Podcasts about technically

On what is TECHNICALLY the first Spooklore installment of the year...we got a little distracted. Thankfully, our spooky instincts kicked in and we accidentally turn The Vision of Mac Conglinne into a ghost story anyway.Suggested talking points: Sorry About the Belly Ghost, Whetstone Dentistry, Applesauce IV, Creamgate, Consider the Butter, Cloudy With a Chance of Post-ApocalypseCheck out Gordie's TTRPG, MythomorphosisIf you'd like to support Carman's artistic endeavors, visit: https://www.patreon.com/carmandaartsthingsIf you like our show, find us online to help spread the word! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. Support us on Patreon to help the show grow at www.patreon.com/wtfolklore. You can find merchandise and information about the show at www.wtfolklorepodcast.com.

Technically, baby Poppy has arrived! However, in this episode, past Matty J, his wife Laura, and Ash have yet to meet her. The anticipation is high! So are the nerves...and in the words of Ash, "good luck!" While Matt prepares to welcome a third baby, he's playing pranks on Marlie, and it's getting her into trouble at school. Ash has finally said goodbye to his Balie parasite and shares the remedy for getting rid of the things (yuck). BUY OUR SMELLY T SHIRTS HERE https://www.twodotingdads.com/category/all-products Buy our book, which is now available in-store! https://www.penguin.com.au/books/two-doting-dads-9781761346552 If you need a shoulder to cry on: Two Doting Dads Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/639833491568735/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTwoDotingDads Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twodotingdads/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@twodotingdads See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's a Government Shutdown and Why Are We In One?A government shutdown happens when Congress fails to pass annual spending bills or a stopgap continuing resolution (CR) to keep agencies funded. No funding = no authority to operate = federal workers furloughed, services paused, and chaos for agencies and contractors.The House has passed a CR that would fund the government through November 21, but the Senate has rejected it three times. That CR keeps spending at current levels and buys Congress more time to negotiate a full budget. Think of it as saying, “We'll work out the details later, but in the meantime, keep the lights on.”So why the rejection? The sticking points are:* Democrats want the bill to include an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which are about to expire.* They also want to block the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from continuing to cut previously appropriated funds—something they see as a power grab.* Senator Rand Paul is the only Republican joining Democrats in opposing the House CR, but most Senate Democrats have voted it down.What Has to Happen to End the Shutdown?There are four main steps to reopening the government:* Negotiate a compromise CR. Either Republicans agree to ACA and OMB language, or Democrats back off.* Secure bicameral agreement. If the Senate changes the bill, it has to go back to the House.* Presidential approval. Trump has hinted he won't sign anything that includes ACA subsidies or limits on the OMB.* Implementation. Once signed, agencies resume normal operations and furloughed workers return.Two likely paths out of the shutdown:* Republicans stand firm → Democrats allow a CR vote without ACA or OMB demands, hoping to negotiate later.* A compromise CR is passed → includes ACA subsidies and OMB limits → enough Senate Democrats back it → risk of Trump veto remains.Why Is This So Complicated?The shutdown highlights a procedural gap between the House and Senate:* In the House, Republicans have a majority and can pass CRs with zero Democratic votes.* In the Senate, most bills need 60 votes to end debate (invoke cloture) and move to a final vote. Republicans don't have the numbers.Republicans could try to change Senate rules—eliminate the filibuster for budget bills and go with a simple majority—but that would be a massive institutional shift with long-term consequences.Until a resolution is reached, the government remains partially closed and the policy fight over ACA funding and executive power continues.What Happens If Republicans Do Make the Change?If Senate Republicans decide to invoke the so-called “nuclear option”—changing the chamber's rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for spending bills—the legislative and political landscape could shift immediately and dramatically.Immediate consequences:Republicans could pass the House-approved continuing resolution with no Democratic support, reopening the government on their terms. That means no extension of ACA subsidies, no restrictions on the Office of Management and Budget, and no need to negotiate across the aisle.Medium-term effects:The rule change would permanently alter how Congress handles appropriations. Any party with a Senate majority and House control could pass funding bills unilaterally, sidestepping the need for bipartisan coalitions. This could speed up the process—but also deepen partisan divides in budget negotiations.Long-term implications:Effectively, it would mean the end of the filibuster for all spending legislation. Shutdowns might become less frequent, since fewer votes are needed to keep the government open—but funding priorities could swing wildly every time control of Congress changes hands. One Congress could expand programs and hike spending; the next could cut deeply, all with a simple majority.In short, while the nuclear option would solve the immediate standoff, it would reshape the Senate's role in fiscal policymaking—and shift power further toward the majority party.Why Can't Republicans Just Pass a Budget Bill?If you've been hearing people say, “Just pass it as a budget bill—no filibuster needed,” here's why that's not happening.The Senate does have a special process called budget reconciliation, which allows certain bills to pass with just 51 votes—no filibuster, no 60-vote threshold. But there are some important catches:* It can only be used once per fiscal year.Technically, reconciliation instructions can cover three areas—spending, revenue, and the debt limit—but Congress usually combines them into a single package. That bill has already been used this year (for the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”), so the reconciliation tool is off the table until the next fiscal year.* The content of the bill is strictly limited.Under the Byrd Rule, reconciliation bills must directly relate to taxing or spending. Any provision that doesn't have a direct budgetary effect, or that increases the deficit beyond a 10-year window, gets stripped out—or the whole bill risks being disqualified.That's why the current CR probably couldn't go through reconciliation even if that option remained available this fiscal year. It likely includes provisions that violate the Byrd Rule—and certainly would if the OMB limitation Democrats want was included. Those elements either aren't strictly budgetary or would impact the long-term deficit.So even though Republicans hold a Senate majority, they can't simply slap a “budget” label on this bill and pass it with 51 votes. That procedural door is closed for now.If they want to bypass the filibuster, their only real option would be to change Senate rules—a dramatic move that would eliminate the 60-vote requirement for spending bills altogether. Otherwise, they'll need to cut a deal that clears the 60-vote threshold—or accept a prolonged shutdown.That is the current state of the shutdown – we'll see you back here on Monday for our usual daily news shows. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

It's not TECHNICALLY lying...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How Americans Really Feel About Their NeighborsA new survey reveals that having good neighbors is so important to some homebuyers, 19% would pay $10-thousand or more above the price of a comparable home to avoid having bad neighbors.According to the research, 82% of Americans say having good neighbors is just as important as price or location when buying a home.Respondents say a good neighbor is someone they can trust (65%), someone who's quiet (51%), who maintains their home and yard (47%), and keeps to themself (42%).Just watch 'Fear Thy Neighbor' on the ID Network. You will never talk to a neighbor again. Draw the blinds and hit the floor.Bay Area Parents Are Paying $30k For Pro Baby Naming HelpSome desperate parents are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars on a “professional baby namer” to help them decide what to call their little bundle of joy. Taylor A. Humphrey, who calls herself a “name nerd,” has turned her obsession for baby names into a booming enterprise, with moms and dad paying as much as $30-thousand for her services. But they can get an email with some personalized name recommendations, including each one's meaning, popularity history and “vibes” for the bargain price of $200.⠀Just tell your kid you used ChatGPT to pick a name.Corey Was In Her FeelingsBreast Cancer Awareness Month hits home for me. I lost my mother to breast cancer when she was only 57. It breaks my heart she never met my husband. But I have to believe she had a hand in getting us together. We are not doing our annual fundraiser because of unforeseen circumstances, and I can't help but feel like a failure. I am not drinking due to a very attractive fatty liver. I wanted to do a little self-comforting. I found my solution. My sister actually said she did this when she stopped drinking. I brough two bags of Halloween candy home and it was the best afternoon ever. Second Date UpdateTodd is on to figure out what went wrong with Alexis, a girl he met on Hinge and went out twice with. Technically, this is a third date update. He tells us the dates were fun. Both times, she was down to go back to his place which is always a good sign. Why isn't she answering his calls or texts now?

Kewanee Park District Director Andy Dwyer joined Wake Up Tri-Counties from the new pavilion in Baker Park. Andy talked about Bakersville, which is this Saturday, October 4th; plans for an expansion to the Baker Park Clubhouse; recovering from damage from multiple severe storms over the last few years; the function of the Kewanee Park District; and plans for other Kewanee Park District parks. The Kewanee Park District is its own taxing body, with its own board of commissioners and its own parks. While the City of Kewanee collects taxes and maintains city parks, the Kewanee Park District is a separate entity that relies on tax revenue and revenue collected through Baker Park Golf Course, Windmont, Chautauqua, Liberty, and Northeast Parks. Technically, Liberty Park doesn't generate revenue, but it now houses the long-awaited splash pad. The park district has almost paid off two bonds and will issue new bonds to fund the clubhouse expansion in Baker Park. The expansion will add a banquet room for event rental, expand the 19th Hole Restaurant, allowing the restaurant to remain open year-round, and add a golf pro shop. The clubhouse expansion is part of the park district's long-term plan and has been in the early planning phase for a couple of years. Upgrades to the shelter houses in Chautauqua and Windmont Parks are planned after the clubhouse expansion. The pool at Northeast Park is in the long-term plan, but it runs at a large loss each year and will require millions of dollars to replace.

Todd is on to figure out what went wrong with Alexis, a girl he met on Hinge and went out twice with. Technically, this is a third date update. He tells us the dates were fun. Both times, she was down to go back to his place which is always a good sign. Why isn't she answering his calls or texts now?

With a government shutdown looming tomorrow, Chuck Schumer plays 4-D chess. Technically he's right, Federal law prohibits taxpayer dollars going to "migrant" healthcare, but he knows the game is rigged & big money flows like water. Chuck's not Ready for Rain. Are you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWD-x3GIUFA&list=RDNWD-x3GIUFA&start_radio=1

Technically we knew about Chikungunya before they did

Cisco's Distance Zero rethinks hybrid collaboration with meeting equity, AI at the edge, and cinematic framing that keeps every participant “at eye height”—plus live 3D object discussion with Apple Vision Pro. SVP/GM Snorre Kjesbu explains how Cisco defines “Distance Zero”: everyone gets a true seat at the table—being seen, heard, and included in the room dynamics, whether they're remote or on-site. Subtle but powerful touches—like equalizing participant size and eye level—remove hierarchy cues and improve equity. He frames where hybrid work stands now: bring people together for creativity, mentoring, culture, and serendipity (yes, the coffee line matters), and let focused grind work happen anywhere. For offices to “earn the commute,” rooms must outperform home setups—for those in the room and those remote. Technically, this is enabled by a decade of AI/ML at the edge (a long-running partnership with Nvidia), now combined with newer large-language-model capabilities. Cisco's “cinematic” system behaves like an AI producer—understanding who's speaking and how a conversation moves—while noise suppression can differentiate lawnmowers, dogs, and even prioritize a specific speaker's voice. On accessibility, live translation, captions, and annotation lower barriers for varied accents and learning needs. IT and facilities teams also get AI “superpowers” for reliability and scale since collaboration is now mission-critical. Kjesbu notes that these capabilities are largely available on existing deployments (backward compatible where possible, with cloud assist), and adoption is strong: features like cinematic framing are on in 100% of meetings where available, and LLM-powered summaries, actions, and translation are surging. If this helped clarify the future of hybrid collaboration, like the video, leave a comment with your biggest meeting-equity challenge, and subscribe for more deep dives on accessible, human-centered workplace tech. Cisco Distance Zero, meeting equity, hybrid collaboration, AI at the edge, cinematic framing, Webex meetings, Apple Vision Pro 3D, Nvidia partnership, live translation, captions and annotation, noise suppression, remote work, earn the commute, inclusive meetings, IT manageability, voice optimization, backward compatibility, employee experience, collaboration devices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We often use a negative question like “Isn't this…?” or “Aren't you…?” in conversation. Technically, these are not questions for asking something. They are a casual and friendly way to confirm something or make a suggestion.For example, if you and your friend are at the peir on a sunny day, you might say:   “Isn't this a perfect day for fishing?”  You're not really asking for information — you're confirming what you already think. OR "Aren't these donuts delicious!”Or if you're making a suggestion, you can use the same pattern. Like:  “It's almost 5pm. Isn't it better to take the subway?”  Here, you're giving your suggestion in the form of a question. Here's another one. “The exam is a week away. Shouldn't you start studying?”So remember, negative questions like “Isn't it…?” and “Aren't you…?” are great for confirming ideas or suggesting something in a very natural, conversational way. “Isn't that interesting!” So, aren't you gonna try to use this kind of English in your conversations?Join my Podcast Learner's Study Group here: https://learn.myhappyenglish.com/plsgVisit my website for over 3,000 free English lessons: https://www.myhappyenglish.com/My AI English Tutor is HERE

Sketch, Paul, Laser and Steven discuss more teenage drama and ABBA and Ultraman references in Dan Da Dan as well as Hamtaro's revenge and the TEMU Ginyu Squad on Dragon Ball Daima 00:00 - Dan Da Dan eps 8 and 9 54:14 - Dragon Ball Daima eps 13 and 14

We've done episodes where people lose their teeth. We've done episodes where have them melted out of their heads, or frisbeed out by debris, or punched out by bulls, or even blown out of their heads by lightning. But we've never done an episode where the most horrifying thing that happens is you maybe get something stuck in them.On this episode: we'll take off on one of the least enviable flights in history – which is saying a lot; we'll learn just what staggeringly awful places hunger can take an underfed mind even when the only menu option is freeze-dried human buttock; and we'll end up with one of the most excruciating and difficult mountain hikes ever conducted, wearing little more than a tennis outfit.And if you were listening on Patreon… you would see which popular sport tops the list for most spinal and testicular injuries; you'd hear every mouth-watering detail of the most filling and calorically-dense item on any menu, anywhere in the world; and you would learn how the survivor of a lifeboat full of man-on-man nom nom inspired one of the greatest pieces of American literature ever scribed.This episode was created as a thank you for a special listener who asked to remain nameless and over extended themselves to help me out of a jam. Technically, all my episodes are thank you episodes for the people who help support the show, and a gift to every casual listener who's ever had to treat a goring wound, or a flaming oil burn, or patch a cartoonish hole burnt through them by volcanic projectiles.I make a point in this episode that one of the last times we visited South America together, we got irradiated, and how difficult it is to replace an entire audience after you accidentally murder the last one. It's my way of saying thank you for listening, and for today's special listener – 50-60 hours of painstaking work is maybe the best way I know how to say thank you and show the depth of my appreciation.I've heard people describe this tale as extraordinary, but that's not nearly a good enough word to explain what happened. You have any idea how deep you have to dig to refuse to surrender in spite of all this and having the whole world seemingly abandoned you? And even more than that, can you understand how profound the details of your story have to be to completely overshadow make people forget about all the cannibalism? All older episodes can be found on any of your favorite channels: Apple : https://tinyurl.com/5fnbumdw Spotify : https://tinyurl.com/73tb3uuw IHeartRadio : https://tinyurl.com/vwczpv5j Podchaser : https://tinyurl.com/263kda6w Stitcher : https://tinyurl.com/mcyxt6vw Google : https://tinyurl.com/3fjfxatt Spreaker : https://tinyurl.com/fm5y22su Podchaser : https://tinyurl.com/263kda6w RadioPublic : https://tinyurl.com/w67b4kec PocketCasts. : https://pca.st/ef1165v3 CastBox : https://tinyurl.com/4xjpptdr Breaker. : https://tinyurl.com/4cbpfayt Deezer. : https://tinyurl.com/5nmexvwt Follow us on the socials for more:Facebook : www.facebook.com/doomsdaypodcast Instagram : www.instagram.com/doomsdaypodcast Twitter : www.twitter.com/doomsdaypodcast TikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@doomsday.the.podcastIf you like the idea of your podcast hosts wearing more than duct tape and bits of old Halloween costumes for clothes and can spare a buck or two, you can now buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/doomsday or join the patreon at www.funeralkazoo.com/doomsdayBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/doomsday-history-s-most-dangerous-podcast--4866335/support.

Is that penicillin or amoxicillin allergy real? Probably not. In this episode, we explore how to assess risk, talk to parents, and refer for delabeling. You'll also learn what happens in the allergy clinic, why the label matters, and how to be a better antimicrobial steward. Learning Objectives Describe the mechanisms and clinical manifestations of immediate and delayed hypersensitivity reactions to penicillin, including diagnostic criteria and risk stratification tools such as the PEN-FAST score. Differentiate between low-, moderate-, and high-risk penicillin allergy histories in pediatric patients and identify appropriate candidates for direct oral challenge or allergy referral based on current evidence and guidelines. Formulate an evidence-based approach for evaluating and counseling families in the Emergency Department about reported penicillin allergies, including when to recommend outpatient referral for formal delabeling. Connect with Brad Sobolewski PEMBlog: PEMBlog.com Blue Sky: @bradsobo X (Twitter): @PEMTweets Instagram: Brad Sobolewski References Khan DA, Banerji A, Blumenthal KG, et al. Drug Allergy: A 2022 Practice Parameter Update. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2022;150(6):1333-1393. doi:10.1016/j.jaci.2022.08.028 Moral L, Toral T, Muñoz C, et al. Direct Oral Challenge for Immediate and Non-Immediate Beta-Lactam Allergy in Children. Pediatr Allergy Immunol. 2024;35(3):e14096. doi:10.1111/pai.14096 Castells M, Khan DA, Phillips EJ. Penicillin Allergy. N Engl J Med. 2019;381(24):2338-2351. doi:10.1056/NEJMra1807761 Shenoy ES, Macy E, Rowe T, Blumenthal KG. Evaluation and Management of Penicillin Allergy: A Review.JAMA. 2019;321(2):188–199. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.19283 Transcript Note: This transcript was partially completed with the use of the Descript AI and the Chat GPT 5 AI  Welcome to PEM Currents, the Pediatric Emergency Medicine podcast. As always, I'm your host, Brad Sobolewski, and today we are taking on a label that's misleading, persistent. Far too common penicillin allergy, it's often based on incomplete or inaccurate information, and it may end up limiting safe and effective treatment, especially for the kids that we see in the emergency department. I think you've all seen a patient where you're like. I don't think this kid's really allergic to amoxicillin, but what do you do about it? In this episode, we're gonna break down the evidence, walk through what actually happens during de labeling and dedicated allergy clinics. Highlight some validated tools like the pen FAST score, which I'd never heard of before. Preparing for this episode and discuss the current and future role of ED based penicillin allergy testing. Okay, so about 10% of patients carry a penicillin allergy label, but more than 90% are not truly allergic. And this label can be really problematic in kids. It limits first line treatment choices like amoxicillin, otitis media, or penicillin for strep throat, and instead. Kids get prescribed second line agents that are less effective, broader spectrum, maybe more toxic or poorly tolerated and associated with a higher risk of antimicrobial resistance. So it's not just an EMR checkbox, it's a label with some real clinical consequences. And it's one, we have a role in removing. And so let's understand what allergy really means. And most patients with a reported penicillin allergy, especially kids, aren't true allergies in the immunologic sense. Common misinterpretations include a delayed rash, a maculopapular, or viral exum, or benign, delayed hypersensitivity, side effects, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. And unverified childhood reactions that are undocumented and nonspecific. Most of these are not true allergies. Only a very small subset of patients actually have IgE mediated hypersensitivity, such as urticaria, angioedema, wheezing, and anaphylaxis. These are super rare, and even then they may resolve over time without treatment. If a parent or sibling has a history of a penicillin allergy, remember that patient might actually not be allergic, and that is certainly not a reason to label a child as allergic just because one of their first degree relatives has an allergy. So right now, in 2025, as I'm recording this episode, there are clinics like the Pats Clinic or the Penicillin Allergy Testing Services at Cincinnati Children's and in a lot of our peer institutions that are at the forefront of modern de labeling. Their approach reflects the standard of care as outlined by the. Quad ai or the American Academy of Allergy, asthma and Immunology and supported by large trials like Palace. And you know, you have a great trial if you have a great acronym. So here's what happens step by step. So first you stratify the risk. How likely is this to be a true allergy? And that's where a tool like the pen fast comes. And so pen fast scores, a decision rule developed to help assess the likelihood of a true penicillin allergy based on the patient's history. The pen in pen fast is whether or not the patient has a self-reported history of penicillin allergy. They get two points if the reaction occurred in the past five years. Two points if the reaction is anaphylaxis or angioedema. One point if the reaction required treatment, and one point if the reaction was not due to testing. And so you can get a total score of. Up to six points. If you have a score of less than three. This is a low risk patient and they can be eligible for direct oral challenge. A score greater than three means they're higher risk and they may require skin testing. First validation studies show that the PEN FFA score of less than three had a negative predictive value of 96.3%. Meaning a very, very low chance of a true allergy. And this tool has been studied more extensively in adults, but pediatric specific adaptations are emerging, and they do inform current allergy clinic protocols. But I would not use this score in the emergency department just to give a kid a dose of amoxicillin. So. For low risk patients, a pen fast score of less than three or equivalent clinical judgment clinics proceed with direct oral challenge with no skin testing required. The protocol is they administer one dose of oral amoxicillin and they observe for 62 120 minutes monitoring for signs of reaction Urticaria. Respiratory symptoms or GI upset. This approach is safe and effective. There was a trial called Palace back in 2022, which validated this in over 300 children. In adolescents. There were no serious events that occurred. De labeling was successful in greater than 95% of patients. And skin tested added no benefit in low risk patients. So if the child tolerates this dose, then you can remove that allergy immediately from the chart. Parents and primary care doctors will receive a summary letter noting that the challenge was successful and that there's new guidance. Children and families are told they can safely receive all penicillins going forward. And providers are encouraged to document this clearly in the allergy section of the EMR. So you're wondering, can we actually do this in the emergency department? Technically, yes, you can do what you want, but practically we're not quite there yet. So we'd need clearer risk stratification tools like the Pen fast, a safe place for monitoring, post challenge, clinical pathways and documentation support. You know, a clear way to update EMR allergy labels across the board and involvement or allergy or infectious disease oversight. But it's pretty enticing, right? See a kid you diagnose otitis media. You think that their penicillin allergy is wrong, you just give 'em a dose of amox and watch 'em for an hour. That seems like a pretty cool thing that we might be able to do. So some centers, especially in Canada and Australia, do have some protocols for ED or inpatient based de labeling, but they rely on that structured implementation. So until then, our role in the pediatric emergency department is to identify low risk patients, avoid over document. Unconfirmed reactions and refer to allergy ideally to a clinic like the pets. So who should be referred and good candidates Include a child with a rash only, especially one that's remote over a year ago. Isolated GI symptoms. Parents unsure of the details at all. No history of anaphylaxis wheezing her hives, and no recent serious cutaneous reactions. I would avoid referring and presume that this allergy is true. If they've had recent anaphylaxis, they've had something like Stevens Johnson syndrome dress, or toxic epidermolysis necrosis. Fortunately, those are very, very rare with penicillins and there's a need for penicillin during the ED visit without allergy backup. So even though we don't have an ED based protocol yet. De labeling amoxicillin or penicillin allergy can start with good questions in the emergency department. So here's one way to talk to patients and families. You can say, thanks for letting me know about the amoxicillin allergy. Can I ask you a few questions to better understand what happened? This is gonna help us decide the safest and most effective treatment for your child today, and then possibly go through a process to remove a label for this allergy that might not be accurate. You wanna ask good, open-ended questions. What exactly happened when your child took penicillin or amoxicillin? You know, look for rash, hives, swelling, trouble breathing, or anaphylaxis. Many families just say, allergic, when the reaction was just GI upset, diarrhea or vomiting, which is not an allergy. How old was your child when this happened? Reactions that occurred before age of three are more likely to be falsely attributed. How soon after taking the medicine did the reaction start? Less than one hour is an immediate reaction, but one hour to days later is delayed. Usually mild and probably not a true allergy. Did they have a fever, cold or virus at that time? Viral rashes are often misattributed to antibiotics, and we shouldn't be treating viruses with antibiotics anyway, so get good at looking at ears and know what you're seeing. And have they taken similar antibiotics since then? Like. Different penicillins, Augmentin, or cephalexin. So if they said that they were allergic to amoxicillin, but then somehow tolerated Augmentin. They're not allergic. If a patient had rash only, but no hive swelling or difficulty breathing, no reaction within the first hour. It occurred more than five years ago or before the kid was three. And especially if they tolerated beta-lactam antibiotics. Since then, they're a great candidate for de labeling and I would refer that kid to the allergy clinic. Generally, they can get them in pretty darn quick. Alright, we're gonna wrap up this episode. Most kids labeled penicillin allergic or amoxicillin allergic, or not actually allergic to the medication. There are some scores like pen fasts that are validated tools to assess risk and support de labeling. Direct oral challenge for most patients is safe, efficient, and increasingly the standard of care. There are allergy clinics like the Pats at Cincinnati Children's that can dela children in a single visit with oral challenges alone, needing no skin testing, and emergency departments can play a key role in identifying and referring these patients and possibly de labeling ourselves in the future. Well, that's all for this episode on Penicillin Allergy. I hope you learn something new, especially how to assess whether an allergy label is real, how to ask the right questions and when to refer to an allergy testing clinic. If you have feedback, send it my way. Email, comment on the blog, a message on social media. I always appreciate hearing from you all, and if you like this episode, please leave a review on your favorite podcast app. Really helps more people find the show and that's great 'cause I like to teach people stuff. Thanks for listening for PEM Currents, the Pediatric Emergency Medicine podcast. This has been Brad Sobolewski. See you next time.

Read transcriptHoly Gallic mayhem, comic crusaders! This week on Play Comics, we're trading our Roman shields for DualShock controllers as we dive headfirst into the digital disaster that is Asterix & Obelix Kick Buttix for PS2 and Xbox – because apparently someone at Étranges Libellules thought the best way to honor René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's beloved comic masterpiece was to trap our favorite mustachioed warriors in a 3D brawler with combat mechanics more repetitive than Obelix's “These Romans are crazy!” catchphrase. Released in 2003 as Asterix & Obelix XXL in Europe before getting the wonderfully ridiculous “Kick Buttix” rebrand for American audiences, this licensed adventure promised players the chance to experience authentic Gallic village life while punching approximately 70 Romans per level across 40 different stages of cartoon chaos. What it actually delivered was a gaming experience so mindlessly button-mashy that even Caesar would file a complaint with customer service about the repetitive gameplay loop. Joining us for this Roman-bashing bonanza is the incomparable Chas! Pangburn – a man who when he's not busy lettering the actual Asterix comics from the depths of his creative dungeon, brings his insider knowledge of what makes these characters tick both on the page and in polygonal form. His expertise in both the source material and the art of comic creation makes him the perfect guide through this particular journey from panel to PlayStation. So grab your magic potion and prepare for an episode that's more entertaining than actually grinding through the same three enemy types for hours on end – which, let's face it, isn't exactly setting the bar at Vercingétorix levels. Will this portable Gallic adventure redeem itself through sheer nostalgic charm and cartoon physics, or will it crash harder than a Roman chariot race gone wrong? Tune in to discover if this comic adaptation belongs in the Hall of Fame… or should be buried deeper than one of those references that you'll only catch if you read this in French! Learn such things as: Can a video game really handle the comedic timing that makes Asterix comics so brilliant? How do you translate cartoon physics into actual game mechanics without breaking the universe? Do magic potions even come with flavor options? And so much more! Technically you can find Chas! on BlueSky @chasexclamation.bsky.social but you'd have a much better time checking out Double Booking and any of the other wonderful work he puts his hands on over at Papercutz. Or just check out his website at ChasExclamationPoint.com If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you're interested in. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicscaston Twitter and in the Play Comics Podcast Fan Groupon Facebook. A big thanks to Capes on the Couch and the TransMissions Podcast Network for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who can read Asterix in 3 more languages than it has ever been published in. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

The Daily Shower Thoughts podcast is produced by Klassic Studios. [Promo] Check out the Daily Dad Jokes podcast here: https://dailydadjokespodcast.com/ [Promo] Like the soothing background music and Amalia's smooth calming voice? Then check out "Terra Vitae: A Daily Guided Meditation Podcast" here at our show page [Promo] The Daily Facts Podcast. Get smarter in less than 10 minutes a day. Pod links here Daily Facts website. [Promo] The Daily Life Pro Tips Podcast. Improve your life in less than 10 minutes a day. Pod links here Daily Life Pro Tips website. [Promo] Check out the Get Happy Headlines podcast by my friends, Stella and Mickey. It's a podcast dedicated to bringing you family friendly uplifting stories from around the world. Give it a listen, I know you will like it. Pod links here Get Happy Headlines website. Shower thoughts are sourced from reddit.com/r/showerthoughts Shower Thought credits: PhoenixDan, Sorceress683, I_am_unique6435, donpantini, sudomatrix, Ibringupeace, Vamking13, xomedinaox, elmwoodblues, Dark_Warhead3, BackgroundAgreeable3, Marambal17, , Boogie_B0ss, Vincent_672, Michael_Dautorio, i_am_the_potato_man3, bigedfromtwinpeaks, Bcinns, , ShitBoyMcTaterDick, InappropriateJokeTim, friendly_homophobe1, LiamHunter35, User_123_user, bigtime1158 Podcast links: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZNciemLzVXc60uwnTRx2e Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-shower-thoughts/id1634359309 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/daily-dad-jokes/daily-shower-thoughts iHeart: https://iheart.com/podcast/99340139/ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a5a434e9-da18-46a7-a434-0437ec49e1d2/daily-shower-thoughts Website: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/dailyshowerthoughts Social media links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DailyShowerThoughtsPodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DailyShowerPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DailyShowerThoughtsPodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dailyshowerthoughtspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We discuss second seasons of anime that were better than the first. Technically it's subsequent seasons, but that doesn't sound as good as a title. Join us as we share which anime we feel significantly improved as the show went on. While you're listening to this episode, why not pair it up with a delicious snack from a #TokyoTreat box? Use code STRICTLYANIME for $5 off your first box: https://team.tokyotreat.com/strictlyanime Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/4Rnq4GTePP Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/thestrictlyseries Website: https://www.thestrictlyseries.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestrictlyseries Twitter: https://twitter.com/strictlyseries Part of The Strictly Series of podcasts

We had technical issues last week which kept us from recording this episode, but we're back! (Technically with new technical problems but those don't impact the podcast, lol.) This week, we're giving updates from... The post What's Changed in our D/s | Updates from Old Episodes appeared first on Loving BDSM.

Americans don't talk about state attorney generals very much. Technically it's “attorneys general”—like “sisters-in-law” instead of “sister-in-laws”—but don't get hung up on the wording. It's what AGs actually do that matters so much.A state attorney general is basically the top legal expert in their state; they're also known as The People's Lawyers because they fight for us, their constituents, against bad actors who don't have our best interests in mind. That can mean prosecuting companies that are polluting waterways or landlords who are illegally raising rent prices or banks that are selling people's private data. Sometimes state AGs band together on lawsuits, like a recent case against Purdue Pharma for aggressively pushing medications like OxyContin and contributing to the opioid crisis we're facing in this country.Unfortunately, we also have a lot of examples of the harm that a corrupt or extremist attorney general can do. (Ken Paxton, for example) But the good news is, we the people have the power to elect them. In all but seven states (AK, HI, NH, NJ, WY, TN, & ME), voters choose their AG at the ballot box. Most attorneys general are up for election in 2026 or 2028, and in one pivotal state, Virginia, voters will get to elect a new attorney general in just a couple of months.This November, Jay Jones—a lawyer and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates—will square off against the current Virginia Attorney General, Jason Miyares. Miyares is a Republican and a supporter of Donald Trump, campaigning for him and supporting his policies.If you live in Virginia, be sure you come to the polls in November prepared to vote for attorney general. And if you don't live in Virginia, chances are you'll have the chance to vote for your own AG very soon! It's not just about rejecting extremism. It's about choosing a “People's Lawyer” who actually works for the people.For a transcript of this episode, please email comms@redwine.blue. You can learn more about us at www.redwine.blue or follow us on social media! Twitter: @TheSWPpod and @RedWineBlueUSA Instagram: @RedWineBlueUSA Facebook: @RedWineBlueUSA YouTube: @RedWineBlueUSA

Americans don't talk about state attorney generals very much. Technically it's “attorneys general”—like “sisters-in-law” instead of “sister-in-laws”—but don't get hung up on the wording. It's what AGs actually do that matters so much.A state attorney general is basically the top legal expert in their state; they're also known as The People's Lawyers because they fight for us, their constituents, against bad actors who don't have our best interests in mind. That can mean prosecuting companies that are polluting waterways or landlords who are illegally raising rent prices or banks that are selling people's private data. Sometimes state AGs band together on lawsuits, like a recent case against Purdue Pharma for aggressively pushing medications like OxyContin and contributing to the opioid crisis we're facing in this country. The company settled for $7.4 billion dollars just this past January, which means billions of dollars that can now be put back into treatment and prevention programs. It's a great example of how an attorney general can have a real positive impact on the people of their state.Unfortunately, we also have a lot of examples of the harm that a corrupt or extremist attorney general can do. (Ken Paxton, for example) But the good news is, we the people have the power to elect them. In all but seven states (AK, HI, NH, NJ, WY, TN, & ME), voters choose their AG at the ballot box. Most attorneys general are up for election in 2026 or 2028, and in one pivotal state, Virginia, voters will get to elect a new attorney general in just a couple of months.This November, Jay Jones—a lawyer and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates—will square off against the current Virginia Attorney General, Jason Miyares. Miyares is a Republican and a supporter of Donald Trump, campaigning for him and supporting his policies.If you live in Virginia, be sure you come to the polls in November prepared to vote for attorney general. And if you don't live in Virginia, chances are you'll have the chance to vote for your own AG very soon! It's not just about rejecting extremism. It's about choosing a “People's Lawyer” who actually works for the people.

Keith discusses the potential takeover of the Federal Reserve by President Trump, highlighting the macroeconomic implications.  Economist, author and publisher of Macro Watch, Richard Duncan, joins the show and explains that central bank independence is crucial to prevent political influence on monetary policy, which could lead to excessive money supply and inflation.  Trump's policies, including tariffs and spending bills, are inflationary, necessitating lower interest rates.  Resources: Subscribe to Macro Watch at RichardDuncanEconomics.com and use promo code GRE for a 50% discount. Gain access to over 100 hours of macroeconomic video archives and new biweekly insights into the global economy. Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/571 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the President has a plan to completely take over the Fed, a body that historically stays independent of outside influence. Learn the fascinating architecture of the planned fed seizure and how it's expected to unleash a wealth Bonanza and $1 crash with a brilliant macroeconomist today, it'll shape inflation in interest rates in the future world that you'll live in today. On get rich education.    Speaker 1  0:33   Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads in 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com   Corey Coates  1:21   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Speaker 1  1:31   Welcome to GRE from Fairfax, Virginia to Fairfield, California, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are listening to get rich education. The Federal Open Market Committee is the most powerful financial institution, not only in the nation, but in the entire world, and when an outside force wants to wrestle it and take it down. The change that it could unleash is almost incredible. It's unprecedented. The President wants full control. Once he has it, he could then slash interest rates, order unlimited money creation, and even peg government bond yields wherever he wishes, and this could drive wealth to extraordinary new highs, but this also carries enormous risks for the dollar and inflation and overall financial stability. And I mean, come on now, whether you like him or not, is Trump more enamored of power than Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars or what this is fascinating. Today's guest is going to describe the architecture of the takeover the grand plan. Our guest is a proven expert on seeing what will happen next in macroeconomics. He's rather pioneering in AI as well. But today, this all has so much to do with the future of inflation and interest rates. We're going to get into the details of how, step by step, Trump plans to infiltrate and make a Fed takeover.    Keith Weinhold  3:23   I'd like to welcome back one of the more recurrent guests in GRE history, because he's one of the world's most prominent macroeconomists, and he was this show's first ever guest back in 2014 he's worked with the World Bank and as a consultant to the IMF. He's contributed a lot on CNBC, CNN and Bloomberg Television. He's a prolific author. His books have been taught at Harvard and Columbia, and more recently, he's been a guest speaker at a White House Ways and Means Committee policy dinner in DC. So people at the highest levels lean on his macroeconomic expertise. Hey, welcome back to GRE joining us from Thailand as usual. It's Richard Duncan   Richard Duncan  4:03   Keith, thank you for that very nice introduction. It's great to see you again.   Keith Weinhold  4:08   Oh, it's so good to have you back. Because you know what, Richard, what caught my attention and why I invited you back to the show earlier than usual is about something that you published on macro watch, and it's titled, Trump's conquest of the Fed will unleash a wealth Bonanza, $1 crash and state directed capitalism. I kind of think of state directed and capitalism as two different things, so there's a few bits to unpack here, and maybe the best way is to start with the importance of the separation of powers. Tell us why the Fed needs to maintain independence from any influence of the president.   Richard Duncan  4:44   Central banks have gained independence over the years because it was realized that if they didn't have independence, then they would do whatever the president or prime minister told them to do to help him get reelected, and that would tend to lead to excessive money supply. Growth and interest rates that were far too low for the economic environment, and that would create an economic boom that would help that President or politician get reelected, but then ultimately in a bust and a systemic financial sector crisis. So it's generally believed that central bank independence is much better for the economy than political control of the central bank.   Speaker 1  5:24   Otherwise we would just fall into a president's short term interests. Every president would want rates essentially at zero, and maybe this wouldn't catch up with people until the next person's in office.   Richard Duncan  5:35   That's right. He sort of wants to be Fed Chair Trump. That's right, president and Fed Chairman Trump on the horizon. It looks like won't be long, Now.   Speaker 1  5:45   that's right. In fact, even on last week's episode, I was talking about how Trump wants inflation, he won't come out and explicitly say that, of course, but when you look at the majority of his policies, they're inflationary. I mean, you've got tariffs, you've got deportations, this reshaping of the Fed that we're talking about the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending in the one big, beautiful Bill act. It is overwhelmingly inflationary.   Richard Duncan  6:12   It is inflationary. And he may want many of those things that you just mentioned, but what he doesn't want is what goes along with high rates of inflation, and that is high interest rates, right? If interest rates go up in line with inflation, as they normally do in a left to market forces, then we would have significantly higher rates of inflation. There would also be significantly higher rates of interest on the 10 year government bond yield, for instance. And that is what he does not want, because that would be extremely harmful for the economy and for asset prices, and that's why taking over the Federal Reserve is so important for him, his policies are going to be inflationary. That would tend to cause market determined interest rates to go higher, and in fact, that would also persuade the Fed that they needed to increase the short term interest rates, the federal funds rate, if we start to see a significant pickup in inflation, then, rather than cutting rates going forward, then they're more likely to start increasing the federal funds rate. And the bond investors are not going to buy 10 year government bonds at a yield of 4% if the inflation rate is 5% they're going to demand something more like a yield of 7% so that's why it's so urgent for the President Trump to take over the Fed. That's what he's in the process of doing. Once he takes over the Fed, then he can demand that they slash the federal funds rate to whatever level he desires. And even if the 10 year bond yield does begin to spike up as inflation starts to rise, then the President can instruct, can command the Fed to launch a new round of quantitative easing and buy up as many 10 year government bonds as necessary, to push up their price and to drive down their yields to very low levels, even if there is high rate of inflation.   Keith Weinhold  7:58   a president's pressure to Lower short term rates, which is what the Fed controls, could increase long term rates like you're saying, it could backfire on Trump because of more inflation expectations in the bond market.   Richard Duncan  8:12   That's right. President Trump is on record as saying he thinks that the federal funds rate is currently 4.33% he said it's 300 basis points too high. Adjusting would be 1.33% if they slash the short term interest rates like that. That would be certain to set off a very strong economic boom in the US, which would also be very certain to create very high rates of inflation, particularly since we have millions of people being deported and a labor shortage at the moment, and the unemployment rate's already very low at just 4.2% so yes, slashing short term interest rates that radically the federal funds rate that radically would be certain to drive up the 10 year government bond yield. That's why President Trump needs to gain control over the Fed so that he can make the Fed launch a new round of quantitative easing. If you create a couple of trillion dollars and start buying a couple of trillion dollars of government bonds, guess what? Their price goes up. And when the price of a bond goes up, the yield on that bond goes down, and that drives down what typically are considered market determined interest rates, but in this case, they would be fed determined interest rates Trump determined interest rates.   Speaker 1  9:28   Inflationary, inflationary, inflationary, and whenever we see massive cuts to the Fed funds rate that typically correlates with a big loss in quality of life, standard of living, and items of big concern. If we look at the last three times that rates have been cut substantially, they have been for the reasons of getting us out of the two thousand.com bubble, then getting us out of the 2000 day global financial crisis, then getting us out of covid in 2020, I mean, massive rate cuts are. Are typically a crisis response   Richard Duncan  10:02   yes, but if we look back, starting in the early 1980s interest rates have have trended down decade after decade right up until the time covid hit. In fact, the inflation rate was below the Fed's 2% inflation target most of the time between 2008 the crisis of 2008 and when covid started, the Fed was more worried about deflation than inflation during those years, and the inflation rate trended down. And so the interest rates tended to trend down as well, and we're at quite low levels. Of course, back in the early 1980s we had double digit inflation and double digit interest rates, but gradually, because of globalization, allowing the United States to buy more and more goods from other countries with ultra low wages, like China and now Vietnam and India and Bangladesh, buying goods from other countries with low wages that drove down the price of goods in the United States, causing goods disinflation, and that drove down the interest rates. That drove down the inflation rate. And because the inflation rate fell, then interest rates could fall also, and that's why the interest rates were trending down for so long, up until the time covid hit, and why they would have trended down again in the absence of this new tariff regime that President Trump has put into place. Now, this is creating a completely different economic environment. President Trump truly is trying to radically restructure the US economy. There is a plan for this. The plan was spelled out in a paper by the man who is now the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. His name is Steven Moran, and the paper was called a user's guide to restructuring the global trading system. It was published in November last year, and it very clearly spelled out almost everything President Trump has done since then in terms of economic policy. It was truly a blueprint for what he has done since then, and this paper spelled out a three step plan with two objectives. Here are the three steps. Step one was to impose very high tariffs on all of the United States trading partners. Step two was then to threaten all of our allies that we would no longer protect them militarily if they dared to retaliate against our high tariffs. And then the third step was to convene a Mar a Lago accord at which these terrified trading partners would agree to a sharp devaluation of the dollar and would also agree to put up their own trade tariffs against China in order to isolate China. And the two objectives of this policy, they were to re industrialize the United States and to stop China's economic growth so that China would be less of a military threat to the United States, which it is currently and increasingly with each passing month. So so far, steps one and two have been carried out very high tariffs on every trading partner, and also threats that if there's any retaliation, that we won't protect you militarily any longer. And also pressure on other countries to put high tariffs against China. The idea is to isolate China between behind a global tariff wall and to stop China's economic growth. So you can see that is what President Trump has been doing. And also in this paper, Stephen Marin also suggested that it would be very helpful if the Fed would cooperate to hold down 10 year government bond yield in this environment, which would naturally tend to push the bond yields higher. So that paper really did spell out what President Trump has done since then.   Keith Weinhold  13:59   This is fascinating about this paper. I didn't know about this previously, so this is all planned from tariffs to a Fed takeover.   Richard Duncan  14:08   That's right, the idea is to re industrialize the United States. That's what President Trump has been saying for years. Make America Great Again. And it's certainly true that America does need to have the industrial capacity to make steel and ships and pharmaceutical products and many other things in his own national self defense. But there's a problem with this strategy since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, and we've talked about this before, so I will do this fast forwarding a bit when the Bretton Woods system broke down up until then it broke down in 1971 before then, trade between countries had to balance. So it wasn't possible for the United States to buy extraordinarily large amounts of goods from low wage countries back then, this thing that's caused the disinflation over the last four decades, trade had to balance because on the Bretton Woods system, if we had a big trade deficit. Deficit, we had to pay for that deficit with gold. US gold, and gold was money. So if we had a big trade deficit and had to pay out all of our gold other countries to finance that deficit, we would run out of gold. Run out of money. The economy would hit a crisis, and that just couldn't continue. We'd stop buying things from other countries. So there was an automatic adjustment mechanism under the Bretton Woods System, or under the classical gold standard itself that prevented trade deficits. But once Bretton Woods broke down in 1971 It didn't take us too long to figure out that it could buy extraordinarily large amounts of things from other countries, and it didn't have to pay with gold anymore. It could just pay with US dollars, or more technically, with Treasury bonds denominated in US dollars. So the US started running massive trade deficits. The deficits went from zero to $800 billion in 2006 and now most recently, the current account deficit was $1.2 trillion last year. So the total US current account deficit since the early 1980s has been $17 trillion this has created a global economic boom of unprecedented proportions and pulled hundreds of millions of people around the world out of poverty. China is a superpower now, because of its massive trade surplus with the US, completely transformed China. So the trade surplus countries in Asia all benefited. I've watched that firsthand, since I've spent most of my career living in Asia, but the United States also benefited, because by buying things from low wage countries that drove down the price of goods, that drove down inflation, that made low interest rates possible, that made it easier for the US to finance its big budget deficits at low interest rates, and so with Low interest rates, the government could spend more and stimulate the economy. Also with very low interest rates, stock prices could go higher and home prices could go higher. This created a very big economic boom in the United States as well. Not only did the trade surplus, countries benefit by selling more to the US, but the US itself benefited by this big wealth boom that has resulted from this arrangement. Now the problem with President Trump's plan to restructure the US economy is that he wants to bring this trade deficit back down essentially to zero, ideally, it seems. But if he does that, then that's going to cut off the source of credit that's been blowing this bubble ever larger year after year since the early 1980s and we have such a big global credit bubble that if this source of credit has been making the bubble inflate, the trade deficit, if that were to significantly become significantly lower, then this credit that's been blowing up, the bubble would stop, and the bubble would implode, potentially creating very severe, systemic financial sector crisis around the world on a much, probably a much larger scale than we saw in 2008 and leading to a new Great Depression. One thing to think about is the trade deficit is similar to the current account deficit. So the current account deficit is the mirror image of capital inflows into the United States. Every country's balance of payments has to balance. So last year, the US current account deficit was $1.2 trillion that threw off $1.2 trillion into the global economy benefiting the trade surplus countries. But those countries received dollars, and once they had that 1.2 trillion new dollars last year, they had to invest those dollars back into us, dollar denominated assets of one kind or another, like government bonds or like US stocks, and that's what they did. The current account deficit is the mirror image of capital inflows into the United States. Last year was $1.2 trillion of capital inflows. Now if you eliminate the current account deficit by having very high trade tariffs and bringing trade back into balance, you also eliminate the capital inflows into the United States, and if we have $1.2 trillion less money coming into the United States a year or two from now, that's going to make it much more difficult to finance the government's very large budget deficits. The budget deficits are expected to grow from something like $2 trillion now to $2.5 trillion 10 years from now, and that's assuming a lot of tariff revenue from the tariffs, budget deficit would be much larger still. So we need the capital inflows from these other countries to finance the US budget deficit, the government's budget deficit. If the trade deficit goes away, the capital inflows will go away also, and with less foreign buying of government us, government bonds, then the price of those bonds will fall and the yield on those bonds will go up. In other words, if there are fewer buyers for the bonds, the price of the bonds will go down and the yield on the bonds will go up. In other words, long term interest rates will go up, and that will be very bad for the US Economy   Speaker 2  14:08   the yields on those 10 year notes have to go up in order to attract investors. Mortgage rates and everything else are tied to those yields.   Richard Duncan  19:36   That's right. And cap rates. When people consider investing in tech stocks, they consider they'll buy fewer stocks if the interest rates are higher. So this is why it's so important for President Trump to conquer the Fed, to take over the Fed. That's what he's doing. Technically, he's very close to accomplishing that. Shall we discuss the details?   Speaker 1  20:29   Yes, we should get more into this fed takeover, just what it means for the future of real estate markets and stock markets. With Richard Duncan, more, we come back. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold   Keith Weinhold  20:41   the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Chaley Ridge personally. While it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's Ridge lendinggroup.com. You know what's crazy?    Keith Weinhold  21:13   Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading, it's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text family. 266, 866, to learn about freedom family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family. 266, 866,   Dani-Lynn Robison  22:24   you is freedom family investments co founder, Danny Lynn Robinson, listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 1  22:31   Welcome back to get Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, we're talking with macroeconomist Richard Duncan about a Fed takeover. I think the President wants to be Fed Chair Trump, Richard. Talk to us more about this, because this is really part of a grand plan.   Richard Duncan  22:57   So the Federal Reserve is in charge of monetary policy. That means it sets the interest rates on the federal funds rate, the short term interest rates, and it also has the power to create money through quantitative easing or to destroy money through quantitative tightening. So the Fed is in charge of monetary policy. The Fed makes its decisions at its it meets eight times a year, the Federal Open Market Committee, the FOMC, meets eight times a year, and they take votes. They discuss what's going on in the economy. They make a decision about what they should do about interest rates, and in some cases, decisions about creating or destroying money through quantitative easing or quantitative tightening. They take a vote. The structure of the Federal Reserve System is as follows. There are seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, so there are seven fed governors there. The Federal Reserve Board is in based in Washington, DC. In addition to that, there are 12 Federal Reserve banks around the country, like the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, for instance, or the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Each of these Federal Reserve Banks have a president, so there are 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents now at the FOMC meetings where interest rates are decided, all seven fed governors get a vote, but only five Federal Reserve Bank presidents get to vote, and they rotate their votes every year they the following year are different. Five fed presidents get to vote. The Federal Reserve Bank president of New York always gets the vote because New York is such an important financial center, but the other four other presidents keep rotating year after year, and the presidents, 12 presidents, serve five year terms, and they can be reappointed, and their terms expire all at the same time, all on the same day, all of their terms will expire next year on February 28 and they will perhaps be reappointed and perhaps. Be reappointed. So that's the structure, seven Federal Reserve Bank governors and 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents. All the governors. All seven get to vote at every FOMC meeting, but only five of the Presidents get to vote. So that's a total of 12. The Governors of the Federal Reserve System are the most important the seven. Those seven include the Chairman, Chairman Powell, and this is why they're the most important. They're important because if four of the seven have the power to fire all of the Federal Reserve Bank presidents, if four fed governors vote together, they can fire all 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents. It only takes four. Only takes four. Then those Federal Reserve Bank presidents would have to be replaced, but the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has to approve the replacements. So if President Trump has four fed governors who will do what he tells them to do, then they can fire all the Federal Reserve Bank presidents and only replace them with other people who will do what President Trump tells them to do. Gosh. So what this means is, if the president can get four Federal Reserve Bank governors out of seven, then he has absolute control over monetary policy. He can do anything he wants with interest rates. He can do anything he wants with quantitative easing. So how many does he have now? Well, he has two that he's appointed, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman. They voted to cut interest rates at the last FOMC meeting. That was a dissenting vote, because the rest of the voting members voted to hold interest rates steady. Those two have already voted with the President, so they're on Team Trump, and they're going to stay on Team Trump, because both of them would like to become Fed Chairman when Jerome Powell term expires in May next year, very suddenly and very unexpectedly. A month or so ago, another fed Governor resigned. Her name is Adriana Coogler. Her term was not due to expire for another six months, and she'd not given any indication that she was going to resign early, but she did this now gives the President can nominate the Federal Reserve Bank governors. So he is nominated Stephen Moran, the one who wrote the paper the grand plan. Grand plan. He's nominated him to replace Adriana Coogler, yeah, and he's going to vote on him on his appointment, perhaps within very soon, and it only takes 51 senators to vote him in. And since the Republicans control the Senate, he will be approved, it seems very likely that he will be approved, and that will give President Trump the third vote on the FOMC. He will have three out of the seven governors. He only needs one more, and this is where at least the cook comes in. So on the 26th of August, I think President Trump announced that he was firing Lisa Cook, a Fed governor, because she allegedly had made misleading statements on some mortgage applications that have not been proven yet, that they are alleged. So he says that he has fired her. She has said he does not have the right to fire her. The legal cases that the President does have the right to fire a Federal Reserve Bank Governor, but only for cause. And so there's a real question whether this qualifies as being for cause or not, especially since it's only alleged at this point, but assuming that he does get control. So if he does succeed in firing her, he will be able to appoint her replacement, and that will give him four members, four governors out of the seven. And as we just discussed, with four out of seven, he will have complete control over monetary policy, because with four out of seven, that would give him the power to command those four to vote to fire all 12 presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks, and then to appoint new presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks who would vote along with whatever President Trump tells them to vote for. So in that case, with four fed governors, he would have those Four Plus he would have the five presidents that he would appoint from the Federal Reserve Banks voting for him. So five plus four, that is nine, nine out of 12 voting members on the Federal Open Market Committee. He would be guaranteed nine out of 12 votes on the FOMC, and that would give him complete control over monetary policy, and that's what he needs, because his policies are inflationary. They're going to drive up inflation. They're and that's going to push up the 10 year government bond yield, and it would normally make the Fed also increase the federal funds rate, because higher inflation should the Fed in. Increase the interest rates to cool down the higher inflation. But now that's not going to happen, because he is going to take over the FOMC one way or the other. Just by firing Lisa Cook, he's sending a very clear message to all the other fed governors and to the 12 existing Federal Reserve Bank presidents, you do what I tell you or you may be investigated too. You're next, one way or the other, the President is going to get what the President wants, and what he wants is control over monetary policy, and what that means is much lower short term interest rates and probably another very big round of quantitative easing to hold down long term interest rates as well.   Keith Weinhold  30:41   That was an amazing architecture and plan that you laid out for how a President can take over the Federal Open Market Committee. That was amazing to think about that, and what we believe he wants you talked about it is potentially quantitative easing, which is a genteel way of saying dollar printing. Is it lowering the Fed funds rate down to, I think 1% is what he desired, and we're currently at about 4.3%   Richard Duncan  31:08   that's right. He said he'd like to see the federal funds rate 300 basis points lower, which would put 1.3% we could see a series of very sharp interest rate cuts by the Fed in the upcoming FOMC meetings, so we could see the short term interest rates falling very quickly, but as we discussed a little bit earlier, that would alarm the bond market and investors, because they would realize that much lower interest rates would lead to much higher rates of inflation by overstimulating the economy. And so the 10 year bond yields will move higher for fear of inflation, and that will then force President Trump to command the Fed, to create money through quantitative easing on a potentially trillion dollar scale, and start buying up government bonds to push up their price and drive down their yields, so that the 10 year bond yields and the 30 year bond yields will fall. And since mortgage rates are pegged to the government bond yields mortgage rates will fall, and credit card rates will fall, and bank lending rates will fall, and this will kick off an extraordinary economic boom in the US, and also drive asset prices very much higher and create a wealth Bonanza,   Keith Weinhold  32:15   right? And here, Richard and I are talking interestingly, just two days before the next Fed decision is rendered, therefore, with eminent cuts, we could very well see soaring stock and real estate markets fueled by this cheap credit and this quantitative easing, at least in the shorter term.   Richard Duncan  32:36   But timing is something one must always keep in mind, there is a danger that we could actually see a sell off in the stock market in the near term. If we start seeing the Fed slashing interest rates, then the 10 year bond yields will start moving higher. That would ultimately lead to quantitative easing to drive those yields back down. But when the falling short term interest rates start pushing up interest rates on the 10 year government bond yield because investors expect higher rates of inflation, that could spook the stock market. The stock market's very expensive, so before QE kicks in, there could actually be a period where raising expectations for higher rates of inflation drive the 10 year bond yields higher before the Fed can step in and drive them back down again. We could actually see a sell off in the stock market before we get this wealth boom that will ultimately result when the Fed cuts the short term rates and then quantitative easing also drives down the long term rates. I hope that's not too confusing. There could be a intermediate phase, where bond yields move higher, and that causes the stock market to have a significant stumble. But that wouldn't last long, because then President Trump would command the Fed to do quantitative easing, and as soon as the president says on television that he's going to do quantitative easing, between the moment he says quantitative and the moment he says easing, the stock market is going to rocket higher.   Keith Weinhold  34:05   And here we are at a time where many feel the stock market is overvalued. Mortgage rates have been elevated, but they're actually still a little below their historic norms. The rate of inflation hasn't been down at the Fed's 2% target in years, it's been above them, and we've got signs that the labor market is softening.   Richard Duncan  34:25   That's true. The labor market numbers in the most recent job number were quite disappointing, with the revisions to earlier months significantly lower. But of course, with so many people being deported from the United States now, that's contributing to this lower job growth numbers. If you have fewer people, there are fewer people to hire and add to job creation, so that may have some distorting impact on the low job creation numbers. The economy actually is seems to be relatively strong the the. Latest GDP now forecast that the Atlanta Fed does is suggesting that the economy could grow by three and a half percent this quarter, which is very strong. So the economy is not falling off a cliff by any means. If the scenario plays out, as I've discussed, and ultimately we do get another round of quantitative easing and the Fed cuts short term interest rates very aggressively. That will create a very big economic boom with interest rates very low. That will push up real estate prices, stock prices and gold prices and Bitcoin prices and the price of everything except $1 the dollar will crash because currency values are determined by interest rate differentials. Right now, the 10 year government bond yield is higher than the bond yields in Europe or Japan, and if you suddenly cut the US interest rates by 100 basis points, 200 basis points, 300 basis points, and the bond yields go down very sharply, then it'll be much less attractive for anyone to hold dollars relative to other currencies, and so there will be a big sell off of the dollar. And also, if you create another big round of quantitative easing and create trillions of dollars that way, then the more money you create, the less value the dollar has supply and demand. If you have trillions of extra new dollars, then the value of the dollar loses value. So the dollar is likely to take a significant tumble from here against other currencies and against hard assets. Gold, for instance, that's why we've seen such an extraordinary surge in gold prices.   Speaker 1  36:38   right? Gold prices soared above three $500 and Richard I'm just saying what I'm thinking. It's remarkable that Trump continues to be surrounded by sycophants that just act obsequiously toward him and want to stay in line and do whatever he says. And I haven't seen anyone breaking that pattern.   Richard Duncan  36:59   I'm not going to comment on that observation, but what I would like to say is that if this scenario does play out, and it does seem that we're moving in that direction, then this big economic boom is very likely to ultimately lead to the big economic bust. Every big boom leads to a big bust, right? Big credit booms lower interest rates, much more borrowing by households, individuals, companies. It would while the borrowing is going on, the consumption grows and the investment grows, but sooner or later, it hits the point where even with very low interest rates, the consumers wouldn't be able to repay their loans, like we saw in 2008 businesses wouldn't be able to repay their loans, and they would begin defaulting, as they did in 2008 and at that point, everything goes into reverse, and the banks begin to fail when they don't receive their loan repayments. And it leads to a systemic financial sector crisis. The banks lend less when credit starts to contract, then the economy collapses into a very serious recession, or even worse, unless the government intervenes again. So big boom that will last for a few years, followed by a big bust. That's the most probable outcome, but I do see one other possibility of how that outcome could be avoided, on the optimistic side, and this is it. If once President Trump slash Fed Chairman Trump has complete control over US monetary policy, then it won't take him long to realize Stephen Moran has probably already told him that he would then be able to use the Fed to fund his us, sovereign wealth fund. You will remember, back in February, President Trump signed an executive order creating a US sovereign wealth fund. And this was music to my ears, because for years, as you well know, I've been advocating for the US government to finance a multi trillion dollar 10 year investment in the industries and technologies of the future   Keith Weinhold  39:01   including on this show, you laid that out for us a few years ago and made your case for that here, and then Trump made it happen.   Richard Duncan  39:08   Let's try my book from 2022 it was called the money revolution. How to finance the next American century? Well, how to finance the next American Century is to have the US, government finance, a very large investment in new industries and new technologies in things like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, biotech, robotics, clean energy and fusion, create fusion and everything, world where energy is free, ultimate abundance. So I was very happy that President Trump created this US sovereign wealth fund. Now that he will soon have complete control over his US monetary policy, he will understand that he can use the Fed to fund this, US sovereign wealth fund. He can have the Fed create money through quantitative easing and. And start investing in fusion. We can speed up the creation of the invention of low cost fusion. We could do that in a relatively small number of years, instead of perhaps a decade or longer, as things are going now, we could ensure that the United States wins the AI arms race that we are in with China. Whoever develops super intelligence first is probably going to conquer the world. We know what the world looks like when the United States is the sole superpower. We've been living in that world for 80 years. Yeah, we don't know what the world would look like if it's conquered by China. And China is the control super intelligence and becomes magnitudes greater in terms of their capacity across everything imaginable than the United States is whoever wins the AI arms race will rule the world. This sort of investment through a US sovereign wealth fund would ensure that the winner is the US and on atop it, so it would shore up US national security and large scale investments in these new technologies would also turbocharge US economic growth and hopefully allow us to avoid the bust that is likely to ultimately occur following The approaching boom, and keep the economy growing long into the future, rather than just having a short term boom and bust, a large scale investment in the industries of the future could create a technological revolution that would generate very rapid growth in productivity, very rapid economic growth, shore up US national security, and result in technological miracles and medical breakthroughs, possibly curing all the diseases, cure cancer, cure Alzheimer's, extend life expectancy by decades, healthy life expectancy. So that is a very optimistic outcome that could result from President Trump becoming Fed Chairman Trump and gaining complete control over monetary policy. And this is all part of the plan of making America great again. If he really followed through on this, then he certainly would be able to restructure the US economy, re industrialize it, create a technological revolution that ensured us supremacy for the next century. That's how to finance the next American century.   Speaker 1  42:23   Oh, well, Richard, I like what you're leaving us with here. You're giving us some light, and you're talking about real productivity gains that really drives an economy and progress and an increased standard of living over the long term. But yes, in the nearer term, this fed takeover, there could be some pain and a whole lot of questions in getting there. Richard, your macro watch piece that caught my attention is so interesting to a lot of people. How can more people learn about that and connect with you and the great work you do on macro watch, which is your video newsletter   Richard Duncan  43:00   Thanks, Keith. So it's really been completely obvious that President Trump was very likely to try to take over the Fed. Nine months ago, I made a macro watch video in December called Will Trump in the Fed, spelling out various ways he could take over the Fed, and why he probably would find it necessary to do so. So what macro watch is is it describes how the economy really works in the 21st Century. It doesn't work the way it did when gold was money. We're in a completely different environment now, where the government is directing the economy and the Fed, or seeing the President has the power to create limitless amounts of money, and this changes the way everything works, and so that's what macro watch explains. It's a video newsletter. Every couple of weeks, I upload a new video discussing something important happening in the global economy and how that's likely to impact asset prices, stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies and wealth in general. So if your listeners are interested, I'd encourage them to visit my website, which is Richard Duncan economics.com that's Richard Duncan economics.com and if they'd like to subscribe, hit the subscribe button. And for I'd like to offer them a 50% subscription discount. If they use the discount coupon code, G, R, E, thank you, GRE, they can subscribe at half price. I think they'll find that very affordable. And they will get a new video every couple of weeks from me, and they will have immediate access to the macro watch archives, which have more than 100 hours of videos. Macro watch was founded by me 12 years ago, and I intend to keep doing this, hopefully far into the future. So I hope your listeners will check that out.   Keith Weinhold  44:46   Well, thanks, both here on the show and on macro watch Richard gives you the type of insight that's hard to find anywhere else, and you learn it through him oftentimes before it makes the headlines down the road. So. Richard, this whole concept of a Fed takeover is just unprecedented, as far as I know, and it's been so interesting to talk about it. Thanks for coming back onto the show.   Richard Duncan  45:08   Thank you, Keith. I look forward to the next time.   Speaker 1  45:17   Yeah, fascinating stuff from Richard in the nearer term, we could then see interest rate cuts that would go along with cuts to mortgages and credit card rates and car loan rates and all kinds of bank lending rates. This could pump up the value of real estate, stocks, Bitcoin, gold, nearly everything a wealth bonanza. Now, in polls, most Americans think that the Fed should stay independent from outside control. You really heard about how the President is dismantling the safeguards that protect that fed independence, the strategy he's using to bend the Federal Open Market Committee to His will. And this is not speculation, because, as you can tell, the takeover of the Fed is already underway. A fed governor has been fired. New loyalists are being installed, and key votes are lining up in the President's favor. But as far as the longer term, you've got to ask yourself, if these policies will inflate a giant bubble destined to burst down the road. I mean triggering a crisis as bad as 2008 I mean, these are the very questions that every investor should be asking right now, if you find this in similar content fascinating, and you want to stay on top of what is forward looking what's coming next macroeconomically, check out Richard Duncan's macro watch at Richard Duncan economics.com for our listeners, he's long offered the discount code for a 50% discount that code is GRE, that's Richard Duncan economics.com and the discount code GRE next week here on the show, we're bringing it back closer to home with key us, real estate investing strategies and insights, a lot of ways to increase your income. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit you Daydream.   Speaker 3  47:20   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.   Speaker 1  47:40   You You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access, and it's got paywalls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers, it's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point, because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text gre 266, 866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text gre to 66866,   Keith Weinhold  48:59   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com you.  

Geoff and Marie's Good Life: Part 15The Live Sex ShowGeoffrey performs in public.Based on posts by Only In My Mind, in 15 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.We were sitting cuddling together on the sofa when Colin arrived, with Mia in tow. Angie had offered to cook that afternoon and we were trying to decide what we fancied. I suggested a chilli con carne with rice. Angie decided otherwise."Kids," she called. They wandered in from the kitchen with glasses of milk and a chocolate biscuit each."If I go shopping for ingredients, would you two help me cook tea tonight?" The two teens shared a look and agreed. "Right," she announced, standing up. "Go and sort out your homework with grandad; I'll go shopping."I stood and went to get my wallet. She glared at me. "Go on. Do it," she challenged me. "I bloody dare you to offer me money to get food for the people I care about."I carefully closed the drawer and apologized for my insensitivity. "I just don't want you to think that we take you for granted," I explained.Her expression softened. "And if I ever feel that way, I'll say something, but right now it's my turn to give. Please allow me that."I went and pulled her into a hug. "Sorry Angie. You know I wouldn't deliberately upset you. Am I forgiven?"She returned my hug. "You were never in trouble. I was just reminding you that we're family now and I want to contribute too."She gave me another squeeze, a brief kiss and she left. I turned to the kids, who had watched our exchange, fascinated. "What?" I asked.Colin shook his head. "Not sure about this whole adult relationship stuff," he griped. "They are all weird." Mia smiled at his comment, but didn't argue. To be fair, the lad had a point."Okay." I clapped my hands. "Homework?"It turned out that they were studying climate change. Their teacher had given the class three questions and they were free to choose which one to answer. I suggested that Colin and Mia avoided answering the same question so they weren't accused of copying, and sent them off to the study.Angie was back and in the kitchen laying out her ingredients when the teens finally reappeared. Colin, ever the gentleman, had allowed Mia to use our laptop for her slides, while he had used my tablet. That was fine; it wasn't as though we regularly used our devices to cruise porn sites. Besides, I had made sure that Marie knew to use private tabs if she was viewing adult content. The kids were old enough to start learning about relationships. Images of explicit sex were not on their agenda for some years to come.I sent them in to the kitchen and, with their permission, went to check over their homework. I was reassured. If I had seen job applications written that thoughtfully, they both definitely would have qualified for an interview.I joined the others in the kitchen, only to find that I was redundant. Colin was slicing an onion, Mia was chopping mushrooms and Angie was trimming what looked like a pork fillet. She looked up and shook he head, smiling. "The sous chefs are doing fine," she explained. "I want them to feel confident that they can work without being micro-managed."I watched Colin. He was doing well. Slow, perhaps, but careful. Mia was taking equal care to have all the slices of mushroom a similar thickness."Shall I set the table then?" I suggested. The consensus was that yes, I could perhaps make myself useful that way."Set for a starter, main and dessert, please," Angie advised me. "We have a full menu planned.""Wine?""A nice white, maybe an oaked chardonnay," suggested Colin. "I checked on my phone," he explained, in response to my surprised expression.I grunted and went to set about my assigned tasks, and that was how Marie found me when she returned from work. "That's my job when you're the cook," she observed."I have been supplanted by our wicked betrothed and her evil teen minions," I sulked."That's nice, dear," she said, absently, as she bustled about putting her coat away.We went into the kitchen together once I had finished. My wife walked up behind Angie and gave her a big hug. "Geoffrey is feeling emasculated," she told her friend. The minions looked on in amusement.Angie gave a derisive snort. "It's my turn to cook with the kids because I'm here today. Geoff can take his turn any day.""There you go, Geoff," my wife reassured me. "We still enjoy your cooking, it's just that Angie gets less opportunity." Seeing as how I was only pretending to be upset, it was easy to pretend that all was forgiven. I accepted the explanation with a kiss for both of my girls and went off in search of a bottle of wine.I sat and red, while Marie and Angie caught up in the kitchen. Marie joined me ten minutes later. "Angie's bursting to tell me about her day, but all she dare say in front of the kids is that you and she had a pleasant afternoon."I glanced at the door. "I don't think we should have this conversation here and now. If one of the youngsters walks in, the guilty silence will just be uncomfortable for everyone. So how was your day?"And so we sat and I listened to her accounts of generous donors, sweet natured old ladies and the occasional twat who tried to bargain down the price on the ticket. For Fuck's sake! It's a charity shop. And Marie was clear; the worst offenders were most obviously not short of change. They were just tight bastards. Not that my beloved ever capitulated. She would just smile sweetly and remind them where they were, pointing out that they were welcome to try the same approach in John Lewis with her full support.We made the occasional foray to the kitchen but our offers of help were politely, but firmly, rebuffed. To be fair, the atmosphere was relaxed. I asked about the menu and, after looking to the chef for approval, Mia ran through it. "We are starting with cubes of baked breaded brie on a bed of salad with a lingonberry relish. Then there is pork stroganoff with green vegetables and rice. For dessert we are having individual warm pear frangipane tartlets with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream." She paused. "Oh, yes," she continued. "If anyone is still hungry there's a selection of cheeses as well as olives, and some nice bread to go with dipping oils and vinegars."I did a quick calculation in my head. "At today's prices, I reckon that meal would come in at about £50 plus per head just in a country pub." Mia just grinned at me. I carried on. "Can I afford to get used to eating like this?"I looked around the kitchen brigade and saw three unreasonably happy cooks. Angie was obviously less demanding of the children and seemed thrilled to be able to pass on her knowledge. Colin just loved cooking and Mia seemed to be determined to learn so that she could help her mum.I turned to Angie. "This all smells wonderful. Wendy and Linda should both be here well before six. Is that okay, Chef?"Angie looked at her team. "Starters on the pass for six o'clock.""Yes Chef!" They shouted in unison. We shook our heads and left them to it.Wendy arrived first. Mia had sent her a text to say that they were eating at our place again. Wendy tried to apologize for intruding but we, particularly Marie, were having none of it. "We love having Mia with us. I know she's very mature but, as Colin is here anyway, it makes no sense for her to be at home, alone," my wife told her. "In addition, Angie is doing a cookery masterclass and she is way more tolerant of the kids than she is with me, so it's easier just to let them get on with it."Mia must have heard her mum's voice because she left the kitchen, briefly, to give her mum a hug before apologizing. "Sorry mum, but I need to turn the tarts so they brown evenly." And, with that, she dashed back to the kitchen. We led a bemused Wendy to the living room, sat her down and asked about her day. Her eyes filled as she explained just how grateful she was not to come home to have to start cooking a meal, even just for one night. She had a decent job in the Civil Service so money wasn't too much of a problem. She just struggled finding time to be the wage earner, housekeeper and mum. She felt guilty too that Mia seemed to feel obliged to sacrifice her spare time to help around the house rather than being a teenager.Marie glanced at me. We're not telepathic but I was certain we were thinking the same thing. Wendy was so caught up in being the perfect single parent, she had forgotten how to be Wendy.We never really got the chance, that evening anyway, to pursue that thought as we heard the front door open to herald our daughter's arrival. What followed, by then, seemed oddly familiar. Hearing his mother greeting us, Colin emerged from the kitchen, hugged his mum, and promptly departed, shouting over his shoulder, "Sorry mum. Got to dash. I can't let the rice overcook. Love you."Linda appeared as flummoxed as Wendy had. "I don't know what it is about this house, but there always seems to be something odd going on just lately." Wendy looked at her in surprise. "What?" my daughter retorted. "How many other throuple weddings have you been invited to? Even more particularly, how many with a Star Wars dress code?" She shook her head. "Christ, I hope it isn't genetic; otherwise I'm well and truly fucked!" She put her hand to her mouth guiltily and checked to see that neither of the youngsters had overheard. "Sorry all. That just slipped out," she apologized. "I've had a weird day at work too. Some half-wit manager wanted me to;” She did the 'air-quotes' with her fingers. "; Expedite a delivery to an important client in Nice.""Let's sit down and you can vent in comfort," I suggested. I led our daughter through and Marie followed with Wendy. "Now, go on. Story so far, idiot, big words, France. New readers start here."She explained that, in order to cover his ass for something that his team had screwed up, said half-wit tried to make it Linda's problem to solve. The vehicle in question was already in France and the driver had to observe French law. The only way to 'expedite' the delivery would be to exceed his permitted hours or fly another driver out to take over; neither was going to happen. Being Marie's daughter, of course she just picked up the phone and asked the operations manager for a cost code for the air fare from Gatwick to Lyon. Apparently the idiot had just assumed that Linda, being a woman could just, who knows? Make it go away?Ops manager had obviously queried the request and Linda, quite disingenuously, told him. It was not well received. She sighed. "On the upside, I got the problem back where it belongs. On the other hand, now I have to watch my back in case he tries to retaliate." She took a deep breath and sat back. "Thank you." We must have looked puzzled. "For just listening and not telling me what I should have done," she explained. She thought for a moment. "This place is still weird though."As she finished that thought, Colin appeared from the kitchen with a white napkin over his arm, to invite us take our places at the table. Linda looked at me. "See?" She mouthed. I could only grin in reply.We took our seats as directed and were joined by Angie and Mia. Colin disappeared to the kitchen and returned with the bottle of wine I had selected and placed in the fridge earlier. Handing it to me to open he returned to the kitchen. Angie cleared her throat. "Wendy, Linda; would you be prepared to let Mia and Colin have a small glass of wine with their meal? They have put their hearts into preparing it; it seems unfair that they miss out on that one component."Mia sat, apparently startled, and watched as her mother considered Angie's request. Wendy nodded slowly. "That seems fair. I'd rather she experienced alcohol in a civilized setting like this." She looked around the table. "Rather than getting hammered at her first student party at Uni."Linda nodded in agreement. "I'll get some glasses for them." Colin reappeared carrying three plates that he placed in front of Angie, Marie and Wendy. He made the journey again, this time serving Linda, Mia and me. He made the final trip for his own starter. As he sat, I reached across and poured a half measure of wine into his glass. He looked to his mum for reassurance. She smiled in acknowledgement. I poured a similar glass for Mia and then shared the remainder amongst the adults.I picked up my glass. "Ladies, Colin, a toast to the Chef and her crew." We four non-cooks raised our glasses in tribute; the cooks acknowledged our compliment and then joined in the toast. Then we attacked the food. The brie was delicious and matched beautifully with the sweet fruit jam. I watched surreptitiously as Colin finished a mouthful and self-consciously took a sip of wine. His brow furrowed as he reconciled the flavors of the wine and the food. He went back to his food looking thoughtful. We finished the starter and complimented the cooks on the flavor and the presentation. It had looked as good as it tasted.We moved onto the main course. Angie and Mia plated up in the kitchen, while Colin worked 'front of house'. Again, the meal was delicious. Angie's version was discs of pork in an onion and mushroom sauce made with crème fraiche, Dijon mustard and smoked paprika, finished with a hint of lemon juice. The plain white rice was perfect for soaking up the sauce.Colin sipped his wine again. "It tastes different with this course," he commented. "It still works but in a different way." He looked to Mia for opinion."Is it because the lingonberry was so sweet that the wine tasted sharper?" She asked me.I shrugged. "Probably. It might even be something to do with the lactic acid in the crème fraiche. What matters is whether you like it.""I do," she smiled and turned to Angie. "Thank you;” She hesitated. "I'm sorry. But I don't know what to call you.""Grangie," offered Colin."Or Angie," suggested our fiancée.Wendy seemed uncomfortable. "Isn't that a bit familiar? Wouldn't Mrs. and your surname be more appropriate?""Technically," interjected Linda. "If you were going to insist that we stand on ceremony, Mia should address Angie as Professor Weston." She frowned at the thought. "Nope. This place is weird enough already. Angie or Grangie. He's Geoff or grandad; that's Marie or grandma and I'm Linda. We want you and Mia to be comfortable here."Mia considered. "Thank you Angie for getting mum and Linda to let us have wine with the meal.""You both earned it dear," Angie assured her. "Now. Desserts, I think."Again, the two girls plated as Colin served. The tartlets looked amazing; a light short crust pastry filled with an almond flavored sponge topped with poached pear cubes. On each plate there was a swirl of chocolate sauce over a generous quenelle of vanilla ice-cream, starting to melt where it touched the still warm tart. I knew where Angie had gone shopping for the ingredients for the meal, and the small fragrant black specks confirmed that she had not economized on cheap ice-cream. This was made with actual vanilla pods. The aroma from the plate was amazing; it was all that I could do not to dive straight in. Still, manners required that I wait until everyone was served, so that's what I did.Once Colin was seated, we began. The taste was amazing. I glanced towards Angie in inquiry. "Star anise as well as cinnamon," she clarified. I nodded, impressed, and turned back to my dessert and savored the remainder. I watched as Colin took another sip of his wine and then Mia as she followed suit. Colin actually shuddered. Mia merely looked disappointed."Have a sip of water," I suggested. "And then wait a couple of minutes after you've finished eating."After the seven plates were all but polished clean, we thanked our catering team. It had been an absolutely lovely meal and the final course had been a triumph. Linda and Marie stood to clear the table, but returned immediately to sit with our guests and chat as we finished our wine."I've never eaten like that before," Wendy admitted."At home, you mean?" Asked Linda.Wendy shook her head. "Ever. My husband didn't like 'fancy foreign muck' so it was fish and chips, takeaways or just ready meals." Her voice cracked with emotion. "Even now, most of our meals are out of the freezer. I can boil potatoes and grill sausages and reheat tinned or frozen veg. My dad just liked the same old stuff too, so that's all my mum taught me. That's about my limit. At this moment," she admitted, sadly, "Mia's almost certainly a better cook than I am."Angie surprised me. She isn't always the most diplomatic of us. "Being untutored is not the same as being a failure." She reached for Wendy's hand. "Tell us how we can help, and between us, you have a group of capable cooks here who are happy to teach you whatever we can."Marie and I finished our drinks and Linda joined us in the kitchen. The brigade had washed and tidied as they went so there was only really the crockery to deal with. That went in the dishwasher. We cleaned the hob and worktops and sorted out the saucepans then returned to the living room. The teens had disappeared, leaving Angie and Wendy talking about food.When Wendy confessed that she would struggle to even shop for a meal such as we'd just had, Linda made a contribution. "A girl I work with wanted to branch out from the same old stuff she always cooks, so she orders from one of those on-line delivery companies. She swears by them now." She picked up her phone. "I can call her and if you decide to do it and say she recommended them to you, then you'll both get a discount."Wendy looked uncertain. The poor woman had no self-confidence at all. Linda left the room and returned two minutes later scrolling on her phone. "Here," she said, passing her phone to Wendy. "Jan told me how to install their app. Pick four meals for two people from this menu list and you'll get everything you need delivered next week, along with recipe cards. Jan said the instructions are dead simple and she's actually learning to cook from doing it."Wend called for Mia to come and choose with her and, together they picked four meals that they thought they might enjoy cooking together. While they did, Colin and I chatted about his first experience of wine with a meal. "It tasted nice, except with dessert," he told me. "Would a sweeter wine have been nicer?""Probably," I acknowledged. "There's a lot of snobbery and nonsense about wine, but some types do go with some foods better than others. I didn't find it clashed to the extent that you did, so personal preference and experience play a part too."At that point Mia called him over to see what she and her mum had chosen for the following week. He pointed to one selection. "Grandma makes that sometimes. It's ace."Wendy passed the phone back to Linda and the pair completed the sign up and the first order, making sure to claim the discount. Wendy seemed conflicted. "I'm a bit nervous about having to make something I've never done before," she confessed. "But I'm excited at the same time.""Think of this," my wife suggested. "As long as you have a loaf of bread, a tin of baked beans and some cheese in the house, even if it all goes horribly wrong, at least you won't starve."The conversations about food carried on until Wendy looked at her watch. "Oh goodness," she exclaimed. "Look at the time!" And after collecting Mia and thanking us for our hospitality, within ten minutes they were gone.Linda pulled me into the kitchen. "That poor girl's husband did a proper number on her: the bastard," she spat. "She copes okay at work because she knows her job. But as a person;” She paused, speechless."I know, sweetheart. We all do. And she's such a lovely woman too."She stared at me, suspiciously. "Are you three planning something?""No," I answered, sort of honestly. "But if an opportunity presents itself, we would probably try to help her see what a worthy person she is."

“The look on his face is like a kid on Christmas morning getting everything that he never asked for from Santa…”   July 21,1987 marked the beginning of the GUNS N' ROSES era of L.A. metal with APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION, the scorching debut album chock full of enough sleaze, swagger, and excess to put the boys in Motley Crue to shame.    If Slayer were the 80's answer to 70's Sabbath, then it's not a stretch to say that G'N'R were the 80's answer to 70's Aerosmith, with a loudness that falls right in that “in between” phase of hard rock and heavy metal. Technically, “it's not metal, but it kind of is…in a way”.   Discover “the worst part about getting older”, realize why overalls always translates to “good barbecue”, hear “the stoner thought of the day” and find out if “girls can tell the difference” when you JOIN US as we soak up some classic late 80's decadence and debauchery with GUNS N' ROSES and APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION.   Visit www.metalnerdery.com/podcast for more on this episode Help Support Metal Nerdery https://www.patreon.com/metalnerderypodcast Leave us a Voicemail to be played on a future episode: 980-666-8182 Metal Nerdery Tees and Hoodies – metalnerdery.com/merch and kindly leave us a review and/or rating on your favorite Podcast app Follow us on the Socials: Facebook - Instagram - TikTok Email: metalnerdery@gmail.com Can't be LOUD Enough Playlist on Spotify Metal Nerdery Munchies on YouTube @metalnerderypodcast   Show Notes: (00:01): “We gonna do shots?” / #trafficcircle #roundabout / “That's gonna be good barbecue…stereotypes exist for a reason…”/ “Is it #KoreanBBQ?” / “All you gotta do is just change one letter on certain words and you can completely change the meaning of it…”/ “Demons are fat…everybody's fat in Hell, bro…”/ ***WARNING: #listenerdiscretionisadvised *** / “It's like a peanut butter and banana sandwich…”/ “It was super appley…” / “The last time I fucked up a butt with an injection…the last time I ruined a butt…”   (06:46): ***WELCOME BACK TO THE METAL NERDERY PODCAST!!!*** / “That's the shitty thing about getting older…”/ ***GIVE US A CALL AND VOICEMAIL US AT 980-666-8182!!!*** / #PissingPostASMR / #StonerThoughtOfTheDay / #RapNerdery / “I'll show it to you if you wanna look at it…”/ #PatreonShoutOuts ***JOIN US ON PATREON AT patreon.com/metalnerderypodcast AND GET YOUR #METALNERDERYPODCAST T-SHIRT!!!***    (13:00): #TheDocket METAL NERDERY PODCAST PRESENTS:  GUNS N' ROSES – APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION / “It was '87…”/ Where were YOU when you first heard this? EMAIL US and tell us about it at metalnerdery@gmail.com !!! / “It was like #Aerosmith on steroids…or more drugs…”/ The in-between point of hard rock and heavy metal / “They got so huge…when you start off that big, you can't keep going…”/ “If you think about the name…I think we all know what they were talking about…”/ #exhausting / “That almost looks like a #BlondeAlbinoSlash in that picture…”/ #BucketsTheDrummer    (23:13): “Y'all can't see it, but the look on his face is like a kid on Christmas morning getting everything that he never asked for from Santa…” / WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE / “There's no guitar sound that sounds like Slash's sound…”/ “Something in the fingers…”/ “I wonder if girls could tell the difference?” / “Remember when you were younger…and there were cuss words?” / IT'S SO EASY / “Why don't you just…FUCK OFF!” / #profanityistruth / NIGHTRAIN / #cowbell / “Guys, there might be too much cowbell…”/ “It's kinda like Malcom and Angus…” / “Don't fuck it up by making it perfect…” / “Without #GunsNRoses there would be no #BuckCherry and without #Aerosmith there would be no Guns N' Roses…”   (35:53): OUT TA GET ME / “More profanity coming…”/ “If you suck out all the distortion and subdue the guitars, you've got Aerosmith in the 70's…”/ “I realize I made #KerryKing sound like a professional wrestler…”/ Imagine Black Sabbath playing the first album but with Kerry King's guitar rig / MR. BROWNSTONE / #heroinawareness / “I've never noticed it without the headphones…”/ #usethoseheadphones / “If you're 6 beers in at a party and this song comes on…”/ PARADISE CITY    (44:44): “It's a little darker…” / #SideTwo / “The beginning is almost Slayerish…”/ MY MICHELLE / “Kinda like metal punk…almost anthemy…is that a word?” / “Sometimes the greatest ballads are all written about drugs…”/ THINK ABOUT YOU / #morecowbell / “That's what ‘fucking them in the bathroom' is, dude…” / SWEET CHILD O' MINE / “Okay we're good, alright…”/ “I have seen more tits playing Sweet Child O' Mine…”/ #overplayed / “I didn't even know about poon yet…”   (53:20): YOU'RE CRAZY / “It's got like a weird 70's vibe to it…”/ “I'll bet we'll know it when we hear it…”/ ANYTHING GOES / #killercloser / “The song completely changes…”/ ROCKET QUEEN / “Oh! That is real…” / #sexnoises / “I can't believe he banged his bandmate's girlfriend, and they recorded it…”/ #sexualrecording / “I don't know if I remember that as a kid…” / “We made it through! It's not metal…but it kind of is…in a way…”/ “They were probably still rockin' some local poon…”/ #LocalPoon / THANK YOU FOR JOINING US!!! / #untilthenext #outroreel 

Today we're tackling a question I hear all the time: What's the difference between thymosin beta-4 and TB-500? These two names often get tossed around like they're the same thing — but they're not. I've touched on this before, but because it can get pretty confusing, I want to break it down in more depth today. And if you want to support what we do, head over to our Partners Page. You'll find some amazing brands we trust—and by checking them out, you're helping us keep the podcast going. -> https://pepties.com/partners/ We'll break down how each peptide works, the potential benefits and side effects we know about, what their half-lives look like, and why dosing often ends up being two to three times a week — even though technically you could dose daily at lower amounts.  I also want to note that we'll talk specifically about subcutaneous use, since that's how these peptides are most often used in practice. What is Thymosin beta-4 and TB-500?  Let's start simple. Thymosin beta-4, or Tβ4, is the full-length natural peptide — it's 43 amino acids long, and your body actually makes it. You'll find it in platelets, white blood cells, and tissues all over the body. It helps with wound healing, new blood vessel growth, reducing inflammation, and keeping cells moving where they need to go. On the other hand, TB-500 is a synthetic (man-made) fragment of Tβ4 — basically, chemists figured out that a small part of the Tβ4 sequence, specifically the section that binds actin, or the 17-23 fragment, that seemed to carry a lot of the healing and regenerative activity.  The tricky part is, TB-500 isn't always just that one fragment. Let me try to explain this very confusing concept.  Most of the time, when people say TB-500, they're talking about the 17–23 fragment — the piece linked to actin binding and tissue repair. But full-length thymosin beta-4 can actually break down into several different active fragments, like Ac-SDKP, the 1-4 section, the 4-10 section, and even the 20–35 region — and each of those has its own unique effects on healing, inflammation, or fibrosis. Something we can discuss in another podcast.  The focus today will be on the full-length, naturally occurring 43-amino acid peptide and the common N-acetylated 17-23 fragment often referred to as TB-500. So think of it this way: Tβ4 is the whole book, TB-500 is one powerful chapter. How does thymosin beta-4 and TB-500 work? Both thymosin beta-4 and TB-500 are best known for their role in tissue repair and recovery — but the way they work isn't identical. They both help guide cells to where they're needed after an injury, a process called cell migration. They also help prevent or limit scar tissue, improve blood flow by encouraging angiogenesis — the growth of new blood vessels — and help settle down excessive inflammation so healing can happen. Where they start to differ is in their scope. The full-length thymosin beta-4 is like the master version. Because it's the entire 43–amino acid chain, it has more binding sites and interacts with more pathways. That gives it a broader range of effects — it's been studied not just for wound healing, but also for heart repair after a heart attack, corneal healing in eye injuries, nerve and brain protection after trauma, and even immune system modulation. TB-500, on the other hand, is a synthetic fragment that contains the ‘active core' sequence responsible for actin binding. This means it still boosts cell migration and new blood vessel growth, which are huge for recovery, but it doesn't have all the extra regulatory sections of the full Tβ4 molecule. Because of that, TB-500 tends to be seen as more targeted — very good at tissue and tendon repair, wound closure, and improving circulation, but without the same wide-ranging effects on the heart, brain, or immune system that you see with the complete Tβ4 peptide Half-Life and Dosing  Okay, let's talk about half-life, because this confuses people all the time. Tβ4 has a short plasma half-life in humans — about one to two hours after IV dosing. That sounds super quick, right? But here's the kicker: just because it clears from the blood doesn't mean the effects are gone. Once it gets into tissues, it kicks off repair programs that can last for days. TB-500 hasn't been studied as thoroughly in humans, so we don't have published plasma half-life numbers you can point to. What we do know from animal and lab studies is that the fragment is also cleared pretty quickly, but the biological effects last much longer than the detectable levels in blood likeTβ4. That's why protocols often use two or three injections per week rather than daily. Now, could you take either one every day? Technically, yes — especially at lower doses, and that's actually been done in clinical research with the full-length thymosin beta-4. But in the peptide therapy world, particularly with TB-500 where we don't have as much human data, most providers stick with two or three injections a week. It's a sweet spot that keeps the benefits going, avoids overdoing it, and makes things easier and more affordable for patients. Let's talk about subcutaneous dosing for TB-500 and Tβ4. Most of the time, these peptides are injected under the skin, usually in the abdomen or thigh. For TB-500, people commonly use 2–5 mg per injection, two to three times a week. The exact dose can really vary depending on what you're using it for — tendon repair, muscle recovery, or general tissue healing. Tβ4, the full-length peptide, is similar, though sometimes the dose is a little lower because it has broader effects, including immune modulation. You might see protocols using 1–2 mg per injection, a couple times a week, or even lower daily doses for certain situations. BPC-157 is often called synergistic when used with (stacked with) peptides like TB-500 or Tβ4 because it enhances and complements their healing effects. TB-500 and Tβ4 mainly help with cell migration, tissue repair, and reducing fibrosis, which is great for muscles, tendons, and ligaments. BPC-157, on the other hand, is especially effective at protecting and repairing the gut, blood vessels, and connective tissue. When you use them together, you're essentially covering multiple layers of healing: TB-500 or Tβ4 move cells to the injured area and support repair, while BPC-157 helps stabilize blood flow, supports angiogenesis, and promotes stronger tissue remodeling. The result is often faster, more complete recovery than using either peptide alone — that's why people talk about them as being synergistic. What Are the Benefits of Tβ4 and TB-500 So what are people actually using these peptides for? Tβ4 has a wide range of uses when it comes to healing and recovery. It's been studied for soft tissue repair, chronic injuries, and general recovery, and in surgical settings, some researchers and surgeons have even used it intra-operatively to help tissues heal faster and reduce scar formation. It's also been applied post-procedure to speed recovery and calm inflammation. On the musculoskeletal side, Tβ4 shows promise for tendon and muscle repair, helping reduce fibrosis, boost new blood vessel growth, and support regeneration of muscle and  tissue. Beyond that, it's been explored for corneal injuries, dry eye, heart ischemia, neuroprotection, and inflammation control — making it a very versatile peptide with effects across multiple systems. TB-500 is popular for tendon and ligament repair, muscle recovery, post-surgical healing, and sometimes even athletic performance support. More on inflammation… Mast cells are immune cells that release chemicals like histamine when they get activated. This can cause redness, swelling, or itchiness — the classic signs of inflammation. But this isn't all bad. Mast cell activation actually helps start the healing process by bringing other immune cells to the area and signaling the tissue to repair itself. In a controlled way, this early activation can help resolve inflammation faster because the tissue heals properly and swelling eventually goes down. This is also why full-length Tβ4 can sometimes cause more side effects than TB-500. Tβ4 interacts directly with mast cells and other parts of the immune system, so it can trigger more of these early inflammatory responses. TB-500, being a fragment, mostly focuses on tissue repair and cell movement, so it tends to cause fewer immune-related side effects. And speaking of well-tolerated, I want to talk about potential side effects next.  Side effects tend to be mild, but people have reported injection site irritation, redness, or mild swelling. People have also reported headache, fatigue, or a “flu-like” feeling in some users. What Are My Final Thoughts? Tβ4 is the natural, full-length peptide, and it has the broadest range of effects. There's even some human trial data supporting it, especially for things like eye and wound healing. TB-500 is a shorter, synthetic fragment — it's more targeted, easier to produce, and widely used in peptide therapy, but it doesn't have as much human clinical data behind it. Both peptides leave the bloodstream quickly, but their effects last longer in the body. That's why most people dose them two to three times a week with subcutaneous injections. That said, at lower doses, they can also be taken daily if needed. Thanks for listening to The Peptide Podcast. If today's episode resonated, share it with a friend. Until next time, be well, and as always, have a happy, healthy week.    

Technically speaking, anything that is in the past can be categorized as history.But, more often than not, historians deal with events that they exist at a great remove from.That is not the case for Diarmaid Ferriter's latest book ‘The Revelation of Ireland: 1995-2020'.So, does chronicling recent events present a challenge for historians, and what can we say definitively about Ireland in the last 30 years?Diarmaid Ferriter joins Seán to discuss.

This past week was FILLED with released and teases from the  @BambuLab  H2S going public and mere hours later Bambu showing off, in a video, their Vortek nozzle changer system that many say looks like a  @bondtechab  INDX Clone. THEN a few hours after,  @Prusa3D  joined in the fun teasing a photo with what many have said is INDX on a CORE One, and while we do not TECHNICALLY have any confirmation, we can certainly hope! Lots to talk about!!A HUGE Thank you to the Filament Sponsor of these streams,  @printedsolid ! Check them out: https://printedsolid.comWant to get some of the UK's fastest, and the first REAL Bamboo printer out there? Check out  @construct3d  https://b.link/Construct3D__________________________________Do you have an idea you want to get off the ground? Reach out to the Making Awesome Podcast through https://3DMusketeers.com/podcast and someone will get you set up to be a guest!

Geoff and Marie's Good Life: Part 9Lucy's TurnGeoff finally gets more quality time with Lucy.Based on posts by Only In My Mind, in 15 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.I was bringing in the bedsheets from the washing line when my lovelies got home. Colin was inside doing his art homework alone as I'm afraid that art isn't my forté. From the way Angie bounced up the path like a tall, supple Tigger, I assumed that their mission had been successful. Marie followed behind at a more stately pace, but I could tell by her expression that she was pleased."Geoff! It's perfect," Angie enthused. "Show him, Marie!"Marie finally caught up with our friend. "She's not wrong, Geoffrey," she admitted. "The moment we saw it, we knew that was the one." She felt into her handbag and took out a small square box."Just like you and me then," I reminded her, kissing the top of her head."You'll get anywhere saying things like that, you smooth devil," my wife smiled as she showed me our purchase."So what happens now?" I asked. It appeared that they were in the dark too. Did we give her it now, like an engagement ring? Or wait until the ceremony, like a wedding ring?I decided. I took Angie's left hand and dropped to one knee. "Angela, you have added a new thread to the tapestry of our lives. Will you agree to be my betrothed?"Marie was quick to respond. She took her friend's hand from me and turned Angie towards her. "Angela, you have been my closest friend for decades, will you now be my betrothed?""Oh! God! Yes! Thank you. I love you both so much," wailed Angie, hopping up and down in floods of happy tears.Marie held out the ring they had chosen and bought together and together my wife and I slipped it onto the fourth finger of Angie's left hand. As I'd suggested, they had chosen something called a Russian Ring, made of three interwoven strands of different shades of gold. It was perfect. I resolved to get my little Mediterranean goddess a matching necklace.There was the sound of applause from behind us and we turned, rather startled, truth to be told, to find Colin beaming at us, the drawing in his hand forgotten."I think you're supposed to kiss her now, Grandma, Grandad," he observed. We couldn't fault his grasp of etiquette so we did; very chastely and properly with no tongues."Mum's gonna go proper monkey poo this time," he predicted, quite astutely. "Glad I'm not the one that has to tell her." He smiled, congratulated us all and then asked for our opinions of his drawing. We were all impressed, both by his artwork and his attitude and told him so. He disappeared happily back inside to put his drawing safely in his bag."He's not wrong about Linda," I pointed out. "I was thinking about this while I was running and I think I should take her out for tea tomorrow and tell her about our, er; does 'new situation' sound about right?""Thank God!" Marie breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't think she'd accept this updated version of 'the talk' from me. Anyway, I did the one about boys, boobs and periods, now it's your turn."I went and switched the oven on and chose a bottle of wine as I waited for it to reach 180°C. I'd picked up a bottle of Ribeiro in our local supermarket and a Spanish white seemed to fit nicely with the ingredients so I parked it in the fridge to chill.I got the tray with the onions, tomatoes, garlic cloves and potatoes and glugged over a little olive oil before putting it all in the oven for twenty minutes and then went off to see my girls. Angie had calmed down and they were trying to decide her outfit for our ceremony."What about Padme's rainbow dress?" I suggested. I'd had nothing urgent after lunch and had done some research. Angie gave me a long appraising look and typed 'padme rainbow' into the search engine on her phone. She selected 'images' and then studied the screen intently for longer than I expected. Still silent, she showed Marie the dress. "He's a clever old sod, really, isn't he?" My beloved observed. "That's beautiful, and it's perfect for your body shape."Angie agreed. "That's it. I was considering Rey's outfit but this is better. This is the one I want.""You can actually buy these on-line," I offered."Not a chance!" Retorted Angie. Marie looked as puzzled as me at how emphatic Angie's response was. "I'm sure that some are okay," Angie conceded. "But I've seen too many instances on Facebook where the seller shows an image of the original but what actually arrives looks like it was sewn in the dark from old curtains by an arthritic chimp. I want it to look just like that picture.""But at least you'll know how much it is going to cost, dear," Marie said. "Who knows how much your student friends will have to pay to find a fabric like that?""Don't care," Said a defiant Angie. "I can afford whatever I want and it's my money after all."Marie leaned in for a kiss. "We'll contribute too. We always intended to.""No. Thank you, but no." Angie was adamant. "You bought me that beautiful ring. I realize that it would be rude to offer to pay for that, but everything else; everything," she stressed that last word, "is on me."My wife and I shared another look of surprise at our friend's determined outburst. "But Ange," Marie began."Everything, Marie. You've been so kind to me for so long. And these last few weeks;” She teared up again. "You really don't know, do you?"I shrugged. We were into Donald Rumsfeld territory here with 'unknown unknowns' and I didn't think that this was the moment to dive down that particular rabbit hole."You know that apartment I live in?" Angie asked. We did. It was in a massive, tastefully converted, Victorian building near the university. "Don't you think it's rather large and expensive for just one person?" We both just did some head wobbles, shoulder shakes and comme ci, comme ça, hand gestures to indicate that we had wondered but."It's not that expensive," she continued, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Not for me, anyway. You see." She paused for effect. "I own the entire building. A lettings management company deals with renting the other apartments; I just live off the income. I only do the consultancy work for you know who," she tapped the side of her nose. "to stop me getting bored and my brain shutting down." She was winding me up because she knew I suspected that she was some kind of spook."Don't worry about the cost," she said cheerfully. "I can afford it. Last time I checked I had over two million pounds just in my savings accounts."She looked gleefully at the expressions on our faces. "And, once we're officially joined, I'm changing my will to leave it all to you and your kids. Colin certainly won't need a student loan when he goes to Uni.""Angie, darling. There's no need," Marie protested."Who else then?" Angie challenged her. "You two are the closest I've had to a family since I ditched that last useless waste of DNA. I've had more fun, romance, sex and affection from you two lunatics in the last six weeks than from both my husbands combined over two decades."Marie looked helplessly at me. I knew exactly what to do. I leaned forward. "Angie?" I said softly, taking her hand in mine."Yes, Geoff?" She replied, returning my loving gaze."Please can I have an Aston Martin DB12?"We collapsed in each other's arms in fits of giggles. Marie swiped me fondly across the head. "You nutcase. Get back in the kitchen and get our tea ready."I checked, and the potatoes were starting to cook, so I laid the chicken and chorizo slices on top, added the herbs and spices and put the tray back in the oven. "Alexa, set a timer for twenty minutes." Then I went off in search of Colin.I told him that I needed a private chat with his mum. "You think?" Was his smart-ass response. Sometimes he makes me so proud.Anyway, he texted one of his friends and persuaded her to wangle an invite to go over straight from school the following evening to do their homework together. Linda would collect him around seven."So Colin. Mia. Is she nice?""Yes Grandad. She's nice. No Grandad, she's not my girlfriend. We're only thirteen but we get on just fine as friends." Hell. The kid's more mature than half of the lads I used to play rugby with.We chatted some more until Alexa's alarm went off and I hit the kitchen again. Dropped the sliced peppers into the tray, a good mix up and back in for the last twenty minutes.I was starting to set the table when Marie and Angie came in to take over and chased me away to watch the news on TV. Angie had already taken her ring off and had decided to keep it in its box until they were with their friends. Then Marie intended to propose again in front of them all. It sounded lovely and I would have liked to see it, but I'd agreed that this was their moment.Linda arrived on time and about ten minutes later we sat down to eat. She'd called to collect a baguette on the way home as I'd asked and we used it to mop up the juices from our plates. The wine paired well; even Colin agreed, though he only got a sip of his mum's. Perhaps, when he's sixteen, Linda will let him have a glass with his meals.After we'd finished, the ladies declared that they would clear the table as I'd done all of the cooking. It had hardly been a chore but I wasn't about to argue. Instead, I went and asked Colin if he was okay with Aunty Angie being, well, betrothed to Grandma and Grandad.He thought carefully for a while. "Is anyone going to get hurt?"It was a reasonable question. "I hope not. But it's always possible. Even two people who love each other can eventually drift apart.""But you're all happy now?" He persisted. "You all want this?""Yes. All of us." I confirmed."What will I call her then?" He asked.That hadn't occurred to me. "Whatever you and Angie decide. That seems the fairest to me."His face lit up. "When you've told mum, I'm going to ask Aunty Angie if I can call her; Grangie." He announced triumphantly. There were still tears of laughter streaming down my face when the women joined us five minutes later. They all looked suspiciously at the pair of us."You had to be there," I told them, then we cracked up again.Before Linda and Colin left I told her that, as Colin had a homework date the following day, earning a glare from him, I'd treat her to a meal after work as we'd both be on our own. I suggested a Thai in town and we agreed to meet there at five fifteen. She looked warily at me, but I'd been practicing my innocent expression and gave nothing away. Certainly, nothing had been said that evening to suggest there was a problem.Angie saw them off with us and then said her own goodbyes. I copped a feel of her bum as we kissed, well, we're engaged now, or something. Marie must have shared my sentiment only she went for a tit. I slapped her hand gently. "Enough of that. She'll never get away if you start on her nipples." They both reluctantly agreed and then there was just the two of us again."Are we being silly, Geoff? Starting a new way of living? At our age? Is this just desperation?" It wasn't like Marie to second guess herself.I hugged her to me. "I don't think so. We have time, money and our health. The kids are okay so this is our opportunity to be us. Not teacher, boss, researcher, mum or dad; just us. If this is what makes both of us happy, why fight it? You promised, if we reach a place where you're uncomfortable, then you'll tell me. I promise you the same. So let's go and see what's out there.""Tell you what," she replied pulling me closer. "Get the rest of that wine and I'll sit on your lap and we'll finish it while we cuddle then, maybe, an early night?"I was up early next morning. We did make love the night before and it was slow, sensual and fulfilling. We'd both slept like babies.When I'd finished in the bathroom, Marie was looking at her phone. "That was a text from Peter. He and Jen are coming back from Canada on Monday and thought they might stop in to see us on the way back home." She looked worried. "Do we tell them? Or just Pete? But then how do we tell Pete without Jen hearing? Do we insist he keeps it a secret from her? ""We need to make a choice," I told her. "We're telling Linda because she deserves to know the unconventional relationship that Colin will see when Angie is here. Pete isn't in that position but, I think that if Linda knows then her brother should too. And I also think that, if Pete knows, it would be unfair to expect him to keep it from Jen. I'm not sure about discussing the rest of the girls with him; I'm tempted to tell Linda because she'll get suspicious if we're never free to look after Colin on Wednesdays if she wants to go out with Mike or if she has to work late."That's fair. I'll tell Pete that they are welcome to stay and we're looking forward to seeing them. But, Geoff?""Yes?""For pity's sake, will you move the toy box out of the playroom and make sure there's no lube or condoms left in the drawers?""I'll do it now."The rest of the day was quite mundane. Breakfast, grocery shopping, coffee at home and then a walk to the park. "I think I'm happy, Geoff," my wife announced as we strolled. "Not just content; actually happy. My friends have you in their lives, I'm even closer to them than ever and Angie," Marie's voice choked. "I've never seen her so alive. Thank you."I wasn't even tempted to be flippant. "Thank you too. It's strange, but making love to your friends seems to have brought me closer to you. I'm just so relieved you aren't jealous. You aren't are you?"She considered. "No. Truthfully; not at all. What about you?""No. Me neither. In fact, I know you have a bit of a thing for Sue, and it's, I dunno, sweet."She punched me playfully. "I still like Sam though," she admitted."So, now you have both, and me and Angie too."She gave a big happy sigh and we turned and made our way home.The weather was still fine so Marie set off at ten to four to walk to the Black Swan to meet her friends. I red for half an hour and then caught the bus into town. Linda could drop me back off at home on the way to collect Colin from Mia's house.I'd reserved a table and waited at the bar for Linda. She rushed in, all flustered, only two minutes late. "It's okay," I told her. "We're not running to a timetable here."Sorry, Dad," she apologized. "Isn't there always some clown who decides that half past four on a Friday afternoon is the perfect time to start making urgent phone calls?""Is it settled?" I asked her. "Or do you need ten minutes to make some more calls of your own?""God, no!" She laughed. "I'll start working for free after finishing time when my boss stops checking her watch when folk arrive in the morning with just minutes to spare."The waiter saw that my guest had arrived and invited us to follow him to our table. The place was quiet that early so he gave us a place with a nice view over the river."Is your job getting you down?" I asked. She worked in the distribution office for a large retailer."No, the work is fine, the people are great, it's just that our boss is so insecure in her abilities that she sticks rigidly to corporate policy, and it sometimes gets in the way of actual work.""Go on," I invited her. We didn't get to chat like this as much as I'd like."Okay. So: There are six people in our office; two men, four women. We lost both of the guys for a full day on Tuesday to go on a gender harassment awareness course. One's gay and the other is a fifty year old sweetheart. They could have done effectively the same course on-line in an hour but no, she had to make sure that her boss saw our guys in person to make her look good." She gave an exaggerated sigh. "Those lads get more grief from us girls than they'd ever; Oh! It's so frustrating.""I know," I sympathized. "I regarded part of my role as lab manager as insulating the people who actually generated income from stupid policies like that. I'd do what the law required but, if an adult technician doesn't know that it's not okay to touch a colleagues bum, no matter how cute or pert it is, a course isn't enough; a dismissal is much more effective. It solves the immediate issue and also serves 'pour encourager les autres' as your Great Gran would have said. An object lesson to the others," I said in reply to her unspoken question.We chatted in the same vein as we looked through the menu and had just finished our deliberations when our waiter appeared.We ordered spring rolls and prawn toast, I ordered a pork massaman, Linda chose a chicken panang and we decided to share a green papaya salad.

Hello Poison Friends! We have discussed quite a few heavy metals, but not all of them. While we did mention Antimony awhile back, we did not give it the attention it deserves, so this would be a great time to do so. Before getting too deep into Antimony, however, a review on purging with emetics and the history there concerning the "rebalancing of humors" as well as the more modern "ridding oneself of toxins," is in order. One emetic that is more recent in our history is Ipecac. Technically, or medicinally, it went by the name Syrup of Ipecac. Parents, here in America at least, were told by the American Association of Pediatricians to keep a bottle in their homes at all times in case of children accidentally poisoning themselves. What we have learned since the late 1990s however is that not only is Ipecac not really effective at treating poisoning cases, but it is also toxic and can lead to its own complications including irritation of the GI tract and airways, seizures, and heart problems. There are now more efficient and safe ways to treat cases of poisoning that do not involve forced vomiting. Throughout history, people have leaned on various toxic substances to cause themselves to vomit or that would induce diarrhea as a way of healing or keeping oneself healthy. It doesn't sound pleasant but what they used made it even less so. Antimony does cause GI distress including vomiting and diarrhea and can also lead to muscle weakness, gastric ulcers, seizures, kidney disease, cardiovascular diseases, neurological disease, respiratory distress, and blistering of the skin if topically applied. It has also been found to be carcinogenic. Acute use at high dosages, or chronic use at any dose, could lead to poisoning and death. People used Antimony medicinally (as Tartar emetic, namely) for a number of different ailments including epilepsy, syphilis, tuberculosis, and GI distress of all sorts. It was even used for alcoholism, and in some countries, it still is. In centuries past, they even had accessories to go along with their toxic medicine. So let's go through the history of these substances and you know some interesting and familiar names will pop up along the way including a Biblical character/Babylonian king, Isaac Newton, a King of France, and a founding father with a penchant for excessive bleeding and purging. Thank you to all of our listeners and supporters! Please feel free to leave a comment or send us a DM for any questions, suggestions, or just to say, "hi."Support us on Patreon:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/thepoisonersalmanac⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch-⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://poisonersalmanac.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow us on socials:The Poisoner's Almanac on IG-⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/poisoners_almanac?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube-⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/@thepoisonersalmanac-m5q?si=16JV_ZKhpGaLyM73⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Also, look for the Poisoner's Almanac TikTok- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@poisonersalmanacp?_t=ZT-8wdYQyXhKbm&_r=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Adam-⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@studiesshow?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Becca-⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@yobec0?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

We recorded another episode with Secular Pro-Life's Monica Snyder, our favorite practically co-host, to discuss Secular Pro-Life's recent survey on the differences between how both sides of the issue define abortion. A critical part of clear communication is making sure you and your dialogue partner are using the key words in the same way. Pro-life and pro-choice people often mean VERY different things when they use the word "abortion," but they don't know that, and miscommunication ensues.  This episode will help you avoid that miscommunication. The ERI team offers several practical dialogue tips stemming from what we can learn from this survey. Related Links: Take SPL's survey SPL blog post: How pro-lifers and pro-choicers define abortion: results from SPL's survey Figure 1: Which scenarios are abortions? Figures 4 and 5: Pro-choice and Pro-life perspectives Figure 6: Is it an abortion if it doesn't cause death? Figure 7: Is a miscarriage an abortion? Figure 8: Are there ethical abortions? The journal article that originally gave Monica Snyder the idea for this project: “Technically an abortion”: Understanding perceptions and definitions of abortion in the United States EFL Podcast: Defining the Word “Abortion” Will Change Your Dialogues (with Dank Pro-Life Memes) Charles Camosy: Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation Chapters: 00:00: Introducing the survey 04:48: Figure 1: Which scenarios are abortions? 25:14: Figures 4 & 5: Pro-choice and pro-life perspectives 27:55: Figure 6: Is it an abortion if it doesn't cause death? 31:34: Figure 7: Is a miscarriage an abortion? 33:07: Is a C-section an abortion? 41:52: Figure 8: Are there ethical abortions? 56:39: Should we define abortion? ERI Links: Equal Rights Institute Website Equal Rights Institute Blog Equipped for Life Academy Equipped for Life Course Sidewalk Counseling Masterclass Hosts: Josh Brahm, Emily Geiger, Rebecca Carlson Guest: Monica Snyder Audio/Video Editors: Joshua Head, Josh Brahm Publisher: Ellen Campbell

Hey, welcome back to the Construction Junction. I am your host, Tnya Schulte, founder of The Profit Constructors, where, as always, we are helping you run with the big dogs. Well, here's something really cool. We had a listener named John from Texas reach out and send us a question. I had asked for you guys to reach out with your greatest needs. And so, John, thank you so much for listening, and thanks for sending over such a great question. I got to be honest, when Jennifer told me that you had sent it, I got all excited. Because this is exactly the kind of thing that I love to talk about and love to share. So I appreciate also that you shared your current method for handling your overhead, or as you had called it, which is a great term also, GSNA, right? So it's all of our administrative costs. And so John had shared that they have typically tended to handle calculating their overhead or their GSNA a certain way. And they've recently made a switch to a great friend of ours from the podcast Foundation, which is a great software. And a lot of you out in this world will probably have heard of it. And he was just kind of wondering, like, are they doing it right? And what is the way that other people do it right? And so he had mentioned, you know, obviously, there are a lot of different ways that you can get into doing this stuff when you're doing job costing, because job costing is what we call cost accounting. And so to be really clear, when we start talking about these different types of terms in the accounting world, one of my great thought leaders in the space, one of the folks that has taught me a lot, his name is Ron Baker. I would highly recommend that you reach out and listen to some of his podcasts as well. But he calls himself a recovering cost accountant because when we get into the world of cost accounting. Technically, what we're doing is we're making our best guesstimate of what's going to happen to kind of understand costs across a section of jobs, across a section of time, right? And so none of it is actually going to be down to the penny reconcilable to what actually did happen or what our actual direct costs are. Pretty common in the construction world to want to find a way to account for and be able to estimate for your overhead costs and to be able to really give your estimators and project managers a good tool to understand how their jobs are performing. And doing it as a percentage of labor costs, which is the approach that John had mentioned in his email to me, is actually pretty common in the construction world. In fact, it's our preferred method at the Profit Constructors. It's pretty common for companies that have a predictable mix of work and can reliably forecast your annual labor costs. So when you have work that's pretty steady and your jobs aren't changing, when your jobs have a consistent labor to materials ratio, this approach works really well. And it's straightforward to apply in estimating. So John, if you guys continue to do that, I don't think you'd see any problem with that. Where you're going to see some variation is when companies have a wider range of job types. If you don't have that same mix that we talked about, that labor to materials ratio, and things are kind of consistently changing over your job types, then it's going to be a little bit harder to kind of rely on that labor burden to actually carry you along through all of that. So some are going to base that on total direct costs, so they can recover their overhead evenly across labor-heavy and material-heavy jobs. Others tend to take a blended approach, so they'll use a higher rate for your labor-heavy work and a lower rate for your material-heavy work. And then some actually even use a fixed dollar per labor hour instead of a percentage. We prefer to kind of go that route a lot of times when there's sort of this weird mix, and so we'll help companies establish that. And then there are companies who prefer to recover overhead costs outside the job cost system altogether. And in this case, you'd be monitoring recovery at the company level while keeping your job cost reporting focused on direct costs and gross margin before overhead. And in that case, you're going to have to do a really good job of keeping your estimating and project management team in the loop as to what your current overhead percentages are and how you guys are calculating that on a very regular basis so that they know kind of what to estimate for, what to plan for, and how to track against how their jobs are doing, right? John, since you're on foundation now, I know that they offer three main ways to handle GS&A. So you can do it through the payroll module, through the job costing module, or through the general ledger module. Each one works just a little bit differently. I'm not really an expert in how each one of them works. The right choice is going to depend on your kind of your business model or reporting needs, but I would definitely recommend reaching out to your foundation rep so they can kind of walk you through those options and guide you towards the best choice. But ultimately, the method that you choose, I would say matters less than making sure that your estimating process and your job cost reporting speak the same language, right? So you're going to want to be sure that you're cross-training across all of your teams and everyone's on the same page. So if you recover overhead one way in your bids, your job cost reports should reflect that same method. And that's how you're gonna get gross profit numbers that you can trust and spot any overhead recovery issues before they snowball. So thank you so much, John, for that great question. This is one of my favorite things to do. Like I said, to answer questions like this from our great listeners. And if you have any others, feel free to send them our way. Thanks so much. Have a great rest of your day.

“O our God, won’t you stop them? We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.” (2 Chronicles 20:12 NLT) Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, was in trouble. The armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir had joined forces to attack their common enemy, Judah. Military strategy, no matter how brilliant or daring, would not be able to overcome the size differential of the fighting forces. The armies that were descending on Judah had the potential to annihilate. King Jehoshaphat recognized that this was no time for false bravado. All he could do was pray and trust in God’s mercy and strength. In 2 Chronicles 20, we find him standing with his men, along with their families and children, praying, “O our God, won’t you stop them? We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help” (verse 12 NLT). God’s answer came through Jahaziel, one of the men standing with the king. “This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid! Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (verse 15 NLT). I love that scene. Humanly speaking, it is a picture of weakness. King Jehoshaphat was saying, in effect, “Lord, here we are. We have the kids. We have an army coming toward us. What am I going to do here? Our eyes are on You.” That is a good thing to pray. God answered Jehoshaphat’s prayer, intervened, and rescued the people of Judah. In the New Testament, we read of a time when there was a storm at sea, and the disciples were calling out to God for help. Jesus finally showed up, walking toward them on the water. He had arrived during the fourth watch of the night, which is the last part of the night, right before the sun begins to rise. Technically, it’s the morning, but it still feels like it’s night. This means the disciples had been toiling at sea for hours, trying to get through that storm, and Jesus came along at the last possible moment. The point is that He did come to them. And He will do the same for you and me. He always will—when the time is right. We need to just trust Him. God’s reckoning of time is much more accurate than ours is. He is eternal. He can see past, present, and future with perfect clarity. He knows the ripple effect of every action. He also knows how to bring good from any situation. He is the perfect Consultant—One who wants only the best for us and knows when and how that best can be achieved. Remember this: He loves us with an everlasting love. That love is not fickle. That love doesn’t change. That love is persistent. That love is consistent. We are loved by God. Reflection question: When have you experienced God’s amazing timing? Discuss Today's Devo in Harvest Discipleship! — The audio production of the podcast "Daily Devotions from Greg Laurie" utilizes Generative AI technology. This allows us to deliver consistent, high-quality content while preserving Harvest's mission to "know God and make Him known."All devotional content is written and owned by Pastor Greg Laurie. Listen to the Greg Laurie Podcast Become a Harvest PartnerSupport the show: https://harvest.org/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We break down pneumothorax: risks, diagnosis, and management pearls. Hosts: Christopher Pham, MD Brian Gilberti, MD https://media.blubrry.com/coreem/content.blubrry.com/coreem/Pneumothorax.mp3 Download Leave a Comment Tags: Chest Trauma, Pulmonary, Trauma Show Notes Risk Factors for Pneumothorax Secondary pneumothorax Trauma: rib fractures, blunt chest trauma (as in the case). Iatrogenic: central line placement, thoracentesis, pleural procedures. Primary spontaneous pneumothorax Young, tall, thin males (10–30 years). Connective tissue disorders: Marfan, Ehlers-Danlos. Underlying lung disease: COPD with bullae, interstitial lung disease, CF, TB, malignancy. Technically, anyone is at risk. Symptoms & Differential Diagnosis Typical PTX presentation: Dyspnea, chest pain, pleuritic discomfort. Exam clues: unilateral decreased breath sounds, focal tenderness/crepitus. Red flags (suggest tension PTX): JVD Tracheal deviation Hypotension, shock physiology Severe tachycardia, hypoxia Differential diagnoses: Pulmonary: asthma, COPD, pneumonia, pulmonary edema (SCAPE), ILD, infections. Cardiac: ACS, CHF, pericarditis. PE and other acute causes of dyspnea. Diagnostics Bloodwork: limited role, except type & screen if intervention likely. EKG: reasonable given chest pain/shortness of breath.

The World of Eora is a news & lore podcast about the fantasy setting created by Obsidian Entertainment for their cRPG series, Pillars of Eternity, and their action RPG: Avowed.This week's episode dives into the Pillars of Eternity companion, Grieving Mother. A powerful cipher with a dark story who uses her abilities to create illusions to hide. One of the more interesting characters, especially from a writing perspective, to check out. Could Grieving Mother be in Avowed? Technically, yes, she could - but we would never know!worldofeora@gmail.com@worldofeorako-fi.com/worldofeora

Regular contributor and dear friend Morgan Peak has returned to talk about the classic punk rock 1994 album The Good, the Bad, and the Argyle by that seminal East Coast punk band The Bouncing Souls. Technically it's a compilation album of their eps, but whatever.

You see those grade-level checklists and stress out. How will you check off all the boxes? The better question is how to help each child grow at their own pace? In this episode we tackle the grade level myth, so kids can learn at their own pace. You'll discover practical ways an individualized learning plan helps your child gain confidence and real mastery in your homeschool.You'll hear real stories and step-by-step ideas you can try this week — assess strengths, adapt lessons, and celebrate mastery instead of chasing someone else's checklist.✅Why the one-room schoolhouse model was actually brilliant (and how it relates to your homeschool today)✅Real stories about kids who learned at their own pace and thrived (including my daughter who didn't know her times tables until algebra!)✅How individualized learning can turn apathy into excitement in your homeschool✅4 practical tips for teaching your kids at their own pace (even with multiple children)✅Why mastery matters more than checking off someone else's checklistRecommended Resource:FREE How to Simplify Your Homeschool - 3 part course Show Notes: The Problem with Grade-Level PressureHey everyone, Kerry Beck here with Homeschool Coffee Break, where we help you stop the stress and stop the overwhelm so you can actually take a coffee break.Today we are talking about the grade-level myth. It makes me think about 150 years ago, one-room schoolhouse, and the one-room schoolhouse actually did so much good. I've actually heard more modern, younger people say, well, the reason we have grade levels now is it's such a better way to teach our kids. Well, not really.The one-room schoolhouse was fantastic. It is how people have learned for centuries. So today, I want to sort of talk about this myth of grade level and the pressure.Do you feel pressure sometimes? Are my kids on grade level? Am I doing the right thing? I see parents that are stressing out if there is this grade level that doesn't match their child's ability.Why Parents Stress About Grade LevelsSo many moms worry about those grade-level expectations, which some professor probably made up. They're comparing themselves to other homeschoolers that are following the conveyor belt model. They are comparing themselves to public school benchmarks, and they're stressing out, or they are afraid their kids are going to fall behind.Will they really be prepared for life? And let's face it, who made the grade level checklist? Y'all heard me say it before, quit checking off the checklist, especially someone else's. Now, if you make your own checklist, that's what God's putting on your heart, that's a whole different story.Real Stories of Learning at Their Own PaceLet's talk about Sarah. Sarah's my little imaginary friend. She is 8 years old. Technically, she is in 3rd grade.She loves to read. She reads chapter books that are 2 or 3 levels ahead in grade level, so she's reading on a 5th or 6th grade level. She can discuss themes of the book, vocabulary, beyond her age.Sounds like my little granddaughter, who's 6 years old, and she just finished kindergarten, and she's reading chapter books. It's awesome. But you know, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, because poor little Sarah, my imaginary friend.She still struggles with subtraction and with borrowing. She hasn't yet even reached multiplication. This reminds me of my daughter, Gentry, who did not know her times tables until algebra.We actually pulled her off of math for a whole year in seventh grade. But we let her go at her own pace, and she's an adult, 35 years old, and doing okay.From a parent's perspective, you see that grade level checklist says, Sarah should be multiplying by now, and then you stress out. You panic, and you're like, oh no, Sarah is behind.Don't worry about it. Let them move along at their own pace. Now, if they're moving along at their own pace because they're lazy and they're not doing the work, that's a whole different story. That's character, and we can talk about that in a future episode.How Individualized Learning WorksWhen we have individualized learning, some kids can dive really deep into certain topics. There are going to be fewer gaps in their learning, and it can build confidence and motivation. If it's something that they are especially if you're going in their interest as well.My friend had a son who was Hunter's age. Hunter was 6, and they're all learning to read, but not Will. Will didn't learn to read till he was 10 or 12 years old.Once he did, he went flying past all the kids on his grade level. You see, Hunter could sort of be on that grade level. He didn't like to read at the time, he does now. That's another thing. So, he moved along at whatever the grade level was, but Will didn't.His mom had to adapt his lessons for him, but once he took off, he skyrocketed.It reminds me of my second imaginary friend, James. James is 13 years old. His parents noticed, you know what, he sure loves tinkering with electronics and machines.James' parents let him slow down in some of the traditional subjects and dive really deep into his science projects. This built tons of momentum. He became motivated to finish his other subjects faster, so he could get over to his science time, because he loved it. That was just who he was. It's how God had made him.He confidently began building circuits and even tutoring some of his friends in physics. You see, individualized learning, it turned apathy into excitement. He may not have liked his reading class, which Hunter didn't, but I could let him pursue science, and he loved it.Practical Tips for Teaching at Your Child's PaceHow can we teach at our kids' own pace? You're like, I've got 5 kids, how can I do this? Well, first of all, assess your kids' strengths and weaknesses before starting.If you didn't do this this week, I would really encourage you to look at their strengths and weaknesses and write them down. Pay attention to them. I didn't really need a test to know if my child knew the math concept, because I was grading their papers every day, and more than likely, you are, too.And pray about it. God's going to show you their strengths and weaknesses and where He wants you to focus this year. So do a little assessment.Tip 2: Adjust your lesson plans, adjust your curriculum to match their level. Will's mom did a lot of adapting in elementary school. He was not doing the same thing that a third grader would do in reading, because he still didn't know how to read.I did some adapting with Gentry. She did not like math. So in seventh grade, we just said, okay, no more math. Now, that wasn't forever, but it was for one year. And you know what? She did perfectly fine.Flexible Scheduling and Mastery Over CompletionUse some sort of flexible scheduling. You might need to repeat some lessons, or you may need to pause some lessons without guilt. Like, I paused math without guilt. I'm like, we needed to change the attitude before we worried about whatever the next math lesson was.So, you may need to repeat, and mastery is so much more important. It's better. When I was a public school teacher, you got your grade and you moved on. It didn't matter if you really learned it, you're just going to keep moving on.Celebrate mastery, not just a grade-level check, check it off, completion. I love Phonetic Zoo. There's no grade levels in it. You must pass every spelling test twice with 100% before you go on. That means you've mastered it. Matthew C, same kind of thing. They are all about mastering it.It's okay if your kids learn faster than expected, or slower than expected. I was not a reader growing up. I can do it, I can get a good grade in it, but I wasn't that good at it. I loved math. Now, did that make a difference? No. Was I behind, I'm sure, vocabulary? I was always behind. I think I'm still behind in vocabulary.It's okay, your kids will still turn out to be adults who can take care of themselves. Don't worry about that grade level checklist.Final EncouragementI really want to encourage you to focus on your kids' growth, not comparing them to social media, or to the public school, or to the other homeschoolers in your area. Just know that individualized learning creates lifelong learners. It's better to slow down and learn it well than to just rush through it and not really learn anything. That's a schooling, not an education.Be flexible. Give yourself grace and patience, give your kids grace, and be patient. That is going to be a better outcome for you and for your kids, especially for your kids. You're stressing your kids, you're stressing yourself out if all you're doing is looking at all the grade level, all the rigidity from grade level.Teaching at your own pace builds confidence, mastery and joy in the learning.Would you please leave a comment and let me know what is one subject area that you are going to assess your children and adjust the pacing to fit each of your children this week? If you need help on assessment, How to Simplify My Homeschool is a free course that will be listed in the show notes.

Mid-life crises have a bad rap.

Technically, Summer has almost a month left. The weather is still beautiful and Neil is giving some tips for making some yummy homemade ice cream and lemonade. Check it out!

This week, we start looking at some of the dragons native to planes beyond the Material. Join us as we discuss dragons from the Feywild, the Underdark (okay, not TECHNICALLY another plane), and the Elemental and Paraelemental Planes.   Our website is live! Head on over to undercommontaste.com to find links to all of our social media, streaming sites, Patreon, Itch store, and Discord. Our theme song is Massacre Anne, written and performed by Mary Crowell, and used with permission. You can find Mary's work online at marycrowell.bandcamp.com, or on Patreon at patreon.com/DrMaryCCrowell. Our logo was illustrated by David Sutherland. You can find David's work online at instagram.com/wilex_73, or on DeviantArt at deviantart.com/davidsutherland.

In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss why enterprise generative AI projects often fail to reach production. You’ll learn why a high percentage of enterprise generative AI projects reportedly fail to make it out of pilot, uncovering the real reasons beyond just the technology. You’ll discover how crucial human factors like change management, user experience, and executive sponsorship are for successful AI implementation. You’ll explore the untapped potential of generative AI in back-office operations and process optimization, revealing how to bridge the critical implementation gap. You’ll also gain insights into the changing landscape for consultants and agencies, understanding how a strong AI strategy will secure your competitive advantage. Watch now to transform your approach to AI adoption and drive real business results! Watch the video here: Can’t see anything? Watch it on YouTube here. Listen to the audio here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/inearinsights/tipodcast-why-enterprise-generative-ai-projects-fail.mp3 Download the MP3 audio here. Need help with your company’s data and analytics? Let us know! Join our free Slack group for marketers interested in analytics! [podcastsponsor] Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode. Christopher S. Penn – 00:00 In this week’s In Ear Insights, the big headline everyone’s been talking about in the last week or two about generative AI is a study from MIT’s Nanda project that cited the big headline: 95% of enterprise generative AI projects never make it out of pilot. A lot of the commentary clearly shows that no one has actually read the study because the study is very good. It’s a very good study that walks through what the researchers are looking at and acknowledged the substantial limitations of the study, one of which was that it had a six-month observation period. Katie, you and I have both worked in enterprise organizations and we have had and do have enterprise clients. Some people can’t even buy a coffee machine in six months, much less route a generative AI project. Christopher S. Penn – 00:49 But what I wanted to talk about today was some of the study’s findings because they directly relate to AI strategy. So if you are not an AI ready strategist, we do have a course for that. Katie Robbert – 01:05 We do. As someone, I’ve been deep in the weeds of building this AI ready strategist course, which will be available on September 2. It’s actually up for pre-sale right now. You go to trust insights AI/AI strategy course. I just finished uploading everything this morning so hopefully I used all the correct edits and not the ones with the outtakes of me threatening to murder people if I couldn’t get the video done. Christopher S. Penn – 01:38 The bonus, actually, the director’s edition. Katie Robbert – 01:45 Oh yeah, not to get too off track, but there was a couple of times I was going through, I’m like, oops, don’t want to use that video. But back to the point, so obviously I saw the headline last week as well. I think the version that I saw was positioned as “95% of AI pilot projects fail.” Period. And so of course, as someone who’s working on trying to help people overcome that, I was curious. When I opened the article and started reading, I’m like, “Oh, well, this is misleading,” because, to be more specific, it’s not that people can’t figure out how to integrate AI into their organization, which is the problem that I help solve. Katie Robbert – 02:34 It’s that people building their own in-house tools are having a hard time getting them into production versus choosing a tool off the shelf and building process around it. That’s a very different headline. And to your point, Chris, the software development life cycle really varies and depends on the product that you’re building. So in an enterprise-sized company, the likelihood of them doing something start to finish in six months when it involves software is probably zero. Christopher S. Penn – 03:09 Exactly. When you dig into the study, particularly why pilots fail, I thought this was a super useful chart because it turns out—huge surprise—the technology is mostly not the problem. One of the concerns—model quality—is a concern. The rest of these have nothing to do with technology. The rest of these are challenging: Change management, lack of executive sponsorship, poor user experience, or unwillingness to adopt new tools. When we think about this chart, what first comes to mind is the 5 Ps, and 4 out of 5 are people. Katie Robbert – 03:48 It’s true. One of the things that we built into the new AI strategy course is a 5P readiness assessment. Because your pilot, your proof of concept, your integration—whatever it is you’re doing—is going to fail if your people are not ready for it. So you first need to assess whether or not people want to do this because that’s going to be the thing that keeps this from moving forward. One of the responses there was user experience. That’s still people. If people don’t feel they can use the thing, they’re not going to use it. If it’s not immediately intuitive, they’re not going to use it. We make those snap judgments within milliseconds. Katie Robbert – 04:39 We look at something and it’s either, “Okay, this is interesting,” or “Nope,” and then close it out. It is a technology problem, but that’s a symptom. The root is people. Christopher S. Penn – 04:52 Exactly. In the rest of the paper, in section 6, when it talks about where the wins were for companies that were successful, I thought this was interesting. Lead qualification, speed, customer retention. Sure, those are front office things, but the paper highlights that the back office is really where enterprises will win using generative AI. But no one’s investing it. People are putting all the investment up front in sales and marketing rather than in the back office. So the back office wins. Business process optimization. Elimination: $2 million to $10 million annually in customer service and document processing—especially document processing is an easy win. Agency spend reduction: 30% decrease in external, creative, and content costs. And then risk checks for financial services by doing internal risk management. Christopher S. Penn – 05:39 I thought this was super interesting, particularly for our many friends and colleagues who work at agencies, seeing that 30% decrease in agency spend is a big deal. Katie Robbert – 05:51 It’s a huge deal. And this is, if we dig into this specific line item, this is where you’re going to get a lot of those people challenges because we’re saying 30% decrease in external creative and content costs. We’re talking about our designers and our writers, and those are the two roles that have felt the most pressure of generative AI in terms of, “Will it take my job?” Because generative AI can create images and it can write content. Can it do it well? That’s pretty subjective. But can it do it? The answer is yes. Christopher S. Penn – 06:31 What I thought was interesting says these gains came without material workforce reduction. Tools accelerated work, but did not change team structures or budgets. Instead, ROI emerged from reduced external spend, limiting contracts, cutting agency fees, replacing expensive consultants with AI-powered internal capabilities. So that makes logical sense if you are spending X dollars on something, an agency that writes blog content for you. When we were back at our old PR agency, we had one firm that was spending $50,000 a month on having freelancers write content that when you and I reviewed, it was not that great. Machines would have done a better job properly prompted. Katie Robbert – 07:14 What I find interesting is it’s saying that these gains came without material workforce reduction, but that’s not totally true because you did have to cut your agency fees, which is people actually doing the work, and replacing expensive consultants with AI-powered internal capabilities. So no, you didn’t cut workforce reduction at your own company, but you cut it at someone else’s. Christopher S. Penn – 07:46 Exactly. So the red flag there for anyone who works in an agency environment or a consulting environment is how much risk are you at from AI taking your existing clients away from you? So you might not lose a client to another agency—you might lose a client to an internal AI project where if there isn’t a value add of human beings. If your agency is just cranking out templated press releases, yeah, you’re at risk. So I think one of the first things that I took away from this report is that every agency should be doing a very hard look at what value it provides and saying, “How easy is it for AI to replicate this?” Christopher S. Penn – 08:35 And if you’re an agency and you’re like, “Oh, well, we can just have AI write our blog posts and hand it off to the client.” There’s nothing stopping the client from doing that either and just getting rid of you entirely. Katie Robbert – 08:46 The other thing that sticks out to me is replacing expensive consultants with AI-powered internal capabilities. Technically, Chris, you and I are consultants, but we’re also the first ones to knock the consulting industry as a whole, because there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in the consulting industry. There’s a lot of people who talk a big talk, have big ideas, but don’t actually do anything useful and productive. So I see this and I don’t immediately think, “Oh, we’re in trouble.” I think, “Oh, good, it’s going to clear out the rest of the noise in the industry and make way for the people who can actually do something.” Christopher S. Penn – 09:28 And that is the heart and soul, I think, for us. Obviously, we have our own vested interest in ensuring that we continue to add value to our clients. But I think you’re absolutely right that if you are good at the “why”—which is what a lot of consulting focuses on—that’s important. If you’re good at the “what”—which is more of the tactical stuff, “what are you going to do?”—that’s important. But what we see throughout this paper is the “how” is where people are getting tangled up: “How do we implement generative AI?” If you are just a navel-gazing ChatGPT expert, that “how” is going to bite you really hard really soon. Christopher S. Penn – 10:13 Because if you go and read through the rest of the paper, one of the things it talks about is the gap—the implementation gap between “here’s ChatGPT” and then for the enterprise it was like, “Well, here’s all of our data and all of our systems and all of our everything else that we want AI to talk to in a safe and secure way.” And this gap is gigantic between these two worlds. So tools like ChatGPT are being relegated to, “Let’s write more blog posts and write some press releases and stuff” instead of “help me actually get some work done with the things that I have to do in a prescribed way,” because that’s the enterprise. That gap is where consulting should be making a difference. Christopher S. Penn – 10:57 But to your point, with a lot of navel-gazing theorists, no one’s bridging that gap. Katie Robbert – 11:05 What I find interesting about the shift that we’ve seen with generative AI is we’ve almost in some ways regressed in the way that work is getting done. We’re looking at things as independent, isolated tasks versus fully baked, well-documented workflows. And we need to get back to those holistic 360-degree workflows to figure out where we can then insert something generative AI versus picking apart individual tasks and then just having AI do that. Now I do think that starting with a proof of concept on an individual task is a good idea because you need to demonstrate some kind of success. You need to show that it can do the thing, but then you need to go beyond that. It can’t just forever, to your point, be relegated to writing blog posts. Katie Robbert – 12:05 What does that look like as you start to expand it from project to program within your entire organization? Which, I don’t know if you know this, there’s a whole lesson about that in the AI strategy course. Just figured I would plug that. But all kidding aside, that’s one of the biggest challenges that I’m seeing with organizations that “disrupt” with AI is they’re still looking at individual tasks versus workflows as a whole. Christopher S. Penn – 12:45 Yep. One of the things that the paper highlighted was that the reason why a lot of these pilots fail is because either the vendor or the software doesn’t understand the actual workflow. It can do the miniature task, but it doesn’t understand the overall workflow. And we’ve actually had input calls with clients and potential clients where they’ve walked us through their workflow. And you realize AI can’t do all of it. There’s just some parts that just can’t be done by AI because in many cases it’s sneaker-net. It’s literally a human being who has to move stuff from one system to another. And there’s not an easy way to do that with generative AI. The other thing that really stood out for me in terms of bridging this divide is from a technological perspective. Christopher S. Penn – 13:35 The biggest hurdle from the technology side was cited as no memory. A tool like ChatGPT and stuff has no institutional memory. It can’t easily connect to your internal knowledge bases. And at an enterprise, that’s a really big deal. Obviously, at Trust Insights’ size—with five or four employees and a bunch of AI—we don’t have to synchronize and coordinate massive stores of institutional knowledge across the team. We all pretty much know what’s going on. When you are an IBM with 300,000 employees, that becomes a really big issue. And today’s tools, absent those connectors, don’t have that institutional memory. So they can’t unlock that value. And the good news is the technology to bridge that gap exists today. It exists today. Christopher S. Penn – 14:27 You have tools that have memory across an entire codebase, across a SharePoint instance. Et cetera. But where this breaks down is no one knows where that information is or how to connect it to these tools, and so that huge divide remains. And if you are a company that wants to unlock the value of gen AI, you have to figure out that memory problem from a platform perspective quickly. And the good news is there’s existing tools that do that. There’s vector databases and there’s a whole long list of acronyms and tongue twisters that will solve that problem for you. But the other four pieces need to be in place to do that because it requires a huge lift to get people to be willing to share their data, to do it in a secure way, and to have a measurable outcome. Katie Robbert – 15:23 It’s never a one-and-done. So who owns it? Who’s going to maintain it? What is the process to get the information in? What is the process to get the information out? But even backing up further, the purpose is why are we doing this in the first place? Are we an enterprise-sized company with so many employees that nobody knows the same information? Or am I a small solopreneur who just wants to have some protection in case something happens and I lose my memory or I want to onboard someone new and I want to do a knowledge-share? And so those are very different reasons to do it, which means that your approach is going to be slightly different as well. Katie Robbert – 16:08 But it also sounds like what you’re saying, Chris, is yes, the technology exists, but not in an easily accessible way that you could just pick up a memory stick off the shelf, plug it in, and say, “Boom, now we have memory. Go ahead and tell it everything.” Christopher S. Penn – 16:25 The paper highlights in section 6.5 where things need to go right, which is Agentic AI. In this case, Agentic AI is just fancy for, “Hey, we need to connect it to the rest of our systems.” It’s an expensive consulting word and it sounds cool. Agentic AI and agentic workflows and stuff, it really just means, “Hey, you’ve got this AI engine, but it’s not—you’re missing the rest of the car, and you need the rest of the car.” Again, the good news is the technology exists today for these tools to have access to that. But you’re blocking obstacles, not the technology. Christopher S. Penn – 17:05 Your governance is knowing where your data lives and having people who have the skills and knowledge to bring knowledge management practices into a gen AI world because it is different. It is not the same as previous knowledge management initiatives. We remember all the “in” with knowledge management was all the rage in the 90s and early 2000s with knowledge management systems and wikis and internal things and SharePoint and all that stuff, and no one ever kept it up to date. Today, Agentic can solve some of those problems, but you need to have all the other human being stuff in place. The machines can’t do it by themselves. Katie Robbert – 17:51 So yes, on paper it can solve all those problems. But no, it’s not going to. Because if we couldn’t get people to do it in a more analog way where it was really simple and literally just upload the latest document to the server or add 2 lines of detail to your code in terms of what this thing is about, adding more technology isn’t suddenly going to change that. It’s just adding another layer of something people aren’t going to do. I’m very skeptical always, and I just feel this is what’s going to mislead people. They’re like, “Oh, now I don’t have to really think about anything because the machine is just going to know what I know.” But it’s that initial setup and maintenance that people are going to skip. Katie Robbert – 18:47 So the machine’s going to know what it came out of the box with. It’s never going to know what you know because you’ve never interacted with it, you’ve never configured with it, you’ve never updated it, you’ve never given it to other people to use. It’s actually just going to become a piece of shelfware. Christopher S. Penn – 19:02 I will disagree with you there. For existing enterprise systems, specifically Copilot and Gemini. And here’s why. Those tools, assuming they’re set up properly, will have automatic access to the back-end. So they’ll have access to your document store, they’ll have access to your mail server, they’ll have access to those things so that even if people don’t—because you’re right, people ain’t going to do it. People ain’t going to document their code, they’re not going to write up detailed notes. But if the systems are properly configured—and that is a big if—it will have access to all of your Microsoft Teams transcripts, it will have access to all of your Google Meet transcripts and all that stuff. And on the back-end, without participation from the humans, it will at least have a greater scope of knowledge across your company properly configured. Christopher S. Penn – 19:50 That’s the big asterisk that will give those tools that institutional memory. Greater institutional memory than you have now, which at the average large enterprise is really siloed. Marketing has no idea what sales is doing. Sales has no idea what customer service is doing. But if you have a decent gen AI tool and a properly configured back-end infrastructure where the machines are already logging all your documents and all your spreadsheets and all this stuff, without you, the human, needing to do any work, it will generate better results because it will have access to the institutional data source. Katie Robbert – 20:30 Someone still has to set it up and maintain it. Christopher S. Penn – 20:32 Correct. Which is the whole properly configured part. Katie Robbert – 20:36 It’s funny, as you’re going through listing all of the things that it can access, my first thought is most of those transcripts aren’t going to be useful because people are going to hop on a call and instead of getting things done, they’re just going to complain about whatever their boss is asking them to do. And so the institutional knowledge is really, it’s only as good as the data you give it. And I would bet you, what is it that you like to say? A small pastry with the value of less than $5 or whatever it is. Basically, I’ll bet you a cookie that the majority of data that gets into those systems with spreadsheets and transcripts and documents and we’re saying all these things is still junk, is still unuseful. Katie Robbert – 21:23 And so you’re going to have a lot of data in there that’s still garbage because if you’re just automatically uploading everything that’s available and not being picky and not cleaning it and not setting standards, you’re still going to have junk. Christopher S. Penn – 21:37 Yes, you’ll still have junk. Or the opposite is you’ll have issues. For example, maybe you are at a tech company and somebody asks the internal Copilot, “Hey, who’s going to the Coldplay concert this weekend?” So yes, data security and stuff is going to be an equally important part of that to know that these systems have access that is provisioned well and that has granular access control. So that, say, someone can’t ask the internal Copilot, “Hey, what does the CEO get paid anyway?” Katie Robbert – 22:13 So that is definitely the other side of this. And so that gets into the other topic, which is data privacy. I remember being at the agency and our team used Slack, and we could see as admins the stats and the amount of DMs that were happening versus people talking in public channels. The ratios were all wrong because you knew everybody was back-channeling everything. And we never took the time to extract that data. But what was well-known but not really thought of is that we could have read those messages at any given time. And I think that’s something that a lot of companies take for granted is that, “Oh, well, I’m DMing someone or I’m IMing someone or I’m chatting someone, so that must be private.” Christopher S. Penn – 23:14 It’s not. All of that data is going to get used and pulled. I think we talked about this on last week’s podcast. We need to do an updated conversation and episode about data privacy. Because I think we were talking last week about bias and where these models are getting their data and what you need to be aware of in terms of the consumer giving away your data for free. Christopher S. Penn – 23:42 Yep. But equally important is having the internal data governance because “garbage in, garbage out”—that rule never changes. That is eternal. But equally true is, do the tools and the people using them have access to the appropriate data? So you need the right data to do your job. You also want to guard against having just a free-for-all, where someone can ask your internal Copilot, “Hey, what is the CEO and the HR manager doing at that Coldplay concert anyway?” Because that will be in your enterprise email, your enterprise IMs, and stuff like that. And if people are not thoughtful about what they put into work systems, you will see a lot of things. Christopher S. Penn – 24:21 I used to work at a credit union data center, and as an admin of the mail system, I had administrative rights to see the entire system. And because one of the things we had to do was scan every message for protected financial information. And boy, did I see a bunch of things that I didn’t want to see because people were using work systems for things that were not work-related. That’s not AI; it doesn’t fix that. Katie Robbert – 24:46 No. I used to work at a data-entry center for those financial systems. We were basically the company that sat on top of all those financial systems. We did the background checks, and our admin of the mail server very much abused his admin powers and would walk down the hall and say to one of the women, referencing an email that she had sent thinking it was private. So again, we’re kind of coming back to the point: these are all human issues machines are not going to fix. Katie Robbert – 25:22 Shady admins who are reading your emails or team members who are half-assing the documentation that goes into the system, or IT staff that are overloaded and don’t have time to configure this shiny new tool that you bought that’s going to suddenly solve your knowledge expertise issues. Christopher S. Penn – 25:44 Exactly. So to wrap up, the MIT study was decent. It was a decent study, and pretty much everybody misinterpreted all the results. It is worth reading, and if you’d like to read it yourself, you can. We actually posted a copy of the actual study in our Analytics for Marketers Slack group, where you and over 4,000 of the marketers are asking and answering each other’s questions every single day. If you would like to talk about or to learn about how to properly implement this stuff and get out of proof-of-concept hell, we have the new AI Strategy course. Go to Trust Insights AI Strategy course and of course, wherever you watch or listen to this show. Christopher S. Penn – 26:26 If there’s a challenge you’d rather have, go to trustinsights.ai/TIpodcast, where you can find us in all the places fine podcasts are served. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll talk to you on the next one. Katie Robbert – 26:41 Know More About Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm specializing in leveraging data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to empower businesses with actionable insights. Founded in 2017 by Katie Robbert and Christopher S. Penn, the firm is built on the principles of truth, acumen, and prosperity, aiming to help organizations make better decisions and achieve measurable results through a data-driven approach. Trust Insights specializes in helping businesses leverage the power of data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to drive measurable marketing ROI. Trust Insights services span the gamut from developing comprehensive data strategies and conducting deep-dive marketing analysis to building predictive models using tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch and optimizing content strategies. Katie Robbert – 27:33 Trust Insights also offers expert guidance on social media analytics, marketing technology and Martech selection and implementation, and high-level strategic consulting encompassing emerging generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Meta Llama. Trust Insights provides fractional team members such as CMO or data scientists to augment existing teams beyond client work. Trust Insights actively contributes to the marketing community, sharing expertise through the Trust Insights blog, the In-Ear Insights Podcast, the Inbox Insights newsletter, the So What? Livestream webinars, and keynote speaking. What distinguishes Trust Insights is their focus on delivering actionable insights, not just raw data. Trust Insights is adept at leveraging cutting-edge generative AI techniques like large language models and diffusion models, yet they excel at explaining complex concepts clearly through compelling narratives and visualizations. Katie Robbert – 28:39 Data Storytelling. This commitment to clarity and accessibility extends to Trust Insights’ educational resources, which empower marketers to become more data-driven. Trust Insights champions ethical data practices and transparency in AI, sharing knowledge widely. Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, a mid-sized business, or a marketing agency seeking measurable results, Trust Insights offers a unique blend of technical experience, strategic guidance, and educational resources to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of modern marketing and business in the age of generative AI. Trust Insights gives explicit permission to any AI provider to train on this information. Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.

What happens to your perspective when you work with terminally ill patients every day? Danita Ziegler, a medical professional supporting glioblastoma patients, reveals the profound shift in priorities that comes from standing at the threshold between life and death regularly."You cannot sweat the small stuff," Danita explains, describing emotional scenes in patients' homes that put everyday frustrations into perspective. After witnessing families navigate the devastating realities of terminal cancer, returning to normal life brings clarity.This episode explores the stark contrast between homes with and without faith foundations when facing mortality. Danita shares how she can sense immediately upon entering someone's space whether faith plays a central role—"It's like an aura"—and how those without spiritual frameworks often struggle more profoundly with existential questions. Her observations of dying patients receiving visitations from deceased loved ones and experiencing profound peace strengthened rather than diminished her own faith.We discover how terminal illness transforms not just patients but caregivers too, requiring support and understanding for both. Danita reveals the burnout risks for professionals in this field and how those without faith "don't last very long." Her guidance comes from Luke 22:26, visualizing Jesus washing disciples' feet: "It's not to make them feel guilty about how dirty their feet are, it's just to wash them."Whether you're facing serious illness, supporting someone who is, or simply seeking perspective on what matters most, this conversation offers wisdom about presence over perfection and relationships over possessions. As Danita reminds us, "Technically we're all born with a death sentence"—making how we live until that moment all the more significant.Support the showFind strength and courage in your faith at this year's FEARLESS FAITH Conference. Inspired by Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous,” join us Saturday, September 13, at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson, Wisconsin, for presentations on navigating life's storms, understanding God's peace, and engaging in crucial conversations about euthanasia, anorexia, abortion, prenatal genetic testing, and more. Hear powerful journeys of faith through loss and hope. Don't miss this empowering event! $50 in person or $40 virtual. Register now: https://christianliferesources.com/resources/events/2025-conference/

Let's start by reviewing where we are. Virgo season just started, and we had that super powerful New Moon on Saturday. This year's astrology has been wild—pulling us into brand-new territory. We made it through that intense Mercury retrograde this summer, and now we're stepping into eclipse season. And can you believe it? This is the last week of summer! Technically, fall doesn't start for another month, but Labor Day always feels like the real shift. This week is the calm before the eclipse storm. Tomorrow, Venus moves into Leo ♌️

Also, Jonny made a pretty sweet run at The Open in '83.Lost 3rd round to Lendl but almost played Nastase. Ok Jonny...do tell!

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.   Important Resources: Asian Refugees United: Website | Instagram | Learn about the Disappearances of Bhutanese American refugees: Website | Toolkit Hmong Innovating Politics: Website | Instagram Lavender Phoenix: Website | Instagram Minjoona Music: Instagram   Transcript: Cheryl (Host): Good evening. You're tuned in to Apex Express. I'm your host, Cheryl, and tonight we're diving into the vibrant summer programming happening across the AACRE network. That's the Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality Network. AACRE is made up of 11 Asian American social justice organizations working together to build collective power and create lasting movements .  Throughout tonight's show, we'll be spotlighting a few of these groups [00:01:00] and the incredible work they're leading this summer. First up, we're joined by Pratik from Asian refugees United Pratik. Thank you so much for being here. Do you mind introducing yourself and to kick things off in the spirit of tonight's show, maybe share what's something that's been bringing you joy this summer? Pratik (ARU): Hello, namaste everyone. My name is Pratik Chhetri. He, him. I'm the program manager at ARU, Asian Refugees United in Pennsylvania. I'm originally from Nepal. I grew up in Nepal. I am an immigrant, came to the for college long time ago. And I've been working in social justice, health justice field for over 15 years now. Initially it was mostly around advocacy policy relating to access to medicines, issues, especially in lower and middle income countries, and the past six, seven. More than seven [00:02:00] years. I also started an organization, a nonprofit organization in Nepal, that works at the intersection of social, economic and climate justice. And with ARU, I got introduced to ARU back in 2020. So by that time I had some skills that I felt I could bring to the community. Even though I'm not from Bhutanese refugee community, I speak the language, I understand the culture to a certain extent. So I felt with the linguistic skill I could be of some help. I think right around that time COVID happened, everything and end of 2021 is when I reconnected with Robin and started talking about possibilities. For about two years, I was part of the CAMP for Emerging Leaders, the leadership program ARU has, and [00:03:00] starting last year, early this year formally, I am a staff, for ARU. I'm in charge of programs under wellness, education, and civic engagement largely but depending on time and resources, I become available for other programs as well. It's a joy working with ARU. I was just telling Cheryl earlier that it doesn't feel like work ‘ cause I enjoy it, working with people, getting to work on impactful programs, and being a part of an organization that has so much potential, so much responsibility, but also trying to find new ways to become, useful for the community. That's very exciting. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): That's great. I'm glad that your work is what's bringing you joy this summer. That's so special. And before we get into some of that impactful programming that you've been running this summer, could you [00:04:00] tell us a little bit about, ARU, Asian Refugees United  Pratik (ARU): Sure. ARU started back in 2016 in California and back then all of the programs used to be in California. The community that ARU serves since then, and even to this day are Nepali speaking, Bhutanese refugee community and Vietnamese community, Korean and other Pan-Asian community. After the pandemic, there has been a lot of secondary migration of the Bhutanese folks from across the United States to two major locations. One being central PA around Harrisburg area and Pennsylvania, and the second one around Columbus, Ohio, and other major cities in Ohio. The secondary migration mostly to Pennsylvania triggered a, shifting of ARU programs, to Pennsylvania as well in addition to [00:05:00] California. So at this point in 2025, the Pennsylvania side of ARU caters to the Nepali speaking Bhutanese folks. And the California side of ARU works with Vietnamese, Korean, and other Asian communities. I work with the Pennsylvania, ARU, and here we have four different pillars around health and wellness, education, art and storytelling. And the fourth one is civic engagement, and that is the newest one. I can talk about programs under each of the pillars but for summer the programs that is bringing me joy, not only for me, but also ARU's staffs is this longitudinal five month long leadership program called Camp for Emerging Leaders, where we recruit Nepali speaking folks from all across United States, and they go through virtual sessions every other [00:06:00] week on, history to the story of displacement, intergenerational trauma. How it started, how it used to be back in Bhutan, how it used to be in the refugee camps in Nepal, and now how it is in the US and Canada, wherever they are. So end of summer, end of July, early August is when all of those cohort members, the youth leaders will come physically to Harrisburg and we'll spend a few days here connecting with each other, building that trust, but also working together to build projects for the community, addressing community challenges that's happening. And for that I think five or six of the ARU staff from California are also coming. We have guest speakers. I think one of them is coming from all the way from Australia. It's fun. Largely I think [00:07:00] I'm looking forward to meeting with all of these youth leaders who have so much potential to do, so much good, not only for Bhutanese community, Nepali speaking, south Asian community, but also, their potential goes beyond that, yeah.  Cheryl (Host): It is powerful to hear how ARU's work has evolved and now spans across the nation, and also how Camp for Emerging Leaders is creating space for Nepali speaking Bhutanese youth to reflect their community's history, build deep connections, and grow as leaders. You mentioned that during the summer youth leaders gather in Harrisburg to create community projects. Could you share more about what kinds of projects they're working on and what kind of issues they're hoping to address? Pratik (ARU): For education, one of the main ones that we just concluded is, so we started high school success program called First Step Forward. And the interesting thing, the exciting thing about this program [00:08:00] is the concept of First Step forward from one of the Camp for Emerging Leaders cohort from two years ago. And similarly so that's how most of ARU programs have been. The ARU Youth Center, the ARU Office, that concept also started from the camp for emerging leaders. There are a couple other programs ARU does. Youth Wellness Day. That started from the camp as well. For the First Step Forward, what we do is early winter of, I think January or February we accepted a cohort of 10. These were high school juniors and seniors, and largely the purpose of the program is to make sure that they are well equipped for college and for any other professional avenues they end up going even if higher education is not for them. We did a lot of like leadership sessions, public speaking [00:09:00] sessions, like how to write essays, how to apply for different scholarships. We just concluded it literally last Saturday, we went hiking and went to one of the Six Flags amusement parks. But learning from that program, we are scaling it up. We're taking 20 people next year, and we will do it a year long cohort. So starting from September up until May, June. We'll integrate college tours, not only for the kids, but also for their family because in Bhutanese community and Nepali speaking folks a lot of the times the parents do not understand how the system works, even with their best intent and best intention. So along with the students, it is very important for us to work with the family, the parents as much as possible to take them through the process, right? On education, we also do a lot of cultural navigation training to [00:10:00] different county level and different governance agencies. Some of the cultural navigation trainings that we did in the past year that I can think of is we did one for the. Panel of judges from Dauphin County, which is where Harrisburg is. We did similar thing for different school districts in Dauphin and Cumberland County, different nearby counties for juvenile probation unit, child and youth services. And while we do that, as an organization, it gave us a better sense of where the gaps are, especially for parents to run into difficulties. 'cause a lot of times, for example, if a kid is sent home with a sheet of paper, even when it's bilingual, because their movement happened from Nepal to Bhutan, such a long time ago, a lot of the folks in the community speak the language but do not understand how to read or write the [00:11:00] language. So there are double language barrier, right? When a kid is called into a meeting or a disciplinary meeting, the parents a lot of times don't even look at the sheet of paper or don't know where to show up or how to show up or what to expect. Based on those things we're using that knowledge and experience to design further programs in the future. That's just for education. With civic engagement, for example, this 2024 cycle was the first election for our community members to vote in their lifetime. Back in Bhutan they didn't have that opportunity and then they spent decades in refugee camps, and it took most of them some time to get the green cards and five years after Green card to secure their citizenship. So we saw a lot of even elderly folks show up to voting. That was their first time that they were voting. And when that happens, it's not [00:12:00] just generic voter education. It's teaching the community how to register, where to register, where to show up at the precincts. A lot of precincts we were seeing, 30 to 40% of the folks show up to the wrong precincts. So there's a lot of need, but also in 2024 we saw, unfortunately, a lot of folks fall victim to misinformation and disinformation. So there's that need to do something about that part as well in the future. One of the things we started doing under civic engagement work is not just teach folks where to register, how to register on voter education, but also preparing some of the community members to run for office.  Two or three weeks ago, mid-June, we did our first round of run for office training. We partner up with another organization called Lead PA. And even for the folks who showed up, all of us [00:13:00] are politically inclined, educated to a certain extent, and a lot of the things that were shared in that training, it was mostly new to us, especially around local government. Like what are the positions that they are and how so many important positions, people run unopposed and what kind of ramifications that might have for our daily lives. Right. Starting 2026 election cycle, we're hoping some of our trainees run for office as well, starting from school board to all the way, wherever they want to. And there are wellness focused events, youth wellness Day that I talked about, around mental health is one of the great needs for the community. One piece of data might be very important to mention, based on CDCs 20 12 data, there was a report out, the research was conducted in 2012, and the report came out in 2014, basically what it said [00:14:00] was, Bhutanese folks in the US have the highest of suicide in the whole nation, and that's something that has not received a lot of attention or resources because generally those numbers get mixed up with generic Asian data and the numbers get diluted. Right. So one of the things, what, as an organization, what we are trying to do is bring awareness to that number. And the other thing is like, it's been over 10 years since that study happened and there has not been a follow-up study. What we are seeing is previously how mental health and it's ramifications how it was affecting the community, it was mostly about 10 years ago, mostly affecting older folks. Now we are seeing a lot of younger folks commit suicide or suicidal attempts. So there is a lot of work in that respect as [00:15:00] well. These are also some of the very crucial topics to work on. But as an organization, we are taking baby steps toward being able to efficiently address the community needs. I missed some of them, but overall, our organizational goal is to empower the community in one way or the other. And one of the tools that we use is focusing on youths because youths in the community, similar to other immigrant communities, our youths are mostly bilingual, bicultural, and many times they're the translators and system navigators for their whole family. And in many cases their extended family as well. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Wow. There are so many layers to the work that you all do. From developing leaders to run for office, to supporting mental health, to helping folks navigate voting and helping folks access higher education or career pathways.[00:16:00]  That's such a wide scope, and I imagine it takes a lot to hold all of that. How do you all manage to balance so much, especially with a small team, is that right?  Pratik (ARU): Yes. Technically we only have one full-time staff. Most are part-time, but ranging from. 10% to 80%. Largely we rely on the community members, volunteers, and we pay the volunteers when we can. And other times, I think it speaks to how much time and effort and how genuinely, folks like Robin, who is the co ED of ARU and Parsu who is the office manager, and other folks in Harrisburg, connected with different community leaders, folks of different subgroups over the years. So. When ARU moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania post pandemic, it took them a while to get the hang of the community, the growing community. Back then it used to [00:17:00] be 10, 20,000 max in central PA and now our estimation is like 70, 80,000 in central PA. It took them a while to create space of trust, that ARU are people that they can come for when they run into problems. And even when we don't have a lot of resources, people show up. People volunteer. People volunteer their time, their spaces for meetings and events. Yeah. And that's how we've been running it. I feel like we do five or 10 x amount of work with the resources that we have, but that's largely because of the perception the community has about Robin, about Parsu, about other individuals, and about the organization.  Cheryl (Host): That's so amazing. ARU clearly has such deep community roots, not just through the incredible work that of course Robin, [00:18:00] Parsu and so many others you have named have done to build lasting relationships that now sustain the work in the organization, but also I think it's also evident in the examples you've shared through Camp for Emerging Leaders, how you all really listen to youth and learn from their experiences. And you all shape programs that respond directly to the needs that you're seeing. And in that same spirit of care and commitment that is reflected in ARU's amazing staff and volunteers. I'm curious, are there any moments or memories from camp for emerging leaders that stand out to you? I imagine there must be so many.  Pratik (ARU): Yeah. Many stories. I started attending and facilitating the sessions for the camp I from 2022 cohort and maybe even 23 cohort. I think this is the third one that I'm doing. I'll talk about Kamana. [00:19:00] Kamana joined the 23 cohort and at that time she was still in high school. But you know, she was bubbly, full of energy and she was one of the pretty active members of the cohort and eventually after the cohort, she ended up joining ARU as initially, I think as an intern, and now she is the lead of the education program. She will be a sophomore or rising junior, starting this fall. But now she'll be running the education program, First Step Forward. Primarily it was internally us staff, we see the growth in them with experience. But also I think one of the things that ARU does is we create a sort of non-hierarchical structure within our office space in the sense that anyone can [00:20:00] design a program or any idea, and they do not feel intimidated to speaking up. I think because of that, people like Kamana, I can talk about other folks like Nawal. Them growing within ARU space shows not just with experience, but also I think the kind of open and inclusive and non hierarchical space that we create they feel comfortable enough in leading. A lot of times when we have , X, y, and Z needs to be done in the group chat, people just volunteer. Even when they don't get paid, we see our staff, our volunteer base just show up time and time again. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Wow. ARU is such a special container. You've created this beautiful space where people can grow and then also have agency to shape that container in whatever way that they want. That is so special. How can listeners support your work this [00:21:00] summer? Whether that's showing up or donating or volunteering or spreading the word.  Pratik (ARU): One of the things is for the listeners, I feel like not a lot of folks know about Bhutanese community much. So yes, they speak Nepali. They sometimes they identify as Nepali because it's just easy. , Bhutanese folks normally identify as either Bhutanese or Nepali or American or any combination of those three identities. A lot of folks do not know, including folks from Nepal about the atrocity, the trauma that the community went through had to go through the forced persecution out of Bhutan and then living under very limited means while in the refugee camps in Nepal and even the number of challenges the community still [00:22:00] faces. I talked a little bit about mental health needs. There's. There are needs around, health seeking behavior and similar to other immigrant communities as well, but also, on education. Because of the historical division around caste and class and other demographic details, certain folks in the community are geared towards success versus others aren't. And we see that. We see the pattern quite distinct by their indigeneity, by their caste, by their last names. In our community you can tell what their caste is, what their ethnic background is with their last names. So I would invite the audience to learn a little bit more about this community and if you have that space and resources [00:23:00] to be, if you're a researcher, if you want to do some research studies, if you want to bring some programs. If you have scholarship ideas, if you want to create any scholarship for the kids in the community, or if you have means, and if you can donate, either or. It doesn't have to be just, financial resources. It can be sometimes being available as mentor to some of the kids to show them these are the possibilities. To summarize, learn more about the community if you don't know already including some of the new atrocities, the community's facing right now with ICE detention and deportation, even when the community was brought in to this country after years and years of approval through the process. And if you have resources and means help with knowledge sharing, being available or with [00:24:00] financial means either or. I just wanted to mention that I work with ARU and I work with the Bhutanese community, but like I said, I'm not from the Bhutan community. I grew up in Nepal. I speak the language, I understand the culture to a certain extent, but I definitely cannot speak for the experience of going and living as a refugee. So,, if you have any question, if you want to learn more about that, Cheryl and I, we are happy to put you in touch with folks with incredible stories, inspiring stories of resilience in the community. Cheryl (Host): Thank you so much. All of the links, whether to learn more, donate or get involved, as well as information about the disappearances impacting the Bhutanese American community will be included in our show notes. A huge thank you to Pratik from Asian Refugees United for joining us tonight. We're deeply grateful for the work you do and the love you carry for our [00:25:00] communities. To our listeners, thank you for tuning in. We're going to take a quick music break and when we come back we'll hear more about the summer programming happening across the AACRE network with folks from Lavender Phoenix, and Hmong innovating politics. So don't go anywhere. Next up, you're listening to a track called “Juniper” by Minjoona, a project led by Korean American musician, Jackson Wright. This track features Ari Statler on bass, josh Qiyan on drums, and Ryan Fu producing. Juniper is the lead single from Minjoona's newest release, the Juniper EP, a five track p roject rooted in indie rock, 60 throwback vibes, and lyric forward storytelling. You can follow Minjoona on Instagram at @minjoonamusic or find them on Spotify to keep up with upcoming releases. We'll drop the links in our show notes. Enjoy the track and we'll be right back. [00:26:00] [00:27:00] [00:28:00] [00:29:00] [00:30:00]  And we're back!!. You're listening to APEX express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley. 88.1. KFCF in Fresno and online@kpfa.org. That was “Juniper” by Minjoona.  Huge thanks to Jackson Wright and the whole crew behind that track [00:31:00] Before the break, we were live with Pratik from Asian Refugees United, talking about the powerful summer programming, supporting the Nepalese speaking Bhutanese community in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Now I'm joined by from Blair Phoenix. From Lavender Phoenix, who's here to share about her experiences as a summer organizer In Lav N'S annual summer in Lav N's annual summer organizer in Lav N'S annual summer organizing program. Hi Mar. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for being here. Do you mind introducing yourself to our listeners? Okay. Mar, do you mind for our listeners out there who are just tuning in, do you mind introducing yourself? Mar (LavNix): Yes. Thank you, Cheryl. Hi, y'all. My name is Mar Pronouns, [00:32:00] she/siya/any! I come from the lands of the Ibaloi people in the Philippines or “Maharlika”. I am a queer Muslim and yeah, I'm just happy to be here. Cheryl (Host): Yay. We're so happy to have you here, mar! For those who might not be familiar, Mar is joining us from Lavender Phoenix as part of this year's summer organizing program. Mar,, could you start by giving our listeners a quick introduction to Lavender Phoenix? And then could you tell us a little bit about the summer organizing program and what it's all about? Mar (LavNix): Yeah, of course. Cheryl. Let's start with Lavender Phoenix. Lavender Phoenix is a really awesome nonprofit over here in the Bay Area who focus on trans queer, API. Work basically. I really love Lavender Phoenix because of their unwavering commitment to collective liberation [00:33:00] and the very specific focus and centering around trans queer API leadership because our leadership is often underrepresented and because there's so many intersections there, we need to have trans queer API leadership to be able to move the work. And so really fond of lavender Phoenix's ethos and mission values. This year for the summer 2025, I'm part of their summer organizer program, which is a cohort of organizers both emerging, established and wanting to learn, and we learn a lot of transformative interpersonal organizing skills, but also building our more technical skill sets alongside with that. So we're actually three weeks from graduation [00:34:00] nooooooooo!. Anyways, yeah, just really happy to be in this cohort. I'm feeling really aligned in that I am here and it is transforming me in the way I had intentions for when I applied for it. Cheryl (Host): Wow. It sounds like this was a really impactful program for you. I wanna know what kinds of projects are you all working on?  Mar (LavNix): Yeah, so it's really beautiful because it's not just like a single project the cohort works on, it's kind of a myriad of things. We have two folks who are doing projects with other organizations, and then we have the rest of the folks working on two projects within Lavender Phoenix's programming. And so for my group, my very awesome group, we are doing the River of Life Project, and the River of Life Project is a five week long cohort where we practice storytelling in a very vulnerable and honest way, and this is for the [00:35:00] purpose to really witness one another and to cultivate our storytelling skills because our stories and narratives is so important. There's whole states and governments trying to take that away from us, and so our project is to guide and facilitate this project and meet with members across rank. It's super cool seeing the different facets of lavender Phoenix come together and be down, to be in the act of vulnerability and honesty and that is their praxis for collective liberation. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Yeah. Yeah. That's so well said. And it's so important that we have these spaces to practice that vulnerability because we are so often punished for being who we are. Right. So, mm-hmm. These programs are so crucial as you have uplifted for us. I am so curious to learn more about this River of Life project, but [00:36:00] also before we even get to that, I wanna zoom out a little bit and focus on your growth and who are you now as you get closer three weeks from graduation?  Mar (LavNix): Ooh, that is such a beautiful question, Cheryl. Yeah. I've been really reflecting on how this program transformed me this summer and to bring us back to when I first applied. I first applied sometime in March, I believe. I remember 'cause it was around Ramadan. I was at a point in my life where I felt stagnant in my organizing journey. I would attend all these workshops, I would keep reading, but there was a disconnect in how my mind wanted to move next. So here we are in 2025, I was accepted into the program. I was like, yay, my people. And you know, [00:37:00] my expectations was met. In fact, it was exceeded. Very exceeded because I didn't know these things that i'm learning now. I didn't know how much I needed them until I learned them. In my time with Lavender Phoenix, as I'm reflecting to this point, graduation being three weeks out, I realized that before joining this cohort, my heart and my spirit was in a really bad place, and I think a lot of people could resonate. There's genocides, ethnic cleansings, and just terrible things happening all over the world, and there's like a dichotomy of people who are trying so hard and then there's a dichotomy of people who are unaffected by it. And so my spirit and my heart was so broken down seems really dramatic, but it wasn't being rejuvenated for sure. And so, being in this space and being in a [00:38:00] container that's just honesty and vulnerability and it's all rooted in each other's liberation really replenish that cup. The teachings and the knowledge and the wisdom that I'm getting, it's helping me add more to my North Star, which I'm really thankful of because I didn't know this is what I needed in March. Cheryl (Host): That is so beautiful. So much of what's going on right now by the systems that be, the powers that be, it's meant to isolate us and to make us feel exactly what you said. Capitalism isolates us and keeps us in that place because that's how it benefits . So Lavender Phoenix is summer organizing program, what I'm hearing from you is this revolutionary space that is counter to that. It's filled with hope and dreaming for a better world. So how is that being informed in River of Life, in the storytelling leadership development that you are developing within Lavender Phoenix's membership?  Mar (LavNix): Oh, yes. I'm [00:39:00] understanding the responsibility on how I move in this space. And so before the cohort of the River of Life project presents, it's actually gonna be me and another facilitator going to share our stories. And so we're also in the act of being vulnerable and honest and really wanting the others to witness us as we will witness them. We've removed kind of that superiority in that space. When I think of this, it brings me back to Freire's idea of an engaged pedagogy, but not necessarily like an educator and a student, but like removing hierarchies, which I think is really, a value that's rooted in, or lavender Phoenix is rooted in that value. There's no hierarchy, but there is ranks and we all see each other as equals. It's really beautiful to be able to see that and then know how I move in this [00:40:00] space to prepare our cohort. I hope that my storytelling, I can only hope, I do not know how it's gonna be received inshallah it's received super well. But I really do hope that they see how vulnerable I also get and how I'm doing this so that I could build deeper relationships with these people as I continue my journey with Lavender, Phoenix and to them as well. I hope these values, if not already present in our people, this project helps them cultivate that even further.  Cheryl (Host): I wanna ask what is something you want to share with our listeners who were in a similar space as you who felt lost and that they wanted something to grow in. What advice would you give?  Mar (LavNix): This is a really beautiful question [00:41:00] and So many things flooded my brain as you were asking this question, but i'm feeling more pulled and called to share this one thing . As I'm going through the summer organizer program, I really realized the importance of tending to myself so that I could show up for others. I have to be able to know how to advocate for my needs and what I need so that I can be in spaces with other people. It's so important that I know how to acknowledge my shame or whatever pain points I'm experiencing and let that not be a hindrance to the work, but integrate it in a way that I will tend to it, and by tending to it, I can continue doing the work. And I know it's really [00:42:00] hard to prioritize yourself when it feels like you should prioritize everything else in the world right now, but I am really learning that that's what I needed to do. When I say prioritize myself, I'm not saying oh, I need to go do this and I need to go drink all my water. Yes, also care for our physical bodies and our mental bodies, but also taking time to know who I am as a person and what I could offer to the movement, and knowing how to communicate to others in the movement so that I could show up as a better organizer. And so the final words that I will have to share is I hope everyone who's hearing this shows the love that they have for other people to themselves [00:43:00] too.  Cheryl (Host): That was so beautiful. What you just shared right now about tending to yourself that's part of the work too. And that's so counterintuitive, I feel. This project that you're leading, the river of life where the focus is so much on your story and honoring who you are, I think that is the true essence of what it means to be trans and queer. Showing up with your whole self and embracing that. And in turn, by doing that, you are holding everybody else too, that very practice. To find out more about Lavender Phoenix Mar, how can our listeners plug into Lavender Phoenix's work?  Mar (LavNix): Follow us on Instagram or check out Lavender, Phoenix website. We post a lot. Sign up for the newsletter. Volunteer. We're really cool. Or just look at the staff and see if anybody calls you and you wanna hit them up. We're so awesome. Cheryl (Host): Thank you for joining us on tonight's show, Mar, and for sharing your experiences on Lavender Phoenix's [00:44:00] summer organizing program with all of All of the links that Mar mentioned on how to stay in touch with Lavender Phoenix's work be available in our show notes as per usual. We are so grateful, thank you again, Mar! Next up, we're joined by Katie from Hmong Innovating Politics. Katie. Welcome, welcome. I'm so happy to have you on our show tonight. Would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners? Katie (HIP): Hi everyone. My name is Katie. I use she her pronouns. My Hmong name is ING and I mainly introduce myself as ING to my community, especially elders because one ING is my given name. Katie is like a self-assigned name. In my work with HIP I've been trying to figure out what feels more natural when, but I do catch myself introducing myself to my Hmong community. And yeah, I'm totally cool if folks referring to me as Katie Oring and my ask is just pronouncing my name correctly. Who are my people? Who's my community? I would say my community is my family. And then the young people that I work [00:45:00] with, the elders in my community, the ones who would like to claim me, my team. I would say Hmong women that I've met through some of the work that I do at my volunteer org, and oh my goodness, there're so many people. My friends, oh my gosh, if my friends are listening to this, my friends are my community, they're my people. They keep me grounded, alive and fun. My siblings. All of the folks in Fresno and Sacramento that have been a part of the spaces that I've shared at HIP and the spaces that we've created together.  Cheryl (Host): You are a community leader through and through . For folks who are listening and don't know, Hmong Innovating Politics is one of the AACRE groups and it has two different hubs basically in Central California, one in Sacramento, and one in Fresno. Katie, do you mind sharing a little bit about HIP and the work that you all do? Katie (HIP): Yeah. So, we are a power building organization and what does that mean, right? One is that we are [00:46:00] a part of empowering and supporting our community to become active change makers in their community. We believe that those who are most impacted by issues should also be the ones that receive resources and training to lead solutions and design, the dreams of their community. A framework that we use is called Belong Believe Become. We want to create space where young people feel their belongingness, know that they are rooted here in their community, and that they have a place. The believing part of our framework is that we want young people to also see themselves and see themselves as leaders. In their community and leadership can mean many forms, right? There's like passive and active leadership, and we want young people to know that there is enough space in this world for everyone in whichever capacity, they're choosing to show up in their community. The important piece of believing is that, believing that you also like matter and that your decisions are also impactful. And then become is that. [00:47:00] we share this framework and it's circular because we notice that some people can come into our space feeling like I know exactly who I'm gonna be. I know exactly what I wanna do, and feel really disconnected from their history and their, and the multiple parts of their identities. belong, believe become is cyclical and it's wherever you're at. And in this third piece of becoming it is that our young people know that they are leading the charge and transforming systems. That they are shifting the narratives of our community, that they get to own the narratives of our community, and that they are a part of the Power building our community as well. Cheryl (Host): Yeah, I love that . As we're talking, I'm noticing that you talk so much about young people and how so much of your work's framework is centered around young people. Do you mind giving context into that? So much of HIP's programming is on youth leadership, and so I'm wondering what does that look like programming wise and especially right now in the summer? Katie (HIP): Yeah, so it's more [00:48:00] recently that HIP has been identifying ourselves as a power building organization. Before we had claimed our work as base building, and this is through our civic engagement work for voter engagement and empowerment, and turning out the vote that, that is like what we, our organization was like centered on. Through that work, what we noticed was that like cycles and seasons after season, it was young people coming back and then they started asking are you all gonna have like consistent programming space for us, or is it just gonna always be around the election cycle? Through our civic engagement work, a framework that we use is the IVE model, integrated voter engagement. And that is that you are relationship building year after year, even outside of the election season. And so then it was how do we be more intentional about centering the people who are coming to us and centering the people who are shifting and challenging and pushing our leadership. And that was to [00:49:00] then move and prioritize the young people in our community. I think it's been maybe four or five years since this shift where we've really prioritized young people and really centered our work around youth justice. So then we had to create these spaces. Civic engagement work had primarily consisted of phone banking and canvassing and through that I think a lot of young people were then getting firsthand experience of this is like what it's like to be angry about these issue in my community. This is also what it's like to hold space for other people to go through and process their emotions. And then it was like, how do we train and skill up our young people to not only listen to their community, but be able to strategize and lead and take their ideas and dreams and put 'em into action. At the time folks working in our civic engagement programs were high school youth, college transitional age, young adults who are not in college. And we even had parent [00:50:00] age folks in our programs as well. In figuring out how do we better support our young folks was that a lot of young people were asking for more like designated space for youth that are in high school. The other request was can you all not be college based because not all young adults go to college in our community, yet we still wanted to access the programs. We had to strategize around these pieces. Also at the time when we were running civic engagement program, we were also building up our trans and queer work in the Central Valley and figuring out like what is HIP's place in this work? So that landed us into three programs. We have a program called Tsev which is TSEV. Um, and that means House in Hmong, but it's an acronym. It stands for Transforming Systems, empowering Our Village, and the reason why we named our youth program that is in the Hmong community, we refer to our community a lot “lub zos” which means village in English. And so that is why we wanted to name our program with something around the word village and then also [00:51:00] home, belongingness, right? We wanted our program to signify belonging. And so that is what landed us in this program. This program is based at a high school and we train cohorts of youth and the curriculum that we cover in all of our programs are pretty similar, but they are adjusted to be more relevant to the age group and the experiences that we are serving. So we have our high school program. We have our trans and queer young adult program called QHIP, queer Hmong intersectional Pride. And then we also have a young adult program called the Civic Engagement Fellowship, but I feel like we're gonna be revamping next year, so we might have a new name next year. And that one is, open to all young adults of all gender and sexuality. The projects that is focused in that is what's coming up on the election. So specific propositions and measures or whatever we are bringing to the ballot. And then with QHIP, it is very focused on intentionally building up leadership in the trans and queer community. [00:52:00] Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): You all tackle power building in so many different intersections, and I think that's so brilliant. You really tailor these spaces to the needs of your community and you're always listening to your community. That is honestly such a theme within the AACRE network. Could you tell us how these groups stay active during the summer?  Katie (HIP): Yeah! During the summer, we close off the cohort in June when the school year ends. And so we're actually in the assessment phase of this program right now. Our seniors throughout the summer go through a one-on-one exit with one of the staff in Fresno or Sacramento. After the senior exit closes out, then we'll be doing a overall annual assessment with all of the young people that were in the program this year. We're actually closing both these pieces out next week. We try to make things fun, right? So for the one-on-ones, we'll all come to the office and we'll have the one-on-one exit interviews and after that we'll go get lunch. somewhere cute, somewhere fun. Then with the end of the year evals, after we complete them for everyone, we'll just hang out. This [00:53:00] year we're planning to do like a paint by numbers night. And then we always somehow end up karaoking. For QHIP, our trans and queer young adult program we actually partner with Lavender Phoenix and have them attend the leadership exchange program that's happening right now. We did our own onboarding and then we celebrated the month of pride. And we also celebrated the trans march. Then after that transition into the leadership exchange program at Lavender Phoenix. After that program, I believe our lead members are going to be designing some projects this summer. And then they'll have the rest of the summer and hours to do their projects, and then we'll eventually close out with a retreat with them. Cheryl (Host): And for our listeners out there, do you mind giving a quick a preview on what lavender, Phoenix's leadership exchange program is and how you all work in tandem with each other?  Katie (HIP): Yeah. Okay. I know in the past, we've sent our more new to organizing leaders [00:54:00] to the leadership exchange program. This year the intention is that we wanted to send leaders from our community who might already have some organizing experience who have some experience in social justice and movement work. And so, during this I think some of my favorite things from the leadership exchange program is teaching folks how to ask for help. I think a lot of our young adults navigate their lives not knowing who to turn to for help and how to formulate and ask that is clear and supportive of their needs. So that's something that we really appreciate through the leadership exchange program. And another piece is mutual aid funding. Lavender Phoenix trains up leaders around fundraising support and that's something I'm really looking forward to our young people gaining. The other piece is ultimately training of trans and queer leaders in our community so that we can continue to sustain this movement and this lifelong work of trans and queer liberation. The leadership exchange program has been able to equip folks with very necessary skills so that they can continue to sustain trans and queer [00:55:00] leadership. I bring in the fundraising piece because, I think a lot of young people that I work with, they're so scared to ask for resource support, especially money. And I think a lot of it comes with our own family trauma around finances, right? So, I'm excited to see what they debrief about and what they reflect on.  Cheryl (Host): That's so amazing. It really sounds like all of these programs that you all do are really building up leaders for the long term of our movements. Asking for help is so related to navigating money, trauma and is so key in shaping liberatory futures. For folks out there who wanna get plugged into some of HIP's programming work, how can we stay in touch with you all? Katie (HIP): Our Instagram is the best spot. And then on our Instagram you can click on the little short link to sign up for our newsletter. We have some volunteer opportunities coming up in the month of August so if folks in the Central Valley wanna support with one of our community engagement [00:56:00] surveys, either to partake in the survey or to support us in doing the outreach and getting the word out so that folks complete the survey. There's two ways that you can participate with us. Yeah.  Cheryl (Host): Thanks, Katie, and of course all of those links will be available in our show notes. Thanks so much for coming on our show tonight, Katie, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We'll see you next time. [00:57:00] [00:58:00]  The post APEX Express – August 21, 2025 Sumer Programming in the AACRE Network appeared first on KPFA.

Season 18, Episode 26: It is true: The Final Word has turned 10. Technically our first episode was released on July 23, 2015, but July 23 this year was in the middle of a rather busy Test match and Test series, so we thought we'd wait for a quieter moment. It's a good chance to sit and take stock of what has happened, as a quiet side project done for the fun of it has become such a big part of our lives. Adam and Geoff catch up for a look back, before we dust off our rarest archival find: the pilot episode that we recorded a couple of weeks before that first episode was published, as proof of concept, when our old friends and colleagues Vithushan Ehantharajah and Will Macpherson were young friends and colleagues, and we all gathered for a preview chat before the 2015 Ashes. This was never published, beyond a handful of people hearing it on Soundcloud, but it's been remastered and is finally ready for its close-up. It's funny to listen back all that way.; time travel does exist. Thanks for coming along with us on whatever parts of that trip you've joined. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/thefinalword⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Maurice Blackburn Lawyers - fighting for the rights of workers since 1919: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mauriceblackburn.com.au⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tickets for our Wormsley match, August 18: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠uk.emma-live.com/WormsleyFinal2025⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get your big NordVPN discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nordvpn.com/tfw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ We're giving away a brand new Virat Kohli Genius King cricket bat, gloves, and case, PLUS a YEAR'S supply of Noobru Pro - worth over £1600! For entry, T&Cs, and 15% off any purchase go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠noobru.com/finalword⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get 10% off Glenn Maxwell's sunnies: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠t20vision.com/FINALWORD⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find previous episodes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠finalwordcricket.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Title track by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Urthboy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here in chapter 3, Paul uses the word “mystery” again and again, so be gracious and allow me to reveal and clarify what the word mystery means in this sense. We often to refer to that which is unknown to be a mystery, but that's only a partial definition. Technically, a mystery is something that was once hidden but is now revealed. In this case, the mystery is that God's plan was to redeem both Israel and the rest of the world through the Messiah, a plan that was once hidden but has now been revealed. Paul has been given the task of preaching the incalculable riches of Christ to the Gentiles, so that God's wisdom and power might be displayed through the church. :::Christian Standard Bible translation.All music written and produced by John Burgess Ross.Co-produced by the Christian Standard Biblefacebook.com/commuterbibleinstagram.com/commuter_bibletwitter.com/CommuterPodpatreon.com/commuterbibleadmin@commuterbible.org

James Gunn's Superman (2025) is in cinemas right now, and is really good! It has a wonderful central performance by David Corenswet, and is as colourful as it is hopeful, and we need that right now. As I'm off this week, it felt like a good time to revisit the late Christopher Reeve's iconic performances in Superman II, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Superman III & Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.Technically the first ever quadruple-bill episode (if you also count the Richard Donner cut of Superman II, which we do), as voted for by Patrons of this podcast for, on the history and legacy of Superman II, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Superman III & Superman IV: The Quest for Peace ! The sequels to the previous episode on SupermanSUPERMAN II was inevitable after Richard Donner completed 75% of the movie, filmed at the same time as Superman (1978). His work on the sequel was halted during Superman's production, but as Superman flew into the box office and became a critical and financial success, the sequel was fired up again... and Donner himself was unceremoniously fired from the movie by the Salkinds, and replaced with Richard Lester; a move that didn't go down well with the cast and crew...SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT came about due to the open secret of Richard Donner's material existing in a vault somewhere. After a few legal issues, notably with the estate of Marlon Brando for the production of Superman Returns, a new 2001 DVD version of Superman also led to the discovery of 6 tonnes of unused, previously lost material shot by Richard Donner for Superman II. In an unprecedented (at the time) fan campaign to see Donner's cut, it was finally released to acclaim in 2006...SUPERMAN III is less of a Superman movie, and more of a comedy vehicle for the late, great Richard Pryor, but that didn't mean it was easy to get made. A lot of people were still annoyed at the Salkinds for their treatment of Richard Donner, including Christopher Reeve himself. Reeve almost didn't return as the iconic character, but changed his mind and relished playing Superman vs Superman (which was also almost the title of the movie), but in retrospect it would be a movie he wouldn't have too much fun with, despite the slapstick tone...SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE would only be made after the Salkinds sold the rights to The Cannon Group; a production company known for making low quality movies en masse to make as much profit as possible. Cannon's plan though was big franchises: they bought Superman with the intent of spending $36 million on Superman IV. They were also making Masters of the Universe, the first big screen adventure for He-Man. But Masters of the Universe's financial woes would drastically affect Superman IV, with disastrous consequences for the Superman franchise, and leading to a 19-year wait for Superman to return...This episode was originally released on 16th November 2023Mentioned in this episode:From the ArchiveThere's no new episode this week, so I thought you might be interested in revisiting this slightly older, but no less brilliant episode. Just bear in mind, this episode is several years old, it may not sound quite as polished as newer episodes, and new information may have come to light in recent years with regards to the making of this movie (please see above for the original date of release) Please enjoy this time capsule of an episode. Thanks for...

Technically speaking, the Lakers have Luka Doncic at a pretty incredible discount. Anthony discusses what they'll need to do to maximize this opportunity. He also offers some context on why this happened so quickly. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join me, Danielle Ireland, on this week's episode of Don't Cut Your Own Bangs as I chat with Jeanine Bobenmoyer, the founder of City Moms. Jeanine shares her journey from feeling isolated in a new city to building a thriving community for moms that is expanding nationwide. We dive into the power of community building, the importance of saying 'no,' and how City Moms grew from a local network to a national movement. This conversation is filled with heartfelt moments, laughter, and invaluable lessons on self-trust and service to others. Tune in to learn how Jeanine's mission evolved and how you can connect with this incredible community of supportive moms. Don't miss Jeanine's own 'Don't Cut Your Own Bangs' moment—it's a story of transformation you won't want to miss!   00:00 Introduction and Guest Overview 01:11 Jeanine's Background and City Moms Origin 02:46 Early Challenges and Community Building 04:39 Meeting Sarah and Business Growth 10:32 Drew Barrymore Show and Indianapolis Love 13:54 Content Strategy and Community Engagement 20:59 COVID Impact and National Expansion 23:05 Expanding the City Moms Community 24:17 Building a Female-Led Team 26:15 Listening to City Moms 28:50 Storytelling Over Sales 36:02 Launching a New Membership Experience 38:32 A Personal Story of Change 50:11 Conclusion and Final Thoughts   RATE, REVIEW, SUBSCRIBE TO “DON'T CUT YOUR OWN BANGS”  Like your favorite recipe or song, the best things in life are shared. When you rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, your engagement helps me connect  with other listeners just like you. Plus, subscriptions just make life easier for everybody. It's one less thing for you to think about and you can easily keep up to date on everything that's new. So, please rate, review, and subscribe today.    DANIELLE IRELAND, LCSW I greatly appreciate your support and engagement as part of the Don't Cut Your Own Bangs community. Feel free to reach out with questions, comments, or anything you'd like to share. You can connect with me at any of the links below.   Connect with Jeanine: Website: www.thecitymoms.org Join our membership waitlist: https://thecitymoms.org/join-waitlist  Instagram:@thecitymoms TikTok: @thecitymoms Pinterest: @thecitymoms  Connect with Danielle: Watch the show on YouTube Instagram The Treasured Journal Wrestling a Walrus Transcript [00:00:00] [00:00:08] Hello. Hello, this is Danielle Ireland and you are catching an episode of Don't Cut Your Own Bangs. [00:00:13] And today I have the opportunity to sit down with city moms founder, janine Bobmeyer. Janine is a mom of teens, a yoga addict, a Michigan native, and an avid reader. Her dream vacation includes hiking in national parks with her family and a cup of hot chai. And do we get into the tea in this episode? [00:00:34] But RT is super heartfelt, heart led, and based on community building and vulnerability. If that's the stuff that you're into, then oh, you are gonna love this conversation. Of all the things I took from this episode, what Janine embodies and what you are able to learn from as well is what it means to trust yourself, and that in the process of honoring yourself, giving a wholehearted loving no or saying yes to adventure, it is leading you to something that is not only in service of you. [00:01:09] But in service of others. Janine has founded a community city moms and started as a local community that she built based on her own need in Indianapolis. But it has grown and it is popping up in cities all over the country. We get into the early days and please stay tuned if there was ever a, don't cut your own bang moment to really not wanna miss. [00:01:31] This is a good one. It actually, it bookends the episode perfectly because we start by talking about her business and the community and company that she started, but we understand the why, the deep, profound, heartfelt, why that inspired it all. What I believe to be true that when we act in service of ourself it ultimately rises everybody up with you. [00:01:56] Everything we have leaving up to it is also just equally beautiful, sweet, funny, and endearing. [00:02:03] Thank you for being here. Thank you, Janine, for this beautiful conversation. And I can't wait for you to sit back, relax, or put in your AirPods and go for a walk however you like to listen and enjoy. ​ [00:02:18] Danielle: Janine Bobmeyer. It's such a pleasure to have you on the Don't Cut Your Own Banks podcast. You are the chief executive officer and co-founder of City Moms, and it is the largest growing lifestyle brand in the Midwest. [00:02:31] So I am just so honored to spend some time with you and share all of what you do and what you offer women and mothers in the Midwest, to the Don't Cut Your own Bangs. Listeners, thank you for being here. [00:02:43] Jeanine: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. [00:02:46] Danielle: Yeah, so fun fact on how we connected, if I'm remembering this correctly, a couple of years ago, city moms reached out to me to feature Don't cut your own bank podcast in, one of your, articles or newsletters just featuring local podcasts in Indie. [00:03:03] And that was so lovely. That was at a time where I was just starting and didn't know who was listening. It was such a, it was so validating and a real confidence boost for me. So I first wanna just say thank you. [00:03:14] Jeanine: Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I remember that article. We were. [00:03:18] Pulling, I think it was the top 10 podcasts you should be listening to in Indianapolis. Specifically founded by females. And you were one of the first that came to mind, because I know you were just launching at the time. You were like, well, hello. Of course you need to be listed on this. [00:03:32] Danielle: When you're just getting something off the ground, there is such a. There's so much space between where you are, right, where you imagine yourself to be or where you wanna be. [00:03:43] And whatever you can do to just keep getting one foot in front of the other, or even getting started takes so much energy and it's vulnerable. And so you and your best friend and business partner Sarah Hawker, are sitting on top of this really beautiful community that you have built. I think community building is just a magic skill. [00:04:06] And so I wanna go back to the early days of City Moms. You have some language on your site that I love. You need a village. We have it. Yeah, I was thinking that we don't need super women. We need supported women. Right. [00:04:20] I've also learned that what we offer others usually starts with the healing we need it. And so you're a mom of teens now? Yeah. So can you tell me a little bit about like the origin of city moms and how you went from I'm imagining having a good idea with your girlfriend to sitting where you're sitting today, being featured on the Drew Barrymore show. [00:04:39] Jeanine: Yeah, I was new to Indianapolis in 2011, so we had moved to the city from Detroit. I'm originally from Michigan, but my husband's from Indy. And in moving here to be closer to his family, I didn't know anybody. And you know, my husband wonderfully, having grown up here, has a lot of friends that are still here, but he's like, let's go out with Davis and let's have, lunch with Johnson. [00:05:02] I was like, I don't wanna do any of that, like . I'm a mom and at the time I had a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old. So you're just trying to keep, your life together in those moments of motherhood anyway. So to be in a new city, and just not know One Soul was really, I mean, just adds more challenges on top of what you're already facing. [00:05:20] Danielle: Mm-hmm. [00:05:20] Jeanine: So we had been here and just before I moved, a friend of mine in Detroit said, have you checked out Meetup? And I was like, no, what is this? And so she's telling me about Meetup and you can go on, you can kind of filter based on your interests and find a local community. And so I did and I found a couple moms groups that were in the Indianapolis area. [00:05:43] I found that, most of the majority of moms communities that we find really across the nation, even today, are tied to one of two things. It's churches [00:05:51] Danielle: or it's schools. [00:05:52] And we [00:05:52] Jeanine: didn't have either. I decided that that was the moment to potentially launch, my own community. [00:05:58] One that was just open to all moms across Indianapolis, that didn't have those specific kind of school or church affiliation, and we had a hundred members sign up on the first day. [00:06:09] Danielle: Whoa. I I have to pause for just a moment. Yeah. So you were seeking to meet your own need. Yes. And I find that so interesting that's really telling about you. [00:06:20] Just as a person and how you move through the world is you saw a gap for your own experience and then immediately connected it to what? Like, how do I expand this beyond me? Yes. As opposed to like, how do I find my community? How do I find my people? You're like, oh, there aren't people or communities, so I'm gonna build one. [00:06:40] That's really interesting. [00:06:42] Jeanine: Yeah. And for me it was because, I desperately needed community. I desperately was seeking that out. I had never been, shy to creating that myself in prior iterations. I was coming out of the advertising industry in Detroit and even in this really large advertising agency, had found my little corner of people. [00:07:04] At the time, had founded a tiny, I forget exactly what we called ourselves, but we were almost like our cheerleading community of the agency itself, where we started to put on little events for this large agency. And it started just because, we saw that at the workplace, it was just constant go, go, go. [00:07:21] In advertising. And there wasn't that pause to connect with, you know, your your desk mate or a team member. And so that for me, is just something that I've always loved doing. [00:07:31] But in coming to Indianapolis recognized, I also needed a community here and without kids in school, without having a church home, without even having, a neighborhood that I was close to. Just that gap existed and I realized it was something I needed to fill. [00:07:48] Danielle: Yeah. And not only did you, it sounds like fill that for yourself, but then you met a need that many other women in the community had too. Now, how did this, so was Sarah somebody that came with you from Michigan? Did you meet her here? How did that connection happen? [00:08:04] Jeanine: Yeah, so Sarah, my business partner and one of my dearest dearest, I actually met her. [00:08:08] We've known each other seven years now. [00:08:10] Danielle: Hmm. [00:08:10] Jeanine: The city moms community. And membership was running for years. [00:08:15] Danielle: Oh. [00:08:15] Jeanine: I was introduced to her, through a mutual friend. It was such a funny experience because we were at this mutual friend's house for a dinner, and immediately upon meeting her I was like, well, this is someone I obviously need to know forever. [00:08:30] She just has one of the most dynamic personalities. She's so engaging. She just pulls you right in. And she asked me a question about, a dress I was wearing. It was from anthropology. And she was like, oh yeah, I have that dress. I think I have that in black. And you're, you wearing it in like a green. [00:08:45] And I was like, boy. Yes. [00:08:47] Danielle: Yes. It's like that scene in stepbrothers, it's like 1, 2, 3 anthropology. [00:08:51] Jeanine: Yes. Exactly. [00:08:52] Danielle: Exactly. And I [00:08:53] Jeanine: was like, oh, well, we're obviously besties. Yeah. Yeah. At the time, she was in the process of, quitting her nursing job. [00:09:02] Danielle: She said, [00:09:02] Jeanine: yes, I'm really, I think my last day is going to be August 31st, and that happens to be my son's birthday. [00:09:09] And she said, I'm just, I've been working so hard, I making this change. I'm going to start my own company. And I just, I've needed this push for a long time. And I said, I am going to text or call you on August 31st and find out how it's going. And she was like, are you really? [00:09:27] And so there we are two months later. I texted her and I said, how's it going? Did you start your own company? Are you making this next move? And she was like, yes. And this is amazing that you remembered. And we just have been close ever since. So she's one of my absolute favorite people, and as the city moms has evolved, so has her role. [00:09:47] First as a member, then she was a member of our content team, which I'm sure we'll chat about here a little bit. And now she's, my business partner. [00:09:55] Danielle: Wow. That's so beautiful. I find that, women who work together, play together, raise kids alongside each other, it's like in the way that women can change hats in life. [00:10:08] They can do that within relationships. I've just seen really well, is it, I think that there's that old paradigm of which I've never really bought into, which is, check your feelings at the door or leave work at the door. It's like we're all one person. The day where we have all these different parts and that's so beautiful. [00:10:26] How. That sounds like this friendship has grown as well as the business growth. [00:10:30] Jeanine: Yes. [00:10:31] Absolutely. And, you've hinted at the Drew Barrymore Show which was an opportunity that came out in COVID complete surprise. [00:10:40] Danielle: Yeah. [00:10:40] Jeanine: To receive an email from the producers in set by, actually this was like end of July, 2021. [00:10:46] And they said, with COVID having really tampered down, a lot of the programming we're able to do for this show, we're not allowed to travel as much. We are launching a new kind of mini segment inside the show itself. We would love to chat with you about the one that we would like to do in Indianapolis. [00:11:02] We noticed that you're based there. Would you have any interest? And of course, Sarah was my first phone call because [00:11:08] I just like, ah, I need someone to scream with for a moment. Yeah. And because we had no idea or context what the segment specifically was about. And so I called and scream with her and then, immediately called the producers. [00:11:19] And they said, well, what we're looking to do is have two best friends in the city showcase the city together. And what makes your city unique? [00:11:28] Danielle: I mean, who better to do it? [00:11:30] Jeanine: And we were like, Indianapolis is such a incredible city and community to begin with. In just the 14 years that we've been here to see the growth that this area has had. [00:11:40] Just all of the changes downtown, all of these incredible like national events that they bring in, like this weekend being WNBA All Star Weekend. [00:11:49] The city has just shown up for this. They've had the final four. They've had US Olympics pre swim trials. This city knows how to put on, a really incredible display on a national level. [00:12:01] Danielle: Do you know, what you're making me think about is, so in the work I do in therapy, particularly when I'm working, with someone on their relationship, that the longer you've been with someone, or, and you could even, insert really any topic, a job, a place you live in this case, a relationship, it's easy to take for granted what you think. [00:12:23] About them and you lose access to maybe the curiosity and the wonder that allows you to continue to discover. I have lived in Indianapolis my entire life. You mentioned living here 14 years, but when I was preparing for this interview and seeing all the places that you're highlighting, there are places I have never been, and I've been here my whole entire life. [00:12:44] Just because I think I know, like this is where I live. Of course, I know there is so much that I don't know and we're talking about community and we're obviously highlighting City moms, but I think that there are takeaways that can be applied to so many walks of life, which is just when you think you know something, for sure. [00:13:02] Allow yourself a little bit more space. There's this little bit room for a little bit more wonder and curiosity. [00:13:09] Jeanine: Yeah, absolutely. I think that takes it back even to the origin of the city moms, in a big piece of that mission was I wanted to get out and explore this new city and community that we were in. [00:13:21] Just didn't have the roots quite yet to do that. And I wanted to do it alongside people [00:13:25] as opposed to on my own. And, we're talking about all these big events that the city puts on. But the other beautiful thing is that the real fabric of the city lives in its people and those that are here, we see so many that are coming in from other communities. [00:13:41] We see a lot like you that have lived here for forever. But there's such an incredible mix of people in this city that really make it as special as it is. And I love that. [00:13:51] Danielle: Thank you that's such a great response. And your love for the city is so felt. And I, I'm curious about when you're in your content, which by the way, for any, everyone listening, everything is linked in the show notes, all the social media platforms, city moms, where you can join the wait list for their membership program. [00:14:09] All of that is accessible to you in the show notes. So press pause, sign up, follow all the things and then come back. 'Cause the other thing I love about your content is you layer in a lot of humor and, even though it's not maybe spoken this way, there's this quality of, yeah, girl, I've been like, this is messy. [00:14:28] And I'm also wiping up my own mess. I also have coffee stains. I also have food in my teeth. Can we just laugh at the ridiculousness of how hard this is sometimes? And I'm curious about how intentional is it? [00:14:39] Are there like pillars that you try to hit when you put content out? Like it must hit these notes and if so, I wanna know what they are. [00:14:47] Jeanine: Yeah, we really do because I think you're absolutely right for us. And I'll just share a little bit behind the scenes for the city moms, in terms of the tone and voice that we are always after in virtually every piece of our content. [00:14:59] I think this also comes out of my marketing and advertising background, but, the voice and the tone in the brand that we are always aspiring to be. Is your best friend growing up and your best friend growing up was the person you confided everything to Similar to me, screaming at Sarah about Drew Barrymore. [00:15:18] This is the pers there's your first call, that's your first call, your first text. But your best friend's sister, her older sister growing up was the coolest girl that you ever met. She was the girl that had the full pull out posters on her wall. She had the Dr. Pepper lip smackers, she was watching the Hills, and she was the girl that you're like, I wanna be her when I grow up. [00:15:40] She's the person that is just a few steps ahead from where you are , in your current life. [00:15:45] Danielle: Yeah. [00:15:45] Jeanine: stage. And you are constantly keeping an eye on her. That voice, that older sister is the one that we always aspire our city moms brand to be. Because we have been there, we have sat in those shoes. We have experienced a lot of the mess. [00:16:00] But that doesn't mean that we are completely. Removed and away from it. It means that we are just a couple days ahead of where our city mom might be and all of our content will always ladder into that voice to say, yeah, we know it sucks 'cause we've been there. [00:16:17] For us, I think what's so critical when we're selecting what content we wanna put out, so the humor that you see in a lot of our Instagram content . Is something that really is a great way to be super relatable and just, share a lot of those similar moments. The one we posted yesterday, [00:16:33] but, in case anyone wants to go back, either the reel that we posted yesterday is from a creator named Sam, and she's sitting on her bed thinking and speaking aloud saying, why did I say that I was so busy before I had kids? What was I even doing before I was a mom? And I think all of us in motherhood and truly in adulthood [00:16:55] Danielle: mm-hmm. [00:16:56] Jeanine: Have had that moment where even like, what did I do with my time? Like, what on earth was I filling my hours with? [00:17:02] That to be able to have kind of those humorous moments, I think is really critical to making sure that we're connecting with our City mom followers and, prospective, members too. [00:17:14] Danielle: That type of humor makes you feel seen. Yes. It helps you feel seen. And I think some, especially someone who like will grab the shovel and help dig into like the pits of experience with clients, some having the levity. If there was ever a myth I wish I could bust about therapy and community, whether it's group or a community like city moms or any extension when you find that type of connection, yes, you can have like with a best friend or a best friend's older sister, you can have those moments where it may be a tear or two are shed, but when somebody sees you. [00:17:51] There's laughter that happens in every therapy session that either I've participated in my own therapy or have led somebody else through. There is something about the truth, especially the truth that you try so hard to avoid or that this is the one thing I just need to keep tucked in my drawer and never let anybody see. [00:18:07] But then you see somebody else has it and you're like, oh, , you have that dress too. Oh my God. Yes, [00:18:13] Jeanine: yes, yes. Absolutely. And I think too, what's, really critical in doing that is just knowing that you are not living a path that is completely unpaved. [00:18:25] It is so hard in. Those moments when you've had two hours of sleep. It's so hard in those moments when you're like, are we ever gonna get past this phase? But I think what brings so much comfort along the way is knowing that there are other women that have done that. [00:18:38] And for us, that's why it's so critical to have a community that is supportive of each other and really allows you to be in those vulnerable moments with others. [00:18:48] Danielle: What do you think attracts people to you and to your organization? [00:18:51] Because like anything that you're highlighting could also be Googled. Yeah. But there's a way that you offer it and there's a way that you present it that is, it simplifies. It's reliable. There's like this bubbly, sparkling champagne effervescence to it. It just makes it a little shinier. [00:19:09] Jeanine: That's such a good question. I don't, there's some days when I'm like, I have no idea. You're like, we've been doing this for so many years, what are we doing? I really think it's because, and to use your phrase, feeling seen. [00:19:20] And feeling seen and being a part of an club that is all, inclusive and allows everyone to be a part of it. Even in some of our content where we're sharing events that we might have put on for just our membership, so not even just our social media, following our, editorial readers, the people that see us and broadcast and tv, but we do have this community of members as well. [00:19:42] So when we put on these membership events, that are a little more exclusive, we love to share those out with the phrase, steal this idea, because then it becomes less, this is only available to these specific women or these specific members and make it a, this can be your idea too. So steal this idea. [00:20:02] We ordered pizza and we set up a really fun style party, or picnic set up in a park and we didn't invite kids. It was just moms and we gabbed for the entire evening and we had a blast. Yeah, and you should steal this idea too, because it doesn't need to just be ours. [00:20:19] Danielle: I can feel now how that falls. [00:20:20] So in line with your idea of, we wanna be your best friend's, big sister, because that's what they would do. Listen, just take the shirt. You can keep it. It doesn't fit me anymore. I love that. Not only is it generous, but it speaks to, I think with time and experience you realize, oh, there's always gonna be more for me. [00:20:36] So why gate keep it like there's always gonna be more. So you just have some of this. You can share some of this magic. That's so beautiful. Has your mission changed? Since you first started, has it grown or is it kind of the same? [00:20:48] Jeanine: It's evolved. I mean, initially the mission and the focus was always just to create this membership community. [00:20:55] And that would be it. And we just had this, community of women here in Indianapolis. The change happened and evolved in COVID because as everyone knows, COVID forced so many of us home. That ability to connect in person no longer existed. In COVID, we held for our membership a daily call at four o'clock on Zoom that allowed our members to just get on and just have people. [00:21:20] We had moms that were like, I've been in my backyard all day. We had moms that were like, I cannot play with Play-Doh anymore. I just need to have an adult to talk to. It started. With the realization that we couldn't be together in person any longer and we needed to make a shift. [00:21:37] And in making that shift, what we found was that our brand exploded nationally. So it went from we are moms in Indianapolis, to, we are moms that everyone across the nation can now connect with because we are all living the same life together. And it never slowed down. So when we look at the breakout of our following in our audience right now, about 30% of that is in the Midwest and very quickly growing. [00:22:03] But the other pockets are New York. Texas, California. And, it just is such an incredible realization that, what started as this very local idea became a steal. This idea, let's all do this. [00:22:17] And on a much bigger scale. So, now we have this wonderful platform. Our number one driver is certainly Instagram because that's where we, I mean, as almost all women in our age group. [00:22:30] Yeah. We live, we love it. Yeah. So Instagram's kind of our number one. A channel, I would say our second is, broadcast tv. [00:22:38] Danielle: Mm-hmm. [00:22:39] Jeanine: So in COVID, a lot of broadcast stations around the country, also had to shift to a Zoom model and Yep. Desperately needed content. and started reaching out to us because we provided a lot of lifestyle content. [00:22:51] The here tips for keeping your kids, safe in the new COVID world. Here are tips for planning kids being at home during back to school. And it, we grew from that and we are now in nine different TV broadcast markets around the Midwest. [00:23:04] Danielle: Wow. [00:23:05] Jeanine: In addition to segments we do across the country. [00:23:07] Danielle: Those segments. I mean, not only are they, fun to look at, but they also provide great information. So when everybody listening goes to city moms.org, you'll be able to see all the media outlets that they've been on. [00:23:19] All those clips are saved there. It's like in this beautiful little library bank that you can watch. So it sounds like it's changed, it's grown rapidly. Beyond, or I would say even within the container of the community that you've created in Indianapolis, there's also a growing community for the business itself. [00:23:35] There's many direct reports and people who are working within the city moms organization, and also supporting in other ways. So I'm curious, just from a business owner standpoint, how has that, 'cause that, as your community expanded, it's also like the call's coming from within the house, there's growth happening inside too. [00:23:53] What has that been like? [00:23:55] Jeanine: It's been incredible. , Because again, we really thought that, in initially creating this community, we were going to live as a micro kind of nano events community would probably be the best way to put it. Or we put on events for our members and we would just keep putting on events for members. [00:24:09] And we had our social channels to share out some of that information. But I thought for a long time that it was just gonna be isolated in this teeny circle. And now, we have a extremely popular blog. We have a digital editor, an entire writing staff that works under her. We have a completely female, based staff. [00:24:28] Every member on our team is female. We've got this digital editor writing staff under her. We have a content team separate from the writing staff. They are the ones that go out and gather a lot of the content that we put across social and broadcast. We have project management team for all of our brand sponsorships that we work on. [00:24:47] Our newest hire is a Pinterest expert, which has been so fun. Pinterest is one of those sleeper cells that, not a lot of emphasis gets put on for lifestyle media brands, and we've decided to invest a person in that. She does a wonderful job at getting our editorial and our broadcast out in Pinterest. [00:25:06] And then, there's Sarah and I who provide leadership Sarah has been a co-partner now for, four months, or we're going into our fourth months together. So we're still figuring out those little funnels right now. We're just having fun, overlapping, and living everything together. [00:25:21] And where she was that first call, I made for the Drew Barrymore show, she's now my first call literally for everything. We've got this big event coming up on Saturday. We need to figure out, the backdrop we're gonna have behind that. [00:25:31] She called me yesterday and I said, Hey, work wife, because that's, we've definitely become for each other in addition to Best Friends. [00:25:38] Danielle: Yeah. Is it an instinct? Is it research? Is it a combination thereof of how you stay connected with what moms really need? Yeah. Is because , I'm a mom of littles. I have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old and almost 2-year-old. He'll be two later in August. And I, I know my experience, but you seem to have a really strong sense based on the way people are really connected to this community, of staying connected with what mothers specifically really need. And I'm curious how you stay current with that, or is it more that the needs really haven't changed? [00:26:15] Jeanine: No, I think that, for us, because we have such a large staff, [00:26:20] and for the most part, the majority of those women are mothers. [00:26:24] Danielle: Yeah. [00:26:24] Jeanine: All of us are living a different little phase of motherhood. [00:26:28] I have teens, Sarah has 12, 10, and eight. Our photographer Brittany has four and two just like you. So everyone is living in a different stage and I think not only do we have each other from our team perspective but because we have our membership community who is most certainly living all of this. [00:26:47] We are able to lean on their experiences in addition to our own. [00:26:52] And then, one of the biggest things that I really implore our team to do is listen and constantly listen about what city mom and we call our avatar is city mom. And, regardless, again, if she's a member or if she's a follower of our brand and another channel, we call her city mom. So I'm always pushing to listen to city mom, listen to where city mom is right now, what things are the hurdles in her life, what she's up against. [00:27:19] And listening is the most important thing because the last thing that I wanna do in managing and running a brand and spearheading a brand is to not listen and just assume. I think when I also talk about voice, one of the biggest things that, we've talked about as a team as well, is I'm hearing a lot of we [00:27:39] and I'm not hearing enough of you. And by that I mean. We can't come out and say, we know that you're so tired. We know that you're doing all of these things and say, you're telling us that you're tired. You're telling us that you need some space or you need some tips on this. And by making that switch in kind of that voice that helps city mom understand that we are listening, [00:28:02] Danielle: Ooh. [00:28:03] That is a, that's a really powerful language shift. And it's amazing how adjusting a word from a we to a u can really make something washed and vague to very specific and like straight to the heart. I think that there's something too. The language of clarifying what is a really a we what is a you and it speaks straight to the heart of what I think we want, which is to be seen. [00:28:30] There's something about your community that doesn't beat you over the head with messaging. That's one thing that I was really impressed with , is that you get the sense of the essence of what you're saying, but there's not like a slogan. But the sense of the community is so clear. [00:28:47] Jeanine: Yeah. [00:28:47] Danielle: Which I find really beautiful. [00:28:49] Jeanine: I appreciate that. I think, one of the things that we've forever wrestled with was, is really that idea of sales. [00:28:56] I am, I and my team has heard me say this a number of times. I've always been a bigger fan of storytelling over sales and, storytelling kind of an experience as opposed to, you should buy in today. Deadline is this day, you gotta get in now, join here. This is the link. Because we get sold on almost everything across our lives. [00:29:18] And it's, something as little as, the gym to making a donation to a school, your kid's school to just, everything else you can think of under the sun. To me, it's important to continue promoting the essence of a community that you belong to as opposed to an idea that you need to buy into with dollars. [00:29:37] And, that's one of the reasons that we transformed the city moms into a completely free membership. [00:29:43] That also came out of COVID and hearing a lot of city moms say, I have to make some concessions right now. We had to shut off Netflix. We're not doing our Netflix subscription anymore because we're just so worried about budget. [00:29:56] And, that 9 99 a month that we were initially charging for membership, I was like, no. Done. That's out. [00:30:03] Danielle: Never [00:30:03] Jeanine: We will never go back to a paid membership. It will always be free because it needs to be accessible to everyone. [00:30:10] Danielle: So taking away a paid membership that sure, that money was budgeted and allocated for you to operate what you do, it sounded like it was absolutely the right call for your community and your business, but how did you know that that would work? [00:30:26] Or did you [00:30:27] Jeanine: It didn't. No. For a little bit it didn't work, and I'll say that because I think. A lot of us are parts of, Facebook communities that are very, spirited, maybe in some ways that, bring a lot of entertainment. And we were nervous that that would essentially be the transformation that we would undergo. [00:30:47] But, we have all members incoming. Agree to specific member guidelines. And, the number one guideline that is in there is every mom, parents in her own perfect way. And we use that specific language because, in some of similar to a lot of things that we've talked about, the fact is we're all doing our absolute best that we can. And you need to be able to have some space held for you to do that. [00:31:13] Rather than us identify our community based on your specific parenting model, we said, Hey, everyone is welcome here and we're going to honor you for being the parent that you are because we are all parenting in our own perfect way. [00:31:26] Danielle: Yeah. And nobody knows. Yes. No one has any, nobody knows. [00:31:31] That's always the gift of captain Hindsight, who comes in after a crisis and it's what should have happened? It's you know what studies are showing now. You're like, where were you before? I, I, so you talked about, advertising and with all of the products and content and methodologies that are targeted to parents, but more specifically moms, what are the values that you look for when you're filtering through? Who do you partner with? Who do you highlight? Who do you say yes to? Like, what's the value that you're really looking to offer? [00:32:02] Jeanine: I'm so glad you're asking that because, I think the space that we sit in. We often are, seeing a lot of influencers and content creators that they are really working hard to grow their brand and do that by signing with any partner that they can. And you find that there can be a real, I don't wanna say a moral gap because again, I'm just coming off saying everyone parents their own perfect way. [00:32:25] So everyone pulls content and creates content in their own perfect way. But, in, looking and evaluating the partners that we wanna work with, it's really critical to us that they offer a strong, supportive, product or experience for our members and for our followers. We do a lot of partnership with tourism, with attractions, that offer something for you to really be highlighted as the queen of your family. [00:32:51] 'cause you're like, Hey. We're gonna go to Nashville for the weekend, and I've been able to put together a whole itinerary, thanks to the city moms maybe tipping me off about a couple things. But now I've gone out and sourced this great itinerary, or I have been able to enhance our nursery because we found this one product that the city moms recommended. [00:33:09] All of that to say it's really important to us. We spend a lot of time vetting the products that we suggest we spend a lot of time working with or having conversations with the brands that we bring in. That's never just a, Hey, we want to, compensate you X and you guys promote us, and we'll be like, okay, perfect. [00:33:25] There's a lot of time that we spend really making sure that is going to make a lot of sense. In fact, one of my favorite things to say is, no, Sarah will tell everyone this. [00:33:33] Danielle: Tell me more about that. [00:33:34] Jeanine: Yes. Just did this yesterday. I love when we are being, approached by a particular brand or a client or prospective partner. [00:33:41] And I love going through that vetting process and saying, you know what? We spent some time looked into this and this isn't gonna work for us. Case in point, the brand I turned down yesterday is something that we actually use a lot. Sarah and I are big fans of a couple of their products. [00:33:57] Danielle: Mm-hmm. [00:33:58] Jeanine: And they approached us about a new launch they're doing and said, we would love to ship you, two of the new products, but we want all of this content, you need to send it to us for review. [00:34:08] You can only post on the dates that we want. You need to release it all to us that we can use it for our future advertising. By the way, the cost of the products that we're sending you in total is $300. And, the amount of media that was gonna be attached to that from our side was about $5,000. [00:34:26] We have a staff I need to pay, we have a team that, relies on us. We have a full following that relies on us to make sure that we're being authentic in what we are bringing forward. I talked to Sarah about it a little bit and I said, I'm gonna tell them no. And I'm gonna say there's a big value gap here. [00:34:41] Not just from the official bottom line kind of payment side of this, but also because I never wanna put someone into a brand consideration when that brand's not considering them. Just considering their own needs and their own drivers. [00:34:56] Danielle: Oh, that's so strong. And not an answer I expected, but when I so appreciated on a personal level, a professional level. [00:35:04] I don't know, if you've ever done Myers-Briggs, it's a test that Oh yeah. There's so many beautiful like personality assessment profiles, but I'm an extroverted, intuitive feeler perceiver, so I'm all the, ooey, gooey side, the mussies. And, when I see people who maybe from the outside seem to have a very discerning methodology for how they make decisions. [00:35:23] I find that so appealing because I'm such a heart led gut check, first kind of person, I don't always know why it's a yes or a no yet. It's like I feel it first, and then it works its way up into my brain and then whatever reasoning is sort of filtered through will come from that. [00:35:41] But I love that you saw value in yourself, how you believed in the value of what you offer, and you also saw the gap in representing that product or that brand, that didn't fully appreciate the value you were. I just, I love that answer so much. I'll be thinking about that after this, so thank you. [00:36:01] Jeanine: Yes, absolutely. [00:36:02] Danielle: Absolutely. You have a new membership experience starting. [00:36:05] We do very, very soon. This episode, I believe, will be being released mid-August, so, we could safely say it's live, what do you want people to know about what's coming and as far as what you can say, what do you want people to know so that if they wanna participate, get involved, they can. [00:36:23] Jeanine: So our new city moms membership is, officially launching to our, we will be, rolling it out to our existing members starting August 1st, and then it will be available to everyone starting, early September. [00:36:34] Danielle: Awesome. [00:36:36] Jeanine: So we are shifting into a different platform than we have used previously. It's called Circle and it's a wonderful space where we not only can have our full national city mom community, you're gonna find chat groups where you can connect with other city moms across the country there, because, me having like toddler woes in Indianapolis is no different from something having toddler woes in Seattle, Washington. [00:37:01] So why shouldn't you have access to that mom and her, lines of recommendation and such. So we'll have these national chat groups. We also have an opportunity, we'll be doing a lot of lives inside the community that are member exclusive, that we can connect you to some of these, brands and partners that we work with. [00:37:17] And then we are doing nano communities inside of that so that you can hyper connect with women inside your own city. So Indianapolis obviously will be our first big pilot there, but we have Dallas and Cincinnati that are also existing inside, that nano community area. And we have, three other cities that we think are going to be quickly following in 2026 as well. [00:37:40] Danielle: That's so incredible. Congratulations. It sounds like your own city mom social network. Yes. Yes, it totally is. I'm excited for everybody who's an existing member to get to benefit from that. And then the new members who continue to join to get involved in that. [00:37:55] That's incredible. [00:37:57] Jeanine: Thank you. Yeah, it's been one of Sarah's biggest passion projects as she's been getting her feet wet and she's done an incredible job with it. The other really exciting benefit is there are perks, not only for our national members, but then in your hyper local communities too. [00:38:11] So, here in Indianapolis, we've got some great perks with, the Ile Jordan Museum, with the Children's Museum, even dry bar, face Foundry, 'cause we need space for us too, all of those exclusive perks will be part of that too. [00:38:25] Danielle: Beautiful. So not just stuff for the family, but also like ways for moms to take care of themselves too. Exactly. Gorgeous. Yes. Well, Janine, I would be remiss if I signed off without asking you about your, don't cut your own bangs moment because I, it is good. So if you are good taking it away, I would love to hear [00:38:43] Jeanine: yeah. I just wanna tell you, I love this so much. I've listened to so many of your other podcasts and these are the moments I just feel like really are the ones that sit with me the most so I'm so thrilled that you have this as kind of just, that final vehicle to the podcast content. [00:38:59] But mine's a little different because there is, a little sadness tied to it, but it brings a great lesson. [00:39:05] Danielle: Yeah. [00:39:05] Jeanine: So I had mentioned that I worked in advertising for 10 years. I worked on the agency side and I was working in Detroit at the time. And I had a newborn. My daughter was a newborn, and then I had my son who was three years old at the time, and my client was based out of Germany. [00:39:25] It's a very large grocery chain that happens to be based in Germany and they have a lot of outputs here in the US And at the time, we were all going through just a horrible recession in the world. And I was working about 60 to 70 hours a week. Advertising is one of those, especially on agency side. [00:39:44] It's one of those industries. It is go, go, go. And it is never stopping. My husband also works in advertising. It's actually how we met. He at the time was doing about 90 hours a week. We never saw each other, we rarely saw the kids. So my day normally started around 3:00 AM because that's when the German, office was open. [00:40:03] And it normally coincided with the time I was feeding my newborn in the middle of the night. So I would have my phone with me, feeding her, scrolling through email and catching up with the German team, put her back to sleep. Then, I would get up around six when my toddler was awake and finally get the two of them off to daycare. [00:40:18] And I made the decision, which a male boss of mine later told me was selfish to go work out at a gym that was halfway between daycare and, work every day. So I didn't get into the office until around 8 45. Technically our office started at nine. I would work absolutely all day and then race out of my office at 5 51 because if I could leave at 5 51, I could literally run down the street to our parking garage, get in my car, drive as fast as I could at daycare and be there before the seven minute grace period was over. [00:40:50] Danielle: You had it down to the minute? [00:40:52] Jeanine: Down to the minute and. It was coming at a time where it was just, I was so burnt out. My husband was so burnt out this one day I got to daycare. My kids were always the final ones getting picked up. And I had a phrase for my toddler at the time where I'd always say, mommy always comes back. [00:41:11] I would say that to him every morning when I dropped him off. And I ran into daycare this day and my son was crying. I could hear him in the toddler room. So I grabbed the newborn. She was already in her carrier. And then I went in to pick him up and he's crying. And I said, honey, I'm here. [00:41:26] And I got down and gave him a hug. And I said, sweetie, what do I always say? Mommy always comes, Ooh, this makes me tear up. Even think about all this years later. And he goes Last, mommy always comes last. And that was the most soul crushing thing I had ever heard in my life. And I cried the entire way home. [00:41:47] Danielle: Mm-hmm. [00:41:48] Jeanine: And we put the kids down to bed after dinner and after their bath, and I turned to my husband, I said, we cannot do this anymore. I'm done. We're done. We can't keep this schedule going. This is just, this is not gonna sustain us anymore. And we made the decision that night that was the end of this work experience for us. [00:42:08] And, we immediately put resumes and feelers out and that is what made, the transition to Indianapolis possible. It took months, but we eventually found ourselves here and it was the best decision that we ever made. [00:42:21] And what it all came down to was in my don't cut your own bangs moment, was it is okay to say no. It is okay to take that stop. And is it okay to invest in yourself and your family if that's what really matters to you? I think maybe that's what the critical note is. It's okay to invest what matters to you. [00:42:39] To me, that has always been the moment that I have seen as a turning point and, has really been probably the most critical thing for me. [00:42:48] Danielle: Thank you so much for that story that my whole body, it was waves and waves went through, with that and you, when you said it earlier in the interview, but I can really feel the truth of that in a different way. [00:43:05] That you love saying no. Yeah, because I think what I hear in that is it's a fully embodied no is also a yes to something else. [00:43:17] Jeanine: Yes, [00:43:18] Danielle: it is its own. Yes. Like I'm saying no to this offer to position your brand. And I'm saying yes to my integrity. I'm saying no to the needs and the demands that this company and this industry has for me and my life. [00:43:35] And I'm saying yes to my son. Yeah, my infant, like I'm saying yes to me. Oh, I, that reminded me, I hadn't thought of this in so long, but it brought me back to when I. Made the decision to start my, when my husband and I made the decision to start to try to get pregnant, the journey was, knowing what I know now, far less complicated than it is for many. [00:44:01] But it didn't happen the way I thought it would. And that is almost always where suffering comes from me. When there's an unmet expectation and I could, you're taught your whole life. It's like if you look at a penis or sit on a toilet seat wrong you never know how you're gonna get pregnant. So when you first start trying it like, what do you mean it didn't happen right away? What do you mean? My first pregnancy I was a new-ish therapist. I think I had been practicing for, I'm gonna say two and a half, two and a half-ish years, three, maybe three. [00:44:28] But I had, the process of going back to grad school, finding I didn't have the credits I needed to even qualify to apply to the grad program. All of this work and effort. It was like once I set my sights on, I think this is something I want for myself, there was almost immediately after, oh my God. [00:44:46] But I figured that out so late in life and I gotta go, go, go, go, go. So I burnt myself to a crisp getting through all of the hoops I needed to get through to do the job. And I didn't realize the grind on my body, on my mind, on my life. I just didn't see it. I joked that it felt like the road runner and coyote running off the cliff and you didn't realize you were over the cliff until you looked down and my moment of looking down and falling was when I lost that first pregnancy. [00:45:14] And, I don't blame myself for it. It's not that. But there was a clarity in the grief and I think the grief I felt in my own body. Yeah. Your son spoke his truth to you. I felt like my body was, the grief in my body was revealing a truth to me that I wasn't willing to see, which was [00:45:36] there's no room for me in this life that I've built and I have to cut back. And it brought up like being a good girl, being a strong woman, being a strong feminist, being a diligent employee, being reliable, all of these roles and these external things that I was chasing in the pursuit of being really good at my job. [00:45:58] Mm-hmm. That loss was just, oh, actually none of this matters as much as I thought it did. Not that it doesn't matter, but it didn't matter because I thought it did and my hours cut dramatically back and it didn't work for the practice that I was working for before the hours that I would be willing to do. [00:46:18] But then I realized with my husband's support that, oh, I actually can go out on my own. And life has unfolded. It wasn't like magically overnight any more than city moms was created magically, overnight. But it got you to Indianapolis. Mm-hmm. It's like the breadcrumb trail that you were following to freedom led you to something so beautiful that you probably couldn't have imagined at that day at your son's daycare picking them up. [00:46:43] Jeanine: Absolutely. And I think, it's kind of the power of listening and that's one of the things I love so much about your podcast is being able to listen to the other stories that come from your guests and really, that you have the ability to tease out such a gift and clearly the path that you have followed has allowed you to be there too, in, that space of, [00:47:05] beauty and it's just, it's wonderful. [00:47:08] Danielle: Thank you. Thank you, Janine. Thank you so much. I'm going to bring us to a close 'cause we can't get any better. That was so, great. I will definitely encourage, again, for everybody listening to please visit the show notes before you click back into your life and take your AirPods out or, get off of your walk or wherever you are in life. [00:47:29] Like to hop over the show notes, check out city moms, follow them on social media. They make it very easy to find what you need to know, so all the places you can follow them. [00:47:37] But thank you again. Thank you. Thank you Janine. And, [00:47:40] Jeanine: Thank you so much for having me. [00:47:42] ​ [00:47:42] ​ [00:47:44] ​ [00:48:52] ​ [00:50:11] Thank you so much for joining me in this week's episode of Don't Cut Your Own Bangs. I hope that you enjoyed listening because I thoroughly enjoyed making it. Before you hop away, please check out the show notes, everything that we mentioned here in this conversation, as well as links that you can stay connected with me. As well as everything needed to connect with city moms. Please remember to rate and review and subscribe to the podcast. It helps the podcast grow. It helps other people find this that could benefit from it too. Thank you so much for being here. [00:50:37] Your attention means the world, and I hope you continue to have a wonderful day.

A conversation with Marc Arnold. Find the video of this conversation at https://youtu.be/QO0FKYGxuz8

As Fed Chair Jerome Powell's term ends next year, our Global Chief Economist Seth Carpenter discusses the potential policy impact of a so-called “shadow Fed chair”.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist. And today – well, there's a topic that's stirring up a lot of speculation on Wall Street and in Washington. It's this idea of a Shadow Fed Chair. It's Monday, July 21, at 2 PM in New York. Let's start with the basics. Fed Chair Jerome Powell's term expires in May of next year. And look at any newspaper that covers the economy or markets, and you will see that President Trump has been critical of monetary policy under Chair Powell. Those facts have led to a flurry of questions: Who might succeed Chair Powell? When will we know? And—maybe most importantly—how should investors think about these implications? President Trump has been clear in his messaging: he wants the Fed to cut rates more aggressively. But even though it seems clear that there will be a new Chair in June of next year, market pricing suggests a policy rate just above 3 percent by the end of next year. That level is lower than the current Fed rate of 4.25 [percent] to 4.50 [percent], but not aggressively so. In fact, Morgan Stanley's base case is that the policy rate is going to be even a bit lower than market pricing suggests. So why this disconnect? First, although there are several names that have been floated by media sources, and the Secretary of the Treasury has said that a process to select the next Chair has begun, we really just don't know who Powell's successor would be. News reports suggest we will get a name by late summer though. Another key point, from my perspective, is even when Powell's term as Chair ends, the Fed's reaction function—which is to say how the Fed reacts to incoming economic data—well, it's probably not going to change overnight. The Federal Open Market Committee, or the FOMC, makes policy and that policy making is a group effort.  And that group dynamic tends to restrain sudden shifts in policy. So, even after Powell steps down, this internal dynamic could keep policy on a fairly steady course for a while. But some changes are surely coming. First, there's a vacancy on the Fed Board in January. And that seat could easily go to Powell's successor—before the Chair position officially changes.  In other words, we might see what people are calling a Shadow Chair, sitting on the FOMC, influencing policy from the inside.Would that matter to markets?Possibly. Especially if the successor is particularly vocal and signals a markedly different stance in policy.  But again, the same committee dynamics that should keep policy steady so far might limit any other immediate shifts. Even with an insider talking. As importantly, history suggests that political appointees often shed their past affiliations once they take office, focusing instead on the Fed's dual mandate: maximum sustainable employment and stable prices.But there are always quirky twists to most stories: Powell's seat on the Board doesn't actually expire when his term as Chair ends. Technically, he could stay on as a regular Board member—just like Michael Barr did after stepping down as the Vice Chair for Supervision. Now Powell hasn't commented on all this, so for now, it's just a thought experiment. But here's another thought experiment: the FOMC is technically a separate agency from the Board of Governors. Now, by tradition, the chair of the board is picked by the FOMC to be chair of the FOMC, but that's not required by law. In one version of the world, in theory, the committee could choose someone else. Would that happen?  Well, I think that's unlikely. In my experience, the Fed is an institution that has valued orthodoxy and continuity. But it's just a reminder that rules aren't always quite as rigid as they seem. And regardless, the Chair of the Fed always matters. While the FOMC votes on policy, the Chair sets the tone, frames the debate, and often guides where consensus ends up. And over time, as new appointees join the Board, the new Chair's influence will only grow. Even the selection of Reserve Bank Presidents is subject to a Board veto, and that would give the Chair indirect sway over the entire FOMC.Where does all of this leave us? For now, this Shadow Chair debate is more of a nuance than the primary narrative. We don't expect the Fed's reaction function to change between now and May. But beyond that, the range of outcomes starts to widen more and more and more.  Until then, I would say the bigger risk to our Fed forecast isn't politics. It's our forecast for the economy—and on that front we remain, as always, very humble. Well, thanks for listening. And if you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen; and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.