I Wish That I Lived in a First World Nation like Mexico

Do you know what Mexico has that we in the USA do not now? 

They are getting universal healthcare.

Lucky bastards.

At her morning press conference on April 7, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the credencialización process, or enrollment, for Mexico’s new universal health care service was set to begin. The goal, she explained, was unambiguous: “By the time we leave office, any Mexican will be able to go to any public health institution and receive care for any condition.”

To be phased in over the next four years, the reforms represent, in her words, “a historic step.” And if successful, indeed they will be. But in a fragmented health landscape where the Holy Grail of genuinely universal coverage has proved elusive, how will Sheinbaum’s ambitious rollout work?

The key to the answer lies in the name itself: it will be a national health service, not a system. Broadly speaking, Mexico’s current public system is divided into four main areas: The Mexican Social Security Institute (or IMSS, for its Spanish acronym) is for salaried, private sector workers; the Institute for Social Security and Services for State Workers (or ISSSTE) is for their counterparts in the public sector; workers at the state oil company PEMEX have their own system; and the IMSS-Bienestar (Spanish for “well-being”), established by Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) administration, for those who do not qualify for the others, namely contract workers and the 33 million or so laboring in the informal sector. (An effort somewhat hampered by the fact that, in a dynamic roughly equivalent to the Obama-era expansion of Medicaid, a minority of states with right-wing governors have refused to opt in.)

………

Here’s how it will work. In 2026, all citizens will be given their credencial, or health ID card, which will also serve as an official means of identification. The card, which will gradually replace the health booklets currently in use, will be linked to an app containing each individual’s medical records, appointments, and available services. In 2027, portability will begin for an initial set of services: universal emergency care (currently patients are stabilized at the hospital of arrival before being transferred to a hospital in their system); high-risk pregnancies and other obstetric emergencies; heart attacks and strokes; breast cancer; universal vaccination; and basic consultations such as flu, diarrhea, and preventive care.

Patients will not only receive care at any health center but will also have the option of remaining there for the duration of care, eliminating situations where forced transferals lead to truncated treatments. Then, in 2028, portability of care will be extended to chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension; cross-institution specialist consultations and hospitalizations; and the ability to fill prescriptions at any institution.

Great.  Not tell Donald Trump to f%$# off.

Extra credit if you hire Peter Capaldi to tell Donald Trump to f%$# off. 

Interesting Legal Strategy

As you may be aware, the 2005 "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act" indemnifies firearm manufacturers and dealers against most civil liability.

However, there is a carve out in the law for when manufacturers or dealers are knowingly violating laws.

Mexico is arguing that gun manufacturers and border adjacent gun dealers have knowingly colluded to violate Mexico's gun laws, which are among the most restrictive in the world.

This is now at the Supreme Court, where I expect the rule 6-3, or perhaps 5-4, in favor of the criminal merchants of death. 

Still, this is an interesting approach:

Mexico’s president offered a warning last month in response to news that the Trump administration planned to designate drug cartels as terrorist groups.

“If they declare these criminal groups as terrorists, then we’ll have to expand our U.S. lawsuit,” Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said at a news conference.

She was referring to an unusual lawsuit that will be heard by the Supreme Court on Tuesday in which Mexico argues U.S. gun manufacturers have aided in the trafficking of weapons used by the cartels.

………

Lawyers for Mexico argue that U.S. manufacturers and gun dealers are complicit in what they call an “iron river” of firearms pouring into the country and arming cartels. They point to strict controls on gun purchases in Mexico, where civilians are not allowed to purchase the types of rapid-fire, powerful military-style weapons favored by the cartels, as evidence that as many as half a million firearms are smuggled from the United States into Mexico each year.

The Mexican government has an unfair advantage in their lawsuit, because their argument is the truth.

………

The case may be viewed skeptically by the Supreme Court, where the 6-to-3 conservative supermajority has worked to expand gun rights. But at a time when Mr. Trump has targeted the country, it has offered a forum for Mexico to publicize its counter case that U.S. gun manufacturers share the blame for cartel violence. The Mexican government has also sued several gun stores in Arizona and could expand the effort by filing additional suits.

MAY be viewed "skeptically"?  Naah, at least 4 of these judges are hostile to the very idea of gun control.

………

Mexico first sued multiple gun companies in 2021, arguing that the cartel bloodshed was “the foreseeable result of the defendants’ deliberate actions and business practices.”

A trial court judge dismissed the case, finding it was barred by a 2005 federal law that limits litigation against gun manufacturers and distributors and has provided immunity from actions brought by the families of people killed and injured by their weapons.

A unanimous panel of judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, overturned that decision. They found that the lawsuit met the criteria for a part of the law allowing for litigation in cases where knowing violations of firearms laws are a direct cause of the plaintiff’s injuries.

I hope that Mexico wins at the Supreme Court, but I'm not holding my breath.

Not this Sh%$

We now have credible reports open statements by insane members of Trump's inner circle that Trump is planning to invade Mexico.

Within Donald Trump’s government-in-waiting, there is a fresh debate over whether and how thoroughly the president-elect should follow through on his campaign promise to attack or even invade Mexico, as part of the “war” he’s pledged to wage against powerful drug cartels.

“How much should we invade Mexico?” says a senior Trump transition member. “That is the question.”

It is a question that would have seemed batty for the GOP elite to consider before, even during Trump’s first term. But in the four years since, many within the mainstream Republican centers of power have come around to support Trump’s idea to bomb or attack Mexico.

Trump’s Cabinet picks, including his choices for secretary of defense and secretary of state, have publicly supported the idea of potentially unleashing the U.S. military in Mexico. So has the man Trump has tapped to be his national security adviser. So has the man Trump selected as his “border czar” to lead his immigration crackdowns. So have various Trump allies in Congress and in the media.

 We are completely f%$#ed.

Good News South of the Border

Monsanto has withdrawn its efforts attempting to roll back Mexico's efforts to protect its maize supply and genome.

Any news that includes a loss by Monsanto is good news:

After a four-year legal battle on multiple fronts with Mexico’s AMLO government, Monsanto has finally thrown in the towel. Last Tuesday, Mexico’s National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt) announced that two Mexican divisions of Monsanto — now subsidiaries of German chemicals giant, Bayer, which in 2018 acquired Monsanto in arguably the worst ever corporate merger — had dropped their law suits against the Mexican government over its intention to ban genetically modified corn.

As readers may recall, Mexico’s outgoing President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador signed a presidential decree in 2020 seeking to ban all use and importation of GMO corn and the toxic weedkiller, glyphosate. His government has also placed import restrictions on white corn, which is generally used for human consumption in Mexico. The reasons cited for doing so include protecting the health of the population, the environment and Mexico’s genetic diversity of maize.

But this is not just about biotech. It is about increasing Mexican food sovereignty by reducing the threat of unfair US competition in the global corn market. As even the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, an international affairs think tank, recently conceded, US corn has dominated Mexico over the past three decades for one main reason: thanks to NAFTA, the scales have been stacked in the favour of US growers:

And US agriculture has been stacked in favor of the big agribusinesses, who seem determined to foist things like glyophosate.

The US standard or requiring proof of harm, as opposed to proof of safety, is a bad thing, both for genetic diversity and public health.

Headline of the Day

U.S. Is Unhappy Mexico Is Spending Money on Its Own Citizens

—The Intercept

The story is pretty straightforward, the US, at least from the perspective of the DNI, is that Mexico a colony of the United States.

The U.S. government is frustrated that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is prioritizing social spending for the benefit of his people over addressing matters that are important to the U.S., according to an excerpt of a leaked top-secret intelligence document. Part of a cache of classified intelligence records that were leaked on the platform Discord earlier this year, the document highlights the growing discontent by U.S. officials toward Mexico’s president, who has significantly limited U.S. law enforcement agencies’ role in the war on drugs, as fentanyl trafficked by Mexican criminal groups has worsened the overdose crisis in the U.S. and violence in Mexico.

“President Lopez Obrador’s federal budget for 2023 gives priority to social spending and signature infrastructure projects, rather than the investments needed to address bilateral issues with the US such as migration, security, and trade,” reads the document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “Lopez Obrador’s meager investment in migration, security, and trade-related organizations will probably undermine Mexico’s ability to follow through on commitments to stem the flow of irregular migrants and fentanyl to the US and boost economic competitiveness in North America.”

López Obrador’s 2023 federal budget, presented to the Mexican Congress last fall, does increase funding for social programs, including a significant raise for the pension provided to older Mexicans. It also prioritizes large infrastructure projects, which are mostly concentrated in southern states of the country.

“The crisis of fentanyl is due to the negligence of pharmaceuticals in the U.S.,” said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City. “I don’t know what [the Director of National Intelligence] thinks the alternative is. Do they expect us to end our social spending and infrastructure policy to tend to a problem that belongs to the U.S.?”

Yes, they do expect you to, "End [y]our social spending and infrastructure policy to tend to a problem that belongs to the U.S."

This has always been the case.

Now I Understand the Full Court Press against AMLO

There has been a steady drum beat of accusations against Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in places like the New York Times.

My assumption is that AMLO is taking actions that generally favors the "Have Nots" over the "Haves", and this is why we see alarm from the usual suspects.

I haven't followed this closely, but his recent decision to replace the Bank of Mexico governor with one who favors people over finance is a very good indicator of where he intends to go:

President López Obrador said Friday that he will replace the current central bank governor with an economist who supports a “moral economy” — an economy in which the well-being of everyone is prioritized over the wealth of the few.

Speaking at his regular news conference, López Obrador said he won’t nominate current Bank of México Governor Alejandro Díaz de León for a second term after it concludes at the end of November.

López Obrador, a fierce critic of the neoliberal economic policies he says were implemented by successive governments during the 36 years preceding his arrival in the National Palace, said he would instead nominate an economist with “a lot of prestige” who is better attuned to Mexico’s social needs.

Today in Political Weirdness

Blue Demon Jr., the "adopted son" of the legendary luchador Blue Demon, is running for mayor of the Mexico City municipality of Gustavo A. Madero (GAM) as a progressive. He is anonymous, and says he will only reveal his identity to authorities if he wins https://t.co/i93MJ3dfWm

— Populism Updates (@PopulismUpdates) January 18, 2021

This is actually kind of reassuring.

It shows that the USA is not alone in the mishugas.

Mexico Takes a Step Forward on the War on Drugs

In a move for their own sovereignty, Mexico has removed diplomatic immunity from foreign law enforcement (US DEA) agents, and added statutory requirements that any foreign law enforcement share collected intelligence with local authorities.

I see this as an unalloyed good.

It will make the destructive pursuit of the "War on Drugs" more difficult, and will force US law enforcement to consider the impacts of their actions on the locals:

Mexico’s congress has approved a new national security law restricting the activities of foreign law enforcement officers, in a move which critics say will endanger intelligence sources and threaten the future of international anti-narcotics operations.

The law passed on Tuesday strips foreign agents of diplomatic immunity and requires foreign officials in the country to share any intelligence they have obtained with Mexican officials.

While not ostensibly targeting officials from any specific country, the new law would probably impact US agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which maintains a robust presence in Mexico.

………

The DEA works closely with Mexican security officials and creates much of the intelligence used in the so-called war on drugs. But US operations have sometimes caused a nationalist backlash, and despite billions of dollars in US military aid and attempts at judicial reform, Mexico’s militarised crackdown on crime has claimed more than 200,000 lives and left about 70,000 missing.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president, suddenly sent the bill to congress in early December after complaining of the way the DEA acts in Mexico.

“During other governments, they came into Mexico as if they owned the place. They didn’t just carry out intelligence operations, they went after targets. [Mexican] security forces launched the operations, but the decisions were made by these [foreign] agencies. That no longer happens,” he said.

………

Ricardo Monreal, senate whip with López Obrador’s ruling Morena party, called the law “an effort to reinforce the principle of reciprocity in matters of national security”.

I'd like to think that this will lead to a more constructive, and less punitive, drug policy in the US, but as Upton Sinclair pithily noted, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it," and the elements of the US state security apparatus whose salaries are dependent on the "War on Drugs" are unlikely to understand.

I expect a lot of chest thumping and coercion coming from this side of the border.

Seriously?

In a week where "Centrist" candidates for the Democratic nomination for President have embarrassed themselves, Pete Buttigieg takes it to a new leve when he suggests that the United States should invade Mexico:

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said at a Latino forum in Los Angeles on Sunday that he’d be willing to send U.S. troops into Mexico to combat gang and drug violence.

“There is a scenario where we could have security cooperation,” Buttigieg said.

Even so, he added a caveat: “I’d only order American troops into conflict if American lives were on the line and if it was necessary to meet treaty obligations.”

His campaign later clarified that Buttigieg would only be open to military use as a “last resort” in response to Mexican cartel violence or an outside threat that endangers the country’s security.

Buttigieg’s comments came in response to a question at an event hosted by ABC7 Eyewitness News, where he added he would work to “make drug trafficking less profitable by walking away from the failed war on drugs here in the United States.”

He was the only candidate asked directly about moving troops to Mexico.

On Saturday, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro said he disagreed with President Donald Trump’s call to help Mexico “wage war” on cartels following the massacre of nine U.S. women and children in northern Mexico earlier this month.

“I don’t think the United States should send its military down to Mexico. Mexico is a sovereign nation,” he said.

It appears that Mayor Pete has learned absolutely nothing from his experience in Afghanistan.

Deploying US troops is one of the most important actions a President can take, and this sort of blithe and facile response is profoundly troubling.

Canada is Trying to Save the American Labor Movement

In NAFTA (re)negotiations, Canada is demanding extensive labor protections:

The Canadian government is meeting with some of the country’s biggest labor groups to discuss Nafta as talks on the deal are set to resume.

Labor Minister Patricia Hajdu will meet union leaders Friday in a round-table discussion near Toronto to get input on the North American Free Trade Agreement. It’s the latest sign that labor has the Trudeau government’s ear in talks that could hinge, in part, on Canada’s push to raise working standards in both the U.S. and Mexico.

“That’s an indication of how much we value our labor movement, and we want to make sure as we go into negotiations that the rights of Canadian workers are protected,” Hajdu said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’ll do everything in our power to make sure of that.”

Nafta talks resume Monday with a partial round in Washington, without political leaders at the table. Canada wants the U.S. to undo so-called “right to work” provisions in some states, while also calling on Mexico to raise labor standards. One of Canada’s top union leaders, Jerry Dias, has met often with the Canadian negotiating team and regularly predicts Nafta talks will fail.

Trudeau has been pushing to add “progressive” elements like labor, gender and the environment into all trade negotiations -- a move derided by political opponents as “virtue signaling” that could make it tougher to get a deal. That strategy was a driving factor in the surprise false start this week of trade talks with China, a country that typically shuns the bells and whistles Canada wants in any trade deal.

Those added elements are among Nafta’s sticking points. Canada wants its two North American partners to ratify eight core conventions, including the right to organize, laid out by the International Labour Organization to make Nafta work. “We did put forward a very ambitious proposal on labor,” chief negotiator Steve Verheul told lawmakers this week. While Canada has adopted all eight and Mexico has nearly done so, the U.S. has adopted only two, Verheul said. “The U.S. is resisting that proposal.”

Canada’s call to claw back U.S. “right-to-work” laws, which ban unions from requiring workers to pay dues, is another obstacle. “The U.S. is also resisting that,” Verheul said.

As Yves Smith pithily observes, "Sounds like the Canadians are doing better by labor than our own Democrats."

The history of the modern Democratic Party does not show meaningful support for organized labor.

When Republicans pass so-called "right-to-work " laws, Democrats never repeal them, and the Obama administration dropped its support for the Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check) before the last states were called in 2008.

The positions pushed by Trudeau benefit workers in all three of the signatories of NAFTA, so I expect Democrats, or at least the current Democratic Party establishment to vociferously oppose labor justice, because they have sold their souls to big donors.

Tweet of the Day

Trump is seeking small changes to NAFTA to make it more like the proposed TPP. Now that's how you break a promise! https://t.co/QkSeU7VU4E

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) March 30, 2017

H/t Ian Welsh.

Please Don't Throw Me into the Briar Patch*

A Mexican senator is proposing that they should pull out of their treaties with the United States if Donald Trump is elected.

This is arguably the best argument I've heard this far for voting for the Republican Nominee, though I would still never vote for him:

A Mexican senator is proposing legislation to empower the government to retaliate if a U.S. administration led by Donald Trump inflicts expropriations or economic losses on his country to make it pay for a border wall.

Republican presidential nominee Trump has vowed to have Mexico fund the planned wall to keep out illegal immigrants if he is elected, and threatened to fund it by blocking remittances sent home by Mexicans living in the United States.

Armando Rios Piter, an opposition senator for the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), will next week present the initiative he hopes will protect Mexicans, and highlight the risks of targeting them economically.

The plan offers a taste of the kind of tit-for-tat measures that could gain traction between the two heavily-integrated economies if Trump wins the presidency at the Nov. 8 election.

In a preliminary summary of the proposal, which also foresees giving the Senate the power to disavow international treaties when the interests of Mexico or its companies are threatened by other signatories, it states:

"In cases where the property/assets of (our) fellow citizens or companies are affected by a foreign government, as Donald Trump has threatened, the Mexican government should proportionally expropriate assets and properties of foreigners from that country on our territory."

The only way for this law to work is if Mexico pulls out of NAFTA.

I consider this a win for everyone, except perhaps for the abusive maquiladoras, big pharma, Wall Street, and subsidized US corn.

I can live with that.

^*By this, I mean, please do this.  This is a reference to the story of how the trickster Brer Rabbit got out of a sticky situation by convincing Brer Fox that he was afraid of being thrown the place where he would be safe.  See also Tar Baby. 

And this is Mild Compared to the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The WTO has just ruled that requiring the labeling of dolphin safe tuna is an unacceptable restraint of trade:

International trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) need to be carefully examined piece by piece because they can take precedence over a country’s own laws.

Case in point: the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Friday ruled that dolphin-safe tuna labeling rules — required by U.S. law, in an effort to protect intelligent mammals from slaughter — violate the rights of Mexican fishers.

As a result, the U.S. will have to either alter the law or face sanctions from Mexico.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how the “investor-state dispute settlement system” baked into trade agreements can force countries to compensate corporations when regulations cut into their profits.

The long-running quarrel over tuna reveals another way that domestic laws can be overturned by trade agreements: when countries can file trade challenges on behalf of domestic industries.

“This should serve as a warning against expansive trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would replicate rules that undermine safeguards for wildlife, clean air, and clean water,” said the Sierra Club’s Ilana Solomon in a statement.

This short of crap is a feature of trade deals, not a bug.

They Will Be Back

Small farmers in Mexico have managed to block a law to legalize Monsanto's seed monopolies:

Progressive small farmer organizations in Mexico scored a victory over transnational corporations that seek to monopolize seed and food patents. When the corporations pushed their bill to modify the Federal Law on Plant Varieties through the Committee on Agriculture and Livestock of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies on March 14, organizations of farmers from across the country sounded the alarm. By organizing quickly, they joined together to pressure legislators and achieved an agreement with the legislative committee to remove the bill from the floor.

What’s at stake is free and open access to plant biodiversity in agriculture. The proposed modifications promote a privatizing model that uses patents and “Plant Breeders’ Rights” (PBR) to deprive farmers of the labor of centuries in developing seed. The small farmers who worked to create this foundation of modern agriculture never charged royalties for its use.

Although the current law, in effect since 1996, pays little heed to the rights of small farmers, the new law would be far worse. Present law tends to benefit private-sector plant breeders, allowing monopolies to obtain exclusive profits from the sale of seeds and other plant material for up to 15 years, or 18 in the case of perennial ornamental, forest, or orchard plants–even when the plants they used to develop the new varieties are in the public domain.

The legislative reform would extend exclusive rights from the sale of reproductive material to 25 years. Further, it seeks to restrict the rights of farmers to store or use for their own consumption any part of the harvest obtained from seeds or breeding material purchased from holders of PBRs.

The bill wasn't defeated, it just didn't pass, so this is a temporary victory.

Monsanto and its ilk will come back again … and again … and again until they get their bill.

Mexico City Marriage Equality

Same Sex marriage is now legal in Mexico City, but the bigoted "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) still stands in the US Senate.

Swine Flu Update

The caveat here is that the only country with enough cases for any real data is Mexico, and their public health system is awful, so the numbers are suspect, and there are a lot of untreated TB, asthma, and HIV, but it appears that most of the deaths so far have been young adults.

This may just be an artifact of the fact that Mexico is missing cases, etc., but it could point to an immune system response known as a Cytokine storm it was the reason that Spanish Influenza in 1918, and SARS more recently, disproportionately effected young adults.

Mexican Oil Industry Legislation Update

I think that it's fairly clear that the right wing PAN is attempting a back door privatization of Pemex, the state own oil producer, while the PRD sees any change as an theft from the Mexican people, and the PRI falls somewhere in between.

The problem is that Pemex has not been run well, and it is lacking resources as a result, so some sort of reform is necessary.

I still believe that purchasing the necessary expertise, as opposed to "risk sharing partnerships" that are a back door way of privatizing the system, are the way to go.

Mexican State Oil Company Threatens to Drill Outside of Mexico

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive: "Pemex May Drill Outside Mexico for First Time If Reforms Fail"

Pemex needs foreign help because it doesn't have the technology to drill in water deeper than 500 meters (1,640 feet), he said.

Pemex may need foreign help, but it does not need a partner.

It can buy that expertise without a foreign partner. Oil field services companies like Slumberger (disclosure) can do this on a fee for service basis.

And it turns out that their "threat" is to do a partnership with Petroleo Brasileiro, which has more deep water experience.

They are trying to get through with a bill that will allow "partnerships" that are ownership in everything but name, because someone gets the fat "commissions" for brokering the deals.

Mexico Revamps Justice System

Mexico has completely revamped its justice system, the high points are:

• The presumption of innocence (I guess they must have continued the Code Napoléon from their brief time as a French posession).
• Public trials.
• Allowing lawyers to argue orally before judges (it was all written briefs before).
• Improvements to the public defender system.
• Gives state and local police departments the power to investigate their own corruption, which had previously been an exclusively federal purview.

All in all, it looks like major improvements, though considering the starting point, this is not difficult.

I agree with the civil libertarians who are concerned about the 80 days detention without charge though.

This is Not About Oil Production, It Is About Privitization

I was wondering how long it would take, but the PAN and its ilk have been salivating at the possibility of privatizing Mexico's state owned oil industry for decades, and now they are trying to make public theft of state assets a reality.

State ownership of the oil industry is a core value of the Mexcan body politic, so much so that there is a national holiday to commemorate the nationalization of the industry. It is considered to be a pillar of national sovreignty.

The reason that PAN loves the idea of privatization is because it will provide the opportunity to generate huge salaries and consulting commissions to the pale skinned Mexican elites who went to university at places like Harvard and Brown.

The facts are simple:

• Mexican oil production is dropping.
• Mexican oil revenues are at an all time high because of high oil prices.
• It cost nothing to leave unexplored oil where it is right now.
• There is no need to rely on big oil for the technical expertise to get at that oil.

When the Oil industry downsized and consolidated in the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of petroleum engineers and the like were without jobs, and many of them found positions with the oil services industry, which now arguably more technically capable than the big oil.

If they want these fields developed, the Mexican government could contract with companies with Halliburton and Slumberger^*, and get the job done without signing over future earnings. What's more they would get more local employment out of it, because big oil tends to employ lots of expats to get the job done.

The claims that Pemex "lacks the money and expertise" to get this done are driven by a desire among Mexican conservatives to sell $100 of oil for $1 today, because them and theirs will get an additional 50¢ in sweetheart deals.

Pemex does have problems, but these can be fixed.

^*Full disclosure, one of my step mom's life long friends is one of those Slumbergers.