高级英语听力 lesson 21

  Lesson Twenty One

  Section One: News in Brief

  Tapescript

  1. A committee of scientists is calling on President Reagan to launch

  a billion-dollar information campaign to keep the AIDS epidemic 1

  from spreading to catastrophic proportions.  The National Academy

  of Sciences convened 2 the panel which says education efforts must be

  used because effective treatment and a vaccine 3 appear to be years

  away.  The report urges the establishment of a new federal office to

  head a nationwide education effort as well as an advisory 4 commis-

  sion for research and education.  The scientists say the White House

  should lead an action campaign the way it has led a new crackdown

  on illegal d

      2. Gunmen kidnapped a French television photographer today as he

  drove from the Christian 5 east to the Muslim western sector 6 of Beirut.

  Jean Marc Srucie is the 9th French National missing and presumed

  abducted 7 in Beirut.  Two women were in the car with him but were

  released.  No one has claimed responsibility.

  3. An Israeli court has indicted 8 a retired 9 auto 10 worker, alleging 11 he was

  a Nazi 12 death camp worker known as ' Ivan the Terrible' . Jam

  Demjanjuk is in jail in Israel after being extradited and maintains his

  is a case of mistaken identity.  The BBC's Paul Reynolds has this re-

  port from Jerusalem.  " The indictment 13 charges Demjanjuk with

  crimes against the Jewish people, against humanity, and with war

  crimes.  He's said to have been responsible for herding 14 Jews into the

  gas chambers 15 and often stabbed them or whipped flesh from them as

  they went in.  It's said that he personally turned on the motors to

discharge the poison gas.  The state of Israel-will be calling eight for-

 mer Treblinka inmates 17 and an SS guard who will identify Demjanjuk

 as "Ivan the Terrible'.  Demjanjuk's defense 18, though, will be quite

 simple.  He'll say he's somebody else.  His American lawyer has been

 seeking out other camp survivors 19 who can't support the identifica-

 tion, and the whole trial will resolve around this question.

 Demjanjuk's trial is expected to begin at the end of the year and

 could take as long as six months.'

  Section Two: News in Detail

  Tapescript

      Today, a panel of the @ation's leading scientists and physicians

  issued a major review of the government's response to the AIDS epi-

  demic.  The panel was convened by the National Academy of Sci-

  ences.  The scientists called for massive increases in funding for AIDS

  research and education.  They also urged President Reagan to lead

  the fight against disease.  NPR's Richard Harris has the story:

      Six months ago, the Academy decided 20 that AIDS was so serious

  a problem that they needed to review that nation's fight against the

  disease.  They chose Nobel laureate, David Baltimore to head their

  panel and enlisted 21 the cooperative of leading health researchers.  The

  Academy has no control over the federal budget, but they have con-

  siderable prestige.  And they banked on that prestige today when they

  called for a billion dollars a year for AIDS research by 1990.  That

  trax slates 22 into a four-fold increase in funding over the next thr

  years.  Today, Chairman David Baltimore said the country should

  spend another billion dollars a year for AIDS education.

       "We are saying that a program that is at all responsive to the

  needs of the situation will cost a billion dollars.  And we are not spec-

  ifying where that billion dollars should come from because it's made

  up of whole lot of little pieces,' pieces that should be shared by local

  government and private industry.  The panel said education efforts so

  far have been, as they put it, "woefully inadequate 23", inadequate be-

  cause officials have spent I / 8 as much money as they should have,

      in adequate, they said, because health officials have been too

  %,s ue

  ,q amish,to talk about sex or to promote the use of condoms.

  Baltimore said these attitudes must change now, because the AIDS

  epidemic is at a critical point.

      "The virus has now spread widely as far as we know outside of

  the high-risk groups. We are afraid, in fact   ,there is perfectly 24 good

  evidence'that such spread is possible, and are calling for people to

  take precautions in situations where they may not have tho ght they

  were at risk.'

      Baltimore said that anyone who has sexual

  than one partner should take precautions against exposure to the

  AIDS virus.  The panel said condoms are one way to avoid infection.

  The report does not predict that AIDS will spread rapidly by

  heterosexual contact in the next five years, but recurring 25 theme in the

  report is that now is the time to prevent the epidemic from becoming

  even worse.  Already more than 25,000 Americans have been diag-

  nosed with AIDS.  Baltimore called on President Reagan to declare

  war on AIDS the way he declared war on illegal drugs.

      "We are talking about President taking that form of leaders hip 16,

  and it's clear that when the President speaks out on an issue in such

  forceful terms, that the whole nation sees it in the different way."

     The National Academy report, like the Surgeon General's rec-

  ommendations last week, gives the president a convdnient,way to

  take on AIDS as an issue.  Both reports stress that AIDS is not just a

  disease that can infect gay men and drug abusers.  They say now

  AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease that can affect anyone.  In

  Washington this is Richard Harris:

 Section Three: Special Report

 Tapescript

      Hard Choices is a low-budget film that has been well received

 by many critics this past summer, but that does not make it a runa-

 way hit.  In fact, its thirty-four-year-old producer, Robert Michael-

 son, has been found at the film's openings passing out fliers in front

 of the theaters.  Critic Bob Mondello says he shouldn't have to do that.

        In a perfect world, little movies abo          nessee

   caught on the wrong side of the law would get the publicity 26 they-

   need, and film companies would stop hyping pre-sold blockbusters,,

   about psychotic cops.  This is not, however, a perfect old.

   don't want to imply that Hard Choices is a perfect movie, either.

   But it's so much more involving and suspenseful 27 -and just plain inter-

   esting than most of tfie

                            junk Hollywood putsout that it makes you

   want to do hand flipg it's"'ih'e story of a rural sixteen-year-old,

   named Bobby, planed-winningly by new comer Gary McCleary, who

   goes along for the ride one evening with his hell-raising older broth-

   ers.  When they decide to rob a local pharmacy 28,, Bobby stays out in

   the truck, and that's where he is when one of his brothers panics and

   kills a policeman.  Bobby's soon on the run with his brothers, and

   soon in jail.  Now, up to this point, this could be any of a dozen

   rebel-routing teen movies, but Bobby's not your average teenyro-

   tagonist.  He's a sweet kid, so innocent in fact, that he can't even lie

   io h-is -mother who's a bit innocent herself.

             'Bobby, how come everybody says you boys took drugs?  I

       know you wasn't sick.'

             'Cause it's true.  We did.

        Now, talking about the innocence 29 of a kid who takes drugs may

   seem a little odd, but what made Hard Choices such a compelling

   movie is that it doesn't settle for easy answers.  Having iobbi s-it -i-n-

   jail is clearly not in anyone's best interests.  So when his case is taken

   by Laura, a young social worker played by Margaret Clenk, you're

   mightily 30 relieved.  Unfortunately this kid isn't very lucky in the folks

   who take a shine to him.  Clenk, who's probably best known as

   Edwena Louis in the soap opera "One Life to Live', makes Laura a

   tired activist 31 who's so won over by Bobby's lopsided grin and opti-

   mism, she's soon doing something supremely 32 dumb: pointing a pistol

   at the Sheriff.

              Woman: Do you have a gun, Bobby?

              Bobby: It's on the wall.

              Woman: Go get it.

              Bobby: Wait a minute.

              Woman: Go get the gun!

              Man: Bobby, don't do it.  You're making a big mistake.  I'm

        going to have to come and get you.

              Woman: Don't you want to be free?

        Since he's being tried as an adult, that is a hard choice.  Now,

   this may remind you of a real life story recently in which a lawyer in

   Tennessee fell in love with her client and helped him escape, or it

   may just generally remind you of real life.  One of the best things

   about Hard Choices is that everything in it seems so utterly 33 natural.

   The supporting cast, for instance, which includes Secaucus Seven

   director, John Sales.  It's generally terrific, which you could also say

   about Rick King's casually 34 suspenseful direction.  He keeps you just

   a little off balance, which is wonderful.  Unfortunately, his movie

   seems to have its Hollywood's sponsors a little off balance, too.  Des-

   pite reviews that called the sleeper 35 of the summer, Lorimar Pictures

   can"t seem to get handle on how to sell it.  And frankly 36, with major

   media advertising 37 costing what it does, if a film can't be described in

   a phrase of six words or less'like "crime is the disease, cobra's the

   cure'.  Tuisel Town often has to throw up its hands.  The thing is that

   Hard Choices is just what Hollywood needs right now.  With idiotic 38

   fantasies about talking ducks costing as much as $ 40,000,000, this is

   practically the defitive small movie, made for what most

   Hollywood epics,gpendatering.  I don't want to oversell it.  It's

   certainly not perfect.  But it sure makes the adrenaline flow.  And

   when you take its budget into account, it's nothing less than

   amazing.  If the studios can't figure out how to make a picture like

   this work, they deserve disasters like Howard the Duck.  The problem

   is, if you want to see it, you may have to search for Hard Choices

  because it's not being released all at once.  There are only a few

  prints.  But it's worth asking your local theater owner to book.  With

  summer-hold-overs as the alternative, it makes your September

  movie going an easy choice.                                  -

      Hard Choices opens tomorrow in Chicago and Minneapolis.

  Next weekend in San Francisco and at the Boston Film Festival.

  Bob Mondello was the film critic for "All Things Considered".