My father was always a good gardener. One of my earliest memories is standing without shoes in the freshly tilled soil, my hands blackened from digging in the ground.

    As a child, I loved following Dad around in the garden. I remember Dad pushing the tiller(耕作机) ahead in perfectly straight lines. Dad loved growing all sorts of things: yellow and green onions, watermelons almost as big as me, rows of yellow corn, and our favorite — red tomatoes.

    As I grew into a teenager, I didn't get so excited about gardening with Dad. Instead of magical land of possibility, it had turned into some kind of prison. As Dad grew older, his love for gardening never disappeared. After all the kids were grown and had started families of their own, Dad turned to gardening like never before. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer, he still took care of his garden.

    But then, the cancer, bit by bit, invaded his body. I had to do the things he used to do. What really convinced me that Dad was dying was the state of his garden that year. The rows and rows of multicolored vegetables were gone. Too tired to weed them, he simply let them be. He only planted tomatoes.

    For the first few years after he died, I couldn't even bear to look at anyone's garden without having strong memories pour over me like cold water from a bucket. Three years ago, I decided to plant my own garden and started out with just a few tomatoes. That morning, after breaking up a fair amount of soil, something caught the corner of my eye and I had to smile. It was my eight-year-old son Nathan, happily playing in the freshly tilled soil.

The American Bystander

    On a humid subway ride into work a few days ago, a woman on the other end of my car had a seizure (病情突然发作). All of a sudden, I heard her let out a painful sigh as she collapsed. For several minutes, the train continued down the track, and everyone in the car just stared at the woman. Finally, at the next stop a man informed the operator of what had happened and called 911. Luckily the woman came to herself as the EMTs carried her off the train. Ever since, I've been puzzled by the same question — why didn't anyone do anything? And more importantly, why didn't I do anything?

    We've learned about the commonly referenced bystander effect—a psychological phenomenon in which individuals will avoid offering help to a person in need when other people are present. The bystander effect is attributed to two different psychological processes: social influence—individuals in a group will monitor and imitate other group members' behavior—and shift of responsibility—individuals will cease to help because they believe that someone else will.

    Even though most people probably haven't witnessed a woman having a seizure on the subway, I'm sure if asked, anyone could think of a time when they could have helped and simply didn't. In fact, I know that we have all experienced the bystander effect, because I believe it is one of American society's most common headaches.

    Anyone who follows the news can tell you that most of what we hear or read about these days is another death or another hate crime committed right in our own country. Consider the most recent theatre shooting in Nashville. The headlines read Another Theatre Shooting, Gunman is dead. When we read that headline or heard it on the news, most of us just acknowledged how sad it was, then told ourselves that there is nothing we can do to help and assumed that someone else would.

    If America is just one large group of witnesses, all while telling ourselves that someone else most certainly will step in, how can we hope to shake the hold of this social psychological spell? The solution lies solely within us, to know the difference between doing what is justifiable and doing what is right, helping those in need when we have the means and opportunity to do so.

    I want to be like the man on the subway who told the operator about the woman's seizure, because as soon as he did, people followed suit and offered help. We have the power to choose whether to justify passivity or actively decide to do the right thing, and as a society I believe we ought to break free from our psychological tendency to just stand by.

    On a cool morning, Wilson Kasaine heads out along a dirt path in southern Kenya. His calmness makes it easy to forget that he's tracking one of the most dangerous animals in the world. Kasaine is tracking lions—especially one lion called Marti, who is the real-life Lion King of Selenkay Conservancy.

    Tracking lions on foot may sound like a death wish, but Kasaine has been doing it for most of his life. Born into a traditional Maasai family he quickly grew to understand the beauty and danger of wildlife. Living with big wild animals forces him to develop a good sense of where they have been and where they may be going. During his 12-kilometer walks to and from school, he learned how to tell the paw prints (爪印)of a lion from those of other animals.

    Growing up, Kasaine knew that improving his tracking abilities would help him avoid surprise meetings with dangerous animals. For many Maasai, tracking is mainly a matter of self-protection. But Kasaine is tracking lions to meet them and to protect them. He leads a small group of wide-eyed tourists over the red sandy path, searching for the lion that has left upon it his prints.

    Each year, thousands of tourists crowd Kenya's national parks to try to have a look at the “big five”; elephants, rhinoceros, leopards, buffaloes and lions. The international draw of these animals matters a lot because the nation's economy is tied to the protection of its wildlife. If Kenya's wildlife disappears, so does its second-largest source of income.

    Wildlife protection efforts in Kenya meant marking off land exclusively (专门地) for animals. But it also meant that the people who had originally lived in the area were forced to leave their land and into smaller surrounding areas. They are also finding it increasingly hard to keep a traditional Maasai lifestyle. But people are glad that it really makes a difference to wildlife protection.

    Can dogs and cats get along well in the same home? People who are thinking about getting a dog as a friend for their cat are worried that they will fight. A recent research has found that if the cat is taken back home before the dog, and if they are introduced when still young (less than 6 months for cats, a year for dogs), it is highly probable that the two pets will get along swimmingly. In two-thirds of the homes cats and dogs have a good relationship.

    However, it wasn't all sweetness and light. There was a reported coldness between the cat and dog in 25% of the homes, while aggression(侵略，好斗) and fighting were found in 10% of the homes. One reason for this is probably that some of their body languages are just different. For example, when a cat turns its head away it means aggression, while a dog doing the same means submission(顺从).

    In homes with cats and dogs living peacefully, researchers found a surprising behavior. They are learning how to talk each other's language. It is a surprise that cats can learn how to talk "Dog", and dogs can learn how to talk "Cat".

    What's interesting is that both cats and dogs have appeared to become smarter. They can learn to read each other's body languages, suggesting that the two may have more in common than was expected. Once familiar with each other's body language, cats and dogs can play together, and enjoy sleeping together on the sofa.

    The importance of this research on cats and dogs may go beyond pets — to people who don't get along well, including neighbors, colleagues at work, and even countries. If cats and dogs can learn to get along, surely people have a good chance.

    I first met Paul Newman in 1968, when George Roy Hill, the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, introduced us in New York City. When the studio didn't want me for the film - it wanted somebody as well known as Paul - he stood up for me. I don't know how many people would have done that; they would have listened to their agents or the studio powers.

    The friendship that grew out of the experience of making that film and The Sting four years later had its root in the fact that although there was an age difference, we both came from a tradition of theater and live TV. We were respectful of craft(技艺)and focused on digging into the characters we were going to play. Both of us had the qualities and virtues that are typical of American actors: humorous, aggressive, and making fun of each other - but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the core(核心)of our relationship off the screen.

    We shared the brief that if you're fortunate enough to have success, you should put something back - he with his Newman's Own food and his Hole in the Wall camps for kids who are seriously ill, and me with Sundance and the institute and the festival. Paul and I didn't see each other all that regularly, but sharing that brought us together. We supported each other financially and by showing up at events.

    I last saw him a few months ago. He'd been in and out of the hospital. He and I both knew what the deal was, and we didn't talk about it. Ours was a relationship that didn't need a lot of words.

    Many people go to school for an education. They learn languages, history, geography, physics, chemistry and mathematics. Others go to school to learn a skill so that they can make a living. School education is very important and useful. Yet no one can learn everything from school. A teacher, no matter how much he knows, cannot teach his students everything they want to know. The teacher's job is to show his students how to learn. He teaches them how to read and how to think. So, much more is to be learned outside school by the students themselves.

    It is always more important to know how to study by oneself than to memorize some facts or a formula （公式）. It is usually quite easy to learn a certain fact in history or a formula in mathematics. But it is very difficult to use a formula in working out a maths problem. Great scientists, such as Einstein, Newton and Galileo didn't get everything from school. But they were all so successful. They invented so many things for mankind.

Above all, they knew how to use their brains.