发布时间 : 星期五 文章《高等学校研究生英语综合教程-上》Unit7-Unit10课文翻译及课后练习答案更新完毕开始阅读
believe that a higher power devises mortality schedules that fix a predetermined time when our number is up. Consequently, any single measurement assigned to the risk of driving a car is bound to be only the roughest sort of benchmark.
5日常生活中，风险是不断移动的靶子，而并不像统计数据那样是个固定数字。除了外部因素外，每个人对于冒险都有自己内在的安全尺度。有些人天生大胆而有些人天生谨慎，还有些人是宿命论者，他们会认为，有一种更强大的力量设计了死亡时间表，预先确定了我们的死期。因此，对驾车风险做任何单一的测算所得到的肯定只是最粗略的基准数据。
Adams cites, as an example the statistical fact that a young man is 100 times more likely to be involved in a severe crash than is a middle-aged woman. Similarly, someone driving at 3:00 a.m. Sunday is more than 100 times more likely to die than someone driving at 10:00 a.m. Sunday. Someone with a personality disorder is 10 times more likely to die. And let's say he's also drunk. Tally up All these factors and consider them independently says Adams, and you could arrive at. a statistical prediction that a disturbed, drunken young man driving in the middle of the night is 2.7 million times more likely to be involved in a serious accident than would a sober, middle-aged woman driving to church seven hours later. 亚当斯引用了这样的统计事实作例子：青年男子发生严重撞车事故的概率比中年妇女高100倍。同样，在星期天凌晨3点钟驾车的人比同一天上午10点钟驾车的人死亡风险高出100多倍，有人格障碍的人比一般人死亡风险高10倍。亚当斯说，假如这个人还喝醉了，汇总所有这些因素并分别加以考虑，就会得到一个具有统计性的预测：一位心理失常又喝醉酒的青年男子在午夜驾车，7个小时后一位头脑清醒的中年妇女驾车去教堂，前者发生严重交通事故的概率比后者高270万倍。
6 The bottom line is that risk doesn't exist in a vacuum and that there are a host of factors that come into play, including the rewards of risk, whether they are financial, physical or emotional. It is this very human context which risk exists. That is key, says Adams, who titled one of his recent blogs: What Kills You Matters- Not Numbers. Our reaction to risk very much depends on the degree to which it is voluntary (scuba diving), unavoidable (public transit) or imposed (air quality), the degree to which we feel we are in control (driving) or at the mercy of others (plane travel), and the degree to which the source of possible danger is benign (\(nature) or malign, (murder and terrorism). We make dozens of risk calculations daily, but you can book odds- that most of them are so automatic or visceral- that we barely notice them. 6问题的要点就在于风险并不是孤立存在的，它会受到许多因素的影响，包括承担风险所带来的种种回报——无论是财产方面的、身体方面的，还是情感方面的。这正是风险赖以存在的真实的人类社会。亚当斯说，这才是问题的关键，正如他把近期的一篇博客题目定为《关键的是置人于死地的东西，而不是数字》。我们对风险的反应多半取决于它在多大程度上是自发的行为(如戴水肺潜水)、是不可避免的(如公共交通)、还是强加给我们的(如空气质量)；取决于我们认为在多大程度上是我们能控制的(如驾驶)或是由别人控制的(如乘飞机)；还取决于这种潜在危险在多大程度上是出于好意(如医生的指令)、无意的(如自然因素)或恶意的(如谋杀和恐怖活动)。我们每天要做几十遍风险计算，但是可以确信的是，多数时候人们对风险的计算自然而然或者说是出自本能，以至于我们几乎注意不到我们在做计算。 Unit Nine
THE HOUSING CRISIS GOES SUBURBAN 住房危机走向郊区 迈克尔·格伦沃尔德 在过去的五年里，弗吉尼亚州费尔法克斯县的住房价格增长速度是家庭收入增长速度的
12倍．今天，该县中等家庭不得不将其收入的54％用于购买位于该县的普通住房；在2000年，这个数字是26％。形势如此严峻，以至于费尔法克斯县最近开始对年收入90，000美元的家庭提供住房补贴；很快，这个数字可能提高到110，000美元。
1 Seventy years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the Depression had left one-third of the American people \ill-clothed and ill-nourished,\Americans are well-clothed and increasingly over nourished. But the scarcity of affordable housing is a deepening national crisis, and not just for inner-city families on welfare. The problem has climbed the income ladder and moved to the suburbs, where service workers cram their families into overcrowded apartments, college graduates have to crash with their parents, and firefighters, police officers and teachers can't afford to live in the communities they serve.
1富兰克林·罗斯福总统曾经说经济大萧条造成1／3的美国人住房简陋、衣衫褴褛、营养不良，然而70年后的今天，美国人却是穿着考究、营养日益过剩。但是，廉价房稀缺是一场日益加深的民族危机，而不仅仅是依靠福利为生的城市家庭的危机。这个问题已经波及中产阶级，并向郊区蔓延，在那里服务工作者及其家属挤在过于狭小的公寓里，大学毕业生不得不借宿在父母家，而消防队员、警察和教师在他们所服务的社区也买不起房。
2 Home ownership is near an all-time high, but the gap is growing between the Owns and the Own-Nots —as well as the Owns and the Own-80-Miles-From-Work. One-third of Americans now spend at least 30% of their income on housing, the federal definition of an \burden, and half the working poor spend at least 50% of their income on rent, a \The real estate boom of the past decade has produced windfalls for Americans who owned before it began, but affordable housing is now a serious problem for more low- and moderate-income Americans than taxes, Social Security4 or gas prices.
2住房拥有率接近历史最高位，但有房户和无房户之间的差距越来越大，有房户和房子离工作单位80英里远的有房户之间的差距也越来越大。现在，1／3的美国人花费至少30％的收入用于住房，联邦政府将这种情况定义为“无力支付”的负担，而有一半的穷打工仔花费至少50％的收入用于租房，这种情况被称为“极其严重”的负担。在过去10年里，房地产迅猛发展，这使得在此之前就已经购置房产的美国人大赚特赚了一把，但现在廉价房对中、低收入的美国人来说，是一个比税收、社会保险、汽油价格更严重的问题。
3 America used to care a lot about affordable housing. Roosevelt signed housing legislation in 1934 and 1937, providing mortgages, government apartments and construction jobs for workers down on their luck. In 1949, Congress .set an official goaljjf \environment for every American family,\subsidized rent vouchers to millions of low-income tenants in private housing. For half a century, most housing debates in Washington revolved around how much to expand federal assistance. 3美国曾经非常关注廉价房问题。1934年和1937年，罗斯福签署了住房立法，提供抵押贷款、政府公寓，并为那些穷困潦倒的工人提供建筑工作。1949年，国会树立了官方目标——“让每一个美国家庭都能拥有一个体面的家和宜居环境，”而到了1974年，尼克松总统开始对数以百万计的低收入租户在私有住房方面提供租金补贴凭单。半个世纪以来，在华盛顿发生的大多数住房方面的辩论都围绕着一个主题：即应该在多大程度上扩大联邦政府的资助。 4 But for the past two decades, the only new federal housing initiative has been HOPE VI5, a Clinton administration program that has demolished 80,000 units of the worst public housing and built mixed-income developments in their place. The program has eliminated most of the high-rise hellholes that gave public housing a bad name and has revived some urban neighborhoods. But it has razed more subsidized apartments than it has replaced.
4但在过去20年中，唯一的联邦住房新提案就是HOPE VI，也就是克林顿政府拆毁80,000单位的最差公共住房，重建混合收入寓所来取而代之。该计划已经拆除了大部分高度危险的房子，它们曾使公共住房声名狼藉，并已重建了一些城市的社区。但是它更多的是把享有补贴的公寓房夷为平地而不是取而代之。
5 Overall, the number of households receiving federal aid has flatlined since the early 1990s, despite an expanding population and a ballooning budget. Congress has rejected most of President Bush's proposed cuts, but there has been virtually no discussion of increases; affordable-housing advocates spend most of their time fighting to preserve the status quo. 5总的来说，自90年代初以来，接受联邦援助的家庭数已经降到最低，尽管人口不断增加、预算不断膨胀。美国国会已经拒绝了美国总统布什提出的大部分的削减计划，但几乎没有讨论过增加计划；廉价房的倡导者花费的大部分时间都被用于努力争取保持现状。
6 And it's a tough status quo. Today, for every one of the 4.5 million low-income families that receive federal housing assistance, there are three eligible families without it. Fairfax County has 12,000 families on a waiting list for 4,000 assisted apartments. \—nobody wants to give it up,\says Conrad Egan, chairman of the Fairfax housing authority. It sounds odd, but the victims of today's housing crisis are not people living in \people who aren't even that lucky.
6而现状真是很艰难。今天，有450万低收入家庭享受联邦住房救助，还有3倍于此的家庭符合被救助资格，却拿不到救助。费尔法克斯县有12,000户家庭在排队轮候4,000套救助公寓。“这太宝贵了，一旦拥有，没有人愿意放弃。”费尔法克斯住房委员会主席康拉德·艾根这样说。这听起来奇怪，但如今住房危机的受害者不是那些已经享受“救助计划”的人，而是那些没那么幸运去享受这个计划的人。
7 Some liberals6 dream of extending subsidies to all eligible low-income families, but that $100 billion-a-year solution was unrealistic even before the budget deficit ballooned again. So even some housing advocates now support time limits on most federal rent aid. The time limits included in welfare reform 10 years ago were controversial, but studies suggest they've helped motivate recipients to get off the dole. And unlike welfare, housing aid is not a federal entitlement, so taking it away from one family after a few years would provide a break for an equally deserving family.
7一些自由派人士梦想着对所有合格的低收入家庭都给予补贴，但是这个每年要斥资上千亿美元的解决办法很不现实，即便是在预算赤字再度膨胀之前也不现实。因此，即使一些曾经主张住房政策的人，现在也支持对大多数联邦租房救济金实行时间限制。人们对10年前福利改革中所涉及的时限问题有争议，但研究表明，这些时限有助于激励受助人摆脱对福利的依赖。和福利不同的是，住房救济金不是联邦所赋予的权利，因此几年后对一个家庭停止供给意味着给另一个同样需要救济的家庭一个喘息的机会。
8 \a no-brainer,\says David Smith, an affordable-housing advocate in Boston. \can't sustain the internal contradiction of no limits.\8“这是显而易见的事，”大卫·史密斯——波士顿的一位廉价房的倡导者说，“你不能让内在矛盾无限地延续。”
9 The root of the problem is the striking mismatch between the demand for and the supply of affordable housing —or, more accurately, affordable housing near jobs. Fifteen million families now spend at least half their income on housing, according to Harvard's Joint_CenterfOTHousing Studies: many skimp on health care, child care and food to do so. Others reduce their rents by overcrowding, which studies link to higher crime rates, poorer academic performance and poorer
health; Los Angeles alone has 620.000 homes with more than one person per room. Other workers are enduring increasingly long commutes from less expensive communities, a phenomenon known as \
9问题的根源是廉价房的供需，或者更准确地说，工作地点附近的廉价房的供需之间极不协调。据哈佛大学住宅联合研究中心提供的数据，现在有1,500万个家庭至少把他们一半的收入用于支付住房费用；许多人为了住房甚至在医疗保健、照顾儿童和食品等方面节省开支。其他人为了减少租金，居住条件极为拥挤，研究表明，拥挤的居住条件与高犯罪率、学习成绩差、以及健康状况不佳紧密相关；仅洛杉矶就有62万户家庭多人共居一室。其他工作者居住在较为便宜的社区，忍受着越来越长距离的交通往返，这种现象被称为“驾驶以保生活质量”。
10 This creates all kinds of lousy outcomes—children who don't get to see their parents, workers who can't make ends meet when gas prices soar, exurban sprawl, roads clogged with long-distance commuters emitting greenhouse gases. \don't think we're creating strong communities by forcing people into their cars four hours a day,\of the housing committee for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. Affordable housing also helps make communities competitive; it's not clear how Fairfax can keep creating jobs if workers can't afford to live there.
10这造成各种不良结果——孩子们看不到父母；当汽油价格飙升、城市向外扩张、道路上堵满了长途通勤的打工者、他们的汽车排放着温室气体，劳动者根本就入不敷出。费尔法克斯县监督委员会的会长凯西·哈金斯说：“我认为如果我们迫使人们平均每天四个小时呆在汽车里，我们就无法建立强大的社区。”廉价房也可以使社区具有竞争力；如果打工者没钱住在那里，我们还真不知道费尔法克斯县怎能一直创造就业机会。
11 The best thing local officials can do to promote affordable housing is to get out of the way—stop requiring one-acre lots and two-car garages, and stop blocking low-income and high-density projects.
11为促进廉价房，地方官员最好不要挡在路上——不要要求一英亩最小面积和两车位的车库、不要阻止低收入和高密度的项目。
12 Washington politicians, on the other hand, have the federal budget at their disposal. But Congress hasn't supported new construction since the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit of 1986, which creates nearly 100,000 units of affordable housing a year, enough to replace half the units that are torn down or converted to market rents. Bush proposed a home-ownership tax credit during his 2000 and 2004 campaigns, but it turned out to be the rare tax cut he didn't pursue. A bill pending in Congress would divert a percentage of profits from federally chartered institutions such as Fannie Mae to a national affordable-housing trust fund8, but it seems stalled. The only affordability ideas with any traction at the national level are not really housing ideas; for example, one way to make housing more affordable to workers would be to raise their incomes—through higher minimum wages, lower payroll taxes or an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.
12另一方面，联邦预算由华盛顿政界人士决定。但是，美国国会自1986年施行低收入住房税收抵免政策以来没有再支持过新的建设项目，该政策每年造就近100,000套廉价住房，足以取代被拆除或被转变为市场化招租的那些住房总数的一半。布什在2000年和2004年的竞选中提出了房屋所有权税收抵免政策，这是一项极好的政策，但是他最终竟然没有实行。一项等待国会投票的法案可能会把一些联邦特许机构——如房利美——的利润按照一定的百分比转移到国家廉价房信托基金名下，但这项法案似乎停滞不前。唯一的用国家力量促进