December 9, 2016 · 12:42 am

Where I’d Like to Be (a book by Frances O’Roark Dowell)

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This book made me cry. And that is not unusual, even though I am a 60-year-old man. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens made me cry. At the end, not during the funny parts. But this was a book about a lonely eleven-year-old girl trying to make friends. Why should that make me cry?
But it is also a bittersweet tale of memorable child characters who have nowhere left to turn but each other, and their imaginations. The poetic sting of it can make a grown man cry. You should read it. You will understand then.

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December 8, 2016 · 4:09 pm

Bubble People

I was recently gifted with the eye-opening event of having my own personal soap bubble of beliefs, dreams, and hopes popped by an angry, dyspeptic orangutan.  Yes, he got elected to the most powerful position of leadership on the planet Earth.  And, as I was hurt in the fall from my rudely popped bubble, I began to think about the nature of the bubbles we live in and plot my evil revenge.

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You see, people all live in bubbles of perception.  There are limits to what you can see, hear, learn, accept, believe, and understand.  Those limits are the walls of the soap bubble we create for ourselves in the empty warehouse of our own mind.  I know I have just revealed that what I am talking about is completely metaphorical, but all you people out there who live in literal-minded, practically impenetrable bubbles need to be reminded that metaphorical truth is still truth.

In politics, there now seem to be two main classes of bubble that exist separately and prevent many people from seeing and understanding the perceptions of many other people.  There are conservative bubble people.  There are also liberal bubble people.

Conservative is supposed to mean that they like what they currently have and want to preserve it.  I include here not just possessions, but values, goals, religions, hopes, and dreams.  Liberal traditionally means that they are dissatisfied with what they currently have and want change.  Looking at this construct carefully reveals that anyone who is liberal should be seeking change, but once they have it, should then become satisfied and change into a conservative.  Similarly, if they are conservative, but things change into a new set of things that they don’t like, they should become liberals.  But in our political system, these labels have become set in stone.  And I should warn you, putting stone letters on a soap bubble will invariably pop it.  Conservative bubble people have added concrete mix to the walls of their bubbles to harden it, so that it won’t pop.  Liberals have done the same.  Though, I believe Republican conservative bubble people have somehow found a concrete mix that, when it hardens, makes it impenetrable by facts, science, and logic.  Not to be outdone, though, liberals have added bizarre chemicals to their mix that makes their bubbles impenetrable by feelings, emotion, and religion.  The collective effect of all this bubble-fixing is that all bubble people’s bubbles have become dark and no longer transparent.  You cannot see through them.

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It is no wonder that when liberals look at conservative bubbles they think, “These people are just selfish, money-hungry, and evil, and will do anything for a profit.  They don’t care what’s best for everybody.”

Conversely, conservatives look at liberal bubbles and think, “They are unfeeling control freaks who want to take away our freedom to do what we believe in.  They want to tell us what we can do.  They are trying to take away our rights.”

So, humorist and crack-brained nitwit that I am, I have come up with an evil plan to undo this opaque-bubble nightmare.  I intend to look inside lots of bubbles and find ways to make them more transparent again.  I also intend to invite everyone I know, and everyone who reads this, to do the same.  That should help.

But I should warn you, I am not the only one looking to manipulate bubble people.  There are a bunch of rich and cynical folks out there too who are busy playing billiard games with a majority of the fossilized opaque bubbles .  Once bubbles start popping, more people will be hurt.

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December 7, 2016 · 4:24 pm

Mickey’s Red-State Blues

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I often struggle with depression.  Every member of my family has battled it at some point.  And it is a dangerous disease.  It can kill you.  I don’t like spending quaking, fearful hours in the emergency room.  I have had to do exactly that three times already.  And now Trump has attacked my most cherished issue… public schools.  I gave my life to them for 31 years.  There is not enough chocolate in the house.

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It is ironic.  I was already attempting to commit suicide by not taking my daily medication any more because of high drug prices that health insurance does not help with.  But that suicide attempt has actually failed already.  After two years of not taking blood pressure medication, a thing the doctor feared would kill me, I am now detoxified and actually feeling quite a lot better.  My blood pressure has not been high since 2001.

So, if I am compelled to end it all over the rise of Education Czar Betsy DeVos, I will have to use some of that creative problem-solving that we have not really been allowed to teach since the George W. Bush administration.  Something involving massive amounts of sugar water and thousands of man-eating butterflies would be appropriate, I think.

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If I had to teach this class, I would be tempted to flunk the orange-skinned kid in the middle just on principle, but that would be discriminating against a rich guy, which is against everything this new administration stands for.

Privatizing schools, another way of saying the “school choice” thing that Republicans love to promote, will mean you get exactly what you pay for in education.  Unfortunately, that means you have to be rich to get proper schooling.  Since governmental entities will be shedding the burdens of paying for schools, the good schools will only be able to pay for their resources by charging high tuition and fees, something that limited school vouchers will never be able to fund.  A majority of kids whose families cannot afford anything more than the vouchers will pay for will end up in underfunded discipline mills that will be far worse than the public schools we have now.  Those schools will be set up to prepare students for their future employment making license plates in State prisons even more so than public schools are now.

My Republican friends in Texas (and my birth State of Iowa too, for that matter) like to tell me that, “You can’t solve education’s problems by throwing money at them.”  But I would like to know what studies they base that conclusion on.  When in American history have we thrown money at schools?  Other nations that get better education results do spend more, especially on paying teachers better.  And they are not forced to teach Creationism in Science class to get those funds.

So, managing depression has not been easy since the recent election.  Recount efforts and rumors that the Electoral College may do what they were designed for and vote for the candidate that actually won the popular vote are just pipe dreams, and won’t actually amount to anything.  Betsy DeVos will be the next Secretary of Education.  Maybe I will try bucket-loads of stinky, sharp cheddar cheese and a lighter for setting off explosive cheese farts.  It would be a painful way to go, but the results might also be colorfully amazing.

P.S. – I would never actually commit suicide, and as someone who has spent time in the ER fretting for someone else, I would never really advocate that.  But I am certainly not above using it as a bit of hyperbole to discuss important issues that I really do see as life-or-death.

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December 6, 2016 · 2:37 pm

Stardusters… Canto 24

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Canto Twenty-Four – In the Midst of Mayhem on Board the Base Ship

No one was about to argue with Harmony Castille.  She was intent on putting together a tadpole-hunting team to go after the runaway children, and the two adults who were in child-sized bodies now and therefore suspect as well.

“All right,” said Xiar skeptically, “exactly what do you want me to do about this situation of yours?”

Harmony arched her sleek black eyebrows and puckered up her beauteous visage into an angry old-lady stare that chilled Xiar to his very amphibian bones.  He had never known any female could put so much venom and vinegar into one look, but he was humbled now.  Nothing in his experience as a colony leader and deep space explorer had prepared him for this level of determined, disciplined horror.

“You will give me the commando team I ask for, and if you are any sort of war leader at all, you will grab a gun and lead from in front.  It is your heathen little frog-brats I intend to rescue after all.”

Xiar shuddered.  “All of my best men went with Commander Biznap.  And if I go be the war leader you speak of, who will run this ship?”

“May I suggest,” offered the beautiful Shalar, “that Harmony herself is the kind of war leader you need for this expedition.  Not only is she fierce enough, and capable enough of teaching the troops everything they will need to know, she has a good heart and a moral conscience.  You can trust her to do the right thing.”

Xiar let out a small sigh of relief at that suggestion… but he certainly wasn’t about to let Harmony herself hear it.  “Harmony, I will put you in charge and allow you to select the assault force.”

“Well, in that case, I need Shalar as my executive officer.  She has the smarts that are going to be needed in this combat theater.  I anticipate a bloody campaign, but we will prevail because God and science are both on our side!”

Xiar was once again horrified.  Since the Earthers had taught him all about love, he had been totally at the mercy of Shalar’s beauty.  What if something were to happen to her?  The love of his life?  The mother of a few of his favorite tadpoles?   “Does it have to be Shalar?”

“Yes, Captain, it does.”  Harmony’s eyes narrowed to vicious slits.  “I need you to actually care enough about this rescue mission to be willing to do whatever it takes to bring everyone back safely.  She will be my incentive for you to do the right thing at the right time.  Am I wrong, Shalar?  Doesn’t it seem he loves you enough to do anything it takes to get you back safely?”

“Oh, I hope so,” said Shalar, giving him that loving look that made him feel so squishy on the inside.  He did love her more than anything… more than life itself… well, almost.

“So, we will take Shalar, fifteen of your very brightest men, and Sub-lieutenant Studpopper… because he owes me!”

“You mean Sub-sub-sub-lieutenant Studpopper?”  Xiar grinned at that thought.

“Yes, that chicken-livered fellow who is not so smart most of the time, whatever you are calling him now.”

“Oh, fine choice.  He’s one of my finest junior officers.”

“That better not be true,” grumbled Mrs. Castille, “for Shalar’s sake and safety, if for no other reason.”

“Well, then,” muttered Xiar morosely, “I wish you luck in finding fifteen Tellerons who are actually smarter and braver than Studpopper.  Taken as a whole, they are a pretty sorry lot.”

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December 5, 2016 · 4:12 pm

The Use of Magic Words

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Okay, Mickey, you have said you have confidence in science to the point of not believing in God… at least not the Christian imaginary sky-friend with the white beard and bad temper.  But your use of magic words then makes you a hypocrite.

What?  Magic words, you say?

You heard me.  You use words that give you special powers.  And you believe in them like some kind of anti-science religious zealot.

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                                                                                                  Thank you, Bruce Rydberg, for giving me this useful meme.

Okay, you caught me.  There are certain words that do have super powers.  I know because I have used them.  (And Science is not the opposite of faith.   Just ask Heisenberg.)

I first suspected that magic words really existed back in college.  I read the book Dune by Frank Herbert.  (Followed by every other book he wrote.  I became a Dune-dream believer.)  Remember the part where Paul uses the Bene Gesserit fear chant to get through the psychological test given to him by the Bene Gesserit witch?  You don’t?  You haven’t read it?  I sometimes forget other people aren’t hopeless Trekkies and Sci-fi nerds too.  I do know, at least in my head, that most people have real lives outside of their own heads.  But I did develop a magic word to deal with times of stress and fear.

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Really, Mickey?  You chant this out loud when you’re nervous?

I say it in my head over and over to focus my spirit on what is truly important.  Never out loud.  I used this word to get through my wedding day in 1995 when a blizzard in Iowa prevented all of my non-Texas family at the time from attending.  I used it the day my first son was born when the delivery had to be accomplished by c-section due to heartbeat irregularities.  I used it the day an irate student came down the hallway towards me with metal ninja throwing stars, saying he was going to kill a specific student that was hiding in the History teacher’s classroom.  Yes, it helped me think and act appropriately during some rather intense times.  Sometimes a bit of nonsense injected into the middle of a tense situation makes all the difference in the world.

But that isn’t the only magic word that you made up, is it?

No, there’s the word “Paffooney” which you may have seen before in this blog.  It stands for a picture of my own design put together with words I have actually written myself.  Remember this?

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It still works.  I tested it myself this morning.  It gives you a look at my artwork posted on this blog without risking the danger of going back through all my old posts and accidentally reading something that makes your head melt.

But, really, are your magic words only words you made up yourself?

No.  I think the word “Truth” is a magic word.  It can be used or misused for both good and evil.

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This is very likely the magic word we need to defeat the orange-faced monkey we elected president.  There are lots of words that have immense power.  And all you have to do is believe in it a little bit… and use it intelligently.

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1,000 Followers for Catch a Falling Star!

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December 4, 2016 · 8:50 pm
December 4, 2016 · 4:08 pm

Finale – Why The Bad Guys Always Win

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There is ample reason to believe that rich guys always win because they have enough money and power to change what is true.  I don’t believe for a second that John F Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman.  But rich oil men, other politicians, CIA operatives who were fighting for their continued existence after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the FBI, and probably Vice President LBJ all wanted us to believe that, so it is still the official story today.  And don’t get me started on 9/11 with that whole bag of spiders and incongruous inconsistencies that Dubya refused to investigate further.

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There are a lot of evil Bond villains out there, but the 007-type superhero agents don’t really exist.  No one is thwarting the things that seriously need to be thwarted.

Converting from oil and fossil fuels to solar and other renewable energies does not profit the Moonraker schemes that are going on out there.  Some rich folks have even talked loosely about schemes to reduce the population of the planet to make the damage to the environment into a more manageable mess.  After all, what are the Georgia Guide Stones really all about?  You can look up what is actually written upon them.  It is worrisome.  And who is advocating for us, the common people in these sorts of schemes?

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The truth of it is, no matter what we do, or who is out there trying to advocate for us, the United States will not last forever.  Neither will humanity as a species. Neither will life on Earth.  Forever is simply not in the realm of the achievable.  Only destruction and renewal are guaranteed.  So, in some ways, it is okay if the bad guys ultimately win.  My life will end in the next few years no matter what.  And my children will not last forever either.  But the ending of the book does not take away all goodness and value to be found in the main text.  I have lived a good life, and not even God Himself can take that away.

That is not to say that we are without hope.  As I said, we don’t actually know who is out there standing up for us now.  There are some very good and noble people putting  immense effort into the task of securing our future.  We don’t know what adaptations and breakthroughs are yet to be made.

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Here are some things to think about.  It is statistically almost certain, given what we know now about life science, that there is life on other planets in this vast universe.  And if there is life, there is almost certainly intelligent life, some of it far more advanced than we are.  And if interstellar distances can in any way be crossed, then they already have been.  If time travel is possible, then time travelers already walk among us.  The only reason we don’t have actual proof of these things is that someone doesn’t want us to know.  It is possible that they don’t want us to know for our own good.  Not all of the most powerful and wealthy among us are evil.

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So, while it is true that bad guys always win because the system is rigged, and they are the ones who rigged it, that doesn’t mean that there will be nothing for the rest of us.  There is a limit to how much money you can actually benefit from owning.  There is also a limit to how much pain and suffering a single bad guy  can inflict upon us.  And even if they band together in large, powerful groups, there will always be more of us than there are of them.

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December 3, 2016 · 4:28 pm

“Because I Said So!” (Why Bad Guys Always Win – Part 3)

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Didn’t you hate it as a kid when Mom or Dad used to pull the royal decree maneuver on you rather than give you the real explanation?  “Why can’t we get a new dog to replace the one the junkyard dealer ran over with his truck?”  “Because I said so!” 

Yes, they pull rank or site ultimate power of authority or simply bully you into letting them win the argument.  Nixon said, “If it’s the President of the United States who does it, then it is legal.”  Remember, though, that Nixon was forced to resign shortly after that.

Now, Donald Trump says, “The President can’t have a conflict of interest,” by which he means that he doesn’t have to sell off his international real-estate holdings and put his assets into a real blind trust (not one run by Ivanka).

Does he get away with it?  It will mean, according to ethics lawyers from both the Obama and Bush administrations, that he will be in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution as soon as he takes the oath of office.  So, of course he will.  Just like Mom and Dad after we buried Scamper.

Obama, as President, was forced to do most of what he did by Executive Order because he was a Democrat, and to a Republican Congress, that means he is automatically in the wrong.  Still, he managed to enforce his will with the I said so’s at least until the righteously heroic Republicans achieved their miracle victory with President-Elect Babyhands Von Clownstick.  Now, of course, his overreaching abuse of the I said so power to do terrible things, like allow undocumented children fleeing from violence and persecution to take shelter in this country, will now all be undone.

Of course, when a Republican is President, that’s different.  Republican Presidents are automatically good and patriotic and protecting the people even when they are lying to create a profitable war in Iraq to benefit Darth Cheney’s Halliburton interests.  Lonesome George the Rodeo Clown when he was President issued all sorts of Executive Orders that were not questioned even by Democrats, let alone opposed or reversed.  In the hands of a Republican President, I said so power is more absolute than Emperor Palpatine’s use of the Dark Side of the Force.

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So under President Donald J (for Joker, revealing his secret identity as a Batman villain) Trump, the “Because I said so!” will be absolute.  Rosie O’Donnell, Bill Maher, and Jon Stewart had better get used to the idea of waterboarding in Guantanamo.  We had all better get used to the idea of the White House being plated in gold leaf.  And I had better hope, having written an essay revealing the Cinnamon Hitler’s actual super power, that nobody actually reads this blog anymore.  If you would like to help ease my fears, you could always leave a comment in the comment section that includes the words, “I did not actually read this post.”

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December 2, 2016 · 12:48 pm

Lizard Politicians

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This scary-faced man is the nutball known as David Icke.  My essay today is not about him, but about his amazing conspiracy theory that puts to rest once and for all the notion that intelligent life exists on the planet Earth.  His theory clearly shows that the correct answer to the notion is, “No, there is absolutely no intelligent life on the planet Earth.”

Seriously… this man believes there is a race of reptilian aliens living in the center of the planet Earth which is apparently hollow.  But not content to live in the center of the Earth and kidnap people to eat, they morph into human form and replace world leaders and important humans with cold-blooded reptilian aliens.  Queen Elizabeth of England is one.  Both Presidents Bush are also aliens.  He offers as proof that sometimes they begin to let their disguises drop and photos have been taken that reveal the true nature of these disguised individuals.  Particularly if they are photographed or videoed poorly.

Or, you know, maybe the photos were altered slightly to bring out the change.

And you know that this theory must be true.  David Icke has all those years as a soccer commentator to back up the validity of his analysis.

Anyway… I believe he is right.  At least, metaphorically speaking.  Many of the bad guys that keep winning  against the odds and the interests of the American people are obviously cold-blooded lizards underneath.  Especially Republicans.

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Notice the simpering lizard grin.  The self-satisfied smile of a blood-drinker who has recently slaked his thirst on the blood of other immigrants.  He is elected by a State that is is largely made up of Hispanic immigrants, yet his idea of immigration reform centers around deportation and cruelty to people who nominally share the same cultural background as he does.  He loves to eat machine-gun bacon, cooked on the hot barrel of an assault weapon that it is his sacred second-amendment right to own and to open carry.  He is ever ready to stand his ground and shoot down anyone whom he might perceive as a threat, including, no doubt food-stamp-fed grandmothers and their children… or rather “Abuelas y nietos”.  It is not hard to believe in his cold-bloodedness.  And since he is obviously the darling of the Koch Brothers and other scions of the greedy right, it is easy to believe that he eats little children for breakfast.  Or at least wants to take public assistance  monies away from them to give it out in tax breaks to the wealthy corporate elites.tea-party-idiots-ryan

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Senator Tedhkruzh, the lizard-man from the doomed planet Galtorr Prime.

These lizard politicians have sympathy for no one but the wealthy and the powerful, most of which are also presumably lizard people.  And now that the Trumpasaurus Rex has taken over the White House, the lizard people are going to feast, stripping the bones of the poor and the helpless, along with the ground meat from the withering middle class.

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Does all of this nonsense about lizards scare you?  If it doesn’t, it probably should.  But none of it is my fault.  If you have to blame someone… it’s David Icke’s conspiracy theory.

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December 1, 2016 · 4:07 pm

Why the Bad Guys Always Win

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Donald Trump is picking cabinet members worthy of Goldfinger.

Now that the Cubs have won the World Series and Donald Trump is the next President of the U.S. and the world has ended, I want to take my time mulling over the meaning of this title and this essay.  I have to think it over carefully, because, after all, with the new leadership we have selected for ourselves (at least the only people whose votes really matter have selected) I will probably end up in prison or executed.  It doesn’t really matter how it all turns out for me.  If the Great Orange Face With Tiny Hands does away with Obamacare after everything he’s recently said to the contrary, I am doomed anyway because any health care I am going to need in the next decade I won’t be able to afford anyway.  Dying is the only option I will be able to pay for.  So, if they execute me, they will even be saving me that expense.

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Mike Pence talks a lot about “religious freedom” when he proposes to take away LGBT rights.

I am not suggesting that Trump is like a Bond villain…  Oh, wait!  Yes I am.  But unlike a Bond villain, when he talks about the evil he is going to do and how the hero is about to die an excruciatingly horrible death, he isn’t necessarily telling the truth, or even knows the truth.  So we will not be able to pull an unlikely harrowing escape at the last second, because we won’t accurately know what to counter.  He’ll tell us about the anti-Muslim piranhas in the water, but it will be the nuclear-proliferation lasers that will boil our heads off our torsos.

 

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                                                 The Trumpinator monologues a lot on Twitter, but doesn’t mean it or didn’t say it when you quote it later.

So, one of the most important factors behind why the bad guys win in real life while Bond villains always get their comeuppance by the end of the movie has to do with manipulating the story.  Telling the tale the way they want it told, even if it is a Limburger-cheese-smelling stinky-bad lie.

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You can bet that whatever Putin is planning, it will be bad, but he is a KGB-trained spook, so you will not win even that bet.

This is only the first essay in a series of related essays I intend to write about the world situation as I see it.  So there is the first bit of terrible news I have given you, independent of the bad news swirling around our brand new Cinnamon Hitler.  I intend to inflict more things on you that you will probably not believe, but may give you a chuckle or two at how goofy and idiotic I can be as I try to explain the stinky-bad nature of reality in terms of my own paranoid delusions, hopes, and fears.  I can’t help this criminal explaining-the-world thing I try to do in writing.  You have to remember, I was once a middle school English teacher, which goes a long way towards explaining abnormal psychology in essay form.

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