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.

    My grandmother often said to me, “You can count the number of your true friends on the fingers of one hand.” For a long time I thought this was true. However, I've now discovered my grandmother was only half right. Maybe we do only make a few best friends in our lifetime, but those aren't the only people that we can call friends. There are many different types. Let me tell you about a few of them.

    One type of friends is the type I call the “football mom friend”. My neighbor Sally is a good example. We both have kids who play football in a football club, and someone has to take them to practice and pick them up. Sally and I and two other mothers take turns to do this. We meet sometimes and have tea and talk about what our kids are doing, but those are the only times that we meet each other. I enjoy being with these women, but we don't do anything else together.

    Another type is called the “hobby friend”. That's the person you share an interest or a hobby with. Michael and Cater, who are brothers, are a good example of this type. We're all in a bird watching club. Every few weekends the members of the club go on a trip to watch different kinds of birds. There's nothing romantic about my relationship with Michael and Cater, of course. We just share interest in birds.

    Then there's the “other half of the couple” type of friends. Jim is married to Rose, a friend that I've known since college. When Rose married Jim, I realized that I would have to be Jim's friend if I want to continue to be Rose's. Jim and I don't share so many interests, but we do have a friendly relationship.

    When I looked at the grade on my math paper my jaw (下巴) almost dropped to the ground: a big “65” in bright red ink. I had never received such a terrible grade before.

    I was so ashamed that when I got home that afternoon I lied to my dad. I told him I got 85 and that the report wouldn't come until the end of the month. Dad smiled. His daughter would never lie about her grade, so he didn't doubt the unusual delay (延迟) of my report.

    A month later, Dad casually (随意地) asked me again about the report at the dinner table. He looked right into my eyes and asked for an answer. Having no choice. I told him that I had in fact got just 65 in my math final. I had lied because I didn't want to let him down.

    For a moment, he just looked at me. I would have preferred a telling off (斥责) than that silence. Finally, Dad said, m a hurt voice, “You have already let me down, with your lie. I am not disappointed at your math score. That is no big deal-on one can be perfect all the time. But I am very disappointed in you. If you can't be honest with your dad. who can you be honest with? It's much easier to achieve a better grade than rebuild someone else's trust in you.”

    Dad's words touched my heart. I couldn't forgive (原谅) myself for having hurt his feelings I took out the report that I had been hiding for weeks, handed to him and apologized, sincerely I realized that my honesty is not only important to me personally, but to those around me that truly care .about my well-being (幸福).

    In one of Shakespeare's plays a character says: “No legacy (遗产) is so rich as honesty.” After the crisis between Dad and me, I began to understand those words.

    Ever since it was created 30 years ago, The Simpsons, the longest running prime-time (黄金时段) TV show in the country, has become part of US life. So when TV critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked the 100 greatest comedies and dramas broadcast in the US, it came as no surprise that The Simpsons was their top choice.

    This was the show that changed the very concept (概念) of cartoons in Western society. Before it appeared, cartoons were considered a way to learn and have fun, not serious adult entertainment. The Simpsons changed this. The genius (过人之处) of the show is that it has something to offer both adults and children.

    It's a hugely entertaining program that's also full of satire (讽刺) and clever humor. A remark by Chitra Ramaswamy in The Guardian gave a sense of the esteem (敬重) in which The Simpsons is held: “Nothing before or since has matched its capacity to be at once so profoundly (深刻地) clever and so unbelievably stupid.”

    The show's creator Matt Groening, and the brilliant team that work with him, make fun of the US government, social customs, and of course, the idea of family life. But unlike classic US prime-time TV characters, the Simpsons are a dysfunctional (功能失调的) family.

    Bart, the boy, is always in trouble – both at home and at school. That may be in part because of his paternal (父亲的) example. Homer Simpson, perhaps the most iconic character, is a beer-swilling (喝着啤酒的), overweight slob (懒汉) who is normally found in front of the TV. And Marge, Homer's wife and the mother of the family, spends most of her time cooking, cleaning or trying to fix the messes that Bart and Homer make.

    The smartest member of the family is daughter Lisa, who excels (表现卓越) at school but is no goody-goody (讨好卖乖的人): Lisa never misses an opportunity to challenge authority. The youngest member of the family is baby Maggie, who will likely be as much a trouble as her brother and sister when she grows up – if she ever grows up, that is.

    But although the Simpsons are a problem family, viewers are always on their side. One of the reasons the show has remained so popular all these years is that the characters are so likeable. Millions of us identify with (同情) them. They are a working class family struggling to make ends meet. They aren't perfect, but then, who is? And after 30 years, this is still what strikes a chord (引起共鸣) with millions of viewers worldwide.

    The full moon climbs over the eastern horizon (地平线) and hangs like a huge orange globe in the sky. A few hours later, the moon is overhead but seems to have changed. The huge orange globe has become a small silver disk. What has happened? Why has the orange color disappeared? Why does the moon seem so much smaller and farther away now that it is overhead?

    The moon appears orange on the horizon because we view it through the dust of the atmosphere. The overhead moon does not really shrink (缩小) as it moves away from the horizon. Our eyes inform us that the overhead moon is farther away. But in this position the moon is actually closer to our eyes than when it is near the horizon.

    The change in size is a trick our eyes and minds play on us. When the moon is low in the sky, we can compare its size with familiar objects. It is easy to see that the moon is much larger than trees or buildings, for example. When the moon is high in the sky, however, it is hard to compare it with objects on earth. Compared to the vastness of the sky, the moon seems small.

    There is another reason why the moon seems to shrink. We are used to staring at objects straight ahead of us. When an object is difficult to see, our eyes have to try to focus on it. When we move our heads back to look up, we will try hard again. Looking at something from an unaccustomed position can fool you into believing an object is smaller or farther away than it is. However, scientists do not yet understand completely why the moon seems to shrink as it rises in the sky.

    We've all had cases where we've waited just a bit too long to pay an electric bill or speeding ticket. But one man, from California by reasonable assumption, who goes by "Dave", recently took procrastination (拖延) one step further, by paying a parking ticket almost a half-century after it was given.

    In December 2018, the Minersville Police Department in Pennsylvania received a letter in the mail. Whoever wrote the letter decided it was best to keep his name somewhat unknown, so he put the return address as "Wayward Road, Anytown California" under the name "Feeling guilty".

    When the officers opened the envelope, they found a brief letter, along with a $5 bill, and a parking ticket dating all the way back to 1974. The note read, "Dear PD, I've been carrying this ticket around for 40 plus years always intending to pay. Forgive me if I don't give you my info. With respect, Dave."

    Even though the initial parking ticket was only for $2, "Dave" must have felt awfully guilty because he left 150 percent, or $3, in interest.

    Michael Combs, the Police Chief of the Minersville Police Department, stated in an interview that the same ticket would cost about $20 if it were given today. Combs went on to share that the original ticket from 1974 was given to a vehicle that had an Ohio license plate.

    Because there was no system for tracking tickets given to out-of-state cars back then, "Dave" could have gotten away with never paying the $2 fine. But apparently, guilt got the best of him, and he decided to finally cough up the money more than 40 years past its due date.