英文文章纯英文长篇

　　语言学习与 文化 学习是交织在一起的，语言习得者要掌握好一门语言，尤其是第二语言，具备充足的文化背景知识是必不可少的。下面是我带来的英文长篇美文阅读，欢迎阅读!

　　英文长篇美文阅读篇一
　　Americans have any morals

　　Do Americans have any morals? Thats a good question. Many people insist that ideas about right and wrong are merely personal opinions. Some voices, though, are calling Americans back to traditional moral values. William J. Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education, edited The Book of Virtues in 1993 to do just that. Bennett suggests that great moral stories can build character. The success of Bennetts book shows that many Americans still believe in moral values. But what are they?

　　美国人还有道德吗?这是个好问题。许多人坚持对与错乃是个人的意见。但是，还是有些人在呼唤美国人回到传统的道德价值里去。威廉。班奈特，前任美国 教育 部长，正是为了此目的而在一九九三年编辑了「美德」这本书。班奈特认为伟大的道德 故事 可以建造性格。班奈持这本书的成功显示了许多美国人仍然相信道德的价值。但是它们到底为何?

　　To begin with, moral values in America are like those in any culture. In fact, many aspects of morality are universal. But the stories and traditions that teach them are unique to each culture. Not only that, but culture influences how people show these virtues.

　　最开始，道德价值在美国就像在任何 其它 的文化一样。事实上，许多道德的观点是全球一致的。但是，不同的文化则有不同的故事和传统来教导它们。不仅如此，文化也影响了人民如何表现这些美德。

　　One of the most basic moral values for Americans is honesty. The well-known legend about George Washington and the cherry tree teaches this value clearly. Little George cut down his fathers favorite cherry tree while trying out his new hatchet. When his father asked him about it, George said, “I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my hatchet.” Instead of punishment, George received praise for telling the truth. Sometimes American honesty-being open and direct-can offend people. But Americans still believe that “honesty is the best policy.”

　　美国人最基本的道德价值之一是诚实。众所周知的乔治。华盛顿砍樱桃树的故事，即将此道德教导地极为清楚。小乔治在试他新斧头时砍倒了爸爸最心爱的樱桃树。当爸爸问他的时候，乔治说，「我不能说谎，我用我的斧头砍了它。」乔治非但未被惩罚，反而因为诚实而被赞赏。有时候美国人仍然相信「诚实是最上策」

　　Another virtue Americans respect is perseverance. Remember Aesops fable about the turtle and the rabbit that had a race? The rabbit thought he could win easily, so he took a nap. But the turtle finally won because he did not give up. Another story tells of a little train that had to climb a steep hill. The hill was so steep that the little train had a hard time trying to get over it. But the train just kept pulling, all the while saying, “I think I can, I think I can.” At last, the train was over the top of the hill. “I thought I could, I thought I could,” chugged the happy little train.

　　另外一个为美国人所尊崇的美德为坚忍。记得再龟兔赛跑这则伊索寓言吗?兔子以为它可以赢的很轻松，便睡了个午觉，但是乌龟再最后终因不放弃而赢了这场比赛。另一个故事谈到一个必须爬过陡峭山头的小火车，山头是这么陡，以至于小火车很难爬上去，但是它仍不断地爬，并不停地说：「我想我能做到，我能做到。」最后，火车终于爬过了山头，「我就知道我可以。」这个快乐的小火车继续往前去。

　　Compassion may be the queen of American virtues. The story of “The Good Samaritan” from the Bible describes a man who showed compassion. On his way to a certain city, a Samaritan man found a poor traveler lying on the road. The traveler had been beaten and robbed. The kind Samaritan, instead of just passing by, stopped to help this person in need. Compassion can even turn into a positive cycle. In fall 1992, people in Iowa sent truckloads of water to help Floridians hit by a hurricane. The next summer, during the Midwest flooding, Florida returned the favor. In less dramatic ways, millions of Americans are quietly passing along the kindnesses shown to them.

　　同情心，可能是美国的道德之最了。圣经中的「好撒玛利亚人」的故事，描述一个流露同情心的人。在这个撒玛利亚人出发去某城市的途中，看到一个可怜的旅客躺在路旁。这旅客被鞭打、抢劫，这位仁慈的撒玛利亚人非但没有视而不见，反而停下来帮助这位有需要的人。同情心还可以变成一个正面循环，在一九九二年的秋天，爱荷华州的居民将好几辆卡车的水送到受飓风侵袭的佛罗里达州;而就在第二年夏天，当中西部闹水灾的时候，佛州人便投挑报李。数以百万计的美国人民正用较不醒目的方式回报人们向他们表达的善意。

　　In no way can this brief description cover all the moral values honored by Americans. Courage, responsibility, loyalty, gratitude and many others could be discussed. In fact, Bennetts bestseller-over 800 pages-highlights just 10 virtues. Even Bennett admits that he has only scratched the surface. But no matter how long or short the list, moral values are invaluable. They are the foundation of American culture-and any culture.

　　在这么一篇短短的 文章 里，无论如何也不能将美国人所尊崇的道德述尽。勇气、责任心、忠诚、感激之心还有许多其它可以讨论的。事实上，班奈特最畅销的书──超过八百页──只谈到了十种美德。即使班奈特也承认他只谈到了皮毛而已。但是不论这张道德表是多长或短，道德价值都是无价的。他们是美国文化──和任何其它国家的文化之基础

英语长篇励志文章

阅读是英语教学必不可少的组成部分,它既是一项十分重要的语言技能,又是获取知识的重要手段。下面是我带来的英语长篇 励志 文章 ，欢迎阅读!

英语长篇励志文章1

Learning to Get Out of the Way

In every one of the higher religions there is a strain of infinite optimism on the one hand,and on the other,of a profound the depths of our being,they all teach,there is an inner highbut an inner Light which our egotism keeps,for most of the time,in a state of more of less ,however,it so desires,the ego can get out of the way,so to speak,can diseclipse the Light and become identified wiht its divine the unlimited optimmism of the traditional pessinism springs from the observed fact that,though all are called,few are chosenfor the sufficient reason that few choose to be chosen.

To me,this older conception of mans nature and destiny seems more realistic,more nearly in accord with the given facts,than any form of modern utopianism.

In the Lords Prayer we are taught to ask for the blessing which consists in not being led into reason is only too temptations are very great or unduly prolonged,most persons succumb on devise a perfect social order is probably beyond our powers,but I believe that it is perfectly possible for us to reduce the number of dangerous temptations to a level far below that which is tolerated at the present time.

A society so arranged that there shall be a minimum of dangerous temptationsthis is the end towards which,as a citizen,I have to my efforts to that end,I can make use of a great variety of good ends justify the use of intrinsically bad means?On the level of theory,the point can be argued practice,meanwhile,I find that the means employed invariably determine the nature of the end ,as Mahatma Gandhi was never tired of insisting,the means are the end in its preliminary have put forth enoumous efforts to make their world a better place to live in;but except in regard to gadgets,plumbing and hygiene,their sussess has been pathetically small."hell,"as the proverb has it,"is paved with good intentions."And so long as we go on trying to realize our ideals by bad or merely inappropriate means,our good intentions will come to the same bad this consists the tragedy and the irony of history.

Can I,as an individual,do anything to make future history a little less tragic and less ironic than history past and present?I believe I a citizen,I can use all my intelligence and all my good will to develop political means that shall be of the same kind and quality as the ideal ends which I am trying to as a person,as a psychophysical roganism,I can learn how to get out of the way,so that the divine source of my life and consciousness can come out of eclipse and shine through me.

在每种高级宗教的信仰中既包含无穷的乐观精神，又有一种深奥的悲观论。它们都告诫我们，在我们生命深处有一道内在的光芒——而这道光芒大多时候多多少少被我们自负的阴影所遮盖。然而，如果愿意，自负可以离开，或者说可以让这道光芒重新闪耀，并与创造它的神相融合，于是产生了传统宗教无尽的乐观主义，而其悲观论源于人们观察到的事实，即尽管人人皆受到召唤，却只有极少数人受到垂青——全因几乎无人愿受到垂青。

在我看来，这种关于人性及命运的更老的观念似乎比任何形式的现代乌托邦主义更现实，更符合既成事实。

主祷文教导我们要乞求上帝保佑，不被诱惑引入歧途，原因非常清楚，如果诱惑太大或延续太久，大多数人就会屈服。也许我们无力设计一种完美的社会秩序，但我相信我们完全可以将危险的诱惑减少到远远低于目前可忍受的程度。

构建一个能将危险的诱惑最小化的社会是我作为一个公民奋斗的目标。在为之奋斗的过程中，我可以采用各种方式，然而目标正确就可以采用实质上不正当的手段开脱吗?在理论层面上，这一点可以广泛讨论;在实践中，我同时发现，采用的手段决定目标的性质，无一例外。确实正如马哈特玛·甘地不厌其烦地坚持的那样，手段是目标的初始阶段。人们千方百计将这个世界建成更美好的家园，但除了小器械，管道安装和卫生之外，他们的成就少得可怜。“地狱”正如一句 谚语 所说“是由善意铺就的”。只要我们继续试图以卑劣或仅仅不当的手段实现理想，我们的善意将同样酿出恶果，构成历史的悲剧和讽刺。

作为个人，我能尽全力使未来不像过去和现在那么富有悲剧和讽刺意味吗?我相信，我能。作为公民，我能以我全部的智慧和全部的善意，运用与我为之奋斗的理想同种同质的政治手段。作为一个人，一种具备身心的有机体，我能学会如何摆脱自负，这样赋予我生命和意识的神的光芒就能驱散阴影，照亮我全身。

英语长篇励志文章2

Growth That Starts From Thinking

It seems to me a very difficult thing to put into words the beliefs we hold and what they make you do in your life. I think I was fortunate because I grew up in a family where there was a very deep religious feeling. I don’t think it was spoken of a great deal. It was more or less taken for granted that everybody held certain beliefs and needed certain reinforcements of their own strength and that that came through your belief in God and your knowledge of prayer.

But as I grew older I questioned a great many of the things that I knew very well my grandmother who had brought me up had taken for granted. And I think I might have been a quite difficult person to live with if it hadn’t been for the fact that my husband once said it didn’t do you any harm to learn those things, so why not let your children learn them? When they grow up they’ll think things out for themselves.

And that gave me a feeling that perhaps that’s what we all must do—think out for ourselves what we could believe and how we could live by it. And so I came to the conclusion that you had to use this life to develop the very best that you could develop.

I don’t know whether I believe in a future life. I believe that all that you go through here must have some value, therefore there must be some reason. And there must be some “going on.” How exactly that happens I’ve never been able to decide. There is a future—that I’m sure of. But how, that I don’t know. And I came to feel that it didn’t really matter very much because whatever the future held you’d have to face it when you came to it, just as whatever life holds you have to face it exactly the same way. And the important thing was that you never let down doing the best that you were able to do—it might be poor because you might not have very much within you to give, or to help other people with, or to live your life with. But as long as you did the very best that you were able to do, then that was what you were put here to do and that was what you were accomplishing by being here.

And so I have tried to follow that out—and not to worry about the future or what was going to happen. I think I am pretty much of a fatalist. You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

在思考中成长

我的信念是什么，它在我的人生中起到了什么作用这些问题我觉得很难用言语解释清楚。我认为自己很幸运，因为我出生在一个笃信宗教的家庭。家里人对宗教谈论得并不多。每个人心中或多或少都有某些信仰，都希望通过某种方式获得力量，而这力量就来自信奉上帝并懂得如何祈祷。

我是在祖母身边长大的。随着年龄的增长，我对许多祖母视作理所当然的事产生了怀疑。我甚至拒绝让孩子们接触这些东西，似乎成了一个不近情理的人。直到有一次我丈夫劝我，这些东西你年少时也接触过，对你也并无坏处。既然如此，何不让孩子们也有了解它们的机会呢?他们长大以后会独立思考这些问题的。

他的话使我感到或许我们每个人都应该这样做独立思考自己应该信仰什么以及如何在生活中坚守自己的的信仰。我认为人一生就应该尽全力做最好的自己我想这就是我的信仰。

我不知道自己是否相信未来。我相信的是我们现在经历的一切一定有价值，因此必有某些道理，也必然预示着有些事情“将要发生”。但这些事情如何发生，我却不能决定。一定有未来对此我深信不疑。但它会怎样降临。我不知道，然而着一点，我渐渐感到并不重要。因为无论未来如何，我们到时候总得面对，正如无论生活中发生了什么，我们都必须面对一样。真正重要的是要倾尽自己的全力。也许你能力有限、贡献不多，无法给予他人更多的帮助，或者无法活得那么精彩，但只要你能倾尽自己的全力，你就能完成来到人世间的使命，能体现人生的价值。

这就是我一直奉行的生活原则不担心未来的事，也不为下一刻发生的事操心。我想我算是一个相信宿命的人吧。无论发生什么，我们都得勇敢面对，关键是面对的时候我们要勇敢，要倾尽自己的全力。

英语长篇励志文章3

A New Look from Borrowed Time

By Ralph Richmond

Just ten years ago, I sat across the desk from a doctor with a stethoscope. “Yes,” he said, “there is a lesion in the left, upper lobe. You have a moderately advanced case…” I listened, stunned, as he continued, “You’ll have to give up work at once and go to bed. Later on, we’ll see.” He gave no assurances.

Feeling like a man who in mid-career has suddenly been placed under sentence of death with an indefinite reprieve, I left the doctor’s office, walked over to the park, and sat down on a bench, perhaps, as I then told myself, for the last time. I needed to think. In the next three days, I cleared up my affairs; then I went home, got into bed, and set my watch to tick off not the minutes, but the months. 2 ? years and many dashed hopes later, I left my bed and began the long climb back. It was another year before I made it.

I speak of this experience because these years that past so slowly taught me what to value and what to believe. They said to me: Take time, before time takes you. I realize now that this world I’m living in is not my oyster to be opened but myopportunity to be grasped. Each day, to me, is a precious entity. The sun comes up and presents me with 24 brand new, wonderful hours—not to pass, but to fill.

I’ve learned to appreciate those little, all-important things I never thought I had the time to notice before: the play of light on running water, the music of the wind in my favorite pine tree. I seem now to see and hear and feel with some of the recovered freshness of childhood. How well, for instance, I recall the touch of thespringy earth under my feet the day I first stepped upon it after the years in bed. It was almost more than I could bear. It was like regaining one’s citizenship in a world one had nearly lost.

Frequently, I sit back and say to myself, Let me make note of this moment I’m living right now, because in it I’m well, happy, hard at work doing what I like best to do. It won’t always be like this, so while it is I’ll make the most of it—and afterwards, I remember—and be grateful. All this, I owe to that long time spent on the sidelines of life. Wiser people come to this awareness without having to acquire it the hard way. But I wasn’t wise enough. I’m wiser now, a little, and happier.

“Look thy last on all things lovely, every hour.” With these words, Walter de la Mare sums up for me my philosophy and my belief. God made this world—in spite of what man now and then tries to do to unmake it—a dwelling place of beauty and wonder, and He filled it with more goodness than most of us suspect. And so I say to myself, Should I not pretty often take time to absorb the beauty and the wonder, to contribute a least a little to the goodness? And should I not then, in my heart, give thanks? Truly, I do. This I believe.

英语长篇文章阅读

众所周知，阅读作为人类汲取知识的主要手段和认知世界的主要途径之一，一度成为语文、外语等文科类学科学习的主要方式，而倍受关注和青睐。下面是我带来的英语长篇 文章 阅读，欢迎阅读!

英语长篇文章阅读1

寒武纪大爆发 动物王国出现

Science and technology

The Cambrian explosion

Kingdom come

Chinese palaeontologists hope to explain the rise of the animals

AMONG the mysteries of evolution, one of the most profound is what exactly happened at the beginning of the Cambrian period.

Before that period, which started 541m years ago and ran on for 56m years, life was a modest thing.

Bacteria had been around for about 3 billion years, but for most of this time they had had the Earth to themselves.

Seaweeds, jellyfish-like creatures, sponges and the odd worm do start to put in an appearance a few million years before the Cambrian begins.

But red in tooth and claw the Precambrian was not—for neither teeth nor claws existed.

Then, in the 20m-year blink of a geological eye, animals arrived in force.

Most of the main groups of the animal kingdom—arthropods, brachiopods, coelenterates, echinoderms, molluscs and even chordates, the branch from which vertebrates went on to develop—are found in the fossil beds of the Cambrian.

The sudden evolution of this megafauna is known as the Cambrian explosion.

But two centuries after it was noticed, in the mountains of Wales after which the Cambrian period is named, nobody knows what detonated it.

A group of Chinese scientists, led by Zhu Maoyan of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, plan to change that with a project called “From the Snowball Earth to the Cambrian explosion: the evolution of life and environment 600m years ago”.

The “Snowball Earth” refers to a series of ice ages that happened between 725m and 541m years ago.

These were, at their maxima, among the most extensive glaciations in the Earth’s history.

They alternated, though, with periods that make the modern tropics seem chilly: the planet’s average temperature was sometimes as high as 50C.

Add the fact that a supercontinent was breaking up at this time, and you have a picture of a world in chaos.

Just the sort of thing that might drive evolution.

Dr Zhu and his colleagues hope to find out exactly how these environmental changes correspond to changes in the fossil record.

The animals’ carnival

Fortunately, China’s fossil record for this period is rich.

Until recently, the only known fossils of Precambrian animals were what is called the Ediacaran fauna—a handful of strange creatures found in Australia, Canada and the English Midlands that lived in the Ediacaran period, between 635m and 541m years ago, and which bear little resemblance to what came afterwards.

In 1998, however, a team led by Chen Junyuan, also of the Nanjing Institute, and another led by Xiao Shuhai of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in America, discovered a 580m-year-old Lagersttte—a place where fossils are particularly well preserved—in a geological formation called the Doushantuo, which spreads out across southern China.

Portents of the modern world

This Lagersttte has yielded many previously unknown species, including microscopic sponges, small tubular organisms of unknown nature, things that look like jellyfish but might not be and a range of what appear to be embryos that show bilateral symmetry.

What these embryos would have grown into is unclear. But some might be the ancestors of the Cambrian megafauna.

To try to link the evolution of these species with changes in the environment, Chu Xuelei of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing and his colleagues have been looking at carbon isotopes in the Doushantuo rocks.

They have found that the proportion of 12C—a light isotope of carbon that is more easily incorporated by living organisms into organic matter than its heavy cousin, 13C—increased on at least three occasions during the Ediacaran period.

They suggest these increases mark moments when the amount of oxygen in seawater went up, because more oxygen would mean more oxidisation of buried organic matter. That would liberate its 12C, for incorporation into rocks.

Each of Dr Chu’s oxidation events corresponds with an increase in the size, complexity and diversity of life, both plant and animal.

What triggered what, however, is unclear.

There may have been an increase in photosynthesis because there were more algae around.

Or eroded material from newly formed mountains may have buried organic matter that would otherwise have reacted with oxygen, leading to a build-up of the gas.

The last—and most dramatic—rise in oxygen took place towards the end of the Ediacaran.

Follow-up work by Dr Zhu, in nine other sections of the Doushantuo formation, suggests this surge started just after the final Precambrian glacial period about 560m years ago, and went on for 9m years.

These dates overlap with those of signs of oxidation found in rocks in other parts of the world, confirming that whatever was going on affected the entire planet.

Dr Zhu suspects this global environmental shift propelled the evolution of complex animals.

Dr Zhu also plans to push back before the Ediacaran period.

Other researchers have found fossils of algae and wormlike creatures in rocks in northern China that pre-date the end of the Marinoan glaciation, 635m years ago, which marks the boundary between the Ediacaran and the Cryogenian period that precedes it.

Such fossils are hard to study, so Dr Zhu will use new imaging technologies that can look at them without having to clean away the surrounding rock, and are also able to detect traces of fossil organic matter invisible to the eye.

Besides digging back before the Ediacaran, the new project’s researchers also intend to analyse the unfolding of the Cambrian explosion itself by taking advantage of other Lagersttten—for China has several that date from the Cambrian.

Dr Chen, indeed, first made his name in 1984, when he excavated one at Chengjiang in Yunnan province.

It dates from 525m years ago, which make it 20m years older than the most famous CambrianLagersttte in the West, the Burgess shale of British Columbia, in Canada.

The project’s researchers plan to see how, evolutionarily speaking, the various Lagerst?tten relate to one another, to try to determine exactly when different groups of organisms emerged.

They will also look at the chemistry of elements other than carbon and oxygen—particularly nitrogen and phosphorous, which are essential to life, and sulphur, which often indicates the absence of oxygen and is thus antithetical to much animal life.

Dr Zhu hopes to map changes in the distribution of these chemicals across time and space.

He will assess how these changes correlate, whether they are related to weathering, mountain building and the ebb and flow of glaciers, how they could have affected the evolution of life, and how plants and animals might themselves have altered the chemistry of air and sea.

Most ambitiously, Dr Zhu, Dr Xiao and their colleagues hope to drill right through several fossiliferous sites in southern China where Ediacaran rocks turn seamlessly into Cambrian ones.

Such places are valuable because in most parts of the world there is a gap, known as an unconformity, between the Ediacaran and the Cambrian.

Unconformities are places where rocks have been eroded before new ones are deposited, and the widespread Ediacaran-Cambrian unconformity has been a big obstacle to understanding the Cambrian explosion.

With luck, then, a mystery first noticed in the Welsh mountains in the early 19th century will be solved in the Chinese ones in the early 21st.

If it is, the origin of the animal kingdom will have become clear, and an important gap in the history of humanity itself will have been filled.

英语长篇文章阅读2

巴西水资源 无水可喝

Water in Brazil

Nor any drop to drink

Dry weather and a growing population spell rationing

BRAZIL has the worlds biggest reserves of fresh water. That most of it sits in the sparsely populated Amazon has not historically stopped Brazilians in the drier, more populous south taking it for granted. No longer. Landlords in S?o Paulo, who are wont to hose down pavements with gallons of potable water, have taken to using brooms instead. Notices in lifts and on the metro implore paulistanos to take shorter showers and re-use coffee mugs.

S?o Paulo state, home to one-fifth of Brazils population and one-third of its economic activity, is suffering the worst drought since records began in 1930. Pitiful rainfall and high rates of evaporation in scorching heat have caused the volume of water stored in the Cantareira system of reservoirs, which supplies 10m people, to dip below 12% of capacity. This time last year, at the end of what is nominally the wet season, it stood at 64%.

On April 21st the governor, Geraldo Alckmin, warned that from May consumers will be fined for increasing their water use. Those who cut consumption are already rewarded with discounts on their bills. The city will tap three basins supplying other parts of the state, but since these reservoirs have also been hit by drought and supply hydropower plants, fears of blackouts are rising.

Without a downpour, Sabesp, the state water utility, expects Cantareiras levels to sink beneath the pipes which link reservoirs to consumers a week after S?o Paulo hosts the opening game of the football World Cup on June 12th. To tide the city over until rains resume in November, it is installing kit to pump half of the 400 billion litres of reserves beneath the pipes, at a cost of 80m reais. The company says this “dead volume”, never before used, is perfectly treatable. Some experts have expressed concerns about its quality.

Mr Alckmin has not ruled out tightening the spigots. Flow from taps in parts of S?o Paulo has already become a trickle, for which Sabesp blames maintenance work. Widespread cuts could hurt the governors re-election bid in October. Hours after he announced the latest measures, a thirsty mob set fire to a bus.

Paulistanos use more water than most Brazilians, but lose less of it to leaks: 35%, compared with a national average of 39%. Sabesp, listed on the New York Stock Exchange but majority-owned by the state government, is a paragon of good governance, says John Briscoe, a water expert at Harvard and a former head of the World Bank mission in Brazil.

The problem exposed by the drought is that supply has not kept pace with the rising urban population. Facing a jumble of overlapping municipal, state and federal regulations, investment in storage, distribution and treatment has lagged behind. And not just in S?o Paulo; the national water regulator has warned that 16 projects in the ten biggest cities must be completed by 2015 to prevent chronic water shortages over the next decade. So far only five are finished; work on some has not begun. Short-term measures should keep the water trickling for now. But the well of temporary solutions will eventually run dry.

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德国公司的管理 董事会的多元化

Business

Corporate governance in Germany

Diversifying the board

German boards have long been cosy mens clubs. But things are changing

HERMANN JOSEF ABS liked to joke, Whats the difference between a doghouse and the supervisory board?

The doghouse is for the dog; the supervisory board is for the cat.

For those unfamiliar with the nuances of German humour, for the cat is slang for something like trash.

The late banker would know: while running Deutsche Bank from 1957 to 1967, he also sat on dozens of supervisory boards.

This was the peak of Deutschland AG, a clique of long-serving bosses, autocratic chairmen, do-nothing board members and their financier friends.

Big German companies supervisory boards are supposed to act as a check on their management boards.

But in practice their relations were too cosy for this.

This past year the stumbles of two titans seemed to highlight how much corporate power is still concentrated in few hands in the Germanspeaking world.

As 2013 began Gerhard Cromme was chairman of the supervisory boards of both Siemens, an industrial conglomerate, and ThyssenKrupp, a steelmaker.

But big losses at foreign mills and heavy fines over a cartel case cost him the chairmanship at ThyssenKrupp.

Then in July, a boardroom bunfight at Siemens ended with the departure of Peter Lscher, the chief executive.

Mr Cromme belatedly called for his firing—but only after hiring him and protecting him for years.

Josef Ackermann, a Swiss former boss of Deutsche Bank and a Siemens board member, had defended Mr Lscher.

When Mr Lscher went, so did he.

Shortly before this he had quit as chairman of Zurich, a Swiss insurer, whose chief financial officer had committed suicide, leaving a note berating Mr Ackermann.

Now he has no big corporate job, there have been reports that Mr Ackermann may have to step down as a trustee of the World Economic Forum after its gabfest in Davos this week.

At first glance, corporate power in Germany still looks male, German and concentrated.

But its boardrooms are slowly getting more diverse.

In 2003 the average supervisory-board member at a public company sat on 1.9 boards; now the figure is 1.6.

A 2001 cut in tax on sales of shares let banks and insurance companies, which played big roles as lenders and part-owners, start disentangling themselves from companies.

Into the gaps, and onto the boards, has come a new generation of more active members.

Boards have little choice but to be sharper, says Christoph Schalast of Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

Many companies are now paying fines and settlements for their behaviour before the financial crisis.

A 2010 change in the law doubled the statute of limitations for such misdeeds to ten years.

Progress on making boards more international is slower.

Eight of the largest 30 public companies have foreign bosses, but the rest of their boards members are predominantly German, even at the countrys most multinational firms.

But Burkhard Schwenker, the boss of Roland Berger, a consulting firm, says that counting passports is simplistic: what matters more is international experience, which German firms increasingly look for when recruiting both management-and supervisory-board members.

If boards are becoming more professional and diverse, is accumulation of board seats a bad thing in itself?

Jrg Rocholl, the president of the European School for Management and Technology, says that studies disagree on whether busy board members are better or worse for profits.

But he agrees that boards are becoming more capable, and says this has been a factor in Germanys economic revival.

Pay for German board members is going up; but these days, members are earning it.

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Floating Amidst The Stars Stargazing Meditation Since the beginning of time, humans have gazed at the stars in the night sky with awe, seeking in their luminosity everything from answers to inspiration to guidance. We have emerged from our contemplations with stories of gods and goddesses, maps of the universe, astrology, astronomy, math, and art. We have worshipped, wondered, and even projected ourselves out into space in an attempt to understand their magical essence. We know more now than we ever have about what those celestial lights are, how far away they reside, and what will happen to them over time, but facts and information are still no substitute for experiencing them yourself. Gazing at the stars is no doubt one of the earliest forms of meditation practiced by human beings, and it is readily available to this day. If you live in a city, you may have a hard time seeing the stars, but a short drive can take you far enough beyond the city lights to reveal their glory. If you live in a rural setting, all you have to do is wait for the sun to set and the night to settle to get the show of your life, every night. If you make a habit of it, you will begin to know the seasonal changes of the night sky, deepening your connection to the earth and the universe in which you live. One of the best ways to stargaze is to lie down on a blanket so that your body can fully relax. This position allows your breath to move easily through your tranquil form as you settle down into the earth, connecting your consciousness to the sky. As you look deeply into its vastness, allowing your awareness to alternate between the pinpoints of light and the blue-black space that holds them, your breath expands and contracts your body, just as the universe expands and contracts to its own eternal rhythm. You may feel as if you are floating amidst the stars or that they are raining down upon you. You may feel peacefulness, joy, and connectedness, or any of a full range of emotions. Simply continue to breathe, experiencing the wonder of this universe and your place within it.

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