康老师的报刊课

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The hottest video game of the year, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2," offers enough hard-core action to sate the most critical gamer -- and one scene that's creating big controversy.

The game features amazing set pieces of action where a player takes on the role of different soldiers to battle a Russian terrorist group and a Russian invasion of the United States.

Buildings explode. Bullets fly. Choppers plunge to earth.

Things go boom, boom, boom in a big way.

It looks like something out of a Hollywood movie.

To understand the impact of these games on American culture, you need to know that in the first five days that this $60 game was released earlier this month, it made more money than either the last Harry Potter or Batman movie did in the first five days of their releases.

This game and others like it are so realistic that players are essentially taking part in a blockbuster film, and that's why a scene in a Russian airport in so troubling.

Here's the setup: The player has infiltrated a Russian terrorist cell to gather intelligence and is part of a team that enters the airport, guns blazing.

But the terrorists aren't battling airport security or soldiers. They're gunning down innocent civilians.

The player is faced with what should be, in the context of the game, an agonizing moral choice.

He can try to gun down the terrorists, to save the travelers and blow his cover. (This results in him getting killed.)

He can do nothing and tag along.

Or he can massacre the innocents like his comrades.

Fans of the game argue that Modern Warfare 2 is art that immerses you in a role and like all good art presents you with difficult questions.

We have no quarrel that the game is artfully done with a series of compelling stories and spectacular battle sequences.

But just presenting something troubling to players -- presuming they actually are troubled by it -- doesn't necessarily translate to compelling art -- or even art at all.

Fans of the game are confusing an idea that's interesting with one that's interesting and well executed.

During testing of the game, every player wound up shooting at the innocent crowd, according to one published report.

There didn't appear to be a lot of hand-wringing.

Players are warned about the intensity of the scene and can opt out of it without penalty.

But how many actually do that?

The game can't have it both ways -- desensitize players to waves of gloriously orchestrated violence -- which presents its own troubling ripple effects -- and then expect them to really care about just another mass slaughter.

Art should enrich us. It should leave us with something.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Failure is not an option on health care, a leading Democratic senator said Monday, even as Republicans turned up the heat on moderates who hold the fate of the legislation in their hands.

"We're not going to not pass a bill," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. With or without Republican support, Democrats will get it done, Schumer said, because a health care system that leaves nearly 50 million uninsured and spends more than any other is clearly broken.

Republicans wasted no time Monday going after Democratic moderates who delivered a Senate victory Saturday for President Barack Obama. The 60-39 vote overcame a procedural hurdle and allowed floor debate to start after Thanksgiving. Senate Democrats hope to finish their bill by Christmas, but it remains to be seen whether Obama gets final health care legislation this year.

A state Republican Party leader accused Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., of trying to have it both ways by talking conservative back home and voting with liberals in Washington.

"Nebraskans are finally wising up that there are two Ben Nelsons," said Nebraska GOP Chairman Mark Fahleson. "There's the Washington Ben Nelson ... who gave Democrats the vote they wanted. Then there's the Nebraska Ben Nelson ... who comes back here to Nebraska and tries to portray himself as a conservative."

Nelson's office had no response, but the Democrat has said he won't vote for a final bill unless it takes into account his concerns about limits on abortion funding, as well as his opposition to a new government-run insurance plan.

Another moderate Democrat, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, said Monday she also could not support "a government-run, government-funded" public plan. With hundreds of thousands of uninsured people in her state eligible for existing government programs such as Medicaid, getting them signed up should be the first priority.

Democrats hope to persuade at least one Republican, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, to vote for the final bill. But Snowe voted with Republicans on Saturday to block Majority Leader Harry Reid's 10-year, $979 billion bill from coming to the floor.

Reid, D-Nev., will have to resolve differences within his party over abortion, taxes and letting the government sell health insurance as a competitor with private insurers. Another 60-vote test awaits him at the end of the debate, weeks from now. The House has already passed its version.

Both bills would require all Americans to carry health insurance, with government help to make premiums more affordable. They would ban insurance companies from denying coverage or charging more to people with health problems. They would set up new insurance markets for those who now have the hardest time finding and keeping coverage - self-employed people and small businesses. Americans insured through big employer plans would gain new consumer protections but wouldn't face major changes. Seniors would get better prescription coverage.

They differ on abortion, taxes and the public plan.

If Democrats succeed in passing their legislation, it may leave consumers feeling a little cheated. Even after a phase-in of several years, the Democratic measures would leave 12 million or more eligible Americans uninsured. Many middle-class families who'd be required to buy coverage would still find the premiums a stretch, even with government aid. A new federal fund to provide temporary coverage for people with health problems would quickly run out of cash.

On abortion funding, the House adopted strict limitations as the price for getting anti-abortion Democrats to vote for the final bill. Abortion rights supporters are backing Reid's approach in the Senate bill, which tries to preserve coverage for abortion while stipulating that federal dollars may not be used except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.

In the end, Reid may have to bend. Catholic bishops say they can't accept his approach because it would let federally subsidized plans cover abortion. They vow to oppose the health care bill unless, like the House, the Senate enacts stronger language. Democratic senators opposed to abortion are already threatening a battle.

On financing, the House relies mainly on an income tax hike for upper-earners to pay for expanded coverage. The Senate opted for a tax on high-cost insurance plans, a Medicare payroll tax hike on the wealthy and fees on medical industries. In polls, the House approach is more popular. The Obama administration has signaled it likes the Senate's insurance tax.

That leaves the controversy over creating a government health plan to compete with the insurance industry. It has dominated the debate and remains unresolved.

Both House and Senate bills now provide for a government insurance plan, but Reid's bill would let states opt out. It's not clear that Reid has the votes. He may be able to get a compromise to allow a government plan only if, after a reasonable time, insurance companies fail to deliver lower premiums.

In advance of the Senate debate, the American Medical Association and AARP announced a new ad aimed at calming seniors' fears over Medicare. It features a white-coated man identified as a "real doctor" countering claims from another man identified as a "spin doctor" and will air nationally for two weeks. An AARP spokesman said it was a seven-figure ad buy but declined to give the exact figure.

Schumer appeared on NBC's "Today" show on Monday.

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Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Ark., Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., and Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report 

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LEH, India -- In the brewing discord between two giant, ambitious nations, even a remote meadow in the Himalayas is worth fighting over.

Some two-dozen Chinese soldiers converged earlier this year on a family of nomads who wouldn't budge from a winter grazing ground that locals say Indian herders had used for generations. China claims the pasture is part of Tibet, not northern India. The soldiers tore up the family's tent and tried to push them back toward the Indian border town of Demchok, Indian authorities say.

Chering Dorjay, the chairman of India's Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, says he arrived on the scene with a new tent and Indian intelligence officers and urged the herders to stay put. "The Chinese, it seems, are gradually taking our territory," he says. "We will feel very insecure unless India strengthens its defenses."

Dueling territorial claims along this heavily militarized mountain border, coupled with economic tensions between the two nations, are kindling a 21st-century rivalry. The budding distrust has created a dilemma for the U.S. about how to court one nation without angering the other.

China and India cooperate occasionally. But in recent years, they have competed vigorously over trade, energy investments, even a race to land a man on the moon. Some Indians want their nation to move closer to the U.S. as a hedge against a rising China -- a strategic shift that's likely to complicate ties among all three.

"China is trying to become No. 1," says Brajesh Mishra, a former national-security adviser for India. "This is the seed of conflict between China, India and the U.S."

The prime ministers of India and China are expected to meet this weekend at a summit of Asian leaders in Bangkok, following several weeks in which their nations traded barbs over trade and disputed territory. "Both sides will exchange views on issues of mutual concern," China's assistant foreign minister, Hu Zhengyao, told reporters Wednesday.

Next month, after a planned visit to China, President Barack Obama will host a U.S. visit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a meeting meant to highlight what the White House says is a "growing strategic partnership." Commercial and military ties between the two countries have been getting stronger. Last year, the U.S. loosened restrictions to allow India to buy sensitive technology and nuclear equipment for civilian use. Soldiers from both countries are participating this month in a joint defense exercise.

Indian defense analysts say India needs closer U.S. ties to hedge against potential hostilities with China. "If China's rise is peaceful, and it integrates into the global economy, everything should be fine," says retired Indian Brig. Gen. Gurmeet Kanwal, director of the Center for Land Warfare Studies, an army think tank. "Should China implode, it's better to have a friend like the U.S."

In addition to the defense concerns, trade friction is growing between India and China. India leads all members of the World Trade Organization in antidumping cases against China. India has banned imports of Chinese toys, milk and chocolate, citing safety concerns, and has launched investigations into export surges of Chinese truck tires and chemicals, among other products.

On Oct. 15, Indian heavy-industries minister Vilasrao Deshmukh asked the finance ministry to impose taxes on imports of inexpensive Chinese power equipment. "We don't want India to be turned into a dumping ground," he told reporters.

At the moment, the biggest threat to India-China relations may be their competing claims for big swaths of territory along their border. In recent years, China has settled border disputes with a host of nations, including Russia, as part of what it calls its "good neighbor policy." But China and India have made little progress, despite 13 rounds of meetings since 2003.

China says the eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is historically part of southern Tibet. India wants China to hand back territory it calls Aksai Chin, desolate high-altitude salt flats that residents of Ladakh claim as part of its ancient Buddhist kingdom. India's discovery of a Chinese-built road in the region helped spark a border war in 1962.

Earlier this month, China objected to a visit by Indian Prime Minister Singh to Arunachal Pradesh to campaign for local elections, saying it was disputed territory. "We request India to pay great attention to China's solemn concerns, and not stir up incidents in the areas of dispute," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.

India's foreign minister countered that Arunachal Pradesh is Indian territory, and demanded that China stop investing in infrastructure-related projects in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan claim the whole of Kashmir.

The 1962 border war, which India lost, complicated the boundary between the two countries. These days, Chinese and Indian forces in some border areas have agreed to go out on different days to patrol contested territory. "We want to avoid an eyeball-to-eyeball conflict," says Gopal Pillai, India's secretary for the home ministry, which oversees the border police.

India and China are intent on turning fast economic growth into national strength. When their interests have converged, they have proven a powerful combination. On Wednesday, they announced plans to cooperate at December's climate-change talks in Copenhagen, a pact likely to see both fighting carbon-emission caps proposed by industrialized nations. During global-trade talks, they both resisted Western pressure to open farm markets.

"China's economic and military growth is not a threat to India. And India's shouldn't be a threat to China," says Cheng Ruisheng, a former Chinese ambassador to India. "We should be an opportunity to one another."

But many Chinese resent any comparison with India, still a largely poor agrarian nation with only about one-third of China's per-capita income. And they're generally wary of India's warming ties with the U.S.

Indians, for their part, bristle over the flood of Chinese imports and China's increasingly cozy ties with India's neighbors, including Nepal, Sri Lanka and arch-rival Pakistan. In a speech last November, Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, then its foreign minister, identified an expansionist China as one of India's top challenges. "Today's China seeks to further her interests more aggressively than in the past," he told the National Defense College in New Delhi.

The Chinese government has objected to a proposed Asian Development Bank program that India hoped would help fund a water project in the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh. This year, the Chinese embassy began issuing visas to residents of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir in a manner that Indian officials say leaves China with a way to later claim that it isn't recognizing the visa recipients as Indian citizens. A spokeswoman for the Chinese embassy in New Delhi says "every country has the right" to set its own visa policies.

U.S. defense contractors could benefit from India's desire to modernize its military. While the U.S. has banned weapons sales to China, it has ramped up such sales to India. Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. are among the defense contractors competing to supply India's air force a new fleet of jet fighters -- a deal that could be valued at $10.4 billion.

Some Chinese analysts say friction between India and China are playing into what they say is a U.S. wish to contain China. "If border tensions between India and China continue to simmer, I can't say the U.S. will be displeased," says Shi Yinhong, a specialist in Sino-U.S. ties at People's University in Beijing.

The contested territory in northern India lies in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The region abutting China, known as Ladakh, consists largely of rocky mountain terrain with isolated green pastures grazed by yaks, goats and horses. Many of the herders and traders living on both sides of the blurred border share the same Tibetan heritage and Buddhist faith. The main town on the Indian side, Leh, was an ancient caravan stop.

Today, the area crawls with Indian soldiers. Indian border police tightly regulate visitors traveling east toward China.

The roads, which run beside Indian army camps and over a pass above 17,000 feet, are dotted with offbeat signs: "I'm curvaceous, be slow," warns one. "I like you darling, but not so fast," says another.

India intends to use the new mountain roads in part to move military supplies. In September, an Indian cargo plane landed at a new high-altitude airstrip near the border.

Indian villagers near the border have been caught in the middle of the conflict. When villagers were constructing an irrigation canal a few years ago, Chinese soldiers tried to wave them off, says Rigzin Spalbar, chairman at the time of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council.

The villagers hurled abuse at the soldiers, but were angry at Indian soldiers for doing nothing, he says. The Chinese "are pestering us to test India's reaction," he says.

Indian residents of the area claim Chinese soldiers have painted Chinese characters on rocks in territory that India claims as its own. The residents say the border has never been as tightly patrolled as it is now.

Konchok Gurmet, 70 years old, lives in Spangmik, a village ringed with Tibetan prayer flags on Panggong Lake, beside the border with China.

He says that until a few years ago he was able to smuggle horses and wool across the border in exchange for Chinese crockery, clothes and thermos bottles.

引用

Hillary Clinton vows she will never run again for the White House.

"No," replied the Secretary of State with a laugh when asked whether she will ever again seek the presidency during an interview that aired on NBC's "Today" show Monday.

"This is a great job. It is a 24/7 job. And I'm looking forward to retirement at some point," Clinton, 61, said.

Clinton, who lost her bid for the Democratic nomination last year, also denied she still wishes she's the one making the final decisions instead of President Obama.

"I have to tell you, it never crosses my mind," Clinton said.

"Never?" NBC's Ann Curry asked again.

"No, not at all," Clinton said. "I am part of the team that makes the decisions."

Clinton vehemently refuted media reports suggesting she is "largely invisible" on the major foreign policy issues facing the nation, most notably the wars in Afghanistan and Iran.

"I find it absurd," said Clinton, referring to the reports saying she's been marginalized. "I find it beyond any realistic assessment of what I'm doing every day."

Still, Clinton conceded, there might be "some misunderstanding" about her stature in the Obama White House that needs to be "clarified."

The former first lady - and now the highest-ranking woman in the Obama administration -- suggested her leadership style might be a factor in the public's perception of her role in the administration.

"I believe in delegating power," Clinton said. "I'm not one of these people who feels like I have to have my face in the front of the newspaper or on the TV every moment of the day. I would be irresponsible and negligent were I to say, 'Oh, no. Everything must come to me.'"

"Now, maybe that is a woman's thing. Maybe I'm totally secure and feel absolutely no need to go running around in order for people to see what I'm doing. It's just the way I am."

Asked whether Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, Clinton said she can't "read" the Nobel committee members' minds.

"But the fact that they recognized that his attitude toward America's role in the world, his willingness to challenge everyone to kind of step up and take responsibility really restores an image and appreciation of our country."

Clinton said she didn't think winning the prize would influence the president's deliberations concerning next steps in Afghanistan, including the question of whether to increase the number of troops in the country.

"I think that the president makes each decision on the merits," she said. "It's not going to influence some of these tough decisions."

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The President of the United States doesn't have to give back the Nobel Peace Prize just because people in his own country don't think he deserves it, he doesn't have to apologize for it or act like getting caught with a Nobel is like a talk-show host getting caught with an intern.

The Nobel hasn't suddenly become more trivial than the People's Choice Awards because Barack Obama wasn't supposed to get it. And just because the committee finally found another American President it thought worthy of this honor doesn't mean Obama really wants to be President of the whole world.

That was the guy before him.

This really is a first with the Nobel, all these sudden and self-righteous experts on the prize actually wondering how badly an honor like this hurts Obama.

Chicago loses the Olympics, Obama is the one who really lost. He wins the Nobel Prize and is told he's some kind of bum loser again. Forget that he was surprised and properly humbled and said so. Forget that the $1.4 million he got for the prize goes to charity.

The truth is that the ones who hate him, hate anything he tries to do, don't want him to win any prize with the word "peace" attached to it, not at a time when they want him to be a big-war President and give the generals what generals always want, which is more troops.

Right now Obama has to do the hardest thing any President ever has to do: Be smart and right in a time of war. People keep saying that the opposition he faces right now is as mean and hateful as what Bill Clinton faced. No, it isn't. There was no war for Clinton when he took office. It changes everything.

Gen. William Westmoreland always wanted another 100,000 troops from Lyndon Johnson to send to Vietnam. Johnson kept going along until he finally said no. It was much too late for Johnson by then, of course, his legacy was shot, the American President who signed the Civil Rights Act and who signed Medicare into law was going to be remembered for Vietnam, the war that finally made him quit on his stool in the spring of 1968.

Now, the only way Obama is supposed to get the armies of the right off his back is to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal what he wants, as many as 40,000 more troops for Afghanistan, maybe as many as 60,000.

Obama put himself on this road when he sent more troops over there and said he had to, it wasn't just his war, it was America's war, and a war of necessity. Right. So was Vietnam. At the beginning of 1964, there were 16,000 military "advisers" in Vietnam. By 1967, the number of ground troops had grown to nearly half a million

Still Westmoreland kept pushing for more. He called 550,000 the "minimum essential force" and called 670,000 American troops "optimum." That was when Johnson, broken by then, famously asked, "Where does it all end?" And Westmoreland said that if he got all the troops he wanted, he could finish the job in three years.

Obama worried too much about being called weak during the campaign and he is clearly worried about the same thing now, as his own generals call for reinforcements in Afghanistan. So do the tough guys in the media who have never served a day in the military in their lives. These are the same guys who worry about where the money will come from to pay for Obama's social agenda but never worry about where we find enough soldiers to fight these wars.

We can't keep sending the same heroes back, or the war in Afghanistan eventually becomes a nightmare out of "Zombieland." You know where the soldiers will eventually have to come from for Obama to be the big, strong, brave President they say he has to be with wars? From a draft. Wait and see how much the war lovers love war if the military ever comes after their sons and daughters.

You want to say this President hasn't backed up his own fancy words so far? You want to say he's done an awful job of explaining the difference between health care and health care legislation? Go ahead. And he does seem lost sometimes, preoccupied with being the most popular kid in class. But the idea that it's some sort of terrible thing for the rest of the world to think highly of him is just one more shouted lie in America.

Just not nearly as big and loud a lie as this one:

That the only way for Barack Obama to make things right for winning the Nobel Peace Prize is by sending more kids off to war.

The first doses of swine flu vaccine will be nasal sprays, not shots, health officials said Friday.

The needle-free FluMist is not recommended for some of the people most in danger of serious complications from swine flu - including pregnant women, children younger than 2, and people with asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Some 3.4 million doses of the nasal spray will be available the first week of October, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It is not clear when swine flu shots will be ready.

Health officials in the city expect to receive an initial shipment of 1.2 million doses next month, followed by a half-million more every week thereafter.

The city Department of Health, which will offer free vaccines to all school-aged children this fall, says the spray and shot are equally effective among healthy people ages 2 to 49.