Rio flood death toll hits 800

Source: www.maganews.com.br

Rio flood death toll hits 800

Death toll in the floods in Rio de Janeiro state hits 800. More than 21,000 people have been left homeless. The most affected areas include Teresopolis, Nova Friburgo and Petropolis

State governor Sergio Cabral has declared seven days of mourning for the victims of the disaster.   Local media reported rescuers had to reach worst-hit areas on foot because vehicles cannot cross blocked roads. Mountainous areas north of Rio de Janeiro have been hit by the heaviest downpours in 44 years. The rain caused rivers of mud to rush down the mountains and tear through towns, levelling houses and throwing cars over buildings.

Natural disasters:  prevention is the best weapon

Nature alone is not to blame for the large numbers of victims in Rio de Janeiro state.  Brazil has not yet learned how to deal with natural disasters. The best weapon in this case is prevention. Many deaths could have been avoided if the families had not built their houses close to rivers or streams. Local city halls could also contribute by banning house building in areas at risk, such as above or below hillsides that could slide.  

Picture (Nova Friburgo) - Valter Campanato/ABr

Osama in Heaven, the last laugh

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Standard: American accent

Language level: Advanced

Osama in Heaven

After dying a violent death in an Afghan cave, Osama Bin Laden made his way to heaven, where he was met by George Washington: "How dare you attack the nation I helped conceive! "shouted Washington, slapping Osama in the face.

Patrick Henry came up from behind: "You wanted to end America's liberty, so they gave you death!" Henry punched Osama in the nose. 

James Madison came next and said: "This is why I allowed the government to provide for the common defense!" He took a sledgehammer and hit Osama's knees.

Osama was subjected to similar humiliation by John Randolph, James Monroe, and 35 other people who had the same love for liberty and America. As he rolled around on the ground in agony, Thomas Jefferson threw him back toward the gate where he was to be judged. 

As Osama awaited his journey to his final, very hot destination, he screamed: "This is not what I was promised!"

An Angel replied: "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you. What did you think I said?" 


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Family Album 35

Source: Family Album USA

Access the Power within you

You were born to be happy, you were born to be a winner, access the power within you and continue struggling...Never give up, positive thoughts...Forever. Have a wonderful night...Have a nice day, no matter wherever you are, just believe yourself.

São Paulo

For more info please visit the website www.maganews.com.br very interesting Magazine, excellent for English teachers and students, affordable price. Para mais informações visite o site, revista excelente para professores e alunos preço acessível 

São Paulo

A beloved [1] city, despite its problems

There is no shortage [2] of problems in São Paulocity, but even so two recent surveys have revealed that it is growing in Brazilian’s affections

   

    Flooding [3], chaotic traffic, a lack of security, and a deficient public health service. These and other problems are routine for people living in the capital of São Paulo State.  However, despite these problems, residents of São Paulo are happier with the city today than they were nine years ago. At least, that is what a survey carried out in January 2010 by the Datafolha Institute says.  The same institute had carried out a survey in 2001 which said that over half the paulistanos wanted to leave the city.  As the years have gone by, many of them have changed their minds [4]. Datafolha’s latest survey says that most residents of São Paulo are not thinking of leaving the city. The Institute asked residents what score [5] they would give São Paulo. Over half of interviewees – 51% - gave scores of eight or more out of ten. Despite its problems, São Paulo has much to offer, such as great job and business opportunities, and an excellent range [6] of leisure [7] and service options. The Datafolha survey was published by the newspaper  Folha de SP on January 24^th, on the eve [8] of the city’s anniversary. 

“The best city in Brazil”

In 2009 the magazine Viagem e Turismo (published by Abril) carried out a survey among its readers to find “the best city in Brazil.”  São Paulo came first, thanks to the wealth of options in restaurants, shopping, nightlife and the quality of hotels. The State capital is visited by about 11 million tourists a year. Of this total, 50% go on business, 39% on leisure, and the rest for healthcare, to study, and visit family.

Matéria publicada na edição de número 53 da revista Maganews.

Áudio – David Hatton

Foto (Catedral da Sé) – Jefferson Pancieri (SPTur)

Vocabulary

1 beloved – amada / querida

2 shortage - escassez

3 flooding (or flood) – enchente

4 change (one’s) mind – mudar de idéia

5 score – aqui = nota / conceito

6 range – variedade / abrangência

7 leisure - lazer

8 eve – véspera

The Wild West

Source: Speak Up

Language: Advanced

Standard: American

Speaker: Chuck Rollando

THE WILD WEST

The Cowboy Poets

The American West covers more than half of the USA and its history forms a big part of American folklore. The country gradually expanded westwards in the nineteenth century and many of the heroes from those wild frontier days were cowboys. Today the 13 western states remain the home of ranching, riding and rodeos.

Real life for generations of cowboys has meant horses, cattle, open country and hard, sometimes dangerous work. But the romance of life in the saddle has been kept alive through music, storytelling – and poetry. Indeed it has been said that the rhythm of poetry reflects that of ridding.

Pat Beard comes from a well-known rodeo and ranching family in the State of Washington. A former national rodeo finalist, he has 35 years’ experience as a cowboy and horseman. He first learned cowboy and poetry from his grandfather, who emigrated from Holland to the American Northwest back in 1902:

Pat Beard

(Standard American accent):

He had saved some money working and bought a horse when he was 14, ran away from home and went to Nevada. And on these ranches that he was working there he had learned these poems. And so, as a small boy he would tell them to me and so I’ve just kept them. And that’s…while I say I’m not into poetry, these are things that, originally, I assume, they were told over campfires and things to pass the time away. And when you’ve got nothing but hours ridding alone, if you’re a little crafty, you rhyme something, and put it together, and a little bit about the romance of the west, whether it was romance or not.

REINCARNATION!

As well as training horses, Pat Beard works as an adviser at Hamley’s outfitters in the nearby town of Pendleton. This historic cowboy store has been selling saddles, boots, hats and clothing for more than 100 years. The current owner, Parley Pearce, took over the business in 2005. He too is form a local ranching family and, as a young cowboy, used to visit Hamley’s with his father. Pearce enjoys cowboy poems which he believes help to preserve western life. There is a lot of humor in cowboy poetry too, says Pearce. To give an example he reads a favorite modern cowboy poem called Reincarnation:

Parley Pearce

(Standard American accent)

What does reincarnation mean?

A cowpoke asked his friend.

His pal replied: it happens when

Your life has reached its end.

They comb your hair, and

Scrub your neck,

And clean your fingernails,

And lay you in a padded box

Anyway from life’s travails.

The box and you goes in a hole,

That’s dug down in the ground

And reincarnation starts in when

You’re planted ‘neath that mound

These clods break down, just like

The box,

And you who is inside.

And then you’re just beginning

On that transformation ride.

And then with time, some grass

Will grow

Upon your rendered mound

Till one day on your moldered grave

A lonely flower is found.

Then say some horse should wander by

And graze upon that flower

That once was you, but’s now become

Your vegetative bower.

This posy that the horse done ate

Up, with his other feed,

Makes bone and fat and muscle,

Essential to the steed.

But some is left that he can’t use

So it passes through,

And finally lays upon the ground

This thing that once was you.

Then say perchance I wanders by

And sees this on the ground,

And I ponders and I wonders

About this object that I’ve found

I think of reincarnation

Of life and death, and such,

And I come away concluding, slim, you ain’t changed all that much!

Cowboy Info

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering takes place in Elko Nevada, in late January every year. For further information, visit: http://www.westernfolklife.org 

you can read the original poem "Reincarnation" and many other award-winning cowboy poems by Wallace McRae in Cawboy Curmudgeon (Gibbs Smith, 1992 ) ISBN: 0879054638 US$ 12.

For more details on the historic Hamley's store and range of cowboy accessories, visit http://www.hamley.com 

Deep Purple

DEEP PURPLE

Language level: Advanced

Source: Speak Up

Standard: American accent

We Hate MTV!

The British group Deep Purple are a rock legend. First formed in the 1960s, they were one of the most successful bands of the 1970s, when their song “Smoke on the Water” became an anthem. And, like the Rolling Stones, they have enjoyed impressive artistic longevity, even if they have undergone numerous line-up changes over the years. Recently Deep Purple released a new album with Edel, Rapture in the Deep. Lead singer Ian Gillan and bass guitarist Roger Glover, who both joined the group in 1969, have met with Speak Up. They began by talking about one of the new Album’s tracks, “MTV”, which is in fact attacks on the awfulness of classic rock radio in the United States. Roger Glover is the first to speak:

Roger Glover

(Standard: British accent)

It’s changed, you know. When we first went to America, I was amazed at how wonderful it was, the radio was totally free, DJs could play anything they wanted, usually album tracks, or entire albums, it sounded good in the cars, every time you got in a car and you turned on the radio, you got this enormous war, big sound, you could hear the bass. It was free radio, and over the years, it’s changed, it’s become dependent on advertising, the bottom line is the dollar, they get people coming in, tell them what to play and they do these polls, and it’s kind of, it’s changed drastically, and it’s now become so marginalized, you get a radio station playing one particular kind of music and nothing else. And we come from an era where music is everything, there’s all kinds of music around there, we grew up listening to classical music, gospel, blues, jazz, pop, anything, Sinatra, it was all one big thing about music. Now it’s become so thin, that little margin that they work under, and there are some people that listen to just one station, they don’t listen to anything else and it seems a shame to me that on a hard rock station you can’t hear Stevie Wonder.

WEIGHT PROBLEM

Ian Gillan feels that this approach affects the average age of Deep Purple’s audiences when they go on tour:

Ian Gillan

(Standard: British accent):

We play to millions of people around the world every year, in every part of the world, and the average age of our audience in South America, Brazil, Chile, in Central America, Mexico, in Canada, in Australia, in Asia, in most…all over Europe, the average age, right on this next tour, is going to be about 18 years old: in the United States, the average age will be…fat!

UNDERGROUND

And yet research has shown that younger fans, even in the United States, prefer bands like Deep Purple to more contemporary acts:

What’s happening in America is the same as what’s happening as far as Deep Purple is concerned, and quite a few other artists – we started off as an underground band, that’s the only way we could see ourselves because we weren’t played on the radio anywhere, and it was before any musicians of our ilk were played on television, so as fashions have come and as fashions have gone, we are remained underground and I think a lot of kids are looking for something which is a bit more interesting than what is being force-fed, corporate force-fed, down their throats form MTV, classic rock radio and every market(ing) thinks it can package stuff up. As always, the audience has been under estimated.