【thatll】iBT备考日志

thatllUID: 2538832

【上面作文的第15题】

June 11th, 2009
Are Modern Children Less Creative?

Are modern children less creative than their historical counterparts? This is a question that’s apparently of interest to a lot of people: while I’m certainly not a definitive expert on children’s creativity through the ages, it’s well worth looking at.

I think there’s a mythical ‘Golden Age’ many of us keep in our imagination, where kids are self-sustaining little joyous creatures. You can imagine that time as being back in the Middle Ages, or perhaps on the Prairie with Laura Ingalls and her family, or more recently — in the bucolic 1950’s or (much to my amusement) what has been described to me as the innocent 1970’s. No matter what time you pick, the mythos is much the same: kids played independently, all day long, were never bored, and were all such stunning innovators that they could entertain themselves only with a scrap of cardboard, a piece of string, and their own imagination.

It’s a nice picture — but it’s certainly not representative of all actual children’s experiences. Being a kid in the Middle Ages was particularly tough: if you survived being born, it was a pretty hardscrabble existence, and then you were 12 or 13, and expected to take on the responsibilities of an adult. Childhood was shorter, back then — kids were expected to do more, in the way of chores, jobs, and contributing to keeping the family alive. We leave out that part of the picture — just like we leave basic responsibilities out of our children’s lives now: if I was to say to you that your child was morally obligated to contribute to the financial and physical well being of your family, you’d look at me like my head was sewed on crooked.

So the first thing we have to do is assess if we’re really sure if those historical children were any more creative than the current batch of kids. And then the question becomes is the comparison meaningful?

We’re living in the middle of the most extreme information explosion humanity has ever known. The sheer amount of what a child has to know — just to function! — is staggering. Part of why creativity is so essential right now is that creative thinking is REQUIRED to be able to navigate the constant rush of information, new and evolving technology, and cultural changes that are thrown at our kids each and every day. Historical children had to deal with problems: our children are dealing with problems that are delivered at break neck speed.

I think the ‘historical children were more creative’ meme comes from the fact children used to have a lot less STUFF: they’d have one doll, or some toys — or no toys at all, save what they made. Our children generally aren’t in the same situation. It’s easy to see children playing with the entertainment being provided and say, “Hey, they’re not being creative: they’re using what’s right in front of them!” But that may be the tail wagging the dog（就是少数控制多数，上下倒置，角色反向等的意思）, not the other way round（相反）.

What’s your opinion: are children more creative now than they ever were, due to increased resources, leisure time, decreased responsibility, etc…or do children back in the ‘Golden Days’ — however you define them — have the edge?

注：这篇文章说得很好，我一上来就是这个想法，所以我觉得这个题目难就难在你根本认为这issue中涉及的两者很难构成这个话题，也就说明我和出题者根本没有在同一个层面上，科技和孩子的创造性我认为两者没有什么关系，所以我开始认为这个题目我根本没法去下手。而这篇文章就是在问这个问题。

the tail wagging the dog:

A small or unimportant factor or element governing an important one; a reversal of the proper roles. For example,
She found herself explaining the new therapy to her doctor--a real case of the tail wagging the dog.
[c. 1900]

the other way round:

In the reverse direction, as in
I don't think the sofa will go through the door this way; let's try it the other way round.

May 23rd, 2009
Encouraging Creativity as Part of Everyday Life

One of the main stumbling blocks many parents run into when considering creativity is the sense that in order for something to be creative, it needs to be special — separate from ‘everyday’, ordinary life. Nothing could be further from the truth! Creativity isn’t something separate, a quality that we have outside of us that we go in search of.

Creativity resides within us. Now, some of you are protesting. “I’m not creative”, you say — “So how can I raise creative children?”

I firmly believe that everyone has a creative element within them. Not everyone has developed or worked with their creativity the same way: we all make life choices. If you’ve spent a ton of time focusing on other aspects of your life and putting creativity on the back burner, you’re not going to be as creative as the person who makes creativity their number one focus. That doesn’t mean that your creativity is gone — it just means it’s a little neglected, wanting some attention.

One of the neat things about fostering your children’s creativity is that it allows you to get back in touch with your own creativity. There is no better way to teach your children ANYTHING — any type of behavior — than to model it yourself.

Think back (or, if you need to, ahead to) potty training. When the little ones needed to conquer the toilet, they didn’t learn how to do so by a theoretical discussion of the utility of using the bathroom rather than diapers. Someone had to show them — whether it was a parent, a kid from playgroup, or an animated video. To ‘get it’, most kids have to see how it’s done.

Creativity is the same way. If your children see you being creative in every day life — whether it’s being festive setting the dinner table, working in the garden, painting a picture, even doodling on a pad of paper while you chat on the phone — they’re more likely to adopt these behaviors themselves. A common motto is “If you want to raise readers, read!” From that, “If you want to raise creative children, be creative!”

Little things matter. You can be creative without painting the Mona Lisa. You can be innovative without setting up a science lab. Enjoy what you’re doing. Be open to making mistakes. And talk to your children about what you’re doing! That’s how you encourage creativity as part of everyday life.

注：这从另一方面说明了科技和小孩创造力的关系，可以借鉴！

thatllUID: 2538832

【听力---SSS---June 16, 2009】

Earth's Fried Far-Future Postponed
---A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences adds at least a billion years to the already far-future estimate of when the sun will make Earth too hot to handle.

About a billion years from now, some scientists say, the sun will be too bright for comfort, and our formerly hospitable planet will no longer be able to support life. If visions of this impending heat death disturb you（没听出来）, researchers from the California Institute of Technology have some good news. Their calculations add at least another billion years to Earth’s expiration date, results published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

hospitable : offering a pleasant or sustaining environment

As our sun matures it grows brighter and hotter. And over the past three or four billion years, the Earth’s been coping with the extra rays by getting rid of some of the CO2 in the atmosphere. Thinning out（使变稀薄） the CO2 that blankets（覆盖） the earth helps to keep things cool. But that can’t go on forever because we’d be left with no blanket at all.

Now the Caltech scientists say that the planet may be able to compensate by removing nitrogen from the atmosphere. That’ll decrease atmospheric pressure, which will then loosen the weave of the CO2 blanket and allow more heat to escape. So stop and smell the roses（好好享受生活）. We may have an additional billion years to figure out this extreme case of global warming.

thatllUID: 2538832

【听力---SSS---June 17, 2009】

Molting Molds Flying Bird Size Limit
A study in the journal Public Library of Science Biology finds that it's the rate at which flying birds can replace their flight feathers that determines how big they can grow and still get off the ground.

If you were a bird, how big could you be? Well, an ostrich can weigh 400 pounds—but it can’t get off the ground. So what if you want to fly? University of Washington scientists say it depends on how fast you can replace your flight feathers when you molt. The report is in the journal Public Library of Science Biology.


Feathers don’t last forever. So birds periodically shed their plumage and then sprout replacements. Small birds molt once or twice a year, and they replace their 9 or 10 primary flight feathers a few at a time over the course of a few weeks.


But bigger birds need bigger feathers. And that’s where the problem comes in. As birds increase in size, the rate at which they grow their feathers doesn’t keep up with their longer feather length. So if big birds tried to do like little birds, they’d spend the whole year molting—leaving little time for finding food or mates. [“Hey, whaddya doing?” “Still molting.”]


Some large birds, like honking big geese and 30-pound swans, get around the problem by forgoing（放弃） flight while they get all their molting over with（一劳永逸的做完他们所有的molting） in one fell swoop（一下子全部）. In other words, these birds of a feather defrock together.

get around：
1. Also, get round. Circumvent or evade, as in He managed to get around the rules for visiting hours. [Late 1800s]
2. Also, get round. Convince or win over by flattery or cajoling, as in Karen knew just how to get around her father, or I'll try to get round him but I'm not sure it'll work. [Mid-1800s]
3. Travel from place to place; also, be active socially. For example, It's hard to get around without a car, or Mary is never without a date--she really gets around. [First half of 1900s] Also see get about, def. 1.
4. Become known, circulate, as in Reports of her resignation got around quickly. [c. 1950] Also see get about, def. 2.
5. get around to or get round to. Find the time or occasion for, as in Dean never gets around to cleaning up the garage. [Late 1800s]

thatllUID: 2538832

【听力---SSS---June 18, 2009】

Energy Secretary: We Need New Ag Revolution
----In his CalTech commencement address on June 12, Nobel physicist and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu called for a new agricultural revolution, led by scientists

Here’s a clip from last week’s CalTech commencement address by Secretary of Energy and physics Nobel Laureate Steven Chu:

Most scientists are optimistic by nature...part of my optimism comes from the fact that science has come to our aid in the past. As an example, I remind you of the agricultural revolution that occurred in the last century. In 1898, in his inaugural speech, Sir William Crookes, President of the Royal Society, began with the warning (attempts British accent) “England and all civilized nations stand in deadly peril.” I tried (referring to accent).

Crop rotation and manure were not sufficient to replenish the depleted soils, and he predicted that the fertilizer based on South American bird guano—just in case you’re wondering, guano is the technical term for bird doo-doo—and Chilean sodium nitrate would soon be exhausted. The solution Crookes proposed was to create artificial fertilizer. “It is the chemist,” he declared, “who must come to the rescue.”

In 1909, eleven years later, Fritz Haber demonstrated the catalytic synthesis of ammonia from air and hydrogen, a path unsuccessfully pursued by two distinguished chemists and future Nobel Prize winners, Walther Nernst and Wilhelm Ostwald. For this achievement, Haber was awarded the 1918 Noble Prize for Chemistry. The production of fertilizer was considered so important that the industrialization of ammonia synthesis was recognized by a second Nobel Prize to Carl Bosch in 1931.

The second part of the agricultural revolution was led by Norman Borlaug, who got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. He created hybrid strains of wheat that increased the yield per acre four- to seven-fold in Mexico, India and Pakistan. Because of his work, the starvation of hundreds of millions of people was prevented.

Science and technology was the basis of the agricultural revolution, but current agricultural practices are not sustainable. And we need a second green revolution that will create perennial plants for food, fiber and energy, that fix their own nitrogen and draw precious nutrients into their roots for the following year.

thatllUID: 2538832

【听力---SSS---June 19, 2009】

Window Stickers Lead to Stretchy Electronics
---In a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, M.I.T. researchers studying the way window stickers（橱窗陈列的新书样本） separate from the underlying glass applied that information to the creation of electronics that can be stretched and incorporated into fabric.

Engineers would love to embed flexible electronics into things like paper, or surgical gloves（手术手套，glove就是指五指分开的手套） or conventional clothing. But the wiring usually gets twisted and damaged. Now M.I.T. researchers have found inspiration in an unlikely place—the annoying air pockets that pop up in parking pass stickers on car windows.（终于理解这句话了，呵呵，在汽车窗上贴pass标签的时候，这恼人的气泡突然出现。也就是我们通常在玻璃窗上贴贴纸的时候，往往在玻璃和贴纸之间会出现白点般恼人的气泡）
这里有好几个词汇我们可以学习，第一个就是在一个貌似不可能的地方找到了灵感，find inspiration in an unlikely place，一个是恼人的annoying，一个是气泡air pockets，一个是贴纸：sticker，一个是park：【a : to set and leave temporarily  *parked his book on the chair*  b : to place, settle, or establish especially for a considerable time  *kids parked in front of the TV*  *parked her money in a savings account*】，一个是突然出现pop up：

Suddenly appear, as in
After a brief warm spell all the flowers popped up, or
He's constantly popping up where he's least expected.

Those bubbles（就是air pockets） arise because the thin sticker film expands at a different rate than the window glass when they both heat up. And the opposite is also true—the material can compress differently than the glass until it separates and blisters（就是bubbles） form.


The scientists were studying this kind of wrinkling behavior（起皱行为）. They developed a model that predicted the formation, size and evolution of the bubbles that depends on three things: the elasticity of the film and the glass, and the strength of the bond between them.


Then they realized that carefully controlled delamination（分层） could be applied to make elastic electronics. Wires in the bubbly elastic material would start out only partially attached to a surface. So there’d be some slack allowing for safe stretching and twisting. The work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and shows that a different approach can make a tough problem less sticky.

thatllUID: 2538832

【口语---真经070303套】
望大家批：

thatllUID: 2538832

【好文章，共欣赏】
Think Again: Asia's Rise
---------Don't believe the hype about the decline of America and the dawn of a new Asian age. It will be many decades before China, India, and the rest of the region take over the world, if they ever do.
BY MINXIN PEI | JUNE 22, 2009

[size=2.2em]"Power Is Shifting from West to East."

[size=1.13em][size=1.4em]Not really. Dine on a steady diet of books like The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East or When China Rules the World, and it's easy to think that the future belongs to Asia. As one prominent herald of the region's rise put it, "We are entering a new era of world history: the end of Western domination and the arrival of the Asian century."
[size=1.13em]Sustained, rapid economic growth since World War ii has undeniably boosted the region's economic output and military capabilities. But it's a gross exaggeration to say that Asia will emerge as the world's predominant power player. At most, Asia's rise will lead to the arrival of a multi-polar world, not another unipolar one.
[size=1.13em]In any case, it is meaningless to talk about Asia as a single entity of power, now or in the future. Far more likely is that the fast ascent of one regional player will be greeted with alarm by its closest neighbors. Asian history is replete with examples of competition for power and even military conflict among its big players. China and Japan have fought repeatedly over Korea; the Soviet Union teamed up with India and Vietnam to check China, while China supported Pakistan to counterbalance India. Already, China's recent rise has pushed Japan and India closer together. If Asia is becoming the world's center of geopolitical gravity, it's a murky middle indeed.Asia is nowhere near closing its economic and military gap with the West. The region produces roughly 30 percent of global economic output, but because of its huge population, its per capita gdp is only $5,800, compared with $48,000 in the United States. Asian countries are furiously upgrading their militaries, but their combined military spending in 2008 was still only a third that of the United States. Even at current torrid rates of growth, it will take the average Asian 77 years to reach the income of the average American. The Chinese need 47 years. For Indians, the figure is 123 years. And Asia's combined military budget won't equal that of the United States for 72 years.
[size=1.13em]Those who think Asia's gains in hard power will inevitably lead to its geopolitical dominance might also want to look at another crucial ingredient of clout: ideas. Pax Americana was made possible not only by the overwhelming economic and military might of the United States but also by a set of visionary ideas: free trade, Wilsonian liberalism, and multilateral institutions. Although Asia today may have the world's most dynamic economies, it does not seem to play an equally inspiring role as a thought leader. The big idea animating Asians now is empowerment; Asians rightly feel proud that they are making a new industrial revolution. But self-confidence is not an ideology, and the much-touted Asian model of development does not seem to be an exportable product.
[size=1.13em]

[size=2.2em]"Asia's Rise Is Unstoppable."

[size=1.13em][size=1.4em]Don't bet on it. Asia's recent track record might seem to guarantee its economic superpower status. Goldman Sachs, for instance, expects that China will surpass the United States in economic output in 2027 and India will catch up by 2050.
[size=1.13em]Given Asia's relatively low per capita income, its growth rate will indeed outpace the West's for the foreseeable future. But the region faces enormous demographic hurdles in the decades ahead. More than 20 percent of Asians will be elderly by 2050. Aging is a principal cause of Japan's stagnation. China's elderly population will soar in the middle of the next decade. Its savings rate will fall while healthcare and pension costs explode. India is a lone exception to these trends-any one of which could help stall the region's growth.
[size=1.13em]Environmental and natural resource constraints could also prove crippling. Pollution is worsening Asia's shortage of fresh water while air pollution exacts a terrible toll on health (it kills almost 400,000 people each year in China alone). Without revolutionary advances in alternative energy, Asia could face a severe energy crunch. Climate change could devastate the region's agriculture.
[size=1.13em]The current economic crisis, moreover, will lead to huge overcapacity as Western demand evaporates. Asian companies, facing anemic consumer demand at home, will not be able to sell their products in the region. The Asian export-dependent model of development will either disappear or cease to be a viable engine of growth.
[size=1.13em]Political instability could also throw Asia's economic locomotive off course. State collapse in Pakistan or a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula could wreak havoc. Rising inequality and endemic corruption in China could fuel social unrest and cause its economic growth to sputter. And if a democratic breakthrough somehow forces the Communist Party from power, China is most likely to enter a lengthy period of unstable transition, with a weak central government and mediocre economic performance.
[size=1.13em]

[size=2.2em]"Asian Capitalism Is More Dynamic."

[size=1.13em][size=1.4em]Hardly. With the United States brought low by Wall Street and the European economy enfeebled by its welfare state and inflexible labor market, most Asian economies appear in great shape. It is tempting to say that Asia's unique brand of capitalism, by seamlessly weaving together strategic state intervention, corporate long-term thinking, and insuppressible popular desire for material betterment, will outcompete either the greed-devastated U.S. model or the hidebound European variant.
[size=1.13em]But though Asian economies-with the notable exception of Japan-are among the fastest-growing in the world today, there's little real evidence to suggest that their apparent dynamism comes from a mysteriously successful form of Asian capitalism. The truth is more mundane: The region's dynamism owes a great deal to its strong fundamentals (high savings, urbanization, and demographics) and the benefits of free trade, market reforms, and economic integration. Asia's relative backwardness is a blessing in one sense: Asian countries have to grow faster because they're starting from a much lower base.
[size=1.13em]Asian capitalism does have three unique features, but they do not necessarily confer competitive advantages. First, Asian states intervene more in the economy through industrial policy, infrastructural investment, and export promotion. But whether that has made Asian capitalism more dynamic remains an unresolved puzzle. The World Bank's classic 1993 study of the region, "The East Asian Miracle," could not find evidence that strategic intervention by the state is responsible for East Asia's success. Second, two types of companies-family-controlled conglomerates and giant, state-owned enterprises-dominate Asia's business landscape. Although such corporate ownership structures enable Asia's largest companies to avoid the short-termism of most American firms, they also shield them from shareholders and market pressures, making Asian firms less accountable, less transparent, and less innovative.
[size=1.13em]Finally, Asia's high savings rates, by providing a huge pool of indigenous capital, undeniably fuel the region's economic growth. But pity Asia's savers. Most of them save because their governments provide inadequate social safety nets. Government policies in Asia penalize savers through financial repression (by keeping deposit rates low and paying household savers measly returns on their savings) and reward producers by subsidizing capital (typically through low bank lending rates). Even export promotion, ostensibly an Asian virtue, seems overrated. Asian central banks have invested most of their massive export surpluses in low-yielding, dollar-dominated assets that will lose much of their value due to the long-term inflationary pressures generated by U.S. fiscal and monetary policies.
[size=1.13em]

[size=2.2em]"Asia Will Lead the World in Innovation."

[size=1.13em][size=1.4em]Not in our lifetime. If you look only at the growing number of U.S. patents awarded to Asian inventors, the United States appears to have a dramatically receding edge in innovation. South Korean inventors, for example, received 8,731 U.S. patents in 2008-compared with 13 in 1978. In 2008, close to 37,000 U.S. patents went to Japanese inventors. The trend seems sufficiently alarming that one study ranked the United States eighth in terms of innovation, behind Singapore, South Korea, and Switzerland.
[size=1.13em]Reports of the death of America's technological leadership are, to paraphrase Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated. Although Asia's advanced economies, such as Japan and South Korea, are closing the gap, the United States' lead remains huge. In 2008, American inventors were awarded 92,000 U.S. patents, twice the combined total given to South Korean and Japanese inventors. Asia's two giants, China and India, still lag far behind
[size=1.13em]Asia is pouring money into higher education. But Asian universities will not become the world's leading centers of learning and research anytime soon. None of the world's top 10 universities is located in Asia, and only the University of Tokyo ranks among the world's top 20. In the last 30 years, only eight Asians, seven of them Japanese, have won a Nobel Prize in the sciences. The region's hierarchical culture, centralized bureaucracy, weak private universities, and emphasis on rote learning and test-taking will continue to hobble its efforts to clone the United States' finest research institutions.
[size=1.13em]Even Asia's much-touted numerical advantage is less than it seems. China supposedly graduates 600,000 engineering majors each year, India another 350,000. The United States trails with only 70,000 engineering graduates annually. Although these numbers suggest an Asian edge in generating brainpower, they are thoroughly misleading. Half of China's engineering graduates and two thirds of India's have associate degrees. Once quality is factored in, Asia's lead disappears altogether. A much-cited 2005 McKinsey Global Institute study reports that human resource managers in multinational companies consider only 10 percent of Chinese engineers and 25 percent of Indian engineers as even "employable," compared with 81 percent of American engineers.

thatllUID: 2538832

【接上文】

[size=2.2em]"Dictatorship Has Given Asia an Advantage."

[size=1.13em][size=1.4em]No.
Autocracies, mainly in East Asia, may seem to have made their countries prosperous. The so-called dragon economies of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia under Suharto, and now China experienced their fastest growth under nondemocratic regimes. Frequent comparisons between China and India appear to support the view that a one-party state unencumbered by messy competitive politics can deliver economic goods better than a multiparty system tied down by too much democracy.
[size=1.13em]But Asia also has had many autocracies that have impoverished their countries-consider the tragic list of Burma, Pakistan, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia under the murderous Khmer Rouge, and the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos. Even China is a mixed example. Before the Middle Kingdom emerged from self-imposed isolation and totalitarian rule in 1976, its economic growth was subpar. China under Mao also had the dubious distinction of producing the world's worst famine.
[size=1.13em]Even when you look at autocracies credited with economic success, you find two interesting facts. First, their economic performance improved when they became less brutal and allowed greater personal and economic freedoms. Second, the keys to their successes were sensible economic policies, such as conservative macroeconomic management, infrastructural investment, promotion of savings, and pushing exports. Dictatorship really has no magic formula for economic development.
[size=1.13em]Comparing a one-party state like China with a democracy such as India is not an easy intellectual exercise. Obviously, India has many weaknesses: widespread poverty, poor infrastructure, and minimal social services. China appears to have done much better in these areas. But appearances can be deceiving. Dictatorships are good at concealing the problems they create while democracy is good at advertising its defects.
[size=1.13em]So the autocratic advantage in Asia is, at best, an optical illusion.

[size=2.2em]"China Will Dominate Asia."

[size=1.13em][size=1.4em]Not likely.
China is on course to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy this year. As the regional economic hub, China is now driving Asia's economic integration. Beijing's diplomatic influence is expanding as well, supposedly thanks to its newfound soft power. Even China's once antiquated military has acquired a full plethora of new weapons systems and significantly improved its ability to project force.
[size=1.13em]Although it is true that China will become Asia's strongest country by any measure, its rise has inherent limits. China is unlikely to dominate Asia in the sense that it replaces the United States as the region's peacekeeper and decisively influences other countries' foreign policies. Its economic growth is also by no means guaranteed. Restive secession-minded minorities (Tibetans and Uighurs) inhabit strategically important areas that constitute almost 30 percent of Chinese territory. Taiwan, which is unlikely to return to China's fold anytime soon, ties down substantial Chinese military resources. The ruling Chinese Communist Party, which views perpetuating its one-party state as more important than overseas expansionism, is not likely to be seduced by delusions of imperial grandeur.
[size=1.13em]China has formidable neighbors in Russia, India, and Japan that will fiercely resist any Chinese attempts to become the regional hegemon. Even Southeast Asia, where China appears to have reaped the most geopolitical gains in recent years, has been reluctant to fall into China's orbit completely. Nor would the United States simply capitulate in the face of a Chinese juggernaut.
[size=1.13em]For complex reasons, China's rise has inspired fear and unease, not enthusiasm, among Asians. Only 10 percent of Japanese, 21 percent of South Koreans, and 27 percent of Indonesians surveyed by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs said they would be comfortable with China being the future leader of Asia.
[size=1.13em]So much for China's charm offensive.

[size=2.2em]"America Is Losing Influence in Asia."

[size=1.13em][size=1.4em]Definitely not.
Bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and mired in a deep recession, the United States certainly looks like a superpower in decline. Its influence in Asia has apparently receded as well, with the formerly mighty dollar in less demand than the Chinese yuan and the North Korean regime openly flaunting Washington's will. But it is premature to declare the end of U.S. geopolitical preeminence in Asia. In all likelihood, the self-correcting mechanisms in its political and economic systems will enable the United States to recover from its current setbacks.
[size=1.13em]America's leadership in Asia derives from many sources, not just its military or economic heft. Like beauty, a country's geopolitical influence is often in the eye of the beholder. Although some view the United States' declining influence in Asia as a fact, many Asians think otherwise. Sixty-nine percent of Chinese, 75 percent of Indonesians, 76 percent of South Koreans, and 79 percent of Japanese in the Chicago Council's surveys said that U.S. influence in Asia had risen over the past decade.
[size=1.13em]Another, perhaps more important, reason for the enduring American preeminence in Asia is that most countries in the region welcome Washington as the guarantor of Asia's peace. Asian elites from New Delhi to Tokyo continue to count on Uncle Sam to keep a watchful eye on Beijing.
[size=1.13em]Whether it's over blown or not, Asia is poised to increase its geopolitical and economic influence rapidly in the decades to come. It has already become one of the pillars of the international order. But in thinking about Asia's future, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Its economic ascent is not written in the stars. And given the cultural differences and history of intense rivalry among the region's countries, Asia is unlikely to achieve any degree of regional political unity and evolve into an EU-like entity in our lifetime. Henry Kissinger once famously asked, "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?" We can ask the same question about Asia.
[size=1.13em]All told, Asia's rise should present more opportunities than threats. The region's growth not only has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but also will increase demand for Western products. Its internal fissures will allow the United States to check the geopolitical influence of potential rivals such as China and Russia with manageable costs and risks. And hopefully, Asia's rise will provide the competitive pressures urgently needed for Westerners to get their own houses in order—without succumbing to hype or hysteria.

thatllUID: 2538832

【上文的翻译参考】
亚洲崛起的再思考

简介
美国衰败了？亚洲崛起了？这当然是事实，不过仅此就妄言美国在亚洲的影响结束或者亚洲世纪的到来，可能为时尚早。即使我们不去考虑美国，仅是亚洲各国的矛盾和互相牵制，以及各国发展模式所存在的缺陷，就足以使这一言论成为过眼云烟。而美国由于其内在的调整机制，很可能再次统治世界！

“权力正在由西向东转移”
这当然不是事实。当读一本像《新亚洲半球：世界力量不可逆转的向东方转移或者中国何时统治世界》这样的书时，人们很自然地认为未来属于亚洲。正如一个亚洲崛起的著名预见者所说的那样，“我们正在进入世界历史的崭新时代：西方统治的终结和亚洲世纪的来临。”

自从二战以来的经济快速、持续的发展以无可辩驳的方式促进了该地区的经济总量和军事实力。但是这样就说亚洲将以世界统治力量的面目出现，确实是明显的夸大其词。亚洲的崛起至多将会导致一个多极世界的到来，而不是另一个单极世界的出现。

亚洲与西方在经济和军事方面的差距还大得很。这一地区生产了大约全球经济产出的30%，但是由于其人口庞大，人均GDP只有5800美元，而美国的人均GDP已达48000美元。亚洲国家正在积极地提升其军事实力，但是它们2008年总的军事开支也只有美国的三分之一。即使按照现在火热的增长速度计算，要赶上美国的人均收入水平，亚洲也平均需要77年的时间。中国需要47年。对印度来说，这一数字是123年。亚洲总的军事开支则需要等上72年才能赶上美国。

无论如何，也不管现在和将来，把亚洲当做一个单一权力实体是毫无意义的。更有可能发生的是，一个地区力量的迅速崛起反倒会引起距离最近邻国的警觉。亚洲的历史充满了该地区大国之间为权力的竞争而产生武力冲突这样的例子。中国和日本曾为朝鲜战争不断；苏联联合印度和越南牵制中国，中国则通过支持巴基斯坦来制衡印度。而现在，中国最近的崛起已经使日本和印度紧密的联系到一起了。如果亚洲正成为世界地缘政治重心的核心，那么它也仅是个黑暗的中世纪而已。

有些人认为亚洲硬实力的增长必将获得地缘政治的统治力，他们可能还关注另一个与影响力有关的关键因素：思想。美国治下的和平的实现不仅来自于美国在经济和军事实力方面的绝对优势，还包括一系列前瞻性的思想：自由贸易，威尔逊式的自由主义和多边国际组织。今天，尽管亚洲可能是全球最具活力的经济体，但是它在思想方面并没有扮演同等发人深省的角色。亚洲人深受鼓舞的一个大的想法就是得到国际的认同并获得权力；亚洲人正在为创造了一个新的工业革命而沾沾自喜。但是自信并不是一种意识形态，而广受好评的亚洲发展模式看起来并不值得大加推广。

“无法阻挡的亚洲崛起”
别盲目相信。亚洲最近的发展记录看起来可能已经确保了其经济强势地位。例如，高盛公司就预计中国的经济总量将在2027年超越美国，而印度也会在2050年实现这惊人一跃。

鉴于亚洲相对较低的人均收入，在可以预见的未来，其增长速度确实能够超越西方。但是，在未来几十年，该地区面临着巨大的人口障碍。到2050年，亚洲人中老年人的比例将会有超过20%。而人口老龄化则是日本经济停滞的一个主要因素。中国的老龄人口将会在2015年激增。随着医疗保障和退休金的暴涨，中国的储蓄率将会下降。对那些阻碍该地区增长的趋势来说，印度是唯一的例外。

环境和自然资源方面的限制也是有极限的。污染使得亚洲原本就短缺的淡水资源变得更加糟糕，而空气污染则导致了严重的健康损失（仅在中国，每年就有40万人因空气污染死亡）。若不能在可替代能源方面取得革命性进步，亚洲将会在能源方面面临严重的困境。而气候变化将会摧毁该地区的农业。

而且，因西方的需求消失，现在的经济危机将会导致严重的产能过剩。亚洲国家的国内需求十分虚弱，面临此景亚洲公司就无法在该地区销售其产品。亚洲的出口依赖型发展模式将来要么消失，要么再也无法成为一个可以依赖的发展引擎。
政治上的不稳定同样也会使亚洲经济的列车偏离轨道。巴基斯坦国家的倒台或者朝鲜半岛的军事冲突都会产生极大的破坏。而中国不平等的崛起及其固有的腐败问题也可能引起社会骚乱，并导致经济增长的崩溃。一旦共产党因民主的突破而失去权力，中国很可能进入一个长期不稳定的过渡阶段：中央政府虚弱无力，经济增长也归于平淡。
“亚洲资本主义更具活力。”
这还很难说。随着美国经济因华尔街的金融危机进入低潮，欧洲经济也因为其福利制度和僵硬的劳动力市场而虚弱无力时，绝大多数亚洲经济体却看起来情况不错。人们总禁不住说亚洲通过完美协调战略性的国家干预、企业的长期规划和大众对物质丰腴不可抑制的需求而形成的独树一帜的资本主义模式，将会完全超越被贪婪腐蚀的美国模式和因循守旧的欧洲模式。

但是尽管亚洲经济体——虽然日本是个引人注目的反例——都处在当今世界经济增长国家最快之列，但是没有真正的证据证明其表面的经济活力来源于那个神秘而又成功的亚洲资本主义模式。事实可能更加平淡无奇：这一地区经济活力更多的源自于那些主要的基本现实（高储蓄、城市文化和人口结构）和自由贸易、市场改革以及经济一体化带来的好处。而亚洲相对的落后在某种意义上就成为了一种幸运：亚洲国家因起步落后而不得不更快的增长。

亚洲资本主义拥有三个独特的特点，但是它们并不一定能带来竞争优势。一、亚洲国家通过工业政策、基础设施投资和促进出口等措施更积极地干预经济。但是这是否就使得亚洲资本主义更具活力依旧是一个未解之谜。世界银行在其1993年研究该地区的经典之作中写道，“东亚奇迹”，并不能归结为政府的战略干预导致了东亚经济的成功。第二、两种企业形态——家族控制的企业集团和庞大的国有企业——成为亚洲商业的主要特色。尽管这些企业的所有制结构能够使亚洲最大的公司避免绝大多数美国公司短期行为模式，它们同样也遮蔽了来自股东和市场的压力，这就使得亚洲公司责任不明，透明度不高，创新能力不足。

最终，由本国资本聚集而产生的亚洲高储蓄率将无可置疑的促进该地区的经济增长。但是，真正可怜的是亚洲储户。他们中绝大部分进行储蓄的原因是因为政府无法提供充分的社会保证网络。亚洲国家的政府政策通过金融压制（通过降低储蓄利率，并卑鄙的只付给家庭储户低廉的利息）而剥削储户，而对生产者提供补贴（主要是低廉的银行贷款利率）。即使是被当做亚洲优势的出口推动行为看起来也是过誉了。亚洲的中央银行把庞大出口顺差中绝大多数投资于受益极低的以美元为主的资产，而美国的财政和货币政策产生的长期通胀压力将会导致这些资产失去大部分价值。

“亚洲将在创新方面独领风骚。”
有生之年是看不到的。如果你只看美国转让给亚洲投资者的越来越多专利数量，你会觉得美国正急剧地向创新领域集结。例如，韩国投资者在2008年购买了8731项专利，而1978年时只有13件。在2008年，日本投资者大约购买了37000项美国专利。这样一种趋势是十足的扰乱人心，有一项研究把美国在创新方面排在第八位，位列新加坡、韩国和瑞士之后。

关于美国在技术领域领导力的死亡的报告，在马克吐温看来，无疑是过度夸大了。尽管亚洲的先进经济体，比如日本和韩国，正在缩小这一差距，美国的领先地位依旧是巨大的。2008年，美国投资者购买了92000项美国专利，比韩国和日本的投资者的两倍还多。亚洲的两大巨人，中国和印度仍然被远远的摔在后面。

亚洲正在大力投入高等教育。但是亚洲大学不可能在短时间内成为世界领先的学习和研究中心。世界前十名的大学无一在亚洲，即使是前20名中也只有东京大学一所。在过去30年中，只有八个亚洲人获得过诺贝尔科学方面的奖项，其中7人来自日本。而该地区的等级文化、中央集权的官僚体系、发展无力的私人大学以及机械的学习方法和应试教育模式将会继续使得其克隆最好的美国研究机构的努力步履蹒跚。

甚至连亚洲广受好评的数量优势也比看起来徒有虚名。据推测，中国每年有60万工科学生毕业。印度每年的毕业生则有35万.而美国每年只有7万工科毕业生，被远远甩在了后面。尽管这些数字暗示亚洲正在生产智能方面获得优势，但是那完全是误导性的。中国一半的工科毕业生和三分之二的印度毕业生仅获得了大专文凭。而一旦将质量计算在内，亚洲所谓的领先优势就烟消云散了。广受引用的《2005麦克金西全球学校研究报告》指出，跨国企业的人力资源经理认为只有10%的中国工程师和25%的印度工程师是“称职的”，而美国工程师的比例高达81%。
“专制带给亚洲优势。”
荒谬。专制好像给大部分的东亚国家带来了繁荣。所谓的亚洲四小龙——韩国、台湾、新加坡和苏哈托统治下的印尼，和现在中国都在非民主的制度下经历了最快的经济增长。中印之间频繁的比较好像支持这样一种观点，即通过肮脏的竞争政策一党专政的国家可以比受太多民主拖累的多党体制带来更好的经济成果。

但是亚洲的独裁统治也使得很多国家陷入了贫困的境地——有一长串的悲剧：缅甸、巴基斯坦、朝鲜、老挝、暴虐的红色高棉统治下的柬埔寨和费迪南德·马科斯统治下的菲律宾。中国也是个混合的例子。在自我孤立和全权统治结束后于1976年出现的中期王朝之前，中国的经济增长一直处于平均水平之下。毛统治下的中国因产生了举世最为严重的饥荒而让人怀疑其盛名。

当你审视其与独裁紧密相关的经济成就时，你会发现两个有趣的现象。一、当它们不再残暴并允许更多的个人和经济自由时，经济的表现就得到改善。二、其经济成功的关键来自于明智的经济政策，比如保守的宏观经济管制、基础设施投资、促进储蓄和推动出口。独裁对经济发展真的没有一点魔力。

把一党专政的中国和民主的印度作比较绝非一件容易的智力活动。很明显，印度有很多劣势：普遍的贫困、落后的基础设施和贫乏的社会福利。中国在这些领域看起来做得好得多。但是表面现象是有欺骗性的。专制善于掩盖其导致的问题，而民主则有利于其缺点广而告之。

因此，亚洲的专制优势至多仅是一场幻觉。
“中国将统治亚洲。”
可能性不大。今年中国正准备超越日本成为世界第二大经济体。作为区域经济中心，由于其新体现出的软实力，北京的外交影响力也日益扩大。甚至中国一度破旧不堪的军队也得到了充足的全新武器系统，并大幅度改善了其装甲部队的实力。

尽管中国将确定无疑的在各个方面成为亚洲最强大的国家，但是它的崛起却有内在局限性。美国现在是该地区维持和平的力量并对其他国家的外交政策产生决定性的影响，中国不可能取代美国统治该地区。即使它的经济增长也无法保证这样的结果发生。狂躁而且失去理智的少数民族（藏族和维吾尔族）居住在战略上十分重要的地区，这些地区占到中国面积的30%。而不可能短期内回归大陆怀抱的台湾却牵扯了大量的中国军事资源。视永久的一党专政重于海外扩张又居于统治地位的共产党，不太可能在虚妄的帝国幻想前迷失自我。

中国的近邻俄罗斯、印度和日本都是非常可怕的对手，它们会强烈抵制中国任何试图成为区域霸主的努力。即使近年来中国似乎取得了最重要的地缘政治利益的东南亚也不愿意完全落入中国的掌控之中。美国就更不会在中国咄咄逼人的气势下乖乖投降。

由于种种复杂的原因，中国的崛起在亚洲地区不但引发了热情，而且已经引起了恐惧和不安。据芝加哥国际事务委员会的调查，只有10%的日本人、21%的韩国人和27%的印尼人表达了对中国成为亚洲盟主的放心。

“美国正在失去其亚洲影响力。”
绝对没有。由于深陷伊拉克和阿富汗，并受严重萧条的拖累，美国当然看起来像一个正在衰退的超级大国。随着对先前强劲美元的需求相对于人民币而减少，以及朝鲜公开蔑视美国的意志，美国在亚洲的影响力看起来也大不如前。但是这就说美国在亚洲地缘政治优势的结束还是言之过早。美国政治经济体制的自我纠正机制将会帮助美国从现在的不利情况中恢复过来。

美国在亚洲的领导地位来源于多方面的原因，不仅仅来自于其军事和经济的影响。就像情人眼里出西施一样，一个国家的地缘政治影响力经常来源于旁观者的判断。尽管很多国家把美国在亚洲影响力的下降作为现实，但是很多亚洲人却不这样认为。在芝加哥委员会的调查中，有69%的中国人、75%的印尼人、76的韩国人和79%的日本人认为美国对亚洲的影响力在过去十年增强了。

美国在亚洲长期的统治力另一个更重要的可能原因是，美国由于其亚洲和平保证人的地位而广受亚洲绝大多数国家的欢迎。从新德里到东京的亚洲精英继续指望山姆大叔保持其对北京的警惕目光。

不管是不是过度夸大，亚洲注定在未来十年快速增加其地缘政治和经济影响力。它已经成为国际秩序中的一支重要力量。但是当我们考虑亚洲的未来时，我们不应太过超前。它的经济增长也不是注定了的。鉴于该地区国家之间的文化差异和激烈的竞争历史，亚洲在我们有生之年不可能组成任何意义上的区域政治联合体，并演化成欧盟一样的实体。亨利基辛格曾发出惊人之问，“如果我想给欧洲打电话，那该打给谁呢？”我们也可以对亚洲提出同样的问题。

我们总是被告知，亚洲的崛起带来的机遇远多于威胁。该地区的成长不但使几亿人脱离贫困，而且还能增加对西方产品的需求。但是其内部深深的裂痕却使得美国只需承担可控的代价和风险就可以抑制像中国和俄罗斯这些潜在竞争对手的地缘政治影响力。而且，亚洲的崛起很有可能为西方人提供其急需的竞争压力，来帮助他们处理好自身的事情——而无须屈服于铺天盖地的宣传和歇斯底里的情绪中。

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【好文章，共欣赏】
注：我一直在找一篇关于Michael Jackson的好文章，但迟迟没有发现，现在我终于找到一篇，放在这里以飨大家，也借此怀念MJ：
Michael Jackson
1958 - 2009
Remembering Michael
Kobe Bryant

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant is the 2009 NBA Finals MVP.

One of the things he always told me was, Don't be afraid to be different. In other words, when you have that desire, that drive, people are going to try to pull you away from that, and pull you closer to the pack to be "normal." And he was saying, It's O.K. to be that driven; it's O.K. to be obsessed with what you want to do. That's perfectly fine. Don't be afraid to not deviate from that. One of the books that he gave me that helped him communicate with me wasJonathan Livingston Seagull, which was about that.


Beyond the genius of what he was, he was just a genuinely, genuinely nice person. He got me hooked on movies that I would normally never watch. Fred Astaire movies. All the old classics. I would never, never watch those. I remember my fiancée and I telling him we were getting married, and him just being really excited and actually just offering up the ranch to have our wedding there, because privacy was going to be an issue. We wanted to get married in a church, so that's what we wound up doing. But he made the offer. He was just a genuinely nice person who was exceptionally bright, exceptionally bright, and driven and talented. You mix those things together, man, you have Michael Jackson.


Remembering Michael
Kim Carnes

Kim Carnes recorded the song "Bette Davis Eyes," which reached No. 1 in 1981, and sang with Michael Jackson on "We Are the World."

His music, in particular the Thriller album and on MTV, let the world finally see how gifted he really, truly was as a performer, not just on a record. The dancing, when you saw the whole package, was just brilliant. The way he danced and sang — I've never seen anything like it. He was so incredibly gifted.


I did try to moonwalk. I tried several times. Not recently, but everyone was so intrigued with that motion. As I watched, I would just sit there and say, How is a human being able do that? How is he capable of moving like that? It was mind-boggling.


When we did the "We Are the World" video, I was standing right beside him that entire evening. Most of the time we were singing, but in between, when we had breaks, he was charming and very gracious, and at the same time seemed so vulnerable. I'd never met him before and was very much in awe of his talent. He was very shy — except turn the camera on him and start the music, and suddenly there was this great transformation that blew everybody away. How could this human being in his personal life be so shy, and then be so completely the opposite, being the greatest performer ever? It's almost like he was two people.


Remembering Michael
JC Chasez

JC Chasez performed with Michael Jackson three times as a member of 'N Sync.

You were always used to seeing Michael Jackson onstage and performing; it was a very different experience to be sitting on a couch, having a relaxed conversation [with him]. The guy was incredibly nice, gracious, wanted to make sure everyone had everything they wanted or needed. A wonderful host. People didn't necessarily look at him as a person; they looked at him as an action figure. We talked about music, because that was our common ground, but he was more interested about how we felt about what we were going through. Being popular and carrying a heavy workload — you get to the point where you're doing shows five and six days a week with travel and press between that. It's a lot, and nobody knew that better than him, because he had been doing it since he was 6 years old.

It's always chaos outside, but backstage, he was so gracious. He was happy that we were there and able to perform with him. [Backstage, 'N Sync could hear Jackson doing vocal drills in the dressing room next door.] They sounded ridiculous. They were like, "Gee gee gee gee gee gee." To hear that but with Michael Jackson's tone on, that quick vibrato at the end of every note, that was so crazy. It was great for me, as an artist, to see that. He was doing vocal drills for an hour before he went out. [His voice was] not something that magically appeared out of him; the guy worked hard for it. Forty years old, and the guy is warming up for an hour before every show. He wanted to give that audience the best he had. There are plenty of people who just go out and sing and let the first two songs warm them up. But he cared. He cared about every note that came out of his mouth when he was onstage. That's saying something.


Remembering Michael
Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra is a medical doctor and author of several best-selling books on spirituality.

I met Michael more than 20 years ago; I went to teach him meditation at Neverland. He was very shy, very introverted, but very curious about consciousness and spirituality. You know, while the world called him weird, he wondered why the world was so weird. He'd ask me, Why do people go to war? Why is there genocide? What's happening in Sudan? Why have we killed the environment? Why is there racism and bigotry and hatred and prejudice? We talked about starving children in Mumbai, and he would start to cry. Or we'd start to talk about the trophy-hunting in Canada of the grizzly bear, and he would start to cry. In his mind, the world was psychotic.


Michael had a skin disease called leukoderma, which created huge patches of white. He had, as a result, a very, very poor image of his body. He was almost ashamed of it. That's why he would cover it up. Why do you think he wore a glove and all that stuff? He would not go into his swimming pool in his own house with his clothes off. He would just jump into the pool at the last moment, you know, take his robe off, but he was ashamed that people would look at all the blotches on his skin.

After his trial, he started getting these medical prescriptions from doctors and they were all for narcotics, and he asked me for a prescription, and that's when I became suspicious of what was going on. It was the drugs. Totally enabled by these Hollywood mafia drug-dealer doctors who have medical licenses and should be brought to justice. The same thing happened with Anna Nicole Smith, the same thing has happened over the years with — and I'm not going to mince my words — Elizabeth Taylor. I know these guys, and they should be in jail.


Remembering Michael
Don Cornelius

Don Cornelius is the creator of the pioneering dance and music TV show Soul Train.


The word got around that these kids from Gary, Ind. — next door to Chicago, where I was working as an announcer — were amazing. A lot of the local recording artists were being told, "If these Jackson 5 kids are on the show that you're contemplating [doing], don't book the show because they will kick your ass." That's when Michael was 6 or 7. I got to know their father Joe Jackson accidentally — or I sought him out, I can't remember; it's been a long time. Most of the guys I worked with at the radio station did some moonlighting as stage-show promoters, and I found a venue and decided to do one. Joe was nice enough to give me the group. That's how I met them and first got to know Michael. He was about 8.


Michael epitomized the incredible lead singer that most major groups tend to have: the Miracles with Smokey Robinson, the Commodores with Lionel Richie, the Temptations with Eddie and Dennis. Joe Jackson had figured out that that was the formula: he had the spectacular lead singer who could do every step that James Brown ever demonstrated. Michael was just a killer onstage. That's the first thing you noticed. He knew his way around a stage; he commanded the whole operation.

He had a star quality, even as an 8-year-old. He was such a lovable individual. If you were backstage, you saw the women who happened to be on the same show, and they just kind of adopted Michael. They were always hugging and kissing and rubbing him — it went on and on, more than almost any other kid could possibly bear. I'm sure Michael got tired of it, but he never complained. They were all over him. As time went on, he sort of fell in love with Diana Ross —her music and her singing — and I think it was mutual. She fell in love with him also. He was still only 9 or 10.


With a guy who's that young, you don't try to project how good he's gonna be 'cause he's only 4 ft. tall. You're looking at a small person who can do anything he wants to do onstage — with his feet or his voice. To get to the level of people who can do that, you're talking about James Brown as a performer. You're talking about Aretha Franklin as a singer. Or Stevie Wonder or Donny Hathaway — people who were renowned for being able to do whatever they wanted to do with their voices. Michael was like that as a kid. As he began to evolve, you could hear Diana in his singing. You could hear Stevie Wonder. You could hear Marvin Gaye. You could hear Smokey. Once he put it all together, you wouldn't hear anybody imitating him, because he just had too much going for him as a singer. He was the man. The younger guys coming up used him as the standard. If there's anyone to use as the standard, to shoot at, to compare yourself with, it's Michael Jackson.

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Remembering Michael
Sheryl Crow

Crow was a backup singer for Jackson during his first solo tour, Bad, in 1987.

I have so many memories of him pranking me onstage. Our quick-change tents shared a side, and as we were rushing to change our wardrobe in between songs, invariably, a grape or a carrot would come rocketing over the top at me. I could always hear him giggling through the wall. He rented out amusement parks a lot. I remember riding a swinging-pirate-ship ride with him somewhere in Germany, and because we were the only ones on the ride, he wouldn't let the operator stop the ride, as I got sicker and sicker. He thought it was hilarious! When we were in Tokyo, I got a call from him at night inviting me to come to his hotel, where we watched Amos 'n' Andy shows. He laughed and threw popcorn the whole time. My most beloved memory, however, was watching him perform "Human Nature" every night from the side of the stage. There was something so genuinely vulnerable in his voice on that song, and watching the freedom with which he danced, doing the moves he invented only made me more keenly aware of the greatness I was blessed to be witnessing.


Remembering Michael
Carson Daly

Carson Daly is the host of NBC's Late Night with Carson Daly. He was the host of MTV's Total Request Live from 1998 to 2002.

I interviewed him once, when Invincible came out. It was crazy. I remember staying up late to write my questions like I always did, and I wrote a bunch of questions for Michael Jackson. I had to turn them in to the record company, and then the day of the interview, they basically regurgitated one question and gave it back to me and said, "Here — just ask him this." It was very well crafted, well worded. Something to the effect of: How does it feel to have a No. 1 album again in 13 countries? That just spoke to the team that was around him. I walked over across the street maybe an hour before we went live. It reminded me of a presidential process in the sense of the handlers and the route I was to walk: across Times Square and through Virgin Megastore, through the back door. I finally got in. I remember coming down the huge escalator at Virgin Megastore, and it was empty. And Michael was sitting in an aisle, flipping through records. The last handler sort of took me maybe 50 feet away, and I started walking down this aisle toward one of the greatest men ever. The first thing that struck me was how tall he was. Everybody I had met in Hollywood up until that point was disappointingly short and sort of underwhelming. I remember he made a bunch of very humble social gestures that just made me take a great liking to him. He took his glasses off — he was wearing gloves — he took his glove off, and I shook his hand. And he was gracious and, of course, famously soft-spoken. He said, "Very nice to meet you, Carson," and then we just sort of sat there for a minute and flipped through vinyl. We talked about music and how much he loved vinyl. It was just a very bizarre, amazing 20 minutes with Michael Jackson in the aisle of a record store talking about music.


Remembering Michael
Jeffrey Daniel

Dancer and singer Jeffrey Daniel was a member of the R&B group Shalamar and pioneered the dance move the backslide — which, after he taught it to Michael Jackson, became known as the moonwalk.


He would religiously work on dances every Sunday. And it was over a period of, I don't know, a few weeks because you're doing it just once a week for a couple of hours or so. It wasn't so regimented, like, O.K., here's this step and this step. It was like some of it was having fun, some of it was acting goofy, moving around like Charlie Chaplin and poking faces at each other. Some of it was, we were just gelling, you know, with the dances. And some of it was concentrating on a particular move, but a lot of it was two guys just having fun and showing dances. And then watching Fred Astaire films, watching Gene Kelly, watching the Nicholas Brothers, watching Sammy Davis Jr., getting inspiration. He could eat popcorn like nobody I knew, 'cause I could eat some popcorn. And we're sitting watching movies together and you can hear him scraping the bottom, and I'm just cracking up laughing. And he breaks out singing along with the movie. I was like, My God, he's just like anybody else you know. We first worked with him in 1980, but he did not do the moonwalk publicly until 1983 [on Motown's 25th-anniversary TV special]. And after he did it, he asked, "How was it?" And I said, "Why did you wait so long?" He said, "Well, it still didn't come out right." I'm like, Huh? This is the performance that totally blew everyone away — and he said something didn't come out right. Whatever was going on in his mind, we would never know it. We all know that it was a mind-blowing performance, and it just took him to another level.


Remembering Michael
Clive Davis

Grammy-winning producer Clive Davis would throw a party every year before the Grammys at the Beverly Hilton — and every year, Michael Jackson would be unable to come.

He would call and say, "I think I can come. I want to come this year; I know it's such a great night." He would call me and ask, "Who's coming this year?" And I'd tell him, you know, that I was going to bring on the O'Jays, because they were part of my earlier career. And he'd say, "Oh, you gotta make them sing 'Love Train,' " or "You gotta make them sing 'Back Stabbers'!" His enthusiasm for music was so palpable, and his familiarity with the music. Whether I was bringing on the younger generation or Johnny Mathis, he would say things like, "Oh God, what he did with 'Chances Are' " or "The Twelfth of Never." Those moments are very special to me. He never failed to immerse himself in the beauty and power of music. We'd speak for an hour, two hours. We were both convinced we'd have such a great night, but then, of course, it never did occur.


Remembering Michael
Frank Gaston Jr.

Director and choreographer Frank Gaston Jr. has worked with En Vogue, Toni Braxton and Destiny's Child. He currently coordinates routines for Beyoncé.

The first time I met Michael was when I danced in the video for "Smooth Criminal," and for some reason I remember his fingernails, because they were so well manicured. That was my first job in L.A. as a dancer. And it was the most amazing job — I made $10,000 because the job was for three months. Just the dance section. Isn't that something? There were, like, 40 dancers on the job. You know the scene in "Smooth Criminal" when he gets on the table? I'm standing right there because they wanted me to spot him, so if he fell, I would catch him. And he would never fall.

I had gone to see his show in Europe, where it was, like, 100,000 people and they don't have seats on the main floor of the stadium. They just stand up and they're like cattle shoulder to shoulder. And that was just amazing, seeing all the medics come in and out because people were fainting, people were crying. I can't explain it. It was like the Holy Ghost: if you ever go to a black Baptist church, people shout, ladies faint. That's the only thing I can describe that's like how it was. And Michael told me one thing too: When people would grab him when he was walking through from backstage, and they could grab him or something, he said it was like fire — because they would grab him and they would pull him. They didn't want to hurt him; it was that they just wanted a piece of him.


Most people, when they're rehearsing a dance movement, they don't do it full-out. Michael would always do everything to the fullest in rehearsal. He would do it like he was onstage, every time. And as a dancer, you would be like, Why is he doing it that hard? Every chromosome worked, the minute he moved. I don't know if you've ever seen when he was going to court [in 2005], he got on top of his car. Even in that moment, he didn't dance like he was on top of his car, he danced like he was onstage. He danced like every chromosome was working, right there, on top of a car. And when you really look at that tape, when he jumps on top of the car, he hurts his knees. He has to land on his knees when he jumps on the car from the ground. But even though his knees were in pain, he still gave everything he had. If you rewind it and look at it one day, you'll know what I mean.

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Remembering Michael
Bob Geldof

Bob Geldof appeared with Michael Jackson on "We Are the World."

I remember when I presented him with an award at the Brits in London, and I was reading the script, and I just couldn't get through all the encomiums, so I stopped. And then he performed "Earth Song" and Jarvis Cocker got up and did his thing. Michael didn't understand why people had been laughing. He rang me at 3 in the morning to ask about it. I just told him "Go to bed; don't worry." "Earth Song" was a little hubristic, but it was still a cool song. He was a pop singer; he hadn't invented penicillin. But what do you expect when you have a kid who never went to school, and then he was thrust into this mad existence? My favorite track is "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," but the most important is "We Are the World." I was never that crazy about the song, but at the time most Americans didn't know where Africa was. I don't think Michael understood the issues, the politics and economics; it didn't interest him, but when he was asked to help, he did.


Remembering Michael
Berry Gordy

Berry Gordy is the founder of Motown Records. He signed the Jackson 5 to his label in 1968.

I did not want any more kids' groups. I just wanted to concentrate on all of the other stars that we had. I had Stevie Wonder as a kids' group, and he had to have an entourage and tutors, and he could only work so many hours and there were so many restrictions. And that was enough. But my creative assistant, she insisted [on the Jackson 5].


And when I saw them come out and start performing, I was blown away, frankly. They did a Smokey song called "Who's Loving You" — I'm not sure if it was at the first audition or some subsequent day. But when Michael sang that song — it's a very passionate love song — he sang it like he had been living that song for 50 years. I remember the other members had the instruments and the guitars and stuff, and they would sing a song and it'd be great and have great precision. And once the song was over, everybody would relax, and I remember Michael staring at me to see what I was going to say, whether I liked it, whether I didn't. He was very serious. He was never out of focus with what I or other people around me were thinking and doing.


When you see someone with great precision like what Michael and his brothers had, you know a lot of work has to go into it. So we moved them from Gary, Ind., to Los Angeles with us. That's how important I thought they were. And we ended up having them live with us because where we were renting the place for them, they made too much noise in their rehearsals, and so they were sort of kicked out, so to speak. They moved in with me, and we then had all day and night to rehearse. There are a lot of debates about the early part of his life and his suffering, and I know that it wasn't a kid's life, but I disagree with most people, because he lived with me and I didn't see so much trauma in his life. I'm not saying he didn't have any. But I know when he lived with me, he was very normal.


Remembering Michael
Anjelica Huston

Actress Anjelica Huston met Michael Jackson working on Captain EO, Francis Ford Coppola’s 3-D movie that was shown at Disney theme parks.

I met Michael on the first day of rehearsal, and I was stunned — even though, obviously, I knew his image very well — at how incredibly sweet and how modest and how innocent he was. And fragile too. In person you felt he was almost breakable. But then this thing happened when he would start to work: your heart would beat faster and the hair on your arms and the back of your neck would stick up as he literally took your breath away. I think he was the most electrifying performer I've ever seen.


I think it was very hard for Michael to express anger. He was, I have to say, one of the most polite people I have ever met in my life. I never heard Michael say a swear word, even when he was upset. He had the most beautiful manners. And I think music was really the only way in which his passion could come through unguarded. It was immense. He was on fire as a performer — I've never seen a talent like it. I think, actually, there was a lot of the otherworldly in Michael. He had this talent that I've never encountered before, and I've seen a lot of extraordinary people perform. He was, I think, very misunderstood. I never believed any of the allegations or insinuations against him. We had lunch together about a month ago, and he talked about his ordeal. He felt like he had really been put through the ringer. He said they wanted blood. I felt so bad for him, and I felt that he was really broken-hearted from what had been done. He was a meteor: his flame burned incredibly bright, and not for long but mightily.


Remembering Michael
Ice-T

Rapper and actor Ice-T appears on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.


I met him once. He was in New York at the Sony studios shooting a video, and I was there with one of my groups. And I was requested — Michael wanted to meet me. I went in the back, and he was sitting between two women and he shook my hand, and it was cool. Somebody like Michael Jackson — you don't even think they know you exist. You know, you're a rapper. And the fact that he was like, "Ice-T is here. I would like to meet Ice-T." And I shook his hand and it was a very cool moment. One of my friends said, No matter how tough you are, Michael Jackson will have the biggest gangster in the front row screaming like a bitch at his concert. That's about the best compliment you can give.


At the end of the day, his legacy to me is, he was original. That's one thing about Michael Jackson — you can't say any of his stuff was taken from anybody else. It was 100% original. All the new people who are going to mimic him — the little 'N Sync kid [Justin Timberlake] — they know they doing the Michael Jackson.


Remembering Michael
Quincy Jones

Grammy-winning producer, composer and arranger Quincy Jones produced some of Michael Jackson's biggest-selling albums, including Off the Wall andThriller.


Michael's always had that intriguing and silent power inside of him, and so [while filming The Wiz] I was paying attention to him, almost out of everybody who was in the film. He'd get up four hours before everyone else to get these prosthetics on his face, and then he'd stand there, very, very diligently and disciplined. He knew everybody's lines, he knew all the songs, all the steps, everything. I mean I'd never seen so much focus in my life, and I started to watch him and I started to see things in him that I wasn't cognizant of before. And then they were rehearsing one day, and Sidney Lumet was blocking the principal characters, and Michael would pull these little pieces of paper from his chest and recite words from a powerful thinker — Socrates or Aristotle or Confucius or whatever — and then he'd say the name at the end. The last one he said, Blah blah blah — "So-crayts." And I said, "What is that?" And he said it a few times, and I realized what was going on. And because you get used to something when you're rehearsing like that, the second day I said to him, "Michael, it's Soc-ra-tees." And he said, "Really?" And the look he gave me then, it just prompted me to say, because I'd been impressed by all the things I saw in him during the rehearsal process, "I would love to take a shot at producing your album." And he went back and told the people at Epic Records, and they said, "No way — Quincy's too jazzy." Michael was persistent, and he and his managers went back and said, "Quincy's producing the album." And we proceeded to make Off the Wall. Ironically, that was one of the biggest black-selling albums at the time, and that album saved all the jobs of the people saying I was the wrong guy. That's the way it works.

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Remembering Michael
Lenny Kravitz

Recording artist and producer Lenny Kravitz won four straight Grammy Awards for Best Male Vocal Performance from 1998-2001.

I saw the Jackson 5 at Madison Square Garden, which was the first concert I'd ever seen, and they were wearing these knicker pants with these boots that came up to the knees. So I would put these galoshes on and dance around the living room and pretend that I was Michael Jackson. We got together a few years ago and we decided to go into the studio together. I had written a song for him and actually produced the track before he showed up. I played all the instruments, got it ready. We recorded at Marvin Gaye's old studio, up on Sunset Boulevard. We did his vocals for about three days. He was a lot of fun. He stayed for hours. We'd sit on these little stools and eat together and talk. That's where I really got to know him.



His children were there. They were extremely well behaved. I grew up in an old-school West Indian family, where respect was paramount. And these kids were just like that, full of respect but not robotic. Really sweet. They drew pictures for me and signed them. They were making art all day while we were working. My daughter Zoe came in. We were all together. We played music, we drew, we talked, we ate, we laughed. [He was] extremely respectful toward the chef, the engineers, myself, the kids — just the same to everybody.


I was in Glasgow, coming off the stage before an encore, when I heard the news. I went back on, did the last two songs. Came off and they announced he had died. Coming off the stage like that, when you're amped up and on a high, and hearing that news and having to go downstairs and digest this — it was difficult. I came off stage and went right to my computer and played the track we had done. It was about his life and where he'd been. It's quite triumphant.


Remembering Michael
John Mayer

John Mayer is a Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling recording artist.

People don't get upset when they talk about Michael Jackson dying; they get upset when they talk about how much a part of their life he was. I mean, what are the '80s? A Rubik's Cube, 3-D glasses and Michael Jackson. And that's the giant cornerstone that's gone. He's one of the few crossover artists that would make even the most radical white supremacists say, "Well, he's not black — he's Michael Jackson." He's not black, he's Barack Obama. He's not black, he's Jimi Hendrix. He's not black, he's Tiger Woods.

As a musician, the man was one of the purest substances ever in music. But it's frustrating, and somewhat pointless, to ever try and figure out how Michael Jackson arrived at an album like Thriller and how you could arrive at something like it. It's impossible. I mean, it's one of those things you actually don't want to bring up to musicians. They don't want to remember that that kind of greatness is achievable because it skews the bell curve completely.

Michael Jackson proves, in a really sort of perverse way, that maybe we're not as offended by behavior as we are entranced by music. And think about that. Think about what level of quality you must have to attain to have somebody say, "I know that you're accused of having molested children, but I can't hate you for that as much as I love you for your music." I'm not saying that's right or wrong; I'm saying that it's fascinating. That somebody could be that great. That somebody could have that much of a marriage with your emotions just through music.


There's just one Michael Jackson now. We don't have to reconcile the Michael Jackson we love with another Michael Jackson. In a way, he has returned to pristine condition in death. We can be free now for the rest of our lives to love the Michael Jackson we used to love.


Remembering Michael
Donald Trump

Michael Jackson kept a home in one of Trump's buildings in New York City.

He was a very good friend of mine. He was an amazing guy, but beyond all else, he was the greatest entertainer I've ever known. He had magic. He was a genius. He was also a really good person, and when you got to know him, you realized how smart he was. He was brilliant. We were at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. There were thousands of people literally crushing us. We had 20 bodyguards, but it was really dangerous. He dropped to his knees and started crawling to the exit. He did it so routinely, I thought he fell. And I said, "Michael, is it always like this?" He goes, "Yeah, this is nothing. Japan is much worse."


Now, Michael wasn't the same Michael for the last 10 years. He was not well. He had a lot of problems, a lot of difficulties. But Michael in his prime — there's never been anybody like him. His life was different than anybody I've ever known. But he had a very rough 10 years. He was embarrassed by it. He was embarrassed by what was happening to him. But he's not going to be remembered for the last 10 years; he's going to be remembered for the first 35 years.


Remembering Michael
Usher

R&B star Usher performed with Michael Jackson for the "Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special" concert video in 2001.

The first time I got a chance to meet Michael was onstage at Madison Square Garden. There were tons of people on the stage, and I just remember losing my mind. Like, Oh my God, that's Michael Jackson right there. I was just over his right shoulder. And then when I finally got a chance to get on the stage with him, I was just shut down. He had the type of magic that you just bowed to. I just said, "I love you, and I know you've heard it a million and one times from fans all over the world, but you've meant so much to me as an entertainer, and I love you, and I've admired you all these years." He said "Thank you" in a very calm, meek voice. He was like, "Thank you so much, Usher. What you do is great; you're great. What you do is not easy, the singing and dancing is not easy. Most performers can't do that, and you've been able to do it, and I'm very impressed by you."



I was shooting a Macy's commercial and me and Martha Stewart were standing side by side taking a picture, and I remember looking over to her and I said, "They said that Michael had an incident, a cardiac arrest," and she and I were both in denial — "No, that's just some fabricated story that they came up with." We kind of shrugged it off. I went and I turned on CNN, and they said he had experienced issues of cardiac arrest. And I knew this was very serious. I had an engagement in Paris, and as I boarded my plane, I didn't know what to think. By the time I landed, there was his family releasing a statement. Man, I lost it. I cried myself to sleep. This man, he meant so much to me as an entertainer; as an individual, he taught me so much, even though he didn't know it. Michael Jackson was the first African American to sing to a crossover audience. I do feel like without Michael Jackson, MTV would not be on the map. It would not be what it is today. This is bigger than the loss of Elvis.


Remembering Michael
Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson worked together on "We Are the World."

I first met Michael when I was in Detroit. He came to Motown, and they were talking about this boy from Gary, Ind., and the Jackson 5, and everyone was excited. He was a little boy then. He would always come into the studio curious about how I worked and what I did. "How do you do that?" "Why do you do that?" I think he understood clearly from seeing various people do the music scene that it definitely took work. He must have been around 9 or 10 then, and I definitely felt that he would be someone. You heard the voice, and all he could do was grow. And that's what he did.


I remember playing air hockey one time, and we were going back and forth. I play air hockey on the side as opposed to the end of the table because it's more accessible for me to really understand what's happening. He said, "Oh, you're cheating." And I said, "Aw, I'm not cheating, come on." And we went on and on for hours, just playing air hockey and being silly. He had a childlike heart. And that was very, very impressive to me. At the end of the day, we're all human beings, and for those who can't see that it is possible for a man who's an adult to have a childlike spirit, it doesn't mean that they're weird, it doesn't mean they're a freak or whatever ridiculous things people say. We have all kinds of people in the world. The most important thing is that your heart is in a good place.


—With reporting by Alex Altman, Alyssa Fetini, Sean Gregory, Randy James, Rebecca Kaplan, Barbara Kiviat, Jeffrey Kluger, Catherine Mayer, Tim Morrison, Kristi Oloffson, Kate Pickert, Julie Rawe, Claire Suddath, Molly Stephey

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【听力---SSS---August 4, 2009】

Spleen Gives Heart A Leg Up
A study in the journal Science shows that the spleen has a previously unrecognized function, as a large reservoir of infection-fighting monocytes that come into play in heart damage.

Poor old spleen, it never got the recognition it deserved. Until now. Scientists had known that the spleen is part of our immune systems（没听出来）. But it was considered expendable（可消耗的）, an organ we could live fine without, if we had to, nothing crucial. Now researchers in Boston say that the spleen actually helps mend damaged hearts. The study was published in the July 31st issue of the journal Science.

They’ve shown that the spleen is what they call a critical reservoir of monocytes. Those are cells that scientists had previously thought were only found in bone marrow and blood that help fight infection. Scientists discovered these spleen-based monocytes by accident. They were investigating heart damage and found more monocytes at the site of the damage than should have been in the entire circulatory system（循环系统的表述）. Upon investigation, they found the reservoir in the spleen.

After a heart attack, those monocytes surge out of the spleen. When they reach the heart, they fight infection and are critically important in helping mend the heart tissue. The researchers now want to find out if there are other conditions where spleen-based monocytes are critical. Finally, the Rodney Dangerfield of organs gets some respect.

学习：
spleen：脾脏
give sth. a leg up：助...一臂之力
reservoir：储存器
monocyte：单核细胞

thatllUID: 2538832

【听力---SSS---June 22, 2009】

Subways Loudest Transit Option in NYC
In a report in the American Journal of Public Health performed in New York City, subways were the loudest mass transit option（公共交通选择）, with potentially hearing-damaging noise levels.

“Stand clear of the closing doors please.” Definitely keep your arms and legs away from the closing doors on the subway. But there’s a potentially more insidious（就是在不知不觉中伤害的） danger to your health: the noise.

Mass transit is generally a safe ways to travel, one reason why 33 million Americans use it every weekday. But a study that compared the various modes（方式方法） of mass transit in New York City found that the subways topped（处于顶端） all other transit types for average noise, at a grinding（刺耳的） 80 decibels. The din（嘈杂声） was sometimes worse on the platforms, topping out at 102 decibels. Commuter trains（市郊火车） were much quieter, at about 75 decibels. Remember, that’s on a log scale（对数log，呵呵，数学知识，这个log scale就是对数标准）, so, for example 80 is actually 10 times noisier than 70—and about three times louder than 75. Normal conversation is between 60 and 70 decibels. The study is in the American Journal of Public Health.

The EPA and the World Health Organization recommend daily averages of no more than（副词，不多于） 70 decibels to protect your hearing. So earplugs may be in order if your particular commute is literally deafening.
学习：
insidious：
1 a : awaiting a chance to entrap  : TREACHEROUS  b : harmful but enticing  : SEDUCTIVE  *insidious drugs*
2 a : having a gradual and cumulative effect  : SUBTLE  *the insidious pressures of modern life*  b of a disease   : developing so gradually as to be well established before becoming apparent

literally：
adv.

• In a literal manner; word for word:
  translated the Greek passage literally.
• In a literal or strict sense:
  Don't take my remarks literally.
• Usage Problem.
  • Really; actually:
    “There are people in the world who literally do not know how to boil water”
    (Craig Claiborne).
  • Used as an intensive before a figurative expression.

USAGE NOTE   For more than a hundred years, critics have remarked on the incoherency of using literally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of “in a manner that accords with the literal sense of the words.” In 1926, for example, H.W. Fowler cited the example：The 300,000 Unionists … will be literally thrown to the wolves.”
The practice does not stem from a change in the meaning of literally itself—if it did, the word would long since have come to mean “virtually” or “figuratively”—but from a natural tendency to use the word as a general intensive, as in They had literally no help from the government on the project, where no contrast with the figurative sense of the words is intended.