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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. Explain the sentence "He goes shopping in the disposable culture’s garbage instead. " (para. 1)
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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. 8（）
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. 1（）
I want this new school year to be a good one for my students as they learn about everything from calculus to Shakespeare to failure. That’s right. Failure.We all need to fail a little. In fact, the secret of success, might just be that. Consider the path of Henry David Thoreau. By many accounts, Thoreau was a failure. Folks thought he should have been a civic leader. He could have been a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher. He might even have made congressman or governor.Instead, the Harvard man seemed to spend most of his time loafing in the woods near his hometown over near Walden Pond. Everyone just scratched their heads and wondered why such a promising young fellow wasn’t a "success".I’m not suggesting that my students drop classes for the woods but it’s important to remember that ideas on success vary, even in these enlightened times. Some measure success by the size of the car he or she drives, others point to the width of their wallet or the number of bathrooms in their house. The trouble is, by that way of thinking, America becomes the land of numbers and the higher the number, the greater the success.Baseball-s numbers help us to remember that frequent failure can be considered a success. Players who routinely fail to get a hit 7 out of every 10 at-bats are considered All Stars. But they are really stars because they learn from their mistakes.The lessons of failure are an important part of the curriculum of success. We learn from them. They push us to do better; they teach us humility. As teacher, I expect students to revise their work to build on the "failure" of the first draft to achieve clarity and insight in the final draft. That’ s a good model for most things in life.Part of the problem, though, is that we live in a country obsessed by results. In school it is the A student who gets all the perks even though getting an A doesn’t always measure how much a person really knows. A’s are icons of honor. F’s are badges of defeat. We idealize icons and look up to heroes such as George Washington or John Glenn Yet we shouldn’t discount the heroes who labor outside the limelight. Those are the men and women who quietly go about the business of raising a family and taking care of their neighbors.The most admirable are ones who invent their own success. They know how to seize the moment and let the chips fall where they may. They know that the best way to measure success is by living each day to the fullest. True success is giving something back. And you don-t have to have a lot in the wallet to attain it. There are many people, young and old, who give back by serving in literacy campaigns and soup kitchens.As my father used to say: “Make sure you leave the world a better place than it was when you entered it. At least clean up after yourself. " The beginning of the school year is a good time to start reorienting ourselves. It’s a good time to see our failures in a new light.After Thoreau died in 1862, his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, lamented that Henry hadn’t blossomed into a great leader of the nation. His books were little read, his ideas seemed skewed. And yet, less than 100 years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pointed to Thoreau-s essay "Civil Disobedience" as one of the sparks that ignited the civil rights movement and profoundly shaped American society.Not a bad legacy for a failure Who is Henry David Thoreau Why does the author mention Henry David Thoreau at the beginning of the passage and at the end of the passage again.
"They treat us like mules," the guy installing my washer tells me, his eyes narrowing as he wipes his hands. I had just complimented him and his partner on the speed and assurance of their work He explains that it’s rare that customers speak to him this way. I know what he’s talking about. My mother was a waitress all her life, in coffee shops and fast-paced chain restaurants. It was hard work, but she liked it, liked "being among the public," as she would say. But that work had its sting, too-the customer who would treat her like a servant or, her biggest complaint, like she was not that bright.There’s a lesson here for this political season: the subtle and not-so-subtle insults that blue- collar and service workers endure as part of their working lives. And those insults often have to do with intelligence.We like to think of the United States as a classless society. The belief in economic mobility is central to the American Dream, and we pride ourselves on our spirit of egalitarianism But we also have a troubling streak of aristocratic bias in our national temperament, and one way it manifests itself is in the assumptions we make about people who work with their hands. Working people sense this bias and react to it when they vote. The common political wisdom is that hot-button social issues have driven blue-collar voters rightward. But there are other cultural dynamics at play as well. And Democrats can be as oblivious to these dynamics as Republicans-though the Grand Old Party did appeal to them in St. Paul.Let’s go back to those two men installing my washer and dryer. They do a lot of heavy lifting quickly-mine was the first of 15 deliveries-and efficiently, to avoid injury. Between them there is ongoing communication, verbal and nonverbal, to coordinate the lift, negotiate the tight fit, move in rhythm with each other. And all the while, they are weighing options, making decisions and solving problems-as when my new dryer didn’t match up with the gas outlet.Think about what a good waitress has to do in the busy restaurant: remember orders and monitor them, attend to a dynamic, quickly changing environment, prioritize tasks and manage the flow of work, make decisions on the fly. There’s the carpenter using a number of mathematical concepts-symmetry, proportion, congruence, the properties of angles-and visualizing these concepts while building a cabinet, a flight of stairs, or a pitched roof.The hairstylist’s practice is a mix of technique, knowledge about the biology of hair, aesthetic judgment, and communication skill. The mechanic, electrician, and plumber are troubleshooters and problem solvers. Even the routinized factory floor calls for working smarts. When has any of this made its way into our political speeches From either party. Even on I,abor Day.Last week, the GOP masterfully invoked some old cultural suspicions: country folk versus city and east-coast versus heartland education, But these are symbolic populist gestures, not the stuff of true engagement. Judgments about intelligence carry great weight in our society, and we have a tendency to make sweeping assessments of people’s intelligence based on the kind of work they do.Political tributes to labor over the next two months will render the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps. But few will also celebrate the thought bright behind the eye, or offer an image that links hand and brain It would be fitting in a country with an egalitarian vision of itself to have a truer, richer sense of all that is involved in the wide range of work that surrounds and sustains us.Those politicians who can communicate that sense will tap a deep reserve of neglected feeling. And those who can honor and use work in explaining and personalizing their policies will find a welcome reception. Which of the following summarizes the main idea of the passage（）
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