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Teaching basic reading, writing, and arithmetic has been systematically replaced with an agenda-based curriculum run by government organizations, shifting America's educational system from one of learning facts and figures to changing values and beliefs, i.e. brainwashing. Join Jason Hartman and whistleblower Charlotte Iserbyt in this lively discussion about the dumbing down of America's school children and college students. Listen at: www.HolisticSurvival.com. Charlotte explains 100-plus years of chronological history of educational reform, through the use of controversial, non-academic material, institutionalizing schools, and plans for a global economy, and how these reforms have led to American students scoring below the international average and being among the lowest of several participating nations in mathematics and science.
Material collected over a 30 – 50-year period shows the irrefutable proof of deliberate and malicious intent to bring about behavioral changes in students, parents, and society for a collective mentality. Charlotte discusses the Pavlovian and Skinner animal training methods being employed today in America's schools that has led to a socialist democracy, and which is disguised in many ways, such as Outcome-Based Education. She also talks about how books are being phased completely out of schools, to be replaced with computers, which further emphasizes this global economic system and collectivism. Charlotte encourages parents to become more knowledgeable and informed of what their children are being taught in today's schools.
Charlotte Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America's classrooms. Iserbyt is a former school board director in Camden, Maine and was co-founder and research analyst of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM) from 1978 to 2000. She has also served in the American Red Cross on Guam and Japan during the Korean War, and in the United States Foreign Service in Belgium and in the Republic of South Africa. Iserbyt is a speaker and writer, best known for her 1985 booklet "Back to Basics Reform or OBE: Skinnerian International Curriculum" and her 1989 pamphlet "Soviets in the Classroom: America's Latest Education Fad", which covered the details of the U.S.-Soviet and Carnegie-Soviet Education Agreements which remain in effect to this day. She is a freelance writer and has had articles published in Human Events, The Washington Times, The Bangor Daily News, and included in the record of Congressional hearings.
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Start of Interview with Charlotte Iserbyt
Jason Hartman: It's my pleasure to welcome Charlotte Iserbyt to the show. She is the author of the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. And I know that most of you listeners probably think just on the face of it that that title is so true. It is amazing what the institutions are doing to the population. I don't know if we're going to get conspiratorial at all about it, but boy it is just amazing how the education system has failed us, we have spent more and more money on it and we are seeing inferior results and just an amazing thing, whether it be the media, the public school system, whatever. There's a lot to talk about here with the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. Charlotte, welcome.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Yes, thank you so much Jason. I'm really looking forward to this interview and it's timely. Of course it would have been timely a hundred years ago too perhaps; that's what we want to talk about.
Jason Hartman: It would and maybe every generation thinks that, but you're coming to us from beautiful Maine today. And tell us about the book and I guess what prompted you to write it.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Well, that goes back to the early 70s, when I returned from overseas. I'd been working overseas for about 20 years and my husband and I returned in 1971. And before I go into that, your listeners can go to my website, and there's a link there and it says America's Road to Ruin. It's a marvelous PDF. Actually what it is, is the transcript of about an hour and a half interview that Alex Jones did up here on the river. He sent his guys up here and they interviewed me. And you can also look at that video; it's on YouTube, that video. And people liked it so well that, researchers in the country, that they transcribed that video here on the river. And it's about 16 pages; it's beautifully done. And it gives my whole background.
When I first went overseas, I went over, my first experience was during the Korean War. I went overseas and I was stationed on Guam at a strategic air command base. And then moving all the way back to the United States, on a French freighter, meeting people coming out of Indochina who had been under the communists, and on and on and on. My foreign service experience, my department of experience being fired. That was the Reagan administration; I was fired from my job because I leaked an extremely important document on technology. And then prior to that, if you asked me what got me going, okay, when I hit the United States, we were working in the West Indies, the beautiful Island of Grenada. My husband was a charter captain and we had our own Alden Schooner. And we were down there about seven years and then we returned to the United States. And I do believe that I ended up in a town that was certainly one of the pilots for educational change in the country, and I started seeing these strange things in the early 70s.
Jason Hartman: What town was that?
Charlotte Iserbyt: In Camden, Maine.
Jason Hartman: Oh, that was Camden, okay right.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Right on the coast. And I just couldn't believe what I was looking at. Finally a retired teacher came to me and she said, I got out of the local board, right? I was making a lot of noise. And they hated my guts. But this retired teacher came and she said, absolutely right. I've taught all over the world. This is the plan. You're identifying it. You're looking at how they're implementing it. And I said, well I don't even know, I said I just think it's so strange what's going on. They're not teaching the children to read, they don't have desks anymore, they're sitting at tables or on the floor. And we have all different kinds of math, not one. The children have three different kinds to work out. And we've got all these values changing programs; they've got survival games where the children are being asked, you've got a boat going down, one life boat and it carries ten people, you've got 15 people on the regular boat that's going down and they have to decide who, who's going to die.
And so I was just totally naïve, dame in the woods, had been out of my country for 20 years. I didn't know what was happening to my country while I was gone, and then this teacher says look, I want to pay for you to go for some in service training. I didn't know what that was. I said what's it about? She said it's called innovations in education. And so she paid a hundred dollars, and I went. It was just unbelievable. They had this facilitator there, nice man, looked normal. A lot of normal looking teachers, and principles and all this on the coast of Maine, at Searsport, Maine. In a lovely old church or something. This guy was teaching us how to identify the resistors in our community, and I thought what? I'm being trained to identify myself. I didn't like what I saw. He was federally funded. This was a federally funded program which subsequently, when I went into the US department of that as a Reagan person in the office where that particular program was being funded. All those rotten programs were coming out of my office. I didn't know that, of course, at the time. I just was in absolutely shock.
And then he taught us how to go to the resistors to try to get them on their side. And say, oh we're really glad to have you join us. Why don't you join this comity, because you've been all around the world, you understand what's going on. We need you. So that's how they try to get you on board, that way. And then with the very important people in the community, rotary club, garden club, historical society, etcetera, they go to those leaders and they say look we need this sex ed program or this drug ed program or this bullying ed program, whatever. We need this. And you get those people on your side and then it's much easier to get the rest of the community to go with you on it, right? And subsequently I found out that all these programs were actually designed to do exactly the opposite of what they told the parents they were designed for. And I have proof in my book.
Jason Hartman: Charlotte, let's get a little specific. What programs? So you're saying during the Reagan administration, and this kind of surprises me that this would be the Reagan administration, but you worked for the Reagan administration and in the US department of education right? During the first Reagan administration?
Charlotte Iserbyt: Yes.
Jason Hartman: And so it kind of surprises me that these crazy programs were coming out of the Reagan administration of all things. I could see it under Clinton or Obama or something, but Reagan I would say less so. Although I don't give him a pass.
Charlotte Iserbyt: That's why I worked for him to get him elected. I'm not saying that he started those programs. Those programs were a result of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, sort of 1965 on.
Jason Hartman: Okay but what were the programs? What were they?
Charlotte Iserbyt: Well, [00:09:01] is one, and world of mankind was the one that I found in the elementary school in my school. Global education; the global education program. I had the teacher's manual and it said right there that the focus was on a humanistic curriculum and global education and teaching the children that American History isn't all that important, we're moving into…all that stuff. Global education. And that was in the early 70s. But the really bad programs that I'm talking about, like the drug ed and sex ed, which I think even most Americans now realize that the results of those programs were just the opposite of what they were claimed to be, to help the children. But I always felt that that was the case. I couldn't understand why they were using these dreadful programs where the children were asked to identify who should be thrown into the water, and who's allowed in the lifeboat. And this is all gearing up to euthanasia, abortion, and all the importance of life.
Later on I found, and it's in my book, in my new book, the smaller one and the big baby too. There's a very interesting issue, a publication called The Counselor, and it's the journal of the American Guidance Counselor's Association. And in 1975, they did a monthly issue on the subject of death education. I was lucky enough to get my hands on that. And sometimes I wondered why they really just admit what they're doing. It said right in there that we will use death education to change the children's attitudes towards death and dying, the same way, and this is key, the same way we used sex ed to change their attitudes and beliefs about sex and various sexual practices.
Jason Hartman: So, what's amazing about this is this sort of gradualism, and you talk about that in your book. I like the part where you do this little table, and by the way I'm referencing page 9 here, and you talk about…
Charlotte Iserbyt: In the new book or the old book?
Jason Hartman: The new book. You talk about the Reinventing Schools Coalition, which is RISC as the acronym. It compares the traditional versus the risk philosophy in the classroom. And in the traditional philosophy, the 20th century classroom, movement was based on time, moving ahead, whereas in risk movement was based on performance. In the 20th century students sat in rows, in this new program, it's controlled chaos, sitting on the floor, on tables, whatever. It's not traditional. Before it was driven by textbooks, and then it was driven by a shared vision. There was a teacher controlled classroom in the past, and now the students are the navigators. Just all of these comparing and contrast.
It used to be the there is readings and writing and arithmetic, I know that's kind of a play…and now it's the global curriculum. The teacher used to be the judge. Now it's the self, the peers and people outside of the teacher who are the judge of the student's performance. It's just crazy. Who were some of the main culprits? If you can identify maybe some people in government or in leadership positions. You're using a lot of names in your book. I see Jeb Bush, I see the CTO or Ebay, etcetera, all kinds of people.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Well yes, I would say it is gradual. You have to go back. If I only had 5 minutes to talk on the phone with you, I would say that it's the taxing of foundation starting in the last century, the beginning of last century, who have been instrumental in using our money to take the American system of education, which really was an excellent system of education, envy of the world, and turn it on its head into a system which will bring about a change in America's economic system.
A planned economy has been the goal ever since 1934 and earlier, actually. But there is this document in my book, I don't know where it is, the conclusions and recommendations for the social studies is extremely important. If you look at page, if you go to 1934, because this book doesn't have the index like the other one did. You go to 1934 and you will find the Curran V. corporations. Well this is the Carnegie corporation's little blue book. And it's probably the most important book that America is to read right now. Because we've having out free enterprise system ripped right out from under us due to the UN agenda 21. And it's being substituted by a regional system. And regionalism is communism. It's been admitted to be communism by a communist writer. I've got that in my book too. But anyway, talking about 1934.
The importance of this particular entry, conclusions and recommendations for the social studies, 1934, is that, not just Carnegie, but some of the other industrialists and John Dewey, and the ones that went to Russia in the 20s and 30s to study the Russian system. They came back and they decided to put the same system in here, because they want a planned economy. They want the planned economy.
And here's a quote from it, it says right here, this is my words, of utmost importance is the following admission of the goals to change our free enterprise/representative republic. Quote now, "The commission was also driven to this broader conception of its task by the obvious fact that American civilization in common with Western civilization was passing through one of the great critical ages of history. It's modifying with traditional faith and economic individualism, and it's embarking upon vast experiments in social planning and control which call for large scale cooperation on part of the people. Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that in the United States, as in other countries, the age of Laissez Faire in economy and government is closing, and a new age of collectivism is emerging."
Jason Hartman: Scary.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Right. Okay, then the implications for education are clear and imperative and it's very important what this book says. Well what's happened is that it's going in right now. Carnegie, I really owe a great debt and gratitude to Carnegie because they've made it very easy for me. I just followed them all the way from the early 30s to today. They're all in changing America from a free individualistic economy to a planned economy, to changing our schools from students being taught to be individualists, work the collective, working in groups and all. No more grades; we're copying the soviet education system, absolutely. That's what's going in. That's what you're at when you're looking at those two columns there. It may not sound like it's a soviet system but it is. Because the soviets have never had competition in the classroom and they've used Skinner, which is the computer, etcetera. So we'll go into all this later. But anyway, Carnegie from that time on had started putting the money into all its experiments. The eight year study, which actually very interestingly enough, was the first experiment with outcome based education which is what everybody hates so much. Which uses the Skinner method. But of course the Skinner method is essential for computers. Computer software is the Skinner method. He said that's my box.
Jason Hartman: What does that mean? Tell us the Skinner method and computer software.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Operant conditioning, okay. It's very easy, I just try to bring it down, because folks when I first found out about all of this, I didn't know what it was either. It's very simple. Take your dog, for instance, if you want your dog to sit, you're going to say sit. If he's never been given a dog biscuit, he's not really going to sit. So what you do is you get a dog biscuit out, you push his rear end down and you say sit. And you give him the dog biscuit. The next time you want him to sit, all you have to do is go to the cupboard and pull out the dog biscuits. Now let's look at this in terms of human beings. This is a neurological response. There's no thinking going on there. Now if you're talking about human beings, go to the doctor, I don't know if he does it anymore. You remember they would test your reactions with a little hammer with the rubber?
Jason Hartman: Sure. Your reflexes, yeah.
Charlotte Iserbyt: And your knee just popped up. There's no way under the sun you can keep your knee from doing that. That is automaticity. That is a reaction that you can't control. Now this is what you have with a computer. This is what you have with a lot of the curriculum going in right now. Individualized education. Even the reading instructions are using stimulus response, rewards and it's very dangerous. I must say, this is probably this is what got me moving more than anything else in researching American education. Because what it is, they don't believe that our children are human beings. We're all animals. See? That's the Darwinian philosophy. And the socialist professors and all, like Benjamin Bloom, he's the one that put together the Taxonomy of Educational Objective. All teachers have to go through his stuff.
Bloom said that the purpose of education is to change the thoughts, actions, and feelings of students. And he defines good teaching as challenging the student's fixed beliefs. These are some really good quotes. This is Benjamin Bloom; he's dead now. That the whole system is based on his sick philosophy. And then of course you have Skinner who said I could make a pigeon a high achiever by reinforcing it on a proper schedule. That's mastery learning. That's the direct instruction that we're using to teach reading. Because they have to get it in reading and then they'll use the direct instruction for work force training. This works extremely well and it works for the computer. So what you're looking at is ultimately no books in the schools. In fact, I thought Arizona had gotten rid of books, because 5 years ago I read an article about Arizona not having any books and I'm glad if they still have them because it shows that people are fighting it. But it's going to be computer and they've been planning the computers really, ever since the 1950s. and I even have an article in regard to computer specialists, software programmers and all back in the 60s I think, sitting down with books. Now, we're moving into the digitalization of the American education. Our governor, for people out there that think this woman is crazy, I don't blame them. Sometimes I wonder myself. But for people who may wonder, our governor, who is meant to be a conservative governor, issued an executive order digitalizing all the schools.
Jason Hartman: Okay but now is that bad in and of itself? When you talk about computers and the way computers work, that's one thing. But when you look at EBook readers like the Kindle, for example, isn't that a different thing?
Charlotte Iserbyt: No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the use of computer assisted instruction, individualized education, software that is developed to bring your child to a particular view point. Whether it is a skill, or whether it's a particular viewpoint. It's very, very dangerous and it's very powerful. And I'm not saying that myself; I've got so many learned papers by the very people putting it in. In fact, by the fellow who was the director of the project Better Education Skills Through Technology in the early 80s that I leaked. I leaked that to Human Events, that project. Which was put in software, computer software, in every curriculum area into every single school in the country. And I leaked it. And a director of that particular project, Donald Ely, had twenty years before, I went down to the archives, and I found an old paper of his where he said look, if you're going to be dealing with the development of software for the computer, you have to be very careful. If you do not agree in your conscious with a message, you don't do it. And I have that paper. It's in my book; you can look under Donald Ely. Then later on, just recently with the world institute for computer assistant teaching, Dustin Houston, he said something that's even scarier. And he thinks this is great. He said wouldn't it be wonderful when the children in the most remote county can have the curriculum, the equivalent of the work of 5 or 10 of the world's greatest psychologist on the computer and nobody will be able to get between the child and the computer.
Jason Hartman: Right. In other words a teacher with actual judgment won't be in there teaching your kid. It's a computer that can be a centrally planned agenda because that software, just like the school lunch program, can be mandated by one administration, nationwide through the federal government.
Charlotte Iserbyt: It's the UN.
Jason Hartman: Yeah, and the United Nations. Even worse.
Charlotte Iserbyt: People got to forget, often wonderful Americans doing good work in education and they're all worrying about the common core and the standards and the this and the that. And I think don't waste your time on it. Even if it's a good common core, even if it's basics. Look, all they need is one morning the teacher can go to school and the whole thing would have been changed overnight with the push of a button. What you have to worry about are your children's souls that are being really taken away. Bloom said it. Bloom said I can take a child from here to there. From a belief from, whatever, his family to a belief that the government's more important; from a belief to the right to life to the belief in abortion in one hour. Under the right circumstances, that's what he said. Bloom is all involved with computer's curriculum. This is mastery learning, it's B.F. Skinner, it's Pavlov. And originally it came over from Leipzig, Germany.
Jason Hartman: Let me take a brief pause. We'll be back in just a minute.
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Jason Hartman: So I want to make sure that people really understand that point because that's a good point that you made Charlotte. The point of the computer is that the computer is very easily centralizing the thought processes of our children. Because whenever there's an agenda they want to push, they can just push it through the computer and there's no intermediary that is interpreting. It's so efficient to change the beliefs of an entire population because it can be centrally planned. And that's what's dangerous about it. And I want to touch on something just to give this whole thing kind of a pretext, if you will, or maybe a context is a better word. And that is what you talk about in your book. At the very beginning you talk about the devil's seven pronged fork, and this consists of, and I'll outline them Charlotte and I'd like you to maybe just touch on the ones you want to.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Right. I'm glad you're bringing that up. I love that. It's one of my favorite things.
Jason Hartman: And you already have mentioned it. This is right in the beginning; you talk on page 9 about the way this is done. Number one way is through gradualism, number two is Hegelian dialect, number three is semantic deception, number four 100% conservative and liberal media control, and number five the endless supply of money through the federal reserve that can print money until there's no end. Grant funding, non-profit foundations, which are basically sanctioned by our government to go and promote an agenda because they get special tax status. Number six, brainwashing in schools and communities using psychological techniques, Pavlov, Lou and Skinner, Bloom, etcetera as you talked about. And number seven, keeping the public unaware that both political parties, republican and democrat, basically espouse the same values. And that's a very good point because people, occasionally I'll get somebody criticizing one of my shows saying you're too libertarian or you're too right-wing or something. And the point is that that whole thing is a sham in and of itself. They're cut from the same cloth. Yeah they have slight differences. It's made to distract us. It's just more bread and circuses, really. It's like watching a wrestling match. It's a fake fight, largely.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Divide and conquer.
Jason Hartman: Yes, exactly. Exactly. You want to touch on some of those the devil's seven pronged fork there?
Charlotte Iserbyt: People can also type that into their computer, Google it: The Devil's Seven Pronged Fork. You'll have it right there in front of you on the computer. I love it. Let me first of all tell you how it happened. I was doing a lot of radio. I've been doing it for over 20 years now or so, maybe. No, almost 30. 20. Let's say 20. And I became really tired of myself one day. I think I hung up and I thought, I am so tired of beating up on these poor people. Saying come on folks, get with it. Don't you understand what's happening? Please tell your friends, tell your teachers. Get fliers out. We're moving in an international socialist system, they're using the schools to brainwash our children so they won't object to it. They don't teach the constitution, all this stuff. And please, please do something. Call me if you want. Blah, blah.
I got off and I went, oh, I'm so tired of doing that. I feel sorry for these people. I said you know what, it was like a message from God, just all the sudden it was like boom in my head. It's not their fault. And then I broke it down. And then to these things you just mentioned, we've been through it; we'll go through it again. These different subjects of gradualism, Hegelian dialect, create the problem, people scream and pose the solution, money and all this stuff. You were just talking about it. Look, who, what normal human being could possibly go up, no matter how brilliant, you could have the mind of ten Einsteins. You could not possibly go up against that agenda. That, I thought, I'm going to write this article. I understand what's happened to the American people. I understand, this is the most evil, diabolical agenda that was ever created. And I still truly believe this. But you can't tell me that the American people, had this not been done to them all at once in all the different aspects, the different prongs, they would have caught on. They could have caught on. But generation after generation, the frog in the cold water heated up slowly, that's probably the most important part, the gradualism.
Jason Hartman: Yup. How do you boil a frog? You turn up the water, slowly give him a nice warm Jacuzzi, and he'll just sit there.
Charlotte Iserbyt: And then the education goes down, down, down. My grandparents, my parent's education was far superior to mine. There's a really good test on…I'm just averting a bit, but it's important to do so. Someone gave me this, I was speaking in California about 10 years ago, this test. It's about 8 pages on the US constitution and it was given in a public school in central California in the mid-50s. Well, Kenny got 99 on it, you know A+. Really good. I looked at that test and I thought good grief, I couldn't possibly pass that test. This is the mid-50s. Really go there. My son who has the website Americandeception, he says that one particular entry in his website that he posted there has had more hits from all over the world. Because this shows that something really happened between. After World War 2, the UN came in, the UN is behind all of this, whether it's agenda 21 or whether it's [00:31:11] based education or school to work, or strip kids of all their values instilled in the home. That's all the UN. Evil as can be. This happened after '45. So Kenny Hignite, he was just lucky. He was 1955. What's that, 11 years later? It hadn't seeped through.
Marvelous teachers across the country, across the United States of American, have hated every single bit of this new agenda. Many have gotten out. I remember when they put the behavior science teacher education program in to turn teachers into little psychiatrists. That came out as 1965, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. When that thing came out and they were retraining all the teachers in all the different universities to be little psychiatrists, I saw the original doc volumes in the basement of a friend of mine, who lived in Lansing, Michigan. She was a very good researcher. She got the whole pile, somehow she got the volumes. And in the beginning it said that something like 60% of the superintendents in schools, men back then, got out. They said we're not going to do this. This isn't education. This is performance based. This is Skinner. This is back in 1965. This is what happened. They changed education from what you know in your head to what you can do. Now doesn't that make sense when you go back to the Carnegie paper? Wanting to put us into a planned economy? It's not what you know in your head. It's what you can do. Can you perform?
Jason Hartman: it's really interesting what the change has been. Well Charlotte, we've got to get wrapping up here, but one thing I wanted to touch on before we go. And that is that some of the results of this highly agenda oriented system we have now, rather than teach people reading, writing and arithmetic as the old saying goes, it's an agenda. It's an agenda to change the culture and it's an agenda toward thought control, 1984, central planning, socialism, communism, varying degrees of all that. Tell us about agenda 21 if you would. What is that and how are things like this being foisted upon people who are just not thinking stuff through, they're just quick to believe these sort of crazy half-baked theories and ideas and they're just promoted in our school system. It's just crazy what people believe in nowadays.
Charlotte Iserbyt: There's a really good article in the back of a big fat book. We don't have it in the new version. It's called big bad cows, I think. The cows are doing their thing when they do their thing it makes a large smell and bad stuff, right? But the agenda 21 right now, as I said to you earlier, I've been on education for almost 40 years now. That's my subject. Because they use the schools to destroy our children's values. Traditional American values. I'm not getting into a religion, different religions, or anything. What I'm talking about is you don't lie, you don't steal. This is all values clarification over the past 30 years have told our children sometimes it's okay to steal, right? And this sounds normal, doesn't it? Say your grandmother's dying and you don't have money to buy medicine. Well they'd teach you in that situation that it's okay to steal. And it goes on and on and on.
Of course I was telling you about the survival games, the boat is going down, there's only enough room in the life boat for ten people. But you have to get rid of the other ten; who goes? They tell the children to decide. Who? You've got a minister on board, you've got a pregnant woman, and you've got a teacher, whatever. And you've got to decide who's going to be allowed in the life boat. It's a complete shift in thinking from our traditional way of looking at life, an understanding of the constitution which they never teach anymore, and my feeling is if somebody doesn't know their own system of government or doesn't understand the constitution, how on earth are they ever going to recognize when someone steals something from them they didn't know they had, right? That makes sense. If I didn't know that I owned something, a really nice whatever, and someone comes in at night and steals it from me, am I going to scream and yell?
Jason Hartman: Well I think the example of that is that people don't know anymore that they own the right to their own life; that they own the right to their own time and production that is the result of their life. Now they're being told that the collective owns the right to their time, that the collective owns the right to their labor through inner taxation and regulation and their land. You don't own your own land anymore because there are so many restrictions on how anyone can use it nowadays.
Charlotte Iserbyt: It's very serious and ordinarily, as I said I deal with my own book and I hope everybody will get my new abridged version which is absolutely a delight to read. And what's been taken out of it can be accessed free at my website. So you don't have to worry about what's been taken out, it's just a user friendly little book. But what I'm going to do right here, I'm going to promote somebody else's book. Because people have got to wake up to what's happening, having our land taken from us. You know the old saying you'll know it's true when it happens to you?
Well I happen to believe that Americans will not do anything until somebody comes and says look, in a very nice way because they're all professionals; they've been highly trained, these change agents in our state capitals and in the university. They know how to carry on with the Delphi technique. They have these meetings, they're all controlled meetings, nobody's really voting the way we're used to voting. It's all being taken out. This is what you know as original government, and it's comprehensive planning and it's the UN agenda 21, and I read you before that horrible quote from the big guy, Maurice Strong, want me to read it again?
This is the mindset, Maurice Strong: secretary general of the UN environment program, agenda 21. Don't forget, it's all being done under the environment. And I know why they did that. I had a paper that dealt with it for about 30 years and I lost it. It was a communist party meeting where they were talking about how they're going to get Americans to give up our form of government. How are they going to get us to go into a world system? And they decided they would have to find an issue that both conservatives and liberals would both agree on. And they decided the environment. And that's so true. Because none of us, I don't know anybody that doesn't want to keep green spaces. But the private sector should be in charge. The government should never be in charge of private property.
So here we go, here's what Maurice Strong, secretary general of the environmental program said, "Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class involving high [00:38:28] intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances…" That's like the smart meters. I won't allow that in my house. "home and work place air conditioning, and suburban housing, are not sustainable. " that's all got to go, folks. Right? And he goes on to say, "The United States is the greatest threat to the global environment. It is guilty of environmental aggression against the planet. Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse?"
Jason Hartman: Unbelievable. That is scary. Green trees have red roots. And that's exactly what that is. And you know what's interesting? None of the elitists who promote at espouse these ideas are living it themselves, certainly not the most famous one of them all, Al Gore, with his $1,200 a month electric bills. This is complete hypocrisy. Arianna Huffington, Al Gore, they're telling all of us to live lesser lives while they're even bigger lives that have huge carbon foot prints. It is unbelievable in its hypocrisy. It really is.
Charlotte Iserbyt: And what about communist China? How come he picks on the United States? Think of all the other countries that are affecting the environments far more than we are. But anyway, there's this really good book. And it's written by a democrat. Her name is Rosa Koire. And you can get the book, it's called Behind the Green Mask; UN agenda 21. And you can buy that book at her website, which is, I love this, don't you love it? Wait until you hear this one. I love it: DemocratsAgainstUNAgenda21.com. This is to me, I've been happier I think ever since I read Rosa's book than I've been in about 30 years because what I see is democrats and republicans are coming together. They're not going to divide us any longer. Divide and conquer.
They, up there in their ivory towers, like Maurice Strong and Al Gore and all of them, the top educational change agents, these evil people, they are not going to be allowed to divide us any longer. We're all Americans. I don't care whether white, black, pink, green, gay, what. I don't care. We all have a right to our constitutional protections. And we're having them taken away. And that's why really we've got to get Rosa's book and go to YouTube and look for what's going on under the Bay Area in California. The demonstrations there; the people are really mad. You've got people. You've got blacks, you've got whites, you've got gays, you've got a lot of people, you've got older people; they're having their land taken away by these regional planners. Of course, the people, they got us all so busy. We're not paying attention when Sacramento passed these horrible laws to control them birth to death. That's what Arnie did, huh? So now they're dealing with the problem and they're very unhappy and there are 4 or 5 YouTubes there that you can look at. Some very eloquent people speaking. I've didn't used to think Californians were all that much intellectual; I thought they were all for wind surfing and surfing and skiing, and this and that, and having a good time.
Jason Hartman: No, some of them are. Some of the Californians have their head together. It's not the major way it is out there. There are some very smart Californians still, that have not fled the oppression of the socialist California yet. But they're on their way out. They're leaving.
Charlotte Iserbyt: You left, didn't you?
Jason Hartman: Yeah, I left. I couldn't stand it any longer. Well Charlotte, thank you so much for joining us today. And give out your website once more if you would.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Okay, it's DeliberatedDumbingDown.com and I hope people will also go to Amazon. My book is at Amazon.
Jason Hartman: And it's got some great reviews on Amazon. And it's really quite a comprehensive book. The newest edition, the paper back addition is 461 pages. So keep up the great work getting the message out there Charlotte. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Charlotte Iserbyt: Well thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Narrator: Thank you for joining us today for the Holistic Survival Show. Protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Be sure to listen to our Creating Wealth Show, which focuses on exploiting the financial and wealth creation opportunities in today's economy. Learn more at www.JasonHartman.com or search "Jason Hartman" on iTunes. This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company, offering very general guidelines and information. Opinions of guests are their own, and none of the content should be considered individual advice. If you require personalized advice, please consult an appropriate professional. Information deemed reliable, but not guaranteed.
Transcribed by Ralph
* Read more from Holistic Survival
Can Permaculture Save the World?
Too Much Justice for Big Business
The Holistic Survival Team
Tags: brainwashing, charlotte iserbyt, dumbing down, jason hartman, The Holistic Survival Show


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A view inside ESA's cavernous Hertz chamber for radio-frequency testing of satellites, which will be on show to the public during this Sunday's ESA Open Day in the Netherlands.
Isolated from the outside world with radio- and sound-absorbing internal walls, the chamber simulates the boundless conditions of space.
Its hybrid nature makes it unique: Hertz can assess radio signals from antennas either on a local 'near-field' basis or as if the signal has crossed thousands of kilometres of space, allowing it to serve all kinds of satellites and antenna systems.
This photo was taken during a visit to ESA's technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands by artist and photographer Monica Alcazar-Duarte: "Once the door of the chamber was opened I was presented with a landscape that could have come from a science fiction film. I know this is not the case of course but the room was incredibly inspiring."
ESA's Open Day in the Netherlands takes place on Sunday 8 October.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Noah's Ark Puppets group meet at 6.00 until 7.30 pm on Thursday evenings to write and rehearse our plays.
Every month (except August) the group perform with puppets at the 11.15am Networks service. This links with the weekly sermon and the children's themes. They are usually Bible stories but occasionally we let our puppets act to music, poetry or modern religious songs.
The group also performs in local schools and raise funds for the Church.
The puppeteers are dedicated and do an amazing job, always giving their time and skills with real Christian love.
If you are interested in joining the group please contact Marion or Jenny via the Parish Office.


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The following guidelines will help you get the most from your training at The Peaceful Dragon. Please try to read and study these orientation guidelines carefully before your first class.
- As a newcomer to class simply relax, observe others and follow along as best you can. No two classes are identical, though in the tai chi and kung fu classes we do the same warm-up routine each class. This warm-up is designed to be rigorous and it may be challenging for you – simply do what you can and be patient with yourself. You'll be amazed at your improvement as time progresses. We'll help you modify any movements that you can't do due to injuries or health factors.
- Over time you will get detailed explanations of movements, techniques and theories but not necessarily on your first class. If others seem to know what they're doing and you don't, remember that they didn't either at first. They've progressed and so will you, so relax and enjoy!
- You may experience sore muscles, temporary fatigue or other physical discomfort as you begin training – this is normal and will soon pass. Also expect at times to feel confused by movements or exercises if they are new to you. As the weeks and months go by you will repeat everything many times and any confusion will subside.
- Don't expect to be able do all things as well as the next person might. Try to avoid the temptation to compare yourself with others, but rather compare yourself today with how you were yesterday. You may never do some things as well as the next person, but how you compare with others has nothing to do with your own physical, mental and spiritual development.
- Study and follow the Class Guidelines below, which are also posted on the studio walls. And be sure to read and study your guide to Wu-de (martial code and ethics).
- Practice whenever possible and read and study all you can about the arts you are studying. See the Suggested Reading List posted on our web site as a starting point. The more you train and study, the greater will be your progress. Don't let outside activities interfere with your training and classes – and don't neglect to bring the insights from your training into your outside activities.
Class Guidelines for All Peaceful Dragon Students
In order to maintain a productive, safe and pleasant training facility please follow these guidelines at all times:
- For tai chi or kung fu classes, your full uniform must be worn to classes or when training in in studios. Full uniform includes Peaceful Dragon tee-shirt, pants and sash with sneakers or kung fu shoes (no bare feet or street shoes!). For yoga classes, appropriate clothing must be worn in accord with our uniform dress code.
- Remove watches and jewelry before class, including rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets and similar items that can cause injuries to you or others.
- Scan your ID card or sign in at the computer before or after every class. New students should receive their cards in the mail within 10 days of joining. If you don't receive yours, please notify our staff.
- Bow when entering and leaving the training studio as a traditional sign of courtesy. Formal bows to the teacher and masters' pictures take place at the beginning of each tai chi or kung fu class. If you are late, please bow only to your teacher as you enter and bow to the masters' pictures after class.
- Always notify your instructor ahead of time if you must leave early. If you must leave the studio during class at any time for any reason (bathroom, drink, etc.) it is essential that you alert the instructor or another student first so that he or she knows what's happened to you and that you're okay.
- In martial arts and tai chi classes, newer students should line up behind more experienced students to better learn from their example and as a traditional gesture of respect.
- Leave personal items including gym bags or clothing in the locker room, but bring any purses, wallets or valuables with you to class.
- Volunteer in some capacity to help maintain your school. Remember, this is a student-run facility!
Important Communications Notice
In addition to sending our monthly newsletter via e-mail, we often send special announcements or important news via e-mail. It is important that you receive these e-mails and read them. If you do not receive them please notify our staff so we can be sure you got added to our e-mail list correctly, and also add email@example.com to your address book to ensure that our messages aren't being blocked as spam.
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2016 State of Email Production
A comprehensive look at how marketers plan, build, approve & send emails
Every brand's email production process is unique—with different planning, development, and approval processes. Every brand also has points of strength and points of weakness in their workflow.
In the inaugural State of Email Production report, which is based on the responses of more than 900 marketers, we take a detailed look at how brands:
Build their teams
Plan their email content
Allocate time among various production tasks
Use technology in their workflow
Handle quality assurance and approvals
Send their emails
Deal with email mistakes
Use these results to help benchmark your own process, identifying opportunities for improvement and using this evidence to make a compelling argument for more resources or process streamlining.


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Chobani conducts digital campaign
Yogurt company Chobani has begun a digital advertising campaign in Toronto as a follow-up to the out-of-home campaign used to launch the brand in Canada last month. The campaign is intended to attract visitors to Chobani.ca and the brand's Facebook and Twitter pages. Ad banners promote various flavours with copy such as, "Once you go Cherry, you'll never go berry! Win a year's supply of Chobani!" and "Peachy keen? Win a year's supply of Chobani!" The banners appear to push each other out of frame in a competition for the viewer's attention. Consumers who click the ads are taken to the Chobani.ca website to enter the contest. One hundred winners in the Toronto area will receive a one-year supply of the product. The promotion will run until April 12.


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Sold Out
With the Anfoin Earrings you get a waterfall of shapes with lots of sparkle from the hammered texture of the brass. And if that weren't enough, there's a pop of color in two hues of blue, the color of you trusting yourself!
"The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud." Coco Chanel
Measurements (approximate): 2.5" L x 1.5" W
Materials: brass with gold finish, gold filled ear wires, lapis, dyed howlite, white howlite
(Please note, some production times may be longer than expected due to delays which are currently out of our control. Thank you for your patience.)
Production Time: ships in 1-2 business days*
Returns: review return policy here
* ATTENTION: Your order ship date will be based on the longest production time for the products in your cart.


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Knowledge for Change: webinar series to educate on relevant topics within viral hepatitis
Following the success of Tools for Change, a webinar series aimed at up skilling viewers on different aspects of advocacy and the tools needed to effectively lobby for change, we are introducing Knowledge for Change.
Knowledge for Change is a webinar series aimed at educating patient and patient representatives about relevant topics in the area of viral hepatitis. These webinars featured experts in the field and provided a unique opportunity to ask questions on the topic.
The first two webinars in this series are on access to diagnostics and medicines.
Webinar 1: An Introduction to Access to Diagnostics
This webinar explored access to diagnostics in the viral hepatitis landscape. Diagnostic tests are the foundation of disease control and elimination and this webinar gave an introduction to the topic while touching on some of the challenges faced today.
Chair: Dr Greg Martin, Specialist Registrar, Public Health Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of Globalization and Health
- Raquel Peck, CEO, World Hepatitis Alliance
- Anita Sands, Prequalification Team, Diagnostics, World Health Organisation
- Jilian Sacks, HCV Scientist, Lab Services Team, Clinton Health Access Initiative
- Elena Ivanova, Scientific Officer, HCV & TB, FIND
View the webinar recording here.
Download the webinar slides here.
Please find below links to resources which provide further information on the information presented during the webinar.
FIND - http://www.finddx.org/
CHAI - http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org/
Video by Dr Greg Martin on sensitivity and specificity of tests - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnJ3L-63Cf8
WHO list of prequalified in vitro diagnostic products - http://www.who.int/diagnostics_laboratory/evaluations/PQ_list/en/
General information on WHO prequalification of in vitro diagnostics - http://www.who.int/diagnostics_laboratory/evaluations/en/
Webinar 2: An Introduction to Access to Medicines
This webinar explored access to medicines specifically in the viral hepatitis landscape. With effective treatments available for hepatitis B and the increasing number of curative medicines for hepatitis C, access to medicines is becoming an incredibly important issue, but one which can be complex to understand.
Chair: Dr Greg Martin, Specialist Registrar, Public Health Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of Globalization and Health
- Raquel Peck, CEO, World Hepatitis Alliance
- Karin Timmermans, Technical Manager, Intellectual Property, UNITAID
- Dr Stefan Wiktor, Team Lead, Global Hepatitis Programme, World Health Organization
- Esteban Burrone, Head of Policy, Medicines Patent Pool
View the webinar recording here.
Download the webinar slides here.
For more information on access to medicines please see the webinars that This Week in Global Health, chaired by Dr Greg Martin, did on the topic:
- Part I: Introduction - access to medicines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSCqgPzUgD8
- Part II: The R&D gap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4AJPBQ5afU
- Part III: Intellectual property https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEC4GCYJUPA
- Part IV: Working in "Access to Medicines" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxUIfalUXsU
Medicines Patent Pool - http://www.medicinespatentpool.org/
UNITAID - http://www.unitaid.eu/en/
Webinar 3: An Introduction to Accessing Generic Hepatitis C Medicines
Following the success of the first two webinars in this series the webinar on generic hepatitis C medicines continued to explore the issue of access.
With presentations on, and discussions around, the legalities, quality and performance of generic hepatitis C medicines and the ways in which people are accessing them this webinar provided an introduction to the topic. It also gave viewers the opportunity to ask questions to experts working in this field.
- Raquel Peck, CEO, World Hepatitis Alliance
- Erika Duenas, Advocacy Officer, Medicines Patent Pool
- Andrew Hill, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Pharmacology, University of Liverpool
- Giten Khwairakpam, Project Manager for Community and Policy, TREAT Asia
View the webinar recording here.
Download the webinar slides here.


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Aloo gobi – Here is the recipe to make the best aloo gobi that's simply delicious, flavor packed & healthy. Aloo translates to potato and Gobi to cauliflower. This spiced potato & cauliflower stir fry is one of the popular Indian dishes & is prepared in most Indian homes. It goes well with plain rice, roti, paratha, naan or any flavored rice like Jeera rice or ghee rice.
I make aloo gobi in a few different ways. It can be made to a semi dry curry or to a gravy. I often make the semi dry version for the lunch boxes to school & office as it is easy to prepare.
Another version is the restaurant style curry that I do prepare on the weekends or occasions. You can find both the recipes on this post.
Aloo gobi that's served in restaurants is made by first deep frying potatoes & cauliflower to golden & crisp. Then just tossed in the prepared masala. For home cooking, to make it healthy I prepare it as shown here.
Though making this is simple & easy, the cooking process is a bit different. A perfectly made home style aloo gobi has soft cooked potatoes & slightly crunchy cauliflower that are not soggy.
Potato & cauliflower have 2 different cook times. So cooking a dish with these 2 veggies can be a bit tricky.
Step-by-step photos
Aloo gobi – Recipe 1
For the preparation steps please follow the recipe card.
1.Pour 2 tablespoons oil to a heavy bottom pan and heat it. Add cumin seeds. When they begin to crackle, add 1 tablespoon ginger garlic. Saute just for 30 seconds.
2.Then add 1 finely chopped onion & 1 chopped green chili. Fry them until onions turn transparent.
3. Drain the potatoes from water and add them. Fry for 2 to 3 mins.
4. Next cover and cook until they are half done. If the potatoes dry out, then sprinkle little water and cook.
5. When the potatoes are half cooked, add cauliflower and stir fry for 3 mins. Then add
- ¾ to 1 teaspoon red chili powder
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- ¾ teaspoon coriander powder
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric
6. Mix all of them well. Cook covered until both potatoes and cauliflower are almost tender. Then sprinkle salt and mix. Cover and cook again until potatoes are soft & fully cooked. The cauliflower should remain slightly crunchy.
7. Add 1 chopped tomato (or 1 tbsp tomato paste) (optional). Crush 1 teaspoong kasuri methi in your palms and sprinkle it here. Stir fry on a medium high heat until the tomato blends well with the aloo gobi masala. The raw flavor of the tomatoes should vanish. This just takes 2 to 3 mins. At this stage check the salt and spice. Add more if needed.
8. Garnish aloo gobi with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or roti. You can sprinkle lemon juice if you have skipped tomato.
You can find the recipe 2 – for aloo gobi masala towards the end of this post.
Tips to make best aloo gobi
- Always saute & cook potatoes until half done before adding the cauliflower. Potatoes take longer to cook than cauliflower so avoid adding them together to the pan.
- Do not add salt till the potatoes are almost done. Adding salt will prevent them from cooking well since there is no water used.
- The latter part of cooking has to be done on a low flame which helps the veggies to release some moisture and cook well without burning.
- If using tomatoes do not add them until the potatoes are soft cooked. The acid in the tomatoes will prevent the aloo from cooking well.
More Potato recipes
Aloo matar
Punjabi Dum aloo
Jeera aloo
Quick aloo methi
- This can be made without onion, tomatoes, garlic & even green chili. I do make this baby version for my young boys as they are fussy to eat it with all of those ingredients.
- My recipe shared here has all of the above ingredients and makes the best aloo gobi. However leaving out onion or tomatoes is just okay and the dish still turns out good. Leaving out both makes the dish very dry.
- For a quicker version, just toss potatoes and cauliflower in spice powders along with little oil. Then grill them one after the other in a oven or air fryer. Make the onion tomato masala and then add the grilled potatoes and cauliflower to the masala.
More Cauliflower recipes
Gobi 65
Simple cauliflower curry
Cauliflower pakoda
Aloo gobi
Ingredients (1 cup = 240ml )
- 1 cup potato (or 2 medium)
- 2 cups cauliflower or gobi (180 grams)
- 1 medium onion chopped finely (optional)
- 1 medium tomato or 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tablespoons ginger garlic minced or paste
- 1 green chili slit or chopped (optional)
- 2 tablespoons Coriander leaves chopped finely
- Salt as needed
- 2 tablespoons oil
- ½ teaspoon cumin seeds or jeera
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- ¾ teaspoon coriander powder
- ¾ to 1 teaspoon red chili powder
- 1 teaspoon kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves) (skip if you don't have)
How to make the recipe
- Chop cauliflower florets to 1½ inch in size. Add them to slightly hot water and set aside 3 to 4 mins.
- Drain the water and rinse them well. Drain them completely.
- Cube potatoes to ¾ by ¾ inch. You can also slice them to ¾ inch. Keep them immersed in a bowl of water until used.
- Mince ginger and garlic.
How to make aloo gobi
- Heat oil in a pan and add cumin. When they sizzle, add ginger garlic & saute for 30 seconds.
- Then add the onions & stir fry until transparent.
- Add the potatoes and green chilli. Stir fry for 2 to 3 mins. Cover and cook on a low to medium heat until they are half done.
- Keep stirring in between and cook covered. They are slightly tender at this stage but still under cooked.
- Then add the cauliflower & stir fry for about 3 mins.
- Add all the spice powders and mix well. Cook covered until both of them are almost fork tender.
- Add salt and continue to cook covered on a low flame until the potatoes are soft & fully cooked.
- The veggies will release moisture at this stage and cook quickly. So keep an eye not to over cook gobi at this stage. It must remain slightly crunchy yet cooked.
- Next add the tomatoes and kasuri methi. Fry on a medium to high flame until the raw smell of tomatoes goes away.
- If needed add little oil at this stage. It takes about 2 to 4 mins for the raw smell of tomatoes to go away.
- Finally garnish aloo gobi with coriander leaves. Serve with rice, roti or any bread.
NUTRITION (estimation only)
Alternative quantities provided in the recipe card are for 1x only, original recipe.
For best results follow my detailed step-by-step photo instructions and tips.
Recipe 2 – Aloo gobi masala – Restaurant style
In restaurants, aloo gobi is made by frying the potatoes and cauliflower first and then added to the gravy or masala. For a home version to keep it simple and healthy, i have steamed the aloo and gobi. But the taste of the deep fried dish is very good and lends a unique texture to both the veggies.
¾ cup potato (¾ by ¾ inch cubed )
1 ½ cup cauliflower (150 grams)
2 tbsps oil
½ tsp cumin or jeera
1 cup onion cubed
1 green chili slit
1/8 tsp turmeric
¾ cup tomatoes cubed
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
8 cashews or 2 to 3 tbsps cream
1 ¼ tsp garam masala
1 tsp coriander powder
¾ to 1 tsp red chili powder
Salt as needed
1 tsp kasuri methi or dried fenugreek leaves
1. Make a paste of onions and set aside. Puree tomatoes with cashews until smooth. Set aside.
2.You can steam the potatoes and cauliflower or shallow fry them in oil until crisp & golden. If steaming i steam the potatoes until half done, then add cauliflower. Continue to steam till al dente.
3. Heat oil in a pan and crackle some cumin. You can also use 2 green cardamoms and 1 small bay leaf. Add ginger garlic paste and fry until it smells good.
4. Next add the onion paste. Saute until it turns lightly golden. Add the tomato cashew paste. Saute until the raw smell of tomatoes and onions has completely vanished.
How to make aloo gobi masala
5.Add chilli, garam masala, coriander powder, red chili powder & salt. Saute until the masala begins to leave the sides of the pan.
6. Pour 3/4 cup water. Stir & cook until the gravy thickens a bit.
7. Add cauliflower and potatoes. Stir and cook covered until the aloo gobi is cooked. Add crushed kasuri methi & chopped coriander leaves. Cover and set aside.
Serve hot with butter naan.


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This is expensive. But should you get the chance, you should taste it. Really.
Quite pale for an Oloroso. A golden amber.
Varnish and mahogany and almonds and caramel and roasted oranges, dusty Victorian office-rich wood, leather, pipe tobacco.
All from the nose on the palate but with the most rich and sensuous mouthfeel utterly elegant, held by polished wood and a baked citrus acidity. Silky. Leafy notes. Length for miles. Amazing; truly amazing.
Tasted 22 November 2012 at Swig.


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In The Night Things, readers are introduced to little Courtney Crumrin. She's a junior high student whose parents have lived so far beyond their means, they now have to move to the ritzy neighborhood of Hillsborough and live with Uncle Aloysius (of course, whose uncle he is, no one can really say for sure). His house is a creepy old mansion, and there are numerous rumors throughout the town of what goes on in that house.
Courtney is definitely a girl after my own heart. She's unhappy and grumbles, and she's definitely not above using sarcasm at the right moments. Like, when she and another outcast at her new school run into the local bullies. "These your friends?" she asks the boy. "Is this where you all wait for the short bus?" Needless to say, that first day of school does not go well for Courtney, and her parents are no help (all they can talk about is trying to find a way to weasel into the lives of the rich and famous that live in Hillsborough).
All of that changes, however, the next day, when Courtney and her new-found friend come face-to-face with the bullies again. Instead of facing off with them, Courtney runs through the woods. Her friend follows, trying to warn her that no one goes into the woods. And there is a very real reason for that, which Courtney discovers when she runs into a creature who has just finished eating her friend -- and wants her for dessert! Thus, a new life begins for Courtney, for when she goes back to Uncle Aloysius' house, she goes searching through his rather 'unique' library and finds just what she needs to not only defeat the goblin, but to use it to end the bullying.
And that's all just in the first chapter of The Night Things. The remaining three chapters of this first volume are just as entertaining as the first, and while, yes, there are definitely some dark subject matters throughout the tale, there is no visible gore or violence, there are really no adult themes whatseover, and there actually lessons learned (such as Chapter Two, where Courtney tries a glamour spell she finds in one of her uncle's books, only to find sometimes too much of a good thing can be a bad thing!).
I bought the first seven volumes of this series directly from the author at DragonCon last year, honestly, because I absolutely loved the faux-leather bindings and the premise of a young girl (detective, of sorts) living in a supernatural world and house. Wasn't exactly sure what I would find with them, but I am definitely glad I bought them. I will readily admit, the art (yes, this is a graphic novel series) is not the style to which I would normally like, the storytelling is so engaging, the art pretty much becomes secondary. Volume One was well worth the money and the read, and I'm looking forward to delving into the next volume to see where Naifeh takes our little heroine next!
RATING: 8 child-eating goblins out of 10 for providing a scary children's tale that can easily be enjoyed by an adult as well!


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The founders of San Jose Taiko, Roy and PJ Hirabayashi have helped to create a new Asian American art form by infusing the traditional rhythms of Japanese drumming with musical and cultural influences from around the world.
As post-World War II baby boomers and third-generation Japanese Americans growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, the Hirabayashis were looking for outlets to express their cultural identity, when they discovered taiko, a form of drumming. This was the beginning of San Jose Taiko, created in the heart of San Jose Japantown in 1973.
San Jose Taiko's performances feature visual elements and choreography requiring physical strength, endurance, and energy. Members of the group participate in composing, choreographing, designing and fabricating costumes, and handcrafting the drums. This collective effort produces a performance that highlights group unity and purpose.
In 1987, San Jose Taiko became one of the first American taiko ensembles invited to tour Japan. They have performed in a wide range of venues, from small community centers and schools to Carnegie Hall. In addition to offering extensive educational and community outreach programs, San Jose Taiko is currently working on establishing a Taiko Conservatory, the first of its kind in the United States. Roy and PJ are credited for developing a holistic art form that embraces artistic excellence while also encouraging San Jose Taiko members to become leaders and community builders.
San Jose Taiko has collaborated with internationally renowned Japanese performing artists including Kodo, Ondekoza, Eitetsu Hayashi, and with artists from other disciplines, including Brenda Wong-Aoki, Mark Izu, Eth-Noh-Tec, George Coates Performance Works, Abhinaya Dance Company, Hiroshima, and Keith Terry.
In 1994, San Jose Taiko was honored by the Arts Council of Silicon Valley with a commendation for community leadership for its efforts to foster cultural diversity in the arts. Roy and PJ were advisors for the Big Drum, Taiko in the US exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles in 2005. The Hirabayashis received recognition from the Preservation Action Council of San Jose in 2004 for their role in the preservation and revitalization of San Jose Japantown (one of only three Japantowns remaining in the United States). In 2010, San Jose Taiko received the Foreign Minister of Japan Commendation Award for sharing the Japanese culture in the U.S.
When San Jose Taiko was founded, only a few taiko organizations existed in the United States; today, there are hundreds, with San Jose Taiko as one of the nation's leaders. As composers and performers, the Hirabayashis have maintained a respect for cultural tradition, while moving the taiko art form forward through innovation; collaboration; and outstanding performance, training, and education programs.
NEA: Would you explain what taiko is?
Roy Hirabayashi: Taiko is the word for the Japanese drum, and actually refers to all the different kinds of drums that you may see or hear in Japan. But what we're doing is what we refer to as kumi-daiko, which means ensemble drumming. And the difference is historically that the taiko drum in Japan has been used for many different kinds of purposes and occasions. You would see it in the festivals, in the temples. Historically it was used to send the field commands across the battlefield. But most popularly, you would see it in many different festivals throughout Japan. You would many times see the taiko being used to accompany other type of art forms -- singing and dancing, or the more classical forms. The kumi-daiko form that we're doing, or the ensemble form, is primarily using taiko as an instrument and not an accompaniment so much. The singing and dancing is not the primary focus; it's the drumming itself. And that started in Japan actually, relatively recently. Traditionally it's not a really old art form. We refer to taiko as starting about 1951 in Japan, and it came over here to the United States in this form in 1968.
PJ Hirabayashi: Just to add a little bit to what Roy has been speaking about, the kumi-daiko actually was kind of fostered by Daihachi Oguchi from Suwa in Nagano Prefecture, and basically he was a Western trap player and, in the '50s, he decided to combine the taiko [drums] to be the voices and sounds of the Japanese.
NEA: You began San Jose Taiko in 1973. Can you give me a little bit of background about how San Jose Taiko got started?
Roy Hirabayashi: We started the idea of doing taiko in San Jose through the San Jose Buddhist Church. It began as an activity to try to bring the youth into the temple. The minister that was there, Reverend Hiroshi Abiko at that time, he suggested maybe we should try to do this activity and see what would happen. So he recruited two of us -- myself and Dean Miyakusu. We decided just to try to do this -- we had no clue how to form a taiko group because I had never done [taiko] before. I had done other kinds of music growing up but never taiko or a Japanese art form like this. And so we just really kind of jumped into it a little bit blindly, but we learned how to make our first drums and some basics from the group called Kinnara Taiko in Los Angeles, who had started just before us. After we got it started, we were able to learn some other basic forms from Seiichi Tanaka, the San Francisco Taiko Dojo.
NEA: What attracted you to taiko, PJ?
PJ Hirabayashi: I have to say it's the power and the energy, and being a Japanese-American woman, there was kind of this relatedness that I had to do [taiko] because it has so much power. I was not really interested in the very quiet and very meditative, sedate art forms such as classical dance or the tea ceremony or flower arranging. Everything embodied in taiko is from something that was sports-like, including some theatrics. It was just everything that I ever dreamed of.
NEA: You were trained as a dancer, weren't you? So you really had a sense of performance and physicality.
PJ Hirabayashi: Absolutely. I think that's what really attracted me [to taiko]. Because in my body, there was just that seed of wanting to move, something that could just be expressed so unabashedly. And to do that with music, drums, the body moving -- it just spoke to me very loudly.
NEA: Now, when we think about the time that San Jose Taiko started in 1973, that was a period of great activism in the Bay Area in California, and that kind of informed the way you went about beginning taiko. Isn't that true, Roy?
Roy Hirabayashi: Yes, very much so. Prior to even thinking about doing taiko, I was pretty heavily involved in the Asian-American scene in the Bay Area, primarily on campus at San Jose State and also in the Japantown community in San Jose. And as you mentioned, the late '60s, early '70, there was the antiwar movement, the beginning of ethnic studies, the beginning of Asian-American studies, and different kinds of programs like that were happening on the campuses. I was really interested in learning more about my heritage, growing up as a third-generation, or sansei, Japanese American here in the United States. I wanted to know more about my heritage and there was a lot to learn at that time.
NEA: I read an interview you gave where you said you thought that taiko really worked against stereotypes of the meek Japanese American because it's so physical and loud.
Roy Hirabayashi: Right. Taiko has given me the opportunity to express myself in a different way that no other instrument has been able to do. It's helped me connect to my heritage; it's not the stereotypical art form that people imagine with the Japanese culture. And so it is very vibrant, and it's very powerful, not only in our own Japantown, but also in a larger community. And so it was a great connection in order to really see how that could be used in many different ways.
NEA: And I know, PJ, as you alluded to earlier, it was working against gender stereotypes as well.
PJ Hirabayashi: Absolutely. I think my first inspiration was seeing San Francisco Taiko Dojo and they included a mother and a daughter who were playing together equally on stage with men, and there was no gender difference at all. So that was kind of, "That's my calling. I want to do that."
NEA: Now, in 1973, there were other two taiko groups, one in San Francisco and one in Los Angeles. How did you go about learning?
Roy Hirabayashi: I wish back then we had the Internet and everything else, but there was nothing. The resources were very limited, and so we had to be very creative on our own in order to develop. It was just trying to see as much as possible and learn from whatever resources were available. And, as mentioned, Kinnara Taiko and San Francisco Taiko Dojo were the only two here. Eventually there was a group called Ondekoza from Japan that started touring in the United States. So seeing what they were doing was really an early start for us to examine what taiko was like coming from Japan. Early on, because we did not have those resources, or even a teacher that we could identify as a leader of our group, we formed sort of a collective style of operating. More importantly, I think, really early on we decided to start writing our own music based upon our own experiences and influences and what we felt was important, using the taiko.
PJ Hirabayashi: I think there were a lot of questions about whether we were being respectful of playing the correct way from Japan. But at that time, there were only LPs to refer to, other than the direct link with Seiichi Tanaka, who is also an NEA National Heritage Fellowship recipient. I think what was very important was that we wanted to create our own voice, to have our experiences of having grown up in America really get reflected in our art form. Therefore our music instantly became very cross-cultural in nature. I think we were also being very true to who we were, also using taiko as a tool for that expression -- not just for our own self-development but for a group of people playing and discovering and exploring where it could possibly go. Knowing that we are doing this as a community effort as well to contribute to our Japantown community in San Jose, that's what enlightened us to really want to take taiko to wherever it could possibly go.
NEA: What did those first drums look like? It would have to take a while to learn how to really make a taiko drum.
PJ Hirabayashi: Well, it looks like a wine barrel, which it was. All beat up. We still use some of these wine barrels as our practice drums, so they're as ancient as the group is -- 38 years old. Very battered and splinted and, in some areas, concaved.
Roy Hirabayashi: We had to be so resourceful early on. We were being taught that you could take a wine barrel and make a drum out of it by putting a hide onto it. But we were finding used barrels and trying to convert them to taiko, and so they were out of shape, or already beaten up somewhat. So we had to try to finish it off in different ways. And then we started creating a process to understand how to make a better drum out of that. So that was the early stages of our group, just trying to figure out how to make better instruments ourselves. The style we developed early on helped create the template for how most American taiko groups make their drums now. So that's exciting -- that we were able to help move that forward. The wine barrel concept…was so important to the growth of taiko in America because without that, taiko would not be anywhere near to what it is today because no one could really afford to buy those kind of instruments and bring them here.
NEA: How were the traditional drums made in Japan?
PJ Hirabayashi: The traditional drum in Japan is actually made out of a hollowed tree trunk. Of course they just don't hollow it out just to get one taiko body, [they get] other sizes of barrels out of one trunk. But unlike American taiko, it's staved. So it's the wine barrel that has pieces that are shaped into the barrel. There is a difference in sound quality. But at the same time, there was no way that we could possibly buy a taiko from Japan because it was just too exorbitant in price. So the wine barrel was the alternative. And interestingly, some Japanese looked at our design and started to make staved taiko barrels.
NEA: It seems, when I look back at what you envisioned and how you moved forward, it is so ambitious in the best possible way. You had to make your own instruments, write your own music. You were taking a tradition and preserving it and honoring it, but at the same time expanding it and taking in influences from where you lived then, working in concert but also working in community and doing it all.
Roy Hirabayashi: We didn't see that happening early on, naturally, but as we look back, yes. I think what was important for us is that we were trying to create our own sound and be connected to our culture and heritage. As we started to move forward, we discovered that more people, not just Japanese Americans, but people in general, were becoming interested in what the taiko was all about. It really did take off, and that's what's been exciting for us. We have been trying, I guess all along, to make a statement in our own way as far as creating the art form here in the United States, because I think we realized early on that we had the opportunity to really do something different here, using an instrument that is not really well known, but to create the art form here, even beyond what was happening in Japan. And so we were a little bit bold at the time to try to make the decision to really go beyond what was happening traditionally even in Japan to create our multicultural sound or our voice in that way using taiko, but rhythmically in many different other styles.
PJ Hirabayashi: With both Roy and myself being involved in Asian-American studies, there was kind of a platform about serving our community. If you were in Asian-American studies, it wasn't all about scholastic studies; besides, there weren't many reference books or resources to really read back in the '70s. The main spirit of community-building, to serve the people, I think that really was a part of how we looked at developing San Jose Taiko; that there was no way that we would have a sensei, as in Japan, to tell us what to do, or "This is the way to do it." We had to work collectively, very collaboratively, in order to maintain our organization. We were also trying to level the playing field -- everybody contributing as equally as possible -- and I think that in itself has been our enduring principle.
NEA: You combine self-expression with community-building.
PJ Hirabayashi: Absolutely. I think it's very, very necessary that they go hand in hand, that people come to the table being able to participate fully, and I think that's what art should be about.
NEA: How many people are in San Jose Taiko? How many group members?
Roy Hirabayashi: Right now the performing company is about 18 members.
NEA: And how many people are likely to be on the stage at the same time?
Roy Hirabayashi: It varies. Like at our larger festivals, when we're home, we'll have almost the entire company participating. Normally when the company's out on tour, our concert program is [made up of] just eight performers.
NEA: And how many drums are likely to be on stage at the same time?
Roy Hirabayashi: Well, during the entire program, we're using a lot; a variety of drums are going on and off for different pieces or songs that we created. For the tour, we'll take out anywhere between 25 to 30 different drums during any one tour, depending what the program is all about.
NEA: So everybody works as one. How do you achieve that?
Roy Hirabayashi: That's something that we worked really hard on trying to do, and I think it's sort of a signature of what San Jose Taiko is all about -- creating a unified look as far as our performances, a style of the choreography of the piece or the movement, and just how everyone is participating in different ways. For us, it's very important that there are no differences between the male and female roles, so everyone is cross-trained in all parts of the different songs and different drums and instruments. Anyone should be able to play any part. It's not a gender-based position. What we were trying to do is develop leadership from the top-down that's all equal. Everyone is able to participate and take part in the leadership of the organization or the group as we're moving forward. Even during practices, there are many times when not just one person is leading the rehearsal, but there could be several members of the group taking on different segments of the practice in order to teach different parts and instruct and lead. That piece is sort of coming from the collective process that we tried to initially use in the development of our organization, and that's been a really important part of how we've tried to develop San Jose Taiko.
PJ Hirabayashi: Artistically, we also encourage our members to contribute to our repertoire of songs. And so we have quite a range of expression that comes into play. It does become very holistic in the way San Jose Taiko operates as a company.
NEA: San Jose Taiko didn't begin as a professional company, but became one. Can you tell me how that evolved?
Roy Hirabayashi: It was really community based, and it began, as we mentioned, out of the temple. Rapidly it became a group of people within a community that were interested in doing this just for fun. That's when we started forward and started learning more about what taiko was all about and seeing other groups. And again, at the same time, writing our own music and trying to put our own program together and our own style together. We soon began to realize that we had an art form or style that was different than what other groups were doing, especially those from Japan. And that was an early concern for us -- whether or not people in Japan would recognize that what we're doing as third-generation Japanese Americans, removed from what's happening in Japan, using taiko that we made ourselves in America, would be something that they could recognize as different and also that they could appreciate. In 1987, we had an opportunity to go to Japan to tour with the Japan-based group, Ondekoza, and that was the point when we were able to take our music, and actually our instruments too, and show the people -- the Japanese people -- what we were trying to do. That was interesting, because we were touring a joint program with Ondekoza, and so the audience was able to see the two different styles on the same stage at the same time, and to compare them. We found that most of the people in Japan realized that we were different, and appreciated what we were doing. After that trip, we realized that we had something we wanted to really try to move forward, and it was important for us to really think about how we would actually make this into a program that we could take to a broader audience. We felt it was an important statement to really talk about what it is to be Japanese American or Asian American here in the United States, and creating this art form in that way.
PJ Hirabayashi: I think it's very important to say that we didn't know about the diaspora, the experience of our cultural heritage. We didn't want to copy what was already being done in Japan. To go professional, or create a professional company, and reach other communities that would not otherwise see taiko being performed in their community, we wanted people to understand that we are not from Japan, that we are home-bred here in America, and that we are actually developing this art form.
Roy Hirabayashi: Organizationally, what was really important for us at that time in the early '90s was that we had an opportunity to go through the National Endowment for the Art's Advancement Program. That program was the one that really set us up organizationally to take a hard look at what we were doing in order to frame the whole business side of how we were going to operate from that point forward.
NEA: Is it fair to say that that's the point that you realized San Jose Taiko was going to be your life's work, or had you already known that?
Roy Hirabayashi: Well, definitely I think we all really wanted just to do taiko more in different ways, and we were hoping that it could become a full-time job. Up to that point, we were all still working other jobs or doing other things, and trying to do as much taiko as possible. And so, yes, that was the critical point because at that point we were able to actually start hiring people on staff and creating the opportunity for people to do this on a full-time basis. Up to that point, we just felt it was more community-based, like I said, almost like a hobby. And then it just became a passion that we are still continuing.
NEA: You are very committed to the community, yet at the same time the company is touring internationally and nationally. How do you stay rooted to the community in San Jose?
PJ Hirabayashi: On many different levels, but number one is that we started in San Jose Japantown. Japantown in San Jose happens to be only one of three Japantowns remaining in the whole United States that really has a geographic Japantown. We feel that we are part of the vitality and the preservation of that particular community. We also take pride in the fact that we are San Jose Taiko. Our promoters have said, "Can't you get a sexier name, other than San Jose?" No. San Jose is who we are. Wearing the badge of the city of San Jose, that's another [example] of how we remain rooted to the community. And it just ripples out even farther, because taiko in general has just become so popular throughout the world that it can be found in Europe, it can be found in Southeast Asia, beyond Japan. And we're finding that this taiko community is a very vital force, one that connects people.
Roy Hirabayashi: There are several community festivals that go on annually within Japantown or around San Jose that we're really committed to doing in order to support the larger community. Those are also very important for us. No matter where the company is on the road, we're trying to make sure that we're also servicing our local community at the same time. With the numbers of performers we have, we were able to have a company on the road and still have performances going on at home, along with classes, because the classes that we teach for the youth and other adults are really important.
NEA: Tell us about the workshops you started.
Roy Hirabayashi: Many years ago we started offering community workshops for people just to try taiko out of interest. One main reason we started is we were using it as a recruitment process, to identify people who might be interested in having some skill base in order to join the company in some way. But we realized that there were a large number of people who wanted to come just for recreational purposes. We also realized there were a lot of younger folks, the youth, that really wanted to learn. Parents were asking us to teach classes for their kids, so we started a Junior Taiko Program in 1985. I believe it's the oldest youth-specific taiko program here in the U.S., and we now have about 75 to 80 students in that program. It varies year to year, with six different levels of classes that run primarily January through June. And we also have adult classes that are just for recreational purposes.
Roy Hirabayashi: In our youth-specific program the kids start as early as eight years old, and they come in once a week to take group lessons. Out of that, we also have what we call our Junior Taiko Performing Ensemble, which is a performance group that does mainly peer performance types of activities in schools or other local community events. We also have our artistic staff members go into the schools doing for assemblies during the school year. In the San Jose area, we'll usually go to about 25 to 30 schools per year.
NEA: And wasn't there talk about San Jose Taiko opening a conservatory? Is that in the works?
Roy Hirabayashi: Actually, it's more than in the works. We're working on a physical space right now, but the programs have all been put into place to some extent, starting with our Junior Taiko Program and the adult classes. The other primary class we have is our training program for members wanting to join the company. In our master classes, we go out to teach in different ways and in different places.
PJ Hirabayashi: [The training program has] developed over the years, and it does require quite a commitment. It is a two-year program, in which case we identify people at the very beginning. We interview them to see if there's a mutual fit. When we recruit people, it's not [just looking for people who] love playing taiko. We want people to love playing taiko, but they also know it's not just about hitting the drum. It's also about community-building. We have broken our first year of training down into three phases. The first phase is about 12 weeks, which we consider boot camp, and [the participants] experience the very foundation of San Jose Taiko's style, and taiko in general. Phase Two is about 16 weeks, in which the trainee is incorporating a lot more songs to learn, to be combined with the performing company. We also add practice time so that they understand there's a little bit more time commitment. We also have lectures in which we present information about the historical past of taiko and the growth of taiko in the U.S. and in the world so that people can understand the context of how they're involved. At the end of one year, there is a review to see if this person has the potential to enter the company. The second year becomes more like an apprenticeship, where they will be playing and performing with the [actual group] members.
NEA: When we see a performance of San Jose Taiko, it's so polished and beautiful, with everybody working together, but you're always exploring new creative possibilities with taiko. You're often performing original music. What does the first rehearsal look like of a piece? How do you get to the finished product?
Roy Hirabayashi: Each composer may have a different process in how to put forward or present a new song. If we're working in collaboration with other artists outside of the group, it's even a longer or more involved process, which we're actually doing right now with a couple different groups. But in general, for a new piece that's done internally, it is not typically presented all in one chunk at one time. Many times, it's just certain sections that are being presented over a period of time so that people get an idea of what the rhythm patterns are. The composer has a feel for what might be happening using these different patterns, hearing it in different ways with the drums. It's so difficult sometimes to be writing something on paper, or if you're doing it on a computer it's perhaps even more dangerous, versus actually hearing it live with a whole set of drums happening, because the sound is so different. So it gives the composer an opportunity to really kind of try different things in order to finesse their ideas before they are actually presented in actual song format.
NEA: And there's choreography that goes along with taiko. It's a very visual music. How does that develop?
PJ Hirabayashi: Like what Roy was saying, it depends on the composer. Sometimes the choreography comes attached with the ideas of the rhythm patterns. There are basics in structure that are considered San Jose Taiko [style] that we encourage the composer to include…but they can expand the choreography as long as there's that rootedness and that centeredness that is San Jose Taiko's signature.
NEA: So often people seem to take artistic excellence and community-building and look at it, if not oppositional, always sensing that one has to sacrifice one for the other. But clearly, I think you would argue, that is simply not the case at all.
Roy Hirabayashi: Oh, definitely. I think we both feel that it's definitely a partnership that can happen. For us, I think there were a lot of other elements or different components that helped build to what we're doing now, and we talked a lot about the community-building and the music and the artistic, which are very important components. But it's really all of it together, in the sense that we were, again, trying to build or create an art form out of hardly anything. Having the opportunity to do that I think was, I guess, the challenge, but at the same time the excitement was what really kind of helped move us forward.
NEA: You recently made a decision to step away from the leadership of San Jose Taiko. Tell me why, and what you're doing now.
Roy Hirabayashi: We decided to step down from our titles. I was the executive director, and PJ was artistic director. We decided to do that because we felt it was a good time for us. I guess what was significant in our lives is that we both turned 60 within this last year. In Japanese tradition or in life, when you turn 60 it is really a significant year for you. You've gone through five life cycles, basically -- the lunar cycle of 12 years -- and so at that point, at 60, you're at a point in your life where you're supposedly going back to a little bit of your childhood, but at the same time you have all this knowledge in order to go forward at a different level of thinking. And so we decided that at 60 it would be a good time to step down and to turn over the reins of San Jose Taiko to the next generation, and still be here, or be able to do other projects and move on to do other things. So we're at that point right now. I'm still a little bit in transition, but I'm real excited about the next steps.
PJ Hirabayashi: It has been very exciting, in that San Jose Taiko was never about one or two people being in charge of the company. We developed San Jose Taiko to basically be all leaders, and that [means] trusting in the process -- that we have developed the leadership who can continue what has already been laid before them. That's exciting, because we feel that we're not running away from anything, or feeling that something's going down with the ship. It feels very wonderful. It feels healthy, that there's new energy and new creativity that wants to take San Jose Taiko forward. For me, becoming 60 also became a time of reflection. Never had I asked myself, until people started to ask me, "PJ, what do you really want to do?" I said, "Well, I have been doing what I really want to do," and that's doing taiko. But now that we've stepped away from the leadership, I am really focusing on a project that I'm trying to create. It's called Taiko Peace, and in all of my involvement with taiko activities, in the way I teach, the way of community-building, the way of doing workshops and collaborations with other artists, I really want to bring in the concept of working with peace as a central component. I am using Karen Armstrong's Charter for Compassion as kind of my baseline of how I interconnect, how I relate, how I teach, how I communicate, how I build, and this is what Taiko Peace is going to be about.
NEA: How did you find out you were going to receive a National Heritage Fellowship Award?
Roy Hirabayashi: Well, I came into the office and there was a message from Barry [Bergey, NEA Director, Folk and Traditional Arts] saying, "Please give me a call." And so we called back right away. And I thought, "Oh, are we in trouble here or what?" Then he just told us the announcement. Well, we naturally knew that our names were nominated, but it was a few years back, so we had kind of forgotten about it. And so we were just totally surprised that this was happening.
NEA: PJ, were you there, or did you find out from Roy?
PJ Hirabayashi: Yeah, I was there, but Roy took the call. And so when he got off, I, of course, said, "Well, what was that about?" And we were both in shocked elation.
Photo by Mel Higashi
Co-founders of San Jose Taiko, Roy and PJ Hirabayashi talk about the importance of this traditional art in the Asian American community. [28:34]