1006G[REBORN FROM THE ASHES组]备考日记 by 中原527--战胜自己

中原527UID：2707367

          明白自己的怯懦，所以我凭着一股热血先交了钱报G，不给自己留任何后路，一往直前。然后泡太傻寄托，突然觉得我很渺小，但更多的是感受到世界的宽阔，我想跳出来，跳出狭小的圈子里走向广阔世界。
     
      朋友问，有必要吗，在国内也可以发展得很好啊，我当时的回答不记得了，只是觉得那天的回答太浮躁，现在想来，我究竟要做什么呢，为什么选择出国，最初的契机是大二寒假猛地发现我身边的朋友一个一个地走了，觉得很不服气，但也只是个想法，真正开始考虑G却是9月初，我知道她这位绝顶美女的确很难泡到，但到真正接触，发现她比我想象更难搞定....我一个4级做足了10套真题才勉强过线菜鸟，突然要问鼎英语考试之王GRE，气势顿时弱了不少...但看了很多前辈的帖子，看着他们从非牛人到牛人的过程，确实非常之艰辛，但他们回顾那段时光，那种感觉，把我感动了，回想当初背红宝书，按杨鹏十七天大法修炼21天，每天基本只有5个小时左右的睡眠，剩下的除了吃饭如厕全部泡在单词堆里看得眼睛发胀脑袋晕乎乎的，好不容易看到最后一个单词ZOON，终于释脱了。难道我追求的不就是这种感觉，高三那昏天暗地的日子里熬到高考分数的出来的狂喜。而绝不是我现在回顾大一大二只想撞头的感觉。以前的我，是想安安静静地考研然后进入博物馆或艺术馆安安静静地工作，但现在不一样了，我看到了外面的世界，为什么不走出去看一看呢？于是，开始认真听课，然后，发现其实我们的专业课是多么地可爱啊。更加清楚地意识到自己与名校期望的学生差距很大，那又怎么样呢，一味说自己不可能然后在消磨时间中颓废下去混个毕业证混个硕士混个单位整个人生都是混的，那百分之零点一的可能性就变成百分之百的不可能了。能够笑到最后的，都是坚持到最后的人。
      
      考G，其实比的就是坚持，我最薄弱的一环，也是我最渴望突破自己的契机。只为，改变自己，使自己达到脱胎换骨的境界。只要我尽力，结果如何我也不后悔。我可以跟学弟学妹们谈起当年的我最痛苦也是最充实的时光，一如今天的我跟后辈谈起高三。


      目前水平：大三刚过4级（第一次失败第二次过线，好吧我是平民不是牛人，乌龟也有乌龟的执着，草木的要求是凡是不按照规则来的人，全部淘汰，清零为止，在这里我感觉是，这潜台词不是比我们有多牛的水平，而是，要比谁能按照规则坚持到最后的水平[不知草木是不是这样理解的]）
                       万事开头词汇必备：9月底十月初按杨鹏大法修炼完红宝书第一遍，后来因为去外地考察中断了一段时间回来后发现大部分看着眼熟就想不起那些可爱的单词是啥意思，简直要抓狂了，决定用新东方背单词第五版，唉，杨鹏大法后遗症造就那些单词还是眼熟些，过起来就比较快了，最喜欢玩单词速降，那高正确率看着确实很鼓励自己，第二遍正在过中。
                       新概念：大二下断断续续背了30多篇（不用说，现在我都忘光了）最近才背了两篇新概念4，决定在这里一改过去的囫囵吞枣态度，好好分析好句子的用法。不求最多求最精。
                       新东方：刚上完新东方GRE基础班，恍恍惚惚不知道听了啥...（建议各位4级水平左右的不用报了，我个人感觉那银子花得不值....可能是地方的缘故吧）
                        
       关于草木的学习贴决定今晚回来研究再发表心得

中原527UID：2707367

给自己太多了的理由去懒惰

中原527UID：2707367

给自己太多了的理由去懒惰

中原527UID：2707367

补发N多comments
最近上网不便 非我偷懒也

12.22
Words
tooth-and-nail 竭尽全力
leap in 跳进；急于做某事

Filibuster v.
阻碍或延宕国会或其他立法机构通过提案

Formality n.形式上的措施

redundancy n.剩余；裁员

margin n.页边空白；边缘，差额

Bipartisan a.两党的，代表两党的

好句
The hope is that tens of million of Americans currently without coverage will now be able to get it, and many tens of millions more, who have insurance but fear losing it through redundancy or ill-health, will have those worries lifted from their shoulders.（没有医疗保险和有医疗保险的群众，两者递进~）

Past history provides them with evidence to back up that claim.

Comments:

There are two conflicts, the long-term interest and the recent interest, the most people who have no heavy fortune and the little rich. Obama’s health-care reform arise the worry of Republicans that the cost of subsidies has been underestimated and predicted savings will not materialise.
But also the reform hurts benefit of every chaebol(大财阀). Even though the action contribute the people who currently without coverage or have insurance but fear losing it through redundancy or ill-health , the people who have the high income must pay more taxes , and some doctors , hospital and the pharmaceuticals company will be worried that they may lost some income of treatment. The next huge obligation that Obama should do is to balance the benefit of every social forces.

0104
不懂句子
God should not be thought of as older than the created world but different in his grasp of time in the immediacy of his being.(????后半句看不懂….)

we should say that God is eternal but the world is perpetual.
好句子

He has no idea about tomorrow and has already lost his hold on the past.

as Aristotle（亚里斯多德） says, time had no beginning and has no ending and extends into infinity

the brief and fleeting instant

he sees at once all things that were and are and are to come.

all men are mortal

vision of all things not from the unfolding of the events themselves but from the simplicity of his own perfect knowledge.

God has prescience and is a spectator from on high, and as he looks down in his eternal present, he assigns rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked.

. Lift up your mind in virtue and hope and, in humility, offer your prayers to the Lord.

WORDS
insofar as 至于，就
inkling n.想法，暗示，迹象
divine a.神的，天赐的；极好的
eternal a.永久的，似乎不停的ßàtemporal a.时间的，短暂的=transitory a.不持续的，短暂的，转瞬即逝的
Simultaneous a.同时发生的，同时存在的
immobility n.固定性，静止
cease v.停止，终止，结束
perpetual a.永久的
surpass v.超过，优于
omnipresent a.无所不在的，同时遍在的
providence n.天意，远见
inevitable a.不可避免的
willed a.有某种意志的
theologians n.神宗学家
utterly adv.完全地，彻底地
tantamount a.等于，相似
Be met out 被判刑
In vain 白费地，徒劳无益地
错词
dicision->decision
Comments:
Tell the truth, I didn’t absolutely understand this article about the philosophy. Maybe the goal of article is that we should lift up our mind in virtue and hope and in humility. In order to improve the final purpose of the essay, author said that even though time had no beginning and has no ending and extends into infinity, god can predict that everything happens in the future, and can not changes his decision. It only explain that god has prescience and is a spectator from on high ,and as he looks down in his eternal present, he assigns rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked.


0105
The role of the business school
words
clamour n.喧哗声
gung-ho n.同心协力，合作


quarters n.地处，岗位
grind v.磨碎；折磨，压迫
esoteric a.神秘的；机密的；难以领略的
elitism n. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
subtle a. So slight as to be difficult to detect or describe; elusive:
nuance a. A subtle or slight degree of difference, as in meaning, feeling, or tone; a gradation.
好句
You need the right kind of probing mindset when you attack problems of such complexity
The presence of the visible hand [of regulation] is now more explicit.
interface with
Most of the courses that we teach MBAs have not changed because of the crisis.
the change has come at a higher level.
It was caused by the dynamics of the interplay between big banks and the regulators.

It's not the person that charges ahead and rallies the troops.(描述领导或英雄的形象可以用用这句子~)
History is very recurrent and we are attending again a move of the pendulum.(漂亮句子！可应用的话题很多)
错词
Oppsition->opposition
Cources->courses
Comments:
There are two opposite sides talking about the role of business school in the society. Paul’s main idea is that the change in the role of business school has come at a higher level and the golden rules are still valid. Santiago said that business schools may have a role in preparing members of governments and the administration which can affect the economy of a country. So we should concern on the importance of the courses in business schools. Because of the development of the time, there are the creation of new business—start-ups in fields like technologies, biotechnology, in energy, even in education. We must change or add some courses to meet the demand of these new business’ fields in the business schools. But also, the concepts of risk, the ways of assessing risk have evolved in the past years, he advise the managers to come back to schools ,which cannot just rely on what they learned 30 years ago in their MBA programmes.

中原527UID：2707367

[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][01.03]

关于REBORN FROM THE ASHES组COMMENTS活动的说明&汇总 https://bbs.gter.net/bbs/thread-1042733-1-2.html ================================================================================ Beyond Righteousness and Gain by Zhou Guoping "A virtuous man is concerned with righteousness while a mean man, with gain,” Confucius says. The "righteousness" and "gain" have long been a central theme in the Chinese philosophy of life. But, what if I am neither virtuous nor mean? There was once a time when almost everyone claimed to be a gentleman and every word uttered was about righteousness. At that time, there might have been some truly virtuous men who were so righteous as to give up whatever was profitable. But, more likely, one might meet hypocrites who used righteousness as a fig leaf for their cupidity, or pedants believed in whatever passed for righteousness. Gone are the old days. The social trend has taken on a dramatic change unawares: the reputation of righteousness nosedived, truly virtuous men became extinct, hypocrites dropped the fig leaf and the scales fell from the eyes of the pedants. With- out exception, they all joined in the scramble for gains（追逐利润的队伍）. It is believed that the philosophy of life has changed and a new interpretation of righteousness and gain looms large: seeking material gains is not the exclusive patent of the mean, but a golden rule for all. "Time is money" is a vogue word nowadays. Nothing is wrong when entrepreneurs apply it to boost productivity. But, when it is worshipped as a motto of life and commercialism takes the place of other wisdom of life, life is then turned into a corporation and, consequently, interpersonal relations into a market. I used to mock at the cheap "human touch". But, nowadays even the cheap “touch” has become rare and costly. Can you, if I may ask, get a smile, a greeting, or a tiny bit of compassion for free? Don’t be nostalgic, though. It is in fact of little help if you try to redeem the world or salvage the corrupt minds through preaching various brands of righteousness. Nevertheless, beyond righteousness and gain, I believe, there are other attitudes towards life; beyond virtue and meanness, there are other individualities. Allow me to coin a sentence in the Confucian style: "A perfect man is concerned with disposition." Indeed, righteousness and gain, seemingly poles apart, have much essence in common. Righteousness calls for a devotion to the whole society while gain drives one to pursue material interests. In both cases, one’s disposition is over- looked and his true “self” concealed. "Righteousness" teaches one to give while "gain" induces one to take. The former turns one’s life into a process of fulfilling endless obligations while the latter breeds a life-long scramble for wealth and power. We must remember, however, the true value of life is beyond obligations and power. Both righteousness and gain are yoked by calculating minds. That’s why we often find ourselves in a tense interpersonal relationship（紧张的人际关系） whether Mr. Righteousness is commanding or Mr. Gain, controlling. If "righteousness" stands for an ethical philosophy of life, and "gain," a utilitarian one, what I mean by "disposition" is an aesthetical philosophy of fife, which advocates taking your disposition as the operational guidance for your fife, whereby everyone is allowed to keep his true "self". You do not five for the doctrines you believe in or the materials you possess. Instead, your true "self" makes you who you are. The true meaning of life lies not in giving or possessing, but in creating, which actively unfolds your true disposition, or, in other words, the emotional gratification you obtain through the exertion of your essential power. Different from giving, which is the performance of an external responsibility, creating is the realization of one’s true self. The difference between creating and possessing is more than crystal clear. Let’s take creative writing as an example: "Possessing" focuses on the fame or social status a piece of writing may bring, while "creating" highlights the plea- sure in the process of writing. A man of disposition seeks nothing but the communication of feelings while in company, and the cultivation of taste while possessing something. More valuably, in a time when most people are busy hunting for wealth and being hunted by it, a man of disposition is al- ways at ease in social intercourses. Here I' m not talking about the leisure of traditional Chinese scholar-officials, nor the complacency of conservative peasants, but about a peaceful mind coming from a non-materialistic attitude towards life. Using the writing example again, I’ve been wondering why a writer needs to be prolific. If he dreams of being enshrined, an immortal short poem is enough. Otherwise, he could be pretty much satisfied with a carefree life. In this sense, writing is merely a way for such a life. Bernard Shaw once said, “There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it." With it I couldn’t agree more. I did admire him for his easy and humorous way in describing the quandary of life. However, a deep ponder over it has brought home to me that Shaw’s standpoint is no other than "possessing", which keeps us stranded in a double dosage tragedy of life: it' s a pain not to possess your heart' s desire, and a tedium, to have possessed it. However, if we shift the standpoint from "possessing" to "creating", and look at life with an esthetic eye, we can interpret Shaw’s words the other way round: there are two comedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire, so you still have the opportunity to seek or create it. The other is to get your heart’s desire, and then you are able to enjoy tasting or experiencing it--Of course, life can never be free from pains, and a wealth hunter can not dream of the sadness of a man who places a premium on his true disposition. However, to be free from the mania for pos- session may at least save you many petty worries and pains, and let you enjoy a graceful life. 1 have no intention to prescribe the esthetic viewpoint as the cure for a corrupt world. I just want to express a belief: there is a life more worth living than the one haunted by righteousness and gain. And, this belief will help me sail through the unpredictable waters of my future life.

comments:
This is a graceful essay which is concern on the argument between the “creating” and “possessing”. Many people always pursuit to the righteousness or gain in China as the Confucius says. However, the author points that there is only one thing beyond them that we should concern on creating, which can immerse us in our lives with no any goal. Since in the society with the fashion word that “Time is money”, life is then turned into a corporation and, consequently, interpersonal relations into a market. ”human touch” becomes more rare and costly in this era of money when a number of people are joining in the scramble for gains.
Socioty>society
quandary n.窘困，不知所措
no other than 除…之外没有，只是；正是，就是
stranded a.处于困境
tedium n.单调乏味
premium n.额外费用，附加费
crystal a.水晶般的，清楚的
at ease n.安逸，自由自在
peasant n.农民；粗俗的人
enshrine v.放置或保存某物于…；作为神龛以保存某物
immortal a.长生的，名垂千古的
utilitarian n.功利主义的
fife n.横笛
whereby adv.靠那个，凭那个，借以
doctrine n.教条
gratification n.满意，满足
exertion n.努力，费力；运用，行使
conceal v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住
obligation n.义务，责任，职责
commanding a.指挥的，威严的，居高临下的
nostalgic a.对往事怀恋的，怀旧的，乡愁的
redeem v.实践，履行；补偿；赎回；解救，为…赎罪
salvage n. To save from loss or destruction.
corrupt n.堕落的，不道德的
preach v.宣扬，宣传
nevertheless conj.&adv. 然而，尽管如此
virtue n.美德
coin v. To make (pieces of money) from metal; mint or strike:
confucian n.孔门弟子，儒家
mock v.愚弄，嘲弄；使受挫折，蔑视；
a.仿制的，模拟的；虚假的
vogue a.流行的，时髦的
entrepreneur n.企业家
worship v.崇拜，尊敬；做礼拜，爱慕
motto n.座右铭
commercialism n.商业主义，重商主义
hypocrite n.伪君子
pedant n.书呆子
fig leaf 遮羞布
nosedive v.(价格，费用等)骤降，暴跌
virtuous a.品德高的，善良的，贞洁的，自命不凡的
mean a.吝啬的
righteousness n.正当，正义，正直
Gain n.利润

中原527UID：2707367

[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][01.03]
关于REBORN FROM THE ASHES组COMMENTS活动的说明&汇总
https://bbs.gter.net/bbs/thread-1042733-1-2.html



================================================================================


Beyond Righteousness and Gain

by Zhou Guoping

"A virtuous man is concerned with righteousness while a mean man, with gain,” Confucius says. The "righteousness" and "gain" have long been a central theme in the Chinese philosophy of life. But, what if I am neither virtuous nor mean?

There was once a time when almost everyone claimed to be a gentleman and every word uttered was about righteousness. At that time, there might have been some truly virtuous men who were so righteous as to give up whatever was profitable. But, more likely, one might meet hypocrites who used righteousness as a fig leaf for their cupidity, or pedants believed in whatever passed for righteousness. Gone are the old days. The social trend has taken on a dramatic change unawares: the reputation of righteousness nosedived, truly virtuous men became extinct, hypocrites dropped the fig leaf and the scales fell from the eyes of the pedants. With- out exception, they all joined in the scramble for gains（追逐利润的队伍）. It is believed that the philosophy of life has changed and a new interpretation of righteousness and gain looms large: seeking material gains is not the exclusive patent of the mean, but a golden rule for all.

"Time is money" is a vogue word nowadays. Nothing is wrong when entrepreneurs apply it to boost productivity. But, when it is worshipped as a motto of life and commercialism takes the place of other wisdom of life, life is then turned into a corporation and, consequently, interpersonal relations into a market.

I used to mock at the cheap "human touch". But, nowadays even the cheap “touch” has become rare and costly. Can you, if I may ask, get a smile, a greeting, or a tiny bit of compassion for free?

Don’t be nostalgic, though. It is in fact of little help if you try to redeem the world or salvage the corrupt minds through preaching various brands of righteousness. Nevertheless, beyond righteousness and gain, I believe, there are other attitudes towards life; beyond virtue and meanness, there are other individualities. Allow me to coin a sentence in the Confucian style: "A perfect man is concerned with disposition."

Indeed, righteousness and gain, seemingly poles apart, have much essence in common. Righteousness calls for a devotion to the whole society while gain drives one to pursue material interests. In both cases, one’s disposition is over- looked and his true “self” concealed. "Righteousness" teaches one to give while "gain" induces one to take. The former turns one’s life into a process of fulfilling endless obligations while the latter breeds a life-long scramble for wealth and power. We must remember, however, the true value of life is beyond obligations and power. Both righteousness and gain are yoked by calculating minds. That’s why we often find ourselves in a tense interpersonal relationship（紧张的人际关系） whether Mr. Righteousness is commanding or Mr. Gain, controlling.
If "righteousness" stands for an ethical philosophy of life, and "gain," a utilitarian one, what I mean by "disposition" is an aesthetical philosophy of fife, which advocates taking your disposition as the operational guidance for your fife, whereby everyone is allowed to keep his true "self". You do not five for the doctrines you believe in or the materials you possess. Instead, your true "self" makes you who you are. The true meaning of life lies not in giving or possessing, but in creating, which actively unfolds your true disposition, or, in other words, the emotional gratification you obtain through the exertion of your essential power.
Different from giving, which is the performance of an external responsibility, creating is the realization of one’s true self. The difference between creating and possessing is more than crystal clear. Let’s take creative writing as an example: "Possessing" focuses on the fame or social status a piece of writing may bring, while "creating" highlights the plea- sure in the process of writing. A man of disposition seeks nothing but the communication of feelings while in company, and the cultivation of taste while possessing something. More valuably, in a time when most people are busy hunting for wealth and being hunted by it, a man of disposition is al- ways at ease in social intercourses. Here I' m not talking about the leisure of traditional Chinese scholar-officials, nor the complacency of conservative peasants, but about a peaceful mind coming from a non-materialistic attitude towards life. Using the writing example again, I’ve been wondering why a writer needs to be prolific. If he dreams of being enshrined, an immortal short poem is enough. Otherwise, he could be pretty much satisfied with a carefree life. In this sense, writing is merely a way for such a life.

Bernard Shaw once said, “There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it." With it I couldn’t agree more. I did admire him for his easy and humorous way in describing the quandary of life. However, a deep ponder over it has brought home to me that Shaw’s standpoint is no other than "possessing", which keeps us stranded in a double dosage tragedy of life: it' s a pain not to possess your heart' s desire, and a tedium, to have possessed it. However, if we shift the standpoint from "possessing" to "creating", and look at life with an esthetic eye, we can interpret Shaw’s words the other way round: there are two comedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire, so you still have the opportunity to seek or create it. The other is to get your heart’s desire, and then you are able to enjoy tasting or experiencing it--Of course, life can never be free from pains, and a wealth hunter can not dream of the sadness of a man who places a premium on his true disposition. However, to be free from the mania for pos- session may at least save you many petty worries and pains, and let you enjoy a graceful life. 1 have no intention to prescribe the esthetic viewpoint as the cure for a corrupt world. I just want to express a belief: there is a life more worth living than the one haunted by righteousness and gain. And, this belief will help me sail through the unpredictable waters of my future life.
comments:
This is a graceful essay which is concern on the argument between the “creating” and “possessing”. Many people always pursuit to the righteousness or gain in China as the Confucius says. However, the author points that there is only one thing beyond them that we should concern on creating, which can immerse us in our lives with no any goal. Since in the society with the fashion word that “Time is money”, life is then turned into a corporation and, consequently, interpersonal relations into a market. ”human touch” becomes more rare and costly in this era of money when a number of people are joining in the scramble for gains.
Socioty>society
quandary n.窘困，不知所措
no other than 除…之外没有，只是；正是，就是
stranded a.处于困境
tedium n.单调乏味
premium n.额外费用，附加费
crystal a.水晶般的，清楚的
at ease n.安逸，自由自在
peasant n.农民；粗俗的人
enshrine v.放置或保存某物于…；作为神龛以保存某物
immortal a.长生的，名垂千古的
utilitarian n.功利主义的
fife n.横笛
whereby adv.靠那个，凭那个，借以
doctrine n.教条
gratification n.满意，满足
exertion n.努力，费力；运用，行使
conceal v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住
obligation n.义务，责任，职责
commanding a.指挥的，威严的，居高临下的
nostalgic a.对往事怀恋的，怀旧的，乡愁的
redeem v.实践，履行；补偿；赎回；解救，为…赎罪
salvage n. To save from loss or destruction.
corrupt n.堕落的，不道德的
preach v.宣扬，宣传
nevertheless conj.&adv. 然而，尽管如此
virtue n.美德
coin v. To make (pieces of money) from metal; mint or strike:
confucian n.孔门弟子，儒家
mock v.愚弄，嘲弄；使受挫折，蔑视；
a.仿制的，模拟的；虚假的
vogue a.流行的，时髦的
entrepreneur n.企业家
worship v.崇拜，尊敬；做礼拜，爱慕
motto n.座右铭
commercialism n.商业主义，重商主义
hypocrite n.伪君子
pedant n.书呆子
fig leaf 遮羞布
nosedive v.(价格，费用等)骤降，暴跌
virtuous a.品德高的，善良的，贞洁的，自命不凡的
mean a.吝啬的
righteousness n.正当，正义，正直
Gain n.利润

jorgeUID：108878

TEST

中原527UID：2707367

U.S. Had Early Signals of a Terror Plot, Officials Say


President Obama, speaking on Tuesday at a Marine Corps base near Honolulu, said he would “insist on accountability at every level” for failures in security.
The president was told during a private briefing on Tuesday morning while vacationing here in Hawaii that the government had a variety of information in its possession before the thwarted bombing that would have been a clear warning sign had it been shared among agencies, a senior official said. （相当长的句子啊…）
Two officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen before Friday that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda there were talking about “a Nigerian(尼日利亚)” being prepared for a terrorist attack. While the information did not include a name, officials said it would have been evident had it been compared with information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. (ISSUE素材)

The government also had more information about where Mr. Abdulmutallab had been and what some of his plans were.
Some of the information was partial or incomplete, and it was not obvious that it was connected, the official said, but in retrospect(回顾) it now appears clear that had it all been examined together it would have pointed to the pending attack. The official said the administration was “increasingly confident” that Al Qaeda had a role in the attack, as the group’s Yemeni branch has publicly claimed.
Shortly after being briefed, Mr. Obama addressed reporters in his second public statement on the matter in two days, announcing that a review already had revealed a breakdown(事故) in the intelligence system that did not properly identify the suspect as a dangerous extremist who should have been prevented from flying to the United States.

“A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable,” Mr. Obama said. He said he had ordered government agencies to give him a preliminary report on Thursday about what happened and added that he would “insist on accountability at every level（强调各级问责制）,” although he did not elaborate.

Mr. Obama alluded to the intelligence in his statement. “Had this critical information been shared, it could have been compiled with other intelligence and a fuller, clearer picture of the suspect would have emerged,” the president said. “The warning signs would have triggered red flags, and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America.”
The president’s withering assessment of the government’s performance could reshape the intensifying political debate over the thwarted terrorist attack. Instead of defending the system, Mr. Obama sided with critics who complained that it did not work and positioned himself as a reformer who will fix it. At the same time, the decision to speak a second time after remaining out of sight for three days underscores the administration’s concern over being outflanked on national security.

The aftermath of the attempted bombing has been marked by an increasingly fierce partisan exchange over culpability heading into a midterm election year. With Republicans on the attack against the administration as not taking terrorism seriously enough, Democrats returned fire by accusing the opposition of standing in the way of needed personnel and money while exploiting public fears.
The debate has escalated（争论进一步升级）since Mr. Obama’s secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, said Sunday that “the system worked” after officials said the suspect tried to ignite explosive chemicals aboard a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit. Ms. Napolitano made clear the next day that she had meant the system worked in its response to the attempted bombing, not before it happened.

Mr. Obama appeared to be trying to contain the damage on Tuesday, offering “systemic failure” as a substitute diagnosis for “system worked.” He framed Ms. Napolitano’s statement by saying she was right that “once the suspect attempted to take down Flight 253, after his attempt, it’s clear that passengers and crew, our homeland security systems and our aviation security took all appropriate actions.”
The president praised the professionalism of the nation’s intelligence, counterterrorism, homeland security and law enforcement officials. But he spared little in his sharp judgment about how a known extremist could be allowed to board a flight bound for the United States after his own father had warned that he had become radical.
tributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security,” Mr. Obama told reporters at the Marine Corps base at Kaneohe Bay outside Honolulu, near his vacation home in Kailua. “We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake.”

Mr. Obama suggested that he would overhaul the watch-list system. “We’ve achieved much since 9/11 in terms of collecting information that relates to terrorists and potential terrorist attacks,” he said. “But it’s becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have.”

Mr. Abdulmutallab, who has been linked to the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda, came to the attention of the American authorities when his father went to the embassy last month to report that his son had expressed radical views before disappearing. The father, a respected retired banker, did not say his son planned to attack Americans but sought help locating him and bringing him home, United States officials said.
After Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father asked the embassy in Nigeria for help, embassy officials from several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, met to discuss the case, officials said.
Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said that was the first time the agency had heard of the young Nigerian. “We did not have his name before then,” he said.
The embassy sent a cable to Washington, which resulted in Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name being entered in a database of 550,000 people with possible ties to terrorism. But he was not put on the much smaller no-fly list of 4,000 people or on a list of 14,000 people who are required to undergo additional screening before flying, nor was his multiple-entry visa to the United States revoked.



“It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect’s name on a no-fly list,” Mr. Obama said of the father’s warning. “There appears to be other deficiencies as well. Even without this one report, there were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together.”

Mr. Obama’s appearance came after another day of Republican criticism. On Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee sought to inject the bombing attempt into next year’s midterm races. In a series of news releases, the committee sought to press vulnerable Democrats on whether they agreed with Ms. Napolitano’s initial assessment.
“All year long, we’ve asked the question: What is the administration’s overarching strategy to confront the terrorist threat and keep America safe?” Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, said in a statement Tuesday. “We haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer, and the secretary’s ‘the system worked’ response doesn’t inspire confidence.”
Democrats countered that Republicans had shown disregard for any terrorism risk by blocking the president’s nominee for head of the Transportation Security Administration and by voting this year against a measure providing $44 billion for Department of Homeland Security operations.
“They have essentially voted against and delayed providing the tools that are necessary to prevent these kinds of actions,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

They also criticized Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the intelligence committee and a leading critic of the White House, for tying the thwarted bombing to an appeal for money for his race for governor. In a letter first reported by The Grand Rapids Press, Mr. Hoekstra sought donations to help counter Democratic “efforts to weaken our security.”
A spokesman for Mr. Hoekstra’s campaign said the letter was appropriate and sought to inform potential donors of his leadership on national security issues.
Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, said on Tuesday that once the Senate returned on Jan. 19, he would move quickly to overcome Republicans’ objections to the nomination of Erroll G. Southers, a former F.B.I. agent, to lead the security agency.
Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, has blocked the appointment, saying he was worried Mr. Southers might allow T.S.A. workers to join labor unions. “Republicans have decided to play politics with this nomination by blocking final confirmation,” Mr. Reid said.
Mr. DeMint said he was seeking an opportunity to debate the nomination rather than have it approved without discussion, and he accused Mr. Reid of grandstanding. “Senator Reid completely ignored this nominee until the recent terror attempt,” Mr. DeMint said, “and now he’s trying to show concern for airport security.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/us/politics/30obama.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world
comment:
The uncommitted exploding in a Northwest airlines flight to Detroit from Amsterdam on Christmas Day casted a shadow over the future of the peace in the world, especially in America. The president Obama should try his best with his officials to conciliate the fuss of American who returned from 911 just now.
The article mainly concerned on the neglect of the intelligence system in USA. Before the attack’s happening, there was the omen that the old father , which of a Nigerian who tried to blow up the airplane, went to the embassy last month to report that his son had expressed radical views before disappearing. The intelligence agent put the name into a database of people with possible ties to terrorism. Maybe they thought the people were not very dangerous, since not entered him in the no-fly list. The Democrat asked the government should supply increasing fund for Department of Homeland Security.
explode
expose
Northewest>northwest
Officals>officials
Conceil>conciliate
intelligence n.情报，消息；情报人员
charge with 1.
给…装(炸药)2.
给…充(电)3.
指控…犯有罪4.
承担; 担负5.
充满
blow up 1. 突然开始2. 产生; 出现3. 把…吹旺4. (使)爆炸, 将…炸毁, 毁掉5. (使)失败6. 发怒, 责骂7. 吹胀, 打气8. 爆发
administration政府机关
a breakdown(事故)
overhaul v.彻底检查
in terms of 就…而言，从…方面来说
elaborate v.详细说明描述

v. intr.

To express at greater length or in greater detail:
allude
to refer indirectly, briefly, or implicitly
fuller
n. One that fulls cloth.
suspect
n.嫌疑分子
emerge
To come forth from obscurity
withering
n.1.使人畏缩的; 使人害羞的; 使人难堪的
underscore
vt.强调
concern over/about/for 对…的担心，忧虑
aftermath
n.(战争、事故、不快的事情)的后果，创伤
partisan
n.坚定支持者，铁杆拥护者；a.（对个别人，团体或思想）过分支持，偏护的；盲目拥护的
culpability n.苛责；有罪
democrat
a.美国民主党的 n.民主人士，民主主义者
return fire 回击
escalate v .(使)逐步升级; (使)逐步扩大
ignite v.点燃，引发

substitute for 用…替代，(使)替代
crew n.全体船员，全体机务人员（文中没复数形式）
aviation n.航空，航空学；航空工业
enforcement n.强制，实施，执行，强迫
“There was a mix of human and systemic failures that con
Catastrophic a.灾难性的，惨重的
episode n.片段
revoke v.撤销，废除
To void or annul by recalling, withdrawing, or reversing:

Her license was revoked.
deficiency n.缺乏，不足（以后就少用disadvantage~）
counter v.对抗，抵制
nominee n.被提名者，被任者
Democrat 民主
republican 共和

中原527UID：2707367

https://bbs.gter.net/bbs/thread-1042733-1-2.html
Planet hunting
Looking in the shadowsJan 5th 2010
From Economist.com
The search for a second Earth gets serious


IN THE 19th century astronomers spent a lot of time seeking shadows crossing the sun. They were searching for Vulcan, a putative planet inside the orbit of Mercury, by looking for its transits. These are the moments when, viewed from Earth, the hypothetical planet would cross the solar disc. Sadly, there was no Vulcan to be found, but the method itself is sound, and it is the modus operandi of Kepler, an American spacecraft that has been trailing the Earth, in the same orbit, since March 2009.

Kepler is a telescope that looks simultaneously and continuously at more than 150,000 stars, recording the amount of light coming from them. It is seeking the tiny, periodic diminutions of illumination caused by planetary transits and, on January 4th, the team running it announced that five such patterns had shown up in the first six weeks of the probe’s operation.

The past 15 years have shown that planets are commonplace. More than 400 have been located around stars other than the sun, by looking for the wobbles in parent stars that orbiting planets cause. A decent wobble, though, requires a massive planet, so the wobble method does not favour the discovery of Earth-sized objects. Kepler, however, can find such planets.
The Earth itself, in transit, reduces the amount of light an observer would see from the sun by about 0.01%.（这个百分比是指啥？） That is well within Kepler’s range.

In fact, the planets found so far are significantly larger than Earth. Four are about the size of Jupiter and one about the size of Neptune. They also have much shorter orbits, ranging from 3.3 to 4.9 terrestrial days. Neither of these facts is surprising. Even using the transit method, big planets are easier to spot than small ones, and to be sure that a flicker in brightness is caused by a planet rather than some property of the star itself, it must occur at regular and predictable intervals. Hundreds of flickers that might have been caused by planets with longer orbits have been seen, but have not yet have been confirmed as transits.



What this does mean, though, is that the planets in question are are much closer to their stars than Earth is, and thus much hotter (1200-1650ºC), as well as being larger. （两个are不懂...）But they are not as hot as the most peculiar discoveries Kepler has made. These are two planet-sized objects that are far hotter (at 12,000ºC) than their distances from their parent stars suggest they should be. That means they are giving out energy of their own, yet they are too small to be stars. One theory is that they are youngsters, giving off heat as they collapse inwards due to the pull of their own gravity, but nobody knows for sure.

None of these discoveries favours the underlying reason why planet-hunting is such a popular sport—the hope that, one day, a life-bearing planet will turn up. For that, more numbers will have to be crunched, and planetary atmospheres analysed for signs of oxygen. The hunt, however, is on in earnest. If Earth-sized planets are out there, they will soon be found.

Comments:
When we can see the universe by using our observing invention, we will feel curious whether there is any a life-bearing planet or not. In scientific common sense in the past that the wobble should require a massive planet, however, Kepler, the telescope of the America spacecraft , can find such planets against the rules. the planets that had been found up to date are significantly larger than Earth. Even though there were not significant discoveries about the planet that the creature can live in, the planet-hunting is such a popular sport.


sence>sense
signful>significant
putative adj.
Generally regarded as such; supposed;
supposed
orbit n.轨道，势力范围
Mercury 水星
hypothetical
a.假定的，假设的，有待证实的
the modus operandi
n.做法，惯技
illumination n.光源，强度，照明
Wobble n.The act or an instance of wobbling; unsteady motion.
A tremulous, uncertain tone or sound:
a vocal wobble.
Neptune 海王星
Jupiter 木星
flicker
n.
A brief movement; a tremor.
An inconstant or wavering light.
A brief or slight sensation:
a flicker of doubt.
Slang A movie.
interval n.间隙
in earnest 认真的诚挚的
crunch v.
2.（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

中原527UID：2707367

[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][01.02]

本帖最后由 prettywraith 于 2010-1-2 09:59 编辑 关于REBORN FROM THE ASHES组COMMENTS活动的说明&汇总 https://bbs.gter.net/bbs/thread-1042733-1-2.html ======================================================== 文章摘自The New York Times 链接：http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/movies/03dargis.html?8dpc Film Floating in the Digital Experience By MANOHLA DARGIS Published: December 30, 2009 HOW much our world of moving-image entertainment has changed in the past decade! We now live in a world of the 24-Hour Movie, one that plays anytime and anywhere you want (and sometimes whether you want it to or not). It’s a movie we can access at home by pressing a few buttons on the remote (and agreeing to pay more for it than you might at the local video store) or with a few clicks of the mouse. The 24-Hour Movie now streams instead of unspools, filling our screens with images that, more and more, have been created algorithmically rather than photographically. And yet how little our world of moving-image entertainment has changed! On April 14, 1896, The New York Times ran an article with the exciting if cryptic headline “Edison’s Latest Triumph.” The triumph was the Vitascope, a machine that “projects upon a large area of canvas groups that appear to stand forth from the canvas, and move with great facility and agility, as though actuated by separate impulses.” A proprietor of the music hall where the Vitascope was shown off said this machine would reproduce “scenes from various successful plays and operas of the season, and well-known statesmen and celebrities,” adding, “No other manager in this city will have the right to exhibit the Vitascope.” Today, even when digital, our movies are still filled with celebrities and scenes from successful plays (and books and comics), and the owners of image technologies continue to hold on to their exclusive rights ferociously. Edison didn’t invent the Vitascope, but that’s another story. The story I want to tell here does involve him. But first I want to fast-forward to a recent night when, at a movie theater rigged for 3-D projection, I saw James Cameron’s “Avatar” with an audience that watched the screen with the kind of fixed attention that has become rare at the movies. True, everyone was wearing 3-D glasses, which makes it difficult to check your cellphone obsessively, but they also seemed captivated. When it was over, people broke into enthusiastic applause and, unusually, many stayed to watch the credits, as if to linger in the movie. Although much has been made of the technologies used in “Avatar,” its beauty and nominal politics, it is the social experience of the movie — as an event that needs to be enjoyed with other people for maximum impact — which is more interesting. That’s particularly true after a decade when watching movies became an increasingly solitary affair, something between you and your laptop. “Avatar” affirms the deep pleasures of the communal, and it does so by exploiting a technology (3-D),which appears to invite you into the movie even as（正巧，正如） it also forces you to remain attentively in your seat. “Avatar” serves as a nice jumping-off point to revisit how movies and our experience of them have changed. For starters, when a critic calls a new release “a film” these days, there’s a chance that 【what she (and you) are looking at 】wasn’t made with film processes but was created, from pre-visualization to final credits, with digital technologies. Yet, unless a director or distributor calls attention to the technologies used — as do techno-fetishists like Michael Mann and David Fincher, who used bleeding-edge digital cameras to make “Collateral” (2004) and “Zodiac” (2007) — it’s also probable that most reviewers won’t mention if a movie was even shot in digital, because they haven’t noticed or don’t care. This seems like a strange state of affairs. Film is profoundly changing — or, if you believe some theorists and historians, is already dead — something that most moviegoers don’t know. Yet, because the visible evidence of this changeover has become literally hard to see, and because the implications are difficult to grasp, it is also understandable why the shift to digital has not attracted more intense analysis outside film and media studies. Bluntly put, something is happening before our eyes. We might see an occasional digital artifact (usually, a bit of unintentional data) when a director shoots digital in bright light — look for a pattern of squares or a yellowish tint — but we’re usually too busy with the story to pay much mind. Should you care? I honestly don’t know, because I’m not sure what to think about this brave new image world we have entered. I love the luxurious look and warmth of film, and I fervently hope it never disappears. And yet many of us who grew up watching movies in the predigital era have rarely experienced the ones in, and shown on, film in all their visual glory: battered prints and bad projection have helped thwart the ideal experience. Theater 80 St. Marks, a downtown Manhattan repertory house where I spent a lot of time in the 1970s, showed threadbare prints of classic and not-so-classic movies in rear projection, which meant they often looked worse on screen than they did on my television back home. It is because the movies and our experience of them has changed so radically in recent years — we can pull a movie outof our pocket now, much as earlier generations pulled out a paperback — that makes it difficult to grasp what is happening. In 1996, Susan Sontag set off a storm in cine-circles with an essay, “The Decay of Cinema,” which could have been titled the death of specialized cinephilia, one centered on art-house film (“quintessentially modern”), from Dziga Vertov to Jean-Luc Godard, and experienced inside a movie theater, “ideally the third-row center.” Sontag’s essay inspired a spate of similarly themed if often less vigorous examinations: Google the words “death of cinema,” and you get more than 2.5 million hits. In one sense the beginning of the end of cinema as we tend to understand it can be traced to 1933, the year that a feature-length film — a 1932 detective tale called “The Crooked Circle” — was first shown on television. Few Americans owned sets in the 1930s, but the genie was already out of the bottle, or, rather, the movies were out of the theater. As televisions began to fill postwar American homes — from an estimated 20,000 in 1946 to 30.5 million in 1955 — so did the movies, which, despite Hollywood’s initial anxiety, became a crucial television staple. (The studios soon learned that television was a revenue source.) Generations of cinephiles fell in love with the object of their obsession while flopped on the floor, basking in the glow of the family television.(很好的比喻~) In “The Virtual Life of Film,” an elegant 2007 inquiry into the past, present and future of film, the theorist D. N. Rodowick writes, “All that was chemical and photographic is disappearing into the electronic and digital.” Film captures moments in time, preserving them spatially in images we can root around in, get lost in. Digital delivers data, zeroes and ones that are transformed into images, and this is a difference to contemplate. The truth is that the film object has already changed, from preproduction to projection. And the traditional theatrical experience that shaped how viewers looked at film and, by extension, the world, has been mutating for some time. The new types of image consumption and digital technologies have complicated our understanding of cinema. And yet westill watch movies. And if it looks like a duck (in widescreen) and quacks like a duck (in stereo), nothing has changed, right? It has and it hasn’t, as we will only understand as film continues to disappear. These days instead of falling in love with the movies at home in front of the television, new generations fall in love with movies they watch on hand-held devices that, however small, play images that are larger than those Edison showed to customers before the invention of the Vitascope. A teenager watching a movie on her iPhone might not be looking at an actual film. But she is enjoying something like it, something that because of its narrative strategies and visual style carries the deep imprint of cinema. It’s also a good bet that this teenager also watches movies in theaters. If she goes to “Avatar,” she will see a movie that, despite its exotic beauty, seems familiar, even in 3-D. Narrative cinema employs devices, from camera placement to editing, that direct your attention and, if the movie is successful and you fall under its sway, lock you into the story. Mr. Cameron might be a visionary of a type, but he’s an old-fashioned (and canny) storyteller and he locks you in tightly. The 3-D images are often spectacular, and his characters, like the figures in that 1896 Edison film,(可作为issue例子) “appear to stand forth from the canvas, and move with great facility and agility, as though actuated by separate impulses.” (上文提到过) You can get lost in a movie, or so it seems, and melt into its world. But even when seated third row center and occupying two mental spaces, you understand that you and the movie inhabit separate realms. When I watched “The Dark Knight” in Imax, I felt that I was at the very edge of the screen. “Avatar,” in 3-D, by contrast, blurs that edge, closing the space between you and the screen even more.（层层递进！） Like a video game designer, Mr. Cameron seems to want to invite you into the digital world he has created even if, like a film director, he wants to determine your route. Perched between film and digital, “Avatar” shows us a future in which movies will invite us further into them and perhaps even allow us to choose not just the hero’s journey throughthe story, but also our own. 链接：http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/movies/03dargis.html?8dpc

Unspool
transitive verb
1
: to unwind from a spool <unspool the cable>
2
: to execute or present artfully or gracefully <unspooled a jump shot>
<unspooling an intricate tale>intransitive verb
: to be presented or revealed on or as if on a motion-picture screen
melt into
融入，使软化，使感动

algorithmically
来源于
algorithm
: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem (as of finding the greatest common divisor) in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation; broadly : a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end especially by a computer
Vitascope
n.老式放映机
the exciting if cryptic headline
4 : even though : although perhaps <an interesting if untenable argument尽管站不住脚但是一篇有趣的文章>  作名词if有这个意思，就是“尽管...但是”(来源韦氏) 感谢prettywraith提供，我不是很懂if在此句中的含义但我也没想到要查韦氏….
Ferociously
来源于ferocious
1 : exhibiting or given to extreme fierceness and unrestrained violence and brutality <a ferocious predator>
2 : extremely intense <ferocious heat>
exclusive rights
专营权利，专有权
Obsessively
强迫性地，分神地
来源于obsessive
1 a : tending to cause obsession b : excessive often to an unreasonable degree
2 : of, relating to, or characterized by obsession : deriving from obsession
Nominal
adj.
名义上的, 有名无实的, 名字的, [语]名词性的
Jumping-off
n.
<美>边远地区,文明终结,世界尽头,起点
Release
n.
版本, 发布
Fetishist
n.
物神崇拜者
intense
adj.
强烈的, 剧烈的, 热切的, 热情的, 激烈的
Bluntly
adv坦率地，率直地
fervently
adv.
热心地, 热诚地
thwart
adj.
横放的
vt.
反对, 阻碍, 横过
adv.
prep.横过
n.
[船]横坐板
radically
adv.
根本上, 以激进的方式
Rapidly
Spate
n．大水
vigorous
adj.
精力旺盛的, 有力的, 健壮的
staple
n.
钉书钉, 钉, 主要产品(或商品), 原材料, 主要成分, 来源
adj.
主要的, 常用的, 大宗生产的
v.
把...分类, 把...分级
Obsession
n.
迷住, 困扰
mutate
v.变异
exotic
adj.
异国情调的, 外来的, 奇异的
Sway
v.
摇摆, 摇动
Spectacular
adj.
引人入胜的, 壮观的
From the article, the recent edition of 3-D’s film “avatar”, which will be on view in the imax lately, means the new era of the cinema coming in. as we know , the latest triumph of Edison was the vitascope, which change our enjoyment of theater in the past. The early generation also remembered the vitascope, a old machine that “projects upon a large area of canvas groups that appear to stand forth from the canvas, and move with great facility and agility, as though actuated by separate impulses.”But the invention’s television computer and MP4 and so on made decreasing people going into the cinema. With the developing of digital technology, the 3D film let the large number of people return to the movie theater. In addition, “avatar” makes us blurt the edge of screen, and we can close the space between us and the screen even more.

中原527UID：2707367

Back to the future
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures
on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings
the next day were surprisingly busy.



Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching &pound;4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer
”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. （issue经济类可借鉴）People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”
Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate.
Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.
John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous
wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull
” to an American collector for &pound;130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow(寡妇), Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture [that fetched the highest sum] was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about &pound;30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (&pound;337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the under bidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.
“On the Cliffs
” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists.
But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for &pound;646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him &pound;914,850.
Comments:
Nowadays, the art market is full of the blundering atmosphere in china. Many paintings ,which have the obvious characters of the great proletarian cultural revolution such as the figure of chairman Mao and the political propagandistic paintings in that period time. Because of the paticularity of the time, the paintings are favor of the collectors. However, there are not few paintings are bid up beyond the auction’s high estimate. As Mr. Mason said that the inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend, including American art market. There are few collectors not regarding painting as a bargain, especially in China. Collecting usually is the privilege of the rich.
Nawdays>nowadays
Atmasphere>atmosphere
Contemporory>contemporary

Main Entry: 2clutter
Function: noun
Date: 1649
1 a
: a crowded or confused mass or collection b
: things that clutter a place
2
: interfering radar echoes caused by reflection from objects (as on the ground) other than the target
3 chiefly dialect :
disturbance
, hubbub

Main Entry: re·al·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈrē-ə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1817
1
: concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary
2 a
: a doctrine that universals exist outside the mind; specifically : the conception that an abstract term names an independent and unitary reality b
: a theory that objects of sense perception or cognition exist independently of the mind — compare nominalism

3
: the theory or practice of fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization
Main Entry: buoy·ant
Pronunciation: \ˈbȯi-ənt, ˈbü-yənt\
Function: adjective
Date: 1578
: having buoyancy: as a
: capable of floating b
:
cheerful
, gay
c
: capable of maintaining a satisfactorily high level <a buoyant economy>
— buoy·ant·ly adverb
contemporary
a.当代的，同时代的
n.同时代的人
novelty
n.新奇，新颖，新奇的事物
sentimental
a.
感伤性的，感情脆弱的
Steadfastly
adv.踏实地，不变地
Victorian
n．维多利亚女王时代著名人物
a.维多利亚女王时代的，有维多利亚女王时代特色的
odds
n.可能的机会, 成败的可能性, 优势, 不均, 不平等, 几率, 差别
odd
adj.奇数的, 单数的, 单只的, 不成对的, 临时的, 不固定的, 带零头的, 余的
fetching
a.
动人的，吸引人的，迷人的
Recession
n．撤回，退回，工商业的衰退，不景气
inflation
n.通货膨胀，物价暴涨
sector
n.部门，部分
v.使分成部分，把…分成扇形
odds
n.可能的机会, 成败的可能性, 优势, 不均, 不平等, 几率, 差别
bid up
v.(在拍卖中)竞出高价, 哄价, 抬价
knickknack
n．小玩意儿
anonymous
a.匿名的
conspicuous
a.显著的
if anything 如果有什么区别的话
idyllic
a.
田园短诗的, 牧歌的, 生动逼真的
Thread a needle 穿针引线

中原527UID：2707367

1.1
comments：
In the long history of the world , the battle for the possession of the nation’s territory is always the theme. In this day, as the decreasing material resource or the history’s problem, the increasing countries focus on the territory problems such as seabed, sea lanes, and sea and land borders.
The article’s main idea is all the problems surrounding the far north in Canada. In recent years, the importance of this vast area never visited is more obvious, because the place may has the rich resource, and the long marine line.
After the Canada government is conscious of the weightiness of the far north. They take the actions rapidly in there. For instance, they improved the fund input and outfitted the aboriginal people with the military force.
红字为该词汇在文中的含义
quaint
1 obsolete : expert, skilled
2 a : marked by skillful design <quaint with many a device in India ink — Herman Melville> b : marked by beauty or elegance
3 a : unusual or different in character or appearance : odd <figures of fun, quaint people — Herman Wouk> b : pleasingly or strikingly old-fashioned or unfamiliar
aboriginal
1 : being the first or earliest known of its kind present in a region <aboriginal forests> <aboriginal rocks>
2 a : of or relating to aborigines b often capitalized : of or relating to the indigenous peoples of Australia
Overhaul
1 a : to examine thoroughly b (1) : repair (2) : to renovate, remake, revise, or renew thoroughly
2 : to haul or drag over
3 : overtake
Debilitate
: to impair the strength of : enfeeble
Squabbles
: a noisy altercation or quarrel usually over petty matters
Federal
2 a : formed by a compact between political units that surrender their individual sovereignty to a central authority but retain limited residuary powers of government b : of or constituting a form of government in which power is distributed between a central authority and a number of constituent territorial units c : of or relating to the central government of a federation as distinguished from the governments of the constituent units
Heed
: to pay attention transitive verb : to give consideration or attention to : mind <heed what he says> <heed the call>
Monitor
: to watch, keep track of, or check usually for a special purpose
Outfit
1 : to furnish with an outfit
2 : supply <outfitting every family with shoes — American Guide Series: Vermont>intransitive verb
: to acquire an outfit
Tricky（这里最常用的是欺骗的诡计的，在文中是指棘手的，困难的）
3 : requiring skill, knack, or caution (as in doing or handling) : difficult <a tricky problem>; also : ingenious <a tricky rhythm>
Ironic(一开始以为是铁的，金属的意思，后来觉得看着奇怪就顺手查了韦氏~~~)
1 : relating to, containing, or constituting irony <an ironic remark> <an ironic coincidence>
2 : given to irony <an ironic sense of humor>
Pledge （以后不会老是用swear了~~~）
1 : to make a pledge of; especially : pawn
2 : to drink to the health of
3 : to bind by a pledge
4 : to promise the performance of by a pledge
Benign（差点看成begin了…）
1 : of a gentle disposition : gracious <a benign teacher>
2 a : showing kindness and gentleness <benign faces> b : favorable, wholesome <a benign climate>
3 a : of a mild type or character that does not threaten health or life; especially : not becoming cancerous <a benign lung tumor> b : having no significant effect : harmless <environmentally benign>
最后小小地总结文中出现兵器相关的词汇~
fleet舰队
Soviet bombers.（苏联轰炸机）
Submarine 潜水艇
Monitor 侦查
Rifles 来复枪

好词~

a vast area never visited
badly needed housing（极度被需要的住宅）
the usual cost overruns of military projects
paid little heed militarily to
outfitted a few Inuit with baseball hats and rifles,

123runfordreamUID：2697608

帖子回来了吧？
这里？
新年快乐！！一起奋战哈！！
嘿嘿~~

中原527UID：2707367

113# pluka
呵呵呵谢谢啦~~~