首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Now the levee breach has been fixed. The people have been evacuated. Army Corps of Engineers magicians will pump the city dry, a
Now the levee breach has been fixed. The people have been evacuated. Army Corps of Engineers magicians will pump the city dry, a
admin
2017-03-15
23
问题
Now the levee breach has been fixed. The people have been evacuated. Army Corps of Engineers magicians will pump the city dry, and the slow (but quicker than we think) job of rebuilding will begin. Then there will create a wall of illusion thicker than the new levees. The job of turning this national disaster into sound-bite-size commercials with somber string music will be left to TV. The story will be sanitized as America’s politicians congratulate themselves on a job well done. Americans of all stripes will demonstrate saintly concern for one another. It’s what’s done in a crisis.
This tragedy, however, should make America take an account of itself. It should not allow the mythic significance of this moment to pass without proper consideration. Let the size of this cataclysm be assessed in cultural terms, not in dollars and cents of politics. Americans are far less successful at doing that, having never understood how the country’s core beliefs are manifest in culture—and how culture should guide political and economic realities. That’s the city of New Orleans can now teach the nation again as all are forced by circumstance to literally come closer to one another. I say teach again, because New Orleans is a true American melting pot: the soul of America. A place freer than the rest of country, where elegance met an indefinable wildness to encourage the flowering of creative intelligence. Whites, Creoles and Negroes were strained, steamed and stewed in a thick, sticky, below-sea-level bowl of musky gumbo. These people produced an original cuisine, an original architecture, vibrant communal ceremonies and an original art form: jazz.
Their music explored irrepressibly from the forced integration of these castes to sweep the world as the definitive American art form. New Orleans, the Crescent City, the Big Easy—home of Mardi Gras, the second-line parade, the po’ boy sandwich, the shotgun house—is so many people’s favorite city. But not favorite enough to embrace the integrate superiority of its culture as a national objective. Not favorite enough to digest the gift of supersized soul internationally embodied by the great Louis Armstrong. Over time, New Orleans became known as America’s national center for frat-party-type decadence and (yeah, boy) great food. The genuine greatness of Armstrong is reduced to his good nature; his artistic triumphs are unknown to all but a handful. So it’s time to consider, as this great American city is rebuilt, exactly what this bayou metropolis symbolizes for the US.
New Orleans has a habit of tweaking the national consciousness at pivotal times. The last foreign invasion on US, soil was repelled in the Crescent City in 1815. The Union had an important early victory over the South with the capture of the Big Easy in 1862. Homer Plessy, a black New Orleanian, fought for racial equality in 1896, although it took our Supreme Court 58 years to agree with him and, with Brown v. Board of Education, to declare segregation unequal. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formally organized in Orleans in 1957. The problem is that all Americans have a tendency to rise in that moment of need, but when that moment passes, fall back again.
The images of a ruined city make it clear that the US needs to rebuild New Orleans. The images of people stranded, in shock, indicate that it needs to rebuild a community. The images of all sorts of Americans aiding these victims speak of the size of people’s hearts. But this time what’s needed is to look a little deeper. The US should use the resurrection of the city to reacquaint its citizens with the gift of New Orleans: a multicultural community invigorated by the arts. Forget about tolerance. What about embracing? This tragedy implores all to re-examine the soul of America. Its democracy, from the very beginning, has been challenged by the shackles of slavery. The parade of black folks across TV screens asking, as if ghosts, "Have you seen my father, mother, sister, brother?" reconnects to the still unfulfilled goals of the Reconstruction era. Americans always back away from fixing the nation’s racial problems. Not fixing the city’s levees before Katrina struck will now cost untold billions. Not resolving the nation’s issues of race and class has and will cost so much more.
According to the writer, what is "the gift of New Orleans"? What is the proposed use of such gifts?
选项
答案
A multicultural community invigorated by the arts, not tolerance but embracing. The US should use the resurrection of the city to reacquaint its citizens.
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/4VSO777K
本试题收录于:
NAETI高级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI高级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
Forsomepeople,thelightofhumanattentionhasanunbearablebrilliance.Likeivyalongthedimedgeofagarden,theyprefer
Yourpersonalinformationiseverywhere—processedandmanipulated,storedandsold.Butfewpeoplereallyknowwhatisgoingon
下面你将听到一段有关中美贸易关系的讲话。在冷战结束后的新形势下,两国要不要及如何发展双边关系,是中美两国面临的重大课题。“永久正常贸易关系”的通过表明,在美国,支持发展中美关系的力量占了上风,美国政府、国会、工商企业界和公众的主流都支持以建设性的
7月13日晚,在莫斯科国际贸易中心,当国际奥委会主席萨马兰奇宣布北京获得2008年奥运会主办权时,一楼新闻中心的大屏幕,久久定格在一个动人的场面上:何振梁先生眼含热泪,与前来祝贺的国际奥委会委员逐个拥抱。72岁的何振梁说:“北京拿到了奥运会举办
党的十一届三中全会以来,随着党和国家工作重点转移到以经济建设为中心,教育在社会主义现代化建设中的地位和作用也越来越重要,我国教育的改革和发展取得了很大的成就。进入20世纪90年代,科学技术日新月异,知识经济初见端倪,综合国力竞争日趋激烈,我国社会
TheUStroopsaregoingtodrawbackfromIraqwithin4months.
Mankind’sfascinationwithgoldisasoldascivilizationitself.TheancientEgyptiansesteemedgold,whichhadreligioussigni
Afteryearsoffiercelobbyingandmonthsofsecrecy,Beijingunveiledfivemascotsforthe2008OlympicsonFriday,openingam
中国科技馆的诞生来之不易。与国际著名科技馆和其他博物馆相比,它先天有些不足,后天也常缺乏营养,但是它成长的步伐却是坚实而有力的。它在国际上已被公认为后起之秀。世界上第一代博物馆属于自然博物馆,它是通过化石、标本等向人们介绍地球和各种生物的演化历史
随机试题
SQL查询主要包括_______查询、传递查询、_______定义查询和子查询四种。
肠道中氨基酸的主要腐败产物是
对于视紫红质的叙述,下列哪些是恰当的
A.胃十二指肠溃疡B.门静脉高压症C.出血性胃炎D.肝肿瘤和肝外伤E.胃癌上消化道大出血中约占5%的是
8个月小儿,因中度等渗性脱水入院,经输液及补充碱性液体后,同现烦躁、哭闹、易惊,应考虑为:
(操作员:张主管;账套:103账套;操作日期:2014年1月1日)输入下列科目的期初余额。库存商品——甲产品:50000数量:100
深证成分股指数选取成分股的一般原则是()。
目前,我国开放式基金于每个交易日估值,并于()公告基金份额净值。
()是党的根本组织原则,也是群众路线在党的生活中的运用。
A、Theclockisoutofcontrol.B、Tommetabusaccident.C、Thebusdidn’tgettothestopontime.D、Hegotuplaterthanusual
最新回复
(
0
)