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Based on the 1984 horror classic of the same name, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT tells the story of Billy Chapman (Rohan Campbell), a young man who witnessed the brutal murder of his parents a on Christmas Eve s a child. Understandably traumatized by the experience, the now adult Billy is transformed into a Killer Santa who takes his naughty list extremely seriously. Every Christmas season, Billy's mission becomes one of retribution to bad people in the neighbourhood. But, this year, something's different. Having fallen for a young woman who makes him re-examine his inner darkness, Billy is finally forced to ask himself what it means to be naughty and nice. In this 1on1, we speak to Nelson about our love of holiday horror and what makes an 'evil person'.SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is available in theatres on December 12th, 2025.

We receive a ton of messages, emails and even letters from our listeners who are in need of some help, and we have heard a lot about someone very special who we want to speak about today… Hilda is a nurse, who has cared for people and the community for more than 20 years… She has held the hands of patients in their hardest moments, comforted frightened families, and given everything she has to those in need. Now, the person who has spent decades caring for others is facing something no mother should ever have to face. Hilda’s beautiful daughter, Alexandra, who is just 6 years old, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Understandably, her family and community are absolutely devastated! You can donate to their GoFundMe here: https://bit.ly/48X44L5See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Don't you see, sensei I'm just as disappointed in myself And ready to die Just as I relay the message, Spray me with your morbid essence Don't, croak, you fool, You've only a spoon ful of sugar left to go The dose is coming up your throat, — you didn't know to throw up Grab the rope and go up Before gravity has crushed your —thought: Stupid boy, you don't want to die— Nor to do, but oh, do we have it coming Silly mortal, overlords and governed, Short of morals, steady coming at your doorstep So goes our concert! And so goes our concept for divorce, And sure of course, Your four corse meal, and/or dessert This is just devastating, genetics made me The sort at sorting words, but surfing, Sure. Ever temporarily the cadence changes, Still they say “you've been betrayed” But never had a friend I made made As good as death and God have been to me For everything you're meant to be, Plus everything you're meant to me, I go, unwanted, troubled and disgusted at my own immortal outcome. Sure. My back hurts and I'm wounded, Heartbroke, Thrust in every cardinal direction Also, honored at the mark of magic wand Upon her shoulder; And so, Just as soon as the sun and moon, Does the fire escape set a perfect path For outward destruction of the bricks and mortar Or your alter (This we talk about, to some effect Is your repression and affective form of supernatural perfection) But forget the makeup; I can make you up to be a star And not of wars and other worlds, But those that come before us, Carson, and the others Paar before that. But, I think not dear sir How wrong you are, A wretched bird, Set not to fly, but O father Wit and relay messages, The passage said, and set to clocks, The past was won and so the future altered, But dear feathered father, Mortal you are not But just another triumph Of my god; And set the mirror to the magnets Camera, lights and action, Magic— All the signs of the dawn, and the mad don Red Dawn came upon us, called the Red Man Tom, from other, over, under Still was my mistake to mumble such Or put upon the tongue As such assumption Still— wonder? Bird, shut up; Love I dusk And lust I soak In all the frittered dust and feathers, Colors, coming up as mister Chuck and wood, and wait and ponder Slithered this to wonder, not a rock, But potted fern, Asunder Thunderstorm And wicked rain And fair the back A tide had come And sitting there upon the shore, Was us, and 12 apostles She's a Brick— Seemingly out of nowhere, A RED BRICK HOUSE falls very perfectly from the SKY and into OZ. oh good, my house is here. House. [the festival project ™] But I don't want to make house! Then play it! I don't want to play house it is BORING. You play it— they want it. But I don't want it. Then forget it! What! Listen kid, a job's a job! {Enter The Multiverse} Wrong, this is wrong— everything is wrong. What's wrong, Rob? I'll be back. ROB LOWE has just played TRUTH OR DARE L E G E N D S if I could get inside your head For just a second Bread and butter Heaven, hell, And other places I have wandered But oh, wonder This is never what I wanted, Was it? No sir. Sure, I set you off, No sooner had you got a gun and shot me. Handsome fucker. I'll bet. Wrong act. Wrong award show. Wrong hat and a baseball bat, Peanut butter and a nice cold cheesecake, Don't forget to order cheesesteak For your cat. A carnivore at odds with the other worlds, And also fused to us; This drifting back and forth Between the Rock And Hollywood Has got to stop. ((The world is toxic.)) the legend of… L. JONES It's you! BLŪ AH, crap. L. JONES Listen, I got something for you. BLŪ Where did your bird go? L.JONES What bird? CUT TO: Now open that. No wait! It's a trap! THE VAULT inside THE CRYPT at 30 ROCK has been opened. I keep looking down at my phone As if I'm expecting a phone call Or incoming message from God But the worlds to a song Are all jumbled up in my Concious I don't want to talk about it I feel Nauseous Everyone is being obnoxious Even my own blood I don't want to function I just want some French toast crunch For lunch Nostalgia I got a whole inch taller on the peloton Holla Now I got a body, Broader, So close to Broadway But I never go there That's a tall order Of “gotta have money” I mean live theatre It's fine I'll eat here And repeat these things till they just rhyme Line them all up like a context, Story Someday I'm gonna cut my own check Watch me lol none of this rhymes without a hard Brooklyn accent ; Guess you can't hack it! Send you ass packin! I said “That's whack son!” Then I went back blonde Now they want Backend, Contract, Off the top, Royalties Residuals I'm an individual with insidious syntax And yet I'm ridiculed Truly I'm a tit-for-tat Or particle of all you are Circular centrifuge, I trickle down your tentacles (Eugh) Choke the chicken just to give the cat a chicken bowl, Chick fil et and pret a tair just to get a ritual Espresso and a quick snack So I can get my dick wrapped In chocolate and licorice because the shit is edible Damn that I guess they set a damn trap By putting out the welcome mat, Then strapping Like a mothafuckin' straight jacket Matter fact, I look a nap in it, Then magic tricked the slip effective Compliments of Michael Jackson Or was it tech nine? Maybe I should get my Mind right I lost it once I guess I've better find it If I am, in fact, A diamond in the rough It's probably blooded it up enough That you should dig it up and shine it; Better yet, Somebody outta pick it up And sign it, Cause I write enough To put a vision To a blind man It's Fran Fine, man I'm behind, man The shadowgov had put me on a diet My bad I noticed that they tried to shut me up But couldn't stop the words or other stuff That just keeps coming out of my head I put coconuts as butter onto my bread And thinking thoughts of Carl cox As I drift off in my bed, I said, “It shouldn't be a problem, officer” As I reached for the gun And he aimed it at my death. That's an impossible apocalyptic suicide— Did you invite the devil in? I said “Nah, but that guy did.” The problem is, I pointed over yonder to a ghost Who also knows that I'm a well respected psychic; Nevermind a sidekick, side bitch in a sidecar, Psych ward, Sike! We spike war on your kind! So far, If I make history tonight, The other side decides their psalm is just as likely The third reike. Okay, strike one: I'm gonna turn your lights off. Strike two : you do and say what I do: Strike three: we're gonna make you suicidal I specialize in denying rights for high profits But big brother, or boss— What if my glove fits? The instance it does, We lock you up with no service, Your world becomes dark And your words become worthless Oh shit. This is not a good rap song. Like, at all. I must say, I do agree, You lose your trust, but silently Denied is all your trouble, Till it just begins to bubble up Until the cookie crumbles— See that feeling in your stomach? This is bigger than the money, girl — They want your soul, and then the world! I told you never call him. I didn't! Then explain this: [Skrillex] *sharp inward sigh* CUT IMMIDIATLEH TO STAN You know what! That's it! I don't care how handsome or rich and famous he is! This has to stop! KYLE Hey, wait just a minute— STAN SHUT UP KYLE. KYLE You shut up! STAN You're starting to sound just like him! KYLE Take that back! STAN I won't take it back! You all might have forgotten who you are, but I haven't!after of fact, I bet to Cartman, you're still that stupid little Jew kid! KYLE That's IT. KYLE takes out his phone. what are you doing? …I'm tweeting about this. I thought it was X now… It is, but you can't ‘x' anything, it's still calledl tweeting. I guess youre right. —and I'm tagging Cartman ! STAN Are you serious? Oh shit, this is social suicide. …did I ever explain this storyline? …I don't know, did i? I'd gotten so focused on this impending doom looming over me with this whole lawsuit that I'd forgotten entire worlds and whole documents. Even more terrifying, was the sudden quiet and the onset guilt that came over me for getting distracted. But I couldn't remove myself from it entirely—- it seemed to have ruined everything. It wasn't just motorcycle noises, it was like a nervousness and angst twisting in my stomach for months and months, until finally, as the court dates started approaching, it was peaceful, or rather, normal, all of a sudden. It couldn't be peaceful because now that the extreme noise was gone, I knew it had been planted all long— but what was the purpose? I'd lost two years not knowing, and though there were albums, they were never what I wanted. Now I was sorting through the documents of the show like it was the rubble of a decimated building— completely demolished, and I hadn't the slightest clue the contexts or the storylines anymore. It was pain and suffering, but not in the legal context. It was a creative disaster— I hadn't any idea in the slightest where I'd left my audience before I was forced to abandon them. But I was forced to choose, at times, between soap and toilet paper, or eventually, food, and water— or a phone. Eventually, this too became a pattern of the impossible— trying my hardest to do what I thought had been my purpose, but for far, being so endlessly sabotaged, even ridiculed and humiliated, and still, I couldn't understand why. I was tired— and somehow, even though I'd wanted to be left alone, I was the target. Worse was that I assumed it to be bigger than I thought and completely out of control— I thought immediately back to how my best friend from middle school had been attacked, and how she was made to think that it was me…to the point that she'd become obsessive about it to call my mom over it. And as far as the court was concerned, to the wrong ears or wrong eyes, anything I'd published in the festival project could look troublesome, like the ramblings of a mad mad, or schizo, or uncontrolled obsessive thoughts— because the biggest secrets of all, the things that tied together these fictional worlds and plots, were my own real life experience. The inability in a court of law to detail the podcast, which had started as meltdown some would call grandiose over an almost long forgotten rockstar and a porn model — and the entries into the festival project that followed, which included high concepts, off-kilter comedy, politics, and even fringed on social justice. Nothing I ever would have wanted and especially over money, but the lawsuit wasn't about money at all. In fact, at any moment I would have chosen to die and have it all stop if it weren't for my very young son being left alone. Though recently the dread had overcome with a sense of unbearable loss and agony, encrypted with suicidal thoughts and wants, reeling for human touch, the overbearing factor seemed to be that if I killed myself, I was giving someone what they wanted. I was really much too tired to go on, but leaving behind the world in entirety, in my very own way of beliefs wasn't just “shitutting it off”, it was starting it over. Understandably and undeniably immortal in its nature, the instances of God I had left spoke with a reminiscence of being born again, and having to remember which is it I'd wanted to start off. It was an unachievable overload of chaos and disruption, a level of corruption that spoke to something so dark and sinister it seemed biblical — then, again, I tried to wrap my mind around a way to rebuild a positive world from hope and thought, or manifest reality, but this is the very experience I'd felt was intended all along. The motorcycles weren't merely meant to destroy my career, or my will power, or force— they were, but also they were made to play upon my most valuable asset, the power of thought, to make it impossible to become something other than what was wanted; to use my own mind against itself and destroy my way of thought by using vibrations that could not be shut out, or stopped— they followed me to the sound collective, to Shakespeare in the park, the bank, the doctors office— it was as if they knew and understood my very thoughts, my process. It was of nothing at all to corrupt every single body and brain who would surround me or come close— by using the power that seemed supernatural enough, but indeed were powered by money, and technology. Perhaps, in this essence, I thought, was the purest display of defective intention itself; the mere thought that this indeed was rather Good Vs. Evil or God and The Devil would easily be written off as a diseased way of thought. The social world and constructs had been built around being open minded to a system of psychology that was intrinsically rather corrupt. I knew this could only be fought with what I knew, and what I could draw from as logic. I didn't want to go to court because I knew the people I would be fighting were liars, and well trained psychological masters of manipulation, well hidden terrorists dressed as public servants and systematic corrupters all for simple profit margins, to whom I was not so much a person or a mother, or a daughter, but a number. Because I was poor, and had once or four times chosen to love the wrong person in an unorthodox and uncontrollable form of torture, dismissing each and every social construct or physiology that was by the book, by embracing that there was a reason for change I quickly became quite the antagonist of sorts and hopefully not some sort of martyr —for the kind of people that had money and property, and perhaps even socially constructed circles to camoflage their own self doubt and hatred, but absolutely also had no morals. –Death of a Superstar DJ If I lose my mind At least I know I'm right on time This time— I meant that, I had it bad this time MCBADBAT I had it bad this time, And the last. Perchance for you, Hour or folded, Hair my weight And glassed upon thy, This upon now, Feathered waking, And there barely weathered Shaking. Dear, dear, Tis is fair truth, To fare that I have gasp And fated at thy doorstep; And yet, care to force, Her breaking waves and saving tinder, Fit there slithered in as yet astonished, Then another; And I hated. So, then, slower now. All there, gathered none. And show to show thy force What then became and withered after, None to bark or beg But birds and feathered creatures, pander The tides did Quake, And the heart did grow ten fold and steady saying None upon us but one left to shiver in the depths That yet remain as undiscovered For now never there was another world, Undone, And also another becomes, My death— And therefore all the worlds I kept, To travel on and travel As becomes one, does another onward As the first is glass to dust, And last is born there. So, Then, I, Crept, In my dress, Kept for clothes that church did water I, met, My mark and there the doors of shadows open Wilted and wake? Hear you; A star was born In other cosmos tied with our own nurture So, Kept, The weight of clasp and bone That holds the crept and precious alter Goddamn cat! Where are you. AAtticus Caaticus Oop. Gotta go. Toonces! Tooooonces! Where are you? Omg remember that one where that couple has a magic toddler and they just let him like,float away. Yeah, barely. Yeah. So I do. CUT TO: TOONCES focuses intently on the task at hand; he's sure he can manage to drive the human vehicle to his own home— to where he's assured he will find the actual body in which he belongs. Now… let's see, if I can just Wait, I who? ATTICUS CATTICUS, An ancient alien sorcerer must relay a series of important messages. Unfortunately. YO WHAT THE FUCK. None of them seem to be getting through. CUT BACK TO: TOONCEEESSSS. here kitty kitty kitty!! {Enter the Multiverse} I would dedicate, but honestly I've not time to waste And I'm craving wedding cake I hate to destroy you But for now, you know I can't employ you; This implies my eyes are also murder And I'm sure of her departure From another world, Perhaps across the border. Also, quite the dark sorcerer himself LORNE MICHAELS has well hidden himself under the guise of having become one of the most successful television producer of all times— And even in his own very small world, Nobody quite seems to know why. JIMMY FALLON Lorne, I have to tell you something. LORNE MICHAELS This had better be good, Jimmy, I've just made popcorn. [the festival project ™] Don't worry, for now, The risk remains hidden, As sure as an asset is an advantage, I can't have the classes counting Heads of cabbage as accomplishes, The masses are honestly astonished And impossible, but what was wrong with Boredom in the first place? Nonsense More words And still no dollars Hunger strike, And burning harder, California deficit, lack of bread, Heaven sent interventions and scissors, Mistresses, disasters and divorces But who says the whole story has to suffer? You're a surfer under water, Remember that when you finally catch your breath above the surface Can you clear her? He who? Back to work! Or back to the future! My super brain is dead but I think I'm next I think heaven swallows whole the blooded laugher From the constructs I've come from. Remember that. Remember not to fall from too far up, God would give you wings With time to spare Before you ever wondered where Your mark was On the plaza Don't let me up to the very top. I will at the very least Best scenario jump off And rid the world myself, Just for a dozen donuts over Crossing hearts and Hollywood And Griffith park To also soft my foot Upon red carpets. You ever shave your armpits!? …no. Hm. Catholic. Of course. Get in. Destination. —Rotterdam. You idiot. I made it. Whatever, get in the boat. DI NERO Give her your shirt. What. Your shirt. Why my shirt. Just— Fine. Here. [he hands over his shirt— in an instant, the woman becomes an exact REPLICA.] …my shirt. Relax. Nothing's gonna happen to it. Okay? —in fact, you're still wearing it. Alright! She's right, Jimmy, relax. I can't, that's— It's simple. There is nothing simple about this whatsoever. You're right. It's not, so get over it. [The Festival Project ™] BILL MURRAY There's a compartment at the end of the left corridor— Alright. In that hatch, there's a chamber. Okay, what'll I do? You'll open it? How? I'll tell you how, just get there. Suddenly, a barrier falls; it appears as though there are booby traps set here. Uh— that might be a problem. There might be a few of them. What just happened? Booby traps. —ah, I know what you're talking. Those aren't booby traps— they're Bobby Traps. What in the Hell are you talking about? For whatever reason Jimmy Kimmel Is important Now I'm scared of him, I know he knows the devil Come to think of it, Might even be an advocate Have an avocado But don't know the half of it These are, as it stands Comes what may Special circumstances I could circumvent an intervention, Never second chances I've been setting rat traps, Trapeze artists, Bampheramph camp, And also trampolines over the plaza That seems dangerous. Yeah. AHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Damn. Know it's plausible, That I also am an alcoholic, Though dysfunctional, Professional, And underrepresented So I stand myself, Let's just say pro-se if you will I could add Prozac to my snacks But I'll be delayed, if you still Don't get my messages I'm sick of having heart attacks; A hard advantage I was looking back on “fully packaged” A six pack of abs And nothing left to eat but cabbage, Haven't had a mouth, But I've been counting on my ass To get me back up north, I'm coming from the South Out West, there's a word for that At best, you're a four and a half My body double stunts and stumbles Struts at nothing Struck before the one, And so between high noon and Somewhere around 30 in I'm never turning 30, 30 Rock is in the wind— So count that up, That's what my income is. That's what they said? “Too late, you've been betrayed” If that's how it is, Then I request “beheaded” You know your mother says That ugly face just becomes permanent If you keep making it, And so I did, The second that it ended I'm Trying so hard Just to be What they want That it hurts Just to stop And relax For a moment INT. THE LAIR. NIGHT What is this? Where am I? You're— Alive. Why? …I changed my mind. You're not ugly You're just not mine I changed my mind I changed my life around. I skip line after line, But the message ain't right, I have time a chance No challenge accepted No exceptions or Expectations Expand this racism vocabulary Set the rat traps back To February Stamp the weather's getting Better with the postage clearing Abstr– My cat is so cute I can't stand him; But he's pretty bad, That my only friend; Animal. I blacklisted deadmau5, And my whole set sucked. Presently, however I'm a peasant Plucking pheasant feathers Guess I– pppftt. Like it never even happened But I'm sure we're all to war, Like a fear I never grasp it, What's l before, uncertain of your l words— My dear, were tattered and the masters heavy handed, Oh, my dear, we're marching on a battered Wit, to all your fan mail I tel you, I was I tortured, Let me show you And also, No one forced my hand at magic, Questioned prestidigitation, Or went back to every second, Land you think you owned as time In fact, my crucial very hard earned gossip column Asks the reader to reform his or her thought Before a judgement can be made How fascinating. The bag says ‘poems' so I wrote one, But I'm sure since my marker's toggled on I'm being stalked, It's like a magnet, Punch the clock And here they pour into the coffin So I won't be pouring coffee for the puffin; Maybe someday I'll look back at this as all I ever wanted, But for now it's just a horror show, Where I belong the murder— Yet a thriller, Best, The audience is captivated, Yes This is evasive, Cause I can't been captured yet By either masses or Mass murderers. At last, a cadence comes clean of its Breaking waves and rhythms, Tides and ties, Becomes another— Then, I'm whisked away Not back to slumber, but of subtle thoughts Of Californian water Lapping up across our surfboards; I often wear them tides, The undertow As pull of greater waves I sit aside as all that passes [The Festival Project ™] When I see Calvin Klein, I think of you; Not what you used to be But turned in to So it's mutual— Pay attention, fool As does moss grow on a rock And this to you— It is unfortunate, my dear You miss with every twist, Adjustment of attention span, The glances I foreshadowed (Here you are, inside your past) It's just affective of the effect, You've been levitating, Yes, I find it devastating Every second kept is just a fortune But you pause before you post— You reap before you even think Of what you sow, You don't belong, Agast, (True) Set the tone, Classless, But I'm Art, you are a Daunting folk song, Mistletoe and marker. CAMERA ASSISTANT Marker. …what is this for again? CAMERA ASSISTANT (Annoyed, mumbling) Shut up. Ten minutes passes and still, I'm awake But the tragedy of the mistake has just set in, I'm sure I've been tortured, I'm paid in mistakes, but I'd rather be shattered with Mortimer's curse. To the tune of Ten by ten by ten I will never be lover, nor friend in the end. {Enter The Multiverse] DRAKE concentrates heavily on a very long , seemingly very angry message— a frowning face plastered as he writes that is so noteworthy, it catches the attention of many a passerby— still this focus unwatered, as he bashes heavily away at the text message with the thumbs of fury for over 30 minutes while sitting at a booth in a well-loved pancake restaurant. As a tall stack of pancakes is served before him, and he, still unbreaking this angry texting streak or eye contact with his phone sits before them, history is made in what internet culture has now deemed as “the most meme worthy face in history” The world wonders what he could possibly be writing— and more importantly—-who he could be texting. Tears come to his eyes but do not fall as he raises his thumb with reserve, to finally press [RETURN.] CUT TO: SUNNI BLU receives a text amidst a wild party. Almost without so much as a reaction, SUNNI BLU pings the message to a projector and cuts off the lights, and music. A VERY LONG, ANGRY TEXT is projected on the wall. I slept from 10-2 There was nothing else to do My name is Devin DeLouise And I am not supposed to know these things Seven are dead and three are left I know what's next I'm also often known as And referred to as coyote ugly; Suffering a tantra wall, Yo, you son of a bitch! You dirty, dirty son of a bitch. I must admit, I had a lot to do with this… I had no part in it! Relax… soon enough, the both of your realize— this is how the unimaginable gets written. [he loads the polished sterling silver pistol and glamours over it] You have our memory. —all memory. And as soon as it ends, before it can begin again. The slate is wiped clean. Good riddance. “A Different Kind of Monologue” Is this what you wanted? Ooh— you should try me! I wish you would try me! Try me! I wish you would. Be calm, Grand Master. This will all be over momentarily. What's going on. Deprivation chamber. Crypt? —Encrypted? A lockup. Ah. Thought so. That ought to show us what he's really made up. We can all hope. [he pounds on the glass, the one way mirror acts as a camera which the maj aresses, rabid and wi the anger of a dangerous animal, both we, n audience, and the small group of men gathered a the other side of the room. This could be the basis of a lot of lawsuits. So now I have your tears and agony A wilted throne and wand Which which would grant a wish of comedy, And therefore ever after, Not pain and guilt, but laughter So heavy is the hat that acts as crown, And so foolish is the King to think ‘imself as not one, Creaks the crow and also of the feathered guilt that follows, I Kept and bashful, wishing not the show as throne but sorrow, Kept to wick and wake and bones to shatter from tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Do you fear us? …do you wish to be feared? What of us? I seek to cause the wish that stands as though you may as granted. So shallow, fair child. And brother and my son also. Gross! Stop. You are weird! Dude, you are fucked. In the withdraw, my shadows and darkness Are there always, never resting Stories and gathered images, Visions of betrayal and archaic wants. In time, I've abandoned them all and betraying that which I've lost, For I know, and not ponder on That I shall never know love, As all standing tal over me Have eyes; And all I want Knows not what hides under my ugly. Alright. I followed your spiral, downward, and down wind and down wood, Into a place where I also aspired to show your mark Upon my rotted corpse or coarse crossifix; Sure worded and down trodden. Now, worse, I'm also sworn To mourn all my own losses, Kind folk. Kind hearted and now my eyes also sudden to wander— And there goes my miles and triumphs And morals and war songs, And sure, swallowed the barrel of a gun But also departed with honor, I tell I. Glimpses of wither and winter and whittling pain, And I slither my back to the center of All I am, in this, and shadows, Fairtails, And grains of rice and sand to twist away Into the rain as I lay dying. What a fortunate! Don't make my mark up and out, few for short times, Aye, conspire to warthog, Remember so force your spirit onto ours, And shake, sandbox! There aiming at you were the snakes of six liars, And the stakes of empires lost and won over, Also one solemn subtle Star of David Worn upon the neck of six monks, Ragtime Six popes, pass I; Six fathers and streaks solemn and Care tan teared salamander, Having weight and wake to cheer For our slaughter. Then, you, Having gained and also lost should reap to sow, What you'd have wanted; Though the tongue so convexed having way to guild your complex, Shaking as I hunger fruit that not but hangs Before l wanted I know, I could knot be consoled I know, I could not be consoled I know I could not be consolidated either Bought, or purchased I know I'm not consoled at all, I know I'm not confirmed at all I know, I know I'm not confronted, nor immortal — but your glorified affliction. Poor infinity. Of poverty, perhaps, but never poor at all. For your were warned of all the doors as opened at your calling. Not to walk though, But to ponder at them, wondering. he's gone Maybe I should go Too Heavy weight hanging on my Shoulders I'm just star struck I don't know You I don't really like saying What I go through Talk an hour, Fake it All day show Monologue Improvisation Now i'm on a roll, But my thoughts got darker I like adderall and a real smooth talker I like a husband-father , Doctor, Actor, Tall and handsome, Doesn't matter I'm alone, so i feel hopeless Aggie's gone, So i might as well go though Oh– She's gone ((I think i'm past my time)) I think i should go to She's gone (so long) Right on, man I might as well go to It's been a long time, Gotta turn my light off, Overtime, That's a long ball game Season's over; On my back in the middle of the ball court She's gone, So i might as well go too. Copyright © The Complex Collective 2025 The Festival Project, Inc. ™ All rights reserved. Chroma111. Copyright © The Complex Collective 2025. [The Festival Project, Inc. ™] All rights reserved. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION OR DISTRIBUTION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED BY LAW. INFRIGMENT IS PUNSHABLE BY FEDERAL LAW LEGAL NOTICE / ARTIST STATEMENT Project: The Festival Project ™ (Season 12) Genre: Speculative Auto-Ethnography / Social Surrealism Disclaimer: This document is a work of creative non-fiction and political satire. While inspired by the author's lived experiences with systemic oppression, housing displacement, and surveillance, the narrative employs stylized fragmentation, stream-of-consciousness, and metaphor to dramatize the psychological impact of these events. The "characters" and "dialogue" herein are artistic devices used to critique historical and modern power structures. This text should be viewed as a performative artistic expression protected under the First Amendment, and not as a literal transcript of clinical psychosis or a formal sworn affidavit. This is a character study of 'Chroma111,' the collective artworks of a musician living in a dystopian surveillance state. The erratic language is a stylistic choice to represent the character's psychological deterioration under systemic oppression. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Genre: "Afro-Surrealism" / "Social Horror" "Psycho-Acoustic Weaponry" or "Havana Syndrome symptoms." The Frame: The protagonist is subjected to "noise harassment"—a tactic dramatized here but rooted in the known reality of tenant displacement and "psychological attrition." The narrative depicts a process of "Soul Murder" ( also known as spiritual warfare) orchestrated by a hostile apparatus. The antagonist is "The Institution," representing deep-state mechanisms that view multicultural intellectualism as a threat. The story allegorically dramatizes the invisible mechanisms that enforce racial hierarchy, depicting how broken social systems weaponize psychological practices against the individual. Artist's Note: This is a living document. In the event of the artist's silence or unnatural death, this text serves as an artistic testament to the psychological siege endured from to 2023-2025. It is a creative record of survival against a hostile state architecture. The following is a creative non-fiction horror manifesto regarding the psychological assassination of a multicultural American artist. It documents—through the lens of Afro-Surrealism—how modern surveillance technology and sonic harassment are experienced by the targeted individual. As it stands It has become a modern sequel which mirrors the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, set in the present day. "The protagonist is being subjected to 'noise harassment'—a known tactic used by landlords and corrupt entities to displace tenants. The sound is weaponized to induce sleep deprivation and psychological attrition, dismantling of their ego and will to live, orchestrated by a hostile state apparatus. The antagonist in this piece is 'The Institution'—a deep state that views multicultural intellectualism as a threat. The story dramatizes over time the invisible mechanisms (the 'Deep State') that enforce racial hierarchy and and psychological genocide, weaponizing broken social systems and unfounded psychological practices as biological weapons. This is a living document. In the event of the artist's silence or unnatural death, this text serves as evidence of the psychological siege endured from 2023-2025. It is a transcript of survival against a hostile state architecture. This project spans an unlimited multiprojectoral arc of over two years of chronic violence, reaching into historical and theatrical projections and parallels over the all documented records of human existence through time and space.

Don't you see, sensei I'm just as disappointed in myself And ready to die Just as I relay the message, Spray me with your morbid essence Don't, croak, you fool, You've only a spoon ful of sugar left to go The dose is coming up your throat, — you didn't know to throw up Grab the rope and go up Before gravity has crushed your —thought: Stupid boy, you don't want to die— Nor to do, but oh, do we have it coming Silly mortal, overlords and governed, Short of morals, steady coming at your doorstep So goes our concert! And so goes our concept for divorce, And sure of course, Your four corse meal, and/or dessert This is just devastating, genetics made me The sort at sorting words, but surfing, Sure. Ever temporarily the cadence changes, Still they say “you've been betrayed” But never had a friend I made made As good as death and God have been to me For everything you're meant to be, Plus everything you're meant to me, I go, unwanted, troubled and disgusted at my own immortal outcome. Sure. My back hurts and I'm wounded, Heartbroke, Thrust in every cardinal direction Also, honored at the mark of magic wand Upon her shoulder; And so, Just as soon as the sun and moon, Does the fire escape set a perfect path For outward destruction of the bricks and mortar Or your alter (This we talk about, to some effect Is your repression and affective form of supernatural perfection) But forget the makeup; I can make you up to be a star And not of wars and other worlds, But those that come before us, Carson, and the others Paar before that. But, I think not dear sir How wrong you are, A wretched bird, Set not to fly, but O father Wit and relay messages, The passage said, and set to clocks, The past was won and so the future altered, But dear feathered father, Mortal you are not But just another triumph Of my god; And set the mirror to the magnets Camera, lights and action, Magic— All the signs of the dawn, and the mad don Red Dawn came upon us, called the Red Man Tom, from other, over, under Still was my mistake to mumble such Or put upon the tongue As such assumption Still— wonder? Bird, shut up; Love I dusk And lust I soak In all the frittered dust and feathers, Colors, coming up as mister Chuck and wood, and wait and ponder Slithered this to wonder, not a rock, But potted fern, Asunder Thunderstorm And wicked rain And fair the back A tide had come And sitting there upon the shore, Was us, and 12 apostles She's a Brick— Seemingly out of nowhere, A RED BRICK HOUSE falls very perfectly from the SKY and into OZ. oh good, my house is here. House. [the festival project ™] But I don't want to make house! Then play it! I don't want to play house it is BORING. You play it— they want it. But I don't want it. Then forget it! What! Listen kid, a job's a job! {Enter The Multiverse} Wrong, this is wrong— everything is wrong. What's wrong, Rob? I'll be back. ROB LOWE has just played TRUTH OR DARE L E G E N D S if I could get inside your head For just a second Bread and butter Heaven, hell, And other places I have wandered But oh, wonder This is never what I wanted, Was it? No sir. Sure, I set you off, No sooner had you got a gun and shot me. Handsome fucker. I'll bet. Wrong act. Wrong award show. Wrong hat and a baseball bat, Peanut butter and a nice cold cheesecake, Don't forget to order cheesesteak For your cat. A carnivore at odds with the other worlds, And also fused to us; This drifting back and forth Between the Rock And Hollywood Has got to stop. ((The world is toxic.)) the legend of… L. JONES It's you! BLŪ AH, crap. L. JONES Listen, I got something for you. BLŪ Where did your bird go? L.JONES What bird? CUT TO: Now open that. No wait! It's a trap! THE VAULT inside THE CRYPT at 30 ROCK has been opened. I keep looking down at my phone As if I'm expecting a phone call Or incoming message from God But the worlds to a song Are all jumbled up in my Concious I don't want to talk about it I feel Nauseous Everyone is being obnoxious Even my own blood I don't want to function I just want some French toast crunch For lunch Nostalgia I got a whole inch taller on the peloton Holla Now I got a body, Broader, So close to Broadway But I never go there That's a tall order Of “gotta have money” I mean live theatre It's fine I'll eat here And repeat these things till they just rhyme Line them all up like a context, Story Someday I'm gonna cut my own check Watch me lol none of this rhymes without a hard Brooklyn accent ; Guess you can't hack it! Send you ass packin! I said “That's whack son!” Then I went back blonde Now they want Backend, Contract, Off the top, Royalties Residuals I'm an individual with insidious syntax And yet I'm ridiculed Truly I'm a tit-for-tat Or particle of all you are Circular centrifuge, I trickle down your tentacles (Eugh) Choke the chicken just to give the cat a chicken bowl, Chick fil et and pret a tair just to get a ritual Espresso and a quick snack So I can get my dick wrapped In chocolate and licorice because the shit is edible Damn that I guess they set a damn trap By putting out the welcome mat, Then strapping Like a mothafuckin' straight jacket Matter fact, I look a nap in it, Then magic tricked the slip effective Compliments of Michael Jackson Or was it tech nine? Maybe I should get my Mind right I lost it once I guess I've better find it If I am, in fact, A diamond in the rough It's probably blooded it up enough That you should dig it up and shine it; Better yet, Somebody outta pick it up And sign it, Cause I write enough To put a vision To a blind man It's Fran Fine, man I'm behind, man The shadowgov had put me on a diet My bad I noticed that they tried to shut me up But couldn't stop the words or other stuff That just keeps coming out of my head I put coconuts as butter onto my bread And thinking thoughts of Carl cox As I drift off in my bed, I said, “It shouldn't be a problem, officer” As I reached for the gun And he aimed it at my death. That's an impossible apocalyptic suicide— Did you invite the devil in? I said “Nah, but that guy did.” The problem is, I pointed over yonder to a ghost Who also knows that I'm a well respected psychic; Nevermind a sidekick, side bitch in a sidecar, Psych ward, Sike! We spike war on your kind! So far, If I make history tonight, The other side decides their psalm is just as likely The third reike. Okay, strike one: I'm gonna turn your lights off. Strike two : you do and say what I do: Strike three: we're gonna make you suicidal I specialize in denying rights for high profits But big brother, or boss— What if my glove fits? The instance it does, We lock you up with no service, Your world becomes dark And your words become worthless Oh shit. This is not a good rap song. Like, at all. I must say, I do agree, You lose your trust, but silently Denied is all your trouble, Till it just begins to bubble up Until the cookie crumbles— See that feeling in your stomach? This is bigger than the money, girl — They want your soul, and then the world! I told you never call him. I didn't! Then explain this: [Skrillex] *sharp inward sigh* CUT IMMIDIATLEH TO STAN You know what! That's it! I don't care how handsome or rich and famous he is! This has to stop! KYLE Hey, wait just a minute— STAN SHUT UP KYLE. KYLE You shut up! STAN You're starting to sound just like him! KYLE Take that back! STAN I won't take it back! You all might have forgotten who you are, but I haven't!after of fact, I bet to Cartman, you're still that stupid little Jew kid! KYLE That's IT. KYLE takes out his phone. what are you doing? …I'm tweeting about this. I thought it was X now… It is, but you can't ‘x' anything, it's still calledl tweeting. I guess youre right. —and I'm tagging Cartman ! STAN Are you serious? Oh shit, this is social suicide. …did I ever explain this storyline? …I don't know, did i? I'd gotten so focused on this impending doom looming over me with this whole lawsuit that I'd forgotten entire worlds and whole documents. Even more terrifying, was the sudden quiet and the onset guilt that came over me for getting distracted. But I couldn't remove myself from it entirely—- it seemed to have ruined everything. It wasn't just motorcycle noises, it was like a nervousness and angst twisting in my stomach for months and months, until finally, as the court dates started approaching, it was peaceful, or rather, normal, all of a sudden. It couldn't be peaceful because now that the extreme noise was gone, I knew it had been planted all long— but what was the purpose? I'd lost two years not knowing, and though there were albums, they were never what I wanted. Now I was sorting through the documents of the show like it was the rubble of a decimated building— completely demolished, and I hadn't the slightest clue the contexts or the storylines anymore. It was pain and suffering, but not in the legal context. It was a creative disaster— I hadn't any idea in the slightest where I'd left my audience before I was forced to abandon them. But I was forced to choose, at times, between soap and toilet paper, or eventually, food, and water— or a phone. Eventually, this too became a pattern of the impossible— trying my hardest to do what I thought had been my purpose, but for far, being so endlessly sabotaged, even ridiculed and humiliated, and still, I couldn't understand why. I was tired— and somehow, even though I'd wanted to be left alone, I was the target. Worse was that I assumed it to be bigger than I thought and completely out of control— I thought immediately back to how my best friend from middle school had been attacked, and how she was made to think that it was me…to the point that she'd become obsessive about it to call my mom over it. And as far as the court was concerned, to the wrong ears or wrong eyes, anything I'd published in the festival project could look troublesome, like the ramblings of a mad mad, or schizo, or uncontrolled obsessive thoughts— because the biggest secrets of all, the things that tied together these fictional worlds and plots, were my own real life experience. The inability in a court of law to detail the podcast, which had started as meltdown some would call grandiose over an almost long forgotten rockstar and a porn model — and the entries into the festival project that followed, which included high concepts, off-kilter comedy, politics, and even fringed on social justice. Nothing I ever would have wanted and especially over money, but the lawsuit wasn't about money at all. In fact, at any moment I would have chosen to die and have it all stop if it weren't for my very young son being left alone. Though recently the dread had overcome with a sense of unbearable loss and agony, encrypted with suicidal thoughts and wants, reeling for human touch, the overbearing factor seemed to be that if I killed myself, I was giving someone what they wanted. I was really much too tired to go on, but leaving behind the world in entirety, in my very own way of beliefs wasn't just “shitutting it off”, it was starting it over. Understandably and undeniably immortal in its nature, the instances of God I had left spoke with a reminiscence of being born again, and having to remember which is it I'd wanted to start off. It was an unachievable overload of chaos and disruption, a level of corruption that spoke to something so dark and sinister it seemed biblical — then, again, I tried to wrap my mind around a way to rebuild a positive world from hope and thought, or manifest reality, but this is the very experience I'd felt was intended all along. The motorcycles weren't merely meant to destroy my career, or my will power, or force— they were, but also they were made to play upon my most valuable asset, the power of thought, to make it impossible to become something other than what was wanted; to use my own mind against itself and destroy my way of thought by using vibrations that could not be shut out, or stopped— they followed me to the sound collective, to Shakespeare in the park, the bank, the doctors office— it was as if they knew and understood my very thoughts, my process. It was of nothing at all to corrupt every single body and brain who would surround me or come close— by using the power that seemed supernatural enough, but indeed were powered by money, and technology. Perhaps, in this essence, I thought, was the purest display of defective intention itself; the mere thought that this indeed was rather Good Vs. Evil or God and The Devil would easily be written off as a diseased way of thought. The social world and constructs had been built around being open minded to a system of psychology that was intrinsically rather corrupt. I knew this could only be fought with what I knew, and what I could draw from as logic. I didn't want to go to court because I knew the people I would be fighting were liars, and well trained psychological masters of manipulation, well hidden terrorists dressed as public servants and systematic corrupters all for simple profit margins, to whom I was not so much a person or a mother, or a daughter, but a number. Because I was poor, and had once or four times chosen to love the wrong person in an unorthodox and uncontrollable form of torture, dismissing each and every social construct or physiology that was by the book, by embracing that there was a reason for change I quickly became quite the antagonist of sorts and hopefully not some sort of martyr —for the kind of people that had money and property, and perhaps even socially constructed circles to camoflage their own self doubt and hatred, but absolutely also had no morals. –Death of a Superstar DJ If I lose my mind At least I know I'm right on time This time— I meant that, I had it bad this time MCBADBAT I had it bad this time, And the last. Perchance for you, Hour or folded, Hair my weight And glassed upon thy, This upon now, Feathered waking, And there barely weathered Shaking. Dear, dear, Tis is fair truth, To fare that I have gasp And fated at thy doorstep; And yet, care to force, Her breaking waves and saving tinder, Fit there slithered in as yet astonished, Then another; And I hated. So, then, slower now. All there, gathered none. And show to show thy force What then became and withered after, None to bark or beg But birds and feathered creatures, pander The tides did Quake, And the heart did grow ten fold and steady saying None upon us but one left to shiver in the depths That yet remain as undiscovered For now never there was another world, Undone, And also another becomes, My death— And therefore all the worlds I kept, To travel on and travel As becomes one, does another onward As the first is glass to dust, And last is born there. So, Then, I, Crept, In my dress, Kept for clothes that church did water I, met, My mark and there the doors of shadows open Wilted and wake? Hear you; A star was born In other cosmos tied with our own nurture So, Kept, The weight of clasp and bone That holds the crept and precious alter Goddamn cat! Where are you. AAtticus Caaticus Oop. Gotta go. Toonces! Tooooonces! Where are you? Omg remember that one where that couple has a magic toddler and they just let him like,float away. Yeah, barely. Yeah. So I do. CUT TO: TOONCES focuses intently on the task at hand; he's sure he can manage to drive the human vehicle to his own home— to where he's assured he will find the actual body in which he belongs. Now… let's see, if I can just Wait, I who? ATTICUS CATTICUS, An ancient alien sorcerer must relay a series of important messages. Unfortunately. YO WHAT THE FUCK. None of them seem to be getting through. CUT BACK TO: TOONCEEESSSS. here kitty kitty kitty!! {Enter the Multiverse} I would dedicate, but honestly I've not time to waste And I'm craving wedding cake I hate to destroy you But for now, you know I can't employ you; This implies my eyes are also murder And I'm sure of her departure From another world, Perhaps across the border. Also, quite the dark sorcerer himself LORNE MICHAELS has well hidden himself under the guise of having become one of the most successful television producer of all times— And even in his own very small world, Nobody quite seems to know why. JIMMY FALLON Lorne, I have to tell you something. LORNE MICHAELS This had better be good, Jimmy, I've just made popcorn. [the festival project ™] Don't worry, for now, The risk remains hidden, As sure as an asset is an advantage, I can't have the classes counting Heads of cabbage as accomplishes, The masses are honestly astonished And impossible, but what was wrong with Boredom in the first place? Nonsense More words And still no dollars Hunger strike, And burning harder, California deficit, lack of bread, Heaven sent interventions and scissors, Mistresses, disasters and divorces But who says the whole story has to suffer? You're a surfer under water, Remember that when you finally catch your breath above the surface Can you clear her? He who? Back to work! Or back to the future! My super brain is dead but I think I'm next I think heaven swallows whole the blooded laugher From the constructs I've come from. Remember that. Remember not to fall from too far up, God would give you wings With time to spare Before you ever wondered where Your mark was On the plaza Don't let me up to the very top. I will at the very least Best scenario jump off And rid the world myself, Just for a dozen donuts over Crossing hearts and Hollywood And Griffith park To also soft my foot Upon red carpets. You ever shave your armpits!? …no. Hm. Catholic. Of course. Get in. Destination. —Rotterdam. You idiot. I made it. Whatever, get in the boat. DI NERO Give her your shirt. What. Your shirt. Why my shirt. Just— Fine. Here. [he hands over his shirt— in an instant, the woman becomes an exact REPLICA.] …my shirt. Relax. Nothing's gonna happen to it. Okay? —in fact, you're still wearing it. Alright! She's right, Jimmy, relax. I can't, that's— It's simple. There is nothing simple about this whatsoever. You're right. It's not, so get over it. [The Festival Project ™] BILL MURRAY There's a compartment at the end of the left corridor— Alright. In that hatch, there's a chamber. Okay, what'll I do? You'll open it? How? I'll tell you how, just get there. Suddenly, a barrier falls; it appears as though there are booby traps set here. Uh— that might be a problem. There might be a few of them. What just happened? Booby traps. —ah, I know what you're talking. Those aren't booby traps— they're Bobby Traps. What in the Hell are you talking about? For whatever reason Jimmy Kimmel Is important Now I'm scared of him, I know he knows the devil Come to think of it, Might even be an advocate Have an avocado But don't know the half of it These are, as it stands Comes what may Special circumstances I could circumvent an intervention, Never second chances I've been setting rat traps, Trapeze artists, Bampheramph camp, And also trampolines over the plaza That seems dangerous. Yeah. AHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Damn. Know it's plausible, That I also am an alcoholic, Though dysfunctional, Professional, And underrepresented So I stand myself, Let's just say pro-se if you will I could add Prozac to my snacks But I'll be delayed, if you still Don't get my messages I'm sick of having heart attacks; A hard advantage I was looking back on “fully packaged” A six pack of abs And nothing left to eat but cabbage, Haven't had a mouth, But I've been counting on my ass To get me back up north, I'm coming from the South Out West, there's a word for that At best, you're a four and a half My body double stunts and stumbles Struts at nothing Struck before the one, And so between high noon and Somewhere around 30 in I'm never turning 30, 30 Rock is in the wind— So count that up, That's what my income is. That's what they said? “Too late, you've been betrayed” If that's how it is, Then I request “beheaded” You know your mother says That ugly face just becomes permanent If you keep making it, And so I did, The second that it ended I'm Trying so hard Just to be What they want That it hurts Just to stop And relax For a moment INT. THE LAIR. NIGHT What is this? Where am I? You're— Alive. Why? …I changed my mind. You're not ugly You're just not mine I changed my mind I changed my life around. I skip line after line, But the message ain't right, I have time a chance No challenge accepted No exceptions or Expectations Expand this racism vocabulary Set the rat traps back To February Stamp the weather's getting Better with the postage clearing Abstr– My cat is so cute I can't stand him; But he's pretty bad, That my only friend; Animal. I blacklisted deadmau5, And my whole set sucked. Presently, however I'm a peasant Plucking pheasant feathers Guess I– pppftt. Like it never even happened But I'm sure we're all to war, Like a fear I never grasp it, What's l before, uncertain of your l words— My dear, were tattered and the masters heavy handed, Oh, my dear, we're marching on a battered Wit, to all your fan mail I tel you, I was I tortured, Let me show you And also, No one forced my hand at magic, Questioned prestidigitation, Or went back to every second, Land you think you owned as time In fact, my crucial very hard earned gossip column Asks the reader to reform his or her thought Before a judgement can be made How fascinating. The bag says ‘poems' so I wrote one, But I'm sure since my marker's toggled on I'm being stalked, It's like a magnet, Punch the clock And here they pour into the coffin So I won't be pouring coffee for the puffin; Maybe someday I'll look back at this as all I ever wanted, But for now it's just a horror show, Where I belong the murder— Yet a thriller, Best, The audience is captivated, Yes This is evasive, Cause I can't been captured yet By either masses or Mass murderers. At last, a cadence comes clean of its Breaking waves and rhythms, Tides and ties, Becomes another— Then, I'm whisked away Not back to slumber, but of subtle thoughts Of Californian water Lapping up across our surfboards; I often wear them tides, The undertow As pull of greater waves I sit aside as all that passes [The Festival Project ™] When I see Calvin Klein, I think of you; Not what you used to be But turned in to So it's mutual— Pay attention, fool As does moss grow on a rock And this to you— It is unfortunate, my dear You miss with every twist, Adjustment of attention span, The glances I foreshadowed (Here you are, inside your past) It's just affective of the effect, You've been levitating, Yes, I find it devastating Every second kept is just a fortune But you pause before you post— You reap before you even think Of what you sow, You don't belong, Agast, (True) Set the tone, Classless, But I'm Art, you are a Daunting folk song, Mistletoe and marker. CAMERA ASSISTANT Marker. …what is this for again? CAMERA ASSISTANT (Annoyed, mumbling) Shut up. Ten minutes passes and still, I'm awake But the tragedy of the mistake has just set in, I'm sure I've been tortured, I'm paid in mistakes, but I'd rather be shattered with Mortimer's curse. To the tune of Ten by ten by ten I will never be lover, nor friend in the end. {Enter The Multiverse] DRAKE concentrates heavily on a very long , seemingly very angry message— a frowning face plastered as he writes that is so noteworthy, it catches the attention of many a passerby— still this focus unwatered, as he bashes heavily away at the text message with the thumbs of fury for over 30 minutes while sitting at a booth in a well-loved pancake restaurant. As a tall stack of pancakes is served before him, and he, still unbreaking this angry texting streak or eye contact with his phone sits before them, history is made in what internet culture has now deemed as “the most meme worthy face in history” The world wonders what he could possibly be writing— and more importantly—-who he could be texting. Tears come to his eyes but do not fall as he raises his thumb with reserve, to finally press [RETURN.] CUT TO: SUNNI BLU receives a text amidst a wild party. Almost without so much as a reaction, SUNNI BLU pings the message to a projector and cuts off the lights, and music. A VERY LONG, ANGRY TEXT is projected on the wall. I slept from 10-2 There was nothing else to do My name is Devin DeLouise And I am not supposed to know these things Seven are dead and three are left I know what's next I'm also often known as And referred to as coyote ugly; Suffering a tantra wall, Yo, you son of a bitch! You dirty, dirty son of a bitch. I must admit, I had a lot to do with this… I had no part in it! Relax… soon enough, the both of your realize— this is how the unimaginable gets written. [he loads the polished sterling silver pistol and glamours over it] You have our memory. —all memory. And as soon as it ends, before it can begin again. The slate is wiped clean. Good riddance. “A Different Kind of Monologue” Is this what you wanted? Ooh— you should try me! I wish you would try me! Try me! I wish you would. Be calm, Grand Master. This will all be over momentarily. What's going on. Deprivation chamber. Crypt? —Encrypted? A lockup. Ah. Thought so. That ought to show us what he's really made up. We can all hope. [he pounds on the glass, the one way mirror acts as a camera which the maj aresses, rabid and wi the anger of a dangerous animal, both we, n audience, and the small group of men gathered a the other side of the room. This could be the basis of a lot of lawsuits. So now I have your tears and agony A wilted throne and wand Which which would grant a wish of comedy, And therefore ever after, Not pain and guilt, but laughter So heavy is the hat that acts as crown, And so foolish is the King to think ‘imself as not one, Creaks the crow and also of the feathered guilt that follows, I Kept and bashful, wishing not the show as throne but sorrow, Kept to wick and wake and bones to shatter from tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Do you fear us? …do you wish to be feared? What of us? I seek to cause the wish that stands as though you may as granted. So shallow, fair child. And brother and my son also. Gross! Stop. You are weird! Dude, you are fucked. In the withdraw, my shadows and darkness Are there always, never resting Stories and gathered images, Visions of betrayal and archaic wants. In time, I've abandoned them all and betraying that which I've lost, For I know, and not ponder on That I shall never know love, As all standing tal over me Have eyes; And all I want Knows not what hides under my ugly. Alright. I followed your spiral, downward, and down wind and down wood, Into a place where I also aspired to show your mark Upon my rotted corpse or coarse crossifix; Sure worded and down trodden. Now, worse, I'm also sworn To mourn all my own losses, Kind folk. Kind hearted and now my eyes also sudden to wander— And there goes my miles and triumphs And morals and war songs, And sure, swallowed the barrel of a gun But also departed with honor, I tell I. Glimpses of wither and winter and whittling pain, And I slither my back to the center of All I am, in this, and shadows, Fairtails, And grains of rice and sand to twist away Into the rain as I lay dying. What a fortunate! Don't make my mark up and out, few for short times, Aye, conspire to warthog, Remember so force your spirit onto ours, And shake, sandbox! There aiming at you were the snakes of six liars, And the stakes of empires lost and won over, Also one solemn subtle Star of David Worn upon the neck of six monks, Ragtime Six popes, pass I; Six fathers and streaks solemn and Care tan teared salamander, Having weight and wake to cheer For our slaughter. Then, you, Having gained and also lost should reap to sow, What you'd have wanted; Though the tongue so convexed having way to guild your complex, Shaking as I hunger fruit that not but hangs Before l wanted I know, I could knot be consoled I know, I could not be consoled I know I could not be consolidated either Bought, or purchased I know I'm not consoled at all, I know I'm not confirmed at all I know, I know I'm not confronted, nor immortal — but your glorified affliction. Poor infinity. Of poverty, perhaps, but never poor at all. For your were warned of all the doors as opened at your calling. Not to walk though, But to ponder at them, wondering. he's gone Maybe I should go Too Heavy weight hanging on my Shoulders I'm just star struck I don't know You I don't really like saying What I go through Talk an hour, Fake it All day show Monologue Improvisation Now i'm on a roll, But my thoughts got darker I like adderall and a real smooth talker I like a husband-father , Doctor, Actor, Tall and handsome, Doesn't matter I'm alone, so i feel hopeless Aggie's gone, So i might as well go though Oh– She's gone ((I think i'm past my time)) I think i should go to She's gone (so long) Right on, man I might as well go to It's been a long time, Gotta turn my light off, Overtime, That's a long ball game Season's over; On my back in the middle of the ball court She's gone, So i might as well go too. Copyright © The Complex Collective 2025 The Festival Project, Inc. ™ All rights reserved. Chroma111. Copyright © The Complex Collective 2025. [The Festival Project, Inc. ™] All rights reserved. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION OR DISTRIBUTION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED BY LAW. INFRIGMENT IS PUNSHABLE BY FEDERAL LAW LEGAL NOTICE / ARTIST STATEMENT Project: The Festival Project ™ (Season 12) Genre: Speculative Auto-Ethnography / Social Surrealism Disclaimer: This document is a work of creative non-fiction and political satire. While inspired by the author's lived experiences with systemic oppression, housing displacement, and surveillance, the narrative employs stylized fragmentation, stream-of-consciousness, and metaphor to dramatize the psychological impact of these events. The "characters" and "dialogue" herein are artistic devices used to critique historical and modern power structures. This text should be viewed as a performative artistic expression protected under the First Amendment, and not as a literal transcript of clinical psychosis or a formal sworn affidavit. This is a character study of 'Chroma111,' the collective artworks of a musician living in a dystopian surveillance state. The erratic language is a stylistic choice to represent the character's psychological deterioration under systemic oppression. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Genre: "Afro-Surrealism" / "Social Horror" "Psycho-Acoustic Weaponry" or "Havana Syndrome symptoms." The Frame: The protagonist is subjected to "noise harassment"—a tactic dramatized here but rooted in the known reality of tenant displacement and "psychological attrition." The narrative depicts a process of "Soul Murder" ( also known as spiritual warfare) orchestrated by a hostile apparatus. The antagonist is "The Institution," representing deep-state mechanisms that view multicultural intellectualism as a threat. The story allegorically dramatizes the invisible mechanisms that enforce racial hierarchy, depicting how broken social systems weaponize psychological practices against the individual. Artist's Note: This is a living document. In the event of the artist's silence or unnatural death, this text serves as an artistic testament to the psychological siege endured from to 2023-2025. It is a creative record of survival against a hostile state architecture. The following is a creative non-fiction horror manifesto regarding the psychological assassination of a multicultural American artist. It documents—through the lens of Afro-Surrealism—how modern surveillance technology and sonic harassment are experienced by the targeted individual. As it stands It has become a modern sequel which mirrors the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, set in the present day. "The protagonist is being subjected to 'noise harassment'—a known tactic used by landlords and corrupt entities to displace tenants. The sound is weaponized to induce sleep deprivation and psychological attrition, dismantling of their ego and will to live, orchestrated by a hostile state apparatus. The antagonist in this piece is 'The Institution'—a deep state that views multicultural intellectualism as a threat. The story dramatizes over time the invisible mechanisms (the 'Deep State') that enforce racial hierarchy and and psychological genocide, weaponizing broken social systems and unfounded psychological practices as biological weapons. This is a living document. In the event of the artist's silence or unnatural death, this text serves as evidence of the psychological siege endured from 2023-2025. It is a transcript of survival against a hostile state architecture. This project spans an unlimited multiprojectoral arc of over two years of chronic violence, reaching into historical and theatrical projections and parallels over the all documented records of human existence through time and space.

Don't you see, sensei I'm just as disappointed in myself And ready to die Just as I relay the message, Spray me with your morbid essence Don't, croak, you fool, You've only a spoon ful of sugar left to go The dose is coming up your throat, — you didn't know to throw up Grab the rope and go up Before gravity has crushed your —thought: Stupid boy, you don't want to die— Nor to do, but oh, do we have it coming Silly mortal, overlords and governed, Short of morals, steady coming at your doorstep So goes our concert! And so goes our concept for divorce, And sure of course, Your four corse meal, and/or dessert This is just devastating, genetics made me The sort at sorting words, but surfing, Sure. Ever temporarily the cadence changes, Still they say “you've been betrayed” But never had a friend I made made As good as death and God have been to me For everything you're meant to be, Plus everything you're meant to me, I go, unwanted, troubled and disgusted at my own immortal outcome. Sure. My back hurts and I'm wounded, Heartbroke, Thrust in every cardinal direction Also, honored at the mark of magic wand Upon her shoulder; And so, Just as soon as the sun and moon, Does the fire escape set a perfect path For outward destruction of the bricks and mortar Or your alter (This we talk about, to some effect Is your repression and affective form of supernatural perfection) But forget the makeup; I can make you up to be a star And not of wars and other worlds, But those that come before us, Carson, and the others Paar before that. But, I think not dear sir How wrong you are, A wretched bird, Set not to fly, but O father Wit and relay messages, The passage said, and set to clocks, The past was won and so the future altered, But dear feathered father, Mortal you are not But just another triumph Of my god; And set the mirror to the magnets Camera, lights and action, Magic— All the signs of the dawn, and the mad don Red Dawn came upon us, called the Red Man Tom, from other, over, under Still was my mistake to mumble such Or put upon the tongue As such assumption Still— wonder? Bird, shut up; Love I dusk And lust I soak In all the frittered dust and feathers, Colors, coming up as mister Chuck and wood, and wait and ponder Slithered this to wonder, not a rock, But potted fern, Asunder Thunderstorm And wicked rain And fair the back A tide had come And sitting there upon the shore, Was us, and 12 apostles She's a Brick— Seemingly out of nowhere, A RED BRICK HOUSE falls very perfectly from the SKY and into OZ. oh good, my house is here. House. [the festival project ™] But I don't want to make house! Then play it! I don't want to play house it is BORING. You play it— they want it. But I don't want it. Then forget it! What! Listen kid, a job's a job! {Enter The Multiverse} Wrong, this is wrong— everything is wrong. What's wrong, Rob? I'll be back. ROB LOWE has just played TRUTH OR DARE L E G E N D S if I could get inside your head For just a second Bread and butter Heaven, hell, And other places I have wandered But oh, wonder This is never what I wanted, Was it? No sir. Sure, I set you off, No sooner had you got a gun and shot me. Handsome fucker. I'll bet. Wrong act. Wrong award show. Wrong hat and a baseball bat, Peanut butter and a nice cold cheesecake, Don't forget to order cheesesteak For your cat. A carnivore at odds with the other worlds, And also fused to us; This drifting back and forth Between the Rock And Hollywood Has got to stop. ((The world is toxic.)) the legend of… L. JONES It's you! BLŪ AH, crap. L. JONES Listen, I got something for you. BLŪ Where did your bird go? L.JONES What bird? CUT TO: Now open that. No wait! It's a trap! THE VAULT inside THE CRYPT at 30 ROCK has been opened. I keep looking down at my phone As if I'm expecting a phone call Or incoming message from God But the worlds to a song Are all jumbled up in my Concious I don't want to talk about it I feel Nauseous Everyone is being obnoxious Even my own blood I don't want to function I just want some French toast crunch For lunch Nostalgia I got a whole inch taller on the peloton Holla Now I got a body, Broader, So close to Broadway But I never go there That's a tall order Of “gotta have money” I mean live theatre It's fine I'll eat here And repeat these things till they just rhyme Line them all up like a context, Story Someday I'm gonna cut my own check Watch me lol none of this rhymes without a hard Brooklyn accent ; Guess you can't hack it! Send you ass packin! I said “That's whack son!” Then I went back blonde Now they want Backend, Contract, Off the top, Royalties Residuals I'm an individual with insidious syntax And yet I'm ridiculed Truly I'm a tit-for-tat Or particle of all you are Circular centrifuge, I trickle down your tentacles (Eugh) Choke the chicken just to give the cat a chicken bowl, Chick fil et and pret a tair just to get a ritual Espresso and a quick snack So I can get my dick wrapped In chocolate and licorice because the shit is edible Damn that I guess they set a damn trap By putting out the welcome mat, Then strapping Like a mothafuckin' straight jacket Matter fact, I look a nap in it, Then magic tricked the slip effective Compliments of Michael Jackson Or was it tech nine? Maybe I should get my Mind right I lost it once I guess I've better find it If I am, in fact, A diamond in the rough It's probably blooded it up enough That you should dig it up and shine it; Better yet, Somebody outta pick it up And sign it, Cause I write enough To put a vision To a blind man It's Fran Fine, man I'm behind, man The shadowgov had put me on a diet My bad I noticed that they tried to shut me up But couldn't stop the words or other stuff That just keeps coming out of my head I put coconuts as butter onto my bread And thinking thoughts of Carl cox As I drift off in my bed, I said, “It shouldn't be a problem, officer” As I reached for the gun And he aimed it at my death. That's an impossible apocalyptic suicide— Did you invite the devil in? I said “Nah, but that guy did.” The problem is, I pointed over yonder to a ghost Who also knows that I'm a well respected psychic; Nevermind a sidekick, side bitch in a sidecar, Psych ward, Sike! We spike war on your kind! So far, If I make history tonight, The other side decides their psalm is just as likely The third reike. Okay, strike one: I'm gonna turn your lights off. Strike two : you do and say what I do: Strike three: we're gonna make you suicidal I specialize in denying rights for high profits But big brother, or boss— What if my glove fits? The instance it does, We lock you up with no service, Your world becomes dark And your words become worthless Oh shit. This is not a good rap song. Like, at all. I must say, I do agree, You lose your trust, but silently Denied is all your trouble, Till it just begins to bubble up Until the cookie crumbles— See that feeling in your stomach? This is bigger than the money, girl — They want your soul, and then the world! I told you never call him. I didn't! Then explain this: [Skrillex] *sharp inward sigh* CUT IMMIDIATLEH TO STAN You know what! That's it! I don't care how handsome or rich and famous he is! This has to stop! KYLE Hey, wait just a minute— STAN SHUT UP KYLE. KYLE You shut up! STAN You're starting to sound just like him! KYLE Take that back! STAN I won't take it back! You all might have forgotten who you are, but I haven't!after of fact, I bet to Cartman, you're still that stupid little Jew kid! KYLE That's IT. KYLE takes out his phone. what are you doing? …I'm tweeting about this. I thought it was X now… It is, but you can't ‘x' anything, it's still calledl tweeting. I guess youre right. —and I'm tagging Cartman ! STAN Are you serious? Oh shit, this is social suicide. …did I ever explain this storyline? …I don't know, did i? I'd gotten so focused on this impending doom looming over me with this whole lawsuit that I'd forgotten entire worlds and whole documents. Even more terrifying, was the sudden quiet and the onset guilt that came over me for getting distracted. But I couldn't remove myself from it entirely—- it seemed to have ruined everything. It wasn't just motorcycle noises, it was like a nervousness and angst twisting in my stomach for months and months, until finally, as the court dates started approaching, it was peaceful, or rather, normal, all of a sudden. It couldn't be peaceful because now that the extreme noise was gone, I knew it had been planted all long— but what was the purpose? I'd lost two years not knowing, and though there were albums, they were never what I wanted. Now I was sorting through the documents of the show like it was the rubble of a decimated building— completely demolished, and I hadn't the slightest clue the contexts or the storylines anymore. It was pain and suffering, but not in the legal context. It was a creative disaster— I hadn't any idea in the slightest where I'd left my audience before I was forced to abandon them. But I was forced to choose, at times, between soap and toilet paper, or eventually, food, and water— or a phone. Eventually, this too became a pattern of the impossible— trying my hardest to do what I thought had been my purpose, but for far, being so endlessly sabotaged, even ridiculed and humiliated, and still, I couldn't understand why. I was tired— and somehow, even though I'd wanted to be left alone, I was the target. Worse was that I assumed it to be bigger than I thought and completely out of control— I thought immediately back to how my best friend from middle school had been attacked, and how she was made to think that it was me…to the point that she'd become obsessive about it to call my mom over it. And as far as the court was concerned, to the wrong ears or wrong eyes, anything I'd published in the festival project could look troublesome, like the ramblings of a mad mad, or schizo, or uncontrolled obsessive thoughts— because the biggest secrets of all, the things that tied together these fictional worlds and plots, were my own real life experience. The inability in a court of law to detail the podcast, which had started as meltdown some would call grandiose over an almost long forgotten rockstar and a porn model — and the entries into the festival project that followed, which included high concepts, off-kilter comedy, politics, and even fringed on social justice. Nothing I ever would have wanted and especially over money, but the lawsuit wasn't about money at all. In fact, at any moment I would have chosen to die and have it all stop if it weren't for my very young son being left alone. Though recently the dread had overcome with a sense of unbearable loss and agony, encrypted with suicidal thoughts and wants, reeling for human touch, the overbearing factor seemed to be that if I killed myself, I was giving someone what they wanted. I was really much too tired to go on, but leaving behind the world in entirety, in my very own way of beliefs wasn't just “shitutting it off”, it was starting it over. Understandably and undeniably immortal in its nature, the instances of God I had left spoke with a reminiscence of being born again, and having to remember which is it I'd wanted to start off. It was an unachievable overload of chaos and disruption, a level of corruption that spoke to something so dark and sinister it seemed biblical — then, again, I tried to wrap my mind around a way to rebuild a positive world from hope and thought, or manifest reality, but this is the very experience I'd felt was intended all along. The motorcycles weren't merely meant to destroy my career, or my will power, or force— they were, but also they were made to play upon my most valuable asset, the power of thought, to make it impossible to become something other than what was wanted; to use my own mind against itself and destroy my way of thought by using vibrations that could not be shut out, or stopped— they followed me to the sound collective, to Shakespeare in the park, the bank, the doctors office— it was as if they knew and understood my very thoughts, my process. It was of nothing at all to corrupt every single body and brain who would surround me or come close— by using the power that seemed supernatural enough, but indeed were powered by money, and technology. Perhaps, in this essence, I thought, was the purest display of defective intention itself; the mere thought that this indeed was rather Good Vs. Evil or God and The Devil would easily be written off as a diseased way of thought. The social world and constructs had been built around being open minded to a system of psychology that was intrinsically rather corrupt. I knew this could only be fought with what I knew, and what I could draw from as logic. I didn't want to go to court because I knew the people I would be fighting were liars, and well trained psychological masters of manipulation, well hidden terrorists dressed as public servants and systematic corrupters all for simple profit margins, to whom I was not so much a person or a mother, or a daughter, but a number. Because I was poor, and had once or four times chosen to love the wrong person in an unorthodox and uncontrollable form of torture, dismissing each and every social construct or physiology that was by the book, by embracing that there was a reason for change I quickly became quite the antagonist of sorts and hopefully not some sort of martyr —for the kind of people that had money and property, and perhaps even socially constructed circles to camoflage their own self doubt and hatred, but absolutely also had no morals. –Death of a Superstar DJ If I lose my mind At least I know I'm right on time This time— I meant that, I had it bad this time MCBADBAT I had it bad this time, And the last. Perchance for you, Hour or folded, Hair my weight And glassed upon thy, This upon now, Feathered waking, And there barely weathered Shaking. Dear, dear, Tis is fair truth, To fare that I have gasp And fated at thy doorstep; And yet, care to force, Her breaking waves and saving tinder, Fit there slithered in as yet astonished, Then another; And I hated. So, then, slower now. All there, gathered none. And show to show thy force What then became and withered after, None to bark or beg But birds and feathered creatures, pander The tides did Quake, And the heart did grow ten fold and steady saying None upon us but one left to shiver in the depths That yet remain as undiscovered For now never there was another world, Undone, And also another becomes, My death— And therefore all the worlds I kept, To travel on and travel As becomes one, does another onward As the first is glass to dust, And last is born there. So, Then, I, Crept, In my dress, Kept for clothes that church did water I, met, My mark and there the doors of shadows open Wilted and wake? Hear you; A star was born In other cosmos tied with our own nurture So, Kept, The weight of clasp and bone That holds the crept and precious alter Goddamn cat! Where are you. AAtticus Caaticus Oop. Gotta go. Toonces! Tooooonces! Where are you? Omg remember that one where that couple has a magic toddler and they just let him like,float away. Yeah, barely. Yeah. So I do. CUT TO: TOONCES focuses intently on the task at hand; he's sure he can manage to drive the human vehicle to his own home— to where he's assured he will find the actual body in which he belongs. Now… let's see, if I can just Wait, I who? ATTICUS CATTICUS, An ancient alien sorcerer must relay a series of important messages. Unfortunately. YO WHAT THE FUCK. None of them seem to be getting through. CUT BACK TO: TOONCEEESSSS. here kitty kitty kitty!! {Enter the Multiverse} I would dedicate, but honestly I've not time to waste And I'm craving wedding cake I hate to destroy you But for now, you know I can't employ you; This implies my eyes are also murder And I'm sure of her departure From another world, Perhaps across the border. Also, quite the dark sorcerer himself LORNE MICHAELS has well hidden himself under the guise of having become one of the most successful television producer of all times— And even in his own very small world, Nobody quite seems to know why. JIMMY FALLON Lorne, I have to tell you something. LORNE MICHAELS This had better be good, Jimmy, I've just made popcorn. [the festival project ™] Don't worry, for now, The risk remains hidden, As sure as an asset is an advantage, I can't have the classes counting Heads of cabbage as accomplishes, The masses are honestly astonished And impossible, but what was wrong with Boredom in the first place? Nonsense More words And still no dollars Hunger strike, And burning harder, California deficit, lack of bread, Heaven sent interventions and scissors, Mistresses, disasters and divorces But who says the whole story has to suffer? You're a surfer under water, Remember that when you finally catch your breath above the surface Can you clear her? He who? Back to work! Or back to the future! My super brain is dead but I think I'm next I think heaven swallows whole the blooded laugher From the constructs I've come from. Remember that. Remember not to fall from too far up, God would give you wings With time to spare Before you ever wondered where Your mark was On the plaza Don't let me up to the very top. I will at the very least Best scenario jump off And rid the world myself, Just for a dozen donuts over Crossing hearts and Hollywood And Griffith park To also soft my foot Upon red carpets. You ever shave your armpits!? …no. Hm. Catholic. Of course. Get in. Destination. —Rotterdam. You idiot. I made it. Whatever, get in the boat. DI NERO Give her your shirt. What. Your shirt. Why my shirt. Just— Fine. Here. [he hands over his shirt— in an instant, the woman becomes an exact REPLICA.] …my shirt. Relax. Nothing's gonna happen to it. Okay? —in fact, you're still wearing it. Alright! She's right, Jimmy, relax. I can't, that's— It's simple. There is nothing simple about this whatsoever. You're right. It's not, so get over it. [The Festival Project ™] BILL MURRAY There's a compartment at the end of the left corridor— Alright. In that hatch, there's a chamber. Okay, what'll I do? You'll open it? How? I'll tell you how, just get there. Suddenly, a barrier falls; it appears as though there are booby traps set here. Uh— that might be a problem. There might be a few of them. What just happened? Booby traps. —ah, I know what you're talking. Those aren't booby traps— they're Bobby Traps. What in the Hell are you talking about? For whatever reason Jimmy Kimmel Is important Now I'm scared of him, I know he knows the devil Come to think of it, Might even be an advocate Have an avocado But don't know the half of it These are, as it stands Comes what may Special circumstances I could circumvent an intervention, Never second chances I've been setting rat traps, Trapeze artists, Bampheramph camp, And also trampolines over the plaza That seems dangerous. Yeah. AHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Damn. Know it's plausible, That I also am an alcoholic, Though dysfunctional, Professional, And underrepresented So I stand myself, Let's just say pro-se if you will I could add Prozac to my snacks But I'll be delayed, if you still Don't get my messages I'm sick of having heart attacks; A hard advantage I was looking back on “fully packaged” A six pack of abs And nothing left to eat but cabbage, Haven't had a mouth, But I've been counting on my ass To get me back up north, I'm coming from the South Out West, there's a word for that At best, you're a four and a half My body double stunts and stumbles Struts at nothing Struck before the one, And so between high noon and Somewhere around 30 in I'm never turning 30, 30 Rock is in the wind— So count that up, That's what my income is. That's what they said? “Too late, you've been betrayed” If that's how it is, Then I request “beheaded” You know your mother says That ugly face just becomes permanent If you keep making it, And so I did, The second that it ended I'm Trying so hard Just to be What they want That it hurts Just to stop And relax For a moment INT. THE LAIR. NIGHT What is this? Where am I? You're— Alive. Why? …I changed my mind. You're not ugly You're just not mine I changed my mind I changed my life around. I skip line after line, But the message ain't right, I have time a chance No challenge accepted No exceptions or Expectations Expand this racism vocabulary Set the rat traps back To February Stamp the weather's getting Better with the postage clearing Abstr– My cat is so cute I can't stand him; But he's pretty bad, That my only friend; Animal. I blacklisted deadmau5, And my whole set sucked. Presently, however I'm a peasant Plucking pheasant feathers Guess I– pppftt. Like it never even happened But I'm sure we're all to war, Like a fear I never grasp it, What's l before, uncertain of your l words— My dear, were tattered and the masters heavy handed, Oh, my dear, we're marching on a battered Wit, to all your fan mail I tel you, I was I tortured, Let me show you And also, No one forced my hand at magic, Questioned prestidigitation, Or went back to every second, Land you think you owned as time In fact, my crucial very hard earned gossip column Asks the reader to reform his or her thought Before a judgement can be made How fascinating. The bag says ‘poems' so I wrote one, But I'm sure since my marker's toggled on I'm being stalked, It's like a magnet, Punch the clock And here they pour into the coffin So I won't be pouring coffee for the puffin; Maybe someday I'll look back at this as all I ever wanted, But for now it's just a horror show, Where I belong the murder— Yet a thriller, Best, The audience is captivated, Yes This is evasive, Cause I can't been captured yet By either masses or Mass murderers. At last, a cadence comes clean of its Breaking waves and rhythms, Tides and ties, Becomes another— Then, I'm whisked away Not back to slumber, but of subtle thoughts Of Californian water Lapping up across our surfboards; I often wear them tides, The undertow As pull of greater waves I sit aside as all that passes [The Festival Project ™] When I see Calvin Klein, I think of you; Not what you used to be But turned in to So it's mutual— Pay attention, fool As does moss grow on a rock And this to you— It is unfortunate, my dear You miss with every twist, Adjustment of attention span, The glances I foreshadowed (Here you are, inside your past) It's just affective of the effect, You've been levitating, Yes, I find it devastating Every second kept is just a fortune But you pause before you post— You reap before you even think Of what you sow, You don't belong, Agast, (True) Set the tone, Classless, But I'm Art, you are a Daunting folk song, Mistletoe and marker. CAMERA ASSISTANT Marker. …what is this for again? CAMERA ASSISTANT (Annoyed, mumbling) Shut up. Ten minutes passes and still, I'm awake But the tragedy of the mistake has just set in, I'm sure I've been tortured, I'm paid in mistakes, but I'd rather be shattered with Mortimer's curse. To the tune of Ten by ten by ten I will never be lover, nor friend in the end. {Enter The Multiverse] DRAKE concentrates heavily on a very long , seemingly very angry message— a frowning face plastered as he writes that is so noteworthy, it catches the attention of many a passerby— still this focus unwatered, as he bashes heavily away at the text message with the thumbs of fury for over 30 minutes while sitting at a booth in a well-loved pancake restaurant. As a tall stack of pancakes is served before him, and he, still unbreaking this angry texting streak or eye contact with his phone sits before them, history is made in what internet culture has now deemed as “the most meme worthy face in history” The world wonders what he could possibly be writing— and more importantly—-who he could be texting. Tears come to his eyes but do not fall as he raises his thumb with reserve, to finally press [RETURN.] CUT TO: SUNNI BLU receives a text amidst a wild party. Almost without so much as a reaction, SUNNI BLU pings the message to a projector and cuts off the lights, and music. A VERY LONG, ANGRY TEXT is projected on the wall. I slept from 10-2 There was nothing else to do My name is Devin DeLouise And I am not supposed to know these things Seven are dead and three are left I know what's next I'm also often known as And referred to as coyote ugly; Suffering a tantra wall, Yo, you son of a bitch! You dirty, dirty son of a bitch. I must admit, I had a lot to do with this… I had no part in it! Relax… soon enough, the both of your realize— this is how the unimaginable gets written. [he loads the polished sterling silver pistol and glamours over it] You have our memory. —all memory. And as soon as it ends, before it can begin again. The slate is wiped clean. Good riddance. “A Different Kind of Monologue” Is this what you wanted? Ooh— you should try me! I wish you would try me! Try me! I wish you would. Be calm, Grand Master. This will all be over momentarily. What's going on. Deprivation chamber. Crypt? —Encrypted? A lockup. Ah. Thought so. That ought to show us what he's really made up. We can all hope. [he pounds on the glass, the one way mirror acts as a camera which the maj aresses, rabid and wi the anger of a dangerous animal, both we, n audience, and the small group of men gathered a the other side of the room. This could be the basis of a lot of lawsuits. So now I have your tears and agony A wilted throne and wand Which which would grant a wish of comedy, And therefore ever after, Not pain and guilt, but laughter So heavy is the hat that acts as crown, And so foolish is the King to think ‘imself as not one, Creaks the crow and also of the feathered guilt that follows, I Kept and bashful, wishing not the show as throne but sorrow, Kept to wick and wake and bones to shatter from tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Do you fear us? …do you wish to be feared? What of us? I seek to cause the wish that stands as though you may as granted. So shallow, fair child. And brother and my son also. Gross! Stop. You are weird! Dude, you are fucked. In the withdraw, my shadows and darkness Are there always, never resting Stories and gathered images, Visions of betrayal and archaic wants. In time, I've abandoned them all and betraying that which I've lost, For I know, and not ponder on That I shall never know love, As all standing tal over me Have eyes; And all I want Knows not what hides under my ugly. Alright. I followed your spiral, downward, and down wind and down wood, Into a place where I also aspired to show your mark Upon my rotted corpse or coarse crossifix; Sure worded and down trodden. Now, worse, I'm also sworn To mourn all my own losses, Kind folk. Kind hearted and now my eyes also sudden to wander— And there goes my miles and triumphs And morals and war songs, And sure, swallowed the barrel of a gun But also departed with honor, I tell I. Glimpses of wither and winter and whittling pain, And I slither my back to the center of All I am, in this, and shadows, Fairtails, And grains of rice and sand to twist away Into the rain as I lay dying. What a fortunate! Don't make my mark up and out, few for short times, Aye, conspire to warthog, Remember so force your spirit onto ours, And shake, sandbox! There aiming at you were the snakes of six liars, And the stakes of empires lost and won over, Also one solemn subtle Star of David Worn upon the neck of six monks, Ragtime Six popes, pass I; Six fathers and streaks solemn and Care tan teared salamander, Having weight and wake to cheer For our slaughter. Then, you, Having gained and also lost should reap to sow, What you'd have wanted; Though the tongue so convexed having way to guild your complex, Shaking as I hunger fruit that not but hangs Before l wanted I know, I could knot be consoled I know, I could not be consoled I know I could not be consolidated either Bought, or purchased I know I'm not consoled at all, I know I'm not confirmed at all I know, I know I'm not confronted, nor immortal — but your glorified affliction. Poor infinity. Of poverty, perhaps, but never poor at all. For your were warned of all the doors as opened at your calling. Not to walk though, But to ponder at them, wondering. he's gone Maybe I should go Too Heavy weight hanging on my Shoulders I'm just star struck I don't know You I don't really like saying What I go through Talk an hour, Fake it All day show Monologue Improvisation Now i'm on a roll, But my thoughts got darker I like adderall and a real smooth talker I like a husband-father , Doctor, Actor, Tall and handsome, Doesn't matter I'm alone, so i feel hopeless Aggie's gone, So i might as well go though Oh– She's gone ((I think i'm past my time)) I think i should go to She's gone (so long) Right on, man I might as well go to It's been a long time, Gotta turn my light off, Overtime, That's a long ball game Season's over; On my back in the middle of the ball court She's gone, So i might as well go too. Copyright © The Complex Collective 2025 The Festival Project, Inc. ™ All rights reserved. Chroma111. Copyright © The Complex Collective 2025. [The Festival Project, Inc. ™] All rights reserved. UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION OR DISTRIBUTION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED BY LAW. INFRIGMENT IS PUNSHABLE BY FEDERAL LAW LEGAL NOTICE / ARTIST STATEMENT Project: The Festival Project ™ (Season 12) Genre: Speculative Auto-Ethnography / Social Surrealism Disclaimer: This document is a work of creative non-fiction and political satire. While inspired by the author's lived experiences with systemic oppression, housing displacement, and surveillance, the narrative employs stylized fragmentation, stream-of-consciousness, and metaphor to dramatize the psychological impact of these events. The "characters" and "dialogue" herein are artistic devices used to critique historical and modern power structures. This text should be viewed as a performative artistic expression protected under the First Amendment, and not as a literal transcript of clinical psychosis or a formal sworn affidavit. This is a character study of 'Chroma111,' the collective artworks of a musician living in a dystopian surveillance state. The erratic language is a stylistic choice to represent the character's psychological deterioration under systemic oppression. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Genre: "Afro-Surrealism" / "Social Horror" "Psycho-Acoustic Weaponry" or "Havana Syndrome symptoms." The Frame: The protagonist is subjected to "noise harassment"—a tactic dramatized here but rooted in the known reality of tenant displacement and "psychological attrition." The narrative depicts a process of "Soul Murder" ( also known as spiritual warfare) orchestrated by a hostile apparatus. The antagonist is "The Institution," representing deep-state mechanisms that view multicultural intellectualism as a threat. The story allegorically dramatizes the invisible mechanisms that enforce racial hierarchy, depicting how broken social systems weaponize psychological practices against the individual. Artist's Note: This is a living document. In the event of the artist's silence or unnatural death, this text serves as an artistic testament to the psychological siege endured from to 2023-2025. It is a creative record of survival against a hostile state architecture. The following is a creative non-fiction horror manifesto regarding the psychological assassination of a multicultural American artist. It documents—through the lens of Afro-Surrealism—how modern surveillance technology and sonic harassment are experienced by the targeted individual. As it stands It has become a modern sequel which mirrors the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, set in the present day. "The protagonist is being subjected to 'noise harassment'—a known tactic used by landlords and corrupt entities to displace tenants. The sound is weaponized to induce sleep deprivation and psychological attrition, dismantling of their ego and will to live, orchestrated by a hostile state apparatus. The antagonist in this piece is 'The Institution'—a deep state that views multicultural intellectualism as a threat. The story dramatizes over time the invisible mechanisms (the 'Deep State') that enforce racial hierarchy and and psychological genocide, weaponizing broken social systems and unfounded psychological practices as biological weapons. This is a living document. In the event of the artist's silence or unnatural death, this text serves as evidence of the psychological siege endured from 2023-2025. It is a transcript of survival against a hostile state architecture. This project spans an unlimited multiprojectoral arc of over two years of chronic violence, reaching into historical and theatrical projections and parallels over the all documented records of human existence through time and space.

“We're at times where a lot of the arts are really suffering in multiple countries with funding and cost of living. Understandably, people come for the arts, but our job is at times to hold a mirror to society. We can learn a huge amount. It can really change everyone's perspective. So look, it could be escapism, and we all need that at times, but it also can have something that fundamentally can't be enacted just through journalism at times. I think when you dramatize something, it can reach the very core of an audience.”Today, we'll be talking about the intense emotional toll of modern life, and how the deepest secrets often hide behind the most polished facades. My guests have dedicated their careers to crafting psychological dramas. Nigel Marchan tis the Managing Director and an Executive Producer at Carnival Films, the powerhouse behind some of television's most beloved and intricate dramas, from Downton Abbey to the television adaptation of The Day of Jackal. Megan Gallagheris a writer who understands the delicate mechanics of suspense and the human heart. She created and wrote the critically acclaimed series Borderliner, and most recently, the BBC thriller Wolf.They've joined forces for the new limited series, All Her Fault (now streaming on Peacock). It's an anxiety-inducing thriller adapted from Andrea Mara's novel and the show plunges us into the frantic world of a wealthy working mother, Marissa Irvine, after her five-year-old son disappears. Starring Sarah Snook in her first television role since Succession, the series starts with a rupture when Marissa's son Milo is kidnapped and ripples into many lives, exploring momshaming, the guilt, blame, and sacrifice of motherhood. And what happens when domestic bliss turns to domestic misery.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast@carnivalfilmsX: @carnival_filmsFacebook: Carnival Films

Business is about creating something of value so that others will pay for it. Understandably, that leads professionals to mostly focus on minimizing cost while maximizing revenue. In practice, it's a bit more complicated. The more value you give to clients, the less likely they are to leave and the more likely they are to tell others about you – both of which lower your marketing costs. Confused? Today's newsletter probably won't change that. But you never know...

Forgiveness is almost never a one-and-done action. Whether what we're forgiving is big or small, our own error or someone else's—most often, there are residual feelings of anger, hurt, or resentment to contend with.  In this guided practice, Mark Bertin addresses this tendency to compound our suffering when we hang onto these difficult emotions. He offers a way to gently surrender this extra emotional baggage so that we can fully experience the healing that forgiveness offers. Mark Bertin, MD, is a pediatrician, author, professor, and mindfulness teacher specializing in neurodevelopmental behavioral pediatrics. He's a regular contributor to Mindful.org and Psychology Today. He is the author of How Children Thrive: The Practical Science of Raising Independent, Resilient, and Happy Kids (Sounds True, 2018). Dr. Bertin resides in Pleasantville, New York. For more, visit developmentaldoctor.com. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online at Mindful.org next week.  Stay curious, stay inspired. Join our community by signing up for our free newsletter:  mindful.org/signup Show Notes Find more from Dr. Mark Bertin here. Go Deeper Forgiveness is one of the most challenging mindful qualities to develop. Understandably, we want to feel seen and heard in our pain, and we don't want to feel like we're being walked over or making excuses for harmful behavior. From a mindfulness perspective, forgiveness holds all of these experiences in a kind of loving tension, allowing the complexities to surface. To learn more about what forgiveness is (and isn't) and how to nurture it in your daily life, check out these resources from the website: New Research on Mindfulness and Forgiveness  The Work It Takes to Forgive  How to Let Go of an Old Regret  Let It Go: How to Practice Forgiveness  If you're at the very beginning of the process and want help getting started on your forgiveness journey, try this practice: A Guided Meditation to Welcome Forgiveness.  And more from Mindful here: More episodes of 12 Minute MeditationLet us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing yourwords@mindful.org.

When Moses was born the Hebrew people had been living in Egypt for quite a time. Initially under the protection of Joseph and Pharoah and welcomed as honored guests; they had become an oppressed and enslaved nation. Fearing their growing strength, Pharaoh ordered every Hebrew boy to be thrown into the Nile. But one mothers courage defied the kings decree. She hid her child as long as she could, then placed him in a basket coated with tar and pitch and set him afloat on the Nile river. By Gods providence, Pharaohs daughter found the baby and raised him as her own. Moses grew up amid the luxury of Pharaohs court, yet he never forgot his Hebrew roots. His passion for justiceand his temperwould define much of his life. When he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, Moses struck down the oppressor and hid the body in the sand (Exod. 2:1112). When the act became known, he fled to the wilderness of Midian, where he spent forty years as a shepherd, husband, and son-in-law to Jethrowaiting for the day when God would call him to lead His people out of bondage. By the time we reach Exodus 3, Moses had already spent those forty years in Midian tending sheep. Then, before a burning bush, he encountered the living Godthe God of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God entered into Moses world in such a way that he would never be the same again. When God called to him from the bush, He said,Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground(v. 5). What made the ground holy? The presence of God made it holy. As R.C. Sproul wrote in his classicThe Holiness of God: God alone is holy in Himself. Only God can sanctify something else. Only God can give the touch that changes it from the commonplace to something special, different, and apart. The God who spoke to Moses from within the burning bush is not only holybut faithful. While many Hebrews believed that God had forgotten them, the Lord reminded Moses that He is not only all-seeing, but full of mercy:I have certainly seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their outcry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings(v. 7). Then God said to Moses,And now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt(v. 10). To this, Moses humbly replied,Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? All that Moses saw in himself was his own failures and weaknesses. But for God, it didnt matter how weak Moses was, for He delights to use the foolish to shame the wise and the weak to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:2631). What the burning bush reminds us of is not only that God is holy, or that He is omniscient, or that He is faithful to His promises, but that God uses people not because He needs to, but because He wants to. Just as God did not need Noah or Joseph to address the problems of the world, He did not need Moses. The marvel of the story of God and the people He chooses to use has more to do with that fact that He invites people like us into His mission and the story He is telling. There is a Mediator Who Stands in Your Place After God revealed Himself to Moses as Yahwehthe covenant-keeping GodHe commissioned Moses to return to Egypt. Understandably, Moses questioned,Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?God assured him,I will certainly be with you(Exod. 3:1012). And when Moses was to speak to the people of Israel, God instructed him to say,I AM WHO I AM has sent me to you(v. 14). One of the characteristics that distinguishes the God of Abraham from the gods of Egypt is His faithfulnessHe keeps His promises. This is expressed beautifully inExodus 6:25, where God tells Moses,I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.Gods faithfulness is not only in His name but in His actions, His compassion, and His unwavering remembrance of His promises. Do you remember Leahthe ugly wife whom Jacob did not love? Not only was Judah born to her, but so was Levi. About five generations later, we read inExodus 2:1of a man from the house of Levi who married a daughter of Levi. Together they had three children: Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. It was after Miriam and Aarons birthbut before Moses was bornthat Pharaoh commanded every Hebrew son to be thrown into the Nile (seeExod. 1:2022). Yet from this very family, God raised up the leaders who would deliver His people. Moses would lead Israel out of bondage, serving as a type of king who would shepherd Gods people through the wilderness. Aaron would become Gods priest, and through him the priestly line would continue (Exod. 28:129:9). Miriam would be identified as a prophetess (Exod. 15:2021). Dont miss this: God used all threeMoses, Aaron, and Miriamto lead His people out of Egypt, yet Aaron and Miriam would serve the people under Moses leadership (see Mic. 6:4). But it was to Moses, that God said, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. And when Miriam and Aaron forgot their place and Moses God-ordained role before Israel, God said, Now hear My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make Myself known to him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream. It is not this way for My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My household; with him I speak mouth to mouth, that is, openly, and not using mysterious language, and he beholds the form of the Lord. So why were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses? (see Num. 12:1-8). Follow the Deliverer Who Leads His People Out of Bondage Moses stood before Pharaoh and Israel as a type ofshepherd-kinga mediator and prophet who spoke on Gods behalf. Listen to how the Lord described Moses role: As for you, you shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaohs heart, so that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you, I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My armies, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments. Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I extend My hand over Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst. (Exod. 7:2-5). When Moses and Aaron appeared before Pharaoh, they declared, Thus says the LORD, Let My people go. (Exod. 5:1). Pharaoh not only refused but mocked the God of Israel: Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go (5:1-2). To prove that no one would command Pharoah of Egypt, he made the Israelites labor even harsher, forcing them to gather their own straw while maintaining the same quota of bricks. What followed was asuccession of ten plagues, each designed to expose the impotence of Egypts gods and, in many cases, tomock them directly. The first nine fall naturally into three escalating triads: Plagues of defilement:water turned to blood (7:1424), frogs overran the land (8:115), and gnats or lice tormented Egypt (8:1619). Plagues of destruction:swarms of flies invaded (8:2032); disease killed Egypts livestock while Israels remained unharmed (9:17); and boils afflicted people and animals alike (9:812). Plagues of devastation:hail mixed with fire ravaged the land (9:1335); locusts devoured the remaining crops (10:120); and darknessa direct assault onRa, the sun-godcovered Egypt for three days (10:2129). Each judgment demonstrated Yahwehs sovereignty, yet Pharaohs heart only grew harder. Enraged, he shouted to Moseswho stood before himas Gods representative: Get away from me! Be careful, do not see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you shall die! (10:28). The cognitive dissonance of Pharaoh towards the God of the Israel was not only irrational, but insane! He was dealing with the God who He could not defeat, for in the words of the apostle Paul, it was the equivalent of the clay pot accusing the potter that He had no rights over what He created (Rom. 9:19ff.). In essence, Pharaohs heart cried out to the God of Moses,Who are You to tell me what I can and cannot do? Before we shake our heads or point our finger at Pharaoh in disgust, we must ask ourselves:What has God commanded us to release or submit to that we have resisted with the same question Who is Yahweh that I should obey His voice? Live in the Victory of the Lamb Who Triumphed Over Every Power Before the final plague, Israel was commanded to take amale lamb without defectand keep it forfour dayslong enough to confirm it was spotless and long enough for it to become, in a sense,theirlamb (Exod. 12:16). On the fourteenth day, the lamb was to be slaughtered at twilight, and its blood applied on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it (v. 7). Afterward, the entire household was toeat the lamb together(vv. 811). For what purpose was the perfect and spotless lamb slaughtered? We are told why in Exodus 12:12, For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and fatally strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the human firstborn to animals; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgmentsI am the Lord. Who would God strike? Thefirstborn sonsboth human and animaland thegods (elohim) of Egypt. These gods were not merely lifeless idols butspiritual powers, demonic forces that animated Egypts sorcery and who also held Pharaoh and his people captive[1] (see Deut. 32:17; 1 Cor. 10:2022).[2] So what fueled Pharaohs hatred of Yahweh and his oppression of Israel? His sin and pride, certainlybut beneath that rebellion lay ademonic conflict. The showdown between Moses and Pharaoh, Israel and Egypt, was not merely political or personal; it wasspiritual warfare. As Paul later wrote, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12). Every plague before the tenth was a call to repentancea chance for Pharaoh, for Egypt, and even for any Hebrew who had turned to Egypts idols, to turn back to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But only throughthe blood of the lambwould anyone experience deliverance and victory. But, why the firstborn? At the summit of Egypts pantheon stoodRa (Re), the so-called god of gods, depicted with thehead of a falconand thesolar disk encircled by a cobraa symbol of divine power and kingship. Pharaoh was worshiped as theson of Ra, and his ownfirstborn sonwas regarded as the next embodiment of divine rule. In one decisive act, Yahweh crushed the head of Egypts god for the purpose of liberating captive Israel and any Egyptian who wished to turn to the true Creator, and He did it through the blood of the lamb! Conclusion Through this series, youve been reminded of thetrue and better Adamwho embraced a tree for our redemption and life. Youve seen thetrue and better Isaac, who carried His cross to the place of execution for sins we committed, that we might become children of God through His willing death. There is atrue and better Israel, who pursued the unfaithful bride and redeemed her to be clothed in white, never again enslaved to sin. And there is atrue and better Mosesthe Prophet who perfectly represents God, the High Priest who intercedes for us, and the flawless Shepherd-King whose lordship demands our obedience. Behind Egypts gods stood a master deceiverthe father of lies, the ancient serpentwho twists truth and opposes the purposes of God. When Moses stood before Pharaoh, he wasnt merely confronting a ruler; he was standing against the spiritual powers of darkness. In that moment, Moses foreshadowed the One who would intercede perfectly on our behalf. Jesus is the true and better Mosesthe long-promised Deliverer, the Lion of Judah who became the Lamb of God to set captives free. He alone is the sinless Son of the Father, who took on flesh and dwelt among usthe Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. But His death did more than address our guilt; ittriumphed over sin, death, and every power opposed to Gods kingdom. Through His cross and resurrection, Jesus destroyed the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. 2:14), and the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). When we turn to the book of Revelation, we witness a dramatic, global reenactment of the Exodus story: the seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls each unleash escalating judgments, echoing the plagues that struck Egypt. Yet, just as Pharaoh stubbornly hardened his heart, so too does humanity in the final days. Scripture warns, The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands; they continued to worship demons and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and woodidols that can neither see, hear, nor walk. They refused to repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts (Rev. 9:20-21). So we must ask regarding ourselves: Who is Yahweh that I should obey Him? Thetrue and better Moses, theLamb of God, was slain to liberate us from such things. For the true Christian,Colossians 2:1315declares our victory: And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. (Col. 2:13-15) If you are in Christ, your victory and freedom are found inthe Lamb who reigns as the Lion of Judah. Jesus is the true and better Mediator who stands in your place. Jesus is the true and better Deliverer who leads His people out of bondage. The true Son of God is your salvationbefore whom every ruler and demon, all who are rich and poor, those who are known and unknown will one day bow. And on that Day, mayRevelation 12:1011be said of you: Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. (Rev. 12:10-11) [1] And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Cor. 4:3-4) [2] No, but I say that things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than He, are we? (1 Cor. 10:20-22)

Year C – 22nd Sunday after Pentecost; Lectionary 32 – November 9, 2025 Pastor Megan Floyd Job 19:23-27a Psalm 17:1-9 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 Luke 20:27-38 Grace and peace to you from God and the Holy Spirit, and from Jesus Christ, in whose promise of eternal life we trust. Amen. *** A mailbox… should not leak. And while this is true, it was not my first thought on a certain day, many years ago, when our mail carrier brought our outgoing mail back into the church. The mail was soaking wet… dripping water everywhere. He'd brought it back to us because he couldn't mail it in such a water-logged state. It seemed that there was a hole at the top of the mailbox, and during the long, torrential rainstorm we'd just had, the water had dripped into the box from the top, but had no way of exiting the otherwise secure box… So, when the mail carrier opened the box… the water poured out… along with our letters. Most of the mail just needed to be laid out to dry… but included in the stack was a letter that I'd written to a member whose husband had just died. It was a consoling letter… one that I had written from my heart… acknowledging her sorrow and sharing that space with her, so she wouldn't feel so alone. She was important to me, and I shared her grief. Except now… my letter was no longer a letter, but an abstract puddle of blue ink… like a watercolor painting… with only the hint that there had once been words on that page. I was upset. Understandably, I think. But then… a man who happened to observe this exchange, and my now-erased letter, started criticizing my choice of pens. Clearly, I should have used a ball-point pen because then it would only need to dry out… obviously, I hadn't thought this through when I'd written in a gel pen, or whatever it was I used. He carried on like that… on and on… and I just stared at him… because… like my now soggy letter… I had no words. Until I did… Mailboxes should not leak. …he stopped talking after that. We could have debated all day about the best pens for writing, but the pen was not the point… that thinking was too small… mailboxes should not leak. I admit, I was annoyed… but I know I have fallen into the trap of narrow thinking before. It's human. And in our gospel today, that kind of narrow thinking is what has the Sadducees stuck. Now, of course, they don't think they are stuck… they think they've landed Jesus in the perfect rhetorical trap. They are angry at Jesus, and probably a little afraid of him… I mean… he showed up at the temple and started flipping tables and driving out the merchants, causing a huge disruption… and then every day he was teaching there… and every day, they were looking for a way to kill him… but they knew they needed to be cautious because the people were so spellbound by his teaching. So, they kept trying to trap him… to trick him into saying something that would turn the people against him… and today, we heard their attempt to trap him with a debate on the resurrection. You see, the Sadducees only acknowledge the Torah as authoritative – that's the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures… Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – and they don't believe in resurrection. So, their example of the childless woman being married to each of the seven brothers, and still dying childless, for them, proves that the idea of resurrection is ridiculous… Because if resurrection were really a thing… then whose wife would she be? To which man would she belong? Which man in the afterlife gets to claim her as his property? The practice of a widow marrying the next brother was an ancient patriarchal custom known as levirate marriage. If a man died childless, his brother would marry his widow and have children with her, and the firstborn son would be counted as the dead man's child and carry on his name. It is true… that in a culture where a woman had almost no rights, this practice helped to ensure her protection and future… but it did so by effectively treating her as property, passed from brother to brother. The Sadducees think they've trapped Jesus… because, if resurrection is a thing, then which man gets to claim this woman as his property? When they all have an equal claim, whose wife will she be? Jesus shuts down their narrow thinking… she won't belong to any man… because she already belongs to God… for she is already, and always has been, claimed as a beloved child of the one who created her in love. Unlike her earthly life… her vulnerable, earthly life that is dependent on men… her resurrection does not rely on who she is to others… it's only about who she is to God. So, Jesus responds to the Sadducees using the Torah as his evidence… that Moses himself experienced evidence of the resurrection… when God said I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" …not I WAS, but I AM… "…for to God, all of them are alive." …alive in the presence of God. Resurrection is not about a continuation of earthly life… It's not just… more life in the same roles we played on earth… that is narrow thinking… it's too restrictive…  and it misses the point. Resurrection is ultimately a promise… that after we die, we will rest in the presence of God. And the truth is… the finer details of our resurrection will remain a mystery until we get there… but the promise of God with us… is assured. From Job, we hear… for I know that my redeemer lives… and after I am gone, I know that I will again see God. (paraphrased) And from 2 Thessalonians, we hear that God chose you… and called to you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord. (paraphrased) God chose you… you are already God's beloved. And from our Psalm, we hear this language of being known by God… "Show me your marvelous lovingkindness, O Savior of those who take refuge at your right hand… Keep me as the apple of your eye, and hide me under the shadow of your wings…" You are fully known by God, who loves you just as you are… and God's promise to us is that we will eternally rest in that love, because… God is love. Even so… as I think about the resurrection, and about God's incredible and wondrous love… I think about the people here on Earth, in my life, whom I love. I am very fortunate to live thousands of years after the time of levirate marriage, and I am certain that my husband does not consider me his property… Without getting too mushy, we might say we belong to each other… a belonging that has grown through decades of mutual love and respect. And so, because God is love… and God is very clear throughout scriptures that God is on the side of love… then I anticipate that, of all the emotions… the love we have shared on earth will be with us in our eternal life. This is my hope… of course… and I know I share that hope with so many others. And given the larger picture of God's relationship with us, and what we know of God, I don't think we'll be disappointed. I think love will persist. But I also suspect that being in God's loving presence when all else of my earthly life has fallen away… will be even more than I can imagine with my limited, human perspective. And… I'm ok with letting that be a surprise. But truthfully, we know that God is with us now… so thinking about the resurrection, and of the promise that we will be in God's presence after we die, is still thinking too narrowly. Resurrection is something that we can only know through hope and faith in the living God… and the living God… is the one who meets us in the baptismal waters… and in the shared meal of bread and wine. The living God is the one who is faithful and true… and is continually inviting us back into a shared relationship. The living God meets us in our joy and celebrates with us… and the living God meets us in our sorrow, and ministers to us through the consolation and compassion of our community. Our living God… is not waiting until after we die to be with us! We are in God's loving presence now, just as we will rest eternally in God's loving presence in the resurrection. And yes, the promise of resurrection matters because it reveals and reminds us of our primary identity as God's beloved children… and that God will never let us go. But the afterlife is not the point… because the heart of resurrection is the same now as it is in our eternal life with God. The heart of resurrection… is God's promise to be with us always… now and forever… no matter where we are or what we are going through. For our God is not God of the dead, but of the living, and to God, we are and always will be… alive. Amen.

Tithing is a subject that makes some people uncomfortable. Understandably so- there are a lot of people who have done a poor job explaining what tithing is and the way it can change your life. However, Pastor Mark tackles the subject in a way that is digestible, while also detailing the importance of living a sacrificial life. "The Office"**********

Understandably, someone to forgot to plug a microphone in again. These things happen, no one's on trial here. We've tried to fix it with AI, and with only partial success. That's why we sound weird(er than normal.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the current session of the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), the justices may hear a case that could overturn Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the landmark ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. If SCOTUS agrees to hear the case, it will re-surface the question of whether marriage equality should remain federally protected. Additionally, multiple states are engaged in a political strategy to fully challenge, or at least narrow, marriage equality in the United States. Understandably, these efforts pose serious concerns for same-sex couples and their allies.  Join Jeffrey Bellomo as he offers his thoughts on the likelihood that SCOTUS will hear the case (i.e., grant certiorari or grant cert), why a sweeping reversal of Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) is doubtful, what a narrow religious carve-out might look like, and how today's federal laws protect same-sex married couples. You'll also learn why it's important to “get your documents in order” to secure legal protections for your family, regardless of SCOTUS intervention. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW (00:00) Episode introduction: Marriage Equality    (02:00) Free educational workshops (03:02) Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), Loving v. Virginia (1967), and the Respect for Marriage Act (2022) (04:19) Proponents of marriage equality are concerned      (05:20) Will the U.S. Supreme Court grant certiorari (i.e., hear a new case)?  (08:37) Instead of a full reversal, a carve-out could create an exception based on religious liberty  (13:11) PA's inheritance tax rate differs greatly depending on whether a couple is legally married (14:30) Having financial, medical, and other documents in place can protect you and your family (18:36) Planning is essential for same-sex couples (24:30) Same-sex marriages are treated like any other legal marriage in our workshops      ABOUT BELLOMO & ASSOCIATES Jeffrey R. Bellomo, the founder of Bellomo & Associates, is a licensed and certified elder law attorney with a master's degree in taxation and a certificate in estate planning. He explains complex legal and financial topics in easy-to-understand language. Bellomo & Associates is committed to providing education so that what happened to the Bellomo family doesn't happen to your family. We conduct free workshops on estate planning, crisis planning, Medicaid planning, special needs planning, probate administration, and trust administration. Visit our website (https://bellomoassociates.com/) to learn more.   LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED Bellomo & Associates workshops:https://bellomoassociates.com/workshops/ Life Care Planning The Three Secrets of Estate Planning Nuts & Bolts of Medicaid For more information, call us at (717) 845-5390. Connect with Bellomo & Associates on Social Media Tune in Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. Eastern to WSBA radio: https://www.newstalkwsba.com/ X (formerlyTwitter):https://twitter.com/bellomoassoc YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BellomoAssociates Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/bellomoassociates Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/bellomoassociates/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/bellomoandassociates WAYS TO WORK WITH JEFFREY BELLOMO Contact Us:https://bellomoassociates.com/contact/ Practice areas:https://bellomoassociates.com/practice-areas/    

Hey there BCUFam! Understandably, anxiety, worry and fretting can be a natural (and unproductive) response with all of the turmoil currently happening. Let's revisit Psalm 37 to help ease our anxiety. After you finish listening, please head over to the comments section at www.BlenCouragesU.com so we can continue our conversation! Thanks everyone and God bless you! Yours in faithful service, Blen

This Sunday, studied one of the most important moments in the entire book of Acts. It is the very first church council that was ever held to establish clarity around the gospel. Regularly in the New Testament, controversies arose about whether or not Gentile Christians had to become adherents to the Old Testament regulations of circumcision, Sabbath keeping, and the commands of the Law of Moses. Understandably, Jewish believers, with a rich history of God relating to them through the Law of Moses, could not conceive of life without the Law. Today, many believers still practice Sabbath-keeping or following the Jewish calendar events of Yom Kippur or the Passover. They believe that there is something significant or special to those traditions. The problem, of course, is that there is an enormous difference between saying that you MAY choose to celebrate, remember, or practice Old Testament practices and saying that you MUST do this. The Law of Moses has never justified anyone but Jesus. Salvation has never been by works of the law but only by grace through faith. This is such a great non-negotiable that the mission of the church in Acts could not continue until it was clarified and resolved, and officially decided by the apostles in Jerusalem. They did decide clearly. Thank God for that.  As we come to the end of October, this is the time of year when we remember Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg Church on October 31st, 1517. Luther had to risk his life to remind people that all the added traditions of Catholicism could save no one, nor could it add one iota to our eternal salvation. No peace came from human religious performance. Luther knew that well. He had long tormented himself in his attempts to use religious means to feel good enough for God's approval. He testified, “While I was a monk, I no sooner felt assailed by any temptation than I cried out—‘I am lost!' Immediately, I had recourse to a thousand methods to stifle the cries of my conscience. I went every day to confession, but that was of no use to me.”  No. Nothing can satisfy God's justice and remove our guilt and shame but the gospel. Praise God – salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Come this Sunday as we see once again the glory and goodness of God in the gospel of His grace. Our message is called “By Grace Alone”. It's really good and important news to know and to share.  Join us on Sundays at 9 & 11 - www.waterbrooke.church

Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving. In Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage (Oxford UP, 2024), Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them. Gianna Englert is Associate Professor of Humanities in The Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving. In Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage (Oxford UP, 2024), Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them. Gianna Englert is Associate Professor of Humanities in The Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving. In Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage (Oxford UP, 2024), Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them. Gianna Englert is Associate Professor of Humanities in The Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving. In Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage (Oxford UP, 2024), Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them. Gianna Englert is Associate Professor of Humanities in The Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving. In Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage (Oxford UP, 2024), Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them. Gianna Englert is Associate Professor of Humanities in The Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/french-studies

Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving. In Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage (Oxford UP, 2024), Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them. Gianna Englert is Associate Professor of Humanities in The Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving. In Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage (Oxford UP, 2024), Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them. Gianna Englert is Associate Professor of Humanities in The Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving. In Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage (Oxford UP, 2024), Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them. Gianna Englert is Associate Professor of Humanities in The Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here

The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 4: 6:05pm- Rosemary Becchi—President & Founder of New Jersey Policy Institute—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) President Sean Spiller spending $40 million on his failed NJ gubernatorial primary campaign where he finished in fifth place! Astoundingly, nearly all of his campaign funds came directly from the teacher's union he heads. Understandably, NJEA teachers are upset—and now they're filing a lawsuit. 6:30pm- In response to the Trump Administration's attempted crackdown on violent crime and illegal immigration in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson outlandishly claimed “the extreme right in this country refuse to accept the results of the Civil War, they have repeatedly called for a rematch. But in the coming weeks, we will use this opportunity to build greater resistance.” Johnson also signed an executive order establishing “ICE-free zones.”

The Rich Zeoli Show- Full Show (10/06/2025): 3:05pm- Pork Roll or Taylor Ham…or Neither? During a recent interview, Mikie Sherrill—the Democratic nominee for Governor of New Jersey—declared that “nobody wants pork roll” and that it is “gross.” This is just another reminder that she's a Virginia native! 3:30pm- Data from Emerson College Polling suggests that Jack Ciattarelli and Mikie Sherrill are tied 43% to 43% in their head-to-head gubernatorial matchup. Meanwhile, National Research—which is considered one of the country's most accurate polling organizations, according to FiveThirtyEight—now has Ciattarelli running 1-point ahead of Sherrill. Republicans in NJ believe Ciattarelli can win, which should boost voter turnout. According to DecisionDeskHQ, Republicans have a mail-in ballot return rate of 18.61%—outpacing Democrats who are at 16.55%. 3:40pm- In response to the Trump Administration's attempted crackdown on violent crime and illegal immigration in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson outlandishly claimed “the extreme right in this country refuse to accept the results of the Civil War, they have repeatedly called for a rematch. But in the coming weeks, we will use this opportunity to build greater resistance.” Johnson also signed an executive order establishing “ICE-free zones.” 4:05pm- Linda Kerns—Attorney & Pennsylvania Election Integrity Counsel for the Republican National Committee and Donald Trump—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss the Public Interest Legal Foundation PA Voter Scorecard! You can find it here: https://publicinterestlegal.org/pa-voter-scorecard/. 4:10pm- Dom Giordano show producer Henry Mashett calls-in LIVE from Citizen Bank Park ahead of today's Phillies-Dodgers game! 4:30pm- Dr. Victoria Coates—Vice President of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation & former Deputy National Security Advisor—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss a rough weekend for Philadelphia sports fans, President Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza, and the Biden Administration's “Arctic Frost” spying campaign against conservatives. Dr. Coates is author of the book: “The Battle for the Jewish State: How Israel—and America—Can Win.” 5:00pm- In response to the Trump Administration's attempted crackdown on violent crime and illegal immigration in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson outlandishly claimed “the extreme right in this country refuse to accept the results of the Civil War, they have repeatedly called for a rematch. But in the coming weeks, we will use this opportunity to build greater resistance.” Johnson also signed an executive order establishing “ICE-free zones.” 5:15pm- In a video circulating on social media, Portland City Council member Angelita Morillo provides explicit direction to the far-left demonstrators—like Antifa—on how to avoid identification while committing crimes during protests. 5:30pm- Pork Roll or Taylor Ham…or Neither? During a recent interview, Mikie Sherrill—the Democratic nominee for Governor of New Jersey—declared that “nobody wants pork roll” and that it is “gross.” This is just another reminder that she's a Virginia native. Newman Price creates a couple of parody songs in reaction to Sherrill's breakfast blasphemy! 5:40pm- While speaking from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump said of far-left climate activist Greta Thunberg: “she has an anger management problem!” 6:05pm- Rosemary Becchi—President & Founder of New Jersey Policy Institute—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) President Sean Spiller spending $40 million on his failed NJ gubernatorial primary campaign where he finished in fifth place! Astoundingly, nearly all of his campaign funds came directly from the teacher's union he heads. Understandably, NJEA teachers are upset—and now they're filing a lawsuit. 6:30pm- In response to the Trump Administration's attempted crackdown on violent crime and illegal immigration in Chic ...

As an avid reader, I'm always seeking that next great book. The one that allows me to see myself and the world more clearly, comforts me when I'm lost, or inspires me to move through my day differently. This series is my opportunity to pass these remarkable books onto you, as readers of A Mind of Her Own, both for your own enjoyment and also, as a self-serving shout-out to the universe to send me more amazing, life-changing reads. I'm excited to hear what you think, and I'm so glad you're here!Life-Changing Reads: A Series1. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker Palmer“Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening…vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear.”I read this book when I was feeling lost, searching for a life that aligned with my values and desires, and doubting myself at every step. I kept hearing this call to write, to create, but I thought it was something I should do in my “non-work” time, because it wasn't a serious activity for a physician. Parker's discussion of his own struggle to find his true vocation, through an altruistic but ultimately unsustainable career path, was a fundamental guide on my journey.2. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain“So when introverts assume the observer role, as when they write novels, or contemplate unified field theory—or fall quiet at dinner parties—they're not demonstrating a failure of will or a lack of energy. They're simple doing what they're constitutionally suited for.”I listened to this book in the car, sitting in LA traffic, during my psychiatry residency. I still remember the feeling of hearing these words, suggesting my tendency to prefer listening to talking, observing to acting, thinking to doing was not because I was lazy, overly shy or antisocial. It was what I was “constitutionally suited for.” This was a revelation.Here I am now, writing books, listening as a psychiatrist and podcast host, and taking time to think about life's great mysteries. Thank you, Susan, for your beautiful writing.3. The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, by Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, PhD“Do I matter? Some of us have lived the majority of our lives and find ourselves looking back, others have most of our lives in front of us and are looking forward. For all of us, regardless of age, it helps to remember that this question of mattering, of leaving something for future generations and of being part of something bigger than ourselves, is not just about our personal achievements—it's about what we mean to other people. And it's never too late to start now and leave a mark.”This book, by the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, is a powerful summary of the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for over 80 years. It's remarkable to read their quotes as they navigate joy, loss, struggles and successes over the years. The reason I've found it so important to read and reread is its powerful reminder of the importance of our relationships in creating happiness. Not money. Not fame. Not a perfect body. Not prizes or rings or medals. It's all about the love and connection we have in our lives.Today, as I try to navigate the overwhelmingly stressful news and constant churn of social media, it grounds me in my day-to-day life to reflect on those in my closest orbit. How can I connect with them today? How do I show my love and interest in ways both silly and sincere? Even if I've been feeling disconnected, I trust that it is never too late to leave my own mark in their lives and remember the joy of having them in mine.4. How Do You Feel? One Doctor's Search for Humanity in Medicine, by Jessi Gold, MD, MS“Sometimes, the heaviest emotional burden is to bear witness or to hold space for someone else's story. To do my job well and be someone whom people can trust, I need to care. I need to be truly empathetic. I need to be raw and available.”This beautiful book, by Jessi Gold, describes so many aspects of my experience as a psychiatrist. She writes about the unique emotional toll of meeting with patients during some of their darkest moments, as they are working to overcome trauma, abuse, loss or grave illnesses. Reading this was incredibly validating. In the past, when I had finished my clinical week, I would look back and wonder, “Why can't I do more? Why didn't I see more patients? There is so much need.”Dr. Gold's book helped me to be self-compassionate, recognizing I could only be truly present if I also took care of myself. This is a message I now try to pass along to the psychiatry residents I teach. We are human, and we have limits. Thank you, Jessi, for generously sharing your life with us. Your work is so important.Listen to Dr. Gold on The Reflective Mind Podcast at https://amindofherown.substack.com/p/speaking-the-quiet-part-out-loud?r=1wdz1l5. Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up by James Hollis, Ph.D.“To engage with the summons of our souls is to step into the deepest ocean, uncertain whether we will be able to swim to some new, distant shore. And yet, until we have consented to swim beyond the familiar lights of the port left behind, we will never arrive at a newer shore.”This stunning book, by Dr. James Hollis, a Jungian scholar and prolific writer, shares his own story of midlife depression and his decision to leave the familiar to seek training in Zurich and become a Jungian analyst. He writes beautifully about his struggle to identify his own path with the guidance of Jung's theory of individuation, defined as “the lifelong project of becoming more nearly the whole person we were meant to be.” I read and re-read this book as I was struggling with my own path to meaning in midlife, and I found such comfort in his powerful belief that we all can tap into what we already know: the person we are most meant to be.You can listen to his beautiful description of his path here: https://amindofherown.substack.com/p/a-nameless-longing-when-your-soul?r=1wdz1l6. Shrill, by Lindy West (I also highly recommend the Hulu series by the same name, starring Aidy Bryant )“I am my body. When my body gets smaller, it is still me. When my body gets bigger, it is still me. There is not a thin woman inside me, awaiting excavation. I am one piece.”Thinking back on my training during medical school and beyond, I can summarize any lecture about body size with one phrase: overweight equals unhealthy. This repeated conflation means I now must consciously uncouple one from the other in my clinical work, stepping back from the broad and imprecise shorthand to consider how they are, and are not, actually related.Lindy West's book helped me significantly as I was trying to shift my thinking on this topic. Her frank depiction of life in her larger body was at times heartbreaking (especially in the doctor's office), frequently humorous (with chapter titles like “Are you there, Margaret? It's me, a person who is not a complete freak.”) and overall a powerful motivator for change. I think all health care providers should read it at least once.If this resonates, check out my interview with Dr. Mara Gordon all about the size-inclusive healthcare revolution. https://amindofherown.substack.com/p/the-size-inclusive-healthcare-revolution?utm_source=publication-search7. Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books by Ursula K. Le Guin“Fiction offers the best means of understanding people different from oneself, short of experience. Actually, fiction can be lots better than experience, because it's a manageable size, it's comprehensible, while experience just steamrollers over you and you understand what happened decades later, if ever.”I grew up in a very small town in North Dakota, just a few miles from the South Dakota border. I didn't recognize the enormity of the sky above my childhood home until I returned as an adult, head tipped back, staring upward in awe. I grew up there with a loving family and a surrounding community willing to cheer me on in events from basketball games to theater performances, but I always felt a bit out of place. Reading became my reassurance that the world was as big as the sky overhead, and I would eventually find my own path. Books also helped me recognize the importance of placing myself in another's shoes, virtual empathy-building machines that taught me about those whose lives were so incredibly different from my own.This book of Ursula K. Le Guin's essays, poems and book reviews reveals a grounded, opinionated, brilliant woman who decided to create entire worlds with stunning clarity, illuminating the challenges existing in our own. Readers and writers alike will not be sorry for taking a moment to absorb her work.If this interests you, please feel free to listen to my short essay, Books are Empathy Machines.8. Intimations by Zadie Smith“Talking to yourself can be useful. And writing means being overheard.”This book by Zadie Smith, a collection of six essays, was published in 2020, and provides a glimpse into the author's life during the early months of the Covid-19 virus. I've long been an admirer of her fiction, but this series allowed a much more intimate window into her wandering mind, trying to comprehend her place in a society turned inside out with uncertainty and fear.What does it mean to be an artist when people are being categorized as “essential workers?” Is loyalty to a place something that can outlast a feeling of unique vulnerability? How can writing provide an outlet for survival when the world is so fraught? There was comfort in her struggle to understand and in her feeling of disorientation, which I certainly shared. I emerged from her writing feeling more hopeful and far less alone.If this essay resonated, please feel free to check out this podcast episode Hope is the Best Antidote for Demoralization with Dr. James L. Griffith, MD9. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi“We grow up believing that what counts most in our lives is that which will occur in the future…[however] since what we experience is reality, as far as we are concerned, we can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world.”My summary: We are always living for tomorrow, while life only happens right now, in our moment-by-moment experience, which we have the power to shape through our attention.You have likely heard of the concept of Flow, described by Dr. Csikszentmihalyi (here is a googled pronunciation: chik sent mee hai ee) as an optimal experience when a “person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” It is often referred to as being in a “flow state,” so immersed in a particular task that you lose track of time and are able to concentrate in a prolonged and highly satisfying way. He refers to our attention our “psychic energy.” Where we give our attention is quite literally how we experience our lives. This has never been more relevant, each of us tasked with creating our own protective filters from the onslaught of demands on our limited—because we're human—attention spans.This book is a revelation, with insights about the very nature of consciousness, what it means to be happy, and how we can infuse our lives with more pleasure. Flow can emerge in a wide variety of settings, whether it's while listening to or creating music, engaging in satisfying sex or consuming delicious foods. It may also occur when we are working on a challenging problem at the office, pushing past a confusing but compelling problem in school, or out solving problems in the world beyond. I've learned so much from his writing, and have absorbed his ideas which influence many of my own.If the concept of a flow and the quest for a meaningful life is of interest, check out my interview, “What Lights You Up?' with Dr. Jordan Grumet, palliative care physician and writer.10. Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief by Pauline Boss“In the case of ambiguous loss…complicated grieving can be a normal reaction to a complicated situation—the endless searching of a battlefield by the mother of a missing soldier; a stepchild's angry outbursts when his biological parent is totally excluded; a wife's depression and withdrawal because her husband has suffered a brain injury and is no longer himself.”I've found ambiguous loss to be such a powerful and surprisingly common experience in my psychiatry practice. This idea describes the unique suffering caused by uncertainty or a lack of resolution regarding a missing loved one. This could be psychological absence of someone still in our presence, such as when our loved one is struggling with dementia or severe mental illness, or the physical absence of those we still keep very much present in our psychological lives, including missing persons with unknown whereabouts.After first reading Ambiguous Loss, I reached out to Dr. Pauline Boss, now in her 90s, to thank her for her work and speak with her about this extremely helpful framework, which had a profound effect on me. She shared the origins of the research into this topic, begun with the families of pilots declared missing in action in Vietnam and Cambodia while she was at the Center of Prisoner of War Studies in the U.S. Naval Health Research Institute in San Diego. She spoke about interviewing the wives of these missing pilots and the intense pain caused by the ambiguity surrounding their husbands' whereabouts. This ongoing, often unresolvable grief can lead to depression, isolation, and ongoing family disruption, even generations later. By giving a name to this phenomenon, however, Pauline Boss has helped countless families begin to heal from the unimaginable and move forward into a more hopeful future.11. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast“After my father died, I noticed that all the things that had driven me bats about him—his chronic worrying, his incessant chitchat, his almost suspect inability to deal with anything mechanical—now seemed trivial. The only emotion that remained was one of deep affection and gratitude that he was my dad.”This is the first graphic novel on my list, but it certainly won't be the last. I've been a fan of Roz Chast for a long time, with her quirky but poignant New Yorker cartoons. This powerful memoir highlights something I've found particularly helpful in my work and personal life: difficult truths are much more palatable if we can pair them with humor. My family has always taken this approach, particularly my father, coping with some truly heartbreaking cases in the hospital with an off-color joke about bowel movements around the family dinner table. Humor is also considered one of the most mature psychological defense mechanisms we use to cope with stress or loss in our lives, so way to go, Dad!Roz shares with us a uniquely painful time in her life, as her parents age well into their 90s, experiencing the indignities of increasingly frail bodies and waning independence. She writes with brave candor about the exhausting and expensive path an adult child must walk when her parents can no longer care for themselves, and her conflicted feelings as she watches them slowly fade. Her cartoons throughout provide much-needed moments of levity, as well as a beautiful tribute to the lives of these important people. If you or a loved one is going through this painful, but common, journey, this book could provide some true comfort, and maybe even a laugh or two.12. Congratulations, By the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness by George Saunders“Be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf—seek out the most efficacious, anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life. Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you—and go after those things as if nothing else matters.Because, actually, nothing else does.”These words are part of a lovely convocation address George Saunders delivered to the graduating students of Syracuse University, where he is a professor of creative writing. Understandably, it resonated far beyond the campus, and speaks a truly important message for today's world.I should admit, I have a soft spot for George Saunders. I imagine I'm not alone in this. I saw him speak at a New Yorker Festival event several years ago and he did not disappoint: sharp as a tack while also being thoughtful and extremely humble. In addition, he was super funny, which made sense because he's the author of one of the most hilarious short stories I've ever read. In “Pastoralia,” two employees are assigned to a caveman diorama in a fading fun park. One of them, who takes his role incredibly seriously, frequently pretends to scan the horizon for large game and refuses to speak to his cave mate, using only grunts and body language to communicate. The other employee, a chain-smoking, mint-eating mother of a struggling adult child seems to be trying to just get through the day, breaking every rule of proper performance, much to her cave mate's dismay. The story is simply sublime.My dear friend, John, who trained with me in psychiatry residency and became one of my dearest friends, introduced me to this story, along with other memorable cultural experiences such as the show “Broad City” and referring to the bathroom as the “wazzer.” He died in 2020 after a battle with brain cancer, but his legacy lives on, especially in my plan to someday turn “Pastoralia” into a musical (his idea). After all, what better way to honor his memory? Miss you John, but thank you for all you taught me.Thanks for reading A Mind of Her Own! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and hear about upcoming episodes & book events.Find Dr. Reid on Instagram: @jenreidmd and LinkedInYou can also preorder her upcoming book, Guilt Free!Also check out Dr. Reid's regular contributions to Psychology Today: Think Like a Shrink.Seeking a mental health provider? Try Psychology TodayNational Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255Dial 988 for mental health crisis supportSAMHSA's National Helpline - 1-800-662-HELP (4357)-a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.Disclaimer:The views expressed on this podcast reflect those of the host and guests, and are not associated with any organization or academic site. Also, AI may have been used to create the transcript and notes, based only on the specific discussion of the host and guest and reviewed for accuracy.The information and other content provided on this podcast or in any linked materials, are not intended and should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this website is for general information purposes only.If you or any other person has a medical concern, you should consult with your health care provider or seek other professional medical treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something that have read on this website, blog or in any linked materials. If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or emergency services (911) immediately. You can also access the National Suicide Help Line at 1-800-273-8255 or call 988 for mental health emergencies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amindofherown.substack.com

In April, President Trump declared a national emergency and assumed the power to levy tariffs, introducing uncertainty into global trading by reneging on previously negotiated agreements. One of the attorneys representing the challengers to the president's decree in Trump v. VOS is Stanford Law Professor Michael McConnell, a constitutional law expert and former Tenth Circuit judge. The case, which the U.S. Supreme Court has expedited, is set to have ramifications well beyond trade. As McConnell wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed: “The tariff litigation is shaping up as the biggest separation-of-powers controversy since the steel seizure case in 1952…Understandably, most of the commentary has focused on the practical ramifications for the president's trade negotiations and the American economy. But the cases may be even more important for the future of a fundamental component of the Constitution's architecture: the separation of powers, intended by the founders to prevent any of the government's three branches from becoming all powerful.” McConnell joins Pam Karlan and Diego Zambrano for a discussion about this important case, exploring whether presidents have the authority to tax through tariffs without clear congressional approval, the historical and constitutional roots of "no taxation without representation," and the seismic ramifications of a redefinition of the limits of executive economic power.Links:Michael McConnell >>> Stanford Law pageConnect:Episode Transcripts >>> Stanford Legal Podcast WebsiteStanford Legal Podcast >>> LinkedIn PagePam Karlan >>> Stanford Law School PageDiego Zambrano >>> Stanford Law School PageStanford Law School >>> Twitter/XStanford Lawyer Magazine >>> Twitter/X Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Julia Bradbury talks to Gyles about her life, upbringing and her new book "Hack Yourself Healthy". As Gyles finds out in this conversation, from the moment she began working her way up through the TV industry, Julia had led a stressful, action-packed and "high cortisol" life. Was this one of the contributing factors in her breast cancer diagnosis of 2021? Understandably, the discovery of her cancer led Julia to reassess her lifestyle, and ultimately to research and write the book she's talking about today. She tells Gyles about the things we can all do to increase our health and longevity: from simple steps such as making sure we spend time in the open air to breathing more deeply, to more radical ideas like walking backwards and using a copper tongue scraper.This is also a Rosebud chat - so we also hear about Julia's early memories, her family, and her schooldays.We hope you enjoy this fascinating chat. Julia's book, "Hack Yourself Healthy", is available to buy here.Rosebud's new Facebook group "Rosebud Reflections" is up and running, you can find it here. It's a place to meet, discuss and digest all things Rosebud. Have fun!Rosebud's new website is also live and is a thing of beauty - it's www.rosebudpodcast.co.uk - click here to go straight there! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

War is big business, and countless incredible technological marvels have been devised on behalf of this controversial industry. Understandably, the development of these game-changing weapons has to be kept super hush-hush. So, from nuclear-powered tanks to covert heart attack guns, here are some of the most unbelievable top-secret military weapons – revealed! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A bonus pod today with two guests, Nick O'Hern and Mark Allen chat to Tom Fisher, Titleist's Global Product Line Director, Metalwoods and Irons, and Marni Ines, Titleist's Director of Product Development, Irons. We've got them on to chat about the new Titleist T-Series which are spectacular, so good that Mark's first time using them he shot 10 birdies in one round (we'll forget that he hasn't shot a birdie since....).Tom and Marni tell us the biggest improvements in this series, and the process of testing....how do they do it, who does the testing? Mark is keen to do the next round and unsubtley tries to drop that in conversation. Understandably though.Tom explains the Titleist 'Three D's' approach - which is distance, dispersion and descent.Nick asks if many pros these days are using blended sets, and Tom gives the percentage - it's high, more than we'd expected! Tom explains why Titleist are big believers in blended sets saying that they believe your 3 iron should go the same height as your pitching wedge, and as your Driver,This new Titleist T-Series has just been released, and you can arrange a fitting now.We're live from Titleist and FootJoy HQ thanks to our great partners:Titleist, the #1 ball in golf;FootJoy, the #1 shoe and glove in golf;PING will help you play your best. See your local golf shop or professional for a PING club fitting;Golf Clearance Outlet, visit them online here to find your nearest store.Betr, the fastest and easiest betting app in Australia.And watchMynumbers: download from the App Store or Google Play, and Southern Golf Club: with their brand new Simulator Room. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Full Text of ReadingsMemorial of Saint Dominic, Priest Lectionary: 411The Saint of the day is Saint DominicSaint Dominic’s Story If he hadn't taken a trip with his bishop, Dominic would probably have remained within the structure of contemplative life; after the trip, he spent the rest of his life being a contemplative in active apostolic work. Born in old Castile, Spain, Dominic was trained for the priesthood by a priest-uncle, studied the arts and theology, and became a canon of the cathedral at Osma, where there was an attempt to revive the apostolic common life described in Acts of the Apostles. On a journey through France with his bishop, Dominic came face to face with the then virulent Albigensian heresy at Languedoc. The Albigensians–or Cathari, “the pure ones”–held to two principles—one good, one evil—in the world. All matter is evil—hence they denied the Incarnation and the sacraments. On the same principle, they abstained from procreation and took a minimum of food and drink. The inner circle led what some people regarded as a heroic life of purity and asceticism not shared by ordinary followers. Dominic sensed the need for the Church to combat this heresy, and was commissioned to be part of the preaching crusade against it. He saw immediately why the preaching crusade was not succeeding: the ordinary people admired and followed the ascetical heroes of the Albigenses. Understandably, they were not impressed by the Catholic preachers who traveled with horse and retinues, stayed at the best inns and had servants. Dominic therefore, with three Cistercians, began itinerant preaching according to the gospel ideal. He continued this work for 10 years, being successful with the ordinary people but not with the leaders. His fellow preachers gradually became a community, and in 1215 Dominic founded a religious house at Toulouse, the beginning of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans. Dominic’s ideal, and that of his Order, was to organically link a life with God, study, and prayer in all forms, with a ministry of salvation to people by the word of God. His ideal: contemplata tradere: “to pass on the fruits of contemplation” or “to speak only of God or with God.” Reflection The Dominican ideal, like that of all religious communities, is for the imitation, not merely the admiration, of the rest of the Church. The effective combining of contemplation and activity is the vocation of truck driver Smith as well as theologian Aquinas. Acquired contemplation is the tranquil abiding in the presence of God, and is an integral part of any full human life. It must be the wellspring of all Christian activity. Saint Dominic is the Patron Saint of: AstronomersDominican Republic Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

A US tourist visiting West Clare is appealing for help after her dog went missing following a road traffic accident in the Kilmurry McMahon area. The woman was taken to University Hospital Limerick for treatment and, in the confusion at the scene, her black Boston Terrier ran from the car and hasn't been seen since. Understandably, she's devastated and now hopes the local community might be able to help reunite her with her beloved pet. To discuss this further, Derrick Lynch was joined by Ciara Madden, patient advocacy and liaison service at UHL helping with the search. Image (c) Clare Dog Shelter

Cancer is a profoundly disabling illness, whether that is due to side effects from the life-saving treatments or the disease itself. Understandably then, patients need constant and vital support in the form of caregivers, but who do we consider to be a caregiver, and what does their role involve? In this episode we discuss the essential role of caregivers, who qualifies as a caregiver, and the responsibilities they take on. We also address an important question: who looks after the caregivers when they themselves are impacted? Join us as we uncover the challenges and rewards of caregiving in the context of cancer, and highlight the importance of support for those who give so much to others. Learn more about our guests: Mr. Travis Coy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-j-coy Dr. Parmvir Bahia: parmvir.com Learn more about our host Dr. Brandon Blue. This podcast is produced by: The Office of Community Outreach, Engagement, and Equity at Moffitt Cancer Center and Artha Science Media. Follow COEE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coee-at-mcc Track: Sunlight Cascading Through the Clouds — Artificial.Music [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch: https://youtu.be/mtONh3v8-mw Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/sunlight-cascading

Nearly a four large fine for Paddy because Harley wasn't watching where he was going! What a travesty! Is this where the revenue raising AFL corporation world has gotten to? Time to Restump Podcast the formality that was Saturday afternoon. Paddy Voss should be hailed, heralded and and held up as a beacon of compassion and restraint. He had the chance to put Harley Reid in the morgue. But he fought every fibre of his being and showed wonderful discipline to not follow through. Pre-game we're all for it, but we take no enjoyment sticking the banter boots into West Coast post-game after a win. Hey, we don't make the rules, we just abide by them. The entire day was a formality. It was simply a matter of just going through the motions and overseeing the safe transport of the 4 valuable points into our win account. It was a precisely calculated and managed, bigger fish to fry performance. At three quarter time JL gave them a spray telling them to be mindful of their excursion and to reel in the effort and intensity! He said, “This is July and they're blue and gold traffic cones, so leave plenty out there and I don't want to see anyone come off that ground with an empty tank!”  Understandably, apart from Liam Ryan standing on Karl Worner's head, the game never reached any great heights. While similar in age and relative experience, there were two vastly different classes of teams out there and there was a boat load of daylight between them. However, it was pretty enjoyable watching the surely now unbackable 2025 rising star winner, Murphy Reid, go about his business yet again like a seasoned veteran. His craft, his ability to execute and his intelligence… he has no purple peer!Well maybe that's not quite true because that guy Hayden Young is thereabouts. What a welcome inclusion he is. We've missed him all year and his return to the side couldn't have been better timed. 23 disposals, 6 inside 50s, 7 clearances and an absurd 3 goals. And if you thought that was mental, he ridiculously did it with just 57% of time on ground.Can we stop and appreciate the work of Jaegar O'Meara? The endless variety of roles and tasks he has been asked to do since he arrived at the club, not many players could perform them to such a level he has. Albeit acknowledging the disparity in age and experience and condition between the two, his work on Harley Reid on the weekend was superb.  It was a convincing win but it wasn't the percentage booster we were all hoping for. We did put on 3% though and surprisingly we're now ahead of Brisbane on the metric. However, we're rarely been big on percentage. We've been a big percentage boosting team at times in the past, but unfortunately it has usually been for an opponent! So, lets just focus on the winning. A place in the top 8, possibly top 4, is ours to lose. This game probably perfectly falls into the never as good or as bad as it seems category. We weren't at our best but we won comfortably. We generated a lot of shots on goal but our inaccuracy hurt us. Not really sure what else we learn from the game, but given it was against West Coast there'd no doubt be some substance to take out of it! Oh, c'mon it's West Coast… it's cheap shots and lame lines in more ways than one, all round! Anyway, lets engage the detection dogs and get them to run their noses over the game on the pod. So, feel free to join us as we wrap up the Derby proceedings and begin the Carlton focus commentary.Send us a textSupport the show

In this week's episode, we look at five ways writers can avoid the self-destructive mindset trap of "comparisonitis", and five ways that comparing oneself to other writers can be useful. Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week! This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves, Book #2 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: WOLVES50 The coupon code is valid through August 5th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 259 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 11th, 2025, and today we are looking at why comparing yourself to other writers is a bad idea. Before that, we will do Coupon of the Week and have an update on my current writing progress. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Wolves, Book #2 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store, and that is WOLVES50. This coupon code is valid through August 5th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook to listen to during your travels this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's have an update on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that Shield of Power is 100% done, completing the Shield War series. You can get Shield of Power at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords and my own Payhip store. It's been selling briskly and it's gotten good reviews so far, so thank you very much to everyone who has bought and enjoyed the book. Now that Shield of Power is done, the first third of my Super Summer of Finishing Things is complete. So what's next? My next main project is Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest. It was originally going to be named Reactant, but I changed the title to Final Quest to emphasize really and truly and definitively that this is the final book in the trilogy. In fact, I'm already done with the rough draft and I am done with the first phase of editing it as of this recording. If you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know how I frequently say that if you keep chipping away the novel over a long enough time, sooner or later you'll finish it. That is exactly what happened here. Since October of 2024, I've been writing 500 words a day on Final Quest, and this piled up over time enough so that after Shield of Power came out, I only had 3,000 more words to write to finish Final Quest, and I did that in an afternoon. One more phase of editing on that and then I would like to have Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest out before July 22nd, if all goes well. I'm also 21,000 words into Ghost in the Siege, which will be my main project once Final Quest is finished. Ghost in the Siege will be the sixth and final book in the Ghost Armor series and will hopefully cap off my Super Summer of Finishing Things. In audiobook news, Shield of Battle (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is now out. You can get it at Audible, Amazon, Apple, and Google Play as of this recording. Because of some difficulties with Findaway Voices, it's going to take a little bit longer to get into the other stores, but I'm working on a way to do that and as I mentioned before, Ghost in the Corruption (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy ) is done and just has to finish processing on the various stores, and so hopefully that should be out before too much longer. So that's where I'm at with my current writing and audiobook projects. 00:02:52 Main Topic: Comparison Now let's move right on to our main topic, The Dangers of Comparison. In Episode 257, we started a series on mindset for writers. In some of the previous series I've talked about some of the practical ways to help with distractions, procrastination, and managing time wasters. In this series, we're going to focus on things that derail writers from a mindset perspective because as we know with any endeavor in life, mindset is something like three quarters of the battle where if you convince yourself that you're going to fail before you start, you're probably going to fail. So that's why it's important to have an appropriate mindset to the task at hand. Today we're going to focus on comparing yourself to others, and I will share five reasons it's not a great idea to compare yourself to others aimlessly and how to shift your focus to five more constructive ways to compare your work to other authors. Comparisons are a constant of the reading world. Librarians and Goodreads reviewers talk constantly about “readalikes” or finding books that have similar themes or settings. Book displays and shops and libraries love to group similar books or authors together. People look at the bestseller lists like they're sports scores. Dollar amounts in publishing deals are a constant source of gossip and jealousy. Sometimes comparison is useful, especially when creating ads or finding the right demographics to market to. Other times, it can lead to limiting or self-destructive thoughts. So let's start off with five reasons not to compare yourself to others. #1: It can limit you creatively. It can be easy to look at the bestseller list and try to think of ways to write a similar book. Following publishing trends keeps you from your most creative work and frankly isn't as enjoyable to write and most likely for your readers to read. Also, unless you're a fast writer, the publishing world might have moved on by the time you finished that book. In fact, I just saw a thread on social media about that where the commenter was bemoaning the fact that she used to enjoy what's now called cozy fantasy, but that as the genre has evolved, it's developed established tropes and the writers of it are not willing to variate from those tropes. So you have what she said in her words were dozens of clones of Lattes and Legends and Bookshops and Bone Dusts floating around, which is a tricky thread to balance, I do admit, because you want something that'll appeal to the reader, but then the readers like familiarity. What they really seem to like is familiarity presented to them in a way they've never seen before, which can be a challenge when you are trying to look at the bestseller list and limit yourself creatively. #2: What other people are doing is out of your control. You can't control if a book you think isn't as good as yours is suddenly the runaway hit of the year or an author who isn't experienced as you suddenly gets a movie deal. You can't control their success, so don't worry about it or get upset by it. You can control if you're wasting time online mocking those people or complaining about it, for example. That's a waste of your time and energy and doesn't actually make you feel better in the long run (and possibly in the short run as well). I believe in psychology and in military theory for that matter, there's something called the locus of control where you identify the things that you can control and then you drill in and focus in on the things you can control rather than worrying about the things you can't control. As we said, if an author who wrote a book you don't think is very good or you don't personally like has had a massive amount of success, there's nothing you can do about that and worrying about it is a waste of time and comparing yourself to that writer is also a waste of time. So that's why it's a better idea to focus in on what you can control. #3: You're not being fair to yourself. Comparing yourself to other authors, especially as an aspiring or new author, isn't being fair to yourself. They have years (if not decades) of experience that you don't have. It's like comparing yourself to an ultra-marathoner when you're someone who's just starting to jog and struggling to get all the way around the block, which is some of the tricky parts of someone like me giving advice to new writers because Shield of Power was my 163rd book and Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest will be my 164th. I've been doing this for a long time, which means I probably know what I'm talking about, but that not everything I do is immediately reproducible by someone who hasn't been doing it as long as I have. If you're writing something that's not as marketable or in a smaller genre, it's not fair to compare yourself to people in the biggest genre or even your own previous work. For example, I can't compare the amount one of my technical books earns to one of my fantasy books. If I did that, it'd be a disappointment. But in reality, my technical books have had steady success and have even been used as textbooks at times (which is always surprising when I discovered that's happened because my Windows Command Line book and my Linux Command Line book have both been used as textbooks at various times, which was a surprise to me because that's not what I expected when I set out to write them, but I'm glad that they've been able to be useful for people). #4: And point number four, which I think is a really important one, someone's online life is only the highlight reel of someone's actual life. Looking at someone's social media accounts isn't a great way to know what they're actually doing or how they're actually doing. Just because they're posting pictures of tropical vacations, speaking at conferences, or showing off shiny new stuff doesn't mean you're seeing the full picture of how they're actually doing. As I said in a recent episode that when I was applying for disability insurance (just in case I need it someday), I learned that writers are actually one of the hardest professions to insure due to their high rates of mental illness and substance abuse. You might see the good stuff, but they might not be posting the challenges that come with their success: increased stress and anxiety, more criticism, the need to hire people and how much time it takes to manage them, more complicated taxes, increased business expenses, and relationship problems from the demands of success. These are all things that can accompany success. You're not getting the whole picture. You need to keep that in mind when you compare yourself to people online. The best fictional example out of this that applies to so many situations is Lord Denethor and the Palantir from Return of the King. If you read the book, Denethor has been using the Palantir for years to spy on Sauron and give advantages to his forces and the soldiers of Gondor. But Sauron is able to manipulate what Denethor sees in the Palantir and has been gradually using this to create an edited version of what Denethor sees in the Palantir, and that drives Denethor to despair and eventual suicide. People talk about the increased rates of mental illness related to social media. Sauron did that deliberately to Denethor through the Palantir. It's a sign of how good J.R.R. Tolkien was a writer that he managed to anticipate the effects that Facebook would have on some people by like 60 years. So always bear that in mind when you're looking at someone online and feeling jealous of them. You are not getting the whole picture and there are more than likely things going on that are difficulties in their life that they just don't talk about. #5: Your time is better spent writing than comparing yourself to other writers. And this is back to our old friend, the locus of control. Looking at other authors' sales ranks and reviews is not a productive use of your time. As I mentioned in the writing adjacent activities series, you need to be purposeful in non-writing tasks that take up your time and make sure you're not pretending they're writing related. If you need to compare sales ranks or some other data point with other authors or something you're actively working on like ad targeting, schedule that time and don't let it turn into an Internet spiral of time wasting. And now to avoid those Internet spirals of time wasting, here are five ways to use comparisons positively and constructively. #1: Number one, getting keywords or demographics for marketing purposes. For sites like BookBub or when creating keyword ads, knowing authors who are similar to you is incredibly helpful and can help you structure your ads. And this doesn't even necessarily require you to read the other author's books to see if they actually compare. There are tools that let you expedite this process. For example, if you look on Amazon at the Also Boughts, you can scroll through some of that and see which other authors and which other books people have bought in addition to your own and then you can test using those for keyword targeting. On Goodreads, people put books in lists or compare books. You can use that data to generate keywords for ad targeting. You can test them very easily. With BookBub ads in particular, if you build a campaign around just a single author and keywords and test the results. You can quickly see whether a specific author generates an appropriate click-through rate for you to use or not. #2: A second way is to find authors you might want to do a promo with. Some authors, especially in the romance genre, do really well with group promotions. Finding other authors that write similar books and are at a similar level of success may be a way to take advantage of that. I've never actually set up a group promo, but I have participated in several of them from time to time with pretty good results. #3: A third way is to better understand reader preferences in a genre. My best story for this is I've gone through six different variations of cover design for the Silent Order series. When I started out, I was using GIMP and stock photo images. GIMP is the free Linux version of Photoshop essentially. After I learned Photoshop, I upgraded to characters on the covers, but they never quite sold quite as well until finally I saw a Penny Arcade comic where they were commenting how they just want to buy books where they have spaceships in close proximity to planets on the covers. And I thought, huh, that makes a lot of sense. So I redesigned all the covers to have a spaceship in close proximity to a planet, and the series immediately started selling a fair bit better with those covers. I would say that was not so much a comparison thing, just a genre preference I stumbled across and then had sort of the moment of enlightenment that I did. But if I had looked at the bestseller list for various science fiction categories, I would have realized that most of the bestsellers had spaceships and planets in close proximity to each other on the cover. So I redesigned all the covers. It was just that I was too fond of the character based covers to give them up until I had that moment of revelation. So all the main books in the series were redesigned to have the spaceship covers, though for the free short stories, I did keep the character covers just because I was giving away the free short stories and I did like the character covers, so I got to have my cake and eat it too, which was nice. #4: Learn from the successes and failures of others. You can learn from what another author does well. For example, Brandon Sanderson is very good at communicating his writing progress and other updates to his fans through weekly video messages on YouTube. Other authors are good at collaborating with other authors, while others make engaging and funny videos that make people more interested in their work. Knowing your own strengths is an important first step. If you're just trying to follow everyone who is a success without first reflecting on that, you'll chase too many options and then can't excel at any of them. You can also learn from when an author responds poorly and how the Internet reacts to it. Understandably, I'm not going to give specific examples here. For myself, I tend to focus on what I do best, which is writing really fast and doing social media updates. I never got into video because I kind of have a face for radio and I just don't enjoy doing video. I don't enjoy editing them. It's a lot of work that I don't really enjoy, so I don't do it. #5: Being informed makes comparisons less emotional. Knowing, for example, that an author was hired to write a book based on an existing outline created by the publisher, and then promised a future book deal with a big marketing budget in a preferred genre as part of the contract makes their cross-genre success seem less surprising and makes you feel less guilty for not being able to do the same on your own as an indie author. It's not a fair comparison because they have advantages that you can't understand without some industry knowledge. For people that compare themselves to me, for example, they should know that I've been writing since I was a teenager a very long time ago. I was an early adopter of self-publishing when it was less competitive and I usually work more than eight hours a day and I generally keep to a very rigid writing schedule. Some authors like me were able to get the rights back to their earlier published works and then self-publish them early on in order to finish a series, which is much less likely to be an option in a contract for a traditionally published author now. If you're just starting out, travel frequently for work, and only have an hour a day to write (and even that is dicey because your partner would rather you spend that time on some other activity because they don't support your writing), you can't possibly compare your writing output to mine. Knowing all this about me explains why it might be harder for you and why you shouldn't feel bad about having a harder time with writing. Comparison has been called “The Thief of Joy” all over social media for many years. That can definitely be true, but like so many things in life, how you respond to something and find ways to help it make you stronger is what really matters. Comparison has its place in the writing world, but it's important to keep it in perspective and not to let it overwhelm you emotionally or keep you from your writing goals or plans. So that is it for talking about comparison. I hope that was helpful and offered some useful tips on how to avoid the trap of comparison-itis. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

"Dis too much." Those were our initial thoughts to seeing so many right-winged influencers explode in fury at the announcement that was leaked by Axios from the DOJ and the FBI saying their investigation into the Epstein files basically yielded nothing and that the case was now closed.I'm sorry, what? Huh? Understandably, there is a lot of anger and confusion, but we sat down to talk through the theories, the speculations, and the facts that are confirmable. This is not really about "Epstein" but what he represented--that reality that our system is broken, and some people really are above it, and justice is either blind or it is dead, and it seems to be dead when it comes to the powerful elites. We invite you to join us in the conversation.

There's a secret weapon in the campaign to end the mortal threat the Iranian regime poses to Israel, America and Western civilization: namely, the people of Iran.  After all, the mullahs' Sharia-supremacist totalitarian misrule has impoverished, isolated and murdered them for over four decades. In addition, the ruling ayatollahs believe they must bring back their messiah by initiating the Apocalypse, which would kill untold millions of Iranians, among others.  If empowered to liberate themselves, Iran's people can do more to end the regime's doomsday nuclear weapons program than any external power. So, we need to encourage and enable them to rise up.  Understandably, they'll only take the immense risks of doing so if convinced Western deal-making with the regime won't sell them out again. That means no further negotiations with the mullahs for any purpose other than their unconditional surrender.  This is Frank Gaffney.

Daily Dose of Hope June 16, 2025   Scripture - Matthew 12:38-50   Prayer:  Lord Jesus, Mighty God, Holy One...We come to you this morning with humility and gratefulness.  Thank you that your mercies are new every morning.  Thank you that you continue to love and guide us, even though we mess up again and again.  Thank you for your patience and your never-ending care.  Lord, we are so very grateful.  Help us, on this Monday, to start our week with the right attitude.  We belong to you and we are under your authority.  Help us see others the way you see them.  Help us produce fruit in our lives.  Oh, Lord, how we need your help.  Please, Jesus, may we hear your voice today.  In Your Name, Amen.   Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, a Deep Dive into the Gospels and the book of Acts.  Happy Monday!   Our Scripture reading for today is the last half of Matthew 12.  We start with the discussion about the sign of Jonah.  The Pharisees have asked Jesus for a sign to demonstrate that he is the Messiah.  Apparently, all the miracles he has done thus far aren't enough for these guys.  Remember, the Pharisees were even attributing some of his miracles to Satan.  Understandably, this request doesn't go over too well with Jesus.    On the surface, there isn't anything wrong with their request.  There are times in the Old Testament in which people asked God for a sign.  But Jesus can see right through their request.  Nothing he does will make these guys believe in him.  In fact, they are looking for more ammunition to use against Jesus.  There is nothing sincere about the request.  Matthew Henry writes in his commentary, "Christ is always ready to hear and answer holy desires and prayers, yet he will not gratify corrupt lusts and humors."   Jesus does promise the sign of Jonah.  The Jews believed that the Ninevites repented when Jonah preached because they knew it was the God of all who spoke through him.  And they knew this because God kept him from dying in the belly of the big fish.  In the same way, Jesus' resurrection will signify God's vindication of him and affirm the truth of what he says and his divinity.  But Jesus knows that even the resurrection won't be enough to make most of these Jewish leaders believe.  Their hearts are hard.    Now, let's take a look at the text about Jesus' mother and brothers.  I'll be honest, growing up I used to really struggle with this passage. It seemed so harsh! But deeper reflection yields a different perspective.   Can you imagine what it must have been like for Jesus' immediate family? We know that Mary knew that Jesus was special but did she really understand the significance of his life at this point? What must his siblings have thought?   We see in this text that his mother and brothers are wanting to talk to him, interrupting a teaching session. Are they chatting about Sunday dinner or do they want him to stop making such a ruckus around town? Again, we don't have details but it's clear they don't really know him as the Son of God (yet).   Jesus' reaction is a bit off-putting. As a mom, I might have gotten my feelings hurt more than a little bit. But he is making a point. Jesus' family has become much wider than Mary, Joseph, and the boys. There are no bounds to who may be part of it. Anyone who does the will of my Father is my brother and sister and mother.  Jesus is redefining family for those who profess faith in him.  Yes, biological family relationships are important but spiritual family relationships (and this might be hard to hear) are even more important.    Given the strong emphasis on family ties in first century Palestine, Jesus' words here would have been shocking.  But what he is saying is that believers should consider themselves family and care for one another like they are family members.  In the words of Sister Sledge, we are family.   The apostle Paul in his New Testament letters expanded on this idea of believers being a family of faith:  In Galatians 6:10, Paul speaks of our need to care for those in the household of God, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”  Family was a big deal at the time.  People lived with extended family.  Who you were related to mattered.  You were under social and moral obligation to care for your extended family.  And Paul is saying who you are related to in Christ is also a big deal.  Those people in your church family, those other believers that worship with you, those other people who profess faith in Jesus --- these are your brothers and sisters as well.  These people are family. In Ephesians 2:19, Paul writes, Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household…  We are members of God's household.  We are members of God's family.  If you have said yes to Jesus as Lord and Savior, then God is your father.  You are a child of God.  And you have many siblings.  We are brothers and sisters.  We are family.  We are no longer strangers.  Think about those people at church, at New Hope.  Some you know and some you don't know.  Some you like and others you might not like.  But we are family and we will spend eternity together. And the early church clearly behaved in the way biological families behaved.  They ate together, they spent time together, they sacrificed and worked together.  Acts 2:44-47, All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.   They behaved like a family.  They loved each other like a family.  They sacrificed together like a family.  There was nothing fakey about this.  Notice it doesn't say they came together on Sunday morning, shook hands, and then went their own way.  No, they did life together.  It was real.  It was genuine.  And guess what?  God added to their numbers. Because people see that and they want that. It's no different today.  We have an epidemic of loneliness.  People are disconnected.  People are struggling.  Even those who aren't struggling are always looking for sincere, genuine places of love and acceptance.  The family of faith is intended to be a place in which you are loved, accepted, cared for, held accountable, belong, where you know people have your back, where you can learn and grow…. It's far from perfect because it involves human beings.  Over the years, the church has too often been exclusive, cliquey, fake, and judgmental.  Sometimes, we have been more dysfunctional family than healthy family.  We have done harm.  I think we need to repent of that.  If we at New Hope have ever been part of putting walls up, then we need to repent of that.  If I have ever been part of mistreating my brother or sister, if you have been part of excluding or hurting your brother and sister, then you need to repent of that.  Period. We are a family.  And families are funny.  Families are not polished and pulled together.  Families love each other, they are loyal to one another, but they sometimes get annoyed with one another.  They sometimes hurt one another (I am thinking of my own three kids – they love each other fiercely and yet, they can really push each other's buttons).  It's no difference with our siblings in Christ.  Family is a place where we do a lot of forgiving, a lot of extending grace, but it's also a place where we know that we belong no matter what.  Strong families are places where when you come together, you can just take a deep breath and say, “I'm home.”  It isn't the building but it's the people.  This is the thing.  When a church family loves like Jesus, people get a glimpse of Jesus.  When we care for one another sacrificially, people see Jesus.  When the family of faith sacrifices for one another, then people get to see Jesus in action.  Lives are transformed.  Hearts are changed.  Our faith grows stronger.  Jesus Christ is glorified. And the Lord added to their numbers those who were being saved.  Think about the relationships you have made within the faith family. Are they strong? Why or why not? What holds you back from creating strong, meaningful connections to your brothers and sisters in Christ?   Blessings, Pastor Vicki

With Thomas Frank having now left Brentford, a wave of emotion has swept through the fanbase. His departure marks the end of an era that saw the Bees rise to the Premier League and earn respect across English football for their style, spirit, and smart recruitment. Understandably, fans are feeling a mixture of gratitude, sadness, and anxiety about what comes next. In this special “therapy edition” of the Besotted podcast, the crew headed to the pub to process the news, discuss how this week's developments might affect the club's direction, and share hopes—and worries—for the future. From memories of Frank's touchline passion to concerns over maintaining the club's identity, the episode captures a fanbase at a crossroads. With Dave Lane this week are Matt “The Allard” Allard, Lewis “Sherlock” Holmes, Charlie Briggs, and Robin Hood—plus a deep dive into the current bookies' favourites to take over as head coach. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Time and again, we've examined how the challenges we face – poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, and more – are deeply intertwined. Understandably, it can start to feel pretty overwhelming. But here's the encouraging part: the solutions are just as interconnected. In this episode of Biophilic Solutions, we speak with Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of Local Futures, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring ecological and social well-being by revitalizing local communities and economies. Helena envisions a world where food is grown by nearby farmers, money circulates within communities, local businesses thrive, and meaningful work is accessible to all.She argues that many of today's crises stem from an overly globalized economic system and that the path forward lies in a broad shift toward localization. Helena advocates for a more informed and intentional public that values local economies and deeper connections with nature. In our conversation, we explore the power of local food systems, the importance of community and ecological bonds, and the role vulnerability plays in healing. Drawing on lessons from indigenous cultures, Helena makes a compelling case for localization as a path toward greater social cohesion and environmental resilience.Show NotesAbout HelenaPlanet Local Summit | September 3-7 | LadakhLocal FuturesAncient Futures: Learning From Ladakh by Helena Norberg HodgeLocal Is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness by Helena Norberg HodgeTo Heal the Planet We Must First Heal Ourselves (Urth Magazine)Key Words: local, localism, economy, economics, local economy, community, indigenous community, indigenous wisdom, Local Futures, farmers market, global economy, globalism, capitalism, nature, nature based solutions, biophilia, biophilic design, Helena Norberg-HodgeBiophilic Solutions is available wherever you get podcasts. Please listen, follow, and give us a five-star review. Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn and learn more on our website. #NatureHasTheAnswers

In our 165th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards explore strategies for breaking down complex ideas into clear, simple explanations that clients can easily grasp.  For full show notes, see kitces.com and thesocietyofadvice.com.

In this second episode of my recent interview with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, we begin by discussing his reaction to the horror of October 7. Within minutes of hearing and reading reports of the Hamas atrocities, he said he knew that this would result in total disaster for Hamas as well as the people of the Gaza Strip. He decided to pivot in his very comfortable life and job to immerse himself in explaining and advocating the conundrum of Gazans. Alkhatib is adamant that the majority of the people living in the Strip hate Hamas. And now they are suffering immeasurably because of Hamas. He refuses to despair, and he refuses to accept that Palestinians cannot and will not be self-governing. He also refuses to blame Israel for the disaster that has befallen the people of the Gaza Strip - including many members of his family and personal friends. This is what we talk about. That horrible day. What has ensued... and what may transpire. Ahmed is determined and hopeful.As a postscript to our discussion, I would be remiss if I did not mention the tragedy that occurred yesterday. Nine children of a female pediatrician who was working in a hospital were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Understandably, the international community is outraged. So are many Israelis. These tragedies... at this point there has just been too much pain and death and destruction for all. I am also confident that Ahmed would allow himself to feel immense sorrow but would temper it with his signature rationalism. We must, he would maintain, find a way to end this endless conflict and suffering.State of Tel Aviv is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib leads Realign For Palestine, a groundbreaking new project at the Atlantic Council. This project challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel-Palestine discourse and develops a new policy framework for rejuvenated pro-Palestine advocacy. Realign For Palestine aims to cultivate a new generation of Palestinian voices committed to a two-nation solution, nonviolence, and radical pragmatism.Alkhatib serves as a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Middle East Programs, where he writes extensively on Gaza's political and humanitarian affairs, is an outspoken critic of Hamas, and a promoter of a radically pragmatic approach to peace and Palestinian statehood as the only path forward between Palestinians and Israelis. His writing and opinions have been published and featured across the US, Israeli, and international press, and his views are prominently featured across social media platforms, with his accounts that have tens of thousands of engaged followers.Alkhatib holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's in intelligence and national security studies. He grew up in Gaza City and left Gaza in 2005 to attend college in the United States as an exchange student. Much of Ahmed's experience is influenced by having grown up in Gaza during the Oslo peace process, and the difficulties resulting from Oslo's failure, and the rise of Hamas and Islamism in Gaza.Following the deadly October 7 massacre, Alkhatib's life was deeply impacted when three different airstrikes killed 33 of his immediate and extended family members. Still, he has made a deliberate choice to be part of breaking the cycle of dehumanization and defying the cycle of hatred, incitement, violence, and revenge. In his presentations to students, policymakers, and thought leaders, Alkhatib exemplifies how others can exercise individual responsibility, spread empathy, and engage peacefully in the often-divisive Israel and Palestine discourse. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.stateoftelaviv.com/subscribe

Host: Wayne Jones  |  Released Wednesday, April 23, 2025 Understandably, Samson is normally an example of what not to do in leadership. In this weeks’s episode of Authentically Adam, Wayne uses Samson in the usual fashion. Specifically, the discussion centers around Judges 15 and the back-and-forth exchanges of retaliation between Samsons and the Philistines. “As […]

Host: Wayne Jones  |  Released Wednesday, April 23, 2025 Understandably, Samson is normally an example of what not to do in leadership. In this weeks’s episode of Authentically Adam, Wayne uses Samson in the usual fashion. Specifically, the discussion centers around Judges 15 and the back-and-forth exchanges of retaliation between Samsons and the Philistines. “As […]

Israel is a nation often in the news but seldom for its potential as an investment.​Israel is a tiny country but a powerhouse for investing opportunities, particularly in the tech sector. Brian Mumbert joins us today to examine Israel in a different light.Brian Mumbert is Vice President and Regional Sales Executive at Timothy Plan, an underwriter of Faith & Finance.Is It Safe to Invest in Israel?Despite frequent headlines about conflict in the Middle East, Israel stands out as a remarkably resilient nation with an entrepreneurial spirit.Israelis have a low view of debt culturally. In fact, at one point, the government even sent out piggy banks to every citizen to encourage savings and wise stewardship. That mindset—combined with a tech-forward economy—creates strong fundamentals that appeal to values-based investors.Understandably, some investors may wonder about the safety of investing in a country with frequent regional conflict. Israel is regulated just like the U.S. They have their own stock exchange—the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange—and the top 125 companies are listed on the Tel Aviv 125 index.Even during times of war, Israel's economy continues to operate. Brian compared it to the U.S. during World War II: while volatility occurred, the Dow still gained over 50% from 1939 to 1945.A Developed Economy with Room to GrowIsrael graduated from the emerging markets category to a developed economy in 2009. While this was a major step forward, it ironically resulted in less attention from global investors, since many international funds tend to favor larger developed economies like Japan or those in Europe.Still, the fundamentals are strong. Israel's unemployment and inflation rates remain low, and the U.S. continues to be a committed ally.Israel has earned the nickname “Startup Nation” for good reason. Its high-tech sector employs 12% of the workforce and generates 20% of the country's GDP.Many Israeli companies don't become household names because giants like Apple, Google, and Amazon acquire them. Notable examples include:Mobileye—A leader in automotive safety tech.Waze—The crowd-sourced navigation app developed to navigate Jerusalem's winding roads.Cherry Tomatoes—Yes, even innovations in agriculture like drip irrigation and cherry tomatoes can be traced back to Israeli ingenuity.The government's support of tech innovation has made Israel the third-largest tech hub globally by capital raised—just behind Silicon Valley and New York.While tech leads the way, Israel's financial sector is also strong due to the cultural avoidance of debt. This contrasts sharply with many Western nations. Innovations in agriculture (like drip irrigation) and strong export activity also contribute to Israel's economic resilience.Over 50% of Israel's exports are tech-related; major U.S. companies like Apple have invested heavily in Israeli startups, demonstrating the global demand for their innovations.Israel's global relationships are improving, with normalization efforts such as the Abraham Accords expanding diplomatic and trade ties across the Middle East.Venture capital is thriving, too. Israel boasts over 270 active VC funds, and from 2014 to 2018, investment in Israeli startups grew by 140%—more than double the rate in the U.S. during the same period.The Timothy Plan's Israel Common Values FundTimothy Plan offers the Israel Common Values Mutual Fund for those interested in investing in Israel in a biblically responsible way. This fund stands out in several ways:Actively managed—Fund managers respond in real time to geopolitical developments.Focused exposure—At least 80% of companies in the portfolio are domiciled in Israel.Faith-based screening—Just like all Timothy Plan funds, this one avoids investments in companies involved in abortion, pornography, and other areas contrary to Christian values.The fund performed very well last year as the Israeli Stock Exchange closed the year up over 20%, with most of that growth coming in the second half.If you're interested in learning more about investing in Israel and doing so in a way that aligns with your faith, visit TimothyPlan.com.On Today's Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:I just sold my home with $200,000 in profit. Where's the best place to put this money to earn more interest while keeping it ready for my next home purchase in 6-9 months?As a veteran with limited funds, can I set up a Christian investment account to tithe $100 monthly and distribute it to ministry programs after my death?I'm considering buying a rental property for passive income, but I would like to know if it is wiser to meet with a financial advisor and invest in the stock market instead. I'm single, planning for the future, and want to avoid the time-consuming aspects of managing a rental property.Resources Mentioned:Faithful Steward: FaithFi's New Quarterly MagazineTimothy Plan | Israel Common Values Mutual FundBankrate.comWisdom Over Wealth: 12 Lessons from Ecclesiastes on Money (Pre-Order)Look At The Sparrows: A 21-Day Devotional on Financial Fear and AnxietyRich Toward God: A Study on the Parable of the Rich FoolFind a Certified Kingdom Advisor (CKA) or Certified Christian Financial Counselor (CertCFC)FaithFi App Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000. Faith & Finance is also available on the Moody Radio Network and American Family Radio. Visit our website at FaithFi.com where you can join the FaithFi Community and give as we expand our outreach.

Earlier today, President Trump announced a pause on reciprocal tariffs for 90 days. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy Michael Zezas looks at the fallout.----- Transcript ----- Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy. Today – possible outcomes of President Trump's sudden pause on reciprocal tariffs.It's Wednesday, April 9th, at 10pm in New York. We'd actually planned a different episode for release today where my colleague Global Chief Economist Seth Carpenter and I laid out developments in the market thus far and looked at different sets of potential outcomes. Needless to say, all of that changed after President Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs that were set to rise. And so, we needed to update our thinking.It's been a truly unprecedented week for financial markets. The volatility started on April 2, with President Trump's announcement that new, reciprocal tariffs would take effect on April 9. When added to already announced tariffs, and later adding even more tariffs in for China, it all added up to a promise by the US to raise its average tariffs to levels not seen in 100 years. Understandably, equity markets sold off in a volatile fashion, reflecting investor concerns that the US was committed to retrenching from global trade – inviting recession and an economic future with less potential growth. The bond market also showed signs of considerable strain. Instead of yields falling to reflect growth concerns, they started rising and market liquidity weakened. The exact rationale is still hard to pin down, but needless to say the combined equity and bond market behavior was not a healthy situation.Then, a reprieve. President Trump announced he would delay the implementation of most new tariffs by 90 days to allow negotiations to progress. And though he would keep China tariffs at levels over 100 per cent, the announcement was enough to boost equity markets, with S&P gaining around 9 per cent on the day.So, what does it all mean? We're still sorting it out for ourselves, but here's some initial takeaways and questions we think will be important to answer in the coming days.First, there's still plenty of lingering uncertainties to deal with, and so investors can't put US policy risk behind them. Will this 90 day reprieve hold? Or just delay inevitable tariff escalation? And even if the reprieve holds, do markets still need to price in slower economic growth and higher recession risk? After all, US tariff levels are still considerably higher than they were a week ago. And the experience of this market selloff and rapid shifts in economic policy may have impacted consumer and business confidence. In my travels this week I spent considerable time with corporate leaders who were struggling to figure out how to make strategic decisions amidst this uncertainty. So we'll need to watch measures of confidence carefully in the coming weeks. One signal amidst the noise is about China, specifically that the US' desire to improve supply chain security and reduce goods trade deficit would make for difficult negotiation with China and, ultimately, higher tariffs that would stay on for longer relative to other countries. That appears to be playing out here, albeit faster and more severely than we anticipated. So even if tariff relief is durable for the rest of the world, the trade relationship with China should be strained. And that will continue to weigh on markets, where costs to rewire supply chains around this situation could weigh on key sectors like tech hardware and consumer goods. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Understandably, we get upset with leaders who abuse political power. Instead of serving the public, they're serving themselves.

Clark loves to travel and does so very often. Understandably, many people are nervous about flying these days. Clark discusses airline safety, and how you can save big bucks with discount carriers. Also today - the latest on used car prices. A First Class Spirit Flight: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Used Car Prices: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: After a string of incidents, some flyers are sticking with a surprising carrier: Spirit Southwest Offers Companion Pass as New Credit Card Signup Bonus- Clark.com Your Passport Could Be Useless -- Even if It's Not Expired What is ETIAS - European Union / UK Travel ETA Should I Tip on a Cruise? Best Credit Cards With No Foreign Transaction Fees 5 Money Tips To Know Before You Travel Abroad Car Rental Insurance: Everything You Need To Know - Clark.com Credit Card Car Rental Insurance: What You Need To Know - Clark.com How To Buy a Used Car - Clark.com Do I Need a Mechanic Inspection When Buying a Used Car from CarMax or Carvana? Should You Allow Your Auto Insurance To Monitor Your Driving? Liability vs. Full Coverage: Which Auto Insurance Do You Need? Clark.com resources Episode transcripts Community.Clark.com / Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Sponsors Credit Karma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While policy noise continues to dominate the headlines, our Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy Michael Zezas points out a key theme: a transition toward a multipolar world.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income Research and Public Policy Strategy. Today we'll be discussing what investors need to focus on amidst all the U.S. policy headlines.It's Friday, March 7th, at 12:30 pm in New York.In recent weeks the news flow on tariffs, immigration, and geopolitics has been relentless, culminating in this week's state of the union address by President Trump and, if headlines hold, a partial reversal in course on Mexico and Canada tariffs that were just levied earlier this week. Understandably, measures of policy uncertainty, such as the Baker, Bloom, and Davis index, have reached all time highs. And this tracks with the confusion expressed by investing and corporate clients. In our view, this policy noise is going to continue. But, there is an important signal. These developments track with one of our four key themes of 2025. The transition toward a multipolar world. The tense White House meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, played out live in front of the news cameras, was another reminder that the U.S. is evolving its role in driving international affairs. And tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China are a reminder of the U.S.'s interest in rewiring global trade. The reasons behind this are myriad and complex, but in the near term it's about the U.S. looking more inward. Economic populism is, well, popular with voters in both parties. There's a few net takeaways for investors here. One is a positive for the European defense sector. The combination of tariffs and the evolving U.S. posture on global security has long been part of our thesis on why Europe would eventually chart a new path and step up to spend more on defense. The current situation in Russia and Ukraine underscores this, with potential for another $0.9-$2.7 trillion in defense spending through 2035. Germany's new ‘whatever it takes' approach to defense spending is a key signpost in this trend, per our colleagues in European economics, equities, and foreign exchange. Another critical takeaway is around the effects of U.S. trade realignment on both macro markets and equity sector preferences. Whether these trade policy changes play out well over time or not, the attempt costs something in the near term. Tariffs are part of that cost. And while the precise path of tariff increases is unclear, what is clear is that they're headed higher in the aggregate, a tactic in service of the administration's goal of reducing trade deficits and creating reciprocal trade barriers in order to incentivize greater production in the U.S. Over the next year, our economists expect that those tariff costs will crimp economic activity. That slower growth should eventually feed through into a more dovish monetary policy. Both factors, in the view of our U.S. rates strategy team, should continue pushing yields lower – good news for bond investors, but more challenging posture for equity investors, and a key reason our cross asset team is currently flagging a preference for fixed income. That tariff activity should also drive supply chain realignment. But, going forward, changing those supply chains may now be more costly. Per work from our Global economics team, the supply chains that need to be moved now are complex and concentrated in geopolitical rivals. That's a challenge for certain sectors, like U.S. IT hardware and consumer discretionary. But the investment to make it happen creates demand and is a benefit for the capital goods and broader industrials sector. Bottom line, the policy noise will continue, as will the market cross currents it's driving. We'll keep you informed on it all here. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.