wtf?

Just watching the third debate tonight, I heard for the first time the term "pro-abortion." used by McCain, it conjures up nasty images of people pushing for others to have abortions. Wondering if I was out of touch about pro-choice-pro-life terminologies, I did a Google search for "pro-abortion" and only one website came up, which describes pro-abortion as basically pro-choice. The website was run by another site call allaboutgod.com.

Are McCain and other conservatives trying to use the term "pro-abortion" instead of "pro-choice" to make those of us who support a woman's right to choose look like monsters who want to murder babies? If so, aaauuuuugh... If not, where did this term come from?

This is horrible, and absolutely disgusts me:

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West—the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail—were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to—Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.
from daily kos

Although there has been no direct link established between Obsession and the events in Ohio, the documentary is clearly having an effect. The founder of the Interfaith Youth Core received a call from a Lutheran pastor, who told him that "his congregation has been involved in several interfaith projects, including allowing a group of Muslims to use the church for worship on Friday evenings while their new mosque was being built. ... But recently, this pastor has fielded several angry phone calls from congregants condemning the decision to allow 'dangerous people' to use church space. Why these calls now ... Last week, his community received the film 'Obsession' in the Sunday newspaper.
from raw story

Yet, the police covering the case don't see it as a hate crime?

A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.
from Dayton Daily News

I can't even find words to say about this.

Our government and media has brewed so much hate against the muslim community in our country. there's always an ambiguously defined "other" that our government uses as a fear tactic, so it can go on with whatever hate-filled plans it has, and for years now they've been trying to frame the muslim community as that "other". Post-9/11, we were worried about "rogue"-governments getting access to chemical and biological weapons to attack the us with. Now who's being attacked with chemical weapons, and where? The same attacks our government is waging overseas is being replicated and made domestically on the same group they've defined as hating America. I'm disgusted, and fuming right now.

Moreover, no one's covering this story. It took me forever to get some info about this. I guess Palin's latest fumbles are more important?

More info on the film's distribution.

From a column that the man wrote himself:

"Almost no attention has been paid to the fact that Cho Seung-Hui was not an American at all, but an immigrant, an alien. Had this deranged young man who secretly hated us never come here, 32 people would heading home from Blacksburg for summer vacation.

What was Cho doing here? How did he get in?

Cho was among the 864,000 Koreans here as a result of the Immigration Act of 1965, which threw the nation's doors open to the greatest invasion in history, an invasion opposed by a majority of our people. Thirty-six million, almost all from countries whose peoples have never fully assimilated in any Western country, now live in our midst.

Cho was one of them."

I don't even know how to start talking about this. I haven't mentioned the VT shooting on my site at all since it happened, cause I can't even come up with the words to describe how I feel about what happened. My heart and my prayers seriously go out to the families of the victims, and the family of the kid who did the shootings. I don't think I'm in any sort of position to offer any more than my condolences, and my heartfelt wishes for their health and safety.

So does it piss me off to hear people blaming the entire immigrant community for the VT murders? Yes. You have to be kidding me, not only is that extremely offensive, but it's completely ignorant. Pat Buchanan makes it sound like the immigration act of '65 was a sci-fi movie that brought flesh-eating Koreans to Virginia to destroy the lives of humbly white-folk. That act brought my parents to the US. It brought Sheena's parents to the US. It brought Tolgar's parents to the US. It brought Paras's parents to the US. It brought Dhubha's parents to the US. It brought Jay's parents to the US. Are our families here to commit hainus crimes? No.

Many of the Asian-Americans who came to the US as a result of the immigrantion act of '65 were educated professionals—doctors, engineers, nurses, scientists, etc. That's where the whole model minority problem was born, and this 'mass invasion' was what resulted in brain drain from many of the countries he speaks of—the loss of a countries educated classes to emigration to other countries, historically the US and Canada. Does that sounds like a class of mass-murderes to you? The anger I feel when I read his article is indescribable.

In the latter half of the article, he goes on listing all the people who've committed hainus crimes who were also of an Asian, Middle-Eastern, African, or some other non-European decent (i.e., flesh-eating aliens). Ignoring that one dude who kept heads in his fridge, that one other guys who brainwashed people to commit murders for him, that one other guy that dressed up like a clown and buried murdered children in his basement, the leader of that sect in Texas, and those kids from Columbine.

Needless to say, trying to link race with horrible murders is completely senseless. Just as many infantile suggestions can be made about trying to profile people with extreme mental illness into any other particular categories, be it race, class, gender, family upbringing, or what have you, among the majority classes of each category or minority. But there just isn't a certain type of murderer. trying to find as much breeds racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and all the fear-based separations we already live with in our society. Pat Buchanan seriously needs to get his head out of his a—.

Ever since Don Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team a bunch of nappy headed hos, there's been a lot of talk about racism in the media. And a large amount of the debate in mainstream media outlets have unfairly imposed the question on hip hop, asking 'should we complain that a white sports anchor used the same language black males in hip hop use?'

Worthless. Racist comments are messed up no matter who uses the language. Reappropriating the n-word, for example, doesn't negate the fact that it's been used under very disturbing circumstances. Scapegoating hip hop is an immature way to talk about the bigger problem of silently accepted racism. But the conversation's still been happening on a lot of media outlets. Like the Oprah Winfrey Show.

People have a really hard time understanding that mainstream hip hop is not a reflection of hip hop overall, let alone the entire African-American community. Hello. Mainstream hip hop (what you hear on the radio) is out there to sell personalities, sell records, and sell out amphitheater shows. In mainstream hip hop, sex sells. Just like it has in rock n roll for the past 50 years. Remember Nine Inch Nails' Closure? Motley Crue's Girls, Girls, Girls? or Elvis's "suggestive and downright obscene" hip shaking? No one took these songs as a reflection of white america and said "we're all a bunch of perves!" If I said something nasty to a white woman and defended myself by saying, "Nikki Sixx said the same thing, so you must feel the same way. It's all good" would you seriously hear that argument?? Nikki Sixx is as much a spokesperson for white people in america as 50 Cent is for black people. Furthermore, misogyny in hip hop is a reflection of what the consumers in America are looking for. Not the African-American community's views towards women.

But Oprah can't see that. Cause she must have never listened to Mos Def, Talib Kweli, or The Roots. Saul Williams wrote an open letter in response to Oprah's quick-critique of hip hop:

"You see, Ms. Winfrey, at it's worse; Hip Hop is simply a reflection of the society that birthed it. Our love affair with gangsterism and the denigration of women is not rooted in Hip Hop; rather it is rooted in the very core of our personal faith and religions. The gangsters that rule Hip Hop are the same gangsters that rule our nation... For a Hip Hop artist to say "I do what I wanna do/Don't care if I get caught/The DA could play this mothafukin tape in court/I'll kill you/ I ain't playin'" epitomizes the confidence and braggadocio we expect an admire from a rapper who claims to represent the lowest denominator. When a world leader with the spirit of a cowboy (the true original gangster of the West: raping, stealing land, and pillaging, as we clapped and cheered.) takes the position of doing what he wants to do, regardless of whether the UN or American public would take him to court, then we have witnessed true gangsterism and violent negligence."

An article in the Hartford Courant last spring talked about mental health in the military, and exposed some really depressing facts about the military's lack of support for troupes who aren't doing so well:

"Despite a congressional order that the military assess the mental health of all deploying troops, fewer than 1 in 300 service members see a mental health professional before shipping out.

Once at war, some unstable troops are kept on the front lines while on potent antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, with little or no counseling or medical monitoring.

And some troops who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq are being sent back to the war zone, increasing the risk to their mental health."

Here are some further notes in context of the information in the article. Many anti-depressant drugs require close supervision of a counsellor while taking them, because in the first several weeks, the drugs will exaggerate the feelings they're meant to help, putting the patient at a greater risk of hurting themselves and others:

"Some service members who experienced depression or stress before or during deployments to Iraq described being placed on Zoloft, Wellbutrin and other antidepressants, with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring. Some of the drugs carry warnings of an increased risk of suicide, within the first weeks of their use."

...

"'I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on SSRIs, when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal,' said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a patient advocacy group. 'You're creating chemically activated time bombs.'"

In addition, Iraq is a unique war in that soldier are returning from war and being resent to fight in the same war at such a large scale. Some say that sending a soldier back into a traumatic environment will only magnify the stress and the impact of the war on their psyche:

"More than 378,000 active-duty, Reserve and National Guard troops have served more than one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan, representing nearly a third of the 1.3 million troops who have been deployed, according to Department of Defense statistics. That repeat exposure to combat could dramatically increase the percentage of soldiers and Marines who experience PTSD, major depression or other disorders, some experts say.

Recent studies have estimated that at least 18 percent of returning Iraq veterans are at risk of developing PTSD after just one combat tour.

...

'This is uncharted territory. You're looking at guys being extended or sent back multiple times into an extremely stressful situation, which is different than past wars. ... I think the number of troops that will be affected, it will be a huge number.'"

I've been sick as a dog the past few days. I took a sick day yesterday and stayed in bed all day, which is a first for me, I almost never stay home cause I'm sick. I felt like hell all day. I feel a million times better today, just a bit light-headed, I'm in such a daaaaaze... but hopefully I'll get over it soon. New Year's was good, since both Sheena and I were sick, we didn't do much of anything. I finally saw Memento! A damn good movie. I saw the first episode of the first season of The Wire, now in it's, what, fourth season? I got some catching up to do on that one... Lol, but it looks really good.

I saw Borat a few weeks ago with my cousin, and I've been idling on a response to it cause I wanted to give myself a chance to really think about the movie before I threw out a harsh critique on it. I've been talking to friends about the movie, many of whom have varying opinions on the movie, from hysterical to flat out racist. And some of my even progressive friends who I've mentioned disliking the movie have criticised me as being "too sensitive," so I wasn't sure if I really was being too sensitive, or if the movie was straight up offensive.

So here's what my beef is with the movie. Taking the arguments about the specific content of the movie aside, it seemed to me that Borat's character is a total caricature of how the majority in this country views immigrants. He was portrayed as a "funny looking guy", from a "backwards country" that no one's ever heard of, with "weird" habits—although highly exaggerated, "weird" nonetheless. Those are all the things that any immigrant to this country has faced throughout their lives, be they Italians in New York in the late 1800s, or my parents over the past 30 years. Theatres have been packed with suburban kids blatantly laughing at the other, the outsider, stuff people like me and my family have been dealing with most of our lives. Some have tried to make the arguments that the joke is really on the movie-watcher who's buying into the humor and laughing at it, cause they're being made a joke of by laughing at such blatant racism. Sorry, but that's a total cop-out. People don't need a movie to show them what ugly racism in this country looks like, just watch the news, or walk down your local street with open eyes and ears. Damn, just watch television for about 10 minutes.

It's on that basis that I thought the movie was offensive, and all the racist, homophobic remarks that white people make in the movie just adds to that. But Borat's character, how he's portrayed, and who he's being portrayed to is fundamentally racist.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." — Martin Luther King Jr.

Have you ever heard about people talking about how the diamond trade is eff-ed up? About "blood diamonds" and "conflict diamonds"? I've heard these term before, heard people in passing saying that there are a lot of messed up things about diamond trade, but I've never understood what those messed up things were, and at the same time, I'd see all my friends buying their partners big-rock rings (unfortunately, mostly on loans...). Since I'm now engaged, and would like to give my fiance a little something to commemorate the beginning of our commitments to each other. I decided to do a little digging—that turned into a lot of digging—to learn about what is so messed up about diamond trade, and judge for myself if it's still a problem warranting me worrying about, or if it's all leftover hype from issues years back.

I started by looking online for information on problems around diamond mining. Amnesty International has a report about the the political environments in countries in Africa that diamonds are mined. From the report:

"The international diamond industry's trading centers in Europe funded this horror by buying up to $125 million worth of diamonds a year from the RUF (Sierra Leone's "Revolutionary United Front"), according to U.N. estimates. Few cared where the gems originated, or calculated the cost in lives lost rather than carats gained. The RUF used its profits to open foreign bank accounts for rebel leaders and to finance a complicated network of gunrunners who kept the rebels well-equipped with the modern military hardware they used to control Sierra Leone's diamonds. The weapons—and the gems the rebels sold unimpeded to terrorist and corporate trader alike—allowed the RUF to fight off government soldiers, hired mercenaries, peacekeepers from a regional West African reaction force, British paratroopers, and, until recently, the most expansive and expensive peacekeeping mission the U.N. has ever deployed.

Throughout most of the war from 1991 to January 2002, this drama played itself out in obscurity. During the RUF's worst assaults, international media pulled journalists out of the country in fear for their safety. Local citizens were left to fend for themselves against bloodthirsty and drugged child soldiers. Commanders often cut the children's arms and packed the wounds with cocaine; marijuana was everywhere."

Interesting, but a little too specific for me to really get the overall picture. So I started looking for books I could read to catch up on the topic. Unfortunately, most of the more recently published books I saw were from the 90's, and although they'd proly give me a good idea of what the overall problems were, I was hoping to get something a little more current to help me understand what the problems around diamonds today are, rather than speculating whether problems that were around 10-15 years ago are still around today and what they might be like. Fortunately, a book was just released this year called The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire. The book is written by a journalist as he travels to different parts of the world that mines, cuts, and sells diamonds to learn about how the whole system works.

He starts in the Central African Republic, an economically poor country, whose military doesn't get paid and begs on the streets for food to get by. The unspoken rule about political power there is that if you can occupy the capital building, you run the country. So the only paid military is guarding the capital building, the rest of the unpaid military leaves it's borders from neighboring countries barely protected. One of such neighboring countries to the south is the Democratic Republic of Congo, a neighboring county of where the movie Hotel Rwanda took place. The Central African Republic is a country that meets the standards that the diamond industry sets for doing business with (up until quite recently, the only standard was that the nation wasn't in a state of war as defined by the united nations), but the country is only physically capable of producing half of the diamonds they actually export every year. Where do the extra gems come from? The Democratic Republic of Congo is only a canoe ride away to the south, so the widely accepted speculation is this: rebel groups in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo fight for land ownership in their own countries of diamond mines. They have their people mine for gems while violently protecting it from being seized by other rebel groups. Once they have some diamonds, they'll slip them under their tongues or someplace easily concealed, canoe over to the Central African Republic, sell their diamonds in the black market for cash, and go back to their home country with money to buy weapons and ammunition with. The Central Africa Republic has no real resources to crack down on transactions like this, so they happen all the time, and because of it, it's almost impossible to really know where the diamond on your 1 carat solitaire ring came from.

In Angola, rebel militias have found that robbing diamond mines at gunpoint has become more lucrative than actually trying to mine them themselves. Militia troupes have gotten so paranoid that miners are trying to steal diamonds from them (by swallowing them so they can shuffle through their own waste the next day to pull out the diamond) that if they suspect a miner having done so, they'll kill them and cut them open so they can shuffle through their digestive systems to get the diamonds out of them.

Brazil doesn't have as extreme war-like political conditions as these countries in Africa do, but their labor works in very much the same way. Miners don't get paid unless they actually find a diamond. Miners can go months on end without finding even the smallest gem without getting paid a penny.

What makes the whole system around diamond mining even worse is how Debeers and other wholesalers completely take advantage of poor economies so they can see higher profits. If a miner were to find a gem that would sell in the final market for $10,000, they might get $100, more likely around $50. In nations where diamonds represent a major portion of their exports, and a major portion of their population's income, they're trapped in a system that keeps them economically poor while people further up the channels of distribution control supply and demand to a point where they can set their own prices and make huge, huge, enormous profits for their shareholders.

The more I learn about this stuff, the less and less I want to ever buy a diamond. If money is power, then everything we buy is a political statement. Why would I support such a messed up system by purchasing it's commodities? It's easy to say, "yea, but this stuff happens all the time, with everything you buy, there no way to get around it, so just buy a nice looking diamond and forget about it." But even if I can't get around supporting messed up systems in every dollar I spend, I can at least try to avoid it as much as possible.

(Sorry to all my friends who have bought themselves or their partners diamond jewelery if reading this brings forth nasty feelings of guilt... but those who are thinking about it, hopefully you'll find this information somewhat useful...)

Timeout Magazine's got a cover story this week on why Chicago theater is so white. From the article:

"And with the fame came mythology: Any grubby group of college-pal actors with a little money and the right mix of talent and pluck could start a theatrical revolution. But there’s one little word that goes unspoken in this much-hyped lore. Add it in, and the story would go like this: A bunch of (white) college-buddy actors form their own (white) troupe…. Because these acting ensembles are friendship-based, they tend to also be race-based.

As a result, we get a group of college friends forming the House Theatre, which has 27 white ensemble members and one Latina member. Years later, those college pals become an established company like, say, Lookingglass, which, 18 years after its start, still doesn’t have any nonwhite ensemble members. Thirty years later, they’re a national institution like Steppenwolf, a 35-member ensemble featuring only one nonwhite member. In trying to win the coveted title of “the next Steppenwolf”—a phrase that’s become synonymous with “the next big thing”—storefront troupes inadvertently repeat the same pattern."

Reminds me of some of the same issues I had with Sita Ram.

When I went to India to study abroad two and a half years ago, one of our advisors was a Lebanese woman originally from Beirut. I remember hearing stories she would say making anologies between our experiences in India with her memories of Lebanon. She's a smart, strong, creative woman, that I had befriended through our trip to India together. After Israel started bombing Lebanon, I sent her an e-mail lettering her know I was thinking of her, and she was in my thoughts and prayers. She sent me a short reply of a copy of an e-mail she sent a group of friends a few days prior letting every know how she was doing, and only then did I realize she was currently in lebanon...

sorry my writing has been so sporadic. can't seem to get myself to write what is going around me...don't seem to have words...and now it is all sound bytes...bombing, destruction, deaths, counts, types of explosions, what they have destroyed next, how many children, how many children, how many children...was at a vigil yesterday to say they should stop killing children...lots of press, no people—exhausted and fearful already....and they haven't even started on us randomly...the southern suburbs are getting flatter and flatter by the day as the death toll rises...hospitals to capacity with shortages on everything already...more refugees flooding in every day and no way to accommodate them in the schools anymore...they are being painfully relocated yet again to schools in outlying cities and towns...and now Sidon...terrorizing with leaflets and flyovers all day as mass graves are dug out and filled in...84 yesterday in Tyr...the Bekaa valley is being raised, all these places still unreachable via the 'humanitarian corridor' that is supposed to up and running by today...no food water, medicine, supplies to all outlying villages in the south and the southern mountain range...at least a 200 more dead that cannot be reached since they bombed vans leaving towns they forced to evacuate and even hit a red cross team and one of the poor fellows died... so they are not willing to risk their lives to go dig out corpses. can't blame them really—and Bekaa is unreachable—roads are bombed out...

Meanwhile we get news clips of tearful folks leaving as families are ripped apart again...and still the US says [as it RUSHES new patriot 'protective missiles' to Israel] it feels for the people and will do everything they can to move the humanitarian aid along...which cannot be distributed duty to Israeli bombs...so bloody convoluted...and now Condi has come and made more mess...the only good news we have is that Hezbollah is willing to give the two soldier hostages to the Lebanese govt. it seems that much behind closed door diplomacy is underway, but not fast enough to stop the murder and destruction...too little too late as ever...

last night was quiet...except for a few huge ones in the south suburbs to last us the night...but no electricity—thus the sporadic writing—and thus no water and now half the phones are out due to a tower being hit in the mountains. I slept well.

we need a ceasefire desperately...we need the US to listen carefully to the chief humanitarian officer sent by the UN...to the voices of the screaming relatives who are now avowing to avenge their dead...the US and Israel have just succeeded in 12 days to create more hatred than they did in 3 years in Iraq...and there are those internally who are trying to separate the factions again and drive wedges further between Sunni and Shiite and between Moslems and Christians in general...and then saner voices who are calling for the Lebanese to stay united...

I saw refugees on almost every street corner of Beirut today...they are looking for food housing shelter...the crisis will continue as floods more are arriving daily from the south in any way they can. they are being offered places in schools in outlying towns but feel they want to stay in Beirut...800,000 displaced and counting...

I saw jasmine in bloom on the wall of my building. I played with my roommate, a gorgeous 3 1/2 month old kitten named fistouk, which means nuts which he is, the sea is sparkling and blue, the breezes are delicious and warm, I ate knefe bi jibn with friends, I did laundry...and I am glued to the TV like everyone else...

dad fell yesterday and broke his shoulder and is in a sling for 6 weeks and is in bad pain. am in the village for the day and night with him...thus the electricity to write this post...we expect that after the evacuations are done, the shit will really fly...inshallah that is not true.

I miss you so....my regression is complete, but I am well over all. this is madness. it will also be survived...as ever before...I had an interview with NBC which will air on nightly news tonight your time...I miss normalcy which is what I told them. but then, so does everyone else here...

please pass my posts on. don't have the energy or the wherewithall to repeat myself over and over...the bombs doing that enough...and now with Condi arriving all smiles and pledging aid 12 DAYS LATER WHILE THEY RUSH A SHIPMENT OF LASER AND BUNKER BUSTER MISSILES TO ISRAEL TOMORROW...MAKES ME SO ANGRY AND SICK TO MY STOMACH...LOVE THE USE OF MY 28 % TAX $$$$$

inshallah the next few crucial days will prove fruitful...despite the continuing murder and destruction...

love and salaam
L"

Attacks on Lebanon continue... with no voice of dissent from the US government. Instead, headlines read 'Bush: Israel has right to defend itself, eluding to the idea that the situation began only after Lebanon kidnapped two Isaeli soldiers.

Merkel, standing alongside Bush in a hall overlooking the town square, echoed the American's sentiment, noting that escalating violence started with a kidnapping: "We can only urge all parties to stop, to seize violence and also release the kidnapped soldier and stop this firing of missiles into Israeli territory."

But what was the motivation behind Hezbollah in kidnapping Israeli soliders? What happened before that incident that brought it to that level in the first place? Here's an excerpt from an interview with As'ad AbuKhalil, a poli-sci professor at UC Berkeley:

"This particular conflict, and Israel's act of aggression on Lebanon, did not take place in a vacuum, and Israel did not act in some spontaneous fashion.

Hezbollah did not surprise Israel with the capture of the two Israeli occupation soldiers. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has repeatedly warned that if Israel does not release its Lebanese prisoners, he will be compelled to take Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips.

And Israel has not been sitting idly by since its partial withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000. It has not only continued to occupy parts of South Lebanon, but also has been violating Lebanese sovereignty, by air, sea, and land.

Israel has also been kidnapping innocent Lebanese citizens: fishermen and shepherds. And one fisherman from Tyre – my hometown – is still missing, and at least one shepherd was killed last year.

Furthermore, Israel has adamantly refused to give to Lebanon a map of the more than 400,000 land mines that it left behind in South Lebanon, and which continue to kill Lebanese children in the region.

The recent crisis, as the article in the Washington Post by Robin Wright pointed out yesterday, is an international/regional conspiracy to implement United Nations Security Council resolution 1559 ."

As with many situations that the government tries to frame as two-sided, this issue goes much, much further back than the incident of two Isaeli soldiers being captured that we're led to believe started the whole incident. Israel has a history of abusing its power at the expense of whoever happens to be in their way, be them civilians, or not, and this is just another example. Lebanon shouldn't have resorted to violence to resolve conflict, but they shouldn't have felt like they had to either.

And it seems like the US is trying to make parallels with 9/11 and Hezbollah's missile attacks on Israel, by saying that that Israel has a right to "defend itself against terrorists who don't want peace," which is hardly a fair comparison, and again ignores the actions of abusive power-controlling nations.

Sometimes I feel like this s—'s never gonna end...