An environmental group called the Food Commission is unhappy and disappointed because of the sales of bottled water from Japan. The water, it angrily argues in public, has traveled 10,000 “food miles” before it reached Western customers. Transporting water halfway across the world is surely the extremely stupid use of fuel when there is plenty of water in the UK. It is also worrying that we were wasting our fuel by buying prawns from Indonesia (7,000 food miles ) and carrots from South Africa (5,900 food miles).

        Counting the number of miles traveled done by a product is a strange way of trying to tell the true situation of the environmental damage due to industry. Most food is transported around the world on container ships that are extremely energy efficient. It should be noticed that a ton of butter transported 25 miles in a truck to a farmers' market doesn't necessarily use less fuel on its journey than a similar product transported hundreds of miles by sea. Besides, the idea of “food miles” ignores the amount of fuel used in the production. It is possible to cut down your food miles by buying tomatoes grown in Britain rather than those grown in Ghana. The difference is that the British ones will have been raised in heated greenhouse and the Ghanaian ones in the open sun.

       What is the idea of “food miles” does provide, however, is the chance to cut out Third World countries from First World food markets. The number of miles traveled by our food should, as I see it, be regarded as a sign of the success of the global trade system, not a sign of damage to the environment.

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEKEND

Captain Goodfellow

    Do your children enjoy interesting stories, funny games, and exciting dances? Captain Goodfellow will be ready to teach all these things to children of all ages at the City Theatres on Saturday morning at 10:00 . Free.

    Walking Tour of the Town

    Forget your worries on Saturday morning. Take a beautiful walk and learn about local history. Meet at the front entrance of City Hall at 9:30. Wear comfortable shoes!

    Films at the Museum

    Two European films will be shown on Saturday afternoon at the Museum Theatre. See Broken Window at 1:30. The workers will be at 3:45. For further information, call 4987898.

    International Picnic

    Are you tired of eating the same kind of food every day? Come to Central Park on Saturday and enjoy food from all over the world. Delicious and not expensive. Noon to 5:00 p.m.

    Take me out to the Ballgame

    It's October, and tonight is your last chance to see the Redbirds this year. Get your tickets at the gate. It might be cold. Don't forget sweaters and jackets.

    Do you want to hear “The Zoo”?

    “The Zoo”, a popular rock group from Australia, will give their first US concert this year tomorrow night at 8 Rose Hall, City College.

    Your kids are amazing especially compared with everybody else's (who seem to cry all the time). How do you show your love for your kids this holiday season? With toys that are smooth and colorful, interactive and exciting. And with ones that have educational value because you are the boss.

1). FLAX ART HOSPITAL PUZZLE AND PLAY SET

    Here is a toy that doesn't need power and the kids have to put it together themselves. This 50-piece puzzle set that can make your children active is made of soft-edged hardwood and make a complete hospital, with an X ray room. It also includes eight patients, a car and a driver. $ 135; flaxart.com.

2). TINY LOVE ACTIVITY BALL

    Sure, it's cool, but this colorful baby toy also develops problem solving and motor skills. It has a head and legs, a magnetic(磁性的) hand and a tail. Suitable for little ones from 6 to 36 months. $19.95; tinylove.com.

3). ROBOSAPIEN

    This small, remote control robot is really powerful. It performs 67 preprogrammed functions(功能), including throwing, kicking, picking up and dancing. You can even program your own function ——which, sadly, does not include doing windows. $99;  robosapienonline.com.

4). MINI PEDAL（脚踏板的）CAR

    Want a Mini Cooper but can't fit the family inside? Get one for the kids. They can jump into this Mini car, which comes in hot orange with a single adjustable(可调的) seat, and ride away. For ages 3 to 5. $189; miniusa.com (click on "gear up," then "Mini motoring gear").

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, who received Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, is one of the central writers in Latin America, but he began his literary career in Europe.

    Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, but from age one he lived in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where he was brought up by his mother and grandparents after his parents separated. However, Vargas Llosa once said that "I feel very much an Arequipan"．He also spent some time in Piura, northern Peru (1945～1946)．

    Vargas Llosa attended Leoncio Prado Military Academy (1950～1952), and Colegio Nacional San Miguel de Piura (1952), Peru． In 1955 he married Julia Urquidi; they divorced in 1964.From 1955 to 1957 Vargas Llosa studied literature and law at the University of San Marcos, Peru. He then attended post-graduate school at the University of Madrid, Spain, where he received his Ph.D.in 1959.

    In the 1950s, while still a student, Vargas Llosa worked as a journalist for La Industria. His first collection of short stories, LOSJEFES, appeared in 1959."I liked Faulkner but I imitated Hemingway, "he said later. Vargas Llosa moved to Paris because he felt that in Peru he could not earn his living as a serious writer. Although the boom of Latin American fiction in the 1960s opened doors to some authors for commercial success, the great majority of Peruvian writers suffered from the problems of the country's publishing industry. In France Vargas Llosa worked as Spanish teacher, journalist and broadcaster. From the late 1960s Vargas Llosa worked as a visiting professor at many American and European universities. In 1970 Vargas Llosa moved to Barcelona and five years later he settled back in Peru. Most of his novels are set in Peru.

    In addition to the Nobel Prize, Vargas Llosa has received many other honors. Among the most notable are Leopoldo Alas Prize (1959), Peruvian National Prize (1967) and Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1994).

    One evening in February 2007, a student named Paula Ceely brought her car to a stop on a remote road in Wales. She got out to open a metal gate that blocked her path. That's when she heard the whistle sounded by the driver of a train. Her Renault Clio was parked across a railway line. Seconds later, she watched the train drag her car almost a kilometre down the railway tracks.

    Ceely's near miss made the news because she blamed it on her GPS device. She had never driver the route before. It was dark and raining heavily. Ceely was relying on her GPS, but it made no mention of the crossing. "I put my complete trust in the device and it led me right into the path of a speeding train," she told the BBC.

    Who is to blame here? Rick Stevenson, who tells Ceely's story in his book When Machines Fail Us, points the finger at the limitations of technology. We put our faith in digital devices, he says, but our digital helpers are too often not up to the job. They are filled with small problems. And it's not just GPS devices: Stevenson takes us on a tour of digital disasters involving everything from mobile phones to wireless keyboards.

    The problem with his argument in the book is that it's not clear why he only focuses on digital technology, while there may be a number of other possible causes. A map-maker might have left the crossing off a paper map. Maybe we should blame Ceely for not paying attention. Perhaps the railway authorities are at fault for poor signaling system. Or maybe someone has studied the relative dangers and worked out that there really is something specific wrong with the GPS equipment. But Stevenson doesn't say.

    It's a problem that runs through the book. In a section on cars, Stevenson gives an account of the advanced techniques that criminals use to defeat computer-based locking systems for cars. He offers two independent sets of figures on car theft; both show a small rise in some parts of the country. He says that once again not all new locks have proved reliable, Perhaps, but maybe it's also due to the shortage of policemen on the streets. Or changing social circumstances. Or some combination of these factors.

    The game between humans and their smart devices is amusing and complex. It is shaped by economics and psychology and the cultures we live in. Somewhere in the mix of those forces there may be a way for a wiser use of technology.

    If there is such a way, it should involve more than just an awareness of the shortcomings of our machines. After all, we have lived with them for thousands of years. They have probably been fooling us for just a. s long.

Do you know that junk food isn't healthy? Of course you do! Do you eat it anyway? Of course you do! But a new study shows teaching adolescents about the ways food companies fool them into thinking junk food is cool can encourage kids to fight back—by eating healthier.

The pull of junk food can be super-strong. It's designed to be tasty, which makes eating well one of the great health challenges of our time. Everyone from doctors to the government has been trying to handle it. Yet we keep eating junk food.

Professor Christopher Bryan says, "Food companies want you to want junk food." They spend millions of dollars coming up with new ways to promote junk food consumption. They hire scientists to make new junk food almost irresistible. They might do this, for example, by adding more sugar. Rats fed junk food for six weeks will even walk across a floor that gives them electric shocks just to get more of such food.

Food ads often make unhealthy junk food seem healthy by featuring professional athletes, fit-looking pop stars and smiling, active teens. "We thought when the students learned this, it would matter to them," Bryan says. He worked with 8th graders at a Texas school. Half of them got a lesson Bryan created. It focused on the ways junk food is advertised, or marketed. A second group received lessons that focused on health. These lessons informed students junk food is bad, and that foods like apples or carrots are a better choice. The students learned a bad diet can lead to major weight gain, and that being overweight puts people at risk for serious diseases. They also learned how eating well now can keep you healthy when you're older.

After the lessons, the kids in both groups were asked how they felt about junk food. Most didn't have positive feelings about these unhealthy foods.