短文朗读及概括大意
Passage 1
A simple piece of rope hangs between some environmentally friendly Americans and their neighbors. On one side stand tho who have begun to e clothes dryers as wasteful consumers of energy (up to 6% of total electricity) and powerful emitters of carbon dioxide (up to a ton of CO2 per houhold every year). As an alternative, they are turning to clotheslines as part of what Alexander Lee, an environmentalist, calls "what-I-can- do environmentalism."
explain是什么意思But on the other side are people who oppo air-drying laundry outside on aesthetic grounds. Increasingly, they have persuaded community and homeowners associations on top of the world(HOAs) across the U.S. to ban outdoor clotheslines, which they say not only look unsightly but also lower surrounding property values. Tho actions, in turn, have sparked a right-to-dry movement that is pressing for legislation to protect the choice to u clotheslines. Only three states--Florida, Hawaii and Utah--have laws written broadly enough to protect clothesl
ines. Right-to-dry advocates argue that there should be more.
Matt Reck is the kind of eco-conscious guy who feeds his trees with bathwater and recycles condensation drops from his air conditioners to water plants. His family also us a clothesline. But Otto Hagen, president of Reck's HOA in Wake Forest, N.C., notified him that a neighbor h, ad complained about his line. The Recks ignored the warning and still dry their clothes on a rope in the yard. "Many people claim to be environmentally friendly but don't take matters into their own hands," says Reck. HOAs Hagen has decided to hold off taking action. "I'm not going to go crazy," he says. "But if Matt keeps his line and more neighbors complain, I'll have to address it again."
North Carolina lawmakers tried and failed earlier this year to inrt language into an energy bill that would expressly prevent HOAs from regulating clotheslines. But the issue remains a touchy one with HOAs and real estate agents. "Most aesthetic restrictions are rooted, to a degree, in the belief that homogenous (统一协调的) exteriors are supportive of property value," says Sara Stubbins, executive director of the Community Association I
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nstitute's North Carolina chapter. In other words, associations worry that housing prices will fall if prospective buyers think their would-be neighbors are too poor to afford dryers.
Alexander Lee dismiss the notion that clotheslines devalue property asts, advocating that the idea "needs to change in light of global warming." "We all have to do at least something to decrea our carbon footprint," Alexander Lee says.
Passage 2
Within that exclusive group of literary characters who have survived through the centuries--from Hamlet to Huckleberry Finn--few can rival the cultural impact of Sherlock Holmes. Since his first public appearance 20 years ago, the gentleman with the curved pipe and a taste for cocaine, the master of deductive reasoning and elaborate disgui, has left his mark everywhere--in crime literature, film and television, cartoons and comic books.vehicle什么意思
高迪瓦>当幸福来敲门 下载At Holmes' side, of cour, was his trusted friend Dr. Watson. Looming even larger, howe
线索英文ver, was another doctor, one who medical practice was so slow it allowed him plenty of time to pursue his literary ambition. His name: Arthur Conan Doyle. As the creator of the fictional icons, Conan Doyle has himlf become something of a cult figure, the object of countless critical studies, biographies and fan clubs.
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Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859, in a respectable middle-class Catholic family. Still, it was far from an easy life. There was never enough money; they moved frequently in arch of lower rents; and his father, a civil rvant and illustrator was an alcoholic who had to be institutionalized. Yet the early letters he wrote to his mother are surprisingly optimistic, concerned mainly with food, clothes, allowances and schoolwork. At 14 came his first unforgettable visit to London, including Madame Tussaud's, where he was "delighted with the room of Horrors, and the images of the murderers."
A superb student, Conan Doyle went on to medical school, where he was attracted by Dr. Joph Bell, a professor with an uncanny ability to diagno patients even before they opened their mouths. For a time he worked as Bell's outpatient clerk and would watch, a
mazed, at how the location of a callus could reveal a man's profession, or how a quick look at a skin rash told Bell that the patient had once lived in Bermuda. In 1886, Conan Doyle outlined his first novel, A Study in Scarlet, which he described as "a simple tale of mystery to make a little extra money." Its main character, initially called Sherringford Hope and later called Sherlock Holmes, was bad largely on Bell. But Holmes' first appearance went almost unnoticed, and the struggling doctor devoted nearly all of his spare time to writing long historical novels in the style of Sir Walter Scott—novels that he was convinced would make his reputation. It wasn't to be. In 1888, Holmes reappeared in A Scandal in Bohemia, a short story in Strand Magazine. And this time, its hero took an immediate hit and Conan Doyle's life would never be the same.
rai和riPassage 3
The Internet, E-commerce and globalization are making a new economic era possible. In the future, capitalist markets will largely be replaced by a new kind of economic system bad on networked relationships, contractual arrangements and access rights.
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Has the quality of our lives at work, at home and in our communities incread in direct proportion to all the new Internet and business-to-business Internet rvices being introduced into our lives? I have asked this question of hundreds of CEOS and corporate executives in Europe and the United States. Surprisingly, virtually everyone has said, "No, quite contrary." The very people responsible for ushering in what some have called a "technological renaissance" say they are working longer hours, feel more stresd, are more impatient, and are even less civil in their dealings with colleagues and friends--not to mention strangers. And what's more revealing, they place much of the blame on the very same technologies they are so aggressively championing.
