Lesson 9 A More Perfect Union 1. After heated debate and comprises, the Constitution was finally adopted by the Constitutional Convention and 39 out of 55 delegates signed the document. But the “three-fifths” clause and the twenty years allowed for the slave trade showed the slave issue was not solved, so the process of forming a more perfect union did not end with the enforcement of the Constitution. 2. My personal background and my success story, rising from rages to riches, also teachers me the importance of unity. 3.I am deeply ingrained, through my experience in the United States, with the idea that America is not a total of adding everything together but is the product of fusion, of sharing the same creed. 4. In spite of all announcements that America was not ready for a black president, that I would fail in the campaign, we gained momentum in the first year of the campaign, which showed that the American people demanded unity and change. 5. People were encouraged to judge me from the perspective of a black candidate, raising the question of whether the United State would fare better with a black president. However, we won great victories even in some of the more conservative states, states with stronger racial bias. 6. The week before the Democrats were to select their delegates to the national convention in South Carolina, attacks on me, on blacks became more frequent, more intense. 7. At one end of the entire range of opinion, there are people who say that I decided to run because I wanted to show black and white should have equal ve liberals to achieve racial opportunity and I want to play on the desires of naïharmony without making great effort. 8. It is impossible for me to cast him off just as it is impossible for me to repudiate the black community.
Lesson 12 Ships in the desert …but as I look out over the bow, I could see there was no chance for catching 1.any fish. …about the ice core sample marked by annual layers, which can show the 2. different degrees of pollution from year to year. 3. The development of industry meant the use of large amounts of coal and later petroleum as fuels to generate power. When coal and oil are burned they emit carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air which keeps more heat near the earth. When the level of carbon dioxide emissions in the air becomes high, heat will find it difficult to get through it to go into higher altitudes. Thus the temperature of the earth gets warmer. 4. Thinking about how a series of events might happen as a consequence of the thinning of the polar cap is not just a kind of practice in speculation: It has practical significance. 5. Bit by bit trees in the rainforest are burnt and forest land is turned into pasture where cattle can be raised quickly and slaughtered so that the beef can be used in fast-food like hamburgers. 6. Therefore, the destruction of the rainforest and the habitat of the birds means thousands of birds will become extinct before we can have a chance to watch them and hear them sing. 7. And why do other symbols, though sometimes no less surprising, only cause a kind of loss and inactivity and we concentrate our attention onto on the ways to deal with them but, instead, on some other distractions which are easy and less painful to handle? 8. The global climate balance determines the pattern of winds, rainfall, surface temperature, ocean currents and sea level. Once this state of balance is upset, winds, rainfall and ocean currents will become abnormal; surface temperature and sea level will rise. 9.Up till now, we seem to be unaware of the fact that the earth’s natural systems are vulnerable and can easily be damaged. 10.They are signs and indications showing that there exists a much greater and
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787. 221年前， 一群人聚集在至今仍屹立在这条街上的市政厅里，用上述这样简洁的言语，发起了美 利坚不可思议的民主实验。农场主和学者，政治家与爱国者们为逃脱政治专制和宗教 迫害，横渡大洋，最终在费城会议上发表了他们的独立宣言。—这一会议一直延续了 The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations. 他们讨论出的文 件得以签署通过但尚未最终完成。它因这个国家的奴隶制原罪而劣迹斑斑，这一问题 分裂着殖民地的定居者们，使得费城会议陷入僵局，最后建国者们决定同意奴隶贸易 再继续开展至少二十年而将这一问题留待子孙后代去解决 Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, \\ and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.当然，对奴隶制问题的解决在我们的宪法中已经生根发芽，法律之下平等的公民权理念 是这部宪法的核心；它向人民许诺自由、公平和一个随着时间推移能够且应当被不断 完善的联邦。 And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.但写就在羊皮纸上的宣言尚不足以使奴隶摆脱奴役，或向不同肤色和信仰不同宗教的人们提供他们作为美国公民理应享有的充分的权利和义务。这就需要那些愿意履行其职责的后来者去缩小我们的理想承诺与人们所处时代的社会现实间的差距，—他们得经过街头抗议和法庭抗争，经过内战和和平违法，这其间总是险象环生
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