单选题Who is poor in America? This is a hard question to answer. Despite poverty"s messiness, we"ve measured progress against it by a single statistic: the federal poverty line. In 2008, the poverty threshold was $21,834 for a four-member family with two children under 18. By this measure, we haven"t made much progress. Except for recessions, when the poverty rate can rise to 15 percent, it"s stayed in a narrow range for decades. In 2007—the peak of the last business cycle--the poverty rate was 12.5 percent; one out of eight Americans was "poor." In 1969, another business-cycle peak, the poverty rate was 12.1 percent. But the apparent lack of progress is misleading for two reasons. First, it ignores immigration. Many immigrants are poor and low skilled. They add to the poor. From 1989 to 2007, about three quarters of the increase in the poverty population occurred among Hispanics—mostly immigrants, their children, and grandchildren. The poverty rate for blacks fell during this period, though it was still much too high (24.5 percent in 2007). Poverty "experts" don"t dwell on immigration, because it implies that more restrictive policies might reduce U.S. poverty. Second, the poor"s material well-being has improved. The official poverty measure obscures this by counting only pretax cash income and ignoring other sources of support. These include the earned-income tax credit (a rebate to low-income workers), food stamps, health insurance (Medicaid), and housing subsidies. Although many poor live hand to mouth, they"ve participated in rising living standards. In 2005, 91 percent had microwaves, 79 percent air-conditioning, and 48 percent cell phones. The existing poverty line could be improved by adding some income sources and subtracting some expenses (example: child care). Unfortunately, the administration"s proposal for a "supplemental poverty measure" in 2011—to complement, not replace, the existing poverty line—goes beyond that. The new poverty number would compound public confusion. It also raises questions about whether the statistic is tailored to favor a political agenda. The "supplemental measure" ties the poverty threshold to what the poorest third of Americans spend on food, housing, clothing, and utilities. The actual threshold--not yet calculated—will probably be higher than today"s poverty line. Moreover, this definition has strange consequences. Suppose that all Americans doubled their income tomorrow, and suppose that their spending on food, clothing, housing, and utilities also doubled. That would seem to signify less poverty—but not by the new poverty measure. It wouldn"t decline, because the poverty threshold would go up as spending went up. Many Americans would find this weird: people get richer, but "poverty" stays stuck. What produces this outcome is a different view of poverty. The present concept is an absolute one: the poverty threshold reflects the amount estimated to meet basic needs. By contrast, the new measure embraces a relative notion of poverty: people are automatically poor if they"re a given distance from the top, even if their incomes are increasing.

单选题The usual distinctions between "basic research," "applied research," and "development," used for many years in the formal government statistics kept by the National Science Foundation are, unfortunately, insufficient for discussions of policy for government investment in technical activities. Indeed, definitions are the source of much of the confusion over the appropriate role for government in the national scientific and technical enterprise. One cannot distinguish in any meaningful way "basic" from "applied research" by observing what a scientist is doing. "Applied research" should not be used to mean "purposeful and demonstrably useful basic research," and one should be wary of the use of the term in government statistics. In corporate research laboratories, such as the T.J. Watson Research Laboratories of IBM, all of the work is referred to simply as "research." There is no need to attempt a distinction between "basic" and "applied" research. All of the company"s research investments are motivated by corporate interests. All of the research has a purpose. All of it is conducted under highly creative conditions. None of it is so "pure" that there are no expectations of value from the research investment. We should reserve the words "applied research" for those narrowly defined tasks in which limited time and resources are devoted to a specific problem for an identified user who gets all the benefit and should pay all the costs. To make this view of applied research clear in this discussion, I use the words "problem-solving research" instead. Narrow problem-solving and development are activities initiated by someone who wishes to apply research methods purposefully to exploit an identified opportunity or solve a problem. They involve the application of technical resources to achieve an identified goal for a specified beneficiary, usually the investor in the work. It is a reasonable assumption that those who engage in such activities expect to benefit from them, and to benefit by a sufficient margin over the cost to accommodate the technical risk that is ever-present in research. The investor in problem-solving may be a government agency, but is more likely to be a private firm. In most cases that firm would be expected to be able to appropriate sufficient benefits to need no government subsidy to take those risks. Public investment in the creation of new technology (technological development, whether by research or as a product of problem-solving) is a critical link between societal goals and the scientific research that is pursued by virtue of society"s commitment to those goals. Thus the desire for technology is an important—perhaps the most important—source of demand for science.

单选题The world economy has been growing at its fastest for a generation. Money, goods and ideas move around the globe more freely. So why all the complaints? The problem is that workers in rich countries are not getting a fair share. Their share of income has been shrinking for the past quarter of a century. The new order may be just great for capitalists, but not for those who toil by hand or brain. In its semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the IMF examines how trade, technology and immigration have stitched the world"s labor markets together at an astonishing rate, leaving rich-country workers unsure of where they stand. Globalization is not the only possible reason why labor"s share has shrunk. New technologies have probably taken a few degrees off the workers" slice too. Several countries have also fiddled with labor-market regulation, pushing the wage share one way or the other. The IMF has made perhaps the bravest attempt so far to weigh these competing explanations. It finds that both technological change and the globalization of labor markets have depressed labor"s share. Technological change had the biggest effect in Europe and Japan. In Anglo-Saxon countries (America, Australia, Britain and Canada) it was much smaller. In America, indeed, technology seems to have raised labor"s share. The fund thinks this may reflect America"s lead in using information technology. When a country first exploits IT, labor"s share of the national cake goes down. As time goes by, though, workers adjust and learn. Once their skills match the technology better, their productivity and their share go up. The effects of labor globalization were most evident in Anglo-Saxon and small European countries. However, it has touched different places in different ways. In Europe the effects of offshoring (shifting production, especially of intermediate goods and some services, abroad) and immigration have been more marked than in the Anglo-Saxon world; in Japan they have scarcely registered. The labor-intensive goods that rich countries import have fallen in price, pressing down on the workers" share. But this has been broadly offset by price falls in the capital-intensive goods they export. In Japan these prices fell by enough to yield an overall net gain in the labor share. Although globalization has reduced labor"s share of the pie, it has made the whole pie bigger, raising output and productivity and lowering the prices of traded goods and services. Concludes the fund trade has helped, largely by making imports cheaper. Labor is getting some of the extra growth due to globalization. However, that is unlikely to silence the complaints. Many people believe that most workers have not gained much from globalization at all. The perception remains, especially in the United States, that people who already have plenty have enjoyed the bulk of the extra prosperity.

单选题Killing oneself has been legal in Britain since 1961, but it is a serious crime to help someone else to die. Anyone who "aids, assists, counsels or procures" a suicide out of compassion or something more sinister—risks up to 14 years in prison. It is a risk that many are willing to take. About 120 Britons have committed suicide at Dignitas, a Zurich suicide clinic that takes advantage of liberal Swiss laws, and many have had relatives or friends with them for moral or practical support. None of these companions has been charged with a crime. But such cases are not unknown. Since April 2005, 16 people have been prosecuted for assisting suicide in England and Wales, and some of them have gone on to be convicted. The uncertainty as to whether helpers will be prosecuted heaps agony on those who already face the appalling decision whether to end their lives. Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis, asked prosecutors last year to clarify whether her husband would be charged if he went with her to Zurich. When they declined, she appealed to the House of Lords, which ruled in her favour in July. On September 23rd the director of public prosecutions (DPP), Keir Starmer, duly published guidelines to enlighten her and the thousands like her. Mr Starmer listed 16 factors that would weigh in favour of prosecution and 13 against. Helpers are less likely to be prosecuted if they were close friends or relatives; if the person who died was severely ill physically; if he had a "settled" wish to die; and so on. Charges are more likely if the victim was under 18 or mentally ill, or if the suspect stood to gain from his death (though, campaigners note, this is often the case because helpers tend to be spouses or offspring). A British version of Dignitas is ruled out. serial assisters can expect to be prosecuted, as can members of groups whose main purpose is facilitating suicide. One consequence of leaving the matter to lawyers, rather than getting a bill through Parliament, is that the guidelines are framed in broader terms than a new law would have been. Earlier this year Lord Falconer and others proposed an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill that would have legalised assisting suicide overseas in cases of terminal illness. It was voted down by peers who considered it dangerously radical. The new guidelines, though they do not make assisting suicide legal, apply at home as well as abroad and cover suicide by the seriously as welt as the terminally ill. It remains to be seen whether the rules will satisfy the demand for reform or will trigger more change. It seems too important an issue for people not to have their say.

单选题Governments typically use two tools to encourage citizens to engage in civic behavior like paying their taxes, driving safely or recycling their garbage: exhortation and fines. These efforts are often ineffective. As every successful parent learns, one way to encourage good behavior, from room-cleaning to tooth-brushing, is to make it fun. Not surprisingly, the same principle applies to adults. In this spirit, the Swedish division of Volkswagen has sponsored an initiative they call The Fun Theory. Their first project is to get people to use a set of stairs rather than the escalator that ran alongside it. By transforming the stairs into a piano-style keyboard such that walking on the steps produced notes, they made using the stairs fun, and they found that stair use increased by 66 percent. The musical stairs idea is more amusing than practical, so The Fun Theory sponsored a contest to generate other ideas. The winning entry suggested offering both positive and negative reinforcement to encourage safe driving. Specifically, a camera would measure the speed of passing cars. Speeders would be issued fines but some of the fine revenues would be distributed via lottery to drivers who were observed obeying the speed limit. A short test of the idea offered promising results. This example illustrates an important behavioral point: many people love lotteries. In using lotteries to motivate it is important to get the details right. Participants are likely to find a lottery more enticing if they find out that they would have won. The Dutch government uses this principle very effectively. One of its state lotteries is based on postal codes. If your postal code is announced as the winner, you know that you would have won had you only bought a ticket. The idea is to play on people"s feelings of regret. Lotteries are just one way to provide positive reinforcement. Their power comes from the fact that the chance of winning the prize is overvalued. Of course you can simply pay people for doing the right thing, but if the payment is small, it could well backfire. (If the total non-speeding-prize money had been divided up evenly among all those who drove within speed limit, I estimate that the price paid would have been about 25 cents per driver. Would anyone bother for that?) An alternative to lotteries is a frequent-flyer-type reward program, where the points can be redeemed for something fun. A free goodie can be a better inducement than cash since it offers that rarest of commodities, a guilt-free pleasure. This sort of reward system has been successfully used in England to encourage recycling. In the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead outside of London, citizens could sign up for a rewards program in which they earned points depending on the weight of the material they recycled. The points were good for discounts at merchants in the area. Recycling increased by 35 percent. The moral here is simple. If governments want to encourage good citizenship, they should try making the desired behavior more fun.

单选题Some futurologists have assumed that the vast upsurge of women in the workforce may portend a rejection of marriage. Many women, according to this hypothesis, would rather work than marry. The converse of this concern is that the prospects of becoming a multi-paycheck household could encourage marriages. In the past, only the earnings and financial prospects of the man counted in the marriage decision. Now, however, the earning ability of a woman can make her more attractive as a marriage partner. Data show that economic downturns tend to postpone marriage because the parties cannot afford to establish a family or are concerned about rainy days ahead. As the economy rebounds, the number of marriages also rises. Coincident with the increase in women working outside the home is the increase in divorce rates. Yet, it may be wrong to jump to any simple cause-and-effect conclusions. The impact of a wife"s work on divorce is no less cloudy than its impact on marriage decisions. The realization that she can be a good provider may increase the chances that a working wife will choose divorce over an unsatisfactory marriage. But the reverse is equally plausible. Tensions grounded in financial problems often play a key role in ending a marriage. Given high unemployment, inflationary problems, and slow growth in real earnings, a working wife can increase household income and relieve some of these pressing financial burdens. By raising a family"s standard of living, a working wife may strengthen her family"s financial and emotional stability. Psychological factors also should be considered. For example, a wife blocked from a career outside the home may feel caged in the house. She may view her only choice as seeking a divorce. On the other hand, if she can find fulfillment through work outside the home, work and marriage can go together to create a stronger and more stable union. Also, a major part of women"s inequality in marriage has been due to the fact that, in most cases, men have remained the main breadwinners. With higher earning capacity and status occupations outside of the home comes the capacity to exercise power within file family. A working wife may rob a husband of being the master of the house. Depending upon how the couple reacts to these new conditions, it could create a stronger equal partnership or it could create new insecurities.

单选题A country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself; in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel. And a nation that once prized education—that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children—is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead. We"re told that we have no choice, that basic government functions—essential services that have been provided for generations—are no longer affordable. And it"s true that state and local governments, hit hard by the recession, are cash-strapped. But they wouldn"t be quite as cash-strapped if their politicians were willing to consider at least some tax increases. And the federal government, which can sell inflation-protected long-term bonds at an interest rate of only 1.04 percent, isn"t cash-strapped at all. It could and should be offering aid to local governments, to protect the future of our infrastructure and our children. But Washington is providing only a trickle of help, and even that grudgingly. We must place priority on reducing the deficit, say Republicans and "centrist" Democrats. And then, virtually in the next breath, they declare that we must preserve tax cuts for the very affluent, at a budget cost of $700 billion over the next decade. In effect, a large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation"s foundations to crumble—literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education—they"re choosing the latter. It"s a disastrous choice in both the short run and the long run. In the short run, those state and local cutbacks are a major burden on the economy, perpetuating devastatingly high unemployment. And what about the economy"s future? Everything we know about economic growth says that a well-educated population and high-quality infrastructure are crucial. Emerging nations are making huge efforts to upgrade their roads, their ports and their schools. Yet in America we"re going backward. How did we get to this point? It"s the logical consequence of three decades of antigovernment rhetoric, rhetoric that has convinced many voters that a dollar collected in taxes is always a dollar wasted, that the public sector can"t do anything right. So the end result of the long campaign against government is that we"ve taken a disastrously wrong turn. America is now on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere.

单选题If you know exactly what you want, the best route to a job is to get specialized training. A recent survey shows that companies like the graduates in such fields as business and health care who can go to work immediately with very little on-the-job training. That"s especially true of booming fields that are challenging for workers. At Cornell"s School of Hotel Administration, for example, bachelor"s degree graduates get an average of four or five job offers with salaries ranging from the high teens to the low 20s and plenty of chances for rapid advancement. Large companies, especially, like a background of formal education coupled with work experience. But in the long run, too much specialization doesn"t pay off. Business, which has been flooded with MBAs, no longer considers the degree an automatic stamp of approval. The MBA may open doors and command a higher salary initially, but the impact of a degree washes out after five years. As further evidence of the erosion of corporate faith in specialized degrees, Michigan State"s Scheetz cites a pattern in corporate hiring practices. Although companies tend to take on specialists as new hires, they often seek out generalists for middle and upper-level management. "They want someone who isn"t constrained by nuts and bolts to look at the big picture," says Scheetz. This sounds suspiciously like a formal statement that you approve of the liberal-arts graduate. Time and again labor-market analysts mention a need for talents that liberal-arts majors are assumed to have: writing and communication skills, organizational skills, open-mindedness and adapt-ability, and the ability to analyze and solve problems. David Birch claims he does not hire anybody with an MBA or an engineering degree. "I hire only liberal-arts people because they have a less-than-canned way of doing things," says Birch. Liberal-arts means an academically thorough and strict program that includes literature, history, mathematics, economics, science, human behavior—plus a computer course or two. With that under your belt, you can feel free to specialize. "A liberal-arts degree coupled with an MBA or some other technical training is a very good combination in the marketplace," says Scheetz.

单选题Supporters of the biotech industry have accused an American scientist of misconduct after she testified to the New Zealand government that a genetically modified (GM) bacterium could cause serious damage if released. The New Zealand Life Sciences Network, an association of pro-GM scientists and organizations, says the view expressed by Elaine Ingham, a soil biologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, was exaggerated and irresponsible. It has asked her university to discipline her. But Ingham stands by her comments and says the complaints are an attempt to silence her. "They"re trying to cause trouble with my university and get me fired," Ingham told New Scientist . The controversy began on 1 February, when Ingham testified before New Zealand"s Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, which will determine how to regulate GM organisms. Ingham claimed that a GM version of a common soil bacterium could spread and destroy plants if released into the wild. Other researchers had previously modified the bacterium to produce alcohol from organic waste. But Ingham says that when she put it in soil with wheat plants, all of the plants died within a week. "We would lose terrestrial plants... this is an organism that is potentially deadly to the continued survival of human beings," she told the commission. She added that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) canceled its approval for field tests using the organism once she had told them about her research in 1999. But last week the New Zealand Life Sciences Network accused Ingham of "presenting inaccurate, careless and exaggerated information" and "generating speculative doomsday scenarios that are not scientifically supportable". They say that her study doesn"t even show that the bacteria would survive in the wild, much less kill massive numbers of plants. What"s more, the network says that contrary to Ingham"s claims, the EPA was never asked to consider the organism for field trials. The EPA has not commented on the dispute. But an e-mail to the network from Janet Anderson, director of the EPA"s bio-pesticides division, says "there is no record of a review and/or clearance to field test" the organism. Ingham says EPA officials had told her that the organism was approved for field tests, but says she has few details. It"s also not clear whether the organism, first engineered by a German institute for biotechnology, is still in use. Whether Ingham is right or wrong, her supporters say opponents are trying unfairly to silence her. "I think her concerns should be taken seriously, she shouldn"t be harassed in this way," says Ann Clarke, a plant biologist at the University of Guelph in Canada who also testified before the commission. "It"s an attempt to silence the opposition."

单选题American movies and music have done very well in some countries like Sweden and less well in others like India. This may sound like a simple difference in human tastes, but decisions to consume culture have an economic aspect. Loyalties to cultural goods and services—be it heavy metal music or the opera—are about social networking and choosing an identity and an aspiration. That is, we use culture to connect with other people and to define ourselves; both are, to some extent, economic decisions. The continuing and indeed growing relevance of local economic connections suggests that cultural imperialism will not prove to be the dominant trend. Local culture commands loyalty when people are involved in networks of status and caste, and they pursue religious and communal markers of identity. Those individuals use local cultural products to signal their place in hierarchies. Today, economic growth is booming in countries where American popular culture does not dominate, namely India and China. Population growth is strong in many Islamic countries, which typically prefer local music and get their news from sources like the satellite broadcaster A1 Jazeera. The combination of these trends means that American entertainment, for largely economic reasons, will lose relative standing in the global marketplace. In fact, Western culture often creates its own rivals by bringing creative technologies like the recording studio or the printing press to foreign lands. American popular culture tends to be popular when people interact with others from around the world and seek markers of global identity. My stepdaughter spent last summer studying French in Nice, with students from many other countries. They ate and hung out at McDonald"s, a name and symbol they all share, even though it was not everyone"s favorite meal. Globalization is most likely to damage local culture in regions like Scandinavia that are lightly populated, not very hierarchical and looking for new global cultural symbols. But the rest of the world"s population is in countries--China and India, of course, but also Brazil, Mexico, Egypt and Indonesia— that do not fit that description. "American" cultural products rely increasing on non-American talent and international symbols and settings. "Babel", which won this year"s Golden Globe for best drama, has a Mexican director, and is set in Morocco, Japan and Mexico, mostly with non-English dialogue. Culture is not a zero-sum game, so the greater reach of one culture does not necessarily mean diminished stature for others. In the broad sweep of history, many different traditions have grown together and flourished. American popular culture will continue to make money, but the 21st century will bring a broad melange of influences, with no clear world cultural leader.

单选题If past is prologue, then it ought to be possible to draw some modest conclusions about the future from the wealth of data about America"s present. Wilt the rate continue to fall? Will single-person households actually submerge the traditional family? All projections, of course, must be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. Nonetheless, the urge to make sense of what lies ahead is inescapable. After the 1980 census, the Census Bureau decided for the first time to venture some forecasts of its own for the decades to come. Working from what America already knows about itself, the bureau"s experts and other demographers offer an irresistible, if clouded, crystal ball among their visions. According to the census projections, female life expectancy will increase from 78.3 years in 1981 to 81.3 in the year 2005. The life expectancy of American men will grow from 70.7 for babies born in 1981 to 73.3 years in 2005. And by the year 2050, women will have a life expectancy of 83.6 years and men of at least 75.1. Annual population growth will slow to almost nothing by 2050. In fact, the Census Bureau predicts that the rate of natural increase will be negative after 2035; only continuing immigration will keep it growing after that. The total population will be 268 million in 2000 and 309 million—an all-time high—in 2050. After that, it will start to decline. The American population will grow steadily older. From 11.4 percent in 1981, the proportion of the population that is 65 and over will grow to 13.1 percent in 2000 and 21.7 percent in 2050. The percentage of the population that lives beyond the age of 85 will more than quintuple over the same period. Meanwhile the median age—30.3 in 1981—will rise to 36.3 by 2000 and 41.6 50 years later. When it comes to the quality of life, more predictors are fairly cautious. John Hopkins sociologist Andrew Cherlin observes that "as we enter the 1980s, the pace of change appears to have slowed." For the next few decades, he predicts, there may be only modest swings in the marriage, birth and divorce rates—giving society time to adjust to the new patterns that have formed in recent years. "We are in a plateau in our family patterns that will likely last for a while," Cherlin maintains. Crime expert Alfred Blumstein, who foresees a drop in crime over the coming decade, predicts that the Northeast and Midwest, with stable but aging populations, will see the falloff first; for the South and Southwest, with their large proportions of younger people, the improvement will come less quickly.

单选题Discussion of the assimilation of Puerto Ricans in the United States has focused on two factors: social standing and the loss of national culture. In general, excessive stress is placed on one factor or the other, depending on whether the commentator is North American or Puerto Rican. Many North American social scientists, such as Oscar Handlin, Joseph Fitzpatrick, and Oscar Lewis, consider Puerto Ricans as the most recent in a long line of ethnic entrants to occupy the lowest rung on the social ladder. Such a "sociodemographic" approach tends to regard assimilation as a benign process, taking for granted increased economic advantage and inevitable cultural integration, in a supposedly egalitarian context. However, this approach fails to take into account the colonial nature of the Puerto Rican case, with this group, unlike their European predecessors, coming from a nation politically subordinated to the United States. Even the "radical" critiques of this mainstream research model, such as the critique developed in Divided Society, attach the issue of ethnic assimilation too mechanically to factors of economic and social mobility and are thus unable to illuminate the cultural subordination of Puerto Ricans as a colonial minority. In contrast, the "colonialist" approach of island-based writers, such as Eduardo Seda Bonilla, Manuel Maldonado Denis, and Luis Nieves Falcon, tends to view assimilation as the forced loss of national culture in an unequal contest with imposed foreign values. There is, of course, a strong tradition of cultural accommodation among other Puerto Rican thinkers. The writings of Eugenio Fernandez Mendez clearly exemplify this tradition, and many supporters of Puerto Rico"s commonwealth status share the same universalizing orientation. But the Puerto Rican intellectuals who have written most about the assimilation process in the United States all advance cultural nationalist views, advocating the preservation of minority cultural distinctions and rejecting what they see as the subjugation of colonial nationalities. This cultural and political emphasis is appropriate, but the colonialist thinkers misdirect it, overlooking the class relations at work in both Puerto Rican and North American history. They pose the clash of national cultures as an absolute polarity, with each culture understood as static and undifferentiated. Yet both the Puerto Rican and North American traditions have been subject to constant challenge from cultural forces within their own societies, forces that may move toward each other in ways that cannot be written off as mere "assimilation." Consider, for example, the indigenous and Afro-Caribbean traditions in Puerto Rican culture and how they influence and are influenced by other Caribbean cultures and Black cultures in the United States. The elements of coercion and inequality, so central to cultural contact according to the colonialist framework play no role in this kind of convergence of racially and ethnically different elements of the same social class.

单选题 Shopping has always been something of an impulsive activity, in which objects that catch our fancy while strolling are immediately bought on a whim. Advertisers and sellers have taken advantage of this fact, carefully positioning inexpensive but attractive items on paths that we are most likely to cross, hoping that our human nature will lead to a greater profit for them. With the dawn of the Internet and its exploding use across the world, the same tactics apply. Advertisers now place "banners", links to commercial web sites decorated with attractive pictures designed to catch our eyes while browsing the webs, on key web sites with heavy traffic. They pay top dollar for the right, thus creating profits for the hosting web site as well. These actions are performed in the hopes that during the course of our casual and leisurely web surfing, we'll click on that banner that sparks our interest and thus, in theory, buy the products advertised. Initial results have been positive. Web sites report a huge inflow of cash, both from the advertisers who tempt customers in with the banners and the hosting web sites, which are paid for allowing the banners to be put in place. As trust and confidence in Internet buying increases and information security is heightened with new technology, the volume of buying is increasing, leading to even greater profits. The current situation, however, is not quite as optimistic. Just as magazine readers tend to unconsciously ignore advertisements in their favorite periodicals, web browsers are beginning to allow banners to slip their notice as well. Internet users respond to the flood of banners by viewing them as annoyances, a negative image that is hurting sales, since users are now less reluctant to click on those banners, preferring not to support the system that puts them in place. If Internet advertising is to continue to be a viable and profitable business practice, new methods will need to be considered to reinvigorate the industry. With the recent depression in the technology sector and slowing economy, even new practices may not {{U}}do the trick{{/U}}. As consumers are saving more and frequenting traditional real estate businesses over their Internet counterparts, the fate of Internet business is called into question. The coming years will be the only reliable indication of whether shopping on the worldwide web is the wave of the future or simply an impulsive activity whose whim has passed.

单选题Americans are supposed to be mobile and even pushy. Saul Bellow"s Augie March declares, "I am an American... first to knock, first admitted." In "The Grapes of Wrath," young Tom Joad loads up his car with pork snacks and relatives, and the family flees the Oklahoma for California. Along the way, Grandma dies, but the Joads keep going. But sometime in the past 30 years, someone has hit the brakes and Americans—particularly young Americans—have become risk-averse and sedentary. The likelihood of 20-somethings moving to another state has dropped well over 40 percent since the 1980s, according to calculations based on Census Bureau data. The stuck-at-home mentality hits college-educated Americans as well as those without high school degrees. Even bicycle sales are lower now than they were in 2000. Today"s generation is literally going nowhere. An increasing number of teenagers are not even bothering to get their driver"s licenses. Back in the early 1980s, 80 percent of 18-year-olds proudly strutted out of the D. M. V. with new licenses, according to a study by researchers at the University of Michigan"s Transportation Research Institute. By 2008—even before the Great Recession—that number had dropped to 65 percent. Though it"s easy to blame the high cost of cars or gasoline, Comerica Bank"s Automobile Affordability Index shows that it takes fewer weeks of work income to buy a car today than in the early 1980s, and inflation-adjusted gasoline prices didn"t get out of line until a few years ago. Perhaps young people are too happy at home checking Facebook. In a study of 15 countries, Michael Sivak, a professor at the University of Michigan"s Transportation Research Institute, found that when young people spent more time on the Internet, they delayed getting their driver"s licenses. "More time on Facebook probably means less time on the road," he said. That may mean safer roads, but it also means a bumpier, less vibrant economy. Generation Y has become Generation Why Bother. The Great Recession and the still weak economy make the trend toward risk aversion worse. Children raised during recessions ultimately take fewer risks with their investments and their jobs. Even when the recession passes, they don"t strive as hard to find new jobs, and they hang on to lousy jobs longer. Research by the economist Lisa B. Kahn of the Yale School of Management shows that those who graduated from college during a poor economy experienced a relative wage loss even 15 years after entering the work force. In the mid-"70s, back when every high school kid longed for his driver"s license and a chance to hit the road and find freedom, Bruce Springsteen wrote his brilliant, exciting album "Born to Run." A generation later, as kids began to hunker down, Mr. Springsteen wrote his depressing "The Ghost of Tom Joad." We need to reward and encourage forward movement, not slouching. That may sound harsh, but do we really want to turn into a country where young Americans can"t even recognize the courage of Tom Joad?

单选题As all schoolchildren know, water freezes to solid, barren, cracked ice at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. So maybe it is more than a mere coincidence that 32 percent of U.S. public and private-school students in the class of 2011 are deemed proficient in mathematics, placing the United States 32nd among the 65 nations that participated in the latest international tests administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). President Obama, to his credit, has highlighted the problem repeatedly. But too many state education officials have done their best to conceal the low performance of their students. Under the educational accountability rules set down by the federal law No Child Left Behind, each state may set its own proficiency standard, and most have set their standards well below the world-class level. As a result, most state proficiency reports grossly inflate the percentage of students who are proficient, if we account for the fact that our students need to compete not just with others from the same state but also with those across the globe. When not complicating the problem, apologists explain away the depressing results with misleading arguments. Some point to the country"s large immigrant and disadvantaged populations, which, to be sure, do pose difficult educational challenges. Proficiency rates among African-Americans and Hispanics are very low. But if one compares only the white students in the U.S. with all students in other countries, the U.S. still falls short. Some also take false comfort in the belief that it takes only a limited number of high-flying students to fill the jobs at Google, Facebook, IBM, and all the other businesses and professions that need highly skilled talent. Still others say the low math scores are offset by a better record in reading. Admittedly the proficiency rate in only 10 countries is significantly higher than in the U.S. Nonetheless, the set of skills most needed for sustained growth in economic productivity—and the skills in shortest supply today—are those rooted in math competencies. It is easy for political leaders to shortsightedly put off considerations of effective school reform. The economic benefits from reform would not be felt immediately, as it takes time for an educated generation to become a productive workforce. But just as the continuing debt crisis, if not fixed, will escalate out of control only over the longer term, so the best available solution to that crisis—a fully unfrozen, high-functioning, constantly improving educational system—could raise the level of human capital to the point where resources would be available to address much of this future debt crisis. In the simplest terms, the impending fiscal crises with Social Security and Medicare are most effectively dealt with by enhanced growth of the economy, growth that will not be achieved without a highly skilled workforce.

单选题Often called the intellectual leader of the animal-rights movement, Regan "is the foremost philosopher in this country in the field of the moral status of nonrational animals," says Bryan. Regan has lectured from Stockholm to Melbourne about the importance of recognizing animals as part of the evolving field of ethics. His books are widely acknowledged as having cemented the roots of the modern animal rights movement in academia. To be sure, vegetarianism dates back to Plato and Plutarch. But society viewed animals largely as properties, until Regan and a handful of other philosophers pushed animal-rights issues into the academic mainstream. Indeed, this academic focus has dramatically altered how Americans approach the ethics of husbandry, some observers say. Once-radical ideas have been firmly woven into society. Regan envisions a type of "bill of rights" for animals, including the abandonment of pet ownership, elimination of a meat-based diet, and new standards for biomedical research on animals. Essentially, he wants to establish a new kind of solidarity with animals, and stop animal husbandry altogether. "In addition to the visible achievements and changes, there"s been what I might call an invisible revolution taking place, and that revolution is the seriousness with which the issue of animal rights is taken in the academy and in higher education," Regan says. But with Regan planning to retire in December, a growing number of farmers, doctors, and others are questioning the sustainability of his ideas. Increasingly, Americans who feel their rights have become secondary to animals" rights are speaking out against a wave of arson attacks on farmers and pies thrown in the faces of researchers. Radical groups, with sometimes-violent tactics, have been accused of scaring farmers away from speaking up for traditional agrarian values. Indeed, tensions are only rising between animal-rights activists and groups that have traditionally used the land with an eye toward animals" overall welfare, not their "right" to be happy or to live long lives. The controversy around Regan is heightened by the fact that he"s no pacifist. He says he believes it"s OK to break the law for a greater purpose. He calls it the "greater-evil doctrine," the idea that there"s moral hierarchy to crime. "I think that you can win in court, and that"s what I tell people," Regan says. The shift in the level of respect has been "seismic," he says. "Contrary to what a lot of people think, there really has been a recognition that there are some things that human beings should not be permitted to do to animals. Where the human heart has grown is in the recognition of what is to be prohibited."

单选题 Most people would not pay two cents for something worth one. But America's government spent $116m last year doing just that. The money-losing purchase was money itself: the penny, which has cost more than a cent to produce since 2006, due mainly to the price of zinc, the coin's primary ingredient. Steel is not much better, as Canada has learned. The government there recently ditched its steel-based penny. American politicians, while loth to take lessons from their northern neighbours, may have noticed. In an online forum on February 14th Barack Obama intimated that the penny was no longer {{U}}change{{/U}} he believes in. Fifty years ago a handful of pennies would buy a hamburger at McDonald's, but inflation means the coin won't even get you one French fry today. Relegated to jars and lost behind cushions, the penny is failing to perform its primary function: to facilitate commerce. Vending machines and parking meters don't accept it. Penny scourges note that fiddling with them adds some two seconds to each transaction, costing the economy many millions of dollars a year. Penny lovers and zinc-industry lobbyists counter that the coin's demise would cost consumers, as merchants would round prices up to the nearest nickel. Some economists disagree, suggesting that shop keepers might in fact round down in order to avoid moving from a price of, say, $9.99 to $10. Americans anyway seem willing to accept a fee for penny removal, as evidenced by the self-imposed cost of leaving them idle and the success of coin-counting machines, which take a cut when turning them into bills. Other countries have eliminated low-value coins with less-than-dire results, and indeed, so has America. In 1857 it ditched the half-cent, then worth nearly as much in real terms as today's dime. This has led some to suggest killing the nickel, which costs about ten cents to make, as well as the penny.

单选题In the US, poll after poll has shown a majority in favour of animal experimentation, even without statements about its value. Why is opinion in Britain so different? I think that there are two reasons. The first is the success of antivivisection campaigners in lampooning animal research as outdated, intentionally cruel, "bad" science, which achieves nothing. All drugs and procedures developed with the help of animal tests are said to be dangerous. The occasional failure of animal testing to identify a dangerous drug is deployed as an argument for abandoning safety tests involving animals altogether—with no mention of the terrible human suffering that this would cause. They say that "alternative" methods already exist for all animal experiments, but the fact is that the law specifically forbids animal use if there is any alternative. The second reason is that scientists and doctors have failed to oppose such misrepresentation. In the early 1990s, animal rights campaigning in the US was met with much more forthright defence, not only by the major scientific societies, funding agencies and medical organisations, but also by the US government. To be positive, there are many encouraging features of the New Scientist poll. Interestingly, the public seems to employ the same kind of utilitarian philosophy that underpins the law in Britain—weighing potential benefits against the species involved (thus, monkeys are more "valuable" than mice) and the likelihood of suffering. Clearly, people in Britain do not recognise the essential link between animal research and testing and the medical treatments that they receive. Only 18 per cent of those who had taken (or had a close family member who had taken) a drug prescribed for a serious illness realized that the drug had been tested on animals, as all drugs are. Obviously, a large majority of those surveyed believe that they can happily benefit from medical treatment without taking advantage of animal research. No wonder so many people oppose it when asked the straight yes/no question. The views of the public must be respected. But this poll tells us that, while they are open to persuasion, their reaction is based on misunderstanding. The responsibility for providing honest evidence for the public ties not just with those who use animals in their research, but with other scientists who depend on that work. It lies with the doctors who benefit from animal research, with the pharmaceuticals and biotech industries, and the medical charities and funding agencies whose work would be crippled without it. But most of all, responsibility rests with government, which should cultivate serious and transparent debate between those of different opinion, and provide the public—especially young people—with the honest evidence they need and deserve.

单选题Our culture has caused most Americans to assume not only that our language is universal but that the gestures we use are understood by everyone. We do not realize that waving good-bye is the way to summon a person from the Philippines to one"s side, or that in Italy and some Latin-American countries, curling the finger to oneself is a sign of farewell. Those private citizens who sent packages to our troops occupying Germany after World War Ⅱ and marked them GIFT to escape duty payments did not bother to find out that "Gift" means poison in German. Moreover, we like to think of ourselves as friendly, yet we prefer to be at least 3 feet or an arm"s length away from others. Latins and Middle Easterners like to come closer and touch, which makes Americans uncomfortable. Our linguistic and cultural blindness and the casualness with which we take notice of the developed tastes, gestures, customs and languages of other countries, are losing us friends, business and respect in the world. Even here in the United States, we make few concessions to the needs of foreign visitors. There are no information signs in four languages on our public buildings or monuments; we do not have multilingual guided tours. Very few restaurant menus have translations, and multilingual waiters, bank clerks and policemen are rare. Our transportation systems have maps in English only and often we ourselves have difficulty understanding them. When we go abroad, we tend to cluster in hotels and restaurants where English is spoken. The attitudes and information we pick up are conditioned by those natives—usually the richer—who speak English. Our business dealings, as well as the nation"s diplomacy, are conducted through interpreters. For many years, America and Americans could get by with cultural blindness and linguistic ignorance. After all, America was the most powerful country of the free world, the distributor of needed funds and goods. But all that is past. American dollars no longer buy all good things, and we are slowly beginning to realize that our proper role in the world is changing. A 1979 Harris poll reported that 55 percent of Americans want this country to play a more significant role in world affairs; we want to have a hand in the important decisions of the next century, even though it may not always be the upper hand.

单选题Sign has become a scientific hot button. Only in the past 20 years have specialists in language study realized that signed languages are unique—a speech of the hand. They offer a new way to probe how the brain generates and understands language, and throw new light on an old scientific controversy: whether language, complete with grammar, is something that we are born with, or whether it is a learned behavior. The current interest in sign language has roots in the pioneering work of one rebel teacher at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the world"s only liberal arts university for deaf people. When Bill Stokoe went to Gallaudet to teach English, the school enrolled him in a course in signing. But Stokoe noticed something odd: among themselves, students signed differently from his classroom teacher. Stokoe had been taught a sort of gestural code, each movement of the hands representing a word in English. At the time, American Sign Language (ASL) was thought to be no more than a form of pidgin English. But Stokoe believed the "hand talk" his students used looked richer. He wondered: Might deaf people actually have a genuine language? And could that language be unlike any other on Earth? It was 1955, when even deaf people dismissed their signing as "substandard". Stokoe"s idea was academic heresy. It is 37 years later. Stokoe—now devoting his time to writing and editing books and journals and to producing video materials on ASL and the deaf culture—is having lunch at a cafe near the Gallaudet campus and explaining how he started a revolution. For decades educators fought his idea that signed languages are natural languages like English, French and Japanese. They assumed language must be based on speech, the modulation of sound. But sign language is based on the movement of hands, the modulation of space. "What I said," Stokoe explains, "is that language is not mouth stuff—it"s brain stuff."