this time, it really is a political football. i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. the nfl kicked off their regular season thursday night with the defending super bowl champions kansas city chiefs hosting the texans. the rest will begin tomorrow. much as changed since colin kaepernick drew the league's ire since 2016. since the nation entered the period of reconciliation after

george police department was ki george floyd was killed in may. in june, commissioner roger goodell apologized for the league's prior stance. due to the pandemic, the stadium had 16,000 in attendance, not the 70,000 capacity for arrowhead stadium. all were wearing masks except for eating and drinking. there were signs of protest among those in attendance. but also both end zones were painted with messages of end racism and it takes all of us. before the game, the song lift every voice and sing was played which some have called the black national anthem. the chiefs stood arm in arm in the field. alex okafor took a knee for the national anthem sung by the r&b duo who wore t-shirts of george floyd and breonna taylor. after the texans took the team, both teams joined hands for a moment of silence dedicated to

equality in our country. several fans were heard booing. >> thank you. >> on the back of many helmets were messages that the nfl had approved including stop hate, it takes all of us and racism and black lives matter. all of this social change is not enough for some. already the miami dolphins have said they'll not be on the field for either anthem. criticizing in a poem what the players call fluff and empty jest st gestures by the nfl. >> so if my dad was a soldier and the cops killed my brother do i stand for one anthem and kneel for another? >> the attempt to unify creates more divide. >> we'll skim the song and dance. >> and as a team, we'll stay

inside. >> we need hearts. >> enough fluff no empty gestures. >> for centuries we've been trying to make you are aware, either you're that denial or simply don't care. >> it's not a black white thing or right left thing. >> let's clean the whole bird and stop worrying about which wing. >> and more than just seeing tom brady in a tampa bay buccaneers uniform. more change that will be received by fans across the country. when the dallas cowboys announced it was okay for the teams' players to protest the anthem. we heard from one father who once owned a franchise in a competitive league. football is officially dead wrote eric trump. good-bye, i'm gone. the tv viewership fell 12.3%.

overall, a drop of 11%. second worse in a decade for a thursday night game. i want to know what you think. go to my website and answer the question has football become too involved in social activism. jointing me now, legendary stephen a. smith. what exactly were the fans booing? >> well, i think it's been politicized to some degree. obviously years ago when the president hijacked the narrative by turning a protest of police brutality and racial inequality and making it an issue of bringing patriotism into the equation. a lot of people have adopted that belief and they've never shrugged it off their shoulders. that's what this comes down to. regardless of the fact that jj watt pointed out there was

nothing that was divisive about what we did. we tried to be all-inclusive. and about the nfl but recognizing what ails the society particularly in this day and age. still, you had people booing. it was unfortunate that they elected to do that. nevertheless, it was not surprising because it's something that's been going on for the last four years. it's supposed to be about one message, but other people interpreted being something entirely different. that's a belief that they're holding on. and we're in an election year. i certainly believe that didn't help that particular cause in any way. this is what it's about. there are people who are going to believe what they believe, regardless of what truth they're told. >> benjamin watson tweeted in the mind-set of the hey, shut up and play. i'm going to put up on the screen. don't kneel, don't lock arms. don't love each other.

don't emphasize with your brother. don't care about your country. don't speak up for the vulnerable. don't seek justice of righteousness. just play. sad. is this good for the nfl? >> at the moment, it's not goods for the nfl obviously, it's going to suffer. particularly, we're enduring a pandemic as we seek, clearly, you don't need additional issues that are going to compromise your bottom line. but that's a short-term view. in my estimation, to answer you directly, michael, my belief is over time, everybody just accepts the fact that there are folks that have different beliefs. it's not like the game is being intruded upon. those 60 minutes of football, there's nothing that's going on but football. the protests that are taking place, the things that have been done to bring attention to the strife that exists in this nation, those are things that are transpiring before tip-off actually arrive. yes. there are going to be people

kneeling during the national anthem. there are going to be people kneeling, locking arms. and in the end, they're playing football. that football, 60 minutes or longer is going to be unimpeded. as long as that's the case, people will get over it. i think it's just a situation, again, we're in an election year. there are people going to the polls. you have athletes encouraging people to go to the polls. i think it's clear who they want folks to vote for. as a result, there's going to be resistance from that from the other side. and people are going to protest and they're going to bring teen attention to what they want to bring attention to highlight the dichotomy of the two sides, hoping that they'll get enough folks, where you don't having a detrimental effect in your eyes at the polls. i think that's what this is about to some degree. and i think that's what we'll see transpiring over the next several weeks. >> you used the word "dichotomy" and i think it's apt and sad

that football is now subject to red state/blue state divide. red state senator from missouri, responding to those who booed classless trash. he said, the left showing their usual contempt for middle america. missouri has the best fans in the country. won't blame them for being tired of nfl corporate woke politics jammed down their throats. what's the response to him? >> well, my response is, again, you're not paying attention to the message that nfl players themselves are trying to disseminate and articulate. they didn't go political in that regard. all they said, we need to come together. we need to end racism. we need to engage in trying to promote equality. there were peaceful protests. they weren't rioting. they weren't looting. they weren't doing anything that was un-american. ma as a matter of fact what they

were doing was completely american. when you hear a senator in the united states taking that position, clearly, he's politicizing the situation potentially to his advantage. that's what he wants to do that right now, in an election year, you're highly concerned about anything that could potentially affect votes. you understand where it's coming from. it's just unfortunate that we're living in a day and time where everything is being politicized. but that's the reality of the situation. in my estimation, specifically, during an election year. if you have people who believe that anything could potentially influence votes, they're going to take one side or the other. it's just that simple. it's going to be a divide. and that's the way it goes. but i think the nfl cahas the cache to offset it, to overcome it because it's the number one sport in this nation right now. it's box office. and when these games are being played. trust you me, eventually, folks are going to sit in front of their television sets and watch.

don't think for one second that the ratings are affected because of these essential justice issues. this pandemic has people depressed. it has them down. people are wondering about their livlihood and quality of life and they have different priorities on their mind. try to blame the ratings on the protests. trust you me, it's the pandemic. people have a lot of things that they're worried about. >> stephen, i have ten seconds who wins the battle of the g.o.a.t.s tomorrow? >> ooh, i'm going to go with the saints because they're accustomed to playing with one another. tom brady will ultimately be successful, just not tomorrow. >> thank you, stephen. >> all right, man. take care. >> what are your thoughts? tweet me @smerconish. go to my facebook page. i'll read responses throughout the course of the program. from twitter, we have this. let's see it. the free market will make the final decisions. let the players do what they want. ratings were down substantially for "thursday night football." jimmy, they were down. i pointed that out.

i think they were probably down for a variety of reasons, not just this. i think that roger goodell has the most difficult job of all because on one hand he wants to, you know, manage the players and make sure they're happy. and at the same time, protect the business model. and whether both can be done remains to be seen. remember, i want to know what you think. go to my website @smerconish.com this hour. i think we know how stephen a. will be voting. has football become too involved? up ahead, kirstie alley calling the vote for best picture a disgrace everywhere, control artist, control individual thought, oscar orwell. was he right, or does the academy need to move in a more progressive direction? plus, wildfires, 500,000 in oregon under evacuation orders. can firefighters beat this on

their own. >> president trump taking shots at his rival joe biden claiming he uses a teleprompter to get him through with and answer events. how biden's team responded when questions, next. >> if you have a choice between teleprompter and freelance. and i hate to say, the freelance is always a hell of a lot better. what if you could have the perspective to see more? at morgan stanley, a global collective of thought leaders offers investors a broader view. ♪ we see companies protecting the bottom line by putting people first. we see a bright future, still hungry for the ingenuity of those ready for the next challenge. today, we are translating decades of experience into strategies for the road ahead.

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are some of the media taking it easy on joe biden? that's certainly what president trump keeps saying. >> i watched the interview with ve sleepy joe biden. and you didn't ask questions like that. read the questions, they were

like meant for a child. those questions were meant for a child. smiles on faces of reporters. not like you and you. there were smiles on the reporters -- what do you think? take a look at those questions that they ask him. they were not meant for a grown-up, they were meant for a child. >> he's referring to some of these questions that reporters have asked biden in delaware. >> there are a lot of people out there who are supporting you or inclined to not vote for the president who would say why isn't joe biden angrier about all of this? >> you raised $364.5 million in your campaign in the dnc last month. a record for a monthly haul, apparent lay. how are you going to spend it? >> how going to push your message out? >> when you hear the remarks, suckers, losering, recoiling of amputees, what does it sell you

about president trump and the life he leads? >> and biden appearing to cue up answers on a teleprompter screen after a supporter asked him about labor rights? >> what will your administration do to help give them that chance. thank you. >> move it up here. >> here then was the reaction from biden's national press secretary when asked about biden's use of teleprompters. >> has joe biden ever used a teleprompter during local interviews, or to answer q and a with supporters? >> brett, this is -- this is straight from the trump campaign. >> are you using it, yes or no? >> brett, they talk about it every day because they don't have a coherent argument for why donald trump deserves re-election. deserves four more years. we know he has lied to the mesh people and they has not shown leadership during this crisis. and they're desperate to throw anything they can against the wall to distract from the fact.

>> i understand, you can't answer the question? >> brett, i'm not going to allow the trump campaign to funnel questions through fox news. >> the dispatch editor-in-chief responded just watch bret bai r baier's duck grilling. seems like a textbook scamp of the sloppiness that kid glove treatments fosters. joining me a staff writer for "the atlantic" host of "the ticket" podcast. isaac, thank you so much for being here. what did you ask the vice president, and why? >> well, the context of that question was a report that ran in "the atlantic," the nice before that press conference which is this report that the president repeatedly referred to dead american soldiers as suckers and losers. that he had not wanted to have

events with amputees, he said why would anyone want to see that? it's written by my colleague jeff goldberg. and that, obviously, has been a very important part in the news last week. and biden had just at the beginning of that event responded to it. but it should be said, he has framed this election from the very beginning as a battle for the soul of the nation. he had just that more than -- his campaign had done a press call with reporters, khan, the gold star father was on, khan questioned trump's soul and the life that he led. so, i was asking biden, within that frame, what does he think of the soul of the president, given that his surrogate was talking about it that way, given that he's always talked about it that way. i would say our job as political journalists often is to draw politicians out, hear what they have to say, hear what they have to think about these things.

it's spes specie especially tru running for president. >> is it fair to do a split screen and say here's the way president trump is being questioned here's the way vice president biden is being questioned by the media. >> it's fair. it's telling in a lot of ways. first of all, there's a lot of focus in joe biden, i myself have had him yell at me, jab his finger at me and other press conferences he's done, because i'm a journalist, not to be a friend or enemy, to get them on their backs to talk about where they stand on things. i do think when you see the contrast to some of the questions that president trump has gotten lately, they have a lot to do with what president trump has been saying and doing. we are over 20,000 in "washington post" count of untrue things that president trump has said over his presidency, just in the past week. we have president trump saying that he didn't say things that

he just said. saying that he didn't say things that are on tape. as reporters, our job is to pursue the facts and pursue the truth of things. we have the president standing in opposition to facts that are in front of us. often. >> well, can i interrupt and say, i think you're making reference, and i've got the video of jon karl, by way of illustration. let me remind everybody. kathryn, can we play that video. then i'll ask isaac a question. rolling if you got it. >> why did you lie to the american people and why should we trust you now? >> that's a terrible question and the phraseology, i didn't lie. i said we panicked. it's a disgrace to abc television network. it's a disgrace to your employer. and that's the answer. >> isaac, to the president's thinking, you know, why doesn't

isaac or anyone in the press corps in delaware ever treat joe biden that way, would you say what? >> i would say there is no question that joe biden has not been fully transparent sometimes. that he's spun, that he's twisted the facts a little bit. but we have not seen anything out of joe biden over the course of this campaign, over the course of his time as vice president that is in directly in opposition to the facts as we have regularly seen out of president trump. there was another incident on monday, on labor day, president trump had a press conference in which he said to a reporter that she was misquoting him by saying he was promising there would be a vaccine before the election. and then in the sentence basically right before it, and in the sentence basically right after, he used that he thought there would be a vaccine right before the election. so, that's what we're dealing with as reporters here. it's not to say that joe biden shouldn't get tough questions. i will tell you, he's been

taking questions basically once a month. i don't feel like myself or myself included feels that that is a frequency that is satisfactory. but that doesn't mean when he has been speaking he has been speaking in as much opposition to facts and verified truthful things as we see out of president trump regularly. >> final question, i mean, the allegation really is that there's some stockholm syndrome stuff going on here. and for whatever reason, the core that's with him are taking a dive i guess to stay ingratiated because he doesn't take that many questions, you want to make sure when he does, you're on the list. take 30 seconds and respond to that. >> i will tell you, i have never found that's the best way to get a politician to speak. there are reporters, obviously, who have their own political beliefs and sometimes can get into that and have that influence their work pipe don't think that happens with nearly any of the trump press corps or

the biden press corps. i think what we're doing is trying to pursue the facts of where things are. and hold the politicians accountable and get them to speak, so that americans and voters can understand what's going on, and make their choice in november. >> isaac, thanks so much for your willingness to come on and talk about this. i really appreciate it. >> thank you, michael. >> let's see what you're saying via twitter and facebook. i think this comes from twitter. what do we have. trump's accusation of biden using prompter is just a deflect from teleprompter, trump always looking like a hostage video of a third grader talking about his pet turtle at show and tell. i don't think zediscussing with isaac that there's any evidence that joe biden relies on a teleprompter. i think joe biden should take more questions, by the way, including from me. but there is a night and day difference between the media

questioning of biden versus the media questioning of trump. isaac just gave you a reporter's explanation of why that is the case. i want to remind you go to smerconish.com and answer this question. talked about it with stephen a. in the first part of the program. has football become too vocinvod in social activism? still to come, it looks like something out of a scene from a doomsday movie. sadly, it's san francisco in 2020, as western wildfires burn at unprecedented rates. i'll ask a fire scientist if firefighters can get it done alone. i'm looking for my client. i'm his accountant. i'm so sorry. [ sighs ] hey! hey man! you're here. you don't trust me here is vegas, do you? well... i thought we had a breakthrough with the volkswagen. we did. yes. we broke through. that's the volkswagen! that's the cross sport. wow. seatbelts. ♪

please, just tell me where we're going. ♪ when covid hit, i happened futo be the main bread winner. sixty percent of my nannies got laid off. i had to furlough my office team. dave is my financial advisor at northwestern mutual. he's like a father to me. he reached out to me. and then reminded me that years of planning with him set me up for success. i was able to rehire my staff. and now i can prepare more for the future. my wife and daughter had been killed in an automobile crash, and lying in the bed were my two little boys. i couldn't have imagined what it would've been like if i didn't have insurance to cover them immediately and fully. forty years later, one of those little boys,

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the beautiful american west is burning. at least 26 people haven't made it out of the wildfires alive. dozens are more missing.

entire cities have gone up in flames. and thousands have been forced to abandon their homes. in oregon alone, about 500,000 people are under evacuation orders, that's more than 10% of the state's population. that number is expected to grow. the scale of the fires burning right now unprecedented. we haven't even reached the most active part of the region's fire season. and yet, nearly 5 million acres have burned. that's the size of new jersey. 3 million of those acres have burned in california alone, with five of the ten largest fires in state history still burning all at once. huge swaths of washington, also on fire, while portland and seattle now have the worst air quality in the world. and the scenes are apocalyptic. here's how it looked in san francisco as the city was blanketed in smoke so thick it blocked the sun. and firefighters alone ever get ahead of the curve? joining me now is jennifer balch

fire scientists at the university of colorado at boulder. dr. balch, can conventional firefighting alone, get ahead of the curve, win this battle in the long term? >> simple answer is no. we're asking way too much of our firefig firefight firefighters. there were 2800 firefighters fighting the blazers across the western u.s. there's a reason we're not going to get ahead of this. you need a warm climate. you need fuels and you need ignitions. and we're essentially changing all three of those. we, people, are changing all three. and we've put tens of millions of homes in harm's way. we've essentially built a nightmare into frontable landscapes, making more vulnerable because of climate change. >> i watched one of your lectures online, and i learned a

great deal including the fact that in the late 19th century, portions of the eastern united states were burning. and you see some parallels. can you explain? >> yeah. we have, especially as the frontier was moving westward, the eastern u.s. was on fire, because we were clearing trees. we were leaving slash. and we were essentially fuelling the ironworks industry. and leaving it vulnerable to fires. and there were huge blazers in the east and west which is completely counterintuitive to what we have today. now, what we have today in comparison, is just an extension of our story with fire in that we completely convert landscapes. with bisect fuels. we put in roads. we farm. we introduce invasive species. there's lots of ways that we change the landscape. and today what we're dealing with, we've essentially built homes in the line of fire. over the last 24 hours, there

were 1 million homes that were within wildfire perimeters. there were another 59 million up to a kilometer, to two kilometers away. way too many homes are literally in beautiful but also really flammable landscapes. >> and i take it that what has exponentially grown the problem, in comparison to what transpired at the end of the 19th century is that then there wasn't the factor of climate change that we're confronted with today. >> yeah, what we're seeing today, part of the story here is climate change. this is climate change affecting us now. not in 2100. fires are very responsive to warming. it takes just a little bit of warming to lead to a lot more burning. and over the last three, four decades, this is consistent with what we're seeing as a trend. a trend in increasing burning. across the west, human warming has dried out our fuels and

effectively doubled the number of western forests that have burned since 1984. so, this is consistent in what the fire science community and firefighting community have seen in our understanding. it's just getting tiresome. i feel like i'm a broken record saying this over and over again, but we have a serious fire problem that's made worse by climate change and the number of homes in harm's way. and we have to do something about this. and frankly, we can do something about it. that's the hopeful bit about fire. is that it's not like other hazards. it's not like hurricanes or floods necessarily. we actually can do quite a lot to change the shape of fire. and the other piece of this story is ignition. humans start of the vast majority of our wildfires. across the u.s., 84 of our fires are actually started by people. the single day with the most number of human-started fires is july 4th. fireworks, camp fires,

celebrations. we spark a lot of fires. so, we're now moving out of the lightning season and into the human ignition season. and, you know, the big question i have is can we do something right now? can we think about how hoour day activities, how driving off the side of the road, how camp fire and other activities are actually going to change and reduce those ignitions. one less spark. >> dr. balch, thank you so much. i appreciate your expertise. >> thank you. up ahead, all 20 oscar-nominated actors in both 2015 and 2016 were white, sparking the #oscarssowhite. is the answer diversity standards? and i want to remind to you answer the week's survey question @smerconish.com. has football become too involved in social activism?

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if you're a studio behind a big movie and you want to win best picture starting in 2024, will you not be considered unless you meet new rules or representation and inclusion either on screen or behind the scenes. in both 2015 and 2016, all 20 acting nominations went to white actors inspiring th the #oscarssowhite. so this week, the academy of arts and motion pictures announced a the standards are designed to encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better respect the audience. for movies made in 2020, a film must meet two out of four on-sceon h on-screen and off-screen categories. in interest of brevity, let's

look at it. at least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors must be from one of these underrepresented or ethnic groups. asian, hispanic, latinx, black/african-american. indigenous alaska native. native hawaiian or pacific or other underrepresented. and those with sexual orient and disabilities. how will this work will have the desired effect or hamstring creativity? joining me now gabial watson, associate professor at ucla who wrote this piece "the new oscars diversity rules will have little impact." professor rossman, thanks so much for being here. could "the irishman" win best

picture under this new framework. >> well, it probably won't because it's not that good. in theory, it could. while you gave attention to the on-screen rule, and that's what's gotten the most attention. under standard "a," the on-screen rule, the irishman couldn't, because of actors, white men, specifically. but there's three other standards. and actually, the rules will be written to pretty fulfill. the studio can fulfill those other three standards and qualify even for a film that's all about white, able-bodied straight men. so you have a standard fee which basically says you have to have a certain amount of diversity in the behind the scenes, creative people, which includes roles which are routinely filled for people who qualify for the categories, sprint, hairstylists and costume designers.

actually costume designers on major movies are usually women. so that still counts because it's routinely filled. it's fairly easy for studios to fill category "b," by having three that meet the categories out of a total of a dozen major creative categories behind the scenes. what you'll see, the major studios, all institute affirmative action programs for production people which is standard "c." once you do that as a studio as a whole, you've already meant one standard for the whole studio. a movie like "the irishman" is pretty easily meetable. >> i read your piece, and i understand that you think it's overblown in terms of the reaction. do you think if those standards were in place today -- in other words, i was struck by the fact that they're waiting until 2025,

2026, seemingly if they weren't going to have that much of an impact, they could implement next year and not wait that long. >> the problem with instituting them next year, there's a production lag. movies are greenlit about two years before they reach theaters. in effect, instituting the standard today would just reward the movies that are greenlit. they wouldn't actually independe incentivize new movies. you can't create an internship overnight. you can do it pretty fast. but incentive for the studio, in practice, it's mostly incentive to create internship programs. it makes sense to do it phased in over time. >> does this then move to the grammys? does this move to the tonis? does it move to the emmys? and does it move to other areas that are not just creatively driven? >> well, funny you mentioned the

grammys, because the thing that i needily thought of was the canadian cultural content regulations that they have up north. where in order to get played on canadian radio your pop song has to be sufficiently canadian. i believe it's something like a half or two-thirds of all of the songs that get played on canadian radio have to be considered canadian cultural content. if i remember correctly, it's the singer, songwriter and producer. two of the three have to be canadians. and this, of course, has created a big boom in canadian producers. so it's the similar thing, where you think it's going to be very visible, kind of on-screen ways and it's going to work also for behind the screens more. and i don't see why it couldn't work for those -- only reason it's expected not to work for the grammys, the grammys have less of an effect on the music market than the oscars do on the film market. in theory, you could see all

sorts of trade associations or awards, institutions similar requirements. >> kirstie alley deleted a tweet. this is a disgrace to artists everywhere, can you imagine telling picasso what had to be in his paintings. you people have lost your mind. control individuals. oscar orwell. your response? >> yeah, she was replying to standard "a," what the filmmakers would do if they could make like saving private ryan couldn't be eligible for the oscars. any of the movies about churchill or, you know, that sort of thing. but if you wanted to make a bio pic about lincoln, you would have to emphasize his relationship with frederick douglass, but you couldn't emphasize other aspects of

lincoln's story. it really would be severely artistically limited if standard "a" were the only way to meet the standard. i would sympathize with her on that. >> i can hear some people at home -- i can hear some people at home listening to this and saying, yeah, that makes true. wait a minute, what about "hamilton," right? i have to run. i appreciate you being here. >> of course, of course. >> thank you, professor. >> thank you. still to come, more of your best and worst tweets and facebook comments. and the final result of the survey question, have you voted at smerconish.com. has the nfl become too involved in social activism? uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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time to see how you responded to the survey question this hour. @smerconish.com. has the nfl become too involved in social activism? i have no idea how this will go. let's see the result. 71% say no agreeing with what they heard from stephen a. and more than 20,000 votes have been cast. interestingly, to listen to the boos in kansas city is to hear 16 or 17,000 fans, a portion of whom, didn't like what they were seeing on field in terms of the social activism. to hear the miami dolphins express it through their poem, hey, this is just fluff and window dressing and the league hasn't gone far enough. we'll see what tomorrow brings. what do we have in terms of social media reaction? sports are not for social activism, period. roy, it sounds to me like if you were in kansas city you would be

one of those booing. you just saw the survey results. that's a minority view, at least those among cast a ballot during the course of this hour. what else has come in? do you question the soft questions from fox news and oan? yes, i do. i don't question them from chris wallace, because i think chris wallace doesn't ask soft questions. and we saw that with president trump and his exchange, which is why i think the commission on presidential debates selected chris wallace, but are the questions from fox in primetime that you get in the nightly interviews with the president soft? well, of course, they are. what else? come on. i don't care if it's a teleprompter or index cards as long as biden is speaking the truth. hey, i appreciated isaac coming on the program as one who has asked a so-called softball question according to the president to try to set the stage and explain some of the

dynamics that are going on in that room. he explained why he asked the question he asked of joe biden. quickly, one more. how does a philly guy where a tie with a cowgirl colors on nfl opening weekend? go eagles. i'm not a cowboy guy in the game against the rams on sunday night. that does it for me. have a nice weekend. i'll see you here next week. coming up the abc's of back to school. a sesame treat for town hall hosted by dr. sanjay gupta, erica hill, big bird and the entire sesame street crew.

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i'm starting school. i got my mask. >> elmo is a little nervous to go back to school. but elmo knows we're all in this together. elmo's friends at school, elmo's teacher and elmo's mommy and daddy, too. >> i'm looking forward to meeting my new teacher. >> i am so excited to go back to school. i'm learning how to read by myself. and i can't wait to read stories to my family and friends. >> hi, everybody. >> hi, erica. >> hi, erica. >> ah, so great to see