Monday, February 9, 2009

Edelman-Eggers Letters 10

Patiently, I waited until the end of August to see what art Dave and his followers would design to humiliate and offend me more, and so:

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 2:34 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Hi, Michelle,

I hope your summer was good and you are well. Is it possible for you to give me an update about my Garments of Fleas? I thank you.

Ciao,
Regina

----- Original Message -----
From: Michelle Quint
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers

Hi Regina~
You'd have to check with Eli. His email is [redacted]. Thanks!
Michelle


On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Hi Michelle,

You're the best! Thank you.

Ciao,
Regina

----- Original Message -----
From: Regina Edelman
To: Eli Horowitz
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 4:31 PM
Subject: Fw: Dave Eggers

Dear Eli,
I hope you're doing well. I believe you already know who I am. I'm kind of confused if I should introduce myself or not, anyhow, I'm the author of Garments of Fleas, looking forward for a follow-up about my work. Michelle, Dave's assistant, gave me your e-mail address so that I can check with you.

Thank you so much for your attention.

Yours,
Regina Edelman

I sent the e-mail to Mr. Horowitz on Labor Day, September 1st. I understood that he probably wouldn’t be working in the office on that day, and maybe that was why he didn’t reply to me then, but seven days passed, and knowing that I was dealing with educated people who learned somewhere to ignore who they think worthless, I patiently waited those days before I e-mailed him again to find out what his offense to me would be:


On Mon, Sept 8, 2008 at 5:53 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Dear Eli,

I hope you are well. I'm resending the e-mail below to you, because when I sent it for the first time last Monday 9/1 it was Memorial Day, and I assume that you were not in the office on that day. Have a good evening, and thank you for your attention.

Yours,
Regina

After I sent the last e-mail, I noticed that I wrote Memorial Day instead of Labor Day. Well, it was too late to fix, and two days later:

----- Original Message -----
From: Eli Horowitz
To: Regina Edelman; Jordan Bass
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers


Hi there. We get thousands of these each year, so I need a bit more info. Was your manuscript hard-copy or emailed? When was it sent? And did you include a return envelope.

I’m on the road at the moment, so I’m also copying Jordan Bass, who may be able to help as well.
Eli

It was clear the Dave and Michelle didn’t really want to help because neither of them told Eli that I was sending my manuscript to their shit pile for a second time. His careless insult, that they "get thousands of these" was a slap that I understood to mean: I’m going to reject you, idiot!


Besides having the power to reject me, I also knew that Dave and his followers are regardless of others’ time, dear reader, and so I patiently typed again in effort to clarify their confusion, and cc'd Dave so he could see that what I said was true, and to see if he would stand up like a man and my supporter like he said he was:

On 9/10/08 4:42 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Dear Eli and Jordan:
It’s a pleasure to read from you. Because time seems even shorter when on the road like you are at the moment, I'll briefly tell you about myself and how I was brought to your attention.


Firstly, because I've been having a friendly relationship through letters with Mr. Eggers for almost two years. How? In April 2007 Dave Eggers came to Manhattan to promote What Is The What at Donnell Library. I wrote him a letter at my husband's direction, Daryl Edelman (Google him so you can be more familiar with his talent), who is the editor and mentor of my project Garments of Fleas, which I truly believed was under your attention. So, at the library, my husband and I sat in the first row on the left. When Mr.Eggers finished the show and left the stage my heart sank with melancholy for I thought I'd never be able to deliver the letter to introduce myself nor my work to him. Turned out that magically Mr. Eggers came back to the stage, alone, to retrieve his computer cables, I think. The moment turned back to me again, and perfectly it was possible to deliver Mr. Eggers my letter. Time went on; about a month latter Dave Eggers answered me, his subject line, Great Letter, and he told me that I wrote him an intriguing letter, then solicited me to submit my project to him, so I did. He wrote he probably needed until last December to read it, but Mr. Eggers' busy time didn't allow him to accomplish his good intentions, but he held my hopes then by writing that he still intended to read my manuscript, and to check with him a few months after December. For a period of our e-mail exchanges I believed I was a miserable vermin beggar with no true gold and of weak mind with no understanding to negotiate for the greatness of intelligence. But no, I'm a serious woman, fifty years old, an observer, a self-taught student of men's mind behavior and life's intelligence on earth, born in Brazil in poverty and ignorance, run away from karmic doom of generations at age forty to try better in America. $3,700 was all in my pocket. I learned English in free schools in America. So, in sorrow, I exchanged some more e-mails with Mr. Eggers. I can send you all the e-mails we've exchanged if you need. Finally, April 21st 2008, Michelle wrote in his name the e-mail below to solicit my work for the second time, and Michelle and I exchanged some few more e-mails (scroll down please, so, you can read to understand).

I sent you hard copy, signed for at your office on April 25th at 10:55AM by D.Franich, and no, I didn't send any return envelope. I can send you a third copy.

Thank you for your time.

Yours,
Regina




----- Original Message ----
From: Jordan Bass
To: Regina Edelman; Eli Horowitz
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers

Hi Regina,

it looks like we do have your manuscript here—sorry about our slow response. We’ll try to have an answer for you soon—thanks for sending it in—

Jordan

On 9/11/08 7:48 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Dear Jordan,
Thank you very much for your reply. Sorry if it looks like I sounded like I was rushing everyone. I didn't mean to be pushy, for patience is one of my virtues, and so patiently I'll wait for your fair answer. I just wanted an update. You gave me one, so thank you. Your words however aren't exactly clear to me if you have my manuscript or not, anyway I understood you do, but let me know if you don't and I'll send you a third copy asap.

It's a pleasure to communicate with you. Have a good evening.

Regards,
Regina

And a few days later, I received from Jordan Bass the expected “kill this flea for me” punch line for the end of Dave Egger’s I Love Lucy drop dead comedy plot:

----- Original Message -----

From: Jordan Bass
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers

Hi Regina--thanks for checking in on this, and sorry it’s taken us so long to respond. We rely on submissions like yours, since a good portion of what we publish comes to us unsolicited. Unfortunately, we won't be able to publish your book--we're a very small company, and can only put out a few each year. Thanks again for your efforts, though, and best of luck with it,

Jordan

Dave always knew the size of his publishing company, didn’t he? As you can testify, dear reader, I was told by him first to submit my work, then his assistant asked for it again, and so twice I sent the manuscript to satisfy their bizarre motivation. Why did I deserve this treatment from you, Dave? No one even read my manuscript through.

Like you said in What is the What, “If you knew what I’ve been through, you wouldn’t treat me like this.”

On 9/24/08 7:00 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Dear Jordan,

Thank you for your fair answer. If you can spare a little more time with me, please tell Mr. Eggers and Michelle that I very much appreciated the hope they seeded in my ideas. To struggle for a chance with no hope isn't smart, so thank you to abort my hopes sooner than I thought.

Yours,
Regina

And that, dear reader, was my first try to interact in the world of educated man, and so I close this chapter with this open letter:

Dear Reader and Dave,
I remember, at young age, I helped mom wash clothes for the six miserable people who shared my poverty stricken home. I watched the fleas from our covers floating dead in the dirty water after mom finished her hard work. I was happy to see my tormenters killed, but was soon sad to see that in the clothes hung on clothesline for the sun to dry, armies of fleas came back to life, jumping out of the hot blankets, looking for nourishment on my hot blood.

Those parasites marked hard lessons on me. They made so much trouble in my brain that I believed a life without fleas impossible, until I saw that the girls and boys from church and school didn’t have fleas taking a walk in their neck or head like I had. Those children didn’t have to kill any fleas like I did when the fleas bit me unbearably and never ending. I had to hunt the vampires inside my blouse, and bring them to light to burst between the nails of my thumbs, regardless of peoples’ nauseous startled eyes on me. Soon, people targeted me as worthless because of the fleas.

My father had a horrible predestination; his mother cast him away in a sugar cane field on the day he was born. He survived and married mom, but became a drunkard and deserted his family now and then. Mom piously served church several times everyday. She was nervous, angry, and severe, whips in fists. She blamed her misfortunes on my cursed father’s soul, but the truth was that that he was a perfect match to her. Her mulatto father lay wounded in bed, angrily complaining day and night until he died. Europeans hunted his mom in Angola then brought her on board the Navio Negreiro to be sold as slave in Brazil.

“Do you know what the Navio Negreiro was, Regina?” grandma, mom’s mother who also lived in the same flea nest I did, asked once, mockingly.

“No.”

“Worse than any Holocausto!”

“What would Holocausto be, grandma?”

“More atrocity of man against man—because men are powerful fearless beasts who can make liquor, dreadful toys, and crazy ideas such as money to condemn men’s minds anyway they can to affliction and ruin. Once we learn ill, ill will we teach our suckling for generations and generations. There is no salvation for man. We can’t learn. You won’t learn!”

Until she died, grandma hated me since I was six and went to live in that horror house with her. Every time her sick eyes landed on me, she screamed from the top of her lungs, “Bitch in heat! You’ll die too! You’re condemned to the same death sentence as I am!

At the time, I had no idea what bitch in heat could be, and I feared to ask.

When I finally could leave home, finally got mature to understand, and had courage to write about my knowledge and the troubles of barriers of human being to another human being, when I finally had the courage to write in order to try for better life for every being, I encountered you in power, who taught me good lessons, and taught me this strange lesson too; you teach kids.

I don’t believe grandma was right. She was a humiliated woman like I am. I think it is possible to teach better and learn better. It was just too late for her.

Yours,
Regina Edelman

Earth is one country and we must be united …

Get up giant daughter of sun and earth! Get up! Write, if it’s all that can be done for the sake of human comprehension and evolution. We are star suns!

16 comments:

  1. Regina:
    It is such a shame that people in power many a time behave so poorly - displaying a scant regard for basic human values of honesty and integrity!

    -Nandita

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  2. Regina, I'm glad to see you venting your frustrations while honing your writing skills. I enjoyed reading your little blog. Sorry things didn't work out. It's like we in the biz like to say, "that's the way the cookie crumbles."

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  3. Thank you for your comments. I'm not afraid of Dave Eggers or whoever--that is why I am not anonymous--because I'm a citizen of Earth made of the same matter as anybody else, with brain, nervous system... Like my blog, ants are little too, yet they strongly exist in the cosmos, and on the same level as us humans; perhaps their intelligence raises us for food like we raise cows and chickens. Do cows and chickens know they are our food?

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  4. Dear Regina,

    I'm sorry for any pain I might have caused. Could you send your manuscript again?

    Thx,

    D.E.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dear D.E.,
    It’s a funny coincidence that you have the same initials as my husband Daryl Edelman. There are so many people with initials D.E., but I want to believe that the D.E. on this message posted on my blog means Dave Eggers, and you Dave really sent it to me. If so, I’m so happy to receive it and accept your apology. I’ll be delighted to send you my manuscript again because I wanted you to read my work to begin with and I still want that no matter what happened, but how can I trust this is not a hoax to cause me more unnecessary pain? Sometimes human beings feel and cry for others’ miseries and want to help, like I do, but they also laugh and kick the head of the wounded just for their pleasure to see the miserable fall dead. Having said that, let’s make this a real deal to not waste each other’s time. If you still have my regular e-mail address can you please send me a message to it so I can deal with you in privacy? If you do not have it, please send me an e-mail to the contact listed on the right column of my blog from your e-mail so I know it’s really you and we can go from there. Thank you so much.

    Best,
    Regina

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  6. Dear Reader,
    As I suspected, the new comment I received above on 3/27/2009 at 12:08 PM regarding Edelman-Eggers Letters 10—from an anonymous signed D.E. so that I would believe it was a vague apology from Dave Eggers—is a hoax. I knew it was a hoax when I got the e-mail; that’s why I asked D.E. to contact me in private, but I havn't received any contact from Dave Eggers. As far as I know, Dave Eggers never apologized to me. I believe Dave Eggers is too proud to act as a noble human being should to me. Meanwhile I'm at the mercy of spirits who have time to waste on their prank thoughts, once again proving my theory of man’s violent nature.
    Best,
    Regina

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  7. Typo correction to previous comment: 3/27/2009 should read 5/27/2009

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  8. This is all somewhat outrageous. And I mean Regina's side of this.

    I found this blog by chance looking for someone else. I don't know you, Regina, or Dave Eggers. But to be quite honest as an objective observer, I think that you are being unfair to Dave Eggers. I certainly don't believe he owes you an apology!

    You keep saying he asked to read your manuscript. Not really. You asked him to ask you. When someone says "by all means" they do not mean "in any way possible." They mean "sure, why not?" Like: "Can I reach across you for the salt and pepper?" "By all means."

    Can't you see that for him it was a cordial correspondence, free (at every step!) of promises. He knew he was busy. He knew how much he has to read. You said, I'll send it tomorrow. He said, send it in three months. He wasn't leading you on. He was being real and nice, it appears to me. And I think you have been rather uncharitable to post this and narrate it as some kind of crime. That's why I'm bothering to post this comment. To say: you needn't feel sorry for him for being busy. But you must try to understand. The world does not revolve around you, even though you've thought enough of your story to write it down and describe it as the greatest story of human triumph ever imagined.

    If you stop for a moment, you might realize that he's a person too. He doesn't have the freedom/time to obsess over one correspondence, one manuscript. That doesn't make him evil or uncaring. He cannot save the world. He is trying--you can see that. But he's a man. An exhausted man. And you've posted these letters trying to embarrass him? OR use his fame to further your goals? Or what?

    I feel sorry for him now.

    But good luck to you too. The world tells me "no" every day. I hope you have better fortune.

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  9. Is it outrageous, anonymous, that you found this blog by chance as an objective observer? You say you don’t know Dave Eggers at all, but you know how busy the man is? Dear fantastically masked, please allow me truth and reason…

    It’s untrue that Regina wrote that Dave Eggers would read her manuscript. True, he answered her query by asking her to send him her manuscript by all means, meaning certainly with cordiality, but you belittle the request for Regina’s manuscript by an exhausted man trying to save the world (your words) by comparing it to asking to pass the salt. True, he said to send it in three months, and so she did. Also true, he later said it would probably take him until December to read her work. Please read Edelman-Eggers Letters Parts 1 through 10 from beginning to end to better understand.

    Sure, we see his letters are written with mastery and mystery to be puzzled over like Dead Sea Scrolls to decipher if he will or won’t read Regina’s work. In fact, she wrote that he never promised to read her manuscript, but based on the hint he slipped that it would take him until December to read her work, she believed his word that he hoped and planned to read her story, and after all she went through (that you, dear Anonymous, have no understanding of or sympathy for), she was genuinely encouraged by that hope he slipped her.

    You characterize these verbatim letters as some kind of embarrassment of crime by Dave Eggers. We don’t, and we don’t feel sorry for him because he’s busy. Regina never said that her story is the greatest story of human triumph ever imagined as you sarcastically intone. She thought enough of her story to write it down just like Dave thought enough of his to write it down. These letters are a true verbatim document of what happened between them. Why did he request her manuscript, anonymous, if he knew he was too busy to read it? Doesn’t he know his agenda better than you? Regina knows he’s busy and she couldn’t imagine he would waste his scheduled time to prank her. That’s why she hoped Dave could help her; and she doesn’t believe the world revolves around her or Dave Eggers.

    Thank you, masked anonymous, for your good wishes.

    Yours,
    Daryl Edelman

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  10. Good evening, Anonymous. It's hard for me to write back to an anonymous attacking from the dark. Why do you hide your identity? It would be good to see who you are, a lady or a gentleman. Forgive me if your outrageous cowardice doesn’t allow me to address you cordially.

    I don’t expect apologies from Dave Eggers. My husband thinks Dave owes me apologies. You think he doesn’t. It’s fine with me. I believe in honesty and that a true educated man should regret his mistakes. Did you really read the document? If so, you noticed in the correspondence that I was absolutely patient, cordial, sincere, generous, and clear all the time. I never expected Mr. Eggers to be obsessed with my work, but I expected him to respect my time and intelligence as I respected his. I think a man of high intellect has the obligation to know time runs equal for all, and you who say you don’t know any of us jumped obsessed to spend your time to type a defense for the busy man. I’m sure you don’t know me at all. If you don’t know Dave either as you say, how do you know he’s tired from trying to save the world? How do you know what he knew? Dave’s business is his choice, and being tired is his problem I’m not involved with as you seem to be. I rest when I’m tired. I don’t call to an unfortunate I don’t know who asked for my help and give hopes of help if my busy time wouldn’t allow me such a thing and I needed to rest.

    For me, you’re nobody but a coward anonymous buffoon, but I’ll waste a little more of my time on your confusion to tell you that I don’t want to be famous on account of Dave Eggers as you poorly figure. I want to be famous on account of my humble honest work, and for that I asked Dave seriously for help, not for unnecessary confusion. My labor is to save my life. I don’t want to embarrass Dave at all. I was the one gratuitously mocked, a human being in need of help, which I see you have no reasonable mental capacity to discern. With the document of letters and the rest of the short stories I wrote on my little blog of literature that can, I hope I can find compassionate understanding help I’m looking for to survive with dignity as every human being should by all means.

    Regina Edelman

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  11. The letters speak for themselves. Having read them from start to finish, I feel most certainly from the bottom of my heart that Dave Eggers led Regina Edelman on. I might suggest that she didn't embarrass him, that Dave Eggers embarrassed himself, and that this woman deserves an apology. Man up, Dave, and make it right! Her work is brilliant!

    I also don't believe that Anonymous is an honest objective observer who happened on this blog looking for something else. I too might suggest that Anonymous seems to perhaps suffer from the same complex as Dave Eggers in the letters.

    Jack V.

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  12. How else is a writer supposed to get published if not by asking a publisher (who accepts queries) to read their work? Eggers didn't have to write this lady back asking for her manuscript. According to her narrative, she couldn't believe her good fortune the great Dave Eggers asked to read her work. At any point he could have just said, I'm too busy to read your work, but yes, Eggers wrote Ms. Edelman a few times that though he was busy, he planned on reading her manuscript, stringing her hope along for two years! I agree 100% with your feelings, Jack, that yes, Eggers led this poor lady on, and yes, she deserves an apology. And this anonymous coward feels sorry for Dave Eggers because he took a dump on Ms. Edelman? LOL!!! She has done nothing wrong to him, coward!!! She admired and thanked him in her truly heartbreaking story of courage posted here till the bitter end! That's pretty damn charitable of her in my opinion!

    Bravo to you Ms. Edelman in your valiant struggle for dignity! I love your short stories here and can't wait to read Garments of Fleas!

    Linda
    New York

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  13. Thank you so much, Jack and Linda, for your supportive compassion. You can’t imagine how grateful Regina and I are to know that there are still people in the world who know what ethically is an obligation of an honorable man.

    No, Jack, Dave Eggers can’t be anonymous. Dave hasn’t read Garments of Fleas to know Regina’s intelligence she sincerely told him she possessed and patiently expected to trade fairly with the gentleman. I can’t imagine that he would belittle her like cowardly bully anonymous mocks and belittles her out of hand.

    Regina thinks Dave Eggers is innocent in all he’s done to her, and is flattered that you cared to write her, anonymous. She pricked your conscience.

    No, Jack, Dave Eggers can’t be anonymous hiding in the dark to snipe, but it is possible that anonymous is McSweeney’s connected and didn’t happen on this blog by accident. The timing of that carefully crafted attack came as I’d just posted Part 7 of the letters on my FaceBook page. On each link posted there, I wrote that Dave Eggers requested Regina’s manuscript by all means, and find it amusing that anonymous focused on my FB page wording.

    By the way, who are those other anonymous snipers who posted before the latest anonymous? I don’t attack, and expect to be treated respectably by others. C’mon, what’s wrong with that?

    The truth sets you free, tortured anonymous.

    No, Jack and Linda, Dave Eggers isn’t a coward. He’s a busy, great writer, and a strange philanthropist. I was flabbergasted at first when Regina said Dave is innocent, so charitable she is to someone who treated her that way, but I know she’s right in the end. We don’t want a beef with Dave Eggers. Why should anyone be an enemy? What’s done is done and we endure in our search for honesty, compassion, and understanding. No matter, it’s not a matter of the world saying no. Dave Eggers is not the world, and if he’d said no in the first place, he wouldn’t have the problem anonymous seems to think he has to be embarrassed of. Surely he’s not an evil monster either.

    And after all this, Dave Eggers could be a hero if he’d just give Regina her deserved chance like he really said he would in the first place and several times over, unless it’s too hard to make himself a better man to be admired and the world a better place like he wants to make it.

    Yours truly,
    Daryl Edelman

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  14. Thank you Regina for posting and narrating this as some kind of personal story about you, and for sharing your emotional responses to the dry and ever-so-familiar exchange of letters between a woman with dreams and The Man she thinks may help her realize them.

    The story of one woman escaping poverty and dirt and the vast emptiness of ignorance is the story of a better future for the entire world. It is the possibility of an economic future without the need to numb one's mind with alcohol or the local heroin, without hungry children standing in barren fields as expensive war planes dance brightly in the skies above them.

    What could be more triumphant than a better future?

    I thank you for re-entering the center of your universe to examine the time when your world should have revolved only around you, but, due to poverty, could not.

    And thanks, Daryl, for sharing this with me.

    Kleo Pullin

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  15. Dear Kleo,

    Thank you so much for sharing your view and sympathy for my personal story.

    I will tell you another story from a chapter of my experiences: A homeless child scratched the door of a car parked in front of the boardinghouse where I lived in São Paulo. The owner of the car arrived coinciding with the moment the boy practiced his crime. The boy ran. The owner of the car ran after him and caught the boy by his torn collar and then seized the boy's arm. The man dragged the boy to his car, his face and lips white with hate. The boy cried loud, his mouth opened and distressed. The boy could be ten, but the bad nutrition these children get on Sampa's streets made of this boy look like seven years old. The owner madly shook the boy, and almost crying, asked the boy several times to see what he'd done to his valuable car, screaming, and than asked one of the people watchers to call the police. The police came and carried the little creature away. People said they'd kill the boy. Kill the boy? others asked. I know him, he wanders around, one said. I think he stole my mother's swatch, another was sure. My feeble sister described a criminal like that boy who bumped her to the ground to steal her watch and her school bag from her back, another anonymous voice accused. Kill him! Kill him! they all agreed in whispers. I think the watchers talked in that tone afraid to expose their angry assassin instinct. A month later the boy errant showed up back in the area I lived. I have good memory. I'd never forget his dark face. I saw him at least twice before I learned he was executed with three shots, two in the heart and one in the center of his little head. Nobody cared to know the anonymous who killed the boy and time brutally went on.

    My past experiences however didn't make me disbelieve that somewhere there are still people like you, Kleo, who care for a triumphant better future for our children of this world.

    Yours,
    Regina Edelman

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  16. Thank you so much Regina for sharing your experiences with us. I really have enjoyed reading them. You're clearly a talented writer with self belief. I am totally behind you for continuing the fight.

    Hind

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