Family Album, 28

Source: Family Album

Gaza Strip, Palestine

                            Source: www.speakup.com.br

Palestine Links

Around a million Palestinians live the Occupied Territories – the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem – which Israel conquered in 1967. Over a million more live as second-class citizens in Israel, left behind from the expulsion of at least 70,000 Palestinians in 1948. For those in the Occupied Territories, life is a nightmare reminiscent of the worst excesses of colonialism.

Middle- to upper-class Brazilians have become accustomed to living behind fences and walls. But imagine if these walls and guards were not keeping criminals out but keeping you in. That is the daily reality for the Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. In recent years, Israel also been building a Separation Barrier as illegal by the International Court of Justice, this wall snakes around Palestinian population centres, leaving valuable agricultural land – and Jewish colonial settlements constructed since 1967 –on the new ‘Israeli’ side.

The Separation Barrier is an example of the differing interpretations of the conflict. For many Israeli citizens, and many of Israel’s supporters, the Barrier means security.

I have visited Palestine/Israel several times over the last four years, spending a total of around 10 months, seeing at fist hand what normal life is like for the Palestinians. ‘Normal’ includes besieged cities and villages, Jewish-only roads, mass land confiscation, more than 600 military checkpoints, roadblocks and other obstacles, a ‘permit’ system controlling all Palestinian movement, detention without trial, assassination, and daily military raids.

THE BRAZILIAN CONNECTIONS

Although seemingly worlds apart, Brazil and Palestine are connected. Ever since the creation of a Zionist state in 1948, Palestine-in-exile have established themselves around the world, including in South America. Brazil is estimated to be home to around 80.000 Palestinians, a community represented by the newly-renamed Federation of Brazilian Arab Palestinian Organizations (FEPAL). In January the group held their national congress in Porto Alegre, a city chosen because almost one third of Brazilian Palestinians hail from Rio Grande do Sul.

In 1975 Brazil recognised the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), whose current ambassador is Mayad Bamie. Moreover, many Brazilians are campaigning for justice for Palestine. Recently, the youth congress of Brazil’s largest trade union, CUT, decided to support the international Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement, aimed to pressure Israel to comply with international law. The congress also called on the Brazilian government to cut trade relations with Israel.

Another high-profile case is that of the Rio Cartoonist Carlos Latuff, whose ‘We are all Palestinians’ graphic series, whit its comparison of the Palestinian plight to the experiences of the Chiapas Indians in Mexico, black South African under apartheid, and the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, among others, got worldwide coverage.

Bs: If you support for friend and peace in Gaza Strip, please twit it for friends.

Winchester

Source: Speak Up

Language level: Basic

Standard: American accent

Winchester

Winchester, a beautiful city in the south of England, will host Mayfest 2007 from May 11^th to 20^th. This is a folk festival with dancing, music and street entertainment. Saturday 19^th is a day for the family. You can take part in workshops about Ceildh, a Scottish form of dancing, and learn to write songs, sing and dance. On Saturday there will be a service at the United Church, followed by a Blue session at a pub along the banks of the River Itchen.

SONGS AND FILMS

Winchester’s most famous attraction is the Cathedral. In 1996 the New Vaudeville Band even recorded a hit song, “Winchester Cathedral,” which was later sung by Frank Sinatra and Petula Clark. You can visit the Cathedral’s beautiful gardens, climb the tower for spectacular views, or explore the crypt. Some of the scenes in Ron Howard’s film The Da Vince Code, were shot here, so you can see the Cathedral’s exhibition “Cracking the Code,” were shot here, a tour of images and icons similar to those mentioned in the book.

WRITERS AND PLACES

Next visit the 12^th century Great Hall, the last remnant of Winchester Castle, and see its legendary Arthurian Round Table. After that you can follow Keats Walk along the River Itchen past the buildings that inspired his poem “Ode to Autumn:” these include Winchester College, Wolvesey Palace and St Cross Hospital. Another famous writer, Jane Austen, lived at Chawton House, where she wrote the novel Pride and Prejudice. Today it is a museum. You can visit her grave at Winchester Cathedral. 

winchester Mayfest:

For more info visit: http://www.winmayfest.co.uk

E-mail: info@winmayfest.co.uk

Tickets available from:

Box Office, The Theatre

Royal Winchester

Tel: 0044(0)1962 84040

Winchester Cathedral

Visit: http://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk

Tel: 0044(0) 1962 857225

Jane Aunten's House

Chawton, Alton, Hampshire

GU341SD, England

Tel: 0044 (0) 1420 83262

American History: Nation Grows More Conservative in '20s

Source: www.voanews.com 

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

Americans experimented with many new customs and social traditions during the nineteen twenties. There were new dances, new kinds of clothes and some of the most imaginative art and writing ever produced in the United States.

But in most ways, the nineteen twenties were a conservative time in American life. Voters elected three conservative Republican presidents: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. And they supported many conservative social and political policies.

This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe continue the story of American conservatism during the nineteen twenties.

KAY GALLANT: One such policy concerned immigration. Most Americans in the nineteen twenties had at least some ties through blood or marriage to the first Americans who came from Britain. Many people with these kinds of historic ties considered themselves to be real Americans, true Americans.

Americans traditionally had welcomed newcomers from such western European countries as Britain, France, or Germany. But most of the people arriving in New York City and other harbors in the nineteen twenties were from the central, eastern and southern areas of Europe.

Some Americans became afraid of these millions of people arriving at their shores. They worried that the immigrant newcomers might steal their jobs. Or they feared the political beliefs of the immigrants.

Calvin Coolidge

HARRY MONROE: Pressure to control immigration increased following the world war. Congress passed a bill that set a limit on how many people would be allowed to enter from each foreign country. And, the Congress and President Calvin Coolidge agreed to an even stronger immigration law in nineteen twenty-four.

Under the new law, limits on the number of immigrants from each foreign country depended on the number of Americans who had families in that country. For example, the law allowed many immigrants to enter from Britain or France, because many American citizens had families in those countries. But fewer people could come from Italy or Russia, because fewer Americans had family members in those countries.

The laws were very difficult to enforce. But they did succeed in limiting the number of immigrants from certain countries.

KAY GALLANT: A second sign of the conservative feelings in the nineteen twenties was the nation's effort to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks, or liquor. This policy was known as Prohibition, because it prohibited -- or banned -- alcoholic drinks.

Many of the strongest supporters of Prohibition were conservative Americans living in rural areas. Many of them believed that liquor was evil, the product of the devil.

A number of towns and states passed laws banning alcohol sales during the first years of the twentieth century. And in nineteen nineteen, the nation passed the eighteenth amendment to the federal constitution. This amendment, and the Volstead Act, made it unlawful to make, sell or transport liquor.

HARRY MONROE: Prohibition laws failed terribly from the start. There was only a small force of police to enforce the new laws. And millions of Americans still wanted to drink liquor. It was not possible for the police to watch every American who wanted to buy a drink secretly or make liquor in his own home.

Not surprisingly, thousands of Americans soon saw a chance to make profits from the new laws. They began to import liquor illegally to sell for high prices.

Criminals began to bring liquor across the long, unprotected border with Canada or on fast boats from the Caribbean islands. At the same time, private manufacturers in both cities and rural areas began to produce liquor. And shop owners in cities across the country sold liquor with little interference from local police.

By the middle of the nineteen twenties, it was clear to most Americans that Prohibition laws were a failure. But the laws were not changed until the election of President Franklin Roosevelt in nineteen thirty-two.

KAY GALLANT: A third sign of conservatism in the nineteen twenties was the effort by some Americans to ban schoolbooks on modern science. Most of the Americans who supported these efforts were conservative rural Americans who believed in the traditional ideas of the Protestant Christian church. Many of them were fearful of the many changes that had taken place in American society.

Science became an enemy to many of these traditional, religious Americans. Science seemed to challenge the most basic ideas taught in the Bible. The conflict burst into a major public debate in nineteen twenty-five in a trial over Charles Darwin's idea of evolution.

HARRY MONROE: British scientist Charles Darwin published his books "The Origin of the Species" and "The Descent of Man" in the nineteenth century. The books explained Darwin's idea that humans developed over millions of years from apes and other animals.

Most Europeans and educated people accepted Darwin's theory by the end of the nineteenth century. But the book had little effect in rural parts of the United States until the nineteen twenties.

William Jennings Bryan led the attack on Darwin's ideas. Bryan was a rural Democrat who ran twice for president. He lost both times. But Bryan remained popular among many traditional Americans.

Bryan told his followers that the theory of evolution was evil, because it challenged the traditional idea that God created the world in six days. He accused scientists of violating God's words in the Bible.

Bryan and his supporters called on local school officials to ban the teaching of evolution. Some state legislatures in the more conservative southeastern part of the country passed laws making it a crime to teach evolution theory.

KAY GALLANT: In nineteen twenty-five, a young science teacher in the southern state of Tennessee challenged the state's new teaching law. The teacher -- John Scopes -- taught Darwin's evolution ideas. Officials arrested scopes and put him on trial.

Some of the nation's greatest lawyers rushed to Tennessee to defend the young teacher. They believed the state had violated his right to free speech. And they thought Tennessee's law againt teaching evolution was foolish in a modern, scientific society. America's most famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow, became the leader of Scopes' defense team.

Bryan and other religious conservatives also rushed to the trial. They supported the right of the state of Tennessee to ban the teaching of evolution.

The trial was held in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. Hundreds of people came to watch: religious conservatives, free speech supporters, newsmen and others.

The high point of the trial came when Bryan himself sat before the court. Lawyer Clarence Darrow asked Bryan question after question about the bible and about science. How did Bryan know the Bible is true. Did God really create the earth in a single day. Is a day in the Bible twenty-four hours. Or can it mean a million years.

HARRY MONROE: Bryan answered the questions. But he showed a great lack of knowledge about modern science.

The judge found Scopes guilty of breaking the law. But in the battle of ideas, science defeated conservatism. And a higher court later ruled that Scopes was not guilty.

The Scopes evolution trial captured the imagination of Americans. The issue was not really whether one young teacher was innocent or guilty of breaking a law. The real question was the struggle for America's spirit between the forces of modern ideas and those of traditional rural conservatism. The trial represented this larger conflict.

KAY GALLANT: American society was changing in many important ways during the early part of the twentieth century. It was not yet the world superpower that it would become after World War Two. But neither was it a traditional rural society of conservative farmers and clergy. The nineteen twenties were a period of growth, of change and of struggle between the old and new values.

(MUSIC)

BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe.

You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

__

This is program #171

Robert Storr

Source: Speak Up

Language level: Advanced

Standard: American accent

THE ARTS

An American in Venice

The Venice Biennial is a major contemporary art exhibition which, apart from an interruption in the Second World War, has been staged every two years since 1895. This is the 52^nd edition and it is directed by an American for the first time. The man in question is the art critic Robert Storr, who talked earlier in the year to Speak Up about his plans for the event, which will run until November:

Robert Storr:

Standard: American Accent

I think Biennales are about art, they’re not about news. Some art is news and some is not. Art is an experience that happens fast or slow, according to what the artist intends and according to what the artist makes and it also is according to how the viewer wishes to engage with the art.

In the Biennale there will be art from literally all over the world, there will be art of all media. There’ll be drawings, there’ll be cartoons, there’ll be films, there’ll be videos, there’ll be sculptures, there’ll be paintings, there’ll be art of all about generations. The oldest artist s 95 years old and the youngest artist is in his 20s. There are no dead old masters, there are only artists who are of the present.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Storr was then asked whether being an American posed any particular difficulties when it came to working with the locals:

Robert Storr:

Making these exhibitions is difficult no matter who you are. I don’t know whether being are American makes it more difficult of less, perhaps it’s more difficult for Italians to deal with an American, who knows! But in any case, the point is it’s a great honor to do it, it’s an extremely complicated process altogether, but we’re going to get there and it’s going to be, I think a very good show and it will be a collaborative effort. I would say that I have very much relied on the expertise of the permanent staff of Biennale, the people who work there all the time, and particularly the staff who’s involved in the exhibition production and the press relations and so on, they’re very, very good and they’ve made it possible.

THE MEANING OF ART

In conclusion Storr was asked to explain this edition’s slogan, “Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense.”

Robert Storr:

There is a tradition that is as old as Plato and as recent as Marcel Duchamp, to suggest that there is a categorical or decisive separation between what the senses tell us about the world and what exists as an idea. Plato believed, of course, that the senses misrepresented a more perfect reality of the mind. Marcel Duchamp believed that art was an idea before it was an object or a thing and one should concentrate on the idea and not spend too much time on the visual experience.

These kinds of divisions, I think, are fundamentally flawed, fundamentalist wrong, that all visual art is also addressed to the mind and all conceptual art is also addressed to at least one of the senses: it could be the sense of touch, it could be the sense of  sound, it could be the sense of vision, it’s usually more than one and very often four or five.

Exhibition Details (no audio)

THE 52^nd edition of the Venice Biennale’s International Art Exhibition will run until November 21^st. Other related Biennale events include the 5^th International Festival of Contemporary Dance, the 39^th, International Theatre Festival, the 64^th International Film Festival and the 51^st International Festival of Contemporary Music. For further information, visit: www.labiennale.org

The last laugh

Source: Speak UP

Language level: Advanced

Standard: American accent

Bs: This joke is not updated ‘cause Bush was the President of USA yet.

The last Laugh

Mr. President...

A plane is about to crash. There are five passengers on board, but there are only four parachutes. So the passengers have to make a very quick decision: which one of them will make the ultimate sacrifice?

The first passenger says:

“I am Ronaldo, the best soccer player in the world. The sporting world needs me, and I cannot die on my fans.” He grabs the first parachute and jumps out of the plane.

The second passenger, Hillary Clinton, says:

“I am the wife of the former president of the United States; I am a senator for the state of New York and I have a good chance of being the next president of the United States.”

She grabs a parachute and jumps off the plane.

The third passenger, George W. Bush, says:

“I am the current president of the United States of America, I have huge responsibilities in the world. Besides, I am the smartest president in the history of my country and I can’t shun the responsibility to my people by dying.”

He grabs a pack and jumps off the plane.

The fourth passenger, the Pop, says to the fifth passer, a young boy:

“I am old. I have lived my live as a good person, as priest should, and so I shall leave the last parachute to you; you have the rest of your life ahead of you.

To this the little boy replies:

“Don’t worry, old man, there is a parachute of each of us! The smartest president in American history took my schoolbag.”

Amazonia, the most precious place on the planet

Source: www.maganews.com.br

Amazonia, the most precious place on the planet

Amazonia is home to the world’s largest tropical forest and has an incredible diversity of animal, plant and tree species. Learn more about this region, which has been devastated by man in recent decades, and which is fundamental to our planet’s climate

       Amazonia is one of the largest and most important regions in the world. It stretches into nine countries:  Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Suriname, Guiana and French Guiana. About 60% of the total area of Amazonia is in Brazil, covering about 5.5 million square meters. Brazilian Amazonia stretches to the States of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Rondônia, Roraima, Pará, Maranhão, Mato Grosso and Tocantins. At least 55% of the indigenous population of Brazil lives in the Amazonian region.

     In terms of volume of water, the Amazon is the world’s largest river. The region also has other great rivers, such as the Negro. Twenty percent of all the fresh water on the planet passes through the rivers in Amazonia. The region is also home to the largest tropical forest in the world. In the rivers and undergrowth of the region live millions of fish, birds and mammals. The plant wealth of the Amazonia is awesome. There are 200 different types of tree per hectare. The region also has the biggest mineral reserves on earth.

* Source – Amazonia Surveillance System (Sivam)

Você pode ler a matéria completa sobre a Amazônia na edição de número 35 da Revista Maganews

Vocabulary

1 forest – floresta

2 tree - árvore

3 to stretch into – se estender por

4 mammal – mamífero