America’sdream,ornightmare

IF IT wereChristmas Gemmy Airblown Inflatables a country, California would be one with more people than Canada and an economy the size of China's. Its scientists shoot, with their rockets, for the moon; its films spread Hollywood's culture around the globe; its athletes break world records; even its wines now rank with the best of France's. Somehow [adv.不知何故], it is always at the cutting edge, be it in the flower-power [“权力归花儿”]days of the 1960s or the dotcom boom of the 1990s. As Kevin Starr points out in his history of the state, California has long been“one of the prisms [n.棱镜] through which the American people, for better and for worse, could glimpse their future”.