童话

 

坚定的锡兵

 

 

我最喜欢的安徒生童话故事

 

 

 从前有二十五个锡做的兵士，他们都是兄弟，因为他们都是从一个旧的锡汤匙产生出来的。他们肩上扛着毛瑟枪，眼睛直直地向前看。他们的制服一半是红的，一半是蓝的，但是非常美丽。他们待在一个匣子里面。当匣子的盖被揭开的时候，他们在这世界上所听到的第一句话是：“锡兵！”这句话是一个小孩子喊出来的；他在拍着双手。这是他的生日，这些锡兵就是他所得到的一件礼物。他现在把这些锡兵摆到桌子上。

 

 

每个兵都是同一个模样，只有一个稍为有点不同：他只有一条腿，因为他是最后被铸出来的，锡不够用了！但是他仍然能够坚定地站在一条腿上，跟别人站在两条腿上没有两样。而且后来最引人注意的也就是他。

 

 

在放着他们的那张桌子上，还摆着许多其他的玩具，不过最引人注意的一件东西是一个纸做的华丽的宫殿。从那些小窗子望进去，可以一直看见里面的大厅。大厅前面有几株小树围着一面小镜子──这面小镜子算是一个湖。一些蜡做的小天鹅在湖上游来游去；它们的影子倒映在水里。这一切都是很美丽的，不过最美丽的还要算一位小姐；她站在敞开的宫殿门口。她也是纸剪出来的，不过她穿着一件漂亮的洋布裙子。她肩上飘着一条小小的蓝色缎带，看起来仿佛像一条头巾。这缎带的中央插着一件亮晶晶的装饰品──简直有她整个的脸庞那么大。这位小姐伸着她的双手──因为她是一个舞蹈家。她有一条腿举得非常高，高得那个锡兵简直望不见。因此他就以为她也像自己一样，只有一条腿。

 

 

“她倒可以做我的妻子呢！”他心里想，“不过她的派头太大了。她住在一个宫殿里面，而我却只有一个匣子，而且我们还是二十五个人挤在一起，恐怕她是住不惯的。不过我倒不妨跟她认识认识。”

于是他就在桌上一个鼻烟壶的后面平躺下来 。从这个角度他可以看到这位漂亮小姐的全身──她一直是用一条腿站着的，丝毫没有失掉她的平衡。

当黑夜到来的时候，所有别的锡兵都走进了匣子；家里的人也都上床去睡了。玩偶们这时就开始活动起来：它们互相“访问”，闹起“战争”来，或是开起“舞会”来。锡兵们也在他们的匣子里吵起来，因为他们也想出来参加，可是揭不开盖子。坚果钳翻起筋斗，石笔在石板上乱跳乱叫。这真像是魔王下世，闹得不堪，结果把金丝鸟也弄醒了。她也开始发起议论来，而且出口就是诗。这时只有两个人没有离开原位：一个是锡兵，一个是那位小小的舞蹈家。她直直地用她的脚尖立着，双臂外伸。他也是稳定地站在一条腿上，他的眼睛一忽儿也没有离开她。

忽然钟敲了十二下，于是“”！那个鼻烟壶的盖子掀开了；可是那里面并没有鼻烟，却有一个小小的黑妖精──这鼻烟壶原来是一个伪装。

“锡丘八！”妖精说，“请你把你的眼睛放老实一点！”

可是锡兵装作没有听见。

“好吧，明天你瞧吧！”妖精说。

 

 

 第二天早晨，小孩们都起来了。他们把这锡兵移到窗台上。不知是那妖精在捣鬼，还是一阵阴风在作怪，窗子忽然开了。于是锡兵就从三楼一个倒栽葱跌到地上来。这一下真是跌得可怕到万分！他的腿直跷起来，钢盔向下地倒立着，他的刺刀插在街上的石板缝里。

 

 

保姆和那个小孩立刻下楼来寻找他。虽然他们差不多踩到他的身上，可是他们仍然没有发现他。假如锡兵喊一声“我在这儿！”的话，他们也就看得见他了。不过他觉得自己既然穿着军服，再高声大叫，是不合礼节的。

 

 

现在天空开始下雨了。雨点越下越密，最后简直是大雨倾盆了。等到雨住以后，有两个野孩子在这儿走过。

“你瞧！”他们中间的一个讲，“这儿躺着一个锡兵。我们让他去航行一番吧！”

他们用一张报纸叠了一条船，把锡兵放在里面。锡兵就这么沿着水沟顺流而下。这两个孩子在岸上跟着他跑，拍着手。天哪！沟里掀起了一股多么大的浪涛啊！这是一股多么大的激流啊！下过一场大雨毕竟不同。纸船一上一下地簸动着，有时转得那么急，弄得锡兵的头都昏了起来。可是他立得很稳，面色一点也不变；他肩上扛着毛瑟枪，眼睛向前看。

 

 

忽然这条船流进一条很长很宽的下水道里去了。四周是一片漆黑，正好像他又回到匣子里去了一样。

“我倒很奇怪，我会流到一个什么地方去呀！”他想。“对了，对了，这是那个妖精在捣鬼。啊！假如那位小姐坐在这条船里的话，就是加倍地黑暗我也不在乎。”

这时一只住在下水道里的大耗子来了。

“你有通行证吗？”耗子问。“把你的通行证拿出来！”

可是锡兵一句话也不回答，只是更紧地握着自己的毛瑟枪。

 

 

这条船继续往前急驶；耗子仍在后面跟着。乖乖！请看他那副张牙舞爪的样子；他对干草和木头碎片喊着：

“抓住他！抓住他！他没有留下过路钱！他没有拿出通行证来看！”

 

 

可是这激流非常湍急。在下水道尽头的地方，锡兵已经可以看得见前面的阳光了。不过他又听到一阵喧闹的声音──这声音可以把一个胆子大的人都吓倒。想想看吧：在下水道尽头的地方，水流冲进一条宽大的运河里去了。这对他说来是非常危险的，正好像我们被巨大的瀑布冲下去一样。

 

 

现在他已经流进了运河，没有办法止住了。船一直冲到外面去。可怜的锡兵只有尽可能地把他的身体直直地挺起来。谁也不能说他曾经把眼皮眨过一下。这条船旋转了三四次，里面的水一直漫到了船边──船要下沉了。直立着的锡兵全身浸在水里，只有头伸在水外。船在深深地往下沉，纸也慢慢地松开了。水现在已经淹到兵士的头上了……他不禁想起了那位美丽的、娇小的舞蹈家，他永远不会再见到她了。这时他耳朵里响起了这样的话：

冲啊，冲啊，你这战士，

你的出路只有一死！

现在纸已经破了，锡兵也沉到了水底。──不过正在这时候，一条大鱼忽然把他吞到肚里去了。

 

 

 啊！那里面是多么黑暗啊！比在下水道里面还要糟，而且空间是那么狭小！不过锡兵是坚定的。就是当他直直地躺下来的时候，他仍然紧紧地握着他的毛瑟枪。

 

 

这条鱼东奔西撞，做出许多最可怕的动作。后来它忽然变得非常安静起来。接着一道像闪电似的光射进了它的身体，阳光照得很亮，同时有一个人在大声喊：“锡兵！”原来这条鱼已经被捉住，送到市场卖掉，带进了厨房，而且女佣人已经用一把菜刀把它剖开了。她用两个手指把锡兵拦腰掐住，拿到客厅里来──在这儿，大家都要看看这位在鱼腹里作了一番旅行的了不起的人物。不过锡兵一点也没有显出骄傲的样子。

 

 

他们把他放在桌子上──在这儿，嗨！世界上不可思议的事情也真多！这锡兵发现自己又来到了他以前的那个房间！他看到以前的那些小孩；他看到桌上以前的那些玩具；他看到那座美丽的宫殿和那位可爱的、娇小的舞蹈家。她仍然立在一条腿上，她的另一条腿仍然高高地跷在空中。她也是同样地坚定啊！她的精神使锡兵很受感动：他简直要流出锡的眼泪来了，但是他不能这样做。他望着她，她也望着他，但是他们没有说一句话。

 

 

正在这时候，有一个小孩子拿起锡兵来，把他一股劲儿扔进火炉里面去了。他没有说明任何理由：这当然又是鼻烟壶里的那个小妖精在捣鬼。

 

 

锡兵站在那儿，全身亮起来了，同时感到一股可怕的热气。不过这热气究竟是从实在的火里发出来的，还是从他的爱情中发出来的，他就完全不知道了。他的一切光彩现在都没有了。这是他在旅途中失去的呢，还是由于悲愁的结果，谁也说不出来。

 

 

他望着那位娇小的姑娘，而她也在望他。他觉得他的身体在慢慢地融化。但是他仍然扛着枪，坚定地立着不动。这时门忽然开了，一阵风闯了进来，吹起这位小姐。她就像西尔妃德〔西尔妃德：在中世纪的欧洲，人们认为世界是由四种东西组成的：空气，水，火，土。西尔妃德(Sylphide)是空气的仙女。〕一样，飞向火炉，飞到锡兵的身边，化为火焰，立刻不见了。

 

 

这时锡兵已经化成了一个锡块。第二天，当女佣人把炉灰倒出去的时候，她发现这锡兵已经成了一颗小小的锡心。可是那位舞蹈家留下来的只是那颗亮晶晶的装饰品，现在已经烧得像一块黑炭了。

Evolution

The story of man

Dec 20th 2005
From The Economist print edition

Modern Darwinism paints a more flattering portrait of humanity than traditionalists might suppose

IN THOSE parts of the planet that might once have been described as “Christendom”, this week marks the season of peace on Earth and goodwill towards men. A nice idea in a world more usually thought of as seasoned by the survival of the fittest. But goodwill and collaboration are as much part of the human condition as ill-will and competition. And that was a puzzle to 19th-century disciples of Charles Darwin, such as Herbert Spencer.

It was Spencer, an early contributor to The Economist, who invented that poisoned phrase, “survival of the fittest”. He originally applied it to the winnowing of firms in the harsh winds of high-Victorian capitalism, but when Darwin's masterwork, “On the Origin of Species”, was published, he quickly saw the parallel with natural selection and transferred his bon mot to the process of evolution. As a result, he became one of the band of philosophers known as social Darwinists. Capitalists all, they took what they thought were the lessons of Darwin's book and applied them to human society. Their hard-hearted conclusion, of which a 17th-century religious puritan might have been proud, was that people got what they deserved—albeit that the criterion of desert was genetic, rather than moral. The fittest not only survived, but prospered. Moreover, the social Darwinists thought that measures to help the poor were wasted, since such people were obviously unfit and thus doomed to sink.

Trust me, I'm a Darwinist

But the real world eventually penetrates even the ivory tower. The failure of Marxism has prompted an opening of minds, and Darwinism is back with a vengeance—and a twist. Exactly how humanity became human is still a matter of debate. But there are, at least, some well-formed hypotheses (see article). What these hypotheses have in common is that they rely not on Spencer's idea of individual competition, but on social interaction. That interaction is, indeed, sometimes confrontational and occasionally bloody. But it is frequently collaborative, and even when it is not, it is more often manipulative than violent.

Modern Darwinism's big breakthrough was the identification of the central role of trust in human evolution. People who are related collaborate on the basis of nepotism. It takes outrageous profit or provocation for someone to do down a relative with whom they share a lot of genes. Trust, though, allows the unrelated to collaborate, by keeping score of who does what when, and punishing cheats.

Very few animals can manage this. Indeed, outside the primates, only vampire bats have been shown to trust non-relatives routinely. (Well-fed bats will give some of the blood they have swallowed to hungry neighbours, but expect the favour to be returned when they are hungry and will deny favours to those who have cheated in the past.) The human mind, however, seems to have evolved the trick of being able to identify a large number of individuals and to keep score of its relations with them, detecting the dishonest or greedy and taking vengeance, even at some cost to itself. This process may even be—as Matt Ridley, who wrote for this newspaper a century and a half after Spencer, described it—the origin of virtue.

The new social Darwinists (those who see society itself, rather than the savannah or the jungle, as the “natural” environment in which humanity is evolving and to which natural selection responds) have not abandoned Spencer altogether, of course. But they have put a new spin on him. The ranking by wealth of which Spencer so approved is but one example of a wider tendency for people to try to out-do each other. And that competition, whether athletic, artistic or financial, does seem to be about genetic display. Unfakeable demonstrations of a superiority that has at least some underlying genetic component are almost unfailingly attractive to the opposite sex. Thus both of the things needed to make an economy work, collaboration and competition, seem to have evolved under Charles Darwin's penetrating gaze.

Dystopia and Utopia

This is a view full of ironies, of course. One is that its reconciliation of competition and collaboration bears a remarkable similarity to the sort of Hegelian synthesis beloved of Marxists. Perhaps a bigger one, though, is that the Earth's most capitalist country, America, is the only place in the rich world that contains a significant group of dissenters from any sort of evolutionary explanation of human behaviour at all. But it is also, in its way, a comforting view. It suggests a constant struggle, not for existence itself, but between selfishness and altruism—a struggle that neither can win. Utopia may be impossible, but Dystopia is unstable, too, as the collapse of Marxism showed. Human nature is not, to use another of Spencer's favourite phrases (though one he borrowed from Tennyson, his poetical contemporary), red in tooth and claw, and societies built around the idea that it is are doomed to early failure.

Of the three great secular faiths born in the 19th century—Darwinism, Marxism and Freudianism—the second died swiftly and painfully and the third is slipping peacefully away.   But Darwinism goes from strength to strength. If its ideas are right, the handful of dust that evolution has shaped into humanity will rarely stray too far off course. And that is, perhaps, a hopeful thought to carry into the New Year.

Crayon Shin-chan (クレヨンしんちゃん Kureyon Shinchan) is a manga and anime series written by Yoshito Usui. The American version of the manga is titled "Crayon ShinChan", while the UK and Spanish version of the anime is titled Shin Chan. The series follows the antics of a five year-old boy and his father and mother.

Crayon Shin-chan first appeared in a Japanese weekly magazine called Weekly Manga Action (WEEKLY週間アクション), which is published by Futabasha Publishers.

Much of the humor in the series stems from Shin-chan's occasionally unnatural and inappropriate use of language, as well as from his inappropriate behavior. Much of this humor is untranslatable for non-Japanese speaking readers and viewers. In Japanese, certain set phrases almost always accompany certain actions; many of these phrases have standard responses. A typical gag involves Shin-chan confounding his parents by using the wrong phrase for the occasion.

The storylines used in the anime series are based on those in the comic. Although the stories have been softened for television, there has been controversy about the program, primarily from parents who argue that the main character, Shin-chan (like Bart on the American animated series The Simpsons), sets a bad example for children. Although some westerners have called Shin-chan the "Bart Simpson of Japan," there are fewer similarities than differences between the two characters. In particular, Bart is older and apparently more intentionally mischievous than Shin-chan, many of whose misdeeds seem to stem more from simple ignorance of correct behavior due to his age. This provides the writers with ample opportunity to write gags based on age-inappropriate behavior, such as Shin-chan's occasional use of extremely formal language. Shin-chan has also been compared to the character Calvin, from the cartoon strip Calvin and Hobbes.

Most episodes have strange, hilarious twists that involving Shin-chan and his parents.

Several full-length movies of Crayon Shin-chan have been released in Japan:

• Action Kamen vs Haigure Mao (アクション仮面VSハイグレ魔王)
• Treasure of Buri Buri Kingdom (ブリブリ王国の秘宝)
• Plot of Unkokusai (雲黒斎の野望)
• Adventure in Hender Land (ヘンダ-ランドの大冒険)
• Chase after the Dark Tama Tama (暗黒タマタマ大追跡)
• Mission: Pig's Hoof (電撃！ブタのヒヅメ大作戦)
• Showdown at the Onsen (爆発！温泉わくわく大決戦)
• Rumble in the Jungle (嵐を呼ぶジャングル)
• The Adult Empire Strikes Back (嵐を呼ぶモーレツ! オトナ帝国の逆襲)
• Arashi wo Yobu Appare! Sengoku Daikassen (嵐を呼ぶアッパレ!戦国大合戦)
• Arashi wo Yobu Eikou no Yakiniku Road (嵐を呼ぶ栄光のヤキニクロード)
• Arashi wo Yobu Yuhi no Kasukabe Boys (嵐を呼ぶ! 夕陽のカスカベボーイズ)

The Simpsons is the longest-running American animated television series in television history, and the longest-running sitcom in the history of American television, with 17 seasons and 364 episodes since it debuted on December 17, 1989 on FOX. The TV series, created by Matt Groening, is a spinoff of a skit originally aired on The Tracey Ullman Show; it is produced by Gracie Films for 20th Century Fox. It made the top 10 on the TV Guide's list of the greatest shows of all time in 2002.

Highly satirical, the show lampoons many aspects of the human condition, but primarily parodies the "Middle American" lifestyle its titular family exhibits, and more generally American culture, society, and even television itself. The Simpsons is seen by many critics as the greatest animated series ever. Time named it the best TV show of the 20th century in 1998. It has had a huge influence on post–Cold War popular culture. The Simpsons was also one of the key shows that changed the view of cartoons to a more adult standard. It is considered a sign of definite status as a celebrity or other important figure to be featured or asked to parody oneself in an episode of the show.

从OP搬走之后就都看不到Simpsons了 ；3   好怀念.....

最近全世界都在纪念这个哥哥，我对他印象最深的就是阿甘正传里，他说中国人no possession和 no religin 言简意赅——看得出是位嘴臭得罪人的主。昨天看到中国官方新闻居然专题纪念他 ？ 追述了当年美国人对和平人士的压迫， 中情局对左翼思想的控制。缅怀了列农同志抵抗美帝国主义国内残暴统制和国际霸权主义的光辉一生...让猫多少想起了小学时的政治课本....

lennon的音乐对我实在有些过于激烈了,俺这样神经脆弱的人还是比较欣赏旋律优美的...当然也有例外的，好比这首舒缓的曲子 Love － 歌词实在是字字珠玑－引用实用主义的观点：对爱下高雅和尊严的定义是徒劳的，实际效果最重要，不是么？ ^^

Love is real, real is love,
Love is feeling, feeling love,
Love is wanting to be loved.
Love is touch, touch is love,
Love is reaching, reaching love,
Love is asking to be loved.
Love is you,
You and me,
Love is knowing,
We can be.
Love is free, free is love,
Love is living, living love,
Love is needing to be loved.

另一首 women 我也很喜欢 不过还是留到下次把 ：）