World's Wonderful Libraries

    How cool can libraries be in an era of iPads and Kindles Morethan you think. Only if you know where to go.

                                                                                         Central Library

    The Central Library in Seattle,United States is modern and sophisticated. The building is an impressive work of art, which has tourists from around the world paying visits and taking tours. The library offers free self-guided cell phone tours, along with group tours.

    The library holds various art exhibitions, book signings andother events throughout the year.

    Open: Monday-Thursday 10 a.m-8 p.m, Friday-Saturday 10 a.m-6p.m, Sunday noon-6 p.m

                                                                                      Trinity College Library

    The Trinity College Library in Dublin is the oldest library in Ireland, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I.

    Not only is the exterior impressive, it boasts the largest single chamber library in the world, also known as the Long Room, which contains more than 200,000 of the library's oldest books.

    Various exhibitions and tour are available; admission 9(US 12)

    Open: Monday-Wednesday 9:30 a.m -5 p.m, Tuesday 9:30 a.m -9 p.m,Saturday 9:30 a.m -1 p.m, Sunday closed.

                                                                                    Bibliotheca Alexamdrina

    The Bibliotheca Alexamdrina is the revival(复兴) of theancient Royal Library of Alexandria, which was the largest and most influential library in the Greek world. It was built by Alexander the Great some 2, 300years ago.

    The new library was reborn in 2002 on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea after 10 years of designing, planning and construction.

Along with the standard libraries, there are four museumscovering science, Arabic Calligraphy, the history of printing and the Greekart.

    Open: Saturday-Thursday 9 a.m- 4 p.m.

                                                                                       Stuttgart City Library

    The Stuttgart City Library is controversial. Some say it's innovative, while others say it doesn't match its environment.

     Nevertheless, the library is one of the most interesting buildings in Germany. The design of the cubic facility was influenced by the ancient Pantheon in Rome. It serves as a multi-story meeting space that draws natural sunlight through the roof.

    Open: Monday-Saturday 9 a.m--9 p.m

    I live in the land of Disney, Hollywood. You may think people in such an attractive and exciting, fun-filled place are happier than others. If so, you have some mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.

    Many intelligent people still consider happiness equal to fun. The truth is that fun and happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act. Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper, more lasting emotion.

    Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends.

    I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with fun. These rich, beautiful people have constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that brings “happiness”. But in memoir after memoir, famous people expose the unhappiness hidden beneath all their fun — depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken marriages, troubled children and extreme loneliness.

    Ask an unmarried man why he refuses to get married even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he's honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment. For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features.

    Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out whenever they want and sleep as late as they want. Couples with babies are lucky to get a whole night's sleep or a three-day vacation. I don't know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children.

    The way people stick to the belief that a fun-filled, pain-free life equals happiness actually reduces their chances of ever achieving real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equal to happiness, then pain must be equal to unhappiness. As a result, they fear the pain unavoidably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment and self-improvement.

    But, in fact, the opposite is true. More times than not, things that lead to happiness involve some pain. The very efforts are the source of true happiness. Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations we can ever come to.

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C

    As cultural symbols go, the American car is quite young. The Model T Ford was built at the Piquette Plant in Michigan a century ago, with the first rolling off the assembly line（装配线） on September 27, 1908. Only eleven cars were produced the next month. But eventually Henry Ford would build fifteen million of them.

    Modern America was born on the road, behind a wheel. The car shaped some of the most lasting aspects of American culture: the roadside diner, the billboard, the motel, even the hamburger. For most of the last century, the car represented what it meant to be American—going forward at high speed to find new worlds. The road novel, the road movie, these are the most typical American ideas, born of abundant petrol, cheap cars and a never-ending interstate highway system, the largest public works project in history.

    In 1928 Herbert Hoover imagined an America with "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." Since then, this society has moved onward, never looking back, as the car transformed America from a farm-based society into an industrial power.

    The cars that drove the American Dream have helped to create a global ecological disaster. In America the demand for oil has grown by 22 percent since 1990.

    The problems of excessive（过度的）energy consumption, climate change and population growth have been described in a book by the American writer Thomas L. Friedman. He fears the worst, but hopes for the best.

    Friedman points out that the green economy（经济）is a chance to keep American strength. "The ability to design, build and export green technologies for producing clean water, clean air and healthy and abundant food is going to be the currency of power in the new century."

    If 62 is the number in red on the top of your math test, for most of us, it's a total disaster. Your entire week is ruined, and 62 is what races through your head for the rest of the day. If 9 is the number of likes on that cute photo you posted the other day, many will feel rather disappointed.

    Our lives have become a constant system of ranks, assessments, and numbers. The days of passing judgment on others based on personality are gone, and now we judge based on how good a person's numbers are. We compare ourselves to the numbers of others, such as how low another person's weight is how high their paycheck. Self-worth is no longer based on quality of character, but quantity of numbers.

    In today's social media consumed society, it has never been easier for people to broadcast their numbers to the world. A simple click of a button can take you to a page where you can observe the number of friends or followers a person has. Teenagers have taken on this mentality that if you don't have a certain number of followers, then you aren't "cool". Many feel they are not important if very few people are witnessing their status updates. This state of mind is harmful and not at all accurate. Twitter and Facebook can let the world witness your updates, but they will never let anyone see who you really are. In the end, self-worth should be based on what you think of yourself, not what the world thinks of you.

    So next time you receive a failing grade or you lose a follower, remember that these things cannot and should not define (定义) you. You are not your numbers. You are a person-a3-D living and breathing person with ideas and creativity and love that the rigidity of numbers cannot represent. You are the things you love and the things you laugh at and the way you treat others.

    Everybody hates rats. But in the earthquake capitals of the world—Japan, Los Angeles, Turkey—rats will soon be man's new best friends.

    What happens after an earthquake? We send in rescue dogs. Why? Because they can smell people. Dogs save lives. They help rescuers to find living people. But dogs are big and they can't get into small spaces. So now a new research project is using a smaller animal to save lives: the rat.

    How does it work? First, the rat is trained to smell people. When this happens, the rat's brain gives a signal (信号). This is sent to a small radio on its back, and then the rescuers follow the radio signals. When the rat's brain activity jumps, the rescuers know that someone is alive. The rat has smelled that person.

    Although there are already robots which can do this job, rats are better. Christian Linster at Cornell University, New York, says, "Robots' noses don't work well when there are other smells around. Rats are good at that." Rats can also see in the dark. They are cheaper and quicker to train than dogs, and unlike robots, they don't need electricity!

    The "rat project" is not finished, but Julie Ryan of International Rescue Corps in Scotland says, "It would be fantastic. A rat could get into spaces we couldn't get to, and a rat would get out if it wasn't safe." Perhaps for the first time in history, people will be happy to see a rat in a building (but only after an earthquake, of course).

Is forgiveness against our human nature? To answer our question, we need to ask a further question: What is the essence of our humanity? For the sake of simplicity, people consider two distinctly different views of humanity. The first view involves dominance and power. In an early paper on the psychology of forgiveness, Droll （1984） made the interesting claim that humans' essential nature is more aggressive than forgiving allows. Those who forgive are against their basic nature, much to their harm. In his opinion, forgivers are compromising their well-being as they offer mercy to others, who might then take advantage of them. 

The second view involves the theme of cooperation, mutual respect, and even love as the basis of who we are as humans. Researchers find that to fully grow as human beings, we need both to receive love from and offer love to others. Without love, our connections with a wide range of individuals in our lives can fall apart. Even common sense strongly suggests that the will to power over others does not make for harmonious interactions. For example, how well has slavery （奴隶制） worked as a mode of social harmony?

From this second viewpoint of who we are as humans, forgiveness plays a key role in the biological and psychological integrity of both individuals and communities because one of the outcomes of forgiveness, shown through scientific studies, is the decreasing of hatred and the restoration of harmony. Forgiveness can break the cycle of anger. At least to the extent the people from whom you are estranged （不和的） 'accept your love and forgiveness and are prepared to make the required adjustments. Forgiveness can heal relationships and reconnect people. 

As an important note, when we take a Classical philosophical perspective, that of Aristotle, we see the distinction between potentiality and actuality. We are not necessarily born with the capacity to forgive, but instead with the potential to learn about it and to grow in our ability to forgive. The actuality of forgiving, its actual appropriation in conflict situations, develops with practice.