text:
For four years, Donald Trump and the Republican party have been riding roughshod over long-established norms of American democracy. They have pushed to the legal limits of what they can do (and sometimes beyond). They have not so much ignored any opposition as declared it illegitimate. In response, and in the face of intense national polarization, politicians and pundits have appealed to moderation, civility and the common good. One of the biggest proponents of that attitude is President-elect Joe Biden, who, in his victory speech, said, “We must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans.” Now that Trump has lost, the political survivors of the Republican party may rush to join that chorus.

Biden, committed to re-establishing “normalcy”, will probably rejoice at the prospect of returning to the good old days of chummy bipartisanship. Dianne Feinstein already gave a preview, when she thanked Lindsey Graham for his “leadership” in the plainly illegitimate Amy Coney Barrett confirmation process and literally embraced one of Trump’s worst lackeys. In the coming two to four years, political moderation might be a particularly alluring siren call to a weak Democratic president who may not control the Senate or have a strong majority in the House of Representatives.

Here’s the problem, however: “working across the aisle” is not an ideal in itself. If we expect politics to look like an impartial pursuit of the common good or think that there will be consensus if we all follow the rules, as the neoconservative writer Anne Applebaum has suggested, then we are bound to be disappointed over and over. Rather, we must learn to distinguish between democratic and undemocratic forms of political conflict – and properly sanction those engaged in the latter.

Polarization is not a given. Culture does not automatically determine politics; we are not fated to debate all issues in terms of cliched contrasts between “flyover country” and “liberal coasts”. Some social scientists like to reduce politics to psychology; they claim that humans are hardwired for “tribalism” or, put less politely, for groups hating each other. That isn’t true. In fact, such accounts are curiously apolitical, as well as ahistorical. They cannot explain why, if tribalism is our universal fate, some democracies miraculously appear to escape it, and why some get by without endless culture wars, even if their internal differences are no smaller than in the US.

Polarization isn’t an objectively given reality; it’s a rightwing political project and, not least, it’s big business – just look at the talk radio millionaires. Rightwing populists deepen divisions and reduce all policy questions to questions of cultural belonging. What makes them distinctive is not their criticism of elites, but the invidious suggestion that not every citizen is part of what such politicians often call “the real people”. Trump told four congresswomen to go home to their shitholish countries; his sycophant Jim Jordan tweeted that “Americans love America. They don’t want their neighborhoods turning into San Francisco.”

This strategy has worked well enough for a Republican party whose economic policies are utterly out of line with what large majorities of Americans actually want. For a counter-majoritarian party of plutocratic populism, riling people up with apocalyptic visions of “real America” being destroyed by black and brown people is not an add-on, but the core mechanism of an electoral outrage-and-grievances machine oiled with resources from the 0.01%. The noise of that machine effectively keeps people distracted from the plutocratic policies most Americans find unappealing.

Fierce partisanship is not in itself a symptom of politics gone wrong. On the contrary: we would not need democracy if we did not have deep disagreements and divisions – which are inevitable, as long as we live in a free society. The problem arises when disagreement translates into disrespect. Disrespect doesn’t mean just being impolite; it means denying the standing of particular citizens – and, as a logical next step, actively trying to disenfranchise people. Republicans have been working towards a situation in which a combination of voter suppression and what the philosopher Kate Manne has called “trickle-down aggression” – acts of private political intimidation tacitly endorsed by Trump – shrinks the political power and relevance of many Americans in a way favorable to the interests of the Republican party.

None of this is to say that culture is off-limits for democratic conflict. Of course, it’s not always clear how abortion, for instance, is really about “culture”. But even deep moral disagreements can be accommodated in a democracy – provided that both winners and losers have another chance to fight the fight. Contrary to Mitch McConnell’s gloating, losers don’t just “go home”, but get to hold winners accountable and develop systematic policy alternatives. Democracy always allows for second thoughts; it’s only when the stakes become absolutely existential, or religious, that society gets locked in a scorched-earth, zero-sum battle.

What if rough play in politics – not pretty, but not illegitimate – becomes truly unfair play? Some theorists think the losing side should sacrifice for the sake of keeping the greater democratic whole together. But democracy cannot mean dividing politics between suckers and scoundrels, as the political scientist Andreas Schedler puts it. Game theorists tell us that we can re-establish proper rule-following by answering every tat with a tit. But responding to unfairness with unfairness might lead to a downward spiral of norms violations; fighting fire with fire could burn down the house as a whole.

It is crucial to realize that not all norm violations in political conflict are the same. Not every invention of an insulting nickname on Twitter must be answered with the same childishness (of which even Trumpists must be tired by now). The best answer to suppression of our voters is not somehow keeping out partisans of the other side. Mechanical tit-for-tat retaliation – even if sometimes emotionally satisfying – should be resisted in favor of could be called democracy-preserving or even democracy-enhancing reciprocity: measures the other side won’t like, but which can be justified with genuine democratic principles: such as giving statehood to DC and Puerto Rico, or abolishing the electoral college.

Of course, McConnell sees these proposals as merely a power grab; yet a party that tries to construct new majorities, as opposed to just capturing counter-majoritarian institutions like the supreme court and relying on the votes of what Lindsey Graham once called “angry white guys”, would welcome the contest for new voters. Fair partisan fights can restore democracy, not kitschy appeals to unity and bipartisanship.

-   Jan-Werner Mueller is a professor at Princeton and currently also a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin. Democracy Rules is forthcoming from Farrar Straus & Giroux and Penguin

question: Summarize all the information relating to the Democrats.

answer: The Democrats call for moderation, civility and the common good. Democrat, Diane Feinstein, thanked Republican, Lindsey Graham, for his leadership after the plainly illegitimate confirmation process. Biden is seen as a weak Democratic president, he may not control the senate or have a strong majority in the House of Representatives.

question: Summarize all the information relating to the Republicans.

answer: The Republicans broke down long-established norms of American democracy and pushed legal limits of what they can do. Trump told four congresswomen to go home to their 'shitholish' countries; his sycophant Jim Jordan tweeted Americans love America. Their economic policies are out of line with what large majorities of Americans actually want.

question: Which method of inter-party conflict resolution does the Republicans use?

answer: Under Trump the Republicans have declared opposition illegitimate. Their criticism of elites does not make them distinctive, but the invidious suggestion that not every citizen is part of what such politicians often call the real people.  The noise that their machine generates effectively keeps people distracted from the plutocratic policies most Americans find unappealing.

question: Which method of inter-party conflict resolution does the Democrats use?

answer: Biden wants to re-establish normalcy and asks political moderation by returning to the good old days of chummy bipartisanship. The problem with this method is that working across the aisle is not an ideal in itself.

question: Which method of inter-party conflict resolution is more effective?

answer: Neither solutions present an opportunity to uphold and build out democracy. The author posits that the best solution will be fair partisan fights.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The methods of conflict resolution used by neither Republican and Democratic parties are effective in maintaining and enhancing democracy in America. The author suggests that the best method is fair partisan fights.


split: test

text:
The COMBE HAY LOCKS is a derelict flight of locks on the Somerset Coal Canal near Combe Hay, Somerset. Twenty two locks raised the canal over approximately . The lock flight was predated in the immediate area by two other methods of canal lifts—first by a series of caisson locks, then by an inclined plane. The lock flight opened in 1805, and was in operation until 1899.

History

The route of the Somerset Coal Canal, after leaving its junction with the Kennet and Avon Canal at Limpley Stoke, roughly parallels that of the Midford Brook. At Midford, the canal followed the valley of the Cam Brook. At Combe Hay, the steep valley required the canal to climb a significant height—[1]—over a distance of .[2][3]

Caisson locks

[John Billingsley's engraving of the caisson lock at Combe Hay] The first proposed solution to overcoming the gradient was by the use of three caisson locks.[4] Adverts were printed in Bath periodicals in January 1796 to recruit stonemasons for building the locks.[5]

Construction of the first caisson lock began in 1796. The masonry chamber, known as the cistern, was long and at its widest, and had a depth of . The wooden caisson—the moving box within the cistern—was long, wide and tall. Each of the three caisson locks was planned to provide a lift of .[6]

Trials of this first lock took place between November 1797 and June 1798.[7] These showed that it could be traversed in 7 minutes; on 9 June 1798, a reporter for the _Bath Herald_ wrote that:

The same publication wrote the following year that the system was so simple that a boat could traverse the caisson in just 10 minutes under the operation of a 12-year-old boy.[8] The report identified problems with the caisson's ability to remain watertight,[9] and hypothesized that the only solution would be to rebuild the chamber.[10] A second caisson was started and construction of the third was probably never begun.[11] Surveyor William Smith visited the site at least twice, in 1798 and 1799.[12] The geology of the area, with substantial deposits of fuller's earth,[13] proved unsuitable for the caisson chambers—in May 1799 the masonry of the lock chamber bulged under pressure and the caisson was immovable. Repairs were quoted at £16,000——which was in addition to the £75,167 (£) already invested in the caisson project.[14] In January 1800, the caissons were abandoned and an alternative sought.[15][16]

In May 1801, having moved to Bath upon her father's retirement, Jane Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra about plans with her uncle to “take the long-planned walk to the Cassoon”;[17][18] the short trip was a popular excursion at the time.[19] The same year, Richard Warner wrote of the then-state of the caisson lock in his _Excursions from Bath_:[20]

The precise location of the caisson locks (or their intended location) is in doubt.[21][22] General consensus is that the completed caisson lock was accessed east of the basin near Caisson House. The second caisson was likely a short distance to the east,[23] with the third a considerable distance downstream (near the site of Locks 19 and 20).[24][25]

Inclined plane

The canal company investigated alternatives to the caisson locks, and a lock flight was chosen as the appropriate method. To achieve this, in June 1800 the company made the decision to build a temporary inclined plane,[26] although this method for climbing the hill proved slow.[27] The inclined plane was only ever intended to avoid further delays to the canal's construction,[28] and would only be in operation while the flight of locks was built.[29] To reduce the length (and gradient) of the inclined plane, three pound locks were built to the east of Combe Hay. The inclined plane began operation in November 1801.[30]

Lock flight

In addition to the three extant locks below the inclined plane, a further 19 locks were built to supersede the plane.[31] Fundraising began in February 1800, initially via shareholder donations totalling £20,000 (). In 1802, a fund established by the canal company along with the proprietors of the Wilts and Berks and Kennet and Avon canals sought to raise a further £45,000 ().[32]

Construction began on the flight in November 1802, with the first lock (lock 19) being completed in June 1804. During the works, the caisson lock was demolished and it is likely that the significant amount of masonry was reclaimed for use on the lock flight as coping stones[33] and possibly on the later building of Caisson House.[34]

The engineer of the flight was probably William Bennet.[35] The flight of 22 locks fully opened in April 1805.[36] These all had the same specification—a rise of approximately , a beam of , and a length to fit a narrowboat. These locks were half as wide of those on the connecting Kennet and Avon Canal, thus two vessels from the Somerset Coal Canal could fit side by side in the broad Kennet and Avon locks.[37]

To achieve the climb in the available area, the lock flight diverted north of the caisson and inclined plane routes,[38] before turning 170° and rejoining the route to the south. This hairpin bend became known as the “Bull's Nose”.[39][40] Speed of traversing the flight was a priority, and the lock paddles and culverts were made as large as practicable to empty and fill the locks as quickly as possible. To avoid damage to the locks caused by carelessness, wrought iron plates and cast iron slabs were installed on the lock flight.[41] In 1805, the locks opened.[42]

Decline

In 1881, the Camerton Branch of the Bristol and North Somerset Railway opened through the Cam valley, crossing the lock flight at lock 16.[43] Like many canals, the arrival of rail transport began the decline of the waterway's use.[44] The canal was put up for sale in 1894. The backpumps on the flight ceased operation in November 1898;[45] transport would continue to operate until August 1899 when the water levels became insufficient for navigation.[46]

Legacy

After the abandonment of the canal in 1899, the flight was left to become derelict. The chamber of lock 16, beneath a railway arch of the Camerton railway branch, was infilled.[47]

In 1982, 10 of the extant locks—those in the parish of Combe Hay—were given Grade II listed status. The survey for the listing found that the locks' ashlar retaining walls survive to a height of , and some of the lower lock gates were still in situ.[48] In 1984, a further five locks of the flight—those in South Stoke parish—were also listed as Grade II. This survey found similar survival of the retaining walls, although it described some as being in a poor condition. A milestone is extant near Lock 4, although its cast iron plaque (reading “4/MILES”) is missing. It was identified that four locks in the 1805 flight of 19 had been buried or otherwise destroyed.[49]

A building near the summit of the flight, Caisson House, is named for its proximity to the first caisson lock. The building is likely a former terrace of cottages built for the canal company in the 1830s (and therefore the removal of the caisson lock predates the cottages' construction).[50]

Restoration

General restoration work began on the lower lock flight (below the Bull's Nose) in 2000. This work was expanded to cover the upper flight in 2011, as landowner permission needed to be sought. This work was undertaken alongside the Inland Waterways Association's Waterway Recovery Group.[51]

Locations

  Feature   Coordinates   Status
  --------- ------------- ----------
  Lock 1                  Extant
  Lock 2                  Extant
  Lock 3                  Extant
  Lock 4                  Extant
  Lock 5                  Extant
  Lock 6                  Extant
  Lock 7                  Extant
  Lock 8                  Extant
  Lock 9                  Extant
  Lock 10                 Extant
  Lock 11                 Extant
  Lock 12                 Extant
  Lock 13                 Extant
  Lock 14                 Extant
  Lock 15                 Extant
  Lock 16                 Infilled
  Lock 17                 Infilled
  Lock 18                 Infilled
  Lock 19                 Infilled
  Lock 20                 Infilled
  Lock 21                 Infilled
  Lock 22                 Infilled

Footnotes

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

[42]

[43]

[44]

[45]

[46]

[47]

[48]

[49]

[50]

[51]

title: Combe Hay Locks

question: Summarize the history of Combe Hay Locks.

answer: The route of the Somerset Coal Canal, after leaving its junction with the Kennet and Avon Canal at Limpley Stoke, roughly parallels that of the Midford Brook. At Midford, the canal followed the valley of the Cam Brook. At Combe Hay, the steep valley required the canal to climb a significant height.

question: Summarize the restoration work on the Combe Hay Locks.

answer: General restoration began on the lower lock flight in 2000. This work was expanded to cover the upper flight in 2011.


text:
luding Rep. Michael McCaul, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Rep. Peter King, and Rep. Louie Gohmert.

President Obama warned against normalizing this disruptive talk, asking, “How does our democracy function like that?” How, indeed.

[]

Stan Honda/AFP via Getty Images

Then President-elect Barack Obama flanked by Joe Biden speaking about the priorities for his transition team, Chicago, Illinois, November 7, 2008

*

Murphy has a sordid history in the Trump administration. As I recounted in my July 2 piece for the _Review_, she cancelled a long-planned relocation of the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Circumstances suggest she may have been satisfying a desire on the part of President Trump to avoid opening real estate near his Washington, D.C., hotel that a competing hotel could acquire. Trump leases the government’s Old Post Office building from Murphy’s agency for his hotel, which sits less than a block from the J. Edgar Hoover building that houses FBI headquarters.

Murphy has declined to discuss a meeting with President Trump at the White House shortly before the cancellation. She refused to answer questions about it posed by the GSA’s inspector general, who noted that her testimony in an April 2018 hearing before Congress may have “left the misleading impression that she had no discussions with the President or senior White House officials in the decision-making process about the project.”

Murphy also appears to have been complicit in President Trump’s assault on the civil service, which he calls the “deep state.” As I previously wrote, laws and regulations protecting public servants against arbitrary firing by political masters guard us all against the establishment of a loyalist federal workforce willing to carry out a corrupt leader’s schemes. Due process protections, including the right to appeal firings before an independent review board, free most career-level public servants to report fraud, waste, and abuse to inspectors general and to reject unlawful orders.

This arrangement is inconvenient for a president with authoritarian designs and a goal of self-enrichment. One line of attack against the civil service by the Trump administration was to propose that Congress subsume the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which oversees civil service protections, into the GSA. The proposal made no sense because the OPM’s work is unrelated to the GSA’s mission of managing federal real estate holdings, government vehicles, and procurement services. But a crucial detail of the proposed merger was that the OPM’s authority to issue civil service regulations would be pulled into the Executive Office of the President, where political appointees could exercise more direct control over civil service protections.

In April 2020, four Democratic members of the House of Representatives demanded that Murphy answer questions about her role in this effort. Murphy had rescinded two delegations that authorized the OPM to manage its own buildings in Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville, Virginia—a move the members predicted would cause OPM to incur $2 million in additional expenses. They accused her of trying to undermine OPM’s viability as a separate agency: “Your decision to rescind OPM’s authority is directly tied to the Trump Administration’s plan to abolish OPM and move its component parts to GSA.” The problem, they pointed out, is that this action violated a law they had enacted that winter to prevent the Trump administration from transferring functions between the two agencies. “It appears you withheld critical information from Congress and continued to take actions prohibited by statute, demonstrating a flagrant disregard for congressional authority and the law.”

Later that month, Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, who now chairs the House Oversight Committee, accused Murphy of refusing to turn over records the committee had requested. “GSA’s blanket refusal to provide the requested material disregards past agency practice and hampers the Committee’s ability to conduct legitimate oversight of matters well within its jurisdiction,” the chairwoman wrote.

In April 2020, Murphy gave an interview remotely from home about the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. When asked about her own life during the pandemic, Murphy said she was combatting the feeling that the “walls seem[ed] to be closing in” on her by working, walking her dogs, joining in “virtual brunches and happy hours with friends and colleagues,” and engaging in other activities. One comment she made now seems ironic: “During a crisis you can’t get stuck in a paralysis trying to wait for all the information. You need to make the best decisions you can with the information you have at hand.”

Cardozo Law professor Kate Shaw and co-editor of _Just Security_ Ryan Goodman, have pointed out that the blame rests not only with Murphy but also with President Trump, who holds her and other appointees on a tight leash. They emphasize that “responsibility also lies with those of his closest advisors and Republican leaders who have yet to urge the president to concede, or have appeared to credit the President’s baseless fraud allegations.” They are right to blame Trump and his Republican allies. He has gone so far as to direct agency heads not to cooperate with the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition Team.

Shaw and Goodman remind us that, though it is true that a former GSA administrator delayed the 2000 transition, “initially claiming it was because neither candidate had conceded, and later pointing to pending litigation,” that administrator “was roundly criticized for those positions.”

It is also true that the dispute over the 2000 election arose under very different circumstances. Two former chiefs of staff to Presidents Clinton and Bush, John Podesta and Andy Card, recently teamed up to write an opinion piece as two veterans who were “on opposing ends of the historic _Bush_ v. _Gore_ dispute in Florida in 2000.” This election is nothing like that one, they observe. In 2000, the parties were nearly tied and the outcome of the vote in Florida would decide who became president. In the end, President Bush won by a margin of only 537 votes in that state.

[]

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Trump meeting with Chris Christie, whom the then president-elect had recently fired as his transition team leader, Bedminster, New Jersey, November 20, 2016

In 2020, President Trump trails by a wide margin in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Biden leads by over 50,000 votes in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania. Trump’s arguments about the illegitimacy of the election are a nonsensical muddle unsupported by evidence. He will lose his pending legal challenges. He has lost the election.

Two factors may help lessen the potentially devastating impact of Murphy’s assault on the republic. First, President-elect Biden possesses something President Trump lacks: faith in experts. Second, the government learned a hard lesson from the delayed 2000 transition. The delay in the GSA’s ascertainment made that transition a brutal experience. The memory of that experience has led the government to improve its transition processes since then. The time from election to inauguration is just a little over ten weeks, and the loss of thirty-seven days at the beginning of the transition as the candidates fought over the close Florida results was a costly setback. When I first joined the OGE, in October 2001, it was clear the experience of that transition had taken a toll on the OGE’s staff. It had taken a toll on the White House, too.

*

The presidential transition has been a creature of statute ever since March 4, 1964, when Congress passed the Presidential Transition Act—the same law that assigned to the GSA administrator the task of certifying the election’s apparent result to allow the process to begin. In the first paragraph of that law, Congress warned: “Any disruption occasioned by the transfer of the executive power could produce results detrimental to the safety and well-being of the United States and its people.”

Disruption has been a hallmark of this administration from start to finish. In September 2017, the Government Accountability Office issued a report on a performance audit it conducted regarding the Trump transition effort. Possibly out of embarrassment, the White House “did not respond to requests for an interview.” (I also recounted my memories of the disastrous Trump transition in my earlier piece for the _Review_.) Trump’s effort went off the rails when then President-elect Trump fired his transition team immediately after the election. What he lost with that firing was the expertise of a team the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service had spent half a year training, with help from numerous agencies and former top officials spanning several presidential administrations.

Always eager to find a scapegoat for their mistakes, members of the Trump administration repeatedly accused the OGE and agency ethics officials of moving slowly. More than once, I warned the White House counsel’s office that I would release statistics showing the speed of our work if they continued to spread this false narrative. More than once, I made good on that promise.

[]

Jacquelyn Martin/AFP via Getty Images

Secretary Mike Pompeo speaking at a State Department news conference at which he promised “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” Washington, D.C., November 10, 2020

Now, on his way out of office, President Trump is trying to trip up President-elect Biden’s transition team. Expertise will carry the Biden-Harris transition team for a while, but there are limits to what can be done without the government’s cooperation if Murphy remains obstinate. If Republicans care about America, they will want to ensure the incoming administration is equipped to protect us all as the deadly pandemic rages, the economy continues to suffer, and the nation’s enemies look for ways to exploit our vulnerability during the transition.

At this point, it is difficult to imagine Republican leaders repeating the words of the Bush administration official who offered the “nicest” transition in history. But we must hope they can summon enough patriotism to emulate the example of another disappointed presidential candidate, Senator John McCain. His gracious 2008 concession speech is ringing out again in video clips on social media: “These are difficult times for our country, and I pledge to [President-elect Obama] tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face. I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together.”

President-elect Biden has modeled that patriotism, as well. In a stark contrast to Trump’s belligerent behavior, Biden told Americans: “I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but unify. Who doesn’t see red and blue states, only sees a United States. And work with all my heart to win the confidence of the whole people.” It is not yet too late for Republican leaders to join him in this effort to heal and unify.

But soon, if Emily Murphy does not fulfill her duty, she could cost our nation dearly. How much harm she could inflict on Americans is impossible to predict.

question: When was the article written?

answer: Late 2020, after Biden and Harris were declared the winners of the election

question: Who is the author?

answer: That information can't be found

question: Who is Murphy?

answer: Emily Murphy; it is implied that she is the GSA administrator

question: What previous delay in presidential transition does the author point to?

answer: The 2000 presidential election

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The author calls on Emily Murphy, the GSA administrator, to certify Biden and Harris as the winners of the 2020 election so that the transition process can begin, warning that a delay to the process could be disastrous for the nation.


text:
It was a one-of-a-kind moment of grace, humanity and compassion in the dominion of injustice and evil known as the military court of Judea, in the West Bank. In a spontaneous decision, Israel Prison Service officer Bassem Kashkush allowed Yafa and Suha Jarrar to approach their mother, Khalida, and embrace her. Even the elders of the court can’t remember anything like it.

-   Palestinian MP's Crimes: Visiting Prisoners and Talking to the Media
-   My Wife, the Jailed Palestinian MP

The young women walked up to their mother, hugged her long and hard, and the tears flowed unbidden. Mother and daughters cried; the husband and father, Ghassan Jarrar, wept bitterly. The sympathizers and international observers who are attending Jarrar’s trial cried, too, and a tear was even spotted in a female prison guard’s eye. “What’s this, is everyone crying here today?” she blurted out.

Twenty-nine-year-old Yafa hasn’t seen her mother for about a year, and her sister, Suha, 24, for about six months. Last week they arrived from Canada for a vacation. They are both graduate students, Yafa working toward a doctorate in law, Suha about to begin her Ph.D. in environmental studies, and this week they had an emotional reunion with their mother in court. Unlike in previous hearings, Jarrar was brought to the courtroom without iron shackles on her feet.

Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has been in detention for almost three months. At first she was in administrative detention, as Israeli authorities had no intention of putting her on trial. But after a wave of international protest, she was remanded in custody until the conclusion of legal proceedings against her and indicted on 12 counts – all of them saliently political – which include such ludicrous charges as attending a book fair and visiting a released prisoner in his home. Her trial began this week in the Ofer military prison courtroom.

Internationally, Jarrar is a story, but in Israel she’s a non-story. The judge, Lt. Col. Zvi Heilbron, like the prosecutor and the judge in the previous round of hearings, wears a skullcap. This military court increasingly resembles a synagogue.

The hearing this week was short and preliminary. “See you soon,” “We are proud of you,” the daughters cried out to their mother, before she was taken back to Sharon Prison.

Afterward, in a splendid old house in Ramallah that belongs to a friend of the family, we spoke to the two impressive young women about their mother and father. Yafa and Suha, like many of their peers, are veterans of night raids on their home, when their father was taken away – he had been arrested no fewer than 14 times before their eyes – and their parents were humiliated. As the daughters of a left-wing Palestinian family, they are secular, modern in their outlook and very involved in the international campaign to obtain their mother’s release.

Suha reinserted the stud in the piercing on her chin – she thought she wouldn’t be allowed to enter the courtroom with it. The family of another female prisoner brought them a present from their mother: cases for a lighter and for a pen, handcrafted in plastic by the most famous Palestinian prisoner in the world today, Khalida Jarrar, mother of Yafa and Suha, whose names are embroidered on the covers.

Suha was born during one of her father’s incarcerations and saw him at home for the first time when she was three. When she visited him in prison, she could not reconcile the man in the photos with the person behind the iron bars. At the time, if a prisoner’s child was small enough, it could be handed to him through an opening.

Suha remembers when she became too big to sit on her father’s knees. She remembers the cold Hebron prison and the long ride to the Ketziot facility, in the Negev desert. Dad would give them cookies he had baked in prison, in the shape of their initials.

Until 2002, which was the last time Ghassan was arrested, their childhood was marked by rough trips to different prisons. But what the daughters remember most vividly is the drum-like steps of the soldiers in the middle of the night, and the crude pounding on the door with rifle butts. They grew up thinking that this was the routine way of life of every child in the world.

Yafa, who left to begin her studies abroad a dozen years ago, recalls the winter of 1990. There was snow in Ramallah, the soldiers came again to take away her father, and she ran upstairs to get his gloves. She didn’t find them, only her mother’s, and she still carries a burden of guilt over the event. She was never afraid of the soldiers, she insists. There was only one time when Yafa was apprehensive: She had an orange lollipop in the cupboard, and the soldiers came at night to do a search. She was afraid they would take her candy. That didn’t happen.

“She was only afraid for the lollipop, not for her father,” Ghassan recalls now, laughing.

Suha, who has been gone for five years, remembers that during one of the arrests, she held onto the edge of her father’s pants and wouldn’t let go until the soldiers pried them apart. She was five at the time. The last time the Israel Defense Forces took her father out of his bed and took him away, she was 12. She remembers that she was sleeping on a mattress on the ground floor – they were afraid to sleep on the upper floor because of IDF snipers – pretending to be asleep, until a soldier kicked her to make her get up.

Suha recalls that she saw her father putting on his shoes. When soldiers came at night and her father put on his shoes, she knew what was going to happen. She burst into tears. Her father tried to calm her – “Halas [enough], sweetie” – and Suha remembers a soldier imitating her father mockingly. She also remembers that they weren’t allowed to open the curtains in the bedroom. Once she did and a sniper’s bullet whistled past her.

The only time Suha was genuinely afraid, she says now, was last summer, when dozens of soldiers swooped into the house in order to present her mother with an order banishing her to Jericho. That night Ghassan was sleeping in his factory in Beit Furik, which manufactures colorful plush toys, and Yafa was in Canada. Khalida and Suha were alone in the house.

Suha: “I was 23 already, and I can’t describe to you how helpless I felt, how frightened and scared I was. I was shaking all over when they came. I was always afraid of the moment when they would come to arrest my mother. At one point I even thought of throwing her off the balcony, because I was so afraid of what would happen to her. I remember telling the soldiers not to touch her cat. I told them that they didn’t have the right even to look at him. He’s so attached to Mom.”

Yafa: “It wasn’t until I studied human rights, in Canada, that I understood that they [IDF forces] had been using us as a human shield for years. They always ordered us to open the doors and closets for them. My Canadian lecturer told me, ‘You were a human shield.’”

The daughters were in Canada – Yafa in Regina, Saskatchewan, Suha in Ottawa – on April 2 when Khalida was arrested. It was evening in Canada and nighttime in Ramallah when Suha’s cellphone rang; it was her father calling, she saw on the screen. She was filled with foreboding. Had her mother been arrested? Maybe the cat had died? Suha took a deep breath and answered: “What happened, Dad?” He replied curtly: “They took Mom.”

Suha, feeling her world had come unraveled, started to tremble.

Yafa was at work in Regina, waitressing. Her boyfriend arrived and said, “They arrested your mother.” It was still April 1 in Saskatchewan, and Yafa was certain that her friend James was pulling her leg.

Last week, Yafa and Suha met in Frankfurt and from there went on to Ramallah. Suha: “We knew it would be hard to come back to a house without Mom. We have a homecoming routine: Dad waits at the bridge [Allenby Bridge, connecting Jordan to the West Bank], Mom cooks our favorite foods at home. Then we get into Dad’s car and call Mom and tell her we’ve crossed the bridge and we’re on the way. We get home and Mom is standing on the balcony, waving to us. Then we go up the stairs and hug and kiss, and give Mom the chocolates from the duty-free shop.

“But this time only posters of her were at the entrance. Mom wasn’t on the balcony and the house was empty. We knew it would be hell. Almost approaching a feeling of mourning or loss. Bitterness and injustice.”

As to the hugs in court, Suha says she knows that prisoners replay such a moment in their mind for a long time, so she didn’t want to cry and get her mom upset. But she couldn’t help herself. Khalida managed to tell her daughters that she’d heard them on the Radio Palestine program in which people dedicate a song to a prisoner. They told her not to worry: Ajwa, the cat, is fine.

question: Describe the unique moment at the trial of Jarrar.

answer: At the trial of Khalida Jarrar, the Israel Prison Service officer allowed Jarrar's daughters to approach and embrace her while Jarrar stands trial, legs bound in iron shackles.

question: Who is Khalida Jarrar?

answer: Khalida Jarrar is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and has been in Israeli detention for almost three months. After a wave of international protest, she remained in custody until the conclusion of legal proceedings against her and was indicted on 12 counts, some of which include attending a book fair and visiting a released prisoner in his home.

question: What happened to Yafa in the winter of 1990?

answer: In the winter of 1990, Israeli soldiers came to take Yafa's father.

question: What is Jarrar standing trial for?

answer: Jarrar was indicted on 12 counts of political charges, which range from attending a book fair to visiting a released a prisoner in his home.


text:
not everyone knows this, but every time someone creates a time machine and use it to his benefit, he doesn't go back in time nor go into future. Instead, he goes far away, some light years away from our solar system. some ends up dead immediately in some hot or cold planet, or eventually die from monsters or starvation or loneliness.

so far it has been created 6 times. the one who is to be blamed was a greek man. he created the first time machine ever which was surprisingly worked to his benifit in 167 BC. he made it so to a point that no one can make an efficient time machine. to trick people over the history he made a textbook to teach everyone the initial parts needed for creating such machine. he enjoyed torturing these poor souls.

the end

title: [SF] Time traveling is a trick

question: Who is time traeling?

answer: Unclear.

question: How many time machines have been created?

answer: 6 time machines have been created.

question: Why is the man torturing people?

answer: unclear.

question: Who is to be blamed?

answer: unclear

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: A time travel machine has been 6 times. The one to be blamed is a Greek man, and it worked to his benefit. To trick people throughout the course of history, he made a textbook to teach the initial parts needed for creating the machine.


text:
It's still under work but please let me know what you think.

The first stone was cast from a tattooed hand in the crowd. The thrower was a fairly average person. He was average height, white complexion totally non-descript outside of the tattoos on his throwing arm. Like most of the crowd, his face was covered with a bandana while his hair was controlled beneath a baseball cap. His action proved catalytic in what would change the world. This average, masked man broke the floodgates of the world. The rest of the mob saw his action as one of leadership and followed suit. Before long stones, bottles and anything else within reach was flung. These objects battered their targets like a hailstorm. The already broken SWAT and police force crumbled under this barrage. The few men who had chosen to remain in uniform began to route in the presence of this violent and seemingly innumerable crowd.
 A few of D.C.’s finest attempted to hold their ground by any means necessary. At first they used pepper spray and tear gas; as the crowd continued to advance they used their riot shields and clubs; still the crowd advanced and the remaining forces opened fire with their weapons. However, for every person they gunned down ten more swept up into their place. The bullets may as well have been fired into a rushing tide. Those men and women who chose to stay were quickly overwhelmed. They would not be left alive. Any who challenged the crowd were killed by the enraged beast it had become. Before long people swarmed into the capitol. Seats, long evacuated by elected officials were torn apart. Offices desecrated. Flags burned.
A lone official remained in his office. Congressman Pace. He had been elected to his fourth term in the last election. He was a Representative from Georgia who had one of the highest approval ratings in the House. He sat in his chair, turned towards the growing dusk. His window was open a crack. It was a lovely evening for March. He closed his eyes, shut out the screams of pain and sounds of destruction.  His mind wandered to his ranch in Georgia. The ranch he would never again see. The grass he would never again feel. The sun he would never again bask in. He almost smiled as these happy thoughts flooded him. He was shut from the world and could only think about the dark that gleamed around him. The Congressman was awoken from his trance as he heard what must have been air force one fleeing the nation’s capitol. He closed his eyes once more and returned to his meditation.
A gunshot sounded from out the Congressman’s office and still he did not flinch. His door burst down suddenly as three rioters pushed a Secret Service agent through it. They beat him with pipes until his cries ceased. The rioters stopped for a moment in the office. All the former Congressman could think of was how they had been too late to see the view. Darkness had now descended.
“Tyrant!” one of the rioters screamed through his bandana. He leaped over a table seeking his prey. Congressman Pace lay as
His death was not quick. He did not die painlessly. This often is the case when a government falls. He died with his hand over his American flag lapel pin.

The riot did not solely occur at the capitol. All of D.C. was under attack. After the riot at the capitol turned into a warzone the other riots quickly broke out into violence. The White House was besieged as the President was flown out to an undisclosed location somewhere in the Midwest. The portrait of George Washington that had hung for centuries, was protected from fire and war, would not see it through the night. This painting of the stoic founding father who wanted nothing more than equality for citizens would burn, as would all of the other relics stored in the President’s residence. A mob cheered as they watched flames engulf the White House for a second time in the nation’s history.
The destruction of the National Archives was made into a spectacle. Documents including the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were read before the crowd. Each word, originally crafted to provide for natural rights, chosen so specifically so that people of this once proud nation would know that they were entitled to freedom, was now being twisted to reveal ironic and biting meanings. The reader sneered at the end of every sentence but did not add his own interjections. The crowed jeered and booed the words. The speaker did not make it through the first page before he gave up on turning its meaning and threw it into the crowd where these once revered words were torn apart near instantly.
Crowds formed all over the mall. People looted businesses, robbed others and destroyed the landscape and property. Just as Nero with Rome, the people cheered as their city burned.

title: Anarchy (800 Words)

question: What does the story say about Congressman Pace?

answer: Congressman Pace is a Representative from Georgia and has been elected to his fourth term in the last election. During the riot, he is sitting alone in his office and would like to be in Georgia, on his ranch. Three rioters enter his office and kill him.

question: What does the story say about how many people died in the riot?


text:
The rain hammers down against the already soaking wet windows, the wind shaking them violently whilst the lightning gives off an eerie luminescent glow every now and then. You sit at the kitchen table, gripping your book with such intensity that you fear your knuckles may snap. After an hour of reading about the 14 year old boy that lives for violence and control, you become a victim of fatigue.
Your eyelids become heavy as you lope over to the cart on which your computer rests.

You clumsily sit down and find the fatigue overwhelming but desperately cling to consciousness as you log in to Facebook. All you can hear is the rain. Tap tap tap.
It continues to pour as you fix your eyes upon the status updates your friends have oh-so kindly laid out for you. Still fighting the dizziness, you find an unknown object has cast a shadow over your once bright monitor.

You jump backwards, ready to fight your way out, but land helplessly on your back. As you look up towards your computer, you see it. The cat, that damn cat. You laugh at your paranoia and slump back onto the floor, sleep finally taking control. You close your eyes but something doesn't feel right, there is a strange amount of pressure on your chest.

Slowly opening your eyes, you realize it's the cat again. He makes his way up your body, that awful grin on his lips, finally resting on your face.
You can't move your body, for it has fallen asleep.

The cat sits on your face, still grinning. *This is it*, you think, *this is where it ends*.

It soon becomes difficult to breathe, your lungs are giving out, caving in. As you draw your last breath, you can't help but reminisce about all you have in life. Darkness overwhelms you, and you are gone.

title: Don't trust cats

question: What book is the narrator reading?

answer: She is reading a book about a fourteen-year-old boy who lives for violence and control.

question: Is she afraid of cats?

answer: Yes, the narrator is afraid of cats.

question: Does the narrator die?

answer: It may be implied that the cat kills the narrator or that the narrator dies out of fear.

question: Who's face pops up on the computer screen?

answer: The cat pops up in front of the screen.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer:
As it rains heavily outside, the narrator sits sleepy but engrossed in her book. As her eyelids try to shut she shifts to Facebook.

As she scrolls through the statuses a shadow is cast on the screen and she jumps back only to find a cat. The cat makes its way up her body which is now a statue. She soon loses her breathe and darkness overwhelms her.


text:
Tad’s first summer at Wiki-Wak found him quite worried who his tent-mates might be. He opened the flap warily and peered inside. The smell of musty canvas hit him in a wave. He squinted his eyes and caught sight of something in the darkness. A smallish boy with black hair and horn rimmed glasses peered back at him grinning. As his retinas acclimated Tad observed that he appeared to be tinkering on some sort of disassembled gadgetry.

“Greetings!” said the boy congenially. “The name’s Kip Keegan” he stated proudly, holding out a grimy hand.

Tad shook it anyway to be polite, and then wiped his own on his trousers.

“Tad Hollerith”

“Hollerith. The name rings a bell. Goodness, what happened to your hands?”

“Oh….” Said Tad embarrassed, pulling down his jacket sleeves. “Quick” he thought “make a joke of it.”

“I got into a fight with a furnace”

“Ha!” said Kip, looking at Tad with an expression of disbelief.

Tad quickly changed the subject. “Have any of the other Bunk Mates shown up?”

“Brewster came and went awhile ago. Should be back soon. He’s something else, I tell ya. We met here last year. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the other fellow yet, though. Hope he’s not one of those Meat-heads from the Rugby Squad.”

Tad was warming up to him already. Any hater of those idiots was automatically friend material as far as he was concerned. Kip sat back down on his cot and continued working on the small contraption. Tad was officially intrigued.

“What is that pray tell?”

“Oh, this ole thing? It’s supposed to be a mini-transistor radio. I built it last year with various parts I nicked from the engineering dept. Been awhile since it worked though. I stumbled upon it in my desk while packing. Thought it might be worth a shot if I could get it receiving again.”

Tad had heard about this new fangled technology called radio, but his knowledge about it was minimal. He had seen one at the Dungleburg fair once, paying a penny for the privilege of joining an audience of awed spectators who gathered around a hulking machine to listen to it play a staticy rendition of “Stars and Stripes Forever”. He was never quite sure how it worked though. Something about invisible wavelengths of energy plucked right from the ether by means of antennae receivers.”

“Incredible.”

Kip laughed. “You should see the Transatlantic Receiver I’m building back at Dun. When I finally get together enough scratch to mail order the parts, I’m going to be talking to chaps in France! Wouldn’t that be bully? Now where’d I put my watchmaker’s kit?” he said, digging around in his trunk. “Aha!”

“How does it work?”

(Kip goes on to give an elementary explanation of Radio Science)

“Remarkable”
“I think so at least. Good to meet someone as amazed by it as I.”

Just then the tent flap flew open with a flourish. In burst a tall, lanky lad with flush face. It appeared as if he had been in a hurry.

“Kip, Worthington’s got a full carton of Sassafras Doodles, we gotta shit and get while the…”

His voice dropped off suddenly upon catching sight of Tad.

“Oh, blast…”

“It’s OK Brewster,” explained Kip “this here’s our new Tent-mate Tad Hollerith. He seems on the level. Tad, meet Brewster McNutridge, alchemist extraordinaire.”

“What have I told you about referring to me with that term. I’m not trying to turn shit to gold here! It’s chemistry kip, chemistry! Not alchemy.”

“As you wish Nicolas Flammel” said Kip mischievously.

“Why I oughta….” said Brewster, shaking his fist in Kip’s face jokingly.

“Tad Hollerith huh? Is this your first year at Shitty-Shak?”

“Pardon?”

“Is this your first instance of attending camp?”

“Yes”

Brewster shot a sideways glance at Kip. “Oh boy…”

“What?” implored Tad nervously.

“Uhh, nothing, you’ll find out soon enough.”

Tad’s brow furrowed. Kip immediately attempted to assuage his anxiety.

“Don’t fret chum, we’ll stick with ya. Camp can be rather rough on the average neophyte, but your fellow tent-mates will be there every step of the way.”

Tad had met few boys his age so friendly. Most teased or bullied him for his physical weakness and delicate personality. To meet someone so congenial was quite a relief.

Kip eventually abandoned hope on the transistor, and the 3 boys began unpacking and tidying the tent for opening inspection. While they organized and swept, Brewster told several dirty jokes, one of which caused Tad to laugh out loud, something he did very seldom. He was beginning to consider how lucky he was to have such tent-mates, when the boys heard a terrible commotion outside.

“Let me go!” screeched the voice of a young boy.

“Stand up you little whelp, or I will be forced to thrash you again!” bellowed the voice of a man.

“If you so much as come near me with that switch I will notify my parents immediately, you…you insufferable brute!”

Suddenly came the sickening sound of flexible twig striking yielding flesh. The boy wailed in agony.

The 3 boys in the tent could hear footsteps crunching toward their tent.

“Get in there!” snarled the counselor, shoving the boy through the flap violently.
“Perhaps next time you shall know your place!” and with that he stomped off in a huff.

Tad and the others gathered round the wounded boy. Kip put out a hand to help, but the frightened creature swatted it away. “No! Don’t touch me!”

“It’s OK chum, I’m not going to hurt you. Is this your assigned tent?”

“Guess so…” mumbled the sniffling boy. As he looked up at them with teary eyes the others could see a bloody, diagonal slice traveling from his left eyebrow, across his nose, and all the way down to his right jawbone. His left eye was already beginning to swell shut.

“Merciful heavens,” said Tad aghast. “Did that counselor just do that to you?”

“No” said the boy sarcastically “I ran into a rosebush”

“Here” said Brewster, handing the boy a dampened washcloth. “Put some pressure on that, its still bleeding”. The boy took the rag and pressed it up against his wound.

“Thank you” he croaked

“What happened?” asked Kip, in genuine concern.

“Oh, it was nothing.”

“I say a switch to the face is much more than nothing”

“Jeez, would you lay off. I got into a tiff with one of those brutes out there. I told them over and over that I am not supposed to be here, but damned if they’d listen. Incredulous wretches! Once I’m able to successfully contact my father, he’ll have their jobs, every last one of them!”

Brewster shot another knowing glance Kip’s way. “Come now,” he said “let’s get you off the floor. Tad, can you lend a hand?”

Tad assisted his new tent-mate to his feet and over to the empty cot. They removed his boots and propped him up with extra pillows.

“Uhhnnn….those fiends….those miserable bastards…how dare they?”

“Here, have a swig of this” said Kip, brandishing a large glass phial. “It’s medicine. It will help you feel better.”

The injured lad took a big swig and nearly spit it out. “Dear god, what is that swill?”

“It’s Doctor Farmington’s Patented Nerve Tonic. It has a bit of opium in it. I got it last year when I had whooping cough. Never used it much but I thought it might come in handy.”

“Say…” said Brewster. “How’s about letting yer ole pal Brewst get a tug of that?”

“Not today.”

A few minutes later the wound stopped seeping. The boy’s breath grew deeper, and he seemed a bit more calm, considering the circumstances. Just as he was about to nod off Brewster whispered a query.

“Hey kid…psst…”

The boy looked up at him with his one good eye.

“What’s your name?”

“Dewey. Dewey Gillespie. Heir to the Great Gillespie Fortune.”

And with that he fell headlong into sweet slumber.

title:
Tad Hollerith and the Crystal Radio Gang:
Chapter the First

question: Summarize how Kip, Tad, Brewster, and Dewey met.

answer: Tad was worried about who his tent-mates will be at the Wiki-Wak summer camp. He entered his tent and found a small boy tinkering with some gadget. The boy introduced himself as Kip. He and Tad shook hands with Tad asking what he was working on. Kip stated that the gadget is a mini-transistor radio. Tad had heard about the new technology called a radio but he had never seen one before. He was amazed that Kip was working on one. Kip, on the other hand, was happy Tad took an interest in his gadget. As they chatted, Brewster walked. Kip introduced him to Tad as one of their tent-mates. Tad was happy Kip and Brewster were so friendly. He was used to being bullied for being physically weak and delicate but his new tent-mates don't seem to mind. The three tent-mates soon met Dewey, who was forced inside the tent by the camp counselor. Dewey was furious to be in camp and threatened the officials who were forcing him to stay, saying his Dad will have their jobs.

question: Why was Dewey trying to leave Wiki-Wak camp?


text:
PEDRO FÉLIX VICUÑA AGUIRRE (February 21, 1805, Santiago, Chile – May 24, 1874, Santiago) was a Chilean journalist and one of the founders in 1827 of the newspaper _El Mercurio de Valparaíso_, the oldest existing newspaper in Spanish language. He was also a liberal writer and politician.

Early life

Vicuña was born in Santiago, the son of Francisco Ramón Vicuña and of Mariana de Aguirre y Boza. Vicuña's father served two brief terms as acting president of Chile in 1829, and was widely considered as the head of the Liberal party. Pedro Félix Vicuña received an excellent education, studying humanities and commerce. From a young age he showed an interest in letters, and particularly in journalism. In 1825, at the age of 20, he moved from Santiago to Valparaíso, where he bought a printing press and began publishing _El Telégrafo Mercantil y Político_. This periodical was founded October 3, 1826, and 89 issues were published. In 1826, he married Carmen Mackenna, daughter of Brigadier Juan Mackenna, and they had thirteen children.

In 1827, at the age of 21, he founded the newspaper _El Mercurio de Valparaíso_, together with typographers Thomas Wells and Ignacio Silva. The first issue appeared September 12, 1827. Initially it was published only on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but in 1829 it became a daily. That same year, Vicuña sold his interest in the newspaper and moved back to Santiago (this was also the year that his father happened to serve as president of Chile.)

Back in the capital, he worked as editor for the newspaper _La Ley y la Justicia_. He also participated in _El Censor_ (1830) and the magazine _Paz Perpetua a los Chilenos_ (1836). As the result of ideas he expressed in _Paz perpetua_, he gained the enmity of Conservative Interior Minister Diego Portales. Vicuña Aguirre was considered a liberal and a revolutionary.

Political career

In 1831 Vicuña was elected deputy from La Serena, but his election was annulled by the Chamber of Deputies, dominated by the Conservatives. The same year his son Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, a future journalist and historian, was born to him and his wife. Disillusioned, he returned to rural life. In 1840 he supported the candidacy of Francisco Antonio Pinto, also a Liberal, and opposed Manuel Bulnes.

In 1842 he published _El Observador_, and in 1845 _El Republicano_, both of which supported the candidacy of liberal general Ramón Freire. As a result, he was exiled, and went to Peru. In Peru he wrote the book _Ocho meses de destierro o cartas sobre el Perú_ (Eight Months of Exile, or Letters About Peru). It was published in 1847 after his return to Chile.

He aided the revolutionaries of 1851, and was named _intendente_ of Concepción during the armed rebellion. He fought government troops in the Battle of Loncomilla (December 8, 1815). Although he was defeated, he refused to sign the Treaty of Purapel, which ended the civil war.

In 1852 he wrote _El porvenir del hombre_ (The Future of Man), considered his greatest work. In 1853 he published another autobiographical work, _Memorias Íntimas_. He was again elected to the Chamber of Deputies, for La Serena in 1864 and for Ovalle in 1867. He supported three important reform projects — reform of the constitution, creation of a national bank, and organization of a mining tribunal. In his 1867 term he introduced a bill to end imprisonment for debt, which was passed by the Congress. In 1870 he was elected senator for the first of two terms. He died in 1874 in Santiago.

Additional information

title: Pedro Félix Vicuña

question: What did Vicuña found at the age of 21?

answer: Vicuña founded the newspaper El Mercurio de Valparaíso together with typographers and Ignacio Silva. The first issue appeared September 12, 1827. Initially it was published only on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but in 1829 it became a daily.


text:
[I wanted to post the first chapter of a novel I've finished the third draft of for feedback. I don't know if this is the right place, but it seems like it. Constructive criticism is welcome and encouraged.]

Chapter I: The Spawn of Satan

In a land far, far away (the land of Brampton, Ontario to be specific), there lived a boy named Luke Jones. He resided with his father, David Jones, and cat, Biscuit, in a small house on a quiet street.

Like most people, when Luke was a child, he’d fancied the thought of becoming a pirate or superhero. But, unlike most teenagers, he never grew out of it. His head was full of fantasies. Not fantasies of summer romances, but of a lab accident that would give him superpowers, of meeting an alien, of time travelling… in other words, of adventure.

Luke daydreamt of all sorts of adventures, though he probably never dreamt of the one he got, for it turned out to be quite a misadventure in the end.

~ 666 ~

The misadventures of Luke Jones began one night shortly after his seventeenth birthday.

He was brushing his teeth before bed like on any other night. As he did so, he stared partly at a tiny pale spider on his bathroom mirror, and partly at his baggy-eyed reflection in the streaked glass.

He had small dark eyes and black hair and brown skin. His chin was sharp and his nose was large with a slightly crooked bridge. He wasn’t ugly, but he didn’t turn heads either, not that he minded.

He spat in the sink, rinsed out his mouth, and dried his face. He looked back at the mirror and the spider was still there. He didn’t much like spiders. He contemplated letting his cat in and holding the fat feline up to the mirror to kill it, but that required far more effort than he could be bothered to make just then. *Okay spider, you live for tonight. Don’t kill me in my sleep*, he thought, *if I can get any sleep, that is.*

Luke yawned. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately. You see, Luke had always been prone to nightmares. They were the kind most people only get when they’re children; dreams of being chased by cackling witches through the rooms of his house and not being able to make his legs go fast enough to outrun them, as if he was running through syrup… of soaring through the clouds in the upper troposphere, only to have gravity switch on without warning and make him fall towards the Earth at an alarming rate… of being trapped underground with no way of escape, while the air slowly ran out.

As of late, however, he’d been having these nightmares more frequently. Now they came every night. At first he tried to shrug them off like they were no big thing, even though he often woke up in a puddle of sweat, sore from fighting against the paralysis of sleep. But after four nights of the shadows, ghosts, and whispers beneath his eyelids, he was starting to feel paranoid that something was wrong with him. Was it that, unbeknownst to him, there was something on his mind, or was there, as they say, ‘something in the water’?

After drying his hands on his mint green towel, Luke shuffled into his room, closing the door on the washroom and the spider. He collapsed onto his bed and within five minutes was asleep. That night he had the strangest, most harrowing nightmare yet.

You know how, in a dream, when you're falling, you wake up? Well, that wasn't happening to Luke. He was falling, falling down a dark shaft. All the while he could sense something immobile and unyielding rising up to meet him. *Oh yes, the ground*, he thought as it came into view, like a solid shadow twenty feet below. In anticipation of the impact, he put his arms up over his face.

Something blotted out the light from the opening of the tunnel through which he fell. There was a rustling as of feathers just behind his ears. With a jolt, he realized it was a set of vast wings, falling with him. Now, this might not seem like such a terrible nightmare to you, but, if there were two things Luke Jones feared above all others, they were falling and tight spaces. So, you can see why a dream that incorporated both was terrifying for him.

He awoke just before he smacked, screaming, into the ground, and found himself breathing heavily, his damp black hair clinging to his forehead. He sat up, a hand pressed to his brow, pushing his overgrown hair back. There was an aching in his shoulders, as if they’d been bearing some heavy load, and his throat was raw and dry, as if his dream scream had followed him to waking life. He swallowed and his throat burned. He needed water.

He reached over to the glass on his nightstand and found it empty. Reluctantly, he pushed away his comforter and swung his legs over to the side of his bed. The hardwood floor was cold beneath his feet. For some reason, Luke always liked things a bit warmer than most people. The heat in his room was always turned up high in winter, and he slept under covers, even on the hottest summer nights.

He scowled as he walked across the cold, bare floor, until he reached the carpeted hallway, which led to a set of stairs, which themselves led to the living room.

Luke had lived in his house for as long as he could remember, and could probably navigate it in complete darkness, but (as he was afraid of the dark) he never got the chance to find out for sure. He felt around the wall for the stairway light and flicked it on before descending. When he got to the kitchen, he flicked that light on too.

He shivered as he opened the door to the fridge. The cold air hit his bare chest and fell against the thin cotton of his pyjama pants.

He poured himself a glass of water from a plastic jug with a filter in it, and leaned against the fake-marble counter as he gulped it down. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he noticed a shadow move by the recliner in the living room. It seemed to take the shape of a person sitting in the chair, its hands planted on the armrest.

At first he thought it was his dad, but no, the person was too short, and had long frizzy hair that streamed past their shoulders. He wished he’d switched on the living room light on his way to the fridge, but now he was too scared to leave the comfortingly bright kitchen to do so.

When the figure stood and took a step towards the kitchen, toward him, he dropped the cup he was holding. It shattered against the tile floor, spraying water and shards of glass against his feet. He reached out onto the counter behind him for something, anything to defend himself with, and came up with a wooden spoon from the dishrack. He held it out in front of him, as threateningly as a wooden spoon can be held by a shirtless teenager standing shoeless in a puddle.

“Who the Hell are you?” he shouted at the intruder.

He’d tried to shout it in an intimidating manner at the intruder, but his voice had out all high-pitched and shaky. “Get out right now, or I’ll call the police!” he shouted, this time with more vigour, louder than he’d intended.

All he got from the shadow was a laugh, trilling and amused, in a woman’s voice.

Cutting through the laugh came his father’s heavy, vaulting footsteps down the stairs. A baseball bat gripped in one hand, he slammed his fist into the light switch, flooding the living room with light.

“Well, Luke,” the unknown intruder said, “I see you and your father share a proclivity for unconventional wooden weapons.” She looked David Jones up and down, “and have a matching style of dress.”
For some ungodly reason, Luke’s father lowered the bat. A blush erupted over his cheeks and neck as he slapped a modest arm over his chest.

The intruder had curling black hair, much like Luke’s when he let it grow too long. She had a broad nose and skin the colour of jasper, peppered with onyx freckles. She’d painted her lips a dark red to match her pumps, her nails black to match her loose-fitting clothes (black jeans and a black hoodie).

“What are you doing here, Lucy?” David asked. He sounded equal parts scared and annoyed. He actually dropped his bat against the hardwood floor, “After so many years?”

“Lucy?” Luke repeated in a hollow voice. He was trying desperately to make sense of what was happening. Maybe he was still dreaming. He stepped out of the glassy puddle, careful not to cut his feet on the shards.

“And how did you get in?” his father continued at the stranger, as if Luke hadn’t spoken.

The woman held up her hand. Off two fingers dangled a key ring, off it a single silver key.

“You never bothered to change the lock,” she said, shaking the key ring. The key clamoured against it like a shrill bell.

“What the Hell is going on?” Luke asked, interrupting what appeared to be a reunion.

Luke’s father held up his hand towards Luke to silence him.

“Would... would you like anything to eat or drink?” David asked the intruder, who had her hand on the back of the leather recliner. She was leaning forward against it in a casual manner.

“You never were the type to keep hard liquor,” Lucy said, aiming a sly smile at Luke’s father, “So I suppose I could go for a cup of tea.” And Luke could swear she winked at his dad. It was an odd sight, since she didn’t look much older than Luke. In any case, she was certainly no older than her mid-twenties.

“Oh. My. Gosh. Will you please tell me what’s going on and whether I should or should not call the police on this lunatic?” Luke shouted at his dad, still holding up the wooden spoon.

“Be quiet, Luke!” both David and Lucy said in unison, turning to stare at him like distorted mirror images of each other.

*This is too weird*, he thought, *I must still be dreaming*.

“And while you’re at it, set down that ridiculous spoon. What are you going to do, stir me to death?” she asked, and after she said it Luke did feel pretty silly. He set the spoon down on the countertop, though it had been reassuring to have something solid to hold onto.

“Luke,” his father said, sounding serious, “put the kettle on. And you,” he continued, pointing a finger at Lucy, “sit there in that chair and don’t get up ’til I’m back, or I swear to *God* I’ll send you back where you came from.” He widened his eyes, which had the colour and shine of lacquered mahogany, to show he meant it. Lucy rolled her own eyes in response, but she spun around and plopped down into the chair anyway, just as Luke’s father had requested. She strummed her black nails off the brown leather of the chair’s hand rests as David climbed the stairs and Luke begrudgingly turned to fill the kettle with water. Luke was tense, averse to having his bare back turned to this strange woman, who somehow had a key to his house. Had his dad *dated* this lady?

She was so young. Midlife crisis, much?

“My real name isn’t Lucy,” the woman said to his back as he used a cloth to inadequately mop up the water and shards of glass from the broken cup, “It's just my nickname. My real name’s Lucifer, but you can call me ‘mom’.”

“Mom?” Luke asked, turning to look at her. If she was his biological mother then she must have conceived him in grade school.

“Oh, he didn’t tell you, did he?” Lucy said.

“Tell me what?” Luke asked, feeling over exposed under Lucy’s sharp stare.

“That you’re the spawn of Satan,” Lucy said. Luke could have sworn her eyes flashed red for a moment, but it must have been a trick of the light.

Just as Luke went slack-jawed, wondering if this stranger was insulting him, David came down the stairs. He was wearing a t-shirt and tossed one to Luke.

“Hey, this is my shirt. You went in my room,” Luke whined as he pulled the shirt on.

“Is that truly your biggest concern right now?” David asked, shooting his son a sideways glance as he pulled three mugs from the cupboard. He poured boiling water, plopped a teabag, and stirred sugar into teach, an extra spoonful in the one meant for Luke. He took all three mugs in his two hands and set them down on the dining room table.

Lucy got up unbidden and walked over to the dining room table. She sat in one of the four chairs, the one that faced Luke in the kitchen. She stared at him as she picked up the steaming cup, brought it to her painted lips, and took a gulp of the scalding liquid. Luke winced, thinking of the burn she’d get on her tongue and down her throat.

David plopped himself down opposite Lucy, obscuring Luke’s view of her.

“Come sit, Luke. There’s some things we have to discuss,” his father said. His voice was gritty, tired.

Luke abandoned his sloppy clean-up job, dropping the cloth into the glassy puddle. As he approached the dining room table, he glanced at the cable box under the television in the living room, which displayed the time, and saw that it was three-goddamn-o’clock in the morning. He’d have to tell Jess, his best friend, about this whole charade when it was over.

Yawning, he took a seat to his father’s left. He felt odd sitting between them, like a third wheel.

He slid his cup of tea towards himself. He chose to frown down at the kittens painted on the mug rather than look up at his father or the stranger. He could smell her foreign scent, like metal and melted wax and fermenting flowers.

“Son,” David Jones said, placing a grounding hand on Luke’s shoulder before going on and saying, “This is Lucy. She’s your mother, and well... well, she’s also the Devil.”

“She’s that bad, huh?” Luke said, sarcasm infusing his tone.

title: [FN]The Misadventures of Luke Jones

question: Summarize Luke's father's relationship with Lucy.

answer: Luke's father clearly knows Lucy, and lets his guard down after he realizes she is the intruder. Lucy had an old key to Luke's house, and she knew details about Luke's father, so they likely used to have a good relationship. However, Luke's father didn't know Lucy was coming, and that it had been "so many years," so they have probably drifted apart. Luke's father offers Lucy food and drink, but also threatens her, so their relationship is currently complicated.

question: Summarize the clues given that Lucy is the Devil and is Luke's mother.

answer: At the beginning of the story, Luke was having bad nightmares and dreaming of wings, and when he wakes up his shoulders are sore. Whenever the author uses the word "hell," they capitalize it to "Hell," indicating that it is a proper noun. Lucy has similar features to Luke, like black curly hair. Lucy says that she likes hard liquor, she drinks scalding tea without flinching, and Luke's father threatens to send her back to where she came, all pointing to Lucy being a demon or devil of some sort. She also says that she is Luke's mother, and that he is the "spawn of Satan."

question: Summarize everything that happens before Luke sees the intruder.

answer: One night after his seventeenth birthday, Luke was brushing his teeth when he saw a spider on his mirror. He considered killing it, but decided against it. Luke then went to bed and fell asleep, even though he had been having nightmares. He had another bad one, and woke up feeling like he was falling. He looked for some water but found none, so he went downstairs to get some. He poured himself a glass and starts to drink then notices an intruder in the living room.


text:
Rufus and Daniel entered the classroom and sat down on their desks. A teacher followed them inside.

“Do you know why you two are in here this time?” she asked as she stood in front of them with her arms crossed.

“Yes, Ms. Flora,” they both said without any effort.

“Why?”

“Because we were throwing paper balls at you…”

She nodded. “This is the tenth time you’re in detention. The tenth! I hope you will both think about what you’ve done, and never do it again!” She grabbed a chalk and began writing on the blackboard.

The classroom was pretty ordinary. It had posters of the alphabet and numbers, the rules of the classroom, and how to have proper hygiene. The students’ desks were arranged in 6 rows of 5. Some of them were covered with poor graffiti like, “'X' and 'X' for life” and “so and so was here.” The walls were decorated with students’ artwork and stories. Ms. Flora’s desk was neat and organized. It had students’ finished homework on one pile, graded tests on another, and folders of what the students have done all year. That’s all there was. No picture of family, no apple on desk, nothing else. The rest of the homework and classwork for the students to do in the future was put away in her drawers—as well as pencils, paper clips, pens, thumbtacks, chalk, crayons, and any other tools she—or the students—needed to use for class.

She was writing down the lesson for tomorrow: adding and subtracting. She wrote down problems to solve. Rufus put his head down on his table and Daniel sat quietly. When Ms. Flora was finished writing, she put down the chalk. She opened the blinds, revealing a pleasant day. The sun wasn’t out, but the sky was blue, and it wasn’t too cloudy. Kids were having fun on the playground. They were swinging on the swings, playing tag, basketball, and played with their wrestling action figures in the sandbox; some just spoke to each other. She watched them all smiling, not worrying about life and having a good time.

“Look at them,” she growled.  “How repulsive.” She stared at the blackboard, and then she picked up the chalk again.

Two plus two

Three plus three

Five minus four

The chalk tapped against the blackboard, with an inconsistent rhythm.

Twenty minus eleven

Ten minus seven

She cringed when she heard the children’s laughter.

Fifty minus twenty

She kept hearing the children outside. She gritted her teeth, and tried to ignore them.

One thousand plus three hundred seventy five

She wrote vigorously.

Five hundred thousand minus three hundred thousand, one hundred and seventy five

The writing became faster.

Seven hundred thousand plus four hundred thousand, six hundred twenty one

Their voices went through one of her ears, but it didn’t come out of the other.

One million minus one hundred thousand, seven hundred and three

She grunted out of frustration and stopped. She took a deep breath, and then began writing with more intensity.

In all my years of teaching, I have never met such spoiled little brats!

You have done so many terrible things to me: super gluing me to my chair, ripping up homework and classwork that I had ready to pass out, putting gum on the blackboard, and even eating my lunch! That’s not to say that I didn’t hate any of my other students that I had over the years; I despise all of the students that I have ever taught. Well, maybe not all of them. Only a select few behaved. Each year, I would only have about four or five of those in each class. They were rare. But as for all those other pesky kids, I hate them all. They spoke during the middle of my lessons. They didn’t do their homework. They didn’t pay any attention to me at all. Many of them slept, not caring.

You delinquents made my job impossible! I have a bad reputation. Those other damn teachers, telling me that I’m not a good enough. They tell me that I don’t put in enough effort to try to keep you pests under control. They tell me that I should quit! I put all my heart and soul into teaching! And you know what I get in return? A slap in the face! You don’t care, none of you do! Only those few cared… but now they’ve moved on in life. And this year, I only like one or two out of all my students in each of my classes. Their numbers keep decreasing! So this doesn’t apply to those students that I like. You know what I’d like to imagine doing to all of you troublemakers? I’d like to imagine locking you all up in my basement. There wouldn’t be food or water for any of you to have in there, so you would all suffer and die.

Daniel watched what Ms. Flora was writing. “Hey,” he whispered to Rufus, “look at what she’s writing.”

Rufus lifted his head up, half awake. He groaned. “But that’s so boring.”

“Trust me, it isn’t,” said Daniel while trying to sound convincing. He pointed at the blackboard. “Just look!”

“Okay, I guess…” Rufus watched what the teacher was writing. He frowned when he saw what the words said.

I’d like to imagine tying your hands behind your back and blindfolding you all. I’d line you up. I would shoot you all down, one by one. You would all be terrified, waiting until it was your turn.

“What? Why is she writing all this crazy stuff?” asked Rufus.

I’d like to take you all to my home, and throw you into my fireplace. I’d enjoy listening to all of your screams of agony as you burn alive.

“Did we hurt her that bad?” asked Daniel.

“I don’t think so.”

I’d like to perform surgery on all of you, without any anesthesia. And I’m no doctor!

“But what we did to you was harmless…” said Rufus out loud to the teacher. “And you want to make us suffer in the worst way possible? And then, have us killed?”

Ms. Flora didn’t pay attention to what he told her, and kept on writing.

Do you know how hard it is having to deal with all of you? It’s a living nightmare! I dread every single day that I have to come into this classroom. Why should I allow you all to keep making my life miserable? No, not this time. You rodents deserve to die…

She put down the chalk and searched her desk. She checked through all her papers and tools, throwing them on the floor. She tipped the desk over and pulled out the drawers, one by one. She dropped out everything that was in them and threw the drawers against the walls.

“Um… Ms. Flora, what are you doing?” asked Daniel.

She dug up the mess she made. Papers and tools went flying in all directions.

She picked up a gun that was in the pile. “Hah! This school has such lousy security.”

“W-Why do you have that?” asked Rufus

She laughed.

“No, please, don’t kill us!” exclaimed Daniel, terrified.

The laughter continued.

Rufus tugged on Daniel’s shirt and pointed at the door.

They both ran for it and tried to open it. It was locked. Ms. Flora stood there—for what seemed like hours to the both of them—facing the blackboard, while holding the gun in her hand.

“We’re sorry, Ms. Flora. We didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. We won’t do it again! Honest.” Daniel backed away to the back of the room slowly.

“P-please stop! If this is a prank to make us stop bothering you, then you win!” said Rufus.

She didn’t respond.

“It’s over!” said Daniel as he had his back against the wall, sliding down.  “We’re done for.”

“We shouldn’t have bothered her… She’s gone insane.” Rufus sat at his desk and held his head in despair.

They both cried hysterically.

More silence. Ms. Flora flipped the gun over and over, staring at the ground. She observed all the words that she put on the blackboard. She heaved a sigh, and then picked up the chalk once more. She wrote:

You poor thing… suffering for all these years. Look at you, you’re so pathetic. You could never handle mischievous children, and you never will. The pain just keeps growing, doesn’t it? It’s gotten to the point where you can’t take it anymore. But don’t worry. It will all end. You deserve to die just as much as they do, too.

She put the chalk down, and put the gun to her head. She gave Rufus and Daniel an odious grin, and pulled the trigger. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she dropped the gun. Her body landed on the floor with a loud thud.

They both sniffled as the last of their tears were exposed. They stood up, mouths open. Petrification took over their bodies—they didn't make any noise. They couldn’t stop staring at the blood that poured out of Ms. Flora’s head.

title: [TH] The Blackboard

question: Summarize the twists in the story.

answer: Rufus and Daniel are in the classroom with Ms. Flora. They are in detention because they were throwing paper balls at her. She is writing down the lesson for tomorrow on the blackboard. Suddenly, she starts writing about how she hates students and that she would kill almost all of them. Then she opens a drawer and takes a gun. The kids are terrified. Then she writes down to herself that she cannot handle mischievous children and kills herself.

question: What does the story say about why Rufus and Daniel were in detention 10 times?

question: What does the story say about why Rufus and Daniel were throwing the paper balls at Ms. Flora?

answer: It was a prank.


text:
*Hello, all. I posted this to /r/writing awhile back, but didn't get any comments on it, so I'm posting it here in the hopes of getting feedback. I'm a novice writer who's never been published, and I can take criticism so please be honest. Thanks*

All day the sun burned furiously hot, causing sweat, stench, and thirst to all those unlucky enough to be under its power. There would be no darkness tonight; the sun was not going to let a little thing like the post meridian tell it to stop shining, burning, and suffocating the denizens of Little Rock.

Before the Age turned, there had been a nightly darkness, or so people were told, but now, in the Dusk Age, day and night were separated by days and sometimes a full week.

Cammy often wondered what it must have been like to live in the Noon Age, when men had been able to predict not only when the sun would rise and fall, but the changing of the weather as well. The first people of the Dusk Age had arbitrarily carried over the static 60/60/24/365.25 time keeping system, longing for a return to the days of the Noon Age. The changes had been so subtle at first that the educated people of the Noon days chalked it up to a random aberration. When the changes became more pronounced, they investigated for any breaches or alterations in their systems. Then one day, the Age turned, everything broke, and nothing was ever the same.

“Don’t start crying again.” Jason, Cammy’s brother told her.

“Excuse me?” she answered. She hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen where she sat at their copper-top table, staring aimlessly out the one window the room was afforded.

“For a second there, you had that look on your face that you get before you cry. You know, that sour lemon/I’m about to fart-face?”

Granted, she had been about to cry over a loss she never experienced, but could still feel, and worse, she did know what face he meant—an oft discussed family trait—but she could not let him know that; she was supposed to be the strong one, and he wasn’t supposed to be so damn observant.

“Halve off!” she told him, raising her heart finger in a curse-implied salute.

“If I cut myself like the Dusky Downers do, who would be here to make sure you don’t drown mom in your tears?”

“Just leave me alone, Jason. Go back to your star maps and your penny women, and let me think.”

Knifing me in the back might be kinder than your constant disproval of the way I make money for us all; the money that buys your clothes, food, and the clean water you waste on tears.”

“Leave… me…”

“Maybe,” Jason started, pulling Cammy back into the chair she had begun to rise from “you can stop thinking of me as your baby brother for a second and let me tell you something?”

Nodding was the only response he got, but it was enough.

“Older men, men who have been studying the stars since before mom was in high school, are starting to formulate what comes next. There was the Dawn Age when men saw little more than spirits and gods in the workings of life and only just started to understand nature and their own natures. The only science they had beyond trial and error was star mapping, and they guided themselves through life with wonder, fantasies, and false emotions.”

“Perhaps,” Cammy interrupted, exasperated “you can stop being so full of yourself and remember that I went to school too and don’t need a history lesson: After the Dawn Age, there was the Noon Age,” she continued for him “when everyday dawned and dusked brightly, and by understanding and utilizing the sciences of Earth, men were able to reach beyond it, to not only map the stars, but to see them, visit them, collect them from, and understand the star’s individual sciences. Their potential was limitless, and they went forward at such a blinding pace that going backwards seemed so impossible, it was never given thought. Now,” she concluded “we are in the Dusk Age, scrabbling at the ground trying to pick up the pieces of the ages before so that we can survive in a world that is foreign, hostile, untamed, and has changed all the rules of its sciences. What little fragments we have left of the Noon age are mostly useless to us, and we have had to relearn many of the ways of the people of the Dawn Age to survive. Is that about right, Monsieur Genius?”

Quietly, and completely out of character, Jason nodded and shed a single tear.

“Really?” Cammy asked, flabbergasted and slamming her hands down on the table. All the times he had mocked her for crying about the death of the Noon age, something no one alive and not even their great-grandparents had been around for and yet, here he was crying, as if… “If this is just you playing some stupid game with me!” she erupted suddenly.

“Sit down,” Jason asked meekly “and let me tell you what’s next.”

The fear in his voice was more than enough to make her obey, but her nature was one of skepticism, so her mind was ready with a few pinches of salt for whatever he was about to say.

“Under all the talk of relearned sciences, new discoveries of edibles, and propulsion systems, there is a deep fear of the next Age. Think about it, Cammy, what comes after dusk? Night” he answered himself. “Our nights may either be full of sun or wholly absent of it, but in the Night Age, will there be any day? How will humanity survive without sunlight? We have already seen how the flora and fauna adapted to the changing of the Age, but humans, relying solely on their temporary sciences, were left blind-sided, and next time, forgive the pun, we’ll be left in the dark. We’ll be cold, blind, and helpless; so low down the food chain, worms may not wait until we’re corpses to start their feastings.”

“Very good, fear monger,” Cammy replied, keeping her skepticism forefront “but there was night in the Dawn Age, so why not dawn in the Night Age? And each age lasted for few millennia, while this one is only a few hundred years old, what’s the worry? Why did you cry?” The last was her real question, the only reason she was still having this discussion and had not just walked away from another of his wild—possibly just to mess with her—stories.

“What came before the Dawn Age?” he asked her in the stoic, marmoreal voice that was a much better display of his inner character. He provided his own answer in that same voice; “A Night Age” he told her. “One so deep and dark, that it was only vaguely remembered in the Noon Age. They had a different name for it, but it still confers the meaning; The Dark Ages. They also called that Noon Age the Golden Age, and thought nothing of the previous Dawn. More importantly, there was nothing of the Dusk. It is impossible to know if any of their sciences changed as they had only just begun to scratch the surface of science, and the stars stay constant, so their mapping is the same as ours, but changes occurred, Cam. From Dawn to Noon they gained knowledge, wealth, and dominance over the Earth, just like our more recently passed forefathers, and also just like them, Night fell and wiped it all away, but how? For us, we know that violent solar flares and the subsequent fission reactions in the atmosphere destroyed all the Noon Age’s technology, disrupted the laws of physics, and the biology of all living organisms on Earth—besides humanity—changed to adapt to the new environment, but what about in the Ages past? Did the Dusk before the Dark Ages pass so quickly that it did not bear mentioning? Did they not recognize its appearance? Is there even a Dusk Age or are we already experiencing the Night’s terrors? We don’t even know if we can really rely on any information that came before the Noon Age. It’s just all so, so…”

“X” Cammy told him when he started to cry again, pulling him into a hug. It was the way she told him that she understood and agreed; that she was his big sister and there was no shame in being worried. “X”. It was their slang for all will be well, because I love you and understand you: you are not alone.

“Zora” they said together as they heard the front door open and close. Their mother, the reason they had their own slang, was home, and they had to release their embrace and dry their tears before she got upset, and became useless for days.

“Anyone home?” she called out from the foyer. “I have dinner for my two happy children!”

title: Dawn of the Night Age (x-post from /r/writing)

question: Summarize Cammy's character.

answer: Cammy is shown to be wistful, almost in tears over a loss she did not personally experience. She is supposed to be the strong one in the family. She disapproves of the way her younger brother makes money, and is skeptical of his theories about the Night Age.

question: What does the text say about Jason's father?


text:
PRIMOŽ (pronounced ['pɾimɔʒ]) is a high hill overgrown with trees[1], and is a part of a ridge separating the Pivka basin from the Reka valley. It is located in the Municipality of Pivka in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia. It has many marked trails and a macadamized road leading to its peak. There is a historical trail intended for tourists with many information signs around its peak. It served an important military role during the Second World War, since it contained many tunnels and bunkers used by Italian army.[2]It is named after St. Primož and the Felicijan church, which was abandoned in the eighteenth century with practically no ruins leftover.[3]

Location

Primož is located in the Municipality of Pivka in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia. The town of Pivka is built on the northern and northeastern slopes of Primož.[4] It has a commanding view over the entire Pivka basin which contributed to its military importance during the Second World War.

History

After the end of World War 1, Primož hill became Italian territory following an agreement between Italy, Great Britain, France and Russia alongside South Tyrol, Istria, Dalmatia and various islands in the Adriatic sea. On November 12th, 1920, the border was drawn in accordance with the Treaty of Rapallo, crossing the Pivka basin, on the ridge of the Javorniki mountain chain. Primož's military tunnels were dug in 1930 as a part of the long Alpine Wall, a vast series of Italian Defense fortifications. The tunnels consisted of two lines; one directly on the border, and the second one a few kilometers behind it. Locals were kept away from the tunnels, and were only allowed to bring basic materials and food near its premises. The tunnels were constructed only by verified members of the Italian National Fascist Party.[5] The tunnels were secured with steel plates coated with a thick layer of concrete. The tunnels are long in total,[6] but they were never used for military purposes.[7] After the withdrawal of Italian forces, local people took valuables from the area, and in 1944, German forces destroyed the tunnels in fear that allied Partisans would find military use for them.[8]

There are a number of tourist trails leading to the peak. The historical trail has information signs at the summit which explain the history of Primož in detail. From its peak, most of the Pivka basin can be seen, including Lake Palčje after heavy rainfall.[9]

  Name                                          Starting Point                                                Distance   Time         Increase in Elevation   Difficulty   Trail Markings
  --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ------------ ----------------------- ------------ ----------------
  Krpanova pot[10]                              Kolodvorska cesta, Pivka[11]                                  1.4 km     25 min[12]   153 m[13]               easy[14]     yes[15]
  Parje - Primož[16]                            Parje, Parje[17]                                              2.3 km     40 min[18]   173 m[19]               easy[20]     no[21]
  Pivka Park of Military History - Primož[22]   Pivka Park of Military History, 51 Kolodvorska cesta, Pivka   2.7 km     45 min[23]   150 m[24]               easy[25]     yes[26]

  : All tourist trails to the peak

[1]

[2]

[3]

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[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]  Občina Vrhnika {{!}} MojaObčina.si|website=www.mojaobcina.si|language=sl|access-date=2020-04-05}}

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

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[26]

title: Primož (hill)

question: Summarize Primož's strategic importance.

answer: The hill Primož is part of a ridge separating the Pivka basin from the Reka valley. The town of Pivka is built on the northern slope of Primož. From Primož you can see the entire Pivka basin. The hill also contains many tunnels and bunkers used by the Italian army.

question: What does the text say about the military tunnels in Primož?

answer: Primož hill became Italian territory after World War 1. The tunnels in Primož were built as part of the Italian's defensive long Alpine Wall. The tunnels had two major lines, one running along the border and another several kilometers behind. After the Italians withdrew, German forces destroyed the tunnels so they could not be used against them.

question: Summarize Primož in the present day.

answer: The town of Pivka is built along Primož's northern slope. It has many marked hiking trails and a small road leading to its peak. There is a historical trail meant for tourists that explains the history of Primož in detail. From the peak most of the Pivka basin can be seen, including Lake Palčje.