The retraction comes after Retraction Watch broke the story on 20 May. The storm began brewing weeks earlier when David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, graduate students at UC Berkeley, together with Yale University researcher Peter Aronow, were unable to replicate some aspects of the Science study. It claimed to show that a relatively brief conversation with a canvasser who identified themselves as gay and as an advocate for gay marriage could persuade voters in California to become more supportive of gay marriage. The goal was to test whether persuasion methods used by advocacy groups to sway voters actually worked.
The sleuthing by Broockman, Kall, and Aronow led them to call the survey company that, according to the paper, was used to poll some 9500 people in California. The company revealed that they had done no such survey. The researchers also contacted LaCour's only co-author, Donald Green of Columbia University, who asked for the retraction after LaCour failed to produce data and other materials Green requested.
Dr. Green, who never saw the raw data on which the study was based, said he had repeatedly asked Mr. LaCour to post the data in a protected databank at the University of Michigan, where they could be examined later if needed. But Mr. LaCour did not.
“It’s a very delicate situation when a senior scholar makes a move to look at a junior scholar’s data set,” Dr. Green said. “This is his career, and if I reach in and grab it, it may seem like I’m boxing him out.”
雑誌Scienceはまず信憑性に懸念を表明して、その次週に撤回を決めていました。
LETTERS Editorial expression of concern In the 12 December 2014 issue, Science published the Report “When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality” by Michael J. LaCour and Donald P. Green (1). On 19 May 2015, author Green requested that Science retract the paper because of the unavailability of raw data and other irregularities that have emerged in the published paper. Science is urgently working toward the appropriate resolution, while ensuring that a fair process is followed. In the meantime, Science is publishing this Editorial Expression of Concern to alert our readers to the fact that serious questions have been raised about the validity of findings in the LaCour and Green paper.
Science, with the concurrence of author Donald P. Green, is retracting the 12 December 2014 Report “When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality” by LaCour and Green ( 1 ).
The reasons for retracting the paper are as follows: (i) Survey incentives were misrepresented. To encourage participation in the survey, respondents were claimed to have been given cash payments to enroll, to refer family and friends, and to complete multiple surveys. In correspondence received from Michael J. LaCour’s attorney, he confirmed that no such payments were made. (ii) The statement on sponsorship was false. In the Report, LaCour acknowledged funding from the Williams Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund. Per correspondence from LaCour’s attorney, this statement was not true.
In addition to these known problems, independent researchers have noted certain statistical irregularities in the responses ( 2 ). LaCour has not produced the original survey data from which someone else could independently confirm the validity of the reported findings.
Michael J. LaCour does not agree to this Retraction.
Op-Ed Who's to blame when fake science gets published? By CHARLES SEIFE In a scientific collaboration, a smart grad student can pull the wool over his advisor's eyes -- or vice versa A modern science article rests on a foundation of trust, and that's a problem
Sure, it's an act of bad faith when a grad student fools his advisor with a fake survey, but it's also a predictable consequence of the scientific community's winking at the practice of senior scientists putting their names on junior researchers' work without getting elbow-deep in the guts of the research themselves.
It's all too common for a scientific fraud — last year's Japanese stem-cell meltdown, a 2011 chemistry scandal at Columbia University, the famous materials-science fiasco involving Bell Laboratories' Jan Hendrik Schon — to feature a young protege and a well-established scientist. The protege delivers great results; the stunningly incurious mentor asks no questions.
And, sure, it's an act of bad faith when a scientist submits false data to a journal; but the scientific publishing industry encourages such behavior through lax standards.
YutaのMac Book Broでの音声入力を試しました。オフラインでやるにはダウンロードが必要ですが、無料でした。ICレコーダーで自分の声を聞くと死にたくなるという人にも実践しやすいのではと思い（苦笑）、公式問題集のvol5パート３の最初の問題の前半を使って、CD音源とYutaの音声をご報告します。
(Man) Hello, I'd like to purchase a ticket for the three-o'clock train to Chicago. (Woman) Unfortunately, sir, that train's already full. Here's a copy of the daily train schedule - why don't you look it over and choose a later departure? At this time of day, trains to Chicago leave frequently.
hello I’d like to purchase a ticket for the 3 o’clock train to Chicago unfortunately stir the trains already full copy of the daily train schedule look it over and choose a later departure at this time of day trains to Chicago leave frequently
hello I’d like to purchase a ticket for the 3 o’clock train to Chicago unfortunately sure that trains already full copy of the daily train schedule look it over and choose to live your departure at this time of day trains to Chicago leave frequently
Hello I like to purchase a ticket for the 3 o’clock playing to Chicago so Jake Lisa that trains already for his a copy of the shady train schedule what did you do get over to choose the latest departure I just time of day planes to Chicago leaves the secant.
Hello I’d like to purchase a ticket for the 3 o’clock train to Chicago unfortunately son that trains only before here’s a copy of the daily train schedule why don’t you do get all butt and choose related to patch it at this time over day tell Lane to Chicago leave frequently
リンク先の記事のYoutube動画での実践部分（４分３０秒あたり）を音声入力にかけてみました。天満先生ってやっぱりすごいと実感できます。If you wantedはスクリプトだとif you want it ですが、これは音声上つながってしまう部分なので問題ないですよね。
Hi I'd like to send this package to Canada I’m not sure what types of services are available for overseas shipping if you wanted to be delivered quickly you can use our express service and it’ll only take about 2 to 3 days by air
“All I'm saying is, don't worry. You can start the job today.” “If you say so, it's fine with me. I was just trying to avoid kicking myself for starting too early.” “Let me worry about that. I'll take complete responsibility.”
（ルミナス抜粋） [U] (仕事･事故などに対する)責任, 責務; 責任能力. ･He has a [no] sense of responsibility. 彼には責任感がある[まるでない]. ･I will take full responsibility for the accident. 事故の責任は私が全面的に負います.
[C] (責任のある)職務 (duty), 職責, 責任を負っている仕事[人]. ･the varied responsibilities of the presidency 大統領職の様々な責務. ･Doctors have a responsibility to their patients. 医者は(職務上)患者に尽す責任がある.
ロングマンも似たような分類です。
（ロングマン） [uncountable] blame for something bad that has happened responsibility for By resigning he is trying to avoid responsibility for the political crisis. The management accepts no responsibility for cars left in the car park. The Chairman of the airline accepted full responsibility for the accident.
[countable] something that you must do as part of your job or duty: My responsibilities include answering the phone and dealing with customer enquiries.
I’m in charge of overseas projects. 海外プロジェクトを担当しています。
仕事について語る時の必須表現です。同様に、responsibilityの形容詞responsibleを使ったI’m response for 〜という表現もよく使います。今日のフレーズも、I’m responsible for overseas projects.と言い換えることができます。また、リチャードの発言のI’m responsible for our legal department.のようにresponsible forのあとに部署を続ける場合は「（その部署の）責任者」であることを意味します。
英文フリーペーパーのMetropolisで見つけた表現です。TOEICのパート5でも定番になっている「提案系動詞のthat節は原型になる」例です。個人的には単なる知識を問うだけの問題になってしまうので好きではないのですが、今回の記事のようによく使われるから出題しているのかもしれませんね。合わせて、あのバナナ味、桃味のポテトチップスについてどのように書いているかも興味があったのでご紹介しました。 Fans of Koikeya’s mikan-flavored potato chips will be thrilled to find out about the snack manufacturer’s two new fruity options: peach and banana. Although not everyone will appreciate adventurous flavors, these chips are worth a try if simply for that only-in-Japan factor. Consider them dessert chips. Koikeya suggests they be eaten with breakfast, and, who knows, you might soon be skipping your morning cereal or toast for some peach and banana potato crunch! Now available in convenience stores nationwide; going on sale in supermarkets nationwide June 1.
Fans of Koikeya’s mikan-flavored potato chips will be thrilled to find out about the snack manufacturer’s two new fruity options: peach and banana. （湖池屋のみかん味のポテトチップスのファンはこのスナックメーカーの新しい２種類のフルーツ味、もも味とバナナ味が出ることを知って大喜びするだろう）
thrilledについてはロングマンでvery excited, happy, and pleasedとあるように嬉しい時の強調表現です。TOEICkerがTEX加藤さんの新作を手にしているような状況にthrilledという言葉はぴったりでしょう。
（ロングマン） I'm absolutely thrilled that you are coming.
On October 10, I conducted a formal taste test of the four new bottled iced tea drinks developed as summer specials. The flavors tested were Summer Raspberry, Fresh Mint, Fresh Mint with Lemon, and Hint of Peach.
Consider them dessert chips. Koikeya suggests they be eaten with breakfast （これらのポテトチップスはデーザトとみればいい。湖池屋は朝食として食べることを提案している）
今回の文they be eatenのtheyは何を指すという文法的な質問も英文理解度を確認する場合には有効そうです。でも、suggestの用法を問う問題って、なんで出すんでしょうかね。What does the woman suggest the man do?というのはTOEICの質問の定番ですが、doesで理解しても、doで理解しても意味の上で違いは出ないきがするのです。理解度を試すよりも、ライティングやスピークングなどのアウトプットができるか試しているのでしょうか。こういう文を見て「おっ」となるのはTOEICのおかげですね。
you might soon be skipping your morning cereal or toast for some peach and banana potato crunch! （すぐに朝のシリアルやトーストをやめて、代わりに、もも味、バナナ味のチップスを食べているかもしれない）
ここでの助動詞mightは推量でしょうか。
（ウィズダム） 〖現在将来の可能性〗〖might do〗〈人物事が〉(ひょっとすると)…かもしれない (!過去の意味はなく, mayと交換可能なことも多い; ｟米｠では時にmayが｟かたく｠響き, 日常英語ではmightの方が好まれる; そのほかのmayとの違いについては→may 1語法) I think I might be able to help you. ひょっとしたらお役に立てるかもしれません
TOEICの例文 I'm afraid I might be late if I have to make a detour through an area I don't know very well.
（ウィズダム） 〖控えめな提案助言〗〖might do〗…してもよいのではないか (通例肯定文で; had betterのような切迫感はない) ▸ He just showed up. You might want [like] to see him right away. 彼ならちょうど来たところです. すぐに彼にお会いになるのもいいでしょう (しばしばwant, like, wish, preferなど希望を表す動詞を伴う; この用法ではcouldよりもmight, mayが好まれる)
TOEICの例文 It's not easy to find parking in that area, so you might want to park in the garage behind the inn.
NHKラジオの実践ビジネス英語の５月号がSizing Up the Millenials（２０００年世代の評価）で、６月号はLiving the American Dream（アメリカンドリームを生きる）でした。ちょうどUnwindingやDivideを読んでいたタイミングもあったので、興味深く読むことができました。日本語訳を読むだけでも英検や国連英検対策になるのではないでしょうか。
Generation gap 39% of voters 60 and over believe that Indispensable is the best choice for American foreign policy While… 41% of voters 44 and below prefer the Independent path
MARCH 7, 2014 Millennials in Adulthood Detached from Institutions, Networked with Friends The Millennial generation is forging a distinctive path into adulthood. Now ranging in age from 18 to 331, they are relatively unattached to organized politics and religion, linked by social media, burdened by debt, distrustful of people, in no rush to marry— and optimistic about the future.
They are also America’s most racially diverse generation. In all of these dimensions, they are different from today’s older generations. And in many, they are also different from older adults back when they were the age Millennials are now.
Pew Research Center surveys show that half of Millennials (50%) now describe themselves as political independents and about three-in-ten (29%) say they are not affiliated with any religion. These are at or near the highest levels of political and religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the quarter-century that the Pew Research Center has been polling on these topics.
（ロングマン） isolationism beliefs or actions that are based on the political principle that your country should not be involved in the affairs of other countries
This might sound like isolationism, a term that’s been the kiss of death in U.S. politics since World War II. But that word is an unfair dismissal of every legitimate concern Americans have about the obvious foreign policy excesses and costly miscalculations of their government. Those who want Washington to declare independence from the need to play Superman believe that the U.S. has profound potential that’s been wasted in mistakes overseas. Imagine for a moment that every dollar spent in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past dozen years had been spent instead to empower Americans and their economy. Redirect the attention, energy and resources we now squander on a failed superhero foreign policy toward building the America we imagine, one that empowers all its people to realize their human potential.
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These are not isolationist values. The U.S. should continue to export and import goods and ideas, and welcome the citizens of other countries who would come to America legally, as millions have done since our founding. The U.S. should also accept more of the world’s refugees, whose numbers are now at the highest level since the end of World War II. The civil war in Syria has forced up to 4 million people to flee their country, yet the U.S. has so far accepted fewer than 1,000 of them. “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” That’s a principle, inscribed in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, that Americans can be proud of–and one on which we’ve too often fallen short.
ブレマー氏はIndependentを支持していると記事で明言していましたが、キッシンジャー氏が昨年出した本World OrderではAmerican leadership has been indispensableとindispensableの立場で、What it does not permit is withdrawalとしていたんですよね。このあたりの意見の違いも面白いと思いました。
Throughout, American leadership has been indispensable, even when it has been exercised ambivalently. It has sought a balance between stability and advocacy of universal principles not always reconcilable with principles of sovereign noninterference or other nations’ historical experience. The quest for that balance, between the uniqueness of the American experience and the idealistic confidence in its universality, between the poles of overconfidence and introspection, is inherently unending. What it does not permit is withdrawal.
ブライアンレーラーのラジオにも登場されていました。 Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and the author of Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World (Portfolio, 2015), outlines three options for future U.S. foreign policy: independence, economic, and indispensability and the benefits and drawbacks for each.
Tsuda College, occupying a leafy campus in the western suburbs of Tokyo, is a private college where female students are educated in languages and the liberal arts. In one corner of the site, overshadowed by the stately trees that surround it, lies the final resting place of Umeko Tsuda, an early pioneer of women’s education in Japan who founded the college in 1900.
Most Japanese schoolchildren will be familiar with the story of Tsuda, who was dispatched to the U.S. for a decade-long immersion in Western culture at the tender age of six. Less well known are the tales of the other girls who accompanied her on the Iwakura Mission that began in 1871 — a high point in Japan’s early diplomatic forays overseas during the Meiji Era (1868-1912).
Of the three girls, does Sutematsu’s story stand out? In many ways Sutematsu traveled the greatest distance of the three. She was one of the last to live within the rhythms and rituals of a traditional samurai family; she spent her childhood in the shadow of an ancient castle in the north of Japan; she survived the last battle of the 1868 civil war that toppled the shogun—and then suddenly she was thrust into Gilded Age America. She came of age in Alice Bacon’s liberal-minded New Haven family and graduated from Vassar College, the first Japanese woman to earn a bachelor’s degree. Then she returned to Japan and made the difficult decision to forgo a teaching career and marry a powerful man—the emperor’s minister of war—and turned her considerable intellectual strengths to making change from behind the scenes, constrained for the rest of her life by the rigid etiquette of the Japanese elite. I found her story almost unbearably poignant.
このWSJのインタビュー記事で他に興味深かった部分は以下です。
What lessons could be gleaned from their experience, that resonate with today’s culture of globalization? We tend to think of globalization as a recent phenomenon. In the course of my research, I was struck over and over by the intrepid spirit and extraordinary open-mindedness of so many of the people in this story: the Japanese ambassadors who fanned out across the globe to gather information on Western technology and ideas; the American families who were eager to embrace these Japanese girls; and Alice Bacon herself, who after a year spent in Tokyo, commented, “The word ‘civilization’ is so difficult to define and to understand, that I do not know what it means now as well as I did when I left home.” Having said that, what is particular about Japanese-American relations that makes the girls’ story more extraordinary? Many commentators note a pendulum swing in Japan’s attitude toward the West, with periods of marked openness followed by conservative reaction. During the 1870s, Japan lunged avidly toward all things Western; it was this enthusiasm that launched the girls on their journey. But by the time they returned, in the early 1880s, reaction was setting in, and their fluency in English and Western manners was not embraced as eagerly as they had expected. Despite this dismaying shift, these young women still managed to make significant and lasting contributions to the progress of women’s education in Japan. Is there still a gulf between tradition and Western culture in Japan, in your view, or between women and men in Japanese culture? There is indeed. Part of the reason this story resonated so strongly with me from the start was my own experience when I moved to Tokyo, two years out of college and newly married. I was startled and frustrated by the automatic assumption that my husband would have a career and I would stay home—I remember one gentleman telling me that my role was “to be a harbor.” Today, even as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calls for Japanese women to join the workforce and rescue the flagging Japanese economy, these women struggle to find adequate childcare and are expected to assume full responsibility for the care of aging parents.
Alice Mabel Baconの『日本の内側』という本をたまたま図書館でみつけたことが執筆のきっかけだったと語っています。
To STEMATZ, THE MARCHIONESS OYAMA, IN THE NAME OF OUR GIRLHOOD’S FRIENDSHIP, UNCHANGED AND UNSHAKEN BY THE CHANGES AND SEPARATIONS OF OUR MARURE YEARS, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
It is especially important to plow through as many novels as you can while you are still young. Everything you can get your hands on – great novels, not-so-great novels, crappy novels, it doesn’t matter (at all!) as long as you keep reading. Absorb as many stories as you physically can. Introduce yourself to lots of great writing. To lots of mediocre writing too. This is your most important task. Thorough it you will develop the basic novelistic muscles that every novelist needs. Build up your foundation. Make it strong while you have time to spare and while your eyes are still good. Writing is important too, I guess, but it can come later – there is no need to rush.
Tisch graduates you made it and you’re fucked. Think about that. The graduates from the College of Nursing, they all have jobs. The graduates from the College of Dentistry — fully employed. Leonard N. Stern School of Business graduates, they're covered. The School of Medicine graduates? Each one will get a job. The proud graduates of the NYU School of Law, they're covered and if they are not, who cares? They are lawyers. The English majors? They’re not a factor. They’ll be home writing their novels. Teachers, they’ll be working, s----- jobs and lousy pay, but they will be working. The graduates in accounting, they all will have jobs. Tisch卒業生のみなはやり遂げましたが、やらかしたのです。 いいかい。看護学校の卒業生は皆仕事があります。歯科大学の卒業生も全員が雇用されています。レナード・N・スターン・スクールの卒業生も問題ないでしょう。医科大学の卒業生？誰もが仕事を得るでしょう。NYU法科大学の立派な卒業生たちは問題ないでしょう。仕事がなかったとしても、心配ないです。弁護士なんですから。英文学専攻？彼らは対象外です。家にいて小説を書くでしょうから。先生。働くでしょう。ひどい仕事でわずかな給料ですが、働くでしょう。会計専門の卒業生も、全員が職を得るでしょう。
Where does that leave you? Envious of those accountants? I doubt it. Maybe they were passionate about accounting but I think it's more likely that they used reason and logic and common sense to reach for a career that could give them the expectation of success and stability. Reason, logic, common sense at the Tisch School of Arts? Are you kidding me? But you didn't have that choice, did you? You discovered a talent, developed an ambition and recognized your passion. When you feel that, you can’t fight it; you just go with it. どんなことを感じますか。彼らのような会計士をうらやましいと思いますか。そうではないでしょう。彼らは会計に情熱があったのかもしれませんが、きっと理性と論理と常識でキャリアを目指したのです。成功と安定の見込みのあるキャリアを。Tisch芸術学校に理性と論理と常識ありますか？冗談はやめてください。そんな選択はしなかったんでしょう。才能を感じ、野心を育み、情熱を見出した。それを感じたとき、逆らうことなく、その道に進んだのです。
When it comes to the arts, passion should always trump commonsense. You weren’t just following dreams, you were reaching for your destiny. You’re a dancer, a singer, a choreographer, musician, a filmmaker, a writer, a photographer, a director, a producer, an actor, an artist. Yeah, you’re fucked. The good news is that’s not a bad place to start. Now that you’ve made your choice or rather succumbed to it, your path is clear, not easy but clear. 芸術においては、情熱がいつだって常識を打ち破ってきたのです。皆さんは夢を追い求めただけではなく、運命を掴もうとしていたのです。皆さんは、ダンサーや歌手、振付師、音楽家、映画監督、作家、写真家、演出家、プロデューサー、俳優、女優たちです。そうです、あなたたちはやらかしたのです。いいところは、始めるのには悪くない場所だということです。屈することなく、自分で決断を下したのですから、道ははっきりしています。簡単ではないですがはっきりしているのです。
このあともa door to a lifetime of rejectionと実社会の厳しさを伝えますが、温かみとユーモアのある語り口は変わりません。きっと近いうちに全部のスクリプトが読めるようになるでしょう。
The traditional idea of collective unconscious is very different now. Our Collective Unconscious is made up of pop culture items. And they’re shared by people on both sides of the ocean. Definitely. これまでの集団無意識の考えは今では違ったものになっています。私たちの集団無意識はポップカルチャーな事柄で作られています。太平洋の両岸のアメリカ人と日本人とで共有されているのです。 It’s interesting. You can become nostalgic for a world that you’ve never experienced. That the Western can become nostalgic for old Japan and the Japanese can become nostalgic for the world of cowboy western, Seibu Geki, or something like that. 面白いですね。経験したことがない世界にノスタルジーを感じるのです。欧米人が古き日本にノスタルジーを感じ、日本人がカウボーイウエスタンの世界、西部劇にノスタルジーを感じたりするのです。
Featuring writers Ben Katchor, Satoshi Kitamura, Kelly Link, and Aoko Matsuda
Join our annual conversation between contemporary Japanese and American authors in which Asia Society hosts an international dialogue, curated and moderated by the co-founders and editors of the Tokyo-based literary journal Monkey Business with writers who are featured in this latest edition of Monkey Business (#5).
This year rising star Japanese novelist and translator Aoko Matsuda, whose stories in the wake of Japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami have been published in English, most notably in Granta, will be paired with American short story fabulist Kelly Link and award-winning Japanese graphic novelist and cartoonist Satoshi Kitamura will be in dialogue with award-winning American cartoonist and author Ben Katchor. Moderated by Monkey Business editor Roland Kelts and the editors and co-founders of Monkey Business, Ted Goossen and Motoyuki Shibata.
Ticket includes a complimentary copy of Monkey Business (#5).
At this point in his career, the 60-year-old — who recently retired from teaching American literature and translation at the University of Tokyo — has plenty of friends to call on. During its short lifetime, the Japanese edition of “Monkey Business” featured work by the likes of Paul Auster, Richard Powers and Rebecca Brown, all of whom have had books translated by Shibata, alongside a wealth of homegrown literary talent.
Though he discontinued the quarterly in 2011, Shibata waited just a couple of years before launching a successor. Titled simply “Monkey,” the new journal is handsomely illustrated and entirely ad-free; that it has managed to break even so far is thanks, in no small part, to the essays that Haruki Murakami contributes to each issue.
柴田さんの翻訳の心構えとしてI just sort of listen to the text, and I come up with what seems most similar.と語っています。
“The most important thing (for translators) is the passion or admiration you have for the work,” says Shibata. “Haruki Murakami, as a translator, is that way too. In this case, maybe, since he’s a novelist himself, it’s not so much admiration as empathy.”
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“There is no settled method,” he says. “I just sort of listen to the text, and I come up with what seems most similar.” Which is not to say it’s all easy, of course. Shibata spent a decade working on his award-winning 2010 Japanese translation of Thomas Pynchon’s “Mason & Dixon,” a task he describes as the hardest thing he has ever done. And even now, the rich vernacular of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” poses a challenge: “It’s one thing to reproduce Huck Finn’s voice — I nearly think I can do it — but with Jim’s voice, I still don’t know what to do, so I still haven’t translated it.”
今週のEconomist Special Report India 先週のNature Science in India 先々週のTIME Why Modi Matters?（カバーストーリー） Granta 2015冬号 India
Modi’s rule India’s one-man band The country has a golden opportunity to transform itself. Narendra Modi risks missing it May 23rd 2015 | From the print edition
TIMEのカバーストーリーはfrom poverty to Prime Ministerとオバマ大統領がTIME100で書いていたように、モディ首相の経歴も合わせて紹介していました。Timeと比べるとEconomistはずっと辛口に評価しています。そのあたりの温度差を読み比べても面白いですね。
India’s reformer-in-chief As a boy, Narendra Modi helped his father sell tea to support their family. Today, he’s the leader of the world’s largest democracy, and his life story—from poverty to Prime Minister—reflects the dynamism and potential of India’s rise. Determined to help more Indians follow in his path, he’s laid out an ambitious vision to reduce extreme poverty, improve education, empower women and girls and unleash India’s true economic potential while confronting climate change. Like India, he transcends the ancient and the modern—a devotee of yoga who connects with Indian citizens on Twitter and imagines a “digital India.” When he came to Washington, Narendra and I visited the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We reflected on the teachings of King and Gandhi and how the diversity of backgrounds and faiths in our countries is a strength we have to protect. Prime Minister Modi recognizes that more than 1 billion Indians living and succeeding together can be an inspiring model for the world. Obama is the 44th President of the United States
Natureの方も厳しめにインドの科学界の現状を書いている感じでした。科学に興味がない方もIndia by the numbersによるインフォグラフィックはオススメです。
NATURE | EDITORIAL A nation with ambition India is making great strides in improving its science, but it needs to look carefully at its approach and work with the rest of the world if it is to realize its full potential. 13 May 2015
SCIENCE IN INDIA Nature takes a close look at the state of science in a mushrooming economy, soon to be the world’s most populous nation. By most metrics, India is underperforming compared with developed nations and ascendant economies such as China and Brazil. So, how best to build the country's scientific capacity, and tackle its grand challenges including energy, water, food and pollution?
Granta 130: India Winter 2015 For a long time – too long – the mirror that India held to its face was made elsewhere. ‘What writer about the country would you recommend I read?’ first-time travellers to India would ask, and in the later twentieth century the answer was still Forster or Naipaul or even the long-dead Kipling. In fiction, that changed with Rushdie. Now it has changed in all kinds of non-fiction. Narrative history, reportage, memoir, biography, the travel account: all have their gifted exponents in a country perfecting its own frank gaze.
Humor, irony, and satire. It is acceptable to test understanding of humor, irony, and satire when it is important for valid measurement, as in some literature tests, but how should humor be treated on skills tests? Are all test takers likely to understand the joke, or might some be offended? How should irony and satire be treated? Could some people take such material literally and be offended by it? Is it important to avoid construct-irrelevant humor that is based on disparaging any groups of people, their strongly held beliefs, their concerns, or their weaknesses? （ユーモア、皮肉、風刺。ユーモアや皮肉、風刺の理解度をテストするのが受け入れられるのは、文学のテストのような妥当な測定に重要な場合である。しかし、スキルテストでのユーモアの対処方法はどのようにあるべきか。すべての受験者がジョークを理解するものだろうか、不快に感じる人がいるのではなかろうか。どのように皮肉や風刺を扱うべきだろうか。そのような題材を文字通りに受け取る人がいたり、不快に感じたりする人がいるのではないか。construct-irrelevantなユーモアを避けることが重要ではないだろうか。特に一部のグループやその強固な信条、その人たちの懸念事項や弱点を侮辱するようなユーモアは。）
誰かを不快にする可能性がある、人によって受け取り方が違うという点は、ユーモアだけでなく言語を使う上で気をつけたいところです。『二十日鼠と人間』でアメリカの格差に少し興味が出たので、今はUnwindingを読んでいるのですが、オプラウィンフリーやZero to Oneのピーターティールなんかも違った側面から紹介されていてへえーと思いながら読んでいます。コリンパウエルも登場していたのですが、そこでsleep like a babyという表現の２つの受け取り方がイラク戦争時のブッシュ大統領とパウエル国務長官との立場の違いを浮き彫りにしていて印象深いです。Slateの記事にもそのエピソードがあるのでこちらをご紹介します。
As George Bush's first term nears its end, Powell's tenure as top diplomat is approaching its nadir. On the high-profile issues of the day, he seems to have almost no influence within the administration. And his fateful briefing one year ago before the U.N. Security Council—where he attached his personal credibility to claims of Iraqi WMD—has destroyed his once-considerable standing with the Democrats, not to mention our European allies, most of the United Nations, and the media.
At times, Powell has taken his fate with resigned humor. Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker last year of a diplomatic soiree that Powell attended on the eve of war, at which a foreign diplomat recited a news account that Bush was sleeping like a baby. Powell reportedly replied, "I'm sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming."
sleep like a babyという表現はGoogle画像検索が示すように「赤ちゃんのようにすやすやと眠る」という良い意味で使われるのが普通のようです。最初のBush was sleeping like a babyはその意味でしょうが、パウエル国務長官の言葉とされるのは、I'm sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming.と正反対の意味で使われていますね。まあ、馴染みのない意味で使ったから、Every two hours, I wake up, screaming.を捕捉したのでしょう。でも、だからと言ってこの比喩が間違っているわけではないですよね。赤ちゃんは夜泣きをするものですから。しかもこの表現はパウエル国務長官の気持ちをうまく代弁する表現にもなっています。
Words checked = [5760] Words in Oxford 3000™ = [84%]
まずアメリカでデビューしたのですが、ジョークが通じない状況だったようです。英語学習者としてはhe had read the Oxford English Dictionary cover to cover eight timesの部分に目がいってしまいますね。
His first show bombed. On a winter evening in 2002, he stood in a corner at Hannah’s, a sports bar in Somerville, Mass., and told a joke about the New England foliage and another about how he didn’t want to go back to China because there, he couldn’t do what he did best: “be ethnic.” A few friends in the audience smiled politely. After the show, a man came over to shake his hand. “I think you might be funny,” he said. “But I couldn’t understand a thing you said.”
By that point, Wong, then in his 30s, was going through an identity crisis. He’d been in the United States for eight years, but he still felt like a ghost. His English was improving — he had read the Oxford English Dictionary cover to cover eight times — but to the ears of some Americans, he still spoke gibberish. He enjoyed chemical research, but he felt interchangeable with the next scientist. “I wanted to point to something and say, ‘That’s me,’ ” he said.
ユーモアは地域性が強く、翻訳が難しいことを改めて触れているところで、ジョークの日本語通訳でよく登場する逸話A Japanese interpreter once translated a joke that Jimmy Carter delivered during a lecture as: “President Carter told a funny story. Everyone must laugh.”が登場していました（笑）合わせて、中国のジョークスタイルを紹介してくれています。
Humor is stubbornly provincial. Comedic tastes differ by region, and most jokes don’t translate well. (A Japanese interpreter once translated a joke that Jimmy Carter delivered during a lecture as: “President Carter told a funny story. Everyone must laugh.”) One academic study compared Italians with Germans and found that the former had a stronger preference for sex jokes, while the latter had a greater appreciation for absurdist humor. Other studies found that Hungarians like gags about ethnic stereotypes more than the English do, while Americans enjoy aggressive humor more than Belgians, Hong Kongers, Senegalese or Japanese.
Comedy in the People’s Republic isn’t so much an attitude or philosophical viewpoint as it is a set of forms. The most widespread is xiangsheng — typically (if imperfectly) translated as “cross-talk” — a traditional two-person comedic performance that often features wordplay and references to Chinese literary classics, as well as singing and dancing. Cross-talk originated with street performers during the late Qing dynasty. In 1861, the Xianfeng Emperor died and the government declared a 100-day period of mourning, which meant all stage shows were canceled. Many artists resorted to illegal busking, and a Peking-opera performer named Zhu Shaowen hung up a sign in a public square: “I’m poor, and I’m not afraid to stand on the street corner and shoot the breeze,” goes one loose translation.
中国というとネット規制がすぐに連想されるほど、表現にはうるさいイメージがあります。“three T’s” of Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmenと英語ではキャッチーに表現できるのですね。このあたりのエピソードを読むと確かに強権的な部分は無視できないようです。
Every comedian in China knows that there is a line, but no one knows exactly where it is. There’s the obvious stuff — the “three T’s” of Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen — but the details are anyone’s guess. That’s how censorship works best: Keep the rules vague, and let everyone police themselves. Some comedians stay clear of the line. Others edge toward it, place a toe on the far side, then skitter away. Occasionally someone plows right across it, but the results aren’t always funny.
*****
The government bureaus are way ahead of him. In early June 2014, the week of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Joe Wong and a few other comedians were getting ready to perform at 69 Cafe, a small bar in central Beijing. Two officials from the local cultural-affairs bureau walked in and approached the organizer, and suggested that they not perform. The officials didn’t forbid it — it was just a recommendation, they said. The M.C. went onstage and announced that the show was canceled. “That’s not funny!” someone in the audience yelled.
ただ、このライターは政治の表現規制よりもpeople’s unwillingness to set aside their pride and take a jokeとジョークを受け入れる余裕がないところが大きいとみているようです。このあたりは日本も他人事ではないかもしれません。
This, more than political restrictions, may be the biggest obstacle to the emergence of truly good stand-up in China: people’s unwillingness to set aside their pride and take a joke. “If I talk about the Beijing smog, people will say: ‘You’re losing face for Beijing,’ ” Wang Zijian told me. A famous actress once called up Wang’s producer, he said, and begged that they not tell any more jokes about her and her boyfriend. The producer agreed, wanting to preserve good relations.
Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them--and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution-- these can lift at a colossal humbug--push it a little--weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave it lying rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No; you lack sense and the courage."
On Sunday, the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh finally released a story that he has been rumored to have been working on for years: the truth about the killing of Osama bin Laden. According to Hersh's 10,000-word story in the London Review of Books, the official history of bin Laden's death — in which the US tracked him to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan; killed him in a secret raid that infuriated Pakistan; and then buried him at sea — is a lie.
Hersh's story is amazing to read, alleging a vast American-Pakistani conspiracy to stage the raid and even to fake high-level diplomatic incidents as a sort of cover. But his allegations are largely supported only by two sources, neither of whom has direct knowledge of what happened, both of whom are retired, and one of whom is anonymous. The story is riven with internal contradictions and inconsistencies.
The story simply does not hold up to scrutiny — and, sadly, is in line with Hersh's recent turn away from the investigative reporting that made him famous into unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.
ハーシュの語る真実とは以下のものだそうですが、それが本当だとしたらそれはそれですごいですね。。。
The truth, Hersh says, is that Pakistani intelligence services captured bin Laden in 2006 and kept him locked up with support from Saudi Arabia, using him as leverage against al-Qaeda. In 2010, Pakistan agreed to sell bin Laden to the US for increased military aid and a "freer hand in Afghanistan." Rather than kill him or hand him over discreetly, Hersh says the Pakistanis insisted on staging an elaborate American "raid" with Pakistani support.
（動画の書き起こし） Teacher: Murph is a great kid. She’s really bright, but she’s been having a little trouble lately. She brought this in to show the other students. The section on the lunar landings. Cooper: Yeah, it’s one of my old textbooks. She always loved the pictures. Teacher: It’s an old federal textbook. We’ve replaced them with the corrected versions. Cooper: Corrected? Teacher: Explaining how the Apollo missions were faked to bankrupt the Soviet Union. Cooper: You don’t believe we went to the moon? Teacher: I believe that it was a brilliant piece of propaganda. That the Soviets bankrupted themselves pouring resources into rockets and other useless machines. Cooper: Useless machines? Teacher: And if we don’t want a repeat of the excess and wastefulness of the 20th Century, then we need to teach our kids about this planet — not tales of leaving it. Cooper: You know, one of those useless machines they used to make was called an MRI. And if we had any of those left, the doctors would have been able to cut the cyst in my wife’s brain before she died, instead of afterwards. And then she would have been the one sitting her listening to this instead of me, which would’ve been good because she was always the calmer one.
（スクリプト） COOPER One of my old textbooks. Murph liked the pictures. MS. KELLY This is one of the old federal textbooks. We've replaced them with corrected versions. COOPER Corrected? MS. KELLY The new textbooks explain that the Apollo lunar missions were faked in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union. COOPER You don't believe we went to the moon? MS. KELLY I believe it was a brilliant piece of propaganda. The Soviets spent years trying to build rockets and other useless machines. COOPER "Useless machines"? Cooper looks to the Principal for help. None is forthcoming. MS. KELLY Yes, Mr. Cooper. The kind of wastefulness and excess that the 20th century represented. Your children would be better off learning about this planet, rather than reading fantasies about leaving it. Cooper is silent for a long moment. COOPER One of those useless machines they used to make was called an MRI. If we had any of them left the doctors might have been able to find the cyst in my wife's brain before she died, rather than afterwards. And then my kids could have been raised by two parents, instead of me and their pain-in-the-ass grandfather.
TOEICは政治的なトピックや専門的なトピックを排除して公正な内容にしようと努めていることを紹介しましたが、これはあくまでmeasures the everyday English skills of people working in an international environment（国際的な環境で働く人々が毎日使う英語スキルの測定）、workplace/everyday English（職場の英語・日常生活の英語）の実力を測定するためであることを忘れてはならないでしょう。あくまで限定的なシチュエーションでの英語力なのです。
The TOEIC® Test The TOEIC® (Test of English for International Communication) test is an English language proficiency test for people whose native language is not English. It measures the everyday English skills of people working in an international environment. TOEIC test scores indicate how well people can communicate in English with others in the global workplace. The test does not require specialized knowledge or vocabulary; it measures only the kind of English used in everyday work activities.
Appropriate Uses Provided all applicable guidelines are followed, TOEIC scores are suitable for the uses described below. ¬¬Hiring of applicants for an open position within a corporation or organization where workplace/everyday English is a required job skill ¬¬Placement of applicants or test takers within a corporation or organization where workplace/everyday English is a required job skill ¬¬Promotion of test takers within a corporation or organization where workplace/everyday English is a required job skill ¬¬Measurement of workplace/everyday English proficiency levels of students in secondary schools and universities ¬¬Measurement of individuals’ progress in workplace/ everyday English proficiency levels over time
Committed to Fairness and Equity in Testing ETS is committed to ensuring that our tests and other products are of the highest quality and as free of bias as possible. 公平かつ公正なテストを目指す取り組み ETS では、提供するテストやその他の製品を、高品質で可能な限り偏りのないものにするための取り組みを続けています。
All of our products and services — including individual test questions, assessments, instructional materials and publications — are evaluated during development to ensure that they: ▪ are not offensive or controversial ▪ do not reinforce stereotypical views of any group ▪ are free of racial, ethnic, gender, socioeconomic and other forms of bias ▪ are free of content believed to be inappropriate or derogatory toward any group
Test Fairness The ETS TOEIC Program and its authorized local ETS Preferred Associates have taken steps to ensure, to the extent possible, that tests and test scores are fair for all test takers, regardless of gender, age, nationality, and test-taker industry background. All of our products and services—including individual test questions, assessments, instructional materials, and publications—are evaluated during development to ensure that they: ¬¬Are not offensive or controversial ¬¬Do not reinforce stereotypical views of any group ¬¬Are free of racial, ethnic, gender, socioeconomic and other forms of bias ¬¬Are free of content believed to be inappropriate or derogatory toward any group All of our tests and other products undergo rigorous, formal reviews to ensure adherence to our fairness guidelines, which are set forth in three publications that can be found on our website, www.ets.org:
今回じっくり読んだの以下の資料で、TOEIC User Guide—Listening & Readingでも紹介されていました。
ETS International Principles for Fairness Review of Assessments (PDF) The International Principles for Fairness Review of Assessments are designed to ensure that our tests and related products are fair and appropriate for the culture and country in which they are used. International Principles for Fairness Review of Assesments は、ETS のテストとその関連製品が使用される文化や国において公平かつ適切であるかを確認するために設計されたものです。
Sports. What are all test takers of skills tests expected to know about various sports? Will male and female test takers have the same level of knowledge?
2. Avoid affective sources of construct-irrelevant variance.
Accidents, illnesses, or natural disasters. For some content tests, such as a licensing test for nurses, details about the effects of diseases or detailed descriptions of injuries may be appropriate, but is it acceptable to dwell on gruesome, horrible, or shocking aspects of accidents, illnesses, or natural disasters in a skills test? Are other aspects of those topics acceptable? For example, is it acceptable to address the prevention of accidents, the causes of illness, or the occurrences of natural disasters?
Humor, irony, and satire. It is acceptable to test understanding of humor, irony, and satire when it is important for valid measurement, as in some literature tests, but how should humor be treated on skills tests? Are all test takers likely to understand the joke, or might some be offended? How should irony and satire be treated? Could some people take such material literally and be offended by it? Is it important to avoid construct-irrelevant humor that is based on disparaging any groups of people, their strongly held beliefs, their concerns, or their weaknesses?
Evolution. The topic of evolution has caused a great deal of controversy in the United States, and attitudes toward evolution vary greatly in different countries. What is the attitude toward evolution in your country? Should evolution be included in skills tests? How should evolution be treated in content tests?
Black people. In the United States, “Black” and “African American” (for American people) are both acceptable. “Negro” and “colored” are not acceptable except in historical material or the official names of organizations. Because “Black” is used as a group identifier, ETS test developers are told to avoid the use of “black” as a negative adjective, as in “black magic,” “black day,” or “black-hearted.”
Asian people. ETS test developers are told to use specific terminology such as “Chinese” or “Japanese” and not to use the word “Oriental” to describe people unless quoting historical or literary material or using the name of an organization. How should Asian people be referred to in your country?
3. Avoid physical sources of construct-irrelevant variance. ３番目の原則はあまり例などが多くなかったのですが、身体的なハンディキャップがテストの能力測定に影響を及ぼさないようにするということのようです。
Additional Requirements: The following requirements for United States K–12 tests are all extensions of Principle 2 (Avoid affective sources of construct-irrelevant variance). Any redundancy with the discussion of Principle 2 is intended to stress the additional care to be employed in tests for young students. In the United States, ETS test developers are told to avoid items or stimuli about each of the following in K–12 tests, unless important for valid measurement. Should the same topics be avoided in your country?
▪ Serious illnesses (e.g., cancer, HIV, AIDS, herpes, tuberculosis, smallpox, anthrax) ▪ Animals or people who are killed or are dying ▪ Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, or forest fires, unless the disasters are treated as scientific subjects and there is little or no mention of the destruction caused and loss of life ▪ Divorce, loss of jobs, layoffs, and other family situations that students may find upsetting ▪ Depictions or suggestions of interpersonal violence or disharmony, including playground arguments, fights among students, bullying, cliques, and social ostracism ▪ Dissension among family members or between students and teachers ▪ Graphic depictions of violence in the animal kingdom ▪ A focus on pests (e.g., rats, roaches, and lice) or on creatures that may be frightening to students (e.g., scorpions, poisonous snakes, and spiders) ▪ Drinking alcohol, smoking or chewing tobacco, and gambling ▪ Drug use, including the use of prescription drugs ▪ Birthday celebrations, Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine's Day (because not all children celebrate them) ▪ Dancing, including school dances (such as proms), particular kinds of music (e.g., rap, rock and roll) ▪ Going to the movies ▪ References to a deity, including expressions like “Thank God,” and euphemisms for such references (for example, “gee whiz”) ▪ Stories about mythological gods or creation stories ▪ Extrasensory perception, UFOs, the occult, or the supernatural ▪ Texts that are preachy or moralistic, as they may offend populations that do not hold the values espoused ▪ Controversial topics such as gun control, welfare, global warming, the suffering of individuals at the hands of a prejudiced or racist society, a focus on individuals overcoming prejudice, and the specific results of discrimination against women ▪ Evolution, with associated topics of natural selection, fossils, geologic ages (e.g., millions of years ago), dinosaurs, and similarities between people and primates ▪ Particular personal or political values in discussions of controversial topics such as protection of the environment, deforestation, or labor unions ▪ Biographical passages that focus on individuals who are readily associated with offensive topics (It is best to avoid biographical passages that focus on individuals who are still living. Their future actions or activities are unpredictable and may result in fairness problems.) ▪ Materials that model or reinforce inappropriate student behaviors such as students playing tricks on teachers or adults, lying, stealing, or running away from home, or even considering those behaviors ▪ Students going without sleep, failing to attend school or do homework, or eating large quantities of junk foods ▪ Students violating good safety practices (e.g., students keeping dangerous animals, entering homes of unknown adults), even if everything turns out well ▪ Suggestions of sexual activity and words or phrases that carry a sexual connotation ▪ Children coping with adult decisions or situations (e.g., supporting the emotional needs of a parent) ▪ Expressing or implying cynicism about charity, honesty, or similar values Should any of these topics, or any additional topics, be avoided in K-12 tests in your country?
使う言語が「世界の見え方」を決めている：研究結果 2015.5.18 MON 「言語が変われば周りの世界も違って見える」ということが証明された。同じ人でも、そのときに使っている言語によって物事の捉え方が変わってくるのだという。 TEXT BY SIMONE VALESINI TRANSLATION BY TAKESHI OTOSHI
Abstract People make sense of objects and events around them by classifying them into identifiable categories. The extent to which language affects this process has been the focus of a long-standing debate: Do different languages cause their speakers to behave differently? Here, we show that fluent German-English bilinguals categorize motion events according to the grammatical constraints of the language in which they operate. First, as predicted from cross-linguistic differences in motion encoding, bilingual participants functioning in a German testing context prefer to match events on the basis of motion completion to a greater extent than do bilingual participants in an English context. Second, when bilingual participants experience verbal interference in English, their categorization behavior is congruent with that predicted for German; when bilingual participants experience verbal interference in German, their categorization becomes congruent with that predicted for English. These findings show that language effects on cognition are context-bound and transient, revealing unprecedented levels of malleability in human cognition.
To state the obvious: What we think influences what we say. Less obvious is the converse: namely, the possibility that the language we speak or our chosen words shape, facilitate or constrain thinking. This question might seem abstract, but it seems to affect—among other things—the public response to hurricane alerts.
Psycholinguists have long focused on the subject of words influencing thoughts. It’s rooted in the question of whether we can think without language. The topic has generated some silly, New Agey views—for example, the urban myth that the Hopi language has no words for time and, as a result, Hopi speakers are especially good at understanding the time dilation predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Words also shape thoughts in languages with grammatical gender systems, where some nouns are masculine, others feminine. The results can be nutty. In French, for example, “kidney” is masculine, but the place where it sends its urine, the “bladder,” is feminine. Do gendered nouns shape thought? Ask Germans and Spaniards to describe a bridge. Germans, with a feminine word, tend to emphasize a bridge’s beauty and grace; Spaniards, with their masculine word, tend to focus on its strength and construction.
In another experiment, subjects received information about an impending hurricane (its anticipated wind speed, barometric pressure and so on). They judged hurricanes with male names as riskier and rated themselves as more likely to comply with evacuation orders, given the danger. Both males and females showed this tendency. The scientists concluded that female-named hurricanes probably cause more deaths because people don’t take them as seriously as male-named hurricanes.
Abstract Do people judge hurricane risks in the context of gender-based expectations? We use more than six decades of death rates from US hurricanes to show that feminine-named hurricanes cause significantly more deaths than do masculine-named hurricanes. Laboratory experiments indicate that this is because hurricane names lead to gender-based expectations about severity and this, in turn, guides respondents’ preparedness to take protective action. This finding indicates an unfortunate and unintended consequence of the gendered naming of hurricanes, with important implications for policymakers, media practitioners, and the general public concerning hurricane communication and preparedness.
My suspicion is that this study is a classic example of confirmation bias: The authors likely knew what result they were going for when they set out to do the study, and sure enough, they found it.
The deadliness of hurricanes is an intensely complicated problem. To generalize it down to gender stereotypes based on the name of the storm itself is a simplistic distraction at best, and a perpetuation of gender myths at worst.
To test my hypothesis that there isn’t enough data for the authors to make the claim that the gender of storm names is in any way related to how deadly they are, I used the authors’ own data (.XLS) to figure out what would happen if I removed the single remaining deadliest storm from their post-1979 dataset, Hurricane Sandy. (The authors had already removed Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Audrey of 1957 for similar reasons.) While we may think of the name Sandy as a bit gender-ambiguous, the authors categorized it as very feminine—a 9.0 on an 11.0 scale.
Here’s the correlation between the authors’ own “Masculinity-Femininity Index” (which qualitatively ranks names on an 11-point scale according to gender) and number of deaths for each of the 52 storms that made landfall between 1979 and 2012.
Singlehandedly, Hurricane Sandy switches the authors' entire premise on its head. Ignoring Sandy's outlier nature, male-named hurricanes now cause more deaths than female ones. Harold Brooks of NOAA has performed a similar analysis on this data (removing Sandy) with similar results, which he shared as a comment on Yong's blog post.
宇宙戦争 (ラジオ) 『宇宙戦争』（うちゅうせんそう、The War of the Worlds）は、オーソン・ウェルズが、H.G.ウェルズ作『宇宙戦争』をラジオ番組化したものである。
番組概要 1938年10月30日にハロウィン特別番組として、アメリカのラジオ番組『Mercury Theatre on the Air』で放送された。この生放送は多くの聴取者を恐怖させ、実際の火星人侵略が進行中であると信じさせた。 侵略がフィクションである旨を告げる｢お断り｣が何度もあったと言われるが、そのうちの1度は放送開始直後、残り2度は終了間際であったため、その間、聴取者側から見れば、混乱と恐怖のための時間が充分残っていた。
The hysteria was not “mass” in any sense—except in the press. “There were no car accidents,” Mr. Schwartz writes, “no miscarriages, no suicides. Nobody took potshots at a water tower, thinking it was a Martian fighting machine, or disappeared into the mountains, never to be seen again. And if the highways really were clogged with people trying to flee the cities, nobody said so at the time.” In fact, about a million people (out of roughly six million listeners) seem to have mistaken the drama for a news show, at least at first. Most of them appear to have missed the part about the Martians and thought that there was either a natural disaster or some sort of battle going on west of New York.
Yet if radio listeners did not panic, newspaper reporters surely did—both that night and after. The New York Daily News headline was: “Fake ‘War’ on Radio Spreads Panic over U.S.” The Boston Globe’s banner read: “Radio Play Terrifies Nation.” The News and the Globe, with other newspapers, described the car accidents, miscarriages and attempts to flee—though none of these things had occurred. Because a handful of people had acted on their fright (though no one was hurt as a result), newspaper editors threw caution to the winds, extrapolating from a few incidents and, as Mr. Schwartz says, publicizing “a nationwide panic that never actually existed.” Nor was the newspaper panic confined to the Northeast. The story was picked up by the leading wire services and landed in papers from Detroit to New Orleans, from Memphis to Los Angeles.
Michael Gove says children are reading too few books. He says that some students only read two books in an academic year, and that a departmental survey in England suggested that "over 90% of schools teach Of Mice and Men to their GCSE students". But why does a novella written in 1937 about displaced ranch workers during the Great Depression hold such enduring popularity in schools? The answer is that Steinbeck's classic is short, comprising only six chapters, and that its themes continue to be considered relevant to 21st Century society.
The education secretary defended the changes that come into force next year, arguing that pupils will be studying a broader core of works that must include at least one Shakespeare play, poetry from 1789 on including the Romantics and a 19th century novel, as well as a work of fiction or drama originating from the British isles since 1914.
変わりに選ばれた作品の一つにカズオイシグロのNever Let Me Goがあるようです。
Angelou and Steinbeck replaced by Ishiguro and Syal in new English GCSE exams Changes follow the government's reshaping of the English literature exam syllabus, removing the category of prose from different cultures and replacing it with modern works from Britain Alison Flood and Richard Adams Thursday 29 May 2014 20.41 BST
Maya Angelou and John Steinbeck have been scrubbed from the syllabus for GCSE English literature exams, replaced by Booker prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro's tale of a dystopian future, Never Let Me Go, and Meera Syal's Anita and Me.
The changes follow the government's reshaping of the English literature exam syllabus, announced last year, removing the category of "prose from different cultures" and replacing it with "modern works from Britain" – leading to claims that the education secretary was pushing out Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men and other American works.
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Who's in? Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest 19th-century novel Great Expectations (Charles Dickens); A Christmas Carol (Dickens); The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson); Frankenstein (Mary Shelley); Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen); Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë); The Sign of Four (Arthur Conan Doyle) Post-1914 drama and prose An Inspector Calls (JB Priestley); The History Boys (Alan Bennett); Blood Brothers (Willy Russell); DNA (Dennis Kelly); A Taste of Honey (Shelagh Delaney); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Simon Stephens – drama adaptation); The Lord of the Flies (William Golding); Animal Farm (George Orwell); Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro); Anita and Me (Meera Syal); Pigeon English (Stephen Kelman)
The 10 American writers that English children should study for GCSE Michael Gove plans to remove Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird from school reading lists, in favour of Dickens and Austen. It's certainly a mistake to abandon American literature – but which US classics deserve a place in our classrooms? John Sutherland Monday 26 May 2014 18.02 BST
John Sutherland's 10 US novels for GCSE students In the American Grain (William Carlos Williams) Selected Poems (Anne Bradstreet) Benito Cereno (Herman Melville) Beloved (Toni Morrison) Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman) Selected Poems (Emily Dickinson) The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Edgar Allan Poe) The Last of the Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper) Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller) The Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger)
Reading Melville in Post-9/11 America The author's half-forgotten masterpiece, Benito Cereno, provides fascinating insight into issues of slavery, freedom, individualism—and Islamophobia. Greg Grandin /views-field-value January 7, 2014
タイトルは英語だとOur Little Sisterと訳されています。『そして父になる』がLike Father, like sonでしたが、今回も海外向けのタイトルにしたのですね。「腹違いの妹」がhalf-sisterになることを知りました。
（オックスフォード） half-sister a person’s half-sister is a girl or woman who has either the same mother or the same father as them
最近、名詞の単数・複数にこだわっていたので、Our little sisterというタイトルも気になりました。メディア紹介では４人姉妹であることを推していたので、予告編にあったように、そのあたりのことを出すのかと思っていたら、Our little sister（私たちの妹）と単数でした。
It is a diary of four sisters to become a family through the life together. それぞれの思いをかかえ、四人が本当の家族になるまでの１年間の物語。
３人姉妹の中に、Our little sisterが加わったので、改めて考えてみるとなかなかうまくつけていますよね。ちなみにAyase Haruka plays the eldest, Nagasawa Masami plays the second-born, Kaho plays the third-born, and Hirose Suzu the youngest.と長女はthe eldest、次女はthe second-born、三女はthe third-born、末っ子の妹はthe youngestと公式プレスキットではなっていました。
（公式プレスキット） Award-winning internationally acclaimed director Kore-eda Hirokazu delivers a new film adapted from Yoshida Akimi’s best-selling graphic novel masterpiece “Umimachi Diary”. Set in the town of Kamakura, the book portrays with a great sense of realism the bonds interwoven between four sisters, as well as painful yet kindhearted relationships with people living in the town. It received the Excellence Award at the 11th Japan Media Arts Festival, and the Cartoon Grand Prize 2013. Ayase Haruka plays the eldest, Nagasawa Masami plays the second-born, Kaho plays the third-born, and Hirose Suzu the youngest.
(LA Times) "Our Little Sister" was adapted from Akimi Yoshida's successful graphic novel "Umimachi Diary." It takes place over a year in the seaside city of Kamakura, Japan, and deals, as Kore-eda's films often do, with family.
（Irish Times） Adapted from a manga by Akimi Yoshida, the film tells the story of three sisters who, when their father dies, elect to take care of his daughter from a second marriage. Older members of the family growl ominously, but the relationship is a success from the beginning. Suzu (Suzu Hirose) turns out to be bright, helpful and perceptive. She’s also a damn fine footballer.
（Variety） Sold by Wild Bunch, the Japanese family film is an adaptation of Akimi Yoshida’s popular serialized comic about four sisters living in the eponymous city. Cast is headlined by Masami Nagasawa, Haruka Ayase and Suzu Hirose. Kore-eda received a jury prize and an ecumenical prize at Cannes two years ago for “Like Father, Like Son,” and he was also in competition with “Nobody Knows” (2004) and “Distance” (2001). His 2009 film “Air Doll” premiered in Un Certain Regard.
（Variety） In adapting shojo manga artist Akimi Yoshida’s “Umimachi Diary” (“Diary of a Seaside Town”), published sporadically since 2006 and still going, Kore-eda (who also wrote and edited) has wrought certain changes: Most significantly, the central perspective has shifted from the little sister, Suzu, to the eldest, Sachi. Consequently, the film emerges as less a coming-of-ager than a pensive drama about how adults come to terms with the mess their parents made of their lives.
He doesn’t understand the difference between serious graphic novels and Saturday-morning cartoonsやYou still read comic books? -It’s a fuckin graphic novel.とあることから、graphic novelの方がseriousなもの、大人が読んでもいいものというニュアンスがあるのかもしれません。
（Station 11抜粋） “You’re always half on Station Eleven,” Pablo said during a fight a week or so ago, “and I don’t even understand your project. What are you actually going for here?” He has no interest in comics. He doesn’t understand the difference between serious graphic novels and Saturday-morning cartoons with wide-eyed tweety birds and floppy-limbed cats. When sober, he suggests that she’s squandering her talent. When drunk, he implies that there isn’t much there to squander, although later he apologizes for this and sometimes cries. It’s been a year and two months since he sold his last painting. She started to explain her project to him again but the words stopped in her throat. “You don’t have to understand it,” she said. “It’s mine.”
『アメリカンスナイパー』兵舎での会話 54. 55 INT. CHARLIE COMPANY BARRACKS, CAMP FALLUJAH - NIGHT 55 Chris steps in, letting the air-conditioning blow down on him. Cots, lockers and cruise-boxes line the room. Biggles reads a PUNISHER graphic novel, doesn’t look up. BIGGLES Heard you got your dick wet. CHRIS Where is everybody? BIGGLES We’re just picking our dicks here, training those fucking haji soldiers. CHRIS Why ain’t you out there? BIGGLES I got the shits. Marc Lee said you were on fuckin fire out there. CHRIS (shedding gear) You still read comic books? BIGGLES It’s a fuckin graphic novel. Talk to me, man. Did you pop your cherry?
Miranda Julyの小説を読み終わったので、短編集のNo one belongs here more than youの方を読み始めました。小説の筋とは関係なんですが、小ネタをいくつか。ginjoって日本語について語っているのですが、そんな日本語ありましたっけ。。。
Once Carl had called me ginjo, which I thought meant “sister” until he told me it’s Japanese for a man, usually an elderly man, who lives in isolation while he keeps the fire burning for the whole village.
後Cup-o-Noodlesが出ていましたが、スペルが気になりました。
She bought fourteen frozen meals, a case of Cup-o-Noodles, a loaf of white bread, and three liters of Diet Pepsi. The one roll of toilet paper I purchased fit in my backpack. On the drive home I said a few words about the Los Feliz neighborhood, its diversity, before trailing off. I felt silly in the men's shirt; disappointment filled the car. She was scanning her calves for ingrown hairs and picking them out with her nails. “So what exactly do you aspire to, acting-wise?” I said. “What do you mean ?” “Like do you hope to be in movies? Or theater?” “Oh. Is that what my mom said?” She snorted. “I’m not interested in acting.”
(Wikipedia) 表記は、原則として日本国内向けは「CUP NOODLE」で、日本国外では「CUP NOODLES」。ただし、日本国内でも「CUP NOODLES」表記で販売される商品も一部存在する（2014年4月発売のトムヤムクンヌードルなど[5]）。また中国語では「合味道」と表記される[6]。当初アメリカで発売を開始した際には、CUP OF NOODLESの意味の「CUP O'NOODLES」の名称だった。1996年から2006年までの間、ニューヨークのタイムズスクエアに製品を模した巨大な看板が設置された。この看板はカップから湯気が出ており、カウントダウンではカップから花火を打ち上げるという演出がなされた。
資格サプリの動画で関正生先生がFile o Fishについて語っているのを昨年紹介させてもらいましたが、関先生がFile o Fishをわざわざ取り上げていなければ大して気にもとめなかったかもしれません。Cup ofの部分は音だけで言えば、Cup OよりもCup aのようですよね。だからか、Cup a soupという商品もあります。
ありがちな会話ですが、acting-wiseという-wiseはちょくちょく使われる表現です。Is that what my mom said?も小うるさい人への反撃に使いたいものですが、TOEICではどちらも登場しないでしょうね。
“So what exactly do you aspire to, acting-wise?” I said. “What do you mean ?” “Like do you hope to be in movies? Or theater?” “Oh. Is that what my mom said?” She snorted. “I’m not interested in acting.”
Safety-wise, Tokyo’s train system certainly is not any worse than Amtrak — though it might not be much better, either. “Amtrak is certainly not a notoriously dangerous mode of transportation,” said Clifford Winston, a transportation expert at the Brookings Institution think-tank. “We’re not behind the curve here.” And Tokyo has had its share of rail accidents, most notoriously in April 2005, when a commuter train derailed and crashed into an apartment building, killing 107 people on the train and injuring hundreds more.
JAKARTA, Indonesia—President Joko Widodo is trying to shake off early political setbacks and press ahead with his pledge to bring infrastructure and development to the farthest corners of his sprawling archipelago nation.
In particular, remote and impoverished Papua has caught Mr. Widodo’s attention.
For the second time since taking charge of Southeast Asia’s largest economy last year, Mr. Widodo this month visited the far eastern region, more than 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) from the capital, Jakarta, to suggest the restive area is turning a page on history, poverty and a tenuous connection to the rest of the country.
ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR John Anari is a West Papuan independence activist. Tom Bleming is a retired American gunrunner. Together, they want to win the South Pacific's next great freedom struggle. BY ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK
Words checked = [5529] Words in Oxford 3000™ = [79%]
In the summer of 2009, John Anari, a young political activist from the Indonesian region of West Papua, created a Facebook page. He did it using an old desktop computer with a dial-up Internet connection, in a one-room apartment in Manokwari, the provincial capital situated on West Papua’s northeastern coast. The page wasn’t a personal profile. Anari, who prides himself on being tech savvy, had created one of those the year before. The page was the first of what would become several online outposts for the West Papua Liberation Organization (WPLO), a group that Anari had founded to agitate for his homeland’s independence.
“Most freedom groups in Papua cannot access the Internet or don’t know how to use it,” Anari, now 35, said recently. “I wanted to show the world Indonesia’s crimes.”
On the WPLO page, Anari posted unclassified diplomatic cables related to West Papua’s colonial past, updates from exiled independence activists, and videos of defiant rebel leaders training for armed struggle in remote highland camps. He also shared gruesome photos of West Papuans who reportedly had been beaten, shot, or tortured by the Indonesian security forces that have controlled the western half of New Guinea, the world’s largest tropical island, since 1962. Because foreign journalists and NGOs are rarely granted entry to West Papua and are closely monitored when they are, the page opened a rare, real-time window into one of the bloodiest and best-kept secrets of the South Pacific.
武力を使っても独立を勝ち取ろうとするグループと住民投票で実現しようとするグループがあるようです。Economistの動画に登場していたBenny Wendaさんは穏健派のようです。 Benny Wenda, a prominent, Oxford-based West Papuan exile, similarly downplayed Anari’s talk of a military solution. Wenda’s Free West Papua Campaign advocates an independence referendum to end the crisis in his homeland. He is also the spokesman of the recently formed United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), a coordinating body for several of the larger pro-independence groups. Anari’s organization is not one of them. “The WPLO is just an affiliation group, a small group,” Wenda told me. He noted, “All leaders [of independence factions] have a full mandate to advance the freedom cause. We are very weak at the moment, and it is important that we speak in one voice to demand the right of self-determination, the same as any nation.” In a separate conversation, though, Wenda seemed to reserve the final voice of authority for himself. “If Anari tells you anything,” he said, “call me and I will clarify.”
Elon Musk’s Space Dream Almost Killed Tesla By Ashlee Vance | May 14, 2015 Illustrations by The Red Dress SpaceX started with a plan to send mice to Mars. It got crazier from there.
Antonio Gracias, a Tesla and SpaceX investor and one of Musk’s closest friends, had watched all of this transpire; 2008 told him everything he would ever need to know about Musk’s character. “He has the ability to work harder and endure more stress than anyone I’ve ever met,” Gracias said. “What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. Most people who are under that sort of pressure fray. Their decisions go bad. Elon gets hyperrational. He’s still able to make very clear, long-term decisions. The harder it gets, the better he gets.”
Since the death of Steve Jobs in 2011, only one Silicon Valley titan seems to carry a similar air of dark mystique. This would be Elon Musk, currently the C.E.O. of the rocket company SpaceX as well as the electric-car company Tesla Motors. The 43-year-old Musk is also chairman of SolarCity, the largest American solar power installation company. His wealth at the moment is estimated by Forbes to be around $13 billion, yet Musk emigrated from South Africa to Canada at age 17 with barely enough money to feed himself, living off the kindness of Canadian relatives and working odd jobs — cleaning boilers, cutting wood — before ultimately signing up for undergraduate classes at Queen’s University in Ontario. Not long after, Musk switched to the University of Pennsylvania to study economics and physics. Then he moved west to Silicon Valley and began to build and sell companies. He is now, quite arguably, the most successful and important entrepreneur in the world.
“We’ve become a nation of indoor cats,” Dave Eggers wrote in “A Hologram for the King” (2012), his existential novel about an American doing IT work in the Saudi Arabian desert. “A nation of doubters, worriers, overthinkers.”
Ashlee Vance, in his new biography of the celebrity industrialist Elon Musk, delivers a similar notion of the deflating American soul. An early Facebook engineer tells Mr. Vance, “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” The author quotes the venture capitalist Peter Thiel: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”
If Silicon Valley was holding out for a hero after Steve Jobs’s death, a disrupter in chief, it has found a brawny one in Mr. Musk. This South African-born entrepreneur, inventor and engineer is the animating force behind companies (Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity) that have made startling advances in non-indoor-cat arenas: electric cars, space exploration and solar energy. He is all of 43.
（By DWIGHT GARNER） The best thing Mr. Vance does in this book, though, is tell Mr. Musk’s story simply and well. It’s the story of an intelligent man, for sure. But more so it is the story of a determined one. Mr. Musk’s work ethic has always been intense. One observer says about him early on, “We all worked 20 hour days, and he worked 23 hours.”
（By JON GERTNER） Vance traces the chaotic early years of these two firms — SpaceX and Tesla, respectively — with a compelling ticktock of events. We see that Musk is brutal on himself, routinely working 100-hour weeks. He is brutal as a boss, too, often berating or summarily firing colleagues while hogging credit for others’ accomplishments. Yet he is without question a leader who pushes risky ideas forward through a combination of long-range vision and deep technical intelligence. He knows how to hire good people and how to motivate them. Most important, he never, ever gives up.
These faults hardly make Vance’s book unreadable, however. And until we see how things finish up many years from now — Will Tesla crash? Will SpaceX take us to Mars before NASA? Will Musk become the richest person in the world? — this work will likely serve as the definitive account of a man whom so far we’ve seen mostly through caricature. By the final pages, too, any reader will sense the need to put comparisons to Steve Jobs aside. Give Musk credit. There is no one like him.
NATIONWIDE, commencement speakers are preparing remarks to deliver to this year’s crop of college graduates. I was one, and frankly I was a little worried. I wanted to inspire and uplift, but I was well aware that, more often than not, graduation addresses are met with blank stares and tepid applause. Would I encourage the young people to pursue their professional dreams, to find a fun job, to become an entrepreneur or teacher? All of that seemed like solid guidance. But when I asked a few of my 20-something colleagues, they warned me that, while this might sound great to a baby boomer at the podium, to a millennial audience it’s just product advice. It sounds more or less like the famous unsolicited counsel in the 1967 movie “The Graduate,” in which a middle-aged businessman told the young Ben Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman): “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics.”
この方の結論は安定した職業というのもないのだから、各自が自分の人生の目的を見いだすべきだという、結局クリシェじゃないのという結論に落ち着いています（苦笑） As I prepared to give my remarks — I spoke on Saturday to graduates of Ave Maria University, a Catholic institution in southwestern Florida — I thought about the words of Bach. If anyone had the right to dispense product advice, it was Bach, the creator of more than a thousand published works and considered by many to be the greatest composer who ever lived. But when asked his approach to writing music, he said, “Music’s only purpose should be the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit.” Bach was a true man on a mission, and the two ingredients of his mission were sanctification and service. It is hard to find a better life purpose than the pursuit of higher consciousness and benevolence to others.
So here’s my advice for anyone asked to give a commencement speech: Avoid plastics; put purpose ahead of product; emphasize sanctification and service. Also, keep it under 30 minutes.
In front of a window seen from inside a room I placed a picture representing exactly that part of a landscape which was masked by the picture. In this way a tree represented in this picture hid the tree standing behind it, outside the room. For the spectator the tree was at one and the same time in the room—in the picture—and, by interference, outside the room—in the real landscape. This is how we see the world: we see it outside ourselves and yet we have only a representation of it inside ourselves. In the same way, we sometimes situate in the past a thing which is happening in the present. So time and space are freed from the crude meaning which is the only one allowed to them in everyday experience.2 部屋の内側から見た窓の前に、絵を置きました。この絵はそれ自身が隠してしまっている風景のその部分を表しています。これによって、この絵に描かれた木は部屋の外で、絵画の裏側に立っている木を隠すことになります。鑑賞者にとっては一つのもので、絵画として部屋にあるのと同時に、妨害されながらも部屋の外に実際の風景のなかにあるものなのです。これが私たちの世界の見方です。私たちの外側に見いだすのですが、私たちの内側にしか表現はありません。同様に、現在起きているものを過去に位置付けることがあります。時間と空間は日常の経験ではたった一つのものでしかないありのままの意味から自由になっているのです。
パイプの絵を描いておきながらCeci n'est pas une pipe（これはパイプではない）とした絵が有名ですが、そのあたりのズレを考えたLes Mots et les images（The Words and the Images）というのがあるようで、英語に訳してくれているものがありました。まずリンク先のイラストを見てから下記の英訳を見るとよいかもしれません。
Les Mots et les images is key to understanding Magritte so here’s the translation of what was written (start reading at the top of the leftmost column and read down then go to the middle column, etc.):
Column 1: 1 As object is not so linked to its name that we cannot find a more suitable one for it. 2 Some objects can do without a name. 3 Often a word is only self-descriptive 4 An object encounters its image, an objects encounters its name It can happen that the object’s name and its image encounter each other 5 Sometimes an object’s name can replace an image. 6 A word can replace an object in reality.
Column 2: 1 An image can replace a word in a statement 2 An object makes one suppose there are other objects behind it. 3 Everything leads us to think that there is little relation between an object and what it represents. 4 Words that serve to designate two different objects do not reveal what can separate these objects from each other. 5 In a picture, words have the same substance as images. 6 In a picture we see images and words differently.
Column 3: 1 An undifferentiated form can replace the image of an object. 2 An object never performs the same function as its name or its image. 3 Now, in reality the visible outlines of objects touch each other, as if they formed a mosaic. 4 Vague figures have a necessary meaning that is as perfect as precise figures. 5 Written words in a picture often designate precise objects, and images vague objects. Or the opposite.
以下のブログでは１つずつ考察してくれています。
Beautiful Theology The seminar begins with Magritte’s “Words and Images” at this page. It continues with Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics on this page.
