As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol starts its work, former president Trump and his supporters are consolidating their power over the Republican Party. Through it, they hope to control the nation.
Trump: “don’t let the Radical Left play you for weak fools and losers!” I'm always wary of people who overuse exclamation points, which normally happens when the writer lacks calm, intelligent arguments of their own. The idea of he/she who yells the loudest is right is juvenile.
I also judge people on how they treat others in person. For some reason an event has stayed with me. A few years ago, at the G-8 meeting, Trump lumbered into the room late. A man who was in a discussion with others did not see him coming as his back was turned to the President. Most people would simply say "excuse me" and continue on his way. But Trump physically grabbed the man by his shoulders and moved him out of the way without uttering a word. His attempt at proving that he was the most important man in the room showed the world that he was the smallest. I know it was a small thing, but his lack of courtesy and decorum demonstrated that he has no regard for others, neither on a personal nor global level.
It's a given that Trump does not study the issues at hand and his lack of introspection goes without saying. We know that he suffers from some type of narcissism disorder, which subjugates doing what is right for how he looks to the world. We must accept that he is mentally ill, which is a great danger to the country and the world.
Just a quick note on the House Select Committee. With its army of investigators, the truth WILL come out.
"One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop.
And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it."
Yes, it is indeed quite puzzling that a man that stood in front of television cameras and told thousands of people, some of them armed with deadly weapons, to head to the capital to overthrow the duly elected government transition, has not been arrested for sedition and treason.
If Trump or anyone had pulled that stunt in 1795, I think it highly likely that person would have rapidly faced the consequences of those times.
Tolerance for sedition and treason seems quite high now. I don't understand why, honestly.
Maybe the Justice Department is just moving slow? But, there has not even been an announcement of possible charges of sedition and treason pending investigation.
It is almost like Trump has some magical fairy that can keep him out of jail no matter how many laws he breaks in his life, how many people he grifts and shortchanges, which, have been many.
When gangland crime organizing, thievery, money laundering, attacks and murders occur, law enforcement doesn't just go after the foot soldiers, they are intent on getting the god fathers.
Bengazzi wasn't a criminal activity, but the attack on the Capitol, the armed protests, occupations and death threats at state capitols, along with claims that the 2020 election and pressure to overturn the election are all criminal activity most easily identified as "treason". Why aren't they the province of criminal investigations?
Are politicians free to openly attack our nation and democracy? Wasn't the Civil War addressed with the US president, elected representatives loyal to the US Constitution and the US military? Why are we so hard on petty crimes and traffic infractions and soft on crimes against our nation? About half of our states and their representatives established the Confederacy. About the same proportion or less constitutes the Trump Campaign to take over our nation by open fraud on FOX and with violence in our capitols. Embarrassing to them? No criminal!! All of them, criminals.
I am often in disbelief that no one has held a line yet, or set some boundary that will be clear enough and strong enough to make a difference in our present madness. Yes, we’ll have problems galore like usual, but this feels extraordinarily insane.
That the infrastructure bill is so popular is exactly why Trump is moving to kill it. It’s a demonstration of his power. Demanding the death of a bill that was unpopular with Republicans in Congress would be trivial, ho hum, the equivalent of insisting that Republicans give up Brussels sprouts. Getting them to kill the infrastructure bill is like insisting that Republicans give up ice cream - if Trump can get them to do that then his hold on the party is absolute. Trump would also be showing everyone that McConnell and McCarthy are weak and should be ignored (it will be interesting to see if with the 10-11 Senators who were rumored to be ready to vote for the infrastructure bill suddenly disappear). McCarthy and McConnell are doing everything they can to win majorities in Congress in 2022. Trump doesn’t care about Republican majorities (he doesn’t care about the GOP at all, really), he only cares about power for himself.
The only hope is that he dies. He's 75, in poor health (we know because they lied about his health for the past 5 years), he's obese, doesn't exercise and has a literal "killer diet." Hopefully he dies in circumstances that have nothing to do with anything (otherwise he'll die a "martyr"). That way, inside of a year, the circus will move on and he'll be as relevant as Huey Long is. Yes, I certainly would rather he die in excruciating pain from the gunshot he so richly deserves, but more than that, I want to see him gone in a way that doesn't leave him haunting things. Just.... die of being a fat old man who never exercised and ate one too many hamberders.
You know what drives me nuts? When a news outlet does a segment on the January 6 House Select Committee but fails to contextualize the reason why Pelosi rejected the appointments of Jordan and Banks. Without that context, some will think Pelosi’s decision was arbitrary and hyperpartisan. I heard that kind of reporting this morning on NPR. And I wish news outlets would consistently refer to the tragedy of January 6 as an insurrection or attempted coup, as opposed to a riot. We can't become numb or forget how serious that day was.
What if the crazies hold a press conference and the mainstream press does not show up? We need that because nothing they say will be news. We already know it will be bully time. AtteNtion is their oxygen.
It’s expedient to use the word “Trump” since he’s the figurehead/mouth but as long as Brannon, Stone, Flynn, Giuliani on the loose many engineering this rhetoric and upheaval, escalation. Do we really think Trump comes up with all the words and strategic communication to reignite authoritarianism and break our democracy daily? Not even sure he’s literate.
As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol starts its work, former president Trump and his supporters are consolidating their power over the Republican Party. Through it, they hope to control the nation.
It’s based on racial hatred. Deep.
Masha Gessen, Surviving Autocracy. Jewish. New York. From the USSR.
On Tyranny. You know him. Yale. Knows.
Banality of Evil. She’s another. Chicago. Europe. Hitler. Fascism. The camps.
This morning, I tuned into NBC to watch Olympic gymnastics this morning and instead am seeing the Jan 6th House Select Committee Hearing's opening comments and video. This is violent footage I've not seen before. The gleeful viciousness with which the rioters attacked the police is horrifying.
And now the testimony of four Capitol police begin.
May those responsible and those whose carried out the violence not escape accountability, but receive the severest penalty.
I believe that we are witnessing the final paroxysms of the so called trump loyalists and, of course, the former guy as well; McCarthy and McConnell both know it. They mistakenly calculate there’s maybe some reverse spin advantage to claim in going down with the trump ship; their “Pickett’s Charge” is fated to end in disaster for themselves and their followers. The lines were drawn against them before and during the 2016 presidential campaign and have only became clearer in ensuring years as trump and his supporters have continually lost ground. They are on the wrong of history; their time of minority control through obstruction and frustration of the will of the majority of the American people is over. They cannot, and will not, win back control of the White House or Congress. While congressional democrats and a few law abiding republicans will indeed uncover more information about what really happened in the events that led up to the January 6th trump inspired attack on Congress, most Americans are now more focused on their hopes for the success of the Biden Administration and a return to functional federal, state and municipal government. We know that government isn’t the problem; bad and ineffective government officials are. The more noise and thrashing of the trump loyalists, as they try to wriggle out of what they have done and want to continue to do to our country, the deeper they dig the hole for anyone and everyone who is a trumpist…especially the former guy who, most certainly, will now be convicted for tax evasion, bank fraud and other crimes by NY state and GA state criminal courts, go bankrupt…(again), and do prison time. Passage of Biden led legislative initiatives, and the saving of more lives here, and worldwide, through increased vaccination rates, will lead to landslide victories for the democrats in 2022, and presage their re-election in 2024, as Biden earns four more years. This is the real battle that Biden and his supporters intend to win…and are on the path to accomplishing.
Setting aside history, it is hard to imagine a more mendacious and ruinous political party than the modern-day Republican Party! There is but one "loyalty test" that should be enforced for public servants and that is their oath of office. "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. [So help me God.]" Notice that it does not say anything about supporting, defending, or bearing true faith and allegiance to the president.
As I have said many times in the past (not here though), Trump should have been impeached for failing to uphold his oath of office. "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." There are literally countless examples of his failure to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
If we don't demand that public servants uphold their oath of office then what follows will be an unmitigated disaster. This is the primary reason why our government is disassembling and why We The People have lost faith and trust in politicians.
The disaster that awaits mankind is the effects of climate change. We had a very narrow window to remediate climate change and instead we ignored the scientific community and invaluable time was lost. Instead, we have spent decades on silly social and tribal wars designed to invalidate the "other." This absurd and self-serving folly has run out the clock and now it's too late to save the animal kingdom from extinction. The first to go will be the "have-nots." The surviving haves will be in a fierce battle to the end.
Our focus must be on an overwhelming and unqualified response to slow the effects of climate change. Hopefully, people understand that natural disasters are not our greatest threats. Our greatest peril is our food supply, from crops and cattle on land to fish in the sea.
My point is that we are going to lose more than democracy if we don't immediately unite to uphold our government. We have to find a way to work together to have any hope of saving the planet. Those who are only concerned by personal power and wealth are ensuring our demise. What completely frustrates me is that most politicians cannot see past their next election (Trump can't see past the last election,) let alone be concerned about what happens 10, 30 or 50 years from now.
I read chair, BGT's Wapo Op-Ed carefully. Note that select committee member, Elaine Luria (D- VA) is litteraly a former surface battle, Naval commander (joined the Navy at age 17). Rep. Luria understands command structure well & knows how to ask questions.
"One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop. And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it."
Bonnielou's "disbelief that no one has held a line yet, or set some boundary that will be clear enough and strong enough to make a difference in our present madness" says almost everything.
ALMOST.
The fact remains that rational political professionals like Neville Chamberlain and Daladier could not understand this aspect of Hitler's mentality. Nor could the severely paranoid Stalin understand Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union, precisely because it was suicidal, and Stalin's very psychosis protected him from deliberately suicidal actions... Consequently, projecting his own mentality onto the Fuehrer (we all tend to fall into this trap) he assumed his fellow dictator shared the same trait...
Problem: our total inability to understand the nature of madness—above all its collective forms—and, consequently, to cope with madmen and their actions. This, at a time when more and more psychiatric cases have made it to power, exploiting the very nature of madness, their own madness, their special power to tap into and give powerful expression to the sickest, lowest-lying subconscious levels of the collective psyche and set off mass epidemics.
Our western philosophical tradition seems to have great blind spots in this area, likewise our psychology and the practice of psychiatry. Look at history. Look, in particular, at that of the 20th century…
Nietzsche is one major exception:
“Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern (Radford, VA: Wilder, 2008), 56.
Can’t we wake up and see what is staring us in the face? And deal directly with our super-spreaders.
Let us try a quick sidestep now, to gain another perspective…
Three annotations by German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (from the years between 1789 and 1793… the time of the French revolution…)
Since a man can go mad, I do not understand why a universal system cannot also. This fits well with Dolomieu’s hypothesis.
One of the strangest delusions man would be capable of is to believe he is insane and sitting in a madhouse but actually be acting completely rationally. If someone once became convinced of this, I really do not see how one could convince him otherwise.
We cannot really know whether we are not at this moment sitting in a madhouse.
We are now playing seditionist whack-a-mole with liars and manipulators attempting to distract from their treasonous actions. With 2022 elections, all gerrymandered and suppressed, set to give governing to oligarchs, tyrants, and traitors, democracy can no longer be about money if it is to sustain. Higher ideals, deeper values, and the trust of the hearts of citizens willing to vote in support of the notion of a nation of freedom for all calls for leaders of vision, speaking truth to power. In our situation, the power is money, lots of it, dark and dirty.
The show is opening; popcorn, buttered with Parmesan, and the chilled white wine awaits.
Trump: “don’t let the Radical Left play you for weak fools and losers!” I'm always wary of people who overuse exclamation points, which normally happens when the writer lacks calm, intelligent arguments of their own. The idea of he/she who yells the loudest is right is juvenile.
I also judge people on how they treat others in person. For some reason an event has stayed with me. A few years ago, at the G-8 meeting, Trump lumbered into the room late. A man who was in a discussion with others did not see him coming as his back was turned to the President. Most people would simply say "excuse me" and continue on his way. But Trump physically grabbed the man by his shoulders and moved him out of the way without uttering a word. His attempt at proving that he was the most important man in the room showed the world that he was the smallest. I know it was a small thing, but his lack of courtesy and decorum demonstrated that he has no regard for others, neither on a personal nor global level.
It's a given that Trump does not study the issues at hand and his lack of introspection goes without saying. We know that he suffers from some type of narcissism disorder, which subjugates doing what is right for how he looks to the world. We must accept that he is mentally ill, which is a great danger to the country and the world.
Just a quick note on the House Select Committee. With its army of investigators, the truth WILL come out.
"One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop.
And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it."
Yes, it is indeed quite puzzling that a man that stood in front of television cameras and told thousands of people, some of them armed with deadly weapons, to head to the capital to overthrow the duly elected government transition, has not been arrested for sedition and treason.
If Trump or anyone had pulled that stunt in 1795, I think it highly likely that person would have rapidly faced the consequences of those times.
Tolerance for sedition and treason seems quite high now. I don't understand why, honestly.
Maybe the Justice Department is just moving slow? But, there has not even been an announcement of possible charges of sedition and treason pending investigation.
It is almost like Trump has some magical fairy that can keep him out of jail no matter how many laws he breaks in his life, how many people he grifts and shortchanges, which, have been many.
When gangland crime organizing, thievery, money laundering, attacks and murders occur, law enforcement doesn't just go after the foot soldiers, they are intent on getting the god fathers.
Bengazzi wasn't a criminal activity, but the attack on the Capitol, the armed protests, occupations and death threats at state capitols, along with claims that the 2020 election and pressure to overturn the election are all criminal activity most easily identified as "treason". Why aren't they the province of criminal investigations?
Are politicians free to openly attack our nation and democracy? Wasn't the Civil War addressed with the US president, elected representatives loyal to the US Constitution and the US military? Why are we so hard on petty crimes and traffic infractions and soft on crimes against our nation? About half of our states and their representatives established the Confederacy. About the same proportion or less constitutes the Trump Campaign to take over our nation by open fraud on FOX and with violence in our capitols. Embarrassing to them? No criminal!! All of them, criminals.
I am often in disbelief that no one has held a line yet, or set some boundary that will be clear enough and strong enough to make a difference in our present madness. Yes, we’ll have problems galore like usual, but this feels extraordinarily insane.
That the infrastructure bill is so popular is exactly why Trump is moving to kill it. It’s a demonstration of his power. Demanding the death of a bill that was unpopular with Republicans in Congress would be trivial, ho hum, the equivalent of insisting that Republicans give up Brussels sprouts. Getting them to kill the infrastructure bill is like insisting that Republicans give up ice cream - if Trump can get them to do that then his hold on the party is absolute. Trump would also be showing everyone that McConnell and McCarthy are weak and should be ignored (it will be interesting to see if with the 10-11 Senators who were rumored to be ready to vote for the infrastructure bill suddenly disappear). McCarthy and McConnell are doing everything they can to win majorities in Congress in 2022. Trump doesn’t care about Republican majorities (he doesn’t care about the GOP at all, really), he only cares about power for himself.
The only hope is that he dies. He's 75, in poor health (we know because they lied about his health for the past 5 years), he's obese, doesn't exercise and has a literal "killer diet." Hopefully he dies in circumstances that have nothing to do with anything (otherwise he'll die a "martyr"). That way, inside of a year, the circus will move on and he'll be as relevant as Huey Long is. Yes, I certainly would rather he die in excruciating pain from the gunshot he so richly deserves, but more than that, I want to see him gone in a way that doesn't leave him haunting things. Just.... die of being a fat old man who never exercised and ate one too many hamberders.
You know what drives me nuts? When a news outlet does a segment on the January 6 House Select Committee but fails to contextualize the reason why Pelosi rejected the appointments of Jordan and Banks. Without that context, some will think Pelosi’s decision was arbitrary and hyperpartisan. I heard that kind of reporting this morning on NPR. And I wish news outlets would consistently refer to the tragedy of January 6 as an insurrection or attempted coup, as opposed to a riot. We can't become numb or forget how serious that day was.
What if the crazies hold a press conference and the mainstream press does not show up? We need that because nothing they say will be news. We already know it will be bully time. AtteNtion is their oxygen.
It’s expedient to use the word “Trump” since he’s the figurehead/mouth but as long as Brannon, Stone, Flynn, Giuliani on the loose many engineering this rhetoric and upheaval, escalation. Do we really think Trump comes up with all the words and strategic communication to reignite authoritarianism and break our democracy daily? Not even sure he’s literate.
As the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol starts its work, former president Trump and his supporters are consolidating their power over the Republican Party. Through it, they hope to control the nation.
It’s based on racial hatred. Deep.
Masha Gessen, Surviving Autocracy. Jewish. New York. From the USSR.
On Tyranny. You know him. Yale. Knows.
Banality of Evil. She’s another. Chicago. Europe. Hitler. Fascism. The camps.
Anne Frank. The attic. The camps.
This time is more complex.
Trump is popular. White Trash is everywhere.
None of this is taught properly.
Historians cannot teach it.
It’s not about fact.
Tribal prejudice is at the heart of our darkness.
Everywhere.
This morning, I tuned into NBC to watch Olympic gymnastics this morning and instead am seeing the Jan 6th House Select Committee Hearing's opening comments and video. This is violent footage I've not seen before. The gleeful viciousness with which the rioters attacked the police is horrifying.
And now the testimony of four Capitol police begin.
May those responsible and those whose carried out the violence not escape accountability, but receive the severest penalty.
I believe that we are witnessing the final paroxysms of the so called trump loyalists and, of course, the former guy as well; McCarthy and McConnell both know it. They mistakenly calculate there’s maybe some reverse spin advantage to claim in going down with the trump ship; their “Pickett’s Charge” is fated to end in disaster for themselves and their followers. The lines were drawn against them before and during the 2016 presidential campaign and have only became clearer in ensuring years as trump and his supporters have continually lost ground. They are on the wrong of history; their time of minority control through obstruction and frustration of the will of the majority of the American people is over. They cannot, and will not, win back control of the White House or Congress. While congressional democrats and a few law abiding republicans will indeed uncover more information about what really happened in the events that led up to the January 6th trump inspired attack on Congress, most Americans are now more focused on their hopes for the success of the Biden Administration and a return to functional federal, state and municipal government. We know that government isn’t the problem; bad and ineffective government officials are. The more noise and thrashing of the trump loyalists, as they try to wriggle out of what they have done and want to continue to do to our country, the deeper they dig the hole for anyone and everyone who is a trumpist…especially the former guy who, most certainly, will now be convicted for tax evasion, bank fraud and other crimes by NY state and GA state criminal courts, go bankrupt…(again), and do prison time. Passage of Biden led legislative initiatives, and the saving of more lives here, and worldwide, through increased vaccination rates, will lead to landslide victories for the democrats in 2022, and presage their re-election in 2024, as Biden earns four more years. This is the real battle that Biden and his supporters intend to win…and are on the path to accomplishing.
Setting aside history, it is hard to imagine a more mendacious and ruinous political party than the modern-day Republican Party! There is but one "loyalty test" that should be enforced for public servants and that is their oath of office. "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. [So help me God.]" Notice that it does not say anything about supporting, defending, or bearing true faith and allegiance to the president.
As I have said many times in the past (not here though), Trump should have been impeached for failing to uphold his oath of office. "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." There are literally countless examples of his failure to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
If we don't demand that public servants uphold their oath of office then what follows will be an unmitigated disaster. This is the primary reason why our government is disassembling and why We The People have lost faith and trust in politicians.
The disaster that awaits mankind is the effects of climate change. We had a very narrow window to remediate climate change and instead we ignored the scientific community and invaluable time was lost. Instead, we have spent decades on silly social and tribal wars designed to invalidate the "other." This absurd and self-serving folly has run out the clock and now it's too late to save the animal kingdom from extinction. The first to go will be the "have-nots." The surviving haves will be in a fierce battle to the end.
Our focus must be on an overwhelming and unqualified response to slow the effects of climate change. Hopefully, people understand that natural disasters are not our greatest threats. Our greatest peril is our food supply, from crops and cattle on land to fish in the sea.
My point is that we are going to lose more than democracy if we don't immediately unite to uphold our government. We have to find a way to work together to have any hope of saving the planet. Those who are only concerned by personal power and wealth are ensuring our demise. What completely frustrates me is that most politicians cannot see past their next election (Trump can't see past the last election,) let alone be concerned about what happens 10, 30 or 50 years from now.
I read chair, BGT's Wapo Op-Ed carefully. Note that select committee member, Elaine Luria (D- VA) is litteraly a former surface battle, Naval commander (joined the Navy at age 17). Rep. Luria understands command structure well & knows how to ask questions.
HCR's clinching final paragraph today:
"One of the hallmarks of a personality like that of former president Donald Trump is that he cannot stop escalating. It’s not that he won’t stop; it’s that he can’t stop. And he will escalate until someone finally draws a line and holds it."
Bonnielou's "disbelief that no one has held a line yet, or set some boundary that will be clear enough and strong enough to make a difference in our present madness" says almost everything.
ALMOST.
The fact remains that rational political professionals like Neville Chamberlain and Daladier could not understand this aspect of Hitler's mentality. Nor could the severely paranoid Stalin understand Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union, precisely because it was suicidal, and Stalin's very psychosis protected him from deliberately suicidal actions... Consequently, projecting his own mentality onto the Fuehrer (we all tend to fall into this trap) he assumed his fellow dictator shared the same trait...
Problem: our total inability to understand the nature of madness—above all its collective forms—and, consequently, to cope with madmen and their actions. This, at a time when more and more psychiatric cases have made it to power, exploiting the very nature of madness, their own madness, their special power to tap into and give powerful expression to the sickest, lowest-lying subconscious levels of the collective psyche and set off mass epidemics.
Our western philosophical tradition seems to have great blind spots in this area, likewise our psychology and the practice of psychiatry. Look at history. Look, in particular, at that of the 20th century…
Nietzsche is one major exception:
“Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern (Radford, VA: Wilder, 2008), 56.
Can’t we wake up and see what is staring us in the face? And deal directly with our super-spreaders.
Let us try a quick sidestep now, to gain another perspective…
Three annotations by German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (from the years between 1789 and 1793… the time of the French revolution…)
Since a man can go mad, I do not understand why a universal system cannot also. This fits well with Dolomieu’s hypothesis.
One of the strangest delusions man would be capable of is to believe he is insane and sitting in a madhouse but actually be acting completely rationally. If someone once became convinced of this, I really do not see how one could convince him otherwise.
We cannot really know whether we are not at this moment sitting in a madhouse.
We are now playing seditionist whack-a-mole with liars and manipulators attempting to distract from their treasonous actions. With 2022 elections, all gerrymandered and suppressed, set to give governing to oligarchs, tyrants, and traitors, democracy can no longer be about money if it is to sustain. Higher ideals, deeper values, and the trust of the hearts of citizens willing to vote in support of the notion of a nation of freedom for all calls for leaders of vision, speaking truth to power. In our situation, the power is money, lots of it, dark and dirty.
The show is opening; popcorn, buttered with Parmesan, and the chilled white wine awaits.