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Unit 2 This is Sandy
I love it when my friends introduce me to new people, although I never let on. I love the proud and honorable expression they wear when they say “This is Sandy — she's deaf”, as if I were evidence of their benevolence. I also love the split-second shocked expression on the new people, the hasty smiles and their best imitations of what they think of as their “normal faces”. If they do the ritual well enough I turn my head ever so slightly and tuck my hair behind one of my ears, whichever one's closer to them. They never fail to say something nice about my pink hearing aids, while my regular friends beam on.
I'm thinking of starting a hearing aid collection, actually. They'd make better accessories than earrings: I once saw a catalog for clip-on hearing aids and hearing aid covers, and the products were most definitely fashion
statements in various shapes and hues. It'd be like the exquisitely expensive handbag Esther's dad got her when we were in high school. The rest of us could only admire, but could not, imitate, because our dads weren’t rich enough to spoil us that way. And now, only I can wear hearing aids: My friends can do nothing but gush.
To be honest, I quite like my deafness. It wasn't easy the first few years after the car accident and the stupid exploding airbag, but now it's become something that makes me special among my friends. None of my close friends are hearing-impaired; simply because I wasn’t born deaf. By the time I lost my hearing; I'd already accumulated a fixed circle of people, and they mostly rushed to participate in the drama.
You know how when you talk about your friends, you refer to them as Drew the Bartender, Carol the Feminist, Greg the Guy Who Can Knot a Cherry Stem with His Tongue and so on? I'm Sandy the Deaf Girl. I like it. I don’t have any other particularly outstanding traits or skills. Never did.
It's more than just standing out; too: I'm sure a lot of important events in my life wouldn't have happened or worked out quite the same way if I weren't wearing pink hearing aids. For example, the thing with Colin.
I first met Colin at an apartment party. When Carol the Feminist introduced us to each other, I tucked my hair behind both my ears and leaned closer, not because he did the ritual particularly well; but because he was a stud: You should have seen his recovery smile after the inevitable surprise.
We went in search of drinks after the handshakes, and somewhere between what was functioning as the wine bar and the couch, we lost Carol.
“Do you usually read lips like this? Or do you sign, too?” he asked after a while.
“I mostly just read lips because it was easier to pick up than signing, although that's not the only reason I was staring at your lips,\
He laughed. We talked more, and then the host upped the music volume and dimmed the lights for the “dance floor”; and I had to lean in much, much closer to be able to continue reading his lips in the semi-darkness. And read his lips I did.
We did the usual and exchanged numbers, and a week later Colin did the unthinkable and called. We went out, satisfied ourselves that the other person still looked good in sober daylight, and read more lips. Within two months Colin and I were dating.
这位是桑迪
我的朋友向生人介绍我的时候，虽然我嘴上从不说什么，但我心里喜欢得很。我喜欢他们说“这位是桑迪—她是聋子”的时候脸上那副骄傲和荣耀的表情，就好像我证明了他们的仁德善心一样。我也喜欢生人脸上那瞬间的震惊表情、匆忙的微笑和他们竭力装出的“正常脸色”。如果他们这套仪式做得够好，我就会微微转过头，把头发掖到离他们较近的那只耳朵后面。他们总会说些好话，夸我的粉红色助听器，我的朋友们则在一旁灿烂地微笑。
实际上，我在考虑开始收藏助听器。它们是比耳环更好的首饰。我曾经看到过一款“一夹得”带罩助听器的广告图片，产品有各种各样的形状和颜色，绝对时髦。那就像我们上高中的时候，埃斯特的爸爸给她买的精美昂贵的手提包一样。那时，我们其他人只有羡慕的份儿，却无法仿效，因为我们的老爸没那么多钱去娇惯我们。而现在，只有我能戴助听器。朋友们也就只有羡慕的份儿了。
说实话，我挺喜欢耳聋的。在那次车祸和愚蠢的安全气囊破裂之后的头几年，日子不好过，但是现在，耳聋让我在朋友中显得很特别。我的好朋友没有一个是听力残障的，因为我不是天生耳聋，在我失去听觉的时候，我已经有了一个固定的朋友圈。他们中的多数人都热心积极地参加这场“表演”。
你知道，在你谈论朋友时，你会把称他们为“酒吧侍者德鲁”、“女权主义者卡罗尔”、‘能用舌头给樱桃梗打结的家伙格雷格”等等。我是“聋女桑迪”。我喜欢这个称呼。我没有任何其它突出的个性或能耐。从来没有过。
还不仅仅是与众不同。我确信，假如我不戴粉红色助听器的话，我生活中的许多重大事件就不会以同样的方式发生或产生同样的结果。例如，跟柯林之间的事儿。
我初次遇见柯林是在一次公寓派对上。女权主义者卡罗尔给我们彼此做了介绍之后，我把头发拢到两耳之后，凑得更近些，不是因为他把那套仪式做得特别好，而是因为他是个情种。谁都能注意到在不可避免的惊讶之后他脸上恢复的微笑。
握手之后，我们去拿喝的。在临时搭建的吧台和沙发之间的某个地方，卡罗尔不见了。 “你通常都像这样读唇语吗？还是也用手语？”过了一会儿他问。
我告诉他说：“我多数时间只读唇语，因为这比用手语更容易，但这不是我一直盯着你的嘴唇的唯一原因。” 他大笑起来。我们又说了一会儿话。后来，主人放大音乐的音量，调暗“舞池”的灯光；我不得不凑近他，很近很近，以便能在昏暗中接着读他的唇语。我的确读到了他的唇语。
我们照例交换了电话号码。一周之后，柯林做了件不可思议的事：他打来了电话。我们出去玩了，发现对方在
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大白天依然好看，因此彼此感觉满意。我又读了更多的唇语。在两个月之内，柯林和我就开始约会了。
Unit 3 Stolen IdentityCatch Me If You Can
“Frank never went to pilot school, medical school, law school, ... because he's still in high school.”
That was the strapline of the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, which tells the story of Frank Abagnale, Jr.
(Leonardo DiCaprio), a brilliant young master of deception who at different times impersonated a doctor, a lawyer, and an airplane pilot, forging checks worth more than six million
dollars in 26 countries. He became the youngest man to ever make the FBI’s most-wanted list for forgery. Hunted and caught in the film by fictional FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), Abagnale later escaped. He eventually became a consultant for the FBI where he focused on white-collar crime.
It's a great film, but could it happen in real life? In fact, Catch Me If You Can is based on the true story of
Frank Abagnale, whose career as a fraudster lasted about six years before he was caught, who escaped from custody three times (once through an airplane toilet), and who spent a total of six years in prison in France, Sweden and the US. He now runs a consultancy advising the world of business how to avoid fraud. He has raised enough money to pay back all his victims, and is now a multi-millionaire.
Since 2003, identity theft has become increasingly common. Few people could imagine how important things like taking mail to the post office and not leaving it in the mailbox for pickup, shredding documents instead of throwing them out with the trash, even using a pen costing a couple of bucks, have become to avoid life-changing crimes.
More and more people are becoming anonymous victims of identity theft. We spend many hours and dollars trying to recover our name, our credit, our money and our lives. We need to look for different ways to protect ourselves. We can improve our chances of avoiding this crime, but it will never go away.
It's not just a list of do's and don'ts, we need to change our mindset. Although online banking is now commonplace, there's a significant group of people in the country — the baby boomers, 15 per cent of the
population —who still prefer to use paper. What's more, 30 per cent of cases of fraud occur within this group. A check has all the information about you that an identity thief needs. If you use a ballpoint pen, the ink can be
removed with the help of a regular household chemical and the sum of money can be changed. More than 1.2 million bad checks are issued every day, more than 13 per second.
Check fraud is big business ... and growing by 25 per cent every year. Criminals count on our mistakes to make their jobs easier. So how can we prevent identity theft before it happens to us?
Take a few precautions. Don't leave your mail in your mailbox overnight or over the weekend. Thieves wait for the red flag to go up, so they can look through your outgoing mail for useful personal information or checks. Use a gel pen for checks and important forms, the ink is trapped in the fiber of the paper, and it can’t be removed with chemicals: Also, shred or tear up all documents which contain personal information before you put them in the trash.
Remember that there are plenty of online opportunities for thieves to create a false identity based on your own. We’re all aware of the risks to personal information on computer databases by hacking and Trojan horses. But
choosing someone and doing a Google search can also yield large amounts of personal information, and so can online social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. And just as we take our pocketbook with us when we leave the office to go to the bathroom, it's also worth logging off your computer to avoid opportunistic theft.
Finally, if you get robbed in a more traditional way — in the street—canceling your credit cards is obviously the first thing to do. But don't forget that even after they’re reported lost, they can be used as identification to acquire store cards ... and you get the criminal record.
Identity fraud can go on for years without the victim’s knowledge. There is no escaping the fact that right now fraudsters are finding identity crime all too easy. If you haven’t had your identity stolen, it's only because they haven’t got to you yet. Your turn will come.
窃取的身份
“弗兰克从未上过飞行学院、医学院、法学院??因为他还在上高中。”
这是2002年的电影《有种来抓我》的剧情简介。影片讲述了小弗兰克·阿巴格纳尔（莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥饰演）的故事。影片主人公是一位聪明绝顶的年轻骗术大师，曾在不同时间扮演医生、律师和飞行员的角色，在26个国家伪造了价值600万美元以上的支票。他成了联邦调查局有史以来伪造罪头号通缉令名单上最年轻的通缉犯。在影片中，阿巴格纳尔被虚构的联邦调查局特工卡尔·汉拉提（汤姆·汉克斯饰演）追捕，但后来逃脱了。他最终成了联邦调查局专攻白领犯罪的顾问专家。
《有种来抓我》是一部很棒的电影，但影片中的事情会在现实生活中发生吗？其实，《有种来抓我》是根据弗兰克·阿巴格纳尔的真实故事改编的，他的行骗生涯持续了大约六年；被抓后，曾三次逃脱监管（有一次是从飞机的厕所逃走的）；在法国、瑞典和美国的监狱中总共度过了六年时光。他现在经营一家咨询事务所，为企业界提供防造假咨询。他挣到了足够的钱，赔付了所有的受害者，如今已是大富豪。
2003年以来，身份盗窃案变得越来越常见。很少有人会想象到，为了预防这种改变人生的犯罪，采取一些预防措施有多么重要，比如把邮件拿到邮局去寄而不是丢在信箱里等人来取、把文件切碎而不是直接把它们连同垃圾一道扔出去，甚至使用几美元一支的（特效）笔等等。
越来越多的人正在成为身份盗窃案的无名受害者。我们花费许多时间和金钱，去努力挽回我们的姓名、我们的信用、我们的钱和我们的生活。我们需要想方设法来保护自己。我们可以减少此类犯罪的机会，但是它永远不会消失。
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这不仅仅是要求我们列一份“该做”和“不该做”事项的清单，我们还需要改变心态。虽然网上银行现在很常见，但国内有一大群人—即占人口15％的生育高峰时期出生的一代人—还是更喜欢用纸。而且，30%的诈骗案都发生在这群人当中。支票上有身份盗贼所需的你的全部信息。如果你用圆珠笔，笔迹可以用一般的家用化学药品除去，钱数可以更改。每天发出的空头支票高达120万张以上，平均每秒13张以上。
支票造假是个大产业??每年以25％的速率增长。犯罪分子指望我们犯错误，好让他们更容易得手。那么我们怎样才能防患于未然呢？
采取一些预防措施。不要把你的邮件留在邮箱里过夜或过周末。小偷就等着看你家信箱的小红旗（注：在美国，信箱上插上小红旗表示有邮件需要投递），以便通过你要投递的邮件找寻有用的个人信息或支票。要用签字笔填写支票和重要表格，（因为）签字笔的墨水会渗进纸张的纤维中，无法用化学药品除去。还有，切碎或撕碎含有个人信息的所有文件，然后再把它们丢进垃圾桶。
记住，网上有大量机会可以被小偷利用。他们根据你的身份伪造假身份。我们都知道黑客行为和木马软件对电脑数据库中个人信息的威胁。但是在谷歌上搜索某人也会透露大量个人信息，在线社交网站（如“我的空间”、“相册”和“毕波”）也一样。正如我们离开办公室去厕所时要随身带上钱包一样，离开电脑时也应该注销你的电脑以防临时起意的盗窃。
最后一点，假如你遭遇较传统方式的抢劫一比如在大街上一挂失你的信用卡显然是要做的第一件事。但是别忘了，即使挂了失，信用卡也可以用作身份证件来获得购物卡??那你就有了犯罪记录。
身份伪造可以肆行多年而不为受害者所知。一个无法回避的事实是：现在的诈骗者觉得身份犯罪简直是太容易了。如果你的身份尚未失窃，那只是因为他们还没有对你动手。就会轮到你的。
Unit 4 The death of Newspaper
For years it started the day for millions of people: the sound of the newspaper hitting the front door, the window or the neighbor's dog. With a cup of coffee, maybe some breakfast, the ritual of reading the newspaper was the quiet before the storm, a moment of pleasure and peace before the working day began.
But all over the English-speaking world, newspaper editors are facing the same problem: Circulation has declined, as more and more readers turn to the Internet for their news. This means that the revenue from
advertising is also declining, and the cover price of the newspaper is rising, so they can make the same amount of money. And of course, a price-sensitive product like a newspaper could lose readers, and the vicious circle continues. So what does the future hold? Is it the death of the newspaper?
The decline is a long-term trend of 20 or more years, predating the Internet. Four-fifths of Americans once read newspapers. Today, it seems that fewer than half do. Among adults, between 1990 and 2000, daily readership fell from 52.6 per cent to 37.5 per cent. Among the young, the situation is even worse: Only 19 per cent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 claim to read a daily newspaper. A mere nine per cent trusted the information the newspaper contains.
Advertising on the Internet works differently than in print. The advertiser can monitor minute by minute if their ads are working, and no longer has to rely on circulation figures. The greater number of outlets which the Internet can offer encourages ferocious competition for advertising revenue, while printing and production costs have risen remorselessly. As a result, The New York Times Company has downsized by 700 jobs among its various papers. The Baltimore Sun is closing down its foreign news bureaux. In the UK most newspapers have reduced the newspaper to tabloid size, in a bid to capture younger readers, although because \\er to the new size as \.
All large circulation newspapers have established strong websites. The Internet provides an easy outlet for anyone with an opinion, and there's nothing a newspaper editor likes more for reassurance about their work than feedback and opinions, as diverse as possible. Teenagers today don't remember a time when they didn't have the Internet, and reading a newspaper is something they only do if they have an assignment to write about the specific medium of print journalism.
It's hard to deny the environmental impact of newspapers. Nearly four billion trees worldwide are cut down annually for paper, representing about 35 percent of all harvested trees. It has to be said that many of the trees used for paper come from special estates where they're planted and replaced on a regular basis. Furthermore, yesterday's newspaper is often recycled and turned back into today's. Nevertheless, paper mills are among the worst polluters to air, water and land of any industry in the US.
But the daily or weekend newspaper is still a great tradition for many people. \without the Sunday newspapers,\attention to the convenience of the paper over the laptop: \
newspaper, it doesn't break,%us of the traditional wrapping of the UK's national takeaway food, \be used to wrap fish.\
So maybe the newspaper won't die without a struggle. Trends for the future of newspaper include an increased demand for local news, and the continued exploitation of lifestyle journalism, which began in the late 1980s, especially within personal finance and travel, will create new revenue streams. Some commentators recommend that, instead of dumbing down, which is the usual way of increasing one's market share, newspapers should smarten up, that is to say, honor the principles of integrity and impartiality of their coverage. A newspaper with editorial positions which are respected by its readers will surely have more influence and prestige than the same reports read one by one on the Internet.
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