Like many people acting on the desire to eat healthy and local, Acropolis resident Eduardo Jimenez decided to plant a garden in his backyard. He ploughed the soil, he planted the seeds, and he even set up a fence to keep out the deer. Eduardo did everything right. Or so it seems. However, when {#blank#}1{#/blank#} time has come, he has not one tomato, bean, or leaf of lettuce to show for his hard work. How did this happen? The answer comes in the form of a small, brown, particularly smelly insect: the stink bug.

    Unlike their picky cousins, stink bugs feed on some 300 species of plants, including figs, blueberries, corn, and kiwi fruits as well as soybeans, peas, and weeds. Although they do little damage to the plant itself, they make the fruits and vegetables {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. For this reason, stink bugs pose the most serious threat to the big agriculturalists and macro farm operators. Macro farmers have more {#blank#}3{#/blank#} in their produce, and therefore have more to lose. While hobbyists like Eduardo are left to face the disappointment of an unsuccessful garden, macro farmers are forced to live with the loss of entire tracts of cash crops—a fact that has left many {#blank#}4{#/blank#} able to clothe their children or put food on the table.

    Last season alone, several New Jersey pepper farmers saw 75% of their crops damaged. Pennsylvania lost half of its peach population, and, according to the US Apple Association, apple farmers in the mid-Atlantic states lost $37 million. This year could be worse. As a result of this {#blank#}5{#/blank#} in the supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, shoppers have seen {#blank#}6{#/blank#}—sometimes quite dramatic—in prices at the grocery store. Prices of apples in Maryland are up 8%. In the north-Atlantic states, prices for peppers shot up an astonishing 14%. Not only are these items becoming more expensive, but they are also getting harder to find. Last week, Marge Jenkins of Athens, Georgia reported having to check three different stores before encountering a decent batch of peas. And this, she assures us, is a regular {#blank#}7{#/blank#}. Accidentally brought from Asia, the stink bug has no natural {#blank#}8{#/blank#} in America, and thus its population is rising sharply. Reported sightings of stink bugs are becoming increasingly numerous, as the dried, brown, trapezoidal(不规则四边形) shells of the dead bugs are everywhere in some areas. This has farmers and scientists alike {#blank#}9{#/blank#} their heads in search of a remedy. Hope, they believe, may lie with an Asian parasitic wasp(黄蜂), which helpfully lays its eggs inside stink bug eggs.

    The larvae(幼虫) of the wasp consume the stink bug from the inside. But the {#blank#}10{#/blank#} of such a solution is still several years away, as scientists must first determine if it is safe for the wasp to be introduced into America. Until then, some farmers are resorting to homemade traps. Others have even contemplated the use of peacocks and praying mantises, which, they imagine, will gulp down the little stinkers.

    The Historical Change of Reader's Digest

    During World War I, Mr. DeWitt Wallace was wounded in a battle. During his recovery in the hospital, he read a lot of magazines and {#blank#}1{#/blank#} a lot of interesting information. At the same time, he also found that few people had time to read so many magazines that he realized the idea of excerpting (摘录) these articles and publishing them.

    He was {#blank#}2{#/blank#} to publish a pocket magazine they called Reader's Digest with his wife Lila Acheson. They opened an office downstairs in an illegal hotel in Greenwich Village, New York, and spent only $5,000 in capital and began {#blank#}3{#/blank#} subscribers. After a period of hard work, the first volume was {#blank#}4{#/blank#} published on February 5, 1922. Its purpose is to inform the readers in daily life and give the readers entertainment, encouragement and guidance. The first article, {#blank#}5{#/blank#} How to Stay Young Mentally, was one and a half pages long.

    In 1920, he put {#blank#}6{#/blank#} selected articles into Reader's Digest samples and displayed them to major publishers in the United States. He hoped that someone would be willing to publish them, but they were all {#blank#}7{#/blank#}. Mr. Wallace did not give up and decided to publish it himself. He worked at home with his wife, and finally published the first issue of Reader's Digest in February 1922. The first was printed in 5,000 copies, {#blank#}8{#/blank#} at 25 cents, and sent to 1,500 payment subscribers by mail. By 1935, the circulation of Reader's Digest had reached one million copies.

    The Chinese {#blank#}9{#/blank#} of Reader's Digest was first published in March 1965. The first editor-in-chief was Lin Taiyi, the daughter of Mr. Lin Yutang, master of literature. In November 2004, Reader's Digest and Shanghai Press and Publication Bureau announced the {#blank#}10{#/blank#} of a long-term publishing cooperation.

Celebrity (名人) has become one of the most important representatives of popular culture. Fans used to be crazy about a specific film, but now the public tends to base its consumption on the interest of celebrity {#blank#}1{#/blank#} to any given product. Besides, fashion magazines have almost abandoned the {#blank#}2{#/blank#} of putting models on the cover because they don't sell nearly as well as famous faces. As a result, celebrities have realized their unbelievably powerful market {#blank#}3{#/blank#}, moving from advertising for others' products to developing their own.

Celebrity clothing lines aren't a completely new phenomenon, but in the past, they were typically aimed at the ordinary consumers, and limited to a few TV actresses. Today they're started by first-class stars whose products enjoy {#blank#}4{#/blank#}fame with some world top brands. The most successful start-ups have been those by celebrities with specific personal style. As celebrities become more and more experienced at the market, they try to {#blank#}5{#/blank#}their production scale rapidly, covering almost all the products of daily life.

However, for every success story, there's a related warning tale of a celebrity who overvalued his consumer {#blank#}6{#/blank#}. No matter how famous the product's origin is, if it fails to impress consumers with its own qualities, it begins to resemble an exercise in self-promotional marketing. And once the {#blank#}7{#/blank#}attention dies down, consumer interest might fade, loyalty returning to tried-and-true labels.

Today, celebrities face even more severe embarrassment. The pop-cultural circle might be bigger than ever, but its rate of turnover has speeded up as well. Each misstep is likely to {#blank#}8{#/blank#}to reduce a celebrity's shelf life, and the same newspaper or magazine that once brought him fame has no problem picking him to pieces when the opportunity appears. Still, the ego's (自我的) potential for expansion is {#blank#}9{#/blank#}. Having already achieved great wealth and public {#blank#}10{#/blank#}, many celebrities see fashion as the next frontier to be conquered. As the saying goes, success and failure always go hand in hand. Their success as designers might last only a short time, but fashion—like celebrity—has always been temporary.