The country has()too many wars in the past few decades; its people are longing for peace so much.
Not too many decades ago it seemed “obvious” both to the
general public and to sociologists that modern society has
changed people’s natural relations, loosed their responsibilities 1.______
to kins and neighbors, and substituted in their place 2.______
for superficial relationships with passing acquaintances. 3.______
However, in recent years a growing body of research has
revealed that the “obvious” is not true. It seems that if you are
a city resident, you typically know a smaller proportion of your
neighbors than you if you are a resident of a smaller community. 4.______
But, for the most part, this fact has a few significant 5.______
consequences. It does not necessarily follow that if you know few
of your neighbors you will know no one else.
Even in very large cities, people maintain close social ties within
small, private social worlds. Indeed, the number and quality of
meaningful relationships do not differ from more and less 6.______
urban people. Small-town residents are more involved with kin
than do big-city residents. Yet city dwellers compensate by 7.______
developing friendships with people who share similar interests
and activities. Urbanism may produce a different style of life,
but the quality of life does not differ between town and city. Nor 8.______
are residents of large communities any likely to display 9.______
psychological symptoms of stress or alienation than are
residents of smaller communities. However, city dwellers do
worry more about crime, and which leads them to a distrust of 10.______
strangers.
Although he pitched professionally for 3 decades, Nolan Ryan never lost any velocity on his fastball, and few
A B
maintained, such control over so many pitches as he. No error
C D E
Parliamentary Elections in Afghanistan For the first time in three decades Afghanistan is holding parliamentary elections. It’s a momentous time for a country still trying to emerge from years of war. There’s been much criticism that these polls will only consolidate the power of the country’s powerful commanders, the warlords with dubious histories. But Lyse Doucet, who’s been covering Afghanistan since the late nineteen eighties, has discovered that in a nation where a new political culture is only slowly taking shape, the very existence of an election process has brought new energy to a lung-stagnant political life:
Now there is a veritable forest of signs at every square and roundabout in Kabul and other cities, billboards selling luxury watches, promoting national unity the new Afghan army. But, for the past month billboard, walls and fences across this land have been telling another story. Everywhere you look there are the faces of election candidates, middle aged men in suits and ties, men with turbans and long thick beards as dark as the night or as white as the first Afghan snow, hardly anyone is smiling. Tradition says photography is serious business. Even. wedding photographs here barely coax a smile.
And in a country where only 4 years ago, women were largely confined to their homes under an oppressive Taliban rule, there are their faces too: candidates like young Sabrina with a fetching canary yellow headscarf, Shukda with finely penciled eyebrow, gazing into the distance, cradling a pen in her hand. The faces are plastered everywhere, on every available bit of space, sometimes on top of each other. It’s led to Afghan cartoonists sketching someone’s face on top of someone else’s legs.
At first glance, these walls are just an unsightly mess of photographs. But, like the carpets of old, if you know this nation’s history, you can read meaning .into what seem like random patterns. These layers of paper form a bright new canvas of a nation’s dark history. General Ulumi who once worked with the Soviet Red Army is running for parliament. There’s also Mullah Khaqsar who used to execute the writ of the Taliban. But there’s also Malalai Joya, the young woman who, a few years ago, bravely condemned the warlords in public.
In this election, candidates must run as individuals, not as members of parties. But Afghans know who everyone is. They know their past. They know their father, their grandfather, or at least, they do in most cases. But what if they don’t? In the last month of campaigning, in towns and villages across this country, Afghans, from village elders with wizened faces, to wide-eyed teenagers too young to vote, have sat cross legged in the shades of mulberry tress, or in air-conditioned rooms cooled with electricity powered by generators. They’ve pondered and argued and debated the questions of this time.
One dimensional photograph, after all, only tells part of this new story. As one Afghan friend put it, in real life, many candidates with a past are two-faced. If elected to Parliament, it’s still not clear which face they will show. But whatever happens, the opening of Parliament will be the start of a new chapter. And no one here can say with certainty how that Afghan story will unfold.
Healthcare Reform During the past two decades, all of the industrialized nations have enacted some form of healthcare reform. America is no exception. Just a few years ago, the U. S. was consumed by a vigorous public debate about healthcare. In the end, the debate reaffirmed that the U. S. would retain its essentially market-based system. Instead of reform imposed from the top down, 3 the American healthcare system underwent some rather profound self-reform, driven by powerful market forces. The market—not the government—managed to wring inflation out of the private healthcare market. 4
Today, it appears that U.S. healthcare costs are again on the rise. At the same time, American patients—like patients elsewhere—are becoming more vocal5 about the restrictions many face in their healthcare plans. Talk of government-led reform is once again in the air. 6
We must think twice, though, before embarking on “reform” if that means imposing further restrictions on our healthcare markets. The more sensible course is to introduce policies that make the market work better—that is, to the advantage of consumers. I base this argument on our company’s decades of experience in healthcare systems around the world, which has given us a unique global perspective on the right and wrong way to reform healthcare. The wrong way is to impose layer after layer of regulation and restrictions. We have seen this approach tried in many countries, and we have always see it fail—fail to hold down costs, and fail to provide the best quality care. Medicine is changing at so rapid a pace that no government agency or expert commission can keep up with it. Only an open, informed and competitive market can do that. This lesson holds true for the U. S., and for all countries contemplating healthcare reform. Free markets do what governments mean to do—but can’t.
The right approach10 is to foster a flexible, market-based system in which consumers have rights, responsibilities, and choices. Healthcare systems do not work if patients are treated as passive recipients of services: 11 they do work if consumers are well-informed about quality, costs, and new treatments, and are free to act responsibly on that knowledge.
Of course, reform should never be driven purely by cost considerations. Instead, we ought to devise new ways of funding healthcare that will make it possible for all patients to afford the best care. Ideally, these new approaches would not only reward individuals and families but also encourage innovation, which can make healthcare systems more efficient, more productive, and ultimately of greater value for patients.
The path we choose will have enormous implications for all of us. We are in a golden age of science, and no field of scientific inquiry holds more promise than that of biomedicine. 13 Not only can we look forward to the discovery of cures for chronic and acute disease, but also to the development of enabling therapies that can help people enjoy more rewarding and productive lives.14 New drugs are already helping people who would once have been disabled by arthritis or cardiovascular disease stay active and mobile.15 More effective anti-depressants and anti-psychotics are beginning to relieve the crippling illness of the mind, allowing sufferers to function normally and happily in society. The promise is quite simply—one of longer, healthier lives. 16
What is at issue are the pace and breadth of discovery, and how quickly we can make the benefits of our knowledge available to the patients who need them.
Therefore, the policy environment the biomedical industry will face in the next century may make or break the next wave of biomedical breakthroughs. 17 Will that environment include protection for intellectual property, freedom for the market to determine price, and support for a robust science base? 18 Will healthcare systems nurture innovation, or remove incentives for discovery? Will they give consumers information and options, or impose stringent rules and regulations that limit access and choice? For the U. S., as for the rest of the world, the healthcare debate is by no means over. And for all of us, the stakes are higher than ever.
NHS has suffered from under-funding in recent decades,as a result of which many()people have been turning to private medical health care.
In the past few decades,the influence of political parties has been declining()
Not too many decades ago it seemed “obvious” both to the
general public and to sociologists that modern society has
changed people’s natural relations, loosed their responsibilities 1.______
to kins and neighbors, and substituted in their place 2.______
for superficial relationships with passing acquaintances. 3.______
However, in recent years a growing body of research has
revealed that the “obvious” is not true. It seems that if you are
a city resident, you typically know a smaller proportion of your
neighbors than you if you are a resident of a smaller community. 4.______
But, for the most part, this fact has a few significant 5.______
consequences. It does not necessarily follow that if you know few
of your neighbors you will know no one else.
Even in very large cities, people maintain close social ties within
small, private social worlds. Indeed, the number and quality of
meaningful relationships do not differ from more and less 6.______
urban people. Small-town residents are more involved with kin
than do big-city residents. Yet city dwellers compensate by 7.______
developing friendships with people who share similar interests
and activities. Urbanism may produce a different style of life,
but the quality of life does not differ between town and city. Nor 8.______
are residents of large communities any likely to display 9.______
psychological symptoms of stress or alienation than are
residents of smaller communities. However, city dwellers do
worry more about crime, and which leads them to a distrust of 10.______
strangers.
A clear model of the atom ______ physicists for decades; although they reasoned that the atom must exist, its ______ remained a mystery.
Not too many decades ago it seemed “obvious” both to the
general public and to sociologists that modern society has
changed people’s natural relations, loosed their responsibilities 1.______
to kins and neighbors, and substituted in their place 2.______
for superficial relationships with passing acquaintances. 3.______
However, in recent years a growing body of research has
revealed that the “obvious” is not true. It seems that if you are
a city resident, you typically know a smaller proportion of your
neighbors than you if you are a resident of a smaller community. 4.______
But, for the most part, this fact has a few significant 5.______
consequences. It does not necessarily follow that if you know few
of your neighbors you will know no one else.
Even in very large cities, people maintain close social ties within
small, private social worlds. Indeed, the number and quality of
meaningful relationships do not differ from more and less 6.______
urban people. Small-town residents are more involved with kin
than do big-city residents. Yet city dwellers compensate by 7.______
developing friendships with people who share similar interests
and activities. Urbanism may produce a different style of life,
but the quality of life does not differ between town and city. Nor 8.______
are residents of large communities any likely to display 9.______
psychological symptoms of stress or alienation than are
residents of smaller communities. However, city dwellers do
worry more about crime, and which leads them to a distrust of 10.______
strangers.