21 The Origin of Sports

When did sport begin? If sport is, in essence, play, the claim might be
made that sport is much older than humankind, for , as we all have
observed, the beasts play. Dogs and cats wrestle and play ball games.
Fishes and birds dance. The apes have simple, pleasurable games.
Frolicking infants, school children playing tag, and adult arm wrestlers
are demonstrating strong, transgenerational and transspecies bonds with
the universe of animals - past, present, and future. Young animals,
particularly, tumble, chase, run wrestle, mock, imitate, and laugh (or
so it seems) to the point of delighted exhaustion. Their play, and ours,
appears to serve no other purpose than to give pleasure to the players,
and apparently, to remove us temporarily from the anguish of life in
earnest.

Some philosophers have claimed that our playfulness is the most noble
part of our basic nature. In their generous conceptions, play harmlessly
and experimentally permits us to put our creative forces, fantasy, and
imagination into action. Play is release from the tedious battles
against scarcity and decline which are the incessant, and inevitable,
tragedies of life. This is a grand conception that excites and provokes.
The holders of this view claim that the origins of our highest
accomplishments ---- liturgy, literature, and law ---- can be traced to
a play impulse which, paradoxically, we see most purely enjoyed by young
beasts and children. Our sports, in this rather happy, nonfatalistic
view of human nature, are more splendid creations of the nondatable,
transspecies play impulse.

22. Collectibles

Collectibles have been a part of almost every culture since ancient
times. Whereas some objects have been collected for their usefulness,
others have been selected for their aesthetic beauty alone. In the
United States, the kinds of collectibles currently popular range from
traditional objects such as stamps, coins, rare books, and art to more
recent items of interest like dolls, bottles, baseball cards, and comic
books.

Interest in collectibles has increased enormously during the past
decade, in part because some collectibles have demonstrated their value
as investments. Especially during cycles of high inflation, investors
try to purchase tangibles that will at least retain their current market
values. In general, the most traditional collectibles will be sought
because they have preserved their value over the years, there is an
organized auction market for them, and they are most easily sold in the
event that cash is needed. Some examples of the most stable collectibles
are old masters, Chinese ceramics, stamps, coins, rare books, antique
jewelry, silver, porcelain, art by well-known artists, autographs, and
period furniture. Other items of more recent interest include old
photograph records, old magazines, post cards, baseball cards, art
glass, dolls, classic cars, old bottles, and comic books. These
relatively new kinds of collectibles may actually appreciate faster as
short-term investments, but may not hold their value as long-term
investments. Once a collectible has had its initial play, it appreciates
at a fairly steady rate, supported by an increasing number of
enthusiastic collectors competing for the limited supply of collectibles
that become increasingly more difficult to locate.

23 Ford

Although Henry Ford’s name is closely associated with the concept of
mass production, he should receive equal credit for introducing labor
practices as early as 1913 that would be considered advanced even by
today’s standards. Safety measures were improved, and the work day was
reduced to eight hours, compared with the ten-or twelve-hour day common
at the time. In order to accommodate the shorter work day, the entire
factory was converted from two to three shifts.

In addition, sick leaves as well as improved medical care for those
injured on the job were instituted. The Ford Motor Company was one of
the first factories to develop a technical school to train specialized
skilled laborers and an English language school for immigrants. Some
efforts were even made to hire the handicapped and provide jobs for
former convicts.

The most widely acclaimed innovation was the five-dollar-a-day minimum
wage that was offered in order to recruit and retain the best mechanics
and to discourage the growth of labor unions. Ford explained the new
wage policy in terms of efficiency and profit sharing. He also mentioned
the fact that his employees would be able to purchase the automobiles
that they produced - in effect creating a market for the product. In
order to qualify for the minimum wage, an employee had to establish a
decent home and demonstrate good personal habits, including sobriety,
thriftiness, industriousness, and dependability. Although some criticism
was directed at Ford for involving himself too much in the personal
lives of his employees, there can be no doubt that, at a time when
immigrants were being taken advantage of in frightful ways, Henry Ford
was helping many people to establish themselves in America.

24．Piano

The ancestry of the piano can be traced to the early keyboard
instruments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries --- the spinet, the
dulcimer, and the virginal. In the seventeenth century the organ, the
clavichord, and the harpsichord became the chief instruments of the
keyboard group, a supremacy they maintained until the piano supplanted
them at the end of the eighteenth century. The clavichord’s tone was
metallic and never powerful; nevertheless, because of the variety of
tone possible to it, many composers found the clavichord a sympathetic
instrument for intimate chamber music. The harpsichord with its bright,
vigorous tone was the favorite instrument for supporting the bass of the
small orchestra of the period and for concert use, but the character of
the tone could not be varied save by mechanical or structural devices.

The piano was perfected in the early eighteenth century by a harpsichord
maker in Italy (though musicologists point out several previous
instances of the instrument). This instrument was called a piano e
forte (sort and loud), to indicate its dynamic versatility; its strings
were struck by a recoiling hammer with a felt-padded head. The wires
were much heavier in the earlier instruments. A series of mechanical
improvements continuing well into the nineteenth century, including the
introduction of pedals to sustain tone or to soften it, the perfection
of a metal frame, and steel wire of the finest quality, finally produced
an instrument capable of myriad tonal effects from the most delicate
harmonies to an almost orchestral fullness of sound, from a liquid,
singing tone to a sharp, percussive brilliance.


NOTE:
Musical Instruments
1.The strings (弦乐)
1) plectrum: harp, lute, guitar, mandolin;
2) keyboard: clavichord, harpsichord, piano;
3) bow: violin, viola, cello, double bass.
2. The Wood（木管）-winds : piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon,
English horn;
3. the brass（铜管）: French horn, trumpet, trombone, cornet, tuba,
bugle, saxophone;
4.the percussion（打击组）: kettle drum, bass drum, snare drum,
castanet, xylophone, celesta, cymbal, tambourine.

25. Movie Music

Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1927 as
“silent”, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word,
silent. From the very beginning, music was regarded as an indispensable
accompaniment; when the Lumiere films were shown at the first public
film exhibition in the United States in February 1896, they were
accompanied by piano improvisations on popular tunes. At first, the
music played bore no special relationship to the films; an accompaniment
of any kind was sufficient. Within a very short time, however, the
incongruity of playing lively music to a solemn film became apparent,
and film pianists began to take some care in matching their pieces to
the mood of the film.

As movie theaters grew in number and importance, a violinist, and
perhaps a cellist, would be added to the pianist in certain cases, and
in the larger movie theaters small orchestras were formed. For a number
of years the selection of music for each film program rested entirely in
the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often
the principal qualification for holding such a position was not skill or
taste so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical
pieces. Since the conductor seldom saw the films until the night before
they were to be shown(if indeed, the conductor was lucky enough to see
them then), the musical arrangement was normally improvised in the
greatest hurry.

To help meet this difficulty, film distributing companies started the
practice of publishing suggestions for musical accompaniments. In 1909,
for example, the Edison Company began issuing with their films such
indications of mood as “ pleasant”, “sad”, “lively”. The
suggestions became more explicit, and so emerged the musical cue sheet
containing indications of mood, the titles of suitable pieces of music,
and precise directions to show where one piece led into the next.

Certain films had music especially composed for them. The most famous of
these early special scores was that composed and arranged for D.W
Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915.

Note:
美国通俗音乐分类：
1．Jazz;
1) traditional jazz---- a) blues, 代表人物：Billy Holiday
b)ragtime(切分乐曲): 代表人物：Scott
Joplin
c)New Orleans jazz (= Dixieland jazz)
eg: Louis Armstron
d)swing eg: Glenn Miller, Duke
Ellington, etc.
e)bop (=bebop, rebop) eg: Lester Young, Charlie
Parker etc.
2)modern jazz ------ a) cool jazz(=progressive jazz)高雅爵士乐。 Eg:
Kenny G.
b)third-stream jazz. Eg: Charles
Mingus, John Lewis.
c) main stream jazz.
d)avant-garde jazz.
e) soul jazz. Eg: Sarah Vaughn, Ella
Fitzgerald
f) Latin jazz.
2.gospel music 福音音乐， 主要源于Nero spirituals. Eg. Dolly Parker,
Mahalia Jackson
3.Country and Western music. Eg. John Denver, Tammy Wynette, Kenny
Rogers, etc.
4. Rock music-----------a) rock and roll eg: Elvis Prestley(US) , the
Beatles(UK.)
b)folk rock Eg: Bob Dylon, Michael
Jackson, Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Riche etc.
c)punk rock
d)acid rock
e)rock jazz eg: M.J. McLaughlin
f) Jurassic rock
5.Music for easy listening (i.e. light music )

26. International Business and Cross-cultural Communication

The increase in international business and in foreign investment has
created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and
skills in cross-cultural communication. Americans, however, have not
been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the
same level of success in negotiation in an international arena as have
their foreign counterparts.

Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the
purpose of reaching an agreement. It involves persuasion and compromise,
but in order to participate in either one, the negotiators must
understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is
reached within the culture of the negotiation.

In many international business negotiations abroad, Americans are
perceived as wealthy and impersonal. It often appears to the foreign
negotiator that the American represents a large multi-million-dollar
corporation that can afford to pay the price without bargaining further.
The American negotiator’s role becomes that of an impersonal purveyor
of information and cash.

In studies of American negotiators abroad, several traits have been
identified that may serve to confirm this stereotypical perception,
while undermining the negotiator’s position. Two traits in particular
that cause cross-cultural misunderstanding are directness and impatience
on the part of the American negotiator. Furthermore, American
negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals. Foreign
negotiators, on the other hand, may value the relationship established
between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-
term benefits. In order to solidify the relationship, they may opt for
indirect interactions without regard for the time involved in getting to
know the other negotiator.

27. Scientific Theories

In science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that
are related. A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps
scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced. A good
example of this is found in the kinetic molecular theory, in which gases
are pictured as being made up of many small particles that are in
constant motion.

A useful theory, in addition to explaining past observations, helps to
predict events that have not as yet been observed. After a theory has
been publicized, scientists design experiments to test the theory. If
observations confirm the scientist’s predictions, the theory is
supported. If observations do not confirm the predictions, the
scientists must search further. There may be a fault in the experiment,
or the theory may have to be revised or rejected.

Science involves imagination and creative thinking as well as collecting
information and performing experiments. Facts by themselves are not
science. As the mathematician Jules Henri Poincare said, “Science is
built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection
of facts cannot be called science any more than a pile of bricks can be
called a house.”


Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other
scientists have learned about a particular problem. After known facts
have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation
that requires considerable imagination. Possible solutions to the
problem are formulated. These possible solutions are called hypotheses.

In a way, any hypothesis is a leap into the unknown. It extends the
scientist’s thinking beyond the known facts. The scientist plans
experiments, performs calculations, and makes observations to test
hypotheses. Without hypothesis, further investigation lacks purpose and
direction. When hypotheses are confirmed, they are incorporated into
theories.

28.Changing Roles of Public Education

One of the most important social developments that helped to make
possible a shift in thinking about the role of public education was the
effect of the baby boom of the 1950's and 1960's on the schools. In the
1920's, but especially in the Depression conditions of the 1930's, the
United States experienced a declining birth rate --- every thousand
women aged fifteen to forty-four gave birth to about 118 live children
in 1920, 89.2 in 1930, 75.8 in 1936, and 80 in 1940. With the growing
prosperity brought on by the Second World War and the economic boom that
followed it young people married and established households earlier and
began to raise larger families than had their predecessors during the
Depression. Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946,106.2 in 1950,
and 118 in 1955. Although economics was probably the most important
determinant, it is not the only explanation for the baby boom. The
increased value placed on the idea of the family also helps to explain
this rise in birth rates. The baby boomers began streaming into the
first grade by the mid 1940's and became a flood by 1950. The public
school system suddenly found itself overtaxed. While the number of
schoolchildren rose because of wartime and postwar conditions, these
same conditions made the schools even less prepared to cope with the
food. The wartime economy meant that few new schools were built between
1940 and 1945. Moreover, during the war and in the boom times that
followed, large numbers of teachers left their profession for better-
paying jobs elsewhere in the economy.

Therefore in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the baby boom hit an antiquated
and inadequate school system. Consequently, the “ custodial rhetoric”
of the 1930’s and early 1940’s no longer made sense that is, keeping
youths aged sixteen and older out of the labor market by keeping them in
school could no longer be a high priority for an institution unable to
find space and staff to teach younger children aged five to sixteen.
With the baby boom, the focus of educators and of laymen interested in
education inevitably turned toward the lower grades and back to basic
academic skills and discipline. The system no longer had much interest
in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services to older youths.

29 Telecommuting

Telecommuting-- substituting the computer for the trip to the job ----
has been hailed as a solution to all kinds of problems related to office
work.

For workers it promises freedom from the office, less time wasted in
traffic, and help with child-care conflicts. For management,
telecommuting helps keep high performers on board, minimizes tardiness
and absenteeism by eliminating commutes, allows periods of solitude for
high-concentration tasks, and provides scheduling flexibility. In some
areas, such as Southern California and Seattle, Washington, local
governments are encouraging companies to start telecommuting programs in
order to reduce rush-hour congestion and improve air quality.

But these benefits do not come easily. Making a telecommuting program
work requires careful planning and an understanding of the differences
between telecommuting realities and popular images.

Many workers are seduced by rosy illusions of life as a telecommuter. A
computer programmer from New York City moves to the tranquil Adirondack
Mountains and stays in contact with her office via computer. A manager
comes in to his office three days a week and works at home the other
two. An accountant stays home to care for her sick child; she hooks up
her telephone modern connections and does office work between calls to
the doctor.

These are powerful images, but they are a limited reflection of reality.
Telecommuting workers soon learn that it is almost impossible to
concentrate on work and care for a young child at the same time. Before
a certain age, young children cannot recognize, much less respect, the
necessary boundaries between work and family. Additional child support
is necessary if the parent is to get any work done.

Management too must separate the myth from the reality. Although the
media has paid a great deal of attention to telecommuting in most cases
it is the employee’s situation, not the availability of technology that
precipitates a telecommuting arrangement.

That is partly why, despite the widespread press coverage, the number of
companies with work-at-home programs or policy guidelines remains small.

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30 The origin of Refrigerators

By the mid-nineteenth century, the term “icebox” had entered the
American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet
of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the
growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by
some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter.
After the Civil War( 1861-1865),as ice was used to refrigerate freight
cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880,half of the ice
sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that
sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had
become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a
precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.

Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In
the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat,
which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The
commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice
from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice
that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice
included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing
its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors
achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an
efficient icebox.

But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had
been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the
city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market
center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter
to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting
stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his
butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of
his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to
travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.