2. That philosophical concept of meaning has its place in a primitive idea of the way language functions. But one can also say that it is the idea of a language more primitive than ours.
Let us imagine a language ...The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building-stones; there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words 'block', 'pillar', 'slab', 'beam'. A calls them out; --B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. -- Conceive this as a complete primitive language.
Wired４月号はテレビドラマ特集でした。Mad Menが依然としてブームのようですね。先ほども紹介した数話のドラマを一挙に観るBingewatchingという言葉が市民権を得つつあるようです。これから紹介するWiredの記事ではBingewatching—churning through multiple episodes at a time—became a national pastime.とありました。
日本でもHuluによって気軽にドラマが楽しめるようになってきましたが、このような視聴方法によって、我々のドラマの楽しみ方も変わりつつあるようなのです。そのような新しい動きをとらえつつ独自の視聴者を獲得しようとするNetflixの試みを紹介している記事が以下になります。話題の中心は意外にもHouse of CardsではなくArrested Developmentというドラマでした。
When we last saw the Bluths, in 2006, nothing could have been further from the truth. The critically adored but little-watched show about the wacky, white-collar-criminal Bluth clan had just been canceled because of chronically low ratings. Arrested Development, it seemed, was too dense to win a mass audience, its deeply flawed characters too unlikable, its layers of jokes too tightly packed for the casual viewer to penetrate. It won Emmys and other accolades, but it was the kind of show you couldn’t join midway through a season unless you enjoyed the sound of in-jokes whizzing over your head. It was just not made for TV, at least not as it existed in the mid-2000s.
しかし、Binge watchingが広まった今では、その複雑さが逆にうけるようになり、５月には新エピソードが公開されるようです。 But over the intervening years, something happened: TV changed. Netflix went from a DVD-by-mail service to a purveyor of online streaming video—most of it television. Bingewatching—churning through multiple episodes at a time—became a national pastime. The very qualities that made Arrested Development such a hard sell on network TV—its complexity, depth, layered blink-and-you’ll-miss-it humor—made it perfect for this new era, in which obsessives can watch and rewatch their favorite shows whenever and wherever they feel like it. On Fox, Arrested Development would set up a joke in one episode and pay it off three weeks later; on Netflix the joke would pay off in an hour and a half. When people say Arrested Development was ahead of its time—something the show’s staff is as likely to say as its fanboys are—they’re really saying that it was ahead of Netflix.
So when Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz decided to listen to his fans and revive the series, Netflix was interested. It was just beginning to develop its own original programming and was willing to pay up for marquee content. It outbid Showtime for the right to revive the show; it agreed to pay about $3 million per 30-minute episode, about as much as it costs AMC to make an entire hour of Breaking Bad. In May Netflix will release all 14 new episodes of Arrested Development at once.
先ほどの記事で紹介したHouse of Cardsのようなドラマがあたしい試みだと思っていたのですが、記事ではthose are all fairly traditional in structureと語っているようにこのArrested Developmentの方がずっと野心的な内容のようです。例えば、Each episode will cover events from a different character’s point of view, like a comedic Rashomon.とあるように各エピソードが登場人物ごとに違った視点から語られるようです。Rashomonとあるあたり黒澤監督の影響の大きさを感じ取れまあすね。 It won’t be the company’s first foray into high-profile programming—its mobster-in-Norway dramedy, Lilyhammer, debuted in 2012, David Fincher’s House of Cards arrived in February, and torture-porn auteur Eli Roth’s werewolf saga, Hemlock Grove, will come out on April 19. Orange Is the New Black, a women’s-prison series by Weeds creator Jenji Kohan, is due this summer.
But those are all fairly traditional in structure. Arrested Development is exploring the more playful, outré structural possibilities offered by the new platform on Netflix. Each episode will cover events from a different character’s point of view, like a comedic Rashomon. There will be moments and Easter eggs that will make sense only in retrospect. There will be a suggested viewing sequence, but it will be possible—even rewarding—to watch out of sequence. Cross describes the new structure as being “like if you could mash up a Venn diagram with a nautilus shell. And then put that inside a Möbius strip.”
それだけではなく、配信方式なので、決まった放映時間などは気にしなくてよいなど、自由に作れるそうです。ドラマは３０分か、６０分という感覚でしたが、そんなのに縛られる必要はないというのは画期的に感じますね。 Hurwitz may not have all the time or money in the world, but he does have unprecedented freedom. Because Netflix doesn’t have to worry about commercial breaks or time slots, he can make episodes of variable lengths that can run in any order. (He even briefly considered designing the new season as a choose-your-own-adventure story.) He can make television built to be binged. “In its purest form,” he says, “a new medium requires a new format.”
DVDレンタル会社からストリーミング会社に変身を遂げたネットフリックスが独自コンテンツにこだわるのは、想像できるように、競争が激しくなっている業界での視聴者の確保です。By creating original series, these cable companies weren’t just getting more subscribers; they were getting more loyal subscribers, who couldn’t imagine life without the latest episode of Game of Thrones or Homeland.と書いていますね。 To answer that question, the company is taking a page from HBO, Showtime, AMC, and nearly every other prestige cable company that has emerged over the past decade. Those channels began by airing movies. Then they began paying for higher-quality movies. Eventually they started making their own TV shows. The strategy paid off: In 1999, the year The Sopranos launched, HBO had 24 million subscribers; in 2007, when the series ended, it had 29 million. In 2008 Showtime elected not to renew several film deals and began investing heavily in original shows. Since 2009, on the strength of series like Homeland, its subscriber base has grown from 17 million to 22 million. Hoping for similar results, Netflix is investing about $300 million in original programming over the next three years, 5 percent of its $6 billion content budget for that period.
By creating original series, these cable companies weren’t just getting more subscribers; they were getting more loyal subscribers, who couldn’t imagine life without the latest episode of Game of Thrones or Homeland. That’s been a problem for Netflix, says media analyst Richard Greenfield. “There are lots of people trying its service every year, yet lots of people turn off,” he says. “The best way to make its service stickier is to create high-quality programming that people want to access on a regular basis.”
ネットフリックスの強みは、視聴者のストリーミングのデータを細かく取れることのようです。どんな番組を何時間観たのか、一人一人のデータが手に入るので、番組作りに生かせるというのです。If you love films with strong female leads, it will likely market House of Cards to you with images of Kate Mara and Robin Wright.と視聴者に合わせた売り込みも可能になっているようです。
Netflix has something that not even HBO’s market researchers can compete with: years of near-perfect data on what its subscribers watch and like. Netflix has already tapped into that information to pick new projects. “When we heard about a remake of House of Cards, our ears pricked up because of our own knowledge of the original,” says Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer. “Our data showed that there were a lot of people who watched it over the years. And certainly when you start layering in the pools of fans of David Fincher, of Kevin Spacey, of political thrillers—all of a sudden you’ve got a very large addressable market.” (Netflix also uses that data to target its marketing. If you love films with strong female leads, it will likely market House of Cards to you with images of Kate Mara and Robin Wright.)
ネットフリックスが製作をしたドラマHouse of CardsをパロディにしたHouse of NerdsをこのDinnerで流されたそうです。
House of Cardsは2月に放映されて、ネットフリックス会員向けで、全１３話一挙公開、デビッドフィンチャー総指揮などが話題になりました。
最近AP通信がthe Gamble That Paid Offというニュースを流していたので大きな成功を収めているようですね。以前、コンゴ絡みでご紹介したRobin Wrightも出演しているようです。
'House of Cards' - the Gamble That Paid Off 公開日: 2013/04/26 Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Kate Mara discuss the joy of being part of the Netflix original series 'House of Cards,' which has become a surprise hit with internet viewers, at a Los Angeles special screening. (April 26)
Lili Taylor Moves to Netflix's 'Hemlock Grove' 公開日: 2013/04/28 Netflix has added another original series to its site for your binge-watching pleasure. 'Hemlock Grove' is based on a novel of the same name. Actress Lili Taylor talks about the show and being a part of this new way to watch television. (April 28)
アン・マリー・スローターさんは、昨年雑誌アトランティックに『Why Women Still Can’t Have It All』を発表して以来、女性の社会進出の推進者として登場することが多かったですね。
JULY/AUGUST 2012 Why Women Still Can’t Have It All It’s time to stop fooling ourselves, says a woman who left a position of power: the women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. If we truly believe in equal opportunity for all women, here’s what has to change. ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER JUN 13 2012, 10:15 AM ET
Obama should remember Rwanda as he weighs action in Syria By Anne-Marie Slaughter, Saturday, April 27, 9:37 AM The Rwanda genocide began in April 1994; within a few weeks, nongovernmental organizations there were estimating that 100,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been massacred. Yet two months later, Reuters correspondent Alan Elsner and State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelly had an infamous exchange:
Tom Toles goes global: A collection of cartoons about international news. Shelly: “Based on the evidence we have seen from observations on the ground, we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred in Rwanda.”
Elsner: “What’s the difference between ‘acts of genocide’ and ‘genocide’?” Shelly: “Well, I think the — as you know, there’s a legal definition of this. . . . Clearly not all of the killings that have taken place in Rwanda are killings to which you might apply that label. . . . But as to the distinctions between the words, we’re trying to call what we have so far as best as we can; and based, again, on the evidence, we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.”
Elsner: “How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?” Shelly: “Alan, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer.”
「‘acts of genocide’ は認められるけど、 ‘genocide’かどうか分からない」というような言い回しを思い起こさせることで、例えば先ほどの記事で取り上げたヘーゲル長官のhas used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syriaのようなコメントをあてこすっているのかもしれません。
the U.S. intelligence community assesses with some degree of varying confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin.
クリントン政権の頃はgenocideを認めるとGenocide Convention of 1948によって介入せざるをえなくなるので慎重になっていた。今回のオバマ政権もchemical weaponの使用をgame changerとしてきたので、慎重になっている。と同じような状況であることを指摘しています。
The Clinton administration did not want to acknowledge that genocide was taking place in Rwanda because the United States would have been legally bound by the Genocide Convention of 1948 to intervene to stop the killing. The reason the Obama administration does not want to recognize that chemical weapons are being used in Syria is because Obama warned the Syrian regime clearly and sharply in August against using such weapons. “There would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical-weapons front or the use of chemical weapons,” he said. “That would change my calculations significantly.”
Unfortunately, changing the game is hard. Moreover, even against the reported recommendations of his advisers, Obama has shown little interest in intervention in Syria beyond nonlethal assistance to some opposition forces, diplomatic efforts with Russia and the United Nations, and political maneuvering to try to unify the opposition.
彼女が大切にしているのはアメリカ政府の信頼性のようですね。U.S. credibility is on the line（米国の信頼性が問われている）と語っています。言葉と行動のギャップというのは我々にとっても耳の痛い話題ですが、the gap between words and deeds becomes too great to ignoreというかたちで表現しています。
But the White House must recognize that the game has already changed. U.S. credibility is on the line. For all the temptation to hide behind the decision to invade Iraq based on faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, Obama must realize the tremendous damage he will do to the United States and to his legacy if he fails to act. He should understand the deep and lasting damage done when the gap between words and deeds becomes too great to ignore, when those who wield power are exposed as not saying what they mean or meaning what they say.
Mr. President, how many uses of chemical weapons does it take to cross a red line against the use of chemical weapons? That is a question you must be in a position to answer.
You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
（スクリプト） Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? (Neo nods his head.) Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. (long pause, sighs) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. (In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill.)
Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. (a red pill is shown in his other hand) You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Long pause; Neo begins to reach for the red pill) Remember -- all I am offering is the truth, nothing more. (Neo takes the red pill and swallows it with a glass of water)
14秒あたりから the U.S. intelligence community assesses with some degree of varying confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin.
このコメントの訳について、テレビ朝日とTBSを比較しています。TBSはざっくり訳し過ぎですよね（苦笑）with some degree of varying confidenceとかon a small scaleとか慎重に語っているところがざっくり切られて、断定している印象を与えてしまわないか心配です。15秒あるのだからテロップを2枚使って、もう少し詳しく訳せたのではないでしょうか。
Chemical Weapons in Syria?; Headaches; Ramapo Tensions Friday, April 26, 2013 Syria Update Justin Vogt, senior editor for Foreign Affairs, talks about the U.S. response to evidence the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons and the ripple effects of the conflict there.
精読を全面否定するつもりはありませんし、とても重要なことだと自分の経験からも言えますが、何でもいいからたくさん読む癖をつけないと、いつまでも精読だけの人、いや精読でちゃんと読めればいいですが、英検1級・990取った人がTIMEもろくに読み進めなかったり、No option is off the tableを「テーブルに乗らない選択肢はない」と的外れな解説しか書けない冴えない人にしかなれないんじゃないかという恐れがあるんです。そんなんじゃ精読すらできていないじゃないですか。
精読が不要だと言っているのではありませんが、英語教師をはじめとする英語学習者は量を読めない、ネイティブ向けの普通の本や雑誌が読めない人が圧倒的多数なので、「量が質に転化する」アプローチの大切さをこのフォーリンアフェアーズの論稿から学んでみるのも価値があると思います。それに、ビッグデータも流行っていることですから（笑） Instead of trying to “teach” a computer how to do things, such as drive a car or translate between languages, which artificial-intelligence experts have tried unsuccessfully to do for decades, the new approach is to feed enough data into a computer so that it can infer the probability that, say, a traffic light is green and not red or that, in a certain context, lumière is a more appropriate substitute for “light” than léger. コンピューターに物事の進め方を、例えば車の運転や言語の翻訳を「教えようとする」のではなく、この試みは人工知能の専門家たちが何十年もの間取り組んできて成果を上げていない、新しいアプローチというのは、十分なデータをコンピューターに与えることで可能性を推測できるようにするのである。例えば「今は信号機は緑で、赤ではない」とか、ある特定の文脈では、lumière（フランス語で「光」）という語がléger （フランス語で「軽い」）よりも英語のlightに適切に対応する語であるとかである。
＊次のパラグラフはXX requires three profound changes in YYとあって、The first is to … / The second is to … / Third…とセオリー通り書いています。 Using great volumes of information in this way requires three profound changes in how we approach data. The first is to collect and use a lot of data rather than settle for small amounts or samples, as statisticians have done for well over a century. The second is to shed our preference for highly curated and pristine data and instead accept messiness: in an increasing number of situations, a bit of inaccuracy can be tolerated, because the benefits of using vastly more data of variable quality outweigh the costs of using smaller amounts of very exact data. Third, in many instances, we will need to give up our quest to discover the cause of things, in return for accepting correlations. With big data, instead of trying to understand precisely why an engine breaks down or why a drug’s side effect disappears, researchers can instead collect and analyze massive quantities of information about such events and everything that is associated with them, looking for patterns that might help predict future occurrences. Big data helps answer what, not why, and often that’s good enough.
the benefits of using vastly more data of variable quality outweigh the costs of using smaller amounts of very exact data. 変動しやすい性質の膨大なデータを活用するメリットの方が非常に正確なデータを少量扱うことよりも上回っているからです
良い例か分かりませんが、カーティス教授が日本政治を語っている動画で、4分10秒あたりにEconomic stimulus（景気刺激策）の話題になりBridges to nowhereと言っています。
英語メディアに慣れ親しんだ人にはBridges to nowhereと聞いて「無駄な公共事業」を比喩的に語っていることが分かります。日本だと「誰も使わない高速道路」って感じになるでしょうか。英辞郎には雑誌で使われた表現としてありますね。
（英辞郎） It is at least as valuable a flip of the financial pachinco balls as building yet another series of Shinkansen tunnels and bridges to nowhere, donating funds for the education of ex-Indonesian President Suharto's children, or assisting the development of totalitarian repression in China. それは、財政のパチンコ玉をあっちこっちはじいて、どこか知らないが新幹線のトンネルや橋を架けたり、スハルト元インドネシア大統領の子どもたちに教育を受けさせるために献金したり、中国の全体主義的抑圧の発展に手を貸したりするのに劣らないくらいの価値はある。◆【出典】Hiragana Times, 1999年5月号◆【出版社】株式会社ヤック企画
こういうのは辞書には載っていない事が多いですので、精読オンリーの人はNo option is off the table＝「テーブルに乗らない選択肢はない」的な読み違いをしやすいんですよね。
雑誌広告で知ったのですが、世界の女性問題を取り上げるChime For Changeというキャンペーンがあるそうです。グッチが主催団体のようなので、こういう社会運動がかっこいいということなんですかねえ。 FOUNDED BY GUCCI As founder of CHIME FOR CHANGE, Gucci is proud to join the wave of momentum calling for change for girls and women. Gucci recognizes the opportunity for a global brand to facilitate a coalition of individuals and organizations to amplify these stories and effect real change.
Gucci has a long history of engagement with girls' and women's issues, including a seven-year relationship with UNICEF, which has included support for girls' education. Gucci also actively supports the Kering Corporate Foundation, which focuses on ending violence against women, where Creative Director Frida Giannini serves as a member of the board of directors.
MAKE SOME NOISE On June 1st, CHIME FOR CHANGE presents a global concert event to put girls' and women's issues on the world’s stage. Millions of people will join in THE SOUND OF CHANGE LIVE, to promote Education, Health and Justice for girls and women everywhere.
HOW IT WORKS 1. BUY TICKETS Purchase your tickets and on June 2nd, you'll receive a SOUND OF CHANGE voucher to be used to support projects focused on girls and women on chimeforchange.org.
2. SELECT A PROJECT On June 2nd, go to chimeforchange.org and choose from the many projects supporting Education, Health and Justice for girls and women everywhere. You will have one month from the time you receive your voucher to select a project.
3. CHANGE LIVES Use your voucher to fund a project that matters to you, and improve the lives of the girls and women you support. If you forget to choose, we will select a project on your behalf and you will still receive status updates from the girls and women you’ve supported.
公開日: 2013/04/24 Foreign Affairs Focus: Japan Under Abe with Gerald L. Curtis
Managing Editor Jonathan Tepperman interviews Gerald Curtis, Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, about Japan's economic and political situation. Professor Curtis comments on the effects of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe's economic policy on the nation, and discusses Abe's cautious foreign policy practices. He expresses skepticism about the potential for success of structural reform, and makes predictions for the upcoming Japanese election.
ちょくちょく書いていることですが「資格試験からの卒業」を考えている人には、5,000語から10,000語の長さのエッセイ、論文は読めるようになることを目標の一つに入れてもらいたいと思います。 Words checked = [4908] Words in Oxford 3000™ = [88%] Everyone knows that the Internet has changed how businesses operate, governments function, and people live. But a new, less visible technological trend is just as transformative: “big data.” Big data starts with the fact that there is a lot more information floating around these days than ever before, and it is being put to extraordinary new uses. Big data is distinct from the Internet, although the Web makes it much easier to collect and share data. Big data is about more than just communication: the idea is that we can learn from a large body of information things that we could not comprehend when we used only smaller amounts.
In the third century BC, the Library of Alexandria was believed to house the sum of human knowledge. Today, there is enough information in the world to give every person alive 320 times as much of it as historians think was stored in Alexandria’s entire collection -- an estimated 1,200 exabytes’ worth. If all this information were placed on CDs and they were stacked up, the CDs would form five separate piles that would all reach to the moon.
This explosion of data is relatively new. As recently as the year 2000, only one-quarter of all the world’s stored information was digital. The rest was preserved on paper, film, and other analog media. But because the amount of digital data expands so quickly -- doubling around every three years -- that situation was swiftly inverted. Today, less than two percent of all stored information is nondigital
For Obama, proof of Syria WMDs hard to find By REUTERS 04/24/2013 07:19 US President wary to act despite Israel's top military intel analyst, Britain and France suggesting Syria used chemical weapons.
WASHINGTON/RIYADH - While US President Barack Obama has declared a "red line" over Syrian use of chemical weapons, US officials suggested on Tuesday that Washington was unlikely to respond without clear-cut evidence of such use - evidence that may be very hard to come by.
Israel's top military intelligence analyst said in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons - probably the nerve gas sarin - in their fight against rebels trying to force out President Bashar Assad.
The Israeli allegations, which came during a week-long visit by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to the Middle East, followed similar concerns of chemical weapons use voiced by Britain and France.
化学兵器の使用の有無が問題になるのは、US President Barack Obama has declared a "red line" over Syrian use of chemical weaponsとあるようにオバマ大統領が絶対に認めないと宣言していたからでしょう。以下は3月にイスラエル訪問した時に記者会見で、I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game changer.と明言しているところです。
we know the Syrian government has the capacity to carry out chemical weapon attacks. We know that there are those in the Syrian government who have expressed a willingness to use chemical weapons if necessary to protect themselves. I am deeply skeptical of any claim that, in fact, it was the opposition that used chemical weapons. Everybody who knows the facts of the chemical weapon stockpiles inside Syria as well as the Syrian government's capabilities I think would question those claims. But I know that they're floating out there right now.
The broader point is, is that once we establish the facts I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game changer. And I won't make an announcement today about next steps because I think we have to gather the facts. But I do think that when you start seeing weapons that can cause potential devastation and mass casualties and you let that genie out of the bottle, then you are looking potentially at even more horrific scenes than we've already seen in Syria. And the international community has to act on that additional information.
Game changerとあるように化学兵器の使用が認められれば、アメリカ政府は何かしらの行動に出なくてはいけなくなるでしょう。ただ、今のところホワイトハウスは慎重になっているようです。
Free Syrian Army general: ‘Clear proof chemical weapons used’ By Samuel Burke, CNN April 24th, 2013 04:27 PM ET The chief of staff for the Free Syrian Army said he can confirm that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons in the Syrian cities of Homs, Aleppo and Otaiba, outside Damascus.
“We took some samples of the soil and of blood. The injured people were observed by doctors and the samples were tested and it was very clear that the regime used chemical weapons,” General Salim Idriss told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
Idriss said his doctors gave the samples to “observers” of the civil war in Syria, but refused to name which groups.
Both Britain and France now say soil samples indicate “some use of chemical weapons.”
On Monday, the head of Israel’s military intelligence, Brigadier General Itai Brun, said that Israeli assessment shows the Syrian regime has used deadly chemical weapons against armed rebels on a number of occasions in the past few months.
The type of chemical weapons was likely sarin, as well as neutralizing and non-lethal chemical weapons, according to Brun.
フォーリンポリシーには行動をとるよう促すエッセイが載っていますね。オバマ大統領の記者会見の言葉、the use of chemical weapons is a game changer.を出して述べている部分です。2つ目のパラグラフのfirst , second, and thirdという列挙の仕方はセオリー通りに書いていますね。
It's Time to Act in Syria American values and interests are at stake in stopping the country's slow-motion destruction. BY DENNIS ROSS | APRIL 18, 2013 The fact that the United States has a great stake in the Syrian conflict -- from both an idealist and a realist point of view -- does not make any of these problems easier to deal with. Still, it is hard to see how the country has a choice. Obama has said that the use of chemical weapons -- or the regime's loss of control of these weapons -- would be a game-changer. Given the direction of the conflict, it is not hard to see that sooner or later we are going to face such a situation.
So what can and should we do now? First, we need to focus on what can be done to change the balance of forces on the ground -- not only between the opposition and the regime, but more importantly within the opposition itself. Second, we need to do more to protect the Syrian population. And, third, we need to focus on containing the conflict so it does not spread outside Syria and destabilize the surrounding states.
行動派の常とう句は、何もしなかった場合に払うコストの大きさでしょう。このエッセイでもそのように締めています。 With all the difficulties and unknowns that currently exist in Syria, one thing is clear: While there are costs in acting, the costs of inaction are growing by the day. Ironically, the costs of inaction may not only be felt in Syria, with the Syrian public, and in the surrounding areas. Inaction may also have implications for America's Iran policy. If we want diplomacy to work with Iran on the nuclear issue, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei must be convinced that the United States will actually use force if negotiations fail -- and America's hesitant posture toward Syria signals not readiness to use force, but reluctance.
For all these reasons, and before we face a game-changing event that will leave America no choice, it is time to become more active in Syria. Positioning the United States to try to shape the landscape, and not simply react to changes in it, makes sense from the standpoint of U.S. interests. But it also makes sense from the standpoint of America's values -- and the sooner the better.
Hello Againにあった案内文です。「真っ白なキャンバスに気後れするアーティストもいるが、可能性を見い出すアーティストもいる。創造に駆り立てられるだけでなく、あらゆる過去の経験のしがらみを打破してくれるものを見出すのだ」という書き出しはかっこいいですね。 For some artists, a blank canvas can be intimidating. For others, it’s a possibility… something that not only inspires, but breaks the conventions of all past experience.
Welcome to “Hello, Again.”
The Hello, Again performance started with an idea – reimagine David Bowie’s classic, “Sound and Vision.” But it became more than another cover. It became an experience that presented a fresh take on the possibilities of the once familiar, for both the audience and the performers.
The show doesn’t stop with the live performance. In collaboration with Beck, Director Chris Milk is creating a digital experience that is fully immersive. By capturing the concert with 360-degree cameras and 360-degree binaural microphones, online viewers will have the opportunity to experience the show from any and every seat in the house.
This digital experience will allow online viewers to click through a variety of lenses to view the show, as well as experience three distinct and different sound origins: an outer microphone that captures the 160+ musicians up close, an inner microphone that represents what the studio audience hears, and finally a central microphone that lets you hear what Beck hears.
Grab your headphones, and get ready to immerse yourself in a true-to-life concert experience.
Business challenge In 2001, Warner Bros. recognized that traditional ways of storing and sharing content could be transformed into a single, totally integrated digital operation. At the same time, several challenges and catalysts were converging. One was that user groups across the business were already working in discrete digital “islands,” but with little integration between them. There were also mounting cost pressures and shrinking release windows. Most crucially, the emerging digital ecosystem was causing a proliferation in the distribution channels for the company’s content, increasing the threat of piracy.
今回も丁寧に紹介しているのは、take it into territory that was as yet unchartedと本ブログUncharted territoryにちなんだ表現があったからです（笑）Warner Bros.’ digital ambitionsと無生物主語にするのも英語らしいですね。 Warner Bros.’ digital ambitions would take it into territory that was as yet uncharted. How would it build the architecture, workflow, operating model and organizational structure to get there? Warner Bros. selected Accenture to team with it on the road to its vision—a decision that marked the start of a mutual multi-year, multistage journey towards creating the world’s first high-performance, digital media and entertainment business.
（ざっくり訳） Warner Bros.社のデジタル化の理想は、同社をいまだ未知の領域に導くものでした。どのように基本設計、ワークフロー、運用モデル、組織体制を構築して実現していくのか？Warner Bros.社はAccentureを選び、協力してビジョン達成の道のりに進むことにしました。この決断は、相互の何年にもわたる、何段階にも及ぶ行程の始まりで、世界で最初の高パフォーマンスのデジタルメディア・エンターテイメント事業の立ち上げにつながったのです。
（オックスフォード） The Wizard of Oz a very popular US film (1939) based on the children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by Frank Baum (1856–1919). In the film a little girl called Dorothy, played by Judy Garland, is blown by a strong wind from her home in Kansas to the strange land of Oz. She has to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West in order to return home, and she does this with the help of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion and the Wizard of Oz himself. The film’s best-known songs include Over the Rainbow, We’re Off to See the Wizard and Follow the Yellow Brick Road.
We’re Off to See the Wizardや Follow the Yellow Brick Roadの曲ってピンとこなかったですが、音楽を聴けばすぐに分かりました。道が黄色かったわけはFollow the Yellow Brick Roadだったからなんですね。
少女ドロシーと旅をする脳みそがほしいかかし、心臓がほしいきこり、勇気がほしいライオンは英語では the Scarecrow / the Tin Woodman / the Cowardly Lionとなることもなんとなくレベルでいいので知っておきたいです。
More than half of the 6 million births each year in Nigeria are not recorded. Without a birth certificate, a child is much less likely to get educated, be vaccinated or receive health services. Two young UNICEF staffers — Erica Kochi and Christopher Fabian — moving fast within their 66-year-old organization, have made registering a birth as easy as sending a text. They’ve employed similar methods to prevent early deaths as well, creating systems to track the distribution of some 63 million insecticide-treated mosquito bed nets to stop the spread of malaria. Erica and Chris are using technology and accessible, intuitive interfaces to quickly transform the face of humanitarian aid and international development. The world will benefit from their continued efforts.
以下がご本人たちの言葉です。このように認められることをrecognitionというのですね。 We are very honored to have made the TIME 100 List of the “World’s Most Influential People” in 2013. This is fantastic recognition for our global team’s work in harnessing technology, design thinking, and innovation to strengthen UNICEF programmes on the ground and transform international development practice. For UNICEF, this public recognition shows that we can develop and support solutions that are transformative – at scale – for the world’s most vulnerable children.
NEW YORK, 18 April 2013 – UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake congratulated Christopher Fabian and Erica Kochi, co-leads of UNICEF’s Innovation Unit, on being selected for this year’s prestigious TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
UNICEF also extended its congratulations to all of the 2013 TIME 100, and in particular to 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai for her inspiring and unflagging support for girls’ education.
Fabian and Kochi drive new technologies and strategies at UNICEF that are leading to significant gains in child survival and development worldwide.
“I’m proud to be their colleague. This is a great recognition of how 21st century ideas and tools can transform ordinary people’s lives in an extraordinary way,” said Anthony Lake. “Erica and Chris are working with partners across the world to test ideas, push decisions and help scale up innovations. Thanks to this work, we’re doing more to reach the hardest to reach children with lifesaving and live changing programs.”
Fabian and Kochi spearheaded the development of open source technology known as RapidSMS, a free platform for data collection, logistics coordination and communication. RapidSMS employs simple cell phones to deliver real-time information critical to improving the health and protection of children.
このモバイル技術についてはニューヨークタイムズも3月に取り上げているようでした。
FIXES March 13, 2013, 9:00 am 16 Comments The Benefits of Mobile Health, on Hold By TINA ROSENBERG The world now has 5 billion mobile phones – one for every person over 15. Africa has a billion people and 750 million phones, and mobile is growing so fast there that in a few years there will be more phones than people. In some countries this is already true — South Africa has 47 million people, but 52 million SIM cards.
The mobile phone is doing more than revolutionizing communication. It has the potential to improve many aspects of life in poor countries: commerce, health, agriculture, education. As we say repeatedly in Fixes, there are a lot of great new products that poor people can use to improve their lives. The problem is that it’s very difficult to get those out to people who need them. The same is true with information. It’s there, but people can’t get it, because they lack Internet service and electricity and the electronics that require these things. Delivery is the problem. It’s almost always the problem.
その中で、高知さんの言葉も紹介されています。 What makes Mwana work? “Incredible simplicity,” said Erica Kochi, the co-leader of tech innovation for Unicef, which is one of the partners in the project. “It’s not trying to replace the health information system. For its users, it makes things easier rather than adding more complexity to an already difficult, challenging health system.”
Recently, I interviewed Erica Kochi, who co-leads UNICEF’s Tech Innovation efforts. Kochi is tasked with helping UNICEF programmes integrate and strengthen their work using technology. Working with partners in academia, development, and the private sector, her work’s mandate includes connecting the wired and unwired worlds, streamlining distribution and reporting, and improving the efficiency and reach of messages.
Rahim Kanani: How did you get involved in working at the intersection of technology and social change?
Erica Kochi: In 2007 I had just started a new job at UNICEF where I was tasked with fostering new types of partnerships that would bring value to the organization. I was fortunate to have a lot freedom to define what this meant. For me this meant working with partners to explore how appropriate technology could help deliver better results for children and women in underserved communities. I decided to focus my efforts here because for the first time – technology for development – had become feasible given the reach and affordability of mobile phones.
そこで、彼女は一番有望な技術としてモバイルをあげています。 Rahim Kanani: If you could single out the most promising technology in this sector, what would it be, and why?
Erica Kochi: Definitely mobile. Suddenly, people can have a two-way conversation. Only through dialogue can we address the world’s challenges.
ご自身のサイトでの紹介文です。In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen.（Cookedという本で、Michael Pollanは自身の台所でこれまで未開拓だった領域に足を踏み入れている）と始まっています。ええ、ブログタイトルにしているuncharted territoryが使われていたので取り上げさせてもらいました（笑）
Cooked A NATURAL HISTORY OF TRANSFORMATION In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth— to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook. Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements.
調理方法をfire, water, air, and earthという四つに分けて論じていくなんて、加工食品反対、地産地消を提唱していたPollanが内省的、哲学的になったのだなと思ったら、やはりベースには食を自分たちの手に取り戻すという気持ちからこのような本になったようです。
The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.
この本の方向性、Pollanの方向性を簡潔に述べてくれているのでニューヨークタイムズでのReviewです。“In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”という本で“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”という7語で食のムーブメントを表現していたけど。新しいこの本を出すことで“And cook them.”という3語を加えたのだと書き出しています。
Pollan Cooks! Mark Bitmann The New York Times, April 18, 2013 The seven most famous words in the movement for good food are: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” They were written, of course, by Michael Pollan, in “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” the follow-up to “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”
Now Pollan might add three more words to the slogan: “And cook them.” Because the man who so cogently analyzed production and nutrition in his best-known books has tackled what he calls “the middle link in the food chain: cooking.”
But Pollan isn’t about to become a cookbook writer, at least not yet. In “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation,” out Tuesday, he offers four detailed recipes, used as examples to explore how food is transformed: for Bolognese, pork shoulder, sauerkraut and bread, each an illustration, he says, of the fundamental principles of cooking.
This recipe makes surprisingly light meatballs, good enough to eat by themselves or in a tomato sauce on pasta. The secret here is the ricotta. The meatballs are best with more than one kind of ground meat — beef and pork, or beef and lamb are both good. The recipe is adapted from one in Epicurious, based on a recipe in The Meatball Shop Cookbook by Daniel Holzman and Michael Chernow.
Yield: Makes about 2 dozen 1 1/2-inch balls
2 tablespoons olive oil 2 pounds 80% lean ground beef (I do half beef and half pork and I imagine it would be good with half lamb too). 1 cup ricotta cheese 2 large eggs 1/2 cup bread crumbs 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried 2 teaspoons salt 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 1/2 teaspoon ground fennel 4 cups Classic Tomato Sauce
Preheat the oven to 450°F. Drizzle the olive oil into a 9×13-inch baking dish and use your hand to evenly coat the entire surface. Set aside.
Combine the ground beef, ricotta, eggs, bread crumbs, parsley, oregano, salt, red pepper flakes, and fennel in a large mixing bowl and mix by hand until thoroughly incorporated. （後略）
ついでにVISAの財務ソリューションの広告もみてみます。ビジネス系の広告で使われる言葉使い、the agent of changeやtransparency, insight, and efficiencyなどに慣れておくといいかもしれません。同じような内容の動画コマーシャルも流しているようです。
I am the agent of change. I am responsible. I am accountable. I am liable. I am the bottom line. I am the champion of progres I am the CFO.
It’s time to manage payments with greater transparency, insight, and efficiency. It’s time to deploy Visa Commercial solutions. Visit visa.com/commercial to learn more.
Tadashi Yanai CEO of Uniqlo, 64 By Celia BirtwellApril 18, 2013 I have been working with the people at Uniqlo, the clothing brand that’s planting buoyant stores full of quirky basics across the planet, since they asked me to produce a collection for them in 2012. It has been one of my most exciting collaborations. From the start, I felt that we were all on the same page. They understood my work in a very flattering way, and they have a great sense of humor, which seems to be quite a rarity in the fashion world.
Yanai is clearly an inspirational leader, and Uniqlo is a tribute to him and his management style, which is so rarely seen in a large corporation. He allows his team to be confident enough to let the designers feel free to show their personality, and he is intent on producing good products, at the right price, that people want. It’s refreshing to not get bogged down in a complex hierarchy, and I have been given complete freedom to create exactly the sort of designs that I would like. I was even allowed to design the shop windows, which was a first for me and was a real treat.
Birtwell is a veteran British textile designer
個人的に気になるのはやっぱり、表紙にもなっているElon Muskです。バージンのリチャードブランソンが推進文を書いています。Whatever skeptics have said can’t be done, Elon has gone out and made real.とありますが、まさにその通りですよね。自動車産業のような巨大産業に電気自動車で挑むなんてすごいの一言です。TEDにも最近出ていましたね。
For a while now, space has been looking boring. News about space was reduced to budget cuts and deorbiting schedules, not research or innovation. Then the private sector began designing spaceships to send payloads and people into orbit and beyond. Today, teams like Elon Musk’s SpaceX are reopening space for exploration.
I know a thing or two about building spaceships, having started Virgin Galactic. It might seem that would make Elon and me competitors, but in some ways it’s just the opposite. We share the belief that when you want something, you have to go do it yourself — even if DIY in this case means plowing your personal fortune into industries so unwieldy, complex and unknowable that most people think they can be steered and owned only by government.
Whatever skeptics have said can’t be done, Elon has gone out and made real. Remember in the 1990s, when we would call strangers and give them our credit-card numbers? Elon dreamed up a little thing called PayPal. His Tesla Motors and SolarCity companies are making a clean, renewable-energy future a reality. It’s a paradox that Elon is working to improve our planet at the same time he’s building spacecraft to help us leave it. But true vision is binocular — and Elon Musk is clearly a man who can see many things at once.
Branson is the founder of Virgin Group
作家としてはHilary Mantelも選ばれていましたが、George Saundersを選んだところはさすがだなと思いました。GQが選んだ21世紀の古典21冊ではGeorge Saunders のPastoraliaが選ばれていましたが、昨年出た短編集Tenth of Decemberも小説でしか味わえない独特の世界を書いてくれています。動画はPBSニューズアワーに出たときのものです。
For more than a decade, George Saunders has been the best short-story writer in English — not “one of,” not “arguably,” but the Best.
In my favorite stories (“Tenth of December” or “The Falls” or “The Red Bow”), some goofy, tormented guy tries to rise up to carve out justice on a heroic scale. Picture a knight in cardboard breastplate and tinfoil helmet wielding a toilet plunger. These guys are wholly loseresque except for a sudden lunge at saving — often against unbearable physical or spiritual odds — some very broken human units. All this plus laugh-out-loud wisecracks.
We hired George to teach writing at Syracuse University 17 years back, and he brings to class a similarly humble urge to serve. Blond and slim, with the bristly mustache of a Russian cavalry officer, he’s open to every student’s effort, however far-fetched. Both with his own characters and with teaching, he claims, modestly, “I just let everybody do what they want.”
Which happens to be what everybody needs. George’s work is a stiff tonic for the vapid agony of contemporary living — great art from the greatest guy.
Karr is a poet, essayist and best-selling memoirist
GEORGE SAUNDERS: For me it's almost neurological. I understand what something short should be like. I understand beauty in that form. If I start extending, somehow I kind of lose my bearings. I think it might be a little bit like in sports, where there are fast-switch muscles and slow-switch muscles. My stories, I can understand them as a little toy that you wind up and you put it on the floor and it just goes under the coach. That I get. Beyond that, I'm a little lost.
次の部分も興味深かったです。出来る限り余分な表現は切り落としていくのが彼のスタイルのようです。短編が向いているのも、徹底的に無駄をそいでいく創作方法と無関係ではないかもしれませんね。 JEFFREY BROWN: Of course, a short story compresses the narrative. It compresses the story. You are also known for a compression of language. You leave a lot out.
GEORGE SAUNDERS: As much as I can.
JEFFREY BROWN: As much as you can, really?
GEORGE SAUNDERS: Usually I'll get maybe two-thirds more than I need and cut back. The assumption there is that if I can be more efficient, it's actually being more respectful to the reader, which then implies a greater intimacy with the reader.
We at HuffPost Good News can appreciate a well-executed emoticon.
Last week the QI Elves, who gather interesting facts for the BBC, tweeted a photo of what might be the earliest emoticons -- created in a time before computers.
January 19, 2009, 2:00 pm Is That an Emoticon in 1862? By JENNIFER 8. LEE Were they using emoticons back in the era of Abraham Lincoln?
There has been a lot of recent attention focused on the inspirational quality of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches. Perhaps those speeches inspired emoticons a century before they proliferated in the digital world.
A historical newspaper specialist at the digital archival company Proquest believes he has found an example of a sideways winking smiley face embedded in The New York Times transcript of an 1862 speech given by President Lincoln. Other historians are not so sure, saying the semicolon alongside a closed parenthesis is either a mistake or a misinterpretation of something that is perfectly grammatical for that era.
リンカーンのスピーチのトランスクリプトにあるとされている部分を説明したのが以下の部分です。(applause and laughter ;)とあるので；が間違って入っただけではないかという意見があるようなのです。
In the transcription of President Lincoln’s speech, which added comments about applause and shouts from the audience was this line:
“… there is no precedent for your being here yourselves, (applause and laughter ;) and I offer, in justification of myself and you, that I have found nothing in the Constitution against.”
Bryan Benilous, who works with historical newspapers at Proquest, said the team felt the “;)” after the word “laughter” was an emoticon, more than a century before emoticons became a widespread concept.
The Conclusion Dr. Fahlman, the Carnegie Mellon professor, still pushed back on the idea of an early emoticon. “I think if you took a random person off the street and showed them that, it would not be readily apparent to them,” he said. “I think people don’t notice it unless you put the nose in.” (Those of us with little noses are less beholden to the use of the hyphen as nose.) But perhaps the typesetter was having fun. “Maybe he was having his own little joke.”
Fred Shapiro, a researcher at Yale, initially rejected that it could be an emoticon. Then he noticed that on the “emoticon” Wikipedia page, there are 19th-century examples of emoticons (albeit vertical ones). ” I guess it’s plausible that this is a real emoticon, taking into account the parentheses and the Linotype,” he wrote.
Are we just seeing the the equivalent of the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich? Mr. Benilous said: “I can say this is unique. I scrolled through hundreds of results of pre-1900 “Applause and Laughter” references, and this is the only one I found with the semicolon parenthesis.”
He wrote in an e-mail message to City Room: “Ultimately, it is not just one typo but multiple typos that makes it more than a coincidence (spacing before and after, transposition, parenthesis as opposed to bracket). Considering this was all done by hand, it seems to be more intentional as opposed to a slip up typing or Microsoft Word autocorrect making the error.”
Perhaps the typesetter should have embedded “==|;o)>” and left no room for doubt.
日本関連で選ばれていたのは任天堂とソニーでした。Sony was Apple.と過去形で書かれているのが悲しいものがありますね。
Nintendo Has Seen More Ups and Downs Than Mario Himself By Chris KohlerEmail AuthorApril 16, 2013 | 6:30 am | Categories:Wired Over the past 20 years, the one constant in the videogame industry has been Nintendo. Formerly a maker of toys and playing cards, the Kyoto company entered the game business in the late ’70s and has been a fixture ever since. But its status in the industry has seen more ups and downs than Mario himself—dipping and peaking wildly as the company’s profile went from technological marvel to outdated junk and back again. A look, then, at the company’s relevance over time.
*********
SONY Michael V. Copeland In retrospect, Michael Bolton was the first sign that something was wrong with Sony. When the mullet-headed soft rocker’s album The One Thing dropped on Sony’s Columbia label in 1993, sales fell far below Bolton’s previous (inexplicably popular) efforts. It was the beginning of a long decline for Bolton—and Sony.
It’s hard to believe now, but for most of the ’80s, Sony led the world in innovation and design. Sony was Apple. Then the company set about systematically torpedoing its future—missing, misinterpreting, or just bollocksing up one tech trend after another.
Remember the phenomenon that was Napster and the spread of the MP3? Sony doesn’t. The company did come out with a digital music player in 1999. The problem: It didn’t play MP3s. The device worked only with proprietary Sony DRM called ATRAC. (後略)
任天堂とソニーが選ばれるのは想定内ですが、その中で意外だったのは絵文字がEmojiとして堂々とエントリーされていたことです。絵文字は欧米の携帯電話にも搭載されているようですね。英語にはemoticonという言葉がありますが、あのようなイラスト的な感じはないのでemojiという言葉が取り入れられたのかもしれませんね。 From 1862 to 2013: Tracking the Rise of the Humble Emoji By Christina BonningtonApril 16, 2013 | 6:30 am | Categories:Wired Creative, colorful, and sometimes perplexing, emoji add energy to SMS messages. These little illustrated characters popped up in the ’90s in Japan, where they enable cell phone users to write more efficiently than with complicated Japanese characters. Since making its way into mainstream Western culture, emoji fever has exploded. And if you send one to your mom, she’ll think it’s magic.
図解のようなものあり、1990s (^_^) Emoji start appearing on Japanese cell phones.と説明してあります。
今年の2月の出来事としても興味深いものがありました、Call me Ishmaelで始まるあの文学作品を絵文字に翻訳したものが米国の議会図書館に受領されたというのです。Call me Ishmaelを取り上げたばかりですが、まさかこういう形で再び取り上げるとは（苦笑）
Benenson’s Emoji Dick becomes first emoji novel accepted into the Library of Congress.
The Library of Congress welcomed its first ever emoji book into its collection. Yes, Emoji Dick tells Melville’s epic of obsessive whale hunting, Moby-Dick, exclusively in those Japanese emoticons that brighten up your little sister’s text messages.
Much like Captain Ahab, data engineer Fred Benenson embarked on an ambitious journey with his re-imagining of the 200,000-word epic. He hired Amazon Mechanical Turks to translate the book, and took to Kickstarter to raise the cash. In 2009, 83 backers helped the project surpass its $3,500 goal.
didn’t see this one coming.の表現は「こんなことが起きるなんて思ってもみなかった」というときに使えるので、覚えておくと便利かもしれません。
emoji Apparently a synonym for emoticon, emoji includes the prefix emo- from emotion and emoticon and the suffix -ji, which may come from ganji or kanji, which are the name for japanese and chinese picture words (like heiroglyphs). four distinct emoji include:
Farewell to the Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) By Catherine MayerApril 08, 2013 From 1964 to ’70, the Labour Party governed Britain, but when the Tories, against the odds, won the 1970 election, Edward Heath, the new Prime Minister, made her Secretary of State for Education and Science. After Heath lost power in 1974, she ran against him as party leader in 1975 and, to the astonishment of Britain’s famous chattering classes, was successful. In 1979, as the minority Labour government of James Callaghan floundered and Britain’s antediluvian labor unions visited their grievances on long-suffering voters, her party won a decisive victory. She secured two more terms of office, in 1983 and ’87, extending her majority in the House of Commons on both occasions, at the time an unprecedented feat in modern British political history.
ピンとこない部分はvisited their grievances on long-suffering voters（生活苦にあえぐ有権者に不満をぶつけた）ですが、ウィキペディアで調べて見ると以外にもあっさり解決しました。
In 1979, as the minority Labour government of James Callaghan floundered and Britain’s antediluvian labor unions visited their grievances on long-suffering voters, her party won a decisive victory.
visited their grievances on long-suffering votersというのは労働組合がストライキをして有権者に迷惑をかけたことで、ストライキが頻発した「不満の冬」をgrievancesという一語で表していたんですね。このような経緯が分かっていればピンとくるんでしょうけど。。。 この「不満の冬」は英語ではWinter of Discontentとなるそうで、オックスフォードの学習辞典にも載っていました。Yutaの目安ですが、OALDにも載っている歴史的事項は基本的な事柄であるのでしょう。
（ウィキペディア英語版） Winter of Discontent The Winter of Discontent refers to the winter of 1978–79 in the United Kingdom, during which there were widespread strikes by public sector trade unions demanding larger pay rises, following the ongoing pay caps of the Labour Party government led by James Callaghan against Trades Union Congress opposition to control inflation, during the coldest winter for 16 years. The phrase "Winter of Discontent" is from the opening line of William Shakespeare's Richard III.
（オックスフォード） winter of discontent a phrase first used by some British newspapers and politicians to describe the winter of 1978–9 in Britain, when there were many strikes and economic problems. The phrase was taken from the opening lines of Shakespeare’s play Richard III. It was used to suggest that people were not happy with the way the Labour government was running the country. The same phrase is now used to refer to any difficult political situation that occurs during the months of winter The problems in the power industry led to another winter of discontent.
オックスフォードにはa phrase first used by some British newspapers and politicians to describe the winter of 1978–9 in Britain, when there were many strikes and economic problems（一部の英国の新聞と政治家が最初に使ったフレーズで、英国の1978年から79年にかけての冬を表している。この時期にはたくさんのストライキと経済問題が起きていた）とありますね。また、この時期に限らず、冬の間に政治的な問題が起きたらこの表現が使われるともあります。
上記の動画でもNow is the winter of our discontentと語る映像がありましたが、シェイクスピアの『リチャード三世』の始まりの独白の部分です。
Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
It’s still unknown if the original actors will accept NBC’s deal, but the dream of “Friends” reunion is closer than ever!
下記の動画でも説明していますが、こういう噂は定期的に出てくるようです。それだけ、再開を望む期待が大きいということなんでしょうね。Friends' Reunion: The One That Started With a Rumorという動画タイトルはフレンズファンならすぐにピンとくるようになっています。フレンズのエピソードのタイトルはどれもThe One With The Rumorのように始まるので、それにかけているわけです。
Reports claimed that NBC confirmed a revival of the popular sitcom and it seems like the rumors started with KHITS, a radio station based in Tulsa, OK, Examiner.
On Sunday, April 7, KHITS posted an image with the iconic orange couch from Central Perk that reads, "Friends. The One With The Reunion. Thanksgiving 2014" with the caption, "This is the best Sunday news, evar [sic]!"
but I found that ultimately if you truly pour your heart into what you believe in — even if it makes you vulnerable — amazing things can and will happen. (でも分かったことは、最終的には、心から自分が信じるものに全力で取り組めば、たとえ批判をあびるようになったとしても、素晴らしいことを起こすことができるし、起きるものなの）
日本語でいう「全力」という言葉は、物理的な体力だけでなく、気持ちも込める意味合いも入っているので、put your heart into …はなかなかの表現ではないでしょうか。スタバのCEOもPour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Timeという本を随分前に出しましたね。
So after seeing this clip, I look back over the work I've done in the last 14 years and many things come to mind — most importantly, how bad my hair was in the first 'Harry Potter' film!
But the cool thing is that you have supported me in all of my awkwardness and allowed me to grow into the kind of actress and the kind of person that I hope to be so thank you very much for that
Becoming yourself is really hard and confusing, and it's a process.
I was completely the eager beaver in school, I was the girl in the front of the class who was the first person to put her hand up, and it's often not cool to be the person that puts themself out there, and I've often gotten teased mercilessly,
but I found that ultimately if you truly pour your heart into what you believe in — even if it makes you vulnerable — amazing things can and will happen.
So I’m so honored to be receiving this.And I promise to keep making the best work that I can for all of you. Thank you.
エマのスピーチでeager beaverという表現を知りませんでした。動画アニメにあったas busy as a beaverという表現もあるようにビーバーには熱心な、忙しいというイメージがあるようですね。ただ、エマのスピーチでもそうですが、あまりいい含みではないようです。英和ルミナスには[時にけなして]とありますし、アメリカンヘリテージの例文もいい意味で使われていません。
（オックスフォード） eager beaver noun (informal) an enthusiastic person who works very hard
（英和ルミナス） eager beaver 《略式》 [時にけなして] 仕事熱心な人, 仕事の虫
（アメリカンヘリテージ） eager beaver n. Informal One that is exceptionally, often excessively industrious or zealous: "The eager beavers of industry seldom reach their potential, much less rise to the top" (Newsweek).
Becoming yourself is really hard and confusing, and it's a process.（自分らしさを出すことは、つらく、混乱を招くもので、時間をかけて実現するものなの）と語っていた部分も共感できますね。
ANALYSIS AIR DATE: April 22, 2011 Questions Linger Over 'Three Cups of Tea' Author Mortenson's Tales, Charity SUMMARY "Three Cups of Tea'" author Greg Mortenson has denied allegations stemming from a "60 Minutes" report that parts of his best-selling book were fabricated and his organization has misused funds. Margaret Warner discusses the scandal with Outside Magazine's Alex Heard and the American Institute of Philanthropy's Daniel Borochoff.
60ミニッツの論点はウィキペディアが以下にまとめてくれています。
（ウィキペディア） 60 Minutes made the following allegations: The events recounted in Three Cups of Tea - Mortenson getting lost on the way down from K2, stumbling into Korphe, and promising to build a school - did not take place.[26] The story recounted in Stones into Schools about Mortenson's capture by the Taliban did not occur. His purported kidnappers state he was a guest, and the Taliban did not exist in the country at that time.[27] Schools that the Central Asia Institute claims to have built either have not been built, have been built and abandoned, are currently used for other purposes such as grain storage, or have not been supported by CAI after they were built.[26] The amount of money Central Asia Institute spends on advertising Mortenson's books and paying the travel expenses of his speaking tours, including hiring private jets, is excessive relative to other comparable charitable institutions.[26]
Genius Communication EnglishⅠではどのように取り上げているのでしょうか。この本ができたのが2012年あたりのようなので、2011年の騒動によって別のNGOを探すという選択肢もあったと思うんです。それでもあえて取り上げたということは、このような騒動も含めて教えているということでしょうか。幸い、今も団体がありますから、世間で冷たい扱いを受けても、初心を薄れずに取り組むことの大切さを伝えようとしているのでしょうか。
例えば、この団体はパキスタンの少女Malalaさんが襲撃されたときも支援の呼びかけをしていました。
October 15, 2012 – Support for Malala The Pakistani Taliban’s deplorable attempt to kill 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai, an advocate for girls’ education, has become the modern-day shot heard ‘round the world.
By seeking to silence this brave ninth-grader in Pakistan’s volatile Swat Valley, the Taliban gunmen inadvertently managed to do just the opposite: They turned up the volume on calls to educate the girls of the world.
The world now knows that Malala was critically wounded when Taliban fighters boarded a school van. The gunmen asked which of the girls was Malala, and then opened fire. Another girl and a teacher were injured, too.
“Our prayers are with Malala and her family,” Central Asia Institute co-founder Greg Mortenson said Sunday in a phone interview from Tajikistan. “Her story is heartbreaking. But it’s important to remember that Malala is just one of many. Scores of students and teachers risk their lives every day in support of girls’ education in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
Super-Frog Saves Tokyo But for one man, the struggle is deeper BY HARUKI MURAKAMITRANSLATED BY JAY RUBINILLUSTRATED BY FURI FURI Katagiri found a giant frog waiting for him in his apartment. It was powerfully built, standing over six feet tall on its hind legs. A skinny little man no more than five foot three, Katagiri was overwhelmed by the frog's imposing bulk.
"Call me 'Frog,'" said the frog in a clear, strong voice.
Katagiri stood rooted in the doorway, unable to speak.
"Don't be afraid. I'm not here to hurt you. Just come and close the door. Please."
Briefcase in his right hand, grocery bag with fresh vegetables and canned salmon cradled in his left arm, Katagiri didn't dare move.
例えば「左手に野菜と鮭の缶詰の入ったスーパーの紙袋」がgrocery bag with fresh vegetables and canned salmonとなっているところのやり取りを読むと、vegetable=野菜でよいとすることはできない、外国語学習とは単語の一対一対応ではないことがうかがえます。 ルービン あのね、freshを入れないとイメージが湧かないんですよ。 柴田 そうか、アメリカではvegetablesって言うと冷凍食品の四角に切り刻んだ野菜とか思い浮かべちゃうんだね。日本語で「野菜」と言えば、四角に切った冷凍人参なんかじゃなくて当然キャベツやレタスといった生野菜だけどね。それでfreshが要るわけか。
さらには主語や疑問形か平叙文かのニュアンスの違いについて語っているところです。
Katagiri still had his briefcase jammed under his arm. Somebody's playing a joke on me, he thought. Somebody's rigged himself up in this huge frog costume just to have fun with me. But he knew, as he watched Frog pour boiling water into the teapot, humming all the while, that these had to be the limbs and movements of a real frog. Frog set a cup of green tea in front of Katagiri and poured another one for himself.
Q 先生、そこのところでちょっと。Somebody’s playing a joke on meって言い方は「誰かが」やっているっていうよりも、むしろ「冗談だろこれは？」って思っている自分の方に意識が行っていると思うんですよ。 柴田 それは鋭いな。 Q これが英語の原文であったら、somebodyを意識して訳す必要はないのでは？ 柴田 つまり日本語で「これは冗談だ」と言うときでも、英語ではThis is a jokeと言う以外にSomebody’s playing a joke on meといった言い方もあるだろうってことね。まったくそのとおりですね。だからこれは「これは冗談に違いない」というような訳でもいいだろってことです。そういえば村上さんの原文でも、「これは何かのいたずらなのだろうか？」となっていて「誰かが」とはかいていませんよね。
ルービン そう、インパクトがまったくない。それに、Super-Frogだと、ちょっとしたヒントみたいなものを読者に与えることになるんですよ。どういう話であるとか、文章の調子であるとか、諸々の要素を匂わせるような感じになる。 ところで、この”Call me “Frog””という言い方、みなさんんは何か思いつきました？これ、『白鯨』の書き出しのもじりなんですね。Moby-Dickの書き出しの、有名な一文です- Call me Ishmael. ”Call me “Frog””という言い回しは、それを彷彿とさせるんです。
『カエルくんとくじら』という記事タイトルにさせていただいたのはこのためでした。 オーソンウエルズとイギリス女優ティルダ・スウィントンのCall me Ishmaelが以下です。確かに「吾輩 は猫である。名前はまだ無い。」とか「国境の長いトンネルを抜けると雪国であった。」とかあれば日本人ならすぐに何の作品か想像できますね。
翻訳家が選ぶ洋書この１冊でMoby-Dickが紹介された時の抜粋です。 Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely-- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
この中でYutaが読み終わったばかりの本をご紹介します。2004年のイラク戦争を舞台にしたKevin Powers のThe Yellow Birdsです。この本はニューヨークタイムズの2012年の10冊に選ばれたり、National Book AwardのFinalist（ただし受賞はせず）に選ばれたり高い評価を得ていますが、昨年発売されたばかりなのに21世紀の21冊に選ばれるとは。。。先ほどの記事でご紹介したデビッドミッチェルも褒めています。
David Mitchell: By the Book Published: October 18, 2012 The author of “Cloud Atlas” would like to drink dodgy Crimean wine with Chekhov and play a few rounds of Anglo-Russian Scrabble.
What was the last truly great book you read? The Icelander Halldor Laxness’s “Independent People,” which I read last year on a trip to the country. Even in chapters where nothing happens, it happens brilliantly. I thought Kevin Powers’s “The Yellow Birds” was shot through with greatness, too. If “a truly great book” implies thickness and scope, then maybe it doesn’t qualify, but either way Powers has written a superlative novel.
There is a part where Bartle reflects that his grandfather's war -- quote -- "had destination and purpose." And then here there is a passage where you write: "We'd drive them out. We always had. We'd kill them. They'd shoot us and blow off our limbs and run into the hills and wadis, back into the alleys and dusty villages. Then they'd come back, and we'd start over."
KEVIN POWERS: Right.
And some of that comes from, you know, as I was writing the book, you know, I stayed aware of what was happening in Iraq, in some of the places that I had been. And I would see, for instance, in Tal Afar, where I served part of my tour, it seemed as if every year there was a new battle. And it did. It does seem strange, and, absolutely, absurd is probably an appropriate word to describe it.
The war tried to kill us in the spring. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer. When we pressed onward through exhaustion, its eyes were white and open in the dark. While we ate, the war fasted, fed by its own deprivation. It made love and gave birth and spread through fire.
Then, in summer, the war tried to kill us as the heat blanched all color from the plains. The sun pressed into our skin, and the war sent its citizens rustling into the shade of white buildings. It cast a white shade on everything, like a veil over our eyes. It tried to kill us every day, but it had not succeeded. Not that our safety was preordained. We were not destined to survive. The fact is we were not destined at all. The war would take what it could get. It was patient. It didn’t care about objectives, or boundaries, whether you were loved by many or not at all. While I slept that summer, the war came to me in my dreams and showed me its sole purpose: to go on, only to go on. And I knew the war would have its way.
David Mitchell: By the Book Published: October 18, 2012 The author of “Cloud Atlas” would like to drink dodgy Crimean wine with Chekhov and play a few rounds of Anglo-Russian Scrabble. You spent many years living in Japan. Were there Japanese writers you particularly admire you discovered while there? Any books in particular that gave you insight into the country and its people?
Haruki Murakami, probably the most famous living Japanese person, is hardly a “discovery,” but it was a pleasure to read him in his natural habitat. Shusaku Endo was perhaps the closest thing to a “national conscience” writer (in the Amos Oz mold, say) to emerge in Japan. His historical novel “Silence” is wonderful. I have a soft spot for Junichiro Tanizaki, too. His earlier, Poe-drenched work is good fun, but his masterpiece, “The Makioka Sisters,” serves — Austen-like — as a sort of Lonely Planet guide to the matrix of social obligations which people in Japan still navigate. For a crash course in ultranationalism and the pathology of obsession, Yukio Mishima is the man, even if his humorlessness can wear you down. (The end of his Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is surely one of the best final scenes in the history of the novel.) To mention the war, Akira Yoshimura’s “One Man’s Justice” and Saiichi Maruya’s “Grass for My Pillow” both examine Japan’s bruised relationship with its recent history. Sawako Ariyoshi’s “The Doctor’s Wife” is an excellent historical novel on the status of women in Japan.
金曜日に発売された新刊について海外メディアも報じてくれています。どれも「不思議なタイトルだけしか知らされていないのに熱心なファンが買い求めている」という基調ですが、読み比べて見ると村上春樹のファンの読者を表現するにも、Haruki Murakami fans / Throngs of eager Japanese readers / hundreds of Haruki Murakami devoteesなどいろいろあるのだなと実感できます。タイトルについては例えばAP通信がThe original title reads just as mysteriously.と補足しているように英語のタイトルでは意味不明だが、日本語でも不思議なタイトルなんですよと説明しています（笑）
Japanese readers flocking to buy Haruki Murakami book with long, mysterious title By Associated Press, Published: April 12 TOKYO — Japanese readers are flocking to buy Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, even though almost nothing has been disclosed about the book by one of the nation’s most respected and commercially successful writers.
The novel that went on sale Friday is the first in three years for the writer frequently mentioned as a Nobel Prize contender. It’s available only in Japanese for now.
Publisher Bungeishunju said first printing totals half a million copies for “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and the Year of His Pilgrimage.” The original title reads just as mysteriously.
“We did not want to give any preconceptions to the reader,” said Tomoya Tanimura of Bungeishunju, which has set up a special online site that has little more than the title and that Murakami is the author.
The secrecy seemed to matter little to his fans.
********
Haruki Murakami fans queue overnight for latest novel Fans and journalists stayed up all night to get their hands on Murakami's tale of 'loss and isolation' in the shadow of the tsunami, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Alison Flood guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 April 2013 15.01 BST Nothing had been revealed but the mysterious title, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, but that didn't stop hundreds of Haruki Murakami devotees queuing at midnight outside Tokyo bookshops last night to get their hands on the cult novelist's latest title.
Newspapers and broadcasters rushed to post reviews of the book, which had been kept closely under wraps. Fans and journalists stayed up all night to get to grips with Murakami's first major novel in three years, with early reviews proving positive.
JAPANESE fans of Haruki Murakami celebrated the release of the bestselling writer's new novel yesterday.
In keeping with the reclusive author's tradition, readers were told nothing of the book's plot in the lead-up to its release and no advance reviews were published.
That did little to stifle demand, though, with the publisher printing an initial hardback run of 500,000 - proclaimed as a record - and Amazon taking 20,000 pre-orders. Fans queued outside bookstores in Tokyo on Thursday night for the midnight release.
The novel bears the rather unwieldy title Shikisai wo Motanai Tasaki Tsukuru to Kare no Junrei no Toshi, which has been translated as Colourless Tsukuru Tasaki and the Year of His Pilgrimage.
The novel deals with Murakami's traditional themes of alienation and loneliness as it recounts the story of how the lead character was ostracised by four of his friends from high school.
Throngs of eager Japanese readers are rushing to buy celebrated writer Haruki Murakami's latest novel, despite knowing almost nothing about the new book.
The mysteriously titled Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and the Year of His Pilgrimage officially went on sale in Japan Friday, with flocks of Murakami devotees queuing outside bookstores overnight to be the first to get their hands on the novel at midnight.
The fans were buying on Murakami's reputation alone, as the publisher released few details besides the title of the novel in advance of its sale.
Thatcher's death prompts chart success for Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead Propelled by a Facebook campaign, song from soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz is number 10 in midweek charts Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 April 2013 13.17 BST The death of Margaret Thatcher has made an unlikely top 10 hit out of Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead, 74 years after it first appeared in the soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz.
Propelled by a campaign on Facebook, the song is number 10 in the midweek charts, published on Wednesday, and is on course to be one of the top three sellers by the end of the week.
There has been a surge in downloads of the song, which has been appropriated by the former prime minister's critics since her death on Monday, aged 87.
『オズの魔法使い』は最近でも関連作が上映されたり、カルチャーの定番ですね。ドロシーの仲間として、知恵がない案山子、心を持たないブリキ男、臆病なライオンがIf I only had a brain/ If I only had a heart / If I only had a neverを歌っている場面をご紹介します。
下記のような韻を踏んだところも歌ならではの楽しみですね。
Lion) I'd be brave as a blizzard. Tin Man) I'd be gentle as a lizard. Scarecrow). I'd be clever as a gizzard.
(Scarecrow) I could wile away the hours Conferrin' with the flowers Consultin' with the rain And my head I'd be scratchin' While my thoughts were busy hatchin' If I only had a brain
I'd unravel any riddle For any individ'le In trouble or in pain
(Dorothy) With the thoughts you'd be thinkin' You could be another Lincoln If you only had a brain
(Scarecrow) Oh, I would tell you why The ocean's near the shore I could think of things I never thunk before And then I'd sit and think some more
I would not be just a nuffin' My head all full of stuffin' My heart all full of pain I would dance and be merry Life would be a ding-a-derry If I only had a brain
Lyrics to If I Only Had A Heart : (Tin Man) When a man's an empty kettle He should be on his mettle And yet I'm torn apart Just because I'm presumin' That I could be a human If I only had a heart
I'd be tender, I'd be gentle And awful sentimental Regarding love and art I'd be friends with the sparrows And the boy that shoots the arrows If I only had a heart
Picture me a balcony Above a voice sings low
(Snow White) Wherefore art thou, Romeo?
(Tin Man) I hear a beat, how sweet!
Just to register emotion, jealousy, devotion And really feel the part I could stay young and chipper And I'd lock it with a zipper If I only had a heart
IF I ONLY HAD A NERVE by The Wizard of Oz Cast Lion Yeh, it's sad, believe me, Missy, When you're born to be a sissy Without the vim and verve. But I could show my prowess, be a lion not a mou-ess If I only had the nerve. I'm afraid there's no denyin' I'm just a dandelion, A fate I don't deserve. I'd be brave as a blizzard.... Tin Man I'd be gentle as a lizard.... Scarecrow I'd be clever as a gizzard.... Dorothy If the Wizard is a Wizard who will serve. Scarecrow Then I'm sure to get a brain, Tin Man a heart, Dorothy a home, Lion the nerve!
![Wired [US] April 2013 (単号)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51crKaO3uwL._SL160_.jpg)
![The Economist [UK] April 26, 2013 (単号)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512iPZmNGoL._SL160_.jpg)
