With the U.S. economy facing its potentially deepest economic decline in nearly a century, Wall Street is pulling further and further ahead from Main Street.
Chaplin's brilliant roller-skating routine from Modern Times
Charlie Chaplin - Modern Times - Roller Skating Scene
• A classic scene from Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times. © Roy Export SAS • Subscribe to our channel: http://bit.ly/TheChaplinFilms • Listen to Full Soundtrack...
YOUTUBE.COM
The state of infrastructure in the rich world is decrepit. One in three railway bridges in Germany are over 100 years old, as are half of London’s water mains. In America the average bridge is 42 years old and the average dam 52. Governments must start repairing while prices are still low http://econ.st/1VhrCfJ
Obama has now commuted the prison sentences of 184 people, surpassing the combined number of those granted by presidents Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush (117).
Tenzin Delek was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2002, according to Students for a Free Tibet, a rights group that has campaigned for his release. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment and reduced to a term of 20 years.
The New York Times
"In my judgment, leaving these death sentences in place does not serve the public good of the people of Maryland – present or future,” Gov. Martin O’Malley said.
Maryland Governor Commutes Death Sentences, Emptying Death Row
The decision by Gov. Martin O’Malley came two years after Maryland...
NYTI.MS|由 ALAN BLINDER 上傳
On November 12, 1948, Matsui and Hirota, along with five other convicted Class-A war criminals, were sentenced to death by hanging. Eighteen others received lesser sentences. The death sentence imposed on Hirota, a six-to-five decision by the eleven judges, shocked the general public and prompted a petition on his behalf, which soon gathered over 300,000 signatures but did not succeed in commuting the Minister's sentence.[104][105]
More than 630,000 letters pleading for a stay of execution were delivered to the Georgia board last week. Those asking for clemency included President Jimmy Carter, 51 members of Congress and death penalty supporters, such as William Sessions, a former F.B.I. director. The board’s failure to commute Mr. Davis’s death sentence to life without parole was a tragic miscarriage of justice.
Up and Down on Main Street
Paula A. Crouch still uses a traditional gray typewriter to clack out the civil bonds she sells from a tidy storefront office in downtown Fairfax City. Her Roseberry & Foster Bonding Co. originally sold jail bonds, though she left that business in the 1990s. Her mainstay in recent years has been ...
(By Alejandro Lazo, The Washington Post)
Research In Motion was granted a stay in a patent-infringement case filed by software maker Visto against the BlackBerry maker.
commute, routines, straphanger’s ride.
A Mayor Who Takes the Subway — by Way of S.U.V.
He is public transportation’s loudest cheerleader, boasting that he takes the subway “virtually every day.” He has told residents who complain about overcrowded trains to “get real” and he constantly encourages New Yorkers to follow his environmentally friendly example.
But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s commute is not your average straphanger’s ride.
On mornings that he takes the subway from home, Mr. Bloomberg is picked up at his Upper East Side town house by a pair of king-size Chevrolet Suburbans. The mayor is driven 22 blocks to the subway station at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, where he can board an express train to City Hall. His drivers zip past his neighborhood station, a local subway stop a five-minute walk away.
That means Mr. Bloomberg — whose much-discussed subway rides have become an indelible component of his public image — spends a quarter of his ostensibly subterranean commute in an S.U.V.
“I never see him,” said Namela Hossou, who sells newspapers every morning at the downtown entrance to the mayor’s nearest stop, at 77th Street, four blocks from the mayor’s house. “Never, never.”
The mayor’s chief spokesman, Stu Loeser, was asked in an interview yesterday whether being driven to an express station distanced Mr. Bloomberg from the experience of the average Manhattan subway rider. Mr. Loeser replied, “Who is the average Manhattan subway-goer? I don’t think it’s an answerable question. The mayor rides the subway like anyone else. Zips his card through, stands on the platform, and waits for a train to come.”
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chuckled when asked how common it is for Manhattan residents to be driven to the subway. “Where would you drive from in Manhattan to a subway station? That would be pretty crazy,” the spokesman, Jeremy Soffin, said. Told of the mayor’s morning routine, he added, “Most people don’t have chauffeurs.”
And most people don’t have reporters from The New York Times watching their travels, as Mr. Bloomberg did for five weeks. Almost every morning, two Suburbans waited outside his East 79th Street town house, sometimes with engines idling and windows up, until their charge was ready to leave. Uniformed police officers and the mayor’s security detail flanked the doorway as Mr. Bloomberg emerged and ducked into one of the waiting vehicles.
As they head to the express subway, they pass two No. 6 local stops, at 77th Street and 68th Street. They pull up to the 59th Street station, across the street from Bloomingdale’s.
Mr. Bloomberg, who entered politics as a self-made media mogul, struck a populist note early in his mayoral campaign by pledging to use mass transit. Since starting at City Hall he has invited reporters, photographers and television news anchors to ride along with him.
The image of the billionaire straphanger has paid enormous political dividends. One transit group designated him the “MetroCard mayor,” and Newsday lauded him as the city’s “regular Joe Commuter.” Shortly after he took office, The New York Times declared Mr. Bloomberg “the first subway-riding mayor.” And his tales from the underground — for example, getting stranded on a northbound No. 4 train for half an hour — have made for useful anecdotes at his news conferences.
Mr. Bloomberg’s use of the subway to get to work appears to have declined over time. In January 2002, he reported taking the train all but one day of his first three weeks. Nowadays, it appears, the S.U.V. is his primary mode of transportation. Based on the reporters’ observations, the mayor took the subway to work about twice a week.
Mr. Loeser said the mayor “walked to the subway when he first started as mayor, and he stopped doing it when cameras staked out his house every morning and walked with him.”
Informed that reporters never noticed any photographers milling outside of the mayor’s town house over the past five weeks, Mr. Loeser replied, “So you’re saying the solution worked.”
Being driven to the 59th Street station shaves about a third off the mayor’s commuting time, based on a reporter’s test runs. It also saves him aggravations others cannot avoid, like taking the local and transferring to the express.
“He goes to various stops depending on where he is going and where he is coming from,” Mr. Loeser said. Asked why the mayor would not take the train from the closest station to his house, Mr. Loeser deferred to his previous answer, “I’ve said, he takes the train from various stops.”
More recently, the mayor has emphasized his use of mass transit as part of his PlaNYC environmental platform, and to promote his controversial congestion pricing proposal. (Under that plan, an initiative partially intended to reduce greenhouse emissions from traffic in Manhattan, each of Mr. Bloomberg’s Suburbans would have to pay $4 a day for the right to drive below 86th Street.)
The Suburbans are “selected, owned, and maintained” by the N.Y.P.D., which organizes security for the mayor, according to Mr. Loeser. Asked why the mayor required two sport-utility vehicles, Mr. Loeser declined to comment.
Environmentally speaking, “the Suburban is one of the worst, if not the worst” sport utility vehicles on the market, said Dan Becker, who studies vehicle emissions for the Sierra Club. “It’s way up there.”
But the mayor’s S.U.V.’s come equipped with FlexFuel engines, which allow the use of either gasoline or E85 ethanol, a cleaner, corn-based fuel. Mr. Loeser said the mayor’s vehicles “use ethanol at all times when he is in New York City, and whenever it is available when he travels.”
According to federal figures, a 2007 Suburban 1500 fueled by ethanol ranks below the average vehicle in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. An ethanol-fueled Suburban produces 9.2 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, placing it around the midpoint of vehicles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
At least one public transit advocate interviewed yesterday said it did not matter how long the mayor actually spent on the subway — but that he was seen using the system.
“To me, I think it’s terrific that he has made a point of taking the subway in a more public statement way,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.
An NBC News segment on Mr. Bloomberg, broadcast June 12, described him as “the diminutive mayor who commutes by subway.” On camera, Brian Williams joined the mayor for a morning commute on the No. 4 train.
At one point, as Mr. Bloomberg discussed his preference for subway travel, Mr. Williams remarked, “And even in your S.U.V., there’s no getting through traffic as fast.”
The mayor, in a grave voice, concurred: “Not a chance.”
Straphanger is a nickname for a standing subway or bus passenger who grips a hanging strap (nowadays usually an overhead horizontal bar) for support. The name is thought to have originated in the late 1800s when elevated trains had leather straps for the passengers to hold on to.
routine
main street （時にM- S-） （小都市の）大通り; 〔米〕 （因襲的な）小都市（文化）; いなか町の因襲的・利己的な住民たち.
stay (STOP PUNISHMENT)
noun LEGAL
stay of execution, deportation, etc. an order by a judge which stops a judgment being performed until new information can be considered ━━ v. 留まる; （…の間）滞在する; 泊る; 立止まる; 待つ; …のままである; 持ちこたえる, 持続する ((with)); 支える; （くい）止める; （食欲などを）満足させる; （判決などを）延期する; 長居する ((out)).
a period of time left or allowed before something happens or before something must be done:
The exams have been postponed, so the students have a few days' grace before they start.
stay
n. 1. a large rope, wire, or rod used to support a ship's mast, leading from the masthead to another mast or spar or down to the deck.
2. a guy or rope supporting a flagpole or other upright pole.
3. a supporting wire or cable on an aircraft.
v.
secure or steady (a mast) by means of stays.
be in stays (of a sailing ship) be head to the wind while tacking.
━━ n., vt. 支柱; （襟などの）芯(しん); （マスト・煙突などを支える）支索（で支える）; （船を）上手(うわて)回しする.
stay・sail
,〈海〉 
━━ n. 支索帆.
mainstay
noun 【船】大檣支索; 大黒柱 ((of)).
European Commission regulators Monday announced they have launched two new formal investigations into the software giant's business practices, setting the stage for a renewed clash between the American tech mainstay and the EU's increasingly powerful antitrust cops.
the mainstay of sth the most important part of something, providing support for everything else:
Cattle farming is the mainstay of the country's ecomony.
The white blouse will be the mainstay of your wardrobe this summer.
In Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, extravagant weddings are a mainstay of modern life.
"In my judgment, leaving these death sentences in place does not serve the public good of the people of Maryland – present or future,” Gov. Martin O’Malley said.
Maryland Governor Commutes Death Sentences, Emptying Death Row
The decision by Gov. Martin O’Malley came two years after Maryland...
NYTI.MS|由 ALAN BLINDER 上傳
On November 12, 1948, Matsui and Hirota, along with five other convicted Class-A war criminals, were sentenced to death by hanging. Eighteen others received lesser sentences. The death sentence imposed on Hirota, a six-to-five decision by the eleven judges, shocked the general public and prompted a petition on his behalf, which soon gathered over 300,000 signatures but did not succeed in commuting the Minister's sentence.[104][105]
More than 630,000 letters pleading for a stay of execution were delivered to the Georgia board last week. Those asking for clemency included President Jimmy Carter, 51 members of Congress and death penalty supporters, such as William Sessions, a former F.B.I. director. The board’s failure to commute Mr. Davis’s death sentence to life without parole was a tragic miscarriage of justice.
Up and Down on Main Street
Paula A. Crouch still uses a traditional gray typewriter to clack out the civil bonds she sells from a tidy storefront office in downtown Fairfax City. Her Roseberry & Foster Bonding Co. originally sold jail bonds, though she left that business in the 1990s. Her mainstay in recent years has been ...
(By Alejandro Lazo, The Washington Post)
Research In Motion was granted a stay in a patent-infringement case filed by software maker Visto against the BlackBerry maker.
Vigilance Is Urged To Avert Robberies
Home invasion robberies in Prince George's County since the start of the year have more than doubled compared with the same period a year ago, prompting police to take the extraordinary step of recommending that residents vary their routines and take other precautions to keep from becoming victims.
(By Aaron C. Davis, The Washington Post)
Home invasion robberies in Prince George's County since the start of the year have more than doubled compared with the same period a year ago, prompting police to take the extraordinary step of recommending that residents vary their routines and take other precautions to keep from becoming victims.
(By Aaron C. Davis, The Washington Post)
A Mayor Who Takes the Subway — by Way of S.U.V.
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
Two Chevrolet Suburbans waited for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg outside his 79th Street home on Tuesday morning. The mayor, who sometimes takes the subway to work, catches it at 59th Street.
He is public transportation’s loudest cheerleader, boasting that he takes the subway “virtually every day.” He has told residents who complain about overcrowded trains to “get real” and he constantly encourages New Yorkers to follow his environmentally friendly example.
But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s commute is not your average straphanger’s ride.
On mornings that he takes the subway from home, Mr. Bloomberg is picked up at his Upper East Side town house by a pair of king-size Chevrolet Suburbans. The mayor is driven 22 blocks to the subway station at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, where he can board an express train to City Hall. His drivers zip past his neighborhood station, a local subway stop a five-minute walk away.
That means Mr. Bloomberg — whose much-discussed subway rides have become an indelible component of his public image — spends a quarter of his ostensibly subterranean commute in an S.U.V.
“I never see him,” said Namela Hossou, who sells newspapers every morning at the downtown entrance to the mayor’s nearest stop, at 77th Street, four blocks from the mayor’s house. “Never, never.”
The mayor’s chief spokesman, Stu Loeser, was asked in an interview yesterday whether being driven to an express station distanced Mr. Bloomberg from the experience of the average Manhattan subway rider. Mr. Loeser replied, “Who is the average Manhattan subway-goer? I don’t think it’s an answerable question. The mayor rides the subway like anyone else. Zips his card through, stands on the platform, and waits for a train to come.”
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chuckled when asked how common it is for Manhattan residents to be driven to the subway. “Where would you drive from in Manhattan to a subway station? That would be pretty crazy,” the spokesman, Jeremy Soffin, said. Told of the mayor’s morning routine, he added, “Most people don’t have chauffeurs.”
And most people don’t have reporters from The New York Times watching their travels, as Mr. Bloomberg did for five weeks. Almost every morning, two Suburbans waited outside his East 79th Street town house, sometimes with engines idling and windows up, until their charge was ready to leave. Uniformed police officers and the mayor’s security detail flanked the doorway as Mr. Bloomberg emerged and ducked into one of the waiting vehicles.
As they head to the express subway, they pass two No. 6 local stops, at 77th Street and 68th Street. They pull up to the 59th Street station, across the street from Bloomingdale’s.
Mr. Bloomberg, who entered politics as a self-made media mogul, struck a populist note early in his mayoral campaign by pledging to use mass transit. Since starting at City Hall he has invited reporters, photographers and television news anchors to ride along with him.
The image of the billionaire straphanger has paid enormous political dividends. One transit group designated him the “MetroCard mayor,” and Newsday lauded him as the city’s “regular Joe Commuter.” Shortly after he took office, The New York Times declared Mr. Bloomberg “the first subway-riding mayor.” And his tales from the underground — for example, getting stranded on a northbound No. 4 train for half an hour — have made for useful anecdotes at his news conferences.
Mr. Bloomberg’s use of the subway to get to work appears to have declined over time. In January 2002, he reported taking the train all but one day of his first three weeks. Nowadays, it appears, the S.U.V. is his primary mode of transportation. Based on the reporters’ observations, the mayor took the subway to work about twice a week.
Mr. Loeser said the mayor “walked to the subway when he first started as mayor, and he stopped doing it when cameras staked out his house every morning and walked with him.”
Informed that reporters never noticed any photographers milling outside of the mayor’s town house over the past five weeks, Mr. Loeser replied, “So you’re saying the solution worked.”
Being driven to the 59th Street station shaves about a third off the mayor’s commuting time, based on a reporter’s test runs. It also saves him aggravations others cannot avoid, like taking the local and transferring to the express.
“He goes to various stops depending on where he is going and where he is coming from,” Mr. Loeser said. Asked why the mayor would not take the train from the closest station to his house, Mr. Loeser deferred to his previous answer, “I’ve said, he takes the train from various stops.”
More recently, the mayor has emphasized his use of mass transit as part of his PlaNYC environmental platform, and to promote his controversial congestion pricing proposal. (Under that plan, an initiative partially intended to reduce greenhouse emissions from traffic in Manhattan, each of Mr. Bloomberg’s Suburbans would have to pay $4 a day for the right to drive below 86th Street.)
The Suburbans are “selected, owned, and maintained” by the N.Y.P.D., which organizes security for the mayor, according to Mr. Loeser. Asked why the mayor required two sport-utility vehicles, Mr. Loeser declined to comment.
Environmentally speaking, “the Suburban is one of the worst, if not the worst” sport utility vehicles on the market, said Dan Becker, who studies vehicle emissions for the Sierra Club. “It’s way up there.”
But the mayor’s S.U.V.’s come equipped with FlexFuel engines, which allow the use of either gasoline or E85 ethanol, a cleaner, corn-based fuel. Mr. Loeser said the mayor’s vehicles “use ethanol at all times when he is in New York City, and whenever it is available when he travels.”
According to federal figures, a 2007 Suburban 1500 fueled by ethanol ranks below the average vehicle in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. An ethanol-fueled Suburban produces 9.2 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, placing it around the midpoint of vehicles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
At least one public transit advocate interviewed yesterday said it did not matter how long the mayor actually spent on the subway — but that he was seen using the system.
“To me, I think it’s terrific that he has made a point of taking the subway in a more public statement way,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.
An NBC News segment on Mr. Bloomberg, broadcast June 12, described him as “the diminutive mayor who commutes by subway.” On camera, Brian Williams joined the mayor for a morning commute on the No. 4 train.
At one point, as Mr. Bloomberg discussed his preference for subway travel, Mr. Williams remarked, “And even in your S.U.V., there’s no getting through traffic as fast.”
The mayor, in a grave voice, concurred: “Not a chance.”
Straphanger is a nickname for a standing subway or bus passenger who grips a hanging strap (nowadays usually an overhead horizontal bar) for support. The name is thought to have originated in the late 1800s when elevated trains had leather straps for the passengers to hold on to.
strap・hang
一百多年之後的台北捷運系統中似乎還可以看到這種皮製抓手
routine
- A prescribed, detailed course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure.
- A set of customary and often mechanically performed procedures or activities. See synonyms at method.
- A set piece of entertainment, especially in a nightclub or theater: The audience laughed at the comedian's routine.
- Slang. A particular kind of behavior or activity: Must you go into your hurt routine when you don't get your way?
- Computer Science. A set of programming instructions designed to perform a specific limited task.
water main
noun
plural noun: water mains
- the main pipe in a water supply system.
main street （時にM- S-） （小都市の）大通り; 〔米〕 （因襲的な）小都市（文化）; いなか町の因襲的・利己的な住民たち.Definition of main street in English:
NOUN chiefly North American
(Main Street) US Used in reference to thematerialism, mediocrity, or parochialism regardedas typical of small-town life:If you don’t get banks to lend again, Main Street is going to be in very big trouble
[from the title of a novel (1920) by Sinclair Lewis]
stay (STOP PUNISHMENT)
noun LEGAL
stay of execution, deportation, etc. an order by a judge which stops a judgment being performed until new information can be considered ━━ v. 留まる; （…の間）滞在する; 泊る; 立止まる; 待つ; …のままである; 持ちこたえる, 持続する ((with)); 支える; （くい）止める; （食欲などを）満足させる; （判決などを）延期する; 長居する ((out)).
ゆうよ 猶予
- ・〜する give time; 《支払を》give〈three days'〉grace; 《刑を》reprieve
- ・〜なく without delay [hesitation]; promptly.
猶予期間 a grace period.執行猶予 a stay of execution; suspension of execution.a period of time left or allowed before something happens or before something must be done:
The exams have been postponed, so the students have a few days' grace before they start.
stay
n. 1. a large rope, wire, or rod used to support a ship's mast, leading from the masthead to another mast or spar or down to the deck.
2. a guy or rope supporting a flagpole or other upright pole.
3. a supporting wire or cable on an aircraft.
v.
secure or steady (a mast) by means of stays.
be in stays (of a sailing ship) be head to the wind while tacking.
━━ n., vt. 支柱; （襟などの）芯(しん); （マスト・煙突などを支える）支索（で支える）; （船を）上手(うわて)回しする.
stay・sail,〈海〉 ━━ n. 支索帆.mainstay
noun 【船】大檣支索; 大黒柱 ((of)).
European Commission regulators Monday announced they have launched two new formal investigations into the software giant's business practices, setting the stage for a renewed clash between the American tech mainstay and the EU's increasingly powerful antitrust cops.
the mainstay of sth the most important part of something, providing support for everything else:
Cattle farming is the mainstay of the country's ecomony.
The white blouse will be the mainstay of your wardrobe this summer.
In Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, extravagant weddings are a mainstay of modern life.
commute[com・mute]
- 発音記号[kəmjúːt]
[動](他)［III[名]（[副]）］
1 〈刑罰・責務などを〉（軽いものに）代える((to ...))
commute the death sentence to life imprisonment
死刑を終身刑に減刑する.
死刑を終身刑に減刑する.
2 〈物を〉（…に）変える, 変化させる((into ...))；〈支払い方法などを〉（…に）振り替える((for, into ...)).
3 〈2つの物を〉取り替える, 交換する.
4 《電気》〈電流を〉整流する.
━━(自)［I（[副]）］
1 ((略式))（…間を）通勤［通学］する；（ひんぱんに）往復する((between ...；from ... to ...)).
2 （…の）代償となる, （…を）補う(compensate)；（…の）代わりとなる, 代替物となる((for ...)).
3 （支払いをまとめて）1回払いにする, 1度に払う.
4 《数学》交換が可能である.
━━[名]((主に米))通勤, 通学；通勤［通学］距離［時間］
shorten a lengthy commute
長い通勤時間を短縮する
長い通勤時間を短縮する
a commute airline
通勤航空会社.
通勤航空会社.
commute
Line breaks: com|mutePronunciation: /kəˈmjuːt / VERB- the governor commuted the sentence to fifteen years' imprisonment
2.1 (commute something for/into) Change one kind of payment or obligation for (another): - tithes were commuted into an annual sum varying with the price of corn
2.2 Replace (an annuity or other series of payments) with a single payment: - if he had commuted some of his pension he would have received £330,000
3 - operators which do not commute with each other
NOUN
Origin
late Middle English (in the sense 'interchange (two things')): from Latin commutare, from com- 'altogether' +mutare 'to change'. sense 1 of the verb originally meant to buy and use a commutation ticket, the US term for a season ticket (because the daily fare is commuted to a single payment).
miscárriage[mis・cárriage]
[名][C][U]
1 流産
have a miscarriage
流産する.
流産する.
2 （郵便物・荷物の）誤配, 不着.
3 失敗；失策；誤り
a miscarriage of justice
誤審.
誤審.
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