A little over 193 years ago, British troops attempted to attack the Gulf Coast of the United States and the city of New Orleans. They were repulsed by General Andrew Jackson, aided by a Jewish pirate, Jean LaFitte, and free blacks fighting at Chalmette, near New Orleans.
The War of 1812 had been an utter failure for the young United States. It was supposed to have resulted in the conquest of the main British territories on the North American continent, Upper and Lower Canada, and to clear British occupation forces out of the northwestern United States, what are now Chicago and Indiana.
Instead, the invasion of Canada had been thwarted entirely; British forces had invaded upstate New York, sacked Washington, burned the Executive Mansion (which retained these scars until the early 1900's when Teddy Roosevelt whitewashed and repaired it, renaming it the White House); the American government had fled to Philadelphia and American shipping had been blockaded.
Peace commissioners had been sent to Ghent, Belgium, where they negotiated a treaty that had ended this disaster, and the treaty was traveling home in a vessel when 1814 rounded into 1815. The British navy, not knowing this, sent a fleet of 50 ships carrying 7,000 marines to attack the underbelly of the United States, New Orleans. They ran into a surprise. An American army commanded by Andrew Jackson, armed with muskets, cannons and squirrel guns had fortified the city.
The British marines marched forward in a frontal assault on the American fortifications. They were mowed down by the Americans and broke ranks, fleeing back to their ships anchored off the Gulf of Mexico. In the end, they lost 2,000 dead, including their commander. The American defenders lost 71 casualties.
The spirit of the victory was captured in the song, "The Battle of New Orleans", sung by Johnny Horton:
And they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles,
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit wouldn't go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
From the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.
By the time the bad news of the Treaty of Ghent had reached the shores of the United States, the news of the victory at New Orleans had spread countrywide. Even though the American victory did not change the result of the war, it recast it entirely in the eyes of Americans.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Ah Ruvy, sometimes you lull us into a false sense of security with your cogent comments, but ultimately we can always count on you to remind us that you're moon-barking mad with a piece like this. Nice recounting of the history, though.
Dave
2 - Irene Wagner
"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." Luke 19
The US certainly does have a lot to answer for, but God's ways are inscrutable. There were those listening for God who didn't hear Him telling them anything through Katrina except, "I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in...inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." So, as best they could, they tried to provide relief to the victims of the storm.
Of course, "the least of my brethren" could mean Israel, and there are Christians who follow AIPAC's lead in support of the nation of Israel (alas, as you will agree, Ruvy, "not wisely, but too well") citing, among others, the passage from Matthew 25.
(If you're really into coinky-dinks, that's from Matthew 25, the same chapter that contains a retelling of the parable from Luke 19 that so interested you a few weeks back.)
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Dave,
So long as you refuse to admit to forces other than you think you can quantify in the universe, you will be blind to the the way it works.
I'll not argue with you; I'd be wasting my time. Reality will kick your door in with a force you cannot deal with, and Truth will surround you with so much empirical evidence that you'll go insane trying to deal with it all.
Irene, with whom I respectfully disagree on a number of details, has a far better chance of surviving this than you. Her mind is far more attuned to the Divine Forces at work in the universe, even if she views them differently than I do.
4 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, I don't pretend to think that I can quantify the forces of the universe or pretend that there is a revealed truth which answers all questions. I'm satisfied understanding that which can be understood and avoiding the fallacy of thinking that I understand things for which there is no basis for understanding because there is no evidence to work from.
BTW, your second paragraph sounds strangely like what will occur when the Great God Cthulhu rises from his sunken city of R'lyeh. Now I have to admit that would be a hoot.
Ia Cthulhu R'lyeh Ftagn!
Dave
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"....your second paragraph sounds strangely like what will occur when the great god Cthulhu rises....
Seriously, Dave, how far do you think a writer like Lovecraft could get from the Christian culture he was raised in?
I'll remind you that what got me started in the line of thinking that you refer to as "barking mad" was a poem by a good Catholic, Yeats; The Second Coming. I learned it in high school and it sent shivers down my arrogant agnostic spine. I began to suspect that there was more to the universe than the neat theorems and axioms of mathematicians and the lab coat boys.
As the years have passed and as events have transpired, I realized that Yeats had been granted a vision by the Almighty - for the world is truly behaving as Yeats predicted it would:
Look at the world around you, Dave. It is as Yeats predicted it would be ninety years ago. Is it barking madness to see this and acknowledge it - or just plain good sense?
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Irene,
Just a few thoughts for you.
The vast majority of what appears to be Christian prophecy is just not occurring. This is not to say that all of Revelation is worthless. That requires an immense amount of hubris and arrogance to assert, and that much arrogance and hubris just is not in me. Nevertheless there is a cycle of events predicted there that are just not happening. And I do not need to tell you that we are already 18 years into the period known as the "End of Days" - what Christians call End-Times.
Prophecy is shared by the Holy One amongst all peoples according to their understanding and their ability to understand - see the poem The Second Coming referred to above for an illustration. One item in Revelation, a mark on the hand or the head, may well likely occur; it is a technological device to trace people and is already in use in animals. In addition, believers in G-d will find themselves persecuted. This is not happening just yet, but appears to be on the way, with ever more hostile campaigns against the celebration of Christian holidays in the United States (their reduction to meaninglessness in Rurope), and a growing media hostility to Jewish holidays here in Israel.
In addition, the number 666, the "mark of the beast" appears already to have occurred. On 18 June 1666, a false Jewish messiah, Shabtai Tzvi, declared from his Turkish prison cell that his powers would begin to assert themselves. You find in this date seven sixes (or six sevens), which according to one Pentecostal fellow I know means "evil masquerading as holiness". The Dönmeh in Turkey, the descendants of Shabtai Tzvi and his fellow converts to Islam, have been very influential in running Turkey. In addition, one of Shabtai Tzvi's followers, Jakob Frank, converted to Christianity after persuading a Polish bishop to order the burning of all the Talmuds in his bishopric. Frank fled to Germany, where he became a strong influence on such people as the Rothchilds, the Mendelssohns (the elder Mendelssohn founded "reform" Judaism) and other rich Jews in Germany. During his life, Frank ran a cult of evil that centered around negating of the Ten Commandments. When you hear or read the term Sabbateanism, you are seeing references to the influence of Jakob Frank and those who were under his sway.
By contrast, Jewish prophecy has been occurring. One immediate example that comes to mind is Isaiah 60:5:
Then you will see and be radiant, your heart will be startled and broadened for the affluence of the West will be turned over to you, and the wealth of nations will come to you.
This once poor nation is prospering, in spite of the security burdens on it, and in spite of the probability of destruction from missile attacks in the near future. And check the value of the dollar against our joke of a currency, the New Israeli Shekel. The shekel has been going up.
In the Zohar was a prediction that during the latter half of the sixth millenium (by the Hebrew calendar) a sovereign Jewish state would arise - and so it has, in the year 5708, though its sovereignty is weak and we await Redemption to complete the process. Our exiles are coming home - you are reading the words of one of them. Forty-five percent of the world's Jews live in Israel. When my father was born in 1908, 2% of our people lived here.[Jeremiah 31:9-16], [Ezekiel 34:7-16]
Finally, though this takes vision to see, the prophecy of Ezekiel:
say to them, "Thus said the L-rd HASHEM/ELOHI-M: Behold, I am taking the wood of Joseph which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his comrades, and I am placing them and him together with the wood of Judah; and I will make them into one piece of wood, and the will become one in My Hand".[Ezekiel 37:19]
Our lost tribes are not as lost as they appeared to have been twenty years ago. Right now they look like enemies, but they will drop the garbage cloak of the Taliban and the Pashtun will again bear the cloak of many colors of Joseph. In time, we will be reunited as one people.
The process is already beginning, and if G-d gives me strength to hasten it, I will.
7 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, it's the certainty with which you ascribe one particular interpretation of a poem that marks you as barking.
You aren't looking for evidence, you're just clutching at hypothetical straws to justify the belief you want to espouse. It's intellectual dishonesty of the most craven kind.
8 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, the vast majority of Christian prophecy is not occurring because it is a load of mystical nonsense.
Similarly, you are being entirely subjective in your determined clinging to your equally shoddy mysticism.
"On 18 June 1666, a false Jewish messiah, Shabtai Tzvi, declared from his Turkish prison cell that his powers would begin to assert themselves. You find in this date seven sixes (or six sevens), which according to one Pentecostal fellow I know means "evil masquerading as holiness"."
It is the height of fantasy wish fulfilment - and a little dodgy arithmetic - to interpret this date as being seven 6s, never mind the baffling interpretation you assign it with such dazzling certainty.
I'm sure you are so firmly in the grip of these delusions that nothing - except possibly the passing of enough time - will ever prove the falseness, but you are at least providing some great entertainment, albeit of a particularly tragic kind.
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Chris, you are blinder than Dave Nalle. First of all, you cannot even read English - should I adjust my spelling to the Queen's version to aid you?
what got me started in the line of thinking that you refer to as "barking mad" was a poem by a good Catholic, Yeats; The Second Coming. I learned it in high school and it sent shivers down my arrogant agnostic spine. I began to suspect that there was more to the universe than the neat theorems and axioms of mathematicians and the lab coat boys.
As the years have passed and as events have transpired, I realized that Yeats had been granted a vision by the Almighty - for the world is truly behaving as Yeats predicted it would:
I didn't have an interpretation of this poem when I learned it. All I could see was that it was more than a man reflecting on the nightmare of the Great War (which is the standard interpretation of the poem).
Only after seeing that:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
did it dawn on me that this poem had been a vision for the future. What clinched it was the seizure of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Bethlehem in 2002 by Arab terrorists and the milquetoast reaction of Christians to that seizure.
You have to be blinder than a mole not to see the symbolism inherent in that event, Chris. Your dafter then a rake in Bedlam!!
10 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
In talking to a believing Christian about Shabtai Tzvi and the date he declared his power to be beginning, I was citing a historical fact. If you care to read Turkish history, you'll see the light but ever-present hand of the Dönmeh in the running of Ottoman Turkey and the Turkish Republic in its early years. If you check out the history of Jakob Frank, you'll see that all that I have written is truth.
But "big picture" people like you don't want to do that, so I don't expect it of you. Facts are a bit too small to fit into the big picture, eh?.
In relating to a believing Christian like Irene, I told her the words of another believing Christian in interpreting the date. It's not my dodgy arithmetic, it's his. But, as a believing Christian, she may well understand and relate - note the audience, Chris. It weren't addressed to you.
11 - Clavos
"You aren't looking for evidence, you're just clutching at hypothetical straws to justify the belief you want to espouse. It's intellectual dishonesty of the most craven kind."
This behavior is characteristic of zealotry; it is what most distinguishes the zealot from the rational world.
And it is practiced by religious and secular zealots alike.
12 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
One last point, Chris.
Let's give you a little math test. Here is a date for you to examine: 18/6/1666. If you play cribbage, or know how to factor numbers, you'll be able to see seven sixes in this date. If you don't play cribbage, you really ought to learn. It's a great game where cheating is part of the rules.....
13 - Clavos
"You aren't looking for evidence, you're just clutching at hypothetical straws to justify the belief you want to espouse. It's intellectual dishonesty of the most craven kind."
This behavior is characteristic of zealotry; it is what most distinguishes the zealot from the rational world.
And it is practiced by religious and secular zealots alike.
14 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, you really are the most determined of mad little muppets. It would be impressive if it wasn't so tragically pointless.
Firstly, there's no such thing as a "good" catholic, so your first line if what we'll generously call a defence is irrelevant.
Your second "point" was that you didn't have an interpretation when you learned it. ??? Nobody said you did, so once again, your keyboard is flapping but there's nobody picking the keys.
When you finally did come up with your own subjective explanation, you for no apparent r4eason decided that a poem about WW1 was actually talking about future events in a country far removed from the poem's focus. Talk about clutching at straws.
There is one line that seems relevant in the context of our difference of understanding though, as it describes you perfectly - "the worst are full of passionate intensity".
I have no idea how you came up with the classic piece of specious nonsense "facts are a bit too small to fit into the big picture" but as usual with you, it's gibberish you cling to in a futile attempt to justify your madness, in addition to being untrue.
In supporting dodgy arithmetic, you adopt it as your own. It's simply laughable to find seven sixes in that date, particularly as it requires the division of 18 and the interpretation of June as a six, when the writing of dates that way is a modern custom.
As you seem to like this kind of latent symbolism, you might enjoy reading this site, where you can also ponder upon the even more spooky significance of 06/06/06 and the scary facts that "If we combine the two important dates of June 5th and June 6th, together with recent world events, we obtain the following extremely significant occult triplications:
* 222 days from the Muslim riots in Paris;
* 333 days from the London Train Bombings;
* 444 days from the second anniversary of the Iraq Invasion;
* 555 days from November 28, 2004 (the 333rd day of the year, with 33 remaining);
* 666 in the date pattern and in the pattern until the end of the Mayan calendar;
* 777 days from the foiled Sears Tower Attack.
Woooooh!
If you can justify your continued participation in debating US politics on the basis that you once were one, I can justify my joining in a comment aimed at a Christian on the basis that I was once one too, so you can once again stuff your objection to my derision of your mystical mumblings back in the dark age you properly belong to.
We should play cribbage some time, with your kind of idiot thinking, I'd play you for money too.
15 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
There is one line that seems relevant in the context of our difference of understanding though, as it describes you perfectly - "the worst are full of passionate intensity".
Chris, I was going to say the same about you. I guess that is the point of Clavos' post about zealots, my good island dweller. Now where is that knife I was saving for use to prove my zealotry??
If the day comes that you can make it out to Samaria, do stop by for a coffee and a few games of cribbage. I haven't taken candy from a baby in a long time.....
Finally, the latent occult stuff is interesting, but it's more a Christian kind of thing. Having been one once, I'm sure you can see that. Irene might enjoy it, or maybe Stan. I have other puzzles to solve with gematria - a Jewish kind of thing....
16 - Irene Wagner
What can I say, Ruvy? You know where you can find common ground with these people in BC--Dave Nalle has indicated that you know where it is.
There is philosophical ground that we share Ruvy, and there are things about God that I don't know and things about God that you don't know and things about God that Dave Nalle and Christopher Rose don't know.
The fact that Hebrew is still a living language surprises many people who are, at the moment for one reason or another, incapable of being downright amazed.
PS Christopher Rose, I'm not a Catholic, but I've known some good ones. However, none of the ones I know live in Continental Europe. Maybe there's a scarcity there.
17 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Irene, I've been treading water here, waiting for your response - my most important comments are for your eyes precisely because we share a basic philosophic outlook on the world, even though we have disagreements.
My big problem here is not Chris Rose's comments, which are more of a nuisance than anything else. My problem is that the only people who take a Biblical view of history seriously appear to be Christians. It truly saddens and hurts me that my own brethren have sunken so low as not to seem to give a damn about the Book that gives them their identity, or the G-d that made them a separate family amongst the peoples of the earth, or about the Redemption that will remove the yétzer ha'rá, the evil inclination, from all of us, or about the kind of world that the Redemption will bring us to.
This Sabbath we read in the Book of Exodus what we call Parshát Bo which begins with Exodus 10:1. G-d makes it clear to Moses that he is setting up the Egyptian Pharaoh for a fall so that He can make a mockery of him. [Exodus 10:1-2]. In this same portion, we read about the Plague of Darkness[Exodus 10:21-23], during which (according to our sages) four fifths of the Hebrew population died because after eight Divine "hits" on Egypt, they still did not believe in G-d and His redemptive power. We are told by our sages that the Redemption will mirror the Exodus from Egypt - this means that there will be a similar incidence where a huge number of the world's Jews (or perhaps Children of Israel, including the Pashtun and others who are indeed Children of Israel) will die because of lack of faith in the Redemptive power of the Holy One.
I look at American Jews and fear for them. I have a large family in America, and I have the nasty feeling that when this is all over, that family will not be that large at all. I haven't seen many of my cousins in decades, but I still love them. And they are still family.
What would the Redemption be like for you?
Because you are a woman of faith, your issues will be what you have done wrong to others: you will learn how they felt when you hurt them. All the ugliest facets of your personality will rise to distress you and pain you. These are all aspects of the yétzer ha'rá, the evil inclination, which is what the Redemption will be there to destroy. But before it is destroyed, you will have to confront it. If G-d allows me to see His Redemption, this is what I can expect also. The big difference between you and I is that you will be dealing with the issues that Christianity causes you. How G-d chooses to deal with these issues is something I cannot know.
18 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, your talent for misunderstanding is breathtaking. You seem to take the rejection of your hysterically bloated and unsupported assertions as some kind of extremism, but it is nothing of the sort.
I could make the journey to Israel at any time but have no intention of doing so, just as I have no desire to visit Burma or Zimbabwe, but feel free to step out of the land of illusion some time.
Irene, you seem to be developing the same talent for (wilful?) misunderstanding as Ruvy. I didn't refer to you as a catholic. I can't respond to the rest of your comment as I understood not a word, a result in common with Ruvy's follow up which three readings of produced nothing but a puzzled huh?
19 - Irene Wagner
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Catholics believe in purgatory. Though I'm more of a "general Christian" rather than a denominational one (as Catholics are), I believe in purgatory, too, but I believe that's where we live now. Sometimes this purgatory is VERY painful, the process of submitting to the Holy Spirit's gentle (and sometimes NOT so gentle) exposure of ways in which I am grieving God and hurting people who hurt already. Facing the evil in oneself is as much as a good work as confronting it on the outside is.
The Christian idea of Redemption is that you can't do good deeds to be accepted by a holy God, for what series of good deeds could possibly bridge the gap between the Highest of the High and ourselves? You come to God humbly and accept his forgiveness. You understand blood sacrifices, Ruvy. That was what Jesus' death on the Cross was, a perfect Blood sacrifice to God, and any "Christian" who has it in for Jews because of the Cross fails to understand that it was for that reason Jesus came to earth.
After that, a Christian turns his moral and spiritual development over to God, cooperating with Him in it. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and not that of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, that any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." That's the fastest way I know to tell you how I believe I will be redeemed.
What about people who've never heard about Jesus, or people like yourself, who have had things happen to your family at the hands of "Christians" that make the very name Jesus odious to you? I trust God's mercy and grace, as well as his righteous judgments.
I believe that through Jesus, God is calling every one of us to Himself. The sacrifice is good for EVERYONE before and after the Cross who comes to God for mercy. I believe there is only one way to God: Jesus. But I also believe there are many ways to Jesus, and some have been tailor-made for those who, for reasons they can't help, have nearly impossible hurdles to overcome before they could approach Jesus in a "Sunday best coming to church with all the happy anglos" fashion. Do some googling on Muslims living under sharia law having dreams and visions about Jesus. You'll see what I mean.
About the relatives, Ruvy. Don't underestimate the power of prayer. I heard some "fundamentalist preacher" (ironically probably a tool of AIPAC) say that God doesn't hear the prayers of a Jew. I don't believe that.
I have to go to church now. Sorry to keep you treading so long, but I was asleep. Clavos, Chris, Dave Nalle et al....maybe Lee Richards etc. I know you will disagree with me vehemently, but I will be in church praying that you will be blessed.
20 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, I don't take a biblical view of history because that makes no sense at all, most of history having happened long after the Bible was written. But I do take a historical view of the Bible, which is a fascinating document about past cultures and human nature and the destructive delusion which is organized religion.
I have to go to church now.
Let me know if God drops in and puts on a medicine show for you guys. I'll be out doing good for my fellow man instead. If that doesn't count more with god than singing his praises and fawning on him then he's not a god I want to be associated with anyway.
Dave
21 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Irene,
You'll read this at some later time, I guess.
I read the novel Left Behind, so I have a reasonably clear idea of what you are talking about. You're definitely not a Catholic, that's for sure. Your recitation above is a Protestant view.
But that is also why I described Jewish concept of Redemption for you. I want you to see the difference in our outlooks, and why they differ. Do notice the small role the messiah plays in all of this. Each of us deals with his own failings and his own evil. We are not "saved," for there is nothing to be saved from, except our own evil. And Redemption is there to destroy that evil. But we are still bound to confront that evil first. There are no shortcuts.
The non-believer has a much rougher time, not because he is more evil, but because he has to deal with what he refuses to believe in, in addition to the normal burden of his yétzer ha'rá. That is enough to drive some people insane.
or people like yourself, who have had things happen to your family at the hands of "Christians" that make the very name Jesus odious to you?
Blood sacrifices of humans are odious to us, Irene. Assertions of any equality with G-d by any entity in any fashion are odious to us. In other words, the very concepts at the base of Christianity - blood sacrifice of a human and assertions of an entity being the "son" of the Almighty are odious to us. This is besides whatever Christians may have done to us over 1,700 years. Even without all that, the very basis of your faith is odious. This is not said to offend, nor to be impolite, but to be brutally honest. The name, Jesus, is not odious to me - it is merely the Greek version of Yeshu (Aramaic) or Yehoshua (Hebrew).
Jews who are believers have a very specific view of the universe, and these two ideas at the center of Christianity run smack into them as just plain wrong. There is no room for a tri-furcated "G-d" and there is definitely no room for a human sacrifice, no matter how nicely it is dressed up. Perhaps it is for this reason that some fundies think G-d will not hear our prayers....
It is here that we disagree. Having noted the points of disagreement, there is no point to pursue the disagreement further, because the world out there needs faith more than it needs Christians and Jews cursing at each other.
You will not see me attempting to change your mind about your faith. You have to come to our way of seeing things yourself, if that is what is to occur, and I have enough faith in the power of the Almighty to be a very persuasive Salesman when He has to be. He certainly has enough Tools at His disposal.
Have a blessed Sunday,
Reuven
PS
Thank you for reminding me of prayer for my family....
22 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I don't take a biblical view of history because that makes no sense at all, most of history having happened long after the Bible was written. But I do take a historical view of the Bible, which is a fascinating document about past cultures and human nature and the destructive delusion which is organized religion.
This article is not written to convince, but if it does, then you were on the verge of being a believer anyway.
If you're an atheist, it is unreasonable to expect you to take a Biblical view of history. This article is not about convincing you to take that view. That is unreasonable. This article is about raising the issue of a blessing from G-d, how we realize we have received one, and how we realize we've lost one. If you don't believe in G-d, this article is pointless to you.
23 - Irene Wagner
Ruvy - I'm only here for a second, then I have to go. I understand that God's request to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is hard for Jews to even look at, even though it is in the Torah. God didn't require Abraham to follow through. Abraham knew all along that "God will provide himself a Lamb." Yes, keep praying. I'll pray they learn whatever they need to know, and I'll pray that I learn whatever I need to know, too.
24 - SavoirFaire
Ruvy,
I lived most of my life in NOLA prior to the storm. I know a lot of Christian and Jewish people who lost everything during Katrina. I found your comments very offensive.
I won't argue that the city was politically and spiritually corrupt. I pray and hope that things do evolve to take the city back to where it was 40-50 years ago.
I do take exception to two things you stated.
1. Jean Lafitte was Catholic, not Jewish. His contributions to the Battle of NOLA were romanticized over the years. He was a corrupt evil pirate that was placed in a position of siding with the US or being pursued by the British. Read your history.
2. To conclude that God destroyed NOLA because of sin is silly. It's like saying that Israel is tormented by your Arab neighors because God is angry with the Jewish people for not being true to his wishes or converting to Christianity.
Think about it.
25 - Dave Nalle
SF, I think Ruvy actually believes something like your #2.
Dave