全新版大学英语快速阅读第三册课文

Unit 1

Why I Love the City

A lot of my friends are moving out of the city. They 're buying houses in the suburbs because they want to get away from the noise, smog, traffic, and crime of the city. One friend says, "There's too much air pollution in the city. I prefer the suburbs, where the air is clean." Another friend complains about the traffic: "There are too many cars downtown! You can't find a parking place, and the traffic jams are terrible." Everyone complains about crime: "The city is full of criminals. I rarely leave my house at night—it's too dangerous."

Before my friends move out of the city, they usually recite the advantages of suburban life: green grass, flowers, swimming pools, barbecues, and so on. Yet after my friends have lived there for a year or so, they realize that suburban life is not so pleasant as they were expecting. What causes this change? Their gardens! They soon learn that one unavoidable part of suburban life is yardwork. After they work all weekend in their gardens, they 're much too tired to take a swim in their pools or even to cook some meat on their barbecues. And they have another complaint: they can't live in the suburbs without a car. Most of my friends moved to the suburbs to avoid traffic, but now they have to commute to work downtown. They sit on a busy freeway two hours every day!

My opinions about urban life are very different from my friends'—I live downtown? and I love it! Why? Well, first, I love nature—flowers, green grass, trees, and animals. In the city, I have all the advantages of nature: I can walk through the public park, smell the flowers, and sit on the grass under the trees. I can visit the animals in the zoo. Yet I have none of the disadvantages: I don't have to do yardwork or feed the animals. Also, in the city, I can get everywhere by bus? if there's a traffic jam, I can walk home.

It seems that everyone is moving to the suburbs to avoid the crime of the big cities. I have a theory about urban crime, however, so I feel safe downtown. The criminal life will reflect changes in society: if people are buying homes in the suburbs, the criminals will soon follow. Criminals want to avoid noise, smog, and pollution, too. Soon, overcrowding and crime will be problems of the suburbs instead of the city!

People on the Move

The history of the American people is, in part, the history of the movement of the American people. They moved from the colonies of the East Coast to the open spaces of the West. They moved from the country and the farm to the city. More recently, Americans have been moving from the cities to the suburbs.

Open Space; The Move West

Pioneer Americans began moving from the East Coast to the West 250 years ago. They moved west for many reasons. One reason was the availability of unlimited open space and land for farming. Americans liked large open spaces, and they also liked the freedom and independence to develop the land in their own way. Some of the land became farms. Important minerals were discovered in some areas, so some of the land became mines. Other large areas became cattle ranches. There seemed to be enough land for everybody. But it was a difficult life—a life of endless work and hardship.

The Cities

After 1860, the Industrial Revolution changed the United States. Americans learned how to manufacture steel. They began to produce petroleum. The automobile was invented. Factories of all kinds began to appear, and cities began to grow up around the factories. Farmers and other country people moved to the growing cities in order to find jobs and an easier life. In the early 1900s, the cities were busy, exciting places. However, there was also a lot of poverty and hardship.

The cities grew up—the buildings got taller—and the cities grew out—they spread out from the center. Private houses with yards and porches disappeared. Apartment buildings, each one taller than the next, took their place. More and more people moved to the cities, and the cities got bigger and bigger.

Some cities could not spread out because there was no room to do so. These cities, of which New York is the best example, became more and more crowded. More people meant more cars, trucks, and buses, more noise, more pollution, and more crime. Many cities became ugly and dirty. Some people and some businesses began to leave the cities and move to the suburbs outside the cities.

The Suburbs

The move to the suburbs is still happening. Americans are looking for a small piece of land that they can call their own. They want a house with a yard. However, they do not want to give up the good jobs they have in the city. In many cases, companies in the suburbs give them jobs. In other cases, Americans tend to commute to and from the cities where their jobs are. In recent years, more and more businesses are moving to the suburbs. They are attracting many people and the suburbs are becoming crowded.

What Next?

Americans have watched their big cities fall slowly into disrepair and die. Many middle-class people have left the cities, and only the very rich and the very poor are staying behind.

Concerned Americans are trying to solve the problems of noise, dirt, crime, and pollution in the big cities. They are trying to rebuild bad sections of the cities in order to attract and keep business people. They are trying to make their cities beautiful. Now many Americans are thinking of moving back to the cities.

Other Americans are finding that even the suburbs have become too crowded. They are looking for unpolluted open spaces and for an independent way of life. They are ready to move from the suburbs to the country.

Perhaps Americans will always be on the move.

Caution: Bumpy Road Ahead

Students graduating from colleges today are not fully prepared to deal with the "real world." It is my belief that college students need to be taught more skills and information to enable them to meet the challenges that face everyone in daily life. The areas in which students need training are playing the credit game, planning their personal financial strategy, and consumer awareness.

Learning how to obtain and use credit is probably the most valuable knowledge a young person can have. Credit is a dangerous tool that can be of tremendous help if it is handled with caution. Having credit can enable people to obtain material necessities before they have the money to purchase them outright. But unfortunately, many, many young people get carried away with their handy plastic credit cards and awake one day to find they are in serious financial debt. Learning how to use credit properly can be a very difficult and painful lesson indeed.

Of equal importance is learning how to plan a personal budget. People have to know how to control money; otherwise, it can control them. Students should leave college knowing how to allocate their money for living expenses, insurance, savings, and so forth in order to avoid the "Oh, no! I 'm flat broke and I don't get paid again for two weeks!" anxiety syndrome.

Along with learning about credit and personal financial planning, graduating college students should be trained as consumers. The consumer market today is flooded with a variety of products and services of varying quality and prices. A young person entering the "real world" is suddenly faced with difficult decisions about which product to buy or whose services to engage. He is usually unaware of such things as return policies, guarantees, or repair procedures. Information of this sort is vital knowledge to everyday living.

For a newly graduated college student, the "real world" can be a scary place to be when he or she is faced with such issues as handling credit, planning a budget, or knowing what to look for when making a purchase and whom to purchase it from. Entering this "real world" could be made less painful if persons were educated in dealing with these areas of daily life. What better place to accomplish this than in college?

Memory Lane Isn't What It Used to Be

About this time every year, I get very nostalgic. Walking through my neighborhood on a fall afternoon reminds me of a time not too long ago when sounds of children filled the air, children playing games on a hill, and throwing leaves around in the street below, I was one of those children, carefree and happy. I live on a street that is only one block long. I have lived on the same street for sixteen years. I love my street. One side has six houses on it, and the other has only two houses, with a small hill in the middle and a huge cottonwood tree on one end.

When I think of home, I think of my street, only I see it as it was before. Unfortunately, things change. One day, not long ago, I looked around and saw how different everything has become. Life on my street will never be the same because neighbors are quickly growing old, friends are growing up and leaving, and the city is planning to destroy my precious hill and sell the property to contractors.

It is hard for me to accept that many of my wonderful neighbors are growing old and won't be around much longer. I have fond memories of the couple across the street, who sat together on their porch swing almost every evening, the widow next door who yelled at my brother and me for being too loud, and the crazy old man in a black suit who drove an old car. In contrast to those people, the people I see today are very old neighbors who have seen better days. The man in the black suit says he wants to die, and another neighbor just sold his house and moved into a nursing home. The lady who used to yell at us is too tired to bother anymore, and the couple across the street rarely go out to their front porch these days. It is difficult to watch these precious people as they near the end of their lives because at one time I thought they would live forever.

The "comings and goings" of the younger generation of my street are now mostly "goings" as friends and peers move on. Once upon a time, my life and the lives of my peers revolved around home. The boundary of our world was the gutter at the end of the street. We got pleasure from playing night games, or from a breathtaking ride on a tricycle. Things are different now, as my friends become adults and move on. Children who rode tricycles now drive cars. The kids who once played with me now have new interests and values as they go their separate ways. Some have gone away to college, a few got married, two went into the army, and one went to prison. Watching all these people grow up and go away only makes me long for the good old days.

Perhaps the biggest change on my street is the fact that the city is going to turn my precious hill into several lots for new homes. For sixteen years, the view out of my kitchen window has been a view of that hill. The hill was a fundamental part of my childhood life; it was the hub of social activity for the children of my street. We spent hours there building forts, sledding, and playing tag. The view out of my kitchen window now is very different; it is one of tractors and dump trucks tearing up the hill. When the hill goes, the neighborhood will not be the same. It is a piece of my childhood. It is a visual reminder of being a kid. Without the hill, my street will be just another pea in the pod.

There was a time when my street was my world, and I thought my world would never change. But something happened. People grow up, and people grow old. Places change, and with the change comes the heartache of knowing I can never go back to the times I loved. In a year or so, I will be gone just like many of my neighbors. I will always look back to my years as a child, but the place I remember will not be the silent street whose peace is interrupted by the sounds of construction. It will be the happy, noisy, somewhat strange, but wonderful street I knew as a child.

Unit 2

Rosa Parks—A Hero of Civil Rights

Most historians say that the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States was December 1, 1955. That was the day when an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city law. However, her act of defiance began a movement that ended the laws that racially segregated America. Because of this, she also became an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.

Rosa Parks was born on February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents, James McCauley, a carpenter, and Leona McCauley, a teacher, named her Rosa Louise McCauley. When she was two, she moved to her grandparents' farm in Alabama with her mother and younger brother, Sylvester. At the age of 11, she became a student at the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school. The school believed that self-esteem was the key to success. This was consistent with Rosa 's mother 's advice to "take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were."

And the opportunities were few indeed. Mrs. Parks said in an interview: Back then, we didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next.

I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down.

In the same interview, she explained that she felt fearless, because she had always been faced with fear. This fearlessness gave her the courage to fight her conviction during the bus boycott. "I didn't have any special fear," she said. "It was more of a relief to know that I wasn't alone."

After attending Alabama State Teachers College, Rosa settled in Montgomery, with her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple joined the local chapter of the NAACP and worked for many years to improve the conditions of African-Americans in the segregated South.

The bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association. The Association 's leader was a young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church named Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company. The boycott lasted 382 days and brought recognition to Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, and their cause. A Supreme Court decision struck down the Montgomery law under which Mrs. Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.

After her husband died, Mrs. Parks founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. The Institute sponsors an annual summer program for teenagers called Pathways to Freedom. The young people tour the country in buses learning the history of their country and of the civil rights movement.

Best of Friends, Worlds Apart

Havana, sometime before 1994: As dusk descends on the quaint seaside village of Guanabo, two young men kick a soccer ball back and forth and back and forth across the sand. The tall one, Joel Ruiz, is black. The short, muscular one, Achmed Valdes, is white.

They are the best of friends.

Miami, January 2000: Mr. Valdes is playing soccer, as he does every Saturday, with a group of light-skinned Latinos in a park near his apartment. Mr. Ruiz surprises him with a visit, and Mr. Valdes, flushed and sweating, runs to greet him. They shake hands warmly.

But when Mr. Valdes darts back to the game, Mr. Ruiz stands off to the side, arms crossed, looking on as his childhood friend plays the game that was once their shared joy. Mr. Ruiz no longer plays soccer. He prefers basketball with black Latinos and African-Americans from his neighborhood.

The two men live only four miles apart, not even 15 minutes by car. Yet they are separated by a far greater distance, one they say they never imagined back in Cuba.

In ways that are obvious to the black man but far less so to the white one, they have grown apart in the United States because of race. For the first time, they inhabit a place where the color of their skin defines the outlines of their lives—where they live, the friends they make, how they speak, what they wear, even what they eat.

"It's like I am here and he is over there," Mr. Ruiz said, "And we can't cross over to the other 's world."

It is not that, growing up in Cuba 's mix of black and white, they were unaware of their difference in color. Fidel Castro may have officially put an end to racism in Cuba, but that does not mean racism has simply gone away. Still, color was not what defined them. Nationality, they had been taught, meant far more than race. They felt, above all, Cuban.

Here in America, Mr. Ruiz still feels Cuban. But above all he feels black. His world is a black world, and to live there is to be constantly conscious of race. He works in a black-owned bar, dates black women, goes to an African-American barber. White barbers, he says, "don't understand black hair." He generally avoids white neighborhoods, and when his world and the white world meet, he feels always watched, and he is always watchful.

For Joel Ruiz, there is little time for relaxation. On this night, he works as a cashier at his uncle 's bar in a black Miami neighborhood.

Mr. Valdes, who is 29, a year younger than his childhood friend, is simply, comfortably Cuban, an upwardly mobile citizen of the Miami mainstream. He lives in an all-white neighborhood, hangs out with white Cuban friends and goes to black neighborhoods only when his job, as a deliveryman for Restonic mattresses, forces him to. When he thinks about race, which is not very often, it is in terms learned from other white Cubans: American blacks, he now believes, are to be avoided because they are dangerous and resentful of whites. The only blacks he trusts, he says, are those he knows from Cuba.

Since leaving Havana in separate boats in 1994, the two friends have seen each other just a handful of times in Miami—at a funeral, a baby shower, a birthday party and that soccer

game, a meeting arranged for a newspaper photographer. They have visited each other 's homes only once.

They say they remain as good friends as ever, yet they both know there is little that binds them anymore but their memories. Had they not become best friends in another country, in another time, they would not be friends at all today.

Coming to an Awareness of Language

It was because of my letters (which Malcolm X wrote to people outside while he was in jail) that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of a homemade education.

I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what I wanted to convey in letters that I wrote ... And every book I picked up had few sentences which didn't contain anywhere from one to nearly all the words that might as well have been in Chinese. When I skipped those words, of course, I really ended up with little idea of what the book said ...

I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary—to study, to learn some words. I requested a dictionary along with some notebooks and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony school.

I spent two days just turning uncertainly the pages of a dictionary. I 'd never realized so many words existed! I didn't know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying.

In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my notebook everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back to myself everything I 'd written in the notebook. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting. I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words—immensely proud to realize that not only had I written so much at one time, but I 'd written words that I never knew were in the world. Moreover, with a little effort, I also could remember what many of these words meant. I reviewed the words whose meanings I didn't remember. Funny thing, from the dictionary 's first page right now, that aardvark springs to my mind. The dictionary had a picture of it, a long-tailed, long-eared, burrowing African mammal, which lives off termites caught by sticking out its tongue as an anteater does for ants.

I was so fascinated that I went on—I copied the dictionary 's next page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history. Actually, the dictionary is like a miniature encyclopedia. Finally, the dictionary 's A section had filled a whole notebook—and I went on into the B 's. That was the way I started copying what eventually became the entire dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick up handwriting speed.

I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left the prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was

reading on my bunk. You couldn't have gotten me out of books with a wedge. Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.

She Wanted to Teach

A railroad was being built all the way down the east coast off Florida, from Jacksonville to Miami and Negro workers were employed because they were cheap. A great many of them were in Daytona. Most of them had children. They were living in shacks worse than those in The Terry in Augusta. The children were running wild in the streets. Mary Bethune seemed to hear a voice say, "What is the place? Build your school there."

Her husband, Albertus, wasn't so sure about her school. He thought Palatka was a pretty good place for them to live. Mary listened but she never gave up her idea. She knew that if she went to Daytona, Albertus would come too.

One day she begged a ride for herself and her little boy with a family that was going to Daytona. It was only seventy miles away. But in 1904 the sand was deep on Florida roads. Practically no one had an automobile—certainly not the poor family that gave Mary and little Albert a ride. So it was three dusty days after they left Palatka before they reached Daytona. There Mary hunted up the only person she knew, and she and little Albert stayed with this friend for a few days.

As she had done in The Terry in Augusta, Mary walked up and down the poor streets of Daytona. She was looking for two things—a building for the school she was determined to start and some pupils for that school.

After a day or two, she found an empty shack on Oak Street. She thought this would do. The owner said she could rent it for $ 11.00 a month. But it wasn't worth that much. The paint had peeled off, the front steps wobbled so that she had to hang onto the shaky railing to keep from falling, the house was dirty, it had a leaky roof. In most of the windows the panes of glass were broken or cracked.

Eleven dollars a month! Mary said she only had $ 1.50. She promised to pay the rent as soon as she could earn the money. The owner trusted her. By the time she was sure she could have the building, she had five little girls from the neighborhood as her pupils.

What a school! A rickety old house and five little girls! The little girls pitched in and cleaned the house. The neighbors helped with scrubbing brushes, brooms, hammers, nails, and saws. Soon the cottage could be lived in, but there were no chairs, no tables, no beds. There was no stove. However, there were no pots and pans to cook in, even if there had been a stove.

Mary set about changing these things. She found things in trash piles and the city dump. Nobody but Mary would have thought of making tables and chairs and desks from the old crates she picked up and brought home. Behind the hotels on the beach she found cracked dishes, old lamps, even some old clothes. She took them home too. Everything was scoured and mended

and used. "Keep things clean and neat" was her motto then; and as long as she lived the pupils in her school had to live up to that motto.

Her little pupils had no pencils. They wrote with pieces of charcoal made from burned logs. Their ink was elderberry juice. What good was ink or a pencil if there was no paper to write on? Mary took care of that too.

Every time she went to the store to get a little food, or a few pots and pans, she had each article wrapped separately. The pieces of wrapping paper were carefully removed and smoothed out. The little girls used this paper to write their lessons with their charcoal pencils.

She needed a cookstove very badly but she couldn't pay for one. What should she do? Her little pupils had to have warm food.

Unexpectedly, the problem was solved for her. One day a wrinkled old white neighbor said to her, "Can you read?"

Mary said, "Yes."

"Then will you read me this letter from my son? I can't find my glasses."

Mary read the letter to her.

"Thanks," said the mother.

Mary turned to go. "You 're welcome."

The old woman stood by her open door and thought a moment. Then she said, "I got an old cookstove and I don't need it. Would you want it?"

Unit 3

Black Box Tells Its Secrets

The "black box" in an aircraft is actually orange in color with two white stripes painted on its surface.

"It is like a shock-proof, heat-proof tape recorder," says Mr. Hellyer, Cathay Airlines technical services superintendent of aircraft electronics. "About half the size of a home video recorder, it is bright orange in color so that, in the event of a crash, it can be more easily found. Inside its one-centimeter-thick steel case is a layer of waxy insulating material, three centimeters thick, for extra fire-resistance and to reduce the shock of impact. Inside this is the motor, electronics and 160 meters of magnetic tape which records about 50 aspects of the aircraft 's operation over the previous 25 hours.

"It weighs 10 kilograms and can withstand heat of 1200 ° C over half its surface area for 30 minutes as well as the weight of very heavy, sharpened spikes being dropped on it. It is almost indestructible. However, in the case of the EL AL aircraft which crashed into a tower block in Amsterdam only minutes after take-off, the device was so badly damaged by the

resulting fire and explosion of the plane 's full petrol tanks that the tape could not be played back.

"The black box is also fitted with an underwater beacon which gives off ultrasonic signals when an aircraft crashes into the sea and this signal helps in the search for the location of the crash. In 1974 a TWA Boeing 707 exploded in mid-air above the Ionian Sea near Greece. When the wreckage was eventually found a month later, the black box was found lying on the ocean bed 3km below the sea surface, still signaling," he continued.

The black box was made compulsory for all aircraft in the late 1950's and is located near the tail of the airplane. It is the safest area as the tail is usually found to be the least damaged after a crash. Next to it is another armored box, the cockpit voice recorder which records everything picked up by a microphone in the cockpit on a tape loop 30 minutes long. The two boxes look very similar and sometimes even rescuers mistake one for the other.

At the front is another unit, not designed to withstand a crash. Called the brains of the system, this flight data acquisition unit collects data from all over the aircraft and compresses it into a single stream of digital data to be sent to the crash-proof recorder.

After a crash and when the black box is found, the accident investigators play the tape and present their evidence. "The pilot could have been careless or the manufacturer could have been at fault or a bomb could have been placed on board," says Mr. Hellyer. "Whatever the cause, the black box can point the finger of blame."

"Apart from that, the box is also used on a day-to-day basis to help locate any problems in maintenance, check each engine 's performance and in other ways. This data will ensure even more safety for passengers and crew," Mr. Hellyer concluded.

Don't Fly with Me

In recent years a new and serious problem has arisen for international airlines and their passengers. This is the relatively new crime of hijacking. Once an unheard-of event, it has now become a common occurrence. The number of hijacks is increasing and the governments of the world are becoming more concerned about them.

Who are these hijackers? The first ones (about 20 years ago) were usually political refugees—individuals who simply wanted to leave their country and fly to another. For instance Cubans in America used the hijack technique to get themselves back to Cuba. After the plane had taken off, the hijacker would force his way into the pilot 's cockpit and threaten him with a gun. This technique was often successful, because there is very little the pilot can do in these circumstances. If he refuses to do what the hijacker wants then there is a strong chance that the plane will crash and everyone on board will be killed.

However, more recently, there have been serious developments in hijackers. Present-day hijackers usually have other motives for taking over a plane. They do not want simply to fly to another destination; they want to use the aircraft and the passengers on board as bargaining points for their political beliefs. They tell the world governments that unless their

demands are met, the plane will be blown up and all the passengers will be killed. These hijackers are often members of international terrorist organisations. They may want to change the system of government in their own country by using violence, or they may have hijacked a plane in order to try and force a government to release members of their organisation from prison.

There is not very much anyone can do once a hijacker is on board an aeroplane. He may be carrying a gun or hand grenades, which, if used, would cause a disaster. The only thing to do is try to ensure that these people never get on the plane in the first instance. So airlines all over the world have security procedures. Before any passenger can get on an airplane at the airport, he must go through a series of security checks to make sure he isn't carrying anything that is potentially dangerous or could be used as a weapon on board. The security measures vary from airport to airport. At some airports there is very little security. At other airports the security checks are very strict and it can take up to half-an-hour to get through them all.

Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, China, has a good security system. No aircraft starting its journey from Hong Kong has ever been hijacked. At Kai Tak, when a passenger first checks in, his or her name is matched with the computer list of passengers booked on that particular flight. If the name is not recognised, the passenger will be taken aside and questioned by security guards and may not be allowed on the plane. Next, every suitcase is X-ray checked before it goes into the plane. Any suitcase that seems to have something dangerous in it is not put on the plane. Then the hand baggage which the passengers will carry on to the plane is checked. Each passenger has to open his or her bag and the security clerk examines the contents. Cameras may be opened, even babies taken out of their prams and carry-cots. If there is anything that could be used as a weapon, a penknife for example, the security staff take it away and keep it in a safe place on the plane until the flight is over. The passenger can then collect it.

Finally there is a body check of all passengers. They must pass through a door where X-rays will show if they are carrying anything made of metal, like a gun. If anything suspicious is found, they will be asked to explain. (At some other airports a security guard will "frisk" every passenger as well, by running his hands over the passenger 's body to feel for guns and other weapons.) It is only after all these checks that a passenger is allowed to board the plane.

Brave New World of Biometrics

There are always people who can find a reason to criticize strongly any new technology as too personally invasive, but I 'm all for biometrics. Among the amazing things biometrics enables us to do is to scan a person 's iris—the colored part of the eye—which displays a natural pattern that is even more distinct than the fingerprint.

Imagine what that will do to cut down on credit card fraud if the pattern of a person 's iris must be scanned before the credit card can be used. Imagine how foolproof it will make Internet purchases, which are now extremely vulnerable to fraudulent abuse.

Biometries' ability to prevent theft against the government also is endless. When the state of Connecticut required people to be fingerprinted in order to receive welfare benefits, 25

percent of the recipients dropped off the rolls (many of whom, we have to assume, were receiving benefits improperly).

Biometrics also will give law-enforcement officers terrific new powers to track and capture international terrorists. Imagine what miniature face scans embedded secretly in passports will do to passport fraud, and the ability of terrorists to flee from one country to the next.

Does this mean the government and corporations will have more "personal information" about you on file? Sure, to the extent that you consider your face or your iris to be personal "information." But all the hubbub about "invasion of privacy" is vastly overblown.

Ever since the invention of telemarketing and the ceaseless parade of phone calls bombarding my home day and night began, I 've considered my privacy to be a thing of the past. But in the scheme of things, it is a minor inconvenience, not a major assault.

Of course, if biometrics is too much for some people, they always can cut up their credit cards, disconnect their phones and computers and move to the Rockies and live alone away from people and society. Meanwhile, I'll continue to enjoy all the benefits modern technology offers.

The Deli

My husband and I were married about a year, when we were made an offer we couldn't refuse. There was a delicatessen whose owner was anxious to sell. He was moving to another state. We could have the store at payments we could afford. We accepted. There was an apartment behind and connected to it which was included in the deal. We had no idea what the neighborhood was like, but with youthful energy and optimism, we moved in.

New York is a great big city; most folks call it unfriendly, and yet, I never found it so. This area, from 96th Street to 100th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, was absolutely small-townish. Everyone knew everybody else and most were related in some way. Outsiders who moved in had to prove themselves worthy of acceptance or remain forever strangers. We were fortunate. Even the local gang, called "The Dukes," on whose territory our place was located, accepted us whole-heartedly.

The "Dukes," unknown to us, had terrorized all the shopkeepers in the area. In order to be able to stay in business without being troubled by broken windows, shoplifting, out and out robberies, and, in certain cases, beatings, the Dukes were paid whatever they felt the shopkeepers, could bear. In their opinion, we were no exception.

One day three of the young men walked into the store. At the time, my husband was outside arranging a shipment of goods that had just arrived, and I was preparing a sandwich which was to be my lunch. As I glanced up, I saw one of them quickly grab some candy bars and put them in his pocket; another leaned against the fruit bin which was immediately minus an apple. I was simple enough to believe that the only reason anyone stole food was hunger. My

heart broke and I really felt sorry for them. They asked to speak to my husband. "He's not here at the moment, but if you don't mind waiting, he should be back in soon." They nodded.

As they started to turn to walk around the customer area, I introduced myself and, at the same time, commenced making three more sandwiches. While I made small talk, they stood silent, looking fiercely, although hungrily at the sandwiches I was making: Italian rolls, piled high with juicy roast pork and, on top, my husband 's wonderful homemade pickles. I placed them on paper plates along with plenty of potato chips, then I said, "Come on you'll have to eat in the kitchen, because we 're not licensed to serve in the store. Do you want milk or cola?"

" ... Don't you know who we are?"

"I 've seen you around, but I don't know your names," I replied. They looked at me in disbelief, then shrugging their shoulders, marched as one into the kitchen which was behind the store. They ate to their hearts' content and, before they left, emptied their pockets, putting each stolen article in its appointed place. No apologies were given, none were expected. But from that day on, we were protected, and the only payment we ever made was that which we also received: friendship, trust, and acceptance.

Unit 4

First Planet from the Sun

Mercury, the planet nearest the sun, is difficult to observe from the Earth because it rises and sets within two hours of the sun. Consequently, little was known about the planet until the Mariner 10 spacecraft made several flybys in 1974 and 1975.

Planetary scientists can estimate the age of a planet 's surface by the number of impact craters on it. In general, the older the surface, the more craters it has. Some regions on Mercury are heavily cratered, suggesting that they are very old surfaces that were probably formed about 4 billion years ago. Between these regions are areas of gently rolling plains that may have been smoothed by volcanic lava flows or by accumulated deposits of fine material ejected during impacts. These plains are also old enough to have accumulated a large number of impact craters. Elsewhere on the planet are smooth, flat plains that are probably younger and volcanic in origin. These plains have relatively few impact craters. Sometime between the formation of the intercrater plains and the formation of the smooth plains, the whole planet may have shrunk as it cooled, causing the crust to buckle and form the long, steep cliffs called scarps.

The largest impact basin on Mercury has a diameter of about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) and is surrounded by mountains that rise to heights of about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers). The crater was probably created by the impact of a large planetesimal when Mercury was forming. On the opposite side of the planet is an area of hilly, linear terrain that probably resulted from seismic waves caused by the same impact.

Like other airless, solid bodies in the solar system, the entire surface of Mercury is covered with a layer of rubble called regolith, which is composed of material, ranging from dust to boulders, that was scattered when impact craters were formed. This debris was in turn broken up and redistributed by subsequent impacts.

Mercury is very dense and has a magnetic field that is about 1 percent as strong as Earth 's. This suggests the existence of a planetary core composed of iron and nickel and constituting about 40 percent of the planet 's volume. The surface gravity is about one-third as strong as Earth 's, and a thin atmosphere surrounds the planet. Radar images taken of Mercury in 1991 show what are considered to be large ice patches at the planet 's north pole.

Black Holes

It was a star vastly larger than our own sun. For hundreds of years this giant star burned brightly in its corner of the universe. Then, at the end of its life span, a strange thing happened. The dying star began to collapse in on itself. While the star was in its death throes, all the matter that made up the star was squeezed together into a smaller and smaller area. Soon the star measured no more than a mile across. Its matter was so tightly packed that a piece of it the size of a small stone weighed as much as a mountain.

As the dead star continued to fall into itself, it brought with it every bit of matter in the area. Every speck of dust, every stray atom, was dragged into it. The star had become a black hole. A black hole is a small area of matter so dense that not even a light beam can escape the pull of its gravity.

Since no light can leave black holes, there is no way for us to see them. They are invisible. We know of their existence because of the strange things that happen around them. Light that is traveling through space just vanishes.

Just how wild is a black hole? Let 's take a look at gravity. A common expression related to gravity is, "What goes up must come down." When someone throws a ball into the air, it must return to Earth. This happens because Earth attracts the ball, or pulls it toward itself. A flowerpot that is knocked off a third-story window will always hit the sidewalk. It is only the great thrust of giant rockets that allows the space shuttle to escape the pull of Earth 's gravity.

On a planet with double or triple Earth 's gravity, objects would act quite differently, because the pull, or attraction, would be much stronger. A ball thrown into the air would not go very high, and it would plunge quickly back to the surface of the planet. A falling flowerpot would be a deadly weapon. It would kill any luckless pedestrian who might happen to get hit by it. Rockets far more powerful than those used on Earth would be needed to break away from the pull of the planet 's gravity.

Beams of light, however, would have no trouble at all escaping from this planet. Even if the force of gravity were increased to a million times that of Earth, light beams would still not be affected. Humans on such a world, though, would be crushed flatter than their own shadows.

Only if the amount of gravity were many billions of times stronger than Earth 's would light beams bend back to the surface. That is the case with a black hole. It is hard to imagine just how dense and heavy black hole matter is. A penny made from black hole matter would rip through your pocket and plunge through the earth with the greatest of ease. When it emerged on the other side, it would hover in the air for a moment and then plunge back through the earth.

Black holes are the strangest objects in the universe. Nothing ever leaves a black hole. No light leaves it. No physical objects leave it. Once something enters a black hole, it is there forever. Black holes are like permanent detention halls in the sky. If a travel agent were to arrange a flight to a black hole, it would have to be a one-way trip. As the scientist Robert Jastrow said, "It is almost as though the material inside the black hole no longer belongs to our universe."

Suppose, just for the sake of amusement, that you happened to drop into a black hole. What would happen to you? Think of going feet first. Your feet would be pulled down faster than your ears. As a result, you would be drawn into a very thin thread of matter. Then the individual atoms in your body would be pulled apart.

Were you to survive the trip, however, some scientists believe that you would emerge in the fourth dimension. You would be in a totally different universe. The point where matter exits from this universe and goes into the next is referred to as a white hole. Many scientists believe that there are at least five black holes in our section of the universe. But, then, no one really knows for sure. Our knowledge of black holes is based only on informed guesswork.

The Cosmos

When I was little, I lived in a section of Brooklyn in the City of New York. I knew my immediate neighborhood intimately, every apartment building, backyard, empty lot, and elm tree.

I knew where my friends lived. But more than a few blocks away, north of the noisy automobile traffic on 86th Street, was a strange unknown territory, off-limits to my wanderings. It could have been Mars for all I knew.

Even with an early bedtime, in winter you could sometimes see the stars. I would look at them, twinkling and remote, and wonder what they were. I would ask older children and adults, who would only reply, "They 're lights in the sky, kid." I could see they were lights in the sky. But what were they? Just small hovering lamps? Whatever for? There had to be some answer.

As soon as I was old enough, my parents gave me my first library card. Immediately, I asked the librarian for something on stars. She returned with a picture book displaying pictures of men and women with names like Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. I complained, and for some reason then strange to me, she smiled and found another book—the right kind of book. I opened it in excitement and read until I found it. The book said something astonishing, a very big thought. It said that the stars were suns, only very far away. The Sun was a star, but close up. Imagine that you took the Sun and moved it so far away that it was just a tiny point of light. How far away would you have to move it? I did not have any idea of angular size. I was ignorant

of the inverse square law for light propagation. I did not have the slightest idea of calculating the distance to the stars. But I could tell that if the stars were suns, they had to be very far away—farther away than 85th Street, farther away than Manhattan, farther away, probably, than New Jersey. The Cosmos was much bigger than I had guessed.

Later I read another astonishing fact. The Earth, which includes Brooklyn, is a planet, and it goes around the Sun. There are other planets. They also go around the Sun; some are closer to it and some are farther away. But the planets do not shine by their own light, as the Sun does. They merely reflect light from the Sun. If you were a great distance away, you would not see the Earth and the other planets at all? they would be only faint luminous points, lost in the glare of the Sun. Well, then, I thought, it stood to reason that the other stars must have planets too, ones we have not yet detected, and some of those other planets should have life (why not?), a kind of life probably different from life as we know it, life in Brooklyn. So I decided I would be an astronomer, learn about the stars and planets and, if I could, go and visit them.

It has been my immense good fortune to have parents and some teachers who encouraged this odd ambition and to live in this time, the first moment in human history when we are, in fact, visiting other worlds and engaging in a deep exploration of the Cosmos. If I had been born in a much earlier age, no matter how great my dedication, I would not have known that there were other suns and other worlds. This is one of the great secrets wrested from Nature through a million years of patient observation and courageous thinking by our ancestors.

What are stars? Such questions are as natural as an infant 's smile. We have always asked them. What is different about our time is that at last we know some of the answers. Books and libraries provide a ready means for finding out what those answers are.

Stars

A star starts out life from what seems like nothing at all. Stars are born in huge clouds of gas that are actually far less dense than the space immediately surrounding Earth.

"These clouds are so spread out, they make the 'vacuum' of the space around the Earth that the space shuttle flies through seem as thick as chicken soup," says Jeff Hester, an astronomer at Arizona State University in Tempe. But because the clouds are so big, they contain a lot of molecules—enough, eventually, to build massive stars.

How big are these clouds that serve as star nurseries? They can be a light-year across—so enormous it would take light one year to cross one. In contrast, it takes light only one-seventh of a second to travel the nearly 25,000-mile distance that equals the circumference of tiny Earth.

The key to star formation is gravity, says Hester. Gravity causes the multitude of spread-out molecules to move toward each other and pulls them toward the center of the cloud. "The cloud starts to collapse under the force of its own gravity," says Hester, who studies the process of star formation. This collapsing process happens relatively quickly (by cosmic standards)—only about 30 million years, or less.

Over time the cloud gets smaller and smaller. As the cloud contracts, it also begins to spin faster. (This is due to a little something called conservation of angular momentum—the same phenomenon that allows a figure skater like Nancy Kerrigan to speed up her spin when she pulls her arms in toward her body. As the mass of gas moves toward the center, the cloud spins faster.) Next, the cloud starts to flatten. "It's just like when you make a simple pizza," says Hester. "The dough, or mixture of flour and water, flattens as it spins." Finally, because gravity becomes so strong in the center of the cloud, the center starts to collapse in on itself as it continues to rotate. At this point, you have a disk that's a few times the size of our solar system. (The disk would be about a couple of light-days across, if you 're keeping track of the size of things.) As the disk continues to rotate, matter in the center of the disk starts to move further inward and a big lump forms in the middle of the disk. This lump, says Hester, is a protostar.

What happens to the matter that's left over further out in the disk? In our solar system, it went on to become the planets. (In essence, earth is made up of leftovers.)

Protostars are very hot because so much of the gravitational energy that was once contained in the loose cloud of interstellar gas has been converted into heat. Protostars are spectacular, glowing with dull red light and infrared light. As a protostar emits this light, it continues to shrink and gets hotter and hotter. Finally, it's hot enough for real star business to begin—nuclear fusion.

At high enough temperatures, atoms slam together at incredibly fast speeds. When this happens, lighter atoms like hydrogen can fuse together to make heavier atoms like helium. One reaction releases massive amounts of energy; add all the reactions together, and "that's the energy that makes the stars shine," Hester says. Once nuclear fusion begins, that's truly when a star is born.

After a star "turns on," he says, its power can cause destruction to the surrounding environment. A young star expands, tearing apart the cloud that formed it. New stars often break up neighboring stars before they can form. It's hard to overstate what a powerful process star formation is. Even as they are forming, protostars eject huge amounts of material in jets and streams and create violent solar winds.

Unit 5

A Merry Christmas ...

Another Serving?

A Merry Christmas to you all ...

"Merry," as you may know, has two meanings: a) happy, and b) drunk. If you 're like a large number of British people, then your Christmas will be an alcoholic, rather than a religious, occasion.

If you walk down Piccadilly or Oxford Street just before Christmas, you will see an incredible amount of money being spent on electronic games, bottles of wine, expensive clothes, CDs, cassettes, cameras, and a large number of luxury items. If you walk down the main street of several towns in the Third World just before Christmas, you won't see a large amount of money being spent on presents: in fact, you won't see a large amount of money being spent on anything.

80 % of all disease in the world is caused by bad water supply: for millions of people, the perfect Christmas present would be a tap in the village square which would give pure, clean, water.

Do we think of these people when we sit down to our Christmas dinner? Of course not—we 're too busy thinking about the turkey, the roast potatoes, and the presents sitting under the Christmas tree. The whole idea of Christmas now is completely unchristian—I 'm sure that Christ would be furious if he could see what sort of celebrations are being carried out in his name.

So I 'm against Christmas—I agree with Scrooge: "It's all humbug." If we 're going to continue with this wasteful, thoughtless ceremony, then let 's be truthful about it, and call it "Stuff-Our-Faces Week," or "Stomach Week"—but let 's get rid of the insincere pretence that Christmas is "the season of goodwill."

Not only for Children?

Recently, a rather sophisticated woman told me shyly that she saves up all her presents until Christmas morning and then sits up in bed and opens them, just like a child. She thought I would laugh at her and say how silly she was. But in fact I was absolutely delighted to meet someone who treats Christmas as I do.

Many people today have a very different attitude to Christmas. They think it's just a time when shopkeepers make a lot of money and everyone rushes round buying presents they don't want to give and food they don't want to eat. But have they grown so far away from their own childhood that they can't remember all the good things?

First of all, Christmas takes you out of the ordinary humdrum routine of life. For children, the fun begins weeks before when the decorations are put up, and excitement gradually mounts as December the 25th approaches.

Everyone seems much friendlier to each other than usual at Christmas-time. You can lean out of a car window when you 're stopped at the traffic lights and say "Merry Christmas", and people will smile and respond. You probably wouldn't think of doing that at any other time of the year. Perhaps it's because most people are on holiday or because everyone knows that they are sharing a similar experience. Giving presents can be very satisfying, too, if you plan far enough in advance and really think of the right present for the right person.

Indeed, whatever shopkeepers gain out of Christmas, it is still a "holy day", the words from which "holiday" is derived, and it gives people time to pause and concentrate for a moment on non-commercial values.

From Your Valentine

Considering the number of ethnic groups that make up the U.S. population, it is not surprising that Americans have a variety of different holidays. From Thanksgiving to Cinco de Mayo, from Chanukah to the Chinese New Year, they are seldom at a loss for a reason to celebrate. Some of these holidays are rather unusual. Some examples follow.

Groundhog Day, February 2:

The groundhog, a small burrowing animal also known as a woodchuck, is supposed to come out of his hole to look for his shadow on this day. As the legend goes, if he fails to see his shadow it means spring has come; if he sees it he returns to his hole to sleep, for winter will continue for another six weeks.

April Fool 's Day, April 1:

Don't believe anything you hear on this day of tricks and jokes designed to make you an "April Fool"!

Halloween, October 31:

After dark, children dressed like ghosts and witches go from house to house shouting, "Trick or treat!" The people they visit must fill their bags with candy and other treats or else the children will play tricks on them.

Sadie Hawkins Day, the first Saturday after November 11:

Traditionally, it is the boys who chase the girls, but on Sadie Hawkins Day a girl can keep any boy she can catch.

On February 14 Americans celebrate another unusual holiday, St. Valentine 's Day, a special day for lovers. Valentines are cards—usually red and shaped like hearts—with messages of love written on them. Lovers send these cards to each other, often anonymously, on St. Valentine 's Day.

The origins of this holiday are uncertain, but according to one legend, it gets its name from a Christian priest named Valentine who lived in Rome during the third century after Christ. His job was to perform marriages. for Christian couples. Unfortunately, the Emperor of Rome, Claudius II, did not allow Christian marriages? so they had to be performed in secret. Eventually Valentine was arrested and put into prison. While in prison he fell in love with the daughter of the prison guard.

After one year, the Emperor offered to release Valentine if he would agree to stop performing these secret marriages. Valentine refused, so the Emperor sentenced him to death. Valentine was executed in 270 A. D. on February 14, the same day the Romans worshiped their goddess of marriage, Juno. Before he was killed, Valentine sent a love letter to the daughter of the prison guard. He signed the letter "from your Valentine." That was the first valentine.

The next valentine was sent in 1415 A.D. Charles, Duke of Orleans sent the valentine to his wife while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. His valentine is now on exhibit in the British Museum. The first commercially printed valentines did not appear until 1809. Some of these valentines were not messages of love. Comic valentines, or "penny dreadfuls" as they

were called, were often funny and sometimes insulting. The "Golden Age" of valentines began in the 1840s when valentine makers started making elaborate and expensive valentines.

Jonathan King became famous as a publisher of beautiful and unusual valentines in Britain in the 1870s. Esther Howland was the first to publish valentines in the United States, in the 1860s. She created handmade designs for valentines, which cost as much as thirty-five dollars.

Today, millions of Americans send and receive valentines on St. Valentine 's Day. Whether it is an expensive heart-shaped box of chocolates from a secret admirer or a simple handmade card from a child, a valentine is a very special message of love.

Family Rituals

Many American families can boast of certain rituals centered around traditional occasions, usually holidays. To family members, such small acts seem unremarkable; sometimes, talking about them, they cannot pinpoint when or why the custom began. But social scientists believe that as family life tends to become increasingly fragmented, such repeated ceremonies play a significant role in creating and strengthening our sense of emotional security. Jay Schvaneveldt, a sociologist at Utah State University who has studied hundreds of families, points out that families with the strongest ties have the most rituals. "They are important not so much for whatever is actually said or done," he says, "but for the results they yield—the sense of 'we-ness' that grows out of shared experience. More than anything, the ritual is a symbol of how family members feel about one another."

There are numerous manifestations of this custom. At Christmas, for example, many families have special ways of exchanging gifts: "We sit in a circle and take turns opening one present at a time ... " Or: "The children get one package to open on Christmas Eve, and it's always a pair of pajamas."

Thanksgiving and birthday rituals usually center around food: "It wouldn't be Thanksgiving if Aunt Grace didn't bring her blueberry pie." Or: "Whoever's birthday it is has the privilege of choosing the menu for the entire dinner." Other ritualized occasions include family reunions, Sunday prayers, and July Fourth picnics.

But family rituals are just as likely to grow out of spontaneous or chance events. One woman, without realizing it, started a ritual when she and her husband made a list of their household possessions for a fire-insurance policy. "When the job was done I said, 'Well, we know what things we have, but what about intangibles or abstract things?' So we made another list of qualities like love, trust, good health, a sense of humor—what we call our happiness inventory. Now once a year we review it and try to add an item or two to it."

According to Professor Schvaneveldt, family rituals serve several basic purposes:

Firstly, they reinforce family closeness. A friend of mine prizes the memory of a childhood event that took place each year on the first warm April Sunday: "My dad would go out in the yard? breathe in deeply, and say, 'It looks like spring is here at last.' Then I knew that