Ken Soleyn and Tami Neumann

[00:00] KEN SOLEYN: Okay.

[00:04] TAMI NEUMANN: There we go. I totally, I only thought one of us started the recording. There we go. Okay. No problem.

[00:10] KEN SOLEYN: You know, it will, okay. I think the value is just having the discussion.

[00:15] TAMI NEUMANN: Exactly, exactly. Okay, so I'm going through these questions. Okay.

[00:21] KEN SOLEYN: But continue what you were saying about, the demon. I was talking about the demonizing of immigrants.

[00:30] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[00:31] TAMI NEUMANN: You know, when I look across, you know, like I talk about with friends about my chosen family. So my chosen family is my best friend, her two sons, her grandsons. And, you know, we are very, we are very culturally mixed. We've, you know, we've got you know, my kids on the rainbow, her kids are, you know, mixed. And, you know, and then I look at the friends that I have, and I I really have a tough time with what is happening with, and this, like, police state of grabbing people and taking them from their homes or taking them from their schools or, you know, kids seeing what's happening to their children. And I, you know, and I'm not an, I, I'm not an immigrant. My grandparents were immigrants, right? So I don't know what it's like to live the, you know, as an immigrant. But I think to have this hanging over your head every day has to be very horrible, right? To worry that something is going to happen to you. you know, and the fact that, you know, we are very harshly taking people, and then we're putting them someplace that is really horrible.

[01:56] SPEAKER C: Right.

[01:57] TAMI NEUMANN: So these camps or whatever you want to call them, I think camp is a really nice term versus what, you know, allegedly is happening in human warehouses. Exactly. And, you know, I I'm always of the opinion that we are all human. We should treat everybody as human beings, right? And I think it's very difficult.

[02:27] SPEAKER C: For.

[02:27] TAMI NEUMANN: A lot of us to process this.

[02:32] KEN SOLEYN: I would think, you know, from someone who's been on sort of like a technical and working for a large corporation that large corporations like it when people are prospering because they're going to spend money. You're going to buy refrigerators and cars and, you know, you're going to want to send your kids to college or get a trade or pursue arts or spend, you know, that extra money that, you know, you go out and see be like a play or a movie. But if you don't have that extra money and you've got to spend it on food or to pay the light bill, you know, so you would think that all of these industries rely on the mass consumer to spend, but where are they getting the money from? They don't mind working for it, you know? But I think it's like, if you look at history, my opinion is that all through history, I guess if you can demonize someone and it galvanizes your extremists, your agenda.

[03:53] SPEAKER C: Right.

[03:53] TAMI NEUMANN: And I mean, you're exactly right, that scene through history all the time. If I can, you know, Hitler demonize the Jews, right? I mean, and there were so many, I mean, there's so many different references to it.

[04:08] KEN SOLEYN: So I thought, I thought America had honestly, I thought that we had gotten past a lot of that. I mean, you know, it wasn't, it's not Utopia, but. No, the reason I thought we got past it is because I come out of, I went to k through middle school, it was like 95% black and Hispanic. And I saw the difference between the quality of education and resources. In that school, then my family moved to a predominantly white neighborhood in Brooklyn. What people may not realize is that Even New York City was segregated.

[04:56] TAMI NEUMANN: Oh, yeah.

[04:57] KEN SOLEYN: It wasn't Jim Crow segregation like in the South, but it was what we call de facto segregation. So there were certain neighborhoods, you know, and when my family moved into a predominantly white neighborhood in East Flatbush, we were like maybe one of three families of color. But I have to say the neighbors welcomed us. Folks next door, next door to us were Hasidic Jews. My parents had an appreciation for education, but they were sort of simple folk. My mom came from a farming family in the Caribbean.

[05:37] SPEAKER C: They.

[05:40] KEN SOLEYN: When I say farm, they had a cow, chickens, and they grew crops. and they would get people, you know, men in the island who as day laborers, and they would have to, my grandfather, you know, who ran it, he would have to pay them daily, but he'd also give them a shot of rum at the end of the day, you know, as part of their pay. And, you know, very simple life, you drop at dawn and you're in bed by, you know, eight o'clock at night.

[06:11] SPEAKER C: Right.

[06:12] KEN SOLEYN: They would listen to the radio in the evening and it was a battery-powered radio. They didn't have electricity. So it was like kerosene lamps and you know, and like you come out of that to an urban place like New York and you see this, you know, it's like a pressure and I've seen a lot of people succumb to drugs and other aspects of just criminality. So there's that side of human behavior. But they also look for sort of like, you know, just my life experiences when I always loved going to school and going to the library and reading. and my imagination, I was like my favorite magazine to look at was National Geographic because of the great photos and all the different exotic locales and animals and things like that. So, you know, as a kid, you have these dreams and I think every American is, you know, the American dream is formulated in their mind. but it's to the point where I think consumerism is we're bombarded with advertising makes us want to be, you know, a certain amount. We have to have, we have to have the, we have to have the Air Jordans that cost 200 bucks. Well, you know, just can't regular like, you know, Sketchers do.

[07:59] SPEAKER C: No, no, no. Right.

[08:01] KEN SOLEYN: And so, you know, it, it, it's, it's, it's, it's a very interesting life, but I, but I, but I think that the American lifestyle, it's going to this, like you said, it's going to this oligarchy kind of, like, totalitarian dictatorship where just one small group of people have all the power and they want to hard it all. It's very scary.

[08:33] TAMI NEUMANN: It is very scary. It's, you know, I, my hope was that, you know, by the age that I am now that things would be much different, right?

[08:47] SPEAKER C: That.

[08:49] TAMI NEUMANN: That we would be beyond this point of racism and things of this nature.

[08:56] SPEAKER C: And.

[08:59] TAMI NEUMANN: So it's really scary to me because that's just not how I wish to live. I, you know, one of the things about me is that I love being able to have conversations with different people. You know, I want to learn about people. I want to learn about what their life was like. I want to just, you know, hear their side of different stories. you know, I think that's something that we're really missing. And you kind of touched on this.

[09:26] SPEAKER C: Like.

[09:28] TAMI NEUMANN: We'Re becoming more and more isolated, like with all the amazing technology that we have, we're so much more isolated and people want more conversations, I think. And I think because we're so isolated on our phones, then we're not really getting the connection that we normally can and. I think if we can have that connection again, I'm sure that there's people out there that think very differently from me, but I could still have a good conversation with, right? I'm sure we can find some common ground.

[10:05] KEN SOLEYN: But if you have a debate, it's civil and it's, you know, like I was talking to some Republicans the other day. I said to them, well, I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but I tell you what, if you go into the ballot box, it's secret ballot. So if you vote Democrat, you don't have to tell your friend. You can still be a card carrying Republican and they just kind of laughed at that. Yeah, because I know you really want to vote Democrat, you know, you can't possibly want, like, what is, you know, what is basically, my question then was, what has Trump done for you? So it's kind of exactly a sarcastic way of, you know, saying that.

[10:51] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[10:52] TAMI NEUMANN: I mean, and what has he done?

[10:57] KEN SOLEYN: If you're the ultra rich, you know, or you're an oil and gas who donated, you know, millions, you're going to get back billions because they Right. The solar credit, there's a 30% tax credit if you install solar. And they're just, you know, they're basically subsidizing the oil and gas. So that's the next thing that's gonna happen. You just start polluting more because you don't even belong to any of the world standards anymore. So the US is becoming sort of an isolated country and it's falling behind in a lot of areas.

[11:40] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[11:40] KEN SOLEYN: Now, having said that, you know, I traveled around, and American culture is revered worldwide. You could. You can go to China, and you'll hear, like, Elvis playing in the hotel or in an elevator, you know, and everybody knows who Elvis is.

[12:01] SPEAKER C: Or.

[12:03] KEN SOLEYN: Baseball or, you know, some of these, like, everybody knows who Michael Jordan is worldwide. Or if you go to France, like, I was wearing a pair of Levi's and, and one of the guys said, how much did you pay for those? And, well, I don't know. I, like, 25 bucks at the Gap, you know? Oh, right. In France, those would go for, like, 300 bucks. So, you know, American culture is revered worldwide.

[12:36] TAMI NEUMANN: That might be changing though.

[12:38] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, yeah, well, what I'm saying is we're sliding, especially on the education front. And I'm a big believer in education. Because, you know, I could, the ticket out, unless you want to get into crime or something, out of like poverty is to get some kind of trade or education.

[12:59] TAMI NEUMANN: Yeah, and you know, I do think that so many, there are so many more opportunities for people, even without a college education. I mean, there are things that kids nowadays have access to that we didn't have back in the day that can you know, start a business right on their computer if they want to. And I find that I find that kind of amazing that that's something that's out there. I'm not saying that I'm discrediting education. I went to school, you know.

[13:41] SPEAKER C: But.

[13:42] TAMI NEUMANN: I think people like have skills that can be used in so many different ways.

[13:49] SPEAKER C: So.

[13:51] TAMI NEUMANN: But I do think our education that goes from kindergarten through 12th grade is not where it should be probably anymore.

[14:02] KEN SOLEYN: Well, like in the fields of, let's say, like medicine, you know, the government hires some of the best and brightest, like, like the research that they do at, like, NIH and places like that. These are like, you know, PhD level. So there's a need for that. But you're absolutely right. I think that there are many other areas, like, for example, you know, I always said, when you go on the cattle drive, right? You know, like you've seen the John Wayne movies or on the cattle drive. the most important guy on the cattle drive is the cook. Yeah, the guy running the chuckwagon, right? He's the most important guy on the cattle drive. So, you know, you, you, you, you, this, I can remember as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, like, we would go on the main street and there would be like a fish market, there'd be a green grocer, and my mom would go and. stop at these smaller stores. It's good quality stuff. Great service because the people knew you, you know, if you went there on a regular basis, they just knew you, you know, they, the fish guy knew what particular fish my mom liked and how she'd like it sliced up and on it.

[15:27] TAMI NEUMANN: Right, right.

[15:28] KEN SOLEYN: All of that stuff. And, and that has also become missing in that we don't have, we have this sort of homogenized. you know, everything's sold in a Walmart kind of.

[15:39] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[15:40] KEN SOLEYN: And I'm not putting out Walmart, but it's homogenized, whereas these individual stores and whatnot had personality. They had a, it was fun to go shopping because you'd meet these people in your little.

[15:55] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[15:55] KEN SOLEYN: You know, you know, you pick up, you could go to a butcher or I can remember as a kid in Brooklyn, we had these places called candy stores and. you'd go in and they, I think it might have been fronts for bedding, like papers and candy, but in the back they would have like a soda fountain and a jukebox. So the kids, you know, we'd go in there and get like a, a lime Ricky or from the, from the soda that had the soda jerk. It's like all of those memories of, you know, it's just like quintessential, like American, you know, I was kind of shape of what I saw on TV and read in the media and then later on by like books and music, you know, like, you know, when I was in like high school, what we went around with ponytails, listening to the Allman Brothers, then a couple of years later it was like the disco thing came in, you know, so we, yeah, We got our hair cut, you know, wherever, you know, with hairspray and then we got like polyester suits and we kind of did the job for both.

[17:11] TAMI NEUMANN: Yes, I was gonna say.

[17:14] KEN SOLEYN: Me, that's all part of like the whole thing. And I just see like we're moving toward this sort of homogenization.

[17:26] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[17:26] KEN SOLEYN: You don't want minorities, you don't want gay people. you don't want artists, you don't want intellectuals. A working guy who works with, like my dad, as a carpenter. He knew all the angles. He had a joint wood in it. So it's a very, like, he knew geometry and thematics, but in an applied way, you know, as a tradesman, as a craftsman.

[17:51] TAMI NEUMANN: Yeah, absolutely.

[17:55] KEN SOLEYN: So what do you think the answer is to turn this around?

[18:02] TAMI NEUMANN: I wish I knew the answer. Obviously, I do believe in something like this, like the one small step. I think being willing to have conversations is important. I just don't know how we're going to have these conversations, if that makes sense. Like you and I are having this conversation and this, you know, if this keeps going, you know, does this get to then the level of Congress so they can actually have those conversations and, you know, it's. I don't know what the answer is. Part of me, there is a part of me that thinks that a revolution needs to happen. But I'm also very fearful of what a revolution would bring.

[19:03] KEN SOLEYN: I did some lobbying with the Sierra Club, where you actually went to the state house and met with some of the representatives now in New Hampshire. They're not paid, it's almost like a voluntary thing. And they basically make enough for gas money, but they have other businesses or they're retirees or teachers that might have retired or something like that. And man, it was an eye-opening experience because one of the things that you see is this influence money. that prevails in politics. So, you know, that, that, I think, is probably the number one thing that has to be brought out is, like, there has to be some reform in regard to all this black money that's going in because they're buying, they're buying pensions and they're buying policy. that other life.

[20:10] TAMI NEUMANN: Absolutely.

[20:11] KEN SOLEYN: Policies is really, you know. And then the ordinary people, the average person, the regular people who, you know, need health care and want an education for their kids. You know, like here in New Hampshire, we now, because of the cuts, they closed down some medical facilities. and in some of the rural areas they have what's called maternity deserts.

[20:41] TAMI NEUMANN: Oh gosh.

[20:43] KEN SOLEYN: Young ladies that are pregnant are far away from getting care.

[20:50] TAMI NEUMANN: And they probably don't have the transportation to get where they need to go for that care.

[20:55] KEN SOLEYN: Right, and even if they did, it's just too far. And so you want to talk about health care. What better place to start health care than at birth? If you have a healthy baby or healthy prenatal care, your odds are your chances on being healthy are increasing.

[21:15] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[21:16] KEN SOLEYN: So it's like the short-sightedness of wanting to put us in debt and hoard all of the resources is what we're seeing. I don't know if it's just leadership. Do we need a leader? Do we need, what do we need to, what do we need a catastrophe for it to kind of hit rock bottom and then, okay, but we pick it up from there.

[21:47] TAMI NEUMANN: We still keep having catastrophes. I mean, if I can, I don't know how you feel about gum, gums, guns. But we keep having school shootings. And, you know, I can't confidently say because I don't have the research behind me, I can't confidently say that it's all about the access. Could it be mental health? Could it be like so many different things that go into this? But we keep having that catastrophe happen and happen and happen and nothing gets changed. so it's like we have these catastrophes, but nothing does change. So I don't know. I mean, it's, it's as a woman, the other thing that's kind of asinine to me is that, you know, so many people want to ban abortion and, but then they don't want to, on the other end, make sure that the mom has the care, the child has the care when the child is born and that's it's tough, you know, being a parent or being a single parent or, you know, being a young parent. Those things are tough and sometimes they don't have the money. And like you said, if we can start the health care when the kids are young, when they're babies, when they're in utero, then we have healthier people as they as they age. But with all the all the cuts and the laws being made in regards to women's bodies and, you know, in regards to to to babies and children, it's really it's like you wantna spout this, but then I'm sorry, I'm getting on a run on a a soap box. You want to say that It's not our right to make that decision about keeping that child, but you don't want to support that child as that child grows up. And to me, that's asinine.

[23:52] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, here the state is now having to come up with the funds that were, you know, with the Fed, with the big beautiful bill that they took.

[24:02] SPEAKER C: Away.

[24:05] KEN SOLEYN: A lot of funds for, you know, social services and Yeah. The other thing that you see is that from an energy standpoint, like this is really where we ought to be energy and infrastructure like to make like transportation and energy because we've got solar and we've got all these other technologies that can be integrated together. and even our FAA system of flying, it's like 1980s kind of computers. So there's a big steal from the taxpayers and we really need, I think if we at least in the midterm election, I think if we can get a democratic majority, And we just get that message out to say, hey, there's a better way, you know, what has Trump done for you? If you look at the record of making change, we were paying down the deficit under Democratic presidents, you know, that's where the deficit went down.

[25:22] SPEAKER C: Right.

[25:22] KEN SOLEYN: So these guys are like saying, it's like saying to Trump, you know, Hey, Trump, here's a gold card, and he's like maxing it out.

[25:30] TAMI NEUMANN: Exactly.

[25:30] KEN SOLEYN: And your kids are gonna have to pay the, you know, the bill.

[25:39] TAMI NEUMANN: I don't know.

[25:40] SPEAKER C: I mean.

[25:44] TAMI NEUMANN: Having him in office, and maybe I shouldn't go here, but having him in office is. is so scary to me.

[25:56] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[25:57] TAMI NEUMANN: And because I don't feel that he's, I don't feel that he's making decisions with a level head, with having, you know, and here to me, you know, education also comes in the form of, let me talk to some experts about this. If I change this, if I decide that I'm going to make these drastic cuts in Medicaid and Medicare, what's gonna happen, right? Let me talk to those people because a bigger problem is bound, is going to happen once all these cuts actually go through, right? So it's like such a weird, like him not even really thinking about the United States at all. Like, you know, I grew up watching Schoolhouse Rock, right? So, you know, one, we're the melting pot, number two, you know, the greater good. We're supposed to be looking at what is that greater good and how do we support that? Because, you know, once we, like you said, if we support people in being healthy, mental, physical from birth to death, just think of all the things that we can do, right? Like you said, your cook was the most important person with the Cowboys, because if you don't keep them fed, you're not going to be able to, they're not going to be able to do their job, right?

[27:27] KEN SOLEYN: Exactly, exactly. And it's also the, you know, there are many ways you could contribute to a better society. You know, you have the guys and the men and women who are the, you know, highly intellectual, highly trained, you know, but you need, everything else, you know, to make the whole thing go in it. And all, any job should come with respect, you know, like, like, to me, teachers should be paid a lot more and they should be respected a lot more. You have that mindset that teachers are, like, the top of the, the Heap here.

[28:14] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[28:15] KEN SOLEYN: And the other thing is, like, life should be enjoyable. Like, you know, this whole thing of the pursuit of Happiness. Like, we can sit around ringing our hands, you know? Oh, gee, you know, this guy's a. But on the other hand, it's like, to me, sometimes I think, well, hey, the Grateful Dead's out there playing. I want to go dance in the summer.

[28:38] TAMI NEUMANN: Right, right, right.

[28:39] SPEAKER C: And.

[28:40] KEN SOLEYN: And there's nothing wrong with that. They're demonizing, like, this kind of. anyone that, you know, is intellectual, anyone that's into, they've cut out, like, PBS, you know, those are really some valuable programming. I mean, I saw stuff on CBS. PBS. I would have never seen or known about anywhere else. Like Ken Burns's documentary on baseball and the Civil War or just. you know, music programs, like, like, I I would have never thought I'd sit down and watch, like, you know, opera at the Met, but I got it through PBS or folk songs, and I'm right. I mean, to folk songs and all that stuff, you know? So, you know, all of that stuff, to me, is what makes life enjoyable, is to expand yourself to, you know, get out and enjoy life. But you can't do that when there's this oppressive and every penny you make has to just go to... Has to.

[29:52] TAMI NEUMANN: Go to food, it has to go to clothing, it has to go to...

[29:56] KEN SOLEYN: And you're still... And after that you're still in debt.

[29:59] TAMI NEUMANN: Exactly. Exactly. And you know, I think there's a lot to being able to find joy that is helpful to mental health. so, you know, if you want employees that are good employees, solid employees, that mental health piece is also so very important, right? And that can be finding joy, being able to go to that Grateful Dead concert, being able to, you know, enjoy a picnic outside, you know, or being able to get food that doesn't cost $20 a pineapple, you know?

[30:40] KEN SOLEYN: Like one of the things I always thought about is like every school, every primary school should have a garden where the kids plant veggies and they harvest them and eat them. They get an appreciation for good food.

[31:00] TAMI NEUMANN: I went to I went to Taiwan in 2015 and I was invited there because I've worked in senior care for about 20 years. So I was invited out to Taiwan. They have something called the Grand Riders. And the Grand Riders are a group of seniors that do this three-day trek through the mountains of Taiwan. So they're doing their riding bikes. all of them were like electric bikes, like you would still cycle but would have a battery pack on it, or they were on scooters. So the oldest writer on a scooter was 96. The oldest writer on a bike was in their late 80s. So I went with them. I got to tour all over Taiwan. I got to see nursing homes in the middle of fields. I got to see how they care for their seniors, how they're aging so differently, yada, yada, yada. The other thing I was able to do is able to go to a school. And the really interesting thing about school there is that the kids end up helping make the lunch. And it's usually something pretty simple, you know, and it's all fresh food. and they serve each other lunch. So like they rotate through this. And I thought that was like one of the neatest things to see that they were involved in the process of making it. They were involved in the process of serving it to others within their classroom. And it just was a really unique way to look at part of education, right? and granted, they're learning the things they need, but here in the United States, we're teaching to testing, right? You know, what are the scores of the testing? And which leads no time for creativity, it doesn't leave time for, like, that whole process gives you a life skill to learn how to make something, even if it's a very simple dish, you've got that for the rest of your life, and how we treat others. right? So it's like teaching so many wonderful skills. You know, if you get older, you're probably learning like, okay, a cup of this, I have a cup of this. Now we're learning some math, right? You know, it's such, it was such a really cool experience to be able to see that and how our education system is so different, but it still seems like we're so, we're left behind in some way with education. I don't know where I was going with that.

[33:54] KEN SOLEYN: No, I get your point because once summer I worked as a camp counselor and I was a city kid and this was in upstate New York and these were kids from mainly from Harlem. So there was a grant where they got to go to summer camp. and to get these kids out of that environment in Harlem to being outdoors. So now they're, they, you know, the whole different perspective. And I remember one night, one kid looking up at the sky at night and saying, what is all of that up there?

[34:34] TAMI NEUMANN: Oh, my gosh.

[34:36] KEN SOLEYN: He goes, yeah, I never see anything like that.

[34:39] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[34:39] KEN SOLEYN: Because in, in the city. the lights, you know, wash everything out. So that always struck me as something like, you know, profound in that, like.

[34:50] SPEAKER C: You know, you.

[34:52] KEN SOLEYN: Something as obvious as the night sky. You're not seeing the same perspective in the city.

[35:00] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[35:00] KEN SOLEYN: As out in the country. So just that little bit of travel kind of open.

[35:06] TAMI NEUMANN: Yeah.

[35:06] KEN SOLEYN: It's up to other. So that's just a simple.

[35:08] SPEAKER C: Thing.

[35:08] KEN SOLEYN: But I mean, it's all these other things like, you know, they got to go swimming and play sports and people say, hey, you're one of those guys that like to hug trees and sing Kumbaya. Well, I literally did. Kumbaya was one of the songs that we.

[35:23] SPEAKER C: Right. Hang.

[35:24] KEN SOLEYN: And there was a, there's a learning effect, there's a bonding effect. And I think now it's, it's just done by. you know, wrote, like you said, you're, you're, you're teaching to this standardized exam, you know, you're going to take the SAT, and that's what's going to determine.

[35:46] TAMI NEUMANN: You know, your, the rest of your life.

[35:48] SPEAKER C: And.

[35:51] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, I, like, I, I, I struggled in school, you know, I love reading and stuff, but, and.

[35:59] TAMI NEUMANN: Math was my nemesis. Oh, my goodness.

[36:04] KEN SOLEYN: And I also like the socialization when I went to college. I like the parties and, you know, I thought that was like, because, you know, you're, you're like, you're thinking at that point, what's next? You know, what's, oh, I gotta, I gotta find a mate. I gotta find some friends. I gotta find a wife. Then I gotta get a house and.

[36:26] TAMI NEUMANN: A car, you know, all this pressure.

[36:30] KEN SOLEYN: I don't, I I can't, you know, I don't know. I can't see the.

[36:34] SPEAKER C: End.

[36:35] KEN SOLEYN: So as a young person.

[36:39] SPEAKER C: You know.

[36:39] KEN SOLEYN: You'Re under a lot of stress and you're also a lot of stress to fit in, you know, then fit into this sort of mole. And then later on, you learn that this mole is just artificial. It's, you know, it's Madison Avenue, you know, telling you you got to look like this.

[36:59] SPEAKER C: Right.

[37:00] TAMI NEUMANN: Some ad agency telling you, what you need to look like, be like, act like, do all those kind of things.

[37:09] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, and you find it's more to me like an inner because he says, some people say, wow, you've been a lot of places. I said, well, I think of it this way. I'm like the star in my own movie. I don't know if that's a big deal, but no one else has seen this movie. I'm the only one that, you know, knows the details of the movie.

[37:35] SPEAKER C: Right.

[37:36] KEN SOLEYN: But, you know, if you think of life as that way, your own Consciousness, you're, you know, you. You can control you. Now, you can control other people. You can influence other people, but not to the level that you can control yourself.

[37:51] TAMI NEUMANN: Yeah, so.

[37:54] KEN SOLEYN: I found that for me anyway, what works is I need a bit of solitude, you know, go hiking and things like that, but I also find that I need to try to put some energy into a little bit of activism. It's tough because everybody wants your time or money. But you gotta, I think the best advice is just to pick your spot. What is your passion? What are the issues? You can't be everything to everyone.

[38:29] TAMI NEUMANN: Yeah, that's true.

[38:30] KEN SOLEYN: For a lot of people, it's your job, you know, just making that enough money to, you know, pay the rent or the mortgage or, you know, the car payments is what you're working for. you know, you don't have time for all this other stuff.

[38:48] TAMI NEUMANN: I, yeah. Now, do you feel that you're, you said you're, you're really active with the, the Sierra Club? Do you do any other activism?

[38:59] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[39:01] KEN SOLEYN: Like, I, I belong to the, this is a new one I just started up with. It's called the New Hampshire Peace Action Group, and I just went to one meeting, but. and some of the online ones. One of the online ones, they had a movie maker who made a movie about this woman who survived Hiroshima. It was either Hiroshima or Nakazaki. But she survived the atomic bomb and she lived in Peekskill, New York. and they interviewed her and you know what she felt about it. So that was like and we had a little discussion on it. So things like that. And I'm also with the local Democratic Party caucus in my town and the AAIP, which is the Asian American, American Asian and Pacific Islanders. So it's my background is from India. My family came via the Caribbean as workers and then migrated to the US.

[40:18] SPEAKER C: Wow. So.

[40:21] KEN SOLEYN: That'S a lot. And, you know, but lately I've found I've been doing more work along the Sierra Club because that is we're going against definite like legislation and stuff like that. Mm-. But it's, you know, it's not a paid position or anything. I'm just a volunteer.

[40:43] TAMI NEUMANN: Right, which is also important.

[40:46] KEN SOLEYN: One of the things that I did also was I was at a group called Helping Hands and we found that the minority kids were not excelling as well in math and science. we started a group because a lot of the parents had like college education, so we started a tutoring group on Saturdays and it really did help. It really helped them to kind of, you know, and we tried to make it fun as well. We had some liaison teachers that got some funding to help us with it, but the parents were doing a lot of the tutoring. you found that that was really something that you could see tangible results, you know, pretty quickly.

[41:34] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[41:34] KEN SOLEYN: Even through these standardized, you know, like testing.

[41:37] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[41:38] KEN SOLEYN: And sometimes it's just like the motivation, you know, and that's what I sometimes I feel like these online training and online teaching learning. I sometimes wonder if you get that. Well, you, as being an educator, we probably could answer better if you kind of get that. Obviously, you don't get to say, but I think a lot. I don't know how to say, but I think a lot's missing as opposed to live learning.

[42:14] TAMI NEUMANN: I do, too. I'm. I'm actually not an educator, so. I worked with seniors all my life.

[42:24] SPEAKER C: But.

[42:26] TAMI NEUMANN: I do think, you know, just me taking little courses here and there, I think there's something to be said about being able to be in a room with a teacher and be like, well, hold on, can I ask a question? You know, can I, you know, to be honest with you, I don't know. what's the right way, the wrong way, you know, I think, I think teachers are dealing with a lot, you know, not just things that are going on in the classroom, but, you know, like you said, the amount of money they're paid. So they, you know, they're also coming into classrooms with their own baggage, too. Right. You know, so I think Just the.

[43:14] KEN SOLEYN: Idea of that any moment some random gunman can just go anywhere.

[43:23] TAMI NEUMANN: I mean, can you imagine going into that's how you have to live going into school each day?

[43:33] KEN SOLEYN: And it's in your psyche. It's in the back of your mind because All these schools now have talks about that, you know, you know, there's a whatever drill. I mean, when I was a kid.

[43:49] TAMI NEUMANN: There was your fire drill, your tornado drill.

[43:53] KEN SOLEYN: And it was the big one, the nuclear drill, what he told you to get under your desk. That was going to do anything.

[44:00] SPEAKER C: Right.

[44:03] TAMI NEUMANN: Well, you know, and how do you explain to very young children, you know, this could happen. I mean, I don't, I really don't know how they're handling that because you don't want to freak out all the little kids.

[44:20] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, that, you know, that, that real, that one really upsets me because I've observed, like, kindergarten kids and they all seem to develop their own little society. They organize things, they make it work. And I wonder if is all of this kind of prejudice and disdain for, let's say, the poor or the weaker people. And when I say weaker, I mean more in like a physical modality. we have five minutes left.

[45:02] TAMI NEUMANN: It looks like it.

[45:05] KEN SOLEYN: So I wonder if that's something that's ingrained in people, like, if this is sort of like instinct that I've got to hoard all of this stuff and. Or is that something that we learn over time? Like, it's ingrained, you know, because the kindergarten kids are getting along. They're learning things. If it is learned, my question is, can be unlearned.

[45:31] TAMI NEUMANN: Well, you know, I think the interesting thing just, and obviously we have five minutes left, but so my, my parents, especially my mom, was very racist and it was something that I never took on. I don't know why that is. I just, I've always had this, like, inside thought of, you're a human being. I'm a human being. Just because your skin is one color and my Skin's another color, that doesn't mean anything, right? Like, that's just who we be, who we are, right? And, you know, there was a lot that my mom was very racist about, and. The funny thing is that my best friend, like I told you, her children are mixed. They're black. The grandchildren are black. I'm white. She's white. My kids are white. But we all love each other, right? The color of our skin doesn't matter. So I think if I can bypass that in some way, shape or form, other people can bypass that too. But sometimes it's so ingrained or it's.

[46:54] SPEAKER C: So.

[46:57] TAMI NEUMANN: Hard to go against mom or dad or, you know, what have you. I don't know. I don't know.

[47:07] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, I think that one thing that this country needs to do is to celebrate, like we need it to turn around where a leader says, not demonize, you know, Mexicans, but let's, let's celebrate them like, like, oh, you know, Cinco de Mayo is coming up. Let's have a big festival. And we want everyone to sample Mexican food and listen to mariachi or whatever.

[47:40] TAMI NEUMANN: And I get exactly because and find out about culture. You know, I was always taught. I remember being taught United States is a Melting Pot, right? Because people can't come from all over the place to come to the United States. So why are we not celebrating that?

[48:00] KEN SOLEYN: What could be more American than rock and roll? And the main instrument is like the guitar. The guitar is Spanish.

[48:09] TAMI NEUMANN: Right, right.

[48:10] KEN SOLEYN: Drums, you know, come from Africa primarily, you know.

[48:14] SPEAKER C: Right.

[48:15] TAMI NEUMANN: And most of, you know, your the jazz music that was that, you know, really started off like some of the rock and roll music too. What was that based on? What was that built off of?

[48:28] KEN SOLEYN: Well, it's a melting pot, like the, you know, the Irish folk ballads and Scottish folk ballads. and hit Appalachia and that morphed into country music, but they were listening to the African banjo and metering, you know, and, but the same is true in all of the arts, you know, it's, it's, you know, dance and expression and, like, I'm fascinated by that. Like, to me, like, I, I could just sit and watch anything like that.

[49:01] SPEAKER C: Like.

[49:04] KEN SOLEYN: One of the things that I saw, all of my friends always think of it. So it's like a guilty pleasure is, is circus Soleyn.

[49:15] TAMI NEUMANN: That's so cool.

[49:17] KEN SOLEYN: I think it's. I think it's the coolest thing with a lot of my friends. Circus Soleyn. Oh, yeah. It's like, so weird. It's not guilty pleasure. I. I just, I'm fascinated by that whole expression, you know, the whole thing.

[49:32] TAMI NEUMANN: It is, I mean, and like, you know, operas, that's amazing. You know, there's so many different art forms that are out there and so many different artists that are combining them all together.

[49:45] KEN SOLEYN: And it's also using that when kids get involved in things like music, you know, kids that study music or take up an instrument. they do better in math. There's something, there's some connection mentally that maybe. Yeah, maybe the instrument kind of organizes your mind to think mathematically and vice versa.

[50:07] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[50:08] TAMI NEUMANN: You know, all the different time time frames, you know, 4-4 3-4 all those kind of.

[50:16] KEN SOLEYN: It's just, I think you and I agree on, on that. It's just. I, and we're probably in the same spectrum of, let's say, liberal politics, but liberal to me just means you want a fair shake for everyone.

[50:33] TAMI NEUMANN: Yeah, absolutely.

[50:35] KEN SOLEYN: A working person should be able to Make an honest wage and afford to put shelter and eat good food and. you know, enjoy some things in life.

[50:50] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[50:51] TAMI NEUMANN: And I think. I think that is really it. Just.

[50:56] KEN SOLEYN: Well, but what can be done for the other side? Like the. The other side? Like, what is it? You think it's too far gone at this point or what?

[51:06] SPEAKER C: What.

[51:06] KEN SOLEYN: What do you think? What do you think needs to be done to swing the pendulum back? to, at least, at least I would be happy with just a moderate, you know, kind of government, you know, where there's two sides, a debate, they, you know, they work.

[51:21] SPEAKER C: Right. Right. Right.

[51:24] TAMI NEUMANN: I don't know. It's, you know, there's moments where I think that, you know, what we're seeing is, you know, frightening and scary and all that kind of stuff. And maybe, maybe he's going to do too much harm that it's going to start swinging the pendulum. the other way. I don't know. But, I mean, something's got to change.

[51:50] KEN SOLEYN: Well, maybe he'll end up in a bunker by himself, you know.

[51:58] TAMI NEUMANN: Him and JD.

[52:04] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[52:04] KEN SOLEYN: You know, like, these. so one thing, one thing I do know is that these, these rich guys are not loyal. They're loyal to money. So once the spigot, well, you saw.

[52:17] TAMI NEUMANN: How quickly Elon got, was gotten rid of.

[52:22] KEN SOLEYN: They're like, they're like rats off a sinking ship, you know?

[52:25] TAMI NEUMANN: Yeah, they definitely are.

[52:27] KEN SOLEYN: Once their, their loyalty is with money. And so I have a feeling. It's going to disintegrate because the kind of people also that are in these positions, like it's, you know, someone who doesn't believe in vaccinations is in charge of the Department of Health. Linda McMahon is in charge of education. These are hacks that were given these appointments because it did some favor to Trump in terms of probably political donation.

[52:59] TAMI NEUMANN: Right, right.

[53:04] KEN SOLEYN: Well, it looks like our time is running out.

[53:07] TAMI NEUMANN: Our time is up. Ken, it was so nice to meet you.

[53:11] KEN SOLEYN: Nice to meet you. So in just to sum up, did.

[53:15] SPEAKER C: You.

[53:17] KEN SOLEYN: I enjoyed, I certainly enjoyed our discussion. I think maybe I did a little too much talking.

[53:24] TAMI NEUMANN: You were fine. No, I, you know, I want, I'm, I'm planning to do a few more of these, and I'm gonna have to challenge myself with somebody that thinks differently than me, for sure. So, because that's something that I really want to try to be able to do is have, like you said, be able to have a debate or a discussion.

[53:47] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[53:49] TAMI NEUMANN: Without it becoming such a horrible. thing, right? Where I'm stuck in my stance, they're stuck in their stance, and we're just yelling at each other, right? I think we do need to be able to come together in a way and have those conversations. So, you know, I definitely want to do a few more of these and just kind of see where I can maybe learn how to have those by having these small conversations.

[54:18] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, you know, I think I think it also can maybe help you to develop the argument or the other, you know.

[54:28] TAMI NEUMANN: Yeah, yeah.

[54:28] KEN SOLEYN: And one of the things that I found with some of the Republicans is you just let them talk a little bit because a lot of time, you.

[54:37] TAMI NEUMANN: Just sit and listen and then you're like, okay, there we go.

[54:42] KEN SOLEYN: You know, some, some of the things just doesn't make sense, like. how does, how does, how does the UAE give Trump a plane? Like, you know, how does that happen? Or, or give them, give it millions in crypto investment? You know, what is that?

[55:00] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[55:01] KEN SOLEYN: How do I get in on that? As a Democrat.

[55:08] TAMI NEUMANN: It is all very interesting.

[55:10] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, it's, it's. I think though it's, I again, I thought the country had really progressed and it's kind of like we just turned the pavement into ice and everyone just slipped back.

[55:29] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Yeah.

[55:31] TAMI NEUMANN: It is very 60s or something or the 50s. It's very sad to see. I think that's a really hard thing is that I'm seeing things change in a way that I never expected to happen.

[55:49] KEN SOLEYN: And then you as an individual, you start to feel like, what can I do about it? So I think the only other, you can get some solace in banning together with other like-minded people. Yeah, and seeing seeing if there's some activism that can be done or if it's just as simple as like organizing the vote get you know encouraging people.

[56:10] TAMI NEUMANN: To vote yeah, exactly All right, well.

[56:16] KEN SOLEYN: I'm gonna stop the recording I think.

[56:19] TAMI NEUMANN: I'll stop the recording, too.

[56:21] KEN SOLEYN: Okay, and you again, I enjoyed it and you you have a good night and hopefully you do the same maybe. Maybe I'll Castle cross one of these days.

[56:33] TAMI NEUMANN: That sounds great, Ken. You take care.

[56:35] SPEAKER C: All right.

[56:35] KEN SOLEYN: Bye-bye.

[56:36] TAMI NEUMANN: Bye-bye.