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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
An arbitrator today blocked a National Football League plan to randomly1 test NFL players for illegal drugs. Arbitrator Richard Casher responding to a grievance2 filed by the NFL Players Association said the plan violates the players' contract. The Commissioner3 Pete Rozelle had announced the drug testing proposal in July. It called for two surprise tests during the football season, but Casher said Rozelle lacks the power to implement4 the plan without going through the collective bargaining process.
NASA today gave an update on its efforts to remodel5 space shuttle booster rockets. A faulty booster caused the shuttle Challenger to explode in January. NPR's Richard Harris has details. "NASA engineer John Thomas says the rocket testing program is progressing just about on schedule. He says redesign booster rockets should be available for a space shuttle launch in February 1988. Engineers have simulated the exact problem the caused the shuttle disaster in January. They've also started testing the remodeled components6. Thomas admitted that testing could take longer if NASA follows the advice of independent engineers at the National Research Council. Those engineers suggested additional tests beyond what NASA has planned. But Thomas said NASA might run some of those tests after the first shuttle flight. For example, NASA might delay tests for unusually hot or cold launch conditions. He said NASA would just make sure the weather was mild at lift-off until those tests were completed. This is Richard Harris in Washington."
Religious leaders from around the world joined Pope John Paul II today in a day of prayer for peace. The leaders gathered at the birthplace of Saint Francis of Assisi in Italy to pray according to their own rites7.
One hundred sixty people representing twelve of the world's major religions gathered today in the central Italian town of Assisi for an unprecedented8 day of prayer for peace. The initiative was proposed by Pope John Paul II to commemorate9 the United Nations' International Year of Peace. The Pontiff also appealed for a twenty-four-hour of truce10 in the world's conflicts, and several revolutionary groups agreed to honor the cease-fire. From Assisi, Sylvia Perjoli reports.
The narrow cobblestoned streets and the pink toned medieval churches of Assisi were the backdrop today of one of the most colorful and spectacular events organized by Pope John Paul II since he assumed the Papacy eight years ago. The ceremony spanned eight hours and was divided into three parts. This morning at a basilica outside the town, the Pope received religious leaders representing Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism11, Shintoism, Hinduism, as well as Sikhs, African animists, Byes, Zorastrians, Jane and native Americans. The Pope told his guests, some attired12 in formal religious robes, others in traditional costumes, that he chose Assisi because of its particular significance as the birthplace of Saint Francis, who is revered13 as a symbol of peace, reconciliation14 and brotherhood15. For the second moment of the day, each religious delegation16 went to an assigned place to hold its own prayers. The Jewish delegation convened17 on the site of a fourteenth-century synagogue. Some groups prayed in Catholic churches, others in municipal buildings, and still others, such as the Shintoists, prayed in squares.
The day's final event came this afternoon when the participants who had observed a fast marched in a procession to the square of the Basilica of Saint Francis. The delegates sat on a large podium, the Pope in the center with the Christians18 and Jews on his right, and the other religions on his left. The final part of the ceremony began with each group reciting their won prayers in the presence of others. The Buddhists19 were first.
One of the most colorful prayer services was that of the native Americans. John Pretty-on-Top and his nephew Burton of the Crow Indian tribe of Montana wore feathered headdresses and inhaled20 deeply from a long peace pipe which they offered the great spirit of the Mother Earth.
After the prayer, young men and women distributed olive branches while a choir21 sang a hymn22 in Greek.
The Pope then delivered his elocutions, in which he stressed that despite their differences, the world's religions have a common ground. "Besides, we also make the world looking at us through the media, moreover, of the responsibilities of religion regarding problems of war and peace."
The ceremony ended with the release of hundreds of doves as the choir sang "Saint Francis Canticle to Father Sun and Sister Moon."
As the ceremony was coming to a close, the Vatican announced that the Pope's appeal for a truce of all conflicts raging throughout the world had been widely respected. The Holy See spokesman said that after an intense diplomatic effort by the Vatican, all guerrilla groups in Latin America with the exception of Peru's Venda Luminosa and various guerrilla groups in Africa and Asia had responded favorably. In the Middle East, the warring factions23 in Lebanon, as well as PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, also welcomed the appeal. But in Mozambique, Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, and some of the Communist guerrillas in the Philippines did not reply or refused to observe a truce. Tomorrow it will be known if the message from the largest gathering24 of religions was carried out. For National Public Radio, this is Sylvisa Perjoli in Assisi.
The "American Century" has become the "American Crisis," and that happened in just twenty-five years. That's the theme of David Halberstam's latest book called The Reckoning . It's the story of the Ford25 Motor Company and the story of Nissan, a Japanese car maker26 since the late 1930s. It is now a very successful importer to the US. Basically Halberstam believes the American automobile28 industry, Detroit since the Second World War, became a shared de facto monopoly failing to listen to congress, failing to notice Japan, and mostly failing, he says, because the car companies came under the control of the financial people rather than the car people. David Halberstam talks with us now about one very important year in auto27 biz, 1964, and about several important people, beginning with Yutaca Catayama of Nissan.
"Catayama, who is a kind of exuberant29, somewhat aristocratic man, was very frustrated30. At home in Tokyo, there seemed to be no place for him in the company. He loved making cars. He was on the wrong side politically, and that's a very political company. And so he was almost exiled to America on the assumption that selling cars in America would be a sure place: if you wanted someone to fail, that's what you would do. And he came here, and he loved America. I mean, he was more at home, oddly enough, in America than he was in Japan. In the beginning he would almost, I mean, sell cars hand by hand. He would go to the Japanese gardeners in Los Angeles and sell these little pick-up trucks and he found these, you know, almost used car dealers31 whom he convinced to be Nissan dealers, and he would hand ... he'd drive the cars down to their lots, and he got to know the business, and just it began to surface in '64. That's a very important demarcation point, 1964."
"You mention the pick-up trucks they were trying to sell on the west coast. It is funny the correspondence back and forth32 between the west coast and Tokyo that the Japanese in Tokyo don't believe that Americans should be riding in pick-up trucks as passenger vehicles and refuse to accommodate some design changes."
"Well, factories in those days were not very technologically33 advanced. I mean, they have this wonderful work force, and they have this enormous ambition and this willingness as to pay a high price. But their cars were very primitive34 really, like American cars in the '30s. But the truck they were building was like a small tank and was very inexpensive, and they were started selling on the west coast. And for the first couple years, the little truck was what carried the company. I mean that's where they made their inroads. And Catayama kept saying, 'You know, you don't under ...' to the home-office. 'You don't understand Americans. They drive the truck, I mean, pick-up truck. That's a car for them, I mean, they'll work in it, and they'll play in it; they'll go to the bank in it; they'll go to a drive-in movie in it. Can we put some air conditioner? Can we make it more comfortable? Can we put in a radio?' And Tokyo kept saying, you know, 'No, no, no, no. It should not be used for those things. We want the Americans just to drive it as a truck.' You know Catayama just had a feeling that they were losing all these sales. He mostly did not win the battle on the truck, but he won a lot other battles."
"Talking about '64, just about the time the Japanese car workers had begun to be able to afford the Japanese car and much earlier in your book, writing about the original Henry Ford, you talk about the time that Ford decided35 to pay his employees five dollars a day, as been an incredibly revolutionary time in American labor36 history."
"I think that he revolutionized the economy and the idea of the worker as the consumer. I mean if there is a thing called the "American Century,' it is also a thing called the 'Oil Century.' The two are the same, and the coming of the first Henry Ford with the Model T at the very beginning of the century, at the very same time when you have these huge oil gushers37 down in the Southwest—its spindle top which supplies the inexpensive energy—you begin to get the oil culture. And then very quickly you have small gas engines, and you have items which are consumer items. What Henry ford did was bring mass production and finally create a cycle in which, for the first time, in the industrial would, the worker was also a consumer. And when he paid for the first time five dollars a day, everybody else in the industrial sector38 jumped on his back, you know, and said, 'he was ruining us.' This would, you know cause all kinds of social chaos39, that workers couldn't handle that much money. But he was very skillfully creating this cycle, and he knew that he could build this many cars, but there's no sense in building them if people couldn't buy them. And the worker became the consumer."
"Let me ask you for an explanation of this man. His name is Kadsundo Kohamu. This is a Japanese name given ... taken by an American."
"Yes, his name ... well, that means William the Conqueror40, I believe, in rough translation. His real name—he was born, I suppose, well, in the other century—is a man named William Reagan Gorham. And he was a wonderful tinker that the kind that we were producing in the very beginning of the twentieth century, men who just loved this moment of explosion of machinery41. He was like a Henry Ford, who came along a few years after Ford. In fact, the original Henry Ford was his God. And he was trying to ... and he invented everything; he could do almost everything. And frustrated in America, because there seemed to be no place for him, he went over to Japan to ... originally to design airplanes during World War I. Loved it there. Became kind of a sort of industrial or mechanical missionary42 there. And he would invent motorized little vehicles. He invented the diesel43 engines, airplanes, and finally, he really was, in all respects, the inventor of the first Datsun car. I mean, the intriguing44 thing that this American, because the Japanese are so good at absorbing other people' knowledge, he invented the first Datsun. He came to love Japan. I mean, for him, it was a country loved many of the values, systems of the respect for work, the cleanliness, whatever the country. And he was honored there. He was never interested in making very much money. As Would War II began to approach, he became very melancholy45, because he saw his adopted country and his native country about to do go war. He argued, without very much success, on both sides to ... in ways that would sort of cut off the growing confrontation46. And on the very eve, he took up Japanese citizenship47, this name and told his then colleague sons to go back to America before it was too late. And he is buried there. It is an extraordinary life.
David Halberstam. His book is called The Reckoning
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randomly
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| adv.随便地，未加计划地 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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commissioner
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| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
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implement
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| n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行 | |
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remodel
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| v.改造，改型，改变 | |
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components
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| （机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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commemorate
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| vt.纪念，庆祝 | |
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truce
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| n.休战，(争执，烦恼等的)缓和；v.以停战结束 | |
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Buddhism
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| n.佛教（教义） | |
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attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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revered
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| v.崇敬，尊崇，敬畏( revere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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delegation
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| n.代表团；派遣 | |
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convened
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| 召开( convene的过去式 )； 召集； （为正式会议而）聚集； 集合 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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Buddhists
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| n.佛教徒( Buddhist的名词复数 ) | |
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inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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factions
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| 组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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auto
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| n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
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automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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technologically
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| ad.技术上地 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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gushers
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| n.喷油井( gusher的名词复数 ) | |
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sector
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| n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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diesel
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| n.柴油发动机，内燃机 | |
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intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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confrontation
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| n.对抗，对峙，冲突 | |
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citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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