犯罪は・・・

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.

犯罪は政治のようなものだ。どちらも割に合わない。
（アルフレッド・ニューマン）


Drive safely: the life you save may be your own.

安全運転を。それで救われるのは、あなた自身の命かもしれないのですから。
（標語）


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

ハンドルを握らなくなった米国の16歳

Fewer Youths Jump Behind the Wheel at 16
( New York Times )

For generations, driver’s licenses have been tickets to freedom for America’s 16-year-olds, prompting many to line up at motor vehicle offices the day they were eligible to apply.

No longer. In the last decade, the proportion of 16-year-olds
nationwide who hold driver’s licenses has dropped from nearly half to less than one-third, according to statistics from the Federal Highway Administration.

Reasons vary, including tighter state laws governing when teenagers can drive, higher insurance costs and a shift from school-run driver education to expensive private driving academies.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・statistics　統計資料、統計データ
・govern　統治する、管理する、取り締まる
・insurance　保険
・shift　変更、移行


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

三浦氏、81年の殺人容疑での逮捕に「なぜ今？」

Miura on his arrest over '81 murder: 'Why now?'
( Japan Times )

Kazuyoshi Miura, a businessman arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife in the early 1980s in the U.S., told staff from the Foreign Ministry's local office in Saipan on Sunday that his lawyer will announce Monday in Tokyo what actions he will take, the ministry said.

Kenji Yazawa, the local consul, met Miura in a U.S. detention facility on Saipan, where he was arrested at the airport. According to the ministry, Miura complained about the sudden arrest.

"I'm innocent. I'm very surprised. My acquittal has been finalized in Japan," Miura was quoted by Yazawa as saying.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・arrest　止める、逮捕する
・suspicion　疑い、嫌疑
・consul　領事
・detention　引止め、抑留
・facility　施設、容易（にすること）
・innocent　罪のない、無邪気な
・acquittal　（無罪）放免


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

共産主義とは・・・

Life is like a B-movie. You don't want to leave in the middle of it but you don't want to see it again.

人生はＢ級映画に似ている。途中で席を立とうとは思わないが、二度と見ようとも思わない。
（テッド・ターナー）


Communism is like prohibition, it's a good idea but it won't work.

共産主義は禁酒法のようなものだ。名案だが、役には立たない。
（ウィル・ロジャース）

コソボ独立 承認と反対と

Kosovo Is Recognized but Rebuked by Others
( New York Times )

Kosovo won the recognition of the United States and its biggest
Western European allies on Monday, while earning rebukes and
rejections from Serbia, Russia and a disparate mix of states the world over who face their own separatist movements at home.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・ally　同盟国、同盟者
・disparate　本質的に異なる
・separatist　分離主義者


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

カストロ議長引退 取り巻きが権力継承か

Castro Circle Likely to Hold Power After His Resignation
( New York Times )

Fidel Castro, bedridden for 19 months, on Tuesday gave up the almost unlimited power he has wielded in Cuba for nearly 50 years, but whether the surprise announcement represented a historic change or a symbolic political maneuver remained unclear.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・wield　（剣・筆などを）巧みに使う、（権力を）ふるう
・maneuver　作戦行動、策略


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

日本の市川崑監督 死去

Kon Ichikawa, Japanese Film Director, Dies at 92
( New York Times )

Kon Ichikawa, the Japanese film director whose versatility ranged beyond his well-known antiwar dramas like “The Burmese Harp” and “Fires on the Plain” to comedies, documentaries and literary adaptations, died on Wednesday in Tokyo. He was 92.

Mr. Ichikawa’s career reached what many consider its high point when Americans were streaming to art-cinema houses in the 1950s and ’60s to see movies by emerging masters like Ingmar Bergman. In those years some critics rated Mr. Ichikawa on a level with Akira Kurosawa. He was “once hailed as one of the world’s greatest directors,” Olaf Moller wrote in 2001 in Film Comment.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・adaptation 適応、翻案、改作
・stream　流れる、流れるように続く
・emerge　現われ（出）る
・hail　呼んで迎える、認める、称賛する


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

歴史の教訓とは・・・

A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.

赤ん坊とは、世界は滅んではならないとする神の見解だ。
（カール・サンドバーグ）


That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

人間は歴史の教訓からあまり多くのことを学べないものであり、この事実こそ、歴史の教える教訓のうちで最も重要なことである。
（オルダス・レナード・ハックスリー）

続きを読む

豪政府、アボリジニに謝罪

Australia Offers an Apology to Aborigines
( New York Times )

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd opened a new chapter in Australia’s
tortured relations with its indigenous peoples on Wednesday with a comprehensive and moving apology for past wrongs and a call for bipartisan action to improve the lives of Australia’s Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

Mr. Rudd’s apology was particularly addressed to the so-called Stolen Generations, the tens of thousands of indigenous children who were removed, sometimes forcibly, from their families in a policy of assimilation that only ended in the 1970s.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・torture　拷問にかける、ねじ曲げる
・indigenous　（土地に）固有の、土着の
・comprehensive　包括的な、総合的な
・bipartisan　２党の、両党の
・strait　海峡
・remove　取り除く、（人を）去らせる
・assimilation 　消化吸収、同化（作用）


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

ベビーベッドの原始人と付き合うには

Coping With the Caveman in the Crib
( New York Times )

If there is such a person as a “baby whisperer,” it is the
pediatrician Dr. Harvey Karp, whose uncanny ability to quiet crying babies became the best-selling book “The Happiest Baby on the Block.”

Dr. Karp’s method, endorsed by child advocates and demonstrated in television appearances and a DVD version of his book, shows fussy babies who are quickly, almost eerily soothed by a combination of tight swaddling, loud shushing and swinging, which he says mimics the sensations of the womb.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・pediatrician　小児科医
・uncanny　不思議な、並はずれて（優れて）いる
・fussy　気難しい
・eerily　不気味に
・soothe　なだめる、落ち着かせる
・swaddle　布でくるむ
・shush　シッと言う、おとなしくさせる
・mimic　まねる、模倣する


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

危機という言葉は・・・

When written in Chinese,the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters.One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.

中国語で書くと、「危機」という言葉は２つの文字から成り立っている。１つは危険を表し、もう１つは機会を表す。
（ジョン・Ｆ・ケネディー）


The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

脳は素晴らしい器官だ。朝起きた瞬間から動き始め、そしてオフィスに着くまでは止まることがないのだから。
（ロバート・フロスト）

早起きは５点の損

The Early Bird Gets the Bad Grade
( New York Times )

It’s Monday morning, and you’re having trouble waking your teenagers.You’re not alone. Indeed, each morning, few of the country’s 17 million high school students are awake enough to get much out of their first class, particularly if it starts before 8 a.m. Sure, many of them stayed up too late the night before, but not because they wanted to.

Research shows that teenagers’ body clocks are set to a schedule that is different from that of younger children or adults. This prevents adolescents from dropping off until around 11 p.m., when they produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, and waking up much before 8 a.m. when their bodies stop producing melatonin. The result is that the first class of the morning is often a waste, with as many as 28 percent of students falling asleep, according to a National Sleep Foundation poll. Some are so sleepy they don’t even show up,　contributing to failure and dropout rates.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・adolescent　青年期の人
・drop off　眠る
・induce　説得して〜させる、引き起す
・waste　無駄、浪費
・contribute　貢献する、（〜を）導く


　● 解説ザブ〜ン！

殺虫剤ギョーザで日本人１７５人が体調不良

Insecticide-Tainted Dumplings From China Sicken 175 in Japan
( New York Times )

The Japanese government said Friday that at least 175 people had been sickened by insecticide-tainted dumplings from China, prompting supermarkets to pull Chinese-made meat products from their shelves while Tokyo pressed Beijing to improve food safety.

Newspaper headlines warned of a national panic as hundreds more people complained of dizziness and nausea after eating dumplings and other Chinese-made foods. As of Friday, a dozen Japanese food processing companies said they had issued recalls for at least 59 meat products imported from China.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・taint　汚す、汚染する
・sicken　病気にする
・dizziness　めまい
・nausea　吐き気
・recall　（欠陥品の）回収、リコール
・import　輸入する（その反対は export ）


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

ヒットラーが自殺した理由とは・・・

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want
anything done, ask a woman.

政治の世界で何か言ってもらいたいことがあるのなら、男に頼みなさい。何かしてもらいたいことがあるのなら、女に頼みなさい。
（マーガレット・サッチャー）


Do you know why Hitler committed suicide?
− Yes, because he saw his gas bill.

ヒットラーが自殺した理由を知っているかい？
―もちろん。ガス代の請求書を見てしまったからさ。
（デーブ・スペクター）