You're probably aware of the basictrends. The financial rewards to education have increased over the past few decades, but men fail to benefit.

    In elementary and high school, male academic performance is lagging. Boys earn three-quarters of the D's and F's. By college, men are clearly behind. Only 40 percent of bachelor's degree go tomen, along with 40 percent of master's degree.

    Thanks to their lower skills, men are dropping out of the labor force. In 1954, 96 percent of the American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today, that number is down to 80 percent. In Friday's jobs report, male labor force participation reached an all-time low.

    Millions of men are collecting disability benefits. Even many of those who do have a job are doing poorly. According to Michael Greenstone of the Hamilton Project, annual earnings foraverage prime-age males have dropped by 28 percent over the past 40 years.

    Men still dominate (主宰) the top of the corporate ladder because many women take time off to raise children,but women lead or are gaining nearly everywhere else. Women in their 20 soutearn men in their 20s. Twelve out of the 15 fastest-growing professions are dominated by women.

    Over the years, many of us have employeda certain theory to explain men's economic decline. It is that the information-age economy rewards qualities that women are more likely topossess.

    To succeed today, you have to be able tosit still and focus attention in school at an early age. You have to beemotionally sensitive and aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and cultural reasons, many men are not good at these.

    But, in her fascinating new book, TheEnd of Men, Hanna Rosin suggests a different theory. It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues, are like immigrants (移民) who have moved to a new country. They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They follow the old customs. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid.

    This theory has less to do with born qualities and more to do with social position. When there's big social change, the people who were on the top of the old order are bound to stick to the old ways. The people who were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They are going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically.

    Rosin reports from working-class Alabama. The women she meets are flooding into new jobs and new opportunities —going back to college, pursuing new careers. The men are waiting around for the jobs left and are never coming back. They are strangely immune (免疫的）to new options. In the Auburn-Opelika region, the average female income is 140 percent of the average male income.

    Rosin is not saying that women are winners in a global gender (性别) war or that they are doing supersimply because men are doing worse. She's just saying women are adapting to today's economy more flexibly than men. There's a lot of evidence to supporther case.

A study by the National Federation of Independent Business found that small businesses owned by women outperformed male-owned small business during the last recession (衰退). Infinance, women who switch firms are more likely to see their performanceimprove, whereas men are likely to see theirs decline. There's even evidencethat women are better able to adjust to divorce. Today, more women than men seetheir incomes rise by 25 percent after a marital breakup.

    Forty years ago, men and women stuck tocertain theory, what it meant to be a man or a woman. Young women today, Rosinargues, have abandoned both feminist (女权主义者）and prefeminist preconceptions. Men still stick to the masculinity (大男子主义的）rules, which limit their visionand their movement.

   If she's right, then men will have toacknowledge that they are strangers in a strange land.

    Some people will do just about anything to save money. And I am one of them .Take my family's last vacation for example .It was my six-year-old son's winter break form school ,and we were heading home form Fort Lauderdale after a weeklong trip. The flight was overbooked ,and Delta , the airline ,offered us $400 per person in credits(积分) to give up our seats and leave the next day .I had a meeting in New York，So I had to get back . But that didn't mean my husband and my son couldn't stay. I took my nine-month-old and took off for home.

    The next day my husband and son were offered more credits to take an even later flight.Yes, I encouraged一okay, ordered-them to wait it out at the airport, to "earn" more Delta Dollars. Our total take: $1,600. Not bad, huh?

    Now some people may think I'm a bad mother and not such a great wife either. But as a big-time bargain hunter, I know the value of a dollar. And these days, a good deal(交易) is something few of us can afford to pass up.

    I've made a living looking for the best deals and exposing the worst tricks .I have been the consumer reporter of NBC's Today show for over a decade. I have written a couple

    of books including one titled Tricks of the Trade: A Consumer Survival Guide. And I really do  what I believe in.

    I tell you this because there is no shame in getting your money's worth. I'm also tightfisted when it comes to shoes, clothes for my children, and expensive restaurants. But I wouldn't hesitate (犹豫)to spend on a good haircut. It keeps it longer, and it's the first thing people notice. And I will also spend on a classic piece of furniture. Quality lasts.

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My First Marathon

    A month before my first marathon, one of my ankles was injured and this meant not running for two weeks, leaving me only two weeks to train. Yet, I was determined to go ahead.

    I remember back to my 7th year in school. In my first P.E. class, the teacher required us to run laps and then hit a softball. I didn't do either well. He later informed me that I was “not athletic”.

    The idea that I was “not athletic” stuck with me for years. When I started running in my 30s, I realized running was a battle against myself, not about competition or whether or not I was athletic. It was all about the battle against my own body and mind. A test of wills!

    The night before my marathon, I dreamt that I couldn't even find the finish line. I woke up sweating and nervous, but ready to prove something to myself.

Shortly after crossing the start line, my shoe laces(鞋带) became untied. So I stopped to readjust. Not the start I wanted!

    At mile 3, I passed a sign: “GO FOR IT, RUNNERS!”

    By mile 17, I became out of breath and the once injured ankle hurt badly. Despite the pain, I stayed the course walking a bit and then running again.

    By mile 21, I was starving!

    As I approached mile 23, I could see my wife waving a sign. She is my biggest fan. She never minded the alarm clock sounding at 4 a.m. or questioned my expenses on running.

    I was one of the final runners to finish. But I finished! And I got a medal. In fact, I got the same medal as the one that the guy who came in first place had.

    Determined to be myself, move forward, free of shame and worldly labels(世俗标签), I can now call myself a “marathon winner”.

    Three months after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Rebecca Sell, then 24, a photojournalist for Fredericksburg photographed a New Orleans couple worriedly examining water-spotted photo albums. As she took the photo, something within her clicked. "I told them I could take the ruined pictures, copy them and give them digitally restored (修复) photos," she recalls. Although a bit sceptical, the couple agreed. Rebecca took their photos home, restored them and took them to the couple at their temporary home. "It felt so good to be able to do that for them," says Rebecca.

    When her editor, Dave Ellis, saw the photo of the couple, he suggested they go back and restore damaged photos for even more people. So in January 2006, with paid time off from the paper, the two set up shop in Pass Christian. After posting a notice in the community newsletter, Rebecca and Dave received 500 photos in four days. For each, the pair took a new digital picture, then used high-tech software to erase water spots and restore colors. It just so happened that a popular website linked to Dave's blog about the experience, and soon Operation Photo Rescue, as it came to be known, had emails from hundreds of volunteers, including photographers and restoration experts, eager to help.

    Though digital restoration is a painstaking process, mending irreplaceable family pictures means the world to victims like Emily Lancaster, 71, who took out piles of ruined photo albums after Katrina, never thinking the mess could be saved. But she just couldn't bear to part with a few treasured pictures, including a portrait of her father, who had passed away, and a photo of her husband as a boy. Then she heard about Operation Photo Rescue. "I didn't have a whole lot of hope they could fix them, but they did," Emily says. "Almost every day I think about all the pictures I've lost. I'm so happy to have these two."

    In the five years since Katrina, Operation Photo Rescue has collected thousands of pictures ruined by floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. Volunteers make "copy runs" to disaster areas across the country to gather damaged photos from survivors; operating costs are covered by donations. "It's great to be able to give people some of their history back," says Rebecca. "One person told me that thanks to us, her grandmother got to see her photos again before she passed away. Moments like that remind me why I do this."

    Water is a necessity of life. Rain, especially, helps plants grow and stay green. But too much rain, especially in cities, can lead to flooding. That can cause waste water systems to overflow and send pollutants into rivers and other waterways. To fight the problem, several cities in the United States are starting programs like rooftop gardens.

    A team at the University of the District of Columbia in the nation's capital has created a garden on the top of one school building. The garden holds many kinds of plants to help absorb rainwater and grow food at the same time. Architect David Bell has designed five "green roofs" for the university. He says he is excited about the project because "it meant doing something more than just dealing with storm water management. It took advantage of a resource above the city and these flat roofs that aren't doing anything really became something that was about urban agriculture." Rainwater is collected in large containers and sent through a system that waters the rooftop garden. The roof is filled with green life that appeals to insects.

    In cities, "you don't have that many spaces to choose from and so rooftops are just (unused) space," says Caitlin Arlotta. She is a student in the school's Urban Agriculture program. The project is part of a research program to see which plants do well on rooftops. The researchers are looking at plants including strawberries, tomatoes and sweet potatoes. The university also has other green spaces. "We also have our own farm experiments," Arlotta said. "Within each of those growing systems, we want to be able to tell people which sorts of these crops grow the best."

    Sandy Farber Bandier helps run UDC's Master Gardener program. It seeks to improve cities and make them beautiful by training people to become Master Gardeners. She says she's been surprised by the garden's output. "My biggest surprise was that we produced 4, 250 pounds of produce the first year and was able to spread that to people in need." She also likes being able to show people who live in D. C. and others beyond the nation's capital what and how food can be grown on a rooftop. "This is the future for food. You grow it here, you prepare it in a commercial kitchen, you distribute through farmers markets, food trucks, and then you recycle."

    In 1800, only three percent of the world's population lived in cities. Only one city — Beijing — had a population of over a million. Most people lived in rural areas, and never saw a city in their lives. In 1900, just a hundred years later, roughly 150 million people lived in cities, and the world's ten largest cities all had populations exceeding one million. By 2000, the number of city dwellers exceeded three billion; and in 2008, the world's population crossed a tipping point — more than half of the people on Earth lived in cities. By 2050, that could increase to over two-thirds. Clearly, humans have become an urban species.

    In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many people viewed cities negatively — crowded, dirty environments full of disease and crime. They feared that as cities got bigger, living conditions would worsen. In recent decades, however, attitudes have changed. Many experts now think urbanization (城市化) is good news, offering solutions to the problems of Earth's growing population.

    Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, author of The Victory of the Cir, is one such person. Glaeser argues that cities are very productive because "the absence of space between people" reduces the cost of transporting goods, people, and ideas. While the flow of goods has always been important to cities, what is most important today is the flow of ideas. Successful cities enable people to learn from each other easily, and attract and reward smart people with higher wages.

    Another urbanization supporter is environmentalist Stewart Brand. Brand believes cities help the environment because they allow haft of the world's population to live on about four percent of the land. This leaves more space for open country, such as farmland. City dwellers also have less impact per person on the environment than people in the countryside. Their roads, sewers, and power lines need fewer resources to build and operate. City apartments require less energy to heat, cool, and light. Most importantly, people in cities drive less so they produce fewer greenhouse gases per person.

    So it's a mistake to see urbanization as evil; it's a natural part of development  The challenge is how to manage the growth.