单选题The church of La Placita, "the little square", formally called Nuestra Se ora Reina de Los Angeles, was founded under Spanish rule at around the same time as the pueblo bearing the same name, the future Los Angeles. Catholicism and Hispanic culture seemed inseparable there. They still largely are. Virtually all Father Estrada's parishioners are Hispanic, most of them of Mexican extraction. When Guatemalan and Salvadorean refugees showed up in the 1980s, it was natural for them, as good Catholics, to find sanctuary at La Placita, where they slept on the pews and Father Estrada gave them food. It was natural again in 2006, when the country went on an anti-immigrant binge, for many of the Latino counter-marches to start from La Placita. Latinos still come from all over southern California for baptisms and prayer, social services and a sense of community. But more and more grandmothers also come to Father Estrada with worries about children or grandchildren who have become hermanos separados, separated brothers, after defecting to an evangelical church, usually one with a Pentecostal flavour. The converts may have followed one of the evangelicals who come to La Placita to recruit, or friends whom they met at a spiritual rock concert or picnic. "I don't worry, but I find it to be challenging," says Father Estrada. Some 68% of Hispanics in America are still Catholic, according to the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank, and their absolute number, thanks to immigration and higher birth rates, continues to increase. But about 15% are now born-again evangelicals, who are fast gaining "market share", as Gaston Espinosa, a professor of religion at Claremont McKenna College, puts it. He estimates that about 3.9m Latino Catholics have converted, and that "for everyone who comes back to the Catholic Church, four leave it. " The main reason, he thinks, is ethnic identity. Evangelical services are not only in Spanish, as many Catholic sermons are nowadays, but are performed by Latinos rather than Irish or Polish-American priests, with the cadences, rhythms, innuendos and flow familiar from the mother country. The evangelical services tend to be livelier than Catholic liturgy and to last longer, often turning into an outing lasting the whole day. Women play greater roles, and there are fewer parishioners for each pastor than in the Catholic Church. The evangelical churches are also more "experiential", says Samuel Rodriguez, a third- generation Puerto Rican Pentecostal pastor and the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, an evangelical association. In the Catholic Church, a believer's relationship with Jesus is mediated through hierarchies and bureaucracies, he says, whereas the evangelical churches provide direct access to Jesus. The Pentecostals go one step further, with the "gifts of the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians) letting believers speak in tongues and pray for divine healing. "This is the first group in America to reconcile both the vertical and the horizontal parts of the cross," says Mr. Rodriguez. By this he means that the Latino evangelical churches emphasise not only " covenant, faith and righteousness" (the vertical part), as white evangelicals do, but also " community, public policy and social justice" (the horizontal part), as many black evangelicals, but fewer white ones, do. To Latino evangelicals it is all one thing, he says, and the social outreach the church provides goes far beyond any government programme, with pastors snatching young men away from gang life and fighting to uphold the rights of immigrants. This also means that Latino evangelicals as a political force are distinct from white evangelicals. Many of the whites have veered hard right, hating abortion and gay marriage and reliably voting Republican, though less so very recently. Latinos tend to be even more pro-life and traditional marriage than whites, says Mr. Rodriguez, but only because they know that "mom and dad in the home is the prime antidote to gangs and drugs. " That same pragmatism makes them believe in government services and the taxes that pay for them, and of course in immigrant rights. As voters, he reckons, Latino evangelicals are therefore the quintessential independents, up for grabs by either party. But it may be American Catholicism that changes the most. About a third of American Catholics are Latino now, and their share is growing. They are also different Catholics, with more than half describing themselves as " charismatics ", according to the Pew report. Charismatics remain in their traditional denomination, but believe in some aspects of Pentecostalism, such as the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the speaking in tongues. Latino charismatics see themselves as a renewal movement within Catholicism, as it converges with other churches. And in general all churchgoing Latinos tend to see themselves as renewing Christianity in America. That makes them a powerful force as demographic changes turn America ever more Hispanic, and increasingly different from secular Europe.

单选题It has been a wretched few weeks for America's. celebrity bosses. AIG's Maurice Greenberg has been dramatically ousted from the firm through which he dominated global insurance for decades. At Morgan Stanley a mutiny is forcing Philip Purcell, a boss used to getting his own way, into an increasingly desperate campaign to save his skin. At Boeing, Harry Stonecipher was called out of retirement to lead the scandal-hit firm and raise ethical standards, only to commit a lapse of his own, being sacked for sending e-mails to a lover who was also an employee. Carly Fiorina was the most powerful woman in corporate America until a few weeks ago, when Hewlett-Packard (HP) sacked her for poor performance. The fate of Bernie Ebbers is much grimmer. The once high-profile boss of WorldCom could well spend the rest of his life behind bars following his conviction last month on fraud charges. In different ways, each of these examples appears to point to the same welcome conclusion: that the imbalance in corporate power of the late 1990s, when many bosses were allowed to behave like absolute monarchs, has been corrected. Alas, appearances can be deceptive. While each of these recent tales of chief-executive woo is a sis of progress, none provides much evidence that the crisis in American corporate governance is yet over. In fact, each of these cases is an example of failed, not successful, governance. At the very least, the beards of both Morgan Stanley and HP were far too slow to address their bosses' inadequacies. The record of the Boeing beard in picking chiefs prone to ethical lapses is too long to be dismissed as mere bad luck. The fall of Messrs Greenberg and Ebbers, meanwhile, highlights the growing role of government-and in particular, of criminal prosecutors in holding bosses to account: a development that is, at best, a mixed blessing. The Sarbanes-Oxley act, passed in haste following the Enron and WorldCom scandals, is imposing heavy costs on American companies; whether these are exceeded by any benefits is the subject of fierce debate and may not be known for years. Eliot Spitzer, New York's attorney-general, is the leading advocate and practitioner of an energetic "law enforcement" approach. He may be right that the recent burst of punitive actions has been good for the economy, even if some of his own decisions have been open to question. Where he is undoubtedly right is in arguing that corporate America has done a lamentable job of governing itself. As he says in an article in the Wall Street Journal this week: "The hour cede among CEOs didn't work. Board oversight didn't work. Ser-regulation was a complete failure." AIG's board, for example, did nothing about Mr Greenberg's use of murky accounting, or the conflicts posed by his use of offshore vehicles, or his constant bullying of his critics let alone the firm's alleged participation in bid-rigging--until Mr Spitzer threatened a criminal prosecution that might have destroyed the firm.

单选题{{B}}Part A{{/B}}{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.{{B}}Text 1{{/B}} Mark Twain once observed that giving up smoking is easy. He knew, because he'd done it hundreds of times himself. Giving up for ever is a trifle more difficult, apparently, and it is well known that it is much more difficult for some people than for others. Why is this so? Few doctors believe any longer that it is simply a question of will power. And for those people that continue to view addicts as merely "weak", recent genetic research may force a rethink. A study conducted by Jacqueline Vink, of the Free University of Amsterdam, used a database called the Netherlands Twin Register to analyse the smoking habits of twins. Her results suggest that an individual's degree of nicotine dependence, and even the number of cigarettes he smokes per day, are strongly genetically influenced. The Netherlands Twin Register is a voluntary database that is prized by geneticists because they allow the comparison of identical twins (who share all their genes) with fraternal twins (who share half). In this case, however, Dr. Vink did not make use of that fact. For her, the database was merely a convenient repository of information. Instead of comparing identical and fraternal twins, she concentrated on the adult fraternal twins, most of whom had completed questionnaires about their habits, including smoking, and 536 of whom had given DNA samples to the register. The human genome is huge. It consists of billions of DNA "letters", some of which can be strung together to make sense (the genes), but many of which have either no function, or an unknown function. To follow what is going on, geneticists rely on markers they have identified within the genome. These are places where the genetic letters may vary between individuals. If a particular variant is routinely associated with a particular physical feature or a behaviour pattern, it suggests that a particular version of a nearby gene is influencing that feature or behaviour. Dr. Vink hopes that finding genes responsible for nicotine dependence will make it possible to identify the causes of such dependence. That will help to classify smokers better (some are social smokers while others are physically addicted) and thus enable "quitting" programmes to be customised. Results such as Dr. Vink's must be interpreted with care. Association studies, as such projects are known, have a disturbing habit of disappearing, as it were, in a puff of smoke when someone tries to replicate them. But if Dr. Vink really has exposed a genetic link with addiction, then Mark Twain's problem may eventually become a thing of the past.

单选题It is often observed that the aged spend much time thinking and talking about their past lives, (1) about the future. These reminiscences are not simply random or trivial memories, (2) is their purpose merely to make conversation. The old person’s recollections of the past help to (3) an identity that is becoming increasingly fragile: (4) any role that brings respect or any goal that might provide (5) to the future, the individual mentions his past as a reminder to listeners, that here was a life (6) living. (7) , the memories form part of a continuing life (8) , in which the person (9) the events and experiences of the-years gone by and (10) on the overall meaning of his or her own almost completed life. As the life cycle (11) to its close, the aged must also learn to accept the reality of their own impending death. (12) this task is made difficult by the fact that death is almost a (13) subject in the United States. The mere discussion of death is often regarded as (14) .As adults many of us find the topic frightening and are (15) to think about it — and certainly not to talk about it (16) the presence of someone who is dying. Death has achieved this taboo (17) only in the modern industrial societies. There seems to bean important reason for our reluctance to (18) the idea of death. It is the very fact that death remains (19) our control; it is almost the only one of the natural processes (20) is so.

单选题Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of (1) oil is over. What we all do next will determine how well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in this century and (2) . Demand is soaring like (3) before. As populations grow and economies (4) , millions in the developing world are enjoying the benefits of a lifestyle that (5) increasing amounts of energy. In fact, some say that in 20 years the world will (6) 40% more oil than it does today. At the same time, many of the world's oil and gas fields are (7) . And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to (8) , physically, economically and even politically. When growing demand meets (9) supplies, the result is more (10) for the same resources. We can wait until a crisis forces us to do something. (11) we can (12) to working together, and start by asking the (13) questions: How do we meet the energy needs of the developing world and those of industrialized nations? What role will renewables and (14) energies play? What is the best way to protect our environment? How do we accelerate our conservation efforts? (15) actions we take, we must look not just to next year, (16) to the next 50 years. At Chevron, we believe that innovation, collaboration and conservation are the (17) on which to build this new world. We cannot do this alone. Corporations, governments and every citizen of this planet must be part of the solution as (18) as they are part of the problem. We (19) scientists and educators, politicians and policy-makers, environmentalists, leaders of industry and each one of you to be part of (20) the next era of energy.

单选题Cillian Shephard is to announce a review of examination standards today as controversy surrounding university entrance procedures brings criticism over Britain's educational performance. The Education and Employment Secretary is worried that continuing uncertainty over a levels in particular will undermine the Government's drive to meet ambitious targets for improvement. She postponed an announcement until this year's candidates had received their results, but is now determined to clear the air. Mrs. Shepard's main advisers on schools have already asked her to sanction a 100,000 research project, comparing papers over the past 20 years. But she is expected to go further. Reports of universities admitting A-level failures to foundation courses will be referred to officials carrying out a review of higher education. Further research will focus on school examinations. Mrs. Shepard returned mm holiday last week to find critics chiming that a seventh successive rise in pass rates indicated falling standards at A level, while new vocational equivalents had an alarming drop-out rate. Since then, she has become embroiled in controversy over higher education admissions, insisting that it was not the role of universities to prepare students for degree courses. Yesterday a retired mathematics lecturer said he had been ordered to admit students to a foundation course after rejecting: them for a degree, David Srnalley, who teaches part-time at Brunel University in west London, said many of the students who were accepted subsequently would never be capable of degree-level mathematics. Mr. Smalley said a course for those without the necessary grades to study science had been set up earlier than planned when undergraduate recruitment dried up. He had been told to approach potential students from a pile of rejected applications. A university spokeswoman said students entering Brunel's foundation courses in science and engineering had an average of two Cs at A level, enough to win a place on many degree courses. Half of the first in take in engineering secured upper second class degrees alter passing the foundation year. But Mr. Smalley said he was convinced standards had plummeted since the introduction of pre-degree courses. "We have had one or two success stories on them, but others could not add fractions. Some of the work would make your hair curl." Ian Wood, who set up Brunel' s first foundation course, m engineering, said some older lecturers found it difficult to adapt to teaching less able students. He added: "This year 26 students out of 60 got through a foundation year and one ended up with a first-class degree. I am sure there are spurious courses elsewhere put on just to bump up numbers, but our standards are high." The Higher Education Funding Council for England said it had no reason to question standards on foundation courses.

单选题{{B}}Text 3{{/B}} Some drug makers pay key leaders in a field of medicine, such as chairs of departments in medical schools, tens of thousands of dollars if they are saying the right things about their product. They manipulate medical education sessions, lectures, articles in medical journals, research studies, even personal conversations between physicians to get their product message across. Now a huge collection of drug company internal documents—revealed as part of a law-suit-offers a wealth of detail. In 1996, Dr. David Franklin, an employee of the drug company Parke-Davis, filed the lawsuit under federal whistleblower statutes alleging that the company was illegally promoting a drug called Neurontin for so called "off-label" uses. Under federal law, once the FDA approves a drug, a doctor can prescribe it for anything. But the law specifically prohibits the drug company from promoting the drug for any unapproved uses. In 2004, the company, by then a division of Pfizer admitted guilt and agreed to pay $ 430 million in criminal and civil liability related to promoting the drug for off-label use. Spokespeople for Pfizer say that any wrong doing occurred before Pfizer acquired the company. But Pfizer fought hard to keep all the papers related to the suit under seal. A judge denied the request and they are now part of the Drug Industry Document Archive at the University of California, San Francisco. What is most interesting is not the illegal actions they reveal, but the details of activities that are perfectly legal. And according to people familiar with the industry, the methods detailed in these company memos are routine. One tactic identifies certain doctors as "thought leaders,"—those whose opinions influence the prescribing pattern of other doctors. Those whose views converge with the company goals are then showered with rewards, research and educational grants. In the Parke-Davis case 14 such big shots got between $10,250 and $158,250 between 1993 and 1997. "Medical education drives this market," wrote the author of one Parke-Davis business plan in the files. Many state licensing boards require physicians to attend sessions in what is called continuing medical education (CME) to keep current in their field. At one time, medical schools ran most CME courses. Now, an industry of medical education and communications committees(MECCs) run most of the courses. These companies with innocent sounding names like Medical Education Systems set up courses, sometimes in conjunction with medical meetings, at other times often in fancy restaurants and resorts. The drug companies foot the bill, with the program usually noting it was financed by an "unrestricted educational grant" from the company. Using MECCs, Parke-Davis set up conference calls so that doctors could talk to one another about the drugs. The moderators of the calls, often thought leaders or their younger assistants, received $ 250 to $ 500 a call. Drug company reps were on the line, instructed to stay in a "listen only" mode, but monitoring to be sure the pitch met their expectations. Clearly, many of the physicians in these schemes are not innocent bystanders. Whether it is ghost writing, making telephone calls to colleagues or leading a CME session, many of the doctors got paid well. Others received a free meal or transportation to a resort to listen to an "educational session." Physicians often claim they are not influenced by payments from the pharmaceutical industry. But with the methods so thoroughly detailed in these papers, drug companies clearly believe they are getting their money's worth.

单选题 The mid-sixties saw the start of a project that, along with other similar research, was to teach us a great deal about the chimpanzee mind. This was Project Washoe, conceived by Trixie and Allen Gardner. They purchased an infant chimpanzee and began to teach her the signs of ASL, the American Sign Language used by the deaf. Twenty years earlier another husband and wife team, Richard and Cathy Hayes, had tried, with an almost total lack of success, to teach a young chimp, Vikki, to talk. The Hayes*s undertaking taught us a lot about the chimpanzee mind, but Vikki, although she did well in IQ tests, and was clearly an intelligent youngster, could not learn human speech. The Gardners, however, achieved spectacular success with their pupil, Washoe. Not only did she learn signs easily, but she quickly began to string them together in meaningful ways. It was clear that each sign evoked, in her mind, a mental image of the object it represented. If, for example, she was asked, in sign language, to fetch an apple, she would go and locate an apple that was out of sight in another room. Other chimps entered the project, some starting their lives in deaf signing families before joining Washoe. And finally Washoe adopted an infant, Loulis. He came from a lab where no thought of teaching signs had ever penetrated. When he was with Washoe he was given no lessons in language acquisition—not by humans, anyway. Yet by the time he was eight years old he had made fifty-eight signs in their correct contexts. How did he learn them? Mostly, it seems, by imitating the behavior of Washoe and the other three signing chimps, Dar, Moja and Tam. Sometimes, though, he received tuition from Washoe herself. One day, for example, she began to swagger about bipedally, hair bristling, signing food! food! food! in great excitement. She had seen a human approaching with a bar of chocolate. Loulis, only eighteen months old, watched passively. Suddenly Washoe stopped her swaggering, went over to him, took his hand, and moulded the sign for food (fingers pointing towards mouth). Another time, in a similar context,, she made the sign for chewing gum—but with her hand on his body. On a third occasion Washoe picked up a small chair, took it over to Loulis, set it down in front of him, and very distinctly made the chair sign three times, watching him closely as she did so. The two food signs became incorporated into Loulis's vocabulary but the sign for chair did not. Obviously the priorities of a young chimp are similar to those of a human child! Chimpanzees who have been taught a language can combine signs creatively in order to describe objects for which they have no symbol. Washoe, for example, puzzled her caretakers by asking, repeatedly, for a rock berry. Eventually it transpired that she was referring to brazil nuts which she had encountered for the first time a while before. Another language-trained chimp described a cucumber as a green banana. They can even invent signs. Lucy, as she got older, had to be put on a leash for her outings. One day, eager to set off but having no sign for leash, she signaled her wishes by holding a crooked index finger to the ring on her collar. This sign became part of her vocabulary.

单选题The author's attitude towards the impact of growth on the current socio-economic situation is

单选题Invention and innovation have been quintessentially American pursuits from the earliest days of the republic. Benjamin Franklin was a world-famous scientist and inventor. Cyrus McCormick and his harvester, Samuel F. B. Morse and the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone—the 19th century produced a string of inventors and their world-changing creations. And then there was the greatest of them all, Thomas Alva Edison. He came up with the crucial devices that would give birth to three enduring American industries:electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. Much of the world we live in today is a legacy of Edison and of his devotion to science and innovation. Edison taught us to invent, and for decades we were the best in the world. But today, more than 160 years after Edison's birth, America is losing its scientific edge. A landmark report released in May by the National Science Board lays out the numbers:while U. S. investment in R&D as a share of total GDP has remained relatively constant since the mid-1980s at 2.7% , the federal share of R&D has been consistently declining—even as Asian nations like Japan and South Korea have rapidly increased that ratio. At the same time, American students seem to be losing interest in science. Only about one-third of U. S. bachelor's degrees are in science or engineering now, compared with 63% in Japan and 53% in China. It's ironic that nowhere is America's position in science and technology more threatened than in the industry that Edison essentially invented: energy. Clean power could be to the 21st century what aeronautics and the computer were to the 20th, but the U. S. is already falling behind. Meanwhile, Congress remains largely paralyzed. Though in May the House of Representatives was finally able to pass the $ 86 billion America Competes Reauthorization Act, which would double the budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Energy Department's Office of Science, the bill's fate is cloudy in the deadlocked Senate. "At this rate... we'll be buying most of our wind generators and photovoltaic panels from other countries, " former NSF head Arden L. Bement said at a congressional hearing recently. "That's what keeps me awake sometimes at night. " Some erosion of the U. S. 's scientific dominance is inevitable in a globalized world and might not even be a bad thing. Tomorrow's innovators could arise in Shanghai or Seoul or Bangalore. And Edison would counsel against panic—as he put it once, " Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation. " But the U. S. will inevitably decline unless we invest in the education and research necessary to maintain the American edge. The next generation of Edisons could be waiting. But unless we move quickly, they won't have the tools they need to thrive.

单选题Should anyone much care whether an American boy living overseas gets six vicious thwacks on his backside? So much has been argued, rejoined and rehashed about the case of Michael Fay, an 18-year-old convicted of vandalism and sentenced to a caning in Singapore, that an otherwise sorry little episode has shaded into a certified International Incident, complete with intercessions by the U. S. head of state. An affair has outraged American libertarians even as it has animated a general debate about morality East and West and the proper functioning of U.S. law and order. Which, to all appearances, is what Singapore wanted. The question of whether anyone should care about Michael Fay is idle: though Singapore officials profess shock at the attention his case had drawn, they know Americans care deeply about the many sides of this issue. Does a teenager convicted of spraying cars with easily removable paint deserve half a dozen powerful strokes? At what point does swift, sure punishment become torture? By what moral authority can America, with its high rates of lawlessness and license, preach of a safe society about human rights? The caning sentence has concentrated minds wondrously on an already lively domestic debate over what constitutes a due balance between individual and majority rights. Too bad Michael Fay has become a focus for this discussion. Not only does he seem destined to be pummeled and immobilized, but the use of Singapore as a standard for judging any other society, let alone the cacophonous U. S. , is fairly worthless. To begin with, Singapore is an offshore republic that tightly limits immigration. Imagine crime-ridden LOS Angeles, to which Singapore is sometimes contrasted, with hardly any inflow of the hard-luck, often desperate fortune seekers who flock to big cities. Even without its government's disciplinary measures, Singapore more than plausibly would be much the same as it is now. An academic commonplace today is that the major factor determining social peace and prosperity is culture--a sense of common identity, tradition and values. Unlike Singapore, though, the U. S. today is a nation in search of a common culture, trying to be a universal society that assimilates the traditions of people from all over the world. Efforts to safeguard minority as well as individual rights have produced a gridlock in the justice system. Its troubles stem more from the decay of family life than from any government failures. Few societies can afford to look on complacently. As travel eases and cultures intermix, the American experience is becoming the world's. The circumstances of this affair--evidently no Singaporean has ever been punished under the Vandalism Act for defacing private property--suggest that Singapore has used Fay as an unwilling point man in a growing quarrel between East and West about human rights.

单选题At the end of last week, Bodega Aurrera, a Mexican subsidiary of the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, opened a new store in the village of San Juan Teotihuacan, just north of Mexico City. Normally, such an event would cause little stir. Wal-Mart is already Mexico's biggest retailer too. And its shops seem to go down very well with its millions of bargain-hungry customers. But this particular opening was, in fact, the culmination of months of protests, legal actions, hunger strikes and hyperbole by those determined to stop it. The reason is the location. Just 2. 5km away is the ancient city of Teotihuacan, probably Mexico's most famous archaeological site. Amongst other attractions, it boasts the third-largest ( by volume) pyramid in the world. For many Mexicans, the ancient site, abandoned by its mysterious inhabitants centuries before the Spanish conquerors arrived, remains the ultimate symbol of Mexican identity and nationhood. Thousands troop up to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun to celebrate the summer solstice. To them, the idea of having a Wal-Mart next door is disgusting. In the words of Homerw Aridjis, a writer and one of the leading opponents, "it is like driving the stake of globalization into the heart of old Mexico. " The controversy is only the latest in a string of protesters' attempts to save Mexican culture from what they see as an increasing menace. They won a famous victory by blocking a McDonald's restaurant from opening in the main square of the pretty southern town of Oaxaca. But this time they were on much thinner ground. For a start, Wal-Mart went through all the appropriate regulatory departments, even getting permission from the Paris-based International Council on Monuments and Sites, which judged that the store would cause no harm to the nearby ruins. A small stone platform was indeed found during construction of the new car park, but was preserved. Just as importantly, the claim that the new store spoils the famous view from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun is clearly unreasonable, as anyone who cares to get to the top can testify. The problem is not so much that you can see the Wal-Mart, but one of trying to distinguish it from the 30-odd other ugly, squat buildings that litter the surrounding countryside--to say nothing of the car parks, the electricity towers and the large power station. Sadly, unrestricted building long ago ruined this particular view, as well as many others in Mexico. To the opponents, the issue counts more than the view. But neither mattered much to the hundreds of locals who queued up for the opening, delighted to be freed of the small and expensive local shops. Despite a legal case pending against Wal-Mart and local officials, brought by an irate local left-wing politician, this is one battle that the American retailer has probably won.

单选题How did the company come to produce a record glorifying the murder of police, which is entitled Cop Killer by the rapper Ice-T on the album Boby Count ? The album is released by Warner Bros. Records, part of the Time Warner media and entertainment conglomerate. In a Wall Street Journal oped piece laying out the company's position, Time Warner co CEO Gerald Levin makes two defenses. First, Ice-T's Cop Killer is misunderstood. "It doesn't induce or glorify violence... It's his fictionalized attempt to get inside a character's head ... Cop Killer is no more a call for gunning down the police than Frankie and Johnny is a summons for jilted lovers to shoot one another.' Instead of "finding ways to silence the messenger," we should be "heeding the anguished cry contained in his message." This defense is self-contradictory. Frankie and Johnny does not pretend to have a political "message" that must be "heeded. ' If Cop Killer has a message, it is that the murder of policemen is a justified response to police brutality. And not in self-defense, but in premeditated acts of revenge against random cops. Killing policemen is a good thing--that is the plain meaning of the song, and no "larger understanding" of black culture, the rage of the streets or anything else can explain it away. As in much of .today's popular music, the line between performer and performance is purposely blurred. These are political sermonettes clearly intended to support the sentiments being expressed. Tracy Marrow (Ice-T) himself has said, "I scared the police, and they need to be scared." That seems clear. The company's second defense of Cop Killer is the classic one of free expression: "We stand for creative freedom. We believe that the worth of what an artist or journalist has to say does not depend on preapproval from a government official or a corporate censor." Of course Ice-T has the right to say whatever he wants. But that doesn't require any company to provide him an Outlet. And it doesn't relieve a company of responsibility for the messages it chooses to promote. Judgment is not "censorship. "Many an "anguished cry" goes unrecorded. This one was recorded, and promoted, because a successful artist under contract wanted to record it. Nothing wrong with making money, but a company cannot take the money and run from the responsibility. The founder of Time, Henry Luce, would have scorned the notion that his company provided a value-free forum for the exchange of ideas. In Luce's system, editors were supposed to make value judgments and promote the truth as they saw it.

单选题 The Californian coastline north and south of Silicon Valley is a trend-setting sort of place. Increasingly, the home interiors of the well-heeled there tend toward one of two {{U}}(1) {{/U}}. Houses are{{U}} (2) {{/U}}light flooded, sparse and vaguely Asian in{{U}} (3) {{/U}}, with perhaps a Zen fountain in one corner, a Yoga area in another. Or they resemble electronic control rooms with all sorts of{{U}} (4) {{/U}}, computers, routers, antennae, screens and remote controls. Occasionally, both elements are{{U}} (5) {{/U}}. "She" may have the living room and'public areas, {{U}}(6) {{/U}}"he" is banished with his toys up or down the stairs. Currently, the gadget lovers have powerful allies. Many of the largest companies in the consumer-electronics, computer, telecoms and internet industries have made a strategic decision to{{U}} (7) {{/U}}visions of a "digital home", "eHome", or "connected home". Doubting that{{U}} (8) {{/U}}from corporate customers will ever{{U}} (9) {{/U}}to the boom levels of the late 1990s, Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Verizon, Comcast, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and others see the consumer{{U}} (10) {{/U}}their best chance for growth and will be throwing a bewildering{{U}} (11) {{/U}}of home "solutions" at{{U}} (12) {{/U}}in the coming months and years. To understand what the{{U}} (13) {{/U}}ultimately have in{{U}} (14) {{/U}}it is best to visit the{{U}} (15) {{/U}} homes that most have built on their campuses or at trade shows.{{U}} (16) {{/U}}cosy and often intimidating, these feature flat screens almost everywhere,{{U}} (17) {{/U}}electronic picture frames in the bedroom from the large TV-substitute in the living room. Every{{U}} (18) {{/U}}has a microchip and can be{{U}} (19) {{/U}}to, typed into or clicked onto. Everything is{{U}} (20) {{/U}}to a central computer through wireless links.