Chop, chop into smallish pieces.

OK.

Then you soften eight ounces of cream cheese, and you blend that with two-thirds of a cup of sour cream, get it all nice and smooth and then you spread that over the minced onion.

And you have the ambulance on speed dial, but yeah. . .

turn 1 : Hurry up and get started on the task.

Which ingredient is blended with sour cream to spread over the minced onion?

Answer: sour-cream


And it's working. It's really working. So, I think that the new music coming out of Atlanta, the new kids that are coming up are really taking what we did in the past, over the past 20 years, and infusing it with the new, like they're erasing all the boundaries.

I just like to add one thing. Yellow Wolf is also a discovery of Kawan K. P. Prather, who was also at Le Face Records. So, it is like the story continues to. . .

The generations roll on.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

turn 0 : The new music coming out of Atlanta is a combination of the old and the new

Which city is being referred to in turn 0?

Answer: Atlanta


And it's interesting. As you talk about this, the catcher today has regained some of that reputation from those days.

I think so. I think the catcher's toughness is really recognized. And also, the catcher's unique position, as somebody who's part of the offense and part of the defense, plays a key role in what the pitcher throws and the pitcher's ability to throw, you know, particularly balls in the dirt, which are very hard.

You know, if you don't have a good catcher back there, then the whole team is lost. And so I think the catcher has really started to regain the reputation of being a key contributor to both, and I think that's why so many great managers are former catchers.

We've been talking about Deacon White, the newest member of baseball's Hall of Fame. Baseball historian Peter Morris, thanks very much for your time today.

turn 1 : The catcher is tough and plays a crucial role in the pitcher's success.

How does the catcher contribute to the pitcher's performance?

Answer: Incorporating


Of course that's what somebody would say that. It's oozing with privilege, right?When we look at women's issues, women's rights, this is a scope in which a man should not have any say on. And I think that it's so asinine for people to - men in particular - to think, like, this is a personal issue. This is something that is true in the world. It's - it can only happen to women. Men will never have to face pregnancy ever. And the people who are going to talk about policies and these protections are going to be men.

Is it true that all the people who negotiate these contracts at Nike are men?

They're all men that are - within house at Nike have been and are all men. It's an old boys club. The culture at Nike is - that's - it remains to be an old boys club. And this is the time for it to be exposed. You know, the time is now.

That was Olympian and former USA champion Alysia Montano. Alysia Montano, thank you so much for talking to us.

turn 0 : Men should not have a say in women's issues and rights

Which gender is specifically mentioned in turn 0 as not having a say in women's issues and rights?

Answer: Men


What sorts of things have you been doing?What has Save The Children been doing?

Well, obviously, we focus on children, but we're looking at livelihoods. You know, I was saying that fishing boats have been destroyed and people are now really struggling. So we'll be working with fishermen to try to support them to repair their boats. We're repairing schools that children can go - try and go back to school. Over 3,000 schools were damaged, meaning that over a million children are now not being able to go back to school.

So we are really still working around the clock to do what we can to make sure that families can get back on their feet.

Now, this is a holiday week and the Philippines is a predominantly Christian country. Has there been any Christmas celebrating going on?

turn 3 : (4) - The actual meaning of this turn is that the speaker is asking whether the people in the Philippines have been able to find any joy amidst the disaster, not just asking if they have been celebrating Christmas.

What is the speaker actually asking in turn 3?

Answer: Whether


So when he came home, how was he different in how he treated you, related to you, related to family life?

He's totally different. For one, Michael is very quiet. And since he returned, he's even distant, and it's causing a lot of problems in our marriage. And it's just - this war have caused a lot of stress on the wives and the families, they have to deal with these soldiers when they return.

What do you try to do with or for Michael to help him adjust?

I try everything in the world, and it seem like it don't help. Because he have a wall built up, and for one, we don't have enough help here. We only have one clinic that we can go to for counseling and therapy. And it's like two-hour drive away from where we live, so that's a major problem, too.

turn 3 : a wall built up implies that the man is not communicating with others about his emotions

How is the man's communication style described in the dialogue?

Answer: B


Initially, Manaf was very close to Bassel. I mean, he was his childhood friend. But when Bassel died and Bashar became the heir, obviously, the friendship and the loyalties were transferred to Bashar. And Manaf was by Bashar's side, you know, from the get-go.

You know, in 2011, when the uprising started, here, Manaf made the break and said, you know, I'm not going to be like my father, Mustafa; I'm not going to kill, you know, to preserve this regime. So he stepped back and eventually had to leave the country.

When you talked to Manaf Tlass, who was a loyalist for so long, what does he say is the moment when he said, I got to get out of this - this friendship, this country?

Initially, when the uprising started, Manaf was trying to convince Bashar not to use violence, not to actually shoot protesters. But the problem is, you know, Bashar was surrounded by these hardliners - his brother Maher al-Assad and his cousin Hafez Makhlouf. So this is very much a family affair ruling Syria. These people were for actually shooting people from the first day. And the idea was if you shot enough people from the first day, you would scare them off the streets. That was the logic.

turn 1 : Manaf Tlass decided not to support his father's regime

Which regime did Manaf Tlass decide not to support?

Answer: Father's


Now, when we look at this, what they're doing, there was a - you know, in some ways perhaps a minor incident, but a telling one where the British publication, the Telegraph, reported online that the G8 leaders enjoyed a six course lunch followed by an eight course dinner. African leaders were not invited and of course they're talking about the global hunger situation. There was a lot of static about that. Do you think that, that was symbolic in any way or just, you know, big time world business as usual?

Well, Farai now you're going to draw the cynical side out of me. This was an incredibly stupid, careless move, by the G8 leaders where they basically seemed to have thought off camera they could do whatever they wanted to. And they demonstrated, for all to see, the contempt actually that they have towards the rest of the world.

That they basically - they see themselves, as in effect, the rulers of this planet. So, when they're on camera there'll be the tears, there'll be the concern. Off camera you saw this hideous example of consumption.

What do you think the G8 leaders should be doing in terms of an Africa agenda?I'm going to get to a couple of specific things, specific national issues of Zimbabwe and Nigeria in a second.

turn 2 : G8 leaders' off-camera behavior contradicts their on-camera concern and shows their excessive consumption.

What did the off-camera behavior of G8 leaders demonstrate?

Answer: Excessive


President Obama in Elkhart, Indiana, today says he will create an independent, bipartisan board to oversee spending and to ensure that the money isn't wasted. The high school auditorium in Elkhart was filled to capacity for President Obama's town hall meeting. According to the Elkhart Truth newspaper this morning, the line to get in was longer than a football field. People waited for hours in predawn frigid temperatures. The president chose Elkhart to sell his stimulus plan because it's one of the cities that has suffered the most in this recession. Elkhart's unemployment rate is 17 percent. Earlier, I spoke with the managing editor of the newspaper, Greg Halling.

So, 17 percent unemployment rate; tell us more about how the economy has affected Elkhart.

What you see is, in Elkhart, is just everywhere you look, people who have held jobs, who've been able to take care of their families, basically, their entire lives, for the first time, being forced to go to food pantries just to make sure that they can make ends meet.

So, with a 17 percent unemployment rate in Elkhart, the people must be pretty desperate. How much faith and how much hope are they pinning on the stimulus package?

turn 0 : Obama wants to make sure that money is not spent on things that are not needed.

How does Obama plan to oversee spending?

Answer: Board


Yeah, literally - quite literally. Yeah, man. It's like - it's usually my go-to in writing. And it's just naturally a - such a part of everything. And then in making that song "Disco," it's like, disco - what do you think of disco?Like, strings. Strings are all up in and around disco - heavy, heavy, heavy.

(Vocalizing).

What's this song about - "Poor Fake"?

I think it's about kind of looking deeper into something that on the surface, seem so authentic and so real. But then as you get closer to it, you start to see what it's really made of.

turn 0 : The speaker uses 'literally' in a figurative sense.

Which word does the speaker use in a figurative sense in turn 0?

Answer: heavy


Lots of people are pretty angry about this, understandably so. Is there any kind of limit or regulation on how much banks can charge their customers?

It depends on the state where you live. Much of this is ruled by state law. But for the most part, no. The basic rules that apply to this is, the bank must at least tell you what the fees are up front. The problem with that is, many studies, including a recent one by the federal government earlier this year, shows that a high percentage of banks simply don't ever tell customers anywhere in the fine print, anywhere in person what the fees are.

It all sounds pretty grim, but I'm wondering if somewhere, there's a bit of a silver lining. If people are going to get charged more for things like overdrafts and bounced checks, do you think people might pay more attention and be more responsible about their money?

I mean, that's the hope, but one of the things - one of the reasons the banks do this isn't necessarily to get people to act better. What they realized a few years ago is that the poorest customers ultimately cost them money. They're literally losing money on people who don't keep a lot of cash in their account but yet call up the customer service line or go to the bank.

turn 1 : Banks often do not disclose fees upfront to customers.

How do some banks behave regarding disclosing fees to customers?

Answer: Don't


And from New York, Serena Blanchard, as in: From Serena, 1988. Thank you for being with us.

Thank you for having me.

Now, Ms.  Blanchard, you were only 8. So how did you wind up getting cited in this eminent textbook?

turn 3 : I wanted to write a poem for my father's book. I wanted to write an introduction. Apparently, he was looking for some form of dedication page. So I was tying my shoe one day, and I came up with a poem, and I offered it to my father and to Stan. But I think Dad can probably explain the rest from there. Implicated meaning: A is explaining how she came up with a poem for her father's book in a spontaneous and unplanned manner. The phrase "came up with" implies that the idea for the poem suddenly occurred to her, without deliberate effort or prior intention.

What was PersonA doing when she came up with the idea for the poem?

Answer: Tying


It's a lot. . .

. . . Yes.

It's a lot of money to most people around the country.

And congressman, you know, if - let me understand this, are you calling for the outright abolition of the program?

turn 2 : The speaker is stating that the amount of money being discussed is significant not just to themselves, but also to most people in the country. This suggests that there may be financial hardship or inequality that the speaker is aware of.

Answer: Significant


And Happy Thanksgiving to you. This would essentially be an enterprise in which people would put money on terrorist acts.

Well, you know, the prediction markets - markets like political prediction markets, where people risk money on the presidential election, things like that - have been remarkably successful in many different areas. So a little more than a decade ago, the Defense Department thought the idea - why don't we try to do a prediction market that would include all sorts of measures of international instability?- where there'll be a coup, what government might be at risk, where the economy might fall. And it included questions about terrorism as something we might try to predict.

As you said, there was a public outcry. People complained about - this would mean people are earning money from terror attacks. That is, if you bet right in the prediction market, obviously, you'd get a payoff. And so it was dropped.

Well, how does putting money on the chance of something occurring, a terrorist act, improve somebody's sense of judgment in predicting it?

turn 0 : The turn that has an implied meaning different from its literal meaning is turn (1).  Although the literal meaning of "And Happy Thanksgiving to you" is a friendly holiday greeting, the implied meaning in this context is likely sarcastic or dismissive. This is because B responds to A's explanation of the prediction market with a statement that could be interpreted as not taking the idea seriously or finding it distasteful. The greeting could therefore be seen as a way to change the subject or end the conversation.

How did the Defense Department try to predict international instability?

Answer: Prediction


Yeah. You know, it's a great question. I think that the core of the problem is that they say that they pursue these weapons out of insecurity. So the logical thing is can the world provide them some sort of security?And in past agreements that I have participated in, we provided them security guarantees and offered to negotiate a peace treaty with them. The problem is I think the security - insecurity that they feel is generated by the regime itself. You know, these sorts of totalitarian regimes never feel secure. And that's the core problem.

Because there's mass starvation. There's mass poverty. There's mass oppression.

Right. And that they - all those things, and that they don't rule by the consent of the legitimacy of the people. And that's the basic problem.

Yeah. China has a role in this?

turn 3 : "China has a role in this?"  The actual meaning of this turn goes beyond the literal question. The speaker is implying that China may have some level of involvement or influence in the situation being discussed, suggesting a potential factor that contributes to the problem.

What factor is suggested by the speaker as a potential contributor to the problem?

Answer: China


I'm not so sure that it was missed, per se. I think it's been there at the forefront of the news for a really long time. I just don't think that we saw the potential that it would impact the election in the way that it did, insofar as it's tied up in these other economic and social struggles that are occurring within the same communities.

And to be clear again, you're not saying that people that have a problem with opioids or drug or alcohol voted for Donald Trump so much as people who live in those communities that have been affected by it statistically in your study voted for Donald Trump.

Well, that's right. And I can't say necessarily who voted for Donald Trump, but we have to remember that addiction and depression and these diseases and deaths of despair go far beyond the individuals themselves who are affected by them. They affect friends and family members and coworkers and first responders and service providers and employers in communities who are dealing with the struggles of these and experience the same sort of frustration and anxiety that are associated or wrapped up within diseases and deaths of despair.

You conclude your study by - I believe the quote is community level well-being played an important role in this election.

turn 3 : The impact of the opioid crisis and other economic and social struggles in affected communities was underestimated in its effect on the election.

Answer: Crisis


I'm just over the line. I'm near Heartbreak Hill, actually, and was out on the root of the race earlier today. But no, I'm - it would be very, very difficult to get down near the finish line on any marathon day at this hour.

And certainly at this point not safe to go anywhere near the Boston Marathon, and I assumed it's advisable that if you are in Boston you stay well away from the scene. Tell me about what kind of things you're seeing or what kind of reports you're seeing about the site itself, what it looks like.

The site itself looks like - I mean there is grey smoke on - these are just the images that are coming out of the area now. (Technical difficulties) been wall-to-wall people just an hour ago is now basically emptied out except for authorities. The place - the streets are littered with signs meant to be cheering on runners, water bottles and so on, and seems to be covered in a kind of grey dust. And we saw the windows on storefronts completely shuttered out, sidewalk stained with blood. From reports - eyewitnesses down there anyway, reporting, it seems that there were some very, very injuries.

I've been watching. They've been replaying on the television networks over and over at least one image - a video image of at least one of the explosions and they don't seem to show the next one. Do we know how far apart they were - a matter of seconds, was it?

turn 0 : It is difficult to get near the finish line during a marathon day.

Which line is difficult to get near during a marathon day?

Answer: A


This is News and Notes. I'm Tony Cox. According to the American Medical Association, addiction is the most untreated treatable disease in America. It doesn't discriminate, affecting people without regard to race, sex, or economic status. And many addicts manage to function everyday without others knowing who they are. But how do they do it?Today, we continue our series on addiction with a look at functioning addicts. We're joined by Ed Storti, the author of several books and a certified alcohol and drug counselor and intervention specialist. Ed, welcome to News and Notes.

Thank you, Tony.

Let's begin with this. Give us an example of what a functioning addict is?

I think the functioning addict is one that's out there, they're on the freeway, they're going to work, they're trying to do the right thing, but ultimately, they're living in fear, they're living in emotional turmoil. Many find a way to sedate their feelings sometimes at night or early in the morning. But overall, they're still pulling it off. Meaning, folks haven't caught on or it takes for some folks, years and years. Personally, my youngest patient has been 12 years of age. My oldest patient has been 94 years of age. And I was just working with a group of people that the family said we need to intervene on this 82-year-old female. And I said when did you start noticing problems and issues with her and they said, well when she was about 41 years of age.

turn 3 : Functioning addicts hide their addiction while carrying on with daily life.

How do functioning addicts deal with their emotions?

Answer: sedate


. . . in the most efficient way.

Right. So the ones in the back may get an advantage by swimming behind the fish, but they, you know, pay the cost of not getting to food first. They also are safer because they don't get eaten first if a predator is coming right at them. So it's a complicated issue, and he's just looking at this one little piece, but. . .

It's fascinating. The video is - I call it the Pied Piper fish.

Yeah, absolutely.

turn 2 : The literal meaning of B's turn is that the video is fascinating and is like the Pied Piper fish. However, the implied meaning is that the video is about the Pied Piper fish and thus the fish in the video are like the Pied Piper fish.

Answer: Fascinating


And I went into Washington Park on Chicago's south side and met some retired African-American men who were spending their days fishing and who really were living history for me. You know, I had these books, but they would give me the ins and out of the black political machine, the state of race relations in the city. And everything that I was reading in these textbooks seemed dead because they could say exactly the same thing with so much more spirit, and I wanted to find a way to spend time with folks like that instead of just asking them a few questions and hoping they could give me short answers.

They basically told you, okay, I'm glad you talked to us, but talk to some younger guys. So what did you do?

So they sent me to a few neighborhoods. I constructed a survey, and I said okay, let me go see if I can start up some conversations. I went to the Robert Taylor Homes, a very poor public-housing development in Chicago. And I walked into this stairwell, and I met this street gang that was selling drugs in the stairwell, and they wondered who I was, and they thought I was a gang member, and they thought I was a Mexican gang member.

They started calling me Julio, and I administered the survey to them, and they just laughed. And they thought, okay, you must be from another gang because nobody's going to ask stupid questions like this. They kept me there, and I had. . .

You had multiple-choice questions like how do you feel being poor and black?

turn 0 : The experiences and stories of real people can offer more insight and authenticity than textbooks

How did PersonA feel about the information in textbooks?

Answer: Insight


But I do think, at the Pew level, if you will, this is a divisive issue. And I am really hoping and I'm personally praying that evangelicals will stop and say, this one's too far. We don't want to close that golden door on people fleeing persecution, including people who are persecuted for their Christian faith. I think it's maybe not gotten a lot of attention that Christian refugees from some of the countries where Christians face the worst persecution in the world, along with other religious minorities, are also really dramatically harmed by these policies.

As I understand it, a big part of your work is talking to fellow evangelicals about this - about immigration more broadly. Can you give us a sense of what you hear in those conversations?

Yeah. You know, I wouldn't do this work - I think I'd be completely burned out if it wasn't for the opportunities I have on a fairly regular basis to be in an evangelical church in various parts of the country on a Sunday morning, preaching and teaching on God's heart for immigrants.

And what's encouraging to me is when I speak in churches, the response is actually really positive. I think a lot of churches are afraid to even have that conversation. But when they do, I find that most people are really receptive if it's grounded not in a political agenda - we're not there to tell people to vote for Republicans or vote for Democrats - but in a biblical message that focuses on who we know God to be, as revealed in the Bible, and his particular concern for vulnerable refugees.

turn 2 : to be burned out means you are sick of doing the same thing.

Answer: Exhausted


Yeah. We need to start thinking about them now, and people are thinking about it. There's researchers now who are working on thinking about stuff like how do you find a person who's DNA is really robust against radiation damage because of course radiation damage is a huge concern in space travel and in living on other worlds. And right now there are researchers who have gotten a little funding from NASA and a little funding from other sources to look at how does DNA repair itself after radiation damage and is there a variation between people. Are there some people who might be better suited for space travel or are there some sets of genes that make people better at dealing with that?

Well, Annalee, thank you for giving us optimism today about wiping out the - most of the people or life on Earth. Annalee Newitz is author of "Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction. "Thank you very much, Annalee, for coming on this show.

Thank you for having me.

You're welcome.

turn 1 : The implied meaning is that the demise of all people on earth is not a reason to be optimistic.

How did Annalee Newitz make the host feel?

Answer: optimistic


Are there any good reasons to use this?

There is a separate group here working on storing data in DNA. It turns out that DNA is really robust for long-term storage, whereas, you know, hard drives may die after a few years. You can conceivably store data in DNA for hundreds or thousands of years. And as long as life continues to be based on DNA, we'll always have a reason to read and write DNA. So it's sort of a technology that won't go obsolete.

So, I mean, we underscored the aspect of some kind of mischief or outright miscreants. But I wonder, you know, a few years from now, instead of having hard drives or storage systems, will people just carry around that information in themselves, in their DNA?

I'm not sure that people will carry around that information within them. But I do believe people will start using DNA for sort of long-term storage. So accessing data from DNA and putting data into DNA is a pretty slow process. And so you'll want to, you know, archive photos in there and things like that. But you won't want to use it for your day-to-day tasks, at least not for the foreseeable future.

turn 3 : Implied meaning: DNA may not be suitable for carrying out everyday tasks due to its slow processing speed.

How is DNPersonA's processing speed for day-to-day tasks?

Answer: Slow


So explain to me how this system actually works.

Well, the first thing is to know what the weather is so you can know what the weather will be. That's the crux of it. So you need as complete observations of the global atmosphere as possible, which means coming from satellites and weather buoys and from sensors and airliners. And then once you know what it is, what you can do is then begin to run it forward in time.

But rather than just, you know, sort of being plugged into the supercomputers - you know, in comes the present, and out comes the future - the models are really a kind of ongoing concern. Every six hours, every 12 hours, they compare their own forecast with the latest observations. And so the models in reality are kind of - you know, they're sort of dancing together, where the model makes a forecast, and it's corrected slightly by the observations that are coming in.

And does anyone own these models and these satellites?I mean, is it part of a global web?Or does America have a certain piece of this and every country sort of have their own proprietary information that somehow gets passed along?

turn 2 : It's not plugged in but typed in the computers. The models don't dance together but the data works together.

How are the models and data working together?

Answer: Together


The British travel company Thomas Cook has collapsed. The company coordinates packaged tours, or rather they did coordinate packaged tours. They're going out of business immediately, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded overseas. The British government says getting a total of 150,000 British nationals home will require the biggest peacetime repatriation operation that Britain has ever conducted.

Daniel Thomas is the executive news editor of The Financial Times. He's covering this story from London. Welcome to the program.

Good morning.

How does a 178-year-old company close overnight?

turn 0 : when a company collapses, it means they went out of business.

Which company coordinated packaged tours and collapsed, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded overseas?

Answer: Thomas


So as we talked about, there was some last-minute campaigning by the prime minister. And you might think he would be more relaxed after an Election Day, right?He's Israel's longest-serving prime minister.

Right. But you know what?He campaigned extra vigorously. He dragged a family out of their home to the polling place. He took a bullhorn, and he visited Jerusalem's main bus station and the main vegetable market. And he claimed over and over again that he could lose, that - he was claiming that right-wing voter turnout was low and left-wing and Arab voter turnout was high. Arab voters meaning Palestinian citizens of Israel, not Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. They can't vote in Israeli elections.

Then Netanyahu went back to his official residence, and he spent hours streaming live on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. He was trying to get people to go to the polls. He called it an emergency broadcast. He was taking calls from party activists. He called on TV commentators. He called them out by name and called them liars. He even appeared in a video clip with puppets. So, frankly, Audie, he overshadowed all of the other candidates on this Election Day.

And voters - how are they responding to it?

turn 0 : last minute means to basically to do what you are meant to do close to a due date.

How did the prime minister campaign on Election Day?

Answer: vigorously


Well, one way is that the schemes at issue here were really sprawling. This was not just one man doing something criminally inappropriate but rather pervasive, longstanding, industry-wide conspiracy, for lack of a better word, to promote these products.

And, you know, there may be a false sense of vengeance or accountability in pinning it on one individual and essentially letting others go free who were the ones that carried out this scheme. You could argue that the deterrent effect of legal action would be greater with a massive financial penalty that would really send a message to all other executives at all levels of a corporation that this could be their economic downfall.

Did we see that with the $500 million judgment in Oklahoma?Is that a big enough penalty to be a deterrent, or is it just the cost of doing business for Johnson and Johnson?

I think for a company on the scale of Johnson and Johnson, $570 million is not a lot of money. And we saw that in Wall Street's reaction to the verdict. To them, it was good news. This was probably the first time that having to pay $572 million was considered good news.

turn 1 : pinning it on someone refers to someone else having to take the consequences for something

Which term refers to the consequences of pinning it on an individual?

Answer: Pinning


Yeah, I've got a book going on, and I'm trying to work on some animation stuff. And, you know, and I don't need a crowd-funding campaign to do most of that stuff. It's just me and a couple cups of coffee at home on the computer. So I'm fairly low-budget with my needs at the moment.

Tell me a little bit about this book before we let you go. It's "How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You"?

Yeah. It's basically a collection of funny cat comics ranging from how to tell if your cat thinks it's a mountain lion. There is another one that will show ways to identify if your cat is a raging homosexual. So it's this kind of a mixed bag of weird cat. . .

News you can use, in other words.

turn 2 : The content of the book is humorous and not meant to be taken seriously.

How would you describe the tone of the book?

Answer: Humorous


We don't know the why. We do know the effect. It bears a striking resemblance to the Jim Crow literacy tests. I mean, it's 43 questions ranging from geography to culture to agriculture. I would challenge any citizen of any state in Georgia to pass a test of 43 questions about their state.

So before we let you go, could you just describe for people, you know, what it is - because some people might not find it upsetting. They say, well, you know, maybe they're just trying to determine whether the residents of Puerto Rico who have moved are really from Puerto Rico as opposed to from some other Spanish-speaking place. Could you just describe for people again why this - in your view, this violates the law and is offensive?

Well, Puerto Rican American citizens have the same right to transfer their lives, move to another state and have a driver's license as Texans or Ohioans. It's a matter of federal law. It's a matter of the federal Constitution. And Puerto Rican citizens in Georgia are subject to a different set of rules that are much more restrictive.

That's Gerry Weber. He's a senior attorney at the Southern Center. He's also a professor at Emory University School of Law.

turn 0 : The 43-question test is discriminatory and reminiscent of Jim Crow laws

How would you describe the 43-question test? (Answer: Discriminatory)

Answer: Discriminatory


Good.

They did have generators working, as did the airports. Now, officials are saying that this was a failure in the grid's interconnection system, which happened in the northeast, between two big installations there, and then triggered this unprecedented chain reaction. They don't think, by the way, that this was a cyberattack or any other kind of sabotage. But they don't exactly know what happened yet. They say it could be a couple of weeks before they do. We do know, though, that the grid and the infrastructure is not in good shape.

How are people responding to this odd Sunday?

Well, they're very angry, obviously. I mean, in Argentina, they're already facing really very hard times. Inflation there is among the highest in the world. The economy is - you know, they've got this boom-and-bust economy that's right now in such a mess that the government very controversially decided to sign on to this huge $56 billion IMF bailout. There are strikes and protests over President Mauricio Macri's austerity program, regularly.

turn 3 : strike implies to stop work and not to hit, blow or delete something

Answer: Protest


No, no. I'm a member of the House of Lords, and I'm a proud British citizen. And, you know, if you want to meet monarchists, I'm about as monarchist as you can get. Now, I'm absolutely a proud Brit.

But I do want a German passport as well, which we're able to have, because I want to be able to travel freely throughout Europe. And I do feel that my ancestry is European. All four of my grandparents were German, and my mother and her parents came to this country before the war as refugees, and Britain was wonderful to them.

But now that I discover I am entitled to a German passport as well as my British one - I'm a proud British subject - that's what I'm going to do.

Is your decision impelled, or at least hastened, by the vote on Brexit?

turn 3 : (4) - Impelled in this context implies "motivated" or "influenced" which is different from its literal meaning of "urged or forced".

Which word in turn 3 has a different meaning in this context than its literal meaning?

Answer: Impelled


And it was remarkable to find these little details that people had. Oh, yes, when he was in college, you know, he belonged to this - some society. I'm forgetting the name right now. But the idea of it was to perfect one's dancing and etiquette. And the next door neighbor said he was always very interested in, you know, in correct speech and in, sort of, you know, elegantly holding himself out and that this was something that just went back, back, back, back, back.

Alan Feuer tells Alan Feuer's story in two articles in The New York Times, the most recent, "The Secret Life of a Society Maven. "You could find a link to that on our website. Go to npr. org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. And, Alan Feuer, thank you so much for sharing your story.

Oh, my pleasure.

Alan Feuer is a reporter for The New York Times. Tomorrow, after a gun battle outside the prime minister's house in Tripoli, we'll talk about progress and pitfalls and the ripples of revolution in Libya. Join for us that. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

turn 1 : The speaker is referring to an article in The New York Times about a person's secret life as a society maven.

What newspaper published the article about the person's secret life as a society maven?

Answer: New


So when he came home, how was he different in how he treated you, related to you, related to family life?

He's totally different. For one, Michael is very quiet. And since he returned, he's even distant, and it's causing a lot of problems in our marriage. And it's just - this war have caused a lot of stress on the wives and the families, they have to deal with these soldiers when they return.

What do you try to do with or for Michael to help him adjust?

I try everything in the world, and it seem like it don't help. Because he have a wall built up, and for one, we don't have enough help here. We only have one clinic that we can go to for counseling and therapy. And it's like two-hour drive away from where we live, so that's a major problem, too.

turn 3 : a wall built up implies that the man is not communicating with others about his emotions

Which word describes the man's behavior towards communicating his emotions?

Answer: B


Well, she isn't calling Israel evil, but she is still using language that is anti-Semitic. The impact that it has is devastating. It's inflammatory. And unfortunately, I think it just causes more conflict. It makes it harder to have the kinds of policy conversations that she claims she wants to have on these difficult and fraught topics.

I'm sorry if this sounds naive, but why is a phrase like it's all about the Benjamins, baby, offensive to many Jews?

Well, it feeds into the classic stereotype of Jews controlling the world with our money, working behind the scenes to buy control over politicians and government policies. Part of it was the way in which she communicated it, too. It was a provocative and glib way of doing it, and it would have been much, I think, far more acceptable to say we need to have a conversation about the influence generally of money in politics, the influence of lobbyists and politics. And let's have a conversation without using the inflammatory language about these things.

So when Representative Omar tweeted anti-Semitism is real and I'm grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes, how do you react to that?

turn 0 : A believes that the language used is anti-Semitic, but not the person.

What is PersonA's opinion on the language used?

Answer: Devastating.


Well, it just occurred to me in the last few months that what I do is almost like a drug for me. If it's not there on some nights when my instrument is not working correctly like I want it to, or the sound isn't right, or the audience is heckling me, or somebody's not happy, it's almost like I'm not getting that fix that I need. And it is kind of the biggest drug in my life is taking music to people, in a way.

So, Lalah, you have a bunch of different sounds on this CD, and let's talk a little bit about the song, "One Mile" which has a little bit more of a hip-hop, R&B edge.

(Singing) Bring me all around the world, Tell me I'm the only one. I believe you love me so, Wondered how you let me down. Tricky how you said the words, Didn't even feel disturbed. You're my one and only girl, Those are only words I heard.

So, when you think about the story telling, and this sound, how do you cross-pollinate them when you put together something like this song?

turn 0 : The speaker feels the need to perform music to feel complete.

Which feeling does the speaker experience while performing?

Answer: Complete


And, you know, one can argue about how effective this instance of dueling briefs might have been in illuminating that whole issue for the American public. But it certainly wasn't anything like what we've seen in the current instance where you have, to be quite frank, a blatant use of the House Intelligence Committee for the purpose of trying to pre-emptively discredit findings of the special counsel.

But then - I'm glad you mentioned the disagreement between the two parties about - with the phrase was - what?- enhanced interrogation. . .

Right.

. . . Techniques. Because it is, among other things, the responsibility of Senate and House committees to oversee government action and to step in and make corrections and, for that matter, alert the public when they think intelligence agencies are going over the line, isn't it?

turn 2 : The turn suggests that the speaker is feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.

How did the speaker feel about the disagreement between the two parties?

Answer: Notmentioned


It's actually rotting their bones from the inside.

It's rotting. Yeah.

I suppose worth noting - the - these were young women at the time that they were employed working in factories. Not. . .

Teenagers, many of them. Yeah.

turn 2 : The young women working in factories were suffering a lot due to the unhealthy environment.

Answer: rotting


And then the women also said they wanted their jacket to look like that. They wanted to wear a male tie, which is unusual. Usually women wear, like, kind of a little crosshatch-looking tie. But they wanted to wear a long, male tie. And they wanted a pencil skirt.

Were the women and the men in the military polled about this?

Yeah. From different ranks, they had people come in and look at the uniforms or hats, you know, sent the prototypes to them and said, what do you like?Is this comfortable?And what would you like to see?

So they get some sartorial input.

turn 0 : The women wanted to wear a long, male tie and pencil skirt, which is unusual for women.

Which clothing item did the women want to wear that is not typically worn by women?

Answer: tie


A degree, yeah.

Yeah. We're talking Jay Kang about his article that ran in The New York Times magazine this past weekend, "That Other School Shooting. "And you're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

I wanted to ask you about another Korean-American you ran into. An Eagle Scout who, in fact, wanted to build a memorial garden.

Yeah, Kinsa Durst. He was - I think he is 19 now. You know, he's the type of the kid that I think every parent wants to, you know, at some way, their kid to grow up to be. He had sort of the same reaction that I had. And it was interesting to me that, you know, somebody so young who's father was not Korean but his father was Caucasian but living in Korea, I think, for a while, would be so honest about this idea that this reflects violent Koreans because Virginia Tech also happened, which I think is a quote he gave me verbatim.

And instead, you know, instead of sort of - I guess, sort of, wallowing in the shame of it or trying to suppress the connection or even sort of bearing it with post-modern, sort of, academic speak about how we, you know, no one person should represent anybody else. And he went on built a peace garden in front of the school with commemorative stones for the dead. And on - during one of the memorial services that I attended, he gave this talk about how he wanted to help Korean and American relations.

turn 3 : "He had sort of the same reaction that I had" - The literal meaning is that Kinsa Durst had a similar reaction to the speaker. The actual meaning is that Kinsa Durst had a similar reaction to the speaker regarding the Virginia Tech shooting and its connection to Korean Americans.

Which event's connection to Korean Americans did Kinsa Durst react to similarly to the speaker?

Answer: Virginia


Two gunmen were killed by security forces in the attack. What do we know about them?

Not much; details are still emerging. They both seem to be from the provinces in Tunisia, possibly near the Algerian border. They seem to have had some sort of involvement with terrorist organizations prior to the attack. There are reports out that at least one of the gunmen traveled to Libya in order to get training either with the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, or possibly an al-Qaida-linked group.

By some accounts, about 3,000 people - Tunisians - have left for the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Why so many?

Well, there's a variety of factors that are driving people to go. One is that Tunisia has been a success story in the transition towards democracy. But with that came political liberalization that society wasn't quite prepared for. All of a sudden a lot of radical preachers, who had been kept under wraps by an authoritarian government, were allowed to preach their messages on the streets and in mosques. And that inspired a number of young men to go abroad and to fight. And then finally it's just because there's a lot of opportunities to fight. I mean, Tunisia is a relatively stable country despite the attacks, but it's surrounded by unstable countries, particularly Libya. And Syria is just a plane ride or two away, so it's attractive for a number of young men to go fight abroad. Their motives are various, but there's a lot of opportunities for them to go, so they're taking them.

turn 3 : In (4), the speaker is not just talking about the literal number of opportunities to fight abroad, but rather the underlying reasons why young Tunisian men are motivated to go and fight abroad. The speaker points out that political liberalization in Tunisia allowed radical preachers to spread their messages, which inspired some young men to go abroad and fight.

What inspired some young men to go abroad and fight?

Answer: Preachers


. . . That it's biased especially against people of color.

Correct. And to be sure, we need to take great care to be refining our use of risk assessments as much as we can. But the alternative is to do it the way we've always done it, which is to rely on judicial hunch and money, which, of course, makes no sense.

Judge Morrison, you've been on the bench here in D. C.  for 40-some years?

Almost 40 years.

turn 2 : He has not been on a bench but has been working as a judge for some time.

What has Judge Morrison been doing for some time?

Answer: judge


The census is required by the Constitution and federal law. There's really no wiggle room here. Trump did sign this executive order directing all agencies to provide the Commerce Department with U. S.  citizenship and noncitizenship data of everyone living in the U. S. The thing is, though, that that data collection was already under way, or at least some of it was. So it's not clear what this executive order is really achieving.

House voted to limit the president's authority to use the military to strike Iran. What's the significance of that vote?

So this defense bill was really aimed at reining in the president's power to use military force against Iran without approval from Congress. This has been an issue not only with this president, but, obviously, with prior administrations - the question of when a president must get permission to take military action. And Democrats in the House are trying to take some of that authority back and give it back to Congress. Obviously, Trump was on his - very close to striking Iran, according to him, a few weeks ago.

But although the bill passed the House, it did so along party lines, and it's going to have a much harder time in the Senate. You're likely going to see some compromise have to be made for this bill to become law.

turn 0 : Trump's executive order may not be achieving anything new.

How was Trump's executive order on data collection perceived?

Answer: Unclear


No, no, no. We have also identified 39 other states that have been impacted crimewise by our kits that were found in Detroit. They're not all rape cases. We also have some homicides, some other types of cases that testing rape kits will also help to solve.

What have you discovered might help processing this huge number of rape kits?You need more money, personnel - what do you need?

Well, when we first started, there really was no road map. So we kind of had to put it together ourselves. And the first thing that is of notice, Detroit was a near-bankrupt city. And so we had no money. At that time, it cost anywhere from $1,200 to $1,500 per kit back in '09 to test them. So we're looking at a multimillion-dollar problem just to get them tested. And it doesn't do any good to test them all if you're not going to follow up and investigate and prosecute them like you should have done - or like it should've been done - when this first happened. So those are the challenges we are facing. But my first challenge is basically begging and pleading with foundations, with Detroit businessmen and -women, with the general public - to basically fund the project.

Did you run into resistance from people who said, look, this sounds like a good thing to do, but Detroit's a city filled with good things to do?

turn 1 : The implied meaning of (2): What resources do you need to help process the huge number of rape kits?

What was the cost per kit to test them back in '09?

Answer: $1,200,$1,500


OK, starting with GlobalGrind. Here's the deal Farai, as you know, being in the media, it's becoming more and more niche, and people, especially what you're talking about Internet, you're talking about web communities and defining that niche. Now we're seeing more and more websites pop up where we've had black websites in the past, but GlobalGrind is this one-stop shop.

They claim, or they offer, for news, gossip, humor, entertainment. It's just about everything that users think is important. So the whole site is actually driven by users voting on other content that's happening elsewhere. And so the higher the vote of a specific piece of content, the more relevant it comes up on the GlobalGrind webpage.

Is it fun?

It is fun. It looks very clean. It's sleek. I do like the ownership behind the company, and some of the people driving it, because Navarro is a guy that ran 360HipHop. com, which was very successful that was sold to BET. I've met with their advertising people. I think they really got their handle on - they've made it mobile. They now integrate it with Facebook, which wasn't there before, which I was dinging them on. I was like, when are you guys going to get with mobile applications in a Web 2. 0 space?

All right, Mario. We have to jump in. RushmoreDrive. Give me the skinny.

turn 0 : Being in the media industry is becoming more niche and specialized

Answer: Niche


It says, he that copieth this letter shall be blessed of me. He that does not shall be cursed, etc. , etc.

Oh, my gosh. Gotcha. And people believe this?Or enough people?

Many people believed it because they needed to or they wished to because the gaps in history - we have nothing from Christ's life that survives directly, physically from that moment. And so people wanted to fill in gaps - desperately to fill in gaps so that they could feel closer to the concept of a Jesus that was like them.

Well, show us something else.

turn 3 : B is suggesting that A should provide evidence other than the letter to prove its authenticity.

Which letter is PersonB questioning the authenticity of?

Answer: The


Oh, I absolutely see having access to care that you can rely upon to get the care you need is something we need to have across America. But how do you do that?Can you do that with a legislative pen?That was what the Affordable Care Act was trying to mandate. And it just doesn't work. And so what you've got to do is create a marketplace, both health insurance and in health care, that allows for people to access that care in an affordable, reasonable manner.

Are you convinced that high-risk pools are going to be able to cover people who are at risk with continuing and debilitating health conditions?I might add, both you and I have one of those.

Absolutely. I would agree that high-risk pools are going to address the issue in a new way, in a little different way, than what has been done previously in high-risk pools. But also it's going to give the flexibility and innovative opportunity to states to create new products, new ways to treat these issues. And to me, that's something we should be looking forward to rather than, you know, the status quo, no-we-can't-type mindset.

A new way but a reliable way. I mean, can you - there's lot of skepticism that these high-risk pools will do anything but make it unaffordable (ph) for people.

turn 3 : B is questioning the reliability of high-risk pools, implying that they may not be effective in providing affordable care.

What is PersonB's concern about high-risk pools?

Answer: Effectiveness


Yeah. That was something that I really loved about this script, actually, when it came in was the World War I element of the movie. It's depicted very realistically and shows the - you know, the horrendous elements of that war. But also, it - because of him suffering from trench fever, it has this hallucinatory element to it whereby you're kind of getting glimpses into his dark imagination and what he might have actually been witnessing instead of the reality around him at that time.

Yeah, the battlefield becomes kind of Middle-earth's Mordor in many ways.

Yeah, yeah, completely, which - I mean, he always said that that war wasn't an allegory for his work and the lands he created. But at the same time, I mean, obviously you're always influenced by experiences like that.

What do you do when you go into a biopic like this?

turn 1 : The battlefield becomes very fantasy like instead of realistic due to the fever.

What element of the battlefield changes due to the fever?

Answer: Fantasy


However, it's also this wonderful book about class and how we think about the way that books influence us. Every detail is amazing. I just - I - Claire Harman describes the aristocrat as being ripe and aged. It also really answers this essential question of how powerful can books be.

Barrie Hardymon, our books editor. And if you want specific recommendations, you can always tweet her @bhardymon, or tell us what you're recommending to your friends, @NPRWeekend.

Barrie, thanks for this.

You're welcome.

turn 0 : "aristocrat as being ripe" implies aristocrat as being mature.

How does Claire Harman describe the aristocrat?

Answer: Aged


Mr.  Zandi, you served as an adviser for Senator John McCain's presidential campaign, and now you've been working with the Democrats in leadership. I'm wondering, what sort of advice are you giving them for how to get out of this situation?

Well, I think the most important thing is that government policy needs to be very aggressive. We need a concerted, comprehensive, and consistent response to our economic problems. The crisis is very severe and significant. And without such a response, we're going to be in the economic soup, so to speak, for a long time to come.

And specifically - I'm sure there's many things you've suggested - could you give us a couple of highlights of concrete plans?

Well, the thing that's on the drawing board right now is the economic stimulus plan, and I think we do need a very large plan that would include increases in government spending and tax cuts.

To add to this troubled economy, we now have the latest unemployment figures out this morning from major metropolitan areas. Here's how they look. In November 2007, 18 areas reported jobless rates of at least seven percent. In November 2008, that number jumped to 121. Which areas have seen the highest unemployment rate?

turn 0 : not literally served, as someone placing prepared food on a table for someone to eat, but working in a job or position

How did PersonA clarify their use of the word "served" in turn 0?

Answer: Not-literally


Well, if things go as expected, Netanyahu is on track to become Israel's longest-serving prime minister. To talk about Netanyahu's long career as prime minister of Israel, we're joined now by Daniel Shapiro. He was the U. S.  ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration, and he joins us from Tel Aviv. Welcome.

Thank you. Great to be with you.

So this will be Netanyahu's fourth consecutive term, but it's his fifth term overall as prime minister. Describe how you think Netanyahu has changed from the day he was first elected prime minister in 1996.

I think he's gone through several phases, at least on the issue that is so central to any Israeli prime minister - the Palestinian issue. He started as a real hard-liner. He dragged his feet on implementing the Oslo Accords they inherited from Prime Minister Rabin and worked on with the Clinton administration. And then when he left office in 1999 and returned 10 years later, he encountered President Obama, who wanted to try, yet again, to press forward on trying to achieve a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

turn 2 : Netanyahu's views on the Palestinian issue have changed over time

What has been the evolution of Netanyahu's stance on the Palestinian issue?

Answer: change


It's a pleasure to be with you. And thank you very much for having me.

So this issue has been kind of dancing around the edges of political discourse for years now. I mean, Jesse Jackson made it part of his platform when he ran for president in 1988. And as we mentioned, your former colleague, Representative Conyers, reintroduced the bill in every congressional session for 25 years. But now it seems to be gaining some traction again. Why do you think that is?

I frankly believe that there's something to elections - And this is a Democratic House with Democratic leadership - and also the times. And it is tragic, but it is real that we've seen an uptick in racial incidences - white supremacy, white nationalism. And so the question of slavery, frankly, has never been addressed, particularly from the institutional governmental perspective. And I've updated the language of the resolution, HR40, and that is that it is a commission to study and to engage in proposals, recommendations on the question of reparation.

And it really goes to, I think, more people understanding that 40 acres and a mule was a legitimate concept right after the Emancipation Proclamation, and that never happened. But yet cotton was king. It was an economic engine of the entire United States. And so the prominence of the United States today in the 21st century is grounded on the free brutal labor that Africans gave and their descendants.

turn 1 : The issue of reparations for slavery is gaining more attention recently, especially with Democratic leadership and the rise of racial incidents.

What is the reason for the renewed attention on the issue of reparations?

Answer: Racial


So alphabetically, Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, who'd you like?

You know, I liked the fact that they all came. The important thing for the Urban League was that each of these five candidates accepted our invitation, came, and I think offered a serious perspective from their own point of view. They came in here. They talked about race. They talked about economics. They talked about the criminal justice system. They talked about cities. These issues don't get discussed on the main stage in many, many political debates and discussions. And so why we wanted them here, so they could talk about equality, talk about opportunity, develop those ideas in a way that will not, and - or, I should say, historically has not happened in this campaign up until this point.

Mr.  Morial, another unarmed black man was killed by an officer in Cincinnati. I wonder if you have some ideas you want to bring to our attention about how to try to repair a shattered relationship between black citizens and police.

It's an American tragedy of untold proportions, particularly as we've seen it play out in the last two years. Our ten-point justice plan recommended that body cameras and dash cameras be mandatory for all law enforcement all the way across the country. But we also believe that more must be done when it comes to police officer hiring, police officer training, and police officer accountability. The community wants to and must trust its police if they're going to be allies is in what we all want, and that is safer communities.

turn 1 : "talk about race", "talk about economics", "talk about the criminal justice system", "talk about cities" - these phrases are not meant to be taken literally as in simply having a conversation about those topics. Rather, the speaker means that they want the candidates to address these topics seriously and meaningfully, and to offer their perspectives and ideas on them.

What issues does the speaker want the candidates to address seriously and meaningfully?

Answer: Race


We've got two foreign vessels in Iranian custody. We've got one Iranian tanker in British custody and no sign of the tensions cooling off. So what happens next is the big question and a lot of the options are not that great. I mean, remember, this is all happening in the context of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign against Iran.

Trump has been saying the return of American sanctions on Iran and other pressures are all designed to force Iran back to the negotiating table to hammer out a tougher version of the 2015 nuclear agreement - that's the one Trump pulled the U. S.  out of. So far, Iran's unanimous response from the military to the supreme leader has been, nope, Iran doesn't negotiate under pressure. We're not going to do it. So we'll have to see if this continuation of commercial vessels being seized in the Persian Gulf adds more pressure for some kind of international response.

That's NPR's Peter Kenyon in Istanbul.

Thank you very much.

turn 1 : The table simply means that Iran is being forced to return to negotiations.

What does Trump hope to achieve with the return of American sanctions on Iran?

Answer: negotiations


Well, let's talk about kind of the overview. So the goal of the ACA was to help the 37 million uninsured out there. And, yes, uninsurance rates have gone down dramatically or at historic lows. But I think a lot of things were unforeseen.

And the way some of the regulations were implemented are actually harming rural America and not fulfilling the ultimate goals of the ACA. And what I mean by that is half of those 37 million - the goal was to expand Medicaid and get those folks into a Medicaid program. We know that a lot of states have taken the Supreme Court up on its option of opting out of Medicaid. That has predominantly hurt rural America.

In fact, if you're a rural state, if you're a poor state, more likely than not, you have not expanded Medicaid. So we're seeing millions of folks left behind at that. Our concern is that since the ACA was passed, we've had an escalation of rural hospitals close. We've had 80 rural hospitals close since 2010. If this rate continues, in less than 10 years' time, we're going to have 25 percent of rural hospitals close within less than a decade.

Do you have any concern about the Congress repealing the Affordable Care Act - what's called Obamacare - without a replacement?

turn 2 : The implementation of the ACA has not achieved its intended goals, and has instead caused harm to rural America.

Which group has been predominantly hurt by states opting out of Medicaid?

Answer: Rural


Right.

. . . not to filibuster. If they do that, then something could pass the Senate in the next couple of days and be ready for the House to take it up on Sunday night. If the House were to then approve it - and that's a huge if, OK?

Yeah.

This is the cliff in the fiscal cliff. Thus far the House hasn't agreed to anything. Last week they wouldn't even agree to a plan from their own speaker that was only going to raise taxes on income above $1 million.

turn 3 : The House is not willing to compromise, even on their own plan.

What is the reason for the House's reluctance to approve a plan?

Answer: Taxes


Well, first, they obviously don't enjoy broad support among the population. They do have a core group of support, but if forced to stand in election, they would lose. Which is why they have avoided that, or attempted to manipulate or manufacture the results of elections. Secondly, they are dependent, for their long-term viability, on their relationship with the Venezuelan armed forces, which is what the Trump administration and others have focused on at this point.

When you talk about the dependence on the armed forces, I'm reminded of that old saying, that one definition of the government is they have a monopoly on the use of force.

Correct.

When all else fails, they have that.

Correct.

turn 1 : The government's reliance on armed forces is a defining characteristic of their power.

What is the defining characteristic of the government's power?

Answer: reliance


Right.

It was just incredible. So our video this week is kind of the back story, the making of his Lego shuttle video, which has gotten tons of hits in the last. I mean, you know, which is the best. . .

It's a camera on - it's a Lego guy with a camera on a weather balloon, right?

Right. So they take this huge helium balloon, you know, a big, rubber weather balloon, fill it with helium, and then it goes up 115,000 feet. It takes two and a half hours to go up, and then, you know, it's shorter on the way down but. . .

turn 0 : (1) "Right." This turn does not convey any literal meaning, but it serves as a signal that the listener is following the speaker's train of thought and agrees with what has been said. It is a type of backchanneling, which is a signal that the listener is actively listening and engaged in the conversation.

How did PersonB respond to PersonA's statement in turn 0?

Answer: Right


Well, it definitely leaves him - I'd say in the immediate sense, it leaves him with a very tarnished reputation. I mean, this is somebody who appeared on the scene in 2015, taking up one file after another, everything from military to economy to oil policy. I mean, he's really collected everything.

He had charmed a lot of people in the United States as somebody who was finally going to change this kingdom from its strict Islamic way of doing things. And this has really taken a lot of the shine off. I think a lot of people have really sort of wondered, you know, is this somebody who's actually - has good enough judgment to wield the kind of power that he's wielding inside this incredibly important country in the Middle East?

Yeah. Well, looking at that, I mean, we are seeing increasingly strident rhetoric coming from Washington on the war in Yemen. The crown prince is very, very involved in that war. What's going on?

When his father became king in 2015, he was soon named defense minister, and the war started right after that. So this has been his war from the beginning. And it's really just been a disaster throughout. I mean, at the beginning, he and other Saudi officials were telling their American counterparts this was only going to last a few weeks.

turn 0 : What people think of him has lessened due to the situation.

How has the situation affected his reputation?

Answer: Tarnished


We're coming over the initial shock. It's a very strange situation to live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And we have been living in more luxury than almost any other nation on this planet, and now all of a sudden we find ourselves almost like beggars.

You talk about the swift difference between being so wealthy to now being in a totally different place. Is this what everyone - is the average person going through something like this?Or is this just a select few that went from being so wealthy to so not wealthy?

The general public here has been very, very well off. But now people that are starting to lose their jobs - hundreds of people that used to work in the banks have been losing their jobs recently. We know that a lot of companies are going to become bankrupt. We had almost no unemployment in the past years. We've been importing workers from Eastern Europe because we didn't have enough people to work in our companies.

So, how are people coping with this?Are they selling off their belongings?What are they doing?

turn 2 : Many people are losing their jobs and companies are going bankrupt.

Answer: Treasury


Yeah.

I'm also told by White House officials the Secret Service director was not connected to security questions at Mar-a-Lago. It was in the works before the latest security breach there - Chinese woman with a lot of passports and hard drives.

Right.

But - so this is not necessarily directly connected to immigration unlike Nielsen's resignation, which was immigration-related.

turn 1 :  "It was in the works before the latest security breach there - Chinese woman with a lot of passports and hard drives." Implication: The Secret Service director's departure from Mar-a-Lago was planned before the security breach involving a Chinese woman with multiple passports and hard drives.

What was the reason for the Secret Service director's departure from Mar-a-Lago?

Answer: Planned


This appointment would make sense from the standpoint of a president, a new president, Barack Obama, wanting to assert a kind of White House control over the intelligence community. Now, Leon Panetta is not part of the intelligence community. He has had no experience with the intelligence community except as an outside observer, critic, and as one of the authors of a 2006 report on what went wrong with respect to 9/11 and also with respect to the Iraq weapons of mass destruction intelligence.

So Leon Panetta is not of the CIA. He is coming in as kind of a total outsider but somebody who has very strong confidence among not only the Barack Obama people, but also the Clinton people who are going to be at the Department of State under Hillary Clinton.

There's also word today about a choice for the post of national intelligence director, retired Admiral Dennis Blair. What can you tell us about him?

Dennis Blair has been in the Navy and in the U. S.  government for 34 years. He also worked in the White House during his long Navy career and before he was named by Barack Obama to take over this director of national intelligence job. This will actually be Leon Panetta's boss. He is in charge of the total U. S.  intelligence community, all 16 agencies, CIA, the defense agencies, and so on.

The president elect will need to pick someone else to become commerce secretary. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson took himself out of the running because of an investigation into how some of his donors won a lucrative contract. How serious a problem is this withdrawal for the Obama transition team?

turn 0 : Leon Panetta has no experience with the intelligence community but was chosen as CIA director for political reasons.

Which agency is Leon Panetta going to lead as an outsider?

Answer: CIA


So, you're a beauty journalist living in London, and your life is very cosmopolitan - very British in some ways. You say that this experience made you feel even more British. But it took you 10 years to decide whether or not to really seek out your biological family. Take me through that process that you had of trying to make that decision.

Well, like you said in the introduction, when I was 19, as far as I knew, I didn't have any family. When my family in the U. K.  adopted me from the orphanage in Eritrea, they were told I had no family. My father was dead. My mother was dead. I was, you know, quite literally an orphan.

And so it was only when my father went back to Eritrea in 1993 for the independence celebrations that he visited the orphanage that they got me from. He left a photograph of me there with - there was actually the nun who was in charge of my adoption was still there. She's very so old now, but she was still there.

And he left a photo of me because he thought it would be a nice thing to do. And several months after he returned, we got a letter from somebody who said he was my brother, and basically, it turned out that after my father had left Eritrea, this nun had got in touch with my family, and that's when everything started to unravel.

turn 3 : Family was not lost, but separated by circumstances

Which word describes the separation of the family in turn 3?

Answer: Separation


Well, look, I like the fact that we've eliminated pre-existing conditions. I think that's really important. But Ronald Reagan expanded Medicaid a number of times and he didn't need Obamacare, OK?And my feeling about Medicaid is we've been able to manage this program. And by bringing Ohio money back to Ohio to treat the mentally ill, the drug addicted and the working poor, it's not - we're not only ahead on an arithmetic basis, but we think it's the right issue in terms of giving people a chance and an ability to be lifted.

Biographical question - did you ever consider becoming a priest?

Well, when I was a kid, really early in my life, you know, all Catholic altar boys I think at one time or another thought about being a priest. But then that just wasn't in the cards for me.

But I gather religion is an important factor in your life.

turn 1 :  Implies a personal question about the speaker's past, not just a factual question about whether or not they considered becoming a priest.

Which type of question does turn 1 imply?

Answer: Personal


What seems to be happening is that the numbers stay about the same, but that the types of people who are killed are actually, you know, have avalanche experience, are expert skiers who have taken avalanche training. There was this case of a woman, Olivia Buchanan, who died on Tuesday around Silverton, Colorado. And she had, you know, avalanche level-two training, was actually studying snow science at Montana State University.

So snow safety experts are now focusing more than ever on what are called human factors rather than trying to, you know, teach people how to analyze the snow to say whether the snow stability is good. So these are questions like, you know, are you being lured into a trap by groupthink?Do you want to impress your friends?And more often than not in an avalanche fatality, several of these factors are going to be present.

Are experienced skiers just pushing themselves more?

Some of it is just in the numbers. You know, there are more people than ever heading out into the backcountry. But the other piece of this is that skiing on tract powder in the backcountry is just like the most intoxicating form of skiing. You know, the images that we see in ski magazines, people flying down these high-alpine slopes. I mean, there's just nothing else like it.

turn 3 : In (4), "Intoxicating form of skiing" refers to the feeling of being overwhelmed with joy and excitement while skiing in the backcountry, and not being intoxicated with drugs or alcohol.

How does the term "intoxicating" in turn 3 refer to the experience of skiing in the backcountry?

Answer: excitement


Thanks for allowing me to be on your show.

You didn't have kind words for Donald Trump in that interview, but why did you think Democrats who want to impeach him are misguided?

I've sat through impeachment. I understand that it's not a walk in the park. It takes a supermajority to impeach a president, and it's just not going to happen. And I think that we would be better off focusing on health care, the huge, huge amounts of money in politics that is ruining the body politic, climate change, which is sweeping the world.

So what I think you're saying is you need to - the Democrats have to have another message that isn't solely about removing the president.

turn 2 : Impeachment is not a viable solution and there are other pressing issues to address.

Which political issue did the speaker prioritize over impeachment in their response?

Answer: Politics


Well, it's a really interesting response. I mean, she didn't say that she didn't do it. She claimed someone had been hacking her Instagram account, but she was very upset, that she was pregnant and she was seeking legal advice.

Give me a little bit of a sense of how big a story this is in Britain today.

It's the story that everybody needs right now, and it appears that people just can't or won't think of anything else. You've got some of the most serious political journalists in the country joking that maybe we could get Coleen Rooney into No. 10 where the prime minister lives in order to work out who's leaking the Brexit stories that are dominating the front-page headlines. But, honestly, it's just been the respite we've all been hoping for. It's been pouring with rain and sort of doom and gloom in the headlines, and sometimes you just need a little bit of cheer. That's the tea from here.

That is Elizabeth Paton, European style reporter for The New York Times based in London. Elizabeth Paton, thank you.

turn 0 : She claimed someone was obtaining illegal access to her Instagram account.

Answer: Hacking


You know, Salvini's popularity soared to almost 40%, thanks to his anti-immigrant policy. He wanted to take advantage of that to become the next government leader. But yesterday he received a stinging rebuke from Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who accused him of institutional recklessness that can lead to political uncertainty and financial instability. And one opposition leader accused Salvini of creating a climate of hatred that's led to a sharp rise in racist attacks against people of color.

OK. So tell us a little bit more about Salvini 'cause this guy is clearly freaking out the European Union in many ways.

Absolutely. You know, after his nationalist League Party formed this very unlikely alliance with the anti-establishment Five Stars Movement, which is the biggest party in parliament, Salvini quickly took over the government agenda. Five Stars went along with his tough anti-immigrant measures. They even approved his parliamentary immunity when Salvini was investigated for holding migrants hostage while not allowing them to disembark at an Italian port. And Five Stars never complained about Salvini's savage criticism of the European Union and its regulations, which he describes as a ball and chain on Italy's foot.

Italy's one of the EU's largest economies. Like some other populist-led countries, Salvini pushed his government to challenge the whole idea of European integration. And, you know, Salvini has also raised alarms with his language, which critics say echoes that of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Wow.

turn 0 : soared in this context means to go up, or increase significantly.

Which word describes Salvini's popularity in turn 0 of the dialogue?

Answer: Almost


And Border Patrol agents are making a lot of trips to the hospital with sick children up and down the Southwest border - nearly 70 kids a day since December, they say. But immigration officials say it's just hard to keep up with the sheer numbers here. It's putting a huge strain on resources, and they're asking Congress for billions of additional dollars to deal with it.

In the meantime, what more have you learned in your reporting about the death of Carlos Hernandez Vasquez?

Well, a couple of things. One thing that really stands out is that Carlos Hernandez Vasquez died in a Border Patrol station. The previous migrant children who died were taken to the hospital first; Hernandez Vasquez was not even though immigration authorities clearly knew that he was sick. He was diagnosed with the flu by a nurse practitioner.

On the same day, Customs and Border Protection moved him to a different Border Patrol station where they could separate him from the other migrants to stop the spread of the flu. Even Health and Human Services officials were concerned about how ill he was. This is the agency that's responsible for long-term care of unaccompanied children. And HHS decided that Hernandez Vasquez could not be flown to a shelter in Florida because of his illness. So in retrospect, critics say it's hard to see why they did not take him to the hospital.

turn 3 : There was a failure to provide appropriate medical care for Carlos Hernandez Vasquez.

Which migrant child did not receive proper medical care?

Answer: Carlos


Even 43 years ago, the - climate change was an issue. We just didn't know it yet. Among the things that was occurring that has occurred since then has been an amazing improvement in climate science.

There has been - there were very few meteorologists beyond those doing the, you know, the daily weather reports. Climate science was not a big thing because climate had not been changing. I mean, the period since the beginning of agriculture, 11,000 years ago, has been one of rather remarkable climate stability. So the idea of climate change is a relatively recent concept. And then - and the process of human-driven climate change is quite recent historically.

And we look at, oh, I guess, probably the biggest example is looking at the past through either tree rings or ice cores to get an idea of what has happened in previous periods of climactic change.

Yeah. It's - I mean, we look at these indirect indicators to sort of reconstruct earlier periods in the earth's history or in human history. And what we do know is that for the 11,000 years since agriculture began, things have been sort of stable. But now, suddenly, the farmers now on the land are the first generation of farmers to have to cope with climate change. I mean, we've always had to. When I was farming back in the '50s, we had to worry about weather, you know, and how the weather would affect that particular year's crop. If climate change was not on the - on our minds then, we didn't even know that we were we were going to be changing climate as we now are.

turn 0 : The idea of climate change is not new but our understanding of it has improved.

What has been occurring since 43 years ago?

Answer: Improvement


I will walk down the red carpet, yes, yes.

Oh, man, that's exciting, huh?Tell us what it was like when you found out, and tell us you found that you had been nominated for Grammy Award, your first.

Well, it's a pretty funny story, because since I'm an indie artist and this is my first foray into the industry, let alone this part of it, I wasn't really expecting anything and I didn't even know when the Grammys were being announced. That's how far off I was. And I was sitting at home in my jammies, actually, watching "Top Chef. "I might have been watching even watching it on TV, I don't know, but the phone rang and it was my producer, who also co-writes my songs with me. And he said, um, I think you've been nominated for Grammy. I was like, shut up.

I was, like - I didn't even know I've been submitted. Like, nobody told me that I had been submitted. I just wasn't even thinking about it. So, it was really crazy. It took a couple of hours, actually, for me to believe him. Like, I actually hung up on him.

turn 1 : When this person says "shut up" they are expressing surprise and happiness, not hostility.

Which feeling did the person express by saying "shut up"?

Answer: Happiness


And this was a, well, not too far down the road from Berkeley but a little less glamorous.

The school, I think, was, you know, you have moments in your reporting where this sort of weight of what has happened weighs on you. And I think that when that happened to me, it was just on my fourth or fifth visit to the school. And I just looked at the building and just saw how unremarkable it was and just how forgettable it was. I mean, it was - the closest thing to that building in that industrial stretch of Oakland is a Wal-Mart. Actually, some of the employers from Wal-Mart came down and put up a sign of support.

But there is nothing there. And, you know, the insides of the school are in bad conditions, and the idea that this was a university, like, you never ever would have suspected that this was a place of learning. And, you know, across the Bay Area and also across Southern California, there are a lot of these, sort of, for-profit, small, I guess, learning institutions that cater towards immigrants who need a cheaper form of education.

A degree

turn 0 : not too far down the road means that it isn't far away from a different location.

How was the location of the school described by B?

Answer: Not-toofar


Right.

. . . not to filibuster. If they do that, then something could pass the Senate in the next couple of days and be ready for the House to take it up on Sunday night. If the House were to then approve it - and that's a huge if, OK?

Yeah.

This is the cliff in the fiscal cliff. Thus far the House hasn't agreed to anything. Last week they wouldn't even agree to a plan from their own speaker that was only going to raise taxes on income above $1 million.

turn 3 : The House is not willing to compromise, even on their own plan.

How is the House responding to their PersonA's plan?

Answer: Not


This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. Immigration, both legal and unauthorized, has been a central issue for Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president. Last week, he announced his plan for an overhaul to the current system, which emphasizes family ties and employment, moving to a system that would prioritize certain education and employment qualifications.

Overshadowing all of this, however, is the huge backlog of immigration cases already in the system waiting to go before the courts. More than 800,000 cases are waiting to be resolved, according to The New York Times. We wanted to get a sense of how the immigration courts are functioning now and how the new system could affect the courts, so we've called Jeffrey Chase. He is a retired immigration judge in New York. He worked as a staff attorney at the Board of Immigration Appeals. We actually caught up with him at the airport on his way back from a conference on national immigration law, which was held in Austin, Texas.

Mr.  Chase, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you. Yeah, it seems appropriate to be at JFK Airport talking about immigration. So. . .

turn 3 : The speaker finds it fitting to talk about immigration at JFK Airport due to its connection to travel and border control.

Which airport did the speaker mention in relation to immigration?

Answer: B


And I guess the hope of getting to Europe has been extinguished for these people.

The European Union member states have effectively criminalized search and rescue operations on the Mediterranean Sea. And we think that this is a mistake, particularly in the light of how things have changed over last three months. The fact that the Libyan coast guard is taking people back into what is now an active war zone is simply unacceptable.

Elinor Raikes, the Europe and North Africa regional director for the International Rescue Committee, thanks so much.

You're welcome.

turn 0 : extinguished implies to become hopeless and not to put out firr

What was criminalized by the European Union member states?

Answer: Search-and-rescue


Now, in both the Enron case and the Madoff situation, they're very different in some ways, but they both benefited at least for a time from the fact that a lot of people don't understand finance, and it's very difficult to understand. What do you think people need to do who are not financiers to understand why is it important to even understand the issue of finance, white-collar crime, and all of this?

White-collar crime matters because it affects all of us. Even if you happen to be a blue-collar person, you undoubtedly get affected one way or another - your investments, your company, your suppliers, your neighbors. Everyone gets affected by serious white-collar crime, and the old joke is, right, you walk into a bank with a gun, steal $50,000, they send you away for 10 years. You steal $50 million in some sort of white-collar crime thing, and you get, you know, five minutes and a warning from the judge.

I mean, that's an exaggeration. But that's the kind of thing that for years has annoyed people, including me. And somehow the - because there's been now so much of the stuff has surfaced, and there's such conscientiousness about it and in the case of Madoff largely because he scammed people that members of the media know. So you get really angry when your friends go down. I mean, I don't have any friends who were in there, but a lot of people in my business. . .

Right.

turn 2 : my business, speaker does not an actual business, but means his line or work

Which word describes the PersonA's line of work?

Answer: occupation


My pleasure.

Could you just tell us what the weather is like right now?

Well, currently, it's been blue day. I mean, we've had some bands of rain come through from time to time, but it's a nice day. The water is calm. It's clouding up a little bit.

Do you have any guests at the resort at the moment?

turn 2 : The weather is not actually blue, but it's a nice day overall

Answer: Rainy.


Diddley first began performing on street corners, and by 1951, he'd lined up a regular spot at the 708 Club. He also took on the name Bo Diddley, which some say is a play on the Southern slang for the term, nothing at all.

In 1955, Diddley found his way into a recording studio and recorded the song "Bo Diddley. "That song became a number one hit for Chess records. "Hey, Bo Diddley" and "Who Do You Love?"followed.

(Singing) I walked 47 miles of barbed wire. I Used a cobra snake for a neck tie. I got a brand new house on the roadside. Made from rattlesnake hide. I got a brand new chimney made on top. Made out of a human skull. Now come on, take a little walk with me Arlene and tell me, who do you love?

Who do you love?Who do you love?Who do you love?

turn 1 : This implies the days of humble beginning of Bo Diddley in the music industry.

Which song became a number one hit for Chess records?

Answer: Bo-Diddley


Well, you know, in my opinion, a geek is somebody who obsesses, and who tinkers and who tries to kind of take apart the world - whether that's, you know, in a literal way by disassembling things or reassembling them or in a figurative way by being a writer or a musician or something like that. And Tesla was sort of the embodiment of that. He was almost like a - sort of like a Steve Wozniak, in a way, in that he was kind of this brilliant workhorse that maybe early on was a bit naive about money. He wasn't really concerned with that. He was just concerned with seeing what he could do to the world and how he could change it.

And didn't quite get the same glory as Edison.

He did not, no. He was - he wasn't great at marketing himself, and he wasn't great at making money. He was brilliant. He was a genius, but he was not a businessman.

What does this site look like, this old lab of his?Are there things lying around like his tools, or a half-eaten bag of chips or something that could be auctioned off?

turn 1 : Turn: "didn't quite get the same glory" Actual meaning: Did not receive the same recognition or fame.

How did PersonB describe Tesla's fame compared to Edison's?

Answer: Recognition


You're very welcome.

What made you write this letter?

What I've noticed is that the sidelines has become more venomous. When expletives come across, when parents are yelling you're the worst referee ever because of one bad call that was made - this is outrageous behavior. It's unacceptable on every level.

Is there a particularly egregious incident that sticks in your mind that you could relate to us we might learn from?

turn 1 : (2) "What made you write this letter?" - Implied meaning: What inspired you to write this letter?

Which level is the behavior considered as unacceptable?

Answer: Every


And what exactly is happening in Tulsa?

Well, so all of this water from upstream that's coming from northeast Oklahoma is heading downstream into Tulsa. They have these aging levees. Many of them were built in the 1940s. The Keystone Dam is releasing huge amounts of water, and that has led to thousands of people being evacuated from their homes in the Tulsa area.

And then if you go down river, as you get closer to Arkansas, some communities, like Braggs and Webbers Falls, have been totally emptied out. One mayor earlier this week told people that if they refuse to evacuate, they should write their identification on their arm.

Wow. I mean, it does sound as though it's just an overwhelmingly awful combination of floods and tornadoes and bad weather. What are people saying as you are out and about interviewing people and, I guess, just talking to your own neighbors?

turn 2 : The situation is so dangerous that people who refuse to evacuate should identify themselves in case of death.

How should people who refuse to evacuate identify themselves in the dangerous situation described in the dialogue?

Answer: Write


Yeah, we were on vacation; my family and I were out on the boat, and it was a beautiful, sunny day in the Abacos, in the Bahamas.

This is Erik Nourrie of Florida.

Typical crystal clear, beautiful Bahama waters. And the kids were playing and swimming. And I took my mask and snorkel and spear, and went out to a little channel there to hunt.

turn 3 : "Nothing unusual - Erik hunts for dinner often. He spearfishes. And pretty quickly, he spots a good-sized fish darting around." - The literal meaning is describing Erik spearfishing and catching a fish. The implied meaning could be that the speaker is setting up the conflict or problem in the story, as something unusual or unexpected is about to happen.

Which activity is Erik often engaged in?

Answer: Spearfishing


Good to be with you.

Immediate fallout would be Jeb Bush's problem. He needed a revival, and he wound up looking worse than he had in the first two debates and out on the stump as well. The memorable punches in these debates tend to be counter punches. And Bush went after his one-time protege, Marco Rubio, and Rubio came back smart, fast, tough and got a highlight moment out of it, just one of several for Rubio, by the way.

Now, at the same time, nobody's cast a single vote yet. Jeb Bush is sitting on a lot of money, and, of course, he has a name that's instantly recognizable. Is there really talk that this could be the end of his candidacy?

turn 1 : This last Republican debate may have been the most contentious, at least between the candidates and the questioners. What do you see as the immediate fallout?"  In this turn, the implied meaning is that the Republican debate was highly intense and filled with conflict, especially between the candidates and the questioners. The speaker is asking about the immediate consequences or repercussions of such a heated debate, suggesting that there might be significant outcomes or effects stemming from it. The implied meaning goes beyond a simple description of the debate's level of contention.

How did Jeb Bush come across in the last debate?

Answer: Worse


Well, Yelena Grigoryeva was an activist. A few years ago, she came out and said that she was a gay woman and began to defend LGBT rights in St.  Petersburg. And the community of LGBT in St.  Petersburg is quite vibrant. They're victims. Almost all of them are victims of violence. They get attacked during their rallies. They receive horrible, nasty threats. And Yelena Grigoryeva, shortly before her death, received a photograph of a knife. So her friends say it cannot be just a coincidence. . .

Yeah.

. . . That she receives a photograph of a knife and then she gets stabbed to death.

Now, a local news site reports that a suspect has been arrested. What is known about the crime and the man who's been arrested?

turn 0 : came out implies she revealed publicly that she is gay

Which community did Yelena Grigoryeva defend in St. Petersburg?

Answer: LGBT


So there you are standing in the checkout line, that one with a big sign above it that says express, 10 items or less. You notice the basket of the woman in front of you. You silently start tallying. OK, eight or nine items, fine. But wait, she has a six pack under her hand, and under her other arm is a bag of pretzels. And then she's going for that pack of gum. And you're fighting the urge to scream: You had no business in the express line.

If that's you, then John Trinkaus feels your pain. He decided that instead of complaining about it, though, he'd study it. Trinkaus researches not only the express line, but how many people stop at stop signs and the average wait at the doctor's office. My next guest is Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, and the founder and master of ceremonies for the Ig Nobel Prize. He'll explain the data details and why it's the simple things that count. He joins us from WBUR in Boston. Hi, Marc.

Hello, Flora.

Tell me - give me some other names of his studies, because they're all really funny.

turn 0 : The woman in front of you has more than 10 items but still stands in the express line, which is irritating.

Answer: Express


I saw poofy hot pants. They were like, they were kind of like a poof skirt but done in a hot pants style.

So many regrettable. . .

Regrettable, regrettable fashion sense.

Just unfortunate that you just sort of go, OK, all right. Just X, you know, that X thing they have with Glamour?Yeah, a lot of that.

turn 0 : B is describing a pair of shorts that have a poofy appearance, not actual pants made out of hot air.

What was the appearance of the clothing item that PersonB saw?

Answer: Skirt


We're coming over the initial shock. It's a very strange situation to live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And we have been living in more luxury than almost any other nation on this planet, and now all of a sudden we find ourselves almost like beggars.

You talk about the swift difference between being so wealthy to now being in a totally different place. Is this what everyone - is the average person going through something like this?Or is this just a select few that went from being so wealthy to so not wealthy?

The general public here has been very, very well off. But now people that are starting to lose their jobs - hundreds of people that used to work in the banks have been losing their jobs recently. We know that a lot of companies are going to become bankrupt. We had almost no unemployment in the past years. We've been importing workers from Eastern Europe because we didn't have enough people to work in our companies.

So, how are people coping with this?Are they selling off their belongings?What are they doing?

turn 0 : The speaker is acknowledging the wealth of their country and how they have been living in luxury, but now they feel like beggars due to the sudden change in their circumstances.

What is the PersonA's current financial situation?

Answer: Hair