With the pace of technological change making heads spin, we tend to think of our age as the most innovative ever. We have smartphones and supercomputers, big data and stem-cell transplants. Governments, universities and firms together spend around $1.4 trillion a year on R and the drop-off since 2004 probably has more to do with the economic crisis than with underlying lack of invention. [B]Economic growth is a modern invention: 20th-century growth rates were far higher than those in the 19th century, and pre-1750 growth rates were almost imperceptible by modern standards. [C]Rather as electrification changed everything by allowing energy to be used far from where it was generated, computing and communications technologies transform lives and businesses by allowing people to make calculations and connections far beyond their unaided capacity. [D]And it wasn't just modern sanitation that sprang from late-19th and early-20th-century brains : they produced cars, planes, the telephone, radio and antibiotics. [E]Many more brains are at work now than were 100 years ago: American and European inventors have been joined in the race to produce cool new stuff by those from many other countries. [F]If the pessimists are right, the implications are huge. Economies can generate growth by adding more stuff;more workers, investment and education. But sustained increases in output per person, which are necessary to raise incomes and welfare, entail using the stuff we already have in better ways—innovating, in other words. [G]Life expectancy in America, for instance, has risen more slowly since 1980 than in the early 20th century. The speed of travel, in the rich world at least, is often slower now than it was a generation earlier, after rocketing a century or so ago.

A report consistently brought back by visitors to the US is how friendly, courteous, and helpful most Americans were to them. To be fair, this observation is also frequently made of Canada and Canadians , and should best be considered North American. There are, of course, exceptions. Small-minded officials, rude waiters, and ill-mannered taxi drivers are hardly unknown in the US. Yet it is an observation made so frequently that it deserves comment. For a long period of time and in many parts of the country, a traveler was a welcome break in an otherwise dull existence. Dullness and loneliness were common problems of the families who generally lived distant from one another. Strangers and travelers were welcome sources of diversion, and brought news of the outside world. The harsh realities of the frontier also shaped this tradition of hospitality. Someone traveling alone, if hungry, injured, or ill, often had nowhere to turn except to the nearest cabin or settlement. It was not a matter of choice for the traveler or merely a charitable impulse on the part of the settlers. It reflected the harshness of daily life: if you didn't take in the stranger and take care of him, there was no one else who would. And someday, remember, you might be in the same situation. Today there are many charitable organizations which specialize in helping the weary traveler. Yet, the old tradition of hospitality to strangers is still very strong in the US, especially in the smaller cities and towns away from the busy tourist trails. "I was just traveling through, got talking with this American, and pretty soon he invited me home for dinner—amazing. "Such observations reported by visitors to the US are not uncommon, but are not always understood properly. The casual friendliness of many Americans should be interpreted neither as superficial nor as artificial, but as the result of a historically developed cultural tradition. As is true of any developed society, in America a complex set of cultural signals, assumptions, and conventions underlies all social interrelationships. And, of course, speaking a language does not necessarily mean that someone understands social and cultural patterns. For example, when an American uses the word "friend", the cultural implications of the word may be quite different from those it has in the visitor's language and culture. It takes more than a brief encounter on a bus to distinguish between courteous convention and individual interest. Yet, being friendly is a virtue that many Americans value highly and expect from both neighbors and strangers.

Even for overachievers who are used to multitasking, the idea of watching two versions of the same television show at the same time—one on television and one on a computer—is something that is probably foreign to most people over the age of 30. To the eternally young brains that nm MTV, however, it is the next step in reshaping their business. Beginning this summer with the MTV Video Music Awards and continuing in the fall with the cable channel"s live afternoon program, "Total Request Live", MTV will offer two simultaneous versions of each show, one on television and another, focusing on a behind-the-scenes narrative, on its broadband channel, MTV Overdrive. "We do tons of research on our audience, and it shows that they are instant messaging and listening to music and watching TV all at the same time", said Christina Norman, president of MTV. "We"ve definitely seen them become more adept at navigating through multiple media. They live comfortably in several worlds at once". The Overdrive component, located at mtv.com, will feature a sort of video digression that will continue to stream live while the television show is broadcasting commercials. For example, if a viewer wants to watch an entire music video after a snippet is shown on the "Total Request Live" video countdown, or take a backstage tour with Jamie Foxx after he finishes his onstage appearance on the set of "T.R.L". (as the show is familiarly known), Overdrive will be the place to turn. "Doing three things at once when you"re 19 years old is not hard", said Dave Sirulnick, an executive vice president at MTV who oversees multiplatform production, news and music. Last Thursday at MTV"s studios in Times Square, Mr. Sirulnick proved adept at doing at least two things at once, dashing between two control rooms that were steps away from each other just down the hallway from the "T.R.L" set. It was the second test-run of simultaneous production, and in each control room-one for Overdrive, one for "T.R.L".—separate sets of directors and producers guided cameramen and the show"s hosts, known as V. J."s, through their paces. "No one that we know has done a live stream of a different signal of an existing show". Mr. Sirulnick said. "It"s a live parallel experience, one that very quickly turns into an on-demand experiment" with portions of each show archived and kept on the Overdrive site for fans to replay at will.

A Letter of Acknowledgement Write a letter of acknowledgement of about 100 words based on the following situation: You are taking charge of the recruitment of the Dance Association in your university, and you just received an application letter from a freshman Wendy. Now write her a letter of acknowledgement and tell her to wait for your reply next week. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

For the past 250 years, politicians and hard-headed men of business have diligently ignored what economics, has to say about the gains from trade—much as they may pretend, or in some cases even believe, that they are paying close attention. Except for those on the hard left, politicians of every ideological stripe these days swear their allegiance to the basic principle of free trade. Businessmen say the same. So when either group issues its calls for barriers against foreign competition, it is never because free trade is wrong in principle, it is because foreigners are cheating somehow, rendering the principles void. Or else it is because something about the way the world works has changed, so that the basic principles, ever valid in themselves, need to be adjusted. And those adjustments, of course, then oblige these staunch defenders of free-trade-in-principle to call for all manners of restrictions on trade. In this way, protectionism is periodically refreshed and reinvented. Anti-trade sentiment, especially in the United States, is currently becoming one of its strongest revivals in years. Earlier bogus "new conditions" that were deemed to undermine the orthodox case for liberal trade included the growth of crossborder capital flows, the recognition that some industries exposed to foreign competition may have strategic significance for the wider economy, and concerns over exploitation of workers in developing countries. Today"s bogus new condition, which is proving far more potent in political terms than any of the others, is the fact that international competition is now impinging on industries previously sheltered from it by the constraints of technology and geography. It is no longer just manufacturing that is feeling the pressure of toreign competition. It is no longer just dirty blue-collar jobs that are moving offshore. Jobs in services are now migrating as well, some of them requiring advanced skills, notably in computer programming. Services constitute much the larger part of every advanced economy. At the end of this process, what will be left? Gosh, Adam Smith never thought of this. Trade policy needs to be, completely rethought. Well, actually , no Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the President"s Council of Economic Advisers , pointed out recently that if services can be sourced more cheaply overseas than at home, it is to America"s advantage to seize that opportunity. This simple restatement of the logic of liberal trade brought derision down on Mr. Mankiw"s head—and the supposedly pro-trade administration he works for conspicuously failed to defend the plain truth he had advanced. That was disturbing. The fact that foreign competition now impinges on services as well as manufacturing raises no new issues of principle whatever. If a car can be made more cheaply in Mexico, it should be. If a telephone enquiry can be processed more cheaply in India, it should be. All such transactions raise real incomes on both sides, as resources are advantageously redeployed, with added investment and growth in the exporting country, and lower prices in the importing country. Yes, trade is a positive-sum game. (Adam Smith did think of that.)

The mythology of a culture can provide some vital insights into the beliefs and values of that culture. By using fantastic and sometimes incredible stories to create an oral tradition by which to explain the wonders of the natural world and teach lessons to younger generations, a society exposes those ideas and concepts held most important. Just as important as the final lesson to be gathered from the stories, however, are the characters and the roles they play in conveying that message. Perhaps the epitome of mythology and its use as a tool to pass on cultural values can be found in Aesop " s Fables, told and retold during the era of the Greek Empire. Aesop, a slave who won the favor of the court through his imaginative and descriptive tales, almost exclusively used animals to fill the roles in his short stories. Humans, when at all present, almost always played the part of bumbling fools struggling to learn the lesson being presented. This choice of characterization allows us to see that the Greeks placed wisdom on a level slightly beyond humans, implying that deep wisdom and understanding is a universal quality sought by, rather than steanning from, human beings. Aesop" s fables illustrated the central themes of humility and self-reliance, reflecting the importance of those traits in early Greek society. The folly of humans was used to contrast against the ultimate goal of attaining a higher level of understanding and awareness of truths about nature and humanity. For example, one notable fable features a fox repeatedly trying to reach a bunch of grapes on a very high vine. After failing at several attempts, the fox gives up, making up its mind that the grapes were probably sour anyway. The fable" s lesson, that we often play down that which we can" t achieve so as to make ourselves feel better, teaches the reader or listener in an entertaining way about one of the weaknesses of the human psyche. The mythology of other cultures and societies reveal the underlying traits of their respective cultures just as Aesop"s fables did. The stories of Roman gods, Aztec ghosts and European elves all served to train ancient generations those lessons considered most important to their community, and today they offer a powerful looking glass by which to evaluate and consider the contextual environment in which those culture existed.

HighChargeofMedicalServiceWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.

On the north bank of the Ohio river sits Evansville, Ind., home of David Williams, 52, and of a riverboat casino(a place where gambling games are played). During several years of gambling in that casino, Williams, a state auditor earning $35, 000 a year, lost approximately $175, 000. He had never gambled before the casino sent him a coupon for $20 worth of gambling. He visited the casino, lost the $20 and left. On his second visit he lost $800. The casino issued to him, as a good customer, a "Fun Card", which when used in the casino earns points for meals and drinks, and enables the casino to track the user's gambling activities. For Williams, those activities become what he calls "electronic heroin". 【C1】______. In 1997 he lost $21, 000 to one slot machine in two days. In March 1997 he lost $72, 186. He sometimes played two slot machines at a time, all night, until the boat docked at 5 a.m., then went back aboard when the casino opened at 9 a.m.. Now he is suing the casino, charging that it should have refused his patronage because it knew he was addicted. It did know he had a problem. In March 1998 a friend of Williams's got him involuntarily confined to a treatment center for addictions, and wrote to inform the casino of Williams' s gambling problem. The casino included a photo of Williams among those of banned gamblers, and wrote to him a "cease admissions" letter. Noting the "medical / psychological" nature of problem gambling behavior, the letter said that before being readmitted to the casino he would have to present medical / psychological information demonstrating that patronizing the casino would pose no threat to his safety or well-being. 【C2】______. The Wall Street Journal reports that the casino has 24 signs warning: "Enjoy the fun ... and always bet with your head, not over it." Every entrance ticket lists a toll-free number for counseling from the Indiana Department of Mental Health. Nevertheless, Williams's suit charges that the casino, knowing he was "helplessly addicted to gambling," intentionally worked to "lure" him to "engage in conduct against his will." Well. 【C3】______. The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders says "pathological gambling" involves persistent, recurring and uncontrollable pursuit less of money than of the thrill of taking risks in quest of a windfall. 【C4】______. Pushed by science, or what claims to be science, society is reclassifying what once were considered character flaws or moral failings as personality disorders akin to physical disabilities. 【C5】______. Forty-four states have lotteries, 29 have casinos, and most of these states are to varying degrees dependent on—you might say addicted to—revenues from wagering. And since the first Internet gambling site was created in 1995, competition for gamblers' dollars has become intense. The Oct. 28 issue of Newsweek reported that 2 million gamblers patronize 1, 800 virtual casinos every week. With $3.5 billion being lost on Internet wagers this year, gambling has passed pornography as the Web' s most profitable business. [A]Although no such evidence was presented, the casino' s marketing department continued to pepper him with mailings. And he entered the casino and used his Fun Card without being detected. [B]It is unclear what luring was required, given his compulsive behavior. And in what sense was his will operative? [C]By the time he had lost $5, 000 he said to himself that if he could get back to even, he would quit. One night he won $5, 500, but he did not quit. [D]Gambling has been a common feature of American life forever, but for a long time it was broadly considered a sin, or a social disease. Now it is a social policy: the most important and aggressive promoter of gambling in America is the government. [E]David Williams' s suit should trouble this gambling nation. But don't bet on it. [F]It is worrisome that society is medicalizing more and more behavioral problems, often defining as addictions what earlier, sterner generations explained as weakness of will. [G]The anonymous, lonely, undistracted nature of online gambling is especially conducive to compulsive behavior. But even if the government knew how to move against Internet gambling, what would be its grounds for doing so?

Write a letter to your university library, making suggestions for improving its service. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address. (10 points)

Historians may well look back on the 1980s in the United States as a time of rising affluence side by side with rising poverty. The growth in affluence is attributable to an increase in professional and technical jobs, along with more two career couples whose combined incomes provide a" comfortable living". Yet simultaneously, the nation"s poverty rate rose between 1973 and 1983 from 11.1 percent of the population to 15.2, or by well over a third. Although the poverty rate declined somewhat after 1983, it was still held at 13.5 percent in 1987, comprising a population of 32.5 million Americans. The definition of poverty is a matter of debate. In 1795, a group of English magistrates decided that a minimum in come should be "the cost of a gallon loaf of bread, multiplied by three, plus an allowance for each dependent". Today the Census Bureau defines the threshold of poverty in the United States as the minimum amount of money that families need to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet, assuming they use one third of their income for food. Using this definition, roughly half the American population was poor in the aftermath of the Great Depression of the 1930s. By 1950, the proportion of the poor had fallen to 30 percent and by 1964, to 20 percent. With the adoption of the Johnson administration"s antipoverty programs, the poverty rate dropped to 12 percent in 1969. But since then, it has stopped falling. Liberals contend that the poverty line is too low because it fails to take into account changes in the standard of living. Conservatives say that it is too high because the poor receive other forms of public assistance, including food stamps, public housing subsidies, and health care.

The Term "CYBERSPACE" was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. In the book Mr. Gibson describes cyberspace as "a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators" and "a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system." The myriad connections forged by these computing devices have brought tremendous benefits to everyone who uses the web to tap into humanity's collective store of knowledge every day. But data breaches are becoming ever bigger and more common. Last year over 800m records were lost. The potential damage, though, extends well beyond such commercial incursions. America's president, Barack Obama, said in a White House press release earlier this year that cyber-threats "pose one of the gravest national-security dangers" the country is facing. Securing cyberspace is becoming harder. Cyber-security, which involves protecting both data and people, is facing multiple threats, notably cybercrime and online industrial espionage, both of which are growing rapidly. A recent estimate by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CEIS), puts the annual global cost of digital crime and intellectual-property theft at $445 billion—a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of a smallish rich European country such as Austria. There is also the risk of cyber-sabotage. Terrorists or agents of hostile powers could mount attacks on companies and systems that control vital parts of an economy, including power stations, electrical grids and communications networks. Such attacks are hard to pull off, but not impossible. The biggest day-to-day threats faced by companies and government agencies come from crooks and spooks hoping to steal financial data and trade secrets. One is to ensure that organizations get the basics of cyber-security right. There is also a need to provide incentives to improve cyber-security, be they carrots or sticks. Cyberspace is about to undergo another massive change. Over the next few years billions of new devices, from cars to household appliances and medical equipment, will be fitted with tiny computers that connect them to the web and make them more useful. But unless these systems have adequate security protection, the internet of things could easily become the internet of new things to be hacked. Plenty of people are eager to take advantage of any weaknesses they may spot. Hacking used to be about geeky college kids tapping away in their bedrooms to annoy their elders. It has grown up with a vengeance.

It is often observed that the aged spend much time thinking and talking about their past lives, 【C1】______about the future. These reminiscences are not simply random or trivial memories, 【C2】______is their purpose merely to make conversation. The old person"s recollections of the past help to【C3】______an identity that is becoming increasingly fragile: 【C4】______any role that brings respect or any goal that might provide【C5】______to the future, the individual mentions his past as a reminder to listeners, that here was a life【C6】______living. 【C7】______, the memories form part of a continuing life【C8】______, in which the person【C9】______the events and experiences of the years gone by and【C10】______on the overall meaning of his or her own almost completed life. As the life cycle【C11】______to its close, the aged must also learn to accept the reality of their own impending death. 【C12】______this task is made difficult by the fact that death is almost a【C13】______subject in the United States. The mere discussion of death is often regarded as【C14】______. As adults many of us find the topic frightening and are【C15】______to think about it — and certainly not to talk about it【C16】______the presence of someone who is dying. Death has achieved this taboo【C17】______only in the modern industrial societies. There seems to be an important reason for our reluctance to【C18】______the idea of death. It is the very fact that death remains【C19】______our control; it is almost the only one of the natural processes【C20】______is so.

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. Choose the most suitable one from the list A—G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. The U.S. space agency, NASA, is planning to launch a satellite that scientists hope will answer fundamental questions about the origin and destiny of our universe. (41)______. The prevailing theory of the universe"s origin, the "Big Bang" theory, says all matter and energy were once compressed into a tiny point. The density and resulting temperature were so enormous that, about 13-to-15-billion years ago by current estimates, a mighty explosion flung the matter hurtling outward in all directions. (42)______. They also ask, is the expansion accelerating? Will the universe collapse? What is its shape? Scientists will seek explanations with NASA"s new Microwave Anisotropy Probe, abbreviated as MAP. (43)______. "MAP will take the ultimate baby picture, an image of the infant universe taken in the fossil light that is still present from the Big Bang", he says. "This glow, this radiation, is the oldest light in the universe. Imprinted on this background, physicists knew, would be the secrets of the Big Bang itself". This background radiation is the light and heat that the early cosmic soup of matter emitted. Once roiling hot, it has cooled over the eons to just a few degrees above absolute zero. It was once thought to be distributed evenly. But in 1992, a highly sensitive NASA satellite named COBE detected nearly imperceptible variations in temperature as tiny as 30- millionths of a degree. (44)______. "These patterns result from tiny concentrations that were in the very early universe that were the seeds that grew to become the stars and the galaxies that we see today", he says. "The tiny patterns in the light hold the keys for understanding the history, the content, the shape, and the ultimate fate of our universe". (45)______. Princeton University scientist David Spergel says MAP Will give us a much more accurate matter count than we have now. "Right now, we want to measure something like the matter-density of the universe", he says. "Today, we can estimate that to a factor of two. That"s pretty good. What we want to do is be able to measure it to about the three-percent level, which is what MAP will be capable of doing". To do its job, the $145 million MAP spacecraft will settle into an orbit 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth. This is where the Earth"s and Sun"s gravitational pull are equal, and well past the range of the Earth"s own obscuring microwave radiation. While the older COBE satellite measured just a small part of the sky, Chalrles Bennett says MAP will scan the entire sky at 1,000 times better resolution. "The patterns that MAP measures are extremely difficult to measure", he says, "MAP will be measuring millionths of a degree temperature accuracies, and that"s hard to do. That"s like measuring the difference between two cups of sand to the accuracy of a single grain of sand".A. The principal NASA scientist for the New MAP spacecraft, Charles Bennett, says the heat patterns represent slight differences in the density of the young universe, where denser regions evolved into the present web of structures.B. NASA says the first results from the MAP mission will be ready in about 18 months after launch.C. The spacecraft will orbit the Earth seeking answers from an extremely faint glow of microwaves that have existed since the beginning of time.D. Scientists are trying to learn how it clumped together to produce stars, clusters of stars called galaxies, and clusters of galaxies.E. Astronomers are reporting evidence that points to a massive star-eating black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.F. One of those keys is the amount of matter and its density. More matter with a higher density me, fins mole gravitational pull, suggesting a slowing of the universe"s expansion, and perhaps even its collapse.G. The head of NASA"s Evolution of the Universe program, Alan Bunner, says MAP will measure what is thought a remnant of the Big Bang—an afterglow of microwaves bathing the universe that was emitted by the ancient cosmic matter.

Many signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American people. I trust that this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual.【F1】 As persons deprived of memory become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future. "The longer you look back," said Winston Churchill, "the farther you can look forward." Conceptions of the past are far from stable. They are continuously revised by the urgencies of the present.【F2】 When new urgencies arise in our own times and lives, the historian ' s spotlight shifts, probing at last into the darkness, throwing into sharp relief things that were always there but that earlier historians had carelessly erased from the collective memory. New voices ring out of the historical dark and demand to be heard.【F3】 One has only to note how in the last half-century the movements for women's rights and civil rights have reformulated and renewed American history. Thus the present endlessly reinvents the past. In this sense, all history, as Benedetto Croce said, is contemporary history. It is these adjustments of consciousness that make history so endlessly fascinating an intellectual adventure. "The one duty we owe to history," said Oscar Wilde, "is to rewrite it." 【F4】 We are the world's dominant military power, and I believe a consciousness of history is a moral necessity for a nation possessed of overwhelming power. History verifies John F. Kennedy's proposition, stated in the first year of his thousand days: "We must face the fact—that we are only 6 percent of the world' s population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem." History is the best cure for illusion.【F5】 Self-knowledge is the indispensable beginning of self-control, for the nation as well as for the individual, and history should forever remind us of the limits of our passing perspectives. History is a doomed enterprise that we happily pursue because of the thrill of the hunt, because exploring the past is such fun, because of the intellectual challenges involved, because a nation needs to know its own history. Or so we historians insist. Because in the end, a nation's history must be both the guide and the domain not so much of its historians as its citizens.

In a sense, the new protectionism is not protectionism at all, at least not in the traditional sense of the term. The old protectionism referred only to trade restricting and trade expanding devices, such as the tariff or export subsidy. The new protectionism is much broader than this; it includes interventions into foreign trade but is not limited to them.【F1】 The new protectionism, in fact, refers to how the whole of government intervention into the private economy affects international trade. The emphasis on trade is still there, thus came the term "protection". But what is new is the realization that virtually all government activities can affect international economic relations. 【F2】 The emergence of the new protectionism in the Western world reflects the victory of the interventionist, or welfare economy over the market economy. Jab Tumiler writes,"The old protectionism ... coexisted, without any apparent intellectual difficulty with the acceptable of the market as a national as well as an international economic distribution mechanism—indeed, protectionists as well as(if only not more than)free traders stood for laissez-faire.【F3】 Now, as in the 1930"s, protectionism is an expression of a profound skepticism as to the ability of the market to distribute resources and incomes to societies" satisfaction. It is precisely this profound skepticism of the market economy that is responsible for the protectionism. In a market economy, economic change of various colors implies redistribution of resources and incomes. The same opinion in many communities apparently is that such redistributions often are not proper. Therefore, the government intervenes to bring about a more desired result. The victory of the welfare state is almost complete in northern Europe.【F4】 In Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands, government intervention in almost all aspects of economic and social life is considered normal. In Great Britain this is only somewhat less true. Government traditionally has played a very active role in economic life in France and continued to do so. Only West Germany dares to go against the tide towards excessive interventionism in Western Europe. It also happens to be the most successful Western European economy. 【F5】 The welfare state has made significant progress in the United States as well as in Western Europe, social security, unemployment insurance, minimum wage laws, and rent control are through now traditional welfare state elements on the American scene.

What an elegant party! The Press Complaints Commission"s glittering bash this week m celebrate its tenth anniversary was the nearest London gets to high society. In a gathering too close m imitate for comfort, the PCC succeeded in bringing together Prince William, the heir to the throne, his father, Prince Charles, the royal mistress. Camilla Parker-Bowles, as well as pop stars, super-models, cabinet ministers, senior civil servants and other admirers. The one thing this different group had in common was that most of them had sought the protection of the PCC over the past decade. Their principal tormentors, the editors of the nation"s tabloid newspapers, were there in force to greet their victims, so it was not surprising that a certain tremble swirled around the party. That so many prominent upper circles turned up to devour the PCC"s canapés and rub shoulders with the royals is no doubt, a triumph for its chairman. Lord Wakeham. He can fairly claim to have restored confidence in self-regulation and saved the press from privacy legislation. A skilled political fixer, he has used his chairmanship m pressure the press barons such as Rupert Murdoch into enclosing their editors. The PCC"s code of conduct, drawn up by a panel of editors, is generally observed. Press standards have improved and complaints have fallen by nearly a third over the past five years. The industry, which not so long ago was said to be "drinking in the last-chance saloon", with self-regulation in terminal disrepute, is grateful. The party was meant m celebrate this success. The soap stars and the models, judging by the amount of drink going down their throats, certainly enjoyed themselves, as did the editors. But whether Prince Charles and Prince William were wise to associate themselves with this lot is doubtful. "Never sup with the enemy" is a good motto. At least the royals could tell who to avoid because all the guests had name tabs. Lord Wakeham, who helped get rid of Lady Thatcher without her even knowing, is a skilled operator. But this luxury party has given an opening to those critics who claim he is too close to the industry and too protective of the powerful. "We"re here to protect the vulnerable" was the slogan of a big banner that greeted the guests. That was not the main impression the evening made on the minds of those who staggered out of the grandeur of Somerset House, high on champagne and celebrity. The truly vulnerable were nowhere to be seen.

If you are interested in job creation—and who isn't this days? —you should talk to someone like Morris Panner. In 1999, Panner and some others started a Boston software company called Ope-nAir. By 2008 they sold it for $31 million. The firm had then grown to about 50 workers. It turns out that entrepreneurship (essentially, the funding of new companies) is crucial to the job creation. Of course, Panner' s success is often a slog. What' s the frustrating and perplexing about the present job dearth is that the US economy has long been a phenomenal employment machine. Here is a record: 83 million jobs are added from 1960 to 2007, with only six year of declines. Conventional analysis blames today's poor performance on weak demand. Because people aren't buying, businesses aren't hiring. Though true, this omits the vital role of entrepreneurship. In any given year, employment may reflect the ups and downs of the business cycle. But over longer periods, almost all job growth comes from new businesses. The reason: the high death rate of exiting firms. Even successful firms succumb to threats: new competitions and technology; mature market; the death of flinders; shifting consumers' tastes; poor management and unprofitability. A company founded today has an 80% chance of disappearing over the next quarter century, reports a study by Dane Stangler and Paul Kedrosky of the Kauffman Foundation. True, some blue-chips firms endure. Four fifth of the Fortune 500 were founded before 1970. But they are exception, and many blue chips have died. The debate over whether small or big firms create more jobs is misleading. The real distinction is between new and old. American workers are roughly split between firms with fewer or more than 500 employees. In healthy times, older companies of all sizes do create a lot of jobs. But they also lose jobs, as some businesses shrink or vanish. On balance, job creation and destruction cancel. All the network increases occur among startups, finds a study of the 1992—2005 period by economists John Haltiwanger of university of Maryland and Ron Jarmin and Javier Miranda of the Census Bureau. To be sure, entrepreneurship has a downside: booms and busts. Remember the dotcom "bubble", but more damaging are widespread popular misconceptions about what it isn't the engine of job adding. Although the entrepreneurial instinct seems powerful and American ambition and creative, venture capital for startups is scarce and that political leaders seem largely oblivious to burdensome government policies. This needs to be addressed. Entrepreneurship won't instantly cure American job deficit, but without, there will be no strong recovery.

The real heroine of the novel stands at one remove to the narrative.【F1】 On the face of it, readers are more likely to empathize with, and be curious about, the mysterious and resourceful slave, Sarah, who forms one point of an emotional triangle. Sarah is the property of Manon, and came with her to a failing Louisiana sugar plantation on her marriage to the good-for-nothing, bullying owner. But Manon"s husband is soon struck by Sarah, and the proof lies in their idiot small son, Walter. However, the reader is forced to see things through Manon"s eyes, not Sarah"s, and her consciousness is not a comfortable place to be. Never a please or a thank you passes her lips when talking to slaves, though manners is the order of the day in white society. Manon is enormously attracted by inter-racial marriage(for the place and time-the early 19th century—such a concern would not be unusual, but in her case it seems pathological).【F2】 Walter, with "his father"s curly red hair and green eyes, his mother"s golden skin, her full, pushing-forward lips", is the object of her especial hatred, but she chatters on about all the "dreadful mixed-blooded", the objectionable "yellow" people. Beyond Manon"s polarized vision, we glimpse "free negros" and the emerging black middle-class. To Manon"s disgust, such people actually have self-respect. In New Orleans buying shoes, Manon is taken aback by the shopkeeper"s lack of desired respect.【F3】 Mixed race prostitutes acquired the affections of male planters by giving them something mysterious their wives cannot often: What that might be, and why wives can"t offer it too, are questions Manon can"t even ask, let alone answer. The first third of the book explores the uneasy and unsustainable peace between Manon, Sarah and the man always called just "my husband" or "he". Against the background of violent slave revolts and equally savage revenges, it"s clear the peace cannot last.【F4】 It"s part of the subtlety of this book that as the story develops and the inevitable explosion occurs, our view of all the characters swiftly changes. 【F5】 Sarah turns out to deserve all the suspicion Manon directs at her; at the point of death Manon"s husband displays an admirable toughness and courage; and Manon herself wins the reader"s reluctant admiration for her bravery, her endurance, and her total lack of self-pity. Perhaps the cruelest aspect of this society is the way it breaks down and distorts family affections. A slave"s baby is usually sold soon after birth; Sarah"s would-be husband, if he wants her, must buy her; and Manon herself, after all, is only the property of her husband.

Suggestions for the Use of Plastic Bags Restrictions on the use of plastic bags have not been so successful in some regions. "White pollution" is still going on. Write a letter to the editor (s) of your local newspaper to give your opinions briefly, and make two or three suggestions. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Many mobile operators already offer a selection of television channels or individual shows, which are sent (1)_____ across their third-generation (3G) networks. In South Korea, television is also sent to mobile phones via satellite and terrestrial broadcast networks, which is far more (2)_____ than sending video across mobile networks; similar broadcasts will begin in Japan in April. Similar mobile-TV networks will also be built in Finland and America, and are being (3)_____ in many other countries. Meanwhile, Apple Computer, which (4)_____ a video-capable version of its iPod portable music player in this October, is (5)_____ a bargain with television networks to expand the (6)_____ of shows that can be purchased (7)_____ viewing on the device. And mobile TV was one of the big (8)_____ at the world"s largest technology fair, the Consumer Electronic Show. (9)_____ all this activity, however, the (10)_____ for mobile TV are unclear. For a start, nobody (11)_____ knows if consumers will pay for it, though surveys suggest they like the idea. One (12)_____ agency of the field, says there will be 125m mobile-TV users by 2010, but many other mobile technologies inspired high hopes and then failed to (13)_____ up to expectations. And (14)_____ people do want TV on the move, there is (15)_____ uncertainty in three areas: technology, business models and the (16)_____ itself. The (17)_____ for mobile TV is vast, in short, but (18)_____ is the degree of uncertainty over how it should actually be put into practice. Most observers do not expect widespread (19)_____ of mobile TV, if it comes at all, until 2008 at the earliest, since building the required ecosystem of technology, partnerships and content will (20)_____ some time.