It has been a hard year for the farmers in Michigan and more attention needs to be paid to their emotional well-being, according to a report written by Jim Zook, director of the Michigan Corn Growers Association.

“Nobody has seen a year that has dealt with so many challenges that we have seen with the weather, the markets, the trade and the politics. All of them together have become a storm,” said Zook.

The farmers have been struggling this year because of volatile (易变的) weather and markets. According to Zook, some corn growers will not be able to go on for another year. He said the Michigan Corn Growers Association was putting together programs to provide emotional support for the farmers. “The biggest thing is that we just want to make sure that the farmers in Michigan will work together through this difficult time,” said Zook.

Zook said planting was delayed in the spring because of the cold and wet weather. “We didn’t get as many acres (英亩) planted as what we had hoped,” said Zook. “And so there were a number of acres that kept idle this year.” Zook said he was hopeful that the snow would melt. If it did, he said the farmers would still be able to harvest the corn. But he said if the snow melted, they then would need low temperatures to freeze the ground so the ground could support the weight of heavy harvesting equipment for the corn.

“The challenge will appear in soybean (大豆) harvest because they are lower to the ground,” said Zook. “And if that snow is up on the bean, they won’t be able to get them.”

In general people who smoke cigarettes weigh less than people who do not smoke. Some experts say this is because nicotine in cigarettes helps make the body burn food energy more quickly. Scientists said their study showed that people who stop smoking generally return to the weight of people who never smoked.

In the new report, government researchers examined two health studies done in the early 1970s and 1980s. The nationwide studies involved 9,000 people. The researchers found that in general people who stop smoking gain 2-3 kilograms in the next 5 years. Also about one in ten people who stop smoking will gain 13 kilograms or more.

The study found that blacks are much more likely than whites to gain weight after they stop smoking. Also people who stop smoking continue to gain weight at a fast rate than smokers for at least seven years after they stop.

In a separate report, the New England Journal of Medicine said the likelihood of weight gain is not a good reason to continue smoking. It said cigarette smoking has been linked to lung cancer, heart attacks and other health problems. Studies have shown that cigarette smoking kills 400,000 Americans a year. Scientists said these health dangers are far greater than the problems caused by a few extra kilograms of weight.

German artist HA Schult is an unusual artist who uses trash to make sculptures (雕塑). “We are living in a time of garbage,” says Schult “I created a thousand sculptures of garbage. They are a mirror of ourselves. ” Here, Schult was talking about his 1,000 trash sculptures in the form of humans.

“They are social sculptures,” he explained. “They are not only the sculptures to spread the idea that we live in a time of garbage.” So far, Schult’s social sculptures have been on the show in Paris, in Moscow’s Red Square, on the Great Wall of China, and in the desert next to the Great Pyramid of Giza near Cairo.

HA Schult’s work is unforgettable. Although his work has had a big influence on the art world, Schult remains modest about his creation, “Artists have to learn every time. We are not important. All that counts is the time in which we are living.”

Trash art has been around for years. But it seems that only the popular artists are regarded as true artists when working with trash. Why can’t ordinary people be considered artists when they use the same things and change them into some form of personal art? Maybe it’s because we all have our own presumption (设想) of what art is and isn’t or whom artists are or should be.

You can be artist like Schult if you try. Look at used metal cans. What might be done with them? Imagine them in any number of new uses, or imagine them simply as an art form. What about boxes or clothing. Boxes can usually serve as new storage containers and houses for pets. And clothing? Imagine taking old clothes and turning them into hats or bags.