Podcasts about Twin Towers

Today we are releasing the full episode of "Testing MIT's DebunkBot". This was a premium episode, previously only available for our Patreons. Please consider supported us on Patreon for other exclusive episodes and benefits including early releases and ad-free content. Our members currently have access to the next 10 episodes of "The World According To Some" so join us and don't get left behind!https://www.patreon.com/somedarecallitconspiracy In today's "premium unleashed" episode, Brent Lee and Neil Sanders embarked on a deep dive to test a new AI chatbot called "DebunkBot" developed by MIT, which is touted to reduce conspiratorial beliefs by 20%.Our journey began with a discussion about the chatbot's capabilities and some initial expectations. As former conspiracists turned debunking enthusiasts, we were keen to explore its effectiveness from our unique vantage point. We simulated our past selves and presented DebunkBot with some of the prominent 9/11-related conspiracy theories, such as the controlled demolition theory, the NORAD war games, and the lack of CCTV footage at the Pentagon.The conversation with DebunkBot was enlightening. It provided detailed responses to each point we raised, explaining the structural collapse of the Twin Towers with insights on building construction and weight distribution, clarifying the routine nature of NORAD's war games and the ensuing initial confusion among responders, and delving into the technical limitations of the Pentagon's CCTV footage during the attack. The bot was well-equipped with official narratives backed by credible evidence from multiple lines of sources, such as physical plane components, eyewitness testimony, and flight data.Despite the solid responses, we identified several areas where DebunkBot fell short. The explanations, although factually sound, often lacked the depth required to sway deeply entrenched conspiracy theorists. The chatbot delivered answers that were too straightforward, potentially missing the layers of skepticism that seasoned conspiracy believers entertain. We observed that it could appear patronizing and insufficient for those ingrained in these beliefs.To enhance DebunkBot's effectiveness, we suggested a few improvements:1. **Deeper Engagement**: Incorporate more nuanced discussions that consider the various levels of skepticism and alternate narratives conspiracy theorists might hold.2. **Personalized Responses**: Tailor responses to align with the specific doubts or assumptions the questioning individual may harbor, bridging the gap between casual skepticism and deep-seated belief.3. **Interactive Evidence Presentation**: Use interactive elements to present evidence in a more compelling and engaging manner, such as visual aids or comparisons that directly counter alternate theories.4. **Audience Trust Building**: Develop strategies to build trust with users who inherently distrust official narratives, perhaps by showing behind-the-scenes transparency of how evidence is verified and vetted.5. **Expanded Fact-Checking Capabilities**: Ensure the bot can access a broader range of verifiable sources and provide real-time links to comprehensive, detailed explanations and rebuttals.6. **Tone and Approach Variation**: Offer different tones of responses, from formal to jokey, to make the interaction more relatable and less confrontational.Ultimately, our test of DebunkBot demonstrated that while it's a promising tool for debunking conspiracy theories with credible evidence, there is a significant need for adjustments to more effectively engage and persuade those deeply immersed in conspiracy thinking. As such, continued refinement and enhancing its capability to address both surface-level and deeply ingrained queries hold the key to its wider acceptance and success.Try DebunkBot yourself at https://www.debunkbot.com/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/some-dare-call-it-conspiracy--5932731/support.

We've all heard and read about search and rescue dogs. Most of us doubtless have an image in our mind of intrepid canines locating people lost in the woods or rescuing individuals trapped under piles of rubble. But what actually goes into canine search and rescue work? What does it entail and what is it like going out with your dog, hoping to find the best, but knowing you might encounter the worst? My guest today is retired canine search specialist Bob Deeds, who spent decades training and deploying with search and rescue dogs, beginning with his very first assignment—the ruins of the Twin Towers. He joined me on the show today to talk about his experiences in search and rescue work, the easiest and hardest parts of the job, and the importance and power of love. https://colleenpelar.com/148

Today, we will be spending the day on board a whole bunch of ships sharing a long and storied heritage. Sadly, we're going to spend most of our time on the one that crew members called “The Mobile Chernobyl” . On today's episode: we'll see what it feels like to survive something that peeled through six inch steel plates like taffy; in our safety segment, you'll hear the first use of the term “enriddlement”; and before we're done we'll boldly go where Starships sometimes explode. And if you were listening on Patreon, you would learn about a 2-million ton aircraft carrier made out of ice; you would hear the story of the early kamikaze pilot who caused hands down the most bizarre death in Australian Naval history; and you would learn how close we came to building the most unfathomably irresponsible and apocalyptic doomsday weapon ever conceived.I've wanted to do this episode for some time, and there is a very special surprise for Star Trek fans closer to the end, but not before we explore the lives and fates of every vessel over a span of about 500 years to carry the name Enterprise. No big whoop. If you find yourself asking, Star Trek? Why not Star Wars. Well, for one, the only “disasters” in Star Wars were the repeated explosions of the Death Star, but those were actually “acts of terrorism” – at least from the point of view of the victims of the explosions. The Death Stars were attacked in 1977 and 1983 in the same way the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City were attacked in 1993 and 2001. Both were ultimately destroyed by a small ragtag force of self-appointed rebels, each seeing themselves in a David role against an evil Goliath, each claiming victory by blowing up the bad guy's biggest piece of real estate, and both in a strategic aerial attack. So to recap, Star Wars always inevitably leads to offensive mixed metaphors that upset people unnecessarily. 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/doomsdayOn that note, if you are curious about Patreon, I created a quick video pitch on why it helps and why I say there is no show without you. Check it out at:Welcome to the Funeral Kazoo Patreon: Hope you Survive the ExperienceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/doomsday-history-s-most-dangerous-podcast--4866335/support.

 Clayton Morris is on a 9/11 Truth run! He's interviewed 9/11 Pilot Whistleblowers' Captain Dan Hanley; Int'l Center for 9/11 Justice's Ted Walter; Former Congressman Curt Weldon; Senator Ron Johnson, Firefighters Raul Angulo & Erik Lawyer, and now, RichardGage911 — all on the formerly taboo 9/11 truth subject.  We thank each of you who contributed to our successful fundraising campaign to hire a top PR consultant to get us out there. And it's working!! We got on Jimmy Dore with 345K Rumble subscribers, garnered 44.6K views, and got 923 thumbs-up! Now, here on Redacted, which has 2.7M YouTube subscribers, we have already reached 160K views with 13K thumbs up and 3K very positive comments — all in one day! The truth of 9/11 is finally Turning the Tide!And on Rumble, Redacted has 614K followers and the RG911 interview/presentation reached 51K viewers — in a day!  I told Clayton when he invited us to his platform that this is a graphically intense set of information and that his audience will want to see ALL of these hundreds of powerful images and videos.  Here's how he introduced us on his platform:“What really brought down the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center, on 9/11? Was it airplanes as they've led us to believe, or was it actually a controlled demolition? I think all evidence now points to the truth, that it was in fact a controlled demolition of the main Twin Towers and Building 7.No one perhaps knows more about this in the world than our next guest. You are really, I think, at the center of all of the evidence that's been compiled to prove that these were controlled demolitions. And yes, this material is extremely important for everybody to be aware of, so thank you for bringing it and having the courage, for so long, to bring this material out in pieces to your audience.And yeah, without the help of yourself and others, helping us put all of this information together over the years, it used to be a really taboo topic. It used to be, ‘oh, 9/11 Truther, you're a conspiracy theorist.' And I think overwhelmingly, most Americans believe that something massively fishy happened on that day. They do not believe the official narrative.Can you share this with everyone, because what we're going to go through today is deep evidence? We're going to talk molten metal, we're going to talk specifics with these buildings. So buckle up! But before we get there, before I turn things over to Richard to walk us through all of this evidence, I might interject, but I'm going to be watching. So for the next 45 minutes, Richard is going to take us through a deep dive of exactly how this happened.”And then, I went off, and he just took it all in! Support the show

Ever wondered how lost director's cuts are uncovered in a studio archive? Or how deleted scenes and forgotten footage resurface decades later? In this episode, we go deep with film librarian Jeffrey Osmer from the Paramount Archives, the behind-the-scenes legend who helps bring hidden film history back to life.We reveal how the director's cut of William Friedkin's Jade was reconstructed, and we break down the painstaking process it took to finding each shot for Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director's Edition. Jeffrey even shares an emotional story behind restoring the Twin Towers to Zoolander!If you're a fan of film restoration, Star Trek, director's cuts, or you love hearing stories about how archivists rescue lost films, track down alternate versions, and rare footage, this episode is for you!Contact Us At:www.perfdamage.comEmail : perfdamagepodcast@gmail.comTwitter (X) : @perfdamageInstagram : @perf_damageLetterboxd : Perf DamageCheck Out our Youtube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/@PerfDamagePodcast

#167  - Unlocking the Surprising Roadblock to Your Healing: Revolutionary Insights Linking Trauma to Unresolved Illness with Miriam Jacobson​ What does unresolved trauma have to do with your nagging health symptoms? In this episode of Pretty Well, I sit down with Miriam Jacobson, a triple board-certified functional medicine dietitian and founder of Every Body Bliss. Miriam shares her story of losing her father in 9/11 to being poisoned by pollutants from the Twin Towers falling to surviving breast cancer.    Not only does she know firsthand how unresolved trauma resides in our body as a roadblock to healing, but her journey uniquely equips her to help others move forward in their health and live their best, most joyful lives.    Miriam integrates nutritional therapy, mindset coaching, somatic treatment, and breathwork to address the root causes of 'mystery symptoms' like gut problems, chronic fatigue, and mood imbalances that don't seem to get better even with all of the right steps. Find out why Miriam says “Rest is an action”.   We delve into the gut-brain connection, the impact of trauma on physical health, and why you deserve a fully personalized approach that can be a game changer in your wellness. If you've been spinning your wheels with conventional (and functional medicine) approaches and suspect there's more to the story, this conversation offers fresh insights and practical strategies to help you feel more alive in your body. LInks & Resources: Website: https://www.everybodybliss.com/about-miriam Social: https://www.instagram.com/everybodybliss/ https://www.facebook.com/everybodybliss1   Join the conversation: Share your thoughts with us on social media or in the comments! Subscribe, Share & Review: 

This week on the Grenade, we kick off 1989 WWF TV! It's Saturday Night's Main Event weekend, and we're just one week out from the Royal Rumble as everyone gets ready for the big PPV event! The Twin Towers of Akeem & The Big Boss Man are formed, Brutus Beefcake samples haircuts for the Outlaw, Big John Studd lifts some serious weights, Ted Dibiase hints at buying a higher number, trouble brews between Bobby Heenan & the Red Rooster, Macho Man trusts no one, what happens if the Rumble comes down to Ax vs. Smash(?), the Bushwhackers dine, the Warrior & Rick Rude ready for their Super Posedown, Hulk Hogan prepares for Akeem on SNME, Harley Race & Haku argue over who is the true King of the WWF, Brain Buters debut a new finisher, Rick Martel plans to prove the doctors wrong, plus so much more... and soundbites galore!If you're enjoying WrestleCopia and interested in helping us continue to grow, please Subscribe to our Patreon to help us pay the bills! https://www.patreon.com/wrestlecopiaOR GIFT SOMEONE A PATREON MEMBERSHIP, OR ASK THEM TO GIFT YOU ONE AT https://www.patreon.com/WrestleCopia/giftIncludes the $5 “All Access” Tier $9 "VIP Superfan" Tier, and "The ULLLTIMATE Tier", featuring our various VIDEO-CAST Series, Early Show Releases, our insanely detailed show notes (for the Grenade, Monday Warfare, Regional Rasslin, Puro Academy, & Retro Re-View), monthly DIGITAL DOWNLOADS for your viewing and reading pleasure, & more!HELP SUPPORT THE SELF-FUNDED WRESTLECOPIA BRAND, CONSIDER DONATING TO OUR PAYPALWRESTLECOPIA MERCHANDISE - https://www.teepublic.com/user/wrestlecopiaVisit the WrestleCopia Podcast Network https://wrestlecopia.comFollow WrestleCopia on “X” (Formerly Twitter) @RasslinGrenadeFollow & LIKE our FACEBOOK PAGE – https://www.facebook.com/RasslinGrenadeSubscribe to the WrestleCopia Youtube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/RasslinGrenade ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

HEADLINES:♦ Calo raises $39mln (SAR 146.27mln) in Series B extension♦ Saudi PIF named most valuable and fastest-growing sovereign wealth fund♦ Binghatti Unveils $570M Dubai Twin-Tower Project At Launch Event In Egypt♦ Pavel Durov Questioned by French Authorities Over Platform's Alleged Criminal Use

Neal grudgingly gives a dog some credit, issues a stark warning about video game points, considers the reported last words of Mother Teresa, prescribes a mental workout involving your bathroom window, recalls a true childhood tale of lucky bags and death at the sweet shop and discusses predictable circus routes, a 1974 Twin Towers tightrope walk, winning the lottery at birth, poker faces on Star Trek, unwarranted pokers in the home, Peter Gabriel's Don't Give Up with Kate Bush, Metallica's post rehab documentary, the relative melodies of Guns 'n' Roses, first time parents at school gates, sports helmets, your post Covid return to the office, clock-in technique, blinkers for office workers, Queen's Was It All Worth It, why magicians use saws, biblical leprosy and more.  CONTACT THE SHOW - Visit IntoYourHead.ie/Contact ARCHIVES FEED: Oldest episodes are now on the archives feed. There's also a low bitrate edition - For all feeds and archives see IntoYourHead.ie/Archive. LICENSE: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 - Attribution: Neal O'Carroll - Far future humans can find hundreds more shows on Archive dot org.

Bleav Host Robert Land asks Rockets Forward Rodney McCray about playing with Hakeem, Michael Jordan, Darrell Griffith & Ralph Sampson, playing against Larry Bird, the John Lucas suspension & playing for Bill Fitch & Phil Jackson. He talks about the huge upset over Magic's Lakers & playing Phi Slama Jama in '83. (2:22) John Lucas Suspension (4:30) Drafting McCray over Drexler (8:30) Playing with Darrell Griffith (Dr. Dunkenstein) & for Louisville (9:40) Phi Slama Jama vs. Doctors of Dunk (10:45) 1st Year with Rockets & learning from vets (12:14) Twin Towers (14:14) Handling Drexler backlash (14:49) Origin of Freight Train Nickname (16:40) Guarding Alex English, Bernard King, Dr. J, Adrian Dantley (18:50) Beating Lakers in '86 (20:33) Ralph Sampson game winning shot in '86 (24:00) Friendship with Ralph & being drafted by Rockets (25:07) Playing with Hakeem (26:35) Losing to Supersonics in playoffs (27:37) Trying to Stop Larry Bird & Celts in '86 Finals (29:06) John Lucas drug problems & missed opportunity (32:55) Was Houston special? (34:10) Playing with Michael Jordan (37:15) Which Coach did he learn more from? Subscribe on Youtube, Spotify, Apple & iHeart X @HSTPodcast #hakeem #michaeljordan #larrybird

In this episode of The Crux True Survival Story Podcast, hosts Kaycee McIntosh and Julie Henningsen explore the harrowing survival stories from the South Tower during the 9/11 attacks. When United Airlines Flight 175 struck between floors 77-85, only one stairwell remained intact - Stairwell A. Faced with conflicting information and impossible choices, 18 people made the critical decision that saved their lives. The episode follows the remarkable stories of Brian Clark, who risked his own escape to save a trapped stranger, and Stanley Praimnath, who survived the plane's wing slicing through his office.  Kaycee and Julie examine how split-second decisions, leadership under pressure, and trusting your instincts can mean the difference between life and death. A powerful reminder that in our darkest moments, the choices we make and the compassion we show can change everything. 00:00 Welcome to the Crux True Survival Story Podcast 00:28 The Harrowing Tale of Stairwell A 02:01 Brian Clark: A Leader in Crisis 02:57 The Twin Towers: Engineering Marvels and Vulnerabilities 03:53 The First Impact: North Tower Hit 05:05 A Fatal Announcement in the South Tower 07:22 The Second Impact: South Tower Hit 12:13 The Critical Decision: Up or Down? 15:40 A Miraculous Rescue Amidst Chaos 18:37 Brian and Stanley's Harrowing Escape 19:43 Ron DCO's Fateful Decision 21:18 The Descent Through Stairwell A 24:04 Reaching the Ground Floor 26:10 The Collapse of the South Tower 27:37 Ron De Francesco's Miraculous Survival 29:34 The Aftermath and Psychological Impact 32:37 Lessons Learned from 9/11 35:20 The Power of Human Connection 37:36 Reflections and Final Thoughts   Email us! thecruxsurvival@gmail.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thecruxpodcast/ Get schooled by Julie in outdoor wilderness medicine! https://www.headwatersfieldmedicine.com/ References for Stairwell A Episode Primary Survivor Accounts Brian Clark (September 11 survivor) - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Clark_(September_11_survivor) Detailed account of Clark's escape, the 81st floor decision point, and rescue of Stanley Praimnath Stanley Praimnath - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Praimnath Account of seeing Flight 175 approaching, diving under desk, and rescue by Brian Clark Canadian last known person to escape World Trade Center on 9/11 - TBNewsWatch.com https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/canadian-last-known-person-to-escape-world-trade-center-on-911-8660497 Ron DiFrancesco's story as the last person to escape the South Tower Final survivor of south tower collapse struggles with scars of 9/11 - Yahoo News https://www.yahoo.com/news/final-survivor-of-south-tower-collapse-struggles-with-scars-of-9-11.html Ron DiFrancesco's post-9/11 trauma and recovery Official Documentation & Reports 9/11 Commission Report/Chapter 9 - Wikisource https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/9/11_Commission_Report/Chapter_9 Official government analysis of evacuations and emergency response Casualties of the September 11 attacks - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks Comprehensive data on casualties, survivors, and evacuation details A timeline of the tragic events that unfolded on Sept 11, 2001 - Fox News https://www.foxnews.com/us/september-11-2001-timeline-events Includes exact wording of "Building Two is secure" announcement Theta Chi Remembers: 9/11 Timeline https://www.thetachi.org/9-11-timeline Detailed timeline with specific announcement times and wording Aircraft and Technical Details United Airlines Flight 175 - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_175 Boeing 767 specifications, fuel capacity, impact speed, and hijacker details Collapse of the World Trade Center - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Technical details of impact zones, stairwell damage, and building collapse Boeing 767 - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_767 Aircraft specifications and technical details Building Construction & Design Construction of the World Trade Center - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_the_World_Trade_Center Tube-frame construction details, structural design, and stairwell layout How was the construction of the World Trade Center unique? - HowStuffWorks https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/world-trade-center-construction-unique.htm "Tube within a tube" design explanation and structural innovations World Trade Center (1973–2001) - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973–2001) Comprehensive building specifications, including 236 perimeter columns and 47 core columns The World Trade Center's Construction: 8 Surprising Facts - HISTORY https://www.history.com/articles/world-trade-center-twin-towers-construction-facts Revolutionary structural design and construction innovations Evacuation Analysis How the Design of the World Trade Center Claimed Lives on 9/11 - HISTORY https://www.history.com/articles/world-trade-center-stairwell-design-9-11 Analysis of stairwell design, evacuation challenges, and Stairwell A survival September 11: Escaping the South Tower and a Framework of Surviving an Infrastructure Disaster - HS Today https://www.hstoday.us/featured/september-11-escaping-the-south-tower-and-a-framework-of-surviving-an-infrastructure-disaster/ Kevin Dorrian's escape account and survival analysis 14 individuals survived the collapse of the north tower by taking shelter in Stairwell B - Fox News https://www.foxnews.com/us/stairwell-b-story-14-survivors-north-tower-9-11 Context on North Tower Stairwell B survivors for comparison Emergency Response & Aftermath Surviving in stairwell B: A Port Authority officer's story - Police1 https://www.police1.com/september-11/articles/surviving-in-stairwell-b-a-port-authority-officers-story-of-survival-after-steel-concrete-came-crashing-down-on-him-during-the-world-trade-centers-north-tower-collapse-WZGuq2qQBiN5HV1u/ Emergency responder perspective and rescue operations Timeline for United Airlines Flight 175 - NPR https://www.npr.org/2004/06/17/1962517/timeline-for-united-airlines-flight-175 Official timeline of Flight 175 hijacking and impact Documentaries Referenced BBC docudrama "9/11: The Twin Towers" (2006) Featured Brian Clark and Stanley Praimnath's story National Geographic "9/11: One Day in America" (2021) Documentary featuring multiple survivor accounts "United by 9/11" (2006) Documentary chronicling various survivor stories

From his roots in the military to his path into law enforcement, Will Jimeno shares how his parents' deep sense of patriotism shaped his commitment to serve. As the Twin Towers collapsed around him. Will was pinned under the rubble, trapped for hours, unsure if help would come. But his will to survive, his faith, and his unbreakable spirit became the keys to his miraculous rescue. Will takes us back to the chaos, destruction, and brotherhood among first responders on that fateful day. This gripping true crime and heroic survival story is not just about the horror of 9/11—it's about resilience, mental health, and the power of human connection. Will's story offers hope, inspiration, and a reminder of the strength of America's first responders.

In this electric episode, Brad Zerbo and Jaytriot take you on a guided tour of New York's punk revolution, from the grimy floorboards of CBGB to the thunderous rise of hardcore. They celebrate the Ramones' groundbreaking speed and raw down-picking that inspired Metallica's Kirk Hammett, while recounting personal stories of brushing shoulders with Joey and Johnny Ramone. The hosts spin tracks from Richard Hell, Television, Patti Smith, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Dead Boys, and the Dictators, showcasing how each band shaped punk's sound and look. Jay shares memories of CBGB shows in the late ‘90s and near visits to the Twin Towers days before 9/11, adding a poignant edge to the nostalgia. They wrap up with a nod to Agnostic Front and the hardcore scene that followed. From anecdotes about infamous CBGB bathrooms to the heartbreak of its closure, this episode is a loving tribute to a cultural movement that was loud, fast, and defiantly real.

If the American dream died in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, then who killed it? According to the crime novelist Terrence McCauley, the JFK assassination was carried out by organized crime. That's the heart of his new novel, Twilight Town, in which McCauley reexamines the JFK assassination in Dallas. But this wasn't Oliver Stone style CIA or shadowy government conspirators, pulling well-oiled strings from their deep state offices. Instead, McCauley argues it was something far more mundane yet chilling: a street-level contract hit executed by mob-connected criminals with intelligence ties. These were the same underworld figures who ran guns to Cuba, operated training camps for Bay of Pigs veterans, and had both the means and motive to eliminate a President they saw as soft on communism and hard on organized crime. In McCauley's vision, America's Camelot ended not through some grand operatic conspiracy, but through the banal efficiency of professional killers.1. The JFK Assassination Was a "Street Crime," Not a High-Level Government Plot "I approach it as the way I thought it was. And that is a contract hit and a street crime, which is ultimately what happened on the streets of Dallas that morning." McCauley argues the assassination was carried out by mob-connected criminals with intelligence ties, not CIA masterminds in smoke-filled rooms.2. Only a Small Group Knew the Full Plan "I think maybe 10 or 20 at the most who knew all the details and much fewer than that who knew exactly what was going to happen and when." McCauley believes the conspiracy was deliberately kept small, citing FBI recordings of Joseph Milteer who said such operations only work with minimal participants.3. Lee Harvey Oswald Didn't Pull the Trigger "I never was able to put a gun in Oswald's hands that day... I don't think he did. No, I think he was involved with the people who did." McCauley argues Oswald was connected to the plotters but wasn't the actual shooter, pointing to inconclusive gunpowder residue tests.4. The Assassination Marked "The End of American Innocence" "It was certainly the end of American innocence, where we thought we were always the good guys, where we were the liberators, and where we were one hope of the world against the ongoing threat of communism." McCauley sees November 22, 1963, as the moment America lost its post-WWII optimism.5. The Cover-Up Happened Because Intelligence Agencies Recognized Their Own Assets "The coverup happened because these organizations looked into it. They realized, well, so-and-so could have this off, and we worked with them for 10 years, let's back away from that." McCauley suggests the cover-up wasn't planned but emerged when agencies discovered their own connected operatives were involved.The American Dream has more lives than cats. It was supposed to have died in November 1963 in Dallas, then in 1968 with the assassinations of MLK and RFK, then in the Fall of Saigon, then at the Watergate Building, then at the Twin Towers on 9/11. And then, of course, there is Trump, who is supposed to have slain the American Dream not once but twice. And yet today, a couple of days before Independence Day, my sense is that the Dream is alive all over America. The promise of individual agency continues to inspire new generations of both native and immigrant Americans. JFK might be gone, but the Dream remains the defining quality of the American experience. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

On Sept. 11, 2001,

Series: Signs & GloryTitle: “Whose Voice Do You Trust in the Chaos?”Scripture: John 10:1-21Numbers 27:15-16Ezekiel 34:1-16Bottom line: Jesus, as the good shepherd, is the voice we should listen to and follow because he loves us personally, practically, and sacrificially.INTRODUCTIONCONTEXTSERMON OUTLINECONCLUSIONNOTESOUTLINESQUESTIONS TO CONSIDER DISCUSSION QUESTIONSMAIN REFERENCES USEDOpening prayer: Lord God, help us grow to be and do like Jesus, while abiding in him and leading others to do the same. INTRODUCTIONOur world is chaotic. Not only are there things happening beyond our control but seemingly beyond anyone's control.Where were you on 9/11? Talk about a day when we felt out of control.` Opening Story (recognizing a voice that brings calm in the noise)During 9/11, amid the smoke and confusion inside one of the Twin Towers, a group of people huddled together trying to figure out where to go. Some were frozen. Some were frantic. But one man—blind from birth—knew exactly what to do. His guide dog, Roselle, led him down 78 floors through darkness, crowds, and debris.Michael Hingson couldn't see a thing, but he listened intently to Roselle's steady movement. Later he said, “I had to trust the one who had always guided me before.” And that trust saved his life.In a world filled with competing voices—some loud, some deceptive—we need to know who to trust. In John 10, Jesus says there's a voice that can cut through all the noise. A voice that calls your name. A Shepherd who knows you and will lead you to life. But not all voices are safe. Not all gates lead to life. So how do we know which voice is worth following?Bottom line: Jesus, as the good shepherd, is the voice we should listen to and follow because he loves us personally, practically, and sacrificially.OUTLINETherefore, as his weak, vulnerable, needy, high-maintenance and wandering people, we listen to and follow the Good Shepherd by:I. Resting in his personal love, despite what he knows about us. (1-6)This knowledge is complete including our darkest secrets.This knoweldge is familiar. He calls us sheep because like sheep we areDefenselessDumbNeedy for helpProne to wanderHigh maintenanceII. Resting in his practical provision and protection. (7-10)He protects us in the day, when we stay near to him.He protects us in the night by guarding the door/gate.He abundantly provides for us as we stay near to him.All this in contrast to the shepherds in his day.III. Resting in his sacrificial love where he lays down his life for his people. (11-21)We see this in the cross as the ultimate expression of his love. cf. Romans 5:8We see this validated by the Father in the resurrection.We see this in contrast to the way of the world's leaders.We see this in contrast to how they treated the blind man healed.We do this for the world to see and respond by following us as we listen to and follow the good shepherd.CONCLUSIONBottom line: Jesus, as the good shepherd, is the voice we should listen to and follow because he loves us personally, practically, and sacrificially.“The Shepherd Who Stayed” (trust rooted in sacrificial love)In war zones, shepherds often flee with the threat of danger. But there's a story from Syria of a man who was both a literal shepherd and a village pastor. When ISIS forces were approaching, his friends begged him to flee. But he refused, saying, “If I leave, who will guide the people? If I run, what will they think of Christ?” He stayed—caring for the flock, sharing food, praying with them in secret. He was eventually killed. But his witness and courage led many to follow Christ. They said, “He was the one who showed us what God must be like.”That's what Jesus does in John 10—only greater. He's not a hired hand. He doesn't flee in danger. He runs toward it. And He lays down His life not just to protect His sheep, but to save them.So the question isn't just, “Do you believe He's the Good Shepherd?”The real question is: “Will you follow His voice for the rest of your life?”INVITATIONAs we prepare to come to the Lord's table, we've just heard the story of a shepherd who refused to flee—who stayed with his people even when it cost him everything.That's powerful. But Jesus, our Good Shepherd, goes even further. He didn't just risk His life—He gave it. He laid it down willingly so we could be saved, forgiven, and brought home.When we take the bread and the cup, we remember the Shepherd who stayed. The one who didn't abandon us in our weakness but met us in it. The one who didn't just die for the sheep but with us in mind, by name.So if you've heard His voice today—if you're trusting in Him—come. Rest in His personal, practical, and sacrificial love. Feed on His grace. And commit again to listen to his voice and follow Him… not just for a moment, but for a lifetime.What about you?Peter puts it all in perspective in his first sermon:““Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”” ‭‭Acts‬ ‭2‬:‭36‬-‭39‬ ‭NIV‬‬How do we respond? Answer 2 questions:Take out a card or piece of paper right now. Write down the answer to these questions: What is God saying to me right now?What am I going to do about it? Write this down on a sheet of paper. What I hear you saying, Lord, is ___________________.[my name] is going to believe/do __________________________________________________ as a result.Finally, share this with your Home or Mission group this week when you gather as a testimony about what God is doing in your life. You don't have to get too specific to give him praise.Lord's Supper, 1 Cor 11:23-26 is good passage.Also, say something like, "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." (past, present, and future)PrayNOTESOUTLINESee aboveNOTESModern-Day Shepherding ParallelTalk about how a shepherd today still knows sheep individually—calls them, corrects them, protects them.Sheep were kept in pens usually made of stone walls with one opening where a gatekeeper or shepherd would sleep in as the gate or door.Some pens were communal meaning that sheep from multiple shepherds would rest there in the night. This would create a problem in the morning of sorting out the sheep unless there were shepherds that the sheep recognized (their voice). He would then walk among them, calling them by name, and then leading them out into pasture the next day. Compare it to a good parent or mentor who sacrifices and leads with love.Voice RecognitionA baby knows her mother's voice.A dog knows it's master's voice and tone.C. The HirelingSomeone who's just doing a job vs. someone who's deeply invested. A substitute teacher vs. a lifelong educator who builds relationships.A hireling shepherd will run when the wolf shows up vs. a good shepherd that will defend the sheep even if it costs him his life.The Fence, door or the Gate?The gatekeeper is the one who sleeps in the opening to the pen so that no one can get in unless they go through him.QUESTIONS TO CONSIDERWhat do I want them to know? Why do I want them to know it?What do I want them to do?Why do I want them to do it?How do they do this?DISCUSSION QUESTIONSDiscovery Bible Study process: https://www.dbsguide.org/Read the passage together.Retell the story in your own words.Discovery the storyWhat does this story tell me about God?What does this story tell me about people?If this is really true, what should I do?What is God saying to you right now? (Write this down)What are you going to do about it? (Write this down)Who am I going to tell about this?Find our sermons, podcasts, discussion questions and notes at https://www.gracetoday.net/podcastAlternate Discussion Questions (by Jeff Vanderstelt): Based on this passage:Who is God?What has he done/is he doing/is he going to do?Who am I? (In light of 1 & 2)What do I do? (In light of who I am)How do I do it?Final Questions (Write this down)What is God saying to you right now? What are you going to do about it?MAIN REFERENCES USED“John,” by R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word Commentary, Edited by Kent HughesExalting Jesus in John, by Matt Carter & Josh WredbergThe Gospels & Epistles of John, FF BruceJohn, RC SproulJohn, KöstenbergerThe Gospel According to John, DA CarsonLet's Study John, Mark JohnstonThe Light Has Come, Leslie Newbigin (TLHC)The Visual Word, Patrick Schreiner (TVW)“Look at the Book” by John Piper (LATB)“The Bible Knowledge Commentary” by Walvoord, Zuck (BKC)“The Bible Exposition Commentary” by Warren Wiersbe (BEC)Thru The Bible with J. Vernon McGee (TTB)Outline Bible, D Willmington (OB)NIV Study Bible (NIVSB) https://www.biblica.com/resources/scholar-notes/niv-study-bible/Chronological Life Application Study Bible (NLT)ESV Study Bible (ESVSB) https://www.esv.orgThe Bible Project https://bibleproject.comNicky Gumbel bible reading plan app or via YouVersionClaude.aiChatGPT AIGrok AIPerplexity.aiGoogle Gemini AI

Some parts of America might be even more pagan than Christians think, and New York City is a great example of this. Today, the guys on CrossPolitic talk about the recent political victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York City. Mamdani is a socialist Muslim who is the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City this year. He wants to start government-run grocery stores, make bus rides fast and free, and raise the minimum wage to $30. Yikes. How did our country get here? In 2001, everyone would have been opposed to this. But now in 2025? We have forgotten the fire and smoke of the Twin Towers, our politicians want socialism, and our nation is flooded with idolatry. As Christians, what do we do next? Also, if you want your kids to thrive in this crazy world as godly men and women, you need to give them a solid, biblical education. This isn’t easy, but you’re not alone. We’ve decided to have our next conference on education so that you can prepare your kids to raise godly families, topple culture giants, and laugh at the darkness. Check out the Fight Laugh Feast Conference for this year at the link below! https://flfnetwork.com

Some parts of America might be even more pagan than Christians think, and New York City is a great example of this. Today, the guys on CrossPolitic talk about the recent political victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York City. Mamdani is a socialist Muslim who is the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City this year. He wants to start government-run grocery stores, make bus rides fast and free, and raise the minimum wage to $30. Yikes. How did our country get here? In 2001, everyone would have been opposed to this. But now in 2025? We have forgotten the fire and smoke of the Twin Towers, our politicians want socialism, and our nation is flooded with idolatry. As Christians, what do we do next? Also, if you want your kids to thrive in this crazy world as godly men and women, you need to give them a solid, biblical education. This isn’t easy, but you’re not alone. We’ve decided to have our next conference on education so that you can prepare your kids to raise godly families, topple culture giants, and laugh at the darkness. Check out the Fight Laugh Feast Conference for this year at the link below! https://flfnetwork.com

Some parts of America might be even more pagan than Christians think, and New York City is a great example of this. Today, the guys on CrossPolitic talk about the recent political victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York City. Mamdani is a socialist Muslim who is the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City this year. He wants to start government-run grocery stores, make bus rides fast and free, and raise the minimum wage to $30. Yikes. How did our country get here? In 2001, everyone would have been opposed to this. But now in 2025? We have forgotten the fire and smoke of the Twin Towers, our politicians want socialism, and our nation is flooded with idolatry. As Christians, what do we do next? Also, if you want your kids to thrive in this crazy world as godly men and women, you need to give them a solid, biblical education. This isn’t easy, but you’re not alone. We’ve decided to have our next conference on education so that you can prepare your kids to raise godly families, topple culture giants, and laugh at the darkness. Check out the Fight Laugh Feast Conference for this year at the link below! https://flfnetwork.com

Quaranteam – Book 1: Part 17 Andy has his interview for primetime. Based on a post by CorruptingPower, in 25 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.   It turned out that a dozen women all getting ready for television appearances was, in fact, a major operation. The master bathroom was large enough that four of the girls could use the mirror at the same time, but beyond that, they had to party up with "prep buddies," each making sure they were getting themselves ready as well as their prep buddy. Andy was, of course, ready long before anyone else was, even with Emily, Sarah, Ash and Niko sharing him in the shower. He left the four of them in there, although they emerged not long after, each running a hair dryer while they applied their make up and got into their outfits. He was glad to escape the bathroom as early as he did. The girls were in go mode now, and the last thing he wanted to do was get in anyone's way, so he took the time to prep the house. The house had a large empty room that seemed like it was meant to be used as a ballroom. They'd used it as their poker room on and off, but it was also just a nice place where lots of people could stand around and talk. It also had French windows opening into the garden, so the lighting of the room was excellent. Andy figured it would be the best place for the group interviews to take place. Katie and Nicolette helped him get enough chairs for everyone into the room, while Jenny was prepping a large lunch for all of them, a massive batch of jambalaya, so they would have a bit of leftovers in case the 60 Minutes crew arrived hungry. They were scheduled to arrive at one in the afternoon, and had asked them not to make plans into the evening, so clearly the interviews would take as long as they took. Nicolette had been doing cleaning a bit at a time for the last two weeks, so the only thing that really needed to get a major touch up was Andy's writing room, which the 60 Minutes people had asked to use for their one on one interviews, something he'd agreed to, although he was going to lock his laptop away before they arrived. He didn't imagine they'd want to steal his writing, but he was notoriously paranoid when it came to that sort of thing. The cats seemed extremely confused by all the hustle and bustle, but also seemed content to just rub up against the leg of whoever was closest, and follow people around when it seemed like they were going from one place to another. Andy also took time to check in with both Tala and Jade, making sure they doing okay and still on board with talking to 60 Minutes, something he was glad he did. Tala, as expected, was starting to feel the mental itch from having been primed the day before but not yet imprinted, though she was handling it far better than Sheridan had, even if she wasn't as far along with it. She said she'd never felt quite so sexually frustrated before, but that it was a great feeling to have, and that she enjoyed her body acting with wills and wants of its own. Jade had news for him as well. "I want you to imprint me as soon as you're done imprinting Tala, Andy," the bubbly blonde said to him. "And I want you to record it. Not for 60 Minutes, though, but for my father. He has tried to control me my entire life, and I'm just friggin' sick of it, so I want him to see that his dang control is broken, and that I'm giving that control to another man, a better man. So you can use my phone to make the video of it, and I don't care what it shows and what it doesn't, as long as he sees my face when I'm taking that orgasm, when I'm starting that imprinting process, so he knows that he can't push me around any more." She'd been talking with a sort of intensity that he'd never seen from her before, and he let her finish. When she stopped talking, it was almost as thought it dawned on her how forcefully she'd been lecturing him on what to do. "That's, that's okay, right?" "You're sure about this, Jade?" he said, taking her hand in his own. "I'm sure he's done some rough things over the years, but he's still your father, and you want to be careful not to do anything you'll come to regret." "The only thing I regret is being that asshole's daughter," she said, wrath in her voice. "I know it's a lot to ask, especially since I'll be sucking you off, which means that it'll be hard not to get your cock at least a little in the shot, but it's important to me, okay? I'm, I'm reclaiming a part of myself that bastard's taken from me. So you asked me earlier what I wanted, and that's what I want. And I want him to see it while I'm imprinting, so there's no way he can talk to me about it." He nodded. "Alright then. You can change your mind at any time between now and then, but if you don't, then that's what we'll do, just for your father, just at your request. Although, you probably also want to record a message for him to go along with it before hand, so he's not just randomly getting that video without any context." She bristled in mirth, nodding quickly. "Good point. I'll record that on my phone after lunch." "Or during the time they're doing one on one interviews with anyone else. I know they're planning on doing smaller interviews, one with Emily and Sarah and one with just me, but I don't know who else they're going to want to talk to." "If they want to talk to me, they can, and if the 49ers organization has a problem with it, well, the heck with them, I don't have to continue being a cheerleader for them anymore." "Give it some thought. You've still got time." By lunchtime, everyone was ready except for the staff, who'd gone to get themselves ready once lunch had been served. Nobody was sure if the 60 Minutes crew would want to talk to them, but Andy felt it best to make sure that anyone who was willing to have a conversation with Katie Couric was in a state where they could. Nicolette had said she didn't care one way or another, and while Katie wasn't thrilled about the idea of being interviewed, she agreed that if Katie Couric wanted to talk to the two of them, she and Jenny would make themselves available for it. Over the course of lunch, it was clear the girls were doing everything they could to keep Andy's mind off the interview, as the family got to know both Tala and Jade better, while Whitney was still in Nicolette's chambers, in the middle of the imprinting process, and Fiona and Moira were in the early stages of it in the master bedroom. Tala had decided that her first project, once she got her workshop set up in the poolhouse, was going to be to make Andy a puzzle desk of his very own, and once that idea had been voiced, all the girls had thoughts and ideas on things to incorporate, with Sarah filling in suggestions based on his books, and Aisling filling in suggestions based on his life. Niko thought it should also incorporate all the girls' names, so that he might have a better time remembering everyone, which made everybody laugh, simply because the family had indeed grown so large. They were just finishing cleaning up after lunch when the doorbell rang, and Andy's heart felt like it stopped just a little. Ash poked him with a smile. "It's just the media, babes," she teased. "You'll do fine. Go say hi." He headed up from the dining room and down to the front door, where Nicolette was standing in the doorway, greeting the visitors. Standing in the doorway was Katie Couric, one of the best known journalists in America, with a couple of crew members behind her. "Hey, Ms. Couric," he said to her as he approached. "Welcome to my home." He held out his hand and she seemed thankful for the normalcy of shaking hands. "Please, Mr. Rook, call me Katie," she said, "and thank you for inviting us for the interview. I know the President's office had something to do with it, but you could have said no if you didn't want to. Having a couple of famous faces like Miss Stevens and Miss Washington selling the new normal will help the general population of the nation make more sense out of this tragic new normal." "Well, I'll call you Katie if you'll call me Andy," he said. "How's your tour of New Eden been so far? Niko mentioned you did a short interview with her at the base, although you mostly just talked with Dr. Varma and my boy Phil." "You're friends with Mr. Marcos?" she said. "Is that how you got in here?" "Well, there's a story behind that. I can tell you now, but I suspect you'd rather get it down on camera. It's not all that long a story, nor is it really that interesting. I suspect Phil's story was a lot more engaging than mine will be." "Did you get your writing room all set up for our interview?" "I did," he said, "and we also set up our ballroom with chairs, so you can talk to all of us together first. I know Em and Sarah are willing to talk to you either in their little studio, or you can use my writing study instead. It's up to you." "I'll have my team take a look at both locations while we're getting set up in the ballroom. Is everyone in the house willing to take part in the interviews?" "Two of my partners have chosen not to take part, simply because they aren't sure how their employers would react to it, but everyone else in the house is willing to chat," he said, as he felt a hand sliding onto his shoulder. He turned around to see Lauren standing behind him. "Actually, Andy, Sheridan and I have decided we're going to do it anyway, and if the Niners or the people at Cirque have a problem with it, fuck'em, we'll sue their asses into the ground," the tall blonde Aussie told him. "If this is gonna be the new normal, pretendin' like it's not is just as bad as sayin' it ain't, so we'll be there." "You're sure, Lauren?" he asked her, smoothing his hand over her hip, knowing it usually soothed her nervous when she was wound up. She placed her hand over his and gave it a soft squeeze, smiling at him. "Yeh, 'sides I dunno how much of management's gone at this point already. You gambled with us, so let us have a turn at the plow fer a change." He leaned up and kissed her softly. "Well, I've known you long enough, hon, to know if your mind's made up, there's no point in trying to talk you out of it." Andy glanced back at Katie Couric, shrugging. "Guess you get your pick of the litter then." Behind her, the crew had started ferrying in lights, tripods and camera equipment. While Andy had thought he'd only seen two additional people at first, it turned out Katie Couric traveled with a crew of nine, and there had been a second and third S U V behind the van that he hadn't seen. It felt a little like his house was being invaded, but he did his best to not get in anyone's way, as Nicolette started to lead a producer away, to show her where both Andy's writing room and the actresses' little studio were located. "C'mon, I'll take you down to the ballroom, and we can get settled there," he said, starting to lead Katie and her two companions down the hallway. One of them, Geraldine Amato, was the unit's head producer, and the other, Poppy Delgato, was the lead camera woman. "Was your crew mostly women before the plague hit?" "Mostly," she said, "although I've got a couple of men in here as well, and thankfully, they've been given the treatment via their wives. My husband has been getting it through myself as well, for about a month now." "I'm a little surprised they let your whole crew into New Eden," he said, as they headed down the stairs to the lower level. "They've been fairly paranoid about letting people in, I've been told, so I imagine you had to quarantine for a little bit after you got here." "We did," she said, stopping to look at one of the promotional posters on the wall, this one in particular for "The Trouble With Werebears." She glanced over at him with that winning smile she loved flashing on the news regularly. "In fact, Geraldine here's now sharing my husband with me, because she didn't have anyone before hand, and needed someone she could count on to be around while doing her job." She reached up and tapped at the words 'New York Times Bestselling Author' on the poster. "It says here you're a bestselling author, but I have to admit that before preparing for this interview, I'd never heard of you." He shrugged with a little smile. "There's leagues of difference between a Bestselling Fiction author and a Bestselling Genre Fiction author, I'm afraid. When you're talking non genre, you're talking hundreds of thousands of copies, but for genre, well, drop a zero off there, so if you're not into urban fantasy, I won't take it as a slight. Jim Butcher, who's probably the most popular of us working in the field, only sold a couple hundred thousand copies for his most recent Dresden Files book, and that series has a huge following, far bigger than my little corner. Hell, I think the reason a publisher finally took a gamble on me was that I was playing in a similar wheelhouse and they were hoping to piggyback off his success." "E. F. Winston is a genre writer, but her books have sold in the hundreds of millions," Katie countered. "So clearly there are breakout stars." "Ah, but those are young adult books, and the teen fiction genre has a handful of crossover success that never seemed to roll over into other things in our genres," he sighed. "The Dagger Academy books were definitely science fiction, but you didn't see a spike in sales for people like John Scalzi or William Gibson when those books took off, did you? The same for those Harry Potter books. Sold by the truckload, and yet, did many of those kids go and read works from Roger Zelazny, Fred Saberhagen, Emma Bull, Terry Pratchett, Steven Brust, Simon R. Green or any of the other massively prolific fantasy masterminds we've had working for decades? No, we're not all that different than any other form of entertainment,  everyone's just hoping that they get one big bite from the apple at some point during their career." "But I heard they're making a movie based on your books?" "Well, when two high profile actresses are willing to sign onto a project, that goes a long way into pushing it out of Movie Hell," he laughed. "The option had been signed years before that, but once Sarah and Emily expressed interest in playing supporting roles, well, that got the whole thing into turnaround quite quickly. It's like the screenwriter William Goldman always said, 'Nobody in Hollywood knows anything.'" Andy shrugged a little bit as they entered the ballroom. "Besides, I figured you'd want to get all this out during the on camera interview." "Oh, we'll go over it again then, but it doesn't hurt to do a little pre camera screening, just so I know what kinds of things you're likely to say, so I can facilitate the conversation in moving in the right directions," she said. "You've been interviewed several times before. Hasn't anyone ever done that?" "Nope," he said, moving to sit in one of the chairs in the front row. "But then again, I've never been interviewed for television before." They'd originally set up the 17 chairs as one chair facing two rows of eight, but Geraldine started moving the two rows of eight into four staggered rows of four. "We'll bring in some risers, so we can get everyone into one big shot," Geraldine told Katie. Poppy nodded. "We'll need to set up four cameras in here," she said, as she started to help Geraldine block out the room. "One for the group shot, one for Katie, one for Andy and one to rove to whoever's answering questions in the group setting. We can use fixed cameras for the first three, and I'll manage the fourth. We'll have them all rolling all the time and you can just pick and choose what you want in the editing room." "How do you want to order them, Katie?" Geraldine asked her. "Well, Andy here in the front corner, then Niko, the woman we interviewed yesterday next to him. That'll be our link between the segments. Then Sarah and Emily next to her, because star power up front. Beyond that, we can figure it out." "I'd like to insist Aisling, my first partner, be up front with me," he said, just as Ash was walking into the room, along with Emily. "The balance might be a little weird," Poppy frowned. "No no," Geraldine, "we can make that work. We'll just do five in front and three in the top row, so we frame Andy in the center, with Niko and Aisling on one side, Emily and Sarah on the other." "Good," Katie said, "that reinforces the whole 'large family' front and forward as our first visual cue, so that the viewer has to confront it right away. Does that work for you?" she said, asking Andy his opinion for the first time. "That'll work," he replied. "You can even put the three staff at the back, since they're willing to be here for this, but aren't likely to volunteer much in the way of answers." "Jenny and Katie, er, Kate might not, Master," Nicolette said, entering the room with the rest of Katie Couric's crew in tow, "but I'm certainly planning on speaking my mind given a chance, because I don't want people to be given the wrong idea." "What's the wrong idea?" Katie asked, tilting her head just a little bit. "That we're here involuntarily, or that this isn't what we wanted, or, hell, even that Master Rook here wouldn't let us change if we wanted," the French maid teased. "You know if I had a nickel for every time he's sort of reminded me I don't have to call him Master, and I've had to remind him that I like calling him Master, well, I could enjoy a nice two week stay in the Bahamas, once it's opened up again. In fact, little secret, every time he reminds me of it lately, I've just gone out of my way to say it even more, so I can watch him blush." "I think you like watching him blush," Ash said, moving to close in around Andy. "Katie Couric," Andy said, "this is my first partner, Ash Blake, and I'm sure you've probably already met Emily Stevens." Katie made it a point to shake Ash's hand first. "A pleasure, Miss Blake." She then turned to Emily, taking the tiny blonde's hand and shaking it as well. "I've actually interviewed you before, Miss Stevens, although I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't remember. You seemed quite busy on that press junket, and I know they were just wheeling journalists in and out for you." "I keep a diary of anyone who's interviewing me, Ms. Couric," Em said, a wry grin on her face, "so I assure you, I remember the interview quite well. Any surprises we should be wary of?" "Oh, I've always got a few things planned to lighten up an interview," the journalist said, somewhat evasively. "It's not like I'm interviewing Vladimir Putin or anything. You're not going to have me murdered for a question you don't like." "Well," the Brit said, "I still wouldn't anger Sarah too much. She's, excitable, and prone to fits of exaggeration." "I'm fairly certain she's never poisoned anyone to win a role, Em," Andy said to her. Emily clicked her tongue in amusement. "Let's not be too hasty with that judgment, Andy. Anyway, shall I round everyone up and we can get started?" "Yes, I think my team will be ready to start in about twenty minutes, so if you can get everyone together, that would be excellent." By the time all the girls were in the ballroom, risers had been placed under the seats, the lights and sound were set up, a boom microphone used to cover the majority of the girls, although clip on mics were used for Katie and Andy. They also had a handheld microphone that the girls could pass around if anyone wanted to give a detailed answer. They were structured as had been discussed, with Niko and Aisling to Andy's left in the front row, and Emily and Sarah to his right. Behind them, Lauren, Taylor, Sheridan and Piper sat. The third row had Asha, Hannah, Tala and Jade. In the back row sat the staff, Kate (his Katie), Jenny and Nicolette. All of the fiancees were up front, and everyone else was sat in order of arrival, with the exception of the staff, who were at the back, at their own request. It felt right that Ash was on one side of him and Emily was on the other, as if the two of them wanted to be close in case he needed support. It wasn't until Andy saw it framed up in the monitor as they were showing Katie that it dawned on him just how big his household was growing, and even still, he knew there were already three more in the house not in this shot. He was always aware of how big his family was, but seeing everyone together in one single framing shot, it really drove the size of it home, and it felt huge. "Okay, Andy, let's start with how you telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got here." For the next few minutes, Andy gave the shortest possible version of his bio, how he'd moved to California a decade and a half ago, his writing for the Silicon Valley companies, as well as his novels, which transitioned nicely into him talking about how he got his vaunted level 5 status, regaling 60 Minutes with the story of how the guy who'd come to test them, Dave, had been a big fan and given he and his then roommate Eric level 5 status as a return gift for Andy having given him an advanced copy of his next novel. "I hope I'm not getting Dave in any trouble by telling that story," he finished. "No no, each member of the initial Bay Area team was given five level 5 statuses to give away as they saw fit," Katie Couric told him. "Most of them just gave them to friends or family, but Dr. David Straussman hadn't used any of his until he met you, and there were no rules on who he could or couldn't give them to, so that's fine." "Straussman," Andy repeated. "Huh. You know, I didn't even know his last name until right now. I hope he's doing okay." "He's doing quite well," Niko said. "I see him every so often wandering around the base." "So Andy," Katie said, bringing them back on task, "how did you fill out the form you were given with the testing process?" "Well," Andy said, "Dave stressed to us when he gave us the link that we should be honest, and to answer the questions knowing we wouldn't be judged for our responses. I don't actually remember a lot of it, because it was a very long questionnaire, like, ridiculously thorough. But I suppose what you're getting at is what key things do I remember answering." "Yes, that's what I'm asking." "There were definitely questions about my sexual preferences, like, a lot of those, but there were also basic demographic questions about what range of people I felt comfortable dating, was I into women, men or both, and how did I feel about polyamory." "Did that surprise you?" she asked him. "Sure, but not as much as I expect it probably shocked people back in the Midwest. It's not what I would call common place around here, but you see it mentioned often enough in people's online dating profiles that most people have at least some awareness of it here in the Bay." "And how did you answer the polyamory question?" "I actually put 'no preference,' but you have to remember, to some extent when this started, we thought this was all some temporary thing, and we certainly didn't know that the casualties to men in America were going to be as high as they were," Andy said, sighing a little bit, Ash taking his hand, squeezing it reassuringly. "Do you remember what ages you put that you would be comfortable with?" "The low end was set to 18, and I didn't adjust it, and I set the high end to 35. I suspected no one younger than their mid twenties would be interested in me, so the low end didn't really matter." "You can start to see how his mind works," Hannah teased, "and how he just misses things sometimes." That let the girls have a soft laugh, releasing a little bit of the tension. "Were there any things that you said were absolute deal breakers?" Katie asked. "Just two," Andy admitted. "Must not be allergic to cats, and must not smoke, although we ended up with someone who vapes." "And who is that?" "That'd be me," Sheridan said, "but I'm working on quitting, so, it's a stopgap on the way to that. And it's been much easier stepping down from that than it was stepping to that from smoking." "Who showed up first?" "Aisling showed up I think it was actually the very next day," Andy said. "I was a little surprised how quickly everything moved. Usually anything the government's managing is a total clusterfuck, but I think since we were basically right by the site where the treatment was developed, they were rushing it out in order to keep as many people safe as they could." "Aisling, let me ask you Aisling, was Andy the sort of man you dreamed about ending up with when you entered into the process?" "At first, my head was a little clouded, because the process when it started wasn't as refined as it is now, so when I met Andy, my mind was a little fogged up with lust, but he ticked all the boxes of what I wanted out of a man. He didn't look exactly like I expected him to, but yeah, within a couple of days, I knew I loved him pretty hard. Still do." "Would he have been the kind of person you would've gravitated to in a bar?" Katie asked her. "I would've thought he was cute, but I was horrible at dating, and only had a couple'a boyfriends before him, so I'm a bad judge of character for that sort of question." "How many of you would've approached Andy in a bar?" Katie asked the group of them. Andy chuckled, rolling his eyes. "Be honest." Sarah put her hand up immediately, and Tala raised her hand as well, as the rest of the group giggled a little bit. "As progressive as we all like to think we are, Katie," Niko said, "women still generally don't approach men in bars, so maybe that's more on us than saying anything about our tastes." "Sarah, I saw you put your hand up," Katie asked. "You're an Oscar nominated actress who's know worldwide. What about Andy would've made you approach him?" Over the next couple of minutes, Sarah and Emily related the story of how they'd attended one of Andy's Q&As at ComicCon in costume, so that nobody would recognize them, and talked about how she'd had a crush on him because of his writing for a long time, which Katie laughed about, and Andy was certain would make for good television. "So how many of you would say you're in love with Andy now?" she asked the group after Sarah finished her story. About half of women raised their hands, although several of the others looked like they were considering raising their hands. The front row all raised their hands, as expected, but Lauren and Piper also raised their hands, which surprised Andy a little. "So those of you who wouldn't say you're in love with him, how would you describe your relationship with him?" "Deep respect and affection, but not at the love stage, not yet anyway," Sheridan said. Most of the other girls seemed to nod and agree with that. "Why do you say 'not yet,' Sheridan?" "You have to keep in mind, Katie, a lot of us have only known Andy a few weeks right now," she said, leaning forward just a little bit. "We had to make probably the biggest choice of our lives, and we had to do it basically on a hunch. Our choices were to defer treatment and go on being afraid we were going to die, or take the treatment and get paired up with a man for the indefinite future. That's a hell of a gamble to ask of anyone." "Who's unhappy with the decision they made, raise your hand," Katie said, only to get no hands raised in response. "Everyone's happy being paired with Andy, maybe for the rest of your lives?" "Look, Ms. Couric," Hannah said. "You're going to find every one of us girls has a different story, a unique story, and each one of us came to where we are now on an entirely different path, m'kay? But we'll all tell you the same thing,  Andy's treated us with an immense amount of respect and affection, and he's made sure that nobody's doing anything they aren't comfortable with. Shit, he's even done stuff he's been a little uncomfortable with because it's made us feel more comfortable, and how many women can say that about their partner? So while a bunch of us aren't in love with him, yet, we all admire and respect how much he's gone out of his way to make sure we feel like we're part of a goddamn family, a good goddamn family." "Do you want to continue to grow the family, Andy?" "If you ask him," Em said, jumping in before he could respond, "he wanted to stop growing it a while ago." All the girls laughed at that. "But at this point, I think we're all doing what we can to stick together, and a lot of us girls wanted to protect our friends, to keep them safe, so we took turns presenting them all to Andy, trying to convince him to bring them into our home and into our family." "Everyone had someone they wanted to pitch?" Katie said, smiling at Andy. "That must have been overwhelming." "Not everyone wanted to pitch someone, but almost everyone," he said with a laugh. "And it was a lot of names and faces that were presented all at once. I said upfront, though, that I wasn't going to bring everyone on, and that there was only so much of me to go around. In the end, I think we mostly made it work to everyone's satisfaction." "So how many more people are coming?" "Well, we have three people who are in the imprinting process right now, and two more people arriving tomorrow, and if I have any say in the matter, that will absolutely, positively, definitively be the limit of women I can handle in my life," he chuckled. "And how much say do you actually have in that matter, Andy?" "Very little!" Emily joked, and all the girls laughed, as did Katie. "It would take a super compelling case for us to add, like, anyone else to the family past that," Sarah said, "but I think it's totally for the best that we never say never. Sometimes exceptions have to be made." "Like I told you yesterday, Katie," Niko said, "I think if Andy had total control of the matter, he would've probably put a hard limit in after myself, Ash and Lauren were in his life. He told me multiple times early on that he barely felt like he deserved one amazing woman, and at that point, he already had three, so it's been a growth process." "But this is the new normal now," Katie said. "Or at least it's going to be. Families with one man and several women, because so many men in the US have died. Raise your hand if you know a man who's lost their life to the plague here in the US." All the women raised their hands, and of course Andy had his raised as well. "How does that feel?" "I think we're all suffering from some degree of post traumatic stress disorder," Piper said. "The losses, they're too big for any of us to process, so we're sort of clinging to one another, holding on to the only family that we know for certain that we can protect." "Piper, you were actually supposed to have competed in the Olympics by now. How does that feel, knowing that when it starts up again next year, the US basically doesn't have almost any of their male athletes to compete?" "At this point, it's impossible for it to even make sense in my head any more, Katie," she sighed. "Most of the people I trained with have died over the last several months. A lot of my trainers died. I've lost colleagues, friends and family members. I don't even know where to start mourning, because there's so damn many people to mourn. I consider myself lucky that my sister's husband took everything seriously, and completely refused to leave the house this year since the word of the plague got out." "It's something we've talked about in here a bunch," Andy said. "And we sort of keep coming back to that famous Stalin quote. 'A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.' It's so many dead men that the mind can't even make sense of it. It's like 9/11, but if each of the Twin Towers was holding exclusively almost every man each of us knew and loved. My own brother died a few weeks back, and he was one of the kindest and most careful souls I know, but he ran out to help someone get their storm shutters up before a particular bad thunderstorm rolled through, and a few weeks later, he was just gone, almost overnight. It happened so fast, I didn't even hear about it until after he was already gone." "It's actually unproven that's a real Stalin quote," Tala said. "I read an article that said it was attributed to a French humorist." "Sure, but even if Stalin didn't say it," Andy said, "it's still pretty relevant here. It doesn't really matter who said it, it's the sentiment that's important. We're talking about a matter of scale, and the human mind's capacity to comprehend that scale. At the end of the day, that's a hell of a lot for anyone to handle. So we're all just doing our best." "Normally," Emily said, "when a friend or loved one dies, there is typically a funeral or a wake, a gathering of all that person's surviving circle coming together, to celebrate their passing and remember them, but we have been denied that, and it has made all their passings that much harder to process, somehow transformed them all into seeming less real, because our normal emotional milestones haven't happened along the way. We are adrift in our emotional morass." "That's true," Katie said. "We, as Americans, haven't had to confront all the deaths simply because we aren't allowed to go out and do so, and that somehow makes it feel less concrete." "It hits you every day," Jade said, "little by little. Lauren described it to me a few weeks ago as a slow motion car crash that we're all stuck in, and nobody can get out of." "So, Jade, I understand you're one of the newest arrivals here," Katie said. "Have you gone through the imprinting process yet?" "Not yet," she said. "Tala and I arrived yesterday, but we wanted to wait a little bit, to spend some time with Andy and his family, to makes sure that we would be happy getting melted into their pot. I'm happy to say we're both going to do it, but it's the kind of commitment you gotta be certain of, you know?" "Have you seen what the imprinting process is like?" "Um, yes?" she said, trying not to blush a little. "When we arrived yesterday, we had a third person with us, another woman who was joining the staff and faculty of the house, but not the family itself, a young woman named Whitney." "So, Andy, explain to me the difference between family and staff, and how you decide that." He immediately put his hands up, almost like he was at gunpoint. "First and foremost, I do not decide that," he laughed, and all the girls laughed with him. "When the military came and relocated us from our little condo and brought us here to New Eden, the house also came with three members of staff attached with it, all of whom I was told had been selected to mesh with me, and whose boxes I would tick as well." "That was the three of you in the back, Nicolette, Jenny and Kate, yes?" Katie asked. "We had all been told a bit about Andy before he arrived," Nicolette said, "and his answers to the questionnaire implied that he would eventually be willing to play into our tastes." "Eventually?" Katie asked. "Well, sure," Nicolette giggled. "I know the first few times I called him Master, it rattled his cage a little bit, but he eventually realized I liked saying it, and nobody was making me do it. One of the things that we girls all figured out early on was that just because Andy was okay with something didn't mean he had any real experience with it, so we would need to hand hold him a bit through it. So while Andy said he was okay with bondage and discipline stuff in his questionnaire, he didn't have any real practical experience in it. So we've found ways to teach him about that kind of thing without it ever feeling like we were lecturing to him. He sort of set that expectation up front when he told us communication was everything, and he couldn't have been more right." "And Kate? I hear that you and Jenny had a different experience," Katie asked. "Damn, uh? Andy?" Kate (his Katie) asked. "How real you want us to get here?" "We're not hiding anything," he chuckled, "so fire away." "So, uh, Katie," Kate coughed. "I'm actually a lesbian. Not a bisexual who mostly identifies as a lesbian, I mean straight up, hardcore, one hundred percent, unrepentant fully committed lesbian. And Jenny here is my wife, but she's bisexual." "Hi!" Jenny cheerily said with a wave. "When we signed up for this, we, ah, we were planning on hiding that from Andy, and I was simply going to fake it, and go along with the ruse, so that we could stay together, and we could still get the treatment, which, as you already know, takes both a female and a male component to work," she sighed. "So I, er, we lied, and claimed we were both bisexual. Since we were married, wherever we went, we were going to go together, and we figured we could just keep up that lie as long as we needed and make it work." "And what happened?" Katie asked. "Day two, I folded, before we'd even been imprinted," Jenny said with a shrug. "When we met him, Andy wasn't at all what any of us were expecting him to be, but I mean that in a really good way. It didn't feel right lying to him. We'd had a few days together before he showed up, the three of us, us two and Nicolette. We'd talked about it, and Nicolette volunteered to go first, so that if it didn't go well, my Katie and I could request to be moved elsewhere, since we were a little more particular than she was about how we got paired up." "What do you mean, you folded?" "I started talking to Andy, and, and it all just came tumbling out, how we were a little unsure, how my Katie wasn't really into men, and, I just felt like I had to tell him everything before we were committed to anything." "How did you react to that, Andy?" "I could tell they were afraid that I was going to be angry," Andy said, his tone as breezy and relaxed as he could keep it, "but I wasn't. Why would I be? I simply wanted to talk with them about how they wanted to handle it, because at that point, I knew a bit more about the physiological affects of the treatment than they did, so I wanted to prepare them for it, if they wanted to move forward." "Do you still consider yourself a lesbian, Kate?" Katie asked her. "Absolutely. I don't feel any sexual attraction to Andy what so ever," she said. "Now, with that said, I can also admit that I have received biochemically induced orgasms from him regularly as part of the treatment process, and I don't think that affects my sexual identity in any way. But Andy and I haven't ever had direct sex. He's offered, but he's also never pressured. I might take him up on it some day, to see if the chemical and neurological changes the treatment have made to me might compensate for my lack of sexual attraction to him, but then again, I may not. That's my decision, well, our decision, to make," she said, taking Jenny's hand in hers. "And nobody's going to tell me who and what I am. I get to decide that, and fuck anyone who says otherwise." "So if you haven't had direct sex with him, how are you getting what you need from him to keep your treatment managed? Go ahead and be as direct as you want, and we can bleep parts of it out if we need to, but I think they're just going to air it as we send it." "Well, to be frank about it, I don't ever actually fuck Andy, but that doesn't mean I don't swallow his semen. I do that around once a week, either directly from him, or second hand from my wife. I consider sucking his cock just to be another task around the house that needs doing now and again. No offense, Andy." He laughed, waving a hand in his air. "None taken, but you already know that." "And that's enough?" Katie asked. "Just swallowing semen, either directly or second hand?" Kate nodded. "It's fine. I haven't had any adverse side effects, and it's easy enough right before he's about to pop for him to point it elsewhere, or for Jenny and I to split it after he does pop. I'm never going to have an encounter with Andy without Jenny present, and she's always my focus, not him, because she's my wife, and he's just, my boss." "And everyone in the house is okay with that?" "This is the world we live in now," Lauren said. "Lotsa fellas used to get all hung up onna things that they did and didn't like, but who's got time for that anymore? Life's too short to hold onta old grudges, so if we can, we're all gonna take it on the chin and just keep movin' on together." "Now Lauren, I understand you're also a lesbian." "Nah Katie," the tall blonde Aussie corrected. "I'm definitely bisexual, but I just lean a lot more towards the ladies than I do the fellas. I very much enjoy my sexual encounters with Andy, but I'm not one of his primary partners, despite showing up so early. I'm in love with him, like he is with me, but he's not my Big Love, if you folla. I've got me own primary partner here, in Taylor. We'd split before New Eden, and when she came back, I was right pissed off, but we've worked it out, and now she and I are back to being a couple again." "Does that put you on the outs with Andy?" "Nah," she laughed, "it just means the master bed doesn't need triple reinforcement. I love Andy and all he's done for me, for alla us, but I ain't interested in being one of his wives. I wanna marry Taylor at some point, but that doesn't mean I don' wanna stay part of this family. That works for us, so, y'know, fair play." "How many people do sleep in bed with you on any given night, Andy?" "There's always at least five of us in the bed," he answered. "Myself, Ash, Niko, Emily and Sarah. But sometimes more people want to cram in, and we never say no." "What's the most the bed's ever held for a night?" "Oh, uh, everyone who isn't staff, I think, but last week, so before some people had arrived," he said, trying to remember, "so, what, 11?" "Yes, that was the maximum. On the day when we found out Andy's brother died," Emily said, "we all crawled into bed with him and just wrapped our arms around him, as we all shared a good cry, then fell asleep holding one another, but that's extremely uncommon." "Five or six would definitely be the average," Ash said. "So the four of you would say you're closer to Andy than the rest of the women in the house?" "Well, we're all his fiancees, so we'd better be, Katie!" Sarah laughed. "He asked Ash first, and then Niko asked him before he could even get the words out to her, so once he freakin' told us, me and Em, we both demanded he propose to us as well immediately, because we come as a package deal." "What do you mean by that, Sarah?" "Okay, well, here's the thing. Emily and I have been a couple for almost two years now, but we're both, well, we're both totally into dudes and chicks. So while we super love each other, we also knew we were going to need a regular cock in the equation. When we found out that the writer of my favorite freaking book series of all time was in play, we decided we had to freaking have him." Andy was a little amazed Sarah could do so much to self censor, but realized she'd probably been doing it for interviews forever. "So you put in a request for the two of you to be paired up with Andy, and the government made that happen?" There was a long pause, as everyone was trying to decide what to say and how to say it, but eventually Emily broke the silence. "Something like that, yes," she lied. "We'll put a pin in that and come back to it later," Katie said, and Andy's guard was immediately up. He'd been wondering what sort of problems this interview was going to throw up, and now he felt like he knew what one of them was. "Have you had to send anyone back, Andy? Had any partners show up that you didn't think would be compatible?" "Just one," he admitted. "My ex girlfriend was sent to me, because she hadn't disclosed that we'd been together about a decade ago. She was eager to rekindle the relationship, but I was not. It ended on terms that made me unwilling to revisit it again, so we helped her make other arrangements. We hadn't been compatible back then, and I didn't feel comfortable gambling that she'd grown enough that I would've been compatible with her now." "You didn't send her back to the government?" "New Eden isn't that large of a community, so sometimes we just see if we can make things work among ourselves first, and we found a solution that everyone seemed happy with, including my ex. In fact, the people that my partners here pitched to me that I didn't think would be good matches for our family, we worked to pair them up with other people here in New Eden instead, so they were still local and safe. It's a small town, so we have to look out for one another. Problems here are rare and generally manageable." "Not always, though, we've heard," Katie said. "I take it you've heard about the fatality that New Eden had last week?" Everyone nodded. "It was horrible, hearing about someone dying from something so easily preventable," Hannah said. "Like, they totes warned us about that ish before we left the base, so why the hell would someone chance it?" "They did warn you?" "Very thoroughly," Emily insisted, horror in her voice. "They told us multiple times, again and again and again, that if we took in semen from any man other than the one we were paired up with, it would be toxic, if not fatal. They even showed us a recording of a woman who'd already been imprinted getting semen from a man she wasn't paired up with on her skin, and the large, violent rash that immediately broke out. I am told they show that footage to everyone, to drive the point home. Seeing that sort of instantaneous reaction should've been enough to discourage anyone from testing those boundaries." "They're talking on base about showing some of the autopsy photos from the fatality to the people who are getting the treatment now," Niko said, "to make sure everyone understands how serious it is not to dally outside your family." "Have any of you ever been tempted?" "I think we all value our lives too much for that," Sarah joked. "And love Andy far too much for that," Ash said. "Definitely," Emily agreed. "Why would anyone task such a pointless risk?" "Did any of you know the woman who died, or the man she partook from that killed her?" Katie asked them. "I met her briefly," Andy said, "but I wouldn't say I knew her. And none of us ever even met the man accused of doing it to her." "Major Peters told us yesterday he's currently imprisoned at the base, pending local law enforcement being able to take custody of him. They're going to charge him with murder, they were telling us." "They should," Sarah said. "They told everyone when they brought them here to New Eden what would happen if people engaged in any form of sexual activity with anyone they're not paired with, and they fucking did it anyway!" "The problem," Andy sighed, "is that the man, whoever he is, already has multiple women paired up with him, which means that whatever they do to him is going to affect those women as well, even if it's just that they have to come to a prison for their weekly intake. Those women are already tied to him. I'm sure they're looking into some way to remove the binding and reimprint a woman onto a new person, but there's only so many problems they can solve at once." "Does it bother any of you that your health is tied to Andy's?" Katie asked the group. "Bother is the wrong word," Sheridan said, annoyance in her tone of voice. "Concern is the right word. We're very protective of Andy, because he knows our lives are all fully dependent on his for the time being, and that if he dies, we all probably die with him. So, sure, we're concerned, but I think all of us feel comfortable in knowing that Andy's got our best interests at heart, and is keeping that all in mind." "One of the two people arriving tomorrow is going to be his bodyguard," Jenny said. "A friend of mine from college, who's going to guard his life with her own." "Who's the other?" "A director friend of mine," Emily said, "whom I thought would be an excellent addition to the house. She was one of the AD's on some of the latter Dagger Academy movies." Katie Couric clapped her hands together. "Okay, why don't we take a break, then do some of the one on ones, and then we can circle back and do another group interview to close out the day. Our team can leave you one of our cameras here tonight, so you can get that video of someone being imprinted, and we'll come by and pick it up tomorrow before we leave town. We appreciate you trusting us with that, as I know it can't have been an easy decision to make, but I think that footage will go a long way to convincing people this treatment is in their best interest. As for today, we'll go ahead and finish getting set up in Andy's office, and when you're ready Andy, we can sit down and do our one on one and drill down on some things I've got further questions on." "Sure," he said, as all the girls were standing up and stretching. "Let me go grab a quick drink, and I'll meet you in my office in about ten minutes, okay?" "Sounds good." Katie and her crew were escorted by Nicolette down to Andy's office, while the girls stood up and started chatting among themselves, while Emily and Ash closed it around Andy. "That went about as well as can be expected," Emily said to them. "I feel like we've got some kind of curveball coming," Ash said, taking Andy's hand in her left and Emily's hand in her right. "After you're done, Andy, we'll talk a bit again. I'm sure you'll get surprises before any of us do." He took his time, grabbed a bottle of Vanilla Coke, drank it then headed down to his office, which today felt a little like going into a lion's den. With all the girls in the ballroom, the large group session had allowed the attention to bounce around a great deal, and he felt like he could catch his breath, but here, it was just going to be the two of them, and he didn't have anyone to run interference for him from time to time. Andy headed into his office and saw that even his cats weren't in there, likely having been moved by the production crew, as Andy moved to sit down in his writing chair, Katie Couric sitting across from him. "Are you ready?" she said to him. "Yep," he answered. "Let's do it." After the mics were checked, the cameras were tested and the lights were adjusting, Andy's one on one began with a softball question. "So how'd you fall into writing urban fantasy, Andy?" "The best advice I ever got was 'if the stories you want to read don't exist in the world, it's your job to put them there,' so I've stuck with that," he said. "I knew what kind of stories I wanted to read, and nobody was really writing those, a sort of fantasy western/samurai hybrid. I mean, you had Butcher's Dresden books, but those were more of fantasy noir hybrids, and I wanted to get into the sort of stories that people like Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone used to tell, where you could kill off characters, where actions had consequences and where you never really knew when the next gunfight was coming, because it felt like they could happen at any time. Joe Abercrombie does it in high fantasy, but I wanted something that was happening in our time, in our world.&am

Dr. Eric T. Karlstrom : Tavistock, Mind Control, Cults9/11 – New World OrderWebmaster, Dr. Eric T. Karlstrom: Emeritus Professor of Geography, California State University (bio)The Following Introductory Quotes Explain the Present Plight of the American Republic and the World:1) The 9/11 attacks were an inside job by the USAF (US Air Force) and the IZCS (International Zionist Criminal Syndicate). The staged Gladio-style False-Flag attack was the choice selected for the attack on the Twin Towers in NYC and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on 9-11-2001. This attack was done by the USAF, under the authority of a zionist-controlled Criminal Cabal inside the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the Secret Shadow Government (SSG).The 9/11 attack was planned, set up and run by (Jewish/dual Israeli-American citizen) NeoCon top Policy-Makers, Israeli Intel and their stateside Sayanims, utilizing a small criminal cabal inside the USAF, NORAD and the JCS. These are facts that can no longer be disputed by any reasonable person who has examined all the available evidence.And it is exceedingly clear to any reasonable person who examines the pre-announcement of WTC-7 destruction that the whole attack was pre-scripted in London and Israel, and that WTC-7 was wired in advance with conventional demolition charges.… There is now a New American War. It is inside America. It is called the “War on Terror”. The enemy is YOU! It is a staged, Phony War that has been created by the International Zionist Crime Syndicate (IZCS). This New War on Terror has an enemy. That enemy is the American People, You and Me…. This new War on Terror has been socially engineered to provide a continual stream of degradations and provocations against the average American, provoking many… to resist, and causing them to be labeled dissenters.Once they have been labeled dissenters they are put on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Main Core Terror Watch List, which top insiders know is a targeted assassination list for later eradication of all Freedom-loving Americans who want to restore the American Constitutional Republic.At present, the Main Core list has over ten million Americans on it, and it is growing every day with thousands of new additions. Get a ticket for a driving offense or any arrest (even if later proven innocent) and it is highly likely you will be placed on this Main Core Terror Watch and Assassination list…. Any and all Dissenters are now being defined as “Enemies of the State”. And anyone who wants to restore the American Republic will also be defined as a “Domestic Terrorist”.DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is a terrorist group, hand assembled by American/Israeli dual citizen Traitors and is designed to tyrannize, capture and eventually be deployed against Americans to serially mass murder them. This is why they have been called the New American Gestapo of the Neo-Bolshevik Red Cheka Terror Machine.…..The War on Terror is obviously a Phony. But it has been the greatest boon to the American Defense Complex ever, with many times more net American Taxpayer dollars spent on this war than any other war in history, including WW2 or the Vietnam War.Another way to establish a war is to create and fund so-called foreign terrorist groups. This is a costly exercise that take years and can involve as much work as fighting a war…. But enemies for necessary wars can be created if you have the technological help of a nation that has hundreds of years experience in creating its own enemies. This nation is the City of London (Financial District), a separate nation state like the Vatican, located within England.There is a reason England has been referred to as “Perfidious Albion” for centuries. They have been known for their ability to instigate chaos inside nations they want to control by their standard well-developed strategy of “Divide and Conquer”. They are experts at creating long-term provocations between different nations that have competing economic interests. They do this in order to establish a beach-head from which to control the removal of natural resources and accrued wealth.The nation state Israel was created to serve as a long-term provocation for numerous Mideast perpetual wars. This is why the Balfour Declaration was made. This is why the City of London created the New Israel and took land away from the Palestinians to set up a nation of Khazarian Judaic converts (aka “fake Hebrews”), a racially paranoid group mind-kontrolled to believe the delusion that they were of ancient Abrahamic Hebrew Blood.The IZCS believes in preemptive strikes against Goyim (non-Jews) and their institutions. Judaics have also been mind-kontrolled by zionists (many of whom are not Judaics) to believe that they must hijack the American political system to preemptively crush Christianity and American Goyim Culture.….A SERIOUS SPELL, A RACIAL DELUSION OF SUPERIORITY HAS BEEN CAST ON MANY JUDAICS NO MATTER WHERE THEY LIVE, BUT ESPECIALLY SO AMONG THOSE LIVING IN GREATER ISRAEL, WHERE THE LUCIFERIAN HEX FLAG FLIES. WHETHER TRUE OR NOT, TOP ZIONIST LEADERS BELIEVE THIS HEX FLAG SIGNIFIES THE MERGER OF DEMONIC FALLEN ANGEL BEAST-BLOODLINES FROM ABOVE, BRED WITH HUMAN FEMALE BLOODLINES BELOW. THEY BELIEVE THIS MAKES THEM THE “CHOSEN ONES” OF THEIR GOD LUCIFER, AND SUPERHUMAN OR PART GOD ALSO.Conclusion: The IZCS has hijacked America and has deployed numerous weapons against it now culminating in a phony, staged War on Terror, and if you are an American or live in America, one way or another YOU will soon become THEIR NEW ENEMY. Yes, from here on out if you live in America, you are the designated enemy of the USG and its agents of war DHS, the TSA, FEMA, the Alphabets and the US Military in this new War On Terror (which is a war against the American people who are not in the “federal Family”).If you are a member of the (IZCS-created and controlled) “federal family,” it is suggested that you read and study up on the Night of the Longknives (Operation Hummingbird) and the various purges under Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Maybe you should reconsider (following) the oath you took to UPHOLD the US Constitution from ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN and DOMESTIC.….Preston James, PH.D., 2014, YOU are THE ENEMY (Veterans Today)2) “Israel was behind all four fronts in 9/11, that momentous event in our nation´s history: 1) The actual terror attacks themselves; 2) the subsequent cover-up; and both 3) ¨the U.S.-led military invasions overseas¨ and 4) the ¨domestic security state apparatus.¨(Hugh Akins, “Synagogue Rising,” 2012)3) “We (Jews and Israel) control America, and the Americans know it.” Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister, October, 2001, in response to question about 9/114) (9/11) was a mighty operation that was prepared by the special forces of the global mafia to involve the USA in the war against the Muslim world… The global mafia carries out global politics. The USSR collapsed and the same fate has been prepared for the USA. People like the Rothschilds and the Oppenheimers and the Morgans have long term plans.…the entire system of international terrorism works for fascism. There are explosions in Spain, France, Germany, United States, South America, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia and Iraq. This is worldwide. The conclusion is very simple; The people themselves will want someone like (Chilean fascist General) Augusto Pinochet to rule them… The entire system of international terrorism is pushing humanity toward the reception of a hard fascist regime.Russian General Konstantin Petrov5) “Israel has used America as a whore…. They control our government, our media, and the finances of this country…. Through their lobby, Israel has manifested total power over the Congress of the United States… We're conducting the expansionist policy of Israel and everybody's afraid to say it… They are controlling much of our foreign policy, they are influencing much of our domestic policy. They control much of the media, they control much of the commerce of the country, and they control powerfully both bodies of the Congress. They own the Congress… Israel gets billions a year from the American taxpayers, while people in my district are losing their pension benefits…. and if you open your mouth, you get targeted. I was the number one target of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee… We have investigated and found 2 separate incidents of AIPAC spying on America….My concern is the taxpayers and the citizens of the United States should control their government, not a foreign entity… But if you deal with the real problems in America, YOU GET TARGETED.”James Traficant, Jr., U.S. House of Representatives (Ohio) (1941-1941; who was expelled from the House and served 8 years in prison for representing the interests of the United States rather than those of Israel and the Jews6) Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason?For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

Jeffrey Madoff is, as you will discover, quite a fascinating and engaging person. Jeff is quite the creative entrepreneur as this episode's title says. But he really is so much more.   He tells us that he came by his entrepreneurial spirit and mindset honestly. His parents were both entrepreneurs and passed their attitude onto him and his older sister. Even Jeffrey's children have their own businesses.   There is, however, so much more to Jeffrey Madoff. He has written a book and is working on another one. He also has created a play based on the life of Lloyd Price. Who is Lloyd Price? Listen and find out. Clue, the name of the play is “Personality”. Jeff's next book, “Casting Not Hiring”, with Dan Sullivan, is about the transformational power of theater and how you can build a company based on the principles of theater. It will be published by Hay House and available in November of this year.   My conversation with Jeff is a far ranging as you can imagine. We talk about everything from the meaning of Creativity to Imposture's Syndrome. I always tell my guests that Unstoppable Mindset is not a podcast to interview people, but instead I want to have real conversations. I really got my wish with Jeff Madoff. I hope you like listening to this episode as much as I liked being involved in it.       About the Guest:   Jeffrey Madoff's career straddles the creative and business side of the arts. He has been a successful entrepreneur in fashion design and film, and as an author, playwright, producer, and adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design. He created and taught a course for sixteen years called “Creative Careers Making A Living With Your Ideas”, which led to a bestselling book of the same name . Madoff has been a keynote speaker at Princeton, Wharton, NYU and Yale where he curated and moderated a series of panels entitled "Reframing The Arts As Entrepreneurship”. His play “Personality” was a critical and audience success in it's commercial runs at People's Light Theater in Pennsylvania and in Chicago and currently waiting for a theater on The West End in London.   Madoff's next book, “Casting Not Hiring”, with Dan Sullivan, is about the transformational power of theater and how you can build a company based on the principles of theater. It will be published by Hay House and available in November of this year. Ways to connect Jeffrey:   company website: www.madoffproductions.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/b-jeffrey-madoff-5baa8074/ www.acreativecareer.com Instagram: @acreativecareer   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Well, hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. We're glad to have you on board with us, wherever you happen to be. Hope the day is going well for you. Our guest today is Jeffrey Madoff, who is an a very creative kind of person. He has done a number of things in the entrepreneurial world. He has dealt with a lot of things regarding the creative side of the arts. He's written plays. He taught a course for 16 years, and he'll tell us about that. He's been a speaker in a variety of places. And I'm not going to go into all of that, because I think it'll be more fun if Jeffrey does it. So welcome to unstoppable mindset. We are really glad you're here and looking forward to having an hour of fun. And you know, as I mentioned to you once before, the only rule on the podcast is we both have to have fun, or it's not worth doing, right? So here   Jeffrey Madoff ** 02:13 we are. Well, thanks for having me on. Michael, well, we're really glad   Michael Hingson ** 02:17 you're here. Why don't we start as I love to do tell us kind of about the early Jeffrey growing up, and you know how you got where you are, a little bit or whatever.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 02:28 Well, I was born in Akron, Ohio, which at that time was the rubber capital of the world. Ah, so that might explain some of my bounce and resilience. There   Michael Hingson ** 02:40 you go. I was in Sandusky, Ohio last weekend, nice and cold, or last week,   Jeffrey Madoff ** 02:44 yeah, I remember you were, you were going to be heading there. And, you know, Ohio, Akron, which is in northern Ohio, was a great place to grow up and then leave, you know, so my my childhood. I have many, many friends from my childhood, some who still live there. So it's actually I always enjoy going back, which doesn't happen all that often anymore, you know, because certain chapters in one's life close, like you know, when my when my parents died, there wasn't as much reason to go back, and because the friends that I had there preferred to come to New York rather than me go to Akron. But, you know, Akron was a great place to live, and I'm very fortunate. I think what makes a great place a great place is the people you meet, the experiences you have. Mm, hmm, and I met a lot of really good people, and I was very close with my parents, who were entrepreneurs. My mom and dad both were so I come by that aspect of my life very honestly, because they modeled the behavior. And I have an older sister, and she's also an entrepreneur, so I think that's part of the genetic code of our family is doing that. And actually, both of my kids have their own business, and my wife was entrepreneurial. So some of those things just carry forward, because it's kind of what, you know, what did your parents do? My parents were independent retailers, and so they started by working in other stores, and then gradually, both of them, who were also very independent people, you know, started, started their own store, and then when they got married, they opened one together, and it was Women's and Children's retail clothing. And so I learned, I learned a lot from my folks, mainly from the. Behavior that I saw growing up. I don't think you can really lecture kids and teach them anything, yeah, but you can be a very powerful teacher through example, both bad and good. Fortunately, my parents were good examples. I think   Michael Hingson ** 05:14 that kids really are a whole lot more perceptive than than people think sometimes, and you're absolutely right, lecturing them and telling them things, especially when you go off and do something different than you tell them to do, never works. They're going to see right through it.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 05:31 That's right. That's right. And you know, my kids are very bright, and there was never anything we couldn't talk about. And I had that same thing with my parents, you know, particularly my dad. But I had the same thing with both my parents. There was just this kind of understanding that community, open communication is the best communication and dealing with things as they came up was the best way to deal with things. And so it was, it was, it was really good, because my kids are the same way. You know, there was always discussions and questioning. And to this day, and I have twins, I have a boy and girl that are 31 years old and very I'm very proud of them and the people that they have become, and are still becoming,   Michael Hingson ** 06:31 well and still becoming is really the operative part of that. I think we all should constantly be learning, and we should, should never decide we've learned all there is to learn, because that won't happen. There's always something new,   Jeffrey Madoff ** 06:44 and that's really what's fun. I think that you know for creativity and life at large, that constant curiosity and learning is fuel that keeps things moving forward, and can kindle the flame that lights up into inspiration, whether you're writing a book or a song or whatever it is, whatever expression one may have, I think that's where it originates. Is curiosity. You're trying to answer a question or solve a problem or something. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 07:20 and sometimes you're not, and it's just a matter of doing. And it doesn't always have to be some agenda somewhere, but it's good to just be able to continue to grow. And all too often, we get so locked into agendas that we don't look at the rest of the world around us.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 07:41 I Well, I would say the the agenda in and of itself, staying curious, I guess an overarching part of my agenda, but it's not to try to get something from somebody else, right, other than knowledge, right? And so I guess I do have an agenda in that. That's what I find interesting.   Michael Hingson ** 08:02 I can accept that that makes sense.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 08:06 Well, maybe one of the few things I say that does so thank you.   Michael Hingson ** 08:10 I wasn't even thinking of that as an agenda, but just a way of life. But I hear what you're saying. It makes sense. Oh, there are   Jeffrey Madoff ** 08:17 people that I've certainly met you may have, and your listeners may have, also that there always is some kind of, I wouldn't call it agenda, a transactional aspect to what they're doing. And that transactional aspect one could call an agenda, which isn't about mutual interest, it's more what I can get and or what I can sell you, or what I can convince you of, or whatever. And I to me, it's the the process is what's so interesting, the process of questioning, the process of learning, the process of expressing, all of those things I think are very powerful, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 09:03 yeah, I hear what you're saying. So for you, you were an Akron did you go to college there? Or what did you do after high school? So   Jeffrey Madoff ** 09:11 after high school, I went to the University of Wisconsin, ah, Madison, which is a fantastic place. That's right, badgers, that's right. And, and what really cinched the deal was when I went to visit the school. I mean, it was so different when I was a kid, because, you know, nowadays, the kids that my kids grew up with, you know, the parents would visit 18 schools, and they would, you know, they would, they would file for admission to 15 schools. And I did one in my parents. I said to them, can I take the car? I want to go check out the University. I was actually looking at Northwestern and the University of Wisconsin. And. And I was in Evanston, where Northwestern is located. I didn't see any kids around, and, you know, I had my parents car, and I finally saw a group of kids, and I said, where is everybody? I said, Well, it's exam week. Everybody's in studying. Oh, I rolled up the window, and without getting out of the car, continued on to Madison. And when I got to Madison, I was meeting somebody behind the Student Union. And my favorite band at that time, which was the Paul Butterfield blues band, was giving a free concert. So I went behind the Student Union, and it's a beautiful, idyllic place, lakes and sailboats and just really gorgeous. And my favorite band is giving a free concert. So decision made, I'm going University of Wisconsin, and it was a great place.   Michael Hingson ** 10:51 I remember when I was looking at colleges. We got several letters. Got I wanted to major in physics. I was always science oriented. Got a letter from Dartmouth saying you ought to consider applying, and got some other letters. We looked at some catalogs, and I don't even remember how the subject came up, but we discovered this University California campus, University California at Irvine, and it was a new campus, and that attracted me, because although physically, it was very large, there were only a few buildings on it. The total population of undergraduates was 2700 students, not that way today, but it was back when I went there, and that attracted me. So we reached out to the chair of the physics department, whose name we got out of the catalog, and asked Dr Ford if we could come and meet with him and see if he thought it would be a good fit. And it was over the summer between my junior and senior year, and we went down, and we chatted with him for about an hour, and he he talked a little physics to me and asked a few questions, and I answered them, and he said, you know, you would do great here. You should apply. And I did, and I was accepted, and that was it, and I've never regretted that. And I actually went all the way through and got my master's degree staying at UC Irvine, because it was a great campus. There were some professors who weren't overly teaching oriented, because they were so you research oriented, but mostly the teachers were pretty good, and we had a lot of fun, and there were a lot of good other activities, like I worked with the campus radio station and so on. So I hear what you're saying, and it's the things that attract you to a campus. Those count. Oh,   Jeffrey Madoff ** 12:35 yeah. I mean, because what can you really do on a visit? You know, it's like kicking the tires of a car, right? You know? Does it feel right? Is there something that I mean, sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you do meet a faculty member or someone that you really connect with, and that causes you to really like the place, but you don't really know until you're kind of there, right? And Madison ended up being a wonderful choice. I loved it. I had a double major in philosophy and psychology. You know, my my reasoning being, what two things do I find really interesting that there is no path to making a good income from Oh, philosophy and psychology. That works   Michael Hingson ** 13:22 well you possibly can from psychology, but philosophy, not hardly   Jeffrey Madoff ** 13:26 No, no. But, you know, the thing that was so great about it, going back to the term we used earlier, curiosity in the fuel, what I loved about both, you know, philosophy and psychology used to be cross listed. They were this under the same heading. It was in 1932 when the Encyclopedia Britannica approached Sigmund Freud to write a separate entry for psychology, and that was the first time the two disciplines, philosophy and psychology, were split apart, and Freud wrote that entry, and forever since, it became its own discipline, but the questions that one asks, or the questions that are posed in Both philosophy and psychology, I still, to this day, find fascinating. And, you know, thinking about thinking and how you think about things, I always find very, very interesting.   Michael Hingson ** 14:33 Yeah, and the whole, the whole process, how do you get from here to there? How do you deal with anything that comes up, whether it's a challenge or just fulfilling the life choices that you make and so on. And philosophy and psychology, in a sense, I think, really are significantly different, but they're both very much thinking oriented.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 14:57 Oh, absolutely, it. And you know, philosophy means study of life, right? What psychology is, yeah, so I understand why they were bonded, and now, you know, understand why they also separated. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 15:15 I'll have to go look up what Freud said. I have never read that, but I will go find it. I'm curious. Yeah,   Jeffrey Madoff ** 15:23 it's it's so interesting. It's so interesting to me, because whether you believe in Freud or not, you if you are knowledgeable at all, the impact that he had on the world to this day is staggeringly significant. Yeah, because nobody was at posing those questions before, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 15:46 yeah. And there's, there's no doubt that that he has had a major contribution to a lot of things regarding life, and you're right, whether you buy into the view that he had of a lot of things isn't, isn't really the issue, but it still is that he had a lot of relevant and interesting things to say, and he helps people think that's right, that's right. Well, so what did you do? So you had a double major? Did you go on and do any advanced degree work? No,   Jeffrey Madoff ** 16:17 you know it was interesting because I had thought about it because I liked philosophy so much. And I approached this professor who was very noted, Ivan Saul, who was one of the world Hegelian scholars, and I approached him to be my advisor. And he said, Why do you want me to be your advisor? And I said, because you're one of the most published and respected authors on that subject. And if I'm going to have an advisor, I might as well go for the person that might help me the most and mean the most if I apply to graduate schools. So I did in that case certainly had an agenda. Yeah, and, and he said, you know, Jeff, I just got back from the world Hegelian conference in Munich, and I found it very depressing as and he just paused, and I said, why'd you find it depressing? And he said, Well, there's only one or two other people in the world that I can speak to about Hegel. And I said, Well, maybe you want to choose a different topic so you can make more friends. That depressing. That doesn't sound like it's a mix, you know, good fit for life, right? But so I didn't continue to graduate studies. I took graduate courses. I started graduate courses the second semester of my sophomore year. But I thought, I don't know. I don't want to, I don't want to gain this knowledge that the only thing I can do is pass it on to others. It's kind of like breathing stale air or leaving the windows shut. I wanted to be in a world where there was an idea exchange, which I thought would be a lot more interesting. Yeah. And so there was a brief period where I thought I would get a doctorate and do that, and I love teaching, but I never wanted to. That's not what I wanted to pursue for those reasons.   Michael Hingson ** 18:35 So what did you end up doing then, once you got   Jeffrey Madoff ** 18:37 out of college? Well, there was a must have done something I did. And there's a little boutique, and in Madison that I did the buying for. And it was this very hip little clothing store. And Madison, because it was a big campus, you know, in the major rock bands would tour, they would come into the store because we had unusual things that I would find in New York, you know, when I was doing the buying for it, and I get a phone call from a friend of mine, a kid that I grew up with, and he was a year older, he had graduated school a year before me, and he said, Can you think of a gig that would earn more than bank interest? You know, I've saved up this money. Can you think of anything? And I said, Well, I see what we design. I mean, I see what we sell, and I could always draw. So I felt like I could design. I said, I'll start a clothing company. And Michael, I had not a clue in terms of what I was committing myself to. I was very naive, but not stupid. You know, was ignorant, but not stupid. And different. The difference between being ignorant and being stupid is ignorant. You can. Learn stupids forever, yeah, and that started me on this learning lesson, an entrepreneurial learning lesson, and there was, you know, quite formative for me. And the company was doubling in size every four months, every three months, and it was getting pretty big pretty quick. And you know, I was flying by the seat of my pants. I didn't really know what I was doing, but what I discovered is I had, you know, saleable taste. And I mean, when I was working in this store, I got some of the sewers who did the alterations to make some of my drawings, and I cut apart a shirt that I liked the way it fit, so I could see what the pieces are, and kind of figure out how this all worked. So but when I would go to a store and I would see fabric on the bolt, meaning it hadn't been made into anything, I was so naive. I thought that was wholesale, you know, which it wasn't and but I learned quickly, because it was like you learn quickly, or you go off the edge of a cliff, you go out of business. So it taught me a lot of things. And you know the title of your podcast, the unstoppable, that's part of what you learn in business. If you're going to survive, you've gotta be resilient enough to get up, because you're going to get knocked down. You have to persevere, because there are people that are going to that you're competing with, and there are things that are things that are going to happen that are going to make you want to give up, but that perseverance, that resilience, I think probably creativity, is third. I think it's a close call between perseverance and resilience, because those are really important criteria for a personality profile to have if you're going to succeed in business as an entrepreneur.   Michael Hingson ** 22:05 You know, Einstein once said, or at least he's credited with saying, that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, right and and the reality is that good, resilient. People will look at things that didn't go right, and if they really look at them, they'll go, I didn't fail. Yeah, maybe I didn't go right. I may have made a mistake, or something wasn't quite right. What do I do to fix it so that the next time, we won't have the same problem? And I think that's so important. I wrote my book last year, live like a guide dog, true stories from a blind man and his dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity and moving forward in faith. And it's all about learning to control fear, but it's also all about learning from dogs. I've had eight guide dogs, and my wife had a service dog, and it's all about learning from dogs and seeing why they live in an environment where we are and they feed off of us, if you will. But at the same time, what they don't do is fear like we do. They're open to trust, and we tend not to be because we worry about so many things, rather than just looking at the world and just dealing with our part of it. So it is, it is interesting to to hear you talk about resilience. I think you're absolutely right that resilience is extremely important. Perseverance is important, and they do go together, but you you have to analyze what it is that makes you resilient, or what it is that you need to do to keep being resilient.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 23:48 Well, you're right. And one of the questions that you alluded to the course that I taught for 16 years at Parsons School of Design, which was my course, was called creative careers, making a living with your ideas. And I would ask the students, how many of you are afraid of failing? And probably more than three quarters of the class, their hands went up, and I said to them, you know, if that fear stops you, you'll never do anything interesting, because creativity, true creativity, by necessity, takes you up to and beyond the boundaries. And so it's not going to be always embraced. And you know, failure, I think everyone has to define it for themselves. But I think failure, to me, is and you hear that, you know, failure is a great way to learn. I mean, it's a way. To learn, but it's never not painful, you know, and it, but it is a way to learn if you're paying attention and if you are open to that notion, which I am and was, because, you know, that kind of risk is a necessary part of creativity, going where you hadn't gone before, to try to find solutions that you hadn't done before, and seeing what works. And of course, there's going to be things that don't, but it's only failure if you stop doing what is important to you. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 25:39 well, I think you're absolutely right. And one of the things that I used to do and still do, but it started when I was working as program director of our radio station at UC Irvine, was I wanted people to hear what they sounded like on the radio, because I always listened to what I said, and I know it helped me, but getting the other radio personalities to listen to themselves was was well, like herding cats, it just wasn't doable. And what we finally did is we set up, I and the engineer of the radio station, set up a recorder in a locked cabinet, and whenever the board went on in the main studio, the microphone went on, it recorded. So we didn't need to worry about the music. All we wanted was what the people said, and then we would give people the cassettes. And one of the things that I started saying then, and I said it until, like about a year ago, was, you know, you're your own worst critic, if you can learn to grow from it, or if you can learn to see what's a problem and go on, then that's great. What I learned over the last year and thought about is I'm really not my own worst critic. I'm my own best teacher, because I'm the only one who can really teach me anything, and it's better to shape it in a positive way. So I am my own best teacher. And so I think you're right. If you really want to talk about the concept of failure, failure is when you won't get back up. Failure is when you won't do anything to learn and grow from whatever happens to you, even the good stuff. Could I have done it better? Those are all very important things to do.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 27:19 No, I agree. So why did you think it was important for them to hear their voice?   Michael Hingson ** 27:25 Because I wanted them to hear what everyone else heard. I wanted them to hear what they sounded like to their listeners. And the reality is, when we got them to do that, it was, I say it was incredible, but it wasn't a surprise to me how much better they got. And some of those people ended up going into radio broadcasting, going into other kinds of things, but they really learned to hear what everyone else heard. And they they learned how to talk better. They learn what they really needed to improve upon, or they learn what wasn't sounding very good to everyone else, and they changed their habits.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 28:13 Interesting, interesting. So, so part of that also helps them establish a certain on air identity. I would imagine finding their own voice, so to speak, right,   Michael Hingson ** 28:30 or finding a better voice than they than they had, and certainly a better voice than they thought they had. Well, they thought they had a good voice, and they realized maybe it could be better. And the ones who learned, and most of them really did learn from it, came out the better for it.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 28:49 So let me ask you a personal question. You have been sightless since birth? Is that correct?   Michael Hingson ** 28:56 Yeah, I've been blind since birth. And   Jeffrey Madoff ** 28:59 so on a certain level, I was trying to think about this the other night, and how can I phrase this? On a certain level, you don't know what you look like,   Michael Hingson ** 29:15 and from the standpoint of how you look at it, yeah, yeah.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 29:19 And so, so two, that's two questions. One is so many of us for good and bad, our identity has to do with visual first, how do you assess that new person?   Michael Hingson ** 29:39 I don't look at it from a visual standpoint as such. I look at it from all the other senses that I have and use, but I also listen to the person and see how we interact and react to. Each other, and from that, I can draw pretty good conclusions about what an individual is like, so that I can decide if that's a a lovely person, male or female, because I'm using lovely in the sense of it's the kind of person I want to know or not, and so I don't obviously look at it from a visual standpoint. And although I know Helen Keller did it some, I'm not into feeling faces. When I was in college, I tried to convince girls that they should let me teach them Braille, but they had no interest in me showing them Braille, so we didn't do that. I actually a friend of mine and I once went to a girls dorm, and we put up a sign. Wanted young female assistant to aid in scientific Braille research, but that didn't go anywhere either. So we didn't do it. But so Braille pickup. Oh, Braille pickup. On the other hand, I had my guide dog who was in in my current guide dog is just the same chick magnet right from the get go, but, but the the reality is that visual is, I think there's a lot to be said for beauty is only skin deep in a lot of ways. And I think that it's important that we go far beyond just what one person looks like. People ask me all the time, well, if you could see again, would you? Or if you could see, would you? And my response is, I don't need to. I think there's value in it. It is a sense. I think it would be a great adventure, but I'm not going to spend my life worrying about that. Blindness isn't what defines me, and what defines me is how I behave, how I am, how I learn and grow, and what I do to be a part of society and and hopefully help society. I think that's more important.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 31:53 You know, I agree with you, and it's it's also having been blind since birth. It's not like you had a you had an aspect that you lost for some reason, right?   Michael Hingson ** 32:04 But I know some people who became blind later in life, who attended centers where they could learn about what it was like to be blind and learn to be a blind person and and really adapted to that philosophy and continue to do what they did even before they lost their their eyesight, and were just as successful as they ever were, because it wasn't so much about having eyesight, although that is a challenge when you lose it, but it was more important to learn that you could find alternatives to do the same things that you did before. So   Jeffrey Madoff ** 32:41 if you ever have read Marvel Comics, and you know Daredevil has a heightened sense of a vision, or you know that certain things turn into a different advantage, is there that kind of in real life, compensatory heightened awareness of other senses.   Michael Hingson ** 33:08 And the answer is not directly. The answer is, if you choose to heighten those senses and learn to use them, then they can be a help. It's like SEAL Team Six, or Rangers, or whatever, they learn how to observe. And for them, observing goes far beyond just using their eyesight to be able to spot things, although they they certainly use that, but they have heightened all of their other senses because they've trained them and they've taught themselves how to use those senses. It's not an automatic process by any definition at all. It's not automatic. You have to learn to do it. There are some blind people who have, have learned to do that, and there are a number that have not. People have said, well, you know, could any blind person get out of the World Trade Center, and like you did, and my response is, it depends on the individual, not necessarily, because there's so many factors that go into it. If you are so afraid when something like the World Trade Center events happen that you become blinded by fear, then you're going to have a much harder time getting out than if you let fear be a guide and use it to heighten the senses that you have during the time that you need that to occur. And that's one of the things that live like a guide dog is all about, is teaching people to learn to control fear, so that in reality, they find they're much more effective, because when something happens, they don't expect they adopt and adapt to having a mindset that says, I can get through this, and fear is going to help.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 34:53 That's fascinating. So one I could go on in this direction, I'll ask you, one, one other. Question is, how would you describe your dreams?   Michael Hingson ** 35:08 Probably the same way you would, except for me, dreaming is primarily in audio and other interactions and not using eyesight. But at the same time, I understand what eyesight is about, because I've thought about it a lot, and I appreciate that the process is not something that I have, but I understand it, and I can talk about light and eyesight all day. I can I when I was when it was discovered that I was blind for the first several years, I did have some light perception. I never as such, really even could see shadows, but I had some light perception. But if I were to be asked, How would you describe what it's like to see light? I'm not sure how I would do that. It's like asking you tell me what it's like to see put it into words so that it makes me feel what you feel when you see. And it's not the excitement of seeing, but it's the sensation. How do you describe that sensation? Or how do you describe the sensation of hearing their their senses? But I've yet to really encounter someone who can put those into words that will draw you in. And I say that from the standpoint of having done literally hundreds or 1000s of speeches telling my story about being in the World Trade Center, and what I tell people today is we have a whole generation of people who have never experienced or had no memory of the World Trade Center, and we have another generation that saw it mainly from TV and pictures. So they their, their view of it was extremely small. And my job, when I speak is to literally bring them in the building and describe what is occurring to me in such a way that they're with me as we're going down the stairs. And I've learned how to do that, but describing to someone what it's like to see or to hear, I haven't found words that can truly do that yet. Oh,   Jeffrey Madoff ** 37:15 fascinating. Thank you.   Michael Hingson ** 37:20 Well, tell me about creativity. I mean, you do a lot of of things, obviously, with with creativity. So what is creativity?   Jeffrey Madoff ** 37:29 I think that creativity is the compelling need to express, and that can manifest in many, many, many different ways. You have that, you know, just it was fascinating here you talk about you, describing what happened in Twin Towers, you know. And so, I think, you know, you had a compelling need to process what was a historic and extraordinary event through that unique perception that you have, and taking the person, as you said, along with you on that journey, you know, down the stairs and out of the Building. I think it was what 78 stories or something, right? And so I think that creativity, in terms of a trait, is that it's a personality trait that has a compelling need to express in some way. And I think that there is no such thing as the lightning bolt that hits and all of a sudden you come up with the idea for the great novel, The great painting, the great dance, the great piece of music. We are taking in influences all the time and percolating those influences, and they may come out, in my case, hopefully they've come out in the play that I wrote, personality and because if it doesn't relate to anybody else, and you're only talking to yourself, that's you know, not, not. The goal, right? The play is to have an audience. The goal of your book is to have readers. And by the way, did your book come out in Braille?   Michael Hingson ** 39:31 Um, yeah, it, it is available in Braille. It's a bit. Actually, all three of my books are available in with their on demand. They can be produced in braille, and they're also available in audio formats as well. Great.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 39:43 That's great. So, yeah, I think that person, I think that creativity is it is a fascinating topic, because I think that when you're a kid, oftentimes you're told more often not. To do certain things than to do certain things. And I think that you know, when you're creative and you put your ideas out there at a very young age, you can learn shame. You know, people don't like what you do, or make fun of what you do, or they may like it, and it may be great, but if there's, you know, you're opened up to that risk of other people's judgment. And I think that people start retreating from that at a very young age. Could because of parents, could because of teachers, could because of their peer group, but they learn maybe in terms of what they think is emotional survival, although would never be articulated that way, at putting their stuff out there, they can be judged, and they don't like being judged, and that's a very uncomfortable place to be. So I think creativity is both an expression and a process.   Michael Hingson ** 40:59 Well, I'll and I think, I think you're right, and I think that it is, it is unfortunate all too often, as you said, how children are told don't do this or just do that, but don't do this, and no, very few people take the next logical step, which is to really help the child understand why they said that it isn't just don't. It should be. Why not? One of my favorite stories is about a student in school once and was taking a philosophy class. You'll probably have heard this, but he and his classmates went in for the final exam, and the instructor wrote one word on the board, which was why? And then everybody started to write. And they were writing furiously this. This student sat there for a couple of minutes, wrote something on a paper, took it up, handed it in, and left. And when the grades came out, he was the only one who got an A. And the reason is, is because what he put on his paper was, why not, you know, and, and that's very, very valid question to ask. But the reality is, if we really would do more to help people understand, we would be so much better off. But rather than just telling somebody what to do, it's important to understand why?   Jeffrey Madoff ** 42:22 Yeah, I remember when I was in I used to draw all the time, and my parents would bring home craft paper from the store that was used to wrap packets. And so they would bring me home big sheets I could do whatever I wanted on it, you know, and I would draw. And in school I would draw. And when art period happened once or twice a week, and the teacher would come in with her cart and I was drawing, that was when this was in, like, the middle 50s, and Davy Crockett was really a big deal, and I was drawing quite an intricate picture of the battle at the Alamo. And the teacher came over to me and said she wanted us to do crayon resist, which is, you know, they the watercolors won't go over the the crayon part because of the wax and the crayon. And so you would get a different thing that never looked good, no matter who did it, right? And so the teacher said to me, what are you doing? And I said, Well, I'm drawing. It's and she said, Why are you drawing? I said, Well, it's art class, isn't it? She said, No, I told you what to do. And I said, Yeah, but I wanted to do this. And she said, Well, you do what I tell you, where you sit there with your hands folded, and I sat there with my hands folded. You know I wasn't going to be cowed by her. And I've thought back on that story so often, because so often you get shut down. And when you get shut down in a strong way, and you're a kid, you don't want to tread on that land again. Yeah, you're afraid,   Michael Hingson ** 44:20 yeah. Yeah. And maybe there was a good reason that she wanted you to do what she wanted, but she should have taken the time to explain that right, right now, of course, my question is, since you did that drawing with the Alamo and so on, I'm presuming that Davy Crockett looked like Fess Parker, right? Just checking,   Jeffrey Madoff ** 44:42 yeah, yep, yeah. And my parents even got me a coon   Michael Hingson ** 44:47 skin hat. There you go, Daniel Boone and David Crockett and   Jeffrey Madoff ** 44:51 Davy Crockett and so there were two out there. Mine was actually a full coon skin cap with the tail. And other kids had it where the top of it was vinyl, and it had the Disney logo and a picture of Fess Parker. And I said, Now I don't want something, you know, and you are correct, you are correct. It was based on fess Barker. I think   Michael Hingson ** 45:17 I have, I had a coons kid cap, and I think I still do somewhere. I'm not quite sure where it is, but it was a real coonskin cap with a cake with a tail.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 45:26 And does your tail snap off? Um, no, yeah, mine. Mine did the worst thing about the coonskin cap, which I thought was pretty cool initially, when it rained, it was, you know, like you had some wet animal on your Well, yes, yeah, as you did, she did, yeah, animal on your head, right? Wasn't the most aromatic of the hub. No,   Michael Hingson ** 45:54 no, it's but Huh, you got to live with it. That's right. So what is the key to having great creative collaborations? I love collaborating when I wrote my original book, Thunder dog, and then running with Roselle, and then finally, live like a guide dog. I love the idea of collaborating, and I think it made all three of the books better than if it had just been me, or if I had just let someone else do it, because we're bringing two personalities into it and making the process meld our ideas together to create a stronger process.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 46:34 I completely agree with you, and collaboration, for instance, in my play personality, the director Sheldon apps is a fantastic collaborator, and as a result, has helped me to be a better writer, because he would issue other challenges, like, you know, what if we looked at it this way instead of that way? What if you gave that power, that that character, the power in that scene, rather than the Lloyd character? And I loved those kinds of challenges. And the key to a good collaboration is pretty simple, but it doesn't happen often enough. Number one is listening. You aren't going to have a good collaboration if you don't listen. If you just want to interrupt and shut the other person down and get your opinion out there and not listen, that's not going to be good. That's not going to bode well. And it's being open. So people need to know that they're heard. You can do that a number of ways. You can sort of repeat part of what they said, just so I want to understand. So you were saying that the Alamo situation, did you have Davy Crockett up there swinging the rifle, you know? So the collaboration, listening, respect for opinions that aren't yours. And you know, don't try to just defeat everything out of hand, because it's not your idea. And trust developing a trust with your collaborators, so that you have a clearly defined mission from the get go, to make whatever it is better, not just the expression of one person's will over another. And I think if you share that mission, share that goal, that the other person has earned your trust and vice versa, that you listen and acknowledge, then I think you can have great collaboration. And I've had a number of great collaborators. I think I'm a good collaborator because I sort of instinctively knew those things, and then working with Sheldon over these last few years made it even more so. And so that's what I think makes a really great collaboration.   Michael Hingson ** 49:03 So tell me about the play personality. What's it about? Or what can you tell us about it without giving the whole thing away?   Jeffrey Madoff ** 49:10 So have you ever heard of Lloyd Price?   Michael Hingson ** 49:14 The name is familiar. So that's   Jeffrey Madoff ** 49:16 the answer that I usually get is, I'm not really sure. Yeah, it's kind of familiar. And I said, Well, you don't, probably don't know his name, but I'll bet you know his music. And I then apologize in advance for my singing, you know, cause you've got walk, personality, talk, personality, smile, oh yeah, yeah. I love that song, you know. Yeah. Do you know that song once I did that, yes, yeah. So Lloyd was black. He grew up in Kenner, Louisiana. It was he was in a place where blacks were expected to know their place. And. And if it was raining and a white man passed, you'd have to step into a mud puddle to let them pass, rather than just working by each other. And he was it was a tough situation. This is back in the late 1930s and what Lloyd knew is that he wanted to get out of Kenner, and music could be his ticket. And the first thing that the Lloyd character says in the play is there's a big dance opening number, and first thing that his character says is, my mama wasn't a whore. My dad didn't leave us. I didn't learn how to sing in church, and I never did drugs. I want to get that out of the way up front. And I wanted to just blow up all the tropes, because that's who Lloyd was, yeah, and he didn't drink, he didn't learn how to sing in church. And, you know, there's sort of this baked in narrative, you know, then then drug abuse, and you then have redeemed yourself. Well, he wasn't like that. He was entrepreneurial. He was the first. He was the it was really interesting at the time of his first record, 1952 when he recorded Lottie, Miss Claudia, which has been covered by Elvis and the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen and on and on. There's like 370 covers of it. If you wanted to buy a record by a black artist, you had to go to a black owned record store. His records couldn't get on a jukebox if it was owned by a white person. But what happened was that was the first song by a teenager that sold over a million copies. And nobody was prejudiced against green, which is money. And so Lloyd's career took off, and it The story tells about the the trajectory of his career, the obstacles he had to overcome, the triumphs that he experienced, and he was an amazing guy. I had been hired to direct, produce and direct a short documentary about Lloyd, which I did, and part of the research was interviewing him, and we became very good friends. And when I didn't know anything about him, but I knew I liked his music, and when I learned more about him, I said, Lloyd, you've got an amazing story. Your story needs to be told. And I wrote the first few scenes. He loved what I wrote. And he said, Jeff, I want you to do this. And I said, thank you. I want to do it, but there's one other thing you need to know. And he said, What's that? And I said, You're the vessel. You're the messenger, but your story is bigger than you are. And he said, Jeff, I've been waiting for years for somebody to say that to me, rather than just blowing more smoke up my ass. Yeah. And that started our our collaboration together and the story. And it was a great relationship. Lloyd died in May of 21 and we had become very close, and the fact that he trusted me to tell his story is of huge significance to me. And the fact that we have gotten such great response, we've had two commercial runs. We're moving the show to London, is is is really exciting. And the fact that Lloyd, as a result of his talent and creativity, shattered that wall that was called Race music in race records, once everybody understood on the other side that they could profit from it. So there's a lot of story in there that's got a lot of meat, and his great music   Michael Hingson ** 54:04 that's so cool and and so is it? Is it performing now anywhere, or is it? No, we're   Jeffrey Madoff ** 54:12 in between. We're looking actually, I have a meeting this this week. Today is February 11. I have a meeting on I think it's Friday 14th, with my management in London, because we're trying to get a theater there. We did there in October, and got great response, and now we're looking to find a theater there.   Michael Hingson ** 54:37 So what are the chance we're going to see it on Broadway?   Jeffrey Madoff ** 54:41 I hope a very good chance Broadway is a very at this point in Broadway's history. It's it's almost prohibitively expensive to produce on Broadway, the West End has the same cache and. Yeah, because, you know, you think of there's that obscure British writer who wrote plays called William Shakespeare. You may have heard of   Michael Hingson ** 55:07 him, yeah, heard of the guy somewhere, like, like, I've heard of Lloyd Price, yeah, that's   Jeffrey Madoff ** 55:15 it. And so I think that Broadway is certainly on the radar. The first step for us, the first the big step before Broadway is the West End in London. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 55:30 that's a great place to go. It is.   Jeffrey Madoff ** 55:32 I love it, and I speak the language, so it's good. Well, there you   Michael Hingson ** 55:35 are. That helps. Yes, well, you're a very creative kind of individual by any standard. Do you ever get involved with or have you ever faced the whole concept of imposter syndrome?   Jeffrey Madoff ** 55:48 Interesting, you mentioned that the answer is no, and I'll tell you why it's no. And you know, I do a fair amount of speaking engagements and that sort of thing, and that comes up particularly with women, by the way, imposter syndrome, and my point of view on it is, you know, we're not imposters. If you're not trying to con somebody and lying about what you do, you're a work in progress, and you're moving towards whatever it is that your goals are. So when my play became a produced commercial piece of theater and I was notarized as a playwright, why was that same person the day before that performance happened? And so I think that rather than looking at it as imposter, I look at it as a part of the process, and a part of the process is gaining that credibility, and you have to give yourself permission to keep moving forward. And I think it's very powerful that if you declare yourself and define yourself rather than letting people define you. So I think that that imposter syndrome comes from that fear, and to me, instead of fear, just realize you're involved in the process and so you are, whatever that process is. And again, it's different if somebody's trying to con you and lie to you, but in terms of the creativity, and whether you call yourself a painter or a musician or a playwright or whatever, if you're working towards doing that, that's what you do. And nobody starts off full blown as a hit, so to speak. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 57:44 well, I think you're absolutely right, and I think that it's all about not trying to con someone. And when you are doing what you do, and other people are involved, they also deserve credit, and people like you probably have no problem with making sure that others who deserve credit get the credit. Oh, absolutely, yeah, I'm the same way. I am absolutely of the opinion that it goes back to collaboration. When we're collaborating, I'm I'm very happy to talk about the fact that although I started the whole concept of live like a guide dog, carry Wyatt Kent and I worked on it together, and the two of us work on it together. It's both our books. So each of us can call it our book, but it is a collaborative effort, and I think that's so important to be able to do,   Jeffrey Madoff ** 58:30 oh, absolutely, absolutely, you know, the stuff that I was telling you about Sheldon, the director, you know, and that he has helped me to become a better writer, you know, and and when, as as obviously, you have experienced too, when you have a fruitful collaboration, it's fabulous, because you're both working together to create the best possible result, as opposed to self aggrandizement, right?   Michael Hingson ** 59:03 Yeah, it is. It is for the things that I do. It's not about me and I and I say it all the time when I'm talking to people who I'd like to have hire me to be a speaker. It's not about me, it's about their event. And I believe I can add value, and here's why I think I can add value, but it's not about me, it's about you and your event, right? And it's so important if, if you were to give some advice to somebody starting out, or who wants to be creative, or more creative and so on, what kind of advice would you give them?   Jeffrey Madoff ** 59:38 I would say it's more life advice, which is, don't be afraid of creative risk, because the only thing that you have that nobody else has is who you are. So how you express who you are in the most unique way of who you are? So that is going to be what defines your work. And so I think that it's really important to also realize that things are hard and always take more time than you think they should, and that's just part of the process. So it's not easy. There's all these things out there in social media now that are bull that how people talk about the growth of their business and all of this stuff, there's no recipe for success. There are best practices, but there's no recipes for it. So however you achieve that, and however you achieve making your work better and gaining the attention of others, just understand it's a lot of hard work. It's going to take longer than you thought, and it's can be incredibly satisfying when you hit certain milestones, and don't forget to celebrate those milestones, because that's what's going to give you the strength to keep going forward.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:07 Absolutely, it is really about celebrating the milestones and celebrating every success you have along the way, because the successes will build to a bigger success. That's right, which is so cool. Well, this has been a lot of fun. We've been doing this for an hour. Can you believe it? That's been great. It has been and I really appreciate you being here, and I I want to thank all of you who are listening, but please tell your friends to get into this episode as well. And we really value your comments, so please feel free to write me. I would love to know what you thought about today. I'm easy to reach. It's Michael M, I C H, A, E, L, H i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S i b, e.com, or you can always go to our podcast page, which is Michael hingson, M, I C H, A, E, L, H i N, G, s o n.com/podcast, where you can listen to or access all the of our podcasts, but they're also available, as most likely you've discovered, wherever you can find podcasts, so you can get them on Apple and all those places and wherever you're listening. We do hope you'll give us a five star review. We really value your reviews, and Jeff has really given us a lot of great insights today, and I hope that you all value that as well. So we really would appreciate a five star rating wherever you're listening to us, and that you'll come back and hear some more episodes with us. If you know of anyone who ought to be a guest, Jeff, you as well. Love You to refer people to me. I'm always looking for more people to have on because I do believe that everyone in the world is unstoppable if you learn how to accept that and move forward. And that gets back to our whole discussion earlier about failure or whatever, you can be unstoppable. That doesn't mean you're not going to have challenges along the way, but that's okay. So we hope that if you do know people who ought to be on the podcast, or if you want to be on the podcast and you've been listening, step up won't hurt you. But again, Jeff, I want to thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun, and we really appreciate your time. Thank   Jeffrey Madoff ** 1:03:16 you, Michael, for having you on. It was fun. You   **Michael Hingson ** 1:03:23 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

A new June 2025 documentary from TMZ addresses the “fifth plane” of September 11, 2001, with testimonies from United 23 flight crew about what was almost another act of terrorism. Although certainly a missing piece of the story, the documentary does more to speculate and imply who and what was responsible for the other events than actually prove anything about the flight. The film has flight attendants, and a dramatization over their stories, who believed men who wore tan suits, a person in a burka, a sweating passenger, and passengers who didn't eat meat, were highly suspicious - all 24 years after the fact with post-911 perceptions. This follows the June 2024 release of a video that implied Saudi was directly involved in 911. These two stories follow the motif - going back to 2002 - when the Guardian reported “Uncle Sam's Lucky Finds,” which documented “the discovery of a flight manual in Arabic and a copy of the Koran in a car hired by Mohammed Atta and abandoned at Boston airport…” Then, a few days later, “another find, two blocks away from the twin towers, in the shape of Atta's passport.” Something was similarly said of another suspected plotter of 911.After the early 2025 New Orleans truck attack we likewise saw a reporter enter Shamsud-Din Jabbar's supposed home to find “religious materials, his Quran, an open Quran, with the passage there… and his prayer rug.”This follows the official description of 911 as Islamic “suicide attacks committed in 2001 by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda against targets.”All of this is despite the fact that these terrorists were documented to have been drinking alcohol, eating meat (even pork), hanging out with strippers, and spending lots of time in Las Vegas. And that is despite the fact that Muslims are forbidden from committing suicide, drinking alcohol or eating general meat, forbidden to engage with prostitution, and that there are no 72 virgins promised in their holy book. This is also despite the fact that at least 4 of the 19 supposed hijackers were still alive weeks after that fateful day. One story that is either lost, ignored, or debunked, is the report about 5 Dancing Israelis, an ABC story documenting how a witness named Maria in New Jersey watched three men on the roof of a white van “taking a movie.” She said they were taking video and phots of themselves with the World Trade Center burning in the background; they were “like happy, you know… they didn't look shocked to me.” After contacting authorities, police found the van filled with five men, a box cutter, lots of cash, and a curious defense: "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.” The media then, as today, ran stories about Dancing Palestinians with no context to the short clips. Conveniently, an Israeli also happened to be at the Boulder, Colorado, fire attack recently to provide evidence of another Mohammed hurting innocent people. And this follows the embassy worker shooting in Washington by a man who happened to have a Jewish name. Both of these cases resulted in the ADL and US-AG calling for hardcore crackdowns of the First Amendment, just as 911 was used to wage the Israeli-US agenda of endless conflicts for regime change, resource theft, and systematic extermination of Arab populations across the Middle East. Just as General Wesley Clark claimed to have seen as part of a plan at the pentagon (7 countries in 5 years) prior to the invasion of Iraq - and with zero reasoning or evidence. And this followed the PNAC think tank - founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in 1997 (both Jewish) - that produced a document called Rebuilding America's Defenses, calling for a “catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor”; which is exactly what President Bush said in the White House daily log after 911: "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today. We think it's Osama bin Laden." And many years later in 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the use of 911 for just such a plan: “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.” He said in one interview, “It's very good…. well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” And this doesn't account for the Jewish Larry Silverstein who pulled Building 7 or the Jewish Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security, who co-wrote the Patriot Act and sold body scanners to airports. All the while Islam and Muslims have been blamed for 911 and virtually every other form of terrorism, while the entire Arab world has grown justifiably more angry with the western world and Israel (a country founded on terrorism) for their condemnation of that world and for their subsequent destruction of the same - creating immense blowback. And then profiting from said destruction with defense contractors, private security firms, and the general military industrial complex enriching themselves on the backs of a widespread ethnic cleansing of the Arab world. Now that the Arab world is fully prepared to retaliate against the western world, there is modern justification to finish the job that Israel started - all to their benefit.And the same exact operation is occurring with Blackrock and Zelensky (the gay-Jewish-actor) in Ukraine with minerals, agricultural land, strategic land, and other resources. Ukraine, a country he said was going to be “a big Israel.”*The is the FREE archive, which includes advertisements. If you want an ad-free experience, you can subscribe below underneath the show description.-FREE ARCHIVE (w. ads)SUBSCRIPTION ARCHIVEX / TWITTER FACEBOOKYOUTUBEMAIN WEBSITECashApp: $rdgable EMAIL: rdgable@yahoo.com / TSTRadio@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-secret-teachings--5328407/support.

Send us a textNote: Audio Only, please see YouTube for Video Version. Step back in time with me as we explore the hidden archaeological wonders of Hovenweep National Monument, straddling the Utah-Colorado border. Few travelers discover this remote treasure, home to remarkable stone towers built by Ancestral Puebloans nearly 1,000 years ago.My two-hour journey around the canyon rim revealed architectural marvels that continue to defy both gravity and time. Hovenweep Castle stands proudly at the canyon edge, its multi-story structure a testament to ancient engineering prowess. The Square Tower rises dramatically from the canyon floor, while the Twin Towers perch precariously on a rock ledge, somehow surviving centuries of harsh desert conditions. Each ruin tells its story: Stronghold House, Rimrock House, Tower Point - all positioned strategically across the landscape for purposes we can only theorize about today.What struck me most was the sophisticated construction techniques employed by people without modern tools. These weren't simple rock piles but carefully designed buildings with specific functions – possibly homes, storage facilities, defensive structures, and ceremonial spaces. Conservation efforts have evolved significantly since the 1930s, when concrete was used for repairs; today's preservationists use acrylic-modified soil that better matches original materials, maintaining both stability and historical integrity.The two-mile loop trail provides constantly changing perspectives of these ancient dwellings, each view more impressive than the last. For anyone fascinated by human ingenuity, archaeological mysteries, or simply beautiful desert landscapes, Hovenweep offers a contemplative journey through a truly deserted valley where the achievements of ancient peoples stand in silent testimony to their remarkable civilization. Have you explored ancient ruins that left you similarly awestruck? I'd love to hear about your experiences with archaeological wonders!Support the show

Wanna win a $100 Visa Gift card? Fill out this short survey and go in the draw Take the short survey Tom Canavan was a securities specialist working in the North Tower on 9/11 who survived the collapse of the Twin Towers. He recounts the moments leading up to the first impact, the confusion and shock that followed, and the calm yet determined evacuation down dozens of smoke-free stairwells. Rewind back to Season 10 to hear the full story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode of IPS DEPROGRAM, recorded on Monday, May 26th, 2025, focuses heavily on the symbolic correlations between the Space Needle, the Tower of Babel, and past events like the Twin Towers falling. The host states, "We've correlated the Space Needle, symbolically, to the concept of the Tower of Babel falling. And this has been connected with the Twin Towers,". This connection suggests that a potential event involving the Space Needle in Seattle could be seen as a continuation or repetition of the 9/11 narrative. Other events like the Titanic sinking and the fall of the One World Trade Tower are also seen as part of this recurring story.

This episode of IPS DEPROGRAM, recorded on Monday, May 26th, 2025, focuses heavily on the symbolic correlations between the Space Needle, the Tower of Babel, and past events like the Twin Towers falling. The host states, "We've correlated the Space Needle, symbolically, to the concept of the Tower of Babel falling. And this has been connected with the Twin Towers,". This connection suggests that a potential event involving the Space Needle in Seattle could be seen as a continuation or repetition of the 9/11 narrative. Other events like the Titanic sinking and the fall of the One World Trade Tower are also seen as part of this recurring story.

When the Twin Towers fell on that September day, who was there to comfort us? In Season 2, Episode 2 of THE NEWSROOM ("The Genoa Tip"), we learn that it was - of course - Will McAvoy. We also learn a little more about his Republican politics in this complicated episode. PLUS: We pay tribute to a fallen superstar of the podcast, and Will explains to Luke what THE ROCK (Michael Bay, 1996) is. JOIN US ON PATREON FOR AN EXTRA EPISODE EVERY WEEK - https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus Catch up on our coverage of Season 1 of The Newsroom with this handy playlist - https://www.patreon.com/collection/1429433

New Podcast Alert: Sonia and SimonWe've just launched our brand new podcast Sonia and Simon, hosted by Sonia Jahshan and Simon Baggs.Our first guest? Tracy Walder former CIA and FBI agent featured in the current #1 Netflix docuseries American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden.Tracy Walder shares what most of us will never experience: life inside the CIA and FBI. From being recruited straight out of college to navigating terrorist threats post-9/11, Tracy opens up about the most dangerous moments of her career, the real differences between the CIA and FBI, and how her training still shapes every part of her life today.She dives into spotting liars, the future of AI in intelligence, personal safety tips for travel, and why vetting people—professionally and personally—matters more than ever. Tracy also takes us back to the moment the Twin Towers fell, sharing her firsthand experience inside the agency during that world-changing day.If you're curious about the realities of working in intelligence or just want to hear from someone who's truly lived on the edge this is one episode you won't forget.Each week, we'll sit down with some of the most fascinating people on the planet. You can watch full episodes on YouTube and Spotify, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.Thanks for the support we're excited to have you with us on this ride. Direct links below.Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sonia-and-simon/id1816169831Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/yF1OWT-v0ycWatch on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3MZcbrIwuhLxgw6Kp9SRhV Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Darryl Hicks, founder and CEO of FlexPay, takes us behind the scenes of a problem costing subscription businesses millions each month – failed payments and the resulting involuntary customer churn. From his early days cleaning toilets in his parents' commercial cleaning business to consulting for major telecom companies in the Twin Towers, Darryl shares his unique journey to founding a company that's now processing billions of transactions using sophisticated AI. What began as a solution he built for his own subscription businesses has evolved into a mission to fundamentally transform how payments work.FlexPay stands apart through deep partnerships with financial institutions, sharing crucial data that has traditionally been siloed between merchants and issuers. This approach allows their machine learning models to continuously improve. For subscription businesses experiencing millions in monthly failed payments, even small improvements in recovery rates translate to substantial revenue.The conversation reveals how payment system opacity creates unnecessary friction for legitimate commerce. When issuing banks make decisions without transparency – whether declining transactions due to suspected fraud or based on undisclosed policies against certain merchant categories – both businesses and consumers suffer. While excited about innovations like stable coins, Darryl remains pragmatic about the future of payments: "I would not bet against Visa and Mastercard." Rather than trying to replace traditional rails, he's focused on reducing friction within existing systems through better data sharing and transparency. For entrepreneurs, he emphasizes the importance of building strong advisory boards and following your natural passions.

The National Security Hour with Blanquita Cullum – Architects and engineers question how the Twin Towers collapsed in ‘essential free fall' despite Newton's Third Law. 18 years ago, a petition challenged NIST's report under the Information Quality Act, demanding explanations for total collapse. Join Blanquita Cullum with Richard Gage and Kamal Obeid as they probe hidden data and rare research into this mystery.

News From the Fallout is one of those horror titles that sticks to your heart like tar. It has a lingering fear that seeps deep into you the longer you sit with the book. It's an incredible piece of work from the Writer CHRIS CONDON (THAT TEXAS BLOOD, Ultimate Wolverine), artist JEFFREY ALAN LOVE (The Last Battle at the End of the World, The Thousand Demon Tree), letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, and designer Michael Tivey. I was lucky enough to sit down with the writer and artist to have a long discussion about the series that digs into some rather heavy topics about the book. Pre-order it now! In 1962 Nevada, a nuclear bomb test goes horribly awry and unleashes a contaminate into the atmosphere that turns people rotten. Otis Fallows, a private in the U.S. Army who is present for the test and is the only known survivor, flees the secret army base in search of a safe haven—but does such a place exist? Here is an excerpt from my review of the first two issues, which you should pre-order now: I grew up as a child in the 90's, seeing footage or references to nuclear fallout drills in all sorts of media. Watching those children my age crawl under their desks to escape the blast of a nuclear bomb's fallout seemed more like science fiction than something that was a real present threat anyone faced. Nothing catastrophic like that could ever happen in America, right? Well, in 3rd grade, I watched the Twin Towers fall on live television. So those tests didn't seem too far-fetched in my 9-year-old gray matter anymore.  With both the horrors that I witnessed and everything surrounding them, it felt like people's fears were heard loud and clear. They were echoed in everyone's hearts to try to stop them from happening again. There was no doubt that the fallout was inevitable.

The National Security Hour with Blanquita Cullum – Architects and engineers question how the Twin Towers collapsed in ‘essential free fall' despite Newton's Third Law. 18 years ago, a petition challenged NIST's report under the Information Quality Act, demanding explanations for total collapse. Join Blanquita Cullum with Richard Gage and Kamal Obeid as they probe hidden data and rare research into this mystery.

 Bringing Tens of Thousands of Newcomers to the 9/11 Truth | Watch Along with Them! — 45 Minutes  Jimmy Dore posted today our LIVE interview with him from the other day! He encouraged us to share all the evidence we could in our limited time with him, and we did!  I was joined by structural engineer Kamal Obeid from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth who addressed key issues including the impossibility of the free-fall collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. We addressed as many key points as we possibly could in the 45 minutes that we had:The importance of the truth-telling that WI Senator Ron Johnson and former Congressman Curt Weldon are all about right now. Jimmy played excerpts of the Senator's WTC comments on The Benny Show including “molten metal…controlled demolition…Calling Out Bravo 7 documentary.” We are making sure that the Senator has the solid body of evidence that will back up his historic efforts to get a real 9/11 investigation. The more you help us, the more we can help the VIP's who have the courage to speak out!We addressed these questions among many others on Jimmy Dore:Why didn't the American Institute of Architects issue even one bulletin on the catastrophic unprecedented destruction of 47-story World Trade Center Building 7 — the third worst structural failure in history?Why didn't NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology) include in their 2004 report on the Twin Towers the 156 first responders who saw, heard, and experienced explosions? And, many of them before the collapse of the towers?Why did NIST persist with their theory that the top section crushed the building section below while maintaining a near free-fall acceleration (when the top section was in fact destroyed in the first 3 seconds) — as if 90% of the steel gave no resistance whatsoever?What caused the hundreds of laterally-ejected freely-flying 4-ton structural steel sections, at 80mph, landing 600 feet in every direction impaling themselves in skyscrapers all around them?What cause the complete pulverization of 110 acre-sized concrete floors — 90,000 tons of concrete in each tower, and dispersed it from river to river across Lower Manhattan?What was crushing the lower section of each tower, if the above steel and concrete, which was 2/3 of their weight, was NOT even available to crush it?!The above questions were just the beginning of the 7-dozen key points of forensic, video, and eyewitness testimony we laid on Jimmy. Please let us know how you think we did. There's always room for improvement. Visit us at RichardGage911.orgSupport the show

Actor Ramy Youssef was in 5th grade and living in New Jersey when the Twin Towers fell. His new Amazon Prime animated show, #1 Happy Family USA, draws on the experiences of his own Egyptian American family navigating Islamophobia after Sept. 11. Conan O'Brien was the recipient of this year's Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. David Bianculli reviews the Netflix special of the ceremony.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In this gripping first installment of a two-part series, Dr. Jodi Richardson welcomes Yale and Stanford researcher Dr. Emma Seppälä, who reveals the traumatic 9/11 experience that changed her life forever. When traditional anxiety remedies failed her, a skeptical scientist discovered an ancient breathing practice that not only healed her own PTSD but would later transform the lives of war veterans who'd lost all hope. Dr. Seppälä shares how "sovereignty" - making your inside stronger than your outside - can help anyone navigate life's chaos. From witnessing the Twin Towers fall to pioneering breakthrough trauma research, her journey proves that our greatest potential often emerges from our darkest moments. The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Dr. Richardson's own anxiety surfaces during recording, leading to a powerful demonstration of the breathing techniques being discussed. Listen to discover the science behind reclaiming your inner power, how a simple 40-day practice changed everything, and why self-compassion outperforms self-criticism in every metric. Just as the story reaches its most profound revelation, we pause... leaving you breathless for Part 2. Don't miss the conclusion where Dr. Seppälä' will reveal the extraordinary story of her friend Etel's unimaginable trauma and remarkable transformation through sovereignty. More on Emma Seppälä': https://www.emmaseppala.com/ Connect with me: https://linktr.ee/drjodirichardson?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAabqDVAw_zhoG3IXGRhgjn-J14BFJy50ztJbCHywMfZobVH12nX1USMbisI_aem_QViUbKkXHlwbD3y4kGcvGQSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join us in conversation with renowned songstress and author, Adele Bertei, as we weave our way through the life and times of Sinead O'Connor, courage in the name of justice, and the healing power of song. Adele is an anti-disciplinary author, director, performer, and composer currently residing in Los Angeles, CA. She is the author of Peter and the Wolves (Smog Veil, 2020), Why Labelle Matters (University of Texas Press, 2021), Twist: Tales of a Queer Girlhood (ZE Books, 2023), and Universal Mother (Bloomsbury 33 1/3, 2025).   Bertei was an original member of the critically lauded Contortions, produced by Brian Eno on the seminal No New York LP. Reading prose and poetry, she opened for writers such as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Kathy Acker among many others. Bertei acted in several underground films, including a lead role in Born In Flames by Lizzie Borden.   Bertei was lead singer in the Bloods –America's first openly queer band of women, and has performed and recorded as a backing vocalist and touring vocalist for artists such as Tears for Fears, Thomas Dolby, Culture Club, Whitney Houston, Sandra Bernhard and Sophie B. Hawkins among many others.   New York City's Museum of Modern Art recently acquired films of Bertei reading her poem The Ragazzi Manifesto in 1978, and The Offenders by Scott and Beth B., where Bertei plays the lead.   She has created and facilitated songwriting workshops for homeless youth at My Friend's Place in Hollywood, and as a member of Wayne Kramer's Jail Guitar Doors, teaching songwriting to the incarcerated at the Twin Towers facility in downtown LA, and at Century Women's Regional Center at Lynwood, the largest women's jail in the nation.   Her next book, No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene, will be released in early 2026 by Faber & Faber UK.   Thanks to my producer and editor, Lucas Bakker @Iamlucasbakker- whose original music and soundtrack weave the Blue Medicine Journal podcast all together!  

We cover the backlash Steve Rannazzisi recieved in 2015, after his lie about being in the Twin Towers on September 11th was uncovered. FOR ALL THINGS BLIND MIKEhttp://blindmike.netFOR ALL THINGS CRAIGGERShttp://www.verygoodshow.orgFOR ALL THINGS HACKRIDEhttp://hackridethedemon.comFOR ALL THINGS DJ ELECTRA FRYhttp://djelectrafry.com

On Wednesday's Mark Levin Show, Elon Musk, once aligned with the left, has become a patriot and hero. From the moment he purchased and exposed Twitter, he became a target of the media and the left. Musk's efforts to uncover hundreds of billions in government waste, fraud, and abuse, have cost him millions and hurt Tesla. Alongside President Trump, Musk risked everything for America. This moment right now is critical for slashing government spending, a unique opportunity driven by Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Also, some conservatives keep saying that the Democrat Party is dead. Most people who say this have no idea what they're talking about. Democrats and Marxists aren't dead—they're just retooling and regrouping. This is a dangerous, even evil party, and you don't turn your back on them. Saying they're finished is an excuse not to decisively defeat them. If Democrats take one or both houses of Congress, you'll see they're far from dead—their attacks will be relentless. They will undermine Trump's entire agenda. Later, Sen Ron Johnson has said he wants hearings on what happened on 9/11. Here's what happened: Islamist terrorists attacked us, flew planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and a fourth plane crashed in central Pennsylvania because heroes rushed the cabin.  And now, Islamist terrorists in Iran are building a nuclear weapon while threatening to destroy us and Qatar is funding terrorists like Hamas and front groups in our country.   Afterward, Landmark Legal Foundation filed a brief with the appellate court to prevent further contempt proceedings by Judge James Boasberg.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New 9/11 footage emerged that sparks a deeper discussion about advanced weaponry.

A man starting a new job at One World Trade Center finds himself haunted by visions of a mysterious fireman, leading him on a surreal and terrifying journey that blurs the line between memory, time, and the lingering trauma of 9/11. Written by ► Owen Sayers Music by ► Myuu © 2025 Freaky Attractions. All rights reserved.This Creepypasta is for Entertainment Purposes Only.

I have never had the pleasure of having a guest quite like Michele Blood. While still living in Australia Michele was an extremely successful rock singer. One day she was involved in a serious accident while being driven to a gig. Her body was, as she says, quite battered and damaged. What is fascinating about Michele's story is how she discovered the value of positive affirmations that she used to heal everything. As she will tell us, it is not just saying affirmations, but rather it is truly believing what you affirm. Her music became an integral of what healed her.   Since her recovery Michele has traveled the world singing and speaking on stage with many well-known motivational and thought leaders. I leave it to her to tell the story.   During our episode Michele will sing one of her affirmation songs. I hope you are as moved by the song in specific and by Michele's attitude and mindset in general. She teaches us a lot that can have nothing but positives effects on your life.   I look forward to hearing what you have to say about my time with Michele. Don't forget to get her free gifts available only to listeners of the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Is that cool or what?       About the Guest:   Michele Blood is a successful, multi-talented lady. Michele was a successful songwriter and rock singer in Australia and after a near-fatal car accident, while in the hospital with many serious injuries, she created positive Affirmation Songs which not only healed her body but also took her to worldwide success. These Affirmation songs affect the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Lyrics, the left hemisphere, and melody and music, the right hemisphere so the new, positive messages go straight to the subconscious mind. This is why millions of people worldwide have downloaded her Affirmation Power songs. These songs cover healing, success, money, joy, confidence and they uplift the person immediately.   In addition to creating Magnet To Success™ products and seminars worldwide, her public Mystical Success Events have been held in over 26 countries. Michele has co-written and created over 80 books, music CDs, audio programs, TV shows, and videos on positive thought, mind transformation, and meditation.   Michele has appeared in many hundreds of podcasts, radio/tv shows, and magazines globally. After many years of meditation, Michele's Kundalini awakened and transformed her consciousness. Michele now teaches others how to live a Successful Life and experience Divine Oneness. Her Mystical Experience webinars and live streams have assisted people globally to transform their lives to the positive. Through her Teachings and Light Transmissions, people awaken and experience what they say is the impossible. They awaken to their true purpose and begin their path to Enlightenment. She has shared the stage and worked with Bob Proctor, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Jack Canfield, and many other transformational Authors and Teachers. Her latest book is The Magic Of Affirmation Power and her latest album is Create Miracles: Positive Affirmation Songs To Harmonize your Mind and Life. And her new Magnet To Money App will uplift millions worldwide.   Ways to connect with Michele:   https://www.MicheleBlood.com and https://www.YouTube.com/MicheleBlood   Michele would also love to gift your viewers and listeners her audiobook, "The Magic Of Affirmation Power" Your audience can download this free gift by going to: https://www.MicheleBlood.com/UnstoppableMindset   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected, which is really the most fun part, meet today. We are getting close to winter, and I was just telling our guest Michele Blood that here in Victorville, we had a temperature this morning of 28 degrees. Ah, lovely weather, and all the weather people complain about now it's getting cold in the summer, they complained it was getting hot. You know, you can't please them. I don't know what to say. But anyway, one of these days they'll, they'll decide that whatever happens is is not a bad thing, and they'll stop complaining, I guess. But any Yeah. But anyway, Michele, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. Thank you.   Michele Blood ** 02:06 Michael, I've been so looking forward to this. After reading thunder dog, I'm going to be reading the second book, which is live like a guide dog. I'm going to be reading that after that, I absolutely adore this book, which I'm showing right now, Thunder dog. It's the most inspirational you can't put down. I mean, the lot not just getting down 78 floors of the Twin Towers, 78 stairs. I mean, oh my gosh. But then everything that you've done in between working with you know Ray Kurzweil, who's done a lot of things in the music industry as well. I mean, I mean, I recognized his name straight away. I'm like, all the all the things you've done. I'm just so impressed by and by your life and how inspiring you are. And I just wanted to say that to everybody, he's just, you gotta get his thunder dog book if you haven't yet, and his new book, live like a guide dog, for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 03:02 I I don't know. I haven't totally kept up, but I haven't heard that anybody has yet come out with a music synthesizer that is better than the Kurzweil synthesizer. Now, a lot has happened, and maybe technology has advanced, but I hadn't heard about anything that still beats it.   Michele Blood ** 03:20 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the fair light was pretty amazing when that first came out, but the Kurzweil, I mean, all any rock musician knows about, yeah, when, when that was first put out, we were just like, oh my gosh, that's amazing, you know, because you could sample sounds and, you know, it was just   Michael Hingson ** 03:39 incredible, and it had a choir built into it. Yeah? Daylight though   Michele Blood ** 03:43 that was, I don't know, think back back in the day, it was like 100 grand, so that's probably why it wasn't as popular. Yeah,   03:51 a little more   Michael Hingson ** 03:52 expensive than the Kurzweil one. Yeah, yeah, our organist at our church where my wife and I went in Irvine and where we got married, our organist had a Kurzweil synthesizer and used it a lot, which was, which was kind of fun, and it was, it was very and it is very impressive all the way around, yeah, but   Michele Blood ** 04:13 just the innovative things that have been done, and you're helping ray with all of the things for the blind as well. Working with Stevie Wonder. I mean, it's just, you're very impressive. You're an inspiration. You are, you are absolutely amazing.   Michael Hingson ** 04:28 Well, thank you. But now let's talk about you a little bit. And you know, you can, you can.   04:35 I didn't show them the cover yet. You can   Michael Hingson ** 04:38 spread any rusty live like a guide dog. Live   04:42 like a guide dog. Needs to cover everybody   Michael Hingson ** 04:45 well, I hope people will get it. I'm we're excited about it. It's been out now a few months. It seems to be selling. We're excited. So hopefully people will read it, and it inspires people a little bit, because it's all about. Are trying to get people to learn to control fear and not let it overwhelm or, as I put it, blind you. But anyway, tell us a little bit about you. Why don't you start with the the early Michele, growing up, and some of those kinds of things, just kind of introduce us to you a little bit.   Michele Blood ** 05:16 Well, I'm an Aussie G'day, everyone. G'day, and, in Australia, I started in the entertainment industry at the age of five, on TV. What   Michael Hingson ** 05:27 did you do? Singing? Oh, okay,   Michele Blood ** 05:31 you know. And then eventually got my, you know, had lots and lots of rock bands I sang in, until eventually I got my own rock band that became very successful. I was the lead singer, one of the main songwriters and the manager of the band. We got a great record label. We had 1000s of people coming to our gigs, and it took years to get there, but I loved it so much, even though it's very, very tough at one stage, we toured for seven years, non stop. I mean, no Christmases, no New Year's eves, because when you're in a rock band, you get paid triple on New Year's Eves and Christmases and stuff like that. Yeah, and you can't really say no until you're really huge. You can't really say no to any gig, because you need the money road crew and sound equipment trucks and all the rest of it so but I feel that my life went on a whole new trajectory after a near fatal truck accident, actually, where I was a passenger with the truck, with all the equipment, and my body was so badly broken, I was In the hospital for months and months and months and and that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know that sounds crazy everybody, but truly, when you have something so terrible happen to you, and it gets turned around by the Divine, whatever you choose to call God, it gets your life gets turned around and it makes all the difference in the world. So that's the first quarter.   Michael Hingson ** 07:08 Well, you know, I'm really curious. You said something that just strikes a question. I know that a lot of people try to go into entertainment, and most probably aren't overly successful. But why do you think that you were so successful? What what made the rock group and and what you did so successful? Do you have a notion? Well,   Michele Blood ** 07:30 I loved what I did. I was very, very good at it. And not everyone that's good at it's probably other singers in the world that are better than me. But the reason, I think because, I mean, I had some backing vocals on some records, and these female singers were incredible. And one of them said, I know you've got a good voice, Michelle, but I don't know why it's you and not me. And I said, I think it's just that I never gave up, and I was really disciplined. And I, you know, I wasn't on the road of sex, drugs and rock and roll. I was on the road of discipline, making sure that all my band members were disciplined. We worked really, really hard. We rehearsed a lot. We never blew out a gig, not once. So you get a good reputation. And so I started as a cover band, and we would sound just like the records at the time of the 80s. You know, people said that was a band. It sounded like a record. And so then we, we eventually started putting all our originals in and, I mean, I did crazy things, Michael, I went into Time Warner to the A and R people, because I wasn't getting any feedback. It's really hard. You can't just send them a tape to get you know for them to listen to your demos. So I went in as a tap dancing singing telegram. And so the secretary let me go straight into the office, and it was a board meeting, and because she thought, you know, their family had so I was there with flowers and a cake and my ghetto blaster, and I said, Then I did a tap dance, and I made up this song about, you know, this is, this is the band called clapping hands. You're going to sign them, you're going to want them. And this is a singing telegram saying, Listen to this. And that's how I got my first record deal.   Michael Hingson ** 09:24 Creativity counts for something. It   Michele Blood ** 09:25 sure does. You've gotta have guts. And I mean, I by the time I walked out of that office, though I was sweating, I was shaking, but you have to do something to be noticed. And and I think because I love people so much, and because I'd been singing professionally since I was five, which means I was singing for family members and everyone since I was two, apparently getting being put on the kitchen table. And I loved people being happy, and I love loved entertaining. I just loved it. So I think, you know, it's in the stars as. Well, I know that, but I think discipline, hard work eventually never giving up. Yeah, what can I say? Never giving up.   Michael Hingson ** 10:08 Did you so you were a cover band for for a while, which meant you were the the opening band for other groups,   Michele Blood ** 10:17 not as a cover band, well, with the opening act for the pretenders and in excess and a few other bands, when we were an original band and when we had a record label, right, when we had videos on TV, but before that, now we do five to 645, minute sets a night, and we would stay at one big venue, because in back in the day in Australia, the venues were huge for cover bands. You know, four to 6000 people could come in, and we got, we got very, very popular as a cover band, and then we went original. But it took a few years to do that, for sure, but   Michael Hingson ** 10:55 I remember, I remember bands back in the 50s and 60s, like the platters, who actually were the opening band, or they were the band that were the background for other singers. And then somebody discovered these guys really are better than that, and then they became their own group, right?   Michele Blood ** 11:14 Yeah, yeah. It's interesting how, how it all works out. But in Australia, it's, it's a tough way to tour when you're a female singer, because the Aussies are pretty tough. If they don't like you, you can get B canes thrown at you.   Michael Hingson ** 11:32 Yeah, well, those kinds of things do happen. Yes, they did in Boston for for sports teams. I've heard of fans really being very brutal to like the the Patriots. I think when Steve Grogan was the quarterback, they actually booed him off the field once. It was pretty amazing. I don't know. You know that's people take some of these things way too seriously. They   Michele Blood ** 12:00 certainly do. I like what Oscar Wilde said, Life is too serious to be taken seriously. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 12:09 yeah, absolutely, and, but people still do it way too much. Which is, which is, which is a problem. Yes, you know, we need people to take life more like Mark Twain and Will Rogers, by all means, but I can co so you, you had a serious car accident, and as you said, It really broke your body. Tell us what you'd like to about that and and then how you dealt with it, because that, that was quite a, I won't say miraculous. That was quite a marvel. You. You certainly took a leap along the way with that.   Michele Blood ** 12:50 Yeah, it's such a unique story. Um, after you know the truck driver we've been driving for 12 hours from Brisbane to Sydney, from gig to keep and he fell asleep at the wheel just as we reached Sydney, which happened to be right across the road from the best orthopedic specialist hospital in Sydney. So thank you, God, you know. Yeah, there's no coincidences. There's no accidents. So they got me over there really fast, and they had me straight into the operating theater straight away. So, I mean, I had tons of different operations, but what happened was, when you're in physics, that much physical agony, you pass out every few minutes. Mm, hmm, and, but I had people and fans and family putting on audio programs of things I'd never heard of before, Affirmations, Visualization, positive stuff, audio books by motivational speakers, inspirational speakers who I'd never heard of, but one of them got to me, and that was a book by a man called Napoleon Hill who wrote a book called Think and Grow Rich. Grow Rich, right? And I didn't care about hearing about all the millionaires in the 1920s in America, male men. Why would a female, young Australian rock singer care about that? But one chapter in there, he talks about how his infant son was born deaf, and he would go into his infant son's room every single night and do affirmations, auto suggestion, you hear perfectly. You are so loved, and you are so loving, etc, etc. And by the time a little boy was nearly four, he had 30% of his hearing. And you know when you hear something, I've never heard of this before, Michael, but you know when you hear something for the first time and you can feel it that it's true. You've just heard something that you know in the marrow of your bones that that what you've just heard is true. So I said, Okay, I can, I can run. Relate to that, because I know that I've used my willpower and my positive thinking, My I've never said I can't do something, I can't have that drama that I want. I've never said that. I've always said it's all possible. Everything is possible. You just go for it. Michelle, and I'd always just go for it. And I was brought up a Catholic, and I wasn't brought up. I wasn't one of those people that hated the church. I loved it. So I always had a belief in God, because I used to go to mass as a little girl every morning with the nuns, because I was in love with Jesus, and I just felt so I had that spirituality in me, and I think that is what is the backbone. You know, in the Bible, it says you do not need to be strong, because Christ is my strength. Christ is your strength. And so now I know that there is so much more to spirituality than just Jesus, but it was a great start for my faith in my life, and it gave me happiness. And so I just had faith that this would work, so I started doing affirmations, but they didn't work. Michael, do you want to know why? Sure, yeah, we've got nothing else to do today, right? May as well. Hear about it well, because neuroscience has proven now that affirmations do work and they do positive thinking actually does make a difference in the brain, in the neural pathways. It does make a difference. It ignites something in different parts of the brain. But back then, in the 80s, there was no way to prove that, you know, let alone Napoleon Hill in the 1920s but the thing that he said was most important is, you have to believe it. You have to emotionalize it. But I couldn't, Michael, I couldn't emotionalize it because I would. I started an affirmation, I am healed. I know I am. I love myself. I am my friend. Now, none of those things were true, so I thought, but I did want them to be true, so I thought, great, I've got the perfect affirmation. But when you are feeling like you're feeling and the world around you is presenting the opposite of what you're saying. Your doubting mind spits it out and does not believe it. So about two, three weeks after stopping the affirmations, because I realized that didn't work, I literally had a spiritual epiphany, and it was, you know, as a songwriter, Michelle, you can't get a song out of your head, even if it's songs you don't like or jingles from advertising agencies. So sing your affirmations. Because I got my brother to look around for affirmation songs, and he said, there isn't any such thing. And so I started singing,   Speaker 1 ** 17:58 I am healed. I know I am I love myself. I am my friend. And   Michele Blood ** 18:05 I recorded it onto a cassette player, just a cappella over and over again. And that was the beginning. As I listened to that all day, every day I would I started feeling better. I started getting back to my attitude, that I can, I can heal it just I realized. And when I was working with Bob Proctor, he said, you know why that works so well? He said, It's because the left side of the brain is where the lyrics are, the affirmation, the right side the melody. And this is even before I started recording it with music, and so you have a whole brain experience. And the song, the doubting mind doesn't have a chance to reject it. It goes straight into your subconscious mind. So that's how my positive affirmation pop music began. I didn't stop doing my other music, but I did have what they said, even the doctors, even though they're not supposed to say it, they said my healing was miraculous, and I ended up on TV shows and in the press and everything about what I'd been through for inspiration. And that's how it all began.   Michael Hingson ** 19:16 It. It really is all about believing it. It's it is so easy just to say something, but without truly accepting it, without truly making it a part of your psyche. However you do that it, it doesn't mean a thing. Don't   Michele Blood ** 19:32 mean a thing if it ain't something. Yeah, you do have to laugh. Do up, do up, do   Michele Blood ** 19:43 Yeah, music makes the world go around. It does,   Michael Hingson ** 19:48 and it's so important to take it seriously enough that you truly do believe it, and that's what's so important. And clearly. What you did? So what happened you you got healed completely, I would assume from all that had happened,   Michele Blood ** 20:10 yeah, I mean, it's still it still took quite a while, but I was determined. I put my high shoes back on, even though they said, don't wear high shoes. And I never intended for the affirmation music to go out to the public. My one of the band members that I work with and wrote songs with John Beatty, Hi John. He he's in person now in Australia with millions of kids, but anyway, we won't help me. Listens, yeah, we went into the recording studio and we, we just started recording. I was writing a lot of songs, and we started recording tons of different affirmation songs in all different styles of you know, from R and B to just rock to ballads to depending on what the song was about, whether it was about, you know, divine love, more of a ballad, more of a some of them just more rock and roll about being successful. And when the press found out that I was actually doing that, then promoters that were bringing out American very, very big, best selling authors asked me to come and do my singing affirmations in between these people. And I said, No, I don't want to do that. I'm not doing it for the public. Was just for me, my band, to have these positive thoughts. And they said, No, we love it. We love it. We want you to do it. And so my very first gig, I'm in Adelaide, Australia, and there's three and a half 1000 people on a Wednesday that came to this gig that paid over $300 each for a ticket, which I thought was absolutely insane. I didn't know what was going on. And I sang, and got all the people up on stage singing the affirmation songs with me made it into like a mini rock concert. And then Deepak Chopra, this, who I'd never heard of, never met before. Wayne Dyer, who I'd never heard of, never met before. Tony Alessandra, Stuart, wild, they were the speakers, and they couldn't believe it when we went out to dinner that night that I've never heard of any of them. And I said, I'm in rock and roll. I'm not in the motivational world. You know, I've, I've never heard of you, because I've not in that world. And so they were interested in how it all began, and they all said, You've got to tour this around the world. You've got to you've got to release these that we love. What you're doing. The audience is so different. Bob Proctor, though he was the one, when I ended up working with him, the promoters said, you know, we've got this female Australian singer, and you're going to be touring with her? And he said, No, I don't want a female singer. I'm Bob Proctor. I don't need that anyway. The first gig I did with him in Sydney, he came out after, and he said, I didn't want to work with a singer. And I said, good to meet you too, mate. I Yes, how are you? And he said, but no, all kidding aside. He said, My wife and I, Linda, we loved it so much, and I want you to work with me all over the world, doing events. So eventually I end up working with Bob for seven years straight. We wrote books together. We wrote music together. We put on huge events. I took over his business, looked after it, and from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where I lived, and then, and it was just very, very interesting. I've worked in over 26 countries, huge, huge audiences. The biggest one I had was 50,000 people. So to say it was successful is an understatement, but I didn't plan it. I didn't visualize it, but I had always planned on being very well known singer, but it but not to be a positive affirmation or singer. I'd never thought of that, but eventually I went off the grid and started really getting into deep meditation practice and getting off the that whole circuit, because I wanted to find God within me. So that was what happened. And it was fascinating, because it's like working with all these, you know, rock musicians, male rock musicians, and then working with all these male best selling authors. I'm like, I'm always surrounded by the boys.   Michael Hingson ** 24:46 Hey, whatever works, it's, it's interesting though, that that you, you did so much of this, I gather that the audience is reacted very positively, though. Um. Have you heard from anyone that it really changed their life to have encountered you and heard you when you performed? Oh,   Michele Blood ** 25:10 yeah, we've had millions. I mean, we've got a lot of our video video testimonials and testimonials from not just best selling authors that I've worked with, but also from people from all over the world. I work with people in over 32 countries now, and some of them don't even speak English, but they still feel the vibration. And a lot of different people have started singing my songs in different languages, which I allow anyone to do. They don't have to pay me a royalty. They can just do it whatever brings positivity to the world and change within someone, so that they can get out of that rabbit hole. Because you're, you know, your whole podcast about unstoppable mindset. Well, this is such a a great new beginning is to just have to listen to a song. Yeah? And, you know, there's so I've got hundreds of songs to choose from, so it's a good it's a good way to start, because music, you know, like I always say to people, if you have the blues, even though I like blues and I think it's brilliant, but if you have the blues, probably best not to listen to the blues. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 26:21 definitely, definitely true. Well, of course, one has to ask if, if you have one, not necessarily long, but that you want to sing for us all.   Michele Blood ** 26:38 Yeah, I can. I didn't have anything set up. But if you'd like to chat for a minute, I'll just get something set up for you. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 26:45 okay, we can, we can do that. I do. I do agree with you that if you've got the blues, you don't want to listen to the blues. I I personally like happy stuff. I like musicals, especially when they're they're happy musicals. I've always enjoyed that. I do listen and read science fiction and sometimes read some some pretty horrific things. But I've noticed later in my life I'm doing less of that because I, although I like mysteries, I don't like nowadays really graphical or very graphic murder mysteries and things like that, and so people call the kinds of things that I probably typically like cozy mysteries. I wouldn't say that Rex Stout books about neural wolf the private detective are necessarily cozy, but by the same token, they're not the most graphic things, and I've always enjoyed them because they're puzzles. And I love mysteries that are really puzzles that I can become engaged in and try to solve, and musicals I like just because they're fun and and they're they're very happy for the most part. And so again, they're, they're very relevant to to want to listen to. So I, I tend to do that. So it's a lot of fun to keep in the the spirit of reasonably happy and stay away from the blues. Okay,   Michele Blood ** 28:17 I've got something set up now, alright, saying low battery, but oh, sorry. What happened there? There it is. There it is. This song is called synergy. I wrote it with Bob Proctor. Can you hear the music?   Michael Hingson ** 28:35 It's a little low, but yes, go ahead. Better. Yep,   Speaker 1 ** 28:40 there's a way to get it moving, to make it happen, to get high. Can barely flooded in the clouds, join thoughts and let them fly. When your mind joins in with others and all your thoughts to one a US. Energy begins to sizzle and it's energy positive energy synergy. It's energy, hot energy, positive energy turn into synergy. Together, creative power will start to flow. Things begin to happen. You're a church with Synergy. Red Hot energy, positive energy grows into synergy. It's energy, hot energy, positive energy grows into synergy.   Michele Blood ** 29:55 You shine and become magnetic, you'll draw the good. People out the world will be a better place, and everyone will start to shout, face to face, building   Speaker 2 ** 30:12 energy. Taste. The taste is this energy, thoughts, launching into one, a new boss have become this is synergy.   Speaker 1 ** 30:23 It's synergy, red hot energy, positive energy, delta, synergy, it's synergy.   Michael Hingson ** 30:34 There you go. Now   30:36 that's Bob Proctor. Wrote the lyrics for that.   Michael Hingson ** 30:41 But, um, who was the male voice near the end? Oh, the   Michele Blood ** 30:44 male voice was a American guy in who was singing covers in Kuala Lumpur when I lived there, Ah, okay, and I just hired him to come and and do that in the studio in Kuala Lumpur, yeah. But the other affirmation songs are more simple, but they're still got, you know, like a good dance beat, some of them are ballads greeting the day with love in your heart. It just depends on where you want to take your mind that day. Do you want to open your heart? Do you want to be like listen to the persistent song. Do you want to feel more successful? You listen to the success song, which is like 50s, rock and roll. So they're all different. They're all different product, production. So it was a lot of fun changing the different styles for each song depending on the lyrics.   Michael Hingson ** 31:34 Well, if people want to get those affirmation songs and so on, are they available for people to get? Yeah,   Michele Blood ** 31:41 all my albums are sold all over the world, and iTunes, of course, Amazon. My own website is magnet to success. Com. My YouTube channel is Michelle blood.com forward slash YouTube. But I've got lovely giveaways for your for your audience, if you'd like me to share that. Well, we will   Michael Hingson ** 32:03 do that a little bit, okay, but I really appreciate you seeing synergy. I will be, I will be saying that to myself the rest of the day, which is fine, but you know, you mentioned the blues and so on. So here's a question, if somebody is really down and really frustrated, how can they change their life to the positive?   Michele Blood ** 32:31 Well, first of all, even if they are really down, you've got to know, no matter what is going on in your life, that everything is possible for you, and that you can get out of that rabbit hole, and that you are you might feel alone, but you're never alone. Whether you believe in God or you don't believe in God, there is a God and you are looked after. You can pray without begging just giving. One of the most wonderful things you can do is just to start to write down what you're thankful for immediately. If you can say thank you divine, or just thank you for my beautiful life, and if then you can begin to write down what a beautiful life would look like for you, just start writing it down, even though it's not true yet. Like, let's start thinking about what can be done. What do you what sort of friends do you want? What sort of lifestyle do you want? You know, start thinking of others as well. Whenever we can do something, if we can do something every single day that makes somebody else happy, whether it's feeding the homeless or sending funny kitten videos to your friends. You if you can do something every day that brings happiness to somebody else or takes them out of suffering, well, then it'll take you out of yourself. Because if, if it's something emotional that you're going through, that means that you're going to sometimes we do need to go through the emotion, particularly if we're mourning the loss of something or someone that's important and healthy. But it is also important to stop thinking about ourselves so much and look at what can be done for the world. I love I love Saint Vincent de Paul. I love the Salvation Army so much, so you can tithe to them anonymously. If you want to do something you don't know what to do, even if it's just a buck, five bucks, it's really good to tithe to charities that are doing good in the world. And I'm sure there's a charity that you could recommend to us, Michael, that will help with the blind. If you got one, you can recommend?   Michael Hingson ** 34:43 Well, I think there, there really are a number of of places to donate. One of my favorites is the National Federation of the Blind, nfb.org, because it's, it's a consumer organization that fights for the rights of. Of blind people around the United States and actually around the world. And it's the NFB is the largest consumer organization of blind people in this country and, in fact, in the world. But it has made such a difference in the lives of blind people. For example, through the National Federation of blind we completely changed the life insurance industry that refused to provide life insurance for any blind person up until the mid 1980s and when it was finally discovered that they were denying us, not because they had any evidence and actual mathematical models that proved that we were a risk, which is what they're supposed to do. They were doing it strictly out of prejudice. And so now every state in the union, because of the Federation, has actually passed legislation that says you can't discriminate unless you've got real evidence. Well, it's been 40 years, and nobody's come up with evidence that we're a higher risk simply because we're blind or other persons with disabilities, their disabilities directly make them a higher risk. So, you know, that's that's definitely one of my favorite organizations to support. And   Michele Blood ** 36:13 nfb.org everybody. Nfb.org I've written it down for me to start tithing there as well. And,   Michael Hingson ** 36:20 you know, and there, there are so many others. Another organization that I tend to like, it's a very small organization, is advocates for service animal partners asap.org, and and it fights for the rights of people with a variety of disabilities who use service animals, service dogs, to be able to take their dogs with them, where wherever they go, because we're denied. So awesome. So I like asap.org as well.   Michele Blood ** 36:51 I love what you did. I think it was you and Ray and his wife. You were going to a particular restaurant and a a suity maitre d snotty, snooty, wouldn't let you in with your blind dog, with your with your guide dog, right? And and she was really upset the wife. And so you end up gathering quite a few of your friends that are blind, that have guide dogs, and you went in, and he had to oblige and let you all in. And everyone was very nice to you. So that was really good, because that it, it's, it's illegal for them to say you can't come in with your guide dog. It is   Michael Hingson ** 37:28 illegal, and it has been illegal for a long time. One of my favorite stories, which really wasn't a bad story at all, there used to be a restaurant in Boston in Quincy Market called Durgan Park. And Durgan Park was was basically family style, although around the outside of the room they had tables for four but you couldn't sit at one of those tables unless you had four people. Well, we came in one night and there were only three of us and my dog, Holland, and the the host has said, You know what, I'm going to make an exception and let you sit at this table for four so Holland was under the table, and there were three of us, and the waitress came up, and the waitresses at Durgan Park are known as snots. I mean, they're, they're, they're, they're supposed to be really rough and all that. It's just part of the schtick. But she came up and she said, What are you people doing sitting here? And he said, well, the host has put us here. No, she didn't. You're just sitting here. No, she did. It's because of the dog under the table. No, there's no dog under the table. You're not going to make me fall for that. And she walks away, and then she comes back and she said, you're not supposed to be sitting here and all that. I said, Look, there's a dog under the table. Take a look. And it took a while, but I finally got her to look, and there's Holland staring at her with these big brown eyes when she lifts up the the tablecloth, and the next thing I know, she comes back with a big plate. Jurgen Park has very good sized portions of frying rib and says, Can I give this to the dog, oh, and, and normally, I would never do that, but in the for to promote goodwill, I said, Okay, which Hall of love? And, you know, I knew the food there was good, but, you know, it was, it was just one of those great stories. But, yeah, all too often that isn't the way it goes. We see so many challenges with Uber, for example, so many drivers refuse to take blind people or other people with disabilities who have service dogs. It's against the rules, and they say, but it's our car. No, you signed a contract that said that you are going to transport the public, so it is illegal for you to deny us. But they do, and that's one of the things that ASAP, for example, is really working on to address, to get Uber, to recognize that it has to enforce the law like everyone else. But it's a challenge. People come from all sorts of different points of view. You know, with   Michele Blood ** 39:59 the name like. Uber. How could they do that? They're not being very Uber.   40:04 Well, there you go.   Michele Blood ** 40:07 Wow. That's interesting in this day and age. Absolutely, it continues all too often. So many people have slipped into something more comfortable, like a coma. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 40:18 Now you and your team have created an app. I think it's called what magnet to money. Tell us about that. Yeah,   Michele Blood ** 40:24 it was interesting. Thanks, Michael. I wanted to do because sometimes people like you were talking earlier, how do they get out of their you know, their depression, or whatever they're going through that they're feeling, how do they get out of that rabbit hole? So if you're feeling that way, and your mindset is in a negative state of mind, and you're emotionally not feeling well, well, then it's very, very challenging for you to want to put on some positive, you know, affirmation music. Because I know when I was in the hospital, if people came in and they were too chirpy. I would couldn't wait for them to go because I wasn't oscillating at that frequency. Yeah, you know. So they're all Oh, hi. And so I thought, wouldn't it be great if we had an app and it would just play? As you know, they can choose the notifications how often it will play. And so Polly fella, Trevor Rogers and Johnny and Dara and myself, we worked really hard, especially Holly fella, to develop this app. And it took about two and a half years to develop it. And it's got morning meditations. It's got tons of affirmations with music underneath. It's got a sleep program to help. As they're sleeping, people are sleeping, I'm very softly saying affirmations and positive you know, feed, feed to their minds. And it's also got notifications, so the magnet to money song will play whatever they want to, so they don't have to even remember to and eventually, like someone the other day, said she was in a bank and she had the magnet to Money App, and she had it as her ringtone as well. And she's in this big bank that was hardly anybody in there, but it was quite chamber ish, Echo ish, and she said, and her phone was on pretty loud. It started, I'm a magnet to money came on really loud, and everyone started laughing. They're like, well, that's sort of, I guess, you know, a good thing to play in a bank. Yeah, works. So, yeah, the magnet to Money App is fantastic. App. It's got so much on it, and it's got an audio book you get for free from myself and Bob Proctor called magnet to money through the sea of unlimited consciousness, one one of our books that we did as an audio book, and we thought we've also got a free app, because that magnet to Money App is only about, I think it's $4 or something A month, but the affirmation power app is free, and on that tons of affirmations, plus my affirmation music videos is on there as well. So that's free, if anybody wants that.   Michael Hingson ** 43:13 So yeah, so is that available with Android and Apple and iPhone? No,   Michele Blood ** 43:17 just, just apple at the moment, because to develop for an Android is much more complicated because there are so many different companies, yeah, yes, whereas Apple, it's just the iPhone, but we do intend to, but it's, you know, we've got the manifestation video app as well, and we've got a New App coming out, which is all my audio books. And I'm doing a new audio book every month, not just my books on audio, but other people's books on audio as well. And then the next step after that, is a prayer app, talking about prayer, how to pray, and for me, teaching people the power of prayer. So it's really lovely to be able to do apps that have got positive, you know, the very, very, you know, if they were to buy all those individual products from me to cost hundreds dollars, and this way it's just a few dollars a month all free for them to get all my positive songs and books and all that sort of thing.   Michael Hingson ** 44:17 How do people search for these apps that in the in the app store. I think   Michele Blood ** 44:22 that if they just go under, look under Michelle blood, okay, under my name, yeah, okay, they'll just come up. I   Michael Hingson ** 44:29 will, I will be doing that this afternoon. I think that's that's pretty cool. You know, in in our world today, we become so materialistic in so many ways, but at the same time, a lot of people have really become students of your affirmations and so on. How did they really become students? And I think even more important, one of the questions that I would ask is. How does it really transform, or did it really transform people's consciousness and set them on a road toward a more spiritual path? Because I think in so many ways, we don't see people doing that, and at the same time, I know there are a lot of people who do, but by the same token, there's so many people who go, oh, this is just all pokem. It doesn't really mean anything, but that's just not true.   Michele Blood ** 45:24 Well, I think it's, it's an interesting question to answer, because there are so many different types of people in the world, and we can't expect to change people. They have to, you know, I don't want anyone to suffer. Michael, first of all, so I think having positive thoughts in their head is going to actually make them think less of themselves, believe it or not, these the way the lyrics are done, and more of joy and sharing and caring about other people, because it is so important to to do that, because people, if they get too much into themselves, Like I say to people, don't buy anything if you're buying it. For someone else to be to compliment you, that's a really good way of deciding what you're going to purchase in your life. If you're doing it to you know, to say, Oh, I've got this really nice car. Look how great I am. But get it if you want a good car. Get it because you want a nice, safe car that's good for the environment, but don't get it so that you will impress other people. Unless you're a real estate agent, they do need good cars, apparently, to drive people around, yeah, I guess so. Drive people around,   Michael Hingson ** 46:35 but, or drive people crazy, yeah,   Michele Blood ** 46:37 but. But I also think it's important that that if you want to, you can't tell someone to be more spiritual. They have to get into a positive frame of mindset first. Because when you're in a positive frame of mindset, you start feeling more of a heart blow, more love. And even if you don't believe in God, you believe in love everybody, I know you do, so whether it's your animal that you love, because every animal is an angel, whether it's nature, smelling the remembering to stop and smell the flowers, remembering to not let yourself complain. Complaining will take you down a rabbit hole of absolute negativity and please. People remember, the only reason you're complaining is because you're feeling fear about losing something or not getting something that you want. And so if you can stop complaining for 28 days straight, you will change your life. And I know that sounds impossible, but many people can do it, because I've seen my students do it. So if you can stop complaining and stop half if you're halfway through a complaint about something or someone or politics or Trump or whatever in the hell it is, stop yourself halfway through and just say, Why am I complaining? And people are complaining because they're in fear. If you can stop and be mindful enough to say, I'm complaining because I'm afraid of something, and I don't want to face it and find out what you're afraid of, the thing that you're afraid of will dissipate. Yeah, it really will. So I think that's a really good place to start listening to the positive songs, for sure, going to every single unstoppable mindset podcast you possibly can go to reading Michael's books, and also, just knowing that you can get out of that rabbit hole, it is totally possible, and I've seen it in people from all different cultures and religious backgrounds all over the world. I've traveled to so many different countries, and have so many different audiences, and everybody wants to be loved and be loved in return. And everybody wants to see other people happy at their core. They really do. We don't want to make people unhappy, do you? So stop complaining.   Michael Hingson ** 49:07 You know, it's, it's interesting that you, you talk about all this, one of the things that we talk a lot about, and you'll see it and live like the guide dog, is that we need to become more introspective. Because if we do and we really look at ourselves daily, and, for example, look at what worked today, what didn't work. Why didn't it work? You eventually get to what was I really afraid of? And if you really stop to think about that and go, I didn't need to be afraid of that, your life will change, which is really, as you're pointing out, what it's all about.   Michele Blood ** 49:44 Excellent, excellent. I'm looking forward to reading that as well, and then I've already told everyone to get thunder dog on all my lists. But now I'll be, after I read the next one, I'll be telling them to read that as well, because we're on the same page. Michael.   Michael Hingson ** 49:59 Tell me a little bit about something I've read in your bio, how you went from affirmations to a full kundalini awakening.   Michele Blood ** 50:09 Well, when I was working with Bob Proctor in Asia, I was saying to him one day, I feel this heart blow like I feel like my heart is out of my chest, and I feel such deep love. And it's not for any person, place or thing. It's for everything, actually, but it's beyond that. It's divine. And he said, you're looking for an enlightened teacher. That's what you need. And I said, Well, where do you find an enlightened teacher, and what exactly is that? And he got me to read Autobiography of a Yogi by Hara mahansa Yogananda. And I'd read it before, but I didn't really get it like I did this time when I read it, and I realized that enlightenment wasn't just one person. People can actually meditate and go into higher states of consciousness, but I wasn't thinking of how is an enlightened being around in this modern world? That can't be right? Because I it must be like unless it's Asia maybe. He said, I don't know. He said, I did have a Canadian man who was enlightened, who taught me for three years before he died, left the body. And he said, you just have to pray for it and know that the teacher and the student will find each other. It took me 14 years of searching all over the world, and eventually I found an enlightened teacher in all places America, and I decided to go off the grid, and I really had to to study with her as a student, because she didn't like us to be on Facebook or social media. She said, you don't want attention on yourself when you're studying with me, because you want to be able to go in deeply. Yeah. So I went off. I studied with her for 12 years, but after the first few years, I went into a full awakening myself, never expecting that. Didn't expect it to happen to me. I thought, how could a rock singer in Australia, have a kundalini awakening, but I did, and now I love to teach mysticism and spirituality and meditation practice to students from all over the world. And I love to do it. I think there's so many tools in the toolbox of life, whatever sort of personality you have, whether you're extremely religious or you just want to have more positive outcome. You want to become healthier. I think meditation practice is good for everybody. You do not have to be religious or think of spirituality to enjoy a quiet mind. It'll slow down your blood pressure. It will give you pump your blood, it'll stop your mind from going down a million rabbit holes where your senses take you. I just think meditation practice is a miraculous, privileged thing to do.   Michael Hingson ** 52:53 I agree. And you know, one of the things that it's a little bit off topic for what you just said, but we were talking earlier about people praying and looking for so many things. I'm amazed at how many people pray to God, telling God what they want and what they think they need. And I'm sitting there whenever I hear about that today, especially, I think, Wait a minute, God already knows that what you need to do is to listen to get the response, and thank God for the response, but people just don't do that. I'm just so amazed at at that. But it's it is so true that we spend too much time not doing the thing that we really need to do, which is listening and talking with God, not talking to God.   Michele Blood ** 53:46 Yeah, that's why I I'm loving recording the new prayer app, because I explain to people what prayer actually is. It's not If you do this for me, God, I'll start, stop eating pizza, yeah? Or maybe trade off. So I teach people what prayer actually is, and it's, it's really the most sacred thing and beautiful thing, and it will uplift you, even if you just, I've got a section where they I'm praying for others, so they can just listen to any different topic of what type of prayer, but the main thing for me was explaining, doing the introduction of what prayer is and how to pray, because so many people have no idea what prayer really is, that communion with your higher self, and once you get to understand what that is, then you can hear that still, small voice you can literally hear through. Ah, your intuition becomes stronger you can and intuition is you being in tune with your higher self. And your higher self is omniscient wisdom. It created everything so it knows what. To tell you to do, and it will bring into your experience everything when you accept, when you can be open and receptive to receive and to give, just sort of let yourself go, just surrender to that divine Higher Self, when you can learn how to do that. That's another thing that I do on this prayer app is teach you what surrender really means and how you can do it. It's not taking your willpower away from you, because everyone that's a gift that we've been given. So we can make good choices in life, sometimes bad choices, but we can use our willpower to get ourselves out of that rabbit hole. So thank you for asking that. Michael, it's   Michael Hingson ** 55:41 extremely important to be able to do that. Well, you mentioned earlier that you had gifts for people listening to this podcast. Love it if you tell us about that,   Michele Blood ** 55:52 yes, yummy gifts. If you go to Michelle. Blood com, it's spelled M, I, C, H, E, L, E, B, L, O, O, O, d.com, forward slash unstoppable mindset. We've called that. We've made that link especially for Michael's podcast. Just for your people, they will get the audio version of one of my favorite books I've written called the magic of affirmation power audio book. They will get that for free, but in that audio book has tons of affirmations you can repeat after me, links to some of my music for free. You'll also get a six week mysticism course, and there are other things as well. I can't remember what they are right now, but they're all on that link.   Michael Hingson ** 56:37 But Michelle blood com slash unstoppable mindset. I thank you for the otter. Appreciate that. Well now if people want to come hear you, I know you do live events and you do zoom events and so on. How can we learn about that? How can people do that?   Michele Blood ** 56:57 Well, they can go to request Divine light.com to find out what is my next event, because I have free events, a lot a lot of free zoom events people can come to, and you'll just get to meet so many happy, lovely people from so many different countries. And we just have a blast together. And you'll be very, very uplifted after everyone, because everyone that comes on are just, we seem to be attracting, over the years, just people that are really, sincerely wanting a better life and to do it, to do good in the world. And I just love them all so much. So if they go to request Divine Light com, they can see where my next free event will be. I mean, it's on Zoom, but I mean when it will be   Michael Hingson ** 57:46 right? Request, divine light. Com, cool. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. And obviously people can go to Michelle blood, com, and there's a lot there, I would assume as well. So hopefully people will go, go check out everything that's there, and we'll take this seriously, because I think there is so much that you have offered. We've had a number of people on unstoppable mindset who talk about everything from reg a to Eastern medicine, meditation and and so many things. They all can't be totally wrong. So from my perspective, they are not wrong. But by the same token, it's fun to be able to get a chance to to have you on. We'll have to do this again, and I'm going to certainly go download the apps and put them on my nice little iPhone and start taking advantage of them. But I really appreciate you coming on and and being with us for an hour today. Well,   Michele Blood ** 58:51 Michael, thank you for the books that you've written and everything that you've done in the world. I just think you're just an inspiration and just a lovely, lovely man. So thank you. It's, it's lovely getting to know you. And I'm just going to tell everyone about these books, because they're amazing, well written as well. Just really, really good.   Michael Hingson ** 59:13 Well, thank you. So, when are you going to do a podcast? I'm going   Michele Blood ** 59:17 to do a podcast with a man called just I just had a brain fart. Thomas Miller, uh, at the moment, his podcast is called subconscious mind mastery, and he's interviewed me quite a few times. We met in person, and I love his outlook on life, about really not saying no to anything that's mystical. And so we're going to start one next year together. He's already got his own, but this will be a different one where we'll go a little deeper, a deeper dive into mysticism. I think we're going to call it well,   Michael Hingson ** 59:55 if he needs a guess for his existing podcast, if he has guests or. You guys have your podcast together. If you ever want a guest, I volunteer. So I'll just, Oh,   Michele Blood ** 1:00:05 I'll tell him today. Goodness, yes,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:10 I'm, I'm always, I'm always open for that. Oh,   Michele Blood ** 1:00:13 I'll tell him today. Yeah, because you, I love you.   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:18 Well, I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this at least half as much as I did, hopefully as much as I did. This has been a lot of fun and educational, I think, in so many ways, to help us deal with our outlooks on life. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. Please feel free to email me. Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I b, e.com, or go to our podcast website, w, w, w, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, and that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o, n. So Michael hingson.com/podcast, and wherever you're listening, please give us a five star review. We really value your reviews. But of course, love the five star ones, so if we can, we would really appreciate it if you give us a five star review and and say, say good things about us and and go off and definitely visit Michelle's pages. And, of course, being very prejudiced, go to Michelle blood com slash unstoppable mindset and get some free gifts from her. And if you know of anyone who you think would be a good guest, and Michelle you as well. I'm always looking for podcast guests, so okay, don't hesitate to to refer people to us. We appreciate that a whole lot. So once again, I want to thank you for being here. Michelle, this has been a lot of fun. Thank   Michele Blood ** 1:01:45 you. Michael, God bless you. More love everyone. More Love   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:54   You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

About Chancellor JacksonChancellor K. Jackson (born 1995) is a Georgia native, born in Fulton County and raised in Smyrna. He attended Stetson University, where he played football for nine years at both the high school and collegiate levels.After earning a bachelor's degree in Communication and Media Studies, Chancellor lived abroad in China from 2018 to 2019. His passion for writing emerged following a traumatic experience—being arrested and detained in Beijing for 14 days. This journey led to his debut book, 14 Days in Beijing, which has ranked #1 on Amazon over fifteen times across multiple genres.Today, Chancellor is an educator, football coach, and entrepreneur, dedicated to guiding aspiring authors through the writing and self-publishing process.https://www.korlehpublicationsllc.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/chancellor-jackson29----------------------------------About Michael RitsemaMy life and entrepreneurial business story can go down three tracks:1. Ups & downs and drama of starting and running a business.2. Sales or business development as a specialty or natural skill.3. FBI vetted InfraGard Cybersecurity Certified expert who can speak to business risk from an owner and technology specialist perspective.Stories that affirm my life and business journey include:- 2001: near bankruptcy summer - 2001: physical depression due to the toll & stress of finances- 2001: 911 happens to the Twin Towers in New York.- 2001: Two large deals lift i3 and me to new peaks- 2004: Merge 2 firms and have 4 business partners- 2006: Two partners exit due to business partner drama- 2007: Great recession starts ... decimating the business- 2008: Pivot the business plan to new offerings- 2009: Peer groups impact the business journey- 2018: Buy out my remaining business partner- 2020: COVID-19 risk drama weighs on this business owner- 2021: Buy another business - CAI- 2024 Buy another business - CompuCrafthttps://www.i3businesssolutions.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljritsema/----------------------------------When It Worked Podcasthttps://getoffthedamnphone.com/podcast

An episode that explores the impact of My Chemical Romance through an autistic and neurodivergent perspective. Matt, Angela, and our sound engineer Simon Scott break down how the band's emotional intensity, justice themes, and outsider energy have made them a lasting icon within the autistic community.Here's what's in store for today's episode: * Today, we're taking a deep dive into My Chemical Romance and exploring how they reflect and embody elements of the autistic experience.* Our podcast producer, sound engineer, and behind-the-scenes magic man, Simon Scott, steps in front of the mic today to talk about his special interest.* We kick things off with the ultimate lore deep dive—tracing the butterfly effect from 9/11 all the way to Ellen DeGeneres getting canceled (yes, it is connected to My Chemical Romance, and yes, it makes sense… eventually).* After witnessing the Twin Towers fall from the Hudson River on 9/11, Gerard Way felt a deep urge to create something bigger than himself—something that could connect people through shared emotion and purpose. Out of that moment, My Chemical Romance was born.* We then dive into how bottom-up processing and autistic hyper-empathy may have influenced Gerard's decision—how taking in overwhelming sensory and emotional details of the moment could have sparked a need to respond in a deeply personal, creative, and connective way.* The band went on to write, produce, perform, and publish their entire first album within a week—a hyperfixation-fueled feat that no neurotypical could realistically pull off with the same intensity, focus, and urgency.* Their albums are deeply narrative, with each one following characters that symbolically represent the band members themselves. The first two albums build a layered universe that culminates in their third release—Welcome to the Black Parade—widely regarded as their magnum opus and a defining moment in emo and alternative music history.* We unpack the imagery in the “I'm Not Okay (I Promise)” music video and how it resonates with many autistic traits—highlighting themes of social rejection, masking, sensory overwhelm, and the desperate need to be understood in a world that constantly misunderstands you.* Next, we explore themes of justice sensitivity woven throughout MCR's lyrics—a trait commonly linked to the autistic experience—and how the so-called “autistic accent” subtly shapes the cadence, rhythm, and emotional delivery of their songs, adding layers of urgency, vulnerability, and authenticity.* Our hosts and Simon dive into the rich subculture that's emerged from the band's work—a world built by and for the outcasts, the overly emotional, the neurodivergent, and those who never quite fit in. MCR didn't just create music—they created a movement, a safe haven, and a language for people who feel everything too much.* Finally, we dive into expectation sensitivity, unpack the reasons behind the band's 8-year hiatus, and reflect on their powerful return—why their message hits harder than ever in today's world and why we still need MCR now more than ever.“I'd rather be a creature of the night than just some old dude.” - Gerard Way“I disappoint a lot of people. They expect me to be one way. If I spend a minute with them, they end up saying, ‘Oh, you're actually just a really nice person. They hate me when they catch me out of my makeup.” - Gerard Way“Neurotypical people tend to do things for power, prestige, and profit. He's not doing it because he wants to maintain the My Chemical Romance empire. He's not doing it because he wants to be famous. He's not doing it because he wants all the money. He has a story to tell. He has a reason for doing the thing.” - MattDid you enjoy this episode? We took a deep dive into the world of My Chemical Romance and how their music, message, and aesthetic embody key aspects of the autistic experience. From the butterfly effect of 9/11 to the cancellation of Ellen (yes, really), we trace the band's origins, explore autistic hyper-empathy and justice sensitivity in their lyrics, and analyze how the “autistic accent” shows up in their sound. Plus, we break down the iconic “I'm Not Okay” music video and the subculture that's made MCR a safe haven for neurodivergent weirdos everywhere. Join the convo with #AutisticCultureCatch!Show Notes:My Chemical Romance on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Chemical_RomanceBlack Parade in Musical Order - Neurodivergent Experience -Na Na Na Music Video: Welcome to the Black Parade Music Video: Related Episodes:Chess is AutisticFreddie Mercury is AutisticFollow us on InstagramFind us on Apple Podcasts and SpotifyLearn more about Matt at Matt Lowry, LPPJoin Matt's Autistic Connections Facebook GroupLearn more about Angela at AngelaKingdon.com Angela's social media: Twitter and TikTokOur Autism-affirming merch shop This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.autisticculturepodcast.com/subscribe

Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a fun Friday for you! He talks: Twin Towers, Picky Eaters, Bad Fortune, Phrase of the Week, & more! ...Follow, rate & review "The Fifth Hour!" https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fifth-hour-with-ben-maller/id1478163837 #BenMallerSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we talk about Studio Ghibli, Andrej Karpathy, and OpenAI.We also discuss code abstraction, economic repercussions, and DOGE.Recommended Book: How To Know a Person by David BrooksTranscriptIn late-November of 2022, OpenAI released a demo version of a product they didn't think would have much potential, because it was kind of buggy and not very impressive compared to the other things they were working on at the time. This product was a chatbot interface for a generative AI model they had been refining, called ChatGPT.This was basically just a chatbot that users could interact with, as if they were texting another human being. And the results were good enough—both in the sense that the bot seemed kinda sorta human-like, but also in the sense that the bot could generate convincing-seeming text on all sorts of subjects—that people went absolutely gaga over it, and the company went full-bore on this category of products, dropping an enterprise version in August the following year, a search engine powered by the same general model in October of 2024, and by 2025, upgraded versions of their core models were widely available, alongside paid, enhanced tiers for those who wanted higher-level processing behind the scenes: that upgraded version basically tapping a model with more feedstock, a larger training library and more intensive and refined training, but also, in some cases, a model that thinks longer, than can reach out and use the internet to research stuff it doesn't already know, and increasingly, to produce other media, like images and videos.During that time, this industry has absolutely exploded, and while OpenAI is generally considered to be one of the top dogs in this space, still, they've got enthusiastic and well-funded competition from pretty much everyone in the big tech world, like Google and Amazon and Meta, while also facing upstart competitors like Anthropic and Perplexity, alongside burgeoning Chinese competitors, like Deepseek, and established Chinese tech giants like Tencent and Baidu.It's been somewhat boggling watching this space develop, as while there's a chance some of the valuations of AI-oriented companies are overblown, potentially leading to a correction or the popping of a valuation bubble at some point in the next few years, the underlying tech and the output of that tech really has been iterating rapidly, the state of the art in generative AI in particular producing just staggeringly complex and convincing images, videos, audio, and text, but the lower-tier stuff, which is available to anyone who wants it, for free, is also valuable and useable for all sorts of purposes.Just recently, at the tail-end of March 2025, OpenAI announced new multimodal capabilities for its GPT-4o language model, which basically means this model, which could previously only generate text, can now produce images, as well.And the model has been lauded as a sort of sea change in the industry, allowing users to produce remarkable photorealistic images just by prompting the AI—telling it what you want, basically—with usually accurate, high-quality text, which has been a problem for most image models up till this point. It also boasts the capacity to adjust existing images in all sorts of ways.Case-in-point, it's possible to use this feature to take a photo of your family on vacation and have it rendered in the style of a Studio Ghibli cartoon; Studio Ghibli being the Japanese animation studio behind legendary films like My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke, among others.This is partly the result of better capabilities by this model, compared to its precursors, but it's also the result of OpenAI loosening its policies to allow folks to prompt these models in this way; previously they disallowed this sort of power, due to copyright concerns. And the implications here are interesting, as this suggests the company is now comfortable showing that their models have been trained on these films, which has all sorts of potential copyright implications, depending on how pending court cases turn out, but also that they're no long being as precious with potential scandals related to how their models are used.It's possible to apply all sorts of distinctive styles to existing images, then, including South Park and the Simpsons, but Studio Ghibli's style has become a meme since this new capability was deployed, and users have applied it to images ranging from existing memes to their own self-portrait avatars, to things like the planes crashing into the Twin Towers on 9/11, JFK's assassination, and famous mass-shootings and other murders.It's also worth noting that the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, has called AI-generated artwork “an insult to life itself.” That so many people are using this kind of AI-generated filter on these images is a jarring sort of celebration, then, as the person behind that style probably wouldn't appreciate it; many people are using it because they love the style and the movies in which it was born so much, though. An odd moral quandary that's emerged as a result of these new AI-provided powers.What I'd like to talk about today is another burgeoning controversy within the AI space that's perhaps even larger in implications, and which is landing on an unprepared culture and economy just as rapidly as these new image capabilities and memes.—In February of 2025, the former AI head at Tesla, founding team member at OpenAI, and founder of an impending new, education-focused project called Eureka Labs named Andrej Karpathy coined the term ‘vibe coding' to refer to a trend he's noticed in himself and other developers, people who write code for a living, to develop new projects using code-assistant AI tools in a manner that essentially abstracts away the code, allowing the developer to rely more on vibes in order to get their project out the door, using plain English rather than code or even code-speak.So while a developer would typically need to invest a fair bit of time writing the underlying code for a new app or website or video game, someone who's vibe coding might instead focus on a higher, more meta-level of the project, worrying less about the coding parts, and instead just telling their AI assistant what they want to do. The AI then figures out the nuts and bolts, writes a bunch of code in seconds, and then the vibe coder can tweak the code, or have the AI tweak it for them, as they refine the concept, fix bugs, and get deeper into the nitty-gritty of things, all, again, in plain-spoken English.There are now videos, posted in the usual places, all over YouTube and TikTok and such, where folks—some of whom are coders, some of whom are purely vibe coders, who wouldn't be able to program their way out of a cardboard box—produce entire functioning video games in a matter of minutes.These games typically aren't very good, but they work. And reaching even that level of functionality would previously have taken days or weeks for an experienced, highly trained developer; now it takes mere minutes or moments, and can be achieved by the average, non-trained person, who has a fundamental understanding of how to prompt AI to get what they want from these systems.Ethan Mollick, who writes a fair bit on this subject and who keeps tabs on these sorts of developments in his newsletter, One Useful Thing, documented his attempts to make meaning from a pile of data he had sitting around, and which he hadn't made the time to dig through for meaning. Using plain English he was able to feed all that data to OpenAI's Deep Research model, interact with its findings, and further home in on meaningful directions suggested by the data.He also built a simple game in which he drove a firetruck around a 3D city, trying to put out fires before a competing helicopter could do the same. He spent a total of about $13 in AI token fees to make the game, and he was able to do so despite not having any relevant coding expertise.A guy named Pieter Levels, who's an experienced software engineer, was able to vibe-code a video game, which is a free-to-play, massively multiplayer online flying game, in just a month. Nearly all the code was written by Cursor and Grok 3, the first of which is a code-writing AI system, the latter of which is a ChatGPT-like generalist AI agent, and he's been able to generate something like $100k per month in revenue from this game just 17 days, post-launch.Now an important caveat here is that, first, this game received a lot of publicity, because Levels is a well-known name in this space, and he made this game as part of a ‘Vibe Coding Game Jam,' which is an event focused on exactly this type of AI-augmented programming, in which all of the entrants had to be at least 80% AI generated. But he's also a very skilled programmer and game-maker, so this isn't the sort of outcome the average person could expect from these sorts of tools.That said, it's an interesting case study that suggests a few things about where this category of tools is taking us, even if it's not representative for all programming spaces and would-be programmers.One prediction that's been percolating in this space for years, even before ChatGPT was released, but especially after generative AI tools hit the mainstream, is that many jobs will become redundant, and as a result many people, especially those in positions that are easily and convincingly replicated using such tools, will be fired. Because why would you pay twenty people $100,000 a year to do basic coding work when you can have one person working part-time with AI tools vibe-coding their way to approximately the same outcome?It's a fair question, and it's one that pretty much every industry is asking itself right now. And we've seen some early waves of firings based on this premise, most of which haven't gone great for the firing entity, as they've then had to backtrack and starting hiring to fill those positions again—the software they expected to fill the gaps not quite there yet, and their offerings suffering as a consequence of that gambit.Some are still convinced this is the way things are going, though, including people like Elon Musk, who, as part of his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE efforts in the US government, is basically stripping things down to the bare-minimum, in part to weaken agencies he doesn't like, but also, ostensibly at least, to reduce bloat and redundancy, the premise being that a lot of this work can be done by fewer people, and in some cases can be automated entirely using AI-based systems.This was the premise of his mass-firings at Twitter, now X, when he took over, and while there have been a lot of hiccups and issues resulting from that decision, the company is managing to operate, even if less optimally than before, with about 20% the staff it had before he took over—something like 1,500 people compared to 7,500.Now, there are different ways of looking at that outcome, and Musk's activities since that acquisition will probably color some of our perceptions of his ambitions and level of success with that job-culling, as well. But the underlying theory that a company can do even 90% as well as it did before with just a fifth of the workforce is a compelling argument to many people, and that includes folks running governments, but also those in charge of major companies with huge rosters of employees that make up the vast majority of their operating expenses.A major concern about all this, though, is that even if this theory works in broader practice, and all these companies and governments can function well enough with a dramatically reduced staff using AI tools to augment their capabilities and output, we may find ourselves in a situation in which the folks using said tools are more and more commodified—they'll be less specialized and have less education and expertise in the relevant areas, so they can be paid less, basically, the tools doing more and the humans mostly being paid to prompt and manage them. And as a result we may find ourselves in a situation where these people don't know enough to recognize when the AI are doing something wrong or weird, and we may even reach a point where the abstraction is so complete that very few humans even know how this code works, which leaves us increasingly reliant on these tools, but also more vulnerable to problems should they fail at a basic level, at which point there may not be any humans left who are capable of figuring out what went wrong, since all the jobs that would incentivize the acquisition of such knowledge and skill will have long since disappeared.As I mentioned in the intro, these tools are being applied to images, videos, music, and everything else, as well. Which means we could see vibe artists, vibe designers, vibe musicians and vibe filmmakers. All of which is arguably good in the sense that these mediums become more accessible to more people, allowing more voices to communicate in more ways than ever before.But it's also arguably worrying in the sense that more communication might be filtered through the capabilities of these tools—which, by the way, are predicated on previous artists and writers and filmmakers' work, arguably stealing their styles and ideas and regurgitating them, rather than doing anything truly original—and that could lead to less originality in these spaces, but also a similar situation in which people forget how to make their own films, their own art, their own writing; a capability drain that gets worse with each new generation of people who are incentivized to hand those responsibilities off to AI tools; we'll all become AI prompters, rather than all the things we are, currently.This has been the case with many technologies over the years—how many blacksmiths do we have in 2025, after all? And how many people actually hand-code the 1s and 0s that all our coding languages eventually write, for us, after we work at a higher, more human-optimized level of abstraction?But because our existing economies are predicated on a certain type of labor and certain number of people being employed to do said labor, even if those concerns ultimately don't end up being too big a deal, because the benefits are just that much more impactful than the downsides and other incentives to develop these or similar skills and understandings arise, it's possible we could experience a moment, years or decades long, in which the whole of the employment market is disrupted, perhaps quite rapidly, leaving a lot of people without income and thus a lot fewer people who can afford the products and services that are generated more cheaply using these tools.A situation that's ripe with potential for those in a position to take advantage of it, but also a situation that could be devastating to those reliant on the current state of employment and income—which is the vast, vast majority of human beings on the planet.Show Noteshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corphttps://devclass.com/2025/03/26/the-paradox-of-vibe-coding-it-works-best-for-those-who-do-not-need-it/https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-benevolent-artificial-intelligence/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/what-could-possibly-go-wrong-doge-to-rapidly-rebuild-social-security-codebase/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_codinghttps://www.newscientist.com/article/2473993-what-is-vibe-coding-should-you-be-doing-it-and-does-it-matter/https://nmn.gl/blog/dangers-vibe-codinghttps://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/19/vibe-coding/https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/is-vibe-coding-with-ai-gnarly-or-reckless-maybe-some-of-both/https://devclass.com/2025/03/26/the-paradox-of-vibe-coding-it-works-best-for-those-who-do-not-need-it/https://www.creativebloq.com/3d/video-game-design/what-is-vibe-coding-and-is-it-really-the-future-of-app-and-game-developmenthttps://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/openais-new-ai-image-generator-is-potent-and-bound-to-provoke/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ghibli This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Flight Crash In NY From The WTC Attack to Other Disasters. Special Episode. When the world thinks of catastrophic events in New York City, two significant tragedies come to mind: the World Trade Center (WTC) attack on September 11, 2001, and the devastating crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996. These disasters, marked by unimaginable loss and sorrow, remain etched in the memories of those who lived through them and those who responded to the aftermath. Stacey Goodman, a retired Suffolk County, New York, Police Officer, is our guest on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast. The podcast episode is available for free on our website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and most major podcast platforms. She witnessed both of these harrowing events firsthand. With a background as a Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) specialist for the Federal Government, Goodman was no stranger to tragedy. Her first experience in disaster response was the TWA Flight 800 crash, a tragedy that took the lives of all 230 passengers aboard. Years later, her training and federal security clearance led her to Ground Zero, where she worked tirelessly on the Pile for 23 days following the WTC attack. Flight Crash In NY From The WTC Attack to Other Disasters. Follow the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Newsbreak, Medium and most all social media platforms In an exclusive conversation, Goodman shared, “The weight of these experiences is something you carry with you forever. Working in the heart of such devastation, recovering human remains, and facing the unimaginable grief of victims' families is something that stays with you.” Look for supporting stories about this and much more from Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast in platforms like Medium, Newsbreak and Blogspot. Her book, The Dust Never Settles, chronicles her experiences and the lasting impact of her service. Goodman describes the challenges of confronting conspiracy theories that often emerge from these events. “There will always be people who question what happened, who suggest alternative narratives. For me, I know what I saw, what I touched, and what I felt. That reality is indisputable,” she shared. Follow the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and podcast on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Newsbreak, Medium and most all social media platforms The TWA Flight 800 crash, a tragedy that unfolded off the coast of Long Island, was initially suspected to be a terrorist attack. After a lengthy investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the FBI, the official cause was determined to be an explosion of flammable fuel vapors due to a short circuit. Despite the findings, conspiracy theories still linger, fueled by misinformation and conspiracy theorists. Many of whom spread their message across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter). Flight Crash In NY From The WTC Attack to Other Disasters. The interview is available as a free podcast on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and podcast website, also available on platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most major podcast outlets. On September 11, 2001, the narrative of terrorism was tragically evident. The attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, along with the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, left an indelible scar on the nation. The collapse of the Twin Towers killed 2,753 people, while the Pentagon attack claimed 184 lives and Flight 93’s crash in Pennsylvania took the lives of 40 passengers. For Goodman, the aftermath of 9/11 was a grueling journey. “Working at Ground Zero was surreal,” she said. “We weren't just sifting through rubble—we were uncovering stories, lives, and the remnants of a tragedy that the world watched unfold in real-time.” Today, Goodman’s reflections resonate through her writing, public speaking, and podcast appearances on The Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast, available for free on their website, in addition to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many others. Her mission is to share the unfiltered reality of disaster response, honoring the victims and the resilience of those who endured unimaginable loss. Flight Crash In NY From The WTC Attack to Other Disasters. Check out the show on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Newsbreak, Medium and most all social media platforms Goodman's experiences serve as a reminder of the human cost of these tragedies. While platforms like LinkedIn may showcase her professional accomplishments, her story goes beyond the accolades. It is a testament to courage, sacrifice, and the resolve to face darkness while seeking light. In a world shaped by these tragedies, the voices of those like Stacey Goodman remind us of the lasting impact of loss and the strength required to carry its weight. Her story, both sobering and inspiring, echoes the need to approach these events with empathy, understanding, and respect for the truth. The free episode of the "Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast", is available on their website for free in addition to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, as well as through other podcast platforms. You can help contribute money to make the Gunrunner Movie. The film that Hollywood won't touch. It is about a now Retired Police Officer that was shot 6 times while investigating Gunrunning. He died 3 times during Medical treatment and was resuscitated. You can join the fight by giving a monetary "gift" to help ensure the making of his film at agunrunnerfilm.com. Your golden years are supposed to be easy and worry free, at least in regards to finances. If you are over 70, you can turn your life insurance policy into cash. Visit LetSavings.com, LetSavings.com or call (866) 480-4252, (866) 480-4252, again that's (866) 480 4252 to see if you qualify. Learn useful tips and strategies to increase your Facebook Success with John Jay Wiley. Both free and paid content are available on this Patreon page. Time is running out to secure the Medicare coverage you deserve! Whether you're enrolling for the first time or looking for a better plan, our experts help you compare options to get more benefits, lower costs, and keep your doctors, all for free! Visit LetHealthy.com, that's LetHealthy.com or call (866) 427-1225, (866) 427-1222 to learn more. Background song Hurricane is used with permission from the band Dark Horse Flyer. You can contact John J. "Jay" Wiley by email at Jay@letradio.com, or learn more about him on their website. Get the latest news articles, without all the bias and spin, from the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast on the Newsbreak app, which is free. Find a wide variety of great podcasts online at The Podcast Zone Facebook Page, look for the one with the bright green logo. Be sure to check out our website. Be sure to follow us on MeWe, X, Instagram, Facebook,Pinterest, Linkedin and other social media platforms for the latest episodes and news. Flight Crash In NY From The WTC Attack to Other Disasters. Attributions The Dust Never Settles - Amazon Stacey Goodman Book Wikipedia 9-11 FactsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

High-wire artist Philippe Petit became famous in 1971 when he walked a tightrope between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Three years later, he got arrested for an unauthorized walk between the Twin Towers that once distinguished New York’s skyline. But in 1987, Petit’s walk looked different. At the invitation of Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, Petit walked across the Hinnom Valley on a high wire as a part of that year’s Israel Festival. At the midway point, Petit released a pigeon (he’d hoped for a dove) to symbolize the beauty of peace. A strange and dangerous stunt, but all for the cause of peace. Petit later said, “For a moment, the entire crowd had forgotten their differences.” Petit’s highwire walk reminds me of another breathtaking moment—the one that occurred when Jesus’ body hung between heaven and earth. The apostle Paul tells us, “God was pleased . . . to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through [Jesus’] blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:19-20). Paul writes that we “once were alienated from God” (v. 21), but no longer. Far from a spectacle to promote peace, Jesus the Messiah actually made peace by shedding His blood on the cross. His was a feat never to be surpassed, as there is no need. His peace is everlasting.

On September 11th, 2001 an ER Doctor finds himself in charge of the closest emergency room to the Twin Towers.Today's episode featured Tony Dajer. Tony was born in New York City, grew up in Puerto Rico, and has been practicing as an ER Doctor in New York for 30 years. You can read one of Tony's articles called "Vital Signs" featured in Discover Magazine at www.discovermagazine.com/health/vital-signs-37.Producers: Whit Missildine, Andrew WaitsSpecial Thanks: To all who helped make this series happen - Ellen Westberg, Andrew Waits, Marcelino Villalpando, Gabriella Quintana, Emily Caldwell, and Jason Blalock. Content/Trigger Warnings: violence, graphic bodily injury, terrorism, explicit language Social Media:Instagram: @actuallyhappeningTwitter/X: @TIAHPodcast Website: thisisactuallyhappening.com Website for Andrew Waits: andrdewwaits.com Support the Show: Support The Show on Patreon: patreon.com/happening Wondery Plus: All episodes of the show prior to episode #130 are now part of the Wondery Plus premium service. To access the full catalog of episodes, and get all episodes ad free, sign up for Wondery Plus at wondery.com/plus Shop at the Store: The This Is Actually Happening online store is now officially open. Follow this link: thisisactuallyhappening.com/shop to access branded t-shirts, posters, stickers and more from the shop. Transcripts: Full transcripts of each episode are now available on the website, thisisactuallyhappening.com Intro Music: "Illabye" – TipperMusic and Sound Design by: Marcelino Villalpando ServicesIf you or someone you know is struggling with the effects of trauma or mental illness, please refer to the following resources: National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Text or Call 988 National Alliance on Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.