Children will play with dolls equipped with personality chips, computers with in built personalities will be regarded as workmates rather than tools, relaxation will be in front of smell television, and digital age will have arrived.

A Letter to Explain Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: You are studying in Washington University. You lost your passport by accident yesterday. Write a letter to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, giving details of what happened and asking what you should do next. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

The small size of the components of computer chips has proved unstoppable. In each new (1)_____, those components are smaller and more tightly packed than they were in their predecessor. (2)_____ has been so rapid that chip designers are (3)_____ apparently fundamental barriers to further reductions in size and increases in density. In a small size version of the (4)_____ to wireless communication in the macroscopic world, a group of researchers led by Alain Nogaret, think they can make chips (5)_____ components talk to each other wirelessly. The researchers (6)_____ to use the standard print techniques employed in chipmaking to coat a semiconductor with tiny magnets. These magnets will (7)_____ local magnetic fields that point in opposite directions at different points (8)_____ the chip"s surface. Electrons have a (9)_____ called spin—that is affected by magnetic fields, and the team hopes to use a/an (10)_____ called inverse electron-spin vibration to make electrons (11)_____ the chip emit microwaves. Dr. Nogaret imagine great advances that would stem (12)_____ the success of his work, and these are not (13)_____ to the possibility of packing components yet more tightly. In today"s chips, the failure of a single connection can put the whole circuit out of (14)_____. This should not happen with a wireless system (15)_____ it could be programmed to re-route signals. The project will not be (16)_____ sailing. Generating microwaves powerful enough to (17)_____ data reliably will (18)_____ involve stacking several layers of magnets and semiconductors together and encouraging the electrons in them to move in a harmonious union. But if it (19)_____, a whole new wireless world will be (20)_____.

During the past generation, the American middle-class family that once could count on hard work and fair play to keep itself financially secure has been transformed by economic risk and new realities. Now a pink slip, a bad diagnosis, or a disappearing spouse can reduce a family from solidly middle class to newly poor in a few months. In just one generation, millions of mothers have gone to work, transforming basic family economics. Scholars, policymakers, and critics of all stripes have debated the social implications of these changes, but few have looked at the side effect: family risk has risen as well. Today"s families have budgeted to the limits of their new two-paycheck status. As a result, they have lost the parachute they once had in times of financial setback—a back-up earner (usually Mom) who could go into the workforce if the primary earner got laid off or fell sick. This "added-worker effect" could support the safety net offered by unemployment insurance or disability insurance to help families weather bad times. But today, a disruption to family fortunes can no longer be made up with extra income from an otherwise-stay-at-home partner. During the same period, families have been asked to absorb much more risk in their retirement income. Steelworkers, airline employees, and now those in the auto industry are joining millions of families who must worry about interest rates, stock market fluctuation, and the harsh reality that they may outlive their retirement money. For much of the past year, President Bush campaigned to move Social Security to a saving-account model, with retirees trading much or all of their guaranteed payments for payments depending on investment returns. For younger families, the picture is not any better. Both the absolute cost of healthcare and the share of it borne by families have risen—and newly fashionable health-savings plans are spreading from legislative halls to Wal-Mart workers, with much higher deductibles and a large new dose of investment risk for families" future healthcare. Even demographics are working against the middle class family, as the odds of having a weak elderly parent—and all the attendant need for physical and financial assistance—have jumped eightfold in just one generation. From the middle-class family perspective, much of this, understandably, looks far less like an opportunity to exercise more financial responsibility, and a good deal more like a frightening acceleration of the wholesale shift of financial risk onto their already overburdened shoulders. The financial fallout has begun, and the political fallout may not be far behind.

You are going to read a text about stress, followed by a list of arguments. Choose the best argument from the list A—G for each numbered subheading (41—45). There are two extra arguments which you do not need to use. (41) Two types of stress: There are basically two types of stress placed on human beings—physical and mental. (42) Effects of stress—physical or emotional: Whether physical or emotional in origin, stress causes the body to react in the same way. (43) Guilty—useful, though most harmful: Probably the most harmful of all the stresses is guilt. (44) Instances—no need to feel guilty: However, many of us as children learned rules that we no longer need. No one is perfect: Guilt and the worry that often accompanies this major stress are difficult to eradicate, but people subject to excessive guilt feelings should realize, as simple as it sounds, that no one is perfect. People cannot always be cheerful and helpful to every one they meet. Another good lesson is that mistakes should be forgotten, not lingered over and brought out to examine periodically. (45) Life with a little stress—significant: A life without stress, such as retirement with nothing to do, would be boring.Notes:respiration 呼吸。pupil 瞳孔。dilate 膨胀。perspiration 出汗，勤奋。date 约会。sour 使别扭。eradicate vt.消除，根除。at best 充其量。linger over 细细品味。meditation 深思，沉思，might as well 不妨。A. Fat adults should no longer feel guilty about leaving a little food on the plate, a successful businessman need not feel guilty about spending a little too much money on a vacation, nor should he feel guilty that he can combine a business trip to the West Coast with some swimming and golf at an ocean resort. But many people do feel guilty over such apparently innocent actions. Excessive guilt can sour all of life and make life not worth living; it can also cause self-hatred as well as other fears and anxieties that cause all life"s successes to be bittersweet, at best.B. Stress from physical activity, if not carried too far, is actually beneficial. Exercise relaxes you and may help forget about mental and emotional stress. But mental stress is almost always bad for you. If mental stress is unrelieved, it can actually cause diseases such as ulcers, migraine headaches, heart problems, or mental illness.C. Just as we need a little guilt—to keep us correct—and a little worry—to make us plan ahead—we need a little stress to stay interested in life. But when stress begins to bother you, you might as well change your routine. Take your mind off your worries with some physical activity; you may discover a solution you have overlooked before.D. Stress is a natural part of everyday life and there is no way to avoid it. In fact, it is not the bad thing it is often supposed to be. A certain amount of stress is vital to provide motivation and give purpose to life. It is only when the stress gets out of control that it can lead to poor performance and ill health.E. Some people are not afraid of stress, and such characters are obviously prime material for managerial responsibilities, others lose heart at the first signs of unusual difficulties.F. In the first stage, your body prepares to meet the stress. The heartbeat and respiration rates increase, and the pupils of the eyes dilate; the blood sugar level increases, and the rate of perspiration speeds up, while digestion slows down as blood and muscular activity is diverted elsewhere. In the second stage, your body returns to normal and repairs any damage caused by the stressful situation. However, if stress continues, the body cannot repair itself, and the final stage, exhaustion, then begins. If this stage continues, if for example you are frustrated by your work and continue to be frustrated for a long time, physical or emotional damage will occur. These stages of stress reaction are always the same, whether the stress is caused by a cross-country run, a first date, buying a house, or narrowly missing an automobile accident.G. This common emotion is useful to have when it helps us to realize that we have, in fact, committed some error, violated our own rules or social rules. If we did not feel guilty, we would never do anything except the things that brought us immediate pleasure—we"d never obey the law, work, exercise, or even study in school, unless we wanted to do so in the first place. As a person"s conscience develops, guilt feelings become inevitable; guilt is the sorrow we experience when we know we have done something incorrect.

You are going to read a list of headings and a text about happiness. Choose the most suitable heading from the list A—F for each numbered paragraph (41—45). The first and last paragraphs of the text are not numbered. There is one extra heading which you do not need to use.A. Various definitions and interpretations of happiness.B. One episode of enjoying happiness.C. Some misconceptions about happiness.D. Where to seek happiness?E. Happiness is equivalent to the ability to rejoice.F. The complexity of how to define happiness. "Are you happy?" I asked my brother, Ian, one day. "Yes. No. It depends what you mean", he said. "Then tell me", I said, "when was the last time you think you were happy?" "April 1967", he said. It served me right for putting a serious question to someone who has joked his way through life. But Ian"s answer reminded me that when we think about happiness, we usually think of something extraordinary, a pinnacle of sheer delight—and those pinnacles seem to get rarer the older we get. (41)______. For a child, happiness has a magical quality. I remember making hide-outs in newly cut hay, playing cops and robbers in the woods, getting a speaking part in the school play. Of course, kids also experience lows, but their delight at such peaks of pleasure as winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved. In the teenage years the concept of happiness changes. Suddenly it"s conditional on such things as excitement, love, popularity and whether that zit will clear up before prom night I can still feel the agony of not being invited to a party that almost everyone else was going to. But I also recall the ecstasy of being plucked from obscurity at another event to dance with a John Travolta look-alike. In adulthood the things that bring profound joy—birth, love, marriage—also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. Love may not last, sex isn"t always good, loved ones die. For adults, happiness is complicated. (42)______. My dictionary defines happy as "lucky" or "fortunate", but I think a better definition of happiness is "the capacity for enjoyment". The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It"s easy to overlook the pleasure we get from loving and being loved, the company of friends, the freedom to live where we please, even good health. I added up my little moments of pleasure yesterday. First there was sheer bliss when I shut the last lunchbox and had the house to myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which I love. When the kids came home, I enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the day. Later, peace descended again, and my husband and I enjoyed another pleasure-intimacy. Sometimes just the knowledge that he wants me can bring me joy. (43)______. You never know where happiness will turn up next. When I asked friends what makes them happy, some mentioned seemingly insignificant moments. "I hate shopping", one friend said. "But there"s this clerk who always chats and really cheers me up". Another friend loves the telephone. "Every time it rings, I know someone is thinking about me". (44)______. I get a thrill from driving. One day I stopped to let a school bus turn onto a side road. The driver grinned and gave me a thumbs-up sign. We were two allies in a world of mad motorists. It made me smile. We all experience moments like these. Too few of us register then as happiness. (45)______. Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a blend of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I doubt that my great-grandmother, who raised 14 children and took in washing, had much of either. She did have a net-work of close friends and family, and maybe this is what fulfilled her. If she was happy with what she had," perhaps it was because she didn"t expect life to be very different. We, on the other hand, with so many choices and such pressure to succeed in every area, have turned happiness into one more thing we "gotta have". We"re so self-conscious about our "right" to it that it"s making us miserable. So we chase it and equate it with wealth and success, without noticing that the people who have those things aren"t necessarily happier. While happiness may be more complex for us, the solution is the same as ever. Happiness isn"t about what happens to us—it"s about how we perceive what happens to us. It"s the knack of finding a positive for every negative, and viewing a setback as a challenge. It"s not wishing for what we don"t have, but enjoying what we do possess.

As everyone knows, words constantly take on new meanings. Since they do not necessarily, nor even usually, take the place of the old ones, we should picture this process as the analogy of a tree throwing out new branches which themselves throw out subordinate branches. The new branches sometimes overshadow and kill the old one but by no means always. We shall again and again find the earliest senses of a word flourishing for centuries despite a vast overgrowth of later senses which might be expected to kill them. When a word has several meanings historical circumstances often make one of them dominant during a particular period. Thus "station" is now more likely to mean a railway-station than anything else; "speculation" more likely to bear its financial sense than any other. Until this century "plane" had as its dominant meaning "a flat surface" or "a carpenter"s tool to make a surface smooth", but the meaning "an aeroplane" is dominant now. The dominant sense of a word lies uppermost in our minds. Whenever we meet the word, our natural impulse is to give it that sense. We are often deceived. In an old author the word may mean something different. One of my aims is to make the reading of old books easy as far as certain words are concerned. If we read an old poem with insufficient regard for the change of the dictionary meanings of words we won"t be able to understand the poem the old author intended. And to avoid this, knowledge is necessary. We see good words or good-senses of words losing their edge or more rarely getting a new edge that serves some different purposes. "Verbicide", the murder of a word, happens in many ways. Inflation is the commonest: those who taught us to say "awfully" for "very ", "tremendous" for "great", and "unthinkable" for "undesirable" were verbicides. I should be glad if I sent any reader away with a sense of responsibility to the language. It is unnecessary to think we can do nothing about it. Our conversation will have little effect, but if we get into print—perhaps especially if we are leader writers or reporters—we can help to strengthen or weaken some disastrous words, can encourage a good and resist a bad Americanism. For many things the press prints today will be taken up by a great mass of people in a few years.

Somebody might say that anxiety is a small price to pay for maximizing individual liberty.【F1】 Freedom from nature is bound to have its unpleasant side effects, but surely it is still much better than submitting to the brutish, undignified fate nature has in store for each of us. 【F2】 Yet it is also true that our inability to find a standard of personal dignity or significance to trump productivity might be the foundation for a new birth of tyranny in the emerging biotechnological world. Consider that a perfectly technological world would be one in which every natural resource was harnessed to maximize the productivity of free beings. Biotechnology, in effect, adds one"s own body to the list of natural resources. The philosopher of unregulated individualism, John Locke, said that my body is my property to be exploited at will with security and enjoyment in mind. Biotechnology promises to make into a reality the transhumanist dream of leaving behind our bodily limitations. This insight is the source of our enthusiasm today for cosmetic surgery and neurology.【F3】 It would seem that enhancing the body of a perfectly healthy individual would be a violation of the literal meaning of the Hippocratic Oath; it says, in effect, do not turn someone into a patient for reasons that have nothing to do with health. These days, autonomy seems to trump such traditional concerns. But what arc the main reasons that people have themselves nipped, tucked, and Botoxed? To look younger and more pleasing and so to be more productive. To avoid the indignity of being old, alone, and poor. Autonomy is subordinated to dignity understood as productivity. 【F4】 If there is nothing wrong with such physical enhancement, we will all be pressured to stay young and pretty as long as we can, which will be a lot longer than nature intends. Autonomy, in effect, will be sacrificed to productivity. The same will be true of other potential improvements—to our cognitive abilities, our memories, and our moods. By way of example, consider a case from the university: the notoriously autonomy obsessed and unproductive professor. Despite the fact that such professors often drove off students and were too disoriented to publish to their full potential, we used to tolerate their moodiness for two reasons. First, we did not think that they could help it; professors are eccentric by nature.【F5】 And second, we sort of bought the claim that we all—and profound people especially—have a right to our "natural moods" as an indispensable clue to the truth about who we are.

Until the late 1940s, when television began finding its way into American homes, companies relied mainly on print and radio to promote their products and services. The advent of television (1)_____ a revolution in product and service. Between 1949 and 1951, advertising on television grew 960 percent. Today the Internet is once again (2)_____ promotion. By going online, companies can communicate instantly and directly with prospective customers. (3)_____ on the World Wide Web includes advertising, sponsorships, and sales promotions (4)_____ sweepstakes, contests, coupons, and rebates. In 1996 World Wide Web advertising revenues (5)_____ $300 million. Effective online marketers don"t (6)_____ transfer hard-copy ads to cyberspace. (7)_____ sites blend promotional and non-promotional information indirectly delivering the advertising messages. To (8)_____ visits to their sites and to create and (9)_____ customer loyalty, companies change information frequently and provide many opportunities for (10)_____. A prototype for excellent (11)_____ promotion is the Ragu Web site. Here visitors can find thirty-six pasta recipes, take Italian lessons, and view an Italian film festival, (12)_____ they will find no traditional ads. (13)_____ subtle is the mix of product and promotion that visitors hardly know an advertising message has been (14)_____. Sega of America, maker of computer games and hardware, uses its Web site for a (15)_____ of different promotions, such as (16)_____ new game characters to the public and supplying Web surfers the opportunity to (17)_____ games. Sega"s home page averages 250,000 visits a day. To heighten interest in the site, Sega bought an advertising banner on Netscape (18)_____ increasing site visits by 15 percent. Online (19)_____ in Quaker Oats" Gatorade promotion received a free T-shirt in exchange for answering a few questions. Quaker Oats reports that the online promotion created product (20)_____ and helped the company know its customers better.

Studythetwopicturesgivenbelowcarefullyandwriteanessayofabout200words.Youressayshouldcoverailtheinformationofthepicturesandmeetthefollowingrequirement:1.interpretthepictures;2.causesofthephenomenon;3.yourcomments.

After Los Angeles, Atlanta may be America"s most car-dependent city. Atlantans sentimentally give their cars names, compare speeding tickets and jealously guard any sidestreet where it is possible to park. The city"s roads are so well worn that the first act of the new mayor, Shirley Franklin, was to start repairing potholes. In 1998, 13 metro counties lost federal highway funds because their air-pollution levels violated the Clean Air Act. The American Highway Users Alliance ranked three Atlanta interchanges among the 18 worst bottlenecks in the country. Other cities in the same fix have reorganized their highways, imposed commuter and car taxes, or expanded their public transport systems. Atlanta does not like any of these things. Public transport is a vexed subject, too. Atlanta"s metropolitan region is divided into numerous county and smaller city governments, which find it hard to work together. Railways now serve the city center and the airport, but not much else; bus stops are often near-invisible poles, offering no indication of which bus might stop there, or when. Georgia"s Democratic governor, Roy Barnes, who hopes for reelection in November, has other plans. To win back the federal highway money lost under the Clean Air Act, he created the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), a 15-member board with the power to make the county governments, the city and the ten-county Atlanta Regional Commission cooperate on transport plans, whether they like it or not. Now GRTA has issued its own preliminary plan, allocating $4.5 billion over the next three years for a variety of schemes. The plan earmarks money to widen roads; to have an electric shuttle bus shuttle tourists among the elegant villas of Buckhead; and to create a commuter rail link between Atlanta and Macon, two hours to the south. Counties will be encouraged, with generous ten-to-one matching funds, to start express bus services. Public goodwill, however, may not stretch as far as the next plan, which is to build the Northern Arc highway for 65 miles across three counties north of the city limits. GRTA has allotted $270m for this. Supporters say it would ease the congestion on local roads, opponents think it would worsen over-development traffic. The counties affected, and even GRTA"s own board, are divided. The governor is in favor, however; and since he can appoint and fire GRTA"s members, that is probably the end of the story. Mr. Barnes has a tendency to do as he wants, regardless. His arrogance on traffic matters could also lose him votes. But Mr. Barnes thinks that Atlanta"s slowing economy could do him more harm than the anti-sprawl movement.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

Suppose you accept the persuasive data that inequality has been rising in the United States and most advanced nations in recent decades. But suppose you don't want to fight inequality through politically polarizing steps like higher taxes on the wealthy or a more generous social welfare system. 【F1】 There remains a plausible solution to rising inequality that avoids those polarizing ideas: strengthening education so that more Americans can benefit from the advances of the 21st-century economy. This is a solution that conservatives, centrists and liberals alike can comfortably get behind. After all, who doesn't favor a stronger educational system. But a new paper shows why the math just doesn 't add up, at least if the goal is addressing the gap between the very rich and everyone else. Brad Hershbein, Melissa Kearney and Lawrence Summers offer a simple little simulation that shows the limits of education as an inequality-fighter. In short, more education would be great news for middle and lower-income Americans, increasing their pay and economic security.【F2】 It just isn' t up to the task of meaningfully reducing inequality, which is being driven by the sharp upward movement of the very top of the income distribution. It is all the more interesting that the research comes from Mr. Summers, a former Treasury secretary who is hardly known as a soak-the-rich class warrior.【F3】 It is published by the Hamilton Project, a centrist research group operating with Wall Street funding and seeking to find third-way-style solutions to America' s problems that can unite left and right. 【F4】 In their simulation, they assume that 10 percent of non-college-educated men of prime working age suddenly obtained a college degree or higher, which would be an unprecedented rise in the proportion of the work force with advanced education. They assume that these more educated men go from their current pay levels to pay that is in line with current college graduates, minus an adjustment for the fact that more college grads in the work force could depress their wages a bit. 【F5】 "Increasing the educational attainment of men without a college degree will increase their average earnings and their likelihood of being employed," the authors write. And even if it doesn' t do much to reduce overall inequality, they find it does reduce inequality within the bottom half of the income distribution, by increasing the earnings of those near the 25th percentile of earnings.

When it comes to suing doctors, Philadelphia is hardly the city of brotherly love. A combination of sprightly lawyers and sympathetic juries has made Philadelphia a hotspot for medical-malpractice lawsuits. Since 1995, Pennsylvania state courts have awarded an average of $2m in such cases, according to Jury Verdict Research, a survey firm. Some medical specialists have seen their malpractice insurance premiums nearly double over the past year. Obstetricians are now paying up to $104,000 a year to protect themselves. The insurance industry is largely to blame. Carol Golin, the Monitor"s editor, argues that in the 1990s insurers tried to grab market share by offering artificially low rates (betting that any losses would be covered by gains on their investments). The stock-market correction, coupled with the large legal awards, has eroded the insurers" reserves. Three in Pennsylvania alone have gone bust. A few doctors—particularly older ones—will quit. The rest are adapting. Some are abandoning litigation-prone procedures, such as delivering babies. Others are moving parts of their practice to neighboring states where insurance rates are lower. Some from Pennsylvania have opened offices in New Jersey. New doctors may also be deterred from setting up shop in litigation havens, however prestigious. Despite a Republican president, tort reform has got nowhere at the federal level. Indeed doctors could get clobbered indirectly by a Patients" Bill of Rights, which would further expose managed care companies to lawsuits. This prospect has fuelled interest among doctors in Pennsylvania"s new medical malpractice reform bill, which was signed into law on March 20th. It will, among other things, give doctors $40m of state funds to offset their insurance premiums, spread the payment of awards out over time and prohibit individuals from doubled dipping—that is, suing a doctor for damages that have already been paid by their health insurer. But will it really help? Randall Bovbjerg, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute, argues that the only proper way to slow down the litigation machine would be to limit the compensation for pain and suffering, so-called "non-monetary damages". Needless to say, a fixed cap on such awards is resisted by most trial lawyers. But Mr. Bovbjerg reckons a more nuanced approach, with a sliding scale of payments based on well-defined measures of injury, is a better way forward. In the meantime, doctors and insurers are bracing themselves for a couple more rough years before the insurance cycle turns. Nobody disputes that hospital staff make mistakes: a 1999 Institute of Medicine report claimed that errors kill at least 44,000 patients a year. But there is little evidence that malpractice lawsuits on their own will solve the problem.

To snatch opportunity, you must spot the signals that it is time to conquer the new markets, add products or perhaps franchise your hot ideas.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

You are a senior student at Beijing Union University, majoring in computer science. You are preparing to take the national examination for the postgraduates next year. Write a letter to Prof Wang, expressing your hope to attend his English Writing class. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Visiting Disney World without your children is risky. What if they find out? Your happy home will become an inferno of tantrums and broken crockery. Nonetheless, gambling that five-year-olds do not read The Economist closely, your correspondent went to Orlando, strictly for research, on a warm day in January. The park is overwhelming. The queue for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride is nearly an hour long, according to the helpful warning sign at the entrance. The yowl of the Yeti echoes from the newly completed Mount Everest. The crowds throng as densely as pilgrims in Mecca, only they do it all year round and in brighter shirts. People seem to like the place. Walt Disney could have built his biggest theme park anywhere. He chose Florida. The weather is balmy, and when it gets too hot there are lots of pools to cool off in, says Meg Crofton, Walt Dis ney World's CEO. Florida also offers plenty of space to expand. Disney World, which was first carved out of wild woodland in 1971, has swollen to four parks covering 40 square miles (104 sq km) and employing 60,000 "cast members". Contrary to the stereotype of rapid churn in the serv ice sector, the average full-time employee sticks around for nine years. Florida's business climate is sunny, too. The Milken Institute, a think-tank in California, compiles an index of "best-performing cities" in America, a composite measure of such things as job creation, wage growth and whether businesses are thriving. In the most recent index, six of the top ten metropolitan areas are in Florida. (Orlando-Kissimmee is sixth.) And 18 of the top 30 are in the South. For a long time the South's weather got in the way of its development . Richard Pillsbury, a ge ography professor at Georgia State University, describes traditional life in the lowland South, a re gion stretching from northern Virginia down to the Gulf coast of Texas: "Smallish hardscrabble farms almost lost in the white heat of a sweltering summer sun as the owners and their help fought swarms of mosquitoes to plant, cultivate and harvest the meagre cotton crop for market." Then came air-conditioning. As it spread after the second world war, the South became suddenly more comfortable to live and work in. From the 1940s until the 1980s the region boomed. In his book "Old South, New South", Gavin Wright lists four reasons why. Federal defence spending stimulated growth. Sunshine attracted skilled professionals. The South, having developed so little in the past, was a "clean slate", without strong labour unions, entrenched bureaucracies, restrictive laws or outdated machinery. Lastly, given how much catching up the South had to do, the potential returns were higher than in the north. Southerners have prospered in part by playing to their traditional strengths. The fame of southern hospitality has bolstered the region's hotel chains, such as Holiday Inn. That of southern cuisine helps local restaurants, such as Waffle House, Cracker Barrel and KFC. Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has kept costs low by refusing to recognise unions. And Coca-Cola owes at least some of its success to its southern origins.

There are roughly three New Yorks.【F1】 There is, first, the New York of the man and woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts the size and disturbance as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of all these three trembling cities, the greatest is the last — the city of final destination, the city that is the goal.【F2】 It is the third city that accounts for New York's high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidarity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference;【F3】 each embraces New York with intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company. The commuter is the queerest bird of all. The suburb he inhabits has no essential vitality of its own and is a mere roost where he comes at the day's end to go to sleep. Except in rare cases, the man who lives in Mamaroneck or Little Neck or Teaneck, and works in New York, discovers nothing much about the city except the time of arrival and departure of trains and buses, and the path to a quick lunch.【F4】 He has fished in Manhattan wallet and dug out coins, but has never listened to Manhattan's breathing, never awakened to its morning, never dropped off to sleep in its night. The terrain of New York is such that a resident sometimes travels faster, in the end, than a commuter.【F5】 The journey of the composer Irving Berlin from Cherry Street in the lower East Side to an apartment uptown was through an alley and was only three or four miles in length; but it was like going three times around the world.

Perhaps only a small boy trained to be a wizard at the Hogwarts School of Magic could cast a spell so powerful as to create the biggest book launch ever. Wherever in the World the clock strikes midnight on June 20th, his followers will flock to get their paws on one of more than 10m copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Bookshops will open in the middle of the night and delivery firms are drafting in extra staff and bigger trucks. Related toys, games, DVDs and other merchandise will be everywhere. There will be no escaping Potter mania. Yet Mr. Potter"s world is a curious one, in which things are often not what they appear. While an excitable media (hereby including The Economist, happy to support such a fine example of globalization) is helping to hype the launch of J.K. Rowling"s fifth novel, about the most adventurous thing that the publishers have organized is a reading by Ms. Rowling in London"s Royal Albert Hall, to be broadcast as a live web cast. Hollywood, which owns everything else to do with Harry Potter, says it is doing even less. Incredible as it may seem, the guardians of the brand say that, to protect the Potter franchise, they are trying to maintain a low profile. Well, relatively low. Ms. Rowling signed a contract in 1998 with Warner Brothers, part of AOL Time Warner, giving the studio exclusive film, licensing and merchandising rights in return for what now appears to have been a steal: some $500,000. Warner licenses other firms to produce goods using Harry Potter characters or images, from which Ms. Rowling gets a big enough cut that she is now wealthier than the queen—if you believe Britain"s Sunday Times rich list. The process is self-generating: each book sets the stage for a film, which boosts book sales, which lifts sales of Potter products. Globally, the first four Harry Potter books have sold some 200m copies in 55 languages; the two movies have grossed over $1.8 billion at the box office. This is a stunning success by any measure, especially as Ms Rowling has long demanded that Harry Potter should not be over-commercialized. In line with her wishes, Warner says it is being extraordinarily careful, at least by Hollywood standards, about what it licenses and to whom. It imposed tough conditions on Coca-Cola,. insisting that no Harry Potter images should appear on cans, and is now in the process of making its licensing programmed even more restrictive. Coke may soon be considered too mass market to carry the brand at all. The deal with Warner ties much of the merchandising to the films alone. There are no officially sanctioned products relating to "Order of the Phoenix"; nor yet for "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", the film of the third book, which is due out in June 2004. Warner agrees that Ms. Rowling"s creation is a different sort of commercial property, one with long-term potential that could be damaged by a typical Hollywood marketing blitz, says Diane Nelson, the studio"s global brand manager for Harry Potter. It is vital, she adds, that with more to come, readers of the books are not alienated. "The evidence from our market research is that enthusiasm for the property by fans is not warning".