text:
_BLACK NOTICE_ is a crime novel by American writer Patricia Cornwell. It is the tenth book of the Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.

Plot summary

Dr. Kay Scarpetta is still shocked by the tragic loss of Benton Wesley. She is trying to carry on, but she gets a letter from Benton, written before his death and left to Senator Lord, who had agreed to deliver it a year after his death.

Dr Scarpetta and Marino start working on a new case after a body is found in a container arriving from Belgium. There is writing in the container that says _“Bon voyage, le loup-garou”_ (Have a nice trip, the werewolf). The body has a strange tattoo and wears rich clothes and there are some baby-like hairs inside the garments. Kay and Marino get in touch with European Interpol and with Jay Talley, who calls them and makes them fly to Paris to meet the Chief Medical Examiner. They get to know that the body found in the container is a member of one of the richest and oldest families of Paris, the Chandonnes, who live in an ancient mansion on the Île St Louis. It is also rumored that this family has got a son with a rare disease that makes hair grow on his entire body (hypertrichosis). This person has always been hidden, and he is believed to have committed several murders. Kay and Jay have a short liaison, and it seems the man is really involved, while Dr Scarpetta tries to keep him at distance. Kay finds out that Lucy is in part involved in this case, since she is investigating a Miami group of weapons and drugs smugglers related to the Chandonnes, the “One Sixty-Fivers”.

Back to Richmond, Virginia, Kay and Marino deal with the case of a woman brutalized and killed in a little shop and with attempts from a member of Dr. Scarpetta's team to sabotage her. Thanks to Marino, they learn that the new police chief, Diane Bray, is behind the sabotage because she wants to get control on how investigations and exams are held. Bray is also behind a drugs-smuggling operation, but she is killed with the same modus operandi as the young woman in the shop. It is clear that the killer is at large and trying to kill the people investigating the death of the man in the container.

Dr Scarpetta is in her house when the alarm rings. The police come quickly, but they find nothing. After a while, someone knocks at her door claiming to be a police officer and that someone had reported seeing a prowler. Kay does not realize that _le loup garou_ is fluent in English, and she opens the door. She then realizes that she is under attack. During the struggle, Kay throws a bottle of formalin onto the _loup garou's_ face, which temporarily blinds him.

She then runs out of the house, but falls and fractures her elbow, making her unable to fire her gun. At this time, Lucy and Jo return, and Lucy runs over and points a gun at the assailant's head, with the intention of killing him, but Marino and Kay convince her not to do it.

Characters

-   KAY SCARPETTA – Chief Medical Examiner of Richmond, Virginia. Consulting pathologist for ATF.
-   LUCY FARINELLI – _Kay's_ niece. She and Jo went undercover in Miami against the Italian One-Sixty-Fiver cartel. During a takedown, they were ambushed and they had to fight their way out. She killed two of the gangsters and accidentally shot Jo in the leg.
-   JO SANDERS – DEA agent. Lucy's lover. She got shot in the leg during the ambush.
-   PETE MARINO – Captain in the Richmond Police Department. He was transferred from being a homicide detective to a shift commander by Diane Bray.
-   JAY TALLEY – ATF liaison at Interpol, France.
-   CHUCK RUFFIN – Kay's morgue supervisor. According to Kay, he used to be very diligent in his duties. But during the events of the book, he was in cahoots with Diane Bray to mess up Kay's office, to make her look bad. He did this because he had always wanted to be a police officer, and getting into _Bray's_ good books may boost his chances. He was also in liaison with _Diane Bray_ and he stole narcotics, and anti-depressants from the morgue for her, which she sold into the black market.
-   RENE ANDERSON – Homicide detective in Richmond Police Department. She used to work in Vice, and _Diane Bray_ transferred her over to work under her, as she knows where to sell the stolen pills from _Chuck Ruffin._ She hated working for _Bray_ due to the way she was treated.
-   LE LOUP GAROU – French for The Werewolf, he was the elder brother of Thomas Chandonne, but all his life, he was never exposed to the outside world, for fear of humiliating the Chandonne Crime Family. He had a deformed face, with baby hair, about seven to nine inches long, all over his body. He bathes at the river in both France and Richmond almost every night, in the futile hopes that the water from the rivers may cure him. He was blinded by Formalin during a struggle with Scarpetta.

Victims

-   Seven unnamed women in France – Ages range from twenty-one to fifty-two. All facial structures were broken. There were subdural hematomas, bleeding over the brain and into the chest cavity. There were multiple bite marks. They were all found barefoot, with their clothing ripped open from the waist up.
-   THOMAS CHANDONNE – Son of a powerful, rich family in Paris. He was found in a container at a port in Richmond. Heavily decomposed, his cause of death undetermined.
-   KIM LUONG – Thirty-year-old Asian female. She worked as a convenience store clerk. She was shot in her neck, where she was paralyzed, but still alive, before being brutally beaten and bleeding to death. She was found barefoot, with her blouse and brassiere torn apart.
-   DIANE BRAY – Deputy Chief in Richmond Police Department. A highly attractive woman who seduces her way to the top. She seems to be very rich, staying in a well furnished house and drives a Jaguar, but it was later found out she got her money from peddling narcotics and anti-depressants in the black market. Very unpopular with her colleagues and subordinates, due to her pretentious and malicious character. She was found on the floor of her bedroom, half naked from the waist up, beaten to death by a chipping hammer, a tool used in masonry. She was so badly beaten her facial structures were gone.

Allusions and references to actual history, geography and current science

The story was set in Richmond, Virginia, and France.

Black notice is a notice issued by INTERPOL to seek information on unidentified bodies.

title: Black Notice

question: Summarize the plot twist in this story.

answer: At the outset, Dr Scarpetta is still suffering quite a shock after the loss of Wesley. When she gets a new case, she is undoubtedly distracted but, true to form, she throws herself into the case-it is, after all, a case Benton Wesley personally asks her to look into, via a letter he had written prior to his passing. From that point on, Dr Scarpetta does not think much about Benton Wesley.

question: Summarize how the main character, Dr Scarpetta, changes her views throughout the story.

question: Summary the main reason the case faces problems in the beginning.

answer: The body the doctor and Marino find is that of a member of one of the oldest, wealthiest families in Europe. The family has dark secrets, including one of a diseased, and hidden, son who allegedly has committed murders. The body they had found had a note affixed to it accusing it of being a werewolf; the disease the son supposedly has is one in which the bearer grows hair all over their body. This poses obstacles for Dr Scarpetta and her crew, as the family has immense power, and is very guarded.

question: Summarize how the case is resolved.

answer: The case is resolved when the doctor makes the connection between the killer at large and the deaths of people who happen to be involved in the investigation of the man in the container. The killer, possibly growing increasingly paranoid, finally seeks out Dr Scarpetta, in which case his attack on her identifies him as the killer. Lucy and Jo apprehend the killer after coming upon the injured Dr Scarpetta and the temporarily blinded killer.


split: train

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[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]
[All photos by Chad White]

The Road Runner’s Appetite

_I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads. … And I biggered my money, which everyone needs._
— Dr. Seuss, _The Lorax_

Political and business leaders know that their defects and blunders will be excused if they turn in a respectable growth performance: the quarterly or annual gains in corporate revenue or GDP are really all that matters. But how did these raw metrics come to surpass all other indicators of well-being? Growth is often seen as integral to any capitalist system, but its recognition as a society’s only relevant standard of worth is largely a postwar development. ¹ Four-fifths of growth in the United States has occurred in just the last 50 years, driven in part by Cold War competition to prove the superiority of a market economy. The consensus mood that developed after 1945 — which historians have called “growth liberalism” — presided over an expansionist boom in the industrialized world that did not contract until the 1970s. ² Subsequent doctrines — the supply-side gospel of the Reagan era, the high-tech evangelism of the 1990s, and the asset ownership creed of the 2000s — were all aimed at reviving and boosting the high growth rates that managers of a consumer society had come to expect.

Growthmanship spread abroad, too, along with the internationalization of production, and soon growth in GDP became the most important yardstick for nations in the advanced or developing world. Slowing growth rates provoked concern, while falling numbers indicated that something was awry and that close scrutiny, even intervention, from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund was in the offing. Those who believed otherwise were not wrong; they were simply treated as dropouts from modernity. So entrenched was this orthodoxy that _The Limits to Growth_, the momentous 1972 Club of Rome report that concluded that current rates of industrial growth could not be sustained ecologically in the long term, was received among business and policy elites as a genuinely heretical document that had to be publicly pilloried.

Subsequent surveys, drawing upon a wider range of experts and a more comprehensive collection of scientific data, amplified the 1972 warning about the ruinous impact of unrestrained growth. In 2002, the _Limits to Growth_ team reprised their study, confirming the original predictions of economic and civilizational collapse in the course of the 21st century. In the meantime, in 1992, 1,700 leading figures had issued the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, calling on developed nations to drastically curb the overconsumption of resources. These estimates of eco-collapse were reinforced by the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, released in 2005, which had deployed more than 1,500 international scientists for four years to analyze the latest data. Last but not least, there came the influential testimony of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Since its first report in 1990, which supported the thesis of anthropogenic global warming, it has issued periodic assessments, each one more confident about the ability to model and calculate climate change and its calamitous impact.

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

Top-level resistance to absorbing and acting on this information has been profound, and is often compared, with some reason, to the force of religious dogma. Looking back on decades of widely publicized and verified warnings, Dennis Meadows (one of the authors of _Limits to Growth_) reflected on why they “did not prompt any fundamental changes in the policies that govern growth in population or industrial activity and that are driving this planet to major ecological disruptions.” Breaking with the growth gospel, he concluded, has been equivalent to overturning a deeply rooted belief system: “Think of the Catholic Church condemning Galileo to life imprisonment for his suggestion that the universe does not revolve around the earth.” ³

No doubt typical of this fundamentalist response were the views of Lawrence Summers (a leading economist in both the Clinton and Obama administrations), when he was a kingpin at the World Bank in 1991. “There are no limits on the planet’s capacity for absorption likely to hold us back in the foreseeable future,” he wrote in a notorious memo that also advocated outsourcing dirty industries to developing, or “underpolluted,” countries. “The danger of an apocalypse due to global warming or anything else is non-existent,” he continued, concluding that “the idea that the world is heading into the abyss is profoundly wrong. The idea that we should place limits on growth because of natural limitations is a serious error.” It is possible in the intervening years that Summers heeded John Maynard Keynes’s dictum — “When the facts change, I change my mind” — but there has been no evidence of such a conversion.

Nor, despite the improvements in environmental policymaking it introduced, did the Obama administration come close to pushing an alternative to carbon-based GDP growth as the lodestone of economic policymaking. Larger federal investments in clean energy, mass transit and smart grids were dwarfed by the subsidies handed out to high-carbon industries; nor was climate change legislation accorded priority attention, not even during the long nightmare of British Petroleum’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — surely an optimal moment for any president to sue for divorce from fossil-fuel dependency. The time could not have been riper to reset industrial policy, but the will to do so was up against the stronger (and easier) belief that a return to positive short-term growth figures would be the panacea for the recession’s ills. And feeding the GDP beast meant turning away from the dictates of healthy living — good health actually equates with negative GDP because it does not lead to medical expenditures that show up as monetary exchanges. ⁴

Those seeking insights into how to crack the seemingly unassailable growth dogma have had to look beyond the ranks of the alpha economists who cultivate and polish indicators like the GDP or the Consumer Price Index. Cities, where a new generation of urban managers is now riding the sustainability bandwagon, have been the obvious place to turn. Their predecessors had contracted a bad case of the postwar growth bug, and it would take powerful medicine to flush the effects out of the system. Harvey Molotch’s classic 1976 study of the “urban growth machine” explained how easily city institutions can come to support the consensus that growth is good. Developers, newspapers, unions, utilities, universities, arts organizations, big retailers, small businesses and sports franchises — all stand to profit from expanding populations and markets. Because growth appears to “benefit everyone,” it is cheered by boosters and enabled by politicians and planners. But honest fiscal analyses show that most forms of urban growth are _not_ beneficial. Molotch argued that the costs of servicing the additional population with infrastructure and municipal resources can be exponentially expensive and that these costs exceed the public benefit that accrues from an increased tax base. ⁵ And the costs of the corresponding increase in environmental degradation, if properly accounted for, would surely break every municipal budget.

One paradoxical result of this mismatch is that urban managers often encourage faster growth simply to stay ahead of the cost curve. Growth A does not pay for itself, so it begets Growth B to cover the costs of A, and so on and on. This method of deferring a final reckoning (some have compared it to a Ponzi scheme) has no horizon beyond the next crash — during the most recent credit bubble, for instance, the debts simply got restructured, repackaged and sold as derivatives. Most American boomtowns fit this profile of growth machines that shift into overdrive when the times are ripe — but no city in the postwar era had accepted growth as its very reason for being with such equanimity as the spreading metropolis of Phoenix. But today, with construction at a standstill for the first time in more than 60 years, and almost half of Arizona homeowners holding negative equity, and an alarming number out of work, there’s been talk around the city about ditching the dependency on growth. The efforts to legislate effective responses to the new realities, and the forces that have resisted change, make for a revealing tale — one with relevance far beyond the Sonoran Desert.

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

Building Houses for People Who are Building Houses

Long before the emergence of the specter of climate change, no one would have faulted the managers of a desert city like Phoenix for setting limits to the urban population — limits determined by available water resources. Yet never during the region’s 60 years of postwar expansion has that been a politically feasible option: so much local pride and municipal revenue were tied to the prize of being the fastest-growing city in the United States (and one of the most populous — Phoenix nosed into fifth place in the mid-2000s). Even in the trough of the Great Recession, and confronted with evidence of a stationary or even shrinking population (the 2010 census saw Philadelphia regain fifth place), boosters stuck tenaciously to estimates of steady, long-term growth to the point when the region would be “built-out.” No doubt this blithe optimism was a resilient part of the culture of the Valley of the Sun, but it was a clear obstacle to becoming what green advocates define as a resilient city.

Nationally, the 1980s and ’90s witnessed rising public concern about the environmental costs of runaway suburban growth, feeding the anti-sprawl movement and its policy offshoot, “smart growth.” These sentiments did not bypass the Sonoran Valley, and as the new millennium approached, urban liberals’ burgeoning interest in local quality of life prompted calls for growth management legislation. In a 1998 study commissioned by the state legislature, the Morrison Institute, a think tank at Arizona State University which reliably mirrors the concerns of policy elites, noted that “the historic pro-growth posture is being seriously questioned.” The study explained why growth does not pay for itself, and it issued a roster of recommendations; none were heeded by a legislature under the sway of the homebuilders lobby. ⁶ Yet the issue persisted and, in 2000, the Citizens for Growth Management, a coalition spearheaded by the Sierra Club, placed a proposition on the state ballot. Proposition 202 was the nation’s first-ever proposal to impose strict growth controls over an entire state; it called for the adoption of urban growth boundaries by every Arizona county, city and town with over 2,500 inhabitants, and early polls showed the initiative had around 70 percent voter support. But ultimately the growth lobby spent copiously to reverse those numbers (70 percent ended up voting against), delivering a crystal-clear warning that no legislation would be permitted that spoiled the appetite for expansion on an ever-enlarging urban fringe.

Grady Gammage, Jr., was among the prominent figures who opposed Proposition 202. A land-use attorney who doubled as a public policy advocate at the Morrison Institute, his shrewd reasoning and widely cited views had made him one of the Valley’s most influential opinion makers. (To be taken seriously as a public voice in Phoenix, it’s been almost de rigueur to participate in the land-development industry. Gammage’s father had been president of ASU for three decades, but, like almost everyone else, had dabbled in land development as if it were a  hobby, like playing cards; “He was always getting together with a bunch of other college professors and buying a little bit of land here or there. He always sold it too early. He never made very much money on it but he thought it was fun.” ⁷) Proposition 202 supporters had hoped to win over Gammage; but throwing his support behind the initiative, as he explained, “would have been politically very dangerous for me.” As someone who earned his livelihood representing big developers at City Hall, he “skated the thin edge of advocating for things my clients already don’t like,” and Proposition 202 would have been “over my edge.” Gammage also believed the initiative to be an “insufficiently thought-out solution” to the problems of the region’s hypergrowth, one better suited to cities “at risk of running out of land,” which clearly was not the case in Central Arizona….

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

The year before Proposition 202 was defeated, Gammage published a lively book, subtitled “Reflections on Developing the Desert,” where he offered his own proposal for growth regulation. Estimates of the region’s water supply, he argued, should be used to project a sustainable population and that figure should serve as a growth cap by consensus. By Gammage’s own calculation (he had once served as president of the board of the Central Arizona Project), the assured water supply would comfortably support a “future city of seven million, built in a pattern much like our current metropolis — a community of detached single-family homes at a relatively uniform density of between 2,500 and 3,000 citizens per square mile.” ⁸ On the face of it, there was not much in the proposal to offend even Gammage’s toughest clients. His estimated population limit was double the size of Metro Phoenix at the time of the 2000 Census; the projected density faithfully reflected what he called “our current values,” meaning a preference for the low-density housing that the development industry held sacrosanct. Even so, the proposal aroused alarm at a time when many believed that region’s water supply could support 10 to 12 million. “People thought that I had lost my mind,” Gammage recalled. “‘You are going to have population police turning people away?’ I had to explain that I was not talking about a hard limit, but rather [asking] how do we think about a mature Phoenix that is no longer growing fast?” As Gammage noted, “All of our policies are built on fast growth — it is the goal of Phoenix as an enterprise….”

Gammage had earned a reputation as an articulate defender of Phoenix’s historical development patterns against its most clamorous anti-sprawl critics. Indeed, he has argued (and not wryly) that “what others see as sprawl we see as our heritage” and has insisted that Phoenicians fully embrace this legacy: “mass-produced suburban ranch homes are to Phoenix what Victorians are to San Francisco, brownstones to Philadelphia or bungalows to Los Angeles — a signature of the lifestyle heritage upon which a city is built.” ⁹ Like other urbanists who warn against judging the 20th-century Sunbelt by the standards of the 19th-century Northeast and Midwest, Gammage believed that Phoenix stacked up well against its pro-sprawl peers. Contrary to the common understanding of sprawl, Metro Phoenix had, he argued, a fairly “clean edge.” Because water provision required forethought, it had acted as “liquid glue,” producing a settlement pattern with a much narrower range of density — between two and six units per acre — than other postwar boomtowns. Commuting times and per-capita energy consumption were at or below the national average, and trends were running against the extravagant use of water. The fashion for desert xeriscaping was dislodging the taste for ash and maple trees, thereby coaxing a more ecologically appropriate “brown city” from the wasteful green patchwork of suburban lawns.

Despite these indicators, the abrupt collapse of the region’s economy after 2007 underscored the degree to which Phoenix’s buoyancy relied on population growth. By the end of 2009, the rate of job loss in Arizona outran all other states, and unemployment exceeded ten percent of the workforce. Central Arizona’s production homebuilders — Pulte, Centex, KB, Morrison — had gone silent, or, like Fulton Homes, were filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Lenders had foreclosed on 70,000 homes, housing values had fallen 50 percent, half of the state’s homeowners were “underwater,” and realty brokers reported that more than 60 million square feet of commercial space was vacant. ¹⁰ A year later, the home foreclosure rate was still rising; almost 66,000 Arizona homeowners lost their houses to the mortgage holder in 2010, 12 percent more than in 2009. ¹¹

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

Worst of all for the region’s self-image, people had stopped moving to Phoenix. When a 2009 Urban Land Institute survey reported that population levels had been flat for two years, the news actually cheered those who had expected worse — even though the estimate concealed the fact that many Valley residents were so deep in housing debt they could no longer afford to move. Nor did the numbers reflect the departure of undocumented immigrants who had fled when construction jobs dried up, or when the anti-immigrant mood turned ugly. The Department of Homeland Security estimated that the undocumented population had dropped by 100,000 (18 percent of the state’s total) in 2008 alone. ¹² These figures were a comfort to nativists, of course, who were happy to see that particular group shrinking.

The crash took a heavy toll on the booster psychology that had so reliably drawn wave after wave of in-migrants from the Midwest, “equity refugees” from California, and “Alzheimer’s buyers,” as one developer described his retiree clientele to me. Even so, some government agencies continued to predict rosy growth; in a fall 2009 survey, planners at the Maricopa Association of Governments projected 400 miles of new highways (double the current number), and 320 miles of new rail by 2050, to support future population expansion. But such estimates were based on long-term migration data, or on existing land-development rights; they assumed that jobs aplenty would somehow materialize. Nobody I interviewed could see a favorable job-creation climate in the near future, however, and most agreed that Phoenix was a “one-industry town,” overly dependent on land development for employment and revenue.

This was a long-running diagnosis. Two decades earlier, after the last big real estate crash, a much-cited 1988 article in _Barron’s_ magazine estimated that 20 percent of jobs, and one out of three of the regional economy’s dollars, were tied to land development. ¹³ In response, business, government and academic elites launched a public-private initiative to diversify the regional economy with high-tech clusters. But the housing sector recovered quickly, which proved too lucrative to ignore; home building reasserted its dominance over the workforce and the economy. When _Arizona Republic_ editorial writer Katherine Ingley moved from California, she was informed that the business of Phoenix was growth. “It struck me as weird,” she told me. “You are building houses for people who are building houses? How is this possible?”

Developers I interviewed readily acknowledged the excesses of the real estate industry during the 15-year housing boom that followed. “The party was so good for so long,” conceded John Graham, CEO of SunBelt Holdings (a developer of golf courses and master-planned communities) and president of the local Urban Land Institute chapter. “Then it was as if someone hit the light switch,” he added, “and things deteriorated overnight.” Graham, who had endured several boom-and-busts, described the current recession as “structurally different” and shared his hope that “it would break the cycle of bad judgment and bad policy, and improve the pace and quality of development.” A former board chair of Arizona’s Nature Conservancy affiliate, Graham was on the “ethical” end of his industry, favoring land preservation and what the ULI called “balanced development.” And yet he could not envisage anything other than a warm return to housing growth, albeit at a slower rate. Even if economic diversification efforts were successful, he expected that metro Phoenix would “always be a growth-driven economy.” What rate of growth would the development industry consider sustainable? In his view, that would be 25,000 units per year, rather than the 60,000 to 70,000 annual units built at the peak of the bubble, many on a purely speculative basis.

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

Randolph Birrell, an executive at one of the city’s largest merchant builders, was less repentant. “Growth will be always be the business of this town, and that makes sense, because we have some of the best people in that business right here.” In this view, it was the developer who “created” growth, rather than responded to demand. Previous growth estimates, he pointed out, “have always fallen short, and people obviously love to move out here for the lifestyle and freedom. There are no real limits to the land we can build on.” Birrell’s firm was currently looking into infill opportunities, but he had no doubt it would return to outlying tract development when the growth machine cranked up again. “It’s a big speed bump right now,” he acknowledged, “but it’s still just a speed bump and our industry will lead Phoenix over it.”

Not everyone saw home building as the primary driver of growth. Elliott Pollack, an economic consultant frequently featured in the city’s media, warned me: “Don’t let anyone tell you that land development runs this place. It is an effect and not a cause. If jobs were not created, people would not move here, and there would be no reason to develop one stick in the ground. Land development is a domestic and not a base sector item, and people get confused about the difference.”… Still, Pollack agreed that something had to change: “Phoenix is at an economic crossroads. We’ve been living off the same economic base for about 50 years, and that base [electronics, semiconductors, and aerospace] has run its course.” The “high road,” he reasoned, would be tied “to some form of manufacturing, software, or export-related industry. If this creates high-wage jobs and a demand for higher quality housing, then the growth will continue, and there will be more pressure for infill and high-rise housing.” As for the low road: “If we continue to become a population-based economy, then per capita income declines, and it becomes a relatively poor place, dependent on retirees and tourists, and most housing will be of moderate quality and on the periphery.”

Pollack’s forecasts had comfortably guided the developers who rode the boom, and so, when the 2010 legislative session began, GOP lawmakers turned to him to devise tax incentives to attract these new, high-road employers. Pollack clearly believed that government actions can help foster economic resilience; and indeed, his proposal to the legislature focused on cutting business taxes, even though Arizona’s were already low (41st among all states). Environmental sustainability, however, was best left to the market. “People will not do it because it is perceived as the right thing to do,” he asserted, “but when they see an economic benefit from doing it, and that is the great thing about the capitalist system.” About global warming and climate change, he echoed the denialist view prevalent among Republicans. “These are the same scientists that said we were going to go into another ice age, over 40 years ago, and had ideas on how we could warm the planet.” Even if anthropogenic global warming were a reality, Pollack believed that “the jury is still out on whether or not we can do anything, because it may be too late.” Indeed, as an economist, he was intrigued by the prospect that “it would be cheaper ultimately to deal with the fallout.” He mentioned a Wharton School study that “ran some models of what would happen if the seas rose two feet and if you had a major shift in the population” from climate change. “The conclusion,” he recalled, “was that, however expensive, it would still be cheaper to deal with it than trying to prevent it.” Economists, he suggested, could probably cost it out, although they had rarely factored ecological impacts into their forecasting models.

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

Later that week, at the state Capitol, I quizzed Chuck Gray, a top-ranking Republican senator from East Mesa, on how he and his colleagues approachedt the topic of climate change. “I don’t think the American public is being properly educated about what CO2 is,” he told me. “When they say greenhouse emissions, it sounds evil, but it’s not — ‘greenhouse’ means flourishment of life. If you look at what a greenhouse is, it is a place where life can grow, and it’s great for plants, and plants need humans, and humans need plants.” Pressed to elaborate, he recalled being “taught that plants took the CO2 we produce and turned it into oxygen,” and that “in CO2-enriched environments, plants do better, so, as the climate gets a little warmer you have more food for more people, which means that we can ship more food to the poor because of CO2.” Gray was no less dismissive of the “cap and trade” proposal for reducing emissions, although it was a market-based mechanism. “It’s based on the fallacy that CO2 is somehow a bad gas. CO2 is what you and I exhale every time we breathe and somehow now that is poisonous? I don’t understand that.” I can vouch that my second-grader, who tagged along on some of my interviews, has a more accurate understanding of greenhouse gases than does the majority leader of the Arizona Senate. Nor was Gray a particularly extreme member of the “Kookocracy,” a term used by Jon Talton, former columnist for the _Arizona Republic_, to scold Arizona’s political class.

Contenders for most kooky would include state senator Sylvia Allen, a Republican from Snowflake, who rewrote Geology 101 while arguing for a 2009 bill to allow more uranium mining. “This earth,” she declared, “has been here for 6,000 years, long before anyone had any environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with. We need to get the uranium here in Arizona so that this state can get the revenue from it, which can be done safely, and you will never even know the mine was there when they are gone.” Allen’s assurances gave little comfort to the many Arizonans (including the mine workers, many of whom are Navajo) living near abandoned uranium mines and suffering from cancer, organ damage, miscarriages and birth defects. Leaving aside her creationist views (the population of Snowflake is largely Mormon), Allen’s interest in uranium was part of a Republican push to steer public monies away from renewable energy toward the state’s nuclear portfolio. If this initiative is successful — John McCain, Jon Kyl, and the GOP establishment all support it — Arizona will be the first state to build a new nuclear plant since 1977.

Kookiness was not the only reason why so many of my interviewees complained about the vacuum of political leadership in Arizona. As in California, the increasing role of voter propositions has meant that more and more political decisions are made by ballot, and many propositions (which were often poorly drafted and resulted in unintended consequences) had drastically limited the power of legislators to make good or effective policy. Consequently, in a budget crisis, there were few options available to politicians; they were further constrained by the fact that many in the Republic majority (38 of Arizona’s 90 lawmakers — the largest percentage of any state legislature), including Governor Jan Brewer, had signed Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge to “oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.” First in line to remind legislators that their job was to reduce taxes was the homebuilders association, which in September 2009 won its members a controversial freeze on all development impact fees.

So severe was the fiscal shortfall (sales taxes accounted for more than 50 percent of state revenue) that Brewer approved a plan for the State Capitol and both legislative chambers to be auctioned off in a sale-leaseback arrangement. ¹⁴ In a sense the sell-off was just another real estate deal in Phoenix, but you would be challenged to match it for high symbolism. As government at every level shrank, and as ranking politicians lined up behind the boisterous anti-government pledges of the Tea Party, it was hard not to recall Barry Goldwater’s plea, in his manifesto, _Conscience of a Conservative_, “to entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given.”

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

Federally Insured Libertarians

There was a good deal of daylight between Goldwater’s strict libertarianism and the varieties of social conservatism that energized the GOP of today. Yet on economic issues, at least, the Arizona conservatives I interviewed saw themselves in a clear line of descent from the postwar coup staged by Goldwater’s circle to establish Republican rule over what had been a Democratic stronghold. But what exactly was the basis of Goldwater’s legacy in Arizona? The standard GOP view is that he and other members of the business elite unshackled the state’s economy from the harness of the New Deal, whose agencies had been active in Phoenix during the 1930s. In so doing, the story goes, they liberated the region from a dependency that dated to pre-statehood days, when the Arizona Territory was little more than a federal army outpost — the Goldwater family store, no less, got its start from contracts for army provisioning. This dependency had been revived during World War II by the heavy military presence in the region. And in the interim, Washington had lavishly backed the railroads and mining enterprises that dug gold, silver and copper out of the badlands; and, of course, U.S. Reclamation dollars flowed into the big dams and other hydroelectric projects.

In the heroic GOP narrative, Goldwater and his close allies — Walter Bimson, bank kingpin and president of the American Banking Association, Frank Snell, the city’s most powerful lawyer, and Eugene Pulliam, the exemplary press baron — stood Phoenix on its own feet. They did so by breaking the back of labor (in 1946, Arizona became the first right-to-work state in the West), curtailing the reach of government regulation, and turning the metro region into a free enterprise champion that attracted several hundred top companies in the key industries — electronics, aerospace, finance — that would drive postwar growth throughout the Sunbelt. A region that had long been treated as a colony for East Coast financiers to quarry for their own advantage created a homegrown alternative to Wall Street in the form of Bimson’s Valley National Bank. Pro-growth boosters nurtured a business climate that challenged and outbid the influence of the Yankee corporate establishment by unleashing entrepreneurs and offering opportunities for all comers.

In truth, and as many historians have noted, the free enterprises continued to rely on federal funding. ¹⁵ The money just flowed less directly, and, most importantly, it was channeled into and through the large corporations that used Phoenix’s secure federal ties to make it a profitable branch town. The major firms that built plants in Phoenix in the postwar era — Motorola, Honeywell, Sperry Rand, General Electric, Kaiser, Unidynamics, and AiResearch — subsisted on Cold War defense contracts, and their decisions to locate in the region were shaped by the Pentagon’s policy of decentralizing military production away from the more vulnerable East Coast population centers. In this respect, their arrival was simply an extension of the wartime production programs that had drawn Goodyear, Alcoa, and others to Phoenix’s arsenals, ordnance plants and flight training facilities in the 1940s. These firms were pillars of the military-industrial complex, and the Sunbelt, or “Gunbelt” as Ann Markusen labeled it, became its homeland. ¹⁶ At the height of the Cold War, federal income for Arizona amounted to between 16 percent and 24 percent of the state’s economy, after which there were sizable upswings during the Vietnam War and the rearmament of the Reagan years. ¹⁷

Everyone remembers Eisenhower’s famous warning about the growing power over government policy of the military-industrial complex, but few recall Harry Truman’s more persistent caveats about the influence of the real estate lobby. At its height, this was a formidable coalition, consisting of the trade associations of petroleum producers, auto manufacturers, road builders, homebuilders, land developers, real estate brokers, tire makers, and other industrial players. ¹⁸ Its lobbying power ensured that the conversion of cheap farmland into suburban subdivisions would dependably drive consumption, year in and year out. Practically every aspect of the real estate growth engine was underwritten by the federal government — the FHA-backed mortgages, homeowners’ tax credits, oil subsidies, roads, highways, bridges, and other costly infrastructure. Even more than the defense contracts, the federal momentum behind homebuilding spurred Phoenix’s phenomenal growth. Bimson’s Valley National Bank built its lending reputation, and its reserves, on the back of FHA and Reconstruction Finance Corporation loans. By the end of the 1930s, Del Webb, the construction magnate and future builder of Sun City, saw the benefits to be reaped from federal support and declared that “construction is no longer a private enterprise, it is a subsidiary of the national government.” ¹⁹ …

Thomas Sheridan, ethnographer and Arizona historian, once quipped that “behind every rugged individual is a government agency.” ²⁰ How did Goldwater’s followers reconcile their godfather’s claim of independence from big government with the record of federal largesse? Byron Schlomach, director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Goldwater Institute, agreed “that if it were not for the federal government, Phoenix would not and probably should not exist, certainly not at the size that it exists today.” That said, he affirmed that the Goldwater Institute was against “compounding that record with even more government projects aimed at creating artificial wealth.” “Individuals,” he declared, “are in a better position to determine what’s good for them than government.”…

Yet even today it would be a mistake to take the libertarian rhetoric at face value. After all, the original Goldwaterites needed a strong state to realize their vision of free enterprise in Phoenix. Without government backing, they would not have been able to maintain the business climate — an antiunion environment with low taxes, cheap land and lax regulation — that was their hallmark. That is why they strove to create a state that would make these goals its chief priority. Elizabeth Shermer has recently argued that Goldwater’s postwar Phoenix was the birthplace of the doctrine of deregulation and privatization that much later came to be called neoliberalism. ²¹  Many commentators believe that neoliberalism originated in the response of financial elites to New York City’s 1975 fiscal crisis and then spread throughout the nation and the globe over the next three decades. ²² Shermer shows how Goldwater and his allies stopped the advance of the New Deal by using the Chamber of Commerce to seize control of local and state government, while using their federal ties to consolidate the takeover. Then the new political class, taking orders from the Chamber, installed deregulation and regressive taxation at the heart of their policymaking. …
The Goldwaterites’ success at remaking government was emulated in other Sunbelt cities, and the template of their pro-growth policies is visible today in those parts of the world where governments promote a business-friendly climate to attract off-shore investors. When local officials in coastal Chinese provinces lure foreign corporations with lavish tax incentives, discount labor and various legal exemptions, they are using a playbook largely written by the businessmen-politicians of Phoenix in their Cold War heyday. …

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

Eco-Apartheid and Ghost Acreage

Investors, then and now, are attracted by the promise of cheap labor and lax regulation, but their executives and top employees are also looking for a healthy residential setting. So a very particular kind of environmental promotion is required to reel them in. On the one hand, it’s communicated that enforcement of industrial waste regulations will be weak, and so a degree of industrial befouling is both expected and tolerated in production zones. On the other hand, officials are assured that air and water quality will not be compromised in the desirable precincts where high-wage employees will be likely to live.

In their prime, the powerbrokers of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce preached this dual gospel. They promoted the glories of Arizona’s sunshine, mountains, open spaces and clear air to prospective investors, and used the celebrated landscape photography in the iconic magazine _Arizona Highways_ to do so. But they were also pushing urban industrialization and well understood its dirty side effects. The more polluting industrial plants were channeled to the poorer, non-Anglo sections of south Phoenix, or to the newer working-class suburbs at the western edge. In striking contrast, North Phoenix, which sloped up toward the mountains, developed as a pristine preserve for outdoors-minded elites, epitomized in the aptly named Paradise Valley, its most exclusive enclave. …

Although the Valley has since then grown explosively in all directions, its social geography remains shaped by this environmental division. Initiatives to preserve aesthetically pleasing landscapes or mountain vistas have long been popular with politicians, as well as developers, and since the state owns 11 percent of the land, these initiatives could be enacted with little public pain and without impinging on the sanctity of property rights. ²³ But citizens’ complaints about dirty industries or LULUs — Locally Unwanted Land Uses— in their neighborhoods were likely to go unanswered. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality had a record of shutting down polluting factories only after disastrous explosions or fires caused deaths and made headlines. Until recently, this Janus-like response to environmental issues has been the norm. Indeed, open space in the desert or mountains, where people could breathe free, was part of the Arizonan birthright extolled by the nature-loving Goldwater, who once wrote: “[W]hile I am a great believer in the free enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment.” ²⁴ Goldwater may not have seen these twin ideals as mutually exclusive, but the antiregulatory growth machine that he and his associates bequeathed proved otherwise. …

Longtime critics of sprawl argue that some of the conditions for what activist Van Jones describes as “eco-apartheid” are rooted in the continued relocation to the urban fringe of investment, employment, commercial retail, and services. The reduced circumstances of central-city populations — fewer job opportunities, longer work commutes, diminished consumer options — are directly connected to the centrifugal push of the growth machine. No less equitable is the tax burden on those who foot the bill for the costly infrastructure of sprawl; urban residents pay more than their share for the roads, utilities, and business-relocation tax breaks that disproportionately benefit suburbanites. In the face of these inequities, analysts find little evidence that “growth pays for itself.” And when the environmental impacts are factored in, the long-running debate about the costs of sprawl looks more and more lopsided. …

[Chad White, On Phoenix From Above]

Nineteenth-century agrarianists popularized the theory that making cheap land available beyond the Mississippi would act as a safety valve to ease employment pressure in the industrial East. Historians since then have suggested that the expansion of Anglo-American capitalism demanded the territorial conquest of the Southwest to resolve its need for surplus space. In more recent decades, the dramatic shift of private and public resources to the Sunbelt has been seen as a strategic move to boost corporate profits. Whatever the explanation, the result has been that for more than a century, Western urbanization hosted not only the most visible geographic spread of U.S. growth but also its most intensive escalation. It was fitting that this wave would break most forcefully in Phoenix, which had long been one of its most dependable vehicles.

No one, to my knowledge, has estimated the ecological footprint of the city or the region, but since virtually all its goods, food and energy have been imported from far afield, including all the construction materials that have filled out the Phoenix Basin, the desert metropolis necessarily depends on vast amounts of “ghost acreage” elsewhere to sustain the daily needs of its population. ²⁵ In this regard, it long ago surpassed its ecological limits. Those who view the region through a local lens have been inclined to conclude that the growth machine has not yet reached its economic limits — surely there is time for one last housing boom! — but the severity of the crash has bolstered the belief that the moment of reckoning is fast approaching, and that the message should be passed on to the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.

question: What is the main topic of this document?

answer: Growthmanship in this United States.

question: What was driven in part by Cold War competition to prove the superiority of a market economy?

answer: Four-fifths of growth in the United States happened in the the last 50 years at the time of this document.

question: What is "growth liberalism"?

answer: It is the consensus mood that developed after 1945 and presided over an expansionist boom in the industrialized world that did not contract until the 1970s.

question: What is "this information" in "top-level resistance to absorbing and acting on this information has been profound"?

answer: The information is the thesis of anthropogenic global warming.

question: Who is Lawrence Summers?

answer: He is described as a leading economist in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. He was also a kingpin at the World Bank in 1991.

question: What happened the year before Proposition 202 was defeated?

answer: Grady Gammage Jr. published a book, subtitled “Reflections on Developing the Desert,” where he offered his own proposal for growth regulation.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The author discusses growthmanship in the United States, arguing that its recognition as a society’s only relevant standard of worth is mostly a postwar development.


text:
BY MICHAEL BAGGS
Newsbeat reporter

image copyrightGetty Images

A NEW REPORT INTO CANNABIS IN THE UK HAS RAISED CONCERNS ABOUT THE POTENCY OF THE DRUG.

The study was conducted at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Researchers there say it suggests most of the cannabis bought on the streets is high in the plant's most dangerous substance.

Only 50 samples of cannabis were tested, all from the Manchester area. They all showed the same results.

The cannabis showed high levels of THC (the chemical that makes users high) and low levels of CBD (the chemical that helps balance its affect).

This research was commissioned by Volteface - a group that wants cannabis to be regulated by the government.

It is now calling for a wider study looking at cannabis potency across the whole of the UK.

"The days where cannabis was a balanced drug are just gone," Paul North, policy advisor for Volteface, tells Newsbeat.

He says that people growing cannabis plants harvest them early, when THC is high and before CBD has developed, to get it on the streets as quickly as possible.

"If you're a drug dealer you're not going to grow balanced strains of weed. Why would you?" says Paul.

"You just want to get it grown and get it out there."

image copyrightGetty Images

image captionPaul says most cannabis bought on UK streets will "blow your head off" because it is harvested early

However, these results come as no shock, according to the man who carried out the research.

"These results were in line with what researchers had reported in other countries," Dr Oliver Sutcliffe of Manchester Metropolitan University tells Newsbeat.

However, Paul says he hopes this research will encourage a new government investigation.

A 2007 Home Office survey showed similar results 10 years before the Manchester study.

"I think there's a real need now for a huge survey of cannabis up and down the country," he says.

image copyrightGetty Images

image captionMoney made from regulating cannabis in Canada has been used to educate children about its dangers and use

Volteface are not just looking to make cannabis legal; they want the government to regulate how the drug is grown, due to mental health side effects from THC, which is a psychoactive drug.

"The issue at the moment is that people don't have a choice," Paul says.

"With a regulated market you can give really clear messages around health."

"They'll have the information and the choice. Right now they have nothing."

A spokesperson for the Home Office tells Newsbeat there are currently no plans to change the laws around cannabis and would not comment on whether there would be any new government research into the strength on UK streets.

_Find us on Instagram at_ BBCNewsbeat _and follow us on Snapchat, search for_ bbc_newsbeat

-   Life
-   Drug use
-   Cannabis
-   Manchester

question: What concerns were raised about cannabis in the UK?

answer: Concerns about the potency of the drug.

question: What chemical has high levels in the tested cannabis samples?

answer: THC.

question: What chemical has low levels in the tested cannabis samples?

answer: CBD.

question: What does the article propose?

answer: That cannabis be more highly regulated.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A study of cannabis found that almost all of it has high levels of THC and low levels of CBD, leading to calls for regulation of the drug.


text:
It was the last day of school... I think it was 1979. All my friends were outside playing, we had built a ramp on the dirt street out of a cinder block and a piece of wood and were diligently doing our best to make sure we broke our legs on the first day of summer break. We would line up at the end of the street on our bicycles, and get as much speed as our legs could muster before hitting the ramp with a very unsatisfying thump, launching us a whole 8 inches into the air.

Inevitably, every now and again, a car would come up the dusty dirt road, one of the kids would yell at the top of his lungs CAR!!!! and everybody would grab all their stuff and drag it to the side of the road, even the cinder block and board. As soon as the offending car would pass... back to it we went.
One of the passing cars belonged to the lady who lived two trailers down from me. I think her name was Linda, she lived with another lady, I forgot her name, but everybody knew they were gay. Looking back I find it hard to believe that gay people living in the trailer park were so well tolerated in the 1970's especially after living in today's political climate. None the less, Linda was gay, she had a gay lover, and they lived two trailers down, and that was pretty much the way it was.

Linda waved at me as she got out of her car. She was some kind of teacher, but she didn't teach at any school we went to. She taught at some sort of special school. I never understood if it was special because rich kids went there, or if it was special because short bus kids went there. Everybody liked the gay couple, even though lots of kids would make fun of them behind their backs in the regular crude way that 12 year old boys do.
I waved back.  I liked Linda, she was always nice to me. It was then that I realized she was waving me over.  I set my bike down and walked over to Linda's driveway while all my friends made teasing rude mumbles low enough that only I could hear,  and made licking signs with their fingers and tongues.
Linda was busy unloading lots of stuff from her car, I guess it was all her teaching stuff, or whatever stuff it is that teachers need. "Do you collect stamps?" she asked me. Do I collect stamps? I thought. What kind of question is that? It's 1979, who the hell collects stamps anymore. Then she pulled out this big book. It was brown leather with fancy gold designs all over it, and it was dry and cracking on the edges and corners.
"I found this in my classroom, somebody must have left it there." And she handed to me.
"You're giving it to me"? I asked. "Yes", "For free?", "Yes".
I turned and ran back like an escaped convict, I had this big glorious book held tight to my chest. All my friends are yelling "What do you got?"
"It's Stamps!" I yelled.
Glorious, glorious stamps.

I ran into my trailer, pushed past my mom who was cooking dinner, into my room and slammed the door. I sat on the floor and gingerly placed the book between my knees in the shag carpet. I opened it and began flipping through the pages.
This wasn't just a stamp collection. Sure there were lots of stamps. LOTS of stamps. Individual stamps, sheets of stamps, rows and rows of stamps. All of them old. All of them from somewhere else. Some countries I could make the names out like "Nederland". But most everything was in languages I didn't know. There were lots of stamps with pictures of people on them, People I have never seen before.
It didn't take me long to figure out that they were all from Europe. There were stamps from CCCP, Italy, and lots of other places that I didn't recognize. But mostly, there seemed to be stamps from Deutschland,  a lot of which did have somebody's picture on them I recognized. Adolph Hitler.
There were sheets of Hitler stamps, never torn apart. All different kinds. Some of him in his uniform, some just his face, and lots with other stuff, like fancy buildings in Germany.
This was cool, this was something none of my friends had. All of the sudden that kid with the cool Schwinn bike wasn't as cool as me.

But what was most interesting about this book, wasn't the stamps. It was what was in the back of the book.  Letters and Mementos. This was the interesting stuff. There were a half dozen or so letters, carefully folded and in their envelopes. Envelopes that struck me as quite small, the paper too. I grew up in a world where all sheets of paper were 8.5X11. This was all much smaller than that. And pretty old looking. They were all to the same woman. I honestly don't remember her name,  I wish I did. None of them were in English, so I never was able to read a single word. They were also all hand written, quite badly I might add.
There was also a fancy linen napkin, carefully folded and wrapped in tissue paper. The corner of the napkin was embroidered with some kind of insignia of what I presumed was some hotel. The napkin had blood in it. Old brown blood. It was stained, and some had flaked off. When I opened it up, I had to be careful to preserve the flakes in the folds of the napkin. Looking back on it, I am not so sure it was a napkin, it was most likely a handkerchief with a military insignia in the corner.

I used to keep my treasure in the top of my special closet. I had a closet in my room that contained the hot water heater. There was a little cavity up in the top of the closet that nobody knew about but me. That cavity had been home to bad report cards, notes from my teachers, nudie magazines, and the holy grail... my stamp collection.
I was the funny little curator. 13 years old, with my thick horn rimmed glasses, always sweaty and dirty. I would occasionally pull that book down, unfold the letters, and try to read them again and again...
I decided that since I was now a stamp collector, I should add to the collection. One year  I rode my bike to the post office and bought the commemorative Christmas stamp set  and put them in the book. Yeah, I was now adding to the treasure!
But as things go, I lost interest in the book, and it spent month after month, year after year in the little cavity at the top of the hot water heater closet. Only coming down for special occasions, to show some new kid in the neighborhood, or to show to the occasional teacher.

When I got to High School, I joined the band. I played baritone. Since the baritone was a big instrument, the school owned them, and issued one to me at the beginning of the year. I carried that case back and forth with me to school every week of the year. The baritone was big and heavy, and I got quite adept at stashing my other things in the case with the instrument and carrying it all as a package.
And that is what happened to the book. It was the last day of school and I had been showing the book off to some kids at school and stashed it in the baritone case. Forgetting it was there, I put the baritone back in its designated slot in the back of the band room. It was on the bus ride home that I realized what I did, but it was the last day of school before summer. I told myself that I would go get it back on the first day of the next year. But by the time summer break of 1982 ended, I had forgotten about the book.
I always wonder if my old band director found it, and took it home and gave it to one of his neighbor kids... easy come, easy go.

title: The Book

question: Summarize everything relating to sexuality.

answer: The lady who lives two trailers down from the narrator, Linda, is a lesbian. A lot of the kids make fun of Linda and her lover from behind their backs. The narrator also keeps nudie magazines in a cavity in the top of his closet.

question: Summarize everything relating to education.

answer: The story takes place on the last day of school. Linda, the lady who lives two trailers down from the narrator, is some kind of teacher. She teaches at a special school. The narrator stashes away bad report cards and notes from teachers in his closet. He joined band in High School. He was issued a baritone by the school and wound up stashing the book of stamps Linda gave him in the case and forgetting it there.

question: What does the story say about musicianship?

question: What does the story say about the type of kid the narrator is?

answer: The narrator and his friends are reckless, launching their bikes off of ramps on the last day of school. He thinks it is old-fashioned to collect stamps. He considers himself cooler than the kid on the Schwinn bike now that he has the stamp collection with pictures of Adolph Hitler. He gets bad report cards and notes from his teachers, which he keeps stashed away in his closer along with nudie magazines.


text:
MARCO MINNITI (born DOMENICO LUCA MARCO MINNITI ; 6 June 1956) is an Italian politician, member of the Democratic Party, who served in the government of Italy as Minister of the Interior from 12 December 2016 to 1 June 2018. Previously, he was one of the most prominent councilors of former Prime Ministers Matteo Renzi and Massimo D'Alema.[1][2]

Due to his policies on immigration and security, Minniti has been often criticized by left-wing intellectuals and writers, like Roberto Saviano,[3] and labeled as a strongman.[4][5][6] He has been sometimes nicknamed “The Lord of the Spies”,[7] due to his long-time experience in coordinating the secret services in almost all the centre-left governments.[8][9] While he was in office, some political commentators described him as the most powerful and prominent man in Italy.[10][11]

Early life

Marco Minniti was born in Reggio Calabria in Southern Italy in 1956. His father was a general of the Italian Army.[12]

Minniti stated that when he was young he wanted become an aviator of the Italian Air Force, but his mother forbade it, so at 17 years old he joined the Italian Communist Party, as a protest against his parents.[13]

During 1970s he graduated in philosophy at the University of Messina. In these years he met his future wife, Mariangela Sera, with whom he has two daughters.[14]

Early political career

Minniti mature in Calabria most of his political education; during 1970s he became a member of the Italian Communist Party led by Enrico Berlinguer. In 1986 he served on the Commission for Labour's issues of the Communist Party. In 1986 he became secretary of the PCI provincial federation of Reggio Calabria.[15]

In 1992 he became regional secretary of the Calabrian Democratic Party of the Left, a position he left in 1994 when he was appointed in the national leadership of the party. With the foundation of the Democrats of the Left, in February 1998, he was appointed secretary to the party's organization.

Minniti was candidated in the 1996 general election for The Olive Tree coalition of Romano Prodi, in Calabria, but he was not elected. However during this period he became a close collaborator of Massimo D'Alema, leader of the PDS.[16]

From 1998 to 2001 he hold the offices of Undersecretary in the centre-left cabinets of D'Alema and Giuliano Amato.[17]

In 2001 general election Minniti was elected for the first time to the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

Deputy Minister and Secretary

[Minniti with U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Rudy de Leon, in July 2000.] In the 2006 general election he was re-elected in Calabria in the Chamber of Deputies and after The Union victory, Minniti was appointed Deputy Minister of the Interior in the Prodi II Cabinet.

After the primary election of 14 October 2007 he was elected regional secretary of the Democratic Party in Calabria, an office who held until 2009. In the general election of 2008 he was elected for a third term in his constituency.

From 2007 to 2013, Minniti was a member of the National Direction of the PD, under the leaderships of Walter Veltroni, Dario Franceschini and Pier Luigi Bersani.[18]

In 2013 general election Minniti was elected in the Senate of the Republic for the first time.

On 17 May 2013 he was appointed Secretary to the Prime Minister's Office in Letta Cabinet with responsibility for intelligence services. Minniti hold this office also in the government of Matteo Renzi,[19] becoming one of the most prominent councilors of the Prime Minister.[20]

Minister of the Interior

[Marco Minniti with his German counterpart Thomas de Maizière, in October 2017.] On 12 December 2016, Minniti was appointed new Minister of the Interior in the government of Paolo Gentiloni.[21]

On 23 December 2016, Anis Amri, the perpetrator of the Berlin truck attack on 19 December, was killed in a shootout with police in front of the Sesto San Giovanni railway station, near Milan, Italy. The suspect had just arrived by train from Chambéry, France (via Turin). During a routine patrol, two police officers asked to search his backpack after he said he did not have any identity documents. Amri then pulled out a gun and shot one of the officers in the shoulder. The other officer responded by shooting Amri.[22][23][24] Minniti stated that a policeman had been hospitalized with a shoulder injury.[25]

One of the first actions as minister was the reopening and increase of the Identification and Expulsion Centres (CIE) and the doubling of the expulsions of irregular immigrants; this measures was supported by the Chief of Police Franco Gabrielli,[26] but was harshly criticized by the left-wing opposition of Italian Left, and also by intellectuals and writers like Roberto Saviano.[27]

On 9 January 2017, Minniti traveled to Libya to begin the negotiations with President Fayez al-Sarraj to sign a new agreement on repatriation of irregular immigrants. On this occasion it was reopened the Italian embassy in Tripoli that, previously, had been closed.[28]

In May 2017 Minniti met the Interior Ministers of Niger, Chiad and Libya, with whom he announced that Italy will build migration centers in North Africa to stop the migration through the Mediterranean Sea.[29] However, Minniti was often accused by his critics of being responsible for severe human rights violations of refugees trapped in Libyan detention centers.[30]

Marco Minniti remained in office until 1 June 2018, when Matteo Salvini was appointed new Interior Minister in the government of Giuseppe Conte.[31]

NGO Code

[Minniti with EU Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, in 2017.] In July 2017 he promoted the so-called “Minniti Code”, which must be subscribed by the NGOs that are involved in rescuing asylum seekers in the Mediterranean.[32] Among other things, the code forbids NGO vessels entering Libyan territorial waters.[33] Minniti warned those NGOs who did not sign the pact that they have set themselves “outside of the organised system for rescue at sea”.

Some NGOs refused to sign the new code of conduct; Médecins Sans Frontières was the first charity to officially announce its 'no' to the code, saying that there were no conditions under which to sign. Facing growing public discontent and scrutiny by the Italian, Libyan, and EU authorities, MSF had to suspend its activities in the Mediterranean sea.[34] The German NGO, Sea Watch, said that the code was “largely illegal” and “will not save lives but will have the opposite effect”.[35]

Macerata shooting

In his last year as Minister of the Interior, Minniti faced the important issue related to a right-wing terrorist shooting occurred in Macerata by a 28-year-old man, inviting political parties to tone moderation and harshly condemning the attack, saying that no political party must “ride the hate”.[36]

After the government

On 18 November 2018, Minniti announced his candidacy for the 2019 leadership election to become the new party's secretary.[37] Minniti was supported by Matteo Renzi, former Prime Minister and party's leader, who led a liberal and centrist faction within the PD.[38] He was also supported by former Minister of Economic Development, Carlo Calenda, who was considered by many a strong potential candidate for the leadership election, and the former Minister of Economy and Finance, Pier Carlo Padoan.[39] However, on 5 December, 17 days after having announced his candidacy, Minniti withdrew from the race, saying to do so in order to facilitate the path of the party primaries and with the sole intent to encourage the election of an authoritative secretary.[40]

[1] Marco Minniti: “È Renzi il vero riformista, il Pd non può finire perché qualcuno non è d'accordo sulla data del congresso”

[2] Marco Minniti, il ritratto: il ministro di destra che come tutti i comunisti non sa di esserlo

[3] Roberto Saviano durissimo sul decreto Minniti: “Se avete rispetto per l'uomo, scappate dal Pd”

[4] Marco Minniti, l'uomo forte di Gentiloni

[5] Marco Minniti, l'ascesa felpata dell'uomo forte dei servizi

[6] La “dottrina Minniti” per sottrarre alla destra il tema della sicurezza

[7] Italy’s ‘Lord of the

[8] Il signore delle spie tra lotta all’Isis e migranti

[9] Marco Minniti, il ministro di ferro più amato dagli italiani: per questo alle prossime elezioni...

[10] Marco Minniti, fenomenologia di un potente

[11] I migranti, la sinistra e la vera sfida di Minniti

[12] Biografia di Marco Minniti

[13] Marco Minniti “fascista”? La clamorosa confessione privata: “Perché sono entrato nel Partito comunista”

[14] Marco Minniti biografia 2017 curriculum sposato figli Ministro Interno

[15] Marco Minniti, la biografia del nuovo ministro dell’Interno

[16] Chi è Marco Minniti, l’uomo dietro le quinte della sinistra italiana?

[17] Minister dell'Interno – Ministro

[18] PD: nomina di rilievo per il deputato calabrese Minniti

[19] La Germania espelle il capo degli 007 Usa a Berlino

[20] Marco Minniti, il ministro in segreto. Ecco quanto conta il sottosegretario

[21] Governo: la squadra di Gentiloni, novita' e conferme

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26] Migranti irregolari, riaprono i Cie: “Raddoppieremo le espulsioni”

[27] Roberto Saviano durissimo sul decreto Minniti: “Se avete rispetto per l'uomo, scappate dal Pd”

[28] Immigrati, Minniti in Libia: primo passo per nuova cooperazione

[29] Migranti, vertice a 4 con la Libia: l'Italia costruirà centri in Ciad e Niger

[30] Italy’s ‘minister of fear’

[31]

[32] Migranti, codice Ong: Msf non firma. Minniti: “Chi non sottoscrive regolamento è fuori”

[33] Minniti says debate on NGO code over

[34]

[35] Italy’s ‘code of conduct’ for NGOs refused by 6/8 charities

[36]

[37] Marco Minniti si candida a segretario del PD

[38] Pd, Minniti pronto alla sfida ma teme l'abbraccio di Renzi

[39] Congresso Pd, Carlo Calenda appoggia Marco Minniti

[40] Primarie Pd, Marco Minniti verso l’addio: l’ex ministro non si fida di Matteo Renzi

title: Marco Minniti

question: Who is Marco Minniti?

answer: He is an Italian politician who served as Minister of the Interior from December 2016 to June 2018.

question: Write a short summary of his early life.

answer: Marco Minniti was born in Reggio Calabria.  At a young age, he wanted to join the Italian Air Force but his mother forbade it so, at age 17 he joined the Italian Communist Party as a protest against his parents. In his later years, he graduated from the University of Messina, where he met his future wife, Mariangela Sera, with whom he has two daughters.

question: When did his political career begin?

answer: His political career began in the 1970s when he became a member of the Italian Communist Party led by Enrico Berlinguer.

question: What is the "Minniti Code"?

answer: A code implemented by Minniti to which NGO vessels from the Mediterranean must be registered. The code forbids NGO vessels from entering Libyan territorial waters. Those who do not sign it will not be rescued at sea, should anything happen. Some NGOs opposed this code claiming it is largely illegal and does not benefit anyone.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Marco Minniti is an Italian politician who served as Minister of the Interior from December 2016 to June 2018. He is best known for implementing the "Minniti Code" which prevents NGO vessels involved in rescuing asylum seekers from entering Libyan territorial waters. Those who do not sign it will not be rescued at sea, should anything happen. Some NGOs (non-governmental organizations) opposed this code claiming it is largely illegal and does not benefit anyone.


text:
_Editor’s Note:_ _This article was originally published in September 2017 and has been updated with more information on the Red Cherry Project and to reflect current offerings from the producers._

The essence of the Red Cherry Project, in each country that Royal Coffee initiates it, is to encourage excellence and repay in kind. Ethiopia was the pilot but Kenya was added soon after, and I, for one, was a little concerned that roasters wouldn’t be willing to pay more money for coffees from already expensive origins. But to the credit of our customers these coffees remain in demand, and to the credit of our producing partners the ongoing work continues to exceed expectations. We’re thrilled to bring back Red Cherry Kenyas from Othaya for the third consecutive year, led by two of our favorite factories, Ichamama and Kamoini, each offering different takes on unparalleled flavor profiles. It should go without saying that these selections are extremely limited in supply and discerning roasters would do well to scoop up their share now, before it’s too late.

The story of this season’s special project in Kenya

Kenya’s Othaya and Aguthi Cooperative societies are long-term suppliers to Royal – coffees from their collective of twenty washing stations have made up the bulk of our annual position from Kenya many seasons, and their coffees have performed consistently at extraordinarily high caliber.

2017 marks the first year where we’ve partnered to pre-select certain lots, something with which we’ve had success in the past working with Ethiopia’s cooperatives. As with in Ethiopia, we’ve dubbed the initiative “RED CHERRY PROJECT” – a nod to the importance of harvest selection prior to processing. But as was the case in Ethiopia, there’s so much more here than just picking ripe fruit.

[kenya ichamama othaya]

Great harvest selection begins with exceptional farms and farmers. Farmer members of Othaya and Aguthi are fortunate to be blessed with great terroir – Nyeri county holds a revered reputation in Kenya. Coffee here benefits from predictable semi-annual rainy seasons, fertile soil, and good elevation in the foothills of the Aberdare Mountain range.

For the Red Cherry Project, the cooperative societies selected model farmers, known already for for their level of attention to detail and ability to deliver high quality consistently. These farmers deliver only 100% ripe cherries to their factory (wet mill / washing station). The coffee then undergoes hand-sort to remove any under-ripes and a floatation to separate any low-density coffee prior to processing.

Following pulping, the coffee undergoes an extended 72 hour fermentation. Once fermentation is complete, the wet parchment is soaked for a further 16-24 hours. The post-fermentation soak once was considered standard practice across Kenya, and its absence nowadays is “pretty surprising,” reports Royal CEO Max Nicholas-Fulmer. “At the vast majority of factories I have visited over the past 4-5 years the post soak tanks sit idle, with weeds growing, or are used for storage.”

But the post soak is a critical step in the process – once mostly exclusive to Kenyan coffee, now adopted by quality-minded producers worldwide. In addition to providing an opportunity to further clean the coffee after fermentation, it’s thought that the short soaking process kick-starts the coffee seed’s germination activity, developing a particular, unique set of compounds that are then preserved on the drying tables and revealed during roasting.

All this work in selection, washing, and fermentation necessitates additional care to preserve the quality. Once the wet parchment is moved to a drying table, it is sorted for pulper nicks or other visual defects and is stored under cover of tarps to prevent sun damage during its fragile first few days. Once the coffee is fully dried, the parchment is bagged in GrainPro and transported to the dry mill in Nairobi.

[]

We agreed that in exchange for this kind of additional work and care, and to ensure our first right of refusal on these coffees, we’d match the highest price paid in Kenya in 2016, based on farmgate cherry price: 85 KSh per kg of ripe cherry. We increased the amount again when it became clear how limited the entire country’s harvest was this season.

The extensive labor and attention to detail alone warrant a premium. The clarity and diversity of flavors offered by these unique, exclusive, and very limited quantity coffees validate it.

Ask your trader for a detailed list or check out a few highlights below:

GATUGI FACTORY

Bursting with pink grapefruit and white wine acids while maintaining a juicy body, 44376 is available in 60kg bags. Another lot from this factory, showcasing the SAVORY side, bursts with ripe tomato, grapefruit, and salted caramel, and is dusted with sweet floral accents. Available in AA 60kg bags, and  as well as a Peaberry 60kg and Peaberry 21kg bag options.

ICHAMAMA FACTORY

A team favorite! This Crown Jewel’s profile: elegant, cherry, blackberry and silky body all describe this coffee. It has a classic dark fruit profile while also being bright and refined. Another one we love is this bright and citric coffee; an acidity-lovers dream, replete with cranberry, grapefruit, lime, red grape, and blackberry notes. Available in AA 60kg bags, Peaberry 60kg bags.

KIRUGA FACTORY

SOFTER AND SWEETER, this batch offers sweet cherry and juicy plum top notes with hints of Meyer lemon and nectarine. Available in AA 60kg bags and a AA 44kg bag, Peaberry 60kg bags and Peaberry 10kg Crown Jewel boxes.

MAHIGA FACTORY

This is my personal favorite, a gentle and juicy harmony of blackberry, grape, and cranberry notes mixed with the nuance of breakfast tea, pomegranate, and hibiscus. Available only as AA in one 60kg bag and six 10kg Crown Jewel boxes, it will be gone before you know it.

RUKIRA FACTORY

Notes of raspberry, lime and tangerine, this lot also maintains a nice sweetness. 44377 is available in 60kg bags.

KIAGUTHU FACTORY

A more delicate Kenya: lighter citrus with sweet caramel and herbal quality. 44374 is available in 60kg bags.

question: What is the point of having different factories producing coffee?

answer: Aside from being able to provide different kinds of flavor, and increasing the range of target consumers, the Red Cherry Project is also a bit of a social project that seeks to provide economic support to Kenya.


text:
He wakes up and looks over at his pad. No new contracts that he wants to bid on. He gets up and gets dressed and heads over to the bar. On his way there he notices another ship that is docked, it hadn't been out for very long, he would see if the captain was in the bar so he could get details. He walks in and notices the captain at a table with a few other captains that he has been associated with. As he sits down, he recognizes the new captain, he had originally helped a small portion in the operation to move his ship out of the sand, just before this contract. The captains all greeted him and they had some small talk till one asked the new one what happened.

The new captain explained that for the first portion of the contract that everything had gone well, until small conditions in his contract failed to be met. The captain had suspected the possibility of an early termination of contract, but continued on none the less. Then one day the cancellation notice came, but the notice was strange. It basically came down to the fact that the contract creator didn't want a full time commitment. He had seen this before, contract creators stringing captains along and the captains wasting time not looking for other contracts to bid on. All of the captains agreed to aid the captain if they could, but they all knew it was up to the captain to either win back the contract or find another.

The captains all began to discuss their recent situations. The next captain to speak had decided to dock their ship far north of here. The port there had frozen over and attempts were being made to break the ice and move the captain down to warmer waters but without a contract there was no real effort to break free. The captain mentioned he tried to get one on the short term, but the contract creator ended up adding too many stipulations. They all agreed to help once the captain got a contract, but none of them could justify allocating resources to remove the ice until then.

Moving left the next captain had contracts a couple of times before and the captain mostly relived the glory days. The captain hadn't bid for a contract in a while, but stated about contracts ripe for the captains picking. Most of the captains were skeptical, at best, of the assertion. He personally thought that the captain's ship had shifted back into the sand. They all let the captain finish through the story, but quickly the next captain began.

This captain had been out many a time, but most of the time the trips were short. Often major problems would arise and be ignored till both parties could not resolve the situation and back into port the captain would roam angry and disappointed as ever. The captain would also seem to take out his ship without a contract on record. While there was a black market, it was rarely active until people wanted a contract on top of their long term one. Even then once it was found out, it usually ended up in the termination of both contracts. The frequency of the captain's alleged activities within the black market made most of the captains dismiss the stories on the spot.

Another captain spoke now. He remembered the captain well. He had worked very hard to help get the captain's ship from the sand and now the ship sat in the port. The captain had been in open negotiations with a contract creator whose other contract was coming to an end but negotiations had fallen through. Whether or not they would pick up again, no one could tell, but they all were hoping for the best for the captain.

The youngest captain was probably in the most interesting situation. The captain had run several trials for contracts, but had never signed one. The captain had a strange outlook on how to be successful, and wished to return to his port of old. Several captains questioned how close the captain really was to securing contracts, even though the captain had presented evidence to the contrary. He was still undecided on the matter, but thought that the captain should send his ship back to the sand and open up contracts for others.

The captain to the right mentioned only two attempts at contracts and yet, an inability to secure contracts. The rest of them sitting at the table disagreed with the statement, how could two attempts certify ineptitude. Alas the captain did not hear them. The captain had dried the pen of ink and did not want to refill it. Maybe one day when a contract slapped the captain in the face an effort would be made to refill the pen, but until then, the captains could only wait.

It was his turn now.

"You all know my story."

He left to put his ship into the sand.

**Edited to replace pronouns and add punctuation

title: Ships in Port.

question: What is the captain in the story known for?

answer: Sticking his ship in the sand.

question: Who is sitting in a circle in the story?

answer: The captains.

question: What happens as the story progresses?

answer: Each captain talks about their work.

question: What is this story about?

answer: Shipping.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A group of captains sit in a circle and swap stories about their trips at sea.


text:
SAKHYA RE is a Marathi serial produced by Sanjyot Vaidya, Omkar Vaidya, Chinmay Mandlekar under Blue Whale Media banner. The serial is directed by Raju Sawant and released on 9 January 2017 on Colors Marathi.[1]

Synopsis

They say Husband and Wife are two wheels of a cart. But what if a wheel between these two willingly asks the other to get rid of the cart and go help somebody else?

'Sakhya Re' is the story of Vaidehi, Sameer, Priyamvada and Rannvijay... a saga of love, sacrifice, duplicity, betrayal, justice and suspense.

Cast

Veteran Hindi and Marathi actress Rohini Hattangadi is back on Marathi TV with Sakhya Re. The multi-faceted actress is portraying a character of Masasaheb. The role in this upcoming show is touted to be a very strong one and there is a lot of excitement among the viewers about the same. Earlier too she has played a strong headed woman in _Honaar Sun Mi Ya Gharachi_, which runs a business and is the head of the family.[2] Actor Suyash Tilak who was last seen 'Ka Re Durava' is also in lead role in 'Sakhya Re'.[3] Ruchi Savarn is also in key role in Sakhya Re. She was seen in various Hindi TV serials such as Pyaar Ka Bandhan, Fear Files, Tere Liye, Crime Patrol, Ghar Aaja Pardesi and in Tamanna.[4] Dnyanada Ramtirthkar is making her debut with this show.[5]

Release

Sakhya Re released on 9 January 2017 on Colors Marathi. The show run on Monday to Saturday at 9 PM on Colors Marathi.[6]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

title: Sakhya Re

question: What is Sakhya Re?

answer: Sakhya Re is a Marathi serial [which seems to be a tv/movie series].

question: What is the series about?

answer: The story is a saga of love, sacrifice, duplicity, betrayal, justice, and suspense between a husband and wife.

question: In which country is the show produced, and aired?

answer: It isn't indicated in the article. [Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language of India.]

question: When was the show released?

answer: January 2017

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Sakhya Re is a Marathi serial [which seems to be a tv/movie series]. The story is a saga of love, sacrifice, duplicity, betrayal, justice, and suspense between a husband and wife.


text:
		Thinking about her makes him want to split his head open. The image of her, undecidedly staring at him, after he confessed his feelings, just won’t leave his head. He tosses and turns, unable to sleep. The sweat beads in his palms and forehead causing the sheets to become balmy, making them even more comfortable.  As he tries to pull on his short wiry hair, the moment plays in his mind over and over.

		He remembered how he committed to it as if he was going over a cliff. Yet, as he struggled to walk to her, the ground felt thick, like drying concrete. It was  balmy summer day and it made her curly dirty blonde hair shimmer. He could see even the kinks and the broken strands as light danced off of them. Yet, his mind was so focused that he couldn’t remember what she was talking about.  When she noticed him, he could feel his entire body became heavy, even though it was trembling.

		But he had come too far. Like staring down a ski run that seems impossible, he knew the only way to go was forward, and he choked the words out,

		“I like you. I think your beautiful. Please go to prom with me.”

		“...
...
ok?
...”

Yet he could see the look of terror and discomfort in her face. Her friends’ faces bursted, and they could not contain their giggles. He didn’t remember how much time had passed, but next minute or two were of awkward silence. She was too surprised and taken back to respond, and he swallowed every word he could muster to the bottom of his stomach. The bell rang and she scampered away, giggling and gossiping with her friends. Her wonderful shimmering hair becoming brown as she went inside, and disappeared in the crowd.

		Later that day he would be told that she already had a date. Furthermore, he would learn that everyone had known what had happened. Tomorrow would come and he’d be the laughing stock of the school. But it didn’t matter, his heart had been ripped out. Even now, as he tosses and turns...crunches and stretches...over and over, he still feels the not in his stomach it. Trying to calm himself, he counts his breaths, letting his body become still and his eyelids heavy.

		But to no avail. In a fit of frustration, he tears off his sheets. He wants to take his mind off of the real world. He wants to escape. And he boots up his favorite video game--figuring that slashing skull pirates and traversing dungeons will make him forget. He plays for hours on end, not noticing the time that is passing, or worrying about waking up late. Finally he slays the giant spider and defeats the dungeon.

		As he is returning the magic crystals to the princess he notices her hair also shimmers in the sun. Yet it is perfect, long, and silky. Not a strand is broken or kinked. She has a radiance that can be felt for miles. Even when bowing, his face to the ground as he presents the magic crystals, he can feel it. Still she is fair and humble when she addresses him.

		“Arise my hero. You have fought valiantly, saved my people several times, yet we nay know the land you come from.”

		She bends over, lightly grabs his cheeks, and kisses his forehead. However, she notices something this time.

		“ Yet today, oh brave one, something is troubling you. Is it not.”

		He knows she can see inside his heart. It is not surprising, her being a royalty, and magical.

		“ Well...yeah there is. But I don’t think you’d understand.”

		She smiles warmly, still holding his cheek.

		“ Please indulge me. I cannot repay the great debt my kingdom owes you but, if I can heal the scars in your heart, it might come close.”

		He grasps her hands and returns them to her and stares out to the kingdom. 15 minutes have passed and the sun is now setting. The entire sky is filled with orange clouds. Soon it becomes night time and a the stars, mere single pixels, flicker in the sky.

		He sighs, “ There is a girl, actually just like you. In fact, even though she isn’t perfect, she is more beautiful. Today, I told her just that fact.”

		“Oh well then she must have jumped into your arms.Many a lady long for you to sweep them off their feet.”

		“Actually she didn’t say anything….she probably thinks I’m a dork.”

		“.....may I take your pardon….a dork?”

		“She doesn’t feel the same way about me, ok. I’m nothing to her.”

		“ Oh hero. Be thine under a spell? Everyone in this kingdom knows you are as noble as they come. And we are lucky to have you.”

		He shakes his head and tosses discards his sword. It lands perfectly straight in the ground as it always does, before blinking and appearing once again in his scabbard.

		“ But you don’t understand ...Here I might be a hero, but I’m reall just a normal teenager. There is nothing special about me.”

		“Again you speak lies!”

		“I’m telling the truth...this isn’t even real. You’re not real!”

		“ I hear it not, nor do I accept, oh destined one. I implore you, please heed my words.”

		He merely stares at her. Too exhausted to respond.

		“While we know of your bravery and your heroism. It is not for this reason that you are loved. We see the kindness and generosity in your heart. I see it, even now. And I don’t need magic. If this other princess is blind to your soul, than she is not fair.”

		She embraces him.

                        “ You are a good person and more than deserving of affection that is as real as you say I am not.”

 		Those words echo in his head that morning. And, although he is haunted by her face her words give him strength. Everyone at school has probably heard of what happened yesterday. He sees them sneak stares and hide their laughter, but he is more than  aware. Walking through the hallways, he feels naked and exposed. It is if a thousand eyes watch and scrutinize his every step.

	Then he sees her. And he freezes. And time stops. But he starts it back up again. He pushes, shoves, and inches is way toward her. And even though people are taking out their cell phones and crowding around them, he doesn’t care. At this moment, when every fiber in his body fights him, with only his will to push him forward, he wonders if this is what bravery really is. He sits next to her and without hesitation ….

		“You know. I meant everything I said, and the offer still stands.”

		He can hear the murmurs and the beeps of videos being recorded.

		She lifts her head, letting her curls fall down her face and wisp her freckles, and grabs his hand.

		“ I’m sorry  I can’t.”

		….while smiling….

“ But we can still talk… oh hero….”

{\*~~~~*/}

title: The princess

question: Who does the main character confess his feelings to?

answer: He confesses his feelings to the girl he asks out to prom.

question: Does the girl accept the invitation to prom?

answer: The main character is rejected as the girl already has a date.

question: How does the main character overcome the rejection?

answer: He plays his favorite video game where he must be a hero.

question: What is the reaction at school, following the rejection.

answer: The main character feels naked and exposed as crowds begin to record his interaction with the girl.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: The main character feels humiliated after he asks a girl out to prom. He confesses his feelings to her but later finds out that she already had a date. Her friends gossip and giggle in the background, making him feel more awkward. The next day he would be the laughing stock of the school. Frustrated and unable to sleep, he tries to calm himself by playing his favorite video game where he must be a hero to the fictional princess.