Go for it.

Eh, a weak one to end Wayback Week, but this one took me back to how pathetic public-sector crime is in the Fort. Penny ante. Small-time. Itty-bitty crooks. Something you can’t say about Detroit, ever.

November 13, 2001

If you’re going to sin, sin big.

Not having the sort of personal relationship with God that many others do, I can’t say whether he grades on the curve. But I do, and there’s something about some of our latest public scandals that is not only troubling, but pathetic. One can feel outrage for an audaciously dishonest public servant. One can feel only contempt for small-time crooks.

At the moment, it’s the great city-county parking garage scandal that’s in the news. Allen County Sheriff Jim Herman disciplined 25 employees of his office for participating in what early news reports called a “ticket-swap scheme.”

You hear this, and you think someone was making traffic tickets go away, which, while hardly the sort of civic scandal that makes jaws drop, at least sounds like something worth doing. The last traffic ticket I got carried a fine of $170, a lot of money where I come from.

But no, these weren’t traffic tickets. They weren’t even moving violations. They weren’t even parking tickets in the sense that we all understand them. They were parking-garage tickets.

It worked like this: First-shift workers parked in the garage. Second-shift workers parked in the garage. As the second-shifters came on duty, they gave their tickets to first-shift employees as they left. The first shift got to leave and pay for only a few minutes of parking; the second shift got away clean because when the attendants left work for the day they raised the gates, effectively making the garage free for everyone.

The punch line: Those employees already have free parking available to them, but it’s a whole two blocks away.

There is only one reaction available to a story like this: “Sin big!”

At this point we must pause to note they don’t call it public service for nothing. Particularly in Allen County, city and county employees accept salaries far lower than those paid a similar job in the private sector. As compensation, they have available a number of options.

They can use their time in publicly supported jobs to build a vast array of contacts in the local power structure, then dive into private-sector consultancy or some other, more lucrative career; they can build a variety of unique skills that others will pay more for; or they can simply console themselves with the fat benefits and Veterans Day holidays and greater job security not available to the non-apparatchiks working elsewhere.

A few years ago, a township trustee was indicted in office for funneling public money to his private pocket. When the details of the kickback scheme were released, you could feel only pity for this man, who flushed his good name away for a sum that after four years barely reached the low five figures.

“It’s like he’s short on his house payment, so he takes $60,” a reporter remarked at the time, sadly.

Sin big! Linda Tripp didn’t do anything explicitly illegal, if you discount perhaps her taping of Monica Lewinsky, but you had to admire her moxie once all the beans spilled. She knew what a federal job is worth, and she hung onto hers with everything she had, even while it became evident she wasn’t doing much of anything for a salary that topped (wheeze!) $90,000 a year, plus a paid holiday on Veterans Day. No hostile Clinton administration could knock her loose.

Public servants, if larceny is on your mind, do it well. Give us a reason to hate you. Open an offshore bank account, grow a mustache suitable for Snidely Whiplash-style twirling, don’t cover your face during the perp walk. Hold it high and sneer.

And take the free parking you’re offered. It’s the cheap stuff that gets you.

Posted at 12:05 am in Ancient archives |
 

73 responses to “Go for it.”

  1. moe99 said on August 19, 2011 at 12:11 am

    http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2011/08/meet-rick-perry.html

    Rick Perry competes with Michelle Bachmann to see who can get the most of the corndog in one bite.

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  2. alex said on August 19, 2011 at 5:28 am

    Rumor has it Perry is the more practiced of the two at fellating a corndog (or things resembling one), but his camp is apparently trying to spin it away by urging women to come forward with claims that he banged them. (Ron Paul supporter, my ass.)

    Didn’t live in the Fort at the time of the parking garage ticket scandal, but it doesn’t surprise me that the local gadflies got their gonads in a knot over it. They see decadence and government waste in the very threadbare essential services we receive, let alone penny ante schemes by city employees to park for free.

    I lived in Chicago at the time. On the evening news, Pam Zekman would ambush people on the city payroll who hadn’t shown up for work in years as they were getting out of their tricked-out Hummers at the golf course or lounging in their yachts at the marina. She wasn’t there to interrogate them about whether they had paid to park.

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  3. coozledad said on August 19, 2011 at 6:29 am

    Alex: Mike Rogers has a copy of a 2009 Perry campaign expense report that includes a bill for a business luncheon at La Te Da, a drag/cabaret club in Key West. It’s only for about eighty bucks, so I suspect its just Perry and an associate taking in the all male version of The Producers. Perry loves that show.
    http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/rick_perry_vs._adolf_hitler/

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  4. mark said on August 19, 2011 at 6:35 am

    I missed the parking ticket scam somehow. Of course I was drinking a lot back then and often out of town. Either one could explain the miss.

    Not sure I’ll view it as progress for the Fort if and when corruption by public servants has to hit 5 figures to provoke more than a yawn. I like the larger point about selling out for a paltry amount.

    Thanks jtmmo for raising the school supplies issue. The situation here seems to be the same. http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/tools-for-school-is-out-of-supplies A worthy cause for those with means/inclination to help.

    In my stock picking days this was the kind of news that would turn me bearish. I was there before I heard it, though. My ex has a good position with Kittles, the largest furniture retailer in Indiana doing mainly mid-range lines. For the past twenty years or so Kittle’s sales have been a pretty good prognosticator of mid term market trends. A new sofa is one of the first things people defer when they think things will be tight and something they buy when near term outlook is good. News from her is not encouraging for the market.

    I don’t have an opinion on HC’s hair, but I really can’t say enough sbout her skill and hard work as Secy of State. She doesn’t seek much press, but when the history books are written I think she will have to be viewed as the best Secy of the last 40 years, maybe longer. She has been truly extraordinary and the model of a public servant.

    And I give Obama more than a pass on his vacation, though it surprises me that he doesn’t see or care about the political image issue. He doesn’t have a place of his own like reagan or the Bushes and with two young girls, decompressing at Camp David isn’t the ideal family vacation.

    If reports I’ve seen are to be believed, the President is spending 50,000 of his own money for a palatial spot that is also pretty remote and secure. For a fraction of that he could have had the best suite at the best hotel in Chicago and the taxpayers would have spent far more securing/renting out the rest of it and keeping him and family safe in the Windy City. I’m guessing his choice is far cheaper for us.

    But politics isn’t fair. Maxine Watters just trashed him pretty good for doing an all-white bus tour of the Midwest and he won’t find much more color in the Vineyard. Capping off an “i feel your pain” trip with ten days of luxury (as much as a President can have, always on the job, etc.) suggests somebody has a tin ear.

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  5. alex said on August 19, 2011 at 6:50 am

    Mark, Obama could spend his vacation sweating under the blazing sun building Habitat for Humanity houses and his detractors would find it egregious. The poor man can’t shit a curved one without it becoming a federal case. Where he vacations is of no consequence to anyone except those trying to make political hay.

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  6. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 19, 2011 at 7:19 am

    Martha’s Vineyard actually has a strong connection to aspirational African Americans on the East Coast, particularly in the Oak Bluffs area. I can’t even remember why I know that, something to do with Vernon Jordan and Spike Lee I researched years ago. Overall, the numbers are probably not in line with general percentages, but there’s a history there going back to free blacks and the abolitionist movement.

    Nancy, don’t know if there was some piece of Reformation history rattling around for you writing this or not, but Martin Luther was famous for the Latin tag “pecca fortiter,” which is usually translated into English as “Sin boldly!”

    His point was more to trust Jesus more fully and live more joyfully, not a cautiously pinched and obsessively restrained life that feared the least over-reach and chance of transgression. Luther wasn’t telling people to sin intentionally, but he was saying “pass me the pitcher of beer, and I’m going to tell it how it is before we go out and try to help some people, and if we manage to break a commandment or two along the way, grace may abound, so it’s all good. Sin boldly!”

    Which is in the general neighborhood of your point . . .

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  7. alex said on August 19, 2011 at 8:15 am

    J(ttmo)—

    I’m not surprised that free blacks in the abolitionist era would have frequented or been welcome at Martha’s Vineyard. The place was originally inhabited by Quakers (it wasn’t originally part of Massachusetts).

    You may recognize the name Macy as a prominent Quaker surname. The progenitor of this line, Mr. Macy, was a Puritan who was pilloried for rescuing two Quakers drowning in a river. After a three-year prison sentence, he went to live on the island and became a prominent citizen.

    The Quakers, who relied primarily on fishing and whaling, quickly outgrew the island and started migrating to Virginia and the Carolinas. In the early nineteenth century, as their anti-slavery sentiments made them unwelcome in the south, they migrated to the midwest.

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  8. Peter said on August 19, 2011 at 8:51 am

    Well, Neil Steinberg has a few gems in his column today, the best being that Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry are so bad and stupid they’re making Sarah Palin look like Eleanor Roosevelt.

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  9. Randy said on August 19, 2011 at 10:00 am

    Nancy, thanks for Wayback Week. What a great idea!

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  10. april glaspie said on August 19, 2011 at 10:34 am

    When Perry comes to talk to the bluehairs in Sun City Hilton Head (which is, of course, in Bluffton, across the bridge), I’m planning to ask him what he got in terms of jobs for the $20mil grant to Countrywide Financial, one of the subprime mortgage uber-villains of the housing bubble and the Great Recession. If he says anything other than “None.”, I’m going to quote Joe Wilson to him.

    Another good reason to play Megabucks.

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  11. Deborah said on August 19, 2011 at 10:35 am

    jtmmo, as a former Lutheran I took full advantage of Luther’s phrase, so pass that pitcher over here.

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  12. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 19, 2011 at 10:54 am

    Pecca fortiter! Our new site motto.

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  13. Dexter said on August 19, 2011 at 11:00 am

    Warren Pierce got into a little jam a few years ago over accepting the offer of a free new car to drive, a perk many radio personalities receive. Pierce is a Sunday morning host on “blowtorch” 50,000 watt WJR-AM, Detroit, and a fill-in host other times, and he has been with ‘JR forever.

    I heard Billy Cunningham of WLW-AM, Cincinnati, tell how he receives a new Tahoe or Denali or whatever the GM dealership wants him in, as advertising for the dealership…”I want to drive the car Billy drives!” He gets a new vehicle to drive every few months.

    Steve Dahl of Chicago radio fame told how he usually has as many as three dealership cars in his driveway, and I remember one was a Corvette. Maybe not anymore, but a few years ago he certainly said that.

    At this point I cannot recall how Pierce got in trouble and was suspended for being allowed a car…it didn’t seem fair.
    Warren Pierce is one of the greats, by the way, a superb interviewer, and I wish he had the Frank Beckmann slot at 10:00 AM.

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  14. adrianne said on August 19, 2011 at 11:04 am

    Please, let the prez and his family vacation in peace. btw, the little hamlet of Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard is predominantly African-American for the well-heeled. More black people there than in Iowa, no doubt.

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  15. Carolyn said on August 19, 2011 at 11:20 am

    Hear Hear! Pecca fortiter!

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  16. Julie Robinson said on August 19, 2011 at 11:30 am

    You’re probably right, Adrianne. When we visit the Iowa family I’ve never seen a person of color. Maybe in the college towns, but not in Cedar Rapids or the rural eastern part of the state.

    Dennis and I are celebrating our 32nd anniversary tonight (it was actually yesterday) and I am trying to comprehend how a lifetime has passed by so fast.

    As I recall from confirmation class, Luther got the sin boldly concept from his readings of Paul. Good explanation, Jefftmmo.

    In an eerie counterpart to the Indiana State Fair tragedy, a stage collapsed at a music festival in Belgium and five people have died. My morning paper reports that Indiana’s first lady Cheri Daniels was at the fair concert and her state police trooper made her leave shortly before the scaffolding began to tumble. This will surely be an open and shut case for the lawsuits that will be filed.

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  17. brian stouder said on August 19, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Julie – Happy 32! And indeed, at least for tonight – Pecca fortiter!

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  18. Deborah said on August 19, 2011 at 11:58 am

    OT but I thought this was interesting, by Al Franken about the S&P downgrade, it explains a lot:

    http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/19/franken.rating.reform/

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  19. april glaspie said on August 19, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    Given the clear criminal behavior of S&P in abrogating its fiduciarcy responsibilities in the US financial debacle, out of overweening greed, why would anybody continue to take anything that comes out of it seriously? I know they’ve succeeded in fucking the stock market over bigtime in the last week, adding a deadly nightshade to the roadkill stew the GOP has been serving since July 1. All I have to do is check my investment accounts. 25% in the red in that short time. I find it impossible to believe that most Americans that have planned more or less responsibly for a time of dwindling income and advancing age do not share this infuriating experience. I’m also sure that many people with the means to have made this kind of plan are staunch Republicans. Cognitive dissonance is one thing, but voting directly against one’s financial interest is bizarre enough that it calls the principles of representative democracy into question. Buncha bigoted, dumb mofos

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  20. Sue said on August 19, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    We’re already at comment #19, and no one has mentioned yet that ‘pecca fortiter’ sounds kinda dirty, and no one has taken that observation and run with it.
    Are you people sleeping or what?

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  21. beb said on August 19, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    Matt Tiabbi has an article in Rolling Stones that says the SEC has been systematically destroying evidence collected in security cases that did not advance to prosecutions. Maybe it can be argued that since no crime has been determined no evidence needs to be retained but really…

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  22. Deborah said on August 19, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    And another thing, April, that I don’t get about Republicans voting against their own best interests: you hear these folks belly aching about how America is going down the tubes, that it’s falling apart and they want things to return to the good old days. But when you count how many years Republican administrations have been in power it’s astounding. In the last 40+ years Republican presidents have been in power for almost twice as many years as Dems. Starting with Nixon there have been Repub presidents for 28 of those 43 years while Dem presidents only account for 15 years. So why don’t they realize that their guys were in power most of the time when the shit happened that they they are complaining about?

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  23. Jolene said on August 19, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    Because, Deborah, they believe history started on Jan 20, 2009–with the exception of frequent references to the glorious reign of Ronald Reagan.

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  24. alex said on August 19, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    Sue, I almost ran with pecca fortiter but it sounds like something that happens in hetero porn.

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  25. ROGirl said on August 19, 2011 at 2:00 pm

    Anything bad that happened under Bush (except for 9/11) has been conveniently erased from their memories. Bad stuff started under Clinton, stopped for 8 years and started up again on January 20, 2009.

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  26. april glaspie said on August 19, 2011 at 2:01 pm

    Rick Perry, the book of Joel, and praying for rain.

    I had not thought of the Siegel-Schwall Blues Band in years.Popped into my head for no reason I can fathom. There they are on YouTube. Corky Siegel was an amazing harmonicaa player, and his partner was a sax player that took up guitar with excellent results. Their bass player was a MoTown veteran named Rollo Radford, that plays a mind-boggling solo on this cut. These guys were from Chicago, but they played at the Chessmate in Detroit frequently. They’d occasionally back John Lee Hooker.

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  27. Julie Robinson said on August 19, 2011 at 2:13 pm

    Thanks, Brian. These days pecca fortiter means we’re going to Cork ‘n Cleaver, which has the city’s best salad bar. For those inclined they also have what I’ve been told are some very fine steaks.

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  28. MichaelG said on August 19, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    A fellow state employee slug two cubicles down is black and spends two weeks at Martha’s Vineyard every year. For whatever that’s worth. He was gone last week and this week. I guess he just missed POTUS and family.

    It do go fast, doesn’t it, Julie.

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  29. april glaspie said on August 19, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    Shameless GOP dickwad: Gabby Giffords is milking her gunshot wound to the head to mess with Republicans.

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  30. brian stouder said on August 19, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    Julie – Pam and I absolutely LOVE that place*; the salad bar is second to none that I’ve ever seen. Generally, the only decisions we have to make are – which appetizer to get (the shrimp has often been the pick), and what dessert to order (cheese cake crème brûlée was always the pick, and then it fell off the menu!).

    Only excepting one occasion, a few years ago, I always and automatically order the prime rib there; Pam almost always does, too, although sometimes she’ll go for a seafood entree. On that one occasion when I strayed from the prime rib, I went for lobster – to see what the fuss was about. It was OK – but for me, if I’m going to order the priciest thing on the cleaver menu, it must have “moo”ed when it was alive.

    And indeed, the people-watching part of of Cork and Cleaver is part of the fun, for us!

    Here’s wishing you and your husband a very happy anniversary!

    *once, years ago, we showed up there, ten minutes ahead of our reservation, and a local city council member showed up, with a party of four and NO reservartion, and got seated! This caused us to have to wait probably 30 minutes, and thereafter we always had ‘reservations’ about him! – but we digress.

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  31. Judybusy said on August 19, 2011 at 3:21 pm

    Congratulations, Julie! I hope you have a wonderful evening.

    Yeah, pecca fortiter sounds like something a guy can pick up if he isn’t fatidious about hygiene or wearing a condom. Still love it, though. A while back, one of our city council members did time for accepting a $10,000 bribe and conspiring accepting a $95,000 one from a local developer–who also did time. That’s getting in to pecca fortiter territory.

    Maggie Jochild posted this cartoon on FB, and I thought it worth passing along.

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  32. Jolene said on August 19, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    She Who has released another video. Sure looks like a campaign video.

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  33. Dorothy said on August 19, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    Hey Chicago folks – my fellas are in town for a fun weekend, which has been planned since Mike’s successful cancer surgery last January. Father and son have been looking forward to this for 7 months! They’re at the Palmer House downtown for two nights, eating at a Brazilian steakhouse tonight, taking in the Cubs game tomorrow, a blues club Saturday night, and the Sox game on Sunday. My brother is joining them for the Sox game and he’s taking them to his home for Sunday night, then to the airport Monday morning. They’ve already called to say how swanky the hotel is and how much fun they’re having.

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  34. Connie said on August 19, 2011 at 4:24 pm

    Love the Palmer House. Even if you don’t stay there you should take a moment to sit in the lovely lobby next time you’re in Chicago. And as for me, I’m going to the Tigers game tomorrow. It will be my first visit to the new Tiger Stadium after many childhood visits to the old one during the days of Al Kaline.

    Julie congrats on the anniversary. My 33rd is in 6 weeks, and as I’ve said before every year on our anniversary we look at each other in amazement. And my kid got home from her 3 1/2 months in Europe and headed back to Bloomington today. Wait, that’s my dog, oh yeah it was your dog and you’re taking it with you. When you babysit a dog for that long it seems like it’s your own.

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  35. brian stouder said on August 19, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    And my kid got home from her 3 1/2 months in Europe

    Connie, speaking of your daughter’s European journey, I’ve been reading David McCullough’s The Greater Journey (subtitled Americans in Paris), and it begins in the 1830’s with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Samuel Morse, James Fennimore Cooper, and several other Americans experiencing that city. The voyage there would have been approximately 6 weeks at sea, with at least some period of time (if not an extended period of time) when the waves are mountainous and the winds severe; this would probably have deterred me, even if the money to do such a thing wasn’t an issue.

    The following passage is from a letter from James Jackson Jr to his father. James was studying to be a medical doctor; dad wanted him to come home, and James said “In very truth I look forward to with fear and trembling to the day when I must employ my time to earn money, instead of to learning truth”.

    I once laughed when I was told the student’s is the happiest life. Pursuaded as I am that there is very much in the exercise of our profession, that develops and satisfies the affections – that delights moral man – yet must I acknowledge that had circumstances favored it, I should have been pleased to pass eight or ten years in the study of the sciences of pathology and theraputics, in the hopes of establishing some important truths…

    We live indeed in darkness, and it costs more time to discover the falsity of pretended truth than it would perhaps to reach something truly valuable…I believe that we admit many things in America as axioms, which are very far from being proved. We have too long believed that because demonstration on many points was impossible in medicine, it was not worthwhile to study it like an exact science. It is a very false position.

    That letter still has the very clear ring of truth in 2011, as much as it had in 1833

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  36. brian stouder said on August 19, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    Jolene – Ms Palin seems awfully proud of that American flag beaded-bracelet that shows up several times in the second half of the video; and the tee shirts that some are wearing, that look like her bus decals.

    I (seriously) think she’s gearing up to sell a merchandise line, more than anything.

    But I will go this far toward agreeing with you; she may want to be a VP running mate again, rather than actually being at the top of the ticket.

    I think she might even make sense as the sexy side of a Romney ticket, if Willard wins the nomination. Afterall, Sarah actually looks relatively sane compared to Michele

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  37. Deborah said on August 19, 2011 at 6:10 pm

    Hey Dorothy, the Palmer House is across the street from my office. I’ll wave if I see anyone wearing a T-shirt that says “Dorothy’s Husband” or “Dorothy’s Son”. And I often walk past the Brazilian steakhouse they’re probably going to.

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  38. Connie said on August 19, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    I’ve been to a Brazilian Steakhouse. The one in Indy was about $50 per person before drinks. But if you are a a beef lover it is truly the place. Plus a gorgeous salad bar.

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  39. april glaspie said on August 19, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    Shit, another negative $.20/share. Brian, that’s called merch, and I’ll be hawking it too, if the GOPers and their evil backers fuck up the stock market much more.

    James Fennimore Cooper travelled outside the USA. Who would have thought. I read and enjoyed the Deerstalker books when I was eight or nine, but I can’t imagine an adult finding anything to recommend them.
    Samuel Clemens may have been unfair in describing the Literary Offenses but he was funny as the devil, and pretty much on target. The Romanticism if the Natty Bumppo character is what made me love it as a nine year old, and find it unwittingly Pythonesque as I grew older. And really, the books are, in the http://www.vernacular, are “dribble”, and don’t “jive” with any reasonable literary standards. I can almost figure out having trouble with “jibe” and “jive” but I can’t “hone in” on what the rocket science is about”dribble” and “drivel” or “hone” and “home”. Those errors are offensive literarily, and they are pandemic on the tubes.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs

    Ted Stevens, drunk as a Lord. Back when Alaskan political dynasties weren’t greedy little pisant money-grubbers. May be hope. Murkowski beat the Palin-endorsed thug, on a write-in wave. Cosider her anti-govt. schtick against the fact that Alaskans, individually get about $2bucks back for every $1 they send to the federal government.

    Brian, in the early 70s there were about 3mill cancer survivors in America. Today the number is close to 11mill. The sort of research that produced that felicitous disparity will be an early victim of tea party economics if American voters don’t see the light. The number is cruel for me. My little brother died of leukemia in 1960, and my mom of breast cancer five years ago. If some shitheel wants to tell me this sort of research is not a worthwhile function of the federal government, or Rick Perry wants to claim that scientists are falsifying data to protect their grants, Good Hair can come around my local. He will be treated ugly. Not dead but maybe wish he were. I know I rant about disenfranchising fool citizens that prove themselves too fucking stupid to be allowed a ballot. But the GOP parades one Rorshach test for voter disqualification after another. Y’all know the story in Martian Chronicles called “The Earthmen”? Everybody in the Martian sanitarium claims, in the presence of actual Earthmen, to be “Earthmen”. Here’s a good synopsis from Wiki:

    This story tells of the “Second Expedition” to Mars. The astronauts arrive to find the Martians to be strangely unresponsive to their presence. The one exception to this is a group of Martians in a building who greet them with a parade. Several of the Martians in the building claim to be from Earth or from other planets of the solar system, and the captain slowly realizes that the Martian gift for telepathy allows others to view the hallucinations of the insane, and that they have been placed in an insane asylum. The Martians they have encountered all believed that their unusual appearance was a projected hallucination. Because the “hallucinations” are so detailed and the captain refuses to admit he is not from Earth, Mr. Xxx, a psychiatrist, declares him incurable and kills him. When the “imaginary” crew does not disappear as well, Mr. Xxx shoots and kills them. Finally, as the “imaginary” rocket remains in existence, Mr. Xxx concludes that he too must be crazy and shoots himself. The ship of the Second Expedition is sold as scrap at a junkyard.

    Shit, shared delusions become accepted fact, common knowledge? Sure sounds like them GOPers to me. How about Perry on the new fed rule about commercial license requirements for farmers? Well they don’t exist, but some blastocyst/spore on Fox will posit them as reality on Sunday morning. And they will foul the tubes by Sunday p.m.

    Maybe these idiots are more like the addicts in “The Euphio Question” or “Harrison Bergeron”. It’s a fact that GOPers long for a handicapper general. So that acchievers that disagree with them can be tied down with battleship chain charges of elitism. It’s the Roman Hruska lament about the Supreme Court. “Don’t mediocre Americans need to be represented on the Court?”. Not fucking hardly, Bubba. They don’t want it pointed out that Kerry is intellectually big intellectually compared to W’s midge draft dodging POS. Does everybody forget that in the wake of Dan Rather’s alleged disgrace, the entirely lucid secretary that typed the contents of the so-called forged papers, said the contents as far as W’s dereliction and AWOL coke spree avoidance of service-related activities were pretty much exactly what she typed in the first place? Evverybody forget that the forgery expert hired by Scaiffe said he could not rule the documents forgeries?

    Meantime, there was Nixon’s fair-haired boy running the Swiftboat bullshit. Being the jock I am, I’d like to see Kerry unleashed on this asshole in a cage match. In a nation scarred by the Southern Stategy and Willie Horton, this was the most scurrilous campaign ever. Bush dodged the draft. Kerry didn’t. Bush flew missions defending the liuor supply at the O-Club. Kerry “faked” injuries with his political future in mind, but undoubtedly saved one of his crewmen from capture by hauling the guy out with one hand while firing a large, normally boat-mounted repeater with his other arm. Confronted with an actual hero in a fucking pitiful war, GOPers got hold of a particularly odious little seersucker Nixon Nazi haircut stooge, and defamed Kerry, well beyond the protective limits of US libel law. If John O’Neill has a dime to his revolting name, he owes it to John Kerry. Kerry was better than O’Neill at every possible level. Smarter, better, braver. The little shit commented on details of incidents where he was not remotely present. What sort of fucked up excuse for a representative democracy can have an election kiboshed by Dick “Freaking” Nixon, after the mofo has gone to hell? Anybody with a brain knows that Blackwell and the Diebold CEO arsehole robbed Cuyahoga County. Rob 2000 Rob 2004! These people are elitist aholes that give no shit about anybody.

    Do GOPers know that the Soutern Stategy morhped into the anti-American Southern strategy? Do they know that Lee Atwater asked God to forgive him on his deathbed? Swiftboat was the foulest excuse for politics in the history of American politics. Asknthe guy actually there whose life Kerry saved. Was Paul O’Neill there? What a chickehshit aasshole. Kinda like Cheney, or W.In what way were these allegations not slander? Well they were, without a doubt. Kerry’s prominence no-way protects them. They made this shit up. In Brit law, these are ridiculously obvious criminals. They made this shit up from mucho miles away. O’Neill and facts are absurdly disconnected. The guy is a little pisant If he threw in with W, he is a traitor. Eat that Rick Perry.

    Actually, the Republican hyper-bullshit about Kerry supposedly manufacturing wounds?

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  40. april glaspie said on August 19, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    This is all hilarious. Good lord. It is one sad case. Americans were more willing to believe Paul O’Neill than Kerry. You cannot be stupider. That is exceptionally sad for being a moron.

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  41. april glaspie said on August 19, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    No Joke. Kerry dragged a guy out of a hotch with something like a 50 cal in his left arm W did all sorts of shit like that that, in his heroic
    The , the rediculous shit. . Kerry was heroic. This little shit IS Paull Mcdonaldm He xouldn’t care about anything, he is a racist piece of shit. Tell me he isn’t.

    W qcruqlly qcred like. rhiAAHOLW nyvodybut q qtupie pi3c3e 0f whit. ABag this shit.

    whqtever you think NQNCY. THERE IS NOTHING i th

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  42. Dexter said on August 19, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    Deborah… is the Greek Islands restaurant over on Halsted , like 200 S, still jumpin’? It’s been a long time but I was served flaming cheese there one time. Right now I am jonesin’ for a gyros.

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  43. Bob (not Greene) said on August 19, 2011 at 8:31 pm

    Looks like Prospero keeled over in mid rant. Kind of like Joseph of Arimathea carving his warning in the Cave of Caerbannog, saying the Holy Grail could be found in the castle of … arrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggh!

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  44. Connie said on August 19, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    Opa!

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  45. Jolene said on August 19, 2011 at 9:46 pm

    A few days ago, when we were talking about architecture, Sue asked about Irish/Celtic structures that were designed to admit light in certain ways at certain times of the year. Took me a few days*, but I found the name of a famous structure in Ireland that a friend had told me about. The structure is called Newgrange. It was built in 3200 B.C. (the Neolithic Age). According to Wikipedia, the structure is designed so that, at the winter solstice, light floods the inside, filling an otherwise dark chamber. Wikipedia says the purpose of the structure is not absolutely clear, but it may have been part of an “astronomically based faith”. (See the “Purpose” section of the Wikipedia entry.) The Newgrange web site seems more confident about its purpose, and the description, since it’s designed for tourism, is more straightforward.

    *Not that I spent several days on this. I’m a nerd, but not that much of one. Just remembered today that I meant to look it up.

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  46. Dorothy said on August 19, 2011 at 10:01 pm

    Deborah now I’m sorry I didn’t speak up sooner, as they made their reservations about a month ago at the Palmer House. Oh well perhaps another time when I’m with him, I’ll get in touch sooner and we’ll have lunch. I haven’t heard a word about dinner so I’m assuming they have OD’d on the steak and gone right to sleep.

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  47. Bill said on August 19, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    Our family went to the Palmer House last year during the holidays. They run an annual promotion with special room rates in December when you pay for them in July called, appropriately enough, “Christmas in July.” We had a blast looking at Macy’s and other windows, eating at the Berghoff, visiting the Art Institute and the French Market. We’ve already made our reservations for this December.
    Chicago is a special place to visit at any time of the year, albeit a bit expensive. We’re fortunate to live only about 30 minutes from the Loop, so it’s an easy drive. One highlight of last year–a Bloody Mary made with bacon-infused vodka at the Palmer House bar.

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  48. Julie Robinson said on August 19, 2011 at 10:35 pm

    As a kid I remember attending conventions at the Palmer House (my dad was covering them for his radio station) and it seemed the height of glamour and sophistication. Then I think it went downhill for a while, but I’m glad to hear it’s regained glory once again. It sounds like a great weekend for your guys, Dorothy.

    Cork ‘n Cleaver did not disappoint, and they even have a veggie stir fry now for those of us not interested in large chunks of meat. We also went to Crazy Stupid Love, a real wild and crazy night for us. Hello, 33!

    Edit: Bill you are so right about Chicago. What a grand city.

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  49. Deborah said on August 19, 2011 at 11:07 pm

    Opa indeed. I’ve had the flaming cheese on Halsted, Dexter. It’s still there. We were introduced to it by a friend of ours who died a couple of years ago. I will always remember him and that evening when they brought the flaming cheese to our table. He was a great guy too.

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  50. april glaspie said on August 19, 2011 at 11:29 pm

    know, Sometimes, Not really. It sounds like a drag. But I don’t know, woods out back of a Pulte subdivision, and growing up with SRC and MC5 and Stooges, that was pretty cool. Please admit you listened to that Siegel-Schwall and it was exceptional More ecxcprtional than other bands. Ridicu;ously good.

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  51. Jolene said on August 20, 2011 at 12:37 am

    I did listen to the Siegel Schwall recording that you posted, Pros. It took me back, for sure. For some reason, it put me in mind of the Paul Butterfield/Mike Cooper recordings of the same era, sp I spent a bit of time listening to them too. Thanks for the inspiration.

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  52. april glaspie said on August 20, 2011 at 7:00 am

    Martin Luther? The most openly bound humn being that ever lived. obofy ever had a harder tume hving bowe mobementis impzctment was pretty much the bsis of his whole religione st endlessly in the jzzkes, pzying, znd got no relief, It’ss like Rick Perry praying for rin. I’d say, God doesn’t Nswer pryers for dickheads. Wh yshould he? These are dicjheads.

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  53. ROGirl said on August 20, 2011 at 9:43 am

    Speaking of dicjheads, this is from an NYT interview with Kwame:

    You ended up in jail for lying on the stand when you denied an affair with Beatty. You went to law school. You watched Bill Clinton face impeachment for lying about sex under oath. Didn’t you know that it was going to come back to you?

    I wish sometimes the ability to be smart and to be righteous overwhelmed our ability to hide and be in fear and be stupid. In that particular moment, it didn’t. It was one of the most revolutionary dumb, stupid and the only illegal thing that I’ve ever done in my life.

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  54. coozledad said on August 20, 2011 at 10:33 am

    I think Rasputin also believed in polymorphous perversity as a ticket to paradise. I know it’s annoying to have an atheist point out some of the possible theological shortcomings in this view, but what else have we got to do? For starters, you might be greeted in heaven by Tamerlane, Lee Atwater, Charles Manson, Hermann Goering and Evgeny Pick.
    You’d also think the mission of the Church gets slightly muddled when the apples of God’s eye are setting fire to hospitals and orphanages to earn points.

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  55. april glaspie said on August 20, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    Cooz, Lee Atwater repented on his deathbed. And played a Les Paul. Should count for something. Actually so did Tamerlane. Not the Gibson but the deathbed conversion. Any bets on whether Cheney says he’s sorry for shooting his friend in the face with the Girly Gun when his excuse for a heart gives way in an unspecified bunker. How could you leave him out?

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  56. Dorothy said on August 20, 2011 at 5:00 pm

    Julie did you like Crazy, Stupid Love? I was going to go see that this weekend as my treat to myself while Mike was out of town. But I had auditions today (and again tomorrow) for the play I’m directing and it sort of messed up my time frame for seeing a movie. A friend is coming over shortly for pizza and beer and a movie on my DVR that she’s never seen but I highly recommended.

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  57. Deborah said on August 20, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    I’m writing this in St. Louis again. We’re here for friend’s daughter’s wedding. We’re staying in a new hotel in a totally renovated part of town. It used to be my old neighborhood in a former life. Hard to believe it finally got fixed up, but it took at least 30 years. I’m glad not to be in Chicago this weekend because the air and water show is going on and it’s LOUD. My poor cats are probably scared to death about now. Littlebird is holding down the fort and grumbling about the excessive noise outside her windows. They were expecting 2 million visitors for the event. That’s a lot of traffic.

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  58. Dexter said on August 20, 2011 at 5:33 pm

    And in Detroit this weekend, the Dream Cruise. I’m not a serious car nut, but I do love to watch the news highlights and the stories . Today on the WJR-AM Warren Pierce Show… ” the father of the GTO”

    http://geetotiger.com/JimWangers.htm

    on a phoner, as well as a really great interview with car guru Bob Lutz, recently retired at age 78. He’s the guy who had the control of the direction of GM thrown into his lap when Rick Waggoner took over and saw what a mess the corporation was in. I got a kick out of Lutz telling what a horrible leader Robert (Bob) Stempel was, always squeezing cost out of car design, resulting in really crappy cars.

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  59. Little Bird said on August 20, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    Yeah, the fighter jet that flies right over Deborah’s building (so close you can practically see the pilot) is loud. The cats seem to be perturbed, but not freaked out. One, the smart one, looked at me as if to say “I know this noise is your fault, FIX IT”. The other hid in the window behind the blinds. She’s pretty, but not too smart.
    The bright spot of today was the show was delayed and shortened considerably because of the rain. I’m hoping for more rain tomorrow.

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  60. april glaspie said on August 20, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    Well, Dexter, Lee Iacoco was the Father of the Mustang, a much cooler car than any GTO. And that Shelby Mustang engine is about as good as ever been built. But GTOs had a great song wtitten about them by Ronny and the Daytonas.

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  61. Julie Robinson said on August 20, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    Dorothy, my husband had trouble with the sleeping around part of Stupid Crazy Love, and I guess I did too, but I had decided to suspend reality. There are some very funny scenes and I would rate it a cut above the standard rom-com. (But then, Dennis always wants movies to have chase scenes and explosions, so it would have disappointed him anyway.)

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  62. basset said on August 20, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    I believe Siegel-Schwall’s last show, at least before they started doing reunions, was at the Wright Quad cafeteria at IU.

    And, April, “Little GTO” was written by a teenager in study hall at Hillsboro High in Nashville… son of some well-known record producer if I remember right.

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  63. april glaspie said on August 20, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    Transferring bodies? One time was great, Freaky Friday, and I sure mean the one with Jamie Lee and Lindsay, although Jodie Foster was excellent in the original. Crossing urine streams? C’mon. Didn’t these poop joke experts see Ghostbusters?

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  64. Dexter said on August 20, 2011 at 9:54 pm

    april glaspie: Only thing I have in common with Bill Ford is an appreciation for (his words) “the throaty sound of a Mustang roaring off down the road…”
    It is an anomaly that of all the cars I have owned, and all but two bought used, I never had a Mustang, and the Mustang is my favorite car. I almost bought a new one in 1999 but I left the money in the retirement fund.
    When my ship docks, it’s off to the Ford dealership .
    http://tinyurl.com/3h5x33u

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  65. april glaspie said on August 20, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    ‘Stangs were wonderful cars. I even like the new ones. I never had one either. I drove my mom’s ’63 T-bird convertible when I was in HS. One awesome machine. Good for beating curfew, for sure.

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  66. brian stouder said on August 21, 2011 at 10:26 am

    Spent the day Saturday in Brooklyn, Michigan, at the Michigan International Speedway. Our fine young 16 year old wanted to go for the truck race, and he’d never been there before (and I haven’t been there in more than 10 years) so we were off.

    The atmosphere at these big races is interesting, and there’s always lots of neat stuff to look at. Chevrolet had a very large and impressive display of their wares, as did Ford. And indeed, the CEO of Ford is going to be the master of ceremonies at the NASCAR race today.

    One interesting thing about yesterday: the weather was continuously darkening (although it didn’t strike me as very scarey looking), and the track announcer let it be known that the free concert they had scheduled for later that afternoon was cancelled, due to the gathering weather. The Indiana State Fair wasn’t mentioned by him, but a murmur immediately spread across the grandstands

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  67. coozledad said on August 21, 2011 at 11:15 am

    Bush ally and hipster facial hair avatar Muammar Gaddafi has entered his “winning from the bunker deep beneath the garment district of Tripoli” phase, or is resting on the shore in Venezuela, depending on which paper you read.
    http://www.presstv.com/detail/166231.html

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  68. Dexter said on August 21, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    Yes it is.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y&feature=related

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  69. Connie said on August 21, 2011 at 3:09 pm

    Our Saturday included a trip to Comerica Park to see the Tigers whip the Indians 10 to 1. I made many trips to Briggs Field – old Tiger Stadium back in the Al Kaline days but this was my first time to Comerica. Grand it was, complete with 7$ beer. The friend who gave me the tickets also gave me his parking pass which was especially great. Although getting off the freeway before the game reminded of I90 in South Bend on Notre Dame football days. The guy I gave the extra two tickets too didn’t show, so next time I’ll call Brian.

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  70. brian stouder said on August 21, 2011 at 4:16 pm

    We would be so THERE!

    It was indeed a very pleasant weekend, for about whatever outdoor activity one might have scheduled.

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  71. coozledad said on August 21, 2011 at 11:35 pm

    Yet another unequivocal foreign policy victory for Obama. It’s like a world tour of implementing changes Republicans could only jack off to in their motel rooms, if they were paying attention (the way they used to) to things like the Lockerbie bombing, or the price of finite resources.
    HA.
    Hahahahahaha.

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  72. moe99 said on August 22, 2011 at 1:49 am

    beb, I’ve been thinking about the SEC destroying its files all weekend. This does not seem to be anywhere close to the proud agency I started work for in 1983 and left in 1994 when they closed the Seattle office. But it did shift in a major way during my time, particularly when the higher ups, with pressure from the WH, closed the insider trading investigation into Harken Energy and George W. Bush in 1989. When I left 17 years ago,the SEC had become a culture of bending over backwards to help the targets of their investigations.

    When I was investigating cases, I did not have automatic authority to subpoena records. I had to write a memo laying out my case and tying it to the laws, documenting why there were probable violations of the securities laws that merited having subpoena authority to investigate. Initially it went straight to the Commission but eventually they set up a Regional Office in D.C. where the memos were vetted first. The Regional Office could return it for any reason whatsoever, and they often did with red lining aplenty. We would joke that law review articles were easier to write than Commission memos. So eventually it could take 6 months or more just to get authority to subpoena documents.

    When we thought we had sufficient evidence to file the case, we again had to file a memo with the Commission through the Regional Office which would once again vet and return the memo if they felt we didn’t have the evidence or the law sufficient to sustain the filing. Once we finally made it through the labyrinthian maze we then had to notify the targets of the investigation that we planned to sue them (this is civilly, mind you, not criminally). At that point the targets could file something titled a Wells submission contesting our action and then they could appear in person and argue to the Commission that there was no need or merit to an SEC action. Of course, the Commission was quite busy, so scheduling this appearance could take quite a while and then we had to fly into DC from Seattle to do our presentation. It could take upwards of two years to complete an investigation.

    It certainly stifled initiative.

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  73. Dexter said on August 22, 2011 at 2:00 am

    Connie, the telecast crew showed us an overhead of Michigan & Trumbull and the old Tiger Stadium (nee Briggs Stadium nee Navin Field). I had to do a double take because I had the sound down as I was on the phone, then I noticed the Fisher Fwy. walk-over bridge and ramp, which I used every time, and there it was: nothing. Only oddly, it appears someone is maintaining the infield. Like I wrote, it was a high overhead shot, so I could not tell if the high wire fences were still up to prevent trespassers, but as you Detroiters know, it was levelled quite some time ago.

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