本帖最后由 importalyu 于 2010-2-2 19:18 编辑
1.27
好词好句
生词，难句
素材
结构TS, supporting details,conclusion
The second epistle of St Bill
Bill Gates worries about falling aid and poor teaching
Jan 26th 2010 | From The Economist online
“HELLO world,” tweeted Bill Gates on January 19th, announcing his entry to the world of Twitter. 活泼生动的开头He has also just launched a blog, called the Gates Notes, and has been at the Sundance film festival, talking about his appearance in the latest film by the director of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” Called “Waiting for Superman”, this tackles a topic close to Mr Gates’s heart, education reform in America—but, mercifully, it is not believed to feature（不敢相信是这样的形象） the Microsoft founder-turned-philanthropist wearing a cape and red underpants. TS:铺垫性的一段，引出本文的主人公，以及文中可能谈及的主题-Bill的慈善事业。
Mr Gates will also be making various appearances this week, among the global great and good at the World Economic Forum in Davos. And for any of his fans still thirsting for more of the wisdom of St Bill, on January 25th he published the second of what he says will be annual letters on philanthropy.（慈善事业） TS：总说Bill过去一周干的事情：开博客，拍电影，出席经济论坛，做慈善事业年度报告
Because Mr Gates was inspired by the annual letters to shareholders（股东） of his old friend and partner in mega-giving, Warren Buffett, it is easy to be disappointed by the relative lack of zing（热情） in his writing. It is not just that, as he promised, he would differ from the Sage of Omaha by not quoting Mae West—or any other witty commentator. Mr Buffett is a master of the carefully chosen overstatement（谨慎选择的大话专家）. Derivative securities（有价证券） he doesn’t like become “financial weapons of mass destruction”. When rival investors make losses in a tough market, he points out that “it is only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.（退潮之后，方知谁在裸泳，主要是指真金不怕火炼，差劲的人会被大浪淘沙） TS：只是引出Buffett和Bill的联系
By contrast, Mr Gates seems determined to understate（低调）, taking the controversial edge off his observations with language chosen so carefully（冷静观察，言语谨慎） that it must have been through an army of PR people（嘿嘿！）. “It’s been an incredible year,” Mr Gates tells us. “I love my new job and feel lucky to get to focus my time on these problems.”
Even so, there is plenty of meat(内容，要旨) in this year’s letter, especially for those willing to read between the lines. Mr Gates makes a powerful case for innovation as the solution to the biggest problems in health, poverty, hunger and education. Without it（我想着it应该指bill的solution,这个对未来的摄像本来就应该是Bill提出来的）, look forward ten years and the prospect would be “quite bleak（凄凉）”. TS：本段是文中的主题，Bill慈善事业将会涉及的内容。
He also explains how he believes philanthropy can play a unique role, by investing in innovations that would otherwise not be funded—a lesson that other philanthropists and charitable foundations would do well to learn.（科技造福于人，vaccine for various illness，genetic modification of seed for drought-resistant crops，a system for measuring teachers’ effectiveness and for helping them improve） Specifically, society invests too little in innovation that would mostly benefit poor people, and when there “isn’t an agreed upon measure of excellence to tell the market how to pick the best ideas.” TS：Bill对慈善事业的独特创新，投资具有创新性的项目，帮助更多的人。
When it comes to choosing projects—the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is pursuing innovation in 30 areas—two criteria are especially important. The innovation, if successful, must cost far less to use and maintain than the benefit it delivers, so it should be capable of attracting alternative sources of funding once Mr Gates stops financing it. And there need to be talented partners working on the innovation, ready to commit themselves to a long-term relationship with the foundation that could last from five to 15 years or more. TS：Bill选择投资项目的两条重要原则，一是创新性，二是有能力的合作伙伴。
The foundation also has a portfolio（投资组合） of projects with different levels of riskiness, which Mr Gates helpfully illustrates in his letter. In global health, for example, he regards investing in distributing vaccines for pneumonia（肺炎） and rotavirus（胃肠炎） to 135m children a year as low-risk, inventing a pill or gel（凝胶） to reduce the risk of getting HIV as medium-risk and inventing a highly effective malaria（疟疾） vaccine as high-risk.
As he points out, this approach is already bearing fruit（出成果了）. The GAVI Alliance to promote vaccination, which got going ten years ago with donations（捐赠） from Mr Gates, has inoculated more than 192m children against hepatitis（肝炎）B and over 41m against a particularly nasty type of flu（流感） known as HIB. It is now being expanded to combat rotavirus and pneumococcus, in the hope of saving over 700,000 lives a year, aided by a new funding technique supported by Mr Gates calls “advance market commitments”. This guarantees a pot of $1.5 billion to drug firms if they develop suitable vaccines. Efforts to reduce deaths from malaria are also starting to deliver impressive results. TS：对抗疾病，Bill把他的慈善基金用于各种vaccine的开发。
Disappointingly, Mr Gates’s letter is largely empty of attempts to address the political context of his work. Thus, while praising innovation, he does not confront those critics who accuse him of caring too much about intellectual-property rights. He praises genetic modification of seed（基因改良种子）, which he hopes will save many lives by producing drought-resistant crops（抗旱植物）, yet merely notes that this approach is “still controversial for some people”, when in private he would surely use choicer words to describe anti-GM Luddites. TS：对抗饥饿，biLL同样着眼未来，投资基因种子。
On education, he describes his attempt to develop a system for measuring teachers’ effectiveness and for helping them improve as a “high-risk” investment—without pointing out that the main risk factor is probably the ferocious（强烈的） opposition of America’s teachers’ unions. They have been complaining loudly that Mr Gates is now so influential in Washington that he has become America’s de facto（事实上的, 实际的） education secretary. TS：Bill的教育计划好像不太行得通，受到教师们的强烈反对，他打算面向教师设计一种评分系统。
There is one exception to Mr Gates’s “no politics” rule. He is extremely worried that the economic crisis will lead governments to break their promises to increase international aid. He also fears that aid budgets will be shifted to favour climate-change initiatives（主动性） at the expense of public health. He points out that if just $1 billion were shifted from, say, vaccines to climate change, 700,000 more children might die from preventable diseases.
In June he met Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister（首相）of Italy, to protest against his halving of the country’s aid budget, “making them uniquely stingy among European donors,” as he put it in his epistle（书信）. So far, this pressure has not changed Mr Berlusconi’s mind. Perhaps, if he wants his letters, blog posts and tweets to have more influence, Mr Gates should take the gloves off and start talking as tough as his old pal Mr Buffett. TS：Bill害怕经济危机会影响对政府对公共医疗事业投资额的减少，并采取了一些措施。 --------------------好词好句----------------------------- “HELLO world,” tweeted Bill Gates on January 19th, announcing his entry to the world of Twitter. 活泼生动的开头 sb. taking the controversial edge off his observations with language chosen so carefully （冷静观察，言语谨慎） sth. must cost far less to use and maintain than the benefit it delivers 比较的用法 It is now being expanded to combat rotavirus and pneumococcus, in the hope of saving over 700,000 lives a year, aided by a new funding technique supported by Mr Gates calls “advance market commitments”. 从句修饰的用法 ----------------------写作例子------------------------------------ Bill explains how he believes philanthropy can play a unique role, by investing in innovations that would otherwise not be funded—a lesson that other philanthropists and charitable foundations would do well to learn.（科技造福于人/创新的投资方案，vaccine for various illness，genetic modification of seed for drought-resistant crops，a system for measuring teachers’ effectiveness and for helping them improve） | 
GO
发表于 2010-1-27 21:10:46
转发
