*************************************************
scc, the sla hideout
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So, anyway,
Our Graduate Student
bought a house in sacramento in 1980.
After the 1982 Newsletters,
he was renting out a room
to a sacramento city college foreign student
from Afghanistan.
Our Graduate Student joined the army reserves,
largely seeking comradeship,
and he went away for the yearly one month deployment.
He came back and to discover that
his ex had rented out another room
to an scc coed from Japan.
His ex ?
Yes, he had recently divorced her,
but he lived in the back yard
in a small 8'x8' shed he had built.
He put the house in his ex's name to save it.
But, he later realized that
that was probably just a scam
by the feminist dominated social service agency
to divest him of ownership.
They told him he'd have to put the house
solely in her name for her to get on welfare.
At the time it seemed to him to be the best option.
They got to save the house,
and he got to live rent free
in the quiet and peaceful backyard,
and he got to be with his daughter,
who was about 2 1/2 then.
Well, his friendship with the fellow
from Afghanistan
and the fascinating coed from Japan
drew him to sacramento city college.
So, from '83 through June '85
he took classes there.
He was motivated largely for social reasons
because he could see how much of a fun social life
his two renters were enjoying.
But, he also had a renewed interest in learning.
He already had his B.A.,
so he could take courses at the community college
just for enrichment, just for the joy of it.
without sweating about the pressure of grades and credit.
If he couldn't (or didn't want to) finish a class,
he could just drop it and take a "W" or an "F",
and he did, several times.
One semester, in his excitement,
he enrolled for about 34 units !
He took a wide range of classes
from Improvisational Acting and Dance and Speech
and Childhood Development and Marriage and Sex classes
through the more career oriented classes
such as Electronics, Math, and Chemistry.
Well, he was actually taking occasional classes
as far back as 1980,
a few computer science and real estate classes.
During breaks from a real estate law class,
Our Graduate Student used to peek in
to observe the astronomy class
in the big room with 100 or more ascending seats,
like a movie theatre.
It had astronomy visuals around the room
and it was fun to watch.
At his first opportunity,
Our Graduate Student
enthusiastically enrolled in the class.
Our Graduate Student loved astronomy.
In the fifth grade,
his science project was a model of the solar system.
The next summer,
when they moved a half mile to South Orange,
his educationally-minded mother
placed three very large maps on his walls,
The United States, The World, and The Solar System.
From that Solar System map, 50 years later,
he still remembers that the earth is
93 million miles from the sun, 8 1/2 light minutes away.
In high school, he was the best physics student
in his class of 30 or so.
After high school, he discovered Isaac Asimov,
the great explainer, and his books.
He delved into Asimov's nonfiction science books
just for fun, without the pressure of grades and credit.
Even at UC Davis, where he was a history major,
he took a 2-unit physics class as an elective.
Our Graduate Student couldn't wait
to take that astronomy class at sac city college.
It was about that time that Carl Sagan
would be doing his multi-part series on PBS, "COSMOS."
Maybe that wouldn't be for a few years,
he can't remember that for certain.
But he remembers having this great intellectual curiousity
about the earth's position in the universe,
not just in the solar system.
It seemed that it was like a big amusement park ride.
The earth was spinning on its axis, revolving around the sun,
and the sun was revolving about the galaxy.
What about the galaxy? What was it doing?
Was it revolving around something? If so, around what?
He wanted to know how fast the earth was going around the sun,
and how fast the sun was going around the galaxy
and how long that revolution took,
and how fast the galaxy was going
relative to the center of the universe,
if there was a center of the universe.
There had to be a center of the universe
if there was a big bang, he thought.
But some people said there wasn't.
How could that possibly be.
There must be a center of the universe
if there was a big bang
and the universe expanded from that point in all directions!
The location of the big bang would be
the center of the universe, wouldn't it?
And, we should be able to determine how far we were from it,
and how fast we were travelling,
relative to the center of the universe
where the big bang occurred ! Right?!
He wanted to know these things.
He couldn't wait to take that class
and get the answer to these questions from the professor,
even if they weren't in the textbook.
He finally got a chance to enroll in the class !
He was excited,
but his expanding excitement
soon collapsed
like a collapsing, imploding universe.
The first thing the little, fat,
roley-poley, bearded instructor does
is comfort the students
about the 20-question, fill-in-the-bubble,
scantron test form.
"It's nothing to be afraid of," he reassures them.
He holds it up and shows them.
"See ?" he says to them,
"It's just a little piece of paper
that you put your answers on with a pencil
by filling in a bubble.
It's nothing to be afraid of."
"Holy Shit!" thinks Our Graduate Student,
"THIS is what I waited for!"
"Does he think we're in fucking kindergarten or something !?"
It was, after all, a college.
These students surely had been using fill-in-the-bubble
answer forms all through elementary and high school.
"OK, it'll get better," Our Graduate Student thought.
It didn't.
It got worse.
Much worse.
Much, Much Worse.
The next thing Our Graduate Student knows is
this fat, little, roley-poley bearded instructor
is goin' on and on and on and on about John Kennedy
and how inspiring The Kennedys were.
He's on a stump, preachin' liberal politics.
Finally, Our exasperated Graduate Student raises his hand,
and, when finally recognized, he asks politely and civilly,
"What does this have to do with astronomy ?"
Some of the students made a noise,
like a gasp or a moan or a sigh of shock or disapproval.
"Maybe they really ARE children," thought Our Graduate Student,
as he has a fleeting thought of 1969 and the campus unrest
and the endless screaming and yelling
and challenging of authority
in the most extremely aggressive ways.
"What!?" he's thinking, "I couldn't have possibly been
more polite and civilized and courteous and professional!"
After Our Graduate Student posed that question,
the fat, roley-poley bearded instructor
realized that he'd been exposed.
He certainly must have known or sensed
that he was on shaky ground.
He was hired to teach
A S T R O N O M Y,
not liberal politics.
But he found it hard to stop.
Addressing the class, he said
"Well, i just wanted to let you know
that there's a lot of racists out there.
They're all around you," he concluded.
So Our Graduate Student's sitting there
wondering if he'd just been called a racist
and, if so, why?
and what the hell this all had to do with
A S T R O N O M Y anyway?!
He dropped the fuckin' class.
That's what they ALWAYS do when they're wrong,
and they're almost ALWAYS wrong.
They just call you names.
Like racist.
pedophile.
miscogenist
pinko
commie
socialist
flat-earther
whatever the popular, emotional buzz words were.
Besides, Our Graduate Student
was probably more of a Civil Rights Activist
that most of these shallow, FAKE liberal fascist professors
from lily-white suburbia, anyway.
Remember? Sittin' at a lunch counter every Saturday
with his African American coworker in 1962?
Remember? Playin' touch football in the afternoons
with the Jersey City inner-city blacks
when he was in high school?
Remember? Remember? Remember?
Hey, I'd Consider It A Compliment
If Somebody Called Me A Socialist!
ha ha very funny,
but considering the recent financial meltdown
and the golden parachutes
for the ceo's responsible for it,
I can see how you feel.
So Our Graduate Student knew
That He Was Being Called A Racist
by the fat, little, roley-poley professor,
And That's Why He Dropped The Course ?
Yes, sort of.
It FELT like he had been called a racist
but it didn't seem to make any sense
because he figured the professor didn't even know him
.
In retrospect, Our Graduate Student knows
that the fat, little roley-poley bearded professor
DID know who he was.
He was the author of The 1982 Newsletters at sac state,
a few miles away.
So, That's The Story Of
sacramento city college !
What's Next ? back to sac state again ?
Not exactly.
We haven't even begun sac city.
Oh.
So, some time later,
months, or maybe a year or so,
Our Graduate Student decides
to study math and science and technology
so he can get a job and career going.
He had always been good at math.
He had started out in college in '68 as a math major.
So, in the summer of '84,
he enrolls in an intensive 5-unit chemistry class.
He didn't like chemistry in high school
and he knew he needed a better understanding
of that subject.
So, he's walkin' on the science side of the campus
and he sees the fat, little, roley-poley professor hulbe
about 50 feet away,
so Our Graduate Student waves to him
and teases him,
"So, how's your class in liberal politics goin' ?"
Shocking ! Outrageous !, Unforgiveable !
What's Worse
INAPPROPRIATE !
Au Contraire, mon petit imbecile
Tres, Tres, Tres
APPROPOS !
Very Appropriate !
We're not talkin' about
a high school punk
mouthin' off to a venerable scholar.
Quite the opposite !
We're talkin' about a 33-year-old grown man and scholar,
military veteran and veteran of the civil rights movement
and veteran of the campus uprisings
taking to task an unprofessional blob of an excuse
for a man and educator.
If youda known the campuses from '68 to '72,
you'd understand that the little blob of a professor
was damned lucky he didn't get
Our Graduate Student's fucking FIST
down his goddamned throat.
Our Graduate Student was bein'
FRIENDLY.
So, Our Graduate Student's
totally absorbed with the chemistry class.
One day the chemistry teacher
waxes poetic about mario cuomo's speech
(at the Democratic national convention, I think).
"We shall never hear such a speech for another century,"
he pronounces with angry moral outrage.
"Thank God !" parries Our Graduate Student.
So Our Graduate Student
Hated mario cuomo ?
He Was A HATER ?!
A mean-spirited
rush limbaugh conservative !?
Oh, Dear.
You certainly are exasperating.
No.
Our Graduate Student
hadn't listened to the speech.
He was just stoppin' the chemistry teacher's
tirade on liberal poltics.
Remember, it was a CHEMISTRY class.
Our Graduate Student,
just like all the other students in that class,
had enrolled to learn CHEMISTRY,
not to sit as a captive audience
listening to some
angry, frustrated, HATING,
dropout jesuit priest,
soapbox on liberal Democratic politics !
Besides, Our Graduate Student
was never mean-spirited
and was NEVER a rush limbaugh conservative.
If anything, rush limbaugh
was a DAVE SCULLY conservative!
It was the big fat idiot,
the mean-spirited limbaugh
who stole Our Graduate Student's ideas,
not the other way around!
OK, Got It.
Our Graduate Student Good.
Mean-spirited rush limbaugh Bad.
Correct!
Anyway, Remember. This was a
CHEMISTRY
class.
Next thing you know,
the angry old white guy is using the word
"honky"
in the classroom.
Our Graduate Student sleeps on it,
and the next day he goes up to the old white guy
and asks him to please not use that word in class any more.
"You're threatening me !"
"No. I'm asking you not to say that any more
in the classroom.
It's offensive, insulting, and demeaning."
Our Graduate Student
musta been standing over the poor little old white man
With His Fists And Teeth Clenched, Huh ?
I'll Betcha THAT's What Happened, Huh ?
Our Graduate Student Was Ready To Pop Him One, Huh ?
Well, actually, au contraire again.
Our Graduate Student ACTUALLY
assumed an extremely submissive posture.
He was almost on his knees, as a matter of fact,
when he politely and civilly asked the old white man
not to say "honky" any more in the classroom.
He INTENTIONALLY assumed
the most UNTHREATENING position he could.
He was actually in a crouched position
with his ass just a few inches
above the backs of his heels.
He spoke politely
in a non-threatening, conversational tone
and a moderate, conversational volume.
In fact, he didn't want the whole class to hear it,
although those standing within a few feet could have
and probably did if they were listening.
After accusing Our Graduate Student of making threats,
the nasty little old white man chemistry teacher
then stated that he could say whatever he pleased,
but that he usualy only used that word once a year.
Then What Happened ?
Well, as this played through
Our Graduate Student's Mind,
he realized that the astronomy teacher, hulbe,
and the chemistry teacher, mchugh,
were part of the same problem.
They were both hostile to Our Graduate Student
and they were both intentionally
creating a hostile work environment,
or learning environment,
for Our Graduate Student.
What Did Our Graduate Student Do ?
He said to himself,
"What Would Martin Luther King Do ?"
Don't Tell Me He...
That's Right.
He wrote another letter.
How Droll.
How Perfectly Droll !
How Appropriate !
How Wonderfully, Perfectly
APPROPRIATE !
I thought you'd finally come around.
Yes. Yes, you might say
that Our Graduate Student had become
Quite The Man of Letters, if you will.
Oh, yes !
Yes, I will. I will, indeed !
To Whom Did Our Graduate Student,
Our Young Man of Letters,
Address This Letter.
First he went with it
to the dean of students.
He can't remember why, for sure.
It's been so long.
He didn't really know much
about the political structure of colleges.
There's so much we don't learn in school.
I have to agree with the Progressives
of the early and mid 1900's
as described by Dr. Ravitch in "Left Back."
One of those educations critics
perceptively noted that students learn
how the president is elected
but know nothing of their local government
which has much more impact and relevance to their lives.
Anyway, probably because he was called before
the dean of students at sac state,
he probably figured that he'd end up there again, anyway,
so he went to the dean of students first.
Our Graduate Student must have sent him the letter, first,
because he remembers that, when he met the dean,
the dean had already read it.
The dean of students was an African American man
and he told him to take it up with
the dean of the math, science and engineering dept.
That was Dean Richard Haro.
How Did That Go ?
It went well.
Dean Haro had read the letter before their meeting,
and he was impressed by it.
It was polite, professional, respectful,
clear and full in its explanation of the events,
but also to the point.
Our Graduate Student addressed
the incident in the astronomy class
in his letter, not the "honky" remarks
by the chemistry professor.
Why ?
Can't remember for sure, really.
I think Our Graduate Student reasoned
that it must have been the astronomy teacher
who turned the chemistry teacher against him
after their passing encounter on the campus
when Our Graduate Student made that teasing remark
about his "class in liberal politics."
In the beginning,
the chemistry teacher didn't show a bad attitude.
Maybe when the astronomy teacher
realized that Our Graduate Student
was back on campus, unhumbled and undocile
(to say the least),
he found out what class he was in
and went and talked shit about him,
inciting the chemistry teacher against him.
Anyway, Our Graduate Student
addressed the astronomy teacher's behavior
in the letter,
but he did mention
the problem with the chemistry teacher, verbally,
at the end of the meeting with Dean Haro.
It seemed like Haro already knew, though.
By the time Our Graduate Student's letter
went to the dean of students and Dean Haro
and Dean Haro talked to the two teachers,
everybody knew who the hell Our Graduate Student was,
The author of The 1982 Newsletters.
Haro treated Our Graduate Student
with the greatest of respect and consideration.
They're not ALL bad, not ALL of them.
Some of them, albeit a small minority,
are good, professional educators.
Thank God for those few !
Was The Letter Another Literary Piece
For The Ages, Like MLK's Letter ?
Yes and no.
It was a quality statement,
but it was more like "The Gettysburg Address",
masterful in scope, prose, logic, and persuasion,
but less than a page in lenghth.
Our Graduate Student described the events as above,
"I raised my hand and, when recognized, I asked politely,
'what does this have to do with astronomy?'"
You see, the first things those teachers do
when they get caught bein' unprofessional jerks that they are
is they blame the student for being disruptive.
Then, of course, Our Graduate Student had to
ridicule the astronomy teacher in the letter
(as Dr. Ravitch said about 'The Language Police',
'You have to ridicule them to get them to change').
"Apparently, politics is a hobby for professor hulbe."
Then, of course, Our Graduate Student
had to rise above all the mud
and take the high road.
After all, it was all about quality education,
"I would be willing to fight for hulbe's right
to speak freely..."
And then, finally, the concluding punch line,
"We demand...!"
I was really a well thought out, well written composition,
and Our Gradute Student, again,
now regrets that he did not preserve it.
It may be in Richard Haro's files still,
even if he's deceased, but not likely.
So, the letter sat on Dean Haro's desk
when Our Graduate Student arrived in his office.
"Pretty Good", remarked the dean, as he held the letter.
It was a warm, friendly collegial talk,
just the opposite of the browbeating tantrum
thrown by timmy comstock, the attorney dean of students
at sac state.
Richard Haro was a scholar, not an attorney.
Diane Ravitch, now, in "Death and Life..." (2010),
decries that the charter schools are being run
by businessmen, not by scholars.
Well, actually, I think she says 'educators'
and I would have to disagree with her on that, if she does.
I think schools should be run by scholars,
people who love learning, people who love their subject.
It's bad to have businesspeople running schools,
but "educators" are just as bad as, or worse than, businessmen.
All through "Left Back," "The Troubled Crusade,"
and "The Language Police," Dr. Ravitch
vividly describes the folly and unprofessionalism
and sheer nonsense in the public schools
throughout the entire century, until this day.
Can't blame businessmen for THAT, Dr. Ravitch.
It's the silly, shallow educationists
who enact the fascist speech and thought codes on campuses.
It's the silly, childish educationists
who quarreled endlessly over "whole word" and phonics.
It's the silly, childish educationists
who've battled with breathtaking shallowness
over the myriad battles you described in "Left Back."
Put inspired, subject-loving scholars
at the head of the schools,
at the head of each department,
in each classroom, and let them fly.
Scholars like Dean Richard Haro.
Subject-loving scholars.
Great curriculum.
There it is.
Sounds Like Our Graduate Student
Had A Trusting, Collegial Relationship
With Dean Haro.
Yes, they did.
Haro talked quite a bit during their meeting.
Our Graduate Student remembers Dean Haro
talking about his time working at Stanford
where he was happy and where he fit in until the day
they heard him talking Spanish on the phone
to family members.
"You're Mexican?" they asked in surprise.
Dean Haro had no accent, was highly educated,
and didn't appear to be of any particular ethnicity.
"After that, things just weren't the same at Stanford,"
he said, "so I left."
Haro also confided about the woes of being a Dean.
Two of his instructors had been quarreling
for a couple of years, he confided.
Hadn't spoken a word to each other in that time.
One of them accused the other of taking supplies
from his lab to use in his class,
or something like that.
It was a long, friendly, professional talk,
and Dean Haro came down
squarely on Our Graduate Student's side.
He mentioned the chemistry teacher.
"Don't you know about him?" said Haro,
"He was a jesuit priest !"
That seemed to say it all,
as far as Haro was concerned,
and Our Graduate Student kinda got it,
but he wouldn't REALLY get it
until a couple of decades later.
Jesuits are extremists,
and can't break out of the Mythology.
Still living in the security
of that authoritarian state
called the Catholic Church,
somewhere in the Middle Ages.
Those who become priests, or almost become priests,
are forever changed by the indoctrination.
Damn good chemistry teacher, though.
Damn good. Taught the fundamentals well,
if you were listening.
HATED Our Graduate Student, though.
HATED him. Shallow liberal in a lot of ways.
Hardly knew Our Graduate Student,
but HATED him from what he heard others say.
Didn't have a problem with Our Graduate student
until that astronomy teacher stirred him up.
Then he HATED, HATED,
HATED
Our Graduate Student.
A Hater. An angry, self-righteous,
morally outraged HATER.
A HATER by any other name still STINKS.
Life is but a stage.
What a role to play.
A Hater.
A morally outraged, always angry, HATER.
That was mchugh. A HATER.
A jesuit priest. Always pissed off,
morally outraged, and hatin'.
A hater. mchugh, a hater.
Whew !
Just tellin' it how it is, brother.
Just tellin' it how it is.
mchugh never apologized
for sayin' "honky" in class
and defendin' his right to say it "once a year,"
and accusing Our peaceful and appropriate Graduate Student
of making threats when he politely asked
mchugh to not say that word in class.
After Our Graduate Student met with Dean Haro,
the next time mchugh comes to class,
he ALMOST apologizes.
He says,
"There's three kinds of people in the world,
wise men, fools, and damn fools.
Wise men learn from other people's mistakes.
Fools learn from their own mistakes.
Damn fools never learn at all.
I place myself in the second category."
Well, THAT Sounded Like An Apology.
Yeah, "sounds like" is right,
but if you ever took him to court on it,
he could say "is" doesn't always mean "is."
Why didn't he just apologize, like the man he wasn't.
He started out right
with all that "wise man" and "fool" rhetoric.
He ALMOST apologized.
He coulda finished it up with,
"I shouldn't have said 'honky' in class
(or he could have just said "ANY racially offensive word"),
and I apologize to anyone who was offended by it."
Or, he could have apologized privately
to Our Graduate Student after class.
Instead, he drove Our Graduate Student
out of his class.
WHAT !?
Yeah.
It was a short, but intense, summer session,
a five-unit class during the summer.
In the final weeks,
after all this went down,
he announced that he had completed
teaching all the subject matter in the curriculum,
and that, during the final weeks,
he would only be working with
those who were having difficulty.
By this time, he was only addressing
his pet little group of African American students
in the class,
only looking at them when he made statements like that.
Reverse racism.
And the operative word in that phrase
is "RACISM."
He just couldn't, or WOULDN'T,
let the whole racism thing go.
And HE was the one who brought it up.
Our Graduate Student was just studyin' CHEMISTRY.
THAT'S ALL.
One day, mchugh looked at the African American students
and gushed, "You are BLESSED,
you are BLESSED with a wonderful skin pigment
that the rest of us lack !"
I Suppose Our Graduate Student
Could Have Politely Raised His Hand And,
When Recognized, Asked,
"What Does That Have To Do With Chemistry ?!"
Oh bless you! You're listening!
You're LISTENING!
It Must Have Been HELL, Though,
In That Classroom !
I Mean, The RACIAL TENSION
Must Have Been BOILING and SEETHING
ALL THE TIME !
Yeah,
in mchugh's mind it was.
That's the only place
there was any racial tension in THAT class.
We were in sacramento, California,
in the nineteen eighties,
not Birmingham, Alabama, in the fifties.
There was no racial hatred
in any of the students.
It was ALL in the minds
of the FAKE, shallow liberal professors.
It was their MYTHOLOGY !
If there was no REAL racial hatred
in the world around them,
they'd put it there.
They had to.
Their whole raison d'etre
would cease to exist
if there wasn't racism.
They had to be morally outraged and angry
about SOMETHING !
So they just IMAGINED it
when it wasn't really there.
The only acquaintance Our Graduate Student HAD
in that class, as far as he can remember,
was an African American girl.
She scolded Our Graduate Student that day,
after class,
when Our Graduate Student
asked mchugh to please not use the word "honky" in class
again.
"Why were you so mean to him?" she complained,
"He's so OLD !"
She was just bein' a GIRL, not an African American.
She saw mchugh as an OLD MAN,
and she wanted Our Graduate Student to be nice to him
because he was old.
Our Graduate Student was being a MAN
He felt that the principle was what was important.
Besides, Our Graduate Student wasn't mean to mchugh.
It was just the exaggerated, dramatic,
Hollywood way he responded to
Our Graduate Student's polite request,
that made her feel Our Graduate Student was mean to him.
But, anyway, getting back to the subject,
mchugh disinvited anyone from class
who wasn't struggling.
Then, later on, in private,
he encouraged Our Graduate Student
to take subsequent chemistry classes
from another instructor.
It pissed off Our Graduate Student
because mchugh was a good chemistry teacher,
and all the trouble got started
by hulbe the fat, little, roley-poley
piece of shit of a liberal astronomy teacher.
Oh, yeah, one more thing.
Another thing hulbe said that day
that Our Graduate Student put in the letter to Haro.
Martin Luther King's birthday
had just been made a National Holiday,
and hulbe was ranting (in his astronomy class)
about how all the Congressmen who passed that bill
were a bunch of racists !
Liberals are always sayin' shit like that
and turnin' logic upside down.
You ever read Shakespeare's
"The Taming of The Shrew?"
No.
Well, I saw it performed once.
I never could understand Shakespeare
when I had to read him.
It's about this guy (some Noble, I guess)
who marries this spirited girl,
and feels that he had to "tame" her.
So he wears he down by being TOTALLY UNREASONABLE.
If it was nighttime, he'd say it was day.
If it was daytime, he'd say it was night.
And so on, and so on, and so on.
He would make her miserable
until she agreed that whatever nonsense he stated was so.
That's what liberals do.
So, hulbe, in his astronomy class,
calls all the legislators in Washington, D.C.,
who just voted to make MLK's birthday
a National Holiday, racists.
Now, maybe some of them were sometimes,
but you'd think
hulbe would go to the trouble
to find some better evidence
to support his claim than that.
It just goes to show
how DESPERATE those liberals are
to find racism all around them all the time.
Even when they make
such a racially conciliatory statement
by making MLK's birthday a National Holiday,
the liberals cry "racism, racism, racism !
The sky is falling ! The sky is falling !
The sky is falling ! Racism is all around us !"
That's the kind of racism
that was in mchugh's chemistry class, too.
Whatever racism was in mchugh's head and heart,
that's all.
But, Don't Conservatives Do That, Too?
Don't Conservatives Say Totally Ridiculous,
Absurd, Illogical, Nonsensical Things, Too?
Yeah, but THEY do it because they're so stupid.
Liberals do it because they're devious.
Time For A Break ?
Yeah, time to relax
in a nice warm tub with DLGAS.
Until 2mrw then !
*****************************************************************************
OK
Very Easily.