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A quote: “It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.” ~~ Montesquieu
I’ll start with a story …
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“Hello? Are you there?”
Pause
“Listen, please. I didn’t do it. Not really. I know you saw the video but please let me explain.”
Pause
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But I want to make a difference. My professors say we need to take the streets for justice.”
Pause
“Can’t you understand? I was just there. I don’t know how it got in my hands. I don’t remember throwing it. That poor couple. All they were doing was eating dinner and …”
Pause
“Hello? They let me have this one call and I need bail ..”
Dial tone
“Hello? Hello?”
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Brian Brandt says: “Thank you, Mister Miller for responding to our research study. Do you understand the situation?”
“Yes, I think so. All I have to do is press this red button and some peasant in India dies, and a key to the $100,000 locked in this clear plastic desk drawer drops out of the slot, and I can take it.”
“Yes. He made bad decisions in his life.”
“But if I press the green button, the study is over and I get nothing.”
“Yes. You have two minutes to decide. Good bye.”
I looked down at the clear plastic drawer. I could see the money. I tried the lock one more time, but it was secure. Probably not plastic. Probably some high strength polymer. I really needed the money. I could do a lot of good with it. The guy in India was probably a bad guy.
I pressed the red button.
The drawer opened with the key, and I stuffed the money in the paper bag.
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“Thank you, Mister Chang for responding to our research study. Do you understand the situation?”
“The American made bad decisions?”
“Yes.”
Brian Brandt says: My compliments the the original authors of –
The Chinaman Button https://www.cbsrmt.com/episode/15-the-chinaman-button.html
The Box https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362478/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Cameron says: I sat at the desk and stared at the phone in front of me. “Ready when you are,” the woman said.
I quickly picked it up and cleared my mind. A few seconds later, I could hear the teenage boy on the other line.
“Listen,” I said. “Graduate early. Get out there and take the risks. Failure is a better fate than never trying. When you meet her, she really does love you. Good luck”
“It was successful,” the woman said.
I smiled as I faded away. “All I needed was the right advice at that time in life. Goodbye.”
cold pizza says: Windmill tilting gets wearisome. I sighed as I read the newspaper account of the latest disturbance, this time in Houston.
Windmills popping up like mushrooms after a muggy Virginia rain.
The woman reporter had done a good job. The account was factual, the crime plainly laid out, the criminal justly accused and prosecuted. There was nothing in the article that could inflame passions, ignite long held grievances, spark a riot that would burn half the city.
I keyed the intercom.
“Jess, let Scott know he’s cleared hot.”
Damn foolish reporter. I needed flames!
Outside my window, the Capitol dome gleamed.
Navig8r says: (Continued from #143, September 4 2020)
Peabody here.
As required by the script for Sherman’s Bond character, we had been captured by and had escaped from agents of SPECTRE. We now found ourselves in the particle board office of the local SPECTRE front company.
Sherman, use the phone to call the cavalry. I’ll check the dictaphone for anything they forgot to erase.
Dictaphone?
Audio recorder.
Looks big for the function.
That’s just the control head.
Circular thingy for setting encryption like the Enigma machines?
Wrong decade. Electro-mechanical entry device for the number you want.
911 doesn’t answer.
Sherman, this is 1962! Dial “0” for Operator!
Operator???
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