单选题The central idea conveyed in the above text is that

单选题{{B}}Text 2{{/B}} Uruguay has been a proud exception to the privatizing wave that swept through South America in the 1990s. Its state-owned firms are more efficient than many of their counterparts in Argentina and Brazil ever were. In 1992, Uruguayans voted in a referendum against privatizing telecoms. They rightly observe that some of Argentina's sales were smashed, creating inefficient private monopolies. And with unemployment at 15%, nobody is enthusiastic about the job cuts privatization would involve. That leaves President Jorge Batlle with a problem. Uruguay has been in recession for the past two years, mainly because of low prices for its agricultural exports, and because of Argentina's woes. But public debt is at 45% of GDP, and rising. Some economists argue that privatization would give a boost to the economy, by attracting foreign investment, and by lowering costs. CERES, a think-tank, having compared tariffs for public services in Uruguay and its neighbors, believes liberalization could save businesses and households the equivalent of 4% of GDP annually, raise growth and produce a net 45,000 jobs. The polls that show continuing support for public ownership also show growing opposition to monopolies. So Mr. Baffle plans to keep the state firms, but let private ones either compete with them or bid to operate their services under contract. The opposition Broad Front and the trade unions are resisting. They have gathered enough signatures to demand a "public consultation" next month on a new law to allow private operators in the ports and railways—a referendum on whether to hold a referendum on the issue. Alberto Bension, the finance minister, admits the vote will be a crucial indicator of how far the government can push. But he notes that, since 1992, attempts to overturn laws by calling referendums have flopped. The liberalization of telecoms has already begun. Bell South, an American firm, is the first private cell-phone operator. There are plans to license others, and talk of allowing competition for fixed-line telephones. A new law allows private companies to import gas from Argentina to generate electricity in competition with the state utility. Another plan would strip Ancap, the state oil firm, of its monopoly of imports. It has already been allowed to seek a private partner to modernize its refinery. Harder tasks lie ahead. The state-owned banks are burdened with problem loans to farmers and home owners. And Mr. Batlle shows no appetite for cutting the bureaucracy. After a year in office, the president is popular. He has created a cross-party commission to investigate "disappearances" during Uruguay's military dictatorship of 1976-85 The unions are weakened by unemployment. At CERES. Ernesto Talvi argues that Mr. Baffle should note his own strength, and push ahead more boldly. But that is not the Uruguayan way.

单选题More than a hundred years ago, before the Civil War, a crew of cowboys stood outside a large horse corral, With them was their boss Bradford Grimes, a cattleman, who owned a large South Texas ranch near the Gulf of Mexico. Just then, Mrs. Grimes, the cattleman's wife, came to the ranch house door and cried out, "Bradford! Bradford! Those Blacks are worth a thousand dollars apiece. One might get killed." The cowboys laughed, but they knew she was telling the truth. For they were all Black slaves. Bradford Grimes was their owner. Most of the first Black cowboys were slaves, brought by their masters from the old South. On the plantations in the South, the slaves cut cotton. On the ranches in Texas they had to learn a new trade—breaking horses and handling long-horns. Some were taught by Mexican vaqueros, some by Indiana who knew the ways of horses and cattle. Grimes was only one of hundreds of slaveowning ranchers who ran cattle in Texas. The ranchers had brought their families and slaves from Mississippi, Georgia, and other southern states. They came on horseback, on foot, and in wagons. Some ranchers settled near the Mexican border, but there they found that it was too easy for their slaves to escape. Even slaves as far north as Austin, the capital of Texas, came to think of Mexico as the promised land. As early as 1845, the year that Texas became a state, a Texas newspaper reported the escape of twenty-five Blacks. "They were mounted on some of the best horses that could be found, "the story said, "and several of them were well armed." Thousands of other Black slaves escaped in the same way. All-Black cattle crews were common throughout central and eastern Texas. There were even a few free Blacks who owned ranches before the Civil War. Aaron Ashworth was one of them, and he owned 2500 cattle, as well as some slaves of his own. He employed a White schoolmaster to tutor his children. Black cowboys helped to tame and settle a wild country.

单选题Judging from the context, "cafe society" (Line 2, Paragraph 2) refers to

单选题 Is the literary critic like the poet, responding creatively, intuitively, subjectively to the written word as the poet responds to human experience? Or is the critic more like a scientist, following a series of demonstrable, verifiable steps, using an objective method of analysis? For the woman who is a practitioner of feminist literary criticism, the subjectivity versus objectivity, or critic-as-artist-or-scientist, debate has special significance; for her, the question is not only academic, but political as well, and her definition will provoke special risks whichever side of the issue it favors. If she defines feminist criticism as objective and scientific--a valid, verifiable, intellectual method that anyone, whether man or woman, can perform--the definition not only makes the critic-as-artist approach impossible, but may also hinder accomplishment of the utilitarian political objectives of those who seek to change the academic establishment and its thinking, especially about sex roles. If she defines feminist criticism as creative and intuitive, privileged as art, then her work becomes vulnerable to the prejudices of stereotypic ideas about the ways in which women think, and will be dismissed by much of the academic establishment. Because of these prejudices, women who use an intuitive approach in their criticism may find themselves charged with inability to be analytical, to be objective, or to think critically. Whereas men may be free to claim the role of critic-as-artist, women run different professional risks when they choose intuition and private experience as critical method and defense. These questions are political in the sense that the debate over them will inevitably be less an exploration of abstract matters in a spirit of disinterested inquiry than an academic power struggle, in which the careers and professional fortunes of many women scholars only now entering the academic profession in substantial numbers will be at stake, and with them the chances for a distinctive contribution to humanistic understanding, a contribution that might be an important influence against sexism in our society. As long as the academic establishment continues to regard objective analysis as "masculine" and an intuitive approach as "feminine," the theoretician must steer a delicate philosophical course between the two. If she wishes to construct a theory of feminist criticism, she would be well advised to place it within the framework of a general theory of the critical process that is neither purely objective nor purely intuitive. Her theory is then more likely to be compared and contrasted with other theories of criticism with some degree of dispassionate distance.

单选题The author's attitude toward American moral values may be

单选题Whether you think the human story begins in a garden in Mesopotamia known as Eden, or in present-day east Africa, it is clear that human beings did not start life as an urban creature. Man's habitat at the outset was dominated by the need to find food, and hunting and gathering were rural pursuits. Not until around 11,000 years ago, did he start building anything that might be called a village. It took another 6000 years for cities of more than 100,000 people to develop. In terms of human history this may seem a welcome development. It would be questionable to say that nothing of consequence has ever come out of the countryside. The wheel was presumably a rural invention. Even city-dwellers need bread as well as circuses. And if Dr. Johnson and Shelley were right to say that poets are the true legislators of mankind, then all those hills and lakes and other rural delights must be given credit for inspiring them. But the rural contribution to human progress seems slight compared with the urban one. Cities' development is synonymous with human development. The first villages came with the emergence of agriculture and the domestication of animals: people no longer had to wander but could instead draw together in settlements, allowing some to develop particular skills. After a while the farmers could produce surpluses, and the various products could be exchanged. Living together meant security. But people also drew together for the practical advantages of being in a particular place: by a river or spring, on a defensible hill or peninsula, next to an estuary (the mouth of a river) or other source of food. Also important, argue historians, was a settlement's capacity to draw people to it as a meeting-place, often for sacred or spiritual purposes. Graves, groves, even caves might become places for ceremonies and rituals. Man did not live by bread alone. But bread, in the broadest sense, was important. People came to cities not just to worship but to trade and the goods they bought and sold were not just farm products but the manufactures of urban craftsmen and skilled workers. The city became a centre of exchange, both of goods and of ideas, and so it also became a centre of learning, and innovation. Cities were much more than all of this, of course, and they were not all the same. As they developed, some were most notable for their religious role, as the hub of an empire, as centres of administration, political development, learning, or commerce. Some flourished, some died, their longevity depending on factors as varied as conquest, plague, misgovernment or economic collapse.

单选题When Marine Lt. Alan Zarracina finally did the splits after months of struggling with the difficult pose in yoga class, the limber women around him applauded. Zarracina, a 24-year-old Naval Academy graduate and flight student, admits he would have a hard time explaining the scene to other Marines. Each class ends with a chant for peace. Then, instructor Nancy La Nasa hands students incense sticks as a gift for their 90 minutes of back bends, shoulder stands and other challenging positions. Zarracina has tried to drag some of his military friends to class, but they make fun of him. "It's not necessarily considered masculine," he said. Still, the popular classes, based on ancient Hindu practices of meditation through controlled breathing, balancing and stretching, are catching on in military circles as a way to improve flexibility, balance and concentration. A former Navy SEAL told Zarracina about the class. The August edition of Fit Yoga, the nation's second-largest yoga magazine with a circulation of 100,000, features a photo of two Naval aviators doing yoga poses in full combat gear aboard an aircraft carrier. "At first it seemed a little shocking--soldiers practicing such a peaceful art," writes editor Rita Trieger. Upon closer inspection, she said, she noticed "a sense of inner calm" on the aviators' faces. "War is hell, and if yoga can help them find a little solace, that's good," said Trieger, a longtime New York yoga instructor. Retired Adm. Tom Steffens, who spent 34 years as a Navy SEAL and served as the director of the elite corps' training, regularly practices yoga at his home in Norfolk, Va. "Once in a while I'll sit in class, and everyone is a 20-something young lady with a 10-inch waist and here I am this old guy," he joked. Steffens, who said the stretching helped him eliminate the stiffness of a biceps injury after surgery, said the benefits of regular practice can be enormous. "The yoga cured all kinds of back pains," he said. "Being a SEAL, you beat up your body. " Yoga breathing exercises can help SEALs with their diving, and learning to control the body by remaining in unusual positions can help members stay in confined spaces for long periods, he said. "The ability to stay focused on something, whether on breathing or on the yoga practice, and not be drawn off course, that has a lot of connection to the military," he said. "In our SEAL basic training, there are many things that are yoga-like in nature. /

单选题 As people in rich countries know very well, eating too much food and burning too few calories is why a substantial number of us are overweight or obese. Now, however, a remarkable change in perspective has come from the discovery that obesity actually provides people with temporary protection from the harmful effects of fat. The insight has come from re-examining the common assumption that fatness itself drives the development of metabolic syndrome, which is what causes so much of the actual damage. The syndrome comes with a mixture of fife-threatening effects, with cardiovascular disease (diseases relating to the heart and blood vessels) and type 2 diabetes being among the most serious. In fact, it now seems that body fat may be a barrier that stops millions of Americans and fatty citizens elsewhere from going on to develop the syndrome. And the real damage is caused by the inflammatory effect of high levels of fat in the bloodstream. And ironically, it's fat cells that protect us from this by serving as toxic dumps, locking away the real villains of the modem diet. The problem is that this protection only lasts so long, until there is simply no more room inside the fat cells. That's when they start to break down, leading to a toxic spill into the bloodstream. This sets off an inflammatory response that causes various kinds of damage to body tissues. In this way, every excess calorie takes people closer to metabolic syndrome. So what can we do to stop a superabundance of fat triggering the syndrome? Of course there's no substitute for a healthy diet and exercise, but incitation to this effect seem to be of limited use. As with cigarettes and alcohol, a tax on calories-pricing foods by their energy content-is increasingly seen as another "lever" to change behaviour by malting obesity too costly. The new research may even suggest treatments to combat metabolic syndrome, such as antiinflammatory drugs. One promising candidate is salsalate, an arthritis drug related to aspirin, and the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston is now considering large-scale trials. What might be more helpful, though, is simply a wider recognition that fatty and sugary foods are more directly toxic than we had assumed. Ideally, people should be as well informed about the harmful effects of what they eat as, for example, pregnant women are about drinking and smoking. There is a consolation-you have your fat tissue to protect you when you consume that extra burger or sweetened soda. But now you know the perils of pushing your friendly fat cells beyond their natural limits.

单选题The early retirement of experienced workers is seriously harming the U.S. economy, according to a new report from the Hudson Institute, a public policy research organization. Currently, many older experienced workers retire at an early age. According to the recently issued statistics, 79 percent of qualified workers begin collecting retirement benefits at age 62; if that trend continues, there will be a labor shortage that will hinder the economic growth in the twenty-first century. Older Americans constitute an increasing proportion of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the population of those over age 65 will grow by 60% between 2001 and 2020. During the same period, the group aged 18 to 44 will increase by only 4%. Keeping older skilled workers employed, even part time, would increase U.S. economic output and strengthen the tax base; but without significant policy reforms, massive early retirement among baby boomers seems more likely. Retirement at age 62 is an economically rational decision today. Social Security and Medicaid earnings limits and tax penalties subject our most experienced workers to marginal tax rates as high as 67%. Social Security formulas encourage early retirement. Although incomes usually rise with additional years of work, any pay increases after the 35-year mark result in higher social Security taxes but only small increases in benefits. Hudson Institute researchers believe that federal tax and benefit policies are at fault and reforms are urgently needed, but they disagree with the popular proposal that much older Americans will have to work because Social Security will not support them and that baby boomers are not saving enough for retirement. According to the increase in 401 (k) and Keogh retirement plans, the ongoing stock market on Wall Street, and the likelihood of large inheritances, there is evidence that baby boomers will reach age 65 with greater financial assets than previous generations. The Hudson Institute advocates reforming government policies that now discourage work and savings, especially for older worker. Among the report' s recommendations. Tax half of all Social Security benefits, regardless of other income; provide 80% larger benefits for each year beyond 65; and permit workers nearing retirement to negotiate compensation packages that may include a lower salary but with greater healthcare benefits. However, it may take real and fruitful planning to find the right solution to the early retirement of older experienced workers; any measures taken must be allowed to prolong the serviceability of older experienced workers.

单选题D. a collection of lyrics

单选题The author mentions his family story in paragraph 4 to show that