【每日阅读训练——速度越障5系列】【5-16】

抓抓sandra

【速度5-16】
Louisa May Alcott, 1832-1888: The Woman Behind 'Little Women'
http://www.51voa.com/VOA_Special_English/Louisa-May-Alcott---The-Woman-Behind-Little-Women-43151.html
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BOB DOUGHTY: I'm Bob Doughty.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: And I'm Shirley Griffith with the VOA Special English program People in America. Every week we tell about a person important in the history of the United States. Today we tell about Louisa May Alcott. She wrote one of America's best known children's books.
BOB DOUGHTY: In eighteen sixty-eight, an American publisher asked a struggling young writer to write a book for girls. At first, the writer, Louisa May Alcott, was not sure she wanted to do it. She said she never liked girls. And she never knew many, except her sisters. She thought her family's activities and experiences might be interesting to others. But, she said, probably not.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Alcott decided to write the book anyway. She told about her experiences growing up in the northeastern United States during the middle of the nineteenth century. Her book proved to be more than interesting. "Little Women" became one of the most popular children's books in American literature. It has been published in more than fifty languages.
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BOB DOUGHTY: Louisa May Alcott was born in Pennsylvania in eighteen thirty-two. She was the second of four daughters. She had one older sister, Anna. And two younger sisters, Elizabeth, called Beth, and May. Her parents were Bronson and Abigail Alcott. Her father was an educator and social reformer.
The Alcotts later settled in Concord, Massachusetts. Several great American writers were friends of the family. They included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Mister Alcott provided the girls' education. He taught them many subjects. He also made them write about their personal thoughts and experiences.
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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The Alcotts did not have much money. Louisa worked to help support her family. She tried teaching, sewing, and taking care of children. She did not like any of these jobs.
Louisa thought of herself as a writer. At the age of sixteen, she wrote her first book. It was called "Flower Fables." She decided to sell what she wrote. She wrote many kinds of poems, stories, and plays. Her stories were exciting, but unrealistic. She sold them to newspapers and magazines for small amounts of money.
BOB DOUGHTY: In eighteen sixty-two, during the American Civil War, Louisa May Alcott went to Washington, D.C. She served as a nurse in a military hospital. She cared for sick and wounded soldiers. She wrote letters to her family about her experiences. She included these letters in a book that was published the next year. Critics praised it but it did not bring her much money. And, working in the hospital damaged her health.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: In eighteen sixty-five she visited Europe as a helper to an older woman. Alcott hoped to re-gain her health. She spent a long time away from her family. Her health did not improve. But she thought about her writing. When she returned, she agreed to her publisher's request that she write a book for girls based on the life she knew.
"Little Women" was published in eighteen sixty-eight. The book was immediately popular with people of all ages. It brought Alcott fame and a lot of money. She continued writing other popular books for young people. These included "An Old-Fashioned Girl," "Little Men, and "Eight Cousins."
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BOB DOUGHTY: Louisa May Alcott wrote books for adults, as well as children. She published these under another name -- A. M. Barnard. These books were published before "Little Women" made her famous. They were very different from her children's stories. They were about love, power, and unhappiness.
One book is called "Behind a Mask: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott." The book includes four mystery stories. Another is called "The Lost Stories of Louisa May Alcott." These stories are about love, betrayal, and illegal drugs.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Alcott wrote a story called "A Long Fatal Love Chase." It is about an independent young woman. She marries an older man who already has a wife. She flees from him. He follows her throughout Europe. The book tells of insanity, violence, and death. Louisa May Alcott tried to get the book published in eighteen sixty-six. The publisher rejected it. He said it was too shocking.
In the early nineteen nineties, a man who collected Alcott materials found the unpublished story in a bookstore in New York City. He bought it for about fifty thousand dollars. Reports said he sold it to a major American publisher for about one million dollars. The story was published in nineteen ninety-five.
BOB DOUGHTY: Louisa May Alcott wrote many exciting stories about love. Yet she never married. She continued to support her family during the last years of her life. In fact, she cared for the young daughter of her sister, May, who died in eighteen seventy-nine.
Alcott was involved in the movements to end slavery and to gain voting rights for women. She wrote that "I . . . take more pride in the very small help we Alcotts could give than in all the books I ever wrote." Louisa May Alcott died in eighteen eighty-eight.
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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Louisa May Alcott's most famous book, "Little Women", tells the story of the March family of Concord, Massachusetts. The story begins during the American Civil War in the eighteen sixties. Mister March is away from home. He is with the troops of the Union Army. He is a religious worker. Missus March is raising her four daughters by herself.
The March family is very close. They do many things together. They do not have much money. They suffer shortages caused by the war. Yet they share what they have with people who are in need.
BOB DOUGHTY: The four daughters are Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. They are strong, brave, and loving. Jo is the most important person in the book. She is smart. She has a good imagination. She writes stories. And she creates plays that the sisters perform together.
Jo also is independent. She chooses a non-traditional life. She goes to New York to become a writer. There she meets an older man, a professor. She returns home to care for her parents. She writes stories that become very popular. Later, Jo marries the professor. Together, they establish a school.
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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The March family in "Little Women" is very much like Louisa May Alcott's family. Her sisters are like the sisters in the book. And the leading person, Jo, is like Louisa. Jo must work to support her family, just as Louisa had to do. One of Jo's jobs is to help a family member, an old woman called Aunt March. Jo does not really like Aunt March. But she loves the older woman's house, especially the large library with hundreds of books. This is how Alcott writes about this place:
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BOB DOUGHTY: "The dim, dusty room. . . the cozy chairs, the globes, and, best of all, the wilderness of books in which she could wander where she liked, made the library a region of bliss to her. The moment Aunt March took her nap, or was busy with company, Jo hurried to this quiet space, and, curling herself up in the easy chair, devoured poetry, romance, history, travels, and pictures, like a regular bookworm. "
All of these wonderful books put great ideas into Jo's head. Jo wanted to do something very wonderful, Alcott writes: "What it was she had no idea as yet, but left it for time to tell her."
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Jo's beloved sister Beth dies young, as Alcott's own sister Beth did. Jo is very unhappy. Her mother tells her to write because that always made her happy. Jo writes a story "that went straight to the hearts of those who read it." Jo cannot understand how her simple little story became so popular.
Her father explains, "There is truth in it, Jo, that's the secret; . . . You have found your style at last. You wrote with no thought of fame or money, and put your heart into it. . . ; You have had the bitter, now comes the sweet. "
BOB DOUGHTY: Louisa May Alcott's book, "Little Women", is still popular today. The book has been made into several movie versions. And, some American women say they decided to become writers after reading how Jo March became a writer in "Little Women".
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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: This Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. It was produced by Dana Demange. I'm Shirley Griffith.
BOB DOUGHTY: And I'm Bob Doughty. For transcripts, mp3s and podcasts of our programs, go to 51voa.com. Join us again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of America.
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【越障5-16】
Financial transaction tax in the euro area
Shooting the bankers, or themselves?
Sep 17th 2011, 15:42 by The Economist | Wroclaw
http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2011/09/financial-transaction-tax-euro-area


THROUGH the crisis, European taxpayers have bailed out first the banks, and then busted states. So it is little wonder that many governments are reluctant to consider either of the main options to end the euro-zone crisis: opening up the wallet (by enlarging the euro-zone rescue fund), or letting others borrow one’s credit-card (issuing joint Eurbonds).
Germany and France want somebody else to start paying. And who better to punish than the reckless bankers and speculators who, in their view, caused the trouble in the first place?
The idea of imposing a financial transaction tax (FTT) has been around since the start of the crisis, indeed for several decades since it was mooted by the late Nobel laureate, James Tobin. But has faced a seemingly insurmountable problem: in a globalised connected financial world, a financial tax has to be global if markets are not simply to shift their operations to where they will not be taxed.
As Timothy Geithner, America’s Treasury Secretary, repeated to European finance ministers in a less-than-cordial encounter (see previous posting) in the Polish city of Wroclaw this week, the United States opposes the FTT on the grounds that it would raise the cost of capital and weaken the already-fragile economic recovery.
Undeterred, Germany and France last week called for the tax to be imposed by the European Union alone (see joint letter from the German and French finance ministershere). The European Commission is also supporting the idea, and will unveil proposals in the coming weeks. Michel Barnier, commissioner for the single market, said his proposals would be “technically simple, economically bearable by the financial sector, financially productive and politically just”. He gave no figures for how much money could be raised.
Supporters of a more localised FTT would argue that this is an opportunity for Europe to show the way in taking action that is both moral and remunerative. As with emissions-trading to curb climate change, others will follow. Indeed, European officials are already arguing over who should take the proceeds of an FTT: national exchequers, the European Union or a special-purpose European fund to deal with future banking collapses?
Even so, the idea is running into the firm objections of, among others, Britain. Jacek Rostowski, the Polish finance minister who holds the rotating presidency, said the EU was “very, very divided” on the issue when it was discussed in Wroclaw. In any case, he said, “nobody expects this element to be crucial in our attempt to stabilise the situation, both fiscally and financially.” In other words, the FTT is not worth the trouble it would cause.
Thus the idea that gathered strength yesterday: a financial transaction tax within the 17 countries of euro zone. “I’m sure that if it’s impossible at the worldwide level, we’ll need to organise that in the European Union, or at least in the euro zone.” To reduce the risk of avoidance, he said, an FTT in the euro zone would have to be imposed at a lower rate than a global tax. In an interview, his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, supported the idea.
One might question whether an FTT in an ever-smaller geographical area makes sense, particularly given that it excludes London, Europe’s main financial centre. The pony-tailed Swedish finance minister, Anders Borg had some words of caution:
We have substantial experience in Sweden. Basically most of our derivative and bond trading went to London during the years we had a financial transaction tax. So if you don’t get a solution that is universal it is very likely to be detrimental for European financial markets. And from the Swedish perspective, we cannot foresee that we would introduce such a tax in our system again.
The idea of an FTT at 17 raises another intriguing question: might it become the first fracture in the EU from the move to integrate the euro zone to confront its debt crisis? An FTT is no longer a question of monitoring budgets and maintaining fiscal discipline, but a move to integrate taxation, which in turn influences the EU’s single market.
Britain may consider a FTT at anything other than the global level to be self-defeating. But what of a common base for corporate tax in the euro zone? Even if British tax rates are lower, a simplified and uniform system for calculating and paying corporate tax in the much of the European market may prove attractive to some companies.
Such issues worry British officials. But for now the greater alarm is over a collapse of the euro, so the British have become among the loudest cheerleaders for euro-zone integration. “Time is running out,” said George Osbone, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. “They have got to get a grip and deliver a solution to the uncertainty in the markets.”
If the ordinary citizen has to pay tax on a daily financial transaction, like buying a toothbrush, there can be little moral argument against taxing financial transactions. But at a time of crisis, the question is an FTT might actually worsen the crisis. Might a euro-area FTT not weaken the euro area’s banks? After all, the IMF is urging governments urgently to recapitalise their banks - not to draw money out off them - to halt the spread of contagion from their exposure to the sovereign debt of vulnerable European countries. Two French banks were downgraded this week due to their exposure to Greek debt
It would not be the first time that Germany and others, in taking aim at the bankers, shoot themselves in the foot. The demand that the financial sector pay for a share of the second bail-out of Greece (which has not yet been approved) caused delay, destabilised the markets and had to be buttressed by offers of government cash to protect the European Central Bank and Greek institutions. It raised comparatively little money. If the euro zone believed the creditors should take the hit, it should have allowed a proper restructuring of Greece’s unsustainable debt. Instead it came up with a fudge that did more harm than good.
The resentment of bankers, and the desire to protect the taxpayer is understandable. But the grudging and erratic response of the euro zone’s governments has been as much part of the problem as of the solution. The citizen will be placed at ever greater risk unless the crisis is tamed quickly. To do that, two destabilising feedback loops have to be broken. The first is between collapsing banks and collapsing treasuries; the other is between panicking markets and hesitating governments. An EU or euro-area FTT helps with neither. For now, it is a distraction - and could make things worse.

jxgzcly

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01:06

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最近速度感觉下来了点,又上不去了.

容易走神.

fox0923

狐来了，占位~~

1‘20“
1‘13”
1'30"
1'20"
1'03"

jxgzcly

狐来了，占位~~

-- by 会员 fox0923 (2011/9/19 9:11:18)

糊糊,是在米国呗?

fox0923

曾经很小的时候就有“little women"这本书，可是一直没有好好读过，后悔不已~~

fox0923

狐来了，占位~~

-- by 会员 fox0923 (2011/9/19 9:11:18)

糊糊,是在米国呗?

-- by 会员 jxgzcly (2011/9/19 9:24:59)

恩恩，米国最近几年"米”不多了啊~~考虑要不要上万学就回去呢。

fox0923

10‘
- Who should be blamed? Tax payers bail out the Euro banks first.
- The European government is reluctant to make choice either let people borrow one's credit card or open up a wallet.
- The idea of FTT has been the center of criticism since it claimed to have a globalized tax rate for all european countries. However, this idea was opposed by the American...(forgot), and the official people claimed that this will weaken the fragile economy of Europe.
- Some people think it's better to have a lower tax rate than globalized tax for European's current economic situation. This would be better to suit their own market.
- There's also a question might Europe from the move to globalize its euro zone to fight against its own debt crisis a good idea? The british worries if the citizens of British need to pay the tax for products such as toothbrush, people worry if FTT's influence brings negative effect to Europe. Would FTT be harmful to the banks?
- People have to understand this better to calm their resentment...

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抓，我不瞒你说，我真看不懂~~谁能给讲讲？一遇到Euro-zone的问题，脑子就不转了~

ykelly123

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little women 阿，小时候看过动画片阿，每个姐妹都很有特色阿。很久很久之后才知道英文是little women
看这篇文章不知道为什么连想到happy potter的作者怎么写HP的。。。看这些创作人创作的由来挺有意思的

ykelly123

越障8:10
鹅鹅鹅鹅鹅。。

1. the euro union is trying to impose financial transaction tax on financial trasactions. many think that if not impose it globally, its not going work. the U.S. disagree with idea of imposing FTT.
3. the euro countries want to at least impose it in the euro zone. the biggest europe financial entity, British, will not be part of the FTT, so many people think FTT would not worth the effect. the euro union is very dividing among this topic. 瑞士(?) says that last year(?) most of their financial transactions eventually connected to British.
5. bankers think that the government should capitalize the financial institution instead of dragging money out of it. they think that FTT would worsen the economy crisis.
5. loops have to be broken. the bank or the treasury? the hesitating government or the public?

ccmoom

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