Week 22.10

Tendring Topics…….on Line

Beyond belief! ……..well, almost.

Britain is in the midst of a financial crisis. The one thing that can be predicted with absolute certainty is that there will be savage cuts in the public services. There is to be a total pay freeze in the public sector, and an investigation into the mammoth salaries and bonuses paid to those at the top in both the Civil Service and the Local Government Service. The Government itself has set a good example by cutting (not just freezing) the salaries of its own members and urging them to use public transport instead of official chauffeur-driven cars. Quite right too!

Staff of Essex County Council are bracing themselves for cuts in their numbers and changes in their conditions of service. Their trade union UNISON claims to have seen a document that suggests the axing of 85 jobs, a two year pay freeze, reduction in working hours by one or two hours a week, and stopping sick pay for the first three days of absence from work.

Surely, you will probably have been thinking, County Council members must be planning to introduce a similar regime of austerity for themselves. Their subsidised canteen, for example, has been criticised by at least one of their own members, and they have become well known for sending their members and top officials on expensive jaunts abroad. Their former Leader is alleged to have fiddled his expenses as a member of the House of Lords. He is, of course, presumed innocent until proved guilty. It will be to everyone’s advantage when the matter is settled in court. It might though have been expected that his colleagues would have wished to demonstrate their own integrity and devotion to the public service by reducing their cash allowances.

Essex Councillors Cut Own Pay before Cutting Services! would have made a refreshing and inspiring headline in the local press. In your dreams! What actually appeared (Daily Gazette 21.5.10) was Councillors vote to increase their own allowances.

The allowances of ordinary County Councillors, with no special extra responsibilities, are to rise by 6.1 percent to £11,500 a year. The County Council Leader gets £53,500 and his eight ‘County Cabinet’ members around £27,000 each. County Councillors also get the use of a Blackberry mobile phone and are paid generous allowances for meals and overnight accommodation when travelling on Council business.

There are, I am sure, still a great many public-spirited councillors at every level of local government whose motivation is a genuine desire to serve the communities in which they live.

However, generous ‘allowances’, and rule by a well-paid Leader and his ‘Cabinet’, open the door to a new breed of professional local politician. Soon ‘seeking a career in local government’ won’t necessarily mean getting a humble job at the Town Hall and laboriously working your way up. It could mean being a political activist and getting elected to a (preferably large) local council. That route to the top won’t demand the possession of any particular qualifications, skills or experience. It would help though to have sharp elbows and a thick skin.

It would also mean that you could keep your day job, and you wouldn’t have to get your hands dirty – at least, not in a literal sense.

Who suffers from the cuts?

There is to be a seven percent cut in local government spending. A good job too, you may think, if it’s going to cut some of those top executive salaries and curb the ‘allowances and expenses’ of self-serving councillors.

I’d be wholeheartedly in support if I really though that those would be the main victims of the cuts. I fear that they won’t be. During the Thatcher/Blair years (I now find it difficult to tell them apart!) local authorities were compelled to disband their ‘direct labour teams’ and put most of their front-line public services out to competitive tender. Thus, there’s really no such thing these days as a ‘council dustman’, ‘a council street sweeper’, or a ‘council gardener’. These services, together with office cleaning, catering, building maintenance and, in some areas social care, are contracted out to private firms that naturally enough, expect to make a profit from them.

Also, of course, there are the really big local authority contracts with private firms for – for instance – building or renovating schools, road construction and maintenance, old people’s homes, municipal swimming pools, car parks, adult education facilities, sports and recreation centres, and other public buildings. Essex County Council recently congratulated itself on cutting down its own staff by completing a multi-million pound contract with an international IT firm. Local authorities provide most of the services that make the difference between civilisation and barbarism, and they employ scores of private firms to carry out these responsibilities.

I have recently heard economic ‘experts’ on tv, discussing whether or not the ‘private sector’ would be able to find employment for the many people likely to lose their public sector jobs because of enforced economies. Cuts in local government spending, as well as reducing or eliminating vital services to the general public and, in particular, to the old, the poor and the otherwise disadvantaged, will probably result in many more job losses in ‘the private sector’ than among actual council staff.

Some Depressing Headlines

Quite apart from the political and economic situation (in which I hope I can see a few glimmers of light), two news stories of the past week have made particularly depressing reading. The first was the revelation by the News of the World, that for a substantial fee, the Duchess of York had been prepared to ‘open doors’ to give someone she believed was a businessman, access to her estranged husband the Duke, who holds an influential post in the field of exports. What’s more, she was revealed as a pretty ruthless businesswoman herself, driving a hard bargain and demanding a sum of money that, to most of us, seemed astronomical.

I’m not sure which aspect of this sorry affair is the more distasteful; the behaviour of the Duchess, or the duplicity of the ‘investigative journalist’ who trapped her into revealing this behaviour, and secretly filmed her as she did so. It is surely outrageous that an employee of a newspaper should act as an agent provocateur, encouraging anyone (duchess or dish-washer) into folly and indiscretion, and recording it for all the world to see and hear.

A visitor from another planet, learning about this incident, would draw two conclusions. Firstly that all humans, even those apparently wealthy and with exalted titles, can be bought if they’re offered enough money. Secondly, that no human, however plausible, should ever be trusted.

The other story that I found extremely depressing was that of the two little boys, ten years old at the time of the incident, who were convicted of the attempted rape of an eight-year-old girl. If the three children involved had not already been robbed of their childhood innocence by the pressures of the world around them, the process will certainly have been completed by their verbal examination and cross-examination in the Old Bailey of all places.

Children can be guilty of acts of extreme cruelty and wickedness, but it is absurd to suggest that this case is comparable with the horrific murder of James Bulger or the dreadful torture of two boys near Doncaster in April last year. There has been no report of the victim in this case having suffered severe physical injury or of her running home to her mother in pain and distress. We don’t yet know what punishment will be inflicted on the two boys. Surely though they should not be stigmatised for life as ‘sex offenders’ for what may have been little more than a precocious experiment.

In my childhood and youth in the 1930s, society was much more determined to dampen the sexual precocity of the young than it is today. Most children went to ‘all girls’ or ‘all boys’ schools from the age of seven onwards. The idea of distributing contraceptives to teenagers and advising on their use would have been regarded with horror. I think though that the thought of dragging pre-adolescent children through the adult criminal courts for sexual experimentation would have been regarded with almost equal horror. Had such incidents occurred (and I suppose that they must have), those involved would have been given a good smacking by their parents and a closer eye would have been kept on their future activities. However medieval and inadequate that remedy may sound to third millennial ears I’m sure that it would have done far less long-term damage than our ‘enlightened’ twenty-first century solution.

The Changing Clacton Scene

Clacton had appeared to come fairly lightly out of the economic recession. The empty space created by the closure of Woolworth was filled by the ‘99p Store’. The closed Co-op Departmental Store in Station Road was replaced by Vergo, selling much the same range of clothing and household goods as the Co-op, and taking on the entire Co-op Staff. Our town centre was mercifully free of the gaps and the boarded-up shop premises that we saw on tv news programmes from elsewhere. Clacton had a good 2009 Holiday Season. The weather, while not the barbecue summer promised, was better than that of the previous two summers. The rising Euro and falling Pound encouraged stay-at-home holidays. Holiday camps, hotels and boarding houses were well booked and the tills of town centre retailers rang merrily throughout the summer.

It came as a blow to many disabled and elderly people when Shopmobility, a local charity that had provided electric mobility scooters to those who needed them for their shopping expeditions, closed down on 31st December. Five months later the premises are still unused. Now Vergo is closing down and the Clacton Branch of Rayner Dispensing Opticians, at the junction of Beach Road and High Street has also closed. Their nearest branch is now in Harwich. This affected me as Rayner had supported my failing eyesight for many years! Rayner and Vergo – two new unsightly gaps in Clacton’s town centre, both adding to the number of local unemployed.

There are a few more cheering signs. The service Shopmobility provided has been replaced to some extent by Marks Mobility of Holland-on-Sea opening a branch in the landward end of Pier Avenue, near to the Wellesley Road junction. Marks Mobility sells and services new and used mobility scooters and stocks a wide range of other equipment (wheelchairs, walking frames, scooter accessories, specialised footwear and so on) for the sickroom and for elderly and disabled people. A mobility scooter user myself, with increasing disability, I have found its services invaluable.

Then again, The Black Bull, a relatively recently built pub in St Osyth Road, which has stood empty and abandoned for many months is being converted into a Tesco Express store. This may not be good news for other convenience stores in the area but I have no doubt that it will sometimes prove useful for nearby residents (like myself!) Yet another new service will be a new coffee-shop, one of a nation-wide chain, that is to open shortly near the new Travelodge Hotel in Jackson Road.

Work in progress on converting the former 'Black Bull' into a Tesco Express Store.

Perhaps the positive signs are beginning to catch up with the negative ones. I certainly hope so.

Week 14.10

Tendring Topics………on Line

‘Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?’ (John 20.15)

Easter was a very special occasion this year as, unusually, the Easter of the Eastern Orthodox Churches coincided with that of the Catholic and Reformed Churches of the West. Thus every Christian Church in the world remembered the cruel death of Jesus Christ – and celebrated his glorious rising from the dead, on the same weekend.

The picture, taken in St. James’ Church Clacton on Easter morning, depicts the empty tomb and the weeping Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Christ. It is decorated with Easter flowers and flanked by two votive candles

The turning world meant that throughout Easter there was never a moment when, in churches, chapels and cathedrals, somewhere or other in the world, Christ’s resurrection and its promise of eternal life were not being remembered and celebrated. ‘The voice of prayer is never silent, nor dies the song of praise away’.

Making a (small) profit from one’s convictions!

Did you realize that on 6th April (probably the day on which I shall post this blog) postal charges will be increased? There never seems to be much publicity of these regular upward changes and it is very easy to be caught out. The price of sending a ‘normal size’ letter under 100g by first-class post goes up from 39 to 41p and by second-class post from 30 to 32p. Large letters (that includes some large greetings cards) go up from 61p to 66p first-class and from 47 to 51p second-class.

The cost of mail sent abroad goes up correspondingly. Airmail letters under 10g to anywhere in Europe rise from 56p to 60p and to the rest of the world from 62p to 67p. Full details are set out clearly in a leaflet ‘pricing made easy’ obtainable from any post office.

The price of postage stamps designated simply ‘First Class’ and ‘Second Class’ is, as the economists say, ‘buoyant’. As postal charges increase, so do their values. A ‘First Class’ stamp purchased five years or longer ago is valid today, even though today’s first class postal charge will be a great deal higher than it was when the stamp was bought.

For the past two years I have suggested at Christmas time that buying sufficient 1st Class and 2nd Class ‘religious’ Christmas stamps for use on correspondence throughout the year, is an effective and non-aggressive way of affirming our Christian faith. I do it myself. It was made easier last year by the fact that, since all the special Christmas stamps were reproductions of church stained-glass windows, they could all have been considered to be ‘religious’.

Purchasing a supply of those first and second-class stamps was also a profitable thing to do! Those who have followed my suggestion will have made a worthwhile investment! Those stamps have gone up in value by 2 pence each. I have always been a long way short of brilliant at mathematics, but I think that that means a tax-free increase in value of about six percent in the four months since their purchase. These days it would be difficult to find another investment yielding a similar short-term profit!

Expensive Executives

A few months ago I commented on a report that Tendring Council’s three most highly paid officials were facing redundancy. Although this has still not been officially confirmed, there now seems little doubt that the report was correct.

The Daily Gazette is chiefly concerned about the size of the ‘golden handshakes’ that they will receive on their departure - £200,000 between them – but it seems to me that there are other, more important, issues involved. As a former (quite lowly paid!) council official, I am astonished at the three posts that are, so we learn, the highest paid on the Council’s staff.

There’s no surprise about the Chief Executive. His reported salary of ‘over £120,000 a year’ may seem enormous to most of us but it’s little more than petty cash to the Chief Executive of Essex County Council, whose income is reported by the Taxpayers’ Alliance as being about £200,000 – more than that of the Prime Minister! But then the County Council has loads of our money to spend, and they don’t even have to go to the trouble of collecting it. That’s Tendring Council’s job.


Clacton’s Town Hall. Nerve centre of Tendring
District Council

The second most highly paid post is that of Deputy Chief Executive. Now that does seem astonishing to me bearing in mind that the Council also employs experienced professional men and women – solicitors, financial experts, engineers, surveyors, architects, environmental health experts. Surely one or two of them must be both better qualified and of greater importance to the Council than a deputy – even of someone as important as a Chief Executive. That’s strange enough, but the third man is not the Chief, nor the Deputy but the Assistant Chief Executive. He and the Deputy are both said to have salaries of over £100,000 a year.

The other matter that perplexes me is the reason for their departure. Councillor Neil Stock, the Council’s Leader, attempts to brush it off as a fairly routine matter. He is reported as saying, ‘The report is all about succession planning. When you have three senior officers nearing retirement age, you need to manage their exit. That is why this report was drawn up’.

Really? If they’re ‘nearing retirement age’ why not plan their replacement and wait till they retire before worrying about how much they are then to be paid? There will be no need for ‘negotiations’. Their ‘lump sum retirement payment’ and annual pension is laid down by national agreement. The picture of Chief Executive John Hawkins, Chief Executive, in the Gazette doesn’t suggest to me that he’ll be drawing his state pension and getting his bus pass and free tv licence in the very near future. But perhaps he’s older than he looks.

It can hardly be said that the three of them have been incompetent or disappointing in their performance in office. They were steering Tendring Council’s course during the year that the Government’s Audit Commission declared it to be the best performing Council in Essex and in the top flight of well performing Councils in England.

Could it be that that is why they have now lost favour? Were they too closely associated with the recent Tendring First administration and therefore the present rulers of Tendring (with their majority of one) wish to replace them with a person or persons more sympathetic to their philosophy?

It will be a sad day for local government when councils are not prepared to accept that their professional officers will give of their very best to their employing authority, whatever its political orientation may be. It will be an even sadder day when professional officers give them reason to believe that such doubts are justified.

‘Not from my bank account!’

Everybody knows that our country is in a financial mess. Everyone agrees that it is a mess from which we can escape only by cutting government services and/or increasing taxes. There is almost complete unanimity within the national press, the general public and politicians of all parties about this. Disagreement is about which services should suffer from the inevitable cuts, and who should bear the burden of the increased taxes. Sadly, most of us seem to think that the services on which we have come to depend should be sacrosanct and that we, and the group to which we happen to belong, should be exempt from increased taxation.

Pensioners have been among the first to complain about their ‘derisory’ pension increase this year and about the perceived threat to their winter fuel allowance. This is understandable because those pensioners who have no other source of income beyond the state pension manage to survive only with the help of the other benefits available to them.

Working people too, see their jobs and their incomes threatened. Many have had to choose between a pay cut and redundancy. Some have not had that option and have lost their jobs. Will job seekers allowances and other social security benefits be cut in the economy drive? I have no doubt that the strikes affecting rail and air travel, and threatening to spread to other fields, are less about existing pay and conditions of work than about the reorganisation, rationalisation and down-sizing that threatens all their jobs in the future.

Increases in VAT affect disproportionately those on the lowest incomes. They increase prices, fuelling inflation and holding back recovery from recession.

There has been agreement between many employers and employees about halting the planned national insurance contributions increase. The money that would have been raised by this increase could be recouped by ‘efficiency savings’ says Mr David Cameron. I’ve heard that before from other political leaders, only though, when in opposition! In any event, isn’t the current crisis one that demands both efficiency savings and increased national insurance payments?

Then there are those, usually in the upper income brackets, who see the threat of rises in income tax rates as heralding a red revolution! I was amused to see the higher rate of income tax that is being introduced this year described in a popular newspaper as ‘a direct attack on middle England’. It will require those whose incomes exceed £150,000 a year to pay in income tax 50 percent of income above that sum. ‘Middle England’ indeed! I wonder how many readers of that newspaper have incomes even approaching that?

We are continually being told that if we try to tax the seriously wealthy proportionately to the rest of us, we’ll be driving the best brains and the wealth creators out of the country. Do they mean the scientists and engineers whose work keeps our industries competitive; perhaps the surgeons who save lives daily; perhaps even the top politicians and top public servants, whose decisions and competence affect us all?

Hardly! Few of those buy national football teams, have palatial villas on the shores of the Mediterranean or entertain influential politicians in their luxury yachts! Those who might be driven away are foreign expatriates who have made millions fleecing their fellow countrymen and have come to Britain to spend them, and our own home-grown successful gamblers and money-lenders. Isn’t gambling and money-lending what the stock market and the merchant banks (whose greed and incompetence triggered this crisis in the first place) are all about?

Disillusion with politicians, a yawning gap between the incomes of the richest and poorest in our society, a perception that the wealthy and privileged are escaping the worst effects of a financial situation that is impoverishing the rest of us; these are dangerous ingredients, possibly presaging a political fundamentalism even more deadly than the religious fundamentalism by which many feel threatened today.

Week 40.09

Tendring Topics………on line

A Small New Friend

I have been delighted to learn, at first by text message at 5.30 a.m. a fortnight or so ago, and more recently by snail-mail, of the arrival in Zittau, Germany, of a tiny new member of the family of my friends Kornelia (Konnie) and Andreas Kulke. He is Tom Friedrich Kulke and was born on 1st September weighing, so I have been told, 3720 grammes. That is nearly three and three quarters kilos and must be round about 8 lbs. A pretty good weight, I would say.

In the picture he has closed his eyes and appears to be counting his fingers. They are all there…..all ten of them! He looks very pleased with himself, and he has reason to be, because he has been born into one of the nicest families I know. My daughter-in-law, who is not given to fulsome flattery, said of his Mum, ‘I can’t imagine her ever raising her voice in anger’. His Dad, Grandma and Auntie Ingrid, my good friend for many years now, are equally warm, generous and loving.

Below is big sister Maja, taken just a year ago on her second birthday. She is holding a greetings card from Pete, Arlene and myself and is probably thinking; ‘I can’t read German yet….and they send me a card in English!’

She tells me (through her Mum as an interpreter) that he can’t play with her yet, but he can sit on her lap. I realize that I missed a lot by not having a big sister.

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

With an election in the no-longer-distant future it is a little disquieting to find that ‘cuts’; cuts in public services, cuts in state benefits, cuts in pensions, cuts in health and education budgets, feature prominently in the pre-election speeches of leading politicians. The only cut of which we can feel there is little possibility is a cut in taxation.

It would be nice to be able to say that they aren’t necessary, but they are. The financial crisis resulted in the government having to plough millions of pounds of borrowed money into coffers that had been emptied by the folly and greed of their custodians. It has to be paid back. That, I think, is common ground. The question is, how is that burden of debt to be shared?

I would like to see, though I think it improbable that I will, the burden spread fairly across every stratum of society. Cutting the services that spell the difference between civilisation and barbarism disproportionately penalises the less well off. Cutting the national health, the education and the social services budgets doesn’t bother the wealthy in the least. They can buy their health care and the best education for their children, and they certainly never need to avail themselves of any of the social services.

They do, of course, have rather more to be stolen or vandalised than the rest of us so I don’t imagine they would be in favour of any proposed economies or down-sizing of the police force.

One substantial cut that could and should be made is disposing of, or at least declining to renew, our Trident nuclear deterrent. The ownership of nuclear weapons hasn’t yet succeeded in deterring anyone who was actually attacking us. It didn’t prevent our Turkish NATO allies from invading the Commonwealth island of Cyprus. It didn’t deter the Argentinians from invading the Falklands. It didn’t deter the Iraqis from invading Kuwait. It certainly didn’t deter the IRA or El Quaida, nor does it in any way deter the Taliban! If some other country, Iran or North Korea perhaps, should threaten ‘the west’ with nuclear weapons I am sure that there will be enough in other hands to provide Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D), which is really all that these weapons can offer. The Prime Minister is now talking about dispensing with one of our four Trident submarines. Well, I suppose that a quarter of a loaf is better than no bread……..but it’s not all that much better!

No politician has so far mentioned the dreaded word ‘taxation’ yet surely taxation will have to be increased. To make sure that its burden is evenly shared, our rulers should concentrate on income tax. I pay what is for me a substantial sum in income tax every year. I don’t enjoy doing so but I count myself lucky. The incomes of many thousands are too low to be eligible for tax. I wouldn’t want to have to live on such an income.

In considering income tax rises the Government should also raise the upper rates so that the seriously wealthy have to pay as large a proportion of their income as the rest of us. At the same time they should close securely those loopholes in the law by which clever lawyers and accountants can arrange for their wealthy masters to avoid (not, of course, evade – that is illegal!) payment of the taxes for which the rest of us are liable.

By its very nature it is only those who can afford to pay income tax have to do so. The same cannot be said about indirect taxation, now loved by both the main political parties but called ‘stealth taxes’ by the opposition.

I deeply resent when paying for a repair or improvement to my home, to have to pay a substantial sum of VAT for the privilege of having it done. I resent having a sum added to my insurance premiums (like a compulsory tip for bad service!) to pay the relatively new insurance tax. I heard it said during the Thatcher years that the great thing about indirect taxes was that they offered ‘freedom of choice’. If you didn’t buy the object or service you didn’t have to pay it.

The householder faced with water pouring through a hole in his roof doesn’t have a great deal of choice about getting it repaired. Neither does the motorist, or the cyclist, who relies on his machine to get to work, have much choice about taking it to the garage or work shop when something goes wrong.

I have heard many explanations of the cause of today’s economic situation. One thing is certain; it wasn’t caused by the indolence or cupidity of the poor. Yet I suspect that it will be the poor who will have to suffer most before the situation improves. Last week, in my references to songs popular with the troops in World War II, I didn’t mention ‘She was poor, but she was honest, Victim of a rich man’s whim,’ a long and lugubrious Victorian ballad of which few of us knew all the verses. We all knew the last one though, and sang it with gusto;

It’s the rich wot gets the pleasure,
It’s the poor wot gets the blame.
It’s the same, the ‘ole world over,
Isn’t it a bloomin’ shame!

And so it still is!

The Cost of University Education

Did you hear the spokesmen for the CBI (Confederation of British Industry – the voice of the employers) giving us, on tv, their views on University Education? They are quite straight-forward……tuition fees should go up, student loans should be subject to interest, and there should be fewer and smaller financial grants for students.

It always gets under my skin when I hear the middle aged, be they politicians or captains of industry, urging that heavier financial burdens should be placed on students’ shoulders, or even that the existing ones should be maintained. Those who are themselves graduates, know perfectly well that when they were students there were no tuition fees and there were generous though means-tested maintenance grants for those who needed them.

‘Pull the ladder away Jack ….I’ve reached the top!’ seems to be their motto!

There were, of course, a lot fewer university students in their day, so the burden of their tuition and maintenance was more easily coped with. I think that reduction of the number of these students might help provide a solution. The suggestion that fifty percent of school leavers should go to University has always seems to me to absurd.

Why, I wonder, is intellectual attainment treated so very differently from its physical counterpart? No one expects half of us, or very many people at all, to merit training to Olympic or international standards, in any athletic or team sport. Only the very best of the best need apply, and nobody thinks that that is unreasonable. To suggest anything similar for university selection would be to invite denunciations of blatant elitism! It really is possible to have a satisfying and well-rewarded career, and to live a happy and fulfilled life, without being able to write B.A or B.Sc. after your name. Nor, believe me, need those who can’t feel inferior.

Did you know that, every year for the past five years, no less than twenty-two students out of every one hundred selected, have ‘dropped out’ of University without ever completing their courses, despite millions of pounds having been spent by the government in attempts to retain them? These were students who should clearly never have been selected. How much money might have been saved, and how much bitter disappointment and despair might have been avoided, had their unsuitability been spotted during the selection process! Preventing the selection of potential drop-outs would subtract a worth-while sum from the total University Budget.

This is surely one avenue that should be explored before we start discouraging the applications of possibly brilliant students by burdening them with an even larger burden of debt.

An Indian Summer

We are experiencing an Indian Summer as I type these words. Whether it will still be with us when in a few days, I post them onto my blog, remains to be seen.

I had always imagined that the expression had been brought to England by returning Sahibs and Memsahibs, not to mention common squaddies, from the Indian subcontinent. Some years ago though, visiting friends from rural New York State assured my wife and I that it had American, and more sinister, origins.

Early settlers in New England had built wooden defensive stockades round their settlements, cut down the trees and cleared the undergrowth for a few hundred yards from the stockades.

Warm sunny days in late September and early October brought heavy morning mists over the forests of North America. Native Indians, tomahawks and scalping knives at the ready, could creep under cover of the mist right up to the stockade…and be up and over it before the alarm could be raised. In those days it wasn’t a case of ‘Don’t throw away the sun cream and the eye shades’, but ‘make sure your musket is ready’ when there was an Indian Summer……….. or should we perhaps now, in the interests of political correctness, rename it ‘A Native American Summer’?