The web magazine From the Window contains poetry and literature from well-know writes across the global. There are thoughtful articles analyzing the state of the world we live in. there is even a piece from the Secretary General of United States, Kofi Annan. It may come as some surprise to find out that the editor of the magazine is a 12-year-old girl, Joy Nightingale.
From the Window won Joy Nightingale the first prize in the 1999 child net International and wireless awards. These are given annually for the best use of the internet by and for young people.
And they highlight one of the most welcoming aspects of the virtual world. Children have taken to the Internet as though they are born surfing.
Perhaps there is because adults have had to change their understanding of technology while children simply accept it as natural. Whatever the reason, children can be found building web and E-mailing friends across the world while adults are still asking: Tell me again –where exactly is cyberspace?
Of course there is growing concern about the fact that children can travel far away from parental supervision in cyberspace. In response, many parents have installed software packages which prevent access to violent or pornographic web. Children are taking a more positive line. The web is a gateway to a world of education and entertainment.
The rapid growth in Internet culture has led analysts to speculate that society will soon be divided between the “information rich” and “information poor”. For child net it is especially important that children at the margins of society through poverty or disability have the chance to take their place as equal citizens in the virtual world.
第五章
It is an astonishing fact that there are laws of nature, rules that summarize conveniently-not just qualitatively but quantitatively-how the word works. We might imagine a universe in which there are no such laws, in which the 1080 elementary particles that make up a universe like our own behave with utter and uncompromising abandon. To understand such a universe we would need a brain at least as massive as the universe. It seems unlikely that such a universe could have life and intelligence, because beings and brains require some degree of internal stability and order. But even if in a much more random universe there were such beings with an intelligence much greater than our own, there could not be much knowledge, passion or joy.
Fortunately for us, we live in a universe that has at least important parts that are knowable. Our common-sense experience and our evolutionary history have prepared us to understand something of the workaday world. When we go into other realms, however, common sense and ordinary intuition turn out to be highly unreliable guides. It is stunning that as we go close to the speed of light, our mass increases indefinitely, we shrink toward zero thickness in the direction of motion, and time for us comes as near to stopping as we would like. Many people think that this is silly, and every week or two I get a letter from someone who complains to me about it. But it is virtually certain consequence not just of experiment but also of Albert Einstein?s brilliant analysis of space and time called the Theory of Relatively. It does not matter that these effects seem unreasonable to us. We are not in the habit of traveling close to the speed of light. The testimony of our common sense is suspect at high velocities.
The idea that the world places restrictions on what humans might do is frustrating. Why shouldn?t we be able to have intermediate rotational positions? Why can?t we travel faster than the speed of light? But so far as we can tell, this is the way the universe is constructed. Such prohibitions not only press us toward a little humility; they also make the world more knowable.
When 1988 began,East Africa should have been at its most beautiful:normally the short rainy season ends in December , the rivers subside , and the country sparkles ; farmers raise crops , animals graze , tourists go on safaris .But this year was different . The rains were heavy and long . The water spread out for miles in places in Kenya and Somalia , cutting off village and forcing herders to ctowd with their livestock onto a few patches of dry land . Things quickly turned ugly. Camels , cows , sheep , and goats all started dying of violent fevers . Some people , too ，began to get sick . Some went temporarily blind ；others began bleeding uncontrollably . The disease was Rift Valley fever ，caused by an obscure mosquito borne virus . It pops up every few years in Africa when standing water encourages mosquito eggs to hatch--this year?s huge floods brought a spectacular outbreak . According to official estimates , at least 89，000 people caught the disease . Two hundred died，but then the disease is not usually fatal to humans . Animal losses，however，were almost certainly vast--owners reported losing up to 90 percent of their herds.
Yet catastrophic as the East African floods were ，they had to jostle for the world?s attention with other cases of strange weather---with unusual occurrences of droughts ，fires，rains，cold snaps ，and heat waves . Every year brings its own grab bag of such anomalies，but this year many of them could be linked to a phenomenon in the empty expanses of the equatorial Pacific -- a change in the ocean currents and winds that began in the early months of 1997 and that altered weather patterns around the world .The change in the weather was , of course , the work of E1 Nino.
By the end of 1997 , E1 Nino had already become a celebrity of sorts . In 1998, however , E1 Nino's effects on the world came into full flower . It helped make the year the hottest ever recorded.In addition to Rift Valley fever , E1 Nino has been linked to an upsurge in diseases ranging from choler to malaria to dengue fever ,in Kenya , Cambodia , Peru ,and other countries scattered around the globe .
第七章
I have always disliked being a man, The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one?s entire life. Even the expression “Be a man!” strikes me as insulting and abusive. It means: Be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient and soldierly, and stop thinking. Man means “manly”-how can one think “about men”without considering the terrible ambition of manliness? And yet it is part of every man?s life. It is a hideous and crippling lie; it not only insists on difference and connives at superiority,It is also by its very nature destructive-emotionally damaging and socially harmful.
The youth who is subverted, as most are, into believing in the masculine ideal is effectively separated from women –it is the most savage tribal logic and he spends the rest of his life finding women a riddle and a nuisance .Of course, there is a female version of this male affliction. It begins with mothers encouraging little girls to say (to other adults), “ Do you like my new dress?” In a sense, Girls are traditionally urged to please adults with a kind of coquettishness, while boys are enjoined to behave like monkeys toward each other. The -9-year-old coquette proceeds to become womanish in a subtle power game in which she learns to be sexually indispensable, socially decorative and always alert to a man?s sense of inadequacy.