When you go to the doctor, you like to come away with a prescription．It makes you feel better to know you will get some medicine. But the doctor knows that medicine is not always needed. Sometimes all a sick person needs is some reassurance that all will be well. In such cases the doctor may prescribe a placebo.

    A placebo is a sugar pill, a harmless shot, or ail empty capsule. Even though they have no medicine in them, these things seem to make people well. The patient thinks it is medicine and begins to get better. How does this happen?

    The study of the placebo opens up new knowledge about the way the human body can heal itself. It is as if there was a doctor in each of us. The doctor will heal the body for us if we let it. But it is not yet known just how the placebo works to heal the body. Some people say it works because the human mind fools itself. These people say that if the mind is fooled into thinking it got medicine, then it will act as if it did, and the body will feel better.

    Placebos do not always work. The success of this treatment seems to rest a lot with the relationship between the patient and the doctor. If the patient has a lot of trust in the doctor and if the doctor really wants to help the patient, then the placebo is more likely to work. So in a way, the doctor is the most powerful placebo of all.

    A placebo can also have bad effects. If patients expect a bad reaction to medicine, then they will also show a bad reaction to the placebo. This would seem to show that a lot of how you react to medicine is in your mind rather than in your body. Some doctors still think that if the placebo can have bad effects it should never be used. They think there is still not enough known about it.

    The strange power of the placebo does seem to suggest that the human mind is stronger than we think it is. There are people who say you can heal your body by using your mind. And the interesting thing is that even people who swear this is not possible have been healed by a placebo．

    Last Saturday on the way to the mall, two children, a boy and a girl, came running towards me with bottles on their hands, asking if I wanted bottled water. It was a surprising gesture. I was wondering if they were doing fund-raising. I knelt and asked them where their parents were and how much a bottle of water cost. Then two adult women came up to me explaining what the children were doing. “We are teaching the children to give without anything in return. We are teaching people to accept without giving in return. ”

    Two mothers had bought bottled water and placed a sticker(小贴纸)on all bottles with five different quotes(引述):

    ⒈Smile at everyone. You'll never know when someone may need it.

    ⒉If Plan A does not work, there are 25 more letters in the alphabets.

    ⒊Have a thirst for life. Every day is filled with possibilities.

    ⒋In your thirst for knowledge, be sure you don't drown in all the information.

    ⒌Dig your well before you're thirsty.

    The bottle I have has quoted No.5. A sudden change of attitude opened up between me, the mothers and the children. We are no longer strangers to each other. We were having such a great time chatting and I ended up helping them give away the rest of the bottled water.

    One young lady was so thankful that she happily accepted the water and said it was the best thing that happened to her all day since she had a bad day at work. A man refused and walked away saying “No, thanks”. A couple kept on bowing to us in gratitude. When it was all done, the children and I were giving each other high-five. It was so much fun. I think I had more fun doing this than the mothers and the children.

    Is any economist so dull as to criticize Christmas? At first glance, the holiday season in western economies seems a treat for those concerned with such vagaries(奇思遐想)as GDP growth. After all, everyone is spending; in America, retailers make 25% of their yearly sales and 60% of their profits between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even so, economists find something to worry about in the nature of the purchases being made.

    Much of the holiday spending is on gifts for others. At the simplest level, giving gifts involves the giver thinking of something that the recipient would like--he tries to guess her preferences, as economists say--and then buying the gift and delivering it. Yet this guessing of preferences is not easy; indeed, it is often done badly. Every year, ties go unworn and books unread. And even if a gift is enjoyed, it may not be what the recipient would have bought if they had spent the money themselves.

    Interested in this mismatch between wants and gifts, in 1993 Joel Waldfogel, then an economist at Yale University, sought to estimate the difference in dollar terms. In a study, he asked students two questions at the end of a holiday season: first, estimate the total amount paid(by the givers) for all the holiday gifts you received; second, apart from the sentimental value of the items, if you did not have them, how much would you be willing to pay to get them? His results were gloomy: on average, a gift was valued by the recipient well below the price paid by the giver.

    In addition, recipients may not know their own preferences very well. Some of the best gifts, after all, are unexpected items that you would never have thought of buying, but which turn out to be especially well picked. And preferences can change. So by giving a jazz CD, for example, the giver may be encouraging the recipient to enjoy something that was ignored before. This, a desire to build skills, is possibly the hope held by many parents who ignore their children's desires for video games and buy them books instead.

    Finally, there are items that a recipient would like to receive but not purchase. If someone else buys them, however, they can be enjoyed guilt-free. This might explain the volume of chocolate that changes over the holidays. Thus, the lesson for gift-givers is that you should try hard to guess the preference of each person on your list and then choose a gift that will have high sentimental value.

    Family fights are never pleasant. Whether you are dealing with a loud sister or a stubborn mom or dad, the situation can be bad. At least that's what we have learned to expect.

    What if it could be different? What if family fights and conflicts could be turned into opportunities to become closer? What if problems could be solved with everyone walking away feeling more deeply cared for and loved?

    Family fighting is, on one level, about power. Someone is telling someone else what to do. In a short moment, emotions can be brought out and the fight is on. You can go down that old road or you can try something different.

    In any fight, you have a need to be listened to and understood. People raise their voices and shout at each other because they're not being listened to. It's totally unconscious. You want your mom or dad to listen and understand. But you always seems to forget the person you're fighting with has the same need to be listened to. So if you can put aside your need for a few minutes, the situation will change quickly. Give the other person some time to express his or her feelings, and you will earn your turn to be listened to.

    And while you are listening, you have to listen for the right information. The best way to do this in emotional situations is to forget most of the words because many people can't express what they are feeling with words alone, especially when they are upset.

    But if the situation starts to get out of hand, it would be wise to just calm down and leave the problem until later because many fights happen at the wrong time. The situation will die down quickly, usually in less than 30 seconds. You can either move on to problem solving or reach an agreement to work on it at a better time.

    This way, everyone will feel respected and listened to, even when there is conflict. Emotions will be understood and respected, and it will bring your family closer together.

    Mr. Brown was a writer. He wrote many books, and he thought they were quite good. He lived in the city. One morning, he went to a small town near the city to visit a friend. He went there by bus. When he got to the town, he saw a bookshop not far from the bus stop. As it was early, he decided to go in and have a look. There were many books in the shop. He was very happy that all the books in the shop were written by him. "Where are other writer's books?" he asked the man in the shop. The man looked up at him and answered. "Oh, they are all sold out."

    Now in 2019, jazz music is an important part of Indianapolis' art culture. Jazz clubs around the city still host concerts with local jazz musicians like Rob Dixon and Joel Tucker. One of these clubs, the Chatterbox Jazz Club, still has live jazz seven nights a week.

    But the real history of jazz in Indy is much less simple. Along with the Avenue's culture, jazz music was gone from the streets for many years.

    Indiana Avenue was the heart of a neighborhood along the White River. It was a center for black music and live street music. The wealthy avoided this area. So it became a place that poorer families, including many African-American and immigrant (移民) families, moved to.

    Jazz prospered in the mix of American cultures around the Avenue in the 1930s and 1940s. But in the 1950s, things changed. After the war, there were projects to make the city beautiful and build a university nearby. Both of these seemed like good changes. However, the new university and buildings caused poorer families to have to leave the area. This destroyed the Indiana Avenue community - and with it, its jazz culture.

    After many years, Indianapolis remembered the value of its arts and music culture. It began to bring back lost cultures such as live music on the Avenue. To do so, it began to make new changes. The changes included repairing historic areas like the Avenue. Once again, the high living costs in these historic arts areas pushed low-income families out.

    Today there are several old-style jazz clubs where friends can meet up to remember the past or just enjoy a summer evening. It might seem at first that jazz is alive again, but there is a sad reality behind these jazz clubs: Modern Indy jazz is only a shadow (影子) of the lively culture that was once on Indiana Avenue.