I watched from a distance as the homeless man quarreled with those who did not leave money for him – the majority.I walked up to him and right on queue he asked me for a quarter. “I’ll give you a quarter if you tell me your story.” He laughed, “You’ll give me a quarter for my story?” I lay the quarter in front of him and corrected myself – “Nah, here’s the quarter but it would be nice to hear your story.” I followed his eyes to the quarter and for a brief moment I saw a glimmer of reflection. I sat down next to him and waited.

    “I was in the army,” he said. “I was a sniper(狙击手)and was supposed to shoot down the enemy from the distance.” I listened carefully to his grizzly voice as he went deeper into the story. He wore dirty old torn clothes and smelled like a dead rat left in a mouse trap. He told me how he used to hunt with his family and was really good at it. He had his own way of respecting animals by not wasting what he killed for food and not killing more than he needed. When the army came knocking on his door, he felt pride and joined up. All those years of polishing his hunting skills could now serve a larger purpose—to defend us from the bad guys. He set out to fight in Iraq.
    It wasn’t long before he realized his ideals and expectations were just a shadow of the truth. He became disillusioned with the killings, which he felt were of innocent people. “I was a sniper but I never really killed anyone,” he said. “One day I had to do it. They asked me to shoot this lady from the distance. I saw kids near that lady and my hands were on the trigger (扳机). Man, I was tearing up ... I couldn’t do it. She wasn’t doing anything to anyone and she was with the kids—I couldn’t see through my tears. It just didn’t make any sense to me.”

The story goes on as he describes eventually being put into prison for 180 days for refusing to follow orders. He told me how he was black listed so that he couldn’t get a job. All the rights we take for granted were taken away from him. Why? Here was a man who was being punished—and for what? For refusing to kill the lady?  For being a hero?  “I have no regrets,” the homeless man said. “I may be homeless now, but I never killed that lady. I never killed anyone in the army. It didn’t feel right. I didn’t go there to do that. I went there to save people.” He continued, “I can live with being homeless—that’s okay. But I wouldn’t be able to live with killing innocent people.”

On that lonely Friday night, I met a hero. It just never occurred to me that a hero could be a smelly old man left on streets.

The popular TV program Readers has prompted more people in China to practice reading aloud in booths(亭) set up in big cities across the country.

As the latest TV show to help peopleˈs love for literature recover, CCTV program Readers invites people from all walks of life to read aloud their favorite poems, essays and books, or even personal letters they wrote to their loved ones. Just as the weekly show has been well-received, its reading booths, equipped with professional recording devices and cameras, have become instant hits.

A crowd of more than 200 people were pictured lining up outside the Shanghai Library at 11 am on March 4 – the first day of the boothˈs opening to the public in Shanghai. The deadline for registrations was brought forward to 2 pm instead of the scheduled 5:30 pm, as the number of waiting readers continued to grow. Some waited more than nine hours for a try-out in the booth, according to library management.

"There is an old photo in the late 1970s capturing people lining up outside the Shanghai Library before it opens. If that was a spring of reading in Shanghai, now I think another spring has arrived again," library manager Zhou Deming, told the Shanghai-based The Paper.

The reading booth is the only one of its kind in the city of economic center at the moment, but more are expected to be put into use in the coming months, according to the libraryˈs website.

The Readers program has also led to booths in other cities including Beijing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Xiˈan to appeal to more people to read and share their life stories.

With the recent boom of culture-themed TV shows such as Readers and Chinese Poetry Competition, some are optimistic that this will help the country love literature and reading again in general.

Despite the fact that the Queen is currently alive and well, a secret plan has already been laid out for her death.

A code word has already been decided upon to deliver the news of her passing to the highest tiers of the government.

While the death of George Ⅵ was signalled by the words "Hyde Park Corner"— to stop operators at Buckingham Palace learning the news-the equivalent(相等的) word for Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ is "London Bridge is down".

The Prime Minister at the time will be woken, if not already awake, and informed by civil servants that "London Bridge is down”.

These words will signify the Queen has passed away, and that Operation London Bridgc-a highlyorganised set of arrangemcnts is to start.

The Foreign Office's Global Response Centre, located at an undisclosed location in London , will then immediately inform 15 governments outside the UK where the Queen is also the head of state. After this, the centre will pass on the news to the 36 other nations of the Commonwealth(英联邦) for whom the Queen has served as a symbolic figurehead for many decades.

It will not be long before the news spreads from world leaders to the general public, with the news of her passing to the Press Association and thus the global media as well.

This marks a brcak from the long-held tradition of the BBC being the first news outlet to learn of royal deaths. What's more, while George Ⅵ's death was not announced until four hours after he died, news of the Queen's death will be far more instant.

A footman in mourning clothes will be sent out of the door at Buckingham Palace at the same time to pin a notice of the news to the gates, while the official palace website will feature just one page, letting out the news on a dark background.

Many years ago, three soldiers, hungry and tired of battle, arrived at a small village. The villagers, suffering a poor harvest and years of war, quickly   (1)  the food they owned. They met the three at the village square.   (2)   about the lack of food.

The first soldier then approached the village elders, "Your tired fields have left you   (3)   to share, so we shall share what we have: the  (4)   of how to make soup from   (5)   ."

Naturally the villagers became   (6)   and soon a fire was put to the village's greatest pot as the soldiers carefully   (7)   three stones. "Now this will be a fine soup," said the second soldier,"   (8)   some salt and parsley(西芹) would make it more wonderful!"A woman   (9)   , crying "What luck! I remember I've got some at home!" Off she ran,    (10)   with a handful of parsley. As the pot boiled on, carrots, beef and cream had soon   (11)  their way into the pot before everyone set out to   (12)   .

The soldiers ate and danced and sang well into the night,   (13)   by the meal and their  (14)   friends. The next morning, they awoke to  (15)   the entire village standing before them with their best bread and cheese. "You have given us the greatest    (16)   ," said an elder,"and we shall never forget it. "The third soldier turned to the    (17)   and said,"There is no secret but one thing is   (18)   : it is only by   (19)   that we may make a feast. "And off the   (20)  wandered, down the road to their next destination.

One day, while we were visiting my parents on a farm in late summer, Dad mentioned heˈd always wanted a Crimson King Maple Tree for the yard. Mom agreed that the trees were  (1)  

Like many other parents, mine were hard to   (2)  for, so I figured this was a great opportunity to get them something theyˈd  (3)  . I also thought two would be even better. I checked the  (4)  at work and decided it was a bit more than I could  (5)  —— but all of my siblings(兄弟姊妹) agreed to give some money to buy the trees.

In northern Ohio, you donˈt plant maple trees at Christmas, so we decided to  (6)  Mom and Dad with a special Christmas in October before the ground  (7)  . We asked my aunt if sheˈd help us with the"  (8)  ",and she called my parents  (9)  to say she was coming for a Sunday visit. Then my sisters and sisters-in-law went into  (10)  planning a big holiday turkey dinner.

On the  (11)  Sunday, we all met at my house and  (12)  the trees into a truck. I  (13)  as Santa Claus. When we arrived at my parentsˈ house, Dad was  (14)  something was wrong first. He and Mom were amazed when we told them  (15)  we were there.

When Christmas  (16)  , of course, we couldnˈt go to our parentsˈ house empty-handed, so Mom and Dad got    (17)  presents that year. Almost half a century later, I  (18)  drive by the old farm and smile when I see those big, handsome  (19)  and remember giving a special  (20)  to special people at Christmas in October.

People and animals often enjoy loving relationships with each other. When people adopt domesticated（家养的）animals into their families as pets, animals give humans the blessings of companionship and fun in return. In the wild, animals sometimes carry out dramatic rescues of people in dangerous situations, miraculously（奇迹般地）sensing human needs and jumping in without fear to help.

    In 2000, a 6-year-old boy named Elian Gonzalez left Cuba on a boat bound for Florida in the United States, but the boat sank and everyone aboard drowned except for Elian and two adults. Elian and the other two survivors held onto inner tubes for 48 hours to try to stay afloat in the sea. After a while, however, Elian began to lose strength, slipping under the water and then grabbing the tube again as he fought to stay alive.

    A small group of dolphins noticed Elian struggling and swam over to him to help. The dolphins formed a circle around the inner tube and took turns using their noses to lift Elian up whenever he started to slip off the tube. For hours, the dolphins kept working together to help Elian until fishermen working in the area discovered and rescued Elian and the two adults who floated nearby. The fishermen reported that, when they discovered Elian, he was repeating a prayer that his mother had taught him before drowning, asking guardian angels to protect him.

    Miraculously, the dolphins knew that a child would need more help than adults, so they focused on Elian—and they figured out exactly what needed to be done and cooperated to carry out that plan successfully. They made it!

During the Second World War, I met a housewifefromChicago who told me how she discovered for herself that “the cure for worry is to get completely occupied doing something constructive.” I met this woman and her husband in the diningcarwhile I was traveling from New York to my farm in Missouri.

This couple told me that their son had joined the armed forces the day after Pearl Harbour. The woman told me that she had almost ruined her health worrying over that only son. Where was he? Was he safe? Or in action? Would he be wounded? Killed?

When I askedherhow she overcame her worry,she replied: “I got busy." She told me that at first she had dismissed her maid and tried to keep busy by doing all her housework herself. But thatdidnˈt help much. “The trouble was,” she said, “that I could do my housework almost mechanically. So I kept on worrying. While making the beds and washing the dishes, I realized I needed some new kind of work that would keep me busy both mentally and physically. So I took ajobas a saleswoman in a store.”

“Thatdidit,” she said. “I immediately found myself in a lot of activities: customers crowding around me, asking for prices, sizes, colors. Never a second tothinkof anything except my immediate duty; And when night came, I could think of nothing except getting off my aching feet. As soon as Iatedinner，I fell into bed and instantly(immediately)became unconscious. I had neither the time nor the energy to worry.”