Defintion Essay

The Sweetness of Joy
By Qi Pan
“True inner joy is self-created.
It does not depend on outer circumstances.
A river is flowing in and through you carrying the message of joy.
This divine joy is the sole purpose of life.” –Sri Chimnoy
Joy. According to The Cambridge Dictionary, Joy is ‘great happiness’. What a broad definition. To every single organism on earth, joy is something unique: something that no-one can copy. The feeling is so hard to grasp in your hands. Just when you think that you have joy fixed inside of you, it slips away, quieter than a whisper. It is one of the most valued things on earth, something that we cherish like our own child. Without joy, our lives would be black and white, plain and colorless. With joy comes freshness, color, a rush of blood to the cheeks, and a smile stretches across your face uncontrollably. But, like nearly everything else in life, it comes, and goes, like the sun that rises in at dawn, and sets at dusk. While the sunshine stays, it brings warmth and pleasure. When it goes, it is yearned for. But nonetheless, the faint image of dazzling light resides in our hearts, never fading.
One type of joy is contagious joy, AA Milne displays throughout his classical book Winnie the Pooh. If Piglet feels down, Pooh’s interesting theories and captivating adventures always bring light to Piglet’s emotions. It is like a disease, except it is as innocent as a fly. For example, if your friend tells you about passing a test, you feel happy for her, even though you may have failed. Joy spreads from one person’s smile to another, like a charity donating food to everyone, no matter what race or class they are part of.
Another type of joy is simple gayness. Little things, like feeling the wind brush past your face, or partying with your friends, mean the world to us. The feeling of joy is unique for everyone, just like the sun shines on both Japan and Chile, but never feels the same. It can be caused by culture, weather, marriage, friends, family, school, and many other normal people, places, or situations. Random bits and pieces such as a flourishing tulip or tranquilizing music shape our beliefs and make us who we are.
Joy can also lead to death and destruction. It can come from awful things such as drugs. But drugs are fake. They are a meager excuse for escaping from the prison cell of depression. Drugs manipulate your mind, change your personality. They make you someone you are not. However, joy is natural. Joy comes when you deserve it, when your brain wants to give you a real pat on the back. Nevertheless, people are different, and joy can lead to insanity. Joy is not perfect. It stays, and then goes, sometimes leaving a lifelong scar on those innocent, and causing terrible situations to occur due to the ecstasy of a madman. For instance, a terrorist can find a new beginning, a light at the end of his long tunnel of despair, through death. Suicide is a doorway to freedom for depressed, numb men who cannot feel the sweetness of real joy, men who can never understand how a smile could change the route of a person’s life. Joy is not concrete, and it does not want to be defined. It wants to stay abstract and yearned for, so that greed does not take over. You can never capture joy in a glass. It will always drift away, and come back when you deserve it.
A topic that is not associated with joy is money. “Money can’t buy you happiness” is a famous quote, and it is perfectly true. So what if you have all the money in the world? You can never buy real friends that are glued to your heart. The poorest man can have a smile as big as the world that emits light like a candle. Celebrities look like stars among the blinding paparazzi, but they never will feel the true warmth of joy unless they have time to experience the life of a truly loving person.
Joy is like a little butterfly that flitters from one flower to another, spreading its beauty, but leaving others behind. It is temporary, lasting usually only the time of a mayfly, but, when it is there, it creates laughter and happiness, a ray of sunshine that lasts forever, eternally dwelling in our hearts.

Article #3

PM urges Zimbabwe cholera action

Gordon Brown has urged the world to tell Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe "enough is enough" amid growing concern over the country's cholera outbreak.

The prime minister said the crisis, which has claimed nearly 600 lives, had become an international emergency.

Government in Zimbabwe was now broken and the state was unable or unwilling to protect its people, he said.

Mr Brown added that medicine would get to those who needed it, regardless of any differences with Mr Mugabe.

'Human rights'

Mr Brown did not explicitly call for Mr Mugabe to step down, but said world leaders should stand together to defend human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe.

In a statement, Mr Brown said that over the coming days the first priority would be delivering aid to Zimbabwe, such as rehydration and testing packs.

He said: "This is now an international rather than a national emergency. International because disease crosses borders.

"International because the systems of government in Zimbabwe are now broken. There is no state capable or willing of protecting its people.

"International because - not least in the week of the 60th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights - we must stand together to defend human rights and democracy, to say firmly to Mugabe that enough is enough."

Mr Brown said he had "been in close contact with African leaders to press for stronger action to give the Zimbabwean people the government they deserve".

He added: "The people of Zimbabwe voted for a better future. It is our duty to support that aspiration."

He also said he hoped the United Nations Security Council would meet "urgently" to consider the country's plight.

'Gross violations'

Mr Brown has joined a growing list of international leaders in condemning Mr Mugabe.

US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said it was "well past time" for him to leave office.

And the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said African nations should come together to use military force if Mr Mugabe refused to go.

Archbishop Tutu said Mr Mugabe had committed "gross violations" against Zimbabwe's people and ruined "a wonderful country".

I think there is the potential for Africa to take a decisive stand against Mugabe in the days to come Douglas Alexander International Development Secretary

His comments came a day after Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga said African governments should oust Zimbabwe's leader.

UK International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander told BBC Two's Newsnight that he welcomed the archbishop's comments, but dealing with the humanitarian crisis was of paramount importance.

"I think the first responsibility is to provide humanitarian assistance. The second responsibility is to work with regional partners to affect the change that we want," he said.

He said there was not currently a consensus on the UN Security Council over Zimbabwe, even for further targeted sanctions, but said "the new noises that are emerging from Africa this week" were welcomed by the UK.

Mr Alexander added: "I think there is the potential for Africa to take a decisive stand against Mugabe in the days to come."

Mr Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai agreed to share power in September to tackle the country's economic meltdown but they have been unable to agree on the allocation of cabinet posts.

The deadlocked agreement followed disputed elections, which both men claimed to have won.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7768740.stm

I think that this article is very factual and interesting. It is biased, supporting the PM, but I’m on the same side too. I think that what Robert Mugabe is doing to the beautiful country of Zimbabwe is horrifying, and I wonder why he doesn’t care for so many people who are in need of food and shelter. I learned that Zimbabwe is in a crisis, and that help needs to be sent to the people in need. I also learned about Zimbabwe’s corrupt governing system. I have also learned that many international powers would like Mugabe to step off the role of president, but that he refuses. In another article about Zimbabwe’s economic crisis, it said that the conditions in Zimbabwe were like that of Auschwitz. In my opinion, I think that that was probably exaggerated, but still, looking at the pictures of those exceptionally skinny families, it really makes me feel disgusted at how ignorant and uncaring the government is about the people who are suffering from cholera.

This ad is advertising Chesterfield cigarettes. It uses very Christmassy colors to attract the reader and makes the reader excited. And when people are excited, they usually want to buy everything and take unnecessary risks. Smoking may give you pleasure at the beginning, but it also gives you cancer. There is also diversion, because the ad looks so attractive that no-one will care if it causes harm to your body. It is also targeted towards older men, because of the traditional picture and the text which is more formal, who usually don't know so much about the harm of smoking. It is also timed right, because Christmas is on its way. It says that if you smoke, you will have pleasure on Christmas day. So people who feel down or bored will go for Chesterfield cigarettes for "consolation and joy." Also, the cigarettes have "attractive cartons that appeal to everyone," so that people will want to send them for presents. The picture also looks like a normal American family buying a Christmas tree, so that will probably appeal to normal men who live an average life and smoke cigarettes for a support. The ad could state how there should be a limit to how much you should smoke to be more truthful, but that way, they probably wouldn't sell as many cigarettes.

Radio versus Video

There seems no question but that the radio is on the way out. The radio was once the centre for news and entertainment. But now, we prefer to watch dramas and thrillers on TV instead of listening to it on the radio. Where will our imagination drift off to when we can see who is talking and what is happening? Here is an example. Suppose you are listening to a war. Instead of picturing what is going on in your mind, the scene is replaced with an image that may be disappointing. TVs may be really addictive and interesting, but even so, what can be done about the lost meaning of radio as a fun, exciting family experience where everyone gathers around and drinks coffee on couches while listening to the soothing voice of the narrator? Also, if radios disappear, so will our eyesight. Radios are harmless to our eyes, but staring at a TV screen for hours is very bad for your eyes. It will be a frustrating problem for our descendants.

Bad Ad #3

This ad is also really disturbing, but at leats it's better than the porn one. Apparently, if you buy Dolce & Gabbana, then you will have luck with women. Also, you will look hot like models. Firstly, it will make women think differently about men, and secondly, men will expect more than they will probably get with average women. I also, think that they revealed too much of the model's bodies, and it's bad influence for children. All of the men have six pacs, and the woman has very slim legs and make up all over her face.

Response to Tolerance

The essay Tolerance by E.M. Forster is an interesting essay describing the positive and negative aspects of torelance and how it is important when in times of crisis or when dealing with international problems. Forster also mentions love, and how, although it is the most powerful emotion, it not the way to solve or meet with dilemmas. He uses the example of how it makes no diffference if a man in Peru loves a man in Portugal. Love is only necessary between peole who know each other. Tolerance is putting up with something that you may really despise, because destroying it would make no difference, or make the situation even worse.

Bad Ad #2

I think this ad is bad because i don't think anyone would go to McDonald's if there was ladies holding American football helmets and a ball. It looks awkward, and even though this is an innocent ad, I don't think anyone would be attracted to go to that place unless the people were grannies. Sexy women would be much more attractive, even though it would be a bad influence. Also, the words aren't very catching. It's kind of cliche, and i would expect ads to be unique to stand out in front of the reader's eyes.

The Boris Johnson Story 2nd Article

In an age of on-message machine politicians, Boris Johnson - who has just been elected mayor of London - is a one-off.
Often described as a buffoon, even by his admirers, his bumbling, self-deprecating persona has long made him one of the best known politicians through his appearances on TV chat shows.
BORIS JOHNSON
Age: 43
Marital status: Married with four children
Political party: Conservatives
Time as MP: Has represented Henley in Oxfordshire since 2001
Previous jobs: Editor of The Spectator; assistant editor and Brussels correspondent of The Daily Telegraph; television host
He has the typical upper class English background of Eton public school, Oxford University and a father who is a Conservative politician.
But he is no stereotypical aristocrat - he was born in New York and was a US citizen until recently, his early schooling was in Brussels, he is descended from a minister in the Ottoman Empire and his children are, as he put it, a quarter Indian.
Nothing about the 43-year-old now given huge powers over one of the world's great cities is as straightforward as it appears.
His academic records prove him to have powerful intellect, while colleagues and friends attest to an equally powerful sense of ambition.
And yet he has also had an unerring ability to sabotage his own career with his sense of fun - and apparent refusal to take things too seriously - proving his undoing on more than one occasion.
Idyllic childhood
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (he is still known to family members as Al) was born in New York to English parents in 1964 and was, until recently, an American citizen.
He is of Turkish descent. His great-grandfather, Ali Kemal, a Turkish journalist, was briefly interior minister in the government of Ahmed Tevfik Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
His grandfather Osman Ali settled in the UK in the 1920s and changed his name to Wilfred Johnson.
Mr Johnson appears to have had an idyllic childhood spent, in part, on the family farm on Exmoor.
IN HIS OWN WORDS

"Try as I might I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth-profit matrix and stay conscious" - on his week-long career in management consultancy
"Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3" - on the campaign trail in 2004
"If I was in charge I would get rid of Jamie Oliver and tell people to eat what they like" - striking a blow for the right to eat pies at the 2006 Tory conference. He later described Oliver as a "national saint"
"I think if I made a huge effort always to have a snappy, inspiring soundbite on my lips, I think the sheer mental strain of that would be such that I would explode" - on his unique political style
"I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed and so it did not go up my nose. In fact, I may have been doing icing sugar" - after being questioned on Have I Got News for You about drug use
"I will add Papua New Guinea to my global itinerary of apology" - after suggesting the country was known for "chief-killing and cannibalism"
"I have not had an affair with Petronella. It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle" - on press reports of his relationship with Ms Wyatt
The Johnsons were a close-knit, boisterous clan, forever trying to outdo each other at table tennis or general-knowledge quizzes, or even who could learn to read the fastest.
In competition with his brother and two sisters, Boris always had to come out on top, but his ambition did not end there.
Asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would say: "The world king."
In the early 1970s his father, Stanley, moved the family to Brussels after landing a job at the European Commission, in charge of pollution control.
Boris attended the European School in the Belgian capital, where he befriended his future wife Marina Wheeler, daughter of BBC journalist Charles Wheeler.
But in 1973, with his parents' marriage falling apart, he headed off to boarding school in England.
He shone at Ashdown House Preparatory School in East Sussex, developing a lifelong passion for the Classics and winning a scholarship to the UK's best-known public school, Eton, where he quickly made an impression.
His headmaster at the school which Prince William and Prince Harry were later to attend, Sir Eric Anderson, was also Tony Blair's housemaster during his schooldays at Fettes - often dubbed the Scottish Eton.
Sir Eric could spot similarities between the two future politicians.
"Both of them opted to live on their wits rather than preparation," he told Mr Johnson's biographer, Andrew Gimson.
"They both enjoyed performing. In both cases people found them life-enhancing and fun to have around, but also maddening."
But unlike Mr Blair, Mr Johnson did not rebel against the system.
"Boris wasn't a rebel at all - a satirist and a humorist rather than a rebel," added Sir Eric.
'Old duffer'
In 1983, Mr Johnson arrived at Balliol College in Oxford to study the Classics.
WHAT OTHERS SAY
"The bumbling quiz-show host isn't the real Boris at all. I suspect he's tired of that clownish persona and wants to show us the real Boris - orator, leader, heavyweight thinker. Those qualities are there in his personality; they just don't come across on telly" - journalist friend Lloyd Evans
"Like all politicians, he is sometimes required to talk anodyne or disingenuous rot, but unlike the remainder, he cannot keep a straight face while doing this" - Spectator columnist Rod Liddle
"Despite manic self-absorption, he is a really nice guy. He conveys a vulnerability which, allied to his gift for laughter, does much to explain his appeal to girls" - ex-Telegraph editor Max Hastings
"Boris wasn't a rebel at all - a satirist and a humorist rather than a rebel" - Sir Eric Anderson, headmaster at Eton
"You're a self-centred, pompous twit; even your body language on TV is wrong. You don't look right, never mind act right. Get out of public life!" Paul Bigley, brother of Iraq hostage Ken, tells Boris off on BBC Radio Merseyside
The 19-year-old was obsessed with politics, and Oxford proved to the perfect place to learn his trade.
He was already known for his sense of humour and his bumbling "old-duffer" persona - but he also displayed a ruthless streak in his pursuit of his political aims.
He even briefly spurned his Conservative allegiances in favour of the then fashionable SDP as part of his successful campaign to be president of the Oxford Union.
He was also elected to the elite Bullingdon Club, famed for its hard-drinking, riotous behaviour.
Fellow members included his close friend Charles Spencer, younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales, plus the future Tory leader David Cameron.
In one group photograph - which would later come back to haunt him - Mr Johnson is pictured lounging decadently in his £1,200 Bullingdon Club tailcoat, alongside Mr Cameron.
The Bullingdon Club was infamous for trashing local restaurants, before handing over a cheque to cover the damage.
Finding a wife
Evidence of Mr Johnson's involvement in such wild antics is hard to come by, although he has been more candid on the subject of drug use.
He has owned up to smoking cannabis as a teenager and has made jokey references to taking cocaine, saying on Have I Got News for You: "I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed and so it did not go up my nose. In fact, I may have been doing icing sugar."

"Operation Scouse Grovel", as it was dubbed, turned into an ordeal
Halfway through his first year, he met and fell in love with Allegra Mostyn-Owen, a fellow student who also modelled for Tatler in her spare time.
In 1987 - when they were both just 23 - he married Allegra in a grand ceremony at a Shropshire stately home, complete with an opera singer and a string quartet.
According to Andrew Gimson's account, Mr Johnson managed to turn up in the wrong clothes - walking down the aisle in trousers belonging to Tory MP John Biffen - and lost his wedding ring within an hour of receiving it.
The marriage lasted less than three years, by which time Mr Johnson was beginning to make a name for himself as a journalist in Brussels.
'Biggest cock-up'
His first attempt at forging a career, as a trainee management consultant, lasted a week.
"Try as I might I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth-profit matrix and stay conscious," he later recalled.
His career in journalism very nearly fell at the first hurdle too, after he was sacked by The Times for making up a quote.

The media discovered a new character in "Boris" and his gaffes
He had been trying to spice up a dull story about an archaeological dig but the editor - and the history don he "quoted", who also happened to be his godfather - failed to see the funny side.
He described the episode in an interview with The Independent in 2002 as his "biggest cock-up".
Luckily for him, the then Daily Telegraph editor, Sir Max Hastings, was prepared to overlook this indiscretion.
He took on Mr Johnson as a leader writer and then the newspaper's Brussels correspondent.
Sir Max was impressed by his young protege's energy, intelligence and unique personality.
'Flashes of instability'
"Over the next few years, he developed the persona which has become famous today, a facade resembling that of PG Wodehouse's Gussie Finknottle, allied to wit, charm, brilliance and startling flashes of instability," Sir Max wrote recently in The Observer.
Mr Johnson took to his new role with relish, merrily debunking the stuffy European institutions his father had served as a commissioner and Tory MEP.
But disaster loomed again, when a tape surfaced of an old Oxford friend Darius Guppy, who had been convicted of fraud, asking him to help locate a witness.
"He did not say yes, but neither did he say no," recalled Sir Max who interrogated him about the tape which had been sent to the Telegraph anonymously.
"He evoked all of his self-parodying skills as a waffler. Words stumbled forth...never intended...old friend...took no action...misunderstanding," added Sir Max in the Observer.
He said he was satisfied Johnson had not been guilty of any impropriety and "dispatched him back to Brussels with a rebuke".
His career at the Telegraph blossomed and he was promoted to assistant editor and chief political columnist.
Romantic pursuit
He was, by now, married to Marina Wheeler, his childhood friend from Brussels, who had become a successful barrister.
The two had never quite lost touch and after his divorce from Allegra, he set about pursuing her with characteristic persistence.
Their first child, Lara Lettice, was born in 1993, with three more children - Milo Arthur, Cassia Peaches and Theodore Apollo - following in quick succession.
Mr Johnson's journalistic career was now going from strength to strength and he had also developed an unlikely sideline as a TV personality, after an appearance on the BBC panel show Have I Got News for You in 1998.
Words poured from him - motoring columns, after-dinner speeches, TV documentaries, even a novel. Collections of his newspaper columns became bestsellers.
But it was not enough. He still harboured political ambitions.

The blond hair and the bicycle are Mr Johnson's trademarks
He had stood unsuccessfully for the Conservatives at the 1997 general election, in the Labour stronghold of Clwyd South.
Two years later, when he was made editor of The Spectator, he told its proprietor at the time, Conrad [now Lord] Black, he would give up politics to concentrate full-time on the magazine.
But he continued to agonise over his decision in private, confessing to friend Charles Moore: "I want to have my cake and eat it".
In 2001 he stood for Michael Heseltine's old seat, in Henley in Oxfordshire, and won.
But with The Spectator continuing to publish articles which proved embarrassing or irritating to some of his new Parliamentary colleagues it was, perhaps, only a matter of time before Mr Johnson came unstuck.
It was an unsigned Spectator editorial, accusing the citizens of Liverpool of wallowing in their "victim status" over the murdered Iraq hostage Ken Bigley, which finally did it.
The Tory leader at the time, Michael Howard, resisted calls to sack Mr Johnson. He had what turned out to be a far worse fate in mind - and dispatched his errant culture spokesman to Liverpool to apologise to the entire city.
The mission quickly descended into farce, however, as he was pursued by a media pack hungry for more gaffes. One reporter described it as an "Ealing comedy".
On a radio phone-in he was given a humiliating dressing down by Paul Bigley, brother of Ken, who told him: "You're a self-centred, pompous twit; even your body language on TV is wrong."
'Pyramid of piffle'
Mr Johnson bumbled his way through it as best he could.
"Are you trying to save your political career," shouted one journalist. "I haven't got a political career," came the reply.

Appearances on Have I Got News for You earned him a new following
He endured the ordeal, which he later dubbed "Operation Scouse Grovel", with good grace.
But he was sacked by Mr Howard a few weeks later in any case, for allegedly lying over an affair with journalist Petronella Wyatt - something he vehemently denied.
When challenged about the relationship by the Mail on Sunday, Mr Johnson denied everything, calling stories about it an "inverted pyramid of piffle".
He suffered the indignity of being thrown out of the family home - and was hounded by the tabloid press as he went for a run wearing a skull-and-crossbones bandana.
Mr Johnson was seen as good copy, always ready with an amusing quip or a fresh piece of buffoonery, but any hopes of climbing higher up the political ladder seemed to be over.
Celebrity status
In 2006, he had to apologise to an entire country after suggesting in a Telegraph column that Papua New Guinea was known for "cannibalism and chief-killing". He ruefully promised to add the nation "to my global itinerary of apology".

Mr Johnson made headlines by mistaking football for rugby
He was a major celebrity, recognised wherever he went. But he was becoming better known for his supposed gaffes - and subsequent apologies - than anything he had achieved as an MP.
The man who had dreamed of being in the Cabinet by the age of 35 watched as Mr Cameron, an Eton and Oxford contemporary two years younger than him, grabbed the Tory leadership.
Mr Cameron handed his old friend the junior role of higher education spokesman on the condition that he gave up editing The Spectator, which had seen its circulation soar under his guidance.
There was a new sense of seriousness about the way Mr Johnson tackled the higher education brief.
But his irrepressible refusal to remain on-message - coupled with the media's insatiable appetite for his antics - was to reach new heights at the 2006 Tory party conference in Bournemouth.
School dinners
A crusade by TV chef Jamie Oliver to improve school dinners had been praised by Mr Cameron at the start of the conference.
So when Johnson told a fringe meeting "if I was in charge I would get rid of Jamie Oliver and tell people to eat what they like", it was seized on by the media as another howler.

Mr Johnson's wife Marina (left) went campaigning with Samantha Cameron
Reporters - bored by a lack of stories elsewhere that day - began to gather outside the party's press cubicle, when word got round that the man himself was inside.
The media scrum that followed dwarfed all previous outbreaks of Borismania.
He later claimed he had been misquoted, describing Oliver as a "national saint".
Mr Cameron decided to make a joke of it, telling delegates that Conservatives did not mind people "going off-message".
"We love it, actually," he said, but added: "Just don't do it all the time!"
London mayor
Mr Johnson had once again demonstrated his pulling power, by upstaging the party leader at his first conference in charge.
But what did it all mean for his political career? Was he destined to a life on the margins, a colourful sideshow to the main event?
With hindsight, the job of London mayor seemed the ideal outlet for his talents.
But he was not persuaded to throw his hat into the ring until the very last minute.
Mr Cameron had been determined to draft in someone from outside the party, preferably a well-known celebrity, to take on Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone as part of his efforts to broaden the Conservatives' appeal.

Mr Johnson has always been willing to send himself up on television
But when those efforts came to nothing, he turned to the party's own in-house celebrity.
There was no question Mr Johnson had the energy and the charisma to take on Mr Livingstone, the mayor since 2000, but did he have the discipline to avoid putting his foot in it?
The party was not taking any chances. It drafted in Lynton Crosby, the tough Australian who had masterminded Mr Howard's 2005 general election campaign, to keep him in line.
Mr Johnson knuckled down to the job of proving he was a serious candidate, displaying hitherto unseen levels of discipline and grasp of policy detail.
Opponents began to wonder what had happened to "old Boris" - when, they wondered, was he going to make some outrageous gaffe or turn in befuddlement to an aide, as he had done on a previous occasion, and ask: "What is my policy on drugs?"
Of course there will be the odd indiscretion
Boris Johnson
But he was having none of it.
"There is no distinction between the old Boris and the new Boris. They are indivisible, co-eternal... consubstantial," he would reply testily when challenged about his new, serious persona.
He said that the media had a "pent up rage" after spending the campaign "deprived of their prey - a Johnson blooper".
He has stressed he is serious about running London and making "Greater London greater". But as he put it in a BBC interview after winning the election: "Of course there will be the odd indiscretion."
Yes, given his track record, it seems likely that the next four years with Mayor Boris will be anything but dull.

By Brian Wheeler Political reporter, BBC News

I think that this political article is really funny. Wheeler's tone is very sarcastic at times, but he still gets the message across to the reader. I remember the Chinese were commenting on how he 'swaggered' up to the Olympic hamdover podium, and how his shirt buttons were partly undone. Later, he said something like: 'Just trying to be laid back and show how Britons have priority over their rights.' This really made me laugh. Typical. The way he talks is also funny. Wheeler writes the article in a chronological format, gradually describing events of his life as time goes by. I also think that it is hilarous that he mistook football (soccer) for rugby. I like the way the writer talks informally, like 'cock up'.

1st Interesting Article

Beijing - the perfect site for the 2012 Games
As ministers argue whether to cut housing or hospitals, we can no longer afford to throw money at the Olympics
Suddenly 2012 sounds a lot less enticing. The year in which Britain was to have been triumphant, basking in international Olympic glory, will be the year when the debt hits home. In schools and hospitals and social services departments, in libraries and nurseries and courts, 2012 will be the year that high times turn to hard times.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated yesterday that the country faces spending cuts of £19 billion in 2012-13. Cabinet ministers have already begun fighting over who takes the hit. The unemployed, the homeless, the destitute will join the athletes parading through London.
It will be payback time, big time. In 2011-12 the tax increases strike: the 45p top rate, the rise in national insurance. In 2012 national debt is forecast to reach the magic £1 trillion. And in 2012 we throw billions of pounds at the Olympics.
Oh, that we could cancel them instead. We obviously cannot afford them any more.
The Olympics budget has soared from an original guesstimate of £2.7 billion, winner of the gold medal for kite-flying, to £9.3 billion, and will rise further: there is as yet no clear security plan, the issue that was the biggest cause of cost overruns in Sydney and Athens. Only £500 million is still unspoken for in the £2.7 billion contingency fund, and there are four years still to go.
This month Tessa Jowell, the Minister for the Games, admitted that the Government would not have bid for them if it had seen what was coming. “Had we known what we know now, would we have bid for the Olympics? Almost certainly not.”
Mirroring Gordon Brown's big spending plans and fiscal stimulus, Ms Jowell now describes the money being thrown at the Games as a “counter-cyclical investment”.
A counter-cyclical investment? In more than 1,000 full-time officials and consultants (and rising), claiming salaries of up to £620,000 each? In 72 civil servants at the Olympic executive? A counter-cyclical £500 million athletics stadium that nobody knows how to use afterwards? Wembley Stadium would have sufficed. Is it a counter-cyclical investment in the £1.5 billion media centre plus thousands of homes in an Olympic village that the Government will struggle to sell afterwards? Very counter-cyclical, especially since the PFI deal collapsed in the credit crunch, leaving the Government to pick up the tab to keep the building work going at all.
Consultants called into conduct a review last week recommended scrapping the wholly unnecessary, temporary, £40 million, 6,000-seat stadium in Greenwich for badminton and rhythmic gymnastics. But they saved the £60 million basketball arena, considered by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor himself, a complete waste of money. “Can't we have this in some old shed?” he once asked Olympics officials, not counter-cyclically, perhaps, but counter-intuitively. No, they replied: US TV audiences demand a shiny place.
I have another question: why can't we have this in Beijing? All the expensive stadiums are already there and the Games have been moved before: in 1906 the decision was taken to move the 1908 Olympics from Rome to London after Mount Vesuvius erupted and the Italians needed the money to rebuild Naples.
Now the world financial system has erupted, and we need the money to help to rebuild the economy, not a dozen deserted stadiums and thousands of empty homes. The wave of energy created by the collision of sport, media and international marketing has taken on a life of its own, outside the control of mere ministers: £25 million on a shooting gallery here, a 23,000-seat arena for horse riding there. Why can't they get a train to Hickstead?
An “economic stabilisation programme”, Ms Jowell now calls the Games. Before that they were a regeneration programme for East London, remember? They were never just a whole lot of money thrown at a big, stupid party.
And what does the International Olympic Committee, those weirdly untouchable gods of sport, have to say? As Mr Darling explained to the nation how it was going to slip into a trillion pounds of debt on Monday, the President of the IOC, Jacques Rogge, came to London to give a pep talk on the Olympics. It was, as befits the head of an organisation that operates somewhere beyond the real world, a totally surreal speech.
I think he was trying to suggest that the “positive legacy” need not be the great (empty) stadiums, but “new opportunities” - more investment in organised sport and fewer fatties, especially young ones. We do not need a £9.3 billion Olympics to wish for that.
Mr Rogge's speech flitted all over the place before he got to the credit crunch, stuck on the end as an afterthought. “I am conscious that we come out of the enormous success of Beijing into difficult economic times,” he said. “Well, the Games have survived difficult times before... The Games remind us that the transient difficulties of life can be overcome through hard work and determination.” Funny, that's exactly what small businesses owners, their employees, their families, watching a lifetime's work collapse today, wouldn't say.
“The Games show that excellence, friendship and respect have no limits. That wars, economic downturns, natural disasters and violent attacks do not dissuade or dishearten humanity.” Diddly-diddly doo.
Anyone would think Mr Rogge did not know they cancelled the Games in the First and Second World Wars. Even the head of the IOC press commssion admitted this week that Brtiain faces “the toughest time short of wartime to get the project to 2012”.
But it was in his peroration that the IOC President soared to heights of new Labourish vacuity not reached since - actually, not since Ms Jowell's heyday and a particularly memorable speech that she once delivered on “our national cultural identity”, the ties that bind the British (interestingly, sport was not among them, then)...
Just when we thought new Labour dead, those empty phrases, the trite generalisations, the belief that as long as you said something, it really didn't matter if it didn't make any sense... over to Mr Rogge.
“Because while not all of us can be an Olympian, the simple joy of running faster, leaping higher or throwing further makes all of us equal, brings us together, and places each of us firmly in the world. Not apart from it. Thank you.”
Ah. Feeling better?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/alice_miles/article5233266.ece

I like this article because it's about a serious subject, but Alice Miles isn't talking about it in a really really serious way, so the reader can sympathize more. She meets the problem with a worried but not too sincere tone. She adds some fun words such as: 'Diddly-diddly doo' and she uses words such as stupid to lighten up the reader about the topic.

Bad Ad

This ad disgusts me (no offense to the helmet lady). I can't see how it's 'cool' to wear a helmet with the number 60 on it. It looks extremely artificial. Flowing hair would look much more natural. Also, the text is miniscule. The company should describe what the product is like, and if they were proud about it, then why not put it in bigger letters? Also, I find it annoying looking at stunning models with heaps of make-up on. Firstly, it's a bad influnce for little kids. Secondly, it will make boys have higher expectations of girl's appearance. Who knows what the girl on the left is like inside? It will make both boys and girls dream of the days when they can ride on motorbikes with helmets and nail polish on. Also, "Play hard and fast" doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't fit with the image. I imagine hair streaming and loud music. The ad looks too peaceful and compressed. Where is the overwhelming adrenaline rushing through the body?

Reader's Response to 'Pain'

The essay Pain by Diane Ackerman is an essay that defines both emotional and physical pain, and how different cultures react to it. She uses examples to back up her ideas. The essay is also about how pain is so hard to grasp in ones hand; the description usually drifts away when you have it at the tip of your tongue: "... let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry"(Ackerman 362). In addition, Ackerman talks of how pain can be numb to religious people, people who have deep beliefs or people who are totally absorbed in something. She gives the example of a soccer player who has just experienced pain during a game, but he only feels the piercing pain after the game. In culture, circumcision can be perceived as a holy event. Pain is a very hard subject to define, but Diane Ackerman uses specific examples in her essay Pain to describe the feeling in a shortened way. I think that it was interesting, but she could have expanded more on the idea of emotional pain and connect the essay closer to the theme instead of just giving examples.

Sonnet 01

Sonnet 01
Shall I compare thee to a piece of steel?
Thou art more cold and distant than metal
Thy bitter feelings seem fake and unreal
When mad, thou boileth like a hot kettle

Thy face is a mirror of deep sadness
Thy emotions I cannot comprehend
Thou driveth me into profound madness
Your severed mind I endeavor to mend

Thy face, though beautiful, is cruel not pure
Thy voice, like a melancholy singer
This illness, best medicine cannot cure
The feeling of this, will always linger

Thy sweet, merry soul, is locked inside a drawer
Thy eyes shineth and gloweth nevermore.

Qi

Dear Mr. Kristof

Dear Mr. Kristof,

I have read your article Obama and the War on Brains in the NY Times. Although I agree with a few of your claims, I was somewhat appalled by your strong, flat-on attack at George Bush. Also, it seems to me that you are either somewhat disgraced or disappointed at the American community. Moreover, do you not agree that George Bush was not overly stupid in international affairs? George Bush has not committed any crimes. One phrase I was particularly amazed to read was: ‘President Bush, lend me your ears – that leader self destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.’ However, I do sympathize with your hope of Obama ‘setting a new tone for this country.’ Also, I understand how smart people are sometimes perceived as sissies. That is something that will be very hard to manipulate, since children have been influenced by the media from the age of 10. Hopefully, Obama can change this issue. I appreciate your bravery in posting this in the NY Times.

Qi Pan