高级英语听力 lesson 8

Lesson Eight

   Section One: News in Brief

   Tapescript

   1. Two years of sensitive negotiations 1 paid off today as seventy for-

   mer Cuban political prisoners arrived in the United Staits.  All of the

   prisoners had served least ten years in Cuban jails, and some had

   been in prison since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.  The release

   was arranged in part by French underwater explorer, Jacques

   Cousteau, and a delegation 2 of American'Roman Catholic bishops 3.

   2. President Reagan today unveiled plans for a nine hundred million

   dollar plan to reduce drug abuse in the United States.  It incl@des half

   a billion dollars for stepping up drug enforcement along US borders,

   especially in the southwest.  The plan also calls for mandatory 4 drug

   testing for some federal workers.  NPR's Brenda Wilson reports.  'As

   part of his national crusade against drugs, President Reagan signed

   an executive order today requiring federal workers in sensitive posi-

   tions to undergo drug tests.  The order covers employees who have

   access to classified information, presidentially appointed officials,

   law enforcement officials, and any federal worker engaged in activi-

   ties which affect public health and safety or national security.  But

   heads of government agencies may order additional workers to take

   the test.  Federal employees who are, found to have continued to use

   illegal drugs after a second test will be automatically fired.  The over-

   all drug testing program is expected to cost fifty-s  ix million dollars,

   but administration officials could not get even a ballpark figure of

   how many workers may be included in the mandatory program.  I'm

   Brenda Wilson.'

  3. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres is in Washington for talks

  with US leaders, including President Reagan.  Earlier Peres met with

  Secretary of State George Shultz.  Afterwards, the two told reporters

  that the Soviet 5 Union will have no role in Middle East peace talks,

  because it has no diplomatic ties with Israel and does not permit free

  emigration of Soviet Jews.

  Section Two: News in Detail

  Tapescript

       Israel's Prime Minister Shimon Peres is in Washington D. C.

  this week to confer with high-level US officials.  His visit follows his

  summit with Egyptian President Mubarak last week.  This afternoon,

  the Israeli leader and President Reagan met at the White House.

  NPR's Elizabeth Colton reports.

      Israel's Peres comes to Washington only weeks before he is

  scheduled to step down from the Prime Minister's post and exchange

  roles with the current Foreign Minister, Yitzhak Shamir.  This rota-

  tion was arranged two years ago as part of Israel's coalition 6 national

  unity 7 government.  But what was expected to be little more than a

  farewell visit for Prime Minister Peres has now taken on a new im-

  portance because of Peres' recent achievements towards bringing

  peace between Israelis and Arabs.  At the White House this afternoon

  President Reagan said that the Middle East peace process was the

  major topic for discussion.  And he praised Prime Minister Peres' ef-

  forts in that direction.

      'We noted 8 favorable trends in the Middle East, not just the

longing 9 for peace by the Israeli and Arab peoples, but constructive 10

 actions taken by leaders in the region to breathe new life into the

 peace process.  No one has done more than Prime Minister Peres to

 that end.  His vision, his statesmanship, and his tenacity 12 are greatly

 appreciated here." President Reagan said that other items on the

 agenda of his meeting with Prime Minister Peres were American

 economic aid to Israel, international terrorism, and Soviet Jewry.

 The President assured the Israeli leader that the plight 13 of Soviet

 Jewry will remain an important topic in all the talks between the US

 and the Soviets 14.  I'm Elizabeth Colton in Washington.

  Section Three: Special Report

  Tapescript

       A chapbook arrived in the mail a while back from the

  Northeastern Ohio University's College of Medicine.  The chapbook,

  a small pamphlet of collected poetry, contains works by students,

  part of the school's 'Human Values in Medicine" program.  NPR's

  Susan Stanberg leafed through the poems.

       The selected works by finalists in the "William Carlos Williams

  Poetry Competition,' named for America's great poet-physician,

  the New Jersey 15 country doctor who used to scroll 16 drafts of poems on

  pages of his prescription 17 pads.  William Carlos Williams wrote short,

  sometimes, and to the quick.

           This is just to say I have eaten the plums

           That were in the ice box,

           And which you were probably saving for breakfast.

           Forgive me; they were delicious,

           So sweet and so cold.

  "Let me read it again."

       And he did.  William Carlos Williams, who died in 1963, has

  been an inspiration to patients and physicians.  So, it's fitting that the

  Northeastern Ohio University's College of Medicine should name its

  poetry competition for him.  Now, at the beginning of its fifth year,

  the competition is open to all medical students in this country, but

  just one percent of them, a few hundred or so, entered the competi-

  tion.

       ,, I'm sure a lot more are closet poets and aren't willing yet to

  submit.  We hope they do." Martin Cohn, director of the Human

  Values in Medicine's program at the College of Medicine, says that

  students' poetry centers around several themes.

       ' I guess it falls into categories that all poets write about, in-

                                                              ,i

  eluding 18 lovers and ff;cnds and soi-r )wful kinds of situi tions, but then

  there is also the experience that they're i-nost intimate with, which is

  medical school itself, which is also a theme, and also relationships

  with patients."

       Poetry by ten medical students is presented in the chapbook,

  accompanied by biographical notes on each of the poets.  Kurt Beal,

  at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, des-

  cribes himself this way.

       "I write to remember, to find, to uncover, to unfold.  I have

  learned that poetry is music.  And I write because I cannot sing."

       Martin Cohn has some sam       ples of poems from the chapbook. P.

  C. Bowman of the Medical College of Virginia School of Medicine

  wrote "Cartographer about his Wife."

            When I watch you watching yourselves in the mirror,

            Undress not with caution but with care,

            Peeling the swimsuit from shoulders and breasts,

            Exposing the belly 19 flat from its vortex to the ribs 20,

            Ordered as architecture.  The hip 11 swell 21

            That breaks my geometer's heart.

            It is a map of some impossible country,

            Whose turns widen to vistas 22 and stations

            So sudden that I cannot breathe or comprehend

            How I have wandered there and kept my life.

      "Wonderful poem."

      "Ya.  "

      "But he doesn't have to be a doctor to have written it."

      "No.  That's true."

      "Give us one that could only be written by a doctor."

      " OK.  There is a poem, another one on anatomy 23, that was

written by Diane Roston, who, as the other poets, has a v r

                                                                   C,y inter-

esting background.  She danced for a number of years in a regional

company and also had taken courses in journalism 24.  And she writes

  of an experience with a cadaver 25, and the life of this cadaver.  And she

  ends the poem with the following verse..

            Now student to anatomy.

            Cleave 26 and mark this slab 27

            Of thirty-one-year-old Caucasian female flesh,

            Limbs, thorax, cranium, muscle by rigid 28 muscle.

            Disassemble this motorcycle victim's every part,

            As if so gray a matter never wore a flashing ruby 29 dress.

        I notice there's so much of that in this poetry by the medical

  students, the reminders 30 to themselves of humanity here. it's not just

  arteries 31; it's not just anatomy.  There are humans."

       "That's right.  And we feel we're just trying to do our part to en-

  courage them to remember.  Many students shuck off the arts and

  humanities when they enter medical school, and even if we can keep

  them involved, even if it's a thread of involvement, or vicarious

  involvement by reading, not necessarily writing - that's what we are

  trying to do."

      At the Northeastern Ohio University's College of Medicine,

  Martin Cohn says there's no evidence that the making of poetry

  produces better medicine, but he has to believe it helps the students

  understand themselves and their patients better.  And so the William

  Carlos Williams Poetry Competition continues.  I'm Susan Stanberg.

            This is just to say I have eaten the plums

            That were in the ice box

            And which you were probably saving for breakfast.

            Forgive me; they were delicious,

            So sweet and so cold.