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Subscribe now Give a gift subscription Share This week on Unsupervised Learning, Razib is joined by Tim Lee, a former columnist at the Washington Post, Ars Technica, and Vox.com, to discuss his new project, Full Stack Economics, a newsletter on economics, technology, and public policy. The conversation jumps directly into a major issue facing many Americans today: the cost of housing. In many US cities, access to affordable housing is the most economically important issue facing individuals and families. While nearly everyone agrees that working-class Americans should be able to afford rent or a mortgage, sharp differences in public policy positions like rent controls and freezes on property tax rates can create major distortions in the supply of housing and the incentives to build and maintain units. Numerous interests are at play between those who already own property in a neighborhood, whose property value often benefits from a housing crunch, those who want to purchase or rent in a new neighborhood, and developers who wish to increase supply but have to deal with established stakeholders. Though homeowners often make arguments about the character and aesthetics of their neighborhoods, the reality that their home values increase when they limit building has a major impact on their incentives from a purely economic perspective. Though these issues are widely discussed in an ad hoc fashion every day in this country, Tim and his co-author, Alan Cole, attempt to highlight and flesh out the issue in a more explicit manner at Full Stack Economics, bringing both economic analysis and the public policy context to the fore. Then Razib and Tim switch to discussing how the erosion of public trust in media organizations, particularly those that are principally funded by ad revenue, has created a market for subscription-based email newsletters. Tim's goal with Full Stack Economics is to bring highly researched and deeply reported pieces directly to subscribers without the pressure of having to fulfill a weekly quota of copy or to be pressured by click-bait advertising incentives. Though his audience is smaller, he hopes it is more willing to be patient as well as more deeply. They conclude their conversation by discussing a variety of technologies in the pipeline that might be potential economic and social game changers, including artificial meat, genetically modified mosquitoes, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, self-driving cars, and green energy.  Due to our leadership in science and technology, Tim remains bullish on the American economy and its potential in the coming decade, while being concerned by the political polarization and American culture's social ills. Subscribe now Give a gift subscription Share

Live from the no panic zone—I'm Steve Gruber—I am America's Voice— I am Fierce and Fearless— I am here to tell the truth—I mean lets be honest—somebody has to—And—I'm the guy—   Here are three big Things you need to know right now—   ONE— Chris Cuomo—was far more involved in trying to bail out his now former Governor of New York—Andrew— from allegations of sexual harassment by several women—   TWO— The Waukesha Christmas Parade massacre—has faded from the headlines and from the front of numerous TV news programs—BUT WHY—twice as many people were killed and injured as the Boston Bombing— hmmmm—   THREE— A Mass shooting in Oakland County Michigan—leaves 3 dead—several others injured when a 15 year old—opens up with a semi-automatic handgun—that is not legal in his possession under any circumstance—so he commits a crime and then commits murder—and yet the left turns to the tired narrative of gun control—   Which is being rejected all over the country—by those on the right—but more importantly by those that are considered independents—   In fact this tragedy will garner far more news coverage than the wanton slaughter in Wisconsin—because gun control is a much appealing topic to those on the left—and even though Darrell Brooks committed a hate crime and targeted white people—killing 6 and injuring 60 more—   The school shooting will be all they talk about on the leftist outlets like MSNBC and Chicken Noodle News—   That's a story they will run with—   So let's start with the terrible events at Oxford High School which is north of Detroit for reference—  

Andy Jackson the Flight Training Network Manager at Icon Aircraft joins us on this episode of the Water Flying podcast to discuss the numerous flight training programs currently offered by ICON Aircraft. From ICON Authorized Flight Instructors programs to Single Engine Sea Ratings and owner transition programs ICON Aircraft has developed a much more impressive training curriculum than most people realize. Join us on this episode of the Water Flying podcast to learn more. Support this podcast

The Context of White Supremacy hosts the weekly Compensatory Call-In. We encourage non-white listeners to dial in with their codified concepts, new terms, observations, research findings, workplace problems or triumphs, and/or suggestions on how best to Replace White Supremacy With Justice ASAP. We'll use these sessions to hone our use of words as tools to reveal truth, neutralize White people. We'll examine news reports from the past seven days and – hopefully – promote a constructive dialog. #ANTIBLACKNESS While the U.S. prepared to gorge on turkey and promote White Supremacist lies about a mythical feast between Whites and so called Indians, a black male, Darrell Brooks, is accused of killing six people and wounding dozens when he drove an SUV into a Wisconsin Christmas parade. Numerous reports call attention to Brooks' history of domestic abuse and question why he was ever released from greater confinement. Prior to the parade attack, many were anxious for a verdict in the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial. The nearly all White jury (11 of 12) will decide if yet more White Men will be turned loose in the name of "self defense." One week after two black males were exonerated for the assassination of Minister Malcolm X, Malikah Shabazz, one of the minister's six daughters, reportedly died at her residence. Police officials announced there was no cause for suspicion. According to The New York Times, accidental food poisoning is a possible cause of death. #WhiteSupremacyIsTerrorism INVEST in The COWS – http://paypal.me/TheCOWS Cash App: https://cash.app/$TheCOWS CALL IN NUMBER: 720.716.7300 CODE: 564943#

Saturday, November 27th 9:00PM Eastern/ 6:00PM Pacific The Context of White Supremacy hosts the weekly Compensatory Call-In. We encourage non-white listeners to dial in with their codified concepts, new terms, observations, research findings, workplace problems or triumphs, and/or suggestions on how best to Replace White Supremacy With Justice ASAP. We'll use these sessions to hone our use of words as tools to reveal truth, neutralize White people. We'll examine news reports from the past seven days and – hopefully – promote a constructive dialog. #ANTIBLACKNESS  While the U.S. prepared to gorge on turkey and promote White Supremacist lies about a mythical feast between Whites and so called Indians, a black male, Darrell Brooks, is accused of killing six people and wounding dozens when he drove an SUV into a Wisconsin Christmas parade. Numerous reports call attention to Brooks' history of domestic abuse and question why he was ever released from greater confinement. Prior to the parade attack, many were anxious for a verdict in the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial. The nearly all White jury (11 of 12) will decide if yet more White Men will be turned loose in the name of "self defense." One week after two black males were exonerated for the assassination of Minister Malcolm X, Malikah Shabazz, one of Betty Shabazz and the minister's six daughters, reportedly died at her residence. Police officials announced there was no cause for suspicion. According to The New York Times, accidental food poisoning is a possible cause of death. #WhiteSupremacyIsTerrorism INVEST in The COWS – http://paypal.me/TheCOWS Invest in The C.O.W.S. - https://cash.app/$TheCOWS CALL IN NUMBER: 720.716.7300 CODE 564943# The C.O.W.S. Radio Program is specifically engineered for black & non-white listeners - Victims of White Supremacy. The purpose of this program is to provide Victims of White Supremacy with constructive information and suggestions on how to counter Racist Woman & Racist Man. Phone: 1-605-313-5164 - Access Code 564943# Hit star *6 & 1 to enter caller cue

I'm so glad that you've all been loving our running miniseries and, as promised, I'm thrilled to have a second one for you kicking off today. This one has changed my perspectives and extended my knowledge just as much, but in a completely different way and in relation to completely different pathways to joy but that's exactly the essence of seizing your yay – it looks different for everyone.The thing is, so often you don't know what you want your future to look like until you can visualise it or see it represented out in the world, but lack of exposure can really hinder people in finding their purpose because they simply never know it exists. Enter, one of the biggest challenges facing women in science or the industries broadly referred to as STEMM – science, technology, engineer mathematics and medicine.Today, only 28% of researchers are women with less than 20% making up the most senior leadership positions, and only 3% of Scientific Nobel Prizes have been awarded to women. Numerous studies have found that women in STEMM fields publish less, are paid less for their research and do not progress as far as men in their careers.There are so many different factors contributing to this disparity, but one is definitely the misconceptions surrounding what scientists actually do and the industries they can end up working in. Beauty and cosmetics, for example, is not the first industry you'd connect with say, engineering or maths, but our partner in this miniseries, L'Oréal, was founded by scientists over 100 years ago – without science L'Oréal simply wouldn't exist.Which is why, for over the past 20 years, the L'Oréal Corporate Foundation and UNESCO have been committed to women in science, to increase the number of women working in scientific research. In 1998, L'Oréal and UNESCO founded the For Women in Science program to promote and highlight the critical importance of ensuring greater participation of women in science.Each year, the program recognises the achievements of exceptional early-career female scientists and awards them with Fellowships to help further their research. And I'm DELIGHTED to bring you this miniseries showcasing the five 2021 Fellowship recipients and the ground-breaking, mind-blowing work they're doing highlighting how diverse, dynamic and deeply impactful pathways in science can be.I've emerged kind of wanting to move into science myself and wish there had been programs like this when I was younger. Wonderfully, L'Oréal's work also includes a Girls in Science program in partnership with UNSW and Melbourne University where these fellows are connected with girls in school to empower young women to forge careers in STEMM and inspire them to be part of cultural change in the industry.Unfortunately, the in-person Girls in Science events were unable to go ahead, but fortunately, this miniseries has taken their place so that it's not just schoolgirls whose minds can be opened by these five fascinating women and the way they're changing the world. Even if you don't aspire to a career in STEMM, I was captivated by these amazing humans and hope that you all are too.Find out more about the FWIS fellowship here.+ Announcements on Insta at @spoonful_of_sarah+ Join our Facebook community here+ Subscribe to not miss out on the next instalment of YAY!

So we're gonna get into something a bit different this week. Not really truecrime, not unsolved, but definitely crazy. This is another one we got from a listener that we had no clue ever happened. While the official death toll of this incident is usually put at around 45, some estimates say it could be up to 2000. Those bodies are said to either have been dumped in the sea or buried in mass graves. So what was the incident about you ask? Well, long story very short… Bananas. We're gonna dive into what is simply known as the Banana massacre,  a crazy tale of a government squashing a banana strike with excessive force and what came after. Buckle up guys, here we go!   Before we start, I want to acknowledge the great sources of info for this episode. 90% of the information on this week's episode came from two amazing sources that had tons of info that we couldn't find anywhere else. First a paper by Jorge Enrique Elias Caro and Antonino Vidal Ortega on the website scielo.org was our source for the actual massacre info while an article called Rotten Fruit by Peter Chapman on the Financial Times website was our source for the company history.  So, let's start by talking about a fruit company. United Fruit company to be exact. United Fruit began life in the 1870s when Minor Cooper Keith, a wealthy young New Yorker, started growing bananas as a business sideline, alongside a railway line he was building in Costa Rica. Both ventures took off, and by 1890 he was married to the daughter of a former president of Costa Rica and owned vast banana plantations on land given to him by the state. The bananas were shipped to New Orleans and Boston, where demand soon began to outstrip supply.Keith teamed up with Andrew Preston, a Boston importer, and in 1899 they formed United Fruit. Bananas sold well for their tropical cachet: they were exotic, a luxury only affordable to the rich. But the rapidly rising output of United Fruit's plantations brought down prices. The company created a mass market in the industrial cities of the US north-east and Midwest. The once bourgeois banana became positively proletarian.   By the 1920s, United Fruit's empire had spread across Central America. It also included Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In South America the company owned chunks of Colombia and Ecuador. It came to dominate the European as well as the US banana markets with the help of its Great White Fleet of 100 refrigerated ships, the largest private navy in the world.   There are more than 300 varieties of banana, but United Fruit grew only one: the Gros Michel or ”Big Mike”. This variety suited most tastes; it was not too big or too small, too yellow or too sweet - if anything, it was a little bland. This was the forerunner of the transnational products we have today.           But mass production took its toll. In 1903, disease hit United Fruit's plantations in Panama. An array of pathogens kept up the attack, and the banana was discovered to have a genetic weakness. Its seeds are ill equipped for reproduction, so growers take cuttings from one plant to create another. The banana is a clone, with each inbred generation less resilient.    Although the banana was diseased, United Fruit marketed it as a product that exemplified good health. Banana diseases did not affect humans, and the fruit was said to be the cure for many ills: obesity, blood pressure, constipation - even depression. In 1929, United Fruit set up its own ”education department”, which supplied US schools with teaching kits extolling the benefits of the banana and the good works of the company. Meanwhile, United Fruit's ”home economics” department showered housewives with banana recipes.   One of United Fruit's most successful advertising campaigns began in 1944, designed to boost the banana's profile after its scarcity during the war. It featured Senorita Chiquita Banana, a cartoon banana who danced and sang in an exuberant Latin style. Senorita Chiquita bore a close resemblance to Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian entertainer who, in her ”tutti-frutti” hat, wowed Hollywood at the time. Sales soon regained prewar levels.   By the 1960s, the banana had become an inseparable accompaniment to the morning cereal of most American children. And today, in countries such as the US and Britain, it has ousted the apple as the most popular fruit. In the UK, figures indicate that more than 95 per cent of households buy bananas each week, and that more money is spent on them than on any other supermarket item, apart from petrol and lottery tickets.    Soooo sounds like a pretty typical big business rise to power by providing a wholesome treat to the people right? Wrong… There was more going on than almost everybody knew.    Over the years, United Fruit fought hard for low taxes and light regulation. By the beginning of the 20th century, troublesome anti-trust laws had been passed in the US to crack down on business behaviour such as price-fixing and other monopolistic practices. Taxes on large corporations were increased to fund welfare benefits in the US and fully fledged welfare states in Europe. But, with a centre of operations far from the lawmakers of Washington DC, United Fruit largely avoided all this.   The company also gained a reputation as being ruthless when crossed, and acted to remove governments that did not comply with its wishes. United Fruit had first shown its tough nature in the invasion of Honduras in 1911, which was planned by Sam ”The Banana Man” Zemurray, a business partner of United Fruit who later headed the company. Efforts by Zemurray and United Fruit to set up production in Honduras had been blocked by the Honduran government, which was fearful of the power it might wield. United Fruit was not so easily deterred. Zemurray financed an invasion, led by such enterprising types as ”General” (self-appointed) Lee Christmas and freelance trouble-shooter Guy ”Machine Gun” Molony. Thanks to United Fruit, many more exercises in ”regime change” were carried out in the name of the banana.   In 1941, the company hired a new consultant, Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, who had adapted the early disciplines of psychoanalysis to the marketplace. Bernays is known as the ”father of public relations” following his seminal 1928 book, Propaganda, in which he argued that it was the duty of the ”intelligent minority” of society to manipulate the unthinking ”group mind”. This, Bernays asserted, was for the sake of freedom and democracy.   United Fruit had become concerned about its image. In Central America, it was commonly known as el pulpo (the octopus) - its tentacles everywhere. In the US, United Fruit's territories were seen as troubled and forbidding. Under Bernays' guidance, the company began issuing a steady flow of information to the media about its work, rebranding the region as ”Middle America”.   America”.   In 1954, Bernays exercised his manipulative powers to get rid of the Guatemalan government. Democratically elected, it had taken some of United Fruit's large areas of unused land to give to peasant farmers. Bernays' response was to call newspaper contacts who might be amenable to the company view. Journalists were sent on ”fact finding” missions to Central America and, in particular, Guatemala, where they chased false stories of gunfire and bombs. In dispatches home, Guatemala became a place gripped by ”communist terror”.   The company looked, too, to friends in high places, both in the corridors of power and in the offices where the big decisions were made. During the Guatemalan crisis, John Foster Dulles, one of the world's most esteemed statesmen, was secretary of state. His brother, Allen Dulles, was head of the CIA. Both were former legal advisers to United Fruit. Together, the Dulles brothers orchestrated the coup that overthrew Guatemala's government in 1954.   Despite its ugly reputation, United Fruit often made philanthropic gestures.  Eli Black, chief executive of the United Fruit Company, played a part in coining the term ”corporate social responsibility” when, in reference to earthquake relief sent to Nicaragua in 1972, he extolled the company's deeds as ”our social responsibility”.  And in the 1930s, Sam Zemurray donated part of his fortune to a children's clinic in New Orleans. He later gave $1m to the city's Tulane University to finance ”Middle American'' research; he also funded a Harvard professorship for women. Philanthropy, however, did not prevent United Fruit's abuses, and, in the 1950s, the US government decided it had to act. The company's activities had caused such anti-US feeling in Latin America that leftwing revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had prospered. And so Washington began to take away some of United Fruit's land.   Ironically, Castro had benefited from the presence of United Fruit in Cuba. His father, a sugar planter, leased land from the company, and had made enough money to afford a good upbringing for his children. Guevara had fought both United Fruit and the CIA during the Guatemalan coup; he maintained thereafter that Latin America had no choice but ”armed struggle”. At New Year 1959, Castro and Guevara seized power in Cuba and kicked out the US-supported regime of Fulgencio Batista.   Like an ailing dictator, United Fruit lashed out - and nearly took the world with it. In 1961, it lent part of its Great White Fleet to the CIA and Cuban exiles in the US who were plotting to overthrow Castro. When the Bay of Pigs invasion failed, Castro, fearing another attack, ushered in armaments from the Soviet Union, prompting the missile crisis of 1962.   United Fruit battled on through the 1960s, its product ever more the victim of disease. Big Mike flagged, died and gave way to the dessert banana most of the developed world eats today, the Cavendish. It was said to be ”disease resistant”. Now that's dying, too.   Eli Black took over the company in 1970, imagining he could turn it back into the colossus it once was. The early 1970s, however, were a terrible period for the image of multinational corporations. Chief among them, oil companies made huge profits from the crisis after the 1973 Middle East war, to the inflationary ruin of rich and poor countries alike. United Fruit became an embarrassment. It was weak where others, such as the oil moguls, remained strong. When its stock market value crashed and regulators moved in, it looked like natural selection.   Early on Monday February 3 1975, a man threw himself out of his office window, 44 floors above Park Avenue, New York. He had used his briefcase to smash the window, and then thrown it out before he leapt, scattering papers for blocks around. Glass fell on to the rush-hour traffic, but amazingly no one else was hurt. The body landed away from the road, near a postal service office. Postmen helped emergency workers clear up the mess so the day's business could carry on.    This jumper was quickly identified as Eli Black, chief executive of the United Fruit Company.   It emerged that Black, a devout family man, had bribed the Honduran president, Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, with $1.25m to encourage him to pull out of a banana cartel which opposed United Fruit. The story was about to come out in the US press. United Fruit's Central American plantations were also struggling with hurricane damage and a new banana disease. Facing disgrace and failure, Black took his own life. His death was shocking, not least because he had the reputation of a highly moral man. Wall Street was outraged, the company's shares crashed and regulators seized its books to prevent ”its further violation of the law”. The company subsequently disappeared from public view and was seemingly erased from the collective mind.   After the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, in a born-again spirit of globalisation, the world's main banana companies picked up the free-market banner once carried by United Fruit. The companies - Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole from the US, and Noboa from Ecuador - did not have anything like the force of United Fruit individually, but they were still a formidable presence. Together they were known to their critics, if not to themselves, as the ”Wild Bunch”.   In the 1990s, the US took its case to the World Trade Organisation, the new high court of globalisation. The companies protested that west European countries unfairly protected the producers of so-called ”Fairtrade” bananas in former European colonies through a complex system of quotas and licences. The Wild Bunch characterised this as revamped colonialism and outmoded welfare state-ism and, instead, promoted their own ”Free Trade” bananas.   In the new millennium, after what had become a general trade war, the Europeans backed down and agreed to concessions. They did so with some rancour, protesting that Washington had again allowed itself to be manipulated by narrow interests. Some spoke of a return of the ”old and dark forces”. They were thinking of United Fruit.   Ok so that's kind of a basic history of United Fruit company to get us going in the right direction to talk about one of the most brutal things they carried out on their workers. You've seen the connection they had and the power they had.. Pretty nuts for a fucking banana company.    On the evening of October 5, 1928, the delegates for Colombia's banana workers in Magdalena gathered to discuss their grievances. Among their concerns were their long hours and low pay; one worker, Aristides López Rojano, remembered: “We worked from six in the morning until eleven and then from one in the afternoon until six.... The contractor paid the salary and reserved up to thirty percent for himself.” Erasmo Coronel (the one wearing the bowtie in the group portrait) spoke in favor of a strike, and the others agreed. At around five in the morning on October 6, 1928, the workers issued the United Fruit Company a list of nine demands.   Stop their practice of hiring through sub-contractors   Mandatory collective insurance   Compensation for work accidents   Hygienic dormitories and 6 day work weeks   Increase in daily pay for workers who earned less than 100 pesos per month   Weekly wage   Abolition of office stores   Abolition of payment through coupons rather than money   Improvement of hospital services   The strike turned into the largest labor movement ever witnessed in the country until then. Radical members of the Liberal Party, as well as members of the Socialist and Communist Parties, participated.   The workers wanted to be recognized as employees, and demanded the implementation of the Colombian legal framework of the 1920s.   After U.S. officials in Colombia and United Fruit representatives portrayed the workers' strike as "communist" with a "subversive tendency" in telegrams to Frank B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State, the United States government threatened to invade with the U.S. Marine Corps if the Colombian government did not act to protect United Fruit's interests. The Colombian government was also compelled to work for the interests of the company, considering they could cut off trade of Colombian bananas with significant markets such as the United States and Europe.   As there was no agreement the Government militarized the zone. The newspaper "La Prensa" published the following:   "MORE TROOPS FOR THE BANANERA REGION. We have been informed that the leaving of the Commissioner sent by the Industry Ministry due to the existing conflict between the workers and the company has turned the situation critical. For this reason, the War Ministry ordered the concentration of more troops in Ciénaga. Therefore, yesterday night, a numerous contingent was dispatched from here on a special ship"   By the end of November the Magdalena Agriculture Society tried to find a solution to the situation. They named a Commission and along with the Chief of the Work Office and the workers' delegates would have a meeting with the UFC since the conflict was affecting everyone's interests. The multinational rejected meeting the Commission stating that the workers were out of the law. The representatives of the workers left for Ciénaga with the aim of convincing their fellow workers to abandon the region. They also demanded the arbitration as a last legal resort.   Social Party (PSR) founded in 1927 in Bogotá. The strike was also supported by the national and departmental union leaders ascribed to the Magdalena Workers Federation, the Magdalena Worker Union and the General Union of Workers of the Union Society (popularly known as the Yellow Union which integrated railway, port and construction workers of Santa Marta).   The first week of December everything was at a standstill, without a solution. The company hired a steamboat and brought 200 military men and took over the town hall without the mayor's authorization. To this respect the Ciénaga newspaper "Diario del Córdoba" noted:   "We do not know who ordered changing the town house into a campsite of troops, but we are certain that the municipality spokesman was not consulted for this illegal occupation. He would have certainly opposed it since there was no alteration of public order according to the norms in force. We see that the procedures here are "manu militari", without any consideration under the obvious alarm of these peoples, panic in society and business."   Military roadblocks were displayed. Trains were searched and the army prevented strikers from using them33. Tension increased and temporary workers started to return to their hometowns. Military pressure blocked the communication systems and the mail, telephones, telegraph and even the press stopped working. The strikers seized the train from Ciénaga to the plantations and they prevented its exit during the day.   On December 3rd, the press was conscious of the extreme situation: The situation of the Banana Strike is worse than ever. Especially because of the uneasiness caused by the Governor's Office for having called the Army. Any kind of meeting was banned, as it was assumed that they questioned the state legitimacy and stability and the government decisions. This measure outraged workers, because some detentions took place in Ciénaga and they were justified by the police since some documents of an apparently communist campaign were confiscated.   From this moment on, American Diplomats started to worry for the security of the American employees up to the point that the Government of the United States sent a ship to Santa Marta for the protection of their citizens as was stated by the US ambassador in Bogotá. He made clear that it was not a war cruise. Anyhow, it was possible to confirm that in the ports of Ciénaga and Santa Marta war ships docked with the aim of reinforcing troops.    To break the strike, on December 2nd, a military contingent of 300 men arrived in Ciénaga from the interior of the country. The major of the zone considered that these soldiers would be better at facing the situation than those native of the region. At the same time that same day some municipalities protested against the disposition of the governor's office. The workers exodus continued, the general situation of commerce aggravated, many commercial houses closed and some of them stopped paying their debts alleging the scarce security conditions and low sales. Similarly occurred with the stores of the UFC which closed due to lack of business activity. There was a total lack of supplies of basic products in the banana zone.   With the excuse that in Ciénaga the strikers were committing all kinds of outrages, the army seized the train to mobilize troops to the different towns, preventing normal circulation; this information proved false and the train returned to Cienaga during the first hours of the next day. The community remained isolated and without the possibility to use the train as a transportation means. The train was used by the militaries for the surveillance of plantations.   A State of Siege declaration was expected and this increased tension among strikers who organized collective bodies in different locations to prevent the work of producers. Detentions continued. The train detention by the military and the impossibility to take bananas out due to the positions of the strikers and small landowners, the harvested fruit began to rot.   The Workers Union used the newspaper Vanguardia Obrera and other pasquinades to inform about their position and to keep public opinion updated. On December 5th, alleging that the strikers had managed to get weapons, the government decreed the State of Siege. This was not made public to the workers and for this reason they became more exacerbated.   A pressure mechanism used to obtain the support of merchants was the fact of creating solidarity to boycott the public market stores and other commercial firms if the transaction was not authorized by the Workers Union. This way, merchants could not sell if they did not have the "permission". To accomplish this policy the union had 5.000 workers acting as vigilantes. This situation led the UFC to ask the government if the State was in condition to protect its interests. The State response was dubious. In its effort to reach an equilibrium between the pressure of the company and that of the workers, it submitted a communication where it stated that it would analyse the situation and would take the corresponding steps.   The workers' unrest for not feeling the State support led them to radicalization of their protest and since that moment, seizures of banana farms took place in different municipalities. There were confrontations between land owners, the military and the workers. It is worth mentioning the events in Sevilla, where workers detained a group of soldiers.   As the tension increased with this last event the Ministry Council declared general alteration of public order on December 5th, and gave special faculties to Minister Arrazola to act as a mediator between the parties and positioned General Cortés Vargas as Civil and Military Chief. This intervention was justified by the economic losses of the socio-economic and political system of the nation because it had been estimated that up to that moment the losses exceeded one million dollars and given the fact that the fierce position of the workers had stopped communications and transportations and even there had been seizures in several localities and there was fear concerning the situation of Santa Marta.   The government sent information to the United Press as follows: "The government has decreed the State of Siege in the Province of Santa Marta where the workers of the United Fruit Company maintain a strike lasting several days. General Carlos Cortés Vargas has been appointed Civil and Military Chief". On the other hand, the national press and especially that of the capital announced: " there has never been a longer and more numerous strike in the country than this of the workers of Magdalena. Thirty-two thousand workers have been in total inactivity for more than thirty days in the banana region, there are no signs that this situation will have a favourable solution"   Events reached their peak in Ciénaga. The workers had concentrated for a pacific demonstration in the evening of the 5th of December. The Governor Nuñez Roca decreed the dispersion of the demonstration. The workers did not receive this well; they declared that authorities had taken this decision with the support of the UFC and the militaries without the presence of workers' representatives. This made clear to them that authorities were defending the interests of the Company and the local "bananacracy"and not theirs as Colombian workers. The concentration ended in a protest.   The militaries obeyed the orders of the Governor and it was authorized to follow orders and demand the workers to dissolve the demonstration as it was not authorized.   The text was read in the square and at the same time the troop took positions. There were approximately 1.500 strikers in the square.   The army gave the strikers 15 minutes to disperse and the workers' answer was a the massive agitation of the Colombian flags and shouts related to the workers movement. The army responded with drumbeats and the menace to repel the strikers. Three bugle warnings were given, but nevertheless the strikers remained in their positions. A deep silence reigned in the square and the menace of the army became an unfortunate reality when the shout "Shoot" was uttered. Rifles and machine guns were discharged against the defenceless and unarmed demonstrators. In minutes the ground of the square was tinted with blood.   Once the attack of the army against their own fellow citizens ended, the sight was dantesque. The cadavers, the wounded and their relatives were troubling scenes. These events took place at the dawn of December 6th: a brutal aggression against a workers' demonstration.   The news invaded the media and the first chronicles appeared with living information about the tragic balance of the events. The first report on the newspaper "La Prensa" from Barranquilla informed of 8 people killed and 20 wounded. After a week, the same newspaper mentioned 100 dead and 238 wounded. Meanwhile official sources and diplomatic communications signalled the number of people killed as being 1.000. This number, and along with other kind of testimonies collected, agree that the number of killings was over a thousand and that the militaries loaded the trains with the corpses and buried them in mass graves in inaccessible areas and up to the present times they have not been localized.   This repression caused a massive exodus of the terrified population. They abandoned the zone and migrated to different parts of the country for fear of military persecution and arrestment. Many of them left their scarce possessions behind.   National and international media widely covered this event. Both the UFC and the government tried to manipulate the information to protect their image. The press echoed and broadcasted the sometimes biased news, informing about "combats" between the army troops and the "revolutionaries" and that as a result of these combats, 8 "bandits" were killed and 20 were wounded. The War Ministry insisted that "in Magdalena there was no strike, but a revolution".   Other newspapers such as "La Prensa" from Barranquilla, issued their edition of December 8th in red characters as a reference to this event that brought mourning to the entire country and as a symbolic commemorative act.   Referring to a communication sent to the United Press, the War Ministry informed officially that in the attack of the strikers against the troops there had been 8 dead and 20 wounded and that in order to control the revolutionary outbreaks against state order, the immediate mobilization of more troops had been ordered. They would arrive from cities of the interior of the country. It also emphasised the position of the government that the workers' situation in Magdalena was delicate and that vigorous decisions had to be taken in order to solve this issue. It also informed that beside Ciénaga, other localities had to be intervened.   The Times from New York informed in a biased and extended way that the turmoil in the Colombian Banana Region was provoked by Mexican incendiaries, who had led the process of the Mexican Revolution, two decades earlier. It also gave details about the aspects of the banana strike that were consequences of the expiration of the Barco Concession .   At the same time the UFC issued a press communication to the New York agencies and the worldwide correspondents declaring: "the difficult situation experienced during the past days in the Colombian banana region, where the company has valuable interests, has quite improved in the last 24 hours and the dispatches sent from the scene, give rise to expectations for a prompt solution of the conflict surged between the workers and the company which ended in an extended strike of revolutionary nature".   While the American press provided biased information, trying to defend the multinational interests and that of their government, the national press analysed the situation with greater objectivity. The daily newspaper "El Tiempo" from Bogotá commented in an extended note that most of the claims of the strikers were righteous improvement of working conditions. Nevertheless, due to its conservative position, the editorial stated that they did not agree with the strike since they considered that the workers had a bad leadership and they made the leaders responsible for what had happened. They reminded the authorities that force is not the supreme reason as the only system to solve a conflict since violence is not a valid option to impose certain vindications.   In response to these events and as a protest for the massacre, several offices of the United Fruit and the railway were set on fire and destroyed. The hard situation caused by the army repression and the lack of jobs led to the assault of the company's stores where people seized food.    "It is not about fixing anyhow a difficult situation, it is about avoiding more critical events in the immediate future. Therefore we need a wise, prudent, political Colombian, who does not forget the circumstances regarding the conflict. Someone who does not forget how the United Fruit Company manipulates the political and civil life of Magdalena and who does not think it indispensable to send troops for hunting workers as animals. Someone who will not be hard and inflexible with them and subordinated and honey mouthed with the company agents"   After the massacre, the workers who managed to escape emigrated to other areas of the region and new versions of the events started to become public. It was the version of the defeated. This version informed the public opinion about the concentration in the Ciénaga square and not in farms as had been informed by authorities to justify the fact of not being able to notify the exact number of deaths.   On December 10th after a convulsed weekend, the headings announced "the revolutionaries' flee in stampede to the Sierra Nevada," "government troops completely defeated the strikers "; the War Minister informs that there were more deaths during the last combats". In general, the press informed about a revolutionary movement which confronted the military forces and that the army was responding with rigor, but that there had not been any excess on their part. The banana zone was returning to normal, as well as the train service between Ciénaga and Santa Marta and the steam boat service between Ciénaga and Barranquilla. They also informed that since public order had been reestablished, businesses had already opened and that the exodus of the population had ended.   General Cortés Vargas issued a decree through which the revolutionaries of Magdalena were declared a gang of outlaws. The decree consisted of three articles and in one section, as a justification, it was stated that the rebel strikers committed all kinds of outrages: arson in public and private property, pillage, interruption of telegraphic and telephonic communications, destruction of railways, assault of citizens who did not agree with their communist and anarchist doctrine. This was the justification for decreeing martial law to give security to citizens and to re-establish public order. On the other hand the workers' leaders and accessories should be prosecuted to face their responsibilities. And to finish, the public force was authorized to use their guns.   At the same time troops were sent to avoid the surviving strikers' flee to the Sierra Nevada and the Departament of Atlántico. To accomplish this all the towns neighbouring the banana zone were alerted. Numerous detentions occurred and the prisoners were sent to Ciénaga to be judged by a Martial Court.   Wow…. Fucking bananas caused all this shit… Well obviously not than JUST bananas but holy shit man.    So the crazy thing is United Fruit company continued to operate did so long after this incident until eventually after the the suicide of Eli Black things unraveled and the company went away. Or did it? Well it did not. In fact the company is now still a huge banana company called… Chiquita! But at least all that bullshit is on the past… Oh wait wait… No it's not!    While Chiquita is not actively massacring people, in 2007, it admitted to paying $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (A.U.C.), a far-right paramilitary group responsible for thousands of killings and some of the worst massacres in Colombia. The A.U.C. was designated by the United States as a terrorist group at the time and Chiquita was forced to pay $25 million for violating counterterrorism laws. In particular, the A.U.C. targeted labor leaders, liquidated problem employees, and removed people from lands needed for cultivation.   “They are so bad that in 2001, even the Bush administration was forced to designate them as a terrorist organization,” said Terry Collingsworth, a Labor and Human Rights Attorney. He proceeds to say that multinational corporations had automatically aligned with the A.U.C. “They've made it safe for business here. That's what they do.” Collingsworth states, from his and his associates' reporting, that Chiquita likely paid much more than $1.7 million to the A.U.C.   Over much of the 20th century, banana companies like United Fruit effectively took over governments in countries like Guatemala and Honduras, leading to the countries' model being known as “banana republics”. A banana republic would describe politically unstable countries economically dependent on bananas as a sole export and product, and it has been diversified to include other limited-resource products. The CIA would strong-arm these governments to protect the business interests of banana companies at the expense of workers and people who lived in those countries, often propping up repressive regimes. With a historic priority of keeping the costs of bananas low, banana companies were willing to do whatever it took to keep prices low, from stifling labor movements, keeping wages low, and strong-arming governments. The United Fruit Company did it then, and Chiquita Brands does it now.   In 1999, President Clinton apologized to Guatemala, saying that “support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake.” Movies:   Horror movies about killer food   https://screenrant.com/funniest-horror-b-movies-murderous-food/

Rumors about a “Ghostbusters” sequel have persisted ever since “Ghostbuster II” was released in 1989 including a version penned by Dan Aykroyd that involved the original team traveling to an alternate hellish landscape where the boys in grey would literally battle with the devil. Numerous other versions took shape over the years but each one seemed to stall out after original cast member Bill Murray stated that he just wasn't that interested in coming back for another sequel. The death of Harold Ramis in 2014 also dampened interest in another “Ghostbusters” movie because he had been so instrumental in the first two films both behind and in front of the camera. But then out of nowhere, Jason Reitman — son of original “Ghostbusters” director Ivan Reitman — announced in early 2019 that he was going to direct a new sequel that would carry on the legacy of the original story while also paying homage to the past. While new faces were added to the film, a huge hurdle was cleared when almost all of the original cast members agreed to return after reading the script, which Aykroyd called “beautiful” and “heartfelt” that also “takes the DNA from the first two movies and transfers that directly to the third.” In the latest episode of Rewind of the Living Dead, we're going to repair the Ecto-1 and make an emergency call to Ray's Occult as we review the 2021 sequel “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”…

Brian O'Donovan, Washington Correspondent, reports that a number of people have been left dead after a vehicle ploughed into a Christmas parade in Wisconsin in the United States.

Jo Shimoda talks about new goals for 2022. A Ray is loving his Honda and full of laughs. Doc Smith in studio. Numerous giveaways this week

I feel like my guest today is a bit of a kindred spirit of sorts. Numerous times during our conversation, I thought of many examples from my own life of several of the topics we discussed. We see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, not the least of which is many of us are caught […] The post 397: Thursday is the New Friday with Author Joe Sanok first appeared on Read to Lead Podcast.

  People Group Details:  https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/16589 Listen to "A Third of Us" podcast with Greg Kelley, produced by the Alliance for the Unreached: https://alliancefortheunreached.org/podcast/ Watch "Stories of Courageous Christians" w/ Mark Kordic https://storiesofcourageouschristians.com/stories-of-courageous-christians  

On this date in 1926, the second annual corn show began in the Bismarck auditorium. The show had been the cause of much excitement for the past few months. Numerous advertisements in the papers had touted the event's entertainment, speakers, and vendors. There was hope that most, if not all, of the 53 ND counties would be represented at the show, fully displaying their support for the event.

On the latest edition of the DNVR Broncos Podcast, Zac Stevens, Ryan Koenigsberg and Andrew Mason are coming to you to break down all of the latest news in Broncos Country. The guys discuss how the Broncos will replace all of their inured players, talk about how important Sunday's game against the Eagles is, answer listener questions and much more.

Drinking establishments up and down the West Coast have been forced into crisis management mode over the last week, after beer kegs labelled as "Monteith's Original" have been pouring a mystery pale, fruity beer instead. Numerous pubs and clubs found themselves serving unhappy patrons with the unknown brew, rather than the popular brown Greymouth draught. Greymouth's Runanga Club pub president Tammie Sandrey spoke to Guyon Espiner.

Also in the news: opening arguments got underway today in Kenosha after the jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial were sworn in; Mayor Lori Lightfoot is betting that plans for a Chicago Casino could go the distance this time around; the Chicago Department of Public Health has removed South Carolina, Texas, and the Virgin Islands from its weekly COVID-19 Travel Advisory; the FBI is now investigating a West Side hospital's vaccination program; and much more.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A.M. Edition for Nov. 2. Numerous elections get under way in the U.S. today. But one vote is seen as a national bellwether for how midterms will pan out - the race for governor in Virginia. WSJ's Aaron Zitner lays out the issues at stake and what the two candidates stand for. Peter Granitz hosts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark Zuckerberg is changing Facebook into Meta. A complete digital universe eerily similar to the "Oasis" in the movie Ready Player One. The moment where reality and virtual reality meet is upon us. The AKA's are up in arms over the usage of their logo in a recent Insecure episode. We here at the PPP Jawn have an honest conversation about Frororities, term we coin live this episode lol. Numerous rappers and/or their entourage have been arrested this week for drug trafficking and other major crimes. @UpTownTone shares his theory. Phila police lied BIG TIME about an sexual assault incident that happened last week. In Covid Chronicles...the vaccine has mint 9 new billionaires, Dr. Fauci with the flip flop and we continue the never ending discussion of WTF IS FULLY VACCINATED??? Lets get into it.

Enjoy the conversation between Konnan and Vickie as they speak about their 30+ years of friendship. Konnan talks about one of a kind stories about spending years with Eddie and working together in numerous promotions. We speak of the history of the AAA Tag Team Championships and the future plans of FTR touring in Mexico. Konnan speaks the truth about the etiquette of professional wrestling, how the younger generation is at fault for feeling entitled, and the reason why his promotion is limited on talent. There is no sugar topped on this interview...Konnan speaks the truth and doesn't put up with bullshit. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/excusemevickie/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/excusemevickie/support

WBZ's Chris Fama explains

Wisdom, Success and Personal Growth in Bitesized morsels - easy to digest. Kelly Orchard's Apple A Day is available in books too, with journal pages for you to write your thoughts. Click here to consider purchasing your copy or copies today! https://kellyorchard.com/apple-a-day-books/

Welcome to the Daily Message. Today Darren shares scripture from Zephaniah 3:9-13. Make sure to subscribe and listen every Monday-Friday for encouragement framed in the context of God's word.

The differences between men and women have been the subject of thorny debates for centuries. Still today, stories can be found in the media that vastly exaggerate these differences. Yet, much of modern research fails to support many of the gender-based stereotypes with which we are all familiar. Numerous studies have shown that the differences between men's and women's brains are far less profound than previously thought. If these differences are so slight, then do they really matter? And how do they impact women in the workplace?     Our guest on this episode of the ISG Digital Dish not only believes they matter, she believes they must be recognized and managed so women can thrive as leaders. Join host Jeanne Cuff as she talks to entrepreneur and executive coach Marsha Clark. Through her leadership and executive development programs, Clark has supported and empowered many women to achieve their full leadership potential. Listen in as Clark shares her insights about how women can bring their best, most authentic selves to the table. She also discusses her recently released book Embracing Your Power: A Woman's Path to Authentic Leadership and Meaningful Relationships. 

In Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020), musicologist David Pearson explores the changing landscape of punk in the United States in the 1990s. Pearson examines how the 1990s underground punk renaissance transformed the punk scene into a site of radical opposition to the American empire. Nazi skinheads were ejected from the punk scene; apathetic attitudes were challenged; women, Latino, and LGBTQ participants asserted their identities and perspectives within punk; the scene debated the virtues of maintaining DIY purity versus venturing into the musical mainstream; and punks participated in protest movements from animal rights to stopping the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal to shutting down the 1999 WTO meeting. Punk lyrics offered strident critiques of American empire, from its exploitation of the Third World to its warped social relations. Numerous subgenres of punk proliferated to deliver this critique, such as the blazing hardcore punk of bands like Los Crudos, propagandistic crust-punk/dis-core, grindcore, and power violence with tempos over 800 beats per minute, and So-Cal punk with its combination of melody and hardcore. Musical analysis of each of these styles and the expressive efficacy of numerous bands reveals that punk is not merely simplistic three-chord rock music, but a genre that is constantly revolutionizing itself in which nuances of guitar riffs, vocal timbres, drum beats, and song structures are deeply meaningful to its audience, as corroborated by the robust discourse in punk zines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020), musicologist David Pearson explores the changing landscape of punk in the United States in the 1990s. Pearson examines how the 1990s underground punk renaissance transformed the punk scene into a site of radical opposition to the American empire. Nazi skinheads were ejected from the punk scene; apathetic attitudes were challenged; women, Latino, and LGBTQ participants asserted their identities and perspectives within punk; the scene debated the virtues of maintaining DIY purity versus venturing into the musical mainstream; and punks participated in protest movements from animal rights to stopping the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal to shutting down the 1999 WTO meeting. Punk lyrics offered strident critiques of American empire, from its exploitation of the Third World to its warped social relations. Numerous subgenres of punk proliferated to deliver this critique, such as the blazing hardcore punk of bands like Los Crudos, propagandistic crust-punk/dis-core, grindcore, and power violence with tempos over 800 beats per minute, and So-Cal punk with its combination of melody and hardcore. Musical analysis of each of these styles and the expressive efficacy of numerous bands reveals that punk is not merely simplistic three-chord rock music, but a genre that is constantly revolutionizing itself in which nuances of guitar riffs, vocal timbres, drum beats, and song structures are deeply meaningful to its audience, as corroborated by the robust discourse in punk zines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020), musicologist David Pearson explores the changing landscape of punk in the United States in the 1990s. Pearson examines how the 1990s underground punk renaissance transformed the punk scene into a site of radical opposition to the American empire. Nazi skinheads were ejected from the punk scene; apathetic attitudes were challenged; women, Latino, and LGBTQ participants asserted their identities and perspectives within punk; the scene debated the virtues of maintaining DIY purity versus venturing into the musical mainstream; and punks participated in protest movements from animal rights to stopping the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal to shutting down the 1999 WTO meeting. Punk lyrics offered strident critiques of American empire, from its exploitation of the Third World to its warped social relations. Numerous subgenres of punk proliferated to deliver this critique, such as the blazing hardcore punk of bands like Los Crudos, propagandistic crust-punk/dis-core, grindcore, and power violence with tempos over 800 beats per minute, and So-Cal punk with its combination of melody and hardcore. Musical analysis of each of these styles and the expressive efficacy of numerous bands reveals that punk is not merely simplistic three-chord rock music, but a genre that is constantly revolutionizing itself in which nuances of guitar riffs, vocal timbres, drum beats, and song structures are deeply meaningful to its audience, as corroborated by the robust discourse in punk zines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020), musicologist David Pearson explores the changing landscape of punk in the United States in the 1990s. Pearson examines how the 1990s underground punk renaissance transformed the punk scene into a site of radical opposition to the American empire. Nazi skinheads were ejected from the punk scene; apathetic attitudes were challenged; women, Latino, and LGBTQ participants asserted their identities and perspectives within punk; the scene debated the virtues of maintaining DIY purity versus venturing into the musical mainstream; and punks participated in protest movements from animal rights to stopping the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal to shutting down the 1999 WTO meeting. Punk lyrics offered strident critiques of American empire, from its exploitation of the Third World to its warped social relations. Numerous subgenres of punk proliferated to deliver this critique, such as the blazing hardcore punk of bands like Los Crudos, propagandistic crust-punk/dis-core, grindcore, and power violence with tempos over 800 beats per minute, and So-Cal punk with its combination of melody and hardcore. Musical analysis of each of these styles and the expressive efficacy of numerous bands reveals that punk is not merely simplistic three-chord rock music, but a genre that is constantly revolutionizing itself in which nuances of guitar riffs, vocal timbres, drum beats, and song structures are deeply meaningful to its audience, as corroborated by the robust discourse in punk zines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

In Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020), musicologist David Pearson explores the changing landscape of punk in the United States in the 1990s. Pearson examines how the 1990s underground punk renaissance transformed the punk scene into a site of radical opposition to the American empire. Nazi skinheads were ejected from the punk scene; apathetic attitudes were challenged; women, Latino, and LGBTQ participants asserted their identities and perspectives within punk; the scene debated the virtues of maintaining DIY purity versus venturing into the musical mainstream; and punks participated in protest movements from animal rights to stopping the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal to shutting down the 1999 WTO meeting. Punk lyrics offered strident critiques of American empire, from its exploitation of the Third World to its warped social relations. Numerous subgenres of punk proliferated to deliver this critique, such as the blazing hardcore punk of bands like Los Crudos, propagandistic crust-punk/dis-core, grindcore, and power violence with tempos over 800 beats per minute, and So-Cal punk with its combination of melody and hardcore. Musical analysis of each of these styles and the expressive efficacy of numerous bands reveals that punk is not merely simplistic three-chord rock music, but a genre that is constantly revolutionizing itself in which nuances of guitar riffs, vocal timbres, drum beats, and song structures are deeply meaningful to its audience, as corroborated by the robust discourse in punk zines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

In Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020), musicologist David Pearson explores the changing landscape of punk in the United States in the 1990s. Pearson examines how the 1990s underground punk renaissance transformed the punk scene into a site of radical opposition to the American empire. Nazi skinheads were ejected from the punk scene; apathetic attitudes were challenged; women, Latino, and LGBTQ participants asserted their identities and perspectives within punk; the scene debated the virtues of maintaining DIY purity versus venturing into the musical mainstream; and punks participated in protest movements from animal rights to stopping the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal to shutting down the 1999 WTO meeting. Punk lyrics offered strident critiques of American empire, from its exploitation of the Third World to its warped social relations. Numerous subgenres of punk proliferated to deliver this critique, such as the blazing hardcore punk of bands like Los Crudos, propagandistic crust-punk/dis-core, grindcore, and power violence with tempos over 800 beats per minute, and So-Cal punk with its combination of melody and hardcore. Musical analysis of each of these styles and the expressive efficacy of numerous bands reveals that punk is not merely simplistic three-chord rock music, but a genre that is constantly revolutionizing itself in which nuances of guitar riffs, vocal timbres, drum beats, and song structures are deeply meaningful to its audience, as corroborated by the robust discourse in punk zines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Matt Williamson and Brian Peacock take you through ALL the action from the Week7 games Sunday. Are the Bengals behind young stars Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase ready to run the north? 49ers, Panthers and Chiefs in trouble. Numerous blowouts, some surprises, fantasy nuggets and MORE! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Storm Skiing Podcast is sponsored by Mountain Gazette - Listen to the podcast for discount codes on subscriptions and merch.WhoFrank DeBerry, President and CEO of Crystal Mountain, WashingtonRecorded onOctober 18, 2021Why I interviewed himBecause Crystal is one of the under-appreciated giants of North American skiing. It has more inbounds skiable terrain than Jackson Hole and gets more snow than any ski area in Colorado. It’s not overlooked nationally because it’s hidden. It’s owned by Alterra, is the Pacific Northwest star on the Ikon Pass, and is seated in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, just two hours from downtown Seattle. But Crystal lacks the substantial bed base that would promote it from ski area to ski resort, that would make someone from New York or LA line it up beside the Wasatch or Tahoe or the I-70 corridor as a vacation option. So it’s mostly a local. A damn big one, with lights-out skiing and a voracious skier base. Maybe too voracious, judging from the recent pow-day traffic jams dozens of miles long. This is a big mountain with big plans, and I wanted to talk to the conductor of all this madness to find out exactly where it was headed.What we talked aboutWorking at Mountain Creek when Intrawest bought the place and replaced the entire lift system in one summer; “it’s almost impossible to run Mountain Creek”; why Intrawest sold the mountain and others, including Whistler; West Virginia skiing and why you need to hit Snowshoe; Crystal’s “extraordinary” terrain and enormous snowfall; the culture shock of moving from the snow-starved East to the snow-choked West; why Mountain Creek and Crystal are “not that dissimilar”; avalanche mitigation; the “rabid” Pacific Northwest ski culture; why Crystal went from perennial hidden gem to one battling chronic overcrowding; whether the ski area could ever build up a larger bed base; the enormous challenge of Crystal’s endless two-lane, un-expandable access road; why Crystal was initially unlimited on the Ikon Base Pass and why that proved to be unsustainable; what happened to passholder numbers when Alterra moved unlimited Crystal access to the full Ikon Pass; why the mountain had to stop selling day tickets in early 2020; why you may want to ski holidays at Crystal; why Crystal is moving to paid parking and how that will fund a mass transit system from Enumclaw; the amazing number of parking spaces Crystal loses to snowbanks each season; operating buses amid Covid; what might replace the Rainier Express; the difference between out-of-base lift capacity and overall lift capacity; a bold proposal to move the current gondola and add another; potential expansion up Bullion Basin; why Crystal abandoned that terrain several decades ago; whether the second base area or the Kelly’s Gap high-speed quad proposed on the 2004 master plan could still happen; why we may see groomed terrain in Northway; whether Crystal would ever upgrade capacity on the Northway or Chair 6 doubles; why we’re unlikely to see a chair up Silver King; which terrain could be included in a night-skiing expansion and what it would take to make it happen; and the tradition of the long season at Crystal and why that’s in no danger of ending.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interview“Crystal Mountain Resort is the sleeping giant of the Northwest.” – Peak Ski Guide & Travel Planner, 1994“Outside of Seattle, Crystal Mountain remains largely unknown. Too bad, because Crystal is 2,300 acres and 3,100 vertical feet of romping grounds.” – Skiing, October 1995“The region gets little press, is ridden almost exclusively by locals, and received biblical precipitation. … One of my guides claims it takes a few days to tear up Crystal after a big dump.” – Skiing, October 1999Welp, things have changed. The 1990s version of Crystal was, according to Lift Blog, a time machine owned by a ski cooperative. Boyne bought the joint, fixed it up, and, after a brief stint as an indie, Crystal ended up in Alterra’s quiver. So: a modern ski area, on the Ikon Pass, in the shadow of an increasingly affluent metro Seattle population that has exploded from around 2.5 million to nearly 4 million in the past 25 years, 100 percent of whom access the ski area via an endless two-laner.It’s quite a mess. This offseason, Crystal made two huge moves to address the chronic overcrowding that’s now as predictable as the mountain’s monster snowstorms: significantly reduce Ikon Base Pass access and implement a paid parking program. These short-term moves are the first steps in an evolving master plan that should address parking shortages, increase out-of-base lift capacity, and improve the overall ski experience. Crystal has huge plans, especially around its lift fleet, and I wanted to give frustrated skiers a window into how their current ski-day woes may eventually subside.Questions I wish I’d askedIn August, I rode the Crystal gondola to the summit with my family. Base area signs warned of limited visibility, but we had driven all the way out there already and I like riding lifts anyway and so up we went. Wildfire smoke, everywhere erasing the horizon. Rainier, normally looming epochally over the ski area’s summit, was invisible. With Sierra-at-Tahoe facing a limited season after extensive wildfire damage and Heavenly and Kirkwood facing down fire threats, the ski industry is reckoning with climate change as an all-seasons threat. I would have loved to have gotten DeBerry’s take on what this means, both for Crystal and for the industry at large.Why you should ski CrystalI mean, well, just look at the place:When ski writers talk about a “skier’s mountain,” this is what they mean. Vast dominions of raging terrain dumping thousands of feet off the summit. Very little grooming. Buckets of snow. This is trailblazing skiing – pick your own route, any route, do your best not to die. And why not? They don’t have 5,000 tourists at the base area to keep happy. Let the other mountains string traverses across the fall line to zigzag green circle boulevards from the summit. Crystal is a mega-mountain that still feels primarily like a ski area for skiers. It’s a must-hit.Just go, you know, on a weekday.Additional reading/videosLift Blog’s inventory of Crystal Mountain liftsArchival Crystal trailmapsDeBerry refers to “John” frequently throughout our interview. He’s referencing John Kircher, former owner of Crystal Mountain and brother of Boyne Resorts CEO Stephen Kircher. Here’s a really good overview of why he sold the mountain to Alterra shortly after Vail bought Stevens.More on the great powder-day fiasco of 2020 that forced huge changes in how Crystal manages skiers and traffic.Gregory Scruggs wrote an outstanding compare-and-contrast of the trajectories of Crystal under Alterra and Stevens Pass under Vail:The two biggest rival corporations in ski resort management staked their claims in Washington state in 2018 by purchasing two of the Central Cascades’ most beloved ski areas.Vail Resorts, based in Broomfield, Colorado, bought Stevens Pass, the lovably crusty ski area on one of the continent’s snowiest mountain passes reachable by road; meanwhile, Denver-based Alterra Mountain Company snapped up Crystal Mountain, a resort founded by Seattle ski bums at the edge of Mount Rainier National Park.…Numerous interviews with season pass holders from both resorts show that Crystal Mountain provided customers with a premier experience amid tough pandemic conditions — though this comes at a premier price. Meanwhile, Stevens Pass slashed the price of its Epic Pass last month in an attempt to make skiing more affordable after a season in which its operational struggles frustrated many longtime pass holders. Get on the email list at www.stormskiing.com

John Baird built his career working with top leaders at companies ranging from early-stage start-ups to Fortune 500 firms like Apple, Nike, and Twitter. John is currently the Senior Partner and Board Chair at Velocity, where he coaches companies at various stages of growth, including Google, Doordash, and many others. John shares how businesses today can avoid a chronic problem among founders and executives: the decision-making death spiral. Numerous executives are not scaling the decision-making process in their companies, and are consequently disenfranchising their director and VP level employees. Listen to find out why the best companies have learned that trust is the currency that drives growth. Whether you're a seasoned designer or a total novice, with Visme, you can create engaging, dynamic branded content that makes people ask, “How did you do that?!” Visit https://tinyurl.com/seizevisme to explore. If you are a small business owner or salesperson who struggles with getting the sales results you are looking for, get your copy of Succeed Without Selling today. If you haven't seen all Audible.com has to offer, you don't know what you're missing. Sign up for a free trial at audibletrial.com/businessgrowth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Numerous companies across the country are requiring employees to be vaccinated or risk losing their job in almost every sector. Instead of debating vaccine mandates, Greg and Kristin focus on what you and/or a loved one need to focus on if you're in this situation when it comes to your workplace retirement accounts.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870 (UP of Mississippi, 2021) enters deep into an era of comic history that has been entirely neglected. This buried cache of mid-Victorian graphic humor is marvelously rich in pictorial narratives of all kinds. Author David Kunzle calls this period a "rebirth" because of the preceding long hiatus in use of the new genre, since the Great Age of Caricature (c.1780-c.1820) when the comic strip was practiced as a sideline. Suddenly in 1847, a new, post-Töpffer comic strip sparks to life in Britain, mostly in periodicals, and especially in Punch, where all the best artists of the period participated, if only sporadically: Richard Doyle, John Tenniel, John Leech, Charles Keene, and George Du Maurier. Until now, this aspect of the extensive oeuvre of the well-known masters of the new journal cartoon in Punch has been almost completely ignored. Exceptionally, George Cruikshank revived just once in The Bottle, independently, the whole serious, contrasting Hogarthian picture story. Numerous comic strips and picture stories appeared in periodicals other than Punch by artists who were likewise largely ignored. Like the Punch luminaries, they adopt in semirealistic style sociopolitical subject matter easily accessible to their (lower-)middle-class readership. The topics covered in and out of Punch by these strips and graphic novels range from French enemies King Louis-Philippe and Emperor Napoleon III to farcical treatment of major historical events: the Bayeux tapestry (1848), the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Artists explore a great variety of social types, occupations, and situations such as the emigrant, the tourist, fox hunting and Indian big game hunting, dueling, the forlorn lover, the student, the artist, the toothache, the burglar, the paramilitary volunteer, Darwinian animal metamorphoses, and even nightmares. In Rebirth of the English Comic Strip, Kunzle analyzes these much-neglected works down to the precocious modernist and absurdist scribbles of Marie Duval, Europe's first female professional cartoonist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870 (UP of Mississippi, 2021) enters deep into an era of comic history that has been entirely neglected. This buried cache of mid-Victorian graphic humor is marvelously rich in pictorial narratives of all kinds. Author David Kunzle calls this period a "rebirth" because of the preceding long hiatus in use of the new genre, since the Great Age of Caricature (c.1780-c.1820) when the comic strip was practiced as a sideline. Suddenly in 1847, a new, post-Töpffer comic strip sparks to life in Britain, mostly in periodicals, and especially in Punch, where all the best artists of the period participated, if only sporadically: Richard Doyle, John Tenniel, John Leech, Charles Keene, and George Du Maurier. Until now, this aspect of the extensive oeuvre of the well-known masters of the new journal cartoon in Punch has been almost completely ignored. Exceptionally, George Cruikshank revived just once in The Bottle, independently, the whole serious, contrasting Hogarthian picture story. Numerous comic strips and picture stories appeared in periodicals other than Punch by artists who were likewise largely ignored. Like the Punch luminaries, they adopt in semirealistic style sociopolitical subject matter easily accessible to their (lower-)middle-class readership. The topics covered in and out of Punch by these strips and graphic novels range from French enemies King Louis-Philippe and Emperor Napoleon III to farcical treatment of major historical events: the Bayeux tapestry (1848), the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Artists explore a great variety of social types, occupations, and situations such as the emigrant, the tourist, fox hunting and Indian big game hunting, dueling, the forlorn lover, the student, the artist, the toothache, the burglar, the paramilitary volunteer, Darwinian animal metamorphoses, and even nightmares. In Rebirth of the English Comic Strip, Kunzle analyzes these much-neglected works down to the precocious modernist and absurdist scribbles of Marie Duval, Europe's first female professional cartoonist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870 (UP of Mississippi, 2021) enters deep into an era of comic history that has been entirely neglected. This buried cache of mid-Victorian graphic humor is marvelously rich in pictorial narratives of all kinds. Author David Kunzle calls this period a "rebirth" because of the preceding long hiatus in use of the new genre, since the Great Age of Caricature (c.1780-c.1820) when the comic strip was practiced as a sideline. Suddenly in 1847, a new, post-Töpffer comic strip sparks to life in Britain, mostly in periodicals, and especially in Punch, where all the best artists of the period participated, if only sporadically: Richard Doyle, John Tenniel, John Leech, Charles Keene, and George Du Maurier. Until now, this aspect of the extensive oeuvre of the well-known masters of the new journal cartoon in Punch has been almost completely ignored. Exceptionally, George Cruikshank revived just once in The Bottle, independently, the whole serious, contrasting Hogarthian picture story. Numerous comic strips and picture stories appeared in periodicals other than Punch by artists who were likewise largely ignored. Like the Punch luminaries, they adopt in semirealistic style sociopolitical subject matter easily accessible to their (lower-)middle-class readership. The topics covered in and out of Punch by these strips and graphic novels range from French enemies King Louis-Philippe and Emperor Napoleon III to farcical treatment of major historical events: the Bayeux tapestry (1848), the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Artists explore a great variety of social types, occupations, and situations such as the emigrant, the tourist, fox hunting and Indian big game hunting, dueling, the forlorn lover, the student, the artist, the toothache, the burglar, the paramilitary volunteer, Darwinian animal metamorphoses, and even nightmares. In Rebirth of the English Comic Strip, Kunzle analyzes these much-neglected works down to the precocious modernist and absurdist scribbles of Marie Duval, Europe's first female professional cartoonist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870 (UP of Mississippi, 2021) enters deep into an era of comic history that has been entirely neglected. This buried cache of mid-Victorian graphic humor is marvelously rich in pictorial narratives of all kinds. Author David Kunzle calls this period a "rebirth" because of the preceding long hiatus in use of the new genre, since the Great Age of Caricature (c.1780-c.1820) when the comic strip was practiced as a sideline. Suddenly in 1847, a new, post-Töpffer comic strip sparks to life in Britain, mostly in periodicals, and especially in Punch, where all the best artists of the period participated, if only sporadically: Richard Doyle, John Tenniel, John Leech, Charles Keene, and George Du Maurier. Until now, this aspect of the extensive oeuvre of the well-known masters of the new journal cartoon in Punch has been almost completely ignored. Exceptionally, George Cruikshank revived just once in The Bottle, independently, the whole serious, contrasting Hogarthian picture story. Numerous comic strips and picture stories appeared in periodicals other than Punch by artists who were likewise largely ignored. Like the Punch luminaries, they adopt in semirealistic style sociopolitical subject matter easily accessible to their (lower-)middle-class readership. The topics covered in and out of Punch by these strips and graphic novels range from French enemies King Louis-Philippe and Emperor Napoleon III to farcical treatment of major historical events: the Bayeux tapestry (1848), the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Artists explore a great variety of social types, occupations, and situations such as the emigrant, the tourist, fox hunting and Indian big game hunting, dueling, the forlorn lover, the student, the artist, the toothache, the burglar, the paramilitary volunteer, Darwinian animal metamorphoses, and even nightmares. In Rebirth of the English Comic Strip, Kunzle analyzes these much-neglected works down to the precocious modernist and absurdist scribbles of Marie Duval, Europe's first female professional cartoonist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Rebirth of the English Comic Strip: A Kaleidoscope, 1847-1870 (UP of Mississippi, 2021) enters deep into an era of comic history that has been entirely neglected. This buried cache of mid-Victorian graphic humor is marvelously rich in pictorial narratives of all kinds. Author David Kunzle calls this period a "rebirth" because of the preceding long hiatus in use of the new genre, since the Great Age of Caricature (c.1780-c.1820) when the comic strip was practiced as a sideline. Suddenly in 1847, a new, post-Töpffer comic strip sparks to life in Britain, mostly in periodicals, and especially in Punch, where all the best artists of the period participated, if only sporadically: Richard Doyle, John Tenniel, John Leech, Charles Keene, and George Du Maurier. Until now, this aspect of the extensive oeuvre of the well-known masters of the new journal cartoon in Punch has been almost completely ignored. Exceptionally, George Cruikshank revived just once in The Bottle, independently, the whole serious, contrasting Hogarthian picture story. Numerous comic strips and picture stories appeared in periodicals other than Punch by artists who were likewise largely ignored. Like the Punch luminaries, they adopt in semirealistic style sociopolitical subject matter easily accessible to their (lower-)middle-class readership. The topics covered in and out of Punch by these strips and graphic novels range from French enemies King Louis-Philippe and Emperor Napoleon III to farcical treatment of major historical events: the Bayeux tapestry (1848), the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Artists explore a great variety of social types, occupations, and situations such as the emigrant, the tourist, fox hunting and Indian big game hunting, dueling, the forlorn lover, the student, the artist, the toothache, the burglar, the paramilitary volunteer, Darwinian animal metamorphoses, and even nightmares. In Rebirth of the English Comic Strip, Kunzle analyzes these much-neglected works down to the precocious modernist and absurdist scribbles of Marie Duval, Europe's first female professional cartoonist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Today's guest, Hans, says he 'prides himself on being a father first and foremost, cherishing every moment of his fatherhood journey.' Before bed each night, his children beg for their dad to make up another silly story to tell them. The stories are always fun and fantastical, including things like dragons, race cars and unicorns. His youngest daughter, Aviva, was not yet one year old and was just starting to appreciate his dad's stories. Aviva was a joyous child who had an infectious smile. She loved to laugh and had a voracious appetite. Aviva also mysterious episodes of illness, however, that would cause her to be hospitalized. Numerous tests could not uncover a diagnosis. Tragically, last November 18th, a 6th and final episode took her life. Hans made a promise to his little girl that night. He promised that he would make her proud. At the time, he didn't know what that would be. What he did know, however, is that he wanted other children to laugh and smile like his sweet Aviva did. This is when he came back to those beautiful, fun bedtime stories that would leave his children begging for more. Now, in his grief, Hans, could have let go of the silly stories, but he did not want Baby Aviva to be remembered in a sad way. He wanted her to be joyful, laughing and playing.  An idea came to him then, to create a new character for his stories, one that is carefree, brave and fun - Baby Aviva Orangutan Diva. He then worked with an illustrator and editor to create a beautiful book with a beautiful story that children everywhere will absolutely love. Learn even more about Hans, his book and little Aviva by going to his website, hanskullberg.com. You can get your copy by searching on Amazon or by clicking on this link.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Linda Poetschke is retired voice professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Linda stays active as a teacher and coach, regularly teaching voice to outstanding high school students. In today's episode, Linda and Randy discuss the adolescent voice and how to make the most of teaching teenage and college-age singers. Numerous practical applications will be provided in today's delightful conversation. 

The Boston Three Party return as AJ, Bob and Alan are all back together to break down the week 5 games. Missed field goals, extra points, and bogus penalties were hot topics this week. Numerous touchdowns from many unexpected names highlighted the week, outside of a huge battle in Los Angeles. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Mindfulness practice is becoming more and more popular (and relevant) with each passing year. Numerous studies have proven the benefits of being more present including reducing stress and anxiety, lowering blood pressure, cultivating concentration, and increasing self-awareness, to list just a few.   In this episode you'll learn the benefits of being mindful, ways to practice mindfulness daily, PLUS you'll be guided through a body scan meditation.    What area of your life can you commit to being mindful in? Let me know in the comments.          www.yourlivewelljourney.com    FACEBOOK:  www.facebook.com/yourlivewelljourney    PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/live.well.insiders.group    INSTAGRAM:  www.instagram.com.livewelljourney

Ever wonder why you feel tired/moody after consuming sugar? There's a reason for this and the education we share in this episode  can help you understand the chemical response in the body and ultimately make better food choices. What we eat can dramatically impact our mood. You can likely recall eating a heavy meal — say, a big bowl of pasta followed by a  piece of molten lava cake and subsequently left you feeling lethargic and moody... OR maybe you ate a big salad for lunch and felt invigorated and focused all afternoon.Numerous foods can sabotage your happiness and well-being, but sugar might be the most jeopardizing.  Other podcast episodes referenced: Sugar Alcohols How To Read A Nutritional Label Join our private FitMom Lifestyle community HEREWant to schedule a strategy call with us? Schedule HERETo connect with Liz Roman click HERETo connect with Becca Chilczenkowski click HERERead More on FitMom Lifestyle HERECheck out Liz's NEW COOKBOOK, FitCookery HERECheck out our PLANNER, Win The Day HEREThis episode is brought to you by FitMom Lifestyle Marketing and Production by LeadTrek mediaWant to check out some of our favorite supplements like the Daily Greens, Digestive Enzymes, and some of the best tasting protein to help you recover from your workout (Fruit D Loop is one of our favorites) visit 1stPhorm now.We love cereal but not the processed sugary stuff you find at the store. Magic Spoon makes healthy cereal that tastes too good to be true. It's high protein, low carb and has a whole lot of flavor. We love it. Our kids love it. Visit Magic Spoon and use coupon code “LSN” for Free Shipping.Getting enough water throughout the day may be tough. Top Notch is here to help. With their water enhancer Hydrate. With flavors like Kiwi Strawberry, Blueberry Lemonade, Orange Mango, Watermelon and Black Cherry, not only it adds electrolytes and vitamins to your H2O it also has BCAA's and Glutamine to help you recover. Not to mention, it makes water taste delicious and a lot easier to drink. Check out Top Notch Nutrition to get your own.It's hard to find high quality meat these days. It's also hard to find time to keep going to the grocery store all the time. Butcher Box sources their meat and seafood from trusted sources across the country and delivers your 100% grass-fed grass-finished beef, free-range organic chicken, free wild-caught seafood right to your door. It's a no brainer. Visit Butcher Box now.Please do us that favor and share this with your friends and family so we can reach more lives around the world!

When we last spoke to Skye Moench we had no idea that later this year she would race The Collin's Cup, finish 6th at 7.0 World Champs and then crush IM Chattanooga by more than 25 minutes.  Skye Moench's dominating win at IRONMAN Chattanooga with a greater than 25-minute lead just a week after St George.    Show Sponsor: VENGA CBD Thanks very much to Venga CBD for helping make the show possible. Venga CBD is not like most CBD companies who just post a bunch of products and hope you figure it out. Venga was started in Colorado by athletes like you who wanted a better way to use CBD to help fight pain, train longer, race harder and recover faster. That's why they created a SYSTEM of CBD products for athletes and only have 4 products that cover 100% of your CBD needs. I use it every day in one form or another! Each product is specifically made to support an area of your endurance life from training to racing to recovery. Combined together the Venga CBD system is designed to make you unstoppable! Save a whopping 30% off & get free shipping when you buy the Venga Endurance System versus buying the products separately  - seriously, this is the best deal on the market. Just go to https://vengaendurance.com/303podcast to order yours today. First-time order is 30% off with code (303PODCAST).  We've also added 50% off your first month's subscription with code (303SUBSCRIPTION).   In Today's Show Feature interview with Skye Moench (IM Chattanooga winner) Endurance News No, Running Doesn't Wear Down Your Cartilage. It Strengthens Your Joints. What's new in the 303 Small Town America at the Heart of Gravel Racing? The Rad Dirt in Trinidad Shows Us Why Video of the Week Ironman Chattanooga Highlights   Interview Sponsor: UCAN Take your performance to the next level with UCAN Energy and Bars made with SuperStarch®  UCAN uses SuperStarch instead of simple sugars to fuel serious athletes.  UCAN keeps blood sugar steady compared to the energy spikes and crashes of sugar-based products.  Steady energy equals sustained performance! You put in the training, so don't let nutrition limit your performance.  Use UCAN in your training and racing to fuel the healthy way, finish stronger and recover more quickly!  Use the code 303UCAN for 20% off at ucan.co/discount/303UCAN/ or ucan.co Use the code 303UCAN for 20% off at ucan.co/discount/303UCAN/ or ucan.co,    Interview with Skye Moench A little over two years ago Skye won the 2019 Ironman European Championship Frankfurt. In April of this year we interviewed Skye.  At this point in the season she was fresh off a 6th at Challenge Daytona and 5th at Challenge Miami.  Skye had already made an amazing comeback from her bike crash the kept her from racing at Kona back in 2019.  We came away from that interview with a headline of "Skye's Comeback".  We had no idea at that time that later this year she would be on the final list for The Collin's Cup, finish 6th at 7.0 World Champs and then crush IM Chattanooga by more than 25 minutes. Was that part of the plan?  Did that win gap come as a surprise? How cool is that new purple Trek bike?   All those questions and more coming up right now with Skye Moench! Results (ironman.com)   Post interview: Skye adding another voice to the pros who thinks that The Collins Cup is a "must do" race and opportunity to connect with other pros and make new friends. Focus on the long distance and Kona.  It sounded to me that she raced St George, but goal was Kona Ironman Florida vs Ironman Cozumel     Our News is sponsored by Buddy Insurance. It's big time training and racing season.  Buddy Insurance is the kind of peace of mind so you can enjoy your training and racing to their fullest.  Buddy's mission is simple, to help people fearlessly enjoy an active and outdoor lifestyle.  You can now get on-demand accident insurance to make sure you get cash for bills fast and fill any gaps between your current coverage.  Go to buddyinsurance.com and create an account.  There's no commitment or charge to create one.  Once you have an account created, it's a snap to open your phone and in a couple clicks have coverage for the day.  Check it out!   Endurance News: No, Running Doesn't Wear Down Your Cartilage. It Strengthens Your Joints. Numerous studies have shown that, contrary to what your sedentary friends may sometimes argue, running does not cause arthritis. New research shows, in fact, that running may actually help strengthen your joints against future wear and tear, says Jean-Francois Esculier, leader of research and development for The Running Clinic (headquartered near Montreal, Canada) and a medical professor at the University of British Columbia.   In a Sept. 3 paper in Sports Medicine, Esculier's team examined 43 studies that had used MRI to measure the effect of running on cartilage. One major finding of these studies, he says, was that the impact from running squeezes water out of cartilage and into the underlying bone. That means that an MRI taken immediately after running will show a decrease in cartilage thickness. So, Esculier says, “If you want to say running is bad, you can show a study that shows it reduces the thickness of the cartilage.” But the effect is transient and harmless, he says, because the moment you finish your run, the cartilage begins to reabsorb water and expand back to normal. “It only takes an hour,” he says. In fact, he says, running may actually be beneficial. Historically, Esculier says, doctors, researchers, and runners were taught that cartilage simply is what it is, and won't respond to training. “But we now know that cartilage can adapt,” he says. “Even with novice runners, after only 10 weeks, you see changes in cartilage so that it can actually tolerate more load.” What's happening, he says, is a side-effect of having fluid squeezed out of the cartilage into the underlying bone. When it comes back, he says, it brings with it nutrients that feed the cartilage and make it stronger. “So not only is running not bad for your joints, it's actually good for your joints,” he says. It isn't just beginners whose joints can strengthen with use. Studies of more experienced runners, he says, suggest that they have developed cartilage that is more resistant to the type of impacts seen in running than that of non-runners. One of the more dramatic studies looked at competitors in the TransEurope FootRace, a 4,486-kilometer mountain run (2,787 miles) that went from Sicily to northern Scandinavia in 64 days. A team of scientists followed the runners, using a portable MRI to assess them every 900 kilometers or so. Amazingly, Esculier says, they found not only that the competitors didn't have cartilage damage, but that their cartilage adapted during the race. About Bill's friend London Marathon - Raphael Pacheco Deb Connelly - Monday Running   What's New in the 303: Small Town America at the Heart of Gravel Racing? The Rad Dirt in Trinidad Shows Us Why Posted on October 5, 2021 By Becky Furuta If the heart of gravel racing is the wild west of cycling – where the rules are few and weirdness is welcomed instead of scrutinized – small town America is its soul. The lure of gravel racing is in the long, off-road adventure. It's tricky trails and hellacious hills and mud so thick it's like riding through peanut butter and rolling roads with expansive views. It's dust and limestone chunks and pea gravel that bury your tires like quicksand. Due in part to its grassroots heritage, gravel remains the antidote to the technology-driven, aggressive and often super-competitive mentality of road cycling. Most of today's gravel grinders began as small-scale events, and often with no entry fees. Despite their growth, they're dripping with the same low-key attitude that attracted participants in the first place. Small towns and gravel are perfectly paired. A convergence of factors have fueled gravel's popularity, but all speak to quiet country roads with little traffic and natural scenery. The character of these towns shape the events and the way they unfold. Trinidad, Colorado is no exception. And the quirky town on the New Mexico border may well become one of gravel's new hotspots. The small city of 9000 residents was founded in 1862 after rich coal seams were discovered in the region. By 1910, Trinidad was a company town. Colorado Fuel and Iron operated the largest steel mills in the West, and dozens of mines, coke ovens and transportation lines cropped up to support local industry. CF&I created small communities for the workers they recruited to come from Europe, believing they were less likely to try and organize. To the contrary, this led to one of the darkest chapters in American labor history. Just a few miles north of Trinidad in the Spring of 1914, Union organizer Louis Tikas and 20 others were killed in a violent company crackdown known as the Ludlow Massacre. It was a bloody insurrection that occurred in protest of brutal working conditions. Three of the victims – a woman and her two children – suffocated in the dirt pit where they were hiding. By the 1920s, the coal industry was fading but Trinidad found a new, strange prosperity when mobster Al Capone and his family took the town during prohibition. They were able to easily blend in with local Italian families who continued to call the city home. Lavish hotels, a Carnegie library, an Opera House and the oldest synagogue in the state of Colorado cropped up in what would be called “the Victorian jewel of Southern Colorado.” Just having dirt alone isn't enough to make Trinidad a gravel success story. Part of an event's draw is the community itself, and how well they embrace the cyclists who come to visit. It's about the community and the culture, the adventure and the Instagram images of rolling hills and farmland. It's about getting people to drive hours in search of something different. Trinidad seems to understand all of that. City Council members greeted riders at the start and the finish. Restaurants enthusiastically marketed to gravel tourists. (Just ask me about the singing waiters at Rino Italian Restaurant downtown.) The route featured unique terrain you won't find at other gravel events. Only time will tell if Trinidad's next identity is built around bikes and outdoor tourism, but judging by the reactions of participants in The Rad Dirt Fest, it's right on track. Trinidad, like so many other rural communities, may well become a town transformed by bikes.     Video Of The Week: Ironman Chattanooga 2021 Highlights   Closing: Thanks again for listening in this week.  Please be sure to follow us @303endurance and of course go to iTunes and give us a rating and a comment.  We'd really appreciate it! Stay tuned, train informed, and enjoy the endurance journey!

THIS EPISODE On the heels of their Wild Card loss, Ricky speaks with New York sports fan, grandson of the former Huntsville Stars Booster Club President, and one of his best friends, Kevin Pape.  They get into the recent loss of the Yankees, the hopeful loss of Ricky's least favorite team (LA Dodgers), The Atlanta Braves, and this weekend's football games.  As usual, the train left the tracks NUMEROUS times during this talk, leaving something for everyone. ABOUT THE HOST Ricky Fernandez is the on-field host of Trash Pandas games at Toyota Field and the club's Promotions Manager. The multi-faceted personality can be seen across Trash Pandas digital channels and quickly developed into one of the faces of Baseball's Most Meteoric Franchise. With a quick wit, and flare for the funny, Ricky brings his energy to the Trash Pandas Podcast Network. TRASH PANDAS PODCAST NETWORK Join the personalities of the Rocket City Trash Pandas as they tell the stories from Baseball's most meteoric franchise. Play-by-Play Broadcaster Josh Caray presents conversations with prospects and personnel from the organization. In-Stadium Emcee Ricky Fernandez chats about the latest news and promotions.

Day 4 of Project Freedom - Discovering the numerous problems by Deepak Shukla

Even when the Lord was so powerfully present among them, there was the need for organization, for structure, for a system of accountability.

Numerous health policies are under debate in Congress. As Senators and Representatives hash out drug pricing legislation and more, where are patients in the conversation?Advocate and former Ohio state legislator Randi Clites shares how patients can get involved in policy advocacy. Plus, how the rise of Rare Disease Advisory Councils in state legislatures are giving patients a seat at the table.Terry and Dr. Bob deliver a healthcare policy crash course on this week in D.C., and Kate speaks with Jen Roman about her rare disease and mission to combat misconceptions about rare disease patients. Hosts: Terry Wilcox, Executive Director, Patients RisingDr. Robert Goldberg, “Dr. Bob,” Co-Founder and Vice President of the Center for Medicine in the Public InterestKate Pecora, Field Correspondent, Patients RisingGuests:Randi Clites, Rare Disease Policy Director, Little Hercules Foundation Jen Roman, Rare Disease AdvocateShannon Sharp, Patient CorrespondentLinks:Senate passes infrastructure bill that restarts sequester cuts, delays rebate ruleNORD Statement on Proposed Changes to the Orphan Drug Tax CreditMedicaid Home and Community Based Services Congress Likely to Scale Back HCBS Funding as Part of Budget Compromise The High Costs of Democrats' prescription drug price-settingRare Disease Advisory Councils by StateNeed help?The successful patient is one who can get what they need when they need it. We all know insurance slows us down, so why not take matters into your own hands? Our Navigator is an online tool that allows you to search a massive network of health-related resources using your zip code so you get local results. Get proactive and become a more successful patient right now at PatientsRisingConcierge.orgHave a question or comment about the show, or want to suggest a show topic or share your story as a patient correspondent?Drop us a line: podcast@patientsrising.orgThe views and opinions expressed herein are those of the guest(s)/ author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of Patients Rising.

The war in Afghanistan is over. In this episode, we document how and why the Biden administration finally admitted defeat in our 20 year attempt to create a new government in Afghanistan and we take a hard look at the lessons we need to learn. Afghanistan is a country in a far away land, but there are disturbing similarities between the Afghanistan government that just collapsed and our own. We'd be wise not to ignore them. Executive Producer: Rachel Passer Executive Producer: Anonymous  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD236: January 6: The Capitol Riot CD218: Minerals are the New Oil CD210: The Afghanistan War CD124: The Costs of For-Profit War How We Got Here Craig Whitlock. The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War. Simon and Schuster, 2021. Patrick Tucker. August 18, 2021. “Trump's Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says.” Defense One. Eugene Kiely and Robert Farley. August 17, 2021. “Timeline of U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan.” FactCheck.org. Eric Schmitt and Jennifer Steinhauer. July 30, 2021. “Afghan Visa Applicants Arrive in U.S. After Years of Waiting.” The New York Times. Craig Whitlock, Leslie Shapiro and Armand Emamdjomeh. December 9, 2019. “The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war.” The Washington Post. Mark Landler and James Risen. July 25, 2017. “Trump Finds Reason for the U.S. to Remain in Afghanistan: Minerals.” The New York Times. John F. Harris. October 15, 2001. “Bush Rejects Taliban Offer On Bin Laden ” Washington Post. The Evacuation: Those Left Behind William Mauldin. September 2, 2021. “Afghanistan Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Staff Left Behind.” Wall Street Journal. Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Annie Karni. August 29, 2021. “Series of U.S. Actions Left Afghan Allies Frantic, Stranded and Eager to Get Out.” The York Times. Sami Sadat. August 25, 2021. “I Commanded Afghan Troops This Year. We Were Betrayed.” The New York Times. Marjorie Censer. August 18, 2021. “US contractors rush to get former employees out of Afghanistan.” Defense News. Siobhan Hughes. August 18, 2021. “Afghanistan Veterans in Congress Trying to Prevent ‘a Death Warrant' for Helping America.” Wall Street Journal. Alex Sanz and Tammy Webber. August 18, 2021. “US friends try to rescue brother in arms in Afghanistan.” AP News. Seth Moulton. June 04, 2021. "Moulton, Bipartisan Honoring Our Promises Working Group to White House: Evacuate our Afghan Partners.” Contractors in Afghanistan Matt Taibbi. August 18, 2021. “We Failed Afghanistan, Not the Other Way Around.” TK News by Matt Taibbi on Substack. Jack Detsch. August 16, 2021. “Departure of Private Contractors Was a Turning Point in Afghan Military's Collapse.” Foreign Policy. Matt Stoller. July 15, 2021. “‘A Real S*** Show': Soldiers Angrily Speak Out about Being Blocked from Repairing Equipment by Contractors.” BIG by Matt Stoller. Lynzy Billing. May 12, 2021. “The U.S. Is Leaving Afghanistan? Tell That to the Contractors.” New York Magazine. Oren Liebermann. March 29, 2021. “Pentagon could open itself to costly litigation from contractors if US pulls out of Afghanistan this year.” CNN. Lucas Kunce and Elle Ekman. September 15, 2019. “Comment Submitted by Major Lucas Kunce and Captain Elle Ekman.” [Regulations.gov(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulations.gov). Aaron Mehta. Oct 25, 2016. “30 Years: William Perry — Reshaping the Industry.” Defense News. Jared Serbu. August 22, 2016. “DoD now awarding more than half its contract spending without competitive bids.” Federal News Network. 41 U.S. Code § 3307 - Preference for commercial products and commercial services. Money: Lost and Gained David Moore. August 23, 2021. “Lawmakers Benefit From Booming Defense Stocks.” Sludge. Lee Fang. August 20, 2021. “Congressman Seeking to Relaunch Afghan War Made Millions in Defense Contracting.” The Intercept. Anna Massoglia and Julia Forrest. August 20, 2021. “Defense contractors spent big in Afghanistan before the U.S. left and the Taliban took control.” OpenSecrets.org. Stephen Losey. April 16, 2021. “The Bill for the Afghanistan War Is $2.26 Trillion, and Still Rising.” Military.com. Eli Clifton. February 16, 2021. “Weapons Biz Bankrolls Experts Pushing to Keep U.S. Troops in Afghanistan.” Daily Beast. Open Secrets. 2021. Defense: Lobbying, 2021. Open Secrets. 2021. Defense: Money to Congress. Laws S.1790 - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 Sponsor: Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) Status: Became Public Law No: 116-92 on December 20, 2019 H.R. 3237: Emergency Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 Sponsor: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) Status: Signed into law, 2021 May 20 House Vote Breakdown Congressional Budget Office Score Law Outline TITLE IV: BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE GENERAL PROVISIONS EXTENSION AND MODIFICATION OF THE AFGHAN SPECIAL IMMIGRANT VISA PROGRAM Sec. 401: Amends the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2009 to expand eligibility to include Afghans who worked not only for the US Government for more than 1 year but also our allies as an off-base interpreter or if they performed "activities for United States military stationed at International Security Assistance Force (or any successor name for such Force). Increases the number of Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) to Afghan partners by 8,000, for a total of 34,500 allocated since December 19, 2014. Sec. 402: Authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of state to jointly waive for 1 year (maximum 2 years with an extension) the requirement that Afghan partners eligible for SIVs get a medical exam before they can receive their visa. The Secretary of Homeland Security has to create a process to make sure Afghan SIV holders get a medical exam within 30 days of entry into the United States. Sec. 403: Allows the surviving spouse or child or employee of the United States Government abroad to be eligible for immigration into the United States if the employee worked for our government for at least 15 years or was killed in the line of duty. It also expands entry permissions for Afghan SIV applicants in addition to those who have already been approved. This is retroactive to June 30, 2021. Policies for Visa Processing: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Policy Manual, Chapter 9: Certain Afghan Nationals U.S Department of State -- Bureau of Consular Affairs. “Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans - Who Were Employed by/on Behalf of the U.S. Government.” Audio Sources Gen. Mark Milley: "There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days." August 18, 2021 General Mark Milley: The time frame of rapid collapse that was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months, and even years following our departure, there was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days. Central Command submitted a variety of plans that were briefed and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the President. These plans were coordinated, synchronized and rehearsed to deal with these various scenarios. One of those contingencies is what we are executing right now. As I said before, there's plenty of time to do AARs(After Action Reviews) and key lessons learned and to delve into these questions with great detail. But right now is not that time. Right now, we have to focus on this mission, because we have soldiers at risk. And we also have American citizens and Afghans who supported us for 20 years also at risk. This is personal and we're going to get them out. President Biden on Afghanistan Withdrawal Transcript July 8, 2021 Sound Clips 01:30 President Biden: When I announced our drawdown in April, I said we would be out by September, and we're on track to meet that target. Our military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31. The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way, prioritizing the safety of our troops as they depart 3:40 President Biden: Together with our NATO allies and partners, we have trained and equipped nearly 300,000 current serving members of the military, the Afghan national security force, and many beyond that are no longer serving. Add to that hundreds of thousands more Afghan national defense and security forces trained over the last two decades. 04:04 President Biden: We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools, let me emphasize, all the tools -- training, equipment -- of any modern military. We provided advanced weaponry, and we're going to continue to provide funding and equipment and we'll ensure they have the capacity to maintain their Air Force. 5:54 President Biden: We're also going to continue to make sure that we take on Afghan nationals who worked side by side with US forces, including interpreters and translators. Since we're no longer going to have military there after this, we're not going to need them and they'll have no jobs. We're [sic] also going to be vital to our efforts. they've been very vital, and so their families are not exposed to danger as well. We've already dramatically accelerated the procedure time for Special Immigrant Visas to bring them to the United States. Since I was inaugurated on January 20, we've already approved 2,500 Special Immigrant Visas to come to the United States. Up to now, fewer than half have exercised the right to do that. Half have gotten on aircraft and come commercial flights and come and other half believe they want to stay, at least thus far. We're working closely with Congress to change the authorization legislation so that we can streamline the process of approving those visas. And those who have stood up for the operation to physically relocate 1000s of Afghans and their families before the US military mission concludes so that, if they choose, they can wait safely outside of Afghanistan, while their US visas are being processed. 8:13 President Biden: For those who have argued that we should stay just six more months, or just one more year, I asked them to consider the lessons of recent history. In 2011, the NATO allies and partners agreed that we would end our combat mission in 2014. In 2014, some argued one more year. So we kept fighting. We kept taking casualties. In 2015, the same, and on and on. Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us that the current security situation only confirms that just one more year of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution, but a recipe for being there indefinitely. It's up to the Afghans to make the decision about the future of their country. Others are more direct. Their argument is that we should stay with the Afghans and Afghanistan indefinitely. In doing so they point to the fact that we we have not taken losses in this last year. So they claim that the cost of just maintaining the status quo is minimal. 9:19 President Biden: But that ignores the reality, and the facts that already presented on the ground in Afghanistan when I took office. The Taliban is at its strongest militarily since 2001. The number of US forces in Afghanistan had been reduced to a bare minimum. And the United States and the last administration made an agreement that they have to with the Taliban remove all our forces by May 1 of this year. That's what I inherited. That agreement was the reason the Taliban had ceased major attacks against US forces. 9:55 President Biden: If in April, I had instead announced that the United States was going to go back on that agreement, made by the last administration, the United States and allied forces will remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, the Taliban would have again begun to target our forces. The status quo was not an option. Staying would have meant US troops taking casualties, American men and women back in the middle of a civil war, and we would run the risk of having to send more troops back in Afghanistan to defend our remaining troops. Once that agreement with the Taliban had been made, staying with a bare minimum force was no longer possible. 10:34 President Biden: So let me ask those who want us to stay: how many more? How many 1000s more Americans' daughters and sons are you willing to risk? How long would you have them stay? Already we have members of our military whose parents fought in Afghanistan 20 years ago. Would you send their children and their grandchildren as well? Would you send your own son or daughter? After 20 years, a trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of 1000s of Afghan National Security and Defence Forces. 2,448 Americans killed, 20,722 more wounded, and untold 1000s coming home with unseen trauma to their mental health. I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome. 11:51 President Biden: Today the terrorist threat has metastasized beyond Afghanistan. So, we are repositioning our resources and adapting our counterterrorism posture to meet the threats where they are now: significantly higher in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. 12:07 President Biden: But make no mistake, our military and intelligence leaders are confident they have the capabilities to protect the homeland and our interests from any resurgent terrorist challenge emerging or emanating from Afghanistan. We're developing a counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed at any direct threat to the United States in the region and act quickly and decisively if needed. 12:38 President Biden: We also need to focus on shoring up America's core strengths to meet the strategic competition competition with China and other nations that is really going to determine our future. 14:58 Reporter: Is the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? President Biden: No. It is not. Because you have the Afghan troops, 300,000. Well equipped, as well equipped as any army in the world, and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. 15:45 President Biden: Do I trust the Taliban? No, but I trust the capacity of the Afghan military who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting war. 18:07 Reporter: Your own intelligence community has assessed that the Afghan government will likely collapse President Biden: That is not true 18:53 President Biden: And I want to make clear what I made clear to Ghani, that we are not going to walk away and not sustain their ability to maintain that force. We are. We're going to also work to make sure we help them in terms of everything from food necessities and other things in the region. But there is not a conclusion that in fact, they cannot defeat the Taliban. I believe the only way there's going to be -- this is now Joe Biden, not the intelligence community -- the only way there's only going to be peace and secure in Afghanistan, is that they work out a modus vivendi with the Taliban, and they make a judgement as to how they can make peace. And the likelihood there's going to be one unified government in Afghanistan, controlling the whole country is highly unlikely. 21:30 Reporter: Mr. President, how serious was the corruption among the Afghanistan government to this mission failing there? President Biden: First of all, the mission hasn't failed yet. 22:00 President Biden: There were going to be negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan national security forces, and the Afghan government that didn't come to fruition. So the question now is where do they go from here? The jury is still out, but the likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. 23:20 Reporter: Mr. President, "speed is safety," as you just said in your remarks. Are you satisfied with the timeline of relocating Afghan nationals? Is it happening quickly enough to your satisfaction if it may not happen until next month at the end? President Biden: It has already happened, there have already been people, about 1000 people have gotten on aircraft and come to the United States already on commercial aircraft. So as I said, there's over 2500 people, that as from January to now, have have gotten those visas and only half decided that they wanted to leave. The point is that I think the whole process has to be speeded up -- period -- in terms of being able to get these visas. Reporter: Why can't the US evacuate these Afghan translators to the United States to await their visa processing as some immigrants of the southern border have been allowed to? President Biden: Because the law doesn't allow that to happen. And that's why we're asking the Congress to consider changing the law. President Biden Remarks on Afghanistan Strategy Transcript April 14, 2021 Sound Clips 00:38 President Biden: I'm speaking to you today from the Roosevelt -- the Treaty room in the White House -- the same spot where in October of 2001, President George W. Bush informed our nation that the United States military had begun strikes on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. It was just weeks, just weeks after the terrorist attack on our nation that killed 2,977 innocent souls, that turned Lower Manhattan into a disaster area, destroyed parts of the Pentagon and made hallowed ground in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and sparked an American promise that we would never forget. We went to Afghanistan in 2001, to root out al Qaeda to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States planned from Afghanistan. Our objective was clear, the cause was just, our NATO allies and partners rallied beside us. And I supported that military action along with the overwhelming majority of the members of Congress. More than seven years later, in 2008 weeks before we swore the oath of office -- President Obama and I were about to swear -- President Obama asked me to travel to Afghanistan and report back on the state of the war in Afghanistan. I flew to Afghanistan to the Kunar Valley, a rugged, mountainous region on the border of Pakistan. What I saw on that trip reinforced my conviction that only the Afghans have the right and responsibility to lead their country. And that more and endless American military force could not create or sustain a durable Afghan Government. I believed that our presence in Afghanistan should be focused on the reason we went in the first place: to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again. We did that, we accomplished that objective. I said, along with others, we would follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell if need be. That's exactly what we did. And we got him. It took us close to 10 years to put President Obama's commitment into form. And that's exactly what happened Osama bin Laden was gone. That was 10 years ago. Think about that. We delivered justice to Bin Laden a decade ago. And we've stayed in Afghanistan for a decade since. Since then, our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear, even as the terrorist threat that we went to fight evolved. Over the past 20 years, the threat has become more dispersed, metastasizing around the globe. Al Shabaab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, on Al Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. With the terror threat now in many places, keeping 1000s of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country at a cost of billions each year makes little sense to me and our leaders. We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdraw and expecting a different result. I'm now the fourth United States President to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan: two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth. After consulting closely with our allies and partners, with our military leaders and intelligence personnel, with our diplomats and our development experts, with the Congress and the Vice President, as well as with Mr. Ghani and many others around the world. I concluded that it's time to end America's longest war. It's time for American troops to come home. 5:01 President Biden: When I came to office, I inherited a diplomatic agreement, duly negotiated between the government of the United States and the Taliban, that all US forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1 2021, just three months after my inauguration. That's what we inherited. That commitment is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government. And that means something. So in keeping with that agreement, and with our national interest, the United States will begin our final withdrawal beginning on May 1 of this year. 8:11 President Biden: You all know that less than 1% of Americans serve in our Armed Forces. The remaining 99%, we owe them. We owe them. They've never backed down from a single mission that we've asked of them. I've witnessed their bravery firsthand during my visits to Afghanistan. They've never wavered in their resolve. They paid a tremendous price on our behalf and they have the thanks of a grateful nation. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) High-Risk List Center for Strategic and International Studies Transcript March 10, 2021 Speaker: John Sopko - Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Sound Clips 7:40 John Sopko: But right now, that state is under threat. In the wake of the February 2020 withdrawal agreement, all is not well. Compromise appears in short supply on either side. Taliban attacks have actually increased since the agreement was signed. Assassination of prominent officials, activists, journalists, aid workers and others have also increased, including an unsuccessful attack on one of the female members of the peace negotiating team. And the Taliban offensive on Kandahar city last October, as peace negotiations were ongoing, may well have succeeded, were it not for U.S. air support. Peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban have achieved little for Afghanistan so far, and only time will tell as to whether the new Biden administration initiative will bear fruit. And the Afghan people's fears for its own government survival are exacerbated by the knowledge of how dependent their country is on foreign military and financial support. 12:56 John Sopko: Another equally serious threat to Afghanistan's stability has also largely been ignored as we focus on the boots on the ground in Afghanistan. And that is the provision of last year's U.S.-Taliban agreement that stipulates that in addition to the departure of U.S. and coalition troops, or non-diplomatic civilian personnel: private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting service personnel also must leave the country by May 1. Should this come to passSIGAR and many others believe this may be more devastating to the effectiveness of the Afghan security forces than the withdrawal of our remaining troops. Why is that? Because the Afghan government relies heavily on these foreign contractors and trainers to function. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2021 there are over 18,000 Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan, including 6000 Americans, and 7,000 3rd country nationals, 40% of whom are responsible for logistics, maintenance, or training tasks. Now, it is well known that the Afghan security forces need these contractors to maintain their equipment, manage supply chains, and train their military and police to operate the advanced equipment that we have purchased for them. For example, as of December, the Afghan National Army was completing just under 20% of its own maintenance work orders, well below the goal of 80% that was set and the 51% that they did in 2018. So that's actually going down. The Afghan National Police were just as bad if not worse, undertaking only 12% of their own maintenance work against a target of 35% and less than the 16% that we reported in our 2019 high risk list. Additionally, and more troubling. The Department of Defense does train, advise and assist command air, or commonly called TAC air recently reported that since late 2019, they have reduced their personnel in Afghanistan by 94%, and that the military drawdown now requires near total use of contract support to maintain the Afghan Air fleet. They assess that quote “further drawdown in the associated closure basis will effectively end all in country aviation training contracts in Afghanistan.” Again, why is this significant? Why do we view this as a high risk? Namely because contractors currently provide 100% of the maintenance for the Afghan Air Force, UAE 60 helicopters and CE 130 cargo aircraft and a significant portion of Afghans Light Combat Support aircraft. TAC air this January gave a bleak assessment, namely, that no Afghan airframe can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months in the absence of contractor support. 17:51 John Sopko: Continued funding for U.S. reconstruction programs aimed at promoting economic development, rule of law, respect for human rights, good governance and security for the Afghan people may be more significant, because it may be the primary lever left for the US and other donors to influence that country. It appears that even the Taliban understand Afghanistan's dire need for foreign assistance. Because, as one of the few commitments that the US had to make last year was, “to seek economic cooperation for reconstruction, with the new post settlement, Afghan Islamic government.” Now how much the donor community wishes to stay involved will of course depend on what that government looks like and how it behaves. Numerous officials, including then Secretary of State Pompeo and Ambassador Halley, have stated that the US will be able to advance its human rights goals, including the rights of women and girls with the Taliban by leveraging or conditioning this much needed financial assistance. But unfortunately, as SIGAR has long reported, even when conditionality involved only dealing with the Afghan government, donors do not have a stellar record of successfully utilizing that conditionality to influence Afghan behavior. 27:19 John Sopko: Today our report suggests the donor community should realize the Afghan government is focused on a single goal, its survival. Afghanistan is more dependent on international support than ever before. It may not be an overstatement that if foreign assistance is withdrawn and peace negotiations fail, Taliban forces could be at the gates of Kabul in short order. Hearing: A PATHWAY FOR PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN: EXAMINING THE FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE AFGHANISTAN STUDY GROUP House Committee on Oversight and Reform: Subcommittee on National Security February 19, 2021 Testimony was heard from the following Afghanistan Study Group officials: Kelly A. Ayotte, Co-Chair; News Corp Board of Directors since April 2017 BAE Systems Board of Directors since June 2017 Blackstone Board of Directors Boston Properties Board of Directors Caterpillar Board of Directors Board of Advisors at Cirtronics General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. (Retired), Co-Chair Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Obama and Trump presidencies. Lockheed Martin Board of Directors since February 2020 Nancy Lindborg, Co-Chair President and CEO of the David Lucile Packard Foundation Former President and CEO of the US Institute for Peace Former Assistant Administrator for the bureau for democracy conflict and humanitarian assistance at USAID During the mid-Obama years. Sound Clips 3:13 Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): I'd also like to take a moment to thank the nonpartisan US Institute of Peace for the support and expertise they provided to the study group during the course of its work. 3:23 Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA): In the fiscal year 2020 omnibus bill Congress led by Senator Graham Senator Patrick Leahy and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee of state foreign ops and related programs. They tasked the independent and bipartisan Afghanistan study group to quote, consider the implications of a peace settlement or the failure to reach a settlement on US policy, resources and commitments in Afghanistan. After nearly nine months of review and consultation with current and former US and Afghan government officials, allies and partners and other key stakeholders, the Afghanistan study group issued its final report earlier this month. 15:12 Kelly Ayotte: We recommend that US troops remain beyond may 1. We believe a precipitous withdrawal of US and international troops in May, would be catastrophic for Afghanistan, leading to civil war, and allow the reconstitution of terror groups which threaten the United States within an 18 to 36 month period. 15:41 Kelly Ayotte: Let me be clear, although we recommend that our troops remain beyond may 1, we propose a new approach toward Afghanistan, which aligns our policies, practices and messaging across the United States government to support the Afghan peace process, rather than prosecute a war. Our troops would remain not to fight a forever war, but to guarantee the conditions for a successful peace process and to protect our national security interests to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a haven again, for terrorists who threaten the United States of America. 37:15 General Joseph F. Dunford: Do we need to increase forces if the Taliban don't accept an extension past the first of May, and if they then would re initiate attacks against US forces? and Chairman, we heard exactly what you heard. In the fall. What we were told by commanders on the ground in the department of fence was that 4500 US forces, in addition to the NATO forces that are there was the minimum level to address both the mission as well as protection of our forces in the context of the conditions that existed in the fall in as you've highlighted, those conditions have only gotten worse since the fall so in in our judgment 2500 would not be adequate. Should the Taliban re initiate attacks against the United States Hearing: Examining the Trump Administration's Afghanistan Strategy House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Subcommittee on National Security January 28, 2020 Witness: John Sopko - Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) Sound Clips 48:54 John Sopko: We've almost created a system that forces people in the government to give happy talk success stories because they're over there on very short rotations. They want to show success. The whole system is almost geared to give you, and it goes up the chain of command, all the way to the President sometimes. He gets bad information from people out in the field because somebody on a nine month rotation, he has to show success, and that goes up. 54:24 John Sopko: Maybe incentivize honesty. And one of the proposals I gave at that time,be cause I was asked by the staff to come up with proposals, is put the same requirement on the government that we impose on publicly traded corporations. Publicly traded corporations have to tell the truth. Otherwise the SEC will indict the people involved. They have to report when there's a significant event. So put that onus, call it The Truth in Government Act if you want, that you in the administration are duty bound by statute to alert Congress to significant events that could directly negatively impact a program or process. So incentivize honesty. 1:10:25 John Sopko: Over 70% of the Afghan budget comes from the United States and the donors. If that money ended, I have said before and I will stand by it, then the Afghan government will probably collapse. Wartime Contracting Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs September 21, 2011 Witnesses: Charles Tiefer: Commissioner on the Commission on Wartime Contracting Clark Kent Ervin: Commissioner on the Commission on Wartime Contracting Sound Clips 1:11:30 Charles Tiefer: Our private security in Afghanistan appears to be a major source of payoffs to the Taliban. Our report has the first official statement that it's the second-largest source of money for the Taliban. Sen. Carl Levin: After drugs. Charles Tiefer: After drugs, that's right. 1:25:18 Clark Kent Ervin: It's critical that the government have a choice, and that means that there needs to be at least a small and expandable, organic capacity on the part of these three agencies to perform missions themselves, so the next time there's a contingency, the government has a choice between going with contractors and going in-house and the determination can be made whether it's more effective to do it either way, whether it's cheaper to do it either way. As we said at the inception, right now the government doesn't have an option. Contractors are the default option because they're the only option. President George W. Bush announces U.S. Military Strikes on Afghanistan October 7, 2001 President George W. Bush: Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against Al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: close terrorist training camps, hand over leaders of the Al-Qaeda network, and return all foreign nationals including American citizens unjustly detained in your country. None of these demands were met and now the Taliban will pay a price by destroying camps and disrupting communications. We will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans. ** International Campaign Against Terrorism Senate Foreign Relations Committee October 25, 2001 Witness: Colin Powell: Secretary of State Sound Clip 27:00 Colin Powell: Our work in Afghanistan though, is not just of a military nature. We recognize that when the Al Qaeda organization has been destroyed in Afghanistan, and as we continue to try to destroy it in all the nations in which it exists around the world, and when the Taliban regime has gone to its final reward, we need to put in place a new government in Afghanistan, one that represents all the people of Afghanistan and one that is not dominated by any single powerful neighbor, but instead is dominated by the will of the people of Afghanistan. Executive Producer Recommendations Elect Stephanie Gallardo 2022 Krystal Kyle and Friends. August 21, 2021. “Episode 35 Audio with Matthew Hoh.” Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)