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?

answer: Lindsay, a writer.

question: Who is Lindsay's father?

answer: She doesn't know him. she calls him her mother's ex-husband.

question: Why does Lindsay's father leave?

answer: Because he wanted a son, but after birthing a daughter, her mother became unable to bear children.

question: Why does Lindsay think someone broke into her apartment?

answer: Because she hears a rattling outside her bedroom and she doesn't have any pets.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: Lindsay wakes up in the middle of the cold night. She's unable to fall back asleep so she says "F-- it" and gets to work. She's a writer, but hasn't sold any big money projects since her mother died. She reminisces on her mother's wisdom and advice that got her through a tough childhood without a father. She hears a rattling outside her bedroom and believes someone has broken in.


split: test

text:
My name is Emily Serim, I am 35 years old.  Until yesterday I was the happy mother of two children, a son Duncan and a daughter Raine.  I was happily married to my husband Michael for fifteen years.  We met when I was twenty years old.  He was so odd when I first laid eyes on him at a college dance.  He was sitting watching everyone dance with amusement, but there was something so serene about him.  I had to get to know him.

We ended up dating for only a few weeks before we got married, some may have thought that was way too quick but when family and friends saw us together they knew we were meant to be.  Our relationship was a happy one filled with passionate love making and many nights cuddled together on the couch watching television. When I was 25 we welcomed our first child.  We named her Raine for the dreary day in which she was born.  I will never forget the labor pain I endured with her, Michael was there holding my hand and whispering encouragement into my ear.  My mother was on my other side telling me to push while my father was in the waiting room with an unlit cigar in his mouth and a look of fresh new grandparent joy spread across his thin lips.  He had been a great father and would be an even greater grandfather.

With such a loving home I am at a loss to explain what my daughter had become. The evil, the lies.  How could she have hidden this all from us?  My son Duncan was born on my 30th birthday.  It was an easy pregnancy and delivery.  He was born on a day of fresh spring air and sunlit beauty.  He was a child of pure innocence.  Although he was born two months early he was strong and adapted to the world quickly.

Raine took to being a proper good sister and even at the tender age of five she did all she could to help with the care of her little brother and the upkeep of the house.  I used to laugh when she would try and sweep the floors for us.  It was adorable.  This little girl trying to use a broom three times her height.  She tried so hard, she was a constant joy.  Was it an act?  Was she like this from the beginning?  When did she fall? No. No child could be that deceptive from such a young age. Could they?

When the detectives explained their case and the evidence they had uncovered I could not bring myself to look and when I finally did I was in denial that the images of my daughter with the butchered and disfigured bodies of multiple men.  The pictures looked so mundane at first glance.  Just a smiling child, but that was all.  Upon closer inspection you could see that what she was sitting beside was a gruesome and almost hellish scene.  It was as if someone had photoshopped my daughter into some suicide bombing scene in Iraq.  At first this is what I had believed had been done but the detectives assured me that was not the case.  There was my perpetually happy daughter sitting in a scene of absolute carnage as if she was on a trip to the park.  This picture alone was not enough to convince me of the evil monster I had given birth to.  This could not be her.  This could not be my Raine.

They took the time to explain to me what was happening.  I could hear them but they were like muffled voices a long way off, I just kept staring at the picture they had showed me.  I did not notice one of the detectives had taken out an Android Tablet and began setting it up on the table.  He smelled of spearmint gum and cigarettes.  He looked as if he never showered and shaved only about once a week.  My home felt invaded and even as I sit here in my socks typing this on an old typewriter sipping coffee I still have that feeling.  This is what a rape victim must feel like.  Exposed, scared, alone.  I am alone now in this house.  It seems so much bigger when it’s empty.

The pungent detective brought me back to the reality of my situation as he set the tablet before me with a video queued up. The picture was still, an image of Raine, she wore a face I had never seen before, and it was one of exquisite evil, the type of look that would haunt a person for the rest of their life.  The play button hovered over her face.  He eyes seemed so dark, empty, soulless.  The detective told me to press play whenever I was ready.  I wish I could have sat there permanently.  I never wanted to press that button.  The image of my daughter on the screen mocked me, I tried many times to reach for the screen but I pulled my hand back unable to bring myself to cross the threshold of ignorance into understanding.  Finally the detective felt he had waited long enough, his restlessness became apparent as you could begin to hear the tapping of impatient fingers on the wood grain of the kitchen table.  He reached for the tablet but before he could press the button my finger darted to the screen and pressed play.  It felt as if a force had used me to do that.  I felt outside myself.  As the setting sun began to sink below the hills and the magic hour light faded from my kitchen the video began to play.

The video began with Raine standing there looking into the camera, it was obvious someone else was there as well, holding the camera for her.  “Are you ready?” she asked the person behind the camera and to my astonishment the voice of a child not an adult answered back.  “Yes, I think so.”  It was the voice of another little girl, a little girl I was very familiar with.  She was Hannah, a playmate of my daughter.  The two were joined at the hip when it came to school but in everyday life they seldom played together.  I was not aware of Hannah having been here in at least two months, despite the video clearly showing a date of one week ago.

“Move the camera around so our audience can see our lair.”  My daughter spoke eloquently, far advanced of her tender years, she sounded like another person, the stumbling bubbling speech of a child had been replaced by that of a cold and calculating monster.  The tempo of her voice was soft and even, there was no emotion in the tone.  It was as if something had possessed this child,  but this was reality and I could see the familiar glint of my daughter, this was her true self, the deception was who she presented to her family.

“Why are we making a video Raine?”  Hannah asked meekly.  It was clear Hannah was the subordinate one.

“I want a memento of this day, to watch when I get bored.”  She said with a chilling smile to the camera.  “My mom won’t be home until six so we have a few hours.”

It was clear this event was taking place in my basement.  But I frequently went down there and never found anything to be amiss.  After a moment the reasoning became all too clear.  Our house was an old one and there are some place in old houses that only children knew about.  She watched as the camera followed Raine to a spot under the stairs. In the corner was a small door which she disappeared through, a moment later the camera followed her in.  When the camera adjusted to the dimmer light a room became apparent on the video.  It was a room built underground off the house, it must have been used long ago to store food items to save them from the summer heat.  I had not been aware that this room existed but was not surprised, it was tucked away beneath the stairs.

Inside the room, was a bed, a dresser and a small table in the corner.  There was no covering on the wall and the beams looked like ribs painted a dusted white that gave the whole room an ethereal look.  Everything appeared just a bit too small for a normal person, the ceiling was low, an adult would have to stoop down to navigate the room.  This was a place designed for a child.  The camera panned around and I was able to see more of the room.  There was a mirror on the opposite wall by the door.  A dirty rug that had the obvious browned stains of blood was frayed on the corners with an image of a child playing in a garden embroidered on it. This room was like something from another world, something you would see in a nightmare or a horror movie, I could not believe this place had been beneath my feet for months, and who knows how much longer.  Raine had lived in this house her entire life but there had never been any indication of her disappearing down here or anything out of the ordinary for that matter.  I didn’t want to see anymore, I didn’t want to see what my daughter was going to do down here.  I wanted to run from the house but I couldn’t move I was transfixed on the screen, the whole world had disappeared leaving only me and this video, the images consumed me, drawing me in.

“Ok set the camera up over there, he won’t be able to see it there and we’ll be able to capture everything.”

“Did Allie do this for you last week?”  I could hear Hannah ask as the picture went crazy with the fiddling she was doing.

“Another girl was involved in this?”  I asked the detective.

“It appears she had at least three other girls beside her were involved in this.  All have been taken into custody and will be questioned later when things calm down a bit.  The media is going haywire about this.”  He had said.

The jerking movement of the camera stopped and the whole of the room was now in full view of the camera.  “Where should I go?”
“Just wait at the top of the stairs until I call you ok?”

I could hear Hannah leave and a moment later I could hear the quiet shuffling of her feet on the stairs but the door did not open or close so it was obvious she was sitting at the top of the stairs just out of sight but within ear shot.

When Hannah was gone Raine went to the camera and looked into the lens, her eyes were wide and crazed like a rabid animal.  These were not the eyes of a child anymore but those of a predator.  After inspecting the camera she smiled into it as if nodding to a future audience.  “Enjoy the show.” She said.  She then walked over to the bed and sat down.  She remained there motionless and silent for the next fifteen minutes until a knock on the door brought her out of her own head and back into the world.  She glanced at the camera before getting up and walking out of the room, a few minutes later she came back in but she was not alone.  There was a man accompanying her now, he was about 5’10 but that was hard to tell because he had to stoop over in this child’s secret room.  He was thin and at least between forty and fifty years of age with a short gray haircut.  He wore khaki pants and a blue and white plaid shirt.  She took him by the hand and escorted him to the bed.

“I didn’t think you were real.”  He said as he sat down on the bed and she stood in front of him holding his hands in hers.  “I can’t believe this is real, I’m so glad I answered your message online.

 My daughter pushed him gently back on the bed until he was lying down crossways with his legs planted on the floor.   Even in the dim room you could tell the man was aroused and he was expecting a taste of forbidden fruit.  Raine stepped away from him and walked across the room as the man began to unbutton his shirt preparing to indulge in the festivities yet to come. As he was busying himself Raine was opening the dresser drawer.  From the angle of the camera I could see a strange looking knife she had taken from the top drawer of the dresser.  It looked to be a jagged blade with a bone handle, I had never seen anything like it.  She hid the knife behind her back as she turned back toward the man now lying on the bed shirt open and pants unbuckled.  Raine walked toward him moving seductively hiding the blade behind her back.  She walked up between the man’s legs that were still hung over the bed planted on the floor, the man reached for Raine still thinking this was his lucky day.  As he reached for her, he hand moved in a flash from behind her back, the fingers that had been reaching for the forbidden flesh of a child were instantly severed, before he had time for a reaction Raine had turned the blade and thrust it into the man’s chest right below the sternum.  A blood curdling cry filled the small room and Raine looking right into the old man’s eyes pulled the jagged knife, slicing from sternum to groin.  This silenced the man as he went into shock and the only noise escaping from his mouth now was a gurgling sound of him drowning in his own blood.

I was shocked, horrified… sick.  I jumped from my chair and rushed to the sink.  The vomit was thick and smelled of coffee and bile.  When I was done I turned on the faucet to try and wash it down the sink.  I couldn’t watch anymore, the detectives seemed to understand this and put the tablet away.  They told me the rest of the video was my daughter bringing Hannah back in and having her help clean up,  she had convinced the neighborhood girls that what they were doing was a good thing by riding the world of men who would prey on children.  She had them thinking they were doing God’s work.  These girls thought their parents would be proud of them.  Hannah was clearly shaken by what she had seen and done I knew she would be traumatized for life, but they explained Raine had just been humming away as she began wringing a sponge and wiping away the blood.  They said they had never seen anything so disturbing especially from a child.
I could no longer think, I had no idea the response expected from me or if I would have to defend myself against accusation of my complicity in my daughter's actions.  There is no possibility of people feeling sympathy for me because there is no one who could believe I knew nothing, I would not even believe it myself if I were not the one to experience this horror myself, my daughter had been so cunning and absolute in her deception that forever people would ask when exactly did I know that Raine had fallen into evil?

END part 2

title: [SF] I Never Knew Raine Fell, part 2

question: What does the story say about Emily's and Michael's marriage?

answer: Emily and Michael have been happily married for fifteen years. They met when Emily was twenty years old. They had been dating for only a few weeks before they got married. Their relationship was a happy one filled with passionate love. They have a daughter and a son.

question: What does the story say about why Raine killed the man?

answer: Raine kills the man because he is a pedophile. She is a ten-year-old girl who meets him online and invites him to visit her. When he comes and reaches for her, she kills him with a knife.

question: What does the story say about Emily's sister?


text:
Some police chiefs are concerned that the legislation may harm efforts to stop crime rather than helping.

 Priscilla Alvarez
June 6, 2017

[]
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo Eric Gay / AP
The Trump administration’s plan to crack down on “sanctuary cities,” jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration agents, is exacerbating longstanding tensions with some local governments and the federal government over immigration enforcement, while also prompting others to alter their policies.

In February, Miami-Dade County voted to end the county’s “sanctuary” status, thereby requiring jail officials to abide by requests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold some individuals who may be in the country illegally for up to 48 hours. Lawmakers in North Carolina, meanwhile, approved legislation that would strip funding from local governments with “sanctuary city” policies. (The state’s lawmakers banned sanctuary cities in 2015.)

Raising the loudest alarms for immigrant advocates and law enforcement alike, however, is a new policy in Texas. In May, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 4, a piece of legislation that penalizes sheriffs, constables, police chiefs, and other local leaders who don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities or prevent rank-and-file officers from asking about immigration status. Immigrants rights’ activists are concerned the law will lead to racial profiling, and law enforcement officials worry that the law will force them to prioritize immigration violations over other, more serious crimes. While the legislation doesn’t require law enforcement officers to inquire immigration status, it does impose penalties on higher-ups who seek to prevent their officers from asking about it.

“It is a bad day for Texas when officials sworn to enforce the law, want to help people who commit manslaughter and sexual assault evade federal immigration detainers,” said Texas State Senator Charles Perry, the author of the legislation, in a statement. “It is also important to understand that Senate Bill 4, for the first time in state law, protects immigrants who are witnesses and victims of crimes.” Victims and witnesses can be asked about their immigration status if necessary, according to the bill. Still, even the slightest concern about deportation can influence how residents report crime: Earlier this year, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck announced that the department saw a dip in reporting from the city’s Latino residents, which he attributed to more immigrants being afraid to speak to police.

The Texas legislation, which is scheduled to go into effect in September, places a unique burden on local governments. Elected or appointed officials can be removed from office if they prohibit or limit enforcement or cooperation with federal immigration agents, and the law imposes fines on local governments if they are in violation of the bill—fines range between $1,000 to $1,500 for the first violation and $25,000 to $25,500 for each one after that. Sheriffs, constables, police chiefs, and other local leaders can also face misdemeanor charges if they don’t comply with the legislation. Some of the language, however, is relatively ambiguous. For example, it’s not clear what enforcement would look like and what “pattern or practice” would justify action against a local entity.

Police chiefs, who set the agenda for their departments, are nevertheless concerned that the bill could ultimately intrude upon the way they set day-to-day priorities. “First and foremost, it’s concerning for us when they try to criminalize leadership in this state, when they try to control police departments,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told me. “We, at the local level, are the best to understand the threats of a community, the values of a community, and the priority of a community.”

Austin Police Chief Brian Manley explained that his department only inquires about immigration status if it’s relevant to an investigation or if the individual has been arrested. SB4, however, punishes chiefs who try to prevent their officers from asking about immigration status from those under “lawful detention,” which can qualify as something as simple as a traffic stop.

Jackson County Sheriff Andy Louderback, meanwhile, argued that legislation creates uniformity. “We support the rule of law. We support the bill.The bill gives us the consistency that that citizenry demands,” said Louderback, the legislative director of the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas. As far as concerns about whether the legislation would undercut officials’ authority, Louderback said, “[The bill] allows us to pursue a criminal issue, a public safety issue, with a clear and consistent message here in Texas and there’s a penalty if you don’t.” This, he said, is important since there are 254 counties in the state and therefore many differing opinions.

Still, the legislation has received pushback from lawmakers and immigrant advocates who’ve drawn parallels to Arizona’s controversial “show me your papers law”—much of which was struck down in a 2012 Supreme Court ruling—and warned that the bill, which includes a clause prohibiting discrimination, could still give way to racial profiling, and strain relations between police and the communities they serve.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that law enforcement can indeed inquire about immigration status under certain circumstances. But the crux of the argument posed by Acevedo, Manley, and others in law-enforcement leadership is that the legislation may strip them of the authority to dictate, to a degree, what officers can and can’t do. “The way the law is written it actually prohibits police chiefs and sheriffs from discouraging their officers from asking that question,” Manley said.

The common practice in Texas is to focus first on the infraction and later inquire about an individual’s citizenship, if necessary, according to Charley Wilkison, the executive director of Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, the largest police officers’ union in Texas.

“We’re going to always prioritize crime fighting over going and harassing day laborers,” Acevedo said. “[Officers] can’t choose to go deal with day laborers that might be undocumented immigrants and only be there solely to check to see if they’re here illegally, while we have calls for service where people and lives are on the balance and are at risk that we prioritize what we focus on.”

Over time, departments across the country have rejected detainer requests because of the cost of detention and the legal implications. For one, detention can be costly, and while jails can technically request money from the Justice Department to make up for the cost, they don’t always follow through, according to Rick Su, a law professor at the University at Buffalo who has researched immigration and local government. Counties can also be held liable if an individual is held unconstitutionally. A 2014 case, known as _Miranda-Olivares vs. Clackamas County_, serves as an example of this. The court said that detainer requests are discretionary, therefore counties are indeed liable “for any unlawful detention” and therefore also responsible for the costs of lawsuits.

SB4 notes that the state is willing to incur the liability. “It seems slightly interesting that the state is going to take responsibility for that,” Su said. “A lot of it is up to the attorney general. That itself is unique; that itself is a recognition that the rule of local enforcement in this case can be problematic.”

“Police departments and sheriff's departments have a genuine concern that if they’re forced to hold someone even though it may be unconstitutional, that they may be subject to civil-rights violations and liability,” said Edgar Saldivar, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas. The ACLU of Texas and the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project have joined a lawsuit challenging the legislation.

Prior to the law’s passage, Acevedo, Manley, and other city chiefs expressed concerns about the text of the legislation in an op-ed published in _The Dallas Morning News_. “At a time of strained law enforcement budgets and critically low jail space, narrowing the focus to violent criminals, human traffickers, and members of organized crime syndicates is critical,” it reads. “Expecting local law enforcement to prioritize immigration efforts, without adequate funding or increased support from involved governmental agencies, will hinder an agency’s ability to focus its limited resources on the unique needs of the community it serves.”

Of course, fraught relations within communities and between local governments and the federal government are not specific to Texas. In the later years of the Obama administration, the president began backing off interfering at the local level by scaling back 287(g) agreements, which deputize local law enforcement to act as immigration agents, and ending the Secure Communities Program, which required local authorities to share digital fingerprints of individuals booked in jail with federal immigration agents.

President Trump wants to reboot these programs as part of his crackdown on illegal immigration. But local officials’ concerns under previous administrations may also resurface. According to thePew Research Center, more than 1.6 million undocumented immigrants resided in the state of Texas in 2014. This puts police in a delicate situation, as many of the communities they serve are also made up of immigrants.

The legislation doesn’t take effect until September, so it’s not yet clear how it will be rolled out and what the implications will be for law enforcement leadership. But at the very least, it sets up an uncomfortable confrontation between local governments and the federal government, as part of the administration’s broader immigration-enforcement initiatives.

This article is part of our project “The Presence of Justice,” which is supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Priscilla Alvarez is a former assistant editor at _The Atlantic_.

question: What does the article say about the downsides of utilizing local police agencies as immigration enforcers?

answer: The local officers point out that they'd need to divert focus from more important crimes like murder and sexual assault. Furthermore, minority populations could become less willing to talk to officials, hindering the ability of the police forces to fight crime effectively. The additional drain on resources is another concern - not just the opportunity costs and the diversion of focus; the required detentions themselves can be expensive. Another different problem is the racial profiling the law could end up replicating. Finally, there are legal grey areas that would expose officials to more legal liabilities and civil lawsuits.

question: Summarize the law mentioned in the article.

answer: The new law requires sheriffs, constables, chiefs of police, and other local leaders to comply with federal immigration authorities. Furthermore, the law prohibits these people from preventing rank-and-file officers from asking about immigration status. The local governments are fined $1000 to $1500 for the first violation, and any subsequent violation is a lot costlier - $25000 to $25000. One particular aspect of the law is that local agencies are required to comply with detention requests made by federal immigration authorities.

question: What does the article say about how police forces operate in Texas?

answer: The police officers prioritize harsher crimes (i.e. murder, assault, etc.) and work with residents. The police sometimes refuse detention requests because it's expensive to do so. The officers tend to ask about immigration status if it's pertinent to an investigation, which is likely to change with the new law - if any rank-and-file officers want to, no higher up can prevent them.

question: What does the article say about how to fight President Trump?


text:
Adam woke up the way he did every day.  Rolling over to see himself patiently sitting on his desk across the room, smirking.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” the shade said to him.

Adam’s reply was a simple sigh before getting up, the shade immediately taking its place behind him, watching over his shoulder.  He used to reply but over time, he realized the shade wouldn’t listen, no matter how much he spoke or how loud he was.

“I hate it when you sleep, Adam.  I don’t get to speak to you when you sleep.  Instead I have to talk to myself until you wake up.  Do you realize just how ironic that is, Adam?  Doubtful.  You don’t understand a lot of things.  What I can’t understand is how you got into college.  After all, you’re lazy and stupid and have no marketable skills.  At least no girl has fallen for the same trick the college did, whatever that was.  That way you can’t drag some poor girl down with you.”

That was a daily part of his routine.  Abuse from himself the entire morning.  The topic of conversation was unemployment during his shower, his romantic life (or lack thereof) while he ate, his personality while he brushed his teeth, and during his walk to class he abused himself in whatever manner was most convenient at the time.  Today, the topic was his future.

“Why did you get up today?  You’re stuck with me until you freeze to death in the back of your car.  No matter what you do today, you’re doomed to failure.”  Adam stared down at the bridge underneath him as he walked along towards his class.  He lived in an apartment on campus that was included in the scholarship he got after high school.  His grades weren’t extraordinarily high but they were high enough to bring the college expenses down to enough for his mother to afford.

“You could jump right now, you know.”  Adam’s feet slid to a halt and stared at his feet for a long moment before casting a sideways glance over the edge at the busy road under the bridge.  “You’d save a lot of people a lot of trouble.  You’re fully aware of that.  All it would take is one little jump. There’s even a semi coming along.  Time it right and you could make sure you don’t walk away from it.”

The cars under the bridge went screaming down the highway that divided the campus in two.  Anything that fell off the bridge would have maybe three seconds to live after going over the edge, then they’d become a fine mist in the air and a small gore stain on the road.

A hand rested on his shoulder and the shade fell silent.

“More people watching?”

Adam turned around and his suspicions were confirmed.  It was Jessi, a sophomore girl that he met through his History class.  She was a short, slim girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair and high cheek bones and a gaunt face structure.  Adam had caught other guys paying more attention to her than the instructor more often than not.  He found himself thinking on more than one occasion that he might’ve found her attractive if not for the fact that she was a little bit on the ditzy side.  They didn’t spend a whole lot of time together, but they usually walked to class together in the morning since they were heading in the same direction anyways.

“Yeah, Jess.  People are strange,” Adam replied to her with no tells in his voice to betray his true intentions.  “It’s always fun to watch how people react to being cut off, especially.”

She giggled just a little.  “How many birds so far?”

“Birds?”

“Yeah.  Y’know.”  She held up her fist and extended a middle finger.  “Birds.”

“Oh, uhm…”  He looked back down at traffic and quickly pulled a number out of the air.  “Two so far.  Well, I guess three, but two were from the same person… at once… not the best of ideas, actually.”

She giggled again and looked at her phone.  “C’mon, we need to get to class.”  She bounced on the balls of her feet and walked off towards the campus, getting a few steps before realizing Adam wasn’t following.  “You coming?”

He shook his head and looked up.  “Hm?  Oh, yeah I’m coming.”

She tilted her head.  “Something wrong?”

The shade rested his hand on Adam’s shoulder.  “Don’t bother her with your issues, Adam.  She’s so happy, all the time.  Don’t take that from her.  She’s lucky.”

“Na, I’m fine.”  He called back, forcing a smile.  She seemed to accept it pretty well, turning around and doing her half-walk, half-bounce to class.  He followed after her and they attended a class where they learned about the French Revolution, which was being taught by a professor that they theorized knew so much about it because he was still alive when it happened.

The class couldn’t end fast enough.  Lunch finally came along to silence the old man’s ramblings and everyone grabbed up their things and started the shuffle towards that door, one or two people, as always, taking just a little too long in the doorway.  As soon as they were all out the door, Adam and his shade watched Jessi walk up to a tall, muscular guy with a camo shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots that was waiting outside the door.  Knowing Jessi and all the rumors about her, Adam assumed that he’d see that guy again in the hallway, tonight, headed towards her apartment.

He didn’t think too much about it, though.  Jessi’s life wasn’t his and she could live it how she wanted to.  He finally went to the campus food court and found where his circle of friends all gathered every day.  The circle of friends was decently sized, but people came and went all the time.  When he showed up, Thomas, Sammy, and Ed were having a debate over zombies.
“My issue with zombie films isn’t that there’s so many, it’s that they’re so inconsistent.  In one film, they’re made by voodoo, in another they’re made by a virus.  What even is a zombie anymore?”  Thomas was getting into the debate and it made the ghost of a smile creep across his face.

The three greeted him when he sat down and then right back into the heated discussion.  Adam didn’t have many friends growing up.  In fact, he had very little.  Back in Elementary and Middle School he got bullied a lot.  He grew jaded to it, and got used to being without friends, so having a group of people around was a new experience to him and he had no clue how to socialize.  But then again, the group was so odd and diverse he didn’t really have to act any certain way.  They were pretty accepting of him and his odd personality.

He still noticed, though, that they spoke to each other more than they spoke to him.  Each day he found it just a little bit harder to interject into conversation.  Finally, he just stopped trying to begin with.  He sat silently on his laptop, thankful that at least their conversation was interesting enough to keep the shade silent.

“Adam, what’s with the bags under your eyes?”

He looked up to see Sammy looking at him with his head cocked to the side.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.  I lay down and then just stare at the ceiling for a while instead of going right to sleep.”

“Is something bothering you to keep him up at night?”

Only your miserable, pitiful, meaningless existence, He said in his head.

“No, I just can’t sleep.  It happens sometimes.  I’ll be alright.”  That was a lie and he knew it.  Sam might of known it too, but if he did, he didn’t press the issue.  The other Adam smiled because he loved it when Adam pushed people away.

Adam’s next mistake was to zone out.  He got lost in his laptop and stopped hearing the people around him.  The shade immediately took this chance to talk to him.  Tell him how pathetic he was and make sure he knew that no one around him was paying attention to him.  The shade told him it was because no one truly cared and wouldn’t miss him if he was gone.
He opened up his grades and sighed.  They were still slipping further and further down.  The shade tormented him on that.  He went to his social media account and he saw everything that his friends were up to.  The shade told him to look at how happy his friends were without him around.  He tried to play a game, his laptop crashed to the desktop.  He looked up, desperate to stop the shade talking to him but no one let him into the conversation.  Silently, he stood up and packed his laptop case up, then slung it over his shoulder and left with a small, “Goodbye.”

“Adam, where are you headed?”

“Gotta go take care of something,” he said in a tone that left no suspicions.

“Alright, take care, man.”

He walked back to the bridge that loomed over the highway and looked around.  There was a natural break in the scheduling that meant that everyone at this point was always wherever they were going to be for the next couple hours, so traffic between the campus and the student housing was minimal.  No one was around at the time except for himself, who wouldn’t stop talking to him.  “Good boy. Up, on the ledge.  Don’t want anyone coming along and trying to call the police on you again.”

One time before he was dumb enough to mention his intentions to a friend who proceeded to call the police.  The friend didn’t help, nor did the police.  They just told him to keep living, gave him no reason, called him selfish, and then stopped talking to him after he assured everyone that he was fine.

He stepped up on the ledge and stared down.  His heavy heart was tugging him downwards.  He looked up at the sky and saw the clouds.  A light breeze moved his hair and he smiled.  It was a lovely day to die.

Everything started to get thrown at him by the shade.  His entire life.  He was on the ledge and the other him was going to use everything he could to make him fall.  That’s when Adam realized there were three of him.

There was the one on the ledge.  The one that was done.  The one that had given up.  Then there was another him that was wanting someone to come along.  A part of him that had hope that someone would see him and save him.  Then there was the one that threw insults at him.  The one who wanted him here and would physically push him off if he could.  They all shared the same body, and they all fought for control.  Sadly, the one who wanted him dead had won.  He was the dominant Adam.  He was the strongest Adam.  He’d gotten the Adam that had control of their body to agree with him and outvoted the one that had hope.
Now all three were staring down at busy traffic, ready to end things.

“Your grades are slipping, you have no one around to love you, your father hates you, and you’re a burden to your poor mother.  Your friends don’t need you.  No one wants you around, Adam.  Take the last step.”

Adam let out a growl.  He wasn’t jumping out of the fear of those things.  He was jumping before it got worse.  Right now, things were tolerable, but he didn’t see anything getting better.  It was over in his mind.  Now it was time to make sure that miserable future never happened.  With that, he cast out his foot and started to tilt forward.  As soon as his balance shifted forwards past the point of no return, he heard a voice.  “No!”  He turned his head in time to see a panicked Jesse sprinting towards him but too far away to make it on time.

The sounds of traffic blared under him.  He silently apologized to the person whose car would be unlucky enough to catch him.  He looked down and felt like he was falling forever, when it was really closer to three or four seconds.  He saw the asphalt running up to greet him and heard the car horns blare when they saw him.

title: [RF] Lose/Lose

question: What does the story say about Jessie

answer: Jessie is a sophomore in Adam's history class. She is a short, slim girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, and a gaunt face structure. She's a little bit ditzy. Adam and Jessie walk to school together. Jessie seems to be a hit with the boys. Jessie is the last person that Adam sees as he jumps off the bridge.

question: What does the story say about Adam's friends?

answer: Adam has a fairly large circle of friends. People came and went all the time. They were a diverse group so they didn't notice when Adam was a bit odd. Adam was not used to having friends and he found it difficult to socialize, tending to push people away.


text:
Life is a challenge. Each step, each breath, each though, word and sight is procedurally generated and during that generation, that brief moment when time stops and throws you a curve ball, you sit and think. Where will I be tomorrow? Who will I see? How will I feel?

Those questions are only answered by yourself and yourself alone. Kellen knew this and with every fragment of his fragile body he believed that his destiny, his life is his own and controlled entirely by himself once all the pieces are placed. Every instance of pain, despair, happiness, unexplained euphoria was a set piece that he couldn't see but he could change after it had been placed.

Even with this outlook in his mind he was still a conflicted man. Every being can be broken, shattered or cracked without reason or explanation.  Imagine being torn in a thousand directions, being pulled and tugged at like a leaf on a branch during a hurricane. Imagine your sinew being taught and burning as it fears it's imminent snap.

That's how Kellens' mind worked on this day.

Quitting his job was hard enough. it's quite tough ending the career you've had for so long especially when it's a career you spend five years studying for with hours upon hours of hands on experience and days spent trying to master said job. Who would have thought advertising and marketing would be such  an exponentially time consuming endeavor.

Even though the weight of unemployment crushes his shoulders Kellen is not worried about that, least of all finding a job. They are everywhere, like apples on a tree all he needs to do is reach out with purpose and grab one. Curious, how is this not a crippling idea in his head? Something that would keep him up every day wracking at his gray matter and annihilating his sleep patterns is the least of his worries? Puzzling.

It's because Kellen is more worried about what he will do after he leaves the bench he's sitting on in this park. He doesn't know and he doesn't think he ever will. His feet refuse to listen to reason from his brain and they lie dormant on the hard, black asphalt. The leaves on the trees blow as the sun sets slowly behind him, the orange hue reflects from the mirror-esque lake over his shoulder and it's colours bleed into the water below. A fitting scene to see a life end.

You see, now that's the real reason Kellen is sitting here, alone. He quit his job, dressed neat and wrote a note, a note that went as follows:

The end I guess.

I don't know what's worse, writing this note or thinking about writing this note. My hands are shaking now even as I try steady them. Christ, I swear that I haven't used a pen since college. My writing looks like trash, damn.

Eh.. Anyways.

I'm on my last legs, metaphorically speaking. In all honesty I'm in fantastic shape, healthy, good job, good money, no debt. The whole shabang.

Yet I'm making this letter and obviously you know exactly why, I'm going to die. But whoever reads this, Mom, Dad, Tara or whoever else comes into my apartment. Try not to look at this as a cry for help or a pathetic last attempt at redeeming myself to get into some golden gated paradise.

That's retarded. Don’t be dumb.

We know God hates people who kill themselves, like I give a shit though. We wouldn't want to kill ourselves and end the life we were given if this place was a shred better than it is now. If “God” didn't make such a crap shot of a place we'd all be happy and full of, whatever I don't care.

Back to business.

Yes. I'm killing myself. Oh no. What a tragedy, I'm a terrible person. I know you're all already thinking

“Oh my god, doesn't he know what this will do to us?! How we'll feel and how we'll be oh so depressed forever and ever.”

Just put yourself in my shoes, whoever you are.

I've worked my life away to make this life the way it is expecting and hoping for it to be perfect and last forever or at least as long as my body goes. I went to school, I studied, I trained and I worked. Don't get me wrong I got everything I ever needed and wanted minus a few things (a Sega Genesis when I was a kid, thanks Mom. Worst. Christmas. Ever.)

But you know what, achieving what the world around you wants doesn't make you happy and I'm not happy.

Get it?

I'm. Not. Happy.

I don't care about the people around me every day who are smiling from ear to ear about how good their 401K is or how their kid has the best GPA in their private school or even how they closed the “biggest deal of their lifetime” today. I care about me and how I am and I'm not well. I'm broken, completely.

So, in dramatic fashion I make this letter. This sad attempt at a last ditch effort to find happiness. It's not so bad now that I've spent fifty billion years writing this crap out. God my writing got so much worse over the time from when I started to now, I suck.

Anyways,

At least I'll get to see the sunset.

- Kellen

PS. Alan you're a piece of shit. I know you ate my sandwich from the fridge at work that one time. I hate you.

Jackass.

The note was left on his island counter in his modest 900 square-foot apartment in the heart of the city. It's ten blocks from work and has a nice view. In fact, you can see the bench he's sitting on in the park he's situated in from his living room window.

Like Kellen said, you might not see his unhappiness as he has everything he could ever want or need. At least right at this present moment in life. But you'd be wrong. You see, Kellens' life is complete in terms of physical needs but mentally he is unhappy and that makes him feel that the only way out is, well, death.

A truthful statement as death is a definite, non-refundable way out of life. It's like a one way train ticket to a place you haven't been that has no Yelp review and that you can't come back from. But to some that's the best vacation they could ever ask for. It's an easy way to not feel, care or worry, simply put it's a perfect means to an end for some people. Kellen being one of those people.

You're probably wondering how he's going to do it. As you can tell Kellen is quite a simple man, unfortunately he doesn't have very many unique features nor ideas. His hair is black, slightly long and slicked back and his beard is neatly kept just like most things in his life and he wears plain clothes, dull colours. So you might assume he'd be saving his spontaneity for something major like this occasion, well you'd be unbelievably wrong.

No bullet to the brain in front of terrified onlookers, shielding their children's eyes from the projectile bits of skull, flesh and maybe a bit of white or gray matter. No drowning in the peaceful lake behind him only for him to be found days later, bloated and full of water. No hanging himself from a tree like a discount Halloween decoration left up well past its time. No jumping off any buildings, turning himself into a work of sidewalk art.

In fact his method was much, much more subtle and discrete. He's going to poison himself, actually to be more accurate he's already poisoned himself. Now he waits.

Imagine making a breakfast smoothie full of hearty vegetables and wholesome fruits, maybe some vanilla Greek yoghurt in there for some more flavor but instead of putting in those zinc pills for his zinc deficiency, Kellen put in Secobarbital which he had prescribed a few months ago for a temporary fix for his ongoing insomnia. As you may have assumed, that's some lethal stuff if taken in high doses and that's exactly what Kellen did. 23 and a half pills in that good, healthy shake not to mention that just to be safe he put in some left over Parathion he had used on his rooftop plants a while back.

It smelled a bit funny but tasted like fruits and vegetables. He managed to drink half on his way there and he's been nursing it since then. It's only a matter of hours before that concoction of death takes effect and it should be painless, relatively or so he speculated.

The drink now almost gone with only the final mouthful left, he reluctantly finishes it and waits. Kellens' stomach fights back and revolts against the toxins now fighting through his body on their way to his imminent and total body failure.

Impatiently waiting, his feet tapping causing his Oxfords to click against the concrete below. His impatience is like that of a man who is waiting in line for a check he didn't know he was going to receive for an unbeknownst amount of money for no reason what so ever.
'
Unbelievably antsy.

Kellens' head starts to hurt and his stomach is now tossing and turning like a severe insomniac. It's happening and he knows it, he's going to see where this unknown train ride takes him.

Hopefully it has a McDonalds.

His eyes close and his arms are gracefully places on his lap as he awaits the end of days, or at least his days. But before he can drift off he feels a subtle movement on the empty part of the bench beside him. Fluttering his beady brown eyes open he tilts his head to his left and sees a small girl who's no more than 6 years old. This girl with her brown locks cut just below her shoulder, her blue eyes and the gravity defying giant giraffe balloon is staring at him with such intensity that she might burn a hole through him, that or she's putting some gypsy curse on him.

Who knows?

He doesn't make any verbal contact with the girl and even before he can she takes his left hand away from his right and wraps the string of the balloon around his index finger. The balloon now floating and the string now slowly cutting the circulation to his finger, the tip turning an off purple colour. The little girl laughs, hops off the bench and runs to a nearby tree and before he can even acknowledge, she's gone.

Now fixated on his left hand and on that ridiculous giraffe floating in the air above his head he stops a moment, thinking, waiting and pondering. Tuning out the world around him all the bustling city noises, the cars, the planes, the people only letting nature itself into his head. The subtle rustling of the squirrels in the trees, the chirps and whistling of the birds in their nests, the barking of dogs and mewing of cats off in the distance. His hand begins to shake as if he was writing that note again and his eyes mist over with tears as he lies down completely on the bench, enveloping it with his body.

Softly sobbing, lying on his back tears run down both sides of his face. The kindness of one gesture can  cause the strongest of emotions to break through from the threnodies of depression. One light can cut through the fog of loneliness and guide the victim to a new set of feelings, ones that they have shelved and repressed for so many years. Whether that light be the soft touch of a child or the kind, albeit small gesture of a $5 inflatable aluminum balloon Kellan smiles, truly smiles for the first time in years and even though his face is now soaked with tears he is happy. His purpose albeit gone, he is happy.

The world around him matters again.

Kellan sits up and rubs his face on his sleeve, drenching it with tears of happiness and when his vision finally clears and comes back he looks to the tree once more. The girl now standing there holding hands with another woman who is clad in  light from the reflecting sun against the buildings behind her. Her brown hair and radiant eyes match the small child at her side, like mother like daughter it would seem. The girl points at Kellan and they both begin walking over to him as if with much purpose.

As they arrive at the bench which in reality will eventually be dedicated to Kellans' memory as it'll be the last place he drew breath, the woman kneels down and puts her hands on his knees and says

“Nice Balloon, it's almost like I've seen it before..”
Kellan snickers a bit, knowning the poor quality and sarcastic nature of the joke was intentional. She carries on

“Sorry about her, she's just adventurous, you can keep it if you want it's not like it broke the bank or anything.”

Kellan smiles and unties the balloon from his purple, swollen finger and hands it back to the small girl. She refuses and pushes it back at him and smiles. He takes it back and ties it to his wrist loosely and does the most awkward wink and smile he's ever done and in that moment the mother bursts out in laughter.

Still laughing, nearly in tears she finally musters up words as she begins to remember how to breath again, she turns to him all red eyed and out of breath

“Jesus, that was atrocious. I think you need some food, right? Come to lunch with us, it's on me.”

Kellan pauses for a brief second and stands up, trying his hardest to now black out as all those poisons he's ingested begin to take their toll on his body. Shaking it off he looks at the woman and speaks

“Sounds like a plan. But before we do that I think we should stop by a hospital first. I, uh, need to get something looked at.”

They all start walking off in the direction of the hospital and Kellan is a handful of steps ahead of the other two accompanying human beings, he turns around and yells back

“Maybe we should take a cab...I think we should take a cab.. Let's take a cab!”

title: [RF] morose.

question: What does the story say about Kellen's career?

answer: Kellen quits his job. He is sad about ending the career that he had for so long. He spend five years studying with hours upon hours of hands-on experience and days spent trying to master the job. But he is not worried that he cannot find another job. It is not clear why he quits and why he is so sad. He might be depressed.

question: What does the story say about why Kellen changed his mind and decided not to commit suicide?

answer: Kellen is sitting on a bench in the park and planning suicide. Suddenly, a small girl takes his left hand away from his right and wraps the string of her balloon around his index finger. The little girl laughs, hops off the bench leaves. The kindness of her gesture causes him to cry. His depression is gone and he is happy now. The world around him matters again and decides to live.

question: What does the story say about the girl's father?


text:
History

The history of currency in the now Croatian territory dates to much earlier than the adoption of the modern _kuna_ in 1994,[1] and almost a thousand years of history which has seen the rise and fall of many different empires and kingdoms.[2]

Early history

Byzantine coins

Croats did not begin to create their own coins for currency until late in the 12th century (1100-1200). Previously, they minted replicas of Byzantine coins of emperor Heraclius.[3] Byzantine coinage was adopted by Byzantine Empire in the 4th century (300-400) and was the currency standard for the empire for about 700 years[4]

Cristatic and banovav

In 1192, Croatian Duke Herceg Andrija minted a new coinage the Croatian fristatic, which included the silver denar and half-denar. His successors, the Croatian viceroys, minted a new coinage called the banovac (banski denar) which lasted from 1260 to 1380. This currency used fine silver from the mints in current day Zagreb and Pakrac.[5]

Republic of Dubrovnik coinage

At the start of the 15th century (1400-1500), coastal Croatia came under increasing attack by the Ottoman Empire, which wanted to take control of it from the Republic of Venice. Venice succeeded in maintaining control over the current Croatian territory except for the city-state of Dubrovnik, which became independent during this time,[6] and minted and refined their own coinage over the span of five years. This “Republic of Dubrovnik” coinage was called the artiluc. During this five-year span, other Croatian coastal towns, Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, Split and Hvar also minted their own similar coinage.[7]

Assignats (first printed money)

Printed money was introduced into the Croatian territory in 1778 in the city of Pag. This new currency was referred to as _assignats_, which were also being introduced into France at the same time. Previously the city of Pag had relied on salt to pay officers, clerks and doctors. To convert salt to _assignats_, the salt amount was converted to a _lira_ equivalent, which was noted on the _assignats_ by including sum and issue date information.[8]

Križar, forint, and banknotes

In 1848, Josip Jelačić was appointed Ban of Croatia, and issued a combination of coins and banknotes during his time as ruler. For smaller-scale transactions, coins called _križar_ and _forint_ (minted in Zagreb) were utilized. _Križar_ were minted from copper and _forint_ from silver. For larger transactions of enterprises, communalities, and trading houses, banknotes backed by guarantees were issued instead.[9]

Yugoslavia

Serbian dinar

With the creation of Yugoslavia in 1918, the Serbian _dinar_ was adopted alongside the _krone_ in Croatia. The Serbian _dinar_ also became the currency of the Kingdom of Serbs and the Slovenes. These were the first banknotes that represented the Kingdom of the Serbians. In 1929, the name of the country was changed from Kingdom of the Serbs to Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and thus, the name of the currency was changed from the Serbian dinar to the Yugoslav dinar[10]

Croatian kuna (Independent State of Croatia)

In 1929, a Croatian revolutionary movement, known as the Ustaša, started to form. This revolutionary movement was a Croatian, fascist, ultranationalist and terrorist organization that murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Jews.[11] In 1941 Yugoslavia allowed the radical right Ustaša to come into power over the territory of Croatia, which progressed the formation of the Independent State of Croatia.[12] From 1941-1945 during WWII, Croatia was independent, and officially adopted the Kuna as the currency for the first time on July 26th,1941. The Croatian Kuna at the time of adoption included banknotes of 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000. Banknotes of 1, 2, were later introduced in 1942, and 5,000 banknotes were added in 1943.[13] The Kuna started with a fixed exchange rate of 20.00 Kn (Kuna) = 1 RM (Reichsmark), the currency for Germany at the time.[14] By May 6th 1945, the exchange rate between the Kuna and Reichsmark was fixed at 120.00 Kn (Kuna) = 1 RM (Reichsmark)[15]

The Yugoslav dinar

In 1945, the Ustaša were forced to concede due to the Partisan resistance and their help from the Soviet Red Army, and the Independent State of Croatia was recaptured by Socialist Yugoslavia, and became part of a new communist system.[16] From June 30th to July 9th, the Kuna was removed from the currency circulation and replaced by the 1944 issue of the Yugoslav Dinar. At the time of reissue, the Yugoslav Dinar had a fixed exchange rate of 40 Kn (Kuna) = 1 dinar[17]

Croatian kuna

In 1991, Croatia officially declared its independence from the socialist Republic of Yugoslavia and became a separate country.[18] After independence, a period of transition began from the dinar back to the kuna. The name was re-chosen as the name of the currency to represent the fiscal history of Croatia.[19] One kuna was equivalent to 1000 dinars. The modern kuna became the official currency of Croatia in 1994 on May 30th.[20] Currently, the Croatian kuna includes a combination of both coins and bills in the circulation. Coins are in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 _lipa_. The banknotes are in denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 kuna.[21] Today, the Croatian kuna has an inflation rate of 1.10%.[22] One Croatian Kuna(kn) = .13444 Euros, and one Euro = 7.44 Croatian Kuna(kn) [23]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]  International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)|website=encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net|access-date=2019-11-13}}

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

title: Currency of Croatia

question: When did the Croats start creating their own coins?

answer: They started in the late 12th century.

question: When was printed money introduced into the Croatian territory?

answer: It was introduced in the city of Pag in 1778.

question: What is the name of the first printed currency introduced to the Croats?

answer: It is called the assignats.

question: When did Croatia declare its independence from Yugoslavia?

answer: In 1991.

question: Write a ~7 sentence summary.

answer:
Croats did not start creating their own currency until the late 12th century. They had previously used replicas of Byzantine coins of Emperor Heraclius until the 1100s.

Croatia was under attack around the 1400s to 1500s from the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans succeeded in part, but the city-state of Dubrovnik was able to fend off its attacks. Dubrovnik became independent and minted its own coinage called artiluc.

Croats were introduced to printed money in the city of Pag around 1778. The printed money was called assignats and was also introduced to Frace around this time.


text:
WAS EARNIE SHAVERS REALLY a hard hitter? Or was he a featherfist?

This question seems ABSURD to boxing fans (and may even induce epileptic seizures in boxing nostalgists) because they grew up with the belief that ·Earnie Shavers ("The black destroyer") is the HARDEST HITTING HITTER of all time (or at least one of the hardest).

Earnie Shavers is considered THE power puncher. In discussions about KO performances of boxers Earnie Shavers is ALWAYS ranked at the top of near the top.

He has been called the "puncher of the century" and being "among the most destructive punchers of all time".

So it's time to take a closer look and separate facts from nostalgia.

Quotes about Earnie Shavers

THE MAJOR SOURCE of Shavers' fame is the collection of LEGENDS…

-   "On a given night, Shavers can knockout any heavyweight or water buffalo" (JET Magazine, 1978)
-   "Earnie Shavers takes no prisoners" ("Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times", 1992)
-   (Fight vs ·Bernardo Mercado): "Legend has it that Shavers split his glove open from the force of a hard punch he landed on Colombian Bernardo Mercado"

…AND QUOTES ON SHAVERS' POWER by his opponents…

-   ·Tex Cobb: "Nobody hits like Shavers. If anybody hit harder than Shavers, I'd shoot him."
-   ·Larry Holmes: "Earnie hit me harder than any other fighter, including Mike Tyson. He hit me and I was face down on the canvas hearing saxophonist Jimmy Tillis."
-   ·Tex Cobb: "Earnie could punch you in the neck with his right hand and break your ankle."
-   ·Muhammad Ali: "Earnie hit me so hard, he shook my kinfolk back in Africa"
-   ·Ron Lyle: "Hey man, that's the hardest I've ever been hit in my life. And George Foreman could punch, but none of them could hit like Earnie Shavers did. When he hit you, the lights went out. I can laugh about it now, but at the time,it wasn't funny."
-   ·Ron Lyle: "Hardest he's ever been hit: Earnie Shavers. The ground came up and met me. That's all I remember."
-   ·James Tillis: "Shavers hit so hard he turned horse p*ss into gasoline! He hit me so hard he brought back tomorrow. When he hit me… I was seeing pink rats and cats and animals smoking cigarettes. I was in the land of make-believe."
-   ·James Tillis: "The baddest motherf*cker I fought was Earnie Shavers. That motherf*cker can make July into June and made me jump over the motherf*ckin' moon. That motherf*cker hit so hard, he'll bring back tomorow. He hit me so hard, I thought I was on the corner smoking cigarette and eating a spam sandwich. That's how hard that motherf*cker hit."

These are some of the most funny boxing quotes you will ever read, but fun and legends aside:

EVERYONE OF THESE GUYS WAS NOT KO'ED by Shavers. They all WON against Shavers.

Thus when they say "Earnie Shavers is the hardest heavyweight puncher ever" they praise their own wins since they survived "Shavers, the strongest puncher of all time".

Take for example Larry Holmes who claims (see quote above) that Shavers hit harder than Tyson. Yet Holmes survived only 3.5 rounds against Tyson (Larry's only KO'loss in his whole career) but 22.5 rounds against Shavers. It's this type of distorted assessment that feeds nostalgists to this very day.

The same applies to Ray Mercer who (when asked who hit him the hardest) claimed that ·Tommy Morrison was a harder hitter than Wladimir Klitschko. Well, Mercer won against Morrison (W TKO5) and got KO'ed against Klitschko (L TKO6). Claiming that Mercer hit him harder makes his win especially sweet, but not especially true.

Hence let's check some true stats of Shavers:

Earnie Shavers' record at a glance

Shavers and the Klitschkos don't have common opponents who could be asked for a comparison. Thus any claims like "Shavers is the hardest puncher I ever fought" excludes the Klitschkos from the comparison.

And actually I don't care too much about subjective opinions anyway. His record speaks a language clear enough:

Earnie Shavers has hardly wins against good opponents and he failed against what-we-would-consider modern heavyweights, i.e. 215+ lbs.

His best KOs are ·Ken Norton, ·Jimmy Ellis 199 lbs for which he could have been DQed (for holding Ellis' head with the left and then uppercutting) and ·Joe Bugner which ended on a cut.

Earnie Shavers was never a world champ himself, nor has he won against any world champ (except aforementioned Jimmy Ellis).

In other words: Once you ignore funny quotes and legends it turns out that Shavers was considered a dangerous KO'er based on KO'ing mainly cruisers and nobodies.

Earnie Shavers, the cherry-picker

Shavers had approx. 90 fights (that's a lot).

But when you check whether he is a genuine KO'er or a cherry-picker (like Sonny Liston by the way, whose KO'power is also grossly overrated by good-old-time fetishists) then the following turns out:

-   If you exclude all opponents who have been KO'ed before
-   and all opponents who had a loss within 1 year of their encounter with Shavers (a typical thing for cherry-pickers)

it turns out that Shavers

-   KO'ed only 10 guys (median weight 201 lbs)
-   of which 8 guys were bums[?] (like ·Young Agabab 0-1, 196 lbs, or ·Steve Carter 15-7, 190 lbs)
-   and only 2 were somewhat good: ·Howard Smith (17-2, 202 lbs) and ·Tony Perea (KO7) (16-1, 206 lbs).

THAT's Shavers' KO record in a nutshell.

For a guy with 90+ wins this is disappointing.

Earnie Shavers, the heavyweight featherfist

Shavers KO'performance is mainly based on KO'ing cruisers (sub-200 opponents).

Once you check his performance against genuine[?] heavyweights  215+ lbs (= what-we-nowadays-consider-heavyweights) it turns out Shavers would merely be a featherfist by today's standards: 11 KOS IN 23 FIGHTS.

Here are the real statistics of Shavers, not some nostalgic fantasies:

Since 215+ lbs is the de facto ENTRY POINT for heavyweights nowadays (and we are generous here since the average opponent weight of Wladimir Klitschko is 233 lbs) this means that Earnie Shavers would be considered a featherfist nowadays.

In other words: Shavers would be a nobody when it comes to power. His power is dropping considerably the heavier the opponents get and already his 200+ KO'ratio (68%) is nothing special.

Yes, that's how much the division changed (= how much more powerful it got) compared to Ali's times.

Wladimir Klitschko has faced 20 opponents
with a better 215+ KO'ratio than Earnie Shavers.

As you can see from the table above other boxers have an even worse KO'performance than Shavers (e.g. Joe Frazier or Clay/Ali), but even Shavers' better KO'ratio would pose no threat nowadays (except for the usual "hitter's chance").

How Earnie Shavers KO'power suffered the heavier his opponents got

Here you have a slightly more detailed table how Shavers' KO'performance got worse the heavier the opponents got:

  Weight of opponent      Rounds Shavers needed between KOs
  ----------------------- -----------------------------------
  < 200 lbs opponents     3 rounds per KO
  200-214 lbs opponents   5 rounds per KO
  214+ opponents          11 rounds per KO

Fistic Statistic [#2318.2]

How many rounds did Earnie Shavers need per KO?

Let's compare the SPEED of the KO of Shavers and some other boxers who are considered to be hard hitters.

Again, I excluded cruisers and such and only compare the KO'performance against genuine heavyweight opposition 215+ lbs.

Please note that I also excluded all southpaws since some boxers like Lennox Lewis or Mike Tyson specifically DUCKED southpaws due to the difficulty to KO them. The table below therefore excludes fights against southpaws, and only considers those boxers whose stance is known and is orthodox. Additionally the figures are fair[?] (= exclude NCs, WDQs and buttfights).

Let me explain this to all good-old-time nostalgists in clear words:

The Klitschkos knock out genuine heavyweights (215+ lbs, orthodox stance)
faster than Mike Tyson
2x faster than George Foreman
4x to 5x faster than Earnie Shavers

Actually even Chris Byrd (who is universally considered a featherfist) doesn't look too bad compared to Shavers.

Earnie Shavers' hard hits were mainly dangerous in the first rounds

Additionally Shavers was not dangerous in later rounds (unlike the Klitschkos who are dangerous from the first minute to the last):

How many fights did Shavers have that went 7+ rounds? 17 (seventeen).

How many of these 17 fights did he manage to win by KO? 3 (three). That's really bad. It hints at stamina problems or accuracy problems.

Earnie Shavers' KO streaks (consecutive KOs)

Part of the Earnie Shavers Mythology is his streak: He KO'ed 28 opponents in a row.

Again, if you analyze these opponents they are all bums[?] (like Willie Johnson 19-30) or had been massively KO'ed before (like Bill Hardney 13 times) or had come off a loss (or had a loss within last months) (like Pat Duncan).

Once you analyze how many non-bums[?] he could KO in a row his figures shrink dramatically.

Here are the KO streaks[?] of Earnie Shavers and some other KO artists:

You see clearly how GENUINE KO'ers like George Foreman, Shannon Briggs or the Klitschkos compare to cherry-pickers like Earnie Shavers, who regularly failed against better opposition.

Earnie Shavers vs Wladimir Klitschko

-   Considering Earnie Shavers 47% KO'ratio (compared to Klitschkos' 80%+ KO'ratio) they are at least 4 punching leagues above Shavers.
-   Additionally Earnie Shavers never won a world championship thus Klitschkos' KOs are far more worth.
-   Additionally Earnie Shavers' average KO'win is a median 200 lbs. Wladimir Klitschko's is 233 lbs.
-   Additionally Earnie Shavers had 56 real[?] heavyweight fights (= less than Wladimir Klitschko) of which 18(!) did not end as a KO'win (compared to Klitschko's 8).
-   Additionally Earnie Shavers fought dirty. Just watch the []Shavers vs Joe Bugner fight: low blows, headbutts, head holding and then uppercutting. That would be far less possible nowadays, since heavies are taller and referees are fairer.
-   Additionally Earnie Shavers was KO'ed 7 times. In other words: A hard punch (from modern heavies) would throw him back and thus his own attack would be slowed down thus his KO'ratio in modern times would even be lower.
-   Additionally Earnie Shavers (average weight 208 lbs) would be the BOTTOM-2 LIGHTEST opponent Wladimir Klitschko has ever faced, thus Shavers would probably not box as a heavyweight anyway but as a cruiser.

In other words: The power/dangerousness of Earnie Shavers and of a Klitschko is not even close.

Earnie Shavers' power might have been good…
…for a cruiserweight

End words

Yes, Shavers was a "cruiser power puncher", but a "superheavyweight FEATHERFIST".

Yes, Shavers was dangerous for bums and sub-215 opponents mainly.

Yes, Shavers had good moments against non-bums where he managed to connect with a single hard hit hence their comments at the top of this page).

Thus I don't doubt that he actually could deliver single power punches. The bummier the opponent (and the lighter) the more dangerous these punches were of course.

But this a totally different power than the Klitschkos. Vitali is an accumulation puncher wearing his opponents down and Wladimir has extreme one-punch-KO-power against any kind of opponent throughout the whole fight.

Shavers' dangerousness (especially in today's superheavyweight division) is GROSSLY overrated by boxing fans.

The Klitschkos are approximately
10-20X MORE DANGEROUS THAN EARNIE SHAVERS
based on the SPEED, WEIGHT, AMOUNT, CONSTANCY (streaks) and QUALITY of KO wins.

Surviving Shavers and surviving the Klitschkos are worlds apart.

What else you should read…

I compiled even more KO statistics at Hardest hitters of boxing: KO stats of Tyson, Klitschko, Foreman, Shavers and other knockout artists

Read an interview with Earnie Shavers

WladimirKlitschko|-|87.5%|87.5%(42of48)
LennoxLewis|-|75.6%|75.0%(27of36)
DavidHaye|87.5%|90.0%|85.7%(6of7)
MuhammadAli|79.1%|40.5%|33.3%(5of15)
MikeTyson|100.0%|78.0%|73.6%(28of38)
MichaelMoorer|100.0%|51.4%|46.1%(12of26)
JoeFrazier|100.0%|50.0%|45.4%(5of11)
EvanderHolyfield|77.7%|40.0%|34.4%(10of29)
LarryHolmes|50.0%|58.2%|45.9%(17of37)
TomaszAdamek|63.8%|62.5%|40.0%(2of5)
EarnieShavers|90.9%|68.4%|47.8%(11of23)

Earnie Shavers - Power hitter or overrated featherfist?, 2.4 out of 5 based on 52 ratings

question: Summarize why Earnie Shavers is considered the hardest hitting hitter of all time?

answer: The author argues that Shavers may not actually be the hardest hitting hitter of all time, but explains why he is considered to be. The major source of this claim comes from the quotes of legends and his opponents describing his hard hitting. However, Shavers has never won against any of these opponents. These opponents are actually praising their ability to win against Shavers, the strongest puncher of all time. Additionally, the author feels that Shavers abilities are grossly overrated by his fans as his punches were mostly powerful towards weaker opponents.

question: Summarize everything relating to James Tillis.

answer: James Tillis is one of Shavers' opponents. He was quoted as saying Shavers hit him so hard that he brought back tomorrow. He also said that one of the toughest people he's ever fought was Earnie Shavers. Despite this, Tillis still won against Shavers.

question: What does the text say about Shavers wins?

answer: The author says that Shavers actually hardly has any wins against good opponents. Shavers had seventeen fights that went seven rounds and he only won three by KO. He says Shavers' KO record is disappointing for a guy with 90+ wins.

question: What does the text say about Shavers' personal life?


text:
'Show my husband mercy... we need him back home': Taxi driver Alan Henning's wife makes tearful plea to his Islamic State captors

-   BARBARA HENNING TODAY ISSUED A PLEA FOR ISIS TO RELEASE HER HUSBAND.
-   SALFORD TAXI DRIVER ALAN HENNING WAS KIDNAPPED LAST DECEMBER IN SYRIA
-   WIFE BARBARA SAYS IN VIDEO: 'PLEASE RELEASE HIM, WE NEED HIM BACK HOME'
-   SAYS HUSBAND WAS IN THE 'RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME' BECAUSE HE WAS HELPING PEOPLE IN SYRIA AT THE TIME OF HIS KIDNAP
-   MRS HENNING HAS MADE PREVIOUS STATEMENTS CALLING FOR HUSBAND'S RELEASE
-   HOWEVER, THIS IS HER FIRST TELEVISED APPEAL TO HER HUSBAND'S CAPTORS

 Published: 11:52 EST, 30 September 2014 | Updated: 10:07 EST, 1 October 2014

The distraught wife of British hostage Alan Henning pleaded yesterday to his jihadist captors to show mercy and release him.

In a direct televised appeal to Islamic State, a tearful Barbara Henning said: ‘I ask Islamic State please release him, we need him back home.’

She said her efforts to communicate with the captors of her 47-year-old taxi driver husband have been met only with silence. Her sole contact has been an audio message from Mr Henning pleading for his life.

Scroll down for video

Desperate: Barbara Henning today broke her silence to issue a plea for ISIS to release her husband Alan

Public: Although Mrs Henning has made previous statements calling for her husband's release, this is the first time she has been filmed appealing to his captors

Her appeal was made minutes before the Ministry of Defence announced that RAF Tornados had attacked IS targets inside Iraq – a move some fear could spark a backlash against Mr Henning.

The Briton known as Jihadi John, who has appeared in videos beheading hostages, said British aid worker David Haines, 44, was murdered because the UK began supplying Kurdish forces with weapons.

Mr Henning, from Salford, who was seized on Boxing Day last year as he delivered aid to Syrian refugees, was shown at the end of the video of Mr Haines’s death with the threat that he would be next.

Emotional: Mrs Henning said she was 'dreadfully concerned' for the safety of her husband

Fear: Last week Mrs Henning revealed she had received a message from her husband pleading for his life

Concern: Alan Henning is an ex-taxi driver from Manchester who travelled to the Middle East as an aid worker

Since then there has been a massive international campaign to secure his freedom and Mrs Henning stressed: ‘Muslims across the globe continue to question Islamic State over Alan’s fate.

'Their position regarding his situation is unequivocal. He is innocent ... We are at a loss why those leading Islamic State cannot open their hearts and minds to the truth about Alan’s humanitarian motives for going to Syria and why they continue to ignore the verdict of their own justice system [not guilty of spying].

‘Surely those who wish to be seen as a state will act in a statesmanlike way by showing mercy and providing clemency.’

Plea: Mrs Henning urged Islamic State leaders to 'open their hearts and minds to the truth about Alan's humanitarian motives for going to Syria'

'WE WANT HIM BACK HOME': MRS HENNING'S STATEMENT IN FULL

'I have a further message for Islamic State: We've not abandoned Alan and we continue in our attempts to communicate with you.

'We have had no contact from Islamic State holding him other than an audio file of him pleading for his life.

'Muslims across the globe continue to question Islamic State over Alan's fate. Their position regarding his statement is unequivocal. He is innocent.

'Some say wrong time, wrong place. Alan was volunteering with his Muslim friends to help the people of Syria. He was in the right place during the right time.

'We are at a loss why those leading Islamic State cannot open their hearts and minds to the truth about Alan's humanitarian motives for going to Syria and why they continue to ignore the verdicts of their own justice system.

'Surely those who wish to be known as a state will act in a statesmanlike way by showing mercy and providing clemency.

'Alan, we miss you and we're dreadfully concerned for your safety. But we are given so much hope by the outcry across the world as to your imprisonment. We ask Islamic State: Please release him. We want him back home.

'Thank you.'

More than 100 high-profile Muslim leaders have warned that killing Mr Henning is against shariah law and would be the ‘worst condemnable sin’ against Islam.

Mr Henning’s brother-in-law Colin Livesey said he fears the air strikes could make it harder to find Mr Henning as the group will be forced to move.

Dr Shameela Islam-Zulfiqar, who travelled with Mr Henning on several aid convoys to Syria, warned UK air strikes would leave little hope of Mr Henning being released alive. She added: ‘It doesn’t leave you very optimistic, but we still have to remain hopeful.’

Hopeful: A yellow ribbon inscribed with the words 'Free Alan Henning' adorns a fence in his home town of Salford, as his friends, family and neighbours pray for his release

Plight: The father of two was captured by the group’s fanatics last December while delivering aid in Syria

Vigil: Friends of the hostage take part in a candlelit vigil in Eccles Park, close to Mr Henning's home

Advertisement

question: What did Barbara Henning ask ISIS for?

answer: Barbara Henning made a televised direct appeal to ISIS to ask them to release her husband, a 47-year-old taxi driver. Her sole contact has been an audio message from Mr. Henning pleading for his life. She begged them to show mercy and release him.


text:
This LIST OF AWARDS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIETY is an index to articles on notable awards for contributions to society. It excludes humanitarian and service awards, religion-related awards, peace prizes, law enforcement awards and honors and legal awards, which are covered by separate lists. The list is organized by region and country of the award sponsor, but some awards are open to people or organizations around the world.

Awards

  Country         Award                                       Venue / sponsor                                                      Notes
  --------------- ------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Australia       Community Award                             United Nations Association of Australia (Queensland)                 “Selfless and often uncelebrated efforts and commitment in their day-to-day lives relating to issues of peace, human rights, social justice and equality — efforts that serve to better the society we live in”.[1]
  Austria         Essl Social Prize                           Essl Foundation                                                      Projects developed by social entrepreneurs[2]
  Bangladesh      Begum Rokeya Padak                          Ministry of Women & Children Affairs                                 Pioneering contribution of an individual in empowering women and raising women's issues.[3][4]
  Denmark         Crown Prince Couple's Awards                Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark   Exceptional achievement in the arts and culture and in social work[5]
  Europe          European Citizens' Prize                    European Parliament                                                  Projects and initiatives that contribute to European cooperation and the promotion of common values[6]
  Germany         German Africa Prize                         German Africa Foundation                                             Promote peace, democracy, social market economy and human rights[7]
  India           Jamnalal Bajaj Award                        Bajaj Group                                                          Promoting Gandhian values, community service and social development[8]
  India           Nari Shakti Puraskar                        President of India                                                   Achievements and contributions of women[9]
  International   IPDC-UNESCO Prize for Rural Communication   International Programme for the Development of Communication         Initiatives for improving communication in rural communities, mainly in developing countries[10]
  International   UN Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize          United Nations                                                       Service to humanity, in the promotion of reconciliation and social cohesion, and in community development[11]
  Jamaica         Prime Minister's Medal of Appreciation      Prime Minister of Jamaica                                            Significant contribution to the economic, social, cultural or political development of Jamaica or to Jamaicans residing abroad[12]
  Japan           Nikkei Asia Prize                           _The Nikkei_                                                         People in Asia who have made significant contributions in regional growth; science, technology and innovation; or culture[13]
  Kosovo          Hero of Kosovo                              President of Kosovo                                                  Historical figures of Kosovo as well as citizens of Kosovo who have contributed to freedom and independence[14]
  Netherlands     Erasmus Prize                               Praemium Erasmianum Foundation                                       Individuals or institutions that have made exceptional contributions to culture, society, or social science in Europe and the rest of the world[15]
  Sudan           Ibrahim Prize                               Mo Ibrahim Foundation                                                Excellence in African leadership[16]
  Sweden          Right Livelihood Award                      Right Livelihood Award Foundation                                    Practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today[17]
  United States   Computerworld Smithsonian Award             _Computerworld_                                                      Individuals who have used technology to produce beneficial changes for society[18][19][20]
  United States   Dr. Nathan Davis Awards                     American Medical Association                                         Public servants in national, state, and local governments for outstanding government service[21]
  United States   El-Hibri Peace Education Prize              El-Hibri Foundation                                                  Individuals who embody the principles of peace, justice, and inclusion[22]
  United States   Eugene V. Debs Award                        Eugene V. Debs Foundation                                            Person whose work has been consistent with the spirit, values, and legacy of Eugene V. Debs and who has contributed to the advancement of the causes of industrial unionism, social justice, or world peace[23]
  United States   Heinz Awards                                Heinz Foundations                                                    Contributions in Arts and Humanities; Environment; Human Condition; Public Policy; and Technology, the Economy and Employment[24]
  United States   Henry Viscardi Achievement Awards           Viscardi Center                                                      Exemplary leaders in the disability sector around the globe[25]
  United States   Hoover Medal                                American Society of Mechanical Engineers                             Outstanding extra-career services by engineers to humanity[26]
  United States   Wasserstein Fellow                          Harvard Law School                                                   Exemplary members of the bar who engage in public service[27][28]
  United States   Ronald Reagan Freedom Award                 Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum                        Those who have made monumental and lasting contributions to the cause of freedom worldwide[29]

[1] UNAAQ 2011. UNAAQ Newsletter. Vol.6, No.8. September, 2011. p.1.

[2] Essl Social Prize an “Menschen für Menschen” on ORF, 26 March 2011

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18] [http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!140524!0 The Computer World Smithsonian Awards, 1989–2001], Smithsonian Institution.

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

title: List of awards for contributions to society

question: What is the Eugene V. Debs Award?

answer: an award given in the US by the Eugene V. Debs foundation for a person whose work has been consistent with the spirit, values, and legacy of Eugene V. Debs and who has contributed to the advancement of the causes of industrial unionism, social justice, or world peace

question: What is the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award?

answer: an award given in the United States to by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum to those who have made monumental and lasting contributions to the cause of freedom worldwide.

question: What is the Austria Essl Social Prize?

answer: an award given by the Essl Foundation to projects developed by social entrepreneurs

question: What is the Wasserstein Fellow Harvard Law School Exemplary?

answer: an award given to members of the bar who engage in public service

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This is an index of articles on notable awards for contributions to society.


text:
Ally sat on her parent’s couch, snuggled warmly between two big, fluffy cushions. She pictured herself an over sized cat.

The image made her giggle.

The TV was loud, something she could only do when her parents had gone out. They didn’t like the noise, and they didn’t like TV. They had told her once that it, “ruined the minds of children”.

She wasn’t yet old enough to be on her own, so she had to listen to them.

On TV, a documentary on the Civil War played, narrated by a monotone man with a deep voice. She loved history. She enjoyed knowing where people came from. It helped her imagine where people could go. It was a happy thought. She liked happy thoughts.

“Hey Ally” a male voice said, entering the room.

“Is mom and dad gone?”

“Yea, they said they’d be back in an hour or so” Ally replied with a warm smile.
He nodded thoughtfully and took a seat next to her.

“How was soccer practice?” Ally said.

“It was really good. I scored a goal in scrimmage”

 “Good job Jack!” Ally said, high fiving her brother.

“What are you watching?” He said, relaxing into the sofa.

 “Civil war Doc. It’s really good” Ally said without turning from the screen. A black and white picture of a group of smiling soldiers stared back at her. In the center, a pale man as white as chalk beamed with a dumb smile. It made her happy.

“Very cool” he said. There were a few seconds of silence while the TV played a battle scene.

“So, do you want to play a game?” he said from beside her.
She loved games, and was always eager to play them. She especially loved monopoly.
“Sure! Can we play monopoly?” she said, excited for a chance to beat him.

She had always wanted to beat him, and though they had played dozens of times, she had yet to secure even a single victory.

There was a brief, heavy silence.

“Hmm, well, I was thinking the game me and you play sometimes. High school?” he said.
													Her heart twitched.

“I don’t like playing ‘High school’, can’t we just play monopoly?”

“You love that game, don’t you?” he said with a bright smile.

“Yea, I want to beat you at”

She laughed tentatively.

He laughed happily.

“Ok, ok. How about this: We play my game first, then we play Monopoly. I’ll even let you start with an extra five hundred dollars this time. Sound good?”

She thought about it for a long minute.

Her heart twitched again.

She desperately wanted to win. He had always on his game. She just wanted one game where she could win.

“Ok”
He clasped his hands together in accomplishment.

Ally looked at his big grin. Saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth. It reminded her of a sick dog.
												She really hated that game.

She noticed some untouched homework from her day at school sprawled out on the floor.

“Wait, I have to do this homework” she said, picking up the sheet from the carpet.

Jack took it from her hands and quickly examined it.

“This is easy stuff. I know I’m no wizard at math but I think I can handle third grade stuff. How about I just do it for you later on?”

She fidgeted in her seat. 									She didn’t want to upset him.

“Okay”

“Great” Jack said, putting it back on the floor.

“Now, who do you want to be?” Jack said.

“I guess I’ll be the cheerleader again” Ally said.

Her voice was feeble.

“Cool, I guess that makes me the football captain”

“Meet me upstairs in the ‘locker room’” Jack said, smiling. He stood up, removing his shirt as he did so. He then disappeared quickly behind the wall and up the stairs.

Ally began walking slowly towards the stairs. She took a last look at the TV, which still played loudly behind her.

On the screen, a dead man lay in a grassy ditch, clutching his chest in pain. His face was as pale as chalk.

Ally saw the sparkle in his eyes. She really didn’t like playing his games.

She took a step up the stairs.

She took another.

She took a few more, and then a few more.

She stepped up onto the top of the stairs, the ‘locker room’ ahead of her.

She was afraid.

She just wanted to play Monopoly.

She thought to herself, don’t worry Ally, siblings don’t hurt each other.

She agreed with herself. They didn’t.

She opened the door to his room. She removed her tank top. It had a giant smiling bunny on it.

His teeth were white like snow.

She closed the door behind her.

She unbuttoned her jeans. When they fell, the button made a loud ping against the hardwood.

Her brother was fully naked, lying sprawled out on the bed.

He was the color of chalk.

“Hey”, he began playfully, “Girls aren’t allowed in the boy’s locker room”.

End

title: [RF] The games we play are not the same

question: What does the story say about the games Ally and her brother played?

answer: Ally and her brother enjoyed playing games together regularly. Ally particularly enjoyed their monopoly sessions, but they also played other games, such as 'high school,' from time to time. For as long as she can remember, Ally has dreamed of beating her brother in a game of monopoly. She played the cheerleader in the 'high school' role-playing game, while her brother played the football captain. Her brother always defeated her in the game, and she was fed up with the situation. She was desperate to play a game against her brother in which she could easily triumph. According to the story, 'high school' was a sexually explicit game.

question: What does the story say about Ally's interests?

answer: Ally relished the experience of watching her parent's television on their couch. She preferred to watch TV when they weren't there, despite their distaste for it due to their belief that it corrupted children's minds. She had a passion for history and would often watch Civil War films. People's origins fascinated her since it allowed her to imagine where they may end up in the future. The game of monopoly was one of her favorite pastimes, and she looked forward to getting the chance to play it with her brother in the hopes of getting the upper hand against him.

question: What does the story say about how to play monopoly?