Question: Once, while grating potatoes to make potato pancakes, I had a Proustian moment. I can't lay claim to much in the way of literary knowledge, but I do know that Proust's 'Remembrance of Things Past' was prompted by his biting into a pastry and feeling a sense of overwhelming pleasure with no recognizable cause. In my case, I was instantly transported back to the grandmother's kitchen as she and my mother grated potatoes in order to make 'poutine rapee', also known as 'poutines'. People will immediately flash to the Quebecker ethnic food known by the same name. However, in spite of all the Franco-culinary posturing, this is really only French Fries with gravy and, oh yeah, can I have some cheese curds on that? One etymological source indicates that 'poutine' really means 'mess'. If you come from my part of the country, the Quebecker poutine is just another entry in the long list of dishes that will cause you to keel over from a myocardial infarction while shoveling a foot of snow out of the driveway shortly after you've retired; sometimes before. Nope, poutines as I know them are a different creature entirely. They seem to be more of an Acadian thing and none of my friends had even heard of them, much less eaten a single one. Because of the work involved, my mother only made poutines for special times: Christmas, say or Easter. My mother would borrow this grater that was about two feet long and she and my grandmother would set to work. Generally, they started off with an enormous paper sack of potatoes, about 25 pounds or so (We used to buy potatoes by the cartload and store them in a wooden bin in the basement. Because we were cheap labour, the kids would be sent down to retrieve a few for the family meal. It was creepy to descend into the dank cellar, feel our way through the dim obstacle course formed by my grandfather's thousands of tools and bits of wood and locate the bin. After a time in storage, the eyes on potatoes began to sprout pale tendrils and it didn't take much imagination to visualize all kinds... Why did she go into the basement? - to make poutine - to look at tools - to retrieve potatoes - not enough information
Answer: to retrieve potatoes

Question: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis promised Thursday the Pentagon will "notify" Congress before any possible military action in Syria, where the U.S. is considering responding to a suspected chemical weapons attack. "There will be notification to leadership, of course, prior to the attack," Mattis said in his testimony at the House Armed Services Committee. "We will report to Congress. We will keep open lines of communication." But notably, Mattis did not indicate the Trump administration would seek congressional approval before the strike, which presumably would target the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Trump says the U.S. will soon launch "nice and new and smart" missiles in response to last week's suspected poison gas attack, which left scores dead in a rebel-held area. Trump blames Assad for the attack. A U.S. attack is likely to upset a small but growing number of U.S. lawmakers who demand President Donald Trump first ask Congress to authorize any hostilities, citing the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a federal law intended to check the president's ability to wage war. U.S. presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have long argued they have legal authority to order airstrikes and other short-term military campaigns if those engagements fall short of the "hostilities" mentioned in the War Powers Resolution. Additionally, U.S. presidents have cited a pair of authorizations by Congress following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks as justification for the near-constant U.S. strikes on Islamic militants around the world. The Trump administration has used those authorizations as justification for its current war in Syria. The U.S. has 2,000 troops in Syria, and helps lead an international coalition against Islamic State in Syria and neighboring Iraq. The overwhelming majority of U.S. lawmakers have not publicly objected to the administration's legal rationale for those missions. But as Trump considers expanding the U.S. war to include attacks on Syrian government targets, some in Congress are... Trump probably believes that: - Canada is a threat to the US - England is a threat to the US - not enough information - Syria is a threat to the US
Answer: Syria is a threat to the US

Question: When I first started out in the field, I was working at a private hospital in the locked psychiatric unit, and there was a call from one of the med floors requiring someone from our unit to assist with a problem of a young man who had bitten through his cotton restraints on his wrists. They were requesting he be restrained with leather ones. I had not done any restraining and was asked to assist a woman counselor to show me the ropes (no pun intended). When we arrived in the patients room, I was shocked to see a man in his early 20's flailing around spasmodically on the bed with his gums bleeding in between his teeth. The nurse informed us that the patient was dying of a liver disease and his body and brain had become toxic, causing delirium. The counselor instructed me to hold down his arms and she placed him in leather restraints which were fastened to the side of the bed. The most upsetting thing which to this day I can not remove from memory was this man literally snapping his jaws at me like a mad animal with traumatized bloody gums from biting so hard on the cloth restraints. There was nothing I, or anyone could do, except keep him restrained from hurting himself or others. It is the kind of witness to suffering I had never experienced before, and I felt almost relieved when the nurse quietly said, " He will die before morning. " I suppose what is so traumatic about witnessing such situations is the utter sense of helplessness. I was a trained therapist, and in this situation, I was unable to do anything, and was rendered powerless. I recall being plagued by this young man's face for some time when I tried to go to sleep at night. Bruce Kugler after the incident, how long will it take Bruce to forget about this? - a long time - not enough information - a couple days - next week
Answer:
a long time