《美国之音》2006下半年新闻合辑MP3及文本-第3季度上

[angelonduty]

Coping with Terror in the U.S. Heartland

Five years after the September 11th terrorist attacks on American soil, the United States is in many ways a fundamentally different nation. The memory of the loss on that day is still a national scar that has not healed. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on how the nation’s heartland has changed.

The peaceful, quiet farmlands of Iowa seem far removed from the war on terror. But even here, five years after the September 11th terrorist attacks, life has changed.

"People meet us on the street and express their sympathies and condolences, even now." Betty and Doug Haviland live in Des Moines, Iowa. Their son Tim worked in the World Trade Center and was one of the approximately 3 thousand people from more than 26 countries who died on September 11, 2001.

"He went to work early, as usual, and the planes crashed. His desk was, as near as we can figure, probably where the plane went in. So we like to think he was killed instantly."

Small gestures from the community that shares their grief have helped. A tree has been planted in Tim's name and a scholarship fund established. While the pain never goes away, Doug Haviland says to cope he had to let go of his anger and hold on to his core beliefs.

"I felt from the beginning that this was a test of faith in many ways. Either we stood for reconciliation and trying to bring some healing out of this tragic event or we were simply failing in our profession of Christian faith."

Many Muslims in America feel that September 11th has cast a shadow of suspicion on their faith. "What happened in New York, this is not Islamic. We must put this in mind, but of course, unfortunately, everybody accuses us." Ibrahim Dremali is the Imam of the Islamic Center of Des Moines. He says back in 2001 he was the Imam of a mosque in the southern state of Florida. After September 11th, he was invited to speak at a local Christian church as a gesture of solidarity and reconciliation. But before he could go, he was attacked by two men.

"I stopped my car. And suddenly the door is open and somebody with a shotgun and boom [he hits me] in my chest. When I am going back he hit me again. Of course, I have two bruises that the police took the picture. And I am supposed to go the second day and speak at a church. And he said, 'If we see you in church you are a dead man!’"

Ibrahim Dremali says the threats and harassment continued, and forced him to leave Florida and eventually to find refuge in Iowa. Still whenever Imam Dremalai travels, he says he still feels like he is being targeted. At airports, he says he is constantly being pulled out of line and detained.

"When I come from international flight, my son and I, last time we came, 12 hours in the airport, and in the end, 'Oh sorry, sorry for the delay.' Twelve hours and sorry for the delay?"

Imam Dremali may be a casualty of heightened security measures imposed since September 11th, but preventing another terrorist attack has been the government's top priority.

And here in a state where there are more pigs and cattle than people, this means protecting America's farms from possible agro- or bio-terrorist attacks.

"September 11th and the anthrax attacks pointed out that there are people out there who want to do harm to this country and will go to great lengths to do that." Professor James Roth is director of the Center for Food Security and Public Health at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Since September 11th, he says, the federal government has developed a national animal health laboratory network of veterinarians. This rapid response team works to prevent the introduction of deadly diseases into the livestock population and stands ready to act if food security is threatened.

"In Iowa, we have about 250 veterinarians who have signed up as volunteers to be called up, essentially on a moment's notice, to respond under the direction of state veterinarian to go in and help with the diagnosis and eradication steps."

Five years later, the ongoing threat of terrorism, the heightened ethnic tensions, the debate over civil liberties versus public security, and the still raw memories of those lost on September 11th have changed almost everyone, everywhere in America.

For focus, I’m Brian Padden.

¤注解¤:

1. scar n. 伤痕, 疤痕
2. condolence n. 哀悼, 吊唁
3. imam n. [伊斯兰]阿訇, 教长
4. harassment n. 折磨

 

[yazuilong]

谢谢，加声望。

 

[angelonduty]

谢谢，加声望。

谢谢你的物质鼓励！

Examining America's Role in Global Affairs

Ever since the United States emerged as the world's sole superpower at the end of the Cold War, its international role has been scrutinized both and home and abroad.
Almost four hundred years ago, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote that peace and security among human beings are impossible without a government to enforce them.
In his new book, A Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century, Michael Mandelbaum, a political analyst at The Johns Hopkins University, writes that in the wake of the Cold War, the United States has played an important role in maintaining world order. "It offers reassurance. That is, its military presence suppresses suspicions in Europe and Asia that may otherwise be felt and could lead to unhappy political outcomes. And the United States leads the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to dangerous regimes or groups."
According to professor Mandelbaum, the United States also provides these services to the international economy. "It provides a secure framework for international transactions where the United States provides the world’s most frequently used currency -- the dollar -- where the United States has acted as the so-called 'lender of last resort,' acting through the International Monetary Fund, and where the United States has also been the consumer of last resort."
Overall, Mandelbaum concludes, America's international role is beneficial because it provides public goods without controlling the politics and economics of other societies.
So why do so many people in the U.S. and abroad criticize this benign Goliath? Political interests, disagreements about specific policies and cultural differences are among the reasons Mandelbaum offers. But some analysts disagree.
Benjamin Barber, a professor of civil society at the University of Maryland, argues the United States often acts as a hegemonic power, rather than as a government. "American hegemony obviously brings some benefits to people. It can provide some policing and some security, and provide some aid money and some banking facilities and so forth. But it does those things at the cost of liberty, at the cost of autonomy, at the cost of social justice and at the cost, actually, of allowing people to participate in governing their own destiny, which is the very meaning of democracy."
Professor Barber says U.S.-led regime changes in Iraq and Afghanistan are examples of America imposing its will on other countries. He adds that U.S. foreign aid often is granted on the condition that recipient countries adopt America's economic model even if it may not always fit.
What the world needs, says Professor Barber, is a multi-national governing body to deal with global issues such as energy supplies, pollution, natural disasters, epidemics and conflicts.
But some analysts, including Robert Lieber, a professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University, argue that multi-national organizations have been ineffective in times of crisis. “I would cite such cases as the Rwanda genocide, Bosnia and the Srebrenica massacre, and the mass murder and ethnic cleansing that goes on as we speak in Darfur. So the liberal internationalists have altogether too fanciful and exaggerated a notion of what international institutions and 'global governance' can achieve in today's world, not least because it remains a world of sovereign states."
Robert Lieber says there is no alternative to America's role in global affairs because it is the only state willing to use so much money and its military power to help other nations. He also points out that no alliance is forming to topple the United States, because most countries realize they need its help.
But U.S. services to the rest of the world are not cheap. According to the Congressional Research Service, for example, the U.S. cost of war and reconstruction in Iraq is approaching 200 billion dollars. The United States gave more than 16 billion dollars in aid to developing countries in 2003, almost twice as much as the next biggest donor, Japan. And in 2004, the U.S. budget deficit exceeded 400 billion dollars, reaching an all-time high. So the question for many observers is whether America can continue to afford its leadership role in world affairs.
Robert Guest, Washington Bureau Chief for The Economist magazine, suspects it may not. "There is nothing unforeseen about this whatsoever. When empires run out of money, they either run out of the will to fight or they tend to retreat into themselves. And the looming gap that you see with the retirement of the 'baby boomers' [i.e., Americans born between 1946 and 1964], bringing Medicare, Social Security and, to a lesser degree, Medicaid fairly rapidly into bankruptcy is the single greatest threat to American global hegemony."
Many analysts agree that the most serious threat to U.S. global leadership may develop at home, not abroad. Meanwhile, rising regional powers such as China or the European Union are striving for greater international influence. But so far none has the economic power, the political will or the military strength to generate an international consensus to assume leadership in the world community. So if the United States were to decrease its role in international affairs, most analysts warn, the world could become a more dangerous and less prosperous place.
For focus, I’m Zlatica Hoke.
​

[FONT=宋体]¤注解¤[/FONT]:

1. scrutinize [5skrutinaiz] vt. [FONT=宋体]细察[/FONT]
2. benign [bi5nain] adj. [FONT=宋体]仁慈的[/FONT], [FONT=宋体]和蔼的[/FONT]
3. hegemonic [7hi)^i5mCnik] adj. [FONT=宋体]支配的[/FONT], [FONT=宋体]霸权的[/FONT]
4. genocide [5dVenEu7said] n. [FONT=宋体]有计划的灭种和屠杀[/FONT]

 

[WilliamF]

谢谢，支持，

 

[yingxuan1_1]

 

[angelonduty]

Excess CO2 Threatens Marine Life

The chemistry of the world's oceans is changing with increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of the burning of fossil fuels in cars and power plants. A report released recently by the National Center for Atmospheric Research says the change in the air is putting marine life and ecosystems at great risk.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is predicted to double or triple by the end of the century. Lead author Joan Kleypas with the government-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research says absorption of CO2 by the ocean used to be considered an environmental plus. "Right now the estimates are that the oceans have absorbed about one-third of all the extra CO2 that humans have put into the atmosphere. So, it is a sponge. It is basically soaking up a lot of the CO2, which is good because it sort of slows down this whole process of greenhouse gas warming."
But the report documents the negative impact that excess CO2 is having on the world's oceans. Kleypas says increased levels of CO2 make the ocean more acidic and put sea organisms in danger. "Particularly those organisms which secrete calcium carbonate shells."
This is a class of creatures that includes corals, clams, snails, starfish and sea urchins. "They will be less able to secrete their shells and that ability to secrete their shells will continue to decrease as long as we continue to add CO2 to the atmosphere. It [CO2] also increases the rate at which this calcium carbonate, which is already formed in the oceans, starts to dissolve. So, it [has] this corrosive effect."
This could mean slower growth in the world's corals reefs, which are already stressed and dying from the warmer ocean temperatures associated with increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. "Our bones are not calcium carbonate, but they are similar. And people have things like osteoporosis. That is bone loss. This is sort of a similar type of thing that happens with these organisms."
Kleypas says added CO2 has the potential to alter the biodiversity and productivity of the ocean. Coral reefs protect coastlines and are a nursery ground and habitat to 25 percent of all marine life. "So you can imagine that if you take that whole food supply away, it is going to propagate through the food chain and food webs so that we might see our fish stocks decline."
Kleypas adds that many calcifying organisms, including common marine plankton such as pteropods, a kind of snail, are directly threatened by the rising CO2 levels. But pteropods are food for important commercial fish species like salmon, mackerel, herring and cod, so these animals would also be threatened.
Kleypas says scientists are only beginning to understand the complex interaction between large-scale chemistry changes and marine ecology. The report outlines research priorities to determine how changes in ocean chemistry affect the health of marine ecosystems.
Thomas Lovejoy, president of H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, says the report is a wake-up call for serious action on global warming. "We need a crash program worldwide to find an energy base that does not essentially pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. That will be a combination of energy sources, things like energy efficiency and energy conservation. It may well include nuclear for a portion of time and exploration of technologies that we are not using now."
Lovejoy says implementation of such policies will take political will and leadership on a global scale. He says the report is a clear signal that the oceans can no longer be regarded as a kind of utility sink for industrial emissions, and that continuing to treat them as such could have devastating consequences for the life of the planet.
I’m Rosanne Skirble.


¤注解¤:
1. ecosystem n. 生态系统
2. absorption n. 吸收
3. negative adj. 否定的, 消极的
4. starfish n. 海星
5. osteoporosis n. 骨质疏松症
6. propagate v. 使蔓延
7. implementation n. 执行

 

[watercumt]

感谢，加声望了

 

[angelonduty]

Fads: Why We Embrace Them

Pop-culture fads come and go. Experts say fads have different shapes and sizes. Yet, they are quite similar in their life cycle. They catch on fast, then quickly fade away. And while some fads are harmless and fun to adopt, others can be costly and even dangerous when they come as the next hot novelty in management, education, science or medicine.
When Joel Best was a child in the late 1950's, every kid in his neighborhood had to have one of those hot new toys known as hula-hoops.
"The hula hoop was a popular toy in the United States. They sold millions of the things. They arrived on the scene and disappeared in a period of 4 or 5 months. It's sort of the prototypical fad. It involves children, it's inexpensive and it doesn't last very long."
As a sociologist, Joel Best has always been interested in studying the fad phenomenon. The author of Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads says even experts can't predict what trend or product is significant and what's just a craze.
"You can look at history and see all sorts of examples where people guessed really wrong. They can say that something is just a fad, and it turns out to be a permanent change. In the 1950s, people said Rock and Roll music will never last. Or the wristwatch, people said the wristwatch is just a fad and of course it turned to be very, very, popular and to have lasted for a long time."
"The 8-track tape recorder or CB radio, things like that, that people at the time thought were going to be important changes, and it turned out that they didn't last very long at all."
It's not hard to see how some fads get started, according to Columbia Business Professor Eric Abrahamson. Imitating celebrities is a major reason behind their quick spread. "So a star might wear something, then the people who really follow stars might wear it. It might go down to people who look at the people who really follow stars. Another reason is just that people have a tremendous appetite for modernity and novelty. They are always looking for the next cool nice special thing."
Abrahamson says you can see fads almost everywhere. "There has been recently, what I'd say is really faddish language among kids. One kid starts using a word, then it starts spreading and a lot of people use the word. You have fads in medicine, sometimes. For instance, everybody starts diagnosing a particular disease, or using a particular medicine. It spreads from doctor to doctor. There are the financial fads, for instance, everybody starts to buy a certain kind of stock."
Some highly-touted educational programs and policies have turned out to be just fads without lasting value. Abrahamson says the same is true for some business and management innovations. "For instance, Quality Control Circles or TQM - Total Quality Management, that largely come from the auto industry. When it becomes a fad, it starts spreading across all kinds [of businesses], so military adopts it, and even churches start adopting Total Quality Management."
"Something that worked in the car industry may not very well work in churches. So it gets over-adopted. Sometimes, it's purposeful. A CEO might just need new marching song, new idea to get the firm going. So sometimes, very deliberately, they'll pick something even though they know it's a fad, just to get people to focus and to get change in the organization. It can be good but it's like a dose of caffeine: it wears off and you have to jump to another one. So, it's not clear that it's a great way to manage organizations."
According to sociologist Joel Best, these institutional fads go through the same three stages that pop-culture fads do, as they rise and fall. "I call them emerging, surging and purging. In the emerging stage, somebody has an idea. They promote, package it, and it begins to take off. A few people begin to adopt it. Then, the surging stage is when lots of people begin to climb up on the bandwagon. There is often a great deal of excitement at this stage. People don't want to be left behind. They want to be part of this important new thing. Then, it peaks at the some point, and the purging begins. That's when people begin to abandon the fad. They decide this really wasn't worth doing."
People usually start to abandon institutional fads when they start costing money rather than serving as an economic stimulus. But Business Professor Eric Abrahamson says they may have already done damage. "Downsizing American corporations, for instance, follows a faddish dynamic. It affects millions of people, sometimes very severely. None of the research afterwards suggested that it helped firms. So lots and lots of firms started these mass firings because other firms were doing mass firings."
Experts say it's important to acknowledge that institutional fads occur, so new programs or management schemes will be approached with caution. They say executives should examine such ideas carefully, and get evidence that they work before jumping on the bandwagon simply because everyone else is doing it.
I’m Faith Lapidus.

¤注解¤:

1. novelty n. 新颖, 新奇的事物
2. phenomenon n. 现象
3. wristwatch n. 手表
4. faddish adj. 趋于时尚的, 风行的

 

[silver699]

Thanks! SW has been added!

 

[watercumt]

又下载了，真是谢了

 

[angelonduty]

Global Refugee Numbers at 26-Year Low


For the fifth year in a row, global refugee numbers have declined. Since 2001, the U.N. reports, refugee numbers have fallen by 31 percent, with decreases occurring in all five regions in the world.

The report finds the largest reductions, or 19 percent, were recorded in West Africa, Central Asia, Southwest Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. UN refugee spokesman, Ron Redmond, explains there are fewer refugees in these regions because millions have voluntarily returned home with the help of the UNHCR.

Nevertheless, he says these areas still host about two-thirds of the world's refugees. He says last year, the number of refugees in Europe fell by 15 percent. The region currently hosts about one-quarter of all refugees.

It is also interesting to note that the movements of new refugees into neighboring countries is now at its lowest level since 1976. In other words, you are not seeing the huge numbers of mass movements of refugees fleeing conflict into neighboring countries that we once saw.

Last year, Redmond says 136,000 people crossed into 19 asylum countries. That, he says is a 46 percent decline on the previous year when more people were fleeing conflict.

The UN refugee agency estimates between 20 and 25 million people are internally displaced. This is almost three times more than the number of global refugees. Redmond says the number of internally displaced people has gone up dramatically because the nature of conflict has changed.

In the 60's, 70's and 80's, you had superpower rivalries playing out in various countries and continents and there were large numbers of people crossing international borders in those days. Today, we see a lot more internal conflict-civil wars and so on. Look at places like the Democratic Republic of Congo with millions of internally displaced. The same as Darfur in Sudan as well as southern Sudan where there have been millions of internally displaced.

Refugees are people who have crossed an international border fleeing for safety. They are covered by the 1951 Refugee Convention, which entitles them to protection and assistance. People who are internally displaced have no such rights because they have not left their countries. Nevertheless, they face the same problems as refugees.

United Nations agencies are working together to help these people. Each agency has a different responsibility depending on the kind of work it does. So the World Food Program takes care of the hungry. The U.N. Children's Fund is responsible for water and sanitation. The UNHCR deals with protection, setting up camps and providing emergency shelter.

This is Schlein, for VOA News, Geneva.


¤注解¤:

1. voluntarily adv. 自动地, 以自由意志
2. asylum n. 庇护, 收容所
3. internally adv. 内在地, 国内地
4. rivalry n. 竞争, 竞赛, 敌对

 

[等待ME]

顶!

 

[angelonduty]

Handful of Documentaries Hit Theatres for Summer Season

Wordplay takes the audience into the world of puzzlers at the most competitive level: the national tournament held every year in Stamford, Connecticut for the past three decades. The film also introduces a range of people for whom the daily crossword puzzle is a passion: from workaday commuters to show business celebrities and world leaders.
"I find it very relaxing and I really found it relaxing in the White House because, just for a moment, you take your mind off whatever you're doing." Former President Bill Clinton. He is among puzzle enthusiasts interviewed in the film.
"Sometimes you have to go at a problem the way I go at a complicated crossword puzzle. Sometimes I'd pick up the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle and I'd go through way over half the clues before I'd know the answer to one. Then you start with what you know the answer to and then you just build on it. Eventually you can unravel the whole puzzle.
"I like puzzle people. They're smart, interesting, well-read, cultured people." puzzle-master Will Shortz who is at the center of Wordplay. He founded and runs the national tournament, but Shortz is best known as editor of the daily New York Times puzzle.
"My all time favorite clue that I wrote was for the answer 'spiral staircase' and my clue was 'it may turn into a different story. You see a clue like that. It leads you down the garden path, you're thinking of the narrative, and when the correct answer hits you finally, because you start to get it from the crossing answers, you smack your forehead and say 'of course!' I enjoy coming up with those and, obviously, solvers like those too."
Wordplay is directed by Patrick Creadon.
An environmental effort that failed or, depending on your perspective, was not allowed to succeed is the subject of the documentary Who Killed The Electric Car.
The film chronicles the history of a recent California clean air policy that required a certain percentage of all cars sold in the state be "zero emission vehicles." Manufacturers responded with electric cars, notably the innovative EV1 from General Motors; but director Chris Paine says his interviews with drivers, engineers and officials showed that the automakers, oil companies and even government agencies put up roadblocks.
"Almost no one knows there were electric cars sold in the United States. The short story is California made car companies make these cars. They made several thousand - all of them: Ford, GM, Toyota - and they were probably the most advanced cars ever developed with their all-electronic design, they have no internal combustion engine - all of the things that the movie talks about. Then I think when the car industry, the oil industry and various people saw what was really at stake for them, they dismantled this program, dismantled the law and went after it very hard. The irony, or tragedy, of it is they would say 'consumers never wanted the electric car; they were disappointing and never made it in the marketplace.' Well, the marketplace never got to really try them out."
As Who Killed The Electric Car shows, almost all of the EV1 electric cars were destroyed by the manufacturer, even while owners were clamoring to buy them back.
A high school girl’s basketball team from Washington State and its unconventional coach are the stars of the uplifting story in The Heart of the Game.
"I can honestly, from my heart, say that I could care less about winning and losing. However, winning is more fun."
Bill Resler a tax law professor who decided to coach high school basketball out of love for the game and the hope that he could help the girls at Seattle's Roosevelt High succeed. They did, but coach Resler says he was surprised when filmmaker Ward Serrill asked to document the real-life sports drama:
"When he came and said he wanted to film the way I coached, my thought was 'what an odd thing to do. I could see no reason for him to do such; and then he was around all the time, filming every little detail, and I would constantly be thinking 'what is he thinking about? What does he think he has here?' When I finally saw the movie, I was stunned. I could not believe the way he captured the emotion of what those teenage girls go through."
That is most evident in the story of Darnelia Russell, a standout player who leaves school when she becomes pregnant, but then returns to complete her studies and battles to regain a place on the team. Russell says watching the film made her realize what a powerfully positive force this teacher had been in her life.
"He always would tell me that I was smart and whatever, but I never would believe him because if I'm so smart, how come I can't pay attention or just do right. I don't understand, if I'm so smart, how come I just can't do it. Then after a while I figured maybe he is telling the truth and not just saying that because I'm a good basketball player and he wants me on his team. Maybe he really does see that I'm smart and I can do it. After I realized that, it's when I started doing better just thinking positive about everything.
The Heart of the Game is narrated by actor and rap music star Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges as it follows the changes in the Roosevelt High team and its players over the course of four years.

Alan Silverman for the Voice Of America in Hollywood.


¤注解¤:
celebrity n. 名声, 名人
spiral adj. 螺旋形的
perspective n. 观点, 看法
roadblock n. 障碍, 障碍物
combustion n. 燃烧

 

[angelonduty]

坚持下去,对大家的听力和词汇一定有帮助.

Hollywood's Role in the War on Terror

Terrorism has become a popular subject in the entertainment media, from books to movies to television shows. VOA’s Mike O'Sullivan reports nearly five years after the 2001 terror attacks on the United States, Hollywood is focusing on terrorism.
After the terror attacks of September 2001, filmmakers were reluctant to tackle the subject of terrorism, says Anne Thompson, Deputy Film Editor for The Hollywood Reporter newspaper.
"Whenever there's a really tough disaster that upsets people a lot, it takes a while for filmmakers in Hollywood to catch up. And sometimes they're afraid that audiences won't be ready. But for whatever reason, this year, 2006, we're seeing 'United 93,' which opened and is moving its way out of theaters already, despite very, very good reviews."
Four planes were hijacked on September 11, 2001. Three of them reached their targets in New York and Washington. The film "United 93" is the story of the fourth, which crashed in Pennsylvania.
Jonathan Taplin of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California says the crop of current films aims at realism. Mr. Taplin knows Hollywood well. He is a producer who has worked on such films as "Mean Streets," "The Last Waltz" and "To Die For."
"Whether a movie like 'Munich' or a movie like 'Syriana,' even most recently 'United Flight 93', all attempt to portray the terrorists with a little bit of nuance, in a way that you understand that they have their own reasons for doing what they're doing, and it's not such a cliched caricature as it used to be."
But can filmmakers go too far in creating understandable characters? Some critics say Steven Spielberg did that in his recent film "Munich," which shows Israel's retaliation for the murders of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Israeli agents set out to track down and assassinate those responsible.
Jonathan Taplin says Spielberg was criticized for showing the motivations and human costs on both sides of the story.
"But I think it was an important attempt on his part to show the two sides of the question, that both sides were filled with a sense of resolve and a sense of purpose."
Analysts say that terrorists use violence, and the media, to get across a message, and their goal is political change. Some feel the media should not make the terrorists' job easier. Others say law enforcement can also profit from what the media does.
Lieutenant John Sullivan of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department is Director of the National Terrorism Early Warning Resource Center.
"Terrorism at its core is political violence, is designed to send a message and develop a following. The media is important in understanding what the terrorists are trying to communicate, and what the appropriate level of government response is."
He says political violence is not new, and that history teaches that terrorists are seldom able to topple society.
"Terrorism is a weapon of the weak. The media can allow people to put terrorism into the proper balance. Terrorism only causes great political change when there's overreaction or improper reaction by governmental authorities."
Producer Jonathan Taplin says films such as "United 93" can convey in a paradoxical way the differing perspectives of the terrorists and their victims.
"The scene that was most striking for me in 'United 93' is a scene at the very height of the crisis, where you cut between the Americans praying to their god in the cabin as the plane is plunging downward and the Arabs who have taken over the plane praying to their god. And it's literally cutting back and forth between these two sets of prayers." He says, ironically, they are praying to the same god.
Hollywood films are not meant to educate. Studios want to make money and writers and directors want to tell a story. But terrorism expert John Sullivan says movies can inform, and still make a profit.
"I don't think that making money, educating and assessing the issues, and entertaining are necessarily mutually exclusive. You can do all of them at the same time. I suspect to truly educate in a democratic society, it needs to be entertaining, so people will be engaged and watch it."
Anne Thompson of The Hollywood Reporter says Hollywood will continue addressing difficult topics, including terrorism. "And it's to their credit that they're doing it. I really disagree with critics who suggest that the subject of 9 11 is not something that filmmaking should be a part of, as if it were somehow protected from view."
She says the subject of terrorism requires a dialogue that Hollywood is helping to foster.
For focus, I’m Mike O'Sullivan in Los Angeles.
¤注解¤:

1. reluctant adj. 不顾的, 勉强的, 难处理的
2. nuance n. 细微差别
3. retaliation n. 报复, 报仇
4. paradoxical adj. 荒谬的

 

[watercumt]

真是谢了，都保存了，慢慢听

 

[angelonduty]

Hurricane Katrina Survivors Thank New York Volunteers


They rebuild flattened houses, walk abandoned pets, read books to schoolchildren or counsel the emotionally scarred. Volunteers in the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina are as diverse as the world itself. According to Stephen Richer, the executive director of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, they vary in everything from their skills to their politics to their religion.

People are there from just about every faith you can imagine. Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, the Mennonites, the Catholic Charities. People are staying in churches, either sleeping on the floor or in sleeping bags, or sleeping on pews in sleeping bags. It's been really interesting.

Thousands of these volunteers are from New York City.

Many people have been there multiple times. There's one young lady from New York, she came early after the hurricane like in September, then she came back in November, December, then she came back in January. She was so personally enriched by helping, at no compensation by the way, that she quit her job here in New York City, gave up her lease on her apartment and is in the Biloxi area until problems are resolved. And she's not the only one.

New Yorker Virginia Pfeiffer volunteered for five days last May in Pearlington, Mississippi. The tiny hamlet of fewer than 1,700 residents, which has no mayor, only a fire department for local government, was in the eye of the hurricane. For ten days the community was virtually forgotten. A month later the New York Times newspaper compared the area to the primitive tent city Cité Soleil in Haiti. Before arriving in Pearlington with seven other women, Pfeiffer, a 58-year-old retiree, was warned to get ready for some heavy lifting.

One of my thoughts going down there is you know I mean go to the gym to try to keep your stability, so might as well do it by doing something useful. You know so I was carrying a lot of weight, and I had wondered whether I would be able to do as much but I was. I was you know very pleased with how successfully I was able to lift things and carry them. And I expected to be absolutely exhausted by the end of the day and I wasn't.

At night Pfeiffer and others slept in plastic tents without indoor toilets. Each day they received their assignment from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. One task involved emptying the entire contents of a house with no standing walls so that it could be cleaned of toxic mold. Pfeiffer recalls how anxious the owner was about strangers moving her only belongings.

At first she was very hesitant to have us do this. I guess they'd been working with her several months to have her agree to do this. But as the time went by, she saw us being careful with her things and trying to organize them in a logical way. We basically put them all out on the driveway on tarps. She was very social with us at the end. I think we somehow got her over the hump of this overwhelming thing - it looked overwhelming to us, too - of getting this stuff out of the house. And she seemed to connect with us.

Pfeiffer was most touched by the victims of Katrina who wanted to help the volunteer efforts. One woman, for instance, rescued from a tree with her neighbor and eight dogs, still had no home but she delivered meals to her neighbors.

There was this black church and the women of the church who had lost everything of their own had decided when all these volunteers started coming down that they would cook lunch everyday for the volunteers. So they served at the Baptist church, there they served lunch to the volunteers everyday. You know that was just so heartwarming. You know these women who needed help were actually coming to help people who were helping.

A cultural exchange took place between the Southerners and their New York visitors.

I think perhaps we were sort of surprised by how friendly everybody was because New Yorkers have, people think of us as being unfriendly, and it is more that people mind their own business. People are always shocked when they meet New Yorkers and find they are very friendly.

Pfeiffer says she looks forward to returning to visit her new friends in the Gulf Coast.

I would be willing to go back on these trips, although you know it is the kind of thing where it was such a good experience you are sort of afraid to go because it might not be as good experience the next time. But yeah I would definitely like to go back to Pearlington and see the progress and see how things are going.

This demonstration of good will between New York and the Gulf Coast shows no signs of ending any time soon.

Gini Sikes, VOA News, New York.

¤注解¤:

1. counsel vt. 劝告, 忠告
2. compensation n. 补偿, 赔偿
3. virtually adv. 事实上, 实质上
4. Baptist n. 施洗者, 浸信会教友

 

[angelonduty]

Indonesia Opens Conference Aimed at Halting Bird Flu

At least 39 people in Indonesia have died of bird flu since 2003 - 28 of them just this year. With the outbreak continuing, Jakarta has turned to international experts for help in fighting the virus.

Indonesia has the second-highest number of human cases-51 and deaths from the H5N1 virus. Only Vietnam, with 93 cases and 42 deaths, has more.

But experts are worried because Vietnam has virtually halted human cases this year, not a single one so far, while in Indonesia, the numbers keep rising.

A three-day meeting that began Wednesday in Jakarta is meant to bolster the country's efforts to contain the H5N1 virus.

The conference aims to address criticism from international donors of Indonesia's plans for fighting the disease. The country has appealed to aid organizations and other countries for 900 million dollars to pay for bird vaccines, public education, and mass poultry culling programs. The World Bank recently said it needed to see a detailed plan before it would commit funding.

However, there are some areas where Jakarta is making progress. Paul Gully is a WHO senior adviser at the conference. He says Indonesia is providing good surveillance for the disease, and has been able to report outbreaks quickly.

There are actions being taken locally in terms of controlling avian influenza poultry, and investigation in humans, but I think everyone would agree a lot more needs to be done.

The H5N1 virus spreads mainly in poultry, most human victims got the disease from handling sick birds. Many experts advocate killing all birds exposed to the virus, even those that are still healthy to contain the virus.

But Indonesia has resisted mass culling because of the cost of compensating the birds' owners, who often depend on their poultry for income or family meals.

Scientists at the Jakarta meeting will also look into possible changes in the virus that would allow it to spread easily from person to person. Experts fear such viral changes could lead to a flu pandemic that could kill millions of people.

Indonesia has seen several cases in which the virus may have spread from person to person. The WHO's Gully says, however, it does not appear that the virus has changed significantly.

If avian influenza continues, human cases will continue to occur, and then if the right circumstances exist, then probably human to human cases will again continue to occur. Doesn't necessarily mean that we're in a different pandemic state, or that the virus has changed. It's just a question of if the circumstances are right, then probably it will happen.

The group is scheduled to meet through Friday, and is expected to draft a joint assessment of the country's anti-bird flu measures and a list of recommendations on how the country can strengthen its efforts.

Chad Bouchard, VOA News, Jakarta.

¤注解¤:

1. Vietnam n. 越南
2. bolster v. 支持
3. surveillance n. 监视, 监督
4. poultry n. 家禽

 

[angelonduty]

大家喜欢的话我会逐渐把剩下的部分贴上来.我自己每天5课已经接近尾声了.每天晚上花2个小时啥都不干,专门听,听差不多了看看文章有没有什么特别要记忆的东西.然后第二天上班再带上耳机把这5课反复听听,然后跟老外聊天的时候用英语讨论讨论这些话题.再跟同事拉拉这方面的家常.这样下来自己的英语复述能力和中文翻译准确能力都大大提高.

 

[capricornus]

支持

 

[yingxuan1_1]

楼主很有毅力呀！佩服加努力学习中……