Taxing the Forgotten People

One of my senators, Sen. Angus King (I-ME), wrote on Twitter in the wake of passage of the Senate version of the U.S. tax bill: “Tonight, I’m disappointed, and I’m angry, because the American people deserve better…. [The] at least $1 trillion in unfunded tax cuts… are not only misguided—they’re downright dangerous, and their effects will be felt by every aspect of our society, from the health of our economy to our national security interests.”

I’m afraid Senator King misses the point, but then, to his credit, Senator King tends to depict his colleagues as misguided rather than self-seeking or malicious. I’m just an aging occasional blogger with no constituency to serve, so I don’t need to give them the benefit of any doubt. I think the proponents of this legislation intend for the effects to be felt by every aspect of our society. The president has already sounded the call for the attack on social welfare programs, which offer a means to offset the unfunded tax cuts. If you're thinking Medicare and Social Security are safe, you might want to think again....

Watching this sham play out has been more than a little dispiriting.

 Ship of State?

The legislation itself, to the extent I know what’s in it as I write (and since I don’t have a copy of the 500 page document, and as I understand it, the vote was taken based on a bill that included hand-written changes to provisions representing last minute agreements, I have only a general idea of the provisions), is bad enough from my political perspective.

But beyond that, it demonstrates yet again how badly my country is broken. Because it was adopted by a straight party-line vote, without deliberation, without hearings, without study of its impact. The preliminary reports by bipartisan economic entities like the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee of Taxation dispute the claims of the bill’s supporters that the tax cuts will pay for themselves through the economic growth generated. Congressional leaders say they just don’t agree; in other words, they’ve take a bill that will vastly increase our country’s debt on faith that the trickle down theory already disproved will now emerge to save us all.

This smacks of the president’s view of reality: it is what he says it is, wishful thinking equated with fact.

The fight against the bill was also less than inspiring. I’m not sure that thoughtful discussion would have changed anything, but dependence on catch-phrases like TAX SCAM (yes, all caps) over-simplify and tend to speak to the converted. Senator Bernie Sanders raised some great arguments, but he kept yelling. The time for yelling is long past. No one listens to yelling anymore; it’s just part of the ambient noise.

What we, as a country, need to do, is shut up and look—really look—at what we’re doing to ourselves. Even the reports on the tax bill’s passage are couched in terms of fights: “GOP Victory!”

My question is: what about the country? Does anyone remember us? Because out here, there wasn’t a lot of love for this tax bill.  Those “forgotten people” the president likes to reference? That’s all of us, now. And it will get worse before it gets better.

Unless we stop fighting with each other, and listen to each other, and put our differences aside, so we can remind the folks in Washington that they work for us. If we don't do that, then Senator King was wrong--and we deserve exactly what we get.

The "Mean Streets" of English

        

English ... is a thief language. We steal verbs and nouns from other languages.... It's terrible. There's this great saying about English lurking in alleyways, knocking out other languages and rifling their pockets for spare vocabulary. (from The Untold Tale [The Accidental Turn Series, Book 1], by J. M. Frey) 

          
             Isn't that a delicious tidbit? The character who is speaking says she can't remember where she found that definition. Maybe Frey made it up? I went hunting for it, without success, but discovered something else: a Wikipedia entry for "thieves cant" that suggests all kinds of other things.

            Thieves' or rogues' cant, according to the discussion, was also known as "Peddler's French." English, the language that rifles through other languages to extend itself, was used by actual thieves for their own secret language, reshaping meanings to serve the purpose of the subculture.

            This idea would be more compelling if the same sort of thing weren't also known to exist in a South German and a Swiss equivalent. Elsewhere, I found a reference to a Russian version, too.

            Then, lo and behold, I found a web site titled "Thieves Guild" which has a whole page dedicated to the English thieves' cant [http://www.thievesguild.cc/about]; you can even study it in simple form!  The site (which looks like a Dungeons and Dragons spin-off) says you can also learn an advanced form,  but you'll need a high level thieves' guild official to teach you. (Be careful--this site  can easily be confused with another that's an on-line gaming site related to an imaginary world called Skyrim.)

            I love the concept of English as a thief language. (I've described it to English learners as a language that "borrows," but we don't give the bits and pieces back, do we? No. They've been appropriated, with or without permission.) As to the "rules" of English, they're more like guidelines, with all their exceptions and options--as is proper somehow in a den of thievery, don't you think?

          It does beg the question, however: if language and culture go hand in hand, one shaping the other as they make their way through time, what might we make of the concept of English as a thief language in the context of the cultures of English speaking peoples? 

          That gets into a deeper realm, one I'm not prepared to deal with just now. (But if you have thoughts on it, I'd love to hear them!) 

          Although... while I'm chewing on these questions, it occurs to me that English is increasingly being reduced to Twitter-speak, that is, use of abbreviations which allow communication via limited text access. Raising another consideration when thinking about language and culture and how one impacts the other, either way: does this short-cutting of expression also lead us to short cuts in our thinking? 

          We should keep an eye on the dark shadows in the alleys. There's no telling what might be hiding there. If English itself has a history of thievery from other languages, is technology now stealing from English itself, and creating another medium of expression, a reduction of the complex strands formerly entwined in the English language?

         

          

The Honorary Boy Scout President...

U.S. President, from Detroit Free Press via Michael Moore

   When things aren't going his way for one reason or another, President Forty-Five tends to go out on the hustings to get some love. True to form, amidst the healthcare fight, the president went to West Virginia to speak to the Boy Scout Jamboree, of which as the sitting U.S. President, he is honorary president.

    To a reasonably informed adult, even a supporter of the President, the speech was odd. The man was, after all, speaking to kids ranging from 12 to 18, and the speech--despite the president's initial protestation that he didn't want to talk politics--was largely a political speech that once again extolled Forty-Five's view of his own successes and both slammed his former opponent and criticized his predecessor.

     Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of this president, and I found the clips of his speech more troubling than usual, though I couldn't quite define why.  As the kids erupted in cheers, a thought flittered through my head: I'd never understood the Hitler's popular appeal, since I don't speak German and his speeches always sounded uninspiring, almost monotonous, though emphatically expressed. As Forty-Five's conversational ramblings elicited both cheers (for his win, apparently) and boos for President Obama (cleverly cast as failing to attend a jamboree) from the kids, film I'd seen of Hitler youth gatherings flashed through memory.

     Now I don't mean to cast aspersions on the Scouts (or on the kids that were stuffed into uniform in Hitler's Germany, for that matter).  Some of them no doubt questioned what they were hearing, and good for them; but what is certain is that they're kids, and at this event, they were with their peers in a big crowd, in the moment.

      Dr. Gene Beresin, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, picked up on this and did a piece for Boston's NPR station, WBUR. His observations resonated with me as I tried to get clear on why I was troubled by the clips: "[...] Trump's speech smacked of indoctrination. It had the potential to capture the developmentally normal aspirations of young boys and teenagers to idealize a 'successful hero,' and band together for his mission of winning, of defying adversity," said Beresin. "But then it subverted those natural aspirations," he went on, by giving the kids models that described a black and white, rather than a nuanced shades of grey, world, a model that applauded devaluation and denigration of people with whom one disagrees rather than developing the ability to listen and converse about differences. It promoted distrust of values that support our freedoms, like the free press; and it glorified individual winning, seen as attaining social status and wealth, rather than cooperative efforts aimed at the greater good. It  suggested that success came from "being feared and revered, not loved and respected." 

      But this is just one speech, right?  Boy Scouts of America did, for the record, apologize for injection of politics into the speech--though the terms of the apology were so tepid as to be almost meaningless. (A boy scout who attended from Evanston, Illinois was far more explicit  about the inappropriate tenor of the speech in the context of the Boy Scout mission than were his leaders!) So this is only a minor moment, a single pellet from a BB gun, let's say. 

      Except... any review of news directly related  to the administration just that one week more closely resembled a full load of buckshot, with pellets scattering across the political landscape. There were hits on what little remains of Congressional dignity and independence, on the institutions of a free press and electoral integrity, some punctures of the rule of law, and at least one frontal attack on voting rights. Not to mention an ongoing, insidious shredding of the Union, as the president and his surrogates continued to stir up their base against the so-called "elites" and "cosmopolitans" and others who question the president's assertions and conduct. 

      Jasper Davidoff, 17, the scout who protested the speech to the leadership of the Boy Scouts, wrote, "I believe that ... (Trump's) rhetoric told the young people looking to become better citizens that Scouting is a space for divisiveness and disrespect. I believe that many of the young people in attendance will interpret from [the] presentation that they should use Scouting to aggressively attack those they disagree with." This, he affirmed, is in direct opposition to the Scout Oath and Law.

      It's also directly contrary to making America great. We have a president who is intent on exploiting the divisions in our united states to the benefit of his own interests. We as citizens would do well to recall Abraham Lincoln's then prophetic words in 1858, when national division over slavery had stressed the bonds of union almost to the breaking point. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," he said. Two years later, the country split asunder. The wounds from that conflict still haunt us.

     A president who intentionally exacerbates the differences that divide us does the nation a disservice. It is to be hoped that our Congress and our courts rein him in, before he inflicts irreparable harm.

     

     

Where Words Scramble...

            I've written before of the surrealism that at times seems to envelop the current political world. The Bannon appointment to the National Security Council at first blush seems to fit right into that. It certainly raises concerns.

Movable Type, Gutenberg Press

            Steve Bannon is one of the masters of spinning "alternative facts" on magic looms. I think of "Alternative facts" as manipulating words surrounding an event to create a narrative that allows a previously imagined belief or wishful thinking to be confirmed. For instance, RT News (the Russian state-sponsored news outlet), followed quickly by Fox News, reported on the Quebec mosque attack before any facts were released, with the result that a right-wing white French Canadian Trump admirer was magically transformed into a Muslim terrorist of shifting origin (first Syrian, then Moroccan). All that was needed was to take the words "attack," "terrorist," "mosque," "shooter," and "Allahu Akbar" and jumble them up with some verbs to get an imaginary outcome of a murderous gun-toting mosque-attending terrorist killing for God. 

              Those who perpetuated this chimera did little to clearly retract it once the truth emerged.  Canada publicly called out Fox, insisting they do so, but even after the correction was made, where was the hue and cry that lifts to the high heavens when Christians (or possible Christians, white people,  anyway...) are shot up by Muslims? (A point not missed by Canada's Kate Purchase, Communications Director for the Prime Minister, in her letter to Fox: "These tweets by Fox News dishonour the memory of the six victims and their families by spreading misinformation, playing identity politics, and perpetuating fear and division within our communities.")

            Indeed, Muslims have become the 21st century peril of choice, displacing previous ethnic perils. Bannon's hand was evident in the immigrant ban issued on 27 January by the White House, and in its defense as little more than an expansion on previous executive actions and "similar" to what President Obama did (for an explanation, see https://dontmesswithalibrarian.wordpress.com /2017/01/29/obama-to-blame-for-muslim-ban-country-list-huh/ ). Never mind the complexity and nuance of a policy that was actually shaped over several years and based on objective intelligence and analysis.  It's meant to keep us safe from people who want to hurt us, we're told, not Muslims per se. Never mind that the seven countries under the ban are predominantly Muslim.

            Even as "RESIST" is carved out of the sands of Acadia National Park's Sand Beach and "rogue" social media accounts push to keep free expression alive, the apparent chaos emanating from the White House seems a little too orchestrated, a bit too apparent. While the fevered flurry of evidently ill-considered executive actions tossed about since the inauguration amidst contradictory and confusing tweets and statements suggest something akin to incompetency, what if (remember I'm working on a premise of surrealism here) they denote precisely the opposite?

           

By Andrew Muench, Portland ME

            Slipping in the order for an influential political strategist to essentially supplant the Director of National Intelligence and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the National Security Council has an ominous feel. It is, after all, the Director and the Chair who are often called to speak unpleasant truth to power... Yet they are here relegated to attendance at inner circle NSC meetings (meetings of the so-called principals' committee) only when "issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.”

            Now imagine a principals' meeting of the NSC to consider "civil unrest" in response to a presidential administration's executive actions.

            As I write, I've seen notices for an ongoing rolling series of marches: Scientists March on Washington, People's Climate March, National Pride March, Trump Taxes March,  and an Immigrants March, all between now and June.  Many of these are expected to have satellite marches in cities other than Washington. Such marches would not seem to be within the "responsibilities and expertise"  of the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, though it's arguable that they might be, at least marginally, within the "responsibilities and expertise" of the Director of National Intelligence.

            Last weekend, we saw Customs and Immigration personnel ordered to perform enforcement actions under an operationally flawed (never mind probably unconstitutional) executive order with little clear guidance as to the scope of their duties, and with no prior instruction or notice to the localities in which the actions were to be carried out. Intelligence might have been useful here, but the Joint Chiefs? Naah.

             There are also reports of attacks in North Dakota by law enforcement on the Standing Rock resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Veterans are vowing to stand with Standing Rock. Will the Chief and the Director be called in on this one?

            And let's not forget the current peril of choice: fake news sent out two shocked headlines topped by aerial photos that purport to be Muslims in the Chicago streets shouting "Death to America." "Why isn't the mainstream media covering this protest?" they ask. And I answer, "Palestinian protests in Chicago in 2014 and 2016 against Israeli actions don't warrant coverage on 1 February 2017." But most people already conditioned to distrust Muslims are unlikely to look any deeper than the headline, and if those people are out there shouting such things, they've got to be stopped! Right?

           

            It doesn't seem too far a stretch--in the surreal context I'm working in here--to muster law enforcement or military or quasi-military units to handle situations with a "potential for civil unrest," especially given the presence in the president's mind of "professional protesters incited by the media."

Memorials to Jewish Deportees

            I think--and I'm reluctant to say this--we have a situation before us that we have never faced in this country, not even in our worst times. We are treating this administration as, if not normal, then at least subject to normal constraints. I'm beginning to wonder if our clunky institutions can restrain an administration that is revealing itself as not remotely concerned about the limits built into the Constitution on executive power. Granted, those limits have been strained in the past, but up to now, they've held.

            The presidential oath of office requires the incoming president to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" to the best of his ability. I begin to wonder if we today have a case where  "to the best of my ability" acts as a loophole to fulfilling the oath.

            But that would only be the case if we really had transitioned from the real to the surreal... right?

           

Sister Marches

Portal de Playa del Carmen

            The day after Donald Trump took his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" to the best of his ability, I found myself in the company of roughly 100 others, marching up Avenida Quinta from the Portal in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We ranged in age from around 10 to around 80, mostly women, but also some men, mostly from the United States but some Canadians and a few Mexicans, as well. One guy was an Italian who lived in NYC; one woman remembered being in China at the time of Tiananmen Square and wearing a mourning band on her arm throughout her visit there.

            This Sister March in Playa del Carmen was an impulse by a young American woman temporarily working in Playa and living there with her family. She and her Mexican-born husband wanted to give their kids an opportunity to live abroad in their father's country before high school and the complexities involved in teen-age life kicked in. She found and contacted the Sister March website, and in short order, listed the march for the rest of us to find.

            We joined the gathering for different reasons, but all shared the organizer's stated purpose: "Our intent [she wrote] is to gather together and enjoy the company of one another as we stroll and contemplate either in silence or in constructive dialogue the challenges we all face as part of the human rights advocacy community." It wasn't an anti-Trump march as such, but it did protest and resist certain of the new administration's avowed goals.

            On 21 January,  which now seems so long ago though it's been less than two weeks, there were already concerns that the new administration might try to roll back rights that many of us feel are fundamental to our values as Americans, such as an unfettered right to vote, along with rights considered under international law as fundamental. We might be forgiven this concern, since it was based on statements made during the campaign by the now president.

Sister March bracelets: Playa del Carmen

            The executive actions taken since the inauguration have not poured calming oils on waters stirred to the boiling point by the campaign--it might rather be said that flows of burning oil have been spilled across as much of the American landscape as could be managed in a short period.

            The response of thousands of citizens who have put aside their differences to resist these actions is laudable and hopeful. While allegations continue from die-hard supporters of the new administration that the Women's and Sister Marches are just "whining" because our candidate didn't win,  there are signs that some who originally believed in the president are reconsidering their faith.

 

            The film of the throngs at the Women’s' March, at the Right to Life March (a march is a march, and there were women who participated in both of these events), at airports and wherever they've gathered in the public square are impressive in their celebration of and commitment to their beliefs.  It is critically important both that they stay that way and that they continue.

            We need to resist at every turn the illegitimate efforts of those in the new administration who would shape national interest to personal interest regardless of  the consequences.

             But we need to have a care, as well.  There's a well-worn and rather heavy handed tactic much favored by repressive authority: goading peaceful demonstration into open conflict. This is usually managed by embedding provocateurs into crowds to manufacture violence. It can result in painful injuries--the thugs hired or encouraged to do this aren't selected for their discursive persuasion, but for their inclination to create mayhem.  They may also enjoy administering pain. To counteract it, one cannot fight back, and others in the crowd must witness and gather evidence. If possible, as many bodies as are available can "swarm" the aggressor without inflicting blows to prevent further harm being visited on the target. Disarming an attacker works, too, if it can be done without getting drawn into a brawl. It's critically important not to be tempted into further violence.

Los Angeles Sister March

            Not easy, but the up side of this kind of disruption is that it is heavy-handed, and if demonstrators don't rise to the bait, it can easily be shown for what it is: provocation (whether spontaneous or paid/incited).

            I'm not saying anyone is planning such attempts. I suggest only that we march on--with eyes peeled, cameras ready and great care, even as we engage in constructive dialogue and pay close attention one to another.

Lantern on the Stern

My ideal for a work site

            I am so pleased to report that the never-ending novel has resumed its endless course. My stranded protagonist has progressed from a street corner near the Giralda Tower in Seville (see post of 1 July 2016) to the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. He, in a group that includes both a family member and childhood friends, is enjoying a thus far uneventful sail in one of the two last ships in the Nicolás de Ovando expedition to Española in 1502. (Well, not entirely uneventful, since the records show that there were three stragglers, and one was lost off the Canaries. But my characters may not know about that, as vessels on the Atlantic crossing often lost sight of each other in the course of the 7 to 8 week journey.)

            I think he's going to get through some seven years in a couple of chapters during the next couple of weeks! If I don't get bogged down again researching facts that I probably don't need to worry about and  just stick to the bloody story. But tales seem to have their own ideas of where they want to go--or maybe mining them just opens previously undiscovered veins in the imagination's tunnels.

            Going back over the previous chapters, I was struck by a whole section where the protagonist goes off on a tangent on his way home from the occupation of Granada. I certainly didn't intend for the Jewish expulsion from Spain to take up a chapter or two; the idea was to note the historic event as a backdrop to the protagonist catching a wagon to the coast so he could find a ship home. But the realities of the expulsion had a logic of their own, so there wouldn't have been space on a ship available going to an Atlantic port from the Mediterranean, and my guy isn't likely to just sit around taverns waiting until those under the expulsion order are all carried away and the ships returned

            A caveat here: it's entirely possible that these scenes may disappear if I ever finish and get to rework and polish this tome, but at the time, they insisted on being written so for the moment, they're part of the story.

            Rereading them as we embark on a new year, is a return to the start of the year just ended because the context of when they were written is inescapable. It was early 2016 and the European refugee crisis was at its publicized height. As spring gave way to summer, a huge sign hung on a downtown building in Madrid welcoming refugees, even as Hungary and other eastern European nations were closing borders. Britain was debating Brexit, in part because of whipped up emotions about foreigners (dangerous terrorists, taking jobs from Brits, destroying culture... the charges are familiar because they were repeated in the U.S.  Presidential campaign).

In Parque del Buen Retiro

            In Madrid during June, in the Parque del Buen Retiro, there was a powerful exhibition of photographs depicting the plight of Syrian refugees mounted in the open air along a walkway. Few seemed to take notice of it. Another photo exhibit hung in Madrid's Matadero complex--a  slaughterhouse repurposed into a cultural center--starkly illustrated the dangers of the Mediterranean raft people trying to get to Greek or Turkish territory. The numbers represented by mountains of orange life vests stacked on the beaches where boats came ashore are staggering.

            Back home last August, at a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, I watched while the audience empathized with displaced early 20th century Russian Jews as they trudged their weary way into exile at the end of the play.  I wondered how many saw the reflection of today's Syrians, Iraqis, Sudanese and Somalis--sadly, not an exhaustive list--in those bowed figures. Since then, the presidential election and the apparent resurrection of the right, with the concurrent trends of isolationism and nationalism, have pushed the refugees, as such, from the headlines.

            But they still exist. They still try to survive and find a safe place to settle, to go about the ordinary business of living a life. As did the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, and the Muslims, expelled from Spain in 1502. Today, people flee from war, and sometimes from tyranny, and sometimes from fear. They aren't expelled, not from their homes, not from their homelands, native or adopted. Are they?

            Samuel Taylor Coleridge once observed: " "If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind." Spain suffered from its expulsions, though it took time for the full impact to take hold. Lands that welcomed the expelled benefited from their knowledge and experience. It's a sobering lesson. I hope we might have learned from it. I hope we will hang the lantern forward, where it can illuminates the channel markers and shoals ahead.

On Drainage

            The water began to spread up from the sump well in my laundry room. It overflowed quietly, serenely, inexorably. I tried to shovel it up with a snow shovel (surprisingly effective, by the way, if the flooding is finite) into buckets I carried up to throw into the raging storm beating against the Maine coast.

            Then I discovered water seeping through the walls in the library. This was not a simple overtaxing of my drains at the height of a storm. These waters would not recede.

Rising waters reflect ceiling light

            At one point, after all the books and papers stored on low shelves had been piled a foot above the floor on whatever there was they could be stacked on, after any critical  power strips had been raised to a safe height, after boxes had been removed from the basement entirely... at that point, I stood on the cellar steps, staring at the reflection of a ceiling light in the still clarity of an inch of water and I thought: "What have I done to bring this on? Why is this happening to me?" I railed at whatever powers that there may be: "I try to be a good person! I try to respect the earth and her waters! I don't deserve this!"

            And there we have it, children. I succumbed to that oh so human impulse to turn what was happening into a story about me. There  I stood on my cellar steps in the center of the universe, with all creation swirling around me, and I raged at fortune's cruelty to me.

            Now, as it happens, I did, in fact, have a part to play in this tale.

            Some years before, the drainage system had been fully explained to me; I knew where the overflow pipe drained. I also knew, in a vague sort of way, that roots could get into it. And as the years passed, I blithely forgot about the overflow pipe. Its outlet was buried unnoticed, and a young willow nearby grew to a grand height, its roots fed even in drought with the help of my drainage pipes.

Willow roots pulled from drain pipe

            None of which means there was some cosmic or divine gathering of energy in response to some action or inaction on behalf of or to the detriment of humankind or, more generally, the planet. Shit happens, especially when you're not paying attention.

            The damaged drain pipes are being dug up and replaced. This all happened as 2016 turned into 2017--a purely arbitrary division of time established for practical and ritual reasons almost 500 years ago for most of the Western world with adoption of the Gregorian calendar. It fell close on the winter solstice, which is governed by the movements of the earth and the sun, and existed long before humankind began to stalk across the planet.

            There are ever so many stories I can make up using these elements and more.  But it would be unwise in the extreme to forget that the facts are straightforward and not open to debate or interpretation.

            It seems to me that this basic rule is often ignored, and doing so is profoundly dangerous. Here are some facts, for instance, about the election: Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million plus votes more than did Donald Trump; if you add the votes cast for other presidential candidates, some 10.6 million more votes than Trump's roughly 63 million were cast for someone other than him. There is NO evidence that the vote tallies were fraudulent or that there was voter fraud.

            The president-elect has said that he has a mandate and is acting as if he has a mandate. He does not. Moreover, even those who voted for him do not necessarily agree with his policies (or what we know about them).

            So we need to pay attention. Trump voters need to hold him to account for his promises and let him know when he undertakes to act contrary to their interests, as in trying to roll back measures to slow climate change. Or, significantly, when he tries to further pit Americans against one another rather than encouraging unity. Trump opponents need to organize and focus in order to turn opposition into votes in 2018.

            As to this drainage project the president-elect has offered of the D.C. swamp? Just keep in mind that if we don't pay attention, there are thirsty roots liable to get into that drainage and not only stop the outflow, they might even flood the foundations!