米淳小窩

In 1982, Dr. William P. Magee and his wife, Kathleen, traveled to the Philippines with a group of medical volunteers. They saw children with cleft lips and cleft palates, and they used surgery to fix children’s faces. In order to help more children, they wanted to change the lives of children, one smile at a time, so the Operation Smile was born.
     Today, The Operation Smile mission teams travel to Operation Smile partner countries to treat children. Although most of the children come from poor families who cannot afford surgery, they provide treatment for free! And since 1982, at least over 98,000 children and young adults around the world have benefited from Operation Smile!
 
cleft lip and cleft palate  唇顎裂
［文摘］Operation Smile    From Studio Classroom 2007 May 10

 
Many people think of dirt as dirty and unhealthy because soil often contains bacteria, parasites, and pollutants that can make people sick. But eating dirt may not be so bad after all.
Ggeophagy is a relatively common practice in many parts of the world. It has a long history in the U.S., where some people eat clay and ship packages of it to relatives far from home. Soil is also sold as a nutritional supplement in some Asia. And eating of soil is also widespread in the animal kingdom.
Some soils are surprisingly rich in minerals and nutrients such as iron and copper. People can get more of these nutrients from geophagy than from taking vitamin supplements. In some case, soil can make dangerous food safe to consume. For example, certain poisonous wild acorns and potatoes become edible when they mixed with soil. Sometimes, soil is even taken as medicine! Many stomach medications contain the clay Kaolin because it absorbs bacteria and toxin that cause diarrhea. And in some poor countries, geophagy is practiced to avoid hunger pains when other food is scare.

        Many of us dream of having thousands and thousands of dollars to spend on anything we desire. We think if we had more money, we’d be happier.
        But money really can buy happiness? While having some money does have an impact on our level of happiness, having a lot of money does not. People in United States whose income goes from US$20,000 a year to US$50,000 a year are more likely to be happy. But after US$50,000 happiness does not increase as salaries go up. In addition, if buying something new is what makes us happy, we will decide we need a different one.
‘‘The more you make, the more you want. The more you have, the more less it brings you joy,’’ Says Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard. Because we are never satisfied, it will become an endless cycle.

When we were child, we usually use piggy bank to save money. And as an adult, we need more sophisticated measures to protect our saving. For example, bank use personal identification numbers, safety deposit boxes, insurance and other measures to help keep money safe. Now, people bank online becomes a trend, and we should be more careful. Because thieves will rob online bank and our money by using look-alike websites, fake bank e-mails, or simply by hacking into computer systems to stole online passwords and gained access to accounts. And financial scams are also a threat. In addition, by stealing personal data, thieves can pretend to be you and spend your money!  
     In order to protect our saving, privacy rights advocates educate consumers on how to protect their privacy. Seniors can also join together to educate and warn each other of scams. And there are several ways can help us to protect our money:
1. Use high security settings on Internet browsers.
2. Avoid using public computers and wireless networks for bank transactions.