text:
Strange memories find me on days like this. Dreary days made up of dark skies and leftover sighs from things I wished I'd had the strength to say back then. Back when I was nothing.

 You know that girl in your class...the one who wore dorky glasses and outdated clothes? The one who always got picked last because people were disturbed by the constant hint of kool-aid around her mouth? Well, that or the fact that the ball always seems to gravitate to her face, rather than her hands or her feet where it ought to have gone...the one who had the tiniest bit of a lisp and always talked a little too loud about things no one was interested in? Well in my class, her name was Colleen. And even she knew that to sit next to me at lunch and trade the foil lid to her pudding cup to me was social suicide.

 There was a pretty Spanish girl who once asked me in disgust why I was wearing flip flops in Winter. I told her that they were all I had at the time, and her disgust turned to embaressment and pity. "I will buy you shoes for Christmas!" she promised fervently. When late December came and I was still wearing them, she fidgeted while she asked if I'd mind if she got me something else instead. I shook my head--I hadn't expected anything from her. She never spoke to me after that.

 There was a boy and a girl...siblings. The girl was in my class, the boy a grade above. Robin and Josh. I don't remember any of the specific insults, just the look of pure hatred the few times she made eye contact with me. I realize now that she must have told her brother something about me, and that was why he cracked insults over my head like eggs in the summer heat every single day when we lined up for the bus. At the time I didn't know why he targeted me. I remember more the insults he spewed, but they make my cheeks burn and I don't want to type them out.
 I don't know what possesed me to do it, but one day I came across a biography of Vanilla Ice. I knew Josh was a big fan of the guy, so in the line that day in the middle of his tirade I handed it to him and walked away. He was confused and never bothered me after that. I didn't even give it to him to make him stop--the thought was just in my head that he was the only person I knew of who'd like the book. Robin didn't give me dirty looks after that either, though she made no effort to speak to me. I stopped existing for them. It was a relief.

When I was 9, I lived in apartment building where the neighbor children were varied, but at least they were all just as poor as I. There was a Hispanic boy who loved me from afar, though I didn't get it then. I made friends with two Asian boys--their father ran a small donut shop and when I came in he would make sure to fill a jam donut until it threatened to burst with raspberry goodness, and he never charged me for it. The two boys and I made secret forts in the hedges around the complex. Older boys tore them out and accused us of having sex in them, which absolutely bewildered us. Later they threw rocks...actual rocks at us, with growing frenzy. The Asian boys never came back to play with me after that. There were no more donuts.

And ah, the church groups. Where I arrived 30 minutes early and stayed an hour after the closing prayer, offering to clean up the tables and put away chairs, just to be near people for a little longer. It didn't matter that even they wanted nothing to do with me. Within the walls and under the watchful eye of the youth leaders, the other kids had to at least pretend to tolerate me while I hung on every word spoken around me. Outside in the parking lot, where they sometimes played basketball, was much more of a risk. I took it gladly.

So, so desperate for love...

mm. My husband has just come home. I think I will go hug him close and leave the darker days where they lay.

title: darker days

question: Why would it have been "social suicide" for Colleen to sit with the narrator?

answer: The narrator is probably less popular than Colleen due to her being of a low economic status.

question: Why did the Asian boys never come back to play with the narrator?

answer: The narrator and the Asian boys were accused of having sex in a fort they made by older boys. The older boys then threw rocks at them. It's not said explicitly why the boys stopped seeing the narrator, but it could be assumed it's because they no longer wanted to associate with her anymore.

question: What does the narrator mean by "I think I will go hug him close and leave the darker days where they lay"?

answer: She means that she wants to forget the past and appreciate the good things in front of her.

question: What might have happened if any of the people described were kind or chose to be friends with the narrator?

answer: The narrator probably wouldn't have been so lonely and desperate for love. She also would have better memories of her childhood.

question: How has the narrator's life changed from when she was a child?

answer: She now has a husband that she probably loves, and doesn't feel lonely and rejected like she had.

question: Summarize what happened with the church group.

answer: All the members of the church group rejected her, and would only pretend to tolerate her in front of the youth group leaders.


split: test

text:
MELBOURNE, Florida -- Former U.S. Senator for Florida George LeMieux is now running in the U.S. Senate Republican primary to challenge Senator Bill Nelson's seat.  LeMieux is making the campaign rounds in Brevard County today, and took the time out of his busy schedule for an over-the-phone interview to answer a few questions for Brevard Times.

QUESTION #1:

There is a large contingent of Brevard County Republicans who supported Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.  These first three segments of Brevard County Republicans represent the more conservative contingent, while moderate Brevard County Republicans supported Mitt Romney.

None of these factions represent more than 50% of the Republican party on Florida's Space Coast. How can you bring social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, constitutional conservatives, interventionists, non-interventionists, and moderates together to get behind your candidacy when their policies often conflict with one another?  What kind of a Republican are you?

ANSWER:

I am a Reagan Republican.  I hope that what I stood for while in the U.S. Senate, and what I stand for now, would appeal to supporters of limited government.

QUESTION #2:

Troops in the Middle East - In or Out?

ANSWER:
Iraq: We have withdrawn our troops from Iraq due to the noncooperation of the Iraqi government.  I would not support the return of troops into Iraq.

Afghanistan: We are drawing down our troops in 2014.  We face challenges transferring security for the Afghan people to Afghan forces.  The withdrawal from Afghanistan should not be on a political time line after spending 10 years of U.S. blood and treasure.  I would listen to commanders in the field as to the timeline of troop withdrawal.  President Obama is trying to tie the withdrawal around an election clock.

QUESTION #3:

TARP, HAMP, GM, Citigroup, and other economic government bailouts - For or against?

ANSWER:

Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.  In the case of  GM, the unions got a bailout while the bondholders took a bath.  Other car makers remained in business but did not get the benefit of government help.  The role of government should be much more limited then it is today.

I would not have voted for TARP - it was not successful.  After the banks received money from the U.S. they did not in turn loan those funds back out to businesses.  This recovery is dismal and the worst recovery after an economic shock.  The sharper the drop in the economy, the stronger the comeback.  President Obama's stimulus package and TARP made the road back to normal difficult.  European banks are facing a financial crisis now.  We should not use U.S. dollars to bail out European banks via the IMF or by any other means.

As for HAMP, the purpose of government in helping homeowners should be in a targeted and temporary way - a short term helping hand.  I support those temporary programs.  But the market needs to work itself out.  There are many Floridians out of work because they can't move to another job because the are locked in their underwater house.  We need a much more expeditious process than HAMP for helping homeowners.

It's always great to say that we want to make home ownership affordable for everyone. But federal government intervention does not work in the real world.  Whether well intentioned or not, we should let market forces work.

We should not create new GSE's like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to support the housing.  We have to wind down the ones we have, but can't stop them tomorrow because of the impact to the market place.

QUESTION #4:

What do you think of the Federal Reserve's role in intervening in the economy?

ANSWER:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did a good job of stabilizing the market when we were in the thick of it.  But the Federal Reserve should have read the signs along the way to the financial crisis.

The Federal Reseve is printing so much money and lending it out to banks at such a low interest rate, it is bailing out the banks on the backs of Florida's seniors who cannot get a good interest rate on their savings to keep up with inflation.  My folks, who live in Florida, are in the same situation as most seniors.

I do not support the Fed's policy of creating a negative real rate of return. I voted to audit the Federal Reserve.  Congress has essentially created a fourth branch of government.

QUESTION #5:

Are you pro-life or pro-choice? Is it a federal issue or should it be left to states?

ANSWER:

I am pro-life and believe that it is a federal issue as well as a state issue.

QUESTION #6:

Are you for or against off-shore drilling? What is your energy policy?

ANSWER:

I am in favor of off-shore drilling if it is done 100 miles off the coast of Florida.  The leasing of federal waters to oil companies for off-shore drilling should be market-based to get the best price for the U.S. Treasury.

We need to build more nuclear power plants and take advantage of the energy resources found domestically in the United States.  For example, we are recently finding a tremendous amount of natural gas in the U.S. from North Dakota to Texas which has caused natural gas to drop 50% in price.

If we were to produce more energy resources that are found in the U.S., it would put the U.S. back into the manufacturing sector because energy would be so cheap in certain parts of the U.S.   Also, we wouldn't be dependent on mid-east oil and oil from Venezuela, just what is produced domestically and from our friends like Canada and Mexico.

I do support continued sanctions against Iran to halt their development of a nuclear weapon even if it means higher gasoline prices.  The safety and security of the U.S., Europe, and Israel is more important than higher gas prices.

I believe in an all-of-the-above energy strategy.  But unlike President Obama, I really mean it.  I supported the Keystone XL pipeline.  Senator Bill Nelson voted against it.  Again and again, Senator Nelson proves he's a real liberal in Washington, D.C.

QUESTION #7:

PIPA and SOPA - for or against?

ANSWER:
I would have voted against them due to the language drafted in those particular bills.  However, we do need to protect intellectual property rights just like any other property right under the U.S. Constitutions.  We also need to encourage innovation and the power of peoples ideas on the internet.

QUESTION #8:

NDAA - for or against?

ANSWER:

I am for most of the bill.  However, when it comes to the detention of folks, in no way should any American be detained without the right to a lawyer and a right to go before a judge even if they are accused of terrorism.

I will make the distinction though, that if an American travels outside of the U.S. to aid our enemies and fight our troops in a theater of war, those rights should not apply to him.

QUESTION #9:

Deficit and Debt. How do you propose we tackle this problem?

ANSWER:

This is the number one issue facing America.  We will not be able to make our interest payment at the current rate of spending in the next ten years.  Our kids and grand-kids will not grow up in the same America if this financial meltdown is allowed to happen.  I support the "2007 Solution" which says lets go back to what we spent at that level in 2007.  This will cut 4 trillion from national debt and not increase our deficit by the end of the decade.

QUESTION #10:

What committee memberships would you seek if elected?

ANSWER:
The Armed Services Committee and Budget Committe.  No Florida senator is sitting on the Armed Services Committee.  As for other committees, it depends on Marco Rubio because two Republicans are not allowed to sit in the same committee.
QUESTION #11:

U.S. Missile shield systems in Eastern Europe: For or against?

ANSWER:

I support it.  What President Obama did was wrong when he ended President Bush's plan to deploy a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe.  Iran is a perfect reason why that shield is needed.  We took some of the components of that shield to Turkey, but we need a land-base and a sea-base missile defense shield to defend Europe and Israel.

QUESTION #12:

The U.S. tax code is a Byzantine labyrinth of political carve outs, credits, and deductions.  Today is tax day.  What is your position on how the U.S. tax code could be improved?

Everyone should pay taxes - every person, and every corporation.  We can lower everyone's tax rate if we were to eliminate the tax loopholes which give away 1 trillion dollars to special interests.  30 of the Fortune 500 companies pay little or no tax.  The top tax rate for people and corporations could be reduced to 25% if those loopholes were eliminated.  Not to mention, there are billions of dollars spent every year by taxpayers for lawyers and accountants to prepare taxes due to a complicated tax code.

QUESTION #13:

Making the U.S. competitive on a global scale. The U.S. seems to take it on the chin with each trade agreement we enter. What is your position on free trade agreements. Should free trade exist for say produce, where in Brazil they use fungicides not allowed in the U.S. (which has just recently made national headlines) that gives their growers a production price advantage over Space Coast citrus growers along our Indian River lagoon?

ANSWER:

I am for free trade and fair trade.  As for health and safety, we should impose requirements on other countries in our trade agreements to guarantee safe food.

When it comes to manufacturing, what countries do in their own countries is their business if there is a lack of environmental protection.  Manufactured products are going to be made and paid for on a world market place.  In the U.S., we need proper regulation, not over-regulation of our companies.

QUESTION #14:

The Space Shuttle Discovery left this morning for its final piggy back over Florida's Space Coast. What is your vision for the future of the U.S. Space Program?

ANSWER:

Senator Bill Nelson and President Obama have killed the U.S. space program.  American exceptionalism is going to the museum right along with the space shuttle.  Today our space program is in shambles, we lost over seven thousand jobs on the Space Coast with no plans for the future of the U.S. space program.

We need to have a real solution for the space program before the China and India get ahead of us.  I don't want to live in America where the Chinese have planted a flag on the moon.

As for Newt Gingrich's call for a moon colony - that is a little far fetched.  We don't even have a space program right now.  We rely commercial companies for low earth orbit launches, which is great.  But let's have a real definitive plan.

The Constellation program Congress passed was a quarter measure, not even a half measure, for the future of a real U.S. space program.

QUESTION #15:

Any thing else you would like to add?

ANSWER:

I hope that your readers know that I want to balance the budget, safeguard our freedoms.  If elected, I will limit myself to two terms in office.

question: What policy examples does the article contain about George LeMieux's view of limited government?

answer: LeMieux is against the government bailouts of banks after the 2008 crisis, claiming that the government shouldn't pick winners and losers. He thinks the intention to help homeowners is a noble one, but the interventions should be temporary so that the market forces can do their job. LeMieux is against the detention of people without the right to a lawyer and the right to appear before a judge. Furthermore, he wants the national deficit to reduce, and the tax system to be simplified. His view is that if the tax loopholes were eliminated, the top tax rate could be reduced for both people and corporations. He's also against over-regulation of companies.

question: What are LeMieux's policies that contradict his endorsement of limited government?

answer: He's pro-life when it comes to abortion and thinks that it's both a federal and state issue. He's in favor of the US sanctions against Iraq for safety reasons and thinks the US should have an ambitious space program.

question: What does the article say about the global presence of the United States?

answer: The US is pulling its troops out of Iraq, and it is in the process of doing the same in Afghanistan. There's some dependence of the US energy sector on oil from Venezuela and the Middle East in addition to neighboring Mexico and Canada. The US also has sanctions against Iran to halt their nuclear development. The US has missile defense systems in Turkey, and LeMieux thinks canceling the plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe was a mistake as it would've offered protection against Iran for Europe and Israel. Finally, the prominence of the US in space is in decline against the nations like India and China.

question: What does the text say about bipartisan policies in the US?


text:
She knew it was coming. She saw it coming. For three months, she held onto that bright purple monkey that he had gotten her for her birthday and waited. Why had he gotten her a purple monkey anyway? She hated the color purple.

The really sad thing was, she felt almost relieved. And she was disgusted with herself for that.

They had met in a book club meeting, of all places. Freshman year of high school, she walked into the library, still painfully shy, and he was the first one who said hi to her. There were only ten people in the club, and she slowly relaxed around them. They argued over their favorite novels, had contests to see who could read the next assigned book the fastest and made up a secret handshake that, when they tried to perform it in the hallways between classes, always ended in loud laughter.

He had been in three of her classes, which she had never noticed before, and they started hanging out more. When he asked her out, she was so excited, and terrified. She had never had a boyfriend before. Was she supposed to act different around him now? Was she supposed to stop hanging out with him as much? How many texts a day were too many? She didn't worry for too long. He was just as nervous as she was. They spent almost every moment together, those first two years.

Then junior year rolled around and he became distant. He tried to make an effort to stay cheerful around her, but she had known him long enough to see that he was unhappy. She tried talking to him, but he would shake his head and turn away and she didn't push.

She had wondered if he was going to break up with her, and cried. One night, while they were watching a movie together, she turned and looked at him, her eyes filling with angry tears and demanded that he just do it already. She couldn't handle this anymore.

He hugged her, squeezed her as tight as he could, and said that he wasn't going to break up with her. He loved her. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But the rest of his life was three months, maybe four.

They had cried together, and talked, and cried some more. They spent two days apart, because she didn't know how to handle it. But she decided that she would keep him happy for the next three months. He would never have to worry about her leaving him.

Those three months were the worst. He got weaker. He got more emotional. He would lash out for no apparent reason and once, when she told him to relax, he hit her in the face. She was more angry than hurt. "Just because you're dying doesn't mean you get to hit your fucking girlfriend!" She had left, and he called her that night, sobbing and apologizing. She went back to his house and spent the night lying next to him in bed, unable to sleep, listening to his mom cry in the living room.

The phone rang. She answered it on the third ring.

"He wants to see you."

She was silent for a few moments. "I can't. I can't do that."

"Stop being selfish. I don't care if it scars you for life, get your ass to the hospital. For some reason, my boy wants to see you before he dies and you'd better fucking do what he wants."

She hung up and got out of bed. She brushed her hair and put it up, remembering that he always said she looked cute with a ponytail. She put on the shirt he liked the most and a pair of jeans that he had doodled on one day in book club. She drove to the hospital slowly and carefully, parked in the farthest spot from the door. It was windy out, and smelled like it was about to rain. The woman at the front desk directed her to the right room and she went, trying to get lost along the way. It didn't work. The building was too small.

She opened the door marked 318 and everyone in the room turned to stare at her. His mother and father were there. His mother glared at her, but his father smiled. His older brother was there, sitting in the only chair, looking exhausted. And there he was, sitting up in bed, grinning at her.

His father ushered everyone else out of the room to give them privacy. As the door closed, she perched on the side of the hospital bed and took his hand.

"Hey."

He kissed her hand and she smiled. "Hi. I'm glad you came."

"Of course I came." She felt like crying, but refused to. He didn't need that. "This is a much better reason to put off studying for finals."

He laughed, but it sounded off. "You know, I was always amazed that you stuck around. After everything, you're still here. That means the world to me. I love you."

"I love you too." The lie tasted bitter, but she ignored it. They said nothing else to each other. His family returned and she stayed where she was, holding his hand, until he finally closed his eyes and went.

She felt suddenly as if someone had reached into her chest and pricked her heart, letting the blood drain out until it shriveled and died. She left the hospital. She attended the funeral. She finished high school and moved to another state. She went to college, tried to make new friends and have new relationships. She left college, found an okay job, and started dating her next door neighbor. He was an alcoholic, which she didn't mind. He hit her sometimes. She just covered it up with make-up and he never remembered the next morning. He proposed to her and she agreed. They had three children and she quit her job.

She wasn't happy. She hated the children. She hated her husband. She blamed it all on him, the first boy she had ever loved, who had promised her so much and then left her. She was heartless and unlovable because of him. She was depressed because of him. She wished she hadn't lied to him. He should have died knowing that she didn't love him anymore.

She sent the kids off to school, kissed her husband before he left for work, wrote a note and stuck it on her pillow, and decided to go for a walk. She kept walking, until she was so sore that she had to stop. She sat down on the side of a road she didn't recognize and smiled to herself, thinking that she had finally managed to get lost.

title: Lost

question: Why does the woman blame the boy who she loved?

answer: His death scarred her, but the thing that she hates the most is that she lied to him. She did not love him anymore when he died, and she thinks he should have died knowing that.


text:
[The Blog]()
.
.
I could feel myself coming to in the small windowless cell. There were thin beams of weedy yellow light coughing out of the failing halogens. A bullet proof glass door showed my slowly waking eyes two vague humanoid forms. I glanced up at my belt hanging from the top of the upturned bed- it was torn in half from where it had snapped after presumably many hours holding my weight. The noose was still around my neck. As I waited for my legs to wake up I listened to the two figures familiar conversation.
“I still seems barbaric to me. Look at him he wants to go why do we keep bringing him back?”
“The judge said 137 years. He’s only done 10.”
“You’re more robotic than the engine Gary. So how many resurrections is that?”
“That’s the third this year. Okay belts are officially banned in this place. Also the autopsy found traces of an unknown toxin. We need to monitor the prisoners for possible new drug supplies. Wait he’s coming to.”
The second figure pressed a button and there was a click noise in my cell that made my ears ring.
“Prisoner 5107. Can you hear me?”
My throat was dry and rough but I had to respond or they’d try a Post-Res detox and my bowels wouldn’t handle it in their current state.
“Y-Yes I can hear you Doctor.”
“Now 5107 you have to stop doing this every resurrection sends more bills to your next of kin you know that right?”
I let out an almighty string of coughs as my lungs cleared of nanomachine gel.
“I don’t have anyone…”
“Oh.”
“Just let me die! Please!”
The desperation left a lump in my throat. The second figure switched to a faux-warmth that left me deeply unnerved.
“Oh now I hate to put you through this but what you did was truly terrible and you must serve your sentence. Until your body shuts down due to old age we cannot allow you to slip away with a mere ten years- what sort of just society would that be? Now get up there serving lunch in ten minutes.”
“I didn’t do anything please let me out of here!”
I struggled to hold on to mind as the swirling chemicals still left in my blood left me dizzy and sick with panic from an unknown source. I lay there bawling as the two scientists walked away. The first spoke again- with less brashness than before.
“What did he do to end up here anyway?”
“He killed his twin brother and the brother’s wife and kids. Destroyed his body so completely we never found it.”

title: [SF] Science Fiction Horror Short Story "The Lazarus Engine" from my blog feedback appreciated

question: Where was the narrator?

answer: The narrator is in the prison.

question: Why was he in prison?

answer: The man was in prison for killing his twin brother, his wife, and his kids. He also destroyed the body so that it could never be found.

question: How many years does he have to serve?

answer: 137 years.

question: How many years had he served so far?

answer: The man had served 10 years so far.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer:
The narrator sat in a room while two officers on the other side of bulletproof glass converse. They talk about how the man had served 10 years out of the 137 years he has to serve.

One of the officers calls inside and tells the narrator to stop asking for resurrections. The narrator cries out asking them to let him die.

The officers walk off talking about how he had killed his twin brother, his wife, and his kids.


text:
"So yeah," Cody paused to think of how to say this next part, "he's not immortal or anything retarded like that... just 'lucky'." He made air quotes around the word lucky. The girl sitting across the booth sipped on her beer and gave him a questioning look while thumbing around her purse looking for a lighter. Cody pulled out a book of matches and slid it across the table.

Her eyes lit up and in a voice and volume that suggested that she was well past tipsy but not quite drunk said, "Thanks! What do you mean lucky?" She tried putting air quotes around lucky but missed the mark, maybe she's a little drunker than he thought at first.

"Well, a couple of years ago we were at a party..." Cody started telling the drunk girl the story and signaling to the waitress for another round of drinks.

***

It was late October and we were at a house party just outside of town. Monroe was stealing money from drunken rednecks by playing a nice completely fixed card game. I had just made my drink of champions, a shot an of Dr. Pepper in a 44oz styrofoam while audibly crying and saying, "Goodbye pain!" and filling the rest of the cup with Kentucky Deluxe. Looking around and making eye contact a nerdy looking guy about my age asked me, "Are you ok man?" He seemed genuinely worried.

“Not yet but I will be.” I wiped a fake tear out of my eye and waked off whistling. As Monroe says everything is better when you can make people uncomfortable and generally worried. The party was pretty standard as far they go. I found my way to the kitchen with the table replaced with a beer pong table and about fifteen college aged kids surrounding it and watching the game in progress. There wasn’t a lot there to hold my interest so I made my way into the living room. On the couch was a group of people playing a drinking game involving a deck of cards and ridiculous set of rules; that by half way threw the game no one can remember them so you just end up drinking randomly and talking louder and louder to the point that anyone not playing the game wants to punch everyone involved. Over by the stereo a drunk girl was looking through an iPod trying to find a song that was “totally my song”. In the corner was a card game where Monroe was Playing three drunk and obviously frustrated rednecks. Monroe looked up at me and gave me a smirk that means “This shit is so easy.” I walked up to the table taking a drink of my cup and asked the asshole about to con the three men out of their money. “Hey, man have you seen Mike or Krissy?”

Monroe looked up at me faking surprise, “Oh Cody when did you get here? Nah, but they’re probably out front smoking.” He looked down at his cards and faked look of concern, then looked up at me, “Hey can you spot me ten bucks I promise I’ll pay you back.”

I gave him a practiced look of disbelief and handed him two fives, I knew the game he was playing. After that I turned and headed for the front door before I could get sucked into his con anymore than I already was. Behind me I could him say something to the affect of “Lets see if I can get lucky tonight.”

The late October night air was cool but not so cold you would need a heavy coat. Earlier that morning it rained and it was still damp, quieting the few leaves that had already fallen to the ground. It wasn’t hard to find Krissy and Mike, they were standing in a circle of ten or so other people smoking and drinking on the porch. On the steps two girls wearing hooded sweaters were loading a pipe as a blonde guy standing in front of them was trying to relight a joint.

“Cody!” Krissy was waving her small hand over her head a puffing on cigarette in her mouth. She was wearing a black hoodie with an atom bomb and the words “PRAY FOR THE BOMB” drawn on the front with a bleach marker. The hoodie looked about two sizes too big and made her look like she was about fifteen. The only give away to her age was the way she handled the bottle of whiskey in her hand, she could my Hemingway look like a freshman any day of the week. Mike was standing next to her lighting a cigarette with a beer hugged between his forearm and chest. He was wearing t-shirt with a long sleeve thermal underneath, nodding his head at the front door he asked me, “Hows he doing in there?”

“Oh, ok I guess he asked me for some money so… maybe not that great.” I said, just incase someone outside was friends with the rednecks that Monroe was scamming. About half an hour past of drunken talk of music and rumors of an after party before we heard an argument start  inside of the house. Guys yelling Fuck You! and You Fucking Asshole! followed by the sounds of chairs falling over and some glass breaking. The door swung open and a man who’s face was so red he looked like he was going to burst stormed out and down driveway to his truck, saying under his breath in a drunken slur, “Mother Fucker see who’s laughing.”

“What ‘cough’ was that about?” asked one of the girls smoking out of the pipe on the stairs. I looked back to the door and saw Monroe walking out with his ‘I’m awesome as fuck and you all love me for it’ smile on his face, I hate when he smiles like that.

“Hey, here’s your ten back,” he said while pulling out a pack a cigarettes, “it really helped.” He paused light up. “I knew I was bound to get some luck sooner or later. What are you guys talking about? Hope it’s not about butt fucking farm animals ‘cause that’s all those guys at the card game where talking about.”

“So you won some money?” asked Krissy ignoring the beastality comment.

“Umm yeah I guess you could say I came out ahead.”

“How much, ‘cause that guys was pissed.”

“Well, he wasn’t so pissy when he was up four hundred. But once he’s down two fifty it’s the end of the fucking world.” Then in a high pitched and clearly mocking voice he said, “This is fucked up, you got to be cheatin somehow. I’m clearly a little bitch and now I’ve got to get butt fucked by my uncle.”

“Uhh…” I said, “I don’t think he said that last part, I mean he probably wanted to.”

Monroe stopped to consider this for a minute. “Well, no I guess he didn’t say it out loud, but you know,” he took a drag off his cigarette, “I read it in his eyes.” Then he looked down and said in almost sorrowful tone, “Poor guy’s just looking for love in all the wrong places.”

Krissy laughed took a drink of her whiskey and asked, “So that mean you’re taking me to the movies tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure,” Monroe said as he snubbed out his cigarette butt, “as long as it's not about how no matter what love conquers all in the end, like that stupid lake house movie. We could see a comedy like ‘The Last House on The Left'.”

“Ok, sounds great.” Krissy said happily. She had never heard of that movie, Monroe knew that, because she didn’t like or watch horror movies. Monroe for some warped reason sees every horror movies as in his words, “The funniest fucking comedies that Hollywood puts out’. It could be after everything thing we’ve seen and gone through movies just can’t be taken seriously anymore no matter what his reasons, Monroe is an asshole.

“Uh Krissy.” I started to warn her about trick Monroe was going to play on her, but then the party came to an immediate end. Remember before when I said Monroe was an asshole well I wasn’t joking, he’s a fucking asshole. The super pissed redneck came walking back up to Monroe. In his right hand he was carrying a double barrel shot gun.

“Hey Buddy. That was a fun game.” Monroe said with that same fucking ‘I’m awesome’ smile on his face. “We should play again sometime.”

“Fuck you asshole.” The redneck screamed as he put the shotgun to his shoulder and aimed at Monroe’s face. “Give me the money, all of it!”

The smile left Monroe’s face and he lit another cigarette. He looked around and made sure no one would do something stupid and get involved. Looking back at the redneck he smiled and said in a phone operator-esque voice, “I’m sorry all sales are final, it's not my fault you bought losing card, better luck next time.”
“I’ll blow your fucking brains out asshole, give me the money!”

Taking a calm drag off his cigarette Monroe replied, “I don’t think you will.”

“Wanna bet fuckbag?” The redneck pulled back the hammers on the shotgun.The crowd grew until everyone in the house wondered out front out curiosity to see what the all the screaming was about.

“Why sure,” Monroe joyfully said, “I can’t resist a good bet. You know five to one says you’ll shoot nothing but blanks at me. But sure as shit I won’t be shooting blanks in you mother, hell if your good and you do your chores when I become your stepdad I’ll give you an allowance.” He took another drag off his cigarette and smiled. The redneck screamed and pulled the triggers of the shotgun.

“Click, click!”

The sound the shotgun misfiring was followed by a few of the party goers saying, “Oh my god,” and “Whats wrong with that guy?” The smile left Monroe’s face again and was replaced with a look of ‘I’m going rip your soul from your body’. The redneck coming to his senses with the sobering realization that he tried to fire a gun at another man standing not ten feet away, started to back away scared tripped and fell on his ass. As he landed the barrels of the gun pointed up to the sky and finger still on the trigger both shots fired. The following silence was broken by a few people murmuring ‘holy shit’ when everyone realized the gun was loaded the whole time. The redneck shaken up by the gun not firing at Monroe but firing when he fell quickly got to his feet and ran to his truck and drove off, presumably to cry in uncle’s warm embrace and take a shot in the mouth. Seriously that guy was a dickhead. After a few minutes of people asking if anyone was hurt the blonde guy that smoking a joint, who I’m guessing lived there,told everyone that the party was over and we had to leave. Ahh nothing ends a good night like seeing your friend almost have his head evaporated by a buck shot. The four of us drove back in my car in tense silence, well except Monroe who humming and whistling Roy Brown’s ‘Butcher Pete’. I would have turned on the radio but didn’t seem like that would have helped anything.

“How did you know?” Mike finally asked.

“Know what?” Monroe replied and continued to hum the upbeat song.

“That the gun wouldn’t fire.”

“Well,” Monroe turned around and looked in the back seat to Mike and Krissy seeing the worry in their faces, “you guys should know by now I’m so badass even bullets don’t wanna fuck with me.” He forced a one of his better sounding fake laughs, Krissy wiped a tear from her eye and laughed with him.

“Ok, sure Mr. Badass I bet that he just had his safety on and didn’t know it.” Krissy said. No one argued with her, she knew damn well how guns worked, sometimes its just easier to go with a lie than to think about the things working in the background. We dropped Mike and Krissy off at their apartments and then went back to my house where Monroe’s truck was.

“So…” I started as we got out of my car, “what the hell was that? And don’t pull that ‘I’m awesome’ bullshit with me. I mean that guy could have shot you! Fuck he even tried!”

Monroe looked around to see if anyone was listening, grabbed two beers from the cooler in the back of his truck opened them and handed me one. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “Well, you know how we joke about us being lucky?” He put air quotes around the word lucky. I nodded my head to agree with him and took a drink of my beer. “Well, I decided to test it out and see if I could catch whatever makes us ‘lucky’ off guard. You know keep ‘em on their toes and all.”

“Keep ‘em on their toes?” I yelled at him. “You could’ve died, what then?” He gave me a look that said ‘Meh, it could be worse’. I wanted to punch that stupid look off his face.

He puffed on his cigarette and took another drink of his beer before saying, “I don’t think the things that stop us from getting killed are doing it out of the kindness of their hearts.”

“So what, you think they want us to serve a greater purpose or to do a some greater good?”

“Well, shit! I hope not, cause we’d be a really fucked choice. I hope who ever chose us gets fucking fired, out of a cannon, into the sun.” He paused for a minute to think of someone getting fired into the sun and laughed under his breath. “No, if they’re anything like the rest of the shit we come across, I think they just like fucking with people and maybe they’ll randomly stop without warning and I’ll get killed off. By the way good call not turning on the radio when we were coming back, no need to worry Krissy about them.”

“You think they would have been on the air?”

“I don’t know,” he said then pulled the last drag off his cigarette before dropping it on the ground and putting it out, “but you know how Krissy gets when they do shit she can’t ignore, but that was a pretty good excuse she came up with tonight.” He laughed, “ All I know is I don’t know shit about what they want. Hell, maybe its all happening for a reason or maybe there isn’t a reason to anything and nothing we do matters at all.”

“Holy shit dude,” I said, “thats depressing as shit, if nothing matters why do anything at all?”

“Cause why the fuck not.” He said with his ‘I’m awesome’ smile on his face. “Nothing matters so if I fuck up it's no big deal. So why not do everything you can. Worse case scenario some asshole kills you for being a fuck up and for us at the moment that doesn’t seem like its a possibility so you know, no worries.” He laughed, I laughed we finished our beers and called it a night.

***

“Thats what I mean by lucky,” Cody said to the girl who seemly sobered up throughout the telling the story, “he’s been hurt and he ages we just get lucky and don’t get killed.”

“Oh, well that makes sense.” She said reaching into her purse again.

“You can keep those matches I don’t smoke. Monroe just loses his lighters a lot so I keep a couple books on me.”

“Thank you,” she said still looking through her purse, “but I’m looking for something spice up this beer a bit. Ah this will do!” she pulled out small clear jar filled with black writhing worms and centipeds. She opened the jar,pulled out a centipede, and dropped it in her beer. She closed and put back the small jar into her purse smiled and took a long drink of her beer.

“God damnit.”

title: [MF] The Shotgun Incident

question: What does the story say about movies?

answer: When Monroe wins money, Krissy asks if that means he's taking her to the movies the next day. Monroe says yes, as long as it's not about love conquering all in the end; instead, he wants to see a "comedy" like ‘The Last House on The Left'. That's actually a horror movie, and Krissy hates horror movies, hence the lie. Monroe considers horror movies to be the funniest things coming out of Hollywood.

question: What does the story say about lakeside holidays?


text:
Government ministers have been condemned for spending five times more on no-deal Brexit "propaganda" than on helping local councils prepare for the possibility of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

On Saturday the government announced a £20m fund to help councils with no-deal planning and ordered every local authority to appoint an official to work with the government and oversee preparations.

But critics pointed out that the sum is dwarfed by the up to £100m that will reportedly be spent on a "public information campaign" designed to inform people about the consequences of a no-deal Brexit.

The £20m funding for no-deal preparations equates to only around £60,000 per council.

Labour MP Jess Phillips, a supporter of the People's Vote campaign for a second referendum, said: "It is a sign of how out of touch the government are in their efforts to force a destructive Brexit on the country that they are planning to spend five times more on no deal propaganda than on helping local councils prepare for the calamity of such an outcome.

“No deal is about as far away from the promises made by Boris Johnson and the other leaders of 2016’s leave campaign as it is possible to get. Then they told us we’d get a 'great deal' and we did not have to worry about the disastrous impact of no deal. Now they want to flood the country with adverts promoting a policy they all know is broken and will threaten public health, stability and even food supply."

She added: “The idea that £20m across the 343 principal councils of England is enough to prepare is an insult to our intelligence and to the hard work of public servants struggling with the consequences of the Government’s decision to force a vicious Brexit on us."

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Andrew Gwynne, the shadow housing and communities secretary, also criticised the announcement, saying it offered "no new money and no new ideas for how to address the cliff-edge councils are facing".

He said: "Under the Tories, 60p out of every £1 that the last Labour government invested in our councils has been cut – with the most deprived parts of the country hit the hardest.

“This Conservative government is only interested in looking after the super-rich and cannot be trusted to fund the local services we all rely on. Labour will properly invest in our councils and we will always act in the interests of the many, not the few.”

 Boris Johnson's cabinet: Who's in and who's out

Show all 40

But Robert Jenrick, the new housing and communities secretary, insisted that the money would ensure local councils are prepared for Brexit on 31 October "whatever the circumstances".

He said:

“From Whitehall to town halls, everyone needs to be ready to fulfil our democratic mandate to leave the European Union by the end of October.

"Local government has a vital role in helping to make Brexit a success and it is absolutely right that together we intensify preparations in every community."

He added: “I want all of us – central and local government – to be fully prepared for leaving the EU on 31 October whatever the circumstances. I know that we can achieve this, by continuing to work side by side with renewed national focus and intensity.”

Dominic Raab says the British people were told about a no-deal Brexit during the referendum

The group's chairman, councillor Kevin Bentley, said: ”The government has listened to our calls recognising the central role councils play and that more resources are needed for their Brexit preparations. The funding announced today will help councils continue to co-ordinate their efforts.

"With councils already facing a funding gap of more than £3bn in 2019/20 it is more important now than ever that councils receive the resources they need for their on-going Brexit preparations."

But he added: "There remains information and advice gaps that councils are facing while helping their communities prepare, which need to be met by the government. Councils also need certainty to plan for their communities over the longer-term, such as on the domestic replacement for EU funding."

question: Describe the main issue in this text.

answer: The main issue being described in this text is how the government ministers have been condemned for spending five times more on no-deal Brexit propaganda than on helping local councils prepare for the possibility of the UK leaving the EU without a deal. The whole article discusses the consequences of having no deal and how this will impact a country harshly. It could even threaten public health, stability, and even food supply.

question: What message does this article send to other governments reading about this deal?


text:
MARY PIKE (1776 – 1832) was an Irish quaker heiress who was abducted by Sir Henry Browne Hayes.[1]

Early life and family

Mary Pike was born in 1776, the only surviving daughter of Samuel Pike and Catherine née Hutchinson. Her father was in business with his older brother Ebenezer with a family bank in Cork city which was established in around 1770. The details of Pike's early life are not recorded. After the death of her father in 1796, she inherited £20,000. She moved out of the city to live with the family of Cooper Penrose, a brother of her aunt Anne, at Woodhill. It appears that she became estranged from her mother, possibly over religion. Penrose was expelled from the Society of Friends due to his indulgence in avaricious leisure pursuits.[2]

Abduction

Pike was abducted by Sir Henry Browne Hayes on 22 July 1797, using a forged letter from her mother's physician claiming that her mother was gravely ill and requesting her presence. He ambushed and kidnapped her on the road from Woodhill. Bringing her to Vernon Mount, his residence, Hayes and his sister forced Pike into a marriage ceremony, which Pike resisted strongly. Her uncle, Richard, discovered that Pike was at Vernon Mount, rescued her. He put up a reward for the capture of Hayes and his accomplices, on top of the government was offering of £1,000. Despite living in the vicinity of Cork, Hayes remained at large. He wrote to Pike to offer his surrender himself for trial if the reward was rescinded. He was finally brought before the Cork spring assizes on 13 April 1801, prosecuted by John Philpot Curran, with Hayes being sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay.[3][4][5][6]

Pike was deeply affected by the abduction, appearing to have “developed a pathological fear of the male sex” and lived in a quaker retreat.[7] Other reports state that she was admitted to a mental institution.[8][9] She died in 1832 with a fortune of £55,000.[10]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

title: Mary Pike

question: Why did Hayes abduct Pike?

answer: Based on the emphasis on her fortune in the article, to marry her for her money.


text:
THURSDAY 3 MAY 2018 BY PETE REDFERN

[Cambridge Analytica to close]

FOLLOWING THE ANNOUNCED CLOSURE OF CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA YESTERDAY, LONGSTANDING AND BITTER RIVALS OXFORD HAVE DECLARED THEMSELVES THE VICTORS.

“Well, you could say this settles it once and for all,” beamed Oxford Analytica boss Simon Williams, popping open a bottle of champagne.

“Our bitter rivalry has been seen us fight over the ownership of your personal data for centuries, since back when we used to fight over the harvesting of the personal information of gawping villagers standing around the town crier. It seems so long since we began targeting political campaigns at those simple folk in order to push them in whatever political direction we were paid to.

Williams went on to admit that Cambridge Analytica had done much to highlight their industry recently.

He went on, “Yes, I will admit that Cambridge Analytica has stolen all the glory recently, but I think we can all agree that it looks like the overall victory will go to us.

“The mistake Cambridge made was in letting what they do become publicly recognised – they’re such media whores.

“We’ve been doing it even more covertly, and can confidently promise everyone that we will continue to harvest personal data without their knowledge for many years to come.”

_*NewsThump would like to reassure readers that Oxford Analytica sampled a selection of NewsThump subscribers to establish the potential for personal information harvesting from the NewsThump website, but they found the exercise pointless after discovering that everyone sampled was a lefty libtard snowflake incapable of ever changing their political opinion about anything_*

question: Who is Simon Williams?

answer: He heads Oxford Analytica

question: What is Oxford Analytica's relationship with Cambridge Analytica?

answer: They are bitter rivals in the personal data industry.

question: What happened to Cambridge Analytica that caused Simon Williams to celebrate with a bottle of champagne?

answer: Cambridge Analytica closed down.

question: What was Cambridge Analytica's biggest mistake according to Williams?

answer: Williams says that Cambridge were media whores that let the public know what they were doing (harvesting personal data without their knowledge)

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Oxford Analytica boss Simon Williams celebrated with a bottle of champagne as their bitter rivals in the personal data industry, Cambridge Analytica, shut down. Williams declares his company as the victors and calls Cambridge media whores for letting the public know they were harvesting their data without their knowledge. (The article seems satirical)


text:
cult to image how a single tragic incident set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg.” SOUNDBITE (English): Eric Holder, US Attorney General: “Once the system is primed for for maximizing revenue, starting with fines and fine enforcement, the city relies on the police force to serve essentially as a collection agency for the municipal court, rather than as a law enforcement agency focused on maintaining and promoting public safety.” SOUNDBITE (English): Eric Holder, US Attorney General: “Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely violate the fourth amendment in stopping people without reasonable suspicion, arresting them without probably cause and using unreasonable force against them.” SOUNDBITE (English): Eric Holder, US Attorney General: “It is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action. Let me be very clear. The United States Department of Justice reserves all of its rights and abilities to force compliance and to implement basic change. Nothing is off the table.”

[Video player loading]

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. described the Justice Department’s “searing” report on Ferguson, Mo., which found deep distrust between police officers and residents.CreditCredit...James Lawler Duggan/Reuters
-   March 4, 2015

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Wednesday called on Ferguson, Mo., to overhaul its criminal justice system, declaring that the city had engaged in so many constitutional violations that they could be corrected only by abandoning its entire approach to policing, retraining its employees and establishing new oversight.

In one example after another, the report described a city that used its police and courts as moneymaking ventures, a place where officers stopped and handcuffed people without probable cause, hurled racial slurs, used stun guns without provocation, and treated anyone as suspicious merely for questioning police tactics.

The report gave credence to many of the grievances aired last year by African-Americans in angry, sometimes violent protests after the deadly police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old. Though the Justice Department separately concluded that the officer, Darren Wilson, who is white, violated no federal laws in that shooting, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said investigations revealed the root of the rage that brought people into the streets.

“Seen in this context — amid a highly toxic environment, defined by mistrust and resentment, stoked by years of bad feelings, and spurred by illegal and misguided practices — it is not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg,” Mr. Holder said.

The findings will force Ferguson, a working-class city near St. Louis that is about two-thirds black but has a mostly white police force, to make changes or face a federal civil rights lawsuit. Justice Department officials, who met with city leaders to discuss their findings this week, said that it appeared that Ferguson was open to making changes that would head off a court battle.

In a statement he read to reporters Wednesday night, Mayor James Knowles said the city had begun making changes. He did not directly address all the steps that the Justice Department called for in the report or say whether he would fight the federal government in court.

“Today’s report allows the City of Ferguson to identify problems, not only in our Police Department but in the entire St. Louis region,” he said. “We must do better not only as a city, but as a state and as a country. We must all work to address issues of racial disparity in all aspects of society.”

Mr. Knowles did not answer questions from reporters.

It is rare for the Justice Department to bring the weight of the federal government down on a small city. Normally, it targets large police forces. But Mr. Brown’s shooting prompted a broader investigation, and Mr. Holder said what investigators uncovered raised questions about what went on in police departments around the country.

Their report described a city where police officers did not know the law or did not bother to follow it. Internal documents showed Ferguson police officers conducting “pedestrian checks,” in which they stopped people walking down the street and demanded to see their identification without any probable cause. One officer cited in the report told investigators he considered people who refused to show identification to be suspicious or aggressive, and typically arrested them.

When people refused to comply with — or even questioned — unconstitutional orders, police sometimes responded with force. Stun guns, for example, were commonly used even when officers were not threatened. “Supervisors seem to believe that any level of resistance justifies any level of force,” the report found.

Blacks in Ferguson accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of tickets and 93 percent of arrests over a two-year period studied by investigators. In cases like jaywalking, which often hinge on police discretion, blacks accounted for 95 percent of those charged. A black motorist in Ferguson was twice as likely to be searched, according to the report, even though searches of whites turned up drugs and other contraband more often.

The Justice Department’s analysis found that these disparities could not be explained even when correcting for crime rates and demographics. “These disparities occur, at least in part, because Ferguson law enforcement practices are directly shaped and perpetuated by racial bias,” the Justice Department concluded.

Image[Thomas Jackson, the Ferguson police chief, was surrounded by officers after a news conference in August. His department was accused of engaging in several questionable tactics.]

Credit...Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via Associated Press

In one example cited by the report, a police officer pulled up behind a 32-year-old black man who was cooling off in his car after a basketball game. Without cause, the officer demanded the man’s identification, ordered him out of his car, patted him down and asked to search the car. “The man objected, citing his constitutional rights,” the Justice Department wrote. “In response, the officer arrested the man, reportedly at gunpoint, charging him with eight violations of Ferguson’s municipal code.”

In July 2013, when officers arrived at an apartment building to arrest a suspect, they found an African-American man in the parking lot. The officers knew he was not the man they were looking for. “Nonetheless, without even reasonable suspicion, they handcuffed the man, placed him in the back of a patrol car, and ran his record,” the Justice Department found.

It turned out, he was the building’s landlord and he helped officers enter the building to make the arrest. The police department defended the detention as “minimal,” noting that the car was air-conditioned.

When officers do not have probable cause to make arrests, investigators found, they often use what are known as “wanteds.” By putting someone’s name in a police computer system, officers ensure he is arrested if he is ever stopped by the police in Ferguson or surrounding cities. “One veteran officer told us he will put out a wanted ‘if I do not have enough probable cause to arrest you,’ ” the Justice Department wrote.

After a local prosecutor wrote “we just don’t have enough for a warrant right now,” a detective responded that he would simply use a wanted to ensure the arrest.

Oversight in the department is so lax and record-keeping is so inconsistent that illegal stops and arrests go unnoticed or unquestioned. “Supervisors are more concerned with the number of citations and arrests officers produce than whether those citations and arrests are lawful or promote public safety,” the Justice Department concluded.

But federal authorities reserved some of their harshest criticism for the local court system, which does not function as an independent branch of government. Court employees answer to the police chief. The prosecutor is also the city’s lawyer. Judges are installed by the City Council and must be reappointed every two years.

The Justice Department report describes the courts as a bureaucratic morass in which people often receive the wrong court dates, court procedures are made up on the fly, and it can be unclear how much people owe or when they owe it. The punishment for missing a payment or an appearance, even for routine traffic violations, is often jail.

Court fines are a major source of revenue, and internal emails show city officials pushing for more tickets and fines, then congratulating one another when revenue exceeded expectations. Police supervisors insisted that officers hit ticket quotas and reorganized the shift schedules to help hit them.

“Everything’s about the courts,” one Ferguson officer told federal investigators. “The court’s enforcement priorities are money.”

Poor, mostly African-American residents have described being trapped in the court system for years as they are repeatedly jailed, even when trying to make payments. Meanwhile, the Justice Department found, police officers and city officials regularly fix tickets for each other and their friends.

Federal investigators also found that city officials circulated racist jokes on their government email accounts without fear of punishment. One portrayed President Obama as a chimpanzee. Another included a photograph of African women dancing topless along with the caption “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.” A third joked that a black woman should receive a crime-prevention award for having an abortion.

Senior city officials, including those who will be in charge of deciding whether to make changes in response to the Justice Department report, received the emails, federal officials said.

In his statement, Mr. Knowles said that one police official was fired for sending racist emails and two others were under investigation after city officials were told about the emails by the Justice Department.

“These actions taken by these individuals are in no way representative of the employees of the City of Ferguson,” he said.

“I think a lot of people need to lose their jobs,” said Alexis Templeton, a resident who has organized protests in Ferguson. “When you have people sending certain emails and saying certain things, and then they go out and police the community, which happens to be predominantly black, those stereotypes play into the work.”

Ms. Templeton said she thought Ferguson’s police department should be disbanded. Her distrust runs deep. Late last year, when her grandmother’s home in Ferguson was broken into, Ms. Templeton said she told her not to call the police, because “I don’t trust them to do their jobs at all.”The Justice Department called for an entirely new approach, one built upon community policing. It said Ferguson should change the way it stopped, searched and arrested people. That will require new work schedules and a focus on crime prevention and outreach. It will also require extensive retraining and, Justice Department officials said, some outside overseer to ensure Ferguson makes the changes.

For Mr. Holder, who declared last year that he stood with the people of Ferguson, the report culminates a tenure that has made civil rights investigations a priority. He is leaving office as soon as his successor is confirmed, probably within the coming weeks. His department has opened more than 20 investigations into police departments. But none has received the attention of Ferguson.

“With the conclusion of our investigations into these matters,” Mr. Holder said, “I again commit to the people of Ferguson that we will continue to stand with you and to work with you to ensure that the necessary reforms are implemented.”

On Wednesday night, there were two dozen protesters outside the police department, and officers made a handful of arrests of those standing in the streets.

question: Who is Eric Holder?

answer: He is the US Attorney General who is investigating the Police force and criminal justice system in Ferguson, Mo.

question: Which incident prompted the Justice Department to investigate Ferguson, Mo.?

answer: The deadly police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year old by Darren Wilson, a white police officer.

question: What did the Justice Department's investigation uncover against Ferguson PD?

answer: Mr. Holder said investigators found that Ferguson police did not know the law or did not bother to follow it, often making arrests without probable cause and using excessive force. Ferguson PD showed clear racial bias in arresting black people.

question: What is the local court's involvement in this fiasco?

answer: The local court system does not function as an independent branch of government because employees answer to the police chief. The prosecutor serves as the city's lawyer and judges are replaced by the city council every two years. Court fines are a major source of revenue, and internal emails show city officials pushing for more tickets and fines. Police supervisors insisted that officers hit ticket quotas and reorganized the shift schedules to help hit them.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: US Attorney General Eric Holder is leading an investigation into the police department and court system of Ferguson, Mo. after the deadly police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year old by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Mr. Holder and the justice department found many irregularities and racial bias in the police department, as well as a broken local court system that answers to the police chief. Court fines are a major source of revenue and internal emails show city officials pushing for more tickets and ines. Police supervisors also insisted that officers hit ticket quotas.


text:
They came for him during the group session, two well dressed boys on the cusp of manhood. This wasn’t the first time a young and the restless soul had come asking questions about her, her legend, after all did precede her. Ted drew a deep breath that made his thin hospital gown rise and fall like an undulating wave, he looked at the floor. Those who knew him best recognised the act, this story was the last light of the broken man who sat before them in the New Haven Detoxification Institute. Ted meekly raised his hand, begging for silence. The regulars inched closer ready for the words they’d heard so many times before.

“Assia, Assia, ascended astrologers muse. Assia, Assia, Aphrodite’s repose. Assia, Assia, fire of life, cold when she goes.” The room hushed as if smothered, those watching felt a peculiar prickling of the skin. Ted continued oblivious.

.

It was dusk, turning twilight, when they arrived at the bar. Ted tall and thin, his companion slightly taller with a thicker build. It was darker in the bar, one of those cheap places that tries to make up for a lack of style with poor lighting. She was late. He was in love with her. Ted was oblivious of what was to come.

The friend looked up, startled. Assia stood before them. Rain dripped from her night black hair that shone with the subtlest hint of a crimson glow. Her short black dress showed of her curves, like those of a racing car. Her legs were bare. Presently her eyes met Ted’s who suddenly aware that the world was turning at an astronomical rate around the fixed point of his eyes locked with hers. Every second was eternal.

Ted’s mind raced with this new information. Who was this girl? What the hell is this feeling? Oh god, make eye contact! OH GOD too much eye contact! Confused Ted withdrew from conversation and fixed his eyes on the wall sized aquarium behind Assia’s head. A thousand fish swam to and fro together in a shoal. One fish danced alone, swishing elegantly like Mata Hari. The tank appeared empty, but for this one fish. Ted sat transfixed, stealing occasional glances at the girl, but always returning to that one solitary fish. The fish disappeared. The sea was lonely.

Ted sipped his drink quickly. Assia demurely ashed her cigarette, delicately brushing it against the crystal ashtray, all the while stealing glances at Ted of her own. That moment the dreamer in him fell in love with her, and he soon knew it. Fire, crash the next hours passed lightning fast. Growing bolder the pair revelled in ideas, wallowed, and bathed in mutual knowledge and interests. Their friend faded to grey and they were alone.

Alone on a sofa now, memories slip by as if in a film. Hand brushes leg. Leg brushes hand. Electricity. Magnetism draws them together. His hands her hips. Her hands his hair. His lips her lips. Ecstasy. Her phone rings and she goes.

.

Ted stood up, opened his eyes and spoke to his fellow New Haven Institute patients. The memory had almost seemed real.  “That was the first and last time I laid eyes Assia Do Nascimento. I chased the idea, the dream, the memory of her all my life. Trying to capture a love so pure, so intense.” Ted sat down hands trembling “You never know what will set the memory off.”

question: How does Assia feature in this story?

answer: Assia is a woman that Ted met in a bar one night and fell in love with. He subsequently spent his whole life chasing the memory of her. The vivid memories finally drive him into substance abuse.


text:
EMILY HALE (27 October 1891 – 12 October 1969),[1] was an American speech and drama teacher, who was the longtime muse and confidante of the poet T. S. Eliot. Exactly 1,131 letters from Eliot to Hale were deposited in Princeton University Library in 1956 and were described as one of the best-known sealed archives in the world for many years.[2][3] Per Hale's instructions, the letters were opened in January 2020, 50 years after Hale's death. The same day, Harvard’s Houghton Library issued an unexpected statement that Eliot had prepared in 1960, to be opened when Hale's archives were released.[4]

Early life and career

Hale was born in East Orange, New Jersey, on 27 October 1891.[5][6][7] Her father was the Reverend Edward Hale, an architect who became a Unitarian Minister and taught at Harvard Divinity School.[8] Her mother Emily (née Milliken) had become a “permanent mental invalid” after the death of her infant son,[9] and Hale was brought up by her aunt Edith Perkins and her uncle, the Unitarian Minister Reverend John Carroll Perkins.[10][11] The couple lived in Boston but spent their summers from 1930 to 1939 in Chipping Campden, England, with Hale also attending.[12][13][14]

She graduated from Miss Porter's School,[15] and she was a speech and drama teacher at various women's colleges from 1916 onwards, including Simmons University (then College) (1916–1921), Milwaukee-Downer College (1921–1928) (now part of Lawrence University), Scripps College (1932–1934),[16][17] and Smith College (1936–1942), as well as the all-girls Concord Academy and Abbot Academy preparatory schools at the end of her teaching career.[18][19][20][21]

Hale was an active member of the Unitarian Church and also the League of Women Voters, and she was a volunteer on the Sophia Smith Collection.[22]

Relationship with Eliot

Hale met with Eliot in 1912 when he was a graduate student studying philosophy at Harvard,[23] and Eliot declared his love for her shortly before leaving for Europe in 1914;[24] biographers have recorded that Eliot left that meeting with the impression that Hale did have similar feelings.[25][26] However, in June 1915, Eliot married Vivienne Haigh-Wood, and his correspondence with Hale did not materially resume until 1927.[27] From 1930 until 1956, Eliot wrote over a thousand letters to Hale.[28] Eliot visited Hale in California over the New Year's holidays in 1932-33, then decided to seek a formal separation from his wife when he returned to England in 1933.[29] Eliot told Hale he could not seek a divorce because of the strictures of his Anglican faith.[30]

Hale and Eliot spent the summers from 1935 to 1939 together in Campden, Gloucestershire, as the guests of her aunt and uncle, the Perkinses.[31][32][33] In 1934, Hale and Eliot visited Burnt Norton, an abandoned manor house in Gloucestershire.[34] This visit provided the inspiration for much of Eliot's 1935 poem _Burnt Norton_,[35] in which scholars have surmised that the “you” in the poem was Hale, and their relationship was the “we.”[36] While Hale never openly regarded herself as Eliot's muse, it is known she identified herself in various other Eliot poems, when teaching her students at various colleges.[37] In a memoir released by Princeton Library in mid-January 2020, Hale said that Eliot had told her that “Burnt Norton” was his love poem to her.[38]

World War II intervened, and Hale and Eliot would not meet again until 1946, by which time Eliot was 58 and Hale was 55;[39] however, after the death of Vivienne in 1947, Eliot arranged a meeting with Hale at which he told her he no longer could marry her. Hale had anticipated that they would live together when Vivienne died and was shocked and saddened when she learned Eliot had decided not to marry her.[40] After 1947, Hale and Eliot would only meet fleetingly, but would still correspond, although at a reduced frequency.[41]

Eliot's relationship with Hale was said by some biographers to provide Eliot with a model of a silent, ethereal woman and chaste love that could be indefinitely sustained.[42] Hale's own feelings for Eliot are largely unknown, partly because Eliot burned all of her letters after he married his much younger secretary Esmé Valerie Fletcher, in 1957.[43] Eliot's last letter to Hale was in 1956.[44]

Life after Eliot

In 1957, recently retired from the Abbot Academy,[45] Hale was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital for a “breakdown”.[46] One of Hale's biographers, Sara Fitzgerald, said “Emily Hale is painted as someone who fell apart, who had a nervous breakdown after loving Eliot for so many years and seeing him marry another woman”, and “I didn’t necessarily find that to be the case. I felt she got over this blow and kept living”.[47] After her retirement from the Abbot Academy, Hale acted in a number of well-received plays, and kept in contact with her friends and past students.[48] She also taught for a period at Oak Grove School in Vassalboro, Maine, and finally died in Concord, Massachusetts.[49]

Fitzgerald records that Hale wrote a final letter to Eliot in the early 1960s, in which she told him it was “'difficult' for her to consider her life to be important just because they had been connected,” though the letter “ended on an upbeat note, hoping that they could still be friends.”[50] Eliot never responded, and he died soon after in 1965.[51][52]

Letter archive

Hale was a friend of the Princeton University English professor, Willard Thorp, and his wife Margaret Farrand Thorp.[53] From 1942, she explored with Thorp the idea of keeping Eliot's letters in the Princeton University Library for safekeeping, finally deciding to do this in July 1956.[54] Hale specified that the letters should be kept closed for fifty full years after the latter of her or Eliot's death. Hale died after Eliot, on 12 October 1969 in Concord,[55] and therefore, the archive was only opened to scholars in January 2020, revealing 1,131 letters from Eliot to Hale dating from the period 1930 to 1956.[56][57][58] The letters included information about the evolving relationship between Hale and Eliot, and in some cases contradicted established published sources.[59]

The letters can only be read in person at the library; a compilation of the letters is now being prepared, and its editor, John Haffenden, has said he anticipates it will be published in 2021.[60] Eliot's copyright still applies to the letters.[61]

The number of letters, by year, are as follows:[62]

Hale included a cover note with the letters saying, “The memory of the years when we were most together and so happy are mine always”, and also, “I accepted conditions as they were offered under the unnatural code which surrounded us, so that perhaps more sophisticated persons than I will not be surprised to learn the truth about us”.[63]

Posthumous statement

In a surprise to scholars, Eliot's estate simultaneously issued a written statement by him to be opened on the release of Hale's letters. Eliot's statement said that he “never had any sexual relations with Emily Hale”, and it appeared to reject the notion that Hale was his muse: “Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me; Vivienne nearly was the death of me, but she kept the poet alive”.[64][65]

However, some commentators immediately contrasted Eliot's statement with some of the early releases of his letters which state, “You have made me perfectly happy: that is, happier than I have ever been in my life”, and they speculated that Eliot's harsh statement might have been a reaction to his unhappiness with Hale's decision to archive his letters for future release.[66][67][68] After an initial review of the letters, Eliot scholar Frances Dickey told the _Washington Post_ that “he basically confesses his love for Emily Hale and tells her that she's the great love of his life”, and “that he's been writing for her all of these years, and he even names the places in his poetry where he has paid tribute to her or honored her in some way”.[69][70] Eliot biographer Lyndall Gordon told _PBS News_ that the contents of the letters far exceeded Dickey and Gordon's expectations. “Eliot was very emotional and very explicit about how much he loved her and how important she was to his work”.[71] Gordon also added, “Eliot lays it all bare. That’s striking, in part, because for a long time, it was 'unfashionable' to think of Eliot as a confessional poet”.[72] He highlighted passages of works that Eliot told Hale she had inspired, including _The Waste Land_.[73]

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title: Emily Hale

question: Summarize the major developments in Hale's relationship with Eliot.

answer: Hale and Eliot met in 1912 while Eliot was studying at Harvard and he declared his love for her shortly after. Their correspondence stopped after Eliot married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and did not resume until 1927. From 1930 to 1956, Eliot wrote over a thousand letters to Hale. They spent the summers from 1935 to 1939 together. In 1934, they visited an abandoned manor called Burnt Norton, which inspired Eliot's poem, which was presumably about Hale. When they met in 1946, Eliot told Hale he could not marry her.

question: What does the article say about specific poems?

answer: Hale and Eliot's visit to the abandoned manor house Burnt Norton was the inspiration for Eliot's poem of the same name. Scholars surmise that the poem was about his relationship with Hale. In her memoir, Hale said that Eliot told her Burnt Norton was a love poem to her. There are also passages in Eliot's letters that tell Hale of works she inspired, including The Waste Land.

question: What does the article say about how to write good poetry?


text:
I saw the exact moment in which the cashier started pretending to scrutinize my driver’s license in the hope that this contrived act showed some kind of polite forethought delaying the rejection soon to come. Knowing beforehand that her next words would be “I’m sorry…”, the license felt flimsier than usual as she spoke them and returned it to me. Yet I didn’t take it from her completely, and for a few seconds we were grasping the card together.

“We don’t take vertical ID’s.”

Blinking with registration but still composed, I rotated the license upon the axis formed by her thumb-and-fingertip pinch on the card, turning it to a landscape orientation and hoping that my mouth was shaped less sarcastically than I imagined it to be.

“There we go,” I managed to say. “Horizontal ID right there.”

A brief sense of genuine amusement soon dissolved into defensive indignation, partially activated by the adolescentizing embarrassment of being turned down at a liquor store, but also by the Reader's Digest-educated “knowing glances” directed at me and my friend by some harried mother waiting to buy bad wine behind us.

During my feeble attempt at levity, my friend was already returning his own vertical ID to his wallet, doing this with a laughable appearance of duty.

“Ok.” He said this with an eager friendliness that I found repulsive and unsettling.

“Ok.” The second utterance of the inanity struggled to sound laid-back, but was just as uninquisitively obedient as the first.

I sincerely liked this guy, but the flaccid dumbness of his reaction disgusted me utterly. Pathetically, this wine store cashier was some kind of authority figure to him, before whom you were entitled to meekly bare your humble head, shifting unconfidently your weight between equally weak legs, performing your best accidental Jack Lemmon impression and saying with cheery strain “ok ok” like some obsequious eunuch.

I could tell that the presence of the bad wine mom, whose final object of lust before menopause I idly predicted would be some fantasy combination of Michael Buble and Ryan Seacrest, had pressured him into making his act of deference as obvious as possible. I cross-referenced this with another look at the woman, who was now just apathetically texting.

Attempting to divert my growing irritation into something inconsequential, I rather forcefully checked my watch without actually looking at the time, but my wrist was bent in an undesirable position with my fingers curled into an incomplete fist which only further upset me. Meanwhile, the cashier had been ignoring my joke and calling over her manager, an ex-mechanic looking guy who had probably dropped acid at a Grateful Dead concert about a half-century ago, and from whom I had quite legally bought alcohol before.

He recognized me but pretended not to, likely preferring to keep the premise of this encounter as single-minded as possible.

The cashier debriefed him with useless jargon. “We’ve got two verticals.”

“State law, fellas. We can’t take ‘em.” This was spoken with some sympathy, so I tried to avoid being an ass right away. “Came into effect this month.”

“Well, my ID is from another state. How can state legislation here apply to documentation issued outside of state jurisdiction?”

“This store is in the state jurisdiction; the law applies to this store.” He seemed mildly put off by the semi-intelligence of my question.

“Ok.” Not me. “Ok.” Not me.

“But what does this law even accomplish? What…”

The manager emitted a sigh which was belatedly masked as a cough, his stance directed in a manner which suggested an intention to walk away within the next half minute.

“IDs issued before age 21 are oriented vertically; the law stops these IDs from being handed down to underagers and used when the original holder gets their first horizontal.”

Basically, think of the children: that chief concern of farm-league politicians being rectally pegged by church ladies everywhere.

“But you acknowledge that this card correctly states my age?”

“Look.” He winged his arms out gently, as one pressing through an airplane aisle, slipping through the invisible gaps in my question. “What can I do? It’s just the law.”

He had just admitted that he was powerless, that he wasn’t really denying me anything, indeed that he couldn't, that he had no say in this decision he was previously pretending to make, that his Grateful Ass was being transitively fucked by remote church ladies with telekinetic town hall strap-ons.

I made some kind of mixed noise that expressed both my listless desire to prolong this futile discourse and my frantic urge to end it immediately, my detachable middle fingers and erect penis pyrotechnically launching upward like Saturn V rockets while my hair is ejected from its follicles as a defense mechanism against the now-menopausal mom, who has long since drunk her entire bottle of horrible moscato and is sexting me uncontrollably with gratuitous emoticons and dick pics of her husband who she wants me to hear her complain about but my hair attack repels her sparing me from having unwanted but amazing in-store sex with her surprisingly good body which was probably out of my league at one point but it’s too late because I’ve already begun rapidly waving neon glow sticks at the manager giving him an acid flashback as the cashier girl hisses through the spitting image of her father's mouth causing him to punch my friend impressively hard in a gratifying location and allowing me to escape with my tonic water out the door labeled *enter* which they would never predict making me practically untraceable.

title: [HM] [SP] Your Time Matters To Us And We Appreciate Your Patience In Regards To This Shit

question: Explain why the two friends have vertical ID's.

answer: The two friends are underage.

question: What are the two friends trying to buy?

answer: They are trying to buy wine from the wine store.

question: Why are the main characters trying to escape?

answer: They have been shut down by the cashier to purchase wine.

question: What does the cashier claim?

answer: State law has come into effect this month.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Two underage friends enter a wine store with their vertical IDs signifying they are underage. Their attempt to buy wine is quickly shut down by the cashier.


text:
“CROSSROADS” is a song by American singer Tracy Chapman. It was released in 1989 as the lead single from her second studio album _Crossroads_. The song was written by Chapman, and produced by David Kershenbaum and Chapman. “Crossroads” reached No. 90 on the _Billboard_ Hot 100.[1] The song's music video was directed by Matt Mahurin.[2]

Reception

In a review of _Crossroads_, Fred Goodman of _Rolling Stone_ noted the “rich arrangement and heartfelt delivery” and added: “Crossroads” breaks little new ground for Chapman musically, but its subtly shaded percussion, pizzicato violin and lilting accordion give new muscle to Chapman's previously bareboned presentation."[3] Steve Morse of _The Boston Globe_ felt the song “opens the album in a startling confessional manner”.[4] Sian Pattenden of _Smash Hits_ described the song as “very much the kind of folksy, sombre song you'd expect from Tracy”. She added: "If you liked “Fast Car” then you'll like this because it's jolly similar."[5]

Parry Gettelman of _The Orlando Sentinel_ considered the song to “proclaim [Chapman's] independence from materialism and money-changers who beset her.”[6] Brian Springer of _The Daily Tar Heel_ wrote: “The title track adds the only new lyrical wrinkle [on the album], with Chapman making the usual star complaint of having to deal with all the attention. Accordion and violin pizzicato give this song a slightly different flavor than the previous album.”[7]

Track listing

7" single

1.  “Crossroads” - 4:11
2.  “Born to Fight” - 2:46

12" single

1.  “Crossroads” - 4:11
2.  “Born to Fight” - 2:46
3.  “Mountains O'Things” (Live) - 5:05

12" single (UK release)

1.  “Crossroads” - 4:11
2.  “Born to Fight” - 2:46
3.  “Fast Car” - 4:57

Cassette single

1.  “Crossroads” - 4:11
2.  “Born to Fight” - 2:46

CD single (German release)

1.  “Crossroads” - 4:11
2.  “Born to Fight” - 2:46
3.  “Mountains O'Things” (Live) - 5:05

CD single (US promo)

1.  “Crossroads” - 4:11

Personnel

CROSSROADS

-   Tracy Chapman - vocals, acoustic guitar
-   G. E. Smith - acoustic picking guitar
-   Frank Marocco - accordion
-   Charlie Bisharat - violin
-   Bob Marlette - keyboards
-   Larry Klein - bass
-   Denny Fongheiser - drums
-   Bobbye Hall - percussion

BORN TO FIGHT

-   Tracy Chapman - vocals, acoustic guitar
-   Jack Holder - acoustic piano
-   Snooky Young - trumpet
-   Tim Landers - bass
-   Denny Fongheiser - drums
-   Bobbye Hall - tambourine

PRODUCTION

-   David Kershenbaum, Tracy Chapman - producers
-   Kevin W. Smith - engineer, mixing
-   John X Volaitis - additional engineer
-   Marty Lester - assistant engineer, assistant mixer
-   Bob Ludwig - mastering
-   Claude Nobs - producer on “Mountains O'Things”
-   David Richards - engineer on “Mountains O'Things”

Charts

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Chart (1989)                      | Peak                              |
|                                   | position                          |
+===================================+===================================+
| Austrian Singles Chart[8]         | 21                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Australian Singles Chart[9]       | 58                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Belgian Singles Chart (Ultratop   | 37                                |
| 50 Flanders)[10]                  |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Canada (RPM 100)[11]              | 32                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Dutch Singles Chart[12]           | 15                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| German Singles Chart[13]          | 38                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Irish Singles Chart[14]           | 11                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Italian Singles Chart (FIMI)[15]  | 16                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| New Zealand Singles Chart[16]     | 21                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Swiss Singles Chart[17]           | 18                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| UK Singles Chart (Official Charts | 61                                |
| Company)[18]                      |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| US _Billboard_ Adult              | 41                                |
| Contemporary[19]                  |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| US _Billboard_ Album Rock         | 26                                |
| Tracks[20]                        |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| US _Billboard_ Hot 100[21]        | 90                                |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| US _Billboard_ Modern Rock        | 7                                 |
| Tracks[22]                        |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

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title: Crossroads (Tracy Chapman song)

question: Did critics consider the song to be original?

answer: Critics shared that the song "broke little new ground" but added to her individual presentation. They described the song as similar to her other songs.

question: Who co-produced the song with Chapman?

answer: David Kershenbaum

question: How many songs were on the 12" single that wasn't UK pecific

answer: Three

question: List the songs on the 7" single release:

answer: Crossroads, Born to Fight

question: How long is Crossroads

answer: 4 minutes 11 seconds

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: This article is about Tracy Chapman's 1989 single "Crossroads". It describes its critical reception, production staff, and other songs which occurred on albums with it.