Bipartisan Effort Builds on Momentum of National Too Small to Fail Initiative to Raise Awareness About Early Learning and Highlight Effective, Every Day Actions That Increase Vocabulary and Improve Social-Emotional Development
In celebration of its one-year-anniversary, and in collaboration with the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy along with other bipartisan leaders, Too Small to Fail shared video messages last night from President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Cindy McCain and Senator Bill Frist. Each video urges parents and caregivers to talk, read and sing to their young children every day in order to build vocabulary and help close the word gap. The videos include personal messages from the bipartisan leaders, and highlight the essential role that parents play in boosting their young children’s brains and vocabulary development with simple every day actions.
“We can be our children's first teachers using everyday moments – singing to them while pushing their stroller or telling them a story while they bathe – to build their brains and expand their vocabularies,” says Secretary Clinton in the video. “The simple truth is this: Talking is teaching. And parents have the power to unlock their babies' imaginations and open their minds so that they can better succeed later in life.”
Talking is teachingとクリントンが語っているように、親が子供に話しかけるだけで、語彙力が増えるという研究があるようです。
The more words kids hear, the more words they learn. Talking about their day, reading books, singing and asking questions help children learn. Talking is Teaching.
The lightning rod for the latest storm was a fairly benign talk given in New York this month by New York Times environment writer Andrew Revkin on the difficulty of applying numerical targets and goals, on carbon emissions say, to real-world behaviour. It might have gone largely unnoticed, except that Revkin included in the talk’s title the idea of a ‘good’ Anthropocene — the informal name for the period, beginning at the Industrial Revolution, in which humans have substantially altered Earth’s ecosystems. To place the words ‘good’ and ‘Anthropocene’ together, even with the former in quotation marks, is heresy to some. In Scientific American on 19 June, the Australian ethicist Clive Hamilton delivered a broadside against those who argue that human ingenuity, not behaviour change, is the best response to rising carbon emissions. “Such unbounded optimism is dangerous, wishful thinking,” he wrote, because it plays into the hands of those who would protect the status quo, whatever the environmental consequences.
Perhaps there is more to this than division along the optimism–pessimism axis; whether someone is the sort of person who sees an atmosphere half-full or half-empty of carbon dioxide. As is made clear in a useful report published this week by the UCL Policy Commission on Communicating Climate Science in London, public discussion of climate change has deeper psychological roots. It is “as much about what sort of world we wish to live in, and hence about ethics and values, as it is about material risks to human wellbeing”.
The revolutionary meaning of Earth-system science is lost on the ecopragmatists. In reality, the arrival of the new epoch represents not merely the further spread of human influence across the globe but a fundamental shift in the relationship between humans and the Earth system—one in which human activity now accelerates, decelerates and distorts the great cycles that make the planet a dynamic entity. The radical distinctiveness of the Anthropocene lies in the fact that humans have become a novel “force of nature,” one that is shaping the geologic evolution of the planet. So far-reaching is the impact of modern humans that esteemed palaeoclimatologist Wally Broecker has suggested that we have not entered a new geologic epoch, a relatively minor event on the geologic time scale, but a new era—the Anthropozoic—on a par in Earth history with the development of multicellular life.
Some climate science deniers believe only God can change the climate; ecopragmatists, by contrast, see humans as “the god species.” Here is what the god species and this kind of thinking are certain to give us: an atmosphere with 500 ppm of CO2 (probably closer to 700 ppm) and a climate that is hot, sticky and chaotic. It will indeed take omnipotence to fix the problem without calamity. For those who prefer orthodox climate science, such unbounded optimism is dangerous, wishful thinking.
同じく社説に紹介されていたUCL Policy Commission on Communicating Climate Scienceのレポートは以下のリンクで読めます。科学者と一般市民との建設的な対話の必要性を訴えています。
Summary of main recommendations: Communication There is a need for the general public and climate scientists to engage in constructive dialogue, and for climate scientists to convey a big picture that provides a context for the discussion of new scientific results and their consequences. The authentic and personal voice of climate scientists in this process is essential for the general public to establish trust in the findings of climate science.
Andrew Revkinのブログにアクセスしてみると、論争していることがわかります。Revkinに肯定的な立場を紹介しているポストはこちら。
Six Extinctionを書いたElizabeth Kolbertの以下のツイートを紹介しています。
Elizabeth Kolbert @ElizKolbert 2 words that probably should not be used in sequence: "good" & "anthropocene." Very smart essay by @CliveCHamilton: http://bit.ly/1ihSVqG
ここで注意したいのは、ここでの議論は「地球環境問題はない」というようなものではないということです。Natureの社説の書き出しが以下なんですが、the attitudes of those who agree that there is a serious problem to deal withとあるように、地球環境問題は認めていて、地球環境問題という深刻な問題にどう取り組むかという態度で議論が分かれています。
Winston Churchill called it the enemy within. Leonardo da Vinci noted that: “As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.” If there is one word that sums up current attitudes to the climate problem and society’s response to it, then it is ‘divided’. And that describes just the attitudes of those who agree that there is a serious problem to deal with.
地球環境問題で一番過激な立場は、映画『ノア 約束の舟』でノアが苦悩した「人類は地球にいるべきではない」というWorld Without Usという考えでしょうか。また『トランセンデンス』の人工知能のように、人類を凌駕する存在が生まれれば、人類の存在など取るに足らないものになるかもしれません。
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.
We Are The Deadという英語表現を見て、 発音が好きな人だと、deadの語末は「ド」じゃないんだよという説明になるでしょうか。 語法が好きな人だと、the 形容詞で名詞になるから、ここでは「死者」という意味になるよと説明するでしょうか。 文化背景知識が好きな人だと、この言葉はカナダ人のジョン・マクレーの書いたIn Flanders fieldsという詩の一節。この詩はポピーの花と共に第一次世界大戦の追悼記念日で欠かせないものとなっているみたいと説明するのでしょうか。
カナダや英国の人だと、We are the deadという表現を目にすれば、In Flanders fieldsという詩や第一次世界大戦を連想するのではないでしょうか。。
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
カナダのサイトでは、著名人がこの詩を読み上げているサイトがありました。
Flanders Fields In a few short lines of poetry, Canadian physician Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae captured the futility of the Great War. We asked prominent Canadians to recite the poem as an act of remembrance. We encourage you to record your own version and share it using the hashtag #inflandersfields.
Virtual Gramophone by Dean Tweed, Originally published: May 30, 2014 Radio was in its infancy during the First World War. It was crucial to battlefield communications and maritime navigation but it would be the 1920s before radio sets in the home and public broadcasting revolutionized popular culture in Europe and North America. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t popular music. There were musical halls. There was sheet music. There were after-dinner sing-alongs. In the wealthiest households there were hand-cranked phonographs playing the latest hits on celluloid cylinders or, the height of fashion, gramophones spinning tunes on flat, grooved disks. Manufacturers had even begun producing portable players for the men in the trenches. Music hall performers such as Marie Lloyd and George Formby set the tone of the times with upbeat, comic and risque numbers. Recruitment songs were everywhere in 1914 but, as the war dragged on and the death toll mounted, they were pushed aside by nostalgic laments for home and comicly bitter takes on the futility of war and the ineptitude of officers. Have a listen to our selection of First World War songs from 1914.
We are the deadに戻りますが、オーウェルの1984でも使われている表現のようで、David Bowieの歌はオーウェルの影響の方が大きいかもしれません。
World War 1 Centenary World War I changed everything. From new countries to literature, from tanks to treaties and from flamethrowers to fashion, the conflict is still writ large on our lives 100 years on.
It gave birth to violent dictators and their ideologies but extended the electoral franchise to millions. It ushered in the era of mechanised warfare whilst laying the foundations for modern medicine. Empires crumbled, borders were redrawn, art movements flowered and women won the vote (even if you still had to be over 30 in some countries). Poets committed some of the most memorable imagery in modern verse to paper while a generation of writers would descend on Europe’s war-torn cities and fashion a new style of literature.
After millions of men gave their lives on the battlefields of Europe, it was doubly tragic that a deadly influenza would claim up to 50 million more deaths in the conflict’s immediate aftermath. World War I has given us daylight saving time, Dada, triage, chemical weapons, plastic surgery, fascism and, of course, another war. It invented new forms of killing and unearthed miraculous ways to save lives.
Wall Street Journal editors from around the world have selected c that still shape our lives today. History is always open to interpretation, but as the war to end all wars retreats from living history, it feels more important than ever to remember its impact. It is everywhere you look.
日本関連では林由佳記者が日本の軍国主義について書いていました。
Japanese Militarism by Yuka Hayashi The seed of Japanese militarism—which led to atrocities that still haunt East Asian diplomacy—firmly took root during World War I, historians say.
In the lead-up to the war, as the Western world focused on the tensions in the Balkans, Japan had been expanding its influence in East Asia. It had gained control of a large swath of Manchuria as a result of its victories in the First Sino-Japanese War (1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). In 1910, it formally placed Korea under its colonial rule.
World War I solidified Japan’s position among the ranks of colonial powers, previously made up of Western nations.
最後に現在の日本の状況に簡単に触れて締めています。
Today, as China’s military expansion and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions fuel tensions in East Asia, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is again seeking to give its military a greater role by reinterpreting the constitution, a move viewed suspiciously, in the light of history, by China and South Korea.
英語学習者として興味が惹かれるトピックはWords and Phrasesでしょうか。第一次世界大戦がきっかけとなって使われるようになった表現を紹介してくれています。
Words and Phrases by Sarah Sloat Even those who consider themselves untouched by World War I experience its legacy every time they talk about “acing” an interview, feeling “shell-shocked,” or seeing a movie that was a “dud.” Dozens of words handed down from the war have become entrenched in the English language
“There weren’t a great number of new words invented, but there was a ‘melting pot’ in the war that helped words spread,” says Julian Walker, a linguist and the co-author, with military historian Peter Doyle, of “Trench Talk: Words of the First World War.” Words from other languages entered English, and regional words jumped borders.
On the front, British soldiers mixed with foreign troops, inevitably exchanging words and slang. “Cushy,” a word used today to mean comfortable, privileged or plush, entered English in World War I via Indian troops, for whom it meant “pleasant.” From American allies, the British learned to put miscreants in the “cooler,” and from Canadians they learned to “swipe” food, Mr. Walker says.
French words trickled in too. “Camouflage” was practically unused in English before the war, but soon bested whatever English had to offer.”Souvenir” ousted “keepsake,” and “morale” usurped “moral.”
British troops also mixed with each other, and some words earned their place in the modern tongue when war propelled them over regional barriers. This was especially true after 1916, when conscription was introduced in the U.K., Mr. Walker notes.
One word that caught on was “binge,” used in the English Midlands county of Lincolnshire before the war to describe a drinking bout. Today it’s used globally to mean overindulgence—in whiskey, doughnuts or shopping. Since the advent of video-on-demand, there’s even binge-watching.
現在でも普通に使われるようになった語がある一方で、第一次世界大戦を連想させる表現もあるようで、その一つがno man’s landです。英英辞典では普通名詞として紹介されていますが、ネイティブ特に英国の人は大戦を感じ取る表現なのでしょうか。 Similarly, one of the phrases most associated with World War I—no man’s land—was around well before 1914. According to Mr. Walker, it was used in medieval times for the area outside London’s city walls, but in the war came to mean unconquered territory.
“Some words that were used for centuries are now considered World War I words because we so associate them with the front,” he adds.
Sue Graftonという推理作家がA is for Alibiのような作品を出しているんですね。今はV is for Vengenceまできているようです。さすがに日本語タイトルでは関連性はなくなってしまっています。
アリバイのA A Is for Alibi 泥棒のB B Is for Burglar 死体のC C Is for Corpse 欺しのD D Is for Deadbeat 証拠のE E Is for Evidence 逃亡者のF F Is for Fugitive 探偵のG G Is for Gumshoe 殺人のH H Is for Homicide 無実のI I Is for Innocent 裁きのJ J Is for Judgment 殺害者のK K Is for Killer 無法のL L Is for Lawless 悪意のM M Is for Malice 縛り首のN N Is for Noose アウトローのO O Is for Outlaw 危険のP P Is for Peril 獲物のQ Q Is for Quarry ロマンスのR R Is for Ricochet
可愛いものに注目してしまうのは人間の性。でも、そんな中、tyranny of the cuteに立ち向かいは虫類の保護を訴えかけている方もいるようです。最初の都議の話はこじつけかもしれませが、National Geographicのニュースレターをご紹介します。
Not All Endangered Species Are Cute and Fluffy Ugly Animals Need Love Too
Roly-poly pandas may get all the attention, but they’re not the only ones that need our help: scientists and animal advocates warn that we’re losing more unique species to extinction every day. Explore our photo gallery of fuzzy bats, see video of 800-pound fish, follow the mysterious manta ray, and get to know the World Cup armadillo. Find out why National Geographic Explorer Lucy Cooke battles the “tyranny of the cute,” and how some animals are adapting to climate change. But can they change quickly enough?
Quick! Which species pulls at your heartstrings—a tiger cub or an algae-covered sloth? A panda or a toad? A lion or a dung beetle? When it comes to emotional attachment, research funding, global popularity, and conservation support, the fluffier your fur and the bigger your eyes, the better your chances—unless zoologist Lucy Cooke has a vote. She's on a one-woman crusade to show the world why some of the most unlovable animals are actually the most interesting and deserving of our attention, study, and protection. Cooke's popular blogs, online videos, films, and TV programs bring her trademark humor and quirky storytelling style to a serious message: If we only care for the best known and best loved species, other enormously crucial parts of the web of life could vanish forever. With her unconventional attitude, she leverages the Internet to reach a new audience that more traditional wildlife programming has yet to tap. "My goal is to preach to the unconverted," says Cooke. "A lot of conservation messages are difficult to hear; they make people feel guilty. I think humor is the sugar coating that helps people swallow the pill. If you manage to make someone laugh while you tell them something important, they'll stick around and listen to more."
Saving the Creepsのcreepは「はって進む動物」＝は虫類のことを指しているんでしょうけど、人に使うと「陰気なやつ」「キモいやつ」という意味になってすまうようです。Creepと聞くとRadioheadの曲がついつい浮かびます。
（オックスフォード） creep [countable] (informal) a person that you dislike very much and find very unpleasant He's a nasty little creep!
DR. PAMELA HIGH: You know, what reading does for very young children is, it gives them a time when they pretty much have the undivided attention of their parents or their caregivers. It’s a real one-on-one opportunity for children to communicate with their parents and parents to communicate with their children. You know, we know that the more words that are in a child’s language world, the more words they will learn, and the stronger their language skills are when they reach kindergarten, the more prepared they are to be able to read, and the better they read, the more likely they will graduate from high school. So, children with very poor reading proficiency by the time they enter the fourth grade are the ones at greatest risk to not graduate from high school and then not be able to be successful — successful in their own life course, economically, for example.
In between dispensing advice on breast-feeding and immunizations, doctors will tell parents to read aloud to their infants from birth, under a new policy that the American Academy of Pediatrics will announce on Tuesday.
With the increased recognition that an important part of brain development occurs within the first three years of a child’s life, and that reading to children enhances vocabulary and other important communication skills, the group, which represents 62,000 pediatricians across the country, is asking its members to become powerful advocates for reading aloud, every time a baby visits the doctor.
ここでクリントンが絡んできます。クリントン財団も絡んだToo Small to Failという取り組みがあるようで、ちょうど今週の火曜日に新たな取り組みをヒラリーさん自ら発表したようなのです。
Dr. Navsaria is the medical director of the Wisconsin chapter of Reach Out and Read, a nonprofit literacy group that enlists about 20,000 pediatricians nationwide to give out books to low-income families. The group is working with Too Small to Fail, a joint effort between the nonprofit Next Generation and the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation that is aimed at closing the word gap.
At the annual Clinton Global Initiative America meeting in Denver on Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce that Scholastic, the children’s book publisher, will donate 500,000 books to Reach Out and Read. Too Small to Fail is also developing materials to distribute to members of the American Academy of Pediatrics to help them emphasize the read-aloud message to parents.
American Academy of Pediatricsのウエブサイトでこの取り組みについてプレスリリースを出していました。
American Academy of Pediatrics, Reach Out and Read, and Scholastic Inc. working with Too Small to Fail to equip parents with tools to promote early literacy and vocabulary development Denver— At the fourth annual Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America meeting in Denver, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a new collaborative effort of Too Small to Fail, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Scholastic Inc. and Reach Out and Read to raise awareness among parents about early language development. For the first time the AAP will promote early literacy—beginning from an infant's very first days—as an "essential" component of primary care visits. Through this commitment, the partners will ensure that doctors, parents and caregivers have the information, tools and books they need to promote reading out loud to children every day starting in infancy.
The effort takes a multi-pronged approach toward equipping parents with the best tools to ensure that their children are prepared to learn as they enter school:
Too Small to Fail and the AAP—an organization representing 62,000 pediatricians—will share messages across their networks and media platforms about the importance of talking, reading out loud and singing to children from birth in order to build vocabulary and promote healthy brain development.
To jump start the partnership, Scholastic has donated 500,000 new, age-appropriate children's books for distribution through Reach Out and Read, the non-profit organization that works with 20,000 medical providers nationwide to promote early reading and give books to families at pediatric visits.
Reach Out and Read will also distribute a toolkit to be developed by the AAP, with support from Too Small to Fail, which will equip pediatricians with resources to educate parents on how to use everyday activities to improve communication with their infants and toddlers.
Let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. . . . （アメリカ国内における平和と自由に対するわれわれの態度を再検討しましょう。アメリカ社会の質と精神は、海外でのわれわれの努力を正当化し、支えるものでなければなりません）
イントネーションや強調によって文の意味が変わる好例がありました。インタビューする人のthe most importantとインタビューに答える人のthe most importantはニュアンスが異なっています。
ZAKARIA: You say that 50 years ago Kennedy delivered what you describe as the most important speeches any American president has ever delivered. SACHS: I think it is the most important speech of the modern presidency. 50年前ケネディは、あなたの説明によれば歴代大統領の中で最も重要なスピーチをしたそうですね。 現代の大統領でこれこそが最も重要なスピーチだと考えています。
動画全体のスクリプト ZAKARIA: You say that 50 years ago Kennedy delivered what you describe as the most important speeches any American president has ever delivered. SACHS: I think it is the most important speech of the modern presidency. It was a commencement address at American University. It was 50 years ago just now. And it said there's a way to make peace with the Soviet Union. It was so compelling that Nikita Khruschchev, Kennedy's counterpart, heard the speech, first stopped the jamming of it so the Russian Soviet people could hear the speech, had it printed in full in "Pravda" and "Izvestiya" and said to the U.S. envoy of the time, Averell Harriman, called him and said that is the finest speech by an American president since FDR, "I want to make peace with that man." Seven weeks later, the partial nuclear test ban treaty. And what's striking is, that the "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, which was just a few days after this was part of the strategy. It was not just an isolated event, it was an incredibly well thought, brilliantly led strategy by President Kennedy to pull the U.S. and the Soviet Union back from the brink of nuclear annihilation, which of course was the brink at the Cuban missile crisis. And Kennedy and Khrushchev felt after having that near death experience, and not only that we all had in the world, but that they had as the two leaders, felt something different has to be done. Kennedy took incredible risks and pulled it off.
First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. 第一に、平和に対するわれわれの態度を再検討しましょう。あまりに多くの人が、平和の実現は不可能であり、非現実的であると考えています。これは、危険な敗北主義的な考え方です。結局、こうした考えは、戦争は不可避で、人は抗えない力に支配され、滅びる運命にあるという考えに至ります。
We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again. そうした考えを受け入れる必要はありません。われわれの問題は、人間が作り出したものです。ならば、人間の手で解決できるはずです。人は自分が望むだけ大きくなることができます。人間の運命の問題で、人間の力の及ばない場所にあるものなどありません。人間は、その理性と精神によって、解決不可能に思われた問題をも解決してきました。今、同じことをできるはずだとわれわれは信じます。
I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. 今、わたしがお話ししているのは、一部の夢想家や狂信者が考えるような、平和や善意に関する絶対的で広大無辺な概念ではありません。希望を持ち、夢見ることの価値を否定しませんが、そうした夢想を現在の唯一の目標にすることは、失望や懐疑をいたずらに招くことになります。
Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions--on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of solving problems. それよりも、もっと実際的で実現可能な平和に目を向けましょう。人間性の急激な改革ではなく、人間社会の段階的な進歩に基づく平和、関係者全員の利益にかなう、具体的な行動と有効な合意の積み重ねによる平和です。このような平和を簡単に実現する鍵など、どこにもありません。1つや2つの国が採用するだけで効果を発揮するような、壮大な魔法の方程式もありません。真の平和は、多くの国と人々の行動が積み重なって作り出されるものでなければなりません。そして静的なものではなく、新しい世代の課題が浮かび上がるたびに変化して対応する、動的なものでなければなりません。なぜなら、平和とは過程であり、問題を解決するための手段だからです。
With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors. このような平和が実現しても、いさかいや利害の対立は、ちょうど家庭や国の内部でもそうであるように、依然として残るでしょう。世界平和は、地域社会の平和と同じく、隣人愛を全員に要求するものではありません。ただ互いに寛容の心を持ち、争いを公正かつ平和的に解決しながら、共に生きることだけを求めるものです。そして歴史は、人と人との対立と同じように、国同士の対立も永遠には続かないことを教えてくれます。われわれの持つ好悪の感情がどんなに不変のものに見えようとも、時の流れや出来事の大きなうねりは、しばしば国家間や隣人同士の関係に驚くような変化をもたらすものです。
So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it. ですから、たゆまずに努力を続けましょう。平和は実現できないものではなく、戦争は避けられないものではありません。目標を今よりも明確に定め、もっとわかりやすく身近なものにすることで、われわれは、すべての人々が目標を見つけ、そこに希望を見出し、自然とそこに向かって進みだすようにすることができます。
The Collapsing Obama Doctrine Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. By DICK CHENEY And LIZ CHENEY Updated June 17, 2014 7:34 p.m. ET （日本語訳） As the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few of President Obama's past statements about ISIS and al Qaeda. "If a J.V. team puts on Lakers' uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant" (January 2014). "[C]ore al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated" (August 2013). "So, let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding" (September 2011). イスラム教スンニ派の武装組織「イラク・シリアのイスラム国（ISIS)」が多数のイラク人を虐殺しながら首都バグダッドに迫っている。ここでISISと国際テロ組織アルカイダに関するオバマ米大統領の過去の発言を思い出してみるといい。「2軍の選手がレイカーズのユニホームを着たからといってコービー・ブライアントにはなれない（2014年1月）」「アルカイダをひざまずかせ全滅した（13年8月）」「ここではっきりさせておこう。戦争の潮は引きつつある（11年9月）」
Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is "ending" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America's enemies are not "decimated." They are emboldened and on the march. 米国の大統領がこれほど多大な犠牲を払い、これほど多くのことについて誤った認識を抱いているのは珍しい。オバマ大統領があたかも祈るかのように、イラクとアフガニスタンの戦争を「終わらせつつある」と何度言ったか数え切れない。大統領の言葉は今や現実の壁にぶつかり、粉々に砕け散っている。かつて米国人の血によって守られていた地域を黒装束のISIS兵士らが奪取していることが、米国の敵が「全滅」していないことを示す決定的な証拠になる。テロリストたちは勢いづき、攻撃を続けている。
*********
American freedom will not be secured by empty threats, meaningless red lines, leading from behind, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies, or apologizing for our great nation—all hallmarks to date of the Obama doctrine. Our security, and the security of our friends around the world, can only be guaranteed with a fundamental reversal of the policies of the past six years. 空虚な脅し、無意味なレッドライン（平和的解決から軍事的解決へと移る一線）、後方からの指導、敵への歩み寄り、同盟国の放棄、大国への謝罪はいずれもオバマ政策の特徴を示すものだが、これらによって米国の自由が守られることはない。米国と、世界の米国の友人の安全は過去6年間の外交政策の抜本的な転換によってしか保証されない。
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan said, "If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom." President Obama is on track to securing his legacy as the man who betrayed our past and squandered our freedom. 1983年に当時のレーガン大統領は「歴史から何か学べるとするならば、それは無邪気な妥協や敵に希望的観測を抱くのは愚行ということだ。すなわち過去に背き、自由を浪費することになる」と述べた。オバマ大統領は過去に背き、自由を浪費した男として名前を残そうとしている。
Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir. You said there was no doubt Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You said we would be greeted as liberators. You said the insurgency was in its last throes back in 2005, and you said that after our intervention, extremists would have to 'rethink their strategy of jihad.' Now, with almost a trillion dollars spent there, with almost 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?
No, I just fundamentally disagree, Reagan — Megyn. You’ve got to go back and look at the track record. We inherited a situation where there was no doubt in anybody’s mind about the extent of Saddam’s involvement in weapons of mass destruction.
Report of a visit to the central silk districts of Japan(日本の中央養蚕地域に関するアダムス氏の報告書)の初めです。ちょうど1869年の今日、江戸を出発して視察をしたとあります。この視察では富岡には行っていないようですが、高崎や上田を訪問しているようです。一緒についていった「役人」がアレンジをしてくれたとありますね。
REPORT UPON THE CENTRAL SILK DISTRICTS OF JAPAN. Yedo, August 7th, 1869. I left Yedo on the 22nd of June 1869 accompanied by Messrs. Davison, Piquet and Brunat, Silk Inspectors belonging to three different firms in Yokohama, and by Mr. Wilkinson of this Legation as Interpreter. We travelled on horseback, and, as has been usual in the expeditions into the interior of Japan which have been taken from time to time of late years by members of the Diplomatic Body, we were attended by amounted Escort - consisting of ten Yakunin, supplied by the Government. One or two of their number started before us in the morning, and gave warning of our approach to the officials of each Post town in the day's route. Much trouble was thus avoided with respect to the transport of our baggage and provisions, and on reaching our resting place for the night, we found the officials and the keepers of the Hon j in or Hotels prepared to receive us.
On the road we met with great civility both from the Retainers of Daimios through whose territories we passed, and from the yakunin of the Post towns and villages. Our Escort were also uniformly attentive to our wants, and the Government had even inserted in the Official Gazette a formal notice of our intended journey.
APPENDIX No. 3. TRANSLATION. The Chamber of Commerce of Yokohama-has been requested by the Silk Merchants of Europe and America to communicate to the silkmen of Japan several complaints regarding the silk exported from this country. Their complaints are as follows : - 1. - The quality of the Japan silk is getting worse every year. 2. - Large quantities of silks produced in Oshu, Ivoshu and other countries are made up in hanks so as to be sold as Maibashi & Skinshu silks. 3. - A great quantity of Hank silks wind badly, thereby causing great loss to the buyer. 4. - The paper ties of the Hank silks are too heavy.
翌年出たThird report on silk culture in Japan(日本の絹文化に関 するアダムス氏の第三次報告書)では、富岡と下仁田も訪問しているようでした。蚕の病気について言及しています。下仁田の絹は横浜の市場で評判が良かったそうですね。
On the 9th at Tomioka, a place of about 500 houses, we found healthy worms. Two diseases were mentioned, one called Fushikaka, where the portions between the joints swell after the 4th rest, and the worm dies without being able to spin its cocoon. This disease is not generally frequent in a crop. Another disease was called Kajimi, when the worm does not feed after the 4th rest, its head becomes a light red colour, and it dies without spinning. This would seem to be the same disease as the Angaru kaiko mentioned in the Government Notification. Most of the eggs were said to come from Shinshiu, a small quantity, however, were of local production. A thousand bales was given as the average annual amount of silk sent to Yokohama.
（中略）
Shimonita has always been famed for producing some of the best hank Silks which are sold in the Yokohama market. Its situation presents certain similar features to those common to the best producing places, such as the proximity to a river, and the fight stony soil. As to elevation, it is higher than the plain which stretches frorn Yedo to Mayebashi and Takasaki, but not so high as the Uyeda basin. The several valleys which meet there must generally secure a current of fresh air that cannot but be advantageous to both mulberry plants and worms. There was an appearance of health about the people and of cleanliness about the rooms appropriated to the Silk-worms, and it was evident that Silk-culture is the one important business of the whole locality.
In the 1870s Japan emerged as a favorite destination for a new breed of tourist. Globetrotters, as they were called, arrived in the treaty ports in ever increasing numbers, stayed in new hotels built especially for in guidebooks, newspapers, or accounts written by other travelers, then moved on to other ports of call. Dozens of commercial photography studios boasting large inventories catered specifically to globetrotter tastes and sensibilities. Photographs bound in luxurious lacquer-covered albums became the most popular souvenirs globetrotters collected to memorialize their visits to Japan.
This site introduces the experience of globetrotter travel to Japan and the commercial photography business that was integral to it. It reconstructs globetrotters’ experiences of Japan through a selection of the most popular the globetrotter era.
Primary sources in the form of guidebooks and travel accounts are used to explain why the subjects depicted in these photographs were so central to the globetrotter experience of Japan.
PREFACE "What places of interest are to be seen in this country? How shall we find them? Which is the best way of getting there? In what manner can we most profitably spend the few days we remain here ?
These and many other questions are asked by foreigners who come to Japan in search of pleasure or instruction - generally both combined. To answer these questions, and to furnish travellers with a few useful hints, has been ray humble aim in the compilation of this little volume.
Some very good guides have already appeared in print, such as the Guide to Yokohama, Guide to Tokio, Guide to Kioto, etc. ; but the advantages of having these and other matter in one compact little volume, as regards cheapness and convenience, must be apparent to every one.
I do not pretend to say that this work gives a full description of the whole of Japan : to do so would entail the labor of a large volume; but I have merely endeavoured to show the tourist, who has only a few days at his disposal, the best manner to visit the different places of celebrity in the short time alloted him. In the following pages, a detailed description of beautiful places and grand scenery has been avoided; as, after telling the traveller where to go and what to see, he can easily appreciate and enjoy natural and artificial splendor without help from any guide. And, as time is important to many strangers, brevity and conciseness, when compatible with usefulness, have been carefully studied.
That this little book may enhance the pleasure of those who make it the companion of their travels, is the sincere wish of
Tomioka Silk Mill added to World Heritage list 8:31 pm, June 21, 2014 Jiji Press DOHA (Jiji Press)—UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee decided Saturday to add the Tomioka Silk Mill and related industrial heritage sites in Gunma Prefecture to the U.N. cultural agency’s list of World Heritage sites.
The inscription of the Japanese state-run mill, set up in 1872, and related sites on the World Heritage List were approved at the committee’s 38th session held in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Erbil Citadel (Iraq) Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites (Japan) Van Nellefabriek (Netherlands) Historic Jeddah, the Gate to Makkah (Saudi Arabia)
Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites (Japan) is an historic sericulture and silk mill complex established in 1872 in the Gunma Prefecture north west of Tokyo. Built by the Japanese Government with machinery imported from France, it consists of four sites that attest to the different stages in the production of raw silk: production of cocoons in an experimental farm; a cold storage facility for silkworm eggs; reeling of cocoons and spinning of raw silk in a mill; and a school for the dissemination of sericulture knowledge. It illustrates Japan’s desire to rapidly adopt the best mass production techniques, and became a decisive element in the renewal of sericulture and the Japanese silk industry in the last quarter of the 19th century. It marked Japan’s entry into the modern, industrialized era, and propelled it to become the world’s leading exporter of raw silk, notably to France and Italy.
Abenomicsといえば「三本の矢」。この記事でも“three arrows”: monetary easing to reverse deflation, fiscal stimulus to boost immediate spending, and structural reforms to revive long-term growthとそれぞれの「矢」について簡潔に説明してくれています。
To restore confidence, Abe has undertaken a program of what he calls “three arrows”: monetary easing to reverse deflation, fiscal stimulus to boost immediate spending, and structural reforms to revive long-term growth. If all three arrows were hitting their targets, there would be reason for bullishness. But two of the arrows have already flown wide: any stimulus from temporary spending has been more than offset by premature tax hikes made to cut government debt. Meanwhile, the prospects for structural reform have not progressed beyond vague sloganeering.
How did Republican leaders reconcile their purported deep concern about budget deficits with their advocacy of large tax cuts? Was it that old voodoo economics — the belief, refuted by study after study, that tax cuts pay for themselves — making a comeback? No, it was something new and worse. To be sure, there were renewed claims that tax cuts lead to higher revenue. But 2010 marked the emergence of a new, even more profound level of magical thinking: the belief that deficits created by tax cuts just don’t matter. For example, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona — who had denounced President Obama for running deficits — declared that “you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.”
さて、Foreign Affairsの記事は非正規雇用の問題を導入として持ってきています。このような具体的な数字で語られると説得力があります。 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised to revive Japan when he took office in December 2012, and he often boasts of all the jobs he has added since. But all the gains have been for irregular work; regular jobs have fallen by 3.1 percent. Consequently, the average wage per worker in real terms has fallen by two percent under Abe. No wonder consumer spending is anemic. Imagine as well the frustration of these irregular workers when a low salary thwarts their natural desire to start a family. Whereas 70 percent of Japanese men in their 30s with regular jobs are married, among irregular workers in their 30s, that percentage plunges to just 25 percent.
In the end, it is Abe’s third arrow -- structural reform -- that will determine whether Japan can raise its long-term real growth rate from the 0.8 percent average prevailing since 1992 to the two percent the prime minister has promised. Even Japanese government economists admit that without reform, the country’s long-term growth rate will never exceed around 0.5 to 1.0 percent. With the working-age population shrinking, the only way to generate more growth is to gain more productivity from each worker. Japan’s GDP per hour worked lags behind the average for rich countries by 25 percent. Yet the erosion of human capital caused by the rise of irregular workers makes raising productivity even harder.
To lift productivity, Japan needs serious structural changes to promote creative destruction, the process of replacing decaying firms with vibrant ones. The sectors of Japan’s economy that face international competition, such as the auto industry, enjoy high productivity. But the lion’s share of the economy is domestically oriented, and much of it is shielded from both international and domestic competition by domestic regulations and cartel-like business practices. In these sectors, Japan lags far behind its peers. To take one tiny but characteristic example, regulations currently restrict online sales of nonprescription drugs because if unrestricted, such sales would hurt brick-and-mortar pharmacies; one corporate member of an Abe advisory panel on reform quit when bureaucrats emasculated his proposal to lift this regulation.
The most obvious litmus test of the third arrow is Abe’s handling of the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In recent months, these talks have stalled largely because Abe’s team has insisted on keeping tariffs and other barriers high in a few agricultural sectors (such as beef, dairy, and pork) that employ less than 100,000 households but where high prices boost Japan Agriculture’s income. As of mid-May, an agreement had not been reached. Even if a deal is eventually signed, Abe’s capitulation to small interest groups means that it won’t be used as a catalyst for domestic reform, unlike the way South Korea used its trade agreements with the United States and Europe, and as reformist officials in the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry have urged Japan to do as well.
Abe certainly has the clout to take on these vested interests: he still enjoys an approval rating around 60 percent, and his party holds an overwhelming majority in parliament. Yet it seems impossible to find a single case in which the prime minister has truly challenged a powerful domestic constituency. Instead, he is wasting his political capital on denying seven-decade-old war crimes and refusing even to admit that Japan committed aggression, claiming Japanese ownership of islets long controlled by South Korea, and trying to change school textbooks to reflect these retrograde views. Even when Abe’s ideas on security are sensible -- such as his proposals for Japan to exercise a right to collective self-defense -- the need to overcome resistance in pacifistic Japan diverts Abe’s energy. Inevitably, this puts the third arrow on the back burner.
Now, JR is back in Paris to unveil his most ambitious work yet, cloaking the Pantheon in thousands of the self-portraits he has solicited from people around the world. Built in the 18th century, the Pantheon is a mausoleum for French luminaries: Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Voltaire, Marie Curie and an additional 68 of the country’s most celebrated politicians, writers, artists and scientists are buried there. This year it begins an unprecedented decade-long structural renovation, and from now through October the building and its scaffolding will serve as a canvas for JR’s vision.
“A lot of monuments in Paris usually display advertising on their scaffolding,” JR says. “When the Center of National Monuments approached me with the idea of taking over the Pantheon’s scaffoldings, their mind was already set: they wanted me to do it, and they really kept an open mind. I had carte blanche to do whatever I wanted.”
何となく見たことがあるレベルの芸術家だったのですが、TEDで語ったturn the World inside outというプロジェクトが大きな反響を得ていたようですね。
Since then, JR has sought to remove himself from the photographic process. With the money he was awarded from the TED Foundation, he called for people to stand up for what they cared about “by participating in a global art project to turn the world Inside Out.” The concept was simple: JR would print and ship, to anywhere in the world, a poster-size version of any portrait uploaded to his website–as long as the subject also shared a statement about what he or she believes in. Suddenly, thousands of people began to replicate JR’s style, pasting images of themselves–whether printed by JR or not–on walls and buildings.
“It’s been amazing,” he says. “People in 130 to 140 countries around the world have been pasting posters in tens of thousands of cities, in places I’ve never been, from Afghanistan to Peru.”
プロジェクトの反響の大きさとして記事の最後の方でパキンスタンでの事例が紹介されていました。
Others have been equally inspired to continue the artist’s message–and his methods. In May, activists in Pakistan used Inside Out to install a large-scale portrait of an orphan to condemn U.S. drone strikes. “That massive image can be seen from a drone. They’ve done it to say that they’re here, that they exist,” JR says. “In this case, I didn’t actually print that image. They’ve respected the rules of the Inside Out project, but they printed it themselves and put it up themselves. It really shows that Inside Out is not mine anymore and that it will live on. The idea cannot be killed.”
On including "transgender" in her campaign for gay rights LBGT includes the "T," and I wanted to stand up for the entire community. I don't believe that people who are the L, the G, the B, or the T should be persecuted, assaulted, imprisoned, even killed for who they are.
This was the debate that I was having with leaders in many parts of the world, who first denied there were any such people in their communities, that it was all an invention and export of the West. And then they would change the argument that they didn't want people being proselytized, they didn't want children being abused, and I said, "Well, there are laws against that, that are certainly appropriate. No one should be coerced, no one should be abused. But you're talking about the status, the very core of who a person is."
The Case Against 8, the HBO documentary chronicling the nearly five-year judicial appeal of Proposition 8 (California’s 2008 ballot measure banning same-sex marriage), is, above all else, a story of love and hope. It may mask itself at times as a political thriller, but that’s okay. After all, the historic civil rights showdown seethed with drama: the uphill battle waged by the improbable duo of David Boies and right-winger Ted Olson—the über-attorneys who squared off in the 2000 Bush v. Gore recount case—on behalf of marriage equality; the case’s slow but steady path through state and federal courts; and, finally, the victory in the Supreme Court, where Prop 8 was struck down. But the heart of the film is really the case’s plaintiffs, Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, and Kris Perry and Sandy Stier—two couples who sacrificed years of their lives as the faces of a fight for civil liberties for a marginalized community. “We’ve all seen women vilified for rights,” Stier says. “As gay women, we felt even greater vulnerability. Prop 8 was harming Californians, including us and our kids. Someone needed to take that on.”
Location Information Yokohama War Cemetery is 9 kilometres west of the city centre on Jido-Yuenchi-Dori, Hodogaya Ward, which branches about 300 metres left off the old Tokaido highway. The nearest railway station is Hodogaya, 4 kilometres to the north on the JNR line. JR Hodogaya Station is for the trains running on the Yokosuka Line and some of the Shonan-Shinjuka Line Services. Please note that only trains on these two lines stop at the station. The cemetery is then easily reached by bus from Hodogaya Station.To get to the bus stop leave the railway station at the East exit onto the Tokaido highway. The bus stop is located on the opposite side of the road and visitors can cross the highway by using the pedestrian bridge nearby. To get to the cemetery by bus, the bus route is No.53 and the bus departs every 20 to 30 minutes during it's operating hours. The stop required for the cemetery is called Naga Tadai Kouen Mae. The bus stops about 100 metres beyond the cemetery entrance which is signposted for the gardens and cemetery. ("El-Renpo-Gun-Bochi" translates locally as "British Commonwealth Cemetery".) Yokohama Post War Plot is situated in Yokohama War cemetery and is reached by going up through the United Kingdom Section, up the steps to the Indian Section and then following a sloping path.
Visiting Information The opening times of the cemetery are 8.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m., including Saturdays, Sundays and all public holidays, all the year round. Wheelchair access possible via main entrance. For further information regarding wheelchair access, please contact our Enquiries Section on telephone number 01628 507200.
"The closer I got to the main prison gate the more afraid I became. This was Sham-Shui Po Prison Camp (concentration Camp) in Hong Kong, China. I must admit that I have always been a complete coward. My stomach became weak and trembly and my legs were weak and rubbery. My heart began to beat rapidly and my teeth began to chatter. As I forced one foot ahead and then the other, I prayed silently; Dear Lord, give me the strength to calm down and complete this mission. I am interpreter Kiyoshi Watanabe for the Imperial Japanese Army. But if I am discovered in what I am about to do.... I will be tortured very extensively, used for bayonet practice and then beheaded."
The Kempeitai, the Japanese secret police, were just like the Nazi Gestapo. They were so barbaric that they were the terror of Hong Kong. That is why Kiyoshi Watanabe was petrified with fear. He was not afraid of dying but he could not stand pain and suffering. One of the Kempeitai's favorite torture consisted of pulling fingernails out by the roots. Another was to force a water hose down into a stomach, then turn it on full force. Every time Kiyoshi thought of this he would begin to shake and tremble. In his arms Kiyoshi carried a large heavy cane work basket which he guarded very closely. It contained a small pack of surgical instruments with various other medical supplies but it also contained vials of precious diphtheria serum. Inside the Sham-Shui Po Prison Camp a diphtheria epidemic was killing dozens of prisoners daily. They were also suffering from Dysentery, a serious intestinal disorder, and Beri-Beri, a disease causing nerve degeneration and heart failure. It was a very deplorable sight, the daily dozens of the dead and also the walking dead. The stench of rotten flesh was almost unbearable.
Interpreter Kiyoshi Watanabe was a loyal Japanese citizen who loved his country, he would never do anything that would dishonor Japan. He wanted Japan to win the war, and very soon. Then he could go back to his beloved wife, Mitsuko, who lived in Hiroshima. Lieutenant Sakaino, the camp commandant, and the guards would not allow anything beneficial to the prisoners brought into the camp, so the time had come for Kiyoshi to decide to obey God rather than man, even if it meant his own death. This is why he was attempting to smuggle a doctor's bag into the prison camp. As he fearfully entered the main gate, the guard just waves him through. Now he has to cross the courtyard very carefully. Usually there were two or three Japanese officers who could stop and search any and everyone. But Kiyoshi reached his room and quickly hid the bag under his bed. At this time he was so shook up that he falls into his bed in a dead faint. When Kiyoshi woke up much later he had to heave twice to return to normal but as night comes on his abnormal fears return.
Global health: Deadly dinners Polluting biomass stoves, used by one-third of the global population, take a terrible toll. But efforts to clean them up are failing. Meera Subramanian 28 May 2014
And the urgency to transition billions of people around the world to cleaner forms of cooking has never been greater, in light of recent research revealing that emissions from traditional cooking-stoves pose a bigger threat than previously thought. Results from a global health study released earlier this year project that household air pollution from such fires causes more than four million premature deaths annually — more than one-quarter of them in India alone2. Earth's climate is also at risk from the smoke, which contains dark particles that absorb sunlight, alter atmospheric patterns and hasten glacial melting.
Environmental organizations, development groups and others have strived to solve the cooking-stove conundrum for decades, but momentum is finally gathering, thanks to the formation of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. This far-reaching public–private partnership was launched in 2010 by then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton. The Global Alliance has set a lofty goal of convincing 100 million households to adopt clean cooking-stoves by 2020, with an aim of eliminating deaths from cooking-stoves by 2030.
After decades of battling to get people to use improved cooking-stoves, many researchers worry that such devices will never win over consumers and thus never achieve the desired health and climate gains. “My bottom line is that nothing works,” Smith says. “The only thing we know that's ever worked is gas and electric.”
Balakrishnan makes a moral argument against improved cooking-stoves, which still produce harmful amounts of pollutants compared with LPG or electric ones, powered by remote energy plants that commonly use fossil fuels. “Are you justified in saying that it's OK to be just a little bit better?” she asks. “If it's OK for 40% of the population to use fossil fuels, then why is not OK for the other 60% of the population? How can we have dual standards?”
タイトルの「クリントンとストーブ」について説明します。Natureの記事でThis far-reaching public–private partnership was launched in 2010 by then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.とあったので、さっそく読みかけのHard Choicesで検索してみたら、この問題について２−３ページ割いて触れていました。このアライアンスもツイッターで自伝で取り上げてもらったことを報告していました。アライアンスのサイトにいけば基本的な問題を整理できます。
ツイッター We love that Hillary Clinton's new book HARD CHOICES includes a section on clean #cookstoves and the Alliance! pic.twitter.com/sxH4ybhCkf
TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese eel, a popular summertime delicacy that has become prohibitively expensive due to overfishing, has been put on the international conservation "red list" in a move that may speed up Japan's push for industrial farming of the species.
Japan's agriculture minister urged that efforts to boost the eel population be stepped up after the International Union for Conservation of Nature this week designated the Japanese eel as "endangered," or facing a very high risk of extinction.
Other species of eel are also facing various levels of threat due to habitat damage and overfishing.
この記事ではJapanese eel, a popular summertime delicacyとdelicacyという言葉でニホンウナギを説明していますね。
（ロングマン） delicacy something good to eat that is expensive or rare: Snails are considered a delicacy in France.
（オックスフォード） delicacy [countable] a type of food considered to be very special in a particular place synonym speciality local delicacies Dr. Jaffrey handed us a plate of dates: traditionally the delicacy with which to break the Ramadan fast.
Red Listを発表したIUCNの団体でもtraditional delicacy in Japanとニホンウナギを紹介していました。
IUCN Red List raises more red flags for threatened species 12 June 2014 Almost 80% of temperate slipper orchids and over 90% of lemurs are threatened with extinction, according to the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™. The newly assessed Japanese Eel has been listed as Endangered, while the Brazilian Three-banded Armadillo – the mascot of the 2014 FIFA World Cup – remains Vulnerable as its population continues to decline.
The IUCN Red List, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, now includes 73,686 assessed species, of which 22,103 are threatened with extinction.
“Over the last fifty years, The IUCN Red List has guided conservation work – very little positive action happens without the Red List as a starting point," says IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefèvre. “This is no small achievement but so much more needs to be done. We need to continue to expand our knowledge about the world’s species to better understand the challenges we face, set global conservation priorities and mobilise concrete action to halt the biodiversity crisis.”
ニホンウナギの説明は以下の部分です。
The Japanese Eel (Anguilla japonica) – a traditional delicacy in Japan and the country’s most expensive food fish – has been listed as Endangered due to loss of habitat, overfishing, barriers to migration, pollution and changes to oceanic currents. East Asia is a hub for farming, trade and consumption of this species and its decline has meant that trade in other eel species, such as the Shortfin Japanese Eel (Anguilla japonica). Photo: Yuichi KanoEel (A. bicolor) has increased.
“While the status of this species is of great concern, the assessment of the Japanese Eel and other eels is a hugely positive step,” says Dr Matthew Gollock, Chair of the IUCN Anguillid Specialist Sub-Group. “This information will allow us to prioritise conservation efforts for eel species and the freshwater ecosystem more broadly.”
AP通信の記事に戻りますが、a tradition of eating roasted eel as tonic for the heatとあるだけでなく、ウナギを食べることは、花火を見ること、風鈴を聞くこと、メロンを食べることなどの夏の風物の一つなのだという説明がされている部分です。
Japan consumes more than two-thirds of all eel eaten, thanks partly to a tradition of eating roasted eel as tonic for the heat during the hottest days of summer. The delicacy is as much a custom of the season as watching fireworks, listening to wind chimes and eating watermelon.
蒲焼きについてはそのままkabayakiとしてから説明していました。
In turn, prices for mature eels have soared, turning the traditional "kabayaki" roasted eel dish, with a tangy sauce on top, into a luxury rather than common household dining. A bowl of rice with a slice of roasted eel on top sells for $7-$10 at Tokyo's Tsukiji market. Small packages of roasted eel sold in supermarkets sell for $15 or more.
Secretary of State John Kerry will host the “Our Ocean” Conference at the U.S. Department of State on June 16 and 17. The conference will bring together 350-400 participants from more than 80 nations, including government officials, scientists, and leading international institutions to review the state of the science and determine concrete actions that can be taken at all levels to help protect ocean ecosystems.
The conference will focus on Sustainable Fishing, Marine Pollution, and Ocean Acidification. The confirmed participants include: Prince Albert II of Monaco, President of the Republic of Kiribati Anote Tong, President of the Republic of Palau Tommy Remengesau, Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz, Foreign Minister of the Republic of the Marshall Islands Tony DeBrum, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Federated States of Micronesia Lorin Robert, New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully, Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende, Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey, and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.
Please see the current schedule below for media opportunities. The full schedule of the conference can be viewed on the website. Conference events will be streamed live on www.state.gov/ourocean and will take place in the Loy Henderson Conference Room, unless otherwise noted.
（中略）
Monday, June 16, 2014 9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Opening session with remarks by Secretary of State John Kerry Open Press Coverage Preset for video cameras: 8:00 a.m. from the 23rd Street Lobby. Final access time for journalists and still photographers: 9:00 a.m. from the 23rd Street Lobby.
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Sustainable Fisheries Panel and Discussion This session will be streamed live at www.state.gov/ourocean. If you are interested in more information about this session, please contact: Chris Rich RichCE@state.gov.
12:45 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Lunch Discussion with remarks by Prince Albert II of Monaco The lunch will be streamed lived at www.state.gov/ourocean. For inquiries on obtaining video footage, please contact Nancy Riley rileynm@state.gov or 202-647-6784
2:45 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Marine Pollution Panel and Discussion This session will be streamed live at www.state.gov/ourocean. If you are interested in more information about this session, please contact: Chris Rich RichCE@state.gov.
7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Evening Reception at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Sant Ocean Hall with remarks by Smithsonian Institution Secretary Wayne Clough, Secretary of State John Kerry, and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully.
Sustainable Fisheries The ocean plays a vital role in the global economy by providing food and a source of income for millions of people. More than 50 million people work in the fishing and aquaculture sector, many in small-scale fisheries that are critical to the economies of their communities. More than three billion people, many of whom live in the poorest and least developed countries, rely on food from the ocean as a primary source of protein, highlighting the role of marine species in food security worldwide.
The Challenges The oceans face serious challenges that threaten the sustainability of marine fisheries. Catches of many types of fish in the ocean are declining while demand continues to increase. Based on data reported in 2014 by the Food and Agriculture Organization, an estimated 29 percent of the world’s fish stocks for which reasonable information exists are overexploited, while another 61 percent cannot support expanded harvest and require effective management and related measures to avoid decline. Individual nations manage many fisheries; in other cases groups of nations must manage fisheries collaboratively. Unfortunately, existing mechanisms for international management of fisheries have produced mixed results.
（中略）
Steps Forward The Our Ocean conference will examine the steps fishery management authorities need to take to reduce, and ultimately end, overfishing and to mitigate adverse impacts on the broader marine environment. For fisheries shared by two or more nations, conference participants can consider ways to improve the outcomes achieved through regional fisheries management organizations, including setting fisheries rules on the basis of sound science, monitoring fishing activity using all available tools, enforcing meaningful penalties on violators and building capacity for developing nations to fulfill their commitments in this field.
以下のような箇条書きにも慣れておきたいです。
With respect to sustainable fisheries, these understandings could include: • Ending overfishing in the ocean • Eliminating harmful fisheries subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity of fishing fleets • Preventing illegally harvested fish from entering commerce, including by bringing the Port State Measures Agreement into force promptly • Using “smarter” fishing gear and techniques to radically reduce bycatch and discards of fish and the harm that certain gear and techniques cause to vulnerable marine ecosystems • Establishing more marine protected areas, particularly in areas that will promote recovery of depleted fish stocks • Using market incentives to promote sustainable fisheries, including efforts to enable consumers to choose seafood that has been sustainably harvested • Treating fish as essential components of ocean ecosystems and managing fisheries as part of those ecosystems
Would you mind sitting here? I’m saving this seat for my friend Ross. You mean, Dr. Geller? Doctor? I didn’t know he had a nickname. Oh, he won’t sit here. Only the people in the white coats sit over there and only the people with the blue blazers sit over here.
In April a RIKEN committee concluded that Dr Obokata had twice manipulated her data in an intentionally misleading fashion, something they classed as research misconduct. The more light that was shone on the papers, the weaker the claims became. Although Dr Obokata had defended her work, her co-authors were divided on whether formally to retract the papers. On June 4th she reportedly agreed to withdraw both (although as The Economist went to press both were still available, unchanged, on Nature’s website).
No one is accusing Dr Kovac and his colleagues of the sort of sharp practice for which Dr Obokata was censured. Instead, the argument is about whether their results were really solid enough to justify the rapturous reception they were given, says Katherine Mack, an astrophysicist at the University of Melbourne. But both cases reflect the rise of open, post-publication review on Facebook and Twitter, by e-mail, on blogs, and in the comments sections of websites like arXiv, which hosts preprints of papers in physics and mathematics. As Paul Knoepfler, a biologist at the University of California, Davis, whose blog was used to co-ordinate the efforts of those trying to replicate Dr Obokata’s work, puts it, “I suspect that if published even five years ago, the [stem cell] papers’ serious problems would have gone unnoticed for far longer.”
科学は知的好奇心を満たすものと言うのは分かりますが、公金を使っていることも事実です。“Trust, but verify.”の精神は大事ですよね。 The public, however, pay for most of this stuff. That open peer review gives them a glimpse into the reality of life inside the ivory tower is probably a good thing. Despite the activities of people like Dr Obokata, science is one of the most trustworthy human activities. But as Ronald Reagan put it in a different context, “Trust, but verify.”
Did you make a dinner reservation? 1. (A) I prefer fish . 2. (B) Flight 261 to Osaka . 3. (C) Yes, it’s at 7 o’clock .
→調査した6セットで登場したのは、Japan, Singaporeという国名と、Hong Kong, Osaka, Tokyo, Los Angelesという都市名でした。聞き取りに影響を与えるほどではないですね。Parker Avenueのような通り名が使われることもありましたが、Avenueがあるので道関連だと分かります。
中国と韓国に多い姓です。せっかくなので漢字と英語との両方で抑えておきたいですね。。
中国人の姓 1. 王Wang / Wong 2. 李 Li 3. 張 Chang 4. 劉 Liu 5. 陳 Chen 6. 楊 Yang 7. 趙 Zhao 8. 黄 Huang 9. 呉 Wu 10. 周 Zhou
********
韓国人の姓 ・金 김 Kim ・李 이 Lee ・朴 박 Park ・崔 최 Choi ・鄭 정 Jeong, Jung, Chungなど
このブログでは何度も言っていることですが、「多読が大事だ」なんて能書き垂れる前にVanity Fair, New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper’sなどの良質の文芸雑誌を読んでいくのが一番です。
A Fundamental Fight When Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or death sentence, on Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses, 25 years ago, the novel became more than literature. Talking to Rushdie and those who stood beside him—Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, E. L. Doctorow, and others—Paul Elie assesses the extraordinary impact of a prophetic, provocative book, which turned its author into a hunted man, divided the cultural elite, and presaged a new era. By Paul Elie
It works so well that it keeps us from seeing how powerfully the novel and the fatwa defined the age for the people who knew Rushdie then, worked on the book, and stood up for it. Twenty-five years later, they decided to retrace those terrifying months, as did the author, who opened up to Vanity Fair. “The Satanic Verses is the first chapter of the very long and unpleasant story that has, as one chapter, 9/11,” Ian McEwan says. “I initially read the book in purely literary terms—as an extraordinarily playful, exceedingly intelligent novel—and it’s taken all this time to wrench it back into the realm of the literary.” “It was the first taste we had of the theocratic sensibility,” remarks E. L. Doctorow, who was active in a campaign by PEN (the global organization devoted to defending free expression) in support of The Satanic Verses. “It was our first taste of the relationship between faith and violence in that part of the world.” Martin Amis (who in a 1990 piece in Vanity Fair profiled his friend who had “vanished into the front page”) says the controversy forced writers to be “more serious” about their work—and their rivals’ work, too. “The notion that writers are a bitchy, touchy, catty, competitive crowd, always scoring points off each other—this was absolutely obliterated by the Rushdie affair,” he believes. “Any writer who was bitchy or catty looked very trivial after the fatwa, because it was a matter of life and death.”
Then the fatwa against The Satanic Verses came down and things turned nasty, and London literary society took sides.
“Nobody has a God-given right to insult a great religion,” John le Carré bellowed in The Guardian, “and be published with impunity.” He also proposed that Rushdie do the right thing and withdraw the book. V. S. Naipaul, who felt he had been taken to task for his own acid portrait of Khomeini in Among the Believers, decried the support for Rushdie as hypocrisy: “Certain causes are good, and then other causes become good. Now the good people are saying something else. I wish the good people were a little more consistent.”
Germaine Greer (that good feminist) would eventually mock Rushdie as “a megalomaniac, an Englishman with dark skin.” John Berger (that good Marxist) urged Rushdie to tell his publishers to cease and desist so as to stop a “holy war” before it started.
Roald Dahl (beloved children’s-book author, professed anti-Semite) was the most open in his contempt. “Clearly he has profound knowledge of the Muslim religion and its people and he must have been totally aware of the deep and violent feelings his book would stir up among devout Muslims. In other words, he knew exactly what he was doing and he cannot plead otherwise.” The Satanic Verses was selling strongly, and Dahl insisted that Rushdie had stirred up trouble to get “an indifferent book onto the top of the bestseller list.” Dahl added dismissively: “He seems to be regarded as some sort of a hero. . . . To my mind, he is a dangerous opportunist.”
支える中でのクライマックスは作家達がラシュディの読書会を開いたことでしょうか。”Today we are all Salman Rushdie.”という連帯を示した作家の言葉は２００１年に911テロでルモンドの社説が書いた“Nous Sommes Tous Américains” （We are all Americans）に通じるものがありますね。 The idea for the gathering came from Gerald Marzorati, who had carved out an excerpt of the book that ran in the December Harper’s, and then wrote a Rushdie profile for The New York Times Magazine. Why not a public reading of Rushdie’s novel, to be coordinated by PEN and Harper’s publisher John “Rick” MacArthur? “I was given the task of choosing excerpts because very few people in New York had actually read the book,” Marzorati says, pointing out that the roster of participants was very broad—from Abbie Hoffman on the left to Midge Decter on the right. Edward Said was there; so was Leon Wieseltier. Robert Caro was there; so was Tom Wolfe. Joan Didion was there; so was Larry McMurtry.
The Columns held 500 people, and as the writers entered, cries could be heard from the demonstrators outside. “Death to Rushdie! Death to Rushdie!”
The first author stood up to read, and his opening remark was a kind of answer. “My name is Robert Stone,” he said, “but today we are all Salman Rushdie.”
今では『悪魔の詩』は現在英文学の古典になっていると記事は締めています。 “The fact of being alive compensated for what life did to one,” Rushdie wrote in The Satanic Verses, and he has asserted the fact of his aliveness. In the quarter-century since the fatwa, he has published a dozen books and given scores of public readings and addresses. In 2007 departing prime minister Tony Blair successfully recommended him for knighthood. He has fulfilled a lifelong dream of adapting Midnight’s Children into a feature film. And he has seen The Satanic Verses become, remarkably, just another great book on history’s shelf, regarded less as a forbidden book (talk of the fatwa has diminished with the years) than as a classic of contemporary English-language literature.
（オックスフォード） D-Day a date on which something important is expected to happen From the name given to 6 June 1944, the day on which the British, US and other armies landed on the beaches of northern France in the Second World War.
‘I just kind of put my camera above my head . . . and clicked a picture . . . and when I came back, I was a very famous photographer.” The voice you hear in the archive of the International Center of Photography is a Carpathian mumble: the only known recording in existence of Robert Capa’s voice. Incredibly, it turned up for sale on eBay recently and was discovered there by a Capa curator at I.C.P. who had been searching for it for years. Here was Capa in October of 1947 on New York’s most popular radio show, Hi Jinx, with Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg. On the air, he was very clear about the moment he believed had changed his life. “That camera which I held above my head just caught a man at the moment he was shot. . . . That was probably the best picture I ever took.” Capa is referring to his most well-known—and perhaps most controversial—image, the dramatic photograph taken September 5, 1936, called The Falling Soldier. Who hasn’t seen the picture? The Loyalist volunteer, in his white shirt with sleeves rolled up, stands with his rifle and is gunned down, the impact causing him to collapse backward.
意外というか、Capa could not exist without the adrenaline of warというほどの戦争カメラマンでありましたが、He did not want to have anything to do with an image that exploited deathと本人は感じていたそうです。
In the 1970s a British journalist challenged the authenticity of the photo, saying it was staged, a claim that has been debated. Another theory suggests that in fact Gerda Taro—the woman responsible for his transformation from Endre Friedmann into Robert Capa, mysterious “American photographer”—took the shot, an assertion that Capa scholars strongly dispute. Taro would die in Spain in 1937, the first female correspondent to be killed in combat. Capa never recovered from her loss. “Capa detested the picture. He did not want to have anything to do with an image that exploited death,” Morris told me.
A rare photograph of legendary war photographer Robert Capa (1913-1954), taken while he was covering a labor rally in Tokyo three weeks before his death in May 1954, has come to light for the first time. Wearing a casual outfit and posing with a camera in his hands and a cigarette dangling from his lips, the portrait was taken by a Japanese cinematographer. Capa was in the country in April and May of 1954 to shoot the everyday lives of postwar Japanese. It is one of the few remaining pictures of the Magnum Photos founder while he was shooting subjects during his Japan tour.
SIGNAL 26 February 2013 Djibouti City, Djibouti African migrants on the shore of Djibouti City at night raise their phones in an attempt to catch an inexpensive signal from neighboring Somalia—a tenuous link to relatives abroad. Djibouti is a common stop-off point for migrants in transit from such countries as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking a better life in Europe and the Middle East.
BOMB MAKER IN ALEPPO 20 March 2013 Aleppo, Syria A bomb maker for Syrian rebel forces works in a makeshift bomb factory in the country’s largest city, Aleppo. As the civil war in Syria dragged on into its second year, conflict broke out between factions within the armed opposition forces. Much of the in-fighting was directed against the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and other Islamist groups focused on enforcing sharia law. As rebel factions turned on one another, government troops took the opportunity to launch concerted attacks on rebel-held and contested areas, subjecting Aleppo to heavy bombardment.
KACHIN FIGHTERS 15 March 2013 Laiza, Kachin, Burma Soldiers of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) drink and sing together at a funeral for one of their commanders, in the city of Laiza, in Kachin State, northern Burma (Myanmar).
The city was under siege by the Burmese military. The Kachin rebellion was one of a number of ethnic uprisings that surfaced after the military junta, which had ruled the country for more than 40 years, began to ease its grip and make moves towards democracy. Kachin State had been given semi-autonomous status soon after Burma regained its independence in 1948. In the 1960s the Kachin launched an insurgency against the central government of Myanmar, demanding greater independence. A ceasefire was brokered in 1994, but the KIA refused to give up arms entirely, and maintained some bases in the jungle. Conflict broke out again in 2011.
OCCUPIED PLEASURES 03 June 2013 Rafah, Gaza A woman without a travel permit walks through an underground tunnel between Gaza and Egypt on her way to a party, holding a bouquet of flowers. In the latter half of the year, the new Egyptian military government began closing these secret tunnels, which for many Gaza residents were a main passage in and out of the enclave.
More than four million people live in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, often in overcrowded or deprived conditions. People’s movements are circumscribed and the threat of violence never quite goes away. Yet although the challenges of conflict and occupation overhang everyday life, people are not solely focused on the difficulties of survival.
報道写真というと、事件現場、激しい戦闘などを想像しがちですが、最後のガザのYet although the challenges of conflict and occupation overhang everyday life, people are not solely focused on the difficulties of survival.とあるように厳しい中にも楽しみを見出していることだってあるんですよね。皆で歌っているビルマの少数民族の兵士達にも同じことが言えそうです。
TIMEで何が話題に取り上げられたのか毎週チェックするだけでも、米国の動きに敏感になることができます。今週は何と言っても今日発売のヒラリーの回顧録についてですね。さっそくこの本をアマゾンで買ってみました。まだ目次を見ただけですが、４年間の国務長官時代を振り返っているのは確かですが、最後の章にThe Future We Wantとあり、気候変動からエネルギー、人権など大事なトピックを挙げています。やはり、TIMEの以下の書き出しのように純粋な回顧録というよりも大統領選を見据えたアピールと見てしまうのは仕方がないことかもしれません。
We have reached, believe it or not, the first crucial moment in the 2016 presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton has written a book. It will be launched, with Vesuvian hoopla, on June 10. Her schedule will be incredible for the weeks thereafter–an hour interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, for starters; Good Morning America the next morning; a town meeting with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. There will be joint appearances with Bill and Chelsea. And attention, Costco shoppers! Hillary Clinton will be signing copies of Hard Choices at Costco’s Arlington, Va., store on Saturday, June 14.
We are sure to be smothered by Hillary (or Hillary!, as an old campaign button had it) well past the summer solstice. There will be reviews and nonstop attempts to tease policy and controversy from the substance of the book, which concerns her time as Secretary of State. Her account of the Benghazi controversy has already been leaked. In it, she says she was “ultimately responsible” for the insufficient security at the consulate there, even though it was well below her pay grade. Happily, she fights back against the bizarre Republican campaign to find a scandal amid the tragedy. This is called getting out in front of the story, a common political strategy. Hard Choices is, like almost everything else Clinton, a campaign. How it is promoted and received will say a lot about the campaign to come, if it is to come.
ヒラリーの今後の難しさは支持率低迷に苦しむオバマ大統領と民主党からの新顔登場のようです。
Obama may be her greatest challenge in 2016 as well. It’s been reported that she has scrubbed Hard Choices for any negative references to the President. But any candidate following a two-term President has to figure out a “kinder, gentler” way to distinguish herself from her predecessor. People always want a change, a fact Al Gore and John McCain found out the hard way. It will be trickier if Obama remains unpopular. Inevitability is reality’s first casualty. If Obama makes a big mistake overseas or the economy flops, Clinton’s first job will be to say what she’d do differently, without offending the Democratic base who’ll remain loyal to the President no matter what.
Even if Obama successfully navigates his last two years in office, Clinton is likely to face more than one energy candidate in 2016. Former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, profiled by Michael Scherer on page 36, is as entertaining as a presidential candidate should be allowed to be, and substantive too. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has a new book out–aha! (perhaps)–and is wowing the Democratic left at their partisan powwows. And former Virginia Senator Jim Webb–who also has a new book out, aha!–has not ruled out a presidential campaign. All three would challenge Clinton from the populist left, a force that is growing noisier within the party, if not more populous. The moderate governors, like New York’s Andrew Cuomo and Maryland’s Martin O’Malley, probably won’t run if Clinton does.
What Is Hillary Clinton Afraid Of? By GLENN THRUSH and MAGGIE HABERMAN May/June 2014 When asked why Clinton hasn’t done more to reach out to reporters over the years, one Clinton campaign veteran began to spin several theories. She was too busy, she was too prone to speaking her mind and the like—then abruptly cut to the chase: “Look, she hates you. Period. That’s never going to change.”
確かに、本音で語っていない印象をどうしても受けてしまいがちですから、飾らないヒラリーを見たい気もします。 She brought bagels to the back of the bus. But bringing bagels to the back of the bus is an embarrassingly transparent ploy. Bringing candor to the back of the bus might be a little more successful. I’ve seen her candor more than once, but always off the record. That will have to change. If Hillary Clinton hopes to succeed, she’s going to have to drop the veil–spontaneously, quite possibly in a crucial moment, like a debate–and trust the public to accept who she really is. Absent that, there is no such thing as inevitability
With a smile, Hillary Clinton deflected tough questions on Monday on the eve of the release of her book Hard Choices.
Interviewed by ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer in Clinton’s Washington home, the former Secretary of State and potential 2016 presidential candidate offered little insight into her political thinking with relatively safe answers.
