【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障15系列】【15-04】文史哲

kudoucliff

今天的文章先来个简单的介绍帮助大家理解：

第一篇和第二篇摘自Jack London的The Call of The Wild；其中主人翁Buck是一条Husky Dog；Spitz也是一条Dog……
第四篇和第五篇是同一篇文章

SPEED


【Time 1】


The War Between Two Dogs-1


Over the whiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm. There was not the faintest whisper of air--nothing moved, not a leaf quivered, the visible breaths of the dogs rising slowly and lingering in the frosty air. They had made short work of the snowshoe rabbit, these dogs that were ill-tamed wolves; and they were now drawn up in an expectant circle. They, too, were silent, their eyes only
gleaming and their breaths drifting slowly upward. To Buck it was nothing new or strange, this scene of old time. It was as though it had always been, the wonted way of things.

Spitz was a practised fighter. From Spitzbergen through the Arctic, and across Canada and the Barrens, he had held his own with all manner of dogs and achieved to mastery over them. Bitter rage was his, but never blind rage. In passion to rend and destroy, he never forgot that his enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy. He never rushed till he was prepared to receive a rush; never attacked till he had first defended that attack.

In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the big white dog. Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh, they were countered by the fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and lips were cut and bleeding, but Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard. Then he warmed up and enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and time again he tried for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near to the surface, and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away. Then Buck took to rushing, as though for the throat, when, suddenly drawing back his head and curving in from the side, he would drive his shoulder at the shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which to overthrow him. But instead, Buck's shoulder was slashed down each time as Spitz leaped lightly away.

Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood and panting hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the while the silent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down. As Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggering for footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogs started up; but he recovered himself, almost in mid air, and the circle sank down again and waited.

(404)


【Time 2】


The War Between Two Dogs-2-Buck's Victory


But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness--imagination. He fought by instinct, but he could fight by head as well. He rushed, as though attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last instant swept low to the snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitz's left fore leg. There was a crunch of breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on three legs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated the trick and broke the right fore leg. Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitz struggled madly to keep up. He saw the silent circle, with gleaming eyes, lolling tongues, and silvery breaths drifting upward, closing in upon him as he had seen similar circles close in upon beaten antagonists in the past. Only this time he was the one who was beaten.

There was no hope for him. Buck was inexorable. Mercy was a thing reserved for gentler climes. He manoeuvred for the final rush. The circle had tightened till he could feel the breaths of the huskies on his flanks. He could see them, beyond Spitz and to either side, half crouching for the spring, their eyes fixed upon him. A pause seemed to fall. Every animal was motionless as though turned to stone. Only Spitz quivered and bristled as he staggered back and forth, snarling with horrible menace, as though to frighten off impending death. Then Buck sprang in and out; but while he was in, shoulder had at last squarely met shoulder. The dark circle became a dot on the moon-flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from view. Buck stood and looked on, the successful champion, the dominant primordial beast who had made his kill and found it good.

(287)


【Time 3】


The global gender agenda


The progress of women toward the upper echelons of business, government, and academia continues to provoke media attention and lively debate. Look, for instance, at the coverage of Marissa Mayer’s July appointment as CEO of Yahoo! and the diverse reactions to an article (“Why women still can’t have it all”) published in the July/August issue of the Atlantic magazine.

Coincidentally, this summer also marked the moment when we released the latest phase of a global research initiative on women in senior management across Asia, Europe, and North America. This effort involved assembling fresh data on the gender composition of boards, executive committees, and talent pipelines, as well as detailed surveys of leading businesses in each region.

Encouragingly, the research shows that a growing number of women, both in senior roles and among the rank and file, are finding their voices and inspiring others to achieve progress. It also demonstrates that more companies are enjoying the benefits of gender diversity and that some have found ways to boost the representation of women at the highest levels of their organizations. From an admittedly low base, for instance, more women sit on European corporate boards (though not executive committees) than did so five years ago. Countries with a clear political commitment to change, in the form of specific quotas or targets, are achieving significant results. Several major corporations are emerging as inspirational role models.

Yet while the vast majority of organizations in developed economies are striving to unlock the potential of women in the workforce, many executives remain frustrated that they have not made more immediate and substantial progress. Firmly entrenched barriers continue to hinder the progress of high-potential women: many of those who start out with high ambitions, for instance, leave for greener pastures, settle for less demanding staff roles, or simply opt out of the workforce. In Asia, cultural attitudes toward child care and household tasks further complicate the challenges for corporate pioneers. And everywhere we look, despite numerous gender diversity initiatives, too few women reach the executive committee, and too few boards have more than a token number of women.

(350)


【Time 4】


Beastly Justice
In the Middle Ages, animals that did bad things were tried in court. Maybe that’s not as crazy as it sounds.


In the fall of 1457, villagers in Savigny, France witnessed a sow and six piglets attack and kill a 5-year-old boy. Today, the animals would be summarily killed. But errant 15th-century French pigs went to court. And it wasn’t for a show trial—this was the real deal, equipped with a judge, two prosecutors, eight witnesses, and a defense attorney for the accused swine. Witness testimony proved beyond reasonable doubt that the sow had killed the child. The piglets’ role, however, was ambiguous. Although splattered with blood, they were never seen directly attacking the boy.  The judge sentenced the sow to be hanged by her hind feet from a “gallows tree.” The piglets, by contrast, were exonerated.

Such a case might seem bizarre to modern observers, but animal trials were commonplace public events in medieval and early modern Europe. Pigs, cows, goats, horses, and dogs that allegedly broke the law were routinely subjected to the same legal proceedings as humans. In a court of law, they were treated as persons. These somber affairs, which always adhered to the strictest legal procedures, reveal a bygone mentality according to which some animals possessed moral agency.
Scholars who have explored animals on trial generally avoid addressing this mentality. Instead, they’ve situated animal trials in several sensible (and academically safer) frameworks. The dominant explanation from legal scholars and historians is that, in a society of people who believed deeply in a divinely determined order of being, with humans at the top, any disruption of God’s hierarchy had to be visibly restored with a formal event. Another hypothesis is that animal trials may have provided authorities an opportunity to intimidate the owners of animals—especially pigs—who ran roughshod through the commons. A sow hanging from the gallows was, in essence, a public service announcement saying, Control your pigs or they’ll die sooner than you hoped.

(311)


【Time 5】


While these explanations go partway toward elucidating animal trials, none of them fully clarify the practice. They hardly explain why citizens went to great pains to create space for humans to judge animals for their actions. Correcting hierarchical order or sending a stern message to animal owners could have been accomplished much more easily and cheaply with summary execution. What the trials strongly suggest is that pre-industrial citizens deemed the animals among them worthy of human justice primarily because they had, like humans, the free will to make basic choices.

Judges routinely considered animals’ personal circumstances before making a legal decision. Take the exonerated piglets in the opening anecdote. The judge deemed them innocent not only on technical grounds (no witnesses came forth to confirm that the piglets attacked), but also because the pigs were immature, and thus poorly positioned to make clear choices. Furthermore, they were raised by a rogue mother, he indicated, and thus unable to internalize the proper codes of conduct for village-dwelling piglets.

Intentions mattered as well. In a 1379 case, also in France, the son of a swine keeper was attacked and killed by two herds of swine.  The court determined that one herd initiated the attack while the other joined in afterward. The judge sentenced both herds to death because their evident cries of enthrallment during the melee were said to confirm their expressed approval of it, whether they were directly responsible or not. A sow hanged in 1567 was convicted not only for assaulting a 4-month-old girl, but for doing so with extra “cruelty.”

(267)


OBSTACLE


The Presidential Balancing Act
How can Obama cut a deal with Republicans on immigration while at the same time beating them up over the budget?


President Obama made two phone calls to Republicans in Congress this week. One was phony and one was real. The difference between the two calls underscores the challenge for his second term: How do you work with Republicans while you are simultaneously making yourself more loathsome to them? The preliminary answer seems to be by modulating your aggression. The president is betting part of his presidency on picking budget fights with Republicans, while resting most of his legacy on avoiding confrontation when it comes to passing immigration reform. Will it work? Getting this balance right will determine whether the president's second term will be a success or a smoldering coda. It might also tell us something about leadership in a time of political sclerosis.

Let's start with the phony call. On Thursday, President Obama called House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The subject was the sequester, the across-the-board spending cuts set to kick in March 1. Administration aides privately concede that the calls were largely for show. The president wanted it to appear as though he was making an effort to avoid the cuts. If the cuts happen and the public looks to blame someone, the president can say he tried to reach out. This strategy achieved a rare level of bipartisan agreement in Washington. According to GOP aides, their bosses received the calls in the spirit in which they were dialed—as empty public relations moves that did nothing to avert the cuts.

The president and his aides think they have the upper hand politically. They point to the numbers. In a recent PEW poll, even a majority of Republicans support the president's call for a mix of spending reductions and tax increases. In the Bloomberg poll, the president's approval rating (55 percent) was 20 points higher than that of the Republican Party (35 percent). With the public on his side, the president will continue to use his office to highlight that Republicans are opposing a popular way forward. And why not, it’s worked twice already. The president’s new, less compromising approach led to agreement with Republicans  over the fiscal cliff and the debt limit.

Congressional Republicans have a number of reasons to resist the pressure. The latest, explained to me last night by one GOP aide, is that their poll numbers won't get any better with an agreement. The public won't suddenly start loving Republicans because they agreed to a deal to fund the government, a task most people think is part of their job anyway. The president learned this lesson last summer after he cemented an agreement with Republicans to keep the government open. No one gives you credit for deciding not to slam your hand in the door.

The clash is driven by principle: Republicans think Washington has a spending problem and any solution based on higher taxes is misplaced. They can elide this point to scrape together a short-term agreement, as they did during the debt limit struggle, but the fundamental philosophical disagreement remains. So, many Republicans believe they might as well have the fight now. Plus, the base would lose it if Republicans caved to the president. Conservatives already think congressional Republicans were defeated on the fights over the fiscal cliff and the debt limit. This would be a third surrender.

Is the president's hard line a failure of leadership? Republicans say yes. John Boehner's aides have been sending reporters copies of stories chronicling president Obama's lack of congressional outreach. If outreach is a sign of leadership and the president isn't doing that, then it follows that he's the one to blame for this sequester mess. Of course, the White House says it doesn’t have a willing partner, so they think the old model of “reasoning together” is less effective than simply making Republicans cry uncle. But they understand the importance of appearances. That is what inspired the president’s speed dialing. The president has to look like he's trying so he can’t be tagged for not leading.

But is there any merit to the charge? Is the president failing to lead? That depends on your definition. George Bush defined leadership as taking tough stances and holding to them no matter what. In an interview, he actually said the howls of protest from the opposition defined just how much he was leading. President Obama is taking a hard-line stance based on his philosophical view about how you grow government. He's not wavering. It's the same attitude Republicans have toward taxes.
The president is not always turning up the pressure. This gets us to the second phone call. Last weekend a draft of the president's immigration legislation had leaked. Republicans were immediately suspicious. The president had publicly said he wanted Congress to take up this task, but the leaked document suggested he was either hatching his own plan to circumvent negotiations or trying to influence the existing plan by leaking to the press. No one can blame Republicans for reacting this way, particularly in these partisan times. The president is busy raising the pressure on Republicans in the sequester fight; why wouldn't he do the same on immigration?

That is the difficulty of negotiating with a party on one issue while you're battering them on another. So, the president called Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, and John McCain to talk to them about immigration. According to White House aides, the call was not primarily about exchanging substantive ideas. But unlike the calls on the sequester, the lack of substance didn't mean the call was pure theater. The president was calling to explain to the suspicious Republicans that he wasn't trying to sabotage the bipartisan efforts to reform immigration.

Republicans have asked Obama not to meddle on immigration. He's supposed to stay out of the way and be a follower. The reason is that the more he is associated with the legislation, the less likely Republicans will vote for it. On the sequester, Republicans define presidential leadership as reaching out to Congress. But when it comes to immigration reform, they are asking the president to show leadership by keeping his distance.

So far the president has taken his cue and has eased off on the pressure. Every indication for the moment is that he wants an immigration deal and he knows that, unlike with the budget, aggression is less helpful than compromise. Why is there a difference? The election inspired some Republicans to loosen their position on immigration reform. It did not shake their feelings about the desirability of tax increases.

When the president spoke about immigration reform in Las Vegas in late January, he was specific about the details he wanted to see in any final legislation. That rankled Republicans in Congress who thought he was meddling in the legislation they were carefully trying to craft. A little more than a week later, when the president talked about the issue in his State of the Union address, he was less specific. Republicans trying to cobble together a deal were grateful. They saw it as a dialing down of presidential pressure. That was their view, at least, until the leak last weekend.

In the end, the leaked White House draft may help close an immigration deal. Sen. Rubio attacked it the minute the details hit the Internet. Some conservatives are suspicious of Rubio's efforts to reach a compromise with Democrats. Bashing the president's plan let the freshman from Florida show he's still fighting for conservative principles, which in this case means stricter enforcement against new illegal immigrants before granting amnesty for existing lawbreakers. White House aides say that wasn't the plan—they wanted to keep the details of the president's plan secret—but they're happy to let the leak play that role. With the president so regularly antagonizing the GOP, White House aides recognize that any deal with Republicans might require giving those same Republicans some opportunities to show how much they disagree with the man they're eventually going to agree with.(1330)

kun5850

3'23
3'43
2'12
2'43
2'12
>>>
12.32

kun5850

3‘23
3’12
2‘42
2’31
2‘12
》》》》
12‘32

yangreat

感谢kudoucliff ~

speed
4:15， 404
2:00， 287
3:26， 350
3:35， 311
2:38， 267

wangziann

第一天，自己都不忍心看成绩，感觉秒表一下就跳到3分钟了，哭~~

Buck and Spitz fight desperately. Sixdog start to attack Spitz who was untouched after Spitz defeat Buck.
看了两遍其实，脑子启动速度太慢，learning curve~~
3:32
Buck win the fighting.
总之只能想想到很凶残的场面，回头咬了腿，血流不断，喘息声声，赢的过程没太看懂
2:34
The progress of women in senior management happened in resent years but there is still few women in the excectuive commitee and boards.
这篇总算是看懂点大意了，NND真不容易！
2:57
Set an example to lead the topic that animal trials were commonplace public event in early century.And then give some expert's explanation of the causes is mainly hierarchical order .
3:07
The explanation mentioned before can not fully clarify the practice.Judges routinely considered animals’ personal circumstances before making a legal decision.
2:18
Obama made two phone calls to Republicans, the phony one is about spending cuts and the real one is related to immigration reform.
没看完就挂了，脑子里面都是支离破碎的片段啊短语啊，有些模糊信息过目就忘，串不起逻辑来
12:00+

SMS

28:30


time 1 (404) 2:32
time 2 (287) 1:51
time 3 (350) 2:29 women reach executive committee.
time 4 (311) 2:04
time 5 (267) 2:11


Obstacle (1330) 8:03
President Obama's two call to Republicans
one phoney call about tax
the other real call about the immigration reform
Failure in leadership?

xueluanfei

最近回家走亲访友，，一个session看了三天才看完，。。转眼都出到10+了，，时光飞逝，努力赶上！
1.3'20 没看懂。。一开始讲气氛很凝重，死气沉沉的，，然后出来了一条叫做S的狗，好像以前战绩很辉煌的样子。然后突然说S咬了哪个狗的脖子，很威武很厉害的好像///T T
2.2’25 说B这个狗特别厉害，把他的对手打得片甲不留。说B打架即靠直觉又有脑子。。。弱问一句什么阅读小分队会出现小说性文章？
3.2‘25 wonmen are taking more important role in today's economy. More women show their potentials in higher level management positions. Meanwhile, hidden obstacles block a lot of women from fully applying their ability to executie commitees...This phenomenon is especially significant in Asia.
4.2'27 a boy was kills by a croud of birds. However, no on saw the birds directly attact the boy himself. According to the law,all the animals are judges as person when they killed people. They will soon been killed under judgement. Owners of animals should keep their animals well. Or they will die soon.
5.2'10 when judges sentence the cases involved animal criminals, they ususally consider virous aspects. For example, they consider their motivations, maturities and so on. Judges try their best to treat animals as human.
Obstacles.看了一会看不太懂，于是查了一下背景资料。。奥巴马是民主党出来的（？），然后奥巴马要给富人阶级加税；共和党的人就不同意，说奥巴马这个计划都是在开玩笑。然后要实行这个计划貌似要国会出面，统一共和党和民主党的意见。只有当这个法案大家都统一的时候，国会才能通过。。。现在滚去看英语的。。。
10'51 看到后面开始走神。。
president made two phone calls to Republic party recently. One is phony and the other one is real. The phony one is about the tax cut..Obama tried to be less aggresive on this issue and put a middle stance. Although most of the public support Obama's opinion on this issue, the Republic has strong reson to resist the pressure. Because no one will vote for Republic even if they change their stance. In addition, the Republic consider obmam as lack of leadership. Because they define leadership as a presiden's outreach of Congress. However, from the point of Obama, his behavior is not a lack of leadership. Another phone call, which is real, was about the immigration plan. The Republic want Obama keep distance on this issue, While Obama was trying to imposs his influnece on it.

ssk3666

1 02:58 [404]
B and S are two dogs. They are fighting fiercely until one of them fell down.

2 01:54 [287]
B has an advantage when fight, he fight for instinction. Then B broke forelegs of S. S fight using only three legs, but B broke S's another foreleg and finally killed S. B was the champion.

3 02:47 [350]
Every time a women reached a top role in business world, the media will pay lots of attention and lead to debate. Study showed that more and more women are included in corporate board, as top managers, etc. Companies enjoy diversity of gender in their management. But in developing economies, many women are barried by family, culture, etc. There are too few women reach top executives.

4 02:26 [311]
In 1457, a sow and some piglets rushed into a village and killed a boy. Then people took the sow to a court and judges, attorneys had a real adjudgement. In mideval Europe, the animals were treated like humans when they violated the law. This action depends on that human should not violate god's order and that animal should be treated like its owner.

5 02:03 [267]
The trials treated animals in court because they believe animals have free to make basic choices. Judges often consider circumstances when the animal took the crime, for example, the piglets were judged innocent. In anothor instance, two herds of swine were sentenced to death.

Obstacle
6 08:14 [1330]
Main Point: Discuss the reasons for President Obama's two phone calls to the Republic party and the president's political leadership.

Structure: News: two phone call, a phony and a real one, show following contents -- The phony call, for budget cut and tax increase, add pressure to the Republic, tell the pubilc he has tried -- The real call, for immigration reform, many Republicants have changed their mind about this reform, the president just wanted to persude them to support this act

448406078

1-404-3'45''
S is a good hunter and can master a lot of dog.

2-287-2'24''

3-350-2'31''
Women has become executives in big companies, but there are still a lot of bias to women and put them in the state of baby-sitting.

4-311-2'42''
Animal trials in Medival European show that animal can be treat as person in the trials and may be can show the owner's social statue.

5-267-2'52''
Some reasons for the animal trials' practice and some other cases.

11'00''

一粒黄豆。

3/4

2'52
Buck is guarding something?

1'58
Buck fought by both instinct and head.
Buck won.

3'11
p1 The progress of women toward upper echelons provokes media attention.
p2 Researches around the world show the evidence of the progress.
p3 Encouragingly, some large companies realized to benefit from gender variety.
p4 However,some high-potential women are still hindered by barriers.

2'35
p1 In many cases ,if animals attact people ,they will be treated as human in Court.
p2 It is bizzare to treat animals as human legally.
p3 Some scholors agree that animals should be treated as human legally.But others think that the owner of animals should take a part of responsibility.

2'24
p1 None of explanations clarify the practice.
p2 Judges considered animal's personal circumstances before making a legal decision, and the pig was deemed innocent.
p3 Intentions mattered as well. In some cases, animals deemed to have attacted or kill people intentionally would be sentenced to death.

8'57
Obama made two phone. As for the author , the first one is a show. And the intention of the second call is to talk about immigrants things partly and to show partly.And White House leaked the document intentionally.
In general ,the author is blaming Obama ,and explain for Republicans.