Unit2 people

Yorke: You've talked about finding meaning in suffering. What do you mean by that?

McGraw: Everybody at some point is going to have misfortune. I think if we don't learn from that, then it was just a penalty. But if you use it, then it becomes tuition. I draw a lot on my personal experiences. It's hard for people to deceive me, because I'm a pretty street-smart guy. Some husband comes on my show and tries to tell me he's not really a workaholic? I say, \are talking to one. I've been there.\

Yorke: Are there families who come on your show but whom you feel you just can't help? McGraw: I never think that I'm doing eight-minute cures on television. But I think that 50 percent of the solutions to any problem lies in defining it first. I can be an emotional compass that points them down the path, but the real work will start when they walk off the stage.

Yorke: I understand that you and Robin and your two sons are an incredibly tight-knit family. What would you say is the greatest value system that you, the McGraws have? What runs you guys?

McGraw: It may sound dull, but it's really family first. Our family and its priorities, needs, values, come before everything else——work, recreation, whatever. When I say family first, that means marriage also, because our belief has always been that one of the greatest gifts you can give your children is a good marriage between their mom and dad, so they don't wind up living in a divorce situation.

Yorke: How do you feel you've succeeded as a parent?

McGrow: Our approach is that if Robin and I fell off the world tomorrow, would our boys be equipped to manage their lives, would they have the values, work ethic, and goals-management skills they needed to go forward? I think they would.

5.Passage：

If a computer were to design the perfect U.N. Secretary-General, he or she would look something like this: African born; European and American educated, with decades of service in the U.N. system; married to a European; and possessing a quiet charisma and calm authority as chaos arises.

That the U.N. in 1996 found such a person to restore its sense of direction and purpose was a near miracle. But out of the U.N.'s failures in Bosnia , Somalia and Rwanda came Kopi Annan, the career international civil servant who had participated in these disasters yet somehow survived and learned from them.

Today Annan is in the middle of his second term. His task is not finished, and the U.N. is still far from what it should be. But Annan has tested the limits of the job, accumulating more authority-one cannot use the word power, given the constraints the U.N. system places on

him-than any of his predecessors.

His complex relationship with the U.S. government is little understood. When Annan takes positions in public that are displeasing to the Bush administration, it unleashes its attack dogs. Yet when administration officials found their policies in Iraq floundering, they asked the U.N. for help. Some observers told Annan that he should responsibility was to the cause of stabilizing Iraq. He began to work toward the decisive date of June 30, when the U.S. will hand over control to Iraqi authorities and an uncertain situation will prevail determined by factors way beyond his, or anyone else's, ability to control. But it is Annan's destiny to be handed the very worst problems after they have been unsuccessfully addressed by others. Anyone who knows him knows he wades into such problems with his usual blend of courage, self-control, modesty and optimism. 转自学易网 www.studyez.com Translation Reference：

如果让电脑来设计一个完美的联合国秘书长，他/她应该是这样的：出生在非洲;在欧洲和美国接受教育;在联合国工作十年以上;配偶是欧洲人;出现混乱局面时能保持冷静、富有领导魅力的权威人士。

1996年联合国找到了这样一个人来恢复它的方向感和目的性，这简直就是个奇迹。联合国在波斯尼亚、索马里和卢旺达的行动失败后，科菲.安南却脱颖而出。身为国际公务员的他对参与了这一系列的空难性行动，幸存下来，并且从中学到很多东西。

现在，安南的第二任期已过一半。然而，他的任务还没有圆满完成，联合国离其理想状态还很远。但安南已经体验到了他这份工作的局限性——因为联合国体制对他的限制，他不能利用言语力量，然而他却比他的前任们积累了更多的权威性。

他与美国政府的复杂关系鲜为人知，当安南在公众面前的表现不能取悦布什政府的时候，美国就会攻击他。反过来，当美国政府官员发现他们的政策在伊拉克举步维艰的时候，他们却向联合国寻求帮助。有些观察家建议安南不要帮助美国摆脱困境，但是安南明白，自己最大责任是促成伊拉克局势的稳定。他开始朝6月30号这个决定性的日子努力，美国将会在这天向伊拉克政府移交政权，这将千万动荡局面。不管是安南还是其他任何人，在伊拉克问题上的成功与否都不会取决于他个人的控制能力。但是，安南注定要处理这些棘手的问题，而这些问题是由别人的失败造成的。所有熟悉安南的人都知道他将带着他一贯的勇气、自我控制能力、谦恭和乐观来介入这一难题。

6.

Florence Sephton is 77 and lives in Deganwy, North Wales. She is reading for an arts degree. “I'm more of a creature to polish my mind than polish my furniture. The house takes second place while I put the studying first.”

“I was very happy at school and had wonderful teaching. I passed the university entrance examination and was ready to go to university but with World War II I went into banking. I was paid ￡ 1 a week. Manchester University kept my place open for three years but I was enjoying the money and the freedom so I turned it down.”

Mrs Sephton is now in the second year of her Open University course and is finding it hard work. “I'm feeling tired more frequently. I can't do more than an hour?s work at a time. The memory?s shocking. I'm supposed to be reviewing and I look up notes I took earlier this year and think, ?Have you read this before?? So I'm doing it very slowly—one credit (学分) a year, so it'll take six years.”

“At the moment the greatest reward is simply the increase in knowledge—and the discipline. I had

an essay failed this week. The professor said I hadn?t answered the question. I?ve been thinking about it all week. I find it difficult to organize ideas of an essay properly. I just let myself go and get excited. I feel more emotionally than I do mentally. I'm very ordinary really.”

While claiming to be ordinary and lazy, Mrs. Sephton is still working hard daily at her assignments (作业) . Mrs. Sephton sees her studies as keeping her fit and independent. “Because of my life I?ve been self-sufficient. It?s not a very nice characteristic. It means I don?t care enough about people. I can?t say I find comfort in what I?m learning, so I?ll be interested to see if there?s a life ahead.”

7.

At political gatherings, he is treated like a pop star. Young girls scream(尖叫), young men shout his name and everyone from small children to the elderly pushes closer to get a glimpse (瞥) of the man.

For the last four years, in stadiums and community halls, on farms and on soccer fields, Nelson Mandela has traveled South Africa and the world promoting his vision of racial reconciliation (和解). His tireless campaigning and his insistent commitment to the cause of non-racialism have won him a Nobel Peace Prize and made him a global symbol of hope in the post-Cold-War era of ethnic (人种的) conflicts and instability (不稳定). But now with the election behind him, Mandela must transform the dream that has sustained him into the reality of a new, multiracial(多种族的) South Africa.

In the four years since he emerged from prison, he has led the push for democracy with a determination and vision that have left his leadership unchallenged. Although he lives in a suburb of Johannesburg, where the upper class lives, he has retained the respect of his country's poor masses. He has met with the general staffs of both the South African defense force and the national police force, which some suspect has secretly cooperated with white extremists(极端主义者), and also held talks with leaders of the right wing. Talking to foreign reporters last week, Mandela said he does not intend to ban(禁止) the extremist white organizations the way the former government banned his organization, the African National Congress. At the same time, however, Mandela made it clear that he will not tolerate(容忍) disobedience(不服从) in his government.

Tall and dignified, with the erect bearing(举止) of a king, Mandela seems destined to become the President. \from the outset Nelson had a presence; he always made an impression on anybody that met him because of his sincerity(真诚) and strong will,\known Mandela since the 1940s, when he emerged as an energetic young figure on the political and social scenes. 8.

It's a cold evening in February 2002, at a fancy dinner in New York City. In walks a drop-dead gorgeous thirty something. Senators, CEOs and others to whom deference does not come easily all rise to their feet. This is not just some successful businesswoman or famous actress. This is the Queen.

Queen Rania, the wife of Jordan's King Abdullah, has described the challenge to her country as trying to reconcile tradition with modernity. In Jordan, the issues she champions to bridge this gap include computer skills for schoolchildren, micro loans for women to start their own businesses, ending child abuse and trafficking and pushing for harsher penalties for honor killings. But I know her through her efforts on a larger world stage. Along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others, Rania is working to spread the modern gospel of childhood vaccination. As she noted that evening in 2002, more than 30 million children a year get no immunizations during their first year of life. And as many as 10% of them—from 2 million to 3 million—will die for the lack of just $30 worth of vaccinations.

The Vaccine Fund is an international effort to raise money to immunize children everywhere. So far, thanks at least in part to the Queen's strong endorsement and her role on the board of directors, it has raised $1.3 billion. The life-saving hepatitis-B vaccine has reached 35 million children in 40 of the least developed nations around the world.

The Queen always makes clear that she knows who wears the crown in Jordan. But she insists it is women who are the strongest force for modernization and its chief beneficiaries. Around the globe we watch her efforts with amazement and hope.