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Rena最近要考试啦~ 那么今天就由Carol代她发啦~ 第一次发~ 如果有不好的地方~ 希望大家包涵下~~~
顺便也借这个帖子祝福目前飞往美国的抓抓姐姐~ 祝姐姐一切顺利~
【速度】
An unnecessary speech
Mitt Romney at Liberty University
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Those who complain that Mitt Romney's privilege has left him insensitive to the workaday problems of the common man fail to consider that the man has apparently struggled for his whole life with the curse of awful timing. There he was Saturday, just days after Barack Obama was garlanded with praise for his surprise endorsement of gay marriage, giving a commencement address at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. That must have been about the last place a candidate would want to turn up if he was hoping to gently waffle about his views on social issues, as Mr Romney has been wont to do. The speech was an effort by Mr Romney, a Mormon, to bolster relations with non-Mormon Christians. Polls show that a considerable number of people profess to be leery of voting for a Mormon; the wariness is especially pronounced among self-identified evangelical Christians, a demographic that has heavily favoured Republicans in recent elections.
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This is actually the second major address Mr Romney has given on the subject of his religion. In 2007, while campaigning for the Republican nomination, he offered a speech that explicitly referenced John F. Kennedy's 1960 address on his Catholicism. In that speech, Mr Romney, like JFK before him, sought to reassure voters who were worried about electing a president whose religion includes a strong, centralised, earthly authority: "Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions."
The fact that Mr Romney became the nominee this year might be taken as evidence that concern about his religion has faded. This time around, Mr Romney focused on voters who were suspicious of Mormonism's beliefs rather than its governing structure. " eople of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology," he said. "Surely the answer is that we can meet in service, in shared moral convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview."
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Evangelical leaders applauded the speech. More generally, as Brad Knickerbocker notes at the Christian Science Monitor, Mr Romney's overall outreach effort has been "apparently successful". Sceptical though they may be of a Mormon, there are bigger bogeymen. I think back to Richard Land, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention, chuckling at an appearance at the National Press Club in DC last autumn, explaining that nothing unites evangelicals like Barack Obama. If values voters were going to undo Mr Romney, they were going to do it in the primary.
So Saturday's speech was of questionable necessity, and it could come back to haunt Mr Romney. First, as Ross Douthat noted in the New York Times, this year's social battles—over contraception, over gay marriage—have resulted in a lot of good press for the president, and are probably less salient to moderate voters than the half-hearted recovery. This speech means another round of cultural commentary, rather than a shift to the economy or entitlement reform or any of the issues where Mr Romney might feel more comfortable.
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Secondly, this speech, with its vaguely teleological cast—"from the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man"—sounds like something Rick Santorum would have said. (In fact, Mr Romney gave a polite but passing reference to Mr Santorum in the speech.) Possible etch-a-sketchery aside, the argument in question is a problematic one. That is, Mr Romney, like Mr Santorum before him, is suddenly conflating the "Judeo-Christian tradition" with American culture writ large, which is dubious from a historical perspective as well as, perhaps, a constitutional one. Here's Mr Romney:
Harvard historian David Landes devoted his lifelong study to understanding why some civilizations rise, and why others falter. His conclusion: Culture makes all the difference. Not natural resources, not geography, but what people believe and value. Central to America’s rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition, with its vision of the goodness and possibilities of every life.
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It's not particularly contentious to say that culture matters. And Mr Romney does go on to cite aspects of American culture that most of us would agree with: "personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and, at the foundation, the pre-eminence of the family." Those are laudable values, that is, and American ones, but they're not the intellectual property of Jews and Christians. Nor should a religious voter wish it otherwise, really. As Mr Romney says, the "Christian conscience" can be a force for good, but as he said in 2007, "we separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason." After years of struggling with the politics of being a Mormon, Mr Romney has apparently allayed concerns among conservative Christians. But he may have found a new way to aggravate moderates.
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【越障】
Greek politics
Slouching towards the drachma
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PITY Karolos Papoulias. The 82-year- old president of Greece has spent over a week trying to persuade the country’s fractious political leaders to form a government after a general election on May 6th failed to produce a clear winner. Mr Papoulias, a soft-spoken former foreign minister, handed out mandates to various party leaders, none of whom could deliver, and made a three-day effort of his own, before finally giving up yesterday.
Success would have given Greece breathing space, if only for a few months, to pursue urgent reforms—such as recapitalising its insolvent banks and getting on with privatisation—to help restore its credibility with European partners and financial markets. Instead, another election now looms, on June 17th. Until then the country will be run by a caretaker government under Panagiotis Pikrammenos, Greece’s most senior judge. Lucas Papademos, the ex-European central banker who has run a coalition government for the last six months, overseeing a ?06 billion sovereign-debt restructuring and Greece's second bail-out, was not asked to stay on.
The transcripts of Mr Papoulias’s last three meetings, made public at the request of Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Syriza, a hard-left coalition, and Greece's rising political star, reveal a disturbing lack of vision among the men who are supposed to be Greece's leading politicians. Rather than tackle serious issues, such as how to keep Greece in the euro, they swapped insults and shrugged off a warning that a bank run was imminent. “They’re all irresponsible, none of them is capable of ending this crisis,” says Aristomenes Antonopoulos, a lawyer. “How to vote now?”
Support among Greeks for staying in the euro is up from 70% to 80% over the past three months, according to opinion polls. Yet fears that prolonged political instability could trigger a “Grexit” are also increasing. Greek savers withdrew ? billion from local banks—about 2% of total deposits—as hopes of forming a coalition collapsed. Greece has seen a steady erosion of bank deposits over the past two years, yet few bankers were prepared for such a rapid acceleration of withdrawals. Deposits had increased in March and April, thanks to smooth handling of Greece’s partial default.
Today, cash was being taken away from the banks in orderly fashion. There were no queues outside branches in central Athens or its suburbs. Customers ordered cash by telephone and picked it up 24 hours later. Some went straight into safety-deposit boxes at the same bank; some was stashed beneath mattresses in case Greece has to re-adopt the drachma. "eople are taking preventive measures," says one veteran banker. "If you own a pile of euros, you’ll feel rich in a drachma environment."
Despite their enthusiasm for holding on to the euro, Greeks are fed up with the austerity that German politicians say is the price of continued membership. Syriza suggests that such views are compatible, arguing that Greece can stay in the euro but also reverse the reforms imposed by the "troika" (the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
This is a message Greek voters appear to like. A recent poll found that Syriza would win the next election with 20.5% of the vote, just ahead of the pro-euro New Democracy party on 19.4%, but well short of an overall majority. The PanHellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), the only other electable party that supports reform, would come a distant third with 11.8%.
Mr Tsipras is reorganising his party and renewing his campaign, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, in Athens and other cities. His rhetoric is sharper than ever, yet his dream of forming a left-wing government is no closer to being realised than at the previous election. Potential partners have sounded more cross than co-operative since Mr Tsipras bounced into second place behind New Democracy on May 6th.
Antonis Samaras, the New Democracy leader, will pull out all the stops. If his centre-right party cannot form a government this time, his career will be over. A new alliance with a small liberal party should give him another couple of percentage points at the election. As for Evangelos Venizelos, the Pasok leader and a potential coalition partner, he is struggling to prevent more voters defecting for Syriza.
Even with the extra 50 seats that go to the party that comes first, the two pro-bailout parties will still struggle to form a government after the second election. The long-suffering Mr Papoulias is likely to be back in action on June 18th.
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发表于 2012-5-18 21:10:12
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