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Discoveries Throw New Light on Stonehenge, but Mysteries

Remain
Researchers find the remains of an ancient community at nearby Durrington Walls. The discovery shows
Stonehenge did not stand alone. Transcript of radio broadcast:
01 May 2007
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VOICE ONE:
I'm Barbara Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember with Explorations in VOA Special
English. Today we tell about new discoveries near
Stonehenge, the famous ancient circle of stones in
southern England.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
For thousands of years, the circle of ancient stones called
Stonehenge has been one of the most mysterious places on Earth. Scientists say Stonehenge
has stood in England for at least four thousand years. Millions of people from all over the
world have visited the ancient monument.
Stonehenge is the best known of a number of such ancient places in Britain. It stands on the
flat, windy Salisbury Plain, near the city of Salisbury, England. Early Britons built
Stonehenge from bluestone and a very hard sandstone called sarsen. Experts believe the
builders of Stonehenge knew about design, engineering and sound. These ancient people did
not have highly developed tools. But they built a huge monument of heavy stones.
VOICE TWO:
Some of the monument's standing stones have lintel stones on top. The lintels lie flat on the
standing stones. Most of the stones of Stonehenge stand in incomplete formations of circles.
They differ in height, weight and surface texture. One of the largest stones weighed about
forty thousand kilograms. Some stones are more than seven meters high. Other broken
stones lie on the ground.
Work on Stonehenge may have started as early as five thousand years ago. Scientists believe
it was completed over three periods lasting more than one thousand years. Archeologists have

studied Stonehenge for many years. For centuries, people have questioned the meaning of the
stones.
VOICE ONE:
Now, archeologists have discovered remains of an ancient village
that may have been home to the workers who built Stonehenge.
People from the village also may have used the huge monument
for religious ceremonies. The discovery of the village helps
confirm an important theory about Stonehenge.
The huge monument did not stand alone. Stonehenge may have
been part of a larger religious complex. The theory also proposes
that people held events in the village and at Stonehenge to
celebrate the change of seasons and honor the dead.
A woman celebrates the winter

solstice at Stonehenge last
December 22
The scientific process of radiocarbon dating found that the

village is about four thousand six hundred years old. The archeologists believe the inner
circle of Stonehenge was also built at about that time. The timing led them to believe that the
people of the village could have built Stonehenge.
VOICE TWO:
The scientists found the remains of the village about three
kilometers from Stonehenge. Archeologists from the
Stonehenge Riverside Project made the discovery in and
around an area called Durrington Walls. Scientists believe
Durrington Walls was an ancient community with
hundreds of people. It included a larger version of
Stonehenge made of wood and earth.
Mike Parker Pearson was the main archeologist for the
Stonehenge Riverside Project. Mister Parker Pearson said
placing the plan of Stonehenge over that of the wooden structure at Durrington Walls proves
the great similarity of design.
Durrington Walls
VOICE ONE:
The team of researchers discovered the remains of several houses. Mister Parker Pearson says
his team found remains of stone tools and bones of humans and animals in the houses. The
researchers also found jewelry and broken clay containers. The large amount of animal bones
and pottery suggested that the people might have been taking part in a celebration. The floors
had marks that showed where fires had been built.
Julian Thomas of Manchester University discovered the remains of two houses that were
separated from the others. They lacked all the objects and remains found in the other houses.
Mister Thomas said religious leaders might have lived in the two houses. Or the houses might
have been religious centers. Study of the area is far from finished. As many as twenty-five or

thirty houses may be found in and near Durrington Walls over time. The Stonehenge
Riverside Project will last several more years.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Researchers believe that no people ever lived at Stonehenge. So the village might have
provided places to stay for the people attending celebrations at Stonehenge. Many scientists
believe the early people gathered in the area to mark the change of seasons -- the winter and
summer solstices.
The winter solstice takes place when the sun reaches its most southern point. It is the shortest
day of the year. The summer solstice happens when the sun reaches its most northern point. It
is the longest day of the year.
VOICE ONE:
The researchers also found a stone road near Durrington Walls. The road is about thirty
meters wide. It goes to the Avon River. A similar road goes from Stonehenge to the same
river. Mister Parker Pearson said Stonehenge and the Durrington Walls area had many
similarities.
For example, Stonehenge was in line with the sunset during the winter solstice. The wooden
structure at Durrington Walls was in line with the sunrise that same day. The road from
Stonehenge to the Avon River was aligned with the sunrise during the summer solstice. The
road from Durrington to the Avon was in line with that day's sunset.
VOICE TWO:
Mister Parker Pearson said he believes the discoveries show that Durrington and Stonehenge
may have represented the living and the dead. The temporary wooden circle at Durrington
represented life. The permanent stone monument at Stonehenge represented death.
Mister Parker Pearson said he believes that the ancient people had celebrations at Durrington.
Then they went down the road and placed human remains or dead bodies in the Avon River.
The river carried the remains downstream to Stonehenge.
The people traveled by boat to Stonehenge. There they burned and buried the remains of the
dead. Scientists have found evidence of funeral fires near the Avon River not far from
Stonehenge. Earlier discoveries produced burned remains at Stonehenge. And the Stonehenge
Riverside Project uncovered burned remains of about two hundred fifty people.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:

Joshua Pollard of Bristol University and his team discovered a sandstone formation that
marked an ancient burial area. They found a sarsen stone almost three meters long. It was
lying in a field next to the Avon River, about three kilometers east of Stonehenge. The
scientists say it had been standing upright, like the stones that form the main structure of
Stonehenge.
They also found partly burned remains of two people buried next to the stone. And they
found stone tools, clay containers and a rare rock crystal. Mister Pollard said the crystal
possibly came from as far away as the Alps mountains.
VOICE TWO:
Today, the work of the Stonehenge Riverside Project is increasing knowledge about ancient
life in Britain. The research team says there is evidence from old maps and ancient sources
for other similar monuments near Stonehenge and connected to it. Another theory says that
people from other areas in Europe traveled to Stonehenge for the observances held there.
Some day, researchers may be able to tell the whole story of the ancient village and the stone
and wood monuments. But until that day, Stonehenge and its ancient partners are keeping
many secrets.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Jerilyn Watson. It was produced by Mario Ritter. Im Barbara
Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And Im Steve Ember. You can read scripts and download audio on our Web site,
voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for Explorations in VOA Special English.

In Moldova, as Demand for English Grows, Teachers Try Best

They Can
01 May 2007

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti and this week on Wordmaster: another in our recent conversations with
English teachers from around the world. These are teachers I met in Seattle at the annual
convention of the TESOL association. TESOL stands for Teachers of English to Speakers of
Other Languages.
Every year I ask some of the teachers I meet what it's like to teach English in their country.
This week, the spotlight is on a former Soviet republic of four million people in Eastern
Europe.
VIKTORIYA GALIY: "My name is Viktoriya Galiy and I am the
director of the International Language Training Center in Moldova.
And Moldova, it's a very small country between Ukraine and
Romania. And our school has been operating since nineteen ninetyfour. And we teach English -- predominantly in English, but also
German, Romanian, Italian.
"And we also are going to expand and add a few more languages,
like Spanish and French. And we teach English to adults, to the
sixteen and older, but also we have teenagers and younger learners,
like four-and-a-half through six years old.
"What it is like teaching in Moldova? Well, it is not easy, because I would say that we don't
have native English speakers, teachers. That's one thing. And then another thing is it's -- the
difficulty is to train our local teachers, because again we would like to be more exposed to
international programs, but again we don't have those.
"But I would say that the interest [in] English is growing, and rapidly. Maybe it's because of
the European Union that is out there, close to Moldova, getting closer to Moldova. But I
would say mostly it's because young people, they would like to study English and go study
abroad, or use English in their work in those companies that are international companies.
"Again, the interest is growing because in Moldova, the special thing about Moldova is that
French was the language that people would study in schools and universities. And whenever
it is something that comes up in English, so people had difficulty. And, again, now the
interest is growing, and so now like French is not that popular, of course, and English is like
[the] number one language."

AA: "And how much influence are you seeing of slang, of American slang, from movies,
from television, or maybe from e-mails, among the young people in their writing?"
VIKTORIYA GALIY: "It's huge. Absolutely huge. And especially with like small kids.
Sometimes they come and they say something that the teachers do not understand and then
parents say, oh, you know, we watch these cartoons, and that's why the kid picks up language
from cartoons or movies rapidly. And you know we even have these workshops, like
Saturday workshops for free for our students, and slang, American slang, was one of our
topics, just because there is interest among students and this is something that we needed to
explore."
AA: "Well, as an English teacher, how do you feel about that, when students use it? Do you
teach them the proper context or when it's OK to use slang and when it's not?"
VIKTORIYA GALIY: "Of course, we have to teach slang, but within the appropriate
content, right? The thing is that we are far away from that contact, as teachers. That's why -this is one of the problems that we face. We would like to know more, to hear more about
slang, and using slang in everyday speech. It's just the thing that we don't have is the
opportunity every day."
AA: Viktoriya Galiy is executive director of the International Language Training Center in
Chisinau, Moldova.
So far in the past few weeks, we've brought you English teachers from Iraq, Libya, the
United States, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and now Moldova. These segments can all be found at
our Web site. Go to voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is
word@voanews.com. I'm Avi Arditti.

Choosing a Student Exchange Program to Come to the US

Part 35 of our Foreign Student Series looks at programs for high school and college students. Transcript of
radio broadcast:
02 May 2007

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
We continue our Foreign Student Series this week with two
questions that we received. Anatolii Artamonov, a university
student in Ukraine, would like to know about student exchange
programs in the United States. Anatolii would especially like to
know about the one called Work and Travel USA. And fifteen-yearold Betty Xu in China wants to know about a program called ASSE.
ASSE is the American Scandinavian Student Exchange. This
program was established in Sweden in nineteen seventy-six to
organize exchanges with the United States. It expanded to include
students in Norway, Denmark and Finland.
Today ASSE organizes international exchanges for high school students in thirty-one
countries. The students live with a family and attend school for a year.
Other programs also offer high school students a chance to come to the United States. These
include AFS, Youth for Understanding and the Program of Academic Exchange, or PAX.
For college students, there are programs like the International Student Exchange Program, or
ISEP. This is a group of almost three hundred colleges in thirty-nine countries. ISEP is an
independent organization that was supported by the United States government until nineteen
ninety-six.
ISEP is a true exchange program. That means two students from different countries trade
places for a semester or a year.
Work and Travel USA is also for college students. But this program is not for those who
want to study in the United States. It provides international students with the chance to work
for up to four months while exploring American life.
The State Department says they generally work in hotels, restaurants and amusement parks
but may also work for other employers. An organization called CIEE administers this
program. It says students must understand that the money they earn from their work may not
be enough to pay all of their costs.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our
Foreign Student Series on higher education in the United States is available online, with
helpful links to Web sites, at voaspecialenglish.com. Our series offers all kinds of
information and advice for international students who want to attend an American college or
university.
To send us e-mail, write to special@voanews.com, and please be sure to include your full
name and where you are from. I'm Faith Lapidus.
10

1968 in America: a Year of Social Unrest and a Presidential

Election
President Lyndon Johnson had decided not to seek another term, so the Democrats nominated Hubert
Humphrey. The Republican candidate was Richard Nixon. Transcript of radio broadcast:
02 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
This is Stan Busby.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Rich Kleinfeldt with THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a VOA Special English
program about the history of the United States.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Nineteen sixty-eight was a presidential election year in the United States. It was also one of
the saddest and most difficult years in modern American history. The nation was divided by
disputes about civil rights and the war in Vietnam.
VOICE TWO:
President Lyndon Johnson had helped win major civil rights
legislation. Yet he had also greatly expanded American
involvement in the war in Vietnam. By early nineteen sixty-eight,
it was almost impossible for him to leave the White House
without facing anti-war protesters. Johnson wanted to run for
another four-year term. But his popularity kept dropping as the
war continued. He understood that he no longer had the support
of a majority of the people. In March, he announced that he
would not be a candidate.
March 31, 1968: Lyndon
Johnson announces a bombing
halt in Vietnam and his decision
not to seek re-election
VOICE ONE:
One reason Johnson decided not to run was a senator from

Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy competed against Johnson in several primary
elections. The primaries are held months before a political party holds its presidential
nominating convention. Delegates to the convention often are required to vote for the
candidate their party members chose in the primary. Thousands of college students helped the
11

McCarthy campaign before the primary election in New Hampshire. They told voters all over
the state that their candidate would try to end the war. McCarthy received almost forty-two
percent of the votes in New Hampshire. Johnson received less than fifty percent. For a
president in office, the vote was an insult.
VOICE TWO:
After McCarthy's success, Senator Robert Kennedy of New York
decided to enter the campaign, too. He was a brother of president
John Kennedy, who had been murdered in nineteen sixty-three.
Robert Kennedy had served as Attorney General, the nation's
highest legal officer, in his brother's administration. Many people
were pleased when Robert Kennedy announced his decision. They
liked his message. He said: "I run to seek new policies to end the
bloodshed in Vietnam and in our cities. I seek to lessen the
differences between black and white, between rich and poor,
between young and old, in this country and around the world."
Robert Kennedy, left, with

his brother, President John
F. Kennedy
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
On April fourth, nineteen sixty-eight, the nation's top civil rights leader, Martin Luther King,
was shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. Robert Kennedy spoke about king's death to a
crowd of black citizens.
ROBERT KENNEDY: "What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in
the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and
lawlessness, but is love and wisdom. And compassion toward one another. And a feeling of
justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether
they be black."
VOICE TWO:
No words, however, could calm the anger of America's black community. Martin Luther
King had led the civil rights movement with peaceful methods. Yet his death led to violence
in almost one hundred-thirty cities in America. Soldiers were called to crush the riots.
Hundreds of people were killed or injured. After the riots, another man decided to campaign
for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. The new candidate was Vice
President Hubert Humphrey. Traditional Democrats supported him.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The primary elections continued. Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy tried to show how
different they were. Many voters, however, saw little difference between their positions on
major issues. Both men opposed the war in Vietnam. Both sought social reforms. Both
12

sought improvement in civil rights in America. Kennedy defeated McCarthy in primaries in
Indiana and Nebraska. McCarthy defeated Kennedy in Oregon. The next big primary was in
California. Kennedy said that if he did not win this important contest, he would withdraw. He
won.
VOICE TWO:
Perhaps Robert Kennedy might have won his party's nomination for president. Perhaps he
might have defeated the Republican Party candidate in the national election. The nation
would never know. Kennedy made his California victory speech at a hotel in Los Angeles.
As he was leaving the hotel, he was shot. He died a few hours later. The man who shot him
was Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. He was a Palestinian refugee. He said he blamed Robert Kennedy
for the problems of the Palestinians.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The nation's two major political parties held their nominating conventions in the summer of
nineteen sixty-eight. The Republicans met first. It was soon clear that Richard Nixon would
control the convention. Nixon had run for president in nineteen-sixty. He lost to John
Kennedy. Eight years later, he won several primary elections. He was a strong candidate to
win the Republican nomination again. The other candidates were Ronald Reagan, governor
of California, and Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York. On the first ballot, Nixon got
more than two times as many votes as Rockefeller. Reagan was far behind. Most of the
delegates then gave their support to Nixon, and he accepted the nomination. The delegates
chose the governor of Maryland, Spiro Agnew, to be their vice presidential candidate.
VOICE TWO:
The convention of the Democratic Party was very different from the convention of the
Republicans. The Democrats were the party in power. Protests against the war in Vietnam
were aimed at them. Thousands of anti-war protesters gathered in the city of Chicago during
the political convention. The city's mayor, Richard Daley, had ordered the police to deal
severely with all protesters. Many of the young people were beaten. Much later, the federal
government ordered an investigation. The report said that the riots in Chicago were a result of
the actions of the police themselves.
VOICE ONE:
Inside the convention building, the delegates voted for their presidential candidate. They did
not choose the man who had done so well in the early primary elections, Eugene McCarthy.
Instead, they chose the more traditional candidate, Hubert Humphrey. For their vice
presidential candidate, they chose Edmund Muskie, a senator from Maine.
VOICE TWO:
13

The two men running for president, Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, supported
American involvement in Vietnam. Yet during the campaign, both spoke about finding ways
to end the conflict. Both also spoke about finding ways to end social unrest in the United
States. Many voters saw little difference between the two candidates. About six weeks before
election day, public opinion studies showed that the contest was even.
VOICE ONE:
Nixon's major problem was his past. He had made enemies during his early political life.
These people now tried to renew public fears about his record as a man who made fierce,
unjust attacks on others. Vice President Humphrey's major problem was that he was vice
president. He had to defend the administration's policies, even the unpopular ones. If he said
anything that was different, another member of the administration intervened.
VOICE TWO:
Once, for example, Humphrey said the United States would stop dropping bombs on north
Vietnam. But President Johnson did not act for a month. He gave the order to stop only four
days before the election. Later, Humphrey said the delay harmed his campaign so badly that
he could not recover from the damage.
VOICE ONE:
On Election Day, Richard Nixon won -- but not by
much. He received a little more than forty-three percent
of the votes. Hubert Humphrey received just a half a
percent less. Nixon was about to become president.
It was the position he had wanted for a long time. It
was to be a presidency that would change American
government for years to come.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Richard Nixon campaigns in 1968
This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was

written by Jeri Watson and produced by Paul Thompson. This is Rich Kleinfeldt.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Stan Busby. Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program
about the history of the United States.
14

Mix Caribbean, West African, Pop and Hip-Hop, What Do You

Get? Akon
Also: a question from Vietnam about the life stories of Helen Keller and Sally Ride. And we check out the
Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington. Transcript of radio broadcast:
03 May 2007

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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:
We answer a question about two famous American women
Play music by Akon
And tell about a craft show in Washington, D.C.
Smithsonian Craft Show
HOST:
Where can you go to see and buy the work of one hundred twenty of America's best craft
artists? In Washington, D.C. you can visit the yearly Smithsonian Craft Show. For twentyfive years, some of the finest craft artists have gathered to show their expertly made objects
at this special event. These objects include beautiful jewelry, wood, paper, glass, ceramics
and more. Faith Lapidus tells us about it.
FAITH LAPIDUS:
15

The Smithsonian Craft Show is held every year for four days in
late April. Going to the craft show is an exciting activity. As you
visit the many craft artists' show areas, you feel like you are
taking part in a celebration of artistic skill and invention. But not
just any artist can take part in this event. More than one thousand
people from all over the United States requested to be in the
show. But only one hundred and twenty were chosen. They were
carefully picked by a jury of craft experts.
The Craft Show is organized every year by the Smithsonian
A ceramic container by
Women's Committee. The event helps raise money to support
Jennifer McCurdy
education and research programs for the nineteen museums that
are part of the Smithsonian Institution.
This year, for example, visitors could see the graceful ceramic works of Jennifer McCurdy.
Her finely formed white clay containers have a fluid sense of motion. Or, visitors could play
with the detailed and imaginative toy machines made by Bill
Durovchic.
Holly Anne Mitchell showed her wonderfully creative jewelry
made out of folded pieces of newspaper. Joh Ricci received the
Best of Show award for her colorful art objects made by tying
thin pieces of cloth cord into detailed forms. And, if you wanted
to wear a piece of art, you could buy a hat by Joan
Hammerschmidt. Her wildly colorful and inventively shaped hats
would make everyone look at you with a smile.
A work by Joh Ricci
Helen Keller and Sally Ride

HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The students
of Nguyen Thanh Duc at the Marie Curie High School want to know about two famous
American women: Helen Keller and Sally Ride.
Helen Keller was born in eighteen eighty in a small town in
Alabama. She developed an infection when she was nineteen
months old. She lost the ability to see and hear.
When Helen was seven years old, her parents hired a special
teacher for their daughter. Anne Sullivan taught Helen the names
of things. She formed letters with her fingers in Helens hand to
spell out words. She taught Helen sign language, and how to use
her voice.
Helen Keller
Later, Helen Keller learned to read Latin, Greek, French and German. She completed her
studies at Radcliffe College with honors in nineteen-oh-four.
16

Helen Keller worked for many years for the American Foundation for the Blind. She met
with presidents and traveled to many countries. She wrote books and articles. And she
showed other disabled people that they, too, could succeed. Helen Keller died in nineteen
sixty-eight. Her life story has been told in books, plays and movies.
Sally Ride grew up near Los Angeles, California. She studied
science in college. In
nineteen seventy-eight, she was one of the first six women to be
trained as an astronaut. She also earned a doctoral degree in
astrophysics at Stanford University in California.
Sally Ride was the first American woman in space. She was the
flight engineer on the Challenger space shuttle in nineteen eightythree. She was thirty-one years old, the youngest American
astronaut ever to go into orbit.
Sally Ride
One year later, she was a crew member on another space shuttle flight. And in nineteen
eighty-six, she was a member of the presidential committee that investigated the explosion of
the Challenger space shuttle earlier that year.
Sally Ride left NASA to teach at Stanford University. Since nineteen eighty-nine, she has
been a professor at the University of California at San Diego. She has also written science
books for children and directed education projects designed to interest young people in
science.
Akon
HOST:
Senegalese-American singer Akon has a musical sound
that is different from current popular artists. He has had
several hit songs. Barbara Klein tells us about him.
(MUSIC)
BARBARA KLEIN:
That was Akon singing his hit song "I Wanna Love You"
from his latest album, "Konvicted."
A man in demand
Akon's real name is Aliaune Thiam. He is the son of

Senegalese jazz drummer Mor Thiam. Akon grew up listening to jazz and other kinds of
music, but he especially liked hip-hop.
When he was a teenager, Akon was arrested and sentenced to three years in jail for stealing
cars. During his time in jail, Akon wrote songs. Those songs became part of his first album,
17

"Trouble," released in two thousand four. Akon sings about his arrest and jail experiences in
this song, "Locked Up."
(MUSIC)
Music critics say Akon is popular because his music offers something new. His creative
sound combines Caribbean and West African singing with popular music and hip-hop beats.
Akon has performed and recorded songs with many kinds of artists. They include rapper
Snoop Dogg, singer Gwen Stefani and the South African singing group Ladysmith Black
Mambazo.
We leave you with another hit song from Akons latest album, "Konvicted." This is "Dont
Matter."
(MUSIC)
HOST:
I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today. It was written by Lawan Davis,
Dana Demange and Nancy Steinbach. Caty Weaver was the producer. To read the text of this
program and download audio, go to our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.
Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Please include your full
name and mailing address. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English, Washington,
D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOAs radio magazine in Special
English.
18

How Much Is Too Much? The Debate Over Executive Pay

Critics say company leaders are getting big raises even when they do not add value for their shareholders.
Transcript of radio broadcast:
03 May 2007

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
For Robert Nardelli, two thousand seven might seem like a bad year. After all, he resigned in
January as chief of the world's largest operator of home-improvement stores.
Sales and profits grew during his six years at Home Depot. But the stock price of the
company, based in Atlanta, fell eight percent. Many shareholders thought Bob Nardelli was
paid too much and did not respect his investors enough.
So he was forced out. But he had something to look forward to that would ease his fall.
Company directors agreed to give him two hundred ten million dollars worth of payments
and benefits.
An agreement like this is known as a golden parachute. These are traditional when top
executives lose their jobs because of a change of ownership or control of a company. This
was not the case at Home Depot, and the money only added to shareholder anger.
Golden parachutes are just one issue in a larger debate in America. Executive pay is growing
out of control, critics say, at a time when many Americans are feeling greater economic
pressures. Last year, the average pay for a chief executive officer on the Standard & Poor's
Five Hundred list of companies increased by over nine percent.
Critics say there is no relationship between pay and performance. They say company leaders
get raises even if they fail to create value for shareholders.
Lawmakers are taking note. On April twentieth, the House of Representatives passed a bill to
give shareholders in publicly traded companies the right to vote on executive pay.
The proposal by majority Democrats now goes to the Senate. But its future is unclear. The
Bush administration opposes the bill. It says Congress should not set the approval process for
executive pay.
The bill would require yearly votes but these would be non-binding. In other words,
companies would not have to follow shareholder wishes. Still, supporters argue that a "say on
pay" vote would send a clear signal about what the owners of the company, the investors,
think.
19

The Securities and Exchange Commission requires public companies to include executive
pay information in a document called a proxy statement. A proxy statement is supposed to
help shareholders make informed votes on company proposals. But critics note that the way
executive income is reported is often too difficult to understand.
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve
Ember.
20

White House, Congress Try to Negotiate a New Iraq Spending Bill

Talks follow Bush's veto of a measure that would have required a troop withdrawal to begin by October.
04 May 2007

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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
White House officials have begun talks with Congress on a war spending bill in place of the
one President Bush vetoed on Tuesday.
He rejected it because the Democratic-controlled
Congress tried to set a date for American troops to leave
Iraq. The bill would have required a withdrawal to begin
by October.
The spending measure totaled one hundred twenty-four
billion dollars. One hundred billion of that would have
gone to pay for military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
President Bush speaking at the White

House after he vetoed a $124 billion
spending bill
The veto was only the second of Mister Bush's

presidency. The first was last year, to stop Congress from
ending his restrictions on federal money for stem cell
research.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to try to save the war spending bill that
the president vetoed. But, as in the case of his first veto, there was not enough support for an
override.
The president met with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders after the House
failed to override his veto. He said he was hopeful that an agreement could be reached. And
he called for it to be done quickly. Republican leaders said they hope for a new bill by the
end of the month.
The president says it is time to move away from the political battles of recent days. He said
three of his top advisers would be working with members of both parties to write an
acceptable war funding bill.
Talks took place Thursday on Capitol Hill. The two sides agreed to meet again early next
week and to keep details of their talks private. But Democratic leaders said they have not
agreed to keep any language about troop withdrawals out of a replacement bill.
21

The administration said Mister Bush would not accept any bill that includes a time limit or
suggested date for a withdrawal from Iraq.
Congress could also try to set goals for the Iraqi government.
Earlier this week, President Bush asked Americans to give his recent troop increase in Iraq
more time. The war began in March of two thousand three.
A new public opinion study showed that more than seventy percent of Americans disapprove
of the president's handling of the war. Two-thirds of those questioned for CBS News and the
New York Times said they support setting a time limit for the withdrawal of troops.
President Bush says he wants American troops out of Iraq, but only when its own
government is better able to control security.
Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert Byrd proposed Thursday that Congress cancel
its resolution that approved the use of force in Iraq. They say the president should have to
seek approval from Congress this October to continue the war. A presidential spokeswoman
accused the Senate of trying, in her words, "another way to put a surrender date on the
calendar."
IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English was written by Brianna Blake. Transcripts and
audio files of our reports are online at voaspecialenglish.com. Im Steve Ember.
22

Medical Terms: A Clean Bill of Health From the Doctor

Everyday expressions we use to describe someone's health. Transcript of radio broadcast:
05 May 2007
Words and Their Stories - Download RealAudio

Listen to Words and Their Stories
Words and Their Stories - Download MP3
Listen to Words and Their Stories
Now, the VOA Special English program, Words and Their Stories.
(MUSIC)
Many professions have their own words and expressions. This is true for the medical
profession. Doctors use many technical terms that most people do not understand. But there
are also expressions we use every day to tell about a persons health. Let me explain.
Last month, I was not feeling well. I was under the weather. I thought I had caught a
cold. I had a runny nose, itchy eyes, a sore throat and a cough. I felt tired and run down. I
was in poor condition because I had not been getting enough rest.
My body hurt all over. I also had severe head pains -- a real splitting headache. And I was
running a fever. My body temperature was higher than normal.
At one point, I blacked out. Thats right, I was out cold. I lost consciousness and my friend
had to bring me around. He used cold water on my face to restore my consciousness.
I grew concerned that I might take a turn for the worse. I did not want to become sicker
because then surely I would be at deaths door.
My friend took me to the doctor. I told the doctor I thought I had come down with a cold.
When the doctor saw me, she immediately wanted to run some tests. She said that medical
tests would help her discover why I was sick. The doctor also asked when I had my last
physical. I do not get yearly check-ups. But I probably should get a medical exam by a
doctor every year.
Then the nurse drew my blood. She used a needle to take a small amount of blood from my
arm. She sent it to a laboratory for tests. The nurse also took my temperature. She used a
thermometer to measure my body temperature.
The doctor told me I had influenza, or the flu. But she told me I would recover soon. She
said I was over the worst of the disease. She told me to rest at home and to stay away from
other people because the flu can spread. It is contagious.
23

Thankfully, I did not have to go under the knife. I did not need an operation. Instead, I did
just what the doctor ordered. I went home and did exactly what was needed to become
healthy again. Soon, I was on the mend. I was pulling through and recovering from my
sickness.
Now, I am back on my feet. I am physically healthy again. Even better, the doctor has
given me a clean bill of health. She says that I am one-hundred percent cured. I am back to
normal and I feel great. In fact, I feel on top of the world. My friends say I now look like
the picture of health.
(MUSIC)
This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill
Moss. Im Faith Lapidus.
24

As Chinese Investment in Africa Grows, So Do Risks

Deadly attack on oil field in Ethiopia shows the dangers that China may face as it expands its involvement
in the continent. Transcript of radio broadcast:
06 May 2007

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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
On April twenty-fourth, rebels in eastern Ethiopia attacked a Chinese-owned oil exploration
field in the Ogaden area. They killed sixty-five Ethiopian workers and nine Chinese. Seven
other Chinese were kidnapped but released. The Ogaden National Liberation Front took
responsibility.
The group said China did not appear to recognize the struggles of the Somali people of
Ogaden. The rebels have been fighting the Ethiopian government for more than twenty years.
They urged China to cease all cooperation with the government in the area of oil exploration.
Some experts believe China may become more of a target in Africa as it expands its
involvement there. Today, Chinese companies operate in most African nations. China has
also been investing in local projects like roads, schools and hospitals.
Ray Cheung writes for Business China, a newsletter published by the Economist Intelligence
Unit. He says China has invested in Africa since the nineteen fifties, but mostly within the
past five years. By two thousand five, Chinese trade with Africa totaled about forty billion
dollars.
Ray Cheung says the government has been urging state-owned companies to operate
internationally to help support China's expanding economy. But, he adds, many of the leaders
of those companies are not trained in good corporate governance. He says the next generation
of business leaders is more international and will have more of the skills needed for places
like Africa.
Africans have generally welcomed China's investments. China, in return, gets oil and other
natural resources that it needs, like copper and iron. But some say the growing Chinese
involvement in Africa could lead to a form of economic colonization.
China has an official policy of noninterference in other countries. But as Adam Wolfe noted
in World Politics Watch, China will have to decide how much it can follow that policy in the
face of risks like the attack in Ethiopia.
China, for example, has recently urged the government of Sudan to do more to end the
violence in Darfur. China has faced international pressure to use its influence in Sudan to
help solve the crisis. China National Petroleum is the main buyer of Sudanese oil.
25

In February, Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Sudan's president, Omar Hassan alBashir, during an eight-nation trip to Africa.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. Im ______.
26

Playing in the Sun and Sea at Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket

Why visitors come back summer after summer to these two islands off the coast of Massachusetts.
06 May 2007

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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara
Klein. This week on our program, we tell you about two islands in Massachusetts, in the New
England area of the northeastern United States. Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket are popular
places to visit, especially in the warmer months.
Both are known for their sailing and sunsets and fun things to do. Martha's Vineyard is also
known for its tall cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The island is about thirteen
kilometers off the coast and is less than two hundred sixty square kilometers.
Homes designed like those of earlier times line the streets of Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and
Vineyard Haven. These are the major towns on Martha's Vineyard.
For most of the year, the population of Martha's Vineyard is about fifteen thousand. During
the summer, more than one hundred thousand people crowd the island. And we do mean
crowd. Look around and you might see some Hollywood stars and other faces of the rich and
famous.
Some people arrive by boat, including a ship that carries passengers and cars. Others come by
plane. Many visitors return year after year.
Now, we continue our story with Shirley Griffith and Rich Kleinfeldt as your travel guides.
VOICE TWO:
The towns and the quieter country areas of Martha's Vineyard all offer places to stay. Small
hotels and homes for visitors on the island may not cost much. Other hotels cost hundreds of
dollars per night. Some people save money by preparing their own food. Others eat in the
many restaurants on the island.
Hungry visitors like the seafood at several famous eating places like the Black Dog Tavern in
Vineyard Haven. And they can stop into small stores that sell sweets like ice cream and fudge
candy.
During warm weather the Vineyard is a good place for many different activities. People can
play golf or catch fish. They can ride in sailboats or motor boats. They can water ski and
swim. They can take quiet walks along sandy beaches and among the thick green trees. They
27

can take pictures of birds found around small areas of fresh water or on the old stone walls
surrounding many farms.
VOICE ONE:
Many families with children spend their summer holidays in Martha's Vineyard. One of the
popular places for families is the Flying Horses Carousel in Oak Bluffs. It is the oldest
continually operated merry-go-round ride in the United States. The colorful wood horses that
turn in a circle were created in eighteen seventy-six.
One of the best places for children and adults to swim is the Joseph A. Sylvia state beach.
The water there is warmer and calmer than at some of the other Vineyard beaches.
Familes also enjoy the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary where they can observe much of the
island wildlife. People can walk through more than nine kilometers of fields, trees and
wetlands to learn about the plants and animals on the island.
Almost twenty percent of the land on Martha's Vineyard is protected from development.
There are other wildlife areas to explore. A flat-topped boat called the On-Time Ferry takes
people and cars to a nearby small island, Chappaquiddick.
Chappaquiddick has a white sand beach at the Cape Poge Wildlife Preserve. Many small
birds make their homes in the grass on the edge of the sand.
VOICE TWO:
Back on Martha's Vineyard, visitors often take long walks at the foot of the colorful high
edges of rock that line the water at Gay Head Cliffs. The white, yellow, red and brown colors
of the cliffs deepen as the sun disappears.
People also sit on the beach and on rocks in the fishing village of Menemsha to watch the
sunsets. As the sun goes down in the sky it paints yellow, red, and other colors on the clouds.
Some people offer a kind of ceremony as they watch the sun disappear into the seas.
Fishing boats rise and fall with the waves. Bells sound to help guide the boats to land as
darkness covers the water.
VOICE ONE:
Many people who live all year on the island make their money from the sea. Some of the
fishermen and farmers on the island today are related to the Europeans who settled the land
centuries ago.
Historians say British mapmaker Bartholomew Gosnold first made a map of the island for the
rulers of England in sixteen-oh-two. Gosnold is said to have named the island to honor his
baby daughter, Martha.
28

The Vineyard part of the name came from the many wild grape vines Gosnold found on the
island. Later, King Charles of England gave the island to businessman Thomas Mayhew of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The son of Thomas Mayhew established the first European settlement on the island in sixteen
forty-two at Edgartown. The Wampanoag Indians taught the settlers to kill whales.
Men in Edgartown and Vineyard Haven earned their money by killing whales until the
middle of the nineteenth century. Then, after the Civil War, visitors began to provide most of
the islanders' money.
In eighteen thirty-five, the Methodist Church held a group camp meeting in what was to
become the town of Oak Bluffs. Some of the campers stayed on and built small homes.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, ships from the American mainland began bringing
visitors to the island. Big hotels were built in the town near the edge of the water. Martha's
Vineyard was on its way to becoming the visitors' center that it is today.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Many summer visitors also travel to Nantucket, another island in the Atlantic near
Massachusetts. They like this island for its beaches, its open land and its trees.
Nantucket is smaller than Martha's Vineyard. It is about fifty kilometers from the
Massachusetts coast. Its distance from the mainland causes some Nantucket citizens to say
they are true islanders. The only town on Nantucket Island also is called Nantucket.
Artists often paint its waterfront and the small stores along it. But many visitors say the most
interesting part of the town is the area of homes. The island is known for its small gray
houses with roses growing on them. Signs on some of the houses say they were built as long
ago as the seventeenth century.
The public may enter fourteen historic homes now open as museums. Another museum, the
Museum of Nantucket History, helps newly arrived mainlanders learn about the land and
history of the island.
VOICE ONE:
Humans are not the only visitors to Nantucket. More than three-hundred-fifty kinds of birds
visit the island each summer. So people who like to watch birds return year after year.
Nature in general appeals to Nantucket visitors. Many plants and flowers grow wild in open
areas of the island. Farmers also grow several kinds of berry fruits. Cranberries are a leading
crop. Some people visit Nantucket in the autumn to watch the harvests of the red berries.
29

People who visit Nantucket enjoy water sports, walking and bicycle riding. They also catch
fish for pleasure. Some Nantucket citizens earn money by fishing. Earning their living from
the sea comes naturally to people who live on the island.
At one time, hunting for whales was the main job of people on Nantucket, just as it was on
Martha's Vineyard.
VOICE TWO:
England gave Nantucket to Thomas Macy in sixteen fifty-nine. Macy made an agreement
with the Wampanoag Indians who lived there. Then he sold most of the land to shareholders.
Settlers farmed the land. But farming on Nantucket did not succeed very well because the
ground was so full of sand.
In sixteen ninety an expert from the mainland taught sailors to catch small whales from boats
very close to the land. Years later, strong winds forced a whaling boat further into the ocean.
Sailors on that boat caught a sperm whale. That whale provided highly sought oil. Soon the
Nantucket sailors were catching many sperm whales.
That accidental event made Nantucket a whaling center. However, whales in the seas near
Nantucket died out over time. Nineteenth century sailors from the island had to travel for
years to catch whales.
Luckily, visitors had begun to provide earnings for Nantucket by the eighteen seventies. But
it was not until the nineteen sixties that providing for visitors became the major industry on
Nantucket.
VOICE ONE:
Visitors today to both Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard enjoy almost everything about the
islands -- except other visitors. The crowds during the warm season can mean heavy traffic
and long lines for services.
Yet, most visitors to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket really enjoy their holidays there. They
often say they feel they are escaping from the problems of daily life. And they leave with
peaceful memories of watching the red sun disappear into the dark ocean waters around the
islands.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER: Ours program was written by Jerilyn Watson and read by Shirley Griffith
and Rich Kleinfeldt. I'm Barbara Klein. We hope you can join us again next week for THIS
IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
30

Research Shows How Fishing for Sharks Also Affects Other Sea
Animals
Also: a new kind of big cat is found on Borneo island. British researchers call for drug policy reform
based on new findings. And American officials order stronger warnings for sleep drugs. Transcript of
radio broadcast:
07 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember. On our program this week, we will tell how fishing for sharks may
affect other sea animals. We will also tell about a newly identified large cat and warnings for
drugs to treat sleep disorders. And, we will report on a proposed system for measuring
harmful substances.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Several recent studies have linked human activities to reduced numbers of sharks in the
world's oceans. Scientists now say a sharp decrease in the number of large sharks in the
Atlantic Ocean has helped some kinds of fish. They say such fish are now threatening other
sea animals.
Canadian and American scientists studied the effects of people fishing for sharks in the
Northwest Atlantic over the past thirty-five years. Results of their studies were published in
Science magazine.
The scientists say one effect of shark fishing has been an estimated ninety-nine percent
decrease in some shark populations. They say the loss of larger sharks has caused a
population explosion among fish like skates and rays. Such fish and smaller sharks have
increased in number along the east coast of the United States.
Sharks usually eat skates and rays. The scientists say these fish feed on shellfish, which are
disappearing from the ocean. They say other sea animals are also being threatened by the
area's changing environment.
VOICE TWO:
31

Demand for shark fins has been rising in Asia. Shark fins are used for medical purposes and
also for food. The popularity of shark-fin soup in China has made the demand for these
animals greater.
For one of the studies, scientists from Canada examined information from private fishing
companies and other research projects. They noted a sharp decrease in eleven kinds of great
sharks since the nineteen-eighties.
One of the scientists was Julia Baum of Dalhousie University. She says the World
Conservation Union earlier this year listed great hammerhead and scalloped hammerhead
sharks as being in danger of disappearing. The group also reported the dusky and sandbar
sharks as being threatened.
Other scientists agree that the shark population decrease may be linked to the increase of
smaller fish. But they say the decrease in sharks is not the only cause. They debate how much
the decrease has affected other fish species. Other theories for these changes include
pollution and loss of native waters for some animals.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Environmental activists recently announced the discovery of a new kind of clouded leopard.
The wildlife group W.W.F. says the new species is found on the Southeast Asian islands of
Borneo and Sumatra.
Until now, the clouded leopards there were believed to be the same as those living on the
Asian mainland. Yet tests of genetic material show the animals are, in fact, very different.
The two species of clouded leopard also have physical differences. Scientists found they have
different markings, and different colors over their skin.
VOICE TWO:
The Bornean clouded leopard is the largest animal hunter on Borneo. On Sumatra, only the
Sumatran tiger is larger. The new species of clouded leopard has the longest canine teeth for
its size of any cat. It hunts lizards, monkeys, and small deer.
Researchers believe the clouded leopard of Borneo may have separated from the mainland
population more than one million years ago. Genetic tests have shown about forty differences
between the two species.
Researchers estimate that between five thousand and eleven thousand clouded leopards live
in the rain forest called the Heart of Borneo.
VOICE ONE:
32

Stuart Chapman is the W.W.F. international coordinator for the Heart of Borneo program.
The program is aimed at protecting plant and animal life in on the island. Mister Chapman
says biologists have seen the clouded leopard of Borneo for more than a century and not
known it was different. He says identification of the new species shows the importance of
protecting the Heart of Borneo. The biggest threat to these large cats is the destruction of the
areas where they live.
The discovery of the clouded leopard comes weeks after the W.W.F. reported that scientists
had identified at least fifty-two new plant and animals species on Borneo.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
A British study has found that alcohol and tobacco products are more dangerous than some
illegal substances. The study identified alcoholic drinks and tobacco as more harmful than
illegal drugs like marijuana or ecstasy.
David Nutt of Bristol University in Britain and other researchers produced the study. They
proposed a system for listing harmful substances. The system is based on evidence of the
harm created for the user and for other people. Results of the study were published in The
Lancet magazine.
The researchers proposed three ways to measure the possible harm that a substance causes.
The first measure is the physical harm to the user. The second is the ability of the drug to
create a sense of dependence in the user. The third is the effect of a drug's use on the
community.
VOICE ONE:
The researchers asked two groups of experts to create lists of the most dangerous drugs. The
experts included psychiatrists who study drug dependence, and legal or police officials with
scientific knowledge. The experts were asked to consider twenty drugs, including cocaine,
ecstasy, and heroin. Study organizers then combined the two lists to create general ratings of
each substance.
The experts generally agreed with each other. However, they did not agree with Britain's
current rating system for dangerous substances.
The experts agreed that the most dangerous of the twenty substances was heroin. Cocaine
was the second most dangerous. Drinking alcohol was the fifth-most harmful on the
combined lists. Smoking tobacco was ninth on the combined lists. Marijuana was eleventh.
And, ecstasy was near the bottom of the list.
Professor Nutt says he hopes that the study will create a debate within Britain and other areas
about how these drugs should be controlled.
33

(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
The United States Food and Drug Administration has ordered companies to place strong
warnings on thirteen drugs that treat sleep disorders. It also ordered the makers of the
sleeping drugs to provide information for patients explaining how to safely use the pills.
The F.D.A. announced in March that some of the drugs can have unexpected and dangerous
effects. These include the risk of life-threatening allergic reactions. They also include rare
incidents of strange behavior. These include people cooking food, eating and even driving
while asleep. The patients later had no memory of doing these activities while asleep.
VOICE ONE:
Last year, a member of the United States Congress said he had a sleep-driving incident.
Patrick Kennedy, a representative from Rhode Island, crashed his car into a security barrier
near the building where lawmakers meet. The accident happened in the middle of the night
and no one was hurt. Mister Kennedy said he had earlier taken a sleep medicine. He asaid he
was also being treated with a stomach sickness drug that can cause sleepiness.
A Food and Drug Administration official said the serious side effects of sleep disorder drugs
appear to be rare. But, he also said there are probably more cases than are reported. He said
the agency believes the risk of such behaviors could be reduced if people take the drugs as
directed and do not drink alcohol while taking the drugs.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Caty Weaver and Brianna Blake,
who also was our producer. Im Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And Im Barbara Klein. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special
English on the Voice of America.
34

Looking Behind the 'Fairtrade' Label

The movement began in Europe in the 1980s as a way to guarantee fair prices for small coffee producers
in poor countries. With praise, though, has come criticism. Transcript of radio broadcast:
07 May 2007

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This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Coffee drinkers are not the only ones willing to pay more for products marked with the words
"Fairtrade" or "Fair Trade Certified." Fair-trade teas, bananas, nuts and other products are
also available. Some people see it as an act of social
responsibility to buy these products.
The movement began in Europe in the nineteen eighties.
Activists wanted a way to guarantee fair prices for small
coffee producers in poor countries.
A group called the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations
International, or FLO, was established in nineteen ninetyseven. Its responsibilities include setting prices as well as
rules for working conditions and wages.
Under fair trade rules, importers must give growers
technical help and let growers borrow money from them.
Fair-trade Sumatran coffee
Until nineteen eighty-nine, an international agreement helped keep coffee prices level by
governing the world supply. But then a free market agreement ended that. The supply of
coffee grew higher than demand. Prices were low. Now, coffee prices are rising on the world
market.
The European Parliament recognized the work of the Fairtrade movement with a resolution
last year. But there were also calls to establish policies to protect the movement itself from
abuses. These include growers failing to pay the required wages to their workers.
Some economists criticize Fairtrade plans in general. They say the guaranteed prices are
often higher than market prices. As a result, growers produce more, and too much supply can
hurt growers who are not included in the plans.
Coffee is the second most traded product on world markets after oil. And some of the finest
coffees come from Ethiopia.
Now, Ethiopia wants to control the use of its specialty coffee names under trademark laws.
The idea is to charge coffee sellers for the right to use those names.
35

The world's best known coffee seller, however, resisted the idea. But last week, after two
days of talks, Ethiopia's Intellectual Property Office and the Starbucks Coffee Company
released a joint statement. They said they look forward to signing an agreement this month.
Details are not yet final. But they say the agreement will recognize the importance of
Ethiopia's specialty coffee names. After all, Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz noted that
Ethiopia is recognized as the historic birthplace of coffee.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Steve
Ember.
36

Have an Active Interest in Volcanoes? Then Look Around Hawaii

Learning about volcanoes (active and inactive) at two national parks. Transcript of radio broadcast:
08 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
This is Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Sarah Long with the VOA Special English program EXPLORATIONS. Today,
we visit two of the most unusual national parks in the United States. They are Volcanoes
National Park and Haleakala National Park, both in Hawaii.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Let me ask you a question: What is the tallest mountain
on Earth? Most
school children will say the answer is Mount Everest near
the border between Nepal and Tibet.
There is something that is three hundred four meters taller
than Mount Everest. However, it is mainly underwater. It
begins at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and rises more
than seventeen kilometers from the ocean floor.
Its name is Mauna Loa. In the Hawaiian language,
Mauna Loa means Long Mountain. Mauna Loa is more Mauna Loa
than half of the island of Hawaii, the largest of the Hawaiian Islands.
It is also the largest and most active volcano on Earth. It has produced liquid rock called lava
more than thirty times since records were first kept in eighteen forty-three. Today, Mauna
Loa is quiet. It is not producing lava. However volcano experts say it is only a matter of
time before this happens once again.
VOICE TWO:
37

Mauna Loa is not the only volcano on the island of Hawaii.
There are four others. Three of them are no longer active.
One of them still is active. It is named Kilauea. It has
produced lava more than fifty times in the last one hundred
years. At this moment, red hot lava is pouring out of
Kilauea. It has been doing this since nineteen eighty-three.
Lava on Kilauea
Sometimes the lava moves slowly. At other times it pours

out very fast as huge amounts of pressure force it from the
volcano. During these times, it moves almost as quickly as
water moving down the side of a mountain. Sometimes
Kilauea produces large amounts of lava that seem like rivers
of fire.
VOICE ONE:
When the lava from Kilauea reaches the ocean, its fierce heat produces great amounts of
steam that rise into the air. The lava is so hot it continues to burn underwater for some time.
The lava from Kilauea continues to add land to the island as the volcanoes of Hawaii have
always done. It is these volcanoes that formed the islands of Hawaii.
Most of the time the lava of Kilauea seems to move peacefully toward the ocean. Yet it is not
as peaceful as it seems from a distance. In recent years the lava destroyed one small town on
the island. The liquid rock slowly covered the town. It blocked roads and destroyed them.
Nothing can stop the lava of Kilauea. Experts say the volcanoes of Mauna Loa and Kilauea
are a serious threat to property on many parts of the island.
Experts say the volcanoes of the island of Hawaii are proof that the changing environment of
Earth is, and will always remain, beyond human control.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Mauna Loa and Kilauea together form Volcanoes National
Park in Hawaii. But another
national park has a huge volcano. It is on the island of
Maui. It is the Haleakala National Park. Haleakala in the
Hawaiian language means House of the Sun.
Haleakala is another huge volcano. Together with a smaller,
much older volcano it helped form the island of Maui. It is
no longer considered to be active. In about seventeen
ninety, two areas in the side of the huge volcano opened and
lava came out. The lava moved down the mountain and into
Haleakala
38

the sea. That was the last recorded activity at Haleakala.
The volcano that contains Haleakala National Park rises three thousand fifty meters above the
sea. We would like to take you for a visit to Haleakala. For a few minutes, sit back while we
drive the road up to the top of the volcano.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Our trip begins near the ocean today. We drive through the city of Kahului. We see
businesses and homes, the buildings you find in any American city. There are more flowers
than in many American cities. The Hawaiian Islands are famous for their flowers.
Soon the road begins to go up. The road moves back and forth and around corners as it
moves up the face of the mountain. At times our driver must slow the vehicle and turn very
sharply. Soon, there are no more homes or stores.
From the city of Kahului to the top of Haleakala is about fifty-five kilometers. We will be
three thousand fifty meters higher at the top of the mountain.
Very soon, we no longer see trees. We have traveled too high for them to survive. Soon
there are only a few plants. Then there is nothing but black lava rock. At one place, we
begin to enter the clouds that hang close to the mountain. Our driver turns on the headlights
of the vehicle. Ten minutes later, we are above the clouds in the bright sunshine.
The road is good, so the trip takes only about an hour.
VOICE TWO:
The National Park Headquarters is about two kilometers from the top. Park officials at the
information center tell you about the history of the volcano. They say that it is very safe -today. They also tell you that it could very well become active again. The experts just do not
know.
We soon leave the Park Headquarters and travel up again, this time to the top. There is an
area here to leave our vehicle. We walk the last few meters to the top.
As we reach the top, almost everyone says similar things. How strange! Did the violence of
a volcano form this? This is so beautiful!
VOICE ONE:
We are on the top looking down inside what was the most active part of the volcano. The
shape is almost like a circle except the sides have been stretched -- almost the shape of an egg
but longer.
39

There are only a few plants here and no trees. However the volcano has left thousands of
different shapes of lava stone. Hundreds of years of rain and bright sun have cut long paths
in the stone.
Time has turned the oldest lava to a soft sand. There are huge mountains. There are also
smaller hills that seem to be made of ash or sand. The place is a riot of color.
One big mountain seems to be a deep, dark red. Another area seems almost yellow. Another
is green, and still another is a beautiful brown color. One area is colored gray that seems to
move into a deep black. It looks as if someone has spilled many colors of paint over the huge
area. The volcano produced these colors because the lava is very rich in many kinds of
minerals.
VOICE TWO:
The area we are seeing stretches for a long distance. This morning, high on the mountain in
the bright sun, we can see almost forty kilometers of the park. And this is only part of it.
There are eleven thousand five hundred ninety-six hectares of land in the park.
Some of the park is closed to visitors. Scientists do research in those areas. Experts are
trying to learn how to grow and protect some of the very unusual plants that live in
Haleakala.
One of these plants is called the Silver Sword. It grows only in Hawaii. It has long, thin,
silver leaves. It is very beautiful and unusual.
The Hawaiian nene goose also lives here. It is a large bird. Visitors are asked not to come
too near the nene. Experts are helping both the Silver Sword plants and the nene geese to
reproduce so they will not disappear from the Earth.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Thousands of visitors each year enjoy Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui, and
Mauna Loa and Kilauea on the island of Hawaii. Ships stop at the two islands and buses take
the groups of visitors to see these huge volcanoes.
Many people also fly over the volcanoes in airplanes or helicopters. This is a safe and
popular method of watching Kilaueas lava moving slowly toward the ocean. Other people
see it from ships.Visitors also may walk into the rain forest created by the volcano thousands
of years ago. Here they can see Waimoku Falls where water drops one hundred twenty
meters down the face of a mountain.
Both parks offer visitors a sight of nature that most people never have the chance to enjoy.
Visitors can see how an active volcano adds mass to the island. And they can see inside a
volcano that has been silent for hundreds of years.
40

The United States Park Service is responsible for both Haleakala and the Hawaii National
Volcanoes Park. It works hard to keep both these areas as nature created them.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written and produced by Paul Thompson. Our recording
engineer today was Bob Phillips. This is Sarah Long.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another EXPLORATIONS program on
the Voice of America.
41

Gene Kelly, 1912-1996: His Movies Made Dance Popular in

America
05 May 2007

Listen to MP3
Listen in RealAudio
VOICE ONE:
I'm Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, People in America. Every
week we tell about a person important in the history of the United States. Today, we tell
about actor and dancer Gene Kelly. Experts say he did more than anyone else to make dance
popular in America.
(MUSIC: "Gotta Dance")
VOICE ONE:
Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
in nineteen twelve. His mother wanted all five of her
children to play music and to dance. Gene was more
interested in becoming an athlete. Yet he continued his
dance lessons even as he became successful in sports. He
said later that he never started out to be a dancer. He
wanted to play professional baseball for the Pittsburgh
Pirates baseball team. But, he said, he discovered girls liked
his dancing.
VOICE TWO:
Gene Kelly graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in
nineteen thirty-three. He started teaching at a dancing
school. He also directed local plays and performed with his brother Fred.
Gene Kelly
He went to New York City in nineteen thirty-eight. He was twenty-seven years old. After
dancing in a few Broadway shows, he got the lead part in the musical play "Pal Joey" in
nineteen forty.
42

Critics in New York praised Gene Kelly for his ability to sing and dance, and at the same
time, create a believable character on stage. Soon, he was offered work in Hollywood. He
went to California in nineteen forty-one.
VOICE ONE:
Gene Kelly's real success in movies began in nineteen forty-four. He and director Stanley
Donen created a special dance for the movie "Cover Girl." In it, Gene Kelly appears to be
dancing with himself. Cameras took pictures of him doing two dances separately. Then the
two pictures were placed on a single piece of film. In the movie, two Gene Kellys seem to
chase each other up and down steps, threaten each other, and leap over each other's heads.
Gene Kelly said later that he had made a huge discovery in that movie. He said dancing in a
movie does not look the way it does on the stage. So he tried to do things differently for the
movies. He tried to invent dance movements that were especially created for cameras.
VOICE TWO:
In nineteen forty-five, Gene Kelly first used a method of filming
seen often today. He
shared the movie screen with a drawing. In the movie "Anchors
Aweigh", he appeared to dance with a cartoon mouse. It cost one
hundred thousand dollars to film the eight- minute dance.
Gene Kelly danced first. Then cartoon artists filmed the
drawings of the mouse's movements. The two films were
combined into one. In the movie, Gene and the mouse are
happily dancing and singing together.
VOICE ONE:
Gene Kelly was part of another movie-making first in nineteen Anchors Aweigh
forty-nine. It happened in "On the Town." It was the first movie
musical to be filmed in a real city. "On the Town" is about three sailors in New York. The
movie shows sailors getting off their ship. Then they sing and dance through the city streets.
Musicals were normally filmed on sets built in Hollywood to look like other places. Gene
said movie company officials at the time thought filming in the real city was crazy, but it
worked. It changed movie musicals forever. Gene Kelly called "On the Town" his favorite
movie. It opens with the song "New York, New York":
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
43

Some critics say Gene Kelly's greatest success was the nineteen fifty-one movie, "An
American in Paris. " It won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Gene won a
special Oscar for his singing, dancing, acting and creating dances. The movie ended with a
seventeen-minute ballet dance. It showed the effect of the city of Paris on the hero. In the
ballet, Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron danced to George Gershwin's "An American in Paris":
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Many people think the best Gene Kelly movie of all is "Singin' in the
Rain." Experts say "Singin' in the Rain" was the last of the great
movie musicals. It was released in nineteen fifty-two. In one part,
Gene Kelly sings the title song while he dances. It is considered one
of the best movie scenes in history. In it, he shows how happy he is
at the idea of being in love. He performs the song and dance while
heavy rain falls on a lonely city street.
(MUSIC: "Singin in the Rain")
VOICE TWO:
Gene Kelly appeared in forty-five movies. He danced and sang. He
acted in movies that were not musicals. He produced movies and
directed them, too. He also directed musical plays on New York City's Broadway. He
appeared on television, winning an Emmy Award for the show "Jack and the Beanstalk. "
Singin' in the Rain
Gene Kelly was in the three "That's Entertainment" movies. In those movies, he worked with
another great dancer, Fred Astaire. Fred Astaire was a movie star when Gene Kelly was just
starting to dance.
Kelly said he was too big for the kind of dancing Astaire did so well. He said his kind of
athletic dancing was better done in pants and a shirt than in the more formal clothes Astaire
wore.
VOICE ONE:
Gene Kelly died on February second, nineteen ninety-six following a series of strokes. He
was eighty-three years old. He had been honored many times for his work. He was given
awards by the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and the American Film Institute. The
government of France gave him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. President Clinton gave
him the American National Medal of Arts.
People said he had created a new kind of American dance by mixing modern, tap and ballet
in an athletic way. Gene Kelly always said he was not that important. He said he really was
just a song and dance man.
44

(MUSIC: "Gotta Dance")
VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach. It was produced and directed
by Lawan Davis. I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I'm Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week at this time to People in America on the
Voice of America.
45

When Netspeak Enters Formal Writing, Teachers Are Anything

but LOL
08 May 2007

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti and this week on Wordmaster: an example of how English teachers at
one high school are trying to get students to keep the language of the Internet where it
belongs.
Jodi Schenck teaches at Rothberg Comprehensive High School in the Israeli city of Ramat
HaSharon.
JODI SCHENCK: "What we call netspeak in our English team is
basically the habit that kids have of writing on formal exams and
essays exactly as they write on the Internet -- the number four
instead of the world f-o-r, the letter U instead of y-o-u. Phrases that
they use, idioms like LOL, laugh out loud, and this kind of thing.
And it's been very hard for us to train them not to do that.
"And of course they lose massive amounts of points on their
matriculation exams and final exams when they write like this. And
for them they don't understand why it's not acceptable, since they
use it every day to write internationally."
AA: "Well, how do you try to break them of the habit?"
JODI SCHENCK: "Well, obviously, first of all, to make them aware of it. I mean, I give
them a whole list of phrases from the Internet and I say, 'All of these things? No, you can't
use them. They're not common usage. They are slang.'
"And I give them examples. The same way that they wouldn't use hip-hop speak when they're
having an interview for IBM, or the same way they wouldn't go in sandals and a torn pair of
jeans to an interview, they can't use this kind of English in their writing. That it's formal
writing and they have to write formally. They have to have a different set of informational
values."
AA: "So what advice do you have for other English teachers who are hearing this and maybe
facing the same problem, what advice do you have for them?"
JODI SCHENCK: "This is a Sisyphean task, it's an uphill task, it is. I try to do it
lightheartedly with them, I try to give them funny examples of why it doesn't work and why
46

people don't understand. But I am stringent about it. After they've been warned and after
we've discussed it, if I receive an essay with something like this on it, I will remove five
points or ten points each time, until they get the idea that they simply can't do it. And it
sounds very Draconian, but there's no choice for it."
AA: "Well, couldn't someone argue that, let's say they're writing an essay or a story, a madeup story, and they're using it to represent how kids speak today? Are there appropriate uses
for netspeak in their writing?"
JODI SCHENCK: "When the kids write e-mails, and we allow them to write internationally
to pen pals and stuff, I don't edit them. In that sense they're allowed to use it. If they're using
it in character, like they're writing a fictional story, then like any character dialect it's in
quotation mark and it's obvious that it's character dialect and not their own writing. That's
fine. But in terms of writing a formal essay or some sort of answer to a question that's formal
English, no."
AA: "Is it that they think it's acceptable? I mean, why are they doing it? Is it just to bother
you?"
JODI SCHENCK: "No, no. I think it's because, I mean especially where I teach, in Israel,
most of the kids learn English from the popular media. They learn it from the TV, from
movies, from MTV and from the Internet -- in great part from the Internet because these are
kids who from, practically from birth are on the Internet, chat rooms, e-mails. And this is
what they've learned from the people they write to internationally, back and forth, and they
think it's absolutely normal. They don't see it as something unusual.
"Most of my kids unfortunately don't read a lot, which is a worldwide problem. Paper is out
and computer is in. And, as a result, they don't have the cultural background of reading the
way I did when I was a kid, where I read full novels and stuff for fun. They don't do that. For
fun, they go onto the Internet, and on the Internet this is acceptable."
AA: Jodi Schenck is an English teacher at Rothberg Comprehensive High School in Ramat
HaSharon, Israel. She was recently in the United States at the Teachers of English to
Speakers of Other Languages convention in Seattle, where I spoke with her.
And that's it for Wordmaster this week. If you'd like to hear other interviews from the
TESOL convention, go to voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is
word@voanews.com. I'm Avi Arditti.
MUSIC: "My Internet Girl"/Aaron Carter
47

Something a Bone Will Never Say: Give Me a Break

An explanation of different kinds of fractures and treatments. Transcript of radio broadcast:
08 May 2007

Listen to MP3
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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
The medical term for a broken bone is a fracture. But there are
different kinds of fractures.
A single fracture is when a bone is broken in just one place. You may
have heard the term hairline fracture. This is a single fracture that is
very small, like the width of a hair. A complete fracture is when the
bone comes apart.
When a bone is broken in more than two places or gets crushed, the
name for it is a comminuted fracture.
Still another kind is a bowing fracture. This happens with a bone that
bends but does not break. It happens mostly in children.
Ever heard of a greenstick fracture? This is when a bone is bent and breaks along only one
side, like a young stick of wood.
Another kind of break is an open or compound fracture. This is when the bone breaks the
skin. This is very serious. Along with the bone damage there is a risk of infection in the open
wound.
A lot of things happen as the body reacts to an injury like a broken bone. You might suddenly
feel lightheaded. You might also feel sick to your stomach.
People who are seriously injured can go into shock. They might feel cold, dizzy and unable to
think clearly. Shock requires immediate medical attention.
But while broken bones can be painful, they are generally not life-threatening. Treatment
depends on the kind of fracture. A doctor takes X-rays to see the break and sets a broken
bone to make sure it is in the correct position.
Severe breaks may require an operation to hold the bone together with metal plates and
screws.
Next, a person usually gets a cast put around the area of the break. The hard bandage holds
the bone in place while it heals. Casts are usually worn for one to two months.
48

In some cases, instead of a cast, a splint made of plastic or metal will be secured over the area
to restrict movement.
Doctors say broken bones should be treated quickly because they can restrict blood flow or
cause nerve damage. Also, the break will start to repair itself, so you want to make sure the
bone is lined up correctly.
Bones need calcium and vitamin D to grow and reach their full strength. Keeping your bones
strong with exercise may also help prevent fractures.
Wearing safety protection like elbow pads and leg guards during activities is a good idea. If
you think these might be restrictive, try a cast.
And that's the VOA Special English Health Report written by Caty Weaver. I'm Barbara
Klein.
49

US History: Nixon Promises to 'Bring the American People

Together' After '68 Win
Richard Nixon lost the 1960 election to John Kennedy, but he was known for his ability to fight, to lose,
and to keep trying. Those skills would soon be tested. Transcript of radio broadcast:
09 May 2007

Listen to MP3
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VOICE ONE:
This is Rich Kleinfeldt.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Stan Busby with THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a VOA Special English
(MUSIC)
Today, we begin the story of America's thirty-seventh president, Richard Nixon.
VOICE ONE:
Richard Nixon was sworn-in as president in January
nineteen sixty-nine. It was a difficult time in the United
States. American forces, allied with the army of South
Vietnam, were continuing to fight against the communist
forces of North Vietnam.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians were dying. Yet the
Americans and South Vietnamese were making little
progress. Critics of the war said they were making no
progress at all.
VOICE TWO:
At home, there were demonstrations against the war.
There were demonstrations against racial injustice. Friends and families were in dispute as
they took opposing positions on these issues. Fighting the war also meant there was less
government money to spend on social problems.
Former President Lyndon Johnson had proposed new legislation to help poor people and
minorities. In some cases, Congress approved less money than he had requested. In other
cases, lawmakers did not approve any money at all.
50

VOICE ONE:
Richard Nixon seemed well prepared to deal with the difficulties of being president. He was
known for his ability to fight, to lose, and to keep trying. Nixon was born in California. His
family was poor. When he was about ten years old, he harvested vegetables to help earn
money for his family. He earned the money he needed to go to college.
Then he decided to study law. He was among the top students in his class. During World War
Two, he served in the United States Navy in the Pacific battle area. When he came home, he
campaigned for and won a seat in the Congress.
VOICE TWO:
As a member of the House of Representatives, Nixon became known throughout the nation
for his part in the Alger Hiss case. Alger Hiss was a former official in the State Department.
He had been accused of helping provide secret information to the Soviet Union. He denied
the accusation.
Nixon demanded a congressional investigation of the case. Other members of the House
thought it should be dropped. Nixon succeeded and led the investigation. Later, Hiss was
tried and found guilty of lying to a grand jury. He was sentenced to prison.
VOICE ONE:
Some Americans disliked Richard Nixon for the way he treated people during the
investigation. They felt that some of his attacks were unjust. Fear of communism was very
strong at that time. They thought he was using the situation to improve his political future.
The future did, in fact, bring him success.
In nineteen fifty, he ran for the Senate. He competed against Helen Gahagan Douglas. He
accused her of not recognizing the threat of Communism in America. Nixon won the
election. In nineteen fifty-two, the Republican Party chose him as its candidate for vice
president. Dwight Eisenhower was the candidate for president.
Eisenhower and Nixon won a huge victory over the candidates of the Democratic Party. They
won again in nineteen fifty-six.
VOICE TWO:
During his eight years as vice president, Nixon visited sixty countries. He faced violent
protesters during a visit to South America in nineteen fifty-eight. He was praised for acting
bravely under dangerous conditions.
A year later, he visited the Soviet Union. He and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had a
famous debate about world peace. Nixon became very angry. At one point, he said to
Khrushchev: "You do not know everything."
51

VOICE ONE:
In nineteen sixty, Nixon accepted the Republican Party's
nomination for president. He had many years of political experience
and had gained recognition as vice president. Many people thought
he would win the national election easily. But he lost to the young
John Kennedy.
The first televised

presidential debate
It was the closest presidential election in American history since

eighteen eighty-four. After losing to Kennedy, Nixon moved back
to California. He worked as a lawyer. In nineteen sixty-two, he ran
for governor, and lost.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
It seemed that Nixon's political life was over. He moved again, this time to New York City.
He worked as a lawyer. But he made it clear that he would like to return to public life some
day. Many Republicans began to see Richard Nixon as the statesman they wanted in the
White House.
By then, President Johnson had decided not to run for re-election. His Democratic Party was
divided. The Republicans believed they had a good chance to win the election of nineteen
sixty-eight.
VOICE ONE:
Nixon campaigned hard against the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey was
vice president under President Johnson. Throughout the campaign, he had to defend the
policies of the Johnson administration.
The policies on Vietnam had become very unpopular. Some Americans felt the war should be
expanded. Many others demanded an immediate withdrawal.
VOICE TWO:
Both Humphrey and Nixon promised to work for peace in Vietnam. On election day, voters
chose Nixon. He won by a small number of popular votes. But he won many more electoral
votes than Humphrey. On the day after his victory, he spoke to a gathering of supporters.
RICHARD NIXON: "I saw many signs in this campaign. Some of them were not friendly.
Some were very friendly. But the one that touched me the most was -- a teenager held up the
sign 'bring us together.' And that will be the great objective of this administration, at the
outset, to bring the American people together."
VOICE ONE:
52

Once in office, President Nixon proposed legislation to deal with problems at home. He
called his proposals the "New Federalism." One proposal was for revenue sharing. Under this
plan, the federal government would share tax money with state and local governments. For
three years, Congress blocked its passage. In nineteen seventy-two, the revenue sharing plan
was finally approved.
Lawmakers also approved legislation for some of President Nixon's other ideas. One changed
the way American men were called into military service.
VOICE TWO:
The new law said young men would now be called to serve by chance, with a lottery. This
was a big change. Many people had criticized the earlier system. They said it had taken too
many poor men and too many men from minority groups. These were the men who were
fighting, and dying, in Vietnam.
Congress also approved a change to the Constitution. The amendment would permit younger
people to vote. It decreased the voting age from twenty-one years to eighteen years.
Supporters of the amendment said that if citizens were old enough to fight and die in the
nation's wars, they were old enough to vote in the nation's elections, too.
The amendment became law when three-fourths of the states approved it in nineteen seventyone.
VOICE ONE:
One of President Nixon's most important proposals was to build a system to defend against
enemy missiles. He said the system was needed to protect American missile bases. The issue
caused much debate. Critics said it would add to the arms race with the Soviet Union.
Congress approved the plan in August nineteen sixty-nine.
VOICE TWO:
Nixon's first appointments to the nation's highest court also caused much debate. He named
two conservative judges from the southern United States to serve on the Supreme Court.
Congress rejected the nomination of the first one, Clement Haynsworth. Lawmakers said his
court decisions had been unfair to black Americans.
Congress also rejected the nomination of the second one, G. Harold Carswell. Lawmakers
said he was not prepared for the job.
VOICE ONE:
President Nixon faced these disappointments, and others. Yet he still had moments of great
celebration during his first term. One came on July twentieth, nineteen sixty-nine. On that
day, he and millions of people around the world watched as two American astronauts became
53

the first humans to land on the moon. We will continue the story of Richard Nixon next
week.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson. This is Stan
Busby.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Rich Kleinfeldt. Join us again next week for another VOA Special English
54

For Blind Foreign Students, Some Aid Available in US

Part 36 of our Foreign Student Series: a listener in Nigeria asks if visually impaired foreign students can
get a full scholarship as an undergraduate. Transcript of radio broadcast:
09 May 2007

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A listener in Nigeria has a question about financial aid for blind and visually impaired
college students in America. S.A. Ogunlowo in Ile-Ife wants to know if visually impaired
foreign students can get a full scholarship as an undergraduate.
Financial aid programs in the United States, especially at the undergraduate level, do often
require American citizenship. At the same time, scholarships often pay only part of the cost
of an education. The National Federation of the Blind advises students to contact any school
they wish to attend to ask about financial aid.
The federation is the country's largest group for the blind. Each year it awards scholarships
that do not have any citizenship requirements. Students must be legally blind. And foreign
students cannot apply until a college in the United States has already accepted them.
The application deadline was March thirty-first for thirty scholarships offered for this fall.
Most are three thousand dollars. The highest is twelve thousand dollars.
The United States has an estimated one million blind adults. The federation says there are no
special colleges or universities for the blind. But schools do offer special services and
technology to help students with disabilities.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. More
information about the scholarships from the National Federation of the Blind can be found at
its Web site: n-f-b dot o-r-g (nfb.org). This was week number thirty-six in our series for
students interested in coming to the United States for higher education. If you missed any of
our reports, you can find our Foreign Student Series online at voaspecialenglish.com. And if
you have a question, send it to special@voanews.com. Please include your name and country.
I'm Steve Ember.
55

Cortney Tidwell's Music: Moonlit Laughter, in the Shadow of

Emotions
Also: a question from Saudi Arabia about presidential candidates' pages on MySpace. And the US Postal
Service releases only its second triangular stamp, to honor the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. Transcript
of radio broadcast:
10 May 2007

Listen to MP3
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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
I'm Doug Johnson. This week on our show:
We answer a question about the Web sites of American presidential candidates ...
We also have music by Cortney Tidwell ...
And we tell you about a new American stamp that honors an event from four centuries ago.
Jamestown Stamp
HOST:
This weekend, after years of planning, Virginia observes the four hundredth anniversary of
the settlement of Jamestown. Jamestown was Britain's first permanent colony in the New
World. Queen Elizabeth was there last week. And now, three days of historic re-creations and
other events are planned through Sunday. The events includes the release of an unusual
postage stamp. Barbara Klein has our story.
BARBARA KLEIN:
The Settlement of Jamestown stamp is in the shape of a
triangle. The design represents the three-sided fort that the
settlers built four hundred years ago.
David Failor is the executive director of stamp services
for the United States Postal Service. He says a citizens
advisory committee helped decide what the stamp would
look like.
56

The fifteen-member committee is made up of volunteers. They meet about four times a year
to consider suggestions from the public for new stamps.
The first step was to approve a Jamestown commemorative stamp. Then the Postal Service
began to search for the best way to represent the subject.
A nineteen forty-nine painting by artist Griffith Baily Coale was chosen. It shows the three
ships that carried the first settlers to Jamestown.
David Failor says this is only the second time the Postal Service has issued a triangular
stamp. The first time was in nineteen ninety-seven in honor of the International Stamp Show
in San Francisco.
Every post office in the country will sell the Jamestown stamp for several months. The stamp
is the first to be sold at the new first-class mail rate in the United States -- forty-one cents.
About seventy million Jamestown stamps were printed. David Failor says there will be no
more. Only the future will tell if they are popular enough to become valuable collector's
items.
The Jamestown commemorative stamp is not for raising money to help pay for the
anniversary events. He says the purpose is to raise public awareness about the history of
Jamestown.
Candidates' Pages on MySpace
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Van Hoosh wants to
know more about the MySpace pages of the American presidential candidates.
MySpace, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is
the leading social networking site on the Internet. Users have
lists of "friends," and those friends have lists of friends. Now,
candidates are competing for MySpace friends in the same
way they compete for money -- as a measure of popularity.
The Web site TechPresident is following the online activities
of the two thousand eight presidential election campaign. It
says that among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton had more
than sixty-three thousand MySpace friends as of Wednesday.
That was four thousand more than Barack Obama. John
Edwards had thirty-four thousand.
Among the Republicans, John McCain had thirty thousand
MySpace friends. Mitt Romney had seventeen thousand. And Ron Paul, a congressman from
Texas, had thirteen thousand.
57

But the candidates are not the only ones who create pages for their campaigns. Supporters
and local political groups have also created MySpace pages for their favorite candidates. As
our listener in Saudi Arabia points out, it can be difficult to know which pages belong to the
candidates themselves.
For example, a supporter of Barack Obama created a MySpace page under the senator's
name. More than one hundred thousand friends joined the list.
MySpace later decided that the Obama campaign team had the right to take control of the
page. The supporter got a new address, but he was permitted to take his list of friends with
him.
MySpace recently created a special page just for the presidential election. The address is
impact.myspace.com. It has links to all of the official pages for the candidates. It also
includes links to voter registration groups and other sites.
MySpace has announced that it will hold its own presidential nominating election early next
year. Voting in this online primary will be open to any MySpace member.
Candidates recognize the power that social networking sites have to reach large numbers of
people. These include teenagers who grew up with the Internet and will turn eighteen next
year -- old enough to vote for the first time.
Cortney Tidwell
HOST:
Cortney Tidwell grew up with a grandfather and mother who sang country music in
Nashville, Tennessee. So it is not surprising that she, too, turned to a career in music. Her
songs have a dreamy quality with unexpected electronic sounds and, yes, now and then the
sound of a country guitar. Katherine Cole tells us more.
KATHERINE COLE:
Cortney Tidwell controls her voice carefully, but her
music is hard to define. Sometimes the sounds that come
out of her mouth are unusual and surprising. In her songs
you might also hear things like sudden changes in the beat
or words that sound far away.
The musical result is poetic and striking. One critic says it
is like listening to the sound of moonlight.
This song, from her first full-length album, released
earlier this year, is called "Pictures on the Sidewalk."
58

(MUSIC)
Cortney Tidwell says she is influenced by childrens laughter, the night sky and the ups and
downs of peoples emotions. Yet the mournful sound that we hear in "Pictures on the
Sidewalk" can also be found in many of her other songs.
She has described how her mother suffered from severe depression and would express her
sadness through music. As a result, Cortney Tidwell says that as a child she came to connect
music with being unhappy.
But she says that in time, she recognized that writing music helped her survive some very
difficult times. Here is a song simply called "La La."
(MUSIC)
Cortney Tidwell lives in Nashville with her husband, who helped produce her album. We
leave you with the title song from "Don't Let the Stars Keep Us Tangled Up."
(MUSIC)
HOST:
I'm Doug Johnson, hoping you enjoyed our program today. Our show was written by Brianna
Blake, Dana Demange and Jill Moss. Caty Weaver was our producer. For transcripts and
MP3 files of all of our programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com.
And send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Please be sure to
include your full name and mailing address. You can also write to American Mosaic, VOA
Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.
English.
59

Harvard Economist Susan Athey Wins a Top Award

First woman to receive the Clark Medal is honored for work across several areas of study, including
government auctions. Transcript of radio broadcast:
10 May 2007

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Susan Athey, an economics professor at Harvard University, has
won the John Bates Clark Medal. The American Economics
Association awards the Clark Medal to the most promising
economists. And it may be even harder to win than a Nobel Prize
in economics. The Clark Medal is given every two years. And the
winner has to be under the age of forty.
Susan Athey is thirty-six years old and the first woman to win the
Clark Medal in its sixty year history. No woman has yet won the
Nobel economics prize which has been awarded since nineteen
sixty-nine.
Professor Athey came to Harvard in Massachusetts last year. Before that she was at Stanford
University in California for five years. And before that she taught at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology for six years.
Past winners received the Clark Medal for a single area of research. But Susan Athey was
honored for her work across several areas of economics. Her work has dealt with both
applied theory and empirical studies. In other words, it has dealt both with the complex
methods that help economists do their jobs and with economic problems in the real world.
One of the real-world situations that she has studied is government auctions. Auctions can be
used to sell something like the right to cut down trees on public forest lands. Or they can be
used to buy something that a government agency needs, like computers. In both cases,
bidders compete against one another to win the auction.
For five years, Susan Athey worked with the British Columbia Ministry of Forests in Canada
to design a system for timber auctions. That system has helped the Canadians collect over
one billion dollars. It has also helped ease a trade dispute. The United States accused Canada
of providing unfair support to its timber industry.
Professor Athey has also studied how bidders in an auction can suppress competition. One
pays the others to offer losing bids. This, of course, defeats the purpose of an auction. Susan
Athey showed that requiring businesses to make secret bids could increase competition.
60

The John Bates Clark Medal has been given every two years since nineteen forty-seven,
except for nineteen fifty-three. That year no prize was awarded. Among thirty winners of the
medal, eleven have won the Nobel prize in economics.
Ember.
61

Sarkozy's Economic Plan for France May Depend on June

Elections
Chirac will leave office on Wednesday. Blair announces he will resign June 27. And Turkey looks for a
solution to its presidential crisis. Transcript of radio broadcast:
11 May 2007

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Nicolas Sarkozy will take office Wednesday as president of France. He supports labor
reforms, tax cuts and strong controls over crime and illegal immigration. As interior minister
he was known for strongly worded conservative positions
on law and order.
Now he proposes to liberalize the French economy to
better compete in world markets. Some say his proposed
economic reforms could lead to labor unrest. The plan
includes a right to work more than thirty-five hours a
week.
Before anything, he will need the support of parliament.
Legislative elections are in June.
People talk about "Sarkozy the American" because he
supports the United States. But the new president says he
is going to make the French people proud again of their
nation.
Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair met

Friday in Paris
Two-term President Jacques Chirac is retiring after twelve years in office.

The president-elect was the candidate of the ruling party, the Union for a Popular Movement.
In Sunday's election, Nicolas Sarkozy easily defeated Socialist candidate Segolene Royal
with fifty-three percent of the vote.
But his election led to three nights of violence during protests in Paris and other cities.
Hundreds of people were arrested.
Mister Sarkozy's election raises concerns for supporters of Turkeys efforts to join the
European Union. He is against it. Instead he proposes a "Mediterranean Union" as a bridge
between Europe and Africa. The idea is to include Turkey and other Muslim nations, as well
as European Union members along the Mediterranean, including France.
62

Still, officials from Turkey and the European Union say they will push ahead with
membership talks. The European Union has also urged patience as Turkey seeks a new
president.
Parliament voted Thursday for a proposed constitutional amendment to let the Turkish people
elect a new president directly. The ruling AK party proposed it. This comes after the party
failed to get parliament to elect Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
Opposition parties boycotted the vote. They say he is an Islamist threat to the separation of
religion and government in Turkey -- a charge he denies.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was to leave office next week. Now he is expected to stay
until a new parliament is elected in July. The ruling party wants to hold a presidential
election at the same time.
In other news, Tony Blair announced this week when he will resign after ten years as
Britain's prime minister. The date is June twenty-seventh. His Labor Party is expected to elect
Gordon Brown, currently the treasury chief.
Tony Blair's popularity suffered because of his support for the Iraq war. But he will also be
remembered for British economic gains and, among other things, for his work on the
Northern Ireland peace agreement.
This week, a government was inaugurated in which Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders
will share power in the British province. The hope is for a lasting end to thirty years of
conflict.
IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English was written by Jill Moss. I'm Steve Ember.
63

Pocahontas, 1595-1617: An Important Player in Early Jamestown

She represented the hope of close relations between white people and Native Americans. Transcript of
radio broadcast:
12 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
PEOPLE IN AMERICA, a program in Special English on the Voice of America.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
She lived four hundred years ago in what became the American state of Virginia. She was the
first Native American to marry a white person. I'm Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Ray Freeman. Today, we tell about Pocahontas, the daughter of the chief of the
Powhatan Indian tribe.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Pocahontas was born in fifteen ninety-five. She was one of
twenty children of Chief Powhatan. Powhatan ruled a group
of more than twenty Indian tribes in territory that is now the
eastern state of Virginia.
In sixteen-oh-seven, the Virginia company in England sent
colonists to settle the land that later became the United
States of America. The leader of the English settlers was
John Ratcliffe. He claimed the land for King James of
England. He named the new colony Jamestown, Virginia.
The English colonists did not know that the area already was
settled by Indians.
A picture of Pocahontas dressed for
the court of King James
VOICE TWO:
The Powhatan Indians lived in the area where the English colonists landed. They were part of
a large group of American tribes who spoke the Algonquian language. The Powhatans had
64

lived in the area for almost one thousand years. They built villages. They grew beans, corn,
squash and melons. They created a strong political system, led by powerful chiefs like
Powhatan. His power and wealth were evident.
Women of the tribes controlled the houses and the fields. They made clothing of animal skins
and containers of clay. Men hunted and fished for food. Both men and women wore earrings
and other objects made of shells, pearls and copper.
The young Pocahontas often visited Jamestown during the colony's first months. She was
about twelve years old. The colonists knew her well. She became an important link between
the colonists and her father, Powhatan.
VOICE ONE:
The Indians' culture was very different from that of the
English settlers. The two groups did not understand each
other. The misunderstandings led to hostile incidents
between the colonists and the Indians.
''Preservation of Captain Smith by

Pocahontas''
John Smith was an explorer, soldier and a leader of the

Jamestown colony. He was captured in sixteen-oh-seven by
followers of Powhatan. Captain Smith wrote about this
incident in a book that was published in sixteen twentyfour. He wrote that Pocahontas saved him from being
executed by Powhatan. This story has been repeated for
hundreds of years. This is what most people know about
Pocahontas.
VOICE TWO:
Most historians, however, do not believe that Pocahontas saved the life of John Smith. Some
believe that Captain Smith invented the story after reading about a similar event that took
place in Florida. That event involved a captured Spanish explorer, an Indian chief and the
chief's daughter.
Some historians do not believe that John Smith's life was in danger. They say that what
Captain Smith thought was to be his execution was really an Indian ceremony. The ceremony
was meant to show that Powhatan accepted Smith as part of his tribe. Historians say the
Indian chief wanted to make the English colonists his allies.
VOICE ONE:
After Captain Smith's capture, the Indians and the colonists agreed to a truce. Pocahontas
visited Jamestown more often. She may not have really saved John Smith's life. But most
experts agree that Pocahontas helped the colonists. She brought them corn when they were
starving. She once was said to have warned the colonists about a surprise attack by the
Indians.
65

John Smith had been wounded during his capture. He returned to England. Hostilities once
again broke out between the Indians and the English settlers. In sixteen eleven, Thomas Dale
became acting governor of the colony. He started a new aggressive policy toward the Indians.
Two years later, an English soldier, Samuel Argall, kidnapped Pocahontas. She was about
eighteen years old. The colonists kidnapped her because they wanted to prevent more attacks
by the Indians. They also wanted to force chief Powhatan to negotiate a peace agreement.
VOICE TWO:
Pocahontas lived as a hostage in the Jamestown
settlement for more than a
year. A colonist, John Rolfe, taught her English. He also
taught her the Christian religion. Pocahontas was the first
Native American to become Christian. She changed her
name to Rebecca.
In sixteen fourteen, she married John Rolfe in the church
in Jamestown. She was the first Indian woman to marry a
white man. Her husband believed that their marriage
would be good for the colony. John Rolfe said he married
Pocahontas "for the honor of our country, for the glory of
God. "
''Baptism of Pocahontas''
VOICE ONE:
Governor Dale immediately opened negotiations with Powhatan. The result was a period of
peace that lasted for about eight years.
Pocahontas' husband was a tobacco grower. She taught him the Indian way of planting
tobacco. This method improved the tobacco crop. Tobacco later became America's first
successful crop.
VOICE TWO:
In sixteen fifteen, Pocahontas and John Rolfe had a son. They named him Thomas. The next
year Pocahontas and her family sailed to England for a visit. In London, she was treated like
a famous person. She was officially presented to king James the First. She also met John
Smith again.
The Virginia Company said her visit proved that it was possible to have good relations
between the English colonists and the Indians. The company urged more people to move
from England to the Virginia colony.
Pocahontas had her picture painted while visiting England. She is wearing the clothes she
wore when she met the King. They are the kind of clothes that were popular in England in the
sixteen hundreds. This picture is the only one that really is of her.
66

VOICE ONE:
Pocahontas and her family stayed in England for seven months. They prepared to return to
Jamestown. But Pocahontas became sick with smallpox. She died from the disease. She was
buried in Gravesend, England. She was twenty-two years old.
Her son, Thomas Rolfe, was raised in England. When he was twenty, he returned to Virginia.
He lived as a settler in his mother's native land. He married and had a daughter. Through
Thomas Rolfe, a number of famous Virginians have family ties to Pocahontas. These families
are proud to claim their ties to Pocahontas. They call her "Virginia's First Lady. "
VOICE TWO:
Pocahontas left no writings of her own. The only reports about her from the time were
written by John Smith. His reports may not all have been true. Yet the story of her rescue of
Captain Smith became a popular folk story.
Americans know that Pocahontas played a part in the early history of Virginia. They
remember her bravery and friendship. Americans also remember her for what she
represented as a Native American: the hope of close relations between the white people and
the Indians.
VOICE ONE:
Pocahontas is honored in the United States Capitol building in Washington, D. C. There are
three art works of her in the large, round, main hall of the capitol. There are more
representations of her than any other American except for the nation's first president, George
Washington. The three art works show the popular stories about Pocahontas. One is a
painting of Pocahontas taking part in a religious ceremony in which she became a Christian.
Two others show her saving the life of Captain John Smith.
VOICE TWO:
Many different American groups have used the name and some version of a picture of
Pocahontas. Whale hunters in the nineteenth century named ships after Pocahontas in honor
of her bravery. They also put small statues of her on their ships.
Both the confederate forces in the South and the Union forces in the North used her name or
picture during the American Civil War. A picture of Pocahontas was on the flag of a division
of Confederate forces called the Guard of the Daughters of Powhatan. Union forces named a
warship after the Indian woman.
Many American writers have written about Pocahontas. The Walt Disney company produced
a popular children's movie about her.
VOICE ONE:
67

Today, visitors to the Jamestown settlement in Virginia can see what life was like there in the
sixteen hundreds.
They can see copies of the ships that brought the English settlers. And they can see statues of
three of the people important in early America: John Smith, Chief Powhatan, and his
daughter -- Pocahontas.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
This Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. It was produced by Lawan
Davis. I'm Ray Freeman.
VOICE ONE:
And I'm Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA
program on the Voice of America.
68

Mothers as Seen Through the Eyes, and the Years, of TV and Film
Some examples of how, as women in general have become more independent, so have the moms created
by Hollywood. Transcript of radio broadcast:
13 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Faith Lapidus. This week, our subject is mothers
and how their image has changed over the years in film
and television.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
In the United States and a number of other countries, the
second Sunday in May is celebrated as Mother's Day.
Diane Keaton plays the overprotective
mother of Mandy Moore in the new film
''Because I Said So''
Early in the nineteen hundreds, a woman named Anna

Jarvis began a campaign to honor mothers in America.
She talked to friends and friends of friends. She wrote to congressmen, local leaders, teachers
and newspaper publishers.
Finally, President Woodrow Wilson signed a resolution in May of nineteen fourteen that
officially established Mother's Day.
VOICE TWO:
Anna Jarvis thought mothers should be honored with expressions of love and respect.
Professor Robert Thompson at Syracuse University in New York state is an expert on
American popular culture. Fifty or sixty years ago, he says, the popular media image of
mothers was the so-called perfect mother.
This was a woman who gave all her time to her husband, home and children. Many women in
society felt pressure to try to be this kind of mother.
VOICE ONE:
69

Like many observers, Professor Thompson uses the example of the imaginary June Cleaver,
the mother on "Leave It to Beaver." That was a TV series from nineteen fifty-seven to
nineteen sixty-three.
The Cleavers were a happy family. June Cleaver always had time and patience for her two
sons, Wally and "Beaver." His real name was Theodore. And if there was ever a problem she
could not handle, her husband put things right.
The same was true on another nineteen fifties television show. The name said it all: "Father
Knows Best."
VOICE TWO:
A different image, though, could be found in films like the nineteen forty-eight motion
picture "I Remember Mama." It was set in San Francisco, California, in nineteen ten.
It was about a family that came from Norway. The Hansons were poor and they struggled to
make their way in their new land.
Mama Hanson, played by actress Irene Dunne, had little education. But she knew a lot about
dealing with people. She guides her family.
VOICE ONE:
Mama hates "going to the bank" -- she means borrowing money. But she also recognizes the
importance of staying in school. We listen as Mama and her family are sitting around the
table, counting money.
(SOUND)
MAMA: "Yah, is all for this week. Is good. We do not have to go to the bank."
SON: "Mama, mama, I'll be graduating from Valley School next month. Could I -- could I go
into high, do you think?"
MAMA: "You want to go to high school?"
SON: "Well, I'd like to, very much, if you think I could."
MAMA: "Is good."
VOICE TWO:
"I Remember Mama" earned Irene Dunne an Academy Award nomination for best actress of
nineteen forty-eight.
Two years later, in the lighthearted film "Cheaper by the Dozen," Myrna Loy played Lillian
Gilbreth, a mother of twelve. The father is an efficiency expert, an expert in doing things
better and faster.
Lillian Gilbreth obeys her husband, or at least appears to. But she also has a mind of her own.
70

At one point, the husband, played by Clifton Webb, plays a joke on their son Bill. The father
honks the horn just as the boy crosses in front of their car. Bill jumps. His father laughs and
says the boy jumped six and nine-tenths inches.
VOICE ONE:
A little later, Bill plays the same joke on his father. This time his father does not laugh.
The mother has to save Bill from getting punished and, in the process, she teaches her
husband a lesson.
(SOUND)
FATHER: "Who did that?"
BILL: "Uh, that was a good joke on you, Dad."
FATHER: "Listen, young man. There's a time and a place for jokes and a time and place for
spankings. And the sooner you learn -- get out. Get out!"
MOTHER: "Mercy Maude, Frank, I'll bet you jumped six and nine-tenths inches that time."
FATHER: "You're right, son. That was a good joke on me. By jingo, I'll bet I did jump six
and nine-tenths inches. Oh these kids, these kids."
(HORN SOUNDS AGAIN)
MOTHER: "Excuse me, dear, I did it. It was accidental."
VOICE TWO:
The Gilbreths were a real family. "Cheaper by the Dozen" was the name of a book written by
two of the twelve children.
Their mother, Lillian, was a psychologist and herself an expert in the area of industrial
management. In fact, Lillian Moller Gilbreth is known as the mother of modern management.
A woman who graduated from a women's college in nineteen fifty-three remembers hearing
her as a graduation speaker. She remembers Lillian Gilbreth urging the young women to have
full lives, with professions if they wanted them.
When Lillian Gilbreth received her doctorate in psychology, she already had four young
children who attended the ceremony.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Over the years, as mothers and American women in general became more independent, more
and more of them entered the job market. They did so by choice or because of financial need
or both.
71

Pop culture expert Robert Thompson says the changes could be seen in film and television as
well. For example, working women used to be shown mostly as nurses or teachers, because
those were the jobs that many held in real life.
But these days, whatever new jobs are written into movies or TV shows, some images of
mothers are timeless. One is the image of the overprotective mother who gets too involved in
her child's life, even after the child grows up.
Diane Keaton plays just such a mother, a single mom named Daphne, in the two thousand
seven film "Because I Said So." Mandy Moore plays her daughter.
(SOUND)
VOICE TWO:
Daphne is supposed to be seen as one of those moms who mean well even if they make their
kids crazy.
Now consider Norma Bates, the mother in the nineteen sixty movie "Psycho," one of the
scariest films from director Alfred Hitchcock.
In one scene we hear shouting because her son Norman, played by Anthony Perkins, wants to
bring a guest to dinner.
(SOUND)
MOTHER: "No! I tell you no! I won't have you bringing strange young girls in for supper.
By candlelight, I suppose, in the cheap erotic fashion of young men with cheap erotic minds."
NORMAN BATES: "Mother, please."
MOTHER: "And then what? After supper, music ... ?"
VOICE ONE:
Yet, in all fairness, the surprise ending to "Psycho" might leave you wondering if mother
Bates was really evil after all.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
The nineteen seventy-nine motion picture "Kramer vs. Kramer" got a lot of attention. It dealt
with issues of parenting and relationships in modern society. Meryl Streep played a woman
named Joanna Kramer who leaves her husband because he has no time for her or their young
son. Dustin Hoffman played the husband, Ted Kramer.
72

After his wife leaves, he has to balance his busy work life with raising the boy himself. Later
his wife goes to court to demand custody of their son. She wins the battle of Kramer versus
Kramer in court. But in the end, she decides that her son will be better off with his dad.
The movie won five Academy Awards, including best picture. Oscars also went to Dustin
Hoffman for best actor and Meryl Streep for best actress in a supporting role.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
For years, almost all leading movie and television stars, male or female, were white. Activists
say members of racial and ethnic minority groups are still not well represented enough.
But the social gains that minorities made in the nineteen sixties and seventies led the way to
shows like "The Jeffersons." This was a comedy on CBS television from nineteen seventyfive to nineteen eighty-five. It about a newly wealthy black family that moved into a New
York City high-rise with mostly white neighbors.
VOICE TWO:
One of the most popular TV shows ever was "The Cosby Show," on NBC from nineteen
eighty-four to nineteen ninety-two. It starred Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable and Phylicia
Rashad as his wife, Clair.
He was a doctor and she was a lawyer. The Huxtables were presented as a strong, loving,
successful African-American family. Still, pop culture expert Robert Thompson notes that
Clair Huxtable was often shown more as a wife and mother than as a successful lawyer.
VOICE ONE:
"Mississippi Masala" was a nineteen ninety-one film about an ethnic Indian family exiled
from Uganda when Idi Amin comes to power. The family lives in Mississippi, in the
American South.
Daughter Meena is in love with a black American named Demetrius, played by Denzel
Washington. Their parents strongly disapprove.
The family decides to return to Uganda, but Meena does not want to go. She calls her parents
to tell them she is running away with Demetrius. Her mother, played by Sharmila Tagore,
recognizes that they have to let their daughter lead her own life.
(SOUND)
MOTHER: "Meena?"
MEENA: "Ma, I'm not coming back. I'm sorry, but I can't go to Uganda. What would I do
there?"
73

FATHER: "Are you alone?"
MEENA: "No, I'm with Demetrius. Pa, are you there? Ma, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Why
did he put the phone down?"
MOTHER: "I'll talk to your father. ... She has a mind of her own. She can't grow here
anymore. "
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. I'm Faith
Lapidus.
VOICE ONE:
And I'm Barbara Klein. Transcripts and audio archives of our programs are on the Internet at
voaspecialenglish.com. Be sure to join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA
Special English.We leave you with a song from a classic film from nineteen sixty-seven. It
was about a relationship between a recent college graduate and what popular culture today
would call a "hot mom" -- a sexy older woman. The young man feels regret, which only
grows as he falls in love with her daughter. The actress who played the mother was Anne
Bancroft, the lover was Dustin Hoffman and the movie was "The Graduate."
74

GlobalGiving: Connecting Personal Donors to Local Projects

This non-profit organization has raised about five million dollars in the last seven years. The money has
paid for or helped finance about seven hundred projects around the world. Transcript of radio broadcast:
13 May 2007

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A little money can go a long way, especially in the developing world. This is one of the main
beliefs of the non-profit group GlobalGiving. Two former top officials at the World Bank
launched GlobalGiving seven years ago. Mari Kuraishi and Dennis Whittle wanted to
connect personal donors to projects in mostly poor countries using the Internet. So far, the
group has raised over five million dollars, mostly through its Web site, globalgiving.com.
The money has paid for or helped finance about seven hundred projects around the world.
Joan Ochi is a spokeswoman for the Washington D.C.-based organization. She says donors
can search the GlobalGiving Web site to find projects that interest them. Right now, for
example, donors can give to a program called Reach the UnreachedDelivering Care in
Africa. This project provides nurses in Zimbabwe with motorcycles and safety equipment.
Miz Ochi says the nurses can now provide better care and health services to more people,
especially in rural areas.
GlobalGiving and about forty other non-governmental
organizations help identify social leaders or small local groups.
After the projects are approved, Miz Ochi says a description is
added to the GlobalGiving Web site. Donors can give any
amount of money to a project using different methods of
payment. These include credit card, the PayPal system or a stock
transfer. All donations are fully tax-deductible. GlobalGiving
also works with large companies and private foundations that
support socially responsible giving.
In Uganda, children who have
lost their parents to HIV/AIDS
receive care at the Nyaka
School
Miz Ochi says about ninety percent of all donations to

GlobalGiving go directly to the project selected by the donor.
The organization uses ten percent for operating expenses.
GlobalGiving urges its project leaders to provide progress reports every few months about
how donor money is spent.
Joan Ochi says GlobalGiving hopes to double its donations every year. However, this is
difficult because so many organizations are collecting money for important causes. Still, she
says GlobalGiving is a way for small solutions to have a big influence in the developing
world.
75

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. You can read
and download audio of Special English programs at our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.
Im Shep O'Neal.
76

Mosquitoes as a Way to Fight Malaria Instead of Spreading It

Also: A report says fewer boys have been born in the US and Japan each year since 1970. And vitamins
can help pregnant women increase low birth weights. Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Barbara Klein. On our program this week, we will tell about a possible way to
control the disease malaria. Researchers have reported a decrease in the rate of male births in
the United States and Japan for the past thirty years. We will tell about their findings. We
also will tell about a study on the effects of vitamins in pregnant women.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Researchers in the United States are exploring a possible
way to control malaria. They are developing insects
resistant to the disease.
More than three million people become infected with
malaria each year. The disease kills at least one million
people every year. Malaria is found in Africa, Asia, the
Middle East and South America.
Malaria parasites enter a persons blood through the bite If malaria control efforts are to succeed,
experts say mosquitoes in the wild must
of a very small insect -- the mosquito. The malaria
be replaced with parasite-resistant ones
parasites travel to the liver. The organisms grow and
divide there. After a week or two, the parasites invade red blood cells and reproduce
thousands of times. They cause a persons body temperature to rise. They also may destroy
major organs. People with malaria may suffer kidney failure or loss of red blood cells.
VOICE TWO:
People die from malaria because they are not treated or treatment is delayed. Different drugs
can prevent the parasites from developing in the body. But experts still say the best way to
prevent the disease is not to be bitten by a mosquito.
77

That could change in the future. Research scientists at The Johns Hopkins University have
created mosquitoes that cannot spread the malaria parasite. Computer studies show that such
insects are needed to replace mosquitoes in the wild if malaria control is to succeed. The
researchers reported their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Earlier studies showed that disease resistant mosquitoes might not be as healthy as wild ones.
Those with resistance would die early and not be able to replace the others.
VOICE ONE:
The Johns Hopkins researchers put equal numbers of malaria resistant mosquitoes in a box
with other mosquitoes. All the insects fed on mice that had been infected with the malaria
parasite. The researchers took eggs made by the insects and kept them until they became
adult mosquitoes. These new mosquitoes were then permitted to feed on infected mice. The
researchers did this again and again. After nine generations, seventy percent of the
mosquitoes were malaria resistant.
The researchers say they changed the genetic structure of the mosquitoes to produce a protein
called S.M. One. The S.M. One gene blocks the development of the malaria parasite inside
the insect. The genetically engineered mosquitoes mated with mosquitoes lacking this gene.
So their young had a single copy of the gene -- not two. This is thought to be the reason the
genetically engineered mosquitoes did not die early as the others.
Other researchers say the Johns Hopkins work confirms earlier studies concerning disease
resistant insects. But they say more work needs to be done, especially with human malaria
parasites. The researchers say creation of the new insects alone will probably not be able to
control the disease. They say malaria resistant mosquitoes could be used in combination with
drugs and insect poisons to stop malaria in the future.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
A new report says the number of boys born in the United States and Japan has decreased
every year since nineteen seventy. The report says the reason for the decrease is unclear. But
it says environmental and other influences might be involved.
American and Japanese researchers studied thirty years of birth records from the two nations.
The researchers say they found fewer boys were born in comparison to girls. They say the
decrease in births was equal to one hundred thirty-five thousand white males in the United
States. In Japan, the decrease was equal to one hundred twenty-seven thousand fewer males.
VOICE ONE:
The study found a decrease of seventeen males for every ten thousand births in the United
States since nineteen seventy. And it found an even greater decline in Japan -- thirty-seven
78

males for every ten thousand births. It also found a continued rise in deaths of male fetuses.
The fetuses died before they were fully developed.
The researchers examined birth records of African-Americans as a separate group from white
Americans. They found that the number of male births among African-Americans increased a
little. But the rate of male births to female births for African-Americans was lower than that
of whites.
The study found that all races experienced a decrease in the number of fetal deaths, probably
because of improved medical care.
VOICE TWO:
Devra Lee Davis of the University of Pittsburgh Center Institute led the study. She says
scientists do not know the reason for the decline in male births, but suspect environmental
poisons.
Earlier reports show that researchers suspected a similar decrease in male births in other
industrial nations.
Scientists already know that men who work with some chemicals and metals have fewer baby
boys. Scientists also know that some things influence both a womans ability to have a child
and the health of her children. These include her physical health, the foods she eats and the
chemicals in the air around her.
VOICE ONE:
Professor Davis says other things can affect the health of a male fetus. They include the
weight and age of the parents, and their use of alcohol drinks and drugs.
The report says one in every four to five married adults today report difficulty having
children. It says evidence shows that chemicals in the air can affect the health of male
reproductive fluid. This increases the chances of men producing a physically disabled child.
Professor Davis says more research is needed to examine these questions in greater detail
among small groups. Experts say such research could lead to environmental changes that will
protect young people and their children in the future.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
The World Health Organization estimates twenty million babies are born too small each year.
It says a baby weighing less than two thousand five hundred grams at birth has a less than
desirable weight for good health. Ninety-five percent of such children are born in developing
countries.
79

One recent study shows that pregnant women in developing countries have healthier babies if
the women are given vitamins. Researchers from the United States and Tanzania found that
vitamins could help reduce low birth weight. Their findings were reported last month in The
New England Journal of Medicine.
Wafaie Fawzi of the Harvard University School of Public Health led the study. Professor
Fawzi says low birth weight can cause serious health problems in babies. He says low birth
weight has been linked to poor growth and mental development, and even early death.
VOICE ONE:
There are fourteen kinds of vitamins. People who do not get enough of these chemicals in
their food, or want more, often take multivitamins.
In the study, multivitamin pills were given to four thousand two hundred pregnant Tanzanian
women. The pills contained all the B vitamins, as well as vitamins C and E. They also
included iron and folate in levels several times higher than advised for women in industrial
nations.
Four thousand other women received a harmless substance. None of the women had the virus
that causes the disease AIDS.
VOICE TWO:
The researchers found a twenty percent decrease in health risks for babies when mothers took
the vitamins every day. There were no major differences between the two groups in the rate
of early births or deaths of babies.
The researchers say the vitamins helped improve the growth of fetuses probably by
improving the mother's natural defenses against disease and hemoglobin levels. Hemoglobin
is the coloring in red blood cells that carries oxygen.
Professor Fawzi says multivitamin pills should be considered for all pregnant women in
developing countries. He says the pills improve health and are not costly.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Nancy Steinbach and Lawan Davis. Brianna
Blake was our producer. I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I'm Barbara Klein. Listen again next week at this time for more news about science in Special English
on the Voice of America.
80

Fighting Fire Ants With a Virus of Their Own

US scientists have hopes for a biological way to control an invasion that causes billions of dollars in farm
losses each year. Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 May 2007

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Farmers in parts of the United States have struggled for years with an invasion of red
imported fire ants from Brazil. These insects do major damage, unlike native kinds of fire
ants.
Each year they cause an estimated six billion dollars worth of damage in the United States.
More than one billion dollars of that is just in Texas.
The ants are thought to have arrived in the southern state of Alabama in the nineteen twenties
or thirties. Since then they have spread northward and all the way to the West Coast.
They ruin crops, damage soil and get into animal feed. They also damage electrical
equipment and machinery. Not only that, they injure animals and workers. So farmers have to
deal with medical costs and lost labor.
Fire ants get their name because when they sting, they inject poison into the skin that causes a
feeling of intense burning. Some people suffer life-threatening reactions.
Colonies of red imported fire ants can be found in cities as well as farming areas. They can
go deep underground to survive periods of little or no rain. They have no native predators, no
creatures that like to feed on them.
But one solution could come from the ants themselves, in the form of a virus that some of
them carry. This virus may someday help control the population.
Scientists at the United States Department of Agriculture began to work with the virus about
five years ago. The researchers observed one hundred sixty-eight nests of imported fire ants
in Florida. They found the virus in almost one-fourth of them.
The researchers found that the virus affected every part of fire-ant development, including the
eggs. The affected colonies died in about three months.
Now, government researchers want to work with a private company to produce large amounts
of the virus. It could then be used as a biological control.
81

Other natural ways to fight the fire ants are also possible. One is the South American phorid
fly. It lays its eggs on fire ants. When the eggs break open, the young flies eat the brains of
the ants. But researchers do not know how well the flies would do in North America.
As much as the ants are hated, they do have a few friends among growers of cotton and
sugarcane. The ants feed on insects that attack those crops.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Steve
Ember.
82

Saving the World, or at Least Understanding What Ecologists

Mean
15 May 2007

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster, our guest is
Professor Rob Jackson, director of the Global Change Center at Duke University. He's with
us to explain some of the language of ecology and climate change.
RS: And we start with the term "greenhouse gases." These are emissions that trap heat in the
atmosphere but, Jackson says, not by definition a bad thing.
ROB JACKSON: "Without greenhouse gases, life wouldn't exist;
the Earth would be a frozen ball of ice. When they trap extra heat,
though, they warm the Earth more than has historically been usual
and drive up the Earth's temperature."
RS: "Well, we have three terms that we would like to know more
about. One is carbon-neutral. What does it mean to be carbonneutral?"
ROB JACKSON: "Well, when something is carbon-neutral, it
means that the activity has no net greenhouse gas emissions. So, for instance, you might
offset the fuel that you use by using renewable energy or even by planting trees to offset your
emissions. In practice, there are different levels of being carbon-neutral. When you hop in
your car, do you count just the gasoline that you use? Or do you include the fossil fuels that
went into making the car or building the roads you drive on? Most people just think about the
fuel used."
RS: "And what about your carbon footprint?"
ROB JACKSON: "The term carbon footprint, it's come to mean just the amount of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases that come from a given activity, such as driving your car,
again. To understand where it comes from, though, you have to know a little environmental
history.
"Back in the early nineteen nineties an ecologist named Bill Reese coined the term
'ecological footprint,' the amount of land needed to support resource use and waste for a
given population. So that's where the footprint half of carbon footprint comes from. In
common use, through, it's lost the link to land area and just refers to net carbon emissions."
83

AA: So we have carbon-neutral, carbon footprint and a third term -- carbon sequestration.
ROB JACKSON: "Well, carbon sequestration is the opposite of a carbon emission. So a
sequestration activity is something that takes carbon dioxide back out the atmosphere and
puts it into wood for trees, for example, or stores it below ground in an aquifer or in
sediments in the ocean. So you're taking or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."
RS: "On Capitol Hill they're talking about 'cap-and-trade' and 'carbon trading.' What are these
terms, what do they mean?"
ROB JACKSON: "A carbon trade or a cap-and-trade works like this: a government or some
regulatory body limits the total amount of a pollutant that enters the atmosphere. So this is
what people call the cap.
"The government then issues credits, emissions credits, to the polluters who can sell or trade
those credits. That's the term cap-and-trade. And the system works because it rewards
companies that reduce pollution by letting them sell their credits for profit."
RS: "And this is something that's popular now in Europe, that's actually in effect in Europe,
correct?"
ROB JACKSON: "It's popular in Europe, though, really because it worked here first, not for
carbon dioxide but for sulfur. Back in the early nineteen nineties, through the Clean Air Act,
we implemented a cap-and-trade system for sulfur emissions in the U.S. and it worked very
effectively and very efficiently and very quickly to reduce sulfur emissions."
AA: "Acid rain."
ROB JACKSON: "That's correct. So the idea is to take that model and apply it to carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Now it's more complicated with greenhouse gases but
the principal is the same. And it really -- it rewards efficiency, it rewards companies
financially for reducing their pollution."
RS: "But it's become quite controversial."
AA: "Right. That's right, there have been news reports recently that it's not quite as clear-cut
as it might seem."
ROB JACKSON: "Well, it's controversial for many reasons. It's controversial in how the
emissions credits are given out, so who gets how many credits, how much a company pays
for them. It's also controversial because you have to be careful that the carbon dioxide or the
greenhouse gas that you're saving through your system isn't being re-emitted somewhere else.
"So, in other words, if one country sets up a cap-and-trade system to reduce its emissions, but
all it does is shunt some activity to another country, and that carbon dioxide ends up in the
atmosphere, you really haven't saved anything on a net global basis. It really points out the
need for an international system."
84

AA: "And are there terms that you use to describe a situation like that?"
ROB JACKSON: "A cap-and-trade situation?"
AA: "Or shunting off of -- passing the buck or something, or passing the carbon. I don't know
what you would call it."
ROB JACKSON: "Yeah, there is a technical term for it. It's called 'leakage,' and it sounds
like your bathtub's leaking or something. But the idea is that use of some activity slides off to
some other location or to some other time that's outside the bounds of your system, and
therefore you're sort of losing track of it, you're not accounting for it, and that's why the term
leaking is used."
RS: We'll talk more about eco-language next week with Rob Jackson, a professor of biology
and environmental sciences at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
AA: And that's Wordmaster for this week. You can learn more about English at our Web site,
voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is word@voanews.com. With Rosanne
Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.
85

Fewer US Women Getting Mammograms

Drop in testing could help explain why breast cancer rates have fallen in recent years. Transcript of radio
broadcast:
15 May 2007

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Correction attached
Research is often a slow, maddening search for answers where each new finding only seems
to raise more questions.
This is the case with a story we told you about last month. It offers a good example of how
difficult it can be to define a relationship between two events, or even
prove a connection.
In this case, one event was a sudden drop in the use of hormone
replacement therapy. The other, which followed, was a sharp drop in the
breast cancer rate in the United States.
Many older women stopped taking hormones after a government warning
in two thousand two about possible risks.
Last December a team of scientists reported that breast cancer rates fell in
two thousand three. Then, last month, they reported that the breast cancer
rate was still down in two thousand four. They suggested that the major cause was most
likely the drop in hormone use.
For evidence the researchers presented two main findings. One was that the reduction in the
breast cancer rate was greatest among cancers fed by estrogen. Estrogen is commonly used in
hormone replacement therapy. The other finding was that the reduction happened mainly
among older women -- the main users of the therapy.
The scientists suggested that going off hormone therapy reduced the risk of cancer growth.
They said other explanations for the drop in the breast cancer rate were possible, but less
likely to have played a big part.
Now, a new study looks at one of those other possible influences: a decrease in mammogram
testing for breast cancers. The study by the American Cancer Society just appeared in the
journal Breast Cancer.
86

First, the study shows that breast cancer rates began to fall in nineteen ninety-nine. That was
three years before the government warning about hormone therapy.
Secondly, the study shows that after the warning, fewer women had mammograms, which are
usually done with X-rays. A mammogram is required before starting hormone therapy.
Whatever the reason for the decrease, fewer tests would mean fewer chances to find cancers.
Still, many experts believe that the drop in estrogen-fed cancers in older women had
something to do with the drop in hormone use.
A final note: government researchers reported Monday that mammogram testing fell four
percent between two thousand and two thousand five. The lead researcher called it "very
troubling."
And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. I'm Barbara
Klein.
--Correction: Based on information supplied by the American Cancer Society, this story says
a study found US mammography rates fell 4 percent from 2000 to 2005. The drop, among
women age 40 and older, was almost four percentage points, from 70.1 percent to 66.4
percent.
87

Charles Lindbergh Flew to Paris, and Into History, 80 Years Ago

On May 21, 1927, he flew the Spirit of Saint Louis across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris and
became the first pilot to make the flight without stopping. Transcript of radio broadcast:
15 May 2007

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ANNOUNCER:
EXPLORATIONS -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.
Today, Richard Rael and Shep O'Neal tell the story of one of America's most famous pilots,
Charles Lindbergh.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Charles Lindbergh is probably one of the best-known
people in the history of flight. He was a hero of the world.
Yet, years later, he was denounced as an enemy of his
country. He had what is called a "storybook" marriage and
family life. Yet he suffered a terrible family tragedy.
Charles Lindbergh was born in the city of Detroit,
Michigan, on February fourth, nineteen-oh-two. He grew
up on a farm in Minnesota. His mother was a school
teacher. His father was a lawyer who later became a
United States congressman. The family spent ten years in
Washington, D.C. while Mister Lindbergh served in the
Congress.
Young Charles studied mechanical engineering for a time at the University of Wisconsin. But
he did not like sitting in a classroom. So, after one-and-one-half years, he left the university.
He traveled around the country on a motorcycle.
VOICE TWO:
He settled in Lincoln, Nebraska. He took his first flying lessons there and passed the test to
become a flier. But he had to wait one year before he could fly alone. That is how long it took
him to save five hundred dollars to buy his own plane.
88

Charles Lindbergh later wrote about being a new pilot. He said he felt different from people
who never flew. "In flying," he said, "I tasted a wine of the gods of which people on the
ground could know nothing."
He said he hoped to fly for at least ten years. After that, if he died in a crash, he said it would
be all right. He was willing to give up a long, normal life for a short, exciting life as a flier.
VOICE ONE:
From Nebraska, Lindbergh moved to San Antonio, Texas, where he joined the United States
Army Air Corps Reserve. When he finished flight training school, he was named best pilot in
his class.
After he completed his Army training, the Robertson Aircraft Company of Saint Louis hired
him. His job was to fly mail between Saint Louis and Chicago.
Lindbergh flew mostly at night through all kinds of weather. Two times, fog or storms forced
him to jump out of his plane. Both times, he landed safely by parachute. Other fliers called
him "Lucky Lindy."
VOICE TWO:
In nineteen nineteen, a wealthy hotel owner in New York City offered a prize for flying
across the Atlantic Ocean without stopping. The first pilot who flew non-stop from New
York to Paris would get twenty-five thousand dollars.
A number of pilots tried. Several were killed. After eight years, no one had won the prize.
Charles Lindbergh believed he could win the money if he could get the right airplane.
A group of businessmen in Saint Louis agreed to provide most of the money he needed for
the kind of plane he wanted. He designed the aircraft himself for long-distance flying. It
carried a large amount of fuel. Some people described it as a "fuel tank with wings, a motor
and a seat." Lindbergh named it the Spirit of Saint Louis.
VOICE ONE:
In May, nineteen twenty-seven, Lindbergh flew his plane from San Diego, California, to an
airfield outside New York City. He made the flight in the record time of twenty-one hours,
twenty minutes.
At the New York airfield, he spent a few days preparing for his flight across the Atlantic. He
wanted to make sure his plane's engine worked perfectly. He loaded a rubber boat in case of
emergency. He also loaded some food and water, but only enough for a meal or two.
"If I get to Paris," Lindbergh said, "I will not need any more food or water than that. If I do
not get to Paris, I will not need any more, either."
89

VOICE TWO:
May twentieth started as a rainy day. But experts told Lindbergh that weather conditions over
the Atlantic Ocean were improving. A mechanic started the engine of the Spirit of Saint
Louis.
"It sounds good to me," the mechanic said. "Well, then," said Lindbergh, "I might as well
go."
The plane carried a heavy load of fuel. It struggled to fly up and over the telephone wires at
the end of the field. Then, climbing slowly, the Spirit of Saint Louis flew out of sight.
Lindbergh was on his way to Paris.
VOICE ONE:
Part of the flight was through rain, sleet and snow. At times, Lindbergh flew just three meters
above the water. At other times, he flew more than three thousand meters up. He said his
greatest fear was falling asleep. He had not slept the night before he left.
During the thirty-three-hour flight, thousands of people waited by their radios to hear if any
ships had seen Lindbergh's plane. There was no news from Lindbergh himself. He did not
carry a radio. He had removed it to provide more space for fuel.
On the evening of May twenty-first, people heard the
exciting news. Lindbergh had landed at Le Bourget
airport near Paris. Even before the plane's engine stopped,
Lindbergh and the Spirit of Saint Louis were surrounded
by a huge crowd of shouting, crying, joyful people.
From the moment he landed in France, he was a hero. The
French, British and Belgian governments gave him their
highest honors.
Lindbergh after his famous flight
VOICE TWO:
Back home in the United States, he received his own country's highest awards. The cities of
Washington and New York honored him with big parades. He flew to cities all over the
United States for celebrations.
He also flew to several Latin American countries as a representative
of the United States government. During a trip to Mexico, he met
Anne Morrow, the daughter of the American ambassador. They
were married in nineteen twenty-nine.
Lindbergh taught his new wife to fly. Together, they made many
long flights. Life seemed perfect. Then, everything changed.
90
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

On a stormy night in nineteen thirty-two, kidnappers took the baby son of Charles and Anne
Lindbergh from their home in New Jersey. Ten weeks later, the boy's body was found. Police
caught the murderer several years later. A court found him guilty and sentenced him to death.
The kidnapping and the trial were big news. Reporters gave the Lindberghs no privacy. So
Charles and Anne fled to Britain and then to France to try to escape the press. They lived in
Europe for four years. But they saw the nations of Europe preparing for war. They returned
home before war broke out in nineteen thirty-nine.
VOICE ONE:
Charles Lindbergh did not believe the United States should take part in the war. He made
many speeches calling for the United States to remain neutral. He said he did not think the
other countries of Europe could defeat the strong military forces of Germany. He said the
answer was a negotiated peace.
President Franklin Roosevelt did not agree. A Congressman speaking for the president called
Lindbergh an enemy of his country. Many people also criticized Lindbergh for not returning
a medal of honor he received from Nazi Germany.
Charles Lindbergh no longer was America's hero.
VOICE TWO:
Lindbergh stopped calling for American neutrality two years later, when Japan attacked the
United States navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack brought America into the war.
Lindbergh spent the war years as an advisor to companies that made American warplanes. He
also helped train American military pilots. Although he was a civilian, he flew about fifty
combat flights.
Lindbergh loved flying. But flying was not his only interest.
While living in France, he worked with a French doctor to develop a mechanical heart. He
helped scientists to discover Maya Indian ruins in Mexico. He became interested in the
cultures of people from African countries and from the Philippines. And he led campaigns to
make people understand the need to protect nature and the environment.
VOICE ONE:
Charles Lindbergh died in nineteen seventy-four, once again recognized as an American
hero. President Gerald Ford said Lindbergh represented all that was best in America -honesty, courage and the desire to succeed.
Today, the Spirit of Saint Louis -- the plane Lindbergh flew to Paris -- hangs in the Air and
Space Museum in Washington, D.C. And the man who flew it -- Charles Lindbergh -remains a symbol of the skill and courage that opened the skies to human flight.
91

(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER:
This Special English program was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano. Your narrators were
Richard Rael and Shep O'Neal.
I'm Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week for another EXPLORATIONS program on the
Voice of America.
92

Vietnam War: Nixon Tries Secret Talks, but Also Invades

Cambodia
The president had much greater success dealing with China than he did with the war in Southeast Asia.
16 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
VOICE TWO:
And this is Doug Johnson with THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a VOA Special English
(MUSIC)
Today, we continue the story of the thirty-seventh president of the United States, Richard
Nixon.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
It is nineteen sixty-nine in America. Richard Nixon is in the first year of his first term in
office. His biggest foreign policy problem is the continuing war in Vietnam.
During the election campaign, he had promised to do something to end the war. Some
Americans believe the United States should withdraw from Vietnam immediately. Bring the
soldiers back home, they say.
Others believe the United States should take whatever measures are necessary to win. Expand
the ground war, they say, or use nuclear weapons.
VOICE TWO
The decision is not easy. Withdrawing allied troops would leave South Vietnam alone to
fight against communist North Vietnam. And that was the reason the United States became
involved in the conflict. It wanted to prevent the Communists from taking over the South.
Expanding the military effort would mean more deaths.
93

Already, by nineteen sixty-nine, more Americans had died in Vietnam than in the Korean
War.
VOICE ONE
For Richard Nixon, the war is a terrible test. If he is not able to deal with it, his presidency
could end like Lyndon Johnson's ended. Johnson decided not to run for re-election after he
lost public and political support for his war policies.
How did the new president deal with the problem? Like Johnson, he made
decisions based on information from his advisers. His most important
adviser was Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was an expert on foreign relations.
He later served as Nixon's secretary of state.
Together, they tried many ways to settle the conflict in Vietnam. It took
several years to end American involvement there.
Henry Kissinger
VOICE TWO:
The American efforts were both diplomatic and military. The Nixon administration started
new, secret peace talks in Paris. The official peace talks were taking place in Paris at the
same time. The administration withdrew some troops from Vietnam.
Yet it sent other troops into Cambodia secretly. And it began dropping bombs on Laos. It also
started dropping bombs on North Vietnam again. Former president Johnson had stopped the
bomb attacks a few years earlier.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE
Efforts to end American involvement did not begin suddenly. For his first eight months in
office, President Nixon made no major policy changes. Then, in October nineteen sixty-nine,
he ordered the withdrawal of sixty thousand troops.
He said he acted to speed the peace talks. He also ordered American commanders to give the
South Vietnamese most of the responsibility for fighting.
VOICE TWO:
Americans were happy that fewer troops would be involved. But many were unhappy that the
withdrawal was not complete. Huge anti-war demonstrations took place in the United States
in the autumn of nineteen sixty-nine. On November fifteenth, several hundred thousand
people protested in Washington, D.C.
94

President Nixon tried to explain his policy to anti-war
protesters. A slow withdrawal of troops is not the easy
way, he told them, but it is the right way. He also
continued his efforts for a military victory.
VOICE ONE:
In the spring of nineteen seventy, American and South
Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia. They attacked
Communist supply centers there. Early the following year,
the Nixon administration decided to provide air and
artillery support for a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos.
The goal was to stop supplies from reaching North
Vietnam through that country.
1970: President Nixon announces the

Cambodian invasion in a speech to the
American people
The military action in Laos lasted forty-four days. South Vietnamese forces destroyed many
enemy weapons. However, they also suffered many deaths and injuries. And many American
planes were shot down. After six weeks, the South Vietnamese were forced to withdraw.
VOICE TWO:
Many members of the United States Congress were angry. They said the invasion of Laos
was another in a long series of failures. The Nixon administration had said that the United
States was winning the war. Opposition lawmakers said the administration was lying.
Criticism by the American public grew louder, too.
President Nixon answered by saying again that the United States must not permit North
Vietnam to take over South Vietnam. Former president Johnson had said the same thing. For
a long time, many Americans accepted it. As the war continued, however, public opinion
changed.
In nineteen sixty-five, sixty-one percent of those questioned approved the war. By nineteen
seventy-one, sixty-one percent did not approve.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The official peace talks in Paris offered little hope of settlement. Over a period of several
years, each side made proposals. Then each side rejected the proposals. One American
observer said: "As long as either side thinks it can win a military victory, there is no hope for
official peace talks."
President Nixon wanted to ease public tension and anger over the war. So he announced that
Henry Kissinger had held twelve secret meetings with North Vietnamese officials. But the
secret meetings made no more progress than the official talks.
95

VOICE TWO:
In late March nineteen seventy-two, North Vietnam launched a major offensive. In May,
Nixon ordered increased bomb attacks against roads and railways in the North. By the end of
August, the communist offensive had been stopped. Yet many lives had been lost. The
pressure to withdraw American forces grew stronger.
For the next five months, the Nixon administration continued a policy of official talks, secret
meetings, and increased military action. Finally, the president announced that an agreement
had been reached at the peace talks in Paris. There would be a ceasefire. And negotiators
from the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong would sign the
official agreement.
VOICE ONE:
Under the terms of the agreement, all American and allied forces would withdraw from South
Vietnam. The North and South would be free to settle their conflict without interference from
other countries. President Nixon made the official announcement from the White House.
RICHARD NIXON: "At twelve-thirty Paris time today, January twenty-three, nineteen
seventy-three, the agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam was initialed
by Doctor Henry Kissinger on behalf of the United States and special adviser Le Duc Tho on
behalf of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The agreement will be formally signed by the
parties participating in the Paris conference on Vietnam on January twenty seven, nineteenseventy-three, at the international conference center in Paris. ...
"The United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam express the hope that this
agreement will insure stable peace in Vietnam and contribute to the preservation of lasting
peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia."
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Another foreign policy problem during the Nixon administration was China. The president
had much greater success dealing with this problem than with Vietnam. Communists took
power in China in nineteen forty-nine. However, the United States did not recognize the
Communist government. Instead, it recognized the Nationalist government in Taiwan.
In the early nineteen seventies, the Nixon administration began trying to improve relations. It
eased restrictions on travel to China. And it supported a visit to China by the United States
table tennis team. Then, President Nixon made a surprise announcement. He, too, would visit
China.
96

VOICE ONE:
The historic event took place in February, nineteen
seventy-two. Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou
En-lai greeted the American president. Nixon and Zhou
held talks that opened new possibilities for trade. The
next year, Nixon sent a representative to open a
diplomatic office in Beijing. After more than twenty
years, the two countries were communicating again.
They established official relations in nineteen seventynine.
With Chou En-lai in 1972
VOICE TWO:
Many Americans expressed pleasure that tensions between the two countries had decreased.
Many were proud to see their president standing on the Great Wall of
China.
History experts would later agree that it was the greatest moment in the
presidency of Richard Nixon.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri
Watson and produced by Paul Thompson. This is Rich Kleinfeldt.
And at Great Wall
VOICE ONE:
And this is Doug Johnson. Join us again next week for another VOA Special English
97

Foreign Student Series: US Colleges for the Deaf

A look at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in
Rochester, New York. Part 36 of our series. Transcript of radio broadcast:
16 May 2007

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We are going to talk again this week about higher education for disabled students who want
to study in the United States. As we noted last time, the National Federation of the Blind says
there are no special colleges or universities for blind students.
But there are for deaf students. One of them is Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.
Gallaudet says it is the world's only liberal arts university where everything is designed for
deaf or hard-of-hearing students.
About two thousand students attend Gallaudet. The cost
for international students is about thirty-three thousand
dollars a year.
Financial aid is available in the form of scholarships, but
only after the first year of studies. Most scholarship aid
goes to students in financial need who do well in their
first year.
On May 9, Robert Davila became the

ninth president of Gallaudet University
One scholarship for international students is for deaf

students from developing countries. Another is just for
students from China.
The university also offers an English Language Institute.

But Gallaudet says this program does not guarantee acceptance to the university.
In the past year, students at Gallaudet protested over the administration's choice of a new
president for the university. The protests resulted in the choice of a different president who is
more popular with the students, Robert Davila.
He is a former chief executive officer of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. This
technical college is in Rochester, New York. It is one of eight colleges in the Rochester
Institute of Technology.
More than one thousand students attend the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. About
one hundred of them are international students. They come from Africa, Asia, Europe and
South America.
98

The cost is about twenty-eight thousand dollars a year for an international undergraduate
student. Foreign graduate students pay about twenty thousand dollars.
Both undergraduate and graduate students can receive limited financial aid. They can also
take part in the student employment program. This program makes it possible for students to
work at the school.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. You can
find links to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and Gallaudet University at our
Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find all of the earlier reports in our Foreign
Student Series. If you have a question, write to special@voanews.com, and please tell us
your name and country. I'm Steve Ember.
99

In Virginia, Six Indian Tribes Still Wait for Federal Recognition

Also: a question from Turkey about global warming. And music by Paul Simon, the winner of a newly
established music award by the Library of Congress. Transcript of radio broadcast:
17 May 2007

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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
We answer a question about global warming
Play music from Paul Simon
And tell about American Indian tribes in the state of Virginia as the United States remembers
the first European settlement at Jamestown.
Virginia Indian Tribes
HOST:
Last weekend, in Jamestown, Virginia, officials observed the four hundredth anniversary of
the first permanent English settlement in North America. President Bush took part. He called
Jamestown the beginning of a movement from the old world to the new. He also said the
expansion of Jamestown had a terrible effect on the Native American tribes who lived in the
area. They lost their lands and their way of life. And their struggle continues today. Barbara
Klein explains.
BARBARA KLEIN:
The United States government recognizes five hundred sixty-two American Indian tribes.
Most received this recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They proved through birth
and death records that their groups have existed as different communities since the time the
first Europeans arrived.
Federal recognition means an Indian tribe can govern itself. Recognition also makes it
possible for the tribes to receive federal help. Some educational financial aid is only available
to the children of federally recognized tribes.
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Six tribes in Virginia are still not recognized. They signed a treaty in the sixteen hundreds
with the king of England, but that was before the United States existed.
A Virginia law destroyed their written records in the twentieth
century. The law recognized only two races -- white or colored.
State officials changed "Indian" in all the tribes' birth, death and
marriage records to "colored." So the federal government has no
record of the tribes' existence for many years.
Tribal leaders appealed to Congress. Earlier this month, the House
of Representatives approved a bill to recognize the tribes in
Virginia. Indian leaders expressed hope that the Senate would do
so before the four hundredth anniversary of Jamestown. But this
did not happen.
Some lawmakers are concerned that federal recognition would lead
to the tribes opening gambling businesses. However, the tribes had
already agreed not to do this. The legislation includes the statement that no gambling
businesses would result from recognizing the tribes.
A picture of Virginia Indians
from 1874
Some lawmakers are still not sure. One senator reportedly said he does not understand how
Congress can let the tribes govern themselves but stop them from earning money through
gambling. Others say they must study the legislation more carefully. So the Virginia Indian
tribes continue to hope for recognition before the end of this year.
Global Warming
HOST:
Our question this week comes from Turkey. Nadir Telli wants to know about the science of
global warming.
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the
Earths surface air and oceans. Climate change is any major change
in measures of climate, such as temperature, rainfall and wind.
Scientists have debated about global warming for years. Many have
different opinions about the extent to which greenhouse gases are
responsible for it. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide. They are produced by factories, power
stations and vehicles. They trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations has studied the
problem for many years. It released the first of several reports in February. The group said
that it was more than ninety percent sure that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping
greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main cause of global warming.
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The report said global warming will cause extremely hot weather and heavy rainfall events
more often. It said more rain will fall in some northern areas while dry areas could
experience more severe lack of rainfall.
Climate scientists say the average surface temperature of the Earth has increased by about
six-tenths of one degree Celsius during the past one hundred years. The Environmental
Protection Agency reports the warmest global average temperatures on record have all been
reached within the past fifteen years. Two thousand five was the hottest year ever recorded.
Research shows the level of carbon dioxide gas in the Earths atmosphere has increased by
more than thirty percent in the last two hundred fifty years. Carbon dioxide is produced by
burning oil and coal.
An increase in global temperatures has led to other problems. Scientists have observed a rise
in sea levels and a melting of ice in the Earths Polar areas. Scientists also believe that global
warming is affecting endangered plants and animals, sea life and the seasonal activities of
organisms.
The head of the U.N. Environment Program said global warming will also affect water
supplies, agriculture, biological diversity, economies and politics around the world.
Paul Simon Wins Award
The United States Library of Congress has created a new award to honor a music writer or
performer. It is called the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. It is named after the famous
composers and musicians George and Ira Gershwin.
Library of Congress officials say the Gershwin award recognizes the influence of popular
music on cultures around the world. Katharine Cole has more.
KATHERINE COLE:
The first winner of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song is American
singer and songwriter Paul Simon. The Librarian of Congress, James Billington, said Simon
is the perfect person to receive the first award. This is because his beautiful music
communicates with people across many cultures.
One example is Paul Simon's album Graceland released in nineteen eighty-six. It includes
music sung by a group from South Africa called Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Simon and the
group perform Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.
(MUSIC)
Paul Simon has received many awards for his work, including twelve Grammy awards. He is
a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He is also a twotime member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was honored first as part of the group
Simon and Garfunkel, and later for his own music.
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Simon and Garfunkel's first big hit song was "The Sounds of Silence" released in nineteen
sixty-six.
(MUSIC)
Paul Simon says he is very honored to be the first winner of the Gershwin Prize for Popular
Song. He will receive the award at a special concert of his music in Washington, D.C. on
May twenty-third. Performers will include Art Garfunkel and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
We leave you now with a song from Paul Simons latest album, "Surprise." It is called
"That's Me."
(MUSIC)
HOST:
I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today. It was written by Jill Moss and
Nancy Steinbach. Caty Weaver was our producer.
To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site,
voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOAs radio
magazine in Special English.
103

Job Market Strong for College Graduates | Cerberus Buying

Chrysler
US employers are most interested in students with business, engineering and computer-related training.
17 May 2007

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Employers in the United States expect to hire almost twenty percent more college graduates
this year than last year. So says the National Association
of Colleges and Employers.
The group says employers are most interested in students
with business, engineering and computer-related training.
There is also great demand for business graduates with a
master's of business administration or other advanced
degree. Employers say they plan to increase hiring of
M.B.A. graduates by eighteen percent.
Increases in starting pay are also a sign of the demand for
business and technical majors. The average pay offer to
newly hired marketing graduates is reported up by more
than ten percent over last year. The increase is almost
eight percent for graduates in business administration.
The job market for college graduates has grown stronger and stronger since demand reached
a low point in two thousand two. The unemployment rate for all workers is four and a half
percent. But people with a bachelor's degree have a jobless rate under two percent.
Just over half of employers said they expect to offer jobs to more college graduates this year
than last. But the signs of job growth do not look so good for liberal arts graduates. Not only
that, starting pay for graduates with a liberal arts degree is up just one percent.
Before we go -- we told you last month that the carmaker Chrysler was for sale. This week
DaimlerChrysler of Germany announced a deal for its struggling American division.
Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity company in New York, will buy an eighty
percent share. The deal is valued at almost seven and one-half billion dollars.
Daimler will have to pay about six hundred fifty million dollars to complete the deal. And it
will continue to hold twenty percent of Chrysler. But it will no longer be responsible for
104

Chrysler's retirement and health care plans. Their cost is estimated at around eighteen billion
dollars.
Labor unions are being told there are no plans for major job cuts beyond the thirteen
thousand that Chrysler announced in February.
Chrysler lost one and one-half billion dollars last year. Recently, though, because of
accounting changes, the loss was restated as six hundred eighty million dollars. The new
owners say they are looking for a long-term plan to make Chrysler profitable again.
Ember.
105

How Falwell Helped Give the Religious Right Its Voice in

American Politics
Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died at age 73, organized Christian conservatives into a movement in the 1980s,
the Moral Majority. He had many fans but also many critics. Transcript of radio broadcast:
18 May 2007

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Conservative Christians, known in America as the religious right, lost one of their bestknown leaders this week. Jerry Falwell died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious
in his Virginia office. He was seventy-three years old and had a history of heart problems.
Reverend Falwell wanted to organize socially conservative Christians to become politically
active. So, in nineteen seventy-nine, he helped launch the Moral Majority and became its
public face.
Some believe this heavily Republican group helped to elect Ronald Reagan president in the
nineteen eighty election. Republicans also won control of the Senate for the first time in
many years.
Reverend Falwell described the movement as pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-Israel and
pro-national defense. There was a joke, that the Moral Majority was neither. But, at its
height, the group said it had six and a half million members. They opposed abortion, sexsame marriage and any other threats they saw to family values.
Jerry Falwell began as a Southern Baptist minister at a small church in Lynchburg, Virginia,
in nineteen fifty-six. Later he became known to millions through a television program, "The
Old-Time Gospel Hour." And that small church he started grew into one of the largest in the
country today.
Jerry Falwell had many supporters but also many critics, including other Christian clergy. He
was widely denounced for comments he made after the September eleventh, two thousand
one, attacks on the United States.
He blamed pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, and others who, he said, were
trying to make America non-religious. "You helped this happen," he said. He was speaking as
a guest on the show of another well-known evangelist, Pat Robertson, who agreed with him.
Both men later apologized. Yet some people say their comments about the terrorist attacks
may have done more since then to hurt the religious right than to help it.
106

Some will also remember Jerry Falwell for what he said about Tinky Winky, from the BBC
children's program "Teletubbies." In nineteen ninety-nine he accused the character of being
homosexual and morally damaging to children.
Jerry Falwell closed the Moral Majority in nineteen eighty-nine. But he launched a new
group to continue the "evangelical revolution" in politics, the Moral Majority Coalition. That
was in November of two thousand four, right after religious conservatives helped re-elect
President Bush.
In his later years, Jerry Falwell spent much of his time at Liberty University in Lynchburg.
He served as president. He opened the college in nineteen seventy-one. In recent years, he
also worked to bring attention to what he said was a misrepresented threat of global warming.
Jerry Falwell did not have as much influence anymore. But he will be remembered for his
part in giving a voice to conservative Christians in modern American politics.
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. Im Steve
Ember.
107

Johnny Appleseed, 1774-1845: Many Stories and Poems Were

Written About This American Hero
He planted large numbers of apple trees in what was the American wilderness two hundred years ago.
19 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
Im Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And Im Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program People in America. Today we
tell about a man known as Johnny Appleseed. Many people considered him a hero.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Johnny Appleseed was the name given to John Chapman.
He planted large numbers of apple trees in what was the
American wilderness two hundred years ago. Chapman
grew trees and supplied apple seeds to settlers in the
middle western Great Lakes area. Two centuries later,
some of those trees still produce fruit.
As a result of stories and poems about Chapmans actions,
Johnny Appleseed became an American hero. However,
some of the stories told about Johnny Appleseed over the
years may not have been really true.
Johnny Appleseed
VOICE TWO:
John Chapman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, in seventeen seventy-four. His

father, Nathaniel Chapman, served in Americas war for independence. He fought British
troops in the battle of Concord in seventeen seventy-five.
John was the second of three children. Little is known about his childhood. His mother
Elizabeth became sick with tuberculosis and died a short time after the birth of her third
child. In seventeen eighty, Nathaniel Chapman married Lucy Cooley of Longmeadow,
108

Massachusetts. John and his older sister moved to Longmeadow with their father and his
new wife. This new marriage produced ten more children.
VOICE ONE:
When John Chapman was old enough to leave home, he asked his half-brother, Nathaniel, to
come with him. They slowly traveled south and west from Massachusetts to the state of
Pennsylvania. At that time, much of western Pennsylvania was undeveloped.
Government records show that John lived in the Allegheny Mountains in seventeen ninetyseven. He is said to have cleared land and planted apple seeds near a waterway. In a short
time, the seeds grew to become trees that produced fruit.
VOICE TWO:
Pennsylvania was the first stop in what would become a life-long effort to plant apple trees.
The reason for John Chapmans lifes work is unknown. Some people said he loved to watch
the flowers on apple trees grow and change into tasty fruit.
Apples were an important food for the early settlers of North America. Apples offered
something different in daily meals. They were easy to grow and store for use throughout the
year. They could be eaten raw, cooked or dried for eating during the winter. And they could
be made into other products, like apple butter and apple juice.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
After a few years, Chapman left the hills of western Pennsylvania and traveled west into the
Ohio Valley. He transported sixteen bushels of apple seeds down the Ohio River in eighteenoh-one. He planted apple seeds in several areas near a place called Licking Creek. Some of
the seeds were planted on land owned by a farmer named Isaac Stedden.
Chapman was careful about where he planted apple seeds. He did not leave them just
anywhere. First, he would find rich, fertile land in an open area. Then, he cleared the land,
carefully removing unwanted plants. Then, he planted his seeds in a straight line and built a
fence around them. The fence helped to keep the young trees safe from animals. As the trees
grew, he returned to repair the fence and care for the land.
VOICE TWO:
Chapman planted with thoughts about future markets for his crops. His trees often grew in
land near settlements. He often sold his apple seeds to settlers. Sometimes, he gave away
trees to needy settlers. When low on seeds, he returned east to Pennsylvania to get more. He
got the seeds from apple presses -- machines used to make apples into a drink called apple
cider.
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Before long, Chapmans trees were growing in fields across Ohio. People began calling him
Johnny Appleseed.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Johnny Appleseed was a small man with lots of energy. He had long dark hair. His eyes
were black and bright. He never married. He lived very simply. For years, he traveled alone
in the wilderness, without a gun or knife. He slept in the open air and did not wear shoes on
his feet.
Some people gave him clothing as payment for his apple trees. But sometimes he wore a
large cloth bag or sack as clothing. The sack had holes for his head and arms. On his head, he
wore a metal container for a hat. He also used this pot for cooking his food. People said he
lived this way because he wanted to. He had enough money for shelter and clothes if he had
wanted to buy these things.
VOICE TWO:
Johnny Appleseed looked like someone who was poor and had no home. Yet he was a
successful businessman. He used his money to improve his apple business and help other
people. He was famous for his gentleness and bravery. Both settlers and native Americans
liked him. Everywhere he traveled, he was welcomed. Reports from that period suggest that
some native Americans believed he was touched by God. Others called him a great
medicine man.
During his travels, some families asked Johnny to join them for a meal. He would never sit
down until he was sure that their children had enough to eat. His diet was as simple as his
clothing. He believed that it was wrong to kill and eat any creature for food. He believed
that the soil produced everything necessary for humans. He also criticized people who
wasted food.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
There are a number of other stories about Johnny Appleseed. Once a rattlesnake attempted to
bite him while he slept. Johnny struck the creature, killing it. This was an action he said he
always regretted.
Another time, he was trapped in the wilderness during a severe snowstorm. He found shelter
in an old tree that had fallen to the ground. In the tree, he discovered a mother bear and her
cubs. He did not interfere with the animals, and left before they knew he was there.
110

As the years passed, Johnny Appleseed decided to leave Ohio. He moved west into
wilderness areas in what is now the state of Indiana. The woods were filled with bears,
wolves and other wild animals. Yet he never hurt these creatures.
VOICE TWO:
Johnny Appleseed has sometimes been called the American Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint
Francis established a Roman Catholic group that cares for the poor and the sick. Saint Francis
also is remembered for his love of animals and for honoring nature.
John Chapman was a very religious man. He liked to read from the Christian holy book, the
Bible. He was strongly influenced by the Swedish scientist and Christian thinker, Emanuel
Swedenborg. Chapman belonged to the Church of New Jerusalem, a religious group based
on Swedenborgs teachings.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
In about eighteen thirty, John Chapman got some land in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There, he
planted apple seedlings that grew and produced crops. He sold, traded and planted in other
areas. Some reports said he also traveled to the nearby states of Kentucky and Illinois. His
travels lasted more than forty years.
It is estimated that, during his lifetime, he planted enough trees to cover an area of about two
hundred sixty thousand square kilometers. Over time, some adults said they remembered
receiving presents from Johnny Appleseed when they were children.
VOICE TWO:
In eighteen forty-five, John Chapman became sick and developed pneumonia during a visit to
Fort Wayne. He died in the home of a friend, William Worth. Chapman was seventy years
old. He was buried near Fort Wayne. The marker over his burial place reads, He lived for
others.
When word of Chapmans death reached Washington, DC, Senator Sam Houston of Texas
made a speech honoring him. Houston praised Chapmans work as a labor of love. He said
people in the future would remember his life and work.
Strangely, stories about Johnny Appleseed continued to spread to other areas, long after John
Chapman died. Some people claimed they had seen Johnny Appleseed as far south as Texas.
Others were sure that he planted trees as far west as California. Even today, some people still
claim they are Johnny Appleseed.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
111

This Special English program was written by George Grow. It was produced by Lawan
Davis. Im Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And Im Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another People in America program on
the Voice of America.
112

Bringing Color to Life With Natural Dyes

Advice about dyeing wool with onionskins. Transcript of radio broadcast:
20 May 2007

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Dye can bring a little color to life. Most clothing is colored with dyes. Modern, manufactured
dyes can be costly. Natural dyes from plant and animal products have been used since ancient
times. So this week, we describe a natural way to dye wool.
The advice comes from information written by Jenny Dean of the Intermediate Technology
Development Group in Britain. This anti-poverty group is now called Practical Action.
There are several methods to put dye onto material. The vat method, for example, can be
used to dye wool with onionskins. For this example, use one hundred grams of natural wool.
The wool must be clean. Leave it overnight in water and liquid soap. Then wash it with clean
water that is a little warm. Gently squeeze out the extra water.
A solution called a mordant is used in the dying process. A mordant helps fix the dye to the
material. Traditionally, mordants were found in nature. Wood ash is one example. But
chemical mordants such as alum are popular today. Alum is sold in many stores. It is often
mixed with cream of tartar, a fine powder commonly used in cooking.
Mix eight grams of alum with seven grams of cream of tartar in a small amount of hot water.
Add the solution to a metal pan of cool water. Next, add the wool and place the mixture over
heat. Slowly bring the liquid to eighty-two degrees Celsius. Heat the mixture for forty-five
minutes. After it cools, remove the wool and wash it.
To prepare the dye solution, cover thirty grams of onionskins with water. Use only the dry,
brown outer skins. Boil the liquid until the onionskins lose their color, about forty-five
minutes,. Remove the skins after the dye cools.
Now it is time to dye the wool. Place the wool into the dye and heat the mixture. Bring it to a
boil, then immediately reduce the heat to eighty-two degrees. Now heat the dye for about
forty-five minutes or until the wool is the desired color. Keep in mind that wet wool looks
darker than it is.
Once the dye cools, remove the wool and wash it. Now the wool is orange or yellow. Or at
least it should be.
113

Internet users can get the full details at practicalaction, one word, dot o-r-g. Again, the
address is practicalaction dot org. And enter the word "dye," d-y-e, in the search box. We will
post a link to the site at voaspecialenglish.com.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. I'm Steve
Ember.
114

Washington Has Six of Top 10 of 'America's Favorite

Architecture'
To mark its 150th year, the American Institute of Architects asked people to choose their favorite
buildings or other structures. New York City also came out on top. Transcript of radio broadcast:
20 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Barbara Klein. What do you get when the people who design buildings ask members
of the public to choose their favorites? You get the subject of our program for this week.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The American Institute of Architects is a professional group with close to eighty thousand
members. It was formed in eighteen fifty-seven. To celebrate its one hundred fiftieth year, the
AIA decided to create a list of what it calls America's Favorite Architecture.
Almost two thousand people were asked to choose from a list of about two hundred fifty
structures. From their answers came a list of what the AIA calls the best of America's
architectural heritage. And here now are the top ten favorites.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
115

Number ten is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, located in the
same city as five others in the top ten: Washington, D.C. Maya
Lin was a twenty-one year old architecture student at Yale
University when she won a competition to design the memorial.
Two walls of black stone, smooth and shiny, are set into the
earth in the shape of the letter V. Carved into the stone are the
names of more than fifty-eight thousand men and women. Their
names are listed by the year they were killed or went missing in
action.
The memorial, know simply as "the Wall," starts out low, gets
taller and taller, and then shrinks again. It represents an image of
the war in terms of the number of service members killed each
year.
Three young visitors to the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial
examine the names of the dead
The memorial opened in nineteen eighty-two. Some people argued that the design was too
simple. But the Wall has proven to be a powerful memorial, bringing more than one and a
half million visitors each year.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Number nine of the list of America's Favorite Architecture is the
Chrysler Building in New York City. It was designed by architect
William Van Alen in the late nineteen twenties and went up in
nineteen thirty.
Chrysler Building
The top of the Chrysler Building is easy to recognize among the tall
buildings of New York. Steel arches of shiny silver hold triangular
windows that light up at night. Many other decorative elements
represent designs that were found on Chrysler automobiles of the
same time period.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, comes in at
number eight.
George Washington Vanderbilt, a very wealthy man, built a house
on the estate. But this was not just any home; it was the nation's
largest. And the two-hundred-fifty-room Biltmore House was
meant to be just a summer home.
116
Biltmore Estate

It was built between eighty eighty-eight and eighteen ninety-five. The style is French
Renaissance. The architect was Richard Morris Hunt.
The Vanderbilt family still owns the Biltmore Estate but the house is no longer used as a
private home. Now visitors can pay to look around.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
We go back to Washington for number seven on the list of
America's Favorite Architecture: the Lincoln Memorial. It has four
sides which are open except for large columns that support the roof.
In the center is a huge statue of the sixteenth president, Abraham
Lincoln. He is sitting down and he faces the long reflecting pool
just outside the memorial. His eyes seem to look farther, toward the
Washington Monument beyond the pool.
Lincoln Memorial
Congress approved the building of the Lincoln Memorial in nineteen eleven. The memorial
opened in nineteen twenty-two.
Ancient Greek architecture influenced the design by Henry Bacon. He used limestone and
marble. He won a Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects in nineteen twentythree for the Lincoln Memorial.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Number six on the list of favorites is at the other end of the
National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial: the United States
Capitol.
William Thorton won a competition to design the Capitol, the
building where Congress meets. He proposed a central domed
building with two square buildings on either side. Thorton was not
even an architect. He was a doctor living in the West Indies at the
time.
United States Capitol
Work on the Capitol began in seventeen ninety-three. President George Washington laid the
cornerstone. Building -- and rebuilding -- continued for more than a century under many
different architects.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
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Number five on the list of America's Favorite Architecture is the
Golden Gate Bridge over San Francisco Bay in California. The
bright orange bridge links the city of San Francisco with Marin
County.
Husband-and-wife architects Irving and Gertrude Morrow designed
the Golden Gate Bridge. The chief engineer was Joseph Strauss.
The Golden Gate Bridge
Work began in nineteen thirty-three and the bridge opened four
years later. The main span of nearly one thousand three hundred meters made it the world's
longest suspension bridge. It held that record for almost thirty years.
Today the Golden Gate Bridge is still considered one of the most beautiful bridges in the
world.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Back now to Washington for number four on the list of favorites.
The American Institute of Architects says people chose the
Jefferson Memorial.
The memorial to the nation's third president is a round, open
structure supported by columns. Steps go all the way around the
base. In the center is a statue of a standing Thomas Jefferson.
The architect John Russell Pope designed the memorial in the
neoclassical style. It was completed in nineteen forty-three, after the
death of the famous architect and after years of dispute about his design.
Jefferson Memorial
Thomas Jefferson himself was an architect. His designs included his home at Monticello and
parts of the University of Virginia.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Third on the list of America's Favorite Architecture is the National
Cathedral in Washington. This house of worship is open to all religions. It
was completed in nineteen ninety -- eighty-three years after the first stone
was laid. George Bodley and Henry Vaughn designed the building.
The cathedral, one of the largest in the world, is made of limestone. In the
center is a bell tower ninety-one meters high. The building is in the style of
many of the great cathedrals built in Europe about eight hundred years ago.
National Cathedral
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There are one hundred ten gargoyles on the National Cathedral. The small sculptures can
look scary, but they have a job to do. They help keep rainwater away from the building.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Two more to go. Number two on the list of America's Favorite
Architecture is the building where the president lives and works -the White House.
White House
An architect named James Hoban won a competition called by

George Washington to design a presidential home. Hoban was an
immigrant from Ireland. He was influenced by the design of
Leinster House, the parliament building in Dublin.
Work on the White House began in seventeen ninety-two. Its whitish gray sandstone walls
were finished with a mixture of surface materials including rice, lime and lead.
George Washington never lived in the White House. America's second president was the first
to live there. John Adams and his wife, Abigail, moved into the White House in eighteen
hundred.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Finally, we come to number one on the list of Americas Favorite
Architecture. It is one of the tallest, most photographed and most
recognized buildings in the world. Any ideas? The Empire State
Building in New York City.
It opened in nineteen thirty-one and was designed by the
architectural firm of Shreve Lamb and Harmon. There are one
hundred three floors. The name comes from the fact that the state of
New York is called the Empire State.
Empire State Building
But the building does more than just help define a city, and a state. It stands as a powerful
symbol of one of the most public of all art forms -- architecture.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Our program was written and produced by Caty Weaver. Im Barbara Klein.
VOICE ONE:
119

And I'm Steve Ember. You can find a link to the America's Favorite Architecture Web site at
our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. You can also download transcripts and audio archives
of our programs. And be sure to join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA
Special English.
120

Using a Story to Teach Children How They Can Help Prevent

Bird Flu
A shortened version of the book ''Zandi's Song,'' about a young girl in Africa who helps protect her village
from the deadly threat. Transcript of radio broadcast:
21 May 2007

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ANNOUNCER:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. Im
Bob Doughty.
Today we present the last part of our series on the disease bird
flu. It is a story for young people called "Zandi's Song." It was
shortened and taken from a book written by Nuzhat Shahzadi.
The book was developed by the Academy for Educational
Development. The goal of the book and related materials is to
increase understanding of bird flu among children in developing
countries. It is also meant to involve children in spreading
messages about effective prevention of bird flu in their
communities.
Now, here is Barbara Klein with our story.
(MUSIC)
STORYTELLER:
Zandi is fifteen years old. She lives in a village in Africa with her mother and eleven-yearold brother, Nicholas. Her father died two years ago. Since then, her uncle has been their
guardian. He pays the costs for Nicholas to go to school.
Zandi's family has a small piece of land where her mother grows corn and vegetables.
Nicholas and Zandi help her as much as they can. Their Mama also works part time in a
store. Zandi and Nicholas attend a nearby school.
Mama has to pay the costs for Zandis education. It is not easy. Mama has some chickens.
She sells the eggs and sometimes chickens. Zandi helps her take care of the birds. Once in a
while the family has egg and rice for dinner. But most of the eggs have to be sold for Zandis
school costs.
121

Zandi often hears a radio playing music before she goes to school. One day, she hears a news
report on the radio. The announcer tells about a new disease that is killing birds in some
parts of the world, including Africa.
I hope this disease does not come to our village, Zandi says to herself. Her family needs
the chickens. At school, Zandi is still thinking about the news report. The teacher, Missus
Muchunu, observes her lack of interest in class work. At the class ends, Zandi tells her
teacher about the morning news.
Zandi, I read about this disease in the newspaper two days ago," Missus Muchunu says. "It
is called bird flu.
Teacher, can this disease kill all our chickens, too?" Zandi asks. "If they die, how are we
going to pay for my education? I would have to leave school. What can we do? Zandi is
very worried.
Do not worry, Zandi," her teacher says. "Now go home and we will talk about this tomorrow
in class. Let me try to find out more about this disease."
The next day in class, Missus Muchunu keeps her promise. Children, today I am going to
discuss something very serious," she says. "A new disease is killing birds in some parts of
the world. It is called bird flu.
How does it spread?" one child asks.
The virus that causes the disease is first spread by wild birds like ducks, geese and swans
that live in and around water," the teacher explains. "The virus is carried in the birds
digestive organs. It is passed on through the droppings of infected birds. Sometimes these
birds do not become sick, although they are infected."
Missus Muchunu continues: "Healthy birds can become sick by drinking water from sources
where infected wild birds have been cleaning themselves. They can also become sick from
soil or feed that has been infected by wild bird droppings. Bird flu also spreads through
direct contact -- on clothing, hands, or shoes -- with objects that have been infected with bird
droppings."
Do we have bird flu in Africa? Zandi asks.
The bird flu is arriving in Africa now," her teacher answers. "Wild birds are coming from
Asia where the disease has killed millions of birds. These migratory birds may pass the virus
to our farm birds. Farm birds should not be permitted to mix with wild birds. If we are not
careful now, all our chickens may die."
The students want to know if bird flu can infect people. In Asia, a small number of people
did get infected by coming in contact with sick birds," the teacher says. "Some became sick
and died."
122

What can we do to stay safe from this disease? Zandi's friend Jackson wants to know.
Missus Muchunu shows her students a sign that explains how people can protect themselves
from the disease:
Do not touch a sick or dead bird. If you find sick or dead
birds, tell the local agriculture officer or animal health
worker about it. Always wash your hands by rubbing
with soap and water after coming in contact with birds or
places birds have been. Avoid markets where farm birds
are sold if you hear of bird flu cases nearby. Cook
chicken meat and eggs completely. Avoid all surfaces
that may have been infected until they have been cleaned
and harmful bacteria destroyed.
The sign also has information about what people can do to
protect their birds from bird flu:
An Indonesian boy walks next to duck

cage at a market in Jakarta
Do not let birds living on your property have any contact with wild birds. Keep any new
birds separate from your birds for at least two weeks. Vaccinate your birds against the
disease if your local officials tell you to do this. Ask the local agriculture officer if a vaccine
is available.
"Share this information with others," Missus Muchunu urges. "We must do everything to be
safe from this virus. As we all know, farm birds are the main source of protein in many
families. Protein keeps us healthy and strong. We must not let our chickens die.
(MUSIC)
STORYTELLER:
After school, Zandi, Nicholas and their friends meet to talk about bird flu.
How can we make our families understand that we all need to act before the disease attacks
our village? Jackson asks.
Why don't we talk to our families and neighbors?" Zandi suggests. "Each one of us can talk
to three families every week. Let us invite the others from our class to join us. We can also
ask our teachers to talk about it during the next parent-teacher meeting at the end of the
month. Unless everyone knows about the disease, we will not be able to stop it from
spreading." The children now feel happier as they agree to these plans.
Zandi thinks hard as she walks back home. She must find a way to keep her family's
chickens safe from bird flu.
"Why don't we make a new place for our chickens that is surrounded with a fence made of
sticks from trees?" she suggests to her brother. "We can use long grass to cover the area. It
123

is best to keep the chickens separated from other birds. Will you help me do this? Nicholas
says he will.
The next morning Zandi has another thought. She is sure that her Uncle knows the head of
the village very well. The headmans wife also respects Uncle's wife. What if she begins by
giving bird flu information to them? Uncle can pass it on to the headman. People come to
the headman for advice, and he can urge them to be prepared for the disease. Zandi is very
pleased with herself. She goes to see her Uncle.
Uncle, our teacher told us to share some very important information with our families,"
Zandi says. "It is about a disease that can kill all our farm birds. Everyone should know
about it. I know how much the headman trusts you. Maybe you would like to discuss this
with the headman?
Zandi explains. "We need to carefully wash our hands with soap and water if we come in
contact with a sick or dead bird. We need to cook the chicken meat and eggs completely.
We should not eat sick or dead farm birds. Children should not be permitted to play with
sick or dead birds. We should report any sick or dead birds to the animal health worker or
agriculture officer. It is not easy to identify bird flu from other diseases harmful to birds.
Zandi finishes speaking as Uncle listens closely.
Well, my niece, I think you have become quite intelligent by studying in school," Uncle
says. "I will share this with the headman and others. And I have decided that you should
continue with your studies. I want you to keep up the good family name."
As she walks back home, Zandi smiles to herself. Now she is the happiest girl in the whole
village.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER:
This program was broadcast under the terms of a license agreement with the Academy for
Educational Development. AED produced and copyrighted the story. It cannot be further
reproduced without agreement from AED at www.aed.org/avianflu.
Your storyteller was Barbara Klein. The story was adapted by Shelley Gollust and produced
by Brianna Blake. I'm Bob Doughty. Join us again next week for more news about science
in Special English on the Voice of America.
124

Demand for Ethanol Made From Corn Is Fueling Criticism

US farmers are expected this season to plant the most maize since 1944. Critics say other plant-based fuels
should be getting more attention. Transcript of radio broadcast:
21 May 2007

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This season, American farmers expect to plant their biggest corn crop since World War Two.
Growing demand for ethanol fuel is the driving force, along with strong export sales.
Based on March estimates, the Agriculture Department expects farmers to plant thirty-six
million hectares of maize. The area is fifteen percent more than last year and the largest since
nineteen forty-four.
Farmers could harvest thirteen billion bushels. More than three billion of that is expected to
become ethanol. Bad weather, though, delayed some planting. That could mean fewer
bushels -- and even more competition between ethanol producers and other users of corn, like
the food industry.
Corn prices are not as high as they were a few weeks ago. But in the past year they have gone
from two dollars a bushel to almost four dollars. Growers of corn, like some other crops, also
receive government subsidies.
In January, President Bush called for a big increase in the use of other fuels in place of
imported oil. But some critics argue that making ethanol out of corn takes more energy than
it provides. Not only that, it provides less energy than gasoline and is only adding to already
high fuel costs, they say.
Critics argue that other kinds of plant-based fuels are more efficient -- for example, Brazilian
ethanol made from sugar cane. But imported ethanol is taxed, while the United States ethanol
industry receives tax credits.
Some agricultural specialists say increased corn production could be bad for the land.
Farmers usually plant corn one year and soybeans the next. But area planted to soybeans is
expected to decrease eleven percent this year.
Also, because corn gets more fertilizer than some other crops, critics say there is more risk of
water pollution around farms.
Farmers in almost all states are planting more corn but Iowa is still the leader. The United
States produces forty percent of the world's corn and more than half of all exported corn.
125

Two economists recently said in Foreign Affairs magazine that the ethanol situation "is
sending shock waves through the food system."
Some critics say at current rates, ethanol production could use as much as half of the
American corn supply before long. But a growing fight over that supply could turn attention
more to the development of other plant-based fuels.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson.
126

All the World Still a Stage for Shakespeare's Timeless Imagination

First of two programs about the British playwright and poet, who is considered by many to be the greatest
writer in the history of the English language. Transcript of radio broadcast:
22 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
Im Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And 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.
(SOUND)
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 I'll 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.
Olivia Hussey and Leonard
Whiting in Franco
Zeffirelli's 1968 film version
of 'Romeo and Juliet'
"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. Shakespeare's universal stories show all the
127

human emotions and conflicts. His works are as fresh today as they were four hundred years
ago.
(MUSIC)
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 city's 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 King's Men.
VOICE ONE:
In fifteen ninety-nine Shakespeare's 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 women's clothing played the roles of female characters.
This is because it was against the law in England for women to act
onstage.
A drawing of the Globe
Theatre on a British postage
stamp
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)
128

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. Hero's
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:
Shakespeare's histories are intense explorations of actual English rulers. This was a newer
kind of play that developed during Shakespeare's 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 Hamlet's 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.
Laurence Olivier in the 1948
film ''Hamlet''
(SOUND)
129

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.
A 1926 version of
Shakespeare's sonnets
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 Shakespeare's 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.
(SOUND)
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's 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 nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
130

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.
131

Ear Care: Do-It-Yourself Wax Removal

Advice from experts about what to do -- and not to do -- when your ear is blocked with wax. Transcript of
radio broadcast:
22 May 2007

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Some people's ears produce wax like busy little bees. This can be a
problem even though earwax appears to serve an important purpose.
Experts say it protects and cleans the ear. It traps dirt and other
matter and keep insects out. Doctors think it might also help protect
against infections. And the waxy oil keeps ears from getting too
dry.
So earwax is good. It even has a medical name: cerumen. And there
are two kinds. Most people of European or African ancestry have
the "wet" kind: thick and sticky. East Asians commonly have "dry" earwax.
But you can have too much of a good thing.
The glands in the ear canal that produce the wax make too much in some people. Earwax is
normally expelled; it falls out of the ear or gets washed away. But extra wax can harden and
form a blockage that interferes with sound waves and reduces hearing.
People can also cause a blockage when they try to clean out their ears -- but only push the
wax deeper inside. Earwax removal is sometimes necessary. But you have to use a safe
method or you could do a lot of damage.
Experts at N.I.H., the National Institutes of Health, suggest some ways to treat excessive
earwax yourself. They say the wax can be softened with mineral oil, glycerin or ear drops.
They say hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide may also help.
Another way to remove wax is known as irrigation. With the head upright, take hold of the
outer part of the ear. Gently pull upward to straighten the ear canal. Use a syringe device to
gently direct water against the wall of the ear canal. Then turn the head to the side to let the
water out.
The experts at N.I.H. say you may have to repeat this process a few times. Use water that is
body temperature. If the water is cooler or warmer, it could make you feel dizzy. Never try
irrigation if the eardrum is broken. It could lead to infection and other problems.
132

After the earwax is gone, gently dry the ear. But if irrigation fails, the best thing to do is to go
to a health care provider for professional assistance.
You should never put a cotton swab or other object into the ear canal. But you can use a swab
or cloth to clean the outer part of the ear. The experts agree with the old saying that you
should never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear.
And thats the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. I'm Barbara
Klein.
133

What Does Ecology Mean to You? No, Really, How Do You Define
It?
23 May 2007

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AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: more of our
interview with Rob Jackson, director of the Global Change Center at Duke University with
some terms you're likely to hear in the climate change debate.
RS: We start with an explanation of the term "ecosystem capital."
ROB JACKSON: "Ecosystem capital, or maybe put differently ecosystem services - are the value of what we get from natural
systems. For instance, a city such as New York City can spend a lot
of money to build a sewage treatment or water treatment plant.
Alternatively the city might buy a thousand or five hundred
thousand acres, whatever the value is, of land and use natural
capital, natural services, to cleanse that water for us.
"That is, in fact, what New York City did some years ago, saving
hundreds of millions of dollars. So you allow nature to do the work
for you, and then you find a way to put an economic value on that work. And that's where the
term ecosystem capital comes from."
RS: "Another phrase that was thrown at me was -- we need to be looking at our ecosystem
services, as you say, and not as much at 'charismatic mega fauna.' [laughter]"
ROB JACKSON: "Yes. Charismatic mega fauna are the large, sexy mammals that people
like to watch. So that might be an elk, a bear, a wildebeest in Africa, an elephant -- "
AA: "Polar bears."
ROB JACKSON: "Polar bears is another great example. So we tend to focus on these large
animals and we often tend to manage and set up preserves for these large animals. And those
animals are charismatic -- they're pretty, they're nice to look at, but they're often not the
animals that provide the ecosystem services that we value most."
RS: "And the point I understood was that we should be looking at our undervalued
ecosystems -- or we should value our ecosystems more in comparison."
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ROB JACKSON: "That's right. One of the problems with our current economics is that we
don't do a good job of putting a value on the services that we get from nature. So it's easy to
assign a value to what a power plant uses or produces, or to what a sewage treatment plant
cleanses our water. It's not easy to put an economic value on what nature does for us.
"Plants cleanse our air. The soil cleanses our water. But that cleansing, that purification and
all the many resources that we get from nature often fall outside our accounting system. And
so we're just simply not very good at taking into account what nature gives us."
AA: "Now one of the services that nature provides us, obviously, is food, and that brings us
to another term that we're hearing a lot lately, which is 'food miles.' Why don't you define it."
ROB JACKSON: "Well, sure. This is one for me that's pretty new, but food miles are the
number of miles that food travels before ending up on your plate, and that the higher the food
miles the greater the environmental cost associated with the food -- how much energy was
used to transport that food to actually put it in front of you and me."
RS: "Now, I think the importance of these terms is to raise awareness."
ROB JACKSON: "I agree with that. But they also, I mean they are -- I know that they do
sound jargony and some of them are jargony. But there are, for some of these at least, fairly
specific meanings. And, in fact, in the scientific community, some of these terms have much
narrower meanings than come to be the meaning in just common usage."
RS: "Can you give us an example?"
ROB JACKSON: "Well, let's start with maybe the most basic example, just the word
'ecology.' I think when you walk up to someone on the street and ask them what ecology
means, people will bring up recycling and sort of saving the environment, saving the planet.
"As a science, the field of ecology studies how plants and animals and organisms interact
with the environment around them. It has a much narrower sense and really doesn't say
anything about recycling or about environment stewardship. But it has come to be viewed as
saving the planet because many ecologists, myself included, really care about the
environment and valuing the environment."
AA: "And 'sustainability,' which will be our final term, if you could maybe explain that."
ROB JACKSON: "Sure. Sustainability is another one of these words that has kind of a life of
its own, a lot of different meanings. But the idea is that we need to think about long-term
consequences of how we live and how we manufacture things. So are we building something
in a way that will allow people in fifty years or a hundred years or a decade to build the same
product in the same way? Or are we using a resource in an unsustainable manner, are we
polluting a body of water or are we polluting air in a way that will cost people down the
road?"
135

RS: Rob Jackson is a professor of biology and environmental sciences at Duke University in
Durham, North Carolina. You can hear the first part of our discussion on the Wordmaster
website at voanews.com/wordmaster.
AA: And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is word@voanews.com. With
Rosanne Skirble
136

Watergate: How a Name, and a Failed Break-In, Became a

Symbol of Political Corruption
In August 1974, Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign. In doing so he avoided a trial in
Congress on charges that he misused government agencies in an effort to hide wrongdoing. Transcript of
radio broadcast:
23 May 2007

Listen to MP3
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VOICE ONE:
VOICE TWO:
And this is Stan Busby with THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a VOA Special English
(MUSIC)
Today, we complete the story of the thirty-seventh president of the United States, Richard
Nixon.
VOICE ONE:
Richard Nixon's first term as president ended with hope for complete American withdrawal
from the fighting in Vietnam. Yet Americans still were very angry about the war and its
effects on life at home. Paying for it was difficult. Inflation was high. Unemployment was
high, too. Some political observers thought the president would not be elected to a second
term. Nixon, however, was sure the American people would support him.
President Richard Nixon with Chinese
137

He did not campaign in the local primary elections
before the Republican convention. Instead, in the
winter and spring of nineteen seventy-two, he visited China, Canada, Iran, Poland, and the
Soviet Union.
Premier Zhou Enlai in 1972
VOICE TWO:
On June seventeenth, nineteen seventy-two, something happened in Washington, D.C. It was
a small incident. But it would have a huge effect on the United States.
Five men broke into a center of the National Committee of the Democratic Party. The
building was called the Watergate. That name would become a symbol of political crime in
the nation's highest office.
VOICE ONE:
At the time, the incident did not seem important. Police caught the criminals. Later, however,
more was learned. The men had carried papers that linked them to top officials in the
administration.
The question was: Did President Nixon know what was going on? He told reporters he was
not involved. In time, though, the Watergate case would lead to a congressional investigation
of the president.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
For a while, the political conventions of the summer of nineteen seventy-two pushed the
story of the Watergate break-in out of the major news of the day.
The Democratic Party met and chose George McGovern as its
candidate for president. McGovern was a senator from the state
of South Dakota. The choice of the Republican Party was no
surprise. Delegates re-nominated Richard Nixon.
McGovern attacked Nixon for his policies about Vietnam.
McGovern's anger made many voters see him as an extremist.
Nixon won the election of nineteen seventy-two by a huge
popular vote. He would not be able to complete his second term,
however. This was because Watergate would not go away.
VOICE ONE:
138
Nixon and Vice President Spiro

Agnew at the 1972 Republican
National Convention after their
re-nomination

Early in nineteen seventy-three, reporters found the evidence that linked the Watergate breakin to officials in the White House. The evidence also showed that the officials tried to use
government agencies to hide the connection.
Pressure grew for a complete investigation. In April, President Nixon ordered the Justice
Department to do this. A special prosecutor was named to lead the government's
investigation.
VOICE TWO:
A special Senate committee began its own investigation in May. A former White House
lawyer provided the major evidence. By July, it was learned that President Nixon had secretly
made tape recordings of some of his discussions and telephone calls. The Senate committee
asked him for some of the tapes. Nixon refused. He said the president of the United States
has a Constitutional right to keep such records private.
VOICE ONE:
A federal judge ordered the president to surrender the tapes. Lawyers for the president took
the case to the nation's highest court. The Supreme Court supported the decision of the lower
court.
After that, pressure increased for Nixon to cooperate. In October, he offered to provide
written versions of the most important parts of the tape recordings. The special prosecutor
rejected the offer. So, Nixon ordered the head of the Justice Department to dismiss him. The
Attorney General refused to do this, and resigned.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
President Nixon had another political problem, in addition to Watergate. In late nineteen
seventy-three, his vice president, Spiro Agnew, was forced to resign. A court had found
Agnew guilty of violating tax laws.
President Nixon asked Gerald Ford to become the new vice president. Ford was a long-time
member of Congress from the state of Michigan.
VOICE ONE:
By that time, some members of Congress were talking about removing President Nixon from
office. This is possible under American law if Congress finds that a president has done
something criminal. Was Richard Nixon covering up important evidence in the case? Was he,
in fact, guilty of wrongdoing?
VOICE TWO:
139

In April nineteen seventy-four, Nixon surrendered some of his White House tape recordings.
However, three important discussions on the tapes were missing. The Nixon administration
explained. The tape machine had failed to record two of the discussions, it said. The third
discussion had been destroyed accidentally. Many Americans did not believe these
explanations.
Two months later, the Supreme Court ruled that a president can not hold back evidence in a
criminal case. It said there is no presidential right of privacy in such a case.
VOICE ONE:
A committee of the House of Representatives also reached an historic decision in July
nineteen seventy-four. It proposed that the full House put the president on trial. If Richard
Nixon were found guilty of crimes involved in the Watergate case, he would be removed
from office.
Finally, Nixon surrendered the last of the documents. They appeared to provide proof that the
president had ordered evidence in the Watergate case to be covered up.
VOICE TWO:
The rights of citizens, as stated in the Constitution, are the basis of American democracy.
Every president promises to protect and defend these Constitutional rights. During the
congressional investigation of Watergate, lawmakers said that President Nixon had violated
these rights.
They said he planned to delay and block the investigation of the Watergate break-in and other
unlawful activities. They said he repeatedly misused government agencies in an effort to hide
wrongdoing and to punish his critics. And they said he refused repeated orders to surrender
papers and other materials as part of the investigation.
VOICE ONE:
Richard Nixon's long struggle to remain in office was over. He spoke to the nation on August
eighth.
Richard Nixon waves goodbye from his
helicopter as he leaves the White House
after resigning on August 9, 1974
RICHARD NIXON: "Throughout the long and difficult

period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to
persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the
term of office to which you elected me. In the past few
days, however, it has become evident to me that I no
longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress
to justify continuing that effort. Therefore, I shall resign
the presidency effective at noon tomorrow."
VOICE TWO:
140

Never before had a president of the United States resigned. And never before did the United
States have a president who had not been elected. Gerald Ford had been appointed to the
office of vice president. Now, he would replace Richard Nixon. On August ninth, nineteen
seventy-four, he was sworn-in as the nation's thirty-eighth president.
VOICE ONE:
Soon after becoming president, Gerald Ford made a surprise
announcement. He pardoned Richard Nixon. Many Americans
criticized Ford for doing this. But he believed he had good reasons.
Ford wanted to move ahead and deal with the other problems that
faced the nation. He did not want Watergate to go on and on. The
case did go on, however. Several top officials in the Nixon
administration were tried, found guilty, and sent to prison.
Gerald Ford
VOICE TWO:
The effects of the case went on, too. Watergate influenced government policy and public
opinion for years.
For example, laws were passed to prevent an administration from using its power to punish
opposition political groups. Intelligence agencies were forced to provide Congress with more
information about their activities. And rules were approved to restrict the activities of public
officials.
The American public, and especially the press, felt the effects of Watergate. Many citizens
and reporters felt less able to believe their government. As one writer said, "Never again will
we trust our public officials in quite the same way."
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced
by Paul Thompson. This is Rich Kleinfeldt.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Stan Busby. Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program
141

Mason Bates Creates a 'Liquid Interface' Between Electronica and

Classical Music
Also: music by classical and popular singer Josh Groban. And a listener in Taiwan asks about the Jim
Crow laws that once enforced racial separation in the US. Transcript of radio broadcast:
24 May 2007

Listen to MP3
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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
(MUSIC)
We answer a question about racial separation laws of the past
Play music from Josh Groban
And report about musical composer Mason Bates.
Mason Bates
The worlds of techno music and classical symphonies are usually very separate. But the
musical composer Mason Bates is changing this. This thirty-year-old musician from Virginia
artfully combines classical music with the sound of electronic beats. Barbara Klein has
more.
(MUSIC)
BARBARA KLEIN:
142

That was part of a work called "Liquid Interface." Mason
Bates performed it for the first time in February with the
National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. He
was influenced to write the musical piece while living in
Berlin, Germany. He watched the lake near where he
lived transform from an ice formation to a warm
swimming place.
Mason Bates
In Liquid Interface you can listen to the many forms

water takes and the effects of climate change. You can
hear the breaking of large ice glaciers, as well as melting
drops of water. Bates also makes a musical reference to
New Orleans, Louisiana to show the more destructive side
of water.
This work needs a very large orchestra. Musicians played more than forty traditional
instruments at the Washington, D.C. performance. They were guided by the orchestra's
musical director, Leonard Slatkin. Mason Bates stood on the side with his own instrument,
the portable computer. He fluidly worked the electronic sounds and beats into the structured
classical music.
But Mason Bates does not only write symphonies. At night, you can find him playing triphop and French house techno music in the clubs of San Francisco, California. He is also
finishing his doctorate degree at the nearby University of California, Berkeley. Mason Bates
skill at combining these two very different musical worlds has been recognized. He has won
important awards for his music pieces such as the Prix de Rome.
Mason Bates believes that when you listen to music it lives in your imagination and your
blood at the same time. He wants his music to be intelligent as well as interesting. To listen to
more music by Mason Bates, go to voaspecialenglish.com for a link to his Web site.
Jim Crow Laws
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Taiwan. Howlong Wu asks about Jim
Crow laws."
These laws enforced racial separation between black people and white people in the
143

American South. The term was taken from a character called
Jim Crow in musical shows in the eighteen thirties. In these
minstrel shows, white people darkened their faces and
performed as if they were black people. These shows were
insulting to black people.
Starting in the eighteen eighties, Jim Crow became the name
for the laws enacted by Southern cities and states to oppress
black people and keep them separate from white people. For
example, Jim Crow laws made it illegal for the two races to
attend the same schools, eat at the same restaurants or use
the same public transportation.
Jim Crow laws enforced racial

separation
The United States Supreme Court supported Jim Crow laws in some of its decisions. An
important one was Plessy versus Ferguson in eighteen ninety-six. The Court ruled that
railroads could require white and black passengers to ride in different cars. It said this was
legal because the treatment in the two cars was "separate but equal." In another case in
eighteen ninety-nine, the Court ruled that no ones rights were violated by the two races
attending separate schools.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People led the long effort to
overturn Jim Crow laws through legal action. Finally, in nineteen fifty-four, a Supreme Court
ruling overturned the Plessy versus Ferguson decision. The decision was called Brown versus
the Board of Education. The Supreme Court ruled that separate schools for blacks and whites
were unconstitutional. This ruling required towns and cities across the country to permit
blacks and whites to attend the same schools.
The Jim Crow system was finally ended in the nineteen sixties through the efforts of the civil
rights movement. These efforts resulted in a series of federal laws including the Civil Rights
Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act.
Josh Groban
Josh Groban is a young singer who performs classical and popular songs. His record albums
have sold millions of copies. Katherine Cole plays some music from Groban's latest album
called "Awake."
KATHERINE COLE:
144

Josh Groban is twenty-six years old. He is from Los
Angeles, California. As a teenager, he sang at the
inauguration of former California governor Gray Davis in
nineteen ninety-nine. That was when he was discovered
by a record company official. He released his first studio
album two years later.
Josh Groban
Josh Groban's third studio album is called "Awake." Like

his other albums, he sings in English, Italian and Spanish.
Groban says the music on his latest album sounds like it is
coming from his heart and soul as well as his voice. This
song, "You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)," was also
released as a single.
(MUSIC)
Josh Groban plays several instruments, including piano, drums, electric guitar, marimbas,
flugelhorn and dulcimer. Groban also helped write some of the songs on his latest album,
like this one, called "Machine." The famous jazz musician Herbie Hancock plays piano.
(MUSIC)
Josh Groban has appeared on many American television shows. Now he is in the middle of a
seven-month performance tour to seventy cities in the United States, Canada and Europe.
Groban performs two songs on his latest album with the South African group Ladysmith
Black Mambazo. Groban first heard this song during a visit to South Africa in two thousand
four. We leave you now with the song "Weeping."
(MUSIC)
HOST:
I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.
It was written by Dana Demange, Shelley Gollust and Nancy Steinbach. Caty Weaver was
our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site,
voaspecialenglish.com.
Send your questions about American life to mosaic@voanews.com. Please include your full
name and mailing address. Or write to American Mosaic, VOA Special English,
Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven, U.S.A.
English.
145

Bush Wins on Iraq Bill, but Democrats Promise to Renew Fight

Congress approves a war spending bill without any withdrawal date. Also, lawmakers debate an
immigration bill, and continue hearings into Justice Department dismissals. Transcript of radio broadcast:
25 May 2007

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This week in Washington, Congress approved a war spending bill that President Bush
said he would sign. There was debate on an immigration bill. And hearings continued into
why the Justice Department dismissed eight federal prosecutors last year.
The Iraq spending bill was approved Thursday after majority Democrats dropped their
demand to set a date for a troop withdrawal. But the bill does threaten to cut economic aid if
the Iraqi government fails to make progress on political and security reforms.
Democrats say they will renew their fight for a withdrawal plan in the next war-financing
bill.
The one just approved contains one hundred twenty billion dollars in spending. Ninety-five
billion of that will pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.
Billions will go to unrelated projects at home.
Also included in the bill is the first increase in almost ten years in the federal minimum wage.
Many of the lowest-paid workers are immigrants. And on Monday the Senate opened debate
on an immigration bill.
Supporters of immigration reform, including President Bush, say the bill is needed to help fix
a broken system. An estimated twelve million immigrants are in the United States illegally.
Proposals include stronger border security, a temporary worker program and a path for
undocumented workers to become legal.
One proposal would create two-year renewable visas for foreign temporary workers. On
Wednesday the Senate voted to cut the proposed number of temporary workers in half, to two
hundred thousand a year.
Some groups say the bill would separate families of immigrant workers. Labor unions worry
that the bill would create a new class of poorly paid migrants with few legal protections.
Employers are divided over proposed changes that could also affect highly skilled foreign
workers. And some critics say the bill would reward people who entered the country illegally.
146

The Senate is expected to end debate on the immigration bill in the middle of June. At that
time senators could take a rare no-confidence vote in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
over the Justice Department dismissals.
On Wednesday a committee in the House questioned a former Gonzales aide who worked
with the White House. Monica Goodling said she "crossed the line" by bringing political
considerations into some hiring decisions at the department. But she said she had only a
limited part in the replacement of United States attorneys.
Democrats said her statements raised new questions about dismissals that they suggest were
made for political reasons. But a Republican lawmaker said there were no surprises and no
evidence of corruption.
Democrats and some Republicans want Alberto Gonzales to resign. President Bush says he
supports him and hopes Congress will move quickly to finish hearings that he calls "political
theater."
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve
Ember.
147

Remembering Troops Who Died, and Worrying About Those

About to Be Sent Into Harm's Way
In North Carolina, a wife and mother of soldiers thinks about her family, and Iraq: "I just got one man
home safe and, now, here goes the other one." Transcript of radio broadcast:
27 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember. Memorial Day two thousand seven is our subject this week.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Personal sacrifice and service to a nation might seem like the last things Memorial Day is
about.
For lucky workers, the holiday means the freedom of a three-day weekend, the traditional
start of the summer travel season. For many businesses, the Memorial Day weekend means a
time to lower prices to get more people to come in.
Yet, across America, Memorial Day still holds meaning as a day to remember the men and
women who have died in military service.
This is the fifth Memorial Day since the start of the Iraq war. More than three thousand four
hundred American troops have died in Iraq since March of two thousand three. About four
hundred have died in Afghanistan since military operations began there in October of two
thousand one.
VOICE TWO:
Cities and towns across the United States hold Memorial Day events. And while the holiday
has a serious meaning, the observances often include family entertainment in addition to
events like military parades.
148

In Fayetteville, North Carolina, the Glory Days celebration includes a bicycle race, an applepie eating competition and music. Fayetteville has a strong connection with the military. The
city is neighbors with the Army base at Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base.
VOICE ONE:
Ann Zetterstrom is a retired Army captain. Her plans for Memorial Day include attending a
ceremony at Freedom Memorial Park in Fayetteville. She says she has been very much
looking forward to this holiday with her family.
Her husband, Erik, is a lieutenant colonel in the Army. This will be the first Memorial Day
that he spends with their two-year-old daughter, Britta. He returned home in February after
twenty-two months in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ann Zetterstrom says it is a great relief to have her husband home safely. She thinks it is
easier to be the one deployed, even in harm's way, than to be the one waiting and worrying,
she says. But she knew what she was signing up for when she married another soldier.
Being the mother of a soldier, however, is a different story. Her son, Brian, is a lieutenant in
the Army. He is currently stationed in Germany. But he is preparing for deployment to Iraq in
the fall.
His mom supported his interest in military service. But, she says, "I just got one man home
safe and, now, here goes the other one."
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
On May twentieth, a ceremony called a "Time of Remembrance" took place on the grounds
of the Washington Monument. The event brought together more than three thousand family
members and friends of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The children of those service members received a Gold Medal of Remembrance. The event
also recognized families of those killed in military service throughout American history.
This was the second year that the ceremony has been held. It was established by the White
House Commission on Remembrance.
VOICE ONE:
In the year two thousand Congress passed a law to establish a National Moment of
Remembrance on Memorial Day. The law asks Americans wherever they are to stop for one
minute at three o'clock in the afternoon in an act of national unity.
Yet Congress created some disunity when it moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May
to create a three-day weekend. That happened under a nineteen seventy-one law, the National
149

Holiday Act. Some people support a campaign to return Memorial Day to its traditional day
of observance -- May thirtieth.
Memorial Day began as a way to remember soldiers killed in the Civil War. On May
thirtieth, eighteen sixty-eight, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate
soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The war to prevent the Confederate states of the
South from leaving the Union was fought from eighteen sixty-one to eighteen sixty-five.
VOICE TWO:
Arlington National Cemetery is a military burial ground but also a final resting place for
people of national and historical importance. Each year more than four million people visit
the cemetery. It is located in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from
Washington. Next to the cemetery is the Pentagon, the Defense Department headquarters.
Part of the tradition of an American military funeral is the playing of a bugle call known as
taps. Taps is also played at Arlington and other burial grounds during ceremonies on
Memorial Day.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The Washington capital area has a number of military memorials.
At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, people look for the names of family members or friends.
The memorial lists the names of more than fifty-eight thousand Americans who were killed
or declared missing-in-action.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, known as the Wall, opened in nineteen eighty-two. Two
black, shiny stone walls, each about seventy-six meters long, are set into the earth. They meet
to form a wide V.
Many visitors leave flowers or personal remembrances. To copy a name, they rub a pencil on
paper over the letters cut into the stone.
Nearby is a statue of three soldiers. They are looking toward the names. Another statue
honors the service of women in the war.
The Vietnam War ended in nineteen seventy-five. Many soldiers coming home faced the
anger of Americans who opposed the war. So a Vietnam veteran named Jan Scruggs
organized an effort to remember those who never returned. The result is the Wall.
VOICE TWO:
Near the Vietnam memorial is the Korean War Veterans Memorial. It opened in nineteen
ninety-five.
150

The Korean War lasted from nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty-three. The memorial honors those
who died and those who survived. "Freedom Is Not Free" is the message cut into the wall
above a Pool of Remembrance. There are listings of the numbers of American and United
Nations forces killed, wounded, captured or missing, more than two million in all.
On one side of the Korean War Veterans Memorial is a stone walkway. It lists the names of
the twenty-two countries that sent troops to Korea under United Nations command. On the
other side is a shiny stone wall. Sandblasted into the wall are images from photographs of
more than two thousand five hundred support troops.
There are statues of nineteen soldiers who look like they are moving across a battlefield. The
statues are gray and lifelike, although a little bigger than life size. Artist Frank Gaylord made
them out of stainless steel. They capture the eye and the imagination.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The newest of the major memorials in Washington is the National World War Two
Memorial. It opened in two thousand four between the Lincoln Memorial and the
Washington Monument on the National Mall.
The memorial is a large, open area built of bronze and granite. In the center, at ground level,
is a round pool. Water shoots from a circle of fountains in the middle.
Around the pool are fifty-six stone pillars. They represent each of the American states and
territories at the time of the war, plus the District of Columbia.
On two tall arches are the names of where the fighting took place. One says Atlantic; the
other says Pacific. The United States entered the war after Japan bombed the naval base at
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December seventh, ninety forty-one.
Sixteen million men and women served in the American military between nineteen forty-one
and nineteen forty-five. More than four hundred thousand of them never came home.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Our program was written by Caty Weaver and produced by Mario Ritter. Internet users can
find archives of transcripts and audio files of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm
Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I'm Faith Lapidus. We hope you can join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in
VOA Special English.
151

152

Are the World's Institutional Lenders Ready to Reform?

Both the African and Asian Development Banks discussed reforms at their yearly meetings this month.
But, one expert believes the two lenders must reform differently because they serve completely separate
parts of the world. Transcript of radio broadcast:
27 May 2007

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The African Development Bank held its yearly meeting in
Shanghai, China, earlier this month. The banks chief
economist announced the economic growth rate in Africa
is expected to reach six percent this year. This is the
highest in twenty years. Foreign demand for natural
resources, especially oil, has helped create the growth.
Dennis de Tray is vice president of the Center for Global
Development in Washington, D.C. He says that six
percent economic growth in Africa is good. But he says
long-term development on the continent will be a problem
for generations.
Delegates at the African Development
Bank meeting in Shanghai, China
Mister de Tray led a working group last year that

provided independent advice to the banks shareholders and its president, Donald Kaberuka.
The Rwandan economist took over leadership of the African bank in two thousand five. Ten
years earlier, the economic security of the African Development Bank had been in question.
It was almost out of money.
Mister de Tray says needed reforms at the African bank are different from reforms
announced at a meeting of the Asian Development Bank. That bank met earlier this month in
Kyoto, Japan. Mister de Tray believes the Asian Development Bank is facing an identity
crisis. The countries receiving the most money are becoming established nations with rich
resources. As a result, loans from the Asian Development Bank are unnecessary. Yet,
Mister de Tray says there is a small group of countries in Asia still developing, including
Laos and Cambodia. These countries will continue to need assistance from the Asian
Development Bank.
He says the African Development Bank is in the middle of a continent that will need
development aid for years to come. Some countries have gained success. But many others
are still trying to create continued development that does not harm the environment. The
African Development Bank is doing a better job serving its member countries, Mister De
Tray says. But, he believes the bank still has a long way to go to reach a level of success.
153

Mister De Tray thinks that reforms needed within all of the worlds international banks are
related. And, over the next year, he predicts a debate about how the system works.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. You can read
and download audio of Special English programs at our web site, voaspecialenglish.com.
Im Shep O'Neal.
154

US Urges Chinese to Accept New Rules for Food Safety

American and Chinese officials deal with food safety issue at trade talks. Transcript of radio broadcast:
28 May 2007

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The United States has urged China to accept new safety rules for its food and drug exports.
American officials said the rules would include a new list of Chinese exporters.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt
made the statements. They spoke the day after high-level trade talks between the two
nations.
The Americans met last week in Washington with a
Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi.
The United States Food and Drug Administration said
inspectors rejected more than one hundred shipments of
food imports from China during April alone. The
inspectors rejected them for being unclean or containing
harmful substances.
Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi with

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at
the US-China Strategic Economic
Dialogue in Washington
China has a lot to lose if people fear its food and drugs.
The nation earns an estimated thirty billion dollars yearly
in food and drug exports. Companies in the United States
would also suffer. For example, American companies
depend on China for large amounts of apple juice.
Last week, United States health inspectors began examining toothpaste from China. The
government acted after tubes of the teeth-cleaning substance were sent to Panama and the
Dominican Republic. The toothpaste was found to contain diethylene glycol, a deadly
chemical. But no deaths linked to the toothpaste have been reported.
In recent months, wheat flour produced in China for use in pet food sickened or killed many
dogs and cats in the United States and Canada.
Critics of Chinese imports suspect that Chinese companies placed the industrial chemical
melamine in the wheat flour to increase the amount of protein.
155

Worries increased when chicken, fish and pork in the United States were also found to
contain melamine. The animals got the melamine in their feed. The chemical is used to
make plastics and fertilizers. It is not meant for human food.
There also have been incidents of bad effects from foods made and used inside China. For
example, a number of babies died because of falsely marked baby milk. Earlier this month,
China announced new measures to make food companies improve conditions.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jeri Watson. You can
read scripts and download audio from our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
156

Report Says Arctic Sea Ice Is Melting More Quickly Than

Thought
Also: experts say an extremely rare big cat is close to disappearing from the wild. And a guide to the
different ways that bones break. Transcript of radio broadcast:
28 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I'm Barbara Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember. On our program this week, we will tell about a new study of the
Arctic Ocean.
We will also tell about a big cat that animal experts say is close to
disappearing from the wild. And, we will talk about broken
bones and how to treat them.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
A new report says sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting more
quickly than expected. American scientists say the ice is melting
even faster than computer programs had estimated.
Amur leopard
The scientists work for the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Snow
and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado. Results of their study were reported on
Geophysical Research Letters, a website of the American Geophysical Union.
Scientists know that climate change has a major effect on the Arctic Ocean partly because sea
ice is disappearing. They also know that areas of open seawater are expanding. Such areas
are known to take in sunlight and increase temperatures. Scientists say this has helped to
cause the loss of the Arctic's ice cover.
VOICE TWO:
For the study, the American scientists compared eighteen computer programs with
observations made by satellites and other instruments. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change used the computer programs to prepare its two thousand seven estimates of
climate change.
157

The computer programs gave estimates of the amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean in the month
of September. September is when the Arctic has the least ice, after the warm, summer
months. The computer estimates suggested an ice loss of two and a half percent for every
ten-year period between nineteen fifty-three and two thousand six.
Newer studies of the Arctic have used information gathered by aircraft, satellites and ships.
This information showed a loss of September ice cover of almost eight percent for every tenyear period between nineteen fifty-three and last year. This means the ice is disappearing
about thirty years faster than the computer programs estimated.
VOICE ONE:
The scientists say the programs might not have recognized the full effect of increased carbon
dioxide and other gasses in Earth's atmosphere. They say their study suggests the gasses may
have more of an effect than had been thought.
The study also measured the amount of ice lost in the Arctic in March. That is when the most
Arctic sea ice is present. It showed the loss of ice in March is much less than the loss in
September. Yet the computer estimates were wrong about how much. The new report says
the March loss was almost two percent for every ten-year period between nineteen fifty-three
and two thousand six. That is three times more than the loss suggested by the computer
programs.
Study organizers say their findings confirm that the Arctic's ice cover is meltingand that
this is happening faster than had been thought. They also say the study shows that summer
sea ice in the Arctic may disappear much earlier than scientists had expected.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Animal experts say one of the world's most beautiful and rare kinds of big cat is close to
disappearing from the wild. A study earlier this year found that only about thirty Amur
leopards still live free. The cats are also called Far Eastern leopards.
Recently, their numbers decreased by one. An unidentified person shot a female Amur, then
beat her to death. The animal's body was discovered last month in the Barsovy National
Wildlife Refuge in eastern Russia.
An official of the World Wildlife Fund, Darron Collins, said this was the third such killing in
the area in the past five years. Mister Collins said the death of even one adult female is a
huge loss for the endangered cat. He noted that the killing reduces the possibility for cubs, or
young.
VOICE ONE:
158

It is not clear how many Amur leopards still live free. One population count was performed
in February and March. Wildlife expert Dmitry Pikunov supervised this study. It found
evidence of seven to nine males. The study identified three to seven females without cubs.
Four leopards were identified as females with cubs. In all, five or six cubs were recorded.
Six to eight animals could not be identified.
Researchers counted the Amur leopards by following the marks of their feet in the snow.
The study involved thirty-five workers from three organizations, including the World
Wildlife Fund. The Wildlife Conservation Society and the Pacific Institute of Geography of
the Russian Academy of Science also took part.
Counts performed seven years ago and three years ago showed higher leopard totals.
Officials say about one hundred of the animals are needed for survival.
VOICE TWO:
Most of the land where the Amur leopard once lived was in China. New roads and climate
change there threatened the animals. So did hunters who kill big cats for their body parts.
The surviving cats live in southwest Primorye. That area is near the border between Russia,
China and North Korea.
The director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Russia program organized an earlier
count of Amurs. Dale Miquelle says the leopards should be counted in more modern ways.
This would include use of radio, camera traps, and genetic testing.
Mister Pikunov says adult Amurs need about five hundred square kilometers with good
forests to survive. He said they also need a large and continuing supply of animals like deer
for food. He believes the answer to saving the Amur leopard is for governments to provide
protected spaces for wildlife.
About three hundred Amur leopards live in zoos around the world.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
Have you ever suffered a broken bone? The medical term for a broken bone is a fracture.
But there are different kinds of fractures. A single fracture is when a bone is broken in just
one place. You may have heard the term hairline fracture. This is a single fracture that is
very small, like the width of a hair. A complete fracture is when the bone comes apart.
When a bone is broken in more than two places or gets crushed, the name for it is a
comminuted fracture.
Still another kind is a bowing fracture. This happens with a bone that bends but does not
break. It happens mostly in children.
159

Have you ever heard of a greenstick fracture? This is when a bone is bent and breaks along
only one side, like a young stick of wood.
Another kind of break is an open or compound fracture. This is when the bone breaks the
skin. This is very serious. There is both bone damage and a risk of infection in the open
wound.
VOICE TWO:
A lot of things happen as the body reacts to an injury like a broken bone. You might
suddenly feel lightheaded. You might also feel sick to your stomach.
People who are seriously injured can go into shock. They might feel cold and unable to think
clearly. Shock requires immediate medical attention.
But while broken bones can be painful, they are generally not life-threatening. Treatment
depends on the kind of fracture. A doctor takes X-rays to see the break and sets a broken
bone to make sure it is in the correct position.
Severe breaks may require an operation to hold the bone together with metal plates and
screws.
VOICE ONE:
Next, a person usually gets a cast put around the area of the break. Casts are usually worn for
one to two months. The hard bandage holds the bone in place while it heals.
In some cases, instead of a cast, a splint made of plastic or metal will be placed over the area
to restrict movement.
Doctors say broken bones should be treated quickly because they can restrict blood flow or
cause nerve damage. Also, the break will start to repair itself, so you want to make sure the
bone is lined up correctly.
Bones need calcium and vitamin D to grow and reach their full strength. Keeping your bones
strong with exercise may also help prevent fractures.
Wearing safety protection like elbow pads and leg guards during activities is a good idea. If
you think these might be restrictive, try a cast.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Nancy Steinbach, Caty Weaver and Jerilyn
Watson. Brianna Blake was our producer. I'm Steve Ember.
160

VOICE ONE:
And I'm Barbara Klein. You can read and listen to this program on our Web site,
voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week at this time for more news about science in
Special English on the Voice of America.
161

Multivitamins Urged for All Pregnant Women in Developing

Countries
Scientists report a drop in low birth-weight babies in pregnant women in Tanzania who took vitamins
every day. Transcript of radio broadcast:
29 May 2007

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A recent study in Tanzania found that when pregnant women took
vitamins every day,
fewer babies were born too small.
Babies that weigh less than two and one-half kilograms at birth
have a greater risk of dying. Those that survive are more likely to
experience problems with their development. And experts say that
as adults they have a higher risk of diseases including heart disease
and diabetes.
The World Health Organization estimates that every year twenty million babies are born with
low birth weight. Nine out of ten of them are born in developing countries.
The new study took place in Dar es Salaam. Four thousand two hundred pregnant women
received multivitamins. The pills contained all of the vitamins in the B group along with
vitamins C and E. They also contained several times more iron and folate than the levels
advised for women in developed nations. Pregnant women especially in poor countries may
find it difficult to get enough vitamins and minerals from the foods in their diet.
The scientists compared the findings with results from a group of four thousand women who
did not receive the vitamins.
A report by the scientists, from the United States and Tanzania, appeared in the New England
Journal of Medicine. Wafaie Fawzi of the Harvard University School of Public Health led the
study.
None of the women in the study had H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The scientists
reported earlier that daily multivitamins were a low-cost way to reduce fetal deaths in
pregnant women infected with H.I.V.
The earlier work in Tanzania also found improvement in the mothers in their number of
blood cells known as lymphocytes. Lymphocytes increase the body's immunity against
infection.
162

The new study in pregnant women who were not infected with the AIDS virus found that
multivitamins reduced the risk of low birth weight. Just under eight percent of the babies
born to women who took the multivitamins weighed less than two thousand five hundred
grams. The rate was almost nine and one-half percent in the group of women who received a
placebo, an inactive pill, instead of the vitamins.
But the vitamins did not do much to reduce the rates of babies being born too early or dying
while still a fetus. Still, the researchers say multivitamins should be considered for all
pregnant women in developing countries.
And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. I'm Steve Ember.
163

US History: Ford Leads Nation Through Difficult Days of

Watergate
One month after Gerald Ford became president, he pardoned Richard Nixon of any crimes for which he
might have been responsible. Ford was the only vice president and president not elected to either office.
30 May 2007

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VOICE ONE:
This is Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a VOA Special English
(MUSIC)
Today, we tell about the administration of the thirtyeighth president of the United States, Gerald Ford.
VOICE ONE:
Gerald Ford was sworn-in as president on August ninth,
nineteen seventy-four. The day before, President Richard
Nixon had announced that he would resign.
If he had not resigned, he probably would have been
removed from office. A Congressional investigation had
found evidence that Nixon violated the Constitutional
rights of the American people during the Watergate case.
Gerald Ford is sworn-in by Chief Justice
Warren Burger. At center is Ford's wife,
Betty.
The new president spoke about Watergate, and what it meant to America, on the day he was
sworn-in.
FORD: "Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a
government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. ... As we bind up the internal
wounds of Watergate -- more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars -- let us
restore the 'Golden Rule' to our political process and let brotherly love purge our hearts of
suspicion and of hate."
VOICE TWO:
164

Gerald Ford became the only president in American history to serve as vice president and
president without being elected.
Richard Nixon nominated him for vice president in October, nineteen seventy-three. That
was when Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned. When Nixon himself resigned,
Ford became president.
Ford was a long-time Congressman from the state of Michigan. He was well-liked. He had
been a good student and a good athlete. He studied economics and political science at the
University of Michigan. The he studied law at Yale University. During World War Two, he
served as a Navy officer in the Pacific battle area.
VOICE ONE:
After the war, Ford entered politics. He was a member of the Republican Party. He was first
elected to Congress in nineteen forty-eight. He won re-election twelve times. Other
Republican members of the House of Representatives elected him minority leader during the
presidential administration of Democrat Lyndon Johnson.
Ford was still minority leader when Republican Richard Nixon was elected president in
nineteen sixty-eight. In his leadership position, he helped win approval of a number of
Nixon's proposals. He became known for his strong loyalty to the president. It was no
surprise, then, that Nixon named Ford vice president.
VOICE TWO:
Gerald Ford became president suddenly. Almost as suddenly, he had to decide what to do
about former President Nixon. After Nixon left office, he could have been charged with
crimes for his part in the Watergate case. Instead, one month after Nixon resigned, President
Ford settled the question. He pardoned Nixon of any crimes for which he might have been
responsible.
The pardon made many Americans angry. Some believed
Nixon should have been put on trial. They thought he
might have answered more questions about Watergate if
he had not been pardoned.
The new president did what he thought was right. He said
he pardoned Nixon to end divisions in the country. For a
while, however, his action seemed to increase the
divisions.
VOICE ONE:
Anger about the pardon was still strong when President
Ford took another highly disputed action. He pardoned the
men who illegally escaped military service in the Vietnam War. Most were not sent to prison.
Announcing his pardon of Richard
Nixon
165

Instead, they were permitted to perform work for their communities. Many of the men did not
accept the president's offer, however. They remained in hiding in the United States. Or they
remained in other countries where they had fled.
President Ford received much better public support when he asked Congress to control and
limit the activities of the nation's intelligence agencies. He hoped this would prevent future
administrations from interfering with the Constitutional rights of citizens.
VOICE TWO:
Other problems also caused trouble for President Ford. As vice president, he had described
inflation as America's 'public enemy number one'. He proposed several measures to fight it.
As president, he was forced to cancel some of these measures because there was an economic
recession.
During the recession, inflation decreased. But fewer Americans had jobs. Unemployment in
nineteen seventy-five was at its highest rate since the great economic depression of the
nineteen thirties.
VOICE ONE:
In foreign policy, Ford usually took the advice of Henry Kissinger. Kissinger served as
President Nixon's assistant for national security and as secretary of state. He kept those jobs
under President Ford.
Kissinger won much praise for his service to Richard
Nixon. Yet he received much criticism, too. He was
accused of interfering with civil liberties in the name of
national security. And he was accused of supporting the
overthrow of the leftist government of Salvador Allende
in Chile.
Still, President Ford was pleased that Kissinger would
remain in the administration. Even Kissinger's worst
critics admitted that he was excellent negotiator.
VOICE TWO:
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
At the time Ford became president, America's situation in

the world was generally hopeful. Former President Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
had signed two agreements to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. Also, relations with China
were less tense than before.
However, American policy in parts of Southeast Asia had failed completely.
VOICE ONE:
166

American involvement in the Vietnam war officially ended the year before Ford became
president. But fighting continued between South Vietnam and communist forces from North
Vietnam. The peace agreement signed by the United States and North Vietnam in nineteen
seventy-three left South Vietnam to defend itself. By nineteen seventy-five, it became clear
that South Vietnamese forces were in danger of defeat.
President Ford tried to prevent a total communist take-over of the south. He asked Congress
to approve seven hundred-million dollars in military aid for South Vietnam. The American
people, however, were tired of paying for the war. Their representatives in Congress said no.
VOICE TWO:
What happened in Vietnam was like a bad dream. Communist forces moved into Saigon,
capital of the south. Ford ordered the rescue of American citizens and of Vietnamese who
had supported American efforts. Few who saw people trying to escape Saigon will ever
forget the day.
It was April thirtieth, nineteen seventy-five. Terrified Vietnamese were screaming for help at
the American embassy. Everyone was pushing, trying to escape. Some who reached the
embassy's roof passed their children forward. At least, they hoped, they could get the children
to safety on American military helicopters. Others held on to the helicopters from the outside
as the overloaded aircraft tried to take off.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
The Ford administration also faced trouble in the Middle East. Israel and an alliance of Arab
nations had fought two wars in about ten years. After the war of nineteen seventy-three,
Henry Kissinger led negotiations to settle some issues.
Israel agreed to give up some of the territory it had seized during the fighting. In return, the
United States made a promise. It would not recognize or deal with the Palestine Liberation
Organization as long as the P-L-O failed to meet certain conditions. In September, nineteen
seventy-five, Israel and Egypt signed a ceasefire agreement. They also agreed to permit
American civilians to act as observers along the ceasefire lines.
Henry Kissinger received widespread praise for his peacemaking efforts. Yet the situation in
the Middle East remained tense.
VOICE TWO:
The Ford administration could not fix all the problems of the world. Still, as the presidential
election campaign of nineteen-seventy-six began, things seemed better. The United States
was not fighting any wars. Unemployment was high. But inflation had improved a little.
Most important, Gerald Ford had led the country through the difficult days after Watergate.
167

The election will be our story next time.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
This program of THE MAKING OF A NATION was written by Jeri Watson and produced
by Cynthia Kirk. This is Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program
--Editor's Note: Gerald Ford died December 26, 2006, at his home in Rancho Mirage,
California, at the age of 93.
168

How Foreign Citizens Become Doctors in the US

We answer a question from a doctor in Vietnam in Part 39 of our Foreign Student Series. Transcript of
radio broadcast:
30 May 2007

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We continue our Foreign Student Series this week with a question from a doctor at a hospital
in Vietnam. Tran Kinh Thanh in Ho Chi Minh City asks how a foreign doctor can become an
American doctor.
One way is to complete a medical residency in the United States. A
residency is a period of hospital training for medical school
graduates.
To be accepted, foreign-trained doctors need approval from the
Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates. The
process involves passing several tests. After that, foreign doctors
can receive a visa to stay in the United States, at least for the
training period.
Practicing medicine in the United States also involves other steps.
But the first thing that foreign-trained doctors have to do is make sure they attended a
recognized medical school. It has to be listed in the FAIMER International Medical
Education Directory. FAIMER is the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical
Education and Research.
If their school is not listed, then foreign-trained doctors cannot be approved for a residency.
One solution is to go back to medical school -- an American medical school.
One hundred twenty-five schools in the United States belong to the Association of American
Medical Colleges. The group says more than one thousand one hundred foreign citizens
applied for the current school year. One-fourth of them were admitted last fall.
Almost all medical schools in the United States require applicants to report scores from the
Medical College Admission Test.
Future doctors in the United States traditionally complete four years of medical school after
undergraduate school. Then, as residents, they treat patients under the supervision of
experienced doctors. A residency is generally between three and seven years. The first year is
called an internship.
169

The Association of American Medical Colleges publishes a book called Medical School
Admissions Requirements. The newest one is for two thousand eight-two thousand nine. The
guide has details about every school as well as information for foreign students.
The book costs twenty-five dollars and can be ordered through the association's Web site.
For a link to that site, go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find all of the earlier reports
in our Foreign Student Series on higher education in the United States.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Bob
Doughty.
170

A Brief History of the World Trade Organization

A listener in Vietnam, the newest member, asks about the WTO. Transcript of radio broadcast:
31 May 2007

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Correction Attached
A question from Vietnam. Listener Nguyen Minh Tan wants to know more about the World
Trade Organization and its history.
The World Trade Organization came into existence in
nineteen ninety-five. It operates a system of trade rules. It
serves as a place for nations to settle disputes and
negotiate agreements to reduce trade barriers. The newest
of its one hundred fifty members, Vietnam, joined in
January.
But the roots of the W.T.O. date back to World War Two
and the years that followed.
Pascal Lamy is WTO director-general
In nineteen forty-four, a meeting took place in Bretton

Woods, New Hampshire: the International Monetary Conference. There, negotiators agreed
to create the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But they could not agree on
an organization to deal with international trade.
Three years later, in nineteen forty-seven, twenty-three nations approved the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT. It was meant to be temporary. Trade negotiations
under GATT were carried out in a series of talks called rounds. The first round lowered
import taxes on one-fifth of world trade. Later rounds produced additional cuts, and
negotiators added more issues.
The sixth round began in nineteen sixty-three. It was called the Kennedy Round after the
murder of President John F. Kennedy. The results included an agreement against trade
dumping. This is when one country sells a product in another country at an unfairly low
price.
The eighth round of talks began in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in nineteen eighty-six. The
Uruguay Round lasted almost twice as long as planned. In all, one hundred twenty-three
nations took part in seven-and-a-half years of work. They set time limits for future
negotiations. They also agreed to create a permanent system to settle trade disputes.
171

In April of nineteen ninety-four, most of those one hundred twenty-three nations signed an
agreement. It replaced GATT with the World Trade Organization.
The W.T.O. launched a new round on development issues in Doha, Qatar, in November of
two thousand one. These talks were supposed to end by January of two thousand five. But
negotiators could not agree on issues involving agricultural protections. The current round
has been suspended since last July.
And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. Next week,
more about the W.T.O. I'm Bob Doughty.
--Correction: As noted in part two of this report, negotiations in the Doha round of world
trade talks restarted early this year after being suspended in July 2006.
172

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