Rails - Jul 2005 - change in routes broke variable ?

I have this in my application helper:

module ApplicationHelper
total = Model.count "id > 0"
end

I am using the variable in my application.rhtml view:

Total: <%=h total %>

It worked fantastic until I hooked up the routes per staight forward
instruction I have used time and time again...

map.connect '''', :controller => "totals",
:action=> ''index''

any ideas?


error is here:

Showing /layouts/application.rhtml where line #55 raised:

undefined local variable or method `total'' for
#<ActionView::Base:0x8fd4250>