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The world is afflicted with dissension and division. However there is a path forward towards union and harmony.

https://open.substack.com/pub/davidramer/p/overcoming-dissension-and-division?r=257eoj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true

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Thanks for restacking my article, Bryan.

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Thank you for restacking my article, Patrick.

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I am the exception. I know why I hated the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In my neighborhood in Queens, everyone rooted for either the NY Yankees or Brooklyn Dodgers. The only person I ever met who preferred the NY Giants was my grandmother who viewed any other NY team as Johnny-Come-Latelies.

Anyway, when I was 5 I had a big mouth, and fast legs. I said things that got people mad, but I was able to outrun anyone under the age of 8. However, sometimes I would get ambushed and they would beat me up, since I was not a fighter and was outnumbered. Eventually, some other kid(s) would come along and bail me out of the fight. Inevitably the kids beating me up were Dodger fans and the ones who bailed me out were Yankee fans. So who do you think I'm going to root for?

But when both the Dodgers and Giants moved to California, I had nothing but disdain for both of them.

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Thanks, GM. Yup, a pretty singular account of why you hate the Brooklyns. True also that their flight to the west coast was an unforgivable and final trespass for many. My family relocated to the west coast as well when the Giants moved out of Coogan's Bluff. Dad was a baseball writer and couldn't bear the separation from Willie Mays (https://open.substack.com/pub/qolrm/p/baseball-and-my-father?r=7hc45&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web)...

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Willie just celebrated hi 93rd. Truly a gentleman!!!

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Choral echo chamber reefs make it hard to get onto the island, & hard to get off of the island, too. Recall Hanks & his good buddy Wilson.

Then recall Lord of the Flies island. Just boys. Maggotry is innate (or it ain’t) - there is no blank slate.

Apologist for keeping choral reefs alive, expanding, singing those anthems, Donne told one of those big lies when he wrote “No man is an island.”

Word-gusher Thomas Wolfe didn't put the cartesian before the artesian, told it straight: “Every man is an island.”

Gonzo Ibogaine rumor-starter Hunter Thompson also:

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

So the petulance is clear. The fear. Imagine Jerry Seinfeld saying “But I don’t want to be a pirate (scratch that) alone!” Then try to imagine why such people would have been - & so regularly are - together?

Its a show about the fear of “nothing.” And its “solution” is “quantitative easing.” (Which has always been 5-finger ~digital~ discount scale.)

What I love about the Bombers is they are in the Bronx, & I’m not.

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Likewise glad to have put such distance between myself and the Bronx, residing now in Palm Beach County, Florida -- central casting for Seinfeld's Del Boca Vista Phase III...

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So good to see that you and reante returned with such good form in 2024, Andy. Was worried for a while that my December drought might have seen you both migrate to greener pastures. But twas I lost faith in the cyclic nature of nature for a brief while...

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A little life, a little death, got in the way. Funny how the thing itself can't get out of its own way. Tho I have heard things like, "I was floating up near the ceiling, just watching myself & taking in the scene."

When I'm en-tribed, my calendar drought begins Nov & goes until sometime after "new" year.

I did some 'splaining to Lucy about the Huxwell wishing-well recently ... she didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure she'd be pleased to know if that body of bridged over troubled waters could maybe float a good ship lollipop ... but she didn't ask.

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Thanks, Andy. Just as soon have the thing itself stay where it feels best. Afraid the life that passes before my eyes at the end might belong to someone else. The Huxwell fills slowly, even when it rains, but the sails of my ship will doubtless appear on the horizon sooner or later. Tell Lucy thanks for not asking...

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Jan 22Edited
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I'm okay with nothing as long as it doesn't turn into something.

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The other nothing?

Even tho it can be a real cool hand, Luke was only ever just pressing for the bust. He won.

And his tribe loved him, hated him, loved him/emory.

Martyr-mayo is a real popular sandwich spread. Very high in killer-hand seed oil gone seedy, omega 6.

Now that I mention it, The Omega Man Charlton Heston won, too. Type O/mega blood serum hand-off, no doubt.

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We know so much about the object of our hate because we have projected our own Shadow upon it. That which I hate in others belongs to me.

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Thanks, Gwyneth. So very true. And how little we feel compelled to know about the things we profess to love...

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Thank you for restacking my article, Patrick.

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