A Two Lane Çountry Road Into The Future

There's a great piece by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, comparing the strategy the Chinese have for the coming decades to that of the U.S. The Chinese are developing infrastructure and going full bore into the post-oil dependence reality of the future. Which means, of course, a major commitment to electric  cars, trains, etc. And we, meanwhile, are going full bore into developing the nation of Afghanistan. As Friedman points out, if we persist on our path of nation building, the Chinese are going to win that contest, and thus be the real global powerhouse.

Now Friedman has a lot more inside knowledge than I do, and works for the New York Times to boot, which means he kinda has to put a positive spin on this stuff. So he ends on a hopeful note... suggesting that somehow we will heal our internal rifts, give up our oil dependency, and forge boldly into the future. Or at least he suggests it's a possibility worth striving for. Which, of course, it is.

I guess.

On the other hand, I have spent a lot of time in Texas the last couple of years. And my sense of it is the Texas oil folks ain't a-gonna give up their stranglehold on the U.S. economy until every last drop of oil has been sucked out of the ground and used as fuel or turned into a plastic thingamabob.

I really do hope the Afghans are happy with the new country we're trying to build them. Whether they want it or not. And I'm darn thrilled that the Iraqi's have a new country too.

Kinda.

But these two disastrous escapades have put us way behind in the race toward the future. We were sitting in a pretty good position during the Bill Clinton era. But we're not in a very good position now.

We can still develop the stuff needed here. But then we can't seem to implement much. The left hand is constantly fighting the right hand. And so, the Chinese (and others) buy this cool techno stuff we've developed and actually utilize it.

While we argue back and forth about what the founders and Jesus would do.

The Chinese are not burdened with Democracy or religion. They don't care what the people want, nor the supposed representatives of the people. And they don't give a damn what Jesus would do. They look at science, evaluate, and act accordingly. Whether the science be environmental, economic, or whatever. The Chinese have been running China for a long time.

Honestly, I don't think America has much of a chance in this contest. It's kind of like pitting petulant children against grown ups. As much noise and disruption as the children cause, ultimately the grown ups are going to send them to their room. And Americans don't want to be anything but petulant children, really. It's all we know.

We're good at it, too.

Oddly enough, I'm pretty okay with America just being itself. With our quirky little ideas of democracy, our freedom of religion, and our love of classic cars. America is a huge country, full of wonderful people. It's just that we're not gonna dominate the planet forever. We've done it for fifty years or so, and already one gets the sense that we've gone beyond the apex. And the reason for that is quite simple. We haven't apparently learned from past empires... that what brings them down is military ventures far from their own borders, and the unwillingness or inability to pay for them. Every military venture ever engaged in by any empire was presented and sold with some rational argument. But eventually, they destroy the conquerors themselves.

Maybe we will stay neck and neck with China in the race to the future. But I doubt it. Because here in America, we're too attached to our past. And our past is that of a very recent frontier. Our values are formed by that frontier mentality, and don't necessarily juxtapose well with civilization. And in China, where civilization goes back so much further, they seem much more willing, and able, to move forward quickly and decisively.

I love America for what and who She really is. A quirky, industrious, musical, creative, petulant, ambitious, occasionally cruel, often funny and endlessly argumentative group of misfits and ne'er-do-wells who can't really agree on much of anything except that we have the right to disagree.

I don't think we can make anybody be like us even if we try. And I don't see why we'd want to.

 
   

UFO's and Aliens

Well, I admit it. Tonight (actually in the wee hours of the morning) I was perusing sites about UFO's and aliens. Not the kind who sneak across the border to find work, but the kind who zip around in flying saucers and apparently sometimes crash and such.

I'm not sure how I got sucked into the search. It had something to do with military experts testifying that there has been a big coverup regarding space ships and aliens for decades, and how these ships were seen beaming lights into our nuclear arsenals, somehow disabling their launching capabilities. Or something. So, you know... a few clicks, and I'm looking at "dead alien" pictures, and autopsies, and different photos of alleged spacecraft.

One thing struck me right away. The UFO pictures taken in the 1960's show spacecraft that are a lot more clunky looking than the more recent pictures. Apparently, aliens like to buy a newer model space craft every year or so. Some of the classic space craft have a certain appeal to them, kind of like the old Cadillacs of the 50's. You know... solid, no discernible fins as yet, a little tank-like but ultimately functional and luxurious in a practical kind of way. The new ones are more modern... sleek, with fluid lines and much fancier lights. I don't know if the old classics are still up there zipping around or not. Maybe the aliens, like the Japanese, are required by law to upgrade every year. Maybe that's what's actually on the dark side of the moon, that the astronauts ostensibly saw and couldn't talk about. A giant wrecking yard full of old space ships, bunches of clunkers from the fifties and sixties that nobody wants to drive any more.

The autopsy picture I saw of an alien revealed that they don't have much skeletal structure, or muscle for that matter. Apparently you just kind of peel back their "skin" and there's a hodgepodge of gloppy lookin' stuff in there that vaguely resembles stew meat. Ahh, mysteries abound.

Lest you think I am totally skeptical of the existence of aliens... well, I'm not. Matter of fact, the odds of there being alien life forms are much better than the odds of there not. And I don't doubt some could have visited here, or even kinda keep an eye on the place. It's entirely possible.  I don't trust 'em much, mind you. But by now, I don't really trust anyone very much. I've been around too long, and figure if I can't trust people born on the same planet as me, there's no reason to trust someone born in an entirely different galaxy. I figure E.T. was a con man.

This brings to mind one time in my wayward youth... when I was still in high school, actually. I was with a group of friends, driving on a dirt road south of Denver. We were, uhhh... in an altered state. Which makes one perfectly ripe for alien sightings. And sure enough, as we were driving down this bumpy dirt road in the twilight, a giant orb rose over the horizon. "Holy shit! What's that??" one friend asked incredulously. "Wow," said another, as that was all he could get out of his mouth.  I pulled the car over to take a closer look. "What the fffffff....." exclaimed another. And I, always the party pooper, looked up and said, "Uhhhh... it's the moon." Which of course it was. It was big, and orange-ish, and orb like, and a little more imbued with life when viewed in an altered state. But it was, nonetheless, the moon.

"Ohhh," my friends exclaimed all at once. "Yeah.... it's the moon....."

And people wonder why Americans don't do that good on test scores. If you're so wrecked you can't tell the moon from a UFO, trigonometry is gonna throw you for a loop.

I took care of a gentleman with Alzheimer's disease a few years back. Eventually he passed away, as we all do. He was a retired Air Force officer, and at one point he had actually been in charge of the base near  Roswell, New Mexico. He could remember stuff that happened a long time ago. He just couldn't necessarily remember stuff that happened a few minutes ago. And I asked him, point blank, one time if there was evidence of truth to the persistent rumors that aliens had been found near Roswell. 

"Not that I ever saw," he smiled with the childlike honesty of the Alzheimer's afflicted.

Of course, he could have been part of the giant cover up plot...   

My Sorry Ass Space

Well, I keep returning to the MySpace blog, where some of you know me from. Old habits are hard to break, I suppose. And also, I just get a lot more readers over there. But every time I think I can get used to the new format and barrage of mind numbing, eyeball-singeing promo clips they throw at you, and have crawling across the page, and leaping up out of nowhere... then they come up with another one. What kind of a brain dead moron thinks of these things? Now they've got it set up where your sign in page actually slides down your screen while some advertisement for something or other (I actually refuse to watch 'em, so really don't know what they're for) looms up and tries to beat you over the head with a cast iron skillet. It's become worse than television. Who knew that was even possible? I keep the sound down, so Lord knows what kind of noises are going on as well. There are usually some very earnest and often provocatively clothed young folk (hey, almost everybody looks young to me these days... old people actually call me "sir"... it ain't pretty). They are usually incredibly intense, blowing something up, or having something blow them up, or blow up them... or something.  Somebody over there at MySpace is taking the bad drugs, seems to me.

However, I do still post over there on occasion.  And if you don a flak jacket, a steel helmet, a hazmat suit, a gas mask and carry a giant b.s. detector, you might find it of interest. Be sure to fully hydrate yourself before you attempt entry, though. The log-in page to MySpace is strewn with the bodies of those who tried to enter without fully preparing themselves.

What I always liked about MySpace was the fact that it could serve basically as an all purpose site for communication, promotion, meeting new people, finding old friends, and so on. Of course, the Summer of Love had its brief moment of relevance too.

Now, with everything being scattered all over the internet, it seems to take an unwieldy amount of time to do things. I come here to write a blog (I also occasionally blog over at Lisa Ferreri's wonderful Wiffledust site). I have my Facebook page, of course. But I just can't get very comfortable on Facebook. I don't know why. And I have my Facebook Fan Page. Twitter. Reverb Nation. Plaxo. And honestly, I'm not sure what else. Oh yeah, my website.... www.davidvidal.net... which were it not for the heroic efforts of my friend Paul McCarty would be a wasteland of blowing tumbleweeds and rusting swing sets.

I used to be able to sit at the computer (yeah, I'm way old fashioned I know... I have an actual stupid phone, and I barely know how to use call waiting on it), go to MySpace, take care of e-mails (oh yeah, I forgot to mention e-mail), messages, promo, blogs and so on  in one swell foop. Or close to it. Now, I feel like I'm spraying bullets with an automatic rifle, just hoping to hit something on the internet. (Dear FBI, please understand my occasional use of analogy, euphemism and other such linguistic baubles and don't put me on any more lists... 'kay? I asked nicely...)

And really, I shouldn't be doing any of this. There are always pressing matters in the "real" world as well. Ahhh, well.

Anybody havin' fun yet?  

Dumpster Diving for Healthcare

I ran into my old friend David Chamberlain last night. Actually, I didn't run into him so much as went to see the band he plays with on occasion at a cocktail lounge in the San Fernando Valley. David is quite simply one of the best bass players on the planet. He's worked with Glenn Frey, Roy Buchanan, blah blah. He's melodic, funky and has the best tone maybe ever. More important, he's got a heart of gold, and has survived many of the addictions and afflictions musicians are prone to going through.

So in the course of conversation, we talked about... hip replacements. What else? Chamberlain is looking forward to having one. Because he's low income (as most musicians are) he has qualified, by waiting in the right lines and filling out the right forms, to have his hip replaced. And he's excited about it. I think it's cool that he's having it done. Meanwhile, I prefer to slowly let mine deteriorate. Partly out of stubbornness and blatant denial, and partly because I don't think I would qualify for such a thing.

I would certainly qualify in the income department, but because I own a house, I think my assets would throw me out of qualifying. Which is kind of the norm for a lot of us. We don't quite fit in any category. If you rent, and are below a certain income level, there are options for you. If you own, and are steadily and gainfully employed, there are options for you. If you fall through the cracks (which I'm pretty sure is how I got to this planet to begin with), you often find that your options are very limited.

I'm not complaining. And I'm actually happy for my friend, and the fact that my niece got her cancer treated, and so on. And I'm pretty okay with people who have great health insurance through their jobs or whatever. But it seems to me that the system we have is just too convoluted.

Many of us voted for Barack Obama because of his seeming dedication to universal health care. For all Americans. An expansion of existing programs to cover everyone. That's what he sold us. Many of us bought into his idea.  I still buy into it. In this country, we seem willing to fire people who work for the post office, but God forbid any insurance executives lose their jobs.

As we all know, that's not at all what we got. After a year of political wrangling, wrestling, glad handing and brown nosing we got, instead of simple and understandable universal health care, a convoluted mess that we are all required by law to buy into, even though most of us don't have a clue what it is we are buying. And many of us are just going to take the hit. We'll pay the fine, and keep living on a wing and a prayer.

If Obama is looking for the source of mass discontent among many people who voted for him, he need look no further than this. Plain and simple, he did not deliver on his promise, and then has tried to convince us that what we got was what we really needed.  It's kind of a father knows best line of thought that might work on his daughters, but  doesn't work on most grown ups.

I don't hold Obama entirely accountable for the mess of a health care bill that wormed its way through the legislative process. He has an opposition party that has been nothing short of obstructionist from day one. And I don't think he had a clue how powerful the insurance company and pharmaceutical companies truly are. His big mistakes seem to be 1) he spent too much time trying to compromise with a group of people who wanted nothing short of his political head on a platter and 2) instead of fighting for what he promised in his campaign and possibly losing, he chose a Pyrrhic victory instead. And almost everyone agrees that the result was a total mess of a health care bill signed into law.

I'm not one who expects the government to fix everything for me. But I do resent it when somebody promises me a steak dinner and then tries to convince me that a cold meatloaf sandwich is the same thing.  And then insists that I pay for the meatloaf sandwich that I didn't want to begin with.

This is going to bite Obama in the ass come election time. He's a masterful campaigner, and the Republican Party is in such disarray that I still think the smart money will be on him getting re-elected. But it's kind of reminiscent of the old Pete Townsend line, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

We have a new captain at the helm, but the ship is going the same direction.

Many of us had hoped that change would mean something... well, a little different....
       







 

David Vidal - Iko Iko - at Kulaks Woodshed in Studio City, CA

Step Away From The Bus

The real news in America is that the poverty rate is the highest that it's been in the fifty years since they started tracking such things. One in seven Americans now officially lives in poverty. And the demographics are remarkably egalitarian... in plain speak, it doesn't matter whether you have a degree or not. More and more people with advanced degrees and great looking resumes are now turning to shelters to feed their families.

Not being an economist, I have no idea when a recession crosses the line and becomes a depression. But this economy is looking more and more dastardly. We're all affected by it, some more than others. The exception seems to be the very wealthy. The upper few percent of Americans are doing remarkably well. They still conduct their lives much as they always have. Maybe even a bit more lavishly. And one gets the sense, not only from them but in general, that the rest of us now exist primarily to serve them.

This is not what the American Dream was sold as. And for all the opportunities that we still have in this country, more and more of those opportunities are slipping away for the average person.

Obviously this is going to lead to class resentment. How could it not? And that is the one thing that politicians fear, while at the same time they play on it to their own advantage. Because they. for the most part, have always served the interests of the very wealthy, while pretending to do otherwise.

There are going to be no solutions from our two party system. It has driven us into this ditch, as the Great Corporatocracy drives both of them.  Yet it is so ingrained as part of America, I doubt that it will ever be jettisoned. Which doesn't bode well for our future. We're stuck with two perennially bickering political parties that hold each other hostage and accomplish little if anything in our interest.

The only way out of the ditch is for us to dig ourselves out. But, more and more, people are just deciding they really don't need the bus any way, and walking away.

   

Election Update

I know you're all just waiting for my political analysis. I do, after all, have a tremendous amount of expertise in the field, having performed in more dive bars than you've probably ever been in. and hanging out with ne'er do wells and such.

The political season is upon us, in case you haven't noticed. And this is when you can tell who is jockeying for what position. Sarah Palin... gasp.... is actually being dangled as a presidential contender by the Republicans. I can surmise this because she is veering more to the center, having reeled in the "wing nut" branch of the Republican Party. She is actually positioning herself as a conciliator of sorts. Or rather, the powers that be are positioning her as such. And they are unleashing none other than the old stalwart of the "right", Newt Gingrich, as the new voice of the wacko's. Which allows Ms. Palin to scoot to the center a bit. You heard it right here. Sarah Palin will be the Republican candidate for president.

Newt is pretty comfortable in the role of the comforter of the wacko's, though of course he doesn't believe a word that comes out of his own mouth. He knows Barack Obama is actually the personification of the American Dream. And yet, he is willing, and able, to paint him as some kind of foreign born alien species who by some dastardly and no doubt devious scheme managed to become president, and is leading the nation into the abyss of socialism and Devil worship.

The Democrats, on the other hand, have allowed the Republicans to define the battle. Because they are, after all, a bunch of wusses. They can't help it. They just came out that way.

Obama somehow managed to squander most of his momentum on a healthcare bill that nobody really wants. And now that the honeymoon with the electorate is over, he is scrambling to get his old groove back. Of course, he is dragged down by two wars and a slogging (at best) economy. The relationship of which nobody but those of us on the outside seem to be able to grasp. Two Wars plus No Money equals Slogging (at best) Economy.

John Boehner is practically salivating at his seemingly inevitable leadership position in Congress. I'd like to say Boehner seems like a nice guy, but honestly, he seems like a creep. The guy in the dark recesses of the lounge with the scotch on the rocks and the cigarette hittin' on the young barmaid. I'm tellin' you, I've seen this guy before. Plenty of times. And his name is John Boehner.

One thing you can count on in an election season is that all truth will be out the window. Don't expect anybody to utter a single word of truth until the election is over. And even then, I wouldn't hold my breath.

The Talking Stick in Venice

I had the honor of sharing the bill with Jude Johnstone and Gretchen Peters last Saturday at the Talking Stick in Venice, California. The event was a benefit for the Alzheimer's Foundation, and over two thousand dollars was raised during the evening. (You should know that I was the only one tasteless enough to make an actual Alzheimer's joke about remembering lyrics. What can I say.)

Anybody who is not familiar with these two outstanding artists should be. They both have written hit songs out the wazoo, for the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Martina McBride, Faith Hill, and on and on. Their discography is enough to keep you humble, believe me. And they each have released multiple outstanding albums of their own material. They are compelling, gifted, and seasoned performers. 

The Talking Stick is a legitimate coffee house in Venice... so legitimate you can hear the grinder making up cafe lattes and such as you perform. But the audience is attentive, and appreciative, and in the end, giving.

Mark Islam was responsible for the event. He runs a non-profit organization called Grassroots Acoustica, whose sole purpose is to raise money for charity. Mark is an accomplished singer/songwriter himself, in addition to being a wonderful host and organizer. He has been responsible for raising money for multiple charities through the years, benefiting the homeless, the downtrodden, and the misunderstood, among others. He is, in a nutshell, a gentle, caring and giving soul.

Sometimes, in this world in which so much is wrong, it is a privilege to be involved in something that is so unequivocally right.






       

September 11

September 11 is now etched firmly in the national consciousness of America. It is a day to honor the truly heroic efforts of many on that fateful day, and since, and also a day of mourning for those who were lost.

Somehow, the events of September 11 unalterably changed the way America views herself. In a way, we lost our national innocence, and realized how vulnerable we are. We were suffering from the delusion that somehow the violence and destruction going on in far reaches of the world couldn't reach us. We learned different, and in a big and horrible hurry.

Unlike most other national days of remembrance, there is really nothing to celebrate regarding 9-11. There are acts to honor, yes. And lives to remember. But you can't really celebrate a tragedy. Even though the wounds inflicted on that day are no longer open, they have left a large amount of fresh scar tissue behind. And it's not a clean, surgical scar. But rather a jagged and hideous scar, as though the wound was inflicted by a broken bottle in a dark alley. And every day, when we look in the mirror, there it is. We can cover it up, but it's still there.

America was mugged on September 11. And it's hard to know how to react to a mugging. All you can really do is be thankful you survived, and move on.

We now find ourselves involved in two wars that sprung from that mugging. Though the reasons for the wars have since become increasingly muddied. It's as though we felt in the immediate aftermath that we had to do something, even if it was wrong. And so we lashed out like a wounded beast, at whoever and whatever we could. And yet, the muggers, all these years later, for the most part remain at large.

Innocence is not something you can ever get back. America is young no more. America is middle aged, and as happens when you reach middle age, she has incurred some damage. She's feeling her years. The question that remains is how gracefully she will age. And that is up to us, who live here, to  determine.

A Burning Dilemma

As the dust settles (a little) regarding the intellectually challenged preacher in Florida who planned to burn a stack of Korans on 9-11, it is time for a little honesty on the issue.

First off, he has every right to burn copies of the Koran if he wants to. There's no doubt about it. The First Amendment covers it explicitly. The fact that it was turned into such a big ordeal by both the mainstream media and everyone from the Pope to the President  tells us more about the world we live in than the preacher himself. He's a dumbass. Let's leave it at that.

We live in a world of viral imagery. Videos go around the globe in scant seconds. Image is, apparently, everything. Substance is of very little importance. And this particular image, which in fact would cause no actual harm to anyone, was deemed so volatile that seemingly every leader on the planet chimed in with their opposition. And the preacher, apparently, has caved in to this onslaught of pressure, having decided not to burn, baby, burn in exchange for what he thought was negotiating with the New York imam who is building the mosque and trying to get said imam to move the mosque elsewhere. Something that is much easier said than done. Basically, he was b.s.'d into giving up his position by an imam who was much craftier than he. And, of course, the weight of virtually every known political leader on the planet leaning on him to change his evil ways.

You know and I know that somebody, somewhere in America is going to burn a Koran on 9-11, and that image will go out into the world. And the people who wish to get all upset about it will. The real question is why are people even thinking in those terms... and why are others so damn upset about it. It is, after all, a case of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights. Nothing more, nothing less. My opinion might be offensive to you... but I still have the right to express it.

The idea floated by Hillary Clinton that this Koran burning mindset is an absolute aberration to the way Americans think is an absolute aberration in itself. She knows, you know, I know... there is a certain percentage of people who hold the Islamic religion directly accountable for the attacks of 9-11. And, they actually have a case. Personally, I always thought bin Laden and Co. should have been treated like criminals, and not elevated to the level of being leaders of a military movement. People using box cutters and other peoples' airplanes don't qualify as an actual military. We should have hunted him down, without a whole lot of fanfare, and stuck his severed head on a pike for all the world to see. But, alas, instead we got all mired in the muck of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan, hunted down and executed the wrong man in Saddam Hussein, and have managed to run up an incredible amount of national debt in the process, thus greatly enriching the movers and shakers of the military industrial complex.

Do I hate the Islamic religion? Not at all. I certainly don't distrust it more than most other organized religions.

But one of the other illusions being bandied about is that Islam is a peaceful religion. It's not. Any more than Judaism is a peaceful religion. Mohammed was, quite simply, a warlord. I've read the Koran. There is nothing pacifist about the philosophy, nor the leader of it. Absolutely, irrefutably the followers of Islam are exhorted to spread the religion, by violent means if necessary. Mohammed spread his religion by military invasion. We can pretend that's not the case, but in fact, unless my English version of the Koran was just totally incorrect, it is the case. So in the name of realism, we shouldn't pretend that Islam is like Christianity in its teachings. It isn't. Jesus preached turn the other cheek. Mohammed didn't even come close to that.

That's not to say all Muslims are violent. Of course they're not. Most people are not inherently violent, and want to go about their daily lives in a peaceful and relatively orderly fashion. And there are lots of good things in the Koran. I think. Heck, basically it's the Old Testament with Mohammed tacked on the end, just like Christianity is the Old Testament with Jesus tacked on the end.  But when Moslems of a fundamentalist bent read the Koran, they will see in it an admonition to spread the religion of Islam, by violent means if necessary. Why are we expected to pretend it says anything different?

Personally, I don't like any organized religion. They all lead to trouble. But lots of people do. And sometimes the tenets of those religions clash. That's what is happening now. Historically, Christians and Muslims have gone at it on the battlefield. They're still doing it. Being a believer in neither, it all seems kind of silly to me. But burning a stack of Korans, or not burning of a stack of Korans, is not going to change the fact that there are fundamental differences in the religions. And as long as we believe ourselves to be a Christian nation, and other nations believe themselves to be Moslem, those differences are going to exist.

The real problem is not some preacher in Florida. The real problem is American troops in the heart of Islam. That's what is fueling the fires of anti-American hatred in Islamic countries, and has been fueling them all along. Until that reality changes, whether or not some yahoo burns a stack of Korans is irrelevant. 


             



 
 

And So

I am moving over here to BlogSpot to see how I like it. MySpace has finally driven me over the edge. It's like being stuck on the Strip at Vegas with a bad hangover. Too many flashing lights and day glo colors and such. The Chinese communist background thingie is what finally did it, though. So... Rupert Murdoch is actually a follower of Mao? Is that the subliminal message? Who knew.

I'll have to see how this works out. I really have nothing to talk about as yet. But talking about stuff is not a problem when I get my groove on.

In case you're not familiar with me, let me explain. I am a musician and writer by profession. I put out albums, tour, write songs for film and television, write an occasional book that may or may not come out, and so on. If it sounds like a glamorous life, obviously you're new. But I enjoy it.

I've been married to the same woman for a long time. We have three grown sons, and too many pets.

I loathe Republicans. And Democrats. The politicians, not the actual humans. I believe that Democrats represent the Great Corporatocracy that actually runs the show. The Republicans, on the other hand, actually are the Great Corporatocracy. I hate the Great Corporatocracy, and therefor have some serious issues with our political system.

I am a big believer in the Constitution of the United States. I believe that the pursuit of happiness is exactly that... a pursuit. There's no guarantees that anyone will find it. But you've got the right to pursue it. Period. (Unless of course your pursuit involves murdering the pool man or something.)

I distrust all organized religion and adhere to none.

And so on. You get the general idea. Let's see if this works...