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(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:01 GMT)
VOICE ONE:
Im Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And Im Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today, we begin the story of the life of a famous Southern writer, William Faulkner. He wrote about an imaginary place and described changes in the American South.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner was born at the end of the nineteenth century. It was a time when there were two Souths in the United States. The first was the South whose beliefs had existed from before the American Civil War which began in eighteen sixty-one. This South did not question rules, even when those rules did not satisfy human needs. It was a South filled with injustice for black people. It held the seeds of its own destruction.
The other South was a land without any beliefs. It was a place where success was measured by self-interest. This was a South where each person had lost his place in the group. It was a place where people owned things that they did not know how to use.
Faulkner saw that the old beliefs were not right or even worth believing. And he saw that they could not provide justice because they were based on slavery. Yet he felt that even with their lies and half truths the old beliefs were better than the moral emptiness of the modern South.
VOICE TWO:
In Faulkners story called The Bear a group of men are talking after the days hunt. One man reads from a poem by the English writer, John Keats:
She cannot fade, though thou has not thy bliss, Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair.
Hes talking about a girl, one man says.
The other answers, He was talking about truth. Truth is one. It doesnt change. It covers all things which touch the heart -- honor and pity and justice and courage and love. Do you see now.
The American writer, Robert Penn Warren says about Faulkner, The important thing is the presence of the idea of truth. It covers all things that involve the heart and define the effort of man to rise above the mechanical process of life.
VOICE ONE:
Faulkner has been accused of looking back to a time when life was better. Yet, he believes that truth belongs to all times. But it is found most often in the people who stand outside what he calls the loud world.
One of the people in his story Delta Autumn says, There are good men everywhere, at all times.
Faulkners great-grandfather accepted the old beliefs. He was one of the men who had helped build the South, but his time was gone. Now money had replaced the old order of honor. What Faulkner saw was that there could be no order at all, no idea of doing what is right, in a world that measured success in terms of money.
VOICE TWO:
This is the changing South that Faulkner describes in the area he created. He named it Yoknapatawpha County. He describes it as in the northern part of the state of Mississippi. It lies between sand hills covered with pine trees and rich farmland near the Mississippi River. It has fifteen-thousand-six-hundred-eleven people, living on almost four-thousand square kilometers. Its central city is Jefferson, where the storekeepers, mechanics, and professional men live.
The rest of the people of Yoknapatawpha County are farmers or men who cut trees. Their only crops are wood and cotton. A few live in big farmhouses, left from an earlier time. Most of them do not even own the land they farm.
The critic Malcolm Cowley says, Others might say that Faulkner was not so much writing stories for the public as telling them to himself. It is what a lonely child might do, or a great writer.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, in eighteen-ninety-seven. His father worked for the railroad. Williams great-grandfather had built it. His grandfather owned it. When the grandfather decided to sell the railroad, Williams father moved his family thirty-five miles west to the city of Oxford.
Growing up in Oxford, William Faulkner heard stories of the past from his grandmother and from a black woman who worked for his family. He heard more stories from old men in front of the courthouse, and from poor farmers sitting in front of a country store.
You learn the stories, Faulkner says, without speech somehow from having been born and living beside them, with them, as children will and do.
VOICE TWO:
Faulkner was a good student. Yet by the time he was fifteen he had left school. Except for a year at the University of Mississippi at the end of World War One, that was the last of his official education.
He took a number of jobs in Oxford, but did not stay with any of them. He began to think that he was a writer. Then in nineteen-eighteen the woman he loved married another man. Faulkner left Mississippi and joined the British Royal Flying Corps. He was sent to Canada to train to fight in World War One.
The war ended before he could be sent to Europe. He returned to Oxford, walking with difficulty because of what he said was a war wound.
VOICE ONE:
At home Faulkner again moved from one job to the next. He wrote bad poetry, drew pictures that looked like other mens pictures, and wrote uninteresting stories. A book of his poetry, The Marble Faun, was published in nineteen-twenty-four.
A year later he went to the Southern city of New Orleans, Louisiana. There he met the American writer, Sherwood Anderson. They became friends. Anderson told Faulkner to develop his own way of writing, and to use material from his own part of the country. He also told Faulkner he would find a publisher for the novel Faulkner was writing. But Anderson also told Faulkner that he would not read the book.
VOICE TWO:
The book was called “Soldiers Pay.” It would not be remembered today if it were not for Faulkners later work. The same could be said of Faulkners next book, “Mosquitoes.”
Money from these books made it possible for him to travel to Europe. He educated himself by reading a large number of modern writers. Among them was the Irish writer James Joyce. From him, Faulkner learned to write about peoples inner thoughts. He also read the books of the Austrian doctor, Sigmund Freud. From him, Faulkner learned some of the reasons people act in the strange way they often do.
Instead of remaining in Paris, as many American writers did, Faulkner returned to Mississippi and began his serious writing. I was trying, he said, to put the history of mankind in one sentence. Later he said, I am still trying to do it, but now I want to put it all on the head of a pin. He created Yoknapatawpha County and its people, and gave them a meaning far beyond their place and lives.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
In nineteen-twenty-nine Faulkner married Estelle Oldham, the woman he had loved since they were in school together. Her earlier marriage had failed. She had returned to Oxford with her two children.
They bought an old ruined house and began the costly work of repairing it. Faulkner also took on the job of supporting the rest of his family. His letters from this time on are often full of talk about what he must do to support his family and to continue the repairs to his house.
VOICE TWO:
Faulkners next book, “Sartoris,” presents almost all the ideas that he develops during the rest of his life. First, however, the book Faulkner wrote had to be cut by about twenty-five percent.
Faulkner resisted. He said, if you grow a vegetable, you can cut it to look like something else, but it will be dead. Yet, when Faulkner read the book after his editor cut it, he approved. He even cooperated in more re-shaping of the book.
In “Sartoris,” Faulkner found his subject, his voice, and his area. He writes about the connection between an important Southern family and the local community. He describes how the Sartoris family seems to help in its own destruction.
VOICE ONE:
In the next seven years, between nineteen-twenty-nine and nineteen-thirty-six, he seemed to re-invent the novel with every book he wrote. Get it down, he said. Take chances. It may be bad, but thats the only way you can do anything good.
At that time, most novels about the South described a land that never existed. After Faulkner, few northerners were brave enough to write about a South they did not know. And no serious Southern writer was willing to describe a South that did not exist.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
This program was written by Richard Thorman. It was produced by Lawan Davis. Im Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And Im Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for the rest of the story about William Faulkner on PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.
Obama Seeks Limits on Banks, Condemns Campaign Finance Ruling
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:02 GMT)
This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
President Obama is proposing rules to limit the size of banks and the risks they can take. He wants to prevent banks from using government-insured deposits to make risky investments. He also wants to keep them from owning hedge funds or private equity funds.
Banks took big losses as they traded mortgage-related securities that went bad. That helped create the financial crisis.
Bank shares fell after the presidents announcement Thursday. His earlier efforts at financial reform have faced strong opposition from financial companies and some members of Congress.
Scott Brown, a Republican state senator, celebrates in Boston after a special election for U.S. senator from Massachusetts. He won the remaining three years in the term of Ted Kennedy, a Democrat who had held his seat for almost 50 years.In the Senate, sixty votes are needed to prevent unlimited debate on a bill. But the Democrats have lost their sixtieth vote. On Tuesday voters in Massachusetts elected a Republican to finish the term of Ted Kennedy who died in August.
Scott Brown opposes the health care legislation in Congress. His election could also affect other areas, like climate change legislation and reforms in the financial system.
And at the same time a separate development could affect elections around the country. The United States Supreme Court has cleared the way for businesses to spend more in political campaigns. The ruling is expected to apply to labor unions as well.
The court decided Thursday to ease campaign finance restrictions that were in place for many years. The vote was five to four. The decision overturned rulings that barred corporations from using their own money to pay for campaign ads for or against candidates. The conservative majority on the court said the restrictions on political speech violate the free speech guarantee in the Constitution.
President Obama called it a major victory for powerful interests like big oil companies, Wall Street banks and health insurance companies. He directed his administration to talk with congressional leaders from both parties to develop a forceful response.
Elections for Congress are this November. The next presidential election is in two thousand twelve.
Wednesday marked Barack Obamas first anniversary in office. But the Republican victory in liberal Massachusetts was seen in large part as a sign of voter anger across the country about the economy.
Unemployment has doubled in two years to ten percent. Many people are angry that they struggle while the government rescued big banks. Some banks took losses last year but others earned record profits.
And thats the VOA Special English Economics Report. Im Mario Ritter.
Valentines Day Offers a Chance to Refocus on What Love Is All About
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:02 GMT)
STEVE EMBER:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA. Im Steve Ember.
FAITH LAPIDUS:
And Im Faith Lapidus. These are important days for makers of sweets and sellers of flowers. For owners of fine restaurants and publishers of greeting cards. For salespeople at clothing stores. And for all the people whose job is to make other peoples hair and fingernails look their best.
STEVE EMBER:
These are important days because soon it will be February fourteenth, Valentines Day. This week on our program, we ask three generations of people what the holiday for love and romance means to them.
(MUSIC: Lucky / Jason Mraz, featuring Colbie Caillat)
FAITH LAPIDUS:
We begin with the youngest generation. Sixteen-year-old Jarrah was with a group of Chinese students visiting the United States. What does Valentines Day mean to her
JARRAH: I know thats a Western festival for lovers who date or they love each other. We are not allowed to date in high school.
She explains that some people in China may celebrate Valentines Day, but China also has its own version. It is based on the story of a fairy from heaven who comes to Earth and marries a cowhand on a farm. In the end, they are permitted to meet just once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
JARRAH: Theres a girl named Zhi Nu and a boy named Niu Lang. Now they are stars in the sky, so they meet each other in lunar months, seventh in July, each year once. We celebrate that day like the Valentines Day in Western culture.
STEVE EMBER:
So how did February fourteenth come to be celebrated as it is Explanations date back to ancient Rome. But nothing is sure, not even the identity of the Roman Catholic saint celebrated by this day. As a result, in nineteen sixty-nine, the church removed Saint Valentines Day from its official worldwide calendar of Catholic feasts.
But the popular meaning of Valentines Day continues to capture hearts around the world, even if not always on February fourteenth. Camile and Nietzsche were among a group of Brazilian Youth Ambassadors visiting the United States.
CAMILE: We have Valentines Day but in a different day. Its June twelfth.
NIETZSCHE: So in Brazil, I would translate as the Day of the Couple. And its like you dont give friends or family gifts, you give your boyfriend or your girlfriend. And the guys, they are sometimes pretty boring because they like to give chocolate and flowers. And girls are tired and sick of that.
CAMILE: Yeah!
NIETZSCHE: So I believe Id better give a hot Brazilian kiss. It would be better on the Day of the Couple.
(MUSIC: Stay Here Forever / Jewel)
FAITH LAPIDUS:
Jack FeldmanNext, we talk to some college students. Jack Feldman is from Iowa in the American Midwest. What is his best Valentines Day memory
JACK FELDMAN: Any and all Valentines when I actually had a girlfriend.
And the worst memory
JACK FELDMAN: All the other ones.
He remembers as a child choosing valentine cards to give to his classmates, a tradition for American schoolchildren.
JACK FELDMAN: I always tried to get like the coolest ones, like the Pokeman ones and trying to give them out to everybody. I only wanted to give them to all the cute girls, but you had to give them to everybody back then.
STEVE EMBER:
Andrew Shim is twenty-two years old, from Maryland. We asked him what American teenagers like to do for Valentines Day. He listed the usual -- chocolate, a movie, maybe go to a party. But then we asked him if he had ever done anything special.
ANDREW SHIM: Oh yeah, I actually made my own chocolate at home. But I kind of messed it up. It was OK, I give to that person I like. It didnt turn out well, but you know, I mean it was a nice memory though, a good experience making chocolate.
Jeong KimAndrew Shim and Jack Feldman are doing college internship programs in Washington. So are these three international students we are about to meet, starting with Jeong Kim from Seoul.
JEONG KIM: Normally in Korea, well the girls take the opportunity to give out chocolates to guys that they have a crush on.
KATTIA: In Mexico were used to like for, for more for couples, not like so for friends and stuff. Its a cool day because everybody gets to give balloons and chocolates and all that stuff to the person youre in a relationship in or whatever.
SONIA ZIADE: In Canada its pretty much the same as the U.S. Its very consumer based, where we buy chocolate. We go to the restaurant, have a romantic dinner. Every day should be Valentines Day, right
FAITH LAPIDUS:
Those last two voices were Kattia from Mexico and Sonia Ziade from Montreal, Canada.
(MUSIC: Wicked Game / Chris Isaak)
STEVE EMBER:
Ming Hong WardNow we talk to a group of parents. They all live in the Washington area and are involved together in the Boy Scouts of America.
Ming Hong Ward came to the United States from China in nineteen eighty-nine. What does Valentines Day mean to her
MING HONG WARD: I was in college when I came to United States and it was interesting that in America they celebrate people in love and express love to each other, because in China people are very reserved and they do not show appreciation openly.
STEVE EMBER:
Andrea Liddell says she and her husband exchange cards for Valentines Day.
ANDREA LIDDELL: I look forward to getting flowers and, if Im really lucky, a date. We get to go out together.
And what is her best Valentines Day memory
Andrea LiddellANDREA LIDDELL: I knew youd ask that. Valentines Day ... when Ive been surprised. When we had like a surprise -- we got to go out to someplace very fancy, didnt really know what was going to happen ahead of time. That was a really lovely one. It involved a lot of food at that time.
And her worst memory
ANDREA LIDDELL: Let me get back to you on that. Oh, oh, oh -- in college, the boyfriend who absolutely forgot Valentines Day. That hurt my feelings. So there you go, that was the worst one.
FAITH LAPIDUS:
Lauri and Bob Dacey have been married for twenty years. Any special memories of Valentines Day
LAURI DACEY: I dont remember any one in particular. I mean, theyre pretty much the same, like well just celebrate, exchange cards, may go out to dinner. So once we had the children, Valentines Day, I think, became more about them. We were starting to give them gifts and treats and really not going out in the evening anymore for that day.
Lauri and Bob DaceyREPORTER: And Bob, I mean whats a typical gift, Valentines Day gift that you buy
BOB DACEY: Candy and sweets all the time. And we always have those little hearts. Thats what my fondest memory is, too, of the little Valentines hearts that come out once a year, little candies with little nice kind of love sayings on them.
FAITH LAPIDUS:
And what does Valentines Day mean to their children in school
LAURI DACEY: In school, I think it means exchanging cards and getting a candy, or multiple candies.
BOB DACEY: And they exchange cards, they sometimes decorate nice little boxes so they can put valentines in each others box in school.
STEVE EMBER:
Bob Steinrauf has been married for almost twenty-eight years. What does he think of Valentines Day
Bob SteinraufBOB STEINRAUF: I think its actually a good opportunity to remember those things that we want to do on Valentines Day -- you know, special things for the spouse or whoever -- you probably ought to do them year-round. Because so often, especially with guys, youll say, Hey, we had Valentines Day. I got you roses, I got you chocolate, it says I love you. What more do we need But I think it really is a call to make sure you remember to do that during the day, during the week, during the months before and after Valentines Day.
Does he follow his own advice
BOB STEINRAUF: You would have to get the second opinion from my wife. Sometimes yes, but not as much as I ought to.
And sometimes, as the old saying goes, it is the thought that counts.
BOB STEINRAUF: Early in our marriage my wife came -- she was going to school and working late and driving home, so I baked a cake. Now it was not just any old cake. It came in the round cake pans, and I baked it, but then I attempted to cut out a heart and used pink icing and decorated it. Now the sides of the cake fell apart tremendously. But that was probably the best thing I could have done. She looked at it. It was pathetic. But she goes Oh, I love you. So that was a nice Valentines Day.
(MUSIC: As Time Goes By / Frank Sinatra)
FAITH LAPIDUS:
Not everyone is a big fan of Valentines Day. This is Joe Durso, twenty years old, from Louisville, Kentucky. What does it mean to him
JOE DURSO: Nothing, and Im not even sure when it is. If I was in the chocolate business I think I would probably support it. Or in the flower business. But it isnt really something that matters to me.
This seemed to be a dissenting opinion, though, at least among the people we spoke to. Next we meet a group of friends from a social club in Northern Virginia, including Marge Lubeley. Reporter Nancy Steinbach asked her what she does on Valentines Day.
MARGE LUBELEY: I usually get together with a daughter and a granddaughter and we go out to dinner and exchange gifts. Im a widow and so this is a fun time for me.
REPORTER: How about before, when you were single and younger
MARGE LUBELEY: It wasnt that important. But when I married, it was always a dozen red roses from my husband. So it was special.
STEVE EMBER:
Sally Margolis also lost her husband. But two of her four children live locally. So on Valentines Day she might go out to dinner with one of them or babysit for her grandchildren.
SALLY MARGOLIS: I think its a nice remembrance. Its a nice holiday. I think its a meaningful holiday just to be nice to people and to remember people.
Greg Ogden would agree with that.
GREG OGDEN: I think probably some of the nicest ones, the more memorable ones are back when I was a teenager. And I enjoyed those. The family celebrated Valentines Day in a little bit bigger way than we do now. So there was bigger meal. There was a girlfriend involved, sometimes invited over to our house as well for the meal, and part of the family, and cards back and forth. When youre teenagers, you dont quite know what to write on there. Little Os and Xs for kisses and things like that. You brought back a moment of nostalgia for me. I thank you for that.
STEVE EMBER:
We leave you with these words from another one of the friends, Nancy Lang.
NANCY LANG: Valentines Day is a wonderful opportunity for people to refocus on what love is all about. Because its sharing, its giving. Love is a strange element of our lives. But its very important because without it you have nothing.
(MUSIC: Glory of True Love / John Prine)
FAITH LAPIDUS:
Our program was written by Avi Arditti and produced by Caty Weaver. Im Faith Lapidus.
STEVE EMBER:
And Im Steve Ember. What does Valentines Day mean to you Let us know. You can post comments, and read what other people around the world are saying, at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find transcripts, MP3s and archives of our past programs. We would love to have you join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
Steps Urged to Prevent Snakebites, Improve Treatments
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:03 GMT)
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
A western diamondback rattlesnake in Cave Creek, ArizonaSnakesbite an estimated five and a half million people worldwide each year. Expertssay tens of thousands of people die from venom poisoning.
An untreated or incorrectly treated bite might requirethe removal of a bitten foot, for example, or an arm. Each year around fourhundred thousand amputations are the result of snakebites.
Lastyear, for the first time, the World Health Organization added snakebites to itslist of neglected tropical diseases. This recognition aims to bringgreater attention to the problem.
Scientistsknow of about three thousand kinds of snakes. About six hundred of them arevenomous. These are most often found in rural areas in tropical climates.
Asiaand Africa have the highest number of snakebites -- together about four milliona year. Latin America and islands in the South Pacific follow.
The highest number of victims are agricultural workers.Snakebites are also common among fishermen, hunters and children. Many victimslive in areas with poor or non-existent health care systems and where antivenomtreatments are often not available.
Antivenom is the only cure. But experts say antivenomtechnologies and their use need to be improved. Problems include a shortage ofmanufacturers and the high cost of treatment.
Also,there is a widespread lack of knowledge among local health workers about how touse antivenoms. The treatments can cause dangerous and even deadly reactions ifnot used carefully.
Antivenomcontains proteins from animals such as horses or sheep. The animals areinjected repeatedly with one or more different snake venoms to produceimmunity.The Lancet medical journal recently published a seriesof reports on snakebite prevention and treatment. David Warrell at theUniversity of Oxford in England co-wrote one of them. He praised efforts by theW.H.O. to establish common practices for the production, regulation and controlof antivenom. But he says more must be done.
The authors say communityeducation programs could help prevent snakebites by teaching people how toavoid them. They also suggest actions like providing protective boots to wearwhile working in fields, and not sleeping on the ground.
Alsoimportant is providing information about where dangerous snakes are most likelyto live and when they are most active.
Andthat's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. MP3s,transcripts and broadcasts of our reports are available atvoaspecialenglish.com. I'm Christopher Cruise.
Have the Rules of English Changed Well, What Do You Mean by Rules
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:03 GMT)
AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: Our guest is English professor Jack Lynch, author of the new book The Lexicographers Dilemma.
RS: Why did you write this book
JACK LYNCH: Well, because I have a number of guides to grammar and style and things like that on the World Wide Web, I get messages from strangers all the time, asking me various grammatical and stylistic questions. But one came up in many variations many times, and it always took the form When I was in school, I was taught such-and-such and now I hear so-and-so. Have the rules changed
And I realized I dont even know how to begin answering that, because the rules of the language arent some official set of guidelines that are voted on by a committee or something like that. Its more an organic set of habits and superstitions and prejudices that all come together into the collective practices of the group.
RS: The subtitle of your book is The Evolution of Proper English from Shakespeare to South Park. And proper is in quotes.
JACK LYNCH: Yes.
RS: Why did you put that in quotes
JACK LYNCH: In fact, I wrestled with my editors a little bit because I had many more quotations around proper and correct throughout the book, and they said Can we do it in just a few strategic places and remove the rest
AA: Youre trying to be sarcastic, obviously.
JACK LYNCH: Well, not necessarily sarcastic. But I want people to understand that when we talk about proper English, were really talking about one variety of English. Its a very important variety of English. Its the one that gives you access to the corridors of power, and its the way you make money and so on
You have to learn a variety of English. But the mistake is assuming that that is the only correct English and any departure from it is wrong. And I wanted people to understand there are many Englishes, and the rules that we use to distinguish among the different kinds of English arent like rules of gravity or even laws against murder or something like this. Theyre more like table manners or fashion. They are just sets of conventions that are shared by a group of people.
AA: And widely criticized, right, in all three cases Manners and fashion.
JACK LYNCH: Well, criticized, but also argued over. At least with manners and so on, table manners and so on, we recognize that what were doing is a social convention and we all agree to behave this way.
RS: Where did that start
JACK LYNCH: People have been speaking something we can call English for about fifteen hundred years. Now, fifteen hundred years ago it sounded nothing like modern English. It would sound a lot more like German to a modern speaker. For the first thousand years, the first maybe twelve hundred years of the languages history, no one was particularly upset about how the majority of people spoke
Now, everyones recognized some people speak better than others, just as some people dress better than others and dance and sing better than others. But there was no sense that most people dont know their own language. It was only around the year seventeen hundred that people began getting concerned about that and began instituting rules for the way everyone must speak. And thats the story I try to tell, from about seventeen hundred to the present.
AA: Now before we get that, Im curious, I mean how does this compare to other languages out there
JACK LYNCH: Well, some languages have never been bothered with this sort of thing at all. They dont have any systematic sense of whats official. But many of the major European languages have gone much further than English in that there are official, government-sponsored academies that determine what the proper form of the language is. Theres nothing like that in any English-speaking country.
RS: Well, how do you account for, then, the changes in culture and language that come into a language, no matter what language it is
JACK LYNCH: Well, every language changes all the time. Thats simply a fact of life and you can like that or you can be upset about it, but you have to accept it. Language always changes. Every language has always changed. When scholars in the seventeenth century started looking back at Latin and Greek, they thought Ah, these are the perfect, unchanging languages, and our modern barbarous English must be degenerate because its changing all the time.
Well, the only reason Latin and Greek seemed to be constant is because moderns just didnt have enough information about it. We now know Latin and Greek changed just as much as every language. They always change and trying to figure out the reasons is close to impossible. When you ask about any particular example, linguists will often say historical reasons, which is just an elaborate way of saying It just is, thats all.
AA: Jack Lynch is an English professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Next week he explains just what he means by the title of his latest book, The Lexicographers Dilemma.
RS: And thats WORDMASTER for this week. With Avi Arditti, Im Rosanne Skirble.
Words and Their Stories: Nicknames for New York City
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:04 GMT)
Now the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
A nickname is a shortened form of a persons name. A nickname also can be a descriptive name for a person, place or thing. Many American cities have nicknames. These can help establish an identity, spread pride among citizens and build unity.
A few years ago, some marketing and advertising experts were asked to name the best nickname for an American city. The winner was the nation’s largest city, New York. The top nickname was The Big Apple.
You might wonder how New York got this nickname.In the early nineteen seventies, the city had many problems. The number of visitors was falling.So a campaign was launched to give the city a new image. The head of the New York Conventions and Visitors Bureau decided to call the city, The Big Apple.
There are several explanations for where this name came from. Language expert Barry Popik studied the question and wrote about it on his Web site. He says John Fitz Gerald, a writer for a New York newspaper, used the name the Big Apple to mean New York in the nineteen twenties. Mister Fitz Gerald wrote about horse races. He heard the name used by men who worked at a racetrack in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Mister Fitz Gerald wrote: “The Big Apple. The dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred and the goal of all horsemen. There’s only one Big Apple. That’s New York.”
In horse racing, the expression meant “the big time,” the place where large amounts of money could be won. The Big Apple became the name of a night club in the Harlem area of New York City in nineteen thirty-four. It also was the name of a popular dance and a hit song in the nineteen thirties.
But it is not the only nickname for America’s largest city. Barry Popik’s web site lists almost one hundred nicknames that describe New York. The best known are the Capital of the World. Empire City. Gotham. The City So Nice They Named it Twice. And the City That Never Sleeps. You can hear about the city in the song, “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra.
(MUSIC)
This program was written by Shelley Gollust. Im Barbara Klein. You can find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at voaspecialenglish.com.
Solar-Powered Pumps Aid African Farmers
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:05 GMT)
Correction attached
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
Harvest in BeninAnew study in West Africa shows how farm irrigation systems powered by the sun canproduce more food and money for villagers. The study in Benin found that solar-poweredpumps are effective in supplying water, especially during the long dry season.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of theworld with the least food security. The United Nations Food and AgricultureOrganization estimates that more than one billion of the world's people facedhunger last year. Around two hundred sixty-five million of them live south ofthe Sahara Desert. Lack of rainfall is one of their main causes of foodshortages.
Jennifer Burney from Stanford University in California ledthe study. The research team helped build three solar-powered drip irrigationsystems in northern Benin.
Between thirty and thirty-fivewomen used each system to pump water from the ground or a stream. Each womanwas responsible for farming her own one hundred twenty square meters of land. Theyalso farmed other land collectively.
The solar-powered irrigation systems produced anaverage of nearly two metric tons of vegetables per month. During the firstyear, the women kept a monthly average of almost nine kilograms of vegetablesfor home use.
They sold the surplus produce at local markets.The earnings greatly increased their ability to buy food during the dry seasonwhich can last six to nine months.
People in the two villages withthe systems were able to eat three to five more servings of vegetables per day.But making the surplus available at markets also had a wider effect.
Thestudy compared the villages with two others where women farmed with traditionalmethods like carrying water in buckets. The amount of vegetables eaten in thosevillages also increased, though not as much.
The researchers note that onlyfour percent of the cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. Using solarpower to pump water has higher costs at first. But the study says it can bemore economical in the long term than using fuels like gasoline, diesel or kerosene.And solar power is environmentallyfriendly.
Thestudy appears this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences.
Andthat's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. Youcan post comments and learn about other issues in the developing world atvoaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
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Correction: Stanford researchers studied the impact of the irrigation systems but did not build them, as this story suggested. The project was financed and built by the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), a nongovernmental organization.
Attention Turns to Yemen in Anti-Terror Fight
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:06 GMT)
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
Yemenis the poorest Arab nation. Poverty can help breed extremism -- al-Qaida is agrowing concern for the Yemenis. But the government also faces an armedrebellion in the north and a separatist movement in the south.
A drawing of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab facing charges in a federal courtroom in Detroit
In Sanaa, fears of an al-Qaida attack led to temporaryclosures this week of the American, British and French embassies. Yemeni officialssay they have increased protection of foreign interests in the capital. Theyhave also sent thousands of troops to Arhab and other areas to battle the localal-Qaida group.
Yemen also plays a part in the case of UmarFarouk Abdulmutallab. He is the man accused of trying to bomb an American planewith explosives in his underwear.
AYemeni deputy prime minister said Thursday that the twenty-three year oldNigerian met last year in Yemen with Anwar al-Awlaki. The American-born Muslim clergymanis accused of supporting al-Qaida.
Butthe deputy prime minister said al-Qaida first recruited the young man inBritain when he was a student in London. The official also warned againstforeign military intervention in Yemen, saying that could strengthen al-Qaida.
Britain is organizing an internationalconference later this month to discuss the security problems. And the UnitedStates is expected to nearly double its seventy million dollars in securityassistance to Yemen.
Earlierthis week, President Obama said no additional prisoners from Guantanamo Baywill be released to Yemen. The president wanted to close the American prison inCuba this month. But the recent developments seem to have only made the issuemore difficult.
The failed attack on the plane happened Decembertwenty-fifth, Christmas Day. Almost three hundred people were on the flightfrom Amsterdam. It was preparing to land in Detroit, Michigan. Passengers andcrew restrained the man and put out the fire caused by a mixture of explosives.
He could face life in prison. He appearedin federal court in Detroit for the first time Friday. He did not answer thecharges himself but his lawyers entered a plea of not guilty. Some people saythe case should have been handled in the military justice system.
OnThursday President Obama blamed the incident on what he called a systemicfailure across organizations and agencies.
Rather than a failure tocollect or share intelligence, he said, this was a failure toconnect and understand the intelligence that we already had.
Heis ordering steps to improve airport security and the handling of intelligenceinformation. But he admitted there is no perfect solution. As we developnew screening technologies and procedures, he said, our adversarieswill seek new ways to evade them.
Lastweek, the Central Intelligence Agency suffered a setback in its efforts againstal-Qaida. A suicide bombing at a C.I.A. base in Afghanistan killed sevenAmericans and a Jordanian intelligence officer. The bomber was identified as aJordanian doctor who was supposed to be informing on the terrorist group.
Andthat's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm SteveEmber.
Yanukovych Is Greeted as the Winner in Ukraine
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:06 GMT)
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
Worldleaders have been congratulating Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine's next president.
Among Western leaders, President Obama phoned on Thursdayto welcome the opposition leader. The White House said he called the election apeaceful expression of the political will of Ukrainian voters to strengthendemocracy.
Viktor Yanukovych speaking on Election DayOfficial results are expected byWednesday. A final vote count showed that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko lostby forty-five and a half percent to forty-nine percent last Sunday. But sherefused to accept defeat and resisted calls to resign as prime minister. Her aideshave said she planned to challenge the election results in court, and notconcede defeat until appeals are completed.
She has accused Yanukovych supporters of cheating inRussian-speaking eastern Ukraine.On Thursday she told the cabinet that Viktor Yanukovych had already brokencampaign promises to improve living conditions for Ukrainians. She criticizedhis party for missing a chance to vote in parliament to increase socialspending.
HisParty of Regions has been negotiating to form a new coalition in parliament. Along political battle could worsen the economic troubles of the former Sovietrepublic. Last year the International Monetary Fund suspended sixteen billiondollars in lending to Ukraine over the issue of financial restraint.
NATOSecretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday that the elections were free,fair and democratic. That was a change from past elections inUkraine. A public opinion survey by the Horshenin Institute found that morethan sixty-eight percent of Ukrainians trusted the results.
Outgoing President ViktorYushchenko is pro-Western. He did not receive enough votes in the first roundof elections last month to qualify for the run-off election last Sunday.
Sixyears ago, Viktor Yanukovych won the presidency, then lost it. Official resultsshowed him the winner over Viktor Yushchenko. But reports of election fraud ledto huge protests known as the Orange Revolution. A new election took place andViktor Yushchenko won.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko attending a cabinet meeting in Kyiv on ThursdayHetook office in January of two thousand five with YuliaTymoshenkoas his prime minister. But their partnership ended in disputes overpresidential powers.
Yulia Tymoshenko helped lead the OrangeRevolution, named for the color worn by protesters. The protests broughtWestern-like democracy to Ukraine for the first time.
Somepeople say the results of Sunday's election suggest that Ukrainians haverejected the Orange Revolution. But others point to the reported fairness ofthe election itself as evidence that the spirit of the revolution lives on.
ViktorYanukovych supports closer relations between Ukraine and Russia. Russiawelcomed his election. But political observers noted that it was very differentfrom the election of Dmitri Medvedev as Russia's president two years ago. Inthat election there was never any question who the winner would be.
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, writtenby Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.
Breathing Easier: The Art of Stove Making
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:06 GMT)
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
StoveTec wood stoveMorethan three billion people are at risk from indoor air pollution because of theheating or cooking fuels they use. Most live in Africa, India and China. Theyuse biomass fuels like wood, crop waste, animal waste or coal. These solidfuels may be the least costly fuels available. But they are also a major causeof health problems and death.
For more than thirty years, the AprovechoResearch Center has been designing cleaner, low-cost cooking stoves for the developingworld. Dean Still is the director of the group which is based in the UnitedStates. He notes a World Health Organization estimate that more than one and ahalf million people a year die from breathing smoke from solid fuels.
DEAN STILL: And half of the people on planet Earthevery day use wood or biomass for cooking. These are the people on Earth whohave less money, and the richer people use oil and gas. It's been estimatedthat wood is running out more quickly than oil and gas. And so it is veryimportant for the poorer people to have very efficient stoves that protecttheir forests and that protect their health.
Everyyear Aprovecho holds a stove camp at its testing station in CottageGrove, Oregon. Engineers, inventors, students and others come together to designand test different methods and materials for improving stoves.
Overthe years, the group has made stoves using mud, bricks, sheet metal, clay, ceramicsand old oil drums. Most of the stoves look like large, deep cooking pots. Theyhave an opening at the bottom for the fire and a place on top to put a pot.
In the late nineteen seventies,Aprovecho produced a popular stove called the Lorena. The Lorena was very goodat reducing smoke and warming homes. But new tests years later found that itwas not very efficient. The Lorena used twice as much wood as an open fire, andtook much longer to heat food.
Since then, Dean Still says they have experimented withcountless other designs.
DEAN STILL: Our goal is to make a veryinexpensive stove -- let's say five dollars -- that makes very, very littlesmoke, so it's safe for health, diminishes global warming and diminishesdeforestation. And so it's an ongoing problem to work on.
Aprovecho has now partnered with a stovemanufacturer in China. The company is making Aprovecho's first mass producedstoves. They are said to use forty to fifty percent less wood than an open fire,and produce fifty to seventy-five percent less smoke. A company called StoveTecis selling them through its Web site for less than ten dollars. Dean Still saysthat more than one hundred thousand have been sold so far.
Andthat's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm HowardNeuberg.
Words and Their Stories: Farm Expressions
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:08 GMT)
Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
In the early days of human history, people survived by hunting wild animals, or gathering wild grains and plants for food. Then, some people learned to grow crops and raise animals for food. They were the first farmers.
Since the sixteenth century, the word farm has meant agricultural land. But a much older meaning of the word farm is linked to economics. The word farm comes from the Latin word, firma, which means an unchanging payment.
Experts say the earliest meaning of the English word farm was a yearly payment made as a tax or rent.
Farmers in early England did not own their land. They paid every year to use agricultural lands.
In England, farmers used hawthorn trees along the edges of property. They called this row of hawthorns a hedge.
Hedging fields was how careful farmers marked and protected them.
Soon, people began to use the word hedging to describe steps that could be taken to protect against financial loss.
Hedging is common among gamblers who make large bets. A gambler bets a lot of money on one team. But, to be on the safe side, he also places a smaller bet on the other team, to reduce a possible loss.
You might say that someone is hedging his bet when he invests in several different kinds of businesses. One business may fail, but likely not all.
Farmers know that it is necessary to make hay while the sun shines.
Hay has to be cut and gathered when it is dry. So a wise farmer never postpones gathering his hay when the sun is shining. Rain may soon appear.
A wise person copies the farmer. He works when conditions are right.
A new mother, for example, quickly learns to try to sleep when her baby is quiet, even in the middle of the day. If the mother delays, she may lose her chance to sleep. So, the mother learns to make hay while the sun shines.
Beans are a popular farm crop. But beans are used to describe something of very little value in the expression, not worth a hill of beans. The expression is often used today.
You could say, for example, that a bad idea is not worth a hill of beans.
Language expert Charles Earle Funk said the expression was first used almost seven hundred years ago. He said Robert of Gloucester described a message from the King of Germany to King John of England as altogether not worth a bean.
(MUSIC)
This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano. Maurice Joyce was the narrator. Im Shirley Griffith.
Web Site Offers an Earful of Accents | A Reading of Six-Word Memoirs
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:08 GMT)
AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: a collection of life stories told in just six words.
RS: But first, we have a report on a linguist in Virginia who collectsaccents from across America, and across the world, and posts them on aWeb site. Reporter Nancy King spoke with him.
STEVE WEINBERGER:Everybody has an accent. And if we simply listen to people, we get animmediate impression of them. We compute their sounds. And we makejudgments about them.
NK: That's Steve Weinberger, a linguistat George Mason University. He believes we are taught early on in ourlives to make biased social judgments about people based on theirspeech patterns. While this is normal human behavior, the results arefrequently flawed
STEVE WEINBERGER: This will give you an example of how we judge accents. Let's listen to this Brooklyn speaker:
SPEAKER: Please call Stella, ask her to bring those things with her from the store.
STEVEWEINBERGER: It's a very, very distinct accent, and people might bestartled to learn that she is a PhD and a professor of French at amajor university.
NK: So much for the abused Working Girlstereotype. How and when do we learn our accent Well, surprisingly,Weinberger says, it's not from our family.
STEVEWEINBERGER: We get them from our peers, most linguists believe.Somewhere between ages two and five we develop our native language. Andwe typically get it from our playmates. If we got our accents from ourparents, then we'd all speak like immigrants.
NK: SteveWeinberger runs the Speech Accent Archive, an online collection ofnearly nine hundred examples of accents - from both native andnon-native English speakers
The site is used by linguists,researchers and the occasional actor who needs to master an accent.But Weinberger says that's one tough job.
STEVE WEINBERGER:I'm sure these actors sound perfectly legitimate to listeners whoaren't native. So, for example, maybe Dick Van Dyke sounds OK to us.
(MOVIE SOUND)
Thatcockney accent goes over quite well for young American children whowatch 'Mary Poppins.' But for any Londoner, it's just simply horrible.
NK: You can find the Speech Accent Archive at accent.gmu.edu. I'm Nancy King.
AA: That report came to us from the radio program With Good Reason, produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
RS: Now, on to those six-word memoirs. Earlier this year on WORDMASTER,our colleague Adam Phillips told you about a book called Not QuiteWhat I Was Planning. It's a collection of more than eight hundredmemoirs all six words long. For example: Found true love. Marriedsomeone else. Young, skinny: ridiculed. Old, skinny: envied.
Theywere chosen from among more than fifteen thousand six-word memoirssubmitted to Smith Magazine, an online journal devoted to storytelling.
AA: The editors of the book, Rachel Fershleiser and LarrySmith, offered WORDMASTER listeners five slots in their next volume.Well, here's a bonus: we're going to read you seven of them.
RS: Grace Liu in Taiwan writes: Unexpected, surprised, change, I lovechallenge! Grace explains her six-word memoir this way: Everything inmy life is always full of the unexpected. I have to accept the worldaround me, but these challenges could inspire me to overcome!
AA: Ki-Hong Park from South Korea writes: I'm interested in learningEnglish though I don't have any chances to use it. Anyway, here is mysix-word memoir: Out of Here, but Still Here.
RS: A listener named Austin Garruba sent us this one: Baptized: Conformed: Revolted: Disillusioned: Born ... Again!
AA: From India, Karma Lhamo writes: Was born confused, will die confused!
RS: W. K. Eranda from Sri Lanka sent us this six-word memoir: Listen to your mom unless deaf.
AA: Ali Almasi is a medical products engineer in the American state ofPennsylvania. He sent us a six-word memoir -- plus a title: 3T's law:Trust heart. Think seriously. Take actions.
RS: And CarmenMcGee is a clinical supervisor in Texas at the University of Houstonspeech, language and hearing clinic. Her six-word memoir Master ofnone; okay with that.
AA: And that's WORDMASTER for thisweek. To find Adam's original story, go to our Web site,voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.
aa/rs/rms
How Culture Affected Shakespeare, and He Affected Culture
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:09 GMT)
VOICE ONE:
Im Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And Im Barbara Klein with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today, we complete our story about the influential English writer William Shakespeare. He wrote plays and poems during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. They remain very popular today.
VOICE TWO:
Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes in the 1998 film ''Shakespeare in Love''Last week, we talked about Shakespeares history, his plays, and his poems. Today, we talk about the events and cultural influences that affected Shakespeare and his art. We also discuss the countless ways his works have influenced language and popular culture.
VIOLA: Master Shakespeare ...
[Dancing]
Good sir, I heard you are a poet ...
[Shakespeare smiles, silent]
But a poet of no words
VOICE ONE:
That was part of a dancing scene from the popular nineteen ninety-eight movie Shakespeare in Love. The film suggests one way in which Shakespeare might have been influenced to write Romeo and Juliet: because of his relationship with a brave and lovely woman. The movie is only very loosely based on real events, but it is a wonderful story.
VOICE TWO:
Many of Shakespeares works were influenced by earlier writings. During this time, students would probably have learned several ancient Roman and Greek plays. It was not unusual for writers to produce more current versions of these works. For example, in his play The Comedy of Errors Shakespeare borrows certain structural details from the ancient Roman playwright Plautus.
VOICE ONE:
James the FirstFor his tragic play Macbeth, Shakespeare most likely used a work on Scottish history by Raphael Holinshed for information. It is also no accident that this play about a Scottish king was written a few years after James the First became King of England in sixteen-oh-three. This new ruler was from Scotland and London was alive with Scottish culture. Shakespeare may have borrowed from other writers, but the intensity of his imagination and language made the plays his own.
VOICE TWO:
Shakespeare was also influenced by the world around him. He describes the sights and sounds of London in his plays. His works include observations about current political struggles, the fear of diseases, and the popular language of the citys tradesmen and other professionals.
Shakespeares knowledge of the English countryside is also clear. His works include descriptions of deep forests, local flowers, and the ancient popular traditions of rural people.
VOICE ONE:
Shakespeare became a well-known writer during a golden age of theater. His years of hard work paid off. Over the years, he invested income from his acting company by purchasing land and other property. He retired to the countryside a wealthy man. William Shakespeare died in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon in sixteen-sixteen at the age of fifty-two. While many plays by other writers of his time have been forgotten, Shakespeare and his art live on.
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VOICE TWO:
It would be impossible to list all of the ways in which Shakespeares works have influenced world culture. But we can give a few important examples. The first example would have to include his great effect on the English language. During his time, the English language was changing. Many new words from other languages were being added.
VOICE ONE:
A famous, but disputed, portrait of William Shakespeare at the National Portrait Gallery in LondonShakespeare used his sharp mind and poetic inventiveness to create hundreds of new words and rework old ones. For example, he created the verb to torture and the noun forms of critic, mountaineer and eyeball. Many common expressions in English come from his plays. These include pomp and circumstance from Othello, full circle from King Lear and one fell swoop from Macbeth.
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is the home of the largest collection of Shakespearean materials in the world. For example, it contains seventy-nine copies of the first printed collection of Shakespeares plays. The First Folio was published in sixteen twenty-three, after his death. It contained thirty-six of his plays. Without this important publication, eighteen of Shakespeares plays would have been lost.
The Folger also has more than two hundred examples of Shakespeares Quartos. These earlier publications of the plays were smaller and less costly to print.
You might be wondering which versions of Shakespeares plays are read today. Scholars who work on publishing many of the plays make careful choices about whether to use words from the First Folio, or the Quartos.
The Folger Library also holds exhibits about the Renaissance period and Shakespearean culture.
VOICE TWO:
The list of cultural creations influenced by Shakespeare is almost endless. From paintings to television to music and dance, Shakespeare is well represented. For example, the nineteenth century Otello by Giuseppe Verdi is an opera version of the tragic play Othello. It is about a ruler who believes wrongly that his wife has been with another man. One famous song from this opera includes the wife, Desdemona, mournfully singing Ave Maria.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Over a century later, the American songwriter Cole Porter transformed the Shakespeare comedy The Taming of the Shrew into the musical play Kiss Me Kate. The musical was later made into a movie. Songs like Brush Up Your Shakespeare are popular favorites.
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VOICE TWO:
In nineteen fifty-seven the famous jazz musician Duke Ellington released Such Sweet Thunder. In the song The Telecasters Duke Ellington musically recreates the three witches in Shakespeares Macbeth. Ellington uses three trombone instruments. His use of silent breaks adds a special tension to the song.
(MUSIC: The Telecasters)
VOICE ONE:
Natalie Wood in "West Side Story"Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim worked together on a modern version of Romeo and Juliet. Their popular musical play took place on the West Side of New York City. The opposing groups are a gang of young people and a group of new immigrants. The award-winning movie version came out in nineteen sixty-one. Here the main character Maria sings about the happiness of being in love in I Feel Pretty.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
It is not just new versions of the plays that live on in popular culture. Shakespeares plays have been translated into every major language in the world. All across the United States, the plays are performed in schools, theaters and festivals. There are over one hundred Shakespeare festivals and many permanent theaters that perform his works. In Washington, D.C., alone two theaters perform the plays of Shakespeare and other writers of his time.
We leave you with words of praise by Ben Jonson, a playwright who lived during Shakespeares time. Mister Jonson knew long ago that the works of Shakespeare would hold their magic through the ages.
(MUSIC)
VOICE THREE:
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
VOICE ONE:
This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. Im Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And Im Barbara Klein. Our reader was Shep ONeal. You can read and listen to this program on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.
Disabilities in Old, Young Studied in Developing Nations
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:09 GMT)
Thisis the VOA Special English Development Report.
Anew study says the leading cause of disability in older people in low andmiddle income countries is dementia. The researchers disagree with the WorldHealth Organization which says blindness and other vision problems are theleading cause.
A study says dementia is more widespread in the developing world than has been recognizedDementia is a loss of intellectual abilitythat affects memory, learning, attention, thinking and language skills. Peoplewith dementia may forget family members or not know what day it is. Sometimesthey become angry or sad, hear voices, or see things that are not there.
RenataSousa from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London and otherresearchers wrote the new report. Their study looked at the causes ofdisability among fifteen thousand people age sixty-five or older in sevencountries. The countries were China, India, Cuba, the Dominican Republic,Venezuela, Mexico and Peru.
The team found that dementia wasthe largest cause of disability in the elderly in areas other than rural Indiaand Venezuela. Other major causes were stroke, loss of use of arms or legs,arthritis, depression, eyesight problems and gastrointestinal problems.
Inlow and middle income countries, heart disease and cancer get much of theattention given to chronic diseases. The researchers say increased importanceshould be given to chronic diseases of the brain and mind. As populations age,societies will have to deal with more and more cases of dementia.
The study says the elderly are ninepercent of the total population of low and middle income countries today. Buttheir numbers are growing quickly. They are expected to reach twenty percent ofthe total population by the middle of the century.
Thestudy appeared in the Lancet medical journal which published a special issue ondisability. A separate study of eighteen low and middle income countries dealtwith children.
Itfound that in almost half the countries, children who were not breastfed were muchmore likely to have a disability than those who were. The same was true ofthose who did not receive vitamin A supplements and those who were underweight.
Children who didnot take part in early learning activities or attend school were also morelikely to be disabled than those who did.
Researchers at the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison in the United States and UNICEF did the study.
Andthat's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'mSteve Ember.
Shakespeare Was a Producer and Actor and, Oh Yes, a Writer
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:11 GMT)
VOICE ONE:
Im Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
William ShakespeareAnd Im Barbara Klein with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today, we tell about one of the most influential and skillful writers in the world. For more than four hundred years, people all over the world have been reading, watching and listening to the plays and poetry of the British writer William Shakespeare.
JULIET: Ay me!
ROMEO: She speaks:
O, speak again, bright angel!
JULIET: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And Ill no longer be a Capulet.
VOICE ONE:
You just heard part of a famous scene from a movie version of Romeo and Juliet. This tragic play remains one of the greatest, and perhaps most famous, love stories ever told. It tells about two young people who meet and fall deeply in love. But their families, the Capulets and the Montagues, are enemies and will not allow them to be together. Romeo and Juliet are surrounded by violent fighting and generational conflict. The young lovers secretly marry, but their story has a tragic ending.
Romeo and Juliet shows how William Shakespeares plays shine with extraordinarily rich and imaginative language. He invented thousands of words to color his works. They have become part of the English language. Shakespeares universal stories show all the human emotions and conflicts. His works are as fresh today as they were four hundred years ago.
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VOICE TWO:
William Shakespeare was born in fifteen sixty-four in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. He married Anne Hathaway at the age of eighteen. The couple had three children, two daughters and a son who died very young. Shakespeare moved to London in the late fifteen eighties to be at the center of the citys busy theater life.
Most people think of Shakespeare as a writer. But he was also a theater producer, a part owner of an acting company and an actor. For most of his career, he was a producer and main writer for an acting company called the Kings Men.
VOICE ONE:
In fifteen ninety-nine Shakespeares company was successful enough to build its own theater called the Globe. Public theaters during this time were usually three floor levels high and were built around a stage area where the actors performed. The Globe could hold as many as three thousand people. People from all levels of society would attend performances.
The poorer people could buy tickets for a small amount of money to stand near the stage. Wealthier people could buy more costly tickets to sit in other areas.
Often it was not very important if wealthy people could see the stage well. It was more important that they be in a seat where everyone could see them.
VOICE TWO:
It was difficult to light large indoor spaces during this time. The Globe was an outdoor theater with no roof on top so that sunlight could stream in. Because of the open-air stage, actors had to shout very loudly and make big motions to be heard and seen by all. This acting style is quite different from play-acting today. It might also surprise you that all actors during this period were men. Young boys in womens clothing played the roles of female characters. This is because it was against the law in England for women to act onstage.
Shakespeares theater group also performed in other places such as the smaller indoor Blackfriars Theater. Or, they would travel around the countryside to perform. Sometimes they were asked to perform at the palace of the English ruler Queen Elizabeth, or later, King James the First.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Shakespeare is best known for the thirty-nine plays that he wrote, although only thirty-eight exist today. His plays are usually divided into three groups: comedies, histories and tragedies. The comedies are playful and funny. They usually deal with marriage and the funny activities of people in love. These comedies often tell many stories at the same time, like plays within plays.
VOICE TWO:
Much Ado About Nothing is a good example of a Shakespearian comedy. It tells the story of two couples. Benedick and Beatrice each claim they will never marry. They enjoy attacking each other with funny insults. Their friends work out a plan to make the two secretly fall in love.
Claudio and Hero are the other couple. They fall in love at once and plan to marry. But Claudio wrongly accuses Hero of being with another man and refuses to marry her. Heros family decides to make Claudio believe that she is dead until her innocence can be proved. Claudio soon realizes his mistake and mourns for Hero. By the end of the play, love wins over everyone and there is a marriage ceremony for the four lovers.
VOICE ONE:
Shakespeares histories are intense explorations of actual English rulers. This was a newer kind of play that developed during Shakespeares time. Other writers may have written historical plays, but no one could match Shakespeares skill. Plays about rulers like Henry the Fourth and Richard the Third explore Britains history during a time when the country was going through tense political struggles.
VOICE TWO:
Many Shakespearian tragedies are about conflicting family loyalties or a character seeking to punish others for the wrongful death of a loved one. Hamlet tells the story of the son of the king of Denmark. When Hamlets father unexpectedly dies, his uncle Claudius becomes ruler and marries Hamlets mother. One night a ghostly spirit visits Hamlet and tells him that Claudius killed his father.
Hamlet decides to pretend that he is crazy to learn if this is true. This intense play captures the conflicted inner life of Hamlet. This young man must struggle between his moral beliefs and his desire to seek punishment for his fathers death. Here is a famous speech from a movie version of Hamlet. The actor Laurence Olivier shines in this difficult role.
HAMLET: To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them
VOICE ONE:
Shakespeare also wrote one of greatest collections of poems in English literature. He wrote several long poems, but is best known for his one hundred and fifty-four short poems, or sonnets. The English sonnet has a very exact structure. It must have fourteen lines, with three groups of four lines that set up the subject or problem of the poem. The sonnet is resolved in the last two lines of the poem.
If that requirement seems demanding, Shakespeares sonnets are also written in iambic pentameter. This is a kind of structure in which each line has ten syllables or beats with a stress on every second beat.
VOICE TWO:
Even with these restrictive rules, the sonnets seem effortless. They have the most creative language and imaginative comparisons of any other poems. Most of the sonnets are love poems. Some of them are attacks while others are celebrations. The sonnets express everything from pain and death to desire, wisdom, and happiness.
Here is one of Shakespeares most famous poems. Sonnet Eighteen tells about the lasting nature of poetry. The speaker describes how the person he loves will remain forever young and beautiful in the lines of this poem.
Shall I compare thee to a summers day
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summers lease hath all too short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or natures changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owst;
Nor shall death brag thou wanderst in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growst:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE
Next week, we will explore the many ways that Shakespeares work has influenced world culture over time. This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. Im Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And Im Barbara Klein. You can read and listen to this program on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.
Words and Their Stories: Great Scott
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:11 GMT)
Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
Every language has its ways of expressing strong emotions -- surprise, shock, anger.
The expressions range from mild to strong, from exclamations and oaths, to curses and swear words. The ones that are accepted in public speech change through the years as social rules change.
At times, only very mild expressions are socially accepted.
Some of the most popular expressions are those that are guaranteed not to offend anyone. Most of these exclamations have survived from earlier days. And their original meanings are long since forgotten.
Great Scott! is a good example. It expresses surprise or shock. You might say to someone, Great Scott! I did not know she was married!
Language expert Webb Garrison tells an interesting story about the expression.
Just before the Civil War, the Whig political party was making a last effort to remain a part of American political life. For the election of eighteen fifty-two, the Whigs wanted to offer a colorful candidate for president.
They thought that Winfield Scott would be the right candidate.
In his thirty years as a general, Winfield Scott had become one of the best-known military leaders in the country. During the war with Mexico, he had captured Vera Cruz and occupied Mexico City.
So, party leaders thought that if any Whig could be elected president, it was Winfield Scott.
General Scott quickly accepted the nomination and began campaigning. It did not take long for the public to realize that General Scott really liked General Scott!
His speeches were full of praise for himself. It was evident that he thought he was the greatest candidate who had ever lived. Soon his political opponents began to make fun of him. They called him, Great Scott.
General Scott did not come close to winning the presidency. But his name still lives as part of the English language.
Other popular exclamations combine holy with other words.
Holy Mackerel! is one that expresses surprise or wonder. It comes from earlier days when the Roman Catholic Church ruled that Catholics must not eat meat on Fridays. Since mackerel was a common and cheap fish in the United States, it was often eaten for dinner on Friday.
Then there is Holy Toledo! It is another expression of surprise. It refers to the city of Toledo, Spain, an important religious center in medieval times. Toledo was a holy city for both the Roman Catholics and the Muslim Moors of Spain.
(MUSIC)
This VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES was written by Marilyn Christiano. Maurice Joyce was the narrator. Im Warren Scheer.
A Compromise on Climate Change at Copenhagen
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:12 GMT)
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
Almosttwo hundred countries met for two weeks at a United Nations conference onclimate change in Copenhagen, Denmark. In the end, only five of them reached anagreement: the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
PresidentObama praised the agreement last Friday. This week, he said many people aredisappointed in the agreement. But hesaid the compromise was better than nothing.
The voluntary agreement urges major polluters to makedeeper cuts in the release of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gas emissions, suchas carbon dioxide, are created in part by burning oil and coal fortransportation and electricity.
The agreement setstargets to prevent the Earth's average temperature from rising more than twodegrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And the plan calls for one hundredbillion dollars a year in aid to poor nations to deal with climate change. Thiswould start in two thousand twenty.
But the agreement,known as the Copenhagen Accord, is not legally binding. It fails to setdetailed targets for cuts in carbon emissions. And it failed to earn thesupport of all the nations at the talks.
India's environment minister praised the unitedposition taken by India, China, Brazil and South Africa. He said it permittedthem to avoid the legally binding targets and international supervisionproposed by developed countries.
India,for example, has promised to cut emissions by at least twenty percent from twothousand five levels by two thousand twenty. But big developing countries donot want to limit their economic growth. They say rich nations created theproblem, so they should take most of the responsibility for reducing greenhousegases.
Chinarejected accusations by critics that it was responsible for the results at Copenhagen.A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said developed countries did not perform well atthe talks. She said China has taken its own measures to fight climate change andsupports pressing ahead with international cooperation.
China and other large developing countries have accusedrich nations of failing to offer big enough cuts in their own emissions. Theyalso say wealthy nations did not offer enough money and technology to help poorcountries deal with climate change.
InEurope, politicians and environmentalists expressed deep disappointment thatworld leaders failed to reach a stronger agreement.
ButUnited Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the Copenhagen Accord is onlya beginning. He says he will work with world leaders to reach a legally bindingtreaty in the coming months.
By nextmonth all countries are supposed to have plans for cutting emissions. Andclimate talks will continue in the coming year with meetings in Germany andMexico.
Andthat's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.
Making Merry With This Years Holiday Music
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:13 GMT)
HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
Im Bob Doughty.
As always, music makers released lots of new holiday albums this year. There are country, jazz, gospel and other kinds of holiday songs. Since it is Christmas today we thought we would take time to listen to some of the new offerings.
The biggest surprise came from this artist. Maybe you will recognize the voice.
(MUSIC)
Bob Dylans album, Christmas in the Heart, has many traditional Christmas songs. The video for the song Must Be Santa has been very popular on the Internet. Dylan is wearing false long hair and dancing around with a crowd of mostly younger people at a wild house party. It is all very strange. But it does seem merry. Christmas in the Heart is truly a gift, too. All of Dylans profits from the album are going to aid organizations.
Also for charity is another release in the Very Special Christmas series. Two thousand nine marks the seventh recording in the series. It began in nineteen-eighty-seven to help the Special Olympics. Artists who took part this season include Colbie Caillat, Miley Cyrus and this country superstar, Carrie Underwood. She sings Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
(MUSIC)
The country band Sugarland released its first Christmas album this year called Gold and Green. The bands two members, Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles, perform some traditional songs. They also co-wrote many new holiday songs too, like the title track.
(MUSIC)
Straight No Chaser is a famous mens singing group that began at Indiana University. Former members formed a professional group of the same name. Straight No Chaser is an acapella group which means the singers do not perform with any instrumental music. Their voices do all the work.
Straight No Chaser released Christmas Cheers in November. Here the men perform a funny piece called The Christmas Can-Can.
(MUSIC)
Last month, the British musician Sting released If on a Winters Night ... The album is filled with beautiful, old music from the British Isles. The recording is more about the winter season than a holiday. However, in Christmas at Sea Sting takes a haunting Robert Louis Stevenson poem and sets it to music.
(MUSIC)
My Christmas is Andrea Bocellis new holiday album. The Italian singer invited many guest artists to perform on the recording. They include the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Muppets, and Mary J. Blige.
Here Andrea Bocelli and Natalie Cole sing The Christmas Song, from My Christmas.
(MUSIC)
Ayiesha Woods is a Christian musician originally from Long Island, New York. The singer-songwriter has won several gospel music awards and has released four albums. They include this years holiday recording, Christmas Like This. It was released last month. Here Ayiesha Woods performs O Holy Night.
(MUSIC)
Neil Diamond is another American singer-songwriter. He has been a superstar in the music business for almost forty years. A Cherry, Cherry, Christmas is Diamonds third Christmas album. Diamond says his latest record let people experience the special feelings of Christmas year after year. One of those feelings might be the fun of a sleigh ride through the snow.
(MUSIC: SLEIGH RIDE)
There is also a nice seasonal album out for jazz lovers. Jazzy Brass for the Holidays is the latest recording by jazz trumpet player Eddie Allen. Allen arranged all fourteen pieces on the recording. He also leads the four-member brass band, drummer and bass player.
We leave you with Eddie Allen and the band playing Let it Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! from Jazzy Brass for the Holidays.
(MUSIC)
Im Bob Doughty. This program was written and produced by Caty Weaver.
Do you have a question about people, places or things in America Send it to mosaic@voanews.comand we may answer it on this show.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOAs radio magazine in Special English.
US Groups Working to Aid Quake Victims in Haiti; Super Bowl Preview
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:13 GMT)
DOUG JOHNSON:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
Im Doug Johnson.
Today on our program, we listen to music from some of this weeks Grammy winners ...
And we tell about the teams competing in the championship game of American football ...
But first, we talk about some small groups and individuals in the United States who are helping the people of Haiti.
(MUSIC)
Help for Haiti
DOUG JOHNSON:
The International Red Cross, MercyCorps and Doctors without Borders are big aid organizations helping the people of Haiti after the earthquake last month.
In the United States, many people are also giving their time and energy to collect money and goods for the earthquake victims. Faith Lapidus tells about some of these projects.
FAITH LAPIDUS:
At Jordan Catholic School in Rock Island, Illinois, students set up a money supply for Haiti. The money came mostly from the weekly pay the children get from their parents for good behavior or work around the house. Some children who do not get such allowances found money from other sources. For example, some sixth graders made and sold jewelry.
Sandy Carlsten is the assistant principal at the school. Miz Carlsten set up a big glass container in the front office of the school. She sent letters asking the children to donate what they could.
Miz Carlsten says the children loved to watch the big glass jar fill up quickly. She found an envelope in the jar with the message: I hope this money will help you and your family in these rough times.
Sandy Carlsten says the children raised more than one thousand four hundred fifty dollars. They are giving it to Catholic Relief Services to help the people of Haiti. She says sharing and caring for others is a big part of Catholic school education.
Even victims who were not seriously hurt in the earthquake January twelfth are in need of the most basic supplies. College students in Sierra Vista, Arizona are trying to help meet those needs. The Cochise College Social Concerns Club has organized a campaign to collect simple medical care equipment and personal cleanliness supplies.
In Virginia, employees of the Alexandria Sheriffs Office donated seven thousand dollars to help school children in Haiti. Harry Covert is the spokesman for the sheriffs office. He is also a leader of a humanitarian aid organization that has been supporting a school in Haiti for years. The school was destroyed in the earthquake but all one hundred fifty students survived.
Harry Covert says the key to re-building the school, and all of Haiti, is to make sure the work is done right. He says he was shocked by the way poor people in Port-au-Prince lived when he first visited in nineteen eighty-one. In two later trips he saw no improvement. Now, he says, people must not permit Haitis poorest citizens to return to the terrible conditions that existed even before the earthquake.
(MUSIC)
Super Bowl
DOUG JOHNSON:
Last week we answered a listener question about Americans favorite winter sport to watch. Experts say American professional football is most popular. Sunday is the most important day for football fans. The National Football League holds its championship game.
The New Orleans Saints from Louisiana will play the Indianapolis Colts from Indiana in Super Bowl Forty-Four. They will play at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. This is the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins.
Gregg Easterbrook writes a weekly piece called Tuesday Morning Quarterback for E.S.P.N.com. He expects this Super Bowl to be an especially exciting one. He notes the very different styles of the competing teams. He writes that the Colts are very careful, well organized and predictable players. But, New Orleans, he writes, is like watching an outdoor cocktail party play football. The team is wild, fun and loves to use trick plays.
The Super Bowl is historic for the New Orleans Saints. The team was established in nineteen sixty-seven. But it has never made it to the championship game until now. It has come close several times. In two thousand six, the year after Hurricane Katrina, the Saints returned to play at the repaired Superdome in New Orleans. The team performed well all season and came within one game of Super Bowl competition. This year, Saints fans are especially excited to see their team playing in the Super Bowl. Their city is still recovering from the hurricane.
The Indianapolis Colts have a longer history than the Saints. The team was officially established in nineteen fifty-three as the Baltimore Colts. The Colts left Baltimore for Indianapolis in nineteen eighty-four. The Indianapolis Colts have been to one Super Bowl since then, in two thousand seven. The Colts defeated the Chicago Bears for the N.F.L. championship.
On Sunday, millions of people in the United States and several other countries will watch the big game with friends and family. They will watch a half-time performance by the British rock band the Who. And they will enjoy the funny advertisements that are always broadcast during the Super Bowl. It is one of the biggest nights for American television. Last year, about one hundred million people in the United States watched the Super Bowl.
(MUSIC)
Grammy Awards
DOUG JOHNSON:
Every year, members of the Recording Academy choose their favorite songs, albums and musicians to receive Grammy Awards. The academy held its Grammy Awards ceremony last Sunday in Los Angeles, California. Shirley Griffith plays music from some of the winners.
SHIRLEY GRIFFTH:
Singer Beyonce had a huge night at the Grammy Awards. She won six, a record for a female performer. Three of the awards were for this hit song, Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).
(MUSIC)
Country singer Taylor Swift also had a big night. She received her first Grammy and three more, including the Album of the Year award. Here she performs, White Horse, from the album, Fearless. Swift won the Grammy for best country vocal performance for the song.
(MUSIC)
During the past year, American Mosaic has played music from many of the performers who won Grammys Sunday night. They include the band Kings of Leon and musician Bela Fleck, performers Lady Gaga and Lady Antebellum. But here is one we did not play. The French band Phoenix won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. Here is the song, 1901 from the album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.
(MUSIC)
More than one hundred Grammy Awards are presented every year. There are awards for all kinds of music and spoken word recordings. We leave you with singer Renee Fleming. She won the Grammy for Best Classical Vocal Performance for the album, Verismo. Here she performs, Flammen, Perdonami from Pietro Mascagnis opera, Lodoletta.
(MUSIC)
DOUG JOHNSON:
Im Doug Johnson. Our program was written and produced by Caty Weaver.
Do you have a question about people, places or things in America Send it to mosaic@voanews.comand we may answer it on this show.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOAs radio magazine in Special English.
Less Salt Can Mean More Life
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:14 GMT)
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Even a small reduction in salt in the diet can be a big help to the heart. A new study used a computer model to predict how just three grams less a day would affect heart disease in the United States.
The result: thirteen percent fewer heart attacks. Eight percent fewer strokes. Four percent fewer deaths. Eleven percent fewer new cases of heart disease. And two hundred forty billion dollars in health care savings.
Researchers found it could prevent one hundred thousand heart attacks and ninety-two thousand deaths every year.
The study is in the New England Journal of Medicine. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo at the University of California San Francisco, was the lead author. She says people would not even notice a difference in taste with three grams, or one-half teaspoon, less salt per day. The team also included researchers at Stanford and Columbia University.
Each gram of salt contains four hundred milligrams of sodium, which is how foods may list their salt content.
The government says the average American man eats ten grams of salt a day. The American Heart Association advises no more than three grams for healthy people. It says salt in the American diet has increased fifty percent since the nineteen seventies, while blood pressures have also risen. Less salt can mean a lower blood pressure.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is leading an effort called the National Salt Reduction Initiative. The idea is to put pressure on food companies and restaurants. Critics call it government interference.
Mayor Bloomberg has already succeeded in other areas, like requiring fast food places in the city to list calorie information. Now a study by the Seattle Childrens Research Institute shows how that idea can influence what parents order for their children.
Ninety-nine parents of three to six year olds took part. Half had McDonalds menus clearly showing how many calories were in each food. The other half got menus without the calorie information.
Parents given the counts chose an average of one hundred two fewer calories when asked what they would order for their children. Yet there was no difference in calories between the two groups for foods that the parents would have chosen for themselves.
Study leader Pooja Tandon says even small calorie reductions on a regular basis can prevent weight gain over time. The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.
And thats the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. What do you think is a governments duty on issues like salt or fats Let us know at voaspecialenglish.com. Im Faith Lapidus.
2009: A Year of Discovery and Promise in Space
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:15 GMT)
VOICE ONE:
I'm Mario Ritter.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember withEXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Thisweek, we tell about some of the biggest space stories of two thousand nine. First, there was the American space agency's discoveryof water on the moon. We also talk to aNASA expert about the discovery of methane gas on Mars. And we hear about the test flight of NASA'snewest rocket.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
An artist's picture of LCROSS Possibly thebiggest space story this year was the discovery of water on the moon. The best evidence was provided by a dramaticexperiment carried out on October ninth. NASA used its Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS,to look for water deep beneath the lunar surface.
Toget below the ancient lunar rocks, NASA crashed a rocket into the moon's southpole. The crash caused soil to be expelled many kilometers above the lunarsurface. LCROSS studied the soil beforeit too crashed into the moon. Theexperiment pushed the search for water several meters below the lunarsurfacemuch deeper than had been possible before.
VOICE TWO:
LCROSS scientists Anthony Colaprete and Kim Ennico study early results from the lunar impact experimentInNovember, Anthony Colaprete, a leading scientist with the LCROSSproject, spoke about information gathered by the spacecraft. He said about one hundred kilograms of waterhad been found in the material ejected by the moon crash. Water has now been confirmed in amounts muchgreater than had been thought.
InSeptember, NASA scientists had announced the discovery of water moleculesmainly in the moon's extreme northern and southern areas. They noted, however, that they could also beseeing evidence of another molecule, hydroxyl.
VOICE ONE:
Instrumentson three separate spacecraft gathered that evidence of lunar water. NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper made the mostrecent observations. It was one ofeleven scientific devices carried by the Chandrayaan-Onespacecraft of the Indian Space Research Organization.
TheMapper is a spectrometer, which measures reflected light wavelengths. The device shows scientists what an object ismade of from great distances. Similardevices on NASA's Cassini and Epoxi spacecraft also reported water.
Butthose observations were made years ago. NASA scientists had not trusted theresults without clear confirmation.
TheMoon Mineralogy Mapper could only examine lunar soil to a depth of a fewmillimeters. And the amount of waterfound in that layer was very small. Now,LCROSS has shown that large amounts of water could exist on the moon. And it raises even more questions.
Waswater brought to the moon by space rocks and icy bodies called comets Or could processes deep within the moonproduce water If that is the case, itmay be possible that the moon could hold enough water for future explorationsor even colonies.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
The presence of water on the moon was not the only majorsolar system discovery NASA made this year. In January, a team of NASA and university scientists announced that theyhad found methane gas on Mars. The groupused NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the W.M. Keck telescope. Both instruments are in Mauna Kea, Hawaii.Methane is better known as natural gas. On Earth, it is mainly produced by processes linked to biology.
Thisraises the exciting possibility that life may have existed in the past on Mars. Or it may still exist deep below the surface.Michael Meyer is lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program inWashington. He spoke to us about thefinding.
MICHAEL MEYER: It really means that the planet is moreactive than we thought, and more active--and that can be geologically or maybeeven biologically.
VOICE ONE:
On Earth, biological activity is veryeffective in making methane. But MichaelMeyer notes that methane also can come from a purely non-biological processcalled serpentinization. He says themethane discovery presents scientists with a mystery because it is still notclear how the gas is being produced.
Martianmethane is also unusual because it is not evenly spread over the planet. It can become concentrated in small areas andthen disappear. This suggests processesthat both supply and remove methane from the atmosphere in certain places. Currently, the best explanation for the lossof methane is that it chemically reacts with dust in the atmosphere. The gas may then turn into something elsesuch as carbon dioxide.
VOICE TWO:
NASA plans to send the Mars ScienceLaboratory to the red planet in the autumn of two thousand eleven. The exploration vehicle will be able tomeasure methane even at very low levels in many places on the surface.
Michael Meyer also says NASA is developingan orbiter with European scientists. Itwill be able to measure small amounts of many different gases. The orbiter could finally provide evidenceabout how methane on Mars is created and destroyed. Michael Meyer saysplanetary scientists often study processes that are very different from ones onEarth. But he says understanding these differences can help discover how somecomplex processes on our own planet really work.
(SOUND: NASA Rocket Launch)
VOICE ONE:
OnOctober twenty-eighth, NASA took an important step into the future. The agency carried out a test flight of itsnext-generation launch vehicle for astronauts.
NASAis developing two separate rockets for the Ares program. Phil Sumrall is the Ares Project Office AdvancedPlanning Manager. He says this was donefor safety reasons.
The loss of the space shuttle Columbia in February oftwo thousand three led to an investigation by the Columbia AccidentInvestigation Board. The grouprecommended that human life must not be risked simply to send equipment intospace. The result was a design in whichsafety was the top concern.
PHIL SUMRALL: We designed the Ares One to be theabsolute safest possible vehicle that we could conceive.
VOICE TWO:
Space scientists designed Ares One witha system that would rescue astronauts whether there was a failure of the rocketin the launch area or during flight. MisterSumrall says NASA estimates the new Ares One will be twenty to thirty timessafer than the Space Shuttle.
Theother Ares launch vehicle is the huge Ares Five rocket. It will be the biggest rocket ever built. The Ares Five will be one hundred sixteenmeters tall and weigh three point seven million kilograms. It will be able to lift nearly forty percentmore than the Saturn Five rocket that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon.
VOICE ONE:
Muchof the Ares technology has been developed from existing vehicles. Versions of the solid fuel rockets that areused on the Space Shuttle today will serve as the first stage of the Ares One andbooster rockets on the Ares Five. Anengine first developed for the Saturn Five moon rocket has been updated to beused on Ares.
Existing manufacturing technologies are also being usedin new ways on Ares. The tanks of theAres rockets will be made of aluminum lithium. This is a strong and light metal alloy that has been used on the Space Shuttle. But Ares will use new methods in metal-workingscience such as friction stir welding. This method uses heat and pressure to join pieces of metaltogether. Friction stir welding can beused to make complex curved and domed structures out of aluminum lithium andsimilar alloys. And, friction stirwelding uses fewer workers at less cost than other methods.
Scientists developed thenew welding technology at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Montgomery,Alabama. It will be used when Ares isbuilt at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana.
VOICE TWO:
Phil Sumrall says NASA's estimate to keep the Aresprogram going forward as planned calls for three billion dollars in additionalspending a year.
Hesays if money is available, Ares Five could be ready for a test flight by twothousand seventeen. We asked Phil Sumrall how NASA expects to use Ares in itsspace exploration plans.
PHIL SUMRALL: It's not just for going to the moon ornear Earth objects. It's what we'd useto go to, eventually, to Mars or to the moons of Mars.
NASA named the new rocket system Ares, the Greek name forMars. The name suggests the goal for afuture generation of space explorers. They may be the first humans to set foot on another planet.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
I'mSteve Ember with Mario Ritter who also wrote and produced our program. You can find links to the NASA Web site atvoaspecialenglish.com. You can also findtranscripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.
How Loneliness Can Infect Social Networks
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:15 GMT)
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Loneliness has been linked to depression and other health problems. Now, a study says it can also spread. A friend of a lonely person was fifty-two percent more likely to develop feelings of loneliness. And a friend of that friend was twenty-five percent more likely to do the same.
Earlier findings showed that happiness, obesity and the ability to stop smoking can also spread like infections within social groups. The findings all come from a major health study in the American town of Framingham, Massachusetts.
The study began in nineteen forty-eight to investigate the causes of heart disease. Since then, more tests have been added, including measures of loneliness and depression.
The new findings involved more than five thousand people in the second generation of the Framingham Heart Study. The researchers examined friendship histories and reports of loneliness. The results established a pattern that spread as people reported fewer close friends.
For example, loneliness can affect relationships between next-door neighbors. The loneliness spreads as neighbors who were close friends now spend less time together. The study also found that loneliness spreads more easily among women than men.
Researchers from the University of Chicago, Harvard and the University of California, San Diego, did the study. The findings appeared last month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The average person is said to experience feelings of loneliness about forty-eight days a year. The study found that having a lonely friend can add about seventeen days. But every additional friend can decrease loneliness by about five percent, or two and a half days.
Lonely people become less and less trusting of others. This makes it more and more difficult for them to make friends -- and more likely that society will reject them.
John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago led the study. He says it is important to recognize and deal with loneliness. He says people who have been pushed to the edges of society should receive help to repair their social networks.
The aim should be to aggressively create what he calls a protective barrier against loneliness. This barrier, he says, can keep the whole network from coming apart.
And thats the VOA Special English Health Report. You can find transcripts and MP3s of all of our reports at voaspecialenglish.com -- where you can also post your comments and read what others are saying. And you can find us on YouTube and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Im Steve Ember.
Five New Years Resolutions for Learners to Improve Their English
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:15 GMT)
AA: Im Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: English teacher Lida Baker suggests five resolutions for people who want to improve their English in the New Year.
LIDA BAKER: My first resolution that I would recommend people make is to spend a certain amount of time listening to English -- and it can be five minutes a day or it can be 10 minutes a week or it can be whatever suits a persons work schedule, life schedule or whatever. But its really important to set goals and to stick to them. And it would be very helpful if people had Internet access to do this, because what Im going to recommend is listening to sites that have scripts included
RS: What do you do if you dont have access to a computer, how can you listen better
LIDA BAKER: Well, almost everyone all over the world has access to pop music. And one of my resolutions would be to spend time listening to English music. The advantage of listening to music is that its a really wonderful way to work on your pronunciation, because you get a feeling for the stress and the rhythm of the language when youre singing. And also music is full of idioms, so its a terrific way to learn colloquial vocabulary and to work on your pronunciation. And a third advantage of listening to music is that its really easy to remember.
So for people who have access only to a radio, even they can do something to improve their English just by listening to pop music. And I might add, if you do have access to the Internet, there are lots of Internet sites that will give you the lyrics to pop songs. Do a search, type music or songs plus lyrics, and youll find sites where you can type in the name of the song and it will give you the lyrics to the song.
RS: So spend a little bit more time listening, or have a goal for listening. Listen to English music. What else
LIDA BAKER: Something else I tell my students, and theyre always surprised when I tell them this, is read childrens books.
AA: That makes sense, though.
LIDA BAKER: Yeah. Why do you say that
RS: Well, few words.
AA: Its simpler.
RS: Direct, simple. Lots of pictures.
LIDA BAKER: There you go.
RS: That puts it in a context.
LIDA BAKER: There you go. And the other thing is, you can find childrens books at all levels. If you were a total beginner in English, you start with books that have just a few words on the page and lots of pictures, and you can work your way up to books that have relatively speaking more text and fewer illustrations. But again, childrens books are very motivating. To this day I enjoy reading the books that I read to my daughter when she was a little girl.
AA: So now weve got the listening to the radio, listening to music, going online and looking for scripts of programs to go with the audio, reading childrens books. Whats your next resolution
LIDA BAKER: Learn a new word every day. And if you dont have time to do it every day, do it every other day. Again, pick a realistic goal. Choose your word, look up the meaning, but then dont stop there. Look at the examples in the dictionary for how the word is used. Is it used as a noun Is it a verb Is it used to talk about people If its an adjective, does it have a positive meaning or a negative meaning So look for whats called the connotation of the word. And then, when youre sitting in your car, or youre walking to the bus stop or sitting on the bus, practice. Put the word into your own sentences. Think of ways that you could use that word.
And so now we come to our last resolution, which in a way is the most difficult one, because my last resolution would be, even if its only very occasionally, talk to native speakers every chance you get.
RS: Lida Baker teaches English and writes textbooks in Los Angeles, California.
AA: Thats all for Wordmaster this week. Our e-mail address is word@voanews.com. And Internet users can read and listen to all of our segments at voanews.com/wordmaster.
RS: With Avi Arditti, Im Rosanne Skirble.
New Treatment for Sleeping Sickness
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:16 GMT)
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
TheWorld Health Organization is using a new combination of drugs to treat humanAfrican trypanosomiasis disease, also known as sleeping sickness. The drugs nifurtimox and eflornithine will be givenout in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Officials from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiativesay the new treatment has fewer side effects. It is also more effective and less costly than the drugs traditionallyused. In addition, the new treatmentreduces the number of injections needed. And it shortens the amount of timepatients must spend in the hospital.
Sleeping sickness threatens millions ofpeople in thirty-six countries in Africa. Most live in poor rural areas. The disease is caused by the trypanosomaparasite. It is spread to humans throughthe bite of infected tsetse flies.
Common signs of sleeping sickness include fever, headaches,extreme tiredness and pain in the muscles and joints. Early identification ofthe disease may be difficult because many infected people do not show anyimmediate symptoms.
Overtime, the parasites invade the central nervous system. The disease causes sleepdisorders, mental confusion, personality changes, speech problems, seizures andcoma. If left untreated, sleeping sickness kills.
The World Health Organization estimates that aboutsixty thousand people are currently infected with the disease. It develops in twodifferent forms. Trypanosoma gambiense is responsible for ninety percent of thereported cases of sleeping sickness. People infected with this form may developthe disease over many years without any major symptoms. The disease developsmore quickly over a few weeks or months in people infected with trypanosomarhodesiense.
Until now the drug melarsoprol was used to treatpatients in the advanced stage of sleeping sickness.
Butthe drug requires many painful injections several times a day for severalweeks. It also causes bad side effects, some of which can be deadly.
InUganda, a new study has confirmed earlier research linking the spread of sleepingsickness to infected farm animals. The writersof the study have called for stronger rules requiring cattle to be treatedbefore being sold at market. The study waspublished in the Public Library of Science.
Andthat's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm SteveEmber.
American History Series: After Lincolns Murder
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:16 GMT)
Abraham LincolnWelcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
President Abraham Lincoln led the Union of northern states in four years of civil war against the southern Confederacy. But he did not live to see the end of the war. He did not live to see the nation re-united. He was assassinated in April of eighteen sixty-five.
This week in our series, Shep ONeal and Maurice Joyce tell what happened after Lincoln died.
VOICE ONE:
Mary Todd LincolnAlmost immediately, officials began planning details of the presidents funeral. They asked Missus Lincoln where she wanted her husband buried. At first, she said Chicago. That was where the Lincolns were going to live after they left the White House.
Then she said the Capitol building in Washington. A tomb had been built there for Americas first President, George Washington. But it had never been used.
Finally, she remembered a country cemetery they had visited. At the time, her husband had said: When I am gone, lay my remains in some quiet place like this. So Missus Lincoln decided that the presidents final resting place would be in the quiet, beautiful Oak Ridge Cemetery outside their home town of Springfield, Illinois.
VOICE TWO:
President Lincoln's funeral procession in WashingtonFor several days after Lincolns assassination, his body lay in the East Room of the White House. The room was open to the public all day. Next, the body was taken to the Capitol building. Again, the public could come to say goodbye. Then the body was put on a special train for the trip back to Illinois.
Four years earlier, President-elect Lincoln had traveled by train from Illinois to Washington. He stopped to make speeches in cities along the way. Now, on this sad return trip, the train stopped at those same cities: Baltimore. Philadelphia. New York. Cleveland. Indianapolis. Chicago.
VOICE ONE:
In every town, people lined the railroad. They stood silently, with tears in their eyes, as the train moved slowly past. Farmers working in the fields saw the train and dropped to their knees in prayer. For the wise man who had led the Union through four years of bloody civil war -- Father Abraham -- was dead.
Churches throughout the country held memorial services. Ministers told their people that God had taken Lincoln because the president had completed the job God had given him. He had brought peace to the Union, and freedom to all men.
VOICE TWO:
The final service was at the cemetery outside Springfield. It ended with the words from Lincolns second inaugural speech.
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right -- as God gives us to see the right -- let us strive on to finish the work we are in. Let us heal the nations wounds. Let us do all possible to get and keep a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
VOICE ONE:
John Wilkes BoothWhile the nation mourned Lincolns death, federal officials investigated his assassination. The man who had shot Lincoln in Fords Theater was an actor, John Wilkes Booth. He had fled the theater after the murder. The government offered a reward of one hundred thousand dollars to anyone who captured Booth and his helpers.
The investigation produced the names of several people who were friends of Booth. One was John Surratt. Like Booth, he supported the southern Confederacy during the Civil War. Another was David Herold, a young man who worked in a store in Washington. Others were George Atzerodt, Lewis Paine, Sam Arnold, and Michael OLaughlin.
Most of these men had stayed at a house owned by John Surratts mother, Mary.
VOICE TWO:
A poster offering money for the capture of those involved in Lincoln's killingOne by one, in the days following Lincolns death, these people were arrested. Anyone else who might have had a part in the plot was seized. Soon, hundreds of suspects were being held in jails in and around Washington.
At the end of a week, only two of the plotters were still free: David Herold and John Wilkes Booth.
Booth broke his leg when he jumped from the presidential box to the stage at Fords Theater. A few hours later, he and Herold stopped at the home of a Doctor Samuel Mudd. They reportedly gave the doctor false names. They asked him to fix Booths broken leg.
Doctor Mudd agreed. And he let the two men sleep at his home. Federal troops chasing the assassins arrested the doctor. They accused him of being part of the plot.
VOICE ONE:
John Wilkes Booth and David Herold ran and hid for six days. They crossed the Potomac River from Maryland into Virginia. Finally, twelve days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, soldiers found the two men. They were hiding in a tobacco barn near the town of Port Royal.
Herold agreed to surrender. He came out of the barn with his hands in the air. He shouted again and again that he was innocent.
Booth refused to come out. The soldiers set fire to the barn.
VOICE TWO:
The fire forced Booth to move close to the door. The soldiers could see him now. He was aiming a gun at them. The soldiers had been ordered to capture Booth alive. But one of them raised his gun and shot Booth in the neck.
The actor fell. Some of the soldiers ran to the burning barn and pulled him out. They carried him to a nearby house. He died two hours later.
VOICE ONE:
John Wilkes Booth carried a notebook. He wrote in it every day. On the day Lincoln was killed, he wrote: For six months we had worked to kidnap Lincoln. But with the Confederacy being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done. I struck boldly.
Booth described how and why he had shot the president. Our country, Booth wrote, owed all her troubles to him. And God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.
Booths body was returned to Washington. Men who knew him confirmed that it was the body of John Wilkes Booth. The body was buried under the stone floor of the Washington prison. A few years later, his family received permission to move the body to a cemetery in the city of Baltimore.
VOICE TWO:
Evidence showed that only a few people were actually involved in the plot against the president. Most had agreed to work with Booth because they believed he planned to kidnap Lincoln, not kill him.
Of the hundreds of persons arrested, only eight were brought to trial. The secretary of war decided that they would be tried by a military court. He argued that Lincoln had been commander-in-chief of all military forces and had been murdered during wartime.
VOICE ONE:
The military commission that tried the case. From left, Judge Joseph Holt, General Robert Foster, Colonel H. L. Burnett, and Colonel C. R. Clendemin The trial began almost two months after the assassination. The prisoners seemed in poor condition. All wore heavy chains on their arms and legs. And the men had been forced to wear thick cloths over their heads. Officials said the cloths were necessary to prevent them from talking to each other.
The secretary of war announced that the prisoners could not meet privately with their defense lawyers. They could meet only in the courtroom. Guards could hear everything they said.
One of the defense lawyers recognized that the job was hopeless. He said the trial was a contest between the defense lawyers and the whole United States. There was no question, he said, what the military courts decision would be.
VOICE TWO:
The government tried to prove that Lincolns assassination was a Confederate plot. Witnesses told how Confederate supporters reportedly planned to cause trouble in the North. But none could prove that Confederate President Jefferson Davis -- or any other southern leader -- played a part in Booths plot to kill Lincoln.
Four hundred witnesses appeared. Many of the important ones had been arrested as suspects. They agreed to give evidence if the government dropped the charges against them.
For six weeks, the court heard evidence against the eight prisoners. The prisoners themselves could say nothing. They could only listen.
VOICE ONE:
Officials prepare to hang the plotters in Washington In late June, eighteen sixty-five, the trial of Abraham Lincolns assassins ended. The military officers serving as judges met secretly for two days. Then they announced their decision.
All eight prisoners were found guilty. One received a prison sentence of six years. Three were sentenced to life in prison. Four were sentenced to die.
Defense lawyers appealed for mercy. The appeal was rejected. On July seventh, David Herold, Lewis Paine, George Atzerodt and Mary Surratt were hanged for the murder of Abraham Lincoln.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER:
Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. The narrators were Shep ONeal and Maurice Joyce. You can find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, along with historical images, at voaspecialenglish.com. And you can follow us on Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.
___
This is program #118 of THE MAKING OF A NATION
Time -- One of the Great Mysteries of Our Universe
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:17 GMT)
HOST:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember. This week our program is about a mystery asold as time. Bob Doughty and Sarah Longtell about the mystery of time.
(THEME)
VOICE ONE:
If you can read a clock, you can know the time ofday. But no one knows what time itselfis. We cannot see it. We cannot touch it. We cannot hear it. We know it only by the way we mark itspassing.
For all our success in measuring the smallest parts oftime, time remains one of the great mysteries of the universe.
VOICE TWO:
Oneway to think about time is to imagine a world without time. There could be no movement, because time andmovement cannot be separated.
A world without time could exist only as long as therewere no changes. For time and change arelinked. We know that time has passedwhen something changes.
VOICE ONE:
Inthe real world -- the world with time -- changes never stop. Some changes happen only once in a while,like an eclipse of the moon. Othershappen repeatedly, like the rising and setting of the sun. Humans always have noted natural events thatrepeat themselves. When people began tocount such events, they began to measure time.
Inearly human history, the only changes that seemed to repeat themselves evenlywere the movements of objects in the sky. The most easily seen result of these movements was the differencebetween light and darkness.
The sun rises in the eastern sky, producing light. It moves across the sky and sinks in thewest, causing darkness. The appearanceand disappearance of the sun was even and unfailing. The periods of light and darkness it createdwere the first accepted periods of time. We have named each period of light and darkness -- one day.
VOICE TWO:
People saw the sun rise higher in the sky during thesummer than in winter. They counted thedays that passed from the sun's highest position until it returned to thatposition. They counted three hundredsixty-five days. We now know that is thetime Earth takes to move once around the sun. We call this period of time a year.
VOICE ONE:
Early humans also noted changes in the moon. As it moved across the night sky, they musthave wondered. Why did it look differentevery night Why did it disappear Where did it go
Evenbefore they learned the answers to these questions, they developed a way to usethe changing faces of the moon to tell time.
Themoon was full when its face was bright and round. The early humans counted the number of timesthe sun appeared between full moons. They learned that this number always remained the same -- abouttwenty-nine suns. Twenty-nine sunsequaled one moon. We now know thisperiod of time as one month.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Earlyhumans hunted animals and gathered wild plants. They moved in groups or tribes from place to place in search offood. Then, people learned to plantseeds and grow crops. They learned touse animals to help them work, and for food.
They found they no longer needed to move from one placeto another to survive.
Ashunters, people did not need a way to measure time. As farmers, however, they had to plant cropsin time to harvest them before winter. They had to know when the seasons would change. So, they developed calendars.
Noone knows when the first calendar was developed. But it seems possible that it was based onmoons, or lunar months.
Whenpeople started farming, the wise men of the tribes became very important. They studied the sky. They gathered enough information so theycould know when the seasons would change. They announced when it was time to plant crops.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The divisions of time we use today were developed inancient Babylonia four thousand years ago. Babylonian astronomers believed the sun moved around the Earth everythree hundred sixty-five days. Theydivided the trip into twelve equal parts, or months. Each month was thirty days. Then, they divided each day into twenty-fourequal parts, or hours. They divided eachhour into sixty minutes, and each minute into sixty seconds.
VOICE TWO:
SundialHumanshave used many devices to measure time. The sundial was one of the earliest and simplest.
A sundial measures the movement of the sun across thesky each day. It has a stick or otherobject that rises above a flat surface. The stick, blocking sunlight, creates a shadow. As the sun moves, so does the shadow of thestick across the flat surface. Marks onthe surface show the passing of hours, and perhaps, minutes.
Thesundial works well only when the sun is shining. So, other ways were invented to measure thepassing of time.
VOICE ONE:
Onedevice is the hourglass. It uses a thinstream of falling sand to measure time. The hourglass is shaped like the number eight --- wide at the top andbottom, but very thin in the middle. Ina true hour glass, it takes exactly one hour for all the sand todrop from the top to the bottom through a very small opening in themiddle. When the hourglass is turnedwith the upside down, it begins to mark the passing of another hour.
Bythe eighteenth century, people had developed mechanical clocks andwatches. And today, many of our clocksand watches are electronic.
VOICE TWO:
ClockSo, we have devices to mark the passing of time. But what time is it now Clocks in different parts of the world do notshow the same time at the same time. This is because time on Earth is set by the sun's position in the skyabove.
Weall have a twelve o'clock noon each day. Noon is the time the sun is highest in the sky. But when it is twelve o'clock noon where Iam, it may be ten o'clock at night where you are.
VOICE ONE:
Asinternational communications and travel increased, it became clear that itwould be necessary to establish a common time for all parts of the world.
Ineighteen eighty-four, an international conference divided the world intotwenty-four time areas, or zones. Eachzone represents one hour. Theastronomical observatory in Greenwich, England, was chosen as the startingpoint for the time zones. Twelve zonesare west of Greenwich. Twelve areeast.
The timeat Greenwich -- as measured by the sun -- is called Universal Time. For many years it was called Greenwich MeanTime.
VOICE TWO:
Some scientists say time is governed by the movement ofmatter in our universe. They say timeflows forward because the universe is expanding. Some say it will stop expanding some day andwill begin to move in the opposite direction, to grow smaller. Some believe time will also begin to flow in theopposite direction -- from the future to the past. Can time move backward
Mostpeople have no trouble agreeing that time moves forward. We see people born and then grow old. We remember the past, but we do not know thefuture. We know a film is moving forwardif it shows a glass falling off a table and breaking into many pieces. If the film were moving backward, the pieceswould re-join to form a glass and jump back up onto the table. No one has ever seen this happen. Except in a film.
VOICE ONE:
Some scientists believe there is one reason why timeonly moves forward. It is a well-knownscientific law -- the second law of thermodynamics. That law says disorder increases withtime. In fact, there are more conditionsof disorder than of order.
For example, there are many ways a glass can break intopieces. That is disorder. But there is only one way the broken piecescan be organized to make a glass. Thatis order. If time moved backward, thebroken pieces could come together in a great many ways. Only one of these many ways, however, wouldre-form the glass. It is almostimpossible to believe this would happen.
VOICE TWO:
Notall scientists believe time is governed by the second law ofthermodynamics. They do not agree thattime must always move forward. Thedebate will continue about the nature of time. And time will remain a mystery.
(THEME)
HOST:
Our program was written by Marilyn Christiano and readby Sarah Long and Bob Doughty. I'm SteveEmber. Listen again next week forScience in the News, in VOA Special English.
Saying Goodbye to 2009, Hoping for a Better 2010
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:17 GMT)
VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. Im Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And Im Shirley Griffith. This week on our program, we find out how some people will be welcoming two thousand ten.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
So what do Americans do New Years Eve Hillary Huesman is from South Carolina.
HILLARY HUESMAN: I get dressed up. I look to go out. Im usually single, and that is usually not a problem. This year Im still making my plans. I havent quite confirmed them yet, but probably a hotel ballroom-type scenario, black-tie event.
At a black-tie event, the men dress in tuxedos or dark suits and the women wear fancy dresses.
Hotels in many cities have special deals for New Years Eve: dinner, Champagne and a party. Then people get a room for the night. That way, no one has to worry about drinking and driving home.
VOICE TWO:
On New Years Eve, some communities in the United States hold what are called First Night celebrations. These are events where no alcohol is served. The celebrations include things like music performances, art displays and fireworks.
Boston, Massachusetts, held the first First Night celebration in nineteen seventy-six. Since then the idea has spread internationally.
VOICE ONE:
Some people might not have firm plans yet for New Years Eve, but others know exactly what they will be doing. Joe is a twenty-one year old student at the University of Virginia.
JOE: I dont really do a whole lot. I normally just spend time with family, go out to eat, hang out, wait for the ball to drop on TV.
Joe is talking about Americas best known celebration on New Years Eve. Hundreds of thousands of people crowd into Times Square in New York. They count down the final seconds to midnight as they watch a brightly lit ball slide down a pole on top of a tall building.
(SOUND)
The first New Years Eve ball drop in Times Square took place more than a century ago. The ball was made of iron and wood and it was lit with one hundred lights. Today the ball is larger and covered in more than two thousand crystals.
VOICE TWO:
Two other traditions for welcoming the New Year are a midnight kiss and an attempt to sing a song that almost no one knows.
Auld Lang Syne, by the eighteenth century Scottish poet Robert Burns, is a song about friends and remembering times long ago.
(MUSIC)
A new year is a good time to start fresh -- and, for some people, a time to seek good fortune in the year ahead.
In the American South, for example, people might prepare a dish known as Hoppin John. They make it with black-eyed peas and ingredients like bacon, rice and vegetables. Eating it at the New Year is thought to bring good luck.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
On New Years Day, some families in the United States invite friends and relatives to an open house. Jill Cooper from Santa Fe, New Mexico, gave us a description.
JILL COOPER: Theyre family parties, big open house-y kind of parties with lots of cookies -- too many cookies --and punch and eggnog. And houses are decorated, and you see your friends and you bop from party to party.
But that is not all she and her family like to do to celebrate the New Year.
JILL COOPER: We try to do something outside cause we live in Santa Fe and we live right in the mountains. Everybody wants to go for a wonderful hike and start off with fresh air and all the things were going to have in our lives the whole next year. And then we drop in on parties.
VOICE TWO:
Some families like to take it easy on January first and enjoy a quiet day of rest. Twenty year old Malia is from Virginia.
MALIA: I usually sleep in because we stay up late on New Years Eve. And my family, we usually eat the leftovers of the desserts that we make for New Years, or New Years Eve and stuff, so. But, just relax, mainly.
But New Years Day is anything but a day of rest for John Worster (WOO-ster), who lives in Idaho.
JOHN WORSTER: I offer Catholic Mass, cause Im a Catholic priest by profession, and so it is actually the feast day of Mary, Mother of God. And so we begin our Catholic way of understanding new year by just thanking God for Jesus mother, Mary. On New Years Day, after church well go out and sit in the goose pit and do some hunting for Canada geese and also ducks.
VOICE ONE:
On New Years morning, millions of television viewers watch the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. The parade includes marching bands and horseback riders. But the parade is most famous for its motorized floats. They come in all shapes and sizes, but they are all covered with flowers.
In Southern California, the weather on New Years Day might be cold. But the skies are usually sunny and dry, even as other parts of the country might experience snowstorms.
A local group created the Tournament of Roses festival in Pasadena in eighteen ninety. The festival later expanded to include the parade and a big game in college football.
The champion teams from two college athletic conferences play in the Rose Bowl Stadium. This Friday, the Buckeyes of Ohio State University will play the University of Oregon Ducks.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Will you be making any New Years resolutions Hillary Huesman from South Carolina has a few in mind.
HILLARY HUESMAN: Id like to solidify my romantic relationship, lose twenty-eight pounds. Id like to travel a lot more in twenty-ten. Two thousand nine was a long year -- struggled financially, like most of America. So Im looking for prosperity in twenty-ten.
VOICE ONE:
Malia from Virginia does not make too many resolutions. She says she does not want to disappoint herself when she fails to keep them. Joe, the University of Virginia student, is of a similar mind.
JOE: Im not a believer in resolutions for New Years. I think that resolutions come when they need to throughout the year, when you decide that someone needs a change.
VOICE TWO:
What about John Worster, the Catholic priest
JOHN WORSTER: I make a New Years resolution every year and usually by the third or fourth of January its already been broken, so...(Laughs).
REPORTER: What kind of resolutions are those
JOHN WORSTER: Oh, usually to lead a healthier lifestyle by eating better food and not drinking so much, so ... (Laughs)
VOICE ONE:
Jamar Negron, a high school student from New Jersey, has a few resolutions for two thousand ten:
JAMAR NEGRON: Im a fencer, so my New Years resolution is just to become better at fencing. And better in the general sense: become better in schoolwork, become a better person, become a better writer -- become as best as I can be in all aspects of my life.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Holiday planning can be difficult when business has to come before pleasure.
We did interviews near the Capitol building here in Washington. One of the people we met happened to be the wife of a newly elected senator. Jill Cooper is married to Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico who entered the Senate this past January.
When we talked to her earlier this month, their plans for the New Year were still open.
JILL COOPER: There was a chance that we would go on a trip to India and Afghanistan, but apparently were not doing that. Since hes in the Senate and we dont know whats going to happen with the health care bill, he may not even be home. If were home, well probably have dinner with friends.
VOICE ONE:
We give the last word to Jamar, the high school student from New Jersey, and his hopes for two thousand ten.
JAMAR NEGRON: Prosperity. Strength. Confidence. Equality. Good fortune. Goodwill. That everything will work out for the better. That Ill leave no stone unturned, and that Im able to go to sleep at night with no regrets at what Ive done.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and Mario Ritter and produced by Caty Weaver. Tell us your resolutions and hopes for two thousand ten, and what you will be doing New Years Eve. Post your comments at voaspecialenglish.com -- where you can also find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs. Im Shirley Griffith.
VOICE ONE:
And Im Steve Ember. We wish you all happiness and good fortune in the New Year, and hope will join us again next time for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
New Understanding of How Plants Use Water
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:18 GMT)
This is the VOA Special English AgricultureReport.
Scientists havediscovered more details about how plants use water. Their findings could help toengineer plants that grow better and more effectively in conditions with higherlevels of carbon dioxide.
Plantsnaturally take in carbon dioxide they need for photosynthesis, the process ofchanging light energy to chemical energy. The carbon dioxide enters the plantsthrough tiny holes or pores on the surface of leaves.
However, each time a plant takes in one molecule ofcarbon dioxide gas, it loses hundreds of water molecules.
Scientists say plants loseninety-five percent of the water they take in through these pores. Some plants' pores can tighten to save water duringconditions of high carbon dioxide. Other plants are not able to do this aswell. Now, scientists know how these tiny pores tighten in plants.
Julian Schroeder is a professor of biology at theUniversity of California, San Diego. Mister Schroeder says that carbon dioxidelevels in the atmosphere are much higher now than they were in the past.However, he says, many plants are not closing their pores in order to hold inmore water.
He and his teamhave identified proteins that control the tightening of a plant's pores. Theproteins are enzymes called carbonic anhydrases. The findings were published last month in thejournal Nature Cell Biology. Mister Schroeder believes the enzymes could be changedin some plants to increase their ability to store water.
Theresearchers added carbonic anhydrase genes to plants that do not react tohigher levels of carbon dioxide. They observedthat for every molecule of carbon dioxide taken in by the plants, they lostforty-four percent less water.
The scientists say the photosynthesis process continuednormally in these plants. They say this suggests that changing plants to savemore water will not affect plant growth. This method might be used to helpengineer food crops that are resistant to extremely dry conditions. Thediscovery could help farmers meet a growing demand for food as water suppliesdecrease. However, the scientists saymore research is needed.
Andthat's the VOA Special English Agriculture report, written by Brianna Blake. Fortranscripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports, visit us on the Web at voaspecialenglish.com.
Ambassador for Young Spreads a Love of Books
(Published on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:54:18 GMT)
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
Im Doug Johnson.
This week on our program we listen to music from superstar Whitney Houston ...
And answer a question about the Old Believers religious group ...
But first, we meet a new ambassador in Washington who wants to spread the message that reading is fun.
(MUSIC)
Katherine Paterson
HOST:
If you are over the age of thirty you may not have heard of Katherine Paterson. But if you are under that age chances are good that you have. In fact, you might have read one of her many award-winning books. Or maybe you saw the movie version of her book, Bridge to Terabithia. Now, the United States government has awarded Katherine Paterson a new job. Mario Ritter has more.
MARIO RITTER:
Katherine PatersonEarlier this month, the United States Library of Congress named Katherine Paterson the national ambassador for young peoples literature.
She is only the second person to hold the position. She replaces writer Jon Scieszka, who had served since two thousand eight.
The librarian of Congress, James Billington, said Miz Paterson represents the finest in literature for young people. He spoke of national as well as international praise for her writing. Mister Billington said she would speak to the importance of reading in the lives of Americas young people.
Miz Paterson has written more than thirty books. She is among only five writers to have won two Newbery Medals. These are among the most important childrens book awards in the United States. Bridge to Terabithia won a Newbery Medal in nineteen seventy-seven. Her book Jacob Have I Loved won the award in nineteen eighty-one.
Katherine Patersons books for children are often quite complex. Bridge to Terabithia includes adult themes like depression and death. The book has caused debate because of its place on school library bookshelves. Some parents think it is too adult for young children. Miz Paterson says the idea for the book came from a real life experience. Her sons best friend died in nineteen seventy-four when she was struck by lightning.
Katherine Paterson is seventy-seven. She began writing as a young mother with three children. But she says her interest in writing came as a surprise. As a child she had thought about becoming a Christian religious worker in foreign countries like her parents were.
Katherine Paterson spoke to a gathering of children when she was named ambassador on January fifth in Washington. She said: Read for your life. Read for your life as a member of a family, as a part of a community, as a citizen of this country and a citizen of the world.
(MUSIC)
Old Believers
HOST:
Our question this week comes from Russia. Aleksey wants to know about the Russian community of Old Believers in the American state of Oregon.
Old Believers is the name used to describe millions of people who rejected reforms to the Russian Orthodox Church in the sixteen hundreds. Old Believers who chose not to accept the reforms were often mistreated or killed. Over time, millions fled Russia. Many fled to Asia, Australia, South America and Europe. Many others came to the United States.
A photograph by Joanne Mulcahy of a girl belonging to the Old Believers community in OregonThere are large communities of Old Believers in the states of Pennsylvania, Alaska and Oregon. In fact, Oregon has the largest population of Old Believers in the United States. More than ten thousand live in that state.
Many continue to follow their old traditions and customs. Women wear coverings on their heads and long dresses, tied at the waist. Men are not permitted to shave the hair from their faces.
Old Believers follow special rules governing what they can and cannot eat on different days of the year. For example, they may not be permitted to eat things like dairy products, meat, fish or eggs, or drink alcohol. They also cannot eat off of the same dish that a non-believer has eaten off of. Because of this, many eat at fast food restaurants that serve food in containers that can be thrown away.
Old Believers observe forty religious holidays each year. On these days they are not permitted to go to work or attend school. In Oregon many Old Believers have their own businesses or farms. But a growing number of them work in jobs in the city, especially at furniture factories and sewing companies.
Many Old Believers live in small, private and somewhat closed communities. But the modern world is having an effect. Modern technology is entering their communities.
Many Old Believers watch television and drive cars. And many, especially the young, are reportedly having a harder time trying to hold on to their spiritual and cultural traditions.
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Whitney Houston
HOST:
Whitney Houstons recent album I Look to You marked her long awaited return to the music industry. It opened at the number one position in the United States and Canada. It also appeared in top positions in Australia and five European countries. Now the superstar is preparing for a world concert tour. Here is Shirley Griffith with more about Whitney Houston and songs from her album I Look to You.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH:
Music fans around the world are excited about the launch of Whitney Houstons world concert tour. It is to begin in Tokyo, Japan in February. This is her first international concert tour in nearly ten years. Serious personal problems interfered with Houstons award- winning singing career during the past ten years. She abused illegal drugs and had a troubled marriage to singer Bobby Brown. Whitney Houston regained control of her life after being treated at a substance abuse center in California for almost one year.
Also, she ended her marriage to Bobby Brown in two thousand seven. That same year, Whitney Houston joined with her longtime friend and major record company executive Clive Davis to begin recording her album. Here is the title song from I Look to You.
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In November, Whitney Houston received the International Artist Award at the two thousand nine American Music Awards. The award has been given only seven times in the thirty-six year history of the awards. After receiving the honor, Houston thanked her family and supporters for believing in her. She also performed this song, I Didnt Know My Own Strength.
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We leave you with another hit song by Whitney Houston from her album I Look to You. She wrote this dance song, Million Dollar Bill, with singer-songwriter Alicia Keys.
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HOST:
Im Doug Johnson. Our program was written by June Simms, Lawan Davis and Caty Weaver, who was also the producer. For transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can also post comments.
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Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOAs radio magazine in Special English.
