glamorousky's Time----提升作文修炼

glamorouskyUID：2459211

我们在写作时总是会感到词汇的匮乏 即使我们已经把红包包背了几十遍 实际上 这并不是我们没有记住这些词 而是在我们的脑中 没有将这些词赋予到相关语境中 所以我们只是会在读到这个词时 才会把它的也许并不准确的中文意思从脑中挖出来 而常此以往 这些我们曾经记住过的单词会逐渐在我们的脑中退色 为了解决这些问题 读地道的英文读物是首选 推荐（Economist, National Geographic, The newyorker,Time） 而在读的过程中 假如能选择自己喜欢的段落记忆 写作水平会有大的提升 所以 我会从今天开始 每天选取一篇读物上的文章进行学习 督促自己也是服务大家:loveliness:
红：给出解释的词语
蓝：值得学习的短语或是句型 常见 但是我们不常用


NO.1  Bush's Last Days: The Lamest Duck（lame duck: 指任期即将结束的人 这里似乎也有暗喻其weak之意）
We have "only one President at a time," Barack Obama said in his debut press conference（首次记者招待会） as President-elect. Normally, that would be a safe assumption — but we're learning not to assume anything as the charcoal-dreary（应该是形容这个即将到来的经济形势不容乐观 低迷的） economic winter approaches. By mid-November, with the financial crisis growing worse by the day, it had become obvious that one President was no longer enough (at least not the President we had). So, in the days before Thanksgiving, Obama began to move — if not to take charge outright, then at least to preview what things will be like when he does take over in January. He became a more public presence, taking questions from the press three days in a row. He named his economic team. He promised anenormous stimulus package that would somehow create 2.5 million new jobs, and began to maneuver the new Congress toward having the bill ready for him to sign — in a dramatic ceremony, no doubt — as soon as he assumes office（政府官员就职上任）.

That we have slightly more than one President for the moment is mostly a consequence of the extraordinary economic times. Even if George Washington were the incumbent, the markets would want to know what John Adams was planning to do after his Inauguration. And yet this final humiliation seems particularly appropriate for George W. Bush. At the end of a presidency of stupefying ineptitude , he has become the lamest of all possible ducks.

It is in the nature of mainstream journalism to attempt to be kind to Presidents when they are coming and going but to be fiercely skeptical in between. I've been feeling sorry for Bush lately, a feeling partly induced by recent fictional depictions of the President as an amiable lunkhead(温顺的呆子) in Oliver Stone's W. and in Curtis Sittenfeld's terrific novel American Wife. There was a photo in the New York Times that seemed to sum up his current circumstance: Bush in Peru, dressed in an alpaca poncho, standing alone just after the photo op at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, with various Asian leaders departing the stage, none of them making eye contact with him. Bush has that forlorn what-the-hell-happened? expression on his face, the one that has marked his presidency at difficult times. You never want to see the President of the United States looking like that.

So I've been searching for valedictory encomiums. His position on immigration was admirable and courageous; he was right about the Dubai Ports deal and about free trade in general. He spoke well, in the abstract, about the importance of freedom. He is an impeccable classicist（无可指摘的古典主义者）when it comes to baseball. And that just about does it for me. I'd add the bracing moment（振奋人心的时刻） of Bush with the bullhorn in the ruins of the World Trade Center, but that was neutered in my memory by his ridiculous, preening appearance in a flight suit on the deck of the aircraft carrier beneath the "Mission Accomplished" sign. The flight-suit image is one of the two defining moments（） of the Bush failure. The other is the photo of Bush staring out the window of Air Force One, helplessly viewing the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. This is a presidency that has wobbled between those two poles — overweening arrogance and paralytic incompetence.

The latter has held sway（控制）these past few months as the economy has crumbled. It is too early to rate the performance of Bush's economic team, but we have more than enough evidence to say, definitively, that at a moment when there was a vast national need for reassurance, the President himself was a cipher. Yes, he's a lame duck with an Antarctic approval rating — but can you imagine Bill Clinton going so gently into the night? There are substantive gestures available to a President that do not involve the use of force or photo ops. For example, Bush could have boosted the public spirit — and the auto industry — by announcing that he was scrapping the entire federal automotive fleet, including the presidential limousine, and replacing it with hybrids made in Detroit. He could have jump-started（快速又有力的） — and he still could — the Obama plan by releasing funds for a green-jobs program to insulate public buildings. He could start funding the transit projects already approved by Congress.

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

[ 本帖最后由 glamorousky 于 2008-12-6 13:22 编辑 ]

candyrealmeUID：2368154

:handshake

vclskin1UID：2569826

楼主很好的人啊

saavedroUID：2423190

有在这招摇撞骗了！！！  嘿嘿;d: ;d:

草木也知愁UID：2487572

把我的帖子也都从AW版转过来吧
economist的文章虽然对TWE针对性不强 但是还是很有借鉴意义的

草木也知愁UID：2487572

好好排一下版

saavedroUID：2423190

这是什么头像啊？？？  快换回去。。。 还是那个小孩眨眼睛的好看 嘿嘿！！！！

hyacinthUID：2184492

excellent...
keep it up~~ :cool:

terencezqUID：2353356

IELTS/GRE/TOEFL交流群 46984394

glamorouskyUID：2459211

前言见NO.1
红：给出解释的词语
蓝：值得学习的短语或是句型

昨天是Thanksgiving 所以从Time中选择了这一篇
Things You Didn't Know About Thanksgiving

1 T-Day on a Tray
In 1953, someone at Swanson severely overestimated the amount of turkey Americans would consume that Thanksgiving. With 260 tons of frozen birds to get rid of, a company salesman named Gerry Thomas ordered 5,000 aluminum trays, recruited an assembly line of women armed with spatulas and ice-cream scoops and began creating mini-feasts of turkey, corn-bread dressing, peas and sweet potatoes — creating the first-ever TV dinner. Thomas later said he got the idea from neatly（巧妙的） packaged airplane food.

2  Football 橄榄球& Feastin'盛宴
Thanksgiving is ruled by（受...所统治） two very powerful f-words: "food" and "football." Nearly as old as the sport itself, the tradition of watching football on Thanksgiving began in 1876, when the newly formed American Intercollegiate Football Association 美国校际橄榄球协会 held its first championship game. Less than a decade later, more than 5,000 club, college and high school football teams held games on Thanksgiving, with match-ups（对阵） between Princeton and Yale drawing more than 40,000 fans out from(draw...out from从...吸引出...)their dining rooms. 1934 marked the first NFL (国家橄榄球联盟, 美国的两个职业橄榄球联盟之一)game held on Thanksgiving when the Detroit Lions took on the Chicago Bears. The Lions have played on Thanksgiving ever since — except, of course, when the team was called away to(征去)serve during World War II.

3  Franksgiving
FDR  (Franklin Delano Roosevelt富兰克林·德兰诺·罗斯福)learned the hard way not to mess with (扰乱 干预)some traditions. In 1939, the President declared that Americans should celebrate the annual feast one week early, hoping the decision would spur retail sales during the Great Depression. But Americans did not react kindly to the New Deal meal. Some took to the streets while others took to name-calling谩骂; the mayor of Atlantic City solved the controversy by declaring his residents would simply enjoy two meals — Thanksgiving and "Franksgiving." After two years of squabbling争吵 (or gobbling, as it were), Congress adopted a resolution in 1941 setting the fourth Thursday of November as the legal holiday.

4  Mary Had a Little Thanksgiving Obession
The woman who wrote the classic nursery rhyme(童谣) "Mary Had a Little Lamb" also played an integral role in making Thanksgiving a national holiday. After a 17-year letter-writing campaign, magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale finally convinced President Abraham Lincoln to issue an 1863 decree recognizing the historic tradition.

5  Americans at the Abbey
In 1942, London's Westminster Abbey（威斯敏斯特教堂） held Thanksgiving services for U.S. troops stationed（驻扎） in England. More than 3,500 soldiers filled the church's pews（长凳） to sing America, the Beautiful and The Star-Spangled Banner — the first time in the church's 900-year history that a foreign army was invited to take over the grounds. It was an ironic gesture given the holiday's origins as a festival for pilgrims fleeing religious tyranny in Britain.

6  Pardon Me, Mr. President
The annual White House tradition of pardoning（这里是指白宫在感恩节这天不吃火鸡） a turkey before Thanksgiving began in 1947, when President Harry Truman took pity on one lucky fowl（家禽）. Other historians say the practice began during the 1860s, when Abraham Lincoln granted a pardon to a pet turkey belonging to his son, Tad. The tradition may alleviate some of America's guilt, but it doesn't stop us from slaughtering more than 46 million turkeys for the holiday. Even so, as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin proved during a recent interview in her hometown, Americans prefer public acts of mercy to massacres.

7  Slow-Roasting（文火炙烤）Tradition
While the first Thanksgiving was held in 1621, it would take more than 150 years before all 13 colonies celebrated Thanksgiving at once, in October 1777. In 1789, George Washington hailed the holiday（欢庆节日）, while President Thomas Jefferson scoffed at the notion, calling Thanksgiving "the most ridiculous idea" ever conceived. For his part, Benjamin Franklin had such an affinity for turkey that he lobbied to make it the national bird (to no avail).

8  Turkey and Chicken and Duck -- Oh My!
Thanks to the culinary genius of Louisiana (or Wyoming or South Carolina — each region has staked its claim), more and more Americans are forsaking Butterballs北美的巨头鸭 for Turduckens. A what? Picture this: a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with（被...所填充） a chicken. It's like a Russian nesting doll only with poultry（家禽）. One store in Louisiania claims to ship more than 5,000 turduckens the week before the feast. Though this may seem like sacrilege to some, the original Thanksgiving meal featured fish, oysters, eel and lobster as well as wild turkey. Other modern pilgrims settle for a tofu version ("tofurkey") or the wildly dangerous "deep-fried turkey."

9  Fast vs. Feast
Thanksgiving was initially meant to be a fast, not a feast. The devout settlers at Plymouth Rock mostly recognized "giving of thanks" in the form of prayer and abstaining from food. But the Wampanoag Indians, who joined the pilgrims for their 3-day celebration, contributed their own harvest traditions — dancing, games and feasting — from their ancient festival, Nickommoh, meaning "to give away" or "exchange."

10  What's in a Name?
Three towns have been named after the holiday's starring player — Turkey, Texas, Turkey Creek, La. and Turkey, N.C. — each with less than 500 residents. Legend has it that the pheasant's name came from the wayward（刚愎自用的） traveler Christopher Columbus, who thought he was in India when he arrived in "The New World" and, hence, dubbed（封为 唤作） the pheasant a "tuka," an Indian term for peacock. The name stuck.

[ 本帖最后由 glamorousky 于 2008-11-28 14:59 编辑 ]

vclskin1UID：2569826

好帖 lz很勤奋啊 赞一个

glamorouskyUID：2459211

谢谢:loveliness:

pestpestUID：2496844

牛贴赞一个

saavedroUID：2423190

你要干什么？？？ 又来误导大家了吧。。。   还不快唱歌！！！   建议下次把关键词和句子单独画出来，然后组织大家造句练习。

glamorouskyUID：2459211

前言见NO.1
红色：生词
蓝色：好句型 我们可以应用的地道短语和好的搭配

今天准备的是孟买恐怖袭击事件（给喜欢看新闻的小朋友:loveliness: ）

NO.3  Mumbai's Trauma（创伤 ）： How Quickly Will Recovery Come?

By Saturday morning, the end of Mumbai's nightmare was practically at hand（）. The day before, two of the three hostage sites in the city had been secured: the Oberoi Hotel and Nariman House, the site of the Jewish hospitality center, were finally wrested from terrorist hands. The siege of the Taj（泰姬陵） dragged on（拖延） into the night, however, despite assurances earlier on Friday from authorities with the National Security Guard, an elite Army unit, that the agony of the ornate and historic hotel was nearing an end. As most of the city slept, the Taj suffered at least six more massive blasts into the early hours of Saturday. But by day, unconfirmed reports had the last terrorist gunman run to ground. Now, as the city slowly comes back to life, its residents are grappling with（此处是努力解决之意） the attacks' emotional and financial impact.

Mumbai has always been proud of its resilience, but there is a profound sense that the city will not recover as quickly as it did after the blasts of 2003 or the train attacks of 2006. Ashish Contractor, a doctor who lives in Colaba, near Nariman House, explained that this week's attacks brought terror into the lives of Mumbai's most privileged, those who always thought of South Mumbai as an oasis from the rest of the city. "This is a totally different segment which always thought of itself as immune（很好的句子）," he says. "Everybody in South Mumbai knows somebody who was at the Taj... The false calm is shattered（这虚饰的平静摇摇欲坠）."

That sense of unease is making it difficult for lifelong Mumbaikars to return to the lives they knew before the attacks. Sheetal Mafatlal, owner of the retailer Mafatlal Luxury and member of a prominent local business family, went to her office in Nariman Point today mainly to shore up（加强） the morale of her employees. "It shows a lot of courage that they decided to show up," she says. "We must get back to work." But she is unsure what the future will hold. "There's an economic meltdown on top of this. It's going to take a while to recover." She has shelved plans for a boutique（卖衣服的店） in South Mumbai. "That's a very far away possibility."

Friday, however, had shown the government finally taking control, quelling much of the chaos（注意词语搭配）that broke out on Wednesday night. Commandoes from the National Security Force,, began their assault on the Oberoi at about 11:30 a.m. local time. Within half an hour, the first batch of released hostages were coming out. By 2:30 p.m., the battle for the hotel was over, and the leader of the NSG team said that two terrorists had been killed in the fighting. In all, 148 people — both hostages and those who had been trapped in their rooms — were brought out safely. The bodies of 24 hotel guests were also recovered.

Their release gave the rest of the world a glance at what the siege looked like from the inside: hotel guests survived on drinks and snacks from the mini bar, with no official information reaching them. Among the first batch of released hostages was Kareem Sharif, an American-Canadian citizen, looking shaken but relieved. He said he'd been in the spa when the terrorists came in at 10:30 on Wednesday night and unleashed mayhem（故意伤害罪）. He says they fired indiscriminately, and people took shelter wherever they could. David Jacobs, an Australian, said it wasn't the lack of food and water that worried him most; it was the fire raging right outside his hotel room as the commandos moved closer.

The 12-hour siege of Nariman House began dramatically, as an Indian Air Force helicopter dropped commandos on the roof of two adjacent buildings at about 7:30 a.m. local time. They came in three sorties（出击） of 10, 15 and then five men, the last group also bringing a lot of equipment. By 9:30 a.m., the gun battle between the terrorists and the commandoes had begun, and would continue sporadically throughout the day. It was a bizarre scene: in the thickly populated（人口密集分布的 注意搭配） neighborhood, with the gunfire raging in a cluster of buildings, people went about their lives just beyond the police cordons. The vegetable sellers in the nearby open market set up shop today, although most other businesses remained closed. The Nariman House siege ended in the evening only after the commandoes blasted each floor of the five-story building to make certain they were cleared of terrorists. When the operation was finally declared over, people shouted patriotic slogans in the streets.