火星文時代——英文字母大改造

"I've never reay pai much aenin? wrd an ff like ha,? ? ell y?? he rh. B hi i fn. I barey even fee ike I'm wriing."
漢字有改革，英語也會與時俱進哦。

Dynamic, sleek, and even sexy is how a panel of typographic and marketing experts described the 15 new replacement letters they unveiled in an effort to reinvigorate interest in the faltering English alphabet.
印刷和市場專家組為更新過時的英文字母表而設計出15個新型字母寫法，并稱自己的設計靈動優(yōu)美，乃至性感。

"Forget everything you thought you knew about reading and writing," announced David Greenberg, 34, lead designer of the exciting ABC makeover. "These new letters are hip, fresh, and sure to forever change the way English speakers everywhere form their words."
字母大變裝工程的首席設計師David Greenberg宣稱：“拋棄你過去的讀寫習慣，這些新的字母更時髦，更新鮮，并將永遠改變英語使用者構詞造句的方式?！?br>
According to Greenberg, the exciting new set of consonants and vowels will be rolled out over the next few months, and should find its way into most newspapers, magazines, and popular works of fiction by early spring.
據Greenberg所言，再過一個月，激動人心的新型輔音和元音字母表就要面世了，開春不久，這些字母就會出現在報紙、雜志以及暢銷小說里面。
In addition to giving the alphabet a "much-needed face-lift," Greenberg and his team said they'd be drastically changing the order of most letters in an effort to better reflect modern tastes.
Greenberg和他的同事們將徹底改變大部分字母的構造，在給字母表改頭換面的同時，更好的反應出現代人的品味。

The result of nearly a year of focus-group testing, the new letters are reportedly more than just an aesthetic update. Studies found that more than 87 percent of Americans rarely ever use the letter "X" in their daily lives, a discovery that led to a complete reworking of the neglected consonant that has transformed it from unpopular alphabet pariah to something "people will be dying to write down."
經過將近一年的團體討論和測試，新字母據稱具有超出審美效果的意義。研究表明，87%以上的美國人在他們的日常生活中幾乎不會用到X這個字母。這被遺忘多時的“邊緣字母”經過改造，將成為“人們極度渴望寫下”的字母新寵。

Space Programs For The Poor
蝸居原來不是我們的專利，看看美國人為了拓展生存空間，想出了什么好方法。

So, the United States just sent another multimillion-dollar shuttle out into space to do God knows what. Yet all the while, back here on Earth, men and women are living so far below the poverty line that they can't even obtain the most basic of necessities, let alone ride aboard the Atlantis out of our planet's atmosphere.

It's a travesty, really.

Every time NASA launches a shuttle, it's $450 million right up God's great blue chimney. Think of all the good that money could do if it were instead used to put disadvantaged inner- city youths into orbit. Or how many single mothers struggling to get by that money could strap into a large, spinning gyroscope that tests the effects of g-force on the human body. Or what a difference we could make for our countless homeless citizens, who more than anything else need a space station to call their own.

It boggles the mind to even contemplate it.

Do the math, sheeple! We cannot, as a country, justify sending our elite, middle-class, Cal Tech–educated astronauts into space while there are so many who spend each day wondering where their next hot meal will come from or where they're going to sleep tonight or whether they'll ever do a space walk without having to first stand in some humiliating, government-run unemployment line.

I spoke to an economically disadvantaged child the other day—we'll call him Calvin—and he had never tasted a tube of dehydrated chicken. Not even once. I tried to explain to him what it was and that it had been to the moon, but his life is so different from mine or yours that he had no context in which he could understand what I was saying. That's the point we've gotten to. That's how bad it's become. All I could do was look at him and shake my head and wonder how we can even call ourselves Americans anymore.

蝸居生活：與租房有關的英語表達>>>

Because we live in two Americas now: The America for those who are trained as pilots or engineers and eventually become astronauts who go on missions in space, and the America for the poor. The time to put our most vulnerable and our most needy in space is now. We can't keep running from this problem, hoping it will go away. They have just as much of a right to live in dignity and urinate in a specially designed suit built to withstand incredible heat and cold while protecting the human body from violent and sudden changes in air pressure as anyone else.

In other words: a space program for the people who need a space program most.And for you hardcore businessmen and capitalists out there, there's a practical application in this, too: Why pay highly trained astronauts to go to the International Space Station and test the effects of unfiltered ultraviolet radiation on bacteria when there are plenty of eager young teenagers who would jump at the chance to do the same thing at a cost that wouldn't break the bank?I'm not talking about a handout, I'm talking about a hand up—up 20,000 miles into space, where our nation's most desperate and destitute can gaze down on this big blue marble ball of clouds and dreams and be inspired to lift themselves out of poverty.