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发表于 2007-8-13 23:00:50 |显示全部楼层
AN UNUSUAL ARCHITECT—LEOH MING PEI

On this vivid planet, it appears colorful with azure blue seawater, lush green plants and many world famous buildings. Among these largest artificial articles in the world, many originated from the same architect—Ieoh  Ming  Pei.

Ieoh Ming Pei, the 1983 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, is a founding partner of I. M. Pei & Partners based in New York City. He was born in China in 1917, the son of a prominent banker. He came to the United States in 1935 to study architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B. Arch. 1940) and the Harvard Graduate School of Design (M. Arch. 1946).  

During World War Ⅱ, he served on the National defense Research Commission at Princeton, and from 1945 to 1948, taught at Harvard. In 1948 he accepted the newly created post of director of Architecture at Webb & Knapp, Inc., the real estate development firm, and this association resulted in major architectural and planning projects in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh and other cities. In 1958, he formed the partnership of I. M. Pei & Associates, which became I. M. Pei & Parteners in

1966. The partnership received the 1968 Architectural Firm Award of The American Institute of Architects.

Pei has designed over forty projects in this country and abroad, twenty of which have been award winners. His more prominent commissions have included the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D .C.; the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library near Boston; the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado; the Dallas City Hall in Texas; the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Centre (OCBC) and Raffles City in Singapore; the West Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Fragrant Hill Hotel near Beijing, China, designed to graft advanced  technology onto the roofs of indigenous building and thereby sow the seed of a new ,distinctly Chinese form of modern architecture; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse , New York; and the Texas Commerce Tower in Houston.

He has designed arts facilities and university buildings on the campuses of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Rochester, Cornell University, the Choate School, Syracuse University, New York University and the University of Hawaii. He has been selected to design the headquarters for the Bank of China in Hong Kong.

Pei is currently a member of the National Council on the Arts, and previously served on the National Council on the Humanities. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (of which he served a term as Chancellor), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Design. He is a member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institue of Technology.

As a student, he was awarded the MIT Traveling Fellowship, and the Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship at Harvard. His subsequent honors include the following: the Brunner Award, the Medal of Honor of the New York Chapter of the AIA, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Medal for Architecture, the Gold Medal for Architecture of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Alpha Rho Chi Gold Medal, la Grande mé-daille d’Or de I’ Académie d’ Architecture (France), and The Gold Medal of The American Institute of Architects. In 1982, the deans of the architectural schools of the United Sates chose I. M. Pei as the best designer of significant non-residential structures.
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发表于 2007-8-13 23:01:43 |显示全部楼层
A WOMAN BILLIARDIST ALLISON FISHER

In school, Allison was a very competitive team sport player and almost pursued a career as a physical education teacher, but snooker was the game she excelled in. She got her start in Snooker by simply falling in love with the game.

“My first interest in snooker occurred when I was seven years old. My dad was watching a snooker competition on the television, and I liked what I saw so much that I asked for a table. Being the youngest and spoilt, my with was granted. I became the proud owner of the smallest competitive table on earth: 1.5 long. I graduated to a 6’ x 3’ table when I was eleven years old, and challenged everyone who entered our house. Whether they liked it or not! When I was twelve years old, I went to the Peacehaven Central Club with my parents where, for the first time I saw a full size snooker table(12’×6’). I had a burning desire to play on it. I went home that night and I was crying in bed. My mum came in and asked me what was wrong. “I want to play on the big table.’ I replied. So she asked my dad to ask the owner, John Copper, if I could play on it. And he made my dreams come true.”

At thirteen Allison got into a league, and at fifteen she was seriously competing in the world of Snooker. By the age of seventeen, she had won her first world title and never looked back. From then until the age of twenty-seven. Allison Fisher was a dominant  force in the world of Snooker, She left Snooker, winning over 80 national titles and eleven world championships, including three mixed doubles and the only Ladies Mixed Doubles event ever held. She played in her first Women’s Professional Billiards Association (WPBA) Tournament in October 1995. This newcomer startled everyone by winning two of her four events, and by placing third in the World Pool Association (WPA) World 9-Ball Championship In 1996 Allison continued to storm the tour with seven first place finishes, and a # I ranking. As she would for the next three years, Allison earned Player of the Year honors from Billiards Digest and Pool and Billiard Magazine. She also won her first WPA World 9-Ball championship, and her first WPBA Championship.

She kept up her stellar performances in 1997 by winning six of eleven WPBA events. Allison defended her championship when she again won the WPA World 9-Ball title. As in 1996, this year saw Allison Fisher end with the # I ranking in the WPBA. Her peers also honored her with a “Most Congenial Player” award from the Year-End Billiards Digest Awards.

On the personal side, Allison is British enough to miss her Mom’s pot roast, the atmosphere in pubs, small villages, lifelong friends and family, and Alfie, her dog. Never one for the “bar scene,” a great evening for Allison is to have good food, good friends, and a night of laughter ·····

As good as she has been for the game. Allison is quick to point out that it has been even to her. Allison Fisher has always counted her blessings and since her beginning, she has never hesitated to give her time to worthy charities. She has a heart of gold and never hesitates to involve herself where she can help others.

Her sponsors are proud to have her associated with them, and Allison only promotes what she believes in .Be sure and take a peek at her sponsor page, as well as Allison’s new line of signature cues. Allison is also developing a new series of instructional videotapes that are intensely focused on the fundamentals, concentration and technique that have made her game what it is today. With Pool and Billiards on the rise with Olympic recognition. And even more television exposure thanks to the WPBA; Allison Fisher continues to be at the top of her game. Her desire is to see the sport enjoy the same “boom” in popularity that tennis enjoyed in the 1970’s. For Allison the sport itself comes ahead of the player. Family, friends, her new home and the intense level of competition keep her on her toes and enjoying life to its fullest. As Allison would say “Cheers all! Hope to see you soon!”
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发表于 2007-8-13 23:02:21 |显示全部楼层
FREUD’S DISCOVERY

In April 1884 Freud read of a German army doctor who had successfully employed cocaine as a means of increasing the energy and endurance of soldiers. He determined to obtain some for himself and try it as a treatment for other conditions—heart disease, nervous exhaustion and morphine addiction. It was little known at that time and the extensive ethical and methodological rules governing modern drug trials did not exist.

Freud took some himself and was immediately impressed with the sense of well-being it engendered, without diminishing his capacity for work. Having read a report in the Detroit Medical Gazette concerning its value in the treatment of addictions his next step was to recommend the substance as a harmless substitute to his friend and colleague, Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow. Fleischl. Who had become a morphine addict following repeated therapeutic administrations for intractable neurological pain and was in desperate straits, took to cocaine with enthusiasm and was soon consuming it in large quantities.

Meanwhile Freud continued to extol the virtues of the drug, writing a review essay on the subject, taking it himself and pressing it upon his fiancee, friends as a panacea for all ills, He had gone overboard with enthusiasm, writing to Martha when he heard she had lost her appetite,“Woe to you, my Princess. When I come. I will kiss you quite red and fees you ‘till you are plump. And if you are forward you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.’’

Among the people to whom Freud introduced cocaine was his colleague Carl Koller, a young doctor working in the department of ophthalmology. Freud published his essay in the July issue of the Centralblatt für Therapie, concluding it by drawing attention to the possible future uses of the drug as a local anaesthetic. Koller was impressed, thought it likely to be useful in eye operations and two months later tried it out , first on animals and then on his own eyes with complete success. He was quick to publish his findings, thus securing a place in world history as the discoverer of what turned out to be virtually the only medical use for the substance.

Freud had missed his chance, but worse was to follow. Fleischl’s  temporary improvement on taking cocaine was short lived. Within a week his condition deteriorated, his pain became unbearable and he relapsed into morphine consumption. He now had not one addiction but two, taking cocaine in doses a hundred times larger than Freud used to do. He suffered toxic confusional states in which he became agitated, experiencing severe anxiety and visual hallucinations. Yet Freud continued to advocate the use of cocaine in morphinism, presumably on the basis that (as had been reported by others) it was beneficial in selected cases.

His paper On the General Effect of Cocaine. Written in the spring of 1885, was published in August and subsequently abstracted in the Lancer, By the following year, however, cases of cocaine addiction and intoxication were being reported from all over the world. Freud came under severe criticism for his advocacy of the drug and defended himself by claiming(inaccurately)that he had never advised its use in subcutaneous injections. He expressed the following view, “Theory is fine but it doesn’t stop facts from existing.” This became a favorite warning against the uncritical acceptance of received wisdom.
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You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

I'M COMING!一切皆可改变!
——阿迪王Adivon

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发表于 2007-8-13 23:02:44 |显示全部楼层
汗~~~真多...顶下..

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发表于 2007-8-13 23:02:53 |显示全部楼层
I LIVE ENTIRELY IN MY MUSIC—BEETHOVEN

Beethoven probably began to go deaf after what he called his ‘terrible typhus’ of 1797, but he tried to keep it a secret, while consulting doctors and trying various remedies, such as the application of almond oil. He was extremely anxious about its possible effect on his career as a musician, and embarrassed by its effect on his social life.

   In the summer of 1801 he wrote to tow friends. To Franz Wegeler in Bonn he wrote that he was very busy, with more commissions than he could cope with,and publishers competing to get hold of his latest works, but he was worried about his health, and particularly about his gradual loss of hearing. He had been leading a miserable life for the previous two years because of his deafness, and had avoided human company because he found it hard to tell people that he was deaf. He would always say, “I live entirely in my music.”

  Two days later he wrote to Karl Amenda, a more recent friend. On the same lines, expressing the anxiety that his best years would pass “without my being able to achieve all that my talent and my strength have commanded me to do.” His fear that his deafness would prevent him from realizing his artistic potential led him to contemplate taking his own artistic life, but in the so-called ‘Heiligenstadt Testament’, addressed to his brothers and found among his papers after his death, which he wrote in the depths of despair in October 1802, he said that he had rejected suicide, and was resigned to his condition. He explained that his deafness was the reason why he had been withdrawing from people’s company, because he found it so humiliating not being able to hear, but he did not want to tell people about it. Although tempted to kill himself, “the only thing that held me back was my art. For indeed it seemed to me impossible to leave this world before I had produced all the works that I felt the urge to compose.”

During the summer of 1802 he had spent six months in Heiligenstadt, thirteen miles outside Vienna, on the advice of one of his doctors who thought that his hearing might improve in the peace and quiet away from Vienna. But his pupil, Ferdinand Ries (son of the leader of the Bonn court orchestra) visited him in the summer, and during a walk in the summer, and during a walk in the woods pointed out o fan elder twig. Beethoven could not hear it, and this made him very morose , As the winter approached he realized that his hearing was no better, and that it was likely to get worse, and he might end up totally deaf.

It could be argued that Beethoven’s deafness helped the development of his art: isolated from the world, and unable to perform, he could devote all his time to composing, He was already composing less at the piano, and the first of his bound sketchbooks, in which he made detailed drafts of the works in progress. Date from 1798. In his panic, at the beginning, Beethoven may have believed himself to be deaf. He suffered from tinnitus ( humming and buzzing in the ears), and loud noises caused him pain. In 1804 his friend Stephan von Breuning, with whom he briefly shared lodgings, wrote to Franz Wegler about the terrible effect his gradual loss of hearing was having on Beethoven: it had caused him to distrust his friends, and he was becoming very difficult to be with. But Beethoven did not start using an ear trumpet until 1814.

But above all else, Beethoven was dedicated to his art and the urge to compose remained with him throughout his life. It may be that he shielded away form the commitment of marriage because he knew it would interfere with his art. From a very early age he wanted to compose and, although he needed to earn a living, he wrote ‘I love my art too dearly to be activated solely by self-interest.’
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You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

I'M COMING!一切皆可改变!
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发表于 2007-8-13 23:03:32 |显示全部楼层
GIFT FOR MUSIC— LEONARD BERNSTEIN   

In 1986, Leonard Bernstein said, “God knows, I should be dead by now. I smoke, I drink, I stay up all night… I was diagnosed as having emphysema in my mid-20s. I was told that if II didn’t stop smoking, I’d be dead at 35. Well. I beat the rap.” But in recent months he canceled engagements and a fortnight age announced that, on his doctor’s advice, he was retiring as a conductor, In 1990, Leonard Bernstein, 72, died in his Manhattan apartment after a heart attack brought on by lung failure.  Perhaps to abandon conducting was to end a love affair, to give up life.

A first-generation Jewish American, Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Mass. In 1918. His father, Samuel, who was in the beauty-supplies business. Hoped his son would someday work with him. But at 10 Lenny discovered the piano. When he used his allowance to pay for lessons his father stopped doling it out— but reinstated it after discovering his son was playing in a dance and to earn money. At the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia (after graduating from Harvard, at 20. with honors), Bernstein was the most gifted pupil of the great Fritz Reiner. This so enraged one student that he threatened homicide.

Contrary to legend, the golden boy did have some lean times. In 1942. Bernstein moved to New York City armed with glowing references, but couldn’t find work. Lyricist Irving Caesar happened to hear him play the piano and thought he resembled his former collaborator George Gershwin. Bernstein told him that he needed $10 a week to stay alive. “What!” Caesar exclaimed. “You, a genius, starving? Ten dollars a week for a genius? I’ll get you fifty!” And promptly got him a job transcribing music. Within two years Bernstein had published his first symphony, written a successful ballet (“Fancy Free”), had a hit Broadway show (“In the Town”) and made his now legendary New York Philharmonic conducting debut in Carnegie Hall. Filling in for an ailing maestro, the dashing 25-year-old(who had a fierce hangover) was such a smash he got as much front-page space in New York Times as the American submarines that sank seven Japanese ships.

The great creative output of the late ‘40s and ‘50s— the musicals “Candide”, “Wonderful Town” and “West Side Story”, the film score for “ On the Waterfront,” the ballet “The Age of Anxiety”— came, with good reason, before Bernstein acquired an orchestra. In 1958, he became music director of the New York Philharmonic — the first American-born conductor to head a top symphony orchestra. He revived the works of Mahler and Nielsen and programmed such contemporary music, even if he, a dedicated tonalist, was uncomfortable with it.

Bernstein, says Leonard Slatkin, music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. “not only opened doors for all of us, but was the musical conscience of this country for years. We couldn’t have had a better spokesman.” After leaving the Philharmonic in 1969, Bernstein, the original globe-trot-ting maestro, maintained close ties with many orchestras, including (with typical Bernstein irony) the Israel Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Since the late ‘50s his compositions have often been disappointing, but he was back in form in some recent works, especially the delicious Arias and Barcarolles. Though he had become white-haired and craggy, he retained the passion and quickness of a wunderkind, and no one could dispute the depth of understanding he brought to the podium, particularly in recent years, when his interpretive powers were sharper than ever.
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You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

I'M COMING!一切皆可改变!
——阿迪王Adivon

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发表于 2007-8-13 23:04:20 |显示全部楼层
An Impressionist — Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh was a man in a hurry, an artist of tremendous energy and prodigious output. He killed himself when he was only 37, but he left behind him more than 2,000 paintings and drawings, which established his reputation in a way he would never have considered possible.   

Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1835 at Groot Zundert in the Dutch province of Noord Brabant. He was the son of a clergyman. His first artistic impressions were formed as a boy, from his uncle who was an art dealer. The motivation bore early fruit and from the age of 12 the young Vincent was drawing. The interest led to an apprenticeship in an art dealer’s firm, Groupil’s, in the Hague. When he was only 20, he was transferred to the firm’s London office.

In London Van Gogh faced his first major crisis, when he was rejected in love. After that, he turned to religion, expressed disapproval with art-dealing and neglected his work, Groupil transferred him from London to Paris but, when his work was still unsatisfactory, dismissed him in 1876.

The young Van Gogh made religion a consuming interest and during the next few years traveled in Britain, Belgium and Holland, trying to establish himself as a preacher, but without success. He developed strong opinions on social morality, customs and church life and alienated those he mixed with by an uncompromising attitude.

In 1880, at the age of 27, he found himself drawn back to art. He had a job as an assistant evangelist in the mining village of Borinage in Belgium but realized an artistic drive which was to motivate him unceasingly until his death 10 years later.

Although he returned to Noord Brabant and his family early in 1881, his first recognized works were set in Borinage and reflected the rural culture in which he was living and his belief in order and symmetry in both society and art. The period resulted in what became known as the Brabant canvases.

At this time he was becoming obsessed with artistic development. Although he was limited in practical experience, his work showed confidence and maturity from the start, no doubt influenced by the strength of his personal convictions. It was not an easy time, however, emotionally. There were tensions within the family, now that he was living back with his parents in Brabant. He was short of money and rebelling against social and academic standards.

Late in 1881 he moved to the Hague and established a relationship with a woman, Christine Hoornik, with whom he lived for a time. He broke with her in 1883, however, and never again established a significant intimate relationship with a woman.

Between 1883 and 1886, at Noord Brahant again, his painting developed into characteristic dark landscapes and scenes of country life. He stressed character and expression rather than perspective and physical accuracy; he was already experimenting with impressionism.

In 1886 Van Gogh left Holland forever and traveled via Antwerp to Paris, and to major changes in artistic style. Van Gogh’s work became more youthful in Paris. He lived with his brother, Theo, who managed the modern department of an art dealer’s. A new, more animated, painting style emerged and the impressionist tendencies of earlier work weakened somewhat.

Van Gogh developed a taste for personalized brushwork and brilliant, unmixed colours. Among his most prominent experiments with colour were a series of some 30 flower paintings, a fascination which stayed with him until his death.
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You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

I'M COMING!一切皆可改变!
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发表于 2007-8-13 23:04:42 |显示全部楼层
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发表于 2007-8-13 23:05:29 |显示全部楼层
The Youngest Tennis Champion —Martina Hingis

We’re used to swaggering, in-your-face trash talk from NBA players, boxers and even a few politicians, but teenagers in tennis skirts? There’s a new generation of women on the court. They’re young. They’re pretty. And they’re unbelievably brash about everything. Here’s 17-year-old Martina Hingis explaining her lack of humility:“ People say that I am arrogant. I am No. 1 in the world, so I have a right to be arrogant.”

Actually she’s the best in the world. Two years after becoming the youngest No.  1 player in history, Hingis won her second Family Circle title.

Hingis came to Britain in 1997, posing with a large “No. 1” made of tennis balls. A week later, she had earned her sixth straight title and 31st straight victory with a Family Circle title.

“At that stage, you don’t really get it that you’re the best tennis player in the world,” Hingis, 18, said after a 6-4, 6-3 win over Kournikova Sunday. “There is always another match to go, another tournament.” It was only later, she said, she realized, “I became No. 1. I’m like the best.”

Hardly arguing anymore now. It’s been a difficult week in the shadows for Hingis, pushed aside by the all-Williams’ final at the Lipton Championships last week and Kournikova’s run through the Family Circle.

“With the Williams sisters and Anna, I was saying, ‘What about me?’” said Hingis, who earned $150, 000. “I think this was about time.” Hingis doesn’t mind talk of her rivals. “So long as they’re lower than me, I’m fine,” she said.

Kournikova gave her a run on the concourse and practice courts at the Sea Pines Racquet Club, though. The sassy Russian star’s poster was one of the hottest items at the season’s first clay court tournament. Her doubles matches got only attention. Even Fox Sports Net analyst Pam Oliver told Kournikova, when presenting her with the runner-up honor, that she was “really popular with the men.”

But Hingis, smiling most of the way, showed who’s No. 1 on the court. She trailed Kournikova 4-3 in the opening set, but broke the Russian’s serve three staight times in winning the next six games.

When Korunikova struck back to close the second set to 3-2, Hingis broke serve again to regain control. When Kournikova’s forehand slapped the net, Hingis had closed out her third tournament win this year and her 10th straight Family Circle singles victory.

Kournikova’s game was erratic. She overcame Hingis’ 40-15 lead in the first set. Then she double-faulted twice to lose the next one.

“You have to play smart and be patient with her,” Kournikova said. “But I made a few unforced errors because I tried to go for too much.”

Hingis stayed steady throughout, never letting Kournikova break away. And when the crowd tried to pull Kournidova through, Hingis would remind them with a surprise drop shot or sharp forehand winner who’s No. 1.

Kournikova acknowledged the support she gets. She’s confident in her ability — she beat Hingis at last year’s German Open — but said she knows her game needs the seasoning she can get by advancing to finals.

“This is great for me, great for my confidence,” Kournikova said. “This gave me some experience and hopefully, I won’t be a runner-up much longer.” But Hingis will rest for about a month, returning to the tour at the Italian Open. She understands a lot better about the knack of winning crucial points and staying on top.

“(If) you are better ranked, you’re a better player, you win the match,” Hingis said. “If not, you always are the loser.”
BSL?
You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

I'M COMING!一切皆可改变!
——阿迪王Adivon

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发表于 2007-8-13 23:06:16 |显示全部楼层
To the Top — Fidel Ramos

As a young boy, Ramos watched his congressman-father chop wood and plant vegetables to feed his family. Once prominent in the northern province, the Ramos

Ⅱ.Although he was too young for military service the war touched Ramos when he helped shield his second cousin, Ferdinad Marcos, then a lieutenant in the underground guerrilla army, from the Japanese.

  

Despite such distractions, Ramos remained a serious student, becoming president of his secondary school class. In 1945, one year before his country gained independence from America, he decided on a career. Engineers would be needed to rebuild his devastated country, he concluded.

He took a competitive exam for West Point, the U.S. military academy, and won the one space reserved in each class for a Filipino. Following graduation. He trained as a civil engineer in Illinois. He learned to lead by example and soon recognized his own country’s need for a professional, nonpolitical military. His time in America, he says, reinforced his strong belief in free enterprise his strong belief in free enterprise, in the rule of law and in the value of rewarding merit.

Ramos served with Philippine forces during the Korean War and then returned home to fight against peasant rebels. As a captain he helped found and train the first battalion of elite Philippine forces during the Korean War and then returned home to fight against peasant rebels. As a captain he helped found and train the first battalion of elite Philippine special forces troops. As a major, he volunteered for Vietnam, where he realized for Vietnam, where he realized that the same conditions that fed revolution there also existed in his own impoverished country.

As Ramos rose through the ranks of the Philippine military, he knew better than most the excesses of the Marcos regime. He had frequently thought of quitting, but had stayed out of loyalty to his men. “I have so many thousands of people to whom I am responsible,” Ramos told his friends. “I cannot just quit.” Besides, Marcos himself had promoted his savvy younger cousin to head the military-led national police force.

Eventually, the break came. At 4 p.m. on February 21, 1986, Major-General Fidel Ramos was preparing to face a gathering of angry neighbors. Juan Ponce Enrile, the defense minister, was asking him to join an uprising against Marcos.

Moments later, Amelita Ramos ushered the neighbors into their living room. The Philippines’s second-ranking military officer sat patiently as his friends pleaded. “Please, sir,” one of his neighbors implored, “for the good of the country, resign. Leave Marcos.” Like most Filipinos, they believed the recent elections had been arranged by Marcos, denying Cory Aquino her rightful place as the new president of the Philippines.

As his neighbors left his house, Ramos was ready to join Enrile. Together they hoped to rally the philipine military to Aquino’s side, praying that enough popular support could be generated to keep themselves from being slaughtered by Marcos loyalists.

Four days later, the massive demonstrations fueled by the defections of Ramos and Enrile had triumphed. Marcos and his notorious free-spending wife, Imelda, were forced to flee the country. Cory Aquino became the new president, and the People Power revolution quickly became a worldwide symbol of democracy.

Ramos, Aquino’s first military chief of staff and later her defense secretary, was at one point urged by officers to join an attempted coup. But he held firm to his belief in the democratic process. In 1992, Aquino endorsed Ramos in the six-candidate race to succeed her.
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发表于 2007-8-13 23:07:06 |显示全部楼层
The Mask Forever —Jim Carrey   

Jim Carrey has become one of the most recognized faces in the world —and it is precisely because of his face that he has achieved such fame. His rubbery look, and penchant for wild and extreme behavior has given him a notoriety he delights in.

Born in New Market, Ontario, Canada on January 17th, 1962 to a working class family, growing up poor was tough for young Jim Carrey, While in his teens, he had to take a job as a janitor when his father lost his job and he had to juggle both School and work. School eventually lost out and he dropped out. He describes himself as being very angry at this time in his life, yet one good thing came out of it. He developed a tremendous sense of humour to help him cope and to shield his anger from the world.

He was a loner who claims he didn’t have any friends because he didn’t want any. Between school and work there just wasn’t much time for a childhood. At 15 though, he had enough time to start performing at Yuk Yuks, a famous Toronto comedy club where he began to perfect his shtick. He moved to LA and did the club circuit there. He soon came to the attention of Rodney and was put on his tour.

Jim Carrey got his big break in 1990, when he landed a role on the hip new sketch comedy show In Living Color which boasted a cast of African-Americans and Carrey, the sole white guy. While there, Carrey perfected many characters, most notoriously “Fire Marshal Bill” who always went up in a blaze. The sketch was yanked when critics claimed that it encouraged kids to play with fire. The controversy put Carrey’s name in the headlines for the first time.

He broke into feature films, and into the collective unconscious of the world, in one single successful year, 1994. It was the Year of the Funny Face. First there was Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, a surprise hit that show Carrey’s now signature wacky style. Next came The Mask, a role that seemed tailor-made for him and was a hit with audiences. As if he hadn’t made an impression yet, there was still Dumb and Dumber which was released during the holiday season and ended up on top of the box office. Jim Carrey was in the limelight now and he hasn’t looked back since.

Since that famous year Carrey has, dare we say it····, slowed down a bit. His films have come out less often but have continued to make waves if not quite of the caliber as previously seen. There was Batman Forever, in which he inherited the role of The Riddler. Then there was a sequel to Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls which didn’t quite recapture the sparkle of the original. Next came Liar, Liar. The film was a tremendous success with crowds everywhere and put him back on top. It also brought his salary back up 20 million. Then came The Truman Show, a film which proved to the world that Jim Carrey was more than just a funny face.

In fact, Jim was awarded a Golden Globe for his dramatic portrayal. When he was snubbed by the Oscars, there was a collective gasp heard around the world. Clearly the fans at least think Jim Carrey is golden.

The future looks good for Jim Carrey, he has developed a legion of devoted fans who love his wild style of physical comedy. He has proven his ability to weather a storm and come out on top, important for any celebrity.

Carrey has come a long way from his unhappy childhood and in fact seems to be living a second childhood now. Canada has been producing fine comedic talents for years, and Jim Carrey is definitely the best of the new breed.
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发表于 2007-8-13 23:07:49 |显示全部楼层
FOR BLOOMING IN WARDS—NIGHTINGALE

In May 1857 a Commission to study the whole question of the army medical service began to sit. The price was high. Florence Nightingale was doing this grueling work because it was vital, not because she had chosen it. She had changed. Now she was more brilliant in argument than ever, more efficient, more knowledgeable, more persistent and penetrating in her reasoning, scrupulously just, mathematically accurate—but she was pushing herself to the very limits of her capacity at the expense of all joy.

That summer of 1857 was a nightmare for Florence—not only was she working day and night to instruct the politicians sitting on the Commission, she was writing her own confidential report about her experiences. All this while Parthe and Mama lay about on sofas, telling each other not to get exhausted arranging flowers.

It took Florence only six months to complete her own one-thousand-page Confidential Report, Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army. It was an incredibly clear, deeply-considered volume. Every single thing she had learned from t Crimea was there—every statement she made was backed by hard evidence.

Florence Nightingale was basically arguing for prevention rather than cure. It was a new idea then and many politicians and army medical men felt it was revolutionary and positively cranky. They grimly opposed Florence and her allies.

She was forced to prove that the soldiers were dying because of their basic living conditions. She had inspected dozens of hospitals and barracks and now exposed them as damp, filthy and unventilated, with dirty drains and unventilated, with dirty drains and infected water supplies. She showed that the soldiers’ diet was poor. She collected statistics which proved that the death rate for young soldiers in peace time was double that of the normal population.

She showed that, though the army took only the fittest young men, every year 1,500 were killed by neglect, poor food and disease. She declared “Our soldiers enlist to death in the barracks”, and this became the battle cry of her supporters.

The public, too, was on her side. The more the anti-reformers dragged their feet, the greater the reform pressure became.

Florence did not win an outright victory against her opponents, but many changes came through. Soon some barracks were rebuilt and within three years the death rate would halve.

The intense work on the Commission was now over, but Florence was to continue studying, planning and pressing for army medical reform for the next thirty years.

People now began to demand that she apply her knowledge to civilian hospitals, which she found to be “just as bad or worse” than military hospitals. In 1859 she published a book called Notes on Hospitals. It showed the world why people feared to be taken into hospitals and how matters could be remedied.

Florence set forth the then revolutionary theory that simply by improving the construction and physical maintenance, hospital deaths could be greatly reduced. More windows, better ventilation, improved drainage, less cramped conditions, and regular scrubbing of the floors, walls and bed frames were basic measures that every hospital could take.

Florence soon became an expert on the building of hospitals and all over the world hospitals were established according to her specifications. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of letters from her sofa in London inquiring about sinks and saucepans, locks and laundry rooms. No detail was too small for her considered attention. She worked out ideas for the most efficient way to distribute clean linen, the best method of keeping food hot, the correct number of inches between beds. She intended to change the administration of hospitals from top to toe. Lives depended upon detail.

Florence Nightingale succeeded. All over the world Nightingale-style hospitals would be built. And Florence would continue to advise on hospital plans for over forty years. Today’s hospitals with their flowers and bright, clean and cheerful wards are a direct result of her work.
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You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

I'M COMING!一切皆可改变!
——阿迪王Adivon

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发表于 2007-8-13 23:08:27 |显示全部楼层
MACHINE MAD — HENRY FORD

Growing up on a remote Michigan farm. Henry Ford knew little of all this — but he soon showed signs that he belonged to a new generation of Americans interested more in the industrial future than in the agricultural past.  Like most pioneer farmers, his father, William, hoped that his eldest son would join him on the farm,enable it to expand, and eventually take it over. But Henry proved a disappointment. He hated farm work and did everything he could to avoid it . It was not that he was lazy. Far from it. Give him a mechanical job to do, from mending the hinges of a gate to sharpening tools, and he would set to work eagerly. It was the daily life of the farm, with its repetitive tasks, that frustrated him. “What a waste it is,” he was to write years later, remembering his work in the fields, “for a human being to spend hours and days behind a slowly moving team of houses.

Henry was excited by the possibilities for the future that were being opened up by developments in technology that could free farmers like his father from wasteful and boring toil. But these developments, in Henry’s boyhood, had touched farming hardly at all and farmers went on doing things in the way they had always done. Low profits, the uncertainties of the weather, and farmers’ instinctive resistance to change prevented all but the richest and most far-sighted farmers from taking advantage of the new age of machines.

So Henry turned his attention elsewhere. When he was twelve he became almost obsessively interested in clocks and watches. Like most children before and since, he became fascinated by peering into the workings of a timepiece and watching the movement of ratchets and wheels, springs and pendulums. Soon he was repairing clocks and watches for friends, working at a bench he built in his bedroom.

In 1876, Henry suffered a grievous blow. Mary died in childbirth. There was now no reason for him to stay on the farm, and he resolved to get away as soon as he could. Three years later, he took a job as a mechanic in Detroit. By this time steam engines had joined clocks and watches as objects of Henry’s fascination.

According to an account given by Henry himself, he first saw a steam-driven road locomotive one day in 1877 when he and his father, in their horse-drawn farm wagon, met one on the road. The locomotive driver stopped to let the wagon pass, and Henry jumped down and went to him with a barrage of technical questions about the engine’s performance. From then on, for a while, Henry became infatuated with steam engines. Making and installing them was the business of the Detroit workshop that he joined at the age of sixteen.

A chance meeting with an old co-worker led to a job for Henry as an engineer at the Edison Detroit Electricity Company, the leading force in another new industry. Power stations were being built and cables being laid in all of the United States’ major cities; the age of electricity had dawned. But although Henry quickly learned the ropes of his new job— so quickly that within four years he was chief engineer at the Detroit power plant — his interest in fuel engines had come to dominate his life. At first in the kitchen of his and Clara’s home, and later in a shed at the back of their house, he spent his spare time in the evenings trying to build an engine to his own design.

Meanwhile, Henry’s domestic responsibilities had increased. In November 1893, Clara gave birth to their first and only child, Edsel.

Henry learned the hard way what a slow, painstaking business it was to build an engine by hand from scratch. Every piece of every component had to be fashioned individually, checked and rechecked, and tested. Every problem had to be worried over and solved by the builder. To ease the burden, Henry joined forces with another mechanic, Jim Bishop, Even so, it was two years before they had succeeded in building a working car. It was an ungainly-looking vehicle, mounted on bicycle wheels and driven by a rubber belt that connected the engine to the rear wheels. Henry called it the “Quadricycle”.
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You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

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发表于 2007-8-13 23:09:32 |显示全部楼层
The God in Youth: Michael Jordan

There were already signs that he had a good deal of talent. Harvest Smith, a classmate and close friend who in those days played basketball with him practically every day, thought he was the best player on their ninth-grade team — he was small, but he was every quick. “You’d see him get a shot off, and you’d wonder how he did it, because he wasn’t that bit,” Smith said, “but it was the quickness. The only question was how big he was going to be — and how far up he would take his skill level.”

The summer after ninth grade, Jordan and Smith both went to Pop Herring’s basketball camp. Neither of them had yet come into his body, and almost all of the varsity players, two and sometimes three years older, seemed infinitely stronger at that moment when a year or two in physical development can make all the difference. In Smith’s mind there was no doubt which of the two of them was the better player—it was Michael by far. But on the day the varsity cuts were announced — it was the big day of the year, for they had all known for weeks when the list would be posted — he and Roy Smith had gone to the Laney gym. Smith’s name was on it, Michael’s was not.

It was the worst day of Jordan’s young life. The list was alphabetical, so he focused on where the Js should be, and it wasn’t there, and he kept reading and rereading the list, hoping somehow that he had missed it, or that the alphabetical listing had been done incorrectly. That day he went home by himself and went to his room and cried. Smith understood what was happening — Michael, he knew, never wanted you to see him when he was hurt.

“We knew Michael was good,” Fred Lynch, the Laney assistant coach, said later, “but we wanted him to play more and we thought the jayvee was better for him.” He easily became the best player on the jayvee that year. He simply dominated the play, and he did it not by size but with quickness. There were games in which he would score forty points. He was so good, in fact, that the jayvee games became quite popular. The entire varsity began to come early so they could watch him play in the jayvee games.

Smith noticed that while Jordan had been wildly competitive before he had been cut, after the cut he seemed even more competitive than ever, as if determined that it would never happen again. His coaches noticed it, too. “The first time I ever saw him, I had no idea who Michael Jordan was. I was helping to coach the Laney varsity,” said Ron Coley. “We went over to Goldsboro, which was our big rival, and I entered the gym when the jayvee game was just ending up. There were nine players on the court just coasting, but there was one kid playing his heart out. The way he was playing I thought his team was down one point with two minutes to play. So I looked up at the clock and his team was down twenty points and there was only one minute to play. It was Michael, and I quickly learned he was always like that.”

Between the time he was cut and the start of basketball in his junior year, Jordan grew about four inches. The speed had always been there, and now he was stronger, and he could dunk .His hands had gotten much bigger, Smith noticed. He was as driven as ever, the hardest-working player on the team in practice. If he thought that his teammates were not working hard enough, he would get on them himself, and on occasion he pushed the coaches to get on them. Suddenly Laney High had the beginning of a very good basketball team, and its rising star was Michael Jordan.
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You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

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发表于 2007-8-13 23:10:22 |显示全部楼层
Winston Churchill :His Other Life

My father, Winston Churchill, began his love affair with painting in his 40s, amid disastrous circumstances. As First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915, he was deeply  involved in a campaign in the Dardanelles that could have shortened the course of a bloody world war. But when the mission failed, with great loss of life, Churchill paid the price, both publicly and privately. He was removed from the admiralty and effectively sidelined.

Overwhelmed by the catastrophe — “I thought he would die of grief,” said his wife, Clementine —he retired with his family to Hoe Farm, a country retreat in Surrey. There, as Churchill later recalled, “The muse of painting came to my rescue!”

Wandering in the garden one day, he chanced upon his sister-in-law sketching with watercolors. He watched her for a few minutes, then borrowed her brush and tried his hand. The muse had cast her spell!

Churchill soon decided to experiment with oils. Delighted with this distraction from his dark broodings, Clementine rushed off to buy whatever paints she could find.

For Churchill, however, the next step seemed difficult as he contemplated with unaccustomed nervousness the blameless whiteness of a new canvas. He started with the sky and later described how “very gingerly I mixed a little blue paint on the palette, and then with infinite precaution made a mark about as big as a bean upon the affronted snow-white shield. At that moment the sound of a motor car was heard in the drive. From this chariot stepped the gifted wife of Sir John Lavery .”

“ ‘Painting!’ she declared. ‘But what are you hesitating about? Let me have the brush — the big one.’ Splash into the turpentine, wallop into the blue and the white, frantic flourish on the palette, and then several fierce strokes and slashes of blue on the absolutely cowering canvas.”

At that time, John Lavery— a Churchill neighbor and celebrated painter— was tutoring Churchill in his art. Later, Lavery said of his unusual pupil: “Had he chosen painting instead of statesmanship, I believe he would have been a great master with the brush.”

In painting, Churchill had discovered a companion with whom he was to walk for the greater part of the years that remained to him. After the war, painting would  offer deep solace when, in 1921, the death of the mother was followed two months later by the loss of his and Clementine’s beloved three-year-old  daughter, Marigold. Battered by grief, Winston took refuge at the home of friends in Scotland, finding comfort in his painting. He wrote to Clementine: “I went out and painted a beautiful river in the afternoon light with crimson and golden hills in the background. Alas I keep feeling the hurt of the Duckadilly (Marigold’s pet name).”

Historians have called the decade after 1929, when the Conservative government fell and Winston was out of office, his wilderness years. Politically he may have been wandering in barren places, a lonely fighter trying to awaken Britain to the menace of Hitler, but artistically that wilderness bore abundant fruit. During these years he often painted in the South of France. Of the 500-odd canvases extant, roughly 250 date from 1930 to 1939.

Painting remained a joy to Churchill to the end of his life. “Happy are the painters,” he had written in his book Painting as a Pastime, “ for they shall not be lonely. Light and color, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end of the day.” And so it was for my father.
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You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.

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