Podcasts about jamika

Ross Matthews is hosting a candy dish competition with Drew and Pilar Valdes taking on Valerie Bertinelli and Marc Murphy with judges Jamika Pessoa and Eitan Bernath.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

CHECK YOUOR SMOKE DETECTORS Mahogany Porter– victim/Jamika's daughter Shaune Porter Jr.– victim/Jamika's son Sharonda Porter– victim/Jamika's daughter  Jamika Clark– victim  Tysheea Harper– accomplice/Zakeeyah's cousin Maheim Starks– accomplice Thomas Dale - Zakeeyah Baby Daddy Zakeeyah Harper– murderess  WHEN: 2005 WHERE: Kensington, PA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Seeking Passage through the Forest of the Elves. By BradentonLarry - Listen to the ► Podcast at Steamy Stories. “Is it just me, or does that mountain look particularly red?” Don asked. As usual, he had gotten a bit ahead of his two companions, and so was the first to crest the slope they had been climbing all day. Stephanie came up next, looked out into the distance, and said, “Yeah, definitely.”Seeing that the other two had, finally, stopped and seemed to be looking at something, Nicole hurried a bit, so that she was breathing a bit heavily by the time she caught up. After just a moment, she said, “Well, damn!” She took a few more deep breaths before she pointed out, “That's a long way away.” Don nodded, and Stephanie grinned, “But closer than it used to be, right?” “That's fair,” Nicole agreed. “Looks like we get to go downhill for a bit, though, so that's good.” Stretching out in front of them, the most direct path toward the decidedly reddish mountain in the distance led down into what seemed to be a thickly forested valley that was swathed in a thin blanket of white fog. Off in the distance to their left was a gap in the surrounding hillsides where they could make out what seemed to be a river, which presumably flowed through the valley from the highlands at the other end of the valley which included the mountain that was now their goal. “It's one hell of a view,” Stephanie pointed out. She then gave the other two a mischievous smile, and said, “Want to take a break and christen this ‘Threesome Pass'?” The answer to this kind of question was almost always “Yes,” which accounted for a good part of why it had taken so long to get this far. They had all become quite good at getting quickly undressed, and they had established the tacit rule that the first two naked would get started without the third, who had to wait until there was a reasonable break in the action. So, this time, Don found himself standing there, naked and with a raging erection, admiring the view, both of the valley and mountains spread out around him, and of the two women in front of him as they made out hungrily, their fingers stroking each other as their mouths and tongues continued their ongoing love affair. Don enjoyed the contrast between Nicole and Stephanie. Both were petite and about the same height but were otherwise quite different. Nicole's dark skin and slender build, including her tiny breasts, and her straight black hair were a wonderful counterpoint to Stephanie's tanned but much lighter skin, taut muscular build, generous breasts and thick, chaotic brown hair. Nicole looked very much like what she was, a young college student who had until recently been quite innocent, while Stephanie seemed a wild, almost dangerous, stripper or porn star. Don was quite happy to watch, dick in hand, as the women slowly lowered themselves to the green grass, never breaking their torrid kiss and their fingers never leaving the other's clinging sex. It was only when Stephanie pushed Nicole back on the sward and moved down between those dark thighs to add her tongue to the mischief her fingers were doing that Don moved to get in on things. Stephanie pointedly stayed up on her knees as she began licking at Nicole's clit, leaving her firm ass up in the air, beckoning to Don. He stepped into place, pausing to run his appreciative hand over Stephanie's tight buttocks, and then knelt, pushing his cock into position. He moved the head of his organ up and down between Stephanie's dewy lips, enjoying the sensation of her wetness on him and teasing her a bit. Unfortunately, teasing her meant teasing himself, and he had had enough of that already. With a very happy groan, Don pushed himself deep into Stephanie's tight, hot embrace. After holding still there for a moment to appreciate her exquisite grasp, Don took her narrow waist and began to work in and out of her. At first he took his time, using long, deliberate strokes, almost all the way out and then deep into her, feeling her cervix kissing his head, but it wasn't too long before he was fucking her hard and fast—short rapid motions, his balls slapping against her clit—driven by his mounting need to fill her with his seed. He looked down over Stephanie's muscular back to where he could see cute little Nicole holding Stephanie's head as she shoved herself up against that talented tongue and those plunging fingers. Then Nicole was crying out in the open air, letting the whole world know she was having a wonderfully intense orgasm. In another few minutes, after Nicole had stopped twitching and giggling, Don found himself on his back in the grass as Stephanie rode him in a reverse cowgirl. She leaned back on him, her hands behind her supporting herself on his chest, as she moved slowly up and down on his cock and Nicole lay between Don's legs licking at her clit. Don just laid there, hands on Stephanie's waist, enjoying the show and the feeling of Stephanie's pussy, and occasionally Nicole's tongue, on his engorged cock. When Stephanie lowered herself a bit more, Don was able to reach around her and cup her tits in his hands, pinching her nipples a bit between his fingers. Then she was shuddering on top of him as Nicole's tongue worked its magic. A bit later, Don found himself thinking he must be the porn king of the world as he stood there in the open air, surrounded by that majestic landscape, with these two gorgeous women kneeling before him taking turns sucking and licking his cock. It didn't take much of this before Don's own climax surged up, his balls tightening as his cock spasmed and loosed a thick, long gout of white cum to splash all over their upturned faces. The girls laughed as Don trembled and groaned, shooting another three streams for them before he stumbled back a bit. They kept him there though, sucking and licking up every bit of the stuff before they let him go. “Don?” Toshia was looking at him across the table. “Oh, sorry,” he laughed. “'Just got a bit distracted with a memory.” She smiled, “I can believe it. There have been more than a few times when I've caught myself reminiscing this week.” “Anything in particular stand out?” Don leaned forward a bit. “Ha, there are several things I keep going back to, but you need to finish your story first.” “Oh, fine,” he shrugged. “Where was I?” It was late in the afternoon by the time they got down to the tree line. As they entered the forest, Don was struck by the overwhelming beauty of it all. In every direction he saw the kind of panorama so many Romantic painters tried to capture in their depictions of sylvan paradise. Every tree spread majestic, thickly leaved branches in a vaulted ceiling. Every trunk was thick with green moss. Between the trees was a hazy mist that promised a warm fog as the sun set. The ground was covered with moss and soft fallen leaves. A soothing quiet pervaded the entire setting. “Damn!” Stephanie breathed. Don nodded silently, but Nicole remembered other peaceful woods and warned, “Watch out for dick vines!” “You guys ran into those too, I take it,” Stephanie said as she followed Don deeper into the forest. “Yeah. It was… unpleasant,” Nicole murmured. “It'll be easy to get lost in here,” observed Don. Stephanie suggested, “We could try to make for that river.” So, keeping together and watching out for lively phallic projections, the trio made their way into the forest as the sun sank in the sky. Dusk was fleeting here, golden green shifting quickly through gray and silver blue, and then threatening a deep indigo night. They thought they would have to completely stop, but then, slowly, blinking yellow dot by blinking yellow dot, the canopy over their heads became alive with tiny lights that seemed to drift slowly among the maze of branches and leaves. It was mesmerizing, and all three of the travelers found themselves standing still, watching the lights that Don, at least, assumed were fireflies. A motion out of the corner of his eye drew Don's attention, and then another. His voice came out in a whisper, “Some of these are moving faster…” “Yeah, like, deliberately,” Nicole agreed. Don was sure he heard something like giggling, and then, abruptly, a tiny naked woman was there inches from his face, hovering in midair. If she had been full-sized, she still would have been petite, with relatively long legs and tiny breasts. Don focused carefully and saw that she had a pretty little face with a pixie haircut, naturally enough. Though they were flapping quickly to keep her in more or less one place, Don could tell that she had diaphanous wings on her back. It was only fairly late in the encounter that he processed the fact that this creature was glowing. “Hey there, big boy,” the tiny woman winked and buzzed in to give the end of his nose a kiss. Then she was gone. “Uh,” Don managed. “Fairies,” Stephanie suggested. “I suppose we should have been expecting something like this,” Nicole chuckled. Don felt a little breeze on his neck, and then heard a voice in his ear, “Aren't you wearing an awful lot of clothes?” Another voice, that sounded like the first ‘fairy' said in his other ear, “Yeah, show us what ya got, big boy!” Nicole giggled, and Don noticed that each of the girls had little winged people flying around her as well. “How would that even work?” Nicole asked, apparently in response to something one of her inquisitors had said. Stephanie saw Don's inquisitive expression and said, “They seem as horny as everything else.” Don chuckled, “Well, that's not surprising, but what she said: how would that even work?” “Well, some of us have smaller things to be stimulated, you know,” Nicole grinned. “Hey, I think I have demonstrated that I do know that,” Don laughed. “Wouldn't you like to feel us licking and rubbing on that big thing you've got hidden away there?” asked a tiny winged temptress in front of Don. She managed to arch her back to thrust her little breasts forward suggestively. “Well, that does sound interesting…” Don admitted, but then stopped. Suddenly the little cloud of fairies, or whatever they were, that had ganged up on them were gone, flown abruptly back up into the leaves. Don, Nicole, and Stephanie now found themselves surrounded by a quite different group. About a dozen people were ringed about them with bows and arrows aimed at them. Though they had different skin and hair colors, and styles for the latter, as well as some dramatic face painting and/or tattoos, they were all slender of build, and none of them were taller than Don. Each of these archers had noticeably pointed ears, and most of them had dramatically arched eyebrows. They were wearing clothing that seemed to mainly consist of large leaves, though that was arranged for functionality rather than modesty, which was in any case a largely foreign concept in Eros. All these observations were taken in very quickly, because almost as quickly as the little, winged creatures had flown away, one of the newcomers was addressing our trio. “Wherefore art thou trespassing here, crude humanity?” asked a female with long dark hair and bare breasts. “Well, I don't think 'crude's' fair,” Don frowned. “Tis thine nature,” she scowled. “That's just racist, isn't it?” Nicole put in. “'Species-ist' would be better, I think,” Don suggested. “Fie on thine prevarication, humans,” the woman scowled. “State thy purpose.” “Shouldn't it be 'thine' or 'thy' in both of those sentences?” Nicole asked, apparently on a roll. Don decided not to further antagonize the folks with the arrows pointing at him and his friends. He said, “We didn't know we were trespassing. We are trying to get to yon Crimson Mountain.” “Oh, 'yon,' nice!” Nicole whispered. “That may well be,” the woman scowled, “but thou mayest only pass through this vale with permission of milady the queen.” “Queen of the … elves?” Don asked. She seemed to relax a bit and said, “Aye, and of all the fey folk.” Don smiled a bit, “Wouldst thou escort us thither, that we mayst pay our respects to her grace and beg her permission to continue on our journey?” “Damn, professor!” Nicole hissed as she stifled her laughter. The elven woman lowered the point of her arrow, apparently signaling her companions to adopt a less hostile, but still guarded, stance, and said, “Aye, human, we shall do as thy ask. T'was well said.” Don bowed and said, “Thank you, fair…?” “Lyrandiel,” she almost smiled. “We shall be in thy debt, fair Lyrandiel,” Don smiled. Lyrandiel led the way into the dark forest, which was illuminated now by the wan yellow glow of the creatures Don was thinking of as fairies. The other elves continued to surround the party and follow along behind. None of them talked with Don or his companions. “Are we sure we can trust your new friend?” Nicole asked. “I don't think we have much choice,” Don shrugged. “Don's right,” chimed in Stephanie. “When dealing with communities like this, I've always found it easiest to play along.” Nicole frowned, “I don't know. I'm getting a serious Sisterhood vibe here.” “Sisterhood?” As they followed Lyrandiel further into the forest, Nicole and Don related the tale of Toshia's capture by the Sisterhood and their valiant, but ultimately futile, rescue attempt. Don found himself a bit surprised that Stephanie had managed to avoid running into the Sisterhood in her travels. At the end of the story, Don said, “But ultimately, playing along with their view of the world was productive, or would have been if Toshia hadn't freed herself before we got there.” “I like this Toshia,” Stephanie decided. “Too bad you didn't find me earlier.” “Agreed,” nodded Don, “and she definitely would have liked you.” At last, Lyrandiel led them into a wide clearing that had additional lighting provided by what seemed to be stationary balls of pale blue light, hovering about twelve feet in the air and arranged evenly in the space. In the center of this clearing was the massive trunk of a gigantic tree that had a stairway spiraling upward around it. Lyrandiel proceeded directly to these stairs, and Don and the others followed silently. Don had to admit that the elven aesthetic was very much on point, and that the subdued and suffused lighting lent a magical air to everything. He could certainly understand wanting to spend a long vacation here. Eventually they were guided into a cavernous area near the top of the main part of the trunk. A warm, golden glow filled the air. Dozens of fairies flitted about overhead and there were many elves moving to the side and looking the newcomers over with curiosity and occasionally some measure of disdain. All the elves were slender and not particularly tall but varied in other respects. Only a few were armed, and none seemed as outwardly martial as Lyrandiel and her companions. Those who weren't naked wore long, flowing robes, mostly in pastel colors. The naked elves seemed to have no sign of body hair. Don and the others were directed to stand before a raised platform flanked on the right by a dozen beautiful elven women and on the right by a dozen handsome elven men. Seated on a kind of throne with a high, twisting back was a gorgeous woman who reminded Don of Gal Gadot. “Not Cate Blanchett?” Toshia interrupted. “No,” Don laughed, “though I admit that's more of what I expected, too.” “Not that you were complaining.” “Oh, definitely not!” “So, Gal Gadot, eh?” “Not her,” Don shook his head. “She just reminded me of her. She bore a resemblance, and a kind of imperiousness, that reminded me of her. It was like the way the Lady of the Manor reminded me of Monica Bellucci.” “Hum,” Toshia smiled. “Are you thinking of the Lady or Monica Bellucci?” “Both! Oh, and now Cate Blanchett is joining in,” she laughed. “Go on, back to the elf queen who looked like Wonder Woman.” “Just her face,” Don protested. “Okay, and her hair, but she was thinner.” The seated woman had thick, dark hair, and was wearing a loose robe of pure white, which seemed to be emitting its own light. She also wore a silver circlet on her head that they all assumed must be her crown. Over her right shoulder stood a relatively tall elf with long white hair and a bare chest who was wearing a light crown of twisted golden twigs. Don continued to play his part, dropping to one knee and bowing his head. He noticed that on either side of him the girls were following his lead. “Oh, most beauteous sovereign of the most noble fey folk, we greet you and humbly beseech your grace to grant us passage through your sacred valley, that we may reach the Crimson Mountain beyond,” Don said. He was annoyed with himself for not saying “greeteth thee” or “beseecheth,” but no one else seem bothered by his language. “We welcome thee to our vale, and wouldst know thine names,” the beautiful queen said in a lilting voice that seemed to have a hint of wind chimes. “Your grace, I am Don, and my companions are Nicole and Stephanie.” Don gestured to each side, indicating his companions. “Arise, Don, Nicole, and Stephanie, and knowest that thou art welcome in the court of Daphniel and mine consort, Lord Adran.” The trio bowed deeply, and Don said, “We are most grateful for thine welcome, your grace.” Queen Daphniel smiled and said, “We shall permit thine passage on two conditions: first, that thou wilt be guided henceforth by our faithful sister Lyrandiel, veering not from her instructions.” When she paused, Don bowed, a bit less deeply, and said, “Of course, your grace.” “Second, that thou wilt join us in a celebration of welcoming this night.” This generated a surprised murmuring throughout the host of elves, though neither the queen nor her consort seemed to notice. Don suspected that the elves were responding to the fact that he and his companions were coarse humans. For himself, Don found all of this reminiscent of his and Toshia's first night in the Manor, when the Lady and Lord invited them to enjoy their version of prima nocta. That time there had been two new guests, though, and here there were three, and Don didn't see a third candidate on the platform with the queen and her consort. Glancing quickly to each of his companions, Don saw that Stephanie was apparently up for whatever, but that Nicole was a bit apprehensive. Don smiled up at the queen and asked, “Might we ask what kind of a celebration you have in mind, your grace?” Daphniel laughed, and Don was sure he heard tiny bells. The consort smiled and the other elves laughed as well. “Fear not,” the queen smiled, “we simply ask that thou pass the time with our court” - she nodded to the men and women arrayed on either side of the dais - “according to your own tastes.” “Ah,” Don smiled. Apparently, it was clear that he still had questions, though, for the queen continued, “Two of thou have decided preferences, and we can make arrangements for thine dark Nicole.” “I do like dick,” Stephanie said under her breath, and Don had noticed that Nicole was quite happy with both men and women. After checking back with Nicole, who gave him a smile and shrug, Don said, “We would be happy to accept your grace's hospitality.” “Wonderful!” Queen Daphniel smiled and stood with arms outstretched, commanding, “Prepare thine selves and our guests for the celebration!” As they were led to a pool where they were asked to disrobe and bathe, Nicole gently elbowed Don and said, “Don't let that 'thine dark Nicole' stuff go to your head, Professor.” “Oh?” Don laughed. “I kind of like the sound of it.” “So do I,” she grinned, “but don't let it go to your head.” The elves who accompanied them were all business, and the three of them were in unspoken agreement that they should save their energies for whatever the night had in store for them, so it was not long before they were freshly scrubbed and clothed in light robes that smelled of jasmine. They were then led across the forest floor to another gargantuan tree and another slowly winding staircase, at the top of which there were four arboreal walkways stretching out to open air treehouses that seemed formed out of the natural growth of the branches. Ignoring the pathway that led to the highest, most distant, treehouse, Stephanie was taken to the left, Don to the right, and Nicole to the one in the middle. Don could see that they would not be so far apart that they could not hear one of the others cry for help if that should be necessary. Don followed along behind a relatively small, and apparently rather young elven girl with curly blonde hair until they came to their designated treehouse, which now struck him as more of a shallow, tree-borne bowl, the bottom of which was filled with several layers of thick, soft pillows. The girl smiled at him, motioned for him to stay, and, without saying a word, returned the way they had come. Don watched her go and then waited, but only for a few moments before the ladies of the court, as Don was thinking of them, began to come into the chamber with him. He had earlier been so focused on Daphniel that he had hardly noticed how beautiful the elven women who were now joining him were. As each came into the room, she came up to Don, moving quite easily and gracefully over the pillowed floor, kissed him, told him her name, and dropped her robe revealing her naked body. Like all the elves he had seen so far, they were slender, or even willowy, with pointed ears that Don happened to find extremely attractive. There were eight of them altogether: Drowena, a black beauty with light brown eyes and strands of grey shot through her thick black hair; Vitriel, a pale young woman who had very long straight blonde hair and light blue eyes; Beatrix, with sun bronzed skin, brown eyes, and short light brown hair; Soriael of the long, wavy dark blonde hair and amber eyes; ebony skinned Mariel with short, dark, truly red hair; Janii, with her Persian dark brown eyes and lustrous, long, jet black hair; smiling Jamika who batted her brown eyes at Don and whose long, straight tresses of dark brown hair covered her breasts with a hint of modesty; and pretty Aedriel with violet eyes that reminded Don of Toshia, and curly hair of purple, blue, and green that brushed her shoulders. Of course, Don was unable to remember names in the confusion that followed and could barely keep track of who was doing what and where. Once all the elven ladies were naked, they surrounded Don and his robe was lifted up and away from him. Someone took that robe and the ladies' discarded clothes away as Don found his body being explored with eagerly curious and playful hands. He was caressed all over, his butt was squeezed and pinched, and, naturally, his cock was stroked, and his balls fondled. Then came the mouths! Eight pairs of lips, eight sets of teeth, and eight tongues descended upon Don. Of course, his body responded as one would expect, with an almost painful erection and a pounding heart. Don tried to respond in kind, caressing soft elven flesh wherever he could reach, and returning kisses with a passion that came very naturally, but he was only one man and there were eight of them. It didn't take long before one of the elves, the stunning Janii, dropped down to her knees in front of Don and took his throbbing cock deep into her warm, welcoming mouth. Don managed to look down to see her looking up at him with her deep brown eyes, framed by long black lashes, as she slowly pushed him deeper into her velvety throat. He groaned deeply, and smiled down at Janii, but then Jamika's dark hair blocked his view when her mouth fastened upon his right nipple. If Janii had kept deepthroating him and the others had continued pleasuring every inch of the rest of his body, Don would have exploded with a powerful orgasm in very short order, but they had other plans for him. With light, but firm, insistence, and an uncanny unspoken unanimity, the slender hands on his body urged Don to carefully lie back on the silky soft bed of pillows. Once he was on his back, smiling up at them with nearly delirious happiness, the laughing elves descended upon him again, kissing, licking, and lightly biting, caressing, stroking, and fondling Don's body. The overstimulation actually seemed to stave off his impending climax, but then someone was again sucking on his cock, and this time he felt a delicate but deliberate tongue on the underside of his balls. Dark Mariel was kissing him deeply when Don felt his body boiling over. His balls tightened as he clenched and then he was pushing upward with a blindingly intense orgasm. Head thrown back, back arched, Don came and came. He could feel himself pumping jets of cum up into someone's mouth and then out into the open air. The orgasm seemed to go on and on, Don's body spasming with bursts of sexual energy, only gradually, and very slowly subsiding. All the while there was the sound of almost musical giggling. He was rather dimly aware of mouths on him, licking and sucking up his jizz. Don twitched as his sensitive, still throbbing cock was again sucked into a mouth. He couldn't see who it was, but they were apparently only trying to make sure he didn't lose his erection, for when it was clear that wasn't going to happen, the mouth withdrew. Don was able to see that it was the fair and lovely Vitriel who straddled his body as one of her companions held Don's slick and shining cock at the right angle. Don arched his back a bit to push up into her as Vitriel sank slowly down on him, taking the time to let her moist, warm pussy accept the thick head and shaft into its snug embrace. The pretty elf girl smiled at Don as she began to rock against his body, grinding her clit against him, and then fucking up and down on the cock impaling her. Janii came up behind Vitriel, drawing Vitriel's long blonde hair aside so she could kiss the elven girl's pale neck, and then slipping her dusky hands around to caress Vitriel's torso before reaching down to play with her clit as she rode Don's cock. Don reached down to grasp Vitriel's narrow waist in his hands, encouraging her to use his body for her pleasure. Then Mariel leaned in to suck and lick at one of Vitriel's pink nipples. Only a few more minutes of this brought Vitriel to the point of tossing her tresses back and crying out as she shuddered and twitched with her orgasm, her pussy squeezing and pulling on Don. The girls helped draw Vitriel up and off Don, and into welcoming arms that came with soothing kisses and caresses. Don would have loved to help with this, but Jamika hurried to take Vitriel's place, straddling Don and pushing his cock into her eager snatch. Somebody also noticed that Don's mouth was being underutilized, so, as Jamika began to work herself to a fevered pitch on his cock, Mariel moved into position over Don's face. Only too happy to oblige, Don grasped Mariel's tight butt in his hands and held her in place as he ran his tongue over her already very moist lips. This was the beginning of a hazy, delirious blur for Don, as the lithe elves pleasured themselves with his body and he focused on doing the best he could to lick and suck them to orgasms with his mouth. He felt sure that each of the ladies had come at least once by the time he really got a chance to get up off his back. Wiping slippery elven wetness from his face he sat up and looked around. While half the women seemed content to just play with Don, there were a couple of pairs enjoying each other; Vitriel and Beatrix were engaged in a lovely 69 on one side of the chamber, and Drowena and Mariel were making out on the other, a steamy dark elf fantasy. The remaining four clustered about Don. Everyone seemed to be a bit less frantic now and were just enjoying the leisurely play. Aedriel, who had been the most recent recipient of Don's oral efforts, stroked his chest and leaned in to give him a gentle, loving kiss. On his other side, Soriael leaned in to kiss him next, as her hand moved down to stroke his still-hard cock with her delicate fingers. It wasn't long before he was behind violet-eyed Aedriel fucking her from behind, shoving her forward into Soriael's pussy in an echo of the threesome Don had enjoyed earlier in the day. Janii and Jamika were temporarily content to watch and idly caress the three more active lovers, but then got directly involved. Janii went down to sit on Soriael's face, and Jamika slipped under Aedriel to lick and tease her clit. Eventually, Don came again, pumping his seed deep into Janii's very tight, very hot ass. The ladies of Queen Daphniel's court settled in around Don with kisses and soothing caresses. The scent of sex and jasmine was in the air, and Don could hear Stephanie in the distance having a very loud orgasm, and, as his eyelids grew irresistibly heavy, he thought the elves certainly knew how to welcome their guests. The seated woman had thick, dark hair, and was wearing a loose robe of pure white, which seemed to be emitting its own light. She also wore a silver circlet on her head that they all assumed must be her crown. Over her right shoulder stood a relatively tall elf with long white hair and a bare chest who was wearing a light crown of twisted golden twigs.Ascending the Crimson Mountain Don continued to play his part, dropping to one knee and bowing his head. He noticed that on either side of him the girls were following his lead. “Oh, most beauteous sovereign of the most noble fey folk, we greet you and humbly beseech your grace to grant us passage through your sacred valley, that we may reach the Crimson Mountain beyond,” Don said. He was annoyed with himself for not saying “greeteth thee” or “beseecheth,” but no one else seem bothered by his language.“We welcome thee to our vale, and wouldst know thine names,” the beautiful queen said in a lilting voice that seemed to have a hint of wind chimes. “Your grace, I am Don, and my companions are Nicole and Stephanie.” Don gestured to each side, indicating his companions. “Arise, Don, Nicole, and Stephanie, and knowest that thou art welcome in the court of Daphniel and mine consort, Lord Adran.” The trio bowed deeply, and Don said, “We are most grateful for thine welcome, your grace.” Queen Daphniel smiled and said, “We shall permit thine passage on two conditions: first, that thou wilt be guided henceforth by our faithful sister Lyrandiel, veering not from her instructions.” When she paused, Don bowed, a bit less deeply, and said, “Of course, your grace.” “Second, that thou wilt join us in a celebration of welcoming this night.” This generated a surprised murmuring throughout the host of elves, though neither the queen nor her consort seemed to notice. Don suspected that the elves were responding to the fact that he and his companions were coarse humans. For himself, Don found all of this reminiscent of his and Toshia's first night in the Manor, when the Lady and Lord invited them to enjoy their version of prima nocta. That time there had been two new guests, though, and here there were three, and Don didn't see a third candidate on the platform with the queen and her consort. Glancing quickly to each of his companions, Don saw that Stephanie was apparently up for whatever, but that Nicole was a bit apprehensive. Don smiled up at the queen and asked, “Might we ask what kind of a celebration you have in mind, your grace?” Daphniel laughed, and Don was sure he heard tiny bells. The consort smiled and the other elves laughed as well. “Fear not,” the queen smiled, “we simply ask that thou pass the time with our court” - she nodded to the men and women arrayed on either side of the dais - “according to your own tastes.” “Ah,” Don smiled. Apparently, it was clear that he still had questions, though, for the queen continued, “Two of thou have decided preferences, and we can make arrangements for thine dark Nicole.” “I do like dick,” Stephanie said under her breath, and Don had noticed that Nicole was quite happy with both men and women. After checking back with Nicole, who gave him a smile and shrug, Don said, “We would be happy to accept your grace's hospitality.” “Wonderful!” Queen Daphniel smiled and stood with arms outstretched, commanding, “Prepare thine selves and our guests for the celebration!” As they were led to a pool where they were asked to disrobe and bathe, Nicole gently elbowed Don and said, “Don't let that ‘thine dark Nicole' stuff go to your head, Professor.” “Oh?” Don laughed. “I kind of like the sound of it.” “So do I,” she grinned, “but don't let it go to your head.” The elves who accompanied them were all business, and the three of them were in unspoken agreement that they should save their energies for whatever the night had in store for them, so it was not long before they were freshly scrubbed and clothed in light robes that smelled of jasmine. They were then led across the forest floor to another gargantuan tree and another slowly winding staircase, at the top of which there were four arboreal walkways stretching out to open air treehouses that seemed formed out of the natural growth of the branches. Ignoring the pathway that led to the highest, most distant, treehouse, Stephanie was taken to the left, Don to the right, and Nicole to the one in the middle. Don could see that they would not be so far apart that they could not hear one of the others cry for help if that should be necessary. Don followed along behind a relatively small, and apparently rather young elven girl with curly blonde hair until they came to their designated treehouse, which now struck him as more of a shallow, tree-borne bowl, the bottom of which was filled with several layers of thick, soft pillows. The girl smiled at him, motioned for him to stay, and, without saying a word, returned the way they had come. Don watched her go and then waited, but only for a few moments before the ladies of the court, as Don was thinking of them, began to come into the chamber with him. He had earlier been so focused on Daphniel that he had hardly noticed how beautiful the elven women who were now joining him were. As each came into the room, she came up to Don, moving quite easily and gracefully over the pillowed floor, kissed him, told him her name, and dropped her robe revealing her naked body. Like all the elves he had seen so far, they were slender, or even willowy, with pointed ears that Don happened to find extremely attractive. There were eight of them altogether: Drowena, a black beauty with light brown eyes and strands of grey shot through her thick black hair; Vitriel, a pale young woman who had very long straight blonde hair and light blue eyes; Beatrix, with sun bronzed skin, brown eyes, and short light brown hair; Soriael of the long, wavy dark blonde hair and amber eyes; ebony skinned Mariel with short, dark, truly red hair; Janii, with her Persian dark brown eyes and lustrous, long, jet black hair; smiling Jamika who batted her brown eyes at Don and whose long, straight tresses of dark brown hair covered her breasts with a hint of modesty; and pretty Aedriel with violet eyes that reminded Don of Toshia, and curly hair of purple, blue, and green that brushed her shoulders. Of course, Don was unable to remember names in the confusion that followed and could barely keep track of who was doing what and where. Once all the elven ladies were naked, they surrounded Don and his robe was lifted up and away from him. Someone took that robe and the ladies' discarded clothes away as Don found his body being explored with eagerly curious and playful hands. He was caressed all over, his butt was squeezed and pinched, and, naturally, his cock was stroked, and his balls fondled. Then came the mouths! Eight pairs of lips, eight sets of teeth, and eight tongues descended upon Don. Of course, his body responded as one would expect, with an almost painful erection and a pounding heart. Don tried to respond in kind, caressing soft elven flesh wherever he could reach, and returning kisses with a passion that came very naturally, but he was only one man and there were eight of them. It didn't take long before one of the elves, the stunning Janii, dropped down to her knees in front of Don and took his throbbing cock deep into her warm, welcoming mouth. Don managed to look down to see her looking up at him with her deep brown eyes, framed by long black lashes, as she slowly pushed him deeper into her velvety throat. He groaned deeply, and smiled down at Janii, but then Jamika's dark hair blocked his view when her mouth fastened upon his right nipple. If Janii had kept deepthroating him and the others had continued pleasuring every inch of the rest of his body, Don would have exploded with a powerful orgasm in very short order, but they had other plans for him. With light, but firm, insistence, and an uncanny unspoken unanimity, the slender hands on his body urged Don to carefully lie back on the silky soft bed of pillows. Once he was on his back, smiling up at them with nearly delirious happiness, the laughing elves descended upon him again, kissing, licking, and lightly biting, caressing, stroking, and fondling Don's body. The overstimulation actually seemed to stave off his impending climax, but then someone was again sucking on his cock, and this time he felt a delicate but deliberate tongue on the underside of his balls. Dark Mariel was kissing him deeply when Don felt his body boiling over. His balls tightened as he clenched and then he was pushing upward with a blindingly intense orgasm. Head thrown back, back arched, Don came and came. He could feel himself pumping jets of cum up into someone's mouth and then out into the open air. The orgasm seemed to go on and on, Don's body spasming with bursts of sexual energy, only gradually, and very slowly subsiding. All the while there was the sound of almost musical giggling. He was rather dimly aware of mouths on him, licking and sucking up his jizz. Don twitched as his sensitive, still throbbing cock was again sucked into a mouth. He couldn't see who it was, but they were apparently only trying to make sure he didn't lose his erection, for when it was clear that wasn't going to happen, the mouth withdrew. Don was able to see that it was the fair and lovely Vitriel who straddled his body as one of her companions held Don's slick and shining cock at the right angle. Don arched his back a bit to push up into her as Vitriel sank slowly down on him, taking the time to let her moist, warm pussy accept the thick head and shaft into its snug embrace. The pretty elf girl smiled at Don as she began to rock against his body, grinding her clit against him, and then fucking up and down on the cock impaling her. Janii came up behind Vitriel, drawing Vitriel's long blonde hair aside so she could kiss the elven girl's pale neck, and then slipping her dusky hands around to caress Vitriel's torso before reaching down to play with her clit as she rode Don's cock. Don reached down to grasp Vitriel's narrow waist in his hands, encouraging her to use his body for her pleasure. Then Mariel leaned in to suck and lick at one of Vitriel's pink nipples. Only a few more minutes of this brought Vitriel to the point of tossing her tresses back and crying out as she shuddered and twitched with her orgasm, her pussy squeezing and pulling on Don. The girls helped draw Vitriel up and off Don, and into welcoming arms that came with soothing kisses and caresses. Don would have loved to help with this, but Jamika hurried to take Vitriel's place, straddling Don and pushing his cock into her eager snatch. Somebody also noticed that Don's mouth was being underutilized, so, as Jamika began to work herself to a fevered pitch on his cock, Mariel moved into position over Don's face. Only too happy to oblige, Don grasped Mariel's tight butt in his hands and held her in place as he ran his tongue over her already very moist lips. This was the beginning of a hazy, delirious blur for Don, as the lithe elves pleasured themselves with his body and he focused on doing the best he could to lick and suck them to orgasms with his mouth. He felt sure that each of the ladies had come at least once by the time he really got a chance to get up off his back. Wiping slippery elven wetness from his face he sat up and looked around. While half the women seemed content to just play with Don, there were a couple of pairs enjoying each other; Vitriel and Beatrix were engaged in a lovely 69 on one side of the chamber, and Drowena and Mariel were making out on the other, a steamy dark elf fantasy. The remaining four clustered about Don. Everyone seemed to be a bit less frantic now and were just enjoying the leisurely play. Aedriel, who had been the most recent recipient of Don's oral efforts, stroked his chest and leaned in to give him a gentle, loving kiss. On his other side, Soriael leaned in to kiss him next, as her hand moved down to stroke his still-hard cock with her delicate fingers. It wasn't long before he was behind violet-eyed Aedriel fucking her from behind, shoving her forward into Soriael's pussy in an echo of the threesome Don had enjoyed earlier in the day. Janii and Jamika were temporarily content to watch and idly caress the three more active lovers, but then got directly involved. Janii went down to sit on Soriael's face, and Jamika slipped under Aedriel to lick and tease her clit. Eventually, Don came again, pumping his seed deep into Janii's very tight, very hot ass. The ladies of Queen Daphniel's court settled in around Don with kisses and soothing caresses. The scent of sex and jasmine was in the air, and Don could hear Stephanie in the distance having a very loud orgasm, and, as his eyelids grew irresistibly heavy, he thought the elves certainly knew how to welcome their guests. Chapter 4. The Mountain Toshia leaned forward on the table, “So, you had what I believe is called a reverse gangbang.” “Yeah, but I've always thought that was an inadequate term,” Don said. “And the girls?” “Well, Stephanie had a regular old gangbang with eight of the guys, and Nicole had an orgy with the remaining four guys and four girls.” “Nice!” Don smiled and nodded, “That was definitely the verdict.” “I'm a bit surprised the queen and her consort didn't join in.” “Well, we got around to them, or they got around to us the next night,” Don smiled. “We wound up spending the next day resting and playing a bit now and then, but then nothing too strenuous, and then after the evening ‘meal,' the queen summoned us to her chambers. It was a very nice night. 'Not as much work as the night before, but very nice.” Don leaned forward so his face was close to Toshia's. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, and she really hoped he would, even though that kiss would probably lead to them rushing into the restaurant's bathroom… and that would be against her own rules for this meeting. Instead, though, he said quietly to make sure no one could hear him, “You know the expression 'honey pot'? Well, Queen Daphiel's pussy actually tastes like honey.” Toshia smiled, still thinking about kissing him, “You lucky bastard.” Don grinned and shrugged, sitting back a bit, “I can't deny that.” “But you did eventually get to the mountain, I take it.” “We did,” nodded Don, “but maybe we should order dessert.” “Good idea! Maybe something with honey.” After they left the sylvan city of the elves, Lyrandiel led them through the valley toward the Crimson Mountain. The journey took several days, over the course of which she warmed to their “crude humanity.” She took to Nicole first, probably because she was easily the most elf-like in appearance, a point which Don was now unable to forget. But it wasn't long after deigning to let Nicole lick her to a quivering series of orgasms that she was on her hands and knees in the leaves taking Don's hard cock in the ass. She seemed genuinely sorry to part from them when they got to the foot of the Stairway. “I'm afraid I must leave thee here,” she frowned. The Stairway—and the way Lyrandiel said it strongly suggested the capitalization—was a broad series of steps carved into the mountainside as it rose up from the valley. There at the foot was a large fountain with a decidedly phallic sculpture in the center spewing an eternal orgasm of clean, cool water into the air. “Join us for a bath at least,” Nicole said, tugging Lyrandiel's arm in the direction of the fountain. They all quickly got naked and were soon rinsing themselves off in the invigorating water, which of course also had the effect of making them all super horny. Frisky hands and playful mouths met hard nipples, toned asses, eager pussies, and one very hard cock. After a bit, Lyrandiel was sitting on the edge of the fountain with her strong legs parted so Nicole could kneel between them in the water to lick and suck at her sweet elven pussy and clit, and Stephanie was also kneeling in the water as she sucked and licked at Don's raging erection. Leyandriel was the first to come, holding Nicole's head to her as she cried out in the open air. Stephanie pulled off Don's phallus and gave him a grin, “You ready to cum in elven pussy one last time, Professor?” Laughing, Don said, “You've definitely made me ready.” Stephanie got up and asked Nicole if she could do that again. Leyandriel splashed over to Don, who took her in his arms and gave her a long, passionate kiss. As Stephanie sat on the bench and Nicole began licking her, Leyandriel turned away from Don and bent down to take hold of the side of the fountain. Don caressed her strong butt and pushed his shaft down until it was pushing between her silky labia. He held onto her slender hips as he pushed his cock slowly into her tight, hot pussy. Don drew back almost all the way out of Leyandriel, and then drove himself back in. He did this a dozen times, each time driving into her with more speed and force. Each time, she whimpered with lust and delight. Then Don began to fuck her faster, with shorter strokes, and his hands moved to her waist to pull her back on him. He felt her fingers playing with her clit, and soon she was gasping and crying out again as her pussy squeezed and pulled on his prick. As Leyandriel shuddered and came down, Stephanie was groaning and shaking under Nicole's ministrations. The whole party moved out onto the lawn around the fountain, and soon Leyandriel was on her hands and knees with Don again fucking her from behind, and Nicole lying on her back so the elf could take a turn licking the black girl to one last orgasm. After watching for a moment, Stephanie decided Nicole's very talented mouth shouldn't be unoccupied, and she moved to straddle the girl's face, which was still wet from Stephanie's and Leyandriel's earlier orgasms. Don went right back to fucking into Leyandriel with gusto, thinking it was high time that he did as Stephanie had suggested and cum in this elven pussy. He shoved into her hard and deep, balls slapping her clit, and pushing her into Nicole with each thrust. Stephanie smiled at him as she pushed herself down on Nicole's mouth and tongue. She was squeezing her tits in her hands, and then twisting her nipples, and Don found himself wishing those beautiful breasts were close enough that he could get his mouth on them. Soon, Don felt himself swelling even more and then he was shoving deep into Leyandriel to flood her pussy and womb with his seed. As he was pumping into the elven beauty, she was making Nicole come in a trembling, moaning arc between her and Stephanie. “Oh! Switch places with me, Ley!” Stephanie exclaimed. Laughing, Leyandriel moved up over Nicole and knelt over her face, letting Don's cum run out of her and into Nicole's mouth. Nicole held on to Leyandriel's ass in her hands as she happily licked the cum out of her and then set about giving the elven lass one more orgasm. In the meantime, Stephanie had gone back to the beginning and knelt on the grass in front of Don to lick and suck him clean. An hour later, when they were closer to worn out, they all returned to the fountain for another round of bathing, but this time managed to just do that and then bid Leyandriel farewell. Then, after filling their water bottles, Don, Nicole, and Stephanie began the long climb out of the valley. With occasional breaks, including camping at night, it took three days. For most of the climb there was a spectacular view behind or to the side, though there was one long stretch when the stairway wound through a deep, narrow crack that would have proved decidedly treacherous if a serious rain had come along. Don thought the entire course was surprisingly short on anything that seemed like it was deliberately intended for some kind of sexual distraction. From the phallic fountain to the top of the stairs there was nothing that suggested breasts, vaginas, butts, or penises. There wasn't even a convenient bower of soft grass and flowers. Hell, there weren't even benches along the way. It was as if the long climb was actually intended to be an obstacle to be overcome. Naturally, this didn't keep the three of them from having sex along the way, but there was a bit less than there might have been otherwise, and sometimes it involved some less than comfortable settings. Each of them came to the top of the passage with bruises and scrapes won in the throes of passion. These things seemed unimportant, though, as they came off the stairs and onto the great porch in front of what was obviously the Hall of the Crimson Mountain King. A vast flat stone clearing spread out before them, lined on the outer edges by columns on top of which were statues of naked men and women. They were sculpted with a skill rivaling the great Hellenistic and Renaissance masters, but with a decidedly more sexual intention. Don wondered if Michelangelo had considered equipping David with an impressive and fully erect schlong, or if any Greek would have dared carve an Athena with such an ample, bare bosom, or even Aphrodite atop a column bent over displaying her inviting backside and vulva for admiration. At the opposite end of this expansive porch was the front of a gargantuan building that seemed the bastard offspring of a castle, a palace, and a cathedral, carved out of a decidedly red stone. The architect apparently couldn't decide if they were making something to defend, to impress, or to invite worship. Clearly, if the latter were the point, this temple was to a god or goddess of carnal delights. Bas relief carvings, of titanic scale, depicted an orgy of stone figures, as if the sculptures on the columns outside melded with the walls in a sexual extravaganza. Higher up, there were stained glass windows that echoed the orgiastic theme. The great open portal in the center of the structure was clearly intended to remind the onlooker of a vagina. “Well, that's not subtle at all,” Nicole observed. “I get the impression this is the place,” Stephanie said as she led the way across the open expanse. Don and Nicole nodded and followed Stephanie's taut behind. The great gate loomed even larger than expected, and Don found himself saying, “This is the first time I've ever felt truly intimidated by a vagina.” “That makes me think you haven't really appreciated them before, Professor,” smirked Nicole. Don frowned thoughtfully and said, “You know, that's totally fair.” The cavernous opening funneled down into a more reasonable size and they passed into a hall that was decidedly more cathedral than fortress. Light from the stained-glass windows high above lit the space with various colors, but the deep reddish hue of the stonework and the scarlet carpet under their feet kept “crimson” at the forefront of the color scheme. A row of smaller, but no less sexual, caryatid columns marched along on either side of the hall, leading them to a large fountain where a dozen red-robed figures awaited them. Silently, these indicated that the party should proceed off to the side where an extremely large locker room (though “locker cavern” would be more accurate) awaited their use. Gestures showed that they were expected to undress, putting their clothing and gear, such as it was, into lockers, and then proceed to a shower room to wash off the dust of their travels. The fact that there seemed to be no one else about but the robed figures was a bit unsettling. Everything was on a scale that would have accommodated a very large crowd, but it seemed as if Don, Nicole, and Stephanie were the only non-robed people in it. This didn't stop them from getting a bit frisky in the shower, where the XYZ-water reminded them to be horny. However, one of the robed ones stopped them, waving a stern finger to show that they were supposed to refrain. “Very odd,” Stephanie thought aloud. “And no fun!” Nicole frowned. Don looked around again, then shrugged, saying, “Well, let's see how this plays out.” Once they were showered and dried, they were led back to the cathedral hall and past the fountain to a set of tall double doors opposite those from which they'd originally come. Their silent guide gestured, indicating that they should proceed inside. With a quick look to his companions, who each just shrugged, Don took hold of the two handles and pushed the doors open. Don paused for a long moment. “You're killing me here!” Toshia laughed. “Sorry,” Don smiled. “This is just very hard to describe. So, okay, are you done with this rice bowl? Cool, so, imagine the inside of this bowl, but upside down, like so, except it's HUGE. It's almost a mile across.” “That's pretty big,” Toshia admitted. “I know, right?!” Once Don started to come to grips with how big the space in front of them was, he turned his attention to the great vault overhead. The reddish rock of the mountain had been hollowed out and someone had checkered the resulting concavity with great mirrors rising in orderly rows to the apex of the dome. In the space under the dome there floated glowing orbs much like those they had seen in the home of the elves. Stretching out directly before them was a walkway that was about twenty feet wide, covered in a nice, soft plush red carpet. About twenty feet below their level, filling the flat floor at the bottom of the dome, was a writhing sea of bodies. Don had thought the ongoing orgy in the Temple of Venus and Aphrodite had been big, but that was nothing compared to what lay before and beneath them. His mind boggled at the number of people who were here engaging in a virtually endless orgy. He slowly realized that he was hearing a low roar of sound that was the noise of what must be thousands of people engaged in sex. “Wow!” Nicole exclaimed. Even the more jaded Stephanie was shocked. “This is insane!” she murmured. “It's like something out of Dante,” Don thought out loud, “except that they all seem to be having a good time.” “How do we get down there?” Nicole wondered less than enthusiastically. “I'm not sure I want to,” admitted Don. “It's a bit over the top, isn't it?” Stephanie asked. “It would be so easy to get lost in there,” Nicole said as she leaned over the edge of the walkway a bit. She was very clearly conscious of the fact that a fall into that pit would hurt quite a bit. “At the very least, it would be very easy to lose each other,” Don nodded. “But, she's right,” Stephanie observed, “there doesn't seem to be any way down from here.” “That is a bit odd, isn't it?” Don frowned. “I guess we have to head down this walkway.” So, they set off down the red-carpeted road, over the horde of naked revelers. They now saw that there were fountains here and there on the orgy-floor, presumably for both washing up a bit and for refreshment. Then Stephanie pointed out that there were red-robed figures wandering about, stepping carefully, with platters of fruit. With questions of practicality so answered, they came to the center of the pleasure dome, which they assumed this to be. The thought that this might not be the dome they were seeking was an almost frightening thought. There, at the center of the walkway, for the carpeted surface continued on to the far side opposite the doors through which they had entered, there was a round sofa, with a low backrest in the center, and, on either side of the walkway, broad steps leading down to the orgy level. After recklessly looking up to the top of the dome overhead, which prompted a rather abrupt and unpleasant sense of vertigo, Don suggested that they continue along the walkway. Sure enough, the far end of the walkway yielded positive results. There, on either side o

In today's episode Lavi gets LOUD with the founder of Rosen Skincare - Jamika as she opens up about the challenges in running her skincare brand post 2020. With new marketing techniques, razor thin budgets, and challenges scaling it is inspiring to speak to someone who is transparent about it all.Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eEuuyf6hY04Follow Jamika: https://www.instagram.com/jamikarose_/reels/ Follow ROSEN Skincare: https://www.instagram.com/rosenskincare/ Shop ROSEN Skincare: https://www.rosenskincare.com/

Worshipping & Waiting with Guest Jamika

Check out our show with Jamika and Malcolm both living their faith out loud. Young professionals chasing their dreams and listening to the voice of God, even when others don't understand. They share their journey of stepping out of the boat much like Peter and watching the Lord show up supernaturally to confirm his promises and care for them in the Spirit and naturally.     WEEKLY: “His Abounding Grace” Tuesdays @ 7 pm; ”Challenged To Change” Wednesdays @ 7 pm; "Declaring The Finished Work" Thursdays @ 12 Noon; "Friday Night Joy" Fridays @ 7 pm; "Bread of Life” 1st & 3rd Sundays @ 7 pm; “Mid-Day Glory Prayer” (Wednesdays @ 1:00pm) Dial-in#:(712) 770-5505 Access Code:732-499 “LifeLine" 1st Mondays @ 7 pm; “Adoration” 3rd Mondays @ 7 pm; “Matters Of The Heart” 3rd Fridays @ 7pm; “Bold And Beautiful” 2nd Saturdays @ 10:00 am; “R3: "Real Life, Real Men, Real Talk” 2nd Sundays @ 7:00pm; “Marriage Takeover” 4th Sundays @ 7:00 pm;Spiritual Nuggets of Truth" 2nd & 4th Mondays @ 8 pm. Minister Karmen A. Booker,

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos!  Melissa and Crystal discuss how Election Night results in Washington state aren't conclusive and can change due to our mail-in ballot system, how four County election offices were evacuated and whether this might explain low turnout trends. Then they dive into where Seattle City Council election results currently stand and the impact that enormous spending by outside interests had on voter communication. Looking outside Seattle, more encouraging progressive results appear to be taking shape across the state in Tacoma, Bellingham, Spokane, Snohomish County, Bellevue, Bothell, and more! The show wraps up with reflection on why celebrated Seattle Police Department Detective Denise “Cookie” Bouldin suing the City for decades of racism and gender bias from SPD management and colleagues is yet another indication of internal police culture not matching their publicly declared values. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Melissa Santos at @MelissaSantos1.   Melissa Santos Melissa Santos is one of two Seattle-based reporters for Axios. She has spent the past decade covering Washington politics and the Legislature, including five years covering the state Capitol for The News Tribune in Tacoma and three years for Crosscut, a nonprofit news website. She was a member of The Seattle Times editorial board from 2017 to 2019, where she wrote columns and opinion pieces focused on state government.   Resources Digging into Seattle's Budget Process with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last of Solidarity Budget from Hacks & Wonks   “4 election offices evacuated in Washington state; fentanyl found at 2” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Business-backed Seattle council candidates take early leads” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Seattle council incumbents still trail in latest election results” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Business-backed groups spend big on Seattle council races” by Melissa Santos from Axios   “Tacoma to consider new tenant rights measure on Nov. 7 ballot” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   “Tacomans deciding on progressive renter protections” by Lauren Gallup from Northwest Public Broadcasting   “The 4 biggest takeaways from election night results in Tacoma and Pierce County | Opinion” by Matt Driscoll from The News Tribune   “Bellingham voters consider minimum-wage hike, tenant protections” by Joseph O'Sullivan from Crosscut   “Lisa Brown leads incumbent Nadine Woodward in Spokane mayoral race” by Mai Hoang from Crosscut   “Controversial Sheriff with Right-Wing Ties Faces Voters in Washington State” by Jessica Pishko from Bolts   “Johnson defeats Fortney in sheriff's race, new ballot drop shows” by Jordan Hansen from Everett Herald   “Pioneering Black detective sues SPD, alleging racism, gender discrimination” by Mike Carter from The Seattle Times   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed our Tuesday topical show, it was a special one. Our producer and special guest host, Shannon Cheng, chatted with Amy Sundberg and BJ Last from Solidarity Budget about currently ongoing City of Seattle budget process. The conversation ranged from the fight over the JumpStart Tax to why ShotSpotter is more egregious than you thought. This is the first show that I actually have not hosted on Hacks & Wonks and Shannon did a fantastic job. It's a really informative and interesting show, and I highly suggest you listen. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos. [00:01:41] Melissa Santos: Hi, Crystal. [00:01:43] Crystal Fincher: Well, good to have you back on this Friday following general election results in Washington state. We have a lot to talk about, a lot that's interesting. I think the first thing I wanna talk about is just the nature of elections and results. As a reminder to people - for so long, so many of us were used to going to a polling place, voting, getting election results on Election Night. We still get that from a lot of other places in the country. It does not work like that here in Washington - and particularly for the City of Seattle, some other, especially major metropolitan areas - where there's, you see differences in where different demographics typically vote in the timeline when ballots are out. What races look like on the first night can look very different than what the ultimate results show. How do you approach this? [00:02:39] Melissa Santos: Well, so I basically - especially in Seattle races - I try to put a caveat at the top of any story I write on Election Night or the next day, sometimes even Friday of election week saying, Races are known to swing by 10 or 12 points in Seattle - this could change. It will change. It could change dramatically, essentially. So that's, I think, what we're seeing here. I mean, as of right now, when we're actually recording - we don't have Thursday's results yet. So we only have a very limited batch of ballots, especially because of something else we're probably gonna talk about later - there was limited counting in some counties, including King County, yesterday and fewer ballots released because of a scare they had at the elections office. So we just don't have a lot of information. Election night - like half the ballots maybe are being reported, so that's just a ton of room for results to change. And we have seen that repeatedly in Seattle, especially when it comes to progressive candidates looking like they're down, and then - oh look, they won by four points, three points, two points. So this happens a lot. And that's just a good caveat to keep in mind as we're talking about election results the week of the election in Seattle. [00:03:49] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and as you said, we are actually recording this on Thursday morning. Viewers will start to hear this on Friday, but we don't have many results - we might as well talk about it now. The reason why we have even fewer results than we thought, or fewer ballots counted, is that there were some wild things that happened at some elections offices yesterday. What happened? [00:04:10] Melissa Santos: So four county elections offices in Washington state, including in King County, received an unknown powder substance in envelopes that were delivered to the election office. And so the King County Elections office in Renton, that does all this counting, was evacuated for three hours the day after the election - in which counting was not happening because they had HazMat there, they had the Fire Department there, they had the police there checking to make sure this wasn't something super dangerous, that there wasn't a chemical attack, essentially, against the election offices. And in Spokane County, they got a similar thing and they actually didn't - I don't think they released results yesterday at all, actually, in Spokane. Or at least it was very delayed and limited. So in King County, they released many fewer ballots, and counted many fewer ballots, and reported fewer than they had expected to on Wednesday, the day after the election. And then also Skagit and Pierce County offices got mysterious packages. And two of them - in King County and Spokane, it was, there were traces of fentanyl. We're still waiting for more information, so there was some sort of fentanyl in there. Not clear about the other two - might've been baking powder in Tacoma, according to one report I saw, so. But in any case, this is a threat that people are sending stuff that is very threatening. I mean, everyone remembers it was around - Anthrax scares and this and that. So when you get in the envelope as a public servant like that - you're worried it could kill you, it could kill your colleagues, and then you're gonna not keep counting ballots probably. Or your coworkers across the building are gonna stop counting ballots - and that's what happened. [00:05:45] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. And people are on heightened alert for a number of different reasons. These bring to mind some of the increased attacks that we've seen that seem to have anti-Semitic, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bias. There have been envelopes of powder mailed to synagogues in our state. So this has a lot of people wondering - are these ties to election denialists? Is this someone with some other grievance? But people are on heightened alert about that. King County counted about half as many ballots yesterday as they originally intended to, so we have really abbreviated results. The other factor that is a challenge that is not standard - not what we normally see - is turnout is low, is trending really low. And weirdly, it was trending above where we were a couple of years ago until Election Day - 'cause we can track how many ballots are received each day, how that compares - so it was actually up by a few percentage points. But on Election Day, really, turnout seems to have cratered. We don't know why. Again, the results being released - it's so early, so we just may not have the full picture. Maybe people just voted in a really late flux and we don't know that yet. There's just a lot that we don't know. But right now, turnout seems to be trending pretty low in a different way than we've seen before, at least so far. So we're not sure what that means, who might not have turned out, is this gonna wind up low? We just have a lot that we still need to see, both in results and in just the ballots received, and what that means for turnout. So with that said, let's start off talking about the City of Seattle. We had several council races. And I guess thinking, going through the results - overall, the more moderate candidate was leading pretty significantly in a lot of cases on Election Night. Again, as we talked about earlier, several of these races are still within the bounds where it's possible these races could change. And the person who ultimately winds up winning could be different than the person currently leading in several of these races - if ballots trend how they traditionally trend in the city - there's been a few different folks who've done some public analysis of this. But right now in District 1, Rob Saka - this looks to be one of the races that looks pretty conclusive, that Rob Saka currently holds a pretty commanding lead over Maren Costa. In District 2, Tanya Woo is currently leading Tammy Morales. This is a closer race and one that is within the margin where we see late ballots overtake what the early results were. In District 3, Joy Hollingsworth - this seems like a pretty settled race - seems to have prevailed over Alex Hudson. District 4, we have Maritza Rivera leading Ron Davis. This is one that is at the margin of where races come back - if ballots trend in the same way as they had before, Ron could end up eking out a win. If they don't, maybe he comes up a little short, but definitely a race we anticipate tightening up. In District 5, Cathy Moore holds a pretty commanding lead - this looks like one where it's beyond the range of kind of the bounce-back of ballots over ChrisTiana ObeySumner. And in District 6 - [00:09:34] Melissa Santos: District 6 is Dan Strauss, and that is really, really close, with Dan Strauss and Pete Hanning. And we actually saw Strauss, who's an incumbent, and is the more leftward candidate in that race - I mean, of the candidates in that race. [00:09:47] Crystal Fincher: Of the candidates in that race. [00:09:49] Melissa Santos: Not really the most leftward councilmember that is on the ballot necessarily, but in this race he is the more progressive of the two. He was down two points on Election Night, but now it's less than one percentage point. And that's just with the limited ballots we saw on Wednesday. So that's an example of how much you can switch there - we saw about a percentage point gain in a very close race. So I suspect Dan Strauss will actually win his race and be reelected, but we will see. [00:10:18] Crystal Fincher: It would be shocking if he didn't wind up winning this. And in District 7, we have Andrew Lewis and Bob Kettle, with Bob Kettle currently in the lead over Andrew Lewis. This is another one where it is still within the range that this is too close to call. We need to see further results. And if again, ballots trend in the same way as they've trended - particularly in 2021, but also in 2019 - then Andrew Lewis could wind up winning. This week is gonna be interesting with results because we typically get a daily update at between 4p and 5p, depending on the county. And King County - it's typically 4 p.m. But Friday is a holiday, so we won't get updates on Friday. Today, Thursday, will be the last day of updates. And then the next day that we get an update on the vote totals will be Monday. So Monday will probably be a very conclusive day, a day that shows whether people are on track to make it, where a lot of the late ballots are going to be in the tally - because the counting continues over the weekend, even though they don't release the results until Monday. So we'll see what that is. But a lot of races that are currently too close to call, even though if you've seen some other media outlets, particularly some columnists - I think Danny Westneat had a column, that was like - Oh, the progressive era in Seattle is over or something like that - which I think certainly the early results are different than even earlier results that we've seen in prior races, different than even in the primary, I think we would say. So there is something afoot here, and there's certainly going to be a different council with one, so many new candidates. But there's gonna be a new composition on the council, certainly. But saying what that composition is going to be with so many of these races still in the air, I think it's premature to say at this time, and we'll still see. We just don't know about the turnout and don't wanna mislead people, have to rewrite headlines. I think you're one of the more responsible journalists when it comes to setting appropriate expectations and making sure you don't overstate what the results are saying. [00:12:45] Melissa Santos: I mean, I think the one thing you can say, that I got from Danny's column, that I can guarantee will be correct is you will not have Kshama Sawant on the council anymore. And she has been one of the sort of firebrands on the council, very - has strong views that she doesn't shy away from and doesn't - whatever dynamic that is on the council, some people don't like it, some people do like it - that she just says what she wants to do and doesn't kind of do as much backroom compromise sometimes on certain issues. That's gone. So you don't have a Socialist on the council anymore - that is happening - 'cause she didn't run for re-election. There wasn't a chance for her to lose. So either way, that was gonna be different. But a couple of the moderate candidates we were talking about, I'm not really sure which way they'll vote on some of the issues that typically define Seattle moderates. And for me, Cathy Moore comes to mind. She won by - I mean, you can say Cathy won at this point - it was about 40 points. So that is not going to be, that's not going to happen for ChrisTiana ObeySumner. But Cathy, during election interviews, was a lot more forthright actually about taxes, saying - I disagree with the business community actually, that we probably need more tax revenue. And so she was much more open on the campaign trail about the notion of taxing businesses to close the City's budget deficit. And this is one of those issues that typically defines sort of the Seattle centrist moderates, business-friendly candidates - is having a lot more reticence about taxing businesses. Usually the candidates won't say - Absolutely not under any circumstances. But they'll say - We need to do an audit. I'm not, I mean, some of them actually will say, I don't think we have a budget deficit - in the case of Bob Kettle, I think that was something he said regularly, despite what the revenue projections do say. But Cathy Moore was a lot more nuanced on that topic. And also on zoning, potentially, and being willing to have more dense zoning in certain areas. I'm not sure that she'll vote the way - it remains to be seen. People can say things on the campaign trail and do totally different things, so we'll see. But she was fairly consistent about being sort of more on the liberal side of certain issues in that respect. Joy Hollingsworth, who has, I think, pretty definitively come out ahead in District 3 - this is Sawant's district. You know, she's a really - she's just a really compelling personality too. I mean, and I'm not saying this in a negative way - you talk to Joy, you feel like she's listening. She's a good candidate on the campaign trail. I saw her canvassing a lot - like in person, a fair amount - 'cause I live in that district. And her campaign sent out a lot of communications. She had the benefit of independent money, which we will talk about soon, I think, as far as more outside spending benefiting her campaign. So there were more mailers sent out - not even necessarily by her campaign, but on her behalf. And I just don't know if she's a traditional candidate. And she would say this and has said this - When am I the centrist candidate? I'm a queer, cannabis-owning business owner, you know, who's Black, and I just don't, when am I like the right-wing candidate here? So I mean, maybe doesn't fit the profile of what people think of when you're talking about sort of centrist candidates. And again, has done a lot of work on cannabis equity and equity issues, I think, that also helped her relate to a lot of voters in her district. Well, Rob Saka, I think, is more - who I think is pretty clearly winning in District 1 - is probably the most traditional, sort of more business-backed candidate who's skeptical of taxes, skeptical of how the City's spending its money, and then also had a lot of big business backing on independent spending. And is sort of more - we need to hire more cops, more in the traditional line of what you're thinking of as a centrist candidate. And he is going to be replacing a more progressive councilmember in Lisa Herbold. But, you know, they basically have Saka in that mold, clearly. And then the other two races that are decided already, it's not totally clear that it's some - it's gonna be a, exactly what kind of shift it's gonna be. And in fact, Cathy Moore is replacing a more moderate on the council anyway. So a lot is still dependent on what - the results we still don't have. And also, one of the more progressive members on the council is Teresa Mosqueda, who is running for King County Council and is likely to ultimately win that race, and that's gonna be an appointment process, where - to replace her on the council. So who that is - you could end up with a fairly progressive council, potentially, in some respects. If all of these races switch to progressive suddenly in the late results, which certainly may not happen. But it's just a little premature on Election Night to necessarily say the council's going to be way less progressive than it was, I think, potentially. That's all. [00:17:40] Crystal Fincher: No, I completely agree with that. We've talked about on the show - if you know me personally, we have definitely talked about this in person - but painting, you know, the media narrative out there, that - Oh, it's the super progressive council, you know, who's always battling with the mayor, and we want a change of direction. I'm always asking, define what that direction is, because we did not have a progressive council. There were different people in different positions on the council - certainly had progressives on it, but a number of moderates on it. And in this change, as you said - in District 1, I think it's very fair to say that that moved in a more moderate direction. District 5, I think that's moving in a more progressive direction, everything on balance. [00:18:30] Melissa Santos: And if Ron Davis wins in District 4 - which that district has been super swingy in the past because it has - I think university students is a factor, sort of, I do think there's a late turnout surge there in a lot of years, in some years, maybe that's greater than some districts. If he wins, you're going to be replacing Alex Pedersen, who is one of the more - certainly centrist, some would say conservative - but center candidates, and so you'd have a much more liberal person in that respect on, I think, both taxes, on criminal justice, I think on also zoning, definitely zoning, Ron Davis is like the urbanist candidate - is kind of what he's known as, and having worked with FutureWise and these organizations and in advocacy, sort of behind-the-scenes roles. So yeah, that would be, kind of, undermine the narrative to me. If you replace Alex Pedersen with Ron Davis, I'm not sure the progressivism-is-gone narrative exactly will hold up, so that's - but again, we would need some big swings for these things to happen. I'm not trying to act like you're going to get all these progressives. It definitely was a good night for business-backed, sort of, more centrist candidates on Election Night. [00:19:42] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that. And I think if Maritza Rivera ends up doing that, that's basically a wash on what their representation does - that looks like they have continued with what they generally had. And didn't move in a more progressive direction, but certainly did not get more moderate or conservative than what was already there, I think. I think there are two buckets of candidates that we're looking at, as you alluded to before. I think that Rob Saka, if Bob Kettle were to wind up prevailing, if Maritza Rivera were to wind up prevailing - those, I think, are most firmly in the traditional moderate conservative, very skeptical of taxation, very supportive of carceral solutions, more punitive solutions, lots of talk about hiring and supporting police, different answers to different issues, often involving public safety elements. I think that's fair to say. I don't think most people would put Cathy Moore, Joy Hollingsworth in that same category. I think Tanya Woo is a bit of a toss-up. This is another race where, I think, next to Dan Strauss, the next most likely candidate of what looks the way ballots traditionally go, even with some wiggle room - Tammy Morales, the way ballots trend in Seattle, certainly has a path to finishing in the lead. There is definitely a difference between those two candidates, but I think Tanya Woo has certainly expressed some reservations for taxation, has certainly expressed her support for public safety solutions - Maybe she falls somewhere in the middle there. It seems like she's not as aggressive as some of the other candidates and their zeal for those solutions, but she has signaled that she's open to them. So I think that's a question mark if it goes the Tanya Woo route. But this is a race that is definitely too close to call at this point in time for the way Seattle ballots trend. So that's Seattle. Let's talk a little bit more about the money, which you have written about - basically, everybody wrote about. We have not seen spending of this magnitude in Seattle City Council races since the Amazon money bomb that we saw in 2019. What happened with outside money in this race and what impact do you think it had? [00:22:34] Melissa Santos: So originally in 2019, there was a big - originally, that's not that long ago, I understand, but in recent history of Seattle elections - the Chamber of Commerce had a PAC that was spending a lot on behalf of the business-preferred candidates. And Amazon gave a million dollars plus to that - a million of it right at October, I think, in 2019. And that kind of - especially, Sawant in her race, again, Socialist councilmember, was saying Amazon's trying to buy the election. And then there was a sense that left voters turned out citywide even to kind of object to that. There was one, something that I think a lot of observers thought happened that year. And that one might have helped fuel this surge of left-leaning voters after the initial vote count as well. And also, Trump was in office. There was a lot of sort of motivation, I think, of progressives to kind of vote and make themselves heard wherever they could during that era. Okay, so this year - your original question - this year, we didn't have a chamber PAC doing all of the money. It wasn't all relayed through this chamber PAC. It was different. There were all these little political action committees called Neighbors of this Neighborhood. It was Downtown Neighbors Committee, Elliott Bay Neighbors Committee, and then University District Neighbors Committee. So it sounds, you know, those innocuous, sweet-sounding PAC names, right? But they were all supporting the candidates that were preferred by the, I mean, the Chamber and the Downtown Seattle Association. And they spent a fair amount of money. I mean, in the - I don't think that I had all the receipts when I did the calculations on Sunday, so there's a few more that have come in since then. But I mean, it was $300,000 almost for Maritza Rivera. And when I say for, I mean, a lot of it was spent opposing Ron Davis, but all benefiting Maritza - either in direct support from these external groups that were saying, Vote for this person, or, you know, saying, Don't vote for this person, her opponent, the more left-leaning candidate in that race. So that's quite a bit of money for one race, one district race, you know, you're talking about. And then we saw that for support for Rob Soka as well. And they were some of the similar groups where - there's overlap in who is supporting these PACs, right? Landlords organizations, there were builders and construction and realty interests. And there were - the Realtors PAC actually gave separately to a few candidates like Tanya Woo and Bob - okay, I shouldn't say gave. Let me back up. The Realtors PAC, the National Realtors PAC, actually spent its own money separately from these Neighborhood groups to support Tanya Woo and Bob Kettle. And so you just saw that outside PAC money was coming in. And that was, you know, a lot more than the leftward union side spent this year by a significant margin to kind of help support these candidates. So, I mean, at the end you had $1.5 million almost spent and more than $1.1 million of that, maybe $1.2 million, was from the business sort of backed interest sort of pouring money from outside into these races, supporting their preferred candidates. [00:25:53] Crystal Fincher: So I think - one, something that gets missed or I've seen a lot of questions about - so people are like, Okay, there's a lot of money. Corporations have a lot of money. How does that impact races? What does that mean when it comes to these campaigns and when it comes to what voters see? [00:26:11] Melissa Santos: So what you're paying for is communication. What they are paying for is communication. They're paying for mailers that go to voters, they're paying for TV or radio ads in some cases - maybe not radio this year, but it's, you know, this is some of the things that independent expenditures pay for. Online ads - so reaching voters to tell them about the candidate. And this is what campaigns do. That's the whole point of a campaign. Except when you have someone from outside doing it also, it just really widens your impact as a candidate - even though they don't coordinate, they're not involved together - it still will help get your message out to more people if you have supporters doing this on your behalf and buying mailers. I mean, I live in District 3 and most of the mailers I got were from Joy Hollingsworth's campaign, but I did get another mailer from an independent expenditure committee. And this was one that also was like - You like weed, vote for Joy Hollingsworth. Literally, that's what it said. I wish I was not kidding. So, I mean, again, that's - again, muddying the who's progressive and who's not a little. I mean, the mailers contribute to that, but anyway. And I got one mailer from Alex Hudson's campaign. So it just was like 5-1 on the communications I got from Joy Hollingsworth just to my own house. And so that's just an example of - even though only one of them was independent spending, you know, you can have a lot more mailers come and reach someone on behalf of a candidate if you have this outside money paying for it. [00:27:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and communication is really everything. I think, you know, most people know I do this kind of work during the day, this podcast is an extra thing, this is not the main thing that I do. But it really all comes down to communication. Like you talked about before, there are things that the campaign can do to directly communicate with voters - phone calls, canvassing is the most effective thing they can do. And if a candidate and their campaign is on the campaign trail doing that, that is certainly generally a really positive thing for their campaign and one of the most effective things that you can do to win votes. But Kshama Sawant is notorious and the DSA - people passionate about Kshama are notorious for mounting really formidable, substantial ground games where they are covering most of the district. Most candidates are not knocking on most of the doors in their district. They're knocking on, you know, a pretty small percentage of them. And even though to them and their supporters - they see the candidate talking all the time, attending events every night - you're only reaching 15, 20% of the people in the district probably. And so the other 80% of voters have not heard anything directly, have been busy living life. The thing that many candidates don't realize is that the hardest thing isn't getting them to understand that you're better than your opponent, especially for candidates who have not run for office before. The hardest thing to do is to let voters know that you exist overall. Most voters don't know that candidates exist. Most voters don't know that there's an election coming until they see the ballot arrive in their mailbox. People, like a lot of the people who listen to Hacks & Wonks - we're not the normal ones. We've talked about this before on this show. Most people do not pay attention to the news, to candidates, to elections as much as we do. That's really important to remember when it comes to this, because that spending - the type of communication, whether it's mail, the digital video ads that you see, cable TV ads, banner ads, text messages. One, that all costs money. And so having money enables you to do more of that. And getting that in front of voters is generally the most meaningful exposure that they have to candidates - that's how they're learning about a lot of them. So if they are bombarded with information from one candidate, they hear predominantly about one candidate - usually their communications talk about how wonderful the candidate is, all the wonderful things that they're saying or planning to do, or the version of that that they're spinning in that communication - that makes a big difference. And that's how people get to know who the candidates are. If someone isn't doing much of that, they can't win. That's kind of just a structural Campaign 101 thing. So again, talked about this on the show before - if you know me, we've definitely talked about this. Sometimes when people are making sweeping pronouncements about - This narrative clearly won the day and this is what voters are saying - that may be the case in a race where there's robust communication coming from all sides, where the amount of money spent is a lot closer with each other on both sides. But in these races where one candidate is outspent by hundreds of thousands of dollars and the communication that that equates to, you rarely see those candidates win in any circumstance, regardless whether the one outspending is moderate, conservative, progressive, what kind of message they have - if it's good or bad, it can be really mediocre, it can be pretty bad. If you spend and communicate that much and so much more than your opponent, that in and of itself usually is enough to win, which is why people talk about the influence of money and the communication that that buys being corrosive or toxic or such an issue, because that in and of itself is oftentimes enough to move enough voters to win the campaign. [00:31:57] Melissa Santos: And we should mention - Seattle has a Democracy Voucher system and I think all of the candidates, I think all of the candidates use Democracy Vouchers. Crystal can correct me if I'm wrong. But certainly some of the business backed ones receiving outside money also were limited - this limits their spending as a campaign, right? So the outside money takes on an even bigger role when each of the candidates can spend - I mean, gosh, the limit is, it starts at like $90,000, then it goes up if you all raise a lot of money. But you're limited, you're not spending more than $150,000, or $125,000, or something as a campaign. I forget the exact limits, but somewhere like around there or even lower. And then you have - so think about that - the campaign spending, we say $115,000 and really can't spend more. And then someone else is spending almost $300,000, right? So - separately - so you're having these, sometimes it's gonna be the majority of money in a race because the third party committees are not limited in how much they can raise and how much they can spend. So that's how you can get millions and millions of dollars. This year, it wasn't millions, but it was more than a million backing a certain slate of candidates. And that gets a big impact when you have fairly low-cost campaigns and everyone's limited to that to a certain degree. [00:33:12] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that is the picture of Seattle races at this point in time. I think it is fair to say that even if a number of the candidates come back, I think it's an over-pronouncement to say that there was a broad shift in direction one way or another. But I think it's absolutely fair to say that no matter what the results end up being, they're not going to be celebrated by progressive candidates, that moderates are going to wind up happier than progressives are gonna wind up with these results - in the city of Seattle. But I wanna talk about elsewhere in the state because I think the broad picture in the state - even though Seattle's likely to dominate the media conversation - that the picture in the rest of the state was more positive for progressive people than it has been in quite some time, that we see trends moving further in a Democratic and progressive direction, particularly in purple and red cities in some of the many metro cities. So Seattle, the biggest city in the state there, moved and had their results. But looking at Tacoma, looking at Spokane - these are two cities that seem to have moved definitively to the left in the composition of their councils, in Spokane's case - including the mayoral race - and also with some ballot initiatives. So starting with Tacoma - what's happening in Tacoma? [00:34:47] Melissa Santos: Well, they do have a measure on the ballot that's about sort of renter protections, which actually looks like it might prevail. It was down a little bit on Election Night, but again, we don't have a lot of results from Pierce County yet, and it's super close right now. And given the way the ballots so far have sort of trended, even with this limited amount of ballots released, I suspect that this sort of measure to enact a lot more protections for renters against eviction - and I'm blanking a little on some of the details of it - but that's sort of a priority for more liberal voters and certainly policy makers. That looks like it may pass still, still uncertain. But you also - what I thought was interesting, you know - you had, I'm just making sure I did not, two days ago with my Tacoma results, but it looked like Jamika Scott was doing really well and likely to win her race in Tacoma. And Jamika has run for mayor before and she's sort of a known, you know, pretty serious policy person, I think, in Tacoma on advocating for ways of getting rid of systemic racism. I mean, getting rid of it would be difficult, obviously, but sort of ways to mitigate and kind of make lives better for people who traditionally have not benefited from our systems. And she was really active with, or I mean, leader of the Tacoma Action Collective, which has been a group that's been sort of protesting different institutions in Tacoma, as far as their treatment of Black people and treatment of people of color more broadly, I think, as well. But especially with police brutality. This is someone who has been kind of consistently saying, We need some change in our system. And she's being elected, and people like her message in Tacoma - enough of them - to really catapult her into office, it looks like. And so that's something that was interesting. We saw Olgy Diaz, who is an appointed councilmember - oh gosh, no, she won an election by now - has she-- [00:36:51] Crystal Fincher: No, she was appointed, and she's running for her first actual election now, following the appointment. And she just took the lead. She was narrowly down on Election Night. Again, the same caveats apply - that that Election Night is a partial tally. It is not a result. So on the initial tally, she was down just by a smidge. Now she is actually leading. And just with the way ballots trend, it looks like that lead will continue to grow. So you had the more progressive candidates, certainly, in both of those races prevail. I think interestingly, particularly in Jamika's race - Jamika was not endorsed by The News Tribune, which has been very consequential in endorsing folks. And despite that - and I think, as a credit to the work that Jamika has been doing in community for a while and the coalition that Jamika built - speaking directly to issues that are impacting so many people. And a lot of times speaking meaningfully to communities, as you said, that have not traditionally been served very well by government. And really inspiring a coalition to rally around her, to vote in support of her, to turn out for that. I think that was helpful. In the same way, the Tacoma for All tenant protection measure, which had a storied path to the ballot - the City of Tacoma was basically looking to put a competing, less impactful measure that did less than this initiative did - looked like that was motivated by some of the opposing forces who didn't wanna see this measure prevail. They ended up going to court over it and the process wound up being flawed. So this wound up being the only measure - the citizens' initiative - on the ballot. And that attracted a ton of outside spending - the realtors, a number of landlord organizations, developer organizations spent a lot - hundreds of thousands of dollars in opposition of this initiative. And for - one, to be as close as it is, given all that spending, is pretty miraculous and I think goes to show the depth of the problem and how extremely it is felt to have this much support. But it looks, based on the way that ballots traditionally trend, like it's on track to eventually take the lead and win. So this is not the only initiative - there are others across the state, including other tenant protection initiatives that are speaking to what's - the large percentage of renters in the state are facing the seeming imbalance between how landlords can technically treat tenants and how important it is to put more safeguards around. And I think generally it's not controversial to say that treating being a landlord like any other business is not good for society when we're talking about a basic need for people. And putting more protections around whether the timelines of being able to raise rent, how you can evict people, the kind of notice that's required, and assistance that may be required. If you are forcing someone to move out, the issue of economic evictions, or just putting someone out - not because they did anything, but just because they want to earn more money from that property - are things that people are willing to revisit across the state. And I think a lot of people can learn that lesson. The other thing, just - I, as someone who does this for a living, get really excited about - that we're seeing in Tacoma and play out elsewhere in the state, is that sometimes these initiatives come and I'm speaking as a consultant, so obviously this happens - it has a lot of good results sometimes - but this wasn't the result of consultants getting around, establishment party entities saying, We want to put an initiative on the ballot, what should it be? And deciding what that's going to be in rallying support. This was something that truly did come from the community. This was a response from people in the community to problems that people in the community were having. They got together, they made this happen, they knocked on doors and advocated for it. This was not funded by an outside source - anything like that. And I think those are wildly successful. I think we've also seen this with the Tukwila Raise the Wage initiative that was successful that the Transit Riders Union did - that kind of model, which oftentimes is a reaction to inaction sometimes by people in power, which is frustrating to a lot of people, not seeing the issues that they feel are most important being addressed. We're having another very viable path with municipal initiatives being initiated, not just by the same old players with money, but people in community learning how to advocate and move policy themselves. I think that's a really powerful thing. We're seeing that across the state and I think we're gonna see more of it. I think that's a positive thing. [00:42:24] Melissa Santos: Yeah, Bellingham looks poised to raise its minimum wage as a city. And they passed a measure that actually - they've been doing tenant protections as a city council, but I think that what they look on track to pass - I should say the minimum wage is leading, I should say. I guess I'd have to look just close at the results. But they're on track to pass something that requires landlords to help tenants relocate if they raise their rent by 8% or more. I mean, that's like a pretty - Bellingham is a fairly liberal city, a lot of college students from Western and all this. But that's a level, that's like sort of testing out new policies at a city level that I don't think we've - I don't think Seattle requires the landlords to do rent - well, anyway, it is kind of, I'm rambling now, but it is kind of some creative, interesting stuff happening in some of these cities that is very on the progressive edge. And Spokane's mayor looks like they're going to be replaced with a Democrat - Lisa Brown, who used to be the state Senate majority leader and has been working in Governor Inslee's administration as Commerce Director. And so that's a big change there too. And that is certain - I think that is a very clear contrast in candidates where you have some voters rebuking the sort of far-right ties potentially of the mayor. Crystal has probably been following this more than me, but there was a big controversy recently with the mayor of Spokane sort of engaging with Matt Shea, who is like - oh my God, I forget all of this. [00:43:56] Crystal Fincher: Domestic terrorist, an advocacy, an advocate of domestic terrorism, someone who was planning to partake himself. [00:44:02] Melissa Santos: Yeah - who, an investigation that was commissioned by the State Legislature when Matt Shea was a legislator found that he engaged in acts of domestic terrorism. The current mayor were kind of hobnobbing with that, became an issue in that race. And voters are saying, Let's try something different - it looks like in Spokane with a more Democratic mayor. So that is a different than maybe what progressives might be seeing in Seattle. You're seeing other cities have sort of different results. [00:44:33] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. This was one where there's - in Seattle, it's on the centrist to progressive spectrum. This was a clear Democrat versus far-right Republican who did hobnob with Matt Shea, who attended - Matt Shea, who now is well-known as someone who was found to engage in domestic terrorism, to support a variety of far-right, extremist, insurrectionist type beliefs. Nadine Woodward appeared at one of his events, hugged him, seemed to be hobnobbing with his people. And even after that was palling around with Moms for Liberty - which are notoriously anti-LGBTQ, particularly anti-trans - candidates pushing for policy, pushing for book bans in school districts across the nation, basically. So there was a clear contrast here. These issues were front and center, and voters made a clear choice here and made the decision to change direction. And there're also - three of the four Democratic councilmembers are leading in Spokane. And so this is definitely moving in a more Democratic direction in Spokane, which is a really big deal. We saw similar in Tacoma. We were looking at a lot of suburbs - I mean, looking at the Eastside, just in King County - so many of those races. Now, Bellevue may have a more progressive council than Seattle. We've seen in a number of these cities, whether it be Bothell or others, where they have moved on affordable housing policy, transit and transportation, mobility policy in ways that Seattle has not. They seem to be outdoing Seattle when it comes to some of the implementation of progressive policy that lots of people have been asking for in the city of Seattle. Other cities have been moving beyond them and it seems like, in those cities, voters have responded well. There has been vigorous opposition to these, we hear reporting about pushback to expanding zoning and the types of housing that's able to be built in all areas basically. But those debates were had and it looks like in most of these situations where there were competitive candidates fielded, they prevailed. So I think that Seattle certainly looks one way. A lot of the state has really, really positive signals and directions. And as someone who works in elections, the map for what's possible in Washington state, I think, has expanded even more with this cycle. And there are some absolute blueprints to look at moving beyond to other cities, whether it's kind of party supported, establishment supported, well-funded efforts or more grassroots initiatives - that there are multiple routes now to passing policy that helps more people and especially the people who need the help most. So we will see what that is. Also in some pretty high profile races, like the Snohomish County Sheriff, where we had someone who billed themselves as a constitutional sheriff, who had said that they didn't plan on enforcing all of the laws, especially when it comes to gun legislation that we've passed, some gun control legislation - just some real extreme views. And voters picked the more moderate sheriff candidate there - certainly not revolutionizing what the traditional practice of public safety is among sheriffs, but I think voters definitely want to put more boundaries in place, and are worried about accountability, and really focusing on what makes people safer from all perspectives, and wanting to make sure people's rights are respected. And not necessarily feeling like violating people's rights is just a necessary price we have to pay to be safer as a community - that allowing that perhaps is part of what is making us more dangerous, what is contributing to some of the challenges in recruiting police officers. And addressing some of those systemic issues or at least promises of doing that from people are more convincing to voters in areas that have been comfortable voting for Republicans even - that they aren't just willing to just say, Do whatever you say you need to do regardless of whether it violates rights, or doesn't jive with the law, or whatever that is. So interesting results across the state certainly. Now with that, I want to talk about a couple of other things that we saw, including news. We saw news, we saw coverage before - I think particularly from PubliCola, from Notes from the Emerald City - about one of the most well-known officers in the Seattle Police Department suing the department. Detective Cookie Bouldin - suing the department saying that she has witnessed and experienced racism, gender discrimination over several years with the department. What do you see with this? [00:50:19] Melissa Santos: I mean, I don't think it's necessarily a surprise that over time, especially over decades, a woman of color, Black women in particular, may not have felt at home in the Seattle Police Department. This is something I believe she's raised before, now it's just there's a formal lawsuit. It's something that - it's not a huge surprise, but I think that it is a blow to the department to have someone so recognized as a leader and over time, to make these claims. It's kind of like when - not to change the subject to another thing, but when Ben Danielson, who worked at Seattle Children's, is a very respected Black pediatrician - is also suing Seattle Children's for discrimination and racism - maybe not discrimination, but discriminatory policies. And this has a huge impact when you have someone that you've held up as sort of an example of your best, in some ways, as a department or as an agency or as a hospital. And who is sort of someone you've said - This is someone who shows how we are including communities, who has been working on these issues. And then they say - Actually, there's been a lot of problems and there's been discrimination and racism that I've encountered in unacceptable ways. It's a huge blow to the police department, Seattle Children's. These are things that really are not good for the - not just the image of the police department, but because - they point to real problems. I'm not saying this is just an optics issue or something, but it signals that maybe what you've been saying publicly isn't what's happening internally, and it isn't what's happening privately, or how people are experiencing your actual policies and your actual operation. So that's not great. And I know for the police department - and I know that Chief Adrian Diaz has been really vocal about stamping out racism in the department. I mean, it's something he talks about a lot. But this indicates that there's been problems for a long time, at least in the minds of one of their really esteemed long-time officers in the Seattle Police Department. And I don't know that one chief talking about stamping out racism and trying to talk about culture change can - I don't know that the boat shifts that fast, right? So if you're pointing to deeper issues that have been - for decades, someone who's been there for decades, or was there for decades - gosh, I mean, it kind of, it raises questions about how much is still persisting of this and then how quickly it can change if it still is persisting. [00:53:11] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I mean, I think lots of people aren't surprised to hear that it is persisting, given a number of the things that we've seen coming out - whether it's the video of the SPOG Vice-President mocking the value of the life of a pedestrian that was killed, Jaahnavi Kandula, that was killed by a police officer speeding without lights and sirens on on the way to a call, whether it's the tombstone that they saw, whether it's just a number of the incidents that have resulted in complaints against several officers, consistently against a consistent group of officers, it seems, in several situations. And it's particularly notable just because Detective Cookie, as she's known by so many, has really been such a PR boon for the department, really is a face of the department. When people talk about community policing, when they talk about building relationships with community, when they talk about - Hey, there should be officers that really care, really get to know people, look out for people - a lot of them are directly thinking about Cookie Bouldin. They're directly thinking about things that they've seen her do in community. There's a park named after her. She's known for almost mentoring people, working, getting kids involved with chess - really someone who, I think, regardless of where you stand on the institution of policing where people would say, even with people that disagree, but if you're like Detective Cookie - She's okay, I've seen her help, I've seen her care. Certainly what I think a lot of people would want police to aspire to be, would want the role to aspire to be in a best case scenario. And for her to say - Yeah, well, this institution certainly, in Seattle, is one that is racist, is discriminatory, and has harmed people like me, people who it's held up as paragons and examples of what the job really is and how it can be done in the community - is troubling. We've seen this happen several times before in other departments - not with, I think, officers as publicly visible and known as Detective Cookie. But certainly a lot of discrimination suits - particularly from Black officers, other officers of color - saying that there have been systemic issues that they have been the victim of. Or even off-duty incidents where people have not recognized that they were officers and just saw a person of color and treated them in a different way than they were supposed to. So we'll see how this turns out, but certainly a stain, another stain on the department. I don't think anyone can say this is coming - this is just grievance, or sour grapes, or someone who just hates the institution of policing and is using anything to just tear down police, or who isn't supportive of policing overall. This is someone who has kind of built their life and they're living on that, is known for doing that and seemingly cared about that, yet went through all this. And maybe because they cared, endured through all of it - don't know the details there, but it is challenging. And I think one of the things that came out of the debates and the campaigns, the conversations that people had is really a reckoning with - maybe this is a big problem for recruiting. Maybe it's not the money that has been thrown at them that we've tried to use, that now even police officers are saying this is not a problem about money. People are talking about - it's not an attractive job. Maybe is it actually what's happening within departments the part that's not attractive and not external reaction to it. I hope that whoever winds up being elected on the council contends with this in a serious way. I think no matter what the view is on police, and I think there's a range of them within the candidates who are currently in the lead and even those who are not. But I do think this needs to be taken seriously. And I think even if you look at polling of Seattle residents - their views on public safety and policing are more nuanced than some of the like flat, simple - either you back the blue, you support cops, or you don't. Think people are, I think it's fair to say that at least most voters are generally supportive of having police respond when they call 911, but they want that to be an effective response. They want it to be a constitutional response that does keep everybody safe, and respect everybody, and build trust in the community. And we're just seeing too many things that are not that. And with that, I think that we have come to a close today. Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, November 10th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks, and this past week's guest co-host, is the incredible Dr. Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was Seattle Axios reporter, Melissa Santos, who does a wonderful job reporting on all things political and beyond. You can find Melissa on Twitter @MelissaSantos1. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on all platforms, basically, as @finchfrii - that's two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.  

CULTURALLY DISTINCT PODCAST This weeks guest: Attorney Jamika Wester IG: @Jamikathelawyer Content Creator IG: Elle Moore @intheirclosetpodcast This weeks episode: Tea Time 1. Adam and Jamika, How Long have you been in Houston? 2. Topics about marriage and long term dating? 3. Having friends of the opposite sex, and what is cheating? 4. Loving on your self, and are marriage people allowed to live normally? 5. polygamy and sex preferred ? SUBSCRIBE AND ADD US ON ALL PLATFORMS red coral universe @CULTURALLYDISTINCTPODCAST ⁠⁠⁠

We interview two of Houston's Movers & Shakers, Adam Nelson of Culturally Distinct Podcast and his companion for the night, Jamika "The Lawyer" Wester. Our conversation about relationships, love, and marriage digs into Adam's marriage of ten years and his many friendships with women. We dive deep on discussions like, "Can men and women JUST be friends?" Stay connected to Jamika Wester and Adam Nelson. Take a listen, subscribe, leave a comment, and add a review. Subscribe on Youtube, Leave a comment on Instagram, and leave a comment on our Instagram page. Stay connected and leave us your thoughts!

It's Primary Week for Elections. HeartBeat welcomes two more targeted Black women candidates. We will get to hear how they progressed, what their experiences were/are and the pattern of the takedown of Black women. Welcome Mary Anderson, Esq - for Superior Court Judge of Snohomish County and Jamika Scott, for Tacoma City Council.

On this episode of GBR, Willie D sits down with esteemed attorney Jamika " The Laywer" Wester and discuss proper representation in the court room, snitch culture, the need for more good police officers and much more. Tune in and join the conversation in the socials below. Be sure to subscribe, rate, comment and share. Follow @getoboysreloadedpodcast @williedlive @jamikathelawyerSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've got a big pack of candidate interviews. We invited the five candidates to sit down with Citizen Tacoma and talk about the issues affecting District 3 and Tacoma. Four responded (so far?). This interview is with John Frazier. We talk about what she sees as the top issues affecting the district and how she sees herself working with the council. We also ask every candidate to fill in the blank. "Tacoma just wouldn't be Tacoma without......?" And get some interesting answers! Tune in to this interview and then check out all the rest of the candidates on CitizenTacoma.com or in your favorite podcast app. Links Jamika Scott for Tacoma City Council, District 3 Channel 253 membership

On this episode I'm speaking with the founder of Rosen Skincare, Jamika Martin. She's sharing how she got her brand into retail stores, how she got business funding to help scale her business, and so much more! Grab the Reinvent Yourself Guide: https://stan.store/thedonibrown/p/get-my-rienvent-yourself-workshop-now MORE OF JAMIKA: Follow on IG: https://www.instagram.com/jamikarose_/?hl=en Rosen Skincare: https://www.rosenskincare.com/ MORE WEALTHY WOMAN: Learn more about Wealthy Woman: http://wealthywomandaily.com Follow the show on Instagram: http://instagram.com/wealthywomanpodcast Follow Doni on IG: http://instagram.com/thedonibrown Follow Doni on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedonibrown?lang=en --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wealthywoman/message

CULTURALLY DISTINCT PODCAST This weeks guest: Jamika Wester & Shawnda Parker @parkwaetattorneys. This weeks episode: 1.What inspired you to partner and merge your respective companies and practices? 2. Can you share with us some of the challenges and opportunities you faced when you first decided to join forces? 3. As black female injury lawyers, what unique perspective do you bring to the table when serving clients? 4. Can you give an example of a particularly challenging case you have worked on together, and how you approached it collaboratively? 5. How do you ensure that both of your firms maintain their individual identities while operating under one partnership? SUBSCRIBE AND ADD US ON ALL PLATFORMS @CULTURALLYDISTINCTPODCAST Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100080353285179&mibextid=ZbWKwL Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culturally-distinct-network/id1516660814 Instagram: https://instagram.com/culturallydistinct?igshid=ZDdkNTZiNTM= Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/6du7xitGWnSqbsN680uPbm IHEART Culturally Distinct Network | iHeart Youtube https://youtube.com/@culturallydistinctpodcast

Jamika and Katy are back in the host chairs, excited to learn from dindria of the Tacoma Public Library's Community Archives Center. dindria and the Tacoma Public Library team are collecting stories and oral histories...

Tune in This week!The Cannabis Closet Potcast is LIVE with special guests to sesh with!! Today we have Jamika Scott, Community Activist and city council candidate for Tacoma, Washington! We'll talk with her about her political adventures and all the things that brought her to this point.Roll up, show up, we can't wait to sesh with you!XOCannaQueen & MJ Solo.to/cannabiscloset420 https://norml.org/news/2023/03/16/study-clinicians-more-likely-to-order-drug-tests-for-black-newborns/ https://norml.org/news/2023/03/09/analysis-black-and-hispanic-patients-disproportionately-screened-for-perinatal-cannabis-use/ https://www.tiktok.com/@circusfaery33/video/7212677459806883114?_r=1&_t=8aoNKWb2ylO -Intro Guest: Jamika Scott: Born and raised in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma, Washington, Jamika Scott is a writer, filmmaker, and advocate. As a founding member of the Tacoma Action Collective, she works toward building an equitable Tacoma and often incorporates her love of film and photography into her social justice work. An active member of the community with a commitment to volunteerism, Jamika also serves on a number of local boards, commissions, and committees. Jamika is currently running as a candidate for the Tacoma City Council. Would You Rather: start a colony on another planet  Or be the leader of a country on Earth? live in a house haunted by friendly ghosts  or  be a ghost reliving your average day after you die? only eat raw food  or  only eat TV dinners?

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review on Apple or Podchaser Born and raised in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma, Jamika Scott is a writer, filmmaker, and advocate. As a founding member of the Tacoma Action Collective, she works toward building an equitable Tacoma and often incorporates her love of film into her social justice work. An active member of the community with a commitment to volunteerism, Jamika also serves on a number of local boards, commissions, and committees. Website: https://jamikascott.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ohdamn_jam Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohdamn_jam/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ohdamnjam/ Listen to the full bonus episode by subscribing to our Substack for $5 a month. Follow us on social media Twitter: @ThoughtfulWRPod Instagram: @ThoughtfulWellnessRevolution Theme song: Katy Pearson

Artist and Author Jamika  Ajalon is a self discribed INTERZONAL artist.  She has been published in many anthologies and journals including Speculative City and Lit Hub. Her novel Skye Papers came out in the summer of 2021,  to good review (including New York Times and Kirkus Review)  Her poetry and lyrics have manifested in more than a dozen albums, including the newly released , REBOOTED (jamika & the argonauts 2022). She has also collaborated with many acclaimed artists, , most recently as interpreter/performer of text with Ali Cherri on his Venice Biennale award winning piece Of Men and Gods and Mud ( 2022), and as dialogue writer on Shu Lea Cheng's soon to be released film UKI , (tba 2022). As an interdisciplinary artist she works with mixed mediums including digital audio visual elements. Most recently she has finished an experimental sonic poetry ep: "FUGITIVE" (TBA 2022)based on her book of poetry Take Back The Narrative (published 2017). Last year (2020/21) her single screen sonic video ALCHEMY OF CUTS was a part of the Witches Expo at the CENTER OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS, Berlin. She also has been giving audio visual performative lectures she calls "Anti Lectures" for over a decade. The next one will be based on the themes broached in her novel Skye Papers : She has been invited to present  at St Étienne, France Biennale "Globalista" and UCLA ( oct tba 2022). She is also currently on tour with a Paris based modular jazz/ poetry ensemble "Baldwin In Transit": a fluid collaboration between French musicians and Black Amerikan expats poets, inspired by the work of James Baldwin. Please check jamikaajalon.com for more details and links to her multi-disciplinary art practice and published writings.Support the show

Introducing our last guest of the season, the phenomenal, Jamika Scott, a writer and filmmaker from Tacoma, Washington. This is such a special interview because not only is Jamika an artist and activist, she's also a bundle of knowledge, wisdom, and kindness that exudes through this conversation. In this episode, we ask Jamika to tell us about her work as a writer and filmmaker, and how she's inspired to tell the stories of folks existing on the margins of society. We hear about Jamika's current fascinations as a storyteller and hear a bit about her views on the roles of family dynamics. Plus, we learn about why Jamika ran for mayor of Tacoma in 2021, and how she integrates her art, activism, and love of the community into her politics. Hien and Zahra are enlightened to the ways in which certain city councils are run and Jamika also teaches us about ‘pilot programs' and how they're harmful to local communities. Throughout this episode, we are in awe of the work and insights of Jamika, which is what Hien and Zahra talk about while wrapping up the episode. If you're interested in local politics, art, filmmaking, and community, be sure to listen now! Born and raised in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma, Jamika Scott is a writer, filmmaker, and advocate. As a founding member of the Tacoma Action Collective, she works toward building an equitable Tacoma and often incorporates her love of film into her social justice work. An active member of the community with a commitment to volunteerism, Jamika also serves on a number of local boards, commissions, and committees. Website: https://jamikascott.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ohdamn_jam Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohdamn_jam/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ohdamnjam/ Please rate us 5 stars and leave a review :) For bonus content, check out our Substack https://thoughtfulwellnessrevolution.substack.com/ Follow us on social media Twitter: http://twitter.com/ThoughtfulWRPod Instagram: http://instagram.com/ThoughtfulWellnessRevolution Theme song: Katy Pearson

Jamika and Katy talk with Grit City Magazine publisher and writer Sierra Hartman. Sierra and his publishing partner Sara Kay received the Amocat Art Award for Arts Patron. Sierra shares the trials and joys of...

Jamika and Katy talk with author and community builder Tamiko Nimura about her well-earned Amocat Art Award for Community Outreach by an Individual. We explore her incredible literary and historical work, and “wax rhapsodic”! Listen...

Jamika and guest host Hannah Devine interview community-builder and all-ages music advocate Tom Long! Tom Long represents Real Art Tacoma, the Amocat Award Winner for Community Outreach by an Organization. Tom is the president of...

From marketing to bon appetit, this week's guest took a leap of faith leaving the corporate world for the kitchen. It didn't take long for Chef Jamika Pessoa, marketing executive turned classically-trained chef, to find success in her new career. She quickly made her way to becoming the celebrity chef for high-profile clients including athletes and entertainers! Tune in to hear why she left her office job behind, how she successfully navigated the transition to becoming her own boss, and ultimately co-host the popular cooking show, ‘The Good Dish'. Learn health and wellness tips from a chef's perspective and why it's important to remember the 80/20 food & fitness rule when it comes to getting healthy. But healthy doesn't have to mean boring, and with Halloween around the corner, we have some fun food tips to help you stand out with the neighbors! Try Out Chef Jamika's Pumpkin Funnel Cake Recipe Here: https://chefjamika.com/recipes/pumpkin-funnel-cakes/

Jamika and Katy sit down with the incredible Chevi Chung – actor, director, and Community Programs Specialist at the Office of Arts & Cultural Vitality for the City of Tacoma – to learn what we...

In this episode, Hilary Stunda speaks with Jamika Porter. Jamika shares her personal story, realizing as a child of 6 that she couldn't see as well as her peers, to adjusting to life as a school-aged young girl, to a college student and then graduate student, who received her Masters degree in communications. What she discovered along the way, after numerous doctors, was that the conditions she had ran in her family, which is interesting as RP is a rare genetic disorder, affecting only between 82,000 and 110,000 people in the United States. Her mother was one of nine children and four of her uncles also had some form of an eye condition as well as her grandfather and many of her cousins. Jamika was diagnosed when she was about 15 when she saw a retina specialist. Before, she just kept getting new eyeglasses with a new prescription every year, or every six months or so. When she was 30, she started to seek treatment on her own just outside of regular eyeglasses. Jamika says that growing up with relatives who also had eye conditions helped to prepare Jamika. Since her mother was almost totally blind, she learned how to do certain things that made life easier, like placing furniture in certain configurations. Jamika tells Hilary how difficult it was growing up with Stargardt's and RP and that she mainly kept it to herself as staying silent about the condition was easier than telling people what was wrong. An eye specialist told her when she was 15 that she would probably be blind by the time she was 40. The turning point was when, in her late 20s, she worked for a law firm that offered very good insurance. That's when she started going back to the eye doctor. After seeing a number of physicians, Jamika eventually found a doctor that treated her well and did not consider her a case study. Jamika explains that she is learning to accept the Assistive Technology around her. She says that she uses her Kindle to read ebooks, and a Ruby device for everyday use. She continues, saying that to get around she uses Lyft and Uber and relies on a few friends and a sister who will come and take her places. But mostly, she takes care of herself. What has served her the most is reaching out to friends for support when she comes up against people who don't understand what she has and what she is going through. Learning that “everybody has some story.” Jamika learned is that maternal grandfather probably had Macular Degeneration but considering he was born in 1890, no one knew. Recently Jamika had an aunt pass away who was 101. She recalls how she lived independently with her husband for years and that she managed because of the way she set up her house, the lighting and furniture and kitchen. She cooked and was able to take care of herself. Jamika hopes to live that way. In the final part of this episode founder and executive director of The Support Sight Foundation, Dawn Prall speaks with Mike Wood from Vispero for the Product Spotlight. For the past 15 years, Mike has been working with schools as well as with the senior market. Mike talks to Dawn about the Assistive Technology devices that Vispero makes for people who have low vision. Visperohas been around since 1975. The name is the combination of two Latin words, one being Visio and the other being Spiro. Visio means the vision, and Spiro means hope. Mike tells Dawn how this is appropriate as their mission is to provide hope, determination and independence through all of their different products, whether it be hardware or software that support those with low vision. Mike and Dawn talk about what some of the warning signs for those who think they might have low vision. Mike says it's often something that can't be corrected with lenses, glasses, or eye drops. If you have trouble reading even after you've had corrective lenses or have trouble recognizing faces or doing basic things around the house like cooking, sewing, fixing and repairing things. Or, if you start to notice that you might need more light, or are having a hard time matching colors of your clothing, feeling like the lights are dimmer in the room. Sometimes, if you're still driving, you start noticing the problem with traffic signs or reading the signs of stores, as you driving by. These are all signs that you may have low vision and might want to go and see a low vision specialist. Mike explains to Dawn that Vispero offers many different pieces of technology to help those with low vision get through the day. There's the handheld video magnifier, The Ruby, that is great for reading tags at the grocery store or menus at a restaurant. But, if you're at home, and you're reading the newspaper, you might want a desktop magnifier like the Optelec ClearView See. Dawn and Mike discuss some of the tools that people might benefit from when they have MacD: a handheld video magnifier, a handheld optical magnifier, a desktop video magnifier, or something that provides OCR capability which is optimal character recognition, which is basically scanning and reading so you can take text and then have it read back to you. There are also other tools out there - software-based tools for your computer. Mike tells Dawn that for those who need to magnify what's on their computer, or have the computer read things back to you, there is technology that can do that. All of these different products fall under different brands within the VISPERO company. There's Freedom Scientific, Enhanced Vision Optelec and the Paciello Group known as TPGI. Each one of these brands offer different products. Freedom Scientific, a computer software, is best known for JAWS ZoomText. They're also known for their world-renowned handheld video magnifier called The Ruby. The Ruby comes in a couple of different sizes and functionality. Some products also offer TTS - which is Text To Speech, which is like reading out loud. These products are good for helping people with low vision so they don't have to strain their eyes. This, as Dawn says, is important because it's important to remember that ‘You don't see with your eyes, you see with your brain.' Mike tells Dawn all one has to do to find the product differences, functionalities and price points is go to the Vispero site. From there, people can find what they need. For example, Mile says, Optelec is good if you need optical magnifiers, which are a glass lens-type of magnifier. It's usually where people start out using a 5x, 6x, or 7x optical magnifier. The newer ones even have LED lights in them. Mike explains that with optical magnifiers, the larger magnification you need, the smaller the lens gets. So if you have a 5x, it's a larger lens. But then if you get up to 10 and 12x, it becomes a much smaller lens. At that point, Mike tells people that's when you go over to those handheld video magnifiers until you graduate over to The Ruby. Wrapping up the episode, Dawn and Mike concur that it's all about helping people with low vision invest in devices that will help them. It's not about regaining your sight, but performing tasks better. You see better because you're using the device, and you're regaining independence. It's about developing and delivering innovative solutions that will enable individuals with low vision to reach their full potential. **** What We Discuss in this Episode …Most people think it's night blindness. I have trouble with shadows. Even if I'm outside and I walk under a platform and it's dark, it completely changes. It temporarily blinds me for a second. 5:46 …My mom was one of nine kids. My mom, two, three, and four, of my uncles all had some form of an eye condition. My grandfather also had an eye condition and many of my cousins. 7:01 …When I was probably about 30, I started to seek treatment on my own just outside of regular eyeglasses. I can feel changes in the way I saw things. 09:04 …I did just enough to get by. Because I never wanted to explain to anybody why I just let people assume that I was lazy or didn't care about school, which wasn't true at all. But it was easier than trying to explain to people what was wrong. …Some things just become a way of life, because like I said, my mother was almost totally blind. So, as far as household, I function as a person that couldn't see, because that's the way I was taught. Like furniture is placed in a certain way, you open up all the curtains. 10:53 …I'm now in my 40s. When I was about 28. I got a really good job. I worked for a law firm with excellent insurance. That's when I decided to go back to the eye doctor. 13:32 …I'll be honest, I'm still working on this technology part. Some things are difficult because I do get embarrassed when I'm in the store and I can't see a barcode and I have to take out the magnifier. I have an app on my phone… but it's embarrassing. So I faked my way through some things but I'm getting much better. 14:48 …I have two really large televisions. I have some friends that, to this day, do not realize there's anything wrong with me. Because to look at me you would never know. 15:00 …With the Stargardt's and then with the RP, it's more internal. You'll never be able to look at me and say that I can't see. …People can be cruel. So, I made the decision I would never have to depend on anyone at a very young age. Now that I think about it, I think I did suffer from some depression. And I still do sometimes. There are little things that I miss that I could do even just five years ago, but I have trouble doing now. So I just try to move on. 16:40 …I decided that for myself I wanted to finish my bachelor's degree. So I did. Shortly thereafter, I got a master's degree. Not for anyone else. But it's mine. I worked for it. I struggled for it. I had to study twice as long and twice as hard. But I graduated with a 3.9 grade average. I was like, ‘This is mine and no one can take it. 20:40 I am one of the only ones with Stargardt's because, through research, I found it skips a generation. And what my mother realized as she got older was that her maternal grandfather probably had Stargardt's but considering he was born in like, 1890, they didn't know and thought it was just bad eyes. 21:54 …Once I was old enough to understand that it was a genetic condition and not just something that I got when I was younger. The first doctor told me because I was probably staring at the sun. 22:38 …I needed to have answers for myself. And I'm like that with most things. You can't just tell me something and I believe you. I need to know. Talking to my mom and then talking to my dad, because I had a doctor who told me that my parents are probably related. That's how I got Stargardt's. That was a little traumatic. You just told me my parents were related. So that was another factor. 23:23 …Stargardt's is an adolescent version of macular degeneration. …I use a Kindle with very large font and contrast. I have since I've been working with Sage, I use the device, The Ruby, you can put it on and read it. 25:16 …I do Lyft and Uber a lot. I do have a couple of friends…but I don't really like to ask people unless I absolutely have to. I go out during the day, every week I go do my grocery shopping, I get on the bus. I don't take the subway anymore. I stopped within the past two to three years because it's really dark under there. If somebody approached me, I wouldn't be able to see them. …That's what made me stop riding. I tripped coming up the steps. …I want to be more of a mentor. A couple of years ago, I worked for a program and we worked with underserved and under-resourced students. I absolutely want to be able help them going forward. It can be economically, socially or because of a disability. I want to work with children to help them move forward. But I've also found that I like working with adults I can share with. I can answer questions. 30:37 …I have one cousin, and we discovered we see the same retina specialist. We both have given him permission to discuss this in the exam. 32:57 …Oh, I hope so. That will be great. It hasn't been very long since I've been here. Still a learning and training process. But I would love to be a resource for other people or just a sounding board. 34:28 …My mother was in her 30s when she was diagnosed with Stargardt's. She went through the same thing I did where they just kept changing their glasses. So you know, he'll make the comparison. And you know, it was like he personally called me when my genetic testing came back and they realized that I wouldn't go completely blind and I thought that was so sweet. It wasn't a nurse. It wasn't an email. I was like, this is this is really nice. 35:00 …I'm in good hands…When you get people that care and they state, I don't see the way that you see, but I want to help you, it makes a difference, as opposed to someone just saying we'll do this or do that. 39:17 …A few of the different things that I find are signs that you're starting to have low vision. Often, it's something that can't be corrected with lenses, whether it be contact lenses, glasses, something like eye drops. It might be difficulty reading a book, newspaper or magazine even after you've had corrective lenses. 40:00 … Finding that it's difficult to do basic things around the house like cooking, sewing, fixing and repairing things. 40:05 …Another key factor is if you start to notice that you might need more light, or you're having a hard time matching colors of your clothing, feeling like the lights are dimmer in the room. Then, if you're still driving, noticing traffic signs or reading the signs of stores, as you're driving by. These are all signs that you may have low vision and might want to go and see a low vision specialist. … It's not going to be a one tool fixes all types of situation when you have MACD. Many times people I'm working with that have MACD might have multiple different pieces of technology to get through the day. 41:28 …One of the best selling in the industry, The Ruby, is going to be really beneficial for reading the menu. But, if you're at home, and you're reading the newspaper, you might want a desktop magnifier like the Optelec ClearView See. 42:01 …Assistive Technology devices that are out there that VISPERO makes. This is the technology that, if you have low vision, you can do things like reading; tasks that you may not be able to do as well now that you have low vision. …Some of the tools that people might benefit from when they have MACD: a handheld video magnifier, a handheld optical magnifier, a desktop video magnifier, or something that provides OCR capability which is optimal character recognition, which is basically scanning and reading so you can take text and then have it read back to you. …When you have low vision, you need Assistive Technology. Under the VISPERO umbrella there are a couple of different brands. There's Freedom Scientific, Enhanced Vision Optelec and the Paciello Group known as TPGI. … Three of the key things that you should focus when you have low vision are going to be magnification. Often you need magnification support. Things need to be enlarged. Lighting, you often need more lighting, so it might be as simple as having a desk lamp… 44:48 …Or changing the light bulbs to be a different brightness and contrast. 45:00 …Text to speech? So TTS is basically the exact same thing. The product offers you text to speech using the character recognition technology. …The button placement might be in a different area, the handles shaped differently, you might have a touchscreen device instead of having tactile buttons. …The text to speech helps because it lets you sit back and have something else read the text to you. So you can close your eyes, relax, and listen to the text out loud. …Because with optical magnifiers, the stronger you get, the higher you need, the larger magnification that you need, the stronger the magnifier, the smaller the lens gets. So if you have a 5x, it's a larger lens. But then if you get up to 10 and 12x, it becomes a much smaller lens 50:00 …They're investing in devices that will help to perform tasks better. And then you do see better because you're using the device… ……and you're regaining independence. There are so many people that need something as simple as wanting to read the mail…on their own. 51:18 …Our key is to develop and deliver innovative solutions that will enable individuals that are low vision to reach their full potential. …We have people using these to play bingo, do crossword puzzles. I've met people that use them to knit. Recommended Resources https://amdcentral.org/ https://www.evokekyne.com/ https://www.brightfocus.org/ http://www.mdsupport.org/ https://preventblindness.org/ https://www.macular.org/ http://www.supportsight.org/ http://www.mymacdlife.org/ https://vispero.com/mds * Note: All listed transcript timings and wording are approximations.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/mymacdlife-macular-degeneration-podcast/donations

In this episode, the first of a two-part series, we dig into the turbulent term of the elected Pierce County Sheriff, Ed Troyer. In this episode, we look at Troyer's influence on the investigation into...

What Women Binge welcomes classically-trained celebrity chef and talk show host - Chef Jamika! You've seen her on GMA, as a host of The Good Dish, and on all your favorite TV cooking competitions. We talk about… No Bad Cooks Homemade Biscuits  Being “Beyonce in Italy” The Good Dish Judging Horrible Chopped Junior Dishes Melissa's Step-Dad Being on Master Chef Great British Bake Off Melissa appearing on Hell's Kitchen Exploring talent beyond your career  The Art of Soup Parenting / Raising Kids Turning Red Beyonce's Break My Soul  Seeking Sister Wives Fridge Secret Hiding Spots Forrest Gump Viola Davis Audio Book Night Tracks  MTV Milo's  Arby's Top Gun: Maverick And so much more…  This episode is brought to you by: ATHLETIC GREENS: Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/WWB to take ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The first of a two-part series, Jamika and Katy talk with Tacoma-based writer and activist Nakanee Monique about her art and activism. Nakanee (she/they) has been writing poetry since they were 8 years old and...

@rolandsfoodcourt with @gennaro.pecchia @paulofcharsky We're on-air with a couple of finest food t.v. stars! Ladies first with @chefjamika A self-described Southern Belle with Caribbean roots, Chef Jamika's cooking style is “Caribbean Heat meets Southern Sweet,'' and her mouth-wateringly delicious recipes offer bold flavors and unexpected twists for meals for any occasion. Jamika's biggest culinary influence was her Caribbean grandmother, who showed her how to cook great meals by adding a “pinch of this,” and a “splash of that,” and how to host a great party by making sure that everyone at her table felt well-fed and well-loved. Today, Chef Jamika serves her recipes with a healthy side of motivation by sharing her own personal stories, to help you create the life of your dreams, with your own special twist. Visit https://linktr.ee/chefjamika for more!

Jamika and Katy turn to the art of the essay for healing, processing, and metabolizing grief, as our community and country faces compounding trauma and tragedy. “Joy is not the opposite of grief. Grief is...

Jamika and Katy get together with elder-in-training Amy McBride: City of Tacoma Arts Administrator, artist, creatrix, mystic, and witch! Amy shares her experiences from over 20 years in arts administration and creative community building, and what...

We Art Tacoma is back, baby, with some fresh new hosts! It's Jamika and Katy, at your cultural service! Jamika Scott and Katy Evans are delighted to take the helm as “art super fans.” In...

Thank you for tuning into "Starting Small", a podcast about brand development, entrepreneurship, and innovation in the modern world. In this episode, I am joined by Jamika Martin, founder of ROSEN Skincare, customized solutions for breakout needs. ROSEN Skincare is on a mission to make the acne space cleaner by taking a clinical approach to formulas fueled by modern research.  Make sure to check out ROSEN Skincare at: https://www.rosenskincare.com/   Follow Starting Small: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startingsmallpod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Startingsmallpod/?modal=admin_todo_tour LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/cameronnagle

Chef Jamika Pessoa (The Good Dish, Raid The Fridge) and Dan talk about why she hides the best foods in her vegetable crisper, how cooking shows work, and the secret power of cooking with cream cheese. Support Green Eggs & Dan by supporting our sponsors: Masterclass - Get 15% off an annual membership at masterclass.com/GED Trade Coffee - Get $20 off your first three bags at drinktrade.com/GED *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.  Since you're listening to Green Eggs & Dan, we'd like to suggest you also try listening to other Podglomerate comedy podcasts like The History of Standup, We Don't Deserve Dogs, or 2 Girls 1 Podcast.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Season 3 Finale, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica welcome special guest, Amanda Musiq, to discuss what it means to chase after a dream versus catch a dream. Amanda also discusses her journey towards this revelation and the multiple events that altered her mindset towards how she chooses to pursue her dreams.

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica discuss a recent Instagram post that went viral, reading: “My daughter does NOT come before my husband…IDC (I don't care).” They discuss whether or not they agree with this statement and speak towards why this statement might be so controversial in this day and age.

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica discuss the multiple benefits of God's design for women in marriage, while also addressing the need to empower women without the degradation of the male.

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica discuss how they each go about deciding what kind of church to raise their children in. They discuss a recent blog post and ask one another whether or not they'd raise their children in a multi-ethnic church versus a predominantly Black church.

Ecclesiastes 7:24 - "Finding Wisdom" The Plug of the Day helps you learn scripture, use scripture and be encouraged by scripture! Check out Jamika from the PrayerPlug on the Morning Source, powered by 1500 Radio. Expect to start your day right with TaKera B every Mon-Fri from 6am - 10am. We'll catch you up on what happened while you were sleeping, give you some encouragement to make it through the day and of course, lock in with our local artist and THE CULTURE! LISTEN NOW BY CLICKING HERE // DOWNLOAD THE PRAYERPLUG MOBILE APP // CONTACT US: PrayerPlug@gmail.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/prayerplug/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/prayerplug/support

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica discuss the power of prayer and the effects it has had within their families. Specifically, they discuss testimonies about waiting on the Lord in certain seasons, and the difficulty and the beauty that came alongside those seasons.

In this episode, Jessica, Jamika and Elena sit down with Tatum Temia of Anchored Media about her journey to mompreneurship. Tatum shares the journey of God being the CEO of her business and implementation of systems necessary for her body, baby and business!

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica define the term “helicopter mom” and determine all the different ways each of them fall into that category.

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica discuss simple practical steps you can take to healthily engage in spiritual warfare and gain complete victory. Satan seeks to invade your peace because your life is powerful and full of purpose.

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica open up regarding how their emotions can sometimes get the best of them within their personal lives.

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica speak with special guest Brenaea Fairchild, founder of the Melanin Village, who outlines the top five benefits of homeschooling that every parent should know.

In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica discuss how many of their peers navigate life differently post-college/school. Some peers get married, some go on to have children, some pursue postgraduate studies, some travel the world, some become entrepreneurs, some work in the corporate world, and some take time to figure out their next step. In the age of social media, you are exposed to the various paths of our peers 24/7. It's tempting to begin comparing your life's journey to others who were once on the same path as you. Is this type of comparison something you struggle with or have struggled with in the past?

How are you making sex a priority in this season? In this week's episode, Elena, Jamika, and Jessica discuss the importance of intimacy and how you can practically prioritize sex throughout different seasons of marriage and motherhood.

Jamika Martin is the founder of ROSEN Skincare, a clean beauty brand for people with acne-prone skin. After years of dealing with her own skin journey and seeing a lacklustre selection in the market, Jamika began formulating her own products while studying Business Economics at UCLA. A Forbes 30 Under 30 industry trailblazer on a mission, you can't miss this episode. Stay tuned!Today I'm sitting down with Jamika to discuss her passion for building thoughtful and meaningful brands while finding balance and taking time for yourself. I truly hope you enjoy it and if you do, please share with anyone you know who will love it too!Founded Beauty is available on all podcast platforms and we release new episodes every Monday and Thursday so be sure to follow the podcast to be notified. We really appreciate every single listen, share, and review. It goes such a long way and helps us reach new listeners. Follow Akash and Jamika:Akash Mehta: @mehta_aFable & Mane: @fableandmanewww.fableandmane.comJamika Martin: @jamikarose_Rosen Skincare: @rosenskincarewww.rosenskincare.comFor more information about Founded Beauty, please visit www.foundedbeauty.com#foundedbeauty See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As a mother, it can be hard to see God in the small things. Check out the the SZN 2 FINALE episode as Elena and Jamika chat with Jessica about her book, "God, Princeton and My Pondered Thoughts."

Motherhood comes with sacrifice, but sacrifice doesn't mean we can't enjoy the journey. Tune in to this weeks episode as Elena and Jamika discuss the benefits of sacrifice.