Peg Tittle's Blog, page 53

Why isn’t being a soldier more like being a mother?

Motherhood is unfair to women in a way fatherhood most definitely is not. Not only are there the physical risks (pregnancy and childbirth puts a woman at risk for nausea, fatigue, backaches, headaches, skin rashes, changes in her sense of smell and taste, chemical imbalances, high blood pressure, diabetes, anemia, embolism, changes in vision, stroke, circulatory collapse, cardiopulmonary arrest, convulsions, and coma), there’s the permanent damage to one’s career: if she stays at home, the loss of at least six years’ experience and/or seniority; if she doesn’t, the loss of a significant portion of her income, that required to pay for full-time childcare. (And even if she can swing holding a full-time job and paying for full-time childcare, she probably won’t get promoted because she typically uses all ‘her’ sick days, she’s reluctant to stay past 5:00 or to come in before 9:00 or on weekends, and she occasionally has to leave in the middle of the day, perhaps even in the middle of an important meeting. In short, she can’t be counted on. Such a lack of commitment.)

Either way, it’s necessary, then, for all but a few mothers to be attached to another income (typically a man’s) in order to even be a mother: very few women make enough money to support herself and a child, let alone a full-time childcare provider. A mother must be a kept woman; she must become dependent, financially, on a man. (So of course after a divorce, the man’s standard of living increase 42% and the woman’s standard decreases 73% – he no longer has to support two people, and she is no longer supported, she has to pay her own way, and start from scratch to do so.)

Cut to the man who becomes a soldier. After all, notes Barrington Moore, Jr., “for a young man it’s much more fun to prance around with a gun, or to kill several enemies with a bomb, than it is to sit at a desk day after day, bored by a dead-end job” (“How Ethnic Enmities End”). What if he weren’t paid to do all that prancing around? Would he be so eager to do so then? Why should we pay men to be a soldier when we don’t pay women to make a soldier? Why should we pay men to actualize their hormonal impulse when we don’t pay women to actualize theirs? (I say hormonal because neither desire is very rational: before she ‘signed up’, she really didn’t like kids much – now she wants to be with one 24/7?; before he signed up, he probably didn’t give other people the time of day – now he’s willing to die for them?)

How many men would do it if they lost six years of seniority or work experience (let’s say the experience they gain is considered as nontransferable to, as not useful in, the workplace as the experience gained by women as they raise a child)? If they didn’t get paid for the duration? If they had to depend on their wife to buy them their food and accommodations, their guns and bullets?

What’s Wrong with Selling your Organs?

It seems to be morally acceptable to sell one’s blood, sperm, eggs, and hair. So what’s so unacceptable about selling one’s kidney, for example?

And in case people think the forementioned sales are unacceptable, let me make another analogy: it’s okay to get paid to play football — why is using your body as a linebacker in order to earn an income acceptable, but using it as an organ store is not?

Is it because the person offering a kidney is doing so due to economic duress? So may be the linebacker. In fact, all of us who have to work, to pay for food and shelter, offer our bodies (brains included, sometimes) under economic duress to do so.

Is it that the linebacker is making an offer of service, but the organ seller is making an offer of product? The former is temporary, the latter permanent? But many people, not just athletes, suffer permanent debilitating injury.

Of course, there’s a possibility that people will start taking other people’s physical resources without consent. Theft and slavery are nothing new.

Will it lead to a black market? More often, legalizing something leads to regulation and a diminishment of black market activity.

Actually, we don’t sell blood. Not here in Canada. We give it away. Is it because it’s so necessary? Is that the difference? One can live without football… Is it that organs for sale violates the presumed equal right to life? But then all the pharmaceuticals required to live with an otherwise fatal condition should be free. And food.

Kept Women (and Men)

There is something objectionable about a perfectly-capable-of-working adult being ‘kept’ by another adult. It seems to me the epitome of laziness and immaturity to be supported by someone else, to have someone else pay your way through life.

But, I suppose, if someone wants to pay someone else’s way, if a man wants to ‘keep’ a woman (or vice versa), and that woman (or man) wants to be ‘kept’, I suppose that’s no business of mine.

But then why should I subsidize their keep? What has your wife (or husband) ever done for me? And yet I must subsidize her discounted income tax. Her discounted car insurance. Her discounted health insurance. Her discounted life insurance. Her discounted university tuition. Her discounted club membership. Hell, even her discounted airline ticket.

If he wants to pay her way, fine, but her way should cost the same as mine. Why is her way discounted just because she’s not paying it herself? Why do we roll out the red carpet for kept women?

Even if she is paying her own way, why should she have to pay less than me just because she’s married? Why should spouses get a discounted rate on all those things?

In particular, access to company benefits irks me: you don’t even work here, why should you be covered?

Two married adults should pay the same as two single adults. End of story.

Vested Interests and Cancers

Vested interest.  It sounds so solid.  So respectable.  So endowed with authority.  Like a three-piece suit with a watch on a chain.  But what does ‘vested interest’ mean?  It means ‘self-interest’. A vested interest is nothing less than a self-interest.  And nothing more.

But say ‘vested interest’ and, well, say no more.  Literally.  If I object to a zoning bylaw change that will probably lead to more traffic and tourists because that will destroy the silence and solitude of where I live, well, I’m just expressing my own personal interests.  But if the guy who runs the gas station says the change should be approved because it will be good for business, well, that’s different.  He has a business – he has a vested interest in the zoning bylaws.  So suddenly his opinion, his desires, count more.  It’s magic.  It certainly isn’t rational.

Because it isn’t different.  I want silence and solitude; he wants money.  We’re both expressing what we want for ourselves, what we’re interested in – we’re both expressing self-interest.

“But he has all that money invested in his business!”  Which just means he spent a lot of money expecting a certain future.  So?  I did too.  I bought a house, expecting a certain future.  ‘Invest’ is just a business word for ‘gamble’ – you do X hoping for Y in the future.

But say ‘business’ and the red carpet rolls out.  (Rather like saying ‘religion’ or ‘kids’.)  “I’ve got a business to run!” can legitimize almost anything.  Business is important.  Business gets special treatment.  It gets the right of way.  Quite literally – we are to step aside and let business proceed unimpeded, unchallenged.

I think this is partly because business has this ‘social good’ thing going for it.  Business is good for the economy.  It creates jobs.  It provides us with much needed goods and services.  Yeah right.  Business ‘provides’ jobs the way people ‘provide’ labour.  There’s no charity or social service on either end.  Business people expect to be paid for those goods and services.  They don’t contribute their stuff to society; they sell it.  So business isn’t doing anything for the social good, for society – it’s doing for the self.  Despite attempts to convince us otherwise.

For example, “We’re just following consumer demand.”  But society is not just a conglomerate of consumers, so even if you are just following consumer demand, you’re still not acting for the social good.  Depending on what exactly consumers demand, you could be doing just the opposite.  (And note the use of ‘demand’.  It makes it sound like their behavior is required.  It’s not.  They have a choice.  But ‘demand’ is far more compelling than ‘desire’, implying that resistance, their resistance, is futile, implying that they are without power here, and hence without responsibility.  So even what they do is correctly identified as self-interested, well, they can hardly be blamed.)  And of course consumers ‘demand’ lots of things, but companies provide only those that generate profit for the company – that is, for the owner/s of the company.  (And there’s another one: “Our shareholders demand high returns.”  It’s yet another way of saying ‘Hey don’t blame us, we’re just doing what’s demanded of us, and we’re not doing it for ourselves, we’re doing it for our shareholders.’  As if you don’t own any shares.  As if pleasing shareholders isn’t in your own interests…)  Actually, companies provide things that they expect to generate profit even if consumers don’t demand them: if people really wanted product X or service Y, companies wouldn’t (have to) spend millions of dollars on advertising (to persuade them to buy it).  Quite simply, many of those goods and services are not ‘much needed’.

The CEO of a bank once said “Return on equity is [an] important measure of a banks’ success.”  Not the amount of good it does, not the amount of happiness it creates, no, these things don’t matter.  Success isn’t even justice, it isn’t even getting back what you put out, no, success is getting back more than you put out.  Self-interest.  Literally, interest.  For oneself.

The same CEO also responded to a question about the obligation to create and maintain jobs with “If we are to attract … we need to create exciting new job opportunities … to keep top talent … and move forward …”  Embarrassing is his assumption that the question referred just to his bank – he understood ‘obligation’ to mean obligation to the bank, to the interests of the bank.  I don’t think the phrase ‘society as a whole’ is even in his vocabulary.

Lurking somewhere in here is the notion that those with a vested interest in something will take better care of it, and that’s what justifies the greater weight to such interests.  But first, that assumes a very ego-centered view of human beings; some of us are capable of taking good care of things for others.  Second, it assumes a certain wisdom on the part of the self in question; there are a lot of people who don’t take good care of stuff even when it’s their own.  Third, self-interest tends to be short-term interest, if only because the self is a very short-term enterprise.  And much of what we’re talking about is long-term stuff, like natural resources, so taking good care of it requires a long-term perspective that by definition is precluded by self-interest.  For example, that same CEO referred to “every stage of the life cycle” as “right through to start-up and then growth”.  Excuse me?  What about stasis?  What about decline?  They are stages of the entire life cycle.  Unless, of course, you’re a cancer.

We Pay People who Pretend to be Doctors …

So the other day I caught a glimpse, by accident, of one of those entertainment shows, on which someone talks about and to actors, rock stars, and so on, and it hit me: we pay people who pretend to be doctors more than we pay people who actually are doctors.

Cultural Anarchy

Why is it that so many people claim, usually with considerable passion, “I’m an American!” or “I’m Canadian” or what have you?

To identify yourself by country is to accept the territorial divisions made by people with economic power eager to retain that power.  So why the passion?  Furthermore, why grant such importance to an accident of birth?  You had nothing to do with where you were born.

To identify yourself by the country in which you happened to be born is bad enough, but to identify yourself by the country in which your parents or grandparents or greatgrandparents were born, as many do (“I’m African-American!” and “I’m Japanese-American!”), according to the birthplace of people you may not even have known, people who are long dead, is worse.  Why is where your grandparents were born so much more important than what you think, what you value, and what you do?  Why wouldn’t you identify yourself that way?  “I’m an atheist” or “I’m an environmentalist” or “I’m a painter.”  Identification by country of ancestral origin smacks of tribalism.[1]

For some people, such identity claims are a matter of culture, not country.  But what is culture?  What exactly is cultural identity?  Race, religion, and nation are often used almost interchangeably to define culture: consider ‘I’m Black’, ‘I’m Christian’, ‘I’m Chinese-Canadian’; consider ‘I’m Jewish’ which is, apparently, a bit of all three.

First, insofar as cultural identity is racial identity, it must, again, depend on an accident of birth, on chance, on something you did not consent to: we do not choose our race – we do not choose the colour of our skin, the shape of our eyes, the bridge of our nose, the fullness of our lips, etc.

Second, insofar as cultural identity is religious identity, and insofar as religion is a system of beliefs, it is, at least, not an accident of birth: one cannot be born a Catholic, for example, because one cannot be born believing anything, one simply doesn’t have the cognitive capacity at birth to form beliefs.  But that kind of cultural identity is, then, something you can have only as an adult, when you have developed the intellectual faculty capable of understanding, assessing, and choosing beliefs.

Third, insofar as cultural identity is national identity, we are, barring emigration, back to an accident of birth and an endorsement of political ‘agreements’.

Perhaps, rather than defining culture as a matter of race, religion, or nationality, it is better defined as a collection of costumes and customs, mere habits, practices, a way of living.  But it seems strange to elevate your habits to the status of an identity, and then, perhaps, to demand certain rights on the basis of those habits.

What about defining culture as a set of values?  This would certainly make race and nation irrelevant: values are seldom clearly correlated with racial or national boundaries – to say ‘I’m Black’ or ‘I’m Serbian’ doesn’t necessarily say anything about your values, let alone anything exclusive or exhaustive.  While your religious identity more probably does say something about your values, it would also be irrelevant because, again, it says nothing exclusive or exhaustive – a Muslim and a non-Muslim may both value X, and a Muslim may have values additional to those of the Islamic religion.  And in any case, I question the individual who accepts so totally the set of values held by, presumably, a race, nation, or religion.  Culture is not indelibly imprinted.  To be a feminist is proof of that.

Another interpretation of culture refers to group history, the group involved being a group in which membership depends on some kind of heritage.  But why should history, heritage, constitute identity?  Why should our past define your present?  More important, why should someone else’s past define your present?  Why should a group’s past define an individual’s present?  One possible reason might be in order to avenge and/or to ensure compensation. But to make someone pay for the ‘sins’ of his or her ancestors is ridiculous.  What my greatgrandfather did or didn’t do has nothing to do with me, I didn’t even know the man.[2]

A second reason for making group history the basis of one’s cultural identity might be in order to preserve what’s of value.  Surely this is important, but why restrict yourself to the lessons of your own group?  And while there may be value in being custodians of the past, why should the job be open only to those with a direct genetic line of descent?  Why can’t I carry the torch for a tradition I value whether or not anyone in my bloodline also carried it?[3]

Country of birth, race, ancestral religion, group history – I find it difficult to understand why people choose to identify themselves by such accidents of birth.  That I am 5’4” is accidental – I had no choice in the matter and I have no control over it.   So why would I choose to trumpet my height as my identity?  It seems to me that there is something fundamentally irrational about claiming as your identity aspects of your self that are mere accidents of birth: if you don’t choose X, if you have no control over X, then surely you can’t justifiably take any credit or blame for X – nor, then, can you take any of the attendant benefits and burdens.  It’s also a very passive thing, basing your identity on what chance has done to you rather than on what you’ve done yourself.  Perhaps most importantly, it’s also unfair, if rights and responsibilities are assigned on such an identity.

Whether we admit it or not, we do choose our practices, our beliefs, and our values.  And to identify ourselves according to such rational bases is to be responsible for ourselves.  And cultural anarchy, assimilation and appropriation at will, enables, indeed reflects, this choice.

 

[1] I can see that identity claims according to ancestral lineage (“I’m Native because my greatgrandfather was Native”) are important in many territorial conflicts, but they’re typically based on arguments of primacy – which are flawed on at least three counts.  One, what does it matter who was here first?  Does mere presence entitle one to ownership?  Doesn’t the quality of one’s presence matter at all?

Two, what time shall we establish as the starting point, and on what basis shall we establish it as the starting point?  For example, certainly the various indigenous tribes were here before the Europeans (and so “I have a right to X, a greater right to X than you, that is, because my ancestors were here before your ancestors”), but the various indigenous tribes also came from somewhere else 10-50,000 years ago – so they’re not really indigenous.  They’re not native, they’re just prior.  To be fair, we’d have to determine the time and location of each evolution into homo sapiens (should this be a measurable moment) and then establish complete lineages, in order to determine whose ancestors were where first.  (Unless we just accept the Judeao-Christian view – in which case everyone not currently living in whatever country the Garden of Eden was in is an immigrant, a non-native.)

Three, even if we accept a right of primacy, on what grounds do we include that right in one’s genetic heritage?  What my greatgrandfather did or didn’t do has nothing to do with me – I should not pay for his errors, nor should I have the right to go back to his childhood home (should I be able to determine where it is) and demand to be paid for what was stolen from him.  It was stolen from him, not from me.  What is his is his, not mine.  Unless, I suppose, he left a will stating that whatever it was that was stolen was to have been given to me.  But even then, one could reasonably argue that what is merely potentially yours isn’t yours enough to warrant a charge of theft should such theft cause that potential not to be actualized.  And he could have as easily willed that it be given to the greatgrandson of a friend.  (Perhaps likely, given the sexism of many inheritance traditions.)  Why are genetics so very important?  What if, after all, I’m adopted?  (And therefore don’t even have the same skin colour as my greatgrandfather?)

[2] An exception would be if descendents suffer the consequences of the wrongs done to, or the privileges awarded to, their ancestors.  But not only does this assume an inheritance that may or may not have occurred (see note 1), it is incredibly complex and ultimately uncertain: how can we really know for sure which aspects of one’s present are due to which aspects of another’s past?

[3] This raises the issue of assimilation and appropriation: why do they have such bad reps?  After all, isn’t conditioning, isn’t education, merely assimilation?  Weren’t we assimilated (i.e., encouraged to conform to the customs and values) into our first cultural group, the one we belong to by birth?  Why the foofarah when we are re-assimilated, into a second cultural group, the one we choose?  And isn’t appropriation merely adopting – the customs, practices, beliefs, values, and so on of some group?  And what’s wrong with that?  (Frankly, it’s unlikely one would adopt the whole set, since it’s likely to be internally inconsistent, but that’s another point…)

Basketball, Gymnastics, Hopscotch, and Double Dutch

The neat thing about television coverage of the Olympics is that women’s events are shown a lot. Often within close temporal proximity to men’s events. Comparison is inevitable. And interesting.

Consider basketball. Men’s basketball isn’t even a sport anymore. The guys are simply too big. Give me a ball small enough to hold upside-down with one hand, and I’ll be doing some pretty fancy dribbling too. Give me a net so low to the ground I can just reach up and touch it, and I’ll slam dunk every time. And give me a court I can cover in five strides, hell, I’ll play a whole game without even breaking into a sweat.

And yet even with these size advantages, men’s play pales in comparison to women’s play. For example, men pass the ball a lot less often – even though it’s easier to do so (one hand to throw/catch it, the other to screen the throw/catch). And even though they barely need to jump to make a basket, their timing and coordination is so poor, they hit the basket on their way down, often grabbing on to it for dear life so they can at least land on their feet. (By the way, a couple hundred pounds hanging onto the rim – I don’t know about you, but we used to yell at anyone who bent the rim and then kick them out of the game!)

Consider gymnastics. For men, one of the big balance moves is a front scale: look at me, I can stand on one foot. For the women, the display of balance occurs on a 4″ wide beam, 3-4′ off the ground, and they practically land in a front scale – after an aerial-back-handspring-with-no-hands-something-or-other.

And the high bar. One bar. Oooooh. Try flipping around two of them, set at different heights.

And the men’s floor. Homophobia at its best. First rule, no music. That would be too much like dancing. (Even though men have been known to dance on occasion.) (Some even have a sense of rhythm.) Second rule, no curves. Ever notice the getting-into-the-corner move? What is that? It looks like a Nazi goose step with a half-turn and a double ‘Heil Hitler’ salute.

Consider track. Have you ever wondered why it took so long (100 years) for there to be a women’s triple jump event? It’s because we’re grown up now, hopscotch isn’t much of a challenge for us. (Y’know what event I’d like to see? Men’s double-dutch. That would be entertainment.)

Digital Thought

On/off, yes/no, either/or, in/out, for/against, male/female, win/lose, true/false, right/wrong, black/white, all/nothing, 0/1.

Preachers do it. Lawyers do it.

Why have we become so enamoured with digital thought? What’s the attraction?

It’s precise. Precision is good.

It’s fast. We like that.

It’s easy. We like that even more.

But any educator will tell you that T/F tests are the sparrows of measurement. They can handle knowledge, and maybe comprehension. (Multiple choice tests, the robins, are just one step better. Except for the LSAT, the smartass bluejay, which is designed by demented geniuses who have made a science of turning a curve ball into a triple helix and figured out how to get paid for doing it.)

So digital thought is perfect for this so-called information age. (And surprise, computers do it.) But knowledge and comprehension are the lowest levels on Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive skills. What about application? Analysis? Synthesis? Evaluation? What, no time for critical thought? Too busy surfing the net to notice you’re in an ocean of shit?

Thing is, digital thought is, well, limited. Most of life isn’t subject to such precision, isn’t true or false, black or white. Ever hear of the false dichotomy? It’s an error in reasoning, it’s when you assume, erroneously, that there are only two possibilities. So it leaves out a lot. (For example, subtlety.)

It encourages extremism. It ignores the richness of a continuum, a spectrum. Between all and nothing is something. Lots of somethings.

And it sets up competition. It has no room for compromise, for combination.

In short, it’s two dimensional. Frogs do it: if it moves, it’s food; if it doesn’t, don’t bother. Are we frogs? Yes/No.

The Freedom to Shop

In a not so recent, but largely unnoticed decision (Daishowa Inc. v. Friends of Lubicon), the Ontario Divisional Court said that boycotts are illegal when specifically intended to cause economic damage to the boycott target. Isn’t that generally the point? Boycotts allow us to put our money where our mouths are; they allow us to hit a company where it hurts, so it smartens up and changes.

I often choose brands according to the sociopolitical record of the company, doesn’t everyone? Surely the days of shopping according to price and quality alone are gone. Didn’t the ‘Made in Canada’ fad and the Nestlé fiasco kickstart this broadened awareness?

I routinely refuse to purchase GE products because the company is one of the largest military contractors in the U.S. McDonalds lost my business because of the CFCs; Burger King, because it used rainforest beef. Coors? Not as long as they’re anti-gay and racist. Gillette? Proctor & Gamble? Not as long as bunnies do me no harm. And my next pair of shoes will not be Nike. (See Rating America’s Corporate Conscience, Steven D. Lydenberg et al. and The Boycott Quarterly boycottguy@aol.com.)

Granted, it’s getting harder to keep track of who owns who (for example, GE owns RCA now), and often my choices are less-than pure (when I was making a car purchase decision, the most fuel-efficient therefore environmentally-friendly car on the market, the Chevrolet Sprint, was made by GM, a company heavily involved with nuclear weapons). When in doubt, I choose the unknown and too-small-to-be-dangerous brands.

But now the Ontario government has taken away my freedom to choose, to shop according to my ethics. Because doing so causes economic damage to certain companies. Of course, seeing our government give priority to economics over ethics and to corporations over individuals shouldn’t surprise me.

I do wonder, though, how they’ll enforce this decision. I mean, how will the shopping police know why I buy Primo instead of Ragu, MacIntosh instead of IBM?

(They won’t. See that’s the problem with freedom. Better they just don’t give me the chance – to buy Primo, or MacIntosh, or lesbian love poems, or a solar heating system…)

I also wonder if they’re going to be consistent – will trade embargoes be illegal now too, and economic sanctions no longer an alternative to bloodshed? Pity.

Speaking in Code

“I just can’t give any more, sorry.” But of course he can. He just doesn’t want to. By saying “can’t” instead of “won’t”, however, he appears powerless and thus absolves himself of responsibility; as a result, we don’t even consider the matter of blame.

“That’s not gonna happen.” Okay. So informed, we move on. But in most cases, the accurate, honest, statement would have been “I don’t think that’s gonna happen” or “I don’t want that to happen.” By presenting an opinion as fact, the speaker has diverted our attention from evidence and reasons. Why don’t you think that’s going to happen? Why don’t you want that to happen?

“We need to bring our product in line with contemporary standards.” The royal “we” effects a diffusion of responsibility, deflecting accountability from the individual who’s speaking. “Need” is a lie: we won’t die without it. But “need” is far more compelling than “want” – it’s harder to refuse. To “bring in line” suggests cooperation, rather than obedience. “Contemporary” sounds so much better than the “old” standards, and “standards” implies something that’s received official, i.e., expert, approval. Really, he’s just saying “I want you to do what I want – this.” And that would be much easier to say “No” to.

“Hey now, what kind of way is that to talk?” Code for “I don’t want to hear those words” – to which the person might simply respond, “So?” Instead, he or she feels chastised.

The manipulation is done so smoothly, it’s impressive. I have enough trouble getting clear about my true meaning, I couldn’t possibly engage in the simultaneous translation these people seem to do so effortlessly in order to cover their truth and manipulate us into assent, or at least out of dissent. They load their language without even thinking. How can they be so quick, so clever?

They’re not. They are doing it without even thinking. They’re not translating from A to B – they’re going right to B; they’re not even aware of A. I’ve been attributing far more consciousness than is warranted. It’s not that they’re thinking more (let alone, more quickly) than me. They’re thinking less. They’re not thinking at all about what they’re saying, about how they’re saying it. Consider that when I point out what I think they really mean, when I decode what they say in order to challenge or simply clarify, they insist I’m reading too much into a simple choice of words – I’m over-analyzing. Truth is, they’re not analyzing enough. Or at all.

But still – how is it they are so unconsciously manipulative? It just comes ‘naturally’. And that is far scarier than thinking they do it intentionally. All those manipulative phrases – these people are simply saying it the way they’ve been conditioned to say it, or, more accidentally, just the way they’ve heard others say it.

So it’s not that I’m a relative moron at strategic behaviour – it’s that somehow I missed out on that conditioning. Probably because I’m not a male. And I consciously rejected any parallel conditioning directed to females.

So here I am. Either taking what people say at face value and being manipulated left, right, and centre, or trying to decode everything. Of course, by the time I decode what they’ve said, B into A, they’ve said something else. And when I respond directly to A, they think I’ve gone off-topic. So I have to explain that their B is a translation of A. But they don’t want to hear it. I suppose I could just respond to their B with a B of my own – but to do that, I have to decode their B into A, figure out my response to it, then encode my A into a B. And by the time I’ve done that, they’ve left. Which is just as well.