To whom it may concern: My wife and I have lived in Smalltown for more than 60 years and have enjoyed Freer Park for all that time. When we were young and didn't have the money to go anywhere else, we would walk there almost every day. Now we are seniors, and my wife must use a wheelchair for extended walks. We find that the beautiful walking paths through the park are all but impassable to her. The paths are cracked and littered with rocks and debris that make it impossible to roll her chair from place to place. We hope you will devote resources to restoring the walking paths in Freer Park for all visitors. Sincerely, Craig Thomas

When the vote was announced, my brain just would not work out the right percentages to discover whether we had the necessary two-thirds majority. Then one of the technicians turned to me with a big smile on his face and said, You've got it! At that moment, the cameras outside took over and out there in the yard there was a scene of joy almost beyond belief. Then the cameras came back to those of us who were in the studio. I managed to overcome my urge to burst into tears, and expressed my joy and delight that after all these years this had happened and my thanks to my daughters and my family who had shared in the struggle so long.

It is easy to judge people based on their actions. We are often taught to put more value in actions than words, and for good reason. The actions of others often speak volumes louder than their words. However, when someone exhibits some difficult behavior, you might want to reserve judgement for later. People are not always defined by their behavior. It is common to think, He is so bossy, or She is so mean, after observing less-than-desirable behavior in someone. But you should never make such assumptions right away. You should give someone a second chance before you label them and shut them out forever. You may find a great co-worker or best friend in someone, so don't eliminate a person from your life based on a brief observation.

Study the lives of the great people who have made an impact on the world, and you will find that in virtually every case, they spent a considerable amount of time alone thinking. Every political leader who had an impact on history practiced the discipline of being alone to think and plan. Great artists spend countless hours in their studios or with their instruments not just doing, but exploring their ideas and experiences. Time alone allows people to sort through their experiences, put them into perspective, and plan for the future. I strongly encourage you to find a place to think and to discipline yourself to pause and use it because it has the potential to change your life. It can help you to figure out what's really important and what isn't.

Shopping for new gadgets, clothes, or just random junk can turn into a hobby in itself. If you'd rather save your money, try finding pleasure in creating things rather than buying things. We get the same kind of satisfaction from making things that we do from buying things. If you draw something you're proud of or write something you enjoy, you've now got a new thing in your life that makes you happy. Buying a new gadget might give you a similar rush, but it's also probably more temporary. Of course, our recommendation can cost money, too. However, when you can't spend money, you can always learn more about your craft online or practice with what you already have. Even if you end up spending money making things yourself, you're at least building a skill rather than a collection of stuff that's quickly decreasing in value.

Overprotective parents spare kids from all natural consequences. Unfortunately, their kids often lack a clear understanding of the reasons behind their parents' rules. They never learn how to bounce back from failure or how to recover from mistakes because their parents prevented them from making poor choices. Rather than learning, I should wear a jacket because it's cold outside, a child may conclude, I have to wear a jacket because my mom makes me. Without an opportunity to experience real-world consequences, kids don't always understand why their parents make certain rules. Natural consequences prepare children for adulthood by helping them think a

The above graph shows the percentages of children in different age groups who read books for fun at least five days a week in 2012 and 2014. In both years, the percentages of the 6-8 age group ranked first, followed by the 9-11 age group. In 2012, the percentage of the 6-8 age group was twice as large as that of the 15-17 age group. In 2014, the percentage of the 6-8 age group was larger than the combined percentage of the two age groups 12-14 and 15-17. The gap in the percentages between 2012 and 2014 was the smallest in the 12-14 age group. Compared to 2012, all the age groups showed decreased percentages in 2014, except the 6-8 age group.

Dorothy Hodgkin was born in Cairo in 1910, where her father worked in the Egyptian Education Service. Her interest in chemistry started when she was just ten years old. In 1949, she worked on the structure of penicillin with her colleagues. Her work on vitamin B12 was published in 1954, which led to her being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964. She also became the first woman to receive the Copley Medal and was a winner of the Lenin Peace Prize. Hodgkin showed great concern for social inequalities and resolving conflicts. As a result, she was president of the Pugwash Conferences from 1976 to 1988.

In perceiving changes, we tend to regard the most recent ones as the most revolutionary. This is often inconsistent with the facts. Recent progress in telecommunications technologies is not more revolutionary than what happened in the late nineteenth century in relative terms. Moreover, in terms of the consequent economic and social changes, the Internet revolution has not been as important as the washing machine and other household appliances. These things, by vastly reducing the amount of work needed for household chores, allowed women to enter the labor market and virtually got rid of professions like domestic service. We should not put the telescope backward when we look into the past and underestimate the old and overestimate the new. This leads us to make all sorts of wrong decisions about national economic policy, corporate policies, and our own careers.

《Hike the Valley》 Hike the Valley is a hiking program where we guide participants through local trails every Saturday. Hike Information ◈ Meeting Place: Marshall Canyon Regional Park Main Gate ◈ Age Requirements: Participants should be ten years of age or older. All those under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult. ◈ Participation Fee: The fee is $8 per person. This includes a bottle of water and shuttle bus service. ◈ Participant Requirements: Hikers are required to wear comfortable hiking shoes or boots and bring their own lunch. ◈ Registration: Register in advance at the Carolyn Owens Community Center.

《Passing on My Favorites》 Do you have anything you don't use anymore? Passing on My Favorites is a flea market event that takes place at our school every year. Bring Your Goods: ￭ When: September 4-6 (12:00-13:00) ￭ Where: the student council room ￭ What: anything you don't use anymore (clothing, bags, shoes, stationery, etc.) * You will receive coupons according to how much you bring. Buy What You Want: ￭ When: September 8 (10:00-12:00) ￭ Where: the gymnasium ￭ How: The coupons mentioned above will be your only way to purchase goods. * No food will be sold because it might spoil in the hot weather.

From the beginning of human history, people have asked questions about the world and their place within it. For early societies, the answers to the most basic questions were found in religion. Some people, however, found the traditional religious explanations inadequate, and they began to search for answers based on reason. This shift marked the birth of philosophy, and the first of the great thinkers that we know of was Thales of Miletus. He used reason to inquire into the nature of the universe, and encouraged others to do likewise. He passed on to his followers not only his answers but also the process of thinking rationally, together with an idea of what kind of explanations could be considered satisfactory.

About fifty years ago, a Pygmy named Kenge took his first trip out of the forests of Africa and onto the open plains with an anthropologist. Buffalo appeared in the distance, and the Pygmy watched them curiously. Finally, he turned to the anthropologist and asked what kind of insects they were. When I told Kenge that the insects were buffalo, he roared with laughter and told me not to tell such stupid lies. The anthropologist wasn't stupid, and he hadn't lied. Rather, because Kenge had lived his entire life in a dense jungle that offered no views of the horizon, he had failed to learn what most of us take for granted, namely, that things look different when they are far away.

Why doesn't the modern American accent sound similar to a British accent? After all, didn't the British colonize the U.S.? Experts believe that British residents and the colonists who settled America all sounded the same back in the 18th century, and they probably all sounded more like modern Americans than modern Brits. The accent that we identify as British today was developed around the time of the American Revolution by people of low birth rank who had become wealthy during the Industrial Revolution. To distinguish themselves from other commoners, these people developed new ways of speaking to set themselves apart and demonstrate their new, elevated social status. In the 19th century, this distinctive accent was standardized as Received Pronunciation and taught widely by pronunciation tutors to people who wanted to learn to speak fashionably.

It's hard enough to stick with goals you want to accomplish, but sometimes we make goals we're not even thrilled about in the first place. We set resolutions based on what we're supposed to do, or what others think we're supposed to do, rather than what really matters to us. This makes it nearly impossible to stick to the goal. For example, reading more is a good habit, but if you're only doing it because you feel like that's what you're supposed to do, not because you actually want to learn more, you're going to have a hard time reaching the goal. Instead, make goals based on your own values. Now, this isn't to say you should read less. The idea is to first consider what matters to you, then figure out what you need to do to get there.

Houston Airport executives faced plenty of complaints regarding baggage claim time, so they increased the number of baggage handlers. Although it reduced the average wait time to eight minutes, complaints didn't stop. It took about a minute to get from the arrival gate to baggage claim, so the passengers spent seven more minutes waiting for their bags. The solution was to move the arrival gates away from the baggage claim so it took passengers about seven minutes to walk there. It resulted in complaints reducing to almost zero. Research shows occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time. People usually exaggerate about the time they waited, and what they find most bothersome is time spent unoccupied. Thus, occupying the passengers' time by making them walk longer gave them the idea they didn't have to wait as long.

Having extremely vivid memories of past emotional experiences and only weak memories of past everyday events means we maintain a biased perception of the past. We tend to view the past as a concentrated time line of emotionally exciting events. We remember the arousing aspects of an episode and forget the boring bits. A summer vacation will be recalled for its highlights, and the less exciting parts will fade away with time, eventually to be forgotten forever. As a result, when we estimate how our next summer vacation will make us feel, we overestimate the positive. It seems as though an imprecise picture of the past is one reason for our inaccurate forecasts of the future.

Use a plastic pen and rub it on your hair about ten times and then hold the pen close to small pieces of tissue paper or chalk dust. You will find that the bits of paper or chalk dust cling to the pen. What you have done there is to create a form of electricity called static electricity. This kind of electricity is produced by friction, and the pen becomes electrically charged. Static electricity is also found in the atmosphere. During a thunderstorm, clouds may become charged as they rub against each other. The lightning that we often see during a storm is caused by a large flow of electrical charges between charged clouds and the earth.

From a correlational observation, we conclude that one variable is related to a second variable. But neither behavior could be directly causing the other even though there is a relationship. The following example will illustrate why it is difficult to make causal statements on the basis of correlational observation. The researchers at the U.S. Army conducted a study of motorcycle accidents, attempting to correlate the number of accidents with other variables such as socioeconomic level and age. They found the best predictor to be the number of tattoos the rider had. It would be a ridiculous error to conclude that tattoos cause motorcycle accidents or that motorcycle accidents cause tattoos. Obviously, a third variable is related to both—perhaps preference for risk. A person who is willing to take risks likes to be tattooed and also takes more chances on a motorcycle.

Do hair and fingernails continue to grow after a person dies? The short answer is no, though it may not seem that way to the casual observer. That's because after death, the human body dehydrates, causing the skin to shrink, or become smaller. This shrinking exposes the parts of the nails and hair that were once under the skin, causing them to appear longer than before. Typically, fingernails grow about 0.1 millimeters a day, but in order to grow, they need glucose—a simple sugar that helps to power the body. Once the body dies, there's no more glucose. So skin cells, hair cells, and nail cells no longer produce new cells. Moreover, a complex hormonal regulation directs the growth of hair and nails, none of which is possible once a person dies.

Reading is like skiing. When done well, when done by an expert, both reading and skiing are graceful, harmonious activities. When done by a beginner, both are awkward, frustrating, and slow. Learning to ski is one of the most embarrassing experiences an adult can undergo. After all, an adult has been walking for a long time; he knows where his feet are; he knows how to put one foot in front of the other in order to get somewhere. But as soon as he puts skis on his feet, it is as though he had to learn to walk all over again. He slips and slides, falls down, has trouble getting up, and generally looks — and feels — like a fool. It is the same with reading. Probably you have been reading for a long time, too, and starting to learn all over again would be humiliating.

Studying history can make you more knowledgeable or interesting to talk to or can lead to all sorts of brilliant vocations, explorations, and careers. But even more importantly, studying history helps us ask and answer humanity's Big Questions. If you want to know why something is happening in the present, you might ask a sociologist or an economist. But if you want to know deep background, you ask historians. That's because they are the people who know and understand the past and can explain its complex interrelationships with the present.

Social psychologists at the University of Virginia asked college students to stand at the base of a hill while carrying a weighted backpack and estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to close friends whom they had known a long time, some stood next to friends they had not known for long, some stood next to strangers, and the others stood alone during the exercise. The participants who stood with close friends gave significantly lower estimates of the steepness of the hill than those who stood alone, next to strangers, or next to newly formed friends. Furthermore, the longer the close friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared to the participants involved in the study.

Without a doubt, dinosaurs are a popular topic for kids across the planet. Something about these extinct creatures from long ago seems to hold almost everyone's attention, young or old, boy or girl. Though we don't know a lot about dinosaurs, what we do know is fascinating to children of all ages. But why? I think the reason kids like dinosaurs so much is that dinosaurs were big, were different from anything alive today, and are extinct. So they are imagination engines, explains Jack Horner, a technical advisor for the Jurassic Park films. Teachers all over the country would agree. Dinosaurs are studied in classrooms each year, not only for the science behind the topic, but also because of the creative thinking it seems to foster in students. The best part about this is what happens with their writing, Jennifer Zimmerman, a primary school teacher in Washington, D.C., says. I think it's the mystery of dinosaurs―the fact that there are still so many things we don't know―that inspires them to use that topic in their journals. Children also feel powerful when asked to draw a dinosaur. Since no one knows what colors dinosaurs actually were, a child can use what information he has―and his imagination―to draw a dinosaur as he sees it.

A long time ago, there was a boy. He was smart, talented, and handsome. However, he was very selfish, and his temper was so difficult that nobody wanted to be his friend. Often, he got angry and said hurtful things to people around him. The boy's parents were concerned about his bad temper. One day, the father had an idea. He called his son and gave him a hammer and a bag of nails. The father said, Every time you get angry, take a nail, and drive it into that old fence as hard as you can. The fence was very tough, and the hammer was heavy. Nevertheless, he was so furious that during the very first day he drove in 37 nails. The number of nails the boy drove into the fence each day gradually decreased. Eventually, the boy started to understand that holding his temper was easier than driving nails into the fence. He didn't need the hammer and nails anymore when he learned to hold his temper. He went to his father and shared his achievement. Now every time you hold your temper all day long, pull out one nail. Much time passed. At last, the boy was proud of himself as all the nails were gone. He found his father and explained this. Together, they went to the fence, and he said, You did a good job, my son, but pay attention to the holes left from the nails. The fence will never be the same. The same happens when you say hurtful things to people. Your words leave scars in their hearts like those holes in the fence.