text:
Republican lawmakers in South Carolina have prefiled legislation to legalize medical marijuana in the state next year, saying patients have waited long enough for legal access to the drug.

“It is unacceptable that South Carolinians with serious illnesses have to break the law to alleviate their suffering,” said the legislation’s lead sponsor in the House of Representatives, Rep. Bill Herbkersman (R), who says that marijuana helped his brother treat symptoms related to cancer.

“My brother deserved better. Our friends, family, and neighbors deserve the same options to medicine that are afforded to Americans in 36 other states,” he said. “Waiting any longer will only add to the suffering that is experienced by those who are plagued with debilitating illness.”

Lawmakers filed two versions of what’s being called The South Carolina Compassionate Care Act on Wednesday. Herbkersman’s H. 3361 is the House measure, while Sen. Tom Davis (R) is sponsoring S. 150 in the legislature’s other chamber. The measures are expected to be taken up during next year’s session, which begins in mid-January.

“I feel there is a very good chance we get something passed this session,” Davis said in a statement released on Thursday. “This bill has been fully vetted after five years of testimony and input by various stakeholders. The time has come for lawmakers to get out of the way and allow patients, in consultation with their physicians, to legally and safely access medicinal cannabis.”

South Carolina doesn’t have a citizen-led initiative process, the path by which many states have legalized medical cannabis, but Davis said on Twitter last month that if he can’t get lawmakers to pass the bill outright he will push to get them to at least place the issue on the ballot through a legislature-referred referendum

“I will work on a bill to send the question to the people,” he said.

  There’s no citizen-petition process in SC. But if I can’t get it passed by the legislature, I will work on a bill to send the question to the people.

  — Tom Davis (@senatortomdavis) November 13, 2020

While the two versions of the legislation introduced this week differ on specifics, both would legalize medical marijuana for patients with qualifying conditions and establish a dispensary model for distribution. Both would also forbid patients from growing the plant at home.

The Senate’s version is the more restrictive of the two bills. Under S. 150, smoking marijuana would remain illegal, and only processed oils, edibles and topical applications would be available to patients. In a 14-day period, patients by default could buy up to two ounces of total THC in ingestible products, 8.2 grams in concentrates meant for vaporization and four grams in topicals, though doctors could adjust individual patient limits.

The House version, meanwhile, would permit marijuana flower, whether smoked or used for other applications, and allow smoking-related paraphernalia. In a 14-day period, patients could buy up to two ounces of dried cannabis or the equivalent amount of edibles or topicals.

Doctors would also have considerably more leeway under the House bill in terms of recommending medical marijuana. While the Senate version only lists specific types of conditions that qualify for cannabis treatment, the House measure also allows physicians to recommend marijuana to any patient with a debilitating condition that the doctor is qualified to treat. It also specifically lists chronic pain as a qualifying condition, which the Senate version does not.

Here’s a closer look at the legislation’s qualifying conditions:

-   Cancer
-   Multiple sclerosis
-   Neurological disease or disorder, including epilepsy
-   Sickle cell anemia
-   Autism
-   Chronic pain — _HOUSE VERSION ONLY_
-   Glaucoma
-   Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD
-   Crohn’s disease
-   Ulcerative colitis
-   Cachexia, or wasting syndrome
-   Severe or persistent nausea — _SENATE VERSION REQUIRES PATIENT TO BE HOMEBOUND_
-   Terminal illness with less than a year to live
-   A condition causing severe and persistent muscle spasms
-   A condition for which opiates could be prescribed
-   Any debilitating condition the recommending doctor is qualified to treat — _HOUSE VERSION ONLY_

The legislation would establish a Medical Cannabis Advisory Board to consider issues such as whether new qualifying conditions should be added.

Bill Griffith, a family medicine doctor in Anderson, SC, said in a statement provided by the advocacy group SC Compassionate Care Alliance that legalization would allow patients who are already using medical marijuana to access safe, tested, reliable products through a regulated market.

“The illegality of medical cannabis in our state is forcing many patients to rely on the dangerous underground market to access their medicine,” he said. “South Carolinians deserve the ability to safely and legally use a substance that has been proven to be effective in treating a variety of medical conditions and poses fewer negative side effects than many prescription drugs, especially opioids, which continue to claim many lives.”

Both versions of the bill would initially license one dispensary per 20 pharmacies in the state, as well as 15 cultivation centers, 30 processing facilities, five testing laboratories and four transporters.

Medical marijuana would be taxed a rate of six percent, the same rate the state attaches to non-prescription drugs. Most of the resulting revenue (90 percent) would go to the state’s general fund, with smaller percentages going to medical marijuana research (5 percent), study into how to detect cannabis-impaired driving (3 percent) and drug safety education (2 percent).

Other new cannabis-related bills prefiled in the House ahead of the 2021 session include another medical marijuana bill, H. 3174, known as The Put Patients First Act, as well as  H. 3202, which would allow a select pool of military veterans to possess cannabis. Another bill, H. 3228, would decriminalize possession up to an ounce of marijuana or hashish. In the Senate, prefiled bills include S. 335—a proposal by Sen. Mia McLeod (D) to permit marijuana for by adults 21 and over and launch a regulated retail cannabis industry—and S. 268, which would put a nonbinding advisory question on the state’s 2022 ballot asking whether voters favor legalizing marijuana for all adults.

  S.335 decriminalizes personal use of marijuana, regulates its sale, and imposes penalties for violations: https://t.co/vLO1OrfedK pic.twitter.com/05WoxNB7Ti

  — Mia McLeod (@MiaforSC) December 10, 2020

While South Carolina Republicans, such as Davis, have attempted to legalize medical marijuana in the past—getting as far as a successful Senate subcommittee vote in 2019—they still face pushback from within their own party.

Gov. Henry McMaster (R) has deferred to law enforcement leaders, such as State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel, who has said South Carolina shouldn’t legalize until after the federal government reclassifies marijuana.

“As long as Keel opposes it,” the Charleston Post and Courier reported, “so too will Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who has said he does not want to get out of law enforcement on the issue.”

Davis in the Senate, meanwhile, said he thinks it’s a political miscalculation by his fellow Republicans to oppose legalization.

“I think it’s a winning issue for them, and I think it’s a strategic mistake to cede the issue to Democrats,” he told the newspaper. “What you’re talking about here is letting an individual, in consultation with their physician, decide for themselves what’s best. I’m not sure you can get more fundamental to limited government than that.”

A 2018 Benchmark Research poll found that 72 percent of South Carolinians support medical marijuana legalization, including nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of Republicans, SC Compassionate Care said. That same year, 82 percent of voters in the Democratic primary election voted in favor of medical cannabis legalization in a nonbinding ballot advisory vote.

That strong support encouraged supportive lawmakers, who prefiled four marijuana measures two years ago, as the 2019 session was about to begin. While that legalization push fell short, advocates say voters’ overwhelming approval of legalization ballot measures at the polls last month—including a medical marijuana question in Mississippi—bode well for this year’s effort.

“In Mississippi, more than 2/3 of voters opted to enact a medical cannabis measure. 74% of Americans now live in a state that allows medicinal use of cannabis,” Davis wrote on Twitter last month in response to a political mailer criticizing his work on the issue. “2021 simply MUST be the year we get it done.”

  In Mississippi, more than 2/3 of voters opted to enact a medical cannabis measure. 74% of Americans now live in a state that allows medicinal use of cannabis. 2021 simply MUST be the year we finally get it done. You tired of sleazy anonymous mailers spreading misinformation? pic.twitter.com/ZUgNkaxNgI

  — Tom Davis (@senatortomdavis) November 13, 2020

Congressional observers, meanwhile, are watching South Carolina to see whether legalization there could change the calculus at the federal level, where the U.S. Senate is seen as the last remaining obstacle to federal cannabis legalization. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a high-ranking senator who represents the state and chairs the key Senate Judiciary Committee, has consistently opposed legalization, and some advocates wonder whether a policy shift in Graham’s home state could push him to reconsider letting cannabis advance in his panel should his party maintain a majority in the body following next month’s runoff elections for two Georgia seats.

Nearly two-thirds of all voters, and 51 percent of Republicans, said in a recent national poll that they support a House-passed bill to federally legalize marijuana.

Graham’s challenger in the last election, Jaime Harrison, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman, made legalization—not just of medical marijuana, but for adult use, too—a key part of his campaign. “I think we should legalize, regulate and tax marijuana like we do for alcohol and tobacco,” he said in July. “There is simply no reason to lock people up over this issue.”

  Embracing Marijuana Legalization Could Have Offset Democratic Election Losses, Poll Indicates

Marijuana Moment is made possible with support from readers. If you rely on our cannabis advocacy journalism to stay informed, please consider a monthly Patreon pledge.

[]

question: What does the text say about cannabidiol?

question: What is the main tension in the article?

answer: The main tension in the article is the difficulties in legalizing medical marijuana in South Carolina. The illegality of medical cannabis is SC is forcing many patients to rely on the dangerous underground market to access their medicine. Republican lawmakers Rep. Bill Herbkersman (R) and Sen. Tom Davis (R) have each filed legislation aimed at legalizing the use of medical marijuana for South Carolinians with serious and debilitating illnesses, but are facing pushback from their own party. Gov. Henry McMaster (R) has deferred to law enforcement leaders, such as State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel, who has said South Carolina shouldn’t legalize until after the federal government reclassifies marijuana. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a high-ranking senator who represents the state and chairs the key Senate Judiciary Committee, has consistently opposed legalization.

question: What does the article say about the similarities between the two versions of The South Carolina Compassionate Care Act?

answer: The House version of The South Carolina Compassionate Care Act is called H. 3361, while the Senate version is S. 150. Both versions would legalize medical marijuana for patients with qualifying conditions and establish a dispensary model for distribution. Both would also forbid patients from growing the plant at home. The Senate and House versions would establish a Medical Cannabis Advisory Board to consider issues such as whether new qualifying conditions should be added. Both versions of the bill would initially license one dispensary per 20 pharmacies in the state, as well as 15 cultivation centers, 30 processing facilities, five testing laboratories, and four transporters. Medical marijuana would be taxed at a rate of six percent. Most of the resulting revenue (90 percent) would go to the state’s general fund, with smaller percentages going to medical marijuana research.

question: What does the article say about how people feel about the legalization of marijuana?

answer: A 2018 Benchmark Research poll found that 72 percent of South Carolinians support medical marijuana legalization, including nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of Republicans. Meanwhile, 82 percent of voters in the Democratic primary election voted in favor of medical cannabis legalization in a nonbinding ballot advisory vote. In Mississippi, more than 2/3 of voters opted to enact a medical cannabis measure. 74% of Americans now live in a state that allows the medicinal use of cannabis. Nearly two-thirds of all voters, and 51 percent of Republicans, said in a recent national poll that they support a House-passed bill to federally legalize marijuana.

question: What does the article say about the differences between the two versions of The South Carolina Compassionate Care Act?

answer: The Senate’s version is the more restrictive of the two bills. Under S. 150, smoking marijuana would remain illegal, and only processed oils, edibles, and topical applications would be available to patients. In a 14-day period, patients by default could buy up to two ounces of total THC in ingestible products, 8.2 grams in concentrates meant for vaporization, and four grams in topicals, though doctors could adjust individual patient limits. The House version, meanwhile, would permit marijuana flower, whether smoked or used for other applications and allow smoking-related paraphernalia. In a 14-day period, patients could buy up to two ounces of dried cannabis or the equivalent amount of edibles or topicals. Doctors would also have considerably more leeway under the House bill in terms of recommending medical marijuana. While the Senate version only lists specific types of conditions that qualify for cannabis treatment, the House measure also allows physicians to recommend marijuana to any patient with a debilitating condition that the doctor is qualified to treat. It also specifically lists chronic pain as a qualifying condition, which the Senate version does not.


split: test

text:
From Fire Emblem Heroes Wiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents

-   1 Units
-   2 Choose Your Legends placements
    -   2.1 Choose Your Legends
    -   2.2 Choose Your Legends: Round 2
    -   2.3 Choose Your Legends: Round 3
    -   2.4 Choose Your Legends: Round 4
-   3 Trivia
-   4 In other languages

Units

[edit source]

+-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
| Rank                  | Info                  | Votes                 |
+=======================+=======================+=======================+
| 21                    | []                    | 12,083                |
|                       |                       |                       |
|                       | []                    |                       |
|                       |                       |                       |
|                       | Dorcas                |                       |
|                       | The Blazing Blade     |                       |
+-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+

+-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
| Rank                  | Info                  | Votes                 |
+=======================+=======================+=======================+
| 185                   | []                    | 1,372                 |
|                       |                       |                       |
|                       | []                    |                       |
|                       |                       |                       |
|                       | Dorcas                |                       |
|                       | The Blazing Blade     |                       |
+-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+

+-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
| Rank                  | Info                  | Votes                 |
+=======================+=======================+=======================+
| 287                   | []                    | 730                   |
|                       |                       |                       |
|                       | []                    |                       |
|                       |                       |                       |
|                       | Dorcas                |                       |
|                       | The Blazing Blade     |                       |
+-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+

+-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+
| Rank                  | Info                  | Votes                 |
+=======================+=======================+=======================+
| 347                   | []                    | 327                   |
|                       |                       |                       |
|                       | []                    |                       |
|                       |                       |                       |
|                       | Dorcas                |                       |
|                       | The Blazing Blade     |                       |
+-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+

Trivia[edit | edit source]

-

In other languages[edit | edit source]

  Language                       Name
  ------------------------------ ----------
  Japanese                       ドルカス
  German                         Dorcas
  Spanish (Europe)               Dorcas
  Spanish (Latin America)        Dorcas
  French                         Dorcas
  Italian                        Dorcas
  Traditional Chinese (Taiwan)   多爾卡斯
  Portuguese                     Dorcas

question: Is Fire Emblem Heroes an online game?

answer: This information can't be found.


text:
*Clinging to Kayaks is a project that I experimented with a bit. The term flash fiction has been thrown around me a lot lately. I enjoy the idea of brief bits of stories. CtK takes one paragraph stories and strings them together into a collection. Originally I wrote these (and others I did not include here) with no cohesive order and they are posted like that on my blog. I decided arranging them together would be nice for my first post here. Let me know if I inadvertently broke any rules!*

Clinging to Kayaks.1.

The paper airplane had a note written on it. It was intended to help someone worse off than myself. Uplifting and hopeful it was sent flying out the 52nd story window where my office sat. I watched it spiral out of sight into the masses below. I knew nobody would catch it. That it would be trampled under the hundreds of hurried feet, unnoticed, unread, uncared for. Sighing I sharpened another pencil and pulled another blank sheet towards me. Then I clicked “next” on his computer screen, wondering what airplane design #143 looked like.

Clinging to Kayaks.2.

You say you hate the colour brown. I promise not to wear my favourite shirt around you. But I was joking. You didn't get it and probably never will and in all honesty it was a bad joke. You run when things get serious and are afraid of getting close to someone. I'm afraid I'll never get close to anyone. Maybe that's why you ran from me. At first I joked about Pulp Fiction and your tongue piercing. You had never watched it and didn't get that joke either. I realized that I wasn't a comedian of any sorts and asked if you wanted to watch it together. Plans were made. The plans fell through. I imagined you on a road in ragged clothes like Forrest Gump running away from me. I deleted your number after that.

Clinging to Kayaks.3.

I looked up the distance to your house. 147.3 miles. Satellite images showed your little red car and backyard pool. You had invited me swimming one night. It was late. Even though it was hot and I felt like swimming I declined. You begged me to come. Promised me a great time. I quickly told you goodnight and exited the chat window. Instead I got wicked drunk, telling myself I could always go in the morning. That’s how it was for me. Always the next morning. Always the chat window, the alcohol, and the next morning.

Clinging to Kayaks.4.

I feel the days like slow techno beats. Each morning I take an eraser to the whiteboard and refresh the countdown. Ninety days were forever, three months just an abstract. Habits formed and time ticked away. It didn't even occur to me when I hit thirty-three. But twenty got my attention. Then single digits came and the whiteboard became the center of my universe. A monk's dedication was nothing compared to my daily diligence. Large, bold, blue numbers announcing to my dining room your arrival. Tomorrow is three and each day drops heavy in my mind. I hope that when you draw zero we can change the beat.

Clinging to Kayaks.5.

I had no idea what you were saying. Likewise you couldn't understand me in the slightest. Instead of a barrier it became a game. Each of us laughing at the others failed attempts at communication. When words failed we used our hands, tracing our thoughts until smiles erupted on each of our faces. As I kissed you the smiles traveled from our lips to our eyes, locking them together. And as your arms wrapped around me I knew I was in over my head.

Clinging to Kayaks.6.

You poured sugar in my coffee just to see my reaction. $1.40 later I was black and bitter again. You told me my life needed to shine more and you didn't understand why I was never happy in the morning. You grabbed another sugar packet and I growled. I didn't understand why you couldn't just let me wake up experiencing the worst part of my day, knowing that it was over by the time I started work, with your smile to look forward to by the time I came home.

Clinging to Kayaks.7.

We sat on leather seats and let the radio blend with the raindrops. Both were a background to our soft conversation. We talked about stars and no stars and lights and no lights. We didn't mention darkness, just the absence of light. We talked like the darkness was temporary, as if it was only a matter of time before the light would return. We had confidence in this and confidence in ourselves. Arms were intertwined and I could feel your chest rising and falling against mine. Together we watched the world spin through the rain streaked window, letting the morning sun brighten everything. Just like we knew it would.

Clinging to Kayaks.8.

We sit silent as these nights start to come earlier and the temperature drops more than the night before. Your depression worsens with each snowfall. You have always been desperate for the warmth of spring. I watch the thermometer with heightened anticipation. Every lost degree is another chance to pull you closer to me. I love the cold simply because it keeps you around. I know as soon as the sun reappears again I will lose you, gone to the distant hills. Yet for now your wanderlust is frozen. You are mine for the duration.

Clinging to Kayaks.9.

I found a camera that shows the future when I look through it upside down. My pack of cigarettes is crumpled and short seven or eight. The last few I’m sure are crooked and bent. I pull one out and discover I’m right. It’s nothing but sad. But smoke is smoke and I hang upside down letting it drift past my toes as I look at you through the lens. You twirl and spin for me. Your hair is let down and you are smiling. I think about what we’d see if you tried the camera on me. Perhaps a new pack of cigarettes. Or a clean shirt for a change. I figure that if in the future you are smiling then those things are definitely within reason. Regardless, we definitely have a long way to go from here.

Clinging to Kayaks.10.

I came home to find you in my room. You were rearranging my bookcase, ordering all the books from sad to happy which resulted in no distinct order at all. You knew I was going to read them all sooner or later and wanted me to finish with a sense of happiness. Pulling one off the shelf at random I began to read. You were upset. “That’s longing turning to fulfillment! You have to start with empty and lost!” You thrust another book into my hands from the bottom of the bookcase. I told you that I was already lost and I wanted fulfillment. You asked if I was longing. I thought it was obvious. Neither of us realized that none of the books could fix us.

Clinging to Kayaks.11.

The television became an awkward bystander as you started yelling. Its flickering screen flashing on our faces. I stayed quiet. You wanted to know how I planned on fixing this. You didn't understand that I was silent because I had no answer. I looked around the room and let your words wash over me. The clock in the corner glowed in bold red. The computer had small blinking white lights everywhere. All of these lights kept glowing even though tomorrow was a mystery. You wanted to pull the plug on us for the same reason. Uncertainty was killing you, yet it didn't matter at all to the lights. The clock ticked over to eleven after eleven. And as you slammed the door I wished for you.

Clinging to Kayaks.12.

You asked me what I knew about it at all. You said that I had never been in your position. That I had never been at the bottom. You screamed that I could never understand. Silent under your attack I smiled softly. You were furious. In your mind I was judgmental and condescending. In your mind I was an alien to this world. You finally paused for a moment and asked if I had anything to say. I didn’t. I just showed you my wrist and walked away.

Clinging to Kayaks.13.

The crushed cans and spinning room was not the only scar you left me with as the door slammed shut behind you. All of those whispers in the dark, making plans and pathways to dreams that were eagerly shattered. Our world was full of hope and I thought nothing could ever change that. I learned that you loved to imagine love and that I was not enough. You told me to forget and never dwell. The way you held me so tight made me believe you were lying. That was when I finally realized that humans were the monsters hiding underneath our beds.

Clinging to Kayaks.14

I drank for forty-eight hours straight and never threw-up. I considered that an achievement. I didn't consider the girl in bed with me an achievement. I don't remember half of what I said that night. Everyone else was proud of me though. They were impressed. Maybe. I lost my sandals that night. The next morning we cleaned and filled three full sized garbage bags with cans. None of them were mine. I threw my two empty glass bottles into the back of the truck. I almost threw them in the lake, just to watch them in the water. They chimed as they collided in the truck bed and my head hurt with the sound. I noticed then that the sun was too bright and the world too loud. My head spun and I laughed at myself. I gripped the edge of the sink, stared straight into my eyes in the mirror, and laughed at myself. They asked if I was okay with strange tones and then left me alone. I never did find my sandals.

Clinging to Kayaks.15.

They say if it’s meant to be you will come back. I stare at the sky and wonder what it feels like to be swallowed. By a mouth, by the sky, by time. I mark the spot I lost you and wait for the clock to tick back to the exact moment. My neck begins to ache from staring up after you for so long. But the universe is just too big and the clock never reverses direction. They say if it’s meant to be you will come back. I think they really mean that you were meant to be far away from me.

Clinging to Kayaks.16.

Sometimes I stare into the dark just to see you. When the sun is gone and the stars are hiding too I can feel you. They say at night to look just to the side of the object you want to look at. It has something to do with the rods and cones in your eyes they said. Sometimes I stare right at you. Sometimes I stare to your left. Sometimes I stare to your right. I never really find you. But I know you are there, just as the stars are there. I ask you to come closer. I ask you why the sky is dark at night if the universe is filled with hidden stars. You leave me to figure it out by myself which is the best way to learn. I take lessons on astronomy and how to strengthen my night vision. I whisper what I learn to you. Every time I step closer to you I know that you step back. I really want to see you. But I think you know that.

Clinging to Kayaks.17.

I said the sunset was cotton candy and you laughed at that. The water beneath us looked cold and what I imagined death might be like. Somewhere in the distance someone was frantic. There were sirens. You unscrewed one of the supports of the dock which brought it closer to the water. You said you felt sorry for the dock. All the boats led exciting lives. Even docks wanted to see the world. I just nodded and tossed an anchor into the water, tying the other end of the line tight to the slats we stood on. You had moved on to the third support with your screwdriver by then. As the sirens faded I said the sunset was cotton candy and you asked me if I knew how to swim.

-Ryan Avery

title: Clinging to Kayaks

question: What's one theme that ties the independent short stories together?

answer: Several of the paragraph-length stories deal with love: new love explored, or love lost.

question: Who is the protagonist?


text:
Yesterday, Bryce Harper returned from the disabled list. This is good news for the Nationals, since Bryce Harper is good at baseball. Having more good baseball players is not a bad thing for a team trying to win, so a returning Harper is a net positive for the organization. However, Harper’s return is not entirely without controversy.

As Wendy Thurm noted after her conversation withRyan Zimmerman a few weeks ago, Zimmerman enjoyed playing the outfield more than he enjoyed playing third base. His shoulder issues, and the mental pressure that came with making the throw across the diamond, were not a factor in the outfield, allowing him to enjoy the game in a way that he wasn’t at third base. However, Harper’s return means that there is not an outfield spot for Zimmerman any longer, and on Monday night, he went back to third base.

Before the game, Bryce Harper publicly disagreed with the decision.

  “I think (Zimmerman) should be playing left,” Harper said. “Rendon’s a good third baseman. He should be playing third. We’ve got one of the best second basemen in the league in Danny Espinosa. Of course, we want the best-hitting lineup in there. I think Rendon playing third and Zim playing left is something that would be good for this team. I think that should be what’s happening.”

Essentially, Harper’s return forced Matt Williams to make a choice between two players: Denard Span and Danny Espinosa. If Span plays, Zimmerman has to play third, pushing Rendon back to second base, which puts Espinosa back on the bench. If Espinosa plays, then Rendon can play third, Harper shifts to center field, and an outfield spot opens up for Zimmerman. While Harper and Zimmerman are the two most notable players in the story, this is really an evaluation of Span and Espinosa.

And when you evaluate those two players, this shouldn’t even be a particularly hard decision. Here is what the pair have done over the past three calendar years.

  Name             PA     AVG     OBP     SLG     wOBA    wRC+   BsR    Off     Def    WAR
  ---------------- ------ ------- ------- ------- ------- ------ ------ ------- ------ -----
  Denard Span      1621   0.272   0.324   0.382   0.312   96     10.0   3.2     22.7   8.1
  Danny Espinosa   1421   0.228   0.296   0.367   0.292   81     0.9    -29.5   24.5   4.1

And here is what they have done just this year, for those who still think a half season’s worth of performance should drive roster decisions.

  Name             PA    AVG     OBP     SLG     wOBA    wRC+   BsR   Off    Def    WAR
  ---------------- ----- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------ ----- ------ ------ -----
  Denard Span      335   0.265   0.312   0.388   0.309   95     3.8   2.1    -0.7   1.2
  Danny Espinosa   268   0.217   0.284   0.348   0.278   74     0.2   -7.7   2.6    0.3

As plain as it can be: Denard Span is a better player than Danny Espinosa, and it isn’t particularly close. Span has a consistent track record as a roughly league average hitter, and his baserunning value pushes him a little above that mark in total offense; Espinosa isn’t anywhere close to that. Over the course of a full season, the difference in offensive performance between the two is worth about a win and a half.

And defensively, they’re roughly equivalent in the field. Over 5,600 innings in center field, Span’s career UZR/150 is +5. In 3,600 innings at second base, Espinosa’s UZR/150 is +5. Given that Espinosa is 27 and Span is 30, you might give a slight edge to Espinosa’s glove going forward just due to aging curves, but the gap is not going to be particularly large. At most, you might estimate that Espinosa is a few runs better per season than Span is in the outfield.

But, of course, the question isn’t just how well they stack up individually, but rather, how well the team’s entire defense stacks up when one or the other is in the line-up. The argument for Espinosa essentially revolves around Rendon and Zimmerman. If Zimmerman is more comfortable in the outfield than at third base, and third base is Rendon’s natural position, maybe they make up the offensive gap that exists between Span and Espinosa?

We don’t have the tools necessary to make definitive declarations about Zimmerman’s defensive value as a left fielder, but we can make some assumptions based on what we do know about his defense at third base and defense in general. While Zimmerman certainly is no longer the quality defender at third base that he was earlier in his career, there isn’t much in the way of evidence that suggests that he’s going to be a disaster there.

His shoulder problems began back in 2011 and the throwing issues followed soon after, significantly decreasing his defensive value as an infielder, but he’s still played nearly 3,500 innings at third base since the start of 2011 and has been decent enough to avoid disaster status. His UZR/150 over that stretch is -6, while DRS actually has him even closer to league average. He hasn’t been good there, but it’s not like he’s spent several years showing why he needs to be moved off the position immediately.

Last year was his worst year at third base by UZR, and he is getting older, so perhaps you want to be aggressive with the weighting and project him as a -10 third baseman going forward. That’s within the realm of reason, especially given that Zimmerman has a stated preference to not play there going forward. But how much better does we think he’s going to be in the outfield, realistically? He’s not fast and he doesn’t have much experience in the outfield, so while the early returns have him being good enough to play out there, he’s not going to be an above average defensive outfielder.

Speed score isn’t a perfect measure by any stretch of the imagination, but it does a decent job of bucketing players as “fast” or “slow” based on their stolen bases and distribution of extra base hits. A league average speed score is about 4.5; Zimmerman’s career average is 3.6. This year, he’s at 1.2. It’s probably fair to say he’s a below average runner, and only getting slower. For reference, here is the 2011-2014 UZR/150 for left fielders with a speed score below 3.5.

  Name              Inn     Speed   UZR/150
  ----------------- ------- ------- ---------
  Raul Ibanez       2,785   3.5     -15.5
  Matt Holliday     4,107   3.1     -3.8
  Josh Willingham   2,735   2.5     -10.5
  Delmon Young      1,755   1.8     -12.5
  Michael Morse     2,092   1.6     -21.2

Yeah. Zimmerman is almost certainly more mobile than Morse, Ibanez, or Young, but being better than the worst defensive players in baseball doesn’t make you good. It would probably be charitable to project Zimmerman as anything close to an average defensive left fielder, given his size and lack of experience, and he might very well be just as poor in left field as he would be at third base. If there is a significant defensive upgrade to be gained, it’s probably no more than five runs over a full season, or a third of the offensive difference between Span and Espinosa.

And it’s very unlikely that Rendon make sup the other two-thirds of that difference by shifting from second base to third base. Since he has fewer than 1,000 inning in his career at both positions, defensive metrics don’t tell us much, but neither UZR nor DRS suggest that Rendon has been significantly better at third base than he has been at second base. Given his depth of experience at third base, it’s probably fair to expect him to be better at that position going forward, but the magnitude of the gap is just not going to be that large.

And we haven’t even touched on Harper himself, who would have to slide over to center field without Span in the lineup. Even if we take very aggressive stances on the defensive value of Zimmerman as an LF and Rendon as a 3B, we’d still have to mitigate those gains by pushing Harper into center field, where he’s likely to be less valuable.

To boil things down, we have a lot of evidence that suggests that there’s a big gap between Span and Espinosa at the plate. We have basically no evidence that suggests that the defensive improvement from putting Rendon back at third base and Zimmerman in the outfield would even cancel out that gap, much less make the Nationals better. To have a strong preference for Espinosa over Span, one would have to think that there could be something like a 25 run difference in defensive value to be gained by having Rendon play third, Zimmerman play left, and Harper play center. There’s just no reason to think that’s true.

And even the intangible argument about Zimmerman’s comfort level lacks much in the way of support. While I think a player’s preference for position should be included in the discussion of where he is going to play, the data does nothing for Zimmerman’s case that he feels less pressure in the outfield and enjoys the game more; he has a .496 wOBA in 40 plate appearances as a third baseman and a .267 wOBA in 108 plate appearances as a left fielder. The samples are tiny and the numbers are basically useless, but the do-it-for-Zimmerman’s-feelings case would be stronger if he weren’t crushing the ball while playing third and hitting like Danny Espinosa while enjoying the game in left field.

Not that his feelings and preferences don’t matter; they do. They just don’t matter enough right now, given the team’s current options for fielding a line-up. The fact that Zimmerman wants to play the outfield should be a goal for the Nationals to get him there at some point, but realistically, it’s going to take a trade or two to make it a good idea for the franchise.

If they could trade Denard Span for a better second baseman than Danny Espinosa, that might not be a terrible solution. But there are a lot of teams that need second baseman, and there aren’t a lot of them available. Getting Zimmerman off of third base after this season is a good idea, but playing Danny Espinosa over Denard Span right now just to placate his preference is not. And Zimmerman, for his part, has been willing to go back to third base to help the team win.

And that’s where Williams put him, because that’s the current alignment that gives the Nationals the best chance to win baseball games in 2014. That will likely change in the future, and the front office can take proactive steps to help Zimmerman get back to the outfield in the future, but as long as the choice is between Denard Span and Danny Espinosa, Ryan Zimmerman should play third base.

question: What does the article say about Bryce Harper's return from the disabled list?

answer: Bryce Harper returned from the disabled list. This is good news for the Nationals since Bryce Harper is good at baseball, but Harper’s return means that there is not an outfield spot for Zimmerman any longer, and he went back to third base. Additionally, Harper’s return forced Matt Williams to make a choice between two players: Denard Span and Danny Espinosa.

question: What does the article say about Span's personal life?

question: What does the article say about Harper's relationship with Zimmerman?

answer: When Harper returned, Zimmerman went to third base. Bryce Harper publicly disagreed with the decision and argued that Zimmerman should be playing left because that would be good for this team.


text:
'Tomorrow will just have to be what today wasn't'. That was my mother’s mantra. She said it after every hard shift, every failed test, every break up, and every argument. She whispered it into my ears as she wiped tears off my cheeks. I used to tell myself the same thing when things went awry. I had always put faith into words, especially those words. Words defined my life.
It was 4:15 in the morning on the sixteenth of July. There was nothing special about the time or the date, but my brain woke me up regardless. I remember how cold it was in my room. I reached out of bed, tapped the small touch lamp on the bedside table, grabbed the robe that hung off the post of my bed and buried myself inside of it. Sliding my feet into my slippers, I crossed the room to turn on my space heater.

Had I lived anywhere else, the heater probably would’ve been stored away with holiday decorations and winter jackets, but I didn’t live anywhere else. I lived in a studio apartment with very little space. I didn’t own any holiday decorations and all of my winter clothes were hung up and stuffed into my little closet behind all of my summer clothes. I crossed the room and turned the knob on my fourteen dollar space heater to the single notch that signified power level one. The lamp lost a little bit of light. I shuffled toward my bed, kicked off the slippers and did a belly flop onto the mattress. The room filled with the quiet hum of the heater converting the temperature of the air and I squirmed under the comforter. Laying in my bed, wrapped in a robe and snuggled under a blanket, I knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep that night. I had only slept for about three hours and already my brain had kicked me into consciousness and given me the finger. I laid there for a few minutes and decided, ’Fuck it. If I’m going to be awake, I’m going to work’. I grabbed the laptop from the other side of the end table, nearly knocking the lamp off as I did. I pushed the lamp back into place, increasing its brightness ever so slightly. I flipped the laptop open and was greeted by a page full of text.

Words had always comforted me. Growing up, my mother always knew exactly what to say to make things better. She had so many pearls of wisdom to hand out and I had always eagerly accepted them. It had just been her and I growing up. After I was born, the doctor told her she wouldn’t have any more children. Her husband, who I refused to acknowledge as being my father (why should I, I never even saw his face), couldn’t stand to be with a woman who couldn’t provide him with a son so he left her with her daughter without a trace. Kids at school were always kind enough to point out how weird it was that Lindsay didn’t have a dad and when I would report their observations to my mother, she would always get down on her knees, put her hands on my shoulders and ask me, “Are those children smarter than you?” to which I always replied, “No”. Her follow up would be something similar to “Are the girls prettier than you?” This question had bothered me because I looked nothing like my mother (which, naturally, meant that I looked like her ex-husband). But, in the end, the answer was usually “No”. She would ask if they were stronger or braver than me and, as the queen of dares and arm wrestling, I always responded in the negative. She would wrap all of these questions up with one final one, the only one that really mattered.

“So then, Lindsay, are the kids with fathers better than you?”

And I always knew they weren’t. There were some kids in town that were, but they all went to a private school and I never had to see them anyway. I went to the only public school in my town. Everyone knew everyone else and we were all poor. No one had a guest bedroom and most of the houses had only one bathroom. My mom worked as a nurse during the day at the local nursing home and bartended during the night. She was always home when I woke up, when school let out, and when I went to sleep. As soon as I was old enough, I got a job helping out at the library after school. I got lost in books and excelled in English and ended up writing my way out of that little town and into Chicago. I took my mother with me, but she didn’t make it very long in a big city. She was exceedingly proud of my success but I always told her that she was the one who had given it to me.

I opened the laptop to find a page mostly filled with words. They were small money words. I hadn’t produced big money words since my mother died. I watched the cursor blink, waiting to be jettisoned across the screen by a slew of creativity or inspiration but it just stood there and blinked at me. I was in the middle of reading the paragraph preceding the boring cursor when I heard a rattling outside of my bedroom. My brain shut down and I stared at my bedroom door, waiting to see if it would bust inward. Someone was in my apartment. I knew that because the closest I came to a pet was the plastic tree by the front door and the dead fern by the window. I remember thinking ’Who the fuck would break in to my shitty apartment?’ but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that somebody had. My lamp was on and my laptop was illuminating my room, so whoever it was probably knew that I was awake. Did they know that I knew they were there?

title: [MS] Actually looking for feedback on my firsts few paragraphs

question: Who is the narrator's most important familiar relation?

answer: The narrator, Lindsay, never knew her father. Her mother provides her support alone. She helps her to feel better about herself on hard days by providing comforting words. When Lindsay becomes a successful writer she takes her mother with her, but her mother ultimately dies.

question: What does the motif of words mean in the story?

answer: Words function on two levels in the story. On the one hand, the narrator uses words to represent the comfort that her mother offers her in the first paragraph. Then we flash back to learn what caused the narrator pain, and we have more context for what this means. But this is mirrored by the fact that the narrator works as a writer, and we see the idea of "big money words" and "small money words" at the close of the story. This ties together the narrator's struggles, their relationship with their mother, and their vocation all in a single motif.

question: What is the central conflict in the story?

answer: Although a great deal of the story deals with the narrator's emotions surrounding her upbringing, there is foreshadowing that there will be a conflict from the beginning of the second paragraph, when the narrator mentions that "there was nothing special about the time or date." This creates tension and leads us to wonder why she woke at this hour. As she reminisces, the interlude helps to build tension, so when it is revealed there is an intruder in the apartment we are on the edge of our seats as readers — this is the central conflict of the story.

question: What happened to the narrator's mother?

answer: The narrator's mother was a single mother whose husband left her after she gave birth to her daughter. This is because the doctors said she could not have any more kids, and he wanted a son. She raised her daughter on her own. Her daughter became a successful writer and moved her to Chicago. She died soon afterward.


text:
The Good Soldier

All around the Good Soldier were ruins. Not sun-bleached, weather-worn ruins like the ones he had seen in Greece.  The Greek ruins had reminded him of the time-polished bones of dead cattle on the ranch back home; white, perfect bones jutting up from the earth and basking in the hot sun.

The ruins he now walked among were not like that. These burned-out, pockmarked, structures were newly dead carcasses. The organs and hide were still intact, rotting on the bones. Smoke drifted from some of the buildings. The streets were empty.

The Good Soldier looked as shoddy as the destroyed buildings around him. His uniform was a disgrace, filthy and torn.  At some point, the left lapel of his jacket had been ripped away. He realized that somehow he had lost his dog-tags.  He had no name now, he couldn’t remember if he had ever had a name.

He had lost his helmet. It made him feel naked, worse than naked. He felt stripped and hung out on display like a newly butchered cow. His close-cropped dark hair was blanched with dust and sand.  His face was encrusted with a powder that had turned to clay after mixing with his sweat.  His blue eyes peered out through a colorless mask.
The Good Soldier kept going, because that’s what good soldiers do. He had his gun, but his amo was spent.  He still carried the gun, for appearances.  He had a long knife on his belt, which was his only real weapon. He met no one as he crept down the street among the ruined buildings.

His throat was dry.  For what may have been the thousandth time that day, he glanced down at his watch.  The hour didn’t matter anymore but he glanced at his watch out of habit.  He looked up at the sky. The time his watch gave didn’t seem to match the sky.  Could it really be mid-day?  The sky wasn’t bright; it was a sickly, yellowish-brown.  Probably it was approaching evening.  The air wasn’t quite as hot. The Good Soldier wiped his forehead.  This too, was habit, since he wasn’t sweating.

He was thirsty but there was no sign of water anywhere. He didn’t see a market among the buildings that lined the street.  There was no public fountain, and not even a dirty canal. He wasn’t desperately thirsty, yet. He walked on.  An explosion had blanketed the street with a tawny layer of dust.  The Good Soldier’s boots made the first marks in the flawless surface.  Further on, he noticed the footprints of dogs, but there were no human or vehicle tracks.

He kept going and walked so far that he realized suddenly that he had reached the outskirts of the ruined town. He walked further onto an open road. He stopped and looked back, little wisps of smoke rose from the battered structures which now crouched in the distance, yellowish plaster and concrete against yellowish sky.  It was certainly evening now, he thought.

The road he walked on was gravel and extremely straight and flat.  It led out from the town and onward until it reached the horizon.  There were fields on either side of the road but they were brown and desolate. They weren’t green like fields in East Texas, he thought.
He followed the road. He was completely vulnerable now, out in open terrain with a gun he couldn’t fire. The sun fell hot on the back of his neck. There was no reason to keep walking.  There was also no reason to turn back since he felt no fear.  He had never considered himself brave and his lack of fear wasn’t courage. He followed the road a long distance and the scenery didn’t change: dry, flat fields, a few distant structures where gunmen might hide.  The town fell further away behind him.  Though he didn’t know why, he had decided to follow the road all the way to the horizon.

Then he spotted a dun-colored cloud in the distance ahead of him.  It was either a dust-devil or a vehicle traveling along the road. He watched with a detached expression as the dust-cloud grew closer.  It seemed to take quite a long time to make its way.  The topography was very flat and the horizon was very far away.  Finally he could make out the truck, it was a MRAP, an armored fighting vehicle.  A huge cloud of dust followed behind.  The roaring of the engine and the noise of the tires grew louder. The Good Soldier stepped to the side of the road and waved his arm as the vehicle approached.  It came to a halt thirty feet away from him.  The dust-cloud that trailed the MRAP overtook it when it stopped and engulfed the MRAP and the Good Soldier. He coughed.  The dust began to clear. He walked toward the MRAP.  The door opposite him, the passenger side door, opened. An arm slung over the open door and a helmeted head popped up.  A man stared at the Good Soldier out of dark eyes.

“What are you doing?” the man said.

“Walking. I’m lost”

“You can ride with us if you know the password” the other man said. His face was young and still childishly round but his mouth and eyes were tightened in a harsh expression.

The Good Soldier thought for a moment. He couldn’t remember any passwords. He tried to think back to recent training.  He couldn’t remember anything about passwords. He felt baffled and very lost.

“I don’t know any password, sir”

The other soldier stared for a couple of seconds through the waning cloud of dust, now the air was almost clear again. The Good Soldier stared back with a blank expression.  The dust made little dunes above his eyelashes and had formed crusts at the corners of his blue eyes. Then the man’s head disappeared from above the door and the door banged shut.  A moment later the MRAP was rolling forward again.   The Good Soldier watched as it began to move, then he turned away to avoid the wake of dust.  A new coating of powder was added to the back of his uniform as he heard the noise of the engine and the grind of the tires fading gradually into the distance behind him. He continued walking in the opposite direction.  Soon, the road was quiet again.
The Good Soldier continued forward along the road. He got thirstier as he went and his boots got heavier.  He saw some dry ditches long the roadside but no water.  Time passed but the undefined sun didn’t seem to change its position in the sky. The heat felt the same on the back of his neck.

The Good Soldier tried to unknow things as he walked. He had learned too much.  "Thinking themselves wise they have become fools" was his mother's favorite Bible verse. The Good Soldier had become the biggest fool he could imagine.  He thought about praying, more out of habit than anything. He could pray for water like Elijah, or for another MRAP to come along, he could pray for his buddies in combat or his friends at home, for himself, for his parents, for world peace. He smiled to himself and the clay mask around his lips was full of cracks. He had prayed too much before, there were no prayers left in him. Praying brought no comfort, only a sickening sensation. He knew how pathetic he was when he prayed.  He was selfish and only thought about himself.  He glanced at his watch.  The numbers had disappeared. The watch was dead. He shook his arm and tapped on the smooth, glass face of the watch.

He kept walking. He remembered how it was back at base. He imagined himself in his bunk. There was a box fan that one of the guys turned on at night.  The sound was mesmerizing.  He loved the vacant, white noise of the humming fan.  It was so soft and comforting.  He missed the fan.  Then he felt a bit nauseous that he had found comfort in the thought of a humming fan.

The Good Soldier perceived something ahead of him on the road. It was a figure.  The outlines were blurred by heat waves, he hadn’t realized how hot it still was. He kept walking.  As they approached each other, the figure became more defined.  It was a man in a dark robe. The man had a gray beard. Some sort of cleric, the Good Soldier thought.  He kept walking and he didn’t feel nervous.  As the figure approached, the Good Soldier waved to him.  The man waved back and then they were close to each other and their eyes met.   The robed man’s eyes were dark but his complexion was fair. His robe was black and he wore a hood over his gray hair. His long beard now seemed less like a cleric and more like a wizard.  The Good Soldier had read a lot of Harry Potter when he was a kid.

“Hello” the wizard said in a plain American accent.

“Hello. Who are you, sir?”  The Good Soldier asked.

“Who are you?” the wizard retorted.

“I don’t know, sir” the Good Soldier glanced down at the torn and stained lapel of his jacket.  There was no name there. He reached into the collar of his shirt and remembered he had lost his dog tags. “I guess I’m nobody” he said.

“It would be far more fortunate if you believed that” the wizard said. His voice was matter of fact. “You’re not lucky enough to be nobody”

“Who are you?” the Good Soldier asked. “Why are you out here by yourself?”

The wizard didn’t answer. “We will walk together” he said and gestured with a long arm for the Good Soldier to proceed forward.  “Talking is best while walking”

The Good soldier didn’t question his new companion any further; he felt somehow that questions were pointless now. They walked along in silence for a good space.  The road was deserted and the horizon hadn’t moved, the topography was very flat.  The sun was hot on the back of the Good Soldier’s neck.

“Why are your eyes full of despair?” The wizard asked. The Good Soldier glanced over and saw that the man was peering at him closely out of his large, wrinkle-enwrapped eyes.

There was a long pause, with just the sound of their footsteps crunching on the gravel.  The Good Soldier’s eyes were directed at the ground before his olive-green boots. He looked over and saw that his companion wore sandals and the hem of his black robe was tattered and dirty from the road.

“Some things happened back there” the Good Soldier said at last, taking his hand off his gun to gesture toward the town, now far off in the distance behind them.

“No justice for your friends, no justice for you” The wizard said simply as if reading the Good Soldier’s thoughts.

“Where do I put all this injustice?” the Good Soldier was surprised to hear his own voice rise, almost crack, there was a sudden knot in his throat.

“You have swallowed the injustice. You will carry it around inside your body forever” The wizard said.

There was a long pause.

“I got an email” The Good Soldier said abruptly, and then he trailed off. The clay around his mouth cracked into a frown.  “The only person I ever loved doesn’t love me anymore”

He was looking past the wizard at a place where the sky met the flat earth.  The sky was yellowish-brown, the earth was yellowish-brown. They blended together.

The wizard still peered at him intently, not watching the road in front of him as they walked.

“Biology” the wizard said. "Only matter, matters"

“Yeah, Biology” the Good Soldier said, looking at the wizard. His eyes returned to the road. He wasn’t sure what the wizard meant but he presumed a meaning of his own.

“What will you do without this person?” The wizard asked.

“Suffer”

“What did you do when you had her?”

“I suffered. But it was different; it was suffering with a purpose and a hope at the end and little gaps in the suffering that were full of beauty”

“Now it’s just suffering” the wizard said, shaking his head. “What will become of you?”

“I don’t know. I guess there’s nothing I can do”

“I'm afraid, the more you look at it, the more you will see that you are right”

“Life is meaningless” the Good Soldier said, that was why he had been so fearless the last few weeks, it wasn’t courage.

“If only that were so!” The wizard said, his voice sharp. He raised his hands toward the sky as if supplicating. The sleeves of his dark robe rustled with the movement of his forward steps. “Fools comfort themselves in that.  Or worse they say 'only what doesn't matter, matters'. Unfortunately, life is utterly meaningful. That is why the injustice aches and festers in your belly.  Some are lucky because they believe life is meaningless, but you know better. The truth has imprisoned you just as truth always imprisons those who find it”

The Good Soldier’s blue eyes lingered on the man’s face. It wasn’t a kind face, it was cruel, but not hateful. He didn’t much like the man.

“At least life is short”

“Don’t speak nonsense. You know very well that life is long”

“I don’t see how you mean. I’ve seen lives end, they were too short”

“What happens when you die, answer honestly as a man. Don’t give me bookish answers from your childhood”

The Good Soldier thought for a while.  The crunching of their feet on the road was the only sound.

“Well, nothing I guess.  To all appearances, nothing happens when you die“

“And what does one know when one is dead?”

“Nothing”

“Therefore” the wizard’s voice took on an authoritative ring, “To be, is to be alive. I AM equals I AM alive. There is no such thing as I AM DEAD. To be dead is to not know life and non-life. That is why life is infinite. As long as you know anything, you will know that you are alive”

“That’s not very good news” the Good Soldier said.

“No. Not to one with a belly full of injustice”

The Good Soldier was quiet for a moment. He wasn’t sure if the wizard was correct.

 “What can I do to stop this feeling?” The Good Soldier said at last.

 “Nothing”

The Good Soldier wiped his forehead, he dislodged some of the hardened dust but there was no sweat to wipe away.

“What about love?” The Good Soldier asked.

“Love is a constellation of traits inherited from others….Love is also the Great Alchemy, the Alchemy that transmutes Biology into Paradise....where only what matters, matters"

The Good Soldier nodded.

“Sadly, for you, you’ve inherited a poor collection of traits. Many of the inherited features that compose you have united for your torment”

“What do I do?”  The Good Soldier said.

“What does a good soldier do?” the wizard asked, his lips curled back from around his sharp teeth. The Good Soldier winced at the sight of the ugly smile. Then, without warning the wizard was gone and the Good Soldier found himself walking alone on the dusty road.  The sky was very yellow and the sun was hot on the back of his neck.  His mouth was dry and his boots felt like lead.

He kept walking toward the horizon.

(Note: any and all feedback and criticism welcome and appreciated)

title: The Good Soldier

question: Summarize the good soldier's movements over the course of the story.

answer: The good soldier walks among burned-out, pockmarked ruins. He walks until he reaches the outskirts of town. He heads along a gravel road through some brown and desolate fields. He steps to the side of the road when he notices a vehicle approaching. When the vehicle leaves, he continues walking in the opposite direction from it. He meets up with a man who resembles a wizard and they walk together. They reach a place where the sky and earth are yellowish-brown and blend together. When the wizard vanishes, the good soldier continues walking toward the horizon.

question: What does the story say about the reason for the war?

question: What does the story say about the soldier's life before the war?

answer: He used to live near a cattle ranch and once saw the bones of dead cattle. He does not remember what his name is, having lost his dog tag. He remembers that his mother's favorite Bible verse was "Thinking themselves wise they have become fools." He read a lot of Harry Potter when he was a kid.


text:
_GUNSLINGER_ is a 1956 American western film starring Beverly Garland as Rose Hood, the widow of a slain town marshal who inherits his job. Directed by Roger Corman from a screenplay by Mark Hanna and Charles B. Griffith, the film, shot in colour, also features Allison Hayes as Erica Page, the owner of a saloon, who hires a gunslinger assassin (John Ireland) to kill Rose.

The film began production in February 1956, as director Corman wanted to shoot one final film in six days before a change in union contracts meant that actors were limited to working only five days a week. Filming of _Gunslinger_ was marred by several inconveniences; rain caused the filming location to become muddy, and the two lead actresses were both injured on set. Eventually, _Gunslinger_ was released to mixed reviews, and, in 1993, was featured in a fifth-season episode of the film-mocking comedy television series _Mystery Science Theater 3000._

Plot

After her husband Scott (William Schallert), the marshal of Oracle, Texas, is killed by two assailants, his widow Rose (Beverly Garland) is named temporary marshal. That night, Rose asks Erica Page (Allison Hayes) to close her saloon at 3 AM in accordance with town regulations, but Erica insists her saloon is open for business 24 hours. The women fight, but eventually Erica, who loses the fight, closes for the night. After Rose exits, Erica tells lackey Jake (Jonathan Haze) to hire a killer, which he does, finding a man named Cane Miro (John Ireland). As Cane enters town, Rose shoots at him, mistaking him for a man she has been searching out. She apologizes. Cane tells Rose that he has come to Oracle to see town mayor Gideon Polk (Martin Kingsley).

Cane enters Erica's saloon, where Polk has been telling her that she has overextended herself by buying property along a proposed railroad track. Cane confronts Polk until Erica requests he stop. Erica reveals that Rose is the woman whom she paid Cane to kill; however, if the proposed railroad track is a success, she admits that Rose may not have to die.

Rose follows Cane as he exits town. When he stops to let her catch up, they talk and eventually kiss. Jake watches and reports to Erica, who becomes irate. She demands he kill Rose immediately. Cane reminds her that they cannot change the deal they made.

Cane later explains to Rose that Polk had been his commander of an artillery battery at a battle which could have been a victory but that Polk panicked and ran, depressing his men, with those who didn't desert their positions being decimated, including Cane's brothers, or captured like Cane himself. Rose makes Cane promise not to harm Polk, but still has Polk placed in protective custody.

Cane becomes intoxicated. Erica enters his room, and Jake, who has been spying, sees the two kiss, but leaves before he sees Cane reject Erica. An embarrassed Erica orders Cane to kill Rose no matter what. When she returns to her saloon, Jake slaps her. Jake goes to Rose's office and tells her everything he knows. Back at the saloon, Jake draws a gun on Cane, who kills him. Rose does not arrest him as Erica claims it was self-defense.

After receiving a letter from the Pony Express, informing her that the railroad will not be built, Erica rides into town, intending to have Cane kill Rose. Deputy Joshua Tate (Chris Alcaide) is killed when he confronts them. Cane goes after Polk, killing his wife when she shields him. Cane then shoots and kills Polk. Rose enters town and Erica aims at her, but Erica is shot by Cane before she can pull the trigger. Rose and Cane exchange fire. After he is shot, Cane asks if Rose loved him, and she replies that she did. Cane's wound is fatal, and Rose rides out of Oracle, declaring she will never come back.

Cast

-   Beverly Garland ... Marshal Rose Hood
-   John Ireland ... Cane Miro
-   Allison Hayes ... Erica Page
-   Martin Kingsley ... Mayor Gideon Polk
-   Jonathan Haze ... Jake Hayes
-   Margaret Campbell ... Felicity Polk
-   Bruno VeSota ... Zebelon Tabb
-   Chris Alcaide ... Deputy Joshua Tate
-   Dick Miller ... Jimmy Tonto
-   William Schallert ... Marshal Scott Hood
-   Kermit Maynard ... Barfly

Production

Development

[_Gunslinger_ was directed by B movie filmmaker Roger Corman.] _Gunslinger_{{'}}s screenplay was written by Mark Hanna and Charles B. Griffith, from an idea by Corman, who proposed a Western film where a sheriff is murdered while on duty, and the sheriff's widow inherits the job. Griffith was hired when Jonathan Haze showed several of Griffith's screenplays to Corman, with Corman being impressed enough to hire him.

Griffith had written two Westerns for Corman which had not been made. “He took me out to see _Three Hours to Kill_ [Alfred L. Werker, 1954] with Dana Andrews and said to me, 'I want you to do the same picture but with a woman as the sheriff'”, said Griffith.[1]

Corman later said, I'm weary of prepackaged formulas, and when you try out a new idea, you necessarily think about shooting a hackneyed scene in a funny way without resorting to parody. This wasn't a parody, it was “Good God, how can I find a different sort of gunslinger?” Right away, I thought of a woman gunslinger, and the idea for the script came to me all of a sudden. It was the sheriff's wife. He's killed and she takes over for her husband. It was logical when it wasn't, but that was enough for a six-or seven-day western.[2]

It was originally known as _The Yellow Rose of Texas_.[3]

Filming

_Gunslinger_ began production on 22 January 1956,[4][5] as the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and the film studios renegotiated for a five-day work week instead of six. Director Roger Corman decided to film a low-budget Western in six days before the new contract took effect, with Gene Corman providing half of the financing. Shot at the Jack Ingram Western Movie Ranch[6] in Topanga, California, it rained for five days during the shoot. Corman had to go over schedule, taking seven days instead of six, which he recounted as the only time he had ever done so. The rain made the area muddy, causing trucks, cameras, and lighting equipment to sink. When the crew left the set, Corman did not hire a guard, telling the film's assistant director that “anyone who'd come out here, steal the equipment, and carry it through this mud is welcome to get it.”

Due to the quick shooting schedule, the rain forced several exterior scenes to be re-written to be shot inside. Other scenes were shot with a large tarp draped over the actors. Due to the fact that the rainfall was audible in the background, Corman used the film's score and an assortment of sound effects to drown out the noise. The first scene shot was Beverly Garland and John Ireland's love scene in a tree. The tree was home to a colony of red ants, who crawled all over the actors and repeatedly bit them.

Actors were injured several times on set. One day, Allison Hayes' horse slipped in the mud, causing her to fall off. Hayes broke her arm. While the crew waited for an ambulance to arrive, Corman shot a reel of close-ups of Hayes looking left and right, with the intent of splicing them in to the final cut while using a double to shoot other scenes. When shooting wrapped, the crew all signed Hayes' orthopedic cast.

In another instance, a scene called for Garland to exit the saloon, jump on a horse, and ride out of town. When the scene was shot, Garland jumped over the horse instead of on it, so the scene had to be shot again. During the second take, she twisted her ankle running down the stairs in the saloon, but continued the scene. When Garland returned home, she thought it would feel good to put her ankle in a warm bath and did. She left it there for about an hour, but when she took it out, she found that it had swollen to twice its normal size. When she returned to the set, Corman said, “Well, we have to start shooting.” In order to fit her ankle into her boot, the crew cut the back of it and taped it to her foot. Garland was unable to walk for nearly a week after _Gunslinger_ finished shooting, writing that “I had screwed up my ankle so bad!”

While Corman described the production of _Gunslinger_ as “one of the worst experiences of my life” and Hayes wanted to leave the film during shooting, Garland considered Rose Hood one of her favorite roles, noting that:

  I think I was the first woman to play a marshal in a movie western. Roger would often cast against type in those days. I could never resist a plum role like a lady marshal in a genre that would never have considered such a gender reversal like that before. However, working with Roger was always an adventure and this film was no exception.

Corman later said

  My Texas distributor arrived in the city where I was filming and asked me how it was going. I told him that I thought that it was good but that there was too much violence and passion, and he answered, “Roger, I’ve been in this business for forty years, and you’ve been in it for just two. Let me tell you that no one has ever made a film with too much passion and violence.” So I pressed on. Everyone was dying. At the end of the film half of the city was dead.[7]

Release

Reception

Released in October 1956, _Gunslinger_ has received mixed reviews from critics.

_The Hollywood Reporter_ called it “quite a startling Western” and praised the two lead actresses, saying “Miss Garland and Hayes are good as the feuding ladies from different sides of the tracks.”

_Variety_ wrote that “with such a twist to the conventional western plot, this Roger Corman production should get its share of playing time attention in the program market.”[8]

_VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever_ praised _Gunslinger_ for being a “unique western with a surprise ending.” In _The Encyclopedia of Western Movies_, _Gunslinger_ was praised for exploring the potential of a woman gunfighter, and that it was “the most assured of Corman's quartet of Westerns.” In his book _Western Movies: A Guide to 5,105 Feature Films_, Michael R. Pitts said that it was an “early six day Roger Corman cheapie that is rather appealing.”

Adversely, Bill Gibron, writing for DVD Verdict, gave _Gunslinger_ a negative review, writing, “Roger Corman was responsible for a lot of smoldering cinematic cowflops over the course of his economically sound career, but _Gunslinger_ has got to be one of the most overripe and ridiculous.” While he stated that “Beverly Garland, who plays our dispassionate Rose, and John Ireland, as the cool and callous Cane Myro, are decent enough”, he wrote that “there isn't much to recommend in this movie”, saying that “there's too much unresolved intrigue, too many easy answers to rotten questions, to make heads or tails of what is supposed to matter.”[9] _TV Guide_ gave _Gunslinger_ two stars, and said that “it's a strange little Corman film, made before he went wholeheartedly for horror films, and this too has a semi-sense of the strange.”[10] Film reviewer Leonard Maltin gave _Gunslinger_ one star and a half.

Home video

_Gunslinger_ was released on DVD by Optimum Home Entertainment on September 15, 2008, as part of _Roger Corman: The Collection_, which included five other Corman-directed films: _Five Guns West_, _The Haunted Palace_, _The Premature Burial_, _The Masque of Red Death_ and _Wild Angels_.[11] The _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ episode featuring _Gunslinger_ has been released twice: once as part of Rhino Home Video's _Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Volume 6_ which included three other episodes from the series,[12] and once by Shout! Factory as a standalone disc.[13]

In popular culture

_Gunslinger_ was featured in a fifth-season episode of _Mystery Science Theater 3000_, a comedy television series. The show features a human and his robot creations watching bad films while providing a running commentary which mocks it. _Gunslinger_ was the eleventh episode of the fifth season,[14] which was broadcast on Comedy Central on October 9, 1993.[15] _Gunslinger_ was the penultimate episode for series creator and host Joel Hodgson, who left the show at the end of the next episode, _Mitchell_.[16]

Actor and writer Kevin Murphy, who provides the voice and puppetry of Tom Servo in the series, spoke disparagingly about the film in the book _Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Amazing Colossal Episode Guide_, writing, “One of my darkest fears is that I'll one day make my own film, my story, my direction, my own crystalline vision of something so universal, it must needs be shared with the world on the silver screen. And I make the movie, and it turns out like _Gunslinger_, or any other Corman film—turgid, insipid, clichéd, confusing, every opportunity for artistic expression intentionally ignored.”

[1] Aaron W. Graham, 'Little Shop of Genres: An interview with Charles B. Griffith', _Senses of Cinema_, 15 April, 2005 accessed 25 June 2012

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5] Gary A. Smith, _American International Pictures: The Golden Years_, Bear Manor Media 2014 p 31

[6] Jack Ingram Western Movie Ranch

[7]

[8] Review of film at _Variety_

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

title: Gunslinger (film)

question: What does the text say about Clint Eastwood?

question: What does the text say about Roger Corman?

answer: Roger Corman is a B movie filmmaker who directed the western film, Gunslinger, in 1956. He is known for movies with cheap production values and shot four other B movie westerns before fully transitioning to horror films. Corman wanted to begin shooting Gunslinger in February 1956 before the change in union contracts meant that actors were limited to working only five days a week.

question: Summarize the plot of the Gunslinger film.

answer: Rose Hood is named temporary marshal of Oracle, Texas, after her husband, the original marshal Scott is killed. Rose butts heads with saloon owner Erica Page when the latter refuses to comply with the town's 3 AM curfew, insisting her saloon is open for business 24 hours. The women fight and Erica loses, forcing her to close for the night. Enraged, Erica tells her lackey Jake to hire a killer to take Rose out. Jake finds Cane Miro, a war veteran who has a beef with the town's mayor Gideon Polk, his former commander. Cane and Rose meet when she accidentally shot at him when he entered the town. Cane learns that Erica wants him to kill Rose, but her plan hits a snag when Cane and Rose fall for each other. The film ends in a bloodbath. Erica and Cane kill Deputy Tate when he confronts them. Cane kills Polk. Erica takes aim at Rose when she rides into town, but Cane shoots Erica before she can pull the trigger, saving Rose's life. Rose and Cane shoot each other, and he is fatally wounded. Before the end, Cane asks Rose if she loved him, and she says she did. Rose leaves Oracle for good.

question: Summarize the most interesting facts of the film "Gunslinger".

answer: The Gunslinger was originally known as "The Yellow Rose of Texas". Corman decided to film a low-budget Western in six days before the new five-day work week started. His plan backfired because it rained for five days during the shoot. The rain made the set muddy and trucks and equipment sank. Due to the rain, several exterior scenes had to be re-written and shot inside. When the actors needed to shoot outside, a tarp was draped over them and the rainfall was audible in the background. The first scene shot was Beverly Garland and John Ireland's love scene in a tree, which was home to a colony of red ants. The ants crawled and bit the actors repeatedly. Both female leads were injured while on the set. Hayes broke her arm when she fell off a horse, while Garland twisted her ankle. Gunslinger was trailblazing in the sense that it was one of the first films that had a woman play a marshal in a western.


text:
He had always wondered what it would feel like to die.

Going into the War, watching his friends and comrades fade from this world, watching them fall before bullet and disease, like wheat before a scythe, he had wondered how it would feel to leave this world: screaming or silent; in pain or at peace; begging for mercy, or cursing and hateful.

It was a curious thing, to think about one’s own demise; to be aware that one’s life will, inevitably, end. Yet still he pondered, even as he fought in the trenches, bullets and dirt flying past his face, how it would feel to simply... go.

But now he knew, as he gazed across the horizon watching the waves of heat rising across the baked sand, his feet as heavy as he trudged across the barren land, that this is Death.

Death is not pain, not agony, not fear and hurt followed by a gentle, caressing, descent into a blissful and endless sleep. Nor is Death sadness and regret, a time of rueful reflection as you say everything you wished you had said, to those you wished to have said it to. Nor, for that matter, is Death peaceful, a gentle, tranquil time where you can simply pass, at peace with the knowledge that you have accomplished that which you were able.

No, Death is none of these things. These feeling, these thoughts, were reserved for the time before Death. But in Death, in the final seconds before one’s life ends, there is but one thing you feel, and one thing only:

Weary.

Indeed, that is how he felt, as sand caked his face and wormed its way into his eyes and mouth, simply, weary.

He did not feel regret; though he knew he should’ve held his wife just that little bit tighter, given her just one more kiss, told her he loved her just one more time.

He did not feel anger; he did not beat against the ground and scream Why? Why me! The world would carry on without him, and there was naught that fear and hate would accomplish.

He did not feel sadness; but he might have had he known he was a father.

No, he felt none of these things. These were not the thoughts that occupied the mind of the man in the throes of death, for his weariness encompassed everything, enveloping him in a blanket of emptiness, smoothing over the highs and lows of his emotions, and leaving nothing but a blank, flat, smooth slate.

He would die out here, indeed, he was in the final minutes, the last seconds, of his life. He cared not what would come after; he had never been a religious man, but knew that he would deserve whatever came. Nor did he dwell on what had come before; he had done his duty to his country, served it to the best of his ability. He had loved his wife with all his heart, and cared for his mother and father, even when they no longer recognized his face.

No, he saw no reason to dwell on any of these things. All he felt was his skin burning, slowly, as the merciless sun beat down on him. And his weariness, so constant, so unwavering, that it had become like a weight upon his back.

One which, eventually, brought him to his hands and knees, panting, and sweating on the sand. Distantly, he felt a drop drip down his nose, tickling him . It reached the end and clung there, on the tip of his nose, before dripping off. He watched it, seeing it fall, before falling himself.

He had heard that in the final moments a person’s life, their entire life flashes before their eyes. He waited, expecting this slideshow of memories to appear at any moment, in the hope that he would be able to see his wife’s face just... one more time.

His eyes closed, he waited.

His body limp, he waited.

Weary to his bones, he waited.

title: [MF] Waiting

question: What is the protagonist's sentiment about death?

answer: The protagonist has always been curious about death. He soon realized that death is not any sort of pain, nor agony, nor fear. He simply sees it as a blissful and endless sleep. The protagonist understands the feelings and thoughts of death are reserved for the time before actual death. In one's last moments, the only feeling that remains is weariness.


text:
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[The original Quirk Hotel on West Broad Street. (Jonathan Spiers)]

The original Quirk Hotel at 201 W. Broad St. _(Jonathan Spiers)_

Having just capped off its first year of business in downtown Richmond, a local hotel and art gallery brand is looking westward as it plots expansions to other markets.

Quirk Hotel is eyeing Charlottesville for its second location – and potentially the first of more to come, said Bank Street Advisors broker Christian Kiniry, who in 2015 developed the 74-room hotel and gallery at 201 W. Broad St. with owners Ted and Katie Ukrop.

Conceptual plans for a similar-size hotel and gallery at 425, 501 and 503 W. Main St. in Charlottesville have been submitted to the city’s architectural review board, which went over the plans at a meeting in late August. The plans were first reported by Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Kiniry stressed Monday that the talks remain in the early stages but said Bank Street Advisors is under contract to purchase the 0.6-acre property, which is owned by Charlottesville-based The Sutton Group LLC. City property records show Sutton Group purchased the combined property in 2000 for $711,500.

Kiniry said they are reviewing whether a hotel comparable to the Richmond Quirk would fit in Charlottesville’s West Main Street corridor, zoning rules for which were revised in March.

“We’re still going through due diligence for the hotel and seeing what we can fit within the current zoning envelope,” Kiniry said Monday. “We love Charlottesville, we like the market, and we’re just trying to see if our product would work there.”

[The 74-room hotel celebrated its first full year in business in September. (Jonathan Spiers)]

The 74-room hotel celebrated its first full year in business in September. _(Jonathan Spiers)_

Kiniry said favorable occupancy rates and daily room rates in the area attracted them to Charlottesville, which he said is one of several cities in multiple states that are being considered for future locations. He said the group is eyeing university cities, state capitals and secondary cities in particular.

“We think that there’s room in the hospitality market for Quirk and hotels like Quirk,” he said. “Since the Quirk Hotel has been so well-received in Richmond, we’ve been looking at other markets. Charlottesville just checked the boxes as a town that could use a Quirk Hotel, so we decided to take a better look at it.”

Since opening in Richmond last year, Quirk has garnered considerable regional and national press, including write-ups in Southern Living, Travel + Leisure and Condé Nast Traveler. The hotel, managed by national brand Destination Hotels, does not release numbers regrading its room occupancy rates, daily room rates or performance metrics such as revenue per available room.

Kiniry said the Charlottesville property includes two older buildings that would be incorporated with a new ground-up development on an existing parking lot. The conceptual plans showed a new four-story building that would be constructed behind the two existing buildings, complete with a rooftop structure like Quirk’s popular rooftop bar.

According to Charlottesville Tomorrow, the property was previously eyed by a Charlottesville architect for a mixed-use project that never developed.

The property includes more space than needed to replicate the original Quirk’s 60,000 square feet of space. Kiniry said the additional space would serve other hotel- and art-related uses.

Kiniry and the Ukrops are working on the project with architect Danny MacNelly of Richmond-based Architecturefirm and Jennifer Mullen of Roth Doner Jackson Gibbons Condlin. He said the group is hopeful for the chances in Charlottesville and is betting on the brand finding similar success in other markets.

“Quirk has been so well-received by Richmond and by the travelers that we couldn’t ask for a better first year,” Kiniry said. “That is one of the reasons why we are bullish on its brand and what it offers in looking at other markets.”

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question: What does the Charlottesville property include, and what is proposed to be put there?

answer: It contains two older buildings that would be in incorporated in a new ground-up development on an existing parking lot. The plan has a new four story building being constructed behind the two existing buildings, complete with a rooftop structure.