Category Archives: Uncategorized

One of the reasons we no longer run down our prey and gather berries and have short, disease-ridden lifetimes – for the most part – is the development of farming and supporting industry, and that has resulted in pollution which damages the well-being of ourselves and the other animals on this planet. But here’s an interesting detail, from NewScientist (6 May 2017):

Mark Miller at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and his team got volunteers to breathe air filled with harmless gold nanoparticles. Within 15 minutes the gold began to show up in the volunteers’ blood – and could still be found in blood and urine three months later.

The researchers then repeated the experiment on people who were due to undergo surgery. They found that nanoparticles accumulated in the fatty plaques inside arteries that can cause heart attacks and strokes (ACS Nano, doi.org/b6gm).

Perhaps nanoparticles found in pollutants contribute to the inflammation often thought to be vital to the growth of plaques in arteries. Still, this is not to condemn the industry, just the pollution. That can be cleaned up if we have the political will to make it happen.

Yep, it’s time to dip into the old mailbag again. This time I’m not so much het up by the use and misuse of, in this case, the aphorisms of our past, so much as inspired to a more sober simile. But first, one of the hoary old aphorisms from the mildly offending mail:

1) In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm,  and three or more is a congress!
— John Adams

In passing I note the effort to whip up some anti-government sentiment. But perhaps this one is more apropos to what I have in mind:

4) I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle!
–Winston Churchill

The implication being that taxes are bad. But, as long time readers know, the counter-example is Kansas, where their storied tax-cut has lead to a shambles in the State budget, their Laffer Curve more of a Laffer Cliff.

Source: Warbird Daily/Ty Brown

Remains of an engine from a B-17 crash site.

But his led me to consider, in light of these thoughts, contributing my own poor simile.

A nation is like an aeroplane; the failure to properly fund and manage any part of it is like ripping a wing off. We all know what happens after that.

Mr. Churchill made many mistakes in his life, one of which was the Gallipoli Campaign, so his words should be subject to examination – not beatification. Government has its part to play, and without properly funding and managing it, the nation can spin out of control, environment destroyed, unethical unbound by the judiciary, and a prudent use of resources unknown. None of these are hypotheticals, but are grounded in the realities our forefathers knew so well – generally, because they had their faces ground into each one. Our task is to realize that it’s all about the bell curve, discovering the most propitious point on the taxation curve, where greater than or less than results in poorer results for society at large, as I wrote about here. Simply being anti-taxation, or anti-government, is childish.

And, having been there, I can say that.

So Roger Ailes, conservative, founder of Fox News, and bad newsman, has died. I see the hyperbole has begun, as CNN notes with the straightest of faces:

Sean Hannity, a prime time host and longtime face of the network, said on Twitter: “Today America lost one of its great patriotic warriors.”

No, Sean. That’s the sort of thing you say when General Eisenhower died. A professional propagandist isn’t a patriot. He’s just a bad newsman.

defease:

Defeasance (or defeazance) (French: défaire, to undo), in law, an instrument which defeats the force or operation of some other deed or estate; as distinguished from condition, that which in the same deed is called a condition is a defeasance in another deed.

Noted in “Defend Norms Don’t Violate Them“, Paul Rosenzweig, Lawfare:

Again, I shudder at the prospect of presidential subordinates who learn from this behavior that it is OK to unilaterally defease the President of his prerogatives if it is for a good cause.

In the context of the definition, Paul’s usage makes me uneasy.

Just amazing what some critters will do.

It occurred to me whilst showering that Speaker Paul Ryan’s beloved high risk insurance pools is actually fairly un-Christian. How so? Perhaps the most influential and well-known teaching from the Bible, and certainly my favorite, is

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

aka The Golden Rule, and known in other forms as well.

So how does this work? This is clearly a poetical statement of insurance, the pooling of risk by everyone in the community.

Everyone.

Not grouping the poor into their own pool because they might cost more. Not segregating the high risks from everyone else.

I could make a number of moral arguments, but, really, once you give some thought the Golden Rule, doesn’t it just make it clear that high risk pools are, well, against the Christian God? Or whoever it was that wrote that chunk of the Bible?

Just a day or two ago I wondered if Deputy AG Rosenstein decided to sacrifice Comey – and his own honor – for a later roll of the dice. I think we’ve just seen the roll, as CNN reports:

David Kris on Lawfare provides a portrait:

I have known Mueller for a long time–he ran the Criminal Division when I joined the Justice Department in 1992 as a brand new lawyer, and years later when I ran the National Security Division at DOJ, I spent many mornings with him when he was FBI Director reviewing the overnight threat intelligence at the FBI’s SIOC. Mueller is experienced, knowledgeable, capable. He is utterly incorruptible. He cannot be intimidated. At this stage in his career, he has nothing to prove, no reputation to burnish, no axe to grind. He is ramrod straight in his integrity, and the DOJ press release notes that he has resigned from his law firm, Wilmer Hale, which represents Jared Kushner and perhaps others in or close to the Trump family, “to avoid any conflicts of interest.”

Sounds like the right man for the job. How long will it take for him to get up to speed? Ann Althouse approves.

Paul Rosenzweig on Lawfare is having anxiety over the rules & ethics of government:

The President’s “decision” to release classified information to the Russians is tragically wrong.  The apparent ease with which members of the intelligence community rush to themselves leak classified information to the press is criminal — there are no two ways about it.  The President’s disclosure to the Russians of classified information (and the subsequent efforts to mitigate the effects of the disclosure) are themselves classified information — almost certainly at the same level of sensitivity as the underlying classified information.  Conservatives, like me, who saw in Edward Snowden a felon cannot now excuse identical conduct simply because the intended end of the disclosure is more condign.  I shudder at the idea that a whole generation of intelligence professionals is now being trained in the norm that “it is OK to leak to the press if the President really sucks.”  That isn’t the rule of law and it isn’t a system we should encourage.  We can (and should) hold the President to account for his exceedingly poor judgment, but we should not brush aside the significant transgression of those who brought us the information.

But I think Paul may be soft-pedaling the situation a trifle. After all, we’re not talking about a President that sucks – we’re talking about a President admitting, if unconscious of the fact, to impeachable offenses, to utterly frivolous behavior in the presence of what we politely call adversaries (no doubt they said much worse of us during the Obama years).

Ethics are a notoriously slippery subject, despite the efforts of many to claim they’re straightforward; indeed, some philosophers spend a great deal of time coming up with ethical dilemmas, and then psychologists expose those dilemmas to test subjects to see how people react when up against a hard case.

As I’m sure many have done before me, it’s relatively straightforward to construct a dilemma in this case – suppose some “classified information” clearly shows the President is committing treason, to the destruction of the country. What is the duty of the intelligence professional who comes across this information and recognizes it for what it is?

To keep it secret?

Or to expose it, at least to Congress, if not others?

If Paul’s answer is the former, with perhaps a caveat that some other part of the system will cover for it, I must answer that I think the government ethics system he’s employing is too primitive to be successful – keeping secret, destructive information secret is a recipe for disaster. Let me suggest this: an ethics system which can be employed against itself to the destruction of the using organization is a flawed system. Furthermore, it suggests that a new ethics system, no doubt based on the former to some extent, is necessary.

I don’t have enough hubris in ten lifetimes to pretend to construct such an ethical system, but I might suggest that this is a very hard problem, much in the tradition of Lawfare, and perhaps the answer is “Yes, the information can be released by the intelligence professional – but if such a release is not subsequently approved by some appropriate delegation of Congress, then the intelligence professional is in legitimate legal peril.”

It sounds enormously unfair, but it’s just a thought in any case.

I generally don’t comment on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episodes, but tonight we finished watching their coverage of The Day The Earth Froze, and I must say it was amazing – the movie was amazingly awful, amazingly earnest, and their coverage amazingly witty. If you get the chance, this episode might be worth your time.

The GOP guiding principle of team politics has been a subject of mine before, but riding hobby horses, as I tend to do, serves an important purpose in that it permits better evaluation as to whether the horse in question is really worthy of eventual enshrinement in the Horse Hall of Fame.

Or, for those who appreciate more direct prose, continual investigation of a hypothesis is integral to discovering its congruence with reality.

So as we sit in continual wonder at the incompetence erupting from the White House and the House of Representatives (an AHCA that could not be passed, and then was passed in such mutilated form as to cause cries of anguish from sober observers – and celebration from GOP leaders), let’s not forget Senator McConnell, who, according to NBC News, is still confident in the President:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wishes there was “less drama” coming out of the White House following reports that President Donald Trump revealed classified information during a meeting with Russian officials last week.

In response to questions, McConnell said that he has not lost confidence in the president and that he still trusts him with classified information.

“I think it would be helpful to have less drama emanating from the white house,” McConnell told reporters, not directly responding to the latest controversy flowing out of the executive branch.

This more or less covers the putative leadership of the Party. Remember, McConnell is the same Senator who could not even be persuaded to give a hearing to Judge Garland for his nomination to SCOTUS – against all rhyme, reason, or Senate duty.

For the objective audience, the independents who are paying attention, this really seems like insanity. An obsessive loyalty to the leader of the Party, despite his many missteps and a few Impeachable Offenses. I shan’t detail these here as I’ve mentioned them elsewhere, and the media certainly has more details than I care to provide in a blog.

This is the result of team politics, as I’ve discussed several times before (hobby, meet horse). But at this point we can ask – how many independents are truly attracted to a Party of Insanity? Certainly not I – and I doubt most others are attracted at the present.

Better yet, how many moderate Republicans will continue to stick around as the vortex of madness swirls about them? Last year we saw numerous announcements of Republicans leaving the Party – no doubt, this continues to this day as the madness persists.

So on to the central point to this post – does Karma apply to political parties?

Or, to draw a parallel to Lord of the Rings for fans, remember how Frodo escapes the clutches of the Orcs in Mordor when held captive? It wasn’t the brave, madcap assault of Samwise. No, it was the various orcs killing each other over their differences and greed. Sam just showed up in time to pick up the prize.

J.R.R. was making the point that evil often eats itself because of its very nature. Is that going to be the result of the evil of team politics? A fragmented, ripped up party, perhaps still stumbling about, whining about traitors and apostates (quite literally, given the evangelical element), never realizing that one of its central pillars of organization … is the cause of its doom?

And will the Democrats and other parties see that lesson and do better?

Noted while taking a walk:

It occurs to me today that, if we were smart, we’d have President Obama teach a masters class in being the President. Not just to the Democrats, but to the Republicans as well. We’re not talking policy, but all the operational stuff, like “What is the Department of Energy” material, and just how prepared you’d better be on day 1.

Because right now I don’t see any potential candidates in four years who inspires real confidence. Either side.

Ever wonder about the music of the Pharaohs? Amira Sayed Ahmed reports on Ahfad el-Fara’na in AL Monitor:

Ahfad el-Fara’na (Grandchildren of the Pharaohs) was founded in 2007 to revive, protect and spread the ancient Egyptian musical heritage. The unprecedented initiative, which is part of the National Project for the Revival of Ancient Egyptian Music, was launched by professor Khairy el-Malt, who has been interested in ancient Egyptian music since the 1990s. …

The band was formed after extensive academic research of the instruments and other aspects of the music of pharaonic times. “This project has two aspects: academic and cultural,” Malt added. “On the academic front, we thoroughly studied all the pharaonic instruments discovered worldwide. We began with eight instruments and we have reproduced nearly 21 instruments. We are preparing for more.”

YouTube doesn’t seem to have any impressive recordings, but it does have several audience recordings. Here’s one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGyR6i-K9lY

Courtesy Melissa Breyer on Treehugger.com comes this:

Melissa summarizes:

With 700 species of these marvelous crabs across the planet, California is lucky to call a dozen or so their own. Dwelling in tide pools and kelp forests, the crabs have one tragic flaw. They’re delicious. But on the lucky flip side, they’ve learned the careful art of camouflage by way of attaching bits of finery to specialized Velcro-like hooks on their bodies.

Pusillanimity:

the quality or state of being pusillanimous :  cowardliness [Merriam-Webster]

Noted in “Trump Just Incriminated Himself,” Andrew Sullivan, New York:

All of this is simply unacceptable. An attempt to obstruct justice is an impeachable offense. And Trump has just openly admitted to such a thing. When, one wonders, will the patriots in the Republican Party stand up and confront this? If Clinton had done such a thing, the House would be drawing up articles of impeachment right now. We saw their pusillanimity last spring as this malign buffoon manhandled his way to the nomination. It has not abated.

How you’ll feel after watching this.

Landing in the category of dulldom is The Rift (1990), a dreadful movie about an attempted rescue of a submarine which has suffered some sort of problem. The sister sub is sent down, manned by a rabble of individualists with no real identifying marks, commanded by a US Navy Captain who appears to be a hand puppet. During the descent they run into a monster or two, not to mention the side of an iceberg; having made their way through an incomprehensible tunnel in search of a wandering “black box,” they discover an underground cavern – or, if you like, a lake with a ceiling.

Now the bloodbath begins as evil mutants (are there any other kind?) start picking off the landing party, whoever they are, not to mention a few more crew members within the ship as the biologist fails basic isolation procedures. And, just to make things fun, there’s a traitor!

Undeveloped characters, bad story, awful special effects, and empty of compelling thematic material, this will leave you sick to your stomach if you dare to watch it, just because you’ve wasted two hours of your precious life.

I pity those who made it, who no doubt put in a lot more of their time.

The latest major computer virus crisis, the WannaCry attack, is just making me tired. I realized this while I was driving home from work today, listening to NPR report on the latest developments.

I caught myself thinking that the Internet might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Update your computer. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Ever get the feeling there’s a basic flaw in how we do everything on the Internet? Surely, I was just a little tired, a little annoyed with some of my coworkers.

But now I’m wondering how many people are being driven away from the Internet by these incidents. Folks who’ve overcome the addictive element of the Internet and have calmly evaluated the aggravations of the Internet vs what good it can bring.

And decide to walk away.

There are always places where people can telecommunicate about making their lives simpler. Getting rid of stuff, not watching so much TV, trying to figure out what’s important.

And when the Internet falls into that bin … another potential customer going offline. No more trolls, no more viruses. Not that the real world lacks in aggravation, but perhaps it’s not so intense. Depending on where you live.

There is a certain allure to the idea, though.

Maybe I am just tired, though. After all, I started in the early 1980s. But I can certainly see other folks frowning over these sorts of things and finally deciding not to return. At least, until they run into that annoying fellow parishioner…

Abdelrahman Youssef explores the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and the straits of one member, Sheikh Fadl al-Mawla, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, in AL Monitor. The last paragraph caught my eye:

Although it remains to be seen if the regime will weigh in publicly on the execution, there are Brotherhood activists who believe the regime could threaten to implement the ruling at any time, sending a political message to the group whenever it might consider supporting any presidential candidate running against Sisi.

They do not play nicely in Egypt. Some friends of ours took a tour of Egypt and said they found it too frightening to want to return.

We’ve seen this before, but it’s still a bit amazing.

Stomp it, kid, stomp it.

Benjamin Wittes on Lawfare is profoundly unhappy with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s letter concerning former FBI Director James Comey:

I was profoundly wrong about Rosenstein.

Rosenstein’s memo in support of Comey’s firing is a shocking document. The more I think about it, the worse it gets. I have tried six ways from Sunday to put an honorable construction on it. But in the end, I just cannot find one. The memo is a press release to justify an unsavory use of presidential power. It is also a profoundly unfair document. And it’s gutless too. Because at the end of the day, the memo greases the wheels for Comey’s removal without ever explicitly urging it—thus allowing its author to claim that he did something less than recommend the firing, while in fact providing the fig leaf for it.

In other words, Rosenstein’s actual role was even less honorable than the one he reportedly objected to the White House’s tagging him with. If the original story that Rosenstein’s recommendation drove the train had been true, after all, that at least would involve his giving his independent judgment. But the truth that Trump told is far worse than the lie Rosenstein insisted the White House correct. Rosenstein was tasked to provide a pretext, and he did just that.

Ben has definite opinions on how those involved in national security should act, their behavioral norms, and why. I think he should be a resource to the Administration, because it’s clear that the President and most of his appointees are not well-versed in how Government differs from the private sector, and how those differences require different ethical sets (and thus the existence of an Office of Ethics, which is apparently ignored).

That said, Ben’s bewilderment (if you read between the lines) over the Deputy AG’s behavior suggests Rosenstein may have chosen to sacrifice his knight (Comey) and stay in the game in order to possibly prevent greater damage at a later time. If he knew Comey was already finished, and that Trump could not be dissuaded, he may have laid down his honor at this time in order to pick it back up at a more effectual moment – perhaps to leak important information.

Who knows – maybe Deputy AG Rosenstein will have the honor of actually placing handcuffs on Trump and his associates. Yeah, it’s a fantasy. Gotta have them from time to time.

Maybe I should just drink this beer and go home.

The Sniper (1952) is an odd near-success of a movie. The problem is not in the performances making up the tale, as the actors are all competent or even more than competent in their parts, in that relaxed fulfilling of roles that many 1950s movies achieved so effortlessly. The technical aspects are also all very good, from staging to cinematography. The characters, although unsuccessful in conveying the feeling that they don’t disappear when the movie stops, do have lives with details, tics, and various motivations, all of which contributes to the feeling of reality necessary to this movie.

The story is mostly good, but the lead character may not be entirely believable to today’s viewer. The eponymous character, Eddie Miller, is torn between his ache to be a normal man, with a wife and a future, and his suspicion, even hatred for women, particularly those of the brunette variety. Add in a definite problem with impulse control, and it all ends in periodic bouts of violence against the women who drive him to anger. He already has a history of violence when we see his first killing, his prowess with a sniper rifle giving us the title of the movie. But he doesn’t take joy in the act, and injures himself in an attempt to stop himself; later, he writes a note for the police to find, begging them to stop him, and this is where I start having problems with the character. Perhaps the criminally insane really do these things, but I find that a little hard to believe. However, I appreciated the nuanced lead character.

But the movie’s greatest failing may be in that it is explicit in its purpose, which is to alert contemporary society to the number of sexually driven criminals embedded in society. This is accomplished through a short, to the point introduction to the movie, and it drains the movie of some of the tension it might otherwise have had, which is unfortunate, despite the good intention.

But contrariwise, it has a very good unstated theme, made apparent in a monologue during the metaphorical crucifixion of the police department. It is to recognize that crime is not isolated incidents, but are often a sequence of lesser crimes leading to greater crimes. An advocacy that “sex crimes” (my Arts Editor suggested “gender crimes” as more accurate) result in immediate removal to a psychological institute for immediate treatment and release only on cure is rejected by the assembled “pillars of the community” because it would result in higher taxes, and By God We Can’t Have That. More abstractly, penny-wise, pound-foolish; or the results of greed are unpredictable and vicious.

The echo in today’s society, particularly with the background of the failure of Kansas despite lowering taxes, is particularly surprising, interesting, and believable.

In the climactic ending, there’s an appreciated lack of frenzied gunfire, and, indeed, a return to the lead’s tortured mental state (I hesitate to call it a conscience), leading to an ending of some delicacy. Indeed, this ending may be more effective at attracting the viewer to a more intellectual discussion of the movie’s themes – and perhaps some hoped for actions.

Interoception:

To generate emotions, it is thought that we first need to interpret our body’s internal state – a process called interoception. So if we see a rabid dog, we feel fear only once we recognise an increase in our heart rate or feel our palms get sweaty. [“Feeling your heartbeat helps read others’ minds,” Helen Thomson, NewScientist (6 May 2017)]

Predatory publishing refers to academic journals charging high fees and offering little or no vetting of the quality of the research published, as noted by Retraction Watch. In this interview with Derek Pyne of Thompson Rivers University, BC, Canada, Retraction Watch not only reveals that the problem may be more widespread than expected, but that the culture at Thompson Rivers University – and, by extension, many others – is not properly sensitive to the idea of quality research.

RW: In a recent Op-Ed in the Ottawa Citizen, you say the administration at the business school was less than enthusiastic about your results. Can you say more about that?

DP: In September of 2015, on my Annual Professional Activities Report (APAR), I included my initial finding that I had found that I was one of a minority of researchers in my department with no publications in predatory journals.  The dean requested, through the department chair, that I remove this from my APAR and resubmit it.  I did this but I don’t think he appreciated my rewording as his official APAR response letter quoted from my original APAR instead.  When I informed him that I had facts to back up my statement, he responded that he did not care about facts.  Things went downhill from there.  For example, later he said that the school had promotion and tenure committees to evaluate people’s research and that he thought it was arrogant of me to second guess them.

RW: You note that universities may be “complicit” in the problem of predatory journals. Can you say more about that, and what we can do to address it?

DP: I see no other reason why universities would ignore the issue when it reaches the extent of a majority of research faculty in a school publishing in predatory journals.  In the op-ed, I discuss possible reasons for this.

I have a couple of suggestions for addressing the issue.  One problem we have is that no one in our Dean’s office has a research background.  I would hope that administers with research backgrounds would place a greater value on honest research.  Moreover, I think they would be in a better position to recognize suspicious publication records.  Thus, the first action I would recommend would be hiring administrators with research backgrounds.

In addition, I found that the issue only got attention after my op-ed was published.  I am not saying that other universities would be unwilling to address the issue before getting to this point.  However, honest faculty have to be willing to stand up for academic integrity.  If internal actions cannot bring change, it is sometimes necessary to go further.  In my view, the job security of tenure is wasted on people who turn a blind eye to such wrong doing.

Thing is, I don’t really think you need people with research backgrounds serving on these committees; you need people committed to quality results. Researchers, as people who may have wittingly or unwittingly published in suspect journals, are not necessarily the best selections, especially as administrative work may not be a good temperamental fit.

I suspect the real trick is root out complacency, and in so doing formulate and implement a process which can then be used and, more importantly, reviewed and revised^[1]. Now you have something that can be tracked, improved, and thereby improve the university. If all you have is a bunch of administrators who are checking off the informal boxes from decades ago – support the researchers, count up the papers published, did any win awards [hey, is anyone evaluating the awards won?!] – then you’re running a risk.

It’s a changing world out there. Used to be, you published one monumental work and you were immortalized, such as Newton. Maybe you paid for it, maybe not. Then there was the era of a few publications, and most of them had good reps – because publishing was hard to start and to continue.

Now it’s the era of anyone with a web site and – maybe – a connection to a printing press can pose as a scholarly journal^[2]. Maybe 50 years ago Universities knew all the journals and which ones were good, because so few were bad. But that is no longer true, researchers are no longer as involved as they once were, and so having a process written down and periodically improving it should just make good sense. If nothing else, you can point at the committee and ask them why they aren’t following the process.

But part of the process should be Improve the Process.

¹If you’re muttering “Watts Humphrey!” good for you!

²As NewScientist‘s Feedback column periodically notes.

The recent launch of a North Korean test missile into the Sea of Japan put Russia on high alert, according to CNN:

Russia responded to North Korea’s test by putting its far eastern air defenses on high alert, according to a report from the RIA-Novosti news agency.

“We cannot fail to understand that the territory of Russia is not only an object for attack but also a place where a missile may fall. In order to protect ourselves from possible incidents, we will keep our air defense systems in the Far East in a state of increased combat readiness,” Viktor Ozerov, head of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, is quoted as saying. …
The direction of the missile, so close to Russia, was likely an attempt by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to send a message to both Moscow and Beijing, said Carl Schuster, a Hawaii Pacific University professor and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

“It tells Russia, ‘I can touch you too,'” Schuster said.

“It tells China, ‘I don’t care what you think, I’m independent,'” he said.

It seems more than a little odd to be challenging Russia and China at the same time. The Chinese in particular are not known for their tolerance of threats. Is Kim really sending a message to Russia and China, or is this possibly an internal message?

Meanwhile, John Schilling publishes an analysis on 38 North as to whether this is a new type of missile – and how this may reflect North Korean progress in the area of ICBM development:

If North Korea has already conducted a successful test using the engines and other components of the first two stages of the KN-08, it may be closer to an operational ICBM than had been previously estimated. US cities will not be at risk tomorrow, or any time this year. since some tests have to be done with the full-scale system. With only one test of this reduced-scale system Pyongyang is probably some time from even beginning that process. But given this test and the possible North Korean path forward, a closer look will be needed to see how much progress has been made, and what technologies the North may have demonstrated, as will a reassessment of their ICBM program in that new light.