Monday, September 22, 2008

Bailing us all out

It's overwhelming see the government is planning on handing out scads of money to bail out commercial investors. Mind you, it strikes me that it's going to be necessary that we do something if we want to have the economy in good working order. On the other hand, I don't want to see us put a package together the rewards the greed and idiocy that got us here the first place.

As I understand the proposal, the federal government is proposing to get involved in the purchase and sale of mortgage-backed securities. That's not such a simple thing -- when they are turned in to bonds, the Wall Street bond brokers took your standard mortgage and split it up into a whole lot of pieces. Say, for instance, that you had of 30 year fixed rate mortgage. One of the ways it could be split up would be to split the interest from the principal. But that's a really simple split compared to the current options. By the late 1980s, the bond market consisted of mortgages that have been split into a principal portion, the first five to 10 years worth of interest, second five to 10 years of interest, and so forth until all of the interest stream had been sold. Because the mortgage can be paid back early, the farthest out interest streams had the greatest quantity of risk in them. As a result, they were sold at a discount in order to increase the rate of return.

As far as I'm concerned many of the people buying these investment assets really didn't understand what it was they were buying. They made the assumption that because it was underwritten with real property that there was relatively low risk. Unfortunately they didn't take into account the rapid rise in home prices over the last couple decades. While real estate may be a very solid asset, there's only so much the value of an asset can increase relative to the average income. After all, at certain point, you reach a point where there aren't any people in the market who have a sufficient income to buy the property.

And that's how we end up where we currently are. Make no mistake; mortgage brokers, the banks that put together these bonds, and the banks that sold these bonds were all making a substantial profit just by creating them. They didn't have any incentive to make sure that the quality was sufficient for long-term viability because they were getting paid to the short-term process.

Give you an example: I bought a house two years ago. I was a new homebuyer and I had a small down payment. I had done my research and knew that I qualified for an Investment Finance Authority Loan. These are loans which are backed by the FHA but which also have state level support I don't know how many states have them but I believe that several do. In my state they offer two different alternatives: a) no money down or b) 3% down with a reduced rate of interest. Both of these are 30 year fixed mortgages. I had to do a substantial amount of fighting in order to get that 3% down mortgage. The mortgage broker really wanted me to go with two mortgages. The first would have been a 30 year fixed rate at 500 basis points less than the rate of the mortgage through the IFA. The second one, however, would have been an open ended, variable rate loan for the 30% that was not eligible for FHA financing. The terms on that loan seemed really generous on the surface: 1% less than the IFA loan, and repayment other than interest was not due until after the 30 year mortgage is paid off. Now, like I said it seems on the surface that this is very generous. But if you read through the fine print, you will notice that it was a variable rate mortgage. And this is a sort of instrument which is gotten us where we are today. Everything would've been well and good if I taken that, at least until the interest rates went up. The jump would've been to something close to 16% and I doubt I could've paid the resulting mortgage payments, which would've led to me being part of this current disaster.

So now the federal government wants to bail out all those people who profited from making those inadvisable mortgage loans. I don't have a problem with us doing something about a problem of illiquidity in the system. But I think that we need to go about it in a different way. It would make a lot more sense if instead of bailing out Wall Street, we bailed out the people who couldn't make their mortgage payments. Let's spend that money on creating low-cost loans that allow people to refinance and requiring Wall Street takes a hit for the difference between what they can realistically pay for every month and what the mortgage brokers talk them into signing on for. That infuses cash into the system, but makes the losses go to those who bet on the future value of all those mortgage payments.

I'll do my rant about how we administer this In a different post.

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Not all bad, not all good

As I have thought about what I have read and heard this last week about the shootings in TN, I have come to recognize some themes I think are problematic. I would like to share them, though I doubt they will all be popular.

Greg McKendry is being portrayed as a hero/saint who used his body as a living shield. I was not there, we don't know what Greg McKendry thought, but I doubt he was a saint. I suspect he was a real person with lots of good traits and a few not so good traits. What I do know, is that by being a living shield, regardless of intention, he was living out a principle of love and compassion. When we give for the sake of others, even though the personal costs are high, we become all that is good in humanity. In the moment that Greg McKendry became a living shield, he came as close to emulating Christ as is possible.

Jim D. Adkisson, the man accused of the shootings, is not a saint or a hero. Jim Adkisson is not totally evil either. Rather he is a man who was unemployed, losing his source of food, divorced, and angry. His anger was channeled against liberals in general and the UU church in particular. It was not who he knew, but what he hated about UUs. It would be easy to say he is crazy, because I think premeditated murder is crazy in general, but there is no evidence that Jim Adkisson is anything other than a sane man who acted on his rage. I don't know if he claimed to be a Christian, but his actions take him far from emulating Christ.

I don't hate him – I feel sorry for him. I don't want him to die; I do want him to find peace from the hatred.

I believe that people are essentially good, but that there are a few who are evil. I believe that UUs, like every other group, has some good people and some who are not good. I believe that most Christians are good people and that there are a few Christians who are not good. But what startles me is how someone who claims Christ can also preach intolerance and hatred. Jim D. Adkisson acted on hatred of that apparently influenced by the books of the right-wing Conservatives. How any person who claims to be Christian can stand the hatred some of these people spew is beyond me.

And that is where I get stuck. It is beyond my understanding. Some of the web postings show no compassion, yet they think UUs are a cult because UUs are not Christian like they believe a Christian should be? I don't get it. Christ preached love and compassion. He acted out that love and compassion. Perhaps Rev. Laurel Hallman said it best "We are committed to the dignity of every person. Every person is a child of God." We may not be Christians as others think we should be, but how could any belief be less Christian…

Thursday, July 31, 2008

I am a Unitarian Universalist

I am not much into forwarding the various things that pass through my inbox. But today I got a copy of a blog entry, which is one that expresses one of the ways I feel about the world right now. This is my way of forwarding it; it is also my way of changing the world. You see, I am a Unitarian Universalist and last Sunday a gunman entered a UU church in TN and shot several congregation members. It was a children's service and the kids were performing Annie. Linda Kraeger and Greg McKendry died and 5 others were injured. The reason for the shooting? UUs are a liberal denomination.

I wish I could say this is the first time UUs have been targeted for their liberal faith. It is not. One of the things a minister once asked my congregation is if UUs were ever targeted again, would anyone know we were UUs. It is a question that has remained with me for years, particularly as I have listened to the ultra-conservatives talk.

Pastor Martin Niemöller wrote a poem which goes (depending on which translation you read):

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

I first read that poem in college. It has remained a reminder to me that we have an obligation to stand up for others if we want them to stand up for us. That society is really a collection of voices, and if ours are not heard, then society can go terribly wrong.

And so today I want you to know that I am indeed a Unitarian Universalist. And I am speaking up. I may not have known the individuals involved, but I feel a lot of pain, not just for the children who witnessed this horror, not just for the families and friends of the dead and injured, but also because someone so hates what I believe in, that he was willing to take a shotgun into a UU church and open fire on people he did not know. I am horrified that there has been so little news interest in this event. And like the writer, I am struggling to forgive the hate mongers who encourage this kind of behavior.

Please take a moment to read this wonderful entry on Unitarian forgiveness!


Tuesday, July 22, 2008

What are we thinking?

Okay, so I admit that I am drastically overweight and that is mostly because I eat too much at a meal; but today I got an absolute shock. While at the convenience/gas station all these people came out with 52 ounce glasses of soda. Now given that a cola has about 100 calories per 8 ounces, which means that these people are drinking about 650 calories per glass. For a woman who is moderately active, 2000 calories is probably the maximum number of daily calories she should consume. So that drink is about 30% of a woman's calorie needs.

Perhaps the most startling was the little girl (probably 5-6 years old) and her sister who each came out with a 52 ounce drink and a snack. Assuming that the pop was not diet pop, that means they were getting about 45% of their daily calorie needs in the beverage alone.

Like I said, I am really overweight but even I have to wonder at the beverage consumption habits of the US population. Now I know that those drinks were on sale for 79 cents, but just because it is on sale does not mean we need to buy it.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Gorgeous Country

Today we started a trip through Wyoming and South Dakota on our way from Montana to Omaha, Nebraska. Today we drove from Great Falls, through Billings, then across MT212 to Alzada and then south into Wyoming, stopping at Hulett. For those who think that eastern Montana and Wyoming are desolate country, I can only ask where you have been. This was beautiful and the trip from Alzada to Hulett is gorgeous. We had the advantage of early evening, just when the shadows are long enough to make a beautiful view spectacular.

I admit that this is not the lush green land of the humid east, nor the majestic grandeur of the Rockies. But that does not mean the country is not beautiful. The flatter lands give way to ravines and washes as you proceed east. Hay meadows snuggle up to pine tree covered ridges and rock outcroppings become yellow and red. One particular cut was a lovely purple tone. Antelope graze in sagebrush dotted prairie.

And then you start south. The sage land suddenly becomes a forest with meadows and amazing numbers of grazing deer. Time and time again, you drive over a hill or around a corner and see a gorgeous vista. My Dad would have had to come back several times to get all the pictures possible. I can tell that this is the route to take, at least if you are not traveling in winter!

Friday, July 18, 2008

Respect (Neither Wolf nor Dog)

I just went home to visit with my mom. Because I was going to be there for her book group, I read Neither Wolf nor Dog by K. Nerburn. It was a really good book on the differences between "white" culture and Lakota culture, at least from the perspective of Dan (a Lakota man) and Nerburn. Reading it, particularly the first several chapters, really helped me understand some cultural and perspective differences. But there were some points that I really strongly disagreed with. I thought I would take a moment to think about them here.

One of the most problematic items is the issue of respect. I keep hearing these demands for respect but they are so one sided. Dan frequently demands respect under his own terms, but is totally unwilling to offer it under his white author's cultural rules. In fact, Dan is downright insulting and the Nerburn talks as if we are supposed to believe that is okay. If we are ever going to heal the rifts between the individuals in this country, we are going to have to start respecting each other. That does not simply mean that I respect you; it also means that you show me respect. If we come from different cultures, then we each should be striving to show that respect under the other individual's cultural rules. We won't always succeed, but we should try. It is not okay with me if any member of a "minority" culture is insulting. Different cultures are not an adequate excuse, particularly if I am trying.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

slowly getting back into the scheme of things

Dad died 28Feb08. So hard to deal with. I guess I thought I would always have my dad. Not that I don't have a dad, just that I can no longer call him up and chat.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

The physical therapist rules

Today seems to have been a fairly good day, although when I first called I thought we might have a crisis on our hands. But that was just bad timing. Seems the physical therapist and the lady who came to help Dad bathe both came at the same time. Not sure what the bath lady contributed but I am once again reminded of why I like physical therapists – practical grounded people who worry about outcomes but not so much about the means of achieving them. For instance, Dad's guy made my mom feel that this is possible and that there are solutions. He came up with several this morning:

  1. Bed rail (not hospital bed). Hospice was going to deliver a hospital bed for Dad tomorrow. There is no room for it in the bedroom without taking out their bed, which would have forced Mom to sleep downstairs. More to the point, Mom and Dad do NOT want to sleep in separate beds. Mom has been terribly upset that they would not be together. So when the PT guy says, "why are you getting a hospital bed, don't you want to sleep together?" he helped my mother immensely. He made me feel better because now I know they have someone who gets "it."
  2. Fix wheel chair – Mom has been having a terrible time with the wheel chair. Dad's leg keeps falling off the foot rest (toward the center). PT guy took one look at it and told Mom they needed a different chair because this one has a tilt to that foot rest. He is ordering it for her.
  3. Extended bench for shower. Dad would rather not have his privacy invaded by others. Mom has not been able to get him in the tub by herself but it turns out there is a bath bench which extends out of the tub (sounds like it slides). He got them one so Mom can help Dad into the tub.
  4. Gait belt – finally, someone showed Mom how to use the Gait belt and how to fit it.
  5. Raised platform for Dad's chair. One of the things the PT guy is unhappy about is Dad's chairs. They all either rock and swivel or roll and swivel. On top of that, Dad's favorite chair (also the best fit for him) is shorter than ideal. So he is having a carpenter in town make a platform for the chair. Turns out this guy works for hospice at $50 a platform and they are steady enough not to add to the danger.
  6. And finally, Physical Therapy to help Dad help Mom help him. At last, someone who sees Dad as having the potential to help himself. If Dad can keep some of the muscle tone in his arms and legs, he can help Mom help him move. He probably also would have fewer crashes into the tub if those muscles were worked regularly. So that will be starting. I am so pleased by this because I know how much it will help Dad to 1) be treated as a person and 2) to be able to feel like he can help himself.

On other fronts, I found out the hospice does not have in-home continual care (yet). But Mom/we are working on solving the problems that causes. Mom is going to try to hire a home health aide for a couple of hours every day. In the mean time, their friend Mary came this morning while Dad in bath. Had her husband Mitch come on over as well which was a good thing because Dad fell into tub again. Tub was padded in the section he has been landing in but Dad landed in the other end, of course. He's not hurt (maybe a benefit of not being able to react?) but fixing this is a top priority. A bath chair so he can sit while he shaves, etc. is the new plan. Mean while, it turns out we are going to have a family conference while Jeff and I are both home. Have no idea about what.

Not all Hospices are created equal

Today I called the Hospice program in Great Falls and spoke to Lisa, our social worker. I explained my concerns and that I wanted to know if there was a way we could get Mom help with getting Dad in and out of bed. Turns out that the hospice program in Great Falls, unlike any of the other ones I know about, does not have a 24 hour care program. They are in the process of putting one together and we would be the perfect candidates but it is not functional yet. Argh!

On the other hand, Lisa thinks my parents are "delightful" and was able to talk to Dad about what he wanted for his final days. Not that Dad was totally cooperative – he told Lisa that his dad lived long after the doctors thought he would and that he expected to do the same. He also told her he had no spiritual beliefs – not exactly true as I understand his beliefs. He is strongly atheistic – he believes we are only a collection of atoms and electrical charges: no soul, no afterlife.

Dad’s Health Update

Since so many people have asked me for updates on my father, I decided to just write update for everyone who wanted to know what was going on. I emailed many of them, but am putting a copy here because it as good a journal of this part of the journey as I will get. The top of this is the current plan, such as it is, and the latter part is what happened yesterday.

Plans

I am honoring Mom's wishes that I save as much of my available time until later; when she thinks that she will need me more. That means that I am flying home on Saturday with a return booked on Tuesday. I have promised her that if she changes her mind about needing me now, that I will stay. It leaves me in limbo but Mom needs care taking too. She needs to feel she has some control over what happens around her. She also needs to feel that we believe she is doing a good job and that we trust her judgment. Besides, I do respect my Mom and she is the best judge of what she needs to cope. I also have a ticket to Great Falls on the 21st of Feb with a return on the 26th.

Last night

Today was a really bad day for her. It started early (3AM). Dad somehow got out of bed on his own twice during the night, though most times he cannot move much voluntarily. When she got him up this morning she discovered Dad is now incontinent. She got him braced up against the bathroom counter to wash his face and then went to take care of the bed. While she was running their bedding downstairs to the washing machine, he fell over backward into the bath tub and got himself wedged in there. Near as I can tell, he fell even though he was using the counter to maintain his balance. That is not the only possibility, his back is very itchy and when he tries to scratch it, he often unbalances (though never before when braced against something).

She could not get him out of the tub herself (though she did get him straightened out and a pillow under his head. She had to call the fire department for help. Dad was a little scraped up but otherwise uninjured. The firemen were incredibly helpful; they got Dad out of the tub, cleaned him up, dressed him, and showed Mom how to safely help him into a wheel chair. Thankfully, hospice had delivered a wheel chair the day before so as of today Dad is in a wheelchair except for using the toilet.

Jeff (my brother) is not going to be there tomorrow as planned. They have blizzard conditions with 40 mph winds. Mom is really disappointed - she was counting on him for help lifting Dad. I think she also just needs a little more help with the daily chores. She has some help - their friends have an informal calling circle and show up to take care of household problems. Two of her friends are taking turns keeping Dad company and Mitch came over last night to help her put Dad to bed. Mary, Mitch's wife, fixed the toilet problem Dad created while Mitch helped Mom.

Today, Thursday, will be a day with more help. Hospice is sending a home health aide to give Dad a bath and a physical therapist to help Mom figure out how to keep Dad safe while transferring him

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Get Better

As those of you who follow this blog know, the last year has not exactly been a great one for me. It doesn't look like this year is going to be any better -- in fact I think it's going to be worse. Dad's cancer is growing again. It's obviously sending little spiderwebs out into new sections of his brain. The oncologist confirms that it's a growing, although I have no idea how fast or how far, etc., because nobody tells me this. I don't think they tell me because I don't think they register it. Dad not only doesn't remember things, I don't think he's registering things or processing things the way he used to. Sometimes he's really good, seems like his old self, and then other days he has hard time holding a conversation because he gets lost. He forgets what you just said to him so you can have the whole conversation over again.

The growth of cancer also means that dad is having problems in new areas. The scariest may be that he is now having balance problems. He's fallen at least twice, although he doesn't remember falling. The hardest time for him is the transition between sitting down and standing up. I don't think I'd ever really registered just how much balance was involved in that.

Anyhow, it's gotten really tough for me. I'm having a terrible time focusing on anything. And I spend a lot of time crying this week. I'm hopeful that will resolve itself as I get adjusted to the fact that it's now definite Dad is dying. God, what a horrid thing to say! But it's true, my dad is dying a slow, debilitating death.

And if that wasn't enough, I found that yesterday my best friends are moving to Seattle. This is going to be really good for them, but I will miss them terribly. Since they're a big part of my support system, I don't know how I will function without them. I've started crying again -- don't know if it will ever stop

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Playing with Money

Okay, I admit it - hobbies are strange. I can say this because I've acquired a new one: Where's George? For those of you who don't know, Where's George is a website, more specifically, a website where you track where your money came from and where it's going. Sounds innocuous enough, right? Maybe yes, maybe no. It turns out that when you really start playing around with Where's George, you start spending your money in smaller bills. I suddenly found myself asking the bank teller if I can have that in flies in ones instead of asking her to make sure I get large bills. Suddenly my preferred build size is a five dollar bill instead of 20. Madness I tell you -- pure unadulterated madness. And yet, I'm having a lot of fun, some serious frustration, but a lot of fun.

For those of you who are not into the whole tracking your money hobby, here is a quick primer on how it works. I get a dollar bill (or five dollar bill or $10 bill or $20 bill etc. etc. etc.), then a rush off to my computer, go to the website, log in so I get credit for this event, and enter the basic information off the front of my bill. The basic information consists of the denomination, the serial number, and the year it was issued. I also enter the zip code which I'm currently residing (or visiting), and any comments about the bill what I want to enter such as where I got it. And then comes the magic moment -- I reach over and hit the enter button. This is the moment when I find out if somebody else has already entered the bill or if I'm the first one to do that. Generally, a bill is going to be marked if it's been entered, but not always. The ones that aren't marked are called stealth bills, among other things. I keep hoping to find a treasure trove out there -- a whole bunch of bills that haven't been marked. But so far no luck, I'm the first one to mark them and the first one to enter them. But all is not lost – there is the magic of a hit. Somebody could enter the bill I already entered, and I will find out where my bill went.

That is the frustrating part -- I have to wait! I have to wait until some stranger I don't know finds my bill. I have to trust the stranger is going to enter my bill into the computer so I'll know where my bill has gone. The good news is that statistically about a fifth of the bills I enter will end up being entered by somebody else at least once in the bill's life cycle. But it could be a long time. And that's the frustrating part. So why would anybody do this? The answer has to do with inconsistent rewards. It turns out that we are very motivated by rewards, as most of us know. If it is a consistent negative reward, we avoid the stimulus. If it's consistent positive reward, we seek out the stimulus. But the strongest effect occurs when it is an inconsistent positive reward, those are the events we really look for. So here you have this innocuous hobby where you enter dollar bills serial numbers into the computer in hopes of getting a hit and a hit is nothing more than an inconsistent positive reward. So you suddenly find yourself hooked. And that's how I became one of those funny people who play with their money.

Want to try it for yourself? Go to www.wheresgeorge.com and open an account. It is a free website and a cheap hobby. All's it takes is the money you were going to spend anyway and a little time. But I warn you – you might also start using smaller bills…

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The joys of technology

I write for a living. I don't write novels or short stories or anything the general populations is likely to read, but nonetheless I write for a living. I write manuscripts to submit to technical journals, and I write grant applications in hopes of getting money to collect the data so I can write more articles for more journals. With all that writing, you think it would be easy for me, but it's not. Somehow it's incredibly difficult to get the thoughts in my head down on the paper. Most of the problem stems because I think faster than I write, and I really think faster than I type.

That where technology comes in. Several years ago I tried a dictation program but was really unhappy with it because it took so long to train. I plugged along and had just gotten up to about the point where it was working for me and then they upgraded Windows, and it didn't work anymore. The technology people all said to me, "look, Windows does come with a dictation program; you're going to love it." Who were they kidding? Like so many things, the Windows dictation program was much worse than what I'd been using. So I gave up on dictation programs for awhile. But a month and a half ago, I got a new 1 -- Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9. I like it! It still isn't perfect, but then what is? The thing is, I can talk out what I want to say. And then I just go back and fix all the errors it makes. Sometimes I can't get the original thought, but all how much easier it is to draft out that original copy.

And that pays off for those of you who glance occasionally at this blog. Why you ask? Because it is so much easier to write a blog when I could just say what I'm thinking. I don't have to worry about my hands keep up with my head. And so that whole list of items that are in my drafts pile is likely to get and posted.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Blogging your dreams

A friend of mine, the Cheeky Librarian, sent me this link for blogging your dreams. It's a contest, which I'm likely to enter and unlikely to win. But it got me thinking about what are the things you dream of and how possible are they. For instance, I dream about economic justice for everybody in the world, about children having access to a good education no matter where they live, about available medical care, food and shelter for everyone, about a world without war, where people could visit one another across boundaries without worrying about nationality or religion. I would love to see a world where we lived with nature, instead of trying to conquer or overrun the nature. I don't even know how I would go about building economic justice in my own hometown. When the football coach who was fired makes 5 million and I'm making about 1% of that, I really don't see how I'm going to affect the difference.

I also found that I got to thinking about what dreams are practical and which ones aren't. For instance, I dream of a US political structure, where Bush is not president, where civil liberties are more valuable than so-called security measures, and where politicians really try to help the citizenry, all the citizenry, have better lives. Between you and me, I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. I suppose I could submit my dream of getting rid of Bush , but that's going to happen anyway. And unless you and I get off our duffs and elect an all-new cadre of politicians, I have little hope for Congress. But that presupposes that we get a different type of candidate running for office. Of course, the real solution would be for somebody like me to run for Congress.

Which brings me to another dream -- I'd like to be a Congressional Representative. But I don't have that much hope of obtaining that one either. First place, I live in Nebraska. For those of you who don't know it, Nebraska is a very conservative state. As far as I'm concerned, our Democratic candidates would be Republicans in any other state. So what are the chances of a woman who with a very liberal political views ever getting elected in Nebraska -- probably nil. And of course I'm not rich -- seems like you have to have an incredible amount of money to even run for Congress. And finally, who wants to go through the mudslinging that is part of modern politics.

And so I will probably enter my very plebeian dream of having a backyard refuge for birds. I love wild birds and I truly do dream of having a yard which provides food, water and shelter for hundreds of birds. I'd have splashing fountains, run by solar panels. I would put lots of bushes with fruit around the edge of my yard, the part that still get sunshine (I have a big tree in the backyard). I woulf find a place to put a cherry tree and leave all of cherries for the birds. I would put up a swallow house; the summer I bought my house, there were swallows in the yard, but I haven't seen any this year. I'd have bird feeders that the squirrels could steal all the food out of.

Or maybe I could have my dream of an aviary so I could free all those poor birds at the pet store from their little tiny cages. But I really don't have a house for that. So I probably won't use that one. See it all comes down to what's practical -- after all, they're only talking about $5,000. Maybe if it was $200,000...

what's your dream? Is it practical? What could you do toward it if you had $5,000? Maybe you should enter the contest too. The contest is run by the advertising team of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive: http://www.bloggingyourdreams.com/registration.html .