Josh Corlew’ s grocery bill is zero. The furniture in his Nashville home didn’t cost him anything, either. His fridge, TV, and microwave-all free. It’s been two years now since he last bought the ingredients for his signature sausage dish. Corlew, a 26-year-old nonprofit manager, has effectively dropped out of Consumer Nation He goes shopping in the disposable culture’s garbage instead.Corlew is part of a growing number of Americans for whom getting stuff for free is next to godliness. Yes, most everyone is cutting back. But these folks take frugality to its extreme. In cities like New York and wealthy suburbs like Grosse Pointe, Mich. , and Plano, Tex. , it is possible to live like a king (well, a duke anyway) out of a dumpster. Sushi, cashmere sweaters, even Apple computers-all for the taking. "We’ re used to fulfilling most of our needs through the marketplace," says Syracuse University culture professor Robert Thompson "But now with technology there is access to more that is free than in any time in the history of the world. "As you might expect, the free movement is heavy on idealism. None more so than the so-called freegans. They believe America’s consumer society is inherently corrupt and wasteful, and they want no part of it. Skeptics might see another motive at work: Freegans don’t pay for anything. Corlew, who prefers the term "conscious consumer" over freegan, insists his "bin diving" or "dumpstering" is as much a war on wretched excess as anything else. "This is about distancing myself from the consumerism of America," says Corlew. "Every time we buy something, we’re saying we support the system that brought it about. "Alexi Ahrens, who lives near Minneapolis, is less idealistic about her secret hobby. "It’s a little bit of adventure in suburbia," she says. Ahrens, 33, does her rounds between 2 and 3 a. m. and scavenges for food, clothing, and furniture (she once found a Tiffany lamp, but gave it to a neighbor).More recently she turned her dumpstering into a kind of business. When her computer technician job at a financial-planning firm became part-time, Ahrens went into overdrive. She started haunting corporate loading docks. At a photo-processing factory that was closing, she found late- model processing equipment, computers and unused office supplies. Ahrens sold them on eBay for $ 2,000.Not bad, right But what if you don’t want to climb into a giant garbage can to get your free groceries or barely used PC Maybe Freecycle is more your thing. A Craigslist-type Web site, Freecycle lets people post items they don’t want and ones they do. Giveaways have included everything from a camping trailer to a pair of rats. Freecycle now has 6 million members internationally, and since Wall Street imploded it has been registering 50,000 more each week, up from 25, 000 previously. Freecycle and the Freegans are among the fastest-growing groups on Yahoo !Many of the adherents of the free movement say they got the thrift trait from their Depression- era forebears. "I’m a penny-pincher. I work hard for my money, and I want it to last as long as possible," says 58-year-old Roger Latzgo, who built his Pennsylvania home entirely of materials he found for free. "I wanted to free myself from the weight of a mortgage, the root of which, by the way, means death. "Think this sounds crazy, dear manager The free movement is already starting to invade the workplace. At Yahoo, Freecycle events-where employees swap their stuff-are all the rage. They have featured plenty of Prada clothes, original Eames chairs-even founder David Filo’s smelly Adidas sneakers. According to passage, what is the major difference between Josh Corlew and Alexi Aherns in their attitudes towards Americas consumerism?
查看答案
When Americans think about hunger, we usually think in terms of mass starvation in far-away countries. But hunger too often lurks (1) . In 2006, 35. 1 million people, including (2) children, in the United States did not have access to enough food for an active healthy life. Some of these individuals relied on emergency food sources and (3) .Although most people think of hungry people and homeless people as the same, the problem of hunger reaches (4) . While the number of people being hungry or (5) may be surprising, it is the faces of those hungry individuals that would probably (6) .The face of hunger is (7) who has worked hard for their entire lives only to find their savings (8) ; or a single mother who has to choose whether the salary from (9) will go to buy food or pay rent; or a child who struggles to (10) because his family couldn’t afford dinner the night before. A December 2006 survey estimated that (11) those requesting emergency food assistance were either children or their parents.Children (12) to live in households where someone experiences hunger and food insecurity than adults. (13) compared to one in five children live in households where someone suffers from hunger (14) .Child poverty is more widespread in the United States than in (15) ; at the same time, the U. S. government spends less than any industrialized country to (16) .We have long known that the (17) of small children need adequate food (18) . But science is just beginning to understand the full extent of this relationship. As late as the 1980s, conventional wisdom held that only the (19) actually alter brain development. The latest empirical evidence, however, shows that even relatively mild under-nutrition (20) in children which can last a lifetime. 9()
人们通常喜欢听好听的话,一听到拂耳之言就容易产生不悦甚至愠怒。一个人特别是身居要职的人要能够心悦诚服地倾听逆耳之言并从中获得智慧,就需要容忍和大度的雅量,而这往往依赖于人们的心性修养和对人性缺陷的克制;否则,就会给善于运用花言巧语和投其所好的人提供可乘之机,并伤害直言不讳的忠诚之人在理智上,人们大概愿意接受“兼听则明,偏信则暗”、“忠言逆耳利于行”等一类古老的真理,或者乐于信服老子说的“美言不信,信言不美”的哲理。但在行为上,人们又容易背离这些古训,不愿意听或听不进“逆耳”之言,最终犯下严重的过失。
How is urbanization negatively affecting our society Growing (1) is associated with urbanism. Urbanism (2) , urban violence, political instability, crime and (3) behavior. It also perpetuates poverty and (4) the traditional family structure. Other problems include failing (5) , safety, transportation, housing, education and electricity. (6) are much higher in urban areas. With divorce rates rising, (7) is becoming more of a problem than before. People are (8) by race, religious practices, (9) heritage, as well as economic and social status. This often creates much (10) and prejudice between social groups. This can cause physical or mental damage to individuals or (11) .The government assumes major (12) for development attempting to meet rapidly increasing demands for (13) , housing, transportation and employment. But they are not able to (14) all the problems in urban areas.America has hired approximately (15) more teachers in the last few years than have been hired in the past, but the increase in population keeps the (16) just as large. Due to the (17) in urban areas and the lack of (18) opportunity, the crime rate is still a huge problem. The problems in urban areas are far more (19) than can be handled in any (20) efforts. 7()
Sixty-three years after U. S. forces vanquished the Japanese and planted the Stars and Stripes atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi, the remote outpost in the Volcano Islands is the focus of another pitched battle. This time film directors Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee are sparring over the accuracy of Eastwood’s two films about the clash, Flags o f Our Father3 and Letters from Iwo Jima. Lee has claimed that by soft-pedaling the role of African Americans in the battle, Eastwood has whitewashed history."Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," Lee said last month at the Cannes Film Festival. "In his version of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. "Eastwood bristled at the charge. "Has he ever studied history [African-American soldiers] didn’t raise the flag," he countered in an interview with the British newspaper the Guardian. "If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people’d go, ‘ This guy’s lost his mind.’" Eastwood also suggested Lee should "shut his face. " That didn’t go down so well. Eastwood "is not my father, and we’re not on a plantation either," Lee fumed. "I’m not making this up. I know history. "History, as it turns out, is on both their sides. Lee is correct that African Americans played a key role in World War II, in which more than 1 million black servicemen helped topple the Axis powers. He is correct too in pointing out that African-American forces made significant contributions to the fight for Iwo Jima. An estimated 700 to 900 African Americans, trained in segregated boot camps, participated in the landmark battle, which claimed the lives of about 6,800 servicemen, nearly all Marines.Racial prejudice shunted blacks into supply roles in Iwo Jima, but that didn’t mean they were safe. Under enemy fire, they braved perilous beach landings, unloaded and shuttled ammunition to the front lines and weathered Japanese onslaughts on their positions. "Shells, mortar and hand grenades don’t know the difference of color," says Thomas McPhatter, an African-American Marine who hauled ammo during the battle. "Everybody out there was trying to cover their butts to survive. "But Eastwood- s portrayal of the battle is also essentially accurate. Flags o f Our Fathers zeroes in on. the soldiers who hoisted the U. S. flag on Mount Suribachi. None of the six servicemen seen m Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph-the iconic image depicts the second flag-raising attempt; the first wasn’t visible to other U. S. troops on Iwo Jima-were black. (Easiwood’s other film, Letters from. Iwo Jim a , is told largely from the perspective of Japanese soldiers. ) Eastwood is also correct that black soldiers represented only a small fraction of the total force deployed on the island.That may be true, but it is not enough to placate Yvonne Latty, the author of a book about African-American veterans. Given the hazards of their mission and the virulent racism they endured-McPhatter says he has to execute his mission without giving orders to white troops, even if they were needed-Latty argues that black soldiers warrant more than fleeting inclusion in the film. Christopher Paul Moore, author of a book about black soldiers in World War II, praises Eastwood’s rendering of the battle but laments the limited role it accords African Americans. "Without black labor," he says, "we would’ve seen a much different ending to the war. " Adds Latty: "The way America learns history, unfortunately, is through movies. " Eastwood poignantly memorialized a heroic chapter in American warfare. But using a wider-angle lens might have brought into sharper focus a group often elbowed to history’s fringes. What do we know about the opinions of the two authors Yvonne Latty and Chrestopher Paul Moore?