Corporal punishment = long-term negative effects

It is congruent with the proposals that creating low-anxiety, inclusive learning environments produces better learning. Write up is here: Corporal punishment may have long-term negative effects on children's intelligence: "Children in a school that uses corporal punishment performed significantly worse in tasks involving 'executive functioning' -- psychological processes such as planning, abstract thinking, and delaying gratification -- than those in a school relying on milder disciplinary measures such as time-outs,"
I wonder whether this has some bearing on learning outcomes for different communities in Britain. There are some distinct educational outcome differences between different cultural communities inhabiting the same socio-economic spaces in cities in on instance I know of, the attendance of male children at after school classes where corporal punishment is often part of the the environment, is not only getting in the way of their being able to do the homework and be rested for the next day's work, but may be creating a higher anxiety response to classroom/learning situations. The further danger is this:

These results are consistent with research findings that punitive discipline may make children immediately compliant -- but may reduce the likelihood that they will internalize rules and standards. That, in turn, may result in lower self-control as children get older. ... corporal punishment does not teach children how to behave or improve their learning. In the short term, it may not have any negative effects; but if relied upon over time it does not support children's problem-solving skills, or their abilities to inhibit inappropriate behaviour or to learn

Praying against famine

It bears thinking about that Britain is not self-sufficient in food production and yet we don't have famine. This issue should start to figure in our heads as we deepen our praying for east Africa.Abbey Nous: East African famine: preventable and prayable: "when we pray 'give us ...' we are praying inclusively in principle: if our food can come (as it does) from the furthest parts of the world from where we live, then we cannot shrug our shoulders and say that this is nothing to do with us. If our money can call forth food and drink from Australia and New Zealand (those of us in Western Europe, that would be, Perhaps South Africa or central Asia for those in America) then we realise that we are contemplating a problem with the way that food is produced and distributed. That is a political, economic and humanitarian matter."
So we pray, but if we are serious we pray for fairer economic conditions and systems, for greater justice, for the will on the part of (we who are among) those who have the means and the clout to change systems that overwhelmingly favour them/us. God normally supplies via the systems we co-create, God calls us to co-create with God and with the poor. I tend to think that God, when we pray for help to famine-struck areas might well be saying in response something like, "Yes, but organise it better for the long term; challenge greed and injustice; remember what you can do when you put your minds to it ..."

Stayover relationships

Just as the Christian churches in the West seem to be getting a handle on cohabitation, along comes something else to make life difficult for working with principled relationships.
Trend in young adults' dating habits, committed relationships may not lead to marriage: "found that 'stayover relationships' are a growing trend among college-aged couples who are committed, but not interested in cohabiting. However, little is known about the effects of stayovers on future commitment decisions or marriage.
'A key motivation is to enjoy the comforts of an intimate relationship while maintaining a high degree of personal control over one's involvement and commitment,' said Larry Ganong, professor in HDFS. 'We see this interest in personal control nationally in more single adult households, and in the growing phenomenon of 'living apart together' (middle-aged and older monogamous couples who maintain their own households). It may also help explain why marriage is on the decline, particularly among young adults.'"
So how to evaluate? How to engage constructively and critically? How to disciple?
Any lessons from the last 30 or 300 years?

McLuhan's vision still matters today?

I pose the title as a question because I do believe that McLuhan enunciated a really important insight in the soundbite "the medium is the message". The article I've linked to Why McLuhan's chilling vision still matters today | Douglas Coupland | Comment is free | The Guardian is to be commended at the level of giving a reasonable account of McLuhan's insight but I'm concerned that for some reason, the author slips back into the hand-wringing popular trope which essentially sees anything new media-wise as a dire threat to civilisation and a sign that the barbarians are at the gates.

"what's spooking us all is the inevitable message of these new media: what will be the psychic fallout of these technologies on our inner lives?
Time seems to be going much faster than it once did. We don't remember numbers any more. Certain forms of storytelling aren't working for us as they once did. And what's happening to democracy? As with TV in the 1950s, don't be fooled by the content of texts or blogging or online shopping. Look at what these media are doing to our souls. That's what McLuhan did."

Of course, I'm concerned that I'm taking issue with Douglas Coupland! But it does seem to me, puzzlingly, that Coupland writes with an emotional veneer of the woe-to-us variety. He is right, I think, that we should ask what the psychic effect might be. It is right that we should consider that among the effects will be "fallout". What we need to remind ourselves also is that among the effects will be ways of doing things that will have positive dimensions as well as challenges. Let's remember (and I keep banging on about this) that mass-produced books and high literacy rates met with similar doom-mongering back in the day. Yes some of that doom-mongering was accurate (people don't memorise books and the way that we process and retrieve information and make arguments was affected) but it also didn't figure on the way that we are freed up to concentrate on flows of argument and to be able to question authorities. So let's not just have a wake for the things we like that will be harder or obscelesce but begin to make space for the new and helpful things that can come to birth.

McLuhan also clues us in to this: in talking about media as "extensions of man (sic)": what capabilities does it extend and how can this help us at its best, and how do we plan to minimise the down-sides?

Begin Your Email with a Deadline to Get a Quicker Response?

I normally like Lifehacker's suggestions on productivity, but I'm a bit concerned about this.
Begin Your Email with a Deadline to Get a Quicker Response: "Skip the small talk and throw a deadline in the first sentence—for example, 'Attached, please see the draft of the Tuesday meeting notes, please reply with changes by 9 a.m. Monday.' Be clear about the deadline and the expected turn-around and don't waste their time with anything else. Check out the full post at Stepcase LIfehack for a few other helpful tips for inspiring prompt email replies."
A'm all for making a clear request. However, having been at the receiving end of terse emails in the workplace, I think that I would counsel the would-be writer of such emails to consider the emotional impact, paying particular attention to the possibility that if you already have prior record of dealing with people in a way that fails to acknowledge their difficulties, humanity or need for reasonable esteem, then an email of this type runs a high risk of coming over as officious or even with some kind of hinted criticism. Small talk can have the function of cementing, massaging, re-opening relationships. Failure to pay attention to the relational dimensions can be counter-productive. In this case, for instance non-co-operation from the colleague could be a way of reasserting their own power or sense of esteem.

A Click-Thru (sic) Culture?

This is a helpful observation from this article, TheOOZE beta | evolving spirituality. � A Click-Thru Culture (by Eric Wright):

"rushing toward the next thing without taking time to enjoy the beauty and presence of what is in front of us. We are looking for something to excite us, catch our attention, thrill us, or appeal to us all in the first 6 seconds! If we don’t find it we declare, “There is nothing here!” and we move on.
We have turned into a click-thru culture."

I think that the habitus that click-through encourages may well be as stated here. What I'm more troubled by is the way the author suggests we respond.
I’m no longer interested in catering to the click-thru crowd. They are a fickle and lazy

group; needy and selfish. So lately I have been asking a new question, “Who am I going to invest my time in?

”
My difficulty is that it seems to exemplify an approach that is unlike that which God takes towards humanity in Christ. While there may be some justification for investing ones time in those who are hungry and willing (that seems to me to be the way that significant chunks of Jesus' ministry are constructed), I'm concerned that effectively writing whole groves of people off a priori seems a bit more Flood than Incarnation. What I mean by that is that in the Flood the approach is to write off all but one family, whereas in the Incarnation the approach is to find a way to presence and communicate even amidst those who are 'yet sinners'. What this may mean for the "click-through crowd" would be to find ways to entice them, intrigue them and to encourage them to linger with images, ideas or whatever that may both help disclose something that leads Godward and to (re-)develop the habits of lingering, contemplating and spending time in slow reflection.

This is not a new problem: spiritual exercise writing and teaching down the ages is full of advice to help people make the same adjustment to reflection, meditation and contemplation. It's just the medium and influence that has changed. I fear that the author may have fallen prey to the old problem of thinking that modern life is throwing up unprecedented challenges. I tend to think that it throws up precedented challenges in new guises. Our task is not to decry the new guises but to spot the precedents and re-work tried and tested responses in appropriate ways, understanding the new and the old helpfully. I would hazard that we will rarely need to come up with a totally new tactic. I would also suggest, contrariwise to this article, that we should be wary of writing off whole and easily-identifiable populations: the gospel seems to me to suggest that there are likely to be receptive people in every group, our issue will be how to connect with them meaningfully.

Academic Congregations - Northumbria University

Last week I attended three congregations for the admission to degrees at Northumbria University. I have a few reflections which I managed to get down to writing up today.

This was the first time they had been held in the newly-opened Sport Central. This is essentially a sports' centre and the congregation was held in the main hall with the guests on the banked seating around three sides, the graduands in blocks in the middle facing a platform on the fourth wall. It was a typical 'call the name, walk across stage, shake hands' kind of ceremony. It was preceded (as people were taking their places) by extended promo videos on the two large screens set either side of the platform. The promotional films were well made and upbeat about the student experience and the benefits of a studying at Northumbria University. There was a brass band whose main function was to provide processional and recessional music. There was in the programme, and announced at the start, a request for there to be no clapping of individual graduands and no calling out or whistling. With regard to the former, every so often (every 20 or so graduands or at a change of subject area) there was an announced pause for applause. In some cases families or other well-wishers simply 'couldn't help themselves' and called or whistled a few particular candidates. This was particularly so towards the latter end of the longer of the congregations. I suspect a kind of boredom coupled with a sense that others got away with it emboldened people.

The ceremony opened and closed with formal announcements by the MC of the fact. The VC made a 5-10 min speech which I wondered whether it needed to have so much about the university as the pre-ceremony promotional videos had already kind of covered that ground. One of the things I find myself reflecting on most from the speech is that he mentioned that the intstitutiton that became the university was founded by "a Victorian philanthropist". I've been looking into the history of the Uni a bit and know that Rutherford was in fact not just a Victorian philanthropist but one who was motivated by his Christian faith and was able to mobilise the support among other support of his own Congregationalist Church in Bath Lane of which he was the minister. Admittedly Rutherford's vision was a non-sectarian (ie without religious tests or particularities) education, but I think that to elide the religious dimension altogether is perhaps significant and the possibility of reminding us of the Christian (Socialist) basis (albeit one which was 'non-Christendom') of the precursor institutions might be helpful in terms of handling religious diversity today by asserting that there is a place for a hospitable, co-operative, seeking-the-common-good kind of religious faith.

One of the other things I found myself reflecting on was the ceremonial use of space. It seemed that really what they'd tried to do was to recreate the kind of proscenium arch kind of experience much used in school halls, university halls where the space has been designed with a stage for theatrical experiences as well as to allow the platform party at assemblies and the like to see over the heads of others and to be seen by most of the assembled masses. This layout then dictates the form of ceremony.

The thing to note, though, is that if the space changes then new possibilities arise and old formats don't need to be followed. So there was a feel that the space was fighting the ceremony: the space is designed with sporting events such as basketball (Newcastle Eagles play there) in mind. In such a space everyone sees not because the spectacle is raised above their heads or to eye-level but because the seating is banked to look down on the central space where the action takes place. Arena not stage.

So I started to wonder whether there might be a more in-the-round, arena-style way to do the ceremony with the central point being for the central action and things being arranged concentrically around that. I take it that the main action is the handshake which represents being admitted to the degree (note not being /given/ a degree -though I saw graduands being given beribboned scrolls as the began their walk across stage, I took this to be a dummy rather than the actual degree certificate): the handshake is one of fellowship from a representative of the university and the action is performative; bringing the graduand into the fellowship of graduates of the university; a change of status is conferred. Thus the walk is from being an undergraduate to being a graduate: one enters the stage (or arena) un-degreed and leaves degreed; the performative point is the handshake. This might suggest, too, that they be handed the symbolic scroll as they leave the liminal space.

It would open up possibilities for ceremonial to attempt to use rather than fight the arena layout. Possibilities such as having the 'platform party' (consisting of representatives of the university senior management and governance and the school whose degrees are being awarded in that congregation) gathered around the central point of action (perhaps a quartered circle with four entrance and exit points). The screen could then be used better as ways to convey action from different vantage points to the guests (I did appreciate the use of two camera angles and screening the names of each graduand as they went across the platform, this capability could be extended and come into its own in the arena schema). It might be possible to consider assembling the graduands (given the extra space afforded by the venue) behind the guests and for them to come into the central arena space and perhaps be seated, having been admitted to their degrees, in the central area. Then at the end they could all be invited to stand and to turn to face the guests and be applauded and cheered, perhaps even to bow and wave, throw their hats in the air or whatever.

The band was interesting: they played nicely and suitable sorts of music (Handel, for example). However after they had played the processional piece they left the arena, and returned shortly before the end. This was a little distracting. I would guess that having them sit through an hour or more of naming-handshaking-clapping might be the reason to let them go, but I do wonder whether a less obtrusive way of deploying them could be found.

I also wondered whether having an obvious gathering of a cohort who would then be standing together to be clapped would help with the intrusive clapping/cheering/whooping that happened from time to time. I must admit the constant ripple of applause for every candidate that I have usually experienced is helpful in this but it is wearing, particularly when you come to the last quarter or so. So I applaud Northumbria Uni for trying to deal with that -I was really pleased when I saw in on the programme.

I was also interested to see the processional objects: a mace (of sorts -more a squared silver club than the spiky object that I usually associate with the term 'mace') and a sword (which I'm told has "Newcastle Polytechnic" written on it. I was interested because they are such martial objects which is rather at odds with the equality and diversity ethos of the institution. I found myself wondering whether it would be better to get an suitably artistic member of the university to design a way to turn the sword and mace into a figurative or perhaps literal ploughshare.

Academic Congregations - Northumbria University, Newcastle UK

Praying amidst daily life

Another thing I am researching is resources for people to use to pray while at their desks -prayer breaks, so to speak. These come in various types: meditation; intercession; offices (that is forms of set-liturgical prayer like morning or evening prayer). Below is what I found today. I have an impression that I have seen others, but my bookmarks show no others and search engines show few others that I'd trust. What I've got less of is bible-devotional sites and, of course at this time, other faith traditions. I would rely on you, dear Reader, to advise me or at least make further suggestions. I'm hoping to produce an 'Amidst the Day Prayer' page myself in due course which would use the structure of the Lord's prayer as it's framing principle and having Northumbria University people as its target users in the first instance.

Meditational prayer sites.
Re:Jesus have a daily prayer site which is more reflective or meditational in feel and will often have things to do as part of their suggested journey of prayer. It also is time-aware, so adjusts to the time of day.

Quiet Space (which seems to be based in Australia) has an 'exercises' approach to a reflective time in front of your monitor based on an examen pattern. .  Supported by lots of white space and 'calm' graphics to give a sense of 'space'. They also have a useful gospel reflection page which has sound files.

In the same spirit the Irish Jesuits have Sacred Space, with a similar ethos and approach; this has been quite a popular site and probably inspired most of the others we find of a similar ilk. Their visual presence is even simpler and the use of fade between items is quite calming in effect too. One nice feature is that the scripture passage has an option with it to get a few more thoughts to help reflect on it, or you can simply move on when you are ready.

Also in a similar vein but with a title that may inspire others is 3-Minute Retreat which does what it says. It has a sound track for the meditation of quiet guitar playing -which may be important to know if you're doing it at your desk at work!

Explore Faith has some interesting options for meditative prayer: through visual art; music; poetry; reading.

Intercession or petitionary sites.
Re:Jesus also have a virtual candle-lighting stand where you can manipulate graphic candles and write a prayer for someone (and even post an email to let them know you've done so if you wish) and the candle will burn down virtually over time. By touching the candles on the stand you can read the petitions of others and pray for them you can click the candle and in so doing add an 'Amen' and these are totted up so you can know for any prayer how many people have 'amened' it.

The commendable 24-7 Prayer network have an online prayer wall which invites you both to leave a request and to pray for one someone else has left. I quite like, too, their invitation to join them in dropping everything at 12nn to pray the Lord's prayer. Not least because this imitates a Christian practice going back to the early church.

Office-prayer.
The Church of England has pages for morning and evening prayer which have all the readings and Psalmody for the day collected together along with the prayers that go with that day -so no fiddling around with lectionary and collects; it's all there, ready to go.

Recently-formed the Order of the Black Sheep has a daily prayer feed which includes video embeddings of songs (with a tendency towards metal style, as that represents their cultural context) as part of the liturgy.

A traditional Breviary approach which is adjusted for the day offering a menu for the various times of the day and Roman Catholic reflections and sanctorale is at the Universalis site. The site gives guidance on how to produce your own monthly e-breviary from the resources on the site. Similarly the Mission of St Clare has an online office which gives you the control of moving through the sections with a menu of the elements on the left hand of the page. At the Explore Faith site you can choose your time zone and be presented with the office that most closely fits your time of day. These are very simple and short with a lot of scripture in them.

Anglicans Online gives a set of links to various options for daily office-style praying: one of these is the much-used and loved Celebrating Common Prayer (modelled after the Franciscan office) which has links for the various days. What it doesn't do is intergrate the readings so you have to make separate arrangements for that side of things. The online Breviary linked to from here is another version of the CofE's Daily Prayer but on a simpler page format.

I like this site because it links to a simple aural office based on the NZ prayer book. This is great if you don't want to read or find it challenging but would like to hear the prayers and readings. The reader is not heavily-accented NZ.

A basic Divine Office with readings inserted can be found here, it's Catholic in feel and offers all the hours.

There's a page on the Taize site with  basic liturgy but it's not a fully integrated multimedia thing though elsewhere on the site are resources for learning the music.

The Northumbria Community office is available online and with some helpful advice on how to pray it. It has links to open the readings in new windows when you get to them. My main beef with it is that it doesn't do seasonal variations and what they call a canticle isn't; it's a prayer.

Labyrinthine wondering

Yes I know the title might look as if it should be "wandering" but -see what I'm doing here?- it's a near pun because I'm trying to collect together a bunch of what seem to be useful links about this. Y'see, I'm currently in discussions with our counselling service to put on a couple of days events on 'mindfulness' and the labyrinth has been accepted as something we should do as part of that. The thinking is that mindfulness meditation has developed a body of research-based affirmation as something that can help mental health. It was mentioned that Edinburgh University has a permanent labyrinth which I must go to see, it raises intriguing possibilities, of course ...

So, one of my resulting tasks (self-offered) was to research some resources that we could put into the hands of students and staff of the university. This in turn means that I need to be able to select a good set of websites which have something for (nearly) everyone as our equality and diversity approach means that such resources need to be accessible as widely as possible and reasonable.

So, what have I been finding?

One page "The Labyrinth" takes a more general view, perhaps with a New Agey feel where there is something of a personal development focus and edge though some of the pages seem more Christian. It's part of a bigger site called 'Lessons4living' which is something of a clue about that. It has a number of links to further pages giving succinct information in each case. One helpful page -for the purposes of my research here- is on building a labyrinth. One of the things it mentions is having people work together to build one as the culmination of a labyrinth workshop. There is a further link to constructing a labyrinth here if you can put aside the 'mantic'/shamanic approach informing the general site (for me the main thing to take away was the need for 8 or 9 metres of space). For the context I'm thinking of using it, it was intriguing to find a page on using it with youth, "As a part of their training they were to walk a seven-circuit labyrinth and to reflect on the meaning of the labyrinth as a symbol for life's journey. In small discussion groups they listed their insights and then shared them with the larger group. " and it lists some of the things that came out of those discussion groups, for example:

Life is a journey in which every day doesn't necessarily bring you closer--sometimes you're closer to your goal than others, sometimes you're further away, but ultimately you'll get to where you want to go if you stay focused.

Beginning, middle (center) and end are connected with the same thing (God or whatever it means to you).

Sometimes it seemed like you were in the same place you had been, but you weren't. (Life doesn't end once you reach the focus or center.)

On the path, you pass people who have been where you are, other times you have been where others have been, but you're never at the exact same place at the same time.

Many twists and turns around rocky journey of life.

There seems to be some validity in keeping in mind a certain cross-cultural and spiritual poly-valency of the symbol/practice; "from Northern Europe to India a common pattern appears: the labyrinth is a symbol of a distant, more or less mythological, city, destroyed in the past. Although the identity of the city symbolized by the labyrinth varies, it is never a nearby or contemporary city" (from here). This would fit with the medieval Christian usage as a kind of substitute for actual pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

In terms of some Christians (normally EPCs) there can be mistrust of the use of labyrinths. This is well and succinctly articulated on this CANA site. The articulation is to be commended because it is reasonable and simple and boils the problem down to basics. Nevertheless, I think that there are responses that could be made and I hope to do so in due course (if I don't find another site that does so -and this one hyperlinked, is quite nice in terms of a theological reflection and even comes up with a very intriguing take on the Garden of Eden story in the light of Ouroboros myths). The tenor of this article contrasts somewhat with this one which  from a Christian PoV questions the craze for labyrinths but does so by the dubious tactic of choosing a position which doesn't necessarily seek to engage with the concerns the writer's audience are supposed to have and to dismiss the whole thing by disposing of those positions. This, of course, misses the possibility that there may be legitimate reasons for using the 'tool' in terms that might be acceptable to at least some EPC Christians. The tactic is like dismissing Christianity because of unbecoming behaviour of a few people in a prayer meeting (cf the Toronto Blessing). Admittedly it doesn't help that some of the protagonists of labyrinth walking within the church are a bit 'eccentric' theologically, but the solution to misuse is not abuse ... Perhaps part of the response to these detractors is to read a good attempt to appropriate the practice in a reasonably orthodox Christian way, like here.

It's intriguing to find that Islam doesn't have much on Labyrinths, but there is something -though latent, as the article says.

Here is one example of a Jewish use of labyrinth which seems to illustrate the idea that this is a tool whose metaphors are usable by a number of religious (and indeed non-religious) traditions. I found intriguing the idea that the Jewish history with labyrinths is more verbal than actual; more info here.

As for Sanatarma dharma, well, there's some intriguing info here and there is some evidence for links with Buddhism too.

There's a fairly well-known thoroughly Christianised version produced originally by Jonny Baker and friends. The site has a diagram of how to make it (it is useful if you want stations and a separate exit and entrance, the only downside is that it is so square and blocky. a curvier alternative would be good).

There is also an online labyrinth, as in a virtual walk, on the re:jesus site. This uses the YFC format and so the main content is essentially a version of the prayer stations that feature in that site. Pretty much the same thing on the Labyrinth site by Jonny Baker and friends.

Transitioning back to reality after holiday

This is the time of year to consider this, though it may be too late for some to take this piece of advice: "Take an extra day before heading back to work. I like to think of this spare day as the vacation from my vacation. It’s the day to get reacquainted with your routines."
If it is too late (and that's a life-tactic we discovered for ourselves a few years back -in fact we try to take a couple of days if possible), then at least this other piece of wise counsel may be helpful: "Give yourself a free day the following weekend. Playing catch-up with your life can be exhausting, so take a weekend day to sleep in, leisurely drink a cup of coffee, catch up on items around the house, or do nothing at all. If you have kids, this applies to them, too."
And how about this: "Arrive an hour early to work. You’ll want to get a solid footing on your day before you’re bombarded by co-workers asking about your trip and giving you more things to do."

Now I'm wondering whether anyone has any other useful advice to add?

Transitioning back to reality after vacation | Unclutterer

Setting up Good Diagrams for slides

This has a lot of sensible advice to improve your visual communication. Definitely worth viewing if you do projector slides reasonably often.

How to make Awesome Diagrams for your slides

View more presentations from otikik

There's a good sense of typographic nous shown in these which are not produced by a professional designer, just someone who has reflected on what they have seen and done.
How to make Awesome Diagrams for your slides

Voting in elections is stressful

Followers of this blog (and incidentally, apologies for a long gap -I've been moving house) will know of my interest in Electoral Reform. And so it won't surprise you to learn that this piqued my curiosity.
Voting in elections is stressful -- emotionally and physiologically:

A new study, conducted by scholars from the University of Haifa and Ben-Gurion University in Israel, has found that the level of cortisol -- a hormone released when a person is under pressure and helps the body cope with threats -- in individuals immediately prior to casting a vote was significantly higher than in the same individuals in similar non-voting conditions.

There are two things I want to say in response to this. And they're just initial thoughts; this is a 'watch this space' sort of thing. The first thing is that this was conducted in Israel. The question (perhaps naturally) is whether this would replicate in other societies, and under other electoral systems. My suspicion is that conditions in Israel might mean that the results are an unusually high stress response. And what's more is that this could be because of one or both of the fact of the kind of stakes involved in Israeli politics, and/or the very wide multi-party choice and the electoral system. Might it be less stressful to vote in France, or the USA or New Zealand, or the Czech republic or Bolivia?
So more studies in a variety of cultural settings supplemented, I think, by more qualitative studies in the perceptions of voters (and perhaps non-voters as a control?). Stress is at least partly due to the way that the stressed frame things, so examination of those frames would be important.

The other thing that could be interesting therefore, is whether there are voting systems that are less stressful for voters and whether that correlates with voter participation. I suspect that systems that involve less tactical voting may fare better, but I'm not sure whether the Israeli case tends to confirm or discount that.