I was at a loss for how to handle the fights among my kick- Many activities had been tried, but they didn't work. After reading What I Know for Sure written by Oprah Winfrey, a thought occurred to me one day.

    “Starting with Dora, I want everyone to find the chance to say 'thank you' .” I declared.

    “What?” Ashley asked. “What's going on?''

    “Just do it.”

    Naturally, the kid^ all thought I had lost my mind. I wasn't sure if they were wrong, but I pressed on.

    “Now, we're going to keep going around and everyone tells what they're thankful for.”

    Clearly doubtful and frustrated, the kids launched in, and I kept them going.

    “I'm thankful for our house.”

    “I'm thankful for my clothes.”

    “I'm thankful for my whole life and everyone in the world.”

    “What? What am I supposed to say?”

    "Keep going."

    “I'm grateful for my underwear!” Instant laughter erupted, music to my ears!

    “Great, lei it out!” I encouraged. “What else?”

And that was all we needed. The gratitude--great and small, serious and funny—came rolling out.

    “My backpack.”

    “My teachers.”

    On and on it went until every face was lit with a new kind of joy and laughter. I could sense a new feeling of peace and comfort in the air a reminder of not only our blessings, but the love we really did have for each other.

    “I'm grateful for being grateful!” Dora declared.

    “Me, too!” was the unanimous response.

    I don't remember the activities that took place the rest of the day. But it was a day when our family was transformed by two simple words: thank you. Since then, it's become a family motto.

    Years ago, I lived in a building in a large city. The next building was only a few feet away from mine. There was a woman who lived there, whom I had never met, yet I could see her seated by her window each afternoon, sewing or reading.

    After several months had gone by, I began to notice that her window was dirty. Everything was unclear through the dirty window. I would say to myself, “I wonder why that woman doesn't wash her window. It really looks terrible.”

    One bright morning I decided to clean my flat, including washing the window on the inside.Late in the afternoon when I finished the cleaning, I sat down by the window with a cup of coffee for a rest. What a surprise! Across the way, the woman sitting by her window was clearly visible. Her window was clean!

    Then it dawned on me. I had been criticizing her dirty window, but all the time I was watching hers through my own dirty window.That was quite an important lesson for me. How often had I looked at and criticized others through the dirty window of my heart, through my own shortcomings?

    Since then, whenever I wanted to judge someone, I asked myself first, “Am I looking at him through my own dirty window?” I try to clean the window of my own world so that I may see the world about me more clearly.

    Getting rid of dirt, in the opinion of most people, is a good thing. However, there is nothing fixed about attitudes to dirt.

    In the early 16^th century, people thought that dirt on the skin was a means to block out disease, as medical opinion had it that washing off dirt with hot water could open up the skin and let ills in. A particular danger was thought to lie in public baths. By 1538, the French king had closed the bath houses in his kingdom. So did the king of England in 1546. Thus began a long time when the rich and the poor in Europe lived with dirt in a friendly way. Henry IV, King of France, was famously dirty. Upon learning that a nobleman had taken a bath, the king ordered that, to avoid the attack of disease, the nobleman should not go out.

    Though the belief in the merit of dirt was long-lived, dirt has no longer been regarded as a nice neighbor ever since the 18^th century. Scientifically speaking, cleaning away dirt is good to health. Clean water supply and hand washing are practical means of preventing disease. Yet, it seems that standards of cleanliness have moved beyond science since World War Ⅱ. Advertisements repeatedly sell the idea; clothes need to be whiter than white, cloths ever softer, surfaces to shine. Has the hate for dirt, however, gone too far?

    Attitudes to dirt still differ hugely nowadays. Many first-time parents nervously try to warn their children off touching dirt, which might be responsible for the spread of disease. On the contrary, Mary Ruebush, an American immunologist(免疫学家)，encourages children to play in the dirt to build up a strong immune system. And the latter position is gaining some ground.

    A linguist is always listening, never off-duty. I invited a group of friends round to my house, telling them that I was going to record their speech. I said I was interested in their regional accents, and that it would take only a few minutes. Thus one evening, three people turned up at my house and were shown into my front room. When they saw the room they were a bit anxious, for there was a microphone at head height, with wires leading to a tape-recorder in the middle of the floor. They sat down, rather nervously, and I explained that all I wanted was for them to count from 1 to 20. Then we could relax and have a drink. I turned on the tape-recorder and each in turn counted seriously from 1 to 20 in their best accents. When it was over, I turned the tape-recorder off and brought round the drinks. The rest of the evening was spent in total relaxation. I joined them in talking and joking freely, leaving them only to take a telephone call, which lasted some time.

    As a matter of fact, the microphones were not connected to the tape-recorder in the middle of the room at all but to another one in the kitchen. My friends, having seen the visible tape-recorder turned off, paid no more attention to the microphone which stayed in front of their chairs, only a few inches from their mouths, thus giving excellent sound quality. And my long absence meant that I was able to get as natural a piece of conversation as it would be possible to find I should add, perhaps, that I did tell my friends what had happened to them, after the recording was over, and asked them whether it should be destroyed. None of them wanted to—but for some years after that, it always seemed that when it came to buying drinks, it was I who paid for them. Linguistic research can be a very expensive business.

    THREE years ago Jenny Salgado, a Dominican shop assistant, moved to Highland town, a neighborhood of Baltimore. When she arrived the shop she works in, it was one of only a few Spanish businesses. Now there are many more. "It's good now if you speak Spanish," she smiles.

    Baltimore has been losing people for 60 years. To address this, its mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, wants to make it the most immigrant-friendly city in the world. Its libraries provide Spanish-language exercise classes. To help those with no papers, the city is introducing micro-loans (小额贷款) which require no credit checks; city police would no longer routinely check the immigration status of citizens or enforce any federal immigration law unless required to. The then governor, Martin O'Malley made it possible for illegal immigrants to get driving licenses.

    Such welcoming policies are spreading. Such cities as Cleveland, Dayton and Philadelphia all eagerly try to please immigrants. Rick Snyder, the governor of Michigan, has asked the federal government to offer 50,000 visas to people who agree to live in Detroit. His administration has made it easier for skilled migrants to get professional licenses.

    When a city's population falls, both tax receipts and services fall. Half-deserted neighborhoods breed (滋生) crime, driving yet more people to leave. No city has escaped this death circle without attracting new residents, says Steve Tobocman of Global Detroit.

    Several studies suggest that when immigrants arrive, crime goes down, schools improve and shops open up. In Detroit, immigrants living near the tiny separate city of Hamtramck have formed local watches to guard against thieves. Their neighborhoods are not just safer; they are also among the only places where it is as easy to buy fresh vegetables as drugs and alcohol.

    But attracting new immigrants to the cities which most need them is hard, argues Audrey Singer of the Brookings Institution. They care about the same things as everyone else: safe streets, good schools and jobs. Cities which have lost population for decades struggle with all of these.

    Recently, some Chinese experts advise people to be more careful about making a "V" gesture (手势) while taking a photo, because the fingerprints may be stolen.

    It is possible. If the distance between the person and a smartphone is less than half a meter, the possibility of the fingerprint being stolen will be bigger. Having fingerprints stolen can cause a lot of difficulty, as they are used in many things, including ID cards, passports and online payments. So it's a must to pay attention to their protection and avoid them being spread on the Internet.

    This kind of discussion was first raised by a Japanese research center, the National Institute of Informatics.

    ZengQiaoyi, 19, who likes sharing selfies (自拍) on WeChat, said she is also worried about it. She said she seldom posts pictures with "V" gestures and most pictures she shares are made to be not so clear by certain software. "I blur backgrounds in selfies, hoping to hide my location," she added.

    Tan Tieniu, a scientist, said at the 2016 China National Computer Congress that using fingerprints instead of passwords or voice identification is far from safe, compared with face recognition (辨认).

    But a police officer from Jiangsu province, said locals don't need to be overly anxious, because the cameras of many cellphones are not clear enough, and the shooting distance of most photos taken by cameras is too far.