Why taxes?

When we start to work, paying taxes seem to be so an obvious duty that few of us wonder why we must pay them or what they are used for. Some people feel unsatisfied paying taxes. Although the usefulness of taxes is not so difficult to understand, we should make it clear by thinking about where it comes from.

The birth of taxes occurred when communities had somethings to do in common. People in a group (city or country) earn the benefit of going to theaters. So building theaters demands everyone's effort. Also, city halls, libraries, parks, etc, those are common places that every citizen can use. Therefore, every citizen has the responsibility of paying some portion of their income for the public. Now that we've found out the very role of taxes: Building and serving the public. Paying taxes means contributing to the development of the nation.

Not only buildings, taxes are used to set up the government for protecting and directing the country. In fact, taxes are mostly the government's income. Therefore, government officers must serve the people as they live on their money. Moreover, citizens have the right of asking the government for their desires.

Taxes also help reducing the gap between rich and poor, since higher income pays higher tax. Furthermore, because every citizen can use public service and welfare system regardless of how much they have in their pocket, paying taxes means we help each others to live in harmony. Imagine that a homeless old man can go into city libraries to read books or magazines free as other rich ladies although the latter pay much more than the previous does. Using taxes, we give poor children scholarships to help them pursuing their education, we motivate voluntary activities to help the communities, we support the development of other poor countries.

We've come to understand why taxes appeared in our society and what they're used for. Although some people still think taxes are dirty cut from people's income, I believe that most of us accept them as our duty for the nation and our mean to help each others. Of course, using taxes correctly is another controversial problem that we should return later in other entries.

--- Posted on Aug 2nd by minhem ---

Freedom for pets

Many people believe that their pets are happy to live a comfortable life with them. I'm a pet-lover, too, but I think that pets should have their own lives, free and independent on humans. When considering pets as wild animals, we can see that for them, living together with humans in cities is not desirable.

The first trouble we can think of is that pets live in different environment from where their wild ancestors had lived. Instead of trees, sand and other animals, pets live in concrete houses surrounded by artificial furniture. Often, they are "protected" to stay in a small range of area, mostly in a house. They can't go and see the outside world. We keep them as human's belonging or prisoners. If you ever experience the strangeness of moving to live in other countries, pets are in the same, even more awful, situation.

Because their worlds are closed, some instinct behaviors cannot be done. Their have no friends, no love or mating (we don't expect our pets give birth!). Also no enemies (the only one can be thought of is cars in streets that might kill them by one hit), therefore no practicing is needed. Dog's legs that are designed for long and fast run are just used for walking with its host. The tree-climbing talent of cats becomes unnecessary. Furthermore, their immunity against of diseases may disappear. In fact, pets get ill easier than their wild counterpart.

The best thing we can supply them is food. People think that they give their pets food with enough nutrition and tastiness. I think pets' liver is designed to consume natural food than that is made in factories or well-cooked. Actually, some problems occur when pets' consuming organs are acquainted with well-cooked food. Their noses still stimulate them to eat fresh flesh, but the stomachs no longer accept that kind of food anymore.

Let's see what pets think about their lives, if they can meditate as humans. They may realize that they are leading extremely boring lives. What do they do for their whole lives? Almost nothing rather than walking around. We don't expect our pets do anything special. Just staying still as ornaments is enough to make their hosts happy.

What can we conclude after discussing so far? If human beings have the right to be free, so do animals. We should NOT keep pets. They are definitely not happy belonging to us. Let show how much we love them by sending them back to nature where they deserve to be.

--- Posted on July 29th by minhem ---

"Man-Eatings Cats" - Haruki Murakami

When Izumi and I sat at our outdoor café, drinking coffee or beer, aimlessly gazing at the boat in the harbor and at the far-off Turkish hills, we were sitting at the edge of Europe. The wind was the wind at the edge of the world. An inescapable retro color filled the place. It made me feel as if I were being quietly swallowed up by an alien reality, something foreign and just out of reach, vague yet strangely gentle. And the shadow of that substance colored the faces, the eyes, the skin of the people gathered in the harbor.

At times, I couldn’t grasp the fact that I was part of this scene. No matter how much I took in the scenery around me, no matter how much I breathed in the air, there was no organic connection between me and all this.

[…]

A week later, she phoned my office about some minor matter and we chatted for a bit. I told a joke, and she laughed. “Want to go out for a drink?” I asked. We went to a small bar and had a new few drinks. I can’t recall exactly what we talked about, but we found a million topics and could have talked forever. With a laserlike clarity, I could grasp everything she wanted to say. And things I couldn’t explain well to anyone else came across to her with an exactness that took me by surprise. We were both married, with no major complaints about our married lives. We loved our spouses and respected them. Still, this was on the order of a minor miracle running across someone to wham you can express your feeling so clearly, so completely. Most people go their entire lives without meeting a person like that. It would have been a mistake to label this “love”. It was more like total empathy.

Neither one of us lured the other to bed, but we did start sleeping together. We’d both been faithful to our spouses up to that point, but somehow we didn’t feel guilty, for the simple reason that we had to do it. Undressing her, caressing her skin, holding her close, slipping inside her, coming – it was all just a natural extension of our conversations. So natural that our lovemaking was not a source of heartrending physical pleasure, it was just a calm, pleasant act, stripped of all pretense. Best of all were our quiet talks in bed after sex. I’d hold her naked body close, and she’d curl up in my arms, and we’d whisper secrets in our own private language.

We met whenever we could. Strangely enough, or perhaps not so strangely, we were absolutely convinced that our relationship could go on forever, or married lives on one side of the equation, our own relationship on the other, with no problems arising. We were convinced that our affair would never come to light. Sure we had sex, but how was that hurting anyone? On night when I slept with Izumi, I’d get home late and have to make up some lie to tell my wife, and I did feel a pang of conscience, but it never seemed be an actual betrayal. Izumi and I had a strictly compartmentalized yet totally intimate relationship.

[…]

--- Posted on July 28th by santa ---

Private Schools

In recent years, the ever-growing appearance of private schools, along with other available forms of school, has made a multicolor picture in the education system in Vietnam. The private schools overcome the drawbacks of other previous kinds, and vice versa, which give many options to parents. The essay will focus on both aspects of the new kind of school.

The strongest point of private schools may lay in the good, modern infrastructure, including fundamental equipments like tables, chairs, boards, etc and the specialized instruments such as laboratory tools, projectors and computers. These items can meet not only the basic needs but the advanced demands as well. With such satisfactory support, there is no doubt that the students will have a fully well-equipped environment for study as well as extra-curricular activities.

Beside that, the staffs and methodology are other competitive factors. Thanks to the rich foundation, the teachers can apply many activities and methods in their lecture hours, which make the class more interesting and easier to understand. In private schools, the teachers are given more responsibilities and rights to choose their own way of teaching, which will benefit both the trainers and trainees. The teachers become more flexible and creative in imparting lessons, while the student can comfortably ask questions and grasp knowledge. Moreover, the private schools always observe their students’ progress and behaviors. They keep a close relation with parents in case of informing all issues related their children.

Although the private schools have many advantages as mentioned above, there are still some limitations that need to be considered. The tuition and other service fees may be too high for average families. This appears to be the biggest fence which prevents the popular population from approach to the high-class education model. In addition, parents should mind bad influences on their children when they go to such a material environment.

It is able to say that the model of private schools has brought the education field towards the service area, which aims to satisfy the students and their parents. As a saying goes “you pay what you get”, the high tuition is worth spending on what the students receive. And, to some extent, this model has contributed to the process of improving the education quality in the whole system.

-- Posted on July 27th by santa --

Overcrowding: If preventing the immigration wave can solve this problem

Overcrowding, overloading, overpopulation, all these common words mention a hot problem many cities over the world are facing, in which the infrastructure can not meet the basic demands of the citizens such as accommodation, transportation, etc. due to an excessive quantity of inhabitants. Although the immigration from the countryside is one major cause of this circumstance, I believe that the action of only preventing this fashion is not an optimal solution because of two following reasons.

For one thing, the immigration from rural areas is an essential process as a result of modernization and industrialization that any city has to experience then we can not prevent or avoid this trend. Because many industrial zones are opened around the cities, people tend to aggregate to factories and firms there. In addition, services and financial fields attract a lot of employees as well. No matter whether blue-collar job or white-collar one people do, cities seem to be a promising land bringing them a better life. Moreover, cities offer enormous opportunities for tertiary education and entertainments. Indeed, cities have a great special charm to all kinds of person.

For another thing, I believe that we need a coordination of many factors and policies to solve this issue efficiently, but not merely preventing the immigration wave to urban areas. We need improving the city basic infrastructure such as developing accommodation and transportation system. We need increasing the size of the city by developing the surrounding suburbs as well. If we achieve the goals, there are more houses to live and broader streets to travel, so our condition is improved gradually.

In conclusion, I believe that there are many better solutions than just preventing the immigration wave from rural areas to deal with the condition of overcrowding in many cities nowadays. This is not just because the immigration is an unavoidable phenomenon, but this one itself can not solve entirely the problem.

----- Posted on July 11th by santa -----

Online newspaper

Along with the development of the internet, the birth of online newspapers has changed our living habits a lot. I had seen a man, getting up from his bed, did not go to the front door searching for a daily traditional newspaper as he had done few years ago, but rushed to his computer, turned it on and then never left his eyes from the screen. As online newspapers have many advantages, such as free of charge, no materials (paper for instant) needed, fast updated and easy to search, it's predicted that they will replace traditional ones in near future. But I think there are several indispensable needs of traditional newspapers that prevent the trend of disappearing.

Firstly and the most important, traditional newspapers are convenient to read and manipulate. I mean, we do not need a computer or the internet. All the necessary is newspapers themselves. We can put them anywhere, such as dining tables, beds, toilets... We can read them immediately after getting up right on our beds, without reaching for a computer and wait for its starting up. We may take notes or write our own comments directly on the newspapers. We can take them along due to their compact shape and little weight. You see, there are many ways we can enjoy reading traditional newspapers but not for an online one.

Next, there are many people who never or not often use computers and the internet. Since online newspapers can not reach them, traditional ones are the most suitable. Who are they? They may be those living in countrysides where the internet is absent, or those who can not afford to buy a computer, or workers who have little time to read during their short breaks in factories, etc. At some limit To some extent, the number of people reading traditional newspapers will not decrease futhermore.

Admittedly, traditional newspapers are made of paper which is, once again, made from wood. There is a criticism that stopping reading traditional newspapers helps protect our environment. I think that problem can easily be solved, by using recycled materials. Indeed, most (traditional) newspapers nowadays are made of recycled paper. Although the prices become higher, the method prevents worsening our planet.

Finally, traditional newspapers depend on the economy less that online ones do. As you know, the income of traditional newspapers is mainly from buyers, while that of online ones comes from advertising. The economy crisis in 2009 showed off that weak point of online newspaper. When companies became unable to afford their advertising investment, online newspaper services went to freezing, while people still pay money for paper ones. In economic aspect, traditional newspapers exhibit their stability.

When online newspapers first appeared, they made a boom and rapidly spread world-wide. People came to use the service more and more. But it would be wrong to say that it can defeat its predecessor because of the lack of convenience, popularity and stability. Meanwhile, traditional newspapers remain in our society as an enjoyable and trenched habit.

----Posted on July 8th by minhem-----

Capital punishment

In many countries all over the world, the capital punishment is strongly criticized for its inhumanity. I totally agree with this opinion. No matter what crimes people commit, they always deserve living.

As a saying, “Human beings have right of living, being free and purchasing their happiness”. This means that living is an essential and undeniable privilege anyone owns and no one can rob it from another’s hands. If we consider life as a most precious gift that God gives us, killing someone seems a violent action and goes against the moral of humans.

Some people can argue that the serious criminals should receive a capital punishment for what they had done. They may correct in some extend. However, I prefer the way that those one should be given opportunities to compensate for their mistakes and return the normal life. I believe it is generous and beneficial to our society. Criminals have their own abilities, and they can make their contribution to the society development such as building house, selling goods and so on.

On the other side of this coin, if we abolish (abrogate) this kind of punishment, we should evaluate the drawbacks of this decision as well as impose adequate policies to rehabilitate criminals. This methodology should be both strict and comfortable. Also, it has to correctly judge the availability of someone to normal life.

Capital punishment seems to be the final choice for those can’t be trained to return good citizens. Event that, however, I believe that kind of sentence is too inhuman, and if we try our best to help these criminals, they can compensate for their guilt and make our society better and better.

-- Posted on July 06th by santa ----

Old Population

At first glance, the growth in the portion of elderly people seems to be a good indicator to an efficient welfare system and a prosperous nation. However, as an old saying “every coin has 2 sides”, this phenomenon may lead to a number of side effects on the country itself which I will discuss below.

Firstly, this demographic shift brings about both macroeconomic and microeconomic problems. The government has to spend more money on maintaining the pension system and health care services, instead of motivating other useful operations. Moreover, the greater proportion of elderly people causes the lack of young labor force which plays a key role in the development of the society. In comparison with young people, the olds is limited in both physical and mental health. They can neither do blue-collar jobs nor work hours under pressure. Their creativity is weaker as well. Therefore, the productivity and efficiency at work of the olds are lower than their children thereby worsening the country economy.

In terms of society, the change in percentage among age groups reflects an unbalance between the death rate and birth rate. Specifically, increasing elderly people may be a bad indicator to a low birthrate. This tendency may directly harmfully affect on both society and family structure in which there are more the olds than children. Also, this issue may result to the human resource import from foreign countries which may badly affect to the traditional custom and culture.

Old population is a big problem which many developed countries such as Japan or England are coping with. To ease its negative influence, governments may publish both short-term and long-term policies to encourage the birthrate as well as decrease the burden of the welfare system on caring the elderly people. While human resource import and increasing age of retirement are possible solutions, I believe that encouraging people having children is the most important way above all.

--- Posted on June 25th by santa ----

Men Can Cook

ESSAY #1 by minhem


Have cooking anything to do with gender? Everyone eats, that means, we all earn the out-come of cooking. But in many Asian countries, men are not expected to be good at cooking as women are. Many people think that women should do housework, prepare meals while men go to companies earning money. Some do not believe that men can cook well. I think of the opposite: Men can and should do cook! Moreover, cooking should be the basic skill for all people. I'm telling you why.

Firstly and naturally, we eat, therefore we must cook, regardless which gender we are. You may let your wife do cooking for you, or just go to a restaurant and pay money for the chef. It's kind of dependence leading to the situation that sometimes you do not get the food tasty enough. What would you say to your spouse if she/he made a meal not at your taste? What would you do after remembering the menus of all the restaurants nearby? Would you be calm enough not to shout out "OK, I'll show you that I can do it myself. Let's see"? Anyway, eating is one of the most basic works in our lives, so never be dependent doing it. Serve yourself!
Some people may argue that men spend time mostly in their companies, so let women do meals. In my opinion, that way will lead to the unbalance of society. In many countries, young girls are expected to learn cooking, and do their study or work at the same time, while boys are not. That's unfair! Nowadays, when girls also want to do more in studying, the number of those who can cook well is decreasing. More and more women go to work not just stay at home as before. Sometimes, women work harder than men! So who should be responsible of preparing meals? As the result, many couples are broken because of the quality of food cooked by their spouses.
Many people may not believe that men can cook as well as women. I do not think so. Most chefs in restaurants are men! Therefore I strongly believe that men can be good as cooking if they learn how to. Women do not naturally know cooking after they're born. They must learn, of course. Anyone can cook, if learns.
Moreover, cooking, in some ways, is interesting. It's kind of designing, because you must think of what you'll make, what you need and how to do before going to the super-market. And then, when you did try your best, you'd be eager to taste the result. An delicious meal is the reward. Instead of singing a song, you can cook your friends a party and see how they appreciate that. Gee, cooking is wonderful!

When I found that there're no reasons stopping men from learning cooking, I did started. Now I can conclude that cooking is easy to learn, interesting and nescessary. I enjoy nice self-made meals everyday without an excellent wife. You see, we men can cook. Let's do it!

----- Posted on Jun 18th by minhem -----


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ESSAY #2 by santa

When it comes to question whether man can cook, the answer is different from culture to culture. While Western men quite easily prepare their meals by themselves, their Eastern counterparts feel it hard and consider cooking as a duty of women. As an independent and flexible person, I favor the premier opinion: men can cook and should know cooking.

Admittedly, cooking is expected as a basic skill of daily life. If eating is an unavoidable thing, so does cooking. People cook to eat, it’s completely reasonable. Moreover, when the independent and single lifestyle is more and more popular in modern world, people tend to learn cooking to manage their living by themselves. A single man will feel more comfortable if he can prepare his meals on his own.

Some people state that they prefer having meals in restaurants, so they don’t need to cook by themselves. At first glance, eating out seems to be interesting and convenient because people can save much time as well as diversify their food. However, eating out is often more expensive than their self-made meals. It is tasteless or in poor hygiene condition, sometimes. Thus, sooner or later, they will desire a feast which is prepared by themselves. On the other hand, some others don’t cook because they feel hard to do. But they should learn that almost chiefs in restaurants are male, so they should not be afraid. Many men cook well, so you can do cooking as well.

Cooking, is just one task among many which are expected to belong to women, traditionally, like washing, ironing, etc. Nowadays, the gender equality issue is more considerable, men are encouraged to join in household works to share the family burden. So, preparing a good meal for your family seems to be a good way to show the respect and love to your wife. In this case, cooking tightens the happiness of families.

I’m not good at cooking, but I love it. Because I love food and I love party. I desire to make a feast for my friends and feel their satisfaction.

----- Posted on Jun 19th by santa -----

Open topics list

Here are topics that can be written by any author. Don't hesitate if you have good ideas. Write it down immediately! Of course you can help others expand the topics by comment directly to this entry.

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1. Should companies pay for over-time work?

YES: They work, so pay them.

NO: Good employees can complete their work without doing over-time. We should pay for the result, not for the length of working time.

2. Should men cook?
YES: Everyone who eats must cook by himself/herself.
NO: Men should concentrate on working and let women do the housework.
DONE, "Men can cook" by minhem and santa, Jun 18th 2009

3. Paper dictionary or Electronic dictionary?

PAPER: Traditional. Cheap. Students tend to read all explanations in paper dictionaries than when they use electronic ones. By finding the location of the words, it's easier to remember them.

ELECTRONIC: Convenience, fast, light, compact.

4. Paying tax or not ?

Some people believe that they should keep all the money they have earned and should not pay tax to the state. Do you agree or disagree?
DONE, "Why taxes" by minhem, Aug 2nd 2009

5. Old Population

In many countries, the proportion of older people is steadily increasing. Does this trend have more positive or negative effects on the society?
DONE, "Old Population" by santa, June 25th 2009

6. Should capital punishment be abolished?
DONE, "Capital punishment" by santa, July 06th 2009

7. Should doctors help patients to die?
SHOULD: We should help patients who suffer enough from incurable diseases and wish to die. They'll die sooner or later.
SHOULD NOT: It's murder! Incurable diseases at the present time may become curable in future. We should advise them to change their mind.

8. Freedom for pets
Many people think that they're taking good care of their pets, while some say that pets are like prisoners. What do you think about pets' life?
DONE, "Freedom for pets" by minhem, July 29th 2009

9. Overcrowding
The only way to prevent overcrowding in cities is to prevent migration from rural areas. Give your opinion and views.
DONE, "Overcrowding" by santa, July 11th 2009

10. Private schools
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of private schools.
DONE, "Private schools" by santa, July 27th 2009

11. Buy or rent?
Do you want to buy your own house or live in rent houses for the rest of your life?
BUY: Our own houses. Free in design, decorating. Pay once, and possess.
RENT: Can move to other places easier. Don't need to pay a lot of money at one time.

12. Should university students do part-time work?
SHOULD: Learn how to earn money and deal with other people. Working experience...
NO: Being in universities is the last chance to study, so do it as hard as possible. We will work after graduating, so let's wait. Do not waste the tuition fee. Well-trained students can find good jobs...

Personal topics list

Here are topics which are "reserved" to be written by some body. You should not pick up a topic and write it a complete entry. Let its author do that. Instead, you can help the author by give him your opinions in a comment directly posted into this entry, or send an email. We appreciate your understanding and contribution.

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1. minhhai - Online newspaper
Some people think that we should replace traditional newspaper by online one.
- People can read news with no fee. Company can earn from advertisement.
- Trees are no longer cut for making paper.
DONE, "Online newspaper" by minhem, July 8th 2009

2. santa - "Man-Eating Cats"
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese popular author. Vietnamese readers know him mostly through the novel "Norwegian Wood". As a kind of person loving short stories, I found Murakami having a marvelous source of this form. Now, I would like to introduce some quotes from one short story of Haruki Murakami that I enjoy so much.
DONE, "Man-Eating Cats of Haruki Murakami" by santa, July 28th 2009

3. minhem - "Research on human"
What do you think about using human being as researched object?