单项选择题 Should anyone much care whether an American boy living overseas gets six vicious thwacks on his backside? So much has been argued, rejoined and rehashed about the case of Michael Fay, an 18-year-old convicted of vandalism and sentenced to a caning in Singapore, that an otherwise sorry little episode has shaded into a certified International Incident, complete with intercessions by the U.S. head of state. An affair has outraged American libertarians even as it has animated a general debate about morality East and West and the proper functioning of U.S. law and order. Which, to all appearances, is what Singapore wanted. The question of whether anyone should care about Michael Fay is idle: though Singapore officials profess shock at the attention his case had drawn, they know Americans care deeply about the many sides of this issue. Does a teenager convicted of spraying cars with easily removable paint deserve half a dozen powerful strokes? At what point does swift, sure punishment become torture? By what moral authority can America, with its high rates of lawlessness and license, preach of a safe society about human rights? The caning sentence has concentrated minds wondrously on an already lively domestic debate over what constitutes a due balance between individual and majority rights. Too bad Michael Fay has become a focus for this discussion. Not only does he seem destined to be pummeled and immobilized, but the use of Singapore as a standard for judging any other society, let alone the cacophonous U.S., is fairly worthless. To begin with, Singapore is an offshore republic that tightly limits immigration. Imagine crime-ridden LOS Angeles, to which Singapore is sometimes contrasted, with hardly any inflow of the hard-luck, often desperate fortune seekers who flock to big cities. Even without its government's disciplinary measures, Singapore more than plausibly would be much the same as it is now. An academic commonplace today is that the major factor determining social peace and prosperity is culture—a sense of common identity, tradition and values. Unlike Singapore, though, the U.S. today is a nation in search of a common culture, trying to be a universal society that assimilates the traditions of people from all over the world. Efforts to safeguard minority as well as individual rights have produced a gridlock in the justice system. Its troubles stem more from the decay of family life than from any government failures. Few societies can afford to look on complacently. As travel eases and cultures intermix, the American experience is becoming the world's. The circumstances of this affair—evidently no Singaporean has ever been punished under the Vandalism Act for defacing private property—suggest that Singapore has used Fay as an unwilling point man in a growing quarrel between East and West about human rights.What did the writer say happened to Michael Fay in Singapore?A.His case captured worldwide attention.B.He received severe punishment.C.His experience was out of the ordinary.D.He was likely to be disabled.
单项选择题 Until recently, mobile radio was to wireless communications what the Yugo was to transportation. With a mixed clientele ranging from truckers using CBs to police armed with walkie-talkies to taxi drivers dispatched by radio, it was viewed as an unglamorous business and a technological backwater. But specialized mobile radio, as it is known, has been rediscovered. It is now considered one of the biggest prizes in the all-out war for the public airwaves. The reason: high-tech companies have figured out how to profitably rebuild the antiquated dispatching system into an advanced cellular-telephone network that can take on the likes of AT&T and the giant Baby Bells. Upstart Nextel Communications sent shock waves through the industry last week when it agreed to buy Motorola's SMR frequencies for $1.8 billion. That could pose a serious threat to cellular hegemony. Although both systems are based on the same basic technology, SMR systems are digital and cover almost 25 times as much area as the average cellular network. SMR handsets won't work on cellular systems and tend to be bulkier than cellular phones, though they provide more features, like a digital pager service. And while cellular growth has tripled to some 13 million subscribers since 2000, the technology has been losing ground. It is running out of channel capacity so fast, in fact, that 40% of cellular calls in high-density areas like Manhattan and Los Angeles fail to be completed. SMRs have capacity to spare, and service could eventually be priced 10% to 15% less than cellular. Dispatchers predict they will have at least 10 million subscribers by the end of the decade. There are now about 1.5 million users of SMRs. The addition of another contender to an already crowded field of telephone systems will surely multiply the confusion. By the year 2010, consumers will be able to choose from at least half a dozen vendors of a dizzying array of wireless-communications services, including pagers, voice mail answering machines and cellular phones. Phone and cable television operators, such as Bell South, MCI and Cox Enterprises, are developing so-called personal-communications networks, or PCNs, a highly advanced portable-phone system that is expected to cover a wider area, connect to a greater variety of services and be cheaper to operate than conventional cellular. And many companies that have gambled on the wrong technological standards, and invested billions trying to develop the same markets, will undoubtedly lose a great deal of money before the shakeout is over. 'The winners', says Nextel chairman Morgan O'Brien, 'will be those who can make the choice for consumers easy'. With all the anticipated confusion—mindful of the early years of personal computers—it is likely to be years before anyone calls the purchase of wireless products an 'easy' choice.How did mobile radio systems find its business competitiveness?A.Its technological features have radically changed.B.It has been rebuilt to cater to various subscribers.C.Its dimensions have been reduced by wide margins.D.It was connected to a greater variety of services.
未知题型 关于甲癣的治疗的叙述,下列哪些是正确的( )