Government – Fred's Thoughts

Posted on September 4, 2022March 24, 2023 by Fred

The Teacher Shortage

Mallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That’s my position. I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

— Sam Seaborn in The West Wing, Season 1: Episode 18, “Six Meetings Before Lunch,” written by Aaron Sorkin

Teaching is the most important profession in the world.

I understand one could say that doctors, soldiers, law enforcement officers, and firefighters all save lives, and that saving lives is more important than standing in front of a room full of kids talking for several hours a day. They’re all certainly more important than making sure a 6-year-old is wearing her coat before she walks home on a winter’s day. Astronomers are discovering the secrets of the universe. That’s infinitely more important than lunch or recess duty. Members of the clergy are, many people believe, saving souls. That makes vastly more difference than grading essays. How can I say teachers are more important than any of these people? Has my arrogance at having been one for 29 years finally exploded into narcissistic nonsense?

No. I don’t think so.

No profession exists without teachers. Until we abandon public education entirely, every profession exists because someone taught its practitioners to read and write, to calculate, and, to a greater or lesser extent, to deal with other human beings.

Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman is presented with the Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award for his actions to protect lawmakers and others in the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack in Washington D.C., Feb. 25, 2021. Goodman, a former Army infantryman who served in Iraq, is credited with warning and directing members inside the Capitol building to safety. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II)

By Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States – 210225-D-WD757-1523, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106298519

Eugene Goodman, the police officer who redirected rioters on January 6, quite probably saving the lives of the Vice President and many members of Congress, began his career in 1985 when a kindergarten teacher, probably in Southeast Washington, taught him to sing the alphabet. The doctor who delivered me into this world started in a one-room schoolhouse, filled with children from 5 to 15 years old, in Hampton, Nebraska at the turn of the last century. The first responders on 9/11 were taught how to put out fires, ascend dozens of flights of stairs carrying heavy equipment, and treat injuries by hundreds of others, all of whom sat in classrooms all across this country. Teachers made all this possible. And they made frighteningly little money for their efforts.

It can certainly be said that public education is failing. If test scores are any indication (and I don’t think they’re remotely valid), we are doing very poorly indeed.

Better evidence of its failure can be seen in the ever-growing number of people who are willing to believe things that make no sense. Some estimates suggest that fully a third of the country’s population believes that the 2020 election was stolen, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Anywhere from 4 to 15% of Americans believe QAnon’s conspiracy theories are reasonable. There are as many as a million Americans who honestly believe the Earth is flat, or that’s it’s a disc beneath a dome.

This is a failure of critical thinking. It’s the fulfillment of a desire to believe that nothing is as it appears to be, and we are, therefore, not responsible for the bad things that happen to us. And while I agree that we are often not responsible for the bad things that happen to us, it’s unreasonable to believe there is some cabal of pedophiles in a pizza shop that is.

This could have been stopped before it began. One of the tools we could have used was the actual literature that is now being banned from schools more and more frequently. Reading books that require us to look at things from more than one angle allow us to use those skills in the real world. One cannot read To Kill a Mockingbird without recognizing that Tom Robinson is innocent, that Boo Radley is not a monster, and that racism and prejudice are dangerous and difficult-to-defeat diseases of the mind. Reading Sherlock Holmes teaches us that the truth is rarely as simple as it seems, and that we need actual evidence before we can accept, as facts, conclusions that are hastily reached based on assertions that cannot be verified. Steinbeck teaches us empathy. Salinger teaches us to reject the superficial.

Simply reading these books, however, is often insufficient. One needs a great teacher to help us to understand what is happening. It is in classroom discussions that the enthusiasm to analyze, to understand, and to express our feelings about what is happening grows and flourishes. You can’t just assign the books, give multiple choice tests, and sit at your desk. You must get the students excited to find out what happens next. You need to make them disappointed that reading time is over. This isn’t something that just anyone can do. It’s a talent, a skill, a craft, and an Art. It requires a deeper understanding of the material being taught. It requires an imagination.

Why is public education failing so badly?

Teachers need to quit complaining. They knew how much the job paid when they signed their contracts. They get three months off every year. If they don’t like it, they should do something else. I’m not putting any more of my tax dollars into supporting whiners.

That’s a big part of why we have a teacher shortage. Words are powerful.

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”

– Albus Dumbledore (J. K. Rowling)

When I started teaching in 1987, teachers were treated with at least a modicum of respect. That respect has dwindled to the point that it’s all but imperceptible now. The beginning of the modern end of respecting teachers began with No Child Left Behind. Nearly twenty years ago, I wrote the following in answer to President Bush’s program:

Teachers, Administrators, School Boards: Lend Me Your Ears!

Leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal. Teachers are used to overcoming the enormous challenges put before us daily. Where once we were responsible only for the students’ academic skills, we are now in charge of teaching them the values of cultural diversity, sexual responsibility, and drug awareness. And just as we have met these challenges with overwhelming success, so, too, will we meet the challenge that all students will reach the destination of our President’s Educational Train, leaving no child behind.

Arriving at the Station

The first requirement for learning to take place is that the students must attend school. Following the president’s metaphor, this would mean that the child must first arrive at the station. I feel sure that my school is not alone in its ever-increasing population of students who miss more than 40% of the standard school year. Sometimes students are chronically and suspiciously ill (especially on Fridays), sometimes they are suspended, and, all too often, they simply tell their parents they don’t want to come today, and they stay home and play video games. There is little the school can do to combat this problem. At more than one Pupil Evaluation Team (P.E.T.) meeting I have heard the Team recommend a bus be sent directly to the child’s doorstep to help her get to school. The bus is sent, but the child never boards the bus. A child who never makes it to the station cannot help but be left behind. Nevertheless, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

If the students won’t come to the school, the school must come to the students. We could hire teachers who travel from home to home to teach these students between sessions of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 for Play Station 2. The cost of these extra teachers could come from school bake sales, or perhaps from having students go door to door selling candy. The students might even sell some of their candy to the teachers who are working in the homes they visit. On those days that these students do attend school, we can assign some of our Educational Technicians to assist them in catching up on the work they have missed while they were playing video games. To leave no child behind is clearly an honorable and achievable goal.

Boarding the Train

Assuming the child arrives at the station, it is next necessary that she actually boards the train. If I understand the metaphor correctly, this would be the equivalent of actually engaging the work that teachers set out for the students in order to help them learn. While many students do come to class regularly, there is among them a population who does no more than breathe the air in the room. Certainly, modifications can be, should be, and are made to assist these students. Educational Technicians work with them individually when the staffing makes it possible. Special procedures are put in place to help spark the student’s interest, encourage participation, and reward effort. For many students, these interventions are indeed effective, but not for all of them.

There are those students who, regardless of the best efforts of the Teachers, Educational Technicians, Administrators, Counselors, Social Workers and Parents, simply will not make an effort. There is, in the final analysis, nothing that can be done to force someone to try if she doesn’t want to. While the student may arrive at the station, she won’t necessarily get on board the train. Nevertheless, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

In order to meet the needs of those who won’t make any effort, we must determine why they won’t try. They may have lacked success in the past. There may have been emotional traumas which make it more difficult for her to put pencil to paper. In order to solve this problem, it is only necessary to conduct a thorough and searching investigation using all the tests we currently have, developing new ones, and bringing in social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, family doctors and, if need be, psychics who will determine what needs to happen in order for the child to begin to engage the work. The funding for all these professionals could be found in school dances, talent shows or bottle drives. Will this be enough? If not, we can assign some of our Educational Technicians to assist them, because, as we know, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

Making the Train Safe for All

There is an additional population that keeps our train from moving safely toward its destination. This group is made up of those who do attend school, and who can often learn, but feel the need to disrupt. It is difficult to blame most of these students for their behaviors. One of my colleagues recently made the observation that he would, under no circumstances, trade lives with some of our students. We have an ever-increasing population of those who are frequently arrested. We have some who are using drugs. There are others who are dealing with different forms of abuse at home, and have parents who are too drunk or too stoned to give them any sort of guidance or help. If parents do impart their values to their children, the values thus imparted are frequently in direct conflict with those we are called upon to instill in our students. It is all but impossible to convince a student whose father is in prison and whose mother is usually unable to communicate through her drug or alcohol induced haze that the multiplication tables have any relevance to her life, or that putting a period at the end of a sentence is an important part of communication. Our train, however, being a public train, is required to transport all those who board it, and we will find a solution to this problem as well. After all, leaving no child behind is an honorable and achievable goal.

For the students who are on board the train only to disrupt its travels, it is possible simply to send them out of the classroom, so that we can teach the rest of the students. Of course, these students will miss out on what we are trying to teach, and their high-stakes test scores will show that. Since this won’t do if we are to leave no child behind, we could have special classes, made up exclusively of these students, with a highly trained and qualified set of teachers who work just with this population. Although my school’s current staffing makes this impossible, our Special Education Director has assured us that these students are manageable if only we will use the staff we now have more effectively. Since there is neither the funding for specialists to deal with these students, nor the space for them to have a classroom if such teachers could be found, what we really need to do is just what the President’s plan suggests: replace the teachers who are not being effective.

If a veteran teacher can’t handle students who yell out in class, bully other students, sell drugs in the hallways, or stand on the desk singing, then we need to get rid of the teacher. Teachers with many years of experience cost way too much anyway, so the obvious answer is replace them with the vastly superior first- and second-year teachers that are coming out of our colleges in record numbers. After all, with all of its rewards, many students in college today must certainly aspire to be teachers. Surely, teachers with no experience, but well-armed with all that can be taught in modern Methods Classes will be perfectly equipped to handle the problems that students in this population present. If these teachers require additional assistance to help with these students, perhaps we can have our Educational Technicians take these students in the hall and help them to learn there. See what an honorable and achievable goal it is to leave no child behind?

Serving Our Passengers

Having made arrangements for those who rarely attend, those who make no effort, and those who are a threat to the learning and safety of the rest, we are left with a smaller population who show up on time to meet the train, get on board, and are ready and eager to travel down the tracks toward our destination. Among this population are those who, despite their best efforts, cannot seem to grasp some of the material. These are the students that most of us want most to help. Teaching is, after all, a “helping” profession. We are, all of us, here because we want to help others. We are all more than willing to do anything and everything possible to help those who really want to learn. All that is necessary for the success of those students who do not qualify for a Special Education program, but who still can’t quite figure it all out, is some time and attention. The solution for this group is simple. In Middle School, we have Educational Technicians who are experts in serving just this function. Although in a class of thirty, with 47 minutes to teach them all, a single teacher may not be able to spend the appropriate amount of time with each of these students, our Ed. Techs are ready, willing, and able.

Of course, there is the difficulty of locating our Ed. Techs. Many of our Ed Techs are working with those students who are way behind because they have missed school so often. Others are assisting those students who won’t put a pencil to paper. The remaining Ed. Techs are being used in the hallway to assist those students who are only here to disrupt. What does that leave us to help the students who really want to learn, but just need that helping hand? Well, perhaps these students aren’t all that important anyway. After all, they’ll probably pass the high-stakes test, even if their scores aren’t as high as they might be. They can read, write, and do basic calculations. They’re here in school, they try their best, and they behave well. These students are by no means achieving all that they might, but they certainly aren’t being left behind. And, of course, what is most important is our honorable and achievable goal of leaving no child behind.

Final Destination

Finally, we need to see where we will arrive, once we have gotten all of our students there. It would seem we will arrive at a place in which ALL of our students have at least some minimal skills. They can read, if by this we mean that they can decode words and find at least a superficial meaning in written language. They are certainly capable of comprehending the pop-up ads on the internet, and the advertising in magazines and on billboards. They are probably not ready to comprehend great literature, but, after all, what difference does the writing of a lot of dead white guys make anyway?

They can write well enough to send e-mails and conduct online chats. They know that the word “you” is more properly spelled “u.” It saves time, after all, to write it this way, and we need to have as much time as possible so we can use our writing skills to send vitally important messages, like, “Sup,” (which I am told means, “What’s up?” – a vitally important message itself), and to communicate with others on the same intellectual level.

Certainly they can solve simple mathematical problems, and possibly balance their checkbooks. They may not have the ability to do any real problem solving, or to examine alternatives and choose the ones most likely to bring about desired results, but how important is that really, anyway? Our students can now get jobs, respond to advertising, and use the money they earn to buy the products advertised on TV, the internet, and in magazines, and keep our economy healthy.

Certainly these are the intended outcomes of public education. These are the lofty goals to which I, like all teachers, aspired when I became certified. We should all be so proud to have met such an honorable goal. Congratulations, fellow educators. We have left no child behind.

Fred Eder

Biddeford Middle School

Twenty years later, we’ve decided teachers don’t even need degrees to teach. Anyone can do it. In some states, including Arizona and Florida, a veteran, simply by virtue of having served in the military, is now considered a qualified teacher. If that’s true, I’m qualified to coach The Phoenix Suns because I saw a basketball game once. I’ve seen a couple of seasons of ER, so I’m almost certainly qualified to perform open heart surgery. Or… is it just possible that we need more than that to be qualified to do something?

Unqualified teachers are likely to be as effective as I would be fighting a war. I need both hands to stand up. I need to nap after I vacuum a single room and I’m out of breath. And the thing is, everyone knows that. Why would we want to have unqualified teachers? What is the advantage of that?

The advantage is that we will have a population that can’t think. They are more easily manipulated and distracted. We can have a President incite an insurrection while people are busy yelling at each other about whether helping others is Socialism, which most people don’t understand anyway because no one ever taught them to think critically. It’s easier to convince them of the value of fascism, it’s easier to keep them from the ballot box, and they can be made to accept authority without question. This keeps the wealthy in power, and it keeps the rest of us content to be wage slaves.

To further this agenda, more restrictions are being put on teachers because those in power know that teachers are the most vital part of society. Not only are they not allowed to teach any real literature, they are also banned from teaching any history that is less than flattering to The United States.

One of The People On The Porch sent me a video the other day in which an economist explained how one can predict what is going to happen in the stock market by means of examining history. Empires, he posits, go through certain cycles that are predictable because they have been repeated over and over from Ancient Rome, up through The Dutch and The East India Company, the rise and fall of Great Britain, and all the way to America. America reached its peak after World War II, and we’ve been declining since. And much of this has to do with education because education breeds the innovation that keeps an economy strong enough for its currency to be the Reserve Currency for the world. The dollar currently has that slot, but China is closing in on it. When the yuan (Chinese currency) replaces the dollar in this position, America will lose much of its power. I’m not an economist of any sort, but the video made sense to me. Perhaps the author is incorrect. I really don’t know enough to have an informed opinion.

The point is that there is an advantage to those in power that we don’t know all of our own history. It’s easier to be fiercely loyal to a country that you believe has done nothing wrong. America’s history is filled with immoral and inexcusable behavior. If all we learn is that George Washington told his father he chopped down the cherry tree because he could not tell a lie (and that story isn’t even true, by the way. It was invented by Parson Mason Weems.) how could we think badly of our country, and why should we try to change it?

Heather Cox Richardson, whose work I read nightly, summed it up this way:

And now, in 2022, we are in a new educational moment. Between January 2021 and January 2022, the legislatures of 35 states introduced 137 bills to keep students from learning about issues of race, LBGTQ+ issues, politics, and American history. More recently, the Republican-dominated legislature of Florida passed the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (Stop WOKE) Act, tightly controlling how schools and employee training can talk about race or gender discrimination.

Republican-dominated legislatures and school districts are also purging books from school libraries and notifying parents each time a child checks out a book. Most of the books removed are by or about Black people, people of color, or LGBTQ+ individuals.

Both sets of laws are likely to result in teachers censoring themselves or leaving the profession out of concern they will inadvertently run afoul of the new laws, a disastrous outcome when the nation’s teaching profession is already in crisis. School districts facing catastrophic teacher shortages are trying to keep classrooms open by doubling up classes, cutting the school week down to four days, and permitting veterans without educational training to teach—all of which will likely hurt students trying to regain their educational footing after the worst of the pandemic.

This, in turn, adds weight to the move to divert public money from the public schools into private schools that are not overseen by state authorities. In Florida, the Republican-controlled legislature has dramatically expanded the state’s use of vouchers recently, arguing that tying money to students rather than schools expands parents’ choices while leaving unspoken that defunded public schools will be less and less attractive. In June, in Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court expanded the voucher system to include religious schools, ruling that Maine, which provides vouchers in towns that don’t have public high schools, must allow those vouchers to go to religious schools as well as secular ones. Thus tax dollars will support religious schools.

In 2022, it seems worth remembering that in 1831, lawmakers afraid that Black Americans exposed to the ideas in books and schools would claim the equality that was their birthright under the Declaration of Independence made sure their Black neighbors could not get an education.

Heather Cox Richardson Newsletter, August 21, 2022

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-21-2022?utm_source=email

Are we actually interested in solving The Teacher Shortage? If we are, then there are several things we can do.

First, pay teachers enough to make it worthwhile for someone to do the job. I taught for 29 years, and I live today in a state just North of Abject Poverty. I can make ends meet only because I have so much help from others. The idea that someone is going to take on enormous debt to go to college to become properly qualified to teach is unthinkable if a teacher isn’t going to make any money.

Second, offer to forgive teachers’ student loans if they stay in the profession for 3 or 4 years. Burnout is incredibly high among teachers because the job is infinitely more difficult than it appears from the point of view of students, parents, or what you see on television. Give teachers an incentive to stay.

Third, give the teachers the resources they need to do the job properly. This includes not only the books they want to teach because they have a passion for them, but the staff they need to help them. These aren’t just the Ed Techs discussed above (I believe they’re called Paraprofessionals now), but also the technology necessary to teach students to use computers efficiently, space in which to work, and secretaries to handle the tasks that don’t require special training. Teachers waste enormous amounts of time in the copy room.

Finally, give them the respect they deserve for doing a job that no one wants to do anymore. Remove the restrictions on teaching history, trust them to do their jobs properly, and let them apply the Art of teaching instead of forcing them to prepare students for high stakes tests that prove nothing and distract from real learning. Value their time by freeing them from pointless meetings. And, instead of criticizing them, thank them for doing the most important job in the world.

Education is, in fact, the silver bullet.

Posted on July 3, 2022July 23, 2022 by Fred · 1 Comment

The January 6 Committee Matters

I am not a fan of Liz Cheney in general. She opposed gay marriage (although she later recanted that position while still failing to vote for any kinds of protection for the LGBTQIA community), she has no compassion for the poor, and her views on immigration are in direct opposition to mine. From her own website:

Liz voted against amnesty and any attempt to soften sovereign border enforcement
Liz cosponsored the Refugee Resettlement National Security Act requiring the Comptroller General to do a full assessment of the costs of refugees to federal, state and local governments
Liz cosponsored the Criminal Alien Deportation Enforcement Act, a bill that withholds foreign aid from countries that refuse to take back criminal aliens…

https://justfacts.votesmart.org/public-statement/1273729/issue-position-securing-the-border-fighting-illegal-immigration&speechType=7

She believes in an Us vs Them way of seeing the world. I believe in “There is no Them; we are all Us.”

She is in favor of increasing the military budget, and she wants to fight more wars. I would like to fight fewer wars. In fact, I would prefer we never fight another war ever again.

She is in favor of ensuring everyone can get any firearms they want. If you listened to my podcast on the mass murder at Robb Elementary School, you know I would prefer to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, and I would really like civilians to do without guns that are intended to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

I could go on, but I have made my point. I disagree with Liz Cheney… most of the time.

Many of The People on The Porch are Conservatives who probably like Liz Cheney and agree with her views most of the time. And I respect their right to disagree with me. You could be right. I could be wrong. I’m hoping we can find agreement on this.

These words are from Ms. Cheney’s opening remarks in the January 6 Committee Hearings:

Tonight and in the weeks to come, you will see evidence of what motivated this violence, including directly from those who participated in this attack. You will see video of them explaining what caused them to do it. You will see their posts on social media. We will show you what they have said in federal court. On this point, there is no room for debate. Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: that the election was stolen, and that he was the rightful President. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.

I am not a fan of former Vice President, Mike Pence. He is in direct opposition to LGBTQIA rights. His views about gun control are very different from mine. The same is true concerning his opinions about abortion. Again, I recognize many of my Conservative friends may like Mr. Pence more than I do, and I respect their right to disagree with my assessment of him. I don’t like Mike Pence very much at all. Most of the time…

He also, however, said this:

“Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election, and (Vice President) Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”

Although then-President Trump asked him repeatedly to find a way to invalidate the November 2021 election results, the then-Vice President declined to do that. The result of this was that on January 6, those attacking the Capitol wanted to find and hang Mike Pence. It would appear that for many people, the assessment of all people is dependent upon the assessment their leader makes. People who once liked Mike Pence wanted to hang him because Donald Trump decided he didn’t like his Vice President anymore.

What we’ve seen from Liz Cheney and Mike Pence, as well as several others who have participated in the January 6 Committee Hearing, is love of country over love of party. That’s becoming as rare a commodity as efficient bureaucracies. I can, and do, disagree with them about nearly everything, but I also have to respect the courage to do what’s right. I’m allowed a nuanced point of view. I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can leave my little box whenever I choose. I wish those who wanted to harm Pence and Cheney could entertain more than one idea at a time, and practice some kind of moderation.

The response to the Hearings I’m hearing from Trump supporters is that it’s a Nothing Sandwich. We need to forget about January 6 and focus on more important problems like runaway inflation and gas prices skyrocketing. I don’t deny the importance of those issues. I’m not aware of anyone who does. There are a nearly infinite number of problems that are urgent and must be faced, investigated, and solved sooner rather than later. I could add quite a few to the list. Mass murders, homelessness, poverty, crimes of desperation, the steady decline of mental health, and the issue of allowing people to be who they choose to be all come to mind. Climate change is an existential threat to our planet.

The existence of these problems does nothing to mitigate the horrors of January 6. The effort to destroy what little remains of our freedom is not to be ignored. Had they been successful, what would that have meant? Would it really have been no big deal to execute our Vice President? No, I don’t like him. Yes, I disagree with him. But, hanging him? That’s obscene. It’s unimaginable. It’s nothing short of terrorism. The same fate would certainly have awaited Nancy Pelosi, AOC, and any number of others had these people been successful. Aside from the murders, the other consequences would have been equally unthinkable.

They would, one assumes, have installed their own President. With elections now invalidated, we would have a Dictator. Freedom, even the limited Freedom we have thus far preserved, would be over. Media as we know it would topple. This show would certainly be shut down. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, and hatred of “The Other” would become commonplace. Suffering would increase exponentially for nearly everyone.

What happened on January 6, 2021 is important. It can’t be ignored without risking everything we hold dear. People must be held accountable so we can reduce the odds of anyone else trying it again. The Proud Boys, The Oath Keepers, and the other White Nationalist groups aren’t going to go away until we put them away. While I certainly respect their right to the vile beliefs with which I think all rational people disagree, and while I believe they should be allowed to speak those beliefs on their own platforms, this doesn’t mean they’re allowed to act on those beliefs and overthrow our country.

No, The January 6 Committee Hearings are not a Nothing Burger. They are a means of informing all the world, truthfully and with clear evidence, of a significant attack on our country.

Will the former President be indicted? If he is, will he be convicted? If he is, will he go to prison? I doubt it. I hope I’m wrong, but in all of American history only one President has ever been arrested after becoming President. (It was Ulysess S. Grant. He didn’t go to prison.)

A year into his appointment to the MPD, (formerly enslaved person) William H. West came across President Ulysses S. Grant while on patrol near 13th and M Streets NW in Washington, D.C. He stopped the president for speeding in his horse and buggy and gave him a warning for excessive speed before sending him on his way. The next day, on a very similar patrol, West witnessed the president repeating his behavior and thus, arrested him. While arresting the president, West said, “I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest.” President Grant was taken to the police station and released on a $20 bond—the equivalent to $430 today—and he did not contest the fine or the arrest. This was not President Grant’s first citation for speeding in the District of Columbia. According to former chief Cathy Lanier, Ulysses S. Grant received three citations for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage during his tenure as president.

William West

It’s hard to imagine a former President being indicted, in spite of the enormous body of evidence that anyone who has watched the hearings has seen. Trump could have stopped the attack at least three hours earlier than he did. He was, as we have seen in the Hearings, begged repeatedly by friends, family, and staff to call off the crowd.

“For 187 harrowing minutes, the president watched his
supporters attack the Capitol — and resisted pleas to stop them…”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a Trump booster, called him and said, “You have to denounce this.” Trump falsely claimed to McCarthy that the rioters were members of antifa, but McCarthy corrected him and said they were in fact Trump supporters.

“You know what I see, Kevin? I see people who are more upset about the election than you are. They like Trump more than you do,” the president replied.

“You’ve got to hold them,” McCarthy said. “You need to get on TV right now, you need to get on Twitter, you need to call these people off.”

Trump responded, “Kevin, they’re not my people.”

McCarthy told the president, “Yes, they are, they just came through my windows and my staff is running for cover. Yeah, they’re your people. Call them off.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/

This isn’t a partisan issue. Trump supporters asked the former President for help. Their pleas were ignored for more than three hours. Loyalty and compassion don’t seem to be strong suits for our 45^th President.

The evidence is clear that Trump was aware that he had lost the election. The Hearings showed us several people, including his closest supporters, staff, friends, and family had told him this. If he believed he won the election when he was organizing this attack, he was not in touch with reality. We can debate the qualifications of a President, but I would like to believe we all agree a President needs to recognize reality.

There is nothing you (unless you’re in the Justice Department) or I can do about indicting anyone. That doesn’t mean, however, that we’re entirely powerless to keep this destruction from recurring. We still have the power of our votes.

It’s likely that Trump will be the nominee for President in 2024. We can simply vote for anyone else. This doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be the Democratic nominee. I recognize that in the two-party system we have in America it seems pointless to vote for anyone other than a Democrat or a Republican. No one else can possibly get elected. To vote for someone else is to waste your vote. That’s the traditional wisdom. It may be true.

You’re on Fred’s Front Porch right now, though, and we are Idealists around here. We believe that change begins with Imagination. I’m unaware of anything humans have created that didn’t begin with an idea. I don’t know who will be running in 2024, but we can imagine that someone who isn’t backed by billions of dollars in corporate money could be President. And then we can do what little we can to make that happen.

A single drop of water is all but powerless. When you put enough of them together, however, you can carve the Grand Canyon. I’m working on that now. I hope you’ll join me in your own way.

Posted on May 29, 2022June 6, 2022 by Fred

“Crime… Boy I Don’t Know”

BARTLET

Something horrible happened about an hour ago. C.J. Cregg was getting threats so we put an agent on her. He’s a good guy. He was on my detail for a while, and he was in Rosslyn. He walked in the middle of an armed robbery, and was shot and killed after detaining one of the suspects.

RITCHIE

Oh. Crime. Boy, I don’t know.

BARTLET

[sighs] We should have a great debate, Rob. We owe it to everyone. When I was running as a governor, I didn’t know anything. I made them start Bartlet college in my dining room. Two hours every morning on foreign affairs and the military. You could do that.

RITCHIE

How many different ways you think you’re gonna find to call me dumb?

BARTLET

I wasn’t, Rob. But you’ve turned being un-engaged into a Zen-like thing, and you shouldn’t enjoy it so much is all, and if it appears at times as if I don’t like you, that’s the only reason why.

RITCHIE

You’re what my friends call a superior sumbitch. You’re an academic elitist and a snob. You’re, uh, Hollywood, you’re weak, you’re liberal, and you can’t be trusted. And if it appears from time to time as if I don’t like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why.

The start of a great tune is played inside the theater.

BARTLET

They’re playing my song.

Bartlet stands and heads to the stairs, but he turns to Ritchie before reaching them.

BARTLET

In the future, if you’re wondering, “Crime. Boy, I don’t know” is when I decided to kick your ass.

— “The West Wing, Posse Comitatus” Season 3, Episode 21 or 22 depending on whether you count the special episodes that season, written by Aaron Sorkin

I think we can all agree that crime is not desirable. In my 59 years on this planet, I have yet to meet anyone who was in favor of more crime. I have no doubt such people exist. I’ve just never met them. I feel confident no one listening to this is in favor of more crime. I’m sure we would all like to see less of it. How could we do that?

First, we could eliminate some crimes by deciding they’re not crimes anymore. As I write I am, and just before I begin to record, I will be enjoying a nice bowl of marijuana. Less than a decade ago, I could never have said the publicly. I could be arrested for that. There are still places in the United States where I would be arrested for that. It’s legal here in Arizona. I could go to prison for that in Idaho. It’s precisely the same activity. I promise you I’m not hurting anyone. You could argue that I’m hurting myself, but cigarettes are infinitely more dangerous, and they have never been illegal in my lifetime. Alcohol kills millions of people a year, and it’s been legal in the United States since 1920. Marijuana legalization or decriminalization is only one example of many laws that are pointless. We could change some laws. That would be one step. It doesn’t get us anywhere near all the way down the road, however. Murders, rapes, robberies, kidnappings, and any number of other atrocities occur daily. All of those need to be illegal, and they need to be stopped. We need to do more.

We could also try to minimize the elements that contribute to crime. Poverty is the clearest indicator.

Most criminal justice experts contend that “successful reintegration requires employment and economic opportunities,” and that high recidivism rates are often caused by lack of meaningful employment. Since 2012, the federal Bureau of Prisons and state prison directors were tasked with providing incarceration data and identifying information for prisoners to the Internal Revenue Service – a process that accumulated data on 2.9 million prisoners, making an analysis of post-incarceration employment possible.

However, the Brookings report focused not only on the challenges faced by reintegrating former prisoners, but also on policies that might improve the lives of young children and keep them off the criminal justice treadmill.

According to the study, for individuals living in lower-income areas, “Three years prior to incarceration, only 49 percent of prime-age men are employed, and, when employed, their median earnings were only $6,250. Only 13 percent earned more than $15,000. Tracking prisoners over time and comparing employment and earnings before and after incarceration we find surprisingly little difference in labor market outcomes like employment and earnings.”

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2018/dec/7/brookings-institute-study-finds-direct-connection-between-poverty-and-crime-rates/

In short, having no money in a world that is, for reasons passing understanding, based on money is a good predictor of crime. We will do what we need to do to survive. I’m not going to go rob a convenience store tomorrow morning. I’m willing to bet you won’t either. I don’t need to. I don’t have much, but I have enough to survive if I’m very careful. I hope you have at least as much as I do. When a person is sufficiently desperate, a person will go to desperate measures. Reducing poverty reduces desperation. Reducing desperation reduces crime.

But The Brookings Report touches on the third element of crime reduction: recidivism. Many criminals committed a crime because they were desperate. They went to prison. When they got out, they committed more crimes. Didn’t prisons convince them not to break the law? No. It rarely does. It’s not breaking news that prisons are horrible places where horrendous acts occur far more frequently than they do while I’m sitting at my keyboard, smoking a bowl, and writing a podcast.

I’ve had roommates on both ends of the equation. One of them worked in prisons for several years. She was good at her job. And she would tell you that prisons are doing the very best they can with incredibly dangerous and violent people. Two other former roommates of mine were incarcerated, and they would both tell you that what happened to them while they were there was horrible.

What can we do to change this? Do prisons necessarily have to be horrible? No, in fact, they don’t. This is part of our American thinking. “Our way is the only way. If you’re nice to criminals, there’s no reason for them to stop committing crimes.”

That seems to be a good argument, at least at first blush. The problem with it is that it’s not supported by evidence. Let’s see what the statistics tell us. Norway’s statistics are on the left. America’s are on the right.

Gun crime > Guns per 100 residents	31.3 Ranked 11th.	88.8 Ranked 1st. Nearly 3 times more than Norway
Intentional homicide rate	0.68 Ranked 59th.	4.7 Ranked 7th. Nearly 7 times more than Norway
Murder rate per million people	5.93 Ranked 84th.	42.01 Ranked 43rd. More than 7 times more than Norway
Murders per 100,000 population.	29 Ranked 76th.	12,996 Ranked 9th. 448 times more than Norway

Rapes	938 Ranked 20th.	84,767 Ranked 1st. 90 times more than Norway
Rapes per million people	191.85 Ranked 15th.	274.04 Ranked 9th. 43% more than Norway

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/United-States/Crime/Violent-crime

Wow! There’s a lot more crime in America than in Norway! I wonder why that is. Let’s examine that just a little bit.

Norway has consistently ranked number one on a number of lists entailing the best, most comfortable prisons in the world. Since the 1990s, Norway’s prison system has evolved into spaces that represent comfort, healing and inclusivity. Changing its approach and attitudes towards prisoners, Norway is molding high-functioning members of society. In return, former prisoners are gaining the necessary skills in order to contribute to Norway’s economy.

Norway’s Prison System Benefits its Economy

Norway practices Restorative Justice. What does that mean? It’s an effort to change the circumstances that contribute to recidivism.

Many factors contribute to breaking cycles of crime, but Prison Fellowship International (PFI) finds two drivers to be most relevant and effective. First, prisoners form new positive self-identities that replace past negative self-identities, and second, they develop healthy social relationships that support them when they return home. These ideas are interconnected: prisoners are more likely to seek and develop healthy social relationships as part of the self-identity transformation process.

Restorative Justice Theory of Change

In other words, prisoners are treated more kindly. They are given more trust. They have facilities that make it possible to begin to heal the trauma that caused them to commit a crime in the first place, as opposed to causing additional traumas that push prisoners into an even darker place.

Norway has the primary goal of reintegrating its prisoners as stable contributors to communities. The first way it is accomplishing this is by creating jail cells that closely resemble small dorm rooms. Many prisons in Norway have completely banned bars in their architectural design and have “open” style cells. At the maximum-security Halden prison, each prisoner has a toilet, shower, fridge and a flat TV screen with access to kitchens and common areas.

Norway’s Prison System Benefits its Economy

In short, their prisoners have nicer homes than many “free” people in The United States have.

These institutions tend to be better for those who work there, as well.

…. evidence began mounting that the punitive settings were also undermining the health of staff. Officers reported witnessing violence almost daily and worrying constantly about being attacked. They experienced high rates of diabetes, heart disease, mental health problems, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). On average, they die by age 60.

“That got people’s attention,” says Cyrus Ahalt, MPP, a UCSF public health researcher who has worked with Williams since 2010. “We realized these environments are so corrosive that even stepping foot in them as a worker is elevating your risk of stress-related illness and the social outcomes of that, like divorce, addiction, and suicide.”

https://magazine.ucsf.edu/norways-humane-approach-prisons-can-work-here-too

What’s better for the prisoners also turns out to be better for those who work at prisons.

Known as “dynamic security,” it focuses on the role of prison workers. Norway’s correctional officers routinely socialize with residents, joining them for meals and card games and talking through problems. Officers are trained to use force when absolutely necessary but also study law, ethics, human rights, and the science of behavior change. They learn that building positive relationships with incarcerated people helps them get their lives on track and reduces the risk of violence. Even in maximum-security prisons – where most people are in custody for violent crimes like murder or rape – assaults against officers are rare, Eberhardt says.

That may sound counterintuitive if you’ve been taught to think of security in terms of barriers, weapons, oppressive rules, and threats of added punishment. But a Norwegian officer will explain that getting to know incarcerated people on a personal level better alerts you to potential conflict and earns you their respect. “A lot of my colleagues, they will say, ‘If you meet an ex-inmate in a pub, there’s a much bigger chance he will buy you a beer than knock you down,” Eberhardt says. “It’s true. Whenever I’ve met formerly incarcerated people on the outside, they are often thanking me. It’s always a very rewarding experience.”

When Williams first visited Norwegian prisons, in 2014, she was surprised to hear so many officers say they loved their jobs. They weren’t overly stressed and hypervigilant. They didn’t perpetually fear for their safety. They didn’t think about killing themselves or take out their frustrations on their families… It gave prison residents a chance at a healthy, meaningful life and made the lives of staff healthier and more meaningful, too.

https://magazine.ucsf.edu/norways-humane-approach-prisons-can-work-here-too

Shockingly enough, treating people kindly does more to help them than treating them cruelly. Is our need for revenge (You can check out Episode 132: “A Dish Best Served Cold” for more information on this) more important than our need to reduce crime? Who is better off for hurting someone who hurt you? Does killing someone bring back to life the person they killed? Does locking someone up in horrible conditions do anything to heal the trauma of the person who was raped or kidnapped? Does forcing people to endure horrible environments restore the lost property of someone who has been robbed? We don’t heal through hatred.

If we want to reduce crime, we can reduce its causes by removing people from poverty. We can decriminalize behaviors that don’t hurt anyone but the consensual participants. And when those steps still aren’t enough, we can create prisons committed to reform before vengeance. In short, we can lead with Love. We can make a better world by changing the way we treat each other. Maybe we could all work on that. I’ll start. I love you.

Posted on March 13, 2022June 6, 2022 by Fred · 2 Comments

Is Government The Problem or The Solution?

Government is the source of more problems than I can count. If you want to do something, you almost certainly need a license of some sort. If you live here, they’re going to take your money in the form of taxes. If you want to have a voice anyone in government hears, you need to have a lot more money than either you or I have. Things are set up to benefit the wealthy and oppress the poor. Government is a bureaucracy constructed to ensure nothing ever really gets done without jumping through more hoops than all the animals Barnum and Bailey ever trained. A single mistake sets a person back for months.

California, for example, said they were covering my Medicare until December, even though I moved to Arizona in October. Arizona, therefore, while they were perfectly willing to pick up my Medicare, denied the request in November because California hadn’t sent the form that said they were no longer covering it. This is why Social Security took $510 from my Disability this month to recoup their losses from December, January, and February. Arizona sent the proper form to Social Security. It takes 90 days to process that, so I’ll get $170 a month less on which to live until June or July. I’m not alone in this. I feel sure it happens to millions of others, and all of us search frantically for the means to survive while the bureaucrats process paperwork. I’m never moving again. The only way to get me out of this place is in a body bag.

Any efforts to pass laws that help us take years, and they can be stopped by a single voice, usually one paid for by those who have the money to deny the rest of us the chance to join the pursuit of happiness that is supposed to be one of our inalienable rights. Government is the problem, isn’t it?

Americans, after all, rugged individualists. We hear so often about those who made it all by themselves. They didn’t need government to become successful. They are self-made successes. We should all aspire to such greatness. They did it all alone, didn’t they?

Did they? From where did they get the education they needed if not from our schools? How did they get where they needed to go if not on the roads we built? From where did they get the currency they needed to exchange for the goods and services they used to become successful if not from the government that printed it? Who kept them safe if not our police departments? They almost certainly benefitted at some time from our fire departments, our paramedics, our hospitals, and our concept of freedom that allowed them to live without the fear of winding up disappearing in the middle of the night for speaking out against our government.

All of us are standing on the shoulders of 200,000 years of human development. I didn’t invent paper, nor the printing press, nor the computer on which I’m writing. I didn’t invent the language that allows us to communicate. I’m using the products of human progress. I’m not doing this alone. There are billions of people who came before me to allow me to write this. The government and The People On The Porch provide me the funds I need to exist. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos didn’t do it alone, either. They couldn’t possibly do it alone. They made use of (or, if you’re of my frame of mind, exploited) the benefits of the advancements of our species.

We humans have done extraordinary things. We have increased our life spans dramatically. My mother is 91, and I expect her to live for quite some time to come. It’s not unheard of for people to live for a century because of our advances in medicine.

We’ve also made health care into a logistical nightmare, but now an insurance company can’t deny you coverage because of a “preexisting condition” – a term they invented to avoid insuring diabetics and others that are likely to cost them more. For all the problems inherent in The Affordable Care Act, that’s one part it got right. They can no longer say, “You’ve outrun your coverage; die in peace.” Government allowed medical insurance to exist. That was a problem. Government kept them from denying coverage. That was a small part of the solution. The government is a tide that goes out but comes back in. It moves in waves, and, like the ocean itself, it does as much damage as it does good.

“We have to say what we feel; that government, no matter what its failures of the past, and in times to come, for that matter, government can be a place where people come together, and where no one gets left behind. No one… gets left behind. An instrument of good.”

— Toby Ziegler in “The West Wing: He Shall, From Time to Time” Season 1, Episode 12, by Aaron Sorkin

Our Founding Document, “The Declaration of Independence,” tells us that all men are created equal. That’s an ideal, not a fact. Michael Jordan is a better basketball player than I am. That’s a fact. He was created one way, and I, another. I am a better writer than a child who will never be able to use language. That’s a fact. I was created one way, and he, another.

“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal. I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality…”

— Atticus Finch, “To Kill A Mockingbird: Chapter 20” by Harper Lee

Will you find corruption in our courts? Of course you will. Only hours after Atticus gave that speech to the jury, the court failed to deliver justice for Tom Robinson.

But this is an example of the idea upon which our country was built. It’s the idea that we all matter. It’s the idea that all voices count, even those who spout ridiculous things. Last year, for example, when I was in Surprise to see my mother, my nephew and I were staying at a hotel. We went downstairs for a drink, and there we met a woman who spent 45 minutes explaining to me that there are Lizard People from another dimension, or reality, or planet (she wasn’t sure which) who are living here now. And I want her to be allowed to vote. Because, as Toby Ziegler told us above… no one… no one is left behind. I don’t have to agree with you to want you to have a say in how this life we share is governed. She may be right. I would be willing to bet everything I will ever earn for the rest of what’s left of my life that she’s not, but I could be wrong. I remind myself of that constantly. I think I’m right, but I could always, always, always be wrong. So could you. So could she.

There are times when all the world’s asleep
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man…

I said, watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical
Liberal, oh fanatical, criminal
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable
Respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable

— Supertramp, “The Logical Song” from “Breakfast In America, 1979

Instead of giving in to the cynicism that tells us it’s too late, that the American Oligarchs have already taken over, and that there’s nothing more to do but live in a dystopian nightmare, we can encourage one another to believe in an idea. The Cynics, you see, can be wrong, too. We can believe in the idea of liberty and justice for all. Our flag lies limp on its pole now, hanging its head in shame, but a good wind can come up at any moment to make it fly in all its tri-colored, star-spangled glory again. We can begin by protecting voting rights. We can continue by creating a Health Care System that allows us the medical attention we need without bankrupting us. We can reach for the stars by providing a Universal Basic Income that ensures all of us have enough to survive. We can end poverty. We can reduce the nightmare of income inequality. We can do anything we choose to do if we can be United.

The oligarchs want to pit us against each other. “They’re not from America, and they’re stealing your jobs. They’re the source of the problem. She’s a woman, and instead of staying home and raising children, she’s out in the workplace, making you replaceable, and reducing everyone’s income. She’s the source of the problem. They have different sexual orientations than you do, and they’ve destroyed the moral lives that are the heart of this country. They’re the source of the problem. That guy is a Socialist who wants to give away your hard-earned money to someone else for free. He’s the source of the problem. This guy is a fascist who attacked the country on January 6. He’s the source of the problem. This guy likes the football team you hate. You just KNOW he’s the source of the problem.”

Sorry. I don’t buy that. There is no Them; we are all Us. We’re all the source of the problem. I can, and do, disagree with many people. Even more disagree with me. But I won’t turn that disagreement into hatred. Neither should you. Instead, I want to understand those with whom I disagree, and I hope to make them understand me. I want to find a way to solve the problems. I’m not interested in blame. I’m interested in solutions. Don’t tell me why we can’t unless that’s your preface to the answer I want to hear: how we can.

In 1940, our armed forces weren’t among the twelve most formidable in the world, but obviously we were going to fight a big war. And Roosevelt said the US would produce 50,000 airplanes in the next four years. Everyone thought it was a joke. And it was, cuz it turned out we produced 100,000 planes. Give the air force an armada that would block the sun…

Over the past half century, we’ve split the atom, we’ve spliced the gene, and we’ve roamed Tranquility Base. We’ve reached for the stars, and never have we been closer to having them in our grasp. New science, new technology is making the difference between life and death, and so we need a national commitment equal to this unparalleled moment of possibility…

— Sam Seaborn from The West Wing, “100,000 Airplanes” Season 3, episode 11, by Aaron Sorkin

A President of The United States was once asked to define America. He answered, “One word – one word: Possibilities.”

There’s little we can’t do if we work together. One person can’t defend the country, but millions of soldiers with 100,000 airplanes can. One person can’t cure cancer or diabetes, but thousands of scientists working together and separately can, and I believe, someday, they will. One person can’t reshape our economy to relieve the afflicted. But a government that truly represents the diversity of America can. One person can’t explore strange new worlds, or seek out new life and new civilizations, but together we all can boldly go where no one has gone before.

Let’s recognize, at last, that we have more in common with our bitterest enemy than I have with the dog I love with all my heart. We may have irreconcilably different ideologies, beliefs, agendas, goals, and desires. But all of us have a heart. All of us bleed. All of us pee, and poop, and sleep and wake up. All of us require the sun to keep us alive. All of us rose from the same bit of goo 4.5 billion years ago. Your DNA is nearly identical to mine. You’re sharing a ride with me on this rock tumbling through space. You live, you love, you laugh, you cry. So do I. You’re here for less than two centuries. So am I.

We need to work with the government we have to make it the government it could be. We need it to become that place where we all come together to discuss our problems and find not the Democratic Answer or the Republican Answer, but the Right Answer.

As Russia marches, seemingly inexorably, toward World War III, and the nuclear war that would exterminate all life on Earth, we need now, more than ever, to stop fighting amongst ourselves over differences that are superficial and start finding a way out of the terror that lies ahead. There’s little point in planning for a Utopian future if we’re not going to be around for another year.

But, for today…

I woke up at 3:40 AM, but that’s because I passed out a little before 9. Speedy Shine came outside with me, did his business, and jumped immediately into my lap and fell asleep again. I don’t know why I love that feeling so much. Having him sleeping in my lap makes me feel alive, content, and at peace with the world.

I wish, so much, everyone could feel such peace. I think of it as a simple pleasure. For far too many people, it’s an all but unimaginable luxury.

There is plenty about which to worry. The chance of nuclear war grows greater all the time. This will almost certainly lead to the extinction of the human race. I think that’s a good reason to worry.

On the other hand, I don’t believe there’s much I can do about that. I don’t believe Putin is taking my calls this week. If he were, I don’t think he could possibly care less about my pleas not to continue the mass murder our species has politely named War.

The best I can possibly do is to convince, if I am absurdly successful, 50 people to believe in the possibilities that liberty holds. I might be able to get them to oppose voter suppression laws, or to support a Universal Basic Income. I can’t stop the deaths.

If our time on Earth is approaching its end, I want to find all the happiness I can before I’m gone. Worrying accomplishes nothing of value, and it keeps me from feeling the Joy I want while I can still have it.

It’s not that I don’t care what is happening. It’s that I can’t change it.

If I can’t change it, I won’t worry about it. I will hope for change. I will advocate change. I will support those who try to make the changes in which I believe.

And then, I’m going to smoke a bowl, play some music, and enjoy the feeling of a dog lying in my lap, allowing me to believe he loves me, and knowing that I love him.

I hope you find a similar sort of Peace. I love you.