Urinating men, hamburgers light up poll ads

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Grinning Chinese peasants, urinating men, hamburgers and fried chicken -- with Taiwan's presidential election Saturday, both candidates are blanketing newspapers with increasingly creative, even odd, adverts.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose candidate Frank Hsieh has trailed in the polls, is appealing to electors not to vote for the opposition Nationalists, lest it open the floodgates to what it has depicted as dirty and uncultured mainland Chinese coming to Taiwan.

Nationalist candidate Ma Ying-jeou has proposed a "common market" with China, but the DPP has attacked this by saying it would let hordes of Chinese into Taiwan, bringing down wages and making it harder for Taiwanese to find jobs.

"After the common market, parks become public toilets, speaking becomes spitting," reads one DPP newspaper advert, featuring a picture of three men urinating in public.

"In Italy, many Chinese tourists have been sent to the police for urinating on the side of the street," it adds. "People of Taiwan, are you ready?"

Though Taiwanese can easily go to China, it is hard for Chinese to get to Taiwan, a legacy of decades of mutual mistrust.

While sharing a common language and culture, political relations are tense. The two sides have been ruled separately since defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island at the end of a civil war with the Communists in 1949. But China still claims Taiwan as its own.

Another DPP advert opposes the recognition of Chinese scholastic qualifications in Taiwan, saying China has too many unemployed graduates who would flood into the island. In any case, it adds, forged documents are easily available in China.

"I'm also a Peking University graduate!" it shows a grinning Chinese peasant, poorly dressed and holding up a graduation certificate, as saying.

The Nationalists, by contrast, have gone for a fast-food theme to push their economic platform, calling the fried chicken and hamburgers in their adverts "a happy economic meal" and "a happy social welfare meal," among other things.

"The best quality beef," one advert reads, next to a picture of an enormous hamburger stacked six patties high, with each featuring a bullet point outlining one part of the Nationalists' economic manifesto.

Another shows a large bucket of fried chicken, with a picture on the side of a smiling cartoon version of Ma, and more promises of a brighter future, each using a play on the Chinese word for "chicken."

"Bye bye to hunger," it says. "A free or subsidized nutritional lunch for disadvantaged schoolchildren."

(Editing by Nick Macfie and David Fox)

Sum up the text and give your opinion about how far one should go to promote their own political party.

Man Declared Dead Feels 'Pretty Good'

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Four months after he was declared brain dead and doctors were about to remove his organs for transplant, Zach Dunlap says he feels "pretty good."

Dunlap was pronounced dead Nov. 19 at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, after he was injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident. His family approved having his organs harvested.

As family members were paying their last respects, he moved his foot and hand. He reacted to a pocketknife scraped across his foot and to pressure applied under a fingernail. After 48 days in the hospital, he was allowed to return home, where he continues to work on his recovery.

On Monday, he and his family were in New York, appearing on NBC's "Today."

"I feel pretty good. but it's just hard ... just ain't got the patience," Dunlap told NBC.

Dunlap, 21, of Frederick, said he has no recollection of the crash.

"I remember a little bit that was about an hour before the accident happened. But then about six hours before that, I remember," he said.

Dunlap said one thing he does remember is hearing the doctors pronounce him dead.

"I'm glad I couldn't get up and do what I wanted to do," he said.

Asked if he would have wanted to get up and shake them and say he's alive, Dunlap responded: "Probably would have been a broken window that went out."

His father, Doug, said he saw the results of the brain scan.

"There was no activity at all, no blood flow at all."

Zach's mother, Pam, said that when she discovered he was still alive, "That was the most miraculous feeling."

"We had gone, like I said, from the lowest possible emotion that a parent could feel to the top of the mountains again," she said.

She said her son is doing "amazingly well," but still has problems with his memory as his brain heals from the traumatic injury.

"It may take a year or more ... before he completely recovers," she said. "But that's OK. It doesn't matter how long it takes. We're just all so thankful and blessed that we have him here."

Dunlap now has the pocketknife that was scraped across his foot, causing the first reaction.

"Just makes me thankful, makes me thankful that they didn't give up," he said. "Only the good die young, so I didn't go."

Give you opinion about the text and express what you think about, for example, people in coma for years.

Drugs, drink and driving

Sum the text up and give your opinion about it!

Picture Comment....

Well, we'll all agree to the fact, that this not a picture but rather a text....

Cartoon

Comment this picture!

Here are a few guidelines to structure your comment. They do not have to be used, they are just hints! Feel free to structure your comment the way you want!
- Describe what you see (who is standing and where, what is happening...)
- Describe what the picture means, and explain it. (Use examples such as man/woman relations when looking for a job, in politics...)
- Give your personal point of view!


Do not hesitate to search the internet for vocabulary, but please avoid automatic translators!
Try using www.wordreference.com, from French to English, but also for English-English definitions. You can learn a lot just through synonyms!

Here is another useful website: www.lexilogos.com

You will find loads of different ways to find and learn new words, whether through their definitions, synonyms, expressions or sounds! Just be curious!

( puits à souhaits = wishing well)

The Funny English Language

This riddle has been taken from the website:
http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/funnyeng.htm

Check it out, for there is more to see there!

We'll begin with a box and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

The one fowl is a goose but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a whole set of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why should not the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural wouldn't be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats and not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis and shim.

So English, I fancy you will all agree,
Is the funniest language you ever did see.

God sued over pestilence and terror

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A court in Nebraska is being asked to cast judgement on the ultimate judge -- God.

State lawmaker Ernie Chambers filed a lawsuit Friday against the Almighty -- acknowledging he/she goes by numerous aliases -- for causing "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues" and other alliterative catastrophes.

The suit, Chambers vs God, asks the court for a "permanent injunction ordering defendant (God) to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terrorist threats" which affect innumerable persons, including Chambers's constituents.

It asserts that God is "the admitted perpetrator" of such acts and said that God's omnipresence gives the local Douglas County District Court jurisdiction in the suit, adding that God's omniscience eliminates the need to issue a formal notice of the lawsuit.

Chambers told local media he filed the suit to make a point about frivolous lawsuits frequently seen in US courts, citing a recent one against a judge.

He asked the court to award him an unspecified summary judgment against God, or, in the alternative, issue a permanent injunction against God engaging in the damaging acts cited in the filing.

Neither God nor his/her spokespersons could be contacted for comment.