It was a horrible joke, but Doc Daneeka didn't laugh until Yussarian came to him one mission later and pleaded again, without any real expectation of success, to be grounded. Doc Daneeka snickered once and was soon immersed in problems of his own, which included Chief White Halfoat, who had been challenging him all that morning to Indian wrestle, and Yossarian, who deciede right then and there to go crazy."You're wasting your time," Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him."Can't you grant someone who's crazy?""Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to graound anyone who's crazy.""Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger.""Clevinger? Where is Clavinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him.""Then ask any of the others. They will tell you how crazy I am.""They are crazy.""Then why don;t you ground them?""Why don't they ask me to ground them?""Because they're crazy, that's why.""Of course they're crazy," Doc Dneeka replied. "I just told you they are crazy, didn't I? And you can;t let crazy people decide whether they are crazy or not, can you?"Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another apporach."Is Orr crazy?""He sure is,"Doc Daneeka said."Can you ground him?""I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule.""Then why doesn't he ask you?""Because h's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat mission after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to.""That's all he has to do to be grounded?""That's all. Let him ask me.""And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked."No, then I can't ground him.""You mean there's a catch?""Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka repled. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."There was only one catch that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be frounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whitsle.“That’s some catch, that catch-22,” he observed.“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agree.“13 June 1944. Another birthday has gone by so now I'm 15. I've received quite a few presents, an art history book, a set of underwear, two belts, and a handkerchief, two pots of yogurt, a pot of jam and two small honey biscuits ... Peter and I have both spent years in the annexe — we often discuss the future, the past and the present, but ... I miss the real thing, and yet I know it exists.”Anne Frank wrote these words in her now famous diary while she and her family were in hiding in "the secret annexe", a few rooms in the back of her father's office in Amsterdam, Holland.The Franks were in fact refugees, Jews from Germany who had emigrated to Holland, settling in Amsterdam to escape from Nazi persecution. But when, in May 1940 the German army invaded and occupied Holland, the persecution of the Dutch Jews very quickly began there too.Like all Jews, Anne and her sister Margot were forbidden to attend school, to ride their bikes, even to travel in a car. They were only allowed to go into certain shops, and at all times they had to wear a yellow star on their clothing to show they were Jewish. The star of David, an important religious symbol, was transformed into a badge of shame by the Nazis.By 1941, the Nazis were arresting large numbers of Jewish people, and sending them to labor camps which quickly became death camps. Otto Frank, Anne's father, decided to conceal his family, and the family of his business partner.The Franks went into hiding on 6 July 1942, just a few weeks after Anne started her diary, and were joined by the second family, the Van Pels a week later. For the next two years, eight people were confined to just six small rooms and could never go outside. There was rarely enough to eat, and the families lived in a state of poverty.Throughout her time in hiding, Anne continued to write her diary. She describe the day-to-day activity in the annexe but she also wrote about her dreams and aspirations. It was very hard for her to plan for a future; she and the others knew what was happening to the Jews who had been caught."Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews ... If it's that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they’re being gassed." —October 9, 1942Despite being an ordinary teenager in many ways, curious, self-critical and moody, Anne was also an honest writer of considerable talent who fought for the right to live and this is what gives the diary such power:"It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all of my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet, I cling to them because I still believe in spite of everything that people are truly good at heart (I)must hold to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I will be able to realize them.It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly turned into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more ... I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come whenI shall be able to carry them out." — July 15, 1944Writing these words, Anne was not displaying simple childish optimism. It was more a declaration of her principles and of the right to human dignity. The voice that comes across is of a solitary young girl writing for herself, yet at the same time it is the cry of all those innocent victims of evil whose fate was to suffer in the Second World War. That is why Anne Frank's diary has achieved fame as the voice of the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered: She speaks for all of humanity.In August 1944, the hiding place was stormed, and Nazi officers arrested everyone. They were taken to a transit camp and forced to do hard labor. From there they were taken by train to a concentration camp at Auschwitz. A month later, Anne and Margot were moved to Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany. They both died of typhus and starvation in March 1945. Anne Frank was 15, her sister was 19. Out of the eight people in hiding, Otto Frank was the only survivor, and when he found his daughter's diary after the war, he arranged for its publication in recognition of her courage.When Anne wrote in her diary "I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me", she couldn't have known that her writing would also be a support and comfort to the whole world after her death.6 active reading 1The rain had started to fall gently through the evening air as darkness descended over Sydney. Hundreds of lights illuminated Stadium Australia, and the noise was deafening. As I walked towards the track I glanced around me at the sea of faces in the stands, but my mind was focused. The Olympic gold medal was just minutes away, hanging tantalizingly in the distance.My heart was beating loudly, my mouth was dry and the adrenaline was pumping. I was so close to the realization of my childhood dream and the feeling was fantastic; it was completely exhilarating, but also terrifying. I knew I would have to push myself beyond my known limits to ensure that my dream came true.I tried to keep composed, telling myself not to panic, to stick to the plan and run my own race.I knew the Russian girls would set off quickly —and I had to finish this race fewer than ten seconds behind the Russian athlete Yelena Prokhorova. If I could do that, the title would be mine.I looked out along the first stretch of the 400m track and caught my breath. The 800m race had punished me so much over the years —in the World, Commonwealth and European Championships —and now it stood between me and the Olympic title.The British supporters were cheering so loudly it seemed as if they were the only fans there. I could hear my name being called. I could hear the shouts of encouragement and the cries of hope. Union Jacks fluttered all around the vast, beautiful stadium. I felt unified with the crowd —we all had the same vision and the same dream.My ankle was bandaged against an injury I had incurred in the long jump just a couple of hours earlier, but I shut out all thoughts of pain. I tried to concentrate on the crowd. They were so vocal. My spirits lifted and I felt composed.I knew I would do my best, that I would run my heart out and finish the race. I felt the performer in me move in and take over. I had just two laps to run, that was all. Just two laps until the emotional and physical strain of the past two days and the last 28 years would be eclipsed by victory or failure. This race was all about survival. It's only two minutes, I kept telling myself,anyone can run for two minutes.The starting gun was fired, and the race began. The first lap was good, I managed to keep up with the group, but I was feeling much more tired than I usually did, and much more than I'd anticipated. Both the long, hard weeks of training that had led up to this championship, and the exhaustion from two days of grueling competition were showing in my performance. Mental and physical fatigue were starting to crush me, and I had to fight back.Prokhorova had set the pace from the start. It was important that I didn’t let her get too far in front. I had to stay with her. At the bell I was 2.3 seconds behind her. Just one lap to go. One lap. I could do it. I had to keep going. In the final 150 meters I could hear the roar of the crowd, giving me a boost at exactly the moment I needed it the most — just when my legs were burning and I could see the gap opening between me and the Russian. Thankfully, my foot was holding out, so now it was all down to mental stamina.Prokhorova was pulling away. I couldn't let her get too far; I had to stay with her. I began counting down the meters I had left to run; 60m, 50m, 40m, 2om. I could see the clock. I could do it, but it would be close. Then finally the line appeared. I crossed it, exhausted. I had finished.As I crossed the line my initial thought was how much harder the race had been than expected, bearing in mind how, only eight weeks before, I had set a new personal best of two minutes 12.2 seconds. Then my mind turned to the result. Had I done it? I thought I had. I was aware of where the other athletes were, and was sure that I'd just made it. But, until I saw it on the scoreboard, I wouldn't let myself believe it. As I stood there, staring up and waiting for confirmation, I tried hard to keep negative thoughts from my mind - but I couldn’t help thinking, what if I have just missed out? What if I’ve been through all this, and missed out?In the distance I could hear the commentary team talking about two days of tough competition, then I could almost hear someone say, "I think she's done enough." The next thing I knew, Sabine Braun of Germany came over and told me I'd won. They had heard before me, and she asked what it felt like to be the Olympic champion. I smiled, still not sure.Then, the moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life —my name in lights. That was when it all hit me. Relief, a moment of calm, and a thank you to my inner self for taking me through these two days. I felt a tingle through the whole of my body. This was how it is meant to be —arms aloft and fists clenched.I looked out at the fans, who were waving flags, clapping and shouting with delight. I was the Olympic champion. The Olympic champion.6 active reading 27 active reading 1When Soren was leaving for Japan to study carpentry, he asked if Hogahn, who was his dog originally, could live with me. "Of course," I said, "he'll protect me." There had been robberies in the neighborhood recently, and my house in Massachusetts was surrounded by a pond and woods to the north and west, so that someone could easily approach after dark without being seen.Soren laughed. "Hogahn doesn't exactly bark when someone comes to the door," he said. "If a burglar came, he would probably lick him."But Hogahn sensed that his connection to me was different from his connection to Soren.Soren, who is strong and relatively fearless, did not need much protection. When Soren was in a hurry, he would lift Hogahn like a small child into the bed of the pickup. I could not lift him. We were just about the same weight, and Hogahn was younger and stronger. As a woman, I faced dangers that Soren and Hogahn did not have to know about. After a week of living with me, Hogahn was barking at anyone who came near the house.Our protecting relationship began early, with me as the initial protector. Hogahn was a puppy, about seven months old, when Soren left him with me for the first time, only for a weekend. It was a cold, late November morning and the water in the pond was just beginning to freeze. A thin layer of ice held blowing leaves and light branches, but was much too tenuous for animal paws.I was hanging up the laundry in the backyard on a long clothesline which stretched from the giant oak tree next to the house to the spruce at the edge of the water. A light blue sheet was lifting itself with the wind and was trying to sail off over the pond to join the sky. As I struggled to trap it with a clothespin, Hogahn was panting warm clouds of air at my feet, lifting and dropping a two-foot oak branch that had fallen into his loving possession.Focused on capturing the sheet so that it draped evenly over the line, I distractedly picked up the stick and tossed it down the hill toward the fence that separated the yard from the water.I had tossed sticks for him before and knew the approximate distance they would go, depending upon their weight and my motion. This stick, however, caught a gust and, flying where the sheet wanted to go, sailed across the yard, over the fence, and, with a fine skater's touch, glided onto the pond. As I looked up, I saw Hogahn racing through the gate and, with a magnificent leap, crashing through the ice just short of the stick and into the water.Time froze as I stood at the clothesline. I thought: Soren has given me this child to watch over. He is my first grandchild. I have to save him. I was penetratingly aware of the dangers of the pond in November. I had fallen through once and saved myself because I had stayed very calm and moved very slowly. I knew that Hogahn could claw at me in his panic, pulling me down, and we could both go under.The next moment I was standing in the water and Hogahn was swimming toward me, breaking the ice with his front paws. He seemed a little startled by the intrusion of the ice in his path, but definitely in control. I went as far as I could until the pond bottom sank down under my weight and the ice water penetrated my jacket, and I stood and waited. He swam into my neck, and I lifted his puppy-body and carried him out of the water. He seemed to acknowledge that there had been some danger. He stayed quietly in my arms as we went across the yard and into the house, not squirming in his usual way to get free. Inside, I rubbed him for a long time with a towel. Afterward, he went over and examined my wet clothes, which I had thrown in a pile on the floor; he liked the fact that my clothes smelled of the pond, that we both had that swamp smell.7 active reading 2What does an elephant see when it looks in the mirror? Itself, apparently. Previously, such self-awareness was thought to be limited to humans, primates and the great celebrities of the world of animal intelligence, dolphins. At first, elephants in studies with mirrors will explore the mirror as an object. Eventually, they may realize they are looking at themselves. They will repeatedly touch a mark painted on their heads that they wouldn't see without the mirror. DianaReiss of Hunter College believes these are compelling signs of self-awareness.Scientists used to believe that animals were like machines programmed to react to stimuli. They were not considered capable of feeling or thinking, and certainly not of understanding abstract concepts. However, any dog owner will disagree. They know, when they see the love in their pet's eyes, that it has feelings. A dog can be trained to respond to commands and perform useful tasks. It can recognize different people and make choices about what to eat or which path to take. But does this mean that an animal is capable of thinking and, if so, can it be proved? Our perceptions of animals are filtered through our own human understanding of the world and we often project human feelings and thoughts onto other creatures.One of the first scientists to try to investigate the animal mind was the British naturalist Charles Darwin. In his book The Descent of Man , published in 1871, he questioned whether higher mental abilities such as self-consciousness and memory, were limited to human beings. Darwin speculated that human and non-human minds aren't all that different. Animals, he argued, face the same general challenges and have the same basic needs as humans: to find food and a mate, to navigate through the sky, the woods or the sea. All these tasks require the ability to problem-solve and to categorize. Birds, for example, need to be able to distinguish colours so they know when a fruit is ripe, what is safe to eat and what is not. Knowing the shapes of predators helps them to escape danger. Having a concept of numbers helps them to keep track of their flock, and to know which individuals have a mate.All these skills require, not just instinct, but cognitive ability, argues Irene Pepperberg, who has worked on animal intelligence since 1977.She studied an African grey parrot called Alex from the age of one for 30 years. Parrots are well-known for their ability to imitate speech and in her experiments, Pepperberg used this talent to find out about Alex's understanding of the world. Her aim was to teach him to reproduce the sounds of the English language so that she could then have a dialogue with him. "I thought if he learned to communicate, I could ask him questions about how he sees the world."Memory, language, self-awareness, emotions and creativity are key indications of higher mental abilities. Scientists have, bit by bit, uncovered and documented these talents in other species. Pepperberg discovered that Alex could count, distinguish shapes, sizes, colours and materials such as wood, wool and metal. Until recently, only higher mammals, such as primates, have been thought capable of understanding concepts of "same" and "different". But parrots, like primates, live for a long time in complex societies, so abstract mental ability would seem to be a valuable survival skill for them, too.Darwin argued that animals' minds, like their bodies, have evolved to suit their environment. He went so far as to suggest that even worms have some hint of intelligence since he observed them making judgments about the kinds of leaves they used to block their tunnels. Many scientists in the 20th century dismissed such findings as unreliable, usually influenced by anthropomorphism, in other words, judging animals by human attributes. However, the pendulum is now swinging away from thinking of animals as machines without intelligence, and back towards Darwin's ideas. A wide range of studies on animals suggests that the roots of intelligence are deep, widespread across the animal kingdom and highly changeable.People were surprised to find that chimpanzees and other primates were smart. They make tools. Orang-utans use leaves as rain hats and protect their hands when climbing spiky trees. Scientists put this down to the fact that primates and humans share a common ancestor. What issurprising them now however, is that intelligence doesn't seem to be limited to those species with whom we have a common ancestor. It appears that evolution can reinvent similar forms of consciousness in different species, and that to an astonishing degree, this intelligence is not reserved only for higher mammals. One vital question is thrown up by the current research: If all this is true and animals have feelings and intelligence, should it affect the way we humans treat them?8 active reading 1A gifted American psychologist has said, "Worry is a spasm of the emotion; the mind catches hold of something and will not let it go." It’s useless to argue with the mind in this condition. The stronger the will, the more futile the task. One can only gently insinuate something else into its convulsive grasp. And if this something else is rightly chosen, if it is really attended by the illumination of another field of interest, gradually, and often quite swiftly, the old undue grip relaxes and the process of recuperation and repair begins.The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is therefore a policy of first importance to a public man. But this is not a business that can be undertaken in a day or swiftly improvised by a mere command of the will. The growth of alternative mental interests is a long process. The seeds must be carefully chosen; they must fall on good ground; they must be sedulously tended, if the vivifying fruits are to be at hand when needed.To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say: "I will take an interest in this or that." Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human beings maybe divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the manual laborer, tired out with a hard week's sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or businessman, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.As for the unfortunate people who can command everything they want, who can gratify every caprice and lay their hands on almost every object of desire — for them a new pleasure, a new excitement is only an additional satiation. In vain they rush frantically round from place to place, trying to escape from avenging boredom by mere clatter and motion. For them discipline in one form or another is the most hopeful path.It may be said that rational, industrious, useful human beings are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. But Fortune's favored children belong to the second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most need themeans of banishing it at intervals from their minds.8 active reading 2。