Trains and firecrackers

Last night, a young guy gets on the train with his earphones in and starts rapping loudly. No one could have conversations and people couldn't do work and it was all very frustrating and annoying. I understood people's frustration and annoyance but what I didn't understand was their response to that. Others on the train were grumbling and then two guys start talking about knocking him onto the platform and "showing him what's what." At which point I stood up, walked over to the guy, touched him on the shoulder, motioned for him to take his earphones out and said quietly, "I don't know if you know this, but everyone can hear you." He apologized and stopped.

It wasn't hard, and yet several people said things as I sat back down suggesting I'd been brave. I wasn't. I was showing him respect and expecting it in return. I almost whispered because the purpose wasn't to embarrass him but to call to his attention that he was being disruptive and annoying for other customers with an expectation he would understand that means he should stop and that the train was perhaps not the most appropriate place for loudly rapping songs with the f- and n- words. I don't think he was intending to be rude. I think his music was on so loudly (I could hear it even though I was the furthest seat away from him in my direction) that he didn't even realize that when he was rapping to himself  it was actually loud enough for the entire carriage to hear him.

This is about the fourth or fifth time something like this has happened to me on a train and I don't understand it. People are being rude - usually unintentionally so - and instead of just pointing it out or taking control of the situation in a respectful manner, everyone grumbles to themselves until they've worked themselves up into a frenzy and then feel the need to yell or punch someone.

One time, it was a group of children returning home in their school uniforms. About 20 of them entered a half-full carriage, stood in the aisles, and made a bunch of noise, sometimes bumping into other people, sometimes shouting down the carriage to talk to someone else. I kept listening to grown-up adults - sometimes in their mid-40s or -50s grumbling about the state of the world and these kids and all their noise, and why don't they just sit down, and blah blah blah.  Finally, almost as annoyed with the "adults" on the train as I was with the kids, I stood up and said, "Okay, I think it's time now for everyone to sit down.  Go find seats, take a friend or two with you, but you cannot continue to stand right here and act like this. It is a train, not a playground."  All the students but 5 sat down. Four stood around their group's ringleader while he grumbled about how "she can't make me do nothing."  That's fine.  Again, I wasn't trying to make a show of it or tell him I could, in fact, make him do nothing or something or whatever that double negative is supposed to be indicating to me.  I was only pointing out that their behavior was inappropriate based on social standards, expectations, and its impact on those around them. I didn't need them all to sit, but I needed enough of them to sit that the rest of us could hear ourselves think. Two of the students sat down across from me and we had a perfectly pleasant chat about their favorite classes and what they want to be when they grow up. 

Another time, three boys were in the back of a carriage jumping around and three times fell into the woman closest to them. They never apologized and she didn't ask them to stop but clearly got more annoyed and upset and kept grumbling but never to them.  So I told them to stop.  I said they owed her an apology and that they should sit down.  They looked mortified and did both things I suggested.

I raised the question this morning with some of my colleagues and students and every single person expressed shock at my reaction to the guy on the train last night. A couple joked and said "And you're still alive?" and some said it was a cultural difference that would lead me to do this.  But I just don't understand why it's so difficult for people in the UK to speak up when something socially inappropriate is happening, particularly on trains. Instead, they wait until some stroppy footballer decides to beat a kid up, or they'll call the police, or somehow completely overreact to a situation that just needs a little "hey, do you understand you're being rude?" Particularly with children and young adults - they're still figuring themselves out. Most want a little boundary to show that society believes in them to be respectful and appropriate members.

Most people aren't trying to be arses, they're just (somewhat naturally) self-absorbed and don't realize the impact they have on others; and if no one ever tells them, they never will. When I was a child - which is *not* that long ago - if I was doing something socially inappropriate, any one in my neighbourhood would've felt entitled to tell me so and then report me to my parents. It was, admittedly, really freaking annoying. But it made me more aware of the social impact of my actions. And if I was in public outside of my neighbourhood, people still would've felt entitled to tell me to stop walking in the middle of the street, to stop jumping and running into people, and to stop rapping in a closed space when it is distracting and rude to the others in that closed space.

People keep talking about how parents take no responsibility anymore, but that same thing is true for the larger community. The community needs to re-establish itself as a part of the governance structure for youths. We need to take greater responsibility for reminding them when their behaviour is rude or inappropriate, and as long as we do so in a respectful manner - rather than one that is rude and inappropriate in itself - then I think we're more likely to get the type of response that I got today.

I realize that in my hometown, this standard of "correcting" younger people is no longer really viable. Some of that, I think, is probably linked to a racist fear that the young black people in my community are somehow more dangerous and more disrespectful than their white counterparts a generation ago were. The community dynamics have changed over the past 20 years, but that doesn't mean the community responsibility has. And nothing about my interaction with the younger people there has ever suggested that they are really that different from what we were: most will respond appropriately; some will be aggressive.

My parents generally cringe when I tell this story - partly because I think they're shocked I'm still alive - but when I was about 22 to 24, there was a group of about 20 young black men hanging out outside a house across the street when I came home one day.  The family in that house had moved in after I left for college, so I didn't really know the kids and only knew the parents in passing. As I was getting  out of my car, something caught my eye in the mirror so I turned around to watch one of these "kids" light a firecracker off in the direction of a moving car, one of our neighbors from down the street who had just pulled out. I couldn't believe the recklessness, particularly in an area of our street that has so many younger children. So I immediately marched over and asked the guy how old he was. He was confused and said, "What?" I said, "Hold old are you?" When he said he was 18, I said, "So, you're old enough to know better than to do something so reckless and stupid as to light a firecracker off at a moving vehicle.  You could have gotten someone killed. You could've gotten your entire group of friends killed.  It was a moving vehicle. You don't direct firecrackers at people and you don't direct them at moving vehicles or other people's property. You direct them at the sky. That's what grown-ups do and you are a grown-up. Don't do that again." He grumbled about how I couldn't tell him what to do and I said I most certainly could - as I was - but more importantly, I would make sure his mother knew what he was doing.  The entire group started to walk off when one of them raised his hand in the air and shouted "Black power!" At which point I said, "Wait a minute!" and called them back over to lecture them on what black power means and how I supported black power and worked for it and black power was not the absence of morality or common sense but the throwing off of oppression and what they did was not an example of throwing off oppression, it was an example of juvenile delinquency, stupidity and disrespect. I said I never wanted to hear that any of them were using the phrase "Black power!" as an excuse for such behavior again in the future. Then I turned around and walked away.

Now, I realize that situation could have gone a hundred other ways, but it didn't. Now, if I were doing it again, I might not have been as aggressive to the group of young men, but perhaps I still would - it was over the top dangerous so it needed a serious and clear response.  And if I had suddenly felt my safety in danger, I would've left earlier in the conversation.  But, I didn't need to because they were 18 year old kids who knew what they did was wrong. They were trying to impress people with their bad-assness, and when it was clear it wasn't impressive, they realized it was kind of stupid. No, they weren't going to apologize because they were in a group of 20 or so young men, but they also didn't act as if they had a right to do what they did.

Kids will push to see what they can get away with. Heck - adults will, too.  Because for the most part, we're all slightly inherently selfish creatures.  But I don't understand people who are so afraid of offending other people that they won't take a moment to say "That's actually not okay," and instead will simply fume until someone gets up and assaults the person.

Thanks for Giving

In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, Gaza's been on my mind.  A good friend was there - stayed there when most of the international staff evacuated because they felt the bombings made the risk-good balance tip towards 'risk'. The risk-good balance is, admittedly, a luxury of human rights activists: we get to determine when the risk to our life, health and bodily integrity outweighs the good we're likely to be able to accomplish. If it tips too far to 'risk', we can leave, unlike those we are leaving behind and unlike our military counterparts.  But while others determined the balance tipped too far into 'risk,' my friend stayed, giving interviews and sending our press releases about the conditions in an effort to raise international awareness.

And I prayed.  Because that's all I had to offer.

My sister likely sat off his coast. I don't really know - I don't get to know where she is, ever, when she's at sea.  I get to know an 'arena' or 'field' of service, or some other super Navy terminology that I don't know like "XIFOSD" which likely stands for something like Extra Intense Fighting Of Said Defenses" (yeah... you can tell how much I understand about the acronyms in her job).  I know the fleet she's assigned to - thanks to some newspaper article written around the time they deployed - but the Sixth Fleet is the entirety of the Mediterranean and consists - according to the Navy itself - of 40 ships, 175 aircraft and 21,000 people.  So maybe she was off Gaza; maybe she was pulled into Italy; maybe she was by Gibraltar. I don't get to know, so of course, I always assume the worse. And I assumed she and the entire 40 ships of the fleet and all their weaponry was all sitting off the coast of Gaza.

During Skype calls with my friend, I would hear this "clink clink."  It would have been nothing to me - a drippy faucet, something falling to the floor - except my friend asked, "Did you hear that?" He explained it was pretty close. It sounded different than I expected. It wasn't a loud boom, but a soft "clink clink" and it would happen again and again as we talked.  He could hear the drones but Skype's audio wasn't strong enough for me to hear.

As I thought about them sitting out there - miles from each other - I couldn't help but think of how thankful I am for each of them and for the service they offer. Once again, I know this leaves me sitting on a particular side of human rights activists. Many do not trust the military - of any country - and their skepticism has legitimate underpinnings: years of military coups in a variety of countries, disturbing videos showing the commission of war crimes, and the distribution of photos depicting torture give cause to those who distrust the military.  It is easy to paint those who serve with broad strokes: heroes or villains. White hats or black ones. Little room to recognize that the majority - of any military - may fit one mold while a minority break it.  The same, of course, is true for human rights activists - we just hate to admit that out loud sometimes because the cause!, the cause! is so noble, never realizing that when we do that we are only replicating the actions of those we so often denounce.

So, yes there are good and bad of both the military and human rights activists.  And yet, this week, all I kept thinking was how lucky I was to know dedicated, intelligent and willing servants for both fields.  Human rights activists, though, don't get internet memes or Christmas ornaments reminding people of the dedicated and awesome work they do. Probably because most people hate us as we have this insane habit of always siding with the underdog, but still...

So, I'm sharing the picture below - one of the many that popped up on my newsfeed thanking the US military for their service on this day of Thanks - to give thanks to those who work in the service of freedom overseas, regardless of how that work is described or what the title that comes before their name looks like.



And I'm going to take the unusual step and share two poems I wrote this week, one for my sister and one for my friend. I have no doubt that they are not good poetry, but it's a small offering of thanks to them both.

For a Navy Officer

To sit next to you on the couch,

watching movies that make us cry,

while we eat a tub of ice cream that we'll regret tomorrow --

that is what I dream of when I fall asleep.

The guns you fire and the records I type,

keep us from each other,

and each night is a fearful one praying for your safety;

I know sometimes it's just the same for you.

But my darling sister,

you are who I wish I was

and who I wish to sit next to on a Thursday evening,

eating leftover casseroles while we laugh at our parents

and remember the names of boys who used to sit with us.

This is what I'll dream of when I fall asleep.

For our activist

The sound of the bombs hitting comes through the audio on my computer.

Unlike the great booms Hollywood tells me to expect

it sounds like water dripping into an empty pan in my sink.

I imagine you sitting inside,

curtains closed so your room is not mistaken as a target.

You hear the drones fly overhead and have to hope they keep on flying.

I listen to the day's accomplishments, but you never mention the most important one:

"I survived to fight again."

Your weapons are the computer you use and the pens you chew with each new thought

hoping to rally the world to your view, to document the wrongs you know.

I'm glad you don't carry anything stronger with you, but I wish it wasn't a matter

of your pen against their drones.

What We're "Entitled" To

Bill O'Reilly made an international spectacle of himself (again) when he proclaimed last week's election was about the end of "traditional America" because the "white establishment is now the minority" and "voters . . . feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff." You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break for President Obama's way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?

You can watch the clip here:

He then came back to address this and claim he was just stating facts and providing an analysis.  In what may be an example of the greatest lack of self-awareness to ever air from US media, he lamented the fact that media had become ideological when claiming that his analysis was just stating of facts.

So, there are a few things Bill needs to understand. First, "women" aren't a racial group.  So "women" were part of the "white establishment" before, unless you're admitting that by "white establishment" you're really only talking about are rich, white men - and women should be damned. 

But setting that aside, in one fell swoop, O'Reilly said something very poignant and accurate and something very, very inaccurate. First, the accurate part: people, particularly but not exclusively black, Hispanic and female Americans, feel the economic system is stacked against them. There's not much to dispute there.  The "Occupy Wall Street" movement isn't, as Fox repeatedly tried to claim, some fringe group of hippies who hate showering and wish the US would just throw away capitalism.  The movement captured people's attention because so many people feel they do not actually have an opportunity for economic growth.  They feel they have limited power and opportunity to actually make a difference in their economic status because the economic system is stacked against them.

Some of that is racially based, and we need to be honest about that.  During this recession, the gap between black and white households nearly doubled, with whites making 22 times more wealth than blacks.  There was an average household networth of $110,729 for whites in 2010, while blacks averaged only $4,995 and Hispanics only $7,424. So unless you really believe that blacks are less intelligent, less educated and less motivated, then there is little to say other than there is a systematic problem with the way our society recognizes intelligence and rewards work.  In 2010, the median annual earnings of black men was 74.5% of their white counterparts. That's worse than white women - who made only 80.5% of their white male counterparts, but better than black women (69.6%), Hispanic men (65.9%), or Hispanic women (59.8%).

The US has one of the lowest rates of social mobility in the industrialized world.  Cyclical poverty is likely because in general, and in particular in the US, poverty means reduced access to quality education or health care. The idea that someone can "pick themselves up by their bootstap" is an increasingly rare experience in the US and while we celebrate the outliers, they are, in fact, outliers for a reason. We know their names and their successes because by definition they are not the rule.  And this very notion is an affront to the concept of equality that capitalism is supposed to foster.  Part of the myth of the "truly free market" - the extreme, unencumbered concept of the market that the extreme right wishes to promote whereby all regulation is bad and the market decides everything from whether we have environmental regulations to what workers are paid - is that it allows people to take control of their own destiny, rewarding hard work and persistence while punishing laziness. But, if extreme inequality leads to limited social mobility and that in turn leads to greater inequality, then you are not rewarding people based on their intelligence, their hard work, or their skills. You are rewarding them based on what their ancestors did.  You are promoting not a democracy but an oligarchy of privilege. Some want to claim this is "true" freedom and what the GOP is promoting is simply a true market economy, but for a market economy not to simply become a means for new human rights oppression, there must be some level of equal opportunity.  Yet, equal opportunity clearly does not exist in the current US system.

That inequality - both in terms of what is held and in terms of opportunity - actually harms national economic growth.  Lower rates of economic inequality are shown to be associated with greater, long-term economic stability.  So by creating this "free" economic system without regulation and without social opportunity, we are harming our economic interests not just on an individual basis but on a collective level for our society.

And people feel this. They aren't dumb, despite what O'Reilly, et al., would like you to believe. When you talk to people in the lower class and lower-middle class, they understand the economics of their situation and the cyclical nature of their position in society. They recognize the limited opportunities they have.  So, voters - meaning, non-privileged voters - do, in fact feel that the economic system is stacked against them because it is.  Study after study supports this, so the only way to actually dismiss this very real, very accurate feeling is to buy into a theory of math's "liberal bias."

But where O'Reilly goes wrong - horribly, horribly wrong - is his assertion that what people were demanding in Obama's reelection was "stuff."  It is not stuff, but opportunity that people are demanding. It is an equal playing field that can foster a market economy that allows for people to pull themselves up by the bootstrap. It is a system that supports economic growth not just for the wealthy but for the entire economy.  They are demanding the education and social infrastructure that encourages poor children to realize that there are options and opportunities available to them and that helps realize that promise. Because kids now get the promise but not the reality and that's our failing as a society. 

Demanding that isn't demanding stuff.  It's demanding dignity on an equal basis, not based on your parents' social status.  That's an American ideal and that's what the GOP should be joining the Obama administration to help realize.

Election Night: Yays & Boos

I love election night. When I was young, I'd excitedly pass out literature for whatever issue or candidate my parents were supporting - and that I therefore thought I supported - and at night, I'd wait patiently to see if all my hard work paid off.  Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't, but every election night I felt a little euphoria as I saw democracy come alive.

It's hard being overseas on election night.  Results couldn't even begin to be called for me until after 12:30am in the UK.  So last night I stayed up, waited until I called Ohio for Obama - and yes, I mean I because none of the networks were willing to do it then - and then I promptly went to sleep without knowing for sure who the next POTUS would be, but feeling comfortable it would be Obama.  As a result, I missed out on my opportunity to vocalize all my "yay" "boo" and "WTF" moments to my parents or siblings.  So here they are instead:

Yay #1 is obviously the fact that Obama won! I'm psyched about that, but it's not the thing I'm most psyched about (it is the thing I'm most relieved about because at some point I'd like to move home and be able to buy health care but because I have lady parts and I've now broken a leg, I no longer have my once super-squeaky clean bill of health and I'll have been "uninsured" in the US for several years).

Official portrait

And a 67% Yay because 67% of registered Ohioans voted!  That's before provisional ballots and overseas ballots are counted.  My ballot has not been counted, so I am not part of that 67% - yet!  Ohio allows absentee voters ten extra days past the election to get their ballots in so long as it's postmarked by the day of hte election.  I mailed mine via the US Embassy in London on 19 October.  It still hasn't tracked as "received" yet, so I'm still hoping it does arrive by 16 November so it can join the big pile of counted ballots.  I'm a little annoyed that it hasn't arrived yet and kind of wish I had just mailed it with the USPS but my postage was actually covered so long as it was mailed at the Embassy so I took the "cheap" way of mailing.  We'll see what happens.

I remember back when I was growing up and sometimes we were excited for 45-55% turnout.  67% in a downward economy when people are generally feeling gloomy - that's impressive. And important because democracy only functions when people participate.  My friends in Azerbaijan would love that opportunity: to participate; to count; to vote.  They cannot.  Well, technically they can but it doesn't really matter. Not when the system is so corrupt that someone sits in the open filling out ballots.  In 2009, my friends in Iran mourned the deaths of their fellow citizens, some were arrested or went into hiding, because they demanded their votes count. Instead, Ahmadinejad somehow won more votes in some areas than were counted. And a few weeks ago, I teared up as I read the status reports from friends in Georgia (the country, not the state) excitedly report the first democratic transition their country has had in a century.

Are US elections perfect? Absolutely not. There are moments we should be embarrassed by that get my patented Boo: voting machines that don't select the right candidate, ridiculously long lines that discourage voting, people being told the wrong information about where to vote, people who were told wrong information about when to vote, too many provisional ballots, apparent attempts at voter intimidation, and an asshat Secretary of State for Ohio who tried pretty much everything to discourage voting (great for the Vote Protector-in-Chief). The long list of voting irregularities need to be cleaned up, so if True the Vote and others are serious about protecting our elections, they should start by focusing on the problems that do exist, rather than the ones that don't.

But still... our votes are counted, at least most of the time. And once again, we will have a peaceful transition (or in this case, non-transition) of power. Just as we have every four years since 1780 except for 1860 and 1864, when South Carolina threw a hissy fit and seceded from the Union a little over a month after Lincoln won and then we were embroiled in the civil war that started.

Our votes count and the exciting thing is that younger people seem to finally be fully understanding that.  An estimated 19% of voter turn-out belonged to the 18-25 year olds; 16% to the 65+ crowd.  That's a massive difference from when I was first getting the right to vote. It is exciting. It is democratic. And it feels good.

And the women! Yay women! Not only did women rock the vote but they also rocked the vote-getting.  The US will now have more women serving in the Senate than ever before.  Of course, the Boo of it all is that we still only have 19 female Senators, so less than 1/5 of our more powerful and "stable" part of Congress. But the women we did elect: amazing!  Claire McCaskill would get massive yays! for no other reason than blowing off Legitimate Rapes Akin, but I also really like her as a person.  Wisconsin elected Tammy Baldwin, its first female Senator and the first openly gay Senate candidate (Barney Frank was openly gay but only admitted it after being elected). And Massachusetts finally caught up to its liberal rep when it chose consumer rights extraordinaire Elizabeth Warren as its first female Senator!  It's not just the Senate, though. Illinois elected super bad-ass, double-amputee Tammy Duckworth, the first female combat veteran to serve in the Senate. She's not the only disabled member of Congress, but according to the font of all knowledge she's the only disabled female representative.  And New Hampshire is now touting women in all its highest offices: Governor, both Congressional representatives and both Senators!

Now, I do have to ask WTF was up with the BBC last night?  It was like they couldn't find a Republican to save their life.  They had some random guy with a British accent on talking about American patriotism and predicting Romney would win two consecutive terms with more than 300 electoral votes even after Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were called and when it looked like Ohio was going to Obama too.  It was weird and embarrassing and annoying to have to listen to someone who clearly can't call an election half as well as me get paid to do nothing but grandstand for the GOP.  And yet there wasn't a single Democratic operative while I was watching (which was for a long time!).  Every time that man talked I felt like someone was driving nails into my brain because that's the only explanation for the insanity I was hearing - and the only way I would end up losing the brain cells I felt myself losing every time they asked him a question.

I have two final boos and three final yays:

(1) Boo to the people of Paulding County, Ohio, for not realizing just how awesome my uncle Mike is.  He once told me he didn't understand half of what I said and disagreed with me on the other half, but was so proud of me for doing what I do.  And I have to say that I'm so proud of him for standing for office. He is a fantastic human being and I'm proud to call him family. Paulding County could have been proud to have him as a county councilman.  I love Paulding County, so I won't be booing them for very long. They are family for me out there, and so much of who I am is owed to my growing up in my great-grandma Kate's shadows. But, still, today I was sad to see they missed excellence when it was in front of them.

Ohio - from a federal government atlas via wikipedia

(2) Sadly, Ohio also did not vote for its statewide issue 2, which would have reformed how our US Congressional districts are drawn.  The amendment was long, the language complicated, and the idea not particularly the best, but we need to do something about the way our districts are drafted and accepted. Ohio voted for President Obama and Senator Sherrod Brown, but only 3 of our 14 Congressional seats will be Democrats.  That's not because we actually flip-flop that much. It's because our seats aren't drawn in a competitive way so it favors whichever party holds three key positions in the state at the turn of a decade.  This time it was the Republicans.  That's a pathetic way to draw Congressional districts and it's a shame on the Ohio legislature for allowing politics to get so out of hand that they view "similarities in needs" based on party affiliation and not the general makeup of the populations. Again, I don't think this was perfect but it would be nice to try something other than what we have, so I hope we get another option in 2 years. They get my strongest, most vehement boo today.

And three final yays: (1) My hometown school system may be squeaking out a levy win.  Ohio schools have been (state) unconstitutionally funded since something like 1994.  It's an asinine system that makes the schools go back and ask for property taxes pretty much every 2 or 3 years because the taxes they do get don't actually increase with cost of living or average wages or anything.  They just stay the same.  So they get outdated really quickly and they have to constantly ask voters for money just so they can pay their bills.  And instead of fixing the system, everyone just twiddles their thumbs and goes, "Yup... very difficult thing there, isn't it?  Complicated.  Very, very complicated."  So our public schools are regularly harmed while the state continually strips them of income to fund "charter schools," meaning private businesses, who largely have a worst track record than the public schools.  Why?  Because no one has the political will to do something that might mean they aren't elected to their next sought-after office (and since Ohio also has term limits on state offices, they're all always searching for their next office).

(2) That said, my friend Jim Butler was re-elected to the Ohio House of Representatives (the state legislature) and I'm happy even if he is a Republic.  I disagree with him on most things, but I love the kid to death.  And by kid, I obviously mean someone who is older than me (I think; I just checked his official bio and while it doesn't list a DOB, he completed the Navy and a Master's degree before I met him when I was just a wee little 24-year-old).  So yay Jim!  I can't wait for you to implement my school funding plans (that's a joke because he never really does what I tell him to...)

Sen. Brown's official potrait

(3) Final yay: Sherrod Brown. I heart him.  Now imagine that heart in the shape of the State of Ohio and you almost get to know how much I love him. I think he is an amazing and tireless public servant and exactly the person I'd like my parents to go to if I ever get kidnapped while doing aid work abroad (a serious consideration that anyone in aid or development work needs to make before they go in the field).

One more mini-yay: next time I go home there won't be any political ads on TV!  My family can have their lives and TV time back! And that's something every swing state is thankful for today.

[Edit: I didn't even realize Bill O'Neill, a friend of my brother's, won a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court!  Best part about this? O'Neill took absolutely no money in this election.  I doubt anyone else will attempt to replicate this, but I'm pleased he won!]