注意：1. 词数不少于 60.  2. 短文的开头已给出，不计入总词数。

    There was a problem with the parking place for bikes in our school.

    Freedom and Responsibility

    Freedom's challenge in the Digital Age is a serious topic. We are facing today a strange new world and we are all wondering what we are going to do with it.

    Some 2,500 years ago Greece discovered freedom. Before that there was no freedom. There were great civilizations, splendid empires, but no freedom anywhere. Egypt and Babylon were both  tyrannies, one very powerful man ruling over helpless masses.

    In Greece, in Athens (雅典), a little city in a little country, there were no helpless masses. And Athenians willingly obeyed the written laws which they themselves passed, and the unwritten, which must be obeyed if free men live together. They must show each other kindness and pity and the many qualities without which life would be very painful unless one chose to live alone in the desert.The Athenians never thought that a man was free if he could do what he wanted. A man was free if he was self-controlled. To make yourself obey what you approved was freedom. They were saved from looking at their lives as their own private affair. Each one felt responsible for the welfare of Athens, not because it was forced on him from the outside, but because the city was his pride and his safety. The essential belief of the first free government in the world was liberty for all men who could control themselves and would take responsibility for the state.

    But discovering freedom is not like discovering computers. It cannot be discovered once for all. If people do not prize it, and work for it, it will go. Constant watch is its price. Athens changed. It was a change that took place without being noticed though it was of the extreme importance, a spiritual change which affected the whole state. It had been the Athenian' s pride and joy to give to their city. That they could get material benefits from her never entered their minds. There had to be a complete change of attitude before they could look at the city as an employer who paid her citizens for doing her work. Now instead of men giving to the state, the state was to give to them. What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable life for them; and with this as the primary object, ideas of freedom and self-reliance and responsibility were neglected to the point of disappearing. Athens was more and more looked on as a cooperative business possessed of great wealth in which all citizens had a right to share.

    Athens reached the point when the freedom she really wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result. If men insisted on being free from the burden of self-dependence and responsibility for the common good, they would cease to be free. Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom. It is to be had on no other terms. Athens, the Athens of Ancient Greece, refused responsibility; she reached the end of freedom and was never to have it again.

    But, “the excellent becomes the permanent”, Aristotle said. Athens lost freedom forever, but freedom was not lost forever for the world. A great American, James Madison, referred to: “The capacity (能力) of mankind for self-government.” No doubt he had not an idea that he was speaking Greek. Athens was not in the farthest background of his mind, but once man has a great and good idea, it is never completely lost. The Digital Age cannot destroy it. Somehow in this or that man's thought such an idea lives though unconsidered by the world of action. One can never be sure that it is not on the point of breaking out into action only sure that it will do so sometime.

    For Western designers, China and its rich culture have long been an inspiration for Western creative.

    "It's no secret that China has always been a source(来源)of inspiration for designers," says Amanda Hill, chief creative officer at A+E Networks, a global media company and home to some of the biggest fashion(时尚)shows.

    Earlier this year, the China Through A Looking Glass exhibition in New York exhibited 140 pieces of China-inspired fashionable clothing alongside Chinese works of art, with the aim of exploring the influence of Chinese aesthetics(美学)on Western fashion and how China has fueled the fashionable imagination for centuries. The exhibition had record attendance, showing that there is huge interest in Chinese influences.

    "China is impossible to overlook," says Hill. "Chinese models are the faces of beauty and fashion campaigns that sell dreams to women all over the world, which means Chinese women are not just consumers of fashion — they are central to its movement. "Of course, only are today's top Western designers being influenced by China-some of the best designers of contemporary fashion are themselves Chinese." Vera Wang, Alexander Wang, Jason Wu are taking on Galiano, Albaz, Marc Jacobs-and beating them hands down in design and sales," adds Hil.

    For Hill, it is impossible not to talk about China as the leading player when discussing fashion. "The most famous designers are Chinese, so are the models, and so are the consumers," she says. "China is no longer just another market; in many senses it has become the market. If you talk about fashion today, you are talking about China-its influences, its direction, its breathtaking clothes, and how young designers and models are finally acknowledging that in many ways."