读趣百科

Every city has old buildings. Every year the governments around the world spend large sums of money restoring them. Some people consider this a huge waste of money and they believe the governments’ budget should go to building new houses and roads, while others insist that the restoration of old buildings in cities is well worth the money.

There are a host of reasons why some urban old buildings should not be restored. To start with, the old buildings are no longer suitable for people to live in, therefore they should be destroyed and give way to new buildings so that people, especially young people in the cities have more living spaces. Secondly, the old buildings can cause inconveniences for the city dwellers. Since there is not a direct route through the old buildings, people sometimes have to go to and off work by making a long detour around them, and in this way much of their time is wasted. Finally, the old buildings may give rise to safety problems. More than 100 people, for example, are killed or injured each year in my city, just because of the collapse of some ancient buildings.

Yet old buildings - at least some of them - are significant historically and culturally, and hence should be restored for that reason. They carry some important messages about the city or even the whole nation. The Summer Palace, for instance, is a perfect reminder of how the imperial family in the Qing Dynasty in feudal China were living and so has great cultural significance. Such old buildings, if well preserved, can become tourist spots and attract thousands of visitors from around the globe.

We all need a memory of our past. Many old buildings do have historical and cultural value which tells us who we were. We need to take good care of these buildings and keep them as long as possible, however much money it may involve, so that they can tell the stories of the city or the nation to our future generations. Of course, the money squandered on those old buildings with little value should be used to solve more practical problems such as housing and traffic.

Crimes can be detestable, while minor offenders and their crimes are from time to time treated with leniency. Thus, some argue that laws should not discriminate, and equally punish minor criminals—an opinion that this essay is against.

To begin with, minors are yet to approach their maturity, and their crimes, albeit serious, should be punished with the consideration of their young age. Internationally speaking, countries might define the start of adulthood differently—18 being the most common—but they commonly believe that there is a distinction between minor crimes and adult crimes. Minors are likely to be given a better chance for rehabilitation when they commit crimes because of their inexperience of life and possibly better life prospects. In that case, milder punishments are inflicted onjuvenile delinquents: lesser sentencing and relatively less harsh correction facilities are introduced in their cases.

Moreover, considering the correction process, minor offenders should not be punished equally as adult criminals. Despite the above-mentioned arguments that are in young offenders’ defense, crimes, especially felonies by minors, deserve heavy punishment to deter crimes and reduce the harm of those crimes to the society. However, sending minors to adult prison might entailunexpectedly negative results. First, minors are naturally closer to more sophisticated criminals and crimes, which aggravate juvenile delinquency. Second, when in adult correctional facilities, young criminals might be threatened by assaults by adult prisoners, mostly sexually,which is nowhere closer to the purpose of rehabilitation.

In sum, law breakers, be they minors or not, should be punished for their wrongdoings, but lesser sentences and special correctional facilities might be more reasonable and helpful.

I think the news media mainly plays two important roles in modern society – providing information and influencing public opinion – and I think its influence is generally positive.

Obviously, the news media provides people with vast amounts of information in various forms. We can access it by listening to the radio, reading newspapers and magazines, watching television and by surfing the Internet. The ability to access news media is important for individuals and organizations because we make many decisions based on the news provided to us. Some of these decisions are mundane. We check the weather forecast to see whether we should take an umbrella to work. Other news, such as that about the business world, could influence whether we invest our savings in certain companies listed on the stock exchange.

The news is often presented to us in certain ways, using specific words to try to control our feelings and thoughts. This can be the main negative influence of the news media. Very often, the news media portrays people in simplistic ways, giving us some facts, but not the whole story. In the USA, some news media tends to support the Republicans whilst others tend towards the Democrats and the portrayal of individuals can reflect this. This is somewhat inevitable, because the editors, journalists and owners of the news media have opinions and biases. So, I think that it would be better if people checked news stories from different sources instead of only using one source.

Despite the fact that the news media can report events incorrectly or with bias, I think that the general influence on society is good. More factual information gives us the chance to make better decisions, both in our personal lives and in our working lives.

In this essay, I shall explain why I think we that should value old age and youth, without suggesting that one is better than the other.

I feel that we should celebrate the fact that so many people make it to old age. In the past, thanks to war, disease and the dangers of childbirth, most people were not so fortunate. Particularly in Western societies, a large (and growing) proportion of the population is past the age of retirement and most of those people are enjoying life. Many have saved enough money to live well and travel around the world or to play golf or to do whatever it is that they enjoy. They value the time they have and want to make the most of it. Simultaneously, societies around the world value the elderly for the experience and knowledge that they have gained over the years.

At the same time, cultures and individuals around the world value youth. Some people value it so much that they are prepared to spend plenty of money on maintaining a youthful look, through the use of make-up and plastic surgery. Youth is often seen as a time to be dynamic and fun, developing new ideas and trying things differently. This can be very useful to an economy. Would China have been able to develop so quickly in recent decades without a large supply of young people ready to take their chances in Shenzhen or Shanghai?

These are the main reasons why I think that it is a mistake to value either old age or youth and not the other. Of course, most people will value one more than the other, possibly depending on their age. However, as a culture - as a society - we should value both.

The extent to which people are influenced by advertisements can be measured in terms of the high sales of popular consumer goods, many of them being unnecessary or completely useless. Mainly through the media, advertisements on products and services are able to penetrate the public mind with half truth and half lying. In many cases, consumers are becoming so greedy that they are not only buying things they really do not need but also spending the money they do not have.

Although advertising gives people a chance as consumers, actually most advertisements tend to cause them to desire for something worthless. Under such circumstances, it is easy to change people's need into greed. So much so, they are constantly encouraged to want things--want this and want that. This human behavior is haunted by the media from all fronts: on radio, on television, and online, not to mention printed circulations such as newspapers and magazines. Obviously, a great number of "impulsive" buyers are persuaded under the illusion that new products or services could make a difference in their lives. Despite all the benefits of the free market economy, the effects of unreliable advertising are particularly negative in that the power of advertising does not reflect the real needs of the society in which products and services are sold.

Worse still, many consumers are convinced to waste money they do not have. Surrounded by advertisements, people are too unwise to perform a balanced act between income and expenditure. Increasingly, what seems to be good for economy begins to backfire because advertising is misleading consumers deeply into commercial debts which they probably could not afford to pay in due time. Thus, instead of improving people's lives, advertising may be considered as a "necessary evil" in modern time. Furthermore, as manufacturing and service companies are competing to have a larger share of the market, it is next to impossible to expect the media to reduce the amount of dishonest advertising. Besides, when it comes to making money, companies and the media are in the same religion.

After all, greed being a human instinct, consumers have only themselves to blame for their foolishness toward advertisements. Since outlawing commercial advertising is out of the question, people should educate themselves to be more prudent in buying and spending behaviors. As for consumers, what better measures can be taken to protect themselves other than self-control?