Them and us.

There is an obvious illustration of such opposition. The homeless people and us. The difference lies in the fact that we have a place to live and they do not . We live in our warm flat with clean water and electricity, while they are trying to find a place to spend a night. So why are they homeless and how did they become a social phenomenon?
     Homelessness is not a recent issue. It dates back to the 18th century. For fear of social disorder the homeless were classified as a social problem which was left to the middle-class to care of. And now we still look upon these people as a problem.
     The majority of the population believe that those people are to blame for being homeless. But the truth is that most of them are victims. Some suffer from childhood abuse or violence. In fact nearly one quarter are children. Many have lost their jobs and all of them lost their homes.
     Moreover people believe that the homeless are either mentally ill or heavy drug users, which is partly true. Indeed about 25% are estimated to be emotional disturbed, 1% may need long-term hospitalization, and the others are self-sufficient. As for drug abuse, research suggests that one in four is substance abuser.
      Nevertheless, most homeless are not drunks or drug abusers or mental patients. They are not the perpetual social problem that many believe them to be. They are just ordinary people who weren’t as lucky as we are. For instance, homeless women. This is a category of homeless people that keeps growing as the years pass. Not long ago it wasn’t common to see a lady on the street roaming around laden with all sorts of bags. Some of them are victims of spousal abuse or are chronically mentally ill.
     Another category of homeless people are children. Children are very prone to homeless. More than 20% of the teenagers are likely to live on the streets.  Family fights are the common reason but also there are the others. As a consequence teenagers really have no choice but to run away. Besides the children that have left their home there are those who live on the street with their family. The elders do what ever is possible in order for their kids to grow up socially normal.
     They live in shelters and go to school every morning while the parents go off in search of a job – if they don’t have one. And as the evening falls they meet up again and spend time as a family.
     Also the majority of the homeless have graduated from high school; many of them have attended college. They are not illiterate. But still they are opposed to us. And it’s hard for them to get a stable well paid job. Because any employer prefer to get a person from a good family with a constant place of living to a person who doesn’t know where he will sleep next night. All that they can do is to apply for work as a servant or cleaner. Consequently they’ll never afford buying a flat or at least renting a room. Every year prices are getting higher. The only hope for the homeless are special centers for them. There they can get food, take a shower and spend a night. Despite these centers it’s impossible to take there all the homeless. The problem of homelessness seems to last forever. And there will always be an opposition between them and us.

“You shall show no mercy. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.”

According to the Old Testament people should kill each other if someone has killed your relative or neighbor. People should revenge. But the New Testament, on the contrary, prohibits killing. But it seems that people got used to kill. We invent new weapons, we start new wars. And often and often the reason is not revenge. People stopped thinking about the consequences. They just want to get more territories, more money. And one of the most dangerous modern weapons is the nuclear weapon.  Even nuclear energy used for peaceful purposes may become a great menace.

Nowadays atomic power and stations are part of our life. They seem to be very useful and harmless. But on the other hand we live near the real atomic bomb. And we cannot predict what will happen next day with all this stuff.

We can expect everything. One day the station can just blow up and big area around it will be contaminated. Everybody knows the Chernobyl accident. Many films have been made on this theme. And it is known that contaminated forests have been buried under the ground and now many years later there is a menace of contamination of the whole world. Because every year those buried trees are going down deeper and deeper under the ground and soon they will spread in underground water resources. And the currents will bring the radiation practically to every country.

Atomic stations bring to their owners millions of dollars every day. As we know money spoil people. As a result the owners soon stop thinking about consequences which their actions can lead to. They even able to kill for money. The film “Chinese syndrome” presents example of such wild behavior.

But there are also good points of the using the atomic energy. They are the following:
- a large amount of energy is generated from a very small amount of fuel;
- Nuclear power does not  contribute to global warming or acid rain, because it does not produce carbon dioxide.
Another problem around the nuclear power is nuclear weapons. This is the great menace for the whole world. And this is modern reason to start a war. As everybody knows, well published examples of such wars are wars between USA and Iraq and potential war between USA and Iran. American government is sure that these countries are dangerous for the world because of the nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, in America nuclear weapons are being produced too. So nobody knows from where we should wait a hit: from nuclear stations or from nuclear bombs? And what countries are more dangerous: either those which are supposed to produce nuclear weapons or those which are trying to protect us from them.

Using the nuclear energy is very controversial. It is an object of political discussions. A country can use nuclear energy to produce electricity or to produce nuclear weapons as well. And this last point can be a reason for War. We should not forget about it. There can be lots of advantages of using the atomic energy but it is still very powerful source for producing the weapons of mass destruction. And we must conceder it.

Is he out of his mind?
There is an interesting question what would happen if a number of entirely sane people attempted to gain admission to a mental hospital by pretending to have one of the symptoms of insanity. Would these sane people be classified as insane? And would the staff realize that a mistake had been made?
The answers to these questions were obtained in a study in which 8 normal people, 5 men and 3 women, attempted to gain admission to different psychiatric hospitals.
Each of the 8 participants phoned the hospital asking for an appointment. Then each of them complained of hearing voices. These voices were often unclear, they sounded unfamiliar but were of the same sex as the participant.
All of these sane people were judged to be insane, and all of them were admitted to hospital, apparently on the basis of their hallucinations. Almost all of them were diagnosed as schizophrenic.
As soon as these pseudo-patients had been admitted to the psychiatric ward, they stopped simulating signs of abnormality. They were writing down secretly their observations about the ward, its patients and the staff.
Interestingly, that several of the real patients became suspicious about the pseudo-patients. They said things like “You are not crazy. You’re a journalist or a professor”.
Another situation was with the staff. Each member of the staff was asked to observe all patients and say whether they thought they were pseudo-patients or genuine ones. In fact, non of the pseudo-patients was suspected.
In conclusion we can say that it is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals. It is obviously dangerous for a doctor to fail to take appropriate action when a sick person asks for treatment.

Reading and traveling is escape from boredom.
Reading and traveling are the two most useful pastimes which help us to escape from boredom. Both reading and traveling is a source of something new.
For example, traveling. When we set off somewhere we are not just going or driving we look around, we listen to a guide etc. Especially when people go abroad or in other cities of their native country they choose some excursions. During an excursion people learn much about the history, geography, about famous people of the place they have come to. In edition people often buy books telling more about certain places, sights or about the whole country.
Reading is practically the same as traveling. Because when we read we forget about our problems, about things which are around us. We feel like we are in a place and time of the book. We become witnesses of all the events and actions of the book.
It seems that reading and traveling are connected. For instance, if there’s a long trip on a train most people pass a great part of time reading a book or a newspaper. Even in a bus or in metro getting to a job or an institute you can always see people reading. Because there is nothing else to do there. Definitely, reading is the most popular amusement in public transport.
Nowadays there are many special  devices have been invented especially for reading in a trip. It saves a space in your bag. You can put it in your pocket.
Of course there are many other ways to escape from boredom. You can play games, sing songs or just dream. But it is just killing time while reading and traveling are more useful.
So wherever you travel your best friend is a book. You will never get bored.

miss_amsterdam че-то я не поняла, что ты имеешь ввиду. Торможу   

miss_amsterdam нет не поменяются. Ты их видишь, потому что у тебя написано достаточно сообщений для этого, а у тех у кого их меньше 500 их пока видеть не смогут. Я их раскрою для всеобщего пользования только после того, как напишу письменный экзамен по английскому) Т.е. после 29 мая.

Да, если получится, я их отсюда спишу! гы-гы-гы