Forget Cyclists, Pedestrians are Real Danger We are having a debate about this topic. Here are some letters from our readers. ■ Yes, many cyclists behave dangerously. Many drivers are disrespectful of cyclists. But pedestrians are probably the worse offenders. People of all ages happily walk along the pavement with eyes and hands glued to the mobile phone, quite unaware of what is going on around them. They may even do the same thing while crossing a road at a pedestrian crossing or elsewhere. The rest of us have to evade (避让) them or just stand still to wait for the unavoidable collision. The real problem is that some pedestrians seem to be, at least for the moment, in worlds of their own that are, to them, much more important than the welfare of others. ——Michael Horan ■ I love the letter from Bob Brooks about cyclists (Viewpoints, May 29). I am afraid they seem to think they own the roads. I was walking across Altrincham Road one morning when a cyclist went round me and on being asked what he was doing he shouted at me. The government built a cycle lane on the road but it is hardly used. The police do nothing. What a laugh they are! The cyclists should all have to be made to use the cycle lanes and wear helmets, fluorescent (发荧光的) jacket and lights at night and in the morning they should pay some sort of tax and be fined for not wearing them. ——Carol Harvey ■ Cyclists jump on and off pavements (which are meant for pedestrians), ride at speed along the pavements, and think they have a special right to go through traffic lights when they are on red. I was almost knocked down recently by a cyclist riding on the pavement when there was a cycle lane right next to him. Other road users, including horse riders, manage to obey the rules, so why not cyclists? It's about time they had to be registered and insured, so when they do hit a pedestrian or a vehicle, or cause an accident, at least they can be treated and there might be an opportunity to claim. ——JML Write to Viewpoints of the newspaper. |
In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, "No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me. "
The city planner decided to build an underground drainage (排水) system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.
An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced me the city had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12 feet.
This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?
That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10 jackscrews. At Pullman's signal each man turned his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening. Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.
Franz Kafka wrote that "a book must be the ax (斧子) for the frozen sea inside us. " I once shared this sentence with a class of seventh graders, and it didn't seem to require any explanation.
We'd just finished John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. When we read the end together out loud in class, my toughest boy, a star basketball player, wept a little, and so did I. "Are you crying?" one girl asked, as she got out of her chair to take a closer look. "I am," I told her, "and the funny thing is I've read it many times. "
But they understood. When George shoots Lennie, the tragedy is that we realize it was always going to happen. In my 14 years of teaching in a New York City public middle school, I've taught kids with imprisoned parents, abusive parents, irresponsible parents; kids who are parents themselves; kids who are homeless; kids who grew up in violent neighborhoods. They understand, more than I ever will, the novel's terrible logic—the giving way of dreams to fate (命运).
For the last seven years, I have worked as a reading enrichment teacher, reading classic works of literature with small groups of students from grades six to eight. I originally proposed this idea to my headmaster after learning that a former excellent student of mine had transferred out of a selective high school—one that often attracts the literary-minded children of Manhattan's upper classes—into a less competitive setting. The daughter of immigrants, with a father in prison, she perhaps felt uncomfortable with her new classmates. I thought additional "cultural capital" could help students like her develop better in high school, where they would unavoidably meet, perhaps for the first time, students who came from homes lined with bookshelves, whose parents had earned Ph. Ds.
Along with Of Mice and Men, my groups read: Sounder, The Red Pony, Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. The students didn't always read from the expected point of view. About The Red Pony, one student said, "it's about being a man, it's about manliness. " I had never before seen the parallels between Scarface and Macbeth, nor had I heard Lady Macbeth's soliloquies (独白) read as raps (说唱), but both made sense; the interpretations were playful, but serious. Once introduced to Steinbeck's writing, one boy went on to read The Grapes of Wrath and told me repeatedly how amazing it was that "all these people hate each other, and they're all white. " His historical view was broadening, his sense of his own country deepening. Year after year, former students visited and told me how prepared they had felt in their first year in college as a result of the classes.
Year after year, however, we are increasing the number of practice tests. We are trying to teach students to read increasingly complex texts, not for emotional punch (碰撞) but for text complexity. Yet, we cannot enrich (充实) the minds of our students by testing them on texts that ignore their hearts. We are teaching them that words do not amaze but confuse. We may succeed in raising test scores, but we will fail to teach them that reading can be transformative and that it belongs to them.
Sports accounts for a growing amount of income made on the sales of commercial time by television companies. Many television companies have used sports to attract views from particular sections of the general public, and then they have sold audiences to advertisers.
An attraction of sports programs for the major U. S. media company is that events are often held on Saturday and Sunday afternoons — the slowest time periods of the week for general television viewing. Sport events are the most popular weekend programs, especially among male viewers who may not watch much television at other times during the week. This means the television networks are able to sell advertising time at relatively high prices during what normally would be dead time for programming. Media corporations also use sports to attract commercial sponsors that might take their advertising dollars elsewhere if television stations did not report certain sports. The people in the advertising departments of major corporations realize that sports attract male viewers. They also realize that most business travelers are men and that many men make family decisions on the purchases of computers, cars and life insurance.
Golf and tennis are special cases for television programming. These sports attract few viewers, and the ratings(收视率) are unusually low. However, the audience for these sports is attractive to certain advertisers. It is made up of people from the highest income groups in the United States, including many lawyers and business managers. This is why television reporting of golf and tennis is sponsored by companies selling high-priced cars, business and personal computers, and holiday trips. This is also why the networks continue to carry these programs regardless of low ratings. Advertisers are willing to pay high fees to reach high-income consumers and those managers who make decisions to buy thousands of "company cars" and computers. With such viewers, these programs don't need high ratings to stay on the air.
How the Elderly Are Treated Around the World
How cultures view and treat their elderly is closely linked to their most prized values and qualities.
In the US and UK, Protestantism (新教) is at play. Western cultures tend to be youth-centric, stressing qualities like independence. It ties a person's value to his or her ability to work – something that becomes weaker in old age. As their health becomes worse, the elderly in these cultures often move to old people's homes and nursing homes.
In France, parents are protected by law. It is difficult to imagine an Elderly Rights Law being a focus in the laws of many Western cultures. France did, however, pass a similar law in 2004. One was a group of official statistics showing France had the highest rate of pensioner suicides in Europe, and the other was the aftermath of a heat wave that killed 15,000 people, most of whom were elderly and had been dead for weeks before they were found.
Native American cultures traditionally accept death as a fact of life. In many Native American areas, elders are respected for their wisdom and life experiences. Within Native American families, it's common for the elders to be expected to pass down their learning to younger members of the family.
The way to care for Chinese elders is changing. Chinese families traditionally view respect for one's elders as the highest virtue, according to the Confucian tradition. Adult children are generally expected to care for their parents in their old age. Nursing homes are beginning to become a more socially acceptable option for elderly care.
A. However, this tradition is beginning to break down due to rising lifetime and an aging population.
B. In the African-American area, death is seen as an opportunity to celebrate life.
C. Here's what we can learn from other cultures about treating the elderly.
D. But China faces the unique problem of tending to an increasingly elderly population.
E. Native American elders pass down their knowledge.
F. It was only passed following two disturbing events, though.
G. This relates back to the Protestant work rules.
At the1 of Palo Duro Canyon (峡谷）State Park, I2 a job advertisement hiring park hosts. The position offered a 3 , permanent campsite in the park, and 4 , the hosts served as a link between the park's guests and the rangers (护林人). It was the perfect solution: a rent-free place to reorganize our lives. We entered the park and I made an5 for the following day.
The park was 6 , so it took us some time to find an available site. That evening, as we finished our dinner, my wife saw two large skunks (臭鼠由）walking toward our table. We 7 climbed onto the table and, for the next four hours, waited for them to 8 our camp.
Having survived that night, we were 9 that everything else would be all right. The next day we met with the people who ran the park. They explained our 10 and gave us a beautiful campsite.
That evening, 11 , we learned about the canyon 12 . They were strong and cold, rocking our little camping truck violently, and we lay 13 in the dark until the winds died away.
14 the weeks that followed, we learned to survive in our truck and 15 the little money my wife16 by substitute teaching. Building a successful business and then losing it had left very little time for building another successful 17 . For a time after our business18 I thought I might lose my family as well.
Living in the tiny 19 with no television, we sat close together reading and talking. One evening, standing under a jeweled sky, I found myself 20 for all the hardships. We had walked the trails and climbed the canyon walls. We had become a family!
Xuan paper, known as one of the Four Treasures of the Study, first came into (exist) in Xuan Prefecture in the Tang dynasty. The traditional skill of making the paper hand has been passed down through generations. The process takes as many as 18 steps, all of require a level of delicacy.
Take papermaking master Zhou Donghong for example. He uses a fine screen to filter (过滤) a mixture of water and fibers. He lifts it up, and it's a sheet of paper. It takes him and his partner only 15 seconds (form) and shape it, but they've devoted (they) to perfecting the skills for decades.
"There are a lot of tricks of filtering the fibers, and timing is the most difficult part of all. We have only one chance to filter the right amount of fibers, and only the proper weight guarantees the paper is too thin nor too thick, and the margin(差额) for error is (extreme) small," said Zhou. With just the right degree of thickness, top quality Xuan paper holds ink and water tightly.
The skill of papermaking, (recognize) as a national treasure, has also proven to be an international one. We felt great sense of pride as it was listed as a world intangible cultural heritage(非物质文化遗产) by UNESCO in 2009. Since then, in Jing County, Xuan papermaking (teach) in schools.
