Podcasts about Ripon

One of the distinctive features of the Reformed tradition is its commitment to what we call covenant theology, which is a framework of reading and understanding the Scriptures in a way that is especially attuned to the way our God relates covenantally to His people throughout the Scriptures. As this is an important aspect of the Reformed faith, in this week's episode we try to explore the ways in which this framework is found in the Scriptures and how it informs our doctrines of Scripture, salvation, the sacraments, eschatology, and more. We hope this is a helpful introduction to thinking covenantally as Reformed Christians. Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

If you've been a Reformed Christian for any amount of time, odds are you've probably heard some half truths about our theological tradition. The truth is, there are a lot of caricatures and misconceptions out there. Often times, these come from outside the Reformed camp, but even sometimes from within. And sometimes, they are rooted in reality, albeit not entirely. So for this week's episode, join us as we work through what Reformed theology is by examining what it isn't.    Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

A man from Ripon, Wisconsin is in jail after allegedly attacking his ex-girlfriend with a hatchet during a visit to her home in Fond du Lac. Drew Nelson reports.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Tuesday, June 24th, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Kevin Swanson and Adam McManus Syrian suicide bomber A suicide bomber entered an Orthodox Church in Damascus, Syria on Sunday killing 22 people and wounding at least 63 others, reports ABC News. The ISIS terrorist group has claimed responsibility. No increased nuclear radiation levels after U.S. bombing in Iran The International Atomic Energy Agency reports no increase in off-site radiation levels at the three Iranian sites bombed by the United States and Israel. The neighboring Kuwait government has also confirmed that “no abnormal radiation levels have been detected in any of the member states.” The whereabouts of 400 kilograms of highly enriched Uranium in Iran is still a mystery. Israel bombed Iran's Evin Prison Israel continues its bombardment on Iran, including a bombing of the notorious Evin prison, where a number of Christians are held, and have been tortured over the last several decades. Trump: Israel & Iran agreed to cease-fire to end “12-Day War” On Monday, President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a cease-fire, declaring an end to what he referred to as “The 12 Day War,” reports The Epoch Times. In a Truth Social Post, Trump wrote,  “It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE … for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered ENDED!” Both sides will wind down their final military operations within 12 hours, beginning what Trump expects to be “PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL” on both sides. The conflict will be declared over within 24 hours. However, The New York Times indicated that there is no confirmation yet from Israel and Iran. Russia bombed Ukraine with 16 missiles and 352 drones The Russian army unleashed a heavy bombardment on Kiev, Ukraine yesterday involving 352 drones and 16 missiles, reports Reuters. At least 10 Ukrainians died in the attack. This follows another attack last week which killed 28 people.  Zelensky assassination plot foiled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the target of an assassination plot to be carried out by a Polish elderly man who had first been recruited by the Soviet Union decades ago, reports Newsweek. The man was activated to take out Zelensky at Poland's Rzeszów–Jasionka Airport using either a first-person view drone or a sniper rifle. The would-be assassin was a firm believer in Soviet ideology. The assassination plot was foiled by a joint effort of Ukraine's SBU, the main internal security agency, and the Polish internal security service known as ABW. Americans less isolationist Americans are moving away from isolationism according to a recent survey by the Ronald Reagan Institute. In the last three years, Americans who believe the United States should be more engaged in international events has seen a 24% increase. Specifically, 69% of Republicans, 64% of Democrats, and 73% of MAGA/Trump Republicans want to see more engagement internationally. A supermajority of Americans – 84% -- state their support for preventing the Islamic Republic from gaining access to nuclear weapons. Only 57% of Americans would agree with the statement that “the United States is better served by withdrawing from international events and focusing on problems here at home.” The major shift in American opinions on this has occurred since the November election.  Russia economy expanded by 4.3% last year Despite international pressures, the Russian economy expanded by 4.3% last year. This compares to a 1.1% bump for the United Kingdom, and a 2.8% bump for the U.S. economy last year. Supreme Court temporarily allows deportations to third countries In a 6-3 decision on Monday, the Supreme Court temporarily lifted a lower court order blocking the Trump administration from deporting illegal immigrants to so-called third countries to which they have no connection, reports The Epoch Times. The unsigned order came in the case known as Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. Michigan church shooting prevented   A heavily-armed man attempted a massacre at the Wayne, Michigan Crosspointe Community Church, reports CBS News. Thankfully, he didn't make it into the building. A parishioner rammed him with his truck, and the security team engaged him in the parking lot.  The suspect was pronounced dead when police arrived on the scene. One security guard took a shot in the leg. Based on national news sources, there are 1-2 church shootings per year in this country. That's 1 out of 380,000 churches.  Psalm 27:1-2 is always the right mindset. It says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?  When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell.” Ohio pro-life legislators want to protect babies from conception Several Ohio legislators are floating a bill that outlaws the willful murder of a child from the point of conception. The "Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act,” introduced by state Representatives Levi Dean and Johnathan Newman, would overturn the 2023 referendum amendment that legalized abortion in Ohio.  In Psalm 22, the psalmist confesses, “You … took me out of the womb; You made me trust while on my mother's breasts. I was cast upon You from birth. from my mother's womb You have been my God.”  Older Americans more likely to have Biblical worldview George Barna's 2025 American Worldview Inventory report has been released and he concludes that only 1% of adults under 30 have a Biblical worldview. That compares with 5% for adults over 50, and 8% for adults over 65. Also, 69% of young Gen Z Americans believe abortion is morally acceptable. That's up from 60% for the Gen X and Boomer generations. Then, 73% of Gen Zers agree that sex outside of marriage is okay.  That's up from 59% with the Boomer Generation.  Fifth Circuit deems Louisiana Ten Commandments law unconstitutional The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Louisiana's law requiring the posting of The Ten Commandments in public schools, reports Courthouse News Service. The Louisiana law required schools which receive public funding to post a framed copy of The 10 Commandments in the classrooms. Observatory identified and photographed 10 million galaxies The Rubin Observatory, located in South America's Andes Mountain, has completed its first 10 hours of operation and identified 2,104 new asteroids never seen before, and photographed 10 million galaxies, reports the BBC. The observatory features a 28-foot telescope and an ultra-wide, ultra-high definition camera.  Sperm donor passed cancer gene to 67 children In other science news, a sperm donor in Europe has passed a cancer gene on to 67 children. Already, at least ten of the children have signs of cancer, all of them born between 2008 and 2015. The case was discussed at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics. Dr. Edwige Kasper, a specialist in genetic predisposition to cancer at the Rouen University Hospital in Rouen, France, said, “The variant would have been practically undetectable in 2008 when the individual started to donate sperm.” U.S. housing prices spike Housing prices in the U.S. are still reaching record highs. The median price of homes sold last month was $423,000, up 1.3% from May of 2024. 7 Worldview listeners gave $2,828.30  to fund our annual budget And finally, toward our final $123,500 goal by Monday, June 30th to fully fund The Worldview annual budget for our 6-member team, 7 listeners stepped up to the plate. Our thanks to Nathan in Cleveland, Tennessee who gave $25, N.B. in Ripon, North Yorkshire, England who gave $30, and Logan and Bianca in Manzini, Eswatini, Africa who gave $70. And we're grateful to God for Gloria in  Westminster, Colorado who gave $103.30, Payton in Georgetown, Texas who pledged $50/month for 12 months for a gift of $600, Amy in Eldorado, Wisconsin who gave $1,000, and Pamela in Sierra Madre, California who also gave $1,000. Those 7 Worldview listeners gave a total of $2,828.30. Ready for our new grand total? Drum roll please.  (Drum roll sound effect) $65,401.55 (People clapping and cheering sound effect)  Still need to raise $58,098.45!  Looking for 9 Super Donors! That means by this coming Monday, June 30th, we need to raise a whopping $58,098.45 in just 7 days.  Oh my!  I've got butterflies in my stomach. Is there 1 businessperson who could donate $10,000?  3 businesspeople who could give $5,000?  5 businesspeople who could contribute $2,500? If so, those donations would total $37,500. Then we would need another 8 people to pledge $100/month for 12 months for a gift of $1,200.  And another 16 people to pledge $50/month for 12 months for a gift of $600? Please, go to TheWorldview.com and click on Give on the top right.  If you want to make it a monthly pledge, click on the recurring tab. If everybody does something – no matter how big or small – we will knock this relatively modest budget out of the park. Attention donors from this year: Send email urging others to donate! Lastly, I would love to feature a 2-3 sentence email from those who have already given this year, whose names I will not cite, with your encouragement for your fellow listeners to consider a last minute gift.  Just include your city and state send it to Adam@TheWorldview.com Speak from your heart about why you gave and why you would urge others to join you to fund The Worldview in 5 Minutes. Close And that's The Worldview on this Tuesday, June 24th, in the year of our Lord 2025.  Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

The title fits, but not necessarily for the reasons you imagine. Barbara Leigh grew up in Wisconsin where she attended college and had a successful career. She tells us about her life and discusses getting married, having two children and over time watching her life choices basically and totally destroy her self esteem.   Barbara tells us how she, while growing up, was constantly described as a “smart girl”. She helped many figure out answers and learned along the way how to observe and research to learn whatever she needed to know. In 1995 when the internet was just coming into our sphere of experience, Barbara learned about it and created web pages and websites for the nonprofit for which she worked. Even with all the technical knowledge she amassed it took many years before she realized that even with all her smarts she was becoming a person who was being reshaped by a partner with his own low esteem and who constantly blamed her for everything that went wrong.   Eventually Barbara realized that something was wrong and began to look in ernest at her life and behavior. She realized that she had to make choices and regain her own self confidence and constructive view of herself. She changed her life and outlook and began growing again emotionally. Barbara tells us about her journey and even includes lessons she learned and wants to pass on to others.   In 2024 Barbara wrote and published her book, “Why Smart Girls Get Into Bad Relationships and How Not To Do It Again”. She is quick to point out that the book is not just for women. It is for anyone who may be facing a “bad relationship”. Barbara shares nine conclusions and thoughts from the book that illustrate why her writings can be so important for so many.   This episode is full of many great life lessons and observations. I do hope you not only enjoy it, but that you also gain some positive life choice ideas from it.     About the Guest:   Barbara Leigh grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin and was considered in school to be a smart girl. She was not the type to get in trouble or make bad decisions. She was involved in lots of activities and did well in school.   She went off to Ripon College where she majored in Speech Communication and worked in the library. After graduation, she got a job in a library at a nonprofit. While working toward a Masters in Library and Information Science at UW-Milwaukee in 1995, she was taking an online searching class and was recruited to build a web site for her employer, being one of only a few employees that had even heard of the World Wide Web.   From there, Barbara built a career as a web developer and eventually moved to online learning and LMS integrations. In each career step she moved toward content, but eventually was directed back to the technical.   In the midst of all that, Barbara got married and had two children. She entered and contributed to bad relationships in her marriage, career and family until one day she decided to just stop. She has spent the last twenty years figuring out what it means to stop, how to continue living, and how to do it better. In 2024, she published a book, Why Smart Girls Get Into Bad Relationships and How Not To Do It Again, and in 2025, she took early retirement to get fully into content and do more writing. She currently writes the Helpfulmess blog which posts weekly. Ways to connect with Barbara:   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbaraleighauthor/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barbaraleighauthor Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/barbaraleighauthor.bsky.social Website: https://www.barbaraleighauthor.com     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hello, everyone, wherever you happen to be today, around the world or in space, whatever the case happens to be, we're all in space anyway, so I guess that counts for something. But I'm really glad that you are here, and we're really going to have, I think, an interesting conversation today, because we, we have a person who has written an interesting book, at least. I think it's an interesting book. The title of the book is, why do smart girls get into bad relationships, and how to and how not to do it again. I think that's an interesting title. Smart Girls, I gotta say, though, Barbara, who is our guest, Barbara Leigh, I don't know. I think they're more than smart girls that get into bad relationships or just do dumb things. I don't know. Why is it that most people do dumb things, but that's a different story, and probably not what we're really going to cover today. But anyway, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset, and we're glad you're   Barbara Leigh ** 02:19 here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate   Michael Hingson ** 02:23 it. Yeah, well, it is probably true. Why do, why do so many people get into challenges? Ah, but we cope with what we have to right? Yes, we do. Well. Well, I'm glad you're here. Thanks for for being here and being on unstoppable mindset. Really looking forward to having a chance to really chat. Why don't we start? If we can by you telling us a little bit about kind of the early Barbara growing up and all that. Alright, well, I grew up. How's that for a great way to start.   Barbara Leigh ** 02:52 That's a great, great way to start. I grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin. I had two brothers and a sister, mom and dad and, you know, cats and a dog and cows. I lived in a small community. Everybody knew each other. Nothing really exciting about my childhood. I was in 4h and I was in lots of activities in school. I did great in school, and I was wildly shy as a small child, but I managed to get comfortable enough with that by being a 4h officer and being in in leadership positions in the activities that I was in. I went to off to college in Ripon, and I been busy working on being me ever since,   Michael Hingson ** 03:56 well, so you, you, you don't sound like you're very shy today,   Barbara Leigh ** 04:06 like I said, I tried to get past that. I'm still wildly introverted, but I'm at least, you know, able to speak in public. That's a   Michael Hingson ** 04:15 start. Well, that's a good you know, I'm I've always been amazed, and I hear it so often that the top fear today is public speaking. And I've never really, I know it's me, but I've never understood why it is, because I've always been somewhat used to doing it, but I think that people approach public speaking oftentimes with kind of the wrong idea, because I find that if people fear it, what they're really saying is they're afraid of the audience and what the audience might do. But I find that audiences generally don't tend to really want to view a speaker as being bad. They want speaker. To succeed. So it's always been a puzzlement to be as to why people are afraid of public speaking.   Barbara Leigh ** 05:07 Yeah, that is true. I was a Speech Communication major in college, and had to take public speaking as a course, and we had a guy in there that was just shook. His whole body. Shook it when he started out, and he by the end of the course, he was the best speaker there. I think he just needed to practice doing it and find out it's not so bad.   Michael Hingson ** 05:34 Well, what did he do? What do you have any notion of what what really eliminated his fear?   Barbara Leigh ** 05:41 I think he just got better each time. I think it really was just just getting up in front of people and finding out, yeah, they aren't gonna do anything. They're trying to do the same thing as me. They're trying to learn public speaking, and they're fine.   Michael Hingson ** 05:56 That's cool. Well, I know when I was a program director at our campus radio station at UC Irvine, I wanted everyone to listen to their their own shows. So we we wanted them to record the shows which they wouldn't do. So the engineer and I arranged for that to get done, and we made people listen to their shows, take the cassettes home and listen to them. And as I think about it, I think that probably more often than not, some of these people were in radio because they didn't have to stand up in front of an audience, and they didn't think about being in front of an audience and speaking so much. And so they did what they did, but when they were compelled, if you will, to listen to themselves, they got better. And they got better because they then heard what everybody else is hearing, and they taught themselves that they could really do better than than they thought they were doing, and that they thought that they could do. And I think that really makes a lot of difference. And some of those people actually ended up going into broadcasting as a as a career,   Barbara Leigh ** 07:01 that's great. Yeah, it really is. It's just a matter of getting used to your own voice. I mean, some people just really got annoyed, I guess is the word at their own voice, and they were like, I don't sound like that. Well, you don't sound like yourself inside your head. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 07:27 yeah. I know that when I hear myself talk, I do know that I sound different than I think I sound. And so again, that's part of what I work on. When I listen to recorded speeches, and I listen to what I say and how I say it, because I know what audiences like when they hear a speaker, so it gives me something to work toward. And that's a good thing. Yeah. So it is kind of fun. So you went off to school, you were in high school and all that and and did what? What people do in high school, I assume,   Barbara Leigh ** 08:07 yep, lots of groups. I was in library club and let's see Spanish club and music, musical and choir and various things. Yeah, normal stuff, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 08:23 yeah. I did some of that. I was in the science club, and there was a math club. Wasn't in too many clubs, but I was in those two and and had a lot of fun with that. So it's, it's a good thing. And then, of course, as many of us do, then you went on to college. Where did you go to college? Ripping College. I've never heard of that college,   Barbara Leigh ** 08:49 very small liberal arts college,   Michael Hingson ** 08:52 which is all the better I am. I'm a fan of smaller colleges. I read in the book David and Goliath, the guy who invented the tipping point, wrote this book, and he talks about the fact that if more people would go to small colleges, they would discover that they could actually be kind of a larger fish in a small pond, rather than being a fish that isn't necessarily as large a fish in a very large pond. So the value of people going to to places that are smaller adds a lot of value, and you do get a lot more attention. And that's why, one of the reasons I think I went to UC Irvine, we had 2200 excuse me, 2700 students when I went there. Now there are 32,000 freshmen. My gosh, I can't believe how large it is. No, it's University California, Irvine UCI, which they always say lovingly, really, truly means under construction indefinitely. They're always building new things on the college. So.   Barbara Leigh ** 10:01 Yeah, ripen is, is under 1000 students total. And   Michael Hingson ** 10:07 what did you major in? I knew all my professors. It   10:09 was great. And   Michael Hingson ** 10:10 that's, that's cool. And I did as well. I and I got to know some of them very well. Actually, a couple, one of them even came to my wedding when my wife and I got married. Some, seven or eight, well, eight years after I graduated, or, well, six years after I graduated, but he, we invited him, and he came to the wedding. So that was kind of cool. What did you major in   Barbara Leigh ** 10:33 speech communication with a religion minor? All right.   Michael Hingson ** 10:37 Wow, that's an interesting combination. Why? Why a religion minor with with that religion   Barbara Leigh ** 10:43 has always intrigued me. I guess it's I am interested in people, and religion has such a strong effect on people, and so I really just wanted to learn more about various religions and and how they work.   Michael Hingson ** 11:01 So what do you what do you think about religion and our world today, and how much of an effect it it has?   Barbara Leigh ** 11:11 It's probably very big question. Yes, yes, I have that's like, one of the ideas for one of my next books is to dig into that I'm I have several ideas of things I want to cover, and that's one of them. But, yeah, it just it floors me that there can be so much variation in people who seem to believe the same things.   Michael Hingson ** 11:44 Yeah, yeah. It is. It is fascinating. I I've said ever since escaping from the World Trade Center on September 11, that what happened, no matter what those terrorists say, was not a reflection on the whole world of Islam and the Muslim faith, those were thugs who decided that they wanted to try to make the world bend to their will, if you will, and and they they did a pretty good job for a little while, but it wasn't a religious war, because I think most Muslims are not that way. That's true, and we shouldn't demonize that religion as such, especially since we could always go back and talk about the crusades in, you know what, 1066, and so on. And if we want to talk about Christianity and what it did, yeah, the reality is, everybody tries to do things in the name of religion, and it just doesn't make sense at all. It doesn't. But people try to justify anyway, which is, which is truly unfortunate. Well, so what did you do after you got a degree?   Barbara Leigh ** 12:47 Oh, let's see. I went off to Well, I got married. There you go, after graduation, and moved to the town where my my husband was living, and we I started working at K Mart, and from there, I went to outlet mall. I was the retail store manager, and then I got my job at a nonprofit, and I've been at that nonprofit for 34 years, until I retired, just not too long ago.   Michael Hingson ** 13:24 Wow. What's the nonprofit? Or can you say   Barbara Leigh ** 13:28 it's the international foundation of employee benefit plans? Okay,   Michael Hingson ** 13:33 well, that sounds pretty useful. You were there a long time, huh? I was wow.   Barbara Leigh ** 13:39 I moved around to multiple departments, but I was able to keep growing later, so I stayed   Michael Hingson ** 13:46 so you you were there 34 years. Wow, that is a long time. What? What did you What did you learn about life being there for so long? Wow, I was out for a general question, yeah.   Barbara Leigh ** 14:06 Well, I learned, boy, so many things I have. The foundation is an Educational Association. So I learned the actual benefits. Part of it, I have a Certified Employee Benefit Specialist designation, but also I learned a lot about people and work environments and and getting along with people, and I learned a lot about technology when I started at the foundation the the World Wide Web was not public yet, and while I was there, I was going to graduate school at UW Milwaukee. I. For library and information science. And while I was doing that, I was taking a an online searching course. And my boss, well, I worked in the library, so my boss asked me if I would create a website for the foundation, because nobody else in the building really had even heard of the World Wide Web yet. Yeah. So I learned all about web development and programming and all of that, just because I happened to be the only one that   Michael Hingson ** 15:40 knew, and using tools like Netscape, remember Netscape? Oh, yes, absolutely,   Barbara Leigh ** 15:50 yeah, wow. So yeah, I learned a lot of that, and then from from the library, I went to it, and was in a web developer for many years, and then from it, I went to educational programs where I was working with our learning management system and the integration with with our association management system. So I was, I was doing integrations, basically and but the things that I learned in technology careers that have helped me thus far have been I was doing a lot of troubleshooting. So I would, you know, a lot of times, you know, if you're in technology, no garbage in, garbage out. So when I get to a problem, I say, you know, there's this, there's garbage coming out, or there's nothing coming out at all. And I work back word through the process to get to the source data. And learning that you finding the source data and making sure that the source data is correct is really important. So I learned about a lot about working my way through systems to find that and also making sure that the systems work. So that has helped me a lot in in my life, because when I got into the situation where I needed to write this book about I managed to work my way back to the source of of the problem. And so the the source of the problem was my beliefs about me, about relationships, about other people. And so it was really helpful for me to have that process already in place in my brain, that I could just work my way back to that and Okay, now I can start from better data.   Michael Hingson ** 18:13 Yeah, do you think that working a lot in technology and perhaps some of the other areas where you worked. Do you think that that taught you more about how to observe and look at things and better be able to analyze them and and remembering them? I just find that so often people don't observe things. And I think learning to observe is extremely important to do   Barbara Leigh ** 18:45 absolutely yes, yes, when that's that's like all of my career was observing and and like you said, analyzing, being able to put what I've observed into what I want to happen, or what I would I need to communicate with other people. I think a lot of my career was, was connecting the right people to the right either technology or the or the other people, or just get making those connections.   Michael Hingson ** 19:30 But you had to learn how to observe people and draw conclusions and get that information to make that happen.   Barbara Leigh ** 19:38 Oh yes. And, you know, it's a process, just in growing up and watching people in general. Like I said, you know, religion was, was my thing, because people fascinate me. So I I've always been a people watcher, not like, go sit at the mall and watch people, but, I mean, yeah. I just really try to understand where people are coming from. And I think once I was in a technology career, it was even more important, because a lot of times in those careers people don't expect the technology person to be able to do that, and for me, that was the most important part with understanding the people, understanding what they wanted, what they were actually saying was not exactly what they wanted, and to try to get it get to what they wanted, and then to work with the system to be able to get what they wanted to come out correctly.   Michael Hingson ** 20:53 How did you discover that? How did you discover that people weren't necessarily saying what they really wanted, or that somehow it wasn't being articulated on it. And I understand that's a really tricky sort of thing. I know in asking myself that I just kind of respond by saying, it's just something you gain from a lot of experience, but you have to think about it. But you know, what do you think   Barbara Leigh ** 21:21 exactly? It's trial and error. You keep having people ask you for one thing and then expecting something else, until you figure out that you know what that's really not what they want, and to get them to verbalize, okay, what is it you want coming out of this? Is it? It's tricky.   Michael Hingson ** 21:47 Yeah, yeah, it is and, and it is something where you got to be pretty careful about how you do it and, and to whom you you focus your attentions to make that happen. Or if you've got some people who are difficult to deal with, and again, I guess that that helps you stretch and grow and you learn how to even deal with those people a little bit better, so that they're comfortable in interacting with you.   Barbara Leigh ** 22:14 Yeah, absolutely. But a big part of my job is making people feel comfortable enough to talk to me and, you know, and a lot of times when I would get a project, I would go to the person that that's using, whatever it is, and ask them, okay, you know, where are you getting this data? What do you want it to look like? And, you know, and ask them deeper questions. And, and these are often the people who are, you know, low man on the totem pole, and don't ever get asked, but those are the people that I needed to get to to find out what you know, where things were coming from, to actually give them what was going to work for them.   Michael Hingson ** 23:10 And that's interesting. You're saying, like, the low person on the totem pole doesn't get asked, and they're the ones that would love to be asked to be able to offer their opinions, so that that opens up whole new opportunities when you convey that you're you're willing to listen, and of course, that also then deals with the whole issue of trust. Because if they tell you something and say, Well, I want this incompetence, and you have to keep it that way. Yes, absolutely, trust is, is such a fleeting thing today, even though it's all around us, everywhere we go And everywhere we look. I mean, we trust that the roofs on our houses aren't going to collapse while we're doing this interview, this well, this conversation, and we trust that the internet is going to continue to work. It might, we'll see. But, but we trust in so many ways, but yet, unfortunately, we also confront, or are confronted by situations that try to teach us not to trust and to be close to trust, which is too bad. Yeah, one of the things that, that, that I talk about, actually, in my latest book, live like a guide dog, is trust. I talk about the fact that, in general, the difference between a dog and a person is while dogs love unconditionally, and I think that's true, although they can be taught not to, obviously, but while dogs love unconditionally, they don't trust unconditionally. But the difference between a dog and a person is that dogs are much more open to trust because we have just learned, or we've drawn the conclusion that we can't trust people, and so we lose that skill of being open to trust and trust. Truly learning how to determine whether we can trust any individual or not, rather than just saying we're not going to trust   Barbara Leigh ** 25:07 Right, absolutely, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 25:10 which is, you know, which is so unfortunate? Well, I'm sure you've, you've encountered that a lot.   Barbara Leigh ** 25:17 I have, indeed, and you know that's that was part of my process, was learning how to trust again. And that's a slow, slow, hard process.   Michael Hingson ** 25:31 What, what caused you to start to learn not to trust? What? What happened in your life?   Barbara Leigh ** 25:38 Okay? Well, I want to talk about it, but, well, I won't go into too deep a detail, but yeah, I I was in a relationship where, you know, I was with a very a person has low self esteem, and because of that, I would get told that things were my fault, or things were if I hadn't done this, or if anything That happened really was was somehow brought back to me and as a person with higher self esteem, I took that as my personal responsibility, rather than looking at it as no, that's really Your choice, not, not something that I could cause, and that just kept eroding away at my confidence, and it ended up with me having no self esteem whatsoever. Wow. And then we, you know, I hit a point where an event happened, and I, you know, my brain went, nope, I don't deserve that. And that's where the light switch flipped, and I was to, you know, then I started looking around and going, you know what? I didn't deserve that, either or that, and that was not about me. And so then I started to measure against that, and go, Okay, I can set up boundaries now, because this is behavior that I won't accept anymore. And I was able to start making boundaries, and I was able to start standing up for myself. And, you know, as as that process went on, I was able to, I guess, it was motivate myself just by connecting, reconnecting with that higher self esteem person that I had been earlier. And so I would, you know, it honestly took a very long time, because I was at nothing, and at that point, I made a conscious effort to be gentle with myself and to be patient with myself and to accept myself and so with those being kind to myself thoughts, that's how I was able to move forward. And like I said, moving forward started motivating me, and I was able to bring myself back up to a higher self confidence.   Michael Hingson ** 29:02 Did you get? Oh, go ahead. Oh,   Barbara Leigh ** 29:04 but yeah. The the trust being gone was a trust for not just the person I was in a relationship with, but for so many things around me because I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust what I was believing about myself.   Michael Hingson ** 29:28 Did you hate yourself?   Barbara Leigh ** 29:31 I would not say that. I would say I just didn't understand myself. I would like I said, when I got to the bottom, I was able to say, I don't deserve that, so I wouldn't say hated myself. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 29:48 that's why I asked the question, because that was my impression of what from what you were saying. It wasn't a hate or a dislike, it was a recognition of what should be and what. And then how to deal with it?   Barbara Leigh ** 30:02 Yep, I was, you know, because I got there and, you know, the light switch went on, and I was like, how did I get here? How did this even happen? You know, it just, I couldn't understand.   Michael Hingson ** 30:18 But as you, as you progressed and as you learned about yourself, and that, of course, was part of it, is that you were learning about yourself and bringing yourself back the person you had a relationship with you weren't able to to, I gather, make positive steps to get them to to be a lot better than they were.   Barbara Leigh ** 30:43 That was not my focus. My focus was no boundaries, so that they couldn't hurt me anymore,   Michael Hingson ** 30:52 right, right? It wasn't a matter of you're trying to heal them, but setting boundaries and it would have it would have been nice if they had recognized what was going on. But that was the difference, is that you recognized and they did not right.   Barbara Leigh ** 31:06 And honestly, once I got to a place where I was back to being who I felt like me, he was able to look at that and take some motivation from that, and he actually went and got help through therapy as well. So it actually turned out way better than than expected, but   Michael Hingson ** 31:41 yeah, so are you guys still married? Yes, we are. Well, there you go. Okay, and that was what I was curious about. So he he did. It wasn't you can't, you can't fix everything because people have to fix themselves. But he was able to recognize that which was, which is so cool,   Barbara Leigh ** 32:02 yeah, honestly, I moved out twice. So, I mean, like I said, I set boundaries, yeah, but we made it work. I mean, like, like I said, when I first made the change I did. I was not strong enough to move to be on my own. I just wasn't. And so, you know, I just tried to be as patient with myself as possible, and and I just kept, kept those boundaries and okay, you can't talk to me like that. That's just not going to work. And as I moved forward, he kind of came along with me   Michael Hingson ** 32:47 well, and it sounds like you're both the better for it today.   Barbara Leigh ** 32:54 Oh, absolutely, yes, we've come a long way. I wouldn't say we're perfect for sure, but   Michael Hingson ** 33:01 it's a it's a process. Yes, it is. So what does he do for work or for a living?   Barbara Leigh ** 33:08 He is a sales person for a home improvement company.   Michael Hingson ** 33:11 Ah, ah, Home Improvement. Tim, the tool man, Taylor, but that's another story. Oh, gosh. Well, that's pretty cool. And does he do well at selling?   Barbara Leigh ** 33:25 Yes, he does that. He had his own business for for many years, and so it just comes pretty naturally to him.   Michael Hingson ** 33:34 Well, at the same time, if you're going to be good at sales, you have to learn to observe and and not take things too personally sometimes as well. I learned a lot about sales when I was confronted by needing to go into sales or finding another job, and then I took a Dale Carnegie sales course, and one of my favorite observations about sales is that the best salespeople are really counselors. They're teachers. They guide you in and help you make the right decision, rather than just trying to force something on you, which doesn't mean that they're not trying to make $1 and sell products, but you can also find that your product might not be what somebody wants, and if you push them into buying it, that's going to cost to cost you in the end anyway,   Barbara Leigh ** 34:24 right? And that's why he makes a good salesman, because he was he, he did the work for for 15 years, and at at his own company, and then he went, moved to sales, and just because his body was wearing out, and for because he knows how the product works, how it goes on the house or whatever, he can explain that to the customer, and that makes it so much easier for them to understand, you know, why they need what they need, and how it works.   Michael Hingson ** 34:59 Yeah. Yeah, and I have found that the better sales people really do understand how the product works, and they take the time to keep up with things, because that's going to make them better at what they do. Yes. So now you have children. How many children?   Barbara Leigh ** 35:16 Two, girl and a boy, and how old are they? 29 and 25   Michael Hingson ** 35:23 oh, they're just kids.   35:24 They're just kids   Michael Hingson ** 35:28 and and I know if they've gone into sales just checking no okay,   Barbara Leigh ** 35:36 and have no interest in doing that, what do they do? My daughter works in customer service, and my son is Air National Guard   Michael Hingson ** 35:47 member. Oh, okay, so it's hopefully it sounds like both of them have some really decent self esteem. Yes, they they learned that along the way from the two of you, which is good, which is a positive thing, which is, which is pretty cool, yeah. So you have retired from being with a nonprofit. You said you were there for 34 years, and what caused you to retire   Barbara Leigh ** 36:17 writing this book, I was, I'm looking at writing more and, you know, doing marketing and doing all the things book has been a lot to do and work full time, yeah, so I decided to give, give it my all.   Michael Hingson ** 36:35 Did you self publish or does the publisher publish it? Okay, yeah, which makes even more of a marketing responsibility for you. Although I think publishers are pushing more for most authors to do more to market their own books, rather than the publishers helping as much as perhaps they could. But nevertheless, well, tell us about the book. Then tell us, if you would tell us about that.   Barbara Leigh ** 37:01 Oh, it's why smart girls get into bad relationships, and how not to do it again. I started out with, well, basically the book is for people who want better relationships, not just women, but I. I started out with a smart girl title, because that is something I identify with. I think of it as an identity, because a lot of books on relationships are books written from the perspective of therapists or the perspective of people who have been abused or some kind of trauma or have addictions or something like that, and that's not, that's not who I am. And so I was trying to give a voice to, you know, average people have these problems too. So the smart girl identity is more about, really, like in high school, people would you know, who didn't know me? Well, what time I yearbook? You're so smart. Or people at work, thank you for fixing that. You're so smart, right? And I believed that. And what I believed was that reasonable humans make reasonable choices, and that's not always true, and so when I wrote the book here, or actually when I when I hit the bottom and I started looking back, I was like, I don't know how I got here. So how did I get here? I went through the process. I figured out that my beliefs weren't quite right, and they sounded good, but when I actually put them to action. They really didn't work. So the book is my process of of getting from bottom of the barrel self esteem back up to high self esteem, and looking at those beliefs and rewriting them.   Michael Hingson ** 39:23 So, um, how so like some of your beliefs that that didn't work. For example,   Barbara Leigh ** 39:28 I will read you a few of them if you don't mind. Okay, so, so you get the idea of where, where this goes. So Belief number there's nine of them. Belief number one, I can trust myself became, I can trust myself when I am being honest with myself, because I was lying to myself quite a bit of the time. It turns out, number two, I am a good helpful person became, I am a good helpful person, but that is not where I find my. Value, and that kind of blew me out of the water when I figured that one out. Number three, I'm smart, but I can't appear smarter than my partner. And that's where the focus on women comes in. It's kind of looks at the social oppression of women and how that affects your beliefs. You know, if you believe that stuff so, number three, became, I am smart and I don't have to hide it. Number four, I must guard my relationship, not only from outside, but from inside to became, I must guard my own boundaries to maintain my mental health and stay true to me. Number five, it is important to keep things steady and stable became keeping things steady and stable doesn't allow me to grow. Fear blocks my growth. Embracing the uncomfortable for a time helps me become better. That one was a hard one to learn how bad number six, self care is indulgent and not a priority. Became, self care is a high priority if I don't care take care of me, I can't be good at caring for anyone else. Numbers seven, I have emotional muscle, and I can muscle through anything became I have emotional muscle and I can use it to pull out of negative thoughts. I don't need to deny my emotions or wallow in them. Just recognize them, feel them, and continue to move all the way through them, and this one kind of hits home for my daughter. My daughter was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 20 months, and she used her emotional muscle to muscle through her pain, because she didn't want to see the reaction of people feeling sorry for her, and so she had a lot of of using that emotional muscle to just not show people her pain and and that has been something that we've had to work on for a long time.   Michael Hingson ** 42:33 What did she discover? What did she finally do?   Barbara Leigh ** 42:37 Well, it's been a process, but she's finally actually showing her pain. She because, like she's had a cyst that burst in it. It wrapped around some things, and she couldn't tell the doctor in charge that that she was having that much pain. She she didn't make it a 10 on the pain scale. So the doctor didn't think that she was that, that these complications had happened, because most people couldn't even walk with this pain, but she could, because she's super high pain tolerance. Yeah, and, you know, she learned that she doesn't need to hide her pain, which was, which was pretty life shaking for her, and she's learned that, you know, she can actually tell her doctors, yes, I'm, I'm actually having some pain, and I I really need to have you work on this or or give me medication for this, or whatever. But, yeah, she's she's really come a long way as far as being honest with herself and with other people. Yeah, let's see. Number eight, I can rely on my smartness to figure it out became I can rely on my smartness and problem solving ability. But life isn't always logical. Sometimes I'm starting starting from a faulty belief I don't have to be perfect. It's okay to ask for help when I don't understand and get stuck. And that one it, it seems very obvious, but that one was really ingrained and kept coming up in different ways. Number nine, partial is enough, I can and should fill in. The rest became I am a whole person with my own thoughts, emotions, talents, hopes, dreams and goals. So if I want to be in a relationship, my significant other should see me as a whole person and should be a whole person themselves.   Michael Hingson ** 45:10 Wow, some pretty deep concepts, needless to say, Yeah, but by the same but by the same token, you were willing to step back and observe and think about yourself, so you were able to to create these conclusions and make these changes, which is what it's really all about?   Barbara Leigh ** 45:36 Yeah, I think that's what's different about my book, is that it's not written by a therapist or somebody who's at the other side. It's somebody who's actually in it, um, digging through it and and feeling it and it makes the, you know, it. I pulled apart the process and was, you know, you have to hit all of the things that the you know, the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, social, all, all of the things to hold those beliefs out of all of the different places in your life where they stuck.   Michael Hingson ** 46:23 You think that people really have to, how do I say this? Go to the bottom or hit rock bottom before they can really start to learn?   Barbara Leigh ** 46:33 I hope not.   Michael Hingson ** 46:38 You did and I but I hear it a lot you really don't know until you hit rock bottom. And I'm not sure I totally buy that. It really depends on what you're able to learn and what you're able what conclusions you're able to draw. But a lot of times hitting rock bottom, if you will, maybe emotionally at least, brings people to where they need to be. But I am with you. I hope that it isn't always that way, and it doesn't need to always be that way,   Barbara Leigh ** 47:06 right? I think there's, there's different rock bottoms, you know? It's I got to the point where I needed to learn, and I learned, and that may not be what you and I would view as rock bottom to someone else, you know, but it's, you know, I finally, I finally flip the switch. And that's, you know, somebody else may have a switch at a different level than   Michael Hingson ** 47:40 or they may not see that there's a switch to flip which is, which is all about choice, yep. So what got you started down the road of writing the book?   Barbara Leigh ** 47:54 To be honest, I never thought I would write a book that was never, you know, a big goal in life for me, and I think it's totally a God thing, because I was, you know, my my daughter's been telling me, you need to write a book. You need to write a book for, you know, years. And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure, no product. And then all of a sudden it was time to write the book. And I was like, I don't know why it's time to write the book, but it's time to write the book. And honestly, it it flowed. I mean, I had all these great ideas for a book, and they went poof out the window when I wanted to start writing. I I just kind of sketched out an outline that was terrible, and showed it to a few people, and they're like, sure, you go. And I threw it away and just started writing. And once I started writing, it, it flowed. It actually just came out. And once I was in it a little, you know, a few chapters in, then I was able to organize it and figure out what I wanted to say and make an outline. But I couldn't do any of that until I just started writing. So I don't know, it was odd. And then I gave it to my son. I gave, like, the first two, two chapters, probably, to my son, and he read it, and he pushed it back over the table at me, and said big words. And I was like, okay, so I took it and I took out all the big words, and I made it more conversational. And now everybody who who has read it and and talk to me is like, you know, it just feels like a conversation with a good friend over a cup of   Michael Hingson ** 49:57 coffee. There you go for   Barbara Leigh ** 49:59 a glass of. Wine. So that's where it   Michael Hingson ** 50:03 got, yeah, it's, it's about not preaching, but presenting and teaching in a in a non confrontive way, which is what it's really about, which is what sales is about, Yeah, but that was very observant on his part to say that, yeah,   Barbara Leigh ** 50:24 you made it so much better.   Michael Hingson ** 50:28 When I wrote thunder dog, my first book I was I wrote it with someone. We collaborated. I had worked on it for a long time, or at least worked on ideas. And then Susie Flory called one day and she wanted, she was writing her own book, and she said, Tell me your story. And after I did, she said, You should write your own book, and I'll help you do it. And she did, one of the things that we had was that the book is about being in the World Trade Center, but it's also a lot about my life. And when we got it to the editor, because her agent, who became my agent, Chip McGregor, was able to sell it to Thomas Nelson publishing, which is now part of HarperCollins. But the editor said, My problem with this book is the transitions. And kind of said, well, what do you mean? He said, Well, you talk at the beginning of each chapter about an event on September 11, and then you you go back in your life, but you don't transition between the two. And then when you come back, you don't transition. And I get lost. And when he described that, it just immediately clicked what he was saying. And I actually then spent a weekend putting transitions in every chapter at the right places. And when he read that, he said, this is perfect. This is exactly what I was talking about. And when one of the major reviewers of the book, Kirkus, which reviews books for publishers and libraries and so on, when they reviewed it, they said one of the most powerful parts about it were the transitions. And so I appreciate what your son said, because sometimes the unexpected thing that someone says is what sends you down a road to make it a much better thought process and a much better book or a much better whatever than it would have been otherwise.   Barbara Leigh ** 52:22 Yeah, absolutely. I had a friend from college read it from an author perspective. So she's, she's written five books, and she gave me just, you know, really, she wrote fiction books so they weren't the same, but she gave me just really good authoring advice. As far as you know, you were used this word too many times, you know, things like that. And that was really, really helpful too to just, oh, okay, I get it. That would make it much more smooth. And you know, that was really helpful for me too, and it's just just to get feedback in any capacity is so helpful, I think,   Michael Hingson ** 53:12 well, and all of those comments that people give you help teach you how to write better. Yeah, absolutely. How has writing the book changed your perspective?   Barbara Leigh ** 53:24 Wow. Well, first thing, I had no idea about writing books or publishing or marketing or any of that, so that's been a whole big learning curve. But as far as you know, even even writing through the book helped teach me some things about the process as well. Just as far as relationships go, and talking through it with I had about a dozen people reading it at chapter by chapter as I got them done and and having getting that feedback from them, as far as you know, how it how it affected them, and it was really just so, I guess, helpful for me to learn what other people were were thinking when they're reading it. Because, you know, some of the things had never occurred to me, some of the things were for from friends who had been through some kind of childhood trauma. And I was kind of looking at, okay, I get what you're saying, and I think this that what you're telling me is you. This part is coming from your childhood trauma, but this other part is definitely something that I could add to my book, and I didn't want to make my book about trauma, because it really in my mind, was for the person that was just an average person, living an average life, having average relationship. However, my friends who have had childhood trauma have actually been the most affected by my book, which I find fascinating.   Michael Hingson ** 55:42 That's that's interesting, but it does make sense, because clearly you're trying to help people be more open about themselves, to themselves. And the people that that do that are the people that have been in situations where maybe they haven't, and they maybe intellectually realize that they need to grow and change, but they hadn't totally emotionally adopted that stance, and so you help them with that, which is cool.   Barbara Leigh ** 56:11 Yep, that's something I was expecting for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 56:15 No, understand. Now you have a blog also right, called helpfulness. Why is why is it called helpfulness? And what is it about?   Barbara Leigh ** 56:24 It is called helpful mess because when I was writing this book, I was writing about helpfulness and how that kind of steered me in the wrong direction, because that's where I was finding my value, and I had a typo that made it helpful. Mess, mess. Yeah, I said related to that mess. Yeah, it's like, that messy part. That's me. I So related to that that I ground onto that word. I was like, Okay, this word is mine,   Michael Hingson ** 56:56 well, and it really goes right along with the book and everything we've talked about today. Needless to say, Have you thought about doing things like starting a coaching program? Or do you do any of that?   Barbara Leigh ** 57:12 I do not. My daughter is, she is a life coach, and she has started a holistic nutrition program. So she's kind of doing that, that thing and, and I've never really been interested in doing that kind of thing. So I like you go. I will help you.   Michael Hingson ** 57:33 Okay, well, that's fair. I think we, we all do what we we feel we're best at, and it may come to the time where you'll suddenly discover that you're really better at it than you think, and that you could, you could coach people, or maybe not, but that's really something to look at.   Barbara Leigh ** 57:55 Yeah, I do want to focus on my writing for a while, but you know, when she's done with her program, maybe we'll get something   Michael Hingson ** 58:01 together. Well, there you go, and she lives close to you. Yeah,   Barbara Leigh ** 58:08 she's a half hour early, all right, so   Michael Hingson ** 58:10 Wisconsin home to everywhere, which is pretty cool. Well, so what would you advise? What kind of advice would you give to someone who's going through a lot of the things that you've gone through and so on? What would be the first thing that you would say to them to hopefully get them started down a different path of of life, rather than thinking so little of themselves and not really wanting to move forward,   Barbara Leigh ** 58:39 I would tell them they have options. You can leave your your value is not in how helpful you are, and be gentle and be kind to yourself and accept that you may not be coming from a belief that is true. And look, you know, try to see when you feel something that right, kind of off. Kind of look at your beliefs and you know, where is this coming from? Because a lot of times you can find it if you look hard enough, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 59:31 it's about teaching people to truly develop the skill of self analysis, if you will. Yeah, which is something that we, we all ought to do more of we, we tend not to really look at ourselves. And it goes back to the same thing as the whole concept of the fear of public speaking, if we, if we step out of ourselves and look at what happened, we beat up on ourselves rather than recognize. Amazing. This is a teaching moment, and we can learn from it, rather than allowing it to just be something that beats us   Barbara Leigh ** 1:00:07 up. Yes, absolutely,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:10 which makes a lot of sense. Well, I want to thank you for doing this. We've been we've been at this about an hour. Can you believe it? But I really enjoyed having you talk about it. Do you have any kind of last minute thoughts that you want to convey to people?   Barbara Leigh ** 1:00:30 Well, let's see. I guess if you think reasonable humans make reasonable choices, maybe rethink that. If you want to find my book, you can find it at my website. Let's see   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:48 and what's your website?   Barbara Leigh ** 1:00:51 Barbara Lee, author.com and Lee is l, e, i, G, H,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:56 so it's Barbara Lee, author.com, yeah, cool. Well, I hope people will find it, and we'll, we'll read it. Is it's available? Is it a hard copy or ebook, or both, or both? Okay,   Barbara Leigh ** 1:01:16 and available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Ingram, Apple, Google, not all the places   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:24 they're they're an audible version or an audio version,   Barbara Leigh ** 1:01:27 not yet something to work on asking, yeah, absolutely. I know I have two people that have been asking, and I well, I have to start making money before I can spend money on that.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:43 Yeah, I hear you well, unless you read it yourself, which cuts the cost way down.   Barbara Leigh ** 1:01:49 Yeah, try that. I have no idea how to do that either, so that, you know, has added to my my pile of things I need to learn.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:56 There you go. It's an adventure.   Barbara Leigh ** 1:01:57 Yes, absolutely, it's on the list. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:00 Barbara, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it, and I want to thank all of you for listening. I hope that this has been not only enjoyable, but educational and worth your time. Love to hear your thoughts. Love to get your your thoughts about this. So any of you who would we'd love to hear from you, please email me at Michael H, i@accessibe.com that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, wherever you're listening, please give us a five star review. We really appreciate those reviews, and especially we love five star reviews. We want positive reviews, but you give us your honest thoughts. We love that. We appreciate it, and we value your comments very highly. If you know anyone who you think ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, please let us know. And if, by the way, you aren't sure how to review or whatever, or you want to find another place to hear more podcasts in addition to wherever you're listening to it, today, you can go to Michael hingson.com/podcast that's m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o n.com/podcast, and all of our episodes are there, but we really value your time. We value that you like what we're doing. We'll always love to hear from people, so please let us know and keep the emails coming and again. Barbara, I just want to thank you. We really appreciate your time and are so glad that you came and spent this time with us.   Barbara Leigh ** 1:03:32 Thank you, Michael, it's been great. I appreciate   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:40 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

With the CRCNA's 2025 synod just around the corner, we take some time this week to reflect on the agenda and three of the big items on the docket: the virtual" church report, the assisted suicide report, and the overtures coming in regarding matters relating to gravamina, confessional subscription, and the Covenant of Officebearers. For a great snapshot of this year's agenda, check out the new Guide to Synod 2025 ----more---- Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

New World Screwworm is making headlines and also making U.S. beef producers very nervous. With budget cuts everywhere in the federal budget, they're worried about what inspection hole might be vulnerable to the pest getting into the U.S. Jill Welke uncovers what we don't know about the pest and how to eradicate it with Sigrid Johannes from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.Hit and miss showers are going to be a part of the rest of the week in Wisconsin. Stu Muck explains that, and the temperature fluctuations we could experience.Weather's been just right for Wisconsin's asparagus crop! That happy news comes from Green Barn Farm Market in Ripon. Charitee Seebecker talks with operator Heather Brandt about the crop and the 10 acres they manage and harvest.Wisconsin farmers are alarmed at what they've read in the "Make America Healthy Again" Commission report. During a Senate hearing last week, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy from Health and Human Services said allegations that the report would cost farmers their way of life were "totally inaccurate".John Heinberg takes a closer look at the tariff discussion that transpired over the weekend. Wall Street is rallying while commodities are focused on weather. Cattle on Feed report came out Friday verifying what most already know. Cattle are scarce.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We had the pleasure of chatting it up with Eli and his son Ethan Day and discuss his journey from  Tight End at Ripon Indians to MJC to Wyoming to a Defensive End on North Texas' football field.  We hope you High School players can be encouraged by this podcast if you share the dream of playing Football at the next level.

A perennial question in the Christian life is whether we can truly trust the Bible. With all the years that have come and gone between the original writings and now, can we really be sure the Bible hasn't just been corrupted like a long game of telephone, or twisted by this or that whim of ancient scribes? And what about those few passages or verses in the Gospels that are put in brackets and have strange footnotes about how the "earliest manuscripts" either do or don't contain them? In this week's episode, we try to take a pastoral look at how the field of study known as "textual criticism" not only doesn't challenge our trust in God's Word but actually deepens and strengthens it.   Recommended Resources for Further Study: Can I Really Trust the Bible?, by Barry Cooper How We Got the Bible, by Greg Lanier How God Preserved the Bible, by Richard Brash The Truth About the Bible and Early Christianity: Wes Huff, Michael Kruger, Daniel Wallace     Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

By the Lord's grace, we've reached yet another milestone here at Reformed Podmatics: episode 200! To help us celebrate we invited back an old friend of the show, Simon Veenstra, to join in for a lively convivial conversation about what it is that continues to thrill and captivate us about the Reformed faith, and how we hope this beautiful inheritance will continue to guide our denomination in the years to come.   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

The best way to describe this episode of YuSkool Podcast is if ADHD could talk. We go on a roller coaster of topics and none of them seem to make sense but witht that being said I hope you enjoy. Listen real hard.

This week's episode comes from a listener question! He wrote in, wondering if many ordinary Christians may doubt whether it's really all that important to pursue progressing from spiritual milk to the solid food, thinking that maybe it's just for pastors and theology nerds to pursue deeper theological and biblical wisdom. So we take some time to think, why should lay Christians move beyond spiritual milk to solid food? We hope you're encouraged and motivated as you listen in!   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

With all that's going on in our world around us today, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. But for the believer, there is still hope available to us at all times. In this week's episode, Mark and Zac dig into three passages of Scripture that perennially remind us where true hope can be found. As you celebrate this Easter season, perhaps this may be the perfect place to start!   Mentioned by Zac: Impossible Christianity: Why Following Jesus Does Not Mean You Have to Change the World, Be an Expert in Everything, Accept Spiritual Failure, and Feel Miserable Pretty Much All the Time by Kevin DeYoung Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

Racing in Ireland on Saturday is in Navan (26th April 2025). Cross-channel, there are meetings in Sandown, Haydock, Leicester, Ripon, Doncaster and Wolverhampton. With his 'Saturday Six,' here's Galway Bay FM's George McDonagh.

The conversation with Voice actor and paranormal enthusiast David Ault continues with thoughtful insights on "Learning to see" and other fascinating topics!

Danielle Miura, CFP®, EA, is the founder of Spark Financials (https://spark-fin.com), a fee-only financial planning firm located in Ripon, CA. At 25, Danielle's life turned upside down when she became a family caregiver for her 88-year-old grandmother. Through her caregiving experience, she realized how complex family caregiving can be, from making hard decisions to remembering to care for herself. As a former sandwich generation family caregiver, she is passionate about helping others navigate the financial challenges of caregiving while also prioritizing their own financial well-being.Link Page: https://spark-fin.com/link-page

Over the last few months, many have argued that Christianity is experiencing something of a "vibe shift". Just last year, Aaron Renn published a book called Life in the Negative World, arguing that the Church was living in increasingly oppositional times in the Western world. So could it be possible that, perhaps, there is something more going on here too? And if so, what should we do about it? ***Episode note: please forgive our audio imbalance issues. We'll make sure to clear them up going forward!   For stats and analysis of the "Quiet Revival" in England and Wales, see here: https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/research/quiet-revival  Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

This week we're joined by our friend and special guest, Rev. Todd Zuidema, who serves as the Director of Church Relations at Dordt University. In this episode, we take some time to talk with Todd about Dordt University, its vision and philosophy, as well as its approach to what's been going on within the CRCNA over the past few years of major synodical decisions.  Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

InPart 1 of this special episode, I interview talented voice actor andparanormal enthusiast David Ault. We discuss the paranormalphenomenon, social media, conspiracy theories, the ghosts of Riponand so much more! It's a highly engaging conversation and full ofinsightful thoughts. Checkout more of David Ault here: https://www.davidault.co.uk/

Sometimes people may wonder what we're reading and thinking about over here at Reformed Podmatics, so this week decided to share a little bit about some recent things we've been reading, watching, and listening to. If you're looking for good books, devotionals, YouTube channels, or music to help you grow in your daily walk this is the episode for you!   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

On this week's episode of Inside the Headset – Presented by CoachComm, we sit down with Bob Nielson, the Director of Divisional Football at the AFCA. In this conversation, Coach Nielson shares insights on his new role at the AFCA, his journey through the coaching ranks, and the importance of building strong relationships in the profession. Coach Nielson joins the AFCA after spending 32 seasons as a Head Coach at Division 1, 2, and 3 levels, most recently as the head coach at FCS South Dakota.   For coaches looking to contact Coach Nielson with any questions, please reach out to him at bnielson@afca.com.  Follow Inside the Headset on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe to our YouTube channel for exclusive content. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a like and leave a review—it really helps others discover the show. We drop new episodes every week, so hit that follow button and never miss a moment.  1:16 New role as the Director of Divisional Football at the AFCA and plans for this role.   3:35 Passion for serving and fighting for the coaching profession by being active in governance.   6:06 When did you know you wanted to be a part of the coaching profession?   7:50 Separating yourself as a coach as an undergraduate assistant with former teammates.   9:27 Getting acclimated to the job duties of a coach and realities of the profession.   10:59 Getting promoted to full-time and finding avenues to learn and develop as a young coach.   13:14 Getting promoted from Offensive Line coach to Defensive Coordinator.   14:55 Using resources to help develop a philosophy and learn to coach.   16:13 Early learning curves as a first-time coordinator.   18:27 Becoming the Head Coach at 29 at Ripon.   20:44 Where did you go to learn as a first-time Head Coach?  23:15 Returning to your alma mater as the Head Coach and Athletic Director.   24:52 Value of establishing relationships with leadership and administration at the school.   26:22 Impact of early experiences and lessons on the success at Wartburg.   27:49 Transition to UW-Eau Claire as the HC.   29:56 Juggling the responsibilities of serving as the Head Coach and Athletic Director.   31:54 Evaluating the potential for success at a program.   34:58 Establishing a culture of success at each program within the first three years.   36:07 Stepping away from coaching to serve as the full time AD at Minnesota-Duluth.   38:53 Utilizing coaching experience to help make decisions as an AD.   41:01 Returning to the sidelines as the Head Coach at Minnesota-Duluth.   43:02 Proving that you are confident in your ability to be successful.   44:45 Feelings that come with winning National Championships and finding success.   46:18 Hiring a staff that is able to support you as the Head Coach.   48:24 Transition to Western Illinois and Division 1 level.   50:18 Transition to South Dakota to finish out your career.   53:26 Conclusion. 

In 1 Peter 2:9 we read that the church is "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession." But what does this mean, in practice? For some, it means all believers are on the same playing field, able to preach, lead, and administer sacraments. For others, it means something less radical. Where does the Reformed tradition stand? And how does it compare, for example, to an Anabaptist or Pentecostal view? What about the Roman Catholic view? These are questions we dig into on this week's episode.   The article mentioned from Roger E. Olson can be found here: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/09/mostly-for-baptists-others-welcome-to-listen-in-priesthood-of-believers/ Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

The hour starts with John Craemer and Tori Wittenbrock from the Green Bay Press Times. They bring Jessica Deiderich with Green Bay Habitat For Humanity. They are getting ready for this season's "Rock The Block" program, where neighbors help neighbors do various repairs on their homes. Then Jason Mansmith, with the Thrasher Opera House in Green Lake, joins to talk about the upcoming "Eats For The Arts" campaign, which includes great food from local Green Lake and Ripon restaurants. The participating restaurants donate a portion of the sale of menu items to help fund the great entertainment that the Thrasher brings to our listening area. Green Bay and on WISS in Appleton/Oshkosh. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast lineup. Follow the show on Facebook and X to keep up with Maino and the Mayor!

In this week's episode, Martin reports back from the Defender OCTA, Steve stares at a Triumph Stag through a window and the guys answer a plethora of listeners' questions.Martin kicks off by giving a first glimpse into the driving experience of the new Defender OCTA, both on and off-road, ahead of the full review in Land Rover Monthly magazine.The pair chat about the recent LRM Autojumble at Ripon, and explain why one visitor had a bone to pick...There's a whole host of listeners' questions in this episode, including helping a listener decide on their first Land Rover – a Discovery 1 or a Discovery 2 – and how to bleed Series III twin-leading-shoe drum brakes.Product of the Week and Feature of the Week of course star, and there's a preview of LRM Live in May.As always, please leave a little review or rating on your preferred streaming service, and don't forget to send your feedback and questions to editorial@lrm,co.uk. Enjoy the episode.

For many Christians today, sharing the faith proves to be a challenge. In a divided world with deep convictions on all sides of the political and cultural spectrum, it can be hard to speak up and tell the truth. And the difficulty only increases when we consider sharing our faith with unbelieving family members--siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, grandparents, you name it. So in this week's episode we dive right in and offer our perspective, thoughts, and experiences to help our listeners think through this crucial task. Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

Send us a textWelcome to the Agegroup Multisport Podcast, on this episode we have the pleasure of speaking with Daniel Evans.Daniel says "I'm a long distance age group triathlete. I grew up in West Wales then went to university in Bristol to study physiotherapy. After graduating I moved to Hull with my partner.Sport background  I grew up playing a lot of rugby (as much as possible), playing for Scarlets under 18's, Carmarthen Quins (welsh premiership) and Hull RUFC (English National 1).  It has always been a dream of mine to compete in Ironman Wales, therefore I made the switch to triathlons. My first triathlon was Ripon triathlon in 2023, then later that year I did Ironman Wales where I came 3rd in age group. In 2024 I moved to Australia and competed in Geelong 70.3, Ironman 70.3 Cairns, Townsville long distance world championships, western Sydney 70.3. Plans for 2025 UTMB Tarawera 52km ultra and Ironman Wales. "hope you enjoy Daniels story.You Can Follow us  onYouTube - AMP GBInstagram @amp_1967Facebook : AMPGBfind all our episodes on our websiteWebsite is : https://agegroupmultisportpodcast.buzzsprout.com/email: agegroupmultisportpodcast@gmail.comIf you are an agegroup athlete and would like to come on the pod, get in touch.

While there is a lot that we get into here at Reformed Podmatics that gets us into controversial waters, one of the least controversial things in the Christian life is our duty to the poor and vulnerable in our midst. In recent decades, this has unfortunately become a political issue, like much else, yet for all believing followers of Christ it is a non-negotiable. So what does the Bible teach us about caring for the poor, the hurting, the hungry, the prisoner, and the stranger? And why does it matter? Join us this week as we offer our thoughts from Scripture and Church history.   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

In both the Christian Reformed Church and the broader church today, there is a shortage of faithful pastors. For a multitude of reasons, many pastors have been leaving the ministry in recent years and less young people have heeded the call. So in this week's episode we want to dig into what's going on and, more importantly, we want to help listeners consider what it means for them - or someone they know - to be called by God to be a minister of the gospel. Regardless of whether you sense a call or not, this is an extremely practical discussion for Christians everywhere.   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

Over the past several years one common accusation levied against those in favor of the classical Christian view on sexuality is that there has not been enough listening, open inquiry, and dialogue. The feeling among many is that by settling the debate within the CRCNA through synod, conservatives have effectively silenced dissent by circumventing honest deliberation. So in this week's episode, we try to tackle this argument head on in order to help everyone think through what James means - and doesn't mean - when he says that godly wisdom is "open to reason" (James 3:17).  Nicholas Wolterstorff's article mentioned in the episode can be found here: https://letter.icscanada.edu/wolterstorff?fbclid=IwY2xjawIkULVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVC13jpa0LjWLh4MmtDISdINmv-rhQtfGR6a-jsPeKYrxgczVxQ32m206g_aem_NWUmMlPzqjlOLEaCwa-mEg   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

One of the perennial needs in the Church is a strong dose of theological humility, where believers develop strong, confident convictions but without the pitfalls of hubris and pride. But the question is, in our quest for knowledge how are we to avoid becoming puffed up? This is what we aim to tackle in this week's episode.   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.  

In this week's episode, Martin and Steve are back from the first LRM Autojumble of the year – Malvern. It was a cracking day of buying, selling and looking at loads of lovely Land Rovers. Did you miss it? Don't worry, Ripon and Newbury are just around the corner so be sure to get to one of those.Steve has an update on his Ninety's tub, and an update on the level of workmanship that he's going for on his rebuild project – he's shooting for the stars so stay tuned for updates on the Podcast and in Land Rover Monthly magazine and YouTube.Martin imparts some tech tips that he's picked up over the years, and Steve explains why paper price tags aren't ideal for labelling wiring. The Malvern Autojumble was also the first long run out for Martin's Series III... did it make it there and back okay?The pair also discuss when it's time to pull the plug on a loyal old Land Rover – is it always "better the devil you know" or is there a specific point where you should cut your losses?

Guest: K M Hasan Ripon, Employability & Workplace StrategistIn this episode of 2 Cents Podcast, we sit down with K M Hasan Ripon, a renowned Employability & Workplace Strategist, to explore the realities of the job market, business opportunities, and career growth in Bangladesh.We dive deep into:

In a recent article in the New York Post entitled "Young men leaving traditional churches for ‘masculine' Orthodox Christianity in droves", journalist Ricki Schlott analyzes the growing trend among young men in Gen Z leaving Evangelicalism for the Eastern Orthodox Church. In this week's episode we discuss why we believe this is happening, what it teaches us about the needs of young people, and what we as Reformed Christians can do about it.   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

One of the great questions in life that many of us have is whether or not we can really change, and if we can, how it happens and how we can do it. In this week's episode, we dive into this subject and explore it biblically, addressing along the way how Christians believe God can (and does) change us but how some of the changes we would like to see in ourselves can be painfully long in the making as we grow and learn and strive by God's grace.   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

This week's topic comes from a listener in Blyth, ON who is curious to hear an explanation for and defense of the Reformed articulation of predestination and irresistible grace. In particular, she's interested to see how we would respond to the oft-repeated claim that "God wouldn't force people to love Him because He's a gentleman.” So by using the Scriptures and the Canons of Dort, we aim to do just that, laying out a case for how the Reformed view is deeply biblical, catholic, and pastoral, as well as how it best matches up with the experience of spiritual rebirth.    Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

With all that's going on around us, it can be easy to despair and forget that God is still at work bringing His flock to Himself by the power of the gospel. In this week's episode we take a look at some of the encouraging trends going on in our world today that help us see and find joy in all that God is doing among us today. From the decline of New Atheism to the rise of Christian YouTube, from the increase of Bible sales in 2024 to conversion of high-profile intellectuals there is much going on that ought to cause us to rejoice and give thanks to the Lord. So we hope this little exercise helps you to share in our joy.   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

In the modern world today there is such a dizzying array of different Christian denominations and traditions that it's easy to get lost and confused. In order to exhibit the spirit of mere Christianity where we can appreciate and benefit from other Christians, we need to better understand the Christian family tree and the different branches. In doing so, we need to develop joyful discernment, not so we can look down on other Christians, but so we can know what to look out for as we learn from them and appreciate the gifts they bring to the table. In this week's episode, we aim to do just that, first by exploring the family tree and then by thinking through how to be discerning so as to best learn from others. And as always, we would love to hear from you! If you have any questions or topics you'd like us to consider, please feel free to reach out to our emails or our Reformed Podmatics Facebook page. Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

On todays final show of 2024 we take a long walk on the moor with writer and gentleman Jeremy Dyson.We first head to Ripon to witness the supposed longest surviving continuous folklore practice in the world, The Ripon Hornblower, and find out more about this extraordinary custom.We grab our walking boots and head up Ilkely Moor, with dark tales of alien encounters and cannibals that lurk amongst the boulders. We discuss ghostly encounters on the dark moor as well as Jeremy being not only one forth of the legendary creative team that gave us the League of Gentleman, but also the co creator of the hit play Ghost Stories.Expect ghosts, ghouls and goblins as we wander the overgrown paths of Ilkley Moor bah t'at!Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

'Tis the season for a Reformed Podmatics discussion about Christmas movies! This week, as good Neo-Calvinists, we take a little time to reflect on some of the most beloved Christmas films like A Christmas Carol, It's A Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Home Alone and examine what they get right, what they get wrong, and what they suggest to us about how our culture sees the Christian faith. As this will be the last episode of the year, we'd like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year from us here at Reformed Podmatics. May your celebrations of God's incarnation bring life, joy, and hope to you all this season. See you in 2025!   Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

  A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.   In this episode of APEX Express, host Cheryl shares Part 1 of a powerful intergenerational conversation featuring the OG organizers of Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and young leaders from Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP). The discussion highlights the challenges and inspirations that drove CAA's founders to join the Asian American Movement of the '60s and '70s, offering valuable lessons for sustaining activism across generations. Important Links: Chinese for Affirmative Action: Website  |  Instagram Hmong Innovating Politics: Website  |  Instagram Transcript   Cheryl Truong: good evening and welcome to tonight's episode of apex express. I'm your host, Cheryl Truong and tonight is an AACRE night. Now you might be wondering what is AACRE. AACRE stands for the Asian Americans for civil rights and Equality network, which is made up of 11 grassroots, social justice groups. Together leverage the power of our network to focus on longterm movement, building and support for Asian-Americans committed to social justice. And speaking of AACRE groups. APEX express is proud to be a part of the AACRE network.  For tonight's show, I'm thrilled to share a really special and intimate recording from a panel discussion we hosted here at the AACRE network that bridges generations of organizing. This panel brought together the OGs– originals– who helped build chinese for Affirmative Action or CAA into the esteemed 50 year old civil rights organization it is today. Alongside young organizers from Hmong Innovating Politics, also known as HIP, who are paving the way for Hmong Americans in Sacramento and Fresno. Both hip and CAA are vital groups within the AACRE network. The purpose of this exchange. To spark an intergenerational dialogue between seasoned CAA leaders and current hip staff and exploring how their roles in the movement have evolved over time.  Together, they delve into the strategies they've employed to sustain their impact over decades of organizing. However, this is only part one of what is and was a much longer conversation. So for tonight's episode, we'll focus on getting to know some of the CAA OGs. You'll hear them introduce themselves. Share some of the hardships they faced as pivotal organizers during the Asian-American movement of the tumultuous sixties and seventies. And reflect on what catalyze them to get involved in the movement. Through the stories we hope to uncover lessons from the past that can guide us in sustaining and evolving the fight for justice today. So stay tuned. It's going to be an inspiring and reflective journey into the heart of activism.  So I'm pleased to introduce. The panel facilitator, Miko Lee who is AACRE's director of programs. And CAA OGs Germaine Wong Henry Der Laureen Chew Stephen Owyang and Yvonne Yim-Hung Lee  Miko: Yvonne,  what was a kind of chrysalis moment for you in terms of social justice? Yvonne Yim-Hung Lee: First of all, when I got the email, I didn't know what O. G. was, so I said “Oh Geezer!” That's how I interpret it. I said “Oh, I'm there!” This is going to be a really honest and frank family gathering so thank you inviting me and I'm really excited to be here with my, peers and colleagues and more importantly to really hear from you, your experience. I am a first generation immigrant. My parents were very well to do business people in Hong Kong. They decided to immigrate to this country with three young kids. My father when he was young, he was the richest boy in his village. Overnight, people came and forced his father to give up 98 acres of their 99 acre farm. So from being the richest boy in town, in his village, to have to go to Hong Kong to live with this uncle. My mom was from a rich family in China also. Her father was one of the few merchants who came to the U.S. after the Chinese Exclusion Act, he went to New York, opened up a pastry shop, but he found his goal. He won second prize of a New York lotto. So he decided to go back to China because even though he was a merchant, he experienced a lot of discrimination. He never talked about his experience in America. But my mom was a little princess. You know, we used to call her , and her friends, the little Paris Hilton of the group, because that's what they did. They went to school as ABC's, never had to work a day in their life. But one thing, She and my father, because they were both from richest families in different villages, they were supposed to be matched up. But by the time they were at marriage age, he was already a poor kid. But my mom told the father, said, a promise is a promise.. So she married this poor guy, moved to Hong Kong, and he did quite well for himself. So we were brought up, ” money is not what should drive you in your life. You can lose it in one day. The most important thing is to have a good heart, to make sure that everything in this world, you have to make a difference. Whether it's to your family, or to others. You cannot be angry, because someone else is going to make you angry. When we came, it was a really tough time for him. You know, we lived really well in Hong Kong. Coming here to live in Chinatown back in the 60s really wasn't that pleasant. But, we made do based on the three principles. We came here for freedom. We came here for knowledge. And knowledge doesn't mean just college. So we were lucky. We never were forced to study certain fields so that we can make money because for him, it was always experience to really, really take in the nourishment for yourself, but give out whatever you have to others. So based on the guidance and that's how, that's my North Star. That's what's driven me. So I went to Davis. Yay Davis and the Cows! They're still there. What really got me to community activism was when I was 16, I was in the hospital. And They put this, at the time I thought she was elderly, but thinking back she was probably in her 30s. But when she was 16, anyway over 20 is elderly. And she could not speak English. And they could not communicate with her. And half of the hospital staff was making fun of her. And that was in, 70? 1970? It wasn't that long ago. It was still in my our lifetime. So, I was young but I acted as her translator. It was very difficult because she has women issues. And I didn't know her. And her husband was standing there. And she had to tell me her most intimate thing. And all the room of doctors, nurses and everything– they were very dismissive of her because of the fact that she did not speak their language. So because of that I felt that that's wrong. Because prior to that, even when we were living in Chinatown, I still felt I was privileged. You know, we weren't poor. We were still doing well. But after seeing that experience, it really taught me that even though we came to America for freedom, freedom is only for those who could really stand for themselves. And there are some who, if they cannot, send someone else in to fight with them. Not for them, but with them. So that's how I started my career, and I jumped from place to place. I'm not the CAA member, but I'm the honorary member of CAA because I had the privilege of working with Henry. All the meetings that we had back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s and everything with Ted and Steve on redistricting, immigration reform, census, welfare reform, everything that we today take granted. We don't even think about it. Came from here. This room. Before this room, it was another room. It was a little less, little place. We, we moved up by, by moving here in the 90s. So, thank you so much for this privilege and I look forward to our conversation. Miko: Thank you, Yvonne. And I just, OG, just so you know, does not mean OG. Does anybody want to explain what OG means? Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) Staff: Old Gangster   Miko: It's actually a hip hop terminology for gangster, but it actually means the original. Who's the original, the source of the knowledge, the source of the power. So it's, we use it with love and honor.  Yvonne Yim-Hung Lee: Intergenerational communication.  Miko: I'm sorry I did  Henry Derr: I have to say, I never liked the term O. G. when I first heard it. Because I thought it meant an old guy, Even though I'm old, I didn't want to admit that I was old. , one thing I have to say straight away is, you all are happy about this weather, I'm very unhappy about this weather, because I, even though I'm a native of San Francisco, Chinatown, at the age of seven, my family moved into Stockton. I went through all my schooling till I graduated from Franklin High School on the east side of Highway 99. Some of you may have, your high schools may have competed against Franklin High School. When we moved into Stockton for the longest time, We could never figure out why in the hell our father moved us into Stockton, because we were the only one or two Chinese family on the east side of Stockton right there on Main Street. And then over time, and actually very recently when I think about it, there was, he probably had a good reason for moving us into Stockton. Because my father was actually quite clever in terms of circumventing the discriminatory impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act. As some of you may know, a lot of Chinese men who came here to the United States after the Exclusion Act had to lie about who they were. They would claim that they were sons of U. S. citizens in order to enter the United States. Well, it turned out that my father and my mother on paper had 17 children. And in our family, there were really only just eight of us who were born from our parents and my oldest brother who was adopted. The rest were actually paper sons. So my father moved the family into Stockton because I remember very clearly when I was less than five years old, my mom said to us, children, don't say anything about the family when you go out the streets and I could never understand why don't say anything about that. Well, it turned out that. There were a lot of immigration agents prowling around Chinatown during the fifties, during the confession program. So, I think my father made the right choice to move the family into Stockton. And we always longed about coming back to San Francisco. But also looking back at it, it was actually a blessing in disguise. Because I actually grew up, as some of you may know, from Fresno, Sacramento, Visalia, Ceres, Modesto, then, not now. It was actually, I lived in a very diverse neighborhood. There were blacks, there were Mexicans and there were whites and the whites were not rich. They were like the rest of us. They were poor from Oklahoma. So probably the first social, I would consider this first social justice consciousness that I developed during the 19 50s and 60s when I was growing up. In addition to following what was going on and unfolding with the Black Civil Rights Movement in the South, was that Stockton Unified was impacted by school desegregation and there was busing. So there was a lot of talk that kids from our high school in Franklin were going to be bused to Stagg High School. And at that time, in the 50s and 60s, Stagg was all white, they were all wealthy, and we basically protested, said, we are not going to go, that we're not, we don't need those rich white folks. We're okay by ourselves. So that kind of built a consciousness in me. And I would say the other big social justice consciousness was really actually during college, when many of us protested against the war in Vietnam. We marched to the Oakland Army Induction Center in Oakland. We had a sleep in, in the old student union on the college campus. We didn't get arrested like the kids are being arrested today who are protesting the atrocities in Gaza. During my last year in college, There wasn't anything known as Asian American Studies, but there were enough black students who wanted black studies on the campus. So, we just joined in and helped protest that there was an absence of black studies on the college campus. After I graduated from college, I knew that I was going to go into Peace Corps because I was inspired by President Kennedy. And it didn't make, truth be told, it made no difference what college I was going to go to. I knew I was going to go into Peace Corps, and that's what I did, because the last year I was in college, they offered Swahili, and I said, oh, that's perfect, I'm going to enroll in Swahili, and I end up going to Kenya for two years. And after two years of service in Kenya, you know, it kind of made sense for me to say, you know, if I can go halfway around the world to do public service work, I can certainly come back to Chinatown and do community work. And that's how I end up coming back to San Francisco in 1970. And then, The rest is whatever I did.  Female speaker: The rest is history.  Female Speaker 2: The rest is documented history.  Miko: We'll get into that a little bit more. Steve, what about you? What was your first kind of experience of recognizing social justice?  Stephen Owyang: Okay, so, Both sides of my family came to the U. S. a long time ago in the 1870s from Southern China. And they were in San Francisco until the big earthquake in 1906, after which point most of the family went into the Sacramento Valley. So I was born in Sacramento. I was raised in, down the river in the Delta. I'm really excited to meet you because my father had a small business back then and we went up and down Highway 99 all the time. So, Stockton, Lodi, Modesto, Merced, Kingsburg, Fresno, Hanford, Ripon, Visalia. And my father's business was basically delivering stuff to little mom and pop grocery stores run by Chinese families, mainly from one little county in Guangdong province. There was no I 5 back then, just 99, and you know, in the summer, as you know, it gets really hot. So it was a treat for me to go along with my father because I always got free sodas at every store, so I would go out with him and you know after six or seven sodas It was like, it was a great day. My first glimmers about social justice were just growing up in the Delta and I'll give you three stories.  It's the town of Walnut Grove, and the town of Walnut Grove on Highway 160 is one of the few delta towns that are on both sides of the river. There's a bridge that connects it. And on one side of the river, it's middle class and upper middle class and wealthy white families. Our side of the river, you had the folks from the Dust Bowl days, as Henry mentioned, people from Oklahoma and Texas who came out during the Depression. You also had a small Chinatown, a small J Town, a small Filipino area, a small Mexican area. And that just reflected the social conditions of California agriculture, because each one of those communities at one time was the main source of farm workers. And in fact, my own family, because of the alien land laws, they were farmers, but they couldn't own farmland, right? And so they were sharecroppers. Just, you hear about sharecropping happening in the South, but it also happened in California. So when I was growing up, three things. On the rich side of town, the white side of town, there's a swimming pool that was only open to white families. It was a private pool. You could only go there if you were a member. You could only be a member if you were white. The only way I could go there is if a friend who's a white, from a white family, who's a member, takes you there as a guest. So that's number one. Number two. My best friend was from one of these landed white families, and we were, we were very close. We were good students in elementary school. And then one day in the seventh grade, he, he takes me aside and he says, You know, I can't hang out with you anymore because my mom says I need to have more white friends. So he just cut it off like that. And I, that's the, that's, that's the truth. That's just how it happened. I guess the other thing that affected me back then was I used to go to a little American Baptist church and we had, I guess visits to black churches. And I remember going up to Sacramento on one of these visits and one of the kids there did Martin Luther King's, I have a dream speech from memory. And, it's like amazing oration. And I thought, wow, there's something. going on here that you sort of opened up my eyes to the situation in this country.  So basically until high school, I was a country kid, you know, but then we moved out to San Francisco and it was a big culture shock, big shock. So I was in, I basically came out for high school and this was in the late 60s and I remember it was 1968 when Laureen was on strike for, uh, Ethnic Studies and the Third World Strike in SF State. My high school was literally a few blocks away. I was at Lowell High. And students from SF State were coming over and leafleting us. I started reading that stuff and that's when I really got interested in what was going on at State and later on when I was at Berkeley, you know, in Ethnic Studies. So I think my grounding came from Ethnic Studies, the anti war movement, and, you know, I would love to talk to you about the whole thing about the Vietnam War because, You know, I'm guessing maybe your parents or grandparents were involved in the secret war in Laos, a war that the U. S. wouldn't even acknowledge happened even though we were bombing Laos. So it was ethnic studies, the civil rights movement, and the anti war movement that got me involved. In Berkeley, I was involved in some of the ethnic studies stuff. Even though I'm a fourth generation Chinese American, it's always been very important to me to try to learn the language so I was in the Cantonese working group. So I helped put together the curriculum stuff that was going on in Asian American Studies. I think before Germaine was there, or maybe around the same time. Yeah, I've known these folks for literally 50 years. It's kind of scary. So, um, I was inspired by what was going on at CAA, what Laureen was doing at SF State. So I joined CAA. Biggest mistake of my life. Because I saw this little ad in East West newspaper, used to be this community newspaper, and there was literally a coupon that you would clip out. And I sent in the coupon with a 5 check. It's like the most expensive 5 I've spent in my whole life. And then I went to law school, and I was involved in the law caucus and a number of other things, but my first job out of law school was Right here at CAA. Well, not here, but up on Stockton Street. Henry was my boss. You know, I feel like I would have been less burned out had we done some of this stuff. But we didn't do any of this. I remember my first desk had literally a door on top of like cardboard boxes. That was our office back then. And in one form or another, I've been involved in CAA ever since. I've been in a couple of organizations. Other organizations, but CAA is the one that's closest to my heart, and I'll tell you why. One, I met my wife here. And number two, I feel like the great thing about CAA is it's never lost its real community roots. I feel like other organizations do great work, don't get me wrong, but I feel like CAA has always maintained a real close connection to the community, and that's why everybody. I wrote that 5 check and, and several others. So yeah, that's, that's my story.  Miko: Thanks, Steve. Laureen, what about you?  Laureen Chew: Wow, this is amazing. Listening to everybody else's story, really. I guess I'll start pretty much how, my family was. My grandfather came in 1870s. I think I found out when I went to the roots program, which is only like five years ago, that was an adventure. so my parent, my father and his whole family was born here and born during Chinese exclusion. And so obviously they lived in Chinatown and nowhere else to go, even though they, my father and especially his, younger siblings. They all spoke English. Interestingly, his first two sisters were born here too. They didn't speak a lick of English because they never went to school. So what was really interesting for me, so I was born and raised in Chinatown. Okay. I wasn't born in Chinese Hospital. I was born in Children's Hospital, which everybody thinks is odd. But that's another story. My mother is actually an immigrant. She's a first generation, but she didn't come until 1947. So what's interesting is that I'm always kind of stuck between generations, like one and a half. But having a very strong mother who spoke only Chinese and my father's side, who's mostly English speaking. But a lot of them, my cousins or whatever, they were a lot older. They did speak Chinese also. But what's really stark to me is because growing up in Chinatown, you go to school with basically majority Chinese kids, right? And so you live in this community that on the one hand is very nurturing, very safe. Very intimate in a lot of ways. All my cousins and whatever are here. I mean, to show you how large my father's side was, when my aunt, the oldest aunt had her 50th anniversary wedding anniversary, she married when she was 14 because otherwise women, people forget. I I'm probably the first generation of women that either had a choice to not get married and I was still able to eat because I made my own money. Okay, my mother's generation, no, all her friends, no, you know, so don't take that one for granted either as women. So what was interesting was the fact that because she is very strong in being Chinese and then my father's side are total assimilationists, mainly, which was really interesting because many of them who grew up during Chinese exclusion. It was horrific, but you would never, I never heard one story. His family must have had over 300 people because his sister had 13 kids. Okay, then they had all had kids, one at 10, one of her daughter in law. So it was like huge. Growing up in this area, I just never felt I was different than anyone else because you don't come in contact with anyone that's really different until I went to high school. My mother is the immigrant. She wanted to send me to a school that was not a public school that a lot of the Chinatown kids went to, which was Galileo, because she somehow felt that I would be the kind of kid that would go not the straight and narrow, but more towards the the More naughty kids, to put it mildly, she knew that. So what she did was that she sent me to a Catholic school, okay, because she, God knows, oh yeah, she went to school for two years in Hong Kong. She's another story, she didn't have any money, and so she was given to an aunt to be raised. So she married to get out of Hong Kong because At twenty, she told me the only thing she told me was at twenty seven, I was considered an old maid. And then my father, who was, didn't have, there weren't very many women here because of Chinese exclusion, and he had to marry Chinese, actually saw my mom, and my mom's a picture bride, so they didn't even know each other when they got married. But she took over. My mom is like the queen of the family and the decision maker. And my father made the money and she spent it however little she had. Okay. And going to Catholic school was one thing that she felt that would help me become a good girl, except that I had never been to a where there were white kids. And so this school Was not only Catholic, but it was also a school that was considered kind of the, the best girls, Catholic high school. It was at the end of Chinatown. And that's the only reason why she wanted me to go there because I didn't have to take the bus. I can walk home. It's, it's a French school called Notre Dame de Victoire. So I went there and I thought I would have a really good time, just like all, all the high school. My problem was, was that. I was different, but never to know that you're different until you're in high school. Because you know, you know how mean girls can be in high school. And then they're all, it's an all girls school and it's a small school. And so my mom told me very clearly, you know, it's $150 a year. We really don't have that money, but. You know, we'll scrape and do whatever we can to send you through that. I said, Oh, okay, cool. Right. Except I had no friends. I mean, I was one of three Chinese girls in the school and I never knew how different I was until I got there because I used to get home perms, you know, permanence. And all the other girls had money. They were at least middle class, if not richer, and they all went to beauty parlors. My mom cut my hair and gave me the home perms, and she was into saving money, like I said, so she always kept the perm on longer than you should have it. I swore one year it came out like I had an afro, and I was so embarrassed. I made her cut it just to make it look straighter, but it was horrible. I don't have a picture. No, first of all, pictures aren't that common back then, you know, it costs money to have film and a camera. You didn't even have a camera. Yeah. So anyway, plus another thing is that because I wasn't the smartest Chinese girl either. Okay, the other two Chinese girls did pretty well. They were smart, and they were good in sports. I was neither. And I looked like a dork. Then what would made it even worse was that my mother spoke no English. My father did, but he might as well be absent because he slept during the day and worked at night. So we have things called mother daughter fashion shows. Mother, daughter breakfast. And I saw the way those mothers were dressed and I saw the way everybody acted and my way of dealing with it was I had no mom. I never brought her to the school. Any mother, daughter thing, I didn't go to. You didn't have to. I mean, that made me even less part of the school. And it was very painful because I didn't understand why I would be treated that way. Just because I looked, but I spoke English, it didn't matter. I did look a little weird, you know, so to this, I think it influenced me a couple of ways. One, whenever I had money, clothes was going to be my big deal. It still is, you know, it's kind of psychological. And then secondly, then that was a time that I figured out like, how come I don't, I hate myself and my family versus versus hating those girls. Right. I mean, that's how I dealt with it. It was, I call it a form of self hatred and it's, it's done by schooling. It's done by not only schooling in terms of omission about who we were as a people here, but omission about racism. Omission about discrimination and just about our histories here. But I didn't have a label for it in high school. I just, I really thought there was something wrong with me and my family. And that's the greatest danger about racism, is this form of internalizing it and not having a vehicle to deal with it. And there was nothing in our schools that dealt with it, you know, and I think what I came out of there realizing was that. Oh, another thing, I had mixed messages about what was happening because Martin Luther King was already on TV, and I was trying to watch it, and then I was still in high school, and my mom would, and my cousins, American boys, don't watch the black people. They're troublemakers. You know, all they do is make trouble, you know, they don't, they should be like us. We don't complain, right? We don't make trouble. And that's how you succeed. You succeed, I think, in my, what I was raised with, with the older generation of American born who had to go through this horrific history, you know, one, you don't get a job in Chinatown. You should get a job outside of Chinatown because it means that you're working for white folks and working for white folks is better than working for your own. So self hatred doesn't just run in yourself. It kind of permeates how we feel. feel as, as a group of people, right? And so, my whole thing was that I was looking for answers as to why, why I felt the way I did. And not only that, I wasn't the only one. That's what was interesting. And I didn't realize that until I went to San Francisco state, you know, because I was told, my mom said, you want to go to college, you're going to have to You know, find your way up to court because she, you know, she spent that on my fabulous high school education, which I came up miserable and, and I would tell her I want to go to Galileo. I want to go there. She said, no, you're not going to go. I said, she goes, what is wrong with you? Because I started crying certain times and she would just say, well, you're going to school to learn, not to make friends, so forget about it. I'm giving you the best with best intentions. But then when I went to college, this one girl who grew up in South City, similar experience because South City was all white back then. So she said to me one day, she was, she's Chinese too. And she says, you know, there's a meeting there that's huge. The people are talking about all this stuff. We talk about how we were mistreated in high school and how people are blah, blah. There's a name for it. It's called racism. I was called what racism. Okay. She goes, you want to go? I said, well, who's there? She said, black people. But I said, Oh, my mom would kill me. I mean, I was really worried because my mom doesn't even know what I do at state. So I went. I think that time we had some pretty interesting people. One time there was Eldridge Cleaver, who was the head of the Black Panther Party. Um, there were people like Carlton Goodlett, who was from the Bayview Hunters Point, who had certain people from the mission. They were all kind of leaders of different communities. There was Yuri Wada, who was a Japanese American. He was very prominent in dealing with civil rights. Chinatown, I, George Woo, George Woo is an infamous person also. He was the spokesperson for gang kids in Chinatown. He was very, very, very alive and took over in terms of the whole thing about the youth problems in Chinatown. So he was not part of this group, but just hearing the stories of these other ethnic groups that were very similar, not the same, but this whole thing of like just being dissed for the way you look, the way you speak, and supposedly your values. And my whole thing is that, that thing opened my eyes to the extent that helped me to release a lot of my anger towards something I didn't know who to be angry at, right? So you have to, I felt that the San Francisco State Strike, I mean, I was all in and with a small group of Chinese that were there, including Mason, all these people. And we had to really open our eyes to working with other people that were not like us. And what was more interesting for me to see was that every single group said that if we're ever going to have classes on ethnic studies, a key part of those classes should be why we are getting an education. And why we're getting an education primarily is to serve our communities. So there is a real strong component to ethnic studies that was community based. And because of that, during my college years, I actually came back, I mean came back, I was still living in Chinatown, but I actually placed myself in the Chinatown that I knew nothing about, which is our issues, our problems. And during my time, it was mainly about youth problems. We had a gang problem. We had girls that were on drugs. We had immigrant kids that didn't speak any English and just thrown into schools nilly willy without anybody helping them. So I was lucky enough for three years or four years during college that I worked as a house parent for runaway girls. I worked trying to tutor immigrant kids, you know, and I was trying to become a teacher. So those formative years, in terms of just having my feet in different things really showed me that, you know what, I don't want next generations of people who kind of look like me to have to go through the struggle of hating myself. Because of things that are my home, that are based home base, you know, this country, this is what I feel that very strongly about the United States, that I think people are losing sight of, especially now that we're all in very ethnic silos. This country is very different in the sense of just the whole fact of different groups mixing, you know, you go to China or whatever it's still basically you. you're Chinese, even in my north, south, pink, whatever direction you are. It's still basically Chinese, but in this country you can come from different areas and different places of the world and still have a vision that ties you together. That should be a singular vision, which is a democracy at this point. And then also this very simple statement of justice. And equality for all. We sometimes forget about the all, if we're just kind of in our little silos. But I think that's the reason why, from state on, and reacquainting to my community, it was life changing. Whatever job I took after that, whether I was a teacher, a faculty, associate dean, chair of the department. My main focus was that I'm here for the students and the people, quote unquote, who are here with me that have this similar vision, that we all have a place here. And in order to, for us to really respect others, we have to respect ourselves. And that includes what we're raised with in terms of our values and also our history here. Miko: Thanks, Laureen. Germaine?  Germaine Wong: Oh. well, my experience is similar to many of yours and a little bit different. I grew up in Oakland, Chinatown, and Went to a school that was only three blocks from where I live. And the school was Mexicans, blacks, as well as Chinese. Although I would say maybe half the school, at least half the school was Chinese. And I didn't, I didn't speak any English until I went to school, so I had that experience too. And then, my father was always very upwardly mobile, wanted to live the white middle class life. And I didn't know it at the time, but, he managed to buy property in Castro Valley, Southeast of Oakland. At the time, they wouldn't sell to Chinese. So he got somebody at work to buy the property for him. And then sold it to my father. That's how we got to move there. So I started high school in Castro Valley. I was the only non white in the whole school. The janitors, the cafeteria workers, everybody was white. I was the only one in that school who was not white. But I'm a little bit more dense than all of you, so I was not aware of whatever racism there was. At that time Castro Valley was really white. And also very affluent. So most of my classmates. It's unlike in Oakland, Chinatown, these classmates, they were children of doctors and lawyers and engineers and dentists and most of the people in my high school, they, the kids either had horses or cars. At that time, Castro Valley was not the suburb it is today. Our neighbors, for example, our next door neighbors had chickens and goats So it was really different. So it was all so different from Oakland Chinatown. And then I finally experienced some racism the following year when a black family moved in and somebody really literally did burn a cross in their front lawn. Wow. Yeah. And she was in the same grade I was in, one of the daughters. And then another Chinese girl moved in. And I recognized her, but we were never friends in Oakland Chinatown. And that's where I first experienced reverse discrimination. Because I met the stereotype of an Asian student, right? So I did well in math and all the classes. Well, she was definitely a C student and the teachers treated her as if she was an F student. Teachers just expect us to excel in our classes. So that was my first, really, where it hit home for me. And then in the 50s, in Oakland, Chinatown, I experienced what Henry did during the confession program. So my mother was going through all these things. These are your aunts and uncles and these are not your aunts and uncles. And so if any white person comes and starts asking you about your family, just remember these people are not related to you because all of us had paper names. Like I'm not really a Wong. My family's really a Kwan. But in my situation, I had a great grandfather who was here legitimately. And then the next generation, when they went back, they decided we're never coming back to the United States. So they sold their papers. So then when the next generation decided to come back, they had to buy papers. So my family went through that situation. I had jobs where I lived in, during college, I, I had live in jobs, I lived with a family first when I was going to UC Berkeley, and then later on when I transferred over to San Francisco State, I worked for an older white woman, and so I, I got to see what upper white middle class families lived like, and then with this older woman that I lived in with here in San Francisco, what the rich people lived like, so that was kind a different world. And then somebody asked me to work at the Chinatown YWCA here. And I got to experience San Francisco Chinatown then. I was assigned to work in a pilot program where I worked with third grade Chinatown girls. One group were immigrant girls who lived in the SROs here. They literally are eight by eight rooms with a whole family lives in them. And the kitchen and the bathrooms are down the hall. So that was the first time I had ever seen people living like that, in such crowded digits. And the other group of girls I worked with, again, were middle class, upper middle class Chinese girls whose parents were doctors and dentists and like that. And the woman who was the executive director was a Korean American woman named Hannah Sir. And this was all when I went to college when President Kennedy was assassinated and then Lyndon Johnson became president. And so it was during this time that this Korean American woman said to me, you have to apply for this program because right now, President Lyndon Johnson only thought about blacks and Hispanics who needed help. And we really need to get Asian Americans in. So she convinced me to apply for program and some miracle happened and I got into the program. After I went to that summer training program, I came back here to San Francisco and I was assigned to work in the Bayview, Hunters Point, and Fillmore areas of San Francisco working with black gang kids. That was a new experience for me too. Then from there, then I went to grad school, then when I came back, I got assigned to working here in Chinatown, where I worked mainly with immigrant adults looking for jobs as well as the gang kids, both English speaking as well as Chinese speaking. And, from there, I met people like Ling Chi Wong and Eileen Dong. who were already working in Chinatown before I was. And that's when we got together and Ling Chi was actually the organizer, the lead person. And, we started CAA. So all of us had other jobs. We had full time jobs and so we were doing this kind of on the side. I think Ling Chi was the only one who didn't have a job. He was a graduate student. And I want to tell you, he was a graduate student in Middle Eastern ancient languages. That's what he was studying at UC Berkeley at the time. And, uh, but all the rest of us had full time jobs. We started CAA as a volunteer organization. We had no office, no staff, no money. And that's how we started. And eventually I first met Laureen, who really helped us out with one of our first major projects. Teaching English on television, remember? You and Helen, yes. You and Helen Chin really helped us out. Laureen Chew: Okay, nice to know.  Germaine Wong: And then I remember meeting, and then when Henry came to Chinatown and his Swahili was better than his Cantonese. Wow. Yes. Wow. Anyway, and I met all of these good people and CAA continued to grow. And there still is. Yep. Amazing, amazing story.  And that wraps up part one of this incredible intergenerational conversation. Between the OGs of Chinese for affirmative action. And the young organizers of mung innovating politics. Tonight. We got a glimpse into the powerful stories of CAS.  Of CA's founders.  Their hardships resilience and what drove them to commit their lives to the movement. Their reflections, remind us that the fight for justice is not just about the moments of triumph and the victories, but also about the struggles, the sacrifices. And perhaps most importantly, the. Vital importance of being grounded in our communities and our values. Be sure to join us next time for part two, where we'll dive into the dialogue between. Seasoned OJI leaders and today's. Today's youth Changemakers from Monday innovating politics. Together, they'll explore strategies, how strategies have shifted over the decades and how we can sustain our work for social justice in the longterm. As always thank you for tuning into apex express. For more about Chinese for affirmative action and mung innovating politics.  Please do check them out on their websites, which will be linked in the show notes. At apex express. At kpfa.org/apex express. Until next time. Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong  Cheryl Truong: Tonight's show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!  The post APEX Express – December 19, 2024 – Bridging Generations appeared first on KPFA.

Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for all the listeners and global following this podcast has created over of the last seven and half years it's been on the air. It is with a full heart and open mind that I bid farewell to my baby—I'm Awake! Now What? Podcast. It started as a place for me to build community and resonance with like-minded seekers and aspirants who were looking for answers to the deep questions. And rebels on their way to chart a new path and new Earth. My intention was to create a community for people who had left their religion of origin, identified as spiritual or non-religious but whose shared goal was to become better human beings and create a better world, through self-exploration, personal development, and healing. Our world view and experience of the divine has been shifting and changing over the last 50 or more decades. We no longer require or want a mediator to connect to God anymore. Many of us are returning to earth-based practices and intuitive self-knowing to cultivate our relationship and connection to God, Source, The Divine.  This podcast has been a place where people could come and explore their own divinity and connection to divine, without structure, dogma, judgment, or instruction. To read this full statement head over to my website: iamkristaxiomara.com You can watch this episode over on our YouTube Channel.  THANK YOU: I want to thank my family and friends, who supported me without condition and with enthusiasm over the years. Who listened to my show week after week and gave me critical feedback and positive encouragement. I special shout out to my first sponsor Saged App, for taking a chance on me and this show. Thank you, all the sponsors who contributed to the success and growth of this show, over the years! Thank you to Conscious Living PR, who has also been an early supporter of me and this show. Thank you, Mona Loring, for your guidance, trust, and spiritual support throughout the years. Thank you to Billy Lee Myers, Jr., who taught me how to podcast “old-school.” For your mentorship and patience with me! A big up to my dear friend Mr. Pixie, for writing the original music for the show. Thank you to my cousin Rebecca for creating the original podcast artwork for the show! Lastly, a very special thank you to my new little family. Zoe, Taylor, Ripon, and Graham! I love you all more than words could ever express.   To learn more about your host, Krista Xiomara head over to https://iamkristaxiomara.com If you'd like to support this podcast, consider buying podcast inspired merch here! Podcast Production: Written, directed, and edited by Krista Xiomara Produced by LightCasting Original Music by Mr. Pixie Follow this podcast on Instagram @ianwpodcast   

With Advent now well and truly upon us, 'tis the season for some prophecy! This week, sparked by a radio preacher Mark heard who taught that Isaiah 19's prophecies about the conversion of Egypt are being fulfilled as we speak, we decided that for this week's episode we'd dig in a little bit to how Reformed Christians have and ought to think about the predictive prophecies given to us in Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments.    Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

In every age, the Church faces new obstacles and trials and is tasked with faithful living, thinking, believing, praying, and witnessing. It's all too easy, given the circumstances, to lose perspective and think either too much of the current generation or too little. What we need, then, is the perspective of the aged and the spiritual ballast and balance that they bring. In this week's episode, we aim to convince both the old and the young of the important place that the elderly serve within the larger body of Christ. For some, this will be an encouragement. For others, a challenge. But we hope that, for all of you, it is a blessing. And maybe, once you finish the episode, go give a listen to Bing Crosby's old Christmas classic, "Faith of Our Fathers". You'll be glad you did! Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

How are Christians to approach the Word of God? Should we come at it like a textbook which, if carefully studied, will provide explicit answers and commands to guide every quandary and conundrum we face? Or maybe more like a manual to guide every decision? Or perhaps even like a superstitious text which will give us its power if we wear it on our clothes or slap it on a car sticker. Or maybe--just maybe--it's different. Maybe there's a deper way. In this week's episode, we aim to show how a Reformed approach to Scripture will help us avoid the dangers of biblicism, (bad) prooftexting, and being minimally "biblically-informed." Resources referenced in the episode: Being Biblical™: When the Bible Becomes a Brand, by Alastair Roberts Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval for Theology and Biblical Interpretation, by Michael Allen & Scott Swain Other links: Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

As a podcast which gets its name from Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics, Neo-Calvinism is obviously a theological tradition and project near and dear to our hearts. But it's one that so often gets a bad rap, or is misconstrued. In this week's episode, spurred on by our conversations with recent guests over the past few months, we seek to take stock not only of what it is, but to explore some of its native tensions as well as the ways in which it is often viewed by others in the broader Reformed tradition.    Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

After a week away and several weeks since our last episode in this series, we've returned once again to explore the Reformed faith this time with special guest, Dr. Gerald Bray, research professor at Beeson Divinity School (Birmingham, AL) and an evangelical church historian and theologian from the Church of England. His seminal works include God Is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology, A History of Christian Theology: A Trinitarian Approach, Augustine On the Christian Life, and Anglicanism: A Reformed Catholic Tradition. He's also served as an editor for a few volumes of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and has written extensively on the history of biblical interpretation. As a historian and Calvinist, Dr. Bray makes the perfect guest to help us explore the riches of the Reformed tradition.   Visit www.samford.edu/beeson-divinity for more information about Beeson Divinity School. Visit www.almondvalley.org for information about Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church in Ripon, CA. Music by Jonathan Ogden used with permission.

He was born in Northubria in England around 638. At the age of seven he was sent to the monastery at Ripon for education under St Wilfrid (April 24), the abbot. At the age of twenty he traveled to Ireland to live among the holy monks of that land; he spent twelve years there as the spiritual child of St Egbert (also April 24). In 690 St Egbert sent Willibrord as head of a company of twelve monks to take the Gospel to the pagan lands around Frisia. The holy missionary first went to Rome to receive the blessing of Pope Sergius, then with his fellow-monks preached the Gospel throughout Holland and Zealand. In 695 Pope Sergius consecrated Willibrord Archbishop of Utrecht, instructing him to organize the Church throughout that area. As Archbishop, Willibrord continued to labor tirelessly for the spread of the Gospel in those pagan lands; his missionary travels took him as far as Denmark. He reposed in peace in 739 at Echternach Monastery (located in present-day in Luxembourg), having served for forty-four years as a bishop and for most of his life as a monastic. His tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage.

Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place. Through its award-winning multimedia content, instructional supports, and innovative classroom tools, Discovery Education helps educators deliver equitable learning experiences, engaging all students and supporting higher academic achievement on a global scale. Discovery Education serves approximately 4.5 million educators and 45 million students worldwide, and its resources are accessed in over 100 countries and territories. Inspired by the global media company Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.Phil Birchinall, Senior Director of Immersive ContentPhil has been an educator and award winning EdTech innovation leader for almost 30 years, developing and bringing high impact content into the classroom, most recently at the forefront of immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality.Phil studied industrial design, film and TV at the college of Ripon and York St John and lives in Manchester. His favourite subject at school was science and his favourite teacher was Mr. Cooper who in the 1970's was light years ahead in his understanding of how children learn and bringing innovation to his science teaching.The Sandbox AR app can be downloaded for free via : https://immersive.discoveryeducation.com/pages/58125118-1921-4424-8134-dc8c5bcaed87A video which shows AR in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vGD7Kse73kWebsitehttps://immersive.discoveryeducation.com/Social Media InformationX @DiscoveryEdUKDiscover more about Education on Fire

Liz Cheney joined Kamala Harris on the campaign trail in Ripon, WI - the place that is considered the birth of the Republican party. Plus, Stacey Abrams joins to share her insights and strategies to victory in the 2024 election. Plus, a new documentary on the controversial family separation policy under the Trump administration. Peter Baker, Amna Nawaz, Dave Weigel, Conor Lamb, Reed Galen, Jacob Soboroff, Errol Morris

10.3.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: VP Harris Live in Wis., Colo. Clerk Sentenced, Fla.'s Yes on 4, Project 2025 & Employment Vice President Kamala Harris will be speaking shortly in Ripon, Wisconsin.  We'll have that for you live.  That orange criminal will not leave the legal Haitian migrants alone. He vowed to deport them all.   A judge sentenced a former Colorado county clerk to 9 years for the 2020 voting data scheme. Florida's Yes on 4, the Amendment that will allow first- and second-trimester abortions or even later to protect the health of patients, is on November's ballot.  We'll talk to one advocate about their push to get the 60-percent needed to approve the constitutional Amendment.  We'll talk to a  Chief Equity Officer about how Project 2025 could affect your job.  October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  We'll talk to one Maryland State's attorney about how they are handling the spikes in family violence in Prince George's County. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.