ENGLISH

Professional English

Professional English

Sweet and Sour Served By Kids in the Kitchen by Tim Soutphommasane

The article, “Sweet and sour served by kids in the kitchen”, written by Tim Soutphommasane, published in the Inquirer section of The Weekend Australian newspaper on the 4-5th December 2010 gave a rather negative pessimistic view on 2010's Australia's most watched show, Junior Master chef. In this article, he forwards a question to the reader by asking “Should we reassess the way we value children's innocence?” Soutphommasane is a political philosopher and journalist, who have a small role in “Ask the Philosopher” column of The Weekend Australian. He usually comments about politics, society and public policy. In the article, he forwards the idea that there is the sudden loss of innocence in children and the children exploited for the wrong reasons. He strongly asserts the notion of abuse of the innocent nature of a child.

In the introductory paragraph, he introduces the Junior Master chef as another profit making franchise which is notably a rip-off as the main contestants of this program are young children, even as young as 8 years old. He plainly describes children as “…preternatural and pre-pubescent” chefs who have successfully attracted and average of 1.5 million viewers on a Sunday night. He describes children in the competition as charming and bright, but guarantees that there will be heartbreaks and tears during weekly elimination throughout the competition. The emotional stress of a child is not taken into consideration He believes that one underestimates the capabilities and innocence of children. He is determined and firmly forwards his opinion on the show. He believes the show is highly inappropriate and poses pressure especially for young children. Children, he believes are too young to be placed under the spot light in a competition which is purely for entertainment/commercial purpose.

One Big Happy Family by Bernard Salt

In One Big Happy Family, written ...