The irritations and heartbreak of Facebook

My spouse put me on Facebook so I could keep updated on grandchildren.  I also found it a medium that kept me in touch with friends and acquaintances. But it often revealed things about some people that most people would rather not know.

I am dismayed at the exhibitionism of some people.  They are possessed by their own preciosity.  When I was in high school, the favored response to such displays was, "Well, smell me!"  They don't know the difference between letting others know what they are up to these days and putting themselves on display out of a conviction that the world needs something to admire.  They seem unaware that such displays are a regression to juvenile egotism.  I commented on this to a friend who agreed but said such self-displays were a symptom of dementia which can assail anyone.

It makes me think of the often-repeated ritual people go through when they receive some kind of an award.  With faux humility, they say, "I thank the people who made me what I am today,"  My internal response is, "You're thanking someone for creating a self-sucking twit?"

There really is no difference between people who post pictures of their genitalia and those who avariciously promote themselves with self-congratulatory posts of their latest activities.  Both are obscene.  And no one really wants to see them.  It would be more appropriate if they would simply post rectal portraits.  The imagery more accurately portrays the human characteristic involved.

Facebook is also a breeding ground for writing atrocities. It is a repository for mangled and abused language.  But it is a barometer for the state of literacy of the human species  of which Mark Twain said, "Can any plausible excuse be furnished for the crime of creating the human race?"  Facebook supports Twain's assessment.

When mater ain't very alma

Teaching at Augustana College in Rock Island was like living through episodes of Mean Girls.  It demonstrated the one main thing I have in common with poet Sylvia Plath:  when you teach at the school which you once attended, you find your relationship with some faculty is quite different.  For some faculty, the change in relationship from mentor to colleague is an upsetting change in status.  Some faculty expect a permanent deference from students, and the expectation of equality by former students is regarded as a rather unforgivable impertinence.  

My eight years of teaching at Augustana had pleasant and productive aspects, and there was only one person on the faculty of my department that I had for a professor as a student. However, I found out eventually that there was a tradition instilled into the department that endured through many personnel changes.   While on the surface the department did its work delivering quality courses of study, it worked in a mire of petty treacheries and betrayals that defined the relationships of its members.  Some faculty asserted their sense of superiority with malice toward many.  It had its effects.

The Augustana experience made two of my young colleagues decide that college teaching was not for them. One of them returned to college teaching at a place he said was not possessed by a malicious competition for status.  I also found in 20 years of teaching at a public university that most faculty conduct themselves with measured good will and equality.  But I spent what I call one of the worst evenings of my life with English faculty from St. Olaf dominated by a woman who could not seem to utter a word that did not convey malice and disparagement.  As an officer in a faculty union which was involved in resolving charges of hostile work places, I saw the necessity for having contractual procedures for dealing with contumely as it creates irreconcilable divisions among faculty.  Malignant personalities can bring otherwise reputable organizations to moral, if not intellectual, dysfunction.  The Augustana department never reached that point because it had faculty of good will and good purpose who countered the Nazi-like intensity that possessed a few.  

I am a graduate of Augustana and regard my time as a student there with bright memories.  But as a faculty member, I came to recognize a lurking darkness of intention that resided in some.  It can be transmitted to students.  That's why adherence to a statement of ethical principle must be enforced to legitimize an institution of higher learning:

Professors, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recognize the special responsibilities placed upon them. Their primary responsibility to their subject is to seek and to state the truth as they see it. To this end professors devote their energies to developing and improving their scholarly competence. They accept the obligation to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending, and transmitting knowledge.

Sometimes this means confronting the administration of college and the way academic business is done.

 

They're not conservative; they're anti-democracy

 A militant anti-democracy movement is making gains in taking over the country.  One of their latest coups was in a large school district near Denver.  Four "conservatives" on a seven-member school board fired the superintendent in a power-play that broke the rules that govern how such decisions are supposed to be made.  Their motives appeared to be only to exercise power and had nothing to do with educational issues or serving the community.  Their sole purpose was to assert authority and assume control of the school district.

In another incident on another front, but driven by the same motive, Minneapolis police went into an apartment where the resident's cousin, 22-year-old Amir Locke,  was asleep with a gun nearby and blew him away with three shots as he woke up and grabbed for the gun.   Locke was not wanted for anything by law enforcement, and friends and family said he was, in fact, a mellow kind of guy.  But he did not survive an encounter in his sleep with an idiot with a gun.  

These incidents expose the big lie about America.  That lie is that the nation is about "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."  The superintendent did not have the liberty to explain the way he did his job.  Amir Locke did not have the right to life. And chasing after any happiness is beside the point.  If a person does not conform and subject himself to the notional commands of "conservatives," he can be terminated.  In their minds, anyone's rights but their own are alienable. 

These people call themselves conservatives, but they are, in fact, anti-democracy.  The thought of things like equality and the inalienable right-to-life makes them foam at the mouth and go into shooting rages.  They aren't about conserving the principles of American rights, but are devoted to finding ways to violate them.  A branch of American conservatism has lurched off into outright nazism. 

It raises the question of why meanness and stupidity occur together.  It may be that being called stupid makes people mean.  Or it could be that meanness numbs the brain cells.  Whatever the conditions of occurrence, ill will seems to concentrate in stupid people.  And much conservatism expresses itself in terms of ill will.  

This was apparent during the presidency of Donald Trump.  He exuded malice.  He and his supporters made it clear that they weren't offering a way to administer democracy.  They were against democracy.

Even though we are in a respite from an assault against democracy, we should not forget for a moment that the opponents of democracy are still out there, waiting for a chance to subvert it.  They will take over school boards.  Some will attack when they think  we're asleep.  To those who think their status is determined by how many people they can disparage and look down upon, democracy is an enemy--although they like it for themselves.  Just not for others.

Democracy is in constant peril from those conservatives who want a return to feudalism with them in the ruling class.

And then came Trump.

 For a long time, America basked in the reputation for being the world's greatest democracy.  And then came Donald Trump.  The country's reputation in the world took a steep dive.

Many political savants do not think the country can fully recover.  When a person does something incredibly stupid, people wisely assume he is likely to do it again.  The same goes for nations.  The election of Trump signified that the United States was in the grip of a  seizure of stupidity.  It has demonstrated its capability for stupidity and is likely to do it again.

The election of Trump to the presidency revealed a massive intellectual and moral failure in the American people.  A majority of voters put in office a man who violates every standard of competence and decency that Americans like to say they stand for.  The main thing Trump proved is that American democracy is a phony pretense.  The country does not live up to the benign aspirations that are popularly claimed as its goal,  and a good portion of Americans has no interest in things like honesty, integrity, intelligence, or good will.  They gauge success in life in terms of how many people can be fucked over.  America is being run like a business, and businesses are not run as democracies.  They have CEOs who are enthroned with the powers of kings.  When people say governments should be run like businesses, they are revealing their rejection of democracy and their preference for the rule of authority.  They got it with Donald Trump, and all the stupidity, pettiness, and meanness he musters.

America toppled from being a functioning democracy to being a bumbling autocracy.

Trump's antics get more press than the job being done by our current president.  Perhaps that is for the good if people realize that everything Trump says and does is a demonstration of what happens when a certified fool is in charge of something.   However, the foolery diverts attention away from the ultimate peril it puts democracy in, and that is that fools crave the power to impose their foolery on the world. 

After the election, the new administration announced that America is back, and our allies greeted then news with approval.  But there are reservations: America could always revert to a state of Trump.  That is an uncertainty that we and the rest of the world will need to learn how to live with.

When politics turns universities into criminal enterprises

  South Dakota university campuses are in turmoil over diversity issues.  This fall at the University of South Dakota, a Center for Diversity and Community (CDC), a coalition of groups of minority students, was evicted from office space it occupied to be replaced by an Opportunity for All Center, which was ordered by the Board of Regents. State legislator Rep. Liz May, R-Kyle, threatened to defund the University of South Dakota’s diversity office by stripping $275,000 worth of the school’s funding. The student government passed a resolution objecting to the Opportunity Center.   At South Dakota State University, the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Access was closed.  The student newspaper published a lengthy piece expressing dismay at the demise of the Diversity office, stating that three of its counselors had quit the University.  

At Northern State, there was turmoil over the matter of diversity early in 2021.  A newspaper report said that legislators had composed a letter to President Downs threatening to fire him if he did not desist from some diversity activities he initiated on the campus.  During his tenure at Northern, he accumulated $110 million in donated funds for the university, so his sudden, obviously forced, departure was startling to those in the Aberdeen community.  The press release in April said he was leaving to pursue a new opportunity in higher education, but as of the beginning of 2022, his online resume showed he hadn’t caught up with it yet.

Just before the start of the fall semester last August, the South Dakota Board of Regents issued a charge to the campuses to establish Opportunity Centers.  It is important to note that the Board is composed of active operatives of the state Republican Party, which has complete control of state government.  Only one member has significant experience in higher education.  Regents say the purpose of the Opportunity Centers is to:

       Bolster student success through the implementation of “Opportunity Centers” on campus. Opportunity Centers should realign and focus campus resources to effectively assess and address the individual needs of all students. Opportunity Centers should serve as an inclusive community where all are welcome, accepted and provided access to the services needed to assist, accommodate, retain and graduate, with equal regard given to the unique challenges and needs of every students. Opportunity Centers should supplement or enhance related activities on campus specific to opportunities or challenges of cultural relevance to South Dakota.

The  campuses apparently understood this to mean to banish the diversity centers and set up agencies that were more directly under the control of the political authorities.  The closing of the diversity offices had full complicity of the governor, who wrote:

      “I am glad to see that so-called diversity offices, which have unfortunately become less about serving students and more about advancing leftist agendas, are being replaced by Opportunity Centers that will focus on students as individuals, rather than members of groups," Noem said. "The policies put forth by the Board of Regents are a step forward in our quest to resist the harmful effects this ideology can have on students and preserve honest, patriotic education throughout South Dakota."

To people in higher education, the firing of Dr. Downs from Northern was a signal that the university system had been transformed into outposts of the state’s single party government.  His unseemly departure raised no expressions of concern from the faculty.  One professor who came from Aberdeen but taught at a large eastern university said, “Well, that’s Northern.”

He was referring to a history, much of it recent, that the public is little aware of and staff members tend to dismiss.  But among those who adhere to the professional standards of higher education, it is a matter of concern that they think needs to be addressed.

For more than 20 years (1968-1991), Northern was under censure by the American Association of University Professors.  The censure was over the firing of a professor without any procedures of due process or review.  The censure was lifted when the system proved that it was operating under an enforceable union contract that specified the steps of due process and review that must be followed.  In 2020, however, the legislature passed and the governor signed a law banning faculty collective bargaining unions.  Current faculty have no protections against arbitrary personnel actions.  Many disciplinary faculty organizations have posted warnings in the employment listings of their journals that the South Dakota system is deficient in its faculty contracts and is subject to political whims.  However, censure for arbitrary personnel actions are usually imposed on administrations on behalf of faculty.  Seldom do the actions against college administrators from higher-ups receive sanctions, unless the administrator also holds professorial rank.  The case of Dr. Downs has been referred for potential censure because there are no protections that could be enforced if such actions would be taken against faculty, and it raises questions of academic freedom and integrity.

Northern’s problems go much deeper than personnel issues.  The University has been complicit in two of the biggest scandals in the governance of South Dakota:  the EB-5 and the Gear Up scandals.

The EB-5 program is one through which foreign nationals can buy a green card to become a resident of the U.S. by investing a minimum of $500,000.  The investments are channeled to recipient businesses through regional centers. The Board of Regents established the South Dakota International Business Institute (SDIBI) at Northern State to facilitate and enhance international trade.  Joop Bollen, a man who had immigrated from Holland, was its director, and it was a part of the School of Business.  It became the regional center for coordinating the foreign investments, and although under Board of Regents overview, it worked more closely with the governor’s office of economic development.

One of the recipients of the money invested was a start-up packing plant, Northern Beef Packers, which failed.  Its failure captured the attention of federal authorities who found that $120 million or so of the funds handled by the SDIBI could not be accounted for.  A former member of the governor’s economic development staff, Richard Benda, was intensely involved in the EB-5 project, and after the investigations started was found dead by alleged suicide while on a hunting trip.  Leading up to this, the then-president of Northern was reviewing the budget and questioned what the SDIBI had to do with higher education and why the University was budgeting for it. He, in effect, kicked the enterprise off the campus.

Gear Up was a program to prepare Native American students for college.  The U.S. Dept. of Education provided a grant of $62 million to the state Dept. of Education which was to be matched dollar-for-dollar by the state for the program.  To administer the program, the state contracted with the   Mid-Central Educational Cooperative (MCEC) in Platte.  A state auditor found some glaring irregularities in the MCEC records, the state canceled the contract, and investigations began.  Consequently, the principal administrator at MCEC, Scott Westerhuis, shot his wife, shot his four children, set his house on fire, then killed himself.

Kelly Duncan, who worked at USD and then became dean of the School of Education at NSU, was hired as an independent evaluator and principal investigator on the Gear Up project.  She received $124,000 from the Dept. of Education for her work on the project between 2012 and 2015.

The problem at Northern is not with the university itself but with the way that political chicanery and subversion seems to thrive there.  The firing of Dr. Downs has put the university on the watch lists of professional academic organizations.  For the system, the heavy handed purging of diversity programs and their replacement by politically endorsed and mandated Opportunity Centers raises issues of accreditation.  On their face, the universities do not meet the standards of academic freedom and collegial exchange on which valid institutions of higher education must operate.

Individual faculty members do their jobs as they studied and were trained to do.  But with a nincompoop governor sending down mandates on what and how it should be taught and a group of regents appointed by her to carry them out, the higher is being removed from higher education.  When small-minded politics invades college campuses, it displaces academic integrity and replaces it with cheap and inane power plays.  And that means involving them in schemes in which $120 million of investor money gets lost and never found and the U.S. government gets bilked out of $62 million. 

If someone aspires to fraud and deception, our universities have people who can offer courses in them.

It's not Joe Biden's bad week. It's ours.

 American politics has sunk into a mire of pettiness and meanness.  A former managing editor I worked with would say it's time for a winnowing.  He would say in a situation like the past week, don't focus only on Joe Biden and what he was trying to accomplish; focus on the people who are obstructing him and what they are trying to accomplish.  It does not take a lot of political savvy to separate who is actually trying to do something uplifting for the nation from those with a different agenda.

The coronavirus pandemic has provided a winnowing experience.  It has separated those who want the best for the country from those who want the worst which serves their own failures of mind and character.  Dr. Fauci has become a touchstone in that process.  An 80-year-old man with almost 40 years experience under seven presidents in the science of disease control has become the target for hate by many Americans.  As a coronavirus that humankind knew nothing about invaded the biosphere, it was his job to lead and report on the research on it.  His observations and recommendations evolved along with the knowledge about covid-19. But in doing his job,  he ran into the biggest threat of intellectual morbidity that America has probably ever encountered in the White House:  Donald Trump.  The pandemic produced sound and effective measures for controlling and eventually defeating it, but it also revealed a viral mentality among us that is a menace to humanity that we thought could never occur in America.  Benign democracy is at risk.  The menace has identified itself over vaccines and Dr. Fauci.

Most Americans are well vaccinated.   Here are the vaccines that we routinely carry in our bodies to keep us healthy and alive.  Some we get right after birth.  Some we get to be admitted to school.

• Diphtheria and Tetanus Toxoids and Acellular Pertussis Adsorbed (DTaP)

• Tetanus Toxoid, Reduced Diphtheria Toxoid and Acellular Pertussis Vaccine Adsorbed (Tdap

• Haemophilus b Conjugate Vaccine (Hib)

• Hepatitis A Vaccine

• Hepatitis B Vaccine

• Influenza Vaccine (administered with a needle)

• Measles, Mumps and Rubella Vaccine

• Meningococcal Vaccine
• 
  
• Pneumococcal 13-valent Conjugate Vaccine

• Poliovirus Vaccine

• Rotavirus Vaccine

• Varicella: Chickenpox

By law, states can prescribe a series of vaccines to control and eliminate communicable diseases.  Vaccine requirements are a necessity to keep schools from being vector points for crippling and deadly diseases.  You can look up the vaccines required for children entering school in the various states at this link. Here are the vaccine requirements for South Dakota:

South Dakota Codified Law 13-28-7.1 (Rev. 2016) requires that any pupil entering school or an early childhood program in this state shall, prior to admission, be required to present to school authorities certification from a licensed physician that the child has received, or is in the process of receiving, adequate immunization against poliomyelitis, diphtheria, pertussis, rubeola (measles), rubella, mumps, tetanus, meningitis and varicella (chickenpox), according to the recommendations of the State Department of Health.

This law applies to ALL children entering a South Dakota school district for the first time. This would include children in early intervention programs, preschool, as well as kindergarten through twelfth grade. Children under 4 need to be age-appropriately immunized.

Minimum immunization requirements for kindergarten through twelfth grade are defined as receiving at least:

1. Four or more doses of diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus containing vaccine, with at least one dose administered on or after age 4. Children 7 years or older needing the primary series only need three doses. Children receiving six doses before age 4 do not require any additional doses for kindergarten entry. The maximum a child should receive is six doses. If a child 7 years or older has an incomplete DTaP primary series, please contact the Department of Health for assistance. 

2. Four or more doses of poliovirus vaccine, at least one dose on or after age 4. (Although not the recommended schedule - If a child has three doses of polio with the third dose administered on or after the age of 4 and at least 6 months after the second dose, no other doses are required.)

3. Two doses of a measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR or MMRV). The minimum age for the first dose is 12 months. Administer the second dose routinely at age 4 through 6 years. The second dose may be administered prior to age 4 provided at least 28 days have elapsed since the first dose.

4. Two doses of varicella vaccine (Varicella or MMRV). The minimum age for the first dose of varicella (chickenpox) vaccine is 12 months. History of disease is acceptable with parent/guardian signature. Administer the second dose routinely at age 4 through 6 years. The second dose may be administered prior to age 4 provided the minimum interval between the two doses is 3 months.
   
   REQUIREMENTS FOR 6TH GRADE ENTRY:

5. One dose of Tdap is required for 6th-grade entry IF the child is 11 years old. If the child is 10 years old when entering 6th-grade they have 45 days after their 11th birthday to receive the Tdap vaccination. If a child has a contraindication to Tdap, Td is acceptable. If a child aged 7 through 9 years receives a dose of Tdap as part of a catch-up series, an adolescent Tdap vaccine dose must be administered by the 45th day following the child’s 11th birthday. A dose given at age 10 will count for the 6th grade Tdap requirement. If a child 7 years or older has an incomplete DTaP primary series, please contact the Department of Health for assistance.

6. One dose of meningococcal vaccine (MCV4) is required for 6th-grade entry IF the child is 11 years old. If the child is 10 years old when entering 6th grade they have 45 days after their 11th birthday to receive the meningococcal vaccine. If a child receives a dose at age 10 or after, the dose does not need to be repeated.

These requirements have long been recognized as essential to public health and the responsible operation of our schools, and they make safe community life possible.  In the face of 65 million cases of covid-19 in the nation resulting in 850,000 deaths, anyone arguing against vaccine mandates is effectually arguing in behalf of disabling disease and death.  With few exceptions, those who rail against a covid-19 vaccination are vaccinated against other diseases that can do them in.  They do not seem to suffer from their failures of intelligence, but the rest of the nation is.  

  

The attacks against Dr. Fauci reveal the malady that is the direst threat.  It is revealed in the opposition to vaccine mandates.  If one objects to mandates, can one propose anything as effective in getting control of the disease?  Or is one willing to submit to the disease?  And thus enable it?  A majority of people polled indicate that they do not think the country is doing well in handling the pandemic.  But they seem to ignore those who obstruct the measures that effectively prevent the spread of the disease.  

Similarly, in response to those who believe Trump's big lie, there are efforts to suppress voting rights and gain control of the tallying of votes.  These efforts are directed at commutes of color.  Their effect is to make some votes count for more than others or not count at all.  Disenfranchising the vote is a major step in revokng the democracy.

These obstructions violate the basic premise of the Constitution "to provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty..."   Blaming the White House for the obstructions by its political opposition is misdirection, a false diagnosis of the country's ills.  

Joe Biden may make attempts to offer solutions to our problems, but ultimately we are the owners of them.  Until we assign the cause of our failures to the actual sources, we will have to endure them.  

How America ended. And why.

 It's not all about Donald Trump.  It's about the people who made him president.  And who grovel before him.  And those who dismiss him as just a political choice.

A columnist in the Washington Post recently said we should not vilify Trump supporters.  Castigating them doesn't solve anything.  He says we should not lump all Republicans in with the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol last January 6.  His column is merely a feeble attempt to disassociate GOP members from what they accomplished with Trump and what their dominant, controlling agenda is.  It s a way of deflecting the fact that they are responsible for putting a raging child in the White House and putting the nation in peril.

Supporters of Trump claim he qualifies to be president because he is a successful business man. They ignore his defects of mind and character.  He was one of 17 GOP candidates for president.  Many of his fellow candidates denounced him as being unfit to be president.  In March of 2016, the conservative news magazine The National Review listed the many business failures and scandals that disqualified Trump for the presidency:

• 1983–1985: New Jersey Generals, a failed U.S. Football League team
• 1988–1992: Trump Airlines, failure
• 1989–1990: Trump: The Game (board game) (revived in 2005)
• 1990: Failure to pay contractors for Taj Mahal hotel and casino
• 1991: Trump Plaza’s violation of anti-discrimination laws in order to please Trump’s Mafia-connected pal
• 1991, 1992, 2004, and 2009: Trump’s Four bankruptcies
• 1977–1992, 1992–1999: Trump’s two divorces and adultery
• 2005–2011: Trump University scam
• 2006: Trump sued a journalist for libel and lost, badly
• 2006–2007: GoTrump.com--failure
• 2006–2007: Trump Mortgage—failure
• 2007–2008: Trump Steaks—failure
• 2007–2009: Trump magazine—failure
• 2009–2011: Trump Network—failure
• 2010: Foreign workers at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and elsewhere
• 2016: Wealthy Chinese investing cash in Trump Tower in exchange for visas
• 2016: Trump’s campaign manager allegedly assaults Breitbart reporter

With the debates and all the press coverage,Trump's voters knew exactly what they were voting for.  Mitt Romney stated it outright:

"Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He's playing the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.”

Those Republicans who once denounced him now grovel before him and put on obscene displays of French kissing his fat butt.  The big question is, why would people so ostentatiously debase themselves?  The answer is that Trump represents their values.  People voted for him because he is what they want and expresses their desires.  It is their values that they are being vilified for.

Their votes and their comments on public forums have said loudly and clearly that they don't want government by democracy but want government by malefaction.  They cling to the Old World values of needing to be ruled over by a lord and master, no matter how stupid and cruel.  They found one in Donald Trump.  A failed and incompetent business executive is royalty in America to them.

Although he has left the presidential office, politicians make the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his royal ass.  That act indicates that for them, America as a democracy has ended.  The throne of government is occupied for them by  a raging juvenile who they are duty bound to serve.  Although this juvenile has a long resume that reads like a criminal record.

Trump does not represent any democratic values.  Those who would be lords in America were plantation owners for whom the American dream was power, wealth, and an underclass to oppress.  Liberals in America have stood in opposition to that dream by promoting liberty, equality, and justice.  Trump's sycophants reject those concepts.  

It is a part of the base side of human nature to want someone to feel superior to, someone to be the target of hate.  Rush Limbaugh and his many imitators on night time radio found ways to exploit the urge to hate.  They discovered that they could switch the racial hatreds that were put to shame by the civil rights movement to those who implemented civil rights.  They systematically defamed liberals.  They said they were merely entertaining.  The deadly irony is that people who find defamation entertaining are the kind who used to bring picnic dinners to hangings.  Limbaugh and his ilk revived that legacy and provided liberals as objects of hate, which many people enjoy doing. 

When Trump stepped into the White House, his supporters thought their prince had come.  And America was stopped cold in its quest for decency,  for the realization of true liberty, equality, and justice.  Trump supporters have said that they are prepared to go to war if Trump and his return to feudalism are impeded by liberals.  They held a training exercise last January 6.

When Trump stepped into the White House, America as it was evolving to be ended.  His supporters were elated, and they continue to employ his values in obstructing and dismantling those aspirations expressed in the founding documents.

If people want America, those who actually do will have to find a time and place to start over and try once again.