There is an ever-widening gap between black male college enrollees and their female and white counterparts, says the American Council on Education (ACE). Twenty years ago, according to ACE’s “Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education,” 30 percent of African American male high school graduates (ages 18 to 24) were enrolled in college, compared with 28 percent of same-age black females and 41 percent of white males. Now, some 37 percent of black men are enrolled, compared with 42 percent of African American women and 44.5 percent of white males. So while there are more black males enrolling in college today than 20 years ago, other groups have outstripped them in enrolling and, even more importantly, in retention rates. The graduation rate of black men is lower than that of any group. Only 35 percent of black males enrollees graduated within six years from colleges in 1996, compared with 59 percent of white males,46 percent of Hispanic men,41 percent of American Indian males and 45 percent of the black women who entered the same year. Surveys and reports are hinting that the country’s educational apparatus is stacked against the black male. Fewer than one in five students of color have graduated from high school, have a set of college-prep courses on their high school transcripts and “demonstrate basic literacy” — the necessities for being “college ready.” Another glaring problem is that black males are disproportionately labeled as discipline and behavioral problems and fast tracked out of high schools through expulsions and suspensions. As if that’s not enough, says ACE’s William Harvey, there’s a virtual drying up of federal aid-to-education grant money coupled with jacked-up tuitions, which make it necessary for low-income students to assume an average $ 20,000 debt to finish a four-year curriculum. “For those in the lower economic category, the availability of financial aid determines who gets to go to college and who doesn’t,” observes Harvey. Harvey points out that, over the years, federal funding has undergone a “complete reversal,” from “a 70 percent to 30 percent grant-to-loan ratio 20 years ago” to the exact opposite today..”An 18-year-old male will be more inclined to say, I want money in my pocket now’ and attempt to get a job,” adds Harvey. “But many take on the debt, become part-time students, work 20-plus hours a week and become five-year students at a four-year college.” The inequity of that educational apparatus is especially clear when you look at the black males who persevere — those who go on to finish high school, earn a bachelor’s degree and even finish grad school. A recently released Census report shows that, whether they have a high school diploma or a master’s degree, black men will earn roughly 25 percent less than Whites.
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Power and Cooperation: An American Foreign Policy for the Age of Global Politics The age of geopolitics in American foreign policy is over; the age of global politics has begun. Throughout the twentieth century, traditional geopolitics drove U. S. thinking on foreign affairs: American security depended on preventing any one country from achieving dominion over the Eurasian landmass. That objective was achieved with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now the United States finds itself confronting a new international environment, one without a peer competitor but that nonetheless presents serious threats to American security. The terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon neither represented a traditional state-based threat nor were tied to a specific geographical location. Nevertheless, nineteen people with just a few hundred thousand dollars succeeded in harming the most powerful nation on earth. For more than three centuries, the dynamics of world politics was determined by the interplay among states, especially the great powers. Today, world politics is shaped by two unprecedented phenomena that are in some tension with each other. One is the sheer predominance of the United States. Today, as never before, what matters most in international politics is how—and whether—Washington acts on any given issue. The other is globalization, which has unleashed economic, political, and social forces that are beyond the capacity of any one country, including the United States, to control. American primacy and globalization bring the United States great rewards as well as great dangers. Primacy gives Washington an unsurpassed ability to get its way in international affairs, while globalization enriches the American economy and spreads American values. But America’s great power and the penetration of its culture, products, and influence deep into other societies breed intense resentment and grievances. Great power and great wealth do not necessarily produce greater respect or greater security. American leaders and the American people are now grappling with the double-edged sword that is the age of global politics.
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Pollution and Ecocrisis The problem of pollution is also of great social concern. Continued population increase, accompanied by a rise in the level of living standards, not only threatens to exhaust American resources but pollutes the environment to such an extent that production in the thickly settled area is impossible without damaging the health of the local residents. Smog, once an urban annoyance, is now recognized as a health risk, and the automobile has been pinpointed as the principal culprit. Heavy industries have been blamed for river, soil, air, noise and visual pollutions. DDT and other chemical remedies have been doing more ecological harm than the good that they may have brought along. Several decades ago, Americans dumped raw sewage into rivers and many industrial plants are now still dumping chemical pollutants into lakes, rivers and oceans. Oceans used to be and are still being considered to be a reserve of seafood. Today, after the oceans have become the home of all pollutants, this use of the oceans is being reduced at an alarming rate. The worst pollution threat is concentrated in and near large cities. There the people-made pollutants increasingly surpass the ability of air and water to dilute (冲淡；稀释) the contaminants (污染物) to safe levels. The natural ecological cycle depends on plants, which absorb some pollutants and release oxygen to the air. But near large cities, natural vegetation becomes scarce, and introduced trees, ornamental shrubs and gardens are far from adequate in absorbing motor vehicle and industrial air pollutants. Finally, some pollutants, most notably atomic waste, may continue to contaminate air, land, and water for thousands of years. Therefore, ecocrisis—ecocatastrophe or ecocide—has been for some time one of the major concerns of not only the ecoactivists and environmentalists, but of many scientists of other fields and the government authorities of many countries as well. Last but not least, there is the question of whether the people will eventually be able to solve all these problems. The American continent is a wealthy land inhabited by many able and well- educated people. There today, people have originated a life-style which is known to the world as being characteristic of a society of consumption—a life-style based on the prodigal (挥霍浪费的) use of material goods. They are using up many times their share of the earth’s resources at a rate unparalleled in history. And I am sorry to say that this life-style of American has been copied by the people of many developed countries, leading to the greatest problem of the modem world as a whole. So I must ask: Are the Americans apt enough to cooperate with other peoples to prevent over-population, resource exhaustion, the catastrophe of pollution and the wanton waste of wealth — problems which are basic to the solution of many outstanding economic, social and political problems? Only time will tell.
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Dental Health Decay is not the only disease that can cause tooth loss. Another serious disease affects the gums, the tissue that surrounds the teeth. It is also caused by bacteria. If the bacteria are not removed every day, they form a substance that stays on the teeth. The substance is known as plaque. At first, the gums appear to be swollen, and may bleed when the teeth are brushed. This can lead to serious infection of the tissue around the teeth. The infection may damage the bone that supports the teeth and cause tooth loss and other health problems. Studies have found that people with severe gum disease have an increased risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and stroke. Gum disease can be treated by a special dentist called a periodontist. Periodontists are trained to repair the gum areas that have been damaged. This can be painful and costly. Dental health experts say the best thing to do is to stop gum disease before it starts. The way to do this is to clean the teeth every day. People also should use dental floss to remove plaque from between the teeth. Most experts also agree that another way to prevent tooth and gum problems is to eat foods high in calcium and vitamins and low in sugar. Scientists continue to develop better dental treatments and equipment. Improved technology may change the way people receive dental treatment in the future. For example, dentists are now suing laser light to treat diseased gums and teeth. Dentists use computer technology to help them repair damaged teeth. Researchers have developed improved methods to repair bone that supports the teeth. And genetic research is expected to develop tests that will show the presence of disease causing bacteria in the mouth. Such increased knowledge about dental diseases and ways to prevent them has improved the health of many people. Yet problems remain in some areas. In industrial countries, minorities and other groups have a high level of untreated dental disease. In developing countries, many areas do not have even emergency care services. The World Health Organization says people in countries in Africa have the most tooth and gum problems. World Health Organization experts say the dental health situation is different for almost every country in the world. As a result, it has developed oral health programs separately for each area. The WHO oral health program is mainly for people living in poor areas. It provides them with information about mouth diseases and health care. It also studies preventive programs using fluoride in water, salt, mild and toothpaste. And it explores ways to include dental health in national health care systems. Many governments and other organizations provide help, so people can get needed dental health services. But dental health professionals say people should take good care of their teeth and gums. They say people should keep their teeth as clean as possible. They should eat foods high in calcium and fiber. These include milk products, whole grain breads and cereals, vegetables, fruits, beans and nuts. Recent studies have shown that eating nuts can help slow the production of plaque on the teeth. Experts say these activities will help everyone improve their dental health throughout their lives.
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Don’t Blame DNA The really critical implication of the discovery still lies with the door that geneticists have opened on the environmental influences of our behaviour, our personalities and our health, 1 and with the critical blow it strikes on the idea of biological determinism. For the past decade, the public has witnessed a rising epidemic of tales of discoveries of genes that dispose humanity to homosexuality, to alcoholism, to political persuasion, to running ability, and to artistic taste. But even before yesterday’s revelations by Venter, scientists had stopped believing in the gay gene. Yet belief in its existence still persists among the public. The assault on biological determinism that geneticists have now triggered will be timely, and will prove that human nature is a lot more complex and intriguing than determinists have given it credit for. Even more importantly, the discovery has critical implications for our understanding of idea of free will. It has become increasingly fashionable for individuals particularly in the United States to blame actions and crimes on the influence of their genes. Consider the following story. A young American woman, Glenda Sue Caldwell, was convicted of killing her child and was jailed for life. Only later did she begin to display the symptoms of Huntington’s Disease, an inherited brain disorder that produces horrific delusions and uncontrolled movements. Claiming she was a victim of her genes, the woman was cleared on appeal. Since then, several other U.S. defendants accused of violent crimes have argued that they too were innocent victims of their genes. They were not responsible for their actions. Their genes were. None of these people have yet succeeded in persuading courts of their innocence and their genes’ guilt. Most lawyers felt such an outcome was nevertheless inevitable. In other words, genetic predestination could soon have been used to excuse murder or robbery—if it had not been for this discovery that we lack the genes to thus dispose us! Kevin Davies is the author of The Sequence, a story of the human genome race11. He said, “There has been a recent study on perfect pitch, the ability to know the absolute pitch of a musical note, that strongly suggests that is acquired through the inheritance of a single gene.” “That may sound like a clear-cut piece of biological determinism. However, there is a crucial corollary: you have to be exposed to early musical training for the ability to materialize. 13 In other words, even in seemingly simple inherited abilities, nurture has a role to play.” And then there is the case quoted by Venter. “Everyone talks about a gene for this and that. But it is not like that. Take the example of colon cancer. People say there is a gene that predisposes us to the disease. And certainly it runs in families. It is caused by an inherited weakness in one gene that controls DNA repair in other genes. 14 But that gene is found in cells in every part of the body. However, it is only the colon where we find all sorts of toxins and bacteria that provide the harsh circumstances that cause that gene to finally break down and for cancer to spread.” In short, it is not a colon cancer gene but a gene that affects our ability to respond to the environment. And that, is what human nature is all about.
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Public Schools However good the state schools may be, it is still true that if an English parent has enough money to pay the fees to send his children to an independent school he will most probably do so. In independent schools boys and girls above the age of eight are usually educated separately. The terms “primary” and “secondary” are not usually applied to independent schools at the different levels because the age of transfer from a lower to a higher school is normally thirteen or fourteen instead of eleven. The principal schools for boys of over thirteen are called “public schools” and those for younger boys are usually called “preparatory” (or colloquially “prep”) schools. For girls there are some preparatory schools and public schools which are female imitations of the boys’ institutions. A typical “preparatory school’“—or private primary school—is very small, with between fifty and a hundred boys, either all boarders or all dayboys, or some of each. Many of these schools are in adapted houses in the country or in small towns, houses built in the nineteenth century and too big to be inhabited by families in the conditions of the modern world. If there are fifty boys, aged between eight-plus and thirteen-plus, they will probably be taught in five or six grades (or “forms”); the headmaster will himself work as an ordinary teacher, and he will have four or five assistants working for him. The preparatory schools prepare boys for the public schools’ common entrance examination and for public school life. The, schools in the state system do not prepare boys for the public schools’ common entrance examination, so a boy who tried to change from the states system to the independent school system at the age of thirteen would find difficulty in entering a public school at all. With a few exceptions public schools are all boarding schools, providing residential accommodation for their pupils, though many of them take some day-boys also. Most are in the southern half of England. Some of them are several hundred years old, but many others, including some of the most prominent thirty, were founded during the past 140 years. Most public schools, particularly the most eminent ones, are called by the name of the town or village in which they are situated; some are called “College” and some are not. The four most famous of all are Eton College, Harrow School, Winchester College and Rugby School. Public schools are inspected by the inspectors of the Department of Education, but otherwise they are quite independent. Each has a board of governors. They control the finances and appoint the headmaster, who in his turn appoints the other teachers. To send a boy to .a leading public school costs about 900 to 1,100 pounds a year, though some of the less prominent schools may cost as little as 600 pounds. All the schools award “scholarships” to some of their boys who do very good work in an examination on entering or during their first year, and the boys who win scholarships pay reduced fees or in a few cases no fees at all.