Sunday Roast, September 18th, 2011: Finally, Fall!

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Jane's Maples

This past week, the temperatures here in the Northeast dropped from 80 degrees on Wednesday to 60 degrees on Thursday, ushering in today’s perfect early-autumn weather. Although only a few leaves have started turning or falling, soon our area’s foliage will be showing off its finest colors.

Abandoned section of Salinger

Trinity Pawling trees

Birch Reflections

All photos by Jane E. Schneider

This is our Open Thread. Please feel free to present your thoughts on any topic that comes to mind.

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153 thoughts on “Sunday Roast, September 18th, 2011: Finally, Fall!”

  2. I’m operating on about four hours’ sleep, because I stayed up late to watch the Indycar race in Japan this morning. This is going to be a recurring problem for me, as the Formula One series next races in Singapore, then Japan, Korea, India, and Abu DHabi, instead of the usual 7am starts that are typical of the European races. Only the season-ending Grand Prix of Brazil, is left to be raced at a normal waking hour for me.

    MSNBC needs to repeat Chis’s program for the West Coast. It’s really on too early for a Sunday show.

    • I agree. What a nice way to wake up on a Sunday morning – precaffine even.

      thanks, Jane.

      By the way, your Open Thread the other day was very well written. I’m looking forward to more!

    • Thanks, zxbe. Compared to you and some of our other excellent photographers here, I am ‘just a grasshopper’, but that first picture is one of my favorites. i had to practically lay down in my gravel driveway to get the angle I wanted, while still trying to avoid getting a telephone pole and the neighbor’s garbage cans in the shot – I had to crop the garbage cans out afterwards.

      • That’s what separates photographers from others; that willingness to lay down in the driveway to get the perfect angle. :)

        (And the results make it worth it.)

  4. Apparently I have some smart-ass friends that thought it would be funny for me receive literature from the “Heritage Foundation”, from the desk of Steve Forbes (spoiled rich kid)

    For a donation of $1,000.00 I can become a member.

    There are some real nuggets of propaganda in this fear filled diatribe such as:
    What Rush Limbaugh does for talk radio, what Ronald Reagan did for politics – that’s what the Heritage Foundation does for public policy ideas!

    I’m going to put on my hip waders and some heavy rubber gloves and finish reading this horse shit.

    Wow! just wow.

  5. This piece of work has to be written for teabaggers because at the bottom of the page, there are instructions telling them to turn the page.

  6. I do my junk mail on Sundays because that’s usually when I brush the dog.
    I take the business reply envelopes and stuff them with dog hair and mail them back.
    This one to the Heritage Foundation is going to take a lot of dog hair.

  8. Fantastic photos of gorgeous Maples!

    I want to rake those leaves into the largest pile possible then take a running jump into the middle! (you’ve figured out that I’ve never really ‘grown up’, haven’t you?)

    Miss having a garden and raking up the Sycamore leaves, really I do!

    • I grew up in small towns, for the most part, older communities with lots of big trees. I miss the skoosh skoosh sound we could make scuffling through the leaves on the sidewalk and really pine (sorry) for the smell from all the burn barrels. Yeah, I know, we were undoubtedly adding massive amounts of particulates to our own air, but it did smell wonderful.

      • Visions of the Chestnut leaves being burned – curbside mind you!

        The street I grew up had beautiful Chestnut trees – this is the time of year the ripe would fall – the casing would be raked into the streets leaf pile for a burn!

        Chestnut trees: that golden looking bur — ouch if you were barefooted and stepped on one! (Mom, as the neighborhood nurse, had tweezers at the ready)

        We’d help the little old (mostly Italians from the ‘old country’) ladies crush the bur to reveal the chestnut. Many would pay us a .25 for the effort!

        [have no idea what book the legend is talking about - I I placed the photo for display purpose]

        • Ebb, the Catholic grammar school that I attended had at least one chestnut tree overhanging the playground, and I remember those burrs quite well.

          Sort of O/T, in 1974 when I went with friends to a Jethro Tull concert, we had one of my friends’ younger brother with us, he was maybe 13 years old. When the scent of pot smoke wafted around us, Tim asked what that smell was. We told him “roasting chestnuts”. Of course that turned ‘roasting chestnuts’ into a euphemism for us for a long time! :D

    • …I just looked at the story.

      The sign in the back, “Bush is more evil than Bin Laden”.

      HI-larious!!!

    • Damn, I wish that Bush hadn’t cancelled, it would be the next-best thing in the world if the Canadians arrested him.

      Of course, the best thing in the world would be if the U.S. Department of Justice arrested Bush, Cheney, etal. (sigh, hanging head in embarrassment for America)

    • I wish those folks in other countries that want to arrest Bush & Co. would keep quiet about it until he arrived on their soil, then arrest him.

      http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/11/canada-arrest-george-bush/

      Both Bush and Cheney have admitted to authorizing torture – indeed bragged about it. The U.S. is guilty of harboring admitted war criminals. This is, in my opinion, Obama’s greatest shame, and, yes, even an impeachable offense. (Not that the Republicans in control of the House would ever bring impeachment charges against Obama for failing to prosecute Bush and Cheney for war crimes!)

    • You do live in a gorgeous area. Between zxbe’s photos of his corner of paradise and your photos – I’ve traveled across this nation without having to pack a bag or hop on a bus/train!

      Birch reflection – tranquil!

      • Ebb, I didn’t have a caption on that one before I put it up, almost called it ‘Serenity.’ ‘Tranquility’ would have been a good caption!

        That stream connects two sections of “The Great Swamp”, and the rains from the last few weeks more than doubled the width of the stream, turned its surroundings into something more like the swamp itself.

  11. ok…so I’m finally doing a bit of lurking.

    Have just been busy…and partner upgraded the box to Windows 7, which, for the most part went well but it took him about a week (or was it more) to finish. I am frustrated that I can’t get IE9 to remember my login stuff, even when I want it to…I’m REALLY tired of logging in to sites.

    However…on today’s CBS Sunday Morning, there was a commentary segment at the end…about the GOPBaggers and their CNN so-called “debate” and the cheering on of killing. I found the text…it would be better if I could find a vid link. It was really, really good.

    …hello Ebb! :)

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/18/sunday/main20107897.shtml?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea

    • I hadn’t see that one – thanks for the link. The conservanuts are disgusting – pulling ‘facts’ out of the air!

      • Ebb — I don’t think that is where conservatives get their “facts.” I have long suspected that they pull “facts” out of some nether region… if you catch my drift.

        • Even evangelical christians are part of the Body of Christ. Liberty, I think you’ve figured out which part!

  13. “SUNDAY MATINEE: The full story behind the controversial execution that’s following Rick Perry on his run for president…”

    Death by Fire PBS Frontline

    At the center of the national death penalty debate today is the controversial case of Cameron Todd Willingham, put to death for the arson-murder of his three little girls. But was he guilty?

  14. Nice photos up top – yup it turned the corner here too….. soccer in the cold rain today…. restful Sunday’s to all.

  15. I hate to say it but I didn’t make it to BobFest yesterday. As I was getting ready to go my eldest grandchild came bouncing into the kitchen, all excited, and asked where I was going. When I told her Madison for the day, I thought she was going to cry. Turns out her big birthday party was yesterday. My kids didn’t tell me about it because they knew how much I love BobFest. The party got planned around the best date for everyone to make it and I was the only conflict so they didn’t tell me about it.

    While I have a bad case of the grumbling grumps today over missing it, we had a great time at the party yesterday so I guess it balances out.

    • Ain’t it nice to be loved?! That’s very telling how much your family adores and respects the Badger!
      You are a fortunate fellow!

  16. Good Sunday all!

    Jane— so that’s what a tree looks like. We don’t have “trees” in Phoenix. More like giant Mesquite bushes. Beautiful pics.

    • Thanks, LL – I can’t imagine living without trees around me. Growing up, my road was the last one in a large development, so the woods were right behind our house. I probably spent a good third of my waking hours in the summer walking the paths and climbing the trees.

      The second shot up there, the old orchard, is right outside the door of our office. It’s all overgrown now (that shot was taken 6 or 7 years ago), and some of those apple trees have fallen. But my office window looks out across the highway to another hillside which will be turning colors nicely soon.

      • The joke around our house is that I used to complain about driving in the mountains when we lived in Seattle, b/c you couldn’t SEE the mountains for the trees. Now, of course, we have mountains, but not too many trees.

        Another reason to remember to be careful what you ask for.

    • I thought Olbermann was unsually subdued and boring and the bubble routine was beyond lame.

      I was shocked that Maher’s FIRST joke, when he comes out and the audience stops applauding, wasn’t something like:

      “Thank you, thank you…and I haven’t even executed a single person.”

      And Bill didn’t know what Dexter Filkins looked like after professing reading his stuff for years? Later, Bill didn’t remember Louis CK being on his old show. Dial down the weed, Bill.

      • Perhaps the ‘bubble routine’ did go on too long – it was still a perfect depiction of the repugnant ones, I thought.
        Didn’t watch the whole show.

      • Didn’t get to see the whole thing. Mr. LL and I watched “The Conspirator” – the Robert Redford about Mary Surrat. So I only got to see a little bit of the show… I’ll catch the rest sometime this week on replay.

        But Mr. LL hates BM usually, but last night he didn’t .

  18. Jane, if those maples are in your yard you are the richest woman I know. I could lie underneath them for hours.

    • But you’d have to watch out for the cat poop! ;-)

      If they were in my back yard, I might consider hanging out underneath them, but people around here probably think I’m crazy already, I can’t imagine what they’d think if I did it in the front yard.

  20. Paul Ryan defines greed, then chastises Obama for being against it.

    A top House Republican said Sunday that President Barack Obama was engaging “class warfare” with a proposal to tax millionaires at a higher rate.

    The so-called “Buffet rule” would make sure millionaires pay about the same tax rate as the employees that work for them. It’s named after billionaire Warren Buffet, who has said that he is taxed at a rate of about 17.4 percent, while his secretary is taxed at a rate of about 36 percent.

    “If you tax something more, Chris, you get less of it,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “Class warfare, Chris, may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics. We don’t need a system that seeks to divide people and prey on peoples’ fear, envy and anxiety. We need a system that creates jobs and innovation, and removes these barriers for entrepreneurs to go out a rehire people. I’m afraid these kinds of tax increases don’t work.”

    “This is being called the ‘Buffet rule” because it comes after Warren Buffet, the multi-billionaire owner of Berkshire Hathaway said, ‘I get so much of my money from capital gains, I end up paying a lower effective tax rate than my secretary who gets her money in salary,’” Wallace noted. “What about the question of fairness, sir?”

    “What he forgets to mention is that is a double tax,” Ryan insisted. “Capital gains and dividends are taxes on money that has already been taxed once before based on income… It looks like the president wants to move down the class warfare path. Class warfare will simply divide the country more, attack job creators, divide people and it doesn’t grow the economy.”

    • Paul Ryan knows more about making money and economics than Warren Buffet? Republicans have to be the greatest straight ‘men’ since Gracie Burns.

      • What I know for sure is that I’ve lived in this country for close to seventy years, and I have never felt so despised for who I am — and by one of the two major US political parties — than I do today. And all because (a) I’m not wealthy; (b) because I believe a nation’s first priority is to see to the well-being of its people, ALL its people, not just a handful; (c) I believe it’s criminal for a nation, any nation, to waste money on its military for other than basic defense, money that could be spent reducing debt, on innovative new technologies, and on programs which assist citizens to live productive lives; and (d) I believe the GOP has developed, over the last 30-40 years, into the most dangerous enemy this nation’s Constitution and people have ever faced in all of history.

        One knows a nation is about to fail completely when it dismisses We the people in favor of money and power accumulation. Such has become the GOP mantra, and they hate us for having spotted them and figuring out what they’re up to.

        FDR described his and the nation’s similar dilemma perfectly in 1936 when he said: “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.”

        Change the words “one candidate” to “we the people” and the update to the current moment is complete.

        DOWN WITH THE GOP!!

    • For me, Ryan is just about the epitome of Republican scum. He wouldn’t be where he is today if not for Social Security. Soulless, heartless, greedy POS.

    • “What he forgets to mention is that is a double tax,” Ryan insisted. “Capital gains and dividends are taxes on money that has already been taxed once before based on income… It looks like the president wants to move down the class warfare path. Class warfare will simply divide the country more, attack job creators, divide people and it doesn’t grow the economy.”

      This one paragraph has a couple of lies in it. Capital gains taxes and taxes on dividends are NOT “taxes on money that has already been taxed once before based on income.” I’m not an accountant, but I’m pretty sure that if you report your investment gains, you also say how much you invested to begin with, and you are taxed only on the difference! Ryan knows that the audience on Fox News is (mostly) less astute than those of other shows and are not very likely to fact-check what he says. So they’ll just remember that lie and tell it to others as if it were true.

      If I invest $10,000 of my money, and I get back $21,000, I am taxed on only the $11,000 I gained, not on the whole $21,000 I got back. (As I said, I am not a CPA, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. If you got taxed on the whole amount you got back without being able to deduct your initial investment, then nobody would invest in the stock market at all.) I’d love to see Ryan try to push that lie past Rachel or Chris Hayes.

      And the rich have beefed up their class warfare on the rest of us since Reagan took office.

  23. I suspect this upcoming election cycle is going to be a circus. (I almost said zoo, falling back on the old meanings). There are going to be lots of distractions, anything to keep the focus off the fact that the R’s haven’t done squat for jobs and putting the blame on Obama. Artificial Dems, primary races with R’s in Dem clothing. Lots of squirrels and bright, shiny objects. The trolls want to win because it is what they are paid to do. Fuck America as long as they get their ‘cheetos’.

    • Don’t forget attempts to control the ballot box — state legislatures all over the country are doing all they can to deny typical Dem voting clusters the right to cast a ballot in 2012. Acorn, ya know, was ebil and still is and we gotta fight ‘em by … well, by voter suppression on a grand scale cuz it’s the only way. Old people, college kids, ni99ers, Mesicans, poor people — all them enemies of the state.

      Ah, the appeal of absolute single party power. Fascism anyone?

      DOWN WITH THE GOP!!

      • Glad you have my back, frugal. Also, too, doncha know, more Americans have died in the last ten years in bath tubs and showers than were killed by terrorists? I think we should consider declaring war on plumbing.

        • Just wait till the burned out curly bulb count reaches critical mass. There’ll be Mercury in more than Tuna, oceans, lakes, soils, air, and tooth fillings. It’ll be EVERYWHERE, and we’re all gonna DAH!

      • jumpin’geehosephat Frugal – will those with a combination of the threatening classes/enemies of the stat be marched off first?
        I’m three out of the five you mentioned! I suspect lots of company on that march to the camp.

    • That reminds me — it’s about time for “contessa” to show back up at TP. “she” only came there during election time like most of the paid trolls.

      I wonder what kind of propaganda they will be catapulting this year.

  24. Jon Huntsman, Pyramid Scheme enabler

    n Utah, Huntsman has cozied up to and gone to bat for various multilevel marketing (MLM) companies like Nu Skin and Usana. MLM companies sell products through networks of individual distributors instead of by retail and are widely considered pyramid schemes:

    “At the behest of the Direct Selling Association, the trade lobby for multilevel marketing companies, the state Legislature passed a bill that essentially gutted Utah’s anti-pyramid-scheme law. The bill Huntsman then signed into law may have sanctioned the practices of at least 20 companies in the state thought to be illegally operating a pyramid scheme under the old statute, according to Jon Taylor, the head of the Utah-based Consumer Awareness Institute. … Taylor says he thinks Huntsman is a good man, but that the MLM industry is awash in money and has outsized political influence. Utah has the dubious distinction, he notes, of serving as home to more MLM companies per capita than anywhere else in the country.”

    http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/jon-huntsman-pyramid-scheme-mlm?page=1

    • These must be the thousands upon thousands of jobs added while he was Governor of the state – he kept touting that at the ‘debates’.
      Puffing out his chest – taking a gander at ‘pretty boy Prick’ then launching into when I was governor…

      (Utah’s population is less than three million)

  25. America is in it’s death throws. The rest of the world should be very worried. Americans should be but they are more worried about various reality TV shows, IPod apps and various and sundry unimportant things that will eat their lunch in a very short time.

    This is the result of believing in exceptionalism. Americans are exceptional. They went from #1 to also ran and didn’t notice.

    • As Maureen Dowd summed it today, “The occupational hazard of democracy is know-nothing voters.”

      She could have written a week’s worth of columns on that topic alone, and how know-nothing voters tend to elect know-less-than-nothing candidates, Texas being the prime example by an order of magnitude.

      • I might have said uninformed voters. Or under educated ones. A problem that has been increasing since 1980. Americans aren’t uninformed by choice. They are in the dark because for 30 years the Right has been very diligent in their task to make them so. What they couldn’t get done in the schools, they did with buying the media and making people like Cronkite and Murrow disappear.

        Americans no longer think. They follow. And IPod and Twitter leads.

  26. My son is safely back in Portland, after a nice weekend with mama.

    My internet is finally back on, after being off AGAIN. I’m looking forward to my first whole day with internet. :roll:

    • By any chance, is your internet connection powered by a squirrel on a treadmill chasing an acorn?

  27. Why is it that the most honest and astute political commentators are labeled comedians? Mark Twain, George Carlin, Jim Hightower, Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert. And many many others.

    • Even Jay Leno — who some consider a comedian — delivered the most pointed questioning to date of Michele Bachmann.

  28. pre1980, when I heard something on the evening news from Walter or Eric or Chet or David, I listened. Not always believed but I listened and thought about it. And sometimes what they reported changed things. My Lai, Watergate and a few others.

    Peter Jenner, Mike Wallace and Dan Rather tried to continue that tradition but each failed in their own ways. For me, corporate news now ranks right up their with reality tv. Maybe it sells but it makes no sense.

    • The problem is, that there is a whole generation that still believes the integrity of what they hear on the corporate news programs… for example:
      even though Fox spews lies, they are afforded the integrity of the likes of Mudd and Cronkite while earning none of it.

    • I loved Peter Jennings but even he disappointed me at times. But I pretty much stopped watching any of the ABC/CBS/NBC news programs after Jennings died. Although I don’t watch Brian Williams, I love his sense of humor, and especially his “Slow Jamming the News” feature on Jimmy Fallon’s show.

      It’s a sad statement that my favorite ‘news’ person is only my favorite because of his comedy stylings.

    • It’s called volunteering – and it doesn’t pay the bills.

      (there are a great many whose unemployment pay has run out – what about them? Who will pick up the rent? food? medical? dental?
      Ryan is selfish gnome.

      • Pretty soon, they will bring back indentured servitude. And those people never quite ended up paying off their debts, did they? Being charged for room and board and meals etc.

        • That their minds actually have these thoughts of slave labor is frightening.
          To think such a plan is ‘helpful’ to fellow citizens is despicable.

          • I don’t think they do think it’s helpful, ebb. They just want to avoid spending money, so they can find a way to funnel it into the pockets of the top 2%. They just try to make us believe it’s for our own good.

            Unsuccessfully (at least with those of us who have functioning brains).

          • Frightening yes, but not surprising. It’s become their mantra. If I were the HMFIC, I’d send Ryan to Guantanamo and leave him there, then say to Boner and Cantor, “You two are next. Got it?” Fight fire with fire.

            Actually, I’m really too nice to do that. I’d have to hire somebody. Anyone? :)

  30. My Nephew: I wish The Doctor would be my Physics teacher

    Niece: i wonder if you could use the term “timer-wimey” on a test.

    • Quoting a very wise woman: “I don’t enter contests – I’m afraid I’d win a useless something-or-other.”

      • Taxes are nothing when the value is nothing… :-)

        Actually, since the recipient would receive airfare and hotel accommodations, you might be correct, they would have to pay taxes on such a winning.

    • Breitbart said all this, and far more, at the Red Mass Group greater Boston Tea Party event in Lexington, Massachusetts on September 16.

      When I was a kid, the “Reds” were Amurka’s sworn and most dastardly enemy.

      How little it is that things actually change over the years.

      • This is actually quite frightening and it has crossed my mind recently. The Right spends so much time and energy demonizing Liberals now. DEMONIZING them, like they are deviant and evil, and must be eradicated, and the do have all the guns.. I fear it will reach a fever pitch at some point before too much longer, it is primed and only needs a match. The outrageous things they are saying (and have been saying) are being to creep more into the mainstream, like it is normal to say those things, or think them. Very scary.

        • I agree muse. The RWNJs have managed to make death threats against liberals acceptable, as if we are the ones who are inhuman and not them. And because they believe in “individual freedom, individual responsibility”, they can claim they are not responsible for what people listening to them do, even when they actually advise people to do violence. They don’t seem to believe in the idea of “incitement to violence”.

    • Zooey, I watched one of those videos today and it’s apparent to me that Breitbart is nothing but an attention-whore. He says these outrageous thins to draw attention to himself. That is his pathological problem. I’m sure that you’re better qualified to describe his problem than I. But it’s more than just that he’s an asshole.

      How long has it been since his name was in the news? A few weeks, at most? He can’t go for long without doing something to garner attention. Then he’ll get asked if he really meant to say what he said and he’ll claim that, no, he was “misinterpreted”, or that his comments “were taken out of context”. ironically, all the things he actually does to those on the left who dare to have a better-informed and more accurate opinion about reality. Or, perhaps because it has been so long since he had a lot of attention, he’ll claim he meant every word of what he said, but be unable to name anyone in the military who said they would support him. And, somehow, the veiled threats against the rest of us will go unmentioned.

      I think that deep down, he really hates himself.

  33. Good evening, all. I survived another weekend’s debauchery with nothing worse than a crick in my neck. I see that the Reichwhiners are still sociopaths. They seem to be falling over each other to vociferously reject anything that might help the economy. Now if the “librul media” would just give some air time to all the Dems who are now, loudly, proclaiming that the GOP is doing everything they can to prevent anything good from happening. It’s starting to look like right-wing editors will prove more damaging than right-wing politicians.

    • You’re welcome, Zooey – you had asked for more photos, so I slapped them up quickly when I noticed that we didn’t have a Sunday Roast prepared. And the perfect weather today was inspiring.

      • Yes I did, and you really came through for us! Thank for picking up my slack this morning. My son and I were visiting last night, and I totally forgot about the Roast. When I remembered this morning, my internet was down.

  37. Shayne,

    If you’re out there, not only did you retweet my comment about Andrew Breitbart needing psychological help, but so did Charles from Little Green Footballs and Andrew Breitbart himself!.

    • I seem to have opened up a can of worms by tweeting what I did. I am getting comments directed at me from Breitbart’s supporters (which, I am sure was his intention.) That’s okay. I’ll reply back and ignore them if they bother me. And I’m sure that somewhere among Breitbart’s followers are some liberal’s who will follow me because of it. :)

        • No, not really. Nor threats or name-calling. Just a dare to name one lie, after which the person said only one truthful answers exists for that “question”. (It wasn’t a question, it was a command, but I’ll ignore that part.) I tried to say he edited footage of Shirley Sherrod, but I was wrong. Breitbart simply posted the already-edited video, but then the guy said he was the first to post the unedited video. If he had both, why post the lie? So I also said he claims to be a “journalist” when all he does is smearing.

          So far, one conservative is following me. I’ll pay attention to see if he re-tweets my comments against people like him.

        • Correction. After one of them claimed that I was describing the current president, I said, “I assume by ‘the current president’ you mean ‘the previous president’.”

          He replied back “Blame Bush, bash Bush, Grow a pair, leave your parents basement. Loser.”

          So I answered, “Same old RW talking points (and name-calling). Good luck in Middle School”

          The Twitter can be fun! :)

      • .@Lizardoid Seriously, @AndrewBreitbart needs psychological help. He craves attention & sometimes lies 2 get it, then feels persecuted

        Lizardoid is Charles Johnson from Little green Footballs. Here’s what Andrew Breitbart’s Twitter bio says:
        ‘Senior Fellow’ at ‘Senior Fellow Institute of Senior Fellow Studies’. Suffers from Narcissistic Personality RTing Disorder; Motto: ‘They Started It!

        I don’t think I was wrong. And I didn’t start this (nor did Charles). It was in response to his comments in that video.

    • BTW, Shayne, my Re-tweets page tells me that my tweet was re-tweeted by You “and 1 other”. The “1 other” was Andrew Breitbart himself. Twitter must know you’re more important to me than him. :)

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