(Jackson was hard selling a proposed income tax increase in 2016, incidentally, and vowed during his address that additional money from Cleveland’s impoverished masses would transform the city. The substantive takeaway was that his message doubled as a threat. If Clevelanders didn’t vote for an income tax increase, he suggested, they probably weren’t all that committed to reform. When the income tax hike safely passed later that year, the city demonstrated its own commitment to reform by immediately authorizing a handout of nearly $100 million to Dan Gilbert for the Quicken Loans Arena upgrade.)
Make no mistake: The word butthole springing forth from the mouth of Cleveland’s 74-year-old, four-term Mayor is a laugh riot. And like others, I’ve watched the seven-second clip repeatedly over the past 36 hours, finding myself chuckling in disbelief and something like warmth every time. Oh Frank, you old codger!
But Jackson was not calling Cleveland a “butthole city.” He was correctly identifying a popular negative perception. Not that I’ve seen a whole lot of this online, but attempts to portray the Mayor’s language as a representation of deficient leadership or a reflection of traitorous intent (lol) instead of what it was — a crass but effective way to characterize the city’s image — should be ridiculed without mercy.
It is not the case, though, as the City of Cleveland argued desperately on its social channels, that “boiling down” Jackson’s interview with The Appeal’s Matthew Ferner to the butthole remark detracted from attention on issues of policing and the city budget. The truth is there were zero headlines on those topics after Jackson, in response to the very first question — Roughly: “Will you consider reducing the police budget and devoting additional funds to public health?” — said, and this is a direct quote, “No.”
Much of the remainder of the conversation was Jackson laboring to explain why he would not reduce the police budget. This morphed seamlessly into an articulation of why Jackson would not alter the status quo in any way shape or form. And while it sounded like Jackson was rambling, saying nothing new or interesting for minutes on end in an effort to run out the clock on a difficult interview, he was actually communicating some of his strongest beliefs about leadership and Cleveland. And he was doing so, in my view, with astonishing candor and clarity.
But the picture he painted was depressing beyond belief. A total quicksand nightmare. Civic nihilism to the nth. His deepest convictions, which he had no bones about relaying, described a reality where change isn’t possible, where public leaders can’t, and shouldn’t, do much of anything to improve the social and economic conditions of those suffering in Cleveland. The problems are just too big, too hard, too systemic.
“Everything that we have been successful at as a city has always been a community effort,” he said. “And I find the biggest mistake a lot of people make is the assumption that government is the solution to all the problems. The reliance on government is the biggest mistake you can make.
“We would be willing to do our part,” he said later, “in conjunction with a broader community effort. But we would not be willing to do something just to say we’d done something, when I know it’s not going to produce any outcome.”
Locals can be forgiven for tuning out. They might have chalked up the whole interview to Frank being Frank — “Noise-shaped air,” one commenter wrote during the live feed — but the Mayor’s remarks were met with befuddlement by the national reporter. And that’s appropriate, because the Cleveland model of governance is befuddling. Locals are so inured to Jackson’s shrugging fatalism and deference to the business community that they sometimes forget how absurd it is.
“Aren’t you mayor?” Ferner asked at one point, after Jackson described at length how attempts to take action on social justice issues would only be “symbolic” without contributions from the private sector and philanthropy. “Isn’t that why you’re elected?” “Do you not have power to adjust the city budget?”
Of course he does!
But Jackson does this finger-wagging thing where he claims that any attempt by the city to change things — anything at all! — would only be incremental without buy-in from the private sector. Jackson didn’t seem entirely content with this dynamic — he referred to it as “the beast” — but the impression he conveyed was that he was hostage to it. In fact, we all are. There’s nothing to be done except work within this system to chip away at injustice, at best to “leverage dollars.”
This is defeatist drivel. Stockholm Syndrome shit. It’s submission to a dynamic where the private sector calls the shots. And if the past 40 years have been any guide, the private sector’s main preoccupation is securing millions of dollars in public money for tax abatements and other subsidies for real estate development. This is what’s celebrated as “public-private partnerships.”
Even if a publicly beneficial program emerges from this arrangement (lead abatement, to take a recent example), it’s only because of momentum external to City Hall. Jackson’s idea of “being willing to do our part,” presupposes that someone else is asking them to. This is exactly backwards! Jackson decries the assumption that government is a solution to all problems, and to the extent that assumption exists, it may be misplaced. But it’s a hell of a lot better than Jackson’s own position, which is that government is a solution to waste collection.
During his latter terms in office, this has been one of the Mayor’s favored leitmotifs. It’s paralysis masquerading as pragmatism. It’s a reflexively defensive position, and it’s infuriating not only because he’s passing the buck but because he assumes a position of moral superiority while doing so. All attempts to make change are doomed to fail without private money, he believes, therefore the attempts themselves can only be a kind of performance. Self-aggrandizement. This is insulting, of course, but also wrong.
The existence of larger problems does not invalidate attempts to find solutions to smaller ones. Executives sometimes call this “making perfect the enemy of good.” The fact that super-polluting transnational corporations are most responsible for climate change does not mean we should throw up hands and stop reducing, reusing and recycling. The threat of nuclear war does not mean we shouldn’t pursue better representation on the local school board. The fact that the criminal justice system is corrupt to the core does not mean we should continually work to improve policing. But Jackson seems to think that it does.
What is your role as Mayor, then? Ferner wanted to know.
Jackson said his job was to use the bully pulpit to communicate what we all should be doing as a city. (It’s superfluous to note that none of us have any idea what he thinks we should be doing as a city because he has fully abdicated the bully pulpit. He’s been a non-presence for years. When he does pop up, it’s usually to restate his inability to do anything.) Take, for example, the current crucial moment of compounding national crises. Moments after he said his job was using the bully pulpit, Jackson declared, “I have no additional sense of urgency.”
Stunning. Simply stunning.
The mayor’s disquisition on incremental vs. sustainable change had one interesting wrinkle: He now purports to embrace the Cleveland Division of Police’s Consent Decree with the Department of Justice as a “blueprint” for effective systemic change. In fact, during the interview, Jackson told Ferner that the big reason he wouldn’t reduce the police budget — he’s increasing it by more than $10 million this year — is to pay for specialized training and other deliverables as mandated by the settlement agreement.
“You need an overall blueprint,” Jackson said, “a framework that holds you accountable for reform, and it has to change the culture of policing.”
This was an example of actual, sustainable change, according to the Mayor. (Though for the record, it’s not like philanthropic dollars contributed to the DOJ report which led to the Consent Decree.)
The reason why this is a wrinkle is because back in 2014 and 2015, Jackson was making the same sort of excuses and fatalistic commentary about police reform that he was making on Wednesday. The DOJ report which found a pattern and practice of unconstitutional police conduct was riddled with inaccuracies, he said, though he never elaborated on those. The Consent Decree itself didn’t go far enough. It would not lead to real change because it failed to take on the police union arbitrators. The Consent Decree was an example, back then, of incremental, purely symbolic change.
And by the way there were no systemic issues in the Cleveland Division of Police, according to Jackson. The crosstown chase and gang murder of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams (#137shots)? The murders of Tanisha Anderson? Tamir Rice? These were merely individual errors. The system was just fine. That was literally Jackson’s stance!
It’s clear that this is how he views his role: to argue that change is not possible; to expose omnipotent systems only to uphold them; to cede the designation and execution of Cleveland’s priorities — that is, leadership — to the private sector.
The butthole frenzy can be partially explained in this context. The memes and the jabs and the videos are funhouse reflections of Jackson’s own nihilism. Westlake residents may be sweating about Cleveland’s “image” because the Mayor said a funny word, but Cleveland residents who have been emotionally pummeled and spiritually exhausted by 15 years of Frank Jackson can do little, anymore, but laugh and Tweet through it.
***
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This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2020.
It’s just amazing.
Any doubt it’s time for some new blood in the Mayor’s office?
“The reliance on government is the biggest mistake you can make. “
Someone tell Dan Gilbert. Only it doesn’t seem to have been such a big mistake fo him, does it?
I agree with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson that the Cleveland Police Department’s budget should NOT be reduced.
With violent protesters committing arson, assault, vandalism, and other crimes in Cleveland, now is not the time for cutting the Cleveland Police Department’s budget.
Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams announced today that Cleveland police officers arrested 5 individuals early this morning trying to break in Cleveland’s Progressive Field, the baseball stadium used by the Cleveland Indians professional baseball team, and that police found arson material and a firearm.
If anything, the Cleveland Police Department’s budget should be increased so that Cleveland Police Department can allocate more money to buy more effective civil disturbance equipment, a louder public address system so more future protesters can hear public announcements issued by Cleveland police, and for more additional patrols to catch more violent protesters, who are still actively trying to terrorize innocent people and businesses in the City of Cleveland.
Why is anybody surprised that the shit finally hit the fan, after fifteen-plus years of Frank and His Rat Pack? And he’ll probably win a fifth term next year, too. Just in time for him to finally cut the ribbon on Frank Jackson Blvd. (AKA the Opportunity Corridor) in 2025.
How’s that little boondoggle working out ofr you, Frank?Twenty years to build a three-mile shortcut. The Romans built their roads faster, without heavy equipment.That’s Cleveland. That’s Frank.
But hey, at least it’s a road through nowhere, so there’s nothing to loot and burn. Good place for future marches.
Shikaka Seven is a former State of Ohio prison guard.
Leonard Whineglass, I’ve already disclosed that I am a retired State of Ohio corrections officer in the comments section of several CleveScene articles. I admit that I am 100 percent against violent protesters committing arson, assault, vandalism, and other crimes against innocent individuals and businesses, who have nothing to do whatsoever with their grievances against police and other government officials.
I am also 100 percent against the excessive use of force by police officers, which I have personally witnessed when I saw two black Cleveland police officers use overwhelming force against a white State of Ohio corrections officer, who was in uniform while helping to guard a hole in the prison fence as he was ordered by ODRC prison officials to do at around 1 a.m. in the morning. The two black police officers attacked and dragged the white corrections officer off of his post, which was on state prison grounds, which is not in the jurisdiction of the Cleveland Police Department.
I was the one who notified the prison’s control center officer to contact the prison’s shift commander about the special incident after I could not reach him by telephone. I gave an official statement to Cleveland police investigators, who was accompanied by an Ohio State Highway Patrol investigator, about the police excessive use of force I witnessed.
The two black police officers were unaware that they were being observed by many prison inmates and by me, because lights are turned off at night in prison housing units, but which have many windows.
So even though it occurred by the back perimeter fence of the prison in what was then a vacant back street (East 34th Street), the use of excessive force incident was actually witnessed by many individuals, which is one reason why the City of Cleveland settled this excessive use of force case– in which no Cleveland Police Officers were disciplined for even though they attacked, dragged away, and arrested a white State of Ohio corrections officer off of his prison post.
The City of Cleveland paid the white corrections officer $900,000 to settle the civil lawsuit he filed against it, but I was ready to testify about the police excessive force I witnessed had it actually went to trial.
FYI, the 2 black police officers were in plain clothes and in on of two unmarked Cleveland Police cars cruising down East 34th Street when they witnessed the white corrections officer being handed a fresh battery for his walkie-talkie radio by another uniformed State of Ohio corrections officer, which he needed to relay information to the prison control center officer. This occurred by the prison’s outside perimeter fence in what was then a vacant street. The excessive use of force incident almost resulted in a deadly shootout, because the 2 police officers were unaware that they were also being watched by another State of Ohio corrections officer, who radioed the prison shift commander and asked him if he had permission to shoot the 2 plain clothes police officers. At the time, he and I both didn’t know that the 2 black individuals who attacked the white corrections officer were police officers. We thought that they were 2 civilians, who were mugging the white corrections officer. The shift commander told the armed corrections officer, who was at the 2 black plain clothes police officers’ flank, not to fire, and the prison shift commander went to the scene of the incident and witnessed the 2 black plain clothes police officers use excessive use of force too. No public protests were conducted about this excessive use of force by black police officers, even though it nearly resulted in a deadly shootout, and bullets can travel over a mile, which means that Cleveland residents were also placed at risk of being unintentionally shot.
The Plain Dealer did a couple of articles about it, but there was no public outrage though there should have been.
This story has a surprise twist, because the white corrections officer is now in prison after shooting a police officer when police officers were attempting to arrest him at his home. Martin Robinson is the name of the former white corrections officer, and he was afraid that the police would get payback for filing a civil lawsuit against the black police officers who used excessive force on him.
Thanks for sharing,,,
No problem, Leonard Whineglass. No prison staff members or prison inmates heard the 2 plain clothes black police officers identify themselves as police officers before they attacked and used excessive force against the white State of Ohio corrections officer. If you google “Martin Robinson Cleveland police”, you can find more information about this police excessive use-of-force and near deadly shoot-out incident. I thought there was going to be a shoot-out, and I ordered prison inmates to get away from their windows and to take cover. Many prison inmates closely watched the incident. The point I want to emphasize is that police brutality isn’t just by white police officers against black criminal suspects.
Not to worry, Taxin Jackson will gladly put yet ANOTHER another hefty property tax increase on us property owners as well as another hefty income tax hike on us those that actually have to work in this dump of a city and county!!!
It’s time to recall Taxin Jackson, and his cohort thief Budish out of office now!!!
the communists around the country are calling to “Abolish the police”. Are they doing this because they don’t have criminals or is it so criminals can commit crimes without fear of consequence further turning these Democrat run cities into hellholes.
The scene writers never can pass up an article about something gross.
Is there ANYBODY you don’t like who’s NOT automatically a Commie?
You better tell these dsa, communist, idiot, no life experience having, millennials that they can frig off with this Abolish the police or defend the police bullshit. We have failed musicians and the like telling us our communities can lolice themselves and we don’t need police or guns. Wtf.
Even Zack Reed would have been bettter. But Frank still won, 60-40.
Fifteen years. It boggles the mind. What do his people see in Sleepy Frank? He’s a non-entity, a human zero. And now he’s retired on the job.
If you really do live in that shithole city, Mr. Akron, you’re the POS that I feel the most sorry for. Only thing worth shlepping down to the Rubber Shitty for is Canal Park and the Rubber Duckies. That’s IT.
caucasold, I’m Asian, but I’m not Korean or Chinese. My wife, who is also Asian, isn’t Korean or Chinese either. I am also not a so-called anchor baby immigrant, but I am amused by your bad rhetoric.
The reason why is because by your reasoning, African-Americans should also appreciate the sacrifices that white Americans made to give them their freedoms and civil rights.
Your comments indicate that you like reading about American History. So because I am amused at your anti-Asian rhetoric and American History references, I’ve decided to give you something to think about.
Do you remember reading about the sit-down protests by African-American in “whites-only” restaurants in U.S. southern states during the 50’s and 60’s?
What good is it to have the freedom and opportunity today to sit down and eat with the most affluent white Americans in the most expensive restaurants if you can’t afford to buy what is on the menu?
As a retired State of Ohio corrections officer, I am not bitter or angry at African-Americans who quickly were promoted from corrections officer to warden or even higher because of Affirmative Action.
The reason why is because I made money than they did, even though they received a higher hourly wage. I overcame my lower hourly pay disadvantage, by working far more overtime than they did.
Overtime opportunities for State of Ohio corrections officers are abundant due to State of Ohio prisons having to be staffed 24/7/365, and the overtime opportunities are far more abundant for State of Ohio corrections officers than it is for “management” employees.
Because I worked lots of overtime, I not only made more money than my white and black supervisors, I also earned a bigger pension.
So I am o.k. if my whites and black supervisors thought they were doing better than, me.
The reason why is because I am actually better off..
If you really want “equality”, you should remember that most people in America are only a couple of paychecks away from public assistance and a very large percentage of Americans don’t even have $400 available to pay for an unexpected emergency.
I suggest earning as much money as you can.
It doesn’t really matter if you have to work harder or longer to make more money than most.
What really matters is that you have more money than most.
If you do, perhaps, you can actually sit down and routinely eat with the most affluent white Americans in the most expensive restaurants without having to go into debt.
What is far more satisfying that protesting about discrimination is overcoming it.
For the Record…………….
The reason that i have an problem with immigrants especially Asian like Shiwaku Seven
is because they hid behind the Democrat’s People of Color bullshxxt ……………………………
then Eat off the backs of Black Folks failures get online and parrot Anti- Black rhetoric………..
Every FREEDOM immigrants enjoy in Amerikkk TODAY !!! is due to the Blood and Sacrifice
by Black Folks and a few good white folks……………..
Shiwaku Seven wants to be the next Candence Owens …………..
caucasold, you made the mistake of assuming again.
I never benefited from any Affirmative Action program, and Asian-Americans are generally viewed by Society as not needing help from Affirmative Action, which is why Affirmative Action programs helps other minorities and Asian-Americans aren’t helped.
Of all of the minorities in the United States, Asian Americans over-all have the highest college degree attainment rate, rates of having an advanced degree (professional or Ph.D.), median family income, being in the labor force, rate of working in a “high skill” occupation (executive, professional, technical, or upper management), and median Socioeconomic Index (SEI) score that measures occupational prestige.
Asian-Americans as a whole also outperform white Americans in these categories, which is why Asian-Americans are often referred to as “the Model Minority”.
My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college, but this didn’t stop me from earning three accredited college degrees.
I had to serve in the United States Military to earn V.A. educational benefits, and I also served another six years in the Ohio National Guard to earn an ONG college scholarship, but even transferring to different state prisons to attend different universities didn’t keep me from earning three college degrees– none of which I actually needed, because I remained in the same State of Ohio corrections officer job because of the amount of money I made by working lots of overtime.
I prevailed against racial discrimination through sweat, not blood. I did better than most whites and blacks because I planned, worked, and invested more than most whites and blacks do.
If you want to be better off than most other people, no matter what race they are, I suggest you forget about shedding blood and do what I did.
If you check the state salaries for the highest paid State of Ohio corrections officers, many are earning well over $100k a year, and the State of Ohio is hiring corrections officers.
Being a State of Ohio corrections officer wasn’t the only way I earned annual income, but I used to earn between $160k and $189k a year.
So if whites and blacks thought they were superior to me, I was o.k. with that, because I earned a lot more than I needed, and when I bought my house and car, I paid for both with cash.
One mans butthole is another mans rectum.
” Asian Americans over-all have the highest college degree attainment rate, advanced degree (professional or Ph.D.), “
Then why is South East Asia such a shxxt hole??????????? Make South East Asia Great……………….
Of the region’s 1,191,000,000 inhabitants 527 million earned less than $1 per day, 337 million had no
access to safe drinking water, and half of the children were underweight.
South Asia’s annual per capita income of $309 was less than that of sub-Saharan Africa……………….
which stood at $551….
Credit: Encyclopedia Britannica
“I never benefited from any Affirmative Action program” U LIE………
The Ohio Department of State Personnel Rules and Regulations requires all state agencies to develop an affirmative action plan to promote equal employment opportunity (OH Admin. Code Ch. 123:1-49-04).
The plan must set goals and timetables to correct areas where the agency is deficient in the hiring and promotion of women and minorities
Credit: Ohio.gov
This Model Minority bs is nothing but a Scam to continue the practice of White
Racism against Black Folks
Can i go to the Asian continent and receive Birth Right Citizenship ????? I doubt it……….
u Anchor baby immigrant to eat of the back of hard won Civil Rights of Black Folks…..
Kamal Harris / Barack Obama 2.0 tried it ?? and Black Folks drove her out the POTUS race
Why is Cleveland located on either side of a butthole?
Because Frank and his Rat Pack rectum.
caucasold, you are posting bad rhetoric again.
I didn’t say that the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction doesn’t have an affirmative action plan.
Instead, I said that I never benefited from any affirmative action plan.
I was hired as a State of Ohio corrections officer, and I retired as a State of Ohio corrections officer.
Many blacks benefited greatly from Affirmative Action in ODRC, but I didn’t.
I am also not from South or Southeast Asia and my Asian ancestors aren’t from South or Southeast Asia.
Also, the mean income of Asian-Americans is 30 percent higher than white Americans.
In good faith, since you sound like an angry African-American who is unhappy with his lot in life, I gave you advice on how you can make over $100k a year if you are willing to work lots of overtime.
However, your comments indicate that you rather make racist comments than work toward improving your position in life, so forget about applying to fill a State of Ohio corrections officer’s vacancy.
The reason why is because ODRC will research several years of your social media posted comments as part of the job screening process, and your black racist comments will disqualify you from being selected.
Shiwaku Seven: I remember you. You got your JD over a decade ago, briefly left your job as a prison guard, then returned to Lorain Correctional. I remember your contempt for the union–when you weren’t running contract in hand to make sure you were milking everything you could from the system. I worked with your son in a different state department. He didn’t last long there, and he lied about how he got the job. (I seem to recall he went to work for the county afterwards; no idea how long that lasted.) Yeah, I am more than aware of how you–like your son–are fond of letting others know the baseless contempt in which you hold them. You’re the kind who think YOU are entitled to that state pension, but everyone else is a parasite or a loafer. YOU were entitled to union protection, but the union was otherwise useless. Public employment was the trough at which the brain-dead fed, but the great majority of your working life involved a paycheck funded by taxpayers. Yep, I remember. I’m sad to see retirement hasn’t done a thing to soften your grandiosity, but that’s your burden to carry and nobody else’s.
Andrew Douglas, you are wrong. I never worked for Lorain Correctional Institution, and I don’t have contempt for the union. Instead, I served for decades in various OCSCEA union positions from steward to chapter president. I was also an AFSCME steward, before the Ohio Collective Bargaining Law was enacted. I paid union dues to AFSCME before it affiliated with OCSEA . I also was a dues paying member of the Council of Public Workers before OCSEA-AFSCME (the two unions combined before ODRC employees voted for which collective bargaining organization they wanted to represent them). This was because the State of Ohio corrections officer at the Marion Correctional Institution, where I worked, had the Council of Public Workers as their union. After OCSEA-AFSCME won statewide, all former CPW members joined OCSEA-AFSCME. When I retired from ODRC, my union gave me a plaque for my union service.
Dear Mr. Seven…………….
“I never benefited from any affirmative action plan.”…… There u go lying again ????
u receive ur job because you were a Minority not because u were a Chinese/ Asian
Asian r minority in Amerikkk u were and r an Affirmative Action baby……… Just Own It…………
BLACK PEOPLE CANNOT BE RACIST …………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Racism, inherently, implies power; Black People in America have virtually no institutional power.
Black People in Amerikkk can be, prejudiced or bigoted. As such behavior pertains to immigrants…
or (White Folks) or immigrants who try to pass as White
It can be argued that blacks have valid reasons to be so;
1. Birth Right Citizenship
2. DACA
3.Federal benefits for undocumented immigrants
If u truly want to help Black people??? Support black owned business…. Tutor black youth…
make a black friend, Be an ally not a MAGA parrot ……..
caucasold, when I was hired as a State of Ohio corrections officer at the Marion Correctional Insitution in 1981, ODRC was unaware that I was an Asian-American. I was in a training class at MCI when an instructor made the comment that no minorities were employed at MCI. I told the instructor that this was not true, because I am Asian-American. The instructor told the class, “Someone in personnel made a mistake.” ODRC made a big Affirmative Action hiring push when George Wilson, an African-American, became ODRC director, many years after I was hired. When I was hired, George Denton was ODRC director. He was followed by Richard Seiter.
I have already gave you good advice, and I spent over three decades giving advice to African-Americans prison inmates and staff members on how they can do better than most by planning, working, and investing more than most.
Just popping in to tell Allard to go fuck off.
Sam Allard is using his personal Instagram to post pictures of black babies with blm signs. This guy is a piece of shit.
Don’t you even take Sundays off, asshole? Go infect a church.
go post some pictures of black babies and kneel in the street because of how racist you have been.
Why should Frank Jackson, or any other elected official, do anything when the people don’t demand it? We started our demonstrations late, at an out-of-the-way, forlorn corner where they stashed the Free Stamp that was supposed to be right on Public Square. When the crowd was uncharacteristically huge for usually apathetic Northeast Ohio, the cops panicked and set off a riot. But then, rather than keep pushing against the false narrative, BLM, like Greater Cleveland Congregations, caved under the pressure. The next week’s protest was a carefully controlled, sanitized affair held far from downtown in the middle of a residential, west side neighborhood.
So much for the prospect for real change in Cleveland. But then, what did we expect? The Tamir Rice Gazebo isn’t a memorial in Cleveland. They dismantled it and carted it off to the South Side of Chicago. It would have been “too controversial” to leave it in Cleveland.
And you really wonder why everyone has been moving away from Northeast Ohio for a century?
BLACK PEOPLE CANNOT BE RACIST …….
Ok this is the new dumbest thing I’ve heard in the last month!