Archaeology has long been an accepted tool for studying prehistoric cultures. Relatively recently the same techniques have been systematically applied to studies of the more immediate past. This has been called "historical archaeology," a term that is used in the United States to refer to any archaeological investigation into North American sites that postdate the arrival of Europeans. Back in the 1930’s and 1940’s, when building restoration was popular, historical archaeology was primarily a tool of architectural reconstruction. The role of archaeologists was to find the foundations of historic buildings and then take a back seat to architects. The mania for reconstruction had largely subsided by the 1950’s and 1960’s. Most people entering historical archaeology during this period came out of university anthropology departments, where they had studied prehistoric cultures. They were, by training, social scientists not historians, and their work tended to reflect this bias. The questions they framed and the techniques they used were designed to help them understand, as scientists, how people behaved. But because they were treading on historical ground for which there was often extensive written documentation and because their own knowledge of these periods was usually limited, their contributions to American history remained circumscribed. Their reports, highly technical and sometimes poorly written, went unread. More recently, professional archaeologists have taken over. These researchers have sought to demonstrate that their work can be a valuable tool not only of science but also of history, providing fresh insights into the daily lives of ordinary people whose existences might not otherwise be so well documented. This newer emphasis on archaeology as social history has shown great promise, and indeed work done in this area has led to a reinterpretation of the United States’ past. In Kingston, New York, for example, evidence has been uncovered that indicates that English goods were being smuggled into that city at a time when the Dutch supposedly controlled trading in the area. And in Sacramento an excavation at the site of a fashionable nineteenth-century hotel revealed that garbage had been stashed in the building’s basement despite sanitation laws to the contrary. The word "framed" in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to
A. understood.
B. read.
C. avoided.
D. pose
The US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on governments to observe international law. After deliberately targeting the civilian public health infrastructure (建筑基础), the US military imposes a continuing economic blockade on Iraq which has directly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. The US government is the primary financier and arms supplier for the decade-long Israeli war against the entire Palestinian people. The US armed forces and US-organized and/or US-financed ally or proxy forces have killed millions upon millions of civilians since the end of World War Ⅱ. This is the not-so-hidden meaning of the Stars and Stripes, as the vast majority of people around the world understand it. Now the US government has begun what it bills as an open-ended "War on Terrorism", which conveniently ignores the fact that in the late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century it is the United States of America that, by its own definition, is the most prolific terrorist force in the world. At the same time US leaders are choosing to target whichever individuals, organizations, regimes and/or nation-states--among the wide array of opponents of US policies--are deemed most convenient this week, leaving the rest for next week, next year or the next decade. This is, of course, a recipe for a perpetual war, which is as well understood by President Bush and the other architects of the "New World Order", as it was by the architects of a similar project of world empire that was proudly proclaimed the Third Reich (希特勒的第三帝国), under a flag with a similarly not-so-hidden meaning. Perpetual war serves a number of purposes for the present administration. It is under wartime conditions that the US will, at least initially, face the least resistance as it finishes the now over two century-long processes of gutting the Bill of Rights and voiding the inconvenient parts of the US Constitution. It is under conditions of war that the campaign to defeat the anti-globalization movement can be fought with increasingly militant and dirty tactics. It is under wartime conditions that all opponents of US policies anywhere in the world, including within the US itself, can be most easily labeled "terrorist", at the same time that the mass media can be most easily mobilized as a total propaganda machine. And it is under conditions of war that the arms production, oil production and military technology corporations that funded President Bush’s election by the Supreme Court will be most handsomely rewarded without too many questions ever being asked. And best of all, wartime conditions lend themselves to the easy mobilization of xenophobic (仇视外国人的), politically reactionary, flag-waving patriotism. According to the passage, the purpose of the US veto against a UN Security Council resolution calling on governments to observe international law is
A. to target whichever opponents of US policies in the world.
B. to impose a continuing economic blockade on Iraq.
C. to finance and supply arms for the Israeli war against Palestine.
D. to target the civilian public health infrastructur
Steve Robinson went for a walk yesterday morning with tens of millions of people watching. A walk in space. What made his sojourn so different from those of the hundreds of other astronauts who have floated around shuttles for more than 20 years is that the very future of the nation’s manned space program may rest on his success. In the wake of the Columbia disaster 30 months ago, and amid questions about NASA’s commitment to a safety-first culture, Robinson tested what accounts to the repair kits to help astronauts survive damage from debris during lift-off or in orbit. Apparently, the repairs went well. How well, however, and whether the spacecraft sustained damage from foam insulation as it rose from Kennedy Space Center, won’t be known until Discovery completes its super-heated descent through the atmosphere and touches down. What is known now is that NASA allowed Discovery to fly despite internal questions about whether NASA had done enough to address safety issues raised inside and outside the agency. That’s disquieting. Space flight is dangerous; it can never be as safe as, say, a flight in a jetliner. But every investigation following both the Challenger and Columbia tragedies cited a culture that did not put safety first. Yes, NASA has made progress. Robinson’s repair walk is evidence of that. For now, let’s hope for the best for the seven brave astronauts as, amazingly, they do their jobs. Which of the following is NOT cited by the author in his criticism of NASA’s neglect of safety
A. NASA’s allowing Discovery to fly in spite of questions about safety.
B. Launching the spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center.
C. The Columbia disaster 30 months ago.
D. The explosion of Challenger.
It was an early September day, cool and bright for running, and I was in the first few miles of a 10.5-mile race over a course through steep, exhausting hills. Still, I felt rested and springy; despite the hills it was going to be a fine run. Just ahead of me was Peggy Mimno, a teacher from Mount Kisco, New York. She too was running easily, moving along efficiently at my speed. The pace felt comfortable, so I decided to stay where I was; why bother concentrating on pace when she was setting such a nice one I’d overtake her later on when she was tired. So I was running behind her. The course headed north for five miles, wandered west for a hilly mile, then turned south again along a winding road. The race was getting tougher. We had four miles left and already it was beginning to be real work. I was breathing hard, and my legs were turning to mush. Peggy overtook a young male runner. Apparently she knew him, for they exchanged a few cheerful words as she passed him. Their exchange worried me. You don’t chat during a race unless you are feeling good, and Peggy plainly was. There was still a noticeable bounce in her stride, but whatever resilience I’d once possessed had long since left me. Still, I was close enough to overtake her if she tired, so I didn’t give up hope completely. We were approaching a long, punishing hill now and it would be the test. We were a mile from the finish line, so whatever happened on the hill would almost certainly determine who crossed it first. As I moved up the hill, working hard, my attention wandered for a few minutes. When I looked up, Peggy was moving away--first five yards, then ten, then it was clear that there was no hope of catching her. She beat me decisively. There is an important lesson in that race. Much of what you read about running makes a sharp distinction between the sexes. Women are assumed to be weaker slower and not nearly as adept athletically. Yet as Peggy Mimno so clearly demonstrated, the similarities between male and female runners are more important than the differences. I have run with a number of women, both in training and in competition, and I can testify that it is often hard work. In the second paragraph, by saying "I decided to stay where I was", the narrator probably means
A. he was to stop to watch Peggy running.
B. he would keep the same speed as he had been doing.
C. he felt it good to run behind Peggy.
D. he did not bother to compete with Peggy.