My impression of The History Channel's "The Bible"

I guess every generation is allowed to create versions of bible heroes that resonate with them.

I just wish they'd cleaned them up a little.

Everyone from Moses to Jesus - about 3,000 years of recorded history (give or take) - looks like they went to the same tailor and never saw a bar of soap.



[2013-03-20]

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I like this...

"Every communion is Easter in miniature."

[2013-03-21]

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The owner of Mr Gyros Drive-Thru (>) on Alpine in Grand Rapids wished me a Happy Easter today when I picked up my order at the window.

I can only speculate by his accent, his business, and his holiday wishes that he is Greek Orthodox. But he doesn't know me from Adam, and wished me a Happy Easter anyway.

Not a Hoppy Easter or Something for Everybunny.

And he said the same thing to the car ahead of me.

Good for him.

[2013-03-28]

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Happy Easter.

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Fill Your Hand

Once upon a time, you rarely used your Security Number, perhaps once a year when doing your taxes (which was always on paper), or when getting a new job.

I saw Charles Bronson memorize a Social Security Number in a movie, and since he was always a hero of mine, I memorized my own.

I remember applying for a job in Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids Michigan, at B Dalton Booksellers, and I wrote down my social security number on the application without getting out my wallet. The bookstore manager asked, "You memorized your Social Security number?", a bit astonished. (Most applicants had to go home and find it).

You might compare it today to memorizing a driver's license number.

I was fresh out of college and working three jobs at that time so I could afford an apartment; I couldn't keep up the pace, so that job was the first to go.

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Ideas are just neural connections; it's the people connected by the ideas that matter.

Any idea that intentionally hurts or subjugates the innocent is a bad idea.

[2013-03-21]

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Say something else in that ear.

"Listening is harder than it looks."
--Clarence 0ddbody

[2013-03-21]

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Your Morning Oatmeal

Captures the feelings of nearly everyone that writes online.

See the full Oatmeal strip here >

(click to enlarge)


I suppose someday those who still write for print will be the exception, and they will be either literary royalty or lexical drudges.

There is something to be said for any linguistic profession, and I count myself fortunate I have a job as a writer, with a good company and a great team. Most of my college friends who wanted to write for a living never had the privilege.

[2013-03-24]

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You can't go through life wondering why so-and-so didn't "like" you on Facebook or endorse you on LinkedIn or retweet your words of wisdom.

The fact is, those folks didn't like you or endorse you or repeat your words of wisdom before. You just know about it now.

[2012-12-26]

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Three Free Audiobook Tools

Do you have e-books that you want to turn into audiobooks?

1
Convert your Word doc, PDF or text file into an mp3 free here: Zamzar.com >

• Free up to 100kb
• Very good voice translation (listen to a sample > )


2
Cut resulting mp3 into chunks convenient for you. I like 10 minutes because I often fall asleep at night with a book and need to find my place again. (Do that enough times and your brain gets good at it.)

Audiobook Cutter Free Edition v0.7.5 >

• Free
• No renumbering or renaming, but very fast and easy
• Portable. If you've never used a portable app before, there's no installation; in this case, just copy .exe over to a directory of your choice and run.
• There is a newer paid version with more features if you like it and want more options.

3
Mp3tag editor (here >) let's you add/edit mp3 metadata that your mp3 player understands so you can quickly order tracks, add album names, artists, etc. Allows you to change hundreds of files at once if needed.

• Free
• Portable
• Great reviews

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I'm listening to Quantum Physics and Theology - An Unexpected Kinship, by JC Polkinghorne, using these three tools.[1] Polkinghorne is an English theoretical physicist, theologian, writer, and Anglican priest. I first learned of him when he joined Stephen Hawking on Larry King to talk about Hawking's The Grand Design, which got a lot of buzz for obviating the need for God (not my opinion, but Hawking's).

And when you have an A-lister like Hawking, the B-list necessarily crosses a wide variety of competing or complementing opinions, so you get a few folks IMHO more helpful (like Polkinghorne) and a few IMHO less so (like Deepak Chopra), though I enjoy listening to both.

I struggle still with a full reconciliation of science and faith. Thoughtful Christian scientists like Polkinghorne intrigue me (as do thoughtful atheists). I am still working through Davis Young's Good News for Science: Why Scientific Minds Need God, but as you may know, the time I have to actually hold a book is so limited, I have trouble reading a physical book. Young's is the only printed book I am reading or have started in the past couple years.

Learn more about Polkinghorne here >

[3/22/2013]

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[1]
You'll want to take some care editing out footnotes, page numbers, headers, and other things that interrupt the narration. The mechanical voice takes work to follow and these things make it especially difficult.

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This Human Being is Broken

On March 19, Ohio teen TJ Lane was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing three people and wounding three others at Chardon High School. (Story >)

He showed no remorse. Instead, he wore a T-shirt with the word "KILLER" written on it. He also gave the middle finger to the courtroom and victims' families.

[2013-03-19]

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The children who were killed: Demetrius Hewlin, Russell King Jr, and Daniel Parmertor

The children who were wounded: Nate Mueller, Joy Rickers, and Nick Walczak

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This is Unconscionable

"Student says he was suspended after refusing to 'stomp on Jesus' " >

The university has since apologized.

Since when did education equate to insensitivity?

It doesn't matter if it's Jesus or Muhammad or the Florida Orange Growers.

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When you remove basic civility, the only behavior you can expect is what you can enforce.

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Manners matter.

[2013-03-25]

I Remember Jack

I attended Vernondale Elementary School with Jack through 2nd grade, if I recall correctly.

He and Mike Guyton and I were very good friends.

The summer after 2nd grade, Jack left Vernondale.

The next year, as summer approached and 3rd grade was ending, Mike and I and the rest of Vernondale went to the annual school picnic at Waldameer Amusement Park, and who should we find, but Jack, riding the motor boats in Kiddie Land.

We were all grown up and no self-respecting 3rd grader would be caught dead in Kiddie Land. But there he was, smiling and ringing the bell on the front of the boat.

I can see his smile today as clearly as I see the keyboard I'm typing on.

That's all I remember about Jack.

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This is Vernondale Elementary School today. It's located on Wilkins Road in Millcreek, PA, outside Erie. It's where I attended K-6 grades:

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I think I found Mike. I recall he was in Michigan, and sure enough, there's one that looks like him on LinkedIn. I'll see if we can connect. The third member of our Vernondale trio, Rich Nickel, lived in Michigan for some time, too. Perhaps I can find him as well.

Wouldn't it be fun for 3 guys that went all the way through 6th grade together to reminisce for an evening.

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Waldameer is an Erie institution. It's been around for generations and we never gave it much thought. Presque Isle, Lake Erie, the park, they've always been there, as dependable as summer vacation, and 5 minutes from my boyhood home.

The ride into the park is down a long, shady tree-lined road between small homes. Every year, those few shady moments on the bus as we neared the park were like birthdays and Christmas mornings all rolled into one. Every child on the bus peered out half-opened windows to catch the first glimpse of the old wooden roller coaster, which roared invisibly behind tree tops. As the trees parted, the shade was gradually replaced with sunshine and the increasing volume of carnival music and screaming children.

I have no fonder memories of earliest childhood, aside from family, than those trips to Waldameer.

To this day, we go at least once a year.

Visit Waldameer >

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I enjoy writing posts like this most of all. But they take much more time, and they can be emotionally expensive.

[2013-03-16]

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We can't stop gun violence if we don't control guns.

"Assault weapons ban dropped from Senate bill" (story >)

A sudden fit of frustration followed by apathy seized me when I read that. I don't know why, there was nothing especially more troubling about this news than any other that day...

Seven Marines die during live-fire exercise in Nevada
Ohio school shooter wears 'KILLER' shirt in court, gets life in prison
Persecuted, Christians flee postwar Iraq
Deadly chemical weapons attack reported in Syria

Just the timing, I guess. At some point, when those in charge keep avoiding the job you elected them to do, you shrug and give up.

We can't control people, and we apparently can't control what people use to hurt themselves and each other.

I have some hope in Rand Paul. A little. Not on this issue in particular, but in his common sense that will extend to this issue.

We need another generation of Jimmy Stewarts.

I'm probably thinking of Jimmy Stewart because of Rand Paul's filibuster, which was great drama for those that remember Stewart in Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

I know he was an actor. Aren't we all?

[2013-03-19]

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If guns were not available, this would not have happened three days after I started the story above:

Young muggers shot baby in head while in stroller >

The boys arrested are 17 and 14 years old.

17 and 14.

And they shot a baby in a stroller.

What the hell has happened to this country.

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Gun rights advocates are right.

It's not about guns.

Is it.

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All education and employment will one day be online.

All education and employment will one day be online.

Not because they are good ideas (though they may be), but because they are the inevitable result of a growing workforce and cost cutting.

If I'm at home, I'm paying for my own electricity, heat, housing, and digital connection (whatever that means 100 years from now).

It also means I don't need a car to get to work, pay for gas or spend time in traffic.

Traffic accidents also decrease, as do road repairs and other related costs.

If a person or school or business believes it can get enough productivity out of that arrangement, it's a no-brainer.

Classrooms and offices will always exist, but they will eventually be for the elite.

It will come with some cost - interpersonal relationships, opportunities for advancement, accurate labor billing, cafeteria sales - but it will come nonetheless.

[2013-03-19]

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For most of our lives we spend whatever free time we have on whatever we like. Honey Boo Boo. Pizza. Sleeping.

Only when you age to the point where you realize time is finite and you won't get it back do you think twice, and often make a different choice.

[2013-03-14]

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Sucks to be you.

The other day I was checking out at the receptionist's desk with my wife and newborn after a visit to our healthcare provider (who I've been with for over 20 years and like very much).

Next to me, a Hispanic man with a wife and sick baby had just come in for an appointment. It was the first day of the month. The receptionist, who had just exchanged pleasantries with me, checked his healthcare card and very politely said "I'm sorry, this expired yesterday. We can't see you."

The man went over to his wife and baby and spoke in Spanish. She said "Que?," which is all the Spanish I know. I presume he said something to the effect of "Our insurance expired yesterday, honey, they won't see the baby."

The difference of one day might make the difference of a lifetime for that child.

We all drive on the same roads, pay the same taxes, go to the same schools, shop at the same stores, and we all work together to build and maintain those things.

Shame on us.

[2013-03-11]

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Facts overlap everyone's opinions.

You can immediately tell a person with an undisciplined education by how resistant they are to speculation and how quickly they discard opposing ideas. They are only interested in winning a dispute, not learning.

I have in mind not a person, but the debates that quickly spring up at the bottom of news stories at places like MSNBC. You can tell some are well-read, just ill-informed.

Facts overlap everyone's opinions. Acknowledging them won't erode your position if you've sufficiently accounted for them.

[2013-02-26]

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A scary radio drama with some genuine chills...

"The Exorcism," directed by Don Taylor and first broadcast on BBC radio in 1992. It combines a few genres, including the haunted house and people stranded in a secluded cabin.

Listen here >
Audio Drama Wiki page article on "The Exorcism" >

It's about 90 minutes, and not at all related to "The Exorcist" by William Peter Blatty.

It's occasionally too cerebral and the conclusion overlong and less scary, but it has plenty of chills and inquiring dialog along the lines of "What's going on here?", which I like.

[2013-03-15]

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Anonymous comments are now turned off.

Almost everyone who has left a comment has logged in, so this won't make a difference to most of you.

But spammers have been having a field day with me and it's become too much of headache to monitor.

If you've already been leaving comments, this likely doesn't affect you. You may leave a comment via Google, LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM, or OpenID accounts.

I use and like OpenID, an independent and secure login. You can learn more here >

[2013-03-22]

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Smashing Chamber Pots

Something that continually puzzles me is how many atheists are willing to offend Christians when they know most Christians won't respond in kind.

I started listening to Penn Jillette's God, No! and didn't even make it through the introduction.

Now, I really like Penn Jillette, I've liked him for years. He's articulate, brash, opinionated and really smart. I watched a video channel of his online for a long time because I enjoyed his no-BS insight and commentary. But on this topic he was simply too offensive even for me, and that's saying something, because I don't offend easily.[1]

When one side decides to be deliberately offensive (sometimes finding refuge in proud self-deprecation like "I'm just an asshole"), they show they are more interested in the ideas than the people they're debating. People that don't care about people can't be debated. Ideas don't exist apart from people. Facts certainly do, but ideas don't, and no discussion can exist apart from feelings and convictions and personal histories, some of which dispose us to believe or not believe certain things.

I don't mean that we should invite blubbering sentimentality on either side, only that ideas mean very little outside of human attachments, and if you injure an attachment for an idea, you've sort of smashed the chamber pot rather than emptied it.

I know if I met Penn Jillette, I'd like him, and I think he'd like me. I just can't absorb the offensiveness on this particular topic.

[2013-03-09]

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[1]
I'm willing to have a mutually respectful conversation on anything. But to hear someone you respect ridicule your ideas is uncomfortable, even painful, especially when you've gone out of your way to consume new ideas contrary to your own.

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Lean on Me

Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg has recently been in the news promoting her book Lean In.

It may be a very good book, I haven't read it. But if I may, I'd rather use it as an opportunity to comment that it is a book by a wealthy successful person with enormous resources and a large network.

I'm nearing the end of some lectures by Professor Dorsey Armstrong on Medieval Europe, at which time well over 9 out of 10 people were peasants (serfs, or subsistence farmers if they had their freedom), and illiterate.

History has always been lived by the fatigued and depleted majority but recorded by the wealthy who don't know the majority except to utilize them in some productive capacity.

The relationship is rarely cast in those terms, and when it is, it usually invites rejoinders that reference socialism and patriotism in some sort of inverse relationship (the more you have of one, the less you have of the other).

I'm not judging it, simply observing and commenting.

All of history is this way. The works that have survived from antiquity have been the products of powerful or wealthy people or those that had powerful or wealthy patrons, with a few notable exceptions who instead of success promised eternal reward (Jesus, Buddha, etc).

[2013-03-12]

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The Charlie Prayer

For years, since he could pray, my son Charlie said grace in this way:

Dear Jesus, thank you for this food. We love you. A-men.

I don't know where he learned it. We attended a Free Methodist church when he started praying this way, and he was in the daycare run by the pastor's wife, Diane Keep, who was a wonderful, energetic, spirit-filled woman. Her husband, Dick Keep, was one of the most accepting and nonjudgmental ministers I ever met. They moved south to Florida some time ago and I've lost track of them.

[2013-02-21]

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It is what it is.

Sometimes we lash out at people because we know they won't lash back.

It is those moments we regret the most and the longest. So do those we lashed out against.

(I have a few instances in mind; they happened long ago and I was the lashee.)

[2013-02-22]

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There are a lot a hard passages in the Bible, but this is one of the hardest for an evangelical fundamentalist:

“All who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:29).

I was taught from my youth up that only faith in Jesus matters (sola fide).

We actually asked our Sunday School teachers and school teachers at Bethel Baptist Church and Bethel Christian School in Erie, PA, trying to catch them in an extreme inconsistency, "Could Hitler go to heaven?" Without exception, the answer was "Yes, if he was born again" (if he believed in Jesus as his personal savior).

But there are many verses, like John 5:29, where what you do effects your eternal state. In fact, Jesus appears to say some will even think they believe, but still won't know him (Matthew 7:23).

As an acquaintance of mine was fond of saying (though I don't say it myself, but it sometimes fits), "It is what it is."

[2013-03-13]

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Does the death of one mosquito diminish us all?

There is some part of me - a small niggling part that I can't quite put my finger on - that keeps telling me there is some quality to all life that has a constant measure irrespective of the size of the container that holds it.

Like a calorie, or a degree, or an electron volt - a thing to be measured, a thing that never goes away but is just measured differently when it's extinguished.

And not the equivalence of mass and energy, though it may be that, but more than that.

It's said that a brown bat eats up to 1,000 mosquitoes in an hour (source > ).

How unfortunate to be born a mosquito.

And what a deafening eldritch cry that must go out every night as uncounted independent living things are absorbed by another.[1]

[2013-03-12]

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Say something else in that ear.

"If religion were only a response to pain, that alone would be enough to explain its existence."
--Clarence 0ddbody


[2013-03-13]

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[1]
The story is told of Gautama Buddha who wept at the destruction of a termite hill. I couldn't find a reference. it was part of his enlightenment, if I recall correctly.

One of these things is not like the other.

There is a quality in some things so rarefied - sunsets, thunderstorms, kittens - there must be some transcendent attribute to them, otherwise there is no reason to value them any more than sewers or blisters or landslides.

As you know (if you've read much here), I'm the first person to say you can't ignore a possibility just because it's unthinkable, during which times I usually have in mind fundamentalist religious extremes.

But there is nevertheless a kernel of enlightenment there, as on Sesame Street when children are asked, "Which one of these things is not like the other?"

If a category of things consistently expresses a transcendent nature, and our understanding is worth deepening - even if that means only sitting on a porch swing until the sun goes behind the trees - then there is a something there. Not a measure, a response, but a thing.

Which one of these things is not like the other?

[2013-03-13]

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Overheard:
I don't believe it because it makes me happy. I believe it because it's true.

[2013-03-11]

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I thought this was funny

[2013-03-15]

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A Corner of Our Mind That Never Grows Up

There is a delightfully brief window in childhood where we trust everyone and everything. We absorb all the images and sounds like little sponges; even the most strident settle into our heads bereft of the anger or pain that created them.[1]

Our view of the world remains optimistic, cheery, colorful, despite whatever input that goes into our brains.

I met a black boy at the YMCA when I was in Vernondale Elementary School in Erie, PA. Once a month I would stay after school and the bus would take a few of us to the downtown Y. We would play basketball and afterward eat popcorn and play foosball in the lobby. This boy didn't go to Vernondale, there were no black children at that school in those days. But we became friends and agreed we would grow up to be policemen and be partners.

Just like on TV.

Interracial buddy cop shows were new then.

We had no concept of race or time or the utter unlikelihood that this would happen.


Eventually we grow up into adults and do our best to be good parents, good neighbors, and good citizens, despite our kids' best efforts to drive us bananas, despite noisy neighbors, and despite the world doing its damnedest to blow itself up.

But in a corner of our mind that never grows up, there is a place where scents and sounds live, and if stirred, transport us briefly to the moment they became lodged there, perfect and happy and unchanged until we carry them to heaven, for if we take anything with us at all, we will take good memories.

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[1]
Such as sad songs, the sights and sounds of yesteryear's wars, elderly family members that we lose in childhood.

Started: 2012-04-27

"I blew my brains out."

Bob R, a roommate at Calvin College whom I wrote about earlier, once told me a story about his mom, who was an emergency room nurse (IIRC), and a boy who'd come in with a polyp in his nasal cavity.

During the exam, the boy sneezed so hard, he expelled the polyp - and a considerable amount of blood - into his hands. When he saw it, the boy began to cry, thinking that he had blown his brains out

[2013-03-11]

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You can tell that evangelicals are a little perturbed by the papal conclave and the attention it's getting. Evangelical Christian talk is reassuring folks that being a Christian is what you believe, not where you go to church.[1]

I have to say that I"m not crazy about the ostentation myself, but once you know the personalities behind it, it's less intrusive, like a suit and tie on Sunday morning, commercials during a movie, or Christmas decorations.

[2013-03-14: The new pope is more austere and we may see a papal emphasis on the poor and marginalized. That's a good thing.]

[2013-03-12]

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You can also tell that a lot of atheists and agnostics are a little perturbed, wondering why major news outlets are spending so much time on what color smoke rises from the Vatican when there are more important stories to talk about.[2]

[2013-03-13]

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We all balance reality against how we think things ought to be.

[2013-03-13]

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[1]
Well, yes and no, depends on how you define your terms. It also doesn't address the realty that you can be a Christian despite (some of) your beliefs and the church you attend.

The tone seems to be sort of "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," an effort to avoid distraction, discussion, or understanding.

There is also a little of "Hey, we're the real Christians over here, look at us."

[2]
Actually, I think I detected more negative coverage early on, which quickly became more even when (I presume) the networks discovered there was considerable interest from those that watch the news and buy the products advertised there. FOX and MSNBC have been conspicuously quiet. I presume in FOX's case because their base is largely evangelical. Maybe it's just me, but I thought Rachel Maddow over at MSNBC was dying to say something critical but was holding back, not in her typical sarcastic way, but in a "my boss told me not to" way. Hard to tell.

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