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Murphy: BPL still rots from the head; demands library trustees resign en masse

At-large City Councilor Steve Murphy predicts the items we know about that are missing from the BPL are only "the mere tip of the iceberg" and is calling on all of the library's trustees to follow President Amy Ryan and submit their resignations immediately.

"In the coming days as the investigation continues, I suspect that we will find many other items have disappeared," Murphy said in a statement. Murphy, chair of the council's public-safety committee, had scheduled a hearing on BPL security for next Monday even before Ryan announced her resignation, mere hours after library trustees had voiced their confidence in her.

"It is imperative that the Chairman of the Board of Trustees Jeff Rudman and the other current board members follow President Ryan's lead and step down immediately, so that Mayor Walsh can move forward and appoint new leadership to guide the BPL through this crisis," he said.

The committee hearing begins at 11 a.m. on Monday in the council's fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.

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Comments

Does he want to stock the board with his cronies?

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He must be running for something. Murphy's always running for something..

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He likes to get mad and threaten people.

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How would you get more folks to vote?...

Candidates challenging the City Councilor
http://bostondocuments.blogspot.com/

Qualified List Of Candidates For Councilor-At-Large
Preliminary Municipal Election Tuesday, September 8, 2015

1) Michael F Flaherty, South Boston, Present City Councilor At Large
flahertyforboston at gmail.com

2) Bryan D Fuller, South Boston
bryandfuller at gmail.com

3) Annissa Essaibi George, Dorchester
annissaeg at hotmail.com

4) Stephen J Murphy, Hyde Park, Present City Councilor At Large
councilormurphy at aol.com

5) Ayanna S Pressley, Dorchester, Present City Councilor At Large
ayannap at ayannapressley.com

6) Michelle Wu, South End, Present City Councilor At Large
michelleforboston at gmail.com

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Another Menino-era system seems to be seeing the light of day....

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i'm interested to see what will become of this. Adam, keep us updated!
-anon

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I always find it hilarious when people "sign" something they're writing online, like Facebook comments that end with "--Bill LePetomane" when it's obvious that Bill LePetomane is the one posting the comment. This is even funnier, though, because you signed it "-anon". I bow to your superior ironic abilities, anon. You are a king among men.

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Come on, you know if the Honorable Governor signed a Facebook comment, it would be with the full "William J. Lepetomane"

IMAGE(http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTg3Mjg1NDk3NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDg1NjM3MQ@@._V1_SX640_SY720_.jpg)

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I make it a mission to include Mel Brooks references in at least 45% of my comments.

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Do they really think that we find their comment so interesting that we are going to go peruse their blog posts?

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I dunno, I've clicked over to Suldog's site on a slow day before.

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I'm glad BPL is cleaning house but somewhat lost in all this is $1,000,000 worth of painting and other rare items have been stolen. It would be nice to see more stories about the investigation and leads and less about the need for staff changes.

I sure hope they aren't just considering the stolen items gone for good like some unreturned library book.

UPDATE: Credit where credit is due. Seems like things are not stolen as I (and most of Boston) had been lead to believe and just misfiled. Hopefully everything else is found and the administrative changes improve things further.

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"In the coming days as the investigation continues, I suspect that we will find many other items have disappeared,"

That seems premature to be saying publicly, unless he has definitive non-public information that more items are missing.

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he's the one who hid, er, "misfiled", them.

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to guard the Library, as Murph had suggested, none of this would have happened.

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Horses are excellent filers.

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Are we going to see a major criminal investigation into this, the kind that would make someone who took items years ago extremely nervous?

I don't know whether items were actually taken, or just misfiled. But if they were taken, I'd really like the thief or thieves to be caught, as a warning to others. Otherwise, it's just another way that Boston is open season for public sector theft.

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Who would be better for the Library Board?...

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Breaking news on Globe website!!

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BostonGLobe online is reporting that the 2 missing pieces that triggered all this stuff were found. "80 feet from where they should have been filed ..."

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As if this wasn't what anyone who has ever worked in a library was saying the entire time.

It's almost like there was a... dare I say it... political agenda?

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Doesn't Marty "Shoot first, think later" Walsh look like the world's biggest horse's ass? Yes, yes he does. Bets on when he unjams that foot from his mouth?

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Never ever.

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I agree. He's stubborn beyond reason when he's wrong. Ask him to apologize to Amy Ryan and offer to tear-up her resignation.

Also Councilor Murphy demanded the entire board resign based on his 'suspicion' that there is another shoe to drop in lost and stolen artwork at BPL. He is being completely irresponsible. He doesn't deserve to be a city councilor with that kind of council. It's reactionary.

Where do you think Walsh and Murphy are going with this? Do you think it's a rational approach based on the facts?

I hope we don't have to go through another round of fighting library closings.

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Based on my suspicion that we've only seen the tip of his asinine iceberg.

And I know we're not supposed to talk about looks, but if anybody looks like they're rotting from the head, it's Murphy.

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To be fair, he always looks like a horse's ass. Size is debatable.

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Doesn't Marty Walsh look like the world's biggest horse's ass?

IMAGE(https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/11412241_10155690352730305_6569648964287896446_n.jpg?oh=29357190b19462d7544e08c4fcbaf4fe&oe=55EFB09F)
Yes, but that's just his face. It's got nothing to do with the BPL.

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"...you mean Superman isn't real?"

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"You Sunk My Battleship!"

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That feels better.

Good thing we're outside.

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Menino sounded like he couldn't speak intelligently but we learned to judge him by what he valued and the decisions he made, not how he sounded or looked.

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I'm not a fan, but any politician's looks are off limits.

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...if the politician is male. All women everywhere are fair game, but call out a man for having a stupid expression on his face, and that's just OFF LIMITS!

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Have you ever seen me comment on the appearance of any politician?

Actually, I have. A while back, there was a bit of a running joke between me and a lesbian poster here, in which she and I each facetiously expressed the opinion that a certain city official, whom we both thought very attractive, 'obviously bats for my team.' Which I subsequently publicly retracted, specifically on the grounds that commenting on the appearance of a government official was creepy and inappropriate.

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In the end, I judged Menino for failing to improve BPS and staying in office for at least one term too long, not on his looks.

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I take your point, but I think his skin is thick enough to handle our little game. Besides, if you make me judge him on his values and decisions, we go way past "horse's ass" to "dangerously incompetent, corrupt, and hellbent on driving this city into the ground."

I voted for him over Connolly, and it was the worst vote I've ever cast.

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... is we don't know what kind of stunts Connolly would have pulled had HE been elected.

But there is no way on earth that I will ever vote for this guy again (except to "vote him off the island").

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I think you're headed in the right direction when you say "dangerously incompetent, corrupt, and hellbent on driving this city into the ground," not because I necessarily agree but because you're forming an argument. You're critiquing how he does the job and arguing he doesn't do it well.

The next step is to cite an example that folks recognize as a bad decision or dumb policy, show how, maybe show it's a trend and you've made a strong argument.

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... ring any bells. ;-}

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I criticize Mayor Walsh often and on many issues. I voted for him. I like him. I disagree with him on more than a handful of important issues.

I work hard to be clear about my position and why I disagree with his. Join me! I'll join you when I agree with your dissent.

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... with no adequate relocation plans (even yet) well. Yes, I guess we are not in agreement.

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I think it was irresponsible not to place every homeless and person in recovery in a bed the night they evacuated from Long Island These people don't have resources, collectively we do.

I'm still trying to ascertain if this was always just about a broken bridge and public safety crossing it (and why we didn't care about putting them on the street) or whether the eviction was handy for other purposes, too. If so, what purposes, If so, shame.

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My feeling is that this sort of careless shoot-from-the-hip style typifies almost everything the present administration does -- except, perhaps, for the unflagging Olympic cheerleading (and obfuscation)..

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He does move awfully fast and often without thinking of the bigger picture. I don't like the way he handled long island bridge, it was irresponsible. I assume he didn't fabricate the urgency but just the same it's clear he left vulnerable people out to dry

On the Olympics, he seems to be willfully disregarding the substance of the dissent of which there is much and it has merit.

He is known as a person who listens. He is not listening. If he does not listen and respond to the dissent, I will not vote for him if he runs again.

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.... "a person who listens" -- why does he not seem to do this very much now that he is mayor? Very perplexing. And massively disappointing,

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Let's.... umm.... make street cleaning more effective by ending the practice of removing the cars that are impeding the street sweeper..... yeah, that makes sense.

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... that makes space savers illegal....

... But I'm not going to enforce it.

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..... but hey, how about $34 million per year in salary increases.

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I just spent, like, 20 minutes writing a thoughtful response to this comment, only to have it get lost when I tried to preview it. Now it will go into bullet points, because I'm too lazy to write it all out again, and I don't owe you any justification of my beliefs, anyway.

Minor issues:

  • Unions: he gave away too much too easily to the police union.
  • Pot: he vows to lead a crusade against legalized pot, despite what his constituents think.
  • Parades: he diverted resources needed to try to get the city back on its feet to prep for the Pats and St Pats parades.
  • Foot-in-mouth disease: he needs to learn when to shut up. I don't agree with his position on space savers, but when he was quoted every other day with a new policy or position, it made him look foolish.

Major issues:

  • Gay rights: he's wishy washy at best, and too willing to compromise to be able to march in the St Pats parade last year. (I know he did the right thing in the end, but grudgingly)
  • Long Island: Yes, Menino's administration let the bridge go to crap, but the panicked and botched evacuation was all on Walsh. Vulnerable people betrayed by a guy who talks a big game about standing up for them, struggling charities left holding the bag on multi-million dollar capital improvements on the island, and no reasonable backup plan.
  • Boston 2024: This is the one that makes me believe he's corrupt. You can find my opinions of the Olympics plan in comments all over this site, but I really don't see how Walsh can continue standing behind this farce unless he has either been promised money or a lucrative job.

I was a big Menino supporter. He was (and Angela still is) my neighbor. But he was a public figure, and fair game for the jokes I made about his mumbles and his giant head. I'll keep making jokes about Walsh's doofy face. Jokes are table stakes for a politician.

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Both rare works of art missing from the Boston Public Library have been found, state Rep. Byron Rushing told the Herald this afternoon.

Rushing, a BPL trustee, said in a phone interview that he received a text message from library president Amy Ryan saying the two missing prints have been recovered.

But he said he did not know the circumstances around their discovery or if it was determined how they went missing.

"The question is how did they get misplaced? That's very important to find out exactly where did they find them," Rushing said, adding that the board never dismissed the possibility that the prints were misfiled even amid the FBI and Boston Police probes. "Now misfiling is not a good thing. We certainly want to know the circumstances."

An official announcement is expected this afternoon, a source added.

The two prints were a 1504 engraving by Albrecht Durer, worth $600,000, and a 1634 Rembrandt etching, worth between $20,000 and $30,000. The disappearance of both prompted investigations by the FBI, U.S. Attorney's office and Boston Police.

Ryan handed in her resignation yesterday, saying she would leave her $195,000-a-year job in July due to the ongoing controversy over the missing art.

Library officials are also investigating a report that a set of gold coins may have disappeared decades ago under the library's watch. And following a heated board meeting yesterday during which she made no mention of other probes, Ryan then revealed to reporters that officials were probing a separate report that several pages from a music manuscript donated to the library were also missing.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/herald_bulldog/2...

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Really? Get out! Would you say it's a POSSIBLE thing? Is it the WORST thing that's EVER happened? Yes, yes, YES. Time to replace these incompetent filers with androids. They won't need to eat or take bathroom breaks or need vacations or 401K plans. OTOH, Byron, perhaps you have a better solution.
Can't WAIT to hear it.

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They found the artworks

"Library officials said the Durer and Rembrandt were found in Row 14B, Bay 3 on Shelf 2, approximately 80 feet from where they should have been filed."

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Sounds like complete incompetence is the standard for working at the BPL.

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Then it is also the standard for working at Harvard, or the Bibliothèque Nationale, or the British Library, or the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, or...

I know this is super shocking to the uninitiated, but this happens a lot, everywhere.

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It happens a lot, everywhere, does not make it OK. $630,000 should not be misfiled, missing and unreported for nearly a year. Something is definitely broken somewhere in the BPL if that is the acceptable norm.

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Happening a lot everywhere does make it OK.

There is one solution to the problem of human error here. We could take several million dollars of taxpayer money and upgrade to a robotic storage and retrieval system like they just installed at UChicago. This would probably involve laying off a lot of staff and closing several branches.

YMMV.

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that is

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Elizabeth A. Garner
The Hidden Secrets in Albrecht Durer's Art and Life
http://www.albrechtdurerblog.com/durer-audit-hooey-faults-security-at-bo...

Crimes in the Art, The Secret Cipher of Albrecht Durer
http://www.amazon.com/Crimes-Art-Secret-Cipher-Albrecht-ebook/dp/B00FNWKYMO

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The stolen / misplaced items are the tip of a huge mess. The branches are filthy, understaffed and too often staffed with apathetic employees - beaten down by "Downtown". The main branch cannot give a true accounting of its items. And, most are stored, never to see the light of day. Time for a change.

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Yeah, of course most are stored. Go to almost any library or museum and you'll see the same thing. With the Gardner being a notable exception, most cultural institutions have vast collections that they draw on to put on exhibitions. This is the way these places work. Very few museums and libraries know absolutely everything they have. Most get tons of donations and very little funding. Donors would rather have their name on a new bench or children's section than up funding for special collections processing and cataloguing.

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Massachusetts Public LIbraries' leadership need leaders who would look for better resources for front line staffs & thus for library users. Safety and security begin with the people developing greater loyalty to our public library

Massachusetts Friends of Libraries
http://mblc.state.ma.us/advisory/trustees/index.php

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners
http://mblc.state.ma.us/

Online forums
http://mblc.state.ma.us/mblc/lists/index.php

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Imagine investing a very small amount of $ (relatively speaking) into the BPL system instead of the Shirley Leung Olympics. This investment would actually be serving the public for decades to follow.

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Steve Murphy continues to demonstrate his IQ.

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Stenographic Record of yesterday's Public Meeting of Boston City Council Wednesday, June 3, 2015
http://anopenbostoncitycouncil.blogspot.com/

see also Notes by Michelle Wu
http://michelleforboston.com/notes/

video
https://www.youtube.com/user/BostonCityCouncil/videos

Agendas, Minutes
http://www.cityofboston.gov/cityclerk/citycouncil/meetings.asp

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... by folks who obviously can't run anything competently. I wish that Boston had a recall provision.

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I'm interested in hearing you out. If you have the time and the interest, make the argument and I'll give you my feedback.

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...I need to make up a detailed list of things I find unsatisfactory about Walsh's performance for your sake. I gave one example already -- and you blew it off as insignificant (or so it seems to me).

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I didn't realize you were soliciting my opinion on the long island bridge. I responded above.

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Boston Public Library Board
http://www.bpl.org/general/trustees/trustees.htm

Jeffrey B. Rudman, Chairman of the Board
Evelyn Arana-Ortiz, Vice Chairman of the Board

Board Members
Zamawa Arenas
Laura DeBonis
Carol Fulp
John T. Hailer
Paul A. La Camera
Dennis Lehane
Byron Rushing

Jeffrey B. Rudman is a senior partner at the Boston law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, and the former co-chair of their Securities Litigation and Enforcement Department. He is a nationally recognized authority on defending shareholder class actions and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations. Mr. Rudman lectures on shareholder litigation and corporate governance for such organizations as American International Group, NASDAQ and the National Investor Relations Institute, among others. He has been listed in every edition of The Best Lawyers in America.

Mr. Rudman is dedicated to supporting the community and has served many charitable institutions. During the 1990s, Mr. Rudman served as a director of the Boston Public Library Foundation and helped lead the effort to restore the McKim Building. He is a former member of the board of the Boston Museum Project and served for many years as the secretary of the New England Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee. Mr. Rudman is a past member of the Community Advisory Board at WGBH and former trustee of the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. He presently belongs to the St. Botolph Club.

A graduate of Columbia College and Harvard Law School, where he won the Ames Moot Court Competition, Mr. Rudman spent two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, taking a First in the Honours School of Modern History.

Mr. Rudman is a resident of Charlestown where, together with his wife and two sons, he has lived for more than two decades.

Evelyn Arana-Ortiz is a Senior Healthcare IT Leader with 20+ years of healthcare domestic and international experience, who has demonstrated the ability to improve business operations by increasing customer satisfaction and exceeding financial targets. She is an exceptional leader earning numerous company awards for outstanding performance managing highly complex practice management implementations for large medical groups and academic medical practices.

Mrs. Arana-Ortiz is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, currently working at GE Healthcare. She is very committed to serve the community and has served at various non-profit organizations; she currently chairs the BPL Finance and Audit Committee and the Fellowes Athenaeum Trust Fund Advisory Committee.

[ more... ]
http://www.bpl.org/general/trustees/trustees.htm

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Steve is a blowhard who does nothing and has been on the City Council way too long.

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Any time we're tired of him, we're free to vote him out. Obviously we (for the collective value of 'we') are satisfied with the job he's doing, and so we re-elect him.

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It always gets me when people drone on about how we need to vote so-and-so out of office, but come election time I dunno, the same people are busy that day.

By the way, I can proudly say that I have not voted for Murphy each time he has appeared on my ballot since 1992. Sometimes he seems smart, so I consider ending my ban, but then he does something like this and reminds me of why the streak is still active.

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... vote in every election. I don't _think_ anyone voted for the tiresome Mr. Murphy last time around.

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