学习--公共英语三级英语教材

学习--公共三级英语教材 公共英语三级英语教材 lesson 1 Kip Keino Kipchoge Keino is a modest man，and it takes prodding to get the great Kenyan runner to recall how he felt on Oct ，20，1968 — when he won his first gold medal，in the 1,500 meters in Mexico City.The day hadn't started out well，Keino was suffering from stomach pains that later turned out to be a severe gallbladder infection. His doctors advised against running;he ignored them.During the race，Keino was so focused on competing against American ace Jim Ryun that， in retrospect，“Without watching a video, I wouldn't know what happened at the finish.” He does remember what happened next. “I ran an honor lap. I ran it to celebrate and to let my body recover. I felt overcome by the excitement.” It was not the only memorable event in his life that day. Back home, his wife, Phyllis, gave birth to their third daughter, named Milka Olympia Chelagat in celebration of her father's victory. Keino went on to win a silver medal in the 5,000 meters in Mexico City and a gold and a silver four years later in Munich. He then became Kenya's Olympic running coach from 1976 to 1986, furthering his nation's dominance in distance events. Kenyan runners have captured 32 Olympic track medals since 1964 and won the last six consecutive Boston Marathons. This summer, Keino will be in Atlanta as chief of the 120-athlete Kenyan delegation, which could include his son Martin, 23, a former NCAA 5,000-meter champion at the 1,5000 meters. But Keio's athletic accomplishments are not the only reason he is a hero in the town of Eldoret in northwestern Kenya. Thirty years ago, Keino and his wife—who now have seven children of their own—began taking orphans into their home. Their house became so crowded that they raised funds to build a dormitory and a dining hall on a nearby farm Keino owns. Income to support the facility comes from the farm, his sports shop and fees he has received from the Kenyan government over the years. Today, 73 children and young adults—aged 2 to 22—live on the farm. “I think I have been lucky,” Keino says. “Now what is important is how I use what I have to help others.” Lesson 1 Kip Keino 克普乔格?凯诺是一个很谦虚的人，要使这位伟大的肯尼亚长跑运动员回想起他在1968年10月20日 那一天的感受不是一件很容易的事情——(当天他)在墨西哥城参加1500米长跑比赛中赢得了一生中的第 一枚金牌。那天天未亮，凯诺忍受着剧烈的胃痛，后来证实他患了严重的胆囊炎。(鉴于这种特殊情况) 他的保健医生们都反对他参加长跑，然而他却不予理会。在赛跑中，凯诺集中精力，全力以赴与美国长跑 能手吉木姆?润恩竞赛，后来他回忆说，“如果没有看实况录像，我都不知道比赛的最后时刻发生了什么 事情。”但他确实记得下面的事情，“为了庆祝胜利并恢复体力，我光荣地跑了一圈，兴奋得精疲力竭。” 那天，这不是唯一值得他纪念的事情，回到家，妻子菲利生了一个女儿，为了纪念他的胜利，就给她取名 为米尔卡?奥林匹克?克拉哥特。 接着，凯诺在墨西哥城举行的5000米长跑比赛中赢得一枚银牌，而四年后在慕尼黑的比赛中又赢得一 枚金牌和一枚银牌。1976到1986年，他成为肯尼亚奥运长跑教练，使得肯尼亚继续在长跑比赛中保持绝 对的优势地位。自1964年以来，肯尼亚长跑运动员已经获得32枚奥运田径奖牌，而且在波士顿马拉松比 赛中赢得了六连冠。今年夏天，凯诺将以120名肯尼亚运动员代团团长的身份去亚特兰大，代表团中包 括他的儿子马丁。马丁，23岁，亚利桑那州大学的全美大学生运动会5000米前冠军，有希望在1500米长 跑比赛中获胜。 但是，凯诺的运动成就不是他成为肯尼亚西北方埃尔多雷特市镇英雄的唯一理由。30年前，凯诺和他 的妻子开始收养孤儿，现在她已经是七个孩子的母亲。他们的房子变得如此拥挤，以致它们在凯诺自己的 农场附近集资建造了宿舍和餐厅。维持这些设施的经费来自他的农场、体育用品商店以及多年从肯尼亚政 府获得的酬金。今天，仍有2到22岁不同年龄段的73个孩子和年轻的成年人继续生活在农场。“我想我 是幸运的”，凯诺这样说道，“现在重要的是如何用我所拥有的去帮助其他人。” Lesson 2 A Gift of New Life 1 First came a boy weighing 3 pounds 14 ounces: Robert Jared Screws. After Robert Jared came his three sisters: Briannia Rae, 3 pounds 1 ounce; Brinkley Faye, 3 pounds 13 ounces; and Buckley Lenay, 4 pounds 2 ounces. All were tiny, but they were strong, healthy babies. In the hallway outside the operating room, friends and relatives wept and cheered as the quad wheeled them by, one by one, in their incubators. The babies stayed in the hospital about a month. Keith went there too, for more chemotherapy, and the nurses took one or two babies at a time to his room for a visit. That seemed to help him more than the medication. Then came a wonderful surprise. When we were ready to go home, we learned that a physicians' fund had provided a brand-new van for us, complete with four infant car seats. Keith was waiting for us at hone, frail mow and in constant pain, but also very happy. The whole community of Swainsboro and surrounding towns united in trying to help us. Countless women offered to baby-sit. Members of Keith's high school class prepared dinners for us twice a week. All sorts of fund-raising events were organized. A Kroger store on Wilmington Island near Savannah donated a year's supply of diapers and other baby needs. That helped, because the quads required 40 to 50 diapers a day! A man named Ricky Stevens came to measure our farmhouse for central air-conditioning, but went away concerned that the house was too small for six people. That night he could not sleep. He consulted a friend in real estate, Ken Warnock, and the two of them invited a group of Swainsboro businessmen to lunch. By the time Lunch was over, they had enough pledges to begin building a new house. There was a site on our land with a view of the pasture and grazing cattle. Our new house would be built there, a spacious home with five bedrooms-a master bedroom and one for each of the quads. As spring came to Georgia, Keith's health continued to decline. Still, he took great delight in his four babies. In the mornings he would hold them and play with them and help feed them. He got to be good at handling two bottles at a time. Before we left home for a chemo-treatment or doctor's appointment Keith would spend time alone with each baby. Later in the spring another operation was necessary, and complications followed. It became difficult for Keith to talk or breathe, and at last consciousness. His final words to me were,“I love you.”The doctors put him on a respirator, but they said it was only as matter of hours. I sat beside him holding his hand and whispering,“Be at peace. Be at peace.”And finally, on June 11, peace did come. He was 32 years old. Life went on. Ground was broken for the new house on a blue-and-gold day in December. The quads were old enough to stand, and each was old enough to stand, and each was given a little gilded shovel to mark the occasion. Many friends and neighbors were there, and the mayor of Swainsboro put our feelings into words:“We hope that when these babies are grown, they will look at this house and understand how much their father was respected and admired by everyone who knew him.” I have gone back to teaching. Devoted friends and relatives and fully qualified helpers take good care of the quads while I am away. Without Keith's illness we never would have recognized the amazing goodness that lies in people. The outpouring of love and compassion and caring that has surrounded us is almost beyond belief. One life was taken away from me, but four other lives were given to me to sustain and to comfort me. Facing death with Keith made me realize how precious life is. I cherish it and am grateful for it every single day. lesson 3 The Cause of the El Nino Phenomenon El Nino is the Spanish name for the baby Jesus. The phenomenon is so-called because warm water moving across the Pacific traditionally reaches South America around Christmas. Scientists have now applied the term El Nino to the major warming episodes over large South American coastal areas 2 and westernly along the equator and the Dateline area. Scientists noted the El Nino has a return period of four to five years and lasts between 12—18 months. In the late 1960s, it became apparent that the year-to-year variations in the sea surface temperature and consequently El Nino events, were closely linked to the Southern Oscillation, a relationship between atmospheric pressure over the southeastern Pacific and Indian Ocean. When pressure is high in the Pacific Ocean, it tends to be low in the Indian Ocean from Africa to Australia. These conditions are associated with low temperatures in both these areas and rainfall varies in the direction opposite the pressure.Thus, the combination of El Nino and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the linkage atmospheric and oceanic events and involves changes in circulations of the atmosphere and oceans across the Pacific Basin. The strongest El Nino this century occurred in 1982—1983 and resulted in droughts and disastrous forest fires in Indonesia and Australia, wreaking economic damage of at least US $8 billion. A major warming of the ocean waters across the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean, known as ENSO, has developed since March 1997. The El Nino developed very rapidly during April—May, and reached strong intensity by June. This event is currently comparable in magnitude and extent to the 1982/1983 episode. lesson 4 Our Changing Diet What do most Americans and Canadians usually eat? Many people think that the typical North American diet consists of fast food-hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, pizza, fried chicken, and so on. They think Americans and Canadians also eat a lot of convenience foods, usually frozen or caned, and junk food-candy, cookies, potato chips, and other things without much nutritional value. Unfortunately, this description is mot totally inaccurate. The American diet is generally high in sugar, salt, fat, and cholesterol, and these substances can cause health problems. However, some people's eating habits are changing. They are becoming more interested in good health, and nutrition is an important part of health. North Americans are eating less red meat and fewer eggs, and they are eating more chicken and fish. Chicken and fish contain less fat than meat and eggs. Many people are also buying more fresh vegetables and eating them raw or cooked quickly in very little water in order to keep the vitamins. Restaurant menus are also changing to reflect people's growing concern with good nutrition. The “typical” North American diet now includes food from many different countries. More ethnic restaurants are opening in big cities in the United States and Canada. Foods from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, India and the Middle East are very popular. Even fast-food places now offer “lean” (low-fat) hamburgers, broiled or roasted (instead of fried) chicken, and salad bars with a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. How are we going to eat in the future? Because we now know about the importance of nutrition, we will probably continue to eat more fish and vegetables and less meat. We will still buy convenience foods in supermarkets, but frozen foods may be more nutritious and canned foods may have less salt and sugar. Our junk food will not be “junk” at all because instead of candy bars we will eat “nutrition bars” with a lot of vitamins and protein. In the future, our diet will probably be even more interesting and healthful than it is now. In the United States and Canada, food is a very common topic of conversation. People are always discussing new dishes, restaurants, diet plans, and ideas about nutrition. The arguments about the best diets and foods will continue: Are vegetables better than a diet of cooked foods? Is a little alcohol good for relaxation, or is all alcohol harmful? Is some caffeine good for energy, or is caffeine always bad? Can yellow vegetables really prevent cancer? Will eating garlic help avoid heart attacks? One thing we do know for sure:the key to good nutition is balance. How do we achieve that balance? We can choose foods from a variety of sources, control the quantities that we eat, limit fats, and exercise. lesson 5 I Did It 3 “I did it.” This is what newly-crowned Olympic gymnastics champion Li Xiaoshuang wanted to say most after his victory here on Sunday night at the 25th Olympic Games. Li scored 9.925 points by successfully completing his somersault tuck, becoming the first male gymnast ever to execute this maneuver in the optional apparatus finals. The program was extremely difficult. Failure could have been met by his head slamming the mat. Former Soviet Valery Liukin had once done this tuck in the team competition. “all the gymnasts before me had pretty high scores and this was the only way out for me,” said Li. “I knew I could end up either first or last.” Li also won a bronze in the rings with a 9.862. Grigori Misutin of the Unified Team scored 9.875 points to share second place with Japanese Yukio Iketani. Right after his safe landing, Li rushed to his coach and former world parallel bars champion Huang Yubing. The two broke into tears and embraced each other after the final gymnast, Vitali Scherbo of the Unified Team, failed to surpass Li. Li's gold was China's first in the floor exercises since 1984, when Li Ning won at the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Until the 1987 World Championships in Amsterdam where Lou Yun won the floor exercise, the event was dominated by the former Soviet Union gymnasts. “Though the floor is his specialty, Li still performed above his normal level,” said coach Huang, who shed from the award ceremony and watched it on TV at the back of the gymnasium. “It's not an easy job,” Li said. “It's the result of my hard training. And that three backward somersaults was the first rime that I have done it successfully.” “I want to thank my parents and especially my coach Huang who contributed greatly to my success.” Li joined the national team at the end of 1989 and his highest international achievement was first place in the floor exercises of the Beijing Asian Games. At last year's Indianapolis World Championships, he was the best non-Soviet gymnast in the all-around competition, placing fourth, though he failed to score higher than 9.75 points in any apparatus. He was only sixth in the floor competition. He was still so little-known that even with his World Championship achievement here at the Olympics, computer statistics erroneously listed him as having done badly competing in two women's events, the uneven bars and the balance beam. Li said he learned a lot here in Barcelona, both in gymnastics and manhood. He said in the team all-around competition, he repeatedly got low scores, and did not get the amount of points he should get for the degree of difficulty and execution of routines. But he kept the complaints to himself. Yet his execution in the floor final was so perfect that nobody doubted he was the gold medal winner. The 18-year-old from Hubei Province said that his regular training was not only technical but also mental. He said to himself three times, “Start and leap, accelerate and land,” which he said was crucial in winning. Li also took part in the 1990 Seattle Goodwill Games and finished second in the floor exercises, and is now regarded as the Chinese team's best all-around gymnast, especially after former best Li Ning missed both in the pommel horse and high bar finals Sunday night. lesson 6 Our Changing Lifestyles:Trends and Fads These days urban lifestyles seem to change very fast. It is more than just clothing and hairstyles that are in style one year and out of date the next; it's a whole way of living. One year people wear sunglasses on top of their heads and wear jeans and boots; they drink white wine and eat sushi at Japanese restaurants; for exercise they jog several miles a day. However, the 4 next year everything has changed. Women wear long skirts; people drink expensive water from France and eat pasta at ltalian restaurants; everyone seems to be exercising at health clubs. Then, suddenly, it has changed again. People wear only natural fabric (safe for the environment); they drink gourmet coffee and eat Thai food; for both leisure and exercise, they go rollerblading. Almost nothing in modern life escapes the influence of fashion; food, music, exercise, book, slang words, movies, furniture, places to visit, even names go in and out of fashion. For a while, it seems that all mew parents are naming their babies Heather, Dawn, Eric, or Adam. These names are “in.” then, suddenly, these names are “out,” and Tiffany and Jason are “in.” It's almost impossible to write about specific fads because these interests that people enthusiastically follow can change very quickly. In the United States, even people can be “in” or “out.” Like people in any country, Americans enjoy following the lives of celebrities: movie stars, sports heroes, famous artists, politicians, and the like. But Americans also pay a lot of attention to people who have no special ability and have done nothing very special. In 1981, for example, an unknown elderly woman appeared in a TV commercial in which she looked at a vary small hamburger and complained loudly, “Where's the beef?” These three words made her famous. Suddenly she appeared in magazines and newspapers and on TV shows. She was immediately popular. She was “in.” In 1987, an exterminator in Dallas, Texas, decided that he would be very happy if he could find more customers for his small business; he needed more people to pay him to kill the insects and rats in their houses.He put an unusual advertisement in a Dallas newspaper. He offered to pay $1,000 to the person who could find the biggest cockroach. This strange offer made him suddenly famous. There were stories about him nationwide-from New York to California. He was “in.” However, this kind of fame does not last long. Such people are famous for a very short time. This is the essence, the central, quality,of a fad. It doesn't last long. Some fads disappear before we have all even heard of them. How many people remember Green peace swimsuits? They changed color to indicate polluted water. And then there was “Beethoven Bread.” Popular in Japan in 1994, it was expensive-$20 for one loaf. It was made while classical music played in the kitchen. The woman who created this bread emphasized that “bread doesn't like rock music.” A person who participates in fads should remember that they come and go very fast, and they often come back in style after 10 to 15 years of being “out.” It might be a good idea never to throw anything away. Mickey Mouse watches and Nehru Jackets may soon be “in” again! lesson 7 Compulsive Spenders Are you a compulsive spender, or do you hold on to your money as long as possible? Are you a bargain hunter? Would you rather use charge accounts than pay cash? Your answer to those questions will reflect your personality. According to psychologists, our individual money habits not only show our beliefs and values, but can also develop from past problems. Experts in psychology believe that for many people, money is an important symbol of strength and influence. Husbands who complain about their wives' spending habits may be afraid that they are loosing power in their marriage. Wives, on the other hand, may waste huge amounts of money because they are angry with their husbands. In addition, many people consider money a symbol of love. They spend it on their families and friends to express love, or they buy themselves expensive presents because they need love. People can be addicted to different things, for example, alcohol, drugs, certain foods, or even television. They are compulsive in their addictions, that is, they must a satisfy these needs to feel comfortable. In the same way, according to psychologists, compulsive spenders must spend more money. For those who buy on credit, further more, charge accounts are even more exciting than money: in other words, these people feel that with credit they can do anything. Their pleasure at spending enormous amounts is actually greater than the pleasure they get from the things they buy. There is even a special psychology of bargain hunting. To save money, of course, most people look for sales, low prices, and discounts. Compulsive bargain hunters, however, often buy things that they don't need just because they are cheap. They want to believe that they are helping their 5 budget, but they are really playing an exciting game: when they can buy something for less than other people, they are winning. It is not only scientists, of course, who understand the psychology of spending habits, but also business people. Stores, companies, and advertisers use psychology to increase business. They consider people's need for love, power or influence, as well as their values, beliefs and opinions, in their advertising and sales methods. Psychologists often use a method called “behavior therapy” to help individuals solve their personality problems. In the same way, they can help people who feel that they have problems with money. They give them “assignments.” If a person buys something in every store that he enters, for instance, a therapist might teach him self-discipline in this way. On the first of his therapy, he must go into a store, for five minutes, and then leave. On the second day, he should stay for ten minutes and try something on. On the third day he stays for fifteen minutes, asks the sales clerk a question, but does not buy anything. Soon he will learn that nothing bad will happen to him if he doesn's buy anything, and he can solve the problem of his compulsive buying. lesson 8 Stories of Christmas In many countries of the world, The celebration of Christmas on December 25th is a high point of the year. From November onward, it is impossible to forget that Christmas is coming. Colored lights decorate many town centers and shops, along with shimmy decorations and artificial snow painted on shop windows. In streets and shops, “Christmas trees” (real or plastic evergreen conifer trees) will also be decorated with lights and Christmas ornaments. Shopping centers become busier as December approaches and often stay open till late. By mid-December, most homes will also be decorated with Christmas trees, colored lights and paper or plastic decorations around the rooms. These days many more people also decorate garden trees or house walls with colored electric lights, a habit, which has been long popular in USA. In many countries, most people post Christmas greeting cards to their friends and families, and these cards will be hung on the walls of their homes. The custom of sending Christmas cards started in Britain in 1840 when the first “Penny Post” public postal deliveries began. (Helped by the new railway system, the public postal service was the 19th century's communication revolution, just as e-mail is for us today.) As printing method improved, Christmas cards were produced in large numbers from about 1860. Today, pictures are often about jokes, winter pictures, Father Christmas, or romantic scenes of life in past times. Father Christmas (or Santa Claus) has become the symbol of Christmas. Pictures will be seen everywhere of the old man with long white beard, red coat, and bag of toys. Children are taught that he brings them presents the night before Christmas, and many children up to the age 7 or 8 really believe this is true. In most countries, it is said that he lives near the North Pole, and arrives through the sky on a sledge (snow-cart) pulled by reindeer. He comes into houses down the chimney at midnight and places presents for the children in socks or bags by their beds or in front of the family Christmas tree. In shops or at children's parties, someone will dress up as Father Christmas and give small presents to children, or ask them what gifts they want for Christmas. Christmas can be a time of magic and excitement for children. Father Christmas is based on a real person, St. Nicholas, which explains his other name “Santa Claus” which comes from the Dutch “Sinterklaas.” Nicholas was a Christian leader from Myra (in modern-day Turkey) in the 4th century AD. He was very shy, and wanted to give money to the poor people without their knowing about it. It is said that one day, he climbed up the roof of a house and dropped a purse of money down the chimney. It happened to land in the stocking which a girl had put to dry by the fire! This may explain the belief that Father Christmas comes down the chimney and places gifts in children's stockings. In English speaking countries, the day following Christmas Day is called “Boxing Day.” This word comes from the custom which started in the Middle Ages around 800 years ago: Churches would open their “alms box” (boxes in which people had placed gifts of money) and distribute the contents to poor people in the neighborhood on the day after Christmas. The tradition continues today. 6 lesson 9 White House The USA Chief Executive Mansion, White House, stands on a knoll on the Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington overlooking the Potomac River. The cornerstone was laid in 1792 and in 1800 it was initially completed. Since the second President John Adams first moved into the house, all the US presidents have lived and worked there. However, in 1814, when the English was at war with America, the White House was set on fire by the British army. Only its enclosing wall survived but stained with scorch marks. It took three years to hide the White House renovated and be available for use.In order to hide the scars of war, the burnt wall was covered with many layers of white paint, hence the name White House was given. It was President Theodore Roosevelt who officially named it first in 1902. The White House is an 18-acre-estate, yet the major of the ground is filled with lawns, gardens, tennis courts, outdoor swimming pools, bowling alleys, game rooms, movie theaters, horseshoe pits and other subsidiary facilities. The 26-meter highs 3-floored main section consisting of 132 rooms is mot quite spacious. In the west are the magnificent State Dining Room and the bright and commodious East Room which is the place for balls and art performances. The other three smaller rooms are resplendent in their decorations. Each of them has its distinctive features and has its name matching the colors of the wall, ceilings, carpets, and the like in it. The Blue Room in the middle is an oval office used officially for receiving heads of state and foreign diplomats. The Red Room in the west characterized in the US style in early 19th century, is a family parlor, and the Green Room is used as an all-purpose parlor for playing cards and chess or having a chat. The second floor is president family's private living quarters, and on the third floor are offices of president's secretaries' store rooms and service center. President's office complex is in the west wing. In addition to the Cabinet Room, The Diplomat Reception Room, the Treaty Room, etc., the most important one is the Oval Office, the heartland for president to formulate policies and make decisions. Just outside the Oval Office is the charming Rose blooming with flowers and plants, where state dinners and ceremonial events are sometimes held. In the East Wing, are offices of First Ladies' and wording staffs. The Kennedy Garden lying outside of those offices is for press conferences and tea parties. The well-known South Lawn is often used for arrival ceremonies in honor of visiting heads of state. lesson 10 Paris, France A short time later our plane began to slow and bank. Lovely, green England came into view, but we soon left England behind. After watching the English Channel slip by, France appeared, the land carved into squares of green and brown. Paris, lovely, green romantic Paris, a city of contrasts-I fell in love with her as so many others have before me. Magnificent modern buildings were everywhere, but in between them stood tiny ancient shops and apartments. As long as I live, I'll remember my first night in Paris when I stood on Montamarte, the highest hill in the city, the lights of Paris spread in a panorama below while the cool autumn breeze whispered through the trees. I could not believe I was really there! The next morning, we enjoyed a tour of Paris, which is just as beautiful by day as by night. The tree-lined streets were spotless, for each morning, water from the River Seine flows from drains onto the streets where shopkeepers with long reed brooms sweep the streets clean. We drove past many famous restaurants, shops and apartment houses. At the end of the most famous street in Paris, the Champs Elysse, stood the golden Arch of Triumph through which the Allies in World War ? marched after driving defeated Germans from the city. As we walked through the grounds around Notre Dame, I gazed above me at imposing Gothic towers silhouetted like giant sentinels against the gray sky. From the top of the Cathedral wall rain spouts jutted about every twelve feet, each spout made in the face of an animal, the rain pouring from its mouth. 7 Inside the Cathedral, exquisite, elegant rosette stained glass windows gleamed from a sudden burst of sunlight forcing its way through the clouds as though heaven had opened long enough to light them for us. One of the windows had been badly damaged during World War ?. All the colors in the replacement glass perfectly match the undamaged window except blue; the formula for this shade of blue had been lost and could not be duplicated no matter how hard the artists tried. To my untrained eye, it was undetected. The Eiffel Tower, an extraordinary edifice made of interlocking steel girders soared into the sky, glittering brightly in the sunlight. The Eiffel Tower, a skeleton iron tower, is 934 feet high, built as a feature of the World's Fair held in Paris in 1889. The lower section consists of four arched columns, each providing a supporting base 330 feet square. The columns curve toward each other until they unite in a single column 620 feet above the ground. Platforms are at the 189 ft., the 380 feet and 906 feet levels on the first level is a restaurant. Each platform has its own observation deck. The Eiffel Tower plays an important part in scientific research, first being utilized as a radio broadcasting station. Searchlights are mounted near the top as are a meteorological observatory and physical and biological laboratories. We rode in an elevator as far as it could go toward the top of the Eiffel Tower and climbed narrow metal steps the rest of the way to a platform high in the sky. We could see the whole city of Paris from there-a most breathtaking sight. lesson 11 Medicines May Soon Come in the Form of Food If Western people think they are healthy eaters, they will have to think again. The no cholesterol, low-fat, high-fiber, calcium-enriched,sugar-less,peservative-additive-color-free-with-added-vitamins diet is about to become a passing fashion. The new “buzz word” in the food industry is nutraceuticals-foods that provide medical benefits as well as traditional nutrients. “Imagine a supermarket where each food category is subdivided into categories for those consumers who have back problems, are at risk from cardiovascular disease, obesity, arthritis and other diseases,” says Mark Braman, president of the American food company Omega Tech. “Imagine great-tasting foods that help protect the body from major diseases and environmental damage.” That vision is starting to become a reality. Last year in Britain, the chemical company Roche launched Startup, a fruit juice that contains twice as many vitamins as milk. Multinational food giant Nestle is marketing a yogurt fortified with ingredients that rid the body of bacteria. In the new millennium, natural foods won't be able to compete with bio-engineered and processed foods. The lycopene discovery is a case in point. Processed tomato products containing oil that facilitates the absorption of lycopene are better than eating the real thing, raw tomatoes. The conventional wisdom, however, is that, if you have a well-balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables, you'll get all the vitamins and minerals and nutrients you need for a healthy body. Supplements, nutritionists often claim, are a waste of money. According to Dr Sheldon Saul Hendler, nutritional adviser to the US Olympic Committee, vitamin and mineral deficiencies occur in healthy individuals eating generally adequate diets. In The Doctor's Vitamin and Mineral Encyclopedia, he writes: “There is growing evidence that substances in our 'well-balanced' diets contribute to cancer and other degenerative diseases. A vitamin and mineral supplement is recommended for even healthy individuals as a key element in the prevention of many of these degenerative diseases.” The trick is to know which vitamins and minerals you need to supplement. Some of that guesswork may be eliminated by the introduction of more vitamin and mineral-enriched foods. In Australia, scientists want to lace beer with thiamine (vitamin B1) to reduce the instance of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, a potentially fatal brain disorder found in heavy drinkers. Vitamin and mineral-enriched foods, however, may also create problems through over-dosing and interaction. The optimal dose for many vitamins and minerals is unknown and some can be toxic 8 in high doses. If you find yourself unaccountably laughing, for instance, you could be overdosing on manganese. Manganese madness is a recognized disorder that can produce manic states followed by deep depression. As nutraceuticals or functional foods start to fill the supermarket shelves, it will become harder to work out exactly what dosage of vitamins and minerals we are ingesting or what effect it is having on us. The line between food and medicine will become increasingly blurred, and the health claims more imaginative. Most food companies are reluctant to have their product categorized as a medicine, because of the requirement for expensive research and lengthy clinical trials. In the US and Europe, nutraceuticals exist in a regulatory twilight zone. Problems aside, though, the mew revolution in food could produce some useful lifestyle products. lesson 12 Repeats Repeats Repeats It takes a lot of investment in promotion, product design, operations, and lots of other stuff to attract and be ready to serve a new customer. Then, when you actually attract a new customer, you may have to educate him or her about your products, sales, and business policies. You may have to do a credit check, set up a new account for the new customer, create a new file with a new label just for that new customer, and gather lots of information about that customer in order to provide them with the service they expect. Add up all that effort, and you can see that adding a new customer to your business can take quite an investment in time, money, and energy. Business experts who study this kind of thing figure that it costs something like five times more to serve a new customer than a repeat customer. Here are two very important truths about why creating repeat customers through outstanding service is worth the trouble: 1.Repeat=Lower Expense Most organizations spend much of their time and energy acquiring new customers. They advertise. Certainly, a business can grow by adding new customers. But it might be much more profitable by spending more energy encouraging existing customers to buy again and again. Here's why. Existing customers already know your company. They have an idea of what it stands for. They have sampled the quality of its merchandise. So it should cost far less-maybe even nothing-to encourage satisfied customers (you did satisfy them, didn't you?) to return time and again. To attract great masses of the uninitiated to try your company for the first time costs far more. They don't know about your business and they certainly don't care about it. So in order to get their attention and motivate them to give you a try, you often need to buy ads, send countless mailings, offer steep discounts, and increase sales compensation. Would you rather spend $10 on ads, mailings, special discounts and the like to attract a new customer for their first $50 purchase, or 50?E to mail a customized reminder letter to your repeat customer who may well make two or three additional $50 purchases with nothing more expensive than some heartfelt words of encouragement and appreciation? 2.Repeat=Revenue Supposing a customer goes every morning to the same convenience store for a large coffee. He spends about a dollar on it. To the clerk completing the transaction on any given morning, this is a $1 customer. But this same customer also makes a habit of returning at lunch and buying a prepared sandwich, a soda, and a snack for the afternoon, about a $6 transaction. Sometimes he brings his friends in the store and they each spend a few dollars for lunch, too. Then, on his way home at night, he often stops at the store for another cup of coffee and maybe picks up a half-gallon of milk. So in an average week, this “$1 cop of coffee customer” actually spends somewhere around $30 to $50 in that convenience store, not to mention whatever his buddies spend on their lunches. So in an average year, this $1 transaction guy is actually visiting the store two or three times a day, about four days out of the week, and dropping upwards of $1,500 per year! Imagine if this 9 same customer continues to return day after day, year after year for as long as he lives in the area (like 15 or 20 or more years), That $1 cup of coffee customer may be worth some 20 grand to that store. If you owned that store, wouldn't you want each of your employees to understand that each $1 customer could represent a whole lot more potential revenue? And wouldn't you want to made sure that mo $1 customer, potentially worth 20 grand to you, was ever driven away forever by a sour cup of coffee or a sour employee? And while the products and the numbers are different for your business, isn't the principle of creating a repeat customer equally true and important for your business? lesson 13 Banking on the Poor For many people, there seems to be no escape from poverty; in other words, they are poor, and they have no hope that this will ever change. In addition, they have the social problems of poverty. Imagine this situation: a poor woman has an idea for a small business to lift her and her family out of poverty. She needs a little money to begin this business. She goes to a bank to borrow the money, and the banker interviews her. At this bank, as at most banks, the borrower must meet three necessary conditions: character, capacity, and collateral. That is, if this woman wants to borrow money from the bank, she must show that she is honest (has a character), is able to run her business (has capacity), and owns a house, land, or something valuable (collateral)for the bank to take if she cannot pay back the money. So what happens to the woman? The bank won't lend her the money because she doesn't have any collateral. One possible solution these days is microlending. This is a system of special banks and programs that are loaning money to people in “borrowing groups.” For example, an international organization called Good Faith lends small amounts of money to people who want to go into business. Each person must do two things to borrow money: take classes in business and join a borrowing group. This is a group of microentrepreneurs-i.e., people who own and run their own small business. Everyone in the group must approve the loan of every other group member, or Good Faith won't lend the money. To receive a loan from Good Faith, people still must have character. They find capacity in the business classes. But collateral is not necessary any longer. Instead of collateral, there is peer pressure; i.e., group members make sure that each person pays back his or her loan. They want to keep their “good name” and continue doing business with good faith. Good Faith has had many successes and only a few failures. In Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a small town in the United States, one person was able to open a hair salon, another a plant shop, and a car decorating business-all with loans from Good Faith. In a developing country such as Bangladesh, a person can begin a small business with only $10 to $15. Because of many small loans from Good Faith, there are now 1.6 million new entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. Of course, not all these loans were a success. At first, Good Faith lent half of the money to men and half to women. Unfortunately, most of the Bangladeshi men spent the money on themselves, not the business. Now good Faith does business mainly with women's borrowing groups in that country. In any country, women are the poorest of the poor. They produce more than half of the world's food, but they own just one percent of the world's land. They are 51 percent of the world's population, but very, very little money goes to programs to help them. In the late 1980s, Anne Firth Murray took the initiative and began the Global Fund for Women. This fund now has more than $3 million. It has given money to over 400 women's groups in 94 countries. Unlike Good Faith, which helps people begin businesses, the Global Fund for Women helps to solve social problems-e.g., violence and lack of education. For instance, the fund has helped a group of Palestinian and Jewish women who are working together to stop violence against women. It is giving money to a woman in village in southern India; she has started a literacy program to teach poor women to read. Good Faith and the Global Fund for Women have lesson for banks around the world: it's a“safe bet” to lend money to the poor. With careful planning, education, and cooperation, most people use the money well and they plow the money and knowledge back into their communities. There is hope that they can begin to break the cycle of poverty for themselves, their families, and society. lesson 14 10 My First Job-The Maid I was studying theater at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and feeling anxious and uncertain about my future. Will I be able to support myself? I wondered. That summer, I decided to if I could get out on my own. Two girlfriends and I piled into a car and headed to Aspen, Colo., where I found a job as a maid at a resort hotel. I don't remember what I earned, but it was so little that I lived on spaghetti, brown rice and Kool-Aid. I was at the hotel by six o'clock every morning to help with continental breakfast. When breakfast was finished, I cleaned the room where it was served and then the conference rooms and lobby rest rooms. I had never been in a men's room before, and I was always terrified of someone walking in while I was on my knees scrubbing the floors and toilets. I came from an upper-middle-class background, and my parents' friends always treated me well. But now that I was a servant, I found that many of the guests of the same background were not so nice. That was a shock. People were supposed to serve themselves at the continental breakfast; it was my job to circulate through the room and replenish coffee and juice. But some people wanted me to do everything for them. I remember one man who kept ordering me to get his food and demanding things we did not serve. He was also very critical. Even though I wanted to say, “Go, get it yourself,” I knew it was my job to be quiet and do in a nice way whatever I was told. So I'd take a deep breath and somehow get what he wanted. Still, I've never forgotten how it felt to be spoken to so rudely.Today,whenever I am in a cab or being waited on, I always try to be as considerate as possible. Service-industry jobs are not easy, and they're even harder when people treat you like dirt. My first job also helped me achieve more confidence. After that summer I realized that what I had been afraid of in acting was failure. I now knew what the worst thing would be if I failed at it without really trying. I decided to give it all my energy. If I failed, at least I would always know that I had done my best. lesson 15 New Tower Will Celebrate Handover of Macao to China A giant tower will be built on the waterfront at Macao at a very fast pace in time for the December 1999 celebrations marking the Portuguese enclave's handover to China. The tower will be built in quick time because of the use of computer-assisted design, and building technology which will allow four meters of tower to be built up every six days. The technology allows construction workers to set up a platform called a “jump form” with two levels. As the top level is added on, remedial and finishing work continued on the bottom level from a veranda site. This technology was successfully used to build a Sky Tower in Auckland. New Zealand, ahead of schedule. The architects and engineers who built the New Zealand tower have taken their expertise to Macao. New Zealand architect Gordon Moller, his firm, Craig Craig Moller,and Aukland consulting engineers Beca Group,have formed a joint venture, CCMBeca, for the Macao project, which has been given the go-ahead by the Macao government. The Macao tower will be 338 meters tall, 10m taller than Sky Tower in Auckland. The height of 338m was a deliberate choice, architect Gordon Molar says, to give the tower good feng shui through the numbers 3 and 8. The tower will taper up 1000 people at a time, compared with 840 for the Sky Tower in Auckland. The tower will be a frontispiece for Macao, as it is set on the Pearl River waterfront on a promontory which is a reclamation area between the Nam Van lakes. Piling and construction for the raft on which the tower will sit in May 1998, and work on the main building started in July. The exterior will be done in time for the handover of Macao 11 to China on December 20 in 1999, and the entire job will be finished well ahead of millenium celebrations in the year 2000. The Macao tower is a welcome to mainland China from Stanley Ho, the 76-year-old who owns all Macao's casinos and the hover-ferries which take an hour to cross from Hong Kong. Mr. Ho's company, Siciedade de Tourisme e Diversoes de Macao (STDM), is the client for the New Zealand architects and engineers working on the tower project which will cost $85 million (RMB 380 million). A local contractor is building the first stage of the Macao tower, with the New Zealand joint venture doing all design work. This includes consultancy on the effect of wind on the high structure. A team from Monash University in Australia who are experts in design and wind forces will be part of the intentional team which will consult in the effects of the elements of such a high structure. “It's a sculptural tower. We've created a substantial open plaza with a conference center and entertainment center alongside, all integrated,” Mr. Moller says. The Macao tower's piles go down 50 meters to solid granite foundation under the track that working drawings will still be on the design board as the tower rises. lesson 16 Two Truths to Live By The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox, it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of old put it this way:“A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open.” Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God's own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what was and then suddenly realize that it is no more. We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered. This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, will, be ours. But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely this second truth dawns upon us. At every stage of life we sustain losses-and grow in the process. We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. We enter a progression of schools; then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We confront the death of our parents and our spouses. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our own strength. And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be. Life is never just being. It is a becoming, a relentless flowing on. Out parents live on through us, and we will live on through our children. The institutions we build endure, and we will endure through them. The beauty we fashion cannot be dimmed by death. Our flesh may perish, our hands will wither, but that which they create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come. Don't spend and waste your lives accumulating objects that will only turn to dust and ashes. Pursue not so much the material as the ideal, for ideals alone invest life with meaning and are of enduring worth. Add love to a house and you have a home, add righteousness to a city and you have a community. Add truth to a pile of red brick and you have a school. Add religion to the humblest of edifices 12 and you have a sanctuary.Add justice to the far-flung round of human endeavor and you have civilization. Put them all together, exalt them above their present imperfections, add to them the vision of humankind redeemed, forever free of need and strife and you have a future lighted with the radiant colors of hope. lesson 17 Should We Clone Humans? One of the abiding Scifi nightmares has been the idea that we could one day replicate human beings asexually, just by copying material from human cells. Luckily, scientific assessments have generally regarded this as something pretty remote. Roslin's scientists have announced that the nuclear transfer technique they have applied to produce Dolly could be in theory applied to humans. Whether anyone would try and whether it would work is another matter. But the “what if” question must now be asked with much more seriousness than would have ever been justified before. Two aspects of the Roslin discovery have set the world of biotechnology alight. One is the fact that a somatic tissue from an adult has been used to produce a live animal. This has rewritten one of the laws of biology. Up to now it has been assumed that once animal cells go through the mysterious process of differentiation, and become a particular type of cell, they cannot go back to being undifferentiated. The second is that you can clone a large mammal from the cells off an adult of the species. It is this second aspect that has caught the public imagination,because it has dramatically brought forward the question of whether it could be possible to realize the Scifi dreams of cloned humans. Faced with such a fertile prospect, the human imagination runs riot, and the media have come up with some very bizarre ideas. For example, one article claimed that we might clone humans to select out genetic defects of select for desirable traits. Scientifically it would still be a big leap to go from cloning a sheep to cloning humans and it is premature to discuss this as if it were inevitably going to happen. But this discovery means that we have at least got to ask the question, “what if?” Cloning humans is ethically unacceptable. Dr. Wilmut, the scientist involved, and his colleagues at Roslin have made it quite clear that they think that to clone humans would be unethical. On principle, to replicate any human technologically is against the basic dignity of the uniqueness of each human being. Some have speculated whether it would be possible on the basis of these discoveries to grow not an entire human being, but living organs from cells. This might have certain potential to treat diseased organs or malfunctioning body processes. There would be many practical questions to answer, but it might be less of a problem ethically. One ethical point would be that it would only be done for the benefit of the individual involved, or, with appropriate informed consent, a close relative. Perhaps the biggest ethical problem would be that of “gradualism.” By a progression of small steps you could eventually provide all the conditions needed to clone the entire human being. This raises a much deeper question about how the direction of research is determined and controlled. lesson 18 The Attack on Pearl Harbor It seems that fate was on the side of the Japanese. At 6:30 a.m. on 7 December a small Japanese submarine entered a prohibited area off Oahu and was sunk by destroyers and aircraft. The naval watch-officer was informed and, in his turn, informed the Chiefs-of-Staff at Pearl Harbor; but for some reason no general alert was given. More extraordinary still, it is a fact that at 7:00 a.m. the operator of a provisional detector station out in the Pacific belonging to the American Army reported a large flight of airplanes about 210 kilometers from Oahu to the east-north-east. An army lieutenant decided that the airplanes must obviously be friendly ones and took on action. 13 An unusually cloudy sky added to Japanese luck. A routine dawn patrol of American aircraft had passed over Oahu and reported nothing. At 7:50 a.m. on that Sunday morning a great noise of approaching aircraft attacked the ships in the harbor and the naval installations; high-level bombers bombed the airfields and also Honolulu some 11 kilometers away. The attacks were followed by fighter planes firing machine-guns with incendiary bullets, particularly at the planes on the airfield; some pocket submarines attacked the harbor at the same time. Just as there had been no adequate air or sea patrols, so inside Pearl Harbor no precautions against attack had been taken; warships were moored close one against another and a larger proportion of officers and ratings were on leave and many sleeping ashore. A similar peace-time carelessness pervaded the Hickham army airfield close to Pearl Harbor and other aerodromes on the island. Before the last attack, which was made at 9:00 a.m. and which met with heavy anti-aircraft and naval gun-fire, the Japanese were able to strafe their objectives almost without resistance and the aircraft were able to return to their carriers to refuel and to return to the attack. Of the eight battleships, the Arizona, California and Utah, a target ship, were sunk outright; the Oklahoma capsized shortly after being bombed; the Nevada was set on fire and put out of action for many months; the three others were more or less seriously damaged. Considerable additional damages were done to ships, a minelayer was sunk, three cruisers damaged, two destroyers sunk and another damaged. Some 2,300 officers and men were killed and some hundreds of the nearly two thousand wounded died later. The Japanese are said to have lost 60 aircraft, whilst the Americans had 173 destroyed and over 100 damaged. 14