What does it mean to say that we live in a world of persuasion? It means that we live among competing interests. Your roommate's need to study for an exam may take priority (优先) over pizza. Your instructor may have good reasons not to change your grade.

    In such a world, persuasion is the art of getting others to give fair and favorable consideration to our points of view. When we persuade, we want to influence how others believe and behave. We may not always prevail — other points of view may be more persuasive, depending on the listener, the situ­ation, and the merit of the case. But when we practice the art of persuasion, we try to ensure that our position receives the attention it deserves.

    Some people, however, object to the very idea of persuasion. They may regard it as an unwelcome interruption into their lives. Just the opposite, we believe that persuasion is unavoidable — to live is to persuade. Persuasion may be ethical (合乎道义的) or unethical, selfless or selfish, inspiring or degrad­ing. Persuaders may enlighten our minds or get our vulnerability(脆弱之处). Ethical persuasion, however, calls on sound reasoning and is sensitive to the feelings and needs of listeners. Such persuasion can help us apply the wisdom of the past to the decisions we now must make. Therefore, the most basic part of edu­cation is learning to resist the one kind of persuasion and to encourage and practice the other.

    Beyond its personal importance to us, persuasion is necessary to society. The right to persuade and be persuaded is the bedrock of the American political system, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution (美国宪法).

    Are we getting more stupid? According to Gerald Crabtree, a scientist at Stanford University in the US, we are.  You may not want to hear this, but Crabtree believes that human intelligence reached its peak more than 2,000 years ago and ever since then has been going downhill. “If an average Greek from 1,000 BC were transported to modern times, he or she would be one of the brightest among us,” Crabtree told The Guardian.

    At the heart of Crabtree's thinking is a simple idea. In the past, intelligence was critical for survival when our ancestors had to avoid dangerous animals and hunt for food. The difference of being smart or stupid is often life or death. However, after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense ( 稠密的）farming communities, the need to keep their intelligence in peak condition gradually reduced. This is not hard to understand. Most of the time,pressure is what keeps us going – you need the pressure from your teachers to finish your homework; the pressure of looking pretty prompts(促使) you to lose weight when summer comes. And the same is also true of our intelligence – if we think less, we become less smart.

    These mutations(变) are harmful to our intelligence and they were all developed in the past 3,000 years. The other evidence that Crabtree holds is in our genes. He found that among the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that we have that determine human intelligence , there are two or more mutations in each of us. However, Crabtree's theory has been criticized by some who say that early humans may have better hunting and surviving abilities, but people today have developed a more diverse intelligence. For example, spearing a tiger doesn't necessarily require more brainpower than playing chess or writing a poem. Moreover, the power of modern education means a lot more people have the opportunity to learn nowadays. “You wouldn't get Stephen Hawking 2,000 years ago. He just wouldn't exist,” Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, UK, told Live Science. “But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights(洞察力) that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation.”

    Luna Grill is a fast casual dining restaurant, which offers healthy food at fair prices. Now it is offering jobs to teenagers who want to work.

    General requirements for working at Luna Grill

    The youngest age to apply jobs at Luna Grill is 6 years old. You must be able to stand for a period of time up five hours of work. You must be able to frequently lift things up to 50 pounds. You must be willing to work on weekends and holidays.

    What jobs can teens apply for at Luna Grill?

    Line Cook

    Open or close the line, stock and refill items

    Cook and present the food according to their standards

    Control the ticket time and follow line book instructions

    Help in prep and dish washing when needed

    Keep the line stocked, clean and organized

    Prep Cook

    Open or close the kitchen, inspect prep items, and identify items needed

    Be able to follow recipe instructions

    Help put orders in the storage, walk-in cooler and freezer

    Keep the prep area clean and organized

    Help in the line and dish washing when needed

    Both are part-time jobs with wages around $10.50 per hour. Other teen jobs in Luna Grill are generally cashier, server, and dishwasher.

    How to apply for a job at Luna Grill

    Luna Grill does not provide printable job application forms. You can submit your resume(简历) by visiting their career page at www.lunagrill.com or find current job listings in People Matter page.

    A young and successful manager was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar.

    As his car passed a park, one child appeared, and a brick smashed into the Jaguar's side door. He stopped the car very suddenly and drove the Jag back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown. He jumped out of the car, grabbed some kid and pushed him up against a parked car, shouting, "What was that all about and who are you? Just what on earth are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?"

    "Please, sir, please, I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do!" begged the youngster. "It's my brother," he said. "He fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up."

    Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."

    Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump(隆起的肿块)in his throat．He lifted the young mail back into the wheelchair and took out his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes(擦痕)and cuts, checking to see if everything was going to be okay.

    "Thank you, sir. And God bless you, "the grateful child said to him. The man then watched the little boy push his brother to the sidewalk toward their home.

    It was a long walk back to his Jaguar... a long, slow walk. He never did repair the side door. He kept the dent(凹痕) to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.

    Life whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. Sometimes, when you don't have the time to listen... Life throws a brick at your head.

    It's your choice: Listen to the whispers of your soul or wait for the brick!

C

    If you want to disturb the car industry, you'd better have a few billion dollars: Mom-and-pop carmakers are unlikely to beat the biggest car companies. But in agriculture, small farmers can get the best of the major players. By connecting directly with customers, and by responding quickly to changes in the markets as well as in the ecosystems(生态系统）, small farmers can keep one step ahead of the big guys. As the co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC, 美国青年农会）and a family farmer myself. I have a front-row seat to the innovations among small farmers that are transforming the industry.

    For example, take the Quick Cut Greens Harvester, a tool developed just a couple of years ago by a young farmer, Jonathan Dysinger, in Tennessee, with a small loan from a local Slow Money group. It enables small-scale farmers to harvest 175 pounds of green vegetables per hour—a huge improvement over harvesting just a few dozen pounds by hand—suddenly making it possible for the little guys to compete with large farms of California. Before the tool came out, small farmers couldn't touch the price per pound offered by California farms. But now, with the combination of a better price point and a generally fresher product, they can stay in business.

    The sustainable success of small farmers, though, won't happen without fundamental changes to the industry. One crucial factor is secure access to land. Competition from investors, developers, and established large farmers makes owning one's own land unattainable for many new farmers. From 2004 to 2013, agricultural land values doubled, and they continue to rise in many regions.

    Another challenge for more than a million of the most qualified farm workers and managers is a non-existent path to citizenship — the greatest barrier to building a farm of their own. With farmers over the age of 65 outnumbering(多于）farmers younger than 35 by six to one, and with two-thirds of the nation's farmland in need of a new farmer, we must clear the path for talented people willing to grow the nation's food.

    There are solutions that could light a path toward a more sustainable and fair farm economy, but farmers can't clumsily put them together before us. We at the NYFC need broad support as we urge Congress to increase farmland conservation, as we push for immigration reform, and as we seek policies that will ensure the success of a diverse and ambitious next generation of farms from all backgrounds. With a new farm bill to be debated in Congress, consumers must take a stand with young farmers.

    The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is mostly a desert. However, this has not stopped the country from creating great building projects. On September 26, UAE officials announced another ambitious project — Mars Science City. Expansive deserts and miles of coastline provide plenty of options for safe rocket launches (发射). And its position on the Earth makes it especially appealing as the spin of the Earth provides an extra push, meaning less fuel is needed to get payloads into orbit. All these seem to make it possible.

    The Mars City Project, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG, will provide a realistic model to simulate (模仿) living on the surface of Mars, the red planet. It is part of the UAE's Mars 2117 Project to lead the global race to land humans on Mars and be the first to build a settlement there. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Prime Minister and ruler of Dubai, says, “The UAE seeks international support to develop technologies that benefit humans, and lay the foundation of a better future for more generations to come.”

    Built outside Dubai, the 1.9 million square feet city is expected to cost $135 million. It will consist of several dome-shaped laboratories, similar to the ones imagined for the first Mars settlers. Scientists from around the word will be invited to conduct research to come up with methods to create food, water and energy, using techniques which can be copied onto the red planet. The living spaces, where the researchers can live for up to a year, will simulate the planet's conditions as much as possible.

    The research city will also include a museum featuring famous space achievements to help educate and inspire children to undertake space exploration and discovery. To discover whether the construction method works on Mars, the museum's walls will be 3D printed using the sand from the nearby desert. Now, if they would only add some living quarters for the general public to experience life on Mars without leaving Earth, life would be perfect.