Pronouce of Regular Verbs ED

"The Woodstock of the Mind”

Peter and Norman Florence organized the first Hay Festival in 1988; after many years touring the world with their theatre company, they decided to organize a festival in their home town.

The focus of the festival is on literature and participation: most of the events are 40 minutes conversations between two or three writers, musicians two or film makers – followed by question sessions with the audience. There are also concerts and film premieres. Most of events take place on the festival site, just outside the town, though films are shown at Hay Castle. Prices are very low, only five pounds (E$ 7,33), to encourage people to attend many different shows.

How do you get to Hay-on-Wye? The nearest train station is in Hereford; there are regular bus services form Hereford to Hay.

Festival Reservations

Hay Festival,

They Drill Hall, 25 Lion Street,

Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5AD

Tell: +44 (0) 1497 822 620

Website: www.hayfestival.com

Words and Their Stories: Baloney

Source: www.voanews.com

 Or download MP3 (Right-click or option-click and save link) 

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

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Baloney is a kind of sausage that many Americans eat often.  The word also has another meaning in English.  It is used to describe something – usually something someone says – that is false or wrong or foolish.

Baloney sausage comes from the name of the Italian city, Bologna.  The city is famous for its sausage, a mixture of smoked, spiced meat from cows and pigs.  But, boloney sausage does not taste the same as beef or pork alone.

Some language experts think this different taste is responsible for the birth of the expression baloney.  Baloney is an idea or statement that is nothing like the truth…in the same way that baloney sausage tastes nothing like the meat that is used to make it.

Baloney is a word often used by politicians to describe the ideas of their opponents.

The expression has been used for years.  Fifty years ago, a former governor of New York state, Alfred Smith, criticized some claims by President Franklin Roosevelt about the successes of the Roosevelt administration.  Smith said, “No matter how thin you slice it, it is still baloney.”

A similar word has almost the same meaning as baloney.  It even sounds almost the same.  The word is blarney.  It began in Ireland about sixteen hundred.

The lord of Blarney castle, near Cork, agreed to surrender the castle to British troops.  But he kept making excuses for postponing the surrender.  And, he made them sound like very good excuses, “this is just more of the same blarney.”

The Irish castle now is famous for its Blarney stone.  Kissing the stone is thought to give a person special powers of speech.  One who has kissed the Blarney stone, so the story goes, can speak words of praise so smoothly and sweetly that you believe them, even when you know they are false.

A former Roman Catholic bishop of New York City, Fulton Sheen, once explained, “Baloney is praise so thick it cannot be true. And blarney is praise so thin we like it.”

Another expression is pulling the wool over someone’s eyes. It means to make someone believe something that is not true.  The expression goes back to the days when men wore false hair, or wigs, similar to those worn by judges today in British courts.

The word wool was a popular joking word for hair.  If you pulled a man’s wig over his eyes, he could not see what was happening.  Today, when you pull the wool over someone’s eyes, he cannot see the truth.

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This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Marilyn Christiano. I’m Warren Scheer

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Podenglish, lesson 48, check in

Lady Bird Johnson, 1912-2007: First Lady Worked to Make America Beautiful

Source: http://www.voanews.com

Photo: lbjlib.org

Lynda Bird Johnson, Luci Baines Johnson, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson

 

Or download MP3 (Right-click or option-click and save link) 

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: I’m Shirley Griffith.

STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Lady Bird Johnson. She is best known for being the wife of President Lyndon Baines Johnson who led the nation during the nineteen sixties. But Mrs. Johnson was also an influential environmental activist, tireless campaigner and successful businesswoman.

She showed great strength and heroism during a tense period in American history. Her work to make America beautiful can still be seen today in flowering fields, roads, and parks across the country.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Lady Bird Johnson was born Claudia Alta Taylor in nineteen twelve. The Taylor family lived in the small town of Karnack, Texas. Claudia’s father, Thomas Jefferson Taylor, owned two stores as well as thousands of hectares for cotton production. Her mother, Minnie Taylor, died when Claudia was only five years old. A woman who worked for the Taylor family gave Claudia her nickname. Alice Tittle said the small child was “as purty as a lady bird.”

STEVE EMBER: Claudia had two older brothers who went away to school. She spent many hours by herself exploring the natural beauty of the fields and forests near her home. She said she grew up listening to the wind in the pine trees of the East Texas woods. She said her heart found its home in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth.

Claudia attended public schools and worked hard at her studies. But she was very shy and did not like attention. When she graduated from high school, she had the third highest grades in the class. She reportedly made sure she finished third to avoid giving the graduation speech required by the top two students in the class.

lbjlib.org

Claudia "Lady Bird" Taylor in the early 1930s

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: In nineteen thirty-four Lady Bird graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with degrees in history and journalism. She planned to teach or work as a theater critic. But then she met an energetic congressional assistant named Lyndon Baines Johnson. The young politician from Texas asked her to marry him on their first date. After weeks of pressure from Mr. Johnson, Lady Bird accepted his marriage proposal. Here is Mrs. Johnson talking about her first meeting with her future husband:

LADY BIRD JOHNSON: “We had a breakfast date, but we wound up by spending the whole day together, riding and talking. Well, he really let me know before the day was over that he wanted to marry me. And I thought this impossible. But on the other hand, there was one thing I knew I just couldn’t bear to have happen and that was to say goodbye, goodbye period.”

STEVE EMBER: Lyndon Johnson was busy planning his political career. Within three years, he ran for a seat in the United States Congress and won. Lady Bird Johnson had given him ten thousand dollars to get his campaign started.

When Japanese planes attacked American ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in nineteen forty-one, Mr. Johnson joined the navy to fight in World War Two. Mrs. Johnson stayed in Washington, D.C. and supervised his congressional office during the eight months he was away.  Her excellent organizational skills and smart political sense made her perfect for the job.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: After Mr. Johnson returned, Lady Bird Johnson soon found a new project. She used about seventeen thousand dollars of family money to buy a small radio station in Austin, Texas. The radio station was in debt and had a small broadcast range. Mrs. Johnson used her husband’s connections with the Federal Communications Commission to increase the radio station’s power and range.

lbjlib.org

Her work to make America beautiful can still be seen today.

Soon, the station started making money and the company expanded into television as well. Mrs. Johnson was president of the family company, LBJ Company. She traveled from Washington to Austin every week to take care of business.

During this time the Johnson family started to grow. Lady Bird had a daughter, Lynda Bird, in nineteen forty-four. A second daughter, Luci Baines, was born three years later. Lyndon Johnson’s power in politics also continued to grow. In nineteen forty-eight he was elected to the United States Senate.

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STEVE EMBER: In nineteen sixty, John F. Kennedy ran for president of the United States with Lyndon Johnson as vice president. Mrs. Kennedy was unable to travel and campaign for the candidates because of her pregnancy.  Mrs. Johnson bravely accepted the job. She visited eleven states to help express the goals of the candidates. They won the election.

Mrs. Johnson was also at her husband’s side when he visited Texas with President and Mrs. Kennedy on November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three.

After the tragic shooting of President Kennedy in Dallas, security officials led the Johnsons to the presidential plane to fly back to Washington. During the flight, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Kennedy watched as Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: In the weeks after this national tragedy Lyndon Johnson worked hard to show Americans that he could be a strong president. With his strong support, he got Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four. This law banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin” in public places and federal programs. But the law was not popular with many white voters in the southern part of the country.

Once again, Lady Bird Johnson came to the rescue. As part of Lyndon Johnson’s nineteen sixty-four campaign for president she became a spokesman for the law. Lady Bird Johnson visited important southern states although Democratic governors feared for her safety.  She traveled through poor areas talking to angry crowds who were against her husband’s civil rights policies. Lady Bird Johnson knew how to give a powerful and expressive speech.

She won over the loud crowds with her gentle manner and calming southern accent. She told them that it was time to end the South’s racist past and move into the modern world. The media later wrote that she stood as a fearless moral representative of her husband. And, her work paid off. Lyndon Johnson won the election.

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lbjlib.org

She said her heart found its home in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth.

STEVE EMBER: The historian Lewis Gould has said Mrs. Johnson and her press secretary Liz Carpenter were the first to establish the job of the modern first lady.  Mrs. Johnson realized that the wife of the president needed to have her own team of workers. She made sure she had a director of employees as well as a social director. Lady Bird Johnson’s business experience and sense of organization helped create a very effective system for future first ladies and their causes.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: As first lady, Mrs. Johnson became an energetic activist for educational and environmental issues. She helped support Head Start, a public program aimed at giving educational and health services to young children from poor families.

She started the Society for a More Beautiful National Capitol. Its aim was to improve the beauty of Washington by planting trees and flowers in public areas and parks. Mrs. Johnson understood that these improvements were also linked to important issues such as pollution, public transportation, mental health, and crime rates.

STEVE EMBER: But she is most well known for helping to create The Beautification Act of nineteen sixty-five. It aimed to protect America’s natural beauty by limiting advertising signs and cleaning up waste areas on the country’s roads and highways. The law also supported the planting of local flowers and trees. Here is Mrs. Johnson talking about her environmental efforts:

LADY BIRD JOHNSON: “Clean water, clean up the rivers, wilderness areas, more national parks, all of that was a part of our aim and thrust and what we tried to do. I’ve had a life long love affair with nature, a particular accent on wildflowers, native plants for the whole broad face of America. I hope everybody could enjoy their little piece of America as much as I have enjoyed mine.”

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson had a difficult four-year term. The president faced strong opposition about the United States involvement in the war in Vietnam.  In nineteen sixty-eight, President Johnson surprised the nation by announcing that he would not seek reelection as president. The Johnsons left politics and returned home to Texas. Mr. Johnson died of a heart attack in nineteen seventy-three.

STEVE EMBER: Lady Bird Johnson continued her tireless work to improve the country’s natural environment. She created the National Wildflower Research Center in nineteen eighty-two. The center helps to educate people about the environmental importance and value of native plants. Mrs. Johnson died in two thousand seven at the age of ninety-four. Her memory lives in the many fields of wildflowers that color the roads of America.

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SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I’m Shirley Griffith.

STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember. You can download scripts and audio of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com.  Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English
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GIVE DONATIONS, PLEASE

This is for Zachariah, an intelligent and resourceful Deaf student from Kenya, who deserves a helping hand in attending the English Lanuage Institute of Gallaudet University. He has been accepted but his tuition of $27,000, which will be paid directly from us to the English Lanuage Institute must be raised, and he needs money for expenses, such as air fare from Nairobi to Washington D.C.

Source: http://zachs-fundraiser.blogspot.com/      

Hay-on-Wye

Book Fever

Language Level Basic

Standard: American Accent

Source: www.speakup.com.br Ed 252

Why do 80.000 come to Hay-on-Wye, a small town on the England-Wales border with only 1.900 inhabitants, every spring? Certainly, Hay is a pretty town, surrounded by beautiful countryside. It is also famous  for its second-hand bookshops there are 39 of them.

Yet the reason all these people have come here is the Hay Festival, an annual celebration of literature and the arts. This year’s festival runs from May 22^nd to June 1^st.

BIG NAMES

The Hay Festival, sponsored by The Guardian newspaper, invites writers and, celebrities from around the world. Former US president Bill Clinton who came here in 2005, called it “The Woodstock of the mind.” This year’s participants include John Irving, Alan Bennet, Judith Kerr and former US president Jimmy Carter.

THE KING OF HAY

Hay-on-Wye first became famous back in 1977, when an eccentric local character, Richard Booth, declared the town an “independent kingdom” as an elaborated publicity stunt. Booth, who had bought the town’s castle and started its second-hand bookshop industry, appointed himself king with the right appointed Dukes and other nobles.

The British government is currently under investigation for selling peerages: Booth has sold them for years without a single problem! He owns one of the largest second-hand bookshops in the world, and has encouraged many of his assistants to open their own specialist bookshops in the town.