Christmas Eve, Eve, Now, And Zen.

Six years ago today the Social Security Administration after horribly traumatizing and an already traumatized woman who was living in fear, even terror, most of the time, had this same woman involuntarily placed in a locked padded room staring at the possibility of being there through Christmas.  This was after letting her drive in hysterical tears from the SSA office, to her therapist's office, where her therapist managed to get her calmed down enough that she wasn't ready to take her own life.  This also involved having her take double her usual dose of tranquilizer and sending her home.

Still, the SSA sent the local police to her house with the lights on with orders to either take her to the hospital, or supervise her until EMS could come pick her up.  She was given no choice. Either go to the hospital willingly, or wait for EMS.  She went with the nice policeman and was locked into a padded room.   She sat in that locked padded room as people came wandering in and out, asking her questions and trying to decide if she was a danger to herself or anyone else.  She managed to get released and not have to spend the holiday locked up, but that damage was done.

It's now six years later.

So she lives in a different kind of fear. Yet she does a marginally better job of managing that fear.  It's good not to be locked away on Christmas Eve, Eve.  By the same token she sometimes wonders if she might be safer locked away.  Not safer from herself, but from the kind of dark, lunatic, fringe that doesn't seem to be the fringe anymore.  People everywhere are becoming increasingly dangerous and hostile over things they cannot control and know little or nothing about.  Conspiracy theorists are popping up everywhere, not just on the far right, but everywhere. And they have conspiracy theories about conspiracy theories.  It's bedlam.  This includes Facebook, especially Facebook.

So while she does her absolute best to stay calm, present, and focused on what is, and is not real, and treating everyone with love, compassion and empathy, many people just go completely off the reservation trying to spread insanity to her.  The anger, pain, and lack of stability makes her wonder if she might not be safer in a locked room with no access to (self proclaimed) seemingly "normal" people who suddenly turn into mindless zombies ranting about things that may or may not be real, all while they refuse to see what is plainly before them.

On Facebook, she's become particularly adept at completely blocking people when it becomes clear they are interested only in being right, and shoving their own brand of rage down her throat.  She's not suffering fools gladly anymore and that's a big change from then.  She's a whole bunch more Zen.  Mainly because it's a defense against the growing madness of entire classes of people who have come unhinged.

She's taken to blocking friends of friends because they have lost the ability to manage their own impulses and have to be right about something that had nothing to do with the topic at hand.  Meditation and an eye on history that many seem to have lost keeps her from losing what little of her mind is left, keeps her focused on this moment, and helps her to see that quite often what she might once have thought was her own shortcoming really has nothing to do with her.

If you engage fear, let it smolder within you, and fan that smoke into flames you will succeed in setting yourself aflame for no good reason.  If you wish to burn yourself down on a heady dose of the toxic soup of misinformation, lies and pure full on paranoia, I will say a silent prayer to the universe for your lost soul, and go back to my own life, trying to make the best of it I can with what I have to work with.  The woman above?  Yeah, that was me, and I spent the day locked inside my own little corner of reality staying away from dangerous people as best I could.  I blocked someone else's friend so that I cannot see his posts, and he cannot see mine, because he's set on setting himself on fire.  I wish him well with that, but want no part of it.

"Bring It On" and dream fulfilled.

So when I was growing up, and all through high school, I wanted to be a cheerleader.  I mean really.  But I was the invisible, outcast, almost alien child.  Sure I was in great shape, I used to ride at least 100 miles a week on a bike, up and down all sorts of really gnarly hills and was in great shape.  Tall, thin, flexible, coordinated, and worked the baton whicked fast.  My sister hated me.  I had the hair, skills, energy and strength, heck I could have been a flier, or one heck of a base. I had enthusiasm.  I was almost the whole package.  But I was horribly shy and about as social as an abused cat.  But even today “Bring It On” and “Bring It On Again” are two of my favorite movies.  “Hellcats,” when I remember to watch it, is also a favorite.  But that was just a place in my life I could never get to.

So today I realized, somewhat late, but better than never I’d say, that I got my wish.  My inner cheerleader is feeling fulfilled, happy and proud.  Because life threw me the spirit stick and I DID NOT drop it!  That’s a big thing, I mean huge.  You drop the spirit stick and it’s a curse not just on you, but the whole team.  So while I may not have the body I once did, and 100 miles a week is not quite something I can pull off these days, I’m still, FINALLY, a cheerleader!

Because I support my team, my friends, the people I adore with loving, positive energy any chance I can.  I help people see past the negatives and encourage them to find the sunshine in any situation.  And I can still do a split.  Not that I have any reason to these days, but I can so stick the landing.

But I bring energy, enthusiasm, sunshine and as positive an outlook as I can to anyone that needs it.  I’m Bringing It On every chance I get! And I still think spirit fingers is kinda, well, lame? :)

For those who are so inclined, I was moved to actually read my own blog outloud.  Now let's see if I can post it here.

On the values of meditation . . .

I meditate regularly, at least 30 minutes a day or more.  Why?  Because it feels good, and that feeling lasts.  Whether one is counting rosary and saying Avi Maria, or chanting Om-Mani-Pad-Me-hung meditation has some measurable results on one's body, and this is why I posted sometime back about prayer being meditation in fact, if not in name.

Studies have indicated that using either other these two methods can easily slow a persons respiration rate to 6 breaths per minute in experienced meditators.  With slower respiration comes an overall slowing of one's entire body, including heart rate and blood pressure.  Advanced meditators with practice can go even slower than 6 breaths per minute.  The average resting normal range is somewhere in the realm of 12 to 18 breaths per minute.

After a conversation with a friend yesterday about age, and my joking that I'm slowing my aging process down, on purpose, I thought to see, by way of a simply counting breaths meditation how I was doing.

It was an interesting experience for me. Especially since while meditating it's not uncommon for me to have experiences/visions/dreams what have you.  So as I'm counting, I find myself on a quiet street in a town somewhere, and people start showing up, LOTS of people start showing up which can tend to make me very skittish to say the least.  Being crowded by strangers making noisy and causing me to feel trapped is something I've been fighting with for some years.  It has in the past caused me to have panic attacks, and well I'm not much fond of them.  But I stayed focused on what I was doing and noticed with each breath more and more people were vanishing.  All this while staying focused on counting my breaths.  So I didn't let the crow get to me, and I thought this a particularly cruel joke my mind was playing on me while I was trying to determine my meditating respiration rate.  The key here however was that like any meditation, a key is to not engage the thoughts that crowd ones mind.  Not get involved, just let them wander through without thought or judgement, which is exactly what I did.  But as this was going on the thought dawned that this may throw off my test by adding stress to my meditation.  Once again, I let this though pass through without engaging it either.

I'd set my timer for a short ten minute meditation which would give me a large enough sample to determine easily what my per minute respiration rate was.  Much to my amazement and great comfort it was three. Yes, 3 breaths per minute, while I didn't bother to check my heart rate, I know medically that with a respiration of 3 breaths per minute, my heart was probably looping along nice and slow at maybe 15-20 beats per minute as well.  I know my average resting, non-meditating heart rate is usually in the 50-60 beats per minute range, and exercise rate significantly higher than that in the 120-130 range I'll have to think about checking it while meditating since it's pretty much a given it will be much slower than my average resting rate.

So doing 3 breaths per minute, not bad at all.  Being "tested" with stress while meditating very not bad! :)

What would you do?

The accomplished and brilliant author Sevastian Winters recently asked as a general question to his fans the following question:

$50 Million dollars in non-traceable cash sitting on a table in front of you. Cash's owner is in horrible pain, dying of cancer. He hands you a gun and tells you the cash is yours if you blow his brains out. You will never be caught. Would you take the shot?

I was, for something that bubbled up out of me, pleased enough with my answer that I thought I'd share it here:

I would sit with him. I would share his pain and lessen it. I'd get to know him. I'd use the considerable resources at my command to take as much of his pain from him as I could. And I'd listen. I'd give him my full compassion, empathy and love. I would ease his suffering, not just from the cancer, but from a life that got him there. I'd share with him in great detail the beauty and grandeur of where he was going. I'd share with him my own suicide in 1961 and what it cost me, and what I'd gained from it. I'd take him on a journey into his own future to see what his life would be life if he forced an exit point, and if he didn't. Then if he was utterly certain, I'd induce a medical coma so that he didn't have to feel his own impending demise.

I am a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Certified Reiki Master, and a Buddhist. I'd respect his wishes by taking his pain, and I assure you I can and have done the same for others in horrific agony, but his life is not mine to take, and even if he spends the last days, weeks or months of his life in a coma, it would be better for him to pass when the time is right, not from the trauma of a gunshot to the head. Plus with a medically induced coma he'd have the opportunity to awaken from it anytime he wanted. While he was in said coma, I'd taken his hand, and take him on a spirit walk to some places I'm fond of and find peace in. I'd share them with him and how to get there himself. I'd give him options, ease his pain, and help him grow. I'd even in that state teach him how he could heal himself, and make a decision from there. Free from the pain, and with an understanding of more to the universe and time/space then he'd ever dreamed of, I'd sit down with him again and see where he wanted to go from there. That would be after letting him meet his spirit guides, and my Lucia, Xa'els, and Tak'aya and let him see what they would have to share with him. I would, should he choose it, help him Ascend by helping him reach the state inside himself that could make it possible. It would be his choice.  

When, if he passed, if he was utterly serious about it I'd donate at least 47 of the 50 million dollars to causes that need it in his name. The remaining 3 million I would invest in something that generates simple interest, and use the interest to live and set up a foundation to teach more people how to be of true service to other people suffering. I would set up the foundation in his name, and organize it so that it would continue long after I passed from this life into the next.

In short, I would show him a much greater universe outside his own pain and limited existence. I would listen, I would heal him body and soul to where he could make an informed decision. I would provide him the tools and compassion to allow him to do what he needed without judgement. I'd share what Karma REALLY is and how it works, and let him take his last steps from this life into the next empowered and free of the limitations of the false gods of pain, suffering and money.

So, I ask you, what might you do?  There is no wrong or right answer here, only one that feels like it works for you.  For more of Sev's whit, style, and writing that almost insists one think, you can find him on Facebook, his Homepage, Blog or on Amazon.com  

Header image Property and Copyright Sevastian Winters 2011 All Rights Reserved.

It just dawned on me . . .

. . . that when I am down to the wire, and ready to move I'm going to get everything loaded up, packed away in the jumper, tied down, and then spend one last night here so that I get a fresh and early start on the drive the next morning.  My trusty air mattress, which I spent so much time sleeping on when I first moved here will be where I sleep that last night in a big, empty, apartment.  Much like the first night or so that I was here.

It will be symbolic on so many levels, and it will be the closing of this chapter, in this part of my life.  The real closing chapter will be when I get home.  Then I'll be able to fully, finally, start putting Earl behind me.  Not so much in a deliberate "doing" kind of way, but the more spiritual, soul enriching NOT DOING.

Being here has been all about rebuilding after the damage.  Nary a step I take, or a day goes by that I'm not reminded in one way or another what this has cost me.  How much I've lost, since I said yes when he asked me to take some vacation time to fly out and meet him all those years ago.  Getting back home, getting back to a place that hasn't really been tainted by Earl, and the swath of destruction he cut through my heart, mind, body and soul, will be a great goodness.

So yeah, last night here when that comes, will be on the air mattress.  First night in the new place, will be on the air mattress for the symbolism of it.  And then I'll set up my bed, in my new home, and not look back so much.  Speaking of beds.  When the end came, I gave the brand new king side bed from the master bedroom to my sister.  She was thrilled, overjoyed on the one hand to get so much of the furniture she'd been ogling at our house, every time she was there, sad on the other what it meant for me.  The brand new king size mattress was just the top of the list in ways.

Me, I'd been sleeping for years in the guest room, and had finally, after being tired of the pull out sofa bed bought a tempurpedic mattress and slept on the on the floor for the last year of our marriage.  Of course my plan had been to get it out of storage when I moved, and sleep on that.  Problem of course was with the storage locker being 1000 miles away you see.  In the three years I've been here, I've not been back there to get stuff, let alone the bed, out of the locker.  So there it sits.

After sleeping on the tempurpedic at Laura's house in the beginning of the year, and having her lecture me, mercilessly about being "stuck" and otherwise finding all sorts of fault with my existence in general because I wasn't her, and not capable of being her, I decided to do something about the bed.  I really was tired, past tired, of spending three years on an inflatable camping mattress.

My new bedroom set. Squee!

So I set about finding a new tempuredic mattress I could afford and that would help me sleep better.  I'd already long since bought a frame that the air mattress had been on top of now for a while, so it was ready for a real mattress.  In May I squeezed the money out of my meager income and savings to get the mattress, this month I finally found and purchased a comforter, really one of those whole bed in a bag things, including curtains and so forth that I liked.  The colors and pattern was all rich, earthy and inviting, and it color coordinated well with the other sheet and pillow case sets I'd previous bought, giving me a range of options, and meaning I didn't have to wash the same set of sheets every week just to have a clean bed to sleep in.  Now, between the bed in the bag, and the stuff I already had, I only have to wash the bed clothes once a month.  Makes me a happy girl.  Though truth to tell, having three sets already meant I wasn't washing them every week as it was.  But now, now I have something I've not had in years and years, a complete homey feel to the bedroom, something warm, inviting and earthy.  Since my bedroom is my sanctuary, and I not only sleep there, but meditate and read as well, I want it to look nice, to be welcoming.  This fit the bill quite well in my opinion.

It's a long, long, long way from an inflatable mattress on the floor isn't it?  And the comforter is reversible, the other side is the green with dried grass colored lines running through it like the throw pillows, bed skirt, and valence.  And it's all mine.  So it just dawned on me I've come some distance from where I was three years ago, and my place is losing that homeless chic feeling to it more and more.  Instead of those two square pictures hanging over my bed I have a native american dream catcher, which adds to the warm homey feeling for me, and so fits me personally.  So progress is once again, not a dirty word.

I went to the bank in . . .

my birthday suit!

There, I said it.  I needed to deposit a check, and rather then go through all the trouble of getting dressed after my shower, I just went into the bank without so much as a towel.  Deposited my check, and off I went to the rest of my errands for the day.

It was liberating, and not all awkward.

Okay, so I should probably also point out that my phone is one of the new Android based pieces of iPhone death, and as such, I can deposit checks by simply logging into my account, snapping the front and back of the check, and hitting send.  The bank does the rest, and the money's in my account before I've even left the house, or in this case, my bedroom.  Gotta tell you, it was awful convenient!

He wasn't perfect ... but he was perfect for me.

As to predictions ...

... I have an unerring record with those.  Which is why I can relate to the name Cassandra so well.  But for those of you watching, who probably don't even know who Cassandra is, go look it up, and don't blame me when I turn out to be right.  Unlike Harold "The world is going to end on May 21st 2011" Camping.  Yeah, oops!  He missed ... AGAIN!  Just like I predicted he would.

Love, jealousy, attachment and suffering.

So it's been an interesting day.  Comments and crazy people, memories and accusations that were more projection of their own problems.  A friend started a thread on FB about relationships, this comment sprang forth.

The first time Earl and I slept together? We SLEPT! No sex involved. We talked and laughed and compared note on things we like to do, things we'd like to do as well. When I got married, it wasn't the sex, cause trust me, on balance, it so wasn't about sex. If it had been about sex, I'd have broken off the engagement after we'd lived together for a frickin year planning the wedding.

I wanted to grow old together with someone who got my jokes, who'd been there through the good times AND THE bad. Someone I had a history with, someone who respected me, and cared about me as much as I did about him. Someone who when faced with standing with me against the world, or standing with the world beating on me would stand with me. Someone who defend me as much as I'd defend him.

Someone who knew what I was thinking by the look in my eye, and we'd both start laughing at our own inside jokes. Before we married, we had the kind of relationship I dreamed about, and sex had nothing to do with it. We used to finish each others sentences, complete thoughts, have whole conversations with just a look. Folks said we were like a little old married couple we were so adorable, and freaky together. HIS parents, who had been together almost 40 years didn't know each other, or get each other the way Earl and I did.

I fell stupid in love. Over looked the warning signs, and let him put that ring in my nose. So I'm as much to blame I guess as he was. Because I BELIEVED him, and choose to over look the parts that weren't perfect. Like the fact that he was a pathological liar, an obsessive Momma's boy, had a toxic co-dependant abusive relationship with his Mom. Like the fact that he and his Dad used to go to Giant's games in sub zero temperatures while getting sleeted and freezing rained on to watch them lose ... again. I KNEW he wasn't perfect, but I never claimed to be perfect either.

He was also awesome, and brilliant, and funny, and could touch my heart and soul in a way no one had ever even tried before. He took me to places I'd never have gone, and shared with me things I'd never have experienced because it was fun. Like Skeeball off the boardwalk in a New England coastal town. He helped me fall in love with the ocean. He loved little New England towns and window shopping as much as I did.

He hurt me so badly that anyone else would have wished him dead, not just divorced. I didn't even want a divorce, I just want him to look at me again the way he used to. I wanted, I needed his love again. I wanted to go play skee ball and walk on the beach. I wanted him to hold me. I needed him to hold me. But eventually the abuse got so bad I had to do something. Worse yet he totally took me for granted.

But you know what, I wouldn't have wished him dead. He is, and so he never got a chance to see what he lost, what he'd done. And I'd lost an epic love. Despite everything that happened, and as much as he hurt me, and as much as I grew to fear him, TO THIS DAY I STILL LOVE HIM.

I can't not. Cause this isn't a Disney fair tale, and when I give my heart to someone it isn't just a thing of convenience, it wasn't about sex, it wasn't about a nice house and a white picket fence with 2 kids a dog and a cat. It wasn't about money, or status, or friends, or car payments or a big bank account. It was about love, and that look in his eye he had only for me. It was the way he could just look at me across a crowded and room and I'd KNOW for certain, he loved ME.
And after everything that happened, I'd give just about anything to have him look at me like that again. To have him hold my hand as we walked across the street to go watch the ducks fucking in the lake on a cool autumn day. How for years after he'd just say ducks in that way he had and we'd always break out laughing. I'd live in a cardboard box with him in the middle of the woods eating roots and berries if we could just go walking through the outlets browsing for thing we were never going to buy and laughing about who would buy them. I'd sell my soul to have some "Almost Escargo" at the boat house grill with him and hear his voice. After everything I still love him. After everything I still didn't want for him to die. I can't not love him. And it had NOTHING to do with sex.

Which made me think of the lunatic ravings of an unrepentant Narcissist that claimed I was jealous of her relationship.  She's never even had a real relationship and I'm jealous?  Yeah, right, and the Pope is a cross dressing former nazi who endorses sex with children.  Oh wait, bad comparison since that is pretty much the current Pope.  Not only am I not jealous of the abuse she hands out to everyone and anyone that doesn't see things her way, I'm also not jealous of the life she thinks she has, where she's one more catastrophe away from having to beg or borrow money from anyone because she's incapable of dealing with bills, budgets or life in any meaningful sense.  But she and her lunatic fringe are watching me of course.  Yeah, really?  So "Lindsay I'm such a worshiper of the devil herself" watch this.


Not only am I NOT jealous of anything a Narcissist think she's has, but I'm so sick to death of people like her and my late husband that I plan on dying alone and happily single.  Jealous of her relationship?  There isn't enough money in the 'verse to get me to have the kind of "relationship" she has now.  I had one of those.  I'm still healing, growing, and ENJOYING being single.  I personally think Lindsay is a made up name and persona just so that certain hateful little people who haven't even lived a real life yet could launch more hateful comments because she had to have the last word.  So go right ahead Lindsay, watch, and understand clearly that I think the BEST thing that could happen is for my other friend to finally get to live single for awhile, and live her own life, and get to find out who she is, heal and grow.  Watch as my prediction that eventually our favorite little narcissist finds herself alone because she's a horrid little person who is so self involved that she's incapable or real love, because she loves herself more than anyone else.


I have a nice, quiet apartment all my own that I pay for, a car that runs well that has insurance on it so that I can drive it legally, and can and do pay my own bills instead of suckering other people into paying them for me.  I have friends I adore, who adore me, because we're all bright, shiny, happy people.  I don't have to beg for anything.  Even peace and quiet.  My phone doesn't get turned off all the time because I spent the money on a manicure and hair color I didn't need, and had no reason to have, when the children didn't have enough food.  I don't risk going to jail driving a car with no insurance because my beauty supplies are more important than driving legally.


Jealous of what?  Grow up children and get over yourselves.  As if that all wasn't enough, I'm a Buddhist, I don't form the kinds of attachments anymore that could lead to jealousy because that only leads to suffering.  And with God as my witness I've had plenty of that.  Jealous?  Yeah right.  I've at least known real love a time or too and always pay my car insurance.  So you and all your little friends can go to Ne'tu for all I care, since obviously you enjoy suffering so much.  I've been there plenty of times before and have always managed to survive and escape.  I'm going to keep it that way.

Halp I is being raptured!

By Cassandra Speaking.

So by this time tomorrow the Rapture will be underway.  At least if you believe the lunatic ramblings of an almost 90 year old repeat failure of a prophet.  Twice before he's predicted the date of the rapture with utterly NO success whatsoever.  For a while he was claiming the world was going to end in 1988.

We see how well that went over now didn't we?  Wasn't it so much fun?

Apparently it was so much fun he went back to his magic book and saw the error of his ways and predicted it was actually going to end in March of 1994.  While the early 90's so the implosion of the tech bubble, and resulting economic slide on wall street, 1994 was otherwise unremarkable.  During March he said there was some leeway in the numbers and waited all month for the end to come.

It didn't.  Again!

So here we are now on the eve of the most famous undate in history.  Tomorrow he claims is really, truly, without question, the end of history.  Thus, an undate, since no one worthy of remembering will be around long to remember it.   "Good by my friends, I'll see you all in the great beyond."  I like so many other "people" haven't bothered to pay any of my bills, or put my affairs in order, because the entire world ends tomorrow.  Not just tomorrow, but right after work at 18:00 hours local time.

I hope you'll all join me here Sunday morning as the reports start coming in of people all over the globe drinking the sacramental koolade because they missed the bus.

I predict that tomorrow will go down in history as a famous date.  The date that Harold Camping will forever be known as a three time loser.  You see he's the very self important little man who has predicted the last two spectacularly failed end of the world dates.  Tomorrow at around 19:00 local time, when nothing at all has happened, he'll end up being ranked right up there with "Chicken Little" and the "Boy Who Cried Wolf."

I feel kinda bad for Harold and his followers, because even I know that God has made it clear that the end will come without warning, fanfare, public appearance spots, or any media coverage whatsoever.

I as a Buddhist and former ascended master, who has studied many of earths religions, and was last "risen up" or "raised up" sometime before Christ came, know that there's more than one way to scramble an egg.   Or, perhaps a better way of putting it?  It's fairly simple these days to get from New York to San Fransisco.  There are as many, or more ways to get from here to there than there are days in a month.  So too with reaching the next plane of existence.  After all I've been there, and back.

I'm sorry but it's the height of hubris for one insignificant little man, who has somehow more money and motivated self importance than brain cells, to decide he knows when the end is going to come.  Especially given the numbers involved.  Right now there are around 6 BILLION (with a B) human beings on Earth.  I know for a fact that some one sixth of all those humans follow one of the many flavors of Buddhism, I mean there at least a billion Buddhists on Mainland China for example.  That doesn't count the rest of South East Asia, Japan, and significant parts of India.  Then we have those of the Hindu faith, which is similar in many ways and flavors to Buddhism, and if nothing else, certainly NOT Christianity.  Then there are our Muslim brothers and sisters, who while the don't believe as we do, certainly don't believe what Harold does.  So for good measure lets throw in the Catholics who KNOW, because God has told them so, that no one will know when the end is coming.  Oh, and while we are adding people in who don't believe, lets add the Jews, Protestants, Baptists, Wiccan's, and who else for good measure?  How about the Krishnas?  Who else?

Well see that's the thing, the vast majority of people don't believe what Harold does.  They believe their God of gods doesn't work that way.  Many of them believe a harbinger of the end times, but not a set date, will include quite a show, a new world order, the coming of the Anti-Christ, and much more.  While many have claimed that Sarah Palin is the Anti-Christ, I don't think she's smart enough for that.  Sorry Sarah, but your just not smart enough for that.  That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.  It's also my opinion that Harold Camping is an idiot.  I mean he's even dumber than Sarah Palin, and you really have to work hard to be that vapid.

But I digress.  Yes, I'm a Buddhist, but I'm not a perfect Buddhist, and admit so much of this tome is NOT right speech.  Then again, it's not supposed to be, since this is only my tiny little irrelevant opinion, and I freely admit having fallen from grace, ON PURPOSE, after having already once achieved ascension.

So Sunday afternoon as you're relaxing enjoying a day off, please feel free to join this me in saying "Harold Camping, You ARE The weakest link, Goodbye."

This is Casandra Speaking for Forward Views, all of tomorrows news, today.