【Hawk组】comment 贴

finalleUID: 2812504

17-2【7月27日作业】from The NY timeS

The Choice | Transitions
Goodbye, Hello
By JACQUES STEINBERG



CloseLinkedinDiggMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink JUST after 7 on a Sunday night in late summer, Tim Foster will take the stage of a Civil War-era theater at Bowdoin College and instruct the 500 new freshmen arrayed before him to “reprogram yourselves.”

A Times blog examining all facets of college and university admissions, including choosing a school, understanding the process, applying for financial aid and dealing with tuition.

Mr. Foster, the dean of student affairs, will acknowledge that many in his audience have been consumed for years with the anxious process of gaining admission to Bowdoin or other highly selective colleges. Now that they have arrived on Bowdoin’s verdant Maine campus, he expects to say, the time has come to “slow down and live in the moment.”

“You have won the prize,” he will add. “You have the opportunity, at a key transition point, to reimagine your life.”

I reached out to Mr. Foster — and his counterparts at Grinnell College in Iowa and the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash. — for advice to pass on to students making the transition this summer from high school senior to college freshman.

As moderator of The Choice, The Times’s college admission and financial aid blog, I spend much of the school year transmitting “news you can use” — tips on how to write a college essay or embark on a college tour — with hopes of demystifying a secretive and frustrating process. Between the lines of the comments that readers have submitted, I detect much anxiety from high school graduates (and their parents) about the experience that awaits them this fall.

“I don’t know how to describe my current emotional state,” Anne Paik, a newly minted high school graduate bound for the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote recently in a post to The Choice. “I’m excited at the idea of going to college, yet apprehensive about the prospect of being my own master.”

The adjustment to college is surely emotional, and entails saying goodbye as well as hello.

W. Houston Dougharty, vice president for student affairs at Grinnell, has been reminding incoming freshmen in recent years that theirs is the first generation heading off to college that will never really separate from family and high school friends — largely because of “electronic tethers” like Facebook, texting and Twitter. His advice: cut that virtual cord, or at least curtail its use.

“Every minute you spend updating the people back home,” he tells freshmen, “is time you’re not investing in developing relationships in college, whether that’s with new roommates or new faculty or new friends.”

Those going away to college for the first time are likely to encounter a degree of freedom that was previously unimaginable. Dana R. Falk, the chief psychologist and associate director for counseling, health and wellness services at the University of Puget Sound, said she tells freshmen “not to equate having fun in college with wild experimentation.”

“So many of them want to emulate ‘Animal House,’ ” she said. “They feel that if they’re not binge drinking, skipping class, being relatively unselective about romantic partners or trying their friend’s prescription medication, they are somehow not living the college life.”

There is, she emphasizes, another way. “What I like to do is offer comfort to students who have no interest in losing control, or losing their scholarships — those intent on not skidding off the road,” she said. “There are plenty of students on every campus who are looking forward to being stretched intellectually.”

But many freshmen are sure to be jarred on the first day of classes by the receipt of a syllabus that lists thousands of pages to be digested by a deadline three months away, with no suggestion of how or where to begin. Dr. Falk advises divvying up those expectations early, with an eye on pacing and due dates for assignments like term papers.

One of the biggest differences between high school and college, she says, is that professors are less likely than high school teachers to grant extensions.

“Don’t personalize it,” she tells freshmen, “when you’re not given special accommodations.”

There are times, of course — perhaps because of a family crisis — when a professor will be moved to extend extra time. Dr. Falk advises asking by phone, or even in person, a notion that may be alien to students who have arranged so much of their lives without speaking directly to another person.

Critical to the process of preparing for Dr. Falk’s deep academic stretch, however, is for new freshmen to anticipate that so much of their days (and nights) will be for them to arrange as they see fit.

Just as this generation has been wired unlike any other, its ranks are also filled with those who have never heard the buzz of an alarm clock (none was necessary if a parent was willing to knock gently each morning) or who have been so over-scheduled they wouldn’t recognize a wide-open day on an iPhone calendar. They will have much more free time going forward, and Mr. Foster urges his freshmen not to fill that vacuum “by compulsively engaging in things.”

“In college,” he tells them, “decide what really matters to you — your academic and extracurricular passions — and pursue them. Vital engagement will be much more satisfying and fulfilling than compulsive engagement.”

Mr. Foster, in an echo of his counterparts, typically closes his first freshman talk with an elegantly simple, upbeat plea to pay attention to an aspect of their lives they may have neglected in the time leading up to college.

“Have fun,” he will say. “These can be among the best years of your life.”

  

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 26, 2010

finalleUID: 2812504

18-1【7月28日作业】-FROM TIME 可能比较长

Want to Keep More of Your Money? Here's What Not to Do
Posted by Brad Tuttle Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 9:28 am
Submit a Comment • Related Topics: cars, health care, housing, smart shopping , banks, haggling, cash, checking account, negotiation, overdrafts, unclaimed money
Here are nine scenarios in which it's easy to overpay, get scammed, or come out on the losing end of negotiations.

Don't … borrow to pay for luxuries and splurges.
And yes, that includes using a credit card when you can't pay off the balance in full—because if this is how you operate, you're basically taking out a loan whether you think so or not, and the terms of the loan are pretty awful. Liz Weston says that the only luxuries you should buy are ones you can pay for in cash. The problem, Weston says, is that we often confuse wants with needs, as in the example of installing a swimming pool in the house:

We go pretty quickly from “Hey, a pool might be nice” to “A pool would help us create great family experiences” to “We must have a pool for the good of our family!” Once you convince yourself you “must” have something, it's easy to take the next step to justify taking on debt to purchase it.

Don't … haggle without considering the other side of the equation.
Over a series of days, an Oprah writer took her best shot at haggling for deals everywhere she went, and for the most part, she failed. Why? For one thing, she tended to ask for discounts after services (at hair salons and restaurants) had been rendered—when salespeople and managers have little incentive to bother knocking down the price. But in a larger sense, she approached negotiations in the wrong way, without really considering how the other side of the negotiation table would benefit by cutting a deal. As one of the story's expert sources, Daniel Shapiro of the Harvard Negotiation Project, explained:

"People often see negotiation as adversarial; I see it as a shared problem … Both sides need to have their interests met."

Don't … overprice the house you're trying to sell.
Especially in today's buyer's market, listing a home at a "reach" price is probably a mistake. In this Chicago Tribune story listing 5 reasons why homes don't sell, realtors weigh in opinions such as:

"In order to sell today, the price of a home must be compelling, not just competitive."

"It's important to be the best deal in the neighborhood. You don't want to be the last on the block to lower a price."

"Home selling today is a price war and a beauty contest. You have to win both to sell."

Don't … get screwed by unscrupulous home repair services.
The NY Times lists some of the common scams, including chimney sweeps who offer a cheap price for a cleaning and then upsell you on unnecessary new liners or caps, contractors who say you need a new drain and rebuilt basement walls when the water problem downstairs could be addressed by unclogging the gutters or some landscaping, and air duct cleaning companies that, after a rudimentary inspection, tell the homeowner it's going to cost a fortune to deal with the obvious mold problem. The truth is:

“You can't just look at something and know 100 percent that it's mold,” said John M. Schulte, executive director of the National Air Duct Cleaners Association, a trade group.

Don't … opt into overdraft protection being pushed by your bank.
Connect your checking account with your savings account instead, says the LA Times' Kathy Kristof:

By connecting accounts, you can avoid fees for careless errors, such as when you overspend by $5 at the grocery store and get hit with a $35 overdraft charge. If you connect your checking account to a credit card or savings account, you'll pay a fee to transfer money from savings to checking when necessary, but it will be a lot less than the standard overdraft charge for so-called automatic overdraft protection.

Don't … take out an auto-title loan.
The "deal" is: When you can't keep up with the loan payments, the lender takes your car. According to the WSJ, the terms of these loans are often so bad that several states have outlawed them:

Many states have banned auto-title loans historically by capping the interest rates that can be charged at relatively low levels or through other restrictive laws. The new batch of states cracking down on the lenders—which often charge triple-digit interest rates—comes as more cash-strapped borrowers turn to the industry amid economic hard times.

Don't … get suckered into an Internet car sale scam.
Scammers who recently posed as Memphis-area car dealerships managed to sucker nearly 1,000 consumers into giving up personal information, and as a result some people lost as much as $5,000 due to identity theft. FreeShipping's Go Frugal blog lists 10 tips to avoid such a scam, including:

Check Car Type and Dealership: Most scammers claim to deal in repossessed and used cars, making extreme discounts seem more plausible. They also target locally-owned dealerships that are easy to imitate and, in turn, hard for you to verify. With the Memphis scam, people from a slew of different states bought cars they only saw over the Internet. Try and buy in-state from a lot you can visit personally.

Don't … leave unclaimed money unclaimed forever.
A Get Rich Slowly post lists all sorts of unclaimed property (forgotten savings accounts, uncashed paychecks, safe deposit box contents) that may have been owned by your relatives—and that you are now entitled to. Among other resources and tips, the post provides links to every state's department of unclaimed money and unclaimed property.

Don't … pay medical bills without first asking for a deal.
You get a bill from a doctor or hospital, and you pay it, right? Wrong. Consumerist writer Phil Villarreal, via the Bucks blog, suggests the stunningly simple—and effective—act of calling up and asking for a deal:

“Hey, my friend told me that if I offer to pay the bill in full over the phone, I get a 25 percent discount.” And the response he generally received was “O.K.” “It was the same conversation with the doctors as it was with the hospital. There was no negotiation whatsoever. Just standard procedure,” Mr. Villarreal said by e-mail.

The comments after the post suggest that Mr. Villarreal wasn't bold enough, however. Apparently, many doctors and hospitals are willing to give 50% discounts.

finalleUID: 2812504

18-1【7月28日作业】-FROM TIME 最近economist打不开 惆怅
The luxury market took a beating in the down economy. No surprises there. But one segment has unexpectedly doubled since 2007: the men's jewelry market. Spending on men's jewelry now accounts for 20% of consumers' high-end-jewelry expenditure. "Men are buying jewelry to show they pay attention to their appearance. In this competitive work environment, it's a necessity to stand out," says Pam Danziger, founder of Unity Marketing. Her company's "Personal Luxury Report 2010" found that while affluent consumers' purchases of women's jewelry increased 6.5% from 2007 to 2009, men's jewelry buying increased 10% in the same period. Unity surveys a sample of the top 20% of affluent Americans, with an average annual income of $220,200.

What's more, men are in most cases buying themselves the jewelry. "Men's jewelry is not a popular gift choice. So it's not wives buying jewelry for their husbands. It's men buying it because they like a piece," says Danziger. Unity's research has shown young affluents — under 40s — are the fastest-growing and most voracious consumers of luxury brands. In essence, the perception that masculine men don't wear jewelry has lost out to the metrosexual era.
(See pictures of mancessories.)

For Saverio Mancina, owner of a public-relations firm, spending close to $1,000 on a "statement piece" — Bulgari men's ring designed by Anish Kapoor — will be an "investment." When he walked into the flagship Bulgari store in Manhattan last weekend, it was love at first sight. After spending just under a week deliberating, Mancina says he can't wait to purchase the ring as soon as he decides which finger he's going to wear it on. According to him, the steel-and-pink-gold accessory is "a masculine piece of art" that complements "professional work as well as casual wear."
(Comment on this story.)


Unity's study found that rings accounted for 51% of men's jewelry purchases made last year, excluding wedding bands. The fastest-growing accessories, however, are bracelets and necklaces — up 23% and 21% respectively, from 2008. Cufflinks come in at No. 4. (Watches are a separate category.) "All men's luxury purchases were up — from suits, to watches, to briefcases. Jewelry is a natural complement to overall grooming," adds Danziger.
(See the top 10 fashion moments of 2009.)

The news on men's jewelry is a glimmer in an otherwise struggling industry. More than 10% of all jewelry stores shut their doors over 2009. Men tend to buy in discount stores, department stores and luxury-brand stores, according to Unity's study. "We have seen a huge sales increase of the men's rings in the past three years, particularly in markets such as New York, Dallas, San Francisco and Miami," says Francesco Trapani, CEO of Bulgari. "Our 2009 visual campaign featured celebrities like Ben Stiller, Jason Lewis and Ronaldinho, which made more people aware that Bulgari sells men's rings."

First-quarter results for publicly traded jewelry companies were among the highest in luxury retail. Bulgari's jewelry sales alone were up 11% in the first quarter of 2010, while Tiffany's U.S. sales were up 22% from the previous quarter.

Despite the uptick, conspicuous spending is still a no-no — men are instead buying in the under $1,000 range. "Even though the market is growing, all the activity is at the lower end of the high end," says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group. Cohen also cautions that although the trend is encouraging, luxury sales were so depressed in the recession that these numbers alone are not enough to signify a long-lasting trend.
(See the top 10 fashion faux pas of 2009.)

It's not only the rich who are spending. "We're seeing a growing trend in men going to stores like H&M and Macy's to pick up a pair of cufflinks or bracelet," says Michael Fisher, men's editor at Stylesight, a trend-forecasting agency. In a recession men won't splurge on a new wardrobe. "But an accessory to express their individuality? Sure," adds Fisher. Cohen also points out that men tend to buy accessories at the end of the recession to show that they are in recovery mode.

Scott H. Rauch, who co-founded Simmons Jewelry Co. in 2004 with rap mogul Russell Simmons could testify to that. His company's Simmons and SHR lines cater exclusively to men and grew more than 20% last year. "Men are conscious of the recession, so most of the action is under the thousand-dollar range, but hip-hop bling has trickled down to Middle America," he says. The company is working on a 9-to-5 range to complement work wear to capture the trend in young professionals sporting jewelry. According to Rauch, the market is still largely untapped, a view backed by Joshua Neckes, chief operating officer of the marketing and branding firm Thunder 11, who just bought an "ostentatious pinky ring" at Bloomingdale's. "In a way, we're returning to the time when royalty used jewelry to show their importance. It's part of an ever evolving definition of masculinity," says Neckes.

谦行天下UID: 2797557

18-2【7月28日作业】【学习】
GRE word
New word
Good expression
My comment
The luxury market took a beating遭受打击 in the down economy. No surprises there. But one segment has unexpectedly doubled since 2007: the men's jewelry market. Spending on men's jewelry now accounts for 20% of consumers' high-end-jewelry expenditure花费. "Men are buying jewelry to show they pay attention to their appearance. In this competitive work environment, it's a necessity to stand out," says Pam Danziger, founder of Unity Marketing. Her company's "Personal Luxury Report 2010" found that while affluent富裕的人 consumers' purchases of women's jewelry increased 6.5% from 2007 to 2009, men's jewelry buying increased 10% in the same period. Unity surveys a sample of the top 20% of affluent Americans, with an average annual income of $220,200.

What's more, men are in most cases buying themselves the jewelry. "Men's jewelry is not a popular gift choice. So it's not wives buying jewelry for their husbands. It's men buying it because they like a piece," says Danziger. Unity's research has shown young affluents富人 — under 40s — are the fastest-growing and most voracious贪婪的 consumers of luxury brands. In essence, the perception that masculine阳性的 men don't wear jewelry has lost out to the metrosexual都市美男型 era.
(See pictures of mancessories.)

For Saverio Mancina, owner of a public-relations firm, spending close to $1,000 on a "statement piece" — Bulgari men's ring designed by Anish Kapoor — will be an "investment." When he walked into the flagship佼佼者 Bulgari store in Manhattan last weekend, it was love at first sight. After spending just under a week deliberating深思熟虑的, Mancina says he can't wait to purchase the ring as soon as he decides which finger he's going to wear it on. According to him, the steel-and-pink-gold accessory附件 is "a masculine男性的 piece of art" that complements "professional work as well as casual wear."
(Comment on this story.)
后面这么多comment呀？

Unity's study found that rings accounted for 51% of men's jewelry purchases made last year, excluding wedding bands. The fastest-growing accessories, however, are bracelets and necklaces — up 23% and 21% respectively, from 2008. Cufflinks袖口 come in at No. 4. (Watches are a separate category.) "All men's luxury purchases were up — from suits, to watches, to briefcases公文包. Jewelry is a natural complement to overall grooming推荐？," adds Danziger.
(See the top 10 fashion moments of 2009.)

The news on men's jewelry is a glimmer闪光 in an otherwise struggling industry. More than 10% of all jewelry stores shut their doors over 2009. Men tend to buy in discount stores, department stores and luxury-brand stores, according to Unity's study. "We have seen a huge sales increase of the men's rings in the past three years, particularly in markets such as New York, Dallas, San Francisco and Miami," says Francesco Trapani, CEO of Bulgari. "Our 2009 visual campaign featured celebrities like Ben Stiller, Jason Lewis and Ronaldinho, which made more people aware that Bulgari sells men's rings."

First-quarter results for publicly traded jewelry companies were among the highest in luxury retail. Bulgari's jewelry sales alone were up 11% in the first quarter of 2010, while Tiffany's U.S. sales were up 22% from the previous quarter.

Despite the uptick股票报升, conspicuous spending is still a no-no不可做之事 — men are instead buying in the under $1,000 range. "Even though the market is growing, all the activity is at the lower end of the high end," says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group. Cohen also cautions警告 that although the trend is encouraging, luxury sales were so depressed in the recession that these numbers alone are not enough to signify a long-lasting trend.
(See the top 10 fashion faux pas of 2009.)

It's not only the rich who are spending. "We're seeing a growing trend in men going to stores like H&M and Macy's to pick up a pair of cufflinks or bracelet," says Michael Fisher, men's editor at Stylesight, a trend-forecasting agency. In a recession men won't splurge挥霍 on a new wardrobe衣柜. "But an accessory to express their individuality? Sure," adds Fisher. Cohen also points out that men tend to buy accessories at the end of the recession to show that they are in recovery mode.

Scott H. Rauch, who co-founded Simmons Jewelry Co. in 2004 with rap mogul Russell Simmons could testify to that. His company's Simmons and SHR lines cater exclusively to men and grew more than 20% last year. "Men are conscious of the recession, so most of the action is under the thousand-dollar range, but hip-hop bling锦衣珠宝 has trickled细细流淌 down to Middle America," he says. The company is working on a 9-to-5 range to complement work wear to capture the trend in young professionals sporting jewelry. According to Rauch, the market is still largely untapped未开发的, a view backed by Joshua Neckes, chief operating officer of the marketing and branding firm Thunder 11, who just bought an "ostentatious pinky ring" at Bloomingdale's. "In a way, we're returning to the time when royalty贵族 used jewelry to show their importance. It's part of an ever evolving definition of masculinity," says Neckes.

第一次看有关消费的文章~~~:)

ROse_MaryUID: 2790464

我在综合版开个一个我comment的总贴~方便以后可以找回顾以前的文章~内容还是组长找的作业~绿色的是有些问题，欢迎大家给我答疑！！谢谢！！链接：https://bbs.gter.net/viewthre ... p;page=1&extra=

谦行天下UID: 2797557

18-1【7月28日作业】-FROM TIME 【学习by小谦】
GRE word
New word
Good expression
My comment

Want to Keep More of Your Money? Here's What Not to Do
Posted by Brad Tuttle Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 9:28 am
Submit a Comment • Related Topics: cars, health care, housing, smart shopping , banks, haggling, cash, checking account, negotiation, overdrafts, unclaimed money
Here are nine scenarios in which it's easy to overpay, get scammed, or come out on the losing end of negotiations.

Don't … borrow to pay for luxuries and splurges这两个词组在一起，很赞！.
And yes, that includes using a credit card when you can't pay off the balance in full—because if this is how you operate, you're basically taking out a loan whether you think so or not, and the terms of the loan are pretty awful. Liz Weston says that the only luxuries you should buy are ones you can pay for in cash.【经典用英文怎么说哇~~哎】 The problem, Weston says, is that we often confuse wants with needs, as in the example of installing a swimming pool in the house:

We go pretty quickly from “Hey, a pool might be nice” to “A pool would help us create great family experiences” to “We must have a pool for the good of our family!” Once you convince yourself you “must” have something, it's easy to take the next step to justify taking on debt to purchase it.

Don't … haggle讨价还价 without considering the other side of the equation.
Over a series of days, an Oprah writer took her best shot at haggling for deals everywhere she went, and for the most part, she failed. Why? For one thing, she tended to ask for discounts after services (at hair salons and restaurants) had been rendered—when salespeople and managers have little incentive to bother knocking down the price. But in a larger sense, she approached negotiations in the wrong way, without really considering how the other side of the negotiation table would benefit by cutting a deal. As one of the story's expert sources, Daniel Shapiro of the Harvard Negotiation Project, explained:

"People often see negotiation as adversarial对抗性的; I see it as a shared problem … Both sides need to have their interests met."

Don't … overprice the house you're trying to sell.
Especially in today's buyer's market, listing a home at a "reach" price is probably a mistake. In this Chicago Tribune story listing 5 reasons why homes don't sell, realtors房地经纪人 weigh in opinions such as:

"In order to sell today, the price of a home must be compelling引人注目的, not just competitive."

"It's important to be the best deal in the neighborhood. You don't want to be the last on the block to lower a price."

"Home selling today is a price war and a beauty contest. You have to win both to sell."

Don't … get screwed上当 by unscrupulous肆无忌惮的 home repair services.
The NY Times lists some of the common scams花招, including chimney sweeps who offer a cheap price for a cleaning and then upsell促销 you on unnecessary new liners or caps, contractors承包商 who say you need a new drain and rebuilt重建 basement walls when the water problem downstairs could be addressed by unclogging the gutters or some landscaping, and air duct cleaning companies that, after a rudimentary基本的 inspection, tell the homeowner it's going to cost a fortune to deal with the obvious mold problem. The truth is:

“You can't just look at something and know 100 percent that it's mold,” said John M. Schulte, executive director of the National Air Duct Cleaners Association, a trade group.

Don't … opt选择 into overdraft透支 protection being pushed by your bank.
Connect your checking account with your savings account instead, says the LA Times' Kathy Kristof:

By connecting accounts, you can avoid fees for careless errors, such as when you overspend by $5 at the grocery store and get hit with a $35 overdraft charge. If you connect your checking account to a credit card or savings account, you'll pay a fee to transfer money from savings to checking when necessary, but it will be a lot less than the standard overdraft charge for so-called automatic overdraft protection.

Don't … take out an auto-title loan.
The "deal" is: When you can't keep up with the loan payments, the lender takes your car. According to the WSJ, the terms of these loans are often so bad that several states have outlawed宣布为不合法 them:

Many states have banned auto-title loans historically by capping the interest rates that can be charged at relatively low levels or through other restrictive laws. The new batch一批 of states cracking down on镇压 the lenders—which often charge triple-digit interest rates—comes as more cash-strapped borrowers turn to the industry amid economic hard times.
本人理财能力有点弱智，好晕！
Don't … get suckered into an Internet car sale scam.
Scammers骗子 who recently posed as Memphis-area car dealerships managed to sucker nearly 1,000 consumers into giving up personal information, and as a result some people lost as much as $5,000 due to identity theft. FreeShipping's Go Frugal blog lists 10 tips to avoid such a scam, including:

Check Car Type and Dealership: Most scammers claim to deal in repossessed被回收的 and used cars, making extreme discounts seem more plausible. They also target locally-owned dealerships that are easy to imitate and, in turn, hard for you to verify. With the Memphis scam, people from a slew of大量的 different states bought cars they only saw over the Internet. Try and buy in-state from a lot you can visit personally.

Don't … leave unclaimed money unclaimed forever.
A Get Rich Slowly post lists all sorts of unclaimed property (forgotten savings accounts, uncashed paychecks, safe deposit box contents) that may have been owned by your relatives—and that you are now entitled to. Among other resources and tips, the post provides links to every state's department of unclaimed money and unclaimed property.
我是穷人，不需要claim什么money呀！
Don't … pay medical bills without first asking for a deal.
You get a bill from a doctor or hospital, and you pay it, right? Wrong. Consumerist writer Phil Villarreal, via the Bucks blog, suggests the stunningly绝妙的 simple—and effective—act of calling up and asking for a deal:

“Hey, my friend told me that if I offer to pay the bill in full over the phone, I get a 25 percent discount.” And the response he generally received was “O.K.” “It was the same conversation with the doctors as it was with the hospital. There was no negotiation whatsoever无论什么. Just standard procedure,” Mr. Villarreal said by e-mail.

The comments after the post suggest that Mr. Villarreal wasn't bold enough, however. Apparently, many doctors and hospitals are willing to give 50% discounts.

谦行天下UID: 2797557

17-2【7月27日作业】【学习by小谦】from The NY timeS
GRE word
New word
Good expression
My comment

The Choice | Transitions
Goodbye, Hello
By JACQUES STEINBERG

CloseLinkedinDiggMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink JUST after 7 on a Sunday night in late summer, Tim Foster will take the stage of a Civil War-era theater at Bowdoin College and instruct the 500 new freshmen arrayed before him to “reprogram yourselves.”
话说这是广告么？

A Times blog examining all facets方面 of college and university admissions, including choosing a school, understanding the process, applying for financial aid and dealing with tuition.

Mr. Foster, the dean of student affairs, will acknowledge that many in his audience have been consumed for years with the anxious process of gaining admission to Bowdoin？ or other highly selective colleges. Now that they have arrived on Bowdoin’s verdant翠绿的 Maine campus, he expects to say, the time has come to “slow down and live in the moment.”

“You have won the prize,” he will add. “You have the opportunity, at a key transition point, to reimagine your life.”

I reached out to Mr. Foster — and his counterparts at Grinnell College in Iowa and the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash. — for advice to pass on to students making the transition this summer from high school senior to college freshman.

As moderator调解人 of The Choice, The Times’s college admission and financial aid blog, I spend much of the school year transmitting “news you can use” — tips on how to write a college essay or embark on a college tour — with hopes of demystifying阐明 a secretive and frustrating process. Between the lines of the comments that readers have submitted, I detect much anxiety from high school graduates (and their parents) about the experience that awaits them this fall.

“I don’t know how to describe my current emotional state,” Anne Paik, a newly minted刚完成的 high school graduate bound for开往 the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote recently in a post to The Choice. “I’m excited at the idea of going to college, yet apprehensive不安的 about the prospect of being my own master.”

The adjustment to college is surely emotional, and entails使承担 saying goodbye as well as hello.

W. Houston Dougharty, vice president for student affairs at Grinnell, has been reminding incoming freshmen in recent years that theirs is the first generation heading off to college that will never really separate from family and high school friends — largely because of “electronic tethers绳拴” like Facebook, texting and Twitter. His advice: cut that virtual cord, or at least curtail its use.

“Every minute you spend updating the people back home,” he tells freshmen, “is time you’re not investing in developing relationships in college, whether that’s with new roommates or new faculty or new friends.”

Those going away to college for the first time are likely to encounter a degree of freedom that was previously unimaginable. Dana R. Falk, the chief psychologist and associate director for counseling, health and wellness services at the University of Puget Sound, said she tells freshmen “not to equate having fun in college with wild experimentation.”

“So many of them want to emulate ‘Animal House,’ ” she said. “They feel that if they’re not binge饮酒作乐 drinking, skipping class, being relatively unselective about romantic partners or trying their friend’s prescription medication, they are somehow not living the college life.”

There is, she emphasizes, another way. “What I like to do is offer comfort to students who have no interest in losing control, or losing their scholarships — those intent on not skidding倒向 off the road,” she said. “There are plenty of students on every campus who are looking forward to being stretched intellectually.”

But many freshmen are sure to be jarred on使心烦 the first day of classes by the receipt of a syllabus that lists thousands of pages to be digested by a deadline three months away, with no suggestion of how or where to begin. Dr. Falk advises divvying分摊 up those expectations early, with an eye on pacing and due dates for assignments like term papers.

One of the biggest differences between high school and college, she says, is that professors are less likely than high school teachers to grant extensions.

“Don’t personalize it,” she tells freshmen, “when you’re not given special accommodations.”

There are times, of course — perhaps because of a family crisis — when a professor will be moved to extend extra time. Dr. Falk advises asking by phone, or even in person, a notion that may be alien to students who have arranged so much of their lives without speaking directly to another person.

Critical to the process of preparing for Dr. Falk’s deep academic stretch, however, is for new freshmen to anticipate that so much of their days (and nights) will be for them to arrange as they see fit.

Just as this generation has been wired unlike any other, its ranks are also filled with those who have never heard the buzz of an alarm clock (none was necessary if a parent was willing to knock gently each morning) or who have been so over-scheduled they wouldn’t recognize a wide-open day on an iPhone calendar. They will have much more free time going forward, and Mr. Foster urges his freshmen not to fill that vacuum “by compulsively engaging in things.”
This is true. We are so occupied that because we are wired.
“In college,” he tells them, “decide what really matters to you — your academic and extracurricular passions — and pursue them. Vital engagement will be much more satisfying and fulfilling than compulsive engagement.”

Mr. Foster, in an echo of his counterparts, typically closes his first freshman talk with an elegantly simple, upbeat plea请求 to pay attention to an aspect of their lives they may have neglected in the time leading up to college.

“Have fun,” he will say. “These can be among the best years of your life.”

  

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 26, 2010

ROse_MaryUID: 2790464

18-2【7月28日作业】-FROM TIME
by Rose
The luxury market奢侈品市场 took a beating【受到打击】 in the down economy. No surprises there. But one segment【部分】 has unexpectedly doubled since 2007: the men's jewelry market. Spending on men's jewelry now accounts for 20% of consumers' high-end-jewelry expenditure【n支出，花费】. "Men are buying jewelry to show they pay attention to their appearance. In this competitive work environment, it's a necessity【必然...】 to stand out," says Pam Danziger, founder of Unity Marketing. Her company's "Personal Luxury Report 2010" found that while affluent【a富裕的】 consumers' purchases of women's jewelry increased 6.5% from 2007 to 2009, men's jewelry buying increased 10% in the same period. Unity surveys a sample of the top 20% of affluent Americans, with an average annual income of $220,200.

What's more, men are in most cases【在大多数情况下】 buying themselves the jewelry. "Men's jewelry is not a popular gift choice. So it's not wives buying jewelry for their husbands. It's men buying it because they like a piece," says Danziger. Unity's research has shown young affluents — under 40s — are the fastest-growing and most voracious consumers of luxury brands. In essence【本质上，根本上】, the perception【感觉，洞察力】 that masculine阳刚的 men don't wear jewelry has lost out to【输掉，被压倒】 the metrosexual【都市美型男】（= =） era.
(See pictures of mancessories.)

For Saverio Mancina, owner of a public-relations firm, spending close to $1,000 on a "statement piece" — Bulgari men's ring designed by Anish Kapoor — will be an "investment." When he walked into the flagship【旗舰店】 Bulgari store in Manhattan last weekend, it was love at first sight. After spending just under a week deliberating【深思熟虑】, Mancina says he can't wait to purchase the ring as soon as he decides which finger he's going to wear it on. According to him, the steel-and-pink-gold accessory is "a masculine piece of art" that complements "professional work as well as casual wear."
(Comment on this story.)

Unity's study found that rings accounted for 51% of men's jewelry purchases made last year, excluding wedding bands. The fastest-growing accessories, however, are bracelets【手镯】 and necklaces — up 23% and 21% respectively, from 2008. Cufflinks【袖扣】 come in at No. 4. (Watches are a separate category.) "All men's luxury purchases were up — from suits, to watches, to briefcases. Jewelry is a natural complement【补足物】 to overall grooming修饰，美容," adds Danziger.
(See the top 10 fashion moments of 2009.)

The news on men's jewelry is a glimmer【微光】 in an otherwise struggling industry. More than 10% of all jewelry stores shut their doors over 2009. Men tend to buy in discount stores, department stores and luxury-brand stores, according to Unity's study. "We have seen a huge sales increase of the men's rings in the past three years, particularly in markets such as New York, Dallas, San Francisco and Miami," says Francesco Trapani, CEO of Bulgari. "Our 2009 visual campaign【怎么解释？】 featured【以...为特色】 celebrities like Ben Stiller, Jason Lewis and Ronaldinho, which made more people aware that Bulgari sells men's rings."

First-quarter第一季度 results for publicly traded jewelry companies were among the highest in luxury retail. Bulgari's jewelry sales alone were up 11% in the first quarter of 2010, while Tiffany's U.S. sales were up 22% from the previous quarter.

Despite the uptick（股票）报升, conspicuous【显著的，显而易见的】 spending is still a no-no禁忌 — men are instead buying in the under $1,000 range. "Even though the market is growing, all the activity is at the lower end of the high end【在高端的较低端】," says Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group. Cohen also cautions that although the trend is encouraging, luxury sales were so depressed in the recession不景气 that these numbers alone are not enough to signify a long-lasting trend.
(See the top 10 fashion faux pas of 2009.)

It's not only the rich who are spending. "We're seeing a growing trend in men going to stores like H&M and Macy's to pick up a pair of cufflinks or bracelet," says Michael Fisher, men's editor at Stylesight, a trend-forecasting agency. In a recession men won't splurge【炫耀挥霍，过分装饰】 on a new wardrobe【在一个新的衣柜上过分装饰，指代】. "But an accessory to express their individuality? Sure," adds Fisher. Cohen also points out that men tend to buy accessories at the end of the recession to show that they are in recovery mode.
Scott H. Rauch, who co-founded Simmons Jewelry Co. in 200

finalleUID: 2812504

不好意思昨天有事 现补上今天的作业
19-1【作业1】 from TIME

Blocking an Immigration Law: What Does Arizona Do Now?By Elizabeth Dias / Maricopa County and Adam Klawonn / Phoenix Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010

Joe Arpaio has been a famous hardliner on immigration for years. And on Wednesday, the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, had scheduled an official training session for his deputies so that they could better enforce Senate Bill 1070, his state's controversial anti-illegal immigrant legislation that was supposed to take effect on Thursday. In fact, a new section of his infamous Tent City Jail had already been dubbed the "1070" barracks in the walk-up to the start date of the law.
But on the morning of July 28, half-an-hour before Arpaio's training session was to start, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued a 36-page preliminary injunction that temporarily halts the most controversial section of SB1070 from becoming law. She took aim at a provision that would require law enforcement officers to make a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop, detain or arrest if there is a reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally — and require verification of their status before they can be released.
That particular section had galvanized both sides of the illegal immigration debate — not just in Arizona but around the country and across the border in Mexico. Proponents of stricter illegal immigration enforcement felt it would give law officers like Arpaio the power they needed to curb illegal immigration in the midst of federal indecision on the issue; groups that opposed the new law said it would lead to racial profiling. As it is, the first substantial thing the injunction did was to put off the Maricopa deputies' training — for a day. Nevertheless, Sheriff Arpaio said he was determined to continue a scheduled "sweep" on Thursday as planned.
"I don't think it affects what we are going to do," Arpaio insisted. "I said tomorrow we are going to do a crime suppression operation at high noon. We are not going to stop." Ever the showman, he renamed Thursday's action by crossing out the zeroes in "Operation 1070" to make it "Operation 17," a reminder that the sweep of businesses and Latino communities to pick up people on criminal charges, from false identification to smuggling, will be his 17th in the past 16 months."I'm the Sheriff of Maricopa County, and I do what I think is right for the people that I serve in this county, so I don't care what other people do."
Nothing in Bolton's ruling can keep Arpaio from his scheduled rounds. (Arpiao's team went into a workplace on Tuesday and apprehended four undocumented aliens.) But the wording of her injunction pulled back much of the law's sweep — and may make an appeal to higher courts more difficult. Bolton said the section of the law she halted would have distracted federal law enforcement from more pressing matters, unfairly intrude upon the lives of those who are here legally and unconstitutionally preempt federal immigration law by putting Arizona in the driver's seat.
Wrote Bolton: "Federal resources will be taxed and diverted from federal enforcement priorities as a result of the increase in requests for immigration status determination that will flow from Arizona if law enforcement officials are required to verify immigration status whenever, during the course of a lawful stop, detention or arrest, the law enforcement official has reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence in the United States." She continued: "In combination with the impermissible burden this provision will place on lawfully present aliens, the burden on federal resources and priorities also leads to an inference of preemption.... The Court therefore finds that preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely preempted by federal law to be enforced."
Bolton cited opinions from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2009 ruled that it is not in the public interest to allow a state to enforce a state law that violates the "supremacy clause" of the U.S. Constitution, which says that the Constitution, and thus the Federal government, has sway over the immigration issue. Because any appeal by SB1070 backers has to go through the Ninth Circuit, Bolton may have effectively stolen the "argh" from their argument by citing an opinion from the same court.
The injunction also puts Arpaio's 1070 barracks in temporary limbo. It may still be open for use depending on how the sheriff's team interprets the ruling. But that is unlikely given that the new tent-style barracks space was specifically meant to separate people held on SB1070 charges — and now that would-be law is frozen. But Arpaio says, "I have plenty of room. I'll take 2,000 [detainees] tomorrow if I have to." Above the 1070 barracks, a watchtower flashes a red neon sign normally seen at hotels: "Vacancy." Having the barracks up, he said, "would have been a nice little extra twist where we could have locked up [undocumented people] instead of taking them over to ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], but we'll put up with it."
While Arpaio admits that some chiefs of police and sheriffs don't like enforcing immigration laws, but he says the "cops on the beat are not going to be very happy" about the new injunction. "I'm sure they like to enforce illegal immigration laws." While he will not be prevented from continuing his sweep, Arpaio claims that SB1070 is still necessary in part to stop Arizona from having sanctuary cities, where undocumented people can find havens from police enforcement of immigration law. (The League of Arizona Cities and Towns told TIME there are not and have never been sanctuary cities in Arizona.)
Arpaio believes Washington should give him more credit for his sweeps' recent success because they have opened more employment and business opportunities for American citizens. "I should get an award!" he declared at a press conference on Wednesday after the injunction was announced. "They should say, 'Thank you, Sheriff. You just arrested five more in the workplace — false identification, forget that they are illegally here — now we have five more vacancies for people who are here legally.'"
American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona Executive Director Alessandra Soler Meetze told TIME that the injunction represents a major step to protect Arizona residents from racial profiling and discrimination. Nevertheless, she says, "We still have concerns that how some provisions of SB1070 may be misapplied by overzealous law enforcement like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been engaging in discriminatory and pre-textual stops on the basis of race for the past three years. He is one of the most extreme examples of a law enforcement official abusing his power and operating well outside the Constitution and we will be mobilizing our attorneys to document abuses and ensure he abides by the rule of law."

finalleUID: 2812504

19-2 【7月29作业】 FROM the economist

The Numbers Behind President Obama's It-Could-Have-Been-Worse Midterm MessagePosted by Michael Scherer Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 1:05 pm



Most American politics is transactional. Politicians offer tax cuts, benefit increases and all kinds of other things--a new road, the right to carry a concealed handgun, etc.--in exchange for your vote. The assumption is that you are rational; you will do what you believe is in your interest. Re-election campaigns tend to serve as referendums on how well the transaction has gone. If voters feel they have benefited, politicians tend to head back to Washington. If voters feel short changed, a new crop comes to town.
This dynamic explains, in large part, why President Obama and the Democrats face such a tough time in the coming elections. No one would argue that the last two years have left the great bulk of Americans feeling more prosperous, significantly more secure or more confident in the political process. So what is the message of Obama and his Democratic peers? It could have been worse, much worse.
"I know that sometimes people don't remember how bad it was and how bad it could have been," Obama told a rally in Racine, Wis., last month. In other words, the thing of value that Obama is saying he provided to voters was preventing a negative. Instead of giving you a thing, he has prevented an un-thing. This is, for obvious reasons, not an ideal message, largely because it is based on an unknowable. How bad could it have been? Your guess is as good as mine.
But some people's guesses would be far better than both of ours. In a new paper, two well-respected economists, Alan Binder and Mark Zandi, try to estimate exactly how much worse the economic crisis would have been without various government interventions. They find that "government's total policy response" prevented the nation from lapsing into a new Great Depression, preventing an additional drop of 6.5 percent to GDP, the loss of another 8.5 million jobs and a nation that would be experiencing deflation, a scary financial spiral in which the best thing to do with your money would be to stuff it in a mattress.
That "total policy" includes the response of the Federal Reserve and both the Bush and the Obama Administrations--TARP, the stimulus, the bank stress tests, the auto industry takeover and the Fed's dramatic increase in the money supply, among other actions. Binder and Zandi do a second analysis that finds the stimulus alone had a "very substantial" impact, by rising GDP about 2 percent and adding 2.7 million jobs. That is in line with most of the other outstanding analysis.
Politically, these estimations are unlikely to matter much. The government programs all remain very unpopular. People don't feel they have benefited even as they have. Which raises another issue with the transactional nature of our political process. It doesn't work like a candy store in which you hand over a concrete thing of value (money) for a concrete thing of value (candy). More often than not, people are offering their vote for something intangible, like "hope," for instance. As long as Americans perceive that the Obama administration's response has not helped them, that may be all that matters.

谦行天下UID: 2797557

19-1【7月29日作业】【by 小谦】
GRE word
New word
Good expression
My comment

from TIME

Blocking an Immigration Law: What Does Arizona Do Now?By Elizabeth Dias / Maricopa County and Adam Klawonn / Phoenix Wednesday, Jul. 28, 2010

Joe Arpaio has been a famous hardliner强硬路线者 on immigration for years. And on Wednesday, the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, had scheduled an official training session for his deputies副二把手 so that they could better enforce Senate Bill 1070, his state's controversial anti-illegal immigrant legislation that was supposed to take effect on Thursday. In fact, a new section of his infamous Tent City Jail had already been dubbed被译为的 the "1070" barracks民营 in the walk-up无电梯的公寓 to the start date of the law.
But on the morning of July 28, half-an-hour before Arpaio's training session was to start, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued a 36-page preliminary injunction禁令公告 that temporarily halts停止 the most controversial section of SB1070 from becoming law. She took aim at a provision供应 that would require law enforcement officers to make a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop, detain or arrest if there is a reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally — and require verification of their status before they can be released.
That particular section had galvanized both sides of the illegal immigration debate — not just in Arizona but around the country and across the border in Mexico. Proponents支持者 of stricter illegal immigration enforcement felt it would give law officers like Arpaio the power they needed to curb勒住 illegal immigration in the midst of在……之中 federal indecision优柔寡断 on the issue; groups that opposed the new law said it would lead to racial profiling种族决定性. As it is, the first substantial thing the injunction禁令 did was to put off the Maricopa deputies' training — for a day. Nevertheless, Sheriff Arpaio said he was determined to continue a scheduled "sweep" on Thursday as planned.
"I don't think it affects what we are going to do," Arpaio insisted. "I said tomorrow we are going to do a crime suppression operation at high noon. We are not going to stop." Ever the showman, he renamed Thursday's action by crossing out the zeroes in "Operation 1070" to make it "Operation 17," a reminder that the sweep of businesses and Latino communities to pick up people on criminal charges, from false identification to smuggling, will be his 17th in the past 16 months."I'm the Sheriff of Maricopa County, and I do what I think is right for the people that I serve in this county, so I don't care what other people do."
Nothing in Bolton's ruling统治者 can keep Arpaio from his scheduled rounds. (Arpiao's team went into a workplace on Tuesday and apprehended four undocumented aliens.) But the wording of her injunction pulled back much of the law's sweep — and may make an appeal to higher courts more difficult. Bolton said the section of the law she halted would have distracted federal law enforcement from more pressing matters, unfairly intrude upon入侵 the lives of those who are here legally and unconstitutionally无意识的 preempt federal immigration law by putting Arizona in the driver's seat.
Wrote Bolton: "Federal resources will be taxed and diverted from federal enforcement priorities as a result of the increase in requests for immigration status determination that will flow from Arizona if law enforcement officials are required to verify immigration status whenever, during the course of a lawful stop, detention拘留 or arrest, the law enforcement official has reasonable suspicion of unlawful presence in the United States." She continued: "In combination with the impermissible不允许的 burden this provision will place on lawfully present aliens, the burden on federal resources and priorities also leads to an inference of preemption.... The Court therefore finds that preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely preempted by federal law to be enforced."
Bolton cited opinions from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2009 ruled that it is not in the public interest to allow a state to enforce a state law that violates the "supremacy clause" of the U.S. Constitution, which says that the Constitution, and thus the Federal government, has sway影响 over the immigration issue. Because any appeal by SB1070 backers has to go through the Ninth Circuit, Bolton may have effectively stolen the "argh" from their argument by citing an opinion from the same court.
The injunction also puts Arpaio's 1070 barracks in temporary limbo监狱. It may still be open for use depending on how the sheriff州长's team interprets the ruling. But that is unlikely given that the new tent-style barracks space was specifically meant to separate people held on SB1070 charges — and now that would-be law is frozen. But Arpaio says, "I have plenty of room. I'll take 2,000 [detainees被扣押者] tomorrow if I have to." Above the 1070 barracks, a watchtower flashes a red neon sign霓虹灯 normally seen at hotels: "Vacancy." Having the barracks up, he said, "would have been a nice little extra twist where we could have locked up [undocumented people] instead of taking them over to ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], but we'll put up with it."
While Arpaio admits that some chiefs of police and sheriffs don't like enforcing immigration laws, but he says the "cops on the beat are not going to be very happy" about the new injunction. "I'm sure they like to enforce illegal immigration laws." While he will not be prevented from continuing his sweep, Arpaio claims that SB1070 is still necessary in part to stop Arizona from having sanctuary避难所 cities, where undocumented people can find havens from police enforcement of immigration law. (The League of Arizona Cities and Towns told TIME there are not and have never been sanctuary cities in Arizona.)
Arpaio believes Washington should give him more credit for his sweeps' recent success because they have opened more employment and business opportunities for American citizens. "I should get an award!" he declared at a press conference on Wednesday after the injunction was announced. "They should say, 'Thank you, Sheriff. You just arrested five more in the workplace — false identification, forget that they are illegally here — now we have five more vacancies for people who are here legally.'"
American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona Executive Director Alessandra Soler Meetze told TIME that the injunction represents a major step to protect Arizona residents from racial profiling and discrimination. Nevertheless, she says, "We still have concerns that how some provisions of SB1070 may be misapplied by overzealous过分热心的 law enforcement like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been engaging in discriminatory and pre-textual stops on the basis of race for the past three years. He is one of the most extreme examples of a law enforcement official abusing his power and operating well outside the Constitution and we will be mobilizing our attorneys to document abuses and ensure he abides by the rule of law."

谦行天下UID: 2797557

19-2 【7月29作业】【by 小谦】
GRE word
New word
Good expression
My comment

FROM the economist

The Numbers Behind President Obama's It-Could-Have-Been-Worse Midterm MessagePosted by Michael Scherer Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 1:05 pm

Most American politics is transactional交易型的. Politicians offer tax cuts, benefit increases and all kinds of other things--a new road, the right to carry a concealed隐蔽的 handgun手枪, etc.--in exchange for your vote. The assumption is that you are rational理性的; you will do what you believe is in your interest. Re-election campaigns tend to serve as referendums公投 on how well the transaction has gone. If voters feel they have benefited, politicians tend to head back to Washington. If voters feel short changed, a new crop comes to town.
This dynamic explains, in large part, why President Obama and the Democrats民主党派 face such a tough time in the coming elections. No one would argue that the last two years have left the great bulk of大部分 Americans feeling more prosperous, significantly more secure or more confident in the political process. So what is the message of Obama and his Democratic peers? It could have been worse, much worse.
"I know that sometimes people don't remember how bad it was and how bad it could have been," Obama told a rally in Racine, Wis., last month. In other words, the thing of value that Obama is saying he provided to voters was preventing a negative. Instead of giving you a thing, he has prevented an un-thing. This is, for obvious reasons, not an ideal message, largely because it is based on an unknowable. How bad could it have been? Your guess is as good as mine.
But some people's guesses would be far better than both of ours. In a new paper, two well-respected economists, Alan Binder and Mark Zandi, try to estimate exactly how much worse the economic crisis would have been without various government interventions. They find that "government's total policy response" prevented the nation from lapsing into陷入 a new Great Depression, preventing an additional drop of 6.5 percent to GDP, the loss of another 8.5 million jobs and a nation that would be experiencing deflation, a scary financial spiral in which the best thing to do with your money would be to stuff it in a mattress.
That "total policy" includes the response of the Federal Reserve and both the Bush and the Obama Administrations--TARP, the stimulus, the bank stress tests, the auto industry takeover and the Fed's dramatic increase in the money supply, among other actions. Binder and Zandi do a second analysis that finds the stimulus alone had a "very substantial" impact, by rising GDP about 2 percent and adding 2.7 million jobs. That is in line with most of the other outstanding analysis.
Politically, these estimations are unlikely to matter much. The government programs all remain very unpopular. People don't feel they have benefited even as they have. Which raises another issue with the transactional nature of our political process. It doesn't work like a candy store in which you hand over a concrete thing of value (money) for a concrete thing of value (candy). More often than not, people are offering their vote for something intangible, like "hope," for instance. As long as Americans perceive that the Obama administration's response has not helped them, that may be all that matters.
有道理！

finalleUID: 2812504

20-1 【7月30作业】 抱歉昨天竟然忘记了 From TIME

The 'Dangerous' Border: Actually One of America's Safest Places
By Tim Padgett

When U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled on Wednesday that key provisions of Arizona's new anti-immigration law were unconstitutional, she could have also declared them unnecessary. That is, if the main impetus behind the controversial legislation was, as Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said when she signed it in April, "border-related violence and crime due to illegal immigration." The fact is, despite the murderous mayhem raging across the border in Mexico, the U.S. side, from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, is one of the nation's safest corridors.

According to the FBI, the four large U.S. cities (with populations of at least 500,000) with the lowest violent crime rates — San Diego, Phoenix and the Texas cities of El Paso and Austin — are all in border states. "The border is safer now than it's ever been," U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling told the Associated Press last month. Even Larry Dever, the sheriff of Arizona's Cochise County, where the murder last March of a local rancher, believed to have been committed by an illegal immigrant, sparked calls for the law, conceded to the Arizona Republic recently that "we're not seeing the [violent crime] that's going on on the other side."
(See photos of the Great Wall of America.)

Consider Arizona itself — whose illegal-immigrant population is believed to be second only to California's. The state's overall crime rate dropped 12% last year; between 2004 and 2008 it plunged 23%. In the metro area of its largest city, Phoenix, violent crime — encompassing murder, rape, assault and robbery — fell by a third during the past decade and by 17% last year. The border city of Nogales, an area rife with illegal immigration and drug trafficking, hasn't logged a single murder in the past two years.
(See pictures of immigration detention in Arizona.)

It is true that Phoenix has in recent years seen a spate of kidnappings. But in almost every case they've involved drug traffickers targeting other narcos for payment shakedowns, and the 318 abductions reported last year were actually down 11% from 2008. Either way, the figure hardly makes Phoenix, as Arizona Senator John McCain claimed last month, "the No. 2 kidnapping capital of the world" behind Mexico City. A number of Latin American capitals can claim that dubious distinction.

An even more telling example is El Paso. Its cross-border Mexican sister city, Ciudad Juárez, suffered almost 2,700 murders last year, most of them drug-related, making it possibly the world's most violent town. But El Paso, a stone's throw across the Rio Grande, had just one murder. A big reason, say U.S. law-enforcement officials, is that the Mexican drug cartels' bloody turf wars generally end at the border and don't follow the drugs into the U.S. Another, says El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles, is that "the Mexican cartels know that if they try to commit that kind of violence here, they'll get shut down."
(See photos of Mexico's drug wars.)

Which points to perhaps the most important factor: the U.S. has real cops — not criminals posing as cops, as is so often the case in Mexico — policing the border's cities and states. Americans and Mexicans may call their border region "seamless" when it comes to commerce and culture, but that brotherly ideal doesn't apply to law enforcement. That's especially true since state and local police are backed along the border by the thousands of federal agents deployed there. Thus the tough Arizona law — which seeks to allow local and state police to check a person's immigration status, a provision that Judge Bolton agreed opened the door to racial profiling by officers, and requires immigrants to carry their documents at all times — was sparked by largely unfounded fears.

Arizona law-enforcement officials say they believe the Cochise County rancher, Robert Krentz, was killed by an illegal immigrant — perhaps a coyote, or migrant smuggler — or a drug trafficker. His last radio transmission home as he inspected his property indicated he was helping a struggling person he believed to be one of the migrants who regularly trespass private land while crossing into the U.S. But while such assaults are hardly unheard of along the border — and while it's hardly irrational to worry about Mexico's violence eventually spilling into the U.S. — they have hardly risen to a level that justified the draconian Arizona bill. (In fact, if an illegal immigrant did murder Krentz, it would be the first time in more than a decade that a migrant has killed an American along the border's Tucson, Ariz., sector.)

"There's a real disconnect between emotions and facts when it comes to the border," says El Paso city councilman Beto O'Rourke. "You've got a lot of politicians exploiting this fear that the Mexicans are coming over to kill us."

The Arizona law, which Judge Bolton also said infringed on federal jurisdiction, may be a product of border bluster. But it has more than succeeded in getting Washington's attention. Even though the Obama Administration was one of the plaintiffs in the suit against the law, the President is sending 1,200 more National Guard troops to the region this weekend. What's more, our broken immigration system — and the federal government's feckless failure to address it — is a front-burner issue again.

The nation's border is actually a safe place. The nation's debate about it, at least politically, is anything but.

finalleUID: 2812504

20-2 【7月30作业】 From Time

Perhaps The Best Senate Race In America: Following The Fun In The Florida Sun
Posted by Michael Scherer Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 11:09 am

Ah, Florida: Scarface, Disney, Golden Girls, Seinfeld's parents, Tiger, Elian, Crockett, Tubbs, sugar, swamps, spring training, LMFAO, oranges, chads, (Jimmy) Buffett, Marino, Lebron and so much more, including one of the most exciting Senate races in the country this cycle, a three-way match up between conservative wonder boy Marco Rubio, the bronzed chameleon Charlie Crist and one of two democratic contenders, the highway patrol congressman, Kendrick Meek, and a billionaire named Jeff Greene, whose Morrocan love den was once featured in Vanity Fair.

Beyond the obvious, here are five reasons the Sunshine State will be worth watching this year:

1. In most elections there is a battle for the middle, leading to bland nothingisms on the stump. But since this race will be a three way race, it is likely that each candidate will have a different route to victory. Rubio will need to hold the Republican vote, capture some of the anti-incumbent dissatisfaction, and get huge voter turnout at the polls. If Meek wins the primary, he can run a similar race, focused mainly on denying Crist the 30 to 45 percent of the Democratic vote the governor needs to win. Crist's job will be to convince Floridians that party labels are as outmoded as Capitol building spittoons. He will be trying to hold as much as a quarter of the Republican vote, while grabbing a chunk of the Democratic base. If Greene wins the primary, he will likely spend great gobs of his fortune on television in a so-far less-than-successful attempt to tamp down voter skepticism of a man called the "meltdown mogul" by the Wall Street Journal who decorated his Beverly Hills home with "two huge erotic paintings" and a "dark metal rendering of a dollar bill."

2. The race is already creating great tensions within the Democratic establishment. In recent months, three key Democratic aides have signed on to the Crist campaign: Josh Isay, a former chief of staff to Democratic Senate boss Chuck Schumer; Eric Johnson, the former chief of staff to onetime Florida Rep. Eric Wexler; and Democratic pollster Keith Frederick, who also has worked for the Florida Education Association, Unite Here and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner. Crist has not said whether or not he will caucus with Democrats, but the fact that Crist attracted such high profile talent suggests Senate leaders want to encourage the possibility. As political handicapper Charlie Cook put it, rather diplomatically, "The conventional wisdom is that Isay would not have taken on Crist as a client if there were strong objections from the Democratic Senate Leadership."

3. This has predictably infuriated allies of Meek, who have been calling for a much more vocal and direct support from President Obama. "Come on down and show me that you mean it," Alcee Hastings, a Florida congressman and Meek booster, told me Tuesday. "I need to see him say it." Hastings called the recent image of Obama walking Pensacola's white sand beaches in shirtsleeves with Crist, "this haunting picture." In response, the White House has restated Obama's Meek endorsement and Rahm Emanuel has scheduled a fundraiser on Meek's behalf. But that is not enough for supporters like Hastings, who have threatened to withhold campaign aide from Obama in 2012 if the president does not do more. Some suspect history may be at work here as well: In 2008, relations between Meek and the Obama team were not so good after Meek decided to endorse Hillary Clinton.

4. The characters are larger than life. The Greene biography, as has been noted, does not exactly scream Democratic candidate for Senate. (He once offered a place to live to Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss and he previously ran for office in California as a Republican.) Crist, who just two years ago was a campaign prop on John McCain's campaign, is boldly remaking himself in ways that could even shock Mitt Romney's political hands. He recently reversed his position on Don't Ask Don't Tell. He vetoed a bill requiring women see ultrasounds before abortions, and scrubbed some pro-life language from his website. And he vetoed a Republican bill that linked teacher pay to student test scores.

5. Scandal lurks around every corner. Rubio, who may be the GOP's only chance to hold the seat, is under federal investigation for his use of party-issued credit cards, according to the Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times. (The Rubio camp says their candidate has not been contacted.)  Crist is tied in with the same scandal indirectly because the party was run by one of his hand-picked allies. Meek meanwhile is dealing with a scandal in his own backyard. As the Miami Herald reported, "As U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek championed a proposed biopharmaceutical complex for Liberty City in 2003, his Miami chief of staff received $13,000 from the project's developer to help the aide buy a house, newly released police records show." (All of the campaigns deny any cause for concern, at least for their own candidates.) As for Greene, did I mention that he built himself a Moroccan love den?

UPDATE: A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday had good news for Greene and bad news for Meek. With 34 percent undecided and a majority of Democrats saying they may change their vote, Greene leads Meek 33 to 23 percent. The same poll, in June, found that Meek had 29 percent support compared with Greene's 27 percent.