Lesson Nine

Section One: News in Brief

1. There was an assassination attempt against Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi today. A man fired several shots at Gandhi and other Indian leaders participating in an open-air prayer meeting. Gandhi was not injured. Six people received minor wounds when the gunman burst from the brushes where he had apparently hidden prior to the ceremony to avoid security checks. He surrendered when guards surrounded him. Those in charge of Gandhi's security have been suspended, and an investigation is under way.

2. Jess Moore, NASA's top official in charge of the shuttle program when Challenger exploded, announced today he's leaving his new post as Director of the Johnson Space Center . Moore will take a leave of absence and then be reassigned to NASA headquarters in Washington . NPR's Daniel Zwerdling reports. “The obvious question, of course, is this: Is Jess Moore leaving his job and taking a year off work because of the Challenger accident? Moore came under quite a bit of pressure before a congressional committee early this summer when his former assistant testified that he told Moore in detail almost a year ago that there were serious problems with the, shuttle rocket's 0-rings, the same 0-rings that eventually caused the Challenger accident. That testimony flatly contradicted what Moore 's been saying all along: that he did not know the 0-ring problems were serious until after the Challenger exploded. Congressional sources who've interviewed Moore told me that they have no way of knowing just who's telling the truth, Moore , or Moore 's former assistant. But one top congressional aide who met with Moore recently says the NASA veteran's been depressed since the Challenger blew up. He says, ' Moore doesn't have the edge he used to. He's hollow inside, just like a lot of guys at NASA who worked on the shuttle.' 'Jess Moore ,' the aide says, 'is not the man he was before the accident, and he needs a rest.' I'm Daniel Zwerdling in Washington ."

第一节 简明新闻

1. 今天发生了一起针对印度总理拉吉夫甘地的未遂遇刺事件。一名男子在甘地和其他印度领导人参加的露天祈祷会上向他们开枪。甘地没有受伤。当枪手显示是躲过典礼期间的安全检查，从事先隐藏的灌木丛中跳出来的，只有六人受了轻伤。他在被警卫包围后便投降了。那些甘地安全的负责人员已被停职，正在接受调查。

2. 杰斯摩尔，“挑战者号”航天飞机爆炸时的美国宇航局负责航天飞机计划的高层官员今天宣布，他将离开他所担任的约翰逊航天中心主任这一新职位。摩尔离职后将重新被分配到美国宇航局华盛顿总部。全国公共电台的丹尼尔茨韦德林报道说。“很明显的问题当然是这样的：杰斯摩尔离开自己的工作而且一年没有上班是由于‘挑战者号’失事吗？今年夏天早些时候，他的前助理作证说，他曾在一年前详细地告诉摩尔航天飞机火箭的 O 型环有严重问题，而正是这些 O 型环最终导致挑战者失事。所以摩尔受到相当多的来国会委员会的压力。那个证词和摩尔一直以来的说法非常矛盾：他说直到‘挑战者号’爆炸后他才知道 O 型环的问题有这样严重。询问过摩尔的国会消息人士告诉我，他们没有办法知道谁说的是真话，是摩尔还是摩尔的前助理。但是，一个会见过摩尔的前国会助理最近说，美国航天局人员自‘挑战者号’爆炸以来，情绪低落。他说，‘摩尔没有优势，他内里空洞。仿佛是一群工作在航天飞机上的美国宇航局的小伙子。’‘尔斯摩尔，’那名前助理说，‘他和事故发生以前判若两人，他需要休息。’我是丹尼尔茨韦德林在华盛顿报道。”

NASA Official Jess Moore 

Section Two: News in Detail

Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi survived an assassination attempt in New Delhi today. The assailant fired a succession of shots at Gandhi, who was attending a Hindu prayer service with his wife and Indian President Zail Singh. Official sources have called the incident a major security lapse. Witnesses say Gandhi told security guards two times he had heard gun shots; the security forces reportedly dismissed the noise as motorcycle backfire. It was over half an hour later that police finally surrounded and captured the gunman. Six people were injured during the arrest. The BBC's Humphrey Hoxley reports.

An official statement from the Home Ministry said that those police officials who were directly responsible for the security arrangements for Mr. Gandhi have been suspended from duty. Senior officials in the Ministry say that a top-level investigation is under way to determine why the security around the Prime Minister, who's meant to be one of the most closely protected government leaders in the world, collapsed and how a gunman armed with an illegally manufactured revolver broke through the security cordon undetected to get within a few feet of the Prime Minister. Police say the gunman who's in his twenties may even have fired at Mr. Gandhi and his party as they were approaching the area to commemorate the birthday of the independence leader Mohandas Gandhi, who is cremated there. The area was searched immediately; but security men failed to spot the gunman, who was hiding on top of a concrete shelter hidden among thick green vines. The man opened fire again when Mr. Gandhi was leaving half an hour later. But when he was spotted, eyewitnesses say, he threw up his arms and shouted in Hindi, "I surrender.' Police say he's not connected with any terrorist organization., nor is he part of the Sikh movement which murdered Mr. Gandhi's mother, Indira, two years ago. Humphrey Hoxley, BBC, Delhi .

第二节 详细新闻 印度总理拉吉夫甘地幸免于一次未遂刺杀行动

印度总理拉吉夫甘地今天在新德里躲过一次未遂暗杀。袭击者向正在与夫人和印度总统宰尔辛格一同出席印度教祈祷仪式的甘地连续开枪。官方消息人士称这次事件是重大的安全漏洞。目击者说，甘地 2 次告诉保安警卫他听到枪声，保安部队报告称撤销了噪音是“摩托车回火”的说法。半个多小时后，警方终于包围并抓住了枪手。逮捕过程中有六人受伤。 BBC （英国广播公司）的汉弗莱赫克斯雷伊报道。

一名内政部官员发表声明说，那些直接负责甘地先生的保安安排的警官已被停职。在该部的高级官员说，一项高级别的调查正在进行，以确定为什么世界上保护最严密的政府领导人之一的印度总理身边的警卫会被瓦解掉，一个枪手是如何拿着非法制造的左轮手枪，突破了安全警戒线出现在距总理几英尺的地方。警方说，枪手 20 多岁，甚至可能在甘地先生一行出席印度独立运动领导人“圣雄”甘地诞辰纪念典礼，当接近他的火化地点时开过枪。该地区立即被搜查，但保安人员没有发现枪手，因为他藏在有厚厚的绿色藤蔓遮挡下的混凝土掩体的顶端。该名男子在甘地先生在离开半小时后又接着开枪。当他被发现时，目击者说，他扔掉了他的武器用印度语高喊，“我投降”。警方说，他不和任何恐怖组织有关，也不是两年前杀害甘地先生的母亲英迪拉的锡克运动的成员。汉弗莱赫克斯雷伊，英国广播公司，新德里报道。

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi (1944 – 1991)

Section Three: Special Report

It is not just the weather with which farmers contend; there are higher costs for growing food and lower prices when selling it. And these combined to make farming an increasingly difficult life, especially for small family farms. In New York , a new organization called 'Farm Hands' is trying to help struggling farms in the region by linking city dwellers with farmers. As John Kailish reports, the scheme seems to benefit both.

Last week, two actors, a housewife, a tour guide, a dog walker and an unemployed social worker, all from the New York metropolitan area, spent a day working on Hall Gibson's fruit and vegetable farm located in the Upstate New York town of Brewster . The contingent also included two four-year-olds. The group listened attentively as Gibson gave the lengthy orientation talk complete with aerial photographs of his 125-acre farm. 'This area was called part of the New York milk shed. One of the big incentives to producing milk in this area was the founding of the Borden plant.' After the orientation talk the group walked to a five-acre field that was lined with rows of tomatoes and turnips, eggplants and cabbage. Gibson gave some brief picking instructions to two women who were going to harvest cherry tomatoes. 'If they are split like this, throw them away or eat them.' "OK.' The transplanted urbanites picked six bushels of tomatoes and sixty pints of raspberries over the course of several hours. The farmhands were perfect strangers when they left Manhattan , but out in the field in Putnam County , they had no trouble striking up conversations that included such heady topics as romance in television.

Laura Moore, a housewife and part-time teacher from Brooklyn , has made four trips to area farms with her daughter She was picking yellow lowacid tomatoes as she explained why she enjoys the Farm Hands program.

"It's therapeutic, mentally, physically, and it's exhilarating. This is my way of getting out, escaping the city life for a while. I love the city. But in the fresh air, you get a feeling that you are really living."

In addition to the one-day farm outings, Farm Hands also places individuals on farms for periods ranging from a week to several months. In exchange for their labor, participants get a minimum wage, room and board, or produce to take back with them to the city. In its first year of operation, Farm Hands has placed twenty people on farms for a period of two months or longer. More than two hundred people have gone on the one-day work intensives or the field trips that are often more play than work. Hall Gibson has had four long term farm-hands this summer. At the moment, he's benefiting from the hard work of a twenty- eight-year-old New York City painter named Debby Fisher. Because Gibson's farm is organic, weeds are a major problem. Farmer Gibson says that when Debby Fisher clears weeds from the fields, she works like a demon.

“She's been just driven to rescue crops and she's rescued a number of crops. My bok choy crop - the best I've ever had - was rescued by her. Debby is a gem.”

The Farm Hands program was founded by twenty-seven-year-old Wendy Dubid, an enthusiastic advocate of linking farms and cities. In an interview at a farmers' market in New York city , Dubid said Farm Hands may mean cheap labors for farmers, but she maintains the program has a broader impact.

"It's not just the labor that helps those farmers; it's the appreciative consumers. They suddenly realize after an hour of picking raspberries and scratching their own arms on the bramble, they understand the farm reality and the value of food, and may become valuable consumers and customers for those farmers.

Dubid says there was only one Farm Hand placement that did not work out this year, a fifteen-year-old football player who antagonized his host family in Upstate New York. Farmhands are currently working in New York , Connecticut and New Jersey . Plans are already under way to expand the Farm Hands program to Maryland , Pennsylvania , Massachusetts and Vermont .

第三节 特别报道 “农场帮手”计划

农民不仅仅和气候抗争；用较高成本种出的粮食要用更低的价格卖掉他们。这些搅扰在一起，使农民的生活越来越困难，尤其是对小型家庭农场。在纽约，一个新的叫做“农场帮手”的组织正在尝试帮助该地区正在挣扎中的农场，让城市居民与农民建立联系。正如约翰卡利什报导的，这计划似乎对双方都有利。

上周，两个演员，一个家庭主妇，一个导游，一个遛狗员和一名援助失业者的社会工作者，他们全来自纽约大都会地区，他们花了一天时间在位于纽约州北部小镇――鲁斯特霍尔吉布森的水果和蔬菜农场里工作。这只队伍里还包括两个 4 岁的孩子。这群人很认真地听了吉布森冗长的介绍和全部的 125 英亩农场的航拍照片。“这一地区是被称为纽约的牛奶棚的一部分。在这一地区生产牛奶的一大动机是因为波登工厂的成立。”介绍之后，这队人走向一个五英亩的农田，长满成行的西红柿和萝卜，茄子和白菜。吉布森向两位正要采摘小西红柿的妇女简要介绍了采摘说明。“如果他们是这样裂开的，那就扔掉或者吃掉。”“行。”刚刚到来的城里人花了几个小时摘了 6 蒲式耳 * 的西红柿和 60 品脱覆盆子 ** 。庄稼汉们很欣赏这些离开曼哈顿来到普特南县农场上的陌生人，他们没有毫不费劲地通过交谈彼此结识，包括一些刺激的话题比如电视上的绯闻。

劳拉摩尔，是个家庭主妇，布鲁克林的兼职教师，已经带着她的女儿 4 次来到农场，她一边解释她为什么她喜欢“农场帮手”项目时，一边摘着黄色低酸西红柿。

“ 这是一种调剂，精神上的，和身体上的，而且令人振奋。使我能够解脱，摆脱一下城市生活。我喜欢城市。但在新鲜空气里你会感觉到你是在真正地生活。 ”

除了为期一天的农场游，“农场帮手”还给个人在农场安排了从一个星期到几个月不等的时间。作为他们的劳动的交换，参加者可以获得较低的工资，食宿，或把作物带回城里。在开始运作的第一年里，“农场帮手”已经安排了 20 人在农场工作了两个月或更长的时间。超过 200 人参加了为期一天的密集劳动或游玩多于工作的农场游。霍尔吉布森在今年夏天有了四个长期的“农场帮手”。目前，他正受益于一名 28 岁名叫黛比费施尔的纽约市画家的努力工作。由于吉布森的农场是有机的，杂草成为主要问题。农夫吉布森说，当戴比费施尔在田间除草时，她的作品就像一个恶魔。

“开着（除草）车来救援这些作物，她拯救了大量的作物。我的小白菜作物 – 是我有过的最好的 - 被她救了过来。黛比是一个贵人。”

“农场帮手”项目是由 27 岁的温迪杜彼得发起的，一个农场和城市相结合的热心倡导者。在采访一家纽约市的农贸市场时，温迪杜彼得说，“农场帮手”对农民可能意味着廉价的劳动力，她始终让该计划有着更广泛的影响。

“这不只是些帮助那些农民的劳动力，而是些心存感激的消费者。他们在采摘覆盆子时被荆棘刮伤了自己的胳膊，一小时后他们就会猛然意识到，理解农场的现实和食物的价值，并有可能成为有价值的消费者和这些农民的顾客。”

杜彼得说，今年只有一个被安置的“农场帮手”没有成功，一个 15 岁的橄榄球运动员，与纽约上州的寄宿家庭发生了对抗。农场帮手们目前正在纽约，康涅狄格州和新泽西州工作。筹划要把“农场帮手”计划扩大到马里兰，宾夕法尼亚，马萨诸塞和佛蒙特州。

* 英美等国用来衡量农作物的体积单位， 1 蒲式耳相当于 32 升；由于不同作物的比重不同 , 所以不同作物的重量相差悬殊。――野鹤注

**1 品脱＝ 1/8 加仑＝ 1/64 蒲式耳――野鹤注

Raspberry

Small family farm in Brewster

The Feild Trips