Voting Rights
Dear Voters:
On Thursday, Mayor Fenty, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, and DCVote
held a joint press conference to promote “DC Voting Rights Now,” by
which they mean a floor vote for Delegate Norton in the House of
Representatives. There was some confusion at the press conference
between Delegate Norton and Mayor Fenty about the date on which they
wanted DC residents to demonstrate on Capitol Hill. Mayor Fenty was
promoting an Emancipation Day march on April 16, but Delegate Norton
said that the key period for Congressional action would be February and
March, so that the April 16 march would be too late to influence
Congress. So now there will be more emphasis on the Capitol Hill lobby
day scheduled for February 15, during which “volunteers will be
invited” to lobby members of Congress to give a floor vote to Delegate
Norton.
It is ironic that Fenty should make an issue of DC voting rights,
since he wants to deny District citizens the right to vote on his school
takeover plan. The takeover of the schools requires amending the Home
Rule Charter, the District’s equivalent of a state constitution. In
every state, amending the state’s constitution requires the consent of
the citizens and, because of the importance of the constitution,
amending it usually requires a supermajority vote. But Mayor Fenty wants
to avoid taking his Home Rule Charter amendment to the citizens for
approval. Instead, he wants Congress to impose his plan on the District.
Delegate Norton, although she wants DC citizens to rally to give her a
floor vote in Congress, won’t reciprocate by rallying behind our right
to a vote. Instead, she supports having Congress impose the school
takeover on DC. And Ilir Zherka, executive director of DCVote, said to
Dorothy after Thursday’s press conference that Fenty’s plan to
bypass the citizens’ right to vote on our own basic governing document
wasn’t an issue for DCVote, and he refused to criticize it.
So here’s my proposal. If you’re a real supporter of voting
rights for DC citizens — not just of Delegate Norton’s vote in the
House, but of our right as District citizens to govern ourselves —
volunteer to lobby Congress on February 15. Go to members of the House
of Representatives and their staffs, and tell them that they shouldn’t
meddle in our local government and that they shouldn’t usurp our right
to decide whether or not to amend the Home Rule Act, our own basic
constitution. Go to the Hill and demand that they support the right of
citizens of DC to vote on any amendment to the Home Rule Act. DCVote
will be organizing the February 15 lobbying day; to sign up for their
E-mail list, go to http://www.dcvote.org/email.cfm.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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When Mayor Fenty held his press conference on January 4 to announce
his plan to assume control over DC public schools, he also released the
text of a bill to effectuate the change (http://www.dcwatch.com/council17/17-001.htm).
Because many of the bill’s provisions would require a charter
amendment, the legislation provided in Section 1002 that, “Title II,
VII, and VIII of this act shall take effect as provided in section 303
of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. . . .” As I wrote in
themail on January 7, Section 303 states that the District’s Charter
may be “amended by an act passed by the Council and ratified by a
majority of the registered qualified electors of the District voting in
the referendum held for such ratification.” In the version of the bill
submitted to the council, in order to bypass the citizens’ right to
vote on any amendment of their Home Rule Act, Mayor Fenty changed the
Section 1002 to read, “Title II, VII, and VII of this act shall take
effect upon the enactment into law by the United States Congress.”
This change in the wording of the legislation confirms Fenty’s
intention to bypass the residents of the District of Columbia and the
requirements of our Home Rule Act, and to have Congress impose the
charter amendment on the citizens through its ultimate Constitutional
authority over the District. This confirms that Fenty’s rhetoric about
home rule, self-determination, voting rights, and budget autonomy for
the District is merely a cynical pose. Instead, he not only supports but
even invites and requests Congress to rule over the city and determine
both the form of our government and the officials whom we may be
permitted to elect.
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It’s All Politics
Jonetta Rose Barras, jrbarras.com
Before the DC Council’s Committee on Economic Development could
hold its first public hearing on legislation co-introduced by Ward 2’s
Jack Evans and At-Large member David Catania, which seeks to repeal the
law creating the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation (AWC) and the National
Capital Revitalization Corporation (NCRC); and before Mayor Adrian Fenty
could appoint a task force to review the two groups, members of the
boards of both entities appear to be revolting.
Some members of AWC’s board have endorsed the Evans-Catania repeal
law, arguing that the current director, Adrian Washington, is “in over
his head.” Over at the NCRC, Anthony Freeman, the organization’s
chief executive officer, is being pushed out. The board wants to replace
him with Therman A. Baker Jr., chief operating officer and general
counsel. The push to dump Freeman is being orchestrated by Jim Hudson,
vice president of the NCRC board. Hudson also was chairman of Fenty’s
mayoral campaign and co-chair of his transition team. Read more at
jrbarras.com.
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New York City 911 to Accept Images
Gabe Goldberg, gabe at gabegold dot com
New York City is planning to upgrade its 911 and 311 emergency and
non-emergency city services numbers to accept images sent from cell
phone cameras and the like (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/nyregion/18cameras.html).
It will be an interesting experiment.
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Another DC Scam
Ed T Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
After four and a half months I received the energy rebate for my
Energy Star appliance from the Department of . If you purchase a very
energy efficient furnace, air conditioner, refrigerator, etc., you can
get a rebate from the DC Energy Office if you fill out a lot of
paperwork and wait about four months [http://dceo.dc.gov/dceo/cwp/view,a,11,q,604012,dceoNav_GID,1897.asp].
My rebate came yesterday in the form of a Chase Bank cash card. Info
that comes with the card says take it to the nearest Chase Bank to get
the cash. The letter also says you can make a withdrawal from any ATM
machine. There is no Chase bank within thirty miles of Washington DC.
And I tried the card in three ATM machines in Spring Valley. None would
accept any transaction. Since it is a cash card, you can probably use it
to buy something at CVS, but I don’t spend $102 in a whole year at CVS
and I never spend $102 at any one time in any retail store these days.
Why can’t DC send a check for the rebate? They must have a checking
account. Do they give tax refunds the same way? This is really a scam,
since they hope that you’ll never use the card before it expires and
they then keep the rebate.
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Disenfranchisement of Wards 4 and 7
Ralph J. Chittams, Sr., Ward 7, chittams@sewkis.com
It is very interesting that Fenty is pushing for a march advocating
voting rights for the District of Columbia in Congress during the same
month that residents of Ward 4 and Ward 7 will not have voting
representation on the DC city council. If the city council under
Chairman Gray has its way, the council will vote on Fenty’s school
takeover plan in April, prior to the special election for Wards 4 and 7.
As a consequence, one of the most important pieces of legislation in
recent history is going to be voted upon and residents of Wards 4 and 7
will not be properly represented. But our mayor is going to pound the
drums for District voting rights in Congress when one fourth of DC
citizens will be disenfranchised during the school takeover vote. Can
you say incongruous! I know Gray and Kwame Brown both reside in Ward 7.
However, as chairman and an at-large member, respectively, they
represent the entire city, not Ward 7. When this legislation hits the
table, Wards 4 and 7 will have no one there to speak on our behalf. Isn’t
democracy in DC wonderful?
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Reform and Where You Send Your Kids to School
Susan Punnett, cpunnett@aol.com
I assume that Katie Hodge [themail, January 17] does not have
children of her own or, if she does, she has simply written off the
public schools without taking the time to visit and learn about them. To
say that sending one’s child to a DC public school is putting them
“in harm’s way” or “sacrificing [their] needs” is insulting to
all of us who have chosen to send out children to public schools and
especially those who have and are working to make them better. It is
equally insulting to those students who are working hard and achieving.
Yes, there are lots of problems in the school system. But there are also
incredible teachers, excellent programs, and plenty of children who are
learning and thriving.
I am the mother of two DCPS students (K to 12 and pre-K to 12) and
School Without Walls graduates; one is now a senior at Wesleyan
University and the other a freshman at Loyola University, New Orleans. I
am troubled by politicians (especially those who run for the Board of
Education) who choose not to send their children to public school. One
result — a lack of understanding of what the real problems are and
what it will take to make all schools better — is all too apparent in
the lack of real substance in Mayor Fenty’s proposal.
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Most firefighters live in the suburbs and commute to work in
Washington. They work a 24-hour shift every four days. I have no problem
necessarily in providing accommodations to firefighters, but there needs
to be a focus on what the problem is: 1) their driving 2) to work 3) in
the city 4) mostly from the suburbs, 5) then needing a place to park 6)
for twenty-four hours. Why should their living far out of the city being
subsidized by providing special parking privileges? (And for many
firefighters this isn’t an issue of living out of the city because of
the cost of housing inside the city. People choose to live farther out
because their work schedule accommodates it. I know of firefighters who
live way out in Maryland and even West Virginia.)
This is an example of how DC government agencies should be required
to perform transportation demand management planning first and as a
matter of course. Perhaps the accommodation offered by Councilmembers
Brown and Cheh, as discussed in the Washington Times article,
makes sense. But how can we know when no other options are presented?
But you know the saying “shoot first, ask questions later”? Too
often that’s how we do legislation in the city! Write the legislation,
don’t ask any questions. By the time hearings come around, it’s
usually too late to change much. Maybe ask questions then.
With this legislation, transit advocates will be gun shy about
testifying against it, because it’s a matter of assisting "first
responders." Note that I had the same reaction when it was proposed
in Columbia Heights that teachers have a similar kind of parking
privilege. (Why should driving always be subsidized?) First discourage
driving and provide other options. Then consider special accommodations,
but make them pay for it. I’m willing to testify on this one. At best
sixty feet will accommodate four cars or 3.5 SUVs. Of course, this is a
losing argument. The firefighters union is a big supporter of winning
council candidates. Among the ways in which they supporting candidates
(in addition to donations), they provide bagged lunches to campaign
workers of various (anointed) campaigns on election days.
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Residential Parking Permits
Ruth Holder, rutheholder at yahoo dot com
As Jack McKay’s message [themail, January 17] indicates, those who
live on a block zoned for Residential Permit Parking have yet another
advantage over those of us who live on a block that provides a service
to our neighborhood by allowing shoppers, contractors, babysitters, and
other visitors to park there. If you have an RPP, you can park anywhere
in your ward, unlike those of us who are ineligible for RPPs because we
happen to live on the one block in the area that is not RPP zoned. And
now we learn that if you live on a block zoned for RPPs you can also
park fifteen feet closer to the curb than the rest of us. If you live on
a block that is not zoned RPP, then your neighborhood is defined as one
block long instead of one large ward. That, to me, is the real
discrimination of our RPP system.
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Council Ponders Reserved Parking for
Firefighters
Clyde E. Howard, Jr., clydeejr@yahoo.com
It would seem that if our city council weren’t so caught up in
trying to bring money into the city via condos and other economic
ventures, such as baseball, they could make life easier for the
residents and workers of this city by building public parking garages.
Then they would not be so eager to take valuable curb space from the
residents to give freely to nonresidents, ZipCar, and others. If
Montgomery County can build public parking garages in Bethesda and
disguise them so that they are not so intrusive and place parking meters
in them to pay for the space, why can’t our officials do the same
thing? Or are they so caught up by the parking conglomerates who will
scream bloody murder and the need to change the tax base that they think
the residents who have stayed in this city rather than moving to the
burbs are insignificant and a needless blob of humanity upon the
landscape of this city?
The thought process has not changed with the installation of new
members on the council. They are still of the opinion that the residents
of this city do not require any consideration in their wild and crazy
schemes that defy logic and intelligence. Residents who pay taxes in
this city are entitled to certain rights and privileges. Having our curb
spaces taken away from us only puts each resident in the position of
having to avoid tickets, simply because an inconsiderate city council
has no respect for residents of this city.
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If Not a Limo, How About a Taxi?
Bill Coe, bceedeec@aol.com
Mary C. Williams (“Let Them Take a Limo,” themail, January 17)
offers an absurd reading of a perfectly sensible measure in order to
generate opposition. Her argument against a parking consideration for
firefighters rests on the supposition that all duties in all public jobs
are equally important, which is simply not true and never has been. When
weather emergencies or other crises arise, for example, most public
employees are advised to stay home, while "critical" workers
are required to report. These include, at a minimum, firefighters and
police officers. The reason for this should go without saying, but
Councilmember Cheh does explain (for those who can’t see the obvious)
that cops and firemen do indeed protect us!
No one is saying public workers don’t all perform important
functions. However, I’m not going to lose any sleep if a housing
inspector or a sanitation collector or a clerk at DMV skips a day or
shows up late for work because of a transit breakdown. Their absence now
and then is inconvenient but not crucial to my safety and well-being. By
contrast, I will tolerate special considerations or outlays on behalf of
commuting firefighters and police officers who have to be on time ready
to go every single day. When I need one of those guys, I need them right
now, and nothing else will do! (Parents might reasonably make the same
argument for teachers, to whose custody they entrust their children on
schooldays.)
What I would propose, no doubt to Ms. Williams’s dismay, is that
certain public employees deemed critical by virtue of their missions be
allowed to park at or near their workplaces. They could also be
encouraged to use public transit by giving them free Metro fare cards
and bus passes. They could even submit taxi vouchers for reimbursement,
if all else fails on their way to work. I believe this practice is used
in various forms by other cities around the country. The point is that
somehow those particular workers have to get there every day, good times
or bad, and we should help them do it.
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It’s nice that DC drivers respect bicycle lanes, but some overdo
it, apparently thinking that they are absolutely prohibited from ever
entering a bike lane. On Tilden approaching Connecticut Avenue, for
example, one sees many drivers unable to reach the intersection for a
right-on-red. They have space to get by the cars stopped for the red
light, but are afraid to trespass on that bike lane. If you use the bike
lane to slip by these waiting cars and do the ROR, drivers honk angrily
at your supposed violation.
Here’s a fact: cars in DC are allowed to use a bike lane to make a
right turn. DC Municipal Regulations Title 18, 2220.2: “During
restricted hours, any vehicle may enter a restricted right curb lane
solely for the purposes of taking on or discharging passengers, or to
make a right turn where a right turn is not otherwise prohibited by any
official traffic control device.” This is allowed “only within the
same block as the right turn" (2220.3), and vehicles are prohibited
from "continuing through an intersection in a Restricted Lane”
(2220.4).
The painted lines denoting bike lanes are supposed to be broken lines
for fifty feet approaching the intersection, to indicate that cars may
cross them and enter the lane to make turns, but they’re not. Jim
Sebastian, the DDOT bicycling authority, agrees that this is so, and has
said that he would “check on Tilden to see what went wrong” (E-mail,
September 25, 2006). What happens if you’re in that bike lane, waiting
for a chance to make the right turn, and a bike comes up behind you?
Well, he’s supposed to stop and wait for the light too. Fat chance on
that, of course.
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If I had it my way, those in this country illegally would be given
ninety days to attend to their affairs and leave voluntarily and still
retain the right to apply through the proper channels for reentry.
Anyone found in this country illegally after the ninety-day grace period
would be arrested, deported, and lose the opportunity to return. For me,
this isn’t an issue of race — illegal immigration is a threat to our
national security and economy.
Let’s use the District of Columbia as an example. Who do you think
did the landscaping, the housekeeping, cooking and dish washing in the
hotels and restaurants, manned the parking garages, drove the cabs,
worked the street crews, and were the maids, nannies, and chauffeurs for
the rich twenty years ago? Black folks. What happened to that sector of
the labor force? They have been priced out. Whether we want to admit it
or not, this society has become addicted to cheap illegal labor. Take a
look around now at who’s managing our parking garages, driving our
taxicabs, operating local take-out joints and dry cleaners, as well as
all of the lower-level labor and service industry jobs. Don’t even
attempt to tell me that all these good people applied for and received
visas to come to our city to join the unskilled labor pool; it simply
would never happen. So what does this influx of foreign labor leave for
the native-born, unskilled Washingtonian? Let’s see, there is
record-level, double-digit unemployment figures in most of our urban
areas, which directly contributes to broken families, depression,
alcohol abuse and drug addiction, increased crime, and recidivism which
all feeds one of the nation’s fastest growing industries . . .
prisons.
This cycle of addiction began in our economy with the enslavement of
Africans; so this is just the twenty-first century’s version of
government-sanctioned exploitation. How else do you explain these
day-laborer centers popping up all over? Illegal immigrants cannot go to
the unemployment office like a legal citizen, so instead of our
government arresting them for breaking our immigration laws and
deporting them back to their respective countries of origin, they build
day-laborer centers for them to organize and to price out the local
labor force. I don’t think many of us would have a problem with the
seasonal provisionally documented migrant farm worker coming to our
country to work in the agricultural industry. But that’s not what’s
happening here in the District. These illegal immigrants are taking jobs
our citizens not only will do, and want to do, but also have done for
generations. You cannot tell me in this information/terrorism age that
our government doesn’t know that fake documents are being used to
procure labor and which companies are willfully breaking the law. This
means that there has to be collusion from the top down.
That brings me to an errand I ran recently to my Brightwood
neighborhood Post Office on Georgia Avenue, NW, where I just happened to
notice that a couple of things had changed in the last year or so since
I’d been there. They now have a special desk by the door to process US
passport applications. I’d seen these special counters before, but
never this far uptown. Then I noticed something else -- the number of
Latinos standing in line with documents to get a US passport. This in
and of itself didn’t seem that unusual, given the recent Department of
State passport requirement for travelers, except for the fact that they
could barely speak English. When it was my turn to be served, I asked
the customer service agent, “Are all of these folks here for US
passports?” and she sheepishly replied while nodding her head, “It’s
like this all the time.” Then I asked, “Do they have to show
something to prove that they’re US citizens?” and she said, “Yeah,
they have documents.” Then I asked, “How do you know they’re not
showing you fake docs?” She stopped what she was doing, looked up at
me, turned her gaze to the line of folks we were discussing, and spoke
under her breath, “We don’t know. We just take what they give us.”
I left there thinking shouldn’t lacking the ability to communicate in
our language alone set off a couple of alarms? It’s especially scary
when you think about the recent incident at the Marine Corps military
base in Quantico, VA, where a concrete contractor brought illegal
immigrants using fraudulent documents onto the installation. Since when
did Americans turn their noses up at concrete work?
This is how our addiction manifests itself: illegal immigrants armed
with fraudulent documents get not only US passports, but also the
skilled and unskilled labor jobs for less money. Business owners are
happy because not only do they avoid dealing with unionized employees,
but they also reap increased profits. Lobbyists who curry political
favor further taint this convoluted profit-driven relationship by
influencing politicians to ignore legislating stricter immigration laws
as it pertains to citizenship, and providing oversight to those federal
agencies tasked with enforcing current laws that enable them to protect
our ports and borders. Meanwhile, politicians continue to turn a blind
eye and businesses enjoy record profits . . . a literal win-win.
However, in the long term, while these fat cats are smoking stogies and
bragging about net windfalls, the old Trojan horse full of illegal
immigrants is left unchecked. They have children and start to seek the
same local government social services provided to our citizens, i.e.,
health care, housing, and education. Then this second generation, not
wanting the same life that their parents had, begin to demand their
inalienable rights as Americans. They can do this because those same
well-financed politicians failed to address that convenient loophole
that grants anchor babies citizenship by merely being born in our
country, regardless of their parents’ immigration status. This glaring
weakness has allowed them to grow and become positioned as the next
powerful voting block. This may border on xenophobia, but as long as
Washingtonians are being negatively impacted, we cannot allow this to
continue. Charity must begin at home. Besides, do you think for one
moment that we could go into any of their native countries and make the
same demands for rights and liberties that this illegal immigrant
population make here daily? Our unskilled immigration policy should
read: One adult allowed per seasonal permit to work in the agricultural
industry.
I’ve often thought that the District of Columbia needed other
industries to provide jobs for the local unskilled labor force; but then
I started to think, what if all the illegal immigrants who brazenly
congregate at these day-laborer centers, area convenience stores, and
Ward 5’s Home Depot parking lots, who work in our downtown hotels,
restaurants, and construction sites were removed from the equation. How
would that affect our local job market and quality of life? The answer
is simple; there would be a significant reduction in the unemployment
rate in the District. Citizens who wanted a job would have one.
Employers would be incentivized to hire the District’s unskilled
residents and to pay a living wage. Supporters of this illegal work
force will argue all the benefits and dire warnings of economic collapse
if they were to be removed; but I say, where are the studies on our
citizens who have dropped off the unemployment rolls and have somehow
fallen through the cracks? How do they factor into this debate? I firmly
believe that most drug addicts get strung out because they lack hope.
Imagine what would happen if help wanted signs flew up all over the
city, and the only qualification you needed for unskilled labor jobs was
the sincere desire to work. Just imagine how many social problems that
would cure overnight. The time has come for a new breed of politician
who understands the value of and the requirement to invest in our human
capital. It’s time to enact laws that severely penalize employers and
landlords who knowingly utilize this illegal labor pool and rent to
them. This action would send a resounding message that the citizens of
the District demand their jobs, affordable housing, healthcare centers
and their schools back. It’s time to remove our blinders and recognize
the hunger and homelessness in our communities, and the negative effects
this addiction to illegal labor has had on every American institution.
We can no longer posture ourselves as the world’s keeper by providing
unchecked services to an illegal immigrant population while we ignore
the growing third-world condition of our own citizens. This message must
be sent from the local level: if Congress won’t put the interests of
Washingtonians first, our local leaders must.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
UDC Hosts Future City Competition, January 19
Michael Andrews, mandrews@udc.edu
Students design Future Cities first on computers, create large, 3-D
tabletop models, and present and defend their cities to judges at the
competition. The models are dazzling and colorful, constructed from
recycled materials and built for less than $100. This year’s essay
theme -- how to use fuel cell systems to power a modern metropolis —
is a challenge to develop new ways to create efficient, pollution-free
cities of the future. Students are taking a hard look at the future and
the result is a determination to make it better. One of the most
successful nationwide education programs: 30,000 students from 1,100
schools. The first place team wins all-expense paid trip to Washington,
DC, to compete against middle schools from thirty-four other regions at
Future City National Finals, February 19-21, during Engineers Week.
The local competition will take place on Saturday, January 20.
Preliminary judging, 9:00-11:30 a.m.; finals judging, 1:00-2:30 p.m.;
winner announced approximately 2:45 p.m. At the University of the
District of Columbia, Van Ness Campus, UDC Firebird Inn, Building 38,
B-Level, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW.
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Home Healthcare Seminar, January 27
India Young, india.young@dc.gov
Saturday, January 27, 1:30 p.m., Francis A. Gregory Neighborhood
Library, 3660 Alabama Avenue, SE. Vicki Stewart Callaghan, RN, will
present a seminar on home healthcare. For more information, call
645-4426.
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Fashion Show and Book Talk, February 3
Beth Meyer, Cleveland Park Branch Library, lmeyer8090@aol.com
You are invited to a free informal fashion show and book talk
presented by Rosemary E. Reed Miller, owner of Toast and Strawberries
and author of The Threads of Time: The Fabric of History — Profiles
of African American Dressmakers and Designers 1850 to the Present
from 2 - 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 3, in the first floor auditorium
of the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library, 3310 Connecticut Avenue, NW.
A book sale and signing will follow the program. Refreshments will be
served. Free, no reservations required. Call 282-3080 for more
information.
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