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  "text": "Why is it that people want so desperately to shake hands with otherworldly beings? That people will even insist that they have seen visitors from Spica hovering above their backyards? In other times it was ghosts and fairies and goblins, and voices in the night. Is the company of our own species so dull that we need to invent the Other? On the other hand, maybe that explains it.",
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      "name": "loneliness",
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      "slug": "idiots-are-not",
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      "text": "Idiots are not responsible for what they do. The real guilt falls on rational people who sit on their hands while the morons run wild. You can opt out if you want to. Play it safe. But if you do, don’t complain when the roof comes down.",
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      "slug": "truth-is-slippery",
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      "text": "Truth is slippery, not because it is difficult to grasp, but because we prefer our preconceptions, our beliefs, our myths.",
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      "slug": "well-kids-are",
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      "text": "Well, kids are never much on history. Nor for that matter was anybody else. It had been MacAllister’s experience that most people think anything that happened before they were born didn’t count for a whole lot.",
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