Let It Be…

As we near the end of one of the most turbulent years in recent memory, and look ahead at what the prognosticators want us to believe is likely to be even more challenging yet, the words of one of my favorite of all of John Lennon’s songs come to mind…let it be.

It’s such a simple song, yet when I recall the words of each line I feel a sense of reassurance come over me that there will indeed be an answer for not just the “broken-hearted,” but for anyone who chooses not to believe in the doom and gloom of world but rather reaches for the light “that shines on them”…and inside them. That light is hope and faith that there is always a way through the darkness and the difficulties, and that comes from within oneself.

That’s not just being metaphorical. It’s very real…for those who believe it and aren’t willing to let others distract them or diminish their light, their faith or their trust. I’ve seen men come out of prison after 20 and 26 years locked up, and still find jobs, homes and families restored. I get letters all the time from men and women who are incarcerated, and yet they get it…they know it’s up to them to find their way through the maze that life on this planet has become. Those that choose to make a positive difference in the lives of others will make an even bigger difference in their own lives. It’s a Truth taught by Christ, buy Shuddha Guggulu online Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and every evolved being, Saint and Teacher who ever lived.

I see it everywhere now, more and more, as people get fed up with trusting in the government to bail them out or prop them up, and they reach out to one another. It’s exciting to feel people willing to connect with one another and be willing to help each other. cytotec tablets These are times of buy amoxil without prescription miracles and wonders, as Paul Simon wrote, as people shake off the old paradigms of expecting someone else to take care of them and find it within themselves to get stronger and to work together to restore this country’s…and our individual…greatness.

The more getting clomid online we are willing to suspend our personal beliefs and judgments long enough to see and feel what other people need, and do what we can to make the world a better place, the more that darkness will dissipate and that light will, in Buy cheap Levitra Online Pharmacy fact, shine on us…and there will be answers.

Let It Be…

Don Kirchner
December 20, 2010

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A Bridge Back

Someone I work with recently encountered an older man coming out of our local county jail as he was going in for a session of volunteers from our community who visit with groups of inmates to help them prepare for their eventual release. The man appeared bewildered about where he was and how he would get to the nearest town, which was eight miles away.

“Where am I?” the man asked my friend, who was immediately taken aback by the fact that the man was dressed in only a T-shirt and pants, and it was getting dark and rather chilly. My friend told him that the highway just beyond the fences would take him to the nearest town…eight miles away, with no lights and high-speed traffic all the way there.

When he told me about the encounter, we both looked at each other and we knew that it was time to stop talking in generalities about “re-entry” concepts for state and federal prisoners around the country, and focus first on something closer to home…our county jail. We wondered about the immediate needs of inmates being released from a facility in our own “neighborhood,” and began to discover an alarming need. Men and women, we learned, are released from that jail every day to fend for themselves, and are not provided any transportation. They are released at the exact hour of the day that they were booked in. That means that if they were arrested at 2:30 in the morning, they are released at 2:30 in the morning…with whatever clothes they had on at the time of the arrest. If they have no one to pick them up, they have to walk. If it’s 30 degrees outside, too bad. And if they happened to have just been traveling through the area when they were arrested, they have no place to stay. Often they have very little money with which to get a meal, warm clothes or a place to sleep. Hardly any wonder that so many of them wind up back in again within days of their release.

We were astonished to realize this was the policy at the jail, and wondered how many other county jails across the country have similar policies. So, we’ve begun to organize a countywide volunteer group of people who are willing to donate time and effort to providing transportation, a few meals and temporary shelter through churches, civic groups and existing “halfway houses” for a 3 to 5 day period after someone’s release while they get their feet on the ground and reconnect with family and friends, find work and hopefully stay out of trouble while they get stabilized.

Having met with county officials, we found out that this pattern of events happens buy buy Tinidazole online generic amoxil all the time, and is a significant contributing factor in recidivism just on a local scale…and it’s much bigger and far more threatening to our order cytotec online communities than most people realize. At Return To Honor, we well recognize the problem conceptually, but until it was “in our faces” locally, we didn’t fully realize how basic a problem and a need that it is. If someone isn’t there to greet an inmate being released, and if that person doesn’t have shelter or a ride to get there, a few meals and warm clothes, how long is that person going to be able to survive before he (or she) finally does whatever they need to do just to survive?

Helping them get a leg up during geodon 80 mg this critical transition phase is essential to reducing crime and restoring hope for people who have made mistakes. Some are beyond help, but far more than most people realize really want a chance to turn things around. When people from their Order Generic Propecia Online without Prescription communities make an effort to help them, there is hardly more incentive needed for that person to get straightened out and make more responsible choices. They need a “bridge” back…and a warm hand that tells them that they matter, and have value.

A meal and a place to sleep helps them believe it.

Don Kirchner
November 11, 2010

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Everyone Deserves A Winnable Game

“Everyone Deserves A Winnable Game.”

That statement by Scott DeGraffenreid http://www.necessarymeasures.com, makes one stop and consider a fundamental truth we have overlooked in our frenetic rush to judgment about one another. We live in a society that despite the freedoms granted to us by our Constitution, it is so out of balance that few people really have much of a chance to improve their lives much beyond the most basic essentials. At no time has that been more true than right now, and it applies equally as well to those who have made serious mistakes in their lives and have wound up in jail or in prison. That doesn’t mean that those who have committed violent crimes should have it easy or be released to repeat their offenses, but it does mean that for those who aren’t prone to violence and who demonstrate a clear willingness to change their attitudes, they should be given the chance to learn how to make those changes and earn generics of lipitor their way back with a better perspective buy Minipress online and outlook.

We cytotec induction each deserve a chance to succeed at something…to achieve whatever we set out to do. The problem for many people is that they don’t learn the rules fast enough, or they don’t even know they exist. They drop out of school or they get into trouble at an early stage of life and few of them ever catch up or learn to correct themselves. They often don’t have parents who understand or care enough or live long enough to provide correction. It’s astonishing how many of them actually do care, and want to change.

But the American jail and prison system by its very nature is not a “winnable game”…not for either side or for society in general. Everything is backwards and convoluted, and based on fear and intimidation that forces inmates and released former prisoners to do whatever it takes buy cheap amoxil to “survive.” Many of those subjected to it have been conditioned almost from birth to become predatory just to stay alive. There is no learning of a positive nature inside or outside of the “walls,” nor is there typically any support for those released back into society.

But there is an important second part I’ll add to Scott’s statement, which also applies to every one of us. That is in order Cheap Propecia to play that “winnable game,” one must be willing to “show up” as a mature, responsible person willing to be accountable and who can be depended upon to do the right thing, even if they trip or stumble while trying. People on both sides also have to be willing to listen…really listen. Just that simple act makes all the difference regardless of who you’re dealing with. The act of listening gives the other person a chance to feel valued, which in a prison or jail environment is a bright ray of light that gives hope and even promise of a better life someday. Listening is an art, and if done properly, it works miracles. It works especially well in prisons, and we would do well as a society to learn in the process and develop better ways to create that “winnable game”…for all of us. It’s much simpler than you might think. And lasting…

Don Kirchner
October 30, 2010

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On Manhood

Tonight I sat down to write about the attributes of being a man, because despite a pretty nebulous upbringing by a career Army officer who appeared to be a strong man but took his own life when I was sixteen, I’ve learned a thing or two about manhood. It’s been a pretty rocky road, but I’ve managed to make it to some pavement in life on my own. What I’ve learned seems worth passing along to others who, like me, don’t have a clue what manhood is really about.

Before I began to write, however, cheap cytotec I opened my email program and noticed an email whose buy amoxil online subject line caught my attention. It was about a four-star Air Force general who was relieved of command as the Commander of Air Operations during the Vietnam war for ordering unauthorized air strikes over North Vietnam and then covering it up. He was demoted to a two-star general, forced to retire and died a few years later, most likely from shame and disgrace. There are few things that can destroy a man’s self-worth than being disgraced, and that’s especially true of high-ranking military officers. The email contained a Pentagon announcement that declassified documents from that era proved that the good general was ordered by President Nixon to conduct the bombings, but later became a scapegoat by the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and by his immediate superior, the Chief of the Pacific Command. (See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38561447/ns/politics/.)

I don’t have to research this topic much to get a sense of what that man went through. His 91-year old wife said Buy Propecia only “He was a good man, a good husband and a good officer,” and generics levitra wished that he could be alive to know that he had been restored to his full four-star rank, with honors…thirty years later. Every one of those former officials that are still alive should be demoted themselves…even posthumously, if necessary. They all knew what had happened, but they looked the other way and let him take the blame. Not one of them stood up and told the truth about what had really happened.

How much more do we have to go through to begin to get a sense of how far we’ve fallen down the slippery buy KamaSutra Ribbed Condoms online slopes of not just manhood but of honor, dignity and common decency? How many more political, religious and corporate leaders do we have to see shamed, arrested or dead before we begin to realize that the only way out of this insanity of moral corruption and ineptitude is to take responsibility for our own individual choices made every day? We can’t look outside of ourselves. It has to begin with us…with every choice we make every hour of every day. We have to set our own moral compass, and despite the different cultures, religions and ethnic backgrounds we all have, it’s not that complex or difficult. We’ve just allowed others to make our decisions for us for way too long, and have turned a blind eye to what’s really going on. I don’t have to expound on any of that here. You all know what I’m talking about. You know what the truth is about the things you do and say every day. Our “leaders” are all products of how we have allowed our society to evolve…or, sadly, devolve.

Manhood…and womanhood…adulthood, if you will, is about making conscious choices, as I wrote previously, instead of endless excuses and complaints. It’s about choosing to make a difference in the world…small ones as well as big ones…and telling the truth, being respectful as well as respectable, even when you think no one else is watching. It’s about caring…really caring…about others ahead of yourself, like a father would do for his small child in times of danger or alarm. Put your own oxygen mask on first, as a close friend of mine said, but do help others with theirs, if possible…which I believe she meant only to make sure you’re morally strong enough first before preaching to others. And for God’s sake, don’t make life worse for anyone else. No matter the reason, there’s never justification for doing so…not for a real man.

There are other elements of manhood, but you can start with those. If you can get just those down, you’ll be a good man…like that general was.

Don Kirchner
September 5, 2010

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Commitment

These are challenging times, to be certain. People don’t know what or who to believe in, trust in or rely upon. Everything is backwards, upside down or in virtual chaos. But that’s not necessarily true. Things are changing, that much is true…and so they must. We have too long lived in ignorance, apathy and outright delusion, allowing others to set the standards, make the rules and run their games without control. Our proverbial chickens have come home to roost…and those “chickens” are all the economic, political and social breakdowns that we face today.

The good news is that in the face Buy cheap Propecia Online of one breakdown after another after buy amoxicillin another, people are forced to take stock of the situation and make deep and lasting changes. Some will, many won’t. Those who do will do so by taking personal responsibility for generics for lopressor the choices they make every day. Among those choices are to live by buy cytotec generic higher standards that they set for themselves, regardless of who’s watching or backbiting…or ridiculing. There are certain principles of living that are irrefutable and simple, that can and will change your life and our world. These are principles that have been so vague and nebulous in our upbringing that we think we know what they are, but we don’t live by them or we wouldn’t have the problems we have today. Terms like “honor,” “truth,” “courage,” “commitment” and others have gotten lost in our mad race to get ahead…or get over on…everyone else.

Consider the term Commitment, just to begin. What does that really mean? When I think of the times in my life when things didn’t work out, I am amazed to find when I manage to unravel the tangles, there was a lack of commitment to the process. There was always plenty of determination and passion, but real commitment involves so much more. It takes courage and strength of character that only comes with a deep commitment to see one’s way through all the dark times and difficulties. It takes a willingness to keep your word, no matter what, and to stay on course so that others know without a doubt that you can be relied upon, no matter what.

No commentary covers this topic better than W.H. Murray’s, who scaled Mt. Everest in the years before oxygen masks and high-tech gadgets made it a more common adventure. He had this to say about commitment:

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. A whole stream of events buy Female Viagra online issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

If you take this quote to heart, and apply it to every thought, decision and action you take from now on, miracles will happen in your life. Print it out and put it on your mirror where you can read it every day…and commit yourself to creating a courageous, bold and honest life.

Don Kirchner
August 10, 2010

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No One Left Behind

One of the most powerful and endearing statements to ever come out of the military has been “No One Left Behind.” There are countless stories, many of them having resulted in earning someone the Medal Of Honor, that attest to how powerfully felt that statement is to those who have served in combat, and few things stirs our hearts more than to know that someone might feel that way about one of us when we are in trouble. It’s a bond of brotherhood and, if you like, of sisterhood that embraces the notion that we are all “family” in some way…that we belong to one another in some fashion. It is what made this country strong and truly great…families and the sense of “family” that compelled people to work together with a common cause, direction and purpose.

We need that sense of community and “family” now, in every aspect of our society…in our schools, our churches, workplaces and even in our streets. I know it’s hard to embrace that notion with regard to those who might appear to be against us or unwilling to treat us in the same fashion, but that does not diminish the need for us to stop thinking of anyone as separate from cytotec online us and therefore undeserving of our consideration of their inherent value. If they are troublemakers or have broken laws, then certainly they must be punished…but they still Order Generic Propecia Online without Prescription need and deserve to be treated as human beings rather than the dregs of society.

By that I am not saying amoxicillin dosage that we must be easy or soft on them. Quite the contrary. If they are a threat to us, they must be removed from society and kept locked up until they have been “corrected,” which means just that. To punish people harshly without any attempt to redirect their behavior and attitude is only to make them worse…more hateful, more vengeful. Many among them are veterans who have endured some of the most heinous acts of war, and returned to society expected to pick up where they left off.

Veterans or not, they are all someone’s brothers, or sisters, or fathers, mothers, uncles, and so on, and 90% of them will someday be released back into our communities. Do we want them back full of hatred and vengeance, or do we want safer streets and more productive citizens with greater incentive to do right in the world?

It’s up to us to demand that they be properly educated and truly “corrected,” which is not as hard as some “experts” would have us believe. Many of them want to change. They just don’t know how, or whom to trust, and few of them leave prisons and jails with anything but the clothes on their backs. In war, which we are fighting on many levels, that’s tantamount to leaving them behind. Only these won’t die or go away.

They’ll be in our faces and perhaps in our living rooms someday…and it won’t be to say thank you.

Don Kirchner
July generics buy Retino-A Cream 0.05% online for buspar 30, 2010

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Choices Vs Excuses

Choices vs Excuses

My father was a career military officer, whose most common admonishment to me was “No excuses.” I hated that term, and resented it every time it came up. There are always reasons for things to happen, I would rationalize…how could such a blanket statement apply in every instance? Was he totally brainwashed by the military?

I Cheap Propecia eventually joined the Army and learned to fly helicopters, and gradually I began to see things a bit more his way…but there were still very good reasons for buy Oral Health Cats online some things to happen the way they did…and my mind became most adept in coming up with excellent examples. generics for altace Years later, as I paced jailhouse floors and sat on prison cots trying to figure out what went wrong and why I was there, I noticed everyone in there had an excuse for why “things” always happened to them.

I’ve worked in the field of prisoner aftercare and re-entry for quite a number of years since then, and I’m amazed amoxicillin antibiotic at how such broad subjects as human redemption, overcoming adversity and changing criminal behavior can be reduced to one simple sentence: Either one is making powerful choices or endless excuses. No exceptions, no long lists of “reasons” why things didn’t work out or how things just keep “happening” to them. Everything, in the end, is matter of choices we make…no matter who we are or where our paths have led us. As I tell prisoners and correctional officials alike, if you step back far enough in your mind, and be honest about it, you can see how everything came about because of the choices you have made.

The key to personal freedom, as I have discovered over and over again without fail, is to recognize the patterns of one’s life, and to accept that no one and no-thing “did it” to you, or “put you” there. You chose to take every step you have taken, and once you accept the truth of that statement, you can begin to make better choices that will lead you out of the traps buy cytotec of wrong thinking and emotion-based behavior to a better, more positive future. Those choices, however small or large they might be, will be powerful choices because they will be consciously made, with clear awareness of cause and effect. Because you will be paying closer, more objective attention to how you are thinking and taking responsibility for the effects of those choices, you will make increasingly better and more clear choices, and you will never again have to wonder what happened to you, or why.

It’s a matter of choice, or chance. I’ll take the former.

No excuses.

Don Kirchner
July 29, 2010

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Stand and Deliver

Tonight I watched Michael Jackson’s final concert film, “This Is It,” with close friends. I’ve never been a huge Michael Jackson fan, although it’s hard not to admire someone who has so many hit songs to his credit, and who was undeniably a genius in music, dance and technical production. Even though his love for children may have been somewhat misguided and inappropriate, I don’t happen to believe that he was the freak that the media and conservative critics made him out to be because as I watched him I was highly inspired by his absolute determination to be his best, and by his respectful, deeply caring attitude toward everyone around him.

buy Sustiva online Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;”>My reason in bringing this up is that again and again I was enthralled with his demonstration of excellence and his consistent push to perform at the highest possible level of his craft. His passion and his love for not just his music but for people of all ages and cultures, and for the planet were apparent. I had no idea, from what I had heard and read about him, but I got that he didn’t need to do another concert, and he wasn’t trying to vindicate himself. Every song he sang, which he’s sung countless thousands of times in his life, was performed as if it amoxicillin were the first time, and his finale summed up what I’m saying about his nature and his purpose. It was “Man In The Mirror,” in which generic zyrtec surope he made it clear where his focus was. It was on himself, and how the only way any of us can make a change buy cytotec online in the world is to take a look at ourselves and stand and deliver…with passion and Buy Propecia excellence…and love.

No matter who you are, or what you do in life, you can only help make the world a better place by starting with that man (or woman) in the mirror and make the changes that will bring you sanity, peace and dignity…one day at a time. You don’t need to be a celebrity to do that. You can do it one person at a time…with powerful love like I saw on that stage tonight…for my sixth time.

I’m sure there will be a seventh.

Don Kirchner
August 1, 2010

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A Nation of Fatherless Children

In a recent broadcast by National Public Radio on the plight of men locked up before trial and held for lack of sufficient funds to make bail, the commentator said that there are now more children impacted by their fathers being incarcerated than there are from divorce. I haven’t researched that rather shocking statistic, but as one who had an opportunity to experience such a thing on a first-hand basis for two and a half years two decades ago, I have no doubt that it’s true.

According to www.divorcerate.org, present divorce rates in America run from nearly 50% for first marriages to as high as 73% for third marriages, so if NPR’s commentator is even close to being accurate, that’s a lot of children with no father present in their lives. Add them together, and it’s clear that America is a nation of “fatherless” children. Given our Buy cheap Propecia Online justice generic zyrtec chewable system’s obsessiveness with locking people up for nonviolent and drug related crimes, it’s no wonder that we can’t build prisons fast enough, or that we continue to have such exorbitant crime rates. We’ve got a burgeoning population of children with no place to go and no father to help them figure things out.

Before you think to yourself, “Well, what kind of fathers would a bunch cytotec of inmates and criminals make, anyway?” consider that the majority–not the minority–of generic amoxicillin online inmates in America’s prisons today are not the heinous, scarred and tattooed gladiators one sees in the movies and television programs. A full 70% of those incarcerated are for nonviolent, first and second offenses…usually drug-related crimes. Even so, I’ve watched first-hand even the “gladiator” types in visiting rooms, bouncing small children on their knees, and being warm, kind and loving with them‚ and returning to their cell blocks fighting back the tears everyone knows are flooding their eyes.

The damage, sociologically, to this country in locking men (and women) up for interminable periods for crimes of a relatively harmless nature is far-reaching, and much more destructive in the long run than all the crimes put together that create such a rip in the fabric of our society. We’re breeding generation after generation of young criminals at a rate that far exceeds that of radical Islamic terrorists who cultivate and train their young children to become suicide bombers‚ and we’re mystified as to how and why crime is so rampant in our streets.

I’m not suggesting that we do not punish law-breakers, by any means. I’m saying that we must have legislative reform in this critically important aspect of our development. We cannot continue to justify such extremes in retaliating against people who break the law, and expect that just because we remove them from our streets that we are going to be safer.

There is a delusion in so thinking, because the more we do that the more we ignore the children who are left to fend for themselves in an increasingly hostile world facing economic and political upheaval. If we don’t take steps NOW to change the laws and redirect those many individuals who can be trained to function more responsibly while performing community services instead of wasting away behind bars and Plexiglas-enclosed cellblocks, we will soon find ourselves like I did once–facing the wrong end of a loaded gun while my car, pockets and bank account were emptied.

Thank God that at least the young hood holding the gun on me wasn’t quite yet so strung out on Meth that the chamber wasn’t emptied on me.

Don Kirchner
June buy Protonix online 30, 2010

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Making A Difference

Today I buried a friend. She wasn’t a long-time friend…in fact, I hardly knew her at all. She bounced off the windshield of the truck in front of me, and in a blur of feathers and wings she fell under my car as I passed over her. I hate it when that happens…even more so when it’s me that’s the cause of such suffering…but I had places to go and people to meet, so I winced a bit and brushed it off as simply another Order Generic Levitra Online without Prescription contribution to the food chain. But as I drove along another mile or two, it bothered me enough that I knew it would Buy cheap Cytotec online Without Prescription – Online Drugstore still be bothering me later if I didn’t do something about it. So, I whipped a U-turn at the top of the next hill and went back to find her still in the highway and not yet road-kill.

I got out of the car and took a look at her. She was still blinking her little eyes…still showing some sign of life…so I picked her up and held her for a bit, hoping that perhaps she was just knocked silly but would recover and fly away as they generic zyban uk sometimes do. She laid there in my hand calmly looking back up at me for a minute or so, then suddenly flapped her wings furiously and fell to the ground. When I picked her up, her eyes were closed and she was gone.

I was on my way back from a long road trip, and that incident…harmless and insignificant as it may seem, had a lasting impact on me. It was just a bird…one of millions out there doing their thing, so why should this one have any impact on me? It was a bit of feather and wing clinging to life in a palm of human flesh and bone, clinging to life on another level, but nonetheless significant in the grand scheme of things.

As I traveled along in the days afterward, I thought about the human friends and family members I’ve lost over the years, and  wondered what had been meaningful about them…what had they accomplished in their lives? We’ve just “lost” Michael Jackson, once revered then scorned and vilified, and now loved and revered again, and along with him another icon of my generation, Farrah Fawcett, born the same year as me, and someone I had a huge crush on for most of my adult life.

What did they leave behind buy MSM online of lasting value besides memories and estates for others to squabble over? What did they do to make life better for others? Such thoughts caused me to go deep into myself and wonder what have I done to make life better for anyone else? What legacy will I leave behind that will matter to others?

What about you? Who are you? What are you doing with your life that really makes any difference to others? Are you just getting by, or are you pursuing something in your life that has a positive impact on others? Are you just making your way from cradle to grave as safely as possible, or are you clearing a path for others behind you?

It doesn’t take a Michael Jackson where to buy amoxicillin or a Farrah Fawcett to make a real difference in the world. As Margaret Meade wrote so powerfully, it only takes a small group of (passionate) people committed to making a difference to change the world for the better. So, whether you impact millions, like Michael or Farrah, or one at a time, do it with all the passion and caring you can muster. If enough of us impact just a few others in our lives, we can and we will see miracles and wonders in our lifetimes yet. It doesn’t take an icon…and in fact it rarely works that way at all. It only takes a few of us, dedicated to leaving behind something for others to be inspired by, and a clearer path for them to find their own way. Can you do that much? If you can, you will be just as important––if not more so––than any “icon” ever has been.

Don Kirchner
www.ReturnToHonor.org

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