The Come-back Coffeehouse   The sign in the window read "Carl's Coffee Shoppe," spelled the old-fashioned way. Hallie shook her head and wondered how many times she had suggested an alternative. She entered the shop and saw only one person.

    "I could help with the books, Dad", Hallie offered,"There's not much you could do." Her father signed. "How about if you clean the counters instead?" His statement made her feel like a little girl instead of a senior in high school. Hallie sprayed some cleanser and ran a cloth over the worn counter tops . After she had washed a few of the old eggshell-colored cups, she began her homework. At closing time, Hallie's parents sat beside her. "You know the shop has not been profitable lately," Mr. Rhodes began. "We need to decide if it is even worth keeping it open." "We're going to visit Uncle Harold over spring vacation." Mrs. Rhodes continued. "He can look over the books and tell us what our options are. You and AuntTess will run the shop for the week."

    By spring vacation Hallie was ready for an adventure. Hllie's parents gave some instructions, and said good-bye. Hallie stared absently out the window at the passersby: young people on their way to work, and kids on their school vacation. They were not the same people that her grandpa Carl had served. Suddenly Hallie had an idea. She confided in Aunt Tess, who approved. The two eagerly set to work.

At the end of the week, Hallie was coming out from the kitchen when she saw her parents standing in the shop, confused. She smiled asher parents stared at the teens around the counter and the young families seated at the tables.

    "Welcome back!" Hallie swept her arms to present there staurant's cheerful new decoration. Bright, attractive coverings spread over the tables, and modern posters hung on the walls, while, colorful mismatched dishes contributed to the pleasant atmosphere."

    "I brought board games from home," Hallie added excitedly, "and the bookstore down the street donated the posters. When we talked to our friends about what we were doing, they were happy to give us some dishes." Hallie held her breath as she waited for her parents' reaction.

    "Everyone certainly seems to like the changes," noted Mrs. Rhodes.

    "Speaking of changes," Mr. Rhodes said,"I see our name has changed, too."

    "Do you mind? I changed our name to 'Come-Back Coffeehouse'to make the shop sound welcoming, as in 'Please come back again'..."

    A smile spread across her father's face. "The newname is fitting. Thanks to you, this place certainly has made a come back!"

    Do you want to live another 100 years or more? Some experts say that scientific advances will one day enable humans to last tens of years beyond what is now seen as the natural limit of the human life span.

    “I think we are knocking at the door of immortality (永生),” said Michael Zey, a Montclair State University business professor and author of two books on the future. “I think by 2075 we will see it and that's a conservative estimate (保守的估计).”

    At the conference in San Francisco, Donald Louria, a professor at New Jersey Medical School in Newark said advances in using genes as well as nanotechnology (纳米技术) make it likely that humans will live in the future beyond what has been possible in the past. “There is a great effort so that people can live from 120 to 180 years,” he said. “Some have suggested that there is no limit and that people could live to 200 or 300 or 500 years.”

    However, many scientists who specialize in aging are doubtful about it and say the human body is just not designed to last past about 120 years. Even with healthier lifestyles and less disease, they say failure of the brain and organs will finally lead all humans to death.

    Scientists also differ on what kind of life the super aged might live. “It remains to be seen if you pass 120, you know; could you be healthy enough to have good quality of life?” said Leonard Poon, director of the University of Georgia Gerontology Centre. “At present people who could get to that point are not in good health at all.”

    In colleges around the country, most students are also workers. The reality of college can be pretty different from the images presented in movies and television. Instead of the students who wake up late, party all the time, and study only before exams, many colleges are full of students with pressing schedules of not just classes and activities, but real jobs, too.

    This isn't a temporary phenomenon. The share of working students has been on the rise since the 1970s, and one-fifth of students work year round. About one-quarter of those who work while attending school have both a full-course load and a full-time job. The arrangement can help pay for tuition (学费) and living costs, obviously. And there's value in it beyond the direct cause: such jobs can also be critical for developing important professional and social skills that make it easier to land a job after graduation. With many employers looking for students with already-developed skill sets, on-the-job training while in college can be the best way to ensure a job later on.

    But it's not all upside. Even full-time work may not completely cover the cost of tuition and living expenses. The study notes that if a student worked a full-time job at the federal minimum wage, they would earn just over $15,000 each year, certainly not enough to pay for tuition, room, and board at many colleges without some serious financial aid. That means that though they're sacrificing time away from the classroom, many working students will still graduate with at least some debt. And working full time can reduce the chance that students will graduate at all, by cutting into the time available for studying and attending classes.

    There is little reward for attending but not finishing college. Students who end up leaving school because of difficulty in managing work and class are likely to find themselves stuck in some of the same jobs they might have gotten if they hadn't gone at all. The difficulty of working too much while in school can create a cycle that pushes students further into debt without receiving any of the financial or career benefits.

    Have you ever noticed tiny raised areas on the branches of a tree? These may have been insects. These small insects feed on tree sap (汁液). Insects on urban trees are notably more abundant than those on rural trees. As a result, urban trees suffer from heavy infestations (害虫横行), and are often unhealthy or die. To protect and restore urban trees' health, we need to determine the factors that make these tree pests more successful in urban habitats.

    Living organisms interact closely with their environment. The warmer, more drought-stressed trees harbor more successful pests than cooler, less drought-stressed trees. As cities and natural habitats become hotter and drier, damaging insects will become more abundant on urban trees.

    Trees within urban forests are valuable economically and for the environmental sustainability (可持续性) of the region. More than half of the world's population lives in cities. Across the globe, people are moving into cities at a faster rate than ever. Rapid growth may turn cities into places with harder conditions. Although cities are primarily made of buildings, roads, parking lots, and vehicles, there are still plants in them. The trees within a city are referred to as the urban forest. Urban forests offer very big benefits to human and environmental health. They improve air and water quality, provide habitat for wildlife, cool down temperatures and beautify our environment. They make cities livable.

    However, being a city tree is not easy. Heat released by human activities is trapped in cities. As a result, temperatures in urban areas are often warmer than their surrounding rural areas. We call this urban warming or the urban heat island effect. Urban habitats are mostly made of surfaces of asphalt (沥青) and concrete. These surfaces reduce the amount of rainwater that reaches tree roots. As a result, urban forests may suffer, which can negatively affect people and the environment.

    What can we do to restore urban forests? Regular irrigation when possible may help keep pest populations under control. Planting tree species that are suitable to handle heat and drought stress would also reduce the occurrence of insect pest outbreaks.

    Internet Security Awareness

    MS-ISAC

    “Kids Safe Online”

    2017 Virginia Poster Contest(比赛)

    Official Rules

    Contestants

    The contest is open to all Virginia public, private Kindergarteners -12 in the United States, District of Columbia and the U.S. Territories (领土).

    Judging Criteria

    Posters will be judged on the following criteria:

    Clear message conveyed by the text and artwork

    Creativity, originality and artistic quality

    Visual clarity - easily read

    Bright and colorful

    Must not use published materials.

    Winners

    Virginia will select the top 5 winning posters from each grade group (K-5, 6-8, 9-12) and send them to the National Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) Internet Security Awareness Poster Contest. The Virginia winners will receive a certificate of appreciation. MS- ISAC will select four winners in each grade and award a prize. These winners will have the honor of having their artwork made into a poster calendar which will be handed out throughout the country and may also be used in campaigns to raise awareness among children of all ages about the Internet.

    Posters will not be returned!

    Deadline

    All posters must be received by midnight, Jan. 6, 2017.

    Poster should be mailed to:

    Kids Safe Online Poster Contest Virginia Information Technology Agency Commonwealth Security & Risk Management

    11751 Meadowville Lane Chester, VA 23836

    Electronic posters can be sent to: CommonwealthSecurity@virginia.gov

    Contest Timeline

    Now through Jan. 6, 2017

    Students create their posters and the school can choose up to 15 posters to send to VITA by midnight January 6, 2017.

    No Later than Jan. 27, 2017

    Virginia posters will be judged and the top 15 posters will be sent to MS-ISAC for national judging.

    Jan. 30 to March 3, 2017,

    MS-ISAC will perform national judging. Winners will be declared no later than March 24, 2017

Is forgiveness against our human nature? To answer our question, we need to ask a further question: What is the essence of our humanity? For the sake of simplicity, people consider two distinctly different views of humanity. The first view involves dominance and power. In an early paper on the psychology of forgiveness, Droll (1984) made the interesting claim that humans' essential nature is more aggressive than forgiving allows. Those who forgive are against their basic nature, much to their harm. In his opinion, forgivers are compromising their well-being as they offer mercy to others, who might then take advantage of them.

The second view involves the theme of cooperation, mutual respect, and even love as the basis of who we are as humans. Researchers find that to fully grow as human beings, we need both to receive love from and offer love to others. Without love, our connections with a wide range of individuals in our lives can fall apart. Even common sense strongly suggests that the will to power over others does not make for harmonious interactions. For example, how well has slavery worked as a mode of social harmony?

From this second viewpoint of who we are as humans, forgiveness plays a key role in the biological and psychological integrity of both individuals and communities because one of the outcomes of forgiveness, shown through scientific studies, is the decreasing of hatred and the restoration of harmony. Forgiveness can break the cycle of anger. At least to the extent the people from whom you are estranged accept your love and forgiveness and are prepared to make the required adjustments. Forgiveness can heal relationships and reconnect people.

As an important note, when we take a Classical philosophical perspective, that of Aristotle, we see the distinction between potentiality and actuality. We are not necessarily born with the capacity to forgive, but instead with the potential to learn about it and to grow in our ability to forgive. The actuality of forgiving, its actual appropriation in conflict situations, develops with practice.