, and more:https://icampus.dominionchurches.com/Made a Decision for Christ?If you've decided to follow Jesus, we'd love to celebrate with you and help you take your next steps:https://dominionchurches.com/decision/First Time Here?We want to connect with you! Let us know you're here so we can show you how important you are to us:https://dominionchurches.com/connect/Share Your TestimonyYour story matters! Share how God has worked in your life with us:https://dominionchurches.com/testimony/Register for BaptismTake your faith public! Sign up for baptism today:https://dominionchurches.com/baptism-...Don't forget to share this livestream and invite others to join! See you online!

  A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express Host Miko Lee speaks with spouses of detained refugees. We hear about the similarities and challenges of Hmong and Nepali speaking Bhutanese refugees. We also speak with Asian Law Caucus' Aisa Villarosa about the ongoing campaigns for freedom that ALC has been leading along with a host of other community based organizations. Join us: November 3, 4pm Pacific time, 7pm Eastern Time, Join us for “We Belong Here, Bhutanese & Hmong Americans in the Struggle Against Statelessness” a live virtual event featuring my three guests tonight, along with performances and conversations. bit.ly/WBH-2025   TAKE ACTION Rising Voices campaign for Lue Yang Mohan Karki's GoFundMe   And please help support these organizations working to support detained and deported folx: Asian Law Caucus Asian Refugees United Ba Lo Project in Vietnam Collective Freedom in Vietnam & Laos Asian Prisoner Support Committee & New Light Wellness in Cambodia November 1–2, people nationwide are joining the Disappeared In America Weekend of Action to stand up for immigrant families and defend due process. Actions include protests at Home Depots, candlelight Freedom Vigils, and Day of the Dead events honoring lives lost to detention.     We Belong! Transcript Miko Lee: Welcome to Apex Express.This is your host, Miko Lee. Today we're talking about detentions and potential deportations and the atrocities that the Trump administration is creating in our communities.We originally recorded this episode a month ago, and today is October 29th. 2025 and I have with me Aisa Villarosa a lawyer with Asian Law Caucus, giving us an update in the cases that we're talking about. Welcome Aisa Apex Express. Aisa Villarosa: Thanks so much, Miko. Miko Lee: Tonight we're gonna be talking with two spouses of detained folks. One is a Nepali speaking Bhutanese community member, and the other is Hmong community member. In the time since we recorded this, there has been a big update with Lue Young's case, and I wonder if you could provide us with that update. Aisa Villarosa: Miko since we last spoke, due to some really hard fought campaigning, both behind the scenes and drawing upon allies across Michigan and really across the country. Lue Yang, received a successful pardon from Governor Gretchen Whitmer. We actually received word shortly before Lue Yang was set to be placed on a very large deportation flight. Once we got word of the pardon, it was off to the races for the legal team to quickly draft some emergency motions for Lue Yang and to realize the power of the pardon before the deportation. Miko Lee: Can we back up for a moment and give for an audience a sense of what that means? Lue Young was incarcerated at a detention facility, which Trump has called the FedEx of detention facilities in, Louisana, and explain to us what happened to him and the other members that were suddenly pulled together onto an airplane. Aisa Villarosa: When these removal flights happen, there's so much confusion, there's so much fear that families undergo, and often it's due to the perseverance of the families that we honestly even know where folks are. Shortly before what we call final staging happens, someone is moved from, in Lue's case, a facility in Michigan to a facility like Alexandria in Louisiana where the planes do take off  from. Families typically look up their loved one on something called the “ice detainee locator.” What's challenging is when final staging starts. Often that person completely disappears from the detainee locator or information gets a bit scrambled. Because ICE has a bit of a sealed box as far as even telling families where, their loved one is. Families are either left to guess or rely on each other. So for Lue Yang and the pardon what is critical for folks to know is that as powerful, as rare as a pardon is, I can't stress how extraordinary this is in these very difficult times. A pardon does not instantly, allow someone to say, walk out of an ice facility. There's, numerous legal filings that need to happen. That is why , the team was so up against the clock. Miko Lee: So let's break this down a little bit around a pardon. What does a pardon mean in our current system? Because as a lay person, you think, oh, they're pardoned. That means they're free and they can go home and be with their family. Tell us a little bit about what a pardon means in our legal system right now. Aisa Villarosa: A pardon is different from a criminal expungement, which folks might be familiar with. In Lue's case, for example, when Lue was younger, he successfully expunged this record, in criminal court. The challenge is that immigration court, is basically the entity that issues something called a “final order of removal.” This document, is basically what powers deportation for folks. An expungement does not get at the final removal order. However, a pardon has that more direct link. The pardon has the weight of what we call “vacating a conviction.” To explain more legalese and hopefully folks can stay with me. A final order of removal is an immigration court order document where , it gives ice the power to do all these deportations We're seeing for the refugee community that Lue Yang belongs to. Often these are quite old orders, and so sometimes a loved one might be detained and they might not even realize that they have a criminal conviction or a final order of removal. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for breaking that down. So we described how he was pulled off the plane that was going for his deportation. Tell us where Lue is at right now. What is happening with his case? Aisa Villarosa: The call to action very much remains what it has been, which is we're calling to bring Lue home. At the moment, Lue is in a facility in Louisiana. Our hope is that Lue can return to Michigan. There is also a call to release Lue on a supervised release. The other component of the legal journey for Lue is something called a motion to reopen. Basically this is how the full weight of the pardon is realized. The motion to reopen calls on the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen Lue's case, because years ago he got that final removal order, so when someone gets that order, typically their immigration case is closed. This petition says, Hey, he got a pardon. Please reopen Lue's case because the underlying conviction that led to the final removal order. Has been pardoned, right? We are hoping that this motion to reopen will be heard in front of the Board of Immigration Appeals, that we can get a great result and that as the campaign calls for that, Lue can come home. Miko Lee: I know lawyers like you are doing incredible work around the scenes. You did not sleep for two days, filing paperwork to be able to make sure that Lue was pulled off that plane. But what can regular people, what can our audience do to get involved right now? Aisa Villarosa: There's myriad actions along this really terrible deportation pipeline. We're seeing that folks who might not have, any deep knowledge of the immigration system can still be so impactful. We have partners in LA in the faith community and they've started working with community organizations to do things like accompaniment, which is, joining community members like Lue, who often have these ice check-ins. As folks have seen on the news, these check-ins can be really risky because that is where ice arrests can happen. If someone misses their ice check-in, typically that means that a warrant is issued, that immigration forces can come after you. In these cases, community members, particularly folks who are US citizens, accompaniment can be a great way to dig in to show up for our immigrant and refugee siblings. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for breaking down how folks can get involved. It's so important right now in a time where we feel so utterly helpless to be able to make change. Now we're gonna go back to listen to our interview that is with the two spouses, Tika, Basnet, and Ann Vue, and also our current guest, Aisa Villarosa Tika and Ann they're part of a horrible club, which is both of their spouses are currently in detention from our immigration system. I just wanna start on a real personal note in a way that I often do with my guests. Anne, I just would love to hear from you, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? Ann Vue: Thank you again, Miko and Isa, for having me on. We are Hmong. We helped Americans during the Vietnam War. In Laos, a lot of our pilots needed a communication. Because we're indigenous and we are in the mountains they were able to speak with us and use us. Our Hmong, helped a lot of the pilots rescued a lot, like thousands and thousands of Americans, so that they can make it back home. That is our contribution to the American people. When we were brought to America, was to resettle because of humanitarian purpose. Our legacy of helping Americans with the war. that is who we are and what we bring to America. That's who I am. I'm actually the first generation Hmong American. I was born right here in the capital of Lansing, Michigan. Miko Lee: Thanks so much ann. Tika, can you share who are your people and what legacy you carry with you? Tika Basnet: Hi, my name is Tika Basnet. I am Bhutanese Nepali community. My parents and all the Bhutanese, they ran away from Bhutan in 1990 due to the ethnic cleansing. They came to Nepal, seeking for asylum, and that is where we born. I was born in Nepal, in refugee camp. Even though I was born in Nepal, Nepal never gave us identity. They never give us citizenship. We were known as Bhutanese Nepali, but as known as Stateless. My husband also born in Nepal in a refugee camp. Miko Lee: Thank you. Aisa, I'm gonna ask the same question for you Aisa, that works at Asian Law Caucus. Who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you? Aisa Villarosa: So much love to you, Miko and to you Ann and Tika for being here today. I just am, I'm so honored. My name is Aisa and I carry the love and, Maki Baka spirit of Filipino Americans both in my family across the diaspora. A little bit about the Filipino American story. We came to the United States as part of the colonial machine. The first Filipinos were brought as part of the Spanish Gallian trade. We made California home, parts of Lueisiana home, and it's quite a contrast to a lot of the sort of model minority seduction that many of my people, and myself as a younger person tended to fall into that if we kept our heads down, if we were quiet, we would be left alone. I'm struck because at this moment of just unprecedented government attacks, so many of our communities have this story where someone somewhere said to us, yeah, just keep your head down and it'll be fine. We're seeing the exact opposite, that this is the time to really use our voices, both individually and as one. I'm also an artist and try to infuse that into my work in fighting government systems. Miko Lee: Thank you Aisa. I will say I'm Miko. I am fifth generation Chinese American. I grew up knowing that my family was full of fighters that built the railroads, worked in the gold mines in laundromats and restaurants, and my parents walked with Dr. King and Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and I was raised in a family of social justice activists. I feel like our legacy is to continue that work and to fight for the rights of our peoples. I'm so honored to have both of all three of you powerful women join me today. As I was saying in the beginning, Tika and Anne are sadly a part of this club nobody wants to be a part of with the sudden, unexpected, harmful detentions of both of your husbands. I wonder if you can each just share the story about what happened and how you first found out about your husband being detained. Let's start with you Tika. Tika Basnet: My husband got his removal in 2014 when he was just 17 years old, high school student going from school to home. He's a teenager and with his friend, they were playing around and they wanna go home really fast. They just cross from private property. That is where someone saw and call 9 1 1. We came from the culture that we love to go people home , walking around, playing around. My husband came here in 2011. The incident happened on 2013. He just, came here without knowing culture, without knowing languages, So he has no idea. So when somebody called 9 1 1, he could not explain what happened. First of all, English is his second language, he was barely here without knowing rules and regulation, without knowing culture. The police took him to jail, gave a lot of charges. My husband doesn't know what are those charges? At that time, nobody explained, this is the three charges you got, and this could lead to deportation. He feel guilty without knowing those charges. He trusts [00:14:00] Nepali translate guy, and he told my husband, if you don't say I'm guilty, you will end up in prison for 20 to 25 years, but if you say I'm guilty, you'll go home. My husband said, guilty. At that time, neither criminal lawyer told my husband, if you say I'm guilty, you'll end up getting deport. Deport to the country that you are you never born. Deport To the country, you doesn't even speak their language. The lawyer did not explain my husband you will not gonna get your green card. You cannot apply your citizenship in your life. If those things the lawyer told my husband at that time, he will never gonna say, I am guilty to the crime that he did not even commit. When they tried to deport my husband back then, Bhutan say, he's not my citizenship, he's not from my country, We don't know this guy. He's not belongs to here. When US Embassy reach out to, Nepal, do you know this guy? They told, ICE no, we don't know this guy, like he's not belongs here. The ICE officer, told my husband, we can let you go, you need to come here, like order of supervision every three months, every six months, whenever we call you. It been 11 years. My husband is following rules and regulation. He never did any violation after that. He got married, he has a life, he pay taxes. He was taking care of his family and in 11 years he was doing everything. In 2025 for the first time they target Bhutanese Nepali community. I knew that this is the last time I'm gonna see my husband. I broke down. When they detained my husband in April 8, I was eight months pregnant. We dream a lot of things we are gonna take care of our daughter. We are gonna buy home, we are gonna work, we are gonna give her the life that we, I'm sorry. Miko Lee: Totally. Okay. Tika Basnet: I never thought like Bhutanese community can, like deport. Like my parent already go through this trauma, when Bhutan throw them away due to ethnic cleansing and same thing happening to us. It is unbelievable. I cannot believe that, we're going through this again and I don't know when this gonna be stopped. I don't know whether like my husband gonna come home. It is been five month and I really want my husband back. My daughter is, three month old. She need her dad in life 'cause I cannot provide everything by myself. My husband is the main provider for her aging parent. 'cause even now they cannot pay bills. I'm fighting for my husband case and I want my husband back. He deserve second chance because if you see his record is clean, like for one incident that happened like 12 years ago, that cannot define my husband. I cannot believe that my husband is able to get deport to the country that doesn't even accept. I don't know whether he gonna get killed. Whether he gonna disappear, I don't know what will happen to him. I don't know if it is last time I'm gonna see him. Miko Lee: Tika, thank you so much for sharing your story. Just to recap really briefly, your husband, Mohan Karki when he was a teenager, newly arrived in the country, was leaving high school, walked with his friends through a backyard and was racially profiled. The neighbor called police because he was trespassing on property. He was born at a refugee camp. Is that right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Miko Lee: There was not property that was like person's property on that refugee camp. So that whole concept of walking across somebody's land was something he was not aware of. He had an interpreter that did not give correct information. And so he signed something, including a deportation order, that he wasn't even aware of until recently when he was put into detention. Is that right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Yes. Miko Lee: Right now he's in detention. You live in Ohio, but he's in detention in Michigan, right? Tika Basnet: Yes. Miko Lee: Okay, Tika, let's talk about Mohans case and what's happening. He's held in detention right now in a detention facility in Michigan. What is going on with his case? Tika Basnet: His criminal attorney file, a Motion to Redeem asking BIA to send that, case back to Georgia. His case, that happened in 2013. Our attorney just submit documentation where he's asking to release my husband because it'd been five month. He's not risk to the community. He's not risk to the flight 'cause he doesn't have no one in Bhutan. He doesn't have no one in Nepal. All family is in here. His community love him ,he has family that loves him. We also get lot of documentations as a proof telling ICE that my husband is not risk to the community or to the flight. Miko Lee: Thank you. He has a a four month old baby that he has yet to meet. So that is a powerful reason to stay. As Tikas pointing out, the lawyer just submitted documentation along with 50 letters of support from the community from employers, from family members, all saying why he should stay in this country. Thank you so much for sharing. Anne, i'm wondering if you could share about what happened to your husband. He was also born in a refugee camp, right? Ann Vue: Lue was born in Nangkai, Thailand refugee camp in 1978. In1979 his parents and him and his older brother Granted urgent humanitarian reasons for or for public benefit. They made it to America right before Halloween. The early nineties, me even being the first generation American here, racism played a lot. We all went through that piece and our parents not speaking English at the same time, they were going to school themselves so that they can learn our English language, . They weren't able to teach us growing up. We had to fend for ourselves. I would say my husband he went out with some friends. He did not commit the crime. But of course now that is brought back to him, he understood about his particular case is second attempt, home invasion. Nobody was harmed. He was in the vehicle, in the backseat when he was caught. He didn't wanna partake, but he didn't wanna stop them either 'cause to him it was like, if I don't partake, then I have nothing to do with it. . Because if I do, then they might not be my friends anymore. It's just a part of growing up as a youth. Because he was there, and then would receive a court appointed attorney, and then provide it very similar to Tika's too. Had an interpreter, that was explaining to them, was provided bad legal advice. He had no knowledge about how this would impact his immigration status. It was advised by their attorney, take the plea it's easier, and you probably serve less than a year. You'll be out, you'll only be in the county jail anyways 'cause you didn't really commit the crime and technically it should have been a misdemeanor. But because you're an accomplice, that kind of falls under this category. So he took the plea, he served 10 months in a county jail. He actually was released for good behavior. He even finished his probation soon because he paid all of his stuff off. He even finished a youth advocate program for anybody that committed crimes between the age of 18 to 21. I just saw this form the other day and I was reading it and it talks about, the one thing about our parents, experiencing the war and coming to America, they don't talk about it. A lot of us are from communist countries. We are very afraid to voice our voices, because someone can take action. Our parents never talked about it. I read what he wrote to his, youth coordinator, he felt so bad about what he did. He created disappointment for his parents and he understands, there are sacrifices that got us here to America. He literally wrote all of this down, i'm going to be a better person. I'm going to make my parents proud now that I understand their sacrifices. They asked him, ” what was your upbringing like?” He wrote, “poor” and the coordinator wrote on the bottom of his comments said, “Lue is remorseful for what has happened and he wants to be a better person. I have no other questions. The training is complete.” He doesn't need any further, support and believes that he will move forward to be a better person. That's literally what they wrote on the document. Then fast forwarding to 1999 that's when, immigration showed up at his house. Him and I would meet in 2000, and then we'd be married in 2001. We'd celebrate. Almost 24 and a half years of marriage. We did appeal his case in the humanitarian piece of what this meant for Lue during the time where we all fled the country. Once the monks were declared enemy of the state by the LDR in Laos, we fled. It's well documented that there was a little bit over 400,000 of us there right after the genocide and the killings of the Hmong there was probably less than 45,000 of us left. Once we understood a lot of that, we wanted to do better. We wanted to really service our community. We appealed the case. The case was then denied in his appeal letters, general Vink Powell, which led the Hmongs during the war, even had a letter where he, also pled why Hmongs need to stay here in America. And why we need to bring the rest of our people to this country. The reality is our whole family, Lue's whole family was wiped out. We don't have anybody, Lue doesn't have anyone. That goes to Tika's thing too. There's nobody there. Going back to the case once it was denied in 2002. He then was forced to reach out to the embassy and was denied, entry into Thailand 'cause that's where he was born. We're stateless too, just like Tikas husband. We were denied by Thailand. We were denied by Laos stating that we are not a citizen of theirs. They do not allow or welcome any sort of entry. In 2006, they actually took his green card and then we again were denied. In 2008 we were denied a third time and that's when his immigration officer was like, just move on and start your life. Laos and Thailand, will never sign a repatriation act with America because of you guys, because of the Hmong people, what you guys have done to their country, making it the most bombed country during the war without even being a part of the war. They will never allow you guys back. So we were like, okay. So we moved forward. Then in 2014, this immigration officer, which we was doing yearly checkups at this time, was like, Hey go get your citizenship, get your green card. They're like you're doing so good. You probably could have a chance to get it. We moved forward to apply for citizenship and for the green card. We were denied in 2015 and we know how expensive this is. You pay $10,000 outright, you don't get that money back. You just have to go at it again. We decided that, we're gonna get his case expunged, and we got his case expunged in 2018. No questions asked. It was very straightforward. Once it was expunged, we continued with our [00:26:00] lives. Very involved in the community. We had six kids . This year we even called his immigration officer and he was like, “Hey, don't worry about it, Lue, we're moving you over to Grand Rapids and you should be fine. Just make sure that you stay outta trouble, continue to follow your stock.” I think what triggered it was when we applied for his work permit in April. He always meets his immigration officer at the end of the year, and we renewed his work permit is what triggered it. The money was cashed out, everything the checks went through while we were receiving that, he was gonna be here, everything was gonna be fine. Then July 15th he was detained at work, six 30 in the morning, the detained officer they told him they know who he is to the community, so they have to do it this way because they don't want any problems. They don't want media, they don't want reporters. He did ask them because he rode his motorcycle for some weird reason. He has not taken his bike out, his motorcycle out in the last three years. But for some reason that night he was like, I just wanna take my bike. So he took his bike that night and when ICE told him, do you have somebody come get your bike? You need to call somebody to come get your bike. He was like, nobody in my family rides motorcycles. I don't have anyone to come get my bike. I think there was some empathy and compassion for him. My husband was like, can I just take my bike back? I've got six kids. I've got my grandma at home and my parents are also at my house right now. I just wanna see them and wanna take my bike back. They asked him, “if we let you go, please don't run.” They followed my husband home and my husband literally called me at 6 37 in the morning and he was like, Hey, ICE is, here they got me. I'm like, “what? What's going on?” It was just so surreal. I was so shocked. It's a 30 minute drive. When he got there, they were already officers, packed tight in our driveway. We live in the country. There were like five or six cop cars there too. We had to walk about half a mile down to go see him. They wouldn't allow him to enter where our home was. The officer told, my husband, told him that they're so sorry. They have to do it this way. They know who he is. They don't want any problems, they don't want any reports in media out here. I will say my experience was a little bit different from others. They did take their mask off when they took him in, they were respectful. They even, talk to my two older boys like, Hey, you guys have money. I could put the money in your dad's account. We're, take him into Grand Rapids, we're gonna process him, and then we're gonna take him to the detention center, which is gonna be in Michigan. They were very open about these steps . My grandma has chronic pulmonary disease stage four. We couldn't haul her fast enough because we only saw him for like maybe a quick minute, and that was it. They did ask us to turn around because they had to take him back and they didn't want our little ones to see them cuffing him. Miko Lee: They actually said, Anne, we don't want any media to be watching this? Ann Vue: I don't want any problems. Miko Lee: Your husband is also quite well known in the Hmong community, right? So probably, they were worried about folks coming out and protesting. Is that, do you think that was the case? Ann Vue: That's what I'm assuming. I don't remember their exact words saying media, but do remember that they didn't want people around, they didn't want to create issues for the community. Because if he would've gotten the letter just like everybody did, which everybody then would receive the letter on Friday, and because my husband is a community leader, he is the Hmong Family Association's president, we restart receiving many, many calls where everybody just wanted to talk to Lue 'cause they needed to know what's going on, how to handle, what to do. At that moment I realized, oh my gosh, they detained my husband first. Then everybody else got a letter. Miko Lee: And the ICE officer that he had been checking in with routinely has he been in touch with him since he was detained? Ann Vue: He hasn't. Miko Lee: So they had different people come in even, 'cause he was the person that said everything's okay, keep going with your life. Ann Vue: Oh yeah. Miko Lee: And so no contact with him whatsoever since the detention? Ann Vue: No. Miko Lee: Okay. Thank you so much. I just wanna point out, for all of our listeners, how many similarities there are in these two cases. In both of these amazing women are here supporting their spouses. Both spouses born in refugee camps. Dealing with intergenerational trauma from families that had to escape ethnic cleansing or involved in a war, came into the United States under, legal properties through refugee resettlement acts, made mistakes as young people, partially due to culture and wanting to fit in. They served their time, they paid their dues. They were racially profiled. They suffered from incredible immigration policy failure with bad advice, with a system that's broken. Now both of them are detained. Not yet deported, but detained. Many of the community members have already been deported and they're facing statelessness. We're seeing this not just with Bhutanese and Hmong folks, but with Mien and Lao and Haitian and El Salvadorian. We could fill in the blank of how many other peoples in other communities are facing this. We also know that these private detention centers where people are being held, are making millions and millions of dollars, and it's connected into our corrupt political system that's in place right now. Aisa, I'm wondering if you could, talk about the case, but also about some of the deals that we think have had to be made with Laos and Bhutan in order for these deportations to even take place. So Aisa from Asian Law Caucus, I'm gonna pass it to you to go over some of the legal ramifications. Aisa Villarosa: Of course, Miko, and thank you for it for the context. There are so many parallels that we as advocates must uplift because this is not the time to be divided. This is the time to build solidarity that we've long known needs to happen. What Miko is referring to is largely something that we've observed around the travel  bans. Earlier this year, right around the time that the Trump administration took hold, there was a draft travel ban list that leaked across a number of media outlets, the Times, et cetera, and the same countries we're talking about today, Bhutan, Laos. These were historically not countries that were subject to sanctions, like the travel ban, and yet here they were. A lot of us were scratching our heads and asking, why is this happening? Our theory, and this is a theory that is now also manifesting in a number of FOIA requests or Freedom of Information Act requests that are submitted from Asian Law Caucus to departments like the State Department ice, the Department of Homeland Security. Asking the same question that Tika and Anne are asking, which is, how are these deportations even happening? They were not happening until this year. What very likely happened was a bit of a quid pro quo. So in removing Bhutan, removing Laos from this list where they could be sanctioned as a country, there was likely some backdoor deal that took place between the US State Department and Bhutanese officials and the US officials, where essentially there was some form of an agreement that there would be an acceptance or a supposed acceptance of a certain number of folks from these communities. That is why around March, for the Bhutanese refugee community, for example, we started seeing pickups very similar to Mohan's case, where, many people who had perhaps made some mistakes in their youth or had really old criminal convictions were swept off the streets and thrust into these really rapid deportation proceedings. I don't even know if proceedings is the right word, because there essentially was no proceeding. The Immigration Court is very much a cloaked process. The immigration judge is kind of judge and jury wrapped up together, which is very different than many of us might turn on the TV and see something like Law and order. An immigration court works a very different way where this piece of paper, this final removal order, basically gives ICE a lot of bandwidth to make these deportations happen. However, that doesn't mean we should just accept that this is happening. We know that just basic procedures of fairness are not being met. We know, too that in the case of, for example, the Bhutanese community ICE officers have come to the wrong house. And put a lot of people in fear. So racial profiling was happening even before this recent Supreme Court decision, which essentially now condones racial profiling, as criteria that the ICE can use. I also just wanted to talk about this trend too, we're seeing with so many cases. It happened to Lue, it happened to Mohan, where in someone's underlying criminal court case, maybe they were given a court appointed attorney. In many cases, they were not told of the immigration impacts of, say, taking a plea. There is a Supreme Court case called Padilla versus Kentucky and basically the law shifted such that in many cases there now is a duty for a court appointed public defender to actually talk to folks like Mohan and Lue about the immigration consequences of their plea. So when Tika mentioned that there's something called a post-conviction relief effort for Mohan. That's happening in Georgia. This is very much what that legal defense looks like, where, an expert attorney will look at that very old court record, see if those rights were violated, and also talk to Mohan and make sure did that violation happen and is that grounds for reopening an immigration case. For Lue, there is a really mighty pardoning campaign that's brewing in the state of Michigan. So in Michigan, governor Gretchen Whitmer does have the authority to in some cases expedite a pardon in process. Unfortunately in the immigration arena the expungement does not have that same weight as say a vacating, or a motion to vacate that criminal record. So it's super frustrating because, so much of this turns ethically, morally on- do we, as people believe in second chances, and I know most people do, and yet here we are really. Based on a technicality. I also just want to name too that Lue as a person is both a natural organizer and he is a spiritual guide of his community. So something that many folks don't know is because of so much of the trauma that Anne talked about, both from, supporting the Americans during the Secret War, many Hmong folks who came to the States, they actually in some cases died in their sleep because of this, almost unexplained weight of the trauma. It almost underscores the importance of Lue, not just to his family, but this family is a collective family. He's both a mentor for so many, he's a spiritual guide for so many. Him being away from his family, away from community, it's like a double, triple wound. for Mohan, I'd love to uplift this memory I have of a moment in June when Tika gave us a call, and at that point, Mohan had called Tika and said, they're taking me, I'm being deported. At that point, they were removing Mohan from the ICE facility in Butler, Ohio and transporting him to the Detroit airport or that deportation to Bhutan. Tika was forced to essentially delay her childbirth. It was very much in the range of when she was due to give birth to their daughter. But because the clock was ticking, Tika drove to Butler, literally begged for Mohans life as our organizing and advocacy and legal team was trying to get together this emergency stay of deportation. That fortunately came through at the 11th hour. But the fact that Mohan remains in this facility in St. Clair, Michigan, that he's never held his daughter is unacceptable, is ridicuLues. I think so much of these two cases almost, this invisible brotherhood of pain that I know Ann has talked to me about that. Because Lue right now has been in a couple facilities. He is organizing, he's doing his thing and actually supporting folks while also just trying to keep himself well, which is no easy feat to do in so many of these facilities. Especially because, in Alexandria, for example, which is a facility in Louisiana. We know that folks are sleeping on cement floors. We know that folks are not being fed, that there's a lot of human rights violations going on. Here is Lue still continuing to use his voice and try to advocate for the folks around him. Miko Lee: Aisa thank you so much for putting that into context, and we'll put links in the show notes for how folks can get involved in both of these cases. One is, Rising Voices call to action for Lue. We encourage folks to do that. In terms of Mohan, there's a GoFundMe to help support Tika and the immense lawyer fees, and also a letter writing campaign to the ICE director Kevin Roff, to try and release Mohan and Lue. These are really important things that are happening in our community, and thank you for being out there. Thank you for talking and sharing your stories. We really appreciate you. And also, just briefly, I'd love us for us to talk for a minute about how many folks in our Asian American communities, we don't wanna talk about mistakes that we have made in the past because we might consider that shameful. And therefore, in both of these communities, when we started organizing, it was really hard at first to find people to come forth and share their stories. So I wonder if both of you can give voice to a little about that, the power you found in yourself to be able to come forward and speak about this, even though some other folks in the community might not feel comfortable or strong enough to be able to talk. Tika, can you speak to that? Tika Basnet: What makes me really strong, and I wanna see that my husband case is because he was 17, people can make mistake and from those mistake, if people are learning. Americans should consider, 'cause my husband did make mistake and I wish that time he knew the rules and regulation. I wish somebody taught him that he's not supposed to go somebody else property, around in backyard. I wish he was been in the United States like more than , one and a half year. I wish, if he was like more than two years, three years. I think that time he, from high school, he could learn. He's not supposed to go there. He was just been in the United States like one and a half year just going to high school. Nobody taught him. His parent doesn't even speak English. Until now, they doesn't even speak, like nobody in our community knew rules and regulation. He doesn't have guide, mentor to taught him like, and even though he did make mistake and he's really sorry, and from those mistake learning a lot, and he never get into trouble, after 11 years, he was clean, he work, he pay taxes. That is the reason that I really wanna come forward. People can make mistake, but learning from those mistake that changed people life. The reason that I'm coming forward is because organization like Asian Law Caucus, ARU, and, Miko, a lot of people helped me. They taught me like people can make mistake and, we shouldn't be same. I really wanna give example to my daughter, that, you are fighting for justice and you shouldn't fear. What is right is right. What is wrong is wrong. But if somebody's make mistake and they are not, doing that mistake again, I think the people can get a second chance. My husband deserves second chance. He's 30 years old. He has a family, he has a wife, children and he deserved to be here. We came here legally, my husband came here. Legally, we, promise that we'll get home and this is our home. We wanna stay here and I really want my husband be home soon so he can play with her daughter to play with his daughter. Miko Lee: Thank you so much, Tika. Ann I wonder if you could talk to the strength that it takes for you to come forward and speak about your husband and your family. Ann Vue: I'm a community leader with my husband. There was a moment when he was first detained where I was in complete silence. I was so shocked. It took my attorney, Nancy, just talking to me about it. Of course, back to what Aisa said earlier in our communities, we're afraid. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. It took me visiting my husband in Baldwin and letting him know that, hey, a bunch of community members are now reaching out. And that's that. At that moment, he was like, you have to say something. You have to say something you have to make noise because you have a, 50% chance, right? We have a 50 50 chance. 50%. They're gonna send me 50%. You're gonna feel bad if you don't say anything, right? 50 here, 50 there. It doesn't matter. But a hundred percent regret if you don't say something. I thought about it and he was like, well, go out there, be my voice. He's like, you've always been my voice. You got this right. I didn't say no to Nancy. 'cause she really wanted to talk to our rep Mai you know about this. Mai and I are pretty close too. , I just knew if I said anything, Mai's gonna be like mm-hmm. All the way. I just let Nancy help me, and my most vulnerable time. I'm glad that she did. I'm glad that we did get this out. It is the most important thing for us. what keeps me going is all of those that have been impacted by this, from people like Tika. I have many, I call 'em sisters. We're all in a lot of these group chats together. They've been also keeping me going. Our amazing team of attorneys and everybody just strategizing through this unprecedented time. It's really everyone's voices. I get to talk to Lue daily. It's definitely not cheap, but he gets to share each story of each person. I believe that everybody has a story and they might not be as lucky as maybe Tika or my husband, but at least now I have their story. I will be their voice. I will tell each person's story, each name, each alien number that I track down, my husband's even literally learned how to count in Spanish, just so he can give them like my phone number in Spanish in case they need to call an emergency. Oh, I'm be getting a lot of calls. that is what keeps me going because I think that Tika and I and many others are, hoping that there is going to be a better day, a brighter day. I hope that everyone can see that, our children are American, right? Our children, they deserve to have their fathers and their mothers. They deserve to grow with these parents. And with that being said, the most important thing to me is they're not just bystanders. They're literally the future of America. I don't want them growing up with trauma, with trying to ask me questions “well mom, if we're refugees and we helped, Americans as allies, and we come to this country, why is this payback like this?” There's a moral obligation that has to be there and they're gonna grow up and they're gonna be trauma by this. I've got children right now that's been talking about joining the National Guard. It speaks volume about what happens to my husband. He's championed the Hmong, Michigan Special Gorilla unit, the Hmong veterans here in the last two years, really  with helping them through resolutions, tributes, making sure that they have things, that they are out there, that people now know them, they are finally recognized. This puts my husband at great danger by sending him back, because now he's championed the veterans here. He celebrates our veterans here. So it's a moral obligation. I hope that, and this is to every child, I hope that every child, they deserve their father's presence. There are many people who don't even have their father's presence and they wish their fathers were around. Our fathers wanna be around. I hope that our daughter, I only have one daughter too, that someday they can, their fathers can be a part of their, the American culture. I hope that we get that opportunity and I hope that somebody stop being scared, but turn around and help us. Help us. We came here legally, minor stuff, long decade old. This detainment has been worse than when he did time back in 1997. I just hope that somebody hears our podcast, Miko. Thank you. Aisa and Tika. And they turn and they have some compassion and help us because this is the tone that we're setting for the future of our American children. Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing. Tika, you wanna add? Tika Basnet: Yes, I really wanna talk about what kind of husband Mohan is. Even though like he detained for five month I put lot of money in his account and there was one guy, his family cannot support him. For me, it is really hard. I'm not working. But even my husband called me you don't need to put like money in my account, but can you please can you please put money in his account? He did not eat food. His family did not have money. I can survive without eating food. I think his story is really touching me. My husband was crying listening to that guy story in detention center and then I did put like $50 in his account. My husband is giving person. He love to give even though, he struggle a lot, even though, he doesn't know what will happen when he get deport. But, him saying other guy story. Does make him cry. I think this is the reason that I really wanna come forward. My husband is giving person, he's lovely person, he's caring person. That is the reason I wanna come forward. I want people to hear our voice, rather than silent. Right now people know our story. But if I was silent then I don't know whether my husband was already disappear. I don't know whether he gonna die torture or maybe he will expel within 24 hours. I have no idea. My husband is number one support system for me, because of him I'm here sharing his story. For years I had wonderful time with him. We build our dream and until 2025, our dream is destroy. I'm trying to build again. I'm hoping, my husband is coming home soon and I'm hoping that this will be the last time that he will get detained. I hope that this will be the end. I don't want him to get detained or deported again. I'm really tired. I don't know what to do. I'm hopeless. I hope listening to my story and Ann's story that separating family is not good. It is affecting not only one person but his whole community, whole family. We deserve to get our husband back. It is not only about the wife that is fighting for husband, it is the children. They're so small, they born here and we cannot raise alone, we cannot work. We have things to pay. Paying bills and taking care of child alone is really difficult. It's been five month. I went through postpartum depression, I went through trauma and I don't wanna deal anymore. Like I don't have courage to do this anymore. We need our husband back. Miko Lee: Thank you. I think both of your husbands are also main caregivers for parents that are ailing in both cases. It's a really important that we are intergenerational communities and as you both said, it's not just about the children, but it's also about parents and brothers and sisters and community members as well. Thank you so much for lifting up your stories. I just wanna go back for one more thing. We talked briefly about the crazy expensive lawyer fees that have come up for families that they've been dealing with this, and then also Tika was just bringing up about detention and commissary fees. Can you talk a little bit about the prison industrial complex and the fees that are associated? As Anne was saying, just calling Lue every day the costs that are associated with those things. Many people that don't have a family member that's incarcerated don't know about that. Can you share a little bit about what that system is? Aisa Villarosa: Yeah, absolutely Miko. Just to underscore, a big theme from this conversation, is that the US made commitments and they have broken them, both with, as Anne talked about, the refugee experience is one that is made possible through US commitment of acknowledging what, people have survived, what they have given to the country. Folks are being removed to countries where not only do they have zero ties to, don't speak the language, but, especially in the case of the Bhutanese refugee community, as Tika mentioned, it is truly a double expulsion. So the fact that we have well-documented testimonials of folks deported from Bhutan after they're removed there into these life-threatening conditions . A community member passed away in large part because of the failure of the US to both care for them while in detention. So going back to that prison complex, but also just putting them in such a harrowing situation. In another instance, a community member was found after wandering for over a hundred miles on foot. So this is not, deportation and the story ends. This is deportation and, there is a family that is grieving and thinking through next steps, there is, this call to not have borders, break us the way that this country is trying to do. And to say a little bit about the fees, USCIS, there, there has not been a point yet in history where so many changes and charges hurting families have been ushered in, But for this year. To give a couple examples of that – asylum cases for one, these often take many years through this administration. Now, families have to pay a cost yearly for each year that your asylum application, languishes because we're also seeing that those same folks who are supposed to process these applications are either being laid off or they're being militarized. So something like USCIS where this was where one would go to apply for a passport. Now the same department is literally being handed guns and they're now taking folks during naturalization interviews. Other avenues to challenge your removal. Like I mentioned a motion to reopen. All these things used to be fairly affordable. Now they can cost many thousands of dollars on top of the attorney fees. So something that's been quite challenging for groups like Asian Law Caucus where we do have attorneys representing folks in removal proceedings, there's often this misperception that oh it's costing so much money. Attorneys are pocketing cash. Unfortunately there are some situations where attorneys have been known to take advantage of families in this desperate moment. But for many, many attorneys who are in this mix, they're experts at this work. They're trying to do the right thing. They're both overwhelmed and they're seeing these new charges, which make the battle really even more difficult. So to turn it back to the listeners, I would say that as powerless as this moment can make us feel everyone is bearing witness. Hopefully the listeners today can take in Anne's story, can take in Tika's story and whatever power one has in their corner of the world, this is the moment to use that. Whether it's your voice, whether it's learning more about a community, maybe you're learning about for the first time. This is really the moment to take action. Miko Lee: Thank you Aisa. I wanna thank you all for being here with me today, for sharing your personal stories, your personal pain, and for recognizing that this is happening. We deeply believe that we need to keep our families together. That is really important. It is written into the very basis of this American country about redemption and forgiveness. And this is what we're talking about for misunderstandings that happened when these folks were young men, that they have paid for their time, and yet they're being punished again, these promises that were broken by this American government, and we need to find ways to address that. I really wanna deeply thank each of you for continuing to be there for sharing your voice, for protecting one another, for being there and standing up for your family and for our community. Thank you for joining me today. Check out our Apex Express Show notes to find out about how you can get involved. Learn about the Rising Voices campaign for Lue Yang and Mohan Khaki's GoFundMe. On November 3rd, 4:00 PM Pacific Time, 7:00 PM Eastern Time. Join us for We Belong here, Bhutanese and Hmong Americans in the Struggle Against Statelessness, a live virtual event featuring my three guests tonight, along with performances and conversations. Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program, apex Express to find out more about our show. APEX Express is a collective of activists that includes Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Have a great night.     The post APEX Express – 10.30.25-We Belong! appeared first on KPFA.

Shock in rugby league as the Melbourne Storm reluctantly grant fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen an early release, with one year left on his NRL contract. Papenhuyzen says he's taking a break away from the game to consider his future. Sportstalk host D'Arcy Waldegrave explains further. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello mother friender, hey, hi, how ya durn.    We did it, we recorded a podcast and didn't mess up the recording!!! Unfortunately, the episode that we finally record correctly is so peanut-heavy, I'm pretty sure we're going to set off some people's allergies. Keep that EPIPen on you, stay strapped. We begin on a topic near and dear to Carrington's heart, cylindrical foods. He loves them so much, he wants to create a new way to eat them!! Granted, I love the idea, but I think it's a little suspicious. Next, Jaymi brings us our yearly science lesson, once again related to peanuts; just can't get enough of those little guys. After that, we play a game; it goes swimmingly per usual. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to check your closet.    Email: hotcrossbunspod@gmail.com TikTok/Instagram: @hotcrossbunspod

In this episode, Heidi Heitkamp and Joel Heitkamp host Nick Levendofsky, the Kansas Farmers Union Executive Director. Together, they discuss challenges facing rural America, especially farmers and ranchers.Listen to this episode to learn more about trade tensions, changing markets, and how government aid policies are affecting the livelihoods of those in agriculture and rural communities.Heidi and Joel share practical insights on political shifts, infrastructure funding, and community support for food banks, exploring how rural voices can regain confidence and hope.Join us on The Hot Dish every week, where we serve up hearty conversations that resonate with every corner of the country.The Hot Dish is brought to you by the One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us are heard in Washington. To learn more, visit https://onecountryproject.org or find us at https://onecountryproject.substack.com/.

0:00 - The Nuggets finally beat the Minnesota Basketball Timberwolves! It actually happened! Granted, Anthony Edwards wasn't playing but it still counts. The new-look Nuggets are starting to figure it out. Jamal Murray looks ready to go!14:06 - PSII got banged up in the Cowboys game, and it's looking like a pectoral strain. He may head to IR after further evaluation. If PSII is sidelined for 4-6 weeks, will the Broncos be fine without him?36:07 - The Dodgers won Game 3 of the World Series last night...IN 18 INNINGS! They played TWO FULL BASEBALL GAMES against the Jays. Insanity. Shohei had another incredible night. He continues to reach new heights on the biggest stage. However, Moser can't swallow his pride and compliment Shohei because that would mean giving love to the Dodgers.

Send us a textIn this episode, we talk to Queen K from Akcess Granted.  We dive into the journey of applying for college—a process that can feel overwhelming, especially for first-generation students and those navigating systemic barriers. Through candid conversation and practical advice, we highlight how social workers, mentors, and community advocates can play a vital role in guiding students toward higher education. Whether you're a student preparing to apply, a parent supporting your child, or a professional helping young people dream bigger, this episode offers tools, encouragement, and real talk about what it takes to get to college or trade school.Because applying to college isn't just about filling out forms—it's about opening doors, creating opportunities, and rewriting the narrative for future generations.Please follow Kissena aka Queen K on ig @Akcessgranted.ny for more information. Social workers of color face immense challenges—systemic racism, underfunding, and overwhelming caseloads. They work tirelessly to support others but often lack the support they need. That's why we created the Queens of Social Work Podcast—a lifeline and safe space for social workers of color to vent, share, laugh, and find the resources they need to thrive. The QOSW Daily Journal and our Royally You Interactive Journal for yourself will help you get all of your thoughts out and reflect on what's next for you. For all of the budding social workers and those wanting to know more about social work in a healthcare setting, check out our Guide for ER Social Workers also for sale on Amazon and go to our website queensofsocialwork.net for your queens of social work merch! It makes a great gift. Support the show→ DON'T MISS THE NEXT EPISODE OF THE QUEENS OF SOCIAL WORK PODCAST! Follow us on your preferred podcast platform (Apple, Spotify, etc.) and share your thoughts in a review.→ WE VALUE YOUR INPUT. Take our 1-question survey and shape future episodes.→ DONATE TODAY to be a part of positive change for social workers of color.→ LOOKING FOR MORE INSPIRATION? Follow us on Instagram @queensofsocialwork→ TAKE YOUR CAREER TO THE NEXT LEVEL! Follow our LinkedIn page for professional insights.→ UNLOCK EXCLUSIVE RESOURCES. Visit our website and join our email list to receive your FREE Travel Social Work Guide.

Steve is joined by Ivey Gruber, President of the Michigan Talk Network, for a candid conversation about health, wellness, and the importance of self-care, especially as we get older. They talk about how too many people take their health for granted until something goes wrong, and why it's crucial to be intentional about fitness, nutrition, and mental well-being. From managing stress to building healthy daily habits, this discussion serves as a reminder that taking care of ourselves is one of the best investments we can make.

Took It All For Granted by Bill Bennett

We will be discussing MULTIPLE cases where black people were found PUBLICLY HANGED FROM TREES… and the local authorities deemed their deaths to be suicide. So JOIN US for an episode that will have you 38 HOT, as we discuss Suspicious Hangings.RIP to the victims

The Tánaiste has confirmed a plane carrying weapons bound for Israel was authorised to stop at Shannon Airport this month. Responding to a parliamentary question in the Dáil, Simon Harris has clarified that a civil aircraft travelling from South Carolina in the US to Athens in Greece on October 12th was given clearance by the Department of Transport to land at the Clare base for a technical stopover. It's understood the flight was carrying the unloaded personal weapons of troops and was allowed to proceed to Athens en route to Nevatim Airbase in Israel. The Tánaiste says it's a matter for the Minister for Transport.

Life is precious, and every moment counts. In Episode 50 of Tea Time with Just Rosie Moore, we explore how to cherish love, family, and presence. Learn faith-based lessons, real-life examples, and practical tips to live intentionally, express gratitude, and strengthen the relationships that matter most.

We review Little Book's Chapter 9 "None For Granted" whiskey around the campfire on our camping trip.Check it out here: https://www.beamdistilling.com/littlebook/whiskies/little-book-chapter-9-none-for-granted Text us comments or questions we can answer on the showIf you want to watch the video version of this Podcast check out our YouTube & Rumble channel, just search Two Doomed Men Podcast.Support the showGo to Linktree.com/TwoDoomedMen for all our socials where we continue the conversation in between episodes.

//The Wire//2300Z October 21, 2025////ROUTINE////BLUF: JAPAN ELECTS NEW PRIME MINISTER. DISSENT IN IRELAND AS HIGH-PROFILE MIGRANT CRIME STRIKES DUBLIN.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Japan: Last night Sanae Takaichi was selected to be Japan's first female PM following the striking of a new coalition deal in Parliament.Analyst Comment: Things might get rather interesting in Japan as Takaichi is the most politically conservative PM (by Japanese standards) that Japan has had since Shinzo Abe. Japanese internal politics is often strange to observe from a western perspective, however this election does signal a desire to shift to the political right for the Japanese.Ireland: Authorities are allegedly investigating the assault of a child at a migrant center in Dublin. A 10-year-old girl was found on the grounds of the Citywest Hotel in Dublin after being assaulted by an African migrant. The migrant in question had an active deportation order since March, but had not been deported. Following the revelation of this story, locals protested outside this migrant facility this afternoon. These protests rapidly turned into a riot, and at least one police vehicle was set on fire outside the facility.-HomeFront-Georgia: Yesterday a man was arrested after threatening to conduct a small arms attack at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. Billy Cagle was arrested after he livestreamed his attack plans on social media, before traveling to the airport to conduct the attack. His family members saw the livestream and notified law enforcement immediately, which led to his arrest in the South Terminal before he was able to conduct the attack.Analyst Comment: This appears to be more of a mental illness situation rather than the standard terror attack. Granted, bullets don't discriminate so in the heat of the moment this was still a very clear and present danger regardless. He was detained at the scene with a rifle in his vehicle, so his threats were probably not idle.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: Regarding the situation in Ireland, anytime Irish authorities are this forthcoming with details involving migrant crime, the situation is very serious. This migrant center has been turned into permanent housing for migrants (to the tune of €148 million), and has been the source of scandal following months of locals being terrorized by the inhabitants of this hotel. This facility is also under the protection of the Gardai, as this housing center has been the target of protests by ethnic Irishmen. This has led many to question how a migrant was able to kidnap a child and drag her to the facility, which was being protected by private security guards as well as police. Considering the gravity of the situation at hand, this might be yet the latest catalyst in keeping tensions hot in Ireland.Analyst: S2A1Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground//END REPORT//

The Value Of Testing In The Development Of Faith James 1 – Session 3 October 19, 2025 Review: Tests, trials, temptations: only know the true value of something when (and after) it is tested! True patience is a strong force of the Holy Spirit, that bears a strong inner witness that grants a confidence that God is at work in every circumstance and that He will sustain you and therefore, you will see His victory! “Let”, Allow patience …. Can't “work it up”. Patience is deposited in your reborn spirit. It must be accessed by faith and developed through obedience. (Galatians 5:22; 1 Corinthians 13:4) Godly patience involves persistent waiting (on relief, results desired), but it is undergirded with confident expectation that the Lord is “at hand” and is “at work”! (Philippians 4:5; Philippians 2:13) James 1:9 – “Glory in high position (A few examples!) Child of the Most High God (John 1:12) Heir of God, joint-heir with Christ (Romans 8:16, 17) Forgiven, made Holy, Righteous, Accepted, Beloved in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-7) Granted every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-7) Guaranteed eternal life (John 3:16) Given Grace in God's eyes and Favor for life's journey (Ephesians 2:8,9) Granted unconditional love (1 John 4:16-18) Guaranteed victory over death and every enemy (Romans 8:31-37) Granted an Intercessor in Heaven (Romans 8:34) James 1:10-11 “The rich …. “Humiliation” what it does NOT mean (See Timothy 6:17,18) Humble self: Recognize True Security, Identity (tool not source) James 1:12 The Blessing of enduring temptation The “Crown” implies that one has come through intense tests, trials, temptations James 1:13-15 The true source of temptation (We will NOT succeed in our own strength!

Denny Hamlin, Jared Allen, and Travis Rockhold recap a "typical Talladega" race that still provided plenty of excitement. Playoff chaos was in full swing with Chase Elliott getting caught up in an early-race wreck, Kyle Larson running out of gas during overtime, and Chase Briscoe stealing the win to clinch his spot in the Championship 4. What was Denny's week like as he turned his attention to the Phoenix finale, and does he think having a head start on preparation will help his Championship chances?1:01 - Typical Talladega 10:34 - Ty Gibbs Helps a Teammate17:28 - Bigger Bummer: William Byron or Kyle Larson?28:15 - Penske Mad at Brad Keselowski39:56 - AJ Allmendinger and Chase Elliott Wreck41:37 - Josh Berry and Ty Dillon's Pit Road Incident44:34 - Austin Hill Outclasses the Field...Again48:58 - Gio Ruggiero's 1st Truck Series Win50:45 - Martinsville Mindset for Bubble Drivers57:42 - Martinsville as Winner-Take-All Track58:47 - Off-track News and Updates Real fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.

What is ACC football? A wild adventure every week that feels a bit like the movie, 'Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle'. Parity has kicked in and there are more teams than ever before capable of fighting for a spot among the top tier of the conference. Granted this weekly topsy-turvy field of fun may not sit well with some fanbases (depending on the week) the most amusing thing is watching national pundits try to disavow how exciting ACC football has become and dig deep in their bag of tomfoolery to say things like you can't 'trust the conference'. What? Pack it up and head out to pasture if that's the best you have. Sports | Two Dynamic No. 1's In ACC InterMat Rankings We welcome our wild cousin Jeremy Wahman from Cardinal Sports Zone Podcast to give us a few minutes (two hours later) of his thoughts on the Louisville win over Miami. Have we been missing something? What does this win mean going forward? Jeremy never holds back and that's why we love having him join us. Football Then, Will and Jim jump into a review of Week 8, look at the standings, who's already locked in a bowl with 6 or more wins and which teams are merely a win away from locking their bid in. It was yet another crazy week with endings you couldn't make up and one look ahead to Week 9 says we're in for even more. We say, celebrate ACC football. It has been a wild ride so far and we anxiously await each matchup. Be sure to listen, like and subscribe to ACC Nation. Will and Jim are available on podcast, streaming radio and YouTube plus catch our content on multiple social media platforms such as Instagram, Tik Tok, X, Facebook, Reddit and Bluesky among others.

Cabin Cousins: Part 6 Saying Goodbye; for now. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Twenty. On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone. One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work. He answered after a few rings. "Hi, it's Charles, from work." "Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?" He sounded happy to hear from me. "Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back. "They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is." "Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months. "So, what's up?" Carl asked. I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background. "Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go. "Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go." "Mind if I come with?" I asked. "Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six." "Cool, I'll see you there." "Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again." And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye." "Bye." I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered. I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out. I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember. My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair? I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person? In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered. I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube. Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late. I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here. I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far. I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place. I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger. I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously. After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes. I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up. "Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here." I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift. "Hey," I said. "What's up?" "One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?" "No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends. "Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter." "Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut. "Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me." "Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered. "Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna" As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair. "You get stood up too?" I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender. "Huh? Yeah." "Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?" In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe. "Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals. "Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered." "Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her. Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline. Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked. Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..." My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..." She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person. "Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear. "Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening. This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar. "What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening." She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands. She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me. "What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?" "You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee. "When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years. "Well, I know you, Charles Larson." "How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier. "If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now. "How?" "Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real." My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood. "If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost. "I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa. Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?" I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question. "Your second cousin, the one you married." Shocked, I replied. "Melissa." She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up." "How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe. "Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams." "I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are." She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life." Chapter Twenty-one. "You're older than I thought you would be." Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby. "How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning. "When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago." A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene, What dream are you having over and over?" I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then,” "Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly. "I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears. We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts. Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?" She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think,” She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen." My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone. Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that; had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car. Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone." Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob. I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay." I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa. I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes. "So, what now?" I asked. "Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar. "I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was. Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago. The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's. I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway. Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me. "It looks exactly how I remember." I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We, You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..." I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt. "Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind. A small part of me was surprised ,as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass. Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her. Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch. Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar. "You do look like her," I said softly. "Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me." I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart. "This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it." Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine. "Through the years, I began to love being her." My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent! "I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you." My thoughts were muddled; like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was; still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be. "I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob. "You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved." I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them. "Do I?" I asked. "Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially." I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew." She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long. "I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it." The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be. Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power? "Are you my Melissa?" A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?" She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face. "Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism." She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa. "The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night." She stopped fidgeting and looked at me. "When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out." She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding. "What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you." Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster. "I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her." I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt. Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory. My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her. I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar. "Maybe we shouldn't,” She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered. Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality. Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed. Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts. Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her. I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it. But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem. There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth. I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer. The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading. I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag. I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever." Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance. "Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam. "You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment. We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed. "Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember" Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!" A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid. "We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory." My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you." The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled. "I love you. I love you. I love you..." A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars. "Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..." The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility. "...and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark. My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go." Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you." Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..." I floated alone. The self, the other, and the one were all gone. Joy and sadness were words without meaning. Light and dark had no definition. Space had no direction. Time held no sway. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 2 parts, for Literotica.

Matt and Nic are back with another week of news and deals. In this episode:  We dissect the market structure behind the flash crash last week What happened with Binance and Ethena? Palmer Luckey's de novo bank Erebor gets an OCC charter Paxos' fat finger The US government has seized $15b in funds tied to pig butchering scams  

Ever wonder why Bob Hope still lands with new audiences today? I sit down with Bill Johnson, a gifted Bob Hope tribute artist who grew up in Wichita and found his way from dinner theater to USO stages around the world. We talk about radio roots, World War II entertainment, and how “history with humor” keeps veterans' stories alive. You'll hear how Bill built a respectful tribute, the line between tribute and impersonation, and why audience connection—timing, tone, and true care—matters more than perfect mimicry. I believe you'll enjoy this one; it's funny, warm, and full of the kind of details that make memories stick.   Highlights: 00:10 - Hear how a Bob Hope tribute artist frames humor to build instant rapport. 01:41 - Learn how Wichita roots, a theater scholarship, and early TV/radio love shaped a performer. 10:37 - See why acting in Los Angeles led to dinner theater, directing, and meeting his future wife. 15:39 - Discover the Vegas break that sparked a Bob Hope character and a first World War II reunion show. 18:27 - Catch how a custom character (the Stradivarius) evolved into a Hope-style stage persona. 21:16 - Understand the “retirement home test” and how honest rooms sharpen a tribute act. 25:42 - Learn how younger audiences still laugh at classic material when context is set well. 30:18 - Hear the “history with humor” method and why dates, places, and accuracy earn trust. 31:59 - Explore Hope's USO tradition and how Bill carries it forward for veterans and families. 36:27 - Get the difference between a tribute and an impersonation and what makes audiences accept it. 41:40 - Pick up joke-craft insights on setup, economy of words, and fast recoveries when lines miss. 46:53 - Hear travel stories from Tokyo to Fort Hood and why small moments backstage matter. 50:01 - Learn the basics of using Hope's material within IP and public domain boundaries. 51:28 - See the ethical close: making sure a “reasonable person” knows they saw a tribute.   About the Guest:   With a career spanning over thirty years, Bill has forged his niche on stage, screen, and television as a dependable character actor.   Bill's tribute to the late, great Bob Hope was showcased in New Orleans, LA at Experience the Victory, the grand opening of the National WWII Museum's first expansion project. In the ceremony, Bill introduced broadcaster Tom Brokaw, and performed a brief moment of comedy with Academy Award winning actor, Tom Hanks. Bill continues to appear regularly at the WWII Museum, most recently in On the Road with Bob Hope and Friends, which was under-written by the Bob & Dolores Hope Foundation.   Highlights from over the years has included the 70th Anniversary of the End of WWII Celebration aboard the USS Midway in San Diego, and the Welcome Home Vietnam Parade in Tennessee. Additionally, Bill has been honored to appear around the world as Mr. Hope for the USO in locations such as the Bob Hope USO centers in Southern California, the USO Cincinnati Tribute to Veterans (appearing with Miss America 2016-Betty Cantrell),  USO Ft. Hood (appearing with the legendary Wayne Newton), USO of Central and Southern Ohio, USO Puget Sound Area in Seattle, USO Guam, USO Tokyo, USO Holiday Shows in Virginia Beach for US Tours, and a Tribute to the USO on the island of  Maui with country music superstar Lee Greenwood.   Other notable appearances include Tribute Shows for Honor Flight chapters in Alabama, South Carolina, and Ohio, the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association, the US Army Ball, the annual 1940's Ball in Boulder, CO, “USO Cuties Show” at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, the Les Brown Jazz Festival in Tower City, PA, and Hosting “So Many Laughs: A Night of Comedy” at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, OH.   Through the years, Bill has been “murdered” on CSI, portrayed Michael Imperioli's banker in High Roller: The Stu Unger Story, as well as, roles in films such as Ocean's 11, Three Days to Vegas, TV's Scare Tactics, Trick Shot, an award winning short film for Canon cameras, and the series finale of Dice, where Bill appeared as John Quincy Adams opposite Andrew Dice Clay.     Bill is currently based out of Las Vegas, NV where he lives with his wife, author Rosemary Willhide, and rescue dog, Brownie.   Ways to connect with Bill:   http://www.billjohnsonentertainment.com http://www.GigSalad.com/williampatrickjohnson     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:23 This is your host, Mike hingson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset. You know, we have a saying here, unstoppable mindset, where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet, and we're going to definitely have unexpected today. This is also going to be a very fun episode. By the time you hear this, you will have heard a couple of conversations that I had with Walden Hughes, who is the president of the radio enthusiast of Puget Sound. And he's also on the on other boards dealing with old radio show. And he introduced me to Bill Johnson, who is a person that is well known for taking on the role of Bob Hope, and I'm sure that we're going to hear a bunch about that as we go forward here. But Bill is our guest today, and I just played a little segment of something for Bill with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, two characters by any standard. Well, anyway, we'll get to all that. Bill, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset, and I'm really honored that you're here with us today.   Bill Johnson ** 02:31 Oh, thanks a million. Michael, it's such a pleasure to be here. Well, this is going to be a fun discussion.   Michael Hingson ** 02:38 Oh, I think so. I think absolutely by any standard, it'll be fun. Well, why don't we start before it gets too fun with some of the early stories about Bill growing up and all that. Tell us about the early bill.   Bill Johnson ** 02:52 Okay, well, I was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, of all places. And I used to say, I used to Marvel watching Hope's Christmas specials with my family that sort of spurred my interest. But grew up in Midwest, went to Wichita State University, and then after graduation, I had a job with an independent film company and a move to Los Angeles seeking my fortune. Well, the film company pulled it in three months, as those things do, and so I was left with my, I guess, my pursuit of the entertainment career from there.   Michael Hingson ** 03:42 So did you what you went to school and high school and all that stuff?   Bill Johnson ** 03:46 Yes, oh yes, I went to Wichita East High I didn't graduate with honors, but I graduated with a B,   Michael Hingson ** 03:56 that's fair B for Bob Hope, right? Yeah.   Bill Johnson ** 04:01 And then I actually went to college under a theater scholarship, wow. And so that, in those days, that would pay for everything, books, class, which delighted my parents, because we were a family of simple means. So that was the only way I was going to go to college was having a scholarship and but as it turns out, it was for the best years of my humble life, because I got a lot of hands on experience in a Wichita State medium sized College, yeah, but back then it was Much smaller, so I had a lot of opportunity.   Michael Hingson ** 04:43 I've actually been to Wichita State. I've been to Wichita and, oh, great, did some speaking back there. And we're probably going to be doing more in the future. But it's an it's a nice town. It's a great town to to be a part of. I think,   Bill Johnson ** 04:56 yes, people are so nice there. And what I. I've noticed living in other places and then going home to visit Wichitas are cleaned. Just something you noticed, the streets are usually pretty clean and foliage is well manicured. So hats off to the city for keeping the place up to date or keeping it clean   Michael Hingson ** 05:22 anyway. Well, yeah, you got to do what you got to do, and that's amazing. And in the winter, everything gets covered up by the snow.   Bill Johnson ** 05:30 Yes, you do get all four seasons in Wichita, whether you like it or not. See there, yeah, it's one of those places where they have that saying, If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes and it'll change.   Michael Hingson ** 05:43 Yeah. So, so, so there. So you majored in theater in college?   Bill Johnson ** 05:49 Yes, I did. Actually, the official designation at Wichita State was speech communication, ah, so that's what I got my Bachelor of Arts   Michael Hingson ** 06:02 degree in so what years? What years were you there?   Bill Johnson ** 06:05 I was there in the fall of 75 and graduated a semester late. So I graduated in December of 79 Okay,   Michael Hingson ** 06:17 yeah, but that was after basically the traditional golden days and golden age of radio, wasn't   Bill Johnson ** 06:24 it? Yes, it was still in the days of black and white television.   Michael Hingson ** 06:29 But yeah, there was a lot of black and white television, and there were some resurgence of radio, radio mystery theater CBS was on, and I think that was before, well, no, maybe later in 7879 I don't know when it was, but NPR did Star Wars. And so there were some radio, radio things, which was pretty good.   Bill Johnson ** 06:53 And I think our friends in Lake will be gone began.   Michael Hingson ** 06:56 Oh yeah, they were in, I think 71 garrison. Keillor, okay, it'll be quiet week in Lake will be gone my hometown. I know I listened every week. Oh, I   Bill Johnson ** 07:06 did too. So my interest in radio was, I think, started back then.   Michael Hingson ** 07:12 Yeah, I enjoyed him every week. As I love to describe him, he clearly was the modern Mark Twain of the United States and radio for that matter. Is that right?   Bill Johnson ** 07:26 Oh, gosh, well, I, I'm, I'm, I'm glad to agree with you. And a lot of that wasn't it improvised to his weekly monolog. He'd have, oh, sure, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 07:39 he, had ideas. He may have had a couple notes, but primarily it was improvised. He just did it. He just did it.   Bill Johnson ** 07:47 I let some of the episodes you take a lot of find a lot of humor in the fact he's kind of pleased with himself. And he goes, Well, look what we just said, or something. He'll do.   Michael Hingson ** 07:57 Yeah, it was, it was fun. So what did you do after college? Well,   Bill Johnson ** 08:03 after college, when I had moved to Los Angeles, after that, did not work out. I pursued my living as a as an actor, which didn't last long. So I of course, had to get a secondary job, I guess. Let me back up. It did last long, although I didn't have enough to pay my bills. Oh, well, there you go. I had a secondary job as whatever I could find, bartending. Usually, I did a lot of work as a bartender and but you get at least doing something like that. You get the people watch, yeah, oh.   Michael Hingson ** 08:47 And, that's always entertaining, isn't   Bill Johnson ** 08:49 it? Well, it can be, yeah, that's true. Back in my that's where I kind of develop your little stick you do for customers to get them to laugh and maybe tip you. My big thing was that you'd always see a couple, say, making out at the bar because it was kind of dark in there. And I would always say, Hey fellas, you want to meet my wife, Carol? Oh, that's her boss. Don't worry about it. They're having a good time or something like that, just to try to get a few laughs.   Michael Hingson ** 09:23 I've done similar things at airports. I know that the TSA agents have a such a thankless job. And one of the things I decided fairly early on, after September 11, and you know, we got out, and most people, and most of the TSA people don't know it. But anyway, whenever I go through the airport, I love to try to make them laugh. So, you know, they'll say things like, oh, I need to see your ID, please. And, and I'll say things like, Well, why did you lose yours? Or, you know, or you why? I didn't want to see it. It's just a piece of paper, right? You know? But, and I get them to laugh. Mostly, there are few that don't, but mostly they they do. And then the other thing is, of course, going through with my guide dog. And we go through the portal. They have to search the dog because he's got the metal harness on that always sets off the detector. Oh my, yeah. And, and so they say, Well, we're going to have to pet your dog. I said, Well, just wait a minute. There's something you need to know. And I really sound very serious when I do this. You got to understand this before you do that. They go, oh yeah. And they back up, and I go, he only likes long searches. If you don't take a half hour, he's not happy because his tail is going 500 miles a second, you know? Oh, great coming. But it is fun, and we get him to laugh, which is, I think, important to do. We don't laugh at enough in life anyway.   Bill Johnson ** 10:57 Amen to that. It's That's my philosophy as well, my friend. And there's not a lot to laugh about these days. And hopefully we can find the humor, even if we create it ourselves.   Michael Hingson ** 11:11 Yeah, I think there's a lot to laugh at if we find it. You know, there are a lot of things that are not going very well right now, and there are way too many things that make it hard to laugh, but we can find things if we work at it. I wish more people would do that than than some of the things that they do. But what do you do?   Bill Johnson ** 11:31 Yes, yeah, from from your mouth to God's ears, that's a great plan for the future.   Michael Hingson ** 11:39 Well, we try so you you did some acting, and you had all sorts of other jobs. And then what happened?   Bill Johnson ** 11:47 Well, I finally got fed up with the whole bartending thing and the rat race of trying to make it in Los Angeles. I did some commercials. I had a couple of small roles in some independent movies, as they say. But on my first love being theater, I hit the road again doing some regional theater shows to where I finally ended up back in Kansas, once again, that the there was a dinner theater in my hometown of Wichita, and I got hired to do shows there. Oh, so eventually becoming a resident director so and my my family was going through some challenges at the time, so it was good to be home, so I hadn't really abandoned the dream. I just refocused it, and I got a lot of great experience in directing plays, appearing in plays, and I met my white wife there. So so that was a win win on all counts.   Michael Hingson ** 13:00 I first got exposed to dinner theater after college. I was in Iowa, in Des Moines, and the person who was reading the national magazine for the National Federation of the Blind, the magazine called the Braille monitor guy was Larry McKeever was, I think, owner of and very involved in a dinner theater called Charlie's show place, and I don't remember the history, but I went to several of the performances. And then he actually tried to create a serial to go on radio. And it didn't get very far, but it would have been fun if he had been able to do more with it, but he, he did do and there were people there who did the dinner theater, and that was a lot of fun.   Bill Johnson ** 13:45 Oh, gosh, yeah, although I must say that I was sort of the black sheep of the family being in the arts. My My mom and dad came from rural communities, and so they didn't really understand this entertainment business, so that was always a challenge. But there's one footnote that I'm kind of proud of. My grandfather, who was a farmer all his life. He lived on a farm. He was raised on a farm. Every year at the Fourth of July Co Op picnic. The Co Op was a place where they would take the crops and get paid and get supplies and so forth. They would have a picnic for all the people that were their customers every year he would supposedly play the unscrupulous egg buyer or the egg salesman. And so he'd go to the routine, was an old vaudeville routine. He'd go to this poor farmer and say, Here, let me pay you for those eggs. That's here. There's one two. Say, how many kids do you guys have now? For the No, five. 678, say, How long have you and your wife been married? What is it? Seven years, eight, they get the guy go, no, 1011, 12, so that was the bit, and he would do it every year, because I guess he did it   Michael Hingson ** 15:15 really well. Drove the farmers crazy.   Bill Johnson ** 15:18 Yeah, so, so humble beginnings in the lineage,   Michael Hingson ** 15:23 but on the other hand, once you started doing that, at least being in the theater was enough to pay the bills. Yes.   Bill Johnson ** 15:30 So my parents really couldn't complain about that.   Michael Hingson ** 15:34 Well, see, it worked   Bill Johnson ** 15:36 out, yes indeed. And I met my wife, so I'm not complaining   Michael Hingson ** 15:41 about any of it. Now, was she in the theater? Yes, she was a performer.   Bill Johnson ** 15:46 We met in a show called lend me a tenor, and she was the lead, and I was at this point doing my stage management duties. But suffice to say we have gone on and done many shows together since then, and even had been able to play opposite each other a couple of times. So that cool, yeah, that's, that's a you can't ask for better memories than   Michael Hingson ** 16:13 that. No, and you guys certainly knew each other and know each other well. So that works out really well.   Bill Johnson ** 16:20 Yeah, that works out pretty good, except, you know, you sometimes you have to have a conversation and say, Okay, we're just going to leave the theater on the stage and at home. We're at home. Yeah?   Michael Hingson ** 16:32 Well, yeah, there is that, but it's okay. So how did you get into the whole process of of portraying Bob Hope, for example, and did you do anything before Bob of the same sort of thing?   Bill Johnson ** 16:51 Well, interestingly enough, to complete the whole circle of my experience, when I was performing in Wichita, I got a job opportunity here in Lacher. I'm living in Las Vegas now, to move out here and audition, or come out and audition for a new dinner show that was opening at Caesar's Palace. It was called Caesar's magical Empire, and it was, it was in 1996 and during that time, there was this big magic craze in Las Vegas. Everybody was doing magic   Michael Hingson ** 17:27 shows. You had Siegfried and Roy and yeah.   Bill Johnson ** 17:30 So I came out, I auditioned and got hired. And so then it was like, Well, now you got to move. So we moved on a just on hope and a prayer. And luckily, they eventually hired my wife, and so we got to work together there, and I eventually went on to become the, what they called the show director. I didn't do the original show direction, but it was my job to maintain the integrity of the attraction. So during those years it was that was kind of difficult, because you have to listen to being on the administrative team. You've got to listen to all the conflict that's going on, as well as and try to keep the waters calm, keep peace. Yes. So anyway, doing my show and being interactive, you talk back and forth to the audience, and after it was over, you take them out to a next the next experience in their night, when they would go see magic in a big showroom. And a lady came up to me and and she said, say, I've got this world war two reunion coming up next month. I'd like you to come and be, pretend to be Bob Hope. Do you know who that is? And I was like, yes, he's one of my heroes. And so that was the first opportunity, suffice to say, I guess I did. Should have prefaced it by saying, when the magical Empire first opened, we were all playing these mystical wizards and dark characters. Well, that didn't fly. That wasn't any fun. So then the directors, the producers said, well, everybody, come up with your own character, and we'll go from there. And so I created this character named the Stradivarius, because I like to fiddle the room. I get it and   Michael Hingson ** 19:37 but I played it like Bobby and you like to stream people along. But anyway, hey, I wish I would have   Bill Johnson ** 19:42 thought of that. My approach was like Bob Hope in one of the road pictures. So the show would be sort of a fish out of water type thing. Come on, folks. You know, I laughed when you came in that type of thing. Yeah. So when this lady saw the show that. How she got that inspiration?   Michael Hingson ** 20:04 Well, your voice is close enough to his that I could, I could see that anyway.   Bill Johnson ** 20:09 Oh, well, thank you. Sometimes I'd say it drives my wife nuts, because I'll come across an old archival material and say, Hey, honey, how about this one? So she's got to be the first audience, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 20:23 Well, I'm prejudiced, so you could tell her, I said, so okay,   Bill Johnson ** 20:27 that you would, you'd love to hear it, right? Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 20:31 Well, absolutely. Well, so you went off and you did the the World War Two event.   Bill Johnson ** 20:38 Did the World War Two event shortly after that, the met this, well, I should tell you another story, that shortly after that, a young man came to my show, and during the show, he stopped me and said, say, You remind me of someone very dear to me. Have you ever heard of Bob Hope? And I said, yeah, he's again. I said, one of my heroes. The guy said, Well, you kind of remind me of him. Went on his merry way, and I didn't think much of it. Well, it just so happens. The next day, I was watching the biography documentary of Bob Hope, and all of a sudden this talking head comes up, and it's the same guy I was just talking to in my show the day, the day before, it turns out that was, that was Bob's adopted son, Tony Tony hope. So I took that as a positive sign that maybe I was doing something similar to Mr. Hope, anyway. But then, as I said, The show closed very soon after that, sadly, Mr. Hope passed away. And 2003 right, and so there was, there was no real demand for anything like that. But I didn't let the idea go. I wanted something to do creatively. I continued to work for the same company, but I went over and ran the 3d movie at Eminem's world in Las Vegas 20 years. So I had plenty of time to think about doing   Michael Hingson ** 22:26 something creative, and you got some Eminem's along the way.   Bill Johnson ** 22:30 They keep them in the break room for the employees. So it's like, here's all the different brand I mean, here's all the different flavors and styles. So to have a way and you can tell guests, oh yeah, that's delicious. It tastes like, just like almonds or   22:45 something. Yeah.   Bill Johnson ** 22:47 So based on that, I decided to pursue this, this tribute, and it, I'll tell you, it's difficult getting started at first, you got to practically pay people to let you come and do a show. I'd go to retirement homes and say, Hey, you want to show today. Sometimes they'd let me, sometimes they wouldn't. But the thing about doing a show at a retirement community is they will be very honest with you. If you ain't any good, they'll say, man, no, thanks. Oh, nice try. So know where my trouble spots were,   Michael Hingson ** 23:29 but, but audiences don't treat you as the enemy, and I know that one of the things I hear regularly is, well, how do you speak so much and so well. You know the one of the greatest fears that we all have as a public speaking, and one of the things that I constantly tell people is, think about the audiences. They want you to succeed. They came because they want to hear you succeed, and you need to learn how to relate to them. But they're not out to get you. They want you to be successful and and they love it when you are and I learned that very early on and speaking has never been something that I've been afraid of. And I think it's so important that people recognize that the audiences want you to succeed anyway.   Bill Johnson ** 24:17 That's so true. And you kind of touched on a quote I remember one of the books from Bob hopes. He said how he approaches it. He said, I consider the audience as my best friends, and who doesn't want to spend time with your best friend, right?   Michael Hingson ** 24:34 And I and I believe that when I speak, I don't talk to an audience. I talk with the audience, and I will try to do some things to get them to react, and a lot of it is when I'm telling a story. I've learned to know how well I'm connecting by how the audience reacts, whether there's intakes of breath or or they're just very silent or whatever. And I think that's so important, but he's. Absolutely right. Who wouldn't want to spend time with your best friend? Yes, amen. Did you ever get to meet Bob? Hope   Bill Johnson ** 25:07 you know I never did, although I at one point in my when I was living in Los Angeles, a friend of mine and I, we were in the over the San Fernando Valley, and they said, Hey, I think there's some stars homes near here. Let's see if we can find them. And we said, I think Bob Hope lives on this street. So we went down Moor Park Avenue in Toluca Lake, and we finally saw this home with a giant H on the gate. And it's like, Oh, I wonder. This has got to be it. Well, all of a sudden these gates began to open. And we, kind of, my friend and I were like, and here, here, Hope came driving home. He was, he arrived home in a very nicely appointed Chrysler Cordoba, remember those? And he had one, he just was just scowling at us, like, what are you doing in my life? You know, and they drove it. So that's as close as I got to the real guy. But I wish I could have had the pleasure of seeing him in person, but never, never was fortunate enough.   Michael Hingson ** 26:18 Well, one of the things that's interesting is like with the World Trade Center, and I've realized over the past few years, we're in a world with a whole generation that has absolutely no direct Memory of the World Trade Center because they weren't born or they were too young to remember. And that goes even further back for Bob Hope. How does that work? Do you find that you're able to connect with younger audiences? Do they talk with you know? Do they do they react? Do they love it? How   Bill Johnson ** 26:52 does that go? Well, interestingly enough, a lot of times, if there are younger people at shows, they're usually dragged there by their parents and I have found that they will start chuckling and giggling and laughing in spite of themselves, because that old humor of hopes that, granted, it is corny, but there's some great material there, if presented in the proper context. Yeah. I was funny story. I was doing a show at the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans. They were dedicating a new theater or something, and the color guard was a group of local leaf Marines that were serving in a local base, and they were standing there right before they went on, and this young man kept looking at me, and finally he said, very respectfully, says, I'm sorry, sir, but who are you? So I said, luckily, there was a picture of Bob Hope on the wall. And I said, Well, I'm trying to be that guy. And I said, Hang around a little bit. You'll hear some of the material so, but that's the thing I that you did bring up. An interesting point is how to keep your audience, I guess, interested, even though the humor is 4056, 70 years old, I call it like all my approach history with humor. The first time I did the Bob Hope, as in the national natural progression of things, I went to an open call, eventually here in Vegas to do they were looking for impersonators for an afternoon show at the Riviera in a place called Penny town. It was just a place for Penny slots. And they had, and they hired me. They said you can do your Bob Hope impression there. And so they had a stage that was on a one foot riser. You had a microphone and a speaker and a sound man, and you had to do a 10 Minute monolog six times a day every Yeah, do 10 minutes. You'd have about a 40 minute break. Do 10 more. And I didn't do it every day, but you would be scheduled. Maybe they'd have, you know, have a Reba McEntire one day. They'd have an Elvis one day. Well, so I would it was a great place to try your ad, because, and that's what turned me on to the whole idea of history with humor. Because when I started, I was just doing some of his material I'd found in a hope joke book that I thought were funny. Well, once in a while, people would be playing the slots. Granted, they were looking at the machines. Nobody was looking at me. And once, when I'd have somebody who. Ah, you know, crank the arm, one arm banded against and then, or I make the sound man laugh. And that was my goal. Well, there was a snack bar right in front of us with a rail that people. They weren't tables, but you could go, lean against the rail and eat your I think it was called Moon doggies hot dog stand so you could eat your hot dog and watch Bob. Hope so if I could make the moon doggy people hot dog folks choke on their hot dog while they were laughing. That was like a home run. Yeah. But to keep them interested, tell them something that they will know. For instance, Hope's first show for the troops was May 6, 1941 down in March field in Riverside California. And you start giving dates and specifics that i i can see the people in the audience go, oh yeah, in their mind's eye, they if they were around, then they will go back to that day. What was I doing then? Okay, and so you kind of make the world relevant for them. So that's how I approach World War Two, Korea and Vietnam. Is give dates and places, which you got to be accurate, because the veterans   Michael Hingson ** 31:27 will set you straight. Oh yeah, because they do remember. Oh yes, they were there.   Bill Johnson ** 31:33 So some of them and but it's, it's amazing, as you say, you can tell if the audience is engaged by if they inhale or if they make some complimentary noises during the show. Sometimes I'll get fellas who will sit there and ponder just looking at me, and then they'll come up afterwards and say, Man, I hadn't thought about that in years.   Michael Hingson ** 32:04 Yeah, thank you. And you know you're connecting, yeah, yeah.   Bill Johnson ** 32:09 And because hope represented, I think, a good memory in a kind of a rough time for a   Michael Hingson ** 32:16 lot of folks. Well, he did. He did so much for the troops with the military. And as you said, May 6, 1941, and it went from there. And of course, during the whole war, he was all over and entertaining people and and he was also very active in radio as part of all that.   Bill Johnson ** 32:38 Oh my goodness, I don't know how the man found time to sleep, because if he were alive today, he would love social media and podcasts and things, because he was always trying to get his name in the paper or get some publicity, but he never forgot about his audience. He would want to do a show for the troops, no matter where they were stationed or he said I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I didn't try.   Michael Hingson ** 33:10 Yeah, well, you do a lot with veterans and so on. So you've kind of kept up that tradition, haven't you?   Bill Johnson ** 33:19 Yes, I have been fortunate enough to play a lot of reunions and some, maybe some uso themed shows, because that first show he did, hope did, in May of 1941 was they just was a radio show that his, one of his writers had a brother stationed it in Riverside, California, and the war hadn't started, so they had nothing to do, right? These guys were bored, and so he said, Let's take our show down there and hope. So hope didn't want to leave the comfort of his NBC studio. It's like, you know, what's the idea? And they said, how big is the crowd? And they said, Well, I don't know, maybe 1000 and of course, you know 1000 people. And you know, in Hope's mind, he says, I'd give my arm and a leg to hear 10 people laugh. 100 people is like a symphony, but 1000 people, yeah, sheer fantasy. So he said, Oh, wait a minute, are you 1000 people? Are you sure? And this guy, Al capstaff, said, Well, maybe two. So that was it. And they went down. And when the audience, of course, they were just hungry for anything, the response was just so great that hope said, well, where has this been? And he said, shortly after that, we teamed up with the USO and been going steady. Ever since, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 35:02 and that's so cool. And again, you've, you've kept a lot of that going to now, we've talked on this show with Walden about reps and the showcase and so on. Are you going to be up at the recreation in Washington in September?   Bill Johnson ** 35:18 Yes, I am. I'll be there, and we're, I believe we're doing a one of the cavalcade of America shows that sort of incorporates a lot of his initial, well, one of his initial tours over in World War Two. But it's because a cavalcade is a recreation. A lot of it's drama, dramatized, but it's, it's and it's encapsulated you go bang, bang, bang across a big section of World War Two and Hope's experience in Europe. But it's, to me, as a fan of that genre, it's fascinating, so I just looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.   Michael Hingson ** 36:04 Well, we ought to, one of these days, we need to just do a Bob Hope radio show or something like that, and get you to come on and get an audience and and, and just do a show.   Bill Johnson ** 36:15 Oh, that would be great. I would love. That would be fun. That would be great, you know. And if there's any naysayers, you just say they said, Why do you want to do radio? Say, well, as hope would say, radio is just TV without the eye strain,   Michael Hingson ** 36:30 yeah, and the reality, you know, I'm one of my favorite characters, and one of my favorite shows is Richard diamond private detective, and I was originally going to actually be at the showcase doing Richard diamond, but I've got a speaking engagement, so I won't be able to be there this time, so we'll do it another time. But I remember, you know, at the beginning of every show, the first thing that would happen is that the phone would ring and he would answer it and say something cute, and it was usually his girlfriend, Helen Asher, who is played by Virginia, or who is, yeah, played by Virginia. Greg and one of his shows started. The phone rang. He picked it up. Diamond detective agency, we can solve any crime except television. That's great. I love that one. I love to use that.   Bill Johnson ** 37:20 I gotta remember that that's a great line, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 37:24 but it's really fun. Well, so you classify yourself as a tribute artist. How do you really get started in doing that, and how do you keep that going?   Bill Johnson ** 37:38 Well, that's, that's a, that's the million dollar question. Basically, I I found all the archival material I could find, and there's a ton of information on Bob Hope on YouTube nowadays, and you need to decide, are you a tribute, or are you an impersonator? Because there is a slight difference.   Michael Hingson ** 38:04 What difference a tribute?   Bill Johnson ** 38:08 Well, first off, an impersonator is someone who resembles someone famous and dresses up in a manner as to portray them, and that can include a tribute artist who may not look identical to the person, but can capture a mannerism or a vocal vocal rhythm to suggest enough that the audience will accept it. I I do it. I am, I feel like I can capture a little bit of his face with some, you know, some of the expressions people have told me my eyes resemble his, as well as wear a hat or something from try to copy a costume from a picture that is very you feel like is iconic of this character. So if you can come out and present that, that's the battle hope would always he began his radio shows, as you recall, by saying where he was and like, how do you do ladies and gentlemen, this is Bob live from Santa Ana Air Base, hope and and then do a two, two line rhyme about his sponsor, usually Pepsodent, just to get on to start the show with a laugh like Pepsodent on your brush and use plenty of traction and none of Your teeth. They'll be missing in action.   39:39 Yeah.   Bill Johnson ** 39:42 Huge, but, but you to to pursue it. As I said, you've just got to, you've got to kind of forage out in the real world and see if see somebody's looking for a show, and hopefully get someone to take a chance. Okay? Give you an opportunity. That's why I went to that open call to do that show at the Riviera. It is difficult to tell jokes at people that are chewing at you, but it's a good learning ground, plus doing the shows at the retirement homes made you prepared for anything because, but I found that I got the strongest response from veteran mentioned some of those history moments, historical moments. And so I thought maybe I'll just focus on this, not to put together the other comedy. And the other experiences are very important too. But the things I have found people remember the most were those shows for the troops. Yeah, and basically, in a nutshell, and they don't remember what did he What did he say? Do you remember a joke? Sometimes they'll tell me a joke, but most, most times, they don't remember what he said, but they remember how he made them feel,   Michael Hingson ** 41:06 yeah, and the fact that he said it, yes, yeah,   Bill Johnson ** 41:10 there's a there's a common joke I'd heard for years, and a friend of mine told me he was a 10 year old kid at Fort Levin fort, Leonard Wood, Missouri. And hope came out and told the joke. The guy goes into a bar. Oh, no, excuse me. Let me back up. A grasshopper goes into a bar. The bartender says, Hey, we got a drink named after you. The grasshopper says, you got a drink named Irving cute. And I'd heard that. Yeah, I guess hope told it and so you never know what what inspires your comedy, but there's a lot of common things I heard growing up that I will find hope said. Hope said it at one point or another in his either his radio show or on one of his specials. So   Michael Hingson ** 41:58 do you think that a lot of what he did was ad lib, or do you think that it was mostly all written, and he just went from a script?   Bill Johnson ** 42:07 That's a good point. He was one of the first performers to use cue cards, okay? And a lot of it was was written, but from what I've read is that he was also very fast on his feet. That's what I thought. Because if something happened, he would come in with a bang, with with another line to top it, yeah. Well, you know, like we were talking about that command performance, where with Lana Turner that he said, she said, Well, they've been looking at ham all night, and you're still here. Ah, big laugh. Haha, yeah. And he said, Now I'm bacon with the double entendre, you know, like, yeah, you burn me, whatever. But that was, I thought that was   Michael Hingson ** 42:51 cute, yeah, and he, and he is, clearly there had to be a whole lot more to him than than writing. And so I absolutely am convinced that there was a lot of bad living. And there was just, he was fast, he was good at it and them, and the more he got comfortable, because of those big crowds that they got him started, the better he became   Bill Johnson ** 43:16 absolutely you can there's a great book by, I know, do you know Bob mills? He was one, was one of Bob Hope's writers wrote a right and he explains the formula behind a lot of their jokes situation, and then it would have a payoff, you know, like, I don't know what happened, but now that you know this is set up in a setup and then the joke. Hope supposedly liked an economy of dialog. He didn't like a lot of language going from point A to point B to tell his joke. That's why the rapid fire delivery. And he had a lot of jokes in his shows. The radio shows had, at least, was it something like 10 jokes a minute?   Michael Hingson ** 44:08 Well, they were, they were very fast. And there were, we've got a few rehearsals of Bob Hope shows. And clearly some of the things that he did, because at first he wasn't getting the reaction that he thought he was going to get, but he pulled it out. And again, it's all because he was fast. He was good.   Bill Johnson ** 44:29 Yeah, I've got some blooper reels from some of the Christmas specials, and he'll try and try and try. And then finally, he'll say, take that card and tear it up, throw it away. And that's funnier than the joke itself.   Michael Hingson ** 44:44 Yeah, than the joke itself. It's really cute. So you obviously like performing. Does that run in your family?   Bill Johnson ** 44:55 Well, not necessarily, as I said, I'm kind of the black sheep of the. Family, because I was in the arts, they would rather have a more what do I want to say? A more safe career, a career choice as a you know, because entertaining, you're always wondering, well, where's my next job? Yeah, as opposed to something else, where you might have a better idea of what are your next paychecks coming? But I do have always had a day job, and this is sort of like my way to flex those creative muscles.   Michael Hingson ** 45:33 So what's your day job today? My   Bill Johnson ** 45:35 day job is I still do technical support for the good folks at Eminem's world on the script. Only they after covid happened, they closed the 3d movie that I was overseeing. And another fellow, when I do tech support, we just basically make sure the lights come on. And as well as I have a job at the College of Southern Nevada, on the support staff, trying to help folks who have English as a Second Language get a job. So I find those are both rewarding challenges.   Michael Hingson ** 46:15 It's a good thing I don't go to Eminem's world because I don't really care if the lights are on or not.   Bill Johnson ** 46:20 Oh, well, there you go. We need somebody here doing rim shots.   Michael Hingson ** 46:26 Yeah, you like dependent people are all alike. You know, you got to have all those lights. Yes, I don't know that I've been to Eminem's world. I've been to the Eminem store in New York City, but I don't think I've been to the one in Las Vegas.   Bill Johnson ** 46:40 I was actually at the opening of that Eminem store in New York City. Funny story, they know they have people that put on the character suits, right? And when I was there to help them kind of get their get acclimated to wearing those suits and then peering in front of people. Well, the kids were doing around, say, two in the afternoon. Well, the New York Times showed up at noon, one pick they wanted a picture of and so I had to put on the I was yellow, the peanut, and this other person that was there put on the red suit, and we walked down on 46th Street and started walking on the street, wave and and carrying on. I thought, Here I am. I finally made it to Broadway. Yeah, and I'm and I'm dressed as a nut so,   Michael Hingson ** 47:30 and you had Hershey right across the street,   Bill Johnson ** 47:32 right across the street, so I don't know. I imagine her, she's still there, probably still going head to head, to this   Michael Hingson ** 47:40 day, the last time I heard they were so well, I don't know, I don't know whether anything really changed with covid, but the last I heard they were   Bill Johnson ** 47:49 well, more powerful, Yeah, funny story.   Michael Hingson ** 47:56 Well, so you will, you travel basically anywhere to do a show? Are there any limits?   Bill Johnson ** 48:03 Or no, I'll go anywhere. My this tribute has taken me as far as Tokyo, Japan for the USO there. I've done shows in the Pacific and Guam I'm not too sure I want to travel internationally these days, but if somebody has an opportunity, I'll think about it. Funny thing happened at that, that show I did in Tokyo, I was, it was, it was a gala for the local uso honor the the troops who were serving in that area. So they had that representative from each branch that was serving our Navy, Marines and the Japan, nation of Japan now has what they call, this, the Civil Defense Group. I believe that's what they call because after World War Two, they signed that document saying they would not have an organized military. But right, they have their civil defense, and so we were honoring them, that there was a group, an Andrew sisters trio, performing, singing and dancing and and I was standing off off stage, just waiting to go on and finish the show. And this, this has been 20 years ago. Let me preface that this older Japanese gentleman came up to me, and he said, I would like to make a toast. And there was a lady in charge who, you know this was. There was some, some admirals there, and leaders of the Seventh Fleet were, were there. So everything had to be approved. Everything went according to schedule. The military events are just boom, boom, boom. And so I said, Well, okay, I need to ask Judy, when this Judy was in charge, when we can do this? And he just said, I want to make a tow. Toast. And I said, okay, but I have to clear it with Judy. Well, I finally got Judy and said that older Japanese man would like to make a toast. And she said, Yes, let him do whatever he wants. Turns out, he was an admiral in the Japanese Navy during during World War Two, and he was attending the event here, although these many years later, just as you know, everyone else was sure. So to bail myself out of it, I went back on said stage and said, And now, ladies and gentlemen, our honored guest would like to make a toast. And he, of course, I can't remember the toast, but as I at the time, I thought that was very sweet and very eloquent. So it's just these incredible little snippets of life you you go through. It's like, how could I ever know, when I was a five year old kid in Kansas, that Monday I'd be chatting with a world war two Admiral from the Japanese Navy, right? Just, it's just mind boggling.   Michael Hingson ** 51:06 So I'm curious. Bob Hope copyrighted a lot of his jokes. Are you able to still use them? Well, that's a   Bill Johnson ** 51:13 good question. Yes, he did. He copyrighted his jokes and everything, however, and I have spoken to the lawyer for the hope estate. There are the, what do you call that? It just flew out of my head that the the laws surrounding   Michael Hingson ** 51:32 intellectual property, copyright laws and intellectual property and public domain, yeah, yeah.   Bill Johnson ** 51:38 The song, thanks for the memory is in public domain, and hope would always change the lyrics to where he went because he hated the song. Supposedly he had, how did I get hung with that old dog of a song?   Michael Hingson ** 51:52 Yeah, well, he kept using it every week, so I can't believe it was too anti song. Yeah,   Bill Johnson ** 51:57 that's true, but the hope is they did copyright his jokes, but as long as I don't write a book and try to sell them as my jokes, I should be fine as well as I am. Allow you the those laws allow you to present impersonate someone, no matter who it is. You could impersonate your next door neighbor, even though he's not famous, as long as you do not do something to harm them, yeah, or represent it in an unflattering way   Michael Hingson ** 52:28 well, and clearly, what you're doing is pretty obvious to anyone who knows at all that it's Bob Hope and that you're trying to do a tribute to him. So I would think it would make sense that that would work   Bill Johnson ** 52:39 well it should and but the final caveat is that a reasonable person must come away from the show knowing full well they did not see the original. You must tell them. And Bob Hope's been gone for   Michael Hingson ** 52:55 many years. Yeah, 22 years now.   Bill Johnson ** 52:59 So that's usually not a problem, but that's how I finished my tribute as vice is, I usually wear a hat to complete the illusion, with the bill flecked up. I'll take the hat off and say, now if I could break character and tell about how hope was named an honorary veteran, and at the age of 94 it was an amendment passed by Congress designated him as an honorary veteran, and it was received unanimous bipartisan support   Michael Hingson ** 53:30 as it should yes and   Bill Johnson ** 53:33 Hope went on to say, sort of all the awards I've received in my lifetime being now being listed among the men and women I admire the most. This is my greatest honor, so that's a good way for me to wrap up my tributes whenever possible.   Michael Hingson ** 53:54 Do you have, oh, go ahead, no,   Bill Johnson ** 53:56 I was gonna say there's another funny story. You know, hope lived to be 100 Yeah, and George Burns.   Michael Hingson ** 54:03 George Burns, lived to be 100   Bill Johnson ** 54:05 lived to be 100 Supposedly, the two of them had a bet as to who would live the longest. Now, the thing is, what were the stakes and how do you collect? Yeah, because some guy, you're not going to be there. But in any event, George Burns was born in the 1890s and so he was older than hope. Hope was born in 1903 George Burns lived to be 100 years and 10 days old. Bob Hope lived to be 100 years and 59 days   54:41 Oh,   Bill Johnson ** 54:42 so hope. Well, the story goes that in his final, final months, he was just he was pretty much bedridden and slept and slept a lot. His wife, Dolores went to his bedside. He had that 100 years 10 day mark, and she said. Well, Bob, you won the bet. You have now lived longer than George Burns. And supposedly, even though he was fat, he was like they thought he was asleep, this huge smile just curled up his lips so he heard, that's great.   Michael Hingson ** 55:18 That's great. Well, if, if you have, do you have something that you could do for us, or do you have something that you could play or something that would give us just a little flavor?   Bill Johnson ** 55:28 Um, yeah, I Well, if you, I would tell your listeners that they want to catch a little bit more. They can go to my website, Bill Johnson entertainment.com, and there's some video clips there, but I like to do is that hope would always, he would always joke about traveling to the event, and that's how I like to begin my shows with him arriving. Since I just flew in on a wing of prayer. I was on the wing because as a soldier, I wouldn't have a prayer nicely. My flight was very nice, but the plane was rather old. In fact, the pilot sat behind me wearing goggles and a scarf. This plane was so old that Lindbergh's lunch was still on the seat. The fasten seat belt sign was in Latin. To get to the washroom, you had to crawl out on the wing. But I come on, folks, I said, to get to the washroom, you had to crawl out of the wing. But hey, I don't know about you, but I have a fear of flying that dates back to my childhood. See, when I was a baby being delivered by the stork, that blasted bird dropped me from 400 feet. Yeah, he did that to stay out of the range my father's shotgun. See, Dad already had my brothers, Eenie, Meenie and Miney. When I came along, he didn't want   56:55 no moat. I get it just   Bill Johnson ** 57:00 it goes along in those words. Well, we are,   Michael Hingson ** 57:05 we are definitely going to have to just work out doing a radio show and getting you to to do a whole show, and we'll have to get some other people to go along with it. We'll figure it out. Oh, that sounds great. I would buy a lot of fun to do. Count me in. Well, I want to thank you for being here. This has been absolutely wonderful to be able to talk about Bob Hope and to talk about you. Even more important, I'm sure that Bob Hope is monitoring from somewhere, but by the same token, you're here and we're here, so we do get to talk about you, which is important to do as   Bill Johnson ** 57:41 well. Well, that's very kind, Michael. I was hopeful that you would be at the rips.   Michael Hingson ** 57:47 I was planning on it because I wanted to, I want to really do the Richard diamond show. I'll, I told you I'd send you the command performance that we talked about Dick Tracy and B flat, or, for goodness sakes, is he ever going to marry Tess true heart? Oh yes. And I'll also send you the Richard diamond that we're going to do the next time I'm able to be at the rep show. It's, it's   Bill Johnson ** 58:06 really hilarious. Oh, that sounds great.   Michael Hingson ** 58:09 But I want to thank you for being here once again. Tell us your website.   Bill Johnson ** 58:14 My website is, it's my name and followed by entertain Bill Johnson, entertainment.com there's there's some video clips there, and some great pictures of some of the folks I've had the pleasure of meeting and performing with. I don't want to name drop, but just to give the the act a little more credence, pictures with Les Brown Jr. Rest his soul. I did it floored. I was able to do a show with Lee Greenwood on the island of Maui Wow, as well as perform with Wayne Newton at Fort Hood, Texas. Wayne Newton actually took over for Bob Hope with the USO when Bob just got too old to travel. Yeah, so, so that's just for a humble, humble guy. It's some incredible stories   Michael Hingson ** 59:19 well, and you're keeping some wonderful memories alive, and we'll definitely have to do something with that. But I want to thank you for for being here and again. Bill Johnson, entertainment.com, so go check it out, folks and and there's a lot of old radio out there online. We've talked about yesterday usa.com or yesterday usa.net they're the same. You can listen. You can go to reps online, R, E, P, S online, and listen to a lot of radio programs there. There are a number of people we've had Carl Amari on who several years ago, did come. Complete redos of all of the Twilight zones, and he made them scripts for radio, which was a lot of fun. Have you ever heard any of those?   Bill Johnson ** 1:00:07 I've never heard. I was a big fan of the show when it was on TV, but I never heard any of the   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:12 radio. Stacy Keach Jr is is the Rod Serling character, but, oh yeah, Twilight radio,   Bill Johnson ** 1:00:19 that's great. I will check it out,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:22 or we'll send you some that's even better. But I want to thank you for being here, and thank you all for being here with us. I hope you had fun today. It's a little bit different than some of the things that we've done on the podcast, but I think it makes it all the more fun. So thanks for being here. Please let us know what you think. Email me. I'd love to hear from you. Michael, H, I m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, love to get your thoughts wherever you're listening. Please give us a five star review. We appreciate those a lot. Tell other people about the podcast. We really would like to get as many people listening as we can, and we want to be sure to do the kinds of things you want on the podcast. So if you know anyone else who ought to be on the podcast, Bill, that goes for you as well, please introduce us. We're always looking for more people to come on unstoppable mindset that we get a chance to chat with. So hope that you'll all do that and again. Bill, I want to thank you one more time for being here. This has been fun.   Bill Johnson ** 1:01:21 This has been a blast. Michael, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:32 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

A fateful trip to Haiti showed Vienna superintendent Joshua Stafford why public education is a gift. We also talked about the history of education in America, standardized testing, school safety, and his recent journey to Singapore through the Fulbright program.

There have been reports of a significant decline in the number of Chinese sellers on Amazon, according to SellerSnooper and Marketplace Pulse, but their disappearance is not that simple. Dave dives into why Chinese sellers are disappearing from Amazon and where they went. Today's episode is sponsored by Sellerboard. Sellerboard helps users track sales, refunds and fees in real time, and even counts your indirect expenses in final profit. Beyond analytics, Sellerboard also streamlines operations with smart portfolios for PPC, inventory forecasting & management and more! Try Sellerboard free for 2 months — no credit card required. Just go to sellerboard.com/ecomcrew and get clarity on your margins today. Back in 2022, we did a report on how many Chinese sellers there are on Amazon. The number was up  to 55%.  Granted that this was back in 2022, you'd expect the number of Chinese Sellers to increase.  As of October 2025, the number has drastically lowered to ~30%.  This would normally be cause for celebration but the answer isn't that simple.  A lot of Chinese sellers have been opening up US LLCs to dodge paying taxes in China, where they aren't as lenient with counting expenses against your business.  Timestamps 00:00 - The Decline of Chinese Sellers on Amazon 02:42 - Tax Regulations and Their Impact 05:54 - The Golden Tax System in China 09:03 - Panic Among Chinese Sellers 11:53 - The Shift to US LLCs 14:54 - The Reality of Seller Statistics As always, if you have any questions or anything that you need help with, leave a comment down below if you're interested. Don't forget to leave us a review on iTunes if you enjoy our content. Thanks for listening! Until next time, happy selling!

Case v. Montana | 10/15/25 | Docket #: 24-624 24-624 CASE V. MONTANA DECISION BELOW: 553 P.3d 985 CERT. GRANTED 6/2/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: Whether law enforcement may enter a home without a search warrant based on less than probable cause that an emergency is occurring, or whether the emergency-aid exception requires probable cause. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: DA 23-0136

Essendon has stood firm in not trading Zach Merrett to Hawthorn, Charlie Curnow gets his wish of moving to Sydney and the winners and losers of the 2025 AFL trade period revealed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bowe v. United States | 10/14/25 | Docket #: 24-5438 24-5438 BOWE V. UNITED STATES DECISION BELOW: CA 11 ORDER 6/27/2024 KASDIN M. MITCHELL, ESQUIRE, OF DALLAS, TEXAS, IS INVITED TO BRIEF AND ARGUE THIS CASE, AS AMICUS CURIAE, IN SUPPORT OF THE JUDGMENT BELOW AS TO QUESTION 1 PRESENTED BY THE PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI. CERT. GRANTED 1/17/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: Under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1), “[ a] claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254 that was presented in a prior application shall be dismissed. ” (emphasis added). The first question presented is: Whether 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(1) applies to a claim presented in a second or successive motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. * * * Under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E), “[ t]he grant or denial of an authorization by a court of appeals to file a second or successive application shall not be appealable and shall not be the subject of a petition . . . for a writ of certiorari. ” (emphasis added). The second question presented is: Whether 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E) deprives this Court of certiorari jurisdiction over the grant or denial of an authorization by a court of appeals to file a second or successive motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 24-11704

Ellingburg v. United States | 10/14/25 | Docket #: 24-482 24-482 ELLINGBURG V. UNITED STATES DECISION BELOW: 113 F.4th 839 JOHN F. BASH, ESQUIRE, OF AUSTIN, TEXAS, IS INVITED TO BRIEF AND ARGUE THIS CASE, AS AMICUS CURIAE , IN SUPPORT OF THE JUDGMENT BELOW. CERT. GRANTED 4/7/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: Whether criminal restitution under the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act (MVRA) is penal for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 23-3129

Bost v. IL Bd. of Elections | 10/08/25 | Docket #: 24-568 24-568 BOST V. ILLINOIS BOARD OF ELECTIONS DECISION BELOW: 114 F.4th 634 CERT. GRANTED 6/2/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: Federal law sets the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the federal Election Day. 2 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 7; and 3 U.S.C. § 1. Several states, including Illinois, have enacted state laws that allow ballots to be received and counted after Election Day. Petitioners contend these state laws are preempted under the Elections and Electors Clauses. Petitioners sued to enjoin Illinois' law allowing ballots to be received up to fourteen days after Election Day. The sole question presented here is whether Petitioners, as federal candidates, have pleaded sufficient factual allegations to show Article III standing to challenge state time, place, and manner regulations concerning their federal elections. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 23-2644

USPS v. Konan | 10/08/25 | Docket #: 24-351 24-351 UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE V. KONAN DECISION BELOW: 96 F.4th 799 CERT. GRANTED 4/21/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), ch. 753, 60 Stat. 842 (28 U.S.C. 1346(b), 2671 et seq .), generally waives the United States' sovereign immunity for suits seeking damages "for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission" of an employee of the federal government "under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred." 28 U.S.C. 1346(b)(1). The FTCA, however, excepts from that waiver of immunity "[a]ny claim arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter." 28 U.S.C. 2680(b). The question presented is as follows: Whether a plaintiff's claim that she and her tenants did not receive mail because Postal Service employees intentionally did not deliver it to a designated address arises out of "the loss" or "miscarriage" of letters or postal matter. 28 U.S.C. 2680(b). LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 23-10179

Chiles v. Salazar | 10/07/25 | Docket #: 24-539 24-539 CHILES V. SALAZAR DECISION BELOW: 116 F.4th 1178 CERT. GRANTED 3/10/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: Kaley Chiles is a licensed counselor who helps people by talking with them. A practicing Christian, Chiles believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God's design, including their biological sex. Many of her clients seek her counsel precisely because they believe that their faith and their relationship with God establishes the foundation upon which to understand their identity and desires. But Colorado bans these consensual conversations based on the viewpoints they express. Its content- and viewpoint-based Counseling Restriction prohibits counseling conversations with minors that might encourage them to change their "sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions," while allowing conversations that provide "[a]cceptance, support, and understanding for ... identity exploration and development, including ... [a]ssistance to a person undergoing gender transition." Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12- 245-202(3.5). The Tenth Circuit upheld this ban as a regulation of Chiles's conduct, not speech. In doing so, the court deepened a circuit split between the Eleventh and Third Circuits, which do not treat counseling conversations as conduct, and the Ninth Circuit, which does. The question presented is: Whether a law that censors certain conversations between counselors and their clients based on the viewpoints expressed regulates conduct or violates the Free Speech Clause LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 22-1445, 23-1002

Barrett v. United States | 10/07/25 | Docket #: 24-5774 24-5774 BARRETT V. UNITED STATES DECISION BELOW: 102 F.4th 60 PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI IS GRANTED LIMITED TO QUESTION 1 PRESENTED BY THE PETITION. CHARLES L. McCLOUD, ESQUIRE, OF WASHINGTON, D. C., IS INVITED TO BRIEF AND ARGUE THIS CASE, AS AMICUS CURIAE , IN SUPPORT OF THE JUDGMENT BELOW. CERT. GRANTED 3/3/2025 QUESTION PRESENTED: I. Whether the Double Jeopardy Clause permits two sentences for an act that violates 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) and§ 924(j), a question that divides seven circuits but about which the Solicitor General and Petitioner agree. II. Whether "Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of violence under §924(c) (3)(A), a question left open after" United States v. Taylor , 596 U.S. 845 (2022). United States v. Stoney , 62 F.4th 108, 113 (3d Cir. 2023). LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 21-1379

In a season of Stillness, but I'm still here. ❤️‍

Back in March of 2023, I posted on Instagram.. A screenshot of a man that hit us up through our email… and the screenshot reads “You a Hoe, Nxgga”… So i am finally deciding to cover his case on our show! JOIN US as we discuss Darrell Brooks… our life-in-prison fan. GET YOUR LIVE SHOW TOUR TICKETS TODAY! Use Code “BTCPOD” for 15% OFF at www.blacktruecrime.comTo ACCESS the FULL VIDEO EPISODE + ALL PICTURES associated with the case. Join US on PATREON:⁠⁠www.patreon.com/blacktruecrimepodcast⁠Follow us on INSTAGRAM: @BlackTrueCrimePodcastSubscribe to our YOUTUBE Channel: www.youtube.com/c/blacktruecrimepodcastJoin our PATREON for full video episodes and exclusive content: www.patreon.com/blacktruecrimepodcastFor MERCH, visit: www.blacktruecrime.com/shop-merchJOIN OUR FB GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/blacktruecrimepodcastIntro & Outro music credits: Horror by Paradox BeatsOriginal Beat production ownership is retained by the original producer where applicable. This beat is being used with private/owned leasing rights GRANTED by the producer(s). This audio is 100% free to listen to on this show.