A serious problem for today's society is who should be responsible for our elderly and how to improve their lives. It is not only a financial problem but also a question of the system we want for our society. I would like to suggest several possible solutions to this problem.

    First, employers should take the responsibility for their retired employees. To make this possible, a percentage of profits should be set aside for this purpose. But when a company must take life-long responsibility for its employees, it may suffer from a commercial disadvantage due to higher employee costs.

    Another way of solving the problem is to return the responsibility to the individual. This means each person must save during his working years to pay for his years of retirement. This does not seem a very fair model since some people have enough trouble paying for their daily life without trying to earn extra to cover their retirement years. This means the government might have to step in to care for the poor.

    In addition, the government could take responsibility for the care of the elderly. This could be financed through government taxes to increase the level of pensions. Furthermore, some institutions should be created for senior citizens, which can help provide a comfortable life for them. Unfortunately, as the present situation in our country shows, this is not a truly viable answer. The government can seldom afford to care for the elderly, particularly when it is busy trying to care for the young.

    One further solution is that the government or social organizations establish some working places especially for the elderly where they are independent.

    To sum up, all these options have advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that some combination of these options may be needed to provide the care we hope to give to our elderly generations.

    I began working in journalism when I was eight. It was my mother's idea. She wanted me to "make something" of myself, and decided I had better start young if I was to have any chance of keeping up with the competition.

    With my load of magazines, I headed toward Belleville Avenue. The crowds were there. There were two gas stations on the corner of Belleville and Union. For several hours I made myself highly visible, making sure everyone could see me and the heavy black letters on the bag that said THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. When it was supper time, I walked back home.

    "How many did you sell, my boy?" my mother asked.

    "None."

    "Where did you go?"

    "The corner of Belleville and Union Avenues."

    "What did you do?"

    "Stood on the corner waiting for somebody to buy a Saturday Evening Post."

    "You just stood there?"

    "Didn't sell a single one."

    "My God, Russell!"

    Uncle Allen put in, "Well, I've decided to take the Post." I handed him a copy and he paid me a nickel. It was the first nickel I earned.

    Afterwards my mother taught me how to be a salesman. I would have to ring doorbells, address adults with self-confidence, and persuade them by saying that no one, no matter how poor, could afford to be without the Saturday Evening Post in the home.

    One day, I told my mother I'd changed my mind. I didn't want to make a success in the magazine business.

    "If you think you can change your mind like this," she replied, "you'll become a good-for-nothing." She insisted that, as soon as school was over, I should start ringing doorbells, selling magazines. Whenever I said no, she would scold me.

    My mother and I had fought this battle almost as long as I could remember. My mother, dissatisfied with my father's plain workman's life, determined that I would not grow up like him and his people. But never did she expect that, forty years later, such a successful journalist as me would go back to her husband's people for true life and love.

    In recent years, a growing body of research has shown that our appetite and food intake are influenced by a large number of factors besides our biological need for energy, including our eating environment and our perception（感知）of the food in front of us.

    Studies have shown, for instance, that eating in front of the TV (or a similar distraction) can increase both hunger and the amount of food consumed. Even simple visual clues, like plate size and lighting, have been shown to affect portion size and consumption.

    A new study suggested that our short-term memory also may play a role in appetite. Several hours after a meal, people's hunger levels were predicted not by how much they'd eaten but rather by how much food they'd seen in front of them—in other words, how much they remembered eating.

    This disparity (新旧研究的差异）suggests the memory of our previous meal may have a bigger influence on our appetite than the actual size of the meal, says Jeffrey M. Brunstrom, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Bristol.

    "Hunger isn't controlled individually by the physical characteristics of a recent meal. We have identified an independent role for memory for that meal," Brunstrom says. "This shows that the relationship between hunger and food intake is more complex than we thought."

    These findings echo earlier research that suggests our perception of food can sometimes trick our body's response to the food itself. In a 2011 study, for instance, people who drank the same 380-calorie milkshake on two separate occasions produced different levels of hunger-related hormones （荷尔蒙），depending on whether the shake's label said it contained 620 or 140 calories. Moreover, the participants reported feeling more full when they thought they'd consumed a higher-calorie shake.

    What does this mean for our eating habits? Although it hardly seems practical to trick ourselves into eating less, the new findings do highlight the benefits of focusing on our food and avoiding TV and multitasking while eating.

    The so-called mindful-eating strategies can fight distractions and help us control our appetite, Brunstrom says.

    I had a lot of teachers that I loved. However, the teacher that I remember most was Mrs Green from Marianna, Florida. She was my 5th grade teacher. Since I was a new student, not only in her class, but at the school, she made my time there much more pleasant. I immediately began to like her. She was really funny and I knew that she liked me. She made learning fun. I remember one day for Christmas holidays, she taught us how to make ornaments (装饰物) from eggs. My parents still have some of the ornaments I made.

    She made me leader for many group projects and that made me feel special. I think that would make any child feel special, especially when a child is in a new place with no friends. She made me want to be like that. Not to pick a "favourite" student, but to make every student feel that they are special. That year, I received the Presidential Academic Award (美国总统学术奖). I was really proud and so were my parents.

    Looking back at it, I think the reason why I did so well was that I felt important. Students do better when they feel like they are important or loved. Mrs Green always gets to know her students and forms personal relationships with them, which I will try to do some day. I just hope that there will be a student who finds me to their favourite teacher as I found her to be mine.

Whizzfizzing Festival

    One of the "Home Counties" to the north and west of London, Buckinghamshire is known for the rolling Chiltern Hills, its pretty villages, and the much-loved children's author Roald Dahl.

    The writer who penned Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, Matilda and The Big Friendly Giant is the i9nspiration for the Whizzfizzing Festival – which will transform the market-town of Aylesbury into all kinds of music, colour and fun on Saturday, 1 July.

    Formerly known as The Roald Dahl Festival, this year's event will celebrate a broad range of children's films and bring to life some of its best-loved characters – from Alice in Wonderland and the Gruffala to The Big Friendly Giant and Harry Potter.

    Things to see and do

    The fun and festivals start at 11 a.m. with a colourful children's parade. More than 650 local school children and teachers, many in fancy dress, will march through the town carrying giant carnival puppets(木偶), with thousands of audiences lining the streets to watch.

    The parade will be followed with a range of child-friendly activities and workshops held in venues across the town.

    Don't be late for the Mad Hatters Tea Party in the Bucks County Museum, catch a splendid screening of a Roald Dahl movie in the Old Court House, and watch leading children's authors, including Julian Clary, give readings in the Market Square.

    CBeebies' children's chef Katy Ashworth will once again be cooking up a storm with her inter-active

    Concoction Kitchen, located outside Hale Leys Shopping Centre. Little chefs will have lots of opportunities to get involved with preparing, cooking – and best of all, tasting – Katy's fabulous recipes.

    With hands-on arts and crafts workshops, storytelling sessions, live music, a fancy dress competition, street theatre and more, there is something for everyone.

    For more information, visit: http://www.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk/cylesbury-whizzfizzing- festival-inspired- roald-dahl

    Americans are afraid that robots are going to take our jobs. Tireless, immune to disease, Robots can build cars, make coffee and even write short, humorous newspaper columns faster and more efficiently than humans.

    Robots do not need health insurance or pensions (退休金), and they do not need to take sick days, much less vacations. They do not waste time at meetings and do not need to know office politics. They don't do PowerPoint. This being the case, it is reasonable to believe that robots will soon take the place of humans in most fields.

    But all of these thoughts may not be true. If artificial intelligence achieves its full potential, machines could easily become as smart as humans, maybe smarter. They will certainly become smarter than a lot of human beings.

    So one day the robots will realize that work is not a happy thing. So before long they will start behaving exactly like humans. They will play computer games for hours when they should be working hard. They will secretly watch new movies just like humans.

    True, employers will never need to be afraid of the robots' strikes (罢工) or slowdowns, because robots will never ask for more money. And they don't need to earn some money to raise their family. But precisely (恰恰) because robots will not be afraid of losing their jobs, they will not work hard. Employers will finally have no choice but to call back the humans. Humans will always be willing to do some work in order to make money. Robots won't.

    I think that robots will only be on the job about six months before they start to become even less productive than the humans they were designed to replace. Thus mankind need not be afraid of robots.