On The A-Team Blog, Timbo and I have had an ongoing conversation about gender and whether it is a cultural creation or if it is something deeper.
Timbo asked me this question:
I don’t think gender is inherently relational (though I do think that gender is inherently potentially relational). My thought-experiment was not intended to imply Adam, but was an attempt to look at the concept of gender without interference from anything non-essential to it. If there had only ever been one male, would he be gendered?
I would like to respond here on my blog.
Here is where Timbo and I are going to split as I do see being in relationship as essential to being a person and I will explain this point below. I’m comfortable saying that gender as an aspect of being human is relational. The question about someone being gendered apart from relationship is a hypothetical one that I cannot see happening. (That last sentence may come off as being dismissive of Timbo’s question, but please know that certainly is not my intention.) I suppose I have been influenced by what I understand of John Zizioulas’ theology that holds that communion is not an addition to being, but an ontological category in and of itself. Zizioulas has built off the Cappodocian fathers. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen summarizes Zizioulas’ theology in An Introduction to Ecclesiology (2002):
There is no true being without communion; nothing exists as an “individual” in itself. Communion is an ontological category; even God exists in communion….Being in communion does not, however, mean downplaying the distinctive personhood of each individual. “The person cannot exist without communion; but every form of communion which denies or suppresses the person is inadmissable. (93-94)
My point in quoting the above is this: if personhood and being means being in communion (with God and with others), those aspects of our identities such as gender would be rooted in our being in communion and thus be relational categories. Just as Zizioulas would know of no person not in some form of communion, I know of no male or female not in relationship with others. Now I don’t know if Zizioulas would take the turn I have with regard to gender; I am merely using him as my starting point.
That is a long response as to why my understanding of personhood and gender cannot adequately answer the question Timbo posed above. Not only has the idea of an individual person existing completely in isolation never been an historical reality, it is in my understanding an impossibility philosophically since I hold that being a person means being in community. Community is not interference to the person, but the essence of being human. All aspects of being human will be grounded in the notion of being in communion. I may have taken us down another rabbit-trail with this post, but I hope it clarifies my position on how I view persons.
Excellent post, Tyler. I appreciate this introduction to Zizioulas. In the last few years, community has become a more and more important part of my anthropology.
Comment by Bill Ekhardt — March 27, 2006 @ 10:13 am
Makes sense to me, and so far as I’ve followed the discussion, I think I’d come down on this side as well. I just don’t understand what an individual prior to anything in existence would look like (plus it’s too Rawlsian for my taste, but that’s another rabbit hole).
Comment by Micah — March 27, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
The question about the individual existing alone is a thought experiment which demonstrates that community is not essential to personhood or gender. An individual existing alone on a deserted island (remember, this is an abstract, hypothetical, thought experiment; questions about historicity are irrelevant) would be what if not a person? On your view, Tom Hanks was not a person when he was on the island (the volleyball doesn’t count). While community may be essential to our development as human beings, it is not essential to the concept of being human, for we can make sense of what it is for an individual to be a human even in the absence of community.
Comment by Timbo — March 27, 2006 @ 6:54 pm
A finally a real disagreement. I find such hypotheticals extremely suspect. The more we have to abstract from reality to make a point the more unpersuaded I am. Non sequitor about Tom Hanks. There has never been, nor could be, a person who is not in relationship (given that God is relational).
Comment by Micah — March 28, 2006 @ 5:53 am
“There has never been, nor could be, a person who is not in relationship (given that God is relational).”
While I agree that there has never been (=historical reality) a person not in relationship (given God’s existence), it does not follow from this that there could not be (=a contradiction) a person who was not in (in the abstract) a relationship. To say that there are two mountains is necessarily to say that there is a valley between them; in other words, two mountains that don’t have a valley is a logical contradiction in terms. There is no such contradiction in saying that a person exists without being in a relationship. Thus, relationship is not a necessary part of being a person, for if it were, there would be a contradiction.
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 6:36 am
I disagree with this premise, Tim. There is no possibility for a human being to have no relationship with someone. If not a present relationship, then at least a relationship of memory or speculation. The only possible way that you create such a scenario is to isolate someone from any interaction or knowledge of human beings from their birth.
The resultant “human being” would be so different from anything that you have experienced as to be shocking, and difficult to use for a test case even in a thought experiment.
If you were to insist on going further with this test subject, I would then begin to wonder whether this subject would not at least postulate the existence of God, or some supernatural force with which it was interacting.
We are relational beings. Without any form of relationship or relational interaction from the moment of our birth, we would be horribly wounded and scarred. This scarring would point to the relationship longed for, or deprived of. We would infact have a relationship with the longed for object, that which is not.
Comment by Bill Ekhardt — March 28, 2006 @ 7:10 am
Let me ask a question for clarification: Are we or are we not discussing the concept of personhood? The reason I ask this is because every response thus far makes reference to what is the case, while I am discussing what could have been the case. I am discussing abstract concepts and the responses are saying, “Well, that doesn’t happen” even though I am not saying that it does!
Bill wrote: “There is no possibility for a human being to have no relationship with someone.”
If there had only ever been one human being (and nothing else), that human being would not have a relationship with someone else, yet would still be considered a human being. Questions about whether or not we could create such a scenario are irrelevant to the points I am trying to make, which are about our concepts.
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 8:18 am
Timbo, I appreciate your clarification in the final paragraph. It is one thing to argue any hypothetical possibility, and another to have that possibility rooted in some kind of probable reality. Your hypoethetical example is improbable and thus limited in its utility. Does “nothing else” mean that God doesn’t exist either? If that is so, then how could that human be made in God’s image? Wouldn’t such an example completely throw a wrench into the Christian idea of what it means to be a human? If you want to argue about personhood without God’s existence, then my argument from theology will not work since it presupposes God’s existence and interaction with humanity. Under my presuppositions, a human being could not exist without relationship because of God’s relationality.
The idea of being in communion that I argued for in my post is not limited to human relationships, but includes being in communion with God, which is what Micah said above. Sorry to repeat old arguments.
Comment by Tyler Watson — March 28, 2006 @ 8:48 am
I hope I don’t come across as piling on. I’m not sure I udnerstand what it means to discuss the concept of personhood or persons abstracted from reality. My concept of personhood is a being made in God’s image. The imago dei is the central defining aspect of personhood, in my understanding. So I think the reality and the concept are related. I cannot understand what a person is apart from some sort of relationality.
Would it be possible for there to be a non-relational person? I don’t think so, but this may be because relationality is built into the definition of person as I understand it.
I honestly may be missing something, or there may be a disciplinary talking-past-each-other dynamic going on. But for me to think of a person without relationship (and thus without imago dei) is like thinking of a mountain without elevation. There’s more to mountains than elevation, and there’s more to persons than relationship, but both the reality and the abstract concept of mountains and persons need elevation and relationship, respectively.
Comment by Micah — March 28, 2006 @ 9:51 am
“Your hypoethetical example is improbable and thus limited in its utility.”
Indeed, but the very fact that it is metaphysically possible for a person to not be in a relationship entails that being in a relationship is not an essential feature of personhood. If A is essential to B, then B cannot exist without A. Conversely, if B can exist without A, then A is not essential to B, even if A gives B more utility in the actual world. My point is that being in a relationship is not essential to being human or a person (although I would be inclined to say that having the capacity or potential to relate is essential to personhood). Whether or not this throws a wrench into the Christian idea of being human is beside the point, for in that case we are combining various concepts (e.g., God, personhood, humanity, etc.), not analyzing the essence of one particular concept, which is what I was getting at by using a thought experiment to get to the essence of personhood.
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 9:57 am
“I don’t think so, but this may be because relationality is built into the definition of person as I understand it.”
What do you mean by relationality? Is this being a relationship, or being able to be in a relationship? If the latter, then I think we agree!
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 10:01 am
“I don’t think so, but this may be because relationality is built into the definition of person as I understand it.”
What do you mean by relationality? Is this being a relationship, or being able to be in a relationship? If the latter, then I think we agree!
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 10:02 am
“I don’t think so, but this may be because relationality is built into the definition of person as I understand it.”
What do you mean by relationality? Is this being a relationship, or being able to be in a relationship? If the latter, then I think we agree!
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 10:02 am
This is my second try, my first got inexplicably erased by the devil in my keyboard.
I think, Tim, that you’re pressing the very point that it is contention. I don’t think it is a fact that a non-relational person is metaphysically possible, nor do I (yet?) understand how your thought experiment revealed to us the essential qualities of personhood.
Imagining a solitary male (wee wee intact) does little for me. Is the entity a person? Well, that depends on how one defines personhood. I think imago dei is the central essence of personhood, ergo thinking about a male apart from God doesn’t lead me to accepting that entity as a person. I don’t even know what it is I’m imagining.
Nor does the thought experiment, so far as I can yet tell, say anything positive about what IS essential to a person. Would you be able to help me out on what you think is essential to the concept given your thought experiment?
As for your last three questions (a hint of God’s relationality through the Trinity?
), I cannot concieve of a person that is not in relationship. Obviously that means I must also think, as you do, that a person by definition is capable of relationship, but as God always exists, and I cannot see how hypothesizing His non-existence doesn’t also pull the rug out of anything else existing, I do think the concept of person requires being in relationship; it’s just an essential part of what a person is.
It may be we just have a different conception of what “person” means. But I’m still unclear as to what your conception is, or what a person without imago dei would look like (again, I just don’t accept the fact of that a non-relational person is conceivable).
Comment by Micah — March 28, 2006 @ 12:42 pm
Tim, you seem to have completely disregarded my points so I will try to make them again.
In this thought experiment, if there were only one human being, I posit that this human being would not only have the capacity for relationship but would both be in relationship to the longed for absent partner, and create an image of a supernatural force to relate to.
Though a human being exist without being in a relationship, it can not exist from birth without relational interaction without both being desperately devastated, and creating a relationship with some outside being, postulated or real.
If you want to talk only in sin-qa-non language, a being that does not engage its reality relationally in some fashion is not a human being.
Comment by Bill Ekhardt — March 28, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
Bill, the reason I disregarded your points is because they are irrelevant to the point I am still trying to make, which is not getting across. You seem to concede this point when you say, “Though a human being exist without being in a relationship. . . .” There is a lot you said that I agree with in fact (e.g., that humans cannot exist from birth without relational interaction without being terribly affected by a lack of interaction), but I am not speaking about matters of fact; I am speaking about the concept of being a person. The way Tyler and Micah appear to be putting it, the concept of person necessarily entails there being more than one (which I’m disputing) and the way Bill has put it, “a being that does not engage its reality relationally in some fashion is not a human being,” in which case the relationship in question need not be to a person (and I would be more inclined to consider this position). Yet as Micah noted, there appears to be a “disciplinary talking-past-each-other dynamic” going on, so I’m not sure what else I can add to this that I haven’t already said.
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 3:33 pm
In print this sounds snippy, but isn’t meant to be. You could answer my question of what you do think the essence of a person is.
Or, another way to put it might be like this. Take entity “Thing”. I, and it seems Tyler and I think Bill, think that Thing has to have property “A” by definition.
Your response seems to be, “No, because we can do a thought experiment where Thing does not have property A, thus A is not essential to Thing.”
Which seems to me to just be a restatement of the disagreement, b/c so far no one else can conceive of what a person would be without relationship (maybe Bill can given what you quoted him saying), and you haven’t yet articulated in a positive sense what your conception of a person actually is (you’ve put forth your hypothetical to say what it is not).
Comment by Micah — March 28, 2006 @ 3:57 pm
(oddly enough in political theory terms Bill, Tyler and I are taking the Aristotelian view that man by definition is a social being, anyone without relationship is a God or a beast, Aristotle said. Tim’s defending the Kantian view of the self, radically autonomous and possible to define purely on its own)
Comment by Micah — March 28, 2006 @ 4:00 pm
I said before that I think that the essence of personhood includes the capacity or potential to be relational. I also think that persons must actualize this potentiality in order to flourish. This would put me in Aristotelian waters, not Kantian. Thus, I am not saying that it is good for persons to be radically autonomous, only that it is possible. Tyler said that “being a person means being in community.” A corrolary of this would be that not being in community means not being a person, and to dispute this all I have to do is come up with one instance of an individual being a person yet not being in community to demonstrate that the two are not identical. So, yes, while the three of you seem to think that Thing has A by definition, my response is that I can think of an instance where Thing does not have A. Your responses have been that Thing does have A, for every “thing” that we know of has A. But this misses the distinction between Thing and things, which suggests that our differences are more fundamental. My position takes a realist view of Thing, whereas your positions seem to take a nominalist view of things. So I don’t know if our differences on this can be resolved. I am reluctant to try, though, given the extent to which my position has not been understood thus far.
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 5:50 pm
You still do not seem to understand my position, so I will say it more explicitly yet. A human being will be in relationship, if not with people, then with figments of its imagination. In the absence of people, it will create beings that do not exist to relate to. I state firmly that this IS A RELATIONSHIP, though a desperately impoverished one. The human being does not exist without at the very least these imaginary relationships. If there is such a being that does not relate to anything, it is not a human being.
Now, the fact that there is no such possible case outside of your contrived thought experiment, where there would be no beings, God or human, to be in relationship with makes this experiment almost unworthy of discussion. But even still, I refute your argument that a person could exist without being in some form of relationship. In the absence of present humans, it would relate to humans of memory and to God, and if it knew not those, it would create imaginary beings to relate to.
Relational community is not just a possiblity, but it is a necessity. We who are human beings will be in a relationship with other humans, with God, or we will create beings of fantasy to relate to. We will not continue to be human AND not be in a relationship.
Comment by Bill Ekhardt — March 28, 2006 @ 6:14 pm
I’m going to call it a night on this debate. Fortunately, I can’t think of a single real-life difference either of our positions would make.
Comment by Micah — March 28, 2006 @ 6:24 pm
Bill, I agree with 95% of what you said! But in order for an impoverished human (with no other persons to relate to) to “create beings of fantasy to relate to,” there must be a point before these created beings of fantasy in which the impoverished human (with no other persons to relate to) had no persons to relate to. You assume this when you say that “We will not continue to be human AND not be in a relationship.” As far as this statement goes, I quite agree! But if it is possible for impoverished human to not be in a relationship, which your statement about not continuing this way implies, then the metaphysical link between personhood and relationship cannot be one of necessity. Although you use necessity when you state that “Relational community is not just a possiblity, but it is a necessity,” my immediate response is to ask what kind of necessity? Is it a necessity for something, such as growth and flourishing? If so, then I quite agree! But if you mean that it is a metaphysical necessity, then your other statements contradict this, for they assume the possibility that impoverished human boy could be in a state without relationship, even if he doesn’t continue in such a state when he creates a fantasy world to relate to. This at most implies a psychological need, not the metaphyiscal necessity which I have been talking about. As I write this, perhaps this is where we have missed eachother’s points. I have been discussing metaphysical necessity, not psychological needs.
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 7:00 pm
Micah, you said, “I’m going to call it a night on this debate. Fortunately, I can’t think of a single real-life difference either of our positions would make.”
I think I may tease this out in a full-blown post at some point.
For what it’s worth, I think Micah has articulated much of my view in the discussion with regard to the fact that I cannot imagine a human being not in relationship. I believe Bill has articulated why this is through his discussion of if humans were not in contact with other beings, they would likely create something with which to interact. To bring a point Timbo made early on in this thread, Wilson in the film Cast Away is, I believe, an excellent example of Bill’s point. (But an interesting film is not necessarily the strongest evidence, though one could argue that it fits into something of a thought experiment. At the very least I want to watch the movie again.)
As far as political theory goes, thanks for giving me a typology Micah. As I said in the post, I am coming from my understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy found contemporarily in John Zizioulas and the Cappadocian Fathers. Their theologies have greatly influenced mine as well as my anthropology.
Comment by Tyler Watson — March 28, 2006 @ 10:05 pm
“I cannot imagine a human being not in relationship. I believe Bill has articulated why this is through his discussion of if humans were not in contact with other beings. . . .”
My point is that you do imagine a human being as not being in a relationship when you say that they would create something to be in a relationship with if they were not in contact with other beings! How can something that is unimaginable in one sentence be the ground for what you say in the very next sentence? I cannot make my point any clearer than it has just been made.
Comment by Timbo — March 28, 2006 @ 10:54 pm
Timbo, when I say I cannot imagine a human being not in relationship I mean that when I try to think of what a person not in any form of relationship with anything else would look like, it is radically different than any form of reality that I know or believe in. It would mean, as I hinted at before, that a relational and creative God who is in eternal relationship and who takes initiative with creation would not exist. Or it would mean that this human is not created in the image of the Trinity as I understand God, who I take to be as essentially relational. It would mean that the human would have absolutely no sensory activity and be unable to receive any kind of input from their environment. It would mean that they would also have no imagination, no thought processes, or no means of projecting thoughts or ideas onto their evironment. This “person” would have to be in a setting and state so different than any form of reality that I know of and be so different from any other person that I know of that I would say they are not a person at all, but an entirely different thing altogether.
Comment by Tyler Watson — March 29, 2006 @ 6:41 am
Ok, it’s clear you’re not following. There is way too much equivocation going on with the word relationship (is it to an environment, to other persons, what?). My dispute is with personhood being necessarily taken as being in a relationship with other persons, such that if there is no relationship with another person, the entity in question would not be a person. To say that this means that the entity in question would have no sensory activity, no input from its environment, no imagination, and no thought processes, etc. is to miss the point. Even if it had all these things, if it had no relationship with another person, it itself would not be a person, according to what you’ve been saying. This is what I have been disputing. An individual need not be in relationship with another person to be a person, ontologically speaking. Although this does occur, its occurrence is not necessary to being a person.
Comment by Timbo — March 29, 2006 @ 8:40 am
Wow this is slow and laborious, Tim. Though it may not appear so to you, I feel as though you keep twisting what I feel are very clear ontological statements into another realm. I posit that there is never an instance, not even a moment when a human being is without a relationship, even if there are no other persons for that human being to be in a relationship. It is ONTOLOGICALLY necessary for the human being to be in a relationship. If it fails to interact with its surroundings relationally, it has proven that it is not a person.
Comment by Bill Ekhardt — March 29, 2006 @ 8:57 am
I have decided to reform my position. The presence of God is ontologically necessary to the existance of a human being. There is no such thing as a person, nor a human being outside of the existence of God. The premise of your thought experiment does not allow for the existence of person.
Comment by Bill Ekhardt — March 29, 2006 @ 9:03 am
Timbo, I appreciate your position and with all respect, I disagree for reasons that I have outlined both in the post and in the comments above. Though I want to respond more fully to your latest comment, I cannot think of a way to further articulate my position and would end up simply repeating myself. You may be unconvinced by my arguments and that is fine. Likewise I have not found your arguments convincing. Show me the person who has never had a relationship with another person—whether human or divine—and then perhaps I will better understand your point. It has been a fruitful discussion.
Comment by Tyler Watson — March 29, 2006 @ 9:09 am
For a bit of levity, I want to thank you three for helping me get a comment list up into the double-digits. It’s been a while since that has happened and I’ve begun to wonder if my readership is shrinking. Well, this doesn’t answer how many readers I have in totality, but at the very least I know I have three intelligent and thoughtful readers.
Comment by Tyler Watson — March 29, 2006 @ 9:12 am
I give up. You are equivocating on relationship. In some posts the relationship to persons is necessary; in others, relationship to environment is necessary, and I am disupting relationship to persons as necessary, such that anything not in relationship to a person is a non-person. So, when you say that “If it fails to interact with its surroundings relationally, it has proven that it is not a person” you are equivocating. Clearly we are talking past each other. I’m out.
Comment by Timbo — March 29, 2006 @ 9:20 am
Micah, regarding where all of this mattered, Tim discputed that relationality was an ontological necessity in the gender discussion, when Tyler posed gender as a quality of our relationality.
If gender is ontologically prior to relationality as Tim suggested, relationality must not be ontologically necessary to gender.
Comment by Bill Ekhardt — March 29, 2006 @ 9:26 am
I think I got that. Though I’d still steal William James’ line and say that there isn’t a practical moral or difference that believing either position would make (as opposed to a debate on whether a pre-born human being is a “person”).
What it comes down to is Tim thinks it’s ontologically possible for a person to not be in relationship with other persons, and the rest don’t think this is ontologically possible. And thus far we haven’t been able to find a common ground beneath those two beliefs from which to appeal to each other. That’s not talking past each other, that’s just disagreement.
Comment by Micah — March 29, 2006 @ 10:33 am
Your final paragraph Micah, sums up this conversation rather well. I too see this as disagreement, not as talking past each other. Tim seems to have grasped my points rather well and I believe I have understood his. We simply disagree. I think the discussion has gone as far as it can.
Comment by Tyler Watson — March 29, 2006 @ 10:38 am
Disagreement presupposes understanding. I do not believe I have been understood here.
Comment by Timbo — March 29, 2006 @ 12:48 pm
I’d really rather not have a debate over whether we’re talking past each other or disagreeing, but for the sake of civility and friendship, as well as maintaining good analytical skills, how do you believe that you have been misunderstood? Where exactly have I not understood your arguments?
I began with saying I believe that communion is an ontological category—that is, to be a person is to be in relationship with others. You have said clearly that it is not an ontological category. You used a thought experiment as your example in which you said that we can imagine a human being not in relationship with others, who is still a person, and the communion ontological view does not hold. Communion you have said is likely, but that it should not be equated with necessity to be a person. I have said that I cannot imagine a person as we know him or her to be without relationship, so I am unable in my understanding to truly accept the suggestion of your thought experiment; that is, in my understanding of what it means to be a person, what it means to be created in the image of a relational God, I cannot imagine a human being outside relationship existing without radically redefining God and existence. You disagreed and said such a person could metaphysically exist, though there may not be an historical case. I countered that such an example is neither historical nor metaphysically possible. There was more said in both arguments, but I believe these are the contending points. How have I misunderstood you?
Comment by Tyler Watson — March 29, 2006 @ 1:13 pm
Ok, there are a few instances in your above summary which indicate where we are missing one another. First of all, in your statement, “I cannot imagine a person as we know him or her to be without relationship,” the words as we know him or her suggest that we’re operating on different levels of abstraction, as well as different understandings of properties (which I hinted at by noting the realism versus nominalism debate). The use of we in your summary presupposes a concreteness which is not part of my original thought experiment. Moreover, when you say, “in my understanding of what it means to be a person, what it means to be created in the image of a relational God. . . .” it seems that you are saying that person = created in the image of a relational God. But this is not what I mean by person. What I mean by person includes the persons of the trinity and all other non-human persons. The Hebrews believed that Yahweh, who was one personal God, existed without being in relationship with other persons until the creation of Adam, and this demonstrates that the concept of being a person without being in relationship to other persons can be understood, even though God turned out to be tri-personal. I think we’ve used different understandings of the word person, and I’m sure I’ve equivocated between person and human, which probably amplified the misunderstanding. While all humans are persons, not all persons are humans, and I regret having equivocated between the two.
Comment by Timbo — March 29, 2006 @ 5:25 pm
“What I mean by person includes the persons of the trinity and all other non-human persons.”
“While all humans are persons, not all persons are humans.”
Hey, we’re in agreement with these statements.
Oddly enough, I think we both can use the Trinity to prove our points. You can point to the unity of the Trinity as one being existing prior to any other person, whereas I would point to the social nature of the Trinity as being three persons in eternal communion with one another. I do not mean to open another can of worms in this already long discussion.
Comment by Tyler Watson — March 29, 2006 @ 7:30 pm
Ok, food for thought as you travel. By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, even though you really don’t have it this year.
While we do agree on the things you noted, I am not using the Trinity to prove my points. To do so would be to refer to what is, in fact, the case. This is not what I’m doing. What I am doing is trying to use a concrete example to prove a very (subtle and limited) abstract point. In the Hebrew understanding of God, Yahweh was one person who existed without being in a relationship to another person, and the fact that they were able to understand this concept of a person, even though the person in question is in fact in relationship to the other persons of the Trinity, proves that the concept of personhood does not necessarily include being in a relationship. While I agree that, given God’s tri-personal existence, every person is in a relationship to another person, what I am saying is that this is not necessarily the case in theory, even though it is the case in fact. Bringing God into things adds an additional concept to the concept I am looking at in isolation from other concepts (not to stay isolated, but to clarify the concept). I am looking at the concept of being a person, not God.
Have an awesome time in New Zealand!
Comment by Timbo — March 31, 2006 @ 7:14 am