It"s Christmas again. We live on a dirty street in a shabby house among people who aren"t much good. You can"t see how pitiful it is that our neighbors have to make happiness out of this filth (污秽) and dirt. My children must get out of this. But how The money that we"ve saved isn"t nearly enough.
The McGaritys have money, but they are show-offs with it. The McGarity girl just yesterday stood out there in the street eating from a bag of cookies while a group of hungry children watched her. I saw those children looking at her and crying in their hearts, and when she couldn"t eat any more, she threw the rest down the sewer (阴沟).
Miss Jackson who teaches at the Settlement House (教育中心) isn"t rich, but she knows things, she understands people. Her eyes look straight into yours when she talks with you. Everyboby else here looks away because they"re ashamed of their lives. I"d like to see the children be like Miss Jackson when they grow up.Train companies in Tokyo are taking action to reduce the number of people jumping in front of trains. They are fitting blue lights on station platforms to try and create a more calming atmosphere. The East Japan Railway Company has invested almost $170,000 to install the lights in all of the 29 stations on the capital"s busy Yamanote Line. There has been an alarming rise in the number of people committing suicide at train stations. A total of 68 people threw themselves under trains in the year up to March. This compares with 42 suicides in the same period a year earlier. In 2008, Japan had nearly 2,000 suicides by jumping in front of a train; around six percent of all suicides nationwide. Suicides have risen sharply in the past decade due to poor economic conditions.
No one knows if the blue lights will work. There is no evidence to show that blue light reduces suicidal feelings. Keihan Railway spokesman Osamu Okawa stated: "We thought we had to do something to save lives. We know there is no scientific proof that blue lights deter suicides, but if blue has a soothing effect on the mind, we want to try it to save lives." The Associated Press news agency reports on a Japanese therapist called Mizuki Takahashi. She explained her reasons why the blue lights might be a good idea: "We associate the color with the sky and the sea. It has a calming effect on agitated people, or people obsessed with one particular thing, which in this case is committing suicide," she said. Other companies are watching this experiment with interest.Visitors from space may have landed on our planet dozens, even hundreds of times during the long, empty ages while Man was still a dream of the distant future. Indeed, they could have landed on 90 percent of the earth as recently as two or three hundred years ago, and we could never have heard of it. If one searches through old newspapers and local records, one can find many reports of strange incidents that could be interpreted as visits from outer space. A stimulating writer, Charles Fort, has made a collection of UFO sighting in his book! One is tempted to believe them more than any modern reports, for the reason that they happened long before anyone had ever thought of space travel. Yet at the same time, one can"t take them too seriously, for before scientific education was widespread, even sightings of meteors, comets, auroras, and so on, gave rise to the most incredible stories, as they still do today.For many people today, reading is no longer relaxation. To keep up their work they must read letters, reports, trade publications, interoffice communications, not to mention newspapers and magazines: a never-ending flood of words. In 1 a job or advancing in one, the ability to read and comprehend 2 can mean the difference between success and failure. Yet the unfortunate fact is that most of us are 3 readers. Most of us develop poor reading 4 at an early age, and never get over them. The main deficiency 5 in the actual stuff of language itself ——words. Taken individually, words have 6 meaning until they are strung together into phrases, sentences and paragraphs. 7 , however, the untrained reader does not read groups of words. He laboriously reads one word at a time, often regressing(退回) to 8 words or passages. Regression, the tendency to look back over 9 you have just read, is a common bad habit in reading. Another habit which 10 down the speed of reading is vocalization―sounding each word either orally or mentally as 11 reads.
To overcome these bad habits, some reading clinics use a device called an 12 , which moves a bar (or curtain) down the page at a predetermined(预先确定的) speed. The bar is set at a slightly faster rate 13 the reader finds comfortable, in order to "stretch" him. The accelerator forces the reader to read fast, 14 word-by-word reading, regression and subvocalization(默读)practically impossible. At first 15 is sacrificed for speed. But when you learn to read ideas and concepts, you will not only read faster, 16 your comprehension will improve. Many people have found 17 reading skill drastically improved after some training. 18 Charlce Au, a business manager, for instance, his reading rate was a reasonably good 172 words a minute 19 the training, now it is an excellent 1,378 words a minute. He is delighted that how he can 20 a lot more reading material in a short period of time.Key James, Secretary of Health and Human Resources in the Virginia State government, loves to turn the tables on those who don"t think it"s possible to be middle-class, conservative, educated and still be truly black. Once, during an abortion debate, a woman in the audience angrily told James she was so middle-class she didn"t have a clue about real African American life. "If you understood what these women go through," the woman said, "you would realize that abortion is their only choice."
James then asked the woman to consider a poor black mother on welfare. She already has four children and an alcoholic husband who has all but abandoned the family. Now she discovers another child is on the way. "How would you counsel that woman" asked James.
"Have an abortion," the woman responded. "That child would have a very poor quality of life."
"I have a vested interest in your answer," James said. "The woman I described was my mother. I was the fifth of six children born into poverty. And, in case you"re interested, the quality of my life is just fine!"Visitors from space may have landed on our planet dozens, even hundreds of times during the long, empty ages while Man was still a dream of the distant future. Indeed, they could have landed on 90 percent of the earth as recently as two or three hundred years ago, and we could never have heard of it. If one searches through old newspapers and local records, one can find many reports of strange incidents that could be interpreted as visits from outer space. A stimulating writer, Charles Fort, has made a collection of UFO sighting in his book! One is tempted to believe them more than any modern reports, for the reason that they happened long before anyone had ever thought of space travel. Yet at the same time, one can"t take them too seriously, for before scientific education was widespread, even sightings of meteors, comets, auroras, and so on, gave rise to the most incredible stories, as they still do today.Train companies in Tokyo are taking action to reduce the number of people jumping in front of trains. They are fitting blue lights on station platforms to try and create a more calming atmosphere. The East Japan Railway Company has invested almost $170,000 to install the lights in all of the 29 stations on the capital"s busy Yamanote Line. There has been an alarming rise in the number of people committing suicide at train stations. A total of 68 people threw themselves under trains in the year up to March. This compares with 42 suicides in the same period a year earlier. In 2008, Japan had nearly 2,000 suicides by jumping in front of a train; around six percent of all suicides nationwide. Suicides have risen sharply in the past decade due to poor economic conditions.
No one knows if the blue lights will work. There is no evidence to show that blue light reduces suicidal feelings. Keihan Railway spokesman Osamu Okawa stated: "We thought we had to do something to save lives. We know there is no scientific proof that blue lights deter suicides, but if blue has a soothing effect on the mind, we want to try it to save lives." The Associated Press news agency reports on a Japanese therapist called Mizuki Takahashi. She explained her reasons why the blue lights might be a good idea: "We associate the color with the sky and the sea. It has a calming effect on agitated people, or people obsessed with one particular thing, which in this case is committing suicide," she said. Other companies are watching this experiment with interest.For many people today, reading is no longer relaxation. To keep up their work they must read letters, reports, trade publications, interoffice communications, not to mention newspapers and magazines: a never-ending flood of words. In 1 a job or advancing in one, the ability to read and comprehend 2 can mean the difference between success and failure. Yet the unfortunate fact is that most of us are 3 readers. Most of us develop poor reading 4 at an early age, and never get over them. The main deficiency 5 in the actual stuff of language itself ——words. Taken individually, words have 6 meaning until they are strung together into phrases, sentences and paragraphs. 7 , however, the untrained reader does not read groups of words. He laboriously reads one word at a time, often regressing(退回) to 8 words or passages. Regression, the tendency to look back over 9 you have just read, is a common bad habit in reading. Another habit which 10 down the speed of reading is vocalization―sounding each word either orally or mentally as 11 reads.
To overcome these bad habits, some reading clinics use a device called an 12 , which moves a bar (or curtain) down the page at a predetermined(预先确定的) speed. The bar is set at a slightly faster rate 13 the reader finds comfortable, in order to "stretch" him. The accelerator forces the reader to read fast, 14 word-by-word reading, regression and subvocalization(默读)practically impossible. At first 15 is sacrificed for speed. But when you learn to read ideas and concepts, you will not only read faster, 16 your comprehension will improve. Many people have found 17 reading skill drastically improved after some training. 18 Charlce Au, a business manager, for instance, his reading rate was a reasonably good 172 words a minute 19 the training, now it is an excellent 1,378 words a minute. He is delighted that how he can 20 a lot more reading material in a short period of time.Key James, Secretary of Health and Human Resources in the Virginia State government, loves to turn the tables on those who don"t think it"s possible to be middle-class, conservative, educated and still be truly black. Once, during an abortion debate, a woman in the audience angrily told James she was so middle-class she didn"t have a clue about real African American life. "If you understood what these women go through," the woman said, "you would realize that abortion is their only choice."
James then asked the woman to consider a poor black mother on welfare. She already has four children and an alcoholic husband who has all but abandoned the family. Now she discovers another child is on the way. "How would you counsel that woman" asked James.
"Have an abortion," the woman responded. "That child would have a very poor quality of life."
"I have a vested interest in your answer," James said. "The woman I described was my mother. I was the fifth of six children born into poverty. And, in case you"re interested, the quality of my life is just fine!"Train companies in Tokyo are taking action to reduce the number of people jumping in front of trains. They are fitting blue lights on station platforms to try and create a more calming atmosphere. The East Japan Railway Company has invested almost $170,000 to install the lights in all of the 29 stations on the capital"s busy Yamanote Line. There has been an alarming rise in the number of people committing suicide at train stations. A total of 68 people threw themselves under trains in the year up to March. This compares with 42 suicides in the same period a year earlier. In 2008, Japan had nearly 2,000 suicides by jumping in front of a train; around six percent of all suicides nationwide. Suicides have risen sharply in the past decade due to poor economic conditions.
No one knows if the blue lights will work. There is no evidence to show that blue light reduces suicidal feelings. Keihan Railway spokesman Osamu Okawa stated: "We thought we had to do something to save lives. We know there is no scientific proof that blue lights deter suicides, but if blue has a soothing effect on the mind, we want to try it to save lives." The Associated Press news agency reports on a Japanese therapist called Mizuki Takahashi. She explained her reasons why the blue lights might be a good idea: "We associate the color with the sky and the sea. It has a calming effect on agitated people, or people obsessed with one particular thing, which in this case is committing suicide," she said. Other companies are watching this experiment with interest.
James" family led a ______ life when she was born.