Your address was forwarded to us by Why Bother Magazine. All of us here think The International Institute Not Doing Much is the best organization in the world. You know how to avoid unnecessary activities! We closely followed the advice in your article. First, we replaced all our telephones with carrier pigeons. Simply removing the jingle of telephones and replacing them with the pleasant sounds of birds has had a remarkable effect on everyone. Besides, birds are cheaper than telephone service. After all, we are a business. We have to think of the bottom line. As a side benefit, the birds also fertilize the lawn outside the new employee sauna.

Next, we sold the computers of, to Stab, Grab, Grit, and Nasty, a firm of lawyers nearby. Our electricity bill went way down. Big savings! The boss is impressed. We have completely embraced paper technology. Now that we all use pencils, doodling is on the increase, and the quality of pencil woman ship is impressive, as you can tell from my handwriting in this letter. By the way, if you can, please send this letter back to us. We can erase and reuse it. Just tie it to Maggie’s leg and she’ll know where to take it.

Now it’s very calm and quiet here. You can notice the difference. No more loud chatter on the telephones! All we hear is the scratching of pencil on paper, the sound of pigeons, and the delivery of inter-office correspondence by paper airplane.

Wonderful! I’ve always wanted to work for an insurance company ever since I was a little girl. Now it’s perfect.

Sincerely yours,

Eleanor Lightly

Spokeswoman and ComPany Hair Stylist

ABC Activity Insurance: Insure against overdoing it

Nowadays, parents worry a lot because their children spend hours and hours in front of the TV screen. Because this doesn’t happen to only one specific family, many experts warn us that there can be some serious effects of children watching violence on television.

Children who become addicted(上瘾的) to TV sit down and turn on the TV as soon as they get home. Although they have lots of homework, they become absorbed in TV programs.

Since they spend tons of time watching TV, they have less time to enjoy real life activities such as playing with friends, playing outdoor sports, or enjoying other kinds of entertainment.

There are too many violent scenes on TV. Some experts say there are 25 acts of violence per hour on TV. In addition, there are many experiments by psychologists which show how TV violence influences children. Finally, people worry that children tend to imitate what they watch on TV and may start to behave more violently.

What should be done? First of all, the government should regulate TV violence. It should also encourage people to invent and develop new technology which can block violent scenes from the programs children watch. For example, with a rating system(分级制度) and the V-chip, unfit scenes of violence and sex can be blocked out. Second, parents should monitor what their children watch. At the same time, they should make their children interested in real life activities. Then when the children start to spend more time playing with friends or reading books, parents can stop their monitoring.

It is a fact that there is more violence on TV today than there was ten years ago. Moreover, violent incidents occur more frequently in real life. It’s time to realize how harmful watching TV violence is, and it’s time to keep our children from watching violence.

Imagine you receive an e-mail that looks something like this: ARE YOU GOING TO CLASS TODAY? How does reading this message make you feel? Was he or she angry or did that person just forget to turn off the ‘Caps Lock’ on the computer? The fact is that this e-mail “sounds” like the writer is shouting because using all capital letters in an e-mail is usually the way that people shout online. Knowing when to and when not to use capital letters is just one example of online etiquette(规矩)often called netiquette.【小题1】 Following are some of her suggestions.

First always remember that you are sending messages to a real person not just to a computer. Don’t type anything that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face. 【小题2】 So make sure your meaning is clear.

Don’t do anything online that you wouldn’t do in real life. Don’t take anything without paying for it unless it's free. Don’t read other people’s e-mail—you wouldn’t you’re your next-door neighbor’s mailbox and open their mail right? And do share your knowledge of the Internet with others.【小题3】

【小题4】 Good writing skills as well as correct grammar and spelling do matter. Send polite well-written e-mail messages to others. If you’re uncertain about how to spell a word or which phrase to use, look it up. There are lots of helpful books and websites.

It’s okay to express your opinions online in forums like chat rooms or message boards for example “MSN” or “QQ” but don’t start arguments with people. 【小题5】 But they are often unfair to other members of the group. Express your ideas but remember that fighting on or offline is just not right.