The thistle and thorned paths El Gringo Viejo follows as the Roman and Anglican Churches decompose

This is genuinely not a statement about "....look how smart I am and how stupid and ignorant everyone else is."   This is published in these precincts because we are noticing the secondary and tertiary circulation numbers.   They seem to be massive for a side-line minor league blog.  We simply wish the people who venture, by intention or by accident, to this corner of the cyber-universe find that there is an ancient well of never ending waters.   And Wisdom.....

     Many great minds, far greater than my own, including scientists, alchemists, philosophers, astronomers, secularists and sacred, have dealt with the issues that weigh profoundly upon soul and mind.   Some not-so-great-thinkers such as your humble servant follow along as does the lamprey on the belly or back of the whale (or dolphin, shark, any fish, or marine mammal) and that is what we are including below.

     We did not arrive at our backwater of human intellectual development by waking up one day and seeing the tooth-fairy leaving dime under the pillow or Santa Clause shooting up the chimney.  But, we do believe in seeing the unseen.  Sometimes it is too obvious to deny....such as the fact that we breathe the air that keeps us alive, although we cannot see it.   Other times it is a bit....or more than a bit....more difficult to "not see". 

     We submit to the review of the OROG community the entry below which speaks lightly into the bubbles of difference within the Christian Quilt....and how thin the onion-skin is....and how inclusive it is even with the disagreements within the denominational and sub-denominational groups of the Christian brotherhood.   These are things the Anglican Curmudgeon, El Zorro, Mr. Finch, Dr. Shary, and scores of others who read this supposedly intolerant petrified-conservative meany Traditionalists struggle with during their daily affairs.  We try to study and believe and stumble towards the truth.....

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"The infinite in the finite": Williams on the sacramental
 imagination of Piers Plowman

On the Syndicate site, Rowan Williams has an excellent review of David Aers' Beyond Reformation, a reading of the 14th century William Langland poem Piers Plowman.  Rather than Piers Plowmanembodying a proto-Protestant congregationalism, Williams sees a richly catholic, sacramental vision of "God’s participatory economy of salvation".  In this, Williams, states, "Piers Plowman is distinct from one of the more troubling aspects of much Reformation thinking. There is no background anxiety about representation as such, of the kind that led some reformers to see 'realist' accounts of sacramental presence as tantamount to a confusion of the finite and the infinite, a real deceiving of the believer by claiming divine presence in a finite form. Langland has no such epistemological or metaphysical anxiety".

In the review, Williams provides a compelling vision of the sacramental imagination, of its theological and pastoral significance.  The catholic confession of Real Presence is a joyful affirmation of the transfiguring redemption of the material:

Langland implies that God habitually deals with us for our salvation through the hiddenness of his work in finite agency and finite substance; but this is not the same as the adoption of an arbitrary concealment. Nor is it the deliberate assumption of a deceiving form, as with Satan’s “goyng of an addre”: Satan adopts this disguise in order to tell lies to Adam and Eve about himself and God and them; his purpose in concealing himself is to create a false perception, with all the disaster that follows therefrom. God demonstrates that what seems desolate and defeated, the shabby and wounded humanity of Piers, is in fact the place where charity lives and triumphs, despite appearances; and the sacramental re-embodiment of this, Christ present as the common food of a renewed social community, likewise declares that what seems lifeless is in fact the source of life and joy—an insight that also makes sense of the recommendation to venerate the cross (XXI.471ff.). When the finite stuff of this world is indwelt in this way by God, it is not that the finite is a deceptive surface concealing a different truth beneath or within: it conceals the infinite as infinite (since this cannot in any case be seen or apprehended in its infinity, as if it were an object in the world), but reveals the universal indwelling of the infinite in the finite. It is a “disguise” that establishes the truth. The deceit of Satan in the garden of Eden is what happens when a finite agent pretends to be what it is not in order to corrupt and mislead other finite agents and make them what they are not. The divine self-concealment in Jesus / Piers / the Eucharistic bread is in contrast the infinite declaring that it is truly present in what it is not, the finite, through the indwelling of the agency of divine love.

Posted Yesterday by BC

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Thanks for your attention.

EL GRINGO  VIEJO

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Fiddler On The Roof sunrise sunset

Consider these things....The Jews are the chosen people...with all their "characteristics", and we are their successors.....America is the New Land of Milk and Honey....without one there is not the other.   No Jews, no Christians, no Abrahamic Ishmaelites......no order set forth by Yahweh.

Sunrise.....Sunset....Tradition....Tradition....

The Times They are a'changin' - Beating Up Mexico Makes No Sense.....

    Perhaps this is the time to leave the bull in the china shoppe, and let him have his way.   If he ever finally obtains the satisfaction of destroying everything in every china cabinet, then there might be a chance he might be willing to call a truce to his impulses.

The president can say that he was framed

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   All in all, we must confess that much of what his excellency, the President of the United States of America, has done to this point merits him a solid 'B'grade.   Were he capable of self-discipline and the ability to resist playing the role of a 12 year old girl with her new twitter-machine, then he might...just might....someday reach the emotional age of majority.

 There is little about which I am expert.  However, even my wife is astounded at my comfortability and understanding of so much.  I reject such assessments.  You all know how, at times, I have confessed to being even a bit envious of the persons with whom we have crossed paths....El Zorro, my Uncle Billy Grant Neal, my brother the Ph. d, all of whom could do the work of Merlin, while I would sit and twiddle, playing mumbly-peg. 

Actually, mumbly-peg is best not played alone

    All that notwithstanding,  We in Texas have this problem with the new president's notions about Walls and Tariffs and other things that little boys take to the Dragon "Puff".   The president becomes berserk and extremely irrational, declaring that he will require that Mexico pay for a wall that he himself hath nary the least notion how to build, nor where to build it.

     The pinko, pseudo-environmentalists are already building up fill-in-the-blank law suits that will be thrown into various courts,  some are State and others are of the central government's domain.  This alone will give lawyers and courts something to do for several years.

     This plan and other notions are put forward to pay for the Wall.... one is so absurd that it could not be reasonably considered by anyone outside of an insane asylum, that being the Tariff of 20% against all Mexican imports into the United States.  Ironically, those would be charges against produce at times produced in the only place where it can be produced....such as the El Bajio region of Mexico.....onions, green beens, dill and fennel weed, strawberries, squashes, root crop, broccoli, cauliflower, and on and on....produced by very excellent Mexican, American, and other companies and co-operatives.   In the West of Mexico, American and Mexican companies produce excellent crops of tomatillo and tomatoes.   There is massive export to the United States of mango, pagua, avocado and things like papaya, guayaba and guava fruit.  

     Much of the okra used in the famous dishes of Louisiana comes from our neighboring State of Tamaulipas....as do the majority of chiles such as Jalapeños, Serranos, and chiles pequin and del monte.

     There seems to be a resentment in some quarters that Mexico has developed a very complex middle class.   And while considering this, one watches a normally wise and wise looking, professorial type on FOX News....a conservative sort....say, "Well, sure.  We could charge the people coming across at the bridges 75 dollars for each person in the car each time they cross....there are all kinds of ways we could pay for The Wall."

     This normally intelligent, professorial type (a frequent contributor on FOX News) is unaware that people from Mexico who are arriving at the bridges in autos have already paid considerably....hundreds of dollars....to have legal entrance and exit to to Terra Sanctus Americanus.   They have to go to the American Embassy in Mexico City, or to one of very few Consular Offices (Monterrey, Guadalajara, and a few other sites) in order to begin a fairly lengthy period of qualification....and payment of fees.

      As for imbalances in trade, one must remember that Mexicans shopping along the "zona franca (frontier)"and as far north as Houston, San Antonio, Los Angeles, Austin, and Dallas (as well as New York, etc.) buy and return to Mexico with billions of dollars worth of goodies every year.   Also, one can consider that Mexicans make up the second largest body of gamers in Las Vegas.

     The fact is that Mexican prosperity has led to Texian and American prosperity.   Some analysts point out that for every job "lost" in the United States, two employment positions have been created due to the free trade agreement.  That is undeniable.

    Failure to recognise that fact eliminates the commentator from the discussion.   The idea that union workers were being paid a package of wages and benefits that cost GM, Chrysler, and Ford something in the neighbourhood of 70 USD / hour to bolt bumpers onto clunkers was really a bad business model never really caught on with the  union people, or the management of the "Big 3".

     Much of the rust-belt that died during the decline of the Industrial Midwest was due to the "We are going to make buggy whips until hell freezes over, and we'll burn the buggy whips to stay warm" mentality brought on by labour unions' ridiculouos notions about job security.   Verily, verily I say unto all and to you, in actuality there is no such thing as "job security" in the absolute sense, except perhaps for grave-diggers (and even they are semi-automated now). 

ALLOW ME NOW TO INSERT THE WORDS AND THOUGHTS OF A PERSON WHO HAS SAT IN THE CAVES, GUARDING HIS TROOPERS ...TRYING TO GET THEM BACK HOME....AS THEY FACED BRAIN-DEAD GRONKS WHOSE ONLY THOUGHT ABOUT ANYTHING GOOD WAS TO RAPE 12 YEAR OLD GIRLS AND KILL FOREIGNERS AND CHRISTIANS, JEWS, AND HERETICAL MUSLIMS.

WE ARE DEALING WITH SOMETHING INFINITELY WORSE THAN THE SPANISH INQUISITION OR THE AUTOCRATIC OPPRESSION OF MERE COLONIALS WHO HAD THE AUDACITY TO THINK THAT THEY HAD THE RIGHTS GRANTED UNTO ENGLISH SUBJECTS OF THE CROWN.

WE ARE ACCUSED OF BEING NEANDERTHALS AND BEING UNABLE TO GRASP THE GREATER REALITY....BUT...FOR-SOOTH...WE ARE EDUCATED...BOTH IN THE SECULAR AND THE SACRED.....WE HAVE SEEN THE WORST AND THE BEST....

   This man whose writings we submit below, enters a reasonable observation, analysis, and a 1000% Texan's point of view.  I do not wholly agree with it....but I do totally concur that this is very close to the standards of 1950 when I was on the farm with "wetbacks" and braceros (all excellent examples of humanity)...when my father and mother complied and then some, with their verbal and written contracts with those Mexicans. 

      The man who scripted that which is depicted in blue print above is a combination of blue collar and very highly placed colonial Spanish aristocracy.....a mix which never had a truly Mexican background over Terra Coahuilteca - Tejana.....His family, like my granddaughters and my children have a multi-century involvement with Texas that only Texians can understand and appreciate.   It is best that you listen to this War Hero's words and admonitions.  As he writes, so was it in the late 1940s and the 1950s.

     As he writes so it is.....He has faced the bullet coming towards his face and he has faced the angry bayonet.....He preferred to be a part of the Armoured Cavalry (Tanker), but was sent into a most dangerous place(s) as a foot soldier....and commander of noble men.  To wit:

Cesar Munguia <cesar.munguia@icloud.com>	13:07 (1 hour ago)
to me

Hope this finds you well. Best regards to you and Mrs. Newton.

1. Keep incoming refugee quotas a modest 50,000 per year. That seems to be the average over the last twenty years, so it seems reasonable to keep it.

2. Refugees to the United States must meet the same standards as immigrants applying for resident alien status: they must have a US Citizen submit an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative, and an affidavit of support for each member of the refugee family."An affidavit of support is a document an individual signs to accept financial responsibility for another person, usually a relative, who is coming to the United States to live permanently. The person who signs the affidavit of support becomes the sponsor of the relative (or other individual) coming to live in the United States. The sponsor is usually the petitioner of an immigrant petition for a family member." You want them here, then man up and take responsibility. 

4. Make receipt of any entitlement program at the state or federal level contingent on the status of the beneficiary. If you're a citizen or resident alien (who by default can't get entitlements because of the affidavit of support), you're good to go. If you're not established in E-Verify... sorry. 

5. Implement strict enforcement of the E-Verify system. Selling or leasing property to anyone not a citizen or legal permanent resident established in E-Verify is a felony, where if convicted, is punishable by one year in prison and a $25,000 fine. 

6. Employing anyone not a citizen or legal permanent resident, established in E-Verify, is a felony, where if convicted is punishable by one year in prison and a $25,000 fine.

7. Eliminate the Border Patrol's "catch and release"; failure to establish legal permanent residency (or enroll in E-Verify) is subject to immediate deportation. No ifs, ands, or buts. 

8. Finally, make administration of a "sanctuary city" illegal, and a felony punishable by 10 years in federal prison and a $100,000 fine. Sanctuary cities unfairly administer the laws that US Citizens and legal permanent residents are subject to. They violate the Fourteenth Amendment, specifically the Equal Protection Clause. By selectively choosing to enforce laws, they essentially deprive citizens and legal permanent residents of their protection under the law.

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   We lived under, and complied with these rules.  One thing that I would add, in order to be in full agreement with the Soldier who has penned the above, is that any illegal alien who drops a baby off in a place provided by the pro-communist, anti-american Mary Knoll Nuns  or similar service  who serve as "mid-wives", should be led into a maximum security prison and forced to attend to the needs of those therein incarcerated.
   The babies should be placed for adoption by the Salvation Army and the mother removed of any jewellery, dentures with silver or gold, any valuables from her purse and luggage, minus her personal documentation, and sent back to the country of origin. 
     For those who think this is a horrid response, please believe that there are many girls who come to Texas thinking that they can live the life of plenty....by becoming the only source of succour for a baby born in Texas. Food Stamps, Section 8 or public housing, medicaid, special needs medical considerations (all ''free''), all vaccinations, electricity subsidy (or "free"), ("free" Head Start guaranteed intellectual retardation programme).....etc.etc.etc.

    Remember...your soldier,  this Mungia person who is now employed in matters that require a greater intelligence than my own, is represented in the writing above in the blue.  This man made it to where he was, socially and professionally, on the backs of his parents and upon his own shoulders. He is an explemplary American, father, husband, scholar, and all such things positive in the make-up of a real man.  He is a Texan.

Please review his words.

El Gringo Viejo 

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Score cards, commentary, for what it is worth. Trump, Mexico, and the Anarchists

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 (I)    The fact is, we try to avoid talking about political, or even cultural matters, primarily because we want to maintain a fair and clear mind while analyzing events and their repercussions.   Believe it or not.   Why?  Because, out in the real world where people are working, milling around, trying to find a missing part for the whangdoodle machine, etc. there are other things going on.  That applies both to the great, un-washed masses of which I am a member, and to the majority of folks we encounter who can only speak in vacuous platitudes and focus group phrases.

     To begin, government intervention into the economic realm always...always...produces imbalances that are injurious to the interests of both producer and "consumer".

     Lies and dysfunction must necessarily accompany any and all manouevres that attempt to regulate the movement of money between the citizenry.  Quite readily, one can point to the notion that there is a need for poor people to be exempt from central government taxation.   It is also accepted that the well-to-do must pay a higher percentage of their income than people of more moderate means.  Mr. Trump, the "Great Tax Reformer" proposes a 0 - 12 - 25 - 35 percent bracketing of taxation.

     Such a system, we are told, ensures that the rapacious rich have to be forced to pay "their fair share".   The "zero tax group" is too poor to pay anything, so taxing them would be mean and unfair.   The ones in the middle are dolts and proles and they will pay up, no matter what, in order to avoid going to jail or paying fines.

     This package of rates immediately put disincentives into play.  For the "poor" it takes them off of the Board of Directors of USA and Company.  They have no skin in the game, save for the taking.....free food, free accommodation, free medical, and a myriad of other programmes that "help the poor".  The programmes also enslave many into a multigenerational culture of poverty that creates hell-holes of crime and indolence and hatred for the "donor class".

     The myth of the Spanish Conquistatoders.   The truly wealthy have accountants that work around the labyrinthine tax code.   The dolts in the middle area stumble through with the express form or with piles of receipts and notes in an effort to "itemize" their tax statements.  Either way....for the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy...the ones who are paying and who must render up answers to invasive questions for which there is no reasonable justification....are the ones who pay 100 % of all income tax.
   The "poor" and any slob who is not paying taxes for whatever reason belongs to the noncontributing 50%.  The ones who are paying are the 50,000 USD annual income people, and up from there, pay 100% of the central government's operational expenses....except for that last batch of deficit spending that just slipped by a 03:00 in the morning.....somehow.....

    There is certainly no justification for the central government to inquire into the otherwise presumed  innocent citizen's economic activity.  The whole system has been the classic "camel's nose in the Arab's tent".   Wilson's and the Progressive's assurances that the tax would never exceed 1% and so forth was long since thrown out with the bathwater, with the Progressives snickering with every splash.

     We remain committed to the establishment of a national sales tax, for the support of the War Department and the Postal Service as dictated by the Constitution.  All other central government operations should be discontinued in an orderly, ten-year stand-down.   The maintenance of a Department of Judicial Constabulary and Courts could possibly be considered.

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(II)    Border Wall

(David Christian Newton authored this observation, 26 January 2017 -his mother's birthday, born in Winchester, Tennessee in 1915)

      The building of a physical wall is an improbable venture just based upon the geography concerned. There is another problem, for instance simply due to Indian Reservation lands in certain areas. There is another problem in delta areas such as the Lower Rio Grande "Valley" (it is a delta, not a valley).
      There is another problem with the Nature Conservancy and other plant species and wildlife which bring on both reasonable and irrational considerations.
      The expense and maintenance is much more complicated than is being considered. Also, any stolen Cessna 172 that can fly, will cross over, lights out, and land in very short spaces....or rural highways...which abound in the Texas outback....especially at night. If not a Cessna, then it would be a Citabria one seater, or certain larger remote-controlled drones.
       A combination of pedestrian scouts, a mounted infantry or horse cavalry of sorts would be well employed in about 30 - 40% of the area concerned.   My father rode in the Mounted Cavalry, Ist Division, 12th Regiment in the late 1920s through 1933.   Their work was very effective in catching anarchists, Mexican and American counterfeit and real silver coinage and paper currency,  and in those days, illegal introduction of alcohol in the form of mescal, tequila, and European and Canadian liquors.
      Standard motor patrol with electronic and cyber tech equipment is indispensable, both for close patrol and combat support and for "showing the flag and willingness to enforce", along with, frankly saving those who foolishly try to trek over EXTREMELY challenging stretches of thorny, sandy, very hot, very cold, unforgiving territory.
     Open co-ordination with the Mexican Army and Naval Infantry is obviously a solution with an abundance of positive effect. There are even elements of certain Mexican Civilian Police now with whom we could co-ordinate that have evolved to required professional levels during the past four or five years.   The writer lives in, within, among, and surrounded by the Mexican Reality at his and his boss's mud hut in Nowhere, Mexico.  He knows, understands, trusts and distrusts on a reasonable basis...whether in Mexico or America or the Republic of Texas.
     The manpower and ground forces are going to be required in this situation in any case. The electronic and cyber accoutrements are going to be required with or without The Wall. So El Gringo Viejo declares himself opposed to about 90% of The Wall.
   He would prefer to make this an up-close and personal armed encounter with scum who are kidnapping, extorting, trading in 12 - 14 year old girls as sex-slaves, and the extreme abuse of illegal aliens with whom the coyote-transporting-scum are minimally complying with their agreed contract of delivery of people to desired destinations.

     (disclaimer:   The author is a multigenerational Texian.  His granddaughters are 7th generation Texians by him, and 15th generation by his wife.   He and his wife are arch-conservative Republicans essentially from birth.  His opinions are derived from the basis and point of view of a conservative sociologist, aimed at the benefits that are derived from the employment of conservative values.  His wife's opinions are derived from the processes of an overwhelmingly intelligent person whose people have been here since the 1580s, and whose parents and more recent ancestry are known and proved to be compliant, producers, and pillars of an improving society and new, traditionally-based culture.  Many of their present generations(the last of which also pertain to the genetic background of your humble servant) are highly placed, highly decorated police and military and / or proprietor / professionals.   Neither her family nor mine have ever participated in public assistance.)
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(III)     Finally, if President Trump would shut up and think, if he would just think strategically instead of twitter-silly, then he could think....'The Mexican "Credential Electoral Federal" is required of all electors in the Republic of Mexico who desires to vote.  It has about 13 vital marks and computerised tricks and blocks that detail the elector in a much, much, much more complex and foolproof manner than what we have in Texas and elsewhere in the United States of America.

     It is accepted as the best identifier of a Mexican person to the extent that when asked for ID a Mexican is more likely to show his CEF than his / her official Secretaria de Gobernacion Mexican Passport.  (!!!!!!)
     It leads to appearing on Election Day....(no absentee)...where the poll workers have a catalogue of all registered people in the polling station, including a recent photograph of the potential elector.
    The ballots are counted by at least one member of each political party that has a candidate in any of the various races under consideration."

   Mayhaps (Trump could think) we should talk to the Mexicans about how they changed the their crummy, corrupt elections into a process that is one of the best on planet Earth at this time.....especially when Trump is correct (by accident?) in assuming that several hundred thousand....probably many more....illegal ballots were casted in the last general election.   Each of the 50 sovereign States of the American Union could probably do well to use some close variation of the Mexican voter registration and voting procedure.
     That way, Trump could "buy" a bit of good will and then engage on the Guatemalan-to-Belize Wall....and the co-ordination with the American Coast Guard and the Mexican Gulf Flotilla and Pacific Flotilla......(SHEEEEESH..... if I can figure it out.....the question is "What kind of dildot do we have sitting in the oval office? It's almost as if he just hates Mexico by knee-jerk reaction.)

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     We leave this field of battle.  One last note:  Over 1,200,000 Americans and Canadians presently spend a majority of the year or more as legal Mexican Residents.   So long as we do not push or blatantly violate the agreements we made with the Secretaria de Gobernacion, we are treated very well, by civilian and military both.   I shall never turn my back nor raise my sabre against the Mexicans, unless Raul Castro, Eric Holder,  sub-Commandante Marcos or similar, has taken that country.   Vigorous enforcement by the Americans of serious illegal alien offenders should be done, without apology.....but Trump does not know how to deal with Latins such as the largest Spanish-speaking Nation on Planet Earth, with the largest GNP, who also a good Long Term partner on the North American Continent, and who has been good to excellent participant with the Texas in terms of the Tratado de Libre Commericio (NAFTA).  
More later,
El Gringo Viejo

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Oh! Fiddle - Faddle!! Did I miss the inauguration?

I thought all of that stuff was for tomorrow!   Why didn't someone wake me up?

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans - Happy Trails 'til Then

    Thankfully, the nightmare ends, at least briefly.  Perhaps we can change from the nightmare of marxist narcissism and meld into just a bad dream of bluster restrained by intelligence and a modicum of patriotism.

    We pray that the new President can avoid the addiction of jumping behind the 30 calibre, water-cooled, belt-fed machine-twitter and blasting away against any dolt who makes ridiculous, scurrilous, and offensive statements.  An adult...who is President....should be strong enough to count to ten and say to himself, "My mother told me to count to ten and consider the source."   Responding to Lewis when you are having meeting with "mediocre Negroes" like Martin Luther King III, Jim Brown, etc.? Please, Donald!  Lewis has been a mendacious, senile, crooked race-baiting slug for the past 30 years.  He is irrelevant.

  

     The studied eloquence of Martin Luther King, III (who is very much like his name-sake grandfather...a true hero) stands in stark contrast to the race-racketeers such as Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and Lewis, and Waters, and Jackson - Lee.

    We leave with a vintage photograph of the first 30 calibre, water-cooled, belt-fed, machine twitter so that the OROGs can have an idea of what a nearly 50 pound armament might look like.

El Gringo Viejo's father trained on one of these during his service in the United States Army, 1st Cavalry (Mounted), 12th Regiment, Headquarters Squadron - 1929 through 1933.

Thanks for your attention!

El Gringo Viejo

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