creeping theocracy

After reading the New York Times editorial "Zealots at the Air Force Academy", I found this story on Truthout (original from the L.A. Times no longer available).

The Air Force Academy, still recovering from rape and sexual harassment scandals, [Ed note: The Academy is recovering?? How about the hundreds of female cadets who were raped, assaulted, harassed - and then intimidated (and sometimes raped again) when they reported??] is facing charges that some Christian cadets have bullied and berated Jews and students of other religious backgrounds.

School officials said Tuesday they had received 55 complaints over the last few months and were requiring students - and eventually all employees - to attend a course on religious tolerance.

"Some complaints had to do with people ... saying bad things about persons of other religions or proselytizing in inappropriate places," said academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker. "There have been cases of maliciousness, mean-spiritedness and attacking or baiting someone over religion."

About 90% of the academy's 4,300 cadets identify themselves as Christians; the school's commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny A. Weida, describes himself as a born-again Christian.

Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and a lawyer in Albuquerque, said that his son Curtis - a sophomore at the academy - had been called a "filthy Jew."

"When I visited my son, he told me he wanted us to go off base because he had something to tell me," Weinstein said. "He said, 'They are calling me a ... Jew and that I am responsible for killing Christ.'"

If the US military gradually becomes a religious organization, whether officially or surreptitiously... well, it's not hard to imagine some terrifying consequences. Onward Christian soldiers indeed.

one nation, uninsured

Since we've been talking about health care in light of the recent Canadian Supreme Court decision, here is Paul Krugman's recent column about the state of the US non-system.

Harry Truman tried to create a national health insurance system. Public opinion was initially on his side: Jill Quadagno's book "One Nation, Uninsured" tells us that in 1945, 75 percent of Americans favored national health insurance. If Truman had succeeded, universal coverage for everyone, not just the elderly, would today be an accepted part of the social contract.

But Truman failed. Special interests, especially the American Medical Association and Southern politicians who feared that national insurance would lead to racially integrated hospitals, triumphed.

Sixty years later, the patchwork system that evolved in the absence of national health insurance is unraveling. The cost of health care is exploding, the number of uninsured is growing, and corporations that still provide employee coverage are groaning under the strain.

So the time will soon be ripe for another try at universal coverage. Public opinion is already favorable: a 2003 Pew poll found that 72 percent of Americans favored government-guaranteed health insurance for all.

But special interests will, once again, stand in the way. And the big debate among would-be reformers is how to deal with those interests, especially the insurance companies. These companies played a secondary role in Truman's failure but have since become a seemingly invincible lobby.

Read the rest here.

Krugman's vision of "a radically unequal society, in which all but the most affluent Americans face the constant risk of financial ruin and even premature death because they can't pay their medical bills" is already status quo for many. Every year, more Americans tumble into that category, and can't get out.

"the war on terror has become a war of terror"

Ron Kovic, who is a paraplegic as a result of his service in Vietnam, has organized both veterans against war and people with disabilities for greater equality.

The following is an excerpt from the introduction to the new edition of his book, Born on the Fourth of July, published today on AlterNet.

Many of us promised ourselves long ago that we would never allow what happened to us in Vietnam to happen again. We had an obligation, a responsibility as citizens, as Americans, as human beings, to raise our voices in protest. We could never forget the hospitals, the intensive care wards, the wounded all around us fighting for their lives, those long and painful years after we came home, those lonely nights. There were lives to save on both sides, young men and women who would be disfigured and maimed, mothers and fathers who would lose their sons and daughters, wives and loved ones who would suffer for decades to come if we did not do everything we could to stop the forward momentum of this madness. We sensed it very early and very quickly. We saw the same destructive patterns reasserting themselves all over again as our leaders spoke of "bad guys" and "evil-doers," "imminent threats" and "mushroom clouds," attempting to frighten and intimidate the American people into supporting their agenda.

The Bush administration seems to have learned some very different lessons than we did from Vietnam. Where we learned of the deep immorality and obscenity of that war, they learned to be even more brutal, more violent and ruthless, i.e., "shock and awe." Sadly, the war on terror has become a war of terror. Where we learned to be more open and honest, to be more truthful, to expose, to express, to shatter the myths of the past, they seem to have learned the exact opposite--to hide, to censor, to fabricate, to mislead and deceive--to perpetuate those myths.

Instead of being intimidated or frightened, many of us became more outraged and more determined than ever to stop these ignorant, arrogant men and women who never saw the things we saw, never had to grieve over the loss of their bodies or the bodies of their sons and daughters, never had to watch as so many friends and fellow veterans were destroyed by alcoholism and drugs, homelessness, imprisonment, neglect and rejection, torture, abandonment and betrayal, in the painful aftermath of the war. These leaders have never experienced the tears, the dread and rage, the feeling that there is no God, no country, nothing but the wound, the horrifying memories, the shock, the guilt, the shame, the terrible injustice that took the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and over two million Vietnamese.

We had to act. We had to speak.

Kovic is a true hero. Read his essay and demand an end to this insane war.

“necessary to create the conditions”

From yesterday's Times (UK):

Ministers were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make it legal.

. . .

The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.

"It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject," the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be "most unlikely" to obtain the legal justification they needed.

The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.

Read it here and pass it on.

Demand an inquiry.

Work for impeachment.

happy birthday to me

Today is one of the four major holidays of the Laura & Allan household.* I have been alive on this earth 44 years today.

You'll forgive me for announcing my birthday like a little kid when I don't know any of yours. I love my birthday, I love getting older (ok, not everything about it, but in general), and I'm really put off by all the whining about aging.

I am happy to be alive. Life is short, and ridiculously fragile, and each one of us who draws breath can find things to appreciate in our lives. It may sound greeting-card corny, but I feel this most profoundly. I feel rich with the things that are most important in life, and I am very grateful.

All my life people have been telling me, "You'll see, when you're older..." When I'm older I'll want children, when I'm older I'll dread birthdays, when I'm older I'll wish I had gone to law school, blah blah blah. You know what? I am older! And it turns out you had no imagination!

I won't be around for comments today - we'll be celebrating at our favorite restaurant. (We've determined to go back there on every visit to NYC, so I don't have to get all mopey over The Last Time.) Mr Redsock is still sleeping, but the dogs very thoughtfully had placed a gift near the coffeepot this morning; I guess they wrapped it over night. They got me the new Aimee Mann CD (I love her) and the obligatory dog-themed card. Seems they've heard of this thing called Canadian bacon... Yes, we are silly like that.



*Both our birthdays, the anniversary of the day we met, and the anniversary of the day we moved in together. (I think we should add a fifth: the day we leave NYC for Canada!)

in a kingdom by the sea

Hey Crabletta, I made it!

Today I'm using my last use-it-or-lose-it vacation day to spend more time in the ancient world. (I actually have no benefits. My few paid days-off are a "gift" from my supervisor. Mighty white of her.)

So on this rare Sunday off, I finally had the opportunity to visit the Poe Cottage in the Bronx. I documented my many attempts at this literary pilgrimage in this post. Today, I only had to take the subway.

The Poe Cottage was the last home of Edgar Allan Poe, his wife Virginia and her mother Maria Clemm. It's a tiny farm cottage now standing at the intersection of two major Bronx thoroughfares. The incongruity alone makes it worth seeing.

Poe had such a sad life. He was hugely talented, misunderstood, and poor (not just struggling, but impoverished). His literary criticism earned him many enemies and few friends. While he lived in the village of Fordham (now a section of the Bronx), he wrote one of my favorite works of his, Annabel Lee.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee...

The Historic House Trust of New York City does an excellent job of maintaining the city's oldest buildings. If you enjoy trying to get in touch with history as I do, any of them are worth visiting. I see by their website that, with today's trip, I've been to all the Manhattan locations.

vox populi

The Star has a good story on Canadians' opinions on gay marriage.

Now, I feel that same-sex marriages have to be legal regardless of public opinion. Equality can't be subject to popularity polls. Nevertheless, it's interesting to read a wide variety of opinions. Plus I was envious of the reporter's cross-Canada drive!

Canada gets ready for gay marriage

David Graham
Staff Reporter

For three weeks last month I went back in the closet.

I disguised myself as a middle-aged straight man, rented a navy blue Saturn and drove from Vancouver to St. John's with frequent stops to talk with Canadians about same-sex marriage. If anyone asked if I was gay, I came clean. I didn't want to misrepresent myself. But I did want people to speak freely and from their hearts.

One more thing. While I have strong convictions on the subject, I have no vested interest. I ain't the marrying kind.

I took this cross-country trip to grasp the true voice of Canadians.

I'd already heard the politicians, religious leaders and gay activists. And I'd studied the polls that told me that 40 per cent of Canadians support gay marriage, 40 per cent oppose it, and 20 per cent are undecided. I also knew that opposition was declining and support was growing, as some undecideds were perhaps having a change of heart.

I intuitively felt that this was not a simple yes or no issue. I believed the real voices of Canadians had more complexity, depth, and nuance.

It is a story that would be told in quiet tones by unsure and often conflicted voices.

That's why I drove more than 8,000 kilometres across the country — to hear them.

Read some of your neighbors' opinions here.

i hate when that happens

I agree with John Tierney! Let's hope it's the only time this year.

Tierney is a conservative columnist for the New York Times. Suffice to say there are no quotes from him on my bulletin board. But today, he writes, "If you love cities, this is a week to rejoice. Now that the stadium planned for New York's West Side is dead, no one can fantasize anymore about the Olympics coming to New York."

In his very good column about what New York does and doesn't need, Tierney even mentions the ziggurat of Ur, the Parthenon and the Circus Maximus. Perhaps that's why he makes so much sense. I'm finding the ancient world very enlightening, too.

Ding, dong, the stadium's dead. It's so exciting.

freedom fries tower

I often print things I want to read, then put them in The Pile, where they sit until I have adequate time and mental space to give them my attention. As a consequence, I am often reading two- or three-week old stories, but reading them thoroughly, when I can focus.

In that spirit, I finally got around to reading Frank Rich's "Ground Zero Is So Over", which ran two weeks ago in the New York Times (here saved from the virtual trash heap by Common Dreams).

Here's an excerpt:

But what has most separated America from the old exigencies of 9/11 - and therefore from the fate of ground zero - is, at long last, the decoupling of the war on terror from the war on Iraq. The myth fostered by the administration that Saddam Hussein conspired in the 9/11 attacks is finally dead and so, apparently, is the parallel myth that Iraqis were among that day's hijackers. Our initial, post-9/11 war against Al Qaeda - the swift and decisive victory over the Taliban - is now seen as both a discrete event and ancient history (as is the hope of nailing Osama bin Laden dead or alive); Afghanistan itself has fallen off the American radar screen except as a site for burgeoning poppy production and the deaths of detainees in American custody. In its place stands only the war in Iraq, which is increasingly seen as an add-on to the war provoked by 9/11 and whose unpopularity grows by the day.

Take a look at any recent poll you choose - NBC/Wall Street Journal, Harris, CNN/Gallup/USA Today - and you find comparable figures of rising majority disapproval of the war. Or ignore the polls and look at those voting with their feet: the Army has missed its recruiting goals three months in a row, and the Marines every month since January, despite reports of scandalous ethical violations including the forging of high-school diplomas and the hoodwinking of the mentally ill by unscrupulous recruiters. Speaking bitterly about the Army's strenuous effort to cover up his son's death by friendly fire, Pat Tillman's father crystallized the crisis in an interview with The Washington Post last week: "They realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about this death got out. They blew up their poster boy." [Internal links mine.]

Rich runs through the latest issues of the crazy soap opera called Rebuilding Lower Manhattan, noting, "And so ground zero remains a pit, a hole a void. . . . Though the vacant site is a poor memorial for those who died there, it's an all too apt symbol for a war on which the country is turning its back." Read the essay here.

just say woof

David Cho sent me some propaganda from the abstinence-only movement.

Just kidding.

It's from the Swift Report, an Onion-esque blog, featuring an article called "Group Warns Spaying, Neutering Promote Pet Promiscuity". Some cute Bustery dogs there, plus some hilarious comments from people who just don't get it, and clearly never will.

more answers

You guys provided some very interesting answers to my question about the recent Canadian Supreme Court decision.

ALPF thoughtfully sent me these letters to the Globe and Mail, which are excellent for getting the spectrum of opinion.

One commonly held point of view is that allowing private health insurance amounts to "Americanizing" the system. I would say those readers may not really understand what we have here in the US. The Canadian health care system won't be Americanized until it's abolished, and that's clearly not happening.

Since the decision applies only to Quebec, this strikes me as a very useful experiment, really. In a few years, the rest of the country will be able to judge if this was a fatal blow, a useful improvement, or somewhere in between.

* * * *

Having read all the letters, I have two additional thoughts.

One, several people mention that Paul Martin slashed funding to Health Canada, resulting in the current, infamous long waiting times. Is it possible this trend will be reversed any time soon? Meaning, will funding be restored? Or is that a thing of the past?

And two, on a personal note, I have concerns about finding a family doctor. Is it true this is very difficult in Ontario?

I have several ongoing health issues. My life took a very positive turn when I found a good doctor here in New York. I had been misdiagnosed - and accordingly mistreated - for seven years by an overbearing doctor who didn't listen. Finding a good doc who takes me seriously opened the door to a better life for me. I'm sad to leave her care, and finding a good doctor (with or without a shortage - just finding someone I trust) has been a concern in the back of my mind for some time - one of those nagging fears about the move. Will it really be that hard to find a doctor in or near Toronto?

slime

Free Writer sent me this amusing news from Biology Daily, certainly not a site I would have seen on my own.

Dr Kelly B Miller and Dr Quentin D Wheeler, two entomologists, have discovered three species of slime mold beetles, and named them after three very slimy people. The beetles are called Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi, and Agathidium rumsfeldi.

Check it out, along with the press release with a picture of one of the beetles. By the release date, I see this is somewhat dated news that I missed, but if I missed it, perhaps you did, too.

god stuff

Researching Greek and Roman mythology, I came upon this list of deities in Wikipedia.

Look at them all! To some, this multitude speaks of the universality of god - the many masks the supreme being wears, in Joseph Campbell parlance. To others (like me), it speaks of the universality of the need for gods, and the need for religion in human societies.

But one thing it's got to highlight is the utter gall of people who think their god is God, the one and only True God. Who don't realize that the stories of their god are just like everyone else's: stories. Not facts.

Just a thought. I notice I'm posting my ruminations a lot more these days. Ah well, back to ancient Athens.

greed

Paul Krugman, who is an economist by profession and a liberal activist by accident, laments the decline disappearance of the American middle class.

Baby boomers like me grew up in a relatively equal society. In the 1960's America was a place in which very few people were extremely wealthy, many blue-collar workers earned wages that placed them comfortably in the middle class, and working families could expect steadily rising living standards and a reasonable degree of economic security.

But as The Times's series on class in America reminds us, that was another country. The middle-class society I grew up in no longer exists.

Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages.

Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty.

. . .

Above all, the partisans engage in name-calling. To suggest that sustaining programs like Social Security, which protects working Americans from economic risk, should have priority over tax cuts for the rich is to practice "class warfare." To show concern over the growing inequality is to engage in the "politics of envy."

But the real reasons to worry about the explosion of inequality since the 1970's have nothing to do with envy. The fact is that working families aren't sharing in the economy's growth, and face growing economic insecurity. And there's good reason to believe that a society in which most people can reasonably be considered middle class is a better society - and more likely to be a functioning democracy - than one in which there are great extremes of wealth and poverty.

Reversing the rise in inequality and economic insecurity won't be easy: the middle-class society we have lost emerged only after the country was shaken by depression and war. But we can make a start by calling attention to the politicians who systematically make things worse in catering to their contributors. Never mind that straw man, the politics of envy. Let's try to do something about the politics of greed. [Full column.]

Once again, I thank Mr Krugman for his honesty. This reminds me that I haven't blogged about the Daniel Okrent-Paul Krugman feud. Though it's well documented elsewhere, I did want to get to it. Soon.

free publicity

The other half of wmtc is featured prominently in this USA Today story on this weekend's Red Sox-Cubs series. Whoo-hoo!

explanation please?

Will a Canadian or two please explain this to me?

Canadian Court Chips Away at National Health Care
Toronto, June 9

The Canadian Supreme Court struck down a Quebec law banning private medical insurance today, dealing an acute blow to the publicly financed national health care system.

The court stopped short of striking down the constitutionality of the country's vaunted nationwide coverage, but legal experts said the ruling would open the door to a wave of lawsuits challenging the health care system in other provinces.

The system, providing Canadians with free doctor's services that are paid for by taxes, has generally been supported by the public, and is broadly identified with the Canadian national character.

But in recent years, patients have been forced to wait longer for diagnostic tests and elective surgery, while the wealthy and well connected either seek care in the United States or use influence to jump ahead on waiting lists.

The court ruled that the waiting lists had become so long that they violated patients' "liberty, safety and security" under the Quebec charter, which covers about one-quarter of Canada's population.

"The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread and that in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care," the Supreme Court ruled. "In sum, the prohibition on obtaining private health insurance is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services." [Story.]

Why is this a "an acute blow to the publicly financed national health care system"?

The US media loves to bash the Canadian health care system - the New York Times takes every opportunity - so I don't trust the interpretation.

I'm gone for the evening, but I'll read your comments later tonight and tomorrow a.m. The Red Sox are off tonight, so we must get out of the house.

1918 rematch

Although I hate interleague play, this weekend's Cubs-Red Sox series - the first time the teams have met since the 1918 World Series - is an opportunity to plug a great baseball book. I'm not exactly impartial - Allan wrote it and I edited and publicized it. But seriously, everyone who reads it, loves it.

Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox is a fascinating look at a little-known time in baseball, when there were eight teams in each league, a western road trip took you to St. Louis, Babe Ruth was a pitcher and the Red Sox were a dynasty. If you like Ruth, after reading this book, you'll fall in love with him. Part country bumpkin, part hell-raiser, part soft-hearted hero to children - and in many ways a child himself - in 1918 Ruth made the historic transition from pitcher to slugger that would change the game forever.

That's from some promo copy I wrote. Not bad.

If you are into baseball history, I promise you will not be disappointed.

fish

Tomorrow marks a major - though largely unremarked - change in New York City. After 184 years, the Fulton Fish Market on the eastern tip of lower Manhattan will close.

The thriving early-morning business in fresh fish will still exist, in a shiny new building in the Bronx's Hunts Point. The Hunts Point Fish Market will be more modern, more sanitary and more regulated than the old Fulton Market.

I'm not in the business of mourning change. Change is all there is. Change is the heart of New York City. But the passing of the Fulton Fish Market deserves a moment of our thoughts.

I've never risen hours before dawn to watch the fishmongers at their trade. I've only read about it in stories by people like Joseph Mitchell, the great observer and chronicler of this great city. The Times ran a nice piece about it many months ago. I imagine only people in the food and restaurant business will really notice the change. I've read that for the fish sellers, the move can't come soon enough.

When I was growing up in the suburbs, my father occasionally took us for a seafood dinner at Sloppy Louie's. At the time, I didn't know it was ancient, and famous. To my small eyes, it was just crowded and bustling, a little bit ramshackle, a little bit "raw". It was so city. I loved it. I remember huge, shiny cats - the sleekest, most contented cats you have ever seen - hanging out in doorways.

When the Fulton Landing was re-made into the bland and touristy South Street Seaport (no link because I hate the place), Sloppy Louie's spruced up and went with the flow. Ultimately, and predictably, it couldn't compete with national chains on the skyrocketing rent. It closed in 1998.

I wish the Fish Market another 184 years in the Bronx.

* * * *

In a similar - but less welcome - move, the Bronx Terminal Market is being re-developed by Related Companies, the folks who brought us the Time Warner Center. Gothamist says:

The Related Companies have bought the dilapidated markets for a reported $40 million. At one point, the Bronx Terminal Market was the country's largest Hispanic wholesale market (according to the Times, there were over 100 tenants and 1000 employees once); now there are only 30 vegetable and fruit sellers. While the Bronx Borough President is happy, some of the current tenants are dubious. Hopefully the market will be able to retain its presence with area businesses and not become too over-priced with upgrades - although Gothamist could see some city chefs opening up a casual Bronx cafes in the market.

More about the area, and a whole lot more, from Forgotten NY.

do we see a pattern?

Conservative pundits on the government payroll. Fake journalists in the White House press corps. Every day, another Orwellian deceit is uncovered from this fun-house mirror of an administration.

Today's exposed lie?

Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming.

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

Story - with interesting graphic - here.

garrison mentality

CBC television news has a consistently anti-American bias. So says a paper released today by The Fraser Institute, which describes itself as "an independent public policy organization". (I couldn't check them out, as their link is not working.)

According to the paper,

The CBC's television news coverage of the United States is consistently marked by emotional criticism, rather than a rational consideration of US policy based on Canadian national interests, according to The Canadian "Garrison Mentality" and Anti-Americanism at the CBC, released today by The Fraser Institute.

This anti-American bias at the CBC is the consequence of a "garrison mentality" that has systematically informed the broadcaster's coverage of the US. Garrison mentality was a term coined by Canadian literary critic, Northrop Frye. He used it to describe a uniquely Canadian tendency reflected in our early literature, a tendency, as he put it, to "huddle together, stiffening our meager cultural defenses and projecting all our hostilities outward."

"The anti-Americanism of the CBC, we argue, is a faithful reflection of the garrison mentality evoked by Frye," said Professor Barry Cooper, co-author of the paper and managing director of the Institute's Alberta Policy Research Centre. "This mythical and symbolic anti-Americanism typifies a broad view of the world disproportionately maintained and believed in by Canadians living in the Loyalist heartland of southern Ontario." [Story here.]

I don't know if this anti-American bias exists, I haven't seen enough CBC News to judge. I do know I find Canadian TV news an absolute breath of fresh air for its more critical take on US affairs. Perhaps an anti-American bias is just a slight correction - a little balance - from the rest of the pack.

Thanks, ALPF! I was fast today, eh?