What is life?

A journey that starts with an innocent cry,
A path that makes us feel pain & joy,

A beautiful garden or a cell of fire,
We make the choice dat where we are,

When we are happy it feels like paradise,
N when we are sad its hell in disguise,

Friendship is the pleasant river dat flows,
A fruitful tree that day by day grows,

Enjoy your life making it safe n sound,
Utilize each moment as they very much count.

Love's Witness

Slight unpremeditated Words are borne
　By every common Wind into the Air;
Carelessly utter'd, die as soon as born，
　And in one instant give both Hope and Fear：
Breathing all Contraries with the same Wind
According to the Caprice of the Mind.
But Billetdoux are constant Witnesses，
　Substantial Records to Eternity;
Just Evidences，who the Truth confess,
On which the Lover safely may rely；
They're serious Thoughts，digested and resolv'd；
And last，when Words are into Clouds devolv'd.

The Development of Cities

Mass transportation revised the social and economic fabric of the American city in three fundamental ways. It catalyzed physical expansion, it sorted out people and land uses, and it accelerated the inherent instability of urban life. By opening vast areas of unoccupied land for residential expansion, the omnibuses, horse railways, commuter trains, and electric trolleys pulled settled regions outward two to four times more distant form city centers than they were in the premodern era. In 1850, for example, the borders of Boston lay scarcely two miles from the old business district; by the turn of the century the radius extended ten miles. Now those who could afford it could live far removed from the old city center and still commute there for work, shopping, and entertainment. The new accessibility of land around the periphery of almost every major city sparked an explosion of real estate development and fueled what we now know as urban sprawl. Between 1890 and 1920, for example, some 250,000 new residential lots were recorded within the borders of Chicago, most of them located in outlying areas. Over the same period, another 550,000 were plotted outside the city limits but within the metropolitan area. Anxious to take advantage of the possibilities of commuting, real estate developers added 800,000 potential building sites to the Chicago region in just thirty years – lots that could have housed five to six million people.

Of course, many were never occupied; there was always a huge surplus of subdivided, but vacant, land around Chicago and other cities. These excesses underscore a feature of residential expansion related to the growth of mass transportation: urban sprawl was essentially unplanned. It was carried out by thousands of small investors who paid little heed to coordinated land use or to future land users. Those who purchased and prepared land for residential purposes, particularly land near or outside city borders where transit lines and middle-class inhabitants were anticipated, did so to create demand as much as to respond to it. Chicago is a prime example of this process. Real estate subdivision there proceeded much faster than population growth.

Stricter Traffic Law can Prevent Accidents

From the health point of view we are living in a marvelous age. We are immunized from birth against many of the most dangerous diseases. A large number of once fatal illnesses can now be cured by modern drugs and surgery. It is almost certain that one day remedies will be found for the most stubborn remaining diseases. The expectation of life has increased enormously. But though the possibility of living a long and happy life is greater than ever before, every day we witness the incredible slaughter of men, women and children on the roads. Man versus the motor-car ! It is a never-ending battle which man is losing. Thousands of people the world over are killed or horribly killed each year and we are quietly sitting back and letting it happen.

It has been rightly said that when a man is sitting behind a steering wheel, his car becomes the extension of his personality. There is no doubt that the motor-car often brings out a man’s very worst qualities. People who are normally quiet and pleasant may become unrecognizable when they are behind a steering-wheel. They swear, they are ill-mannered and aggressive, willful as two-years-olds and utterly selfish. All their hidden frustrations, disappointments and jealousies seem to be brought to the surface by the act of driving.

The surprising thing is that society smiles so benignly on the motorist and seems to condone his behaviour. Everything is done for his convenience. Cities are allowed to become almost uninhabitable because of heavy tragic; towns are made ugly by huge car parks; the countryside is desecrated by road networks; and the mass annual slaughter becomes nothing more than a statistic, to be conveniently forgotten.

It is high time a world code were created to reduce this senseless waste of human life. With regard to driving, the laws of some countries are notoriously lax and even the strictest are not strict enough. A code which was universally accepted could only have a dramatically beneficial effect on the accident rate. Here are a few examples of some the things that might be done. The driving test should be standardized and made far more difficult than it is; all the drivers should be made to take a test every three years or so; the age at which young people are allowed to drive any vehicle should be raised to at least 21; all vehicles should be put through stringent annual tests for safety. Even the smallest amount of alcohol in the blood can impair a person’s driving ability. Present drinking and driving laws (where they exist) should be mad much stricter. Maximum and minimum speed limits should be imposed on all roads. Governments should lay down safety specifications for manufacturers, as has been done in the USA. All advertising stressing power and performance should be banned. These measures may sound inordinately harsh. But surely nothing should be considered as to severe if tit results in reducing the annual toll of human life. After all, the world is for human beings, not motor-cars.

Home

I was not expecting a grand parade,
Coming home to this old place.
I was not looking for pomp and serenade,
Nor was I seeking the spiritless,
Hollow greetings from old
Forgotten friends.

I'm home.

The mealy eyes of little children
Watch me as I unpack my things,
Leaving my rod and reel propped up against
The ancient maple that Grandpa had planted
A lifetime ago with his bare hands.
And me, lighting a Camel
As raindrops dot the soft, dry earth
Like little insects.

Things haven't changed very much.

This is still home, still my home.
Even though the house creeks,
And mice scurry about in dusty,
Forgotten places,
And the roof needs some patching where the
Autumn sky bleeds through.

The shutters need a coat of new paint.
Green. Forrest Green,
Like Papa did in that first year
When the big hailstorm wiped out the cornfields
And the bank repossessed the new tractor that Papa
thought would save us.

Funny.

To believe a tractor could do all that.

This place,
It smiles at me,
Wide and full,
And I feel I belong here.