Should children be given Pocket Money?

1.      The money parents give help the children learn to manage money, and they can understand how budgeting, saving and interest work. In this way, they can develop wise spending habits.

2.      Cultivate a spirit of independence and learning to make decision on one’s own.

3.      Children are willing learners, and you will find by giving pocket money, you can get them very interested in whole process of building a healthy saving for the future.

4.      It is the beast way to introduce your child to the concept of saving.

5.      Money management is seldom taught in schools; it is up to the parents to educate their children in this very important life skill.

6.      Parents don’t have to worry about being constantly asked to buy things for the kids.

 

Nature or Nurture, which is more important?

Nature

1.      If we take identical twins, and give one the best environment possible, and put the other one in closet for eighteen years, the differences will be profound, and caused totally by environmental differences between the two children. Identical twins living in parallel universes do not necessarily lead identical lives.

2.      Environment is more influential. There is also substantial proof that an individual’s environment affects his mental aptitude.

3.      A person’s entire environment seems to be more effectual in determining his mental ability than heredity is.

Nurture

1.      Biology certainly determines part of what we are, but we start learning as soon as we are conceived,

2.      We hardly separate biologically determined behavior from learned behavior.

 

How to Manage Stress

The Present Situation and Its Effects:

1.      Stress is your reaction to something you consider a challenge or a threat. Stress is a natural part of life. Modern people are stressed out or under too much stress.

2.      Despite the highly developed material life, modern people are leading an unprecedented stressful life.

Causes:

1.      You may feel physical stress which is the result of too much to do, not enough sleep, a poor diet or the effects of an illness.

2.      Nowadays the social competition is becoming fiercer and everyone wants to cope with adversity and to flourish in their education, vocation, and personal relationships.

Solutions:

1.      Exercise. Regular exercise is a popular way to relieve stress. Twenty to thirty minutes of physical activity benefits both the body and the mind.

2.      Hobbies. Take a break from your worries by doing something you enjoy. Whether it is gardening or painting, schedule time to indulge your interest.

3.      Healthy lifestyle. Good nutrition makes a difference. Limit intake of caffeine and alcohol, get adequate rest, exercise, and balance work and play.

4.      Share your feelings. A conversation with a friend lets you know that you are not the only one having a bad day, caring for a sick child or working in a busy office. Stay in touch with friends and family. Let them provide love, support and guidance. Don’t try to cope alone.

 

Should we choose Carnivorous Diet or Vegetarian Diet?

Carnivorous Diet:

1.      Humans are type of animal and eating meat is normal and simply a part of life. Animals provide essential protein for the human body. Protein is biologically essential, for every living creature needs a certain amount to survive.

2.      Vegetarians do not get enough minerals and vitamins as a result of their limited diet. It is hard enough for vegetarians to stay healthy in our technologically advanced society.

3.      Eating plants is also causing pain or discomfort to the plants. You only have to check out laboratory experiments that plants feel pain.

 

Should Smoking Be Banned in All Public Places?

1.      Smoking in public places constitutes a real hazard to non-smokers. Second-hand tobacco smoke can be deadly as well, because non-smokers are forced to take in some poisonous substances which smokers blow into the air.

2.      Cigarette smoke contains about 4000 chemicals, about 50 of which are known cancer-causing agents.

3.      Smoking endangers people’s health. Smokers are more likely to suffer from bronchitis and lung cancer and have a higher risk of developing other kinds of cancer.

4.      Smoking may pose a potential fire hazard for smokers are careless about the cigarette butts.

5.      Smoking may cause diseases such as cancers and bronchitis. For years cigarettes have been known to cause cancer, emphysema, and other horrible illnesses. Every cigarette you smoke reduces your lifespan by 11 minutes.

 

Littering/ Rubbish Problem

Present Situation:

1.      The roads scattered with all sorts of trash are a disgrace and the railway line are littered with decaying rubbish.

2.      One third of all waste produced is made up of packaging materials.

3.      What we are doing now is wasteful of resources and unfriendly to the environment.

4.      People show an appalling disregard for the environment. They have no respect for the environment.

5.      The quickening tempo of modern lifestyle also contributes partly to the increasing rubbish problem, because many people prefer takeaway fast food and the use of disposable items for the convenience’s sake.

6.      Disposable packaging and items become fashionable these days, from baby nappies to milk cartons to burger wrappers.

Solutions:

1.      Public activities should be sponsored by government to promote the public awareness of environmental protection. Make sure that everyone is a conscious preserver.

2.      Our government should take stronger and harsher measures to combat the littering behavior.

3.      Use environmentally-friendly materials.

4.      People should learn to recycle. For instance, we should set up bins around town to collect glass, paper, and aluminum that can be converted back into raw materials, then made them into new products.

 

How to Solve the Traffic Problem

Present Situation:

1.      Every day there are many traffic jams everywhere, causing great inconveniences to people’s daily lives.

Cause:

2.      Too many cars running on the streets lead to air pollution and noise pollution.

3.      There are more vehicles than the streets can accommodate.

4.      Many drivers do not obey regulation. People lack adequate awareness of the seriousness of traffic problem.

Solutions:

1.      Issue stricter traffic laws and regulations, impose more severe and harsher penalty on the violator.

2.      Raise the public awareness of the traffic regulations. Popularize the education of traffic regulations; improve the quality of the citizens.

3.      Building up better public transportation systems, including buses, trains and subway, will encourage more people to use them rather than drive their own cars.

 

The Pros and Cons of Bikes

Benefits:

1.      Fitness: Biking let you incorporate low stress aerobic exercise into your daily commute.

2.      The environment benefits include reduced pollution and reduced resource consumption (less material, fuel, and infrastructure).

3.      Bicycles increase mobility for those who don’t have access to motor transport (who don’t qualify to drive a car).

4.      One of the most positive impacts of bicycling is improved health. Moderate exercise such as bicycling can offer major health benefits.

5.      It is also a lot more economical to ride a bike than to drive a car.

 

The Cloning Technology

1.      Cloning is unnatural and not ethically correct.

2.      Cloning creates serious issues of identity and individuality and forces humans to consider the definition of self.

3.      It leads to the psychological harms on cloned human children. One of those harms is the loss of identify, or sense of uniqueness and individuality.

4.      The strongest ethical argument against cloning is that it could lead to a new, unfamiliar type of family relationship.

5.      Another argument against cloning is that it would be available only to the wealthy and therefore would increase social inequality.

 

Space Research

Pros:

1.      We will go into space, not only to bring back things which make us richer or more comfortable here on Earth, we will go there to live and make it our home as well.

2.      The instinct to explore is fundamentally human; already some of our most amazing achievements have taken place in space.

3.      The exploitation of space has directly changed our world. Satellites orbiting the Earth allow us to communicate instantaneously with people on different continents, and to broadcast to people all over the world.

4.      Weather satellites save lives by giving advance warning of adverse conditions, and together with other scientific instruments in orbit they have helped us understand our own world better.

5.      Space exploration is an investment in the future. Our world is rapidly running out of resources. Overpopulation could become a serious worldwide threat.

6.      Space exploration helps to acquire new resources to mitigate the energy crisis (shortage). There may be some new kinds of natural resource in other planets.

7.      Space exploration may find new living places for human being to solve the problem of overpopulation. There is possibility that one day mankind may emigrate to other planets.

 

Pros and Cons of Tourism

Pros:

1.      The tourist industry has played a positive role in meeting the cultural needs of the public, carrying forward national culture and achieving the sustainable development of resources.

2.      Tourism helps to improve the investment in environment so as to attract more foreign investors.

3.      Tourists can take pleasure in the magnificent natural landscape, appreciate the superior workmanship of ancient artists and enjoy a variety of local delicacies (specialties). Many tourist attractions offer a wealth of historical relics, fascinating scenery and interesting local culture.

4.      Tourism is the world’s largest and faster growing industry. According to recent statistics, tourism provides 10 percent of the world’s income and employs almost one-tenth of world’s workforce. By the year 2010, these numbers will double. All considered, tourism’s actual and potential economic impact is astounding.

5.      Tourism encourages the preservation of identify, pride and value in our living conditions and the cultural legacy of generations in danger of extinction. Tourism contributes to the revival of customs and traditions.

6.      Tourism brings new money into an area and generates jobs, income and tax revenues.

Cons:

1.      Contact with and assimilation of other cultures will reduce the uniqueness of one’s own culture and make the world less colorful than before.

2.      Undermine local traditions and ways of life.

3.  Tourism may cause serious environmental pollution.

 

Museums and Galleries

Purposes:

1.      Museum and related heritage institutions provide people with an enhanced awareness of our diverse heritage and our place in the world. They promote understanding and appreciation of our diverse cultures, landscapes, stories and experiences. Collections and exhibitions reflect the cultural and social diversity.

2.      Guarantee the availability and use of the collections in research and teaching.

3.      Museums and galleries make an important contribution to education, scholarship, citizenship, social inclusion and tourism.

4.      Generally promote the public’s enjoyment and understanding of painting and other fine art both by means of the collection and by such other means as they consider appropriate.

How to Support and Develop the Museum and Gallery:

1.      The government sets up more state funded museums and art school.

2.      The government should refund those museum and galleries which offer free admissions to the public.

3.      Seek the financial support of corporations, non-profit foundations and individuals who share its goal of preserving the cultural legacy of the museums.

 

TV and Films as for children

Positive Side:

1.      Television is one of the most important forms of entertainment and communication and even receiving education.

2.      There is probably no greater influence on society than the television, which has saturated our lives.

3.      Children watch TV to receive the daily news. The TV was brought in to our world to give us a new sense of entertainment, world news and endless amounts of information.

4.      Television can also promote pro-social behavior. Television can exert its strongest pro-social influence in the area of learning and cognitive development.

Negative Side:

1.      A child who often indulges in TV doesn’t know the difference between reality and fantasy.

2.      Children have undeveloped minds, which can not conceive the information the same way that adults do.

3.      The health consequences of this overabundance of TV viewing include an increase in obesity among kids due to a sedentary lifestyle, and the flip side, an increase in dieting disorders due to the unrealistic expectations set up by thin actors on television shows and commercials.

 

Advertising

For:

1.      Advertising brings convenience to people’s lives. Advertising promotes and popularizes new products and give people everywhere the maximum choice of products and choice.

2.      Some advertisements are of high artistic value, original and well-designed with vivid pictures and witty language, artistic photography and witty slogan; therefore they add to the beauty of our lives. They are a par indispensable to modern society.

3.      Advertising plays an important role in our economic life and is indispensable to the consumer society.

Against:

1.      Some leaflets and handouts are scattered here and there, polluting the environment. They are regarded as rubbish and a blemish on the landscape of the city. They disfigure our cities,

2.      Advertisements are not always truthful, and a product is often misrepresented, false and deceptive. Many advertisements are fictitious, exaggerating, misleading and flying in the face of truth. Advertisements are an insidious form of brainwashing. Some are mislead and tend to induce people to spend more and create demand for things we do not need.

3.      It is very disturbing that TV programs are interrupted by advertisements, and mailboxes are stuffed with rubbish. Nuisance to TV viewers: constant interruption spoils the viewing. We can do nothing but accept it passively. They are intrusive and offensive.

 

The Disappearance of Language and Culture

Present Situation:

1.      Endangered languages are languages that are slowly disappearing because of technology and the desire for cultures to assimilate. Also, many cultures have changed or altered their languages for economic reasons.

2.      While languages are being lost at alarming rate, this is not a time for pessimism. Many local language communities are mobilizing to maintain and foster their linguistic traditions.

The Reasons of Extinction

1.      With the recent wave of technological advances in communications, the world has gotten closer than ever before to image conjured by the words “global village”. Cultural globalization will result in one homogenous global culture where everyone looks the same, speaks the same and thinks the same.

2.      Languages become extinct when a community finds itself under pressure to integrate with a larger or more powerful group. Often the community is pressured to give up its language and even its ethnic and cultural identity. Because of some intense pressure, such as economic, social and political, some tribes give up their own cultures, including their languages, to embrace those of the majority tribes.

The Significance of Language Preservation

1.      The study of a language not only equips a student with a new set of communication tools but also provides them with an ability to see things from a different cultural perspective.

2.      Language is culture, so killing language equals killing culture. In doing so, we erase whole histories and bury entire stories the richness of which the world loses forever.

3.      When a community loses its language, it often loses a great deal of its cultural identity at the same time.

The Solutions to the Problem

1.      Highlight awareness of our heritage and celebrate our cultural diversity.

2.      Support the use of endangered languages in all contexts: at home, in education, in the media, and in social, cultural and economic life.

3.      Governments can help by removing bans on languages, and children should be encouraged to speak other languages in addition to their native tongues.

 

Should government fund art?

1.      It is imperative that our national rich and diverse heritage in the arts and culture be preserved, enhanced, and publicly supported if we are to see the continuation of a tradition that has inspired people living and working here. Although the traditional artists may not create commercial benefits, they can enrich our spiritual life and civilize our society. It helps preserve and carry forward the traditional arts.

2.      It is a worthwhile investment because it puts a nation on the international cultural map and generates tourism dollars (boosts local tourism). Art upgrades the image and status of the city,

3.      Government support for the arts will help attract and retain the organizational and individual talent required by a thriving, multi-cultural economy and society.