text:
Walking down Main Street, James sees something.
He sees something florescent. It's glowing. It's calling is name. He must get to it. He needs it. He must find what is giving off such an enticing shade of green.

He pushes past every person in his way--young, old, large, small, male, female-- he doesn't care. He needs to see it. He needs to touch it. Running as fast as he can, it only seems to get farther away.
Oh, why can't he run faster?

He's getting closer; he can feel it.

*"But it still looks so far away."* He thought.

He pushes a small girl aside and she hits the ground. And then she was gone. The girl had disappeared. James stopped running.

*"where did she go?"*

James looked around.

*"Where did everyone go?"*

The street that was a blur with people, cars, lights, and sounds moments ago was now inexplicably empty and so very quiet. He turned his body back to it's original position and saw there, lying in the street, the glowing thing that vexed him so.

He started slowly towards it with sure steps, shaking with anticipation.

*"Finally."*

He stopped a foot-and-a-half away from the object and lowered himself to the ground. he reached his hand out to touch it and just as fast as everyone disappeared, so did the sun. Darkness stretched far and wide. James could barely see the street.

*"I don't remember the sun setting. It all happened so fast."*

He looked back to the ground to find that the object--like the little girl-- had gone.
Speechless, he grabbed and scraped at the ground where the object was seconds ago.

Anger and loss made it's way from the bottom of his stomach to the top of his lungs, and he cried out in anguish. He slammed his fists onto the cement, and suddenly, the street was gone.

Falling through the blackness, James screamed and flailed his arms trying to find something--anything-- to hold onto, but found nothing. There was nothing above and nothing below him.
How long had he been falling? Weeks? Months? It felt more like years.

As time passed, he stopped screaming. He stopped grasping. He sometimes forgot he was still falling. He had become so accustomed to the nothingness; he almost felt like one with it. He felt peaceful. But he still asked the question time and time again:

*"Will I be falling forever?"*

Instantaneously, his body collided with stone. His bones cracked, his bladder released, and his mouth gave way to vomit and then blood. His lungs contracted and expelled all air from it's passages.

Writhing there, half-dead, James could feel is organs begin to shut down. After what felt like hours, his lungs finally relaxed, allowing oxygen to enter. Coughing and gasping, James saw out of the corner of his eye, a faint green glow.

He turned his head and saw the object lying there. The way it sat there, just out of reach, felt like it was mocking him; watching him; laughing at his pathetic situation.

*"I have to destroy it."*

He searched himself for any shred of strength. He stretched his arms out in from of him and started to drag himself toward the object that he now hated. He drug himself until he saw that, again, he was getting no closer to it.

Dejected, he lay his head on the ground.

**plink**

He looked at the stone floor and saw a little white lump. He picked it up and looked closer.
There in his hands, was a tooth.

**plink**

He looked down and found another. Confused, he ran his tongue along the teeth in his mouth and found two empty spaces; one where a molar once was, and one where a canine should be.

**plink**

Another tooth. And another. And another.
James tried to put them back in his mouth, but his hands felt like they were underwater. He tried to scream, but his mouth was full of gravel.

The high-pitched squeal of heavy machinery met his ears and bright flash blinded him.

Clutching his chest and gasping, he sat up. The blankets had fallen to the floor and the pillows were at the foot of the bed. The sheets were damp with sweat. Trying to calm himself, James said,

"Only a dream."

Laying down, He said,

"It was just a dream."

title: First short story that I've actually put effort into. Feedback is appreciated, but please be nice.

question: Why was James running down the street?

answer: He was trying to grab an object that kept moving farther away and disappearing


split: train

text:
[Aurel Stein, with his dog Dash, poses in the desert during his second expedition into China. He returned with what is now acknowledged as the world's oldest printed book, the Diamond Sutra of 868AD.]

Aurel Stein, with his dog Dash, poses in the desert during his second expedition into China. He returned with what is now acknowledged as the world's oldest printed book, the Diamond Sutra of 868AD. _Photo: British Library_

The letter could have been written this morning. Its remorse and embarrassment are as palpable as a thumping headache.

"Yesterday, having drunk too much, I was so intoxicated as to pass all bounds. But none of the rude and coarse language I used was uttered in a conscious state..."

But at least a thousand grape harvests have passed since the words were composed – and sealed in a cave in the Gobi Desert. We don't know who penned the letter, but we do know who found it.

[Aurel Stein takes tea in Lahore in the 1890s.]

Aurel Stein takes tea in Lahore in the 1890s. Controversy, in the form of objects taken from China, would come later. _Photo: Library Hungarian Academy of Sci_

And we know where the letter is today. Its emergence is the result of a remarkable but controversial figure, the explorer Aurel Stein, born 150 years ago today.

The haul included the earliest known map of the heavens, a receipt for the sale of a slave girl, medical treatments and Buddhist texts. The greatest jewel was the world's oldest printed book, the Diamond Sutra of AD868.The apology letter, and other model etiquette missives redolent of Miss Manners, was among thousands of documents Stein obtained from a cave near Dunhuang, China, in 1907.

The find saw Stein hailed in the West, then forgotten. Unlike or Howard Carter or Heinrich Schliemann, Stein's name hardly registers today. Yet the results of his trailblazing journeys have transformed our understanding of ancient central Asia, a region of growing global importance.

For decades Stein has sat in the West's too-hard basket, an uncomfortable reminder of the twilight years of the Great Game, when rival powers viewed the treasures in other people's backyards as theirs for the taking.

In China, though, Stein has not been forgotten. He is viewed as the worst foreign devil to travel the Silk Road. Of all the antiquities the British-Hungarian explorer collected during his forays into China's remote west, it is the Dunhuang scrolls that have ignited the most consternation.

Long after Stein was buried in Kabul in the 1940s, the Chinese people continue to "gnash their teeth in bitter hatred" over his actions, according to one China scholar.

Visitors escorted around the magnificent murals within the cave complex at Dunhuang – now a major tourist attraction – are left in no doubt that Stein is still considered a looter and robber.

Yet, on the eve of Stein's 150th anniversary, it is worth asking what the fate of one of the world's great literary finds might otherwise have been?

Stein bought the scrolls in 1907 from a guardian monk, Wang Yuanlu, who uncovered them within a sealed cave in 1900 where they had been perfectly preserved in the dry desert air for a thousand years. Wang had already parted with a few scrolls to curry favour with local officials when Stein arrived.

Stein feared the remainder would be destroyed or lost to scholarship forever unless he "rescued" them. His fears were convenient, certainly, for a man on a mission funded by the British Museum and the Indian government. And he knew he had a bargain, paying just £130 for his haul.

Yet when the cave was discovered, China had little interest in the contents of this hidden library. When the monk attempted to interest authorities in his find, he was simply ordered to reseal the cave.

Eventually alerted to the cave's importance, Chinese authorities ordered the transfer of what remained to the Beijing. Some items were pilfered along the way. And Wang didn't send everything to Beijing. He kept enough to sell to other visitors. The fate of these scrolls is unknown.

Stein's scrolls are now in the British Library, many have been digitised and can be viewed online.

China may one day ask for them back. But unlike the Elgin Marbles or Rosetta Stone, the Stein scrolls are mostly too fragile for permanent display. So arguments about where they should reside boil down to whether they should be kept in a cabinet in London or Beijing.

The more important point is that today they have been catalogued, are being been studied and are available.

Cultural values have changed since Stein loaded his camels with Silk Road treasures. Today it is shocking to think of him – or anyone – digging, chipping and bargaining their way around desert oases in a quest for antiquities to fill museums. We can't rewind the clock.

But we can acknowledge that the scrolls Aurel Stein acquired from the hidden cave library continue to add to human understanding. And that requires no morning-after apology.

question: Summarize the negative views about Aurel Stein.

answer: Aurel Stein is a controversial figure. He is a reminder of a time when rival powers viewed the treasures of other nations as theirs for the taking. In China, he is viewed as the worst foreign devil to travel the Silk Road. The Chinese people continue to harbor a grudge over his actions. They consider him a looter and a robber.

question: Summarize everything relating to Stein's education.

question: Summarize everything relating to antiques.

answer: On his second expedition into China, Aurel Stein returned with the world's oldest printed book, the Diamond Sutra of 868A.D. He acquired the apology letter and other etiquette missoves from a cave near Dunhuang, China in 1907. His taking of the Dunhaung scrolls has ignited consternation. He bought the scrolls from a guardian monk.


text:
	Cassidy Williams sits under the eaves of the coffee house, sipping her cafe au lait, peoplewatching. She's sympathizing with the rush of pedestrians hustling through the merciless rainstorm, but her face doesn't show it. Her face is slender, pale, and punctuated by a diagonal smattering of freckles. Normally she hides them behind large sunglasses, but she would look mad wearing lenses on this rainy afternoon. Her hair is short, and after repeated dyes, has taken on a brown ombre color.
	Out of the crowd of pedestrians, a man with a navy trench coat walks towards the cafe, and to Cassidy. He's carrying a Dunhill briefcase, brown. It matches his watch strap – Cartier. He's not short, and not tall; he's fifty-three years old: his face shows his years of service in WWI.
	“Good morning Ms. Klein.”
Cassidy smiles,
	“Good morning Benjamin.”
He sits down at the table and removes his hat.
	“Do you have the notes?”
	“Yes, I've already relayed them to the other senior officers.”
	“Good. May I ask what you're reading?”
	“Nietzche.”
	“Do you buy any of that stuff?”
	“Bits and pieces. He never lived to see what we have.”
They sit silent for a moment, Cassidy takes a sip of her coffee. The rain comes down in sheets, crashing  onto the cobblestone, and into the Seine.s
	“Do you believe in eternal return?”
	“I haven't got that far in the book.”
	“Fate, Ms. Klein. The world will undergo many deaths and rebirths, and perhaps there is the chance that we may be reborn again.”
	“Would that mean the Jews will need to be purified once again?”
	“Perhaps. Perhaps the world will occur in exactly the same way in which we have experienced it. Perhaps we will have this same conversation at some point far in the future-”
	“Or will it be in antiquity?”
	“I don't know. Do you believe in the possibility?”
	“I suppose, but that would mean surrendering to ones fate. I don't take kindly to that notion.”
Benjamin looked at Ms. Williams with a gaze of equal parts admiration and hunger.
	“I suppose you wouldn't Ms. Klein.” Benjamin reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a file folder, and it flays open with a picture of the short-haired, freckled Sandra Klein, with a name and nationality: Cassidy Williams – American.
	In horror, Cassidy's teal eyes widen and her mouth parts. She grabs her handbag and rushes out into the rainstorm. Four men in dark green trench coats rise from the cafe tables and walk in her direction.
	“It's useless to run Ms. Williams! We've got you surrounded!”
Cassidy bolts down the narrow streets of Paris, past bakeries, hotels, and studios, but the German military troops are close behind. Benjamin walks in the back, neither short nor tall, but undoubtedly with a new air of power. The German troops rush into a hotel Cassidy dashed into. Gunshots. Benjamin quickens his pace. He walks into the hotel casually, but the door slams shut behind him – it's too late. Inside the hotel is an entire unit of American troops. The German officers are at gunpoint. An American soldier apprehends Benjamin, Cassidy walks up to him.
	“Either in antiquity or in the future, I'll enjoy this moment each time.”
Benjamin spits.

ONE WEEK LATER – FEBRUARY 1945, LANGLOIS, WASHINGTON

“And you can confirm this is how it happened Ms. Williams?”
“Indeed.”
“Good, then I think we're all done here.”
“Just um, one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Is he still here, Benjamin?”
“If you mean Col. Meier, yes. Third floor.”
“Can I speak with him?”
“About the ransacking? Or the development?”
“If you mean the bombing of Dresden, then yes, the development.”
“You can have five minutes, yes.”

I walk out of the bare room and shut the door behind me. The hallway is crowded in a bustle of suits and chatter. I walk to the stairway. Upstairs, third floor. Upstairs behind a series of doors, behind guards and bars of steel, there he is. Col. Benjamin Meier.
	“You're a sick son of a bitch.” He's silent.
	“When we found the POWs, they were emaciated. Some were unrecognizable. I can only imagine what you've done with the Jews.”
	Still, silent.
	“However, I can't say that I agree with the events that took place in Dresden. I know that was your hometown Benjamin.”
	“It was completely engulfed in flames. The screams of the innocent could be heard for miles. You're the sick ones.”
	“No, no one here is innocent Benjamin. Fire for fire can only breed more hatred, and I worry for the future.”
	“Don't, you'll see the future once more.”
	“Perhaps we can replay this again like civil humans in time.”
	“Perhaps.”
	“Perhaps.”

title: Spy vs Spy (for lack of better name)

question: Summarize the plot of the story.

answer: Cassidy Williams is undercover and meets Benjamin, who calls her Ms. Klein. They get to chatting and Benjamin reveals he knows who she really is, an American secret agent. Cassidy runs and escapes into a nearby hotel. Benjamin chases her but is caught by the American soldiers Cassidy led him to. Later, Cassidy interrogates him in his cell, with callbacks to their previous chat.

question: Summarize the setting of the story.

answer: The bulk of the story is set in either January or February of 1945. In one part the main characters are watching the Seine River. The combination of these facts, and the fact that there are German soldiers about means the bulk of the story probably takes place in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War Two. Later, while Cassidy is interrogating Benjamin, the story states that it is one week later, February 1945 in Langlois, Washington.

question: Summarize the conversations Cassidy had with Benjamin.

answer: During their first conversation, Benjamin maintains the charade that he does not know who she is. He makes sure that the notes are where they needed to go, and they discuss a book Cassidy is reading. They discuss the possibility that the world undergoes multiple deaths and births, and that this conversation may happen again in the far future. Benjamin then reveals he knows who she is, and Cassidy runs. Later, Cassidy interrogates him, and gets mad at him for the Nazi's treatment of POWs. Cassidy claims no one is innocent, and wonder if this will be played out again in the far future.


text: I know this is crazy but after my last post I feel a lot more relieved. Like I just found the missing piece of myself. Crazy right? Its only been a few days. I just keep imaging myself happier and better off without him. I get this mental picture in my head of me in love and vulnerable with another person and him with some girl that he doesn't love. I feel as if I will grow and find peace and he will be stuck in misery. I know its not right but it makes me happy to see things this way. I know its soon but I met some guy over the weekend and I felt some type of connection with him. One that I felt was special. I've been trying to feel a connection with someone else for a while but I guess it didn't work because I was trying so hard. This connection felt as natural and easy as breathing. It was kind of scary. I'm not saying that this guy is the one hell he might not even want a relationship with me or anyone for that matter. But what I am saying is that this gave me hope. I thought that everything that happens always came back to that person who changed me for the rest of my life. I am starting to realize that it isn't the case. Truth is I really do like this new guy and I know he is at least attracted to me. I'm hoping for the best. Who knew that in my darkest hour I would see light?

title: Light at the End of The Tunnel

question: Who is the writer?

answer: It's not clear.

question: How is the writer feeling?

answer: Relieved and hopeful, thinking they're better off without him (an implied ex) and ready to open up to new people.

question: What situation is the writer in?

answer: It's implied that a breakup recently occurred, and the writer has since met a new guy.

question: Who has the writer met?

answer: A new guy, a potential romantic interest for the writer.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: In a follow-up to a recent post implied to be about a breakup with a man who made the writer unhappy, the writer has met a new guy and is feeling relieved and hopeful about a future with new people.


text:
I looked up from my dirty fingernails, which had occupied a majority of my attention up to this point, and for the first time took note of my surroundings. The artificial lights in the train car reminded me of the halls of some unfamiliar hospital. The walls of the car were covered in a variety of outdated advertisements, public transportation maps, various warnings, and a list of procedures in case of some unforeseen emergency. Upon entering I had felt fortunate just to get a seat, but after a few stops there were just enough people remaining to limit me to an aisle seat, eliminating any chance of getting comfortable enough to sleep.

The assortment of people was as typically unusual as one would expect on the last train of the night. A couple sat across the aisle and one row in front of me. His hair was gray and clearly thinning at a rate that made him feel the need to grow it out some length and comb it back. He had a somewhat crooked grin as he looked at her and his eyes shown with the glint of a man who both knew he was getting away with something he shouldn’t be, but also felt no remorse as he was above the repercussions another might face.   Her hair was blonde beyond the years revealed in her face. Her cheeks drooped, but as she sat her eyes lit up like a child who’s just received their first cellphone. They talked like a high school couple on their third date, a few days before they decide they’ve found their one true love, focusing wholly on the other. In fact their mannerisms appeared almost unnatural, as if they were hiding something that no one was looking for.  Perhaps they both had families and dull lives waiting for them at home and were enjoying this last train ride where the people are new and the conversations exciting.  The longer I am aware of the two the more I feel as though the man is looking at me out of the corner of his eye anytime his attention can be drawn away from the obviously infatuated woman at his side.

On the far side of the car a boy perhaps sixteen years old was washing paint off of his face. An early Halloween costume no doubt. It was likely he had come from the concert as had a number of others on the train. The remaining seats on the train were filled with unremarkable individuals much like myself. A slightly overweight, middle aged black woman dazes in and out of sleep with the jerking of the train, a boy nods his head with the iconic white headphones in, a man in a suit who presumably had a late night at the office stares at his phone to maintain the guise of never ending importance necessary today to maintain a respectable foothold in society. Two women speak the loudest, in an excited Spanish that seemed untouched by the late hour. They were in their late twenties with similar short dark haircuts which made it difficult to discern whether they were friends, lovers, or sisters. A man sits with the bike which will be his only accompaniment on his ride home from the station. Families sit huddled across rows, the kids have all managed to fall asleep, the mother leans against her husband and closes her eyes but cannot manage to drift off, the father stares out the window with a gaze that shows no signs of falling into sleep’s grasp.

As I finished this glance around the train I noticed the woman that stood in front of me. I could not tell her age but determined she was old enough to understand the world but young enough to have her entire life before her. She was relatively tall, perhaps 5’8”, though my exhaustion at this point in my observations renders my estimations fairly useless. She wore loose fitting, high waist, light blue jeans, which were modest for her slim figure. Her coat too was rather vague as if purchased for the sole purpose of blending into a crowd. She had her brown hair up in the back in a small bun and allowed the back of her hair to fall and cover her neck much as her bangs fell across her forehead. Her pale face grew solemnly dark around her eyes which sat sunken back into the depths of her face. Her cheekbones sat high on her face and gave her a dignified look that contrasted with her reserved appearance. She too had headphones in and every few seconds she would inaudibly mouth a line or two from whatever it may have been she was listening too. Her expression revealed nothing. She was empty, cold, unfazed by her surroundings. This isn’t to say she appeared unfriendly or apathetic, simply untouched by the never ending stimuli of her surroundings. Her focus lies beyond the events of the train car, extending beyond the world to which my thoughts felt tied.

The look on her face captured my imagination as it was more inviting to the speculation of her thoughts than that of anyone else in memory. I was left powerless to grasp at the few clues available to me in order to invent the monologue in her head. Perhaps it was as simple as the melody and words to whatever song was passing between her ears and occasionally across her lips. She could be reminding herself of what mundane tasks she was condemned to the next day. Or perhaps it could have been that she wanted nothing more than for the torrential stream of emotional realizations to cease for a moment and allow her the peace of an uncomfortable train ride. Undeniably her face revealed the surface of a past perhaps not of a troubled individual, but of someone that has seen of the cruelties of the world and stares blankly, unforgivingly, into the faces of romantic ideals and the illusion of Gatsby’s dream.

From her right nostril down to the top of her lip there was what appeared from my seat to be a trail of blood, or at least the dried remains of such a trail. It appeared as a stream cut from her otherwise cold face by a single drop of blood much as the ripples of a single pebble thrown into an otherwise calm body of water. The implications of the blood intrigued almost as much as her ability to ignore it. Not even the most subtle of subconscious motions seemed to indicate that she recognized it. She did not lick her lip where the blood met her mouth, did not reach to scratch at the dried blood, did not even noticeably move her mouth save for the occasional unspoken word.

A part of my typically repressed conscience began to question whether or not I had some obligation to ask her if she was alright. Not just in this particular moment as she appeared for the time being to fall within the general standards of being well, but in her life. It is interesting the difference in meaning between asking someone if they are alright in contrast to asking someone how they are doing.  When we ask someone how they are we expect them to say they are doing well and to move on with their day or the conversation regardless of how they actually feel. To reveal more than this would be a burden upon the individual asking the question and their tightly budgeted time allowed to listen to your response.  I did not want to know that she was doing “fine, thanks” any more than I wanted to know that anyone else was “fine, thanks”. I wanted to know the story behind that blood stain and to know the pain behind the eyes.  I want to know the emotion behind the ceaseless blank stare.

I felt helpless in knowing that I knew now as much as I would ever know about this woman. My mind began to drift from her for a moment to explore ideas of people I will never meet, stories I will never know, pain I will never understand, and emotions I have yet to realize. The train began to slow as it periodically did to allow for those lucky enough to be home to get off and she turned towards the doors. A bell rang over the speaker system as the door slid open and allowed her out into the West Oakland station, she walked past my window, and I never saw her again. The bell rang again and the doors slid closed. I look back from my window to where the woman was standing and an elderly man stood in her place. His expression revealed nothing.

title: Public Transportation (First ever)

question: What is the overall feeling the reader can get about the condition inside the train being described here?

answer: It feels overcrowded.

question: What is the gut feeling of the narrator about the young lady with dried blood on her face?

answer: Curiosity, mostly.


text:
THESE IDEAS WORK FOR ME…

I wouldn’t call them beliefs because I’m not attached to them. I’m not ready to kill or die to prove I’m right or that someone else is wrong. This is not dogma, so there’s no need for anyone to argue. I’m not suggesting I’m right or others are wrong. I may be incorrect. I’m not saying I hold the only truth, the ultimate truth, or even truth.

This book is a collection of ideas that feel true to me, inspire me, and work for me (based on what I can see in my life). I’d love to hear how these and other ideas work for you. I see this as a two-way learning relationship that we can both learn from. I’m not the teacher. You’re not the student. We’re just two people exploring ideas about the divine in hope of improving our lives and the world.

PLEASE ACCEPT MY HUMILITY AND MY GRANDIOSITY

It is my only intention that this work brings you closer to peace, love, joy, happiness, and a greater connection with the divine. Please excuse my limitations as a writer as I attempt to do this. It is not my intention to make anyone feel wrong, uncomfortable, that they need to change, or feel anything other than fully loved, accepted and supported.

         Please accept my grandiosity in wanting to address such a huge and important subject (and any apparent presumption that I’m right). Please also accept my humility in doing my best to make myself vulnerable by sharing something I think will make the world a better place. I honor all those people, organizations, religions, beliefs, rituals, and everything else that seeks to do the same,

         At the same time, I remain excited, open-hearted and open-minded to seeing how we may grow, evolve, and change how we relate with the divine and each other to bring about even more peace, love, and happiness.

question: What is the post about?

answer: The post seems to be an author's introduction to a book.

question: What is the book about?

answer: The book is a collection of ideas that feel true to the author. The author points out that the ideas aren't the ultimate truth.

question: What is the author's hope for the book?

answer: The author hopes the book will bring the reader closer to peace, love, joy, happiness, and a greater connection to the divine.

question: What does the author ask the reader to accept from them?

answer: The author asks the reader to accept their grandiosity in wanting to address such an enormous topic, and to accept their humility in doing their best by sharing something they think will make the world a better place.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The post seems to be an author's introduction to a book. The book is a collection of ideas that feel true to the author. The author points out that the ideas aren't the ultimate truth.


text:
BACKGROUND: Depression, which only a few decades ago was considered to be a short-term illness requiring short-term treatment, is now recognised as a recurrent, sometimes chronic, long-term illness.

AIMS: To highlight the clinical importance of long-term antidepressant therapy in the treatment of depression.

METHOD: The current literature was reviewed to examine the relationship between duration of antidepressant therapy and efficacy.

RESULTS: Approximately one-third to a half of patients successfully stabilised in acute-phase treatment will relapse if medication is not sustained throughout the continuation period. Only 10-15% will relapse if medication is continued. For maintenance-phase therapy, approximately 60% of patients at risk will experience a recurrent episode of depression within 1 year if untreated, whereas those who continue in treatment will have a recurrence rate of between 10% and 30%.

CONCLUSIONS: Risk of relapse and recurrence of depression can be significantly reduced if adequate continuation and maintenance therapy durations are achieved.

question: What is depression?

answer: Depression is a recurrent, sometimes, long-term illness.

question: What did the writer of the article investigate?

answer: The writer reviewed current literature to examine the relationship between the duration of antidepressant therapy and its efficacy.

question: How successful is treatment for depression?

answer: The risk of relapse and recurrence of depression can be significantly reduced if adequate continuation and maintenance therapy durations are achieved.

question: Do anti-depressants work?

answer: According to the author, only 10-15% of patients relapsed if medication is continued.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: Depression is long-term illness that can be treated if adequate continuation and maintenance therapy durations are achieved.


text:
JOHANNES GABRIEL GRANÖ (1882–1956) was a Finnish geographer, chiefly remembered as a professor of three universities and an explorer of Siberia and Mongolia. He is also noted for his pioneering studies on landscape geography, and his book _Pure Geography_. Granö was a professor in universities of Tartu, Helsinki and Turku.[1]

Granö studied in Helsinki University, starting 1900 in botany but changing his major subject to geography. His minor subjects were biology and geology. As a young student he spent his vacations in Siberia, where his father worked as the priest for the Finnish population in Omsk 1901–1913. Granö took notes of the environment and his first scientific publication, published 1905 in “Fennia” was about the Finnish colonies in Siberia.[2]

Granö got stipendiums from the Fenno-Ugrian Society and executed three exploration trips to Northern Mongolia, Altai Mountains and Sayan Mountains in 1906, 1907 and 1909. His research focused gradually in effects of ice age in morphology of the mountains.[3]

Granö became a professor at the University of Tartu in 1919. He founded the department and organised teaching in Estonian language. In 1923 he was invited back to Helsinki University to be a professor and the editor of _Atlas of Finland_. He was soon asked to move to Turku where they had founded a Finnish university. There he even had time for his own research.[4] He was chancellor of the University of Turku from 1945 to 1955.[5]

Granö developed the concept of “pure geography” as the unique subject of geographical research. He created a working methodology to define and classify landscapes, not only based on geomorphology but also taking into account bodies of water, vegetation and human impact. As the research object of his “pure geography” he had human perception, which was unique in geography those days.[6]

Granö published a lot of his works in German, and thus he was in his lifetime best known in German-speaking areas. Only during First World War he published something in French.[7] In 1990's however, his main work _Pure geography_ was translated in English. This was because his ideas on human perception a starting point of geographical research introduced in _Pure geography_ were known to have influenced the emergence of humanistic geography and behavioral geography in 1960's and 1970's.

Photographs taken by Granö in connection with his fieldwork in the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, among colonies of Finnish settlers in Siberia, on the steppes of Western Siberia and in Mongolia, particularly with the purpose of studying the inhabitants of these areas, have been donated to the Finnish Literature Society and a selection of them was featured in an exhibition in Helsinki City Art Museum in 2002.[8]

Notable publications

-   _Pure Geography_, 1929, translation in English 1997[9]
-   _Altai I-II_, 1919–1921, with photographs by the author, republished in 1993. Translations in Swedish and Russian.[10]
-   _Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Eiszeit in der nordwestlichen Mongolei und einigen ihrer südsibirischen Grenzgebirge_ (doctors thesis 1910)
-   _Die Nordwest-Mongolei_ (in “Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde”, 1912)
-   _Morphologische Forschungen im östlichen Altai_ (in “Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde”, 1914)
-   _Les formes du relief dans l'Altai russe et leur genése_ (in “Fennia” 1917)
-   _Die landschaftlischen Einheiten Estlands_ (1922)
-   _Reine Geographie_ (1929, Finnish _Puhdas maantiede_ 1930, English _Pure geography_ 1997)
-   _Die geographischen Gebiete Finnlands_ (1931)
-   _Mongolische Landschaften und Örtlichkeiten_ (1941)
-   _Das Formengebäude des nord-östlischen Altai_ (1945)

Awards and honours

Asteroid 1451 Granö was named after Granö.[11] The co-operation centre of the University of Turku and the University of Tartu is called named _Granö Centre_ after J. G. Granö, former Rector of Turku University and Professor of Geography at the University of Tartu.[12]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

title: Johannes Gabriel Granö

question: Who was Johannes Gabriel Granö?

answer: A Finnish geographer noted for his pioneering studies on landscape geography. He was also an explorer most notably of Northern Mongolia, the Altai Mountains and the Sayan Mountains.

question: What were his accolades?

answer: An asteroid was named after Granö (Asteroid 1451 Granö) and the co-operation centre at the University of Turku was also named after him.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A page about the career of academic, explorer and geographer Johannes Gabriel Granö.


text:
THURSDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2017

Welcome to _Dispatches, _a weekly summary of my writing, listening and reading habits.

Some news: I have been appointed as national music writer at _The Australian_, as announced in the newspaper on Saturday:
[Andrew McMillen announced as The Australian's national music writer, starting January 2018 ]
After 8+ years of freelancing, this will be my first salaried journalism job. I'm honoured and thrilled by the opportunity, and I hope I can do justice to the wonderful work of Iain Shedden, who excelled in this role for nearly 20 years.

I start in January, and I'm on leave in December, though I intend to send another newsletter or two during that time.

What will my new job mean for _Dispatches_ in the new year? Right now, I can't say, as I don't know yet what my weekly workload will look like. I can say that I greatly enjoy preparing this newsletter each week, and hearing from my readers.

So I hope that I can continue this venture in some form, though perhaps on a less regular basis. We shall see.

WORDS:

I had a story published in _The Weekend Australian Magazine_ on Saturday. Excerpt below.

  _LOCKSTEP WITH LOCKIE_ (2,700 words / 13 minutes)

  _This black labrador spends every waking moment by his owner’s side. He’s not just a faithful companion, but Santiago Velasquez’s eyes on the world._
  [Lockstep With Lockie: Santiago Velasquez and his guide dog' story by Andrew McMillen in The Weekend Australian Magazine, November 2017. Photo by Justine Walpole]
  Their day begins soon after 6am with a series of movements so familiar they’re like clockwork. After rising from their beds, positioned side-by-side, Santiago Velasquez and his companion greet each other with affection and a leash is clipped to a collar. It’s a couple of dozen steps from their bedroom to the front door of the apartment, then down three floors in the lift to a small garden so that one of them can water the grass. “Quick quicks, Lockie,” says the young man, using the voice command for toileting. “Quick quicks.”

  After breakfast, Velasquez — known to all as “Santi” — leads Lockie to the balcony where he brushes the dog in the morning light, black wisps of fur falling to the floor. The guide dog stands docile, wagging his tail and panting happily. “It’s a good bonding exercise,” says Santi, a handsome 21-year-old with a swimmer’s strong build, a crown of black hair and sporty-looking glasses. In the distance is an extraordinary view of the Brisbane city skyline and surrounding hills but Santi cannot see it. Since birth, he has been blind in one eye with only three per cent vision in the other.

  It is a Wednesday in mid-October and they have a big day ahead. In an unpredictable, fast-paced world, Santi and Lockie rely on familiarity and routine as much as possible. Theirs is an intimacy of constant contact. “He’s very, very attached — that’s a massive understatement — because we spend pretty much every moment of our lives together,” says Santi, who takes almost an hour to groom his black labrador and then painstakingly shave his own facial hair by feel with an electric razor. “He takes a long time for everything,” says Santi’s mother Maria, laughing and rolling her eyes in mock exasperation. In truth, she and her husband Cesar are nothing less than patient, having taught their blind son that his only problem is that he cannot see, and that his blindness is no excuse for not doing the same household chores as his sighted brother, 18-year-old Camilo.

  Downstairs at 9am, Santi reattaches the leash and repeats his voice command, while Lockie walks in circles and sniffs the lawn. “Quick quicks, buddy,” he says, and he means it: they have a bus to catch. Santi slips a fluorescent yellow harness over the dog’s head. With this action, Lockie has been trained to recognise that he is now in work mode, and his focus narrows to the singular task of guiding Santi from home to university — and, much later, back again. The dog is now six years old but has been in training since he was a puppy to fulfil this role. Santi never knew him as a puppy: Lockie was three when they first met on a rainy day at the Guide Dogs Queensland head office. Since January 9, 2015 — a date seared into Santi’s memory — they have scarcely spent an hour apart.

To read the full story, visit _The Australian_. Above photo credit: Justine Walpole.

HOW I FOUND THIS STORY: I became interested in the relationship between people with low vision and their guide dogs earlier this year, when I reported a story for _The Weekend Australian Review_ about audio description services for blind theatregoers (_Sight Unseen_). I had the idea of writing about a day in the life of a guide dog, so I approached Guide Dogs Queensland to see if they'd be open to participating, by suggesting a suitable candidate for me to follow.

GDQ put me in touch with Santi and Lockie, and I'm pleased to say that it was a perfect match, as they are both exactly the kind of energetic, outgoing combination I was looking for. I spent a 14-hour day with the pair of them in October, and this was one of my favourite stories to report because it included some completely unexpected events that happened to take place on that day. I love that sort of randomness: I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and I was privileged to observe such an intimate relationship up close.

SOUNDS:

[Blueprint For Armageddon on Hardcore History]
_BLUEPRINT FOR ARMAGEDDON_ ON _HARDCORE HISTORY_ (six episodes, ~23 hours). I have been aware of this podcast for the five or so years that I've been an avid consumer of the medium, but I had chosen to avoid it as I was put off by the extreme duration of each series. All I can say is that I'm an idiot to have deprived myself of Dan Carlin's _Hardcore History _for so long, and this particular six-part series is an absorbing and brilliantly told history of the events surrounding World War I. Carlin is an expert guide, and quotes extensively from historical accounts from many participants, including the Germans, British, Russians and French, as well as several of the smaller powers who were involved in the conflict. I highly recommend _Blueprint For Armageddon_, which is freely available via your podcatcher of choice, and I'm keen to dig into another series soon – perhaps _Wrath of the Khans_, which is behind a paywall. But considering the extraordinary amount of work that Carlin and his team put into each of these episodes, it's absolutely worth paying for.

  The planet hadn't seen a major war between all the Great Powers since the downfall of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. But 99 years later the dam breaks and a Pandora's Box of violence engulfs the planet.

JODI KANTOR ON _LONGFORM_ (55 minutes). A fantastic conversation with one of the investigative reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story in recent months. So much wisdom here.

  Jodi Kantor is a New York Times investigative reporter and the author of The Obamas. On October 5th, she (with Megan Twohey) published an article detailing decades of sexual harassment payoffs by Harvey Weinstein, and she has covered the story extensively since. “Being a reporter really robs you of self-consciousness and shyness. You realize that it’s this great gift of being able to ask crazy questions, either really personal or very probing or especially with a powerful — to walk up to Harvey Weinstein, essentially and say, ‘What have you been doing to women all these years, and for how long? All of these other people may be afraid to confront you about it, but we are not.’ That is our job.”

TIM STEWARD ON _GIMME EMPATHY_ (86 minutes). I loved this conversation between host Scott Mercer and Brisbane musician Tim Steward, in part because Mercer happens to play in one of Steward's bands. They have a great connection, and it's cool to hear them learning a bit more about each other. I like how open Steward is about some seemingly tough subjects, such as a recent health scare and the deaths of people close to him.

  Scott's bandmate Tim Steward (Screamfeeder, We All Want To) recounts growing up in 1970s punk London and moving to the other side of the world as a teenager, plus health scares and songwriting.

JOE GORMAN ON _CONVERSATIONS_ (56 minutes). An excellent and authoritative discussion of the history of Australian soccer, as told by journalist and author Joe Gorman, who I'm proud to call a friend.

  At the grassroots level, Australian soccer has more young players than any other sporting code. Paradoxically, Joe Gorman has found that the professional league in Australia is still struggling to find an identity, for reasons which have little to do with the sport. Joe has written a history of our first national football competition, including an early engagement with Asia, the reasons behind crowd violence, and how the game formed a professional league. He also reveals a tale of two men integral to the sport; a visionary journalist, and the nation’s leading soccer statistician, who were quietly recording the story over many years. What happened to the early soccer clubs tells a history of Australia that's not really heard anywhere else.

READS:

[The Architect Of Tomorrow: Elon Musk by Neil Strauss in Rolling Stone]
_THE ARCHITECT OF TOMORROW _BY NEIL STRAUSS IN _ROLLING STONE _(6,900 words / 34 minutes). Trust Neil Strauss to turn out a gripping, surprising and enlightening profile of Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is one of those figures edging closer and closer to the centre of popular culture. You might think you know a few things about the guy, but you might be wrong, too. Strauss spent nine months reporting this one, and after "watching Musk do everything from strategize Mars landings with his rocket-engineering team to plan the next breakthroughs with his artificial-intelligence experts, I learned he is someone far, far different from what his myth and reputation suggest." Brilliant reporting and writing.

  It's mid-afternoon on a Friday at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and three of Elon Musk's children are gathered around him – one of his triplets, both of his twins. Musk is wearing a gray T-shirt and sitting in a swivel chair at his desk, which is not in a private office behind a closed door, but in an accessible corner cubicle festooned with outer-space novelty items, photos of his rockets, and mementos from Tesla and his other companies. Most tellingly, there's a framed poster of a shooting star with a caption underneath it that reads, "When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteor hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed, no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteorite." To most people, this would be mere dark humor, but in this setting, it's also a reminder of Musk's master plan: to create habitats for humanity on other planets and moons. If we don't send our civilization into another Dark Ages before Musk or one of his dream's inheritors pull it off, then Musk will likely be remembered as one of the most seminal figures of this millennium. Kids on all the terraformed planets of the universe will look forward to Musk Day, when they get the day off to commemorate the birth of the Earthling who single-handedly ushered in the era of space colonization. And that's just one of Musk's ambitions. Others include converting automobiles, households and as much industry as possible from fossil fuels to sustainable energy; implementing a new form of high-speed city-to-city transportation via vacuum tube; relieving traffic congestion with a honeycomb of underground tunnels fitted with electric skates for cars and commuters; creating a mind-computer interface to enhance human health and brainpower; and saving humanity from the future threat of an artificial intelligence that may one day run amok and decide, quite rationally, to eliminate the irrational human species.

_MY BLOODY VALENTINE'S KEVIN SHIELDS ON THE AGONY AND ECSTASY OF 'LOVELESS'_ BY KORY GROW IN _ROLLING STONE_ (4,500 words / 23 minutes). _Loveless_ by My Bloody Valentine is one of my favourite albums, so I was predisposed to love every word of this detailed look inside bandleader Kevin Shields' exhaustive, expensive process of remastering _Loveless_ and its predecessor for vinyl release. Shields is one of a kind, and while I'm glad to hear that the band is set to release new music and tour in 2018, it's also troubling to read that he thinks he's damaged his ears so badly that he expects to soon lose much of his auditory range: "My hearing isn't gonna be really good in five years," he says. "It's a downward spiral from now on."

  In the past few months, Kevin Shields nearly went bankrupt, as he pursued the seemingly Sisyphean task of making new, completely analog vinyl remasters of My Bloody Valentine's generation-defining albums, 1988's Isn't Anything? and 1991's Loveless. "When we started, I was borrowing money from myself when I should have been paying tax bills," the guitarist and vocalist, 54, tells Rolling Stone. "Instead, I was like, 'No, let's do this. It will only take six months.'" It wound up taking roughly two years. It wasn't the first time he had to borrow money to fund his art. At various points in My Bloody Valentine's three-decade history, he and his bandmates have lived in squats and gone through penniless periods. Even as the band became one of the pioneering "shoegazing" bands, a group of late-Eighties British and Irish outfits whose music was so dreamy that they seemed to be hypnotized by it onstage, staring at their feet, My Bloody Valentine paid their dues. "Everything I have ever done has paid for itself," Shields says with confidence in his voice. "I've never made anything in my life that hasn't made money in the end. I'm not really worried." And, he adds, "A lack of money kind of helps in a very weird way, because we're not fighting over money because there isn't any." Despite the appearance that My Bloody Valentine, whose members also include vocalist-guitarist Bilinda Butcher, bassist Debbie Googe and drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig, seem to have vanished since their last tour ended in 2013, with various members of the band exploring other pursuits, Shields reports the band is in a "healthy state" and has been working on a new, as-yet-untitled album due out by next summer. He's not sure how many songs will make the cut, but he's adamant that the group will be supporting the LP on the road next year.

_AUSTRALIA BUILT A HELL FOR REFUGEES ON MANUS. THE SHAME WILL OUTLIVE US ALL_ BY RICHARD FLANAGAN ON _GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA_ (1,800 words / 9 minutes). This article – a tribute to Iranian journalist and refugee Behrouz Boochani – made me cry, because it is so very true, and so very sad. "In Boochani’s writings is a spirit Australia has lost: brave, honest, generous and free," writes Flanagan. "Once he wanted to come here. Now we need him and all that he stands for more than ever."

  So this is what we have come to as a nation. The wretched of the earth, because they were no longer safe where they lived, sought to come here. With a determined cruelty, we kidnapped and imprisoned them in Pacific lagers. These lagers became synonymous with the idea of hellholes because it was important to our government that they be – and be known as – hellholes. On this policy of deterrence, as it was called, which had as its declared purpose to make innocent human beings suffer indefinitely, we spent billions of dollars. To this end we had truck with vile regimes such as Sri Lanka’s. And to this end we began forsaking our democratic rights. In the camps the refugees were made to answer to numbers given to them as their new identity. Denied their names they were not even allowed their stories. Every attempt that could be made was made by the Australian government, from the petty to the disturbing, to deny journalists access to the Pacific lager. When it came to imprisoned refugees free speech became a crime: for some years any doctor, nurse or social worker in the camps who publicly reported on the many instances, now well-documented, of rape, murder, suicide and sexual abuse of refugees was liable to two years’ imprisonment. And why? Because evil was being done to the innocent, and to that truth there is finally no justification that even the most powerful could make.

_HOW MID-2000S EMO GROOMED UNDERAGE GIRLS AND POISONED TEEN BOYS_ BY SOPHIE BENJAMIN ON _MEDIUM_ (1,600 words / 8 minutes). A well-written and perceptive article about some of the sexually and emotionally abusive men who came to prominence around a decade ago, as musicians and songwriters in the emo sub-genre, and how some of their bad behaviour was hidden in plain sight. I also liked reading Sophie Benjamin's account of the article's success on _Medium_, where a week later, "it has managed to get 70,000 reads; 187,000 views and driven more than 100 very generous donations to my PayPal", thereby earning the writer more money (and a direct connection with her readers) than if it had been published elsewhere.

  Around the same time Brand New’s Jesse Lacey was singing songs about wishing his ex-girlfriend would die in a plane crash because she had the audacity to do a semester of college abroad, he was coercing underage girls into sending him nudes. When he was singing songs about plying women with alcohol and then fucking them in the carpark while they were blackout drunk, he was masturbating on webcam in front of horrified teenage girls. These things are not unconnected. The fact that those girls felt they couldn’t publicly share what happened to them until more than 10 years later, now that they are nearly 30 years old, is no coincidence. The lyrics sung by their heroes and in bands like Brand New, Fall Out Boy, Weezer and New Found Glory set them up as prey for sensitive emo men. In 2003 Jessica Hopper wrote about the rise of commercial emo, and the complete contempt with which the male songwriters operating in this genre viewed women. Her essay, Emo, Where The Girls Aren’t, examines the misogyny of emo in a wider context within rock music—a genre that has a long and proud history of outright misogyny and contempt for women. Male emo lyricists, wrote Hopper, depicted women “on a pedestal or on our backs. Muses as best. Cum rags or invisible at worst.”

_THE LAST LAUGH_ BY STEPHANIE BUNBURY IN _THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD SPECTRUM_ (2,300 words / 11 minutes). I loved this profile of Barry Humphries, ahead of an upcoming tour where he won't be acting as another character. This made me laugh: "People describe him as an Australian icon. They shout it across the street. "Hey, Barry, you're a f---ing icon! F-U-K-I-N-I-C-O-N. I smile and wave."

  "I have a little tendency to obesity," says Barry Humphries in a stage murmur. "It's yet to become morbid but, as I discuss it with you, a beautiful biscuit would appeal. Brought in the door with a cup of tea." He gives a resigned sigh, sounding a lot like Highett's favourite returned soldier, Sandy Stone. "But it's very unlikely to happen." Very unlikely, because biscuits are banned from the kitchen as he shapes up for a series of shows next year. "You wouldn't know I was dieting if you saw what I was eating." Is he doing any exercise? "A bit. I walk to the corner. I attribute my longevity to not playing sport of any kind." Barry Humphries is 83. When he does this impending show, which will require him to be on stage alone for a couple of hours every night, he will be 84. No, he doesn't plan to retire. "People who retire die, don't they?" We are sitting in his library, on the first floor of an appealingly muddled but still imposing Georgian townhouse in north London. I have read he owns 35,000 books, although I can't imagine him counting them. They are stacked and strewn everywhere, not just on the shelves. "It's more of a storeroom," Humphries says, vaguely apologetic. A title on the shelf at my elbow jumps out at me: The English Vice. A shelf on the other side of the room holds vintage children's books, bought from dealers to replace the ones his mother gave away one day when he was at school.

++

Thanks for reading. If you have feedback on _Dispatches_, I'd love to hear from you: just reply to this email. Please feel free to share this far and wide with fellow journalism, music, podcast and book lovers.

Andrew

--
E: andrew.mcmillen@gmail.com
W: http://andrewmcmillen.com/
T: @Andrew_McMillen

If you're reading this as a non-subscriber and you'd like to receive _Dispatches_ in your inbox each week, sign up here. To view the archive of past _Dispatches _dating back to March 2014, head here.

question: Why does Santiago Velasquez have Lockie?

answer: He's blind, Lockie is his guide dog.

question: What job has the author recently acquired?

answer: National music writer at The Australian.

question: Who is Jodi Kantor?

answer: A New York Times investigative reporter and the author of The Obamas.

question: How many books does Barry Humphries own?

answer: 35,000.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: "Dispatches" is a weekly summary of the author's writing, listening, and reading habits. He recently got hired to be national music writer at The Australian, so he may have to let the publication go by the way side. He details a story about a young blind man and his guide dog, a podcast on history, a conversation with Harvey Weinstein investigative journalist, a story on Elon Musk, and others.


text:
Jarry}}

ISABELLE JARRY (born 2 October 1959 in Paris) is a French writer and essayist.

She is a member of the Board of Directors of the .[1]

She is a chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Works

-   1990: _Théodore Monod_, Paris, Plon, 239 p.
-   1990: _Mémoires d'un naturaliste voyageur_, with Théodore Monod, icon. by Jean-Marc Durou, preface by Jean Rouch, Marseille, Éditions AGEP, series “Mémoires d'aujourd'hui”, 180 p.
-   1991: _Voyage au Ténéré_, Paris, 200 p.
-   1992: _L'homme de la passerelle_, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, series “Cadre Rouge”, 185 p. Prix du Premier Roman 1992.[2]
-   1990: _L’Archange perdu_, Éditions Mercure de France, series “Bleue”, 345 p. , Prix Anna de Noailles de l'Académie française (1995)
-   1993: _William Wilson de 1983 à 1993_, Paris, Comptoir général d'Édition, 221 p.
-   1995: _Vingt-trois lettres d'Amérique_, Paris, Éditions Fayard, 221 p.

        - Prix Amerigo Vespucci 1995[3]

-   1996: _Emportez-moi sans me briser_, Paris, Éditions Fayard, 312 p.
-   1997: _La Pluie des mangues. Histoires contemporaines du Cambodge_, phot. by Yves Gellie, Paris, Éditions Marval, 180 p.
-   1998: _Au ciel les nuages. Hommage à Dominique Bagouet_, Éditions Marval
-   1999: _Le Jardin Yamata_, Paris, Stock, 228 p.
-   2000: _Il était une fois... l'enfance_, photographies du fonds Roger Viollet, Paris, Éditions Plume, 111 p.
-   2002: _Au Désert_, Paris, éditions , 149 p.
-   2003: _George Orwell, cent ans d'anticipation_, Stock, 216 p.
-   2004: _J’ai nom sans bruit_, Stock, series “La Bleue”, 210 p.
-   2007: _Millefeuille de onze ans_, Stock, 230 p.
-   2008: _La Traversée du Désert_, Stock, 240 p.
-   2009: _Contre mes seuls ennemis_, Stock, 203 p.
-   2011: _La Voix des êtres aimés_, Stock, series “La Bleue”, 304 p.
-   2015: _Magique aujourd’hui_, Éditions Gallimard, “Collection Blanche”, 336 p.

YOUTH LITERATURE

-   2004: _Aglaé en Inde_, with William Wilson, Paris, Jalan Publications, 40 p.
-   2007: _Balthazar au jardin_, with William Wilson, Paris, Gallimard Jeunesse, series “Hors série Giboulée”, 37 p.
-   2008: _Ma folle semaine avec Papyrus_, ill. by Aurore Callias, Gallimard Jeunesse, series “Giboulées”, 101 p.
-   2011: _Le Bal de la Saint-Valentin : Une aventure de Titus et Papyrus_, ill. by Aurore Callias, Gallimard Jeunesse, series “Giboulées”, 120 p.
-   2011: _Zqwick le robot : Une aventure de Titus et Papyrus_, ill. d'Aurore Callias, Gallimard Jeunesse, series “Hors série Giboulées”, 108 p.

POCKET EDITIONS

-   1994: _L’Homme de la passerelle_, Points Seuil
-   1996: _L’Archange perdu_, Folio Gallimard
-   1998: _Emportez-moi sans me briser_, Le Livre de Poche
-   2001: _Le Jardin Yamata_, Le Livre de Poche
-   2006: _J’ai nom sans bruit_, Folio Gallimard
-   2008: _Millefeuille de onze ans_, Folio Gallimard

[1]

[2]

[3]

title: Isabelle Jarry

question: Who is Isabelle Jarry?

answer: She is a French writer and essayist.

question: Where is she a chevalier of?

answer: The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

question: When was Jarry born?

answer: October 2, 1959

question: List three of her works.

answer:
- 1990: Théodore Monod, Paris, Plon, 239 p.
- 1992: L'homme de la passerelle, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, series “Cadre Rouge”, 185 p. Prix du Premier Roman 1992.
- 1995: Vingt-trois lettres d'Amérique, Paris, Éditions Fayard, 221 p.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Isabelle Jarry is a French writer and essayist born on October 2, 1959. Her works include 1990: Théodore Monod, Paris, Plon, 239 p., 2003: George Orwell, cent ans d'anticipation_, Stock, 216 p., and  1995: Vingt-trois lettres d'Amérique, Paris, Éditions Fayard, 221 p.


text:
FOR THIS YEAR’S NATIONAL KINDNESS DAY, DR DAVID HAMILTON, AUTHOR OF _THE FIVE SIDE-EFFECTS OF KINDNESS _EXPLAINS HOW BEING NICE IS GOOD FOR YOU

1. IT’S PROTECTIVE AGAINST DEPRESSION

Depression forces us to dwell on ourselves – on our worries, problems, and difficulties in life. It can be difficult to escape these feelings. But being kind actually takes us out of ourselves so that our attention shifts towards the needs or well being of another person.
This shift in attention helps protect against depression. Studies of thousands of people that compare the mental health of those who do regular volunteering work against those who don’t, find that symptoms of depression are much fewer in people who regularly volunteer.

[depression-7-reasons-acts-of-kindness-are-good-for-your-health]

MORE: ‘I can’t get over my affair’

2. IT BOOSTS HAPPINESS

Numerous studies show that being kind makes us feel happier. Kindness impacts brain chemistry, elevating levels of ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitters, and it also makes us feel satisfied that we are doing something meaningful. Together, this results in a boost to happiness. Research studies of the volunteering habits of thousands of people have concluded that more than 95% of people feel happier when they help someone. Most also report an immediate warm feeling. Other studies where the happiness of people asked to perform intentional acts of kindness was compared against the happiness of people not doing the kindnesses also concluded that kindness boosts happiness.

[happy-7-ways-acts-of-kindness-are-good-for-your-health-by-healthista]

3. IT LOWERS BLOOD PRESSURE

The connection we feel with another through an act of kindness causes our bodies to make the hormone, ‘oxytocin’. Known for its role in reproduction and breastfeeding, it is also a powerful cardiovascular hormone. It stimulates nitric oxide production in our arteries, initiating a process known as ‘vasodilation’ – widening of the arteries. This causes a net reduction in blood pressure.
Given that high blood pressure is strongly associated with risk of heart attack and stroke, kindness is therefore ‘cardioprotective’; that is, it is protective towards the cardiovascular system through its ability to reduce blood pressure. Indeed, studies that examine how people relate to each other in relationships show that those who show more loving and kind behaviours tend to have healthier arteries than those who show more hostility and contempt.

[blood-pressure-7-ways-acts-of-kindness-are-healthy-for-you-by-healthista]

4. IT BOOSTS THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

The ‘Mother Theresa Effect’ describes what happens to our immune systems when we witness an act of kindness or moral beauty. In a study, scientists asked volunteers to watch a video of Mother Theresa performing acts of kindness. They had their immune systems measured before and after watching the video. Watching the acts of kindness performed by Mother Theresa, it was found, had given the volunteers’ immune systems of a boost. Other research has shown that imagining or recalling the experiences of care or compassion for others has the same effect. In these cases, it’s the emotional feeling that kindness invokes in us that impact the immune system so strongly.

MORE: Want more energy? Join our Matcha tea makeover

[happy-lady-in-red-7-ways-acts-of-kindness-are-good-for-your-health]

5. IT’S AN ANTIDOTE TO STRESS

A friend once told me of a time when a driver of a car had been very abusive to her after she accidentally pulled out in front of him. He was swearing at her and making angry physical gestures. It left her feeling shaken and stressed. When she reached a bridge toll a few miles down the road, she discovered that she was right in front of him. As an act of kindness, she decided to pay his toll.
The stressful feeling left her almost immediately, she explained, being replaced by a lightness and clarity of mind. A half mile up the road, the previously angry driver pulled up alongside her, rolled down his window, smiled, and mouthed the words, ‘T H A N K Y O U’. This kind of thing is reflected in real research, which finds an ‘opposite’ relationship between kindness and stress. On days that people do more kindness, they tend to have less stress, and vice versa; when they do less kindness they have more stress.

[laughing-friends-7-ways-acts-of-kindness-are-good-for-your-health-by-healthista]

6. IT SLOWS AGEING

Stress plays a major role in ageing at the biological level. Most people are familiar with the way stress can age a person; hair turning white almost overnight when a person faces great worry, lines on the face of people who feel and express a great deal of anger or hostility. Internally, stress prematurely ages the cardiovascular system, which is why stress is strongly linked with heart disease.
These effects are caused by ‘free radicals’. Stress produces them. We take anti-oxidants to try to combat them. We’re encouraged to eat foods rich in anti-oxidants, like green vegetables, dark chocolate, cinnamon, for example, and to take drinks containing them, like pomegranate juice or green tea. It’s also why some modern face creams contain anti-oxidants, hoping to neutralise free radicals at the sites of apparent ageing. Since kindness is an antidote to stress, it ensures that there’s less free radicals in the body and thus slows the ageing caused by stress and unhealthy lifestyle.

[young-happy-face-7-ways-kindness-is-good-for-your-health-by-healthista]

7. IT TONES THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

The vagus nerve plays a very important role in maintaining the health of the body. It works the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. It controls the rest, digest, and regenerate mode in the body and helps ensure a balance between all of our organs by providing constant feedback to the brain. Vagal tone is a measure of how well the vagus nerve does this. You can think of it as akin to muscle tone, which reflects the fitness and strength of your body, except that vagal tone reflects the fitness of the nervous system. Kindness (and compassion) have been shown to actually increase vagal tone. When people practice kindness meditations, for example, where they reflect upon kindness and generate warm feelings towards others, their vagal tone tends to increase. In this way, kindness tones the nervous system.

[david-hamilton-7-ways-acts-of-kindness-are-good-for-your-health-by-healthista]

DR DAVID HAMILTON worked in the pharmaceutical industry for four years after gaining his PhD. Now a bestselling author, he travels the world offering workshops to help people understand the power of the mind on the body. The Five Side-effects of Kindness: This Book Will Make You Feel Better, Be Happier & Live Longer[], David R. Hamilton PhD, Hay House UK, £10.99 will be available from 7th February 2017.

MORE: How breast cancer saved me from workaholism

MORE: What your period says about your health

question: What does the text say about kindness?

answer: According to the passage, being kind not only helps others but also helps you in ways that you do not know of. The passage further discusses five benefits to yourself and your body when you are kind to others. It protects against depression, boosts your happiness, and also lowers your blood pressure.

question: Summarize how being kind slows the aging process.

answer: When you are stressed your body tends to age faster; your hair turns white and lines start to appear on the face. This is caused by 'free radicals' which the stress produces. Kindness is an antidote to stress and hence ensures that there are fewer free radicals in the body leading to a slower aging process.

question: What does the story say about being a kind driver?


text:
The DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, PARKS, HERITAGE AND THE ARTS (DEPHA) was a government department of the Australian state of Tasmania, that included many of the agencies that manage Tasmania's natural and cultural heritage. As at 1 July 2010 it was amalgamated with the Department of Primary Industries and Water to form the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE).

DEPHA incorporated or had close ties to the following government businesses:

-   Arts Tasmania
-   Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
-   Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service
-   Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania
-   Heritage Tasmania
-   Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens
-   Environment
-   Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority
-   Wellington Park Management Trust

In February 2008, Tourism Tasmania and Events Tasmania moved to the Department of Economic Development and Tourism. On 1 July 2010 Arts Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery also moved to the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and the Arts.

DEPHA also provided support to:

-   Environment Protection Authority
-   www.depha.tas.gov.au
-   www.environment.tas.gov.au

Environment

title: Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage and the Arts

question: What is the Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage, and the Arts (DEPHA)?

answer: DEPHA was a government department of the Australian state of Tasmania, that included many of the agencies that manage Tasmania's natural and cultural heritage.

question: Why happened to DEPHA?

answer: It was amalgamated with the Department of Primary Industries and Water to form the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) in July 2010.

question: List three government businesses DEPHA had close ties to.

answer:
- Arts Tasmania
- Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
- Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service

question: When did Tourism Tasmania and Events Tasmania move to the Department of Economic Development and Tourism?

answer: February 2008

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The Department of Environment, Parks, Heritage, and the Arts (DEPHA) was a government department of the Australian state of Tasmania, that included many of the agencies that manage Tasmania's natural and cultural heritage. It was amalgamated with the Department of Primary Industries and Water to form the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) in July 2010.


text:
[New bill would remedy nation’s “dental crisis”]

Are your teeth a part of your body? Judging by the current U.S. health care system, the answer is no. More than one-third of Americans have no dental insurance. One quarter of U.S. adults 65 and older have lost all their teeth. The U.S. surgeon general, in 2000, called dental disease a “silent epidemic.” Since then, it has only gotten worse.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., aim to remedy this “major dental crisis” with a new billthat would expand comprehensive dental coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration, and increase community dental services.

The legislation, the Comprehensive Dental Reform Act of 2012, notes that, “Untreated oral health problems contribute to an increased risk for serious medical conditions such as diabetes, hospital-acquired pneumonia, and poor birth outcomes.”

Cummings, at a June 7 news conference announcing the bill, cited the case of a 12-year-old child who died because his mother could not find a dentist to treat his abscessed tooth. “Lack of access to dental health care presents a real threat to public health,” Cummings said.

Currently, private health insurance plans do not include dental coverage. – if insurance companies do offer dental coverage it’s an add-on at additional cost.

According to a nationwide study of employer-provided dental health coverage by the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore and the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, while about half of U.S. companies offered health insurance as of 2010, only one-third offered dental insurance.

Medicare and the VA do not cover dental care for most beneficiaries. States can choose whether or not to include dental care in their Medicaid coverage.

Sanders and Cummings point out that those who are most likely to lack adequate dental care are people with low incomes, racial and ethnic minorities, pregnant women, older adults, individuals with special needs, and people who live in rural communities.

“Simply put, the groups that need care the most are the least likely to get it,” Sanders said at the news conference last week.

In addition to adding comprehensive dental care to Medicare, Medicaid and VA coverage, the bill would provide grants to set up school-based dental clinics and provide rural mobile dental care services. It would expand the number of dental health care providers, including training dental therapists who “can help close vast gaps in patient care by performing some procedures now offered only by dentists,” the lawmakers said.

The American Dental Association says three economic forces are creating a “perfect storm” that is reducing the number of U.S. families with dental coverage and causing a significant drop in visits to the dentist.

Unemployment is the first factor, says the ADA in an April report title “Breaking Down Barriers to Oral Health for All Americans: The Role of Finance.” The12.7 million Americans without jobs who had private insurance coverage have lost that coverage.

The second is a “steady reduction” in the percentage of employers providing dental benefits.

The third factor, the ADA says, is that companies are shifting costs to consumers to pay out-of-pocket. The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust reported in 2010 that employers are increasing “cost-sharing,” or reducing the scope of coverage.

“Let’s be clear: the United States is in the midst of a major dental crisis,” Sanders said at the June 7 news conference.

The Sanders-Cummings bill would be funded by a tax on Wall Street financial trading transactions such as the notorious credit default swaps and derivatives trading that contributed to the economic crash of 2008. A financial transaction tax is a measure called for by the AFL-CIO and others as a way to fund needed programs while reducing the federal deficit. Sanders said it “would raise $288 billion over the next 10 years.”

_Photo: Flickr_

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTRIBUTOR

[Susan Webb]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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    National Nurses United readies new Medicare For All push

question: Summarize everything about the new bill for dental.

answer: It would expand comprehensive dental coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration, and increase community dental services. The bill will also provide grants to set up school-based dental clinics and provide rural mobile dental services.

question: What is the bill called?

answer: Comprehensive Dental Reform Act

question: Do the current insurance plans cover dental?

answer: No.

question: How is the bill funded?

answer: The bill will be funded by a tax on Wall Street financial trading transactions.

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer:
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Elijah Cummings have come up with a legislation- the Comprehensive Dental Reform Act. The bill will expand comprehensive dental coverage and increase community dental services. It will also provide grants to set up school-based dental clinics and provide rural mobile dental care services.

Currently, a few private health insurance plans provide dental insurance as an add-on at additional cost.

The bill will be funded by a tax on Wall Street financial trading transactions.


text:
KIRK POWERS is a rock music bassist. In 1976 he joined American Tears, one of the first keyboard-oriented Heavy Ivory bands. He also made pre-production demos and masters with Touch.[1] He found work in the 1980s touring with various artists including Debbie Gibson's band 1986 through 1990 _Out Of The Blue_ and _Electric Youth_ tours. In July 2010 he started touring with the classic southern rock band Point Blank for an international tour.

Powers works with Alleva Coppolo Basses on his updated (KBP-4 and KBP-5) signature model custom basses and designing his own Musical Instrument Preamplifier.

In his spare time, Powers enjoys working with dog rescues across Texas.

2017: Powers began to work with Texas musician and songwriter Casey James - formerly of American Idol.

2018: A guest of Debbie Gibson on her _Ladies of the 80s_ tour.

2019: Working with Grammy artists on a new Indie Film out of Austin, Texas.

[1]

title: Kirk Powers

question: Does it seem as though Kirk Powers expanded his musical experience/taste during his career?

answer: Kirk Powers toured with various artists, so it definitely does seem as though he expanded his musical experience/taste.

question: What does Powers do outside being a rock music bassist?

answer: Powers works with dog rescues across Texas when he is not being a rock music bassist.


text:
The question of whether Cris Cyborg Justino can draw in a main event capacity was answered when Saturday night's UFC Fight Night from Brasilia, Brazil did 1,109,000 viewers, up 34 percent from the previous week's show headlined by Michael Johnson's win over Dustin Poirier.

The show was the ninth-most watched Fight Night since the inception of FS 1 more than three years ago, and the most-watched FOX Fight Night or TUF finals show ever headlined by a women's fight. It broke the mark of 1,086,000 set by the Joanna Jedrzejczyk strawweight title defense against Claudia Gadelha on July 8. It was the most-watched Fight Night since the March 19 show headlined by Mark Hunt vs. Frank Mir.

The audience grew throughout the show even with the main event going into the cage at 12:30 a.m., which is normal for a Saturday night FS 1 show, but very often the audience peaks about an hour earlier. Justino's win over Lina Lansberg drew 1,326,000 viewers, the best of any fight on the show.

The strongest demo for the show was Males 35-49, and in the 18-49 demo, the audience was 67 percent males, meaning that more women than usual watched the broadcast.

The prelims, headlined by Michael Prazeres vs. Gilbert Burns, did 838,000 viewers, the third-highest of the year.

With the exception of college football, the UFC main card was the most watched sports broadcast on Saturday.

The post-fight show did 348,000 viewers, the fifth-best number for a Fight Night post-fight show ever on FS 1. The weigh-ins on Friday did only 50,000 viewers.

question: What sport is the article about?

answer: UFC

question: What is the main question of the article?

answer: Whether Cris Cyborg Justino can draw a main event capacity.

question: The UFC main card was the most watched sport broadcast on the night indicated behind which sport?

answer: college football

question: What is UFC?

answer: The article doesn't clarify. [It's Ultimate Fighting Championship]

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The article is about UFC. The question offered is whether Cris Cyborg Justino had the ability to draw a main event capacity. The answer is yes; the UFC main card was the most watched sports broadcast, behind college football, for the night.


text:
[A woman in fine Bengali muslin; Dhaka, 18th-century] MUSLIN () () is a cotton fabric of plain weave.[1][2] It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting.[3][4] It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq which the Europeans believed to be its place of origin, however, its origins have now proved to have been farther east — in particular Dhaka in Bangladesh.[5][6][7][8]

Early muslin was handwoven of uncommonly delicate handspun yarn, especially in the region of what today is Bangladesh.[9] It was imported into Europe for much of the 17th and early 18th-centuries.[10]

In 2013, the traditional art of weaving _Jamdani_ muslin in Bangladesh was included in the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.[11]

History

In 1298 CE, Marco Polo described the cloth in his book _The Travels._ He said it was made in Mosul, Iraq.[12] The 16th-century English traveler Ralph Fitch lauded the muslin he saw in Sonargaon.[13] During the 17th and 18th centuries, Mughal Bengal emerged as the foremost muslin exporter in the world, with Mughal Dhaka as capital of the worldwide muslin trade.[14][15] It became highly popular in 18th-century France and eventually spread across much of the Western world.

Under British rule, the British East India company could not compete with local muslin with their own export of cloth to the Indian subcontinent. The colonial government favored imports of British textiles. Colonial authorities attempted to suppress the local weaving culture. Muslin production greatly declined and the knowledge of weaving was nearly eradicated. It is alleged that in some instances the weavers were rounded up and their thumbs chopped off, although this has been refuted as an alleged misreading of a report from 1772.[16][17][18][19] The Bengali muslin industry was suppressed by various colonial policies.[20] As a result, the quality of muslin suffered and the finesse of the cloth was lost.

Uses

Dress-making and sewing

[In _Advantages of wearing Muslin Dresses!_ (1802), James Gillray caricatured a hazard of untreated muslin: its flammability.]

When sewing clothing, a dressmaker may test the fit of a garment, using an inexpensive muslin fabric before cutting pieces from expensive fabric, thereby avoiding potential costly mistakes. This garment is often called a “muslin,” and the process is called “making a muslin.” In this context, “muslin” has become the generic term for a test or fitting garment, regardless of what it is made from. The equivalent term in British English is Toile.

Muslin is also often used as a backing or lining for quilts, and thus can often be found in wide widths in the quilting sections of fabric stores.

In Asia, Muslin is used for making sarees. Bengali or Dhakai Muslin Saree is popular in Asia.

Shellac polishing

Muslin is used as a French polishing pad.

Culinary

Muslin can be used as a filter:

-   In a funnel when decanting fine wine or port to prevent sediment from entering the decanter
-   To separate liquid from mush (for example, to make apple juice: wash, chop, boil, mash, then filter by pouring the mush into a muslin bag suspended over a jug)
-   To retain a liquidy solid (for example, in home cheese-making, when the milk has curdled to a gel, pour into a muslin bag and squash between two saucers (upside down under a brick) to squeeze out the liquid whey from the cheese curd)

Muslin is the material for the traditional cloth wrapped around a Christmas pudding.

Muslin is the fabric wrapped around the items in barmbrack, a fruitcake traditionally eaten at Halloween in Ireland.

Muslin is used when making traditional Fijian Kava as a filter.

Beekeepers use muslin to filter melted beeswax to clean it of particles and debris.

Theatre and photography

Muslin is often the cloth of choice for theatre sets. It is used to mask the background of sets and to establish the mood or feel of different scenes. It receives paint well and, if treated properly, can be made translucent.

It also holds dyes well. It is often used to create nighttime scenes because when dyed, it often gets a wavy look with the color varying slightly, such that it resembles a night sky. Muslin shrinks after it is painted or sprayed with water, which is desirable in some common techniques such as soft-covered flats.

In video production as well, muslin is used as a cheap greenscreen or bluescreen, either pre-colored or painted with latex paint (diluted with water). It is commonly used as a background for the chroma key technique.

Muslin is the most common backdrop material used by photographers for formal portrait backgrounds. These backdrops are usually painted, most often with an abstract mottled pattern.

In the early days of silent film-making, and up until the late 1910s, movie studios did not have the elaborate lights needed to illuminate indoor sets, so most interior scenes were sets built outdoors with large pieces of muslin hanging overhead to diffuse sunlight.

Medicine

[A first-aid packet of 5m of “hydrophilic muslin”, given to Italian soldiers in World War I] Surgeons use muslin gauze in cerebrovascular neurosurgery to wrap around aneurysms or intracranial vessels at risk for bleeding.[21] The thought is that the gauze reinforces the artery and helps prevent rupture. It is often used for aneurysms that, due to their size or shape, cannot be microsurgically clipped or coiled.[22]

Early aviation

The Wright Brothers, in search of a light and strong covering for their gliders and the 1903 Wright Flyer (the first heavier-than-air powered aircraft), selected Pride of the West muslin as a covering for wings and control surfaces. A large piece of the fabric used on the original Wright Flyer (1903) was passed down to Wright descendants. The fabric was made available to The Wright Experience[23] (reproduction of the Wright gliders and Flyer and reenactment of the first flight on its 100th anniversary) for examination as it was no longer commercially available a century after its use by the Wrights. To create an authentic modern reproduction of the original fabric, three different companies were needed which produced the thread, the weaving, and the finishing.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12] Polo, Marco. _The most noble and famous travels of Marco Polo, together with the travels of Nicoláo de' Conti_. Translated by John Frampton, London, A. and C. Black, 1937, p.28.

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23] The Wright Experience

title: Muslin

question: What is a Toile?

answer: Toile is the English name for a garment made from cheap fabric to ensure that it fits before being cut from more expensive fabric.

question: Why was Muslin misnamed?

answer: Marco Polo described the cloth in his book about his travels and identified it as originating in Mosul in Iraq when in fact it came from Bengal.

question: Why did the colonialists attempt to prevent the Bengalese from weaving muslin?

answer: They wanted the locals to buy fabric woven in their own factories in England.

question: What use would a chef have for muslin?

answer: Muslin is often used as a fine sieve to separate sediments wine or solids from liquids. It is also used to wrap foods.

question: Why is muslin favored as backdrops in theatres and for portraits?

answer: It receives paint and dye well and can be made translucent. Muslin shrinks when it is wet and this works well when the fabric is used to cover flats.It is a cheap fabric that works well for backdrops.

question: Why was it so difficult to get replica muslin for the reenactment of the first flight by the Wright brothers?

answer: The fabric was no longer commercially available and they had to employ three separate companies to produce the thread, weave the fabric and finish it off.


text:
"Coffee".

"What?"

"Coffee."

"Yeah. So where do you want to go?"

"I dunno, Kaka?"

"Sure, like, why not?"

"Let's go."

"Wait."

"What?"

"Look, about last night."

"Forget about it."

"I... yeah."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, spit it out."

"No I just, wanted to say... that it was good."

"Yeah."

"So now what?"

"Coffee."

"No I mean now what, I mean what are we?"

"I don't know."

"No I mean, are we together now?"

"I don't know."

"You want to be... together."

"I don't know."

"Well say something!"

"I think I love you."

"What?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I... this is... I mean... Well..."

"I said I love you."

"I know what you said."

"So...?"

"So what...?"

"Maybe I made a mistake saying it."

"NO! No... I'm sorry. I just don't want to ruin our friendship."

"I'm sorry then. I'll go."

"No wait, don't go. I don't want you to go. I want to be with you. I want to spend this morning with you and you alone. I want us to be, together."

"So do I."

"Okay then."

"What?"

"Coffee?"

"Yeah."

title: Coffee.

question: What happened the previous night?

answer: This information is not mentioned.

question: What relation do the two people share?

answer: They are friends so far but they do have feelings for each other.

question: Are they dating?

answer: It may be implied that they do start dating after this conversation.

question: Do they go out for a cup of coffee?

answer: Yes, they eventually go out for a cup of coffee.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer:
The couple is discussing what happened last night when one of them expresses that they love the other. The significant other does not respond at first but eventually addresses the fact that he/she also wants them to be together.

They then proceed for a cup of coffee.


text:
The indie band has continued to rise in popularity and domestic recognition as well as international over the years, especially with Hyukoh’s latest studio album ‘_23_‘ having entered the UK iTunes chart at number 68! While the band had signed onto Tablo’s label ‘HIGHGRND’ last year which further helped to raise their profile, they’ve certainly proved themselves and their overall versatility as musicians.

It had been tweeted through Hyukoh Tawian (@HYUKOHTW), a fan account of the band of their upcoming world tour this year! From the tweet, it looks like Hyukoh will be making stops in Asia initially, then moving towards the US then finally coming back around to London, Paris and Berlin at towards the end of the tour before finishing in Seoul.

At the moment, there haven’t been any dates confirmed but once they are set we’ll update this article! Are you excited that Hyukoh will be coming to Europe?

[]

https://twitter.com/hyukohtw/status/869928564635848705

question: When will Hyukoh start their world tour?

answer: There is no start date given in the article.

question: Who announced the world tour?

answer: Hyukoh Taiwan, a fan account of the band.

question: How did Hyukoh manage to progress into being able to do a world tour?

answer: Their popularity was on the rise. Signing onto the label "HIGHGRND" helped raise their profile, and their latest studio album "_23_" entered the UK iTunes charts on number 68.

question: Where will Hyukoh play in their world tour?

answer: They are expected to start in Asia, move to the US, and then visit London, Paris, and Berlin toward the end.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: The indie band Hyukoh's fan account Hyukoh Taiwan announced the band will start a world tour. The band has been rising in popularity, especially after their latest album "_23_" entered the UK iTunes charts at number 68. The start date is unknown. However, it looks like they will start in Asia, then go to the US, and finally visit London, Paris, and Berlin.


text:
By Final Call News | Last updated: Nov 17, 2015 - 1:28:42 PM

What's your opinion on this article?

_THE MOST VALUABLE DOLLARS YOU WILL NEVER SPEND_

‘Tis almost the season to be jolly, especially corporations and merchants, but the laughter you are hearing doesn’t note tidings of comfort and joy but product peddling profit seekers, who want to capitalize on your emotions and your insecurities.

[boycottblackfriday2015.jpg]

This Christmas don’t let dollar hungry businesses lure you into a trap of unwise spending and debt. Join the Justice Or Else! movement to Redistribute the Pain through economic withdrawal and a boycott of Black Friday and holiday spending.

Economic withdrawal is a major effort coming out of the extremely successful organizing and turnout for the “Justice Or Else!” gathering in Washington, D.C., marking the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March. But that gathering was not planned as a moment but as a movement to press for justice and using some of our estimated $1.1 trillion to $1.3 trillion in annual spending power is a tool we cannot continue to ignore.

Without a doubt, America loves the dollar and holiday spending is perhaps the peak of the love affair—companies look to close the year in the black, forecast spending in the coming year and unload products.

[up-with-jesus-down-with-santa.jpg]

By curbing spending, we can participate in a revolutionary act by showing a little discipline, a little awareness and connecting to a campaign that will help build incredible unity.

America loves to punish and threaten others and needs to be taught a harsh lesson: Black lives matter, Black dollars matter and how you treat Black people matters.

“We have to find a way to redistribute the pain,” said Minister Farrakhan, as he quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during his Justice Or Else! address.

“You’re either going to treat us right, or we’re going to withdraw from you our economic support. … We intend to boycott Christmas but not Jesus,” Minister Farrakhan said. “We choose not to spend dollars on Black Friday, Black Saturday, Black Sunday, Black Monday. We are not going to spend our money for the rest of that year with those companies that we have traditionally spent our money on.”

As the Minister toured city after city in the run-up to 10-10-15 in Washington, D.C., he shared the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the brave leader’s call to “redistribute the pain” to those who were denying and oppressing Black people. The call to participate isn’t limited to any faith, any political ideology, nor any of the other things that are typically used to divide Black people.

“We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles. We don’t need any Molotov cocktails,” said Dr. King in the last speech before he was assassinated in 1968.

“We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, ‘God sent us by here, to say to you that you’re not treating his children right. … Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.”

The Nielsen Company, which tracks consumer spending and behavior, is already predicting that Asian, Latino and Black families are planning to wait to do holiday spending.

Maybe we are starting to consider the toll emotional and financial blackmail pushed by Corporate America is taking on us. Nielsen doesn’t think so: “Similar to last year, more multicultural households are planning to spend more on holiday gifts this year than the total population,” said the research firm.

Surveys that looked at Xmas spending from 1999 to 2014 discovered that in 2013 U.S. consumers were expected to spend about $704 on Christmas gifts.

“Economics has long been known as the dismal science. But is any economist so dreary as to criticise Christmas? At first glance, the holiday season in western economies seems a treat for those concerned with such vagaries as GDP growth. After all, everyone is spending; in America, retailers make 25% of their yearly sales and 60% of their profits between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even so, economists find something to worry about in the nature of the purchases being made,” the Economist magazine noted in a 2001 article.

It pointed to a study that said money was being lost as people received gifts they didn’t want or appreciate, the gift receivers valued the gifts at less than what was paid for them. “The most conservative estimate put the average receiver’s valuation at 90% of the buying price. The missing 10% is what economists call a deadweight loss: a waste of resources that could be averted without making anyone worse off. In other words, if the giver gave the cash value of the purchase instead of the gift itself, the recipient could then buy what she really wants, and be better off for no extra cost,” the article noted.

According to research by CardHub, Americans are losing billions of dollars in spending as gift cards go unused. CardHub estimates some $44 billion in unredeemed gift cards has been growing since 2008.

CardHub also wasn’t optimistic about the outlook for credit card spending in 2015. “CardHub now projects that we will end 2015 with a net increase of more than $60 billion in credit card debt – putting us perilously close to a tipping point at which balances become unsustainable and delinquency rates skyrocket,” said its “2015 Credit Card Debt Study: Trends & Insights” report issued in early September.

“We expect outstanding credit card debt to cross $900 billion by the end of the year, bringing the average indebted household’s balance to $7,813—the highest amount since the Great Recession,” said CardHub.

Last year Black Friday sales dropped 11 percent to $50.9 billion from an estimated $57.4 billion in 2013. Boycotts by protestors who were angry and outraged over Black deaths helped shutdown holiday spending.

According to the www.blackfridaydeathcount.com, there have been seven deaths and 98 injuries on the shopping day after Thanksgiving between 2006 and 2014, such as  a worker who died after being trampled in a shoppers’ stampede at a Long Island Wal-Mart.

Stop the madness, visit www.justiceorelse.com for simple and helpful ways you can save money, build unity and support a movement without spending a dime.

question: What does the text say about deadweight loss?

answer: A study found that money is lost when people receive gifts they didn't want or appreciate. A conservative estimate puts the average receiver's valuation of their gifts at 90% of the buying price; the missing 10% is known as deadweight loss. That loss can be averted without making anyone worse off. In other words, if the giver gave the cash value of the purchase instead of the gift itself, the recipient could buy what they really want and be better off for no extra cost.

question: What does the text say about homemade Christmas gift ideas?