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What Should have happened at the VMA’s

Can somebody say Amen? 😉  Look, I had to joke around about it! This was funny to me, especially after reading another post!

A Day of Empowerment–Post High School

When I was grown, I married and ended up divorced.  I was raising my son Eric and one of the guys who bullied me in school asked me out saying, “I hear you’re divorced now and I was wondering if we–”

I responded by saying, “Stop right there!  I had nothing but crap from you in school. I wouldn’t date you if you were the last man alive either.”

He said, “Well we were just kids–you should be over that!”

I said, “Two years isn’t long enough. You’re in my past and you are staying there. Bye.”

I then shut the door in his face. Dad asked me what that was about.

My response was, “Getting the garbage out.”

He said, “Oh…Okay.”

Note:  If you were a bully as a kid, it really is not a good idea to go around trying to ask the victim out–especially when you were one of the ones that tormented him/her for the whole 12 years of school don’t ya think? Well at least he didn’t play the “selective memory card” as in saying “I don’t remember that. I’m sorry.”  I felt very empowered after that day in 1983.

 

That’s How You Left Me

Everything fades into a blindness

from lights within my mind

and all I can see is what is left here

memories of our time

with mourning shades the cloud

lingers on and still I wait here…

Not that you would care

but all I see is all that is dead

but you’re still there…

And yet wonder why it is you left me waiting

for a sign that never comes

And all I know is that I’m empty

A space is all that remains

of where my heart should be

It’s been that way

that’s how you left me…

The pictures will fade in time from my memory

as I grow old alone

and all I do know is that I once had a place

That I dared call my home.

But all that remains are faded pictures

since that’s now turned to dust

And all I can see there is

what has come of love and trust.

And yet I’ll wonder why it is you left me waiting

for a sign that never comes

And all I’ll  know is that I’m empty

with the rising of the sun

while I embrace the stars

that’s how you left me.

And all that’s left are dreams.

Plans to Address Bullying: What Parents Should Consider and Why…

As I have said previously, bullying begins on the rehearsal stage. That is in the American system of Public Education. It’s free, right? Therefore if we get what we are paying for, why are the students being short-changed? It is easy to blame the parents, but it is not always the parents. Certain things have caused our education system to deteriorate. These things do not need to be overturned, but they need to be overhauled to address severe behaviors that disrupt learning in the classroom. The “No Child Left Behind Act” was actually well-intended, but it fell short and more children are actually getting left behind. 

We are paying taxes to educate our children. We are not paying these educators to be social engineers. We are not paying them to be correctional officers or matrons. However the educational system has begun to show some of the characteristics of some of America’s correctional facilities, which I will cover in my second installment.

The administrators, as well as the teachers, have begun to spend more time trying to redirect bad behavior than they have teaching. Many administrators have taken to training teachers to do paperwork that is THEIR job to do because the response to any situation can involve too much for them to deal with on top of their own duties. However the fecal matter is trickling down to the teachers and they are getting the blame. This must be corrected.

Schools must have a clear-cut discipline plan. NOT a behavior modification plan because that is not being addressed here–DISCIPLINE with a capital “D”.  The reason for this is that many students are now coming from households who either have family members incarcerated, and/or there are abusive and/or violent behaviors present in the home.  It cannot always be stopped at home, but it can be stopped in the schools. It is not the job of the educator to play psychiatrist or social worker.

Those who are in those fields can do their jobs off the campus unless there is an emergency.  When these children come to school and start bullying, it is those two experts that should be assessing if this is some type of behavior stemming from past bullying or abuse in the home (or both) and then act  without waiting to REACT.  Reactionary responses are a huge problem and this society we must now become proactive. Proactive will mean less school shootings and acts of terror. Reactive means nobody will do jack until it’s over and no laws they try to pass will change this.

As for the victim, the schools should protect the victim–not recommend resilience training. This type of “counseling” which I consider to be quackery, is designed to have the victim change something about himself/herself if being bullied to make them “bully proof” when in many cases the bullying gets worse and worse. Many victims commit suicide.  This type of counseling implies that the victim is to blame for his/her own circumstance. Well now you know why I say it is pure quackery. Some things cannot be changed, and even if they could be.  and the student tries to, those bullies will find something else to attack over. I went through it. I know and many others who have faced school bullies know this to be true also.

Now I will get to what needs to be done to turn this around. It is going to be a long and tedious process.  But first, you need to know a few things.  First:

No child is safe in public school. I repeat:  NO CHILD IS SAFE IN PUBLIC SCHOOL! NO, NOT ONE!!! 

Part of the problem stems from a lack of parental involvement.  Most of the time parents let the “school deal with it” until little Johnny or Jenny gets hauled into the office for hitting, biting, shoving or even threatening a student.  Before I go any further, I will say this:  It should NEVER be left  up to the school district to decide whether or not to press charges against anyone on their campus who breaks the laws of the land, whether it be a student, teacher, etc…It should be AUTOMATICALLY prosecuted ESPECIALLY  if the victim and/or his parents wish for this to be done. Anything else is laziness or politics and if it is politics, CHANGE YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT! 

As far as I am concerned, an administrator who fails to ensure this takes place is aiding and abetting a criminal or a criminal in the making. This decision should never be in the hands of the school administrators. If it is the law, it needs to be enforced on or off campus! I, for one, am really tired of administrators sweeping aggravated assaults and attempted sexual assaults aside as “bullying”. The good ‘ol boy system has to end. I am also sick of police departments saying it is the school’s decision as to whether or not to press charges since it happened on their property. Well it may have happened on the land they own, but they do not own our children.  Let me scream this:  THEY DO NOT OWN OUR CHILDREN! THEY DO NOT OWN OUR GRANDCHILDREN EITHER! As far as I am concerned as a taxpayer, WE own the land. WE sign their paychecks. It is time to let them know this once and for all.

I will repeat it one more time, and add the reason WHY parents must act:  Children are not the property of the schools, therefore the schools should not be deciding the disposition of such cases. It may happen on THEIR property, but  YOUR child is NOT their property. They are not qualified to address the legality of such matters and should never try to do so.  Again, this is a decision that must bet taken FROM them either by  using their common sense OR having this written into the law codes in order to remind them.

Now I am going to get to Step 1 of the Plan to Stop School Bullying.  It is this:

PARENTS: TAKE BACK YOUR SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS!

Yes…You read that correctly. It is not as easy as it sounds, especially in bigger cities, but it can be done in smaller communities.  Those numbers do add up in elections.  I know what people are thinking at this point. “Why on Earth is she saying THIS?”

Here is the answer:  One cannot build a house without a foundation being laid.  The foundation being laid correctly depends upon how the blueprints are drawn up.

In other words, by taking back school district boards and your local government, you will be laying the foundation for your own children’s future.  Sitting back idly by and letting the “politicians handle this” is no longer an option. They are NOT going to fix this. If anything they will make it even worse. Their blueprints for doing this, for lack of a better term will “suck” if they draw up the plans–and it is already being proven with some of the policies they already have.

If as a parent, you are not happy with what is being taught to your children, how discipline issues are handled, how crimes are handled on campuses and such–then you have a duty to step up to the plate to protect your children and your grand-children (and beyond).

That is step 1.  Now I will go back and clarify why this must take place and it begins with one man: John Dewey…You see, to understand where this is going to go, you need to understand where the current system stemmed from.  Here is your link to get an idea of why I am mentioning him:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey

This man is the father of American Public Education.  He also espoused pragmatism as his own philosophy.  Pragmatism is simply put (but wiki has a longer, more technical definition if you want that) as follows:  It is the belief that all knowledge is only as valuable as its practical use in everyday life–and the success in using/applying  that knowledge.  Think about this:  Unless one is going to be an artist or scholar and travel the world, and decides instead that he/she wants to be a  plumber, why on EARTH should he/she be forced to take French in high school? Go figure.

Now you see where part of the problem is. Schools do not even follow this model.  They force all children to learn as if they are ALL going to college. They won’t.  Many drop out. Many become problem children.  Schools need to have more trade programs so that those who are interested in  such things can use those avenues.  It is sad that this doesn’t get offered in high schools as a requirement, but it does get offered in a lot of correctional facilities.  Did you ever wonder why there? Now you know. Prisons end up having to try to  correct the errors in public education.

This is one of the main reasons that parents, should educate themselves about these things and take the schools back.  Then they can start to fix the damage done to this country for the past 40 years.

Now hold on…Some will say putting in trade programs is a racist thing…How so?  If one assumes that no child wants to learn how to make himself/herself an honest living so they must be forced to sit through physics class, then the person who is doing this is the person who is truly being racist because then that indicates that he/she is deliberately setting up children whether they be white, black, Hispanic or Asian to fail.

By doing so they are contributing to the negative climate fostered in public education.  It leads to students losing interest, and then loss of control.  It is time to change it.

Part 2:   Discipline and the Fair Administration of It

A Passionate Hater of Bullying…That Would Be Me…

I want to make something clear to my friends and to my family. I loathe bullying whether it be school bullying or workplace bullying. I believe that stronger discipline must be used in public schools to stop school bullying because allowing it and/or enabling it and many school administrators and fake experts tend to do this, I fully believe that it leads to more devious and often violent criminal behaviors in adults.

I do not believe bullies fully change with time if they end up in positions of power. I believe this overloads their ego and makes them even worse. That being said, I am going to do all in my power to put a stop to this trend. Bullying is not the same as it was when I was in school. It’s not just the occasional fight or being shoved. In many cases it is assaults by multiple people, sexual assault, emotional abuse and some other things adults can go to jail for, like sharing inappropriate photos of a teenager on the net, cyber-bullying, etc…However, in some locales it is left up to the school district as to whether or not to press charges. Many won’t because if the criminal-in-the-making goes to juvenile hall, they’ll lose money for the school.  A school usually gets X amount of dollars for each student enrolled there from the government and state funding coffers.

Guess who pays for all this crap and such? We do…Carry on…In fact, RAGE on!

If you want crime rates reduced in adults, start taking care of the problems with America‘s schoolchildren who often learn these behaviors from their older relatives and stop letting these fake counselors give the bullying victim “resilience training” which only reinforces the idea that they must have done something to bring this on and need to change something about themselves. We should NEVER be penalizing a bullying victim–EVER and that is what resilience training is. It’s not the victim that needs to be worked on via therapy and/or disciplined, it’s the bully and/or the family thereof…PERIOD!

 

School is About to Begin, and Bullying Season NEVER Ends…

 

 

I am about to share a link here that many people will feel uncomfortable about when they watch it. The mother of this autistic child is disabled herself. She can’t protect her boy, not even in their own home if it comes down to it. I feel that the person responsible for this deed is every bit as dangerous as your local neighborhood psychopath. I hope this person gets caught and I think it fitting that this person should be totally OSTRACIZED by society.  There is so much hate in this person’s heart that he or she (and it is signed she, but one never knows) that this make him/her truly outright dangerous to others they don’t consider to be “fit” to live among us…

 

 

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/the-incredibly-offensive-letter-sent-to-a-mother-with-an-aut?bffb

 

 

 

We live in an age where cyber bullying and such is on the rise. It is as if with each passing school year, the next generation is getting worse and worse. It is difficult enough when a child is bullied in school and then parents have to deal with all this crap therapy about “making your kid bully proof” is not going to solve it because it isn’t the VICTIM that is the problem. It is the perpetrator who is the problem and we need to get back to setting SEVERE consequences for cases of bullying that are as severe as letters like this, as well as physical and sexual bullying.

 

 

 

I am really tired of these so-called experts (and they are not experts because their therapies often fail)  preaching that all kids can be made to be “resilient” when nothing that kid did causes them to be singled out other than their appearance, gender, income level, color of their skin, sexual orientation or religion.  The bullying victims are targeted in much the same way a crime victim is–school is only the “rehearsal”. The real world is the “production” on stage.

 

 

 

Even Shakespeare said, “All the world is a stage.” and it is. However in a good production, the villain doesn’t usually win.  In this case the bullies are winning–or it at least seems that way. When these experts were allowed to come in and create diagnoses for bullying behaviors and phony treatments, the suicide rate among teens increased. These experts are quacks. Some of them do not have a license to counsel but are journalists riding on the coat tails of one  who never gets named, while using the case of a dead girl who committed suicide over the bullying to further his/her own career. I do not respect such writers. They disgust me.

 

 

 

Only one journalist bothered to name her source of information–and she wrote her book on the back of a dead victim. No names here but many know to whom I am referring. I am simply really fed up with the victims being further victimized or made to feel that they are collateral damage when it is the one attacking them that needs to be strongly disciplined.

 

 

 

These need to be strongly addressed in school or these bullies will be in the workforce terrorizing those under them.  When they are caught the price should be complete dismissal–especially if that person is an educator or a police officer.  If in sensitive fields like this, they should also have their licenses/credentials revoked.  These are the last people we want molding the minds of our children, OR having the power to mess up our lives.

 

 

 

I find it even more reprehensible that a so-called “adult” bullies would engage in such behavior to begin with and be allowed to continue it while hiding behind union reps and such…Keeping THEM away from all children is essential in my book.  In my opinion they are as dangerous to a child as a pedophile is.

 

 

 

Some states of the United States have implemented laws to address school bullying. Law prohibits bullying of students based on sexual orientation and gender identity Law prohibits bullying of students based on sexual orientation School regulation or ethical code for teachers that address bullying of students based on sexual orientation Law prohibits bullying in school but lists no categories of protection No statewide law that specifically prohibits bullying in schools (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

English: the picture consist of articles on bullying, I obtained it from public domain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

Samantha’s Diary… ***Some DS Fan Fiction I’m playing with***

As a little girl, I remained in a Boston private school for girls, thanks to the generosity of Roger Collins and Elizabeth Stoddard.  They have been like surrogate parents to me in my absence from Collinsport for years. Roger always said that I wasn’t facing reality by avoiding going “home”.  But which place was or is home? Is it the house where my mother, Claudette tortured me for the first seven years of my existence, or Collinwood, which was my shelter from many of her storms?

Then there was that place in the mausoleum.  Willie doesn’t even know of it, I think.  I would sneak into there and dream I had a guardian angel watching over me there.  At least I knew my mother would never set foot in the cemetery.  I remember dreaming about that faceless dark angel with a calming voice.  He’d carry me through the woods, teaching me about the birds and trees and such and the sun always shone there. In short, this entity was the phantom father I created in my mind, I suppose.  At least the shrink says as much to me.   I’ve written many songs about filling that gaping hole in my memories as well as my chest.

I somehow learned to write with penmanship from a time gone by. I won awards for it and I still prefer my quill to a fountain pen. I mastered math in my head long before I had access to a calculator.  A large part of me wants to return, and another side of me totally dreads this.  I keep having dreams of a duel, people dying, voices calling my name, and for what purpose? The worst ones are of me drowning in another time and place when I was still quite young, a long dress weighing me down as if it were a ship’s anchor, and something cracking my skull and knocking me out after struggling to come back to the surface.  I always manage to wake up shaking and sweating after those. I fear water so much! Why me? Did my mother damage me so much that I cannot tell what is reality from fantasy any longer?  I’m wondering if the dreams are symbolic.  Whatever. It doesn’t matter at this point.

I know it is time to return to Collinsport.  Elizabeth and Maggie have begged me for months.  I suppose it is time to revisit the grave of the child I once was, and can never be again.  Sometimes an infected wound must be thoroughly drained and cleaned before it can heal.  Hopefully it will not leave a scar that is too noticeable.  At least it is what the one familiar male voice says to me in those damned dreams I have every night as of late.

Only now the dreams are getting stronger, and the voices more clear.  No matter how many psych meds the doctors put me on or how many gigs I do just so I can pass out and sleep after the ambien, they are there…They are waiting for me…It’s only the voice of that dark angel that doesn’t torment me.  All he says to me lately is, “Perhaps you should reconsider this endless journey you are on and come visit your family.  You are every bit a Collins now even if not by blood.” he says.   Funny how Roger and Elizabeth keep reminding me that they do  consider me thus.  There I go–talking like he does.  Dammit I am truly done for the night–until those dreams start-up again…

—S.R.T.  April 3, 1990

Snoop Dogg puts money forward to end shelter euthanasia

Snoop Dogg puts money forward to end shelter euthanasia.

Yale’s War on Women…Part 2…

This post is only going to put forth some rather inflammatory questions. Why isn’t Yale facing the same scrutiny and penalty in the public eye  that Penn State had to face over that child sex abuse crap/Joe Paterno controversy?  Are the leaders at Yale saying it is quite alright to abuse women by only giving reprimands and downgrading rape on campus to a charge of “Non-Consensual Sex“?  Who are they to decide penalty for what IS still a crime in this country? Better yet, who came up with that policy? Whoever came up with it should be exposed publicly for being such an insensitive, uncaring excuse of a human being.

No campus, be it high school, college, technical institute or whatever has any right to re-write the laws of the state they were built in OR federal law. The last time I checked, rape was (and still is) a felony.  As far as I am concerned, they are aiding and abetting criminals with such policies. The Attorney General for that state should also be raising hell at this point! Why is there only silence?  If there is a rape, they should all be REQUIRED to call the police immediately as they are not qualified to investigate a crime on campus. I am not even going into how many missing women ended up dead because colleges don’t report them missing when they don’t show up for classes and their belongings are still in their dorm rooms either…Yes, this has happened. Read the news!

Get real people! No one is exempt from the law–ivy league or working Joe… They are certainly not above them. Any college campus be it Yale, Harvard, Columbia University or whatever should be REQUIRED to report these crimes against women to the police in order to keep their certification status as well. If they fail to do so, they should be put on probation and if this behavior continues, SHUT THEM DOWN.  Their female students deserve a lot more respect than what such policies afford.  I am sick of these people re-writing terms to “sweeten” them so that they are watered down to mean nothing.

Yet we watch and still do nothing.  NOTHING…What is wrong with us? Do we not see that these policies are designed to bully us and reduce us to chattel again?  Is this what we want for our future women in this country? I don’t think that for one minute, and I do not think that Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony would disagree on that point either. If one basic tenant of our rights as women gets eroded, they all will eventually be eroded.

This is where women’s rights groups (Hear that N.O.W.?) should be raising hell but they won’t. The women’s rights movement has been very fragmented and disjointed for many, many years and if the women cannot unite long enough to take care of this, that organization might as well call it a day in this country.  They keep complaining that it is the GOP trying to take all of our rights away, yet Yale has turned out a vast number of political leaders.  Many of those from bygone eras are doing somersaults in their graves right now, and I am very certain of that. Why complain about the GOP when our very complacency as a group has rendered our voices to be so ineffective?

We spend more time arguing over gay rights and abortion rights than anything–and that is what these clowns at YALE are counting on. Put it aside for now. This is a bigger battle in this war and it is much more important. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never faced a rapist.

How can we raise hell for our rights when we cannot even agree on what those rights are? Alice, are you listening?  It doesn’t matter if we are Democrat, Republican, gay or straight, pro-life or pro-choice–we have to stand toe to toe against such policies to protect our daughters and grand daughters. Doesn’t anyone hear what I am saying? Get off the PC bullshit AND off of the ultra-religious bandwagon so that we can actually get something done to benefit all of us for a change.  We need to show these so-called “leaders in education” what we think of such policies and let them know that we will not stand for them.

Nobody deserves to be raped or abused and any policy that runs contrary to that particular train of thought should and MUST be challenged both legally and via demonstrations. It is time to stop shining the seats with our butts and take action. This is the beginning of a huge threat to our very existence as women in a free country.  It starts with such idiotic policies at the educational level. They really think we don’t care and will say nothing. WE have to prove them wrong!  It is going to be up to us to keep our freedom because no one else is speaking for us. NO ONE. Not N.O.W…Not Concerned Women for America…NO ONE.  That fact in itself is tragic. Someone needs to take up the reigns and guide the chariot. Where is that person?  Come on, Alice…Wake up!  Think!

It starts at the educational level. It starts with raising hell at Yale…Can we not unite long enough to rein them in?  Here’s an oddity for you: Both Bushes, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, and William H Taft all graduated from Yale.  Being that Yale churned out 5 presidents, one would think their standards of behavior would be more strict–but HELL NO!  They went back to the Medieval Era long before the GOP had a chance to get that going full steam–which is something the Democrats accuse them of on a regular basis…Well, if we sit silently and do absolutely nothing, the ultra-right wing of the GOP won’t need our help now will they?

 

We Aren’t Born Free…Women, ‘Tis All An Illusion (or Bullshit)….

Warning: This post contains adult language. If you are an adult, then you’ll have to deal with it (mostly the word “bullshit”). Once again, I’ve gotten into an all time, funk–aka one of my bullshit moods. It is within this realm that anything might emit from my pen or keyboard–and this is not  (pause here)  “The Twilight Zone” so even I do go off into left field on this particular venting session, it is hopefully a lapse into a temporary case of posterior cranial rectumitis…If so, I’ll be back to my normal bright and bouncy self in a few days, hopping around like Tigger on steroids…Maybe it would sound like this–then again, maybe not… 😉  By the way both the sped up and slowed down versions are on here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rek6ZL9tHYk

We begin in confinement.  We begin in a very small place, that adjusts with us as we grow.  We wait to break free,  It is warm, solitary and quiet there, and then we’re sent into another form of confinement–with strange voices, bright as hell lights and we freeze our ass off until we’re sent to our new quarters. No one understands us there either, so they learn to communicate with us by trial and error, and as we haven’t yet realized that we are as humans truly born astride a grave (as Beckett says), they eventually learn to interpret what certain cries mean and such… We are then confined in a home, sometimes full of love, sometimes not. That depends on those charged with protecting and guarding over us.  Some shield us from the fighting and such. Others take no thought at harming us by acting out their anger.  Others actually love and care for one another, so the confinement seems more like a safe, secure place with perks and such…That is, until we assert our own individuality. God forbid we do that!

We have to be carbon copies and if not, all the arrows become pointed at us:  “I didn’t raise you to be that way!”, “You should never have had that kid!”, or better yet, “I don’t care what your parents say, I’m all you’ve got and you’ll damned well do what I want you to do!”  That last line did not work very well with one of the matrons my dad brought home either. That was when the riot began.  It was more like a strike.  Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose and sometimes winning doesn’t seem worth it in the end.  In my case, I still question it.  However the fourteen year old I was, who had to endure much torture in that cell, didn’t–at least not until well after she was grown.

Then more of those “what if’s” crept in to antagonize her a bit… Those “what if’s” from our past are only pictures of former cells we were locked into, but if we have a place to escape to, even if for a little while, the cells we spend our lives in and out of are much more bearable. I for one, am glad that I am getting older. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I sure as hell don’t want to see what this world is going to be in the next 50 years.  Why? It will only get worse. People become more selfish with each passing generation and want to control everyone around them–thus making neighborhoods and such “mini-prisons” all in the name of what they hold to be “valuable” and it is not always their property, but they are really trying to force their way of life on other people. It really is to the point that where when someone says to me, “We are born free…” I strongly object to that.  We are not free when rules and such of one segment of society are forced upon the rest. I find it ironic that we have to fight to maintain our individuality as artists and such because someone says, “Oh…this is what is marketable.” OR “That is what is correct to say.”  That’s bullshit.  It is what they want to market to keep others from exercising critical thinking skills.

They have conformed and they want the audience to conform to their own way of thinking, and that is manipulation, which I also feel is bullshit. Quite frankly, this whole idea of the “world community/village” is bullshit.  There will always be leaders fighting and arguing over who will control this bitch of an orb, and if people are dumb enough to allow it, then it is their own fault when their children and grandchildren suffer for their lack of foresight.  It is always about what people and their leaders want HERE AND NOW and that is where the problem lies. This world is so riddled with problems and complications it cannot be corrected in OUR lifetime so what have we done? Passed the bullshit on to our children and grandchildren to deal with. Welcome to the world, where we aren’t born free…and probably never will be again. THAT is what the media fails to tell you all.  And hopefully tomorrow, I’ll be my bright and cheery self again and will be proven wrong, but it may take a week…Or two…or three. I just really got peeved at this article below and it set off a chain reaction in me…As a woman, this is only a reminder to what I feel is true, at least tonight…Here’s your “war on women“, Alice…

http://jezebel.com/yale-officially-declares-nonconsensual-sex-not-that-b-988475927 And a lot of our leaders have come from that University…That should really piss you off.

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