Hail to the chief....and hold the hail

1. In case you missed it, I'm incredibly grateful that our president gets another term to do even half the things I think him capable of. And now the gloves are off, because there's no next term. Bring it.

2. I'm grateful to have the discerning sense to strive to be what I think (and don't argue with me on this, it's what *I* think) is an actual Christian. I.e., I try to be a good, accepting, compassionate person who is interested in humanity and tries not to repeat her mistakes when she inevitably makes them. Look, none of us have it "right" as far as religion is concerned. We just try our best to get through this life and make the world a little better than we found it. I identify myself as a Christian but it is only one tradition I draw from. And yeah, I learned that open-minded acceptance from Jesus.

3. I am grateful to live in a place where I can freely and without fear of prosecution say things like that. Especially as a woman. 

4. I am grateful to be living in the most connected age ever, where we can all express ourselves equally - even though that sometimes means I get in touch with what analysts would describe as my primitive homicidal rage. 

5. I am grateful that the mistakes of each generation do indeed fade like a radio station if you drive out of range.

I am also so grateful for my warm, dry, powered home tonight. Please, please keep those in the Northeast in your thoughts/prayers/vibes/mojo tonight as they batten down for yet another storm while still in the aftershocks of Sandy. It feels so unfair, and I'm holding hope for my friends up north tonight. 

Hard to know....

It's an historic day here in America.

When I went to bed last night, I noticed that someone on Facebook commented the president was about to give an address. Weird, I thought. What I should've thought was, weird, I should probably pay attention to that. But I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I just went to bed. I tossed and turned for several hours, and at no point did I think, let's check Facebook. Let's read CNN. Let's turn on the TV. I finally fell asleep after 11.

When my alarm went off at 5, I had a text from Mike saying simply, "Osama is dead."

For real?

That's when I hit Facebook, CNN, and the TV.

I don't know how to feel about this.

I'm glad we made this big gain in the war on terrorism. I do not mourn his passing. I'm glad for the spike that's about to happen in Obama's popularity, what with next year being an election year. I feel compassion for the families of the 9/11 victims who report having closure and feeling like justice has been done.

But at the same time...I cannot celebrate his death. I don't know that we really had a choice, but I believe killing is wrong, whether done in the name of a perverted distortion of a religious text or in the name of vengeance and justice. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. And furthermore - there's going to be backlash from the remains of al Qaeda. I'm frightened for the safety of Americans, at home and abroad. And I hate that bin Laden died a martyr.

What impresses me is that we could've easily defiled the body, kept it in a freezer somewhere, cremated it...all a final "fuck you" to the man that gave us a huge national black eye and nationwide PTSD. Instead, we were respectful, handling the body in the Islamic tradition. That's classy, America.

I am somewhat hopeful, too. I do hope that when the dust settles, we'll be able to bring our troops home. That the world will be a more peaceful place. That maybe, ultimately, one day, the world will be a little safer.

And one final feeling...I am, as always, proud of and indebted to the men and women who serve to keep us safe. I may not always support the war, but I always support those that fight it.

It's an amazing thing, this. We'll see how it pans out...

Happy National Coming Out Day

Yeah, I'm straight, but I've long sympathized with the LGBTQIA community, even back when it was just called "gay people." I feel for their inability to change who they are, and that society will tell them they're defective for it. Did you know that you can still be fired from your job in 29 states for being lesbian, gay or bisexual and in 38 states for being transgender? This is 2010, people.

Twelve years ago I spent a morning washing off hateful graffiti from our college campus. That day was the only day in my four years there that our daily Chapel service was canceled. Instead, we had an anti-hate rally. Not pro-gay, not anti-anti-gay, just anti all forms of hate. I was so impressed with my little, conservative, religious Midwestern university.

What I was not prepared for? Was the number of people I thought I knew, liked, and respected that declined to participate. They couldn't condone that, they said. Someone very important to me at the time stated he couldn't get behind that, and besides, he was junior faculty, he couldn't be seen at something like this. Two hours later I was standing on the lawn holding hands with my physics professor - even more junior faculty - singing We Shall Overcome. I learned a lot about some people that day that I would have rather not known.

Meanwhile, now, over a decade later, in 20-fucking-10, there's a growing epidemic of suicides among GLBT teens and young adults. There's still so far to go, my friends.

We shall overcome. Someday.

Blog's gone pink

No, no, this isn't some infectious overgrowth from the pink office. And I promise, it's just for the month.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Now, I often complain about how much ridiculous pink-ness shows up in the name of Breast Cancer. I get mad about how damn much funding Breast Cancer Awareness gets (not research, they can have all the money they want, but the pink explosion). 1 in 9 American women gets breast cancer. 1 in 3 women worldwide (1 in 4 in America) will be sexually abused or assaulted.

I mean....talk about needing awareness.

But, given this past year....my aunt's diagnosis with Stage II Breast CA, her subsequent journey through chemo and radiation... my mom's diagnosis with Stage IV Breast CA, and the stroke that I still think resulted from it...

Looks like I'm jumping on the pink bandwagon.

Remembering

So it's been nine years since the towers fell.

I don't know if you've all been following this story about the "pastor" in Florida who'd been planning to burn the Quran to commemorate the anniversary.

I've been thinking all week about what I would say about this today. I continue to be without words to describe the disgust I feel over the very thought of this.

First of all, to do something like this in the name of Christianity offends me as a Christian. This, this is a travesty of misrepresentation. I have to ask myself, what would Jesus say about this? And how can anyone who purports himself as a man who serves a Christian God not ask himself the same question? What happened to turning the other cheek? Loving the sinner? Judging not lest ye be judged? Jesus was a peaceful man. He preached a message of love and tolerance. This? This is a disgrace to everything he stood for.

Unfortunately, misusing the ideals of Christ (or Allah, for that matter) is not a new idea. But still.

And as a human, this offends me even more. Non-fundamentalist Islam is one of the most tolerant religions out there. I don't want to be identified with David Koresh any more than they want to be identified with Al Qieda. To defile the sacred text of a whole culture in response to the actions of a group of misanthropic extremists is equally misguided.

I'm grateful they canceled the burning. I wish, though, it had been the result of thoughtful reflection, tolerance, and a desire for peace instead of at the intervention of an Imam, the President, and the Pope. I hope that we, as a people, can move forward in acceptance and consideration as we remember the past and look towards the future. As we remember the lives lost and lick our national wounds, I hope we can appreciate what is going on around us at this time. The reflection and sacrifice of Ramadan, the celebration and hope of Rosh Hashanna, the renewal and abundance of the Pagan harvest rites. I hope that we can someday share an earnest desire for peace and wholeness.

I doubt, though, that I'll ever see this in my lifetime. I hold certain beliefs about human nature, but continue to cling to a certain optimistic hope. It's all any of us can do to survive...

Working pretty well, actually.

I was thinking this morning on my way in to work (aka the only hospital in the area that provides indigent care, fyi) about Sarah Palin's comment in a recent speech: "Hey America - how's that whole hope-y change-y thing working out for you?"

(And then, of course, Will Ferrell's George W. Bush on SNL saying, "Gosh, Sarah, you're just so darn folksy. I tried to be folksy, but it just came off douchey.")

I'm so glad the HCR bill passed. It isn't sufficient, in its current inception, to really fix the system, but it's a step in the right direction. And we need to take some serious steps. The system, as it stands, cannot sustain much longer. It is going to fall apart, soon, and dramatically. Medicare and Medicaid are imploding (Medicare reimbursement was supposed to be cut this month by more than a quarter, independent of any such reform measures, because old and disabled people are just so gosh darn expensive! Yeah, that's the solution. Cut their access to care even more...). And folks, don't think you aren't already paying for the uninsured and the illegal immigrants - we got ourselves in this mess because everyone who IS insured is paying more because the uninsured are sucking down resources. And they're using expensive ER visits instead of primary care offices, long medical and psychiatric hospital stays that could have been avoided with early intervention. People are sucking the system dry - not because they refuse to work and want to be taken care of. The irony is, THOSE people have coverage. Instead, the vast majority are doing so because they have no other choice. They need care, they are sick. As a kind and ethical people, we cannot just throw our hands up and say, oh, sorry, you're just not important enough to society. Which - news flash - in a pure, orthodox, strictly Capitalist model? That's exactly what would happen.

Remember this?

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I'm so proud to be an American today. And so ashamed of those in my country who would rail against what ultimately amount to basic human rights, who stoop to violence and slinging harsh and hateful epithets, who would deny and exploit the vulnerable in our society. I invite them to spend a day in my ward, or better yet, the state psych hospital. I invite them to sit with any one of our social workers, struggling to find placement, housing, affordable medication, or even just follow up for some of the people that are in the most dire need of good care. I invite them to spend an hour at the homeless shelter on Rosemary Street, or at the Spanish-speaking mental health clinic down the road. I urge them to spend a morning in our Geropsychiatry clinic for a full-on view of how the current Medicare system works. And if they possess a soul, if they retain even a glimmer of compassion and humanity, I challenge them not to want to change the system.

And if that makes me a Socialist...well, so be it.

Seems appropriate for a Sunday....

Listen. This post got a little too long and wound up being all about religion and faith and the philosophy therein. This is my blog, my belief system, and my external processing. Please, if you feel the need to leave some comment about how I'm going to hell or have missed the point, just....leave. Now. Quietly.

Thanks, The Management
_______________________________________________

It's been kind of a rough day for me today. I slept poorly, which isn't new. I couldn't quite get my shit together at any point today. In truth, this is a smaller representation of a larger truth for me.

It's been kind of rough lately, period.

And there are a million and twelve reasons why that is, but I struggle daily nonetheless with things I never thought would become this important. Or maybe still aren't important but feel like they should be.

One of our patients came into the ER a couple of years ago, high on who knows what (he said he'd been smoking phone books. Nobody believed that as the literal truth, but also, none of us knew of any common substance of abuse that got referred to as "phone book"), requesting detox from ghosts.

That is primarily how I feel today. I feel toxic, I was realizing, as I drove home from meeting Matt for lunch. Matt himself I do not find especially toxic (nor, say, breakfast, which was yummy today). But Matt and I get into these deep, personal debates about such trivial things and the purpose of life and the true place of scripture in religion, not to mention the place of religion in faith. I love having these conversations with Matt because we can; we're both well versed in many aspects of what we speak. We're respectful and polite but engaged and can disagree easily. And it's rarely true "disagreement" as much as exploration. Having come from a strong Orthodox Christian background, a militantly Lutheran undergrad, and a very Jesuit medical school - not to mention that I have an undergraduate degree in a theology-heavy view of Humanities. It was somewhat more polytheistic in its spectrum than his MDiv, but, see above, re: militant Lutherans. We both talked, and we both listened, and had useful discussion of things like the overlap between the Christian faith and Wicca, Judaism, Islam, etc. Given all of the name-calling and hell-sending and hypocrisy and righteous indignation and fear (above all, fear) in that my view of "religion" is so steeped...given all of that, it was absolutely fabulous today to sit at an outside cafe, surrounded by beatniks and people from all strata, basking in the newly arrived spring breeze, eating tasty organic hippie food, with a good friend who can have these discussions with me in a non-judgmental, non-secular, non-threatening way...it helps.

It also brings up a great deal of pain, which I realized about halfway through our lengthy discussion that in large part what I was doing was (if you'll pardon my digression into psychoanalytic babble) discharging a lot of my intolerable affect and painful energy around this stuff, giving it to him to contain, hold, detoxify, metabolize. In lay terms, one might use a word like "dumping." In realizing this, I also realized just how much pain, confusion, disappointment, conflict there is in this for me. I'd not been aware of the extent of this before today.

The interesting thing, to me, I was thinking on my way home, is that God is never the pain, confusion, disappointment, conflict. God and I are on solid terms. It's people that I can't seem to grasp.

Apparently my faith, which is a different entity than my religious affiliations, is something a bit more mystical than I'd realized until the past few months or so. I believe in the existence of God because I know God. I just do. I see God in the faces of my patients, the laughter of children, the brilliance of spring daffodils, the sweet and complete affective honesty of my dog. I see God in my life, and my family, and believe firmly that I was created in the image of God. Do I believe in the dual nature of Jesus and that He was the son of God? Of course I do. I think we're all children of God, and Jesus of Nazareth had a particular path, and investment of divine energy to understand and reclaim the bond to these creatures that had done exactly what God wanted them to do - develop autonomy. Truthfully? I believe Jesus saved us. All of us - not just the Christians. And in a way, I believe Jesus saved God. Jesus struggled, he was tempted and tortured, and did not always make what contemporary humans thought to be the right choice, but made the "mistakes" he did because they were so important to understanding humanity. This, I think, was his deity. He was the man he was to help us understand God, who through the passing of the Old Testament times had become less vengeful, more loving. Jesus not only told us what he saw as the desires and ideals of God, but showed them to us as well.

I bet Jesus was tired.

I align myself with the Greek Orthodox church, for reasons of culture more than reasons of doctrine, but that doesn't mean I ignore the dogmatic. But when it comes down to the truth of my relationship with God, I draw from countless traditions that are full of good ideas. Various inceptions of Christianity. Wicca. Islam. Buddhism. Hindu. Kabbalah. I've read the Q'uran, the Mahabharta, and the words of the Buddha. I know a lot about voudou and Santeria and Wicca. I get what we're all trying to do here - understand that which is incomprehensible. We don't all do it in as different ways as we might think, truly. I have my own interpretation of scriptures that at times may seem incompatible with things I endorse, but they aren't. Because it all makes sense in how I understand and relate to God.


But - and this is what struck me later, and is ostensibly why this rant has gone on so long - where we get ourselves into trouble is when we insist we've got it "right." This is why wars are fought over belief systems. I'm right, you aren't, and unless you see that you aren't, I'm going to have to annihilate you because I can't tolerate your dissent. And that can manifest itself in a lot of ways - torture, imprisonment, whatever means it takes to break your spirit; actual death; or, simply dismissing you as not being one of the chosen. I, having the one and only very correct answer to this, will spend my life in servitude to something greater (usually very apparent, loud, and obvious servitude, lest you should miss it) and be rewarded with the privilege of Heaven, because I am better and you are not. Poor you, condemned to fire, brimstone, and endless congressional filibusters.

You'll notice that the people who truly live their Christian (or whatever applies) faith rarely feel the need to rub your nose in it. They'll engage you about it if need be (or want be). They'll model it if you watch them closely. But they won't announce it every thirty seconds and smack you in the head with their well-worn religious tome. They will not condemn, they will not disdain. They will love, they will try to understand, they will do their best to accept.

Humanity....we all want to be special, chosen, elite. Christians...Muslims.....hell, have you met a Jungian lately? It's part of our inherent narcissism - the key to which is always poorly structured self identity and the inability of the ego (self) to defend itself from rejection, because it feels so inherently fragile that at any conflict, even relatively minor, it will be destroyed. The Buddha, though, who was self-identified as a philosopher and not a prophet, the Buddha makes all sorts of observations about self and non-self. About how we are nothing.

I've started to come around to this idea. Because it isn't as nihilistic as one might think. My interpretation of this is, we are nothing, precisely because we are everything. There is not one of us on this earth - future, past, and present - that is not connected. As parts, we are amazing, but the sum of those parts is something so big and all encompassing and important that it is simply unfathomable. It's like, consider the fibers of flax or cotton, cleaned and combed and laid just so...spun into a thread with a tensile strength well beyond that of an individual fiber. The thread is dyed a vibrant color, and delicately, painstakingly woven into its place. When you look at the great and impressive tapestry, the individual thread may not be noticeable, but it is of tantamount importance to the design, not to mention the structure - if you pull on that one scarlet thread, the whole tapestry will be altered and may well unravel.

I am special precisely because there is nothing special about me. This is the conclusion to which I've come today. There are many things about me which are good, many less good, many that are defining and I am as unique a creature as one could imagine. But I'm part of some greater whole, and that is truly the amazing thing about me. Life, humanity, the Holy Spirit, a Higher Power...the echoes are endless. I am but a scarlet thread.

And I, too, am tired. But also feeling better about getting that down. I might read it tomorrow and disagree with it some, but you know, if that happens, it is what it is.

This is the crap that goes on in my head all the time, ps. All. The. Damn. Time. This is part of my perpetual exhaustion...

You can't fix stupid

So I'm in Starbucks yesterday.

And there's this guy.

Who, incidentally, appears to be the LOUDEST PERSON ON EARTH.

And he's talking to the barista, who is a fairly recent immigrant, but works at Starbucks, so has good health care (they have GREAT benefits). And the LPOE is going on and on about what crap it is that the government wants to take ALL OF OUR HARD EARNED MONEY and give it to people who refuse to work. I roll my eyes a little...and he of course keeps going. Damn those Democrats. All they want to do is take money from working people and give people health care. He's totally against this, as someone who works. And, you know, health care is just fine.

I so wished I'd brought my iPod and could turn it up right then.

Listen, people. Health care is fine for many. Health care is NOT fine for the people that ACTUALLY need it. Medicare and Medicaid are disastrous. Private third-party payers are exploitative. Nobody gives a damn about the people that can't afford their medications or can't get the care they need because they're not people who matter anyway - you know, like old people, poor people, sick people, actual disabled people, etc.

And let me tell you, people don't even want to talk about the mentally ill.

Really, some people in this country would be just so much happier if the above demographics would simply go away. But they won't. These are the people that need support. These are the people that suck the money out of our system, yes - because we set it up in such a wasteful way, not because they themselves set out to do so. These are the people that no one wants to consider until it's a member of their own families - or worse, they themselves - who become part of that demographic. Then, then they're outraged. And suddenly find themselves shouting at the bottom of a deep, dark well.

And then they get why those of us in the trenches are constantly looking worn down, haggard, and jaded.

Health care reform isn't an option. The system must change, it will change, and we'd damn well better step it up to figure out how to change it into something that works before it implodes.

Over the past year or two, I've been completely bewildered by the "controversy" about health care reform. Really? Is this a question? What the hell is wrong with Capitol Hill?

And then, today, I read this.

And became a little more outraged, and a little more jaded...

Fat chicks rule.

So, I don't know who's heard about this, but Kevin Smith - director of such fabulous films as Dogma (my all-time favorite movie), was told by Southwest Airlines that he was too fat to fly on their plane and removed from a flight last month.

And, he's pissed.

I, frankly? I'm with him. I'll be completely honest. I really hate flying Southwest. I've seen them be not nice to several people, fat or otherwise. They've been shitty to me a couple of times. They once told me I was too fat to sit in the exit row, but never that I couldn't be on the plane.

I did have a different issue with them this weekend, when they refused to let my dad on the plane with his oxygen concentrator. I had to go back to the airport and sign some form (as an MD, not as his kid. I was in very doctor-y sweatpants), despite the fact that they let him fly with it many times before - most notably, on the flight down.

Morons.

And, beyond that, there was another fat girl on the plane. She tells her story on Kevin's podcast here. It's heartbreaking.

One of the things he said really stood out to me. He says, "You spend so much time, when you're fat, just trying to be out of everybody's way."

God, that's just so true.

Mr. Smith has called for a boycott of SWA, which, I've already been flying United lately. They've been just as cheap if not cheaper lately, and have been so much more pleasant. And I really like having an assigned seat.

Come on, chubby folks. Let's stop letting people be hostile and hateful and hit 'em where it hurts.

Sex on CNN

So, I'm trolling for something interesting to post tonight (with my exhausted mush-for-brains dribbling out my ear), and two linked articles on CNN.com caught my eye.

Let me preface this by saying, I debated for several minutes whether or not it was appropriate to post this. Because, you know, "old" people read my blog. And then I came to the conclusion that, look, if it's safe for work, it's safe for people over the age of 60.

Isn't it funny how we spend so much time as parents (or parental-y figures) trying to protect our kids from smut, and then eventually, as kids we spend so much time trying - in a very similar fashion, honestly - to protect our parents from smut.

I'm also reminded of this story from when I was home in July. Really, people. I was 30 years old. And, um, I can spell.

Anyhow. So the article that originally caught my eye was this one. Which did so because, back during my year working in yarn sales and sex therapy, the existence of the G-spot was a HUGELY contested issue in the Sex Clinic. Like, I'm not sure I can think of an issue we collectively argued about more. I'm in the "of course it exists" camp, my supervisor was in the "of course it doesn't exist" camp. I think this study CNN references is poorly constructed and the results are useless. But it continues to amaze me that we as clinicians and as women argue so hotly the very existence of this. Like unicorns. Or Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Sheesh.

But then, that article was linked to this one. Which just upset me. Because I'm perpetually amazed at how often my adolescent patients, or their friends, or whomever, have "pregnancy scares" these days. Or get knocked up. I brought this up to one of my patients one day, after reading that they were teaching abstinence-only sex ed in our public schools, and she was like, "No, not really. Mostly what we talk about in Health class is what to do with your baby while you're in school." Which kind of made me want to bang my head on my desk for a while.

Not to mention, uh, pregnancy cures itself. AIDS is forever.

It's just sex, people. Humankind will not shatter if we discuss anatomy and sexual health. Your children will not burst into flames if you teach them how to use a condom.

(But I was brought by a stork. And I refuse to believe otherwise, so don't even argue.)

Silence, part two (take two)

So, here's the thing.

There's this "silent protest" going on at work. Because...um........okay, I'm not entirely sure what we're supposed to be protesting. The idea, I guess, is that there are things about our residency that aren't perfect. And if we continue to recruit people to the program, then nothing will ever get fixed. So, instead, a couple of my cohorts are promoting that we should abstain from all contact with the prospectives that are filing through in small, black-suited droves three times a week.

I......I can't even enumerate all the things wrong with this plan.

Let's start with, they're tweaking things at our program all the time. Two, our program? Pretty much rocks. We work hard, harder than most psych programs, but we get solid training as a result. They listen to us, they support us, we work with good people and we get a very broad range of experiences. Three, if none of us were to do recruiting, then we would end up with poor quality residents in the next class. 3.5, if you don't like the kind of people in the residency, you're shooting yourself in the foot by not having a say in who comes in next year. Four, this leaves a significant burden on those of us who now have to pick up the slack from those who aren't participating. Which means, for example, I'm interviewing every week and attending between two and four recruitment events per week. Five, the people who are "protesting?" Are the ones who don't want to get involved to effect change, and in fact are resisting the proposed changes the hardest. Six? Don't think the administration isn't well aware of who's in the pit up to their elbows and who is standing on the sidelines whining.

To name a few.

But beyond that, the principle of this whole thing irritates me. I mean...the thing about a silent protest is, no one can hear you. And don't misunderstand - I'm all for civil disobedience. This country wouldn't be where it is right now if it weren't for a tired black woman on a bus. But to do nothing and expect that to cause things to change? Um, go back to elementary physics, my friends, and talk to a man named Newton....

I'm the first one to point out that you cannot apply logic to an irrational situation, which this clearly is, but come on, people!!! There is absolutely no logic in this!

And, we do this. We, as humans, we want people to "just know." We don't want to have to tell our husband what we want for Christmas; instead, we buy into this notion that if we were important enough to him, he would know us well enough to get the perfect gift. But here's the kicker - no matter how important someone is to you, no matter how well you know them, you still can't induce telepathy. And let me tell ya...the sooner we let go of this notion, the better.

No one can read your mind, so you have to tell people what's in it.

The thing that is really pissing me off, here, is the reluctance of those complaining to do anything active to fix the problem. And I get it, I do. It's easy to whine, to be unhappy, but it's scary to try the unknown, even if it might be better. But it's irritating as shit to the people around you, especially when they're trying to help and you just keep pushing back.

Here's the thing, folks - there's a lot of truth to the adage about how if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And in refusing to become part of the solution, in my humble little opinion, you forfeit your right to whine about what's not working. You can either complain, or do nothing, but you can't do both.

So I'm irritated about this situation, obviously. But I've decided that being pissed off about it is also not part of the solution. I'm not entirely sure what *is,* yet, but I'm working on it.

Mufasa and Darth Vader agree...

Since it is, of course, National Suicide Prevention month, I thought I'd share this great new PSA by James Earl Jones, supporting Hopeline, as well as two other organizations I love, PostSecret and To Write Love On Her Arms.



We've spent the past week on the unit talking in the groups I run about secrets, and the way secrets will fester and become shameful and toxic when, had you just let the information see the light of day in the first place, it would've been just fine. Secrets become like monsters in the closet; when you turn on the light, you realize it's only the vacuum cleaner. Privacy is one thing; but secrets destroy.

Start talking, people. Everyone thinks they're the only one, but they're not. If we talked openly about things like depression, self-injury, sexual abuse and assault, and suicide, if we splayed them out to the light of day, we'd probably end up with a lot less to talk about in the long run.