The Chickens Come Home to Woost...Chicken Blogging in the age of Derangement (as Taibbi Might Say if faced with the Same...)

Its days like this, sunny and cool, Mother's Day, half-way watching the morning shows and half-way hearing that Obama is actually, really, realistically the democratic nominee, for whatever that's worth, that I gotta just take Frank Rich's advice:

While we wait out her [Hillary's] self-immolating exit, it’s a good time to pause the 24/7 roller coaster for a second and get our bearings.

To some that may mean reconsidering what year this all is comparable to; has there ever been a year like this? I mean, come on, hasn't this been the most unbelievable 7+ years in modern American history just due to the boldness of whats gone on if nothing else, capped by this year of...of...well, what would you compare it to? Sometimes I wonder about Rich,( I always wonder about Dowd, ) there is something a little wrong there, and his choices do it for me less and less these days.

Due to a real lack of free time, while spending a down and dirty year, quite by accident doing some hands-on helping of inner city kids and dealing with the system that is in place for the other America, Ive found myself with less and less time for bullshit. So, out of some sort of underdeveloped survival instinct, Ive been seeing what life is like to just not even waste time on silly busy work, like comparing this year to that year or trying to unravel the morning idiots. Blogtopia (Skippy!!) is no doubt full of people who can and will do that with one hand while doing real in-depth reporting with the other, so, I figure that I should aim my few still-beating brain cells at something or other that doesn't fill me with the equivalent of cheetos; air and oil and cheese powder. So, today, on this day-o-Moms, (and the sad last day of Sammy Seder's Sunday Show, 4PM EST,) its Mom's choice day.

Hearing Marc Maron this past week on Air America Radio also reminded me of the clarity that comes from focusing on the 3 or 4 things that are really happening, and using the rest of my confusing, mixed-up life for the sort of busy work that, for me, is somehow reassuring and calming. Marc seems to be soothed by focusing on his own neurotic self, but for me, if I can just try to get out of that a little.... I live in a sort of bohemian dream with chickens walking through scenes of dappled sunlight, and every day unfolding into some sort of mini chaos that allows for all sorts of doable problem solving, (if I don't kill myself along the way.) There is something about just doing the chores and keeping things running, that makes for sanity of some sort.



So, today I am doing a little chicken blogging, politics be damned. Ive got Mom here puttering round and trying to figure out what different animals mean by the tone of their cluck or growl, (I said bohemian, right?) and my sister , with hopes of a fancy restaurant up-by-her of course, while my slacker teen sleeps and the other one is lauding his "Mom" downtown, waiting to come back to the ranch.

I'm reading Tiabbi's new book, The Great Derangement, and Cliff Schecter's still fresh book, The Real McCain (see my Amazon widget on the right for that and more suggestions,) and trying to focus and project on whats ahead, while staying mindful of the ever changing textures here, where the leaves are out so quickly and if you didn't have rader of some sort, you could forget where you are in the mental GPS of things.

Spring at the ranch brings the inevitability of the arrival of a box o' chicks from the mailman and My Pet Chicken. This one contained 16 fluffballs of different breeds, from the Polish with the big puffy head feathers,

to the Turkens with the naked necks (see pics of my actual Turkens below.) This year I got my mom some "real" chickens like she had in Illinois as a farmgal, (only till she was 12, as evidenced by the way she overheated and killed 10 chicks while I was at Yearly Kos last year,) in the form of 2 full sized white leghorns; they were out of Jersey Giants at MPC....oh well...there are always more chickens to be had, and here Ive got Favreolles, and d'Uccles, and all sorts of crazy brands, including the Americuanas which lay light blue and light green eggs.


************************clutch o' babies************************

***********************Turken********************************************Polish*********************


*************************unknown baby; very cute and tiny****************

*************************Polish posing**************************


My new discovery this year, (last year it was ordering hatching eggs on eBay...hence the multitude of roosters; because you don't get just hens when you hatch eggs!)is EggBid, and the insane practice of shipping live adult birds in bird boxes. So, I won a trio of Frizzle Turkens, who are my absolute favorite creatures.








Now, some may call them ugly, and some may call them strange...but, this is the kind of thing that is right up my alley along with pin feathered baby parrots and hairless rats (or, as we call them around here, Chihuahuas.) I also got a real barred bantam Aracuana hen for my Coonie roo...oh this is starting to sound silly....but suffice to say that Ive been receiving birds in boxes.




Also joining us this spring is Blackie the hamster...don't ask me why I was compelled to buy another rodent when I had sworn them off, but Ben loves him and he is the cutest creature in the world. Ben named him Blackie the Token. I think Ben can do that, just like he can use the N-word (though hes not allowed to at my house at least...and its not his style anyway.)

And then there's Spike, who weighs just 2 lbs at 7.5 months old, and who was very, very sick, wasting away for months in a puppy store...and who is now much better, thank-you-very-much, and loves to jump on my keyboard and bully the big dogs, but who has managed to give one of my other dogs Giardia and worms and whatever else puppy mills spread around these days. I had a half assed plan that after my older dogs start to go, I might just consider a retired racing Greyhound, but somehow I came across the exact opposite, and the rest is history. So cute and self possessed is Spike, that he draws attention to himself so that its hard to get through a store without people stopping in awe. His size is a bit daunting, but hey, maybe he'll grow a little before hes 1...

This is my William on the right with his cousin Zach on the left....both are 14 and disgruntled, both over 5'10" and still growing like weeds.....Ben? Where is Ben?...oh OK...
He is very shy lately, as they all are, so this is a little old, and it was actually taken upside down...I need some new pics where everyone doesn't look like they are being tortured.







I also have been keeping Poison Dart Frogs, which is something that has been in the planning for years (along with the reef tank, but that will have to wait.) The invention of a particular terrarium that has layers of different substances that, with a little misting, creates a self sustaining system that needs little to no cleaning, has made this easy; the invention of flightless fruit flies even moreso.


I used to keep Whites Tree frogs before we were struck with a quite strange and rare parasite in the form of a long worm that emerged from my frog's leg one day and that needed to be sent to some university for study, causing the frogs to have to be put to sleep, and I have done more reading about them than actually moving towards getting them. That is until Todd and I went to the reptile show to get some Jacksons Chameleons for the bird store. I became sort of fixated on the Black Jungle booth...and, well, you know....
And, now I want a Jackson Chameleon again after hanging out with the 3 that Todd bought. My old one Jaques, was a grand old man by the time he passed away a few years ago...I really enjoyed him.


Anyway, I'm sure that's not all, but I guess that puppy worms aside, I really enjoy the animals most in life.

Last night, in a sort of idyllic splendor, I grilled salmon while Will tossed a Frisbee with his friend. I was filling the chicken waterer with my Jardines parrot, Kitty, who has her flight feathers cut, or so I thought....well, a shocking sound sent Kitty flying in full arc around the house and up into a tree, just out of reach of me dangling off another tree with a rake in my hand....and then off she went again to an old hemlock by the road, on a level with the power lines...which was where I found myself teetering on the top of a very, very old extension ladder with my Mom and complaining son, (apparently a stick fell in his eye,) holding the the thing, reaching up towards her, just grabbing a tail feather or finger, to have her turn and squawk and try to bite me with that big beak...and finally yelling "Kitty, step up!" she did, and I grabbed her hard and shakily descended the ladder.

It was up there on a level with the power lines, realizing that a fall from there could really, really hurt me...like, ambulance and hospital and casts, that I realized that I'm getting a little old for this stuff. But then, I also felt like I had solved a problem, (the bigger problem was solved in trimming her wing feathers this morning,) and that I have some control over my overabundant, crazy, confused life.


I suppose I don't have to go risking my life to feel that, but often I'm compelled by the moment, and ...whats a mother to do?....My Mom was standing below me shouting what seemed like inane directions to me, and she said "just let her bite you," which, if you saw her beak in person or have ever been bit by a parrot might sound sort of crazy, but I was actually thinking the same thing. And that's why we're moms, I guess...at some point you just put your hand in the poo or get bitten or hold a toddler while it projectile vomits across the room, and then methodically clean it up while weeping...today I'm covered with scratches and bruises, and so is my mom, though to a lesser extent...we did have some moments where the ladder swayed out of our control and we were trying to get ahold of it in a keystone cops manner, at one point with it falling actually on us, giving us matching shoulder bruises, with mine being worse and hers showing up more...but we lived to go and sit around the cluttered table and watch the large screen TV which only elicits talk of how things look rather than paying attention to the show thats on.

Happy mothers day to all you Moms out there, to all you dads who are also doing the mom job, and to all you folks who have the mother gene and express it on other's children and also on pets...this day is more about having a certain kind of empathy than a DNA match between one child and one woman....and a big part of that is about how most women are, (and some men too,) in taking care of business no matter what. That Mom thing runs deep, and its something to look towards in regards to regaining what America was before Bush drove this country into the ground.




And finally: Woostie still needs a home, I guess) He has been so bad lately as far as standing in the street stopping traffic and crowing at odd hours. Some of that has been solved with me caging him and covering him with a blanket at night, but he is still a handful here...and a great, loving guy, who is a good watch-bird... He just needs a whole flock of hens all his own!....

GUESS WHO LAID AN EGG????

Rosie!!! She laid Egg # 1 today!!!!! Ben has been feeding her and guarding her for almost a week in the nest, driving me crazy waiting out here...they are both sitting in the nest all of the time. Its a perfect little white thing, and I shouldn't look at all anymore until I hear little peeps in 24 days!
I should expect one each day or every other day now until they've laid, hopefully 4 or 5! Im so excited!...Just hope that they all have babies inside...at some point its up to mother nature! My birthday is coming up and THIS is what I wanted!! Thanks guys!...How many am I gonna get??

Social Discourse: Imus Fired; So Long Sammy; Lionel Who? Marc Maron, Janeane Garafolo and Henry Rollins Appear at the Gramercy Theater.Email-gate!!

Now that the world is safe from Don Imus and we've at long last got a 99.99% certainty that Larry Birkhead is Danilynne Smith Stern Birkhead's real daddy, I suppose that we can move on to the last day of Sam Seder's fabulous show which is dying even as thousands scream for its reprieve.... and then what to do with the driving round time until he is back on Sundays to add another 2 hours (minus commercials, of course) to my podcast lineup that includes Ring of Fire and Diggnation, along with assorted NY Times audio op-eds....? What to do?

Imus:
I've long felt like Imus' voice was one of negativity in a sea of disgusting white guy sewage brought to us by the major networks...but I dont discount the good work that Imus has done and continues to do for kids, and that he did swing with the changing tide when it became popular to talk about what dangerous asses Bush and co. were/are. But, I never saw much depth there, and it infuriated me how he cozied up to Joe Lieberman with no real idea of what old Joe was doing to our system...same thing with Santorum and a host of others. The old boy network seems to need one or two talking points to keep them happy and endorsing eachother, leaving the rest of us sputtering, but, but, but....

Clearly, there are so many of us who never utter the kind of words that Imus said, but we all have them in the layers of brain formed as we grow ...its maybe just a matter of the tone and delivery...and I dont know if its fair to say, as Sam Seder did yesterday, that this is probably how all those old guys talk to eachother off the air....and at first I didn't really think that its fair to completely cut Imus down and take his career away for just saying more of the same...or to make him the fall guy for Rush, O'Reilly, Stern, and other shock jock liars out there who probably do less for children and the environment than Imus does. He is also a small "L" liberal who sometimes finds his center....and is probably less putrid than alot of other crap out there.
So, why is he the one taking the fall?

You could easily comb through the transcripts of even, say, the Lionel show on WOR, and find where he called Rachel Maddow a thick necked dyke, or...well, I don't think I have to get started on the Limbaugh/Fox/Coulter/Malkin statements that have gotten by with hardly a peep from anyone....even as protestors are carted off to jail for wearing the wrong T-shirt outside of the White House, or not walking fast enough past while protesting. But now that its done, maybe its worthwhile to say that language of that sort is not acceptable in any company. Its not acceptable from black person to black person, from Rapper to Ho, in any sort of a joke, or even in the living room while drunk with close friends....Ive thrown people out of my house for saying the N-word...in Montana where it was, at the time, a normal part of shooting the shit...
I see how hurt inner city kids are...how easily they can go either way...how hard they work to get anywhere (much less to Rutgers) and as much as I dont knwo the backgrounds of the women that he was talking about, I can see that this kind of statement by the man on the man's network, hurts these kids...the girls especially.

The use of the "Ho" image is not only racist but its sexist...coming from a bunch of pasty white guys it is just disgusting, considering that it might be the rappers who fancy themselves the pimps, but its the pasty white guys who really are secretly (or not so secretly) interested in how much of the "ho" folklore is true...And Imus' crew is pretty disgusting, taunting the fat guy for being fat, wearing the fedex envelope to be the pope and the old, old, old Brian Wilson/Bill Clinton "comedy"...going on into the endless commercial for the cleaning products which may be a service to children and the world, but just become tiring....
But what makes this THE worst thing ever...? What spin of the wheel of fortune chose Imus over Limbaugh? From now on, every time I hear any sort of trash talk I'm gonna call networks and sponsors. I guess that got Spocko in alot of trouble, but I think that if Imus is gonna be held accountable for this statement that Malkin etc... should also answer to the powers that be and the sponsors.

I just think that it would have been a better outcome if they let Imus come back and make his show different. Instead, its swept away after a day or two of NOT focusing on the bombing in the green zone of Baghdad and the emails and Gonzo....
And, lets not even hope that they will tap Sam Seder and/or Marc Maron as a fillin, which would be the smart thing to do...no, they will have alot of David Gregory and then some plastic talking head on MSNBC, and who knows who else on CBS....
I dont care...I usually dont look at MSNBC till after 9AM because Imus is there, so I wont miss much. I also think that Imus will be picked up pretty quickly by satellite or whatever, just like everyone else is. It just feels to me like a certain amount of discourse or maybe possible discourse has been shut down.
Speaking of which:


What I will really miss from my day to day life is Sam Seder, Joe Conazin, Christy Harvey, Marc Maron (even just on Fridays,) Atrios, Marcos, and whoever else I'm forgetting. I always miss Dan Pashman (the show-killer,) Brendan PW McDonald and am happy to see them pop up here and there, though I wish it was on shows that I can stand ...and I will now also miss Lauren and Joel....But what is wrong here is that the loss that we are seeing unfold on Air America is one of the loss of the hope and possibility, and that edgy, intelligent and thoughtful commentary that seemed too good to be true...and was....
Why was the urgent and necessary life of this network entrusted to these jokers? Who made the decision to sell this thing to them rather than the French's or the Drobnys? Who lives in who's pocket in the NYC court system?...and who does it serve that AAR be dumbed down?
Its not about profit or corporate feasibility...or even being able to answer to stockholders....no, its about direction and message. Who is served by this "new" (aka meet the new boss same as the old boss) direction?
Message to Danny Goldberg: So, how did that 'advice from Imus' thing work out for you?...happy now?...are we having fun yet?
Message to the Green twins: See above and learn from the past. Can't wait till Lionel lets loose with one of his zingers on your air...I hope your FCC fines are at least as much, of not more than the monies owed to all talent and crew that got screwed in your deal....oh well....

Tomorrow is visiting day at Will's school. I love Will and I love his school, but I did my time in school. The fact that Fridays are usually half days there, and each class is only 20 minutes long, doesn't make it any easier for me to get up, get out with him on time, and run from class to class while trying to read my Treo (as I spent my childhood reading the NY Post during class before it was a conservative rag,) and balance a coffee. Like Will, I was a smarter student than I was a good student....I did great and knew all the answers in a second, but resented the hell out of being there at all. I still hate school...grade, middle, high, and freshman year of college. But apparently, this is what we do at this particular school....and then we will come home and get ready and head down to NYC to see Marc Maron, Janeane Garafolo, and Henry Rollins at the Gramercy theater.

I'm so sad this week due to a myriad of things and I'm feeling overwhelmed with it all...capped off by a good flooding rain that has left the basement wet and the clocks all screwed up.
Im hustling to get my taxes done so my saint of a tax guy doesn't hate me too much...and I still cant get into the nest box to see if my hen has laid her eggs yet.
I'm happy to report though that I got a great but old book on conure breeding, and this hen, Rosie, is doing everything exactly by the book. I just need something to look forward to; something bright and new....11 days till my birthday and I want a little something....

My new focus is going to be on the Bush Administration's growing email-gate, which is shaping up to be quite fantastic with the Bushies having separate laptops for their separate emails that were run through the RNC server, so that they wouldn't be traceable.
So here is the fun part: first of all, the act of setting up separate laptops and using a different server ( a stupidly obvious server,) they were planning to do wrong...Is that malice aforethought??
Secondly, and here is where I do my happy dance, because they are not part of the presidential papers (which is against the law in itself if it is work product of this administration,) it is not going to fall under privilege!!!
Lets watch this, along with the Gonzo death watch which we will have to take over till Sammy resurfaces with his way-too-short Sunday show.

I will report on the Maron et al show...maybe even direct from the venue depending on how friendly it all is and how much fun I'm having....
I have a new sub-notebook which is just smokin' and I outfitted it with a Verizon wireless high speed card, so I can conceivably do anything online anywhere that I have a Verizon signal (which lets out my HOME, but oh well....)

See ya round Don...See ya soon Sammy...See ya tomorrow Marc....Jill and Mr Brill too!!
See ya sooner Accountant (who has not enough time to read blogs right now anyway!!!)

Another Air America Misstep...Is This Goodbye to Sam Seder?

I love Dan Pashman, (son of Lewis and Linda Pashman.) I got familiar with him as a producer and on air personality on Air America Radio. His work with Brendan McDonald during the Katrina disaster was stellar. They were a couple of, probably not so innocent, producers covering a vacation week for the hosts of late lamented Morning Sedition, when the dam burst and they were in the driver's seat. They did such a great job and their banter on various talk shows that they have produced since then, and particularly with Marc Maron, has been great.
I guess that also, the Dan Pashman laugh has been something that signals to fans of a certain type of comedy that we are all on the same planet.
So, I was sorta thrilled to hear Dan take over for Sam Seder's departing temporary producer, Joel from Al Franken's show. Are you following me?
I shoulda realized, though, that the Pashman laugh is not a sign of comedy anymore....Its a sign of the endtimes!
So, after a pretty straightforward Seder show today, Pashman was heard to say, on the Sammy-cam that had been inadvertently left on, they had to tape the promos for next week and that, after the holidays, Thursday and Friday of next week are their last shows. Pashman himself is moving to Laura Flanders show, which is probably, I'm guessing, moving to a daily slot where maybe we might have seen Maron at some point.
I wrote to the new director of programming, hired on just a a week or so ago, by the Green brothers, David Bernstein ,in my usual style, which is pretty intense and wordy (see my post from the last time they canceled Maron...was that almost a year ago?) and I was very happy to get a response pretty quickly.
The thing is that the response, while kind, thoughtful, and thorough, sort of goes against what I'm pretty sure is happening. Unless there are some last minute talks going on, the reply I got was either a bit of a snow job, or the words of someone who isn't fully into the job and up on whats happening yet.

So, while my own ears, and the ears of many of my fellow bloggers heard one thing come out of Pashman, David Bernstein claims that he will listen to listeners and station managers around the country in order to make a decision....a decison that I think has already been made.

I'm upset, but not as upset as I guess I have been in the past. I think I may be writing Air America off. It was a voice of reason in the darkness 3 years ago, and a grand experiment that was new and very real in a sea of crazy lies. Now, its become another hack network that needs to scramble to meet revenue requirements. I should add that those requirements are arbitrary and set by some business plan that shouldn't exist at all, considering what we're dealing with here.

If there is to be no fairness doctrine, and the FCC has moved again and again to allow conglomeration of media outlets, and then the liberal voice has been silenced methodically by the big bucks of the right, who have created a strong foundation over many years, and using bluster, lies, fear, and hate...and drama...to spin a story and a following that puts them not only in the black but in the driver's seat as far as the information getting out to the American people, then the American people have been robbed of their right to know....Is this not the Pony Express or the Guy riding into town shouting "The British are coming, the British are coming!"
Are Americans expected to live in a world of propaganda with an educational system that is hell bent on dumbing down the masses? Don't we have a RIGHT to hear both sides?...or is that up to the president and Karl Rove to decide?

Air America is as important to the American people as the assurance of a free flow of information and ideas. An assurance that has been stifled in a campaign by the right to ensure that the masses don't find out the truth. The lies that pass for "news" coming out of the likes of the Limbaugh's and O'Reilly's out there would be laughable of they weren't so tragically accepted as the gospel truth.
The fair exchange if ideas should be subsidized by the government if the marketplace does not allow for a balance.

Beyond that, whoever takes on Air America is not taking on an entity that is anywhere near to being profitable...and thats not the point....Just like funding failed campaign after failed campaign is about ideas, this project should also be looked at as a campaign. The return is not going to be something to put in the bank right away, but the social return will be great...and in funding this venture, the Greens will ensure themselves a great place in history as the Pony Express when the right would have cut off the news and the mail. Air America will surely become more important as the country turns more and more blue. So its a little troubling to me to have the programming manager email to me:

It is a business as well as a platform. Air America had a horrible financial showing and ended up in bankruptcy.
New owners have a mission of reviving the brand name Air America and making it a financial success, or else there will be no liberal talk radio at all.

He then went on to say that he was still going to talk to listeners and program managers around the country and then because "majority rules," he will make his decision.
This is a decision that seems to already have been made and I don't think that majority rules...usually in these parts, bullshit rules.

So, as much as I want to think that the new Air America owners get it, I expect that we are looking at more of the same. There will be a business plan that is not profitable and is reworked every quarter in the futile effort to try to wring something out of this mess, and the money brother will sink just as much money into a format that will resemble NPR and still not be profitable....The same amount of money risked on exciting and edgy talkers would at least make history and a statement.
Unfortunately, it looks to me that this thing is going to go out with a small fizzle rather than a bang....and the sad thing is that it doesn't have to go out at all.

Hopefully I'm wrong...hopefully they will pull a Maron/Seder show out of their butts, but I'm not counting my joy before its hatched.
I'm expecting a Mark Green Show, that will have poor ratings but will never be canceled, and more of the Thom Hartmann sort of somnambulists intelligencia shows.
What do these people have against comedy?? Why do liberals have to be so freakin' serious? A huge part of our inability to get anything done is that we take ourselves too seriously...as Maron put it "..progressive utopians with no sense of humor..."



Sam Seder is one of the best talkers on liberal radio right now, and he is funny and cool too...The Greens are fools if they let him go...lets hope they come to their senses, but I am sort of doubting it....In the meantime: Buy Sam's great book FUBAR. I have the book and the audio book and they are both great and make great gifts! Look for it in soft cover in the coming months too!




In bird news, the Parrot store is bulging with babies of all sizes and they are CUTE!! They even have EGGS in the incubator! I will have to get more pictures pronto.The baby bunnies are hopping around in their mini perfection (thats gonna end in a second as soon as they start to get big enough to become the poop factories that rabbits are.)
I know that Todd wasn't thinking about cuteness last night when he was up every 3 hours feeding pink squirmy birds, but hell, Will spent a few months waking every hour and didn't sleep through the night till...well, recently...(and then, welcome to the teen years, aka, you think you had it bad before this!...)
Todd says that every time he sees one of the little pinkys he thinks of buffalo wings! Now, of course, he is a bird lover, and is only kidding (so PETA folk, don't bother with the hate mail,) But they are so cute when they are naked and helpless...and then when they get their fuzz and pin feathers. I could be very happy with a job at the bird store as my final career move.
In the meantime, and while i work out the nasty details of my little life here, my breeding baby parrotlets are doing well (cute,) but they wont breed till next year. the beautiful breeding pair of Yellow Side Conures are comfortably ensconced in their new home, which I refer to as the den of sexual iniquity, complete with private nest box that I am thinking of outfitting with a night vision webcam for when and if I get babies...we'll see. Someone need to be getting some around here, so I hope they are getting busy!
For birds that have been breeding stock for the past 3 years, they are very nice, and only bite a little. They have an incredible interest in being part of the household and interacting....so I'm working towards taming them (which might hurt their breeding potential, but oh well...I think that every bird should have the opportunity to know what its like to be part of a family, if they can't be in the wild or in a huge aviary.)




Thats all I have. I could get in bed and just stay there for the entire weekend, but I think I'm going to try to go to a bird show tomorrow and then I have to go to the city on Sunday to bring the boys to the Origami USA club at the Museum of Natural History (where I am still hoping to have time to get to the evolution exhibit when it doesn't have a freakin' cocktail party going on,) see grandpa and do some stuff there, and hopefully head downtown to walk around SoHo with mom a bit. She found a great new store that I have to go to...today she brought me some of those Chinese articulated fish charms and a silver skull charm....and I need more STUFF...right???

Lets hope for some good news in the world, from Air America, and from whatever lucky media outlet(s) is/are gonna get Marc and Sam...

And maybe we need to think a little bit more about our rights, and the need to have as much information from both sides as is possible under law.