【推荐1】My father used to say to me “Have you checked the oil in the car”, which is his version of “Hello, hope you are well”. Sometimes our phone calls would begin with an inquiry about the oil, with not a lot in between.

Fathers have a lot of love to give, but it’s often supplied through the medium of practical advice. The affectionate “You made my life better from the moment you were born” may be rarely heard, but there is the more common “I’ll hold the ladder while you get the leaves off the roof”.

Why can’t our fathers just say “I love you” or “It’s great to see you”? The point is: That’s exactly what we are saying. You just have to translate from the language that is Fatherlish. Listen closely enough and “I love you” can be heard in the lengthier “I could come around Saturday and replace the silicon seal around the base of your toilet because I reckon that thing is getting really smelly”.

When I was 17, I went on my first road trip. My father stood on the corner in the predawn of a cold morning to bid us farewell. “Highways are dangerous,” he said, “so don’t try overtaking anything faster than a horse and buggy. And take a break every two hours. And every time you stop for gas, you really should check the oil.” At the time we thought his speech was funny and would chant “horse-and-buggy” every time I floored the accelerator.

Dad’s long gone now. But after all these years, I realize that had I owned a copy of the Fatherlish-to-English dictionary, I’d have understood that the speech my friend and I so casually mocked (嘲笑)was simply Dad’s attempt at affection.

【推荐2】Today, getting information is as easy as opening a browser on your computer/phone, typing in a question and waiting a nanosecond for a long list of links to load. These websites will promise to answer your question. But actually, they may not be all that trustworthy. Figuring out which site is believable and which is false takes work. It isn’t impossible, though. Actually, it is what every good journalist does daily. And students and other non-journalists also can do it.

To check a new claim, good reporters contact experts on the topic. In journalism, such experts are known as “sources”. This may be a scientist who discovered something new in the lab. Or it could be the witness to a crime.

However, not everything is easy. For instance, if there’s a forest fire, how do you know where it started, when and how? You can ask government officials, but they may not know. You can talk to people near the fire shortly after it started. But unless someone spotted the fire as it happened, people may never know for sure. They may simply offer speculation. Saying something “might have” or even “probably” started that fire isn’t a fact. So you’d have to qualify any statement about the fire’s origins.

I describe such words as “weasel words”. These words and phrases include “might” “could have” “was likely to have been”, etc. Whenever something isn’t known for sure, journalists will highlight their uncertainty by using weasel words. They never over-blow claims to the readers.

A good reporter should be paid for the work he does. Some blogs and even news sites are authored by unpaid writers. Many of these writers are untrained in reporting, and their reports may not provide the depth. Thus, if the news you’re reading is free to the world online, consider what that may mean. Overall, you should be skeptical. That’s acting like a journalist.

【推荐3】I am rather good at using maps. But I forgot the maps and here we were, late afternoon, last day of holiday, my daughter, my cousin and I, driving along a two-lane highway in Oregon. No other car in sight, and the sun had just gone down. Where was that sweet little village?

It was supposed to be right along this river. We drove on, farther into the unknown river always at left as our guide. We kept passing farms and fields and now a few lights were coming out. In my head, I was doing a lot of self-criticism: Why didn’t we start earlier, bring the map and so on? My cousin and I were both impatient and stressed. My daughter, at least, was happy in the back seat, texting a friend. I pulled up on the shoulder of the road to think.

Just the — Wow! Amazing! A new scene appeared. Where did it come from?

Right there, out of nowhere: a magical misty landscape. Fields stretched in silent purple, with rows of tall trees, darkening in the dusk. I turned the car engine off. All was silent in the hot summer air. Beside us, a plum-covered river hardly moved between a border of trees, its dark lazy water reflecting the last light of day.

How breathtaking! Where had it been? If I had seen even a bit of beauty while driving along, I could have stopped and taken a look. I had missed it all.

We miss a lot, almost everything, in fact, in our world. Our task-focused filters (过滤器) takes care of that, selecting only what we need. We need to get to work. Have some lunch. We see what we need to see, often for purposes of survival. Gregory Bateson, speaking of beauty, said the judgment is selection of a fact. In our daily lives, who or what is doing the selecting? Can we make a change? Can we see further?

【推荐1】Artist Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell clearly remembers the day in high school when the teacher asked her to write about her family history. She saw that it was impossible to answer the questions “Who am I?” and “Where did I come from?”

Nzinga Terrell told VOA about her childhood memories.“So the white kids were able to get up and talk about hundreds of years of their background. And there was me and one other black kid in the class who could go back to a plantation in Virginia and that’s it.” She talked about her family’s history. “My people were brought here on the bottom of a ship. And they were sold and they were re-named.My dad’s side of the family took the last name of the job that they had,which is butlers. My mom’s side of the family took the last name of the plantation that owned them.”

Today,she and her husband, artist James Terrell, explore that identity in their work. Their new exhibit of paintings is called “Born at the Bottom of the Ship.” The show recently opened at the Center for the Arts in Manassas, Virginia.

Over the generations, Africans became African Americans with a new culture, and Nzinga Terrell includes different parts of that story in her art. There are things that look like African cloth and design and things that make you think of American culture and clothing.

James Terrell’s style is more abstract. “Mami Wata”, the first painting visitors see in the new exhibit, shows a woman rising from the ocean. Terrell explains the painting.“Mami Wata is a goddess of the sea...There’s no light going through;there’s not a lot of colour being seen, as opposed to the other ones. So, it’s just showing the time of the slaves being brought to America.”

But the artist says he also likes to play with colour.Growing up, Terrell attended a church with coloured glass in many windows. Because of that experience, he learned how light goes through the windows. He makes lines in his painting that look like the lines between pieces of coloured glass in the church windows.

Terrell’s works show how he sees himself as an African American. Visitors to the art exhibit say they see themselves and their family members in the works.

【推荐3】You’ve gotten a bad grade on a test.    1    So you’d better spend a little time preparing yourself to break the news. Here are some tips.

Talk to your teacher.

Before you tell your parents, it might be helpful to meet with your teacher. Ask him where you have gone wrong with the examination paper.    2    Besides, he can guide you on the right path for the future.

Practice what you will say.

    3    You can talk to a toy animal or yourself in front of a mirror. Either way, having some idea of what you will say and how you will say it ahead of time can be very helpful.

Tell your parents sooner rather than later.

It will look like you’re trying to cover up your grade if you wait two weeks to tell them about your grade. Try to get it out of the way within a few days of getting the news.    4    

Pick a good moment.

If you approach them when they’re already stressed or angry, they’ll be less likely to react well. Try a calm family time when your parents aren’t disturbed by other concerns.    5    You can also talk with them when you’re out on a dog walk.

【推荐2】Timothy was exhausted for he worked extended hours. Although earning a low wage and handling ill-mannered customers, he always put serving those who sat are his tables well on the front burner of his mind He went about his daily duties carefully, putting on a smiling face as customers complained about the food or questioned the bill.

Usually as night deepen preparing to close the business, he would notice a couple of customers walk in, sit down and order drinks. Most of the crew had left by closing time, but Timothy stayed to serve. Eventually, the last round was ordered and be gave them the bill. The minimum tip was suggested on the receipt. “Tomorrow will be better,” he murmured.

But luck wouldn’t always smile on him. Evening approaching, a group of teenagers stepped in. Thankfully, they were polite and respectful. Their cheerful behavior began to affect him. As always, he did his best to make their dining experience a pleasant one.

Time dragged on and they finished their drinks. He placed the bill on the table, accompanied with some candies. The group placed their notes on the receipt and left smiling. When he returned to clear the table, he was astonished. A tip of $3 was sitting there, staring at him, but their total bill amounted to $100. He’d gone above and beyond to serve them. How could they be so rude?

Later that week, he battled to brush off the awkward memories. He arrived at work and expected it to be like any other day, but there was something left on the desk for him, a two-page handwritten letter from the teenagers with $18 attached, in which they explained they were unaware of how to tip appropriately due to it being their first time in this bar. Everything suddenly made sense.

Timothy thumbed up what they did with a big grin and he was so moved by their gesture that he uploaded a picture of the letter sharing their admirable efforts. The reaction was more than positive.

【推荐3】Like many new graduates, I left university full of hope for the future but with no real idea of what I wanted to do. My degree, with honors, in English literature had not really prepared me for anything practical. I knew I wanted to make a difference in the world somehow, but I had no idea how to do that. That’s when I learned about the Lighthouse Project.

I started my journey as a Lighthouse Project volunteer by reading as much as I could about the experiences of previous volunteers. I knew it would be a lot of hard work, and that I would be away from my family and friends for a very long time. In short, I did not take my decision to apply for the Lighthouse Project lightly. Neither did my family.

Eventually, however, I won the support of my family, and I sent in all the paperwork needed for the application. After countless interviews and presentations, I managed to stand out among the candidates and survive the test alone. Several months later, I finally received a call asking me to report for the duty. I was going to a small village near Abuja, Nigeria. Where? What? Nigeria? I had no idea. But I was about to find out.

After completing my training, I was sent to the village that was small and desperately in need of proper accommodation. Though the local villagers were poor, they offered their homes, hearts, and food as if I were their own family. I was asked to lead a small team of local people in building a new schoolhouse. For the next year or so, I taught in that same schoolhouse. But I sometimes thought I learned more from my students than they did from me. Sometime during that period, I realized that all those things that had seemed so strange or unusual to me no longer did, though I did not get anywhere with the local language, and returned to the United States as a different man.