单选题

Nobody much likes tourists. They have a reputation for being loud, rude and disruptive. They are blamed for everything from prostitution to environmental degradation. "They want to have a good time, they are not well informed and want a short 'wow' factor," says Xavier Font, professor of tourism management at Britain's Leeds Metropolitan University. "Many locals see tourists as stupid."<br>Yet tourism may in fact be the true salvation of humankind's cultural heritage. After all, it's the main countervailing force to internationalization—that is, the global blah of TV, T shirts, tract housing, fast-food chains, business suits, malls and brand names. Internationalization has, in practice, been a process of everyone's coming to live and act the same; the Japanese gave up their kimonos because they were considered "unmodern". But tourists are looking for something old and something different—and they'll pay for it.<br>The effect can be seen across the globe, rescuing traditional cities and cultures from the brink of extinction. Just five years ago the indigenous community of the Cayapas lived in little concrete houses with television sets, having moved from file banks of the Canande River in northwestern Ecuador to settle alongside the highway. They had nearly all abandoned the traditional hand-woven garb of their ancestors, and instead donned Nikes. "That's what progress meant to them," says Pedro Armend riz, a tourism and development-planning engineer based in Quito. "It meant wearing tennis shoes and jeans, and having a TV so all the women could watch their soap operas every day."<br>Thanks to an influx of tourists, things have recently changed for the Cayapas. With visitors coming in search of community, or ethnic, tourism—to eat, work and often even live with the indigenous people—the Cayapas are embracing the nearly forgotten culture of their ancestors. Once again, they are wearing traditional clothes, building old-style. homes and using traditional agricultural techniques. "They have become a sustainable community microbusiness, with a preservationist conscience, because they have understood that their indigenous roots are what interest tourists," says Amend riz. "It makes them value their ancestral culture."<br>The situation is similar throughout Latin America, where interest in cultural and ecological tourism has been on the rise in recent years. Tourism to Guatemala, for example, with its Mayan heritage, lush rain forests and lakes surrounded by volcanoes, has doubled in the past decade to nearly 2 million foreign visitors a year. Their dollars have kept young indigenous women interested in learning the specialized craft of weaving on the Mayans' backstrap looms, says Alejandrina Silva, head of the Guatemalan Tourism Ministry's Cultural Heritage Office. "Indigenous artisanry forms an important part of the Guatemalan touristic product," she says. "If this were not the case, such crafts could die off and the younger generations would have to look for new trades that would allow them to survive."<br>Indeed, the souvenir trade—often maligned for promoting kitsch—can almost single-handedly keep fading cultures alive. In the Tatra National Park in Zakopane, in southern Poland, the highlander tradition of making smoked sheep cheese—dying out among the younger generation—has earned a new lease on life thanks to tourists' desire for unforgettable souvenirs. Highlanders make the cheese, or oscypek, in theft huts, forming it by hand and smoking it over a fire. Visitors feel free to chat with the locals as they watch, have a taste of the cheese and a glass of fresh goat's milk; most leave some money. They also snatch up the traditional clothing, wool hats, slippers and jackets—as well as sheep and goat cheese—on sale all over the city.<br>Tourism is not just about preserving old cultures; it can also influence modem ones. Catering to tourist whims provides a quick education for fledgling ent

A. being loud, rude and disruptive.
B. saving humankind's cultural heritage.
C. prostitution.
D. environmental degradation.

单选题

On March 26, 1999, I became a new staff member of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. I committed the rest of my scientific future there despite the allegations of espionage leveled at one of its weapons scientists, Wen Ho Lee, who, notably, has never been and may never be officially charged. I valued the accomplishments of its distinguished scientists and was confident its able leaders would receive the political support they needed from Washington to cope with the potential damage to its programs arising from the scandal.<br>But in the months since then that support has come into question—and the damage has become real. Washington's reaction to the incident has created an atmosphere of suspicion, which, coupled with efforts to restrict scientific interchange and reduce funds for key research, threaten the essence of the lab—its ability to provide the kind of science-based security that has made it a national treasure.<br>Los Alamos burst upon the national consciousness on Aug 6, 1945, the day it was announced that the atomic weapon dropped on Hiroshima had been developed by scientists working at the lab under the direction of Robert Oppenheimer. The secret of their success was an almost magical mix of three key ingredients: the quality and dedication of the researchers, an open scientific environment that promote collaboration and Oppenheimer's brilliant leadership.<br>That excellence, openness and leadership have largely been maintained in the ensuing 54 years under the enlightened management of the University of California. During the cold war, when national security demanded that we have a competitive edge over the Soviets in nuclear weapons and weapons-related research, Los Alamos led the way. When it became evident that science-based national security depended on world leadership in science, the lab rose to the challenge. It developed an outstanding program to attract the best young researchers and established world-class trans-disciplinary centers for pure and applied scientific research. Indeed, what brought me to Los Alamos was the new Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter, established to work on what promises to be the most exciting science of the new millennium— the search for the higher organizing principles in nature that govern emergent behavior. in matter.<br>But in the past six months members of Congress and the Washington bureaucracy have put the scientific environment at Los Alamos seriously at risk. With the laudable goal of improving the security of classified research, they have attempted to impose inefficient micromanagement strategies while decreasing funding for vital research. As Sen. Pete Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, wrote recently to a Horse colleague, "The House action is irresponsible." The damage, he said, "would be as serious and more assured than the suspected damage that may have been caused by Wen Ho Lee."<br>Some of that damage has already been done. By my count there's been a 60 percent drop in the number of top researchers accepting postdoctoral fellowships at the lab. Promising young staffers are leaving for university and industry jobs, while leading university scientists have refused to be considered for key administrative positions at Los Alamos. Then, too, there's the loss of the young scientist from China who wanted to come to the lab to work with me this fall. Despite his outstanding record of scientific publication and glowing letters of recommendation, I felt obligated to discourage him from entering the postdoctoral competition. In the current atmosphere, I felt his every move would be monitored. But I wonder whether we've lost a chance to attract to America a major contributor to science—and a potential Nobel laureate.<br>Washington must never forget that science is done by scientists, not by computers. It is vital to build security barriers in physical space and cyberspace to protect classified information. But science is not don

A. he appreciated its scientific environment
B. he esteemed its distinguished scientists and treasured their accomplishments
C. it obtained support from Washington
D. its leaders were all able to cope with the potential damage to its programs.

单选题

The miserable fate of Enron's employees will be a landmark in business history, one of those awful events that everyone agrees must never be allowed to happen again. This urge is understandable and noble: thousands have lost virtually all their retirement savings with the demise of Enron stock. But making sure it never happens again may not be possible, because the sudden impoverishment of those Enron workers represents something even larger than it seems. It's the latest turn in the unwinding of one of the most audacious promise of the 20th century.<br>The promise was assured economic security—even comfort—for essentially everyone in the developed world. With the explosion of wealth, that began in the 19th century it became possible to think about a possibility no one had dared to dream before. The fear at the center of daily living since caveman days—lack of food, warmth, and shelter—would at last lose its power to terrify. That remarkable promise became reality in many ways. Governments created welfare systems for anyone in need and separate programs for the elderly (Social Security in the U. S.). Labor unions promised not only better pay for workers but also pensions for retirees. Giant corporations came into being and offered the possibility—in some cases the promise—of lifetime employment plus guaranteed pensions. The cumulative effect was a fundamental change in how millions of people approached life itself, a reversal of attitude that most rank as one of the largest in human history. For millennia the average person's stance toward providing for himself had been. Ultimately I'm on my own. Now it became, ultimately I'll be taken care of.<br>The early hints that this promise might be broken on a large scale came in the 1980s. U.S. business had become uncompetitive globally and began restructuring massively, with huge layoffs. The trend accelerated in the 1990s as the bastions of corporate welfare faced reality. IBM ended it's no-layoff policy. AT & T fired thousands, many of whom found such a thing simply incomprehensible, and a few of whom killed themselves. The other supposed guarantors of our economic security were also in decline. Labor-union membership and power fell to their lowest levels in decades. President Clinton signed a historic bill scaling back welfare. Americans realized that Social Security won't provide social security for any of us.<br>A less visible but equally significant trend affected pensions. To make costs easier to control, companies moved away from defined-benefit pension plans, which obligate them to pay out specified amounts years in the future, to defined contribution plans, which specify only how much goes into the play today. The most common type of defined-contribution plan is the 401(k). The significance of the 401(k) is that it puts most of the responsibility for a person's economic fate back on the employee. Within limits the employee must decide how much goes into the plan each year and how it gets invested—the two factors that will determine how much it's worth when the employee retires.<br>Which brings us back to Enron? Those billions of dollars in vaporized retirement savings went in employees' 401(k) accounts. That is, the employees chose how much money to put into those accounts and then chose how to invest it. Enron matched a certain proportion of each employees 401 (k) contribution with company stock, so everyone was going to end up with some Enron in his or her portfolio; but that could be regarded as a freebie, since nothing compels a company to match employee contributions at all. At least two special features complicate the Enron case. First, some shareholders charge top management with illegally covering up the company's problems, prompting investors to hang on when they should have sold. Second, Enron's 401(k) accounts were locked while the company changed plan administrators in October, when the stock was falling, so emp

A. Because the company has gone bankrupt.
Because such events would never happen again.
C. Because many Enron workers lost their retirement savings.
D. Because it signifies a turning point in economic security.

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