Bono 的善行義舉是說不完的.下面是兩篇發表在 Time 上面的文章 (當然,很可能是經過編輯潤稿的). 我看了很多次,沒有一次不被感動的.
This Generation's Moon Shot (講消滅疾病與貧窮)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1124333,00.html
A Time for Miracles (講非洲的困境)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601932,00.html
這兩篇文章在佈局與寫作技巧上都非常相似,細節就留給讀者當作練習囉. (光憑這句就可以去寫教科書了...)
2007年4月22日 星期日
English Quiz 194
(English Quiz 194)
1. There's an Irish word, meitheal. It means that the people of the village help one another out most when the work is the hardest. Most Europeans are like that. As individual nations, we may argue over the garden fence, but when a neighbor's house goes up in flames, we pull together and put out the fire. History suggests it sometimes takes an emergency for us to draw closer. Looking inward won't cut it. As a professional navel gazer, I recommend against that form of therapy for anything other than songwriting. We discover who we are in service to one another, not the self. Today many rooms in our neighbor's house, Africa, are in flames. From the genocide in Darfur to the deathbeds in Kigali, with six AIDS patients stacked onto one cot, from the child dying of malaria to the village without clean water, conditions in Africa are an affront to every value we Europeans have ever seen fit to put on paper. We see in Somalia and Sudan what happens if more militant forces fill the void and stir dissent within what is, for the most part, a pro-Western and moderate Muslim population. (Nearly half of Africa's people are devotees of Islam.) So whether as a moral or strategic imperative, it's folly to let this fire rage.
Q: 試翻 "History suggests it sometimes takes ... won't cut it."
2. How will Europe respond? For all the babble of clashing ideas, there's more harmony than you might think. Historic promises have been made on aid, debt and even the thorny subject of trade. Aggressive progress on these, matched by advances in fighting the evils of corruption in Africa, could transform the continent and prevent the fire from spreading. As a group, the E.U. countries have promised to commit 0.7 percent of GDP to the poorest of the poor. How Europe works to keep that promise is as important to Europe as it is to Africa. We might remember that Europe, 50 years ago, did not pull itself back from the abyss on its own. Across the Atlantic was a nation with a pretty broad notion of neighbor. Sure, the Marshall Plan wasn't all altruism--the U.S. wanted a bulwark against Soviet expansion as the temperature of relations dropped below freezing. But it was also generosity on a scale never before seen in human history. It defined America in the cold war era. What will define Europe in this new era? What will provide the bulwark against the extremism of our age? Part of the answer lies eight miles away.
Q: 試翻 "We might remember that ... a pretty broad notion of neighbor."
Q: 試翻 "Sure, the Marshall Plan ... dropped below freezing."
1. There's an Irish word, meitheal. It means that the people of the village help one another out most when the work is the hardest. Most Europeans are like that. As individual nations, we may argue over the garden fence, but when a neighbor's house goes up in flames, we pull together and put out the fire. History suggests it sometimes takes an emergency for us to draw closer. Looking inward won't cut it. As a professional navel gazer, I recommend against that form of therapy for anything other than songwriting. We discover who we are in service to one another, not the self. Today many rooms in our neighbor's house, Africa, are in flames. From the genocide in Darfur to the deathbeds in Kigali, with six AIDS patients stacked onto one cot, from the child dying of malaria to the village without clean water, conditions in Africa are an affront to every value we Europeans have ever seen fit to put on paper. We see in Somalia and Sudan what happens if more militant forces fill the void and stir dissent within what is, for the most part, a pro-Western and moderate Muslim population. (Nearly half of Africa's people are devotees of Islam.) So whether as a moral or strategic imperative, it's folly to let this fire rage.
Q: 試翻 "History suggests it sometimes takes ... won't cut it."
2. How will Europe respond? For all the babble of clashing ideas, there's more harmony than you might think. Historic promises have been made on aid, debt and even the thorny subject of trade. Aggressive progress on these, matched by advances in fighting the evils of corruption in Africa, could transform the continent and prevent the fire from spreading. As a group, the E.U. countries have promised to commit 0.7 percent of GDP to the poorest of the poor. How Europe works to keep that promise is as important to Europe as it is to Africa. We might remember that Europe, 50 years ago, did not pull itself back from the abyss on its own. Across the Atlantic was a nation with a pretty broad notion of neighbor. Sure, the Marshall Plan wasn't all altruism--the U.S. wanted a bulwark against Soviet expansion as the temperature of relations dropped below freezing. But it was also generosity on a scale never before seen in human history. It defined America in the cold war era. What will define Europe in this new era? What will provide the bulwark against the extremism of our age? Part of the answer lies eight miles away.
Q: 試翻 "We might remember that ... a pretty broad notion of neighbor."
Q: 試翻 "Sure, the Marshall Plan ... dropped below freezing."
English Quiz 193
(English Quiz 193)
1. Fifty years ago this week, the idea of Europe was set to paper, on a continent unsettled but past the worst of the postwar period. The air was clear of sulfur if not spleen. Ireland was a small rock in the North Atlantic made relevant only by its cultural totems and ever increasing diaspora. In Berlin a chasm was opening up between East and West--the partition of lives, fortunes and fates. In the global struggle between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., between freedom and totalitarianism, Europe was the fault line and the front line. Old Europe was being rebuilt to fight the next war: a battle not just of ideologies but also, very possibly, of nuclear arsenals. It was not a moment for dreaming--more like one for digging a basement and ordering a year's supply of tinned soup. And yet this was the moment the New Europe was born.
Q: 試翻 "Fifty years ago ... the postwar period."
2. On the continent that had been the theater for mankind's darkest hour, we witnessed a very human miracle. The people of Europe found that their capacity for destruction was mirrored by an equally immense capacity for forgiveness, grace and hope. Looking to the U.S., Europeans could see how cherry-picked European ideas from minds like Locke, Rousseau and Tom Paine could flourish in a society not polluted by blood and aristocracy. And so, in 1957, six nations signed the Treaty of Rome and, with that one crucial act, built a showcase of multilateralism, prosperity and international solidarity.
Q: 試翻 "On the continent ... a very human miracle."
3. Fast-forward 50 years. An Irish rock star reads the treaty with the enthusiasm a child has for cold peas but does uncover what I think technocrats might call poetry. Not much of it--just a turn of phrase here and there. Like Article 177, which summons the signatories to foster "the sustainable economic and social development of the developing countries and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them" and calls for a "campaign against poverty in the developing countries." Not exactly Thomas Jefferson but a glimpse of the kind of vision that might bind us. Over the next 50 years, we might need a little more poetry. Europe is a thought that has to become a feeling--one based on the belief that Europe stands only if injustice falls and that we find our feet only when our neighbors stand with us in freedom and equality. Our humanity is diminished when we have no mission bigger than ourselves. And one way to define who we are might be to spend more time looking across the eight miles of Mediterranean Sea that separates Europe from Africa.
Q: 試翻 "An Irish rock star reads ... might call poetry."
1. Fifty years ago this week, the idea of Europe was set to paper, on a continent unsettled but past the worst of the postwar period. The air was clear of sulfur if not spleen. Ireland was a small rock in the North Atlantic made relevant only by its cultural totems and ever increasing diaspora. In Berlin a chasm was opening up between East and West--the partition of lives, fortunes and fates. In the global struggle between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., between freedom and totalitarianism, Europe was the fault line and the front line. Old Europe was being rebuilt to fight the next war: a battle not just of ideologies but also, very possibly, of nuclear arsenals. It was not a moment for dreaming--more like one for digging a basement and ordering a year's supply of tinned soup. And yet this was the moment the New Europe was born.
Q: 試翻 "Fifty years ago ... the postwar period."
2. On the continent that had been the theater for mankind's darkest hour, we witnessed a very human miracle. The people of Europe found that their capacity for destruction was mirrored by an equally immense capacity for forgiveness, grace and hope. Looking to the U.S., Europeans could see how cherry-picked European ideas from minds like Locke, Rousseau and Tom Paine could flourish in a society not polluted by blood and aristocracy. And so, in 1957, six nations signed the Treaty of Rome and, with that one crucial act, built a showcase of multilateralism, prosperity and international solidarity.
Q: 試翻 "On the continent ... a very human miracle."
3. Fast-forward 50 years. An Irish rock star reads the treaty with the enthusiasm a child has for cold peas but does uncover what I think technocrats might call poetry. Not much of it--just a turn of phrase here and there. Like Article 177, which summons the signatories to foster "the sustainable economic and social development of the developing countries and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them" and calls for a "campaign against poverty in the developing countries." Not exactly Thomas Jefferson but a glimpse of the kind of vision that might bind us. Over the next 50 years, we might need a little more poetry. Europe is a thought that has to become a feeling--one based on the belief that Europe stands only if injustice falls and that we find our feet only when our neighbors stand with us in freedom and equality. Our humanity is diminished when we have no mission bigger than ourselves. And one way to define who we are might be to spend more time looking across the eight miles of Mediterranean Sea that separates Europe from Africa.
Q: 試翻 "An Irish rock star reads ... might call poetry."
English Quiz 192
(English Quiz 192)
1. When Melecio Penafiel wanted to expand his tailoring shop in Guayaquil, Ecuador, last May, he didn't go to the bank or ask his relatives for help. His seed money arrived via the Internet. Using the website Kiva.org a Bay Area software engineer named Nathan Folkert lent Penafiel the $500 he needed to buy two new sewing machines, fabrics and thread for higher-quality suits. Folkert has never met Penafiel but says making the loan "felt like I was giving him a shot at the American Dream." Folkert is what's known in the philanthropic world as a "microfinancier." Pioneered by last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, microfinance is the making of tiny loans to credit-poor entrepreneurs. Yunus began in 1976, with $27 loans to impoverished farmers, financed from his own pocket. Today about 10,000 microfinance institutions hold more than $7 billion in outstanding loans. As Yunus told TIME last October, "At the rate we're heading, we'll halve total poverty by 2015."
Q: 試翻 "Folkert has never met ... at the American Dream."
Q: 試翻 "Today about 10,000 in outstanding loans."
2. Unfortunately with so much money flowing into microfinance, many donors have lost patience with investing in long-term development infrastructure. Dyal-Chand estimates that at least half of development aid has been diverted to microlending over the past two decades. "There's nothing sexy about hospitals, schools, roads, sanitation projects," she says. "But those are all the things the truly poor desperately need." Some development experts warn that microcredit programs do little to alleviate overall poverty, even in countries like Bangladesh, where they are well established. About 45% of the country's population lives below the poverty line, down just 2 points in the past two decades. In southeastern Bangladesh, recipients often use microlending to pay off old debts or buy consumer goods, not to generate income, according to a 2004 study by the aid group CARE Bangladesh. When it came time to pay up, the study found, borrowers were often forced to go into further debt. "If these new philanthropists did their homework first," says Thomas Dichter, an aid worker who recently examined microfinance projects in 20 countries, "they would see microcredit doesn't do much good and may even be harmful." In Bolivia, for instance, the attractive returns in microfinance have saturated the market with new consumer-credit providers that operate without strict controls. "Screening processes are much less careful, and people can find themselves drowning in debt," says Elizabeth Littlefield, director of the World Bank's Consultative Group to Assist the Poor. Microfinance investors, however, argue that the market isn't saturated enough. More lenders would bring down the interest rates that investors often must charge to cover costs--which are sometimes as high as 60%. "Scaling up will bring lower costs for all borrowers," says Geoff Davis, CEO of the microfinance fund Unitus.
Q: 試翻 "In Bolivia, ... without strict controls."
3. Development experts also worry that the stream of international money supporting microfinance is crowding out locally owned banks that might serve the poor. Citigroup, ABN Amro and HSBC, for example, have pumped a combined $200 million into microfinance groups that offer saving accounts, insurance and mutual funds. This influx of capital is "preventing the creation of a sustainable, savings-based financial system in poor countries," says Littlefield. Microlenders counter that the costs of starting a bank are so high that without them, the poor would have no alternative. "To build a bank in Africa, you need $5 million to start, and then another $3 million in minimum equity capital," says Chris Crane, CEO of Opportunity International, an Illinois-based Christian microlender. Crane's network of 12 microbanks worldwide has nearly $160 million in savings accounts and insures more than 3 million lives. Whatever its limitations, supporters of the microcredit sector say its power to help individuals is real. "Women who come out of poverty spend extra income on health care, housing or sending their children to school," says Gowher Rizvi, a former Ford Foundation exec who gave Grameen its first grant. "That's worthwhile if it's even one family." Back in Ecuador, Penafiel was able to pay back his Kiva.org loan five months later, and had a little left over to cover his six kids' school fees. It isn't quite the American Dream, but it's a start.
Q: 試翻 "Microlenders counter that ... have no alternative."
1. When Melecio Penafiel wanted to expand his tailoring shop in Guayaquil, Ecuador, last May, he didn't go to the bank or ask his relatives for help. His seed money arrived via the Internet. Using the website Kiva.org a Bay Area software engineer named Nathan Folkert lent Penafiel the $500 he needed to buy two new sewing machines, fabrics and thread for higher-quality suits. Folkert has never met Penafiel but says making the loan "felt like I was giving him a shot at the American Dream." Folkert is what's known in the philanthropic world as a "microfinancier." Pioneered by last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, microfinance is the making of tiny loans to credit-poor entrepreneurs. Yunus began in 1976, with $27 loans to impoverished farmers, financed from his own pocket. Today about 10,000 microfinance institutions hold more than $7 billion in outstanding loans. As Yunus told TIME last October, "At the rate we're heading, we'll halve total poverty by 2015."
Q: 試翻 "Folkert has never met ... at the American Dream."
Q: 試翻 "Today about 10,000 in outstanding loans."
2. Unfortunately with so much money flowing into microfinance, many donors have lost patience with investing in long-term development infrastructure. Dyal-Chand estimates that at least half of development aid has been diverted to microlending over the past two decades. "There's nothing sexy about hospitals, schools, roads, sanitation projects," she says. "But those are all the things the truly poor desperately need." Some development experts warn that microcredit programs do little to alleviate overall poverty, even in countries like Bangladesh, where they are well established. About 45% of the country's population lives below the poverty line, down just 2 points in the past two decades. In southeastern Bangladesh, recipients often use microlending to pay off old debts or buy consumer goods, not to generate income, according to a 2004 study by the aid group CARE Bangladesh. When it came time to pay up, the study found, borrowers were often forced to go into further debt. "If these new philanthropists did their homework first," says Thomas Dichter, an aid worker who recently examined microfinance projects in 20 countries, "they would see microcredit doesn't do much good and may even be harmful." In Bolivia, for instance, the attractive returns in microfinance have saturated the market with new consumer-credit providers that operate without strict controls. "Screening processes are much less careful, and people can find themselves drowning in debt," says Elizabeth Littlefield, director of the World Bank's Consultative Group to Assist the Poor. Microfinance investors, however, argue that the market isn't saturated enough. More lenders would bring down the interest rates that investors often must charge to cover costs--which are sometimes as high as 60%. "Scaling up will bring lower costs for all borrowers," says Geoff Davis, CEO of the microfinance fund Unitus.
Q: 試翻 "In Bolivia, ... without strict controls."
3. Development experts also worry that the stream of international money supporting microfinance is crowding out locally owned banks that might serve the poor. Citigroup, ABN Amro and HSBC, for example, have pumped a combined $200 million into microfinance groups that offer saving accounts, insurance and mutual funds. This influx of capital is "preventing the creation of a sustainable, savings-based financial system in poor countries," says Littlefield. Microlenders counter that the costs of starting a bank are so high that without them, the poor would have no alternative. "To build a bank in Africa, you need $5 million to start, and then another $3 million in minimum equity capital," says Chris Crane, CEO of Opportunity International, an Illinois-based Christian microlender. Crane's network of 12 microbanks worldwide has nearly $160 million in savings accounts and insures more than 3 million lives. Whatever its limitations, supporters of the microcredit sector say its power to help individuals is real. "Women who come out of poverty spend extra income on health care, housing or sending their children to school," says Gowher Rizvi, a former Ford Foundation exec who gave Grameen its first grant. "That's worthwhile if it's even one family." Back in Ecuador, Penafiel was able to pay back his Kiva.org loan five months later, and had a little left over to cover his six kids' school fees. It isn't quite the American Dream, but it's a start.
Q: 試翻 "Microlenders counter that ... have no alternative."
English Quiz 191
(English Quiz 191)
1. Qualcomm has grown into a $7.5 billion company in part by licensing a broad set of chip and software patents that incorporate two important phone-signal protocols, CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and the more recent CDMA2000. These technologies have, historically, been used in about 20% of the world's mobile phones. But much of the industry, including Nokia, is now moving to 3G phones that draw on a version called WCDMA (the w is for Wideband). It is the level of Qualcomm's contribution to WCDMA that is at the heart of the Nokia-Qualcomm fight. "Qualcomm is perceived as a company that abuses its superior IPR position in order to make supernormal profits," says Nomura analyst Richard Windsor in London, who predicts that Qualcomm will prevail in the Nokia standoff because of historical precedents in patent cases. "It shouldn't be that Qualcomm dictates to the rest of the industry what the economic structure is," says Nokia cfo Simonson. "Nokia's battle with Qualcomm is part of this, but it's really Qualcomm versus the industry." Indeed, it is. Some of the world's leading mobile operators — including Vodafone, Orange, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Holland's KPN, China Mobile and Japan's NTT DoCoMo — have banded together in a group called the Next Generation Mobile Network (ngmn) to try to figure out how best to develop phones that handle high-speed Internet access. High on their action list is a call for "much greater transparency and predictability of the cost of IPR," they say in a 60-page white paper. Though they do not mention Qualcomm by name, their primary target seems obvious. They lace the document with references to an IPR regime they say doesn't work because licensors no longer abide by "fair and reasonable" practices used in cellular's earlier days.
Q: 試翻 "High on their action list ... a 60-page white paper."
2. Qualcomm CEO Jacobs insists his company is not a culprit. Qualcomm is good for the industry, he says, because its ready-made chipsets bring together a cornucopia of industry-leading designs from a variety of companies that allow vendors to bring new products to market quickly. This in turn leads to further innovations. Jacobs has been on a globetrotting mission meeting with the world's leading mobile operators to convince them. "I've spent a lot of time explaining how it works," he says. Are they buying it? "I'm not going to tell you that everyone believes what I believe," says Jacobs. But he adds, "I feel like time is on our side." Vodafone, Sprint, Orange, T-Mobile and the ngmn all turned down requests to talk to Time about IPR, Qualcomm and Nokia. Hamid Akhavan, chairman of the ngmn and CEO of T-Mobile International, said in an e-mail that "IPR discussions re ngmn are at a sensitive stage," adding that things will become more clear "later in the year when the IPR issue has become more stable." An ngmn spokeswoman said the group could say more in mid-April (when, perhaps not coincidentally, the deadline in the Nokia-Qualcomm standoff will have passed).
Q: 試翻 "Qualcomm is good for the industry, ... to market quickly."
Q: 試翻 "Jacobs has been on a globetrotting mission ... to convince them."
3. Even if the Nokia-Qualcomm row ends amicably for now, similar high-profile clashes may be on the horizon. In a meeting with financial analysts last summer, Ed Zander, CEO of handset maker Motorola, articulated a strategy of "owning our own IPR and controlling our future." Motorola had just invested in WiMax, a nascent wireless technology that threatens conventional cellular technologies. Although Motorola subsequently agreed to use Qualcomm WCDMA chipsets, the WiMax initiative could flag Motorola's intention to play nice with Qualcomm for now, while charting greater IPR independence via WiMax in the future. But if Motorola or any other mobile company thinks that a WiMax future will free them of commitments to Qualcomm, they should think again. "Any form of mobile WiMax has our technology in it," CEO Jacobs says. Could that portend an eventual legal fracas with not just Motorola but also WiMax's most vocal supporter, microprocessor giant Intel? "Intel is using Qualcomm intellectual property, and I'm sure Intel would take the position we're using their intellectual property," says Qualcomm's chief counsel Lou Lupin. "It's one of those situations that will likely work itself out over time." Qualcomm vs. Intel? That would make a rollicking sequel to Qualcomm-Nokia. With all the disputes, and with over a billion phones expected to ship this year, two things remain certain. The mobile industry will remain a vital driver of the world economy — and an even more vital driver of the legal profession.
Q: 試翻 "Even if the Nokia-Qualcomm row ... on the horizon."
1. Qualcomm has grown into a $7.5 billion company in part by licensing a broad set of chip and software patents that incorporate two important phone-signal protocols, CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and the more recent CDMA2000. These technologies have, historically, been used in about 20% of the world's mobile phones. But much of the industry, including Nokia, is now moving to 3G phones that draw on a version called WCDMA (the w is for Wideband). It is the level of Qualcomm's contribution to WCDMA that is at the heart of the Nokia-Qualcomm fight. "Qualcomm is perceived as a company that abuses its superior IPR position in order to make supernormal profits," says Nomura analyst Richard Windsor in London, who predicts that Qualcomm will prevail in the Nokia standoff because of historical precedents in patent cases. "It shouldn't be that Qualcomm dictates to the rest of the industry what the economic structure is," says Nokia cfo Simonson. "Nokia's battle with Qualcomm is part of this, but it's really Qualcomm versus the industry." Indeed, it is. Some of the world's leading mobile operators — including Vodafone, Orange, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Holland's KPN, China Mobile and Japan's NTT DoCoMo — have banded together in a group called the Next Generation Mobile Network (ngmn) to try to figure out how best to develop phones that handle high-speed Internet access. High on their action list is a call for "much greater transparency and predictability of the cost of IPR," they say in a 60-page white paper. Though they do not mention Qualcomm by name, their primary target seems obvious. They lace the document with references to an IPR regime they say doesn't work because licensors no longer abide by "fair and reasonable" practices used in cellular's earlier days.
Q: 試翻 "High on their action list ... a 60-page white paper."
2. Qualcomm CEO Jacobs insists his company is not a culprit. Qualcomm is good for the industry, he says, because its ready-made chipsets bring together a cornucopia of industry-leading designs from a variety of companies that allow vendors to bring new products to market quickly. This in turn leads to further innovations. Jacobs has been on a globetrotting mission meeting with the world's leading mobile operators to convince them. "I've spent a lot of time explaining how it works," he says. Are they buying it? "I'm not going to tell you that everyone believes what I believe," says Jacobs. But he adds, "I feel like time is on our side." Vodafone, Sprint, Orange, T-Mobile and the ngmn all turned down requests to talk to Time about IPR, Qualcomm and Nokia. Hamid Akhavan, chairman of the ngmn and CEO of T-Mobile International, said in an e-mail that "IPR discussions re ngmn are at a sensitive stage," adding that things will become more clear "later in the year when the IPR issue has become more stable." An ngmn spokeswoman said the group could say more in mid-April (when, perhaps not coincidentally, the deadline in the Nokia-Qualcomm standoff will have passed).
Q: 試翻 "Qualcomm is good for the industry, ... to market quickly."
Q: 試翻 "Jacobs has been on a globetrotting mission ... to convince them."
3. Even if the Nokia-Qualcomm row ends amicably for now, similar high-profile clashes may be on the horizon. In a meeting with financial analysts last summer, Ed Zander, CEO of handset maker Motorola, articulated a strategy of "owning our own IPR and controlling our future." Motorola had just invested in WiMax, a nascent wireless technology that threatens conventional cellular technologies. Although Motorola subsequently agreed to use Qualcomm WCDMA chipsets, the WiMax initiative could flag Motorola's intention to play nice with Qualcomm for now, while charting greater IPR independence via WiMax in the future. But if Motorola or any other mobile company thinks that a WiMax future will free them of commitments to Qualcomm, they should think again. "Any form of mobile WiMax has our technology in it," CEO Jacobs says. Could that portend an eventual legal fracas with not just Motorola but also WiMax's most vocal supporter, microprocessor giant Intel? "Intel is using Qualcomm intellectual property, and I'm sure Intel would take the position we're using their intellectual property," says Qualcomm's chief counsel Lou Lupin. "It's one of those situations that will likely work itself out over time." Qualcomm vs. Intel? That would make a rollicking sequel to Qualcomm-Nokia. With all the disputes, and with over a billion phones expected to ship this year, two things remain certain. The mobile industry will remain a vital driver of the world economy — and an even more vital driver of the legal profession.
Q: 試翻 "Even if the Nokia-Qualcomm row ... on the horizon."
English Quiz 190
(English Quiz 190)
1. America's first actor-leader was George Washington. We have trouble thinking of him as theatrical because we're so used to seeing a static version of him on worn quarters and wrinkled dollar bills. But in his day, he compelled the spotlight of public attention and was a master of political stagecraft. All his life, Washington was mindful of his physical presentation, from the uniforms he designed and wore to the way he sat on a horse. One of his great moments as a leader involved a bit of stage business. At the end of the Revolutionary War, he faced a corps of officers who feared they would be sent home, by order of an impecunious Congress, without pay. He called a meeting to assuage their disgruntlement and head off mutinous thoughts. At the climax, he offered to read a letter from a Congressman who promised better things. He began, paused, then took out a pair of glasses. "Gentlemen," he said, "you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country." Exeunt omnes. End of the mutiny.
Q: 試翻 "At the end of the Revolutionary War, ... head off mutinous thoughts."
2. Several Presidents have been renowned for their magnetism, which we think of as a fortunate personal trait, like good looks. But deploying charm and projecting it are histrionic skills. Franklin D. Roosevelt's appeal was heightened by the polio that crippled him in 1921. He developed the ability to make people forget his leg braces and feel at ease in his presence. Those who met him when he was President, or even saw his million-dollar smile at a distance or in a newsreel, felt heartened. Winston Churchill said being with him was like "opening a bottle of champagne." Good vibes are not in themselves solutions to problems. But at the nadir of the Depression and in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt conveyed the sense that solutions would be found. Ronald Reagan's upbeat personality developed early in life as a way to both accept and transcend a beloved alcoholic father. But years of performing and public speaking molded it into a persona that helped win landslides and kept his enemies off balance. Reagan could go to Berlin and tell Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" just months after negotiating earnestly with the Soviet leader at Reykjavik, all the while withholding concessions on the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the very thing Gorbachev most wanted.
Q: 試翻 "Good vibes are not ... would be found."
Q: 試翻 "Gearan could go to Berlin ... the very thing Gorbachev most wanted."
3. Of course, politicians manage to make it to the White House without possessing the actor's chromosome. Such men may have abilities and score achievements. Yet they can find themselves in political hells caused, in part, by their emotional maladroitness. John Quincy Adams, historian, poet and translator, was one of the smartest Presidents ever, but he constantly knocked heads with a hostile Congress and then failed to be re-elected. Acting is a necessary tool, increasingly so in a democratic age when the audience is 300 million and candidates turn up regularly on TV talk shows. We, the voters and critics, must be responsible for deciding whether the performer is also wise and good.
Q: 試翻 "Acting is a cenessary tool, ... wise and good."
1. America's first actor-leader was George Washington. We have trouble thinking of him as theatrical because we're so used to seeing a static version of him on worn quarters and wrinkled dollar bills. But in his day, he compelled the spotlight of public attention and was a master of political stagecraft. All his life, Washington was mindful of his physical presentation, from the uniforms he designed and wore to the way he sat on a horse. One of his great moments as a leader involved a bit of stage business. At the end of the Revolutionary War, he faced a corps of officers who feared they would be sent home, by order of an impecunious Congress, without pay. He called a meeting to assuage their disgruntlement and head off mutinous thoughts. At the climax, he offered to read a letter from a Congressman who promised better things. He began, paused, then took out a pair of glasses. "Gentlemen," he said, "you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country." Exeunt omnes. End of the mutiny.
Q: 試翻 "At the end of the Revolutionary War, ... head off mutinous thoughts."
2. Several Presidents have been renowned for their magnetism, which we think of as a fortunate personal trait, like good looks. But deploying charm and projecting it are histrionic skills. Franklin D. Roosevelt's appeal was heightened by the polio that crippled him in 1921. He developed the ability to make people forget his leg braces and feel at ease in his presence. Those who met him when he was President, or even saw his million-dollar smile at a distance or in a newsreel, felt heartened. Winston Churchill said being with him was like "opening a bottle of champagne." Good vibes are not in themselves solutions to problems. But at the nadir of the Depression and in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt conveyed the sense that solutions would be found. Ronald Reagan's upbeat personality developed early in life as a way to both accept and transcend a beloved alcoholic father. But years of performing and public speaking molded it into a persona that helped win landslides and kept his enemies off balance. Reagan could go to Berlin and tell Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" just months after negotiating earnestly with the Soviet leader at Reykjavik, all the while withholding concessions on the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, the very thing Gorbachev most wanted.
Q: 試翻 "Good vibes are not ... would be found."
Q: 試翻 "Gearan could go to Berlin ... the very thing Gorbachev most wanted."
3. Of course, politicians manage to make it to the White House without possessing the actor's chromosome. Such men may have abilities and score achievements. Yet they can find themselves in political hells caused, in part, by their emotional maladroitness. John Quincy Adams, historian, poet and translator, was one of the smartest Presidents ever, but he constantly knocked heads with a hostile Congress and then failed to be re-elected. Acting is a necessary tool, increasingly so in a democratic age when the audience is 300 million and candidates turn up regularly on TV talk shows. We, the voters and critics, must be responsible for deciding whether the performer is also wise and good.
Q: 試翻 "Acting is a cenessary tool, ... wise and good."
English Quiz 189
(English Quiz 189)
1. One early front runner for the title of the "YouTube of 2007" is a service called Twitter. Twitter enables you to broadcast to the world at large, via the Web or phone or instant message, tiny snippets of personal information: what you're doing, what you're about to do, what you just did, what your cat just did and so on. Twitter does the Internet equivalent of splitting the atom. It creates a unit of content even smaller and more trivial than the individual blog entry. Expect the response to be suitably explosive. There's something delightfully self-deprecating about that name, Twitter--we're all just a bunch of happy birdies, tweeting away in our trees!--but it also makes me nervous. It's like the cocaine of blogging or e-mail but refined into crack. Internet addiction is an old story, but we're on the tipping point of a new kind of problem that might more broadly be called an addiction to data, in all its many and splendiferous forms.
Q: 試翻 "It's lie the cocaine ... splendiferous forms."
2. But we need a broader term like data addiction to take in the sheer hydra-headedness of the ceaseless craving for digital stimulation that contemporary technology is creating in us. When it's not coming in through my eyes, digital information is taking over my ears via my beloved silver iPod Mini (one of Apple's orphaned design concepts). A survey conducted by Stanford University last fall found that more than 1 in 8 Americans suffers from some form of Internet addiction. It hardly needs to be said that this problem doesn't wreck lives with the ferocity of alcohol or narcotics, but we have yet to take data seriously as a controlled substance. Here are three reasons the problem is about to get much worse. One, mobile devices are getting better. As if BlackBerrys and Treos weren't hard enough to put down, Apple will start selling the iPhone in June, and the new category of ultra-mini PCs like the FlipStart and the OQO2 is threatening to make computers as portable as cell phones. Two, wi-fi is becoming ubiquitous. Google and Earthlink have a deal in place to supply all of San Francisco with free wireless Internet access. Philadelphia, Anaheim, Calif., and Madison, Wis., already have it, as do dozens of other cities and towns. Within 10 years, most of urban and suburban America will be bathed in free wi-fi service. Airlines are expected to fire up in-flight wi-fi in the next 12 months. And three, Internet CEOs have become obsessed with making cell-phone versions of everything we used to get on our desktops. It's the Internet equivalent of Manifest Destiny. You can already get Google and YouTube and CitiBank on your phone. Now that you can Twitter from your phone, there's no longer any reason to look up at the world around you.
Q: 試翻 "It hardly needs to be said ... a controlled substance."
3. Like any good pusher, services like Twitter don't answer existing needs; they create new ones and then fill them. They come to us wrapped in the rhetoric of interpersonal connection, creating a sense that our loved ones, or at least liked or tolerated ones, are electronically present to us, however far away they may be. But I can't help wondering if we're underestimating the countervailing effect: the cost we're paying in our disconnection from our immediate surroundings, in our dependence on a continuous flow of electronic attention to prop up our egos, and above all, in a rising inability to be alone with our own thoughts--with that priceless stream of analog data that comes not from without but from within.
Q: 試翻 "They come to us ... they may be."
Q: 試翻 "But I can't help wondering ... but from within."
1. One early front runner for the title of the "YouTube of 2007" is a service called Twitter. Twitter enables you to broadcast to the world at large, via the Web or phone or instant message, tiny snippets of personal information: what you're doing, what you're about to do, what you just did, what your cat just did and so on. Twitter does the Internet equivalent of splitting the atom. It creates a unit of content even smaller and more trivial than the individual blog entry. Expect the response to be suitably explosive. There's something delightfully self-deprecating about that name, Twitter--we're all just a bunch of happy birdies, tweeting away in our trees!--but it also makes me nervous. It's like the cocaine of blogging or e-mail but refined into crack. Internet addiction is an old story, but we're on the tipping point of a new kind of problem that might more broadly be called an addiction to data, in all its many and splendiferous forms.
Q: 試翻 "It's lie the cocaine ... splendiferous forms."
2. But we need a broader term like data addiction to take in the sheer hydra-headedness of the ceaseless craving for digital stimulation that contemporary technology is creating in us. When it's not coming in through my eyes, digital information is taking over my ears via my beloved silver iPod Mini (one of Apple's orphaned design concepts). A survey conducted by Stanford University last fall found that more than 1 in 8 Americans suffers from some form of Internet addiction. It hardly needs to be said that this problem doesn't wreck lives with the ferocity of alcohol or narcotics, but we have yet to take data seriously as a controlled substance. Here are three reasons the problem is about to get much worse. One, mobile devices are getting better. As if BlackBerrys and Treos weren't hard enough to put down, Apple will start selling the iPhone in June, and the new category of ultra-mini PCs like the FlipStart and the OQO2 is threatening to make computers as portable as cell phones. Two, wi-fi is becoming ubiquitous. Google and Earthlink have a deal in place to supply all of San Francisco with free wireless Internet access. Philadelphia, Anaheim, Calif., and Madison, Wis., already have it, as do dozens of other cities and towns. Within 10 years, most of urban and suburban America will be bathed in free wi-fi service. Airlines are expected to fire up in-flight wi-fi in the next 12 months. And three, Internet CEOs have become obsessed with making cell-phone versions of everything we used to get on our desktops. It's the Internet equivalent of Manifest Destiny. You can already get Google and YouTube and CitiBank on your phone. Now that you can Twitter from your phone, there's no longer any reason to look up at the world around you.
Q: 試翻 "It hardly needs to be said ... a controlled substance."
3. Like any good pusher, services like Twitter don't answer existing needs; they create new ones and then fill them. They come to us wrapped in the rhetoric of interpersonal connection, creating a sense that our loved ones, or at least liked or tolerated ones, are electronically present to us, however far away they may be. But I can't help wondering if we're underestimating the countervailing effect: the cost we're paying in our disconnection from our immediate surroundings, in our dependence on a continuous flow of electronic attention to prop up our egos, and above all, in a rising inability to be alone with our own thoughts--with that priceless stream of analog data that comes not from without but from within.
Q: 試翻 "They come to us ... they may be."
Q: 試翻 "But I can't help wondering ... but from within."
English Quiz 188
(English Quiz 188)
1. Parkour got its start in Paris two decades ago when a soldier's son and another teen began devising moves to quickly get from one point to another to rescue someone or escape in an emergency. The sport, sometimes called free running, has been seeping into American consciousness in recent years via upwards of 25,000 YouTube clips as well as more mainstream forms of entertainment. Tony Heinz, 19, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, says he told his parents last year that he had started practicing parkour, but they didn't really get what he was talking about until more recently, when he asked if they had seen the James Bond film Casino Royale. "Yes," they responded. "Do you remember the chase scene at the construction site?" "Yes." "Well, I'm doing stuff like that." "What?!?" Parkour may be the ultimate sport for Ford and other devotees. "You need every athletic skill there is--endurance, strength, flexibility, balance, everything," he says. And there's no equipment required. "That's the thing about parkour," Ford says. "It opens your eyes up, and you're able to find something to do wherever you are." This semester the sophomore is doing an independent study with a biomechanics professor to assess the impact of various landing techniques and is teaching parkour classes at a local gym. Participants must sign a liability waiver that is "valid forever" and includes such boldfaced statements as "I AGREE TO EXPRESSLY ASSUME ALL RISKS OF INJURY OR DEATH."
Q: 試翻 "Participants must sign ... INJURY OR DEATH."
2. For all its inherent risks, parkour encourages good habits. The sport is heavy on discipline and self-improvement. True traceurs don't smoke (because it would hurt their endurance) or run under the influence (because it would hurt their balance and agility). "The problem is that people see all these videos of high-level stuff, so they go home, jump off their roof and wonder why they blow out their knees," says Tyson Cecka, 20, a sophomore at the University of Washington who just spent a week in Los Angeles doing parkour for a sneaker commercial. "They don't understand that we're training thousands of times on the ground, all these different vaults, all this precision." Parkour websites post daily homework in the form of push-ups and other exercises, and some veterans urge "noobies" not to show up for training sessions until they can run a good three miles. The upshot: poseurs don't last long.
Q: 試翻 "For all it inherent risks, ... discipline and self-improvement."
3. In general, parkour enthusiasts tend to respect authority and if told to stop climbing on a wall will nod and move along. Some try to explain to campus cops exactly what it is they're up to. Students at Maryland's McDaniel College told its campus safety director, Michael Webster, how much planning goes into what he remembers their calling "architectural acrobatics," and they stressed that they wouldn't "create an unnecessarily large amount of first-aid calls." Their entreaty worked. Today Webster says there is no official prohibition against parkour. Other schools seem caught between safety concerns and not wanting to stifle student enthusiasm. Last year, when a University of Washington administrator went outside to tell Cecka to stop climbing on her office building, she was impressed by his passion for the obscure sport and encouraged him to apply for a $4,500 leadership scholarship, which he is using to create a nonprofit to spread the word about parkour. As he quietly trains on campus, Cecka is preparing the paperwork for an urban-reclamation club to spruce up the school and build goodwill to one day get university officials to sanction parkour. "Hopefully, they'll listen to me then and won't immediately turn me down due to liability concerns," he says. He has reason to tread lightly. In January, after Indiana University's daily newspaper ran a photo of a traceur standing on top of a school arch, the university's police department served him with a written notice that if he did this stuff on campus again, he would be arrested. Although there are technically no laws against peripatetic back flipping, IU's Captain Jerry Minger says there are rules in place to protect school property as well as personal safety. "What if somebody came up with some kind of French term for dodging traffic?" Minger asks. "Dodge le traffique is great as long as I don't get hit by a car."
Q: 試翻 "Other schools seem caught ... stifle student enthusiasm."
1. Parkour got its start in Paris two decades ago when a soldier's son and another teen began devising moves to quickly get from one point to another to rescue someone or escape in an emergency. The sport, sometimes called free running, has been seeping into American consciousness in recent years via upwards of 25,000 YouTube clips as well as more mainstream forms of entertainment. Tony Heinz, 19, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, says he told his parents last year that he had started practicing parkour, but they didn't really get what he was talking about until more recently, when he asked if they had seen the James Bond film Casino Royale. "Yes," they responded. "Do you remember the chase scene at the construction site?" "Yes." "Well, I'm doing stuff like that." "What?!?" Parkour may be the ultimate sport for Ford and other devotees. "You need every athletic skill there is--endurance, strength, flexibility, balance, everything," he says. And there's no equipment required. "That's the thing about parkour," Ford says. "It opens your eyes up, and you're able to find something to do wherever you are." This semester the sophomore is doing an independent study with a biomechanics professor to assess the impact of various landing techniques and is teaching parkour classes at a local gym. Participants must sign a liability waiver that is "valid forever" and includes such boldfaced statements as "I AGREE TO EXPRESSLY ASSUME ALL RISKS OF INJURY OR DEATH."
Q: 試翻 "Participants must sign ... INJURY OR DEATH."
2. For all its inherent risks, parkour encourages good habits. The sport is heavy on discipline and self-improvement. True traceurs don't smoke (because it would hurt their endurance) or run under the influence (because it would hurt their balance and agility). "The problem is that people see all these videos of high-level stuff, so they go home, jump off their roof and wonder why they blow out their knees," says Tyson Cecka, 20, a sophomore at the University of Washington who just spent a week in Los Angeles doing parkour for a sneaker commercial. "They don't understand that we're training thousands of times on the ground, all these different vaults, all this precision." Parkour websites post daily homework in the form of push-ups and other exercises, and some veterans urge "noobies" not to show up for training sessions until they can run a good three miles. The upshot: poseurs don't last long.
Q: 試翻 "For all it inherent risks, ... discipline and self-improvement."
3. In general, parkour enthusiasts tend to respect authority and if told to stop climbing on a wall will nod and move along. Some try to explain to campus cops exactly what it is they're up to. Students at Maryland's McDaniel College told its campus safety director, Michael Webster, how much planning goes into what he remembers their calling "architectural acrobatics," and they stressed that they wouldn't "create an unnecessarily large amount of first-aid calls." Their entreaty worked. Today Webster says there is no official prohibition against parkour. Other schools seem caught between safety concerns and not wanting to stifle student enthusiasm. Last year, when a University of Washington administrator went outside to tell Cecka to stop climbing on her office building, she was impressed by his passion for the obscure sport and encouraged him to apply for a $4,500 leadership scholarship, which he is using to create a nonprofit to spread the word about parkour. As he quietly trains on campus, Cecka is preparing the paperwork for an urban-reclamation club to spruce up the school and build goodwill to one day get university officials to sanction parkour. "Hopefully, they'll listen to me then and won't immediately turn me down due to liability concerns," he says. He has reason to tread lightly. In January, after Indiana University's daily newspaper ran a photo of a traceur standing on top of a school arch, the university's police department served him with a written notice that if he did this stuff on campus again, he would be arrested. Although there are technically no laws against peripatetic back flipping, IU's Captain Jerry Minger says there are rules in place to protect school property as well as personal safety. "What if somebody came up with some kind of French term for dodging traffic?" Minger asks. "Dodge le traffique is great as long as I don't get hit by a car."
Q: 試翻 "Other schools seem caught ... stifle student enthusiasm."
English Quiz 187
(English Quiz 187)
1. What would possess seemingly sane people to treat concrete walls like trampolines? To leap over handicap-access ramps like Donkey Kong? The answer is parkour, a jaw-dropping hybrid of gymnastics and cross-country running that is equal parts Spider-Man whimsy and hard-core stamina. The word is derived from the French term for obstacle course, and like it or not, U.S. college campuses are becoming hot spots for this exhilarating new breed of steeplechase--horse-free and adaptable to any setting. Google parkour, campus and map, and you'll find, among some 58,000 results, an annotated parkour map of the University of California at San Diego and photos, taken at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, of vault-worthy railings and bulwarks galore.
Q: 試翻 "What would possess ... hard-core stamina."
2. Most college campuses, with their airy courtyards and often zigguratish architecture, are well suited for testing the bounds of sneaker-clad samurai and, at least in a few cases, their school's insurance coverage. Grisly parkour injuries--from broken face bones to a bruised liver--have been reported to United Educators Insurance, a major insurer of colleges, but so far, schools' liability exposure has been minimal. The question usually comes down to, Did officials know that students were jumping from high places? If so, did they try to restrict access to those areas? In October, Christopher Fu, a junior at the University of Illinois, got past a tall chain-link fence before plummeting to his death from the school's TV tower. Because Fu had expressed interest in a local parkour group on Facebook.com campus police couldn't determine whether his fall was an accident or a suicide. Like cops on many campuses, Illinois' assistant chief Jeff Christensen had never heard of parkour until the death at his school but is now on the lookout for what he calls "very risky behavior." It's no surprise then that while students at a small number of colleges have registered parkour clubs with their schools, fear of crackdowns has kept the movement largely underground.
Q: 試翻 "Most college campuses, ... their school's insurance coverage."
Q: 試翻 "It's no surprise ... largely underground."
1. What would possess seemingly sane people to treat concrete walls like trampolines? To leap over handicap-access ramps like Donkey Kong? The answer is parkour, a jaw-dropping hybrid of gymnastics and cross-country running that is equal parts Spider-Man whimsy and hard-core stamina. The word is derived from the French term for obstacle course, and like it or not, U.S. college campuses are becoming hot spots for this exhilarating new breed of steeplechase--horse-free and adaptable to any setting. Google parkour, campus and map, and you'll find, among some 58,000 results, an annotated parkour map of the University of California at San Diego and photos, taken at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, of vault-worthy railings and bulwarks galore.
Q: 試翻 "What would possess ... hard-core stamina."
2. Most college campuses, with their airy courtyards and often zigguratish architecture, are well suited for testing the bounds of sneaker-clad samurai and, at least in a few cases, their school's insurance coverage. Grisly parkour injuries--from broken face bones to a bruised liver--have been reported to United Educators Insurance, a major insurer of colleges, but so far, schools' liability exposure has been minimal. The question usually comes down to, Did officials know that students were jumping from high places? If so, did they try to restrict access to those areas? In October, Christopher Fu, a junior at the University of Illinois, got past a tall chain-link fence before plummeting to his death from the school's TV tower. Because Fu had expressed interest in a local parkour group on Facebook.com campus police couldn't determine whether his fall was an accident or a suicide. Like cops on many campuses, Illinois' assistant chief Jeff Christensen had never heard of parkour until the death at his school but is now on the lookout for what he calls "very risky behavior." It's no surprise then that while students at a small number of colleges have registered parkour clubs with their schools, fear of crackdowns has kept the movement largely underground.
Q: 試翻 "Most college campuses, ... their school's insurance coverage."
Q: 試翻 "It's no surprise ... largely underground."
English Quiz 186
(English Quiz 186)
1. While Apple's iPhone launch was absorbing all the available buzz this winter, two dueling teams of technologists were feverishly finalizing gadgets they hope will refocus the spotlight. The FlipStart, dreamed up and funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, launches in April. Its creators call it the first fully powered ultra-mini PC, or UMPC, that is satisfying to use. Meanwhile a team led by ex--Apple star Jory Bell has countered with the OQO2--a palm-size computer that stakes a similar claim with a slightly different approach. These aren't the only machines to claim UMPC status, but they're among the first to package a new generation of processors, batteries, screens and memory chips into devices that are more portable than laptops and more powerful than cell phones. Allen, 54, sees UMPCs as nothing less than a game changer. "We're going to see an explosive evolution of devices like this," he says, "because people want to carry their personal computer with them wherever they go." Laptops are too bulky for that task. Allen likens the FlipStart's prospects to the potential he saw in RIM's early BlackBerry. He says passersby once marveled that he could use it for e-mail. "Now everybody has some kind of mobile device like that." To feed their growing digital appetites, Allen says, consumers want something even more powerful that can handle the spreadsheets, video, e-mail attachments and software that mobile phones can't deal with. Allen is betting that even a smart phone like Apple's won't have the computing power--or screen size--to satisfy users.
Q: 試翻 "Allen, 54, ... wherever they go."
2. Like Gates, Allen now devotes much of his time to giving away lots of money. He still has a fortune north of $15 billion and has remained active in the tech world, investing in a series of start-ups, from AOL to early wireless networks. He scored big with such outfits as DreamWorks and Ticketmaster, while some of his other investments have struggled, like Egghead Software and Purple Moon, a failed CD-ROM venture. In 2000, Allen was wondering why laptops couldn't be more portable. And wonder can get funding in a hurry when its owner is Paul Allen. His R&D team, part of his Vulcan research group, started project Sybok, named for Spock's half brother. After a series of prototypes--with names like Dolphin, Eagle, Falcon and Gecko--the team members nailed a version in 2004 that met their goal of shrinking a laptop to one-eighth its size. But it was too hot for laps, so it was scrapped. A faster, slicker processor has since cooled things down. Today, however, the heat is external. In the decades since Allen birthed the Microsoft mouse, hardware competition has roared. In addition to OQO, Sony and Samsung have released mini laptops in the same $2,000 range as the FlipStart. And Apple looms as a dark horse.
Q: 試翻 "In the decades ... as a dark horse."
3. The broader challenge for FlipStart, OQO and their rivals is establishing a market. Although 228 million computers were sold worldwide in 2006, and a billion mobile phones, demand for ultra-mobile computers may not even reach 150,000 in 2007, according to Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a technology consulting firm in California's Silicon Valley. Bajarin expects that mini-PC sales won't near the million-a-year mark until 2009 and may fall far short if prices don't drop fast. "To get into the millions of units, they'll have to sell for no more than $599," Bajarin says. Given that business travelers can get a basic laptop and a cell phone for $2,000, they may hesitate to shell out that much for an early-stage UMPC. That's why Bajarin calls this a "missionary" year for the category, which is counting on early-adopting corporate types who can expense their purchase. Some analysts are skeptical about the whole category. "Not everyone is keen on the idea of thumbing his way through life," says Shiv Bakhshi, a mobile-device expert at IDC, a Massachusetts research company. An early review from eWeek derided the 1.75-lb., $1,999 FlipStart as "the three C's: cool, clunky and costly," while Infoworld called it "flat out unusable for work." Using it is a lot like handling a laptop with a shrunken screen and keyboard; it's fine for a few minutes, though you'll feel cramped working for a longer stretch. But there are strengths too. FlipStart has a handy mini outer screen for checking e-mail while the device is closed. And the OQO2 comes with an elegantly designed docking station that lets you use a full-size keyboard and screen when you're not traveling.
Q: 試翻 "That's why ... expense their purchase."
1. While Apple's iPhone launch was absorbing all the available buzz this winter, two dueling teams of technologists were feverishly finalizing gadgets they hope will refocus the spotlight. The FlipStart, dreamed up and funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, launches in April. Its creators call it the first fully powered ultra-mini PC, or UMPC, that is satisfying to use. Meanwhile a team led by ex--Apple star Jory Bell has countered with the OQO2--a palm-size computer that stakes a similar claim with a slightly different approach. These aren't the only machines to claim UMPC status, but they're among the first to package a new generation of processors, batteries, screens and memory chips into devices that are more portable than laptops and more powerful than cell phones. Allen, 54, sees UMPCs as nothing less than a game changer. "We're going to see an explosive evolution of devices like this," he says, "because people want to carry their personal computer with them wherever they go." Laptops are too bulky for that task. Allen likens the FlipStart's prospects to the potential he saw in RIM's early BlackBerry. He says passersby once marveled that he could use it for e-mail. "Now everybody has some kind of mobile device like that." To feed their growing digital appetites, Allen says, consumers want something even more powerful that can handle the spreadsheets, video, e-mail attachments and software that mobile phones can't deal with. Allen is betting that even a smart phone like Apple's won't have the computing power--or screen size--to satisfy users.
Q: 試翻 "Allen, 54, ... wherever they go."
2. Like Gates, Allen now devotes much of his time to giving away lots of money. He still has a fortune north of $15 billion and has remained active in the tech world, investing in a series of start-ups, from AOL to early wireless networks. He scored big with such outfits as DreamWorks and Ticketmaster, while some of his other investments have struggled, like Egghead Software and Purple Moon, a failed CD-ROM venture. In 2000, Allen was wondering why laptops couldn't be more portable. And wonder can get funding in a hurry when its owner is Paul Allen. His R&D team, part of his Vulcan research group, started project Sybok, named for Spock's half brother. After a series of prototypes--with names like Dolphin, Eagle, Falcon and Gecko--the team members nailed a version in 2004 that met their goal of shrinking a laptop to one-eighth its size. But it was too hot for laps, so it was scrapped. A faster, slicker processor has since cooled things down. Today, however, the heat is external. In the decades since Allen birthed the Microsoft mouse, hardware competition has roared. In addition to OQO, Sony and Samsung have released mini laptops in the same $2,000 range as the FlipStart. And Apple looms as a dark horse.
Q: 試翻 "In the decades ... as a dark horse."
3. The broader challenge for FlipStart, OQO and their rivals is establishing a market. Although 228 million computers were sold worldwide in 2006, and a billion mobile phones, demand for ultra-mobile computers may not even reach 150,000 in 2007, according to Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a technology consulting firm in California's Silicon Valley. Bajarin expects that mini-PC sales won't near the million-a-year mark until 2009 and may fall far short if prices don't drop fast. "To get into the millions of units, they'll have to sell for no more than $599," Bajarin says. Given that business travelers can get a basic laptop and a cell phone for $2,000, they may hesitate to shell out that much for an early-stage UMPC. That's why Bajarin calls this a "missionary" year for the category, which is counting on early-adopting corporate types who can expense their purchase. Some analysts are skeptical about the whole category. "Not everyone is keen on the idea of thumbing his way through life," says Shiv Bakhshi, a mobile-device expert at IDC, a Massachusetts research company. An early review from eWeek derided the 1.75-lb., $1,999 FlipStart as "the three C's: cool, clunky and costly," while Infoworld called it "flat out unusable for work." Using it is a lot like handling a laptop with a shrunken screen and keyboard; it's fine for a few minutes, though you'll feel cramped working for a longer stretch. But there are strengths too. FlipStart has a handy mini outer screen for checking e-mail while the device is closed. And the OQO2 comes with an elegantly designed docking station that lets you use a full-size keyboard and screen when you're not traveling.
Q: 試翻 "That's why ... expense their purchase."
English Quiz 185
(English Quiz 185)
1. Fifty years ago, parenting was so much simpler for Asian men. As the sole breadwinner, a dad's responsibilities typically ceased the moment he crossed the threshold of his home and flopped into his favorite chair, while mom dealt with the dinner and the children. "The father in the previous generation was more aloof, removed from the family and emotionally more detached," says Daniel Wong, a University of Hong Kong professor of social welfare and author of a 2003 study on the stresses faced by dads. Says Benjamin Naden, a client manager at Microsoft in Singapore who sometimes snatches an hour or two from work to watch his kids in sports events: "We understood that our father was the breadwinner and had to work, but kids today have different expectations. They require more of your time." Yet many fathers find there's less of it to give. Asian men are becoming fathers later in life, when they tend to have less time for their children. "Career responsibilities increase with age," says Raphael Chan, a director of a fast-food chain in Singapore who became a first-time father at age 41. "But this was the point at which I had a child, and it was hard." Multitasking and an accelerated workflow present other challenges for the single-task-oriented male brain. And technological advances—from vibrating Blackberries to the addictive allure of high-speed Internet access at home—have made it all the harder to detach from work. Finally, when you consider the retrenchments and economic wipeouts that have set the temper of their working lives over the past decade—the financial crisis of 1997, the dotcom implosion of 2000, the downturn in the wake of SARS in 2003—it's easy to see why Asian men have prioritized work. "Since 1997, it's not been possible to get a bonus," says Wong, the Hong Kong buyer and father of four. Spurred by the fear that their incomes will dry up or their jobs will be cut, many men work longer hours in a bid to prove their indispensability.
Q: 試翻 "As the sole breadwinner, ... into his favorite chair."
Q: 試翻 "Spurred by the fear ... to prove their indispensability."
2. But unlike their fathers, Asian men today face an epoch-shifting change: the entry of women into the workforce. Having two incomes has brought economic benefits to countless families, and given women rich opportunities for fulfillment, but it has left men scrambling to become the fully fledged co-parents their wives now need them to be. In fact, many men are experiencing, for the first time, the conflicting pulls of career and home that have long bedeviled working women. These overstretched fathers are still getting used to the idea that they're no longer excused from taking on a wider family role. Increasingly, they are "sharing more housework with their spouses, such as buying groceries, picking up the kids from school, changing diapers and feeding the babies," says Zhang Liang, a researcher on fatherhood at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Chan, the fast-food executive, is one of the legion of fathers who has had to adapt accordingly. "My wife picks our son up from playschool and brings him to her workplace, and cooks him something to eat in the pantry there," he says. "I come and pick them up a couple of hours later and bring them home at around 9 p.m."
Q: 試翻 "In fact, ... working women."
3. And it isn't just chauffeuring that's required. Fathers need to stimulate their children intellectually and emotionally just as much as mothers do, whether that means helping with homework or listening to a child's problems. In cultural terms, this is a seismic shift. Bear in mind that half a century ago, as men moved from villages to cities—or overseas—to find work, they had very little contact with their sons. Those sons, with educations paid for by their fathers' remittances, were able to advance up the socioeconomic ladder. But the jobs they took—many of them white-collar jobs at the heart of the Asian economic boom—robbed them of a family life, too. Today, their sons—the third generation and the present crop of fathers—are the product of two previous generations of absent dads. "The pattern of fatherlessness can be passed down," says Wong Suen Kwong, who says he started the Centre for Fathering because he was having trouble relating to his teenage daughters.
Q: 試翻 "Those sons, ... te socioeconomic ladder."
1. Fifty years ago, parenting was so much simpler for Asian men. As the sole breadwinner, a dad's responsibilities typically ceased the moment he crossed the threshold of his home and flopped into his favorite chair, while mom dealt with the dinner and the children. "The father in the previous generation was more aloof, removed from the family and emotionally more detached," says Daniel Wong, a University of Hong Kong professor of social welfare and author of a 2003 study on the stresses faced by dads. Says Benjamin Naden, a client manager at Microsoft in Singapore who sometimes snatches an hour or two from work to watch his kids in sports events: "We understood that our father was the breadwinner and had to work, but kids today have different expectations. They require more of your time." Yet many fathers find there's less of it to give. Asian men are becoming fathers later in life, when they tend to have less time for their children. "Career responsibilities increase with age," says Raphael Chan, a director of a fast-food chain in Singapore who became a first-time father at age 41. "But this was the point at which I had a child, and it was hard." Multitasking and an accelerated workflow present other challenges for the single-task-oriented male brain. And technological advances—from vibrating Blackberries to the addictive allure of high-speed Internet access at home—have made it all the harder to detach from work. Finally, when you consider the retrenchments and economic wipeouts that have set the temper of their working lives over the past decade—the financial crisis of 1997, the dotcom implosion of 2000, the downturn in the wake of SARS in 2003—it's easy to see why Asian men have prioritized work. "Since 1997, it's not been possible to get a bonus," says Wong, the Hong Kong buyer and father of four. Spurred by the fear that their incomes will dry up or their jobs will be cut, many men work longer hours in a bid to prove their indispensability.
Q: 試翻 "As the sole breadwinner, ... into his favorite chair."
Q: 試翻 "Spurred by the fear ... to prove their indispensability."
2. But unlike their fathers, Asian men today face an epoch-shifting change: the entry of women into the workforce. Having two incomes has brought economic benefits to countless families, and given women rich opportunities for fulfillment, but it has left men scrambling to become the fully fledged co-parents their wives now need them to be. In fact, many men are experiencing, for the first time, the conflicting pulls of career and home that have long bedeviled working women. These overstretched fathers are still getting used to the idea that they're no longer excused from taking on a wider family role. Increasingly, they are "sharing more housework with their spouses, such as buying groceries, picking up the kids from school, changing diapers and feeding the babies," says Zhang Liang, a researcher on fatherhood at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Chan, the fast-food executive, is one of the legion of fathers who has had to adapt accordingly. "My wife picks our son up from playschool and brings him to her workplace, and cooks him something to eat in the pantry there," he says. "I come and pick them up a couple of hours later and bring them home at around 9 p.m."
Q: 試翻 "In fact, ... working women."
3. And it isn't just chauffeuring that's required. Fathers need to stimulate their children intellectually and emotionally just as much as mothers do, whether that means helping with homework or listening to a child's problems. In cultural terms, this is a seismic shift. Bear in mind that half a century ago, as men moved from villages to cities—or overseas—to find work, they had very little contact with their sons. Those sons, with educations paid for by their fathers' remittances, were able to advance up the socioeconomic ladder. But the jobs they took—many of them white-collar jobs at the heart of the Asian economic boom—robbed them of a family life, too. Today, their sons—the third generation and the present crop of fathers—are the product of two previous generations of absent dads. "The pattern of fatherlessness can be passed down," says Wong Suen Kwong, who says he started the Centre for Fathering because he was having trouble relating to his teenage daughters.
Q: 試翻 "Those sons, ... te socioeconomic ladder."
English Quiz 184
(English Quiz 184)
1. The first three months of the new Democratic Congress have been neither terrible nor transcendent. A Pew poll had it about right: a substantial majority of the public remains happy the Democrats won in 2006, but neither Nancy Pelosi nor Harry Reid has dominated the public consciousness as Newt Gingrich did when the Republicans came to power in 1995. There is a reason for that. A much bigger story is unfolding: the epic collapse of the Bush Administration. The three big Bush stories of 2007--the decision to "surge" in Iraq, the scandalous treatment of wounded veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys for tawdry political reasons--precisely illuminate the three qualities that make this Administration one of the worst in American history: arrogance (the surge), incompetence (Walter Reed) and cynicism (the U.S. Attorneys).
2. Iraq comes first, as always. From the start, it has been obvious that personal motives have skewed the President's judgment about the war. Saddam tried to kill his dad; his dad didn't try hard enough to kill Saddam. There was payback to be had. But never was Bush's adolescent petulance more obvious than in his decision to ignore the Baker-Hamilton report and move in the exact opposite direction: adding troops and employing counterinsurgency tactics inappropriate to the situation on the ground. "There was no way he was going to accept [its findings] once the press began to portray the report as Daddy's friends coming to the rescue," a member of the Baker-Hamilton commission told me. As with Bush's invasion of Iraq, the decision to surge was made unilaterally, without adequate respect for history or military doctrine. Iraq was invaded with insufficient troops and planning; the surge was attempted with too few troops (especially non-Kurdish, Arabic-speaking Iraqis), a purposely misleading time line ("progress" by September) and, most important, the absence of a reliable Iraqi government.
Q: 試翻 "From the start, ... about the war."
Q: 試翻 "But never was Bush's adolescent petulance ... on the ground."
3. On April 3, the President again accused Democrats of being "more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than providing our troops what they need." Such demagoguery is particularly outrageous given the Administration's inability to provide our troops "what they need" at the nation's premier hospital for veterans. The mold and decrepitude at Walter Reed are likely to be only the beginning of the tragedy, the latest example of incompetence in this Administration. "This is yet another aspect of war planning that wasn't done properly," says Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "The entire VA hospital system is unprepared for the casualties of Iraq, especially the psychiatric casualties. A lot of vets are saying, 'This is our Katrina moment.' And they're right: this Administration governs badly because it doesn't care very much about governing." Compared with Iraq and Walter Reed, the firing of the U.S. Attorneys is a relatively minor matter. It is true that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, but they are political appointees of a special sort. They are partisans, obviously, but must appear to be above politics--not working to influence elections, for example--if public faith in the impartiality of the justice system is to be maintained. Once again Karl Rove's operation has corrupted a policy area--like national security--that should be off-limits to political operators.
Q: 試翻 "It is true that ... a special sort."
Q: 試翻 "They are partisans, ... to be maintained."
4. When Bush came to office--installed by the Supreme Court after receiving fewer votes than Al Gore--I speculated that the new President would have to govern in a bipartisan manner to be successful. He chose the opposite path, and his hyper-partisanship has proved to be a travesty of governance and a comprehensive failure. I've tried to be respectful of the man and the office, but the three defining sins of the Bush Administration--arrogance, incompetence, cynicism--are congenital: they're part of his personality. They're not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.
English Quiz 183
(English Quiz 183)
1. What a difference four years make. In 2003, Airbus outsold its archrival Boeing for the first time, sparking a mood of triumphalism for those who saw the four-nation consortium as a model of European industrial cooperation. Today Airbus workers are demonstrating, and financial losses are mounting as a result of disastrous snafus that have delayed its flagship new plane. Cooperation? Major private shareholders of parent company EADS can't dump their shares fast enough. And to complicate matters, jousting among its government shareholders--exacerbated by the French presidential elections--is casting doubt on a restructuring plan that includes 10,000 job cuts across Europe, a measure agreed upon only after months of board wrangling. The immediate cause of the trouble is the A380, a $14 billion, 555-seat, double-decker plane that is one of those bet-the-company ventures, so beloved by the aerospace industry, that either succeed spectacularly--as the Boeing 747 did--or risk sending a firm into a tailspin. Remember Lockheed's L1011? Mechanically, the A380 works. But Airbus has had to tear up its delivery schedule several times because of nagging manufacturing problems, primarily involving wiring. That has enraged launch customers; some have canceled their orders. FedEx and UPS walked, which killed the cargo version of the plane.
Q: 試翻 "In 2003, ... Eurepoean industrial cooperation."
2. Airbus' ability to climb out of the crisis has been severely restricted by its cumbersome and intensely political management structure. The French, German, Spanish and British consortium is backed by billions of dollars in taxpayers' money. But it's a nightmare of corporate governance because management and blue-collar jobs have traditionally been divvied up among its various state and private owners. Horse trading trumps efficiency, so many operations are needlessly duplicated. The wiring muddles behind nearly $3 billion in cost overruns are a classic example: plants in Toulouse and Hamburg wired different parts of the A380 in different ways, using different software. That turned final assembly into an impossible puzzle. Louis Gallois, a Frenchman who was appointed CEO of Airbus last October, is trying to maneuver out of that mess. It's a perilous undertaking. Gallois replaced Christian Streiff, who lasted just 100 days after replacing Noel Forgeard, who was fired last summer. The restructuring plan Gallois unveiled seeks to eliminate duplication and reduce the 16 manufacturing plants to 10. His plan carefully distributes the job cuts. Immediately, politicians and unions in France and Germany started sniping over which side should bear the biggest burden. The three main candidates in the current French presidential-election campaign then promised more intrusion in Airbus' affairs.
Q: 試翻 "Louis Gallois, ... a perilous undertaking."
3. Another big uncertainty concerns future ownership. Airbus' private owners are fleeing: Britain's BAE sold its 20% stake earlier this year to EADS, and both of EADS's big holders, Germany's DaimlerChrysler and France's Lagardere, are trying to reduce their stakes. Airbus' other planes, including the A320, are still selling well, and EADS's helicopter and other military divisions reported strong sales and earnings this year. Ulrich Horstmann, an aviation analyst at Bayerische Landesbank, reckons there's an 80% chance that Airbus will be able to bounce back. "But there is a danger it'll get sucked into a vicious circle of job cuts, sinking morale and political infighting," he says. As for Airbus as a model for industrial cooperation, James Foreman-Peck, a professor at Cardiff Business School who specializes in European industrial policy, says it remains valid. But, he adds, "these days, Airbus just confirms Anglo-Saxon prejudices that governments waste large amounts of taxpayers' money even when they have a good idea."
Q: 試翻 "Ulrich Horstmann ... to bounce back."
1. What a difference four years make. In 2003, Airbus outsold its archrival Boeing for the first time, sparking a mood of triumphalism for those who saw the four-nation consortium as a model of European industrial cooperation. Today Airbus workers are demonstrating, and financial losses are mounting as a result of disastrous snafus that have delayed its flagship new plane. Cooperation? Major private shareholders of parent company EADS can't dump their shares fast enough. And to complicate matters, jousting among its government shareholders--exacerbated by the French presidential elections--is casting doubt on a restructuring plan that includes 10,000 job cuts across Europe, a measure agreed upon only after months of board wrangling. The immediate cause of the trouble is the A380, a $14 billion, 555-seat, double-decker plane that is one of those bet-the-company ventures, so beloved by the aerospace industry, that either succeed spectacularly--as the Boeing 747 did--or risk sending a firm into a tailspin. Remember Lockheed's L1011? Mechanically, the A380 works. But Airbus has had to tear up its delivery schedule several times because of nagging manufacturing problems, primarily involving wiring. That has enraged launch customers; some have canceled their orders. FedEx and UPS walked, which killed the cargo version of the plane.
Q: 試翻 "In 2003, ... Eurepoean industrial cooperation."
2. Airbus' ability to climb out of the crisis has been severely restricted by its cumbersome and intensely political management structure. The French, German, Spanish and British consortium is backed by billions of dollars in taxpayers' money. But it's a nightmare of corporate governance because management and blue-collar jobs have traditionally been divvied up among its various state and private owners. Horse trading trumps efficiency, so many operations are needlessly duplicated. The wiring muddles behind nearly $3 billion in cost overruns are a classic example: plants in Toulouse and Hamburg wired different parts of the A380 in different ways, using different software. That turned final assembly into an impossible puzzle. Louis Gallois, a Frenchman who was appointed CEO of Airbus last October, is trying to maneuver out of that mess. It's a perilous undertaking. Gallois replaced Christian Streiff, who lasted just 100 days after replacing Noel Forgeard, who was fired last summer. The restructuring plan Gallois unveiled seeks to eliminate duplication and reduce the 16 manufacturing plants to 10. His plan carefully distributes the job cuts. Immediately, politicians and unions in France and Germany started sniping over which side should bear the biggest burden. The three main candidates in the current French presidential-election campaign then promised more intrusion in Airbus' affairs.
Q: 試翻 "Louis Gallois, ... a perilous undertaking."
3. Another big uncertainty concerns future ownership. Airbus' private owners are fleeing: Britain's BAE sold its 20% stake earlier this year to EADS, and both of EADS's big holders, Germany's DaimlerChrysler and France's Lagardere, are trying to reduce their stakes. Airbus' other planes, including the A320, are still selling well, and EADS's helicopter and other military divisions reported strong sales and earnings this year. Ulrich Horstmann, an aviation analyst at Bayerische Landesbank, reckons there's an 80% chance that Airbus will be able to bounce back. "But there is a danger it'll get sucked into a vicious circle of job cuts, sinking morale and political infighting," he says. As for Airbus as a model for industrial cooperation, James Foreman-Peck, a professor at Cardiff Business School who specializes in European industrial policy, says it remains valid. But, he adds, "these days, Airbus just confirms Anglo-Saxon prejudices that governments waste large amounts of taxpayers' money even when they have a good idea."
Q: 試翻 "Ulrich Horstmann ... to bounce back."
English Quiz 182
(English Quiz 182)
1. In 1950 an aspiring cartoonist who drew a comic strip for his local paper wanted to get wider distribution for his work. So he took it to a syndication service. An editor at the syndicate liked the strip but didn't care for the name, so he changed it. To Peanuts. Charles Schulz always hated that name. In 1987 he told an interviewer, "It's totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing and has no dignity--and I think my humor has dignity." Schulz's name for his comic strip was Li'l Folks, which admittedly isn't that much more dignified. But the point is, if Schulz started out today he wouldn't have bothered with a syndicate. He would have taken his strip straight to the Web, and we would be watching Li'l Folks specials every year at Christmas. There's no better textbook example of the Web reinvigorating an old-school medium than the humble comic strip. (Um, besides porn, that is.) Comic strips in newspapers are dying. They're starved for space, crushed down to a fraction of their original size. They're choked creatively by ironfisted syndicates and the 1950s-era family values that newspapers impose. But on the Web there are no space restrictions. Need I add that the same goes for family values? Now that DIY ad serving is cheap and easy, cartoonists can go into business for themselves online, and syndicates and newspapers both be damned. In the promiscuous, radioactive, no-barriers ecology of the Web, the humble comic strip is flourishing.
Q: 試翻 "Comic strips in U.S. ... that newspaper impose."
2. Webcomics have been around since the late 1990s, and today there are thousands of them. The diversity of artistic styles is astonishing: anime, clip art, crude scribbles, beautiful finished drawings and everything in between. The Web also frees comics from the iron cage of the traditional strip format. "Being online, there's no reason our strip has to be three panels right next to each other," says Mike Krahulik, half of the team that produces the webcomic Penny Arcade. "It often is. But there's nothing keeping us from making full-page comic-book-style layouts. There's nothing stopping us from doing whatever we want." Webcomics aren't shackled to the grinding schedule of the daily paper either; Penny Arcade publishes three times a week. And Penny Arcade is always in color. On the Web, every day can be Sunday. The writing in webcomics is different too--it's bizarre and wildly inventive in a way that's reminiscent of early print pioneers like Krazy Cat and Little Nemo in Slumberland. One of the most ambitiously literary--though still bracingly, crudely hilarious--comics on the Web is called Achewood. It's about a loose community of creatures--cats, a bear, a squirrel, a baby otter, a few robots--who are variously wealthy, clinically depressed, psychotic and gay. It swings, sometimes disconcertingly, from funny to sad and back. In one story arc a wealthy pleasure-loving cat named Ray dies and goes to hell, where he's forced to drive a 1982 Subaru Brat and gets drunk with legendary bluesman Robert Johnson at a Best Western. This kind of thing never happens to Garfield. The characterization in Achewood is so thorough it's almost novelistic, to the point where it breaks the frame--the strip's creator, Chris Onstad, maintains blogs in the voices of his characters. Achewood's depressed cat, whose name is Roast Beef, even publishes his own 'zine, titled Man Why You Even Got to Do a Thing.
Q: 試翻 "The Web also ... the traditional strip format."
3. At a certain point newspapers just aren't worth the hassle. When Scott Kurtz wanted to be a cartoonist, he figured he would sell his work to a syndicate like everybody else. When he got started in the mid-1990s there was no such thing as a webcomic. But Kurtz, 36, put his work up online anyway, just to get it in front of people's eyes. "There was no plan, there was no goal, and there was no belief that it was real," Kurtz says. "I stumbled onto it." His strip was about office life at a magazine, and he called it PvP (short for Player vs. Player). By 2000 he was getting a million page views a month and could quit his day job doing Web design for a radio station. Now PvP has more than 150,000 readers a day, and Kurtz sells PvP merchandise and produces a regular animated version of the strip. Still, the "real" funny pages do have their appeal. Just as a few bloggers are drawn to the old-media respectability of print, some Web cartoonists are succumbing to the siren song of syndication. In January a popular webcomic, Diesel Sweeties (which features robots and hipsters making hyperironic pop-culture references), was picked up by United Features--the same company that renamed Peanuts more than 50 years ago. "I don't know why you'd want to rush to get to that cemetery," says Krahulik. "I guess everybody wants their dad to like them, right? They feel like they need that approval. I think we represent the exact opposite of that."
Q: 試翻 "Just as a few bloggers ... the siren song of syndication."
1. In 1950 an aspiring cartoonist who drew a comic strip for his local paper wanted to get wider distribution for his work. So he took it to a syndication service. An editor at the syndicate liked the strip but didn't care for the name, so he changed it. To Peanuts. Charles Schulz always hated that name. In 1987 he told an interviewer, "It's totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing and has no dignity--and I think my humor has dignity." Schulz's name for his comic strip was Li'l Folks, which admittedly isn't that much more dignified. But the point is, if Schulz started out today he wouldn't have bothered with a syndicate. He would have taken his strip straight to the Web, and we would be watching Li'l Folks specials every year at Christmas. There's no better textbook example of the Web reinvigorating an old-school medium than the humble comic strip. (Um, besides porn, that is.) Comic strips in newspapers are dying. They're starved for space, crushed down to a fraction of their original size. They're choked creatively by ironfisted syndicates and the 1950s-era family values that newspapers impose. But on the Web there are no space restrictions. Need I add that the same goes for family values? Now that DIY ad serving is cheap and easy, cartoonists can go into business for themselves online, and syndicates and newspapers both be damned. In the promiscuous, radioactive, no-barriers ecology of the Web, the humble comic strip is flourishing.
Q: 試翻 "Comic strips in U.S. ... that newspaper impose."
2. Webcomics have been around since the late 1990s, and today there are thousands of them. The diversity of artistic styles is astonishing: anime, clip art, crude scribbles, beautiful finished drawings and everything in between. The Web also frees comics from the iron cage of the traditional strip format. "Being online, there's no reason our strip has to be three panels right next to each other," says Mike Krahulik, half of the team that produces the webcomic Penny Arcade. "It often is. But there's nothing keeping us from making full-page comic-book-style layouts. There's nothing stopping us from doing whatever we want." Webcomics aren't shackled to the grinding schedule of the daily paper either; Penny Arcade publishes three times a week. And Penny Arcade is always in color. On the Web, every day can be Sunday. The writing in webcomics is different too--it's bizarre and wildly inventive in a way that's reminiscent of early print pioneers like Krazy Cat and Little Nemo in Slumberland. One of the most ambitiously literary--though still bracingly, crudely hilarious--comics on the Web is called Achewood. It's about a loose community of creatures--cats, a bear, a squirrel, a baby otter, a few robots--who are variously wealthy, clinically depressed, psychotic and gay. It swings, sometimes disconcertingly, from funny to sad and back. In one story arc a wealthy pleasure-loving cat named Ray dies and goes to hell, where he's forced to drive a 1982 Subaru Brat and gets drunk with legendary bluesman Robert Johnson at a Best Western. This kind of thing never happens to Garfield. The characterization in Achewood is so thorough it's almost novelistic, to the point where it breaks the frame--the strip's creator, Chris Onstad, maintains blogs in the voices of his characters. Achewood's depressed cat, whose name is Roast Beef, even publishes his own 'zine, titled Man Why You Even Got to Do a Thing.
Q: 試翻 "The Web also ... the traditional strip format."
3. At a certain point newspapers just aren't worth the hassle. When Scott Kurtz wanted to be a cartoonist, he figured he would sell his work to a syndicate like everybody else. When he got started in the mid-1990s there was no such thing as a webcomic. But Kurtz, 36, put his work up online anyway, just to get it in front of people's eyes. "There was no plan, there was no goal, and there was no belief that it was real," Kurtz says. "I stumbled onto it." His strip was about office life at a magazine, and he called it PvP (short for Player vs. Player). By 2000 he was getting a million page views a month and could quit his day job doing Web design for a radio station. Now PvP has more than 150,000 readers a day, and Kurtz sells PvP merchandise and produces a regular animated version of the strip. Still, the "real" funny pages do have their appeal. Just as a few bloggers are drawn to the old-media respectability of print, some Web cartoonists are succumbing to the siren song of syndication. In January a popular webcomic, Diesel Sweeties (which features robots and hipsters making hyperironic pop-culture references), was picked up by United Features--the same company that renamed Peanuts more than 50 years ago. "I don't know why you'd want to rush to get to that cemetery," says Krahulik. "I guess everybody wants their dad to like them, right? They feel like they need that approval. I think we represent the exact opposite of that."
Q: 試翻 "Just as a few bloggers ... the siren song of syndication."
English Quiz 181
(English Quiz 181)
1. The Iraq war has challenged the conservative movement's custodianship of America's place in the world, as well as its claim to competence. Reagan restored a sense of America's mission as the "city on a hill" that would be a light to the world and helped bring about the defeat of what he very undiplomatically christened "the evil empire." After 9/11 Bush found his own evil empire, in fact a whole axis of evil. But he hasn't produced Reagan's results: North Korea is nuclear, Iran swaggers across the world stage, Iraq is a morass. "Conservatives are divided on the Iraq war, but there is a growing feeling it was a mistake," says longtime conservative activist and fund-raiser Richard Viguerie. "It's not a Ronald Reagan?type of idea to ride on our white horse around the world trying to save it militarily. Ronald Reagan won the cold war by bankrupting the Soviet Union. No planes flew. No tanks rolled. No armies marched."
Q: 試翻 "Reagan restored a sense ... the evil empire."
2. Then there are the scandals and the corruption. The dismay that voters expressed in last fall's midterm election was aimed not so much at conservatism as at the G.O.P's failure to honor it with a respect for law and order. And now that subpoena power gives the Democrats their first chance to shine a light into the crevices of an Administration and its very unconservative approach to Executive power, the final years of Bush's presidency are likely to be punctuated by one controversy after another. The past weeks alone have produced a parade of revelations: leftover questions about Vice President Dick Cheney's role in the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby case; the betrayal by neglect of the war wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and veterans hospitals across the country; the connected dots showing that the White House and the Justice Department exploited the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act, of all things, to engineer a purge of U.S. attorneys across the country.
Q: 試翻 "The dismay that ... for law and order."
3. Conservatives are in many ways victims of their successes, and there have indeed been big ones. At 35%, the top tax rate is about half what it was when Reagan took office; the Soviet Union broke up; inflation is barely a nuisance; crime is down; and welfare is reformed. But if all that's true, what is conservatism's rationale for the next generation? What set of goals is there to hold together a coalition that has always been more fractious than it seemed to be from the outside, with its realists and its neoconservatives, its religious ground troops and its libertarian intelligentsia, its Pat Buchanan populists and its Milton Friedman free traders? That is why the challenge for Republican conservatives goes far deeper than merely trying to figure out how to win the next election. 2008 is a question with a very clear premise: Does the conservative movement still have what it takes to redeem its grand old traditions — or, better, to chart new territory?
Q: 試翻 "What set of goals ... from the outside."
1. The Iraq war has challenged the conservative movement's custodianship of America's place in the world, as well as its claim to competence. Reagan restored a sense of America's mission as the "city on a hill" that would be a light to the world and helped bring about the defeat of what he very undiplomatically christened "the evil empire." After 9/11 Bush found his own evil empire, in fact a whole axis of evil. But he hasn't produced Reagan's results: North Korea is nuclear, Iran swaggers across the world stage, Iraq is a morass. "Conservatives are divided on the Iraq war, but there is a growing feeling it was a mistake," says longtime conservative activist and fund-raiser Richard Viguerie. "It's not a Ronald Reagan?type of idea to ride on our white horse around the world trying to save it militarily. Ronald Reagan won the cold war by bankrupting the Soviet Union. No planes flew. No tanks rolled. No armies marched."
Q: 試翻 "Reagan restored a sense ... the evil empire."
2. Then there are the scandals and the corruption. The dismay that voters expressed in last fall's midterm election was aimed not so much at conservatism as at the G.O.P's failure to honor it with a respect for law and order. And now that subpoena power gives the Democrats their first chance to shine a light into the crevices of an Administration and its very unconservative approach to Executive power, the final years of Bush's presidency are likely to be punctuated by one controversy after another. The past weeks alone have produced a parade of revelations: leftover questions about Vice President Dick Cheney's role in the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby case; the betrayal by neglect of the war wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and veterans hospitals across the country; the connected dots showing that the White House and the Justice Department exploited the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act, of all things, to engineer a purge of U.S. attorneys across the country.
Q: 試翻 "The dismay that ... for law and order."
3. Conservatives are in many ways victims of their successes, and there have indeed been big ones. At 35%, the top tax rate is about half what it was when Reagan took office; the Soviet Union broke up; inflation is barely a nuisance; crime is down; and welfare is reformed. But if all that's true, what is conservatism's rationale for the next generation? What set of goals is there to hold together a coalition that has always been more fractious than it seemed to be from the outside, with its realists and its neoconservatives, its religious ground troops and its libertarian intelligentsia, its Pat Buchanan populists and its Milton Friedman free traders? That is why the challenge for Republican conservatives goes far deeper than merely trying to figure out how to win the next election. 2008 is a question with a very clear premise: Does the conservative movement still have what it takes to redeem its grand old traditions — or, better, to chart new territory?
Q: 試翻 "What set of goals ... from the outside."
English Quiz 180
(English Quiz 180)
1. These are gloomy and uncertain days for conservatives, who — except for the eight-year Clinton interregnum — have dominated political power and thought in this country since Reagan rode in from the West. Their tradition goes back even further, to Founding Fathers who believed that people should do things for themselves and who shook off a monarchy in their conviction that Big Government is more to be feared than encouraged. The Boston Tea Party, as Reagan used to point out, was an antitax initiative.
Q: 試翻 "These are glommay and uncertains days ... from the West."
2. But everything that Reagan said in 1985 about "the other side" could easily apply to the conservatives of 2007. They are handcuffed to a political party that looks unsettlingly like the Democrats did in the 1980s, one that is more a collection of interest groups than ideas, recognizable more by its campaign tactics than its philosophy. The principles that propelled the movement have either run their course, or run aground, or been abandoned by Reagan's legatees. Government is not only bigger and more expensive than it was when George W. Bush took office, but its reach is also longer, thanks to the broad new powers it has claimed as necessary to protect the homeland. It's true that Reagan didn't live up to everything he promised: he campaigned on smaller government, fiscal discipline and religious values, while his presidency brought us a larger government and a soaring deficit. But Bush's apostasies are more extravagant by just about any measure you pick.
Q: 試翻 "They are handcuffed to ... its philosophy."
Q: 試翻 "It is true that Reagan ... any measure you pick."
3. Set adrift as it is, the right understandably feels anxious as it contemplates who will carry Reagan's mantle into November 2008. "We're in the political equivalent of a world without the law of gravity," says Republican strategist Ralph Reed. "Nothing we have known in the past seems relevant." At the top of the Republican field in the latest TIME poll is the pro-choice, pro-gay-rights former mayor of liberal New York City. Giuliani's lead is as much as 19 points over onetime front runner McCain. But neither Republican manages better than a statistical tie in a hypothetical matchup against the two leading Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Q: 試翻 "Set adrift as it is, ... into November 2008."
1. These are gloomy and uncertain days for conservatives, who — except for the eight-year Clinton interregnum — have dominated political power and thought in this country since Reagan rode in from the West. Their tradition goes back even further, to Founding Fathers who believed that people should do things for themselves and who shook off a monarchy in their conviction that Big Government is more to be feared than encouraged. The Boston Tea Party, as Reagan used to point out, was an antitax initiative.
Q: 試翻 "These are glommay and uncertains days ... from the West."
2. But everything that Reagan said in 1985 about "the other side" could easily apply to the conservatives of 2007. They are handcuffed to a political party that looks unsettlingly like the Democrats did in the 1980s, one that is more a collection of interest groups than ideas, recognizable more by its campaign tactics than its philosophy. The principles that propelled the movement have either run their course, or run aground, or been abandoned by Reagan's legatees. Government is not only bigger and more expensive than it was when George W. Bush took office, but its reach is also longer, thanks to the broad new powers it has claimed as necessary to protect the homeland. It's true that Reagan didn't live up to everything he promised: he campaigned on smaller government, fiscal discipline and religious values, while his presidency brought us a larger government and a soaring deficit. But Bush's apostasies are more extravagant by just about any measure you pick.
Q: 試翻 "They are handcuffed to ... its philosophy."
Q: 試翻 "It is true that Reagan ... any measure you pick."
3. Set adrift as it is, the right understandably feels anxious as it contemplates who will carry Reagan's mantle into November 2008. "We're in the political equivalent of a world without the law of gravity," says Republican strategist Ralph Reed. "Nothing we have known in the past seems relevant." At the top of the Republican field in the latest TIME poll is the pro-choice, pro-gay-rights former mayor of liberal New York City. Giuliani's lead is as much as 19 points over onetime front runner McCain. But neither Republican manages better than a statistical tie in a hypothetical matchup against the two leading Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Q: 試翻 "Set adrift as it is, ... into November 2008."
English Quiz 179
(English Quiz 179)
1. In fact, the territory at the heart of Talibanistan--a heavily forested band of mountains that is officially called North and South Waziristan--has never fully submitted to the rule of any country. The colonial British were unable to conquer the region's Pashtun tribes and allowed them to run their own affairs according to local custom. In exchange, the tribesmen protected the subcontinental empire from northern invaders. Following independence in 1947, Pakistan continued the arrangement. After 9/11, Islamabad initially left the tribal areas alone. But when it became obvious that al-Qaeda and Taliban militants were crossing the border to escape U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan sent in the first of what eventually became 80,000 troops. They had some success: the Pakistani army captured terrorist leaders and destroyed training camps. But the harder the military pressed, the more locals resented its presence, especially when civilians were killed in botched raids against terrorists.
Q: 試翻 "But when it became obvious ... became 80,000 troops."
2. As part of peace accords signed last September with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, the Pakistani military agreed to take down roadblocks, stop patrols and return to their barracks. In exchange, local militants promised not to attack troops and to end cross-border raids into Afghanistan. The accords came in part because the Pakistani army was simply unable to tame the region. Over the past two years, it has lost more than 700 troops there. The change in tactics, says Gul, was an admission that the Pakistani military had "lost the game." The army isn't the only one paying the price now. Since Pakistani forces scaled back operations in the border region, the insurgency in Afghanistan has intensified. Cross-border raids and suicide bombings aimed at U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan have tripled, according to the senior U.S. military official. He concedes that "the Pakistanis are in a very difficult position. You could put 50,000 men on that border, and you wouldn't be able to seal it."
Q: 試翻 "Since Pakistani forces ... has intensified."
3. The troop drawback has allowed Pakistani militants allied with the Taliban to impose their will on the border areas. They have established Shari'a courts and executed "criminals" on the basis of Islamic law. Even Pakistani-army convoys are sometimes escorted by Taliban militants to ensure safe passage, a scene witnessed by TIME in North Waziristan one recent afternoon. "The state has withdrawn and ceded this territory," says Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group. "[The Taliban] have been given their own little piece of real estate." The militants are using sympathetic mosques in Talibanistan to recruit fighters to attack Western troops in Afghanistan, according to tribal elders in the region. With cash and religious fervor, they lure young men to join their battle and threaten local leaders so they will deliver the support of their tribes. Malik Haji Awar Khan, 55, head of the 2,000-strong Mutakhel Wazir tribe of North Waziristan, was approached a year ago to join the Taliban cause. When he refused, militants kidnapped his teenage sons. "They thought they could make me join them, but I am tired of fighting," says Khan, who battled alongside the Afghan mujahedin in the war against the Soviets. "This is a jihad dictated by outsiders, by al-Qaeda. It is not a holy war. They just want power and money."
Q: 試翻 "The troop drawback ... on the borde areas."
1. In fact, the territory at the heart of Talibanistan--a heavily forested band of mountains that is officially called North and South Waziristan--has never fully submitted to the rule of any country. The colonial British were unable to conquer the region's Pashtun tribes and allowed them to run their own affairs according to local custom. In exchange, the tribesmen protected the subcontinental empire from northern invaders. Following independence in 1947, Pakistan continued the arrangement. After 9/11, Islamabad initially left the tribal areas alone. But when it became obvious that al-Qaeda and Taliban militants were crossing the border to escape U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan sent in the first of what eventually became 80,000 troops. They had some success: the Pakistani army captured terrorist leaders and destroyed training camps. But the harder the military pressed, the more locals resented its presence, especially when civilians were killed in botched raids against terrorists.
Q: 試翻 "But when it became obvious ... became 80,000 troops."
2. As part of peace accords signed last September with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, the Pakistani military agreed to take down roadblocks, stop patrols and return to their barracks. In exchange, local militants promised not to attack troops and to end cross-border raids into Afghanistan. The accords came in part because the Pakistani army was simply unable to tame the region. Over the past two years, it has lost more than 700 troops there. The change in tactics, says Gul, was an admission that the Pakistani military had "lost the game." The army isn't the only one paying the price now. Since Pakistani forces scaled back operations in the border region, the insurgency in Afghanistan has intensified. Cross-border raids and suicide bombings aimed at U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan have tripled, according to the senior U.S. military official. He concedes that "the Pakistanis are in a very difficult position. You could put 50,000 men on that border, and you wouldn't be able to seal it."
Q: 試翻 "Since Pakistani forces ... has intensified."
3. The troop drawback has allowed Pakistani militants allied with the Taliban to impose their will on the border areas. They have established Shari'a courts and executed "criminals" on the basis of Islamic law. Even Pakistani-army convoys are sometimes escorted by Taliban militants to ensure safe passage, a scene witnessed by TIME in North Waziristan one recent afternoon. "The state has withdrawn and ceded this territory," says Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group. "[The Taliban] have been given their own little piece of real estate." The militants are using sympathetic mosques in Talibanistan to recruit fighters to attack Western troops in Afghanistan, according to tribal elders in the region. With cash and religious fervor, they lure young men to join their battle and threaten local leaders so they will deliver the support of their tribes. Malik Haji Awar Khan, 55, head of the 2,000-strong Mutakhel Wazir tribe of North Waziristan, was approached a year ago to join the Taliban cause. When he refused, militants kidnapped his teenage sons. "They thought they could make me join them, but I am tired of fighting," says Khan, who battled alongside the Afghan mujahedin in the war against the Soviets. "This is a jihad dictated by outsiders, by al-Qaeda. It is not a holy war. They just want power and money."
Q: 試翻 "The troop drawback ... on the borde areas."
English Quiz 178
(English Quiz 178)
1. The residents of Dara Adam Khel, a gunsmiths' village 30 miles south of Peshawar, Pakistan, awoke one morning last month to find their streets littered with pamphlets demanding that they observe Islamic law. Women were instructed to wear all-enveloping burqas and men to grow their beards. Music and television were banned. Then the jihadists really got serious. These days, dawn is often accompanied by the wailing of women as another beheaded corpse is found by the side of the road, a note pinned to the chest claiming that the victim was a spy for either the Americans or the Pakistani government. Beheadings are recorded and sold on DVD in the area's bazaars. "It's the knife that terrifies me," says Hafizullah, 40, a local arms smith. "Before they kill you, they sharpen the knife in front of you. They are worse than butchers." Stories like these are being repeated across the tribal region of Pakistan, a rugged no-man's-land that forms the country's border with Afghanistan--and that is rapidly becoming home base for a new generation of potential terrorists. Fueled by zealotry and hardened by war, young religious extremists have overrun scores of towns and villages in the border areas, with the intention of imposing their strict interpretation of Islam on a population unable to fight back. Like the Taliban in the late 1990s in Afghanistan, the jihadists are believed to be providing leaders of al-Qaeda with the protection they need to regroup and train new operatives. U.S. intelligence officials think that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may have found refuge in these environs. And though 49,000 U.S. and NATO troops are stationed just across the border in Afghanistan, they aren't authorized to operate on the Pakistani side. Remote, tribal and deeply conservative, the border region is less a part of either country than a world unto itself, a lawless frontier so beyond the control of the West and its allies that it has earned a name of its own: Talibanistan.
Q: 試翻 "Fueled by zealotry ... to fight back."
Q: 試翻 "And though 49,000 ... a world unto itself."
2. Since Sept. 11, the strategic hinge in the U.S.'s campaign against al-Qaeda has been Pakistan, handmaiden to the Taliban movement that turned Afghanistan into a sanctuary for bin Laden and his lieutenants. While members of Pakistan's intelligence services have long been suspected of being in league with the Taliban, the Bush Administration has consistently praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his cooperation in rooting out and apprehending members of bin Laden's network. But the Talibanization of the borderlands--and their role in arming and financing insurgents in Afghanistan--has renewed doubts about whether Musharraf still possesses the will to face down the jihadists. Those doubts are surfacing at a time when Musharraf confronts his biggest political crisis since grabbing power eight years ago. Since March 12, Pakistani streets have been the scene of clashes between police and thousands of lawyers and opposition activists outraged by Musharraf's decision to suspend the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, for alleged abuse of office. Musharraf's critics say the President is attempting to rig the system to ensure he stays in power. Their ire boiled over when Pakistani police raided a television station to prevent it from covering protests outside the Supreme Court. Some Pakistanis who have excused Musharraf's authoritarianism in the past now portray him as a jackbooted dictator. "I think he has ruined himself," says retired Lieut. General Hamid Gul, former director general of the Pakistani intelligence organization Inter-Services Intelligence. "He's not going to be able to placate the forces he has unleashed."
Q: 試翻 "Since Sept. 11, ... his lieutenants."
3. Because Musharraf also heads Pakistan's army, it's unlikely that he will be forced from office. But a loss of support from his moderate base could deepen his dependence on fundamentalist parties, which are staunch supporters of the Taliban. If the protests against Musharraf continue, he will be even less inclined to crack down on the militants holding sway in Talibanistan--grim news for the U.S. and its allies and good news for their foes throughout the region. Says a senior U.S. military official in Afghanistan: "The bottom line is that the Taliban can do what they want in the tribal areas because the [Pakistani] army is not going to come after them."
Q: 試翻 "If the protests ... throughout the region."
2007年4月5日 星期四
一些關於普林斯頓的文章
普林斯頓大學 (Princeton University)http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/3/10/11/n392142.htm
普林斯頓的中國留學生想些啥http://www.people.com.cn/BIG5/guoji/25/96/20020627/762423.html
http://www.people.com.cn/BIG5/guoji/25/95/20020704/768023.html
新書介紹：《被選中的：哈佛、耶魯和普林斯頓的入學標準秘史》http://www.washingtonobserver.org/story.cfm?storyID=1163&charid=2
教育時評：美國常青藤大學之間的PK
http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2006-09/20/content_5112715.htm
普林斯頓的中國留學生想些啥http://www.people.com.cn/BIG5/guoji/25/96/20020627/762423.html
http://www.people.com.cn/BIG5/guoji/25/95/20020704/768023.html
新書介紹：《被選中的：哈佛、耶魯和普林斯頓的入學標準秘史》http://www.washingtonobserver.org/story.cfm?storyID=1163&charid=2
教育時評：美國常青藤大學之間的PK
http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2006-09/20/content_5112715.htm
English Quiz 177
(English Quiz 177)
1. But ever since the 1950s, when scientists created the first synthetic diamond bits (they were so tiny that they were more like diamond grit), researchers have been slowly demystifying the diamondmaking process and systematically trying to replicate it. Small bits of diamond--produced in a lab under extremely high pressure and temperature and used in cutting tools, optical equipment and lasers--are easy to generate. This type of production has become so routine that thousands of small plants all over China pour out synthetic diamonds suitable for cutting stone. Gem-quality diamonds of one carat or more, however, are trickier because at that size it's difficult to consistently produce diamonds of high quality, even in the controlled environment of a lab. But after a half-century of trial and error, that may be changing. Several diamondmaking companies are starting to produce high-quality diamonds to rival the stones emerging from mines, and they could supply enough of them to open up new applications for the use of diamond that stretch far beyond pretty pieces of jewelry.
Q: 試翻 "this tyeo of production ... for cutting stone."
2. It turns out that as beautiful as a polished diamond is to look at, it also possesses physical and chemical properties that make it an ideal workhorse material for everything from semiconductors to biosensors. "To my mind, it's a case of finding what diamond enables that nothing else can do," says Donald Sadoway, a professor of materials science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Because it conducts heat so well, for example, diamond could be particularly useful for the small-electronics industry, which relies on ever more powerful processors that generate incredible amounts of heat. (Just try working with your laptop computer actually on your lap for a few hours.) "When you go to the next-generation semiconductor, you're running something not too different from a toaster oven," Sadoway says. Because it doesn't retain heat, diamond can run processors of supercomputing power at lower temperatures compared with processors using silicon, the industry standard today. The molecular structure of diamond makes it ideal for handling high voltages like those found in switches for big municipal power grids. Physically, diamond's toughness allows it to withstand the searing heat of more sophisticated lasers and even the brutal extremes of temperature and pressure faced by the windows on spacecraft as they leave and re-enter Earth's atmosphere. And diamond's ability to resist corrosion from acids and other organic compounds makes it a good material for biological sensors that may one day be implanted in the human body.
Q: 試翻 "Physically, ... re-enter Earth's atmosphere."
3. Apollo and its competitors are close to perfecting the manufacturing process, but it's unlikely that man-made diamond will replace silicon entirely. Diamond manufacturing remains expensive, even after several spikes in silicon-wafer prices over the past year. But semiconductor researchers remain optimistic about diamond's future role; at the very least, a combination of silicon and diamond could produce more powerful devices that run at cooler temperatures. Says Mike Mayberry, director of components research at Intel: "We're still interested enough to keep an eye on it." Also tracking the progress of diamondmaking are biologists, who covet the gem's inertness--it doesn't react with other substances--and its ability to retain its structural integrity despite being bathed in natural acids and other organic compounds. One possible application: diamond-based electrodes, implanted under the skin, that could be designed to react chemically in the presence of certain proteins. Already, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed such a prototype for detecting levels of a protein critical to nerve-cell activity.
Q: 試翻 "Also tracking the progress ... other organic compounds."
English Quiz 176
(English Quiz 176)
1. Neuroscientists have long been convinced that the first few years of life are a crucial period for brain development--a time when connections between neurons are being forged at a prodigious rate as a baby learns to make sense of the external world. Interfere with that process, and you can cause permanent, irrevocable damage. If a child is born blind, for example, it's pretty much over by age 6. You can fix the eyes, and they might be able to perceive light and dark. Without the right visual circuitry in place, though, there's no way to form images--the essence of true sight.
Q: 試翻 "You can fix the eyes, .. the essence of true sight."
2. But then there's the patient known as S.R.D. Discovered by researchers four years ago in Ahmedabad, India, she was a 32-year-old, dirt-poor maid who had been born with severe cataracts. They were removed surgically when she was 12--and within a year, despite what neuroscientific dogma would have predicted, S.R.D. learned to see. Her case, described in the December issue of Psychological Science, is forcing scientists to rethink their long-held beliefs about vision. "There is a critical period for perfect acuity," says Pawan Sinha, associate professor of neuroscience at M.I.T. and a co-author of the paper. "But there is not a critical period for learning to do complex visual tasks." This surprising insight had its genesis in 2002 when Sinha traveled to his native India --where nearly half a million children suffer from blindness. Many of these cases would have been preventable with the proper medical care, and, says Sinha, "I wanted to help the children get treatment." So with funding from the National Institutes of Health, he launched Project Prakash (it means "light" in Sanskrit), a humanitarian initiative to help expand eye care in India.
Q: 試翻 "This insight had its genesis ... with medical care."
3. Since hearing S.R.D.'s story, the researchers have analyzed a total of 14 children and one adult at the eye hospital. All of them have shown significant improvement in less than a year. While most were treated surgically, the adult--a 29-year-old man with congenital aphakia (an eye missing its lens)--just needed a pair of glasses. Eighteen months later, he was able to see. Although the results are undeniable, it's still unclear what's going on in the patients' brains. The researchers will start to explore this question next summer by taking pictures of the brain before and after surgery using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners. Since the brain devotes roughly 35% of its power to vision, they hypothesize that when this sense is compromised, others, like smell and touch, take over the visual-processing circuits. After surgery, they suspect, the sense of sight reclaims its territory inside the brain.
Q: 試翻 "Since the brain devotes roughly ... inside the brain."
1. Neuroscientists have long been convinced that the first few years of life are a crucial period for brain development--a time when connections between neurons are being forged at a prodigious rate as a baby learns to make sense of the external world. Interfere with that process, and you can cause permanent, irrevocable damage. If a child is born blind, for example, it's pretty much over by age 6. You can fix the eyes, and they might be able to perceive light and dark. Without the right visual circuitry in place, though, there's no way to form images--the essence of true sight.
Q: 試翻 "You can fix the eyes, .. the essence of true sight."
2. But then there's the patient known as S.R.D. Discovered by researchers four years ago in Ahmedabad, India, she was a 32-year-old, dirt-poor maid who had been born with severe cataracts. They were removed surgically when she was 12--and within a year, despite what neuroscientific dogma would have predicted, S.R.D. learned to see. Her case, described in the December issue of Psychological Science, is forcing scientists to rethink their long-held beliefs about vision. "There is a critical period for perfect acuity," says Pawan Sinha, associate professor of neuroscience at M.I.T. and a co-author of the paper. "But there is not a critical period for learning to do complex visual tasks." This surprising insight had its genesis in 2002 when Sinha traveled to his native India --where nearly half a million children suffer from blindness. Many of these cases would have been preventable with the proper medical care, and, says Sinha, "I wanted to help the children get treatment." So with funding from the National Institutes of Health, he launched Project Prakash (it means "light" in Sanskrit), a humanitarian initiative to help expand eye care in India.
Q: 試翻 "This insight had its genesis ... with medical care."
3. Since hearing S.R.D.'s story, the researchers have analyzed a total of 14 children and one adult at the eye hospital. All of them have shown significant improvement in less than a year. While most were treated surgically, the adult--a 29-year-old man with congenital aphakia (an eye missing its lens)--just needed a pair of glasses. Eighteen months later, he was able to see. Although the results are undeniable, it's still unclear what's going on in the patients' brains. The researchers will start to explore this question next summer by taking pictures of the brain before and after surgery using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners. Since the brain devotes roughly 35% of its power to vision, they hypothesize that when this sense is compromised, others, like smell and touch, take over the visual-processing circuits. After surgery, they suspect, the sense of sight reclaims its territory inside the brain.
Q: 試翻 "Since the brain devotes roughly ... inside the brain."
English Quiz 175
(English Quiz 175)
1. Tellingly, the most valuable media company in the world right now is not Disney or News Corp. or Time Warner (owner of Time) but Google, which helps people find stuff on those endless online shelves. Google makes virtually all its money--$10.6 billion in revenue last year and $3.1 billion in after-tax profit--selling advertisements. But except for a few endeavors like Google Maps, it's a media firm that produces no content. Rather than take on established media outfits as outright competitors, Google has been trying to persuade them to let it help them find audiences and sell ads. Some media powers have signed up. But the prospect of a world organized on Google's terms remains unsettling to executives accustomed to controlling the path their products take to consumers. "Once, we had a very simple distribution model, our own branded store," Mark Thompson, director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), told me. Now "we've got to get used to an environment where people access our content in a variety of different ways." Thompson sees this as an opportunity--the BBC signed a deal in early March to set up three new "channels" on Google's YouTube site to show short video clips from its programs and share in the ad revenue YouTube generates. "One of the things no media organization can do now is cancel the future," he said.
Q: 試翻 "Rather than take on ... sell ads."Q: 試翻 "But the prospect ... take to consumers."
2. But will YouTube and sites like it ever deliver media companies the sort of return on content that they're accustomed to? Google's big stroke of moneymaking genius was to sell ads linked to its search results and sell them to anybody. With five minutes and a credit card, you can sign up to bid on a search phrase--cream cheese, say--and pay Google only if people actually click through to your site. Google has since extended this advertising network to other sites, so your ads might show up next to a food blogger's post about bagels as well. For small advertisers and publishers, Google's automated advertising network is a boon: a new, cost-effective way to connect with one another and with customers. But big media companies had already established connections before Google came along, and so far the amounts of money Google offers content producers are paltry compared with what gets thrown around in traditional media. This is especially true with online video, where nobody has really figured out how to match ads to content. YouTube, which Google purchased for $1.65 billion in October, took in just $15 million in revenue last year--less than the cost of making two episodes of the BBC/HBO drama Rome.
Q: 試翻 "But big media ... in traditional media."
1. Tellingly, the most valuable media company in the world right now is not Disney or News Corp. or Time Warner (owner of Time) but Google, which helps people find stuff on those endless online shelves. Google makes virtually all its money--$10.6 billion in revenue last year and $3.1 billion in after-tax profit--selling advertisements. But except for a few endeavors like Google Maps, it's a media firm that produces no content. Rather than take on established media outfits as outright competitors, Google has been trying to persuade them to let it help them find audiences and sell ads. Some media powers have signed up. But the prospect of a world organized on Google's terms remains unsettling to executives accustomed to controlling the path their products take to consumers. "Once, we had a very simple distribution model, our own branded store," Mark Thompson, director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), told me. Now "we've got to get used to an environment where people access our content in a variety of different ways." Thompson sees this as an opportunity--the BBC signed a deal in early March to set up three new "channels" on Google's YouTube site to show short video clips from its programs and share in the ad revenue YouTube generates. "One of the things no media organization can do now is cancel the future," he said.
Q: 試翻 "Rather than take on ... sell ads."Q: 試翻 "But the prospect ... take to consumers."
2. But will YouTube and sites like it ever deliver media companies the sort of return on content that they're accustomed to? Google's big stroke of moneymaking genius was to sell ads linked to its search results and sell them to anybody. With five minutes and a credit card, you can sign up to bid on a search phrase--cream cheese, say--and pay Google only if people actually click through to your site. Google has since extended this advertising network to other sites, so your ads might show up next to a food blogger's post about bagels as well. For small advertisers and publishers, Google's automated advertising network is a boon: a new, cost-effective way to connect with one another and with customers. But big media companies had already established connections before Google came along, and so far the amounts of money Google offers content producers are paltry compared with what gets thrown around in traditional media. This is especially true with online video, where nobody has really figured out how to match ads to content. YouTube, which Google purchased for $1.65 billion in October, took in just $15 million in revenue last year--less than the cost of making two episodes of the BBC/HBO drama Rome.
Q: 試翻 "But big media ... in traditional media."
English Quiz 174
(English Quiz 174)
1. To understand the sources of the backlash against Ahmadinejad, it's important to remember where he came from: nowhere. Until 2003, Ahmadinejad had had little experience in public life. He served as governor of Ardabil province before being replaced by reformist President Mohammed Khatami, who took office in 1997. Ahmadinejad was appointed mayor of Tehran in 2003 after a municipal-council election in which just 6% of voters participated. His victory in the 2005 presidential election was an even bigger fluke. He ran a low-key campaign, focused on corruption and directing Iran's oil wealth to the poor. After sneaking into second place past six other contenders, he beat former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the runoff. Ahmadinejad is the first nonmullah to be Iran's President since 1981. Though Westerners are concerned by his inflammatory rhetoric toward Israel, it's his domestic policies that have irked Iran's already skeptical political establishment. Early in his tenure, he sacked thousands of bureaucrats and sought to replace them with unqualified cronies. He tossed Rafsanjani and Khatami out of fancy quarters in the presidential compound that they had maintained as former officeholders. He angered members of his own party in the Majlis, or Parliament, by refusing to put their supporters on the public payroll. In response, the Majlis rejected several of Ahmadinejad's Cabinet appointees, including three nominees for the crucial post of Oil Minister.
Q: 試翻 "In response, ... the Oil Minister."
2. Opposition to Ahmadinejad transcends the split between conservatives and reformists that has defined Iranian politics for the past decade. Last summer 50 Iranian economists wrote him a letter decrying his policies, which have frozen investment and precipitated a 26% drop in the value of the Tehran stock market. In January some of the President's former allies formed a faction to oppose him. "The Parliament today is at the point of explosion," says Mohammed Atrianfar, a Rafsanjani adviser. "The volume of criticism emanating out is unprecedented in the last century of Iranian politics." The opposition has revolved around two figures: Mehdi Karroubi, a moderate cleric who was once Speaker of Parliament, and Rafsanjani, the powerful former President, who prizes economic growth over democracy and Islamic ideology. Ahmadinejad also has problems outside Tehran. In the holy city of Qum, south of the capital, Ahmadinejad has offended the grand ayatullahs, who act as the country's spiritual leaders. Most irritating have been his frequent allusions to his connection to the Hidden Imam, the last in a line of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, who Shi'ites believe will return at the end of the world to bring absolute justice to mankind. "Not only does he not talk about the sort of things a President is supposed to talk about," says Atrianfar, "but he talks about religious beliefs, a subject for which he is wholly unfit. This is not appreciated."
Q: 試翻 "Opptosition to Ahmadinejad ... for the past decade."
3. That may provide an opportunity for the Bush Administration. Ahmadinejad's slide has convinced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the strategy of ratcheting up economic pressure on the Tehran regime is producing results. The U.S. believes the squeeze on Iran has yielded more conciliatory signals from the Iranians on the nuclear issue. The chemistry between U.S. and Iranian diplomats at a March 10 conference about Iran's future in Baghdad suggests that those favoring a resolution may be seeing some opportunities. Both sides agreed the meeting was "constructive," and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad termed the exchanges "frank and sometimes jovial." Some experts believe that Khamenei will ultimately support a compromise with Western negotiators. Iranian sources tell Time that Ali Larijani, the country's top nuclear negotiator, wants to resurrect talks to resolve the nuclear impasse with European Union foreign-policy chief Javier Solana. The challenge is to find a formula that enables Iran to obtain enriched uranium for civilian energy production while allaying suspicion that it is diverting the material to a weapons program.
Q: 試翻 "The U.S. believes ... on the nuclear issue."
1. To understand the sources of the backlash against Ahmadinejad, it's important to remember where he came from: nowhere. Until 2003, Ahmadinejad had had little experience in public life. He served as governor of Ardabil province before being replaced by reformist President Mohammed Khatami, who took office in 1997. Ahmadinejad was appointed mayor of Tehran in 2003 after a municipal-council election in which just 6% of voters participated. His victory in the 2005 presidential election was an even bigger fluke. He ran a low-key campaign, focused on corruption and directing Iran's oil wealth to the poor. After sneaking into second place past six other contenders, he beat former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the runoff. Ahmadinejad is the first nonmullah to be Iran's President since 1981. Though Westerners are concerned by his inflammatory rhetoric toward Israel, it's his domestic policies that have irked Iran's already skeptical political establishment. Early in his tenure, he sacked thousands of bureaucrats and sought to replace them with unqualified cronies. He tossed Rafsanjani and Khatami out of fancy quarters in the presidential compound that they had maintained as former officeholders. He angered members of his own party in the Majlis, or Parliament, by refusing to put their supporters on the public payroll. In response, the Majlis rejected several of Ahmadinejad's Cabinet appointees, including three nominees for the crucial post of Oil Minister.
Q: 試翻 "In response, ... the Oil Minister."
2. Opposition to Ahmadinejad transcends the split between conservatives and reformists that has defined Iranian politics for the past decade. Last summer 50 Iranian economists wrote him a letter decrying his policies, which have frozen investment and precipitated a 26% drop in the value of the Tehran stock market. In January some of the President's former allies formed a faction to oppose him. "The Parliament today is at the point of explosion," says Mohammed Atrianfar, a Rafsanjani adviser. "The volume of criticism emanating out is unprecedented in the last century of Iranian politics." The opposition has revolved around two figures: Mehdi Karroubi, a moderate cleric who was once Speaker of Parliament, and Rafsanjani, the powerful former President, who prizes economic growth over democracy and Islamic ideology. Ahmadinejad also has problems outside Tehran. In the holy city of Qum, south of the capital, Ahmadinejad has offended the grand ayatullahs, who act as the country's spiritual leaders. Most irritating have been his frequent allusions to his connection to the Hidden Imam, the last in a line of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, who Shi'ites believe will return at the end of the world to bring absolute justice to mankind. "Not only does he not talk about the sort of things a President is supposed to talk about," says Atrianfar, "but he talks about religious beliefs, a subject for which he is wholly unfit. This is not appreciated."
Q: 試翻 "Opptosition to Ahmadinejad ... for the past decade."
3. That may provide an opportunity for the Bush Administration. Ahmadinejad's slide has convinced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the strategy of ratcheting up economic pressure on the Tehran regime is producing results. The U.S. believes the squeeze on Iran has yielded more conciliatory signals from the Iranians on the nuclear issue. The chemistry between U.S. and Iranian diplomats at a March 10 conference about Iran's future in Baghdad suggests that those favoring a resolution may be seeing some opportunities. Both sides agreed the meeting was "constructive," and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad termed the exchanges "frank and sometimes jovial." Some experts believe that Khamenei will ultimately support a compromise with Western negotiators. Iranian sources tell Time that Ali Larijani, the country's top nuclear negotiator, wants to resurrect talks to resolve the nuclear impasse with European Union foreign-policy chief Javier Solana. The challenge is to find a formula that enables Iran to obtain enriched uranium for civilian energy production while allaying suspicion that it is diverting the material to a weapons program.
Q: 試翻 "The U.S. believes ... on the nuclear issue."
English Quiz 173
(English Quiz 173)
1. Since his election in 2005, Ahmadinejad has become the most prominent Iranian on the global stage since Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, the guiding hand of the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. Ahmadinejad owes his visibility partly to Iran's rise as a regional power and partly to his penchant for spouting what U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns calls "the most abhorrent, irresponsible rhetoric of any global leader in many years." It's that rhetoric, along with Iran's meddling in Iraq and pursuit of nuclear technology, that has brought Tehran closer to a confrontation with the U.S. than at any time in the past three decades. "They are saying their words," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Time two days after the protest at Amir Kabir University, "and I am saying mine."
Q: 試翻 "Ahmadinejad owes his visibility ... in many years."
Q: 試翻 "It's the rhetoric, ... in the past three decades."
2. But politics in Iran is not always what it seems. Behind Ahmadinejad's defiance, a struggle is under way that could determine the future of Tehran's nuclear program, its relationship with Washington and the potential for another war in the Middle East. Inside Iran's political establishment, Ahmadinejad has provoked a counterreaction from those who believe his posturing has damaged Iran's economy and its hopes for a rapprochement with the West. Most Iranian leaders and the public believe in Iran's right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But a real split has emerged between hard-liners allied with Ahmadinejad, who are willing to risk international sanctions and even the threat of a U.S. military strike in a quest to become a nuclear power, and pragmatists, who might accept limits on Iran's program in order to win political benefits from the West that would preserve the current regime's hold on power. Reflecting the success of recent U.N. sanctions against Tehran, officials in Iran say the consensus seems to be tilting toward less confrontation, more negotiation.
Q: 試翻 "Reflecting the success ... more negotiation."
3. No one believes a breakthrough is imminent. Burns tells Time that the U.S. is close to winning a consensus in the Security Council for a second set of sanctions targeting arms sales and export credits to Iran. "They need to suspend their enrichment program before we will sit down and talk to them," he says. "That condition is well known to the Iranians, and we will stand by it." The opposition to Ahmadinejad has yet to coalesce into a political movement. But, says George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "it has given internationalists in Iran space to engage the West, though they ... will be afraid to settle for less than Ahmadinejad rejected." Western diplomats hope those pragmatists will ultimately gain the upper hand, but their ascendancy would likely be halted if Tehran and Washington went to war. And so the question is whether, having got so much wrong about the region over the past four years, the U.S. and its allies can get this one right.
Q: 試翻 "The opposition ... a political movement."
1. Since his election in 2005, Ahmadinejad has become the most prominent Iranian on the global stage since Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, the guiding hand of the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. Ahmadinejad owes his visibility partly to Iran's rise as a regional power and partly to his penchant for spouting what U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns calls "the most abhorrent, irresponsible rhetoric of any global leader in many years." It's that rhetoric, along with Iran's meddling in Iraq and pursuit of nuclear technology, that has brought Tehran closer to a confrontation with the U.S. than at any time in the past three decades. "They are saying their words," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Time two days after the protest at Amir Kabir University, "and I am saying mine."
Q: 試翻 "Ahmadinejad owes his visibility ... in many years."
Q: 試翻 "It's the rhetoric, ... in the past three decades."
2. But politics in Iran is not always what it seems. Behind Ahmadinejad's defiance, a struggle is under way that could determine the future of Tehran's nuclear program, its relationship with Washington and the potential for another war in the Middle East. Inside Iran's political establishment, Ahmadinejad has provoked a counterreaction from those who believe his posturing has damaged Iran's economy and its hopes for a rapprochement with the West. Most Iranian leaders and the public believe in Iran's right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But a real split has emerged between hard-liners allied with Ahmadinejad, who are willing to risk international sanctions and even the threat of a U.S. military strike in a quest to become a nuclear power, and pragmatists, who might accept limits on Iran's program in order to win political benefits from the West that would preserve the current regime's hold on power. Reflecting the success of recent U.N. sanctions against Tehran, officials in Iran say the consensus seems to be tilting toward less confrontation, more negotiation.
Q: 試翻 "Reflecting the success ... more negotiation."
3. No one believes a breakthrough is imminent. Burns tells Time that the U.S. is close to winning a consensus in the Security Council for a second set of sanctions targeting arms sales and export credits to Iran. "They need to suspend their enrichment program before we will sit down and talk to them," he says. "That condition is well known to the Iranians, and we will stand by it." The opposition to Ahmadinejad has yet to coalesce into a political movement. But, says George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "it has given internationalists in Iran space to engage the West, though they ... will be afraid to settle for less than Ahmadinejad rejected." Western diplomats hope those pragmatists will ultimately gain the upper hand, but their ascendancy would likely be halted if Tehran and Washington went to war. And so the question is whether, having got so much wrong about the region over the past four years, the U.S. and its allies can get this one right.
Q: 試翻 "The opposition ... a political movement."
English Quiz 172
(English Quiz 172)
1. Anywhere else, such setbacks would not harm someone's political reputation for long. But Hong Kong is such a can-do town of winners that just a couple of reversals can be magnified to give you a loser's image. Tsang's supporters say his retreats are a sign of pragmatism. "He is bold and determined," says Choy So-yuk, a Legislative Council member from the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB). "In areas like West Kowloon, he knows when to give up when facing public opposition." Yet for an official who declared in his first policy address that his goal was "strong governance," giving up doesn't strike the right tone. "Politically, Donald is more compromising and accommodating than Tung, which is good," says Ma Ngok, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "But that doesn't meet the public's idea of strong governance."
Q: 試翻 "Yet for an official ... strike the right tone."
2. To be fair, the blame for a lack of sparkle in Tsang's administration so far cannot be laid solely at his door. Hong Kong's system is intended to have a strong Chief Executive, but the top official cannot be a member of a political party, which means that he has to build support from parties with often competing agendas, like the pro-business Liberal Party and the DAB, which champions Hong Kong's working class. Some believe that limiting the Chief Executive election to just an elite 800, who in turn are selected by only about 200,000 voters in various sectors and industries, robs Hong Kong's leader of the mandate that would come from being chosen in a direct, Hong Kong-wide ballot. "It's very much the structure of the system," says Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution who is a student of Hong Kong. "This is what happens when you're stuck halfway."
Q: 試翻 "Some believe that ... wide ballot."
3. Tsang's boosters say that the best is yet to come, and point to his great strength: he's popular. With approval ratings consistently in the mid-60s, Tsang does not lack for support. "He's pretty good," says Johnny Lau, 35, an advertising worker taking a cigarette break beneath a campaign billboard for Alan Leong. In Mongkok, on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong harbor—and one of the most densely populated tracts of land on the planet—Rex Lau, 37, who is working in a bicycle-repair shop, echoes the sentiment. "Donald Tsang is doing okay," he allows. But then he adds a rider. "But he basically listens to what people in China want. It's like you have a say, but you don't really."
Q: 試翻 "Donald Tsang is doing okay ... you don't really."
1. Anywhere else, such setbacks would not harm someone's political reputation for long. But Hong Kong is such a can-do town of winners that just a couple of reversals can be magnified to give you a loser's image. Tsang's supporters say his retreats are a sign of pragmatism. "He is bold and determined," says Choy So-yuk, a Legislative Council member from the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB). "In areas like West Kowloon, he knows when to give up when facing public opposition." Yet for an official who declared in his first policy address that his goal was "strong governance," giving up doesn't strike the right tone. "Politically, Donald is more compromising and accommodating than Tung, which is good," says Ma Ngok, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "But that doesn't meet the public's idea of strong governance."
Q: 試翻 "Yet for an official ... strike the right tone."
2. To be fair, the blame for a lack of sparkle in Tsang's administration so far cannot be laid solely at his door. Hong Kong's system is intended to have a strong Chief Executive, but the top official cannot be a member of a political party, which means that he has to build support from parties with often competing agendas, like the pro-business Liberal Party and the DAB, which champions Hong Kong's working class. Some believe that limiting the Chief Executive election to just an elite 800, who in turn are selected by only about 200,000 voters in various sectors and industries, robs Hong Kong's leader of the mandate that would come from being chosen in a direct, Hong Kong-wide ballot. "It's very much the structure of the system," says Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution who is a student of Hong Kong. "This is what happens when you're stuck halfway."
Q: 試翻 "Some believe that ... wide ballot."
3. Tsang's boosters say that the best is yet to come, and point to his great strength: he's popular. With approval ratings consistently in the mid-60s, Tsang does not lack for support. "He's pretty good," says Johnny Lau, 35, an advertising worker taking a cigarette break beneath a campaign billboard for Alan Leong. In Mongkok, on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong harbor—and one of the most densely populated tracts of land on the planet—Rex Lau, 37, who is working in a bicycle-repair shop, echoes the sentiment. "Donald Tsang is doing okay," he allows. But then he adds a rider. "But he basically listens to what people in China want. It's like you have a say, but you don't really."
Q: 試翻 "Donald Tsang is doing okay ... you don't really."
English Quiz 171
(English Quiz 171)
1. Then there was the West Kowloon Cultural District, a $5 billion greenfield project to build a residential, commercial and cultural complex on 40 hectares of prime harborfront owned by the government. In a city where land is worth its width in gold, the scheme, launched by Tung, ran into legislative gridlock amid concerns of a sweetheart deal for the developer that would be chosen. Critics also questioned the government's wisdom—and expertise—in creating a costly arts hub without first gauging the level of public interest in it. Today, West Kowloon, possibly some of the most valuable real estate on the planet, stands idle—a dirt wasteland. Tsang has failed to advance other elements of his agenda, too. Air pollution, a perennial problem Tsang has vowed to combat, continues to choke the territory, harming public health and hurting Hong Kong's international reputation as a wonderful place to live.
Q: 試翻 "Critics also questioned ... public interest in it."
2. His administration also lobbied hard to introduce a tax on goods and services, arguing that it needed to diversify its revenue base in case a major source of income, like government land sales, took a hit. But the proposal was roundly opposed by almost every segment of society. Retailers reckoned it would hurt their businesses. Economists believed it would unnecessarily complicate a straightforward tax regimen and deter foreign investors. And ordinary folk felt it would unduly burden low- and middle-income consumers. The government's gambit turned into an embarrassment when Financial Secretary Henry Tang, the moving force behind the gst, underestimated his numbers and revealed last month that Hong Kong had posted a surplus of $7 billion for the year, and would give back $2.4 billion of that in tax breaks. The upshot: the government didn't really need the extra cash.
Q: 試翻 "His administration also lobbied ... , took a hit."
Q: 試翻 "the government's gambit ... the extra cash."
3. Even Tsang's one major legislative success, getting the go-ahead for a new $665 million government headquarters on the harbor's southern edge, has run into criticism that the new development is unnecessary and will aggravate downtown gridlock. Tsang counters that his administration has been productive: "We have passed nearly 300 pieces of legislation of one kind or other. People just listen to one piece of law being a stumbling block, without realizing that a lot of things are going through every day." He admits that "some things I tried to do did not come through," but adds, "I am patient."
Q: 試翻 "Tsang counters that ... on kind of other."
1. Then there was the West Kowloon Cultural District, a $5 billion greenfield project to build a residential, commercial and cultural complex on 40 hectares of prime harborfront owned by the government. In a city where land is worth its width in gold, the scheme, launched by Tung, ran into legislative gridlock amid concerns of a sweetheart deal for the developer that would be chosen. Critics also questioned the government's wisdom—and expertise—in creating a costly arts hub without first gauging the level of public interest in it. Today, West Kowloon, possibly some of the most valuable real estate on the planet, stands idle—a dirt wasteland. Tsang has failed to advance other elements of his agenda, too. Air pollution, a perennial problem Tsang has vowed to combat, continues to choke the territory, harming public health and hurting Hong Kong's international reputation as a wonderful place to live.
Q: 試翻 "Critics also questioned ... public interest in it."
2. His administration also lobbied hard to introduce a tax on goods and services, arguing that it needed to diversify its revenue base in case a major source of income, like government land sales, took a hit. But the proposal was roundly opposed by almost every segment of society. Retailers reckoned it would hurt their businesses. Economists believed it would unnecessarily complicate a straightforward tax regimen and deter foreign investors. And ordinary folk felt it would unduly burden low- and middle-income consumers. The government's gambit turned into an embarrassment when Financial Secretary Henry Tang, the moving force behind the gst, underestimated his numbers and revealed last month that Hong Kong had posted a surplus of $7 billion for the year, and would give back $2.4 billion of that in tax breaks. The upshot: the government didn't really need the extra cash.
Q: 試翻 "His administration also lobbied ... , took a hit."
Q: 試翻 "the government's gambit ... the extra cash."
3. Even Tsang's one major legislative success, getting the go-ahead for a new $665 million government headquarters on the harbor's southern edge, has run into criticism that the new development is unnecessary and will aggravate downtown gridlock. Tsang counters that his administration has been productive: "We have passed nearly 300 pieces of legislation of one kind or other. People just listen to one piece of law being a stumbling block, without realizing that a lot of things are going through every day." He admits that "some things I tried to do did not come through," but adds, "I am patient."
Q: 試翻 "Tsang counters that ... on kind of other."
English Quiz 170
(English Quiz 170)
1. The key point about Hong Kong's election is not about the contest, even though this is the first time an incumbent has been taken on. Nor is it about the result, which is not in doubt. What Hong Kong's people want to know is whether Tsang and his team can address the many challenges faced by one of the world's truly great cities. On the surface, Hong Kong is doing just fine, thank you. The economy is humming along—gdp growth was 6.8% in 2006 and is forecast to be at least a respectable 4.5% this year, not bad at all for a mature, first-world city. The stock market has dipped in recent weeks because of the global slump in equities, but is still up about 20% against a year ago. Real estate—a key and much-watched variable in Hong Kong—is robust again, and retail sales rose 7.3% in 2006 from the previous year's figure. It's not just car fumes in the air, but the smell of money. Yet this year, as Hong Kong marks the 10th anniversary of the end of British colonial rule and the start of its existence as a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, the city is perhaps in a greater state of uncertainty than ever before. Tsang himself compares Hong Kong to New York and London. "As an international financial center, [they are the only] two global benchmarks for Hong Kong," he says. "Other places cannot compare with us." But Hong Kong does not have some God-given right to be a success; others would like some of its wealth. Though the World Economic Forum last year rated the territory as the world's 11th most competitive economy, Hong Kong is in a race for global business not just with obvious local rivals such as Tokyo and Singapore, but with cities from Shanghai to Dubai who are seeking to benefit from globalization.
Q: 試翻 "The key point ... has been taken on."
2. Compared to others, Hong Kong can look less than exemplary. For a developed economy, the gap between rich and poor is high. Air pollution remains atrocious, making greener Singapore and Sydney more appealing to expatriate executives. The standard of English, especially among youths, is deteriorating, threatening to undermine Hong Kong's aspiration to be a global financial center. "At the moment, we're still pretty competitive," Anson Chan, a senior official in both the British and post-'97 administrations, told TIME. "But it's not something we can take for granted. People don't realize that our competitive edge comes from the rights and freedoms we enjoy." In that context, Hong Kong's political status is a problem. The territory is stuck in a halfway house of confusing, semi-democratic electoral procedures that do not do justice to its well-educated and sophisticated citizenry. While Hong Kong's sense of economic confidence today is palpable, many residents also believe the city has to move on—the reason why Leong was able to win enough nominations in the Election Committee to run in the first place. Hong Kong, for all its strengths, needs some fixing.
Q: 試翻 "Compared to others, Hong Kong can look less than exemplary."
Q: 試翻 "Hong Kong, for all its strengths, needs some fixing."
3.His political opponents say that Tsang has not yet shown the kind of world-class leadership Hong Kong needs and deserves. A former civil servant, Tsang was Financial Secretary under Britain's last Hong Kong Governor, Chris Patten, and No. 2 in the administration of Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's first Chief Executive after the 1997 handover to China. Tung—who came from a Shanghainese family rather than from Hong Kong or its neighboring province, Guangdong—was never wildly popular and proved ineffectual, unable to meet the challenges of either a downturn in the economy or of the SARS epidemic that hit Hong Kong in 2003. In March 2005 Tung stepped down. Tsang became acting Chief Executive, and was confirmed in the job by the Election Committee in June that year (there was no other candidate then). If only because he was not Tung—and because he was a local boy made good—Tsang came into office with much goodwill. But his first two years as Chief Executive were marked more by what he could not accomplish than what he did. In 2005, he was unable to push through a limited set of political reforms that would have increased the size of the body that picks the Chief Executive and added 10 seats to the legislature. The proposals were blocked by democratic lawmakers who felt the changes didn't go far enough and who objected, also, to the fact that Tsang's plan did not have a clear timetable for a transition to full democracy. "People wanted it; there was majority support for it," Tsang says of his plan. "Some bloody-minded politicians wouldn't allow it through in the Legislative Council—against the people's wishes."
Q: 試翻 "But in his first ... what he did."
English Quiz 169
(English Quiz 169)
1. Remember the Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore global-warming pitch at the Academy Awards? Before they spoke, the screen at the back of the stage flashed not-so-subliminal messages about how to save the planet. My personal favorite was "Ride mass transit." This to a conclave of Hollywood plutocrats who have not seen the inside of a subway since the moon landing and for whom mass transit means a stretch limo seating no fewer than 10. Leo and Al then portentously announced that for the first time ever, the Academy Awards ceremony had gone green. What did that mean? Solar panels in the designer gowns? It turns out that the Academy neutralized the evening's "carbon footprint" by buying carbon credits. That means it sent money to a "carbon broker," who promised, after taking his cut, to reduce carbon emissions somewhere on the planet equivalent to what the stars spewed into the atmosphere while flying in on their private planes.
Q: 試翻 "It turns out that ... by buying carbon credits."
2. In other words, the rich reduce their carbon output by not one ounce. But drawing on the hundreds of millions of net worth in the Kodak Theatre, they pull out lunch money to buy ecological indulgences. The last time the selling of pardons was prevalent--in a predecessor religion to environmentalism called Christianity--Martin Luther lost his temper and launched the Reformation. A very few of the very rich have some awareness of the emptiness--if not the medieval corruption--of ransoming one's sins. Sergey Brin, zillionaire founder of Google, buys carbon credits to offset the ghastly amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Google's private Boeing 767 but confesses he's not sure if it really does anything. Which puts him one step ahead of most other eco-preeners who actually pretend that it does--the Goracle himself, for example. His Tennessee mansion consumes 20 times the electricity used by the average American home. Last August alone it consumed twice as much power as the average home consumes in a year. Gore buys absolution, however. He spends pocket change on carbon credits, which then allow him to pollute conscience-free.
Q: 試翻 "In other words, ... by not one ounce."
Q: 試翻 "Gore buys absolution, to pollute conscience-free."
3.What is wrong with this scam? First, purchasing carbon credits is an incentive to burn even more fossil fuels, since now it is done under the illusion that it's really cost-free to the atmosphere. Second, it is a way for the rich to export the real costs and sacrifices of pollution control to the poorer segments of humanity in the Third World. (Apparently, Hollywood's plan is to make up for that by adopting every last one of their children.) For example, GreenSeat, a Dutch carbon-trading outfit, buys offsets from a foundation that plants trees in Uganda's Mount Elgon National Park to soak up the carbon emissions of its rich Western patrons. Small problem: expanding the park encroaches on land traditionally used by local farmers. As a result, reports the New York Times, "villagers living along the boundary of the park have been beaten and shot at, and their livestock has been confiscated by armed park rangers." All this so that swimming pools can be heated and Maseratis driven with a clear conscience in the fattest parts of the world.
Q: 試翻 "Second, ... of their children."
2007年4月2日 星期一
English Quiz 168
(English Quiz 168)
1. The responsibility for these health problems is less clear. In low-lying Quang Ngai province, south of Da Nang, where the spraying of Agent Orange was especially heavy, there are almost 15,000 residents officially classified by the Vietnamese government as dioxin victims. We also went to Thai Binh province, along the northern coast. Although it is far from the sprayed areas, a large proportion of its male population fought in the war, and there is a high incidence of birth defects in subsequent generations there. Scientists have not been able to prove a direct link between Agent Orange and the disabilities, and attempts by American and Vietnamese officials to come to a consensus have not succeeded. Indeed, efforts to resolve the issue will remain paralyzed if both sides insist on waiting for scientific proof.
Q: 試翻 "Scientists have not been able ... waiting for scientific proof."
2. A practical and sensible resolution is possible. The U.S. should help immediately to contain and then clean up the contaminated sites. After all, we made the mess. Michael Marine, the departing U.S. ambassador in Hanoi, has been able to win a small amount of funding from Washington, supplemented by the Ford Foundation, to start this process. As for the health concerns, there is no need to pin precise blame or liability. They can be addressed as a humanitarian issue rather than as a compensation case. From Thai Binh down to Quang Ngai province, there is a need for rehabilitation centers, health clinics, family counseling, and education for the afflicted children who cannot go to regular schools. Out of both a sense of duty and a spirit of decency, U.S. government aid programs and private philanthropies should step forward to settle this last remaining dispute from the Vietnam War.
Q: 試翻 "Out of both ... from the Vietnam War."
3. Over the past few months, there has been increased public awareness of the issue in the U.S., including a brutally vivid article by Christopher Hitchens and photographer James Nachtwey in last August's Vanity Fair. When President Bush visited Vietnam in November, the joint statement he issued with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet cautiously referred to the need "to address the environmental contamination near former dioxin storage sites" and for "humanitarian assistance ... to Vietnamese with disabilities." Should Congress and the Defense Department choose to get with this program, they could go a long way toward resolving this crucial issue by the time President Triet visits Washington in June. Only then will America finally have closed the last chapter of the Vietnam War and turned its former adversary into a solid strategic ally. And addressing this issue will remind us that living up to our values and showing basic decency is, in fact, the best way to win hearts and minds.
Q: 試翻 "Only then will America ... a solid strategic ally."
1. The responsibility for these health problems is less clear. In low-lying Quang Ngai province, south of Da Nang, where the spraying of Agent Orange was especially heavy, there are almost 15,000 residents officially classified by the Vietnamese government as dioxin victims. We also went to Thai Binh province, along the northern coast. Although it is far from the sprayed areas, a large proportion of its male population fought in the war, and there is a high incidence of birth defects in subsequent generations there. Scientists have not been able to prove a direct link between Agent Orange and the disabilities, and attempts by American and Vietnamese officials to come to a consensus have not succeeded. Indeed, efforts to resolve the issue will remain paralyzed if both sides insist on waiting for scientific proof.
Q: 試翻 "Scientists have not been able ... waiting for scientific proof."
2. A practical and sensible resolution is possible. The U.S. should help immediately to contain and then clean up the contaminated sites. After all, we made the mess. Michael Marine, the departing U.S. ambassador in Hanoi, has been able to win a small amount of funding from Washington, supplemented by the Ford Foundation, to start this process. As for the health concerns, there is no need to pin precise blame or liability. They can be addressed as a humanitarian issue rather than as a compensation case. From Thai Binh down to Quang Ngai province, there is a need for rehabilitation centers, health clinics, family counseling, and education for the afflicted children who cannot go to regular schools. Out of both a sense of duty and a spirit of decency, U.S. government aid programs and private philanthropies should step forward to settle this last remaining dispute from the Vietnam War.
Q: 試翻 "Out of both ... from the Vietnam War."
3. Over the past few months, there has been increased public awareness of the issue in the U.S., including a brutally vivid article by Christopher Hitchens and photographer James Nachtwey in last August's Vanity Fair. When President Bush visited Vietnam in November, the joint statement he issued with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet cautiously referred to the need "to address the environmental contamination near former dioxin storage sites" and for "humanitarian assistance ... to Vietnamese with disabilities." Should Congress and the Defense Department choose to get with this program, they could go a long way toward resolving this crucial issue by the time President Triet visits Washington in June. Only then will America finally have closed the last chapter of the Vietnam War and turned its former adversary into a solid strategic ally. And addressing this issue will remind us that living up to our values and showing basic decency is, in fact, the best way to win hearts and minds.
Q: 試翻 "Only then will America ... a solid strategic ally."
訂閱：
文章 (Atom)