text:
New York, 1931

John woke up in his humble New York apartment, next to his wife, Charlotte. He sluggishly rose from his bed and stumbled into the kitchen. He opened his refrigerator, and reached for a carton of milk. He brought the carton to his lips, and drank a few sips before stuffing in back into the fridge. He put on his casual Sunday suit, as usual, and walked out the door. He was in a hurry, grooming his hair while walking down the stairs to the lobby of the apartment complex.

"Good morning, Mr. Galotto!"

"Nice to see you, Mary."

He walked out the doors too the street and go to the parking lot, opening the door to his Ford Model A. He drove down the street, making his way too the Fanchetti house. The Don told he had a big job today, and he didn't plan on disappointing the Don.

Will continue sometime tommorow!

Edit 1 (Continued)

John arrived at the Fanchetti house. The air was thick with pressure, and his stomach was churning. When he entered the office, he knew he really meant something to this family.

"John! Gosh damn, your late, I never thought you'd get he'yah!" Said Mr. Fanchetti himself.

"Sorry, Don. Won't happen again. You said you got somethin' for me?"

Mr. Fanchetti had the thickest Italian accent John had ever heard.

"John, you joined this family years ago, just lookin' fa' something ta' provide ya' family with a dinna' every night."

"Yes sir, I did."

"Now, after all those hard years, it's lead up ta' this. The big one. Yous' gonna be breakin' a' boy Dennis outta jail. Tonight."

"No disrespect, sir, but isn't Dennis on death row?"

"Why tha' hell do ya' think were breakin' 'em out?!"

APOLOGIES! Didn't have much time today, alot more will be done tommorow though! Keep an eye on this post.

title: A short story about a mobster who is betrayed. I like to call it: "American Vendetta"

question: What did Don have for John?

answer: A job entailing him that he needs to break Dennis out of jail.

question: What is John's job?

answer: He works for an illegal organization.

question: Why did Don insist that John should help Dennis break out of jail?

answer: Because Dennis is on death row.

question: Where is the story's setting?

answer: New York.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: John wakes up and goes to work. Don (his boss) waits to give him his next assignment. Don then tells him that he needs to break Dennis out of jail but John hesitates, claiming that Dennis is on death row. Don tells him this is precisely why they need to break him out.


split: train

text:
The N3 or National Highway 3 is a national highway in Ghana that begins at Kpong and runs west through Oterkpalu to Koforidua.[1] It is a link between the N2 and N4 in the Eastern region of the country, with a total distance of 40 kilometers (25 miles).

Route

Major towns and cities along the route of the N3 include Kpong, Suhum, Oterkpalu, and Koforidua. The N3 runs parallel to the Lolo River.

The N3 runs southwest from Kpong, intersecting with the R30 near Somanya before veering north to Oterkpalu, where it intersects with the IR3. From Oterkpalu, the route turns south toward Koforidua, where it intersects with the R42.

[1] https://www.giz.de/en/downloads/en-street-addressing-system.pdf

title: N3 road (Ghana)

question: What's another name for the "N3"?

answer: National Highway 3.

question: What is it?

answer: A national highway.

question: Where is it located?

answer: Ghana.

question: To which river does it run parallel?

answer: The Lolo River.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The N3 or National Highway 3 is a national highway in Ghana, a country in Africa. It runs for a total distance of 40km, or 25 miles.


text:
There’s a story going around, started from this news report on Orlando’s News13, about a 14 year old who kept a list of fellow students. The boy’s parents say it was his own personal “List of Jericho”, an idea he got to write down names of classmates he disliked based on WWE Superstar Chris Jericho’s popular gimmick. The mother of two of his classmates says the school rumor mill identified it as a “kill list”.

While this is surely not publicity Vince McMahon and company want, headlines about a “Jericho-inspired kill list” seem to be stretching things to make a connection to WWE.

Let me clearly state that my knowledge of the case is limited to the News13 story. They reported a student in Poinciana, Florida brought the list of names to Renaissance Charter School, where he’s enrolled. Officials learned about the list and launched an investigation, which included a “robocall” to the parents of other students informing them the situation was being addressed.

On Thursday, Feb. 16, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office began looking into the matter, which is where the boy’s family was interviewed and the Jericho inspiration was brought into the story. A week later, no one has been hurt in connection to the student’s list, and a school spokesperson is saying concerns about it being intended as a “kill list” are rumors they don’t want to “proliferate... any further” by commenting on them to the media.

But that’s not satisfactory to Michelle Spangler, the mother at the center of the New13 story. She feels there’s “a true safety issue here”. She explained her reason for thinking so, beyond the talk in the halls of Renaissance Charter, as:

  A 14-year-old does not just write a list because it's just a list. We're not in kindergarten, saying, “This kid is not my friend anymore.” He literally knew what he was doing.

Which - and again, I only know what you know, reader - but as someone who was once a 14 year old pro wrestling fan, if I was that age today, making my own “List of Jericho” consisting of people from my school who annoyed-me-but-that-I-had-no-intention-of-hurting would LITERALLY be what I would do.

But, I’m also aware we live in a time where school shootings are something that happen multiple times a year, so I’m not going to fault anyone who absolutely wants to put their children’s safety ahead of anyone’s right to keep a list.

Let’s just slow down on calling it a “Jericho-inspired kill list”, is all I’m saying.

question: What wrestlers are mentioned in this document?

answer: Only Chris Jericho is mentioned.

question: Who doesn't want to "'proliferate...any further'"?

answer: A spokesperson for the school the boy attends said this in reference to the rumors on the "kill list".

question: Did the boy who wrote the list get in trouble?

answer: That information isn't made clear, but there was an investigation launched on the boy's list.

question: What is the safety issue in "there's a 'true safety issue here'"?

answer: The safety issue is that the boy's "List of Jericho" may be more than a simple list and written to inflict harm.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The author of the document discusses a news report about a boy who wrote a "Jericho List" (inspired by WWE superstar Chris Jericho's popular gimmick) of those he dislikes. His school started rumors that it was a kill list. The author thinks that people should slow down on calling it a "Jericho-inspired kill list".


text:
Running a business is no smooth ride. The best business leaders are the ones who manage to get a balance between the effervescence, constant change and human nature of the people in their organization and all the business data and rational decisions they have to make in order to keep the company moving forward.

At the end of the day, the success of any business is based on its profits. But no profit can be made without people.

It’s impossible to fit into a spreadsheet cell the impact an employee can have over the bottom line, try as you might. But that impact exists and it can be influenced by how well an employee is trained within the company.

Since it’s so hard to see crystal clear ROI for how more knowledgeable workers increase company profitability, training budgets are among the first to be cut in hard times. In many cases however, this decision can turn out to be what the Brits say “penny-wise and pound-foolish”.

A cut training budget may positively affect cash flow in the short term, but may trigger some serious negative effects in the long run.

Providing relevant learning opportunities and professional development for employees is certainly a significant investment. Couple this with the aforementioned foggy ROI, and you can’t really blame managers for searching for options and consider all the ways to cut training costs.

Going online might be the perfect middle ground. Through e-learning employees can still get the training they need, while managers can optimize the training expenses.

Here are five ways online training is more cost-effective than the traditional way of supporting employees to become more knowledgeable and productive.

1. No more costs with training facilities

Traditional training needs physical space. Whether there is a training room available in the building or it must be rented somewhere else, the availability of this physical space comes with a cost. If employees — or trainers, for that matter — need to go to a different location, in a different district, region or country, travel and accommodation costs increase the training bill.

What’s more, if a training program or session lasts for more than a few hours, lunch should be provided, at the cost of the beneficiary company. That’s because people can’t absorb new information efficiently when they’re hungry. No one is their true self when they’re hungry, so lunch is actually a small price to pay.

All these costs disappear completely in the case of online training.

Renting a physical space for delivering training becomes unnecessary, and so does the corresponding travelling and accommodation.

Both trainers and trainees still need to eat to function properly, but since they’re not tied to one physical location they can do this on their own terms and on their own resources.

2. Easier maintenance and management of training materials

In a traditional face-to-face training setting hard copies of learning materials and various printed hand-outs are inevitable. Depending on the class size and repeatability of the course, the costs related to printing can become considerable.

And when new rules are to be included in the training materials the old printed ones become obsolete. Trees are destroyed and ink wasted.

Since online training makes no use of ink and paper, trees are thus saved, and so are money.

Perhaps developing training materials for online courses takes as much time as for traditional ones, but maintaining them is so much easier and completely free. The same training materials, once created, can be used and reused as many times as needed, without recurring costs.

Plus, whenever these online materials need to be updated based on latest standards or modified in one way or another, this can be done without spending a dime.

3. Faster turnaround

The main drawback of traditional training is that it was designed to meet the trainer’s needs. It’s always easier for a trainer to deliver one session in front of many trainees than to spend time with each individual, basically repeating the same thing over and over.

But managers are starting to care about learners’ needs more, as they realize they are the ones who must improve their performance and consequently the bottom line of the company.

Online training puts more control into trainees’ hands. They can decide when to attend a training course and how much time to allocate to it. If the means through which they access the course — moreover a company LMS — has a responsive design, they can also decide where they need to be when accessing that course.

Being able to access the right piece of information at the time they most need it, no matter what device they use, makes employees better remember and recall training materials. More to that, the time they spend away from their core tasks is significantly reduced.

Cheaper does not necessarily mean better

Success stories of companies that turned the gear towards online training and witnessed significant reductions in costs abound. According to an older study, IBM managed to cut approximately one third of its previous training budget after going digital, to give one example.

However, plenty of companies make haste to deliver online training and leave the traditional training classroom in the rear-view mirror, but don’t witness the same positive results as IBM did. It all depends on the company’s learning needs and readiness to adopt technology.

Sometimes, a blended approach to training — combining classroom instruction with online courses — may be an even better solution for offering learning opportunities for employees while optimizing budgets.

Stay in the loop! We’ll keep you updated with the most valuable E-learning tips and resources. Subscribe and never miss out!

[]

Livia is one of the online voices of MATRIX by CYPHER LEARNING. She writes about workplace learning and L&D strategies for businesses, as well as other training and e-learning related subjects.

question: Why is there a need for training despite the fact that educational systems exist for people to use prior to joining the workforce?

answer: The article itself does not explicitly state it, but general and specialized education alone does not appear to be sufficient to prepare an individual for the needs of employment. It is likely that each professional and corporate environment will come with its own set of internal house rules and processes -things that new employees need to be properly prepared for through training. Then there is the work itself, which is likely also to entail a lot of unique and distinct feature that are either too specific to be part of educational curriculums or are not considered to be taught at all. Also, it is possible individuals to be hired in industries they did not specialize in their academic pursuits.


text:
The timer for the food began to beep. Emma was preparing dinner for the soon to be arriving Kindle. I had to make my move soon. Kindle, should have found my useless clue by now and should be making the drive back home. As I climbed the stairs I heard Emma running towards the television. I cracked the door to get a better look at the situation at hand. Emma was looking under the couch cushions, under the dining table, through the ruffles of papers on the coffee table. Sweat started to form on my palms. Had I been had? It must’ve been the loud thump. She was looking for a gun. I opened the door and started walking towards her. She found was she was looking for: The Remote. I slid into the velvet curtain awaiting her next move. She pushed the volume on the remote and turned the television up.

“This is too easy,” I chuckled

She had been watching a popular television singing show and her favorite guy had just come on. He was singing my anthem; Mad World by Gary Jules.

“All around me are familiar faces…,” the words echoed throughout the house. I came out from the curtains and Emma let out a scream. I loved it when they screamed. I tackled her to the ground and covered her mouth with a towel filled with Ethanol. “Their tears are filling up their glasses...No expression, no expression…” she was passed out and the best part was coming. I stood up and went to grab a dark sheet from the linen closet. This was bound to get messy, and I didn’t want to ruin their white carpet. With my knife in hand, I went back towards Emma. The dog was on her know growling fiercely towards me. German Sheppard’s are ferocious dogs, luckily I had prepared for this. As the dog lunged towards me I side-stepped and stabbed it in the neck. “Hide my head I want drown my sorrow…” The blood from the dog splattered on the white carpet. I knew I had very little time left, therefore I didn’t bother cleaning out the blood. I laid the sheet down and placed Emma on top of it. I drew the lines which I was going to cut with a marker. I was all set up. My hand went up into the air. The door swung wide open and Kindle was there with a gun pointed at my head. “Look right through me, Look right through me…”

“You’re surrounded Jason,” he said “Just put down the knife and everything will be alright Jason,”

He made a promise a person of my intelligence knew he wouldn’t be able to fulfill. He was ruining my puzzle. I glanced into Kindles eyes and smiled. The knife came down and Emma’s blood splattered all over my face. Kindle’s face grew fierce as he pulled the trigger. Over and over the sound of bullets firing rang throughout the house. One hit my arm the others landed in various places throughout my back. The pain of smoldering metal melting through your skin is unfathomable. I fell over on my back as Kindle rushed to the aid of his wife. She was gone, my cut had been fatal. There I lay disappointed that my puzzle didn’t go as planned. “I find it kind of funny; I find it kind of sad the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had…”

The bus had come to a stop and the puddle of blood coming from my nose had grew from a small circle to a decent size pond. It didn’t matter how much blood I lost though. Soon enough, it would be meaningless. The guards carried me onto the stretcher that was being used to put me to rest. There I lay on the stretcher, reminiscing about all of my puzzles that would be left unsolved. They wheeled me into the observations room. I figured there would quite a crowd to see my death.

“How many people are here,” I asked Kindle

“Enough to see you burn in hell,” he said

“But, I’ve been saved, I have found Christ,” I said returning the same mocking smile he had given me earlier. I knew he was a Christian and deathbed repentance was a common practice they believed in.

“I’m glad those are going to be you’re last words,” he said as he stuffed a white rag into my mouth. A blindfold was then put to cover my eyes. I didn’t understand. I knew I was being sentenced to death, but I was being put to death by lethal injection. They stretchered me into a room and then sat me upright. Something was not right; I had to figure this out. They unstrapped me from the stretcher and strapped me into a wooden chair.

“Everyone out,” Kindle said.

The anticipation was overcoming me I had to figure this last puzzle out. I heard the door close and lock. I was left alone. I couldn’t understand what was happening. The aroma of the room slowly started to change. Pipes started to hiss and valves were being released. I started to kick and scream, I didn’t want it to end this way. I had figured out the last puzzle. I was sentenced to death; death by gas chamber.

title: The Puzzler Part 2

question: Who is Jason?

answer: Jason is a killer.

question: Who has him surrounded?

answer: Kindle has him surrounded.

question: What is the relationship between Emma and Jason?

answer: Jason is hiding and watching Emma. He is there to kill her.

question: Are there any other important characters?

answer: Kindle is Emma's husband. He tries to save Emma, but is too late. Jason fatally cuts her, and Kindle shoots Jason.

question: Write a ~8 sentence summary.

answer: Jason is hiding behind a curtain in Emma and Kindle's house. He is watching her, planning on killing her. He attacks her and knocks her out with Ethanol. He finds a dark sheet so when he cuts her he doesn't make such a mess. Her German Shepard comes to defend her; it leaps at Jason and Jason stabs it. He is getting ready to start cutting Emma up like a puzzle when Kindle arrives pointing a gun at him. Jason fatally cuts Emma, and Kindle shoots Jason. Jason is sentenced to death.


text:
It's been a busy fortnight. First the publication of two major peer-reviewed research papers about magic mushrooms that attracted worldwide publicity. Then off to Prague for an international drugs policy symposium. And just last week, news of a large grant for our next collaborative study with Imperial College. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I established the Beckley Foundation some 14 years ago as a think tank on drugs policy. It was apparent even then that the "war on drugs" had failed. A 1997 report by the United Nations Drugs Control Programme put the value of the global trade in illicit drugs at around $400bn. Recent UN figures show that global production of opium (used mostly to make heroin) rose by almost 80% between 1998 and 2009. The market in illicit drugs is the third largest market in the world, after food and oil.

The health statistics are equally grim. In some countries – including some within the EU – more than three-quarters of intravenous drug users are infected with hepatitis C. Worldwide, there are several million non-fatal drug overdoses each year. Drug wars themselves also claim a dreadful toll: more than 47,000 deaths in the past five years for Mexico alone, according to the latest estimates.

However, while it is clear that existing policies are crying out for reform, what is less clear is how to foster the required political will.

The Beckley Foundation is the only organisation to combine rigorous scientific research with detailed policy analysis in an attempt to address that question. Our premise is simple: drugs policies should focus on health, harm reduction and cost-effectiveness, and should be based on the best available scientific evidence. That means trying out and evaluating a variety of policy ideas, as well as researching the physical effects of drugs.

Drugs policies around the world are based on three UN conventions, dating from 1961, 1971 and 1988. The conventions allow limited production and possession of drugs, but only for scientific and therapeutic use. In particular, parties to the 1988 Convention (which include the vast majority of UN member states) are obliged to criminalise the production, distribution, sale, purchase and possession of listed drugs other than for approved scientific and medical purposes. The result is the criminalisation of millions of people guilty of nothing other than personal drug use.

It is important to realise that an illegal market is a completely unregulated market. The evidence indicates that decriminalising personal possession and use saves valuable police time and criminal justice resources, and does not increase the prevalence of drug use. Moreover, because users are no longer regarded as criminals, their access to education and treatment is improved and the harm caused by problem drug use is reduced. That is why, together with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform, we organised a meeting of government leaders, policy makers and experts at the House of Lords in November at which we launched a Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform.

At that meeting, we presented a report commissioned by the Beckley Foundation into how the UN conventions could be amended to allow countries more freedom to create national policies based on their individual needs. We heard fascinating evidence from the Czech Republic, Portugal and elsewhere about their experiences of moving – within the "wiggle room" permitted by the UN conventions – towards policies based on public health, education and harm reduction rather than criminal enforcement.

At the symposium in Prague last week, a group of international experts again discussed possible reform mechanisms: partial decriminalisation under the existing conventions, and explicit decriminalisation or strict government regulation under amended conventions. We also considered problems caused by the current legal regime, such as the difficulty Bolivia faces in trying to get an exemption to permit the millennia-old indigenous tradition of chewing coca leaves.

The Beckley Foundation's focus on health-oriented policies demands a research programme to gather relevant evidence. That evidence also affords profound insights into how the brain works and potential therapeutic uses of psychoactive drugs.

Which brings me back to those recent scientific papers, products of a collaboration between the Beckley Foundation and Professor David Nutt's department at Imperial College London. Using the latest functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques, the team looked at the brains of subjects as they received an intravenous dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic drug found in magic mushrooms. The papers were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Many users of psychedelics report the experience as a consciousness-expanding one, and conventional wisdom suggests that such drugs should increase brain activity and blood flow to the brain.

Instead, the research in PNAS showed that psilocybin _decreased_ blood flow to specific regions of the brain that act as "connector hubs", where information converges and from where it is disseminated. In the paper, we suggest that these hubs normally facilitate efficient communication between brain regions by filtering out the majority of input in order to avoid over-stimulation and confusion. But the hubs also constrain brain activity by forcing traffic to use a limited number of well-worn routes. Psilocybin appears to lift some of these constraints, allowing a freer and more fluid state of consciousness.

In the second study, subjects were given cues to recall positive events in their lives. With psilocybin, their memories were extremely vivid, almost as if they were reliving the events rather than just imagining them.

The findings suggest potential uses for psilocybin in the treatment of depression, a condition characterised by rigidly pessimistic thinking patterns. These fixated patterns are associated with overactivity in the medial prefrontal cortex – one of the same connector hubs deactivated by psilocybin. Psilocybin may also be a useful adjunct to psychotherapy, helping patients who are stuck in negative thought patterns to access distant memories and work through them.

The newly published results are exciting enough to have generated funding for a major study into psilocybin and depression, which will begin shortly. Watch this space.

_Amanda Feilding is director of the_ _Beckley Foundation__, a think tank working for health-oriented drug policies based on scientific research_

question: Why is the Beckley Foundation trying to reform current drug policies?

answer: Because the "war on drugs" had failed and current drug policies of criminalizing personal drug use are ineffective.

question: Why should personal possession and use be decriminalized?

answer: Because an illegal market is unregulated, and the evidence indicates that decriminalizing personal possession and use saves valuable police time and criminal justice resources, and does not increase the prevalence of drug use.


text:
It’s 2013. Nekos now live among humans. They can go to school get jobs and have all the right humans do. Even though they are in almost every community they are the smallest minority. This story takes place Lakeville, Minnesota. It’s about a 19 year old named Zeke and his life after meeting a Neko girl.

A story I'm in the process of writing. Hope you guys enjoy. Feedback is welcomed.

title: A tail of life

question: What is a "Neko?"

answer: It's implied they're not human, but of the same capabilities as humans, so possibly an alien race.


text:
[HuffPost] [HuffPost]

How To Win Friends And Influence People

I'm currently reading a book that has been a best seller since the 1930s and I can't believe it's taken me this long to pick it up. It's called _How To Win Friends And Influence People_ by Dale Carnegie. A book that has been selling for almost 100 years! Full of common sense nuggets.

One of the pieces of advice the author shares is that the best argument is no argument at all.

If someone comes to you and says the sun is green, you can look at them with importance and explain that it is yellow. Or you can say, "That is really interesting. I always thought the sun was yellow. What makes you think it is green?" And let them talk about their thinking.

At some point the person may realize that maybe the sun isn't green at all. Maybe it's yellow. But they have to convince themselves. They will own the point more if they got there on their own. And if they are cornered into it by you forcing your opinion, they will defend their point of view causing a never-ending, no-one-wins argument.

And you never know. They might just convince you that the sun is in fact green in which case you learned something new too. I hear the sun is a mixture of all colors which we see as white, but it looks more yellow at sunrise and sunset. Who knew?

This is the basic foundation for how every argument with your spouse or friend or boss or client or co-worker goes. And how it could go if we listened to the simple advice that Dale Carnegie shares.

If we see the conversation as a discussion and a chance to learn, we both come out better for it. The less we argue, the more we grow. And who knows where that might lead us? To a new day and another sunrise. Shine on.

[The best argument is no argument.]
Calling all HuffPost superfans!

Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter

This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

question: What can't the author believe they waited so long to do?

answer: They can't believe they waited so long to read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

question: Dale Carnegie believes what about arguments?

answer: He believes that the best argument is no argument at all.

question: What is the basic foundation of arguments in Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People?

answer: Dale Carnegie believes that when someone suggests something that you think to be false, rather than arguing with them, ask them why they think their belief is true.

question: Who is Dale Carnegie?

answer: The article states that he is an author of a book.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The author of the article highlights a point from Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Dale Carnegie believes that the best argument is no argument at all. In his book he suggests that when someone says something that you think to be false, rather than arguing with them, ask them why they think their belief is true.


text:
When we were schoolchildren she always insisted to me that her eyes were aqua colored. I used to goad her saying they were just plain old blue.

Now they were anything but plain old blue. They were the only blue colored things left in the world. They were bluer than the sky, bluer than the ocean. Whenever I looked into her eyes I saw the world when it was still alive.

And from those bluer-than-the-sky-eyes tears formed and started coming down like rain.

I turned my back to her and started down the path again. "We have to keep going."

She wiped away at  her shut eyes, fighting back the tears.

I was reminded of the time I saw the river at the Old Creek and its mighty flow get stifled by the new dams the summer I left. The dams held at first, then they were overrun by the water. The water would always be too strong. It would always overpower anything trying to keep it back.

I knew she would cry again.

I looked ahead but felt a tug at my chest, pained by her display of emotion. I used to cry. Somewhere deep down inside I wanted to. But that feeling to cry was one of the many ghosts inside of me, parts of me long dead that haunt me but will never come back. I drained that river of emotion inside of me the day I saw everything come to an end.

To survive meant letting parts of us inside die to make ourselves immune to our surroundings. The bodies we passed by just a small number of one of the thousands to come. The millions. They no longer move or breathe but the dead still talk. Their contorted figures and pained expressions told me their last moments. They told me my feelings had no reason to come back.

The only feeling that remained was love and it protected us as long as we had each other. We needed to find some place to release ourselves. Somewhere away from all this. A small pasture, the shade of a still living tree, somewhere, anywhere where Mother Nature was still alive, something that still resembled the world before so the departure of our souls after taking our own lives would not be tainted by the death around us.

Even holding a flower would  give us what we needed, a key to our escape from this hell. But we had not yet found such relief. The day before I came across a dandelion on the ground. But it had been waiting so long for the light to touch its face again that the life had been sucked out of it. It lay there, wilted. I never told her I found it.  I didn't want her to know for I feared everything we might find would be dead.

As we went on down the path we held each other tighter than before. Our bodies were getting colder and colder. Ever since the world had been painted the color of death by the heavy killing strokes of the bombs the temperature had dropped steadily every day. Hardly anything stood out in the landscape except for the dead and scorched outlines of buildings, shadows of what used to be.

We were heading to the park we used to play at together when we were children, hoping that we would not discover another grave site, another nightmare waiting for us. We went by memory hoping to find parts of the sidewalk that used to be on the streets but journeying in my mind made the road seem so much longer.

title: Wilted

question: What are the main characters trying to do?

answer: The main characters are trying to find a good place to commit suicide.

question: What happened to the world?

answer: The world is in a nuclear winter after bombs were dropped.


text:
This is the MongoDB driver for the Xojo programming language.

The current version of the driver only supports connections to a single server. Support for replica sets and sharding will be added in future versions of the driver.

Installation

Simply copy the BSONSerializer, JSONSerializer and MongoDriver modules from the project in the source folder to your project.

Example Code

    Dim client As new MongoDriver.MongoClient() ' connect to localhost on default port
    Dim db As MongoDriver.MongoDatabase
    Dim coll As MongoDriver.MongoCollection
    Dim cursor As MongoDriver.MongoCursor
    Dim result As String
    Dim resultArr () As String
    Dim resultInt As Integer

    if client.IsConnected then

        db = client.getDB("test") ' get database object

        coll = db.getCollection("data") ' get collection object

        resultInt = coll.count() ' get number of documents in collection

        coll.insert "{mydoc:123}" ' insert document into collection

        result = coll.findAndModify("{query:{mydoc:123},update:{mydoc:456}}") ' modify and return a single document

        ' query and loop through documents

        cursor = coll.find("{}")
        while cursor.hasNext
            result = cursor.getNext()
        wend

        coll.remove("{a:1}") ' remove document

        coll.update"{mydoc:123}", "{$set:{mydoc:234}}" ' update document

        result = db.getLastErrorObj() ' get last error JSON

        result = db.getLastError() ' get last error message

        result = db.runCommand("{count:""test:data""}") ' run database command

        result = coll.ensureIndex("{myItem:1}") ' create ascending index on field myItem

        resultArr = coll.getIndexes() ' get list of indexes

        result = coll.dropIndex("{myItem:1}") ' remove index from collection

        result = coll.dropIndexes() ' remove all indexes from collection

        result = coll.stats(1024) ' get collection stats scaled to kilobyte values

        coll.save"{_id:1,test:""abc""}" ' insert document
        coll.save"{_id:1,test:""def""}" ' update document

        resultInt = coll.totalIndexSize() ' get total size of all indexes for the collection

        resultInt = coll.copyTo("dataCopy") ' copy whole collection

        resultInt = coll.dataSize() ' get the size of the collection in bytes

        result = coll.distinct("mydoc") ' find distinct values for a specified field

        'coll = db.getCollection("somecoll") ' select collection to remove
        'resultBool = coll.drop() ' remove collection from database

        result = coll.reIndex() ' drop and recreate all indexes on collection

    end if

question: What problems might a user have when installing the MongoDB driver?

answer: A user might forget to install one of the three necessary modules that MongoDB needs to function.

question: Would the MongoDB driver work in Java?

answer: Presumably no, the MongoDB driver is designed for the Xojo programming language, not Java.

question: Can the current version of the MongoDB driver connect to multiple servers?

answer: No, the current version of the driver only supports connections to a single server.


text:
I had this dream.

I was sitting, nervously waiting in some sort of office room with too many chairs.
I knew that I was outside of a conference room, though.
The room had a fairly simple setup. There was a secretary scribbling something on a notepad, a fake plastic fern in the corner, and a plain black-and-white clock up on the wall.

I was nervously rehearsing my answers for the interview that I knew that I was about to go to. I don’t remember what my answers were. I was just ready to tell the interviewers what they wanted to hear.

I became aware that the clock’s ticking was quite loud.

A pepper-haired man stuck his head out of the conference room door and said
“We’re ready for you now. Come on in.”
He went back into the room but left the door open.

I followed the man into the room and looked around.
Outside the window, off in the distance, I could see the sparkling ocean.
It looked so peaceful.

Someone’s bike reflector flashed in the sun and caused me to blink.

I looked in front of me and saw the pepper-haired man sitting across the table with two men that were sitting to his right and to his left.
To his right, there was a slim, tall man with nice blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore a suit and had a welcoming smile.
To his left, there was a tall, fat man with long greasy hair. He wore glasses, a wrinkled polo shirt, and had a sense of arrogance about him.

I donned a fake smile, shook their hands, and took my seat across from the three men.
My heart was no longer pounding.
I was relaxed and confident.

“So, tell me, why do you want to come to our school?” the blonde man asked.
“Yea, what makes us so special?” the fat man followed up.

This was a typical interview question, but for some reason it made me pause.
This was the point of no-return. My response would change my life forever.

 ...

I thought about my entire life up until this moment:

One time when I was only six years old, I remembered stubbing my toe while opening a door. I looked down at my foot, saw blood, and immediately panicked. I sat down and cried until my mother came to clean it up for me. She told me that there was no reason cry, because I had to be strong. I remembered the sense of duty I had to show no weakness.

No more than a year later, when I was seven, my mother first told me about college. She told me that I could be anything that I wanted to be in life. I was a winner, better than the rest.
However, she told me that I must always be happy.
Live your life for you, and nobody else. Only you have to deal with the decisions you make.

When I was nine, I was first told that I needed glasses. I remember trying on those black plastic frames at the optometrist’s office and wondering if I would look like this for the rest of my life. Later that day, I was inspecting my appearance in the bathroom mirror at home when my mother came in to talk to me. She told me that I could never be a pilot, because of my new glasses.
Maybe this meant that I couldn’t be whatever I wanted to be in life.

I remembered playing “Truth or Dare” when I was twelve at Brittany Winter’s birthday party. I was dared to kiss the most popular girl in school, and I did it. I spent that night lying next to her, being careful not to touch, and worrying the entire night what would happen if my mother found out what I had done.

When I was thirteen, I first stole beer from my friend’s father. As I was throwing up, I remembered wondering what would happen if she saw me then. This was not a part of the path to success.

When I was fifteen, I made my first drug deal. As I sat there waiting with my Ziploc bag in my pocket, constantly looking over my shoulder for the police, I realized that I was more afraid of my mother driving by and asking me what I was doing standing on the street corner by myself.

I remembered deciding at sixteen that there was more money in becoming a doctor. From there, I told myself what I wanted to hear and said that my chief motivation was to “help people.”
From then on, there was nothing stopping me from going to medical school.
After all, I was the best.
I was the smartest, most clever, and physically fit person around.
I was the one for the job.

 ...

It was then that I realized I had been staring at my feet for some while.
I looked up at the men to see all three of their faces unpatiently waiting for a reply.
The pepper-haired man re-iterated their questions:
“So, son, why do you want to come here?”

I thought about this question for a while and wondered how I managed to find myself sitting in that chair.
I realized that I wasn’t happy.
I didn’t know who I was anymore, or what I was doing with my life.
I have never felt so lost.

I finally lifted my head and looked the pepper-haired man right in the eyes.
I slowly stood up and said

“I don’t.”

title: The Interview of a Lifetime

question: Why did the narrator's response to the pepper-haired man in the dream change his life forever?

answer: Because the narrator realized he wasn't happy and didn't really know who he was or what he was doing with his life.


text:
STACEY MARINKOVICH (born 25 February 1981), previously known as STACEY ROSMAN, is an Australian netball coach and former player. During the Commonwealth Bank Trophy era she played for Queensland Firebirds and Perth Orioles. In the ANZ Championship era she played for West Coast Fever. She captained both Orioles and Fever. After retiring as a player, Rosman became a coach. In 2014 she was appointed head coach of West Coast Fever. In 2018 she guided Fever to their first ever grand final. She was subsequently named Coach of the Year. In 2020 Rosman, now Marinkovich, was appointed head coach of the Australia national netball team.

Early life and family

Rosman is originally from Queensland and was raised in South Brisbane. She is the oldest of four siblings and has two sisters and a brother. She is married to Lindsay Marinkovich and has one son, Matthew, born in December 2019.[1][2][3]

Playing career

AIS

During the 1999 season, Rosman played for the Australian Institute of Sport. She was coached by Norma Plummer and her team mates included Demelza Fellowes and Cynna Neele.[4]

Queensland Firebirds

Between 2000 and 2001, Rosman made 18 appearances for Queensland Firebirds in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy.[5][6]

Perth Orioles

Between 2002 and 2007, Rosman made 71 appearances for Perth Orioles in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy. She captained Orioles during the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Her Orioles team mates included Caitlin Bassett, Kate Beveridge, Susan Fuhrmann, Jessica Shynn and Larrissa Willcox.[7][8][9][10]

West Coast Fever

During the 2008 and 2009 ANZ Championship seasons, Rosman played for West Coast Fever. Rosman captained Fever during the 2008 season. During the 2008 season she also made her 100th Commonwealth Bank Trophy/ANZ Championship appearance. She retired as a player at the end of the 2009 season.[11][12][13][14]

Coaching career

Western Sting

During the 2013 and 2014 seasons, Rosman served as head coach of Western Sting in the Australian Netball League. During the 2014 season she guided them to third place in the league.[15][16][17]

West Coast Fever

During the 2012 and 2013 ANZ Championship seasons, Rosman served an assistant coach to Norma Plummer at West Coast Fever. In 2014 she succeeded Plummer as the Fever head coach.[18][19][20][21] In 2015 Rosman guided Fever to third place in the Australian Conference. She was subsequently named as the head coach in the 2015 ANZ Championship All-Star Team.[22][23][24][25] In August 2016 she signed a new four-year deal to remain as Fever coach.[26] During the 2018 Suncorp Super Netball season Rosman, now Marinkovich, guided Fever to their first ever grand final.[27][28][29] She was subsequently named Coach of the Year.[30][31][32]

Australia

In August 2020 Marinkovich was appointed head coach of the Australia national netball team, succeeding Lisa Alexander.[33][34][35][36][37] Marinkovich has previously worked as a coach with the national team in various capacities, including coaching the Australian Fast5 Flyers team at the 2017 Fast5 Netball World Series.[38][39]

  Tournaments                                Place
  ------------------------------------------ -------
  2017 Fast5 Netball World Series [40][41]

Honours

Head coach

Individual Awards

-   COACH OF THE YEAR
    -   2018

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

[37]

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

title: Stacey Marinkovich

question: Summarize everything relating to Rosman's team mates.

answer: At the Australian Institute of Sport, her team mates included Demelza Fellowes and Cynna Neele. Her Orioles team mates included Caitlin Bassett, Kate Beveridge, Susan Fuhrmann, Jessica Shynn, and Larrissa Willcox.

question: Summarize Rosman's coaching career.

answer: Rosman became a coach after retiring as a player. During the 2013 and 2014 seasons, she served as head coach of Western Sting in the Australian Netball League. During the 2012 and 2013 ANZ Championship seasons, she served as assistant coach to Norma Plummer at West Coast Fever. She succeeded Plummer as head coach in 2014. She was then named head coach in the 2015 ANZ Championship All-Star Team. She signed a new four-year deal to remain as Fever coach in 2016 and was named Coach of the Year in 2018. In 2020, she was appointed head coach of the Australia national netball team.

question: What does the article say about Rosman's career outside of sports?


text:
First lesson of traveling with Hillary Clinton: Her arrivals are always a mad dash, with a pool photographer and film crew tearing out of their press van to try to snatch an image of the secretary of state glad-handing a local dignitary before she's whisked inside, her aides and security detail rushing after her, the rest of the press corps in their wake. But in South Sudan the scrum is even more frantic than usual. The president of South Sudan is protected by a coterie of Manute Bol—sized bodyguards, who fling out their hands to block our way. As I maneuver unnoticed between two behemoths, a mouse scurrying between the legs of two elephants, a member of Clinton's security team snarls at one of the guards, _Get your motherfucking hands off me or I will throw you down these stairs_. I slip past them and into the room just as Clinton greets the president with a bright smile and a hug. Not, I can safely say, what this bear of a man, glowering beneath his signature cowboy hat, was expecting. The next day he agrees to open a disputed oil pipeline: Diplomatic mission accomplished.

I was accompanying Clinton on what may well be her final visit to Africa as secretary of state before she leaves the job in January, a farewell tour as it were, and South Sudan was our third country in as many days. The trip was to last another week, with another seven countries on the itinerary. Nearly every moment of her schedule was packed with events, but this day was by far the most grueling: After the meeting with the president, there was a press conference with the foreign minister, then a meet and greet with the staff of the U.S. embassy in Juba, after which the secretary jumped right back on the plane and headed to Uganda, where she met with that country's president, held another press event, visited a military base to be briefed publicly on a U.S.-Uganda joint drone program and then privately on other security matters, visited an AIDS clinic, presented an award to a coalition of Ugandan human rights workers, capping it all off with yet another meet and greet, this time at the Kampala Embassy. I need a cocktail and a nap even remembering that day, much of which I spent desperately hoping that the next stop would include a bathroom, preferably one that would not result in exposure to the Ebola virus outbreak that was just then being reported in every international newspaper.

Most of Clinton's workdays are like this, a daily treadmill of meetings and appearances, bookended by working dinners in hotel restaurants and one long flight after another. Even her plane is decidedly unglamorous. Though the communications and security systems are state of the art (Clinton can appear at any meeting, even one in the president's Situation Room, via video conference), the retrofitted 757 is surprisingly shabby. Because the plane carries all the supplies that will be needed for the entire 10-day trip, every available nook and cranny is crammed with food—cranberry juice containers, boxes of crackers, crates of fruit. Clinton's small private cabin in the front has a pullout couch that looks suspiciously like the futon I had in my college dorm room, and though her staff of aides, advisers, and security agents sits in comfortable business-class seats, the 10 or so members of the press are jammed into coach in the back. At the beginning of every trip, they draw lots for the best seats. When I once ended up with a winning number, I worried there would be some grumbling; after all, the reporters from the wire services spend their lives on the road, surely they deserve the aisle seat. But they are a good-natured (and hard-drinking) crew, and they gave up with nothing more than a sigh and a smile.

There is a kind of Kabuki formality to Clinton's interactions with me and all the members of the press corps. In intimate moments, like when she comes back to greet us in our cramped quarters, she seems to be engaged less in casual conversation than in acting out a simulacrum of a casual conversation. And even when she joins us for an ostensibly casual, off-the-record glass of wine, she is engirded by protocol. A woman who has been humiliated by the press (try Googling the words "Hillary" and "cankles"), she seems to take comfort in the traditional pomp of the role of secretary of state, even as her husband is famous for rebelling against such formalities. When she meets with the press, seats are allotted according to rank, food isn't consumed until she takes the first bite, and so I can't drink my tea because she isn't drinking hers.

Pity that poor press corps, dutifully filing stories about speeches at universities and economic forums, most of which are doomed to fill the back pages of their newspapers and wire services. All that exhausting effort, all that careful analysis, and it's a video of Clinton at a dinner given in her honor in South Africa, attempting the most polite and awkward grind any of us had ever seen outside of a middle school dance, that ends up going viral. As a veteran reporter told me, "The story is never what she said, as much as we want it to be. The story is always how she looked when she said it, or what she was doing when she said it." This has always been Clinton's particular cross to bear, and she has come to accept what she called in her memoir, _Living History_, "the significance of the insignificant." As Clinton told me, "I no longer fight it. I no longer complain about it. It's just what you have to live with."

And so by the fifth or sixth event on any given day, while the rest of us in Clinton's entourage look like we've been dumped out of a rain barrel, she is as polished and elegant as ever, comfortable and striking in one of her trademark pantsuits. The secretary is assisted by a "body woman," who is responsible for her bags, clothes, and anything else she might need during her trip. There would be just one moment on the entire tour when I caught Clinton looking less than impeccable. The flaw? A shiny nose, reddened ever so slightly by the sun and heat. My own hair was in a snarled mound on top of my head, my mascara had dripped down to my chin, and I was limping around on blistered feet, trailing Band-Aids and gauze like a Halloween mummy. But by then I—an early and avid Barack Obama supporter who had devoted more than a year working for his first presidential campaign, becoming in the process such a partisan that I was right there with Samantha Power when she famously called Clinton a monster—had already witnessed firsthand the almost spellbinding gravitas Clinton also commands, and was so invested in the myth of the secretary of state's effortlessly put-together appearance that I rushed to tell someone that she needed to powder her nose. Within moments, there she was, smiling for the camera, powdered to perfection.

[]

Nowadays she dresses, it seems, for herself, sometimes in plain but well-cut pantsuits that flatter her size, but more often in eye-catching, jewel-toned jackets and vibrant silk tunics, cheerful colors that perk up the long slog from one event to another, one country to the next. Her hair, a topic of oddly obsessive public interest, is long, past her shoulders, a choice she made in favor of simplicity and ease. "When my hair was shorter, I used to get it done every couple of days ... but I got tired of that. It took an hour ... I let my hair grow because I'm on the road so much and there are so many different things [I] can do with it."

She most often wears her hair pulled back, a style that maddens certain male members of her staff, who worry that it makes her look too severe. The women are more forgiving, perhaps because they are exhausted by the endless fascination with her hair, or perhaps because they, too, are sometimes reduced by early bag drop times and broken hotel hair dryers to ponytails and buns. Personally, I like the ponytail. Altogether, I am impressed by Clinton's polish and in awe of her stamina.

I had started out the trip determined to avoid drinking the Clinton Kool-Aid, but by the end I was knocking it back like a giddy 6-year-old. It was Malawi that sealed the deal for me. We were visiting a Peace Corps project called Girls Leading Our World when 17-year-old Triza Lapani, wrapping a brightly colored _chitenje_ around Clinton's waist, managed to crack Madame Secretary's carapace of firm, cool competence. Clinton stood with her arms raised as the girl spun around her. Her hair was soft around her face, and her smile was broad and honest. She seemed entirely at home, warm, even maternal, and I melted.

This—the fragile front line where childhood and politics meet—is, after all, where her career began four decades ago, when she worked as a young lawyer for Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund. Though it is often overshadowed by seemingly more impressive bullet points in her biography, advocating on behalf of children and women has been Clinton's life's work, and she believes absolutely that the project of elevating the status of women is critical to nation building. "There is no doubt in my mind," she told me over tea and tiny cakes that I was too nervous to consume, "that without the involvement of women in the economy, in politics, in peacemaking, in every aspect of society, you can't realize [a country's] full potential."

Clinton's staff—both the career State Department employees and the roughly 100 presidential appointees she brought with her—initially reacted to this formulation with, she told me, a lot of eye rolling. But she persisted, insisting on including women-focused events in her schedule, raising the issue of women's rights in almost every speech and press event, and transforming the State Department's Office of Global Women's Issues into an institutional powerhouse. No other secretary of state has ever made women's rights as central an issue as Clinton has.

Many of the people surrounding Clinton are true believers who have worked with her since she was first lady. But what stuns most everyone—her Capitol Hill critics and colleagues alike—is how quickly she won over the outsiders, specifically those who may have bristled at the appointment of a woman whose bona fides in matters of global security and diplomacy came largely from her tenure as FLOTUS. Even the most entrenched State Department bureaucrats are now contented citizens of "Hillaryland"—a term coined by her inner circle ages ago, yet which still aptly describes the with-us-or-against-us bubble that she operates in. Ply a Hillary wingman with drinks and an overpriced steak and he'll invariably launch into a heartfelt, almost high-strung, monologue about his boss that telegraphs a fierce loyalty not unlike what Michael Corleone inspired. Clinton has a cadre of her own Tom Hagens who clearly respect her and, yes, probably fear her a little, too.

[]

Defectors from Hillaryland are a rare species, which helps explain the epic dust storm kicked up by "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," last summer's cover story in _The Atlantic_ written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, Clinton's former director of policy planning, in which she explained why she felt obliged to quit Clinton's staff. When I asked Clinton about Slaughter's claim that "juggling high-level governmental work with the needs of two teenage boys was not possible," Clinton's disapproval was palpable. She reminded me that she has spent her career advocating on behalf of women, that she is committed to the idea that "it's important for our workplaces ... to be more flexible and creative in enabling women to continue to do high-stress jobs while caring for not only children, but [also] aging parents." But, she said, Slaughter's problems were her own. "Some women are not comfortable working at the pace and intensity you have to work at in these jobs ... Other women don't break a sweat. They have four or five, six kids. They're highly organized, they have very supportive networks." By all accounts, this was precisely the kind of mother Clinton was to Chelsea—hands-on, prioritizing her child, and yet ever committed to work.

Clinton has very little patience for those whose privilege offers them a myriad of choices but who fail to take advantage of them. "I can't stand whining," she says. "I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made. You live in a time when there are endless choices ... Money certainly helps, and having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don't even have to have money for it. But you have to work on yourself ... Do something!"

It's a credo Clinton lives by, though certainly anyone would sympathize had she responded to her peculiar circumstances with paralysis. But wallowing (or "whining," for that matter) has never been her thing. That's never been more evident than it is these days, as her capacity to convert bitter enemies into staunch admirers continues to surprise, no matter how many times she pulls off the trick. Reviled as a carpetbagger in her 2000 senatorial campaign, she trundled around upstate New York on a much-derided "Listening Tour," yet swept into office with a resounding 55 percent of the vote, a darling of dairy farmers in Oneida County and liberals on the Upper West Side alike. Of course, it wasn't just her platform that won them over. Does anyone really think she'd have been elected had she not worked her way into the public's heart as a woman wronged, a wife exemplifying the best kind of grace under the worst kind of pressure? But once in the Senate, she proved a deft politician, deploying an astonishingly effective strategy of respectful submission. Even Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the House members who managed her husband's impeachment trial, has nice things to say about her. ("She handles herself in a very classy way and has a work ethic second to none.") And again, in 2008, after one of the ugliest presidential primaries in memory, replete with competing (and too often justified) allegations of racism and sexism, she became an Obama stalwart and the most popular member of his cabinet—more popular, by far, than he.

Clinton is open about the fact that it was her celebrity that inspired President Obama to insist that she take the job of secretary of state, over her own reservations. ("I said, 'No, no, no!'") The president offered her the post, she told me, because he needed to send out onto the international stage a person whose very presence would signal the importance the U.S. places on diplomacy and international cooperation. A person who brought with her the klieg lights of the international media. "He came into office at a time of such economic distress," she told me. "He had his hands full with trying to save the economy. And he knew that we had so much damage to repair around the world in foreign policy. I think that the president rightly concluded that 'I'm not going to be able to do this, so I've got to have somebody who already has an international platform ... somebody who would be able to get every door open.'" Clinton was in many ways the only choice. What other statesman (besides her husband) was as famous as Barack Obama?

[]

Clinton's stardom and her uncanny ability to turn the most sour of lemons into the sweetest lemonade were in evidence throughout our time in Africa. She is not above recasting her failures into object lessons for the people she meets. To inspire local officials, she told stories about her own electoral defeats, saying, "I have won elections and I have lost elections. When you lose an election, it's important that [your supporters] see that the process was fair." She willingly trots out the most unpleasant memories to help her cause. In an unscripted moment, she told a group of South African students, "[When] my husband was president, people were saying terrible things about us both. I was beginning to think, Who do they think they are?" Again and again, at the AIDS clinics in Cape Town and the dairy factories in Malawi, she mentioned her husband (always "my husband," never "President Clinton"), leveraging his popularity and their mutual celebrity to further her message.

One of the most uncomfortable moments of our interview came when I asked her about her marriage. The discomfort, however, was mine, not hers. I debated not even raising the issue. But the fact is that, for many women, the Clintons' partnership of equals stands as both a model and a cautionary tale. We are still curious about it, even 14 years after its dissection on the floor of Congress. Given what the woman has been through with all the various "bimbo eruptions," culminating in the Monica Lewinsky debacle, and given the public's insatiable appetite for rumors, however vague, of her husband's continued infidelities, her grace in response to my probing was astounding. "You have to be true to yourself," Clinton told me. "You have to be enough in touch with who you are and what you want, how you want to live and what's important to you, to make your decisions based on that. Sometimes that's very difficult. Sometimes it's hard to have your own internal voice be heard ... it's hard because you've got society with expectations and you've got family, friends, and others who are expressing opinions. When you're in the public eye, it's like open season with the entire world. You have just one life to live. It is yours. Own it, claim it, live it, do the best you can with it."

Clinton has owned it, claimed it, and lived it. In her remarkable book about the 2008 election, _Big Girls Don't Cry_, Rebecca Traister describes a little girl sitting on her father's shoulders at a Clinton rally. The sign she's holding reads "Hillary '08, Sophia '40." Something about that image moves me terribly. So much so that, when I was describing it to a senior aide, a longtime resident of Hillaryland, I actually cried. After bringing me a tissue, the aide said, "I would like Hillary Clinton to be the first female president." And you know what? After spending 10 days watching Clinton kick ass all over Africa, and despite never before caring the slightest bit about Clinton's presidential aspirations, I've come to want that, too.

Clinton, however, was emphatic when I asked if she was planning to run in 2016. Laughing, she said, "You know? I am not."

"Why not?" I asked. "Everybody wants you to."

Her answer, when it came, felt honest, though it was hardly different from the answer given by numerous other politicians in the same position, all of whom have insisted they wouldn't run up until the moment they changed their minds. "I have been on this high wire of national and international politics and leadership for 20 years," Clinton said. "It has been an absolutely extraordinary personal honor and experience. But I really want to just have my own time back. I want to just be my own person. I'm looking forward to that."

"And you're really not going to leave the door open just a crack?" I asked. "For Sophia? For [my own daughter] Sophie?"

Again that warm laugh. "I'm going to be cheering them on. I hope to be around when we finally elect a woman president. That would be a great experience for me, to be up there cheering."

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

question: Who is the subject of this article?

answer: Hillary Clinton.

question: What converted the author to a supporter of Hillary Clinton?

answer: They were visiting a Peace Corps project called Girls Leading Our World when 17-year-old Triza Lapani, wrapping a brightly colored chitenje around Clinton's waist, managed to crack Madame Secretary's carapace of firm, cool competence. Clinton stood with her arms raised as the girl spun around her. Her hair was soft around her face, and her smile was broad and honest. She seemed entirely at home, warm, even maternal.

question: Where did the author accompany Hillary Clinton to?

answer: She accompanied her on her final visit to Africa as secretary of state before she leaves the job in January, a farewell tour.

question: To which position was Hillary Clinton appointed and why?

answer: She was asked to be Secretary of State by President Barack Obama. He needed to send out onto the international stage a person whose very presence would signal the importance the U.S. places on diplomacy and international cooperation.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Hillary Clinton visits Africa on her last tour as secretary of state. Her daily schedule is extremely busy. The author is converted to Clinton's camp while on the tour by her honest interaction with a girl. She notes all Clinton has done for children and women and hopes that she continues being such a good roll model.


text:
There is a road that stretches lazily out from the driveway of our little house for 22 miles until it hits the sea. It rolls and climbs underneath a canopy of ancient redwood until the final few miles, where a stellar explosion of orange and pink cherry blossom guides it kindly towards the water. Its gorgeous at this time of year. The colours are burnt, vivid and warm. The air is clean, crisp and fresh. When it’s sunlit, it looks like heaven, man. I don’t know why I’m saying all of this. You know it like the back of your hand. You love it as much as I do. We’ve meandered sleepily through the bends on our bikes a thousand times.

I’ve built this sort of routine that I’ve been keeping up for the last 7 weeks. Firstly, I’ve stopped working. I don’t mean that I do a little bit of work, sometimes – I mean that I do not work, at any time. I do not open my computer or answer my phone unless it’s my mother, my sister or Matthew. My office sits dusty and functional. There is an unopened pile of mail on my desk and the sketches from my last project are half finished all over the whiteboard. I pay any outstanding invoices when they arrive but I don’t send out new ones. It’s not really a decision I make actively. I just don’t consider working. It rarely enters my stream of consciousness anymore and I assume that gradually I will forget the memory of it altogether. I have enough money. I don’t need much.

Instead of that, I wake every day at 5.30am and pull on yesterday’s jeans, my boots and rifle around for a clean t-shirt. I float on autopilot down the wooden stairs, through the open living room into the kitchen, where I flick the radio onto a show I found that plays old jazz and has a really funny host that must be 75 years old.  I brew a very strong black coffee. While it bubbles and brews noisily, filling the house with a rich, dark aroma,  I feed Charlie cat who loops gracefully in and out of my legs impatiently until I’ve given him a can of tuna and some attention.  I then make a single honey sandwich on the thick, brown home-made bread that my mother insists on delivering every Monday afternoon. It’s not really about the bread. I think she thinks that she just needs an excuse to come out here to see me. When the coffee is done, I pour it into my flask, wrap the sandwich in foil and throw both into my rucksack. I wrap my neck and mouth with my scarf, turn out all of the lights, let Charlie out for his morning ablutions and lock the door behind me.  I slip out into the drive and kick my bike noisily into life. In one motion, I roar out into that same road that we rode together a thousand times, and disappear.

When I first started this routine, I’d just ride. It wasn’t really a ‘routine’ as such – I’d roll slowly and deliberately through the road’s varying graduations, waking up under the trees until I hit that beautiful stretch downwards towards the sea. Of course, it’s too early for traffic up here at that time so I’d rarely see anyone. You know what I’m like. It suited me perfectly. But about two weeks in, I started to commit to it a little more. I started to give it a little more of myself. Every day, I’d ride a little bit harder than the day before. I don’t know why. Then, I started setting myself daily speed tests to outdo the last – and now, frankly, it’s out of control. At this point, I fucking burn that road, man. I destroy it. I watch the speedometer climb militantly towards and then easily past 100 miles per hour every single morning. I am fairly confident that it is impossible for me to ride that road any faster or more aggressively than I do now. The bike will not give me anything more than 107 even though I found the handbook in the attic and it said that it was built to hit 111. But she’s an old machine, so I guess I can give her that. I lean heavy as hell into every corner as if it’s the last I’ll ever take. I’m gutsy and brave with my decisions because I did the maths – at that speed, I’m covering more than 145 feet per second. I’m hurled noisily past anything that might have the audacity to share the same space as me, tearing around them and into the apex of the bend, and level out onto another straight, swaddled by a thick, heavy swirl of deep autumn reds and oranges.

The temperature has dropped in the last ten days and now it’s only a few degrees above zero at dawn. My arms and chest are tender and stiff as the wind and the cold batters my body, and it feels like all of my senses are heightened. The air feels like it’s freezing my lungs. I am completely aware that at any given time, I am one split-second, one spot of bad luck or mechanical failure away from certain death. If the initial impact doesn’t kill me, then my skin will be razed happily from my body by the asphalt, my muscles stretched and torn and my bones shattered as my ragdoll body is thrown towards those solid trees, or into the river, or over the drop of any of those sheer ravines – but I am utterly unafraid. Occasionally, as I force the old bike to maintain such phenomenal pace, draining every ounce of agility from its strong frame, I’m ambushed by a crosswind or an unsuspecting animal that jumps out into my path, and I need to remain completely focused to pull a clever swerve, or we’ll both be killed instantly.  I stopped wearing my leathers and my helmet about three weeks ago so that firstly, I’d be lighter, and secondly, so that I’d be completely unburdened by gear. The freedom is unreal – and I’m faster than before. I have to wear sunglasses to keep the wind out of my eyes, though. They help with the glare sometimes too. The sun creeps above the sea on the last four miles in the morning and the light blasts in all kinds of directions across my face through the space between the trees. As a result of all of this, I’m a far, far better rider than I was 7 weeks ago. I’m actually quite brilliant now.

Often, as the bike screams and begs underneath me in fifth gear, I lose myself entirely and I think of you. The noise, wind, momentum and machinery fade quickly and I am left with you. Your heart shaped face. Your golden hair, and the arch of your back. How utterly good and kind you are. Your affection for children, Charlie cat and my mother. She absolutely adores you. Your patience and your laughter. Your perfect cup of tea. How talented you are at painting. How you could do anything with your young life and you choose mostly to give it to others. Your thoroughly absurd dress sense – but absolutely immaculate taste in music. How bad you are at singing, and how hilarious I find it. The wind and sunlight through your hair in the dunes when we walk my sister’s dog for hours on Sundays, jeans rolled up to your knees, strolling carelessly along the shallows of the coast.  The first time that I met you — and those first days that I fell in love with you. The weeks we spent living in that tiny box apartment before we moved out of the city — and how I knew I would do anything — without reservation — to share the rest of my life with you. About the way that I love you, and how it’s an absolute, and with no equivocation. In those moments, I am a shooting star, burning through a clawing, crawling version of time that is drenched in syrup and molasses  — and I fly through a complete, echo chamber silence with you. And then it’s shattered. I hurtle back into reality as I scream into another bend, tearing like a spirit possessed through the voluntary chaos that I create every morning — 145 feet of bone-shattering concrete per second — a single moment of misfortune away from catastrophe.

I pull sharply through the cadences and the rhythms of the bends beneath the blossom down towards my sister’s house on the sea. She’s given me a key because I’m there so much.  It’s usually before 6am when I arrive, and so I park up, let myself in, fill and boil the kettle for her and take her old dog Alfred out onto the beach. Alfie is my best friend and he is almost always the best part of my day. He misses you too.  He just doesn’t carry it in the same way that I do.

title: The bends beneath the blossom

question: Who is the narrator?

answer: The narrator is unnamed; he's an adult son, and a brother. He no longer works; it seems he is in mourning. He's a cat owner. He rides his motorbike.

question: What is important to the narrator?

answer: His cat, his sister and her dog Alfie, Matthew, his mom, his motorbike, and the woman who he misses are all important to him.

question: Are there other important characters?

answer: The other important character is the woman that the narrator misses. I assume she died.

question: What does "The bends beneath the blossom" mean?

answer: The bends beneath the blossom describes the ride he takes each morning on his motorbike.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Each morning for the previous seven years, the narrator rides his motorbike along a 22 mile stretch beneath redwood trees and orange and pink cherry blossoms. It seems that he's mourning his wife/girlfriend/partner; he thinks of her when he rides. He rides very fast, not caring what will happen to him.


text:
There lives a tale of a mysterious forest that has yet to be fully explored or even discovered. It is only echoed in rumors spread by newer journalists trying to get a start at their career or some conspiracy theorists just trying to spread what they think is true around the internet. The only thing about it is that each and every report is different. One says that the forest has a demon inside it. Others say that it's just a normal old forest. And yet more say that the beasts inside are well fed by a resident witch that they devour all that walk in. All theories farfetched, all theories more than likely false or just rips from other horror movies that have scarred the writer's childhood. There are a few constants in the stories though. One of them being that nobody knows the precise location of the forest, and that is likely due to the other notable constant: nobody who has walked in the forest has walked back out.

Unfortunate for a little group of Boy Scouts that planned their adventures to a nearby forest that had always intrigued the small, but growing troop. They never stood a chance or even could know about the doom that they had just put themselves to...

The little campout adventure just simply contained seven bodies. Five boys and two adult leaders. They decided to take a weeend backpacking trip into the forest and camp out at a clearing that satellite images on Google had shown. They'd spend the entire Saturday there, then return on Sunday. The group of boys consisted of the Patrol leader, Nick Tepp. He was the crazy guy that had the idea in the first place. He was pretty fit and an all around good organizer. He's the son of the lead Scoutmaster, Michael Tepp. Mike was all about reading into survival books and literature, and had his favorite shows about that subject. The only problem is that that's all he ever did. He never had tried surviving out in the wild before.

The second of five kids was the assistant Patrol Leader, Greg Schaeffer. He was a scrawny kid and wore giant glasses and was significantly younger than the rest of the boys. He had a quick sense of humor and was very intelligent, however, which is what he had rode on to get his position. The third was the Quartermaster and Chef, Owen White. He was a plump boy who was on his last year of being a scout and had set his sights on a top college in the state. He had stopped caring about scouts a long while ago, but the new campout had piqued his interest and he decided to tag along for the ride and see how it went.

The fourth and fifth were brothers. The older one was Jack Klepton. He had been known to be a class clown and generally a ne'er-do-well. He had always slacked off in school, but promises of adventure always brought a sparkle in his eye and a determined smile like he could take on the world. The younger one, Keith, was the opposite end. He was studious and anti-social. He hated scouts and hated nature. The only reason why he had come was because his father, another one of the scout masters, had forced him on the trip, believing to give his sons a litt bit of fresh air. Kevin Klepton was a lot more fit than Mike, but shared his older son's stubborn state of mind and was much more daring, despite the white hairs starting to cover his head.... Or at least what little bit of his head that can grow hair.

They had left to go into the forest with High hopes and full stomachs, laughing and taking a quick pace for the trail, yet had no idea what was to become of them and that none would return to see thier families and friends.

title: [First] The Forest introduction! I decided to put out an intro to a story I've wanted to write and would enjoy feedback. Maybe I can follow through with the rest of the story if it gets good reviews. Sorry for long post.

question: What happened to the Boy Scouts?

answer: They went to the forest to camp for a night, but no one ever saw them again.

question: Why is it believed there is a demon inside one of the forests?

answer: People theorize about the presence of a demon because no one knows the exact location of the forest and because no one who has walked into the forest has come out.

question: Describe the theories about the forest.

answer: Some say there is a demon in the forest and some believe that the beasts of the forest are well fed by a resident witch. Some also claim that it is a normal forest.

question: Describe Greg.

answer: He's the assistant Patrol Leader of the Boy Scouts group that went to the group. He is described as a scrawny kid who has a quick sense of humor and very intelligent. He is also described as much younger than the rest of the boys.

question: How many Boy Scouts are there?

answer: There are five boys and two adult leaders.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: The author describes a forest which has lots of conflicting theories that suggest it's haunted. The constants found in all of the theories are that no one knows the exact location of the forest, and that all who enter never come back out. The author gives an example of a group of five Boy Scouts and their two adult leaders who went camping in the woods. The group was never seen again.


text:
You know when you find out that you lost the item that you simply cannot lose? That’s me today. I lost a watch that was passed down from my grandfather, and he told me never to lose it because it was part of the family, kind of like a family heirloom or something. It didn’t matter that much to me, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of remorse.

The watch had seen things, things that you wouldn’t even believe. For one the watch had been with my grandfather in World War II. It almost was lost in the war but my grandfather literally risked his life to make sure that it would continue to be in the family. He was captured in the war and some fool wanted to take it for himself, my grandfather simply said “no” and the person beat him nearly to death. I guess that after that the person got bored and went off to try and steal something else. Yeah, that watch has seen things you would never believe.

My grandfather told me about his own father and his experiences with the watch. He said that his father was wearing the watch during the Great Depression, said that he was going to keep the watch even if it meant starving to death. The dust storms made the watch sort of rusty and decrepit looking but he fixed it up real good. My great grandfather’s wife kept on bugging him to sell the thing for a dollar but my great grandfather would not have it. That watch was here to stay; it has seen some things you wouldn’t believe.

My own father passed the watch down to me a few years back. He told me that he was wearing the watch when he met my mother. They both happened to be driving along and their cars just happened to break down in the same spot. He said it was like one of those things you see on TV where people just fall in love instantly like they were pieces of a puzzle. After they got both of their cars fixed he gave her his number and that was that.
You know I still haven’t told my story about what the watch has seen. I was wearing the watch when I saw a horrible car crash right in front of me, one of those crashes where the car flips over. I stepped out to see if I could help. There was a man in the car and he was cut up pretty bad, he was on death’s door it seemed like. He grabbed my hand with the watch on it and didn’t say nothing, just held on. The watch was there, it saw the man die right in front of it. After that the watch felt like it wasn’t even there, like something was gone from it. I don’t know, that watch has seen some things you wouldn’t even believe.

  When I finally found the watch sitting inside the couch I thought that it was time to give it to my son. He took it and kind of just threw it on his desk. I tried to explain to him that it was a family treasure and that it was important to keep because it had seen some things he wouldn’t even believe. After that my son asked what it had seen. I told him about the time I was climbing a very tall tower in some big city and that it had seen all the people beneath it, saw them walking about and it saw that those people all had different destinations. It saw that all of those people would just kind of ignore each other for the most part. It saw the birds in the sky and the clouds and the big buildings all combining to make something quite beautiful. It saw everything at that moment, and I mean everything. My son put on the watch and told me that it would see more than everything, that it would see impossible things that you would never even believe. And you know what? I believed him.

title: Short story: The Watch

question: What is the theme of this story?

answer: Intergenerational legacy.

question: What does the story center around?

answer: A watch.

question: What happens at the end of the story?

answer: The narrator passes the watch down to his son.

question: What are the generations in the story?

answer: The great grandfather in the great depression, the grandfather in WWII, the father who met his wife when his car broke down, the present narrator who has the watch, and the narrator's son.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This is the story of a watch that is passed down in a family for five generations.


text:
(It's the first draft and part of a larger story, so...)

Rickartsdale? That little village? Nothing out there worth seeing. Nothing but a few small families and scary stories. Worse, it’s way out in the boonies. Far enough that you wouldn’t even see it on many maps. Used to be a bigger place, a proper community even. Things tend to be a little off in remote places like that, strange happenings and folks fleeing in a big hurry. Typical setup for your common folk tale. That is what you asked for, though... so...

Right, Rickartsdale. A proper farming community out just beyond the western border of the old kingdom. The little town sank into decline when folks started going missing. Like I said, typical setup. The culprit this time was your typical boogieman, a monster the people had started calling “the Druid of Weeds.” Nobody seemed quite sure what “it” actually was, but there were a lot of sightings. Some people said it was a wild-man, other people claimed it was a monstrously large cat, the big ones you don’t see in that region... Like jungle cats. Panthers, but big like a lion. Some folks even claimed it was a humble and unfamiliar ranch cat that stalked them. The one factor that always matched up was the eyes. Eyes that didn’t match, copper and emerald and full of hate like you wouldn’t believe. Contempt, most said. And another thing. This druid, or whatever it really was, a vigilant soul could catch it just sittin’ there watching you. Scoping out your habits, your home, your animals, not like a beast, but like a man planning something evil. Vigilant or not, the “prey” would find weeds around the monsters vantage point. Like the plants were compelled to grow wherever he planted his feet.

That was the unsettling part of the stories to me. If he skulked about long enough, you could see the paths he took around your property. A neat little line of weeds circling your home, leading up to the window outside your room. It was an evil omen, and being a farming community, you deal with weeds often enough that you may not see it. And if you neglected, they might just grow anyway, whether you were prey or not. Spooked a lot of folks, some even got out of dodge. Got worse when people started ending up dead.

It was always the farmers, though. Farmers, and traders coming in with their wares loaded up tall on whatever beast of burden they had. We found more than a few merchants on the side of the path, dragged just off the way and surrounded by their trinkets. People were quick to find out that the deaths were related to animals used for labor. Nothing was ever stolen, as far as the people knew, but the animals were always missing. Every once in awhile you would even find a branded animal roaming free and feral again, so they weren’t being stolen either.

Ah hell, I let that “we” slip, didn’t I? Well, you must have known, since you came looking for me in particular. That’s right, my folks were some of the many to walk away from that hole once things got bad. Once the town started trying to live off the land without any help of animals. Once the people were so afraid that they would drive away outsiders, just because they came on horseback. Eventually, people just stopped coming around entirely. The town, now a village, may as well have been an island. No place to raise a kid, the population may as well have been a cult.

The damndest thing, though, the reason this really stuck with me, there used to be a little cat that came around. A little stray cat with grey charcoal fur and mismatched eyes. He would come around the farm and beg for scraps. Just me, though, he had a way of making himself scarce when my father would come around. Good enough that I don’t think my parents ever saw it. He threw a bit of a fit one day, I was too young to figure why at the time, but he found me out back behind the barn one day taking a midday nap. I woke up in a knee-high growth of weeds. Told him it wasn’t there when I fell asleep... It was a short, soft bed of grass I fell asleep on, with that little stray on my chest. We moved away from there about a week later. Not before my father had a chance at getting a hunting party together. They never found anything, though. It’s hard to hunt something like that, chasing an idea from a story, and pissing it off something fierce in the process. It was easier to just leave, and we did. Left everything behind, too. We were marked, and there was no way we could load up a drawn cart. No way to move it without a donkey. We had to leave on foot.

*********************************

The man leaned back in his chair, readying himself for his conclusion to the story only to be interrupted by the woman sitting at the table across from him.

“Sounds like our guy.”

He cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

“That’s definitely the one I’m looking for. When are we leaving?” The woman bore down on him with startlingly blue eyes. Eyes that didn’t entirely seem right on a person, just a little too bright, and fixed with a look of subdued fanaticism.

“I don’t think you quite understood what I was getting at...”

“Sunrise, then? I’ll get a couple of horses ready.”

“You weren’t even listening, were you?”

She grinned in response, but something in that mischievous smile made him uncomfortable. “I got the important bits. I’ll see you in the morning.”

title: Weeds

question: What is the overall theme of this story?

answer: The overall theme of this story is about overcoming unsettling matters.

question: What does the main character think about the town?

answer: The main character describes the town as a cult, and not an area to raise kids ever. The town had a scary and deserted component to it.