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The Youngest Tennis Champion —Martina Hingis We’re used to swaggering, in-your-face trash talk from NBA players, boxers and even a few politicians, but teenagers in tennis skirts? There’s a new generation of women on the court. They’re young. They’re pretty. And they’re unbelievably brash about everything. Here’s 17-year-old Martina Hingis explaining her lack of humility：“ People say that I am arrogant. I am No. 1 in the world, so I have a right to be arrogant.” Actually she’s the best in the world. Two years after becoming the youngest No. 1 player in history, Hingis won her second Family Circle title. Hingis came to Britain in 1997, posing with a large “No. 1” made of tennis balls. A week later, she had earned her sixth straight title and 31st straight victory with a Family Circle title. “At that stage, you don’t really get it that you’re the best tennis player in the world,” Hingis, 18, said after a 6-4, 6-3 win over Kournikova Sunday. “There is always another match to go, another tournament.” It was only later, she said, she realized, “I became No. 1. I’m like the best.” Hardly arguing anymore now. It’s been a difficult week in the shadows for Hingis, pushed aside by the all-Williams’ final at the Lipton Championships last week and Kournikova’s run through the Family Circle. “With the Williams sisters and Anna, I was saying, ‘What about me?’” said Hingis, who earned $150, 000. “I think this was about time.” Hingis doesn’t mind talk of her rivals. “So long as they’re lower than me, I’m fine,” she said.
Kournikova gave her a run on the concourse and practice courts at the Sea Pines Racquet Club, though. The sassy Russian star’s poster was one of the hottest items at the season’s first clay court tournament. Her doubles matches got only attention. Even Fox Sports Net analyst Pam Oliver told Kournikova, when presenting her with the runner-up honor, that she was “really popular with the men.” But Hingis, smiling most of the way, showed who’s No. 1 on the court. She trailed Kournikova 4-3 in the opening set, but broke the Russian’s serve three staight times in winning the next six games. When Korunikova struck back to close the second set to 3-2, Hingis broke serve again to regain control. When Kournikova’s forehand slapped the net, Hingis had closed out her third tournament win this year and her 10th straight Family Circle singles victory. Kournikova’s game was erratic. She overcame Hingis’ 40-15 lead in the first set. Then she double-faulted twice to lose the next one. “You have to play smart and be patient with her,” Kournikova said. “But I made a few unforced errors because I tried to go for too much.” Hingis stayed steady throughout, never letting Kournikova break away. And when the crowd tried to pull Kournidova through, Hingis would remind them with a surprise drop shot or sharp forehand winner who’s No. 1. Kournikova acknowledged the support she gets. She’s confident in her ability — she beat Hingis at last year’s German Open — but said she knows her game needs the seasoning she can get by advancing to finals. “This is great for me, great for my confidence,” Kournikova said. “This gave me some experience and hopefully, I won’t be a runner-up much longer.” But Hingis will rest for about a month, returning to the tour at the Italian Open. She understands a lot better about the knack of winning crucial points and staying on top. “(If) you are better ranked, you’re a better player, you win the match,” Hingis said. “If not, you always are the loser.”
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To the Top — Fidel Ramos As a young boy, Ramos watched his congressman-father chop wood and plant vegetables to feed his family. Once prominent in the northern province, the Ramos
Ⅱ.Although he was too young for military service the war touched Ramos when he helped shield his second cousin, Ferdinad Marcos, then a lieutenant in the underground guerrilla army, from the Japanese. Despite such distractions, Ramos remained a serious student, becoming president of his secondary school class. In 1945, one year before his country gained independence from America, he decided on a career. Engineers would be needed to rebuild his devastated country, he concluded. He took a competitive exam for West Point, the U.S. military academy, and won the one space reserved in each class for a Filipino. Following graduation. He trained as a civil engineer in Illinois. He learned to lead by example and soon recognized his own country’s need for a professional, nonpolitical military. His time in America, he says, reinforced his strong belief in free enterprise his strong belief in free enterprise, in the rule of law and in the value of rewarding merit. Ramos served with Philippine forces during the Korean War and then returned home to fight against peasant rebels. As a captain he helped found and train the first battalion of elite Philippine forces during the Korean War and then returned home to fight against peasant rebels. As a captain he helped found and train the first battalion of elite Philippine special forces troops. As a major, he volunteered for Vietnam, where he realized for Vietnam, where he realized that the same conditions that fed revolution there also existed in his own impoverished country. As Ramos rose through the ranks of the Philippine military, he knew better than most the excesses of the Marcos regime. He had frequently thought of quitting, but had stayed out of loyalty to his men. “I have so many thousands of people to whom I am responsible,” Ramos told his friends. “I cannot just quit.” Besides, Marcos himself had promoted his savvy younger cousin to head the military-led national police force. Eventually, the break came. At 4 p.m. on February 21, 1986, Major-General Fidel Ramos was preparing to face a gathering of angry neighbors. Juan Ponce Enrile, the defense minister, was asking him to join an uprising against Marcos. Moments later, Amelita Ramos ushered the neighbors into their living room. The Philippines’s second-ranking military officer sat patiently as his friends pleaded. “Please, sir,” one of his neighbors implored, “for the good of the country, resign. Leave Marcos.” Like most Filipinos, they believed the recent elections had been arranged by Marcos, denying Cory Aquino her rightful place as the new president of the Philippines. As his neighbors left his house, Ramos was ready to join Enrile. Together they hoped to rally
the philipine military to Aquino’s side, praying that enough popular support could be generated to keep themselves from being slaughtered by Marcos loyalists. Four days later, the massive demonstrations fueled by the defections of Ramos and Enrile had triumphed. Marcos and his notorious free-spending wife, Imelda, were forced to flee the country. Cory Aquino became the new president, and the People Power revolution quickly became a worldwide symbol of democracy. Ramos, Aquino’s first military chief of staff and later her defense secretary, was at one point urged by officers to join an attempted coup. But he held firm to his belief in the democratic process. In 1992, Aquino endorsed Ramos in the six-candidate race to succeed her.
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The Mask Forever —Jim Carrey Jim Carrey has become one of the most recognized faces in the world —and it is precisely because of his face that he has achieved such fame. His rubbery look, and penchant for wild and extreme behavior has given him a notoriety he delights in. Born in New Market, Ontario, Canada on January 17th, 1962 to a working class family, growing up poor was tough for young Jim Carrey, While in his teens, he had to take a job as a janitor when his father lost his job and he had to juggle both School and work. School eventually lost out and he dropped out. He describes himself as being very angry at this time in his life, yet one good thing came out of it. He developed a tremendous sense of humour to help him cope and to shield his anger from the world. He was a loner who claims he didn’t have any friends because he didn’t want any. Between school and work there just wasn’t much time for a childhood. At 15 though, he had enough time to start performing at Yuk Yuks, a famous Toronto comedy club where he began to perfect his shtick. He moved to LA and did the club circuit there. He soon came to the attention of Rodney and was put on his tour. Jim Carrey got his big break in 1990, when he landed a role on the hip new sketch comedy show In Living Color which boasted a cast of African-Americans and Carrey, the sole white guy. While there, Carrey perfected many characters, most notoriously “Fire Marshal Bill” who always went up in a blaze. The sketch was yanked when critics claimed that it encouraged kids to play with fire. The controversy put Carrey’s name in the headlines for the first time. He broke into feature films, and into the collective unconscious of the world, in one single successful year, 1994. It was the Year of the Funny Face. First there was Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, a surprise hit that show Carrey’s now signature wacky style. Next came The Mask, a role that seemed tailor-made for him and was a hit with audiences. As if he hadn’t made an
impression yet, there was still Dumb and Dumber which was released during the holiday season and ended up on top of the box office. Jim Carrey was in the limelight now and he hasn’t looked back since. Since that famous year Carrey has, dare we say it····, slowed down a bit. His films have come out less often but have continued to make waves if not quite of the caliber as previously seen. There was Batman Forever, in which he inherited the role of The Riddler. Then there was a sequel to Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls which didn’t quite recapture the sparkle of the original. Next came Liar, Liar. The film was a tremendous success with crowds everywhere and put him back on top. It also brought his salary back up 20 million. Then came The Truman Show, a film which proved to the world that Jim Carrey was more than just a funny face. In fact, Jim was awarded a Golden Globe for his dramatic portrayal. When he was snubbed by the Oscars, there was a collective gasp heard around the world. Clearly the fans at least think Jim Carrey is golden. The future looks good for Jim Carrey, he has developed a legion of devoted fans who love his wild style of physical comedy. He has proven his ability to weather a storm and come out on top, important for any celebrity. Carrey has come a long way from his unhappy childhood and in fact seems to be living a second childhood now. Canada has been producing fine comedic talents for years, and Jim Carrey is definitely the best of the new breed.
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FOR BLOOMING IN WARDS—NIGHTINGALE In May 1857 a Commission to study the whole question of the army medical service began to sit. The price was high. Florence Nightingale was doing this grueling work because it was vital, not because she had chosen it. She had changed. Now she was more brilliant in argument than ever, more efficient, more knowledgeable, more persistent and penetrating in her reasoning, scrupulously just, mathematically accurate—but she was pushing herself to the very limits of her capacity at the expense of all joy. That summer of 1857 was a nightmare for Florence—not only was she working day and night to instruct the politicians sitting on the Commission, she was writing her own confidential report about her experiences. All this while Parthe and Mama lay about on sofas, telling each other not to get exhausted arranging flowers. It took Florence only six months to complete her own one-thousand-page Confidential Report, Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army. It was an incredibly clear, deeply-considered volume. Every single thing she had
learned from t Crimea was there—every statement she made was backed by hard evidence. Florence Nightingale was basically arguing for prevention rather than cure. It was a new idea then and many politicians and army medical men felt it was revolutionary and positively cranky. They grimly opposed Florence and her allies. She was forced to prove that the soldiers were dying because of their basic living conditions. She had inspected dozens of hospitals and barracks and now exposed them as damp, filthy and unventilated, with dirty drains and unventilated, with dirty drains and infected water supplies. She showed that the soldiers’ diet was poor. She collected statistics which proved that the death rate for young soldiers in peace time was double that of the normal population. She showed that, though the army took only the fittest young men, every year 1,500 were killed by neglect, poor food and disease. She declared “Our soldiers enlist to death in the barracks”, and this became the battle cry of her supporters. The public, too, was on her side. The more the anti-reformers dragged their feet, the greater the reform pressure became. Florence did not win an outright victory against her opponents, but many changes came through. Soon some barracks were rebuilt and within three years the death rate would halve. The intense work on the Commission was now over, but Florence was to continue studying, planning and pressing for army medical reform for the next thirty years. People now began to demand that she apply her knowledge to civilian hospitals, which she found to be “just as bad or worse” than military hospitals. In 1859 she published a book called Notes on Hospitals. It showed the world why people feared to be taken into hospitals and how matters could be remedied. Florence set forth the then revolutionary theory that simply by improving the construction and physical maintenance, hospital deaths could be greatly reduced. More windows, better ventilation, improved drainage, less cramped conditions, and regular scrubbing of the floors, walls and bed frames were basic measures that every hospital could take. Florence soon became an expert on the building of hospitals and all over the world hospitals were established according to her specifications. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of letters from her sofa in London inquiring about sinks and saucepans, locks and laundry rooms. No detail was too small for her considered attention. She worked out ideas for the most efficient way to distribute clean linen, the best method of keeping food hot, the correct number of inches between beds. She intended to change the administration of hospitals from top to toe. Lives depended upon detail. Florence Nightingale succeeded. All over the world Nightingale-style hospitals would be built.
And Florence would continue to advise on hospital plans for over forty years. Today’s hospitals with their flowers and bright, clean and cheerful wards are a direct result of her work.
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MACHINE MAD — HENRY FORD Growing up on a remote Michigan farm. Henry Ford knew little of all this — but he soon showed signs that he belonged to a new generation of Americans interested more in the industrial future than in the agricultural past. Like most pioneer farmers, his father, William, hoped that his eldest son would join him on the farm，enable it to expand, and eventually take it over. But Henry proved a disappointment. He hated farm work and did everything he could to avoid it . It was not that he was lazy. Far from it. Give him a mechanical job to do， from mending the hinges of a gate to sharpening tools, and he would set to work eagerly. It was the daily life of the farm, with its repetitive tasks, that frustrated him. “What a waste it is,” he was to write years later, remembering his work in the fields, “for a human being to spend hours and days behind a slowly moving team of houses. Henry was excited by the possibilities for the future that were being opened up by developments in technology that could free farmers like his father from wasteful and boring toil. But these developments, in Henry’s boyhood, had touched farming hardly at all and farmers went on doing things in the way they had always done. Low profits, the uncertainties of the weather, and farmers’ instinctive resistance to change prevented all but the richest and most far-sighted farmers from taking advantage of the new age of machines. So Henry turned his attention elsewhere. When he was twelve he became almost obsessively interested in clocks and watches. Like most children before and since, he became fascinated by peering into the workings of a timepiece and watching the movement of ratchets and wheels, springs and pendulums. Soon he was repairing clocks and watches for friends, working at a bench he built in his bedroom. In 1876, Henry suffered a grievous blow. Mary died in childbirth. There was now no reason for him to stay on the farm， and he resolved to get away as soon as he could. Three years later, he took a job as a mechanic in Detroit. By this time steam engines had joined clocks and watches as objects of Henry’s fascination. According to an account given by Henry himself, he first saw a steam-driven road locomotive one day in 1877 when he and his father, in their horse-drawn farm wagon, met one on the road. The locomotive driver stopped to let the wagon pass, and Henry jumped down and went to him with a barrage of technical questions about the engine’s performance. From then on, for a while, Henry became infatuated with steam engines. Making and installing them was the business of the Detroit workshop that he joined at the age of sixteen.
A chance meeting with an old co-worker led to a job for Henry as an engineer at the Edison Detroit Electricity Company, the leading force in another new industry. Power stations were being built and cables being laid in all of the United States’ major cities; the age of electricity had dawned. But although Henry quickly learned the ropes of his new job— so quickly that within four years he was chief engineer at the Detroit power plant — his interest in fuel engines had come to dominate his life. At first in the kitchen of his and Clara’s home, and later in a shed at the back of their house, he spent his spare time in the evenings trying to build an engine to his own design. Meanwhile, Henry’s domestic responsibilities had increased. In November 1893, Clara gave birth to their first and only child, Edsel. Henry learned the hard way what a slow, painstaking business it was to build an engine by hand from scratch. Every piece of every component had to be fashioned individually, checked and rechecked, and tested. Every problem had to be worried over and solved by the builder. To ease the burden, Henry joined forces with another mechanic, Jim Bishop, Even so, it was two years before they had succeeded in building a working car. It was an ungainly-looking vehicle, mounted on bicycle wheels and driven by a rubber belt that connected the engine to the rear wheels. Henry called it the “Quadricycle”.