The current situation of African-Americans presents()
It is surprising that Americans who worship variety and individuality _____.
Passage 1 Neither the Americans nor the Russians have the resources to continue human space flight on their own; both sides know they need each other. (1) It’s much easier and cheaper to get used to each other and to blend differing operating styles, languages, and systems on the aged Mir (a Russian word for “peace”) than trying to do that while jointly building a new space station. NASA, in fact, calls its program of shuttle lights to Mir Phase 1 of the International Space Station (ISS). Phase 2 marks the beginning of actual construction. The procedures used to dock the shuttle to Mir, for example, also will be used as a lifeboat for the Island Progress freighters, like the one that crashed into Mir in June, will haul cargo to the ISS. (2) One unintended benefit of Mir’s technical troubles is that they have actually forced the two nations to work much more closely together than they had planned. Except for a brief period in the 1970s with Skylab, NASA has never operated a space station; the Russians have been running them for years. Astronauts have long been trained intensively to perform specific tasks on shuttle flights lasting 18 days or less. (3) Russian astronauts, however, learn more general skills, since they spend many months in orbit and no one can forecast all the problems they might encounter. As a result of shuttle-Mir experience, NASA is revising astronaut training to include more of the general skills they will need on the ISS. NASA decided to send astronauts to Mir based on its long record of safe operation. But this year, crews aboard Mir have faced two of the most serious emergencies in the history of human space flight. (4) In February, an oxygen generator caught fire, shooting out 4-foot-long jets of flame like; fire extinguishers were bolted in place, delaying reaction to the fire. In June, a Progress Freighter collided with the Specter module, puncturing it. Specter had to be sealed off to prevent all the air from leaking from the spacecraft. (5) The ancient computer that controls Mir has failed many times, causing most other systems, including the one that keeps the station’s solar panels pointing at the sun, to shut down. One failure in August occurred while a Progress was docking. Last week, the computer crashed again, the carbon dioxide removal system shut down, and a mysterious brown fluid — probably rocket fuel — appeared to leak from the station.
Almost all Americans want to be democratic, but many Americans are confused about what, exactly, democracy means. How do you know when someone is acting in a democratic or an undemocratic way? Recently several groups have spoken out with particular bitterness against the kind of democracy that means equal opportunity for all, regardless of race or national origin. They act as if all human beings did not belong to one species, as if some races of mankind were inferior to others in their capacity to learn what members of other races know and have invented. Other extremists attack religious groups—Jews or Catholics--or deny the right of an individual to be an agnostic. One reason that these extremists, who explicitly do not want to be democratic, can get a hearing even though their views run counter to the Constitution and our traditional values is that people who do want to be democratic are frequently muddled.
Americans are used to ordering things ranging from French fries to popcorn in small, medium or supersize. Now those same decision-making skills may become rueful in the bathroom, thanks to an innovative plumbing technology: dual-flush toilets. The new invention is the industry’s latest attempt to help reduce water usage, a movement that hasn’t always gone smoothly. The last big toilet makeover came more than a decade ago, when the U.S. government decreed that new toilets should use just 1.6 gallons of water per flush, down from the 3.5-gallon standard. But consumers complained that it often took two or more flushes to clear the bowl; so many people preferred the old toilets that some plumbers imported them illegally from Canada.
Americans are used to ordering things ranging from French fries to popcorn in small, medium or supersize. Now those same decision-making skills may become rueful in the bathroom, thanks to an innovative plumbing technology: dual-flush toilets. The new invention is the industry’s latest attempt to help reduce water usage, a movement that hasn’t always gone smoothly. The last big toilet makeover came more than a decade ago, when the U.S. government decreed that new toilets should use just 1.6 gallons of water per flush, down from the 3.5-gallon standard. But consumers complained that it often took two or more flushes to clear the bowl; so many people preferred the old toilets that some plumbers imported them illegally from Canada.
Most Americans have great vigor and enthusiasm. They prefer to discipline themselves rather than be disciplined by others. They pride themselves on their independence, their right to make up their own minds. They are prepared too take the initiative, even when there is a risk in doing so. They have courage and do not give in easily. They will take any sort of job anywhere rather than be unemployed. They do not care to be looked after by the government. The average American changes his or her job nine or ten times during his or her working life.
[A] Americans’ ability to take the mortgage interest deduction ranks up there with the right to bear arms and watch football games. Homeownership is part of the American dream, and the U.S. government has long done its part to encourage home buying among citizens of all economic strata. Economist Edmund Phelps, a 2006 Nobel laureate and Columbia University professor, has criticized the U.S. financial sector’s orientation toward financing residential construction and away from business investment and innovation.
[B] So, I grew up thinking that renting is perfectly normal. And then, strangely enough, I never did buy a house. I live in New York City and I’m still renting. My own personal narrative shows that it is possible to live a respectable life without ever having owned a home.
[C] Is the sacrifice of business investment and innovation the key negative to the financial sector’s focus on housing? That was my key negative, but I also had some animus against the idea that everybody ought to own his or her own home. I thought this was a bizarre social goal.
[D] Haven’t you noted in the past that homeownership can reduce the mobility of a workforce? That’s not true in New York or Los Angeles, where there are so many employers. But if you own your home in Peoria and you’re working for some specialized firm, and things don’t go so well there—at that point, you’d like to have the mobility of picking up stakes at no cost and looking for some similar kind of firm elsewhere. To be perfectly honest, that the other side of the coin is that mobility isn’t necessarily right up there with apple pie as something that’s good for us. Because when people are very mobile, they can be very difficult employees.
[E] There has been research that shows homeownership makes for better citizens. I can well imagine that some unemployed sociologist would look into that hypothesis. I’m not attacking the idea that people live in conglomerations of houses in proximity to one another, sharing the same water mains and the same newspaper delivery boy and so forth. I’m not objecting to that. That could happen with or without homeownership.
[F] Is it emotional, as in, part of the American dream? Or has it just been the best way for people to build wealth? We could argue whether or not it’s the best way. But what is surprising is this new ethos, this new enthusiasm for homeownership suggests that it should be—for people who aren’t rich anyway—the main way they hold their wealth and that there’s something almost un-American about holding your wealth in stocks and bonds. The celebration of homeownership seems to be part of a countermovement against popular owning of shares in corporations.
[G] Of course, I come from more of an urban culture. I grew up, until age 6, in Chicago. My parents rented their apartment and, at the end of the Depression, my parents wanted to replicate that situation. So, again, we lived in a somewhat suburban setting outside of New York City and, again, they rented.
[H] U.S. government’s improper real estate and financial policies for the crisis paved the way for the seeds. Home Ownership was the American dream. In the 1930s the Great Depression, the United States flagging domestic demand, Roosevelt’s New Deal of the decision-making is one of the establishment of Fannie Mac, to provide for the national housing finance to help people buy housing, to stimulate domestic demand.
[I] So, will the next economic expansion look very different? I think we very much need to reorient the financial sector away from housing. The level of housing construction was unsustainable. It had to come to a crashing end. But what we have to hope for is that the financial sector will be able to reinvent itself and start learning to serve the classical functions of allocating finance to competing investment project sand competing innovations and activities. I think somehow the banking industry has lost the expertise to be able to choose among rival investment projects and innovation projects. I don’t think the bankers know anything about alternative energy projects. They’re going to have to acquire that expertise if they’re going to be, as the New York Times put it, “useful” to the economy.
(此文选自U.S. News & World Report 2008年刊 ) Order:
Some people Asian-Americans owe their success to the Asian tradition of()
Practice 1
Americans are proud of their variety and individuality, yet they love and respect few things more than a uniform, whether it is the uniform of an elevator operator or the uniform of a five-star general. 1______
2______People have become conditioned to expect superior quality from a man who wears a uniform. The television repairman who wears uniform tends to inspire more trust than one who appears in civilian clothes. Faith in the skill of a garage mechanic is increased by a uniform. What easier way is there for a nurse, a policeman, a barber, or a waiter to lose professional identity(身份) than to step out of uniform?
3______They save on other clothes. They save on laundry bills. They are tax-deductible(可减税的). They are often more comfortable and more durable than civilian clothes.
4______Though there are many types of uniforms, the wearer of any particular type is generally stuck with it, without change, until retirement. When people look alike, they tend to think, speak, and act similarly, on the job at least.
5______Though they are long lasting, often their initial expense is greater than the cost of civilian clothes. Some uniforms are also expensive to maintain, requiring professional dry cleaning rather than the home laundering possible with many types of civilian clothes.
[A] For this reason, more and more factories begin to give out uniforms to workers.
[B] Why are uniforms so popular in the United States?
[C] Uniform also have many practical benefits.
[D] Uniform is also an indication of people’s position.
[E] Among the arguments for uniforms, one of the first is that in the eyes of most people they look more professional than civilian clothes.
[F] Primary among the arguments against uniforms are their lack of variety and the consequent loss of individuality experienced by people who must wear them.
[G] Uniform also give rise to some practical problems.