Most Recent Additions

For the past year, everyone has been trying to play down the war in Vietnam. According to President Nixon, the war is almost over. Twenty-five thousand troops have been withdrawn, leaving only 475,000 American soldiers in the rice paddies and brothels of South Vietnam.

The money press puts battle news and body counts on page 16-C. TeeVee 2 hardly mentions the war at all any more.

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

QUESTION: What are the potential dangers of the new “3-way” tablets (mostly mescaline plus a little LSD and a wee bit of cocaine?) One of my friends got stoned wild for 9 hours on this but spent the last 3 hours on the john. What’s coming off?

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I’m still alive and well in the U.S. Navy. Much has happened since the MP hassled with Ray Greer last Jan. 4^th at Metro airport. If you’ll remember I was on a TV news spot last Feb. 27^th when I left for Norfolk. Va.

Haven’t been home since Feb. 27^th when I left for Norfolk, Va. to join the U.S.S. Yorktown CVS-10, a “Hunter-Killer Force” anti-submarine carrier.

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Abbie Hoffman explains the reason for the grass shortage in his new book, The Woodstock World (about to be published by Random House). Federal narcs armed with hundreds of thousands of dollars went to Mexico, says Abbie, and outbid the big dope dealers for the new crop. Which they then burned and destroyed.

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Editors’ Note: The following interview with Rafael Viera took place at a conference of the Republic of New Africa which was held in Washington, D.C. recently. Viera is awaiting trial on second-degree murder charges stemming from the fatal shooting of Patrolman Michael J. Czapski outside the New Bethel Baptist Church, last March 29.

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It’s my wife

It’s my life

Cause the needle to my vein

Leads to a center in my head

And then I’m better off than dead

Cause when the smack begins to flow

I really don’t care any more

About all the Jim-Jims in this town

And all the politicians makin’ crazy sounds

And thank God that I’m not aware

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A review of Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia & Oceania, Collected & Edited by Jerome Rothenberg

Published by Doubleday Anchor, $3.95

A book RE-view

“There’s nothing an anthropologist hates worse than a native”

—Wm. Burroughs

Poetry, rite, shamanistic rituals, criminal dope fiend seers of amazing vision colored w/ the blue stars of tongue hanging prophesy? Color of fire moving at night, thru this field in the kingdom of death. Aztec sacrifice? Cortez loves Motecuzoma. Poly wanna cracker?

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UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words.) Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line.

Amazing opportunity for starting and operating your own successful small business. Free details: B&W Enterprises, P.O. Box 9175F. Boston, Mass. 02114.

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Editors’ Note: The following article was written last April by LNS staffer Sheila Ryan. The deplorable conditions she describes led to a massive stockade revolt at the base in June which was put down with severe brutality. Many of the prisoners involved face serious charges of rioting and destruction of Army property and several have already been convicted.

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There now exists a segment of the movement which officially considers itself Marxist-Leninist. Unfortunately it regards Marxism-Leninism more as a temple in which one must worship than a tool to be used creatively.

In speaking of this attitude, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania has pointed out: “...The works of Marx and Lenin are regarded as the holy writ in the light of which all other thoughts and actions of socialists have to be judged...Such people are refusing to think for themselves. They are saying that the perfect answer to the problems of many in society is already known and all we have to do is copy others...In their insecurity they look for a ‘certificate of socialist approval’ from the country or party which they believe has these answers.”

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LIBERATION NEWS SERVICE — Ho Chi Minh died, after fifty years of struggle, still undefeated fighter for Vietnamese independence. Why is it that his death now seems so disturbing?

There has been no lack of pre-packaged homage for the man whose stature as a revolutionary leader is matched only by a handful of men in this century. Moreover, as one whose personal history embraced the broad sweep of international communism from the October Revolution to the present, as well as the entire twentieth century struggle in Vietnam, Ho has appeared to many of us more as an institution than an individual; and his own death, like his personal life, has not received much attention from the Movement.

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On Sunday, August 24, a group of men attending the Ever-Seven (Evergreen-Seven Mile Road) neighborhood association picnic in Stoepel Park harassed and beat up a group of young people who were also in the park.

There were a number of off-duty police officers at the picnic, as well as several kegs of beer and “law and order” Common Council candidate Jack Kelly.

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The word went out through the grapevine. In the parts shops and on the street the word went from mouth to mouth, “There’s gonna be a protest!”

There was no other publicity, but on Sunday, September 7, better than 150 bikers gathered to protest a clearly unconstitutional law recently passed in Michigan requiring motorcyclists to cover their hair with a regulation motorcycle helmet while on a bike. The U.S. Supreme Court has declared a similar case unconstitutional on the basis that it violates the individual’s right to die any way he damn well pleases.

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Cuba secured the World Amateur Baseball Championship by scoring a 2-to-1 victory over the United States at a playoff match in Santo Domingo Aug. 26.

More than 18,000 fans watched the Cuban team win their tenth straight game to take the championship series unbeaten.

According to the Cuban press, Western news agencies “had been emphasizing for some time the political nature of this game.” But the Dominican fans enthusiastically rooted for the Cubans and continually greeted the U.S. team (composed of outstanding college players) with shouts of “Go home” and prolonged booing.

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Ya know, the Army’s pretty neat. They even write special books that the Army guys can read if they get bored.

Of course, with all the salutin’ and peelin’ potatoes and killin’ the enemy they gotta do, the soldiers are probably pretty busy, but I bet they enjoy reading the Army books and comic books when they get the time.

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Special to the Fifth Estate

Editors’ Note: Nick Medvecky, former News Editor for the WSU South End, is currently touring the Middle East and will send back periodic on-the-spot reports from his travels.

He will visit Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel, visiting with revolutionaries, student groups and government officials.

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Fifth Estate

“To Serve the People”

EDITORIAL GROUP

Alan Gotkin

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

MANAGING EDITOR

Bill Rowe

DISTRIBUTION

Keep On Truckin’ Co-op

STAFF

Dena Clamage

Bob Fleck

David Gaynes

Barbara Healy

Joel Landy

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Marilyn Werbe

Tommye Wiese

POLITICAL PRISONER

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Back in the late ‘50s or so, when Brubeck was just beginning, complacency wasn’t quite dead yet and beatniks were still in bloom, the walls of galleries, stately homes, and civic auditoriums displayed a new art—abstract expressionism.

Style and idealization carried out to cool jazz endsville, chilled out of time and mind. Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day strained to understand it: Time magazine was pedantically vague.

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I ride a bike. Not the kind you pedal—I used to do that. I mean a motorcycle. There’s nothing like it.

Motorcycles mean a special thing to the people who ride them.

Some people (I suspect fewer than one might expect) use their scooters primarily for transportation. Undoubtedly they are economical, easy to park, and maneuverable: Nonetheless, in a nation used to traveling in commodious comfort, rolling houses with stereo entertainment centers and sexadelic pin-striping are far more the norm.

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In a session on September 9 the Michigan Supreme Court denied John Sinclair’s request for appeal bond saying he had not “persuaded the Court that he has a meritorious basis for appeal.” This upheld the ruling of Court of Appeals.

John was sentenced to 9-1/2 to 10 years in July for possession of two marijuana cigarettes and is currently in Jackson prison.

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Continuation of a review: The Population Bomb, by Paul R. Ehrlich, Ballantine, 223 pp., 95 cents paper.

[For Part I see “Earth Read-Out,” FE #86, August 21-September 3, 1969].

Ehrlich says: “A general answer to the question, ‘What needs to be done?’ is simple. We must rapidly bring the world population under control, reducing the growth rate to zero or making it go negative. Conscious regulation of human numbers must be achieved. Simultaneously we must, at least temporarily, greatly increase our food production.

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(in cooperation with Detroit Adventure)

Thurs. Sept. 4

ON A BUMMER? If your head is really messed up, or you want the army to think so, let Open City help with free psych counselling at their clinic, 4726 Third, corner Forest. 6–8 p.m.

CUTGLASS AND ITS COUSINS An exciting gallery talk on cutglass and its family, given by Mrs. Horton at the Detroit Historical Museum. 3:30 p.m. Free

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I’ve really been digging the stuff that’s been going down in your (no THE it’s for everyone) paper, and I’d just like to mention a few radical things around.

First, I’m surprised that, except for once on ABX, no one in the left media has mentioned the only radical program on nationwide TV at the present. This being “The Prisoner” on CBS/Thurs., 8 pm.

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UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words.) Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line.

Amazing opportunity for starting and operating your own successful small business. Free details: B&W Enterprises, P.O. Box 9175F. Boston, Mass. 02114.

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[by R. Fleck, Little Nancy Goodvibes & Alfie]

What’s worse than watching Walt Disney’s version of Winnie the Pooh? Sitting through “I Am Curious Yellow.” At least Disney is a goof for the kids.

Drawn by the press’s public publicity, the over and under-40s righteously attended their first opportunity to legally dig a skin-flick and feel “real arty” at the same time. Poor fools. Shucked again.

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The idea of getting a lot of great musicians together to work as a back-up band for a featured artist on rock recordings is almost as old as rock itself.

On most of these, the back-up people were lucky to get mentioned conspicuously on the album jacket. But somewhere along the line people began to really care about who played what.

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FLASH! As we go to press, word has reached us that brother Ken Kelley, editor of the Ann Arbor Argus, has been busted for “distributing obscene and lascivious material.”

The offending material is in the August 13 issue of our sister underground paper that showed a picture of Ann Arbor councilman James Stephenson holding what appears to be a superimposed drawing of a male cock in his hands. He has a broad grin on his face.

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Hot diggity! Free food and good vibes on a Wednesday evening at Royal Oak’s Memorial Park, courtesy of potluck and the Yipfugs.

Tomatoes, rice, guitars and flutes were shared by pretty suburban hi skool frocks who are into turning on their brothers and sisters heads with feed festivals and films instead of TV and pep rallies.

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The U.S. Post Office, which god knows has enough to do just trying to keep the mail flowing, has taken it upon itself to prejudge the contents of private letters. I got a postcard the other day inviting me to the main post office to have a letter to me (from a friend in Denmark) opened in my presence. The letter was stamped “presumed to contain obscene matter” or some such nonsense and also bore an insolent warning that if not claimed within five days “storage charges” would be made.

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WHITE LAKE, N.Y. (Good Times/UPS) —The Woodstock Festival was a huge nonviolent explosion of people and music. The New York Times called it a nightmare but it was more of a fantastic dream. True, there were low scenes—three accidental deaths, the drug freakouts, the rain, the garbage and the strong scent of shit. But there were no fences and no riots, and the Fair was less of a disaster than the straight media made it seem.

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CHICAGO (LNS)—The coercive machinery of nationwide political repression is high-powered and well-tooled. The use of laws which blatantly restrict the basic precepts of Constitutional democracy-the abstract freedoms of speech, press and assembly—is constantly growing.

While a frame-up on non-political charges (from possession of marijuana to -trespassing) is still the most frequent form of repression, the government is now turning to more direct methods of silencing its opposition.

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Streams of 70 MPH mechanical plankton seethe out from radio nurtured exhaust warmed (”...and the murk index rating today is a low lean keen 50...”) metal sargasso sea. Detroit. FoMoCo Roto Moto get down town.

“Yeah...the people there are all ready to shoot even tho they don’t know what for...”

Detroit—R. Crumb’s furnace fantasy—recedes into a smudge over I-75’s cornfield borders. But childhood flashes born of a vacation packed car bring ghosts of summers past all back home.

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Age 90 is very different. A dusty journey has been traveled, a time-tunnel has been penetrated. Her 20^th Century is a vast prismatic blur, a fantasy in which some parts hold up for the Truth.

In 1900, this beautiful woman was 21 years old. So many years ago that what you’re saying, what I’m saying today is a drop of curious mist in the great and sheer storm of human survival. Little more than a grunt, glint, tiny fart, etc., of the 90 year old cosmic voyage of this lady.

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

QUESTION: I have a problem which is embarrassing and troublesome to me. A few weeks ago, I balled for the first time (incidentally, I’m a girl) and bled an awful lot.

I would like to know: Is the bleeding just because it was the first time? Or is there something wrong with me?

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NEW YORK (LNS) — Three Newsreel photographers just back from North Vietnam have sued the State Department, U.S. Customs, and Trans World Airlines to recover movie film which was seized through trickery and deceit by government authorities at Kennedy International Airport.

The photographers—Robert Kramer, Norman Fruchter and John Douglas—shot some 12,000 feet of 16 mm black and white film in North Vietnam. In the suit, Newsreel accused the government of trying to “harass and intimidate” them for exercising their “First Amendment right of criticising American foreign policy by the making of a film about the war against the Vietnamese people.”

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Men seek the truth, Fascists deal in words.

This becomes evident early in our lives if we care to see it for what it is.

Remember the teacher that would ask for apologies in front of the class (and hovering principal)? Remember the parents who would politely beseech our repentant words in front of important guests at the dinner table? They didn’t give a damn whether we meant what we said, they just wanted to hear it.

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The Air Force admitted in a recent hearing that at least three men with dangerous psychiatric problems had been assigned to guard a super-secret nuclear weapons installation at Hamilton Air Force Base, 25 miles south of San Francisco.

The instability of the guards came out it a preliminary hearing for one of them, Sgt. Robert V. Ballou. He is accused of going berserk with a loaded carbine on the base and holding a loaded gun at the head of another officer.

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Up to 1949 the most important symbol in the ghetto was the knife, from then on it became the needle.

In 1956 the first wave of smack (heroin) hit the young black people of Harlem, an attack on the poor youth of the ghetto that served to “pacify” the oppressed people of the city. In New York over the last ten years smack has been used to break up gangs of poor whites, blacks, and Puerto Ricans.

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“Throw back your books and outa your seat—Throw open the door—out into the street!”

—Chuck Berry.

High School has begun. Help us reverse the process it hopes to put you through.

The Fifth Estate will coordinate the news and publicize the actions of high school revolutionaries throughout the Detroit area. If you would like assistance from dedicated “outside agitators” or would like to get in touch with fellow inmates interested in building a movement in your high school, contact me c/o The Fifth Estate.

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Editors’ Note: Linda Evans, from Motor City SDS, was one of 7 Movement people who went to North Vietnam last month to bring back three captured American military men. Along with her were Rennie Davis of the National Mobilization Committee; Grace Paley, writer and pacifist; James Johnson, of the Fort Hood Three, who spent 28 months in the stockade for refusing to go to Vietnam; and three Newsreel photographers, Robert Kramer, Norm Fruchter, and John Douglas.

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(by Bob Fleck, with a little help from his friends—Alfie, Acid, Dena, Nancy and Barb)

“Naked Angels” is the worst movie we have seen. It’s a hype, a ruse and a shuck on the audience that only serves to exploit the image of bikers and titillate the over-40s. And what’s worse, three issues back, Art Johnston did a lyrical piece heralding this flick as the vision of our culture’s rise to total freedom.

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This time it’s Bobby Seale.

With Eldridge in exile, and Huey in jail, the punk-ass power-structure has turned its racist wrath on the Black Panther Party Chairman. Seale’s troubles are simply the latest government attempt to crush the Panthers by ripping off their leaders and vamping on their headquarters.

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“Over North Vietnamese radio the voice of ‘Hanoi Hannah’ constantly harangues the Americans: ‘Don’t be the last G.I. to die in Vietnam.’”

—Ian Brodie, London Express

“Battles for bunkers in the Song Chang valley are merely tactical moves in the President’s strategy of retreat. He is asking Company A to fight for time to negotiate a settlement with Hanoi that will save his face, but may very well lose their lives. He is also carrying on the battle in the belief, or pretense, that the South Vietnamese will really be able to defend their country and our democratic objectives, when we withdraw, and even his own generals don’t believe the South Viet Namese will do it. It is a typical political strategy, and the really surprising thing is that there have been so few men, like the tattered remnants of Company A, who have refused to die for it.”

—James Reston, New York Times

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Dear Brothers & Sisters,

It was good to hear from you last week. My transfer to Marquette has been postponed at least a few weeks, but they are determined to send me there as soon as they can. A pig from the Corrections Dept. in Lansing came here to talk to me last Friday and told me how much I would like it up there and that they couldn’t possibly send me into the general prison population in Jackson because I would surely organize the prison men to revolt against the prison authorities, and they couldn’t take a chance on that. So I’ll be shipped up to Marquette Prison in the Upper Peninsula sometime next month. Then I’ll be able to have my typewriter and can get some work done.

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The White Panthers arrested in New Jersey after the Woodstock Music Festival have all been released on bond and are back in Ann Arbor.

Although defense attorneys feel there are good chances of the charges being dismissed, the Panthers see this as an enlarging pattern of attempts by the authorities to eliminate their organization.

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The Fifth Estate’s Labor Day benefit at the Grande Ballroom was an overwhelming success. The bands were beautiful and so were the people. Newsreel’s films turned everybody on and a good time was had by all. Special thanks to the MC5, the Stooges, the Gold Brothers, Newsreel, Uncle Russ and everyone who came. It was a real Detroit city evening. Everyone got down.

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Chicago, October 11

“The summary of this nightmare which torments America from one end to the other is that in this continent of almost 200 million human beings, two-thirds of whom are Indians, Mestizos, blacks, those who are discriminated against in this continent of semi-colonies, there die of hunger, of curable diseases, or of premature old age some four persons per minute, some 5,500 per day, some 2 million per year, some 10 million every five years. These deaths could easily be averted, but nevertheless they continue. Two-thirds of Latin America’s population lives briefly, and lives under a constant threat of death. In 15 years this holocaust has brought about twice as many deaths as the First World War and it still rages. Meanwhile there flows from Latin America to the United States a constant torrent of money—some $4,000 per minute, $5 million per day, $2 billion per year, $10 billion every five years. For every thousand dollars which leaves us one body remains—$1,000 per death! That is the price of what is called imperialism—$1,000 PER DEATH! FOUR DEATHS EVERY MINUTE!”

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Fifth Estate

“To Serve the People”

EDITORIAL GROUP

Alan Gotkin

Peter Werbe

Cathy West

BUSINESS & ADVERTISING

Bill Rowe

DISTRIBUTION

Keep On Truckin’ Co-op

STAFF

Dena Clamage

Rick London

Bill Melater

Bruce Montrose

Claudia Montrose

Dave Watson

Tommye Wiese

Marilyn Werbe

POLITICAL PRISONER

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in cooperation with Detroit Adventure

THURS. AUG. 21

Adventure flick, WINGS OF THE HAWK, starring Van Heflin shown at Oakland Community College in the Amphitheatre FREE 8:30 pm.

FUN AT MEADOWBROOK. Bring a blanket, some food and a friend while Sexton Ehrling conducts an evening of Bartok and Brahms. At Baldwin Pavilion at Oakland U. 8:30 pm.

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Editors’ Note: The following letter is a reply from the national officers of SDS to criticisms of their upcoming national action in Chicago made by this newspaper in our last edition [“Letter to SDS,” FE #85, August 7–20, 1969].

Dear Comrades,

Your letter about the National Action has become an important item for discussion around here. Because of the way you posed certain problems, and because you have focused in on questions that are being raised around the country at this time, we felt it would be important to answer your open letter with an open response. There are a couple of major misconceptions made about the action. The notion that any part of the action is or could be “adventurist” is crazy. The terms of the fight against imperialism are being set by the colonized people of the world.

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