Bill Maher's Issues with Mormon Underwear | Religion Dispatches

Bill Maher's Issues with Mormon Underwear Religion Dispatches
Joanna Brooks/Religon Dispatches  Apr 28, 2011

This week, on David Letterman, Bill Maher got ugly about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his Mormonism.

“Don’t get me started on Mitt Romney,” Maher sneered to Letterman. ”Because Mitt Romney will teach America what’s really in Mormonism.”

“Mitt likes to gloss over... ‘well, we’re just different types of Christians.’ No. No, I was raised Catholic,” Maher leaned in and raised an eyebrow, setting up for his big punchline: ”And there was no magic underwear.”

Big laughs from the crowd at CBS studios. Right on cue.

Magic underwear?

It’s no secret that highly observant LDS people wear sacred undergarments as an expression of religious commitment.

But magic underwear? Please.

There is a historic Mormon folk belief that garments offer a kind of protection to their wearers. But for the vast majority of Mormons, garments first and foremost represent the daily wearing of a covenant to lives of modesty, chastity, and faith.

The same way an orthodox Jew would wear a kippah (for men) or modest clothing (for women), or a Muslim woman would wear a headscarf, highly observant Mormons wear garments.

And, really, let’s be candid: there is a lot of strange underwear in this world. Fluorescent. Anatomy-binding. Bejeweled. Bezippered. Wired. I’ve seen women’s underwear so tiny it barely deserves the name, and men’s underwear shaped like an elephant with the trunk... well... you get what I’m saying.

Given the state of underwear in America, I find absolutely nothing strange or embarrassing about the white cotton or nylon shoulder-covering and knee-grazing undergarments observant Mormons wear. They’ve been a normal part of my family life for generations.

I do, however, find it strange, juvenile, threatening, and repulsive when grown men bully other people about their underwear on national television.

Maher has a long track record of aggressively anti-religious pedantry. He likes to ridicule people of faith. And it’s not the first time he has mocked and dehumanized the 7 million Mormons who live in the U.S.

Maher, Lawrence O’Donnell, and their ilk are the reason why so many Mormons are bracing for the ugly side of the Big Mo-Publican Primary 2012.

Just don’t expect me to sit quietly while people take pleasure in mocking the private lives and religious commitments of the people I love.

Americans Worked 102 Days to Pay Taxes

Tax Freedom Day arrived on Tuesday, April 12 this year — Americans worked for the first 102 days of 2011 just to earn enough to pay their federal, state, and local taxes.

The date is three days later than in 2010, meaning that taxes across the board have gone up this year, according to the Tax Foundation, which computes Tax Freedom Day each year.

Americans will pay more in taxes this year than on groceries, clothing, and shelter combined, the Foundation noted.

The computation of Tax Freedom Day ignores the budget deficit and figures in only taxes that will actually be collected this year. If the federal government was seeking to collect enough in taxes to finance all of its spending, Tax Freedom Day would not arrive until May 23.

The latest-ever Tax Freedom Day was May 1, 2000.

On top of federal income tax, all but seven states levy an income tax, as do some localities. The Foundation projects that Americans will work 36 days this year to pay those income taxes, plus 22 days to pay for payroll taxes, which fund Social Security and Medicare.

They will also work 15 days to pay sales and excise taxes, 12 days to pay property taxes, and 12 days to cover corporate income taxes.

Due to different state and local tax rates, and differences in average income subject to federal taxes, total tax burdens vary from state to state. This year Americans in 13 states will work more than 102 days to pay their taxes, including Connecticut (122 days), New Jersey (119 days), and New York (114 days).

The lightest tax burden will affect workers in Mississippi (85 days), Tennessee (86 days), and South Carolina (88 days).

To see how our tax burden has changed over the years, take a look at the following table that lists all taxes as a percentage of income each decade over the past 111 years.

To see how our tax burden has changed over the years, take a look at the following table that lists all taxes as a percentage of income each decade over the past 111 years.

1900     5.9%                 1960     27.7%  
1910     5.0%                 1970     29.6%
1920     12.0%               1980     30.4%
1930     11.7%               1990     33.6%
1940     17.9%               2000     30.9%
1950     24.6%               2010     26.9%               2011     27.7%

Hot Air

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts:

"Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says: "yes you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.

"I do," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."

The man below says, "You must work in Management".

"I do" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

Site For Today

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/P0/

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
1957: The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

Instant Color TV
1962: In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen. Stensson proceeded to demonstrate the process. Thousands of people were taken in. Regular color broadcasts only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

The Taco Liberty Bell
1996: The Taco Bell Corporation announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
1998: The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. Soon the article made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly spread around the world, forwarded by email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by physicist Mark Boslough.

The Left-Handed Whopper
1998: Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity
1976: The British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

The Predictions of Isaac Bickerstaff
1708: In February 1708 a previously unknown London astrologer named Isaac Bickerstaff published an almanac in which he predicted the death by fever of the famous rival astrologer John Partridge. According to Bickerstaff, Partridge would die on March 29 of that year. Partridge indignantly denied the prediction, but on March 30 Bickerstaff released a pamphlet announcing that he had been correct: Partridge was dead. It took a day for the news to settle in, but soon everyone had heard of the astrologer's demise. Thus, on April 1st Partridge was woken by a sexton outside his window who wanted to know if there were any orders for his funeral sermon. Then, as Partridge walked down the street, people stared at him as if they were looking at a ghost or stopped to tell him that he looked exactly like someone they knew who was dead. As hard as he tried, Partridge couldn't convince people that he wasn't dead. Bickerstaff, it turned out, was a pseudonym for the satirist Jonathan Swift. His prognosticatory practical joke upon Partridge worked so well that the astrologer finally was forced to stop publishing his almanacs, because he couldn't shake his reputation as the man whose death had been foretold.

Dogs to be painted white
1965: Politiken, a Copenhagen newspaper, reported that the Danish parliament had passed a new law requiring all dogs to be painted white. The purpose of this, it explained, was to increase road safety by allowing dogs to be seen more easily at night.

The Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie
1997: Comic strip fans opened their papers on April 1, 1997 and discovered their favorite strips looked different. Not only that, but in many cases characters from other strips popped up out of place. The reason for the chaos was the Great Comics Switcheroonie. Forty-six comic-strip artists conspired to pen each other's strips for the day. For instance, Scott Adams of Dilbert took over Family Circus by Bil Keane, where he added a touch of corporate cynicism to the family-themed strip by having the mother tell her kid to "work cuter, not harder." Jim Davis of Garfield took over Blondie, which allowed him to show his famous overweight cat eating one of Dagwood's sandwiches. The stunt was masterminded by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott, creators of the Baby Blues comic strip. When asked why he participated, Scott Adams noted, "You don't get that many chances to tunnel under the fence."

Internet Spring Cleaning
1997: An email message spread throughout the world announcing that the internet would be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31 until April 2. This cleaning was said to be necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that had accumulated in the network. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites would be purged. The cleaning would be done by "five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world." During this period, users were warned to disconnect all devices from the internet. The message supposedly originated from the "Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This joke was an updated version of an old joke that used to be told about the phone system. For many years, gullible phone customers had been warned that the phone systems would be cleaned on April Fool's Day. They were cautioned to place plastic bags over the ends of the phone to catch the dust that might be blown out of the phone lines during this period.

Smellovision
In 1965 BBC TV featured an interview with a professor who had just invented a device called "smellovision." This miraculous technology allowed viewers to experience directly in their own home aromas produced in the television studio. The professor offered a demonstration by cutting some onions and brewing coffee. A number of viewers called in to confirm that they distinctly experienced these scents as if they were there in the studio with him. Since no aromas were being transmitted, whatever these viewers thought they smelled coming out of their tv sets must be chalked up to the power of suggestion.

Y2K Solved
In 1999 the Singapore Straits Times reported that a 17-year-old high school student had one-upped all the major software corporations of the world by creating a small computer program that would easily solve the Y2K bug. The camera-shy C student had supposedly devised the program in twenty-nine minutes while solving an algebra problem for his homework. His family and a technology consulting group were reportedly forming a joint venture named 'Polo Flair' in order to commercialize the discovery. They anticipated achieving revenues of $50 million by the end of the year. Numerous journalists and computer specialists contacted the Straits Times, seeking more information about the boy genius and his Y2K cure. One journalist even wanted to know if the boy would be willing to appear on TV, despite the fact that he was camera shy. Unfortunately the boy and his ingenious program didn't exist. Quick-witted readers would have noticed that 'Polo Flair' was an anagram for 'April Fool.'

The BYU Honor Code: Another Take From the Press

Rooting for BYU's sex ban

Philly.com   Fri Mar 11, 2011  By Jonathan Zimmerman

I did not attend Brigham Young University, and I'd be shocked if either of my teenage daughters decided to go there. But Brandon Davies did decide to attend BYU, where every student signs an annual pledge to refrain from premarital sex. And, as every sports fan now knows, Davies broke it.

That's why the BYU basketball team - ranked third in the nation at the time - suspended Davies, its top rebounder. The team then promptly lost to unranked New Mexico. Many hoops junkies now predict that it will make a quick exit from the NCAA tournament, which starts next week.

I hope not. I have a warm spot in my heart for BYU, just as many conservatives do. But I have my own liberal reasons.

To people on the right, of course, it's about morality. Americans have lost their ethical compass, the argument goes, especially on matters of sex. By suspending Brandon Davies, BYU is helping to revive long-lost values that made this nation great.

Others lament a college sports scene dominated by sleaze and double standards. Whereas other universities coddle miscreant athletes, BYU makes every player follow the same rules. And surely there's something admirable about that.

But I like BYU's decision to suspend Davies for another reason: diversity.

Remember diversity? My fellow liberals love diversity. We want diversity in our neighborhoods, diversity in our workplaces, diversity in our classrooms.

By diversity, we usually mean representation of different races and ethnicities, and sometimes of different genders and sexual orientations. But that leaves out religion, which never really made it into the multicultural pantheon.

And that's too bad, because religion is intimately linked to all the other identities. A Catholic Hispanic woman isn't Hispanic on Monday, female on Tuesday, and Catholic on Wednesday. She is all those things all the time. So if we care about diversity, we should defend and develop all three.

But in America, which separates church and state, the government can't promote religion in the same way it celebrates different races and genders. Our public schools just finished Black History Month (February), and now they're marking Women's History Month (March). But they won't - and shouldn't - commemorate Catholic History Month in April, or Jewish History Month in May.

That's where churches, synagogues, and religious schools come in. Without these institutions, religious identity would decline. So anyone who cares about diversity should support their efforts to defend it.

That's why I applaud Catholic schools such as Georgetown and Boston College for hanging crucifixes in their classrooms. I realize that non-Catholics attend and teach at these institutions, and they might resent such displays. But religious icons and rituals maintain the rich character of these schools - their diversity, if you will - and we would all be poorer if they lost it.

Likewise, I like the idea of Orthodox Jewish schools maintaining strict dress codes, as well as rules against male-female fraternization. Although I'm Jewish, I'm not Orthodox, and I wouldn't choose to patronize such institutions. But I'm glad they exist, and changing their conservative ways would also diminish diversity.

Then there are the Mormon schools such as Brigham Young, where students pledge to abstain from alcohol and coffee, as well as from premarital sex. Odd? To me, yes. Old-fashioned? Ditto.

And that's precisely why I support them. You don't have to agree with all the BYU rules; I certainly don't. But their presence adds a unique stroke to the broad American canvas. For our society as a whole, that's a very good thing. It reminds us about the many ways of being American, and it challenges us to reach across these differences to discover what we all have in common.

Is it good for Brandon Davies, too? I really don't know. But here's what I do know: By holding Davies to account, Brigham Young University struck a blow for our nation's diversity. That's why I'm rooting for the BYU Cougars in the NCAA tournament. Vive la différence. And go Cougars.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.

Honor

We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. -- A Few Good Men

Brandon Davies is gone from the basketball team.  He broke the BYU Honor Code and if there is one thing that BYU holds up as their raison d’être it is the honor code.  Brandon was the rising star center on the Top 10 ranked BYU Basketball team.  Brandon was the heir apparent to the Jimmer Fredette crown.  And the 6'9" big man was a big reason Jimmer could work the key inside to out.

Brandon grew up in Provo, knew the BYU (Mormon) culture and committed to conform to the honor code.  Some people say he should gladly just walk and take his place on another top 25 basketball squad.  He’s proven he can play at that level.  They ask why should he squander his college years playing at a “dry” school with a puritanical attitude towards sex?  Is BYU worth the aggravation?  BYU couldn’t even get an invite to join the PAC along with its natural compatriot, the University of Utah, because the liberal elite in the PAC 10 executive leadership couldn’t stomach having a school of BYU’s archaic definitions of morality being a part of its coalition.  

When you go to BYU you sign the Honor Code.  You agree to do certain things and if you don’t…well, ask Brandon what they do.  When I went to BYU there was even less tolerance.  If you did something wrong, they just kicked you out.  You entered Mormon outer darkness.  You were dismissed.  They wanted nothing to do with you anymore.  And that nothing could last for a long time.  University Guidelines say you may reapply for admission after a year.  But that didn’t mean they were going to seriously consider your application for readmission.  You had as much a chance at getting back in during your playing days as Charlie Manson does of getting paroled before he is a skeleton.  Colonel Jessup did not tolerate substandard performance; neither did BYU.  I found BYU to be like West Point in some regards, you were presumed to have Honor until it was proven otherwise.  Some professors would actually leave the room in which their students were taking a test.  But some at BYU think they are the moral compass for everybody else.  It was also like grade school, you had to behave or they would snitch you out if you broke a rule.  Unfortunately, the school attracts administrators, staff and students from both sides of that mindset.  I guess places with high standards attract both kinds.  And indeed, BYU does attract.



BYU is first, or second, depending on the year, in number of applicants for admission.  More potential prospects apply for a chance to live the honor code then apply for any “party” school in the country.  Because of this fact, many kids are turned away from BYU.  There just aren’t enough slots.  So the logic was, and you can’t really argue with it, that a kid who hadn’t messed up had a more deserving shot at future enrollment than the one who was already exposed in his character flaws.  But the weight that BYU used to have in the church culture was so heavy that to have gone to BYU and suddenly to not be going there was a scarlet letter.  Many a young adult quit going to church because the whispers could follow: “Did you hear?  Johnny got kicked out of the Y!” 



Brandon Davies - a choice is now placed before him.

Johnny is faced with a choice.  Buck up and get things squared away or take the “rejection” at face value and decide to make it a mutual split.  Since church and school are married in the minds of many that means attributing the fault to the church as well.  Often, all those Johnnys out there, now on the outside, will find other reasons to justify their shortcomings by blaming the church.  This is a common psychological defense mechanism.  To soothe their own conscience, some make it a point to denigrate and ridicule their past allegiance.  They troll the internet complaining of the latest Boyd K. Packer talk or making fun of temple ordinances.  Though they have left the church, they never leave it alone.  But really, it often just stems from the unwillingness or inability to live the standards of the church or, on the extreme side, the BYU honor code.    

I went to BYU and signed a contract.  Not that I agreed with the honor code in toto.  I still don’t.  But I did agree to live it.  It enforces standards that aren’t even required to enter LDS Temples.  It is, in many respects, archaic and attempts to enforce a cookie cutter mentality to suppress the “rebel” element natural in the young adult and to appease the personal preferences (i.e., dress and grooming) of an older generation.  People joke that Brigham Young could not even attend the university that bears his name (he had a beard).  Then again, neither could Jesus.  Many fundamentalist Christians agree that you would never find Jesus at BYU.  And as long as a student wants to assume the attitude of the malcontent rebel, they never will. 

When I was a freshman (1982) I lived in the dorms.  Some of the guys would cross over North Canyon to the 7/11 to buy caffeinated soft drinks.  This was considered by the dormitory supervisors an outright rebellion.  Mandatory attendance at honor code lectures from the floor Resident Assistant followed discovery.  The guys were supposed to be ashamed of themselves for violating the honor code which codified the Word of Wisdom standards into the BYU student diet.  Interestingly, a person will not be expelled from the church for disobeying the word of wisdom but at that time you could be threatened with expulsion from BYU.  I don't know if they ever actually did.      

I have no idea how the “no caffeinated drinks” thing came into LDS culture.  It is assumed that it was a logical progression from no coffee or tea, but apparently nobody really knows.  It just kind of infused itself into Mormon common culture.  Never let a supposed prohibition go to waste.  This is a core tenant of any societal organization’s ability to control and test loyalty.  It never made sense to me anyway.  You could eat chocolate, drink hot cocoa, but never have a coke.  The new member would be taken aside by some nose-inserting self-appointed but well-meaning mentor and told, “It has caffeine you know.” I remember how conflicted some true blue “Mike and Molly Mormons” were when caffeine-free Coke and Pepsi products hit the market.  They would never allow it in their refrigerators.  It was like candy cigarettes. The caffeine-free soft drinks were harmless in and of themselves, BUT those cans represented something that was evil. 

But I digress; and often, so does BYU.  It makes little things big.  And I can’t help but feel a great disconnect from that.  I’ve been told that the hardliner attitude from the BYU of my day has changed in the past decade.  I’m glad.  But I’m also glad that they will never be like everyone else. BYU will do what BYU does.  They really don’t care what the rest of the world says about them.  They never will.  BYU moves to its own sense of right and wrong.  But in my time, I just cringed hoping they could go away from the old time “my way or the highway” Wilkinson (a former BYU President) and the “It’s all about tradition” Holland (LDS Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, another former BYU President) themes that were used to cull the undesirables from the herd.

But one thing the Honor Code does – and I agree with this facet of it completely – it shows the meddle of the person you are.  If you agree to drink pink lemonade and skip around tulips on odd Tuesdays for the right to belong to a group, then you need to do that until which time you no longer belong to the group.  Just keep your word; have honor.  Or stop saying you belong to the group.

One of BYU’s storied professors was Karl G. Maeser.  In the building that bears his name are some of his more famous quotes.  I have always loved this one.

"I have been asked what I mean by “word of honor.” I will tell you. Place me behind prison walls—walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick, reaching ever so far into the ground—there is a possibility that in some way or another I might be able to escape; but stand me on the floor and draw a chalk line around me and have me give my word of honor never to cross it. Can I get out of that circle? No, never! I’d die first."

Brandon made a mistake.  He stepped outside of the circle when he committed to stay within it.  All indications are that he intends to buck up and make things as right as he can.  I believe in the gospel.  People can change and they can be forgiven and they can be restored.  That is what Christ and the Atonement are all about. 

I wanted to see my cougars go all the way.  Now I don't think they can - unless Jimer can go off for 50 points a night.  Hey, I can dream, can't I?  It is disappointing to hear that a major cog in the machinery has been removed from the team.  But I'll live with it.  There is something bigger than basketball going on here; something important as we all re-assess and reveal by our reactions our own sense of honor.  I wish Brandon the best of luck and hope to see him back on the Marriott Center parquet in the future. 

This Slate article proves why I must have Jewish blood and how it is fighting for supremacy

Berkeley Prof Pinpoints Exact Birthdate of Jewish Humor

Posted Thursday, March 03, 2011 12:06 PM | By Nina Shen Rastogi

Where does Jewish humor come from? Is it genetic—or some kind of cultural adaptation to thousands of years of suffering?

Actually, it comes from Vilna, circa 1661.

According to UC Berkeley professor Mel Gordon, Jewish humor's distinctive blend of wisecracking and self-deprecation has a very specific, very unfunny source: The Chmielnicki massacres of the 17^th century, in which nearly 100,000 Jews were massacred across Ukraine within three years.

In today's Jerusalem Post, Gordon describes to Sue Fishkoff how, in the wake of that carnage and its resulting famines, a council of leading rabbis from Poland and Ukraine concluded that God must be punishing the Jews. To get themselves on the right side of the Lord, they decided to outlaw all things funny and indulgent. Before that period, there were "at least 10 different stock comic types in shtetl life," Fishkoff notes. Some were jugglers, some were singers. These performers were all banned—but one, the badkhn, was allowed to keep practicing. A kind of "cruel court jester," the badkhn was a "staple in East European Jewish life for three centuries":

His humor was biting, even vicious. He would tell a bride she was ugly, make jokes about the groom's dead mother and round things off by belittling the guests for giving such worthless gifts. Much of the badkhn's humor was grotesque, even scatological.

The elders decided that the badkhn didn't exactly encourage merrymaking, so he alone survived the prohibition—ensuring that Jewish humor would forever be stamped with his characteristically dark sarcasm.
Contemporary comedians like Sarah Silverman owe a lot to the centuries-old badkhn sensibility, Gordon argues.

"They would talk about drooping breasts, big butts, small penises," Gordon said. "We know a lot about them because they were always suing each other about who could tell which fart joke on which side of Grodno."