下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
Where Shakespeare Slept, or So They Say
Tucked away in this small village in Buckinghamshire County is the former Elizabethan coaching inn where William Shakespeare is said to have penned part of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Dating from 1534, the inn, now called Shakespeare House, is thought to have been built as a Tudor hunting lodge. Later it became a stop for travelers between London and Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was born and buried.
It was "Brief Lives," a 17th-century collection of biographies by John Aubrey, that linked Shakespeare to the inn, saying that he had stayed there and drawn inspiration for the comedy while in the village.
One of the current owners, Nick Underwood, said the local lore goes even further: "It is also said he appears at the oriel window on the top floor of the house on April 23 every year-the date he is said to have been born and to have died."
"In later years, the house later became a farm house, with 150 acres of land, but, over time, pieces were sold off," Mr. Underwood said. "In the 20th century, it was owned by two American families." Now, he and his co-owner, Roy Elsbury, have put the seven-bedroom property on the market at 1.375 million, or $2.13 million.
Despite its varied uses and renovations over the years, the 4,250-square-foot, or 395-square-meter, inn has retained so much of its original character that the organization English Heritage lists it as a Grade II property, indicating that it is particularly important and of "more than special interest." Only 27 percent of the 1,600 buildings on the organization's register have this designation.
"We knew of the house before we bought it and were very excited when it came up for sale. It is so unusual to find an Elizabethan property of this size, in this area, and when we saw it, we absolutely fell in love with it," Mr. Underwood said. "We have taken great pleasure in working on it and living here. This house is all about the history." In addition to being the owners' home, the property currently is run as a luxury guest house, with rooms rented for 99 to 250 a night.
"Shakespeare House is a wonderful example of Elizabethan architecture," said Dean Heaviside, the national sales director of Fine real estate agency, which is representing the owners. "It has been beautifully restored and offers a unique lifestyle, which brings a taste of the past together with modern-day comfort. It is rare to find a home like this on the market."
参考译文
白金汉郡一座小村落深处，有一所伊丽莎白时期的车马驿站，据说莎士比亚曾在这里执笔创作了“仲夏夜之梦”的部分篇章。
这座现被称之为“莎士比亚之屋”的建筑，初建于1534年，是都铎时期打猎者的栖息地。后来这里成了伦敦与斯特拉特福路途中往返过客的歇脚之地。斯特拉特福是莎士比亚生命开始与结束的地方。
17世纪约翰·奥布里编写的传记合集中提到：正是这短促的逗留，让莎士比亚与这所驿站有了交集，莎士比亚在这座小村期间就暂住于此，并在这里找到《仲夏夜之梦》的创作灵感。
尼克·安德伍德是房屋现在的主人之一，他说当地的流言更加夸张：“据说，每逢4月23日，就会有人看到莎士比亚的身影出现在房屋顶层的壁窗。相传4月23日是莎士比亚的出生之日，也是他的逝世之日。”
随后，这所建筑变成了供150英亩农田使用的农舍。时过境迁，农田被分割变卖。安德伍德称，“在他之前，房屋由两个美国家庭占有”。现在他和房屋的共同主人罗伊·艾斯布雷打算将这座有7间卧房的房屋以137.5万英镑（213万美元）的市价出售。
房屋面积4,250平方英尺（395平方米），多年来，这座建筑的用途几经变更，但驿站依旧未改它最原始的风格。英国文化遗产保护组织将其列为二级文物，这说明该座建的重要性非同小可，且具有不同寻常的迷人之处。该组织认证的1600座建筑中，仅有27%的建筑享有此等殊荣。
“我们先前就留意到这座房屋，后来得知它要出售的消息，我们兴奋极了。要在这块儿地方找到一座这般大小的伊丽莎白时期建筑实非易事，我们一见到它就深深爱上它了，”安德伍德先生说道，“在这里干活儿，在这里生活，我们非常享受。这座房屋处处都是历史。”目前，这里除了是房屋主人的居所外，还是供人住宿的豪华客房，房间租住价格从一晚99英镑到250英镑不等。
迪恩·海维塞德是高端房地产机构全国销售总监，他从买房者的角度分析说，“‘莎士比亚之屋’极好的展现了伊丽莎白时期建筑的特色。房屋修缮精美，能让人们从中体味到古典韵味与现代舒适相结合的独特生活方式。市面上很难找到像这样的房屋。”
In Greenland, Ice and Instability
The ancient frozen dome cloaking Greenland is so vast that pilots have crashed into what they thought was a cloud bank spanning the horizon. Flying over it, you can scarcely imagine that it could erode fast enough to dangerously raise sea levels any time soon.
Along the flanks in spring and summer, however, the picture is very different. For an increasing number of warm years, a network of blue lakes and rivulets of melt-water has been spreading ever higher on the icecap.
The melting surface darkens, absorbing up to four times as much energy from the sun as snow, which reflects sunlight. Natural drain pipes called moulins carry water from the surface into the depths, in some places reaching bedrock.
The process slightly, but measurably, lubricates and accelerates the grinding passage of ice towards the sea.
Most important, many glaciologists say, is the break-up of huge semi-submerged clots of ice where some large Greenland glaciers, particularly along the west coast, squeeze through fiords as they meet the warming ocean. As these passages have cleared, this has sharply accelerated the flow of many of these creeping, corrugated and frozen rivers.
Some glaciologists fear that the rise in seas in a warming world could be much greater than the upper estimate of about 60 centimetres this century made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year. (Seas rose less than 30 centimetres last century.)
The panel's assessment did not include factors known to contribute to ice flows but not understood well enough to estimate with confidence. A scientific scramble is under way to clarify whether the erosion of the world's most vulnerable ice sheets, in Greenland and west Antarctica, can continue to accelerate. The effort involves field and satellite analyses and sifting for clues from past warm periods.
Things are definitely far more serious than anyone would have thought five years ago.
参考译文
格林兰岛被广袤的原始冰层所笼罩，飞行员曾将冰层误认为地平线上隆起的云堤迎头相撞。飞越冰岛，你很难想象冰层被侵蚀的速度会如此之快，似乎冰岛随时都有被海水淹没的危险。
值初春夏末之际，格陵兰岛却呈现出一幅截然不同的景象。由于连续多年气候变暖，蓝色湖泊与融水溪流交织的水网在冰盖之上越漫越广。
积雪可折射太阳光，而融化处表面的颜色变深，吸收的太阳热量是积雪表面吸收热量的四倍。冰臼像天然的排水管道将融化的雪水从表面灌向底层，有些区域一直通向基岩。
这一过程对冰层向海水的倾斜起到催化加速的作用。进程虽然缓慢，但却视之可见。
多名冰川学家称，最严重的问题是，因遇到海洋暖流，格林兰岛上的大块冰山挤过海湾之时，会引发大块半漂浮冰层的断裂，尤其是在西部沿海区域。冰山活动明显，极大地为诸多蜿蜒褶皱的冰流推波助澜。
部分冰川学家担心，全球变暖环境下，海平面上升的高度将远远超过政府间气候变化专门委员会去年预测的涨幅上限60厘米。（上世纪，海平面已上涨近30厘米）。
专家委员会的评估中没有涵盖所有已知的影响冰川流动的因素，也没有充分掌握如何进行准确评估的方法。目前正有科学研究对格林兰岛和南极大陆上最薄弱的冰层予以观察，以弄清楚冰层的侵蚀现象是否会继续加快。研究包括现场和卫星勘测分析以及对历史阶段变暖时期研究纪录的筛查。
与五年之前人们的预想相比，显而易见，目前事态更加严重。
The runaway success of Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy suggests that when it comes to contemporary literature in translation, Americans are at least willing to read Scandinavian detective fiction. But for work from other regions, in other genres, winning the interest of big publishing houses and readers in the United States remains a steep uphill struggle.
Among foreign cultural institutes and publishers, the traditional American aversion to literature in translation is known as "the 3 percent problem." But now, hoping to increase their minuscule share of the American book market-about 3 percent-foreign governments and foundations, especially those on the margins of Europe, are taking matters into their own hands and plunging into the publishing fray in the United States.
Increasingly, that campaign is no longer limited to widely spoken languages like French and German. From Romania to Catalonia to Iceland, cultural institutes and agencies are subsidizing publication of books in English, underwriting the training of translators, encouraging their writers to tour in the United States, submitting to American marketing and promotional techniques they may have previously shunned and exploiting existing niches in the publishing industry.
"We have established this as a strategic objective, a long-term commitment to break through the American market," said Corina Suteu, who leads the New York branch of the European Union National Institutes for Culture and directs the Romanian Cultural Institute. "For nations in Europe, be they small or large, literature will always be one of the keys of their cultural existence, and we recognize that this is the only way we are going to be able to make that literature present in the United States."
For instance, the Dalkey Archive Press, a small publishing house in Champaign, Ill., that for more than 25 years has specialized in translated works, this year began a Slovenian Literature Series, underwritten by official groups in Slovenia, once part of Yugoslavia. The series's first book, "Necropolis," by Boris Pahor, is a powerful World War II concentration-camp memoir that has been compared to the best of Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi, and has been followed by Andrej Blatnik's "You Do Understand," a rather absurdist but still touching collection of sketches and parables about love and intimacy.
Dalkey has also begun or is about to begin similar series in Hebrew and Catalan, and with Switzerland and Mexico, the last of which will consist of four books yearly for six years. In each case a financing agency in the host country is subsidizing publication and participating in promotion and marketing in the United States, an effort that can easily require $10,000 or more a book.
参考译文
斯蒂格拉森因千禧三部曲所获得的巨大成功表明，在谈到当代文学翻译作品时，美国人至少愿意去读读斯干地那维亚人的侦探小说。但是对于其他地区不同体裁的作品来说，想要吸引美国大出版社和读者的注意仍然举步维艰。
在外国文化研究所和出版商当中，传统的美国人因反感文学翻译作品而被冠以“只给3%市场份额”的名号。但如今，一些外国政府和基金会，特别是那些处于欧洲大陆边界的国家希望突破3%，增加自己在美国书市上的市场份额，于是他们开始亲自出马，投身到美国出版业的竞争当中。
渐渐的，这种竞争不再局限于像法语和德语这样的大众口语。从罗马尼亚到加泰罗尼亚再到冰岛，这些国家的文化研究所和一些文化机构正在对出版的英语书籍提供补助，负担译者的培训费用，鼓励本国的作家去走访美国，同时，以前可能会回避的美国式营销和宣传手段现在要认可，最后就是要在出版业中寻找一席之地。
欧盟国家文化研究所纽约分部兼罗马尼亚文化局的负责人科里纳苏特说道：“我们已经把这当做为一个战略目标，一个长远的承诺，为的就是能打开美国市场”。对于欧洲国家来说，不管他们是小国还是大国，文学永远是人们文化生活重要的一部分。我们意识到，如果想要让本国文学在美国有立足之地，这将是唯一的方法。
例如，位于美国伊利诺伊州香槟市的一家叫做多基档案的小出版社已经从事翻译作品长达25余年，今年，在斯洛文尼亚政府的承保下（斯洛文尼亚曾隶属南斯拉夫），该出版社开始推出斯洛文尼亚文学系列书籍。该系列的第一本书名叫“墓地”，由鲍里斯帕霍尔所写，是一本回忆录，讲述的是二战中强大的集中营。这本书堪比艾利维塞尔和普利莫利未的佳作。第二本是安德烈布莱尼克所写的“你确实明白”，内容是关于一些爱情和亲密的随笔和寓言，故事十分荒诞，但却很打动人。
多基也已经开始或打算开始出版一些类似的像希伯来语和加泰罗尼亚语的书籍并且在今后的六年中每年将会出版四本瑞士和西班牙的书籍。每一个国家的金融机构都会对本国的出版物进行资助，同时会参与书籍在美国的宣传与营销工作。每出版一本书就需要投资1万美元或者更多。
Just east of Argentina's Andean foothills, an oil field called the Vaca Muerta-"deadcow" in English-has finally come to life.
In May, the Argentine oil company YPF announced that it had found 150 million barrels of oil in the Patagonian field, and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner rushed onto national television to praise the discovery as something that could give new impetus to the country's long-stagnant economy.
"The importance of this discovery goes well beyond the volume," said Sebastián Eskenazi, YPF's chief executive, as he announced the find. "The important thing is it is something new: new energy, a new future, new expectations."
Although there are significant hurdles, geologists say that the Vaca Muerta is a harbinger of a possible major expansion of global petroleum supplies over the next two decades as the industry uses advanced techniques to extract oil from shale and other tightly packed rocks.
Oil experts caution that geologists have only just begun to study shale fields in much of the world, and thus can only guess at their potential. Little seismic work has been completed, and core samples need to be retrieved from thousands of feet below the surface to judge how much oil or gas can be retrieved.
Argentina certainly has high hopes for shale oil from the southern Patagonian province of Neuquén. The 150 million barrels of recoverable shale oil found in the Vaca Muerta represents an increase of 8 percent in Argentina's reserves, and the find was the biggest discovery of oil in the country since the late 1980s.
Oil experts say the Vaca Muerta is probably just a start for Argentina, long a middle-ranked oil producer. Mr. Lynch noted that YPF had explored only 100 square miles out of 5,000 square miles in the whole shale deposit, and other oil companies working in the area had not announced any discoveries yet.
So far, nearly all of the oil exploration in the shale fields in Argentina and elsewhere has been pursued with traditional vertical wells. Plans are just beginning for horizontal drilling.
Some experts caution that the fast advance of oil production from shale in the United States is no guarantee of similar successes abroad, at least not in the near future.
参考译文
在阿根廷安第斯丘陵东部，有一处叫做巴卡穆埃尔的油田，英语里称作“死牛”，如今这头“死牛”终于活了过来。
阿根廷石油公司雷普索尔于5月份宣布该公司在巴塔哥尼亚油田发现1500万桶石油，随后阿根廷总统克里斯汀娜赶忙来到国家电视台，他对这一发现大为称赞，表示这将为阿根廷长期停滞的经济注入新鲜的活力。
雷普索尔的首席执行官布罗夫在宣布这一发现时说道:“此次重大发现的意义不仅仅是这1500万桶石油,重要的是它代表着一种新能源、新未来、新期待”。
地理学家们称，虽然还有很多重大难题需要攻克，但是巴卡穆埃尔却预示着，如果石油产业能够利用先进技术从页岩和其他高密度岩石提炼出油的话，那么在接下来的20年里，它会成为扩大全球汽油供给的主要动力。
石油专家却发出警告称，由于地理学家刚刚开始对世界各地的页岩地进行研究，因此只能估测出它们的潜力。不仅仅地震方面所做的工作较少，同时，想要判断能获得多少油或天然气，还需在地表下几千尺的地方来获取矿样。
阿根廷确实对巴达哥尼亚南部的内乌肯省抱有很高的希望。在巴卡穆埃尔发现的1500万桶可恢复性页岩油使得阿根廷石油储备增长了8%。这是自20世纪80年代以来该国最大的一次石油发现。
石油专家表示，对于长久以来属于中级石油国的阿根廷来说，巴卡穆埃尔可能只是一个开始。临池注意到雷普索尔在整个5000平方英里的页岩地中只开发了100平方英里，而在那里工作的其他石油公司当前却没有任何发现。
目前，几乎阿根廷和其他地方的所有页岩地的石油开采都要依靠直井才能进行。水平钻法的计划才刚刚开始。
一些专家发出警告，美国从页岩提炼的石油产量的快速增长并不能保证其他国家也能获得类似的成功，至少就不久的将来来讲。
Can we have our fish and eat it too? An unusual collaboration of marine ecologists and fisheries management scientists says the answer may be yes.
In a research paper in Friday's issue of the journal Science, the two groups, long at odds with each other, offer a global assessment of the world's saltwater fish and their environments.
Their conclusions are at once gloomy-overfishing continues to threaten many species-and upbeat: a combination of steps can turn things around. But because antagonism between ecologists and fisheries management experts has been intense, many familiar with the study say the most important factor is that it was done at all.
They say they hope the study will inspire similar collaborations between scientists whose focus is safely exploiting specific natural resources and those interested mainly in conserving them.
"We need to merge those two communities," said Steve Murawski, chief fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "This paper starts to bridge that gap."
The collaboration began in 2006 when Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and other scientists made an alarming prediction: if current trends continue, by 2048 overfishing will have destroyed most commercially important populations of saltwater fish. Ecologists applauded the work. But among fisheries management scientists, reactions ranged from skepticism to fury over what many called an alarmist report.
Among the most prominent critics was Ray Hilborn, a professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. Yet the disagreement did not play out in typical scientific fashion with, as Dr. Hilborn put it, "researchers firing critical papers back and forth." Instead, he and Dr. Worm found themselves debating the issue on National Public Radio.
"We started talking and found more common ground than we had expected," Dr. Worm said. Dr. Hilborn recalled thinking that Dr. Worm "actually seemed like a reasonable person."
The two decided to work together on the issue. They sought and received financing and began organizing workshops at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, an organization sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
At first, Dr. Hilborn said in an interview, "the fisheries management people would go to lunch and the marine ecologists would go to lunch" - separately. But soon they were collecting and sharing data and recruiting more colleagues to analyze it.
Dr. Hilborn said he and Dr. Worm now understood why the ecologists and the management scientists disagreed so sharply in the first place. For one thing, he said, as long as a fish species was sustaining itself, management scientists were relatively untroubled if its abundance fell to only 40 or 50 percent of what it might otherwise be. Yet to ecologists, he said, such a stock would be characterized as "depleted" "a very pejorative word."
In the end, the scientists concluded that 63 percent of saltwater fish stocks had been depleted "below what we think of as a target range," Dr. Worm said.
But they also agreed that fish in well-managed areas, including the United States, were recovering or doing well. They wrote that management techniques like closing some areas to fishing, restricting the use of certain fishing gear or allocating shares of the catch to individual fishermen, communities or others could allow depleted fish stocks to rebound.
The researchers suggest that a calculation of how many fish in a given species can be caught in a given region without threatening the stock, called maximum sustainable yield, is less useful than a standard that takes into account the health of the wider marine environment. They also agreed that solutions did not lie only in management techniques but also in the political will to apply them, even if they initially caused economic disruption.
Because the new paper represents the views of both camps, its conclusions are likely to be influential, Dr. Murawski said. "Getting a strong statement from those communities that there is more to agree on than to disagree on builds confidence," he said.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Dr. Worm said he hoped to be alive in 2048, when he would turn 79. If he is, he said, "I will be hosting a seafood party - at least I hope so."
参考译文
我们能否二者兼得，既有鱼可吃同时还能维系鱼类继续生存呢？由海洋生态学家与渔业管理学家进行的一项非同寻常的合作项目表明，这一答案也许是肯定的。
在星期五发行的期刊《科学》中的一篇研究论文，两组长期争论的研究组提供了一个对世界咸水鱼与它们的环境的全球性的评估。
科学家的结论喜忧掺半：忧的是过度捕捞将继续威胁着许多鱼类，喜的是若采取综合措施将会扭转事态。但是因为生态学家和渔业管理专家们紧张的对立关系，许多熟悉此项研究的人认为最重要的因素在于行动。
他们表示希望研究将在强调安全开发具体自然资源的科学家和重视保护的科学家之间启发类似的合作。
“我们需要合并这两个团体”斯蒂夫·姆拉斯基，国家海洋和大气管理局主要渔业科学家说：“而这篇论文开始为那个鸿沟搭桥”。
合作始于2006年鲍里斯·乌尔姆，哈利法克斯新思科大学海洋生态学家和其他一些科学家作出惊人的预测的时候：按目前的状况继续下去，到2048年过度捕捞将摧毁大多数商业咸水鱼鱼群。生态学家赞成此项预见。
但从事渔业管理的科学家们对这个被许多人称为警告性的报告既有怀疑也有愤怒。
美国西雅图华盛顿大学的水产和渔业科学教授雷.希尔伯是众多批评者中较为突出的一个。至今，分歧并未以典型科学方式得到解决。即希尔伯博士所说的“研究人员反复的发表批评文章”。相反，他和乌尔姆博士竟开始在全国公共广播电台辩论这个问题。
“我们开始交谈并找到比原先预期还要多的共同点。”乌尔姆博士说。希尔伯博士在回顾时说道，“乌尔姆博士其实是一个通情达理的人。”
他们两个决定共同合合作研究这个问题。他们寻求并获得了研究资助并开始在国家生态综合分析中心组织研讨会。该中心是国家科学基金会资助的一个研究机构，本部在圣巴巴拉市加利福尼亚大学。
首先，希尔伯博士在接受采访时说，“渔业管理人员和海洋生态学家都会就这一问题展开全面的剖析。”但是在分开的情况下。但不久后他们会收集和共享数据，并寻求更多的同事来分析这一方面。
希尔伯博士说他和乌尔姆博士现在能理解生态学家和管理科学家最初互相强烈反对的原因。一方面，他说，只要鱼类维持自身的物种，假设其数量下降到只有百分之四十到百分之五十，管理科学家还不会过分的忧虑。但是对生态学家而言，这样的鱼类储量将被定性为“濒危”--“一个极具贬义的词汇。”
最后，科学家们得出结论，百分之六十三的咸水鱼面临种族濒危的困境，“在我们认为的目标范围以下”。乌尔姆博士说道。
但是他们也一致认为在管理良好的区域，包括美国在内，恢复得很好，工作很顺利。他们写道，诸如禁止一些地区捕鱼，限制使用某些渔具或分配捕鱼量给渔民，团体或其他组织这样的管理措施，可能使濒危物种的鱼类数量回升。
研究表明，在不威胁鱼类总量的情况下，与其计算某个区域可以捕取的某种鱼类的数量，也就是最大可持续产量，不如建立一个更广的把海洋环境考虑在内的标准更加有用。当然解决的方法不仅局限于管理技术方面，他们还一致认为政府执行这些管理技术的政治意愿也很重要，即使最初这些技术会造成一些经济混乱的局面。
姆拉维斯基博士说因为新的论文代表了双方的意见，所以它的结论会有很大的影响力。“这些团体宣布双方更多的是同意而非歧义，增强了信心。”
在周三的新闻发布会上，乌尔姆博士说，他希望能够活到2048年，那时他79岁。如果他还活着，他说：“我将举办一个海鲜聚会--至少我希望如此。”
As I mentioned last week, I've recently returned from Australia. While I was there, I visited a eucalyptus forest that, in February, was the scene of an appalling wildfire. Perhaps naively, I had expected to find that many trees had been killed. They hadn't. They had blackened bark, but were otherwise looking rather well, many of them wreathed in new young leaves. This prompted me to consider fire and the role it plays as a force of nature.
Fossil charcoals tell us that wildfires have been part of life on Earth for as long as there have been plants on land. That's more than 400 million years of fire. Fire was here long before arriviste plants like grasses; it pre-dated the first flowers. And without wanting to get mystical about it, fire is, in many respects, a kind of animal, albeit an ethereal one. Like any animal, it consumes oxygen. Like a sheep or a slug, it eats plants. But unlike a normal animal, it's a shape-shifter. Sometimes, it merely nibbles a few leaves; sometimes it kills grown trees. Sometimes it is more deadly and destructive than a swarm of locusts.
The shape-shifting nature of fire makes it hard to study, for it is not a single entity. Some fires are infernally hot; others, relatively cool. Some stay at ground level; others climb trees. Moreover, fire is much more likely to appear in some parts of the world than in others. Satellite images of the Earth show that wildfires are rare in, say, northern Europe, and common in parts of central Africa and Australia. (These days many wildfires are started by humans, either on purpose or by accident. But long before our ancestors began to throw torches or cigarette butts, fires were started by lightning strikes, or by sparks given off when rocks rub together in an avalanche.)
Once a fire gets started, many factors contribute to how it will behave. The weather obviously has a huge effect: winds can fan flames, rains can quench them. The lie of the land matters, too: fire runs uphill more readily than it goes down. But another crucial factor is what type of plants the fire has to eat.
It's common knowledge that plants regularly exposed to fire tend to have features that help them cope with it-such as thick bark, or seeds that only grow after being exposed to intense heat or smoke. But what is less often remarked on is that the plants themselves affect the nature and severity of fire.
参考译文
上周提起，我刚从澳大利亚回来。在那儿，我参观了一片桉树林，那片树林二月刚刚遭受一次骇人的野火肆虐。也许是因为我还有些天真，曾以为会发现许多树被烧死。但它们却没死。树皮烧黑了，不过看上去还好，有许多树还长出了新的嫩叶。这种现象让我想到了火与它作为一种自然力的作用。
木炭化石告诉我们，自陆地上有了植物，野火就一直是地球上生物的一部分，也就是说，火的历史要在4亿年以上。早在草这类生长迅猛的植物存在之前，火就已经存在了；而在第一束花朵出现之前也早已有了火。不必把火想得很神秘，火，在很多方面，就像是一种动物，尽管飘忽不定、难以捉摸。和其他动物一样，火消耗氧气，像一只绵羊或蛞蝓一样吞食植物。但和正常动物又不同，有着捉摸不定的形态。有时仅仅轻咬几片叶子，有时却能吞噬参天大树。有时比蝗灾更致命，破坏性更大。
火的这种形态捉摸不定的性质让研究更加困难了，因为它并非单一的整体。有些火炙热可怕；有些火则温度相对较低。有些火在地面上燃烧；另一些则会窜上大树。此外，世界上有些地方更容易出现火灾。地球的卫星图像显示，欧洲北部很少出现野火，而在非洲中部的一些地方和澳大利亚则常有野火。（近年来很多野外火灾是人为的，要么是故意，要么是偶然。但在我们的祖先扔火把或烟蒂之前的很长一段时间，火灾是由闪电或雪崩中乱石摩擦引起的）。
一旦起火，就会有许多影响火势的因素。显然，天气对火势有着极大的影响：风助火势、雨灭火威。火势也受地形的影响：火易顺山而上，而非沿坡向下。另一个关键因素就是：火易吞噬哪类植物。
有一项常识：经常遭大火肆虐的植物具备助于它们应对火灾的特性--如厚厚的树皮或只有经过烈火和烟熏才会生长的种子。但人们并不太注意，这些植物本身就影响了火的性质及火势。
Farms go out of business for many reasons, but few farms do merely because the soil has failed. That is the miracle of farming. If you care for the soil, it will last - and yield - nearly forever. America is such a young country that we have barely tested that. For most of our history, there has been new land to farm, and we still farm as though there always will be.
Still, there are some very old farms out there. The oldest is the Tuttle farm, near Dover, N.H., which is also one of the oldest business enterprises in America. It made the news last week because its owner - a lineal descendant of John Tuttle, the original settler - has decided to go out of business. It was founded in 1632. I hear its sweet corn is legendary.
The year 1632 is unimaginably distant. In 1632, Galileo was still publishing, and John Locke was born. There were perhaps 10,000 colonists in all of America, only a few hundred of them in New Hampshire. The Tuttle acres, then, would have seemed almost as surrounded as they do in 2010, but by forest instead of highways and houses.
It was a precarious operation at the start - as all farming was in the new colonies-and it became precarious enough again in these past few years to peter out at last. The land is protected by a conservation easement so it can't be developed, but no one knows whether the next owner will farm it.
In a letter on their Web site, the Tuttles cite "exhaustion of resources" as the reason to sell the farm. The exhausted resources they list include bodies, minds, hearts, imagination, equipment, machinery and finances. They do not mention soil, which has been renewed and redeemed repeatedly. It's as though the parishioners of the First Parish Church in nearby Dover - erected nearly 200 years later, in 1829 - had rebuilt the structure on the same spot every few years.
It is too simple to say, as the Tuttles have, that the recession killed a farm that had survived for nearly 400 years. What killed it was the economic structure of food production. Each year it has become harder for family farms to compete with industrial scale agriculture - heavily subsidized by the government - underselling them at every turn. In a system committed to the health of farms and their integration with local communities, the result would have been different. In 1632, and for many years after, the Tuttle farm was a necessity. In 2010, it is suddenly superfluous, or so we like to pretend.
参考译文
尽管导致农民破产的原因有很多，但很少农民仅仅是因为土地失去肥力而破产，这可以算是一个农业奇迹。如果能很好地料理土地，那么它几乎可以永远保持持续的产出。而对美国这样一个年轻的国家而言，人们很少能意识到这点。因为在我们大部分历史中，总会有新的土地被开垦成农场，我们不断地耕作，好像资源取之不尽。
然而，还是有一些老农场破产了。其中历史最为悠久的便是位于美国新罕布什尔州丹佛市附近的Tuttle farm。同时也是美国最顾老的商业公司之一。在上周的新闻中，公司的所有者，原始移民John Tuttle的直系后代，宣布公司破产。Tuttle farm成立于1632年。听说它出产的甜玉米非常出名。
1632年，遥远的让人难以置信，那一年，伽利略还在准备出版他的着作，而洛克才刚刚出生。美洲大陆当时大概只有一万移民，其中生活在新罕布什尔州的估计还不到一百人。那时Tuttle的耕地可能和2010年一样被团团包围着，只不过那时是被森林包围，而现在换成了高速公路和房子。
就像所有新的殖民地的农场一样，一开始塔特尔的经营也非常不稳定。在过去数年中，这样的不稳定状况旧病复发，最终导致农场一步步滑向破产的深渊。受到资源保护的限制（译者注：easement是地役权），不能对土地进行开发。但是没有人知道农场的下一位主人是否会继续耕作。
在“塔特尔农场”的网站上，塔特尔家族在一封致公众的信中宣称出售农场的原因是“资源枯竭”，包括：人力、脑力、想象力、设备、机器和资金上的枯竭，却压根没提被多次翻新并帮助他们树立威信的土地。这就好像多佛市附近、始建于1829年的First Parish Church的教区居民每过几年就在同一个地方重建教堂一样。
塔特尔家族的人将有着近400历史的农场的破产归咎于土地退化，这理由未免太过简单。使其破产的真正原因其实是食品生产的经济结构。每一年，家庭农场都要跟工业规模化的农业企业进行竞争，日子越来越煎熬。这些企业享受政府大力补贴扶持，以各种渠道以低价出售粮食。在一个致力于农场健康并促进农场与当地社区融合一体的体系里，结果本不该如此。在1632年以及之后的许多年，塔特尔农场不可或缺。然而到了2010年，它突然成了多余的东西，或者说被我们看作是一个累赘。
Youth unemployment across the world has climbed to a new high and is likely to climb further this year, a United Nations agency said Thursday, while warning of a "lost generation" as more young people give up the search for work.
The agency, the International Labor Organization, said in a report that of some 620 million young people ages 15 to 24 in the work force, about 81 million were unemployed at the end of 2009-the highest level in two decades of record-keeping by the organization, which is based in Geneva.
The youth unemployment rate increased to 13 percent in 2009 from 11.9 percent in the last assessment in 2007.
"There's never been an increase of this magnitude - both in terms of the rate and the level - since we've been tracking the data," said Steven Kapsos, an economist with the organization. The agency forecast that the global youth unemployment rate would continue to increase through 2010, to 13.1 percent, as the effects of the economic downturn continue. It should then decline to 12.7 percent in 2011.
The agency's 2010 report found that unemployment has hit young people harder than adults during the financial crisis, from which most economies are only just emerging, and that recovery of the job market for young men and women will lag behind that of adults. The impact of the crisis also has been felt in shorter hours and reduced wages for those who maintain salaried employment.
In some especially strained European countries, including Spain and Britain, many young people have become discouraged and given up the job hunt, it said. The trend will have "significant consequences for young people," as more and more join the ranks of the already unemployed, it said. That has the potential to create a "lost generation' comprised of young people who have dropped out of the labor market, having lost all hope of being able to work for a decent living."
The report said that young people in developing economies are more vulnerable to precarious employment and poverty.
About 152 million young people, or a quarter of all the young workers in the world, are employed but remain in extreme poverty in households surviving on less than $1.25 a person a day in 2008, the report said.
"The number of young people stuck in working poverty grows, and the cycle of working poverty persists," the agency's director-general, Juan Somavia, said.
Young women still have more difficulty than young men in finding work, the report added. The female youth unemployment rate in 2009 stood at 13.2 percent, compared with the male rate of 12.9 percent. The gap of 0.3 percentage point was the same as in 2007.
The report studied the German, British, Spanish and Estonian labor markets and found that Germany had been most successful in bringing down long-term youth unemployment. In Spain and Britain, increases in unemployment were particularly pronounced for those with lower education levels.
Data from Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, show Spain had a jobless rate of 40.5 percent in May for people under 25. That was the highest level among the 27 members of the European Union, far greater than the 9.4 percent in Germany in May and 19.7 percent in Britain in March.
参考译文
联合国一组织周二称，全球年轻人失业率再创新高，而且这种趋势将在今年继续延续下去。他们警告说，越来越多的年轻人放弃寻找工作，将导致失迷一代数量激增。
国际劳工组织在其报告中称，全球15岁到24岁之间的6.2亿年轻工人中，2009年末大约有8100万人失业，这是总部位于日内瓦的劳工组织20年以来的最高纪录。
年轻人失业率从2007年的11.9%增长到2009年的13%。
国际劳工组织经济学家史蒂文•凯普索斯说：“自从我们开始追踪年轻人失业数据以来，从未见过数量如此之大、比例如此之高的失业现象。”该机构预测，在全球经济持续低迷的影响下，年轻人2010年下半年失业率将继续上升，最后可能达到13.1%。不过到2011年，这一比例应该可以降到12.7%以下。
国际劳工组织2010年的报告还发现，金融危机期间，年轻人失业率比成年工人失业情况更严重，就业市场的恢复也比成年工人慢。而且受经济危机影响，侥幸保住“饭碗”的年轻人，工作时间更短、工资更少。
在情况特别严峻的欧洲国家，比如西班牙和英国，许多年轻人已经对寻找工作气馁，甚至放弃了找工作。这种趋势将对年轻人造成严重影响，可能越来越多的年轻人加入到失业者行列。这些退出劳动市场、对寻找工作过上体面生活失去希望的年轻人，将成为新的迷失一代。
报告称，发展中国家的年轻人更容易受到失业影响，重新变得贫困。
报告称，2008年，大约1.52亿年轻人（全球年轻工人四分之一）找到工作，但是他们依然十分贫困，每个家庭每人每天的生活花费不到1.25美元。
国际劳工组织总干事索马维亚说：“挣扎于工作贫困中的年轻人数量正在增加,工作贫困的循环也在继续。”
在找工作方面，年轻女性遇到的困难的男性更多。2009年年轻女性失业率已经高达13.2%，同期男性失业率为12.9%。2007年，年轻男女失业率差异也在0.3%左右。
报告研究了德国、英国、西班牙以及爱沙尼亚等国的劳动市场，发现德国在处理年轻人长期失业方面最成功。西班牙和英国，那些受教育程度低的年轻人失业率增长明显。
来自欧盟统计局的数据显示，5月份，西班牙25岁以下人口失业率已经达到40.5%，这是欧盟27个成员国中比例最高的。德国5月恩的失业率为9.4%，英国3月失业率为19.7%。
Offshore supply vessels resembling large, floating flat-backed trucks fill Victoria Dock, unable to find charters in a sign of the downturn in Britain's oil industry.
With UK North Sea oil and gas production 44 percent below its peak, self-styled oil capital of Europe Aberdeen fears the slowdown is not simply cyclical.
The oil industry that at one stage sparked talk of Scotland as "the Kuwait of the West" has already outlived most predictions.
Tourism, life sciences, and the export of oil services around the world are among Aberdeen's targeted substitutes for North sea oil and gas-but for many the biggest prize would be to use its offshore oil expertise to build a renewable energy industry as big as oil.
The city aims to use its experience to become a leader in offshore wind, tidal power and carbon dioxide capture and storage.
Alex Salmond, head of the devolved Scottish government, told a conference in Aberdeen last month the market for wind power could be worth 130 billion pounds, while Scotland could be the "Saudi Arabia of tidal power."
"We're seeing the emergence of an offshore energy market that is comparable in scale to the market we've seen in offshore oil and gas in the last 40 years," he said.
Another area of focus, tourism, has previously been hindered by the presence of oil. Eager to put Aberdeen on the international tourist map, local business has strongly backed a plan by U.S. real estate tycoon Donald Trump for a luxury housing and golf project 12 km (8 miles) north of the city, even though it means building on a nature reserve. The city also hopes to reorientate its vibrant oil services industry toward emerging offshore oil centers such as Brazil. "Just because the production in the North Sea starts to decline doesn't mean that Aberdeen as a global center also declines," said Robert Collier, Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive. "That expertise can still stay here and be exported around the world."
参考译文
近海供应船很少被租用，像大型浮动平板车一样将维多利亚码头挤得水泄不通。这标志着英国石油产业的下滑。
英国北海石油和天然气产量较最高时期下降了44%。自称是石油之都的欧洲城市阿伯丁担忧此次产量下滑绝不仅仅是简单的周期性循环。
苏格兰曾一度被称为“西方的科威特”。它的石油业的繁荣已大大超出了人们的预期。
旅游、生命科学以及全球石油输出服务都是阿伯丁想要代替北海石油和天然气的目标产业。但是对于许多人来说最大的成就就是使用自身的近海石油技术来建造一个和石油产业规模不相上下的可再生能量产业。
阿伯丁计划运用他们的经验进而使其近海风能、潮汐能及二氧化碳采集和储存领域处于领先位置。苏格兰政府下设权力机构的领导亚历克斯•萨蒙德上个月在阿伯丁举行的会议上称风能市场的产值高达1300亿英镑，而且苏格兰有可能会成为“潮汐能源领域的沙特阿拉伯”。
他说道：“海洋能源市场的兴起，其规模与过去40年时间里我们所看到的海洋石油和天然气市场的规模差不多。”
而旅游业作为另外一个焦点，之前一直受到石油产业的阻碍。由于急于想要拓展阿伯丁在世界的旅游产业的地位，地方企业强力支持美国地产大亨唐纳德•特朗普在阿伯丁以北八公里处建造豪华的住宅和高尔夫项目的计划。尽管这意味着要在自然保护区的土地上建设这些奢华项目。
阿伯丁也希望对其充满生机的石油服务产业重新进行定位，进而使其石油服务产业像巴西那样发展成近海石油中心。贸易委员会总裁罗伯特•克里尔表示：“北海的石油产量下降不意味着阿伯丁作为全球石油中心的地位也随之下降。”这些石油方面的专业技术会一直在这里，而且这些技术也可以走向世界各地。
We mark the passing of 800 years, and that is indeed a remarkable span for any institution. But history is never an even-flowing stream, and the most remarkable thing about modern Cambridge has been its enormous growth over the past half century.
Since I came up as an undergraduate in 1961 the student population has more than doubled. More students have meant more teachers, and, even more significantly, more scholars devoted solely to research: every category has more than doubled in numbers. This huge increase has been partly absorbed by an expansion of the colleges: they all have more students and more Fellows than they did 50 years ago; and, since 1954, no fewer than 11 of the 31 colleges are either brand new foundations, or have been conjured up as new creations from existing but quite different bodies. From being a university primarily driven by undergraduate education, Cambridge's reputation is now overwhelmingly tied to its research achievements, which can be simply represented by the fact that more than three-quarters of its current annual income is devoted to research. This has brought not just new laboratories but new buildings to house whole faculties and departments: in the mid-20th century few faculties had a physical manifestation beyond, perhaps, a library and a couple of administrative offices.
Cambridge attracts the best students and academics because they find the University and the colleges stimulating and enjoyable places in which to live and work. The students are thrown in with similarly able minds, learning as much from each other as from their teachers; the good senior academics know better than to be too hierarchical or to cut themselves off from intellectual criticism and debate.
One generation dismisses another: not even Erasmus or Newton, Darwin or Keynes stand unscathed by the passage of time; nor can we be but humbled, especially in our day when so much information is so easily accessible, by the vast store of knowledge which we can approach but never really control. Our library and museum collections bring us into contact with many lives lived in the past. They serve as symbols of the continuity of learning, or the diversity of views, of an obligation to wrestle with fact and argument, to come to our own conclusions, and in turn to be accountable for our findings. The real quest is not for knowledge, but for understanding.
参考译文
800年对于任何学院来说都不止是惊鸿一瞥。而历史的长河中并非都是风平浪静。现代剑桥大学最引以为傲的事情就是在过去半个世纪的巨大的发展。
自1961年我作为一名大学生来到剑桥大学以来，现在学生人数是之前的一倍多。越来越多的学生就意味着需要更多的老师，最重要的是，需要更多的学者专门从事研究。每个学科的研究人员人数至少增加一倍多。而这种人数的巨大增长部分被各学院规模的扩大所吸收。各个学院拥有比半世纪之前更多的学生和教师。而且自1954年以来，31个学院中至少有11个是新建立的，或是在现有的基础上进行重新加工使其脱胎换骨。剑桥大学过去以本科教育闻名，现在其知名度大都和其研究成果紧密相连。这从每年剑桥收入的四分之三都投入到研究领域的事实中不难看出。这不仅仅为剑桥建造了新的实验室，而且还为各个院系建造了教学楼。而在20世纪中叶，没有哪个院系超过一个实验室和两个行政办公室的规模。
剑桥大学启发式的教学和舒适的工作生活环境吸引了最优秀的学生和学者。和其他有能力的人一起学习，他们可以从彼此那里和从老师那里学到一样多的知识。资深的学者们清楚的知道学术不分等级，不应该将自己从理智的批判和辩论中隔绝出来。
长江后浪推前浪，无论是伊拉兹马斯还是牛顿，达尔文或是凯恩斯都不能逃离时间的吞噬。我们也终将被时间吞噬，在时间面前，我们是渺小的，是特别是信息化的今天。我们可以获取大量的知识却没有真正掌握。图书馆和博物馆的收藏建立我们与先人联系的桥梁。他们代表着持之以恒的学习、多样性的观点。他们代表着运用事实和论据据理力争的义务，取得结论并反过来支持了我们的研究。人们真正追求的不是知识，而是理解这些知识。
In the European Union, carrots must be firm but not woody, cucumbers must not be too curved and celery has to be free of any type of cavity. This was the law, one that banned overly curved, extra-knobbly or oddly shaped produce from supermarket shelves.
But in a victory for opponents of European regulation, 100 pages of legislation determining the size, shape and texture of fruit and vegetables have been torn up. On Wednesday, EU officials agreed to axe rules laying down standards for 26 products, from peas to plums.
In doing so, the authorities hope they have killed off regulations routinely used by critics - most notably in the British media - to ridicule the meddling tendencies of the EU.
After years of news stories about the permitted angle or curvature of fruit and vegetables, the decision Wednesday also coincided with the rising price of commodities. With the cost of the weekly supermarket visit on the rise, it has become increasingly hard to defend the act of throwing away food just because it looks strange.
Beginning in July next year, when the changes go into force, standards on the 26 products will disappear altogether. Shoppers will be able to choose their produce whatever its appearance.
Under a compromise reached with national governments, many of which opposed the changes, standards will remain for 10 types of fruit and vegetables, including apples, citrus fruit, peaches, pears, strawberries and tomatoes.
But those in this category that do not meet European norms will still be allowed onto the market, providing they are marked as being substandard or intended for cooking or processing.
"This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot," said Mariann Fischer Boel, European commissioner for agriculture, who argued that regulations were better left to market operators.
"In these days of high food prices and general economic difficulties," Fischer Boel added, "consumers should be able to choose from the widest range of products possible. It makes no sense to throw perfectly good products away, just because they are the ‗wrong‘ shape."
That sentiment was not shared by 16 of the EU's 27 nations - including Greece, France, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy and Poland - which tried to block the changes at a meeting of the Agricultural Management Committee.
Several worried that the abolition of standards would lead to the creation of national ones, said one official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.
Copa-Cogeca, which represents European agricultural trade unions and cooperatives, also criticized the changes. "We fear that the absence of EU standards will lead member states to establish national standards and that private standards will proliferate," said its secretary general, Pekka Pesonen.
But the decision to scale back on standards will be welcomed by euro-skeptics who have long pilloried the EU executive's interest in intrusive regulation.
One such controversy revolved around the correct degree of bend in bananas - a type of fruit not covered by the Wednesday ruling.
In fact, there is no practical regulation on the issue. Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/94 says that bananas must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature," though Class 1 bananas can have "slight defects of shape" and Class 2 bananas can have full "defects of shape."
By contrast, the curvature of cucumbers has been a preoccupation of European officials. Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88 states that Class I and "Extra class" cucumbers are allowed a bend of 10 millimeters per 10 centimeters of length. Class II cucumbers can bend twice as much.
It also says cucumbers must be fresh in appearance, firm, clean and practically free of any visible foreign matter or pests, free of bitter taste and of any foreign smell.
Such restrictions will disappear next year, and about 100 pages of rules and regulations will go as well, a move welcomed by Neil Parish, chairman of the European Parliament's agriculture committee.
"Food is food, no matter what it looks like," Parish said. "To stop stores selling perfectly decent food during a food crisis is morally unjustifiable. Credit should be given to the EU agriculture commissioner for pushing through these proposals. Consumers care about the taste and quality of food, not how it looks."
参考译文
在欧盟，市场出售的胡萝卜必须脆而不糠，黄瓜不能太弯，芹菜不能有空心。因为过去法规禁止超市出售外形过弯、疙疙瘩瘩或者外形奇怪的农产品。
但是反对这条欧盟法规的人士取得了胜利，这意味着约100页规定果蔬尺寸、外形和质地的相关法规得以废除。周三，欧盟有关领导人同意废除对部分农产品的强制性标准，范围涉及豌豆、李子等26个品种。
以英国媒体为首，各界批评家常就这一法规对欧盟动辄插手干涉的作风冷嘲热讽。有关部门希望此举能息事宁人，正是基于这一现状有关部门将其废除。
老百姓去超市购物的花费每周都在上涨，在这种情况下，因为水果蔬菜长得不够标准就扔掉，实在说不过去。
明年七月开始，这些法规将被正式废除。届时，26种产品的标准将被废除。消费者将能够随心所欲地挑选商品，无论它们的摸样是好还是坏。
因为不少欧盟国家政府反对废除这一法规。作为妥协，包括苹果、柑橘类、桃子、梨、草莓和番茄等10种水果蔬菜的相关标准将予以保留。
不过即使上述果蔬达不到欧盟的标准，只要注明非达标产品或专为烹饪及加工使用，仍然允许其面市销售。
欧盟委员会农业委员玛丽安•菲舍尔•伯尔表示：“这标志着弯黄瓜和坑坑洼洼的胡萝卜能重回市场了”，并提倡这类法规应由市场上的经营者说了算。
菲舍尔•伯尔补充道：“在食品价格居高不下、经济堪忧的境况下，应该为消费者提供尽可能多的产品供其选择。只因为外形不符合标准就把质量上乘的产品扔掉，这种做法显然不合理”。
明年这些限制将会取消，同时约100页相关法律法规也会一并失效。对于这一举措，欧洲议会农业委员会主席Neil Parish表示赞同。
“不管长的怎么样，食品毕竟只是食品。在粮食危机的当下还禁止商家出售质量尚好的农产品，这从道德层面说不过去。欧盟委员会农业委员推动这些提案通过的做法值得称赞。毕竟，消费者关心的是食品味道和品质，而不是外观”。
Ask mothers why babies are constantly picking things up from the floor or ground and putting them in their mouths, and chances are they'll say that it's instinctive-that that's how babies explore the world. But why the mouth, when sight, hearing, touch and even scent are far better at identifying things?
Since all instinctive behaviors have an evolutionary advantage or they would not have been retained for millions of years, chances are that this one too has helped us survive as a species. And, indeed, accumulating evidence strongly suggests that eating dirt is good for you.
In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with "dirt" spur the development of a healthy immune system. Several continuing studies suggest that worms may help to redirect an immune system that has gone awry and resulted in autoimmune disorders, allergies and asthma.
One leading researcher, Dr. Joel Weinstock, the director of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said in an interview that the immune system at birth "is like an unprogrammed computer. It needs instruction."
He said that public health measures like cleaning up contaminated water and food have saved the lives of countless children, but they "also eliminated exposure to many organisms that are probably good for us."
"Children raised in an ultra-clean environment," he added, "are not being exposed to organisms that help them develop appropriate immune regulatory circuits."
Studies he has conducted with Dr. David Elliott, a gastroenterologist and immunologist at the University of Iowa, indicate that intestinal worms, which have been all but eliminated in developed countries, are "likely to be the biggest player" in regulating the immune system to respond appropriately, Elliott said in an interview. He added that bacterial and viral infections seem to influence the immune system in the same way, but not as forcefully.
Most worms are harmless, especially in well-nourished people, Weinstock said. "There are very few diseases that people get from worms," he said. "Humans have adapted to the presence of most of them."
Ruebush deplores the current fetish for the hundreds of antibacterial products that convey a false sense of security and may actually foster the development of antibiotic-resistant, disease-causing bacteria. Plain soap and water are all that are needed to become clean, she noted.
参考译文
问妈妈们为什么婴儿不断从地板或地面上把东西捡起来,并把它们放进自己的嘴里。她们很可能会说这是本能--那是婴儿探索这个世界的方式。但当视觉，听觉，触觉，甚至嗅觉更易识别事物时为什么却要用嘴呢？
因为所有的本能行为都有进化优势否则不可能保留下了数百万年之久，很有可能这也帮助了我们的生存。的确，越来越多的证据有力地证明吃土对人有好处。
在一项叫作卫生假设的研究中,研究人员认为,像数以百万计的细菌，病毒，尤其是蠕虫那样的生物，带着“泥土”进入人体后，会刺激健康的免疫系统的发展。几个持续的研究表明蠕虫可以帮助改善扭曲的免疫系统，这样的系统造成自体免疫疾病,如过敏症和哮喘。
一位有名望的研究员博士乔尔Weinstock,波士顿塔夫茨医疗中心胃肠病学与肝脏学部主任,他在一次采访中说，人出生时的免疫系统“就像一个未编程的电脑。它需要指导”。
他说公众卫生措施如清理被污染的水和食物挽救了无数的孩子们的生命,但孩子们“同样排除了与那些可能对我们有利的生物的接触的机会。”
“在超干净的环境中长大的孩子们”他补充说，“没有暴露给那些帮助他们建立适当生物免疫调节系统的生物”。
他与一位爱荷华大学的胃肠病学专家大卫艾略特博士, 进行的研究表明肠道蠕虫，这种蠕虫在发达国家几乎已经灭绝,在调节免疫系统做出适当的反应方面“可能是最大的玩家”,艾略特在一次访谈中说道。他补充说,细菌和病毒感染的似乎影响以同样的方式影响免疫系统，但没那么剧烈。
大多数蠕虫是无害的，尤其对那些营养健全的人来说，Weinstock说。“人类从蠕虫那里患的疾病很少，”他说道，“人类是可以适应它们中大多数的存在”。
Ruebush 谴责目前人们对成百上千的抗菌产品的迷恋，这在传输一种错误的安全意识，可能最终促生那些耐抗生素致病细菌的发展。她强调，普通的香皂和水就足以保持干净。
At first, as he adjusted pumps and checked temperatures, Aaron Boucher looked like any technician in the control room of an electrical plant. Then he rushed to the window and scanned the sky, to check his fuel supply.
Mr. Boucher was battling clouds, timing the operations of his power plant to get the most out of patchy sunshine. It is a skill that may soon be in greater demand, for the world appears to be on the verge of a boom in a little-known but promising type of solar power.
It is not the kind that features shiny panels bolted to the roofs of houses. This type involves covering acres of desert with mirrors that focus intense sunlight on a fluid, heating it enough to make steam. The steam turns a turbine and generates electricity.
The technology is not new, but it is suddenly in high demand. As prices rise for fossil fuels and worries grow about their contribution to global warming, solar thermal plants are being viewed as a renewable power source with huge potential.
After a decade of no activity, two prototype solar thermal plants were recently opened in the United States, with a capacity that could power several big hotels, neon included, on the Las Vegas Strip, about 20 miles north of here. Another 10 power plants are in advanced planning in California, Arizona and Nevada.
On sunny afternoons, those 10 plants would produce as much electricity as three nuclear reactors, but they can be built in as little as two years, compared with a decade or longer for a nuclear plant. Some of the new plants will feature systems that allow them to store heat and generate electricity for hours after sunset.
The plant in Boulder city, Nevada Solar One, uses a mirror in the shape of a parabola to focus light onto a black pipe with a heat-transfer fluid inside. The fluid is used to boil water into steam, which turns a generator that can produce 64 megawatts.
At Nevada Solar One the other day, Mr. Boucher, 30, ran the computerized control room. Dressed in a T-shirt, sneakers and a Boston Red Sox cap worn backwards, he looked a bit like a teenage gamer as he used a computer mouse to manipulate the plant.
He was trying to produce as much electricity as possible while saving heat to tide the plant over as clouds cast episodic shadows on the solar array. "I've been fighting it all day," he said.
Imperceptibly, in the dusty wind of the high desert, 182,000 mirrors moved from east to west, tracking the sun across the sky.
参考译文
安让•布切尔看上去和电站控制室中其他任何一位技术人员一样，他首先调整了校泵并检查了温度，然后跑到窗户边望了望天空，以确定燃料的供给是否适合。
布切尔先生正和云层较量，调整电站的操作以便从四散的阳光中获得最大的能量。这种技术在不久可能就会倍受青睐，因为世界各地的人们对这种知之甚少但却很有前景的太阳能源正趋之若鹜。
这可不是那种装在屋顶带有闪闪发光镶板的太阳能设备，而是在数以英亩计的沙漠上铺设聚光镜，将阳光聚集到一种液体上，加热使其变成蒸汽，然后蒸汽带动涡轮机从而产生电能。
这不是一种新的技术，但却很受青睐。随着化石燃料价格的上涨及人们对其所对全球变暖带来的影响的担忧，太阳能热电站被认为是一种极具潜力的可再生能源的来源。
在沉寂十年之后，美国最近新建了两座太阳能热电站，另外10个类似的电站正在筹建之中，计划建于加州、亚利桑那州和内华达州。
在阳光明媚的下午，这10座电站所发的电量能达到3个核反应堆所发出的电量，但这些电站只需要2年久可以建成，而一个核电站需要10年甚至更长的时间才能建成。一些新建的电站带有新的系统，可以储存热能，从而保证电站在日落后能继续工作数小时。
建于博尔德市的内华达一号太阳能电站使用的是一种凹形聚光镜，将阳光聚集在一个黑色的管子上，管子里装的是一种可导热的液体，用这种液体加热水使其变成蒸汽，从而带动发电机，一台发电机每年可产出64兆瓦电能。
这天，在内华达一号太阳能电站，30岁的布切尔先生在计算机控制的控制室中进行操作。他身穿一件T恤，脚蹬运动鞋，反戴着一顶帽子，当他用鼠标控制电站时，看上去还真有点像一个玩电脑游戏的少年。
他正尽量使电站能多发点，同时他也在存储热能以便当云层遮住聚光镜是能够使电站继续工作。他说：“我一整天都在和云层较量。”
在风沙四起的沙漠，182000面聚光镜悄无声息的随着天空的太阳从东边转向西边。
My husband, at 74, is the baby of his bridge group, which includes a woman of 85 and a man of 89. This challenging game demands an excellent memory (for bids, cards played, rules and so on) and an ability to think strategically and read subtle psychological cues. Never having had a head for cards, I continue to be amazed by the mental agility of these septuagenarians and octogenarians.
The brain, like every other part of the body, changes with age, and those changes can impede clear thinking and memory. Yet many older people seem to remain sharp as a tack well into their 80s and beyond.
Although their pace may have slowed, they continue to work, travel, attend plays and concerts, play cards and board games, study foreign languages, design buildings, work with computers, write books, do puzzles, knit or perform other mentally challenging tasks that can befuddle people much younger.
Several studies of normal aging have found that higher levels of educational attainment were associated with slower cognitive and functional decline. But brain stimulation does not have to stop with the diploma. Better-educated people may go on to choose more intellectually demanding occupations and pursue brain-stimulating hobbies, resulting in a form of lifelong learning.
If you're doing the same thing over and over again, without introducing new mental challenges, it won't be beneficial. Thus, as with muscles, it's "use it or lose it." The brain requires continued stresses to maintain or enhance its strength.
Long-term studies in other countries, including Sweden and China, have also found that continued social interactions helped protect against dementia. The more extensive an older person's social network, the better the brain is likely to work. Especially helpful are productive or mentally stimulating activities pursued with other people, like community gardening, taking classes, volunteering or participating in a play-reading group.
Perhaps the most direct route to a fit mind is through a fit body. Just walking fast for 30 to 60 minutes several times a week can help. Even those who start exercising in their 60s cut their risk of dementia in half.
参考译文
我丈夫74岁了，但在他们桥牌协会却还是小朋友级别的，他们协会还有一个85岁的太太和一个89岁的先生。）桥牌这种极具挑战的活动要求玩家具有极好的记忆力（才能记住所叫的点数，出过的牌和规则等）以及从策略角度思考和读懂细微心理暗示的能力。我没有玩桥牌的天赋，所以我一直对那些七八十岁的老年人头脑的灵活性感到惊奇。
大脑和身体其他部位一样，会随着年龄的增长而改变，这些变化会使人的思维和记忆力下降。但是有些老年人尽管已经上了80岁甚至更老，却依然头脑灵活。
尽管他们的步子可能慢一些，但他们依然继续工作、旅游、看戏剧、听音乐会、玩扑克、下棋、学外语、设计建筑、写书、猜谜语、织毛衣或做其它一些费脑力的事情，这些事可能让年轻一些的人都会感到迷惑。
几项关于正常衰老的研究发现受过高层次教育的人的认知能力和身体机能下降的要慢一些。但对大脑的开发并不会因为人们从学校毕业而终止，受过更好教育的人可能更多会选择脑力劳动的职业并形成和智力相关的爱好。从而形成终生学习的生活方式。新颖的事物对防止大脑衰退十分重要，可以给大脑提供新的刺激。
如果你一直在重复做同一件事情，而不增加一些对智力有要求的事，这是没有益处的。这和我们的肌肉一样，“要么常常用，要么没得用”。大脑需要不对的刺激才能保持和增强其活力。
其他国家包括瑞典和中国的长期研究也发现长期持续的社交能够预防老年痴呆。老年人的社交网越广，其大脑就越活跃。那些老年人和其他人一起参与的活动，如社区园艺、上课学习或参加读书会尤其有益。
保持健康的身体也许是保持大脑健康的最直接有效的方法。每个星期散几次步，每次30到60分钟，对身体很有益。即便那些60岁以后才开始锻炼的人也能够将得老年痴呆的风险降低一半。
There was, last week, a glimmer of hope in the world food crisis. Expecting a bumper harvest, Ukraine relaxed restrictions on exports. Overnight, global wheat prices fell by 10 percent.
By contrast, traders in Bangkok quote rice prices around $1,000 a ton, up from $460 two months ago.
Such is the volatility of today's markets. We do not know how high food prices might go, nor how far they could fall. But one thing is certain: We have gone from an era of plenty to one of scarcity. Experts agree that food prices are not likely to return to the levels the world had grown accustomed to any time soon.
Imagine the situation of those living on less than $1 a day - the "bottom billion," the poorest of the world's poor. Most live in Africa, and many might typically spend two-thirds of their income on food.
In Liberia last week, I heard how people have stopped purchasing imported rice by the bag. Instead, they increasingly buy it by the cup, because that's all they can afford.
Traveling though West Africa, I found good reason for optimism. In Burkina Faso, I saw a government working to import drought resistant seeds and better manage scarce water supplies, helped by nations like Brazil. In Ivory Coast, we saw a women's cooperative running a chicken farm set up with UN funds. The project generated income and food for villagers in ways that can easily be replicated.
Elsewhere, I saw yet another women's group slowly expanding their local agricultural production, with UN help. Soon they will replace World Food Program rice with their own home-grown produce, sufficient to cover the needs of their school feeding program.
These are home-grown, grass-roots solutions for grass-roots problems-precisely the kind of solutions that Africa needs.
参考译文
上星期，世界粮食危机出现了一线转机的希望。因预期会获得大丰收，乌克兰放松了出口限制。全球小麦价格一夜间下跌了10％。
然而，曼谷米商每吨大米的报价大约1000美元，而在两个月前，报价是460美元。预计大米价格还会上涨。
这就是目前市场动荡的局面。我们不知道粮食价格将上涨多少，也不知道将下跌多少。但有一点是肯定的：我们已从富足时代进入了匮乏时代。专家们认为，粮食价格近期内不太可能回落到世界已经习以为常的水平。
即使在欧洲富国和美国，消费者也怨声载道。那么，请想像一下每日所得不足一美元的人的境况，这些人是世界穷人中的最贫穷者，是“最下层的十亿人”。他们大都生活在非洲，许多人通常用三分之二的收入购买粮食。
上星期，在利比里亚，我听说人们已不再成袋地买进口大米，而更多地是一杯子一杯子地买，因为他们只买得起一杯子米。
第一个任务是向饥民提供粮食。世界粮食计划署在帮助7300万人。但是，要帮助这些人，世界粮食计划署就需要增加75500万美元的资金才能支付它不断增加的费用。各方已经认捐47500万美元。但是，许诺并不能填饱肚子，粮食计划署现在仅有1800万美元的现金。
我们有能力处理这一危机。我们拥有有关资源，我们知道应该做什么，我们不仅应将这一危机视为问题，而且应将它视为机会。
在走访西非期间，我发现非常有理由感到乐观。在布基纳法索，我看到政府在巴西等国帮助下，努力进口耐旱种子，更好地管理稀缺的水源。
在科特迪瓦，我们参观了一个妇女合作社用联合国资金兴办的养鸡场。该项目为村民提供收入和粮食，很容易推广。在其他地方，我看到另一个妇女团体正在联合国帮助下，缓慢地扩大本地的农业生产。不久，她们将用自己的农产品取代粮食计划署的大米，满足学校供餐方案的需要。
这些都是因地制宜解决基层问题的基层办法，正是非洲需要的。
For a decade, metallurgists studying the hulk of the Titanic have argued that the storied ocean liner went down quickly after hitting an iceberg because the ship's builder used substandard rivets that popped their heads and let tons of icy seawater rush in. More than 1,500 people died.
Now a team of scientists has moved into deeper waters, uncovering evidence in the builder's own archives of a deadly mix of great ambition and use of low-quality iron that doomed the ship, which sank 96 years ago Tuesday.
The scientists found that the ship's builder, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, struggled for years to obtain adequate supplies of rivets and riveters to build the world's three biggest ships at once: the Titanic and two sisters, Olympic and Britannic.
Each required three million rivets, and shortages peaked during Titanic's construction.
"The board was in crisis mode," said Jennifer Hooper McCarty, a member of the team that studied the company's archive and other evidence. "It was constant stress. Every meeting it was, There's problems with the rivets, and we need to hire more people."
The team collected other clues from 48 Titanic rivets, using modern tests, computer simulations, comparisons to century-old metals and careful documentation of what engineers and shipbuilders of the era considered state of the art.
The scientists say the troubles began when the colossal plans forced Harland and Wolff to reach beyond its usual suppliers of rivet iron and include smaller forges, as disclosed in company and British government papers. Small forges tended to have less skill and experience.
Adding to the threat, the company, in buying iron for Titanic's rivets, ordered No. 3 bar, known as "best," not No. 4, known as "best-best," the scientists found. They also discovered that shipbuilders of the day typically used No. 4 iron for anchors, chains and rivets.
So the liner, whose name was meant to be synonymous with opulence, in at least one instance relied on cheap materials.
The scientists argue that better rivets would have probably kept the Titanic afloat long enough for rescuers to have arrived before the icy plunge, saving hundreds of lives.
参考译文
这十年来，对泰坦尼克号船体进行研究的冶金学家一直认为，这艘声名远扬的客轮在撞上冰山后迅速沉没，原因就在于船体使用的劣质铆钉；这些铆钉钉头突出，导致成吨成吨冰冷的海水涌进船体。在这场惨剧中，有1500多人丧生。
现在一组前往深海实地考察的科学家发现了造船者留存的档案材料。从档案中可以看出，造船者雄心勃勃，希望建造巨轮，但使用的建材却是劣质钢铁，这样造出来的泰坦尼克号，在96年前的一个星期二沉入了汪洋大海。
这些科学家还发现，在贝尔法斯特（Belfast），哈尔兰德（Harland）和沃尔夫（Wolff）这两个泰坦尼克号的缔造者那些年来费尽心机，试图买到足够的铆钉，雇到足够的铆工，一次性建造出世界上最大的三艘轮船：泰坦尼克号及其姊妹船--奥林匹克号（Olympic）和大不列颠号（Britannic）。
每艘巨轮需要约3百万颗铆钉，在建造泰坦尼克号的时候，铆钉已经极为匮乏。
“轮船委员会当时处于危机状态，”詹妮弗胡博麦卡迪（Jennifer Hooper McCarty）说，她是研究该公司档案和其他卷宗的小组成员之一。“压力持续不断。每次开会说的都是’铆钉有问题，我们需要更多人手。”
研究小组从泰坦尼克号上搜集而来的48颗铆钉上找到其他线索。他们使用现代手段测试，用电脑模拟实况，将这些铆钉与100年前的金属进行对比，并对当时工程师和造船者公认最先进技术的文字材料进行研究。
科学家们说，在造巨轮的计划迫使哈尔兰德和沃尔夫不得不向固定供应商外的铆钉铁厂家，甚至一些小规模锻造厂寻求货源时，问题就出现了。在公司和英国政府有关档案里都有披露。小锻造厂往往技艺不精，经验不足。
科学家发现更糟的是，该公司在为泰坦尼克号采购铆钉时，订购的是“最好”的三号，而不是“最好中的最好”的四号。当时的造船者在造锚、链条和铆钉时，一般用的是四号。
可以看出，这艘名字寓意“富裕”的客轮，在选用建材上至少一次用了廉价材料。
科学家认为，如果用了质量较好的铆钉，泰坦尼克号可能会在海面漂浮更长时间，能在沉入冰冷的海水之前等到救援人员赶来，救下那几百条人命。
If a heavy reliance on fossil fuels make a country a climate ogre, then Denmark-with its thousands of wind turbines sprinkled on the coastlines and at sea-is living a happy fairy tale.
Viewed from the United States or Asia, Denmark is an environmental role model. The country is "what a global warming solution looks like," wrote Frances Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a letter to the group last autumn. About one-fifth of the country's electricity comes from wind, which wind experts say is the highest proportion of any country.
But a closer look shows that Denmark is a far cry from a clean-energy paradise.
The building of wind turbines has virtually ground to a halt since subsidies were cut back. Meanwhile, compared with others in the European Union, Danes remain above-average emitters of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. For all its wind turbines, a large proportion of the rest of Denmark's power is generated by plants that burn imported coal.
The Danish experience shows how difficult it can be for countries grown rich on fossil fuels to switch to renewable energy sources like wind power. Among the hurdles are fluctuating priorities, the high cost of putting new turbines offshore, concern about public acceptance of large wind turbines and the volatility of the wind itself.
"Europe has really led the way," said Alex Klein, a senior analyst with Emerging Engery Reserch, a consulting firm with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Some parts of western Denmark derive 100 percent of their peak needs from wind if the breeze is up. Germany and Spain generate more power in absolute terms, but in those countries wind still accounts for a far smaller proportion of the electricity generated. The average for all 27 European Union countries is 3 percent.
But the Germans and the Spanish are catching up as Denmark slows down. Of the thousands of megawatts of wind power added last year around the world, only 8 megawatts were installed in Denmark.
If higher subsidies had been maintained, Denmark could now be generating close to one-third – rather than one fifth – of its electricity from windmills.
参考译文
如果说过分依赖矿物燃料会使一个国家变成气候恶化的罪魁，那么，丹麦就是生活在幸福的童话中了。这个国家现有成千上万座风力发电机分布在其海岸及海上。
在美国人和亚洲人眼中，丹麦是环保的楷模。保护自然资源委员会主席弗朗西斯拜内克在去年秋天写给委员会的信中说，丹麦“展示了解决全球变暖问题的途径”。丹麦约有1/5的发电量来源于风力，据风力专家称，这一比例居世界首位。
仔细观察，就会发现丹麦远非清洁能源的天堂。
自补贴减少后，修建风力发电机的工作实际上已陷于停顿。与此同时，和欧盟其他成员国相比，在温室气体二氧化碳排放方面，丹麦仍处于平均水平之上。尽管丹麦拥有相当数量的风力发电机，他所消耗的电力仍主要来源于燃烧进口煤炭的发电厂。
丹麦的经验证明，对使用矿物燃料富裕起来的国家而言，改用如风能这样的再生能源会有多么困难。问题包括关注重点的变化、在海上新建风力发电机的高昂费用、对公众是否接受大型风力发电机的担心、以及变化无常的风力等等。
没过马萨诸塞州坎布里奇市一家名为“新兴能源研究”的咨询公司的高级分析师亚历克斯克莱因说，“欧洲的确处于领先地位”。
在丹麦西部某些地区，如果风大，风力发电足以百分之百的保证其高峰时的用电量。就绝对数量而言，德国和西班牙的发电量超过丹麦，但风力发电在其总发电量中所占的比例却小得多。欧盟27个成员国的平均水平是3%。
当丹麦放慢步伐时，德国人和西班牙人正在赶上来。在去年全球新增的数千兆瓦风电装机容量中，丹麦只有8兆瓦。
如果当时丹麦坚持执行其高补贴政策，他目前的风力发电量就会接近其总发电量的1/3，而不是现在的1/5。
One day in February 1926, an unknown American writer walked out of a New York snowstorm and into history. An important piece of that history is now in danger of being lost forever, caught in the controversy over the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
The unknown writer was Ernest Hemingway, and the office he walked into was that of Maxwell Perkins, the most famous American literary editor of his day.
It is difficult to conceive-80 years and an incandescent literary career later-the idea of publishing the 26-year-old Hemingway was a big risk. Hemingway had not yet published a novel. Indeed, his only published fiction consisted of a few short stories and poems, mostly in obscure Paris literary journals.
Yet Mr. Perkins-as Hemingway was to call him for years afterwards, even after they had become close friends-took the risk. On the spot, he offered Hemingway a deal that included a generous US$1,500 advance on an unfinished, unnamed novel that Perkins had not even seen.
Hemingway and Perkins began correspondence that lasted for 21 years, until Perkins's death in 1947. A number of those letters are now housed in Cuba, at Finca Vigia, or Lookout Farm, where Hemingway lived longer than anywhere else.
But the house is in danger of collapse. It has been called a preservation emergency by experts: It is in such bad shape that the next hurricane could blow it away.
A group of Americans is trying to save the house and its contents. Yet the U.S. government won't let them. The Treasury Department has turned down the Hemingway Preservation Foundation's application for a license to permit its architects, engineers and consultants to travel to Cuba to research a feasibility study to help the Cubans save Finca Vigia. This denial, which is contrary to the letter and spirit of the law, is being appealed.
参考译文
1926年2月某日，一位名不见经传的美国作家在纽约冒着暴风雪来到了一个后来将他载入文学史册的地方。如今这段历史很重要的一章正濒临永远消失的危险，因为他陷入了一场有关美国对古巴实行贸易禁运的争论之中。
这位名不见经传的作家就是欧内瓦特海明威，他所到之处就是马克思威尔伯金斯的办公室，伯金斯是当时美国最著名的文学编辑。
80年过去了，一段辉煌的文学生涯也早已结束。现在很难想象当时决定出版26岁的海明威的作品要冒很大的风险。当时海明威还从未发表过一部小说。实际上，他只发表过几篇短篇小说和几首诗，而且大多数发表在巴黎几家毫无名气的文学刊物上。
然而，伯金斯先生--在此后数年中，海明威一直这样称呼他，甚至在他们成了密友之后也是如此--还是冒了个这个险。虽然这不他连看都没看过的小说还未写完，书名也未定，但他当即决定于海明威签约，并慷慨地预付了1500美元稿酬。
海明威和伯金斯开始了长达21年之久的书信往来，知道1947年伯金斯去世为止。有些信件现保存在古巴的芬卡维基亚--意思是“瞭望农场”--的一所住宅里，这是海明威居住时间最长的地方。
但是现在这所房子濒临倒塌。专家们称之为务须保护的建筑，因为他的状况极差，再来一次飓风就会把它刮倒。
一些美国人正设法抢救这所房子和内部的东西。但是，美国政府却加以阻挠。海明威保护基金会曾申请准许其建筑师、工程师及顾问赴古巴进行可行性研究，以便协助古巴人抢救瞭望农场。这一申请遭到美国财政部的拒绝。这违背了法律的条文和精神，有关人士正为此而上诉。
When it comes to the retail business, Chantal Voisin, an umbrella merchant in Paris, has a theory: When it rains, it pours.
One recent Friday afternoon not a single person set foot in Simon, her store on the Boulevard St. Michel. Then, two hours before closing, people started trickling in and she sold more than she had all week.
Voisin, who is 61, has been making and selling high-end umbrellas since 1958. Her tiny business stands the moods of a fickle public, but she said that if it were not for the store's reputation, she did not know how she would make it.
"Umbrellas alone don't bring in the bread," Voisin said, "it's our name."
Her grandfather opened the store in 1897, when the umbrella was essential to the wardrobe and lifestyle of every young lady or dandy.
But if even several decades ago people coordinated their outfits to the last button, today they want one single, all-purpose umbrella. It should be black, and it had better be cheap.
Stepping into her store, whose ceiling is vaulted like an open umbrella, one may understand why she considers such fashion sloth a grave offense. Sprouting from baskets and lining the walls, there is such a variety of umbrellas. Some are dark and dignified, and others have ruffles around the rim, folded like bouquets of flowers.
The umbrellas run from €13, or $17, for the most basic to a very large black model with a silvered handle for €320. Who would spend so much on an umbrella? "I have no idea," Voisin said. "I ordered it because it was so beautiful." With street hawkers selling flimsy foldies outside and shoppers rustling price tags the moment they step inside, Voisin maintains that her products are relevant in a world where few are willing to spend more than €5 on portable shelter.
"What I stand for: design, quality, creation, composition, the elegance of an umbrella," she said. "Butthat's so fragile."
参考译文
说起零售业，巴黎一家三点的老板尚塔尔瓦暂有她自己的一套理论：不雨则已，一雨倾盆。
他在圣米歇尔大街经营一家名叫西蒙的伞店。不久前的一个星期五，整个下午，店内无人光顾。然而，馆门前两小时顾客纷纷而来，那天她卖掉的伞比她一周卖得还多。
现年61岁的瓦赞从1958年起就制作并出售高档伞。他的小店经受了顾客品位不断变化的考验。不过她说要不是伞店的声誉好，她不知怎样才能坚持下来。
“光靠卖伞是难以糊口的”，瓦赞说。“靠的是我们的名气”。
这三点是他祖父1897年开办的，当时在每一位千金小姐或公子哥儿的服饰和生活方式中，伞是必不可少的。
但是，如果说几十年前人们讲究装束搭配细致入微，今天人们就只需要一把多用伞。这伞是要黑色的，最好还要便宜一些。
走进西蒙伞店，你救护明白店主为什么对时下的不讲究如此反感。三点那半圆形的天花板就像一把张开的伞，店内品种繁多，有的伞插在篮子里，有的挂在周围的墙上：深色的显得庄重，镶花边的合起来像一捧捧花束。
店里一般的伞起家13欧元，合17美元。一把特大的、装有镀银柄的黑伞标价则高达320欧元。
谁肯花这么多钱买把伞呢？“我不知道，”瓦赞说。“因为它太漂亮了，我就订了货”。
尽管街上的小贩在外面兜售劣质折叠伞，尽管顾客们一进门就翻看价签，瓦赞依然认为她的产品还是有销路的，虽然现在极少数人肯买超过5欧元的伞。
“我将就伞的设计、质量、创意、材料和品位，”瓦赞说。“不过这不太容易了”。
ONE DAY in February 1926 an unknown American writer walked out of a New York snowstorm and into history. An important piece of that history is now in danger of being lost forever, caught in the controversy over the US trade embargo against Cuba.
The unknown writer was Ernest Hemingway, and the New York office he walked into was that of Maxwell Perkins, the most famous American literary editor of his day.
It is difficult to conceive-80 years and an incandescent literary career later-the idea of publishing the 26-year-old Hemingway was a big risk. Hemingway had not yet published a novel. Indeed, his only published fiction consisted of a few short stories and poems, mostly in obscure Paris literary journals.
Yet Mr. Perkins, as Hemingway was to call him for years afterwards, even after they had become close friends, took the risk. On the spot, he offered Hemingway a deal included a generous $1,500 advance on an unfinished, unnamed novel that Perkins had not even seen.
Hemingway and Perkins began a correspondence that lasted for 21 years, until Perkins's death in 1947. A number of those letters are now housed in Cuba, at Finca Vigia, where Hemingway lived longer than anywhere else.
But the house is in danger of collapse.
A group of Americans is trying to save the house and its contents. Yet the US government won't let them.
The Treasury Department recently turned down the Hemingway Preservation Foundation's application for a license to permit its architects, engineers, and consultants to travel to Cuba to research a feasibility study to help the Cubans save Finca Vigia. This denial, which is contrary to the letter and spirit of the law, is being appealed.
参考译文
1926年2月的一天，一位不知名的美国作家走出了纽约的暴风雪，也走进了历史。但是，由于陷入美国向古巴禁运的争议之中，这段历史中一个重要的事物目前面临永久消失威胁。
这位不知名的作家就是厄内斯特·海明威，而他走进的纽约办公室正是那个时代最著名的文学编辑麦克斯韦尔帕金斯的办公室。
很难想象，活到80岁，职业生涯晚期拥有辉煌文学成就的海明威，在他26岁时，要出版他的作品是要冒很大风险的。之前海明威从来没出版过小说。事实上，他出版过的小说也仅有一些短篇故事和诗歌，大部分还发表在晦涩难懂的巴黎文学期刊上。
然而，帕金斯先生承担了这个风险，尽管海明威很久之后再联系他，即便是在他们成为亲密的朋友之后。他当场就给海明威达成一笔交易，包括对一本尚未完成，没有书名，甚至帕金森本人都没看过一眼的小说支付了一笔1500美元的预付款。
海明威和帕金斯从第一次通信开始一直保持了21年书信往来，直至1947年帕金斯与世长辞。其中大量的信件都保存在古巴的Finca Vigia，海明威在那里待的时间最长。
但是这件屋子面临着倒塌的危险。
一群美国人试图拯救这间屋子和里面的信件，但是美国政府不让他们这么做。
美国财政部最近拒绝了海明威维护协会的申请，该协会在申请中要求允许该协会的建筑师，工程师和咨询人员到古巴进行可行性研究来帮助古巴人民拯救Finca Vigia。由于这一否决违反了法律条文和精神，正受到起诉。
Milton Friedman, Free Markets Theorist, Dies at 94. Milton Friedman, the grandmaster of free-market economic theory in the postwar era and a prime force in the movement of nations toward less government and greater reliance on individual responsibility, died today in San Francisco, where he lived. He was 94.
Conservative and liberal colleagues alike viewed Mr. Friedman, a Nobel prize laureate, as one of the 20th century's leading economic scholars, on a par with giants like John Maynard Keynes and Paul Samuelson.
Flying the flag of economic conservatism, Mr. Friedman led the postwar challenge to the hallowed theories of Lord Keynes, the British economist who maintained that governments had a duty to help capitalistic economies through periods of recession and to prevent boom times from exploding into high inflation.
In Professor Friedman's view, government had the opposite obligation: to keep its hands off the economy, to let the free market do its work.
The only economic lever that Mr. Friedman would allow government to use was the one that controlled the supply of money - a monetarist view that had gone out of favor when he embraced it in the 1950s. He went on to record a signal achievement, predicting the unprecedented combination of rising unemployment and rising inflation that came to be called stagflation. His work earned him the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1976.
Rarely, his colleagues said, did anyone have such impact on both his own profession and on government. Though he never served officially in the halls of power, he was always around them, as an adviser and theorist.
"Among economic scholars, Milton Friedman had no peer," Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, said today. "The direct and indirect influences of his thinking on contemporary monetary economics would be difficult to overstate."
Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said of Mr. Friedman in an interview on Tuesday. "From a longer-term point of view, it's his academic achievements which will have lasting import. But I would not dismiss the profound impact he has already had on the American public's view."
Mr. Friedman had a gift for communicating complicated ideas in simple and lucid ways, and it served him well as the author or co-author of more than a dozen books, as a columnist for Newsweek from 1966 to 1983 and even as the star of a public television series.
参考译文
战后自由市场经济理论大师，减少政府干预，增强个人责任的全国运动中的领军人物米尔顿·弗里德曼 于今日在他所居住的旧金山市去世，享年94岁。
保守党和自由党的同僚都将弗里德曼，这位诺贝尔奖获得者视为20世纪最伟大的经济学者之一，是一位可以与约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯和保尔·塞缪尔森比肩的巨人。
弗里德曼高举经济保守主义的大旗，在战后对经济学家凯恩斯提出的神圣不可侵犯的理论进行挑战。这位英国经济学家认为政府有责任帮助资本主义经济度过经济衰退期；在经济繁荣期，防止过高的通货膨胀。
在弗里德曼教授看来，政府的职责刚好相反：不要插手经济，让自由市场自行运转。
弗里德曼允许政府使用唯一的经济杠杆是控制货币的供应量--当他于20世纪50年代大力提倡时，货币主义者认为这已经过时了。而他却取得了显著的成就，预测到失业人口和通货膨胀不断上升，以及两者前所未有的结合将引起滞胀。他的这一成就为他赢得了1976年诺贝尔经济学奖。
他的同僚认为很少有人能对自己的职业和政府都产生这样大的影响。尽管弗里德曼从未真正参政，但作为一名顾问和理论学家，他从未远离过政治。
美联储主席本·S·伯南克今天则说：“没有哪位经济学家可以和米尔顿·弗里德曼相提并论。他的思想对当代货币经济学有着直接或间接的影响，而这些影响是很难估算的。”
美联储前任主席阿兰·格林斯潘在周二的一次访谈中谈到弗里德曼：“从长远来看，他的学术成就将有更为长远的影响，不过我不否认他对美国大众的想法已经产生了深远影响。”
弗里德曼有一种天赋，他能用简单 明了的方式表达复杂的思想。作为出过十几本书的作者或者合著者，作为1966年到1983年《新闻周刊》的专栏作家，作为大众电视节目的明星，这种天赋让他如鱼得水。
Panama goes to polls on upgrade for canal
PANAMA CITY:
Voters were expected Sunday to approve the largest modernization project in the 92-year history of the Panama Canal, a $5.25 billion plan to expand the waterway to allow for larger ships while alleviating traffic problems.
The government of President Martín Torrijos has billed the referendum as historic, saying the work would double the capacity of a canal already on pace to generate about $1.4 billion in revenue this year. Critics claim the expansion would benefit the canal's customers more than Panamanians, and worry that costs could balloon, forcing this debt- ridden country to borrow even more.
The project would build a third set of locks on the Pacific and Atlantic ends of the canal by 2015, allowing it to handle modern container ships, cruise liners and tankers too large for its locks, which are 33 meters, or 108 feet, wide.
The Panama Canal Authority, the autonomous government agency that runs the canal, says the project would be paid for by increasing tolls and would generate $6 billion in revenue by 2025.
There is nothing Panamanians are more passionate about than the canal.
"It's incomparable in the hemisphere," said Samuel Lewis Navarro, the country's vice president and foreign secretary. "It's in our heart, part of our soul."
Public opinion polls indicate that the plan would be approved overwhelmingly. Green and white signs throughout the country read "Yes for our children," while tens of thousands of billboards and bumper stickers trumpet new jobs.
"The canal needs you," television and radio ads implore.
"It will mean more boats, and that means more jobs," said Damasco Polanco, who was herding cows on horseback in Nuevo Provedencia, on the banks of Lake Gatún, an artificial reservoir that supplies water to the canal.
The canal employs 8,000 workers and the expansion is expected to generate as many as 40,000 new jobs. Unemployment in Panama is 9.5 percent, and 40 percent of the country lives in poverty.
But critics fear that the expansion could cost nearly double the government's estimate, as well as stoke corruption and uncontrolled debt.
"The poor continue to suffer while the rich get richer," said José Felix Castillo, 62, a high school teacher who was one of about 3,000 supporters who took to Panama City's streets to protest the measure on Friday.
Lewis Navarro noted that a portion of the revenue generated by each ton of cargo that passes through the waterway goes to education and social programs.
"We aren't talking about 40 percent poverty as a consequence of the canal," he said. "It's exactly the opposite."
参考译文
巴拿马城：政府希望选民在周日投票通过有92年历史之久的巴拿马运河最大的现代化工程，一个耗资$52.5亿方案来扩建航道以便于更大的轮船通过，并缓解交通问题。
Martin Torrijos总统政府宣称此次公投具有历史性的重大意义，此项工程将使运河的容载量在现有基础上增加一倍，并在当年产生$14亿的收入。批评者则认为这项工程给过往商客所带来的好处要多于巴拿马居民，而且担心工程花费会上升，迫使这个已经债务缠身的国家更多地去借贷。
到2015年，此工程将在运河的太平洋端和大西洋端建立第三组船闸，让它能够适应那些对现宽33米/108英尺的船闸过大的现代集装箱货船、客船和油轮。
巴拿马运河官方，管理运河的自治官方机构说此工程费用将通过增加通行费支付，此收入到2025年将达$60亿。
巴拿马人最热衷的莫过于运河了。“运河在这个半球是无与伦比的，它就在我们心中，是我们灵魂的一部分。”国家副总统兼外交秘书塞缪尔·刘易斯·纳维拉说。
民意测验显示，此方案将以压倒性优势获得通过。遍及全国的白绿标语写着“为了我们的孩子说是”,同时数以万计的广告牌保险杠贴纸都在宣传新的工作机会。
“运河需要你。”电视和电台广告请求道。
“这将意味着更多的船只，而这则意味着更多的工作。”达马斯扣·波兰可说，他曾在地处噶腾湖边的纽窝·普罗文登斯山脊上骑马牧过牛，噶腾湖是给运河供水的人工水库。
运河现有8千名雇工，预计扩建将会产生多达4万份新工作。巴拿马的失业率是9.5%，且国家有40%的贫困人口。
但批评者担心扩建可能会耗费双倍的国家预算，可能也会助长腐败和无节制的贷款。
“穷人依然在受苦，而富人却原来越富有。” 62岁的高中老师杰斯·费利克斯·卡斯蒂略这样说，他是周五到巴拿马城街道抗议此举措的3000拥护者之一。
刘易斯·纳维拉表示通过航道的每一吨货物所产生收益的一部分将用于教育和社会项目。“我们不是在说运河而导致了40%的贫困人口”他说“恰恰相反（运河能够消除这40%的贫困人口）”。
Strolling beside Amsterdam's oldest canals, where buildings carry dates like 1541 and 1603, it is easy to imagine the city's prosperity in the 17th century. Replace today's bicycles and cars with horse-drawn carts, add more barges on the waterways, and this is essentially how Amsterdam must have looked to Rembrandt as he did his rounds of wealthy merchants.
Such musings are not, of course, unprompted. This year, Amsterdam is celebrating the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth, and it is hard to escape his shadow. His birthplace in Leiden, 20 miles south, has naturally organized its own festivities. But Amsterdam has two advantages: it boasts the world's largest Rembrandt collection - and tourists like to come here anyway.
True, anniversaries can be pretty corny, but what city resists them? This year, Amsterdam is competing with Salzburg, where Mozart was born 250 years ago, and Aix-en-Provence, where Cézanne died a century ago. A sign in Amsterdam's tourist office by the Central Station hints at one motive for such occasions: "Buy your Rembrandt products here."
Still, if you start off by liking Rembrandt, as I do, there is much to discover. For instance, when in Amsterdam I always make a point of paying homage to the Rembrandt masterpieces in the Rijksmuseum, yet until now I had never bothered to visit Rembrandt House, where the painter lived from 1639 until driven out by bankruptcy in 1658. In brief, I had never much connected his art to his person.
Now, at least, I have made a stab at doing so because, for this anniversary (he was born on July 15, 1606), Amsterdam has organized a host of events that offer insights into Rembrandt's world. They highlight not only what is known about his life, but also the people he painted and the city he lived in from the age of 25 until his death at 63 in 1669.
Although the Rijksmuseum is undergoing a massive renovation through 2009, the museum is not snubbing its favorite son. Throughout the year, in part of the building to be renovated last, it is presenting some 400 paintings and other 17th-century objects representing the Golden Age in which Rembrandt prospered. These include works by Jan Steen, Vermeer and Frans Hals as well as by Rembrandt and his pupils. And they climax with Rembrandt's largest and best known oil, "The Night Watch," itself the focus of "Nightwatching," a light and sound installation by the British movie director and Amsterdam resident, Peter Greenaway.
参考译文
徜徉于最古老的阿姆斯特丹（荷兰首都）运河，周围建筑物大都是1541和1603年建造的，这让人不禁想象早在17世纪这个城市繁华的样子。那时候都是马车运货，还没有现在的自行车、汽车；河道上驳船数目也要比现在多很多。伦布兰特（荷兰画家）在阿姆斯特丹同有钱商人进行交易，在他眼里阿姆斯特丹就是这个样子。
当然，在此产生这类遐想并非自发的，因为今年，在阿姆斯特丹举行了伦布兰特的400周年纪念日，因此很难脱离他的光环。他的出生地莱顿市（荷兰西部城市），位于南部20英里处，那里自然会为伦布兰特举办属于他的欢庆。不过，在阿姆斯特丹举行诞辰庆典更具有优势，它以拥有世界上最多的伦布兰特收藏品为豪，而且，不管怎么说，游客们都很喜欢来这个地方。
举办诞辰庆典并无新意，这点无法否认，不过，城市又能左右什么？今年，同萨尔斯堡（奥地利城市）这个250年前莫扎特诞生地一起，阿姆斯特丹完成了莫扎特的诞辰庆典。在普罗旺斯地区艾克斯（法国城市名）这个塞尚（法国艺术家）1个世纪前去世的地方举办了属于他的庆典。位于中心电站处的阿姆斯特丹旅游办公室就萌发了举办这类活动的想法：在此畅心购买你所喜爱的伦布兰特作品吧！
要是你像我似的开始喜欢上伦布兰特，就会发现那儿还有许多待发现了解之处。举个例子，我在阿姆斯特丹的时候，常常对国家博物馆展放的伦布兰特杰作产生景仰之情，尽管直到现在我都懒得去伦布兰特住宅参观，画家从1639年开始在那里居住，1658年由于破产而被驱逐出去。简单地说，就是我在很大程度上无法将他的艺术作品同他本人相挂钩。
可是如今，由于此次诞辰庆典（伦布兰特出生于1606年7月15日）的缘故，我至少已经开始尝试着了解他了。阿姆斯特丹在此举行了一系列的活动，给人们提供了走近伦布兰特了解他的机会。活动突出的不仅仅是众所周知的伦布兰特身世，还包括了他绘画中的那些人们以及从他25岁起到1669年63岁去世期间所居住的城市。
2009年期间，国家博物馆曾大规模修缮，尽管如此，伦布兰特依旧是博物馆的掌上明珠，未受到任何冷落。在这一年中，部分博物馆建筑经过最后一次修复建设，展示了大约400幅油画以及标示着伦布兰特在鼎盛时期走向成功的物品，这些当中包括斯特恩，扬、维梅尔、弗朗斯·霍斯以及伦布兰特和他的学生的作品。这些作品同伦布兰特最大最著名的油画“守夜人”一起达到了艺术的高潮。“守夜人”这幅油画主要是关于守夜人的，是由阿姆斯特丹居民兼英国电影导演---彼得·格林纳威来为其设计灯光声音的。
The arsenal of antibiotics strong enough to squelch nasty bacteria is rapidly dwindling worldwide, which makes worried infectious-disease doctors more intent than ever that the drugs be deployed only when strictly needed.
These specialists know that every antibiotic carries its own risks, and that the more frequently and broadly a drug is used, the more likely it is that harmful microbes will develop tricks to sidestep it. But a team of researchers in the Netherlands, where a more selective use of antibiotics has led to much lower levels of resistant bacteria than are circulating in the United States, thinks the medical finger-waggers have not gone far enough.
"As doctors, we've paid a lot of attention to questions of which antibiotics we should use to treat what sorts of infections, but have focused much less on how long that treatment should last," said Dr. Jan Prins of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam.
In a small but provocative study published in the June 10 issue of the British medical journal BMJ, Dr. Prins and colleagues from nine hospitals suggested that even some cases of pneumonia - a potentially life-threatening disease - could be treated with a three-day course of antibiotics, rather than the conventional 7- to 10-day treatment.
The Dutch study analyzed the cure rates of 186 adults who had been hospitalized with mild to moderately severe pneumonia. All received three days of intravenous amoxicillin to start. After that, the 119 who were showing substantial improvement were randomly divided into two groups; about half continued with another five-day course of oral amoxicillin, and the others got look-alike sugar pills. Neither the patients nor the doctors knew who was getting which treatment until the end of their participation in the study.
By the end of treatment, roughly 89 percent of the patients in each group were cured of their lung infections without further intervention. In a commentary accompanying the study, Dr. John Paul, a microbiologist at Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, England, writes that, at least for a subset of patients with uncomplicated, community-acquired pneumonia, the finding "suggests that current guidelines recommending 7-10 days should be revised."
As lead investigator of the Dutch study, Dr. Prins was not ready to go quite that far. He cited the study's small size and the seriousness of the illness as a reason to wait until the finding is independently replicated before advising a wholesale change in practice.
参考译文
全球范围内，关于大量使用抗生素以消灭可恶的细菌的说法正快速失势，这引起了治疗传染病医生的担心，他们比以前更加关注药物在急需时的使用情况。
这些专科医生知道每种抗生素都存在风险。一种抗生素，使用越频繁，越广泛，那么有害的微生物越有可能耍花招，避开它的影响。不过荷兰的一组研究人员认为人们对医学的认识还有待提高，与美国周而复始地使用抗生素不同，荷兰对于抗生素的使用更有选择性，这样细菌的抵抗力就更弱。
阿姆斯特丹学术医学中心的简·普润思医生说：“对医生而言，我们把精力大都放到了何种感染病应该使用何种抗生素治疗，而很少关注治疗的疗程。”
7月10号版的英国医疗杂志发表了一篇篇幅小却颇具煽动性的研究报告，其中普润思医生和9家医院的其他医生认为对于肺炎这种对生命存在潜在威胁的疾病而言，有一些仍可以用抗生素进行为期3天的治疗，而不需用7－10天的传统方法治疗。
荷兰的这项研究对186名成人的肺炎治愈率进行了分析，这些人都住在医院，而且患有比较严重的肺炎，治疗前三天都接受了阿莫西林的静脉注射。之后，将出现明显好转的119名患者随机分为2组；其中一组继续进行另一项为期5天的疗程--口服阿莫西林，而另一组则口服糖衣药片之类的药品。研究结束前，患者和医生都不知道哪组进行的哪项治疗。
治疗结束后，每组中大约89％的肺炎患者得到治愈，无需接受进一步的治疗。在同时进行的另一项评论性研究中，英国布莱顿苏塞克斯医院的微生物学家约翰·保尔医生写道--至少对一部分没有并发症的社区获得性肺炎病人来说，现行的7－10天的治疗方案要做调整。
作为这项研究的首席研究员，普润思医生还不准备这么做。他认为应该等到这一研究再次被独立验证后，才建议对治疗进行大的变更，原因是他所作的研究范围较小，而且肺炎的危害程度不大。
This week and next, governments, international agencies and nongovernmental organizations are gathering in Mexico City at the World Water Forum to discuss the legacy of global Mulhollandism in water-and to chart a new course.
They could hardly have chosen a better location. Water is being pumped out of the aquifer on which Mexico City stands at twice the rate of replenishment. The result: the city is subsiding at the rate of about half a meter every decade. You can see the consequences in the cracked cathedrals, the tilting Palace of Arts and the broken water and sewerage pipes.
Every region of the world has its own variant of the water crisis story. The mining of ground waters for irrigation has lowered the water table in parts of India and Pakistan by 30 meters in the past three decades. As water goes down, the cost of pumping goes up, undermining the livelihoods of poor farmers.
What is driving the global water crisis? Physical availability is part of the problem. Unlike oil or coal, water is an infinitely renewable resource, but it is available in a finite quantity. With water use increasing at twice the rate of population growth, the amount available per person is shrinking - especially in some of the poorest countries.
Challenging as physical scarcity may be in some countries, the real problems in water go deeper. The 20th-century model for water management was based on a simple idea: that water is an infinitely available free resource to be exploited, dammed or diverted without reference to scarcity or sustainability.
Across the world, water-based ecological systems - rivers, lakes and watersheds - have been taken beyond the frontiers of ecological sustainability by policy makers who have turned a blind eye to the consequences of over- exploitation.
We need a new model of water management for the 21st century. What does that mean? For starters, we have to stop using water like there's no tomorrow-and that means using it more efficiently at levels that do not destroy our environment. The buzz-phrase at the Mexico Water forum is "integrated water resource management." What it means is that governments need to manage the private demand of different users and manage this precious resource in the public interest.
参考译文
从本周到下周，各国政府、国际机构和非政府组织将齐聚墨西哥城，参与世界水论坛，讨论全球形式化治水的遗留问题，并为此制定新的解决方案。
这里作为论坛的举办地点再合适不过了。从墨西哥城基下的土层中，地下水正被源源不断地抽取出来，而补给同等水量需要两倍的时间。这导致墨西哥城不断下沉，速度约为每年0.05米。城市设施由此而受到破坏，随处可见布满裂纹的教堂，摇摇欲坠的美术馆和破裂的供排水管道。
世界各地水危机的形式各不相同。为了灌溉而对地下水进行开采，使得印度和巴基斯坦部分地区的地下水位30年下降了30米。随着水位的下降，抽水的成本也在上升，贫困农民的生计更加艰难。
是什么促使了全球水危机的发生？水的便于取用是一个方面。不同于石油和煤炭，水可以被无限循环再生，但是可供取用的水资源是有限的。全球用水量正以两倍于人口增长率的速度持续增长，人均水资源占有量也在缩减。在那些特别贫困的国家，这一问题尤其突出。
水资源的短缺可能让某些国家难于对付，真正的治水难题却有着更深刻的背景。20世纪的水资源管理模式源于一种简单观念：水是一种取之不竭的资源。人们可以对它随意取用、截流改道而不必付出代价，也无需考虑水源短缺或是可持续性利用的问题。
世界各地的许多政府决策者忽视了过度开发水资源带来的后果，把依赖水存在的生态系统 河流，湖泊和分水岭划到了生态环境可持续发展的体系之外。
21世纪需要新的水资源管理模式。这意味着什么呢？首先必须停止对水源肆无忌惮的浪费。就是说，我们要更加有效和适度地利用水资源，不对环境造成破坏。“水资源综合管理”是本届水论坛提出的新名词，其涵义是政府需要控制不同个体的用水需求量，并从公共利益出发来管理这种宝贵资源。
John Kenneth Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist, teacher and diplomat, died Saturday at a hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 97.
Mr. Galbraith was one of the most widely read authors in the history of economics; among his 33 books was "The Affluent Society" (1958), one of those rare works that forces a nation to re-examine its values. He wrote fluidly, even on complex topics, and many of his compelling phrases - among them "the affluent society," "conventional wisdom" and "countervailing power" - became part of the language.
An imposing presence, lanky and angular at 6 feet 8 inches tall, Mr. Galbraith was consulted frequently by national leaders, and he gave advice freely, though it may have been ignored as often as it was taken. Mr. Galbraith clearly preferred taking issue with the conventional wisdom he distrusted. Mr. Galbraith, a revered lecturer for generations of Harvard students, nonetheless always commanded attention.
From the 1930"s to the 1990"s Mr. Galbraith helped define the terms of the national political debate, influencing both the direction of the Democratic Party and the thinking of its leaders.
He tutored Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956, on Keynesian economics. He advised President John F. Kennedy (often over lobster stew at the Locke-Ober restaurant in their beloved Boston) and served as his ambassador to India.
Though he eventually broke with President Lyndon B. Johnson over the war in Vietnam, he helped conceive of Mr. Johnson's Great Society program and wrote a major presidential address that outlined its purposes. In 1968, pursuing his opposition to the war, he helped Senator Eugene J. McCarthy seek the Democratic nomination for president.
In the course of his long career, he undertook a number of government assignments, including the organization of price controls in World War II and speechwriting for Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson.
He drew on his experiences in government to write three satirical novels. He took on the Harvard economics department with "A Tenured Professor," ridiculing, among others, a certain outspoken character who bore no small resemblance to himself.
At his death, Mr. Galbraith was the emeritus professor of economics at Harvard, where he had taught for most of his career. A popular lecturer, he treated economics as an aspect of society and culture rather than as an arcane discipline of numbers.
参考译文
反传统的经济学家、教育家以及外交家约翰肯·格贝斯先生于周六在马萨诸塞州剑桥医院去世，享年97岁。
在经济学历史上，格贝斯先生的著作有着大量的读者。在他的33部著作当中，1958年出版的《富裕社会》是一本为数不多的能促使一个国家重新监视其价值的著作。即便是一些复杂的议题，他也能够文思泉涌。其中他的很多有说服力的的句子早已成为语言文化的一部分，例如“富裕社会”、“传统智慧”“抵消力量”。
身材瘦长高6尺8的格贝斯先生的出现总是让人难以忘怀。许多国家领导人经常就一些问题咨询格贝斯先生，虽然他给出的建议有近一半被忽略，但他还是非常乐意给出建议。格贝斯先生喜欢用连他自己都不信任的传统智慧来思考问题。
格贝斯先生是受多届哈佛学生尊敬的讲师，值得我们经常地关注。
从20世纪30年代到90年代，格贝斯先生重新界定了国家政治辩论的条件，这一界定同时影响了民主党及其领导者的思路。
他曾经辅导两度被提名为民主党总统候选人的埃尔E.斯蒂温逊凯恩斯经济学。他曾经是约翰·F·肯尼迪总统的顾问（通常是在他们深爱的波士顿Locke-Ober餐馆，一边吃着焖龙虾）并且出任肯尼迪政府的驻印度大使。
尽管最终因为对越南战争分歧，格贝斯与林顿B.约翰逊总统关系破裂，但是他还帮助约翰逊先生构思了伟大社会项目并且撰写了总统施政纲领及其主要内容。在反战思想的推动下，1968年他积极帮助参议员Eugene J. McCarthy争取民主党总统候选人的提名。
在他漫长的职业生涯中，格贝斯曾多次接受政府的任命，其中包括在二战期间的价格控制组织，为弗兰克林D.罗斯福、肯尼迪和约翰逊三位总统撰写演讲稿。并且他还以自己在中政府工作的经验出版了小说“《终身教授》，与其其他作品相比，该小说充满了讽刺意味，描写了一位与他毫不相似的一个直爽的人物形象。
直至去世，格贝斯先生一直是终身执教的哈佛大学经济学荣誉教授。作为一个颇受欢迎的讲师，他认为经济学是社会和文化的一部分而不是神秘的数字规则。
Passage 27
LAST week, Indonesia announced its 43rd human death from bird flu. It has now recorded more fatalities than any other nation, and in stark contrast to all other countries its death toll is climbing regularly. It looks as though things will get worse before they get better.
The Indonesian government claims to be committed to fighting the disease, caused by the H5N1 virus, but it does not seem to want to spend much of its own money doing so. After the international community pledged $900m in grants and slightly more in very soft loans to combat the spread of bird flu globally and to help nations prepare for a possible human flu pandemic[2], Indonesia put in a request for the full $900m-all of it in grants.
A national bird-flu commission was created in March to co-ordinate the country's response but it has yet to be given a budget. Its chief, meanwhile, has just been given a second full-time job-heading efforts to rebuild the part of Java devastated by an earthquake in May.
Observers say that the available money is being mis-spent, with the focus on humans rather than on animals. The agriculture ministry, for example, is asking for less money for next year than it got this year. This is despite hundreds of thousands of hens dying every month, to say nothing of infected cats, quails, pigs and ducks. Farmers are being compensate at only 2,000 rupiah (21 cents) per bird, well below market price, thereby discouraging them from reporting outbreaks. The country's veterinary surveillance services are inadequate. Pledges to vaccinate hundreds of millions of birds have not been met.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation is starting to establish local disease-control centres to cope with the effects of a virulent mutation, should one occur, but reckons that only one-third of the country will be covered by year's end. A bunch of international do-gooders that is trying to plug some of the gaps is finding it hard to raise money.
参考译文
印尼上周宣布第43人死于禽流感。它的死亡纪录现已超过其它任何一个国家，并且与其它各国形成鲜明对比的是它的死亡人数还在不断攀升。现在看来，情况似乎不但未见好转，反而愈发地糟糕。
虽然印尼政府声称有责任与这一由H5N1型病毒所致的疾病作斗争，但是它似乎并不希望为此投入很多资金。国际社会承诺捐款9亿美金，同时提供更多数额的超低息贷款（译注：软贷款是指借款国可用本国软货币偿还的贷款。软货币即软通货，如纸币，区别于硬通货如黄金。此类贷款利息很低，主要用于帮助别人），以阻止禽流感在全球扩散，并帮助各国做好可能发生的人流感大范围流行的防范准备，可是此后印尼竟然要求将全部9亿美金据为己有--而且全部以捐款的形式。
今年3月，印尼成立了全国禽流感委员会，旨在协调本国应急工作，不过其所需专项资金至今仍未到位。其间，该委员会主席正好又被安排了第二份专职工作--负责遭5月份地震毁坏的爪哇岛部分地区灾后重建工作。（译注：此段是指"虽然有了组织机构，但由于缺乏资金以及有关领导无法专心工作，禽流感防治工作不能取得进展）。
观察家说，现有资金使用不合理，投放重点应该是动物而不是人。例如，农业部明年申请到的资金就比今年少。这等于是对每月死去的成百上千只鸡坐视不理，更不用说被感染的猫、鹌鹑、猪和鸭了。农民们每只家禽得到的补偿仅为2000卢比（21美分），远低于市场价格，这使得他们不再积极报告发病情况。该国的兽医监督服务力度也不够，要为数千万只家禽注射疫苗的承诺到现在都没有兑现。
联合国粮农组织正在准备建立地方疾病控制中心，以应对可能发生的病毒突变所造成的后果。不过该组织估计到今年底印尼全国只有1/3的地区将建成此类中心。国际上众多想法天真的慈善家也在竭力填补其中的一些缺口，却难以筹措所需资金。
For all the natural and man-made disasters of the past year, travelers seem more determined than ever to leave home.
Never mind the tsunami devastation in Asia last December, the recent earthquake in Kashmir or the suicide bombings this year in London and Bali, among other places on or off the tourist trail. The number of leisure travelers visiting tourist destinations hit by trouble has in some cases bounced back to a level higher than before disaster struck.
"This new fast recovery of tourism we are observing is kind of strange," said John Koldowski, director for the Strategic Intelligence Center of the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association. "It makes you think about the adage that any publicity is good publicity."
It is still too soon to compile year-on-year statistics for the disasters of the past 12 months, but travel industry experts say that the broad trends are already clear. Leisure travel is expected to increase by nearly 5 percent this year, according to the World Tourism and Travel Council.
Tourism and travel now seem to bounce back faster and higher each time there is an event of this sort," said Ufi Ibrahim, vice president of the London-based World Tourism and Travel Council. For London, where suicide bombers killed 56 and wounded 700 on July 8, she said, "It was almost as if people who stayed away after the bomb attack then decided to come back twice."
Early indicators show that the same holds true for other disaster-struck destinations. Statistics compiled by the Pacific Asia Travel Association, for example, show that monthly visitor arrivals in Sri Lanka, where the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami left more than 30,000 people dead or missing, were higher than one year earlier for every month from March through August of this year.
A case commonly cited by travel professionals as an early example of the trend is Bali, where 202 people were killed in bombings targeting Western tourists in October 2002. Visitor arrivals plunged to 993,000 for the year after the bombing, but bounced back to 1.46 million in 2004, a level higher than the two years before the bomb, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association.
Even among Australians, who suffered the worst casualties in the Bali bombings, the number of Bali-bound visitors bounced back within two years to the highest level since 1998, according the Pacific Asia Travel Association.
Bali was hit again this year by suicide bombers who killed 19 people in explosions at three restaurants.
Visits are also on the upswing to post-tsunami Thailand, where the giant waves killed 5,400 and left more than 5,000 missing.
Although the tsunami killed more than 500 Swedes on the Thai resort island of Phuket, the largest number of any foreign nationality to die, Swedes are returning to the island in larger numbers than last year, according to My Travel Sweden, a Stockholm-based group that sends 600,000 tourists overseas annually and claims a 28 percent market share for Sweden.
"We were confident that Thailand would eventually bounce back as a destination, but we didn't think that this year it would come back even stronger than last year," said Joakim Eriksson, director of communication for My Travel Sweden. "We were very surprised because we really expected a significant decline."
Eriksson said My Travel now expects a 5 percent increase in visitors to both Thailand and Sri Lanka this season compared with the same season last year. This behavior is a sharp change from the patterns of the 1990s, Eriksson said.
"During the first Gulf war we saw a sharp drop in travel as a whole, and the same after Sept. 11," Eriksson said. "Now the main impact of terrorism or disasters is a change in destination."
参考译文
尽管去年发生了许多自然灾害和人为的灾害，但是旅游者比以往更加坚决地出门旅行。
虽然去年12月亚洲的海啸产生了巨大的破坏力，最近克什米尔发生了地震，伦敦和巴厘岛出现了自杀性炸弹袭击，游客却毫不在意，无论在旅游路线上或其他地方是否有危险。在某些情况下，受到灾难影响的旅游地区吸引的游客人数快速反弹，甚至比灾难发生之前的还多。
“我们注意到旅游业最近快速回升，这种情况是有一点奇怪。”总部设在曼谷的太平洋亚洲旅游协会战略情报中心主任约翰－考尔多斯基说道，“这使你想到那句老话，就是只要是宣传,好坏都不赖。”
虽然整理过去12个月的灾难年度数据还为时尚早，但是旅游业专家指出，现在旅游业发展总的趋势是清楚明确的。世界旅游协会指出，今年休闲旅游预期增长约5％。
“每次一有灾难发生，旅游业现在好像反弹得更快，旅游人数比灾害前更多。”总部在伦敦得世界旅游及旅行理事会副理事长尤菲－伊布拉辛说道。比如伦敦。7月8日伦敦的自杀爆炸袭击造成56人死亡，700人受伤。尤菲说：“看起来几乎是那些躲开了炸弹袭击的人决定再来伦敦看看。”
早期数字显示，其他遭受灾难的地方也是如此。例如，据太平洋亚洲旅游协会的统计，虽然2004年12月26日的海啸造成超过3万人死伤，但是今年3月到8月间，每个月来斯里兰卡的游客人数都比去年同期要高。
为了说明这种趋势，旅游专业人士常常引用的一个先前的例子是巴厘岛。2002年10月，针对西方人的炸弹袭击造成202人死亡。然而在爆炸后一年，游客人数骤降至993000人，而2004年反弹至146万人。太平洋亚洲旅游协会指出，这一数字比炸弹袭击的前两年还高。
太平洋亚洲旅游协会还指出，即使是在巴厘岛炸弹袭击中伤亡最为惨重的澳大利亚人也是如此。仅在袭击发生后两年内，来巴厘岛旅游的人数就反弹至自1998年以来的最高点。
自杀式炸弹袭击今年再度袭击了巴厘岛，三所饭馆发生爆炸，造成19人死亡。
泰国在遭受了海啸袭击后，也吸引了更多的游客，而当时的海啸掀起巨浪，造成5400人死亡，5000人失踪。
虽然泰国旅游胜地普吉岛的海啸曾造成500多瑞典人死亡，是死亡人数最多的外国人，但是“瑞典－我的旅行”组织说，更多的瑞典人回到普吉岛旅游，总数超过去年。该组织总部设在斯德哥尔摩，每年把60万游客送往海外，占有28％的瑞典旅游市场份额。
“我们深信，泰国最终将重新成为旅游热点地区，但是我们没有想到，今年的反弹力度比去年还要强劲。”“瑞典－我的旅行”组织交通部主任约吉姆－埃里克森说，“本来我们以为人数会有大的下滑，所以对现在的情况感到十分吃惊。”
埃里克森说，该组织预计，与去年相同的旅游季节相比，今天去泰国和斯里兰卡的游客人数均将上升5％。他说，这种情况与20世纪90年代有了显著的变化。
“在第一次海湾战争期间，我们发现，旅游业总体上有显著的下滑，911之后也是如此。”埃里克森说，“现在，恐怖主义活动或灾害袭击给旅游业造成的影响无非是改变了旅游的目的地而已。”
Freed by warming, waters once locked beneath ice are gnawing at coastal settlements around the Arctic Circle.
In Bykovsky, a village of 457 on Russia's northeast coast, the shoreline is collapsing, creeping closer and closer to houses and tanks of heating oil, at a rate of 15 to 18 feet a year.
"It is practically all ice-permafrost and it is thawing." For the four million people who live north of the Arctic Circle, a changing climate presents new opportunities. But it also threatens their environment, their homes and, for those whose traditions rely on the ice-bound wilderness, the preservation of their culture.
A push to develop the North, quickened by the melting of the Arctic seas, carries its own rewards and dangers for people in the region. The discovery of vast petroleum fields in the Barents and Kara Seas has raised fears of catastrophic accidents as ships loaded with oil and, soon, liquefied gas churn through the fisheries off Scandinavia, headed to markets in Europe and North America. Land that was untouched could be tainted by pollution as generators, smokestacks and large vehicles sprout to support the growing energy industry.
Coastal erosion is a problem in Alaska as well, forcing the United States to prepare to relocate several Inuit villages at a projected cost of $100 million or more for each one.
Across the Arctic, indigenous tribes with traditions shaped by centuries of living in extremes of cold and ice are noticing changes in weather and wildlife. They are trying to adapt, but it can be confounding.
In Finnmark, Norway's northernmost province, the Arctic landscape unfolds in late winter as an endless snowy plateau, silent but for the cries of the reindeer and the occasional whine of a snowmobile herding them.
A changing Arctic is felt there, too. "The reindeer are becoming unhappy," said Issat Eira, a 31-year-old reindeer herder.
Few countries rival Norway when it comes to protecting the environment and preserving indigenous customs. The state has lavished its oil wealth on the region, and Sami culture has enjoyed something of a renaissance.
And yet no amount of government support can convince Mr. Eira that his livelihood, intractably entwined with the reindeer, is not about to change. Like a Texas cattleman, he keeps the size of his herd secret. But he said warmer temperatures in fall and spring were melting the top layers of snow, which then refreeze as ice, making it harder for his reindeer to dig through to the lichen they eat.
"The people who are making the decisions, they are living in the south and they are living in towns," said Mr. Eira, sitting inside his home made of reindeer hides. "They don't mark the change of weather. It is only people who live in nature and get resources from nature who mark it."
A push to develop the North, quickened by the melting of the Arctic seas, carries its own rewards and dangers for people in the region. The discovery of vast petroleum fields in the Barents and Kara Seas has raised fears of catastrophic accidents as ships loaded with oil and, soon, liquefied gas churn through the fisheries off Scandinavia, headed to markets in Europe and North America. Land that was untouched could be tainted by pollution as generators, smokestacks and large vehicles sprout to support the growing energy industry.
参考译文
随着天气变暖，北极圈的冰层开始融化，海水涌上来开始侵蚀沿岸村落。
拜考夫斯凯村位于俄罗斯东北部沿海地区，居住着457个村民，这里的海岸线已经遭到破坏，海水正以每年15－18英尺的速度向内陆的房屋和采暖用油桶逼近。
“这里本来全都是冰，我们称之为永久冻土，但是现在已经开始融化了。”对于居住在北极圈里的四百万人来说，气候变化给他们带来了新的机遇。但是，这也威胁着他们赖以生存的环境和家园，而对于那些祖祖辈辈生活在冰雪荒原的人们来说，这还关乎他们能否保住自己的文化。
对北部地区的进一步开发随着北冰洋的融化加快了脚步，给当地人民带来了利益，也带来了危险。在巴伦支海和卡拉海发现了广阔的油田，但人们担心先装满石油然后很快就是液化天燃气的轮船会发生灾难事故，这些船将卷起海浪，穿过斯堪地那维亚半岛近海的捕鱼区，一直开往欧洲和北美州市场。当越来越多的发电机、大烟囱和各种重型车辆进入这个地区帮助发展能源工业时，也会使这片处女地受到污染。
阿拉斯加州也存在着海岸侵蚀的问题，这迫使美国政府打算迁移数个因纽特人的村庄，预计每个村庄的搬迁费用高达一亿多美元。
在北极地区，在极端冰冷环境里生存了几百年的当地部落注意到了气候和野生动物的变化，他们想去适应这种变化，但常常不知所措。
在挪威最北面的芬马克省，每到冬末，北极的大片土地一望无际，好像冰雪高原，万籁俱寂，偶尔只会听见几声驯鹿的鸣叫和摩托雪橇放牧驯鹿的轰鸣。
但是即使在那里，人们也感受到了北极的变化。“驯鹿越来越不开心。”31岁的养鹿人埃拉说道。
其实谈及保护环境和本土习俗，没有什么国家可以与挪威相提并论。政府把开发石油获得的财富都用在了北极地区，萨米人的文化也因此得到了某种意义上的复兴。
但是无论有多少来自于政府的支持都无法让埃拉相信，他以鹿为生的日子将会和以往一样。象德克萨斯州的养牛人，他对自己放养的驯鹿数量守口如瓶，但是他说，春秋两季气温上升，导致表层雪融化，天冷后结成冰，驯鹿就更难于刨食到地表的植物。
“那些制定政策的人都住在南方的城市里，”埃拉坐在用鹿皮搭建的家里说，“那些决策者注意不到天气的变化。只有真正住在大自然里、从大自然获得生活资源的人才能发现这一切。”
Some people call him "Guidone"-big Guido. Large in both physical stature and reputation, Guido Rossi, who took over as Telecom Italia's chairman on September 15th following the surprise resignation of Marco Tronchetti Provera, has stood out from the Italian business crowd for more than three decades. Mr. Rossi, who attended Harvard law school in the 1950s and wrote a book on American bankruptcy law, made his name as a corporate lawyer keen on market rules and their enforcement. He has since worked in both private and public sectors, including stints in the Italian Senate and as one of the European Commission's group of company-law experts. As well as running a busy legal practice, he also has a reputation as a corporate troubleshooter and all-round Mr Fix-It, and is often called upon to clean up organisations in crisis.
His role at Telecom Italia marks a return to the company he headed for ten months in 1997, during its politically tricky and legally complex privatisation. Before that, Mr Rossi had been sent in to sort out Ferruzzi-Montedison, an agri-business and chemicals group, which had collapsed after magistrates uncovered tangentopoli ("bribesville"). Last year his legal scheming was crucial in ABN Amro's victorious bid for Banca Antonveneta. Most recently, he acted as special commissioner at Italy's football association, where he was drafted in to sort out the mess after a massive match-rigging scandal exploded earlier this year.
Alas, his efforts to bleach football's dark stains produced the same meagre[4] results as his other efforts to get Italian business and finance to change its ways. "Like Italians when tangentopoli burst, fans wanted justice when the scandal broke; but enthusiasm for legality quickly waned," sighs Francesco Saverio Borrelli, Milan's former chief prosecutor, who headed the city's assault on corruption during the 1990s and was appointed by Mr Rossi to dig out football's dirt.The political muscle of the clubs prevented tough measures being taken against them, reflecting Italy's two-tier justice system in which the rich and powerful can do what they like. "Economic interests in football far outweigh sporting interests," remarks Mr Borrelli. The rottenness in football shocked even the unshakeable Mr Rossi. "Football did not want rules, it just wanted me to solve its problems," he says. Despairing of being able to change much, he resigned in September and turned his attention to Telecom Italia.
参考译文
有的人叫他“吉多尼”--也就是“大”吉多。吉多•罗西身材高大，名气也很大。9月15日，在马可•特龙切蒂•普罗费拉突然辞职之后，三十多年来在意大利商圈一直声名显赫的罗西接任意大利电信公司总裁一职。上世纪五十年代，罗西在哈佛法学院学习，曾写过一部关于美国破产法的著作，后来成为一名公司代理律师，因热衷于市场规则及其执行相关的案例而名噪一时。他在私有和国有单位都谋过事，其中包括在意大利参议院做过一段时间，担任过欧盟委员会公司法律处专家。除了忙于法律业务外，他还是赫赫有名的排解公司纠纷高手，人称全能的“处理先生”，经常有危机缠身的公司请他帮助排忧解难。
他在意大利电信公司所扮演的角色标志着他的回归，因为1997年他在该公司主持过十个月的工作，其时公司正处于勾心斗角的政治斗争和涉及复杂法律问题的私有化过程中。之前罗西曾受命调查了Ferruzzi-Montedison的问题。Ferruzzi-Montedison是一家农业与化工集团，在被地方法官查出存在贿赂问题后倒闭。去年，他作为荷兰银行Amro公司成功收购Banca Antonveneta一案的法律顾问也起到了关键作用。最近他还担任了意大利足协的调查专员，负责调查今年早些时候爆出的涉及面很广的假球丑闻。
遗憾的是，与试图帮助意大利商界和金融界“改过自新”一样，他为“净足运动”所做的努力也收效甚微。米兰前任首席检察官萨维利奥•博雷利无奈地说：“当丑闻爆发时，球迷们像当年发生贿赂案时一样希望司法介入，可这样的热情很快就消退了。”博雷利是上世纪90年代米兰打击腐败的负责人，曾受命于罗西负责调查足球丑闻。（涉案）俱乐部内在的政治势力使得（调查组）无法对其采取严厉措施，这也反映出身处意大利双重司法体系之下的有钱有势者可以为所欲为。博雷利说：“足球的经济利益淹没了人们对这项运动的热情。”足球腐败甚至让不可动摇的罗西也感到震惊。“足球不需要规则，它只需要我帮助解决问题。”他说。由于无力回天，他感到很是绝望，于是在9月份提出辞职，从此把注意力转向了意大利电信业。
Hans Christian Andersen was Denmark's most famous native son. Yet even after his fairy tales won him fame and fortune, he feared he would be forgotten. He need not have worried. This weekend, Denmark began eight months of celebrations to coincide with the bicentenary of his birth, and Denmark is eager that the world take note as it sets out to define the pigeon-holed writer in its own way.
The festivities began in Copenhagen on Saturday, Andersen's actual birthday, with a lively show of music, dance, lights and comedy inspired by his fairy tales before a crowd of 40,000 people-including Queen Margrethe II and her family-at the Parken National Stadium. The opening, called Once Upon a Time, will be followed by a slew of concerts, musicals, ballets, exhibitions, parades and education programs costing over US$40 million.
So more than in recent memory, Danes-and, they hope, foreigners-will be reliving the humor, pain and lessons to be found in evergreen stories like The Little Mermaid,The Emperor's New Clothes,The Ugly Duckling,The Little Match-Seller,The Steadfast Tin Soldier,The Shadow,The Princess and the Pea and others of Andersen's 150 or so fairy tales.
In organizing this extravaganza, of course, Denmark is also celebrating itself. After all, Andersen is still this country's most famous native son. Trumpeting his name and achievements not only draws attention to Denmark's contribution to world culture, but could also woo more foreign tourists to visit his birthplace in the town of Odense and to be photographed beside the famous bronze statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen's harbor.
And Denmark has even more in mind. Local guardians of the Andersen legacy evidently feel his stories have lost ground in recent years to the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. Andersen's fairy tales may remain central to the Danish identity, serving as homespun guides to the vagaries of human behavior, but what about the rest of the world?
"What we really need is a rebirth of Andersen," noted Lars Seeberg, secretary general of the Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Foundation. "Two centuries after his birth, he still fails to be universally acknowledged as the world-class author he no doubt was."
参考译文
安徒生或许是土生土长的丹麦人中最出名的一位了。虽然他创作的童话给他带来了声名和财富，但他还是很担心自己会为人们所遗忘。他的担心多少有些杞人忧天了。本周末，丹麦开始举行为期8个月的庆祝活动，庆祝安徒生诞辰两百周年。
庆典于本周六，也就是安徒生出生的确切日期开始举行。庆典安排在帕肯国家体育场举行，期间包括轻快的音乐、舞蹈、灯火表演，还有根据安徒生创作的童话改编的喜剧表演，观看演出的观众有4万多--其中还包括女王玛格丽特二世及王室成员。演出活动后还有音乐会、歌舞剧、芭蕾舞、展览会及各类教育项目，总花费达4000万美元。
丹麦人愿与全世界的人们一同从诸如《海的女儿》、《皇帝的新装》等不朽名篇及安徒生创作的其他150多部童话中体味欢乐、悲伤和经验教训。
当然，丹麦人也没忘了沾沾这个庆祝活动的光。举办这个活动不仅是为了让全世界都认识到丹麦对世界文化所作的贡献，也是为了招徕外国游客来参观安徒生位于小镇奥登斯的出生地，并在哥本哈根港内名闻遐迩的美人鱼青铜雕像旁摄影。
但是，丹麦人的安排并不仅止于此。近年来，安徒生的精神遗产的捍卫者们深切地感受到，安徒生童话和TJJ托尔金的《魔戒》及罗琳斯的《哈里·波特》相比，影响力日渐式微。在丹麦人心目中，安徒生童话仍然占据着核心地位，对他们的日常行为起着指导作用（这句话里对vagary一词始终不能把握好，时间太紧，只好姑且先这么说了），但在世界上的其他地方，情况又如何呢？
“丹麦真正需要的是安徒生的转世重生。安徒生早应成为公认的世界级作家，但在他诞辰两百年后，他的这一地位仍未得到肯认。”安徒生2005基金会的秘书长西伯格说到。
Independent Information and Analysis from the USA
The Gap Between Rich and Poor Widened in U.S. Capital Washington D.C. ranks first among the 40 cities with the widest gap between the poor and the rich, according to a recent report released by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute on July 22nd. The top 20 percent of households in D.C. have an average yearly income of $186,830, 31 times that of the bottom 20 percent, which earns only $6,126 per year. The income gap is also big in Atlanta and Miami, but the difference is not as pronounced.
The report also indicates that the widening gap occurred mainly during the 1990s. Over the last decade, the average income of the top 20 percent of households has grown 36 percent, while the average income of the bottom 20 percent has only risen 3 percent
"I believe the concentration of the middle- to high-income families in the D.C. area will continue, therefore, the income gap between rich and poor will be hard to bridge," David Garrison told the Washington Observer. Garrison is a senior researcher with the Brookings Institution, specializing in the study of the social and economic policies in the greater Washington D.C. area.
The report attributed the persistent income gap in Washington to the area's special job opportunities, which attract high-income households. Especially since the federal government is based in Washington D.C., Government agencies and other government related businesses such as lobbying firms and government contractors constantly offer high-paying jobs, which contribute to the trend of increasing high-income households in the D.C. area. For example, a single young professional working in a law firm in D.C. can earn as much as $100,000 in his or her first year out of law school. "In addition, high-quality housing available in Washington D.C. is one of the main reasons why high-income families choose to live here, while middle and low-income families, if they can afford it, choose to move out of Washington D.C. to the Virginia and Maryland suburbs so that their kids can go to better schools," stated Garrison.
"As rich families continue to move into D.C. and middle and low-income families are moving out, the poorest families are left with nowhere to move, or cannot afford to move. This creates the situation we face now: a huge income gap between the rich and poor."
The Washington D.C. area to which Garrison refers is the District of Columbia city itself, not including the greater Washington metro area. "The greater Washington metro area has a large population of about 5 million, but the low-income households are often concentrated in D.C. proper," Garrison explained.
Tony Blalock, the spokesperson for Mayor Anthony Williams, said resignedly, "No matter what we seem to do to bring investment into the District, a certain population is not able to access the unique employment opportunities there. The gap between the rich and poor is the product of complex forces, and won't be fixed overnight."
Garrison believes that the D.C. government should attract high-income families. By doing so, the District's tax base can grow, which in turn can help improve D.C.'s infrastructure. "But in the meantime, the District government should also take into consideration the rights of the poor, set up good schools for them, and provide sound social welfare. All these measures can alleviate the dire situation caused by income disparity. "
Garrison, however, is not optimistic about the possibility of closing the gap between the rich and poor. He is particularly doubtful that current economic progress will be able to help out the poor. "Bush's tax-cut plan did bring about this wave of economic recovery, and the working professionals and rich did benefit from it. It is unfair to say that the plan did not help the poor at all… it just didn't benefit them as much as it did the rich," Garrison said. "The working class in America, those who do the simplest work, get paid the least, and dutifully pay their taxes, has not benefited from Bush's tax-cut plan much."
Garrison concludes, "A lot of cities in America did not enjoy the positive impact of the economic recovery. Washington D.C., on the other hand, has always been sheltered by the federal government. The wide gap between rich and poor in the District, therefore, deserves more in-depth study and exploration."
参考译文
美国首都贫富不均情况加重
美国首都独立研究机构华盛顿特区财政政策研究院（DC Fiscal Policy Institute）于7月22日公布的一份其最新的研究报告显示，华盛顿特区的贫富差距居全美40个大都会区之冠，20%最富有的家庭其年收入高达$186,830美元，是20%最贫穷家庭年收入（仅$6,126美元）的31倍。虽然亚大兰大和迈阿密两市的贫富差距与华盛顿相当，但其贫富不均的情况却不如华盛顿明显。
报告指出，华盛顿特区贫富差距逐渐加大主要是发生在90年代。在过去十年中，20%最富有的家庭其年收入增长了36倍，而20%最贫穷家庭的年收入仅仅增加了3倍。
“我认为中高收入家庭过分集中在特区的情况仍然会持续下去，在未来十年内贫富鸿沟恐怕难以拉近，”布鲁金斯学院（Brookigns Institution）专攻大华盛顿地区经济和社会形势的高级研究员大卫•盖立森（Daivd Garrison）对《华盛顿观察》周刊说道。
这份报告将华盛顿特区的贫富鸿沟归咎于当地特殊的工作机会。而这些工作往往会吸引高收入家庭搬到此地。特别是华盛顿也是美国联邦政府的所在地，而联邦政府和与政府相关的行业，如院外游说团体和政府合约承包商等等，不断提供高薪工作，也使得华府的高收入家庭有不断增加的趋势。举例来说，一个单身的年轻专业人士从法学院毕业后，在华府的律师事务所服务第一年的年收入可高达$100,000美元。
“此外，华盛顿特区也提供高品质的住宅（high-quality housing），这也是为什么高薪家庭选择在华府居住的主因之一，”盖立森分析道，“而一般中低收入家庭，在有余力的情况下，为了孩子能够上较好的学校而选择搬离华盛顿特区，移至分布于马里兰州和弗吉尼亚州的住宅区。”
“在高收入家庭不断迁移到特区、中低阶层的家庭移出，而最贫穷的家庭又面临无处，也无力可搬的窘境时，就造成我们现在看到的，贫富悬殊的华盛顿特区，”盖立森对《华盛顿观察》周刊说到。
盖立森此处所指的华盛顿特区指的是约有56万人口的都市（District of Columbia）本身，不包括整个华盛顿大都会区（Greater Washington Metro Area），“整个华盛顿大都会区人口高达500万人，但低收入户却只往华盛顿特区集中，”他特别解释道。
“不论我们如何努力吸引商家到华盛顿特区投资，华府有一部分的低收入家庭就是无法从中受惠，没有办法得到特区独特的高薪工作机会。”华盛顿市长办公室发言人托尼•布拉克（Tony Bullock）说，“贫富差距的背后许多复杂的原因，是不能在一夕之间就改变的。”他言谈间颇有对特区的贫富悬殊无可奈何之叹。
盖立森则认为，特区政府的确应该吸引高收入家庭到特区居住，因为这样能够带来更多税收，对市政建设有积极作用。“但同时，特区政府也应该重视穷人的权益，设立好的学校、提供健全的社会福利等等，这些市政措施都能有效地改善特区严重的贫富不均状况。”
但盖立森对未来贫富差距是否真能拉近不是十分乐观，他尤其对这波经济复苏是不是能帮助到穷人保持怀疑的态度：“布什的减税方案虽然带动了美国这波经济复苏，有工作的人和富人的确享受到不少好处，但对穷人的帮助虽然不能说是完全没有，也只能说是不如富人的获益高，”盖立森分析道，“美国一般的工薪族（working class），也就是那些做初级工作、拿最低工资、老老实实缴税的人，实在没有从布什的减税案得到太大益处。”
盖立森总结说：“美国许多城市并没有享受到美国经济好转所带来的积极价值，但华盛顿特区一直以来受到联邦政府的庇佑，它贫富悬殊的情况仍然如此严重，确实值得深入的研究和检讨。”
Sometimes you can know too much. The aim of screening healthy people for cancer is to discover tumours when they are small and treatable. It sounds laudable and often it is. But it sometimes leads to unnecessary treatment. The body has a battery of mechanisms for stopping small tumours from becoming large ones. Treating those that would have been suppressed anyway does no good and can often be harmful.
Take lung cancer. A report in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, by Peter Bach of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York and his colleagues, suggests that, despite much fanfare around the use of computed tomography (CT) to detect tumours in the lungs well before they cause symptoms, the test may not reduce the risk of dying from the disease at all-indeed, it may make things worse.
The story begins last year, when Claudia Henschke of Cornell University and her colleagues made headlines with a report that patients whose lung cancer had been diagnosed early by CT screening had excellent long-term survival prospects. Her research suggested that 88% of patients could expect to be alive ten years after their diagnosis. Dr Bach found similar results in a separate study. In his case, 94% of patients diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer were alive four years later.
Survival data alone, though, fail to answer a basic question: "compared with what?" People are bound to live longer after their diagnosis if that diagnosis is made earlier. Early diagnosis is of little value unless it results in a better prognosis.
Dr Bach, therefore, interrogated his data more thoroughly. He used statistical models based on results from studies of lung cancer that did not involve CT screening, to try to predict what would have happened to the individuals in his own study if they had not been part of that study. The results were not encouraging.
Screening did, indeed, detect more tumours. Over the course of five years, 144 cases of lung cancer were picked up in a population of 3,200, compared with a predicted number of 44. Despite these early diagnoses, though, there was no reduction in the number of people who went on to develop advanced cancer, nor a significant drop in the number who died of the disease (38, compared with a prediction of 39). Considering that early diagnosis prompted a tenfold increase in surgery aimed at removing the cancer (the predicted number of surgical interventions was 11; the actual number was 109), and that such surgery is unsafe-5% of patients die and another 20-40% suffer serious complications-the whole process seems to make things worse.
参考译文
有时候你可能知道得太多了。健康人群癌症筛查的目的是发现可治疗的小肿瘤，这似乎是值得称赞的，而事实常常也是如此。不过，有时它会导致不必要的治疗。机体自身有一套阻止小肿瘤生长的机制，对那些可用自身机制加以抑制的肿瘤采取治疗非但无益，反而可能造成危害。
以肺癌为例。纽约纪念斯隆-凯特灵癌症研究中心（Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre）的彼得•巴赫（Peter Bach）及其同事在本周出版的《美国医学会杂志》（Journal of the American Medical Association）上发表的一项报告中指出，用于症状出现前肺部肿瘤检测的计算机断层扫描技术（computed tomography，CT）虽深受吹捧，但它可能根本无法降低肺癌死亡率，相反会“雪上加霜”。
有关CT用于肺癌筛查的报道始于去年。康奈尔大学克劳迪娅•赫恩施克（Claudia Henschke）和她的同事报道，患者经CT早期诊断为肺癌后，长期生存率显著提高。这一报道轰动一时。她的研究发现，88%的确诊患者10年后仍有望存活。巴赫在另一研究中也发现了类似结果：94%诊断为早期肺癌的患者生存期可达4年。
尽管如此，仅凭生存期的统计数据是无法回答这样一个基本问题的：“与什么相比？”早期诊断无疑可延长生存期，但早期诊断后患者预后必须良好，否则早期诊断就几乎无任何价值。
因此，巴赫对自己的数据进行了更为彻底的分析。他根据非CT检出肺癌的研究结果建立了统计学模型，并假设其研究个体未接受CT筛查，从而对这些个体的预后进行了评估，结果令人失望。
筛查确实可以发现更多的肿瘤病例。五年中，3200人有144人检出肺癌，而预期值仅为44例。不过，尽管这些人得到早期诊断，但发展为晚期肺癌的人数并未减少，死亡人数也无显著下降（预期为39人，实际有38人）。考虑到早期诊断可使行肿瘤切除术的人数增加十倍（预期为11人，实际达109人），而这种手术风险又大（术后死亡率5%，此外还有20~40%的患者出现严重并发症），如此一来就有可能造成更大危害。
It was one of those days that the peasant fishermen on this tributary of the Amazon River dream about.
With water levels falling rapidly at the peak of the dry season, a giant school of bass, a tasty fish that fetches a good price at markets, was swimming right into the nets being cast from a dozen small canoes here.
"With a bit of luck, you can make $350 on a day like this," Lauro Souza Almeida, a leader of the local fishermen's cooperative, exulted as he moved into position. "That is a fortune for people like us," he said, the equivalent of four months at the minimum wage earned by those fortunate enough to find work.
But hovering nearby was a large commercial fishing vessel, a "mother boat" equipped with large ice chests for storage and hauling more than a dozen smaller craft. The crew on board was just waiting for the remainder of the fish to move into the river's main channel, where they intended to scoop up as many as they could with their efficient gill nets.
A symbol of abundance to the rest of the world, the Amazon is experiencing a crisis of overfishing. As stocks of the most popular species diminish to worrisome levels, tensions are growing between subsistence fishermen and their commercial rivals, who are eager to enrich their bottom line and satisfy the growing appetite for fish of city-dwellers in Brazil and abroad.
In response, peasants up and down the Amazon, here in Brazil and in neighboring countries like Peru, are forming cooperatives to control fish catches and restock their rivers and lakes. But that effort, increasingly successful, has only encouraged the commercial fishing operations, as well as some of the peasants' less disciplined neighbors, to step up their depredations.
"The industrial fishing boats, the big 20- to 30-ton vessels, they have a different mentality than us artisanal fishermen, who have learned to take the protection of the environment into account," said the president of the local fishermen's union. "They want to sweep everything up with their dragnets and then move on, benefiting from our work and sacrifice and leaving us with nothing."
参考译文
在亚马逊河的这一支流上捕鱼的农民就希望遇上那天的情况。
旱季最缺水的时候，河面迅速下降，一大群鲈鱼正游进从十几只小船上撒下的网里。鲈鱼味道鲜美，能在市场上卖个好价钱。
“要是运气不错，赶上今天这种情况，就能挣350美元，”劳鲁·苏扎·阿尔梅达说道。他是当地渔民合作社的一位负责人。他一边兴高采烈地说着，一边摆好了架式准备干活。他说：“对我们这样的人来说，这可是一大笔钱呀。”因为就算一个人运气好，能找到工作，按最低工资计算，要四个月才能挣这么些钱。
然而就在不远的地方，有一只大型商业渔船在游弋，那是一只“母船”，备有巨大的储藏冰柜，还拖着十几只小船。船员都在船上等候，等到剩余的鱼进入主河道以后，他们就用高效率的刺网进行捕捞，能捞多少，就捞多少。
亚马逊河在世界上是物产丰富的标志，但它现在正经受一场过量捕鱼的危机。随着人们最喜爱的各种鱼类数量日渐减少，到了令人担忧的地步，靠打鱼糊口的渔民和他们商业对手之间的紧张关系也日益加剧，因为这些对手一心想着装满自己的船舱，以满足巴西乃至国外城里人越来越大的吃鱼胃口。
针对这种情况，亚马逊河沿岸的农民群众，在巴西境内也好，在秘鲁等邻国也好，纷纷成立合作社，以求控制捕鱼量，增加河湖中鱼的数量。但是，这方面的努力虽日见成效，却促使那些为商业目的而捕鱼的机构以及附近一些不大守规矩的农民加紧进行掠夺。
“那些工业化的渔船，二、三十吨位的，他们的想法跟我们这些靠手工操作的渔民不一样，我们懂得考虑怎样保护环境，”当地的渔业工会主席说道。“他们想用拖网一网打尽，然后又上别处去打。我们出力，他们受益，弄得我们一无所有。”
Ever since the economist David Ricardo offered the basic theory in 1817, economic scripture has taught that open trade-free of tariffs, quotas, subsidies or other government distortions-improves the well-being of both parties. U.S. policy has implemented this doctrine with a vengeance. Why is free trade said to be universally beneficial? The answer is a doctrine called "comparative advantage".
Here's a simple analogy. If a surgeon is highly skilled both at doing operations and performing routine blood tests, it's more efficient for the surgeon to concentrate on the surgery and pay a less efficient technician to do the tests, since that allows the surgeon to make the most efficient use of her own time.
By extension, even if the United States is efficient both at inventing advanced biotechnologies and at the routine manufacture of medicines, it makes sense for the United States to let the production work migrate to countries that can make the stuff more cheaply. Americans get the benefit of the cheaper products and get to spend their resources on even more valuable pursuits, That, anyway, has always been the premise. But here Samuelson dissents. What if the lower wage country also captures the advanced industry?
If enough higher-paying jobs are lost by American workers to outsourcing, he calculates, then the gain from the cheaper prices may not compensate for the loss in U.S. purchasing power.
"Free trade is not always a win-win situation," Samuelson concludes. It is particularly a problem, he says, in a world where large countries with far lower wages, like India and China, are increasingly able to make almost any product or offer almost any service performed in the United States.
If America trades freely with them, then the powerful drag of their far lower will begin dragging down U.S. average wages. The U.S. economy may still grow, he calculates, but at a lower rate than it otherwise would have.
参考译文
自从经济学家李嘉图于1817年提出基本理论以来，经济学方面的经典著作都说自由贸易免除关税、限额和补贴，也没有政府的其它小动作，因此会增加双方的利益。美国的政策是不遗余力地实行这一理论。为什么说自由贸易可以使大家普遍受益呢?这可以在所谓“相对优势”的理论中找到答案。
打个简单的比方，假如一位外科医生，既擅长动手术，又会做常规的验血工作，要取得较好的效益，就应让她集中精力做手术，同时雇一个能力较差的技术员去搞化验，因为这样就能让这位外科医生最有效地利用自己的时间。
引申而言，虽然美国既擅长发明高级的生物技术，又精于日常的药品生产，明智的做法还是把药品生产从美国转移至生产费用更低的国家。这样，美国人就可以一方面因廉价产品获利，一方面把自己的资源用来从事更有价值的事业。这一向就是讨论问题的前提。但是现在萨缪尔森却提出了不同的看法。如果低工资国家也掌握了先进的产业，怎么办？
据他估计，假如把过多的美国工人失去的较高工资的工作包到国外去，美国从廉价商品的获益不见得能补偿它购买力下降造成的损失。
萨缪尔森断言：“自由贸易并不总是一种双赢的局面。”他说，当今世界这个问题尤其突出。因为像印度和中国这样的大国，它们的工资低得多，可是他们的能力又在不断提高，美国能生产的产品，他们几乎都能生产，美国能提供的服务，他们也几乎都能够提供。
假如美国与这些国家进行自由贸易，它们低得多的工资产生的巨大影响就会把美国的平均工资往下拉。据他推算，美国的经济仍然会增长，不过比应有的增长速度要低。
Uganda's eagerness for genuine development is reflected in its schoolchildren's smiles and in the fact that so many children are now going to school. Since 1997, when the government began to provide universal primary education, total primary enrollment had risen from 3 million to 7.6 million in 2004. Schools have opened where none existed before, although there is some way to go in reaching the poorest areas of the country.
Uganda has also made strides in secondary and higher education, to the point that it is attracting many students from other countries. At the secondary level, enrollment is above 700,000, with the private sector providing the majority if schools. For those who want to take their education further, there are 12 private universities in addition to the four publicly funded institutions, together providing 75,000 places.
Education is seen as a vital component in the fight against poverty. The battle for better health is another, although it is one that will take longer to win in a country that carries a high burden of disease, including malaria and AIDS. Here, the solutions can only arise from a combination of international support and government determination to continue spending public money on preventive care and better public health information.
Current government plants include recruiting thousands of nurses, increasing the availability of drugs and building 200 new maternity units.
Uganda's high rate of population growth, at 3.6 percent per annum, poses a special challenge in the fight against poverty, says Finance Minister Gerald Ssendaula, who points out that the fertility rate, at 6.9 children per female, is the highest in Africa.
The government's newly revised Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) puts the "restoration of security" at the top of the current government agenda. This is because it estimates that Uganda has lost 3 percent of its gross domestic product each year that the conflict has persisted. Displaced people are not only a financial burden, they are unable to the economy.
The other core challenges identified by the revised PEAP are finding ways to keep the lowest income growing, improving the quality of education, giving people more control over the size of their families and using public resources transparently and efficiently. It is a document that other poor countries could learn from.
参考译文
乌干达渴望得到真正的发展，这种愿望不仅反映在小学生的笑脸上，而且还体现在那么多孩子在上学的现实中。自1997年政府开始普及小学教育以来，小学在校总人数已从300万增至2004年的760万。过去没有学校的地方，现已开办了学校，不过要把教育发展到国内最贫困的地区，还要经过一番努力。
乌干达在发展中等教育和高等教育方面也取得了进展，甚至吸引了其他国家的许多学生前来就学。在中等教育方面，在校人数现已超过70万，大多数学校是民办的。如有学生想继续深造，除4家公立大学外，还有12家私立大学，共7.5万个名额。
人们认为教育是战胜贫困的重要一环，努力增强体质也是重要的一环。然而，乌干达饱受疾病的拖累，如疟疾、艾滋病等，增强体质绝非一日之功。在这方面，要解决问题，必须一方面靠国际援助，一方面政府要下决心，继续拨款预防疾病，并加强宣传公共卫生知识。
目前政府计划包括招聘数千名护理人员，增加药品供应，新建200所产科诊所。
财政部长杰拉尔德?森达乌拉说，乌干达人口的年增长率为百分之3.6，这样高的增长率对消除贫困构成特殊障碍。他还指出，乌干达平均每个女人生6.9孩子，这一生育率是全非洲最高的。
政府最近修订过的《消除贫困行动计划》将"恢复安全"列为政府当前的首要任务。这是因为它估计连年不断的冲突已使乌干达的国内生产总值每年下降3个百分点。流离失所的人们不仅是财政方面的负担，也不能为发展经济出力。
修订过的《消除贫困行动计划》列举的其他重大事项还包括设法不断提高最低收入，改进教育质量，帮助人们最好地控制家庭人口，透明而有效地使用公共资源等。这一文件值得其他贫困国家借鉴。
Until recently, scientists knew little about life in the deep sea, nor had they reason to believe that it was being threatened. Now, with the benefit of technology that allows for deeper exploration, researchers have uncovered a remarkable array of species inhabiting the ocean floor at depths of more than 660 feet, or about 200 meters. At the same time, however, technology has also enabled fishermen to reach far deeper than ever before, into areas where bottom trawls can destroy in minutes what has taken nature hundreds and in some cases thousands of years to build.
Many of the world's coral species, for example, are found at depths of more than 200 meters. It is also estimated that roughly half of the world's highest seamounts-areas that rise from the ocean floor and are particularly rich in marine life-are also found in the deep ocean.
These deep sea ecosystems provide shelter, spawning and breeding areas for fish and other creatures, as well as protection from strong currents and predators. Moreover, they are believed to harbor some of the most extensive reservoirs of life on earth, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 100 million species inhabiting these largely unexplored and highly fragile ecosystems.
Yet just as we are beginning to recognize the tremendous diversity of life in these areas, along with the potential benefits newly found species may hold for human society in the form of potential food products and new medicines, they are at risk of being lost forever. With enhanced ability both to identify where these species-rich areas are located and to trawl in deeper water than before, commercial fishing vessels are now beginning to reach down with nets the size of football fields, catching everything in their path while simultaneously crushing fragile corals and breaking up the delicate structure of reefs and seamounts that provide critical habitat to the countless species of fish and other marine life that inhabit the deep ocean floor.
Because deep sea bottom trawling is a recent phenomenon, the damage that has been done is still limited. If steps are taken quickly to prevent this kind of destructive activity from occurring on the high seas, the benefits both to the marine environment and to future generations are incalculable. And they far outweigh the short-term costs to the fishing industry.
参考译文
前不久，科学家们对深海生物还知之甚少，也不太相信它们正受到威胁。现在，随着深海探测技术的发展，研究人员发现660多英尺，即200米深的海底生存着大量多种多样的物种。但与此同时，渔业人员也可以依靠技术到达以前更深的地方，进行海底拖网捕捞，而此种深海捕捞则可在几分钟内就把大自然几百年乃至几千年的一切毁灭。
例如，世界上的许多种珊瑚在二百多米深的海底才能找到。此外，据估计世界上一些最高的海底山约有一半位于深海海底。这些海底隆起的地方，海洋生物特别丰富。
这些深海生态系统为鱼类和其它生物提供生存、产卵、繁殖的场所，俄保护它们免遭大海流和猎食者的侵袭。此外，据信这些深海生态系统蕴藏着世界上最丰富的生命宝库，估计有五十万至一亿种生物生活在这些大体上未经勘探极脆弱的生态系统中。
当我们现在刚刚开始认识这些地区极其丰富的生物多样性，并发现这些新物种可能为人类社会带来好处时--如新食品和新药品，这些地区却面临着永远消失的危险。由于确定物种丰富地区的能路增强，由于拖网捕涝能到达比过去更深的区域，商业渔船可把足球场大小的拖网撒入海中，碰上什么捕捞什么，同时损坏了脆弱的珊瑚，破坏礁石和海底山的脆弱结构，而正是这些东西为生活在深海海底的无数鱼类和其它海洋生物提供了赖以生存的场所。
因为深海海底拖网捕捞是最近才出现的一种现象，它所造成的损害还是有限的。如能赶紧采取措施防止这些在公海上的破坏活动，它为海洋环境和子孙后代带来的好处将是无法估量的。这些好处将远远超过渔业短期内需承担的花费。
Most of the world's victims of AIDS live-and, at an alarming rate, die-in Africa. The number of people living with AIDS in Africa was estimated at 26.6 million in late 2003. New figures to be published by the United Nations Joint Program on AIDS（UNAIDS），the special UN agency set up to deal with the pandemic, will probably confirm its continued spread in Africa, but they will also show whether the rate of spread is constant, increasing or falling.
AIDS is most prevalent in Eastern and Southern Africa, with South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya having the greatest numbers of sufferers; other countries severely affected include Botswana and Zambia. AIDS was raging in Eastern Africa - where it was called "slim", after the appearance of victims wasting away-within a few years after its emergence was established in the eastern Congo basin; however, the conflicting theories about the origin of AIDS are highly controversial and politicized, and the controversy is far from being settled.
Measures being taken all over Africa include, first of all, campaigns of public awareness and device, including advice to remain faithful to one sexual partner and to use condoms. The latter advice is widely ignored or resisted owing to natural and cultural aversion to condoms and to Christian and Muslim teaching, which places emphasis instead on self-restraint.
An important part of anti- AIDS campaigns, whether organized by governments, nongovernmental organizations or both, is the extension of voluntary counseling and testing（VCT）.In addition, medical research has found a way to help sufferers, though not to cure them.
Funds for anti- AIDS efforts are provided by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities around the world; the fund was launched following a call by the UN Secretary-General in 2001. However, much more is needed if the spread of the pandemic is to be at least halted.
参考译文
世界上大多数艾滋病患者生活在非洲，并以惊人的速度大批死亡。据估计，2003年底非洲的艾滋病患者达到2660万人。联合国联合防治艾滋病计划署是联合国为对付艾滋病而设立的专门机构，该机构将要公布的最新数字可能证实艾滋病还在非洲继续蔓延，但同时也可以说明它蔓延的速度是维持不变，或在加快，还是在放慢。
艾滋病最猖獗的地区是非洲的东部和南部，在南非、津巴布韦和肯尼亚患者人数最多，疫情严重的国家还包括博茨瓦纳和赞比亚。1981年艾滋病的出现在世界上得到确认，没过几年，这种病就在非洲东部流行起来-当地人管它叫“瘦病”，因为患者的容貌是日渐消瘦。关于这种病毒的发源地，一种说法是发源于东刚果盆地；然而关于艾滋病来源的说法不一，很有争议，且带有浓厚的政治色彩；这场争论至今还远未结束。
整个非洲都在采取措施，最主要的是提高公众意识和防范手段，包括建议忠实于一个性伴侣和使用避孕套。人们一般不愿使用避孕套，因为不习惯，还有文化方面的原因，同时它也不符合基督教和伊斯兰教的教义，它们更强调自我约束。
在防治艾滋病的活动中，重要的一项就是提倡"自愿就医检查"，这项活动，有的市政府组织的，有的是民间组织的，也有的是政府和民间共同组织的。此外，医学研究也找到了一种办法，虽然不能治愈，也可对患者有所帮助。
“全球预防艾滋病、肺结核、疟疾基金会”是世界各国政府部门、市民社会、私人企业和患者群体的一个协作机构，是应联合国秘书长的号召，于2001年发起成立的。这一机构为防治艾滋病的各项活动提供资金。然而，即便只是为了制止艾滋病的蔓延，这也是远远不够的。
As a leader of a least developed country, I speak from experience when I say that poverty is too complex a phenomenon, and the strategies for fighting it too diverse and dependent on local circumstances, for there is no single silver bullet in the war on poverty.
We have learned the hard way over the years. We have experimented with all kinds of ideas.
Yet a report recently released by the World Economic Forum shows that barely a third of what should have been done by now to ensure the world meets its goals to fight poverty, hunger and disease by 2015 is done. I am now convinced that the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2000 can only be attained through a global compact, anchored in national policies that take into account local circumstances.
Aid and trade are both necessary, but they are not enough on their own. Neither is good governance enough in itself. Above all, nothing can move without the direct participation of local communities. I fear that we lecture too much. This is not the best way.
I will give an example of how such a compact worked in Tanzania to achieve universal basic schooling.
I the mid-1990s, almost all indicators for basic education were in free fall. The gross enrollment rate had fallen from 98 percent in the early 1980s to 77.6 percent in 2000. The net enrollment rate had likewise fallen, from over 80 percent to only 58.8 percent.
Then several things happened. We decided at the top political level that basic education would be a top priority, and adopted a five-year Primary Education Development Plan to achieve universal basic education by 2006-nine years ahead of the global target.
Good governance produced more government revenues, which quadrupled over the last eight years. In 2001, we received debt relief under the World Bank's enhanced HIPC（heavily indebted poor countries）Initiative. Subsequently, more donors put aid money directly into our budget or into a pooled fund for the Primary Education Development Program（PEDP）.
The government's political will was evidenced by the fact that over the last five years the share of the national budget going to poverty reduction rose by 130 percent. We abolished school fees in primary schools.
Then we ensured that all PEDP projects are locally determined, planned, owned, implemented and evaluated. This gave the people pride and dignity in what they were doing. After only two years of implementing PEDP, tremendous successes have been achieved.
参考译文
作为一个最不发达国家的领导人，就切身体验而言，我认为贫穷是一个非常复杂的现象，战胜贫穷的方法也是多种多样的，而且在很大程度上取决于当地的情况，因此也就没有一件特别有效的法宝。
许多年来，我们吃过不少苦头。我们对各种不同的主张进行了试验。
然而，世界经济论坛不久前发表的一份报告称，全世界应在2015年完成的战胜贫穷、饥饿和疟疾的目标，至今只勉强完成了应完成的三分之一。现在我确信，要实现联合国于2000年确定的各项新前年发展目标，必须要有一项全球协议。该协议必须基于符合当地情况的国家政策。
援助和贸易都是必要的，但光靠它们还是不够的。只靠善治也是不够的。事实上，没有地方社会力量的直接参与，任何事情都不可能取得进展。我担心的是我们说得太多。这可不是上策。
我想举一个例子来说名义向全球协议是怎么在坦桑尼亚运作，以实现普及基础教育的。
二十世纪九十年代中期，基础教育几乎各项指标都大幅下滑。毛入学率从八十年代初的98%下降到2000年的77.6%。净入学率也从80%以上下降到只有58.8%。
随后发生了几件事情。最高政治领导层决定将基础教育列为最优先发展的项目，并通过了"小学教育五年发展计划"，规定于2006年普及基础教育，比全球的规定目标提前九年。
善治使国库日渐充实，政府收入八年来翻了两番。2001年，我们接受了世界银行为重债穷国进一步免除债务的安排。随后还有捐助者直接把钱划入我们的预算，或捐给小学教育发展计划设立的合作基金。
政府的政治决心从以下情况可以得到验证：五年来，国家预算中用于消除贫穷的部分增加了130%。我们还取消了小学的学费。
此外，我们还保证所有涉及小学教育发展计划的项目都由地方来确定、规划、拥有、执行和评估。这就使得人们为自己的所作所为感到骄傲，感到光彩。小学教育发展计划只实行了两年，就取得了巨大的成功。
The first outline of The Ascent of Man was written in July 1969and the last foot of film was shot in December 1972. An undertaking as large as this, though wonderfully exhilarating, is not entered lightly. It demands an unflagging intellectual and physical vigour, a total immersion, which I had to be sure that I could sustain with pleasure; for instance, I had to put off researches that I had already begun; and I ought to explain what moved me to do so.
There has been a deep change in the temper of science in the last20 years: the focus of attention has shifted from the physical to the life sciences. As a result, science is drawn more and more to the study of individuality. But the interested spectator is hardly aware yet how far-reaching the effect is in changing the image of man that science moulds. As a mathematician trained in physics, I too would have been unaware, had not a series of lucky chances taken me into the life sciences in middle age. I owe a debt for the good fortune that carried me into two seminal fields of science in one lifetime; and though I do not know to whom the debt is due, I conceived The Ascent of Man in gratitude to repay it.
The invitation to me from the British Broadcasting Corporation was to present the development of science in a series of television programmes to match those of Lord Clark on Civilisation. Television is an admirable medium- for exposition in several ways: powerful and immediate to the eye, able to take the spectator bodily into the places and processes that are described, and conversational enough to make him conscious that what he witnesses are not events but the actions of people. The last of these merits is to my mind the most cogent, and it weighed most with me in agreeing to cast a personal biography of ideas in the form of television essays. The point is that knowledge in general and science in particular does not consist of abstract but of man-made ideas, all the way from its beginnings to its modern and idiosyncratic models. Therefore the underlying concepts that unlock nature must be shown to arise early and in the simplest cultures of man from his basic and specific faculties. And the development of science which joins them in more and more complex conjunctions must be seen to be equally human: discoveries are made by men, not merely by minds, so that they are alive and charged with individuality. If television is not used to make these thoughts concrete, it is wasted.
参考译文
《人类的进程》一书的提纲初稿是1969年7月完成的，影片的最后一部分是在1972年12月拍摄的。像这样大的一个项目，虽然异常精彩，令人激动，却并不是轻易上马的。它要求我保持旺盛的脑力和体力，专心致志地投入工作。我必须确保持之以恒，并从中得到乐趣；比方说，我不得不停下已经开始的研究工作；我还应当说明一下，究竟是什么促使我承担这项工作的。
二十年来，科学的发展趋势发生了深刻的变化：关注的焦点已经从自然科转移到生命科学。结果，便把科学越来越吸引到个体特征的研究上来。然而感兴趣的旁观者几乎没有意识到此事对于改变科学塑造的人的形象产生了多么深远的影响。我是一个研究数学的人，以前学过物理学，若不是中年有幸有几次机会涉足生命科学，我也不会有所认识。我应当感谢我交的好运，是它使我在一生中参与了两个启发性的科学领域。尽管我并不知道应该向谁表示感谢，我编写了《人类的进程》一书，以表示我的感激之情。
英国广播公司邀请我做的是通过一套电视节目来表现科学的发展过程，以与克拉克勋爵制作的关于文明的电视节目相匹配。通过电视来进行解说有几大好处：它有力、直观，能使观众身临其境或亲身参与所描述的过程，它的语言亲切，能使观众觉得他所看到的是人们的行动而不是事件。这些优点之中，我认为最后一点最为突出，它是一股最大的动力促使我同意以电视散文的方式从个人的角度来讲述各种思想的发展史。重要的是知识总体，尤其是科学知识不是由抽象的思想构成的，而是由人的思想构成的，自有知识开始直到现代千奇百怪的模式莫不是如此。所以介绍打开自然界之门的基本思想，必须表现出它们很早就已产生，而且是产生在人类最淳朴的文化之中，产生于人类基本的、具体的感官之中。同时还必须表现出使种种思想形成越来越复杂的结合体的科学的发展也同样是人类的贡献：种种发现都是人的产物，而不仅仅是头脑的产物，因此它们都是有生气的，而且具有个人的特色。如果电视未能把这些思想表现得很具体，那岂不是浪费！
It's not that we are afraid of seeing him stumble, of scribbling a mustache over his career. Sure, the nice part of us wants Mike to know we appreciate him, that he still reigns, at least in our memory. The truth, though, is that we don't want him to come back because even for Michael Jordan, this would be an act of hubris so monumental as to make his trademark confidence twist into conceit. We don't want him back on the court because no one likes a show-off. The stumbling? That will be fun.
But we are nice people, we Americans, with 225 years of optimism at our backs. Days ago when M.J. said he had made a decision about returning to the NBA in September, we got excited. He had said the day before, "I look forward to playing, and hopefully I can get to that point where I can make that decision. It's O.K., to have some doubt, and it's O.K. to have some nervousness." A Time/CNN poll last week has Americans, 2 to 1, saying they would like him on the court ASAP. And only 21 percent thought that if he came back and just completely bombed, it would damage his legend. In fact only 28 percent think athletes should retire at their peak.
Sources close to him tell Time that when Jordan first talked about a comeback with the Washington Wizards, the team Jordan co-owns and would play for, some of his trusted advisers privately tried to discourage him. "But they say if they try to stop him, it will only firm up his resolve," says an NBA source.
The problem with Jordan's return is not only that he can't possibly live up to the storybook ending he gave up in 1998 - earning his sixth ring with a last-second championship-winning shot. The problem is that the motives for coming back - needing the attention, needing to play even when his 38-year-old body does not - violate the very myth of Jordan, the myth of absolute control. Babe Ruth, the 20th century's first star, was a gust of fat bravado and drunken talent, while Jordan ended the century by proving the elegance of resolve; Babe's pointing to the bleachers replaced by the charm of a backpedaling shoulder shrug. Jordan symbolized success by not sullying his brand with his politics, his opinion or superstar personality. To be a Jordan fan was to be a fan of classiness and confidence.
To come back when he knows that playing for Wizards won't get him anywhere near the second round of the play-offs, when he knows that he won't be the league scoring leader, that's a loss of control.
Jordan does not care what we think. Friends say that he takes articles that tell him not to come back and tacks them all on his refrigerator as inspiration. So why bother writing something telling him not to come back? He is still Michael Jordan.
参考译文
不是因为我们害怕看到他会因失误而给他辉煌的生涯画上遗憾的一笔。从善意的角度说，我们想让迈克知道，我们仍然欣赏他，至少在我们的记忆中，他仍然是英雄。事实上，我们不想让他重返球场，即使他是迈克尔•乔丹。我们觉得这是个贸然之举，我们不想看到自信的商标蜕变成一种自负的象征。我们不想让他重返球场，因为没有人喜欢卖弄。失误呢？那将会很有趣。
但是我们是有着225年乐观历史的美国人，我们都是好心人。当乔丹几天前宣布他将在九月重返NBA时，我们曾为之一振。宣布的前一天，他说过：“我盼望能打球，并希望事情能如愿以偿。有些人怀疑，有些人紧张，都属正常。”《时代》周刊和美国有线新闻网上周做的一项民意调查表明，每两个美国人当中就有一个人希望乔丹尽快重返赛场。只有21%的人们认为，如果他的重返导致一场彻底失败，将会损害他的传奇。事实上只有28%的人认为运动员应该在他的运动巅峰时期引退。
与乔丹关系密切的人告诉《时代》周刊，当乔丹第一次谈到重返它与其他人共同拥有的华盛顿奇才队并为之效力时，一些他最信任的顾问试图私下打消他的愿望。“但他们说，如果试图阻止他，只能鉴定他的决心，”一位NBA人士如是说。
乔丹复出所产生的问题不仅仅在于他不可能重现1998年的神话，那一年，他以一个精彩的最后一秒投篮，使球队赢得了冠军，也为自己赢得了第六只金指环。问题是他重返的动机--他需要人们的关注，需要在38岁体力不支时，仍然打球。这一切都有悖于他所创造的神话--一个展示绝对控制力的神话。如果说二十世纪的第一个球星巴比•鲁斯是一个身材魁梧肥胖的鲁莽之夫和酒鬼天才，乔丹则证明了刚毅所能带来的优雅风度，并以此结束了二十世纪。巴比对观众的颐指气使被乔丹无奈耸肩的魅力所取代。乔丹代表着成功，因为他的名字没有被他的政治倾向、他的观点或是他的超级明星个性所玷污。乔丹迷就是典雅和自信迷。
明明知道加盟奇才队他将不可能进入联赛第二轮赛事，明明知道他将与联赛最佳投手无缘，他的重返赛场就是一种失控。
乔丹并不在乎我们在想什么。他的朋友说：他把所有奉劝他不要复出的文章都贴在冰箱上作为激励。那么，我们为什么还要喋喋不休地告诉他不要复出呢？他依然是迈克尔•乔丹。
Even after I was too grown-up to play that game and too grown-up to tell my mother that I loved her, I still believed I was the best daughter. Didn't I run all the way up to the terrace to check on the drying mango pickles whenever she asked?
As I entered my teens, it seemed that I was becoming an even better, more loving daughter. Didn't I drop whatever I was doing each afternoon to go to the corner grocery to pick up any spices my mother had run out of?
My mother, on the other hand, seemed more and more unloving to me. Some days she positively resembled a witch as she threatened to pack me off to my second uncle's home in provincial Barddhaman - a fate worse than death to a cool Calcutta girl like me - if my grades didn't improve. Other days she would sit me down and tell me about "Girls Who Brought Shame to Their Families". There were apparently, a million ways in which one could do this, and my mother was determined that I should be cautioned against every one of them. On principle, she disapproved of everything I wanted to do, from going to study in America to perming my hair, and her favorite phrase was "over my dead body." It was clear that I loved her far more than she loved me - that is, if she loved me at all.
After I finished graduate school in America and got married, my relationship with my mother improved a great deal. Though occasionally dubious about my choice of a writing career, overall she thought I'd shaped up nicely. I thought the same about her. We established a rhythm: She'd write from India and give me all the gossip and send care packages with my favorite kind of mango pickle; I'd call her from the United States and tell her all the things I'd been up to and send care packages with instant vanilla pudding, for which she'd developed a great fondness. We loved each other equally - or so I believed until my first son, Anand, was born.
My son's birth shook up my neat, organized, in-control adult existence in ways I hadn't imagined. I went through six weeks of being shrouded in an exhausted fog of postpartum depression. As my husband and I walked our wailing baby up and down through the night, and I seriously contemplated going AWOL, I wondered if I was cut out to be a mother at all. And mother love - what was that all about?
Then one morning, as I was changing yet another diaper, Anand grinned up at me with his toothless gums. Hmm, I thought. This little brown scrawny thing is kind of cute after all. Things progressed rapidly from there. Before I knew it, I'd moved the extra bed into the baby's room and was spending many nights on it, bonding with my son.
参考译文
即使我长大些，不再适合做这样的游戏，不再对母亲说我爱她，我仍然相信自己是世上最好的女儿。难道不是吗？每当母亲吩咐，我不是总一路跑着到阳台去查看晒在那儿的腌芒果？
当我步入少年，我好像变成了一个更乖更可爱的女儿。难道不是吗？每天下午，当妈妈需要新的调料，我不是总放下手头的工作去街角的杂货店帮她买？
另一方面，我的母亲对我的爱却好像越来越少。有时她活像个巫婆，因为她威胁如果我的学习成绩还没有起色，就要把我送到远在巴哈马乡下的二叔家--这对于像我这样心高气奥德加尔各答女孩而言，将是比死亡更悲惨的命运。有时她又会让我坐着听她讲有关“带给家庭耻辱的女孩”的故事。显然一个人会面对许多变坏的可能，因此母亲决心让我对每个可能都保持警惕。基本上，她对我想做的每一件事都持反对意见，从去美国学习到烫头发。她的口头禅是“除非我死了”。很明显，我对母亲的爱远远超过了她对我的爱--如果她爱我的话。
当我结束了在美国的研究生学习并结了婚，我和母亲的关系改善了许多。虽然偶尔她还对我的当作家的选择表示怀疑，但总的来说她认为我做的事情还算不错。对于她我也这样认为。我们之间建立起一种循环：她从印度写信给我，告诉我各种趣闻，并寄来我最喜欢的腌芒果；我从美国打电话给她，告诉她我都忙了些什么事情，并寄去她最喜欢的香草布丁。我们的爱是对等的--至少在我的儿子阿南德出生前，我是这样认为的。
儿子的降生一下子打乱了我的平静、规律、有秩序的生活，使我措手不及。出院后的六周里，我一直被产后抑郁症的阴影包围着。当夜里我和我的丈夫抱着哭闹不止的儿子，走来走去哄他睡觉，我开始认真考虑是否要“撤退”。我怀疑自己是否适合做母亲。母爱--究竟是什么？
有一天清晨，我在为阿南德换尿布，他突然咧开没有牙的嘴，冲我笑起来。那一刻我在想，这个褐色的瘦弱的小东西毕竟还是很可爱的。之后事情就进展得很顺利了。不知不觉之间，我已在婴儿室里添了一张床并在很多天晚上睡在那儿，陪着我心爱的宝贝。