Tag: Israel

Monday’s Theme Music – Simpler Times

Ashland, Oregon — Monday, March 16, 2026.

Hazy but sunny, it was 43 F out when I got up this morning but now it’s 61, with a high in the upper 70s expected. This is part of the California coast heatwave. Being Oregon, we don’t get as much national attention as our southern neighbor, but the conditions striking California are also nailing us. We might set a new record high for the date tomorrow as analysts say that the low 80s are possible.

The news cycle brought more war news along with stories about Academy Awards winners and losers. The Trump Iran War continues. Suggestions swirl that both the United States and Russia will deploy ground troops to Iran. Despite Trump’s claim that Iran’s military was 100% destroyed, Iran hit a UAE oil port and Dubai airport.

Trump doesn’t always understand percentages, though. He promised drug prices would go down by 1500%, which is factually impossible.

Friends yesterday talked about the current political atmosphere. Many were dismayed by how easily Trump launched new military attacks and dragged us into war. While we naturally recognized, this has been an ugly trend by the left and right for decades, it’s really disturbing that a person who often speaks like he’s high is able to launch powerful, deadly weapons almost at will.

Others brought up how Brendan Carr, chairman of the FCC, is threatening the freedom of the press. One friend said when that Democrats return to a position where it can happen, there should be some Nuremburg-style trials. There wasn’t much further discussion of that, but the general consensus is, changes are needed.

I later received an email from another friend, who wasn’t at our little gathering. She wrote,

“We need Nuremburg-style atonement. Without it, we’ll just continue on our late-stage capitalist descent into the ranks of failed experiments with democracy. But hey, at least we have energy sucking, water guzzling generative AI to make silly videos of pets in bathrobes enjoying the spa to distract us from all this while data centers drink our future…”

Today’s song came from a concert by the Rogue Valley Symphonic Band yesterday. I’ve always enjoyed it so it’s no surprise that when The Neurons heard it yesterday, it resurfaced in today’s morning mental music stream.

The concert’s theme was Echoes of Oregon and featured composers who lived in or were educated in Oregon. One of these was Mason Williams, who came out with “Classical Gas” in 1968. The song is an instrumental featuring an acoustic guitar and symphony. I’ve always been drawn to its soft, contemplative beginning and then its urgent, more soaring sound later. A simple melody, the song reached number two behind a song by The Doors. Pretty remarkable.

Someone else who was at the concert and heard “Classical Gas” lamented she wished we were in a simpler era. Several of us scoffed, reminding her of all that was going on in 1968. All of us remembered headlines about the civil rights movements, riots and protests, the Vietnam war, space race, dark, filthy air with rivers on fire, and the cold war and its nuclear threat.

We were left wondering, when were simpler times?

Hope your day is simple, carefree, and satisfying to you in important ways. Off we go, one more time.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music – Waiting

Ashland, Oregon — Thursday, March 12, 2026.

Spring is on the way in the U.S.

It shows here. We started at 34 when I rolled out of bed but with blue skies and sunshine, we’ve jumped fast to 50 F, hurtling toward the mid 60s. Best way to put it, with the daffs and tulips blooming and plum tree blossoms enriching the landscape, it’s a beautiful springish day.

Mom and my sisters are quiet, as is my house. In fact, while many things are going on in politics and world news, I feel like I’m waiting for the multiple systems to react — and maybe crash.

So I feed the cat, read the news. My wife and I think and talk as I sip coffee. All the while, I keep an eye on the headlines and digital stream and check my text and messaging systems.

Time was also spent looking at what the state has been up to. The Oregon legislative session ended. Our rep, Pam Marsh, put out a summary of the work done, a welcome reassurance that some government remains grounded, pragmatic, and functional.

Today’s music reflects that sense of waiting. The Neurons are playing “The Promised Land” by Bruce Springsteen in my morning mental music stream. I hum along with the thought of what was promised and what’s been delivered. This is not just in my life as an adult, but what was held out to us as children. Growing up in the television age, we were often sold impressions about stable, white families with Dad going to work and the children going to school and getting into minor mischief. Mom stayed home and cooked in her skirt or dress, wearing high heels as she vacuumed, did the laundry, cooked. Some shows — like “Hazel” — featured more prosperity, and a maid.

More realistic shows came along, such as “The Jeffersons” and “All in the Family”, but our beliefs were hardened by then. Yet, it didn’t often work out as television claimed it would.

Anyway, here I am, waiting.

Hope you have a great day and all that means to you. Peace and grace on you.

Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music: “Fooling Yourself”, Trump

Ashland, Oregon — Friday, March 6, 2026.

Our temperature is 51 F. Sunshine broadly spreads across the valley as thin gray fog recedes. Today’s high might be in the low fifties, we’re told.

Papi doesn’t care about temperatures. That sunshine provides a warm bathing space and he uses his tongue like he hasn’t washed in weeks.

As I sipped coffee and read the news, I thought about the illusions that Trump and his supporters and enablers entertain. That only whites matter, that history should be rewritten to reject anyone who was not a white, Christian heterosexual. It’s so narrow and foolish; again, I’m reminding that we’re only as strong as the weakest among us, only as smart as the least intelligent in our ranks, only as healthy and wealthy as the sickest and poorest.

Trump initially sold those ideas to supporters but has abandoned them. He ran on a promise of lowering prices, convincing many that he would do so on day one of his second term, improving the economy. Now, asked about rising gas prices after his attack on Iran and its impact on gas prices, Trump shrugs it off.

“I don’t have any concern about it. They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit.”

I don’t trust Trump’s analysis or promises. Trump has littered the political landscape with broken promises: he would deliver a new healthcare plan in two weeks. He would never golf because he would be too busy working. Mexico would pay for the wall. There would be no new wars. Prices would come down on day one. He would end Russia’s war on Ukraine on day 1. Those are just the ones I easily remember.

Trump also claimed that last year’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities had destroyed them. Now he says the war is needed to destroy them.

While thinking about Trump’s positions and policies, The Neurons filled the morning mental music stream with “Fooling Yourself” by Styx. I last played this on my blog when COVID-19 was raging in the United States.

Back then, I quoted and commented on these statements and beliefs made by a MAGAt.

No worse than the flu and already going away. No, the greatest threat to America comes from “libtards” and their willingness to give everything away (he believes “Obama destroyed America and the economy”). Further, Trump’s recent sickness was really just a cover for him to rise up and finally vanquish the Dems and “libtards”.

Again, I think Trump supporters are fooling themselves. Trump is fooling himself.

On February 19, 2026, Trump said at the ‘Board of Peace’ meeting in the Oval Office:

“And there’s nothing less expensive than peace. You know, when you go to wars, it costs you 100 times what it costs to make peace.”

Nine days later, Trump launched a war that’s costing over $60,000,000 a day for the United States. This doesn’t address the cost of the other nations, such as Iran, the center of the destruction. Nor does it address the cost of lives lost, disrupted, and destroyed, regardless of the nationality, age, or religion.

And after a year in office, the Ukraine War continues.

The video I chose joins the song’s writer, Tommy Shaw of Styx, performing it with the Cleveland-based Contemporary Youth Orchestra. I hope you watch, listen, and enjoy.

May your day find you warm, safe, and blessed with love and good fortune.

Cheers

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Lessons Learned

“They said: “He will start a war.” I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

Donald Trump has chosen to bomb Iran in a joint operation with Israel. In Trump’s view, Iran forced the decision on themselves.

This was after he campaigned and promised no more wars.

Voters said they supported Trump because he tells it like it is.

Like that time while campaigning in 2016 when Trump claimed he was against Gulf War II. Trump said, “I’m the only one on this stage that said: ‘Do not go into Iraq. Do not attack Iraq.’ Nobody else on this stage said that. And I said it loud and strong.”

Facts don’t support Trump’s assertion. No evidence exists that he was against that war until 2004. Trump never let facts deter him.

Same with his supporters. So many of them are applauding this war. Yet, they add, the main reason they voted for Trump was the economy. They wanted lower prices. Trump promised them he would lower prices on day one.

But follow this cause-and-effect logic. The war will cause prices to increase. Within hours of the Iran War’s beginning, shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped. Oil prices went up.

When oil prices rise, so do manufacturing and shipping costs, consumer goods, and food prices.

Trump and his backers think the bombing of Iran will make the world safer, just as they said when Bush invaded Iraq and Afghanistan — the war which Trump said he was against.

Many, including Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Secretary of Defense, are saying that this war is not like the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. They think it will last weeks, not years.

Sure. That’s exactly what the Bush administration said in 2002.

Rumsfeld: It Would Be A Short War

We’ve learned so much since then.

Haven’t we?

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, March 1, 2026. It’s raining and foggy in Ashland, with temperatures tottering around 50 degrees F. Not a shred of sunshine out there, and a high of 57 is expected. Spring is muscling in.

It’s a day of questioning for me, starting with what’s going on with Mom to what’s going on in the world and the nation.

I learned yesterday that another sister — our youngest — had been going to visit Mom, taking her things, etc. The youngest has been designated as our contact with Mom because she has the best relationship of everyone living nearby. I reached out to her to see how Mom was doing.

The youngest related that when she arrived, Mom was playing bingo with five or six others at a table and apparently laughing and having fun. Mom told the youngest that she’d gone to church, which she enjoyed, and seemed pretty content and happy.

After wheeling Mom back to Mom’s room, the youngest found clothes all over Mom’s area. Mom complained she didn’t have hangers. Sis pointed out that they’re in the closet, and told her, you need to look, and helped Mom tidy.

Then, though, today, Mom asked the youngest to bring her cookies — “Anything but chocolate chip.” Oatmeal raisin cookies were brought, which made Mom mad. She then gave my sister ‘mean faces’ and quit speaking with her. The youngest rolled Mom to the dining room so she could eat, and then left.

The youngest sister also related that Mom’s roomie is 95 years old with congestive heart failure and two ‘bad shoulders’. She had a hospice aid visiting. My sister suggested that maybe we should get Mom a hospice aid. That took me back, because there’s nothing indicated to me at this point that Mom is ready for hospice.

It’s just as troubling and confusing elsewhere in the world. Trump ordered the U.S. to attack Iran, a joint operation with Israel, “Operation Epic Fury”. While Iran’s supreme leader was killed, Iran retaliated. Americans were killed and injured. More critically, is this the opening that will explode the area into another war? Trump and his advisors seem to think in terms of gunship diplomacy and regime change.

Trump — the peace president, a self-made assertion that has Orwell laughing in his grave — said that the attack was to protect Americans. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” Trump said in prerecorded remarks posted on White House social media accounts early Saturday morning.”

Back in 2011, Trump said President Obama would start a war with Iran. “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak and he’s ineffective.”

Who is weak and ineffective now, Trump?

Protests in Baghdad broke out, with “Death to Israel, death to America,” being shouted. This smacks of the 1970s and 1980s, so it sickens me that we seem to be going into another war spiral. I hope to hell that’s not true.

As I sat with that information, news arrived of a mass shooting in Austin, Texas. Next came updated information about deaths in Iran where 85 are reported killed: “The majority of the dead are schoolgirls aged between seven and 12 years old, according to the regime-controlled news outlets Tasnim and Fars.”

Senseless killing, once again. I expect anger and hatred in Iran to rise in response. This is exactly where we were before, using violence and killing to win hearts and minds. It did not work then; I don’t expect it to work now.

BTW, remember when Trump vowed no more wars when he campaigned? Guess that promise meant as much as Mexico paying for the wall and lower food and energy prices.

The song in my morning mental music stream came when I first looked out the windows, before reading any news. “Rainy Night in Georgia” came out in 1970. The Neurons put it in there when I thought, “Another rainy day in Ashland.” I didn’t remember who performed the song and looked it up to learn it was Brook Benton.

I call again for peace and grace to find its way to us, and maybe it will someday. Right now, it feels less likely than it did last week. But things will change. It’s really just question of how and why.

Cheers

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Twozdaz Theme Music

Howdy, sports fans. It’s Twozda, September 9, 2025. 62 degrees F holds forth in Ashlandia. Marbled clouds headline the moment. Never fear: it’s going to move to 69 degrees F by the day’s end, although we may need to navigate more thunder and rain while we get there. Feels like autumn has got its dandruff up and is out to end summer’s hold on Ashland.

Yesterday early afternoon found us with a huge downpour. People rushed into the coffee shop bursting with news about how intense, sudden, and cold the rain was. Brief was added to its description as the rain ceased after ten relentless minutes.

Then, 2:30 AM. A sound is covering the house. My sleepy mind thought it was a giant fan. Asking, what fan is that, I roamed through the house and realized, that giant fan sound was rain hissing down with Biblical efforts. I returned to bed and sleep only to awaken a while later to my wife in the kitchen getting water.

A sharp, high squeal noise had awakened me. I asked my wife if she’d heard it. “It’s raining,” she said.

I listened. “It stopped.”

“No, it’s still going.”

Papi and I went out back to prove the rain was stopped. It was. Cool breezes swept by with friendly helloes. Moonlight bright enough to walk on broke out. Rain clouds were splitting up and racing away in different directions, leaving a starry dark gray feast for my eyes. “This is nice,” I said. Papi didn’t disagree.

After I was back in bed, a sound like a brassy chord being strong on an electric guitar awakened me. “What the hell was that?” The Neurons asked the dark room. Nobody was giving any answers about noises.

Dad remains hospitalized. Not much can be done about a fractured pelvis. He’s due to be moved to a rehab center today. Andy is also being moved to a rehab center to help him recover from his hip fracture. Sis is mum about her medical procedure and its results.

Gritting my teeth and swallowing my GRRRRR, I peruse the news. Trump is suing the WSJ and anyone attached to the story about his ‘alleged’ birthday card/notes to Epstein. I’m sure Trump is betting that the story will be withdrawn and apologies issues. Meanwhile, he donated the Bible his mother presented to him in his boyhood to a Bible Museum. The net responded with laughter and mocking about the Bible. Most doubt that Trump opened his Bible, read it, and went to church, except for publicity when it suited his needs.

More attacks have been carried out in several wars. None of the war reporting arrives with a sense that the fighting is going to end soon. The major aggressors, Russia and Israel, are well past reasonable lines about their intentions. All can see that Russia will not stop until it has Ukraine. Israel won’t stop until Hamas are all dead. Neither nation displays concern or empathy for the innocents they’re killing.

Economic news will take over today’s media top spots. 911,000 fewer jobs were created between April 2024 and March 2025, BLS says. US job growth through March was significantly weaker than previously thought. Economists and analysts are telling us that it means the jobs markets was even worse than realized. A large downward revision was expected, with many citing sampling errors resulting from declining survey responses, weaker-than-inferred job creation at new firms, and adjustments related to asylum-seekers and other undocumented workers. The pandemic’s impact on the global labor market and residual adjustments were also blamed. Trump’s WH thinks that it proves Trump was right, the Biden economy was a disaster, and the BLS reporting is broken. That’s certainly puzzling, isn’t it: the Trump Regime is depending on a system they claim is broken to prove they’re right. Classic MAGAt non-thinking.

All this has culminated in The Neurons’ song choice for my morning mental music stream. It stormed in Ashland, with more storms coming. Trump is riding a storm of criticism about Jeffrey Epstein. We the People are riding through the storm of data about what’s going on with the economy. Hence, The Neurons summoned The Doors and “Riders on the Storm”.

Coffee has dropped in for an extended visit. May grace and peace visit and stay with us all for a while. Here we go again. Cheers

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Thirstda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I just want to note. Children are dying of starvation around the world, but most especially, most visibly, in Gaza. And the self-described ‘pro-life’ party in power, the ones who hounds every woman seeking an abortion with religious zeal while screaming about the sanctity of life is doing fuck all about the dying children. No, the greedy Republicans like Speaker Johnson and Donald Trump are focused on making money and saving money, and protecting Trump from the Epstein Files fall out and exposure as a pedophile.

As always, actions speak louder than words. The GOP’s actions scream with hypocrisy.

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Twosdaz Theme Music

Welcome friends, come in, come in, to Twosda, July 29, 2025. I suspect many of you are like my niece and l’il sister, plotting back-to skool strategies for buying gear and deciphering starting days, agendas, and schedules. We have a while yet here in Ashlandia. The first signs will be the changing of the signs at the schools, making their public announcements for their start dates. Then comes newspaper articles and the police staking out the school zones to remind everyone that those are school zones.

Weird thinking of BTS activities when we’re still in summer’s hot throes. 68 F now, we’re humping up to 93 F tomorrow. The dry conditions have caused red flag warnings about fire dangers. As we heard about this, my wife remarked, “I don’t even know what our evacuation zone is.”

I replied, “We’re Ashland Zone 4.” Her look back pleased and delighted me, as she was clearly impressed that I knew. I added, “There’s a sign on every road intersecting with Siskiyou on the south end of town, telling us what zone the road is in.” Siskiyou Boulevard is the main drag through town, becoming highway 99 as it leaves the northern end.

Her eyes widened. “There is?”

I’ve been enamored with the WSLS Sky Cam focused on some bobcats. Three bobcats were rescued from dire circumstances with deceased or missing mothers in southwest Virginia and are being raised to be released back into the wild. They’re not related bobs. Here’s their story at this link.

The young cats sleep during the day and are active and playful at night, and the camera isn’t at its best at night. But I like to look in when I can and wish them a good life, fingers crossed and all that. This is their live video feed: https://www.wsls.com/watchlive/ The page has several there so you need to look around for the enclosure and click on it.

Seeing those little ones prompted The Neurons to spin up “End of the Tiger” by Survivor from 1982. Most people know the song as one of the Sylvestor Stallone Rocky theme songs. It won some grammys and was nominated for an Oscar, and is often used in sports and politics, usually without permission. The vocalist, Jimi Jamison, based away from a brain stroke in 2014, 63 years old.

I have political thoughts but I’m not going in to them now. Lot of gun violence out there in the United States this week. More critically, we’re waiting for news about the economy. Even more urgently and critically, we’re searching for leadership and answers about the horror-show starvation in Gaza. The U.S. used to be humanitarian enough to try to assuage such situations. Under Trump and his right-wing United States centric thinking and desire to ‘cut fraud, waste, and abuse’ *cough cough cough*, Trump and the Grand Old Greedy Party are disinclined to help any but the wealthy, white, and right wing.

I’m gonna try to have the best Twosda that I can. Hope you do the same. Coffee has been drunk. Time to press to test one more time. Cheers

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Wenzda’s Theme Music

It’s Wenzda, aka humpday, but also July 2, 2025. Cooled down to a comfortable level last night some and the morning ingredients are calling birds, blue sky, sunshine, and 72F. High will be 83 F, a drop from what I saw yesterday at my casa, 95 F.

I realized this morning that I’m in a metaphorical holding-my-breath state. So many balls in the air. I scan horizons for ‘the next’ in six different directions. Out there is the One Big Beautiful Bill, known in some places as the Big Ripoff, the Great Screwed Up Give to the Rich bill in others. Trump was again idiotically blithering on TV like someone who shouldn’t be allowed out on their own again. Russia and Ukraine’s war continues. Iran and Israel are still out there glaring at one another. Israel bombed some more people in Gaza. Don’t worry: they’re ‘investigating’ how it came to be that they bombed a cafe and killed reporters and workers and such. Yep. Tariffs hang all over everything like toilet paper from trees after Devil’s Night. Supreme Court rulings have been issued and the storms building behind those will come out. It’s Hurricane Season. Europe is suffering record heat and it’s not that cool in ‘Merica, either. Wildfires burn and FEMA is ready to shrug because Trump says states should be doing it for themselves. DOGE has had access to personal data; can that be good? The U.S. measles outbreak has ‘plateaued’ according to the gov’t but has it really? And what will happen with all that new guidance from the science and medicine skewed HHS led by worm brain Kennedy? Killer Noem’s ICE Troops seem more reckless, sanctuary and blue states are being threatened by Trump, he has a new eua-du-shit out, and Musk and Trump have taken their insults to new levels. Then there’s the personal and family stuff.

Hold my breath. Wait to see. What. Is. Next.

Quickening to my mood and thoughts, The Neurons unleashed “I Will Wait” by Mumford and Sons into the morning mental music stream. The song came out in 2012. Led by Marcus Mumford, the band has a different sound but it works for me and enough others that they’ve established a solid career. Hope you find it okay for your Wenzda’s beats.

My follow up dental appointment went well yesterday. All is healing, no problems, no complaints. Biopsy showed nothing of concern from the cyst removed from my gum. Have another appointment, different dentist, for a cleaning.

Coffee-fueled energy is ascending. I’m off to early morning yardwork. Have the best day you can. Cheers

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Frida’s Wandering Political Thoughts

As I survey life in the United States from my home in 2025, it feels to me like we’ve gone from Nanny State to Bully State. Trump demonstrates his bully tendencies with everything that he does.

Donald Trump Makes Legal Threat To CNN And The New York Times Over Their Reporting On Iran Intel Assessment

Along the way to becoming a bully nation, the Trump Regime is energetically dumping facts. Trump’s own regime’s Intel said Iran wasn’t near completing a nuclear weapon. Trump claimed that he knew better without offering any facts.

After the bombing, Trump said that the mission resulted in Iran’s nuclear capabilities being “obliterated.” The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment said that Iran’s program was probably only set back a few months. Trump insists, without evidence, we must believe him.

On June 20, a reporter asked Trump: “What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your Intelligence Community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point.” Trump responded, “Well then my Intelligence Community is wrong,” and he said that Gabbard was “wrong.”

You can see why doubt is blooming like flowers in the spring. The Trump Regime’s response to everything among its directors, press secretaries, and cabinet members is, hey, trust us. They really dislike questions and react with violent anger when questioned, especially when facts get involved. Yet, we have several parts of the government saying one thing while TACO insists its otherwise. We have metrics saying one thing while TACO and his trumpizens insist their alternative set of facts say differently.

Polls are showing, for now, that more U.S. citizens believe the United States is on the wrong track. We see more of the same in the latest consumer confidence index.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ view of the U.S. economy worsened in June, resuming a downward slide that had dragged consumer confidence to its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index slid to 93 in June, down 5.4 points from 98.4 last month, which represented a brief uptick.

Of course, as a group, the U.S. electorate is a jelly-filled crumbly invertebrate. Many critics will say of this group and my gross generalization, there are so many issues, the issues fracture us. Yes, and that’s normal in any democracy. But shouldn’t history, truth, and facts mean more? As we’re frequently finding, truth and facts only matter to same when they slap people in the face like a used diaper via personal experience.

We see this especially demonstrated in the Immigration issue, as orchestrated by Killer Noem and her banditos. After teaching people to question authorities and question mask-wearing gunmen, we’re now supposed to just accept that it’s okay for ICE to disappear people? We used to fill milk cartons with people who went missing. Now, like a lying president and mass shootings, disappeared people is becoming a new American norm. Doesn’t matter if the disappeared are criminals; doesn’t matter if due process is followed. Who needs law and order in this growing lawless nation?

Remember when we used to say, “Innocent until proven guilty”?

Do you recall the days when “Everyone has their day in court”?

What about that old idea that, “If you’re not doing anything illegal, you don’t have anything to fear”?

Hey, that shit is gone. This is what happens when history, facts, and truth no longer matter. Little by little, day by day, decision by decision, act by act, truth, justice, and due process matter less and less.

And then a point is reached when nothing matters except the bully in charge.

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