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THE STUPID BOWL

Posted on February 3, 2014 by halviv

I was wondering how many people paid thousands of dollars out-of-pocket to buy a ticket to attend what was probably the worst super bowl game in history. I realize that most everyone is comp’d when obtaining super bowl tickets; either as a bonus or reward by companies they work for, or by other organizations they may be associated with. And for movie stars in attendance such as Michael Douglas or Alec Baldwin, shelling out a few thousand is no big deal. But among the tens of thousands in attendance, I’m sure there are some that actually bought tickets they could ill afford; only to watch Peyton Manning and his Denver Broncos humiliate themselves beyond credulity. The irony of watching Manning, who was awarded the National Football League’s MVP trophy the day before the game, along with his Denver teammates, so thoroughly embarrass themselves before a world-wide audience of billions, was certainly not lost on most football fans. You knew the game was going south in a hurry for Denver when 12 seconds after kick-off they incurred a safety, an occurrence that rarely happens in any football game. In any event, I feel that the several hours out of my life that I spent watching the game on TV will be time that I, unfortunately, will never be able to recoup.

I did notice that, in all the pre-game festivities, there was suddenly a political discussion injected into all the forced giddiness. It seemed so out-of-place, especially to all those multitudes that were trying so hard to convince themselves about what a swell time they were having during all the pre-game hoopla. But there it suddenly was, an interview that Bill O’Reilly from Fox News was having with President Obama. While the interview was contentious, a certain decorum was maintained. Since Fox News is certainly the biggest Obama basher and vilifier on TV, the interview primarily consisted of O’Reilly attacking the Obama Administration for all its supposed screw-ups and misdeeds; and Obama defending himself with the usual politician’s doublespeak and vagueness. One of O’Reilly’s main contentions was that Obama has been a divisive president who has failed to  accommodate Republicans in trying to push through major legislation. Obama didn’t defend himself all that well against this accusation so I thought I would do it for him. Here’s what he should have said in that interview.

Soon after Obama was elected President in 2008, but weeks before he was sworn into office, Rush Limbaugh, who claims a listenership in the millions, bellowed forth on his radio program that: “I WANT HIM TO FAIL.” I’m sure Rush was merely expressing the sentiments held by his fellow hard-core, right-wing lunatics.

Right after Obama took office, while he was still adjusting his chair behind his desk in the Oval Office for its comfort level, Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans, publicly stated that the GOP’s number one priority was to defeat Barack Obama for re-election in 2012. Not to work for the American people who were facing the most serious economic crises this country had seen since the Great Depression, but to defeat Barack Obama’s re-election bid. Not to help the millions of workers that were suddenly thrown out of their jobs, or to assist the millions of home-owners whose mortgages went under-water, or who were having their homes foreclosed by the banks. Oh no, this was just incidental stuff. Defeating Obama the next time around was far more important. Of course, as we all know, that didn’t quite work out so well.

Shortly after finding his way to the Oval Office, President Obama invited Republican leaders to the White House and laid out his agenda for them. He told them that they could join with him in trying to resolve the dismal economic conditions that he had inherited, or they could become the party of Rush Limbaugh and oppose just about every one of his key initiatives. Sadly, as we know, the GOP chose the latter, and continues to do so to this day.

Again, right after Obama took office in 2009, the Tea Party movement was formed to oppose every single Obama initiative. If he was for it, they were against it. It was comprised primarily of extreme right-wing anarchists, racists, or those that were delusional enough to believe that Government spending could be slashed back to the levels that existed when Calvin Coolidge was president. (Read my piece on “Returning To The Days Of Silent Cal” for further info.) The Tea Party became a potent enough force of obstructionism, however, to give Republicans control of the House; but its mind-numbing political blindness did cost the GOP several Senate seats. Now the GOP is rather fractured in trying to appease Tea Party extremists while also trying to appear as a rational political entity. An oxymoron if there ever was one.

As a result of such crude and obvious Obama hatred and obstructionism, the President has understandably shied away from trying to engage Republicans in any form of compromise or togetherness on major issues. This has naturally led to a divided Government of gridlock, hyper-partisanship, dysfunction, and polarization. In short, a situation where nothing meaningful can be accomplished. Aren’t you happy to be living in such joyous times? Are we having fun yet?

Not that I’m saying that Obama has been any great shakes as President. He pretty well screwed up the health-care initiative, his foreign policy is beyond weakness, the economy is still limping along, and the employment picture, while improving, is still in the doldrums. If you want legitimate criticism, those are the areas that should be up for discussion. But its more fun for the GOP and Tea Party to engage in mindless Obama bashing and demonization.

One last item about the Super Bowl. We all saw former quarterback great Joe Namath flub something as simple as the coin toss. There’s a fascinating story about Broadway Joe as he was known in his heyday, and perhaps, next time around I’ll write about him.

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THE WAR ON THE POOR

Posted on January 28, 2014 by halviv

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class …is getting poorer too. Long-time trends since the early 1980s show that middle class income has been steadily declining while the top 10% has seen a steady rise in their share of annual income and overall wealth. Today the top one percent has annual income of over $400,000, while the top 5 percent comes in at just under 200,000. It’s really not that much-especially if you live in a high-priced metropolitan area. But the overall wealth of families in the top 5% averages out at about $16 million, which is not too shabby. While families in the bottom 25% often barely make it from paycheck to paycheck, even with some government assistance.

On the other side of the ledger, the average family income in this country is now about $50,500, declining by over 5% over the last half-dozen years. Now $50,000 a year may afford you a half-way decent, no-frills, middle class life-style in places like Ames, Iowa, or Athens Georgia, but it doesn’t go very far if one lives in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Houston or New York. As far as the poverty rate in the U.S. these days, it stands at around 15%, with those families earnings being in the neighborhood of $20,000 per year. So we have the top one percent earning over $400,000 a year, while the bottom 15% earn about $20,000 or less. Does that sound like income inequality to you? A subject that President Obama will likely dwell upon at some length in his state of the union address tonight. Or more precisely, how to remedy the continual growing economic inequality that is oozing over this country like a giant blob.

Of course, economic conditions in this country used to be worse. This prompted President Lyndon Johnson, exactly 50 years ago, to declare his famous “War on Poverty.” In 1964, the official poverty rate in this country was over 20%, and Johnson, after taking over the presidency from an assassinated John Kennedy, declared that this was unacceptable. There was, in effect 2 Americas. While some of the citizenry lived in opulent luxury, a vast number endured hardscrabble lives in the most deplorable squalor. So Johnson, with the help of Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress began his war on poverty which resulted in the enactment of major pieces of legislation such as Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, college loan programs and housing assistance. As a result, poverty rates, especially for seniors dropped significantly to about the 15% level. Under LBJ, the civil rights voting law, which enabled black minorities to freely vote in the South for the first time, also became a reality. Indeed, with such huge accomplishments under his belt, Lyndon Johnson could have been recognized as one of our greatest presidents, except for one thing. The war in Viet-Nam. While the rest of the country finally began to recognize this war as the hopeless fiasco it turned out to be, LBJ continued to pour more  and more troops and money into a lost cause. The country turned on him, as a result, and his presidency was destroyed. Richard Nixon, who followed Johnson, and who extracted us from Viet-Nam, also achieved major accomplishments, only to see his presidency destroyed by his paranoia over the Watergate scandal. I guess the seeds of one’s personal destruction lie buried within everyone’s soul, only to sprout forth under the most opportune and fertile circumstances.

In any event, government intervention to provide assistance to the most unfortunate members of our society, the poor, the sick and the elderly, became the accepted norm, at least until 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected president. Reagan ran under the mantra of the government, instead of being the solution, was actually the problem. It was government interference in the free-market system that was causing all the economic hardships we were experiencing. Upon taking office, Reagan, therefore, set out to significantly slash social welfare and assistance programs, while also substantially cutting income tax rates, especially for the rich. So, instead of a war on poverty that Lyndon Johnson had undertaken, Reagan and the Republicans set out to make it a war on the poor. It was the 1980s, when “welfare queens” were blamed for draining the public coffers. Of course, everyone knew who the welfare queens were, since it was used as a racist subterfuge for black unwed mothers. One would think, however, that by slashing welfare programs, government spending would substantially decrease. Instead, Reagan increased government debt by over 300% during his 8 years in office, primarily through huge increases in Defense spending. You know, to defend against that Russian “evil empire” thingy. It turned out that Reagan and the Republicans weren’t against government spending per se. They were just against spending it on the most vulnerable of our people. When it came to spending on military hardware and troops, the sky was the limit. This combination of huge Defense spending coupled with sharp tax reductions for the wealthiest among us has mushroomed our public debt now to about $17 trillion. Republican policies regarding these spending and tax priorities have also pretty much stayed the same to this day, as when Reagan first enumerated them in the 1980s.

To be fair, the very nature of our capitalistic economic system will mandate a society where some individuals will possess the necessary talents and abilities to take full advantage and become very wealthy and powerful. Others will have extreme difficulty coping with competitive nature and meritocracy that capitalism demands, and they will usually wind up at the bottom of the totem pole. Most will fall somewhere in the middle. To paraphrase what Winston Churchill said about democracy-Capitalism is the worst form of economics, except for any other system that’s ever been tried.

In any event, no matter what President Obama proposes tonight regarding income inequality, don’t look for our piece of crap Congress to take any meaningful action on any proposal. Politicians these days are bought and paid for by billionaires who have their own agendas, and they hardly include helping to raise the lower classes out of poverty. Once elected, a politician’s primary objective is to get re-elected; and to do that, he or she has to make  the billionaires who put him or her in office happy so these billionaires will keep pouring money into their campaigns. That’s what our so-called democratic system has devolved to, why no meaningful legislation is ever enacted, and why the entire system has pretty much become a farce.

 

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COINCIDENCE OR DIVINE INTERVENTION

Posted on January 13, 2014 by halviv

When you’ve lived as long as I have, and have so many more years behind you than in front, you begin to dwell on what the future might hold. In other words, is there really an afterlife, or is our short time on this planet all she wrote. And what a short time it is. Even if you make it to 100, (less than a quarter of one percent of the world’s population does), it’s still like throwing a thimble-full of water into the ocean. The universe is estimated by astro-physicists to be 14 billion years old. But that’s  just when it’s believed that matter first appeared on the scene.  Actually, since both space and time are infinite, the universe always was and always will be with us. In any event, when you live in a seniors community as I do, where people seem to pop off like fruit-flies, you begin to muse about what life after death might look like-assuming, of course, there is such a thing. It would be nice if Skype could extend its technology to the next dimension so we can get a glimpse of what to expect, but apparently, that’s still not doable. Thus we have to look for clues elsewhere.

One place that might give us some info would be examining the lives and deaths of certain U.S. presidents. For example, our second and third presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. At a time (over 2 centuries ago) when most people didn’t make it past their forties, these 2 men lived extraordinarily long lives-Jefferson made it until 80, and Adams all the way to 91. But the unique aspect of their deaths was that they both occurred on exactly the same day. And that day was July 4, 1826- EXACTLY 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (Actually, that infamous document was signed by various delegates to the convention hall in Philadelphia throughout the entire summer of 1776; but July Fourth was settled on as the official date of independence.) Jefferson died first, in the morning hours. Shortly thereafter, Adams, lying on his death bed, supposedly uttered the words-“Jefferson lives.” Was he seeing a vision of Jefferson crossing over into the next dimension? Now what are the odds of these 2 figures, so prominent in the American Revolution, both dying on the same day, and that day being exactly 50 years from our first Independence Day. The odds would have to be in the gazillions. One would need a super computer to calculate all the variables. To make this scenario even creepier, our fifth president, James Monroe, died exactly five years after that, on July 4, 1831. Was all this just coincidence, or as the religionists might say, there was a divine intervention playing out.

For those of you going with the gazillions to one theory that extreme coincidences do occasionally occur, lets take a peek at the lives and deaths of two more U.S. presidents, namely Abe Lincoln and John Kennedy.  Lincoln was elected president in 1860 and Kennedy in 1960, exactly 100 years later. Both men were assassinated while in office with gun shot wounds to the back of the head. Lincoln was shot while attending a play at Ford’s theater, while Kennedy was shot while riding in a Lincoln town car manufactured by Ford. Both men had wives that lost a child while in the White House. Lincoln was advised not to go to Ford’s theater that fatal night by an aide named Kennedy, while Kennedy was advised not to travel to Dallas by his secretary named Lincoln. Both men were succeeded in office by their southern vice-presidents named Johnson who were born exactly 100 years apart. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln was born in 1808 while Lyndon Johnson who succeeded Kennedy was born in 1908. Amazing how these “coincidences” just keep piling up.

So what should we make of all this. Are these just a series of random events occurring in an empty universe, or is there a larger force at work. And if there is a spiritual force pulling the strings behind the curtain, what message exactly is being sent. No one really knows. The religionists would say that one must rely on his or her faith in God and leave it at that. Belief in the invisible man, as the late comedian George Carlin put it. But here in this seniors community where I live, and where Death, with his black shroud and scythe, who is seen constantly flitting among the bushes or peaking out from behind a tree, and who has taken up permanent residence, such questions continue to percolate.

The strange incidences I discussed above, plus the after-life experiences of some people who were clinically dead for several minutes before being revived, would seem to indicate that something larger is at play beyond our brief stay on this planet. Of course, there are those scientists who claim that those near-death-experiences were just the colorful fireworks of a dying brain. But I think that it’s likely that our brief lifetimes here are to prepare us for the road ahead for the rest of eternity in another dimension.I believe that life on this planet is pretty much the way Shakespeare portrayed it in Macbeth, as follows: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

 

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NEW YEAR, SAME OLD HATREDS

Posted on January 6, 2014 by halviv

A recent Gallop poll showed that close to two-thirds of all Americans considered 2013 to be a bummer. A year in which their fortunes or circumstances not only did not improve, but mostly worsened. So, as the festivities surrounding the artificial demarcation of the calendar have now ended, it might be useful to view where the world stands and what we can expect in 2014. A good place to start might be the Mid-East where centuries of embedded hatreds have come bubbling to the surface with a vengeance, resulting in the slaughter of thousands of people. Besides the hatreds between Palestinian Moslems and Israeli Jews, there are the larger hatreds between the primary two factions of Islam-the Shiites and the Sunnis. Both factions pray to Allah; both observe nearly identical religious rites, and yet both despise the very existence of each other’s lives. Never underestimate man’s capacity to revel in the depths of hatred and thirst for vengeance, which is like a bottomless pit.

A good example of this is current-day Iraq. Remember Iraq; the place that used to be ruled by the tyrant Saddam Hussein. Remember back in 2003 when President George W. Bush stated that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weaponry. How the world could not allow such a blood thirsty butcher as Saddam to possess these WMDs. How we had to go to war with Iraq in March 2003 in order to depose Saddam and rid Iraq of these WMDs. And how, after we easily won that war, we found that, lo and behold, there were actually no WMDs in Iraq whatsoever. Oops. A slight miscalculation in our intelligence community. We finally extracted our forces out of Iraq after nearly 10 years of on-going bloodshed, after the deaths of over 6000 U.S military personnel and civilian contractors, the expenditure of nearly a trillion dollars, and the slaughter of close to 200,000 Iraqis. What’s left now, however, is an Iraqi nation in shambles with Shiite and Sunni factions, along with the emerging presence of Al-Qaida, murdering each other by the thousands.

In 2013, almost 9000 Iraqis were killed in suicide terrorist attacks. When Saddam was in charge, he had led his minority Sunni people to rule over the majority Shiite population. With Saddam gone, and with no U.S. presence to mediate between both Islamic factions, the majority Shiites have taken control of the government led by Prime Minister Maleki who has moved harshly against the Sunnis; including handing out death sentences against Sunni political leaders. As a result, old hatreds have come to the forefront with Sunnis going on a killing spree against Shiites to avenge the oppression they’re experiencing.  Al-Qaida, ever vigilant for new opportunities to spread their unique brand of terrorism, has stepped into the fray by aligning themselves with the Sunni minority. But in reality, Al-Qaeda is just out for themselves, and has now taken control of a significant chunk of Iraqi territory; including the city of Fallujah, where so many U.S. lives were lost. As the beat goes on, old hatreds keep on bubbling to the surface as Iraq continues to degenerate or devolve into never-ending tribal warfare.

I’ve written extensively before, about the 3 year-old civil war going on in Syria, which has now claimed about 125,000 lives with hundreds more lost on an almost daily basis; so I won’t repeat the details here. Except to note that Al-Qaida also has a growing presence in that debacle as well; with the goal of uniting with Al-Qaeda in Iraq so as to control a huge area of land and population from which they can indulge in their terrorist fascism with impunity. The rest of the Mid-East is a similar basket case. Libya, which commendably overthrew its own bloody tyrant, has now degenerated into a conglomeration of tribes that are constantly at war with each other. Tiny Lebanon, has the unfortunate circumstance of having a major terrorist organization within its borders thanks to funding and support from Iran. It’s part of Iran’s scheme of one day destroying Israel. And speaking of Iran, 2014 should be the year that it is allowed to, at last, come into possession of nuclear weaponry. While this country, and the rest of the world, sits by and lets it happen. Sort of the way the world watched Hitler and Nazism rise to power in the 1930s, and did nothing about it until it was too late.

Which brings us to the most intractable of all Mid-East hatreds-that, of course, being between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Both sides have been in a kind of constant state of war, hot or cold, since Israel was granted statehood in 1948. The problem is that both sides seek to be the dominant force in a relatively small geographical space that is, apparently, not big enough for the both of them. As a result, both sides are trapped in a never-ending cycle of terrorist attacks by Palestinians against Israeli civilians, resulting in a series of harsh reprisals and segregation of the Palestinians by the Israelis, countered by cries for vengeance and and destruction of Israel by the Palestinians, etc., resulting in a never-ending merry-go-round of bitterness, dysfunction, and revenge. Our Secretary of State, John Kerry, is engaging in almost super-human effort to bring both sides to the negotiating table to find a peaceful resolution of this on-going mess. Remember John Kerry? He ran for President in 2004, and lost by whisker to George Bush, when Ohio tipped into Bush’s column. Now, he’s making it his life’s mission to forge a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state, where both parties can live in peace and harmony. He deserves an A for effort; but the prospects for success remain quite poor. The reason-its not easy for people or nations to give up on their centuries old hatreds or lusts for vengeance.

And so this is the way the world spins in 2014, or at least that part of the world I’ve discussed in this entry. Doesn’t look very appetizing does it? But, we have almost an entire year to see how all this plays out, before we once again, engage in the rites and rituals surrounding the artificial turnover of the calendar that occurs during every winter solstice.

 

 

 

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TAKING INVENTORY

Posted on December 23, 2013 by halviv

As 2013 winds down to its dreary conclusion, a look back over the year would seem to be in order. Both internationally and here in the U.S., events generally did not go well. From the hysterics surrounding the rollout of ObamaCare and the general dysfunction and demonization of political opponents in our so-called government, to to the triumphs of tyrants and murderers abroad, 2013 will not make the hit parade of winners over the years, decades or centuries, past or future. So lets us start with the “unpleasantness” occurring overseas before we swing back to what has taken place in this country.

Take Greece. Please. (Still attached to that old Hennie Youngman joke.) Greece, as we all know, has long been considered the cradle of democracy, if not civilization itself. Between Plato, Socrates, Homer and others, Greece has profoundly enriched western civilization and culture with literature, art, philosophy, etc. But modern day Greece, as we further know, has been an economic basket case. The country has been in a virtual state of bankruptcy for at least the last 6 years, and its economy would have been driven down to the very depths of depression if it hadn’t received continual cash infusions from wealthier European countries such as Germany. So, as what usually happens in societies that are suffering hard economic times, extremism on a broad scale has raised its ugly head.

A political movement in Greece called “Golden Dawn” which espouses a neo-Nazi philosophy, has been steadily gaining political muscle and influence. Much like the race riots caused by Nazi brownshirts in 1920s Germany, the Greek police have generally stood on the sidelines while Golden Dawn’s para-military squads have rolled into action, spewing forth hate and violent demonstrations against anyone deemed genetically inferior. And much like Hitler and the Nazis in the 1920s, Golden Dawn, once considered a fringe group known for its stiff-arm salutes and Holocaust denials, has now achieved at least 15% support and growing, among the Greek populace. They also have 18 seats now in the Greek parliament. Emboldened by their rising popularity and parliamentary successes, Golden Dawn has embarked on an ever-increasing level of racial violence and street demonstrations which have resulted in scores of deaths. And why not? This was the same route so successfully taken by Adolph Hitler and the Nazis on their road to political domination. So, in addition to the economic misery the average Greek citizen is expected to suffer through, they now have to combat the rising tide of right-wing fanaticism. And I would submit that all this is all going on under most Americans radar screens.

I’ve written before about the other on-going, long-term,  festering foreign policy  problems that the U.S. tends more and more to walk away from. In 2013, the rising tide of U.S. isolationism gathered increased momentum. Both the political left and right in this country have entered into an unholy alliance to disengage from foreign affairs. For example, the one thing that Ted Cruz, on the far-far right, complimented President Obama for, was not taking military action in Syria. Even though bloody dictator Basher Assad has now slaughtered about 130,000 of his on people in a never-ending civil war. Even though Assad crossed Obama’s red line in the sand by using chemical warfare in killing hundreds of Syrians. Even though Assad orders bombings of Syrian cities, killing hundreds on a daily basis. But who are we to intervene? Certainly not the leader of the free world. Not anymore.

I’ve also written before about how Iran, the leading world sponsor of terrorism, is first-down and goal to go on the one yard line, as far as acquiring nuclear weaponry. About how, in 2013, we’ve eased up on the economic sanctions placed on Iran in attempting dissuade the ruling mullahs from crossing that goal line. In return for relaxed sanctions we’ve gotten supposed negotiations which appear to be going no-where. About how absent any direct military action by this country in bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, they will almost certainly come into possession of dirty bombs. And, about how, given the growing isolationist tendencies in the U.S., the chances of such military action are about….less than zero. Because we all know how well isolationism worked out in the past; say just before WWII. The one thing I’ve learned in life is that there’s always a price to pay for every action, or inaction, as the case may be. That free lunch everyone’s always looking for-it just ain’t there.

Moving back to our shores, 2013 saw an increasing amount of dysfunction and polarization among the American public and its representatives. We saw the Government shut down for weeks in October, as both parties created one phony crises after another to further their political agendas. Any thought of actually enacting something beneficial for the American public evaporated like the morning mist. As a result, the decades-long decline of the American middle-class continued unabated. Average annual income for middle-class families declined from about $56,000 before the recession to about an inflation-adjusted $51,000 currently. Meanwhile, the richest one or two percent saw their wealth grow considerably higher. We are becoming more and more like a third-world banana republic, where the one percent richest elite will rule the rest of us peasants. Republicans, smelling blood in the water, are attacking the highly Democratic ineptitude in rolling out ObamaCare. The GOP figures that the ObamaCare failures in 2013 will give them an absolute lock on winning both the House and the Senate in 2014, and perhaps they’re right. Won’t life in America be fun then. So to my thinking, 2013 has recorded a pretty dismal record when it comes to the betterment of mankind’s future.

Meanwhile, dysfunction will still be the order of the day, come 2014. Starting early next year, another Government shutdown is looming over the debt-ceiling debacle. And I haven’t even discussed the enormous progress made in  the ecological degradation of our planet during 2013, and sure to continue as 2014 unfurls. (I’ve written about that previously, if anyone is interested.) So raise a glass of good cheer come New Year’s Eve. After all, the fun just never stops coming.

 

 

 

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IN GOD’S IMAGE

Posted on December 16, 2013 by halviv

A few years back, the late author and intellectual, Christopher Hitchens, wrote a book entitled-“God Is Not Great,” which, in my opinion, contained a very provocative concept. Hitchens stated that-“God did not create man. It’s the other way around. Man created God.” His theory was that because of man’s fear of the unknown, and of death, man had to create a being greater than himself, to provide comfort from the stresses of living, and an after-life to alleviate the fear of death. Over the millions of years these belief systems  evolved, first into pagan religions that worshipped idols, and then into the formal religions that we have today such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. But all these religions have one thing in common; they are all man-made. The Hebrew old testament, the Christen new testament, the Moslem Koran, etc. were all written by men. Not a single word was scripted by God. This, of course, left man, or at least the men that were writing these bibles, which went on to serve as the underpinnings of their religions, a free hand to create God in whatever image they desired. So let’s examine how man created at least one of these major religions, Christianity, since it’s the primary belief system in the U.S. And, of course, the time of year when Christianity is most celebrated.

While the new testament supposedly convey’s a message of love, compassion, empathy and respect for your fellow human beings, many conservative Christian pastors don’t quite see it that way. For example, North Carolina pastor Charles Worley (who has a huge following) recently sermonized about creating a gay concentration camp. “Have the fence electrified so the homosexuals can’t get out. In a few years they’ll die out… because they can’t reproduce.”

Or how about Kansas pastor Curtis Knapp, who, during a recent sermon about homosexuality, stated-“Oh, so you’re saying that we should go out and start killing them? No, I’m saying the Government should. They won’t, but they should.” Or maybe the colorful language expressed by Indiana pastor Paul Brewster might be considered more vivid when he said-“A decision to allow same-sex marriages today lays the foundation for the definition of marriage to become silly putty tomorrow…which is a recipe for children to be made victims of all sorts of abuse, and the welfare of our society to receive a fatal blow.” I would also be remiss if I left out Maryland’s pastor Dennis Letterman’s shouts from the pulpit, when referring to homosexuals-“Kill them all. Right? My flesh kind of likes that idea.”

Perhaps we should put pastor Steven Anderson of Arizona at the top of the homophobic and Obama hate list. A few of his recent quotes will show why. “Let me tell you something: Barack Obama has wrought lewdness in America. America has become lewd…. Obscene. Dirty Filthy. Homosexuality. Promiscuity… We don’t even know what lewdness means anymore. We’re just surrounded by it. Inundated with it.” Or how about, when referring to President Obama, stating-…you’re going to tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children or babies killed through abortion….No, I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m gonna pray that he dies and goes to hell….When I go to bed tonight, that’s what I’m going to pray.”

Well, you might say. These are just small time hate-mongers preaching to like minded rubes in the hinterlands. Okay, then let’s hit the big time. One such prime-time pastor is Mark Driscoll who preaches every Sunday to over 7000 congregants at the Mars Hill mega church in Seattle, WA. Besides his attendees, hundreds of thousands more people are estimated to watch his sermons on YouTube every week. He’s been preaching for over 15 years and he doesn’t view Jesus, or Christianity as being all that empathetic. Recently he stated that-“Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist. He has a long wick, but the anger of his wrath is burning. Once the wick is burned up, he’s saddling up on a white horse and coming to slaughter his enemies and usher in his kingdom. Blood will flow.”

Can’t you just feel the love. In 2007 Driscoll sneered at Christians who “recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in his hair.” Instead he said that”Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in his hand and the commitment to make somebody bleed.” Of course, preaching a violent rather than peaceful or loving form of Christianity has a long history in the U.S. In the early part of the 20th century the Reverend Billy Sunday developed an immense following by sermonizing about the fires of hell and damnation that await all sinners, which included just about everybody older than nine. In the 1930s, Father Coughlin had a huge radio audience as he spewed forth a particularly virulent form of anti-semitism.

Not that other religions don’t spew forth hate and violence as well, all in the name of God. A prime example being the mullahs in various mosques around the world ranting on about Islamic Jihadism. But I don’t put the blame on any of these sermonizers. They’re just giving their audiences what they want to hear. As long as so many people in this world possess such huge quantities of hate and vitriol, you can bet that preachers in all religions will arise to give them what they’re asking for. If the demand is there opportunists will come forth to provide the supply. If, as Christopher Hitchens said, man created God, then man also has the option of defining or redefining God in any manner that’s suitable to his whims.

 

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LURKING UNDER THE HOLIDAY RADAR

Posted on December 9, 2013 by halviv

We’re currently right in the middle of the holiday season; a time for merriment, frolicking, and joy for all. Or almost all. A time for lighting up Christmas trees all over the world, or decorating the exterior of one’s house to resemble pinball machines. A time for office and neighborhood parties, for egg nog or harder spirits, and for gorging and feasting on holiday treats with a calorie-be damned attitude. After all, we’ll all go back on our diets after the new year, won’t we? It’s a time for college students to enjoy a lengthy break from their studies and return home to their families, or for extraordinarily lucky ones, to vacation in some tropical paradise. A time to engage in holiday shopping in overcrowded malls with lengthy lines at the checkout counters in most stores, for gift giving and receiving, and perhaps for even feeling more generous than usual toward one’s fellow man.

Of course, not every one will be in such a celebratory mood. Ask the 1.3 million, long-term, unemployed Americans whose benefits are about to run out just before Christmas, if they’re experiencing heaps of the holiday spirit. These people receive roughly $325 a week in unemployment payments which enables them to sleep with a roof over their heads and put some food on the table. But the legislation providing these benefits expires shortly, and our dysfunctional Congress seems little inclined to renew it. Which leaves these people with 2 alternatives; either becoming homeless, or just simply dying. Or how about the millions of people incarcerated in our nations prisons. Think they’ll be frolicking in their cells? Many are there for either using or selling illegal substances such as marijuana or heroin. While these may be unwise choices, the stupidity of jailing people for bad decisions not only destroys millions of lives, it also costs the taxpayer hundreds of billions dollars. While the most deadly substance of all, smoking tobacco, remains perfectly legal.

In any event, I thought it might be fun to examine some of the world’s problems that we like to ignore during the holiday season, but which stubbornly refuse to go away, even with the on-going holiday merriment. The ones currently flying below the radar screen, but which will emerge in all their full glory, come January. Take Iran, for example. Please.

Iran, which is the world’s leading purveyor of terrorism and anti-semitism, is first down with goal to go on the one-yard line, as far as acquiring nuclear weaponry. Those crazy-kid mullahs who run the country have repeated many times that their ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel. The acquisition of nuclear bombs will, of course, give them the means of accomplishing that goal. It doesn’t have to be a direct attack either. For example, a nuclear suitcase bomb left in a hotel room in Tel-Aviv by an Iranian sponsored terrorist, will not only kill hundreds of thousands of residents, it would render the city uninhabitable for generations to come. Israel would undoubtably respond by unleashing their own nuclear missiles against Iran which could kill millions more. But the carnage would not end there. Radiation clouds would form in the stratosphere and travel around the globe, pouring down radiation poisoning on all countries.

The U.S. effort to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weaponry has been to impose fairly tough economic sanctions on that country. While these sanctions have resulted in some impairment of Iran’s economy, they have apparently not been enough to dissuade the mullahs from pushing ahead with their nuclear ambitions. So now, the Obama Administration has engaged Iran in negotiations to prevent its nuclear acquisition. As part of these talks, we have eased up on many of the existing sanctions while Iran has given up virtually nothing. Most foreign policy experts believe it’s sheer folly to expect Iran to discontinue its nuclear bomb development no matter what the on-going talks produce. The mullahs running the country are too fanatical in their hatred of Israel and the U.S. for that to happen. By the way, since the Iranian government despises the U.S. almost as much as Israel, a dirty bomb placed in a hotel room in Houston or Chicago would not be beyond the realm of possibilities. The only way to stop Iran from from acquiring nuclear weaponry would be for the U.S. to undertake decisive military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, such as around-the-clock bombing of these facilities until they are ruble. But that will never happen with this Administration; nor would it have happened had his Mittness won the presidency in 2012.

Speaking of weak foreign policy initiatives, the on-going “civil war” in Syria continues unabated with us doing nothing about it. The Assad government long ago crossed Obama’s red line in the sand by killing thousands of its fellow country-men using chemical weapons, with out any repercussions from the West. The war is now pretty much stalemated, but the killing goes on without any end in sight. And we do absolutely nothing; a course strongly applauded by both the far right and far left. The one thing that Ted Cruz praised Obama for was not taking any military action in Syria. A good illustration of the sanity of that foreign policy position.

Of course, many other long-term disasters are waiting in the wings. I’ve written before about how the steady and systematic destruction of our rain forests and oceans, coupled with climate change, will have devastating consequences for the very existence of life on this planet. Or how about our highly dysfunctional and polarized government that can no longer produce anything of benefit for its citizenry. The same citizenry that elected this government into power in the first place. I could go on but you get the picture. Besides it’s holiday time. So get in the holiday spirit, and eat, drink and join in all the festivities. We don’t have to check the radar screen until after the first. That’s when we’ll go back on our diets too. And also pay attention to what’s going on in the world.

 

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CAPITALISM’S CASUALTIES

Posted on December 2, 2013 by halviv

I haven’t writing for awhile, mainly because of doctors appointments, (that senior thing again) and going away for the Thanksgiving Day thingy. Now all that is past, so I thought I would write about one of my favorite topics, as the title explains. It should be a quick and easy read, however. As Elizabeth Taylor said to each of her 7 husbands – I won’t keep you long.

The subject is capitalism, which every single person is involved with, whether they like it or not. Or more explicitly, those that have been victims to the many downsides of capitalism. Capitalism, as we know it today, was kicked into hi-gear by what historians refer to as the Industrial Revolution; which is generally accepted to have taken place from the mid-18th century thru the mid-19th century. Although, of course, the Industrial Revolution has been ever on-going. The latest manifestation, for about the last 30 years, has been in the electronics industry with the proliferation of home and business computers, I-Pods, tablets, and, of course, the latest consumer craze – grossly overpriced cell phones.

To set the mood, picture that since the beginning of time until late into the 1700s, the societies of most of Europe and North America were rooted in agriculture. Farming was the primary industry throughout both continents. Farmers would grow their own food, and what was considered excess would be sold in local markets. Whatever manufacturing that existed at the time, such as the production of clothing, tools, furniture, and horse drawn carriages, etc., were often made in people’s homes or small workshops. But the Industrial Revolution remarkably and dramatically changed all that. It started in England, where a previously manual labor-based economy transitioned into a machine and factory-based type of mechanization. It then spread to North America with the mechanization and factory creation of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and subsequently steel, and the increased development and use of refined coal. Trade expansion was dramatically increased through the introduction of canals, improved roadways, and, of course, railroads. The development of all metal machine tools in the early 1800s facilitated the manufacture of more production machinery in an ever increasing proliferation of factories. Production of goods began shifting from a manual labor-based effort, to that of factory machinery- driven assembly lines. The world began changing in profound ways.

The Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human history. The cost of producing those products that were on the market at that time dropped significantly with the introduction of factory mechanization. People who had known nothing farming all their lives began moving off  farms and into cities where most factories were located. As small as pay scales were for factory workers at the time, they were still better than eking out a meager and back-breaking existence by continually tilling the land. In fact, average income began to experience unprecedented sustained growth. In the two centuries following 1800, the world’s per capita income increased over 10-fold from where it had been from the previous 10,000 years. As Nobel Prize winner Robert Lucas wrote: “For the first time in history, the living standards for the masses of ordinary people began to undergo sustained growth. Nothing like this economic behavior has happened before.”

That’s the good part of capitalism. Now for the bad. The fundamental cornerstone of capitalism is based on a few people with extraordinary talent exploiting the masses that don’t have similar talents. Exploitation is the very foundation of capitalism. For example, in the 19th century, a guy named John D. Rockefeller came to understand that energy was the very lifeblood of the Industrial Revolution. He further came to know that oil could be a relatively cheap and plentiful source of energy to fuel factories and homes. The rest, as they say, is history. He founded a giant oil discovery and refining empire starting with Standard Oil, and made billions (in today’s money.) While his employees who often put their lives on the line drilling for or refining oil, earned chump change. Same with Andrew Carnegie. To be fair, though, both John D. and Andrew, in later life, set up charitable trusts and started giving away their money almost as fast as they made it.

Other bad examples abound and are too numerous to list them all. For instance, sweat shops sprung up like weeds where textiles were manufactured. They employed mostly women, who had to slave over sewing machines, in the most narrow confines of non-ventilated of spaces. Since the air on these factory floors was both stale and hot, they weren’t called sweat shops for nothing. Children were often employed in these sweat shops, as young as six. It wasn’t until Teddy Roosevelt became President in the early 1900s, that Congress finally passed legislation prohibiting the employment in these sweat shops of anyone under the ripe old age of 14. Since safety regulations were non-existent back then, it was not uncommon for fires to break out in these sweat shops killing many workers. Or how about coolie wages, which I assume most of you have heard of. Coolie wages got it’s name from what workers who built transcontinental rail lines in the 19th century were paid. Most of these workers were immigrants from Asia (mostly Chinese) and were paid little more than slop that was passed off as food and sleeping quarters, for their back-breaking labors. Needless to say, life expectancy among the working class did not extend into longevity.

The institution of slavery, particularly in the South, and in the British territories was based on obtaining the cheapest of labor costs, a fundamental principle of capitalism. The picking and manufacture of cotton was the prime industry of the American south, and slavery offered plantation owners the lowest possible labor costs. That’s why it took a bloody civil war to get rid of it. In today’s world, much, of course, has greatly improved in terms of wages and working conditions for virtually all workers. But millions of what would be well paying jobs in the U.S. have been shipped overseas where labor is far cheaper, in accordance with the rules of capitalism. That’s why the American economy is limping along with high unemployment. Average per capita income has steadily headed downward for middle-class families for the last 30 years, not only here, but in most of Europe as well. Perhaps the leaks in capitalism’s well-crafted dike have sprung into gushers.

Well, I’ve kept you longer than I intended, but I would like to mention one other thing. The new catholic pope, Francis, very recently came out with a paper critical of capitalism. He specifically mentioned “trickle-down economics” as being particularly injurious to the poor. Or to those who, for whatever reason, cannot function well in a capitalist society. And here, all along, I thought trickle-down economics was the cornerstone of the Republican Party’s platform.

 

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DEATH COMES IN GREEN PASTELS

Posted on November 11, 2013 by halviv

A famous quote from MIT professor Alan Lightman states that: “The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.” Lightman is unusually unique in that he is proficient in and teaches both physics and the humanities. There is, therefore, an element of quantum mechanics in his statement. Whatever great joy or elation one may have experienced in the past cannot be to transposed to to ease a particularly painful situation in the present. One, by him or herself, must singularly go through such an experience, basically, in lonely solitude.

I was thinking of this quote because of a particular situation we are currently going through. A woman we know (with her husband) from almost the beginning of our nearly 20 stint here in Las Vegas is in the final stages of cancer. The end game, so to speak, when it is deemed that no further cancer treatments will be of benefit, and therefore, will not provided. Nasty business, cancer, brought on primarily by growing old. It’s not her real name, but we’ll call her Ellen, to protect the guilty. In any event, the wife and I went to visit Ellen yesterday, probably for the last time. Ellen currently has a one-way ticket to and resides in a local hospice, where people go in, but like that old commercial for mouse traps, they don’t come out. Unless it’s feet first.

The hospice is Nathan Adelson, which has an excellent reputation for being a particularly caring and benevolent institution for both patients and their families and loved ones in the end stages of life. Yada, yada. It’s still a storage facility to house people that are too sick to be taken care of anywhere else, and especially not at home. This particular chapter is located in one of the local, nearby hospitals. So as I’ve said, we went yesterday to see Ellen, for almost certainly,  the last time. I hadn’t been inside of a hospital for several years, so I forgot that the first thing that hits you, when you enter, is the smell of chemicals. Disinfectants, antiseptics, perhaps various medications, but the odor is overpowering. By the smell alone, you know you’ve entered a parallel universe whose theme is primarily sickness, pain and suffering. The tone has been set, almost in concrete, as it were.

We were shown to Ellen’s room by a very courteous and empathetic nurse on duty at the time. The room itself was airy and large enough to accommodate not only the patient, but several visitors that may come by to pay their respects. It even had a TV for those still conscious enough to be able to watch. The walls were painted in a pale, sort of pastel-colored green, which was certainly pleasant an soothing. The chairs were a somewhat darker shade of green and blended in perfectly with the wall-coloring. Even the patient’s smock was in green. I never knew that the color green was the best way to exit this dimension.

Now, in real life, Ellen was an extremely extraverted and out-going person who loved to dominate the conversation. We used to joke that when going out to dinner with her and her husband, all we had to to was sit back and let Ellen talk on endlessly. Having a vibrant and enthusiastic personality, Ellen was more than up to the task. Some years back, Ellen had a bout with breast cancer, but had apparently, successfully defeated it. Her health, until very recently, appeared to have been as strong as ever. But the nasty thing about cancer is that, more often than not, it likes to make an encore presentation. Ellen’s cancer came back with a vengeance, in the form of bone cancer, which is especially painful. So when we arrived in her room Ellen was so doped up with morphine or other pain-killers, that, for the most part, she was unconscious. It’s doubtful that she even recognized our presence.

You should know that my wife has been extremely stressed out by her friend’s situation. To say that she has been overtly upset would be an understatement. Nevertheless, once inside Ellen’s room, my wife was suddenly the epitome of composure. She held Ellen’s hand, kept talking to her in the most soothing tones, and kissed her on the cheek. (I was too freaked out by Ellen’s appearance, which fully displayed the ravages of stage four cancer, to be of any use.) My wife’s calm and composed demeanor under fire was certainly something to be proud of. After some time we finally left this very sad setting.

One must consider, however, that the process of dying begins the moment we are born. Perhaps the entire panorama of one’s life’s events is merely the prelude to the biggest event of them all, which is one’s death. Perhaps the short time we spend on this planet is, as various religions would suggest, merely to prepare us for an eternal life in a different dimension. I used to lean toward that thinking based on near-death-experiences reported by those that had been clinically dead for several minutes. But then I found out that such experiences occurred in less than 20% of NDE victims. For the other 80% plus, there was just the black hole of nothingness. Nobody knows for sure, and even the most determined religionist is afraid of dying. Look at Billy Graham, the most ardent of evangelicals, hanging on for dear life at age 95, even with a bucketful of maladies. In either event though, it’s just as Alan Lightman wrote.  The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone- and most especially when undergoing the process we call dying.

 

 

 

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THE HEALTHCARE SCARE

Posted on November 4, 2013 by halviv

So Obama promised on numerous occasions that: “If you like your healthcare plan you can keep it. Period.” He often repeated this while campaigning for President and then after he was elected. Bad mistake, as it turned out, since perhaps millions of people will lose their healthcare plan due to implementation of Obamacare. Couple that with the disastrous incompetence of introducing Obamacare on-line, and you have Republicans, like sharks smelling blood in the water, circling around their prey, ready to pounce. I suppose if Obama had said that most people would be able to maintain their healthcare plans, this entire kerfuffle might have been avoided. In any event, before we let panic and hysteria reign supreme, I felt it would actually be helpful if we looked at the facts and the reality surrounding the whole healthcare stew that exist in America today. You know what facts are; those pesky and annoying items that always seem to interfere with ideology.

The first fact to acknowledge is that we are the only civilized country on Planet Earth, (and perhaps in the universe) that doesn’t provide its citizens with universal healthcare. Republicans, and other assorted right-wingers point to healthcare systems in Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, China, Japan, India, and everywhere else, and declaim these systems as “socialized medicine.” Oh, the horror. We must never allow the evils of socialized medicine to take root in the U.S., they staunchly proclaim. Except that it already has for major segments of our society. Like the military, for example. Republicans hold the military in such high esteem, that it has not been a problem bestow upon them the “evils” of socialized medicine. Here’s how it works. The military healthcare system is called TRICARE, and it’s available to all active AND retired military, their spouses and their young children. All are eligible to obtain free medical treatment at VA hospitals or from private doctors. Currently, this comes to just under 10 million people who don’t have to worry about obtaining healthcare. Plus, if one has ever served in the military, they’re allowed to obtain medical care at VA hospitals for a small co-pay. Why is socialized medicine a given for the military, but such a big deal about making it available to the civilian population?

Next comes Medicare for all those pain-in-the-ass seniors, who, as everyone knows, are just leeches on society. While not as good as TRICARE, it’s still not bad. It pays an estimated 80 percent of usual doctor bills, and almost 100 percent of hospital charges. It doesn’t cover stuff like eye glasses or hearing aids which are an increasing necessity in many senior’s lives. Normally, when one has Medicare, one has to also acquire a supplemental healthcare plan to cover the stuff Medicare won’t pay for. My supplemental costs about 3 times more than my Medicare premiums; but, between the two, I don’t have to worry about any billings from doctors or hospitals. So we’ll say that Medicare is semi-socialized medicine. Except if a senior decides to belong to an HMO, where everything is paid for and no supplemental is required. Then it’s fully socialized. There are, however, certain disadvantages to belonging to an HMO, which you can learn about on Google. In any event, there are currently 49 million people receiving Medicare benefits. The list of those with Government healthcare support keeps growing.

The next category of Government provided healthcare is Medicaid, a health plan for the poor. Medicaid is generally not considered a worthy plan because the Government is extremely parsimonious in its funding. Medicaid is a joint federal and state funded venture and both have been reluctant in providing the resources needed to keep the system afloat. Many doctors will not accept Medicaid patients because of stingy reimbursements. Still, if you’re poor, and can’t afford health insurance, it’s better than nothing. Currently, 70 million people rely on Medicaid for their health benefits. There’s also CHIP, the Children Health Insurance Program; essentially, Medicaid for youngsters, which enrolls another 7.6 million people. So we’re now up to about 136 million Americans receiving health insurance benefits from the Government. (Better not alert the Tea Party nut cases, or they’ll develop a case of the heaves.)

An estimated113 million Americans receive their health insurance from private employers or as employees of governments at the federal, state and local levels. These are generally safe from the mandates of Obamacare. So where’s the problem with all these cancellation notices and rate hikes. It comes because 5 percent of the population, or about 15 million people have to buy health insurance directly, because, for one reason or another, they are not part of a group plan. Which is always an unfortunate position to be in. Most of these cancellation notices are occurring because many of these self-insured health plans do not meet minimum medical requirements specified by the Government. Or, in other words, these plans are a piece of crap; and the only thing saving the butts of those purchasing such plans is that they remain healthy enough to not require serious medical attention in the first place. Eventually, over time, if Obamacare is allowed to develop and evolve, those buying self-insurance will be able to obtain decent plans at reasonable cost.

But, if Republicans want to howl that Obama lied, they’re free to do so. Imagine, a politician in Washington lied. I don’t think my heart can take it. Where’s my defibrillator? Although I seem to recall those famous words uttered by George Bush, the Elder: “Read my lips, no new taxes.” That notorious line was proclaimed about a year before he signed legislation raising our taxes. Or how about the right-wingers favorite President, Ronald Reagan, lying to us for over 2 years about the Iran-Contra scandal. (Those not familiar with Iran-Contra can also check it out on Google.) Or how about the infamous: “I did not have sex, not even once, with that woman, Miss Lewenski.” Bill Clinton is now revered as a saint in Democratic circles, despite the utterance. It was he, more than anyone, that saved Obama’s butt, in the 2012 election. Or how about George Bush, the Younger, telling us we had to go to war with Iraq because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. It was only later that we found no WMDs existed in Iraq. Or better yet, take the man considered our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln. In trying to secure enough votes to pass the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery, lying was the least of his sins. Lincoln used bribery, blackmail, threats of political or bodily harm, coercion, and bunches of other bad stuff, but he got the job done and was hailed as a hero. Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned from that.

 

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