MAN

A reader in Florida, apparently bruised by some personal experience, writes in to complain, “If I steal a nickel’s worth of merchandise, I am a thief and punished; but if I steal the love of another’s wife, I am free.”
This is a prevalent misconception in many people’s minds—that love, like merchandise, can be “stolen”. Numerous states, in fact, have enacted laws allowing damages for “alienation of affections”
But love is not a commodity; the real thing cannot be bought, sold, traded or stolen. It is an act of the will, a turning of the emotions, a change in the climate of the personality.
　 When a husband or wife is “stolen” by another person, that husband or wife was already ripe for the stealing, was already predisposed toward a new partner. The “love bandit” was only taking what was waiting to be taken, what wanted to be taken.
We tend to treat persons like goods. We even speak of the children “belonging” to their parents. But nobody “belongs” to anyone else. Each person belongs to himself, and to God. Children are entrusted to their parents, and if their parents do not treat them properly, the state has a right to remove them from their parents’ trusteeship.
Most of us, when young, had the experience of a sweetheart being taken from us by somebody more attractive and more appealing. At the time, we may have resented this intruder—but as we grew older, we recognized that the sweetheart had never been ours to begin with. It was not the intruder that “caused” the break, but the lack of a real relationship.
　　 On the surface, many marriages seem to break up because of a “third party”. This is, however, a psychological illusion. The other woman or the other man merely serves as a pretext for dissolving or a marriage that had already lost its essential integrity.
　　 Nothing is more futile and more self-defeating than the bitterness of spurned love, the vengeful feeling that someone else has “come between” oneself and a beloved. This is always a distortion of reality, for people are not the captives or victims of others—they are free agents, working out their own destinies for good or for ill.
　　 But the rejected lover or mate cannot afford to believe that his beloved has freely turned away from him— and so he ascribes sinister or magical properties to the interloper. He calls him a hypnotist or a thief or a home-breaker. In the vast majority of cases, however, when a home is broken, the breaking has begun long before any “third party” has appeared on the scene.

Archaeology is a source of history, not just a humble auxiliary discipline.Archaeological data are historical documents in their own right, not mere illustrations to written texts.
Just as much as any other historian, an archaeologist studies and tries to reconstitute the process that has created the human world in which we live — and us ourselves in so far as we are each creatures of our age and social environment. Archaeological data are all changes in the material world resulting from human action or, more succinctly, the fossilized results of
human behavior. The sum total of these constitutes what may be called the archaeological record. This record exhibits certain peculiarities and deficiencies the consequences of which produce a rather superficial contrast between archaeological history and the more familiar kind based upon written records.
Not all human behavior fossilizes. The words I utter and you hear as vibrations in the air are certainly human changes in the material world and may be of great historical significance. Yet they leave no sort of trace in the archaeological records unless they are captured by a dictaphone or written down by a clerk. The movement of troops on the battlefield may “change the course of history,” but this is equally ephemeral from the archaeologist’s standpoint. What is perhaps worse, most organic materials are perishable. Everything made of wood, hide, wool, linen, grass, hair, and similar materials will decay and vanish in dust in a few years or centuries, save under very exceptional conditions. In a relatively brief period the archaeological record is reduced to mere scraps of stone, bone, glass, metal, and earthenware. Still modern archaeology, by applying appropriate techniques and comparative methods, aided by a few lucky finds from peat-bogs, deserts, and frozen soils, is able to fill up a good deal of the gap.

Believe it or not, travelling is hard work. It’s not just about tourism, relaxation and leisure. It’s a whole adventure per se and moreover it’s work.
Don’t take my word for it, look it up in the Merriam Webster dictionary. The verb Travel comes from the French Travailler which itself comes from the latin tripaliare “to torture”.
Travelling musn’t have been such a pleasant experience back then. Of course they didn’t enjoy the comfort we take for granted nowadays. The roads were unsafe, rides in XIXth c. stagecoaches not so smooth (Michelin wasn’t round yet), and for the poorer, walking was a very slow alternative.
In the last decade, the web has brought us a new dimension in terms of travelling. Brand new means of visiting far away places. The Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC is only a few clicks whereas the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam can be e-toured right here. Limits have been pushed off.
And of course, blogs are the door to “private” museums, our lives, our experiences, our tastes, or distastes. A blend of colors, a whirl of feelings. And all this right here at blog.com…

All of your comments – good and bad – gave me yet another uncontrollable itch down the right arm all the way to the very tip of my fingers to give you the latest secrets on how to tame Blog.com’s new trendy sidebar.
By sidebar, don’t read sidekick! The sidebar can be very useful in reflecting your ideas, providing quick and easy links, or boasting the latest book you devoured from cover to cover… You can also display your profile in the sidebar hence showing off your holiday tan you got while basking in the warm Portuguese sun on a sandy Atlantic beach… Aaah holidays!
Back to business: so how can I create a nice, fresh, crisp sidebar in just a few clicks? Where are all the controls hiding? Reader, behold, you’re about to be told the greatest secret since Dan Brown published his world-renowned novel, the Da Vinci Code…
A sidebar being a blog element, you will find its management interface in the blog area. Click on the manage link of your blog. This will take you to a new interface with two different parts: the tabs in the upper part of the page and information about your blog in the lower part of the page. Look for the sidebar tab (see second image below) and click on it.

Well, it’s that time of the year again; witches, ghosts, wizards and skeletons are supposed to come out in full force. Yes, Halloween – 31st October, the spookiest day of the year is almost here.
There are so many things we can do to enjoy this supernatural day – sweets, fancy dress and of course watching scary films.
It’s the perfect time for family and friends to watch horror films on the TV in the dark and maybe seek refuge behind the sofa!
We’re spoilt for choice; there are literally thousands of films to choose from. One of the most famous is 1970s release Carrie which may fit the bill perfectly. It’s a tale of a girl being bullied at school by young women who live to regret it.
If it’s goriness you want, then The Night of the Living Dead and Evil Dead will provide more zombie slaying and blood splattering than one person can possibly manage.
For Hitchcock fans out there, Halloween is the perfect time to watch two of his best-known movies from the 1960s, Psycho and The Birds. Both have aged incredibly well and still can keep the viewers on the edge of their seats with their spine-chilling effects.
However, not everyone wants to be frightened on Halloween night. Monsters Inc. is an animation film, set in a land where monsters exist and the quirky characters are sure to bring a smile to the little ones in the family.
Meanwhile, if you want to stay up all night, film series such as The Saw, Nightmare on Elm Street and maybe Harry Potter are sure to keep you glued to the box for hours.
So turn off the lights, sit back and enjoy the movies that you have chosen, whether it is revolting, nauseating or spooky.
But remember, don’t have nightmares!

Well, it’s that time of the year again; witches, ghosts, wizards and skeletons are supposed to come out in full force. Yes, Halloween – 31st October, the spookiest day of the year is almost here.
There are so many things we can do to enjoy this supernatural day – sweets, fancy dress and of course watching scary films.
It’s the perfect time for family and friends to watch horror films on the TV in the dark and maybe seek refuge behind the sofa!
We’re spoilt for choice; there are literally thousands of films to choose from. One of the most famous is 1970s release Carrie which may fit the bill perfectly. It’s a tale of a girl being bullied at school by young women who live to regret it.
If it’s goriness you want, then The Night of the Living Dead and Evil Dead will provide more zombie slaying and blood splattering than one person can possibly manage.
For Hitchcock fans out there, Halloween is the perfect time to watch two of his best-known movies from the 1960s, Psycho and The Birds. Both have aged incredibly well and still can keep the viewers on the edge of their seats with their spine-chilling effects.
However, not everyone wants to be frightened on Halloween night. Monsters Inc. is an animation film, set in a land where monsters exist and the quirky characters are sure to bring a smile to the little ones in the family.
Meanwhile, if you want to stay up all night, film series such as The Saw, Nightmare on Elm Street and maybe Harry Potter are sure to keep you glued to the box for hours.
So turn off the lights, sit back and enjoy the movies that you have chosen, whether it is revolting, nauseating or spooky.
But remember, don’t have nightmares!

2008 was a bumper year for videogame sales in the UK, with British consumers forking out more than £4bn (40bn yuan) on games and consoles.
Nintendo dominated the UK market, outstripping their competitors by creating a new market for their family-based gaming systems. Existing game franchises also performed well with titles such as GTA IV and Halo 3 smashing sales records on the days of their release.
So what does 2009 hold for the games industry?
Some of the most influential people in videogame production spoke to the BBC to give their predictions of where gaming might be heading over the next twelve months.
Will Wright, the creator of The Sims and Spore, predicts a merging of game worlds with reality. He can foresee a “mobile game that interacts with a GPS (global positioning system) so that where you physically play the game in the real world will have a direct effect on the game you are playing”.
Paul Barnett, the creative director on Warhammer Online, said the industry would struggle to find a coherent identity, predicting “a continuing fight between games defining themselves as ‘art’, ‘design’ and ‘entertainment’”.
Some commentators believe that games played communally online by large numbers of people will become more like social-networking than game-playing.
Peter Ryan, the creator of the website which supports the Guitar Hero series of games, says, in the future, the online “community will be as critical to the overall experience of a game as the game itself”.
So what do you think? What are your predictions for the future of videogames this year? If you would like to share your ideas with us, email us at chinaelt@bbc.co.uk. The best ideas could be published on the bbcchina.com website.

2008 is now finally in the past as millions of Chinese people around the world welcomed the Chinese New Year on Monday 26 January.
As we waved goodbye to the Year of the Rat, the Year of the Ox was greeted in traditional style with firecrackers, parties and feasts.
As the Chinese word for Ox is pronounced ‘Niu’ which sounds similar to ‘new’ in English, but has the meaning of being ‘bullish’, this pun is interpreted as an auspicious start to the year.
According to Chinese astrology, people born in the Year of the Ox are patient, hardworking and can inspire confidence in others. However, they can be fierce and remarkably stubborn at times.
Traditionally in London, the Chinese New Year celebration is held on the first Sunday after New Year’s Day. This year, the mayor of London has promised spectators a rich mixture of live performances, a colourful parade and culinary delights at the famous landmark Trafalgar Square.
Further up in Derry, in Northern Ireland, the celebration arrived early. Locals were treated to calligraphy demonstrations, authentic Chinese tea tasting and a Chinese banquet. The mayor of Derry, Gerard Diver, thought the events were extremely important, not just for the Chinese community, but to everyone in Derry.
“We live on an island, and I sometimes think that we’re perhaps not as exposed to different cultures or to different ways of doing things as we should be. This is a valuable opportunity to gain an insight into Chinese culture and traditions, and it’s also an important sign of progress,” said Mr Diver.
The global financial crisis has, however, affected celebrations elsewhere in the country. Coventry Community Chinese Association was forced to cancel its plans for the New Year due to lack of funding. Similarly in the south west part of the country, decisions were made to scale down the celebration after a number of sponsors were forced to cut back on financial support.
Despite the setbacks, people are determined to welcome the Niu Year in style and hope the Year of the Ox will bring prosperity through fortitude and hard work.

One of Britain’s most popular reality TV programmes has returned to our screens for a fifth series. The Apprentice sees 16 ambitious individuals competing for a job with electronics tycoon Sir Alan Sugar.
With endless talk of credit-crunches, redundancies and cut-backs, it may come as no surprise that thousands of plucky hopefuls applied for the show. The chosen 16 will compete in a series of business tasks and do their best to escape elimination. Not one of them wants to hear the fateful words: you’re fired.
It should also be noted that this year’s budding apprentices are not going to be allowed to forget the grim economic climate quite so easily. At the launch of this year’s TV show, Sir Alan announced that some episodes have been “specifically made towards recognition of what difficult times we are in”.
The tasks will as usual be gruelling tests of business acumen, team-working and leadership skill. They will also make for some hilarious viewing. British viewers will be shaking their heads in disbelief at the crazy decisions of the wannabe apprentices.
But perhaps the most entertaining feature of the show will be watching the hopefuls squirm and squabble in the boardroom. It is here they will have to explain just why they have failed each task so badly.
What drives people to take part in the show is difficult to say. Some are clearly motivated by the promise of a six-figure salary and some claim they want the experience of working with a successful businessman such as Sir Alan. One thing is for sure, the contestants will all gain some level of celebrity. The show is a regular ratings winner.
To date, there has been one big winner and that is the show’s creator, Mark Burnett. Originating in the US, The Apprentice’s winning format has been copied all over the world and with the hype surrounding this latest series, it looks as though the show will have success for many years to come.

In the UK, a country known for its bad weather and lack of sunshine, there appears to be an ever increasing number of very tanned young people.
So just how are they achieving their golden tans? Some are opting for the sun-free option and are getting their tan from a bottle. However, it appears that others are turning to tanning salons, of which there are thousands in the UK.
While in China young people often prefer to remain fair, in the UK there seems to be a growing desire for tanned skin. So why do the British prefer to be bronzed? Often, they are trying to emulate their favourite celebrities, footballers, or footballers’ wives. Research from the British Sunbed Association suggests that many people believe a tan makes them feel and look healthier.
This is a belief that is most definitely not shared by Cancer Research UK. They firmly state that being tanned is not a sign of health. In fact, they are strongly against young people using sunbeds. On their website, they state that people who use sunbeds before the age of 35 have a higher risk of melanoma – the most dangerous type of skin cancer.
The dangers of tanning did not appear to concern ten-year-old Kelly Thompson who hit headlines in April after receiving severe burns from spending 16 minutes on a sunbed.
Kelly’s mother was horrified that her daughter had been allowed to use the sunbeds and that the tanning salon was unmanned. She noted that: “There was no one to give advice on using these potentially dangerous machines.”
Whether the British government has been taking heed of such recent tanning tragedies is not clear. What is clear however is that self-regulation in the sunbed industry looks unlikely to continue.
Just after Kelly’s story was reported in the news, the government issued a statement advising that people under 18 should not use sunbeds and that all salons should be supervised by trained staff.