There is a wonderful old parable about the robin in the barn.
A robin neglected to fly south for the winter, and got caught in a blizzard. Slowly freezing to death it managed to fly into an unheated barn and land on a rafter. The weather was so bad that even in the barn the bird was unable to recover, and finally fluttered to the ground.
In a remarkable coincidence, however, it landed close to a cow, which shat on the bird only seconds after it landed. The steaming excrement, still near the temperature of bovine intestines, quickly warmed and revived the bird. The robin was so joyful at the dramatic reversal of fortune that it began to sing. The singing attracted the cat that lived in the barn, which quickly snatched and ate the bird.
The moral of the story, of course, is that not everyone who gets you into a pile of shit is your enemy, and not everyone who gets you out of one is your friend.
I was reminded of that parable as I read this:
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