Nelle Harper Lee, better known by her pen name Harper Lee, was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modem American literature. In 1991 an organization conducted a survey that made readers identify books that had “made a difference” in their lives. The result? Lee’s book trailed only The Bible. Alongside the works of Shakespeare and Twain, this novel remains one of the most widely taught books nationwide, reaching about 70% of American public schools. What makes it such a typical read for young people?

English class is a place where young Americans come to know themselves. In the folds of dusty books, students can make contact with humanity beyond the shallow small talk of the school hallways. Disturbed by hormones (荷尔蒙)and anxiety, teenagers get through school with confusion and frustration. Literature is a safety valve (安全阀) 一 it promises relief, a place to figure out one's problems and get to know oneself better.

The novel particularly distinguishes itself in this aspect. It speaks in a child’s voice without treating its readership as children. Some critics have called it an “impossible” achievement, a children's book penned by a well-educated adult — it’s unlikely that a child like Scout could exist in the real world. But that’s exactly what makes it such a charming, attractive read for young people. It indicates the consciousness of a well-educated adult facing difficult realities, but describes it through the light and playful voice of a curious little girl.

Gaby Hick, a third-year student focused on English literature at Brown University, calls it “one of the first books that kids and young adults read that deals with serious issues —rape, race, mental issues”. She adds, “The story makes these adult themes accessible because of Scout.” The book’s setting, a small town in Alabama affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s, may appear very different from the experience of most kids reading it today. But Lee’s words make her story feel alive and present.

In 2006, however, critic Thomas Mallon expressed his regret about the book’s avoiding complexity in The New Yorker. But her novel makes a great teaching tool for teenagers precisely because its moral view is as clear as that of one of Aesop's Fables. That absence of ambiguity (含糊其辞) in this novel doesn’t mean the novel is free of challenging ideas, either. Will Serratelli, another literature student at Brown says, “There aren’t many hard moral questions being asked …but it opens up all these other questions that 1 hadn’t thought about before. My English teachers always asked, ‘Do you sympathize (同情) with this character? Would you want to hang out with them?’ When you give a kid a book where those questions don’t even need to be asked, it forces them to dig deeper.”

Mallon's criticism is accurate in that this novel may present too limited a view of racism in America. That's especially problematic because it is one of the only books consistently assigned to American students that acknowledges (承认) racial discrimination (歧视) at all. However, To Kill a Mockingbird may owe some of its popularity as a teaching text to the fact that the narrative voice is a white one. Naomi Vamis, an African Studies student at Brown says, “It’s another practice of telling stories about black people through white central characters,” she says.

While the novel is undoubtedly worth its place in the classroom, English teachers may do well to consider that it is a white author’s perspective — and ought to be the only beginning of a dialogue about race and never the final word. But as a gateway to more mature ideas, and as a YA (young adult) distillation (提炼) of complex concepts young people may not have grasped before, Lee’s novel is invaluable.

Starlink, a new satellite Internet system from the company Space X, is changing the world more quickly than many people expected. Before Starlink, most satellite Internet service was based on satellites that constantly remained above one point on Earth. This means signals from farther away need to travel a long distance, causing delays.

Starlink has a web of satellites moving constantly in a low orbit around the earth. Because the satellites are closer, the speeds are faster. This makes the service better for things that need to happen without delay, like holding meetings over the Internet. Space X isn’t the only company competing to provide this kind of satellite Internet service. For example, One Web is a British company developing a similar satellite Internet service. But Starlink is farther along than most others.

Starlink works in 31 countries, but Space X plans to expand the service to cover the whole world. Space X is also planning to offer service on transportation, like planes, trains, and boats. Starlink has over 2,100 satellites in orbit around the earth. Space X has permission from the US government to send up 12,000 satellites, and it has asked for permission to send up 30,000 more.

Astronomers have complained (抱怨) Starlink satellites make it harder to study things in space without satellites getting in the way. Space X has worked to reduce the light from Starlink satellites. But scientists say the satellites still make their work harder. This will get worse as more satellites fill the skies. There are also worries about Starlink satellites crashing into other satellites or spacecraft. In 2019, a European satellite had to move to avoid coming close to Starlink satellites. Last year, China complained its space station had to move twice to avoid Starlink satellites.

Still, Starlink has been useful in emergencies. Starlink service has helped firefighters battling wildfires in remote areas. When the island nation of Tonga lost Internet service after a volcano eruption, SpaceX provided temporary service using Starink.

Suppose that we lined up about 14 million United States businesses in order of size, starting with the smallest, along an imaginary road from San Francisco to New York. There will be 4,500 businesses to the mile or a little less than one per foot.

Suppose further that we planted a flag for each business. The height of the flagpole represents the yearly volume (额) of sales — each $10000 in sales is shown by one foot of pole.

The line of flagpoles is a very interesting sight. From San Francisco to about Reno, it is almost unnoticeable, a row of poles about a foot high. From Reno eastward, the poles increase in height until, near Columbus, Ohio — about 4/5 of the way across the nation-flags fly about 10 feet in the air.

But as we approach the eastern terminus (终点), the poles suddenly begin to rise. There are about 300,000 firms in the country with sales over $500,000. These firms take up the last 75 miles of the 3,000-mile road. There are 200,000 firms with sales over $1 million. They take up the last 50 miles. Then there are 1,000 firms with sales of $50 million or more. They take up the last quarter of a mile before the city limits, flags flying at cloud height, 5,000 feet up.

At the very gate of New York, on the last 100 feet of the last mile, we find the100 largest industrial firms. They have sales of at least $1.5 billion, so that their flags are already miles high. Along the last 10 feet of the road, there are 10 largest companies. Their sales are about $10 billion and up: their flags fly 190 miles in the air.

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