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  3. 7 Things You Can’t Say in Canada Attacking our sacred cows (things or people that cannot be criticized) may turn you into on

7 Things You Can’t Say in Canada Attacking our sacred cows (things or people that cannot be criticized) may turn you into on

admin2013-05-04  51
问题                 7 Things You Can’t Say in Canada
    Attacking our sacred cows (things or people that cannot be criticized) may turn you into one looked down upon by all others — but it can also be a lot of fun.
    Every culture has its unacknowledged taboos — the things you are forbidden to say or do in polite company, the accepted truths you are not allowed to doubt. You might think that a liberal, open-minded country like Canada would be free of such taboos, but you’d be wrong. In spite of our belief in our own enlightened tolerance, some things are simply not open to debate. If you try, you’re bound to shock the neighbors.
    It’s risky to question the wisdom of the tribe. You might get stoned. On the other hand, some people might come near to you very quietly afterwards and confess that they secretly agree.
    So here’s a challenge to a few of our nation’s most widely held beliefs. You say these things in public at your own danger. I will be elaborating on these points over the months to come. Feel free to stone me or secretly agree — or, even better, add to the list. At the very least, they’re sure to start a good dinner-party fight.
Margaret Atwood writes some really awful books.
    The queen of Canadian Literature dominates the literary world like a giant. Nobody has won more awards than she has, and nobody is more feared. There is no such a thing as a bad review of a Margaret Atwood book in Canada. That’s too bad, because many of her books are tedious and unreadable, full of tortuous plots and unpleasant characters. Why will no one say so? Because we’re grateful that she’s put us on the global map. If they do, they’ll never work in this country again.
    Recycling is a waste of time and money.
    Once upon a time it was easy to put out the trash. Today, the Garbage Gestapo rules our lives.
Every household has become a mini version of the village dump, and every one of us has become a garbage picker, carefully separating our organic waste from our bottles and papers, and worrying about where our different kinds of garbage are supposed to go.     Don’t try to sort a wine bottle into the wrong bag! The trash police will punish you. The truth about recycling is that it’s a giant waste of dollars and doesn’t help the environment. But don’t tell your kids. They won’t believe you. They’ve been brainwashed.
Only private enterprise can save public health care.
    Tommy Douglas, the CBC’s Greatest Canadian, brought us universal health care. But even his plan didn’t originally pay for everybody’s minor diseases, such as ingrown toenails. His primary goal was to make sure nobody faced financial ruin if they got sick.     Today we have a system where controlling costs is more important than treating patients, and where ideology is disabling us. In some places, including Toronto, people go blind waiting for cataract (白内障) surgery. The government could restore their sight tomorrow simply by sending them to a private clinic instead of to a hospital. The cost to the government would be exactly the same. But in Canada, private is a dirty word, and so the government would rather you go blind. Poor Tommy would be spinning in his grave.
David Suzuki is bad for the environment.
    From global warming to farmed salmon and genetically modified crops, David Suzuki has just one message: The end is near.
    He is our homegrown prophet of doom who can predict what will happen in the future. He advocates the essential wickedness of the human race. Like a modern Savonarola, he warns that unless we cast our material possessions into the bonfire, we’re all going to hell.
    The trouble with this predicting vision is that people are starting to isolate from the environment. And our hugely expensive investment in the unworkable Kyoto treaty, which Mr. Suzuki tells us doesn’t go nearly far enough, will wipe out more practical measures to cut smog and clean up our waste sites.
A national daycare program won’t do a thing to help poor kids.
    Cheap national daycare! Who could be against it? It’s supposed to give kids a better start in life, and nobody can object to that. But in Quebec, where the program started, universal daycare has turned out to be nothing more than a giant (and extremely costly) subsidy for relatively well-off middle-class parents. Few poor parents use the system.
    No doubt convenient daycare is a gift set by god for many people. But so far there is no definitive evidence that kids who go to daycare go on to do better in school or in life. So if we want to invest billions in helping kids, why are we spending it on the kids who need help the least?
Group of Seven artists are overexposed genre painters.
    I like A.Y. Jackson as much as you do. His paintings remind me of when I went to summer camp. I grew up with a reproduction of The West Wind hanging in our living room. (That was by Tom Thomson, who wasn’t really a member of Group of Seven, but never mind.) Group of Seven were the first artists to depict the wild Canadian landscape, and they were bold young rebels in their time.
    But that time was 80 years ago. Today their work is the essence of bourgeois picture-postcard art — the kind of art safe to take your mother to see. Enough, already. Maybe it’s time we moved on.
    The United States is the greatest force for good the world has ever known.
    Of all the shocking things you can say around the dinner table, this is the most shocking one. After all, America-criticizing is part of our national identity.
    At best, we see our neighbor as a well-intentioned but arrogant and wrong-doing bully that throws its weight around too much. At worst, we see our neighbor as one of the most evil nations in the world. And yet, right now, hundreds of millions of people in desperately poor parts of the world are being liberated from millennia of suffering and serfdom. Why? Because of the United States, which has spread its idea of economic freedom — and its purchasing power — around the world.
In the author’s point of view, Margaret Atwood’s books are______.
选项 A、thrilling
B、monotonous
C、encouraging
D、simple-minded
答案B
解析 该句提到，That’s too bad，because many of her books are tedious and unreadable，[B]monotonous意为“单调的”，与tedious意思一致，故为答案。[A]thrilling意为“令人兴奋的”。
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