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Two things I'm reminded of: when I was a kid, my father was a pharmacist. He used to bring home little dropper-bottles of mercury for my sister and me to play with! We rolled it around on the tabletop, had little battles with the rolling balls of mercury - scary to think about now!

Also, your Cyrano reference reminds me of a time when I showed Babette's Feast to a group at church, and everyone made and brought a plate of food to share that was featured in the movie. That was a memorable movie event.

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Bryan, this is Peggy commenting, not Tim!

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I thought it was odd Tim was referencing both Babette's Feast and a church supper at the same time! Glad you liked the post - I was just beyond the 'rolling the mercury around' stage in school ... which I would have LOVED to do. Oh, well ...

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Perhaps there’s been a slow, undetected mercury vapor emission from some volcanic source in the US over the past few years to account for our recent paroxysms of seeming national psychosis.

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The Oracle at Delphi inhaled toxic volcanic fumes to give readings/predictions for the future ... whatever's being inhaled in the US is reverting people to the past. It's the 21st Century here in England - why is it the 18th in the USA?

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The guardrails have come off. There are no longer any trusted moderating influences on essentially anything. American individualism is now at full siren: my belief is the truth. Period. And my sources needn’t be validated. My belief is the validation. Across the ideological spectrum. Hence an unprecedented tribalism. We’re like Westeros.

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