COLÉGIO “TYTO ALBA”

PROF. Ms. Doc. JAMIL JUNIOR = JULHO/2013                                   

TEXT:

                                              

                                         THE LITTLE PRINCE AND THE FOX

            Then the fox appeared.

            “Good Morning”, said the fox.

            “Good Morning”, the Little Prince responded politely. “Who are you?” you are very pretty to look at.”

            “I am a fox”, said the fox.

            “Come and play with me”, proposed the Little Prince. “I am so unhappy.”

            “I cannot play with you”, the fox said. “I am not tamed.”

            “What does that mean – tame?”

            “It is something people often neglect”, said the fox. “It means to establish ties.”

            “To establish ties?”

            “Yes”, said the fox. “To me you are just a little boy and I have no need of you. And you, in turn, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox. But if you tame me, then we will need each other.”

The fox gazed at the Little Prince for a long time and said:

            “Please, tame me.”

            “What must I do to tame you?”, asked the Little Prince.

            “You must be very patient”, said the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me, and will say nothing. Words are the sources of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me every day.”

            So the Little Prince tamed the fox. And then the hour of his departure came. – “Ah!” said the fox. “I will cry.”

            “It is your own fault”, said the Little Prince, “but you yourself wanted me to tame you.”

            “Good bye”, said the Little Prince.

            “Good bye”, said the fox. “And now I am going to tell you a secret: We can only see rightly with the heart; what’s essential is invisible to the eye. Men have forgotten this truth. But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

                                               (Adapted from The Little Prince.)

                                                           (By Antonie de Saint-Exupéry.)

            Live each day to the fullest

            Get the most from each hour each

            Day and each age of your life.

            Then you can look forward with confidence

            And back without regrets.

            Be yourself – but be you best

            Self. Dare to be different and to

            Follow your own star.

            And don’t be afraid to be

            Happy. Enjoy what is beautiful.

            Love with all your heart and

Soul. Believe that those you love

Love you.                                                                                                              

Forget what you have done

For your friends and remember what

They have done for you. Disregard

What the world owes you and

Concentrate on what you owe the

World.

When you are faced with a

Decision make that decision as

Wisely as possible then forget it.

The moment of absolute certainty

Never arrives.

Above all remember that GOD

Helps those who help themselves

Act as if everything depended upon

You and pray as if everything depended

Upon GOD.

                                                          

                                               Author:   S.H.PAYER.

                        Prof. Ms. Doc. JAMIL JUNIOR = JULY, 2013!!!

          PROTECTING ANTARTICA FROM TOURISM

A solution may be at hand for holidaymakers who are finding it harder to get off the beaten track. For those who really want to get away from it all, a new holiday destination has sprung up – Antarctica. However, this freezing zone might only be for those with the deepest pockets if a new policy starts. Tourism on Antarctica has been increasing dramatically in the past twenty years, from a few thousand people in 1985 to more than 40,000 in 2009. The growing numbers are having a negative effect on the environment of the South Pole. To combat this, researchers from Holland’s Maastricht University have come up with a possible solution: limit the number of tourists allowed to visit and sell the vacations to the ones who make the best offer.

Many environmental protection agencies agree that there is a need to protect the frozen wilderness from the damage created by modern tourism. Antarctica is the last unspoiled place on Earth. It has a very delicate ecosystem that could be easily upset by groups of tourists landing in airplanes and using skimobiles. A difficulty exists because Antarctica is not a country and therefore has no government to pass laws or guidelines to control the number of visitors. The Maastricht University team’s proposal to auction off a fixed number of tourist places seems a workable solution. It would limit the number of visitors and therefore contain the amount of environmental damage, and the money would be used to protect Antarctica’s future.

                                               (breakingnewsenglish)

WHY DO WE SLEEP?

UNB

A recent study may have an answer to one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science – what is the purpose of sleep? The work suggests it's ac tually about making animals function more efficiently in their environments.

Pythons, bats and giant armadillos are among the longest sleepers at over 18 hours a day.

Human babies need 16 hours, and most of us probably feel we need around eight hours sleep to function well.

Professor Jerry Seigel from the University of California, Los Angeles, conducted a study of the sleep times of a broad range of animals and found that they vary widely. Some, like migrating birds, can survive long periods without  sleeping at all. He believes that shows sleep evolved to conserve energy:

Jerry Seigel: ‘It’s animals that are needlessly active that will not survive, but animals that are most efficient and use their waking time to do vital functions, and are otherwise asleep that will survive.’

Sleep helps make best use of limited resources. In humans, when we’re awake, our brain accounts for 20% of the energy we use when just sitting around. Sleeping also makes us less likely to get injured and less likely to be detected by predators.

                                               (Jon Stewart, BBC News)

LONDON FOR LEARNERS

We relaunch our series of audio guides for business travellers

                                                                             

What does a business visitor to London need to know aboutthe city? If

remotely possible, avoid the airports and arrive by train, stay in one of the lesser-known hotels and don’t discuss sex at the dinner table.

A new audio guide, which you can download from our website, takes travellers through the pitfalls of London life by explaining the right etiquette both for meetings and for pubs, and showing how to earn the approval of British counterparts. Hold off on the wine at lunch, shop for souvenirs at Fortnum & Mason, and if you do have to use Heathrow airport, consider taking the Underground. If you’re delayed, you’ll be able to curse the transport like any good Londoner.

This is the first of 32 new guides to doing business in cities around the world that we will be rolling out over the next 20 months, to update our existing set. Negotiating airports, getting around town, choosing hotels and restaurants, selecting souvenirs, filling time between meetings, and working—and indeed playing—with the locals are all covered.To listen to the guide visit:

 (Economist.com/audiovideo/doingbusiness)

AMERICA'S DUMBEST CRIMINALS

Even the police had to smile at this one. It was a case of passing counterfeit money that brought cops in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, to a local supermarket. There they got a look at the bogus bill. Was it a bad likeness of Jefferson on the $20, or maybe of Grant on the $50? Nope. It was a fairly sharp Presidential likeness, actually — of George W. Bush on a $200 bill. On the back of the note, police found an image of the White House, with its South Lawn cluttered with signs reading “We like broccoli” and “USA deserves a tax cut.”

Pretty goofy to think you could get away with that as payment for groceries, right? Well, this is a case of dumb and dumber. The supermarket cashier actually accepted the phony bill, and gave the customer his groceries along with $50 in change. Apprehended 12 days later, the man with the funny money was ordered to pay back the store — in real bills, thank you — and then released.

(Reader´s Digest)

            WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?

Global Warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on Earth. As the Earth is getting hotter, disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more frequent.

Over the last 100 years, the average temperature of the air near the Earth’s surface has risen a little less than 1° Celsius. Does it not seem all that much? It is responsible for the conspicuous increase in storms, floods and raging forest fires we have seen in the last ten years, though, say scientists.

Their data show that an increase of one degree Celsius makes the Earth warmer now than it has been for at least a thousand years. Out of the 20 warmest years on record, 19 have occurred since 1980. The three hottest years ever observed have all occurred in the last ten years.

Earth should be in cool-down-period.

But it is not only about how much the Earth is warming, it is also about how fast it is warming. There have always been natural climate changes – Ice Ages and the warm intermediate times between them – but those evolved over periods of 50,000 to 100,000 years.

A temperature rise as fast as the one we have seen over the last 30 years has never happened before, as far as scientists can ascertain. Moreover, normally the Earth should now be in a cool-down-period, according to natural effects like solar cycles and volcano activity, not in a heating-up phase.

But it is not only about how much the Earth is warming, it is also about how fast it is warming. There have always been natural climate changes – Ice Ages and the warm intermediate times between them – but those evolved over periods of 50,000 to 100,000 years.

A temperature rise as fast as the one we have seen over the last 30 years has never happened before, as far as scientists can ascertain. Moreover, normally the Earth should now be in a cool-down-period, according to natural effects

like solar cycles and volcano activity, not in a heating-up phase..

What is more, climate change won’t be a smooth transition to a warmer world, warns the Tipping Points Report by Allianz and WWF. Twelve regions around the world will be especially affected by abrupt changes, among them the North Pole, the Amazon rainforest, and California..

All these facts lead scientists to infer that the global warming we now experience is not a natural occurrence and that it is not brought on by natural causes. Man is responsible, they say. What did we do? Read more about the man-made causes and impacts of global warming in our next articles..

(http://knowledge.allianz.com)