Billie: How we've changed, continued

Old movie time! As I've said before, some movies instruct us in great detail about how far we've come as women, since they almost seem like they came from another planet. One such movie is BILLIE (1965), starring a major DEAD AIR heroine, Oscar winner and former union president, wonderful Patty Duke.

I grew up with Patty, adore her without reservations, read her book (needless to say) and watched a bushel of her movies and various TV-guest appearances, including the bad ones like MARCUS WELBY. (Marcus Welby?!?!?--say the kids in one voice. Who?) And as the list here makes clear, THAT IS A WHOLE LOTTA VIEWING, MY FRIENDS!

Young folks mostly know Duke (if they know her at all) as the mother of Lord of the Rings actor Sean Astin or from the camp classic, Valley of the Dolls, wherein she ferociously chewed the scenery as Neely O'Hara, a character too-obviously based on Judy Garland. (Everybody in the film chewed the scenery, okay? Not just Patty! PS: I loved the pulpy novel too!) The film is widely regarded as one of the worst ever made, and therefore terribly watchable... and it also went down in 60s pop-history because one of the lead actresses was subsequently butchered by the Manson family.

I first saw Patty when I was a wee thing, on BEN CASEY (another TV-doctor you never heard of) and I followed her faithfully forever after. Her weekly sitcom was essential viewing for us Barbie-obsessed little baby-boomer girls. (Although I now know she was miserable through it all, she never seemed unhappy.) We watched Patty's show and then excitedly talked about it the next day, all day long, sometimes acting out favorite scenes. She played a dual-role (Patty and her cousin Cathy), and there were lots of people who didn't even realize she was playing both roles. Patty was the American id, all emotions on the surface and totally unguarded (the TV-theme song explained: "Patty loves to rock 'n' roll, a hot dog makes her lose control!"), while Cathy was her "identical cousin"--the polite, ladylike British girl who knew how to behave. It was the internal drama then being fought by ALL OF US! We all wanted to be demure, sweet Cathy, and yet (at least in my working class neighborhood), we knew we were really extroverted, often-scheming Patty ... and hot dogs made us lose control. (Patty gobbled food, Cathy ate delicately and left some on her plate.)

As a child (age 12), Patty blew everyone away playing Helen Keller on Broadway in The Miracle Worker, and then again in the film version, for which she became (at the time) the youngest person to win an Oscar at age 16. The Broadway play ran for two years, which she wrote about in depth in her book, Call me Anna. She and Anne Bancroft (who played Annie Sullivan) actually became furious at each other. It was riveting; they had an extended, violent scene together (Annie Sullivan fighting hard to subdue Helen, who is having none of it) and they had to repeat this raucous physical battle every night on the stage. They started actually hurting each other, "getting even" with each other during the same scene the next night. It is amazing to read, and so very human. (Bancroft actually knocked one of Duke's teeth loose.) Duke finally went full circle, later in her life playing the Annie Sullivan role in the 1979 TV-version of The Miracle Worker, with Melissa Gilbert playing Keller. Duke had always wanted to play Sullivan, the "adult" in the story, and I just love the "recovery" aspect of that choice! Since the 80s, Duke has been a mental-health advocate, which has made me so happy. My grandmother used to sneer at her for going on talk shows and babbling like "a crazy bitch", and I would get so upset, I would cry about it. Leave Patty alone!!!

Later, we had words for that behavior: bi-polar disorder. But at the time? Everybody just talked about how crazy she was... and yes, she would meet people and marry them after partying with them for a week. (I repeatedly defended her as a tortured artist, but privately worried she was popping amphetamines, like my mother.) After learning of her diagnosis, I was very relieved that Patty would be staying with us for a long time. I had long worried she would jump off a bridge, take too much LSD or something. Of course I read all about her tumultuous personal life in the cast-off movie-magazines I discovered in the magical room at the paper-mill (mentioned in #14 here). I sent her autobiography to my AA sponsor and she was the subject of a whole nother round of discussions. So, I learned from Patty as a girl and as a grown-up.

And now, I learn from her yet again, as I dissect her old movie BILLIE.

~*~

I saw BILLIE as a kid, and remembered it as being about a tomboy trying to femme it up for a boy she develops a crush on. And yes, it surely IS, but it now seems far more insidious and awful in its mid-60s har-har-har misogyny than I ever remembered. (I sometimes wonder what it did to me, mindlessly ingesting this kind of thing during my formative years. Yighhhh! Terrifying to contemplate.)

BILLIE is FAR WORSE than the nice girl/hell-raiser dichotomy we ate up on weekly installments of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW. For example, one line intended to be funny, Billie/Patty whines, "I wish I was a boy!" and Jim Backus, her dad, barks back, "Well, so do I, but you're not!"--something like that. Just awful. The movie is about Jim Backus (whom you know as the voice of Mr Magoo or the redoubtable Thurston Howell the III) running for mayor of Anywhere, USA, and he has assured the town conservatives that females should never compete with males... and then the track team coach asks super-fast Billie (at left) to be on the team. (It is understood that this means THE BOYS TEAM, since at that time, there WERE no girls teams.) HORRORS! This might cost her dad the election (!) and Jim Backus/Thurston Howell tries to make her quit the team.

It goes without saying that Billie falls in love with a boy on the team, who is not as fast as SHE is... and the feminist good news is, by the end of the movie, our young prince doesn't mind that Billie can beat him at sports. But it is only since she has properly feminized herself (finally all dolled up in high-school-dance drag, wearing a short dress and heels) and has also given him her HEART, that this is so. An interesting, and very lucidly-presented message about heterosexual romance TAMING the dangerous demon that is women careening about on sports teams and so forth: As long as they are fuckable, cute and know their place, it's okay. Even if she is a famous television star!

There is actually a short blog on the movie, called Billie's got the Beat. It would appear this is ALSO a cult movie now. (shudders)

Long live Patty! We love you!

Random worries over the future of online social justice

VINTAGE CAR OF THE MONTH! Any guesses on the year? I will take a wild guess and say 1975. (Can Volkswagens last that long?)

I took this shot at Greenville County Square on Saturday, right before the March Against Monsanto.


~*~

My wee Tumblr blog doesn't get much attention... not sure why I started it, except that now I can officially "like" other people's entries. Still no comments allowed though! Such a weird system; I still find the 'nesting' thoroughly confusing and I frequently can't decipher who has said what.

I recently posted THIS on Tumblr... to me, some of the most shocking content I could ever have posted. (Then again, that statement probably just shows my age.) It's a photo I took at the Fort Sumter museum in Charleston, of a slave tag. Lots of people don't realize that enslaved African-Americans wore identifying tags (like animals), so I thought I would share the photo. I also included a slavery-era poster warning northern blacks (in Boston) against approaching police, who were then-empowered as bounty hunters (aka "slave catchers"). These two displays in aforesaid museum had the cumulative effect of shooting me right through the heart. I may even have shed some tears. But on Tumblr? Not a big deal--I got one "like" and one reblog. And that's it.

History is bunk, as Henry Ford schooled us.

I recently read a Wiki about a Tumblr blogger I have been following for some time. I consider this individual little more than an amusing hysteric/abusive psycho-nuisance, but when she has emotional meltdowns (often, as psycho-nuisances usually do), she unwittingly provides us with some first-class comedy relief. I was startled to read that this person is regarded as "serious social-justice" (is "social-justice" now a noun for a certain type of radical poseur on Tumblr?). And I am wondering--how is that possible? Serious social-justice?!? Saints preserve us.

This person has done nothing but vent endlessly (several times a day, usually) in a self-righteous, pseudo-political fashion, using all the trendy lefty buzzwords of the day. She has never done ANY political organizing or actual community-work in real life. At least, if she has, she has never mentioned it. And since every single wayward hypochondriacal symptom and every meal eaten and every DVD viewed is carefully cataloged and shared with her legions of fans, I think we would have heard all about any ACTUAL SOCIAL JUSTICE work by now. In excruciating detail.

And yet, this person is considered "serious social-justice"; its enough to make you want to tear your hair out.

This might go a long way towards explaining why this current generation faces endless wars (plural) they seem disinclined to stop, much less actually protest against. After all, it's been left to their poor and immigrant peers (along with computers and drones) to actually fight these wars, so what is the harm? They have far bigger fish to fry, like picking apart other bloggers for using the wrong trendy words and/or having the wrong opinions. (And even though they loooove to see racism and ethnic bias under every rock, they don't see their blatant disregard for the people their country is bombing, as racism and/or xenophobia, as it certainly is.) This explains why there are all these "social justice warriors" on Tumblr, and yet they have had no impact at all, ZERO INFLUENCE, in the public square. None. Zip. Tumblr is like a fantasy-land, a computer game, and "social justice" is one of the colorful environments chosen as background, just like choices of locations in Farmville.

Very, very few Tumblrites have even commented on the current government shutdown, so it seems obvious none are receiving WIC (as I once did, which I mentioned on the air last week) or utilizing HEAD START or are immediately affected by government in any other way. In fact, very few mentioned the long-awaited roll-out of Obamacare. I have not seen any of them discuss the pros and cons of Obamacare... in fact, its all fulminating, with little mention of real life events or the ramifications of various political policies.

It's disheartening, even frightening. I hope this is not the future. If it's only one FRAGMENT of the future, I can handle it. But I hope this is not what "social justice" eventually devolves to: SOCIAL JUSTICE FARMVILLE! GET COOL CARTOON IMPLEMENTS FOR VIRTUAL COMPOSTING! BUY CHICKENS THAT LAY ONLY FREE RANGE VIRTUAL EGGS! And don't forget to put down the people with the ordinary chickens for not being cool. Otherwise, where's the fun in that?

(War? What war?)

World Food Day March Against Monsanto

At left: We had our second March Against Monsanto today in Falls Park. It was much smaller than our first march in May, but still pretty well-attended for Greenville.

We marched through our annual autumn downtown festival, Fall for Greenville, which is an excellent PR opportunity. We passed out leaflets, talked to interested onlookers and (hopefully) drew lots of attention. Today's demonstration has been organized globally around World Food Day.






Me and Mr Daisy are currently arguing over GMOs as I post this. (GMO = Genetically Modified Organism) Yes, we both hate Monsanto on principle, but Mr Daisy believes GMOs are safe and fills up my inbox with scientific studies.

If they are safe, why doesn't Monsanto want to label them? I personally believe GMOs are magnifying allergens in food, but I realize this is a hard assertion to prove. (Why do all these kids have peanut allergies these days? NO ONE I grew up with had peanut allergies. NO. ONE. And now? It's fairly common.)

I trust Monsanto as far as I can throw them.

And the argument continues!

~*~



Above, photos from today: 1) Save the bees! 2) protester shirt 3) part of our group masses in Falls Park.

As always, you can click all photos to enlarge. (More photos HERE.)

~*~

Radio updates:

As we reported on our show yesterday, South Carolina has granted ‘Stand Your Ground’ legal immunity to a man who shot at a car full of teen girls and instead killed an innocent 17-year-old black male bystander.

This is the first case of its kind. Apparently, Stand Your Ground now applies to innocent bystanders who may accidentally get shot. Rania Khalek (above link) reports:

That the victim was an innocent bystander rather than one of the alleged “aggressors” sets a new precedent for the application of Stand Your Ground, which can now shield people who are bad shots and accidentally shoot a bystander, from prosecution.

As 5th Circuit Assistant Solicitor April Sampson warned over the summer, a decision in favor of Scott marks “the first time any state in this Union” has awarded Stand Your Ground immunity in the killing of an innocent bystander.

The shooting happened on April 18, 2010. Shannon Anthony Scott (33), was arrested for the murder of 17-year-old unarmed Darrell Andre Niles, shot to death in his car. From Khalek's piece:

Richland County Judge Maite Murphy has thrown out those charges, ruling on Wednesday that Scott reasonably believed his life was in danger and is therefore immune from prosecution by the state’s 2006 Protection of Persons and Property ACT, South Carolina’s version of “Stand Your Ground”, a law that gives private citizens the right to use deadly force whenever and wherever they feel threatened.

We will be talking more about this story on the air in the next week, so stay tuned.

~*~

Thursday's show was about Raleigh (NC) police spying on NAACP Moral Monday planning meetings. The show included an informative interview with Kevin Gosztola, so CHECK US OUT.

US adults dumber than average, and other news

Monarch butterfly on Goldenrod. So proud of this photo! ((preen)) I got as close as I could without disrupting her lunch.

As always, you can click all photos to enlarge.







Stuff to check out--

US adults are dumber than the average human, says the New York Post:

In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.

Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.

Not only did Americans score poorly compared to many international competitors, the findings reinforced just how large the gap is between the nation’s high- and low-skilled workers and how hard it is to move ahead when your parents haven’t.

In both reading and math, for example, those with college-educated parents did better than those whose parents did not complete high school.

The study, called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, found that it was easier on average to overcome this and other barriers to literacy overseas than in the United States.

Are you surprised?

~*~

Above: Clematis flowers gone to seed on the vine (Swamp Rabbit Trail). Clematis are ordinarily fluffy white wildflowers, so when I saw these swirly blossoms, I had no idea what they were. Thanks to my Facebook friends who knew the answer! I think I actually prefer the "gone to seed" version to regular robust Clematis.

First photo is close-up, the second one is from about four feet away.

~*~

What's it like when an unflattering "fat picture" goes viral? Caitlin Seida found out the hard way, and shares her experience with us:

“What a waste of space,” read one [comment on her photo]. Another: “Heifers like her should be put down.” Yet another said I should just kill myself “and spare everyone’s eyes.” Hundreds of hateful messages, most of them saying that I was a worthless human being and shaming me for having the audacity to go in public dressed as a sexy video game character. How dare I dress up and have a good time!

We all know the awful humiliation of a person laughing at you. But that feeling increases tenfold when it seems like everyone is laughing at you. Scrolling through the comments, the world imploded — and took my heart with it.

What is the purpose of these vicious pile-ons and why do they happen? (I have had it happen several times, but with my words, not my photos... I described my first such experience and the attendant blow-back in this post. Another such incident here.)

The internet has seriously shaken my faith in humans, which was already rather tenuous. Is it anonymity that brings out the venom? But this means the venom is undeniably THERE to begin with. That's the depressing thing; internet anonymity has simply UNLEASHED torrents of nastiness that were once inhibited, and in fact, are STILL inhibited when your name is attached to them.

In Seida's case, she fought back. And she stopped viewing such photos herself:

In the months since, my attitude toward these throwaway images of mockery on the Internet has changed. I no longer find them funny. Each one of those people is a real human being, a real person whose world imploded the day they found themselves to be a punch line on a giant stage. I speak up whenever a friend gets a cheap laugh from one of these sites. I ask one simple question: “Why do you think this is funny?” Very few have a good answer. Mostly they just say, “I don’t know.” Reminding people of our shared humanity hasn’t exactly made me popular, but it feels like the right thing to do. I know what it’s like to be the person in that horrible photograph. I can’t inflict such pain on someone else.

~*~

Hm, looks like the ongoing government shutdown is not helping the party who initially started all the trouble. Today, a Gallup poll reports Republican Party Favorability Sinks to Record Low:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With the Republican-controlled House of Representatives engaged in a tense, government-shuttering budgetary standoff against a Democratic president and Senate, the Republican Party is now viewed favorably by 28% of Americans, down from 38% in September. This is the lowest favorable rating measured for either party since Gallup began asking this question in 1992.

Get a clue, Repubs.

Its popularly known as shooting yourself in the foot.

~*~

Huffington Post reports that Marital Satisfaction May Be Controlled By Gene, Says Study:

The study found that variations in the serotonin-regulating gene 5-HTTLPR correlated with study participants’ relationship fulfillment. Each of our parents pass us a copy of the gene, which can either be short or long. Participants with two short 5-HTTLPR were most unhappy in their marriages in the face of negative emotion, like contempt, but also happiest when positive emotions like humor were present. On the other end of the spectrum, participants with two long copies were satisfied with their marriages regardless of the emotional atmosphere.

“Individuals with two short alleles of the gene variant may be like hothouse flowers, blossoming in a marriage when the emotional climate is good and withering when it is bad,” lead study author Claudia M. Haase said. “Conversely, people with one or two long alleles are less sensitive to the emotional climate.”

This study may be the first linking genetics, emotions and marital satisfaction.

Oh dear, I hope that isn't true. If so, I am doomed. My mother collected husbands as if they were Fabergé Eggs or Beanie Babies.

And I have been married almost 26 years, so let me remind everyone that genetics isn't everything.

~*~

My post title demands the ONLY possible song under the circumstances:

Dumb - Nirvana

Monday update: got skunks?

GIRLS PLAYING MUSIC--Woot! At left: Underhill Rose at the Albino Skunk Music Festival this weekend.





It was fabulous ALBINO SKUNK weekend, which I have covered before, here and here... as I have complained before, I just keep doing the same things over and over and probably bore everyone to death. Apologies! For this reason, I decided not to blog a buncha festie photos (again), but just link to a couple of good ones on my Flickr page. And I certainly can't forget the greatest antique hippie bus in creation, parked at the festival and used by the kids to play in. Its so beautiful, it can make you cry with nostalgia.

My new Facebook selfie-photo comes from the festival; and I am looking fairly mellow, if glistening with sweat. (Good Lord, why are we STILL BAKING in October? I have also written about the autumn-weather-fakeout I experience every year in the South.) I have noticed when I take photos of myself at special events, my expression inevitably mirrors the emotions of those events. For instance, HERE at Occupy, I look all defiant and pissed, and HERE at the radio station, I look ready to take on all the Republicans you can throw at me... but the radio station Daisy looks nothing like the Daisy at the Spartanburg Music and Arts Festival last month (not a selfie), once again mellow and filled with all kindsa goodvibes.

And in this one, I think you can see how thrilled I am with my granddaughter. We look a great deal alike, so I thought a mirror-image might be fun.

She asked me to braid her hair, to make it look like mine. :)

~*~

At left: After Thursday's stellar Occupy the Microphone radio show! You gotta listen! (downloads are always on the radio show blog)

Left to Right -- Efia Nwangaza (Malcolm X Center for Self Determination), Liz Smith Anderson (York County, SC Green Party), Daisy and Double A at WOLI studios, McAlister Square.

Some of our topics:

:: The shutdown of Silk Road website, and the bust of infamous entrepreneur Ross William Ulbricht:

The Silk Road was the Deep Web’s version of an unregulated bazaar, a market for anything deemed unsavory or illegal by the traditional world. There were virtually no restrictions on sales (firearms were allowed for a short period, but later banned), and virtually no check on distribution. A seller from Australia might accept Bitcoins for a shipment of LSD to, say, Brazil. Another might accept a similar shipment as barter for work hacking a specified Facebook account. It was Ulbricht’s dream come to life: a truly free market, one unfettered by the governments whose regulations he so despised. And give him credit, since Ulbricht’s venture reportedly earned him roughly $80 million in commissions, using current Bitcoin values. By the same measure, the Silk Road was the site of more than a billion dollars in illegal transactions, and all shipments went through the conventional mail system.

:: Herman Wallace of the Angola 3 was released after 42 years in solitary confinement. This is thought to be the longest period of continuous solitary confinement on record in the USA. Wallace had cancer and his release was therefore regarded as a "compassionate release".

He passed away three days later.

Efia reported on the campaign for "compassionate release" of Lynne Stewart, who is also suffering from late-stage cancer.

:: We also discussed the continuing government shutdown at some length, and the political compromises/machinations necessary for Obamacare to get passed. And now those very compromises are used by the Republicans who forced them, as reasons to shut down the government.

Bumper sticker: To err is human, to really screw things up, takes a politician.

Our show today included an interview with the legendary John Sinclair. It was great to talk to him, and I want to be sure to link his online radio also.

~*~

On the air today, I also mentioned the nasty hit-piece by "60 Minutes", aired last night, attacking disability benefits and presenting right-wing Senator Tom Coburn as a freedom fighter for the people. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times dissects the propaganda very well, starting with the most obvious fact--they didn't talk to a single person receiving benefits, or a single disability advocate:

Is it possible for a major news organization to produce a story about the Social Security disability program without interviewing a single disabled person or disability advocate?

That's the experiment "60 Minutes" conducted Sunday. The result was predictably ghastly.

The news program's theme was that disability recipients are ripping off the taxpayer. Anchor Steve Kroft called the program "a secret welfare system... ravaged by waste and fraud." His chief source was Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican with a documented hostility to Social Security. Coburn has a report on the disability program's purported flaws due out Monday. Good of "60 Minutes" to give him some free publicity.

Together Kroft and Coburn displayed a rank ignorance about the disability program: how it works, who the beneficiaries are, why it has grown. This is especially shocking because after a similarly overwrought and inaccurate "investigation" of disability aired on National Public Radio in March, numerous experts came forth to set the record straight. They included eight former Social Security commissioners, experienced analysts of the program, even the Social Security Administration's chief actuary, Steve Goss.

"60 Minutes" apparently talked to none of them.

At the top of the segment, Kroft observed that disability now serves "nearly 12 million Americans," up by about 20% in the last six years. Coburn asked, "Where'd all those disabled people come from?"

To begin with, 12 million people aren't collecting disability payments. The number as of the end of 2012 was 10.9 million, comprising 8.8 million disabled workers and about 2 million of their family members, mostly children.

The rolls have grown consistently since 1980, but even though Coburn professes to be dumbfounded why, there's no mystery. As Goss laid out the factors, they include a 41% increase in the total population aged 20-64. Then there's the demographic aging of America, which has increased the prevalence of disability by 38%. (In case Coburn, a physician, hasn't noticed, the older you get, the more vulnerable you are to injury and illness.) Then there's the entry of women into the workforce in large numbers, which has brought many of them under Social Security coverage for the first time.

Finally, there's the economy. When jobs are scarce, more people land on the disability rolls, but that's not about people treating it as an alternative welfare or unemployment program, as "60 Minutes" would have it.

The relationship between disability and unemployment is much more nuanced. As we explained in April, disabled people always have more difficulty finding jobs than others; when desk jobs disappear and all that's left are laborers' positions, the opportunities for the physically and mentally challenged shrink. A good economy allows more disabled persons to find gainful employment and stay off the rolls; in a bad economy that path isn't open.

One thing that unfortunately rings true (highlighted in the piece), is how many disability-lawyers advertise on TV, guaranteeing a positive outcome. I have long noticed that the gist of these commercials is that you have been shafted and you deserve justice, whereas Steve Kroft and (presumably) Senator Coburn just hear these commercials as "Stop working! Get a check!" (Maybe we are watching different commercials?)

One of the interesting things I learned from the piece, is that some doctors are doing quickie exams right in lawyer's offices. And some judges are very friendly with certain of these lawyers, and virtually always rule in their favor. Nah, you don't say?!? The county profiled was in West Virginia; we are to seriously believe that the Old-Bubba-network suddenly surprises Coburn? Its the same system that elected him.

More from Hiltzik:

The most pernicious lie told about the disability program is that it's easy to obtain benefits. "60 Minutes" repeated that lie. The truth is that disability standards are stringent, and they're applied stringently. Two-thirds of all applicants are initially denied, though 10% or so of all applicants win benefits on appeal. All in all, 41% of all applicants end up with checks. Sound easy to you?

"60 Minutes" interviewed two Social Security disability judges, Marilyn Zahm and Randall Frye, who seemed to say that standards are so loose almost anyone can score. That's curious. When they were interviewed in 2009 by Zahm's hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News, they said that standards were too tight -- "Every month, most judges see a case that should have been paid at the first level," Frye said then. (It would be interesting to see the "60 Minutes" outtakes.)

Much of the "60 Minutes" piece was devoted to exposing garden variety scams supposedly perpetrated by shyster disability lawyers, which apparently is Coburn's hobbyhorse. But that's not the true story of Social Security disability. This is a program that serves needy, aging and injured members of the workforce, paying a princely average of $1,130 a month.

The tragedy is that the disability program is underfunded, facing the exhaustion of its resources as soon as 2016. In the past, Congress has routinely remedied this funding crisis by transferring funds from Social Security's old-age program. But it has never acted to properly support the disability fund.

Stories like the "60 minutes" and NPR pieces perpetuate the false image of disability recipients as the undeserving poor, slackers and frauds. That will make it easier for wealthy lawmakers like Coburn to hack away at the program in its time of need.

"60 Minutes" used to stand for rigorous, honest reporting. What's happened to it?

I've been wondering that myself.