【Native Speaker每日综合训练—31系列】【31-07】文史哲

枣糕兔

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Greetings! It’s Saturday again. =)


Due to last week’s feedback on the Saturday post, I would try to lower the frequency of cultural critics. There’s lots of interesting things going on besides that. =)


Today’s topics cover various areas:
Speaker section today is more of a stand-up than of a lecture. Our speaker, Maysoon Zayid is a writer, actor, comedian, and the co-founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival. With grace and wit, the Arab-American comedian takes us on a whistle-stop tour of her adventures as an actress, stand-up comic, philanthropist and advocate for the disabled. I hope you'll enjoy her show.

Article 2: Quora post about real life experience in a wheel chair
Article 3: Jury duty: People cannot be bumped from a jury due exclusively to their sexual orientation.
Article 4: History about the Plague-Ridden Week in London, 1665
Article 5, the obstacle part, talks about achievement gaps.


Hope you enjoy!

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Part I:   Speaker

I got 99 problems... palsy is just one

[Rephrase 1]



[Dialog: 14'13]

Transcript:

Source: TEDwomen
http://www.ted.com/talks/maysoon_zayid_i_got_99_problems_palsy_is_just_one.html

枣糕兔

Part II:   Speed

Photo by Huntstock/Thinkstock

What Is It Like to Use a Wheelchair?

Posted on Jan 24 2014

[Time 2]
This question originally appeared on Quora.
Answer by Kimberly Domangue, communication grad student and psychology buff:

What's it like being in a wheelchair? It's a mixed bag.

Seeing someone in a wheelchair often brings out the best in people. People want to be helpful and accommodating. Of course, this is not a universal and works best if the wheelchair user is nearby in plain view. I have been pumping gas and have had strangers stop me and say that I inspired them. I've been given gifts by strangers.

Tons more people remember me than I remember them. It's like a low level of fame. It also becomes your defining characteristic.

"You know Kimberly?"
"No, I don't think so."
"She's the one in a wheelchair ... "
"Oh, yeah!"

Little kids find your wheelchair incredibly interesting. It makes you smile, because kids are just awesome.

There are still places for which the Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA, is just something a baby might say. (Some interesting stories there.)

Before I used a wheelchair, I walked with a limp most places. (I was born with spina bifida.) My mother was angry when I began using a wheelchair in high school, because to her it was like I "gave up." Really, I was just happy to be able to go anywhere I wanted and not worry about getting out of breath too quickly, falling, or being utterly exhausted. My plans became the center focus, not my muscles and aching body.
[248 words]


[Time 3]
When you're an adult in a wheelchair, with the life of a competitive graduate student and breaking into the workforce, you have a different worry when the rough patches come: when your dating prospects are slim to none; when you're unable to find something for a boss while you have the flu, and he sets you up to work elsewhere saying that perhaps you just need a less strenuous job; when you have excellent conversations with classmates you see every day in class, and they plan some fun event in front of you and never ask you to come along ...

You wonder sometimes. You wonder how many opportunities you might have missed out on because some people didn't want to bother. You wonder if people just see you as a bit too much trouble, or an inconvenience, to their ways of doing things. If they see you as someone they admire but not enough to be on the same par as they are. You wonder if it's instead just awkwardness and not knowing what to do with someone a bit different that pulls them away. You wonder if it's there at all, because everyone was so nice to you, so you're just overreacting.

And as visible as you might be in some ways, to some people, the truth is that not a lot of people know what it's really like to be you, in that chair, with all the extra things you have to think about and do. Some people probably do resist offering you an opportunity, asking you on a date, including you in their social circle because of the extra baggage you carry.

But I guess that's true of a lot of other people, too.
[288 words]

Source: Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/01/24/what_is_it_like_to_use_a_wheelchair.html

Photo by Reuters/Chip East

Being Gay Can No Longer Get You out of Jury Duty

Jan. 21 2014  |  Mark Joseph Stern

[Time 4]
On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit ruled in no uncertain terms that gay people cannot be bumped from a jury due exclusively to their sexual orientation. The case arose after a prospective juror was dismissed from GlaxoSmithKline’s suit against Abbott Laboratories for allegedly overpricing its HIV drugs. According to Glaxo, Abbott’s attorneys struck an openly gay man from the jury for fear that his orientation would bias his opinion. Now the 9th Circuit has ruled the action unconstitutional, and Abbott will face a retrial.

In one sense, the court’s ruling was inevitable. In 1986, the Supreme Court found that attorneys couldn’t dismiss jurors based exclusively on race, holding that both defendants and jurors themselves have a right to a racism-free voir dire. Ten years later, the court extended that principle to female jurors, adding a new justification to the mix: Justice Harry Blackmun proclaimed that gender stereotypes are “rooted in and reflective of historical prejudice” and thus serve no valid purpose in jury selection. Anti-gay stereotypes are, of course, rooted in similar “historical prejudice”—a “deplorable tradition of treating gays and lesbians as undeserving of participation in our nation’s most cherished rites and rituals,” in the words of the 9th Circuit. The court, then, had no choice but to shield the jury box from these irrational prejudices.

Yet in another sense, Tuesday’s decision is a critical and novel development in the legal battle for gay rights. The Supreme Court protected blacks and women from prejudiced peremptory challenges because they’re both constitutionally protected classes; in other words, any law that discriminates against them is subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. But the court has never actually declared gays a protected class. Instead, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s pro-gay opinions revel in opacity, making broad gestures toward the dignity of gay people without actually explaining what constitutional protections are afforded to them.
[329 words]


[Time 5]
This tactic—scorned by Justice Antonin Scalia as “nonspecific handwaving”—has frustrated lower courts for years, with the court’s vague U.S. v. Windsor opinion only exacerbating the problem. But with this decision, the 9th Circuit became the second court to call the Supremes’ bluff, explicitly extending heightened scrutiny to gays while subtly scolding the justices for keeping mum on the biggest constitutional question of our era. Writing for the court, Judge Stephen Reinhardt flatly declares:

In its words and its deed, Windsor established a level of scrutiny for classifications based on sexual orientation that is unquestionably higher than rational basis review. … In short, Windsor requires heightened scrutiny.

Under such heightened scrutiny, the conclusion of the case itself is foregone. If blacks and women cannot be excluded from jury duty because of their identity, neither can gay people. According to Judge Reinhardt, allowing strikes based on “preconceived notions of the identities, preferences, and biases” of gay people would only perpetuate the “history of exclusion of gays and lesbians from democratic institutions.” And in the world of Windsor, this exclusion cannot stand.

Given that the 9th Circuit’s decision directly conflicts with an earlier ruling from the 8th Circuit, there’s a decent change the Supreme Court might take it up. (The justices love a good circuit split.) And the case might present a nice baby step for the court, extending more rights to gay people without toppling the whole edifice of codified homophobia. There’s certainly no paucity of gay rights cases jostling to make it onto the court’s docket, but for a cautious court, a complex case about pharmaceuticals and jury duty might be the perfect half-measure the justices are looking for.
[299 words]


Source: Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/01/21/gay_jury_duty_court_holds_that_gay_people_can_t_be_bumped_because_they_re.html

How Londoners Died in One Plague-Ridden Week in 1665

Jan 22 2014  |  Rebecca Onion

[Time 6]
In 16th- and 17th-century London, in response to recurrent epidemics of bubonic plague, authorities instituted the tradition of publishing a bill of mortality each week. The “Great Plague of London,” which hit the city in the summer of 1665, is estimated to have killed between 75,000 and 100,000 Londoners (out of a total population of about 460,000). This page represents the death tally of all city parishes for the week of Aug. 15-22, 1665, when the plague had infected 96 of the 130 parishes reporting.

In his book Shakespeare’s Restless World: A Portrait of an Era in Twenty Objects, Neil MacGregor writes that the bills cost about a penny, and were published in large print runs. The other side of the bills contained information on deaths broken down parish by parish.

If medicine was still somewhat uncertain about the causes of death, those in charge of toting up deaths for the bills of mortality were even more so. As the Royal Society of Medicine’s website notes, “[Parish] clerks’ lack of medical training resulted in many peculiar or vague causes of death being recorded.” Hence, the deaths here chalked up to “griping in the guts,” “grief,” “suddenly,” and “stopping of the stomach.”

In addition to the immense toll of the plague, this document shows the high rate of infant mortality. The youngest Londoners died so often, historian Lynda Payne writes, that their deaths were categorized according to their ages, rather than according to the diseases that might have killed them. “Chrisomes” (15 dead) were infants younger than a month old; “teeth” (113 dead) were babies not yet through with teething.

The Wellcome Library in London has just made more than 100,000 of its medical-history images available for hi-res download under a CC-BY license. Among the images now freely available are a handful of bills of mortality from 1664 and 1665. Visit their Images page and search “bills of mortality” to see. And historian Craig Spence runs a blog exploring violent deaths in the bills of mortality, which is a great browse.

(credit to Wellcome Library, London)

[363 words]


Source: Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/01/22/bill_of_mortality_document_shows_death_toll_during_the_great_plague_of_london.html

枣糕兔

Part III:   Obstacle

Telling the truth on achievement gaps improves education

January 24  |  Arne Duncan (U.S. secretary of education)

[Paraphrase 7]
In education, it sometimes takes courage to do what ought to be common sense.

That’s a key lesson from several recent national and international assessments of U.S. education. These include the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the nation’s report card; a new version of the NAEP focused on large, urban districts; and the international rankings in the tri-annual PISA test.

Collectively, these assessments demonstrate extraordinary progress in the places where leaders have worked hardest and most consistently to bring change — but also a national failure to make nearly enough progress to keep up with our competitors.

Nationwide, students made modest progress in reading and math in 2013, with achievement edging up to record highs for fourth- and eighth-graders, the NAEP found.

Nearly every state has adopted higher academic standards, and most states have instituted new systems of teacher support and evaluation. It’s a testament to hardworking educators that they are implementing these changes and raising student performance at the same time.

But as the international PISA results demonstrate, our progress isn’t enough. Other countries are leapfrogging us at a time when education is vital to economic health in a global competition for jobs and innovation. Among the 65 countries and education systems that participate in PISA, the United States was surpassed by 27 in math and 14 in reading . That’s unacceptable.

We can learn, however, from some of the standouts. In contrast to a national picture of gradual progress, Tennessee and the District of Columbia reported striking jumps — in both math and reading achievement and in both grades examined, fourth and eighth.

We don’t know all the reasons why students did better in Tennessee and the District in 2013 than in 2011. But it is clear that they shared a similar approach to bettering education — taking common-sense, but politically hard, steps to help students. Both are places where vulnerable students predominate; 73 percent of District students and 55 percent of Tennessee students are sufficiently needy to qualify for reduced-price meals.

There are important lessons here. What these two places also had in common was a succession of leaders who told educators, parents and the public the truth about educational underperformance and who worked closely with educators to bring about real changes. They pushed hard to raise expectations for students, even though a lower bar would have made everyone look better. And they remained committed to doing the right thing for children, even when it meant crossing partisan lines or challenging ideological orthodoxy.

To meet those higher standards, these leaders invested in strengthening the quality of classroom instruction and revamping systems for teacher support and evaluation. They ensured that teachers could use good data from multiple sources to identify learning gaps and improve instruction. They also sought ongoing feedback from educators and others.

These concepts — developing and supporting the people who do the most important work, using data to inform improvement — are what strong organizations do.

Yet these common-sense steps took uncommon courage. Tennessee had previously set one of the lowest bars in the country for proficiency in reading and math. The resulting proficiency rates — 91 percent in math and 92 percent in reading — were a lie. By raising standards, Tennessee’s leaders forced the public, parents and politicians to confront brutal facts.

When Tennessee raised its standards in 2010, the proportion of students rated proficient dropped to 34 percent in math and 45 percent in reading. But in a bipartisan act of courage, Republican Gov. Bill Haslam and state Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman stayed true to the reforms begun under Democrat Phil Bredesen. They refused to dumb down standards to try to make Tennessee students look better.

Were students actually doing worse? No. For the first time, the state was telling the truth.

Just as important, leaders in the District and Tennessee worked with educators to transform industrial-era systems of support and evaluation for teachers and principals that had little or no link to teachers’ impact on student learning. That meant continuing the work of political predecessors, as Mayor Vincent C. Gray and Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson did in the District.

Building better systems that take account of educators’ impact on learning is complex and controversial work. Yet in Tennessee and the District, leaders solicited input from their critics, stayed committed but flexible and delivered systems that help both successful and struggling teachers.

I’m cautious about drawing big conclusions from a two-year trend, and it’s important to track a variety of educational outcomes, such as high school graduation and college enrollment rates.

Even so, the experiences of Tennessee and the District suggest that children win when leaders work closely with educators to do several vital things right, at the same time, and don’t give up when the going gets tough.

As Henderson said: “When you concentrate on teacher quality, you get results. When you radically increase the level of academic rigor, you get results.”

To be clear, no one in Tennessee or the District is declaring victory. Students in both places have a lot further to go to close achievement gaps and even to reach the level of top-performing states. But their progress shouldn’t be treated as mysterious or miraculous.

The changes America’s children need to get a better education require political courage and hard work. But in many cases the steps are surprisingly straightforward — and can be taken anywhere.
[930 words]


Source: the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/arne-duncan-better-education-starts-with-honesty-about-achievement-gaps/2014/01/23/7f276928-7ed2-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

sherlock1992

Thx, 兔子~
------------------------------------------------------------
Speed:
T1-1'33''
A person being in a wheelchair can have mixed feelings. The author chooses to use a wheelchair instead of a limp because of his special plans.
T2-1'39''
In graduate school, though harmonious it seems, the author still felt missing a lot of opportunities because of his disability. When stepping into society, the author thinks he will meet the same situation, too.
T3-2'16''
gay can be a member of Jury because it complies with Consitution and can bring more objective elements into the process of administration of justice.
T4-2'02''
The gay problem can not only be a roadblock to American jury system but also a milestone in American legislation.
T5-2'24''

Obstacle-6'22''
NAEP shows that the U.S. gets a good grade in PISA test in 2013. The same situation happens in every state because of the high standard academic education. But the progress is still not enough compared with other competitors who regard education as a critical power for economy and technology. The grades of Tennessee and the District of Columbia have improved a lot in 2013 compared with the grades in 2012. These two parts share a similar approach to improve the quality of education-telling the truth. At the same time, they set up an useful system to improve their situation and implement this corresponding plans. This process needs a lot of courage. The behavior of telling the truth plays a important role in that process.

MAGGIEHE1993

给明天的作业占个楼~从来没有这么前面啊哇咔咔
谢谢枣糕兔兔~~~
Speaker: Maysoon Zayid talked about how she became disabled and her experience of becoming an actress and a comedian. She said that
         it is underrepresentative for the disabled to become comedians but she made it. She finally claimed that if she could do
         that, all of us could do that.

time1: 1min 40"
       The writer enjoys her life on the wheelchair and wants to be the center focus.

time2: 1min 45"
       The writer holds the view that a lot of normal people who are not in a wheelchair resist the disabled to enter into their social
       circles and consider them as baggages. But sometimes the disabled may be overreacted to think that they should not bother other
       people and keep themselves away from social life.

time3: 2min 35"
       Gay people can no longer be rejected to be juries due to their orientation. Their rights have been recognized and protected.

time4: 2min 26"
       The 9th Circuit explicitly extended heightened scrutiny on keeping gays away from being juries.

time5: 3min
       The writer talked about how people at around 1665 tallied and produced the bill of mortality.

Obstacle: 8min 05"
       The passage talked about a key lesson form several recent national and international assessment of U.S. education.
       America students' math and reading abilities were surpassed 27 countries and it is thought unacceptable.
       The U.S. required all states to report their students' math and reading abilities. Tennessee and the District of Columbia made great
       progress during the year 2011 and 2013.
       The politicians of Tennessee and the District of Columbia told educators, parents and the public the underperformance of education of
       the state and worked closely with the educators.
       Although they have met difficulties, they finally told the truth and made real progress.
       The writer concluded that the steps to make progress are surprisingly straightforward and can be taken anywhere.

疏离无罪

占~~~今天好早，感谢枣糕兔

Speaker:The speaker has palsy but her and her familu never give up to have a normal life.Her parents tried their best to make her live as a normal person.She is also positive to his life and disability.To be the perfect person is only thing she can do to let others accept her.

01:21
How people feel to a person in wheelchair and how the people in wheelchair feel.

01:21
A lot of people never know what it's really like to be a person in wheelchair.Man with wheelchair will miss many opportunities because people don't want to bother you.

01:22
A gay will not be out of jury duty any more.Gays can get their right as woman and blacks did.Against descrimination.

01:10
If blacks and women cannot be excluded from jury duty because of their identity, neither can gay people.The case may be a step to raise gay people's right.

02:01
The plague killed lots of londoners in 1665.The lack of medical training may be the main reason.And there a high mortality among infants and teens.

05:56
Main Idea:High standard can raise the performance.
Education is important to a country.And now the education in the USA seems to be in proble.
The rank of American education in PISA is unacceptable.But the data about education in the past seems to be ok.
The truth is that they're lying about the achievement.The low standard of the education leads to a worse eudcation.
The example of Tennessee and the District can show the fact.When they raised high expectation for student and built a high standard,the data show a bad situation,but after 2 years students in these two states have a better performance.
So tell the truth about the achievement gaps and let people know the brutal facts is a good thing.The education system need to be reformed.
So Don't give up when the goings get tough.It may make you better and great later.

苏错

占座~~~谢谢枣糕兔~~~

Speaker:
Palsy caused Maysoon Zayid shaking all the time.
Her speech is amazing.
What a wonderful woman !

Speed:
Time1:0'58
most of people took it for granted that
wheelchair is the characteristic of disabled people.
Time2:1'02
A lot of people even didn't offer you a opportunity because
they just didn't want to bother you and you are doubted about
so many thoughts.
Time3:1'24
Gay never will be ruled out of Jury Duty and
this is a quiet significance decision.
Time4:1'12
Little change should be taken by the Supreme Court due to
the consideration for equilty.
Time5:1'23
The immense toll of the plague and high rate of infant mortality
might also cause the Londoners Died in one plague-ridden week.
Obstacle:6'02
Due to the nation's report, it is of great siginificance to tell the truth
about educational underperformance.

d2a2n27

1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
哎妈0，0抢到第一页啦啊啦拉啊啊

Time1： 1'16

Time2 :  1'34

Time3 :  2'05

Time4 ：1’37

Time5 ：1‘55

Time6：Obstacle：6；45
To be honest, i dont really know what was going on in the passage= =.

I think it mainly discussed about the education system in the U.S. After showing how bad was the education condition/result in the U.S., the author states that in order to foster a better math/reading proficiency, the strength of politics should not be omitted.

And showed the examples of TN and the Dist.?...

guagua13

首页没了

Speaker
"I was born to play and they gave the role to a non-palsy actress." LOL
casting directors only hire perfect people, so she became a comedian.
women are funny
change the negative image of arab-american comedian.
people with disabilities are the largest minority in the world and the most underrepresented in entertainment.
she finally the chance to perform with the guys who has Parkinson and shakes just like her.
If I can can, you can can.

Speed
Time1: 1:31:88 248
Being disabled becomes your defining character.
Kimberly started using a wheelchair in high school, but she was happy to be able to go anywhere without worrying about her health issues.
Time2: 1:39:27 288
You wonder how many opportunities you might have missed. Not a lot of people know what it's like to be in a wheelchair.
Time3: 2:12:84 329
Gay people cannot be excluded from jury duty due to their sexual orientation.
race --> female --> gay
Time4: 1:48:21 299
The case might present a baby step for the  court, extending more rights to gay people.
Time5: 2:28:24 363
plague 瘟疫
The "Great Plague of London" is estimated to have killed between 75,000 to 100,000 people in just one week. Deaths were categorized according to people's ages rather than the diseases that might have killed those people.

Obstacle
Time6: 6:30:58 930
Education is critical for economic health in a global competition for jobs and innovation.
Nearly every state has adopted higher academic standards. Most states have instituted new systems of teaching support and evaluation. However, among 65 countries and education systems, US was surpassed by 27 in math and 14 in reading.
improvement of Tennessee and the District of Columbia: tell the truth about educational underperformance and work closely with educators to make real changes; use good data from multiple sources to identify learning gaps and improve instruction; seek ongoing feedback
better education for children in the US: require political courage and hard work

画画2013

1’48
How the author feels when he meet different people see him with a wheelchair.
1’47
When a person sits on a wheelchair, people always admire him/her, but they always do not let the guy with wheelchair to join them, because they do not want an extra baggage to carry.
2’50
The 9th Circuit ruled in no uncertain terms that gay people cannot be bumped from a jury due exclusively to their sexual orientation.
And Justice has not said that gay people are a protected class.
1’57
Gay people cannot be excluded from jury duty just as blacks and women.
2’57
Medicine was still uncertain about the cause of the death of the plague.
Babies had a high rate of mortality during the time.
5’50
Take courage to do what ought to do should become a common sense in education.
Students in America was surpassed in reading and math, so that in order to improve students perform, the education constitution improved the standard of education.
The changes America’s children need to get a better education require political courage and hard work, and the steps are everywhere.