Touching the thumb and index finger to make a circle, with the remaining three fingers held outstretched, is a gesture that people around the world have made for centuries, mostly in positive 【小题1】. But in recent years, it has been converted for a more vicious purpose – to signify “white power”. Here is how the hand gesture became a disturbing one.

The widely 【小题2】 modern use of the gesture for approval seems to have arisen along with the 【小题3】 “O.K.” in the 19^th century when Charles Gordon Greene wrote jokingly in The Boston Morning Post about it being an intentionally 【小题4】 abbreviation for “all correct”. The expression 【小题5】 on, and the hand gesture, with the fingers forming something vaguely like an O and a K, became closely linked with it.

It became connected to “white power” in early 2017 as a hoax（骗局）. Some users of 4chan, an anonymous and unrestricted online message board, began what they called “Operation O-KKK” to see if they could 【小题6】 the wider world – and especially liberals and the mainstream media – into believing that the gesture was actually a secret symbol of white power. “We must 【小题7】 twitter and other social media websites with spam, claiming that the OK hand signal is a symbol of white supremacy,” one of the users posted, going on to suggest that everyone involved create fake social media accounts to spread the notion as widely as possible.

The 4chan hoax succeeded all too well, and ceased being a hoax: Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and other white nationalists began using the gesture in public to signal their presence and to 【小题8】 potential sympathizers and recruits. For them, the letters formed by the hand were not O and K, but W and P, for “white power”.

A number of high-profile figures on the far right have helped spread the gesture’s racist implication by producing it conspicuously in public. The gesture has 【小题9】 beyond ironic trolling culture to become a “sincere expression of white supremacy”, which could be seen in March 2019 when Brenton Tarrant, the white supremacist accused of killing 50 people in back-to-back mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, smiled and 【小题10】 the sign to reporters at a court hearing on his case.

Children’s Addiction to the Internet

Internet addiction among children is a growing concern. Online access is a(n)【小题1】 part of the modern world and an important tool in the education of our children. In addition, the Internet is a highly entertaining and informative medium. However, these very qualities also make it a fascinating 【小题2】 from reality for many children. They can be anyone in an online chat room, or play thrilling and challenging games against other players from all corners of the globe. With the click of a mouse, they can enter a different world where the problems of their real life are no longer 【小题3】, and all the things one wishes he or she could experience are possible.

Like addiction to drugs and alcohol, the Internet offers children and adolescents a way to escape painful feelings or 【小题4】 situations. They sacrifice needed hours of sleep to spend time online and 【小题5】 from family and friends to escape into a comfortable online world that they have created and shaped.

Children who 【小题6】 rewarding or nurturing relationships or who suffer from poor social and coping skills are at greater risk of developing inappropriate or excessive online habits. Because they feel separated and lonely, and have problems making new friends, they turn to 【小题7】 strangers in online chat rooms looking for the attention and companionship missing in their real lives. They may come from families with significant problems, and they cope with their problems by spending time online.

Socially, they learn to message friends rather than develop face-to-face relationship, which impacts their way of relating to peers. As one 【小题8】 explained, “The Internet is hurting their ability to work in groups. Our teachers 【小题9】 to get them to participate in any kind of team assignments; instead they would all rather stare at the computer. When I observe them talking to one another in the hallway, I see young girls who are socially aggressive or inappropriate, and I can’t help but think that the Internet is socializing them in ways that 【小题10】 prevents their development and makes it difficult for them to deal with others in the real world.”

A Special Education for Special Students

Arguments can be heard today over the use of public money for the private schooling of children with special needs. However, it's interesting to 【小题1】 what's not at issue: namely, that when a public school system is unable to provide an appropriate education, it has to 【小题2】 the costs of private school. A recent case to be heard by the Supreme Court focuses on whether parents have to enroll a child with special needs in public school before the child can attend private school at public expense. Special-education【小题3】 say students shouldn't have to waste time before being placed in a setting that best suits their needs, while school boards worry about a ruling that could lead to a unrestricted right to private schooling at 【小题4】 expense. What strikes us most is the acceptance by both sides that sometimes it is proper to use public money to pay for a child to go to a private school. So, what is【小题5】 behind such a debate?

As a matter of fact, the use of public money for private schooling is virtually unprecedented (史无前例的). Apart from the billions of dollars for tuitions, private schools have also received public money for books, facilities, and teacher training. To hear some policymakers tell it, as long as the money spent is 【小题6】 the child, it should be rated an appropriate use of public dollars. But don't get us wrong! We are not arguing for the unilateral (单边的) right of parents to enroll their sons and daughters in any school they wish with the taxpayer【小题7】 the whole costs. Abuse (滥用) of special-education provisions has contributed to the hiking costs that threaten to take needed money from general public education funds. Safeguards are in urgent 【小题8】. Public schools should be pressed to do a better job 【小题9】 for students with disabilities and students without. But there are schools in Washington where statistics show that failure is almost guaranteed. If a school system can't educate a child, why should that child not have 【小题10】 for a “free appropriate public education”.