<font color='black' size='3' face='Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'><font size="3" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marc --</font>
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<div><font size="3" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is one of my favorite Wolfe stories. The passage you quoted ("</font><font size="3" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There are things we don’t know about that live in the world with us – things in another plane of reality.</font><font size="3" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font><font size="3" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And when you make something like that, it comes – one of them comes.</font><font size="3" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </font><font size="3" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It shapes itself to fit your image of it, becoming the real Spirit of the Yellows</font><font size="3" style="color: black; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">"</font><font size="3">), I submit, provides a glimpse of Wolfe's view of other gods and of idolatry. </font></div>
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<div><font size="3">In the Bible, Paul says that idols are nothing. But he also says that eating at the table of the idols is eating at the table of demons and having communion with them. Both are true, and Wolfe's words here strike me as a way of understanding how they work together. The idol itself is nothing more than a piece of wood, carved to look like a bull and called by the name "Baal." So the biblical prophets make fun of those who cut down a tree, start a fire with part of the wood in order to cook their food, and carve another part of the wood into an image, before which they prostrate themselves. It's just a hunk of wood! But at the same time, it's not, in another sense, because it is identified with Baal (which means, as Paul puts it, that it's identified with demons), such that eating at Baal's table (or Zeus's table or Jupiter's table or whatever) is having communion with Baal, which is to say, having communion with demons.</font></div>
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<div><font size="3">So, too, the Lung Rin is some stuff. Nothing particularly important. But once it is made and given special honor and worshipped, something comes and becomes the real Spirit of the Yellows. You worship a thing you've made and you're having fellowship -- becoming one with -- a demon.</font></div>
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<div><font size="3">It seems to me that someone could write up a helpful essay on idolatry, images, and (false) gods in Wolfe's works, bringing this passage together with, say, the gods in <i>Long Sun</i>, which are equally man-made and even pre-programmed, so that they appear on giant TV screens, but are also equally as real as "the Spirit of the Yellows."</font></div>
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<div><font size="3">John</font></div>
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<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial; color: black;">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Marc Aramini <marcaramini@gmail.com><br>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth@lists.urth.net><br>
Sent: Mon, May 12, 2014 2:36 pm<br>
Subject: (urth) Short Story 64: When I was Ming the Merciless<br>
<br>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">“When I Was Ming the Merciless” is copyright 1975 and
appeared in </font><i><font color="#000000" size="3">The Ides of Tomorrow</font></i><font color="#000000" size="3">.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">It is collected in </font><i><font color="#000000" size="3">Endangered Species.</font></i></font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">SUMMARY:</font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">The narrator is interrogated after an experiment on
distributing resources with different groups of people goes awry.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">He defends his actions in creating an Empire
from the yellow group of the experiment, subjugating the green and blue groups,
who, even if they were known before the experiment, were treated as people
without names or identities.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">They create
weapons such as polearms and swords and forge a dragon banner, and at the end
the speaker orders his underlings to kill a woman, who is eviscerated.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">Since she was being monitored by the outside
world, her death summons the psychaids to break through the barriers and put
the experiment to a stop, though the Yellow group still fights against them
with their inferior jury rigged weapons. </font></font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">COMMENTARY:</font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">A relatively straightforward story, there are still a few
things worth mentioning.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">This is
obviously an outgrowth of the results of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
of 1971 in which volunteers to be treated as prisoners and guards were selected.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">Originally scheduled for two weeks, after six
days it was disbanded because of the observations and interviews of a psych
student who questioned the morality of the experiment as a whole, which was
encouraging depression in those playing prisoners and authoritarian abuse in
those who were enacting the roles of guards.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3">
</font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">This story seems to involve world resources and how competing groups
could come to share them, and this particular group has chosen subjugation and
violence to achieve its ends.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">It might
also echo the Blue-eye, Brown-eye classroom experiment carried out after Martin
Luther King’s assassination in the refusal of allowing mixing between the color
groups (in this case, Yellow, Green, and Blue) though this seems imposed to
some degree by the leader’s decree in the story.</font></font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">THE WEAPONS:</font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">Simple engineering of brooms and mops with cleavers, knives,
and scarf joints allow polearms to be formed, and the swords were made from
metal reinforcing bars under the floor and beaten into swords.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">The speaker’s own sword had a bone handle
(What kind of bone?).</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">It is quite clear
that the leader has been changed to some degree by his experience in a way that
removing him from the environment is not going to eliminate: “Out here there
will be more scope for ingenuity; we might even be able to get hold of some
fissionables.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">Just joking, of course.”</font></font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">THEME:</font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">Naturally this story is important because it introduces one
of Wolfe’s most enduring themes: Imitation begets reality.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">If we pretend to be something, we become it.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">However, there is still room for this to be
something of a fantasy story in its atavistic totem treatment of the Lung-Rin
and the effigy of the speaker: </font></font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">“There are things we don’t know about that live in the world
with us – things in another plane of reality.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3">
</font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">And when you make something like that, it comes – one of them
comes.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">It shapes itself to fit your
image of it, becoming the real Spirit of the Yellows. Anyway, when we had the
torchlight processions, sometimes you might think you could see it move. … We
caught rats and pigeons when we built it and put them inside, so it would make
strange sounds; some of them must have lived a long time. .. You can’t kill the
</font><i><font color="#000000" size="3">thing</font></i><font color="#000000" size="3">, the Spirit of the
Yellows.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">Not unless you kill all of
us.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">We’ll be free some day.”</font></font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">The threat of getting fissionables and the story of the “something”
that takes over: “when a man – a male, let’s call him – has been fighting a
woman, and he wins and knocks her down, and she drops whatever it is she has, a
club or whatever … and often her shirt and shorts are torn, there is an impulse
that takes command … and then, when a woman has had that happen once or twice,
it takes everything out of them. … Some of the men said that they really liked
it, underneath, but I don’t think so.”</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">This dominant, conquering, raping “impulse” is given flesh,
and the implication is that the leader, with all his self-justification, still
implies that no one really likes it, but it happens of itself.</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">The story also shows the circle of power fairly effectively:
“Each of us would tell the rotten things that had happened to him … but we were
all thinking that it wasn’t like that here.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3">
</font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">We were all together – all Yellows together. … We swore that we were
going to stand together or fall together.” </font></font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">Yet this solidarity imposes its rules on others: “I don’t
feel bad about her, whoever she was.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">We
were all volunteers … she kept getting out of line, over and over again, when
she was just a stinking Green or Blue or whatever she was.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">I can’t even remember.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">So I decided she should be punished.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">We made a ceremony out of it, with fire in
the braziers, and the big gong. … Jan put the sword through her belly … she
liked the blood from the blade.”</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">From
the determination to make the world better when they are in charge because
terrible things happened to them outside before, they fail to recognize the
humanity of any other group, and create something just as or even more
horrific.</font></font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">LUNG-RIN</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">While it is easy enough to associate the symbolism of the
Lung-Rin (according to our speaker, an image of two dragons fighting sewn from
the back of his shirt) with China and its Yellow Emperor, said to be descended
from the dragon, (Lung is, of course, a dragon), Rin is a bit more problematic
it is a Japanese name and can be used in speaking of something cold, but I
would prefer to stick with the Chinese connotations.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">Is this a combination of the mythical Kirin
with the dragon?</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">The Kirin does serve to
herald the arrival or passing of a great leader.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">In the early Chinese representations, the
dragon was said to assimilate the features of those it conquered, thus becoming
more like a Chimera than one unified creature.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3">
</font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">While the color Yellow obviously impels them to identify themselves as
Mongolia, shortening it to the Mongo hoard allows the leader to actually,
perhaps in jest, perhaps seriously, assume the persona of Ming the Merciless,
obviously the leader of the Mongos in Flash Gordon.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span></font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">The overarching theme seen here, that we become what we
pretend to be, will be recapitulated over and over in Wolfe, for good and for bad.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span></font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">STEREOTYPING:</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">While this story may at the surface be guilty of
stereotyping (Ming the Merciless is a fairly negative Chinese stereotype to
begin with, and the group identifying itself as Mongolia/Mongo based on their yellow
bands and clothing does tend to latch on to an obvious color association) … at
its heart the construction shows how easily it is to fall into arbitrary groups
and deny the humanity of others, even when we believe ourselves to be
just.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">Thus the hunger for control and
respect makes the leader something of a superstitious totalitarian stereotype.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">I feel that the stereotypes are intentional,
self-conscious, and fit the theme of the story.</font></font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">Are there any real distinctions in the groups that justify
differences in behavior before the experiment? (ie – Greens being culled from
hard sciences rather than soft sciences?)</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3">
</font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">The theme would seem to be no – that there is no difference in behavior
based on any pre-existing class or state, as the new world order is immersive
and subjectively “real”.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span></font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">What kind of bone handle does the leader’s sword have?</font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">APPENDIX: Unstated questions.</font></div>
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<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">They are ultimately extremely predictable though they are
elided from the text to present the pure voice of the leader trapped in his relative
delusions.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">They would usually appear
between every paragraph.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">This allows the
leader’s voice to predominate the text to culminate in his absurd claims:</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">“none of you could possibly know how it was
then, when I was Ming the Merciless.”</font></font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Welcome.” </font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Is there anything you would like to say?” </font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Would you like a cigarette?” </font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Why was there no coffee?” </font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><font color="#000000" size="3">?”What went wrong [during the experiment]?” (It is unclear
what the question is at this point, to which our narrator responds: “Odd that
you should put it as you did.</font><span><font color="#000000" size="3"> </font></span><font color="#000000" size="3">Because I’ve
thought of it so often myself, since the end, in just that way”) </font></font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Aren’t you ashamed?” which is silenced.</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Relax/Calm down.”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Tell us about your leadership tricks/weapons/how you did it?”</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Do you feel the need to justify yourself?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Time spent doing what?”</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Are you okay?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">There may be several paragraphs with no questions while he
describes making weapons.</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Would you like to see your sword?”</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“What is [the Lung-Rin]?”</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Was that your god?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“No, we haven’t talked to Don.”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“What happened to [the Spirit of the Yellows]?</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“What did you talk about outside?”</font></div>
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</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“No. The recorder stays on.”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Did the women want to fight?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Were you a government/sociology/psych student?” (hard to
determine which major they attempted to pigeonhole him in after he claimed he
wasn’t Emperor).</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Were there differences?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Did you let [the rapists/abusers from other colors] join
you?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“So you tried to take the colors off?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Were the brave women’s shirts in a similar torn state?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“The colors could not band together?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“The Greens had no fighters?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Can you tell us what all this was about?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“What did you call your Empire?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“How do you feel about killing [the girl]?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Did you kill her yourself?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“And that was when the experiment stopped?” (Or something to
that effect)</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font>
<div style="margin:0in 0in 10pt"><font color="#000000" face="Calibri" size="3">“Do you understand how we feel about this?”</font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font></div>
</div>
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