英语口语教程(高级) UNIT 21

[00:01.00]Lesson 21 II. Read Read the following passages.;

[00:08.39]Underline the important viewpoints while reading.;

[00:13.49]1.People Should Be Rewarded according to Ability,;

[00:20.64]Not according to Age and Experience;

[00:25.36]Young men and women today are finding it more and more necessary;

[00:32.46]to protest against what is known as the "Establishment":;

[00:37.52]that is,the people who wield power in our society.;

[00:43.05]Clashes with the authorities are reported almost daily in the press.;

[00:50.15]The tension that exists between old and young;

[00:54.87]could certainly be lessened;

[00:57.35]if some of the most obvious causes were removed.;

[01:01.88]In particular,the Establishment;

[01:05.79]should adopt different attitudes to work;

[01:08.89]and the rewards it brings.;

[01:11.46]Today's young people are ambitious.;

[01:15.37]Many are equipped with a good education;

[01:19.00]and are understandably impatient to succeed;

[01:22.67]as quickly as possible.;

[01:25.05]They want to be able to have their share of the good things in life;

[01:29.72]while they are still young enough to enjoy them.;

[01:33.73]The Establishment, however,;

[01:36.88]has traditionaly believed;

[01:38.85]that people should be rewarded according to their age and experience.;

[01:44.50]Ability counts for less.;

[01:48.41]As the Establishment controls the purse-strings,;

[01:52.85]its views are inevitably imposed on society.;

[01:58.05]Employers pay the smallest sum consistent with keeping you in a job;

[02:04.67]You join the hierarchy and take your place in the queue.;

[02:10.25]If you are young, you go to the very end of the queue;

[02:15.45]and stay there no matter how brilliant you are.;

[02:19.74]What you know is much less important than whom you know;

[02:25.18]and how old you are.;

[02:27.46]If you are able,;

[02:29.70]your abilities will be acknowledged and rewarded in due course,;

[02:34.95]that is,after twenty or thirty years have passed.;

[02:40.34]By that time you will be considered old enough to join the Establishment;

[02:46.49]and you will be expected to adopt its ideals.;

[02:50.73]God help you if you don't.;

[02:53.59]There seems to be a gigantic conspiracy against young people.;

[02:59.46]While on the one hand;

[03:01.51]society provides them with better educational facilities,;

[03:06.23]on the other;

[03:07.70]it does its best to exclude them from the jobs that really matter.;

[03:13.04]There are exceptions, of course.;

[03:16.43]Some young people do manage to break through the barrier;

[03:20.67]despite the restrictions,;

[03:23.20]but the great majority have to wait patiently for years;

[03:28.40]before they can really give full rein to their abilities.;

[03:33.12]This means that, in most fields, the views of young people;

[03:38.93]are never heard because there is no one to represent them.;

[03:43.84]All important decisions about how society is to be run;

[03:49.42]are made by people who are too old to remember;

[03:53.33]what it was like to be young.;

[03:56.15]Resentment is the cause of a great deal of bitterness.;

[04:01.96]The young resent the old;

[04:04.78]because they feel deprived of the good things life has to offer.;

[04:09.69]The old resent the young because they are afraid of losing what they have.;

[04:16.50]A man of fifty or so might say,;

[04:20.18]"Why should a young rascal straight out of school earn more than I do?";

[04:26.32]But if the young rascal is more able,more determined,;

[04:32.14]harder-working than his middle-aged critic,why shouldn't he?;

[04:37.72]Employers should recognize ability and reward it justly.;

[04:43.30]This would remove one of the biggest causes of friction;

[04:47.40]between old and young;

[04:49.43]and ultimatley it would lead to abetter society.;

[04:55.31]2.Officialdom;

[05:00.32]Ancient Chinese reformers;

[05:03.56]advocated selecting all talented people to be officials;

[05:08.57]regardless of their family backgrounds.;

[05:12.24]This practice is still significant,;

[05:15.67]for it opposed appointing people by favouritism.;

[05:20.54]But it is improper for us to think;

[05:24.59]that the talented can only become officials,;

[05:28.26]otherwise they are stifled.;

[05:31.88]In the course of the current reform,;

[05:35.13]China needs talented personnel in all trades.;

[05:39.75]It is justifiable;

[05:42.13]that talented personnel bring their ability into full play;

[05:46.85]by becoming leaders.;

[05:49.29]But the point is who can be considered talented?;

[05:54.53]Some see the holders,of senior professional titles are talented;;

[06:00.16]some think of those who have college diplomas as tahented;;

[06:05.45]some say that they are those who have made inventions;

[06:10.64]or outstanding contributions to society.;

[06:14.98]There would not be enough vacancies;

[06:18.27]if all of these people were to become officials.;

[06:22.61]It is unnecessary for all the talented;

[06:26.43]to elbow their way into officialdom.;

[06:29.81]They can strive to become experts in philosophy,;

[06:33.96]science,literature, art,history and education.;

[06:40.92]There is never a limit to the number of experts in these fields.;

[06:46.98]Albert Einstein was once invited by Israel to become its president.;

[06:54.61]It was considered a matter of course;

[06:58.37]for Einstein to accept the invitation.;

[07:01.90]But Einstein refused it bluntly and continued his physics study.;

[07:08.34]I do not mean that talented people should not become officials at all.;

[07:14.30]But what I want to specify;

[07:16.92]is that different people have different strengths,;

[07:20.40]and that not everyone is capable of becoming an official.;

[07:25.88]If people without leadership capacity arechosen as officials,;

[07:31.84]they can only bungle things.;

[07:35.27]Before Hou Yuzhu and Zheng Meizhu,;

[07:39.95]two aces of the Chinese National Women's Volleyball Team,retired,;

[07:45.52]they were asked by reporters;

[07:48.00]if the government would assign them jobs in a leading body,;

[07:52.25]just as it had done for some of their former teammates.;

[07:56.68]Hou and Zheng,;

[07:58.73]who shared the credit for the team becoming world champions,;

[08:03.12]responded that they did not want to become officials,;

[08:07.41]and that they wanted to study the knowledge and skills;

[08:11.51]needed in society to keep abreast of its development.;

[08:16.71]Their decision may be of some help to us.;

[08:21.47]3.You Can Get Promoted Half a Grade;

[08:26.62]if You Are Willing to Say:"YeS Sir, No Sir!";

[08:31.77]An unhappy victim of the consumer society is Mr.Batia,;

[08:38.35]a fifty-two-year-old Indian journalist working in broadcasting.;

[08:43.69]For him,however the misery is caused less by the nature of his work;

[08:50.56]than by the competitive atmosphere which surrounds it.;

[08:55.33]Mr.Batia:"I'm not interested in my job.;

[09:00.33]I'm not being treated properly and there are many injustices.;

[09:05.96]I just do honest work,but I do as little as I can.;

[09:11.54]The atmosphere is very polluted.;

[09:15.06]You can get promoted half a grade;

[09:17.93]if you're willing to say:'Yes sir, no sir!';

[09:22.12]I've been there twenty-three years,;

[09:25.08]and I hate the whole mentality of the place.;

[09:28.70]They treat me like a colonial.;

[09:31.85]They think I live in the colonies,;

[09:34.71]but I've done things in journalism;

[09:37.24]that have never been done before.;

[09:40.33]I have a colleague who is half a grade up;

[09:44.15]and when the boss is away he's supposed to officiate.;

[09:49.20]I've had rows with him;I have a hot temper.;

[09:53.40]I said to him: 'Look,don't you try to boss me;

[09:58.69]or one of us will end up on the floor.;

[10:01.88]I've met good Englishmen and bad Englishmen,;

[10:06.18]and you're the worst Englishman I've ever met.';

[10:10.90]"I'm honest and outspoken and people don't like me.;

[10:15.57]Nobody likes me. If you are a crook you can get on well.";

[10:21.58]Lesson 22  Should Capital Punishment Be a Major Deterrent to Crime?;

[10:31.06]Text Capital Punishment Is the Only Way to Deter Criminals;

[10:39.74]Perhaps all criminals should be required;

[10:43.75]to carry cards which read:Fragile: Handle with Care.;

[10:49.71]It will never do, these days,;

[10:52.66]to go around referring to criminals as violent thugs.;

[10:57.43]You must refer to them politely as "social misfits".;

[11:03.34]The professional killer;

[11:05.87]who wouldn't think twice about using his cosh or crowbar;

[11:10.59]to batter some harmless old lady to death;

[11:13.74]in order to rob her of her meagre life-savings;

[11:17.41]must never be given a dose of his own medicine.;

[11:21.70]He is in need of "hospital treatment".;

[11:25.85]According to his misguided defenders, society is to blame.;

[11:32.33]A wicked society breeds evil -- or so the argument goes.;

[11:38.62]When you listen to this kind of talk,;

[11:41.82]it makes you wonder why we aren't all criminals.;

[11:46.11]We have done away with the absurdly harsh laws of the nineteenth century;

[11:52.21]and this is only right.;

[11:54.60]But surely enough is enough.;

[11:58.41]The most senseless piece of criminal legislation in Britain;

[12:03.13]and a number of other countries;

[12:05.42]has been the suspension of capital punishment.;

[12:09.71]The violent criminal has become a kind of hero-figure in our time.;

[12:16.39]He is glorified on the screen;;

[12:19.34]he is pursued by the press;

[12:22.01]and paid vast sums of money for his "memoirs".;

[12:26.40]Newspapers which specialise in crime-reporting;

[12:31.21]enjoy enormous circulations;

[12:33.93]and the publishers of trashy cops and robbers stories;

[12:38.03]or "murder mysteries" have never had it so good.;

[12:43.23]When you read about the achievements of the great train robbers,;

[12:48.43]it makes you wonder whether you are reading;

[12:51.25]about some glorious resistance movement;

[12:54.88]The hardened criminal is cuddled and cosseted;

[12:59.55]by the sociologists on the one hand;

[13:02.51]and adored as a hero by the masses on the other.;

[13:06.94]It's no wonder he is a privileged person;

[13:10.80]who expects and receives VIP treatment wherever he goes.;

[13:17.29]Capital punishment used to be a major deterrent.;

[13:22.58]It made the viotent robber think twice before pulling the trigger.;

[13:28.63]It gave the cold-blooded poisoner;

[13:32.11]something to ponder about while he was shaking up;

[13:35.59]or serving his arsenic cocktail.;

[13:38.84]It prevented unarmed policemen from being mowed down";

[13:43.51]while pursuing their duty by killers armed with automatic weapons.;

[13:48.99]Above all,it protected the most vulnerable members of society,;

[13:55.14]young children, from brutal sex-maniacs.;

[13:59.67]It is horrifying to think;

[14:02.25]that the criminal can literally get away with murder.;

[14:06.73]We all know that "life sentence" does not mean what it says.;

[14:12.45]After ten years or so of "good conduct";

[14:16.27]the most desperate villain is free to return to society;

[14:20.89]where he will live very comfortably, thank you,;

[14:24.28]on the proceeds of his crime,;

[14:26.95]or he will go on committing offences until he is caught again.;

[14:32.90]People are always willing to hold liberal views;

[14:37.63]at the expense of others.;

[14:40.06]It's always fashionable to pose as the defender of the under-dog,;

[14:45.92]so long as you, personally, remain unaffected.;

[14:50.93]Did the defenders of crime, one wonders,;

[14:55.27]in their desire for fair-play,;

[14:57.65]consult the victims before they suspended capital punishment?;

[15:02.32]Hardly.You see,they couldn't,because all the victims were dead.;

[15:10.00]II.Read Read the following passages.;

[15:17.82]Underline the important viewpoints while reading.;

[15:22.54]1.Can You Turn Him into a Good Guy?;

[15:28.97]"Why don't I give you a lift home if you live on the new estate?";

[15:34.46]"I'd appreciate that very much," he replied.;

[15:38.94]I fetched my car from the parking lot and he got in with "Many thanks.";

[15:46.14]He said no more till we were well across the heath.;

[15:50.72]Then,all of a sudden,he turned to me and said,;

[15:56.34]"Okay.Pull up here." "Here?" I queried.;

[16:01.97]There was not a house in sight, and the weather was shocking.;

[16:07.36]Anyway, I pulled up.;

[16:11.03]The only thing I could remember after that;

[16:14.94]was something thumping down hard on my head.;

[16:18.70]I passed out.;

[16:21.37]When I came to, I was sprawled in the ditch,;

[16:26.67]soaked to the skin, my head pounding, my car gone and my pockets empty.;

[16:35.91]I staggered off;

[16:38.44]and eventually tumbled into the police-station to make a report.;

[16:43.78]There was a light shining on the station wall and there,lit up,;

[16:49.74]was a picture of my assailant.;

[16:52.70]I had walked past it for the last seven days.;

[16:57.47]I knew I had seen the face before.;

[17:00.66]He was wanted by the police for armed robbery.;

[17:04.95]I thanked my lucky stars it was not for murder,;

[17:10.00]I looked at the name underneath the face,the face I will never forget.;

[17:17.06]It was  er--it was oh,bother!I can never remember names,;

[17:25.40]2. Murderers Must Be Hanged;

[17:31.17]Murderers are cruel sadistic monsters. They must be hanged.;

[17:38.42]What they do puts them beyond the pale of humanity.;

[17:43.43]They are not humans and therefore they cannot expect to be treated as humans.;

[17:50.58]They must be made to see the error of their ways,;

[17:54.73]and the only way of doing that is by hanging them.;

[18:00.07]British justice is the finest in the world,;

[18:04.83]but by not imposing the death sentence;

[18:08.27]people will think we are failing to punish crime justly.;

[18:12.99]It is the principle of justice itself that is at stake.;

[18:18.85]How can we claim to be a just nation;

[18:22.67]if people who murder are not themselves executed?;

[18:27.58]An,eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is the very basis of justice.;

[18:34.97]Some people claim that hanging is cruel,;

[18:39.69]but it is more humane than the other penalties at present imposed.;

[18:45.03]It is quick,and thanks to modern methods,painless.;

[18:50.13]It is only the agitators who campaign against the death penalty;

[18:55.71]who say it is cruel.;

[18:58.09]The reality is that it is a kindness to the murderer.;

[19:03.57]Far better to be hanged;

[19:05.96]than to suffer the slow torture of life imprisonment;

[19:09.92]which is in any case a burden on the long-suffering taxpayer.;

[19:15.54]There are other objections to life imprisonment.;

[19:19.64]There is the chance that the murderer may escape.;

[19:23.74]He or she would then be free to murder again.;

[19:29.18]Nor is life imprisonment what it says.;

[19:33.09]It is only a nominal sentence.;

[19:36.23]In no time at all the murderer will be released.;

[19:41.00]How can the ordinary person feel safe;

[19:44.77]knowing that there are murderers on the prowl;

[19:47.63]seeking their next victim?;

[19:50.63]The crux of the matter is;

[19:53.40]that only hanging acts as a deterrent to murderers.;

[19:57.64]In the past,many a would-be murderer;

[20:01.93]must have refrained from committing this heinous crime;

[20:05.79]knowing that such an act would result in certain execution.;

[20:10.99]Put yourself in his or her shoes.;

[20:15.28]You would not commit murder knowing that the penalty for so doing was death.;

[20:21.77]It is the same with murderers.;

[20:24.77]So-called liberals;

[20:27.30]point to the experience of other European countries;

[20:31.02]where the death penalty has ceased to exist.;

[20:34.88]But what happens in those countries is no guide to what may happen here.;

[20:41.89]It is our safety that is at risk, not theirs.;

[20:47.18]Only the return of the death penalty;

[20:50.56]can ensure that we can sleep safely in our beds.;

[20:55.66]3. Mediation System Helps Deter Crimes;

[20:58.48]Ye Chengmei of Guojiahe Town,;

[21:07.06]Xinzheng County in central China's Henan Province,;

[21:11.97]was beaten by her husband Pan Chenggong over a trifling matter.;

[21:18.93]Ye's brother mobilized 14 young men with wooden sticks and spades;

[21:25.80]to teach his brother-in-law a lesson.;

[21:29.13]Hearing the news,;

[21:31.38]Pan Chenggong organized more than 20 young men to fight back.;

[21:37.05]At this critical moment,59-year-old Ye Bingyan, a mediator,;

[21:44.58]appeared and persuaded the men to stop the fight and sit down to talk.;

[21:51.54]Under the mediator's persuasion and his discussion of the law,;

[21:57.03]Pan admitted his wrongdoings;

[21:59.94]and went to the home of his wife's parents to make an apology.;

[22:05.23]This is one example of China's people's mediation system;

[22:10.66]which has become a major method;

[22:13.03]of settling civil disputes concerning marriage,;

[22:16.75]family relations, housing,money and property issues.;

[22:23.76]China now has more than 1 million mediation committees;

[22:28.86]with over 6 million mediators.;

[22:32.20]From 1982 to 1988, they settled 50 million civil issues,;

[22:39.78]up to 10 times the number of cases went to court.;

[22:44.83]In Henan Province alone,more than 287,000 mediators;

[22:52.32]from 53,642 people's mediation committees;

[22:58.47]have dealt with 5,723,657 cases, preventing losses for 51,343 people.;

[23:13.87]The mediators enjoy popular support and respect;

[23:18.87]as they report the views,;

[23:20.93]complaints and wishes of the populace;

[23:24.50]to grassroots governments;

[23:26.84]and pass along the government principles,;

[23:29.89]policies,laws and regulations to the masses.;

[23:35.90]The villagers speak highly of Ye Bingyan's work.;

[23:40.90]They say wherever and whenever disputes happen, Ye will be there.;

[23:47.34]He has prevented 15 gang fights,;

[23:51.01]saved the lives of 14 people threatened with homicide or suicide;

[23:57.06]and also helped five couples reunite.;

[24:01.36]Ye said the key to his work is concern and love for others.;

[24:08.89]4. Why Was She Set Free?;

[24:15.09]An armed robber walked free from the Old Bailey;

[24:19.62]after a kind-hearted judge;

[24:22.14]heard how a nightmare attack she endured in London;

[24:26.10]had turned her to crime.;

[24:28.87]Rachel Farrington, of Maypole Road, Sheepbridge, Huddersfield,;

[24:34.73]was only 16 when she left Yorkshire and went to London with her boyfriend.;

[24:41.45]A year later she was threatening to shoot a gang of drug dealers;

[24:47.03]while her accomplice a hardened criminal, tied them up.;

[24:52.18]The 19-year-old pleaded guilty to robbery,;

[24:56.61]having an imitation firearm and aggravated burglary on July 5,1986,;

[25:04.72]but the judge deferred sentencing for six months and told her to go home.;

[25:11.49]"I had intended to impose a sentence of two years in prison,";

[25:16.83]said Recorder James Crespi,QC.;

[25:21.22]"Your co-defendant was lucky to get only six years.;

[25:26.32]But I am reluctant to send you to prison.You were extremely young.;

[25:32.42]You came to London and got involved with drug dealers.;

[25:36.57]Go back to Yorkshtre Try to get a job and lead a sensible life.;

[25:42.81]The judge was told;

[25:44.96]that Rachel found herself involved in London's drugs underworld;

[25:49.44]soon after she arrived.;

[25:51.97]She met "a man involved with drugs";

[25:55.45]who became her new boyfriend,said her defence counsel, Mr.Stephen Leslie.;

[26:02.17]Within,a month the relationship had turned ugly;

[26:06.37]and she finally left after a horrifying attack.;

[26:10.66]"She bore a grudge, but because of things that had happened earlier;

[26:15.81]she did not report it to police," said Mr.Leslie.;

[26:21.39]Rachel found a new friend,Garnet Gibson who proved equally dangerous.;

[26:28.59]He was ten years older than her and had been in prison many times.;

[26:34.40]When she told him what she had endured in the attack;

[26:38.46]by her exboyfriend and his associates;;

[26:41.84]Gibson told her, she could get her revenge and Rachel agreed.;

[26:47.90]"Except for the grudge this was completely out of character;

[26:53.09]and she was completety out of her depth," said Mr.Leslie.;

[26:57.96]The couple burst into a flat in North London,;

[27:02.10]where Gibson,armed with an air-pistol,;

[27:05.30]ordered Rachel to tie up the three men found inside.;

[27:10.07]"But the inexperienced girl did such a poor job of it;

[27:15.02]that Gibson handed her the gun while he tied up the men.;

[27:20.13]The victims soon realized Rachel was helpless;

[27:24.70]despite her threats to shoot them and they fought back.;

[27:29.52]She was brushed aside by one man;

[27:33.05]and finally she just walked out of the flat and threw the gun away.;

[27:38.86]Gibson was soon overpowered by the men and police were called in;

[27:45.54]Rachel admitted everything to police and was bailed,;

[27:50.59]but she fled to Portugal;

[27:52.74]and did not return until a month after Gibson's trial.;

[27:57.46]He was jailed for six years in July last year.;

[28:02.32]Rachel was rearrested as she entered Britain.;

[28:06.76]Her mother had sent her the fare home;

[28:10.28]so that she could return for medical treatment for a cyst.;

[28:15.05]The court heard that Rachel was one of nine children;

[28:19.87]and was from an "excellent" family.;

[28:22.68]Her mother,Mrs.Mary Farrington,;

[28:26.16]told the judge that her daughter had got out of hand;

[28:30.64]after her father died of cancer;

[28:33.36]and Rachel lost her job through illness.;

[28:36.89]She said:"I have a home for her;

[28:40.56]and the family is willing to help her in any way we can.";