Month's end

News blues

The U.S. authorized its first update to COVID-19 vaccines, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Shots could begin within days.
…
Until now, COVID-19 vaccines have targeted the original coronavirus strain, even as wildly different mutants emerged. The new U.S. boosters are combination, or “bivalent,” shots. They contain half that original vaccine recipe and half protection against the newest omicron versions, called BA.4 and BA.5, that are considered the most contagious yet.

Read more >> 

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Older adults, immunocompromised and the very young are paying the price for the mask-less freedom of many.

While much of US society has breathed a collective sigh of relief at no longer having to wear a mask in public, that freedom has placed people who are immunocompromised at risk, such as medical director of the infectious disease program at University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Dr Jeannina Smith’s patients. Nor are they the only ones. Older adults, the very young and those with long Covid are at greater risk too. So while for many Americans the pandemic increasingly feels over, for others – often the most vulnerable – it rages on.
As Smith puts it, “What troubles me as an infectious disease specialist with an interest in public health is the abandonment of the idea that public health exists to protect the most vulnerable.”

Read more >> 

***

On war and culture war
Highly recommended article, “Is it Fascism? Is it Socialism? Words mean things” >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:
Tough on crime  (0:57 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - August 30, 2022  (2:20 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Labor Day - September 5 - is summer's official end. 

This year, September will be the hardest month Mary may ever experience as she begins chemotherapy. 

Tomorrow, September 1, she attends a pre-chemo class to learn about the process and what she might expect and experience. I'll attend that class with her.
September 9 she accepts an injection of a large dose of Vitamin B, to boost her system in preparation for her first dose of chemo on September 15. After that, it's anohter dose every three weeks for four doses.
I'll be with her every step of the gruelling way.

***

Preparing for ultra-hot weather here in California.
July last year, I spent 14 days on my boat in the Sacramento Delta in quarantine for Covid after returning from South Africa. (Read post “Launching”) During that time, temperatures reached 111 degrees Fahrenheit.
This week, temperatures around California will reach similar heights.
Luckily, the inner bay, my neck of the woods, will hover around the low 80s. 

Sigh of relief.

Evan as the temperatures soar in California, Kwa Zulu Natal experiences low overnight temperatures, down to freezing in some areas.
The seasons are changing, too.
SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 6:39am
Sunset: 7:39pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:15am
Sunset: 5:44pm

Giving thanks

News blues

Set up to fail? Does the fall booster plan targeting Omicron have a “fatal paradox”? >> 

***

On war and culture war
I’ve made no secret of, nor apologies for, my antipathy towards The Donald (Donald Trump, senior – and, to be honest, DT junior, too). Moreover, I’m heartily sick of the man and his antics – from before, during, and since his so-called presidency. My antipathy toward him has neither increased nor decreased with his inappropriate secreting of highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The man is a wily, cunning, greedy, self-centered user.
And, distressingly, he could – likely won’t but could – get another run for another presidential term. What might that look like? Well, the former president and his allies have explained their plans quite clearly >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:
Intruder (1:37 mins)

The list (1:00 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Info shared as a heads-up and not as a downer…. An underlying contention of this Covid-related blog is: we humans can (likely will) but must not continue business as usual vis-à-vis competently addressing the fragility and complexity of our planet. We know yet we refuse to act on knowledge, that, as we shrink our global wilderness areas and expand “development” and urbanization we endanger all life.
For example, Pakistan and South Asia currently suffer devastating climate change-related flooding, so does US's Mississippi. Meanwhile, California, too, suffers insidious climate change-exacerbated disease. Valley fever, or coccidioidomycosis, can be contracted simply by breathing California’s air .

***

I adore hummingbirds and regularly provide my neighborhood’s hummingbirds sustenance via sugar-water feeders. As anyone knows who provides such food stations, hummingbirds can be aggressive towards other hummingbirds. Why is this, you wonder? For insight, read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Mary reports her lung and chest continue to improve, that she’s modifying her tendency to move quickly by taking it slow, particularly moving from sitting to standing. “Becoming light-headed each time I stand reminds me that slow is beautiful, too.” 

Today, over early morning coffee – she drinks it cold now, something new in the last month – Mary said, “I’m so proud of my body. I’ve tried to take care of it over my lifetime and, yes, mesothelioma might kill me – eventually – in the meantime my body is doing an amazing job of recovering from a drastic and invasive surgery. I thank it for its long years of optimal service.” 

Lovely.
(Reminder, surgeon’s photo of the “gunk” removed from the pleura – lining – of Mary’s left lung.  )

***

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 6:38am
Sunset: 7:41pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:16am
Sunset: 5:44pm

Cooking with gas

News blues

Let’s hear it for genetics – the kind allow some people resistance from infection, from HIV to coronavirus >> 
Then there’s the opposite news: how quickly other people are infected after exposure to BA.5.
A new study reveals the average time it takes between infection and symptoms for recent COVID variants — and it's pretty fast >> 

***

On culture, not war
Covid-19 lockdown and resultant health cautions shut down South Africa’s iconic and world-renowned Comrades Marathon. After two years with no race – the only other time was during World War II, from 1941 to 1945 - the grueling ultramarathon resumed this year. And, the story of this year’s winner is a winner: South Africa’s Tete Dijana, who works as a security guard, won the men’s leg of the race.
Read the uplifting story >> 
For more on the Comrades Marathon, read post “Something these is doesn’t love a wall” 

The Lincoln Project:
We, the People  (1:37 mins)
Poser  (0:28 mins)
Kansas  (0:40 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Let them eat cake? (Backstory)
As prices rise beyond the ability of many British families to pay – thank you, Brexit! – too many British children don’t have enough to eat.
This due, partly, to the extreme rise in the price of natural gas and electricity.
Russians, meanwhile, at a time when it has sharply cut natural gas deliveries to the European Union, gets rid of its excess natural gas by flaring large volumes into the atmosphere near the Finnish border.
Humans! What to say?

Analysts from Rystad, an energy consultancy based in Norway, described [this action] as an environmental disaster and estimated the amount of gas being burned off into the atmosphere was equivalent to about 0.5% of daily EU needs.
…
Rystad analysts wrote: "Exact flaring volumes levels are hard to quantify but are believed to be at levels of around 4.34 million cubic meters per day. This equates to 1.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) on an annualized basis and is equal to around 0.5% of the EU's gas demand needs."
…
Professor Esa Vakkilainen at the LUT University, Lappeenranta, said Gazprom may have been burning as much as 1,000 euros worth of gas per hour for the past two months, while flaring was damaging the atmosphere.
"So this is also a big environmental problem, especially for the North Pole area where this soot has definitely an effect on global warming," he said.

Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Mary, a model for future mesothelioma suffers (yes, unfortunately, right now, people, unbeknownst to them, have this fatally toxic environmental disease) has weaned herself off the oxycodone drug. She was unusually fatigued her first day off the drug, but quickly regrouped. Yesterday she was in the kitchen cooking up an experimental mashed potato crust veggie pie, potato cakes (for aloo tikki and chana masala), and bolognaise sauce for spaghetti. All this to freeze for quickie meals once she begins chemo in just 16 days. (We’re optimistic she’ll want to eat during that time.)
Mary reports feeling “pretty good,” as if she can “feel her chest again – and that “the boxy feeling” in her chest "lessens each day.”
The other good news? Mary emailed her surgeon photos of her healing scars (one about 15 inches long, the other that, post-surgery, accommodated four draining tubes – about 6 inches long) and asked when she might start swimming again. 

She’d asked the same question some time back and he’d said, “in about six weeks.”
At the end of her sixth week, she repeated the question. This time he said, “go for it.”
The new bathing suit she ordered arrived yesterday. Unlike her trim Speedo, this one has shorts and a long-sleeved shirt.
“I want to avoid as much as possible the initial shock of cold to my now-vulnerable system. A wet suit likely wouldn’t give me my desired range of motion for swimming. Not sure how this suit will work out. I’ll probably quickly lose my shorts but it’s worth a try.”
I agree: definitely worth a try.
So far, today is typically foggy. Once the fog burns off, we’ll approach the pool.

***

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 6:37am
Sunset: 7:42pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:17am
Sunset: 5:43pm

Upstaged

Worldwide (Map) 
August 25,2022 - 598,770,100 confirmed infections; 6,472,475 deaths
August 26, 2021 – 213,854,000 confirmed infections; 4,463,000 deaths
August 27,2020 – 24,206,820 confirmed infections; 826,59 deaths
US (Map) 
August 25,2022 - 93,930,250 confirmed infections; 1,042,470 deaths
August 26, 2021 – 38,222,000 confirmed infections; 632,300 deaths
August 27, 2020 – 5,824,200 confirmed infections; 179,756 deaths
SA (Coronavirus portal) 
August 25,2022 - 4,010460 confirmed infections; 102,085 deaths
August 26, 2021 – 2,722,205 confirmed infections; 80,470 deaths
August 27, 2020 – 615,700 confirmed infections; 13,502 deaths
Posts from:
August 26, 2020, “Forever?” 
August 27, 2020, “Relief!” 

News blues

White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha's predicted this week that newly updated COVID-19 boosters tailored to target a dominant strain of the virus will be available in the next three weeks… that is, assuming the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention work through their processes for authorization ….
Read more >> 

***

On war and culture war

Six months of war in Ukraine – photos >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:
Last week in the Republican Party - August 23, 2022  (2:20 mins)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

During yesterday’s video conference with Mary’s oncologist, we learned Mary has been “re-staged.” Staging is the oncological description of how far along is a case of cancer (stage 4 is “final”).
Initially, Mary had been staged at “late stage 1, early stage 2.”
Nice. Right?
It crossed my mind that “late stage 1, early stage 2” was “lucky”, given that Mary’s meso had likely started “decades ago.” “Decades” is the described longevity of mesothelioma before it is discovered in the unlucky victim’s body. (See post “Not a week, a lifetime!” for details and photos of surgical scrapings from Mary’s lungs.) 

My thinking: if the disease is decades old, how come it’s been spreading so inefficiently? Well, some questions, I told myself, have no easy answers. I thanked the gods that Mary was “super lucky”: her lymph nodes showed no sign of metastasizing.
Yesterday’s conversation with the oncologist, however, revealed that “mid-chest” lymph nodes suggested “some involvement”. The surgeon and oncologist – and biopsy – re-staged Mary to Stage 3 A.
Hmmmm.
Bummer.
Given this new prognosis, Mary could, along with chemotherapy, opt for radiation therapy – highly targeted radiation aimed at the lymph.
Mary’s first take? Thanks, but no thanks to radiation therapy: the action is too close to her heart, spine, and lungs.
Based on further detailed information, she’s open to reevaluating this initial decision but for now, nope.
Long story short: Mary will begin chemo – two chemo meds, cisplatin and pemetrexed – when the oncology department can schedule her - perhaps another 3 weeks.
Outpatient treatment requires intravenous infusion – hopefully, no need for a central or PICC line, nor a portacath. Mary has good veins – protruding – so we’re hoping one of them will suffice every three weeks.
She’ll stick around the oncology setting after infusion for a couple of hours to monitor any reaction to treatment. After that, she’ll return home.
This treatment continues for four to six sessions every three weeks.
The list of side effects from this chemo cocktail are not insignificant.
The oncologist reports Mary won’t lose her hair. Dr Internet’s link, above, suggests she will. Time will tell. Hair is the least of Mary’s worries. Far more concerning is the statistic that 2 percent of chemo patients cannot take the treatment and will succumb – that is, die.
No prob. Mary has already worked with an estate lawyer.... 

***

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 6:34am
Sunset: 7:48pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:22am
Sunset: 5:41pm

Good man

News blues

You can’t keep a good man down!

“After more than 50 years of government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field,” Dr Anthony Fauci said in a statement. “I want to use what I have learned as NIAID Director to continue to advance science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders as they help prepare the world to face future infectious disease threats.”

Joe Biden, [79 years old] in a statement recognizing Fauci’s coming departure, hailed [Fauci, 81 years old] as a “dedicated public servant, and a steady hand with wisdom and insight honed over decades at the forefront of some of our most dangerous and challenging public health crises.” 

Read more >> 
Watch interview with Dr Fauci on his announcement and his views on zoonotic diseases, and the current atmosphere of hate and anger in the US >>  (11:53 mins)

***

A quick review of recent history – Covid and US response

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator under former President Donald Trump, on Sunday said the U.S. should not have had to rely on COVID data from Europe to protect Americans in the early days of the pandemic.
“In March of 2020, all of our data that I used to warn Americans of who was at risk for severe disease, hospitalization, and deaths came from our European colleagues,” Birx told CBS’ “Face the Nation. “That in itself should be an indictment of our system.”

Read more >> 

***

On war and culture war

Russian soldier speaks out… ‘I don’t see justice in this war’: Russian soldier exposes rot at core of Ukraine invasion >> 
Watch interview with this Russian soldier >> (5:33 mins)

***

The Lincoln Project:
Fire the Feds  (1:05 mins)
Receipts  (0:25 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

Nurdles, nurdles everywhere but none that we can capture…

Maritime authorities are considering stricter controls on the ocean transport of billions of plastic pellets known as nurdles after a series of spillages around the world.
Campaigners warn that nurdles are one of the most common micro-plastic pollutants in the seas, washing up on beaches from New Zealand to Cornwall. The multicoloured pellets produced by petrochemical companies are used as building blocks for plastic products, from bags to bottles and piping.

So, the UN seeks a plan to beat plastic nurdles?
Here’s a plan: NO more manufacture and use of plastic bags. No, not allow consumers off the hook simply by paying 10 cents, or 15 cents, or 20 cents per plastic bag. NO more plastic bags produced at all.
Let ‘em use cloth bring-your-own bags… or use up the plastic bags already littering the planet, dispose of them carefully, then bring their own bags….
Read more >> 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Mary is amazing. She’s determined to quit her oxycodone use asap… Yesterday, she was down to 5mg every 8-plus hours. Today? She bit the small, white 5mg pill in half and plans to gauge her pain threshold accordingly. So far, so good. She says it is not “pain” she experiences as she fights this good fight, it’s more the feeling that her chest is “boxed in” and “squeezed”.

***

Yesterday, Mary accompanied me and a friend to the Sacramento Delta where I’m looking at purchasing another liveaboard boat. Yes, liveaboard is in my future, again.
It was a lovely day in the Delta; hot, hot…

***

Time, again, to track the change of seasons:
SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 6:33am
Sunset: 7:49pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 6:23am
Sunset: 5:40pm

Chugging along

Worldwide (Map) 
18 August, 2022 - 593,867,700 confirmed infections; 6,447,250 deaths
19 August, 2021 – 209,892,500 confirmed infections; 4,401,700 deaths
19 August, 2020 – 22,425,000 confirmed infections; 788,000 deaths

US (Map) 
18 August, 2022 - 93,368,674 confirmed infections; x,630,850 deaths
19 August, 2021 – 37,201,600 confirmed infections; 625,150 deaths
19 August, 2020 - 5,530,000 confirmed infections; 173,177 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
18 August, 2022 - 4,008,700 confirmed infections; 102,000 deaths
19 August, 2021 – 2,652,660 confirmed infections; 78,694 deaths
19 August 2020, – 596,060 confirmed infections 12,423 deaths

Post from:
19 August, 2021, “Hip to Covid” 
19 August, 2020, “Rile up” 

News blues

CDC director Rochelle Walensky admits flawed COVID-19 response and orders agency overhaul to boost transparency by releasing data more quickly and to improve communication with the public. 

Read more >> 

The roll-out of updated Covid boosters will coincide with the logistical tangle of the regular flu shot drive. Needless to say, there will be questions about timing the booster to provide the best protection through our third Covid winter. 

Read more >> 

Long COVID: is recovery finally getting the attention it deserves in the US? The US government plans to invest in new research that investigates the variability in recovery. 

Read more >> 

***

On war and culture war

Dozens of vehicles and some people on foot, clinging to their belongings,
streamed into Kharkiv, once Ukraine’s second largest city,
on April 29, fleeing fighting in a town to the north.
© New York Times. Ukraine Under Attack: Documenting the Russian Invasion >> 

***

The Lincoln Project:
Insider  (0:55 mins)
Outsider  (0:55 mins)
Dr Oz goes shopping  (0:40 mins)
President Biden on the Inflation Reduction Act (2:05 mins)
Laura Ingraham ditches Trump  (0:30 mins)
Last week in the Republican Party - August 16, 2022  (2:07 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A recent study finds that ants can be better than pesticides for growing healthy crops, indeed, that harnessing natural insect power can, with proper management, have higher efficacy than resorting to harmful chemicals

***

Bosco the potbellied pig has lived in the front yard of a local house for many years. Whether he’s an older, perhaps wiser potbellied pig now than ever before, I’m not sure. I do know that he’s just as photogenic as he’s ever been.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

After trying to resolve the ongoing theft of succulents from her garden – as mentioned in a recent post  - my friend Linda gave up. 

She communicated her disappointment to the neighborhood.
I am sorry, Linda, that humans are so, well, human: can’t live without ‘em and, alas, have a hard time living with ‘em, too.

I love that Linda tries to communicate and doesn’t resort to violence.

***

On the meso front, Mary is healing by leaps and bounds. She’s pushing the envelope with the opioid drugs, cutting back as fast as she can, and intending to be done with oxy by the time chemo sessions are scheduled to begin – in about 2 weeks.
Cutting back with oxy is easier said than done. Now at 5mg every 6 to 6.5 hours, she’s often tuckered out from the effort.
“What I feel is not what I’d define as pain, more like a feeling that my chest is boxed in and constricted. Having said that, though, I also feel pinpricks of what I would define as pain.”
After not talking to a medical professional for more than 3 weeks, Mary emailed her surgeon and, after a back-and-forth of emails, was put in touch with a Physician’s Assistant. The PA was helpful on a variety of fronts, also assuring Mary that the pain she described – often located between her shoulder blades - was a known post-surgery symptom.
In other words, Mary’s healing well, better than many. This, Mary reports, is on a par with what she learns from the assorted online meso support groups and webinars she attends. “In fact,” she says, “it sounds as if I’m doing better than many participating in the same groups. That makes me optimistic.”
Me, too.
Keep on keeping on, Mary!

"Without fear of favor"

On war and culture war

I, like many Americans, have watched and wondered about Merrick Garland since his very human and touching acceptance speech for the role of US Attorney General. Since then, however, given all the b*s*t put out by Trump and the Trumpies, I’ve wondered what on earth was AG Garland doing? Or not doing? Was he asleep at the wheel? Was he terrified of raising his head above the parapets?
Turns out the guy was beavering away on minute details to implement a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago.
Woo hoo! My hero! A guy in the position of US AG requires cajones. Up until yesterday, Garland’s cajones were tidily tucked away. Now? The little guy displays big cajones!
You go, Garland! Here’s a straight-forward explanation of what’s going on in the US these days and what it takes to maintain a civil society. 

Watch and listen, ‘An Epic Showdown Between Rule Of Law And Law Of Power' >>  (8:00 mins)

***

Life imitates art… or is it art imitates life? No matter. It’s kinda art – and life… enjoy >>

And, birds, in conjuction with humans, create art >>

Healthy planet, anyone?

I live on the beach on the western side of a small island on the east side of San Francisco Bay. It’s a gorgeous spot (see short video on recent post ). We 7-plus million residents of this area face dramatic sea level rise.
Each day, some 390 billion gallons of water pass through a natural “opening” that is less than 90 feet/27.5 meters wide into the inner bay. Plus, more water from the interior – the rivers of the Sacramento Delta, for example. That’s a lot of water through a narrow gap. How, I wonder, will sea level rise affect the Pacific Ocean side and the inner bay side?
Until recently I figured engineers would create some sort of tidal barrier a la Venice  or the Thames.
I’m not sure of shipping traffic into Venice (mostly cruise ships?) or to London (like the Bay Area weighted towards trade?) but heavy shipping traffic into San Francisco Bay, to the Port of Oakland, for example, would be adversely affected by such a barrier. (Interesting Covid-realted info on shipping in the bay)
Enter creative thinking on the subject of barriers to thwart flooding of existing infrastructure: the Billion Oyster Project

The non-profit [Billion Oyster Project] hopes to restore 1 billion oysters to New York Harbor by 2035, in an effort to improve the area’s flood resiliency.
The organization also works with Living Breakwater, a nature-based green infrastructure in the works along the Staten Island coastline, to cultivate the region’s shellfish habitat. Overseen by New York state governor’s office of storm recovery, this $107m effort to mitigate storm surges through living barriers has installed two breakwaters – a series of rock piles that blunt the impact of waves – off the borough’s coast. A total of eight breakwaters are planned.

Read more >> 

Perhaps now that Prez Biden has successfully begun with at least one plan, the Inflation Reduction Act  to address climate change, more creative ideas such as Billion Oyster Project will see fruition. “Thoughts and prayers….”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Healing is a series of good days and bad days. Yesterday was a good day. Mary and I went walking along the beach and chatted with a woman “walking” her young parrot. Well, she walked and her bird rode upon her hand and wrist. We encountered them after the bird and the bird lover engaged a garden sprinkler. The bird thoroughly enjoyed fluffing its feathers and spritzing under the sprinkler mist. Mary and I watched fascinated as the bird clung to the woman’s hand held under the misty water and fluttered its wings and feathers. The bird appeared ecstatic.
Afterward, the woman encouraged the parrot to “step up” onto Mary’s arm. Close up, it was a gorgeous creature. This iPhone camera photo hardly does justice to the speckles of turquoise area the creature’s head and neck….

***

Mary and I participated in our second Zoom support group for those struggling or those supporting those struggling with mesothelioma. It included about a dozen people.
Mary and I share an existential view that slivers of humor exist in most situations, indeed, that humor heals. Alas, this point of view is scarce in the meso world. Yes, this is a horrible disease, made more horrible in that it derives from working – making a living – using toxic materials that manufacturers KNEW was toxic yet continued to sell. The worse kind of profit over human lives.
There are many forms of meso. Mary may or may not have the worst form; we’re babes in the mesothelioma woods. So far, we agree that suffering with peritoneal meso  – malignancies in the lining of the abdomen – appear to be a worse form.
Mary says, “At least my meso is confined to one lung… and the surgeon scraped out all but the tiniest bits and pieces.” (Pic of what surgeon removed from Mary’s lung.) Scraping all the bits and pieces from the lining of the abdomen seems a greater challenge.”
Nevertheless, Mary and I agree that one factor that appears missing from these meso online gatherings is humor. Yes, meso sufferers face daunting challenges. Yes, everyone has a personal trajectory to make peace with one’s diagnosis. Yes, maybe Mary and I have, so far, only encountered the online gatherings of people yet to find the humor in their situation. Or, yes, we’re just ignorant brats who refuse to face up to our new reality and deflect with humor.
We agree with, say, Joan Rivers: “Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It’s all funny.”
Scott Weems, a cognitive neuroscientist and author, said  “My first thought when I think about humour is it’s a great way for us to have evolved so we don’t have to hit each other with sticks.”
George Burns said, “"I think when humor has a basic honesty, you can use it all your life.” 
I could go on quoting well-known comedians but why? What counts is how you experience humor/humour in your life. I maintain that cracking a joke here and there about one’s own experience is healthy and, indeed, funny and healing.
Try it. You may like it.
Mary and I understand that people afflicted with an incurable disease might find humor misplaced, unkind, and inappropriate. We also agree that the support groups that do not display forms of humor are not for us.
What to do?
That is the question.