The FUTURE is here!

Well, it has been a while since I last posted. While I was going to let sleeping dogs lie and use my current geographical shift to depart from the debate surrounding Union Terrace Gardens, the dogs have woken up, and in a fit have turned around and bit the good people of Aberdeen, and indeed anyone with any aesthetic or cultural sense firmly in the ankles.

Yes, dear reader, the Future is here! After much speculation ACSEF's shortlisted designs have been announced and revealed and (while us poor proles are not allowed to view the public exhibition at the former Pier building on Belmont street until tomorrow) released online. Regular visitors to this blog will have been used to serious hyperlinkage and cross referencing and a little bit of expose into the machinations surrounding the project, this special edition blog post will be a little different. I'm just going to take a little time to publicize the designs and let everyone have a look.

Six architectural teams have been assembled to provide designs for Sir Ian Wood's City Square Garden Project - but the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Up until now noone, let along the scheme's backer's have been sure what the project is all about. It started out life as a "Cross between Central Park, and a Grand Italian Piazza" it turned into "five acres of Garden, if thats what you want."

All images borrowed from STV Local.

Team One have taken their inspiration directly from a spider's web - or from a doodle idly drawn on the corner of a notepad while on the phone to someone they didn't really want to talk to (ACSEF?).

On closer inspection the web-designs seem to constitute a series of raised walkways so you, too, can experience life in the pleasure domes from Logan's Run, or the Futuristic world from sci-fi documentary, The Jetsons.

Complete with travelators for traveling from the Denburn Car Park to the Trinty Centre Car park nestled helpfully underneath this meadow:

So if you see plumes of smoke - dont worry its not a brush fire! Its simply exhaust fumes, what more would you need from an inner-city-future-space-meadow. To top off the futuristic theme, the cherry on top of team one's design is this teleporation hub/gateway between dimensions:


In Team Two's aerial view they appear to have done nothing at all, however a giant transparent worm is in the middle of devouring the denburn dual carraigeway. (And there was much rejoicing)

Not even the cold weather of Aberdeen can deter this giant Glass beast as it ambles up to devour the unsuspecting Aberdonians milling around. Which they can do now that the worm has eaten the road and the railway.

 

Ok, its not that bad. The worm doesn't actually  devour the humans, It appears to simply wine and dine them. Like a giant larval bad date. 

Or it could be fattening them up - who's to say? These are only visualisations. The main problem I have with Team Two's designs are the inability to shake this comparison out of my head:

Team Three are most likely to be Sir Ian Wood's favourites. In that their designs are practically identical to those vomited onto paper by Haliday Fraser Munro for the 2009 Technical Appraisal:

Although it fails to bother cover up the road and the railway. But that will be forgiven given that the architects of Team Three prescribe to the same school of fantasy aboroculture as Sir Ian. The cross sections provided below show:

Can you see it?

How about now?

Team Four have provided designs for the UTG Commerative Plate.

Although viewed from serf-height, and not from the vantage point of the Hubble Telescope, it appears to be a Paddy Field, being worked by future children. Obviously the current financial climate and Economic situation has seen a reversal of lifestyles and fashions to a post-war situation:

You will notice in the mid-ground that there appears to be a family erecting a shanty-home. Obviously these are just renderings, as it is doubtful that a Hooverville would be permitted in the centre of town.

 They havent even bothered to finish that building.

Team 5's effort appears as though it is sponsored by a popular angular crisp brand. Although I dont wish to name the actual brand for fear they may sue for defamation at the remotest posibilty of being linked with the unpopular scheme:

"Is that really a flat, green triangle?" An online correspondent of mine asked upon viewing the above image. While obviously ACSEF will not have anyone mention the word "flat" anywhere near the project, (Use of the word "Flat" in beyond Holburn Street or south of King Street is rumoured to be prohibited in a local by-law) we have to give it local Guardians of Economic Future here, as this other image clarifies:

Yes. It is in fact an image of Nuclear Winter circa 2150 AD, as rendered by a re-animated J.M. Turner. Note the elderly couple from Raymond Brigg's When The Wind Blows, cowering in the foreground, and in the mid ground people in various stages of being vapourized.

Last and, by no certain means lest, Team Six appear to have done nothing at all to the gardens:

  

But have rather spent all their money on.....

wait for it....

THE MONOLITH!

You can imagine it now, projecting the eeiry high pitched whine, underpinned by a rough bass hum as it fires groups of birds at the Trinity Centre. It dwarfs Union Street, standing twice the size of Jamieson and Carry. Already it is rugged and moss-covered as though it has always been there, As it Should Have. On closer inspection it is giant sized Jenga, as scale of which only the Guardians of Economic Future themselves can play. In its rightful as the biggest thing in Aberdeen, nay The North East, nay Scotland it dwarfs even The King as he stands proud with his scepter and guilded Royal Football.

There you have it, the designs everyone has been waiting for. If you have to pick, I urge you to VOTE MONOLITH. However this is really because I didnt think there was a more rediculous concept than to pave over UTG and replace them with a car park/undergound arcade/street level piazza - and Team Six have completely proved me wrong.

Out of all of them the Fosters  Team Two design is probably the best out of the lot, despite looking not unlike these fellas, from 1973 Doctor Who episode The Green Death: (which is pretty apt...)

But the passable designs dont fullful the perameters of Sir Ian Wood, the minority stakeholder (Who's silence since the announcement has been deafening) and the real tragedy may already have happened: the loss of the most beautiful design for Union Terrace Gardens.

Use It Or Lose It

Following the demise of the Northern Light Contemporary Art Centre Scheme, spearheaded by Peacock Visual Arts, following the decision by Aberdeen City Council on May 19th to accept "in principle" an alternative scheme for Union Terrace Gardens there was a surplus of unused and somewhat unusable £9.5 Million. This at direct contrast with the scheme which had been amber-lighted, oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood's 'vision' for a five-acre, three story plaza to replace the Denburn Valley, which is short by at least £90 Million, ten times the money which had already been raised by the Peacock scheme.

In the months following the fateful council meeting the £9.5 Million which had been pledged to Peacock inevitably began to filter away. The £4.3 Million Scottish Arts Council grant was returned to new cultural body Creative Scotland and redistributed to other projects throughout Scotland. Aberdeen City Council held onto the £3 Million they had pledged, minus a small amount released to keep Peacock's campaign team running in the lead up to the Council Decision. However in the past week doubt has been shed on the future of the £2 Million pledged from Scottish Enterprise.

In January this year, the Press and Journal reported that Gordon McIntosh, director of enterprise, planning and infrastructure, claimed that the Scottish Enterprise grant had been prematurely withdrawn “The information that I was provided with last week was that the £1.6million was handed back last April,” adding that “The council was working under the assumption that the money was there when it wasn’t."

Gordon McIntosh: "£1.6 Million handed back last April"

However, Scottish Enterprise strongly refute these claims stating that "at no point did SE withdraw funding for the Contemporary Arts Centre in Aberdeen. Had the project gone ahead as planned and outlined in the legal agreement then SE would have honoured the funding agreement." This stance is backed up by documents provided by Scottish Enterprise detailing how the organisation had contacted Council Officers on three separate occasions towards the end of last year: September 15th, October 19th and November 19th in order to discuss options for alternative proposals to receive the remaining £1.6 Million of Scottish Enterprise money.

Two of the three documents provided by Scottish Enterprise clearly mention a March 2011 deadline for the re-allocation of the monies, while the third refers to identifying "alternative eligible projects which may meet SE's strategic objectives and conditions." The eligibility and strategic objectives and conditions relating to the grant were spelled out in a legal agreement between Scottish Enterprise and Aberdeen City Council dated 18th March 2009, which had been signed off by the city solicitor on 23rd March 2009, which also mentions a final deadline for allocation of monies by 31st March 2011.

The information provided clearly indicates that should the grant not be re-allocated then it would be returned to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities in April this year, not last year as Mr McIntosh suggested in January. While at face value, looking at the numerous documents it could appear that mr McIntosh's claims were the result of a simple mistake, that the council officer had simply gotten his dates wrong. It remains to be seen how a council executive with such a large responsibility to the city could make announcements based on a seemingly minor oversight - especially when receiving monthly correspondence from Scottish Enterprise regarding Aberdeen City Council's responsibility to spend the remaining money. It is reckless at best for a local authority with such major and widespread financial problems to simply lose over a million pounds of public funding.

Another interesting note is the apparent discrepancy between the £2 Million awarded from Scottish Enterprise to Aberdeen City Council and the £1.6 Million mentioned in the documents from Scottish Enterprise which was required to be re-allocated or returned. The original legal agreement between SE and ACC "envisaged that £300, 000 of the Contribution was to be advanced by 31st March 2009" in order to "contribute an equitable share towards the advanced design stage of the [Peacock] Project." To this end £226, 000 was awarded to Peacock for "Architect, Design and Project Management fees", but a further £190, 000 was taken from the £2 Million in order to fund the Haliday Fraser Munro technical appraisal into Sir Ian's "vision" on behalf of ACSEF.

While SE ensures that "had the Contemporary Arts Centre project gone ahead SE would have honoured the £2Million grant in line with the legal grant offer", their money was being used to back two conflicting proposals, and the money for both came from a grant offer made to one project which was already in advanced design stages and had received full planning permission. In addition to the £190, 000 used to fund the technical appraisal, the Press and Journal revealed this week that the council had "secured permission to use £375,000 of the grant funding for Sir Ian Wood’s city square scheme" meaning that, in total, £565, 000 of the Scottish Enterprise grant awarded for the Northern Light Centre has been spent on the scheme which caused its collapse. That's over a quarter of the original grant.

The technical appraisal brief states that "the commission must deliver a technical appraisal which will inform an outline cost appraisal for three main options to develop Union Terrace Gardens and the Denburn Valley." The appraisal was to be carried out under a particular framework:

The framework for the options appraisal will fall under the following 3 headings:

1. Full street level decking

2. Partial street level decking

3. Re-design of the existing site without any street level decking

The appraisal must take into account a currently proposed project, with planning consent, to and create a £13.5M Contemporary Arts Centre (3,000 m²) on the West Side of Union Terrace Gardens.

However the actual results of the technical appraisal pay lip service to the framework but adhere closely to Sir Ian Wood's personal vision for the space. While the Contemporary Art Centre is included as a must, it is only included on the West Side of Union Terrace Gardens in option 3, which is quickly and unceremoniously dismissed as it only "would create minor benefits for Aberdeen City and Shire." Option 2, while having the brief to look at partial decking, it is almost indiscernible from Option 1, and bypasses the instruction from the project brief of "incorporating elements from previously appraised/designed schemes where appropriate" and ignoring the Millennium Square scheme (pictured, right)which would fulfill most people's desire to cover the dual carraigeway and railway, leaving the gardens mostly intact. Option 2 inexplicably replicates the first option but only doesn't meet with Belmont Street on the western side.

The technical appraisal, while bringing the costs of the project in embarrassingly light, pushes for the first option - directly facilitating the abandonment of the designed and planned Contemporary Arts Centre for which the grant which paid for it was intended. An odd and consciously contradictory machination which is not wholly unexpected.

In the ten months since The City Square project gained approval in principle, other than a change of name to The City Garden Project, it has made very little progress. The project has as-yet failed to gain Sir Ian's promised £50 Million investment, even though he claims it is now written into his will, a project board has been set up but inexplicably excluding any architects, and the timetable for the scheme is already slipping further back.

Kevin Stewart: "Surprise." Photo: Evening Express

Speaking in Saturday's Press and Journal, ACC Depute Leader, Kevin Stewart, in the face of losing the remaining £1.2 Million defended the council's actions by claiming “The city council made strenuous efforts to retain the Scottish Enterprise money for cultural projects. In fact, we drew up seven separate proposals — each of them costed and each presented to Scottish Enterprise for consideration.


“We had every faith that the proposals we put forward were worthy of funding from Scottish Enterprise, met the appropriate criteria, and would have contributed to the cultural life of the city.”

However it is difficult to quantify exactly how "strenuous" these efforts were to draw up proposals for spending the remaining money when just over a month ago SNP Councillor Stewart, who is also convener of the council's finance committee expressed that "It comes as a surprise to me that this money was withdrawn long before we made decisions about Union Terrace Gardens." How could Aberdeen City Council be making strenuous efforts to retain money that apparently wasn't there?

The attempts made to steamroller through this mega-proposal are spreading their debris throughout the city council. It seems that in the haste to chase Sir Ian Wood's yet-to-be guaranteed money for a project which will see him as the shot-calling minority shareholder, due process is being cast aside and Aberdeen City Council are tying themselves up in knots over it. As the Union Terrace Gardens saga continues with breakneck twists and turns, game changing revelations and scant regard for what the general public want to see with this public development, even those who support and champion the development are becoming unsure of what stage the development is actually at. Only once the City Square has succeeded in its inevitable self-inflicted downfall will the true costs of the vainglorious project be apparent to the city of Aberdeen. We can only hope that by that point it is not too late to give Aberdeen the regeneration it deserves.

When The Levee Breaks

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”

George Orwell

Late last year, Julian Assange, Internet activist and editor-in-chief of online whistle-blowing site Wikileaks, was released on bail from the Royal Courts of Justice, albeit two days later than planned and with a number of restrictions which include "wearing an electronic tag, reporting to police every day, observing a curfew and residing at Mr [Vaughn] Smith's home." Assange has been effectively placed under house arrest at the home of Frontline Club founder Vaughn Smith in East Anglia under the conditions of his bail, which relate to his fight against extradition to Sweden where he faces sexual assault charges. The plot thickens and the overriding smell of mackerel rises as you take into consideration that in late August the arrest warrant served to Assange had been withdrawn and a statement from the Swedish Prosecutor's office saying that "It's not a serious enough crime" and the country's chief prosecutor Eva Finne stating "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape." Of the two separate accusations against Assange, the rape case had been dropped but Swedish authorities would continue to investigate accusations of Molestation, which is not a sex crime but apparently relates to Assange's reluctance to wear a condom during sex.

In September however, another Swedish prosecutor reopened the rape investigation and decided that the molestation charge "should be reclassified and investigated as a case of sexual coercion and sexual molestation." A wanted notice was served by Interpol, a warrant reached the UK by early December and Assange handed himself over to the police. To date he has been in courts in London three times since the warrant arrived on our shores, the first hearing saw him refused bail "because of the risk of the 39-year-old fleeing" and detained in solitary confinement in Wandsworth Prison, in the second bail was granted however it was reported that Assange will "will remain in prison pending an appeal against the bail decision lodged by Swedish prosecutors", the third hearing - held yesterday - Assange was released and granted bail pending a hearing in the new year with Judge Mr Justice Ousely stating that "The history of the way it [the case] has been dealt with by the Swedish prosecutors would give Mr Assange some basis that he might be acquitted following a trial." Following Assange's release the Guardian published the full allegations for which he was facing extradition.

The timing and confused handling of the accusations against Assange have raised numerous questions about their legitimacy. In July this year, a month before the sexual misconduct accusations, Wikileaks, released 92, 000 US logs from the War in Afghanistan, much to the chagrin of the American authorities with the White House quick to condemn the leak as they "could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security" and the Pentagon demanding "to have a conversation about how to get these perilous documents off the website as soon as possible, return them to their rightful owners and expunge them from their records." The current court proceedings and extradition attempts come contemporously with a new leak, that of over a quarter of a million classfied US diplomatic cables. Wikileaks, in alignment with newspapers including The Guardian, La Monde and The New York Times has begun publishing the documents which reveal sensitive and embarrassing insights into US foreign policy.

As with the Afghan releases, US government was quick to "condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorised disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information", however this time condemnation was brought down with added zeal. Congressman Peter King had asked "if the group could be classed as a terrorist organisation", Tom Flanegan, former advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister suggested that Barack Obama “put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something” on Assange, with Jeffrey Kuhner echoing this sentiment in a Washington Times Editorial, Mitch McConnel, Minority Leader in the Senate describing him as "a high-tech terrorist. He has done enormous damage to our country" being backed up by comments from Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich claiming "he should be treated as an enemy combatant." There have also been calls for the death penalty to be brought on Bradley Manning, the US Intelligence Analyst suspected of leaking the documents who is being held without charge in solitary confinement with reports of his mental and physical health declining in the process.

As Wikileaks continued to publish the cables, discontent continued to grow and attacks on the organisation also rose. Wikileaks domain name server at EveryDNS cancelled it's account, Amazon stopped hosting the wikileaks site on it's servers, Mastercard and Visa and Paypal cancelled transactions of funds donated to the organisation, with PayPal admitting that "On November 27th, the state department, the US government basically, wrote a letter saying that the WikiLeaks' activities were deemed illegal in the United States and as a result our policy group had to make the decision of suspending the account," and Swiss bank PostFinance "shut the accounts of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange."

A significant portion of the online community, represented by internet activists Anonymous, began fighting back launching DDOS (Distributed denial of service attacks) towards those inhibiting Wikileaks work, even going so far as to bring down the Mastercard Website as part of what they describe as Operation Payback. Outwith the digital realm the Icelandic Parliament have reacted to the actions of Visa and Mastercard and "have raised the possibility of taking away their operating licences", Moscow's Kremlin have suggested "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate" while Austrialia's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard's leadership of her Labour Party was threatened by her comments regarding Assange.

In January this year, Hillary Clinton wrote in The Guardian "defending online freedoms." In her article she discussed the apparent merits in the free and instant access to information that the internet provided, even describing how "During his visit to China in November, President Obama defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens hold their own governments accountable" going further to warn of the dangers of stifling that information, saying "technologies with the potential to open up access to government and promote transparency can also be hijacked by governments to crush dissent and deny human rights."

"As in the dictatorships of the past, governments are targeting independent thinkers who use these tools. We've seen reports that when Iranians living overseas posted online criticism of their nation's leaders, their family members in Iran were singled out for retribution. And despite an intense campaign of government intimidation, brave citizen journalists in Iran continue using technology to show the world and their fellow citizens what is happening inside their country."

When it emerged however that brave citizen journalists had used technology to show the world and their fellow citizens what was happening inside her country, Mrs Clinton was quick to join in the US' intense campaign of government intimidation. The Secretary of State described the disclosures as "not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests, it is an attack on the international community: the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity" and described how the American Government is "taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information."

In the digital age, information is the most powerful weapon anyone can wield. Rather than the Christian adage of ignorance being bliss, knowledge is power, and the pen is mightier than the sword - or rather the keyboard is mightier than the A-Bomb. Information is the weapon with the power to destroy entire governments but leave people and buildings intact.

Not that the notion of the power of information is anything new, the disclosures and investigation of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for The Washington Post into the Watergate Scandal was instrumental in bringing down the Nixon administration. The main difference is the ease and methods of dissemination of that information. Now you don't need to pass bulky documents around, photocopying or transcribing the contents, information can be passed from one person to hundreds of recipients at the click of a mouse, it can be posted as a status on Facebook or Twitter and be all the way around the world and back in an instant.

The above video was released by Wikileaks under the title "Collateral Murder" in April 2010. The video, leaked from within the US Military, allegedly from Bradley Manning, and shows footage from a US Apache helicopter engaging alleged 'insurgents' in a Baghdad street on 12th July 2007. The engagement left twelve people, including two Reuter's journalists, dead. The official line from the US Military described how "American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed." While Reuters requested more detailed information on the attack, and requested access to the in-flight video through the Freedom of Information Act, the requests were blocked by the Pentagon and it looked as though, as The Washington Post reported, it would remain "unclear whether the journalists had been killed by U.S. fire or by shooting from the Iraqis targeted by the Apache."

With the release of the leaked video, so too came the clarity. The journalists were not killed by Iraqi insurgents, in fact the video clearly shows that there was no fire in the area they were in, there was no small arms fire and although some of those gathered in the area were armed "the permission to engage was given before the word RPG was ever used," and not content with opening fire on the suspected insurgents, the helicopter returns to the scene and re-engages a wounded, unarmed journalist and the occupants of a van trying to help him.

As well as highlighting the true trigger-happy nature of US combat in Iraq, displaying the disturbing reality of warfare and the dangers for Journalists trying to report on the conflict, it also reveals that those perpetrating the crimes are well aware of what it is they are doing and do not want the general public to know. As Winston Churchill pointed out, "History is written by the victors," had the video not been leaked then the 'victors' of this particular skirmish would have been content to leave it "unclear whether the journalists had been killed by U.S. fire or by shooting from the Iraqis targeted by the Apache" and eventually the whole event would have been forgotten and the people killed simply added to the tally of Iraqi's killed during the conflict and the actions of the helicopter crew, clearly working against their own rules of engagement, would never be known.

The value of organisations like Wikileaks, investigative journalism in general, and the basic democratic right to freedom of speech are what keeps the world open, exposes those truths and information which governments do not trust their citizens with. The act of covering up war crimes, and writing and re-writing history pushes the 'civilised' nations of the West further into Orwellian dystopia. Wikileak's publishing of the Iraq and Afghan War Logs turned the spotlight on the two current perpetual wars, and the diplomatic cables that followed highlight a "sense of futility" regarding the Afghan war and the apparent ineffectiveness of the British military efforts. The US Defence Department responded to the leak of the logs with the claim that the release "could very well get our troops and those they are fighting with killed” however (in the video below), Republican Senator, Ron Paul asks the reasoned, legitimate question: "Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations."

Despite this, the US powers that be, such as Attorney General Eric Holder, rather than making a dignified apology and reassessing their foreign policy in the wake of the leaks, have stated that "We have a very serious, active, ongoing investigation that is criminal in nature. I authorized just last week a number of things to be done so that we can hopefully get to the bottom of this and hold people accountable, as they -- as they should be." Further to this as the Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives following the recent Mid Term elections, they reveal that they have "included WikiLeaks in a list of priorities for investigation."

Indeed the first move of this investigation was revealed when Twitter, having managed to overturn a gag order notified several users of the microblogging site, including Manning, Assange, US programmer Jacob Appelbaum, Dutch Hacker Rop Gonggrijp and Icelandic MP Brigitta Jonsdottir, that "the US government has subpoenaed the social networking site Twitter for personal details of people connected to Wikileaks," and "The US District Court in Virginia said it wanted information including user names, addresses, connection records, telephone numbers and payment details." While twitter was able to challenge the gag order placed on the legal action, it has been suggested that Google and Facebook may have been issued similar subpoenas but not challenged the gag order. Wikileaks lawyer, Mark Stephens has claimed that the court order not only covers the five specific accounts but also "600,000 odd followers that Wikileaks has on Twitter". Should this claim be true, and if Facebook is indeed facing a similar subpoena then one could assume that the court order extends to those accounts who have "liked" Wikileaks. At time of writing, Wikileaks has 1, 529, 442 fans on their Facebook page which could mean that the court order will obtain the usernames, passwords, IP Addresses, postal addresses telephone numbers and credit card details of around two million people.

America loves a witchhunt, be it looking for actual "witches", "communists", "terrorists", Taliban, Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Fidel Castro - now they have Julian Assange. In their haste to pin a conspiracy charge stick in order to prosecute him under the 1917 Espionage Act, US Senators, pundits, judges and lawyers are already running rough-shod over the supposedly sacred First Amendment and international human rights and privacy laws. The reality of the situation is that the curtain has already been pulled back, the truth is out in the open and no amount of denial is going to change that. Rather than chasing and punishing anyone related to the leak, threatening the future job prospects of University students, or forcing companies to strangle organisations dedicated to revealing war crimes or injustice perhaps it is time to look into the core values of democracy: transparency and openness. It is time to investigate what has gone so horribly wrong and the damage that this culture of secrecy and lies has done and will continue to do if left unchecked.

Should accountability and punishment lie with Wikileaks, Julian Assange, News Organisations or internet activists for making this information public, and not the system which has allowed thousands of civilian deaths to be covered up, forged war under false pretence and systematically mislead and lied to the people of the world then we will be heading down a very dark and precarious path.