大学英语综合教程 第四册 Unit 7A

[05:22.66]It is that more and more,on the streets and no the train,I see people wearing ID tags.We all wear IDs now
[05:32.96]We didn't use to .They hang from thick cotton string or an aluminum chain;
[05:39.64]they're worn one at a time or three at a time,but they're there.
[05:44.95]I ponder the implications.What does it mean that we wear IDs ?What are we saying
[05:53.57]or do we think we're saying? I mean aside from the obvious.
[05:58.92]I imagined yesterday the row of people across from me on the train
[06:04.17]looking up all of a sudden from their newspaper and answering one after another:
[06:10.49]"It means I know who I am," says the man in blue shirt and suspenders.
[06:16.76]"It means I can get into the building,"says the woman in gray.
[06:22.25]"It means I am a solid citizen with a job."
[06:26.82]"I am known to others in my workplace."
[06:31.03]"I'm not just blowing through life,I'm integrated into it.I belong to something.I receive a regular paycheck
[06:40.30]I have had a background check done by security and have been found to be a Safe Person.Have you?
[06:48.08]I wonder if unemployed people on the train look at the tags around the other peoples' necks and think
[06:54.82]Soon I hope I'll have one too.I wonder if kids just getting their first job at 17
[07:03.42]will ever know that in America we didn't all use to be ID'd.Used to be only for people who worked in nuclear power plants
[07:12.48]or great halls of government.Otherwise you could be pretty obscure.Which isn't a bad way to be.
[07:20.32]A month ago there were news reports of a post-Sept.11baby boom.Everyone was so rocked by news of their mortality
[07:30.43]that they realized there will never be a perfect time to have kids but we're here now so let's have a family
[07:38.63]I believed the bably boom story and waited for the babies.
[07:43.88]Then came the stories saying:Nah,there is no baby boom,it's all anecdotal,there's no statistical evidence to back it up
[07:53.73]And I believed that too.But I've been noticing something for weeks now.In my neighborhood there is a baby boom
[08:03.45]There are babies all over in Brooklyn.It is full of newborns,of pink soft-limbed infants in cotton carriers on daddy's chest
[08:14.03]It is full of strollers,not noly regular strollers but the kind that carry two children-double-wides.
[08:22.54]And triple-wides.I don't care what anyone says,there have got to be data that back up what I'm seeing
[08:31.24]that after Sept.11,there was at least a Brooklyn baby boom.
[08:37.22]A dream boom,too.The other day I spoke with a friend I hadn't seen since the world changed
[08:45.53]He was two blocks away when the towers fell,and he saw everything.
[08:50.49]We have all seen the extraordianry footage of that day,
[08:55.46]seen it over and over,but few of us have seen what my friend described:
[09:02.51]how in the office buildings near the World Trade Center they stood at the windows and suddenly darkness enveloped them
[09:11.63]as the towers collapsed and the demonic cloud swept through.Did you see those forced to jump?I asked.
[09:20.20]"Yes,"he said,and looked away.
[09:24.90]Have you had bad dreams?
[09:28.19]Yes,he said,and looked away.
[09:32.58]I thought about this for a few days.My friend is brilliant and by nature a describer of things felt and seen
[09:41.72]But not this time.I spoke to a friend who is a therapist.Are your patients getting extraordinary dreams?I asked
[09:52.74]"Always,"he laughs.
[09:56.01]Sept.11-related?
[09:59.82]"Yes,"he says, "mostly among adolescents."
[10:05.52]I asked if he was saving them,writing them down.He shook his head no.
[10:12.15]So:The Sept.11Dream Project.We should begin it.I want to, though I'm not sure why
[10:22.89]I think maybe down the road I will try to write about them.Maybe not.I am certain,however
[10:31.69]that dreams can be an expression of a nation's unconscious
[10:37.02]if there can be said to be such a thing,and deserve respect.(Carl Jung thought so.)
[10:44.44]To respect is to record.Send in your Sept.11related dream-recurring,unusual,striking,whatever
[10:55.83]I will read them,and appreciate them and possibly weave them into a piece on what Sept.11
[11:04.22]has done to our dream lives and to our imaginations,
[11:09.10]when our imaginations are operating on their own,unfettered,unstopped,spanning