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Isn't it amazing how one person, sharing one idea, at the right lime and place can change the course of your life's history? This is certainly what happened in my life. When I was 14, I was hitchhiking from Houston, Texas, through I'll Paso on my way to California. 1 was following mv dream, journeying vvilh llie sun. I was a high school drop out' with learning disabilities and was sell on surfing the biggest waves in the world, first in California and then in Hawaii, where I would later live.

Upon reaching downtown Kl Paso, 1 met an old man. a bum2, on the street corner. He saw- me walking, stopped me and questioned me as I passed by'. He asked me if 1 was running away from home, 1 suppose because I looked so young. 1 told him. "Not exactly, sir," since my father had given me a ride to the freeway in Houston and given me his blessings while saying. "It is important lo follow your dream and what is in your heart, Son."

The bum then asked me if he could give me a cup of coffee. I told him, "No, sir, but a soda would lie greal." We walked to a corner mall shop and sat down on a couple of swivel stools while we enjoyed our drinks.

After conversing for a few minutes, the friendly bum told me to follow him. He told me that he had something grand to show me and share wild me. We walked a couple of blocks until we came upon the downtown Kl Paso Public Library.

We walked up its front steps and slopped al a small information stand. Here llie burn spoke to a smiling old lady, and asked her if she would be kind enough to watch my things for a moment while he and I cleared the library. 1 left my belongings with this grandmotherly figure and entered into this magnificent hall ol learning.

The bum first led me to a table and asked me lo sit down and wails for a moment while he looked for something special amongst the shelves. A few moments later, he returned with a couple of old books under his arms and select on the table. He then sat down beside me and spoke.

Cracks' from artists including Eminem and Kylee Minogue will he given away free to internet users as part of a major initiative to combat the growing threat of online piracy.

OD21 , the company formed by former Genesis frontman' Peter Gabriel is behind the Digital Download Day Europe initiative, designed to educate consumers about the range of tracks available to buy online.

The company has teamed up with all the major record la-Dels1'—bar' Sony and online music retailers including HMV, Minstry of Sound, MSN, Freeserve and Dotmusic to give away 5 euros worth of free tracks.

A pilot8 of the initiative last October saw hundreds of thou-;ands of UK users logging on!l to download free tracks arid this time the offer is being extended to France, Germany, Spain, Italy ind Holland.

In an effort to counteract'" the problems the OD2 website suffered when it was besieged" by users last year, they will be able to ire-register from today before the event itself on March 21.

The chief executive of OD2, Colin Grimsdale, said the fact hat the industry had got behind the initiative showed that it was tarting to face up to the problem of online piracy.

"The CD business is contracting, and online piracy is one of :ie major contributory'" factors. The industry was slow to react I've felt for some lime now that they are starting to understand how essential it is." said Mr. irimsdale. who co founded the company with Gabriel in 199!.

"Whereas two years ago people were talking about it. in last six to eight months we've started to see some real urgent he added.

He said that the task was to make a compelling ease for cc summers to pay for something that they eoukl get elsewhere for fn "There's an increasingly widening gulf between the quality peer-to-peer13 files, which are increasingly virus-ridden" and un: liable, and the premium11 grade service provided through legitimacy; channels," he added.

The plan has been welcomed by Jay Hermann, the chief exec live of the international federation of the phonographic industry "European Digital Download Day is an excellent showcase for t growing legitimate online music business. Record companies in E rope are now providing lens of thousands of tracks for consume to buy and that undoubtedly puts our industry in a better positii to fight back against music theft on the internet." he said.

The scale of the problem is shown by figures suggesting thet are an estimated 4. 5 million people accessing1'1 around 1 billion pi rated tracks at any one time.

The debate surrounding the issue has dominated the annua music industry Miclem conference in Cannes, stoked1' by Robbii Williams' pronouncement that online piracy was "great" and he wa; happy to let people download his songs for nothing.

Time, as we know it, is a very recent invention. The modern time-sense is hardly older than the United States. It is a by-product of industrialism—a sort of psychological analogue of synthetic' perfumes and aniline dyes.

Time is our tyrant. We are chronically aware of the moving minute hand, even of the moving second hand. We have to be. There are trains to be caught, clocks to be punched, tasks to be done in specified periods, records to be broken by fractions of a second, machines that set the pace and have to be kept up with. Our consciousness of the smallest units of time is now acute. To us, for example, the moment 8: 17 A. M. means something— something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentricinstant was without significance did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stevenson were pan inventors of time.

Another time-emphasizing entity is the factory and its dependent, the office. Factories exist for the purpose of getting certain quantities of goods made in a certain time. The old artisan (IT.E) worked as it suited him with the result that consumers generally had to wait for the goods they had ordered from him. ~ The factory is a device for making workmen hurry. The machine revolves so often each minute; so many movements have to be made, so many pieces produced each hour.1 Result; the factory worker is compelled to know time in its smallest fractions. In the hand-work age there was no such compulsion to be aware of minull's and seconds.

Our awareness of time has reached .such a pitch of intensity that we suffer acutely whenever our travels take us into some corner of the world where people are not interested in minutes and seconds. ' The unpunctuality of the Orient, for example, is appalling to those who come freshly

Depending on the type of description, the method of development differs markedly. When doing a process description, the process is usually divided into distinct stages which are presented step by step. Usually, a chronological order is convenient for the purpose.

In product featuring, the descriptions usually follow this sequence: external overview — descriptions of the function and purpose — detailed discussion of components. Since the product or operation being described is likely to be new to the reader, the writer would do well to start with sufficiently general statements. It is usually by means of a definition of the product or equipment in the most general terms. For example, the description of a financial product like a bank card usually starts with a general definition like: a card issued by a bank for credit or identification purposes. In the sample, solar cell is defined as a device, which is a general word. Once this framework of reference is established, the reader is prepared to process the details of functions, components, operation, etc.

Swallows may have gone, but there is a time of return; willow trees may have died back, but there is a time of regreening; peach blossoms may have fallen, but they will bloom again. Now, you the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return? —If they had been stolen by someone, who could it be? Where could he hide them? If they had made the escape themselves, then where could they stay at the moment?

I do not know how many days I have been given to spend, but I do feel my hands are getting empty. Taking stock silently, I find that more than eight thousand days have already slid away from me. Like a drop of water from the point of a needle disappearing into the ocean, my days are dripping into the stream of time, soundless, traceless. Already sweat is starting on my forehead, and tears welling up in my eyes.

Those that have gone have gone for good, those to come keep coming; yet in between, how swift is the shift, in such a rush? When I get up in the morning, the slanting sun marks its presence in my small room in two or three oblongs. The sun has feet, look, he is treading on, lightly and furtively; and I am caught, blankly, in his revolution. Thus—the day flows away through the sink when I wash my hands, wears off in the bowl when I eat my meal, and passes away before my day-dreaming gaze as I reflect in silence. I can feel

his haste now, so I reach out my hands to hold him back, but he keeps flowing past my withholding hands. In the evening, as I lie in bed, he strides over my body, glides past my feet, in his agile way. The moment I open my eyes and meet the sun again, one whole day has gone. I bury my face in my hands and heave a sigh. But the new day begins to flash past in the sigh.

What can I do, in this bustling world, with my days flying in their escape? Nothing but to hesitate, to rush. What have I been doing in that eight-thousand-day rush, apart from hesitating? Those bygone days have been dispersed as smoke by a light wind, or evaporated as mist by the morning sun. What traces have I left behind me? Have I ever left behind any gossamer traces at all? I have come to this world, stark naked; am I to go back, in a blink, in the same stark nakedness? It is not fair though: why should I have made such a trip for nothing!

You the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return?

Chou En-lai arrived [ at the guesthouse for state visitors] at 4^30. His gaunt, expressive face was dominated by piercing eyes, conveying a mixture of intensity and repose, of wariness and calm self-confidence. He wore an immaculately tailored gray Mao tunic, at once simple and elegant. He moved gracefully and with dignity, filling a room not by his physical dominance (as did Mao or de Gaulle) but by his air of controlled tension, steely discipline, and self-control, as if he were a coiled spring. He conveyed an easy casualness, which, however, did not deceive the careful observer. The quick smile, the comprehending expression that made clear he understood English even without translation, the palpable alertness, were clearly the features of a man who had burned into him by a searing half-century the vital importance of self-possession. I greeted him at the door of the guesthouse and ostentatiously stuck out my hand. Chou gave me a quick smile and took it. It was the first step in putting the legacy of the past behind us.

Unlike Mao, Chou had lived abroad: born of a middle-class family in 1898, he had been a brilliant student and had studied and worked in France and Germany in the 1920s. When I met him, he had been a leader of the Chinese Communist movement for nearly fifty years. He had been on the Long March. He had been the only Premier the People's Republic had had—nearly twenty-two years—and for nine of those years he had also been 148 Foreign Minister. Chou had negotiated with General Marshall in the 1940s. He was a figure out of history. He was equally at home in philosophy, reminiscence, historical analysis, tactical problems, humorous repartee. His command of facts, in particular his knowledge of American events and, for that matter, of my own background, was stunning. There was little wasted motion either in his words or in his movements. Both reflected the inner tensions of a man concerned, as he stressed, with the endless daily problems of a people of 800 million and the effort to preserve ideological faith for the next generation. . .

Chou could also display an extraordinary personal graciousness. When junior members of our party took ill, he would visit them. Despite the gap in our protocol rank he insisted that our meetings alternate between my residence and the Great Hall of the People so that he would call on me as often as I called on him. After we had settled on Paris as our future point of contact, Chou nevertheless proposed that we continue to use the Pakistani channel occasionally because "we have a saying in China that one shouldn't break the bridge after crossing it. ". . .

. . . The Chinese seemed to regard him with special reverence, to see in him of all their leaders a special quality. On a visit in late 1975 I asked a young interpreter about Chou's health! tears brimmed in her eyes as she told me he was gravely ill. It was no accident that he was so deeply mourned in China after his death, or that the extraordinary expressions of yearning for greater freedom that appeared in China in the late 1970s invoked and praised his name,

Chou En-lai, in short, was one of the two or three most impressive men I have ever met. Urbane, infinitely patient, extraordinarily intelligent, subtle, he moved through our discussions with an easy grace that penetrated to the essence of our new relationship as if there were no sensible alternative.

The letter not only allows me to see reasons why development of the ski resort should be " delayed," but also changes me into its opponent, for the simple reason that, proposed and favored by interest-bound business people, this project is interest-centered and can therefore be against the general interest of most people.

Interest has the big shortcoming of causing interested people to largely overlook the interest of larger groups of people. In the present case, this larger interest lies in the protection of the region where our town is located, especially protection of " the state park north of our township. " It is our common sense that, when a state park is established near a small town, it must be because larger groups of people (i. e. , people of the entire state or country) have found an interest in the preservation of the natural environment within and around that park. People living close to the protected area are more likely to forget about that larger interest, and business people who are trying to make the best out of that environment are the most likely to overlook or ignore that interest. And they said "development of a ski resort" can be an instance of such likelihood.

On the contrary, interest-free people, such as people " who do not even live in this community," and especially the " environmentalists," are more sensitive to this larger interest. And now they are speaking in its defense. At this moment, although only "a few" of them are doing so, but, since they represent the larger interest , their voice will be heard, and they will be joined, by more people.

Confronted with such differing interests, the government, especially a fair and effective one, will usually serve as the go-between in their negotiation. As a rule, it will see that villages and towns near the protected area have their general interest secured. To be specific, people in these villages and towns may have been receiving money from the state or federal government, and measures must have been taken to make for a relative "prosperity" in the related district. (Most likely, the town south of the state park has been enjoying this kind of prosperity. ) As a result of such policy, the local people must have got used to this degree of prosperity, and, when people from other districts arrive and make home in such a town, they must have chosen to agree with such relative prosperity, and will be satisfied with it.

On the other hand, the government may not encourage efforts to make these villages and towns " much more prosperous ... lively and interesting," by such means as added ski resorts and increased tourism, as proposed by the many merchants and business people right now in our town. In short, the government may choose to wisely "give in" to the views of those people who take sides on the larger interest.

It is clear that we are confronted with two types of opinion, represented respectively by the highly interested business people and the disinterested environmentalists. That makes it relatively simple for people involved to take sides. As for me, my common sense has enabled me to say this without any hesitation; At present, let's at least "delay" this improperly proposed and narrowly supported project that is rather unlikely to be approved.

I love the smell and look of flowers and grasses, especially after a rain. After a brief summer shower, the grasses on the ground always look greener and the flowers seem fresher and lovelier. Some insects climb the grasses that shake and crook under their weight. Various kinds of delicate and colorful flowers peep about in the sunlight with their yellowish, bright blue, and purple thallium.

Grasses and flowers beautify the earth , adorn our dwellings and public places, and in many other ways contribute to our happiness. Whenever I am walking on the sidewalk, the sight of a wild flower growing in the crevice can bring a smile to my face. Seeing the green color of the grass always soothes and refreshes me whenever I am tired.

Flowers and grasses remind me of how wonderful Mother Nature is.

Communication means action such as encoding a message, decoding a message, sending a message, and sending feedback. At first glance silence does not indicate action, yet communication through silence plays an important role in all cultures. The importance of silence as a communication tool and the interpretation of silence vary from culture to culture, but all cultures use silence at times to get a point across.

Differences in the uses of silence can be best examined by looking at high-context and low-context cultures.

Silence in Low-Context Cultures

In low-context cultures in which ideas are encoded explicitly into words, silence often is interpreted as the absence of communication. It is down time. Silence means that the act of actively worded communication has stopped.

Yet even in low-context cultures silence is not necessarily without meaning. When someone is silent after being asked a question, the silence is an answer. The English phrase "The silence was deafening" describes this interpretation. When someone falls silent in conversation, another person may ask, "What's wrong?" The silence communicates a message. It may indicate that the receiver of the message did not hear the message, is angry at the message, needs time to think, or is embarrassed. Usually, low-context cultures view silence as communication gone wrong. To them it indicates that a rupture has occurred in the communication process.

Phrases such as Reden is Silber, schweigen is Gold (speaking is silver; being silent is gold) seem to contradict the view of silence as being negative; however, when given a choice, people in low-context cultures tend to choose speaking over being silent. Silence is ambiguous; it must be interpreted, and the interpretation of silence is more difficult than the interpretation of words. Silence does not fit with a low-context culture's emphasis on precision and clarity.

For this reason people in low-context cultures generally are uncomfortable with silence. They often feel responsible for starting a conversation or keeping it going, even with strangers. Passengers on a train that makes an unscheduled stop in the countryside, for example, may start a conversation because they feel uncomfortable just sitting there.

Silence in High-Context Cultures

High-context cultures have a different attitude toward the use of silence. Perhaps the most obvious example is Japan, although other Asian countries share the Japanese attitude about silence. The Japanese believe that silence is preferable to conversation. It is through silence that one can discover the truth' inside oneself. Contemplation and meditation take place in silence. Buddha taught that words make truth untrue, and there is a view in Japanese society that words contaminate understanding. Reading another person's inner core, a kind of communication without words, can take place only in silence. Speech distracts people from true understanding. This attitude toward and the use of silence can become a serious stumbling block in the progress of negotiations between businesspeople from Japan and the United States. Most of the discussion in Japanese negotiations is in groups, and much is said through silence, facial expressions, and body gestures among the Japanese team.

Silence to the Japanese is not empty. Whereas Westerners typically view silence as gaps in conversation, the Japanese believe that silence is part of conversation. In a crowded country silence evokes space; a person can be in his or her own realm through silence even when surrounded by others. Japanese speakers are comfortable with silence in communication and do not hurry to fill it up with speech. In fact, they may use silence as a very powerful communication tool.

Yesterday there was a very bad fire in a downtown hotel. At first there was panic, but the firemen and police went into quick action. If it were not for them, the casualties and damage would have been much worse. I was at the scene and saw the whole process.

Everyone was in a panic then. The air was filled with thick, black smoke, the sounds of sirens, people screaming, and glass breaking. All around us were fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars. Firemen were spraying water from huge hoses into the hotel. We could see flames coming out of the windows. People were beginning to come out of the hotel, running around and shouting, and some even jumped out through the windows. I was very scared. More and more people were gathering to-watch the fire. Traffic jams stretched for miles.

People were leaning out of windows and balconies, calling for help. I saw one fireman climb down a ladder, carrying a little baby in his arms. At the top of the hotel, helicopters were flying back and forth, rescuing all the people who were trapped on the roof.

Doctors and nurses were giving first aid to everyone who had been hurt in the fire. Many people were burned. They had to be rushed to hospitals in ambulances. Some had fainted from breathing the thick smoke, and were lying all around on the streets and sidewalks.

After firemen got the fire under control, you could see that the damage was great. It would take several weeks to clean up the mess.