Category Worls And Its People

1000 trees are presently ‘walking’ down the streets of the Dutch city of Leeuwarden

1000 trees are presently walking down the streets of the city of Leeuwarden, Netherlands. Or rather, the indigenous trees planted in big wooden containers are being lugged around by volunteers. The idea is to let people experience a greener and cleaner alternative.

The unique initiative has been launched as part of the art project ‘Bosk, envisaged by architect Bruno Doedens and his collaborator, the late Joop Mulder.

The trees will keep moving around the city till August 14, after which they will be planted across the city. The idea emerged from Doedens 2021 essay Planet Paradise. The essay questions the relationship of humans with the natural world.

Bosk means forest in the local Frisian language. The move is an attempt to raise awareness about climate change. The trees are being moved by thousands of volunteers and roads are closed when the trees are walking. The trees rest on the weekend.

It all started in the month of May, when volunteers started moving the trees in huge wooden containers. After starting their journey, the trees first stopped at Stationsplein. outside Leeuwarden’s train station.

Whilst the trees aren’t moving, seating areas are provided between the trees to let the people experience life when there is more green cover. Around 60-70 varieties of native trees such as maple, oak, elm, willow, alder, and ash are planted in the wooden containers.

QR codes have been given which lets one know the details such as the species name, its lifespan, soil type, and so on. The city gardening team gets an alert whenever water is required by the tree. A soil sensor alert has been provided for this.

 The trees will get their permanent home in the city after 100 days. The trees will trundle down these roads until August 14 and will later be planted across the city where the greenery is limited.

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What is Deus Ex Machina?

Deus Ex Machina is Latin for “God from the machine”. The first literary mention of the phrase can be traced back to Aristotle’s book on Poetics where the philosopher critiques this practice as a weak plot device. Originating in the Greek theatre, this phrase describes a theatrical trend of the time where the protagonist who is stuck in an unresolvable situation is saved by the intervention of a god or deity who would suddenly appear on the stage by either parting the clouds in the sky with the assistance of a crane which would lower the divine being to a platform or rise from under the stage by means of a trap door, hence the name god from the machine.

The Greek playwright Euripides was a great proponent of this practice. However, criticising this spectacle, Aristotle argued that this irrational plot device startled the audience and manipulated their response to the play, diverting their attention away from the plot and the relationships between the characters.

In modern times… Although we have come a long way in our storytelling, sometimes writers still struggle to give their stories a logical and purposeful ending. In such cases a Deus Ex Machina refers to those moments in a narrative when an otherwise unsolvable situation is resolved by the intervention of a person, power, or an (accidental) event that doesn’t have any precedent in the story. Such accidents tend to be viewed with disdain by modern audience, and are perceived as a sign of lack of initiative and creativity on the part of the author or creator.

A classic example of this in fiction is the ending of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies which shows a  naval officer who happens to be passing the island saving the children and taking them back to civilisation. In movies, this device is exemplified by endings like that of Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets where in the climax out of the blue, Faux the Phoenix flies down into the chamber and gives Harry the sorting hat with the Sword of Gryffindor allowing him to kill the monstrous Basilisk, and flies them out to safety when the chamber starts to disintegrate.

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What is the importance of vegetables?

Brightly coloured plants add crunch to your lunch – and healthy vitamins, too. No wonder parents everywhere say, “Eat your vegetables!”

What vegetables do you munch? That partly depends on where you live and what plants grow there. In Indonesia, many people enjoy asinan, a tasty dish usually made of mustard leaves, bean sprouts, bean paste, radishes, and peanuts. All these planrs thrive in the hot, wet climate. In China, the root of the lotus flower is sliced for salads.

People serve lots of cabbage, carrots, and potatoes in the United Kingdom, where the weather is wet and mild, in sunny Mexico, people eat red peppers, green peppers, and maize.

Beetroot grows well in cool places, and cooks in Poland, Russia, and Scandinavia make a delicious beetroot soup called borscht.

Right now, wonderful vegetables from far away are waiting at your shop. Try a new one today! With so many colourful, crunchy choices, you might want to eat only vegetables.

 

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What is the importance of rice?

Growing rice is hard but important work. In many Asian countries, the word rice is also the word for rice.

An old Chinese story tells how rice became good to eat. At one time, the grains of the rice plant were empty and not good as food. One day a goddess saw people suffering because they were always hungry. To help the people, the goddess secretly filled the grains with milk. That made the rice good to eat. From then on, people were not so hungry.

The story shows how important rice is. For more than half the people in the world, rice has been the main course at every meal for thousands of years.

Southeast Asia’s hot, wet climate is perfect for growing rice. Farm families in China, Vietnam, and other rice-growing countries plant young rice seedlings in large, flooded fields. When the rice begins to ripen, they drain the water from the fields. At harvest time, they gather and dry the rice.

Rice is much, much more than food. Rice is used to make alcohol, paper, cosmetics, glue, starch, paste, and vinegar. Rice stalks are used to make brooms, hats, mats, rope, sacks and sandals.

 

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What do we eat?

Are you hungry? Would you like some alligator eggs? What about strawberry ice cream? Raw meat in red-pepper sauce? Maybe a few fried ants?

Do those sound tasty or terrible? It all depends on who are and where in the world you live.

Everyone, everywhere, must eat to live. But what people eat, how they cook their food, and even they eat can be very different.

Do you eat bread? Most people in the world do. In fact, bread is the world’s number-one food choice.

Bread is made from grain, such as wheat, maize, oats, barley, rye, or rice. First, the grain is mixed with other ingredients, which may include water, salt, and yeast, to make a dough. Then it is baked.

Bread comes in all shapes and textures. It can rise and be fluffy, like yeast breads or quick breads, or it can lie flat as a pancake. It can be shaped in a loaf, twisted into doughnuts, rolled into rolls, or cut into crackers.

Soft or crusty bread is preferred in Europe, the U.S.A., and Canada, but flat bread is common elsewhere. In Mexico, people eat flat cornmeal or wheat tortillas. In China, thin rice bread is wrapped around other foods. In India, the flat chapatti is baked from ground wheat. In Turkey, a pancake-shaped pita makes a tasty pocket for meat and vegetables. Crusty, long, thin baguette loaves are popular in France. Dark, chewy rye bread is a favourite in Russia and Germany.

 

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What is neighbourhood?

A neighbourhood is a place where people live together. Every neighbourhood is special to the people who live there.

Do you live in the middle of a busy city or in a tiny farm town? Are you in a suburb in Australia or do you live in the African desert? No matter where you live, you have neighbours. They might be very close by, or they may be miles away.

Do you know your neighbours? How are they like you? What do you do together? How do you help one another? Some people live in the desert in Africa. They live in tents that are easy to take down and move. A whole group will move together, neighbours and all. Many people in Australia live on ranches raising cattle and sheep. Ranches in Australia can be many miles apart, so people don’t see their neighbours often.

In towns and small cities, families live near each other. Neighbours are always nearby. People who live in big cities live close to their neighbours and see people all the time.

Neighbours keep things lively in every kind of neighbourhood. What do your neighbours do?

Many people in Newfoundland and Labrador live near the ocean and fish for a living. Some boys from Tanzania in eastern Africa help their families farm cattle on the grasslands. The Amish are religious people in the U.S.A. who live together in farm communities. When an Amish farmer needs a new barn, all the Amish neighbours come together to build it.

 

Picture Credit : Google