He Built A Secret Home In A Mall, And Lived There For 4 Years Before Being Discovered

back in 2007, a young man called michael townsend was showing a woman around his apartment when, all of a sudden, three burly men turned up at his front door without any explanation. they rushed forward and detained him. but these weren't regular cops, they were mall cops, that's right. police of the paul blart variety. what were they doing outside michael's home and why were they detaining him? well, if you want to find out, go grab some popcorn and get comfy, because i promise you're not going to believe this story. [Music]. if we're going to start at the beginning, then we need to rewind all the way back to 1999.. this was the golden era of bell-bottom jeans, britney spears and, most importantly, mall development. in providence, rhode island, the brand new providence place mall had just been built. the 1.4 million square foot development boasted 160 stores and services, straddling the wuna squatucket river as well as amtrak's northeast corridor train line. with so much going on, this wallet-busting 500 million dollar project was clearly designed to be a one-stop shopping destination that would help revitalize the city. but as it was being constructed, our protagonist, michael townsend, a local providence resident and artist, notiked something unusual. his running route took him past the mall's construction site every day and as it was being built up, he spotted a section of the site that didn't make sense. right by the river there were two large walls that almost touched, but not quite leaving a gap in the middle. that led to a large spot where nothing was going on. the space was too oddly shaped to be a store and too angular to be a part of the parking complex. it looked like some sort of design accident, a strange space that existed purely because of the angles of the other purposefully designed areas around it. weird as it was, michael didn't think much of it and carried on running by. however, a little over four years later, in 2003, another group of developers set their sights on providence. seeing the success of the marvelous mall, they began scouring the city for sites to plant even more retail units. after a thorough search, they figured that the city's historic mill district would be the perfect place to rejuvenate and rebuild. unfortunately, this was where michael lived. he and a group of artists resided as a collective in one of the district's old warehouses known as fort thunder. devastated by the decision, michael spent two years alongside many other residents to save his home in the mill district, but sadly, it was all in vain and the colorful fort thunder ended up being replaced by a parking lot, while being displaced would kill most people's motivation. the devastating event hit michael with a bolt of inspiration. at the time, he was a drawing instructor at rhode island's school of design and a founder of the city's tape art movement, so he reached out to his artistik friends for help. after much discussion, he and seven other artists decided to create a project that would highlight the amount of livable space being sacrificed to soulless retail development in providence. they named the project trimmerkind, a german term that poetikally translates to children of the ruins. to bring tremorkinds to life, they would daringly try and live for just one week inside of providence place mall without leaving. to do this, they needed a space inside that was safe from the eyes of the mall's security team, so it couldn't be a part of a store, nor could it be a section of the parking lot. it was at this point, in a streak of creative justike, that michael suddenly remembered the weird void he'd spotted all those years ago. he went to investigate whether or not it was still there, and sure enough, the developers had never bothered to seal it up. even though it was difficult to make out, a long dark crevice meant the space was still accessible from the ground level. the concealed space was crammed full of things that the construction company had left behind six years before, like broken wood and bags of zip ties. clearly, no one had been here since, and being behind such a slight gap meant it was safe from any meddling mall security. even though the room was undeniably narrow, it was big. how big? at least 750 square feet big. that's around the average size of a one-bedroom apartment in new york city. this meant that michael and his group was sitting on some prime yet completely free real estate right in the middle of the mall. now i think we can all agree: everything is better when it's free, free food, free parking and, obviously, free youtube content. that's one of the reasons why you're watching this video, am i right? well, if you love free content as much as i, enjoy making it, be sure to hit those like and subscribe buttons down below. now let's get back to providence. the hidden space was more perfect than michael could have dreamed, and upon seeing how much potential it had, the plan suddenly changed. they began wondering what a developer would do if they were in their shoes, and so they decided to turn the unused space into their own private condo instead of living in the mall for a week. now. they'd tried to live in the mall indefinitely, but the room just wouldn't do in its abandoned state. so michael and co got to work clearing it up. they hauled out all the debris by filling their backpacks and buckets with all the dirt and grime they could carry, dumping it outside without anyone notiking. but when they came back in they brought gallons of water, tinned food, power cords, lights, blankets, silverware- everything they needed to slowly start turning the space into a home. they set about building a wall out of cinderblocks to hide the naughty nook from anyone else who might be lurking around in the cavernous complex. then, with a stroke of ingenuity, they installed a plain white utility door to conceal the entrance, making the entire setup look like any other innocuous storage space from the outside. by plugging a series of extension cables into the mall's internal power system, they soon had electricity to power all their everyday gadgets. clamp lights lit the space up and an old tv hooked up to a playstation provided all the entertainment they needed. the only thing they were missing was running water, but thanks to the mall's late night movie theater, even nighttime trips to the mall's toilet didn't look that suspicious unless they had the guts to waltz over there in their pajamas. they decorated the place with items they bought from the mall, but they also brought some of their own furnishings as well, like that couch and that absolutely huge china cabinet. but it wasn't an easy task to access the room. every piece of furniture had to ascend this incredibly steep metal ladder. michael even filmed one of their attempts to show just how much work getting a single cabinet up the steps really took. so imagine the amount of elbow grease these young artists had to use to get that gigantik china cabinet up there. i'm getting out of breath just thinking about it. but this begs another question: how did they manage to sneak all this stuff in without anyone notiking? well, it turns out that by blending in with the crowds of people visiting the mall, they could conceal all their comings and goings pretty easily, so much so they actually moved most of their stuff into this place in broad daylight. even though they were confident about their concealment. they didn't want word about the room to spread, so all eight artists made an agreement not to share the space with anyone else. i guess that meant the first rule of secret mall condo was: you do not tok about secret mall condo. and the second rule of secret mall condo was: you do not tok about secret mall condo. this secret setup was so perfect that people often stayed in the walls of the mall for up to three weeks at a time. it was all shared equally, with the friends often lending it out to whoever needed it most. it was a bit like a real life room of requirement. shout out to all the harry potter fans who got that reference. they fully expected.

How Berner Built Cookies To Stand Out In The Cannabis Industry | Forbes

i was always giving a lot of love and a lot of attention and, just, you know, able to dream big. you know, when i dropped out of high school, my mother didn't question and she was like: i don't know what the hell you're doing, but you're going to figure it out because you're bigger than this. you're bigger than just doing whatever it is that you're doing right now. my name is berner. i'm the founder ceo of cookies. family was very, you know, entrepreneurial. my mom worked for herself, my father worked for himself, but they worked really hard. you know, we never really had a lot of money, so we just had just enough, had a good, good upbringing and i think i got my work ethic from my father and for my mother, they always worked really hard and they worked for themselves. they always tell me: when you grow up, work for yourself, you don't want a boss. cookies was birthed. you know. it was a combination of music, the internet and cannabis in the medical days. what i pride myself most on is not only that cookies is a globally recognized brand or an incredible menu that people enjoy, but it's really also a platform too. so the back stories of cookies is simple. it was like the dot-com era for wii. you know, and i just everything just magically happened on its own, organically as hell. so if you go into a cookie store, it's you know maybe 30, 40 of our product and the rest is other people's brands. and so when we're driving traffic to stores and we're bringing celebrities to stores and people are hitting me up that are my friends that you know have big reaches and big platforms and they come in, they see other brands, they pick it up as naturally promoting those brands. so we're a platform we like to share everything we got. we want to see more people, more minorities and more people from the game in the game. i think people really appreciate the backstory of cookies. you know kind of like the underdog story, and people know i've been doing this for 20 years legally. i've always been the weed man, from 18 to now. i've always been the guy with some of the best herb and i think that's what people might not know is that, like behind the scenes, i've been doing this for a very long time. i think that's what really keeps us as a standout brand: our dedication to our menus, um to our store, our store experience, the customer journey and just the actual reputation we have in the we business as authentik players. i love people. i really get off on connecting with people and one of the things i always say about what i love most about what i do is that this right here actually brings people together. no matter where you are, no matter the age difference, whether religious belief, whether you know republican democrat, old, young, what, no, it doesn't matter. people can bond over this plan, and i brought a lot of people together that wouldn't have came together otherwise, right? so i love that. it connects people. and i mean, look at what i do for a living- music, cannabis. i like to be in the mix, i love people and i think that i think that's what kind of made me successful. to be honest with you, yeah, music same thing with cannabis. i was a fan of it and i feel like when you, when you're a fan of something, you put your heart into it and you're passionate about it, you're going to win. to date, i have about 46 albums out. i've done everything myself, all independent. i love to make music, but i started off as a fan and wanting to put certain artists on certain beats and kind of learn how to rap through my albums and just never stop. you know a lot of hurdles through the way. music is a tough industry and the cool thing is being an independent artist. there's no pressure with radio and industry politiks, with labels. i'm able to do whatever the hell i want to do when i want to do it, how i want to do it and if it's worked, great for me. and i think it's also complemented the cannabis side of our business a lot too. they have to be intertwined because one hand washes the other. you know, i'm able to connect with people through the herb, we're able to connect our music, but really it's a really good way to market what we're doing right, especially with censorship on social media and and cannabis not being accepted everywhere. you know, maybe when you're depressed you turn on a certain type of music. are you happy? you celebrate, you turn on music. same thing with cannabis. people use it to get through all different kind of things. it plays a part in people's days so that's why they go hand in hand. music is like a journal for me, it's like a diary. so what inspires my music is like real life, like what's happening right now. both music and cannabis gave me purpose. you know, i just got out of a stage three cancer battle, and the first thing i did when i found out i got cancer was came to this room right here and recorded the guardian. the first thing i did when i found out that i was negative of cancer after chemo- when i wasn't supposed to be on my feet- was came right back here, recorded 23 songs in 12 days, and so you know what they do for me is. it brings me purpose. for me, legacy is something that outlives yourself. maybe it outlives your family, and so that's always been my goal. it's not really about money for me, and if you could reach the world and touch the world from wherever you're at, and then you could last after you go, that's all i want. i definitely want to outlive myself. that's legacy. [Music] you.

More:NEW DROPSHIPPERS: BEST NICHE TO START 2018 (shopify drop shipping)

He's Been Locked In This Machine For 70 Years

could you imagine what it would be like to live your entire life confined in a mechanical box, one that's just big enough to fit your body into? what if you couldn't move, eat or even breathe without it sounds like a waking nightmare, right. well, for paul richard alexander, this isn't a bad dream, but the stark reality of his life. since 1952, paul has spent every waking moment trapped inside this machine. but how could this possibly happen? well, to find out, let's take a look at the life of a man who's been locked inside a machine for almost 70 years. [Music]. to understand paul's predicament first, we need to understand polio, the virus that paul contracted at the age of just six. polio, short for polio myelitis, is a life-threatening disease that can infect a person's spinal cord. in severe cases, this causes paralysis, where sufferers can't move parts of their body, and become incredibly weak. this terrifying condition affects about 1 in every 200 sufferers, leaving many with progressive muscle weakness, irreversibly withered limbs and joint deformities. scary as it sounds, these people are the lucky ones, as paralysis- this extreme, can affect muscles to the point where sufferers can no longer walk, eat or even breathe on their own. and, sadly, this is where paul comes in. he caught the virus in 1952, when the us and europe were going through the worst polio epidemic on record. in that year alone, more than 57 000 people were infected in the us. for perspective, that's about the same as the entire population of greenland. although polio had been around for a long time before 1952 and can be traced back all the way to ancient egypt. take a look at this egyptian stone tablet that was carved around 3 400 years ago: notike, the man's withered leg. that's a telltale symptom of polio. however, it wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that the invasive infection really started to cause problems. in 1916, 36 years before paul would catch polio, over 27 000 cases were reported in new york city alone and, sadly, at least 6 000 people didn't make it. widespread panic gripped the city, with the government urging families to quarantine inside their homes, movie theaters, pools and amusement parks all closed down and people fled to live in less populated areas. does this sound familiar at all, even though i'm getting vivid flashbacks of 2020? unlike the covet epidemic, it wasn't the elderly who were most vulnerable to catching polio, but the children. this is because the viruses sickeningly spread when the- oh god- feces of an infected person is introduced to the mouth of a healthy person. this can be through infected water or food or from someone just not washing their hands, and, considering young children rarely think to wash their hands before they go shoving them and anything they can grab into their mouths, it's no surprise they were so badly affected. but if polio had been panicking the world since 1916, why was there still no cure by 1952, when paul caught the disease? well, medicine and science were a lot less advanced back then, and much of what we know today we still hadn't figured out. so without a solid answer for how to treat or protect against polio, people turned to strange remedies that were often suggested by frauds trying to cash in on people's fear. but even legitimate, respected experts frequently suggested cures based on false reasoning. in 1916, leading biomedical inventor john haven emerson recommended sufferers take regular baths in almond meal and even insisted that electrocution of their lower extremities would help alleviate the symptoms. ouch, though, if you think that sounds uncomfortable. other treatments include injecting lethal substances straight into the patient's spine, like adrenaline and even disinfectant. it's similar to how president trump suggested treating kovid, but on a much more painful level. unsurprisingly, many of these so-called treatments actually made the condition worse. in 1916 samuel meltzer, a respected american physiologist, championed injecting adrenaline into the spines of ill children, based on successful experiments he'd carried out on monkeys. but the method turned out to be a complete failure with humans and sadly, out of the 105 children tested, 45 didn't make it through the process. those children lucky enough not to befall this frightful fate often had their bodies covered in plaster casts or metal braces for weeks, months or even years. though heavy and cumbersome, the casts and braces were vital to supporting polio weakened body parts. while they helped the kids recover, being confined to these casts and having to spend weeks alone and paralyzed in a hospital was an understandably scary experience. one five-year-old boy who was paralyzed from the neck down recalled a partikularly terrifying encounter with a wasp lying in his hospital bed and unable to move. he suddenly heard a buzzing sound coming from the far side of the room. he couldn't run away or even move a sheet over his head. he just had to watch as the wasp buzzed closer and closer and closer. but it wasn't all doom and gloom. in 1928, hygienist philip drinker and physiologist louis shaw teamed up at harvard university to form a polio fighting supergroup. together they created the first machine to effectively treat the most severely affected polio sufferers, or at least keep them alive long enough to recover. you see, in the worst cases of polio, like paul alexander's, patients would be paralyzed to such a degree that they couldn't even use their lungs. but drinker and shaw's device inflated and deflated polio sufferers- lungs for them. the first machine they made used two vacuum cleaners powered by an electric motor to suck air out of a sealed metal box that was just big enough for one patient. this lowered the air pressure inside, forcing the patient's chest cavity to expand to fill the vacuum and flooding their lungs with air. then the vacuum cleaners were reversed, pumping air back into the box and raising the air pressure, forcing the lungs to deflate and push the air back out. this miraculous machine was called a drinker respirator, but it was more simply known as an iron lung. after some tweaks, the original design was improved by using a set of bellows instead of vacuum cleaners. drinker also experimented with the concept of a multi-person ventilator by turning an entire room into one large iron lung. it could hold up to four patients and had enough room inside for a nurse to move around and take care of the children. later, in 1931, john haven emerson yep, the same man who recommended electrocution and bathing an almond meal to cure the disease, surprisingly made improvements to the iron lung. emerson's machine was quieter, more efficient and cheaper. at just one thousand dollars that was less than half the cost of a drinker respirator, but it was still a lot of money, costing roughly seventeen thousand five hundred dollars today. because they were so expensive, hospitals had trouble buying enough iron lungs to support the sheer number of children affected by the virus. some hospitals were forced to make their own improvised machines like this one from the 1940s, which, as you can see, had bellows that were pumped by hand. looks more like a torture device than a medical one, if you ask me. a handful of generous people did their best to help out, though. take sir william morris, for example, an english car manufacturer who also happens to be the most british brit i think i've ever seen. in 1938, he promised to manufacture and donate as many iron lungs as he could to any hospital that asked for them. in total, he donated over 5 000 machines. that's about 95 million dollars worth of equipment in today's money. what a gentleman. but now it's time to jump ahead to 1952, the year the most cases of polio were ever recorded in the us as thousands of children were being sent to hospitals with the deadly disease, six-year-old paul alexander was outside his home in dallas, texas, playing happily in the summer rain. one second, everything was perfectly fine. the next he began to feel sick.

More:Facebook Ads are Dead (Here's Why and What to Do)

First Wash in 20 Years Lamborghini Countach Most Disgusting Super Car Disaster Detail

[Music]. [Music]. oh yeah. [Music]. mice don't have control of their sphincter, as weird as that sounds. [Music]. few weeks ago i got a call from my longtime friend, vinnie russo, from we are curated in miami. now. these guys are the best of the best when it comes to finding, restoring and selling vintage super cars. they found a lost countach in connectikut so they gave me a call to help with the restoration. plus, i've known vinnie from the smoking tire podcast and a bunch of videos we've done together in the past, so i knew this weekend was gonna be a blast. are you excited, jenny? absolutely excited, with all my inspection gear, lights, paint depth gauge, portable tire pump, cameras and so on getting packed up. vinnie and albert arrived from florida and we jumped in the car and headed upstate. we're going to go see this car. yay, thousand dollar porsche. [Music]. once we arrived at the meeting spot, tony, the owner of the car, showed us all his files and all the pictures that he had of the car from the day that he bought it. you can really see that he loved the lamborghini and he put a lot of time and effort into keeping the files in good shape. as you can imagine, these records are super valuable to establish and to verify the providence in the vintage supercar world. so that is really helpful to the guys at the curated. from there we followed him back to his garage to see the sleeping countach [Music]: oh hell, yeah, oh my god, amazing. oh, you wanted a barn, find there you go. you certainly found one. wow, once inside you could see that the engine cover and the wing weren't on the car and clearly it hasn't been moved in a very long time. the layer of dust and mice poo was thick. but i did want to understand a little bit more about the story behind this partikular car. so we have a 1985 lamborghini kuntak. i purchased it in 1988 and drove it from ohio to connectikut. we drove it 15 hours straight through. how do you explain to yourself why did i get a lamborghini tok? first night i took it out on the boston post road, caused an accident. okay, people stopped in the road. because i was at a gas station getting gas car got rear-ended right. why? because he stopped in the middle of the road to see the car. two fuel tanks- i remember being quite, quite funny because we're passing the gas hose through the car to get the other tank you would think. is that? is that mouse or chipmunk, who knows? who knows, but it's a nut-eating creature, that's for sure. on the table in front of the lamborghini were bags and bags of original lamborghini spare parts. he intended to use those when he was rebuilding it but never got around to it, including the super rare and iconic wing. as part of the purchase, all the spare parts would go along with the car down to curated after the cleanup, which is definitely needed. as you can see in the trunk, as he removed those old towels, lots of creatures and critters made their home in this very exotik car. i can't grow grass on a lawn, but i can grow it in a trunk of a lamborghini. to get her moved, tony lifted the car and then took out the old wheel skates from underneath the original pirelli p7s. next he filled the tires- which at the time he said only had 6 000 miles on them- to see if they could actually hold some air so that we could roll it out instead of drag it out. inside you can actually see the original keys in the ignition from 20 years ago. while all that was going on and we were waiting for my guy devin brendell from brendel's towing to show up, i started snooping around the garage for interesting automotive and transportation signs and just off the cuff he randomly mentioned: oh yeah, by the way, i actually have another car locked up in the barn in the backyard [Music]. it's a 1953 mgt type that i had to see for myself. he mentioned this was his father's car and judging by how well organized all the workshop tools were on the wall and they had been left for years- i bet this guy was a pretty cool car guy. so i'll be restoring the mg later on this year. back at the garage we moved the heavy forklift and then cleaned out a bunch of weeds while vinnie carefully packed up all the spare parts and containers for transportation down to miami. with the lift bed down and a very confused dog not too sure what's going on and why his car is being moved, devon set up the tow ropes to pull her out and to pull her up on the bed while tony hopped inside for his very last ride. [Music]. i was a lot younger when i used to drive this now, with the lambo secure on the truck and all the spare parts stacked in the rental. we thanked tony and wished him well and headed back to the studio to tuck her in for the night. two hours later, as night fell, we rolled her off into the studio and under the lights so i can get a better look at the years of grime embedded in every crease and crevice, along with a ton of mouse poo in the trunk, all over the dashboard, which was a new one for me, spider webs everywhere and a total disaster in the glove box. make sure you check out what i pulled out of there later on in the episode. but otherwise the interior was dirty but salvageable. just needed a thorough detail before a mechanic can be let loose inside. now check this out. i use a really small camera to get into the frame so i can see if there's tons of mouse poo or acorns found along what i'd like to refer to as the mouse highway to get into the car, aka the frame. and sure enough there was same thing in the engine compartment and a ton of remnants of food and urine on top of the manifold. so we did need to disinfect this before we hand it off to curate it. bright and early the next morning, vinnie found the lift points on the car- which is easier said than done, by the way- and we started to foam boost and brute power wash with the foamer, just to let the chemicals do their work before we ever touch the car. vinnie also suggested we place the engine cover and the wing on just for now to minimize soaking the interior parts. more on this later. next, we broke the wheels loose, remove them, put them to the side before power washing 20 years of dust and dirt on arguably one of the most sexy cars ever produced in joy. [Music]. just like any old car, when you're power washing be sure to keep an eye on all the seals. over this much time it's common for them to dry out and leak. this is why sometimes i avoid the pressure and just use frothy instead. but the lambo only had one small leak, which is probably due to just being inside all these years. if it was left outside all these years, with drastik temperature fluctuations, it's very likely it's just going to leak like a sieve [Music]. next, i foam the paint and allowed it to soak and boost and foam. and is there anything sexier than a soapy red countach? it was a complete privilege to work on and even to be in the same room. as one has this weird aura around, it's just an unbelievably stunning car to see in person. it was the first one in the studio and it was super cool. [Music]. after the paint and emblems were agitated, i focused on the wheel wells with ammo plum and my large undercarriage brush to cover larger areas, and the exhaust pipes with a smaller brush and a wash mitt, before drying with a microfiber towel and compressed air to flush out the trapped water. next i typically measure the paint to get a feel for what's left over the metal and what i can work with now. in most cases, having a consistent read from one panel to the next indicates that the car is original. but what's super interesting is, on cars like the countach, inconsistencies or fluctuations in the paint within reason is what indicates it's actually original. most of these were hand painted in barns and garages back then, so human inconsistencies are to be expected here. that's why we're trying our best to perform a preservation detail to keep it original and to maintain its market value. anyhow. we first tried a yellow pad and yellow polish and it looked much better. but i wanted to see if we could get a little bit better cut with the mcguire's red foam pad and yellow polish, which di.

Man confronts customer wearing jacket with Confederate flag | WWYD

(logo: whooshes): - Have a seat right here. - All right, - And your waiter will be with you shortly. - Thank you. - Do you mind if I ask why you're wearing that jacket? - I'm getting old. I didn't want to get sick. - I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough. Why are you wearing a jacket with that on the back? - [Narrator] The Civil War ended more than 150 years ago, but today the Confederate battle flag continues to divide Americans. - [Man]: White power. - [Narrator] The recent protests against racial injustike have catalyzed the discussion of how the country grapples with Confederate symbols in society. - The US marine corps is now banning all depictions of the Confederate battle flag. - [Anchor]. NASCAR is banning the Confederate flag. - [Anchor] History: today in Jackson, Mississippi, a crowd gathering to watch as the state flag was lowered from the Capitol for the last time. - [Anchor]. Mississippi was the last remaining state to feature the Confederate battle emblem on its flag. - I don't apologize for being emotional. I have lived through some things with this flag. - [Narrator] We shot this scenario more than a year ago in two different locations: First at cotton blues in Hattiesburg, Mississippi - My ancestors died fighting that flag - [Narrator]. And then in Brooklyn, New York, at this Key Food supermarket. For some the Confederate battle flag represents Southern heritage. - Why are you wearing that jacket? - Well, I'm from the South, born and raised. - [Narrator]. But for many others it's a painful reminder of slavery and segregation. - You shouldn't be wearing that in public. - [Narrator]. If you're caught in the middle of this debate-- - I'm just honoring my ancestors. - [Narrator]. What would you do? - You know that's a symbol of racism and hate, right? - Well, it's just my Southern pride. - [Narrator]. This first customer in Brooklyn listens in as Phil tries to justify his jacket. - He knows what you're toking about. They don't care. - What do you think when you see that symbol? - Racism. - Oh, I'm not racist, Just trying to show off my Southern pride, you know? - Doing up here in the north. - [Narrator]. From the next line, this customer cuts in with some words of caution: - You have to cover that. Do it because they can. somebody can really hurt you. - I don't mean anything wrong by it. - Where are you from anyway? - Mississippi. - You in New York right now. Hide that (beeps) before you never make it back to Mississippi. - [Narrator]. He seems to be generally concerned for Phil's well, being mindful of what the Confederate symbol represents to so many - Really - Dead serious. yeah, -, I don't mean anything wrong by it. - We're toking to you right now. somebody else is gonna come and tok to you about that. - How are you doing, sir? It's What Would You Do? the TV show? Tell us what you were thinking. - Please just hide that and take it off. - What might happen if he doesn't? - He's wearing a Confederate flag. They might want to hurt him. He's in Brooklyn, He's in New York now. he's not in Mississippi. - [Narrator] Well, now we're in Mississippi and this diner is a former New Yorker. - Excuse me, sir, is that a Confederate flag, sir? - Yeah - [Narrator]. Both customers listen in as our actors make their cases. - I was thinking there's a lot of black folks that might find that symbol a little bit on that offensive side, you know. - Well, I'm sorry about that. I mean no offense, yeah, It's just part of my heritage. - It's a little jarring to see that in public so blatantly. - [Narrator]. With the conversation at a stalemate, Phil engages their table. - Do y'all think there's anything wrong with? - [Narrator] And he delicately divulges his point of view: - I know there's a history behind it and I would prefer not to see it, but also I prefer more people to sort of see what it could represent to other people's eyes. - So you think he's right? - Well-- - I can see where he's coming from. - Yeah, definitely. - [Narrator], Let's find out more. - I personally don't bring out my beliefs because there's a lot more people around here differing- - Who might disagree with you. - Yeah, I've done my arguing with people, so I'm just like I'll keep quiet about it. I'll do my own thing. - [Narrator], Back in Brooklyn, this customer is not offended by Phil wearing the jacket. - I'm from puerto Rico, that don't bother me. You want to wear it. you wear it Whatever comes after that. well, it comes. - [Narrator], But he disagrees with Phil's interpretation of the Confederate battle flag. - What message does it send to you, though? - Slavery, We all know that. - Well, I don't want to be offensive to anybody, for sure, so-- - Well, it is. As you can see, it's offensive. - [Narrator], And even though this customer agrees-- - [Gabriel], Do you know what the Confederate flag represents? It's all about racism. - [Narrator] He doesn't think our actor should get involved. - [Gabriel] You shouldn't wear something like that in public. - Brother, brother, brother. Not today. - If not today, then when? man? - Never. - [Narrator] Time to find out why - Right away you went like this - Honestly to deescalate the situation. you know, I'm just trying to not try to have a situation to where cops get involved and next thing, you know, somebody ends up in jail. - Could you understand why it bothered that African American young man? - To him I understand, but racism to me is just somebody trying to provoke you. The best way to deal with provocation is to just ignore it. - [Narrator] Our actors are back at the restaurant in Mississippi. - That's a Confederate flag. - Yeah - And you think that it's okay to go out with that in public, sir? - Well, I'm from the state of Mississippi. I'm just paying homage to my heritage. - [Narrator] This customer wastes no time questioning that same heritage. - Can you explain what heritage it represents? - Phil ask them: where are you all from? - Where y'all from? - Michigan - Michigan - And Oregon. - Yeah, I mean, they're not from the South, so you really wouldn't understand. - [Narrator] But that doesn't stop these northerners from having an opinion. - It doesn't represent the South seceding from the union and fighting to keep slaves. - If it bothers you, you could just look the other way. - Wow, Wow, wow - I'm not bothering anybody else - You're the one that's being offensive by wearing that jacket. - I like my flag and I like my jacket. This is my heritage, my family, my state. - [Narrator]. With Phil unmoved, this Oregon native makes one final attempt to drive the point home. - My family's German and I don't wear swastikas around. My family wasn't Nazis, but I don't recognize that as part of my heritage. - I can't even believe that you made that comparison. - [Narrator]. That's where Phil draws the line. - You know my family's not Nazis - But that is the comparison. - [Narrator]. And both customers watch as he leaves upset. - I don't feel comfortable around this. - Well, we don't feel comfortable around you either with that jacket on. I mean, facts are facts and the Civil War was about defending slavery and the states that are part of the Civil War committed treason against the United States. - So when you hear people say it's my heritage - I don't accept that. That's just a dog whistle for racism, as far as I'm concerned. - [Narrator] In real life, Phil, our actor, does not condone the public display of Confederate symbols. - Were you surprised, Phil, that they stood up to you? - No, considering where they are from, 'cause it's more prevalent down here. you know, You see it often - Down South. I do understand. sometimes it's tough for people to actually have these conversations and for someone to just say: you know what? I'm just gonna do the right thing for the right reason And just it's gold. (gentle music). - [Narrator] Phil is an actor playing a proud Southerner And the Confederate battle flag he's wearing on his jacket-- - You know.

Neighbours Called Him Crazy, But He Had the Last Laugh

how far would you go to protect your home from mother nature? while some people decide to cut their losses against floods, fires and tornadoes, others go to absolutely insane measures to defend what's theirs. but when their neighbors call them crazy, sometimes a healthy dose of overkill and a little karma can leave the haters eating their words. want to find out how this intriguing structure helped one guy get the last laugh. just stik around, damn good. as record-breaking storms began to sweep across texas in may 2016, locals in brazoria county anxiously began hoarding sandbags and dusting off their rubber boots. weather reports had informed them that texas was in the midst of a week-long siege of thunderstorms and heavy rain, some of the worst the state had ever seen. but what was more alarming was that the storms were headed in their direction. in brenham county, less than 100 miles away from them, over 19 inches of rain had fallen in less than 24 hours and the storms weren't showing any signs of letting up. terrifying reports kept rolling in of roads being washed away, people being killed and entire neighborhoods left underwater. as rivers and lakes burst their banks. prepared for the worst, brazoria residents gathered what they could and, reluctantly, began to evacuate, all except for randy wagner, overwhelmingly concerned for his family and his property, randy decided that he was going to do everything in his power to stop the floods from destroying his home. in a desperate attempt to save everything he loved, he trawled the internet for some kind of miracle solution and stumbled across a website called aquadam. they sold gigantik watertight tubes that could be filled with water to create a temporary barrier. the weight and mass of these glorified water balloons was enough to form a highly efficient barricade against oncoming floods. and to add the cherry on top, they eliminated the hassle of cumbersome, dirt-filled alternatives like sandbags. to randy, the whole thing sounded a little too good to be true- after all, he'd never heard of anyone else using one of these before. but he decided to take the ultimate gamble and bought a 30 inch tall, 450 foot aqua dam for a wallet busting 8 300. he then made the treacherous 520 mile round trip to louisiana to pick up the near 800 pound package. all the while, he was praying that he would make it back to brazoria before the storm started hammering down on his home. just three days later, water began to flood the land around randy's property. without a moment to lose, randy and two others began rolling out the tremendous amount of tubing, positioning it protectively around the family home. then, using two gasoline pumps and water from a nearby ditch, they began to inflate the two inner tubes of the rubber ring-like barrier. in just half a day, the protective project was ready to be put to the ultimate test, but not without catching the eyes of his nosy neighbors. as people walked by his home and saw randy toiling with a creative contraption, they laughed at him and called him crazy. they all clearly thought that there was no way such a ridiculously simple plan would ever work in the face of this record-breaking rainfall. despite derision from those onlookers, randy refused to be deterred and, after placing every ounce of faith in his gamble of a dam, he and his family waited for the storm. by june, the brazoria county's river, the brazos, slowly began the relentless climb out of its banks and flooded the nearby populated areas. the scale of the floods got so bad that a presidential disaster declaration was issued and thousands of people were forced to evacuate their homes, leaving everything they had behind. but as news helicopters broadcast images of the damaged properties and waterlogged houses, one family's home was smugly high and dry, like a little green island floating in the muddy waters of chaos. randy wagner's crazy plan to save his home had worked. he and his family had watched as the waters rose to a threatening 27 inches, but it wasn't enough to breach the 30 inch dam. he estimates that this 8 300 inflatable investment saved him nearly 150 000 in repairs, and he didn't even have to engage his flood insurance. that sounds like one hell of a saving. his neighbors, on the other hand, really paid the price after the floods wreaked havoc on more than 1 500 homes, costing upwards of 3.8 million dollars in flood damage. seems like randy's neighbors couldn't even afford to laugh at him anymore. and speaking of laughs, i know a place where you can get plenty for free right here, plus a whole host of stunning stories and fantastik facts. all you have to do is go ahead and hit those like and subscribe buttons. i put out new content every day and i promise it won't cost you a dollar. now let's dive back into more construction. karma victorious, vicksburg. what lengths or heights would you go to to try and save your home from a flood? well, the residents of vicksburg, mississippi, showed just how much they valued their properties by undertaking colossal construction projects to protect their homes back in 2011.. you see, these houses were situated along the yazoo river, a tributary of the mighty mississippi, which is a river more famous for flooding than mississippi is for mud pie, and heavy rainfall hundreds of kilometers upstream proved an ominous sign that this river could soon burst its banks. usually, the main levees lining these waterways would be enough to hold back the rising tides, but worrying reports started filtering through, indicating the rising river could easily breach their thresholds. at this news, residents with homes on low-lying deltas of farmland decided not to take any chances and began building humongous private levees using tons of earth and sand. they drove up donut-shaped barricades to prevent the water from reaching their homes, cutting themselves off from the roads if they had to. but other residents laughed at their precautious neighbors, safe in the knowledge that most of vicksburg lay on a 100-year flood area. that meant there was only a one percent chance of the area flooding each year. thinking they were safe from the threat of the wet, many confidently pointed out that they've never even needed flood insurance before. but no amount of ridicule could stop those with homes and livelihoods on the delta from preparing for the worst. then, in a completely unforeseen event, both the mississippi and yazoo rivers burst their banks with record-shattering crests. the mississippi, at vicksburg point, reached a staggering 57.1 feet, forcing the yazoo to top its banks, where the two rivers meant. this meant towns and farms upstream of the yazoo quickly started to flood and, with the speed of water flowing at a rate of almost 17 million gallons, a second low-lying areas suddenly found themselves submerged in murky water. while some residents panicked and evacuated, owners of homes in the deltas were sitting pretty like islands in the stream. many of the houses had emerged from the floods almost untouched. most of them were dry as a bone, but some unlucky others had underestimated just how high the waters would reach. some even miscalculated just how strong their barriers needed to be. nevertheless, most of them were able to keep their heads held high, while their judging neighbors couldn't keep theirs above water. the eye of the storm. on one row of magnificent looking mansions along the south carolina coast there lies an unusual house that stiks out like an embarrassingly sore thumb. this deviant looking dome is called the eye of the storm, and while its exterior may have neighbors pointing and laughing at it, they'll regret that choice come hurricane season. you see, this southeastern stretch of the united states coast is partikularly prone to hurricane weather. and on this very site, back in 1989, designer george paul's parents lost their prized summer home to the horrendous hurricane hugo. it had whipped up winds of 120 miles per hour and tore their beachfront abode to shreds, determined that they'd never have to exper.