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The title of the biography The American Civil War Fighting for the Lady could hardly be more provocative. Thomas Keneally, an Australian writer, is unapologetic. In labeling a hero of the American civil war a notorious scoundrel he switches the spotlight from the brave actions of Dan Sickles at the battle of Gettysburg to his earlier pre meditated murder, of the lover of his young and pretty Italian-American wife, Teresa. It is not the murder itself that disgusts Mr. Keneally but Sickles"s treatment of his wife afterwards, and how his behavior mirrored the hypocritical misogyny of 19th-century America. The murder victim, Philip Barton Key, Teresa Sickles"s lover, came from a famous old southern family. He was the nephew of the then chief justice of the American Supreme Court and the son of the writer of the country"s national anthem. Sickles, a Tammany Hall politician in New York turned Democratic congressman in Washington, shot Key dead in 1859 at a corner of Lafayette Square, within shouting distance of the White House. But the murder trial was melodramatic, even by the standards of the day. With the help of eight lawyers, Sickles was found not guilty after using the novel plea of "temporary insanity". The country at large was just as forgiving, viewing Key"s murder as a gallant crime of passion. Within three years, Sickles was a general on the Unionist side in the American civil War and, as a new friend of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, a frequent sleepover guest at the White House. Mrs. Sickles was less fortunate. She was shunned by friends she had made as the wife of a rising politician. Her husband, a serial adulterer whose many mistresses included Queen Isabella Ⅱ of Spain and the madam of an industrialized New York whorehouse, re fused to be seen in her company. Laura, the Sickles"s daughter, was an innocent victim of her father"s vindictiveness and eventually died of drink in the Bowery district of New York. Sickles"s bold actions at Gettysburg are, in their own way, just as controversial. Argument continues to rage among scholars, as to whether he helped the Union to victory or nearly caused its defeat when he moved his forces out of line to occupy what he thought was better ground. James Longstreet, the Confederate general who led the attack against the new position, was in no doubt about the brilliance of the move. Mr. Keneally is better known as a novelist. Here he shows himself just as adept at Biography, and achieves both his main aims. He restores the reputation of Teresa Sickles, "this beautiful, pleasant and intelligent girl", and breathes full and controversial life into a famous military engagement. This text appears to be a digest of
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(1)_____ exactly a year ago, in a small village in Northern India, Andrea Milliner was bitten on the leg by a dog. "It must have (2)_____ your nice white flesh", joked the doctor (3)_____ he dressed the wound. Andrea and her husband Nigel were determined not to let it (4)_____ their holiday, and thought no more about the dog, which had meanwhile (5)_____ disappeared from the village. "We didn"t (6)_____ there was anything wrong with it," says Nigel. "It was such a small, (7)_____ dog that rabies didn"t (8)_____ my mind". But, six weeks later, 23-year-old Andrea was dead. The dog had been rabid. No one had thought it necessary to (9)_____ her antirabies treatment. When, back home in England, she began to show the classic (10)_____ unable to drink, catching her breath her own doctor put it (11)_____ to hysteria. Even when she was (12)_____ into an (13)_____, hallucinating, recoiling in terror at the sight of water, she was directed (14)_____ the nearest mental hospital. But if her symptoms (15)_____ little attention in life, in death they achieved a publicity close to hysteria. Cases like Andrea are (16)_____, but rabies is still one of the most feared diseases known to man. The disease is (17)_____ by a bite of a lick from an (18)_____ animal. It can, in very (19)_____ circumstances, be inhaled—two scientists died of it after (20)_____ bat dung in a cave in Texas.
After Los Angeles, Atlanta may be America"s most car-dependent city. Atlantans sentimentally give their cars names, compare speeding tickets and jealously guard any sidestreet where it is possible to park. The city"s roads are so well worn that the first act of the new mayor, Shirley Franklin, was to start repairing potholes. In 1998, 13 metro counties lost federal highway funds because their air-pollution levels violated the Clean Air Act. The American Highway Users Alliance ranked three Atlanta interchanges among the 18 worst bottlenecks in the country. Other cities in the same fix have reorganized their highways, imposed commuter and car taxes, or expanded their public-transport systems. Atlanta does not like any of these things. Public transport is a vexed subject, too. Atlanta"s metropolitan region is divided into numerous county and smaller city governments, which find it hard to work together. Railways now serve the city center and the airport, but not much else; bus stops are often near-invisible poles, offering no indication of which bus might stop there, or when. Georgia"s Democratic governor, Roy Barnes, who hopes for re-election in November, has other plans. To win back the federal highway money lost under the Clean Air Act, he created the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA), a 15-member board with the power to make the county governments, the city and the ten-county Atlanta Regional Commission co-operate on transport plans, whether they like it or not. Now GRTA has issued its own preliminary plan, allocating $4.5 billion over the next three years for a variety of schemes. The plan earmarks money to widen roads；to have an electric shuttle bus shuttle tourists among the elegant villas of Buckhead; and to create a commuter rail link between Atlanta and Macon, two hours to the south. Counties will be encouraged, with generous ten-to-one matching funds, to start express bus services. Public goodwill, however, may not stretch as far as the next plan, which is to build the Northern Arc highway for 65 miles across three counties north of the city limits. GRTA has allotted $270m for this. Supporters say it would ease the congestion on local roads; opponents think it would worsen over-development and traffic. The counties affected, and even GRTA"s own board, are divided. The governor is in favor, however; and since he can appoint and fire GRTA"S members, that is probably the end of the story. Mr. Barnes has a tendency to do as he wants, regardless. His arrogance on traffic matters could also lose him votes. But Mr. Barnes think that Atlanta"s slowing economy could do him more harm than the anti-sprawl movement. It can be learnt from the text that Georgia"s Governor Roy Barnes
When it comes to suing doctors, Philadelphia is hardly the city of brotherly love. A combination of sprightly lawyers and sympathetic juries has made Philadelphia a hotspot for medical-malpractice lawsuits. Since 1995, Pennsylvania state courts have awarded an average of $2m in such cases, according to Jury Verdict Research, a survey firm. Some medical specialists have seen their malpractice insurance premiums nearly double over the past year. Obstetricians are now paying up to $104,000 a year to protect themselves. The insurance industry is largely to blame. Carol Golin, the Monitor"s editor, argues that in the 1990s insurers tried to grab market share by offering artificially low rates (betting that any losses would be covered by gains on their investments). The stock-market correction, coupled with the large legal awards, has eroded the insurers" reserves. Three in Pennsylvania alone have gone bust. A few doctors—particularly older ones—will quit. The rest are adapting. Some are abandoning litigation-prone procedures, such as delivering babies. Others are moving parts of their practice to neighboring states where insurance rates are lower. Some from Pennsylvania have opened offices in New Jersey. New doctors may also be deterred from setting up shop in litigation havens, however prestigious. Despite a Republican president, tort reform has got nowhere at the federal level. Indeed doctors could get clobbered indirectly by a Patients" Bill of Rights, which would further expose managed care companies to lawsuits. This prospect has fuelled interest among doctors in Pennsylvania"s new medical malpractice reform bill, which was signed into law on March 20th. It will, among other things, give doctors $40m of state funds to offset their insurance premiums, spread the payment of awards out over time and prohibit individuals from double-dipping, that is, suing a doctor for damages that have already been paid by their health insurer. But will it really help Randall Bovbjerg, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute, argues that the only proper way to slow down the litigation machine would be to limit the compensation for pain and suffering, so-called "non-monetary damages". Needless to say, a fixed cap on such awards is resisted by most trial lawyers. But Mr. Bovbjerg reckons a more nuanced approach, with a sliding scale of payments based on well-defined measures of injury, is a better way forward. In the meantime, doctors and insurers are bracing themselves for a couple more rough years before the insurance cycle turns. Nobody disputes that hospital staff make mistakes: a 1999 Institute of Medicine report claimed that errors kill at least 44,000 patients a year. But there is little evidence that malpractice lawsuits on their own will solve the problem. By mentioning "double dipping"(Paragraph 4), the author is talking about
(1)_____ exactly a year ago, in a small village in Northern India, Andrea Milliner was bitten on the leg by a dog. "It must have (2)_____ your nice white flesh", joked the doctor (3)_____ he dressed the wound. Andrea and her husband Nigel were determined not to let it (4)_____ their holiday, and thought no more about the dog, which had meanwhile (5)_____ disappeared from the village. "We didn"t (6)_____ there was anything wrong with it," says Nigel. "It was such a small, (7)_____ dog that rabies didn"t (8)_____ my mind". But, six weeks later, 23-year-old Andrea was dead. The dog had been rabid. No one had thought it necessary to (9)_____ her antirabies treatment. When, back home in England, she began to show the classic (10)_____ unable to drink, catching her breath her own doctor put it (11)_____ to hysteria. Even when she was (12)_____ into an (13)_____, hallucinating, recoiling in terror at the sight of water, she was directed (14)_____ the nearest mental hospital. But if her symptoms (15)_____ little attention in life, in death they achieved a publicity close to hysteria. Cases like Andrea are (16)_____, but rabies is still one of the most feared diseases known to man. The disease is (17)_____ by a bite of a lick from an (18)_____ animal. It can, in very (19)_____ circumstances, be inhaled—two scientists died of it after (20)_____ bat dung in a cave in Texas.
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