text:
		                    Logic’s Respite

	The dusky glow of the lamps was the only thing between him and the outside world. The winds gusted outside, making the trees creek as if each limb was letting out an emotionless howl. The man listened to the inane chatter of the people on the television, telling him of his impending doom. And he could see it outside. It was as if he felt that by watching the television, something might change. Somehow the meteorologist might tell the man that the storm would go east of him. Or west. It didn’t matter, as long as it didn’t hit him. Or perhaps the man watched the television simply because he needed the comfort of another human voice. He was, after all, completely alone.
	The man was tall, fit, and wearing the not so modest t-shirt of his prestigious alma mater. He was a man who had lived by himself since graduating college, and sat comfortably at 31 years of age. His small, cozy house was a perfect reflection of his personality. It was decorated with colorful artifacts from the various places he had traveled, as well as showcasing numerous books on a wide variety of subjects, most notably philosophy. However, for all of the house’s apparent worldliness, it was all but closed up from the outside world.  All but one of the windows were covered by thick blinds, and the window that wasn’t was a small one that the man was using to watch the sky. Above the fireplace hung a bold picture of the man, apparently camping in some exotic wilderness. And opposite the television hung the skull of an antelope, recovered by the man perhaps on the same camping excursion.
	The man’s tense body was gleaming with sweat. He kept his eyes trained on the television, looking out at the sky whenever he heard a gust, or far off boom of thunder. He tried not looking, but felt uncomfortable when he didn’t know what was happening. The television rambled on at a comfortingly uniform pace.

	It had been 48 minutes. He had counted. The rain came down harder and faster; he felt the house shake as a massive gust swept the landscape; the storm seemed to be upon him, but how could that be so? It was supposed to be another 37 minutes until it hit. He hadn’t planned on this, and being caught so off-guard made the man feel sick. The sirens went off in the distance. To him they sounded like a funeral dirge.
	He tried to relax, but couldn’t. He turned his electric fireplace on, and tried to read a few sentences of his book, written by Aristotle. He threw the book down, and sat in dolorous silence. He jumped every time a strong gust of wind blustered, or a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky. Five minutes seemed like an eternity, and unsurprisingly the storm did not cease.
	The atmosphere quivered and then burst with the explosion of thunder, and quick, deadly arrows of lightning. The man shook, and was tense all over. The dim lights that blanketed the man flickered, and then died. The consoling chatter of the television was silenced, cut off in its prime. The darkness enveloped him, and he felt more alone than ever. The night was suffocating him with its dark shroud, and he nearly screamed. The panic suddenly pounced on him, and he was caught unaware.
	He ran into the kitchen to grab a candle, but there were none. He ran to the drawer in the dining room, and grabbed his flashlight. It was out of batteries. He was unprepared. He berated himself in his head for not having prepared, and swore that if he made it out of the storm, he would make sure his house was completely danger-proof. And he truly believed it. He remembered, in his darkest moment, that he had his cell phone in his pocket, and he still had a signal. He dialed a number he knew by heart, but one he had not dialed in a long while. He hesitated. The rain began pounding harder, and another crash of thunder shook even the inside of the house, causing his precious philosophy books to fall off the shelf. He didn’t pick them up.
	He knew what he had to do, and dialed the number. It rang. Again. Again. Again. Again. The mechanical voice of his mother’s voicemail was the only response he received. A reluctant tear dripped down his face, placing itself on his shirt’s fiery logo.

	The sirens blared louder, and the man ran down the old carpeted stairs of his house into the small basement. The basement was pitch black. The man felt his way into the laundry room, which was without windows, and therefore the safest place to be when the tornado inevitably struck.  The man was cowering against the wall, with no intention of composing himself, when suddenly the unexpected happened. The rain let up. The thunder did not sound. The gusts of wind slowed to mere wisps. He stood up and dusted himself off, starting off to return upstairs. But as he climbed the old stairs, he heard a howling reminiscent of a banshee shrieking. Pieces of debris were slammed into the windows of the house, and almost simultaneously, they all shattered.
	The man bolted downstairs, back to the laundry room. He heard a crash, and it was obvious that the large evergreen tree in the yard had collapsed into the house, perhaps even breaking down the wall. The man was kneeling against the wall, and doing the unthinkable. He had always ascribed to the old theory of Albert Camus, that “religion is philosophical suicide,” and had been adamant about the inexistence of a deity. However in this moment, he prayed harder than anyone had ever prayed before. He swore to whoever was listening that he would forever more be a pious follower of their religion, if he were to be spared. He quietly wept, whilst forming the words of his desperate prayer.

	The five minutes that the storm ravaged the man’s house were hours to the man. He had been spared. He quickly got up and ran upstairs to assess the damage to his house. He picked up a book that had been tossed on the floor, and straightened out his shirt, quickly wiping a tear from his eye. The tree had indeed caved in the wall of his house, and destroyed most of the living room. The man forgot about his prayers, and his self-assurances that he would make preparations for a future disaster, and set to work fixing up the ruin that was his house. He decided he would call the insurance company in the morning, and have a grand time renovating his home, making it even cozier than before. But first he would get a good night’s sleep, and forget all that had transpired.

	But what the man didn’t notice that night was that only one of his exotic decorations had survived the storm. The only artifact that had not been destroyed was the skull of the antelope, hanging quietly and humbly on the wall, seeming to gaze at the destruction with a simple wisdom. The next morning the man noticed the antelope skull on the wall, and, as it brought back memories of the storm, he decided he would give it away. But when he tried to pull the skull off the wall, it wouldn’t budge. The hollow eyes merely gazed past the man, into the distance, where they undoubtedly saw, many miles in the distance, a black storm cloud. And it was heading this way.

title: "Logic's Respite" - short story I wrote. Thoughts? Criticisms?

question: Summarize the plot of the story.

answer: A man lives by himself and watches a storm come in. The storm lasts for 48 minutes until the power goes out. The man calls his mother and hides in the basement. A tree collapses onto his house, and the man starts to pray. Five minutes later, the storm stops, the man's prayers seemingly answered. The man forgets his prayers, and an antelope skull on the wall watches another storm in the distance.

question: What does the text say about the man?

answer: According to the text, the man went to a prestigious school and lived alone. There were many artifacts from his travels, and had a number of books, especially philosophy books. The man has not prepared for any storm, and nearly panics when the power goes out. He calls his mother but gets no response. He says he does not believe in any deity, but turns to prayer as he waits out the storm. After the danger has passed, the man immediately forgets his promises of preparedness and those he made while praying, and goes back to his old ways.

question: Summarize what the man prays for and who he was likely praying to.

answer: The man does not believe in a deity, but prays to whoever is listening. He swore that if he was saved, he would be a pious follower of their religion, and cried while praying. The man was spared five minutes later, and forgot his promises. The antelope skull was the only artifact to survive the storm, and the man tries to get rid of it. The skull refuses to move, and it sees a storm brewing in the distance.


split: train

text:
We live in a loud world where TV, music, and smartphones fill the void with white noise. Silence and solitude are broken by the buzz of technology while we call, text, and email to feel less alone. However, how often do we take the time to sit and enjoy silence?

Silence and solitude give us the space to think, act, and play "catch up" with our mind, and can be very healthy for our physical and mental wellbeing. It’s time to go to our quiet and peaceful place, and feed our mind and body so we can reap these five benefits, backed by science.

IMPROVES MEMORY

Going for a walk in the park alone can cause brain growth in the hippocampus, leading to better memory. A 2011 study published in the _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_ found adults who walked for 40 minutes three times a week for a year had brain growth in the hippocampus — an area of the brain associated with spatial memory. Immersing ourselves in nature helps the brain to focus and have better memory consolidation.

STIMULATES BRAIN GROWTH

Sitting in silence could also boost grain growth by creating new cells. A 2013 study published in the journal_Brain Structure and Function_ found at least two hours of silence could create new cells in the hippocampus region. This is essential since the hippocampus is linked to our ability to learn, remember things, and even our emotions.

RELIEVES STRESS

Noise has a pronounced physical effect on the brain, which can lead to elevated levels of stress hormones. This happens when sound waves reach the brain as electrical signals via the ear, which then causes the body to react to these signals. The amygdala — associated with memory formation and emotion — is activated, and this leads to the release of stress hormones.

A 2006 study in _Heart_ found silence can release tension in the brain and body in just two minutes. Researchers found it was more relaxing than listening to "relaxing" music. This was based on changes in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain.

FIGHTS INSOMNIA

Spending a few minutes a day in silence can lead to improved sleep, especially for insomniacs. A 2015 studyin _JAMA Internal Medicine_ found older adults who had trouble sleeping experienced less insomnia, fatigue, and depression after doing mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on our breathing and then bringing our mind’s attention to the present without thinking about the past or the future. It helps to break the train of everyday thoughts to provoke a relaxation response.

HEIGHTENS SENSITIVITY

There are retreats that promote the power of silence by refraining from reading, writing, or eye contact. One hundred scientists went on a retreat for research and found shutting off speech heightens awareness in other areas. They practiced the technique of vipassana meditation, which promotes overall wellbeing. This begins with breathing, which is then transferred to sights, sounds, sensations, thoughts, intentions, and emotions.

RELATED ARTICLES

-   This Is Your Brain On Meditation

-   Mindful Meditation Can Help People With Anxiety: Study

question: What is this article about?

answer: The benefits of silence and solitude.

question: What are the benefits of silence and solitude?

answer: Improves memory, stimulates brain growth, relieves stress, fights insomnia, heightens sensitivity.

question: What is the hippocampus linked to?

answer: Our ability to learn, remember things, and even emotions.

question: How does silence affect our body?

answer: It releases tension in the brain and body.

question: What is a habit that can help grow the hippocampus?

answer: Walking 40 minutes three times a week.

question: What is mindfulness meditation?

answer: It's a meditation that involves focusing on our breathing and then bringing our mind's attention to the present without thinking about the past or the future.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The article describes the benefits of silence and solitude.


text:
[]

Brain-Compatible ACT Prep

For too long, prepping for the ACT has meant thick books or boring lectures. 36U has a better way.

WHAT MAKES 36U SO EFFECTIVE?

-   ENGAGING MOTION GRAPHICS VIDEOS — instead of lectures or endless reading
-   FREQUENCY RATINGS — expected number of test items for each ACT topic
-   COMPACT LESSONS — short videos, one-page note-taking guides, and mini quizzes
-   IMMEDIATE DIRECTION AND FEEDBACK — hints and solutions for all quiz items
-   LEARNING-STYLE FRIENDLY CONTENT — visual, auditory, and kinesthetic
-   PROGRESS TRACKING — provides a sense of accomplishment and highlights topics that need review

Scoring a 36 is the goal. 36U can help you get there!

https://36university.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Who-is-36U-Final.mp4

[]

The Program

Motion Graphics Lessons

Our motion graphics videos illustrate concepts in ways that make even the most difficult concepts accessible and memorable, ensuring you translate ACT preparation to a better ACT score.

Note-Taking Guides

Our full-color, easy-to-use note-taking guides focus your attention on key concepts within the videos and maximize your retention by involving you in another learning style. Read more.

Mini Quizzes

Our 150+ quizzes, built on extensive test banks, pinpoint strengths and weaknesses and provide hints and solutions for your score improvement. Read more.

Successes!

Achieving a great ACT score is more about content mastery than test-taking tricks. Students appreciate the topic-by-topic review and it shows in their scores. Read more.

-   Math

    There is no better place than 36U for ACT Math review. From Pre-Algebra through Precalculus, the motion graphics videos are packed with easy-to-remember illustrations. Check out the motion graphic snippet on this panel. Read More

-   English

    You’ll find the approach of teaching English concepts through visual motion graphics compelling, easy-to-understand, and memorable. Watch the clip from the redundancy video on this panel to preview the type of instruction you’ll receive! Read More

-   Reading

    You’ll need to be prepared to attack four ACT Reading passages: Prose Fiction, Social Studies, Humanities, and Natural Science. The 36U motion graphics will prepare you for the four passages and the question types that appear on each. Read More

-   Science

    Scoring well on the ACT science test is more about evaluating scenarios and making sense of data in tables and graphs than recalling science facts. Learn strategies for attacking even the most difficult scenarios and how to simplify the most complicated tables and graphs so you can get your best score. Read More

-

    Writing

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Schools, school systems, and homeschool co-ops that are interested in a group purchase, click below to get more information.

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Contact

question: What does the text say about the meaning of ACT?

question: What does the text say about 36U?

answer: 36U or 36 University, helps students prepare for their ACT and get a better score. They claim to have a better and more effective way for ACT preparation. If students don't improve their ACT scores, they get their money back. 36U costs $15 per month or a one-time payment of $65 for 6 months that gives students access to ACT Prep for English, Math, Reading, and Science.

question: What does the text say about what makes the 36U way of ACT preparation?

answer: The 36U way of teaching involves engaging motion graphics videos instead of lectures or endless reading. 36U provides students with frequency ratings so they know the expected number of test sites for each ACT topic. The lessons are compact and include short videos, one-page note-taking guides, and mini-quizzes. Immediate direction and feedback are available via hints and solutions for all quiz items. 36U content is friendly for any learning style, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Progress tracking gives a sense of accomplishment and highlights the topics that need review.


text:
FRANK MOYA (born 20 January 1929) is a retired anesthesiologist, businessman, and educator. He was widely recognized for his research in obstetric anesthesia and newborn physiology, and joined the University of Miami School of Medicine's Department of Anesthesiology as the youngest department Chairman in the country, at the age of 33.[1] He also founded the Frank Moya Continuing Education Programs for anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists, and continues to serve as the company's Chairman, President, and CEO.[2]

Early life and education

Frank Moya was born in 1929 in New York City to Puerto Rican parents in a small hospital just outside of Harlem. Growing up in and around Harlem in the Great Depression, Moya spoke Spanish exclusively in his first five years of life. While Moya initially planned to become a civil engineer, a fateful accident when he was twelve inspired him to change his course in life. Frank Moya and his brother Robert were throwing knives at a target when a stray blade pierced Robert's leg. Moya quickly took control of the situation, dressing the wound and saving his brother's life. The excitement of the experience inspired Moya's interest in medicine. Despite his impoverished background, Moya pursued pre-medical studies at the New York University at Washington Square and was subsequently admitted to the Long Island College of Medicine (now the Downstate Medical Center) in 1949. He excelled in medical school and made the Dean's list every year he attended.[3]

Work and Research

After graduating from medical school, Moya entered the navy, completing three years of clinical training at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Great Lakes, Illinois and serving as its Chief of Anesthesiology for two years. In 1958, Moya joined the faculty of Columbia University Presbyterian Hospital, where he was mentored by Dr. Virginia Apgar in anesthesia research and trained obstetric anesthesiologists. In 1962, Moya was appointed the chairman of the University of Miami's anesthesia department, becoming the youngest department chairman in the nation at the age of 33. However, Moya's meteoric rise continued—five years later, he became the University's Associate Dean for Hospital Affairs, and the following year he was appointed the acting dean of the University's school of medicine. In the course of Moya's ten years at the University of Miami, he served as the president of the three most prestigious national anesthesiology associations: the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA)[4] from 1974–1975, the Association of University Anesthesiologists (AUA) from 1972–1973, and the Society of Academic Anesthesia Chairs (SAAC) from 1969–1970. In 1970, Moya became Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach,[5] a position he held for 27 years. Over the course of his career, Moya published over 250 scientific articles, abstracts, and textbooks.

In addition to his medical achievements, Moya is an accomplished businessman. In 1984, he founded the first successful medical malpractice insurance company for anesthesiologists, the Anesthesiologists Professional Assurance Company (APAC).[6]

Continuing Education Programs

Moya also founded the Frank Moya Continuing Education Programs for anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists, serving as the company's CEO, Chairman, and President. The Continuing Education Programs provide both home-study continuing education programs that report to the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA)[7] and medical seminars in exotic locales.[8]

[1] “We Salute.” Anesthesia & Analgesia 47.5 (1968): 536-537.

[2] “Organization: Current Reviews®.” Frank Moya Continuing Education Programs. Frank Moya Continuing Education Programs LLC, n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2016.

[3]

[4] “FPIC Insurance Group, Inc. Signs Definitive Agreement To Acquire Anesthesiologists' Professional Assurance Company.” Property and Casualty.com. n.p. n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2016. http://www.propertyandcasualty.com/doc/fpic-insurance-group-inc-signs-definitive-agr-0001

[5]

[6] “About APAC.” Anesthesiologists Professional Assurance Company. n.p. n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/19991114134427/http://www.apac-apam.com/about_APAC.html

[7] “Home Study Courses.” Frank Moya Continuing Education Programs. Frank Moya Continuing Education Programs LLC, n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2016.

[8] “Continuing Education Seminars.” Frank Moya Continuing Education Programs. Frank Moya Continuing Education Programs LLC, n.d. Web. 22 Dec. 2016.

title: Frank Moya

question: What was Moya's life in Harlem like?

answer: He lived in and around Harlem during the Great Depression with his Puerto Rican parents and his brother Robert. He had an impoverished background and only spoke Spanish for the first five years of his life.

question: What stopped Moya from becoming a civil engineer?

answer: While throwing knives with his brother Robert, a stray blade pierced Robert's leg. Frank sprang into action and took control of the situation, saving his brother's life. This inspired his interest in medicine.

question: Summarize Moya's time with the University of Miami.

answer: Moya spent 10 years at the University of Miami. In 1962, he was appointed the chairman of the University of Miami's anesthesia department at age 33. Within 5 years, he became the University's Associate Dean for Hospital Affairs, and the year after he became the University's acting dean of the school of medicine. Within those 10 years, he also served as the president of the three most prestigious national anesthesiology associations.

question: What makes Moya an accomplished businessman?

answer: In 1984, he founded the first successful medical malpractice insurance company for anesthesiologists, the Anesthesiologists Professional Assurance Company (APAC).

question: What are the Continuing Education Programs?

answer: It provide both home-study continuing education programs that report to the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. It is for anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: This article details the life, work, research and Continuing Education Programs of Frank Moya. He is a retired anesthesiologist, businessman, and educator. He's  recognized for his research in obstetric anesthesia and newborn physiology. He founded the first medical malpractice insurance company for anesthesiologists and  the Continuing Education Programs for anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists.


text:
PIKES PEAK is a summit in Ste. Genevieve County in the U.S. state of Missouri. The peak has an elevation of .[1]

The peak lies about two miles southwest of Bloomsdale and I-55. The peak is the high point of a complex ridge between Coots Creek and Carpenter Branch extending to the Fourche a Du Clos on the southwest side of Bloomsdale.[2]

Pikes Peak most likely takes its name from the taller Pikes Peak, in the Rocky Mountains.[3]

[1]

[2] _Weingarten, Missouri,_ 7.5 Minute Topographic Quadrangle, USGS, 1980

[3]

title: Pikes Peak (Missouri)

question: What is Pikes Peak?

answer: A summit in Ste. Genevieve County

question: Where is Pikes Peak located?

answer: It is located in Ste. Genevieve County within the state of Missouri

question: Where does Pikes Peak get its name from?

answer: Most likely from the taller Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains.

question: What is Pikes Peak elevation?

answer: This information is not found in the article.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: Pikes Peak is a summit in Missouri which lies two miles southwest of Bloomsdale and is the high point of a complex ridge between Coots Creek and Carpenter Branch.


text:
IAN MALCOLM DAVID LITTLE, (18 December 1918 – 13 July 2012) was the son of Malcolm Orme Little and his wife Iris Hermione née Brassey. He was a British economist.[1]

Little was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, where he read PPE, graduating with a First in 1947. During World War II, he served as a test pilot in the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment and flew autogiros, and was awarded the Air Force Cross. After the War, he began a DPhil at Nuffield College, Oxford under the supervision of John Hicks, with whom he clashed. Hicks threatened to have Little's studentship rescinded, but Little was elected a prize fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1948, where he completed his doctorate.[2]

Little's doctoral thesis was published by Oxford University Press in 1950 as _A Critique of Welfare Economics_ and proved to be influential, selling 70,000 copies. He was elected a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford in 1950 and an official fellow of Nuffield College in 1952. Between 1953 and 1955 he was seconded to HM Treasury as the Deputy Director of the Economic Section. He was Professor of Economics of Underdeveloped Countries at Oxford between 1971 and 1976.[3]

In the 1970s, Little criticized the then-dominant protectionist approach to developmental economics, and advocated for trade liberalization by developing countries, an approach which would later prove to be influential. Among his students was Manmohan Singh who, as India's Finance Minister, adopted many of the policies advocated by Little.

Little was elected to the British Academy in 1973 and appointed a CBE in 1997.[4]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

title: Ian Little (economist)

question: What did Little do during World War II?

answer: Little served as a test pilot in the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment.

question: What was Little's doctoral thesis titled?

answer: A Critique of Welfare Economics.

question: Summarize Ian's career.

answer:
Malcolm was elected as a fellow of Trinity College in 1950 and an official fellow of Nuffield College in 1952. He was also seconded to HM Treasury as Deputy Director of the Economics Section between 1953 and 1955. Little was a Professor of Economics of Underdeveloped Countries at Oxford for five years.

He was appointed a CBE in 1997.

question: Who were Malcolm's students?

answer: Manmohan Singh who was India's Finance Minister was one among many of Malcolm's students.

question: Write a ~7 sentence summary.

answer:
Ian Malcolm David Little was a British Economist. Ian served as a test pilot during World War II. His doctoral thesis was published by Oxford University Press. Little was elected a fellow of Trinity College and an official fellow of Nuffield College. He also seconded to HM Treasury as Deputy Director of the Economics Section.

He criticized the then-dominant protectionist approach to developmental economics. Little was elected to the British Academy and appointed a CBE.


text:
Following _Evangelion_ creator Hideaki Anno's illustration of _Space Battleship Yamato_ for the cover of the _Anime Busience's_ first issue and _Evangelion_ original character designer and manga author Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's _Akira _cover on the second, _Akira_ creator Katsuhiro Otomo is the latest luminary to cover the business journal with an_ Astro Bo_y cover on the third.

[]

The new issue discusses the PlayStation 4, along with game development and game to anime adaptations with history of _[email protected]_ and a discussion between Gen Urobuchi and Dai Sata, as well as exploring the effects of smartphones on the industry, a look at the history of anime studio Trigger, and a discussion between Keiichi Hara, Shinji Higuchi  and Mamoru Hosoda.

[]

[]

via Natalie

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_Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime._

question: What is Space Battleship Yamato?

answer: Presumably an anime

question: Who is Yoshiyuki Sadamoto?

answer: An original character designer and manga author

question: Who is  Gen Urobuchi

answer: Unclear

question: Who is Scott Green?

answer: The author and editor/reporter for anime and manga at Ain't It Cool News.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo is the lateset luminary to cover the business journal with an Astro  Boy cover. First was Hideaki Anno's illustration of Space Battleship Yamato and second Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's Akira cover. The new issue also discusses the Playstation 4 and explores the effects of smartphones on the industry.


text:
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The modern Patriot movement emerged shortly after the declaration of the Cold War though it had already been in the making for decades. Its origins lie with various super patriot groups such as the American Protective League (APL) that sprang up during World War I and the "non-interventionist" groups that began to appear in the years leading up to the Second World War. Many of these group surrounding the World Wars had direct ties to one another and many of these "Americanist" activists would lend a hand to the Cold War-era Patriot movement as well.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  []
  the APL would be used by US intelligence services first to weed out German agents during WWI, then to hunt down communists during the nation's First Red Scare
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many of the pre-Cold War era groups shared a paranoid obsession with some type of coming communist revolution; a pathological hatred of trade unions, entitlement programs and taxes in general; a firm belief that American and Christian culture was simultaneously under attack; and an obsession with conspiracy theories frequently revolving around Jews, Freemasons, and the Communist International. More than a few of them also embraced paramilitarism and attempted to train members for local militias.

[]

Obviously, many of these characteristics were passed on to their descendants in the Cold War-era groups that spurred the modern Patriot movement. These latter organizations also acquired the same self-delusions of their forebears, namely that they were some type of grassroots, anti-establishment movement. This could not be further from the truth.

As was noted in my examination of the American Security Council (a lobby group that had extensive ties to the modern-day Patriot movement throughout its heyday; said articles can be found here, here, here and here), many of these pre-World War II groups were not only well-funded and featured support from major corporations and wealthy individuals alike, but they also had deep ties to the US intelligence community. Consider, for instance, the saga of John Trevor Sr. A military intelligence officer shortly after World War I, he was involved in organizing a vigilante group to protect New York City from "subversive" elements (an actively that was almost surely done on behalf the joint military/FBI industrial security operations).

  "... a Harvard-educated lawyer and industrialist descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence and... a member of New York's social elite, had served as an officer in military intelligence just after World War I, a role in which he 'made his own rules, gave himself his own assignments,' according to a colleague at the time. For example, Trevor Sr. developed a plan to suppress a mass uprising of Jewish subversives in New York City, going so far as to order 6,000 rifles and a machine gun battalion for deployment in Jewish neighborhoods in anticipation of a disturbance that never took place. Keeping secret ties to military intelligence even after his return to civilian life, the elder Trevor became, according to one historian, 'one of the most influential unelected individuals affiliated with U.S. Congress,' testifying in the hearings that led to the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 and crafting its plan to designate national quotas for each country based on the number of residents in the United States in 1890, before the bulk of the immigration from southern and eastern Europe. To defend the quotas, in 1929 Trevor founded the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, which quickly became an umbrella organization for numerous far-right groups; later named as the coalition's 'honorary president' was C. M. Goethe, a president of the ERA who strongly recommended the 'marvelous eugenics program of Hitler' as a model that the United States must adopt if it were to have any chance of becoming 'Germany's successful rival.'

  (_The Funding of Scientific Racism,_ William M. Turner, pgs. 60-61)

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  []
  John Trevor Sr. was one of the first of what would become a staple of the American right: "Patriotic" immigration reformers
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trevor would go on to propagate for the Nazi regime throughout the 1930s before rebranding himself as an anti-communist patriot in the post-WWII era.

  "John Trevor... were among fifteen Americans whose names appeared inside a 1933 Nazi book, recommending it for an American audience. Begun with an endorsement by Adolf Hitler, the book contains such statements as 'The total contrast to Jewish-Marxist-Bolshevikism is exclusively represented by German National Socialism.' In 1942... the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies was named by the Justice Department as a factor in the sedition charges brought against those thought to be aiding the Axis.

  "... John Trevor... and... associates all became patriotic anticommunist after World War II, however, aiding Senator Joe McCarthy, lobbying for a more intense cold war, and supporting reprieves for convicted Nazi war criminals...

   "John Trevor was a leader of a group, Ten Million Americans Mobilizing for Justice, attempting to prevent the censure of Joe McCarthy. It's leadership represented a Who's Who of American anti-Semitism. At their 1954 rally for McCarthy, a female photographer taking pictures of the special guest section of _Time_ magazine was physically assaulted amid shouts of 'Dirty Jew' and 'Hang the communist bitch!'"

  (_Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party_, Russ Bellant, pgs. 32-33)

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  []
  the "conspiracy" against Joe McCarthy would become a fixture of the Patriot movement by the 1960s
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trevor's son, John Trevor Jr., and his American Coalition for Patriotic Societies (ACPS) would go on to form a close relationship with the American Security Council, a "think tank" with close ties to the U.S. military and intelligence community that was actively engaged in compiling files on Ameircans seeking employment for defense contractors and other industries deemed vital to national security (as examined in depth before here and here). It would seem that the Trevor family and the super-patriot ACPS never really left the US intelligence community. Such was the case of many such pre-WWII super-patriot groups.

And the same can also be said of their Cold War-era predecessors.

It is the purpose of this series and future sequels to expose the Patriot movement for what it truly is: A decades spanning PSYOP and terror campaign directed at the American public. I realize that I'm opening a can of worms here and thus I feel compelled to make a few disclaimers off the bat:

First, it is not my intention to label everyone who has ever shown interest in the movement as an extremist or worse. Recluse has spent most of his life living in the South and grew up with a father long fascinated by Patriot ideology. I realize that the bulk of people who have become involved with the movement over the years are decent people. The same can not be said, however, of the forces behind the movement as I shall endeavor to reveal.

Secondly, I'm not trying to argue that ever tenant of the movement is untrue. Indeed, the best and most effective propaganda often sticks to facts while avoiding telling the entire story.

For instance, one of the long standing allegations of the Patriot movement is that the United States has been totally controlled by a group of banking elites (aka, the "Eastern Establishment") with ties to international "think tanks" such as the Round Table groups, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg group since the end of the Civil War. This is partly correct – the Eastern Establishment _did_ dominate the American political landscape (though never totally controlled it) from roughly the end of the Civil War to the 1960s. But the long despised Eastern Establishment was not the only game in town and by the end of the Second World War it was facing some stiff competition: the rising tides of the military-industrial complex, the oil cartels, and organized crime. What's more, this economic shifts also conferred much more power on military men themselves as well as the emerging US intelligence community (more information on this power shift can be found here).

[]

It was this latter faction that the Patriot movement was aligned with, one that would unite far right ideologues from business, the military, and the US intelligence community in a united front against the waning Eastern Establishment, which they had long viewed as soft on communism.

With this in mind, let me take the opportunity now to dispel two long-standing myths surrounding the Patriot movement before beginning in earnest concerning its origins. The first is the movement's long-standing claims of poverty –it often depicts itself as perpetually underfunded, in stark contrast to liberal grassroots movements. In point of fact, the Patriot movement was not even a true grassroots movement during its inception as many of its early supporters came from upper-middle-class backgrounds. Consider the supporters of the John Birch Society, the first major organization of the modern day Patriot movement:

  "One detailed study of members' demographics and political attitudes found the Society's membership to be disproportionately young, upper middle class, well-educated (in technical fields more than in liberal arts), Protestant fundamentalists in religious orientation, and favorable towards the Republican Party. Membership was strongest in the southern and western regions of the country, and the relatively less populated states, and in areas characterized by recent population influxes. Over 50 percent of those sampled held high-status occupations and earned upper-middle-class incomes. The study suggested a relationship between the Protestant fundamentalism of Society members, with its emphasis on personal sin and responsibility, and their attraction to conspiracy theories, which tend to elevate the casual importance of the misdeeds of individuals over that of larger social forces. In terms of political attitudes, the study found Birchers to be advocates of an increased role for states' rights versus the authority of the federal government, of reduced government spending on social programs, of a tougher military policy to win decisively against communism (e.g., in Vietnam), and of less use of non-military foreign policy initiatives, such as the efforts of the United Nations. Birchists opposed medicare, social security, farm subsidies, pro-union legislation, disarmament, and foreign aid. They wanted a return to the gold standard and a reduction of government regulation over business. In essence, the politics of Birchists were characteristically right-wing; they opposed government policies to distribute wealth and power more equitably, and they endorsed government policies to enforce traditional order at home and abroad.

  "The policy preferences of Birchists were consistent with those of other right-wing organizations, both the elite in mass-based..."

  (_Roads to Dominion_, Sara Diamond, pg. 55)

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  []
  Bircher Ralph Westfall speaks in favor of the Vietnam War in Hyde Park circa 1965 amidst protests from the budding counterculture
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a whole, the Patriot movement enjoyed ample corporate support as well.

  "Before and after the formation of the John Birch Society, corporations played a major role in rallying the public to the anticommunist cause. One study of corporate anticommunist education programs traced the trend to the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act which granted employers the right to distribute literature to counter labor union organizing. By 1963, corporations were spending an estimated $25 million per year on anticommunist literature distributed to consumers and to employees at the job site. Sponsoring corporations included major firms such as Goodyear Tire, Minnesota Mining, Boeing Airplane Co., Jones & Laughlin Steel, Texas Power & Light, as well as smaller companies that came to be associated with grassroots groups like the John Birch Society:  Knott's Berry Farm, Dr. Ross Dog Food, Cherokee Textile Mills, Allen-Bradley Corporation, and others. Some corporations circulated print and audio-visual materials produced by the John Birch Society; other companies produce their own in-house literature. Coast Federal Savings and Loan Association in Los Angeles conducted one of the largest customer education programs, distributing millions of leaflets and booklets at a cost of about $250,000 a year.

  "Coast Federal provided customers with a 'Patriotic Program Log,' listing radio and television schedules and corporate sponsors for leading anticommunist broadcasters: Paul Harvey, Billy James Hargis, Fulton Lewis Jr., Reverend Carl McIntire, Dan Smoot, and Dean Manion. By the early 1960s, the _Nation_ magazine reported that there was a minimum of 6,600 corporate-financed anticommunist broadcast, carried by more than 1,300 radio and television stations at a total annual budget of about $20 million. Broadcast themes included opposition to foreign aid, the United Nations, the Supreme Court, labor unions, medicare, and 'forced integration.' Leading sponsors included Texas oil billionaire H. L. Hunt and Howard, J. Pew of Sun Oil. The corporate sector's massive anticommunist propaganda campaign created a favorable climate for the mobilization of activist groups like the John Birch Society."

  (ibid, pg. 52)

[]

Keep in mind that this massive putsch was unfolding even throughout the 1960s, a timeframe typically associated with hippies and the counterculture. Indeed, the conspiratorial right has long depicted such things as a well-funded, elite-controlled PSYOP. And such an allegation is not without a grain of truth. For instance, it's undeniable that the spread of LSD to the general public was facilitated in no small part by the CIA. That being said, however, there is precious little to indicate that the acid culture that emerged from it was somehow preplanned. In point of fact, the US intelligence community as a whole was genuinely shocked by these developments. The conservative men of the CIA and military had by and large never viewed LSD as anything more than a weapon. The notion that millions of Americans would find the taking of it pleasurable, and some would even view it as a kind of sacrament, was by and large a revelation.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  []
  not especially useful for promoting imperialism or even consumerism
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------

To be sure, there were certainly more than a few attempts to infiltrate and discredit the counterculture (as I noted before here and here) but it can not be wholly dismissed as a PSYOP. In reality, the counterculture was far more of an actual grassroots movement than the Patriot movement, which largely drew it supporters from "former" high ranking military men and upper middle class WASPs. Unsurprisingly, the funding of the Patriot movement vastly exceed that of the New Left even at the height of the counterculture.

  "One of the reasons for the importance of the Far Right in America, despite it's clear oddities, is that it has at its disposal an incredible amount of money; had the Far Left but half as much no doubt, the revolution would already have taken place. Careful studies of a decade ago estimated that between $20- and $30-million was spent on Far Right activities, and this has surely increased since..."

  (_Power Shift_, Kirkpatrick Sale, pgs. 99-100)

Another major myth promoted by the Patriot movement is that of legal harassment. In point of fact, outside of notorious orders such as the Ku Klux Klan, there was not a serious attempt by the FBI or any other federal agency to crackdown on the Patriot movement for decades. Consider, for instance, the timidity of COINTELPRO-type (COunter INTElligence PROgram was a 1960s-era FBI operation designed to infiltrate, discredit and/or disrupt political organizations) operations against the Posse Comitatus (which was, for years, by far the most militant and violent of Patriot groups) despite claims to the contrary.

  "The basic radical-right complaint that it had been the target of COINTELPRO abuses was justified, even if the rhetoric used to denounce the government was steeped in bigotry and exaggerated claims. However, it is difficult to make the case that the Bureau's investigation of the Posse included illegal COINTELPRO-style methods. Little evidence exists to support the charge, either in the Bureau's own records, in news reports, or from other sources. Unlike its treatment of dissident groups under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI seemed to respect the constitutional rights of Posse members. Among other things, it closed investigations early – sometimes too early – as soon as it judged that the targeted individuals were engaged in constitutionally protected activity and were not planning any crimes. This is a far cry from the 'anything goes' mentality of the Hoover era. A more serious problems stemmed from the on-again, off-again investigative approach taken by local officers where agents – out of laziness, sympathy with right-wing groups, or concerns for career advancement – did not appear to take the Posse Comitatus very seriously. The memos from Director Kelly may have clamored for more  substantial information from the field, but investigating right-wing hate groups was not a path to promotion in the Bureau – that came more readily to agents who distinguished themselves by working 'real' cases involving bank robbery, kidnapping, and murder. The consequences of this dynamic proved embarrassing two decades later when, in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Bureau had to scramble to get up to speed on the right-wing hate groups because it failed to devote sufficient resources to the problem much earlier."

  (_The Terrorist Next Door_, Daniel Levitas, pgs. 137-138)

[]

Even Hoover's assaults against the Patriot movement were rather mild. For instance Robert DePugh, the founder of the Minutemen (one of the first major, nation wide paramilitary movements since prior to WWII), was taken down in 1969 (in Truth or Consequence, New Mexico no less) but by this time evidence suggests that the most militant wing of the Minutemen had already been taken over by a former military intelligence officer who would continue to operate unfettered by law enforcement until the mid-1980s. A reoccurring theme amongst Patriot movement arrests is that the figures taken down are frequently either buffoons or aging members whose usefulness is long past while clever and vigorous operators go about their merry business.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  []
  as shall be examined in a future installment this series, Robert DePugh's Minutemen were likely being used as a front for a farm ore serious paramilitary organization
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What's more, these downfalls are frequently punctuated with incidences of high strangeness and bizarre synchronicities, possibly indicating some type of Downardian "psycho-drama." Such possibilities will be considered in greater depth as we encounter them. But I digress – let us return to the origins of the Patriot movement.

While rarely acknowledged, it seems that much of the ideology of the modern-day patriot movement was derived by various former high-ranking military officers, more than a few of them with a background in intelligence, who became obsessed with the "communist conspiracy" in the wake of the Second World War. One of the earliest and most adamant proponents of such things was General Albert Wedemeyer. As was noted in one of my installments concerning the American Security Council, General Wedemeyer had spent extensive time in Germany in the 1930s where he developed close ties to both the military and the Nazi party. Wedemeyer is widely suspected as the leaker of the "Rainbow 5" documents that revealed US military plans prior to the nation's entry into the Second World War.

In the post-WWII era Wedemeyer was still expressing admiration for the Nazi regime while warning of the Judaic-communist conspiracy.

  "Wedemeyer's career deserves scrutiny. He was part of a military circle that was anti-Jewish. A few years after the war, Wedemeyer wrote a letter to his close friend, retired Col. Truman Smith, that Zionists, the British and communists made America's entry into the war certain. Later, Wedemeyer stated that 'most of the people associated with communism in the early days were Jewish.'

  "He further claimed that Roosevelt's Jewish advisers did everything possible to spread venom and hatred against the Nazis. He stated that during his attendance at the German War College in 1936, his eyes were opened to the number of Jews in the American government by reading the _Die Frankfurter Zietung_ and _Die Berliner_. The Nazis control both papers.

  "In 1937, Wedemeyer linked the shortage of food in Germany to the Jewish question. Using the embassy's attaché stationery, Wedemeyer wrote to friends dismissing the food shortage as caused by poor weather and crop failures. He claimed the Jews in other countries have bought up the enormous quantities of foodstuffs and intentionally diverted the shipments from Germany.

  "As late as 1958, Wedemeyer was still voicing pro-Nazi opinions. He ignored the Nazis racial ideology, describing _Lebensraum_ as merely a national movements to win living space. Wedemeyer used the same historical analogues as the Nazi propagandist, comparing the German invasions and expansions eastward with the American expansion westward..."

  "Wedemeyer opposed creating the State of Israel, as did Black and other members of his circle of friends. After retiring, Wedemeyer became a writer for the John Birch Society and a member of the American Security Council."

  (_The Nazi Hydra in America_, Glen Yeadon & John Hawkins, pg. 243-244)

  -------------------
  []
  General Wedemeyer
  -------------------

Another former military man deeply involved in spreading communist conspiracy theories in the wake of WWII General Bonner Fellers, a psychological warfare officer. In an interview with journalist Cheri Seymour, William Potter Gale (a former military intelligence officer who founded the Posse Comitatus) recounted a story told to him by Fellers concerning secret arrangements made between FDR, the Soviet Union and the British during WWII:

  "Gale leaned back, eyes narrowing. 'When General Fellers was in the Middle East, he submitted a plan to the War Department and to the White House that would have ended World War II in 1942 with Germany. His plan was to provide B-24's, which had just come into mass production in the United States, to air bases in Turkey and the Middle East, which were already secured with 400,000 displaced Allied troops. The German Army had its full ground strength situated 2,000 miles into the Ukraine, with only one supply line, against the communist, the Red Army. And the Germans had no plans – all our military intelligence confirm this – the Germans had no intention of invading Britain!

  "'Germany had not one troop in the northern coast of Europe as far as ground strength was concerned. And, all that we had to do was bomb out that one supply line with B-24s... The Germans were fully committed against the communists in the Ukraine with a supply line 2,000 miles long! Germany would have had to surrender, and the war would have ended in 1942.'

  "His eyes became coldly brilliant. 'And, that was General Fellers' plan. And when that plan hit the War Department, the fur flew. General Fellers was relieved the next day as military advisor to the Middle East. And that's why he was sent to the Southwest Pacific.

  "'Well, I said, what's wrong with winning the war like that, against Germany? Fellers said, "Oh, they had broken my code and Winston Churchill had said before the House of Commons that he would not allow General Fellers to come to the European theatre even with the OSS." He did not want him to have anything to do with it. He had broken General Fellers' code and intercepted that message and put the heat on the White House.

  "'I couldn't figure all this out. And then General Feller said, "Well, what they don't know is that I broke their code, too. And I know what they did. I have the evidence that Churchill and Roosevelt made a deal with the communists, the Soviet Union, to give Germany to the communists in exchange for leaving the Middle East as a sphere of British influence after the war ends."' He fell silent, gazing sightlessly out the window."

  (_Committee of the States_, Cheri Seymour, pgs. 44-45)

  ------------------------
  []
  General Bonner Fellers
  ------------------------

This is hardly the extent of Fellers' contributions to Patriot movement ideology. We shall return to him again in a future installment in this series, so keep the general in mind.

Another military intelligence officer who played an enormous role in the spread of communist conspiracy theories was Colonel John Beaty.

  "The book, _Iron Curtain over America_, first published in 1951, scared the military community half to death. Its author, Colonel John Beaty, had written or collaborated on a dozen books, many of which were used in hundreds of colleges and universities. His education (M.A., University of Virginia; Ph.D., Columbia University; post-graduate study, University of Montpellier, France), his travels in Europe and Asia, and his five years with the Military Intelligence Service during World War II created the background for his research."

  (ibid, pg. 217)

_Iron Curtain over America_ was enormously influential amongst the Patriot movement in the years following its publication and is still considered a classic in certain branches of the conspiratorial right, most especially the Jewish conspiracy strands, to this day.

  "And in 1951, a former intelligence officer published the most the viscerally anti-Semitic books since the war, a work enthusiastically endorsed and promoted by three generals and an admiral: _The Iron Curtain over America_, still offered by neo-Nazi groups a half century later as an indispensable primer on the Jews. _The Iron Curtain_ described a conspiracy to dominate the world in which the 'Judaized Khazars' behind Bolshevikism had infiltrated the U.S. government and fostered the war not to end dictatorship, but to kill Aryans and 'annihilate[e]... Germany, the historical bulwark of Christian Europe."

  (_The Funding of Scientific Racism_, William M. Turner, pg. 29)

[]

Beaty was, to the best of this researcher's knowledge, the first author in the wake of WWII to revive the highly controversial notion that modern Jews are not descendant from ancient Israel, but are Khazars who converted to Judaism in either the eighth or ninth century A.D. Beaty would argue that the Khazar Jews were behind the spread of communism and that they were stealthy taking over the United States.

  "Lamenting the inhumane treatment of Germany after World War II by a 'Communist influenced America,' Beaty drew parallels between communism and Judaism, and ultimately outlined the great conspiracy; the right-wing notion that America have been infiltrated by communist/Jewish aliens, and was now ruled by a Zionist/Communist Occupied Government (Z.O.G.).

  "The ancient tribe of people known as the Khazars from Russia were the descendants of the 'infiltrators' whom Beaty claimed immigrated to the United States and ultimately became Z.O.G..."

  (_The Committee of the States_, Cheri Seymour, pg. 221)

[]

And there you have to likely origins of "Z.O.G.," a notion conceived by a "former" military intelligence officer and promoted by the top brass. As the years went on the anti-Semitic elements of the "communist conspiracy" were gradually downplayed by the more "mainline" elements of the Patriot movement in favor of less controversial targets, such as the Freemasons and the Illuminati. But rest assured, a _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_-type slant was prevalent in virtually all of the early strands of such notions.

And it is here that I shall wrap things up presently. Now that I've briefly outlined some of the origins of the modern-day Patriot movement I can begin to get down to the real nitty-gritty, namely the three distinct strands that would define the movement to this very day: The John Birch Society strand, the Liberty Lobby strand, and the Posse Comitatus variety. All three were linked not only to the US military and intelligence community, but even more sinister forces, as shall be examined in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

[]

question: What is the APL?

answer: The APL, or the American Protective League, is an organization with close ties to right-wing organisations since the beginning of the Cold War. They are thought to be a major contributor to the modern Patriot movement.

question: Are the people involved in the APL associated with far-right groups including the Nazis?

answer: Yes, though usually passively, with an appreciation for the doctrine preached by Hitler. John Trevor Sr. is the main focus of the article. Though after WWII was finished, he rebranded himself as an anti-communist.

question: What was COINTELPRO?

answer: The (CO)unter (INTEL)ligence (PRO)gram was a 1960's era program set up to infiltrate and discredit certain government organisations.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: This article recounts the origins of the Patriot Movement in the U.S.A, with a purpose to further explain its effects to this day. It takes into account those involved in the movement, and those who were against it. Te article lists names and then speaks of their involvement through reports and interviews.


text:
[]

__News Africa

AMONG THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PATRIOTS THAT POLAND CELEBRATES FOR SERVING IN THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT IN WORLD WAR TWO THERE IS ONE BLACK, NIGERIA-BORN MAN.

Jazz musician August Agboola Browne was in his forties, and had been in Poland for 17 years, when he joined the struggle against Nazi occupation in 1939 – thought to be the only black person in the country to do so.

Under the code name “Ali”, he fought for his adopted country during the Siege of Warsaw when Germany invaded, and later in the Warsaw Uprising, which ended 76 years ago this month.

Astoundingly, he survived the war in which 94% of the residents of Poland’s capital were either killed or displaced, and continued living in the ravaged city until 1956 when he emigrated with his second wife to Britain.

[Monument in Warsaw]IMAGE COPYRIGHTWOJCIECH ZAŁUSKI

image captionA monument to Browne was erected in Warsaw last year

A small stone monument in Warsaw now commemorates Browne’s life. But the scant details that there are may never have been known were it not for an application he made to join a veterans’ association in 1949.

The document was filed away for six decades, until 2009, when Zbigniew Osinski from the Warsaw Rising Museum came across it.

This form, filled out in beautiful cursive handwriting and with a passport-style photo attached to one corner, is his Rosetta Stone – the documentary fragment that led researchers to interpret isolated facts about his life and locate living descendants.

In the picture, Browne, dressed in a jacket and a snugly fitting jumper, looks lively and youthful with a hint of a smile on his face. All who met Browne described him as a handsome man and a sharp dresser.

[August Browne's passport photo]IMAGE COPYRIGHTOFFICE OF VETERANS AND VICTIMS OF OPPRESSION

By this time he was in his fifties, as the form reveals that he was born on 22 July 1895 to Wallace and Jozefina in Lagos – then part of the British Empire.

He arrived in England aboard a British merchant ship with his longshoreman father. From there, he joined a theatre troupe touring Europe and ended up in Poland via Germany.

‘Sheltered ghetto refugees’

Frustratingly, the form does not say what inspired him to leave Nigeria, or make Poland his destination, so an adventurous spirit seems the likeliest explanation. But by the 1930s, he became a celebrated jazz percussionist playing in Warsaw’s restaurants.

What Browne did write was that in the resistance he distributed underground newspapers, traded electronic equipment and “sheltered refugees from the ghetto”. This was a sealed-off area of the city in which Jews were forced by the Nazis to live and where 91,000 died from starvation, disease and murder. Some 300,000 were transported to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps.

[2px presentational grey line]

Warsaw Uprising

[Polish fighters holding rifles]IMAGE COPYRIGHTUNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

-   The Polish underground, known as the Home Army, attacked the German occupying forces on 1 August
-   They swiftly gained control of much of the city
-   Germany sent reinforcements and the nearby Soviet army did not help
-   The Poles surrendered on 2 October after 63 days
-   200,000 civilians and 16,000 Polish fighters died

_Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica and Warsaw Rising Museum_

[2px presentational grey line]

It appears that for Browne, staying in Poland after the war was a choice – as a citizen of the British Empire, he had the opportunity to leave.

When he arrived in Poland, he first settled in Krakow where he married his first wife, Zofia Pykowna, with whom he had two sons, Ryszard and Aleksander.

The marriage failed but at the outbreak of the war, Browne arranged for his children and their mother to seek refuge in England. But – perhaps committed to the Polish struggle – Browne did not go with them.

The incomplete jigsaw of information gives rise to many questions about his life.

‘A quiet, private man’

Tatiana, his daughter from his second, much longer, marriage to Olga Miechowicz, was born and brought up in London and is his only surviving child in Britain. She says he never talked about what had happened to him.

She is now 61 – her father died in 1976 when she was 17. She remembers him as “very quiet, very private, and quite distant” and that he never discussed his background in Poland or his early years in Lagos.

Tatiana is not certain why neither of her parents told her much about their past. She suspects it was to bury the trauma they endured and atrocities they witnessed.

[Polish fighters being led away]IMAGE COPYRIGHTKEYSTONE

image captionPolish soldiers surrendered after 63 days of fighting and were taken as prisoners of war

Thinking back, she recalls watching a documentary about the war with her parents and her mother saying: “I remember seeing people being hanged in the streets; I know that’s true because I saw it with my own eyes.”

But there was no discussion and now she wishes they had told her more.

Browne, though, never turned his back on the Polish culture that he had lived in for almost 35 years, and Tatiana says that Polish was the only language spoken in their London home.

He was remembered by an acquaintance in Poland for speaking “the purest Polish language, even with a Warsaw accent”. He was fluent in several languages.

“Dad taught me how to read and write in English,” Tatiana says.

‘Quick wit and real charm’

How the musician, who as a black person would have been so conspicuous, was able to survive in Nazi-occupied Poland remains a mystery.

Two other African men, Jozef Diak from Sudan, and Sam Sandi, whose exact place of origin on the continent is unclear, had served in the Polish army during the Polish-Bolshevik War (1919-1921) and remained in Warsaw afterwards, but both died before World War Two began.

Discounting them and Browne, experts say there may have been two other black Warsaw residents in the interwar years, professional entertainers whose traces disappear during the occupation.

But Tatiana’s recollection of her father’s charismatic personality may give a clue to his own endurance.

“Dad had a real quick wit and a real charm about him,” Tatiana says.

“When we used to go to church on a Sunday, I used to see him interact with other people. He had a real warmth that drew you in so you automatically liked him.

“When he was in company with other people, there was just this [energy]. People were drawn to him.”

[Map of his life]

[1px transparent line]

Browne’s story emerged in 2009 at a time of heightened patriotism and xenophobia in Poland.

It drew immediate interest from across the political spectrum and there were calls to memorialise him as a national hero.

At that time, then-President Lech Kaczynski, co-founder of the conservative Law and Justice party, wanted to “honour him on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising”, said Krzysztof Karpinski, a jazz historian who served as vice-president of the Polish Jazz Association, which was contacted by Kaczynski’s office for more information about Browne.

But Kaczynski died in a plane crash in 2010 and the plan apparently went with him.

It was not until last year that a small monument to the Nigerian-Polish resistance fighter was finally unveiled. That was funded by a non-profit organisation, the Freedom and Peace Movement Foundation. His war service is honoured by conservatives and progressives alike to symbolise the Poland of today.

[Gravestone]

image captionBrowne was buried in a cemetery in north London

Browne led a modest existence in England for the last two decades of his life. He continued working as a musician, at first doing session work. When he got older, “we had a piano at home so he used to give piano lessons,” Tatiana says.

They were a “lovely family,” Dr Michael Modell, who treated Browne for cancer, remembers.

He died at the age of 81 in 1976 and is buried under a plain headstone in a north London cemetery.

There is no sign of the traumatic and tumultuous events that he had been part of, which reflects the way he apparently lived his life in London.

“To me, it was just me growing up at home with a mum and dad. Whatever our life was, it was my normal,” Tatiana says.

_Nicholas Boston, PhD, is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the City University of New York, Lehman College. He was assisted by Wojciech Załuski in Poland._

__

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question: When was the article written?

answer: Sometime after 2010

question: How was Browne's story rediscovered?

answer: Browne filled out an application to join a veterans' association, and his application was found by Zbigniew Osinski of the Warsaw Rising Museum

question: When was Browne born?

answer: July 22, 1895

question: What was Browne's job before the war?

answer: He was a jazz musician

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: August Agboola Browne was a black, Nigerian-born Polish resistance fighter during WWII. His story was recently rediscovered by Zbigniew Osinski of the Warsaw Rising Museum, and a statue in Warsaw was recently created in his honor.


text:
The water ran like molasses, tinged crimson with the blood of the the swordsman's fallen foes. Countless bodies, some with missing limbs, lay broken in the surf. The swordsman lay on the rust-red sand, his left arm trapped underneath the battered torso of an enemy archer. He had tried to stand, but his legs didn't seem to work. His blade, eighteen inches of lethally sharp, carefully-detailed steel, was half-buried in the ground.

Night fell. As the sun dipped below the waves, its glow illuminated a solitary figure staggering down the beach. The black-armored man stepped over mutilated corpses, kicking aside a half-shattered helmet. The swordsman grunted in pain as he raised his head, in an attempt to identify the shadowy fighter. Suddenly, his mind flashed with recognition. The bloodied, scarred man standing before him was none other than the one he had trusted with his darkest secrets, with his most desperate plans and the terrible details of his horrific past. It was his Lieutenant.

"So, it was you." The swordsman spit blood onto the sand. "It was you who let the enemy know. You let my men, your men, the soldiers who trusted you to lead them, die at the hands of their worst foes." The Lieutenant said nothing. With a burst of lightning quickness, the swordsman pulled his weapon from the sand. Rivulets of blood ran down the side of the blade. He stifled a scream of pain as he pushed himself up on his elbow, and then rolled to his feet. Painful as it was, the swordsman took a fighting stance. A look of amused surprise slowly appeared on the Lieutenant's face. He reached behind his back and drew a bone-white sword, its smoothly-finished metal hilt glinting in the dying sunlight. "Don't fight me, my General," the Lieutenant said. "It cannot end well for you. Stand down, and I'll make this quick." The swordsman responded with a single, sad shake of his head. Then he charged.

The swordsman's blade came down in a silver arc, spattering blood across the already-saturated ground. The Lieutenant, taken aback at his former commander's spurt of energy, was forced to parry. He whipped his blade around at the swordsman's head, only to find that the old man was no longer where he expected. The swordsman had ducked under the slash, bringing the tip of his sword up into his opponent's armpit. The Lieutenant screamed in rage, his armor penetrated. His foot swung furiously back, catching the swordsman by the ankle. The swordsman fell, exhaling thunderously as he hit the beach. The Lieutenant's blade was a white blur as it swung down at its master's old friend and confidant, but it was rebuffed by the swordsman's leather vambrace. The swordsman rolled to the right, sprung to his feet, and delivered a vicious kick to the side of his subordinate's head. As the swordsman landed, he pummeled the Lieutenant's sword hand with the hilt of his blade. The Lieutenant cried out, his hand shattered. His blade, once as white as ivory, was bloodied by the sand upon which it landed. The swordsman brought his blade down in a savage curve, severing the Lieutenant's head. The body of the swordsman's foe hit the surf, splashing bloody water onto the victorious General.

The swordsman, his energy spent, laboriously opened the fingers of his right hand, allowing his blade to fall. He sank to his knees, a slow stream of blood staining his cheek. He sighed, and his body twisted around as he landed on his back. He let out one last groan as he looked up at the silver circle of the moon, the seawater lapping up past his ancient greaves. And as the breath left his body, the swordsman realized that he had reached his equilibrium. He was, at last, at peace.

title: At Peace

question: Why is the Lieutenant surprised?

answer: He may not have thought that the injured swordsman had it in him to stand up and fight due to his injuries.

question: Which of the two combatants is the master and which is the subordinate?

answer: The Lieutenant is the subordinate and the swordsman is the boss.

question: What is the swordsman's rank?

answer: He is a General know that the

question: How does the swordsman that the Lieutenant is responsible for the bloodshed on the field of war?

answer: The story doesn't reveal how the swordsman could have known that the Lieutenant was responsible. His mere survival doesn't render him guilty.


text:
I don't remember the first time I met her, but it was in some kind of abstract kind of way. The colours around us were always loose and steady, mad colours that no one had ever heard of or seen.
Connie and I were both mad you see. We were both seeing psychiatrists, both once a week.

'How have you been the past week? The psychiatrist would say

'Not bad' I would always say. I would very rarely say how bad I'd been feeling.

'And what have you been up to?'

'Nothing much'

'Shall we go over what we talked about last week?'

'Yes, if you want'

Sometimes talking about things made everything worse, a lot of the time I'd come out feeling more depressed than before I came in.
It would go much the same for Connie except she would be much more honest about things.

'Have you been up to much over the past week'

'Yes, a lot' Connie would say 'I've fucked two men since I last saw you'. And the
Psychiatrist's face would be in a kind of shock for a while.

'And anything else?'

'Yes, I've also fucked two women.'

'Oh, my. All that in the last week'

'Yes'

Connie and I spoke nearly every day. We'd fall out quite often and it was usually over something that I did. Mostly not turning up to places that I'd say I was turning up to. Her brother was an alcoholic and I knew him through a friend who he lived in a flat with and he was managing the band I was in at the time. He promised us fame and glory but in the end he turned out to be liar.
Connie's parents were nice people. Her mother was an English teacher and her father was a blues musician.
When I was a gigging musician her father played with us and helped with gigs. He is a very fine musician. The last time I spoke to him he asked If I was still playing music and still with the band?

'No, not anymore' I said

'Why not?

'Musical differences'

'Yes, that happens a lot.'

It was my birthday and Connie was putting on a birthday party for me at her home. She had two kids and a now a dog. Which was a beagle named Gatsby. The first time I met Gatsby I knocked on Connie's front door and she opened it and Gatsby ran out into the road while a car was coming and I ran out into the road and saved him. He tried to bite me after it all. But after that all he does is lick me and give me affection.

The birthday party was on a Saturday. It was originally meant to be on a Monday, then a Tuesday, then a Friday and finally we settled on a Saturday. The reason for all this being a certain person could only make it on a Saturday. Her name was Caitlin and she was a beauty.
She had long dark hair and a body that danced beneath the tide. Connie and Caitlin didn't get on and Connie didn't really want Caitlin at the party but she said it was OK as it's my Birthday.
Connie thought Caitlin was jealous of her because She spent so much time with me and Caitlin was in love with me and she couldn't handle it.

'She's in deep with you, you know' Connie said

'No, she's not'

'Yes, she is. She fucking wants your babies!'

'Oh, God please. Don't be silly'

Connie was on the brink on being an alcoholic and she would say the same of me. I bought mostly whiskey for the birthday party and two crates of beer. We both drank a lot and some would say too much.
There were a few more people attending the party. Mostly girls and one boy and in the end he never turned up.
I arrived at the party at 6 in the evening. It was a sunny day with a slight wind blowing in the distance. It felt soothing on your face. There was only one other person who was there at that time, her name was lotte.

'Hello' she said

'Hey, how long have you been here?' I asked

'Oh, not long. About 20 minutes'

'I see. And what you drinking then?'

'Cider. What about you?'

'Whiskey and beer'

'Manly drinks then'

Yes, I suppose you could say that.'

Connie was busy with her kids. Giving them their supper and getting the younger one ready for bed.
I sat in a chair silently looking around the room. The TV was on. It was some children's programme.
I had my eye on a fly flying about. It flew on the window and then the curtain and then finally landed on the TV which is where it stayed for the remainder of the night. I was waiting on Caitlin mostly. I was looking forward to seeing her.

'When is Caitlin getting here?' Connie asked

'She said 8 o clock to me'

'What time is it now?'

'7:15'. I'm meeting her at the bus station at 8'

Nothing much happened in the next 45 minutes apart from some very small small talk. By then I had had about 3 bottles of beer and Lotte had drank half a bottle of cider and Connie was already drunk.

'I'm off to meet Caitlin' I said

I arrived at the bus stop on time and Caitlin had not yet arrived. It was now rather cold and the sun had gone into hiding. The breeze was cold against my face. Not long the moon was about to make an appearance. I looked up to the sky thinking about things and I felt an empty feeling inside me. I don't know why but my heart heard the dancing of the soul and could not dance to the same rhythm and I felt lost.
It was now 8:25 and Caitlin had not yet arrived. I tried to ring her and there was no answer. I looked up at the sky some more and pondered the world and after pondering the world for another 35 minutes and I gave up and went back to Connie's.

'Where's Caitlin?' Connie asked

'Don't think she's turning up'

'I'm rather glad really'

'Yes. We shall drink the wine I bought for her'

We opened the bottle of wine and drank it from the bottle.

'We're all mad here, you know' said Connie

'What do you mean? I asked

'Lotte is one of us'

'Oh, is she?'

'Yes, she is'

And Lotte smiled splendidly at the situation and became drunk rather quickly. We went into the garden as it turned dark and laughed at the stars while sitting down in the long grass.

'Yes, we're all mad here' we all said

The party was a boring one and we were all home by midnight.

title: A birthday party

question: Provide a possible shared reason as to why the narrator and Connie are seeing the psychiatrist.

answer:
While the narrator outright explains that he and Connie are both 'mad', the narrator does not go into detail about it. It is possible that they have completely different issues that could be loosely summed up as 'mad'.

As an answer to the question, it is possible that the narrator and Connie both have problems with alcohol. It is portrayed in the story that they both like to drink a lot and get drunk. The closing scene introduces Lotte, who is described by Connie to the narrator as "one of us" and immediately describes Lotte getting drunk. So it is likely that in addition to whatever individual issues they may carry, they also see the psychiatrist with regards to their drinking problem.


text:
The FLAG OF SARATOV OBLAST was adopted on 24 December 2007.

The red bottom is 1/3 of the total height and the white stripe is 2/3 of the total height. In the center of the white field is the Coat of Arms of Saratov, surrounded by branches of oak and laurel in the gold color.

title: Flag of Saratov Oblast

question: When was the Flag of Saratov Oblast adopted?

answer: The Flag of Saratov Oblast was adopted on December 24, 2007.

question: How much of the Flag of Saratov Oblast is red?

answer: One third of the flag is red.

question: What is in the white section of the Flag of Saratov Oblast?

answer: The Coat of Arms of Saratov is in the white section of the flag.

question: Which color is on the bottom of the Flag of Saratov Oblast?

answer: Red is on the bottom of the flag.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The Flag of Saratov Oblast is 1/3 red and 2/3 white and contains the Coat of Arms of Saratov.


text:
I can hear them  in the distance. The shouted cries muffled by the wind. These winter winds that trickle down your spine only to pool at the small of your back and chill your aching bones. I can hear their lust for blood. Their drums beat to the pulse of it surging through their veins. It is strange as it is so deafening from it being silently muffled by the distance. So human yet so alien the savage sound of the machines of war. Their operators acting in unison.

As Legion.

So disgustingly grotesque that it shivers my heart as the air my spine. I can hear them clashing swords to shields. Is it not enough that my stomach feels as if I have swallowed a ball of lead? As they grow closer I can hear their heavy footsteps, combined with the weight of unbreachable armor, crushing and snapping the thinner splinters of rock beneath the thin sheet of snow.

'How has it come to this?'

I breath as it is carried away by the wind. I close my eyes and turn to face the brave souls behind me. I open them to be greeted back by countless more. I look into them all. Searching for... Anything. Many bold and unmoving with courage. Some squinting to bear the cold and see through the snow as it begins to fall. Fewer still I saw tears. Most of them new and with small sons or wives yet with child. I dared not to look deeper for behind them all I could see them asking the same question I found asking myself.

'How many of these men will not return home to their wives?'

'How many mothers will not see their sons return home?'

'How many children will never again feel the embrace of their fathers?'

I closed my eyes for a brief moment. I can think of nothing to say to raise their spirits. I opened my eyes and find that words will not be necessary. They, WE, all know why we're here. I pull my sword from its sheath as I turn to face our enemy.

The final battle. The end. Of the end.

The final slash to the throat of an already all but dead kingdom.

And every last one of us knew it. I would have been contempt to lead them elsewhere as nomads. But they refuse and choose to fight anyway. I raise my sword and give one final bellow. Lifting it from the depths of my bowels. Emptying my lungs and spitting the ball of lead from my stomach. The roar echoes behind me. My heart bursts as my veins catch fire and my muscles become a force of unstoppable motions.

I blink.

My eyes demand to take nothing but an eternity to open again. I stare at my sword jutting through the throat of my enemy as he falls to his knees. Blood bubbling up and over his black stained teeth. Even with death ripping through his throat he fell with that horrifying wide eyed grin that can only be powered by an insatiable hunger for blood.

I pull my sword free to find my next target only to discover the circle of an endless armies worth of spear tips trained on me. And all I could think of is how I am the only one left. The bastards bastard. The king of a kingdom that no longer has a kingdom and not even the slightest whisper of a hint of royal blood in my veins. And I am now the only one left to tell their tale. As my mind mulled over this realization, it gave me another question to ponder. Will my captors let me live?

title: The death of a kingdom

question: Who can the narrator hear?

answer: The enemies.

question: Why is the narrator there?

answer: He is preparing for battle.

question: Where is the battle taking place?

answer: Information cannot be found.

question: Why was he kidnapped?

answer: Information cannot be found.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator prepares for battle but gets kidnapped by the enemies in the end. Will his captors let him live?


text:
WADE MEGAN (born July 22, 1990) is an American former professional ice hockey center who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the St. Louis Blues and the Detroit Red Wings.

Playing career

Originally chosen by the Florida Panthers in the 2009 entry draft, Megan played collegiate hockey with Boston University in the Hockey East. Unable to secure a NHL contract with the Panthers, Megan signed his first professional deal with Florida's AHL affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage to begin the 2013–14 season on September 20, 2013.[1]

After three-years within the Panthers AHL affiliates, Megan left as a free agent and secured his first NHL deal, on a one-year, two-way deal with the St. Louis Blues on July 2, 2016.[2] Upon participating in his first training camp with the Blues, Megan was reassigned to start the 2016–17 season, with the Chicago Wolves. On December 22, 2016, Megan received his first recall to the NHL.[3] He made his NHL debut that night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, becoming the first National Hockey League player from the city of Canton, New York.[4] He scored his first NHL goal in the first period in a 5–2 defeat to the Lightning.[5] He was returned to the Wolves following the game.

On July 1, 2018, the Detroit Red Wings signed Megan as a free agent to a one-year, two-way contract.[6] On October 31, 2018, Megan was recalled by the Red Wings. Prior to being recalled, he recorded two goals and two assists in eight games for the Grand Rapids Griffins.[7]

At the conclusion of his contract with the Red Wings, Megan opted to conclude his six-year professional career retiring to found the NoCo Hockey camp in Canton, New York, working as an instructor alongside fellow Canton former pro Kyle Flanagan and coach Mark Phalon.[8]

Personal

He is the son of former professional hockey player, Ron Megan, who played two seasons in the International Hockey League with the Kalamazoo Wings and Peoria Prancers in 1983 and 84.

Career statistics

                                       Regular season        Playoffs
  ------------ ----------------------- ---------------- ---- ---------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ---- --- ----- -----
  Season       Team                    League           GP   G
  2007–08      South Kent Prep         USHS             36   24
  2008–09      South Kent Prep         USHS             32   27
  2009–10      Boston University       HE               35   5
  2010–11      Boston University       HE               39   8
  2011–12      Boston University       HE               39   20
  2012–13      Boston University       HE               38   16
  2012–13      San Antonio Rampage     AHL              13   1
  2013–14      San Antonio Rampage     AHL              43   11
  2013–14      Cincinnati Cyclones     ECHL             16   13
  2014–15      San Antonio Rampage     AHL              59   8
  2014–15      Cincinnati Cyclones     ECHL             5    4
  2015–16      Portland Pirates        AHL              75   14
  2016–17      Chicago Wolves          AHL              73   33
  2016–17      St. Louis Blues         NHL              3    1
  2017–18      Chicago Wolves          AHL              63   11
  2017–18      St. Louis Blues         NHL              1    0
  2018–19      Grand Rapids Griffins   AHL              48   19
  2018–19      Detroit Red Wings       NHL              11   0
  NHL totals   15                      1                1    2

Awards and honors

  Award                   Year   |- ALIGN=“center” bgcolor=“#e0e0e0”   AHL
  ----------------------- ------ ------------------------------------- -----
  First All-Star Team     2017   [9]
  Willie Marshall Award   2017

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

title: Wade Megan

question: Write a ~0 sentence summary.


text:
It had been thought that nothing intangible could ever take the place of actually feeling and experiencing events in life. Video games were great for an escape, but couldn't beat experiencing something important to a person. Sure people had dreamed of the concept of a virtual reality for well over a century. The idea was first made popular to the masses by a movie 150 years ago called The Matrix, where all that one experienced was essentially a program made to appear real.

And so it went until 2130 when man finally made a respectable attempt at merging themselves with technology. The body we learned could truly be but a vessel delivering the mind to a place falling between reality and dreams. All thanks to one company - OmniLife - which made the first virtual reality chamber, called a Cocoon. When the amount of money at stake made evident by the consumers money couldn't be raised fast enough from entrepreneurs looking to cash in on the next craze. This huge financial backing led to the product developing faster then anyone anticipated. The research made another break-through seemingly every month and never really slowed down.

Huge companies, GE, IBM, and many others had their own version of the nuclear arms race of the 2100s, except it was much more harmless then that, companies today were racing with cocoon applications. Still the technology was as cutting edge as it could get.

There were black market apps made, though no one really knew exactly who made them. The more risque experiences of life were now available. They were relatively harmless at first, and as long as you knew someone to "jailbreak" - excuse the old 2010 phrase - your cocoon for you then these more morally ambiguous experiences could be had.

Churches shunned Cocoons as evil, and the faithful resisted for a while. But when cocoon apps began to bring the bible's lessons to the coon-world many churches used them as a tool for teaching. But even for the faithful the other apps were too tempting. Nearly everyone began to incorporate them into their weekends. It was pure pleasure.

Most people recognized the dangerous possibilities that arose from these new time consuming machines. Yet everything had been alright so far, so most people didn't bother creating any stir in regards to taking measures to avoid the downsides that co-inside with Cocoons. Society had their fun right in front of them, resisting was too hard, and the companies too large.

Next thing you know the majority of Americans spent 50% of their weekends in a cocoon. People stop showing up for jobs. There was software for just about everything - fucking, swimming, shopping, even for sleeping - a random, somewhat nonsensical software played like a dream.

The black market developed a much darker side - rape, murders, torture, riots - it could all be done in the virtual world, twisting already twisted minds further and allowing the depraved to get their first taste of blood. When those sick people had their crimes down in the virtual world they wanted to cause real people pain. Thousands began to go missing.

Cocoons weren't all bad - quite the contrary most were relatively clean fun. Cave v3.2 was the best selling software of 2142 - the cave went on for years of playing time, it was extraordinary. Clean experiences which were too dangerous, or simply unobtainable, for any ordinary person were there for the taking. Climbing Mt. Everest could be "done" by a 400 pound man with asthma. Sure there wasn't the feeling of accomplishment, but the view was spectacular.

As the apps for cocooning became more sophisticated it began to dominate the life of the majority of Americans. The technology developed and while at one time only the basic parts of taste could be had - sweet and sour - now eating food in the virtual world was indistinguishable from real life. Touch became increasingly refined too, silk felt like real silk, and skin felt like real skin. Society spent more and more time in the coon-world.

It wasn't good for humanity. Why cut your grass when you can cocoon? Why work? The cocoons were quickly regulated, and no longer was it a private industry, but the government now made the cocoons. Time limits were installed and for a few years things began to return to normal. People were angry with the government though, they had their lives inside the cocoon to get back to. There was an uprising. Suddenly people were being taken from their homes by those sworn to protect us, forced into cocoons which gave the experience of civil unrest, such as riots, but the app ended by giving the user a truly horrific experience so that no one would think a riot would be a good idea. Still the civil uprising won and the regulations were gone.

Something had to be done, there were still the people who chose to live a real life. No one had any answers. Cocoon users began attaching feeding tubes to cocoons, as well as other medical tools so that people's bodies didn't degrade into just skin and bone from those who refused to exit their cocoons even for nourishment or medication. It was everything that we all feared, but only few spoke about a decade ago. No one knew what to do.

The government had a secret meeting and a decision was made "for the greater good."

91% of the population cocooned with an average of 92% of their time. But the few people who decided to live life in reality began to notice a difference in cocooners even when they weren't cocooning. They seemed to be much more mellow, with a low range of moods, it was like they were on auto-run. No one who cocooned noticed the difference, they were essentially hypnotized.

Hospital workers then began to notice a correlation between the disease of Uralomex (a horrific alzheimer's like disease) and cocoon users. Since any evidence of the correlation was stuck in the hospital's government produced software, there was only the word of doctors and nurses - the few who didn't cocoon at all - to explain the worrying new trend. People began to die by the millions.

*I wasn't sure where to go from here. Thanks for reading if you got this far. I would love to expand on any advice about on what direction to take. I'll write a more concrete ending tomorrow but for now that is the ending.*

title: Virtually Lifeless

question: In which time period is this story set?

answer: This story is set around 150 years into the future.

question: Explain the development of virtual reality applications.

answer: When the cocoons were being developed companies raced to develop virtual reality applications. Applications for risque experiences became available on the black market as well as tools for churches to teach their congregation. There was software available for everything including swimming, shopping and sleeping. The risque experiences started focusing on darker things like murder and torture. Cave 3.2 was best selling software that provides playing time for years. Experiences like climbing Mount Everest was available to everyone. After that, applications began to include taste and touch as well.

question: Why did the development of cocoons explode?

answer: An attempt was made by OmniLife to merge human with technology in a virtual reality chamber called a cocoon. Consumers were extremely interested in it and entrepreneurs jumped at the opportunity to invest in its development. This led to the development of cocoons and virtual reality applications exploding.

question: What steps did government take to address the issues surrounding cocoons and virtual reality?

answer: The government started regulating cocoons and their applications. Government started making cocoons and installed time limits. Life returned to normal for a while. But people rose up against the government and succeeded in having the regulations lifted. When the situation became worse the government found that the cocoon-lifestyle led to a disease similar to Alzheimer's that kills people.

question: What are the impacts on society as a result of cocoons and virtual reality applications?

answer: The machines are time consuming, most people could not resist the temptations offered by them. People stopped going to work, opting rather to spend their time in the cocoons. People committed crimes in the virtual world and wanted to cause real people pain. Society spent more and more time in the virtual world and fewer people chose to live a real life. Too much time in the cocoon leads to a decreased consciousness and disease.

question: Summarize all the information relating to the civil uprising.

answer: After government started regulating cocoons extensively people felt that their freedom was being compromised.  The government abducted people and forced them to live painful riot experiences virtually. But still the civil uprising won and the regulations were overthrown.

question: Explain the evolution of the cocoons.

answer: Cocoon users attached feeding tubes to cocoons, as well as other medical tools so that people's bodies didn't degrade into just skin and bone from those who refused to exit their cocoons even for nourishment or medication.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Cocoons and virtual reality experiences were developed and took over the lives of people. Interventions failed. People died due to a disease from the cocoon lifestyle. The writer is unsure where the storyline should go from here.