A recreational vehicle park (RV park) or caravan park is a place where people with recreational vehicles can stay overnight, or longer, in alloted spaces known as "pitches" ("sites" in the United States, Europe, and Australia). They are also referred to as campgrounds, though a true campground also provides facilities for tent camping; many facilities calling themselves "RV parks" also offer tent camping or cabins with limited facilities.
Allocated space (pitch/site) facilities may include:
* AC power connection. (Usually rated by capacity such as 16, 20, 30 or 50 amperes.)
* Drinking water connection
* Sewer connection
* Television connection (relevant to local area standards)
* Telephone connection (rare outside North America)
* Hotspot (Wi-Fi)
Park facilities may include:
* Barbecue area
* Bathhouses
* Convenience store
* Dump station
* Exercise equipment
* Gift shop
* Golf Courses
* Hot tubs
* Laundry
* Picnic tables
* Restrooms
* Recreation Hall
* Showers
* Swimming pool
[edit] RV parks by region
[edit] Australia
In Australia there is generally no differentiation between an RV park and a trailer park. The term "caravan park" is used to refer to both, and "RV park" and "trailer park" are never used, even to the point of not being understood by some Australians. The term "holiday park" is becoming increasingly common, with many parks increasing their stock of on-site cabins, often accompanied by a reduction in the number of caravan sites.
[edit] Europe
Caravan sites in Europe range in facilities depending on their age. Most new sites will be built to high environmentally friendly standards and have facilities compatible with the newest vehicles.
The Caravan Club has 1 million members in Europe with around 200 self-owned campsites and over 2,500 certified third party locations. [1]. The Camping and Caravanning Club is a non-profit organisation which has been running for over a century and has over 400,000 members and 100 campsites in the United Kingdom. [2]
In France, Germany and Italy, to a lesser degree also in Norway and Netherlands, a large network of dedicated stopover sites for motorhomes has grown since about 1980. These sites are called Reisemobil-Stellplatz in German or Aire de Camping-car in French. While these sites can usually not be compared to North American RV sites regarding size and facilities, they still fulfill the same purpose.
[edit] New Zealand
In New Zealand the term caravan park is the usual term for overnight or long term vehicle based camping. As well powered caravan or campervan sites the parks usually offer tent sites and cabins, a rudimentary building with cooking and other facilities shared with other users.
[edit] North America
RV parks range from rustic facilities with no or limited utility hookups, as often found in state/provincial parks and national parks, to luxury resorts with amenities that rival fine hotels. Some high-end resorts restrict the type of RV that can stay to motorhomes of a certain length or longer, and/or newer than a certain year.
Most RV parks are open to allcomers and rent spaces on a nightly or weekly basis, much like a motel or hotel. A few parks operate on a time-share basis. There are over 13,000 privately owned RV parks and over 1,600 state parks that cater to RVers in the USA.[3]. Many of these RV parks offer WiFi hotspot access on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis; occasionally, WiFi is included in the campsite fee.
Most RV parks are independent or operated by a government entity. In the USA Kampgrounds of America, KOA, is the largest and best-known chain of RV parks, with Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Campgrounds a distant second. Good Sam Parks are mostly independently owned RV campgrounds endorsed by the Good Sam Club, a large association of US RVers that is operated for profit by the Affinity Group, Inc. Listings of RV parks can be found in printed directories; the best known are the annual ones by Woodall's and Trailer Life Magazine. Online RV directories are provided by eCampGuide, CampRate, Reserve RV, RVThereYet, RVParkReviews, AmericaOnWheels.com and others. Overnight rates for most USA RV parks are US$15 to US$50, although some in city and country parks may be US$10 or less, even free.
posted @ 2010-02-09 14:53
ArchAngel 阅读(7) |
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编辑 收藏A trailer park is a neighborhood consisting of an area of land where travel trailers rest. The term may also be used to refer to mobile home parks or manufactured home communities.
In the United States, tornadoes and hurricanes often inflict their worst damage on trailer parks, usually because the structures are not secured to the ground and their construction is significantly less able to withstand high wind forces than regular houses. However, most modern manufactured homes are built to withstand high winds as well as a mainstream home, using hurricane straps and proper foundations.
In the United States, trailer parks are stereotypically viewed as lower income housing whose occupants live at or below the poverty line, have low social status and lead a desultory and deleterious lifestyle. Despite the advances in manufactured home technology, the trailer park stereotype still survives, evidenced in a statement by Presidential adviser James Carville in the course of one of the Bill Clinton White House political scandals, "Drag $1 bills through trailer parks, there's no telling what you'll find"," regarding Paula Jones.[1] It is also seen in the Canadian Mockumentary, Trailer Park Boys.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Recent history
* 2 Outside North America
* 3 See also
* 4 Notes
* 5 External links
[edit] Recent history
New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: Park in unflooded part of town has been turned into FEMA trailer camp for temporary housing for people whose homes were destroyed or are too damaged to live in at present
This perception of trailer parks was not improved by the creation of emergency trailer parks by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina, the quality and temporary nature of which was disputed.[2] Many stereotypes have developed regarding people who live in trailer parks, which are similar to stereotypes of the poor and the term often used as an adjective in the same vein as the derogatory American terms white trash or ghetto. Though trailer parks appear throughout the country, they are often associated with the Deep South and rural areas.
[edit] Outside North America
In Europe, particularly in Germany and Spain, there are several disputed trailer parks mostly forcefully or unlawfully placed on squatted land in the midst of urban centers (Berlin, Hamburg, Barcelona). Names for such phenomena include Wagenburg, Wagendorf or Bauwagenplatz (all German, meaning: "wagon fort", "trailer village" and "construction trailer place" respectively) and people living there are often associated with the punk movement and do-it-yourself punk ethic. A somewhat similar phenomenon exists in Britain, in the form of communities established informally by New age travelers, Irish travelers, and Roma. On the whole, however, trailer parks are much less common in these countries than they are elsewhere and in North America and are much less emblematic of a distinct lifestyle and membership to a certain social class.
In France, living in a trailer or mobile home for more than three months is prohibited by law, even if the resident owns the land.
In Australia, there is generally no differentiation between a trailer park and an RV park. The term "caravan park" is used to refer to both.
posted @ 2010-02-09 14:50
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编辑 收藏unaggressive
nonaggressive
pacifistic
pacifist
dovish
undisturbed
quiet
irenic
pacific
peaceloving
peaceable
nonbelligerent
nonviolent
halcyon
calm
tranquil
serene
amicable
posted @ 2010-02-09 10:01
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编辑 收藏posted @ 2010-02-09 09:13
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编辑 收藏
Technology
After five years of bench-flow and dyno testing and rigorous on-track
racing, Jiffy-tite Quick Connect fittings have proven to be the leader
in the industry. Jiffy-tite fittings are one of the most
technologically advanced fittings on the market today and are the only
fittings that reduce connection time in literally half the time of
competitive products. Unlike threaded fittings, there is no wrenching
required.
posted @ 2010-02-09 08:27
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After
its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the
People's Republic of China emerged as a prominent destination for
production offshoring.
posted @ 2010-02-08 15:22
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编辑 收藏Offshoring describes the relocation by a company of a business process from one country to another -- typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting. Even state governments employ offshoring.[1]
The term is in use in several distinct but closely related ways. It is sometimes used broadly to include substitution of a service from any foreign source for a service formerly produced internally to the firm. In other cases, only imported services from subsidiaries or other closely related suppliers are included. A further complication is that intermediate goods, such as partially completed computers, are not consistently included in the scope of the term.[2]
Offshoring can be seen in the context of either production offshoring or services offshoring. After its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the People's Republic of China emerged as a prominent destination for production offshoring. After technical progress in telecommunications improved the possibilities of trade in services, India became a country leading in this domain though many parts of the world are now emerging as offshore destinations.
The economic logic is to reduce costs. If some people can use some of their skills more cheaply than others, those people have the comparative advantage. The idea is that countries should freely trade the items that cost the least for them to produce.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Frequently used terms
o 1.1 Production offshoring
o 1.2 Services offshoring
o 1.3 Innovation offshoring
* 2 Transfer of intellectual property
* 3 Debate
o 3.1 Level-of-service concerns
o 3.2 Supply chain concerns
o 3.3 Competitive concerns
o 3.4 Educational concerns
o 3.5 Retraining concerns
* 4 Effects of factor of production mobility
* 5 History
* 6 Literature
* 7 See also
* 8 References
* 9 External links
o 9.1 News
o 9.2 Research
o 9.3 Internet articles
[edit] Frequently used terms
Offshoring is defined as the movement of a business process done at a company in one country to the same or another company in another, different country. Almost always work is moved due to a lower cost of operations in the new location. Offshoring is sometimes contrasted with outsourcing or offshore outsourcing. Outsourcing is the movement of internal business processes to an external company. Companies subcontracting in the same country would be outsourcing, but not offshoring. A company moving an internal business unit from one country to another would be offshoring or physical restructuring, but not outsourcing. A company subcontracting a business unit to a different company in another country would be both outsourcing and offshoring.
Related terms include nearshoring, which implies relocation of business processes to (typically) lower cost foreign locations, but in close geographical proximity (e.g., shifting United States-based business processes to Canada/Latin America); inshoring, which means picking services within a country; and bestshoring, or rightshoring, picking the "best shore" based on various criteria. Business process outsourcing (BPO) refers to outsourcing arrangements when entire business functions (such as Finance & Accounting, Customer Service, etc.) are outsourced. More specific terms can be found in the field of software development - for example Global Information System as a class of systems being developed for / by globally distributed teams.
A further term sometimes associated with offshoring is bodyshopping which is the practice of using offshored resources and personnel to do small disaggregated tasks within a business environment, without any broader intention to offshore an entire business function.
[edit] Production offshoring
Production offshoring also known as physical restructuring of established products involves relocation of physical manufacturing processes to a lower-cost destination. Examples of production offshoring include the manufacture of electronic components in Costa Rica, production of apparel, toys, and consumer goods in China, Vietnam etc.
Product design, research and the development process that leads to new products, are relatively difficult to offshore. This is because research and development to improve products and create new reference designs requires a skill set that is harder to obtain in regions with cheap labor. For this reason, in many cases only the manufacturing will be offshored by a company wishing to reduce costs.
However, there is a relationship between offshoring and patent system strength. This is because companies under a strong patent system are not afraid to offshore work because their work will remain their property. Conversely, companies in countries with weak patent systems have an increased fear of intellectual property theft from foreign vendors or workers, and, therefore, have less offshoring.
Physical restructuring got its big push when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) made it easier for manufacturers to shift production facilities from the US to Mexico. This trend later shifted to China, which offered cheap prices through very low wage rates, few workers' rights laws, a fixed currency pegged to the US dollar, (currently fixed to a basket of economies) cheap loans, land, and factories for new companies, few environmental regulations, and huge economies of scale based on cities with populations over a million workers dedicated to producing a single kind of product. However, many companies are reluctant to move high value-added production of leading-edge products to China because of lax enforcement of intellectual property laws.[3] CAFTA has increased the velocity at which physical restructuring is occurring.
[edit] Services offshoring
The growth of services offshoring is linked to the availability of large amounts of reliable and affordable communication infrastructure following the telecommunication and Internet expansion of the late 1990s. This was seen all the way up to the year 2000. Coupled with the digitization of many services, it was possible to shift the actual production location of services to low cost countries in a manner theoretically transparent to end-users.
India first benefited from the offshoring trend as it has a large pool of English speaking people[4] and technically proficient manpower. India's offshoring industry took root in low-end IT functions in the early 1990s and has since moved to back-office processes such as call centers and transaction processing. In the late 1990s, India's abundant and cheap software engineering talent combined with massive demand from the Y2K problem helped to move India up the value chain to attract large-scale software development projects for US based customers. This spawned the neologism Bangalored, used to indicate a layoff, often systemic, and usually due to corporate outsourcing to lower wage economies – derived from Bangalore in India, where some of the first outsource centers were located.[5]
Currently, India's engineering talent has made India the offshoring destination of American high-tech firms, led by HP, IBM, Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Oracle Corporation, and Cisco. Each of these companies has promised or is in the process of investing at least $1 billion in India, to supposedly retain market share in the face of competition and cost-cutting measures of rivals and industry in general.
As a result of the offshoring boom, India has seen double-digit wage growth for much of the 2000s. Consequently, Indian's operations and firms are concerned that they are becoming too expensive in comparison with competition from the other offshoring destinations listed below. They are now attempting to branch out and diversify to other high-end work in addition to software and hardware engineering. These jobs include research and development, equity analysis, tax-return processing, radiological analysis, medical transcription, and more.
The choice of offshoring destination is often made according to cultural concerns. Japanese companies are starting to outsource to China, where large numbers of Japanese speakers can be found — particularly in the city of Dalian, which was Japanese-occupied Chinese territory for decades (this is discussed in the book The World is Flat). German companies tend to outsource to Poland and Romania, where proficiency in German is common. French companies outsource to North Africa for similar reasons.
For Australian IT companies, Indonesia is one of the major choice of offshoring destination. Near shore location, common time zone and adequate IT work force are the reasons of offshoring IT services to Indonesia.
Other offshoring destinations include Mexico, Central and South America, the Philippines, South Africa and Eastern European countries.
The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) made nearshoring more attractive between the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic and the US.
[edit] Innovation offshoring
Once companies are comfortable with services offerings and started realizing the cost savings, many high-tech product companies started using countries like South Africa, India, Pakistan, China, Mexico, Russia etc. for innovating products.
Many famed Silicon Valley based companies jumped on this bandwagon not only to cut costs but to shorten their product lifecycle and access the talent pool available in these countries. Less developed countries are usually utilized for this practice.
[edit] Transfer of intellectual property
Offshoring is often enabled by the transfer of valuable information to the offshore site. Such information and training enables the remote workers to produce results of comparable value previously produced by internal employees. When such transfer includes protected materials, as confidential documents and trade secrets, protected by non-disclosure agreements, then intellectual property has been transferred or exported. The documentation and valuation of such exports is quite difficult, but should be considered since it comprises items that may be regulated or taxable.
[edit] Debate
Unbalanced scales.svg
The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (December 2007)
Offshoring has been a controversial issue spurring heated debates among economists, some of which overlap those related to the topic of free trade. It is seen as benefiting both the origin and destination country through free trade, providing jobs to the destination country and lower cost of goods and services to the origin country. This makes both sides see increased gross domestic product (GDP). And the total number of jobs increase in both countries since those workers in the origin country that lost their job can move to higher-value jobs in which their country has a comparative advantage.
On the other hand, job losses and wage erosion in developed countries have sparked opposition to offshoring. Experts argue that the quality of any new jobs in developed countries are less than the jobs lost and offer lower pay. Economists against offshoring charge that currency manipulation by governments and their central banks causes the difference in labor cost creating an illusion of comparative advantage. Further, they point out that even more educated highly trained workers with higher-value jobs such as software engineers, accountants, radiologists, and journalists in the developed world have been displaced by highly-educated and cheaper workers from India and China. On May 1, 2002, Economist and former Ambassador Ernest H. Preeg testified before the Senate committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs that China, for instance, pegs its currency to the dollar at a sub-par value in violation of Article IV of the International Monetary Fund Articles of Agreement which state that no nation shall manipulate its currency to gain a market advantage.[6] Traditionally "safe" developed world jobs in R&D and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields are now perceived to be endangered in these countries as higher proportions of workers are trained for these fields in developing nations. Economists such as Paul Craig Roberts claim that those economists who promote offshoring misunderstand the difference between comparative advantage and absolute advantage.
Not surprisingly, many U.S. executives cite the current [7]unemployment numbers (4.5%)</ref> as proof positive that offshoring has not been deleterious to the U.S. workforce, or to the nation itself. It could be argued that one of the problems in using current unemployment numbers is that the figure does not factor underemployment.
More importantly, the argument does not contemplate, nor predict effects of continued offshore outsourcing that may occur 10–20 years from now, for example the possible raise of labor costs in emerging countries and a change in their economic orientations, as happened for example in Japan and South Korea in the previous decades.
Falling employment in manufacturing has generated much fear among industrial workers[citation needed], although total employment has been rising in many countries. The effect of this has been shown[citation needed] to be much higher than that of offshoring or foreign investments, which has nevertheless been accused of being the cause of unemployment[citation needed], since big offshoring projects are more visible than the slow change from an industrial society to a post-industrial society[citation needed]. Even so, job creation was slow and wage growth low during the 2000-2005 period in the US[citation needed]. Some attribute that to offshoring[citation needed]. Long term unemployment, as a percentage of total employment, has been steadily increasing since 1970. 2003 saw 22%+ long term unemployment.[8] By March 2009, 45.6% of those on unemployment insurance exhausted funds and found no job.[9]
[edit] Level-of-service concerns
With the offshoring of call-center type applications, debate has also surfaced that this practice does serious damage to the quality of customer service and technical support that customers receive from companies who do it. Call centers have sprung up in South Africa, India, Canada and the Caribbean. Many US companies have caught much public ire in the US for their decisions to use Indian labor for customer service and technical support, mostly because of the apparent language barrier that it creates. While India, for example, has a high level of younger skilled workers who are capable of speaking English as one of their native languages, their English skills have caused debate in North America.[citation needed]
Criticisms of outsourcing from much of the American public have been a response to what they view as very poor customer service and technical support being provided by overseas workers attempting to communicate with Americans.
However it has been argued by others that call-centers are just one facet of offshore outsourcing. The outsourcing companies often have high rating and are accepted as dynamic, innovative entities. For example, Infosys has obtained an SEI-CMM level 5 indicating the high quality output of the company. Outsourcing also has grown considerably in magnitude which could not have happened if level of service from outsourcing vendors are of poor quality.[10][11]
[edit] Supply chain concerns
Some claim that companies lose control and visibility across their extended supply chain under outsourcing, creating increased risks. A 2005 quantitative survey of 121 electronics industry participants by Industry Directions Inc and the Electronics Supply Chain Association (ESCA) found that 69% of respondents said they had less control over at least 5 of their key supply chain processes since the outsourced model took hold, while 66% of providers felt their aggregate risk with customers was high or very high. 36% of providers responded that they felt an increased risk of uncertainty compared to their uncertainty risk prior to the rise to prominence of the outsourced model. 62% of respondents described as "problematic" at least two core trading partner management practices, which included performance management and simple agreement on results. 40% of all respondents encountered resistance to sharing risk in outsourced partnership agreements, according to the research.
[edit] Competitive concerns
The transfer of knowledge outside a country may create competitors to the original companies themselves. Chinese manufacturers are already selling their goods directly to their overseas customers, without going through their previous domestic intermediaries that originally contracted their services. In the 1990s and 2000s, American automakers increasingly turned to China to create parts for their vehicles. By 2006, China leveraged this know-how and announced that they will begin competition with American automakers in their home market by selling fully Chinese automobiles directly to Americans.
When a company moves the production of goods and services to another country, the investment that companies would otherwise make in the domestic market is transferred to the foreign market. Corporate money spent on factories, training, and taxes, which would otherwise be spent in the market of the company is then spent in the foreign market.
As production increases in the foreign market, qualified and experienced domestic workers leave or are forced out of their jobs, often permanently leaving the industry. At some point, dramatically fewer domestic workers are left who are qualified to perform the work. This makes the domestic market dependent on the foreign market for those goods and services, thereby strategically weakening the "hollowed-out" domestic country. In effect, offshoring creates and strengthens the competitive industries of the foreign country while strategically weakening the domestic country.
However, employment data has cast doubt on this claim. For example, IT employment in the United States has recently reached pre-2001 levels[12][13] and has been rising since. The number of jobs lost to offshoring is less than 1 percent of the total US labor market.[14] According to a study by the Heritage foundation, outsourcing represents a very small proportion of jobs lost in the US. The total number of jobs lost to offshoring, both manufacturing and technical represent only 4 percent of the total jobs lost in the US. Major reasons for cutting jobs are from contract completion and downsizing.[15] Some economists and commentators claim that the offshoring phenomenon is way overblown.[16]
[edit] Educational concerns
Offshoring proponents often say it is necessary to move jobs overseas due to a looming shortage of qualified workers in the domestic market and the booming number of qualified candidates in foreign markets, particularly in China and India. A study by Duke University[17] found that 222,335 engineers graduate annually from American universities, far more than the 70,000 often quoted in the media. Furthermore, the Duke study highlights the conflicting numbers coming out of China, India, and the US. China and India, in their official numbers cited by the media, both count the graduates from three year training programs and diploma holders, equivalent to Associates degrees in the US. The media then compares the China and India numbers to US numbers of four-year Baccalaureate programs. Duke University estimates the total number of engineers with Bachelor's degrees produced annually for the three countries to be 351,537 for China, 112,000 for India, and 137,436 for the US. These figures make the US the per capita leader in producing technology specialists.
However, other studies do point out that the US does not produce as many science and engineering graduates as required, because US students do not show adequate interest in math and science. According to a National Academy of Sciences study, the US graduates far fewer engineers than either China or India. According to a Raytheon study, a survey of 11 to 13 year old students in the US revealed that numerous students would rather clean their rooms, eat vegetables, go to the dentist or empty the trash than do math.[18] About 50% of the doctoral degrees awarded in the US are to foreign born students.[19]
[edit] Retraining concerns
One solution often offered for domestic workers displaced by offshoring is retraining to new jobs. Some displaced workers are highly educated and possess graduate qualifications. Retraining to their current level in another field may not be an option due to the years of study and cost of education involved.
[edit] Effects of factor of production mobility
According to classical economics, the three factors of production are land, labor, and capital. Offshoring relies heavily on the mobility of two of these factors. That is, how offshoring affects economies depends on how easily capital and labor can be repurposed. Land, as a factor of production, is generally seen to have little or no mobility potential.
The effects of capital mobility on offshoring have been widely discussed. In microeconomics, a corporation must be able to spend working capital to afford the initial costs of offshoring. If the state heavily regulates how a corporation can spend its working capital, it will not be able to offshore its operations. For the same reason the macroeconomy must be free for offshoring to succeed. Generally, those who favor offshoring support capital mobility, and those who oppose offshoring call for greater regulation.
Labor mobility also plays a major role, and it is hotly debated. When computers and the Internet made work electronically portable, the forces of free market resulted in a global mobility of work in the services industry. Most theories that argue offshoring eventually benefits domestic workers assume that those workers will be able to obtain new jobs, even if they have to obtain employment by downpricing themselves back into the labor market (by accepting lower salaries) or by retraining themselves in a new field. Foreign workers benefit from new jobs and higher wages when the work moves to them.
[edit] History
In the developed world, moving jobs out of the country dates to at least the 1960s[20] and has continued since then. It was characterized primarily by the transferring of factories from the developed to the developing world. This offshoring and closing of factories has caused a structural change in the developed world from an industrial to a post-industrial service society.
During the 20th century, the decreasing costs of transportation and communication crossed with great disparities on pay rates made increased offshoring from wealthier countries to less wealthy countries financially feasible for many companies. Further, the growth of the Internet, particularly fiber-optic intercontinental long haul capacity, and the World Wide Web reduced "transportation" costs for many kinds of information work to near zero. [21]
With the development of the Internet, many new categories of work such as call centres, computer programming, reading medical data such as X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging, medical transcription, income tax preparation, and title searching are being offshored.
Before the 1990s, Ireland was one of the poorest countries in the EU. Due to Ireland's relatively low corporate tax rates, US companies began offshoring of software, electronic, and pharmaceutical intellectual property to Ireland for export. This helped create a high-tech "boom" and which led to Ireland becoming one of the richest EU countries.[21]
In 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. As concerns are widespread about uneven bargaining powers, and risks and benefits, negotiations are often difficult, such that the plan to create free trade areas (such as Free Trade Area of the Americas) has not yet been successful. In 2005, offshoring of skilled work, also referred to as knowledge work, dramatically increased from the US, which fed the growing worries about threats of job loss.[21]
posted @ 2010-02-08 15:19
ArchAngel 阅读(20) |
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Kathryn Stockett never intended to write a best-selling novel. In
fact, when she started writing her debut novel, The Help, she
didn't think anyone would ever read it. But since coming out in
February, her story about the complicated relationships between
African-American domestic servants and the white women who employed them
in pre-civil rights Mississippi has spent over 30 weeks on the New York
Times' best-seller list. Stockett talked to TIME about growing
up in Mississippi and what it's like being a white woman from the South
writing from the perspective of African-American maids. (See pictures of the last days of Martin Luther King
Jr.)
Why did you decide to write The
Help?
I started writing it the day after Sept. 11. I was living in New York
City. We didn't have any phone service and we didn't have any mail. Like
a lot of writers do, I started to write in a voice that I missed. I was
really homesick — I couldn't even call my family and tell them I was
fine. So I started writing in the voice of Demetrie, the maid I had
growing up. She later became the character of Aibileen [in The Help].
I sent the story to my mother and she was sort of like, "Hmm, that's
good." As I wrote, I found that Aibileen had some things to say that
really weren't in her character. She was older, soft-spoken, and she
started showing some attitude. That's [how another character] Minny came
to be. After a while longer, I decided to make it a book.
You spent five years trying to get a literary agent. How many
rejection letters did you get?
I have a record of 45 rejections, but there was one despondent summer
where I blasted out about 15 letters without keeping records. I thought,
What's the use? I'm just going to get a big fat no. So the official
record is 45, but really it's probably more like 60 rejections. And then
finally Susan Ramer at Don Congdon agreed to take it on. I couldn't
even believe she was excited about the book.
We ironed out a few wrinkles and then she sent it out. In my mind, it
was like, a week before it was published. But maybe that's because the
five years of rejections made it seem so short. She only sent it out to
three publishers.
When did you realize the book was taking off?
I was driving from Mississippi to Atlanta with some friends of mine and
there was this tornado that literally tore across the highway. We had to
pull over, so we went to this truck stop and were drinking beers when
[my publisher] Amy Einhorn called me and said, "You're on the New York Times
best-seller list." I thought the best-seller list was just 1 through
10; I didn't realize it was so extensive. I think we landed at No. 16 or
so. And then we were on it again and again. It just hasn't fallen off. I
don't understand it.
What were the relationships between black servants and their white
employers like in the 1960s?
Well, I can only talk about my experience. I grew up in the 1970s, but I
don't think a whole lot had changed from the '60s. Oh, it had changed
in the law books — but not in the kitchens of white homes. As children,
we looked up to our maids and our nannies, who were playing in some ways
the role of our mothers. They were paid to be nice to us, to look after
us, teach us things and take time out of their day to be with us. As a
child you think of these people as an extension of your mother.
For the adults employing them, the relationship is different. You
hire someone to clean your house and do your laundry. But in many cases,
these women worked for the same white family for generation after
generation. That, to me, is the difference between an employee and
someone you feel close to. They're an important cog in the wheel of
your family. Some readers tell me, "We always treated our maid like she
was a member of the family." You know, that's interesting, but I wonder
what your maid's perspective was on that. You look at all these rules in
place in the '60s — the separate bathroom, the separate plate and cup.
That's not how you treat a member of the family. And that conundrum is
what got me started on the real plot of the story.
Did you talk to any African-American women who lived through that
time period?
I did get to interview a white woman and her maid who were together in
the 1960s. It was so interesting to compare their perspectives. The
white woman's strongest memory of her maid was of the delicious pralines
she made. When I went to speak to the maid, she [remembered] working
for this woman when [civil rights activist] Medgar Evers had just been
assassinated. Her children were walking down the street in a protest and
she was so afraid her employer would turn on the TV and see them and
then she would lose her job.
Did you worry about the implications of being a young, white
author writing in the thick dialect of African Americans?
I'm still worried about that. On the one hand I wonder, Was this really
my story to tell? On the other hand, I just wanted the story to be told.
But the truth is that I didn't think anybody was going to read it. Had I
known it was going to be so widely disseminated I probably wouldn't
have written it in the type of language that I did.
How's the second book going?
It's a scary process. I sit in my little office and I feel like I've got
all my readers staring at me. The first book you write because of the
way it makes you feel. The second one you can't help but wonder how it's
going to make the reader feel. That's something I'd never thought about
before.
posted @ 2010-02-08 09:57
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编辑 收藏In surfing there's a technical term for stealing somebody else's wave.
It's called shoulder-surfing. It's very rude and surfers really don’t
like it. Well, if you're taking money out of a cash point or ATM in
American English, you should be really careful that no-one is standing
too close behind you. They may be shoulder-surfing, that’s looking over
your shoulder trying to watch you enter your personal identification or
PIN number on the keypad. That’s one way of stealing someone’s money –
then a pickpocket or mugger will steal your purse or wallet, and rush to
the bank before you can cancel your cards.
Shoulder-surfing
brings up some interesting cultural points. How close is too close? In
Britain and the US, people like at least a metre or two of space between
them and the next person – any less than that and they feel
uncomfortable. But I’ve been to other countries where people stand right
next to each other when they are queuing at the bank, and have no
problems at all. Maybe shoulder-surfing doesn’t happen so much there. Or
maybe it’s just easier!
Shoulder-surfing might also have another
meaning. You know when you are at a party, talking to someone, and they
don’t seem to be very interested in your conversation? They seem to be
constantly looking over your shoulder, trying to find someone more
interesting or attractive to talk to. They want to upgrade to someone
better. Well – some people call this shoulder-surfing too! Or maybe this
only happens to me …
posted @ 2010-02-08 08:26
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所谓另类投资，是指传统的股票、债券和现金之外的金融和实物资产，如房地产、证券化资产、对冲基金、私人股本基金、大宗商品、艺术品等，其中证券化资产就包括了次级房贷为基础的债券以及这些债券的衍生金融产品。
在投资市场上，另类投资不局限于股票、债券、定存的货币市场投资，原油、农产品、黄金、工业金属等皆是投资标的。此外，房地产、气候型商品（巨灾选择权、碳交易），乃至于艺术投资及私募基金等，皆可视为另类投资的一环。
在交易策略上，另类投资采用买进及卖空策略，以规避市场下跌风险，得到绝对报酬。不同于传统投资以本金为最大部位限制，另类投资采用杠杆操作，以提高期望报酬。另类投资锁定黄金、农产品、原油、ETF、REIT、避险基金等全球新兴投资热点，翔实剖析各类投资标的与策略工具。
An alternative investment is an investment product other than traditional investments such as stocks, bonds or cash.
This broad definition makes it impossible to list all alternative strategies, but the most important areas are real estate, private equity, venture capital,commodities, and hedged or absolute return strategies. Wine, art and antiques, indeed any business of value, might also be considered as an alternative investment.
One common theme to alternative investments is that they are often hoped to have modest correlations with traditional investments and so to increase the diversification of investor's portfolios.
posted @ 2010-02-08 08:17
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Avant-garde (French pronunciation: [avɑ̃ɡaʁd]) means "advance guard" or "vanguard".[1] The adjective form is used in English, to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics.
Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Many artists have aligned themselves with the avant-garde movement and still continue to do so, tracing a history from Dada through the Situationists to postmodern artists such as the Language poets around 1981.[2]
posted @ 2010-02-06 14:03
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Chapters
There are six types of bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy Code, located at Title 11 of the United States Code:
- Chapter 7: basic
liquidation for individuals and businesses; also known as straight
bankruptcy; it is the simplest and quickest form of bankruptcy available
- Chapter 9:
municipal bankruptcy; a federal mechanism for the resolution of
municipal debts
- Chapter 11:
rehabilitation or reorganization, used primarily by business debtors,
but sometimes by individuals with substantial debts and assets; known as
corporate bankruptcy, it is a form of corporate financial
reorganization which typically allows companies to continue to function
while they follow debt repayment plans
- Chapter 12:
rehabilitation for family farmers and fishermen;
- Chapter 13:
rehabilitation with a payment plan for individuals with a regular source
of income; enables individuals with regular income to develop a plan to
repay all or part of their debts; also known as Wage Earner Bankruptcy
- Chapter 15:
ancillary and other international cases; provides a mechanism for
dealing with bankruptcy debtors and helps foreign debtors to clear
debts.
posted @ 2010-02-06 13:40
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Mr. Blankfein received no cash bonus. The award is entirely in the form
of deferred stock, which he cannot sell for five years.
Deferred stock is one or more shares of stock that does not pay dividends until a specified date or event occurs, such as a company reaching certain profitability levels. Deferred stock is typically held in a lock deferred stock compensation account until the expiration date. Shareholders of deferred stock do not have any rights to the assets of a bankrupt corporation until all preferred and common stockholders have been paid. Usually deferred stock is issued to company founders and certain members of management to restrict their access to dividends until dividends have been distributed to all other shareholders. Deferred stock is, therefore, subordinate to all other classes of stock. Today, deferred stock is not a common practice as the deferred stock payouts can be considerable despite the postponement in distribution. Holders of deferred stock are usually granted voting rights only after the expiration date has passed. Many corporations allow the owner of deferred stock to elect a date for distribution of deferred stock shares, subject to certain parameters set forth by the governing board.
posted @ 2010-02-06 13:09
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Latin word
specere "to look at"
all words related to Latin "specere"
speculum
specimen
aspect
circumspect
expect
conspicious
spectacle
despicable
despise
frontispiece
introspection
retrospect
spectrum
species
suspect
inspection
introspective
speculation
perspective
scope
respect
prospect
videre "to see"
videlicet
vide
voyeur
review
provide
evident
vista
visa
visage
visit
clairvoyant
supervise
visible
advice
visual
envy
view
video
divide
veda
interview
vision
widow
posted @ 2010-02-06 11:59
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1) The CIA officers in the middle east risk their lives behind enemy lines
to get the intelligence that allows the military to even know where to
go or what to do. Without the CIA we have no idea who is leading,
training, planning, or funding the next attack. People hated Bush for
taking this war so seriously and so they voted in Obama who talked about
"pulling out the troops". What's the first thing Obama did after
becoming president and getting the REAL intelligence? Send 30,000 MORE
troops. Take politics out. The threat is real and the CIA is on the
front lines of the world's safety. This incidnent only proves that we
can't trust or negotiate with Muslim extremists. These officers should
be honored.
2) There's something odd about this story. I have a feeling it was staged.
I also cannot imagine why all the trailer-dwelling christians are
thrilled one man lived when loads died. I bet a stupid missionary
staged this, and all the christians are swooning, eyeball rolling and
foaming at the mouth in their religious ecstasy
3) Their story doesn't add up.
First, they are saying the parents
gave permission for the kids to have a better life, but the Haitian
parents were probably conned into thinking they were going to take their
kids to the US. Why would you give up your children to go to another
third-world country? Yes, the parents would want to visit THE USA, but
there is no incentive for them to visit the Dominican Republic.
Second,
wasn't it supposed to be a better life for ORPHANS? So how come so
many of the kids have parents or guardians who could have agreed to give
them up?
Third, it all seems clandestine. Didn't they like have
the kids hiding quietly in the back and it was only because one girl
was crying loudly that the kids were discovered at the border? If your
activities are above-board you declare and show your papers at the
border.
Fourth, if you got permission from the parents, why
didn't you get the parents'/guardians' to sign a standard document you
came with in the presence of a lawyer (Haitian preferably) or, amidst
the chaos, a lawyer you brought from the Dominican Republic. This is
the minimum for attempting to get the legal paperwork in order. And
that leads to the final point...
Five, their legal preparations
just seem way too shoddy for intelligent people who come from a country
where people are quick to sue the minute someone sneezes too loudly. less
posted @ 2010-02-06 11:00
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Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English, 2nd edition
credit noun
1 arrangement to pay later; money borrowed
adjective
long-term , short-term
interest-free
foreign
bank
consumer , export , trade
verb + credit
have , use
get , obtain
If you don't have a regular income you may be unable to get ~.
extend , give sb , grant (sb) , offer (sb) , provide
Most stores selling furniture or will offer ~.
deny sb , refuse sb
The bank refused further ~ to the company.
arrange
expand
We propose to expand ~ in order to create demand.
credit + noun
account ( BrE ) , agreement , arrangement , facilities , system , terms (see also credit card )
limit
Your ~ limit is now $2 000.
period
sale , transaction , transfer ( BrE )
rating , score , scoring , standing
He has a bad ~ rating (= seems unlikely to pay the money back) .
history , record
people with poor ~ histories
file , report
The ~ report will show all the consumer debt a person has.
control
crunch , squeeze ( esp. BrE )
expansion
increases in debt created by ~ expansion
bureau ( AmE ) , industry , institution , market , union
analyst
note ( BrE )
If damaged items have to be returned, the manufacturer may issue a ~ note.
insurance
phrases
a letter of ~ (= a letter from one bank to another that enables you to obtain money)
I have arranged for my branch to send a letter of ~ to the branch nearest the hotel.
2 money in a bank account or owed to you
adjective
direct ( BrE )
I'm paid by direct ~ into my bank account.
verb + credit
have
I have three ~s on my bank statement.
credit + noun
balance
a ~ balance of €265
3 praise/approval
adjective
great
extra
full
partial
due , proper
We should give due ~ to all who helped make the event a success.
verb + credit
give sb
claim , get , receive , take
Why should she get all the ~?
do sb , reflect
Your concern does you ~.
The success of the venture reflects great ~ on the organizers.
deserve
preposition
to sb's ~
To her ~, she gave them lunch.
~ for
At least give him ~ for trying.
phrases
give credit where credit is due
to sb's great ~
To her great ~, she does not try to avoid the truth.
to sb's eternal ~ ( esp. BrE ) , to sb's everlasting ~ ( esp. AmE )
4 the credits list of people who worked on a film / movie , etc.
adjective
opening
closing , end , final
film ( esp. BrE ) , movie ( esp. AmE )
the credits + verb
roll
We left before the final ~s began to roll.
5 sb/sth that brings respect to sb / sth else
preposition
~ to
He's a great ~ to the school.
6 unit of study at a university, college or school
adjective
course
Participants were given course ~ for their participation in the study. ( AmE )
college ( AmE )
verb + credit
earn
He took some advanced courses to earn college ~s.
award , grant
offer
modules offering continuing education ~s
transfer
Students may have difficulty transferring ~s to other institutions.
credit + noun
hour ( AmE )
Tuition costs are based on the number of ~ hours enrolled.
© Oxford University Press, 2009
posted @ 2010-02-06 10:46
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The only giant panda to be bred in captivity and released into the wild
has gone missing after being badly beaten by a rival for territory, food
or a mate, it was reported today.
In a major setback for China's efforts to replenish the endangered
species with animals reared in zoos, Xiang Xiang has broken at least one
bone and could be in danger, a leading Chinese zoologist said.
"Xiang Xiang has been badly hurt in a competition with other pandas,"
Zhang Hemin, the director of the Research and Conservation Centre for
the Giant Panda, said.
"We think he fell from a high place after being chased up a tree by a
wild panda."
Four-year-old Xiang Xiang was released into the dense forests of
mountainous Sichuan Province last April after being reared in China's
main captive breeding centre at Wolong.
It was the first step in a long-term programme to boost the 1,600-strong
wild population with captive-bred mammals.
During the first six months, Xiang Xiang appeared to have adapted well.
Tracked by satellite and regularly checked by monitoring teams, he put
on weight and entered areas inhabited by wild panda communities without
any apparent problems.
However, after making an initial diagnosis of the panda's wounds 15 days
ago, scientists have been unable to make visual contact.
"We have found some problems, but we are still searching," Mr Zhang
said. "It used to be easy to find him, but now he is afraid of any noise
and any person, so it is very difficult."
The team will decide whether to bring Xiang Xiang for treatment in
captivity or leave him in the wild for research purposes once they have
made a fuller check on his condition.
Even if he survives his injuries, there is a risk he could be unable to
defend himself in conflicts with other males during the mating season,
which is only a few months away.
The injury looks likely to fuel an already heated debate about the
wisdom of the release programme.
Its supporters point to the success of captive breeding. The state
forestry administration yesterday said that, thanks to artificial
insemination and improved techniques to encourage natural mating and
rearing, a record 34 cubs were born in research centres and zoos last
year.
However, international conservation groups including the World Wildlife
Fund say the priority should be to protect and expand the habitat of the
wild population.
© Guardian News & Media 2008
Published:
1/4/2007
posted @ 2010-02-06 09:11
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编辑 收藏image ambassador
posted @ 2010-02-06 08:54
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编辑 收藏CHENGDU, CHINA -- Tai Shan had been in China only a few hours Friday when he scored what some athletes and stars strive for their entire lives: a corporate sponsorship.
In a deal negotiated over the past few weeks, Sichuan Auto Industry Group agreed to pay a million yuan, or about $150,000, to "adopt" Tai Shan for life.
The beloved giant panda who had just left the National Zoo on Thursday will still join China's breeding program and stay under the care of the scientists at the government-run Bifengxia Panda Base. But the company will be responsible for paying for his food, medical care and other daily expenses.
It's unclear what Sichuan Auto gets out of it.
Cao Guodong, the company's deputy general manager, said his interest in the panda is related to the automaker's efforts to develop an electric car to sell in the United States.
Tai Shan "will take the role of our image ambassador in the future, which is good for polishing our brand and expanding our fame," Cao said. He said the company does not expect Tai Shan to leave the panda base to do things like, say, attend product launches but mug shots of Tai Shan probably will be used in the car's advertising campaigns.
The base has been involved in similar corporate adoptions for several years, but this is a first for a deal of this size.
Companies usually pay a token $600 for one year to get their name on a plaque outside a panda's home and to have a picture taken with the animal. The fee is considerably more -- $6,000 -- for an "exclusive" adoption in which the panda's name can be changed for a year, although not for commercial benefit.
The last type of adoption is for life and the fee is negotiated between the individual or company and the panda base. There's no stipulation regarding commercial benefit. Sichuan Auto officials say they expect to spend about $90,000 a year for Tai Shan.
When asked about the adoption, Huang Yan, the panda center's assistant director for engineering who is in charge of Tai Shan's care, said the details were still being worked out.
If Tai Shan was aware about the uncertainty in his new life, it was impossible to tell.
He landed in Chengdu, about a 2.5-hour drive from the panda base that will be his new home, at 4:26 p.m. Friday with the same nonchalance he left his old one in Washington. As throngs of Chinese reporters mobbed him, he calmly stared through his bamboo-filled glass cage and did what he always does: He ate.
During the 15.5-hour flight, Tai Shan ate his way through 40 pounds of bamboo, 3 pounds of pears and 2 pounds of apples as the plane made its way through Canada and the North Atlantic. He ate over Norway, into Russia and past Kazahkstan and, finally, into China.
He was still munching on the last of his food when Nicole Meese, the panda's main keeper during his 4.5 years at the National Zoo, handed off responsibility for his care to her Chinese counterpart, Wu Daifu.
"I knew he'd do well, but this was beyond what I expected," Meese said. "The flight didn't faze him at all."
"He was in good spirits," Wu said.
The beloved panda whose departure from Washington on Thursday broke the hearts of millions of fans was welcomed to his parents' homeland with a brief ceremony that included a performance by a children's acrobatics troupe, a formal handover of papers ending his loan from China to the United States, and brief remarks by representatives from the two countries who both called him a bridge between the nations.
"Pandas are an enduring -- and endearing -- symbol of the friendship between the people and government of China and the United States," said David Brown, U.S. consul general in Chengdu.
Jia Jiansheng, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration Department of Wildlife Conservation, thanked the United States for taking care of Tai Shan and his travel companion Mei Lan, who came from the Atlanta Zoo.
"We assure you, American friends," Jia said, "we will take care of Tai Shan and Mei Lan as if they were our own children."
Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.
posted @ 2010-02-06 08:50
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