Here Is a Thought For the Day
"Only when the last tree has died; only when the last river been poisoned; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money." - Cree Indian Proverb
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"Only when the last tree has died; only when the last river been poisoned; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money." - Cree Indian Proverb
The entire ornamental gnome and animal community in the UK breathed a collective sigh of relief last week when Karen Stenhouse went on trial for kidnapping and then selling about 30 garden gnomes and “dozens of ornamental rabbits, birds and hedgehogs.”
Sadly only a few of the traumatized gnomes were reunited with their families.
The whole tragic story is here at BBC News.
The question used to be: What’s on TV? Now it is: Who is on TV? The answer on justin.tv is everyone Justin Kan runs into as he goes about his days (and nights) in San Francisco.
Justin wears a web-camera on his head 24//7. It is oddly compelling – not sure why.
Here is an article about him in the SF Chronicle. And here is a link to his site. See what Justin is up to right now.
British parents seem increasingly worried about the possibility that their children may be victims of violent crime. So worried that some have taken to ordering and outfitting their kids with body armor – you know the type of protection that was lacking for many American soldiers in Iraq.
“Firearm deaths”, as the British call gun violence, is remarkably low there. The numbers did not break 100 in either 2002 or 2003 – that number is equaled in American cities like Philadelphia in about three months. And oddly enough gun violence has actually decreased in London since last year. Yet, it is the perception of danger, perhaps more than the actual risks that drive behavior.
If Americans had the same reaction to gun violence as the Brits, then “Baby Armor” would not seem as far fetched as it might right now.
Here is the story from the UK.
The current wisdom generated by many apparently thoughtful conservative pundits in Washington is that, in the case of Iraq anyway, timelines just won’t work. We hear about tying the hands of the military, micromanaging the war, and so forth.
Yet, today I saw a picture from Northern Ireland that I never believed I would see in my lifetime. Another case of the it is impossible until it is not impossible anymore and then it is inevitable image that I come across from time to time. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall. Or the imam and rabbi embracing in a synagogue in Philadelphia last year. Or that same imam praying in the sanctuary of a Catholic church. We all have such images. Why are they so surprising, I wonder.
Now then. Back to Northern Ireland. Seems like Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams have come to an agreement on power sharing in Northern Ireland. And there they were sitting at a table together smiling and taking questions from the press after signing the agreement.
And what brought these two life-long adversaries together? Seems like the answer is a timeline. Or perhaps it was the deadline that occurs at the end of a timeline. Today was the last day for the two sides – Ian Paisley’s Democratic Union Party (aka Protestants) and Gerry Adams’ Sinn Fein (aka Catholics) – to make an agreement before Britain imposed one on them.
Apparently, nothing focuses the mind quite like a date certain.
There may be a lesson here for the Iraqis.
Thank the gods for the YouTubes
In a remarkable exchange between Chris Matthews of cable TV’s Hardball and Tom DeLay, former exterminator, former Republican Whip, current criminal defendant in Texas, and current flogger his new book, Never Surrender, Never Quit, Never Admit Defeat, Never Never, Ever… it appeared that Mr. DeLay was unfamiliar with some of his own writings. Matthews then hands him a copy of his own book to read the exact wording of a particularly vicious characterization of a Republican colleague from the House. DeLay’s response is, well, remarkably revealing.
And speaking of revealing, here is a clip of an off the air exchange between the two of them. It is revealing to see what a consummate insider Matthews is, as it is to hear what DeLay has to say about Hilary Clinton and other women who think.
Such interchanges remind me of the day in August 2004 when Jon Stewart went on CNN's Crossfire to make it clear how these “news programs” are nothing more than bad theater.
In the Industrial Age miners often carried canaries with them into the coal mines. Nowadays, it is a cliché – metaphorical canaries are in mineshafts all over the place. Back then, though, it was a matter of life and death. The small birds acted as sentries alerting the coal miners to methane gas – no doubt saving many a miner’s life.
Someday there may be another cliché – polar bears on ice floats. Today, though, they are by no means figures of speech. Rather, it seems that more and more polar bears are literally drowning because their icy perches are now too far apart for many of them to swim to.
The difference between then and now? The miners paid attention to the canaries. We seem to be ignoring the plight of the polar bears.
Time we changed that.
Here is an excerpt from the suicide note left by Army ethicist, Col. Ted Westhusing. Col. Westhusing received a doctorate in philosophy from Emory University just two years before heading off to Baghdad. He died in 2005 from a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head. His dissertation was on military honor and the ethics of war.
He was 44.
I cannot support a msn [mission] that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way…
Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it.
One of Col. Westhusing’s commanders was none other than Gen. David Petraeus, the latest Hail Mary quarterback now leading “the surge” in Iraq.
The full story is here at E&P. We are so not the country we once were.
The complete suicide note is on the flip.
Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name]—You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff—no msn [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied—no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential—I don’t know who trust anymore. [sic] Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it.
COL Ted Westhusing
Life needs trust. Trust is no more for me here in Iraq.
Recidivism or Redemption
As a body ages, the arteries often tend to harden. This is especially true for physical bodies that have become sedentary over time. Is the same true for a body politic that has begun to age and ossify? Our culture seems to be hardening by the day. And just as it is so in the physical body, perhaps the hardening of our culture is life threatening as well.
Such thoughts came to mind the other evening during a screening of the Discovery Channel’s documentary, Lock Up, Lock Down, at the offices of the American Friends’ Services Committee (AFSC) in Philadelphia. The film contrasted two prisons – the San Francisco County Jail, and the Ohio State "Supemax" Prison in Youngstown.
In one section of the San Francisco jail there is a dormitory housing sixty inmates. These inmates participate in RSVP (Resolve to Stop Violence Project) anywhere from ten to fourteen hours a day in various types of therapeutic experiences. There are group sessions where inmates have the opportunity to deconstruct their own violent behaviors. Victims of violent crime also come to meet with them to talk about how violence has affected their lives. In a way it is constant, unrelenting “soft time” where these men are immersed in an alien sea of emotions until they can swim for themselves.
The prison experience in Ohio could not be more different. The Youngstown prison, like many supermax prisons that dot the country, is the epitome of “hard time”. From the first one, the Federal Prison in Marion, IL to the famous (or notorious) SHU – Special Housing Unit – at Pelican Bay in Northern California, these prisons ensure that inmates continually bathe in one emotion - rage. And of course the more rage that the inmates express the tighter the controls have to be on these men. To call this circle vicious completely disrespects the word vicious.
As I watched the Ohio inmates and listened to them talk about their experiences, I could not help but notice that every surface they encounter is a hard one. The monotony of the smooth concrete walls, the clang of the metal doors, the rock hard glass. How do you harden a hardened criminal, I wondered. Harden everything around him was the obvious answer. I also noticed what was not around them. There was no beauty, no art, no music, no flowers or plants. Nothing around them to remind them of their essential humanity. No way for them to recall that, their surroundings notwithstanding, they are still of us.
Yet, here is perhaps the most disturbing realization – the supermax route does not work. Isolating these men from human contact makes them less able to cope with other human beings. The idea of solitary confinement even for a few days seems overwhelming to me. But years? Twenty-three hours a day in a cell with one hour for exercise and a shower? And that one hour comes on a good day. The notiona that the only human contact is when guards chain your hands and feet, and then unshackle them through the bars? Unimaginable.
And here is another realization – the San Francisco RSVP model works. In the three years that this unit had been in place there was one assault during the first month. That was it. Since then there has not been a single violent incident, even though many of these men had done many years of “hard time” in other prisons, and some had been in supermax prisons in the past. For the first time these men came in contact with the “soft power” that comes with emotional clarity, and the possibility of redemption.
Finally, the realization sets in that virtually all the supermax inmates are eventually released, not just from solitary confinement into general population, but to the outside as well. These men hardened by steel and concrete, by isolation and alienation are all around us. They are sitting next to us on the trains we take in the morning. They are parking our cars when we go out in the evening. They are working in the restaurants where we take our families out to eat. They are everywhere.
What if we were to elect politicians who really were “soft on crime”? What if we were able to engage in conversations that get past the taglines, and have deep dialogues about how to truly “soften up” not just these hardened criminals, but our hardening body politic as well?
Where there is no beauty, there will always be a beast.
Check out the work that AFSC is doing to address these supermax prisons here
Also, to see how far the SF Sheriff is willing ot go to use "soft power", check out the jail's Garden Project here.
Shifts seem to be occurring most everywhere these days. On the macro-level you can get a sense of some of those shifts here on the Whitman blog (thanks Ian).
And there seems to be a shift in terms of activism as well. Finally, the realization is sinking in that the stakes are high, and getting higher. Some believe that they cannot get any higher. The difference now seems to be that more and more people are moving into action.
On the national scene environmentalists are beginning to frame the message in ways that also free people up to act – to literally step up. The hand-wringing, sky is falling message is shifting from apocalyptic doom to clear steps that can lead to significant improvement in the global environment. Conversations now include carbon footprints, carbon taxes, hydrogen economies, small personal steps and giant collective ones as well.
Next month on April 14th all across the country Americans will have an opportunity to take both those steps – large and small. StepItUp07 is one such effort. It is a well-coordinated effort to create a national call to action – a call long overdue, but finally here.
Find a gathering place near you. There will be more than 900 such gatherings in all 50 states.
Time for all of us to step (it) up.
A recent study shows that there was a slight decline in the number of cars heading into downtown Philadelphia each day, and a steady increase in mass transit use.
This information comes at an interesting time – just when ridership is increasing, there is also talk of increasing mass transit ticket prices.
In many ways Philadelphia is fortunate in that there are some natural limits to how much highway expansion can occur. One major freeway (the Schuylkill Expressway) is bound by sheer cliffs on one side and the river on the other. Experiences in other cities – Los Angeles and the Bay Area for example – have seen a dramatic rise in traffic congestion that paralleled freeway expansion efforts.
In a nutshell freeways seem to cause traffic congestion, rather than alleviating it.
More and more conversations about “the fall of Baghdad” seem to be occurring. John MacArthur, editor of Harpers, recently interviewed Wolfgang Lehmann, the diplomat (now retired) who was charged with identifying Vietnamese allies who needed to be evacuated when Saigon fell.
So far it seems that no one in the Bush administration has contacted him to pick his brain about this. When we recall how the Defense Department ignored all the work done by the State Department on how to organize the occupation before the invasion, it is unlikely that they will be prepared to take care of Iraqis who took such great risks by working with Americans.
Not long at all, as it happens – just 13 milliseconds. The research, originally published in the Journal of Vision, is summarized nicely here in Cognitive Daily. The article also has an example of the images used in the research.
Turns out we use memory more than perception when making very quick, rough assessments of emotional content, i.e., positive, negative and neutral.
A recent New York Times article describes what may become the next big thing in the competitive hi-tech world – employee shuttles on steroids. Google is recruiting and retaining skilled employees by paying attention to quality of life matters that really matter. And spending untold hours behind the wheel in gridlocked traffic is one of the most significant factors in reducing that quality. So, Google shuttles about 1,200 employees on 32 buses each workday to and from their famed "Googleplex" headquaters in Mountain View.
Will this become commonplace in other metropolitan areas besides the Bay Area, with its world-class gridlock? Probably not commonplace, but other companies may follow suit. And if this does happen, how will it impact public transit? Will there be even less demand, so less service and greater cost? A trend worth watching.
And the question is:
How many children are in prison for life without the possibility of parole in the US?
A truly remarkable number… and there are only two countries that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of Children – the US and Somalia. This and other unsettling data was published by Amnesty International’s Human Rights Watch in their 2005 report, The Rest of Their Lives.
Somalia - there is something dreadfully wrong about being in such company. There is also something dreadfully wrong about the lack of imagination that seems so prevalent in our culture today, the lack of imagining the possibility that these young offenders could ever rejoin society.
Other cultures have figured out ways to reconcile reprehensible acts of children, and have found ways to reconnect them to families and villages. What is it about our society that creates such insurmountable chasms, and the impossibility of reconciliation?
What is it costing us? If we consider some of our children irredeemable, where is our redemption?
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) is an outstanding film in its own right. Every film buff (i.e., all of us who don’t mind reading sub-titles) might see it on its artistic merits alone. The writing is top notch, tight, and extremely economical. The photography is as stark as the landscape – East Berlin before the wall came down. And the acting is superb. The plot on one level is a straightforward story of betrayal and redemption. On a deeper level, however, the story delves into the fierce interplay between the personal and the political in a state that “wants to know everything”.
The East German government was built on a tyranny of secrecy. It became impossible to know who to trust, and who was listening in. Even the secrets were secret. The film did a masterful job portraying the cost – emotional, physical, and spiritual – of living in and sustaining such a society. And ultimately it showed just how unsustainable this world of secrets within secrets really is.
The film also is important for Americans to see and discuss. The abuses of the Patriot ACT recently disclosed by the Justice Department has an eerie STASI feel to it. In fact it can happen here. The question now is whether or not it is already happening here, whether or not there are thousands of agents listening in, not on the lives of others, but in on our lives.
The film suggests that we have met the others, and they are us.
Check the trailer out here.
One of the many perks of living in an “urban environment” (actually I recall when they were called cities, but that was a while ago, and now I digress even before I had the opportunity to gress...)
Well, a world-class library is the perk I had in mind. And last evening the Free Library of Philadelphia sponsored a reading and book signing by Krista Tippett, the host of the popular NPR program, Speaking of Faith. She has a new book out with the same name.
During her talk Tippett read four passages from her book, and if those selections are indicative of the quality of the writing, this will be a great read. And if the turnout in the main branch's Montgomery Auditorium is any indication of her popularity (about 300 people on a very cold evening), then she may well have a best seller on her hands by the end of the tour.
Krista spoke very eloquently about how she sees her work and her program, saying that she “traces the intersection of religion and human experience”. It was also interesting it hear her talk about her interviews with scientists, which she says generate the most responses. As an example, she spoke of how both theologians and scientists believe in things they cannot see, and then she said that from the scientists she has learned that “how we ask our questions offer a way to answering them.”
For instance, with the mysterious nature of light she said, “If we ask particle questions of light, we get particle answers, and if we ask wave questions, we get wave answers…”
Her final comment about the interplay between science and religion was also noteworthy. She said, “Mathematicians will say that an inelegant equation is probably not true, while a beautiful one probably is.”
Speaking of tracing, Krista did nice work of tracing how she went from student to working in he US Embassy in Germany to attending Yale Divinity School (where she also learned about being a mother) right to her efforts to create her radio program. And she did this without seeming to meander about and lose her audience.
Her actual talk was mercifully brief, and she spent more than half of her time engaged in conversation with the audience. The questions and comments were also quite good. There were some predictable questions about the problems with religion in the world as well. Yet Tippett handled them well at one point saying, “Religion is created by human beings, is run by human beings, and is just as flawed as human beings”. There was something about how she used the word run in that sentence that seemed unusually apt.
There was also a wonderful question by a mother of two young children. The questioner pointed out that her experience of mothering seemed like the closest she could come to experiencing what it must be like for God to love humanity. So, she asked Krista how her experience of parenting had informed her work on her program. Krista responded by saying that her experience of being a parent was about losing control. She then humorously described a similar process in the Bible in which the Jewish God loses control of humanity time and again.
Near the end of the conversation/talk/reading, she said that she is guided by four questions, which I think are four questions that could guide any of us in our lives and work as well. The questions are:
What does it mean to be human?
What matters in a life?
What matters in a death?
How to be of service?
Her book is on my short list.
Some other noteworthy quotes from the evening:
Our theology should be like poetry. - Karen Armstrong
I believe in everything not yet said. - Rilke
Live the questions now;
live your way into the answers. - Tippett
There are only four commonwealths in the Union. Three - Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Virginia - were part of the original thirteen colonies, and Kentucky was the fifteenth member of the Confederation, as it was called back then.
This bit of historical trivia seems important today in light of what is occurring in one of those commonwealths, notably Pennsylvania, concerning the issue of transportation.
So let’s review. A commonwealth is a state governed for the common good, literally for the common weal, or common well-being.
Now let’s look at what is occurring in the commonwealth’s capital with regard to the transportation issue. In an article in this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer the governor’s office has said that there will be no “patch” this time to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). No federal highway funds “diverted” to cover the cost overruns in the southeast corner of the state.
But here is the key paragraph:
Legislators representing rural areas of the state, such as Rep. Fred McIlhattan (R., Clarion), said their constituents were reluctant to contribute more money for mass transit, which they saw as benefiting only metropolitan areas.
And to me this is indicative of much that is happening not just in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but also in the nation as a whole. If the “wifum question” (What’s in it for me?) does not have an immediate and concrete answer, many of us Americans just say no. Rural is more and more pitted against urban, with suburbanites squeezed in the middle.
Unless we return to conversations about the common good, the common well being of all our citizens – urban, rural, rich, poor and middle-class, children and seniors – then there is little hope that either our standards of living or the quality of our lives will stay the same let alone improve.
Right now "well-being in common" seems less like a platitude, and more like a good way to live, and perhaps the only way we will survive.
So just how many ones and zeros are there in the world of web pages, digital photos, chats, calls, and e-mails? The answer is 161 exabites, or 161 billion (that’s a b) gigabytes.
Or another way to think about it is to imagine all the books ever written in all the languages in the history of the world, and then multiply that number by 3 million. So I guess the answer is “a lot”.
Here are the details of the study.
If you are like me and spend an inordinate amount of time staring at a blank screen/piece of paper, this video might help. A first rate tribute creatively wasting time by some marketing folks at Baynham & Tyers. Check it out here, but first turn off the coffee maker, so that it doesn’t catch fire while you are being creative... err... distracted... err goofing off.
Spitting Out The N-Word
This past week’s adventures in public transit have not been all that adventurous. I am still the only white guy on the bus - going on two months now without a single mirror image of myself. It’s hard to figure that one. The law of averages should be on my side, I would figure. I guess I would figure wrong.
One event does stand out, though. Small potatoes when compared with global warming, urban violence and what to do with Anna Nicole’s remains, but stand out it does. There I was at my favorite intersection – Mt Pleasant and Germantown Avenues – the same spot where I met the bicyclist from a previous entry waiting for the H Bus. Two teenagers were sitting on the steps of the Germantown Avenue Presbyterian Church. The steps are a perfect place to sit waiting for the bus, especially since the backrest of bench at the bus stop has been vandalized. Why twist the back off a bench so that no one can sit and wait for a bus, I think. But I also digress…
So two teenagers are talking. I of course am invisible. I try to count how many times they use the word “nigger”. It is difficult to keep track. This isn’t just because of the frequency – at least ten times in the first minute that I am there. It’s difficult to keep count because of the number of times one of the boys is spitting onto the sidewalk. I stop with the word count for a minute and watch as this boy spits also more than ten times in one minute. Is there some connection, I wonder.
Well, as I watched them, I thought in fact that there was a connection. They were equally oblivious to both the spitting and the speaking. I noticed that neither had names. They referred to each other as “nigger”, and to just about everyone they know.
Now I get the whole taking-back-the-language-from-the-oppressors viewpoint. Reclaiming “queer” by the gay/queer community is a case in point. Be that as it may, I find the word nigger offensive no matter who uses it.
Maybe it is because of the family I grew up in and the times then. My grandmother used that word at every opportunity. I remember the arguments we had as children about going to visit her. How none of us wanted to, and how much that must have hurt my father’s feelings. I remember how he would try to stop her from spitting out that word. It was the tone that she used. Like a Gatling Gun spitting out bullets is the way I heard her venomous remarks. I didn’t like it as a small child, and I have never been able to hear the word without also hearing that hateful tone.
I guess, though, that I took away from that brief encounter (passive as it was) with these young men is just how unconscious we all can be. And how hateful speech can never really be totally rehabilitated.
I do think it strange that words, like most everything else, are also being privatized in our culture these days. Ethnic slurs used to be more open source than they are today. It seems that, as long as you are speaking about “your own people”, you can say the most hateful things. Will we ever get to the point that “our own people” is all of us? On that afternoon waiting for the bus it seemed like that time is still a long way off.
Our good friends at PEOPLEpreneurs in Philadelphia have a contest going to see who has the best stories about how learning the Principles and Practices of Emotional Intelligence and applying them to everyday life has led to success.
The winners will have their stories published in PEOPLEpreneurs new book (their second) already in process PLUS a fifty dollar VISA gift card for the best story. And of course it goes without saying that, when you win, the most emotional intelligent thing you can do with that card is to give it to your Significant Other and tell them that they are the reason that you have turned out so well.
To get a copy of the contest description and submission form click here.
Good luck and happy writing!
On c|net’s news.com site Declan McCulllagh (famed for his initial coverage of Al Gore and the beginning of the internets) informs us of a recent meeting between Justice Department officials and representatives from major ISPs like AOL and Comcast.
Here’s the lede:
The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned.
The Justice Department officials again couched this initiative as counterterrorism and anti child pornography tools that federal and local law enforcement needs in case they learn of a crime committed at a later date. This will no doubt alarm many privacy advocates.
The one thing we know for sure about slippery slopes is that they are slippery. This one may be a slippery ride down the rabbit hole called, If you don’t have anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about from your government.
Time to grease up, I guess.
Everything changed after 1-31. From digitalfury we get this poster urging us to “Never Forget 1-31—07”. Good reminder…
What’s Up At The Washington Times?
The conservative newspaper, owned by Rev. Moon, seems to be having some management issues. It looks like the new heir-apparent at the paper, Fran Coombs, has gone on a power hungry craze. This according to George Archibald, long-time reporter for the paper, writing in his blog, Unhinged.
Archibald describes Coombs’ personality this way:
We all knew he had a bad temper, drank a lot, smoked a lot of pot, but he supported his team of great reporters and we loved his feistiness and enthusiasm.
Drank a lot? Smoked a lot of pot? At The Washington Times!!?? Oh well, just goes to show you, book by its cover and so forth.
But here is the really disturbing paragraph from a larger story about how this editor insisted on framing an abortion story from India regardless of the facts:
Coombs has told me [Archibald] and others repeatedly that he favors abortion because he sees it as a way to eliminate black and other minority babies.
For some time now The Washington Times has been an influential paper on Capitol Hill - much more so than its circulation numbers would imply. It is disturbing, perhaps alarming that such a right-wing extremist (even in a newspaper culture full of conservative reporters and editors with a clear biased agenda) is at the helm.
This is not good news.
OK, I am trying to see the significance of this article on the conservative blog, Townhall.org. The headline encompasses the whole story – Gore, Staff Led Past Airline Security.
It seems that an American Airlines employee brought the Gore party through another entrance to the gate area, rather than through the TSA theater of the absurd. When a security person learned of this, he asked Gore and his staff to return to the screening area. They complied without complaint. The employee who actually made a rational decision is now relegated to the retraining workshop entitled, How Not To Act Around Famous, Oscar-winning Former Vice-Presidents Who Have Had the Highest Security Clearances The Government Has.
Now, in less than two years much as I’d like to see Bush and Cheney taking their shoes off and going through TSA kabuki like the rest of us, I’d just as soon give them a pass. They will probably be less of a security risk, and can do less damage when they are out of office.
The important news in the above mentioned story seems to be that Al Gore did not try to pull rank, and willingly complied with all requests made of him throughout the incident. Go figure.
