2016年3月31日 星期四

Week5-丹麥女孩

Altering the history and gender of ‘The Danish Girl’

BY KAORI SHOJI SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES MAR 23, 2016

Are you into Scandinavian design? If you are, “The Danish Girl” will have you swooning. Even the first 10 seconds of the opening scene will provoke design envy and, for those who care about the details, Copenhagen apartment envy, circa 1926. Director Tom Hooper is clearly enthralled by Danish art and artists, and the camera lingers long and lovingly over the blue-gray shades of the Danish sky, the incredible white nights of its summers and the elusive beauty of the light that inspired so many artists. “The Danish Girl” is a fictional biopic of Lili Elbe, but Hooper’s attention often wanders from that subject, as he focuses on curating the breathtaking beauty and elegance suspended in the frame.

While Hooper’s appreciation of Danish light and art provides an intensely satisfying experience, sadly the same cannot be said for what actually takes place in the film. Based on a novel of the same name by David Ebershoff and adapted for the screen by Lucinda Coxon, “The Danish Girl” examines the bond between a wife and her husband, a man who needs to break out of his shell and is almost entirely dependent on her to do so. Hooper also directed “The King’s Speech,” the multiple Oscar winner that was also about marriage, and the bond that triggered a husband to become a greater man than he was before. But while Hooper was entirely focused on the pair in that film, the director seems to lack conviction in “The Danish Girl.” The result is a somewhat pedestrian and heavily sanitized take on an incredibly interesting, unconventional relationship.

In Copenhagen in the 1920s, married couple Gerda and Einar Wegener (Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne) live happily as painters. Gerda makes striking portraits, while Einar’s specialty is landscapes inspired by childhood memories. When their best friend Ulla (Amber Heard) is late for a sitting for one of Gerda’s paintings, Gerda asks Einar to drape a ballerina’s dress over his body so she can finish up certain details. Einar obliges, and then discovers that he loves the feel of silk and chiffon against his skin.

Gerda is amused by his delight and encourages the introverted Einar to go to a party dressed up as “Lili Elbe,” whom Gerda introduces to the guests as Einar’s cousin from the country. Lili is an immediate hit, and gains an admirer in Henrik (Ben Whishaw), who declares her beautiful. Einar realizes that he had been living a lie, and confesses to Gerda he doesn’t feel like a man anymore.

Redmayne has the femininity thing down: the way Lili shyly averts her gaze when a man looks at her, the scarlet lipstick that offsets the curl of her lips, how she runs her fingers on her dresses and turns the action into a statement of sensuality. Redmayne’s skill serves as both the movie’s conceit and foil: Lili Elbe strives to be a woman, but she ends up being a flimsy caricature. Einar even stops painting, since that had been the work he had been doing as a man.

The real Lili Elbe was a pioneering transgender woman in a time when such people were viewed as perverted sociopaths, and in the film Gerda takes great effort to find a sympathetic doctor who will perform a sex change operation for Einar. In an online interview, Hooper commented that people were much more “giving” with their love in the 1920s and apparently that’s his explanation for why Gerda does what she does.

But really — is that it? The story somehow circumvents the pain and emotional conflict that must arise from this situation. You can see hints of it in Gerda’s face and eyes, though, and Vikander’s performance homes in on the core of Gerda’s devotion to Einar, and the struggle to maintain her equilibrium and own personal identity. She rightfully won an Oscar for best actress in a supporting role. Is it just me or is there a slight ring of irony in there somewhere?




Structure of the lead:
Who-The Danish Girl
When- MAR 23, 2016
What-A movie about transgender
Why-To have sympathetic to transgender

How-Serious

Keywords:
1. Scandinavian-北歐語的
2. swoon-暈倒;失去知覺;動感情
3. elusive-難以理解的;逃避的
4. biopic-傳記片
5. curate-管理;當的館長
6. oblige-幫忙
7. chiffon-雪紡;薄綢
8. introvert-使內向
9. offset-抵銷;襯托出

10. equilibrium-均衡;平靜

2016年3月26日 星期六

Week 4-台南地震

Soil liquefaction database online March 13
By Yuan-Ming Chiao ,The China Post March 9, 2016, 12:00 am TWN

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A national database indicating areas of potential soil liquefaction is expected to come online as early as March 13, according to preliminary reports originating from the Ministry of Economic Affairs on Tuesday.

When it comes online next week, users will be able to logon to the site, input their residential address and receive information regarding the risk of soil liquefaction in degrees of severity (from green, yellow to red zones). The issue of soil liquefaction took center stage after the magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Southern Taiwan on Feb. 6, damaging hundreds of buildings in Tainan, many of which collapsed or leaned to one side.

Officials of the ministry's Central Geological Survey (CGA, 中央地質調查所) indicated that national telecommunications carrier Chunghwa Telecom would be responsible for ensuring that the system would be able to withstand expectedly high online traffic. Visually, the online maps will be similar to Google Maps and allow users to see liquefaction zones in relation to existing roads and buildings.

Initially, eight municipalities and counties will be searchable, including: Taipei City, New Taipei, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and County, Tainan City, Kaohsiung City and Pingtung County. Online data for Taichung City, Changhua County, Yunlin County, and Chiayi City and County is expected to be available by the end of the year. Residents in Keelung, Hualien and Taitung may have to wait another two to three years.

12-Story Buildings Erected Between 1982-97 Vulnerable

Meanwhile, members of the R.O.C. National Architects' Association (NAA, 中華民國全國建築師公會) expressed the need for stricter implementation of existing building codes, especially for buildings located in quake sensitive areas. Speaking at a conference reflecting on the February quake, Deputy Director of the NAA Cheng Yi-ping (鄭宜平) stated that structural reinforcement needed to target buildings erected between the years of 1982 and 1997. Government regulations after this period included more stringent rules on construction materials and construction on geographically sensitive areas, Cheng said.

Officials of the NAA expressed willingness to work with the government to bolster existing laws to instrumentalize structural improvements.

Many of the buildings that collapsed in the massive 7.6 magnitude quake of Sept. 21, 1999 were built before the regulations took effect, with buildings 12 stories and over with only one underground level being especially vulnerable.

While more stringent building codes have been in place for close to 20 years now, it was imperative that they are implemented in the practices of contractors, architects and inspectors, he added.

Professor Lee An-hung of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology stated that soil liquefaction maps of adequate scale (1:5000) needed to be publicized in order to accurately pinpoint whether construction of disaster relief and evacuation centers were located on unstable ground.



Structure of the lead:
Who- TAIPEI, Taiwan
When- March 9, 2016
What- Input their residential address and receive information regarding the risk of soil liquefaction in degrees of severity (from green, yellow to red zones)
Why- soil liquefaction
How-not given

Keywords:
1. liquefaction-液化
2. preliminary-初步的
3. severity-嚴重
4. telecommunication-電信
5. erect-建造
6. stringent-嚴格的;緊迫的
7. bolster-支撐

8. imperative-緊要的

2016年3月12日 星期六

Week3-牛津字典2015代表字

Emoji Maker Finds Muse in a Kim: Jong-un, Not Kardashian West

By HANNAH OLIVENNESFEB. 12, 2016

LONDON — Kim Kardashian West faces a new challenger from the east in the battle for online emotive supremacy: “#Kimunji — The Real Kimoji,” a set of emojis that represent the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

An app of emojis based on Ms. Kardashian West, released in December and called Kimoji, allows users to send hearts, kisses and doughnuts, but also Ms. Kardashian West with blond hair, crying, in a bra, and even her famous derrière.

The app proved to be highly popular and is in second place in the United States paid app chart on iTunes.

The content is pretty crass — I don’t even want to mention some of the images that are on there,” said the American designer of the Kimunji set, Ben Gillin, 32, referring to Kimoji. “Lots of kids look up to the Kardashians. As far as I gather, most of the people using these are under the age of 20.”

The Kimunji set uses imagery based on the North Korean ruler, who most recently antagonized the United States and its allies with a rocket launch on Sunday, a development that was followed by reports that another senior official had been executed.

The set, released on Monday, allows people to send one another pictures of Mr. Kim smiling, crying and walking, as well as rockets, North Korean flags, and a nuclear mushroom cloud.

There is also an emoji of Dennis Rodman, the eccentric former N.B.A. star who visited North Korea in 2013 and 2014. Mr. Rodman described himself as Mr. Kim’s “friend” and he sang “Happy Birthday” to the authoritarian leader before an exhibition basketball game in Pyongyang. But he later said, “If you don’t want me to go back there ever again, I won’t go back.”

Mr. Gillin’s creation received in three days nearly as many votes as the Kimoji app on the website Product Hunt, an online community that allows designers to post their products and get feedback from other developers.

The reaction has been great, over all,” Mr. Gillin said. “There are people who are angry, who think it’s honoring Kim Jong-un, which is in no way the intent.”

While the Kimunji icons mock Ms. Kardashian West’s emojis, Mr. Gillin conceived them with the more serious goal of drawing attention to the influence that comes with the Kardashians’ omnipresence in pop culture.

She has 60 million followers on Instagram” said Mr. Gillin, who noted that the figure dwarfs the population of North Korea. “The point of my product was to show how silly the Kim Kardashian emojis are, like holding up a mirror at the other Kimojis.”

This is not the first time that Kim Jong-un has inspired pop culture: There is a Tumblr page dedicated to photographs of him “looking at things.” He has become an Internet meme, and he was the basis for the movie “The Interview,” a comedy about a fictional C.I.A. plot to assassinate him.

The North Korean leader apparently didn’t approve and declared “war” on the film (maybe next time he can send rocket emojis).

With the small icons increasingly being used to communicate, the emoji menu is ever expanding.

The Unicode Consortium, the agency that regulates emojis, announced on Thursday that it was thinking of developing a new set of icons, for dumplings, chopsticks and fortune cookies. An online campaign has raised $12,478 to push the dumpling emoji.

In April, the consortium released racially diverse emojis, giving users the option to choose from five different skin tones, and updated its international flags database to 257 flags.

Emojis started appearing on cellphones in Japan in the mid-1990s and were integrated into Apple’s operating system in 2011.

The Oxford Dictionary named the crying-out-laughing emoji its word of the year in 2015. In October, the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, came under question in her country’s Senate for her liberal use of emojis.





Structure of the lead:
Who- The Oxford Dictionary
When- in 12, 2016
What- emoji icon
Why- not given
Where- the Internet

How- not given


Keywords:
1. emotive-感情的
2. supremacy-主權;優勢
3. doughnut-甜甜圈
4. crass-愚鈍的;粗魯的
5. antagonize-引起反抗;反對
6. eccentric-反常的;古怪的
7. conceive-構思
8. omnipresence-無所不在
9. assassinate-詆毀

10. consortium-聯合

2016年3月10日 星期四

Week2-看見台灣

Documentary ‘Beyond Beauty’ Captures Taiwan From Above

By JENNY W. HSU

It has been said that when the early Portuguese explorers first laid eyes on Taiwan in the 1500s, they were so impressed with the island’s lush green mountains and pristine turquoise shorelines that they decided to name the place “Ilha Formosa” — beautiful island — on the spot.

More than 500 years later, as Taiwan transforms from an agrarian society to a high-tech-dominated economy, many of the majestic peaks that took the settlers’ breath away have been sullied by residential blocks, tea plantations, and high-end hotels. The once clear waters off its beaches are also discolored by the massive amount of chemical waste discharged by factories each year.

In a way, what happened in Taiwan is a reflection of what’s happening in many parts of the world,” said Chi Po-lin, the director of this year’s Golden Horse Awards winner for best documentary, “Beyond Beauty, Taiwan from Above.”

The 48-year-old aerial photographer-turned-filmmaker used to work for the government’s National Highway Engineering Bureau, taking tens of thousands images of the island during helicopter trips over the past two decades.

Sitting in his small Taipei office, lined with books on Taiwan’s landscape and geography, he said he had long wanted to make a movie based on his photographs, but for years it seemed like a far-fetched dream. That changed in 2009, when French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand released his aerial documentary “Home” on climate change and global warming.

Mr. Chi said his motivation for making “Beyond” was not to point a finger at a certain industry or even the government, but to present a realistic view of Taiwan’s growing environmental problems. His hope is to make people think twice the next time they throw out the garbage or turn on the faucet.

In his 93-minute film, audiences are taken on a bird’s-eye journey by helicopter across Taiwan’s various landscapes, with background music by award-winning composer Ricky Ho. While the movie documents Taiwan’s rich biodiversity, it also bears witness to the worsening devastation wrought by humans.

Structure of the lead:
Who- Mr. Chi
When- 2009
What-  to show Taiwan's beauty to everyone
Why- Taiwan's natural beauty is decreasing
Where- Taiwan

How- he made a film

Keywords:
1. pristine-清新的;原始的;未開發的
2. turquoise-藍綠色的
3. agrarian-耕地的;農業的
4. peak-山峰;頂峰
5. plantation-種植園;人造林;殖民地
6. sully-使丟臉;玷汙
7. discolor-使褪色;汙染
8. aerial-航空的

9. biodiversity-生物多樣性

2016年2月25日 星期四

Week one-美加州恐攻

The Gun Epidemic: The Making of a Page 1 Editorial

By ANDREW ROSENTHALDEC. 7, 2015

Not long after the latest mass murder, in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., our publisher, was on the phone with Terry Tang, deputy editorial page editor, and me. What were we going to write about the killings?

There was nothing particularly unusual about this conversation. Arthur often discusses issues and news events with us, since the editorial board represents The Times as an institution and Arthur is its publisher. Arthur is particularly incensed about gun violence and the nation’s failure to deal with it.

The day after the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012, Arthur was in my office. Would it be possible, he asked, for us to go bananas on guns for a while? (He actually used an earthier expression than bananas.) I said yes, and mobilized our editorial writers. In the next month, we published about 15 editorials on the subject of guns, gun violence and gun regulation.

By last Thursday, as details of the carnage in California emerged, Arthur had another, bolder idea: What if we did an editorial on the front page? We later found out that this had not happened in almost 100 years. The editorial and news departments are kept separate, and editorials go on the editorial page.

We talked about the idea in some detail last Thursday. On the con side, there was the argument about separation of news and opinion. We also talked about the possibility, which later came to pass, that the killers in San Bernardino could be Muslims with some kind of tie to international terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, or at least sympathetic to those groups and their sadistic agenda. Would a gun control editorial seem appropriate?

But the big plus side was that it would make a powerful statement by the Times editorial board and its publisher that we’ve had enough and wanted to shout our frustration and anger from our rooftop, Page 1. Making it work regardless of who the killers turned out to be was an issue of writing and editing.

Nothing was decided until Dean Baquet, the executive editor, had a chance to consider the idea. He and Arthur discussed it, and Dean thought a Page 1 editorial was a great idea. I was not present at the discussion, nor should I have been.

Why in print? After all, our audience online is bigger. But the old-fashioned notion of a printed paper still has enormous power. We found that to be true last year, when we ran a series of editorials calling for legalization of marijuana. When other news media reported on that series, the illustration they most often used was a photo of the cover of the Sunday Review, where we started it.

While Tom Bodkin, our design director, worked on exactly how to put an editorial on the front page, we went to work on what the editorial would say. We decided that it had to be powerful, and clear and direct. It also had to be fairly short, because the space on Page 1 could accommodate only about 450 words.

In consultation with Terry Tang and other members of the editorial team, I sat down to write the editorial Friday morning. It mostly speaks for itself, but there are a couple of points — about which we’ve received some queries — that are worth addressing.
We felt it had to focus on the specific issue of spree killings like the one in California, and earlier in Colorado Springs and so many other places, and on two ideas that related to it.

The first was that it is not tolerable to have an open, legal market on which would-be terrorists can easily amass an arsenal of weapons that are so perfectly suited to their task. That might not have prevented the San Bernardino shooting (a common argument which we’ve heard a lot in recent days), but at least we as a society would not have aided and abetted it.

The second was that — as much as we support other gun control measures and have written about them hundreds of times — it was time to say that there are too many firearms out there.

Background checks, bans relating to the no-fly list, mental health screening, limits on magazine capacities, trigger locks and many other good ideas that have been flatly rejected by the Republicans in Congress would not reduce the number of firearms in circulation. There are more guns than people in our country. We wanted to focus on this and to issue a loud call to action. There was simply no room on the front page on Saturday to list every good gun control idea.

We will have a lot more to say in coming days and weeks about those ideas, and all the others that would help stem the epidemic of gun violence. Sometimes it feels as if we are howling into a raging storm, but that is our job on the editorial page — to say what we think is right and hope we can at least spark some civil debate.

The response was overwhelming. The readership of the editorial was enormous, and so was the volume of comments from our readers. There were plenty of people who disagreed with us on principle and in particulars, and did so forcefully. And there were, predictably, some who just spewed hatred and hostility.

It’s interesting in a very sad way that people who oppose gun control measures often resort to violent imagery to make the point that they can be trusted to do the right thing with their firearms. “Let me buy any gun I want to defend myself, or I’ll shoot you” is not a rational argument.

Our publisher felt it was the right time to make a big and loud statement about guns, and chose a bold and exciting way to do it. That’s the kind of thing publishers are supposed to do.



Structure of the lead:
Who- ANDREW ROSENTHAL
When- DEC. 7, 2015
What- editing a front page of newspaper
Why- people use guns everywhere and every time 
Where- San BernardinoCalif

How- not given


Keywords:
1. incense-激怒;使大怒
2. massacre-大屠殺
3. carnage-大屠殺
4. sadistic-殘酷成性的;虐待狂的
5. agenda-議程;行為事項
6. arsenal-軍火庫
7. marijuana-大麻毒品
8. accommodate-使適應
9. consultation-諮詢;參考
10. spree-狂飲作樂;放縱的行為

2016年1月4日 星期一

Week6-歐洲難民潮

Rand Paul hits Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio in new ad on Syrian refugees

Updated 0137 GMT (0937 HKT) December 15, 2015
By Tal Kopan

Washington (CNN)Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is out with a new presidential campaign ad that takes aim at the national security credentials of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, his Senate colleagues who are faring better than him on the presidential campaign trail.
Called "Learn from Mistakes," the minute-and-a-half long ad cites two Iraqi refugees who settled in Kentucky in 2009 who later pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism.
The ad will begin airing Monday in early states Iowa and New Hampshire, ahead of the CNN-hosted GOP debate on Tuesday, according to Paul's campaign. The networks that will air the ads and size of the buy were not disclosed.
The narrator then says "some refused to learn from mistakes" as clips play of the Texas and Florida senators expressing openness to welcoming refugees. The clips imply both supported accepting Syrian refugees without condition, though both Cruz and Rubio have called for halting any program accepting refugees from Syria in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks.
The ad goes on to paint Paul as tougher on national security.
"Rand Paul sounded the alarm," the voice over says, as a clip plays of Paul on Fox News saying he opposed the Gang of Eight immigration bill Rubio helped author.
"Rand Paul wrote the amendment to suspend visas to nations with high risks of terrorism, but Marco Rubio voted no," the narrator says.
Paul has called for not just scrutinizing refugees, but disallowing easy access to any visitors to the U.S. with ties to at-risk regions.
The Kentucky Republican has struggled to gain traction in the polls and has hovered in the low single digits for months. Cruz and Paul, meanwhile, have been cementing spots among the top four candidates in recent weeks.
Foreign policy has been an area setting Paul apart from the field since the beginning of his campaign. A libertarian-leaning Repubilcan, Paul favors a more isolationist policy than his colleagues, and in the last presidential debate got into a heated argument with Rubio over military spending. Paul advocated for cutting military spending with overall government spending, hitting Rubio for wanting to increase defense dollars.



Structure of the lead:
Who- Rand Paul, Cruz, and Marco Rubio
When- Monday
What- There will be a meeting about whether they should accept the refugees
Why- not given
Where- not given
How- complex and arguments

Keywords:
1.      credential-信任的;憑據
2.      fare-進展;過活;遭遇
3.      cite-傳喚
4.      cement-鞏固
5.      halt-中止
6.      trump-贏;勝過
7.      alarm-使恐懼
8.      amendment-修正案
9.      scrutinize-仔細檢查

10.  traction-牽引;摩擦力

2015年12月17日 星期四

Week 5 - 天津爆炸

12 firefighters among 50 dead in Chinese port city explosions

Hannah Gardner, Special for USA TODAY 4:09 p.m. EDT August 13, 2015

BEIJING — The death toll in twin warehouse blasts in China rose to at least 50 people Thursday, including 12 firefighters, state media reported.

China's official Xinhua news agency said the two massive explosions that ripped through a warehouse facility in one of the world's busiest ports in the city of Tianjin injured 700 people. About 71 people were hospitalized in critical condition.

According to Wang Xiaojie, head of the emergency department of Teda Hospital, many patients had glass or shrapnel cuts, or skull injuries and fractures, Xinhua reported. Tianjin, with a population of 15 million, is located about 90 miles southeast of Beijing.

Residents posted photos of blown out windows and doors on social media. Videos posted the night before showed a huge fire ball surging into the sky and individual explosions like fireworks going off around it.

Tianjin looks like the end of the world has come this morning," resident Wang Kun said Thursday. "It’s like what you see in Hollywood blockbusters,” he said.

A Weibo user with the name Dawanzi said the area looked like a war zone. "The explosions, the putrid air, dead bodies everywhere, people running around and crying."

Weibo is similar to Twitter, which is blocked on mainland China.

The scale of the destruction in the area immediately around the blast sites and the size of the fire lead many on Weibo to believe the death toll could climb higher.

People as far away as Beijing began to don face masks in case the explosion released toxic chemicals into the air.

The first blast, which occurred around 11:30 p.m. local time Wednesday night, was equivalent to that caused by 3 tons of TNT.

The second explosion, triggered by the first fire, was equivalent to 21 tons of explosive material, the National Earthquake Bureau said.

Executives for Ruihai Logistics, the company which owns the warehouse where the inferno originated, were arrested, police said. The website for Ruihai Logistics said the company is approved to handle hazardous materials.

Ruihai Logistic oversaw a 46,000-square-meter facility that housed warehouses for storing and distributing hazardous materials,according to its website, Reuters reported.

China's President Xi Jinping demanded severe punishment for anyone found responsible for the explosions.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said six battalions of firefighters had brought the ensuing fire under control, although it was still burning in the early hours of Thursday. Authorities announced they suspended further efforts to douse the blaze because they had not been given clear information as to the nature of the potentially hazardous materials being stored in the warehouses.

Rescue teams detected high levels of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides as far as a half-mile from the scene, Xinhua reported. A 217-member team of specialists in nuclear, biological and chemical materials was brought in to begin assessing and cleaning up toxic material, the agency reported.

The city has set up 17 monitoring stations for air, and another five for water. Three sewage outlets to the sea have been closed, said Wen Wurui, head of the city's environmental protection bureau, at the press conference.

Several buildings were destroyed in the blasts, and more than 1,000 new cars were left charred in a nearby parking lot, the Beijing News reported.

As many as 3,500 nearby residents have been relocated to 10 schools because of damage to their home. The number could reach 6,000 by Thursday night, Zhang Yong, head of the Binhai district government, said at a press conference, according to Xinhua.

Accidents of this nature are not uncommon in China's rapidly expanding cities, where residential areas bump up against industrial zones.

Tianjin is currently being incorporated into the Chinese capital of Beijing, as part of a plan to create a super city of over 130 million people known as Jing-Jin-Ji.

A spokesman for Tianjin's port said it was operating normally, despite the fire. The port is the 10th largest in the world and seventh largest in China. It has grown in importance as companies wanting lower manufacturing costs have migrated to the north from eastern and southern China’s manufacturing centers.




http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/08/13/firefighters-dead-china-explosions/31598019/



Structure of the Lead
Who- not given
When- Thursday
What- the explosion in Tianjin
Why- people who work in warehouse were so careless
Where- Tianjin
How- horrible and nervous

Keywords:
1.      shrapnel-彈片
2.      skull-頭骨
3.      fracture-使骨折;破裂
4.      putrid-腐臭的
5.      equivalent-相等的
6.      inferno-地獄
7.      battalion-軍隊;營
8.      douse-澆熄
9.      sulfur-硫磺

10.  sewage-汙穢物