THE ALCOHOL INDUSTRY

"Drinking in moderation."

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Brazil’s national spirit, cachaça, is already the third most consumed liquor in the world, but its export potential may have only scratched the surface now that consumers in the United States ahve taken a liking to the caipirinha.

      There’s more than 40.000 cachaça producers in Brazil and 1.2 billion liters of production capacity, but just 1 per cent exported last year and US$15.58 million in revenue generated.

      About 180 Brazilian producers export to 60 foreign countries, with Germany being the top export market, the U.S. second, Portugal third and Paraguay fourth.

      Germany and much of Europe are markets where cachaça and the caipirinha are well-established, but the growth potential of the U.S. market is huge, and is driven by American consumers love of mixed drinks. Within the last five years, the U.S. has risen from the on. 5 cachaça sales market to no. 2, a rapid increase considering how many Americans still don’t know the drink.

      Cachaça is often compared to rum, but similarities end with their source, sugar cane. Rum is aged from molasses, a byproduct left over after sugar is produced, while cachaça is distilled from fresh squeezed cane juice.

      The U.S. government still fills to respect this difference, and requires cachaça bottles to be labeled “Brazilian rum” to comply with U.S. liquor law. Brazilian cachaça producers have been lobbying the U.S. government for years to give cachaça its own category as unique liquor. It’s the same battle that Mexico’s tequila industry had to fight for many years before, and only won after Americans were educated about tequila’s unique qualities.

      Cachaça producers are trying to learn from tequila’s success. Education starts with bartenders. Leblon Cachaça, a top brand in the U.S. in both revenue and volume sold, has marketing staff visiting bars around the U.S. constantly to teach servers about the caipirinha. Leblon has also created LegalizeCachaça.com, a website to educate consumers and collect signatures to show the U.S. government how many Americans support cachaça.

      Leblon organizes “Caipi Hour” parties that are held at famous bars and restaurants around the nation, and has a “Caipi Mobile” that drives through New York, Los Angeles and Miami, inviting Americans off the street to taste a caipirinha.

      “We’re not just selling a spirit of cocktail, people drink (capirinhas) for a cultural experience,” said Steve Luttmann, president of Leblon Cachaça. “It’s a cheap plane ticket, for most people it’s their first experience with Brazil.”

      Even while Brazilians consume nearly 99% of all cachaça there’s growth potential in Brazil, because some Brazilians still believe that cachaça is a poor man’s drink, says Vitoria Cavalcanti, foreign sales director for Pitú, a top-selling brand at home and abroad.

      “Brazilians drink beer, they drink vodka, but cachaça is still prejudiced by many,” Cavalcanti said. “We have to educate the barmen and waiters here. In Mexico, when you enter a restaurant, the first thing they ask you ifs if you’d like a margarita, or tequila straight. Here, waiters don’t do that. They never mention cachaça or caipirinha has on their own.

      “This is our job, we have to proclaim that cachaça is not for the poor, or the slave, but for everybody.

SUGARCANE INDUSTRY GROWS AT RECORD PACE

      Cachaça production is growing, but according for a small portion of Brazil’s annual sugarcane harvest. Most cane goes towards sugar and ethanol, both of which Brazil leads the world in production of.

      Brazil’s cane industry is primed to meet a seemingly insatiable word demand for both sugar and ethanol in the coming years. Global sugar demand is growing as populations in Asia gain wealth and Brazil ethanol production can’t grow fast enough to meet demand abroad or here at home.

      Flex-fuel car sales in Brazil broke national records in 2010. The country plans to more than double its ethanol production by 2019, from 26 billion liters annually today to 64 billion liters.

      

Condolences for those victims of Welligton Oliveira

• 
• Welligton Oliveira killed 12 children in Rio de Janeiro City, actually as an educator my heart goes out and, this blog pay a single tribute for those victims and their families who lost their children. May their souls rest in peace. It's not very common the tragic event like this, I was working when I switched on the TV and I saw the tragedy, I'm still chocked with the violence. I have no words to describe a feeling of sadness. I offered my condolences to Children's families. See you the next blog entry, friends.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727): One of the World's Greatest Scientists

Source: Voice of America Special English

www.manythings.org/voa/people 

Isaac Newton (1642-1727): One of the World's Greatest Scientists

This is Shirley Griffith. And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS.

Today we tell about one of the world's greatest scientists, Isaac Newton.

(MUSIC)

Much of today's science of physics is based on Newton's discovery of the three laws of motion and his theory of gravity. Newton also developed one of the most powerful tools of mathematics. It is the method we call calculus.

Late in his life, Newton said of his work: "If I saw further than other men, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants. "

One of those giants was the great Italian scientist, Galileo. Galileo died the same year Newton was born. Another of the giants was the Polish scientist Nicholas Copernicus. He lived a hundred years before Newton.

Copernicus had begun a scientific revolution. It led to a completely new understanding of how the universe worked. Galileo continued and expanded the work of Copernicus.

Isaac Newton built on the ideas of these two scientists and others. He found and proved the answers for which they searched.

(MUSIC)

Isaac Newton was born in Woolsthorpe, England, on December twenty-fifth, sixteen forty-two.

He was born early. He was a small baby and very weak. No one expected him to survive. But he surprised everyone. He had one of the most powerful minds in history. And he lived until he was eighty-four.

Newton's father died before he was born. His mother married again a few years later. She left Isaac with his grandmother.

The boy was not a good student. Yet he liked to make things, such as kites and clocks and simple machines.

Newton also enjoyed finding new ways to answer questions or solve problems. As a boy, for example, he decided to find a way to measure the speed of the wind.

On a windy day, he measured how far he could jump with the wind at his back. Then he measured how far he could jump with the wind in his face. From the difference between the two jumps, he made his own measure of the strength of the wind.

Strangely, Newton became a much better student after a boy kicked him in the stomach.

The boy was one of the best students in the school. Newton decided to get even by getting higher marks than the boy who kicked him. In a short time, Newton became the top student at the school.

Newton left school to help on the family farm.

It soon became clear, however, that the boy was not a good farmer. He spent his time solving mathematical problems, instead of taking care of the crops. He spent hours visiting a bookstore in town, instead of selling his vegetables in the market.

An uncle decided that Newton would do better as a student than as a farmer. So he helped the young man enter Cambridge University to study mathematics.

Newton completed his university studies five years later, in sixteen sixty-five. He was twenty-two years old.

(MUSIC)

At that time, a deadly plague was spreading across England. To escape the disease, Newton returned to the family farm. He did more thinking than farming. In doing so, he found the answers to some of the greatest mysteries of science.

Newton used his great skill in mathematics to form a better understanding of the world and the universe. He used methods he had learned as a boy in making things. He experimented. Then he studied the results and used what he had learned to design new experiments.

Newton's work led him to create a new method in mathematics for measuring areas curved in shape. He also used it to find how much material was contained in solid objects. The method he created became known as integral calculus.

One day, sitting in the garden, Newton watched an apple fall from a tree. He began to wonder if the same force that pulled the apple down also kept the moon circling the Earth. Newton believed it was. And he believed it could be measured.

He called the force "gravity. " He began to examine it carefully.

He decided that the strength of the force keeping a planet in orbit around the sun depended on two things. One was the amount of mass in the planet and the sun. The other was how far apart they were.

Newton was able to find the exact relationship between distance and gravity. He multiplied the mass of one space object by the mass of the other. Then he divided that number by the square of their distance apart. The result was the strength of the gravity force that tied them to each other.

Newton proved his idea by measuring how much gravity force would be needed to keep the moon orbiting the Earth. Then he measured the mass of the Earth and the moon, and the distance between them. He found that his measurement of the gravity force produced was not the same as the force needed. But the numbers were close.

Newton did not tell anyone about his discovery. He put it aside to work on other ideas. Later, with correct measurements of the size of the Earth, he found that the numbers were exactly the same.

Newton spent time studying light and colors. He used a three-sided piece of glass called a prism.

He sent a beam of sunlight through the prism. It fell on a white surface. The prism separated the beam of sunlight into the colors of a rainbow. Newton believed that all these colors -- mixed together in light -- produced the color white. He proved this by letting the beam of rainbow-colored light pass through another prism. This changed the colored light back to white light.

Newton's study of light led him to learn why faraway objects seen through a telescope do not seem sharp and clear. The curved glass lenses at each end of the telescope acted like prisms. They produced a circle of colored light around an object. This created an unclear picture.

A few years later, Newton built a different kind of telescope. It used a curved mirror to make faraway objects seem larger.

Light reflected from the surface of the mirror, instead of passing through a curved glass lens. Newton's reflecting telescope produced much clearer pictures than the old kind of telescope.

(MUSIC)

Years later, the British astronomer Edmund Halley visited Newton. He said he wanted Newton's help in finding an answer to a problem no one had been able to solve. The question was this: What is the path of a planet going around the sun?

Newton immediately gave Haley the answer: an egg-shaped path called an ellipse.

Halley was surprised. He asked for Newton's proof. Newton no longer had the papers from his earlier work. He was able to recreate them, however. He showed them to Halley. He also showed Halley all his other scientific work.

Halley said Newton's scientific discoveries were the greatest ever made. He urged Newton to share them with the world.

Newton began to write a book that explained what he had done. It was published in sixteen eighty-seven. Newton called his book "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy." The book is considered the greatest scientific work ever written.

In his book, Newton explains the three natural laws of motion. The first law is that an object not moving remains still. And one that is moving continues to move at an unchanging speed, so long as no outside force influences it.

Objects in space continue to move, because nothing exists in space to stop them.

Newton's second law of motion describes force. It says force equals the mass of an object, multiplied by the change in speed it produces in an object.

His third law says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

From these three laws, Newton was able to show how the universe worked. He proved it with easily understood mathematics. Scientists everywhere accepted Newton's ideas.

The leading English poet of Newton's time, Alexander Pope, honored the scientist with these words: "Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night. God said, --'Let Newton be!' - and all was light. "

(MUSIC)

This Special English program was written by Marilyn Christiano and Frank Beardsley. This is Shirley Griffith. And this is Steve Ember.

'FADING LIKE A FLOWER'

'FADING LIKE A FLOWER'

A great website for Students and Teachers, that's why I recommend it for your ENGLISH EXERCISES.ORG. All credits for the Author of this Exercise, Teacher Agnes from Indonesia. 

Source: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=4585  

LOOK AT THE PICTURES AND TRY TO COMPLETE THE LYRICS 

1.   

In a         where the    descends alone
I ran a long long way from   
To find a     that’s made of   
I will try, I just need a little    
To get your face right          of my mind
To see the      through different     

WRITE IN MISSING WORDS

CHORUS

Every time I  you oh I try to  away
But when we meet it  I can’t let go
Every time you  the room I feel I’m  like a flower

UNSCRAMBLE THE WORDS

2.

Tell me YWH
When I scream there’s no YRLPE
When I reach out there’s nothing to IDFN

When I sleep I break down and YCR
Cry, yeah 

CHORUS

WRITE IN MISSING LETTERS

3. 

Fading like a r
Fading like a r
Beaten by the s
Talking to m
Getting washed by the r
It’s such a cold cold t
Oh, it’s a such cold t

CHORUS

Radio Pioneers Pulled Words, Music and World Events Out of Thin Air

Source: Voice of America Special English

www.manythings.org/voa/people 

(MUSIC) 

 

 

 

I'm Barbara Klein. And I'm Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.  Today, we will tell about several men who influenced the development of radio.

(MUSIC)

Some people say radio was invented by Guglielmo [gu-lee-YER-mo) Marconi of Italy.  Marconi sent the first radio communication signals through the air in eighteen ninety-five. In fact, no one person can be called the inventor of radio.  Many people, including several Americans, helped to develop radio. You may not know their names. However, their work affected many people. 

 

Over the years, radio has become one of the most important forms of communication.  It can be used for two-way communication, such as between a ship and land.  Scientists even use radio to communicate into space.  And radio broadcasts let people send words, music and information to any part of the world. 

 

 

The first experimental radio broadcasts in the United States were made in the early nineteen hundreds.  One of the first broadcasts came from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City in nineteen ten.  It included music by the great singer Enrico Caruso. An American inventor, Lee De Forest, produced that broadcast.  

 

Only a few people could hear the broadcast.  Some were people in the New York area who had built radio receivers.  Some ships at sea and military radio stations received the broadcast.  Many newspapers of the day reported on the event.  The name of Lee De Forest became part of broadcasting history.

 

De Forest developed some of the technology used in early radio. During his lifetime, he invented hundreds of devices that were used in telephones, shortwave radio broadcasts, and similar technology.

His most famous invention was the vacuum tube, or electron tube. In nineteen-oh-six, the electron tube was considered the single most important development in electronics.  The device made it possible to strengthen radio signals and to send them over long distances.  It was a major reason for the fast growth of the electronics and communications industries in the early part of the twentieth century. 

 

Edwin Armstrong was another American inventor who was important in the development of electronics and radio communication. Armstrong developed technology that helped to improve radio reception.  He discovered ways to limit unwanted radio signals.

Edwin Armstrong also was a leader in using radio to reproduce 

sounds clearly.  This process became known as frequency modulation, or FM radio.  FM radio provided better sound reproduction and less noise or interference than traditional AM radio.  Armstrong also developed radio receivers that became widely used.

(MUSIC)

Many experts say station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was 

the first American radio station.  It broadcast results of the 

American presidential election in November, nineteen twenty. 

That is generally considered the start of professional radio 

broadcasting in the United States.

Soon, radio stations began to appear in other areas.  In nineteen twenty-two, two stations in New York State joined together to broadcast the championship game of American baseball.  The stations were connected by telephone lines.  This permitted them to share the same program.  It was one of the first examples of a radio network.

By the middle of the nineteen-twenties, there were two main radio networks in the United States.  The National Broadcasting Corporation, NBC, was formed by the Radio Corporation of America. NBC became the first permanent national network.

The other network was the Columbia Broadcasting System, called CBS.  The networks provided programs to radio stations across the country. Local stations created very few programs.  What listeners heard in New York was often heard in Los Angeles, California and other cities. 

 

David Sarnoff was the man responsible for NBC. As a young man, Sarnoff had taught himself Morse code.  He got a job with the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company where he worked as a telegraph operator.  He was on duty when the passenger ship Titanic sank in the Atlantic Ocean in nineteen twelve.  Sarnoff helped the rescue effort by informing other ships about the accident.  He understood that someone using radio could affect many lives.

By nineteen twenty-one, Sarnoff was an official of the Radio Corporation of America.  He pushed RCA to enter broadcasting. The company soon earned huge profits.  Five years later, David Sarnoff helped create NBC. David Sarnoff developed the theory of broadcasting.

This was very different from the communication between two people speaking to each other on a telephone.  Radio meant that someone could speak to millions of people.

(MUSIC)

William S. Paley developed another radio network.  In nineteen twenty-eight, Paley left his family's business. He spent several hundred thousand dollars on several radio stations.  These stations became known as the Columbia Broadcasting System. Paley's friends and advisers told him that he had made a huge mistake.  They said his dream of building a large and important radio network would never come true.

Paley did not listen to them.  Instead, he went to see the heads of some of the largest American companies to get their financial support for his network.

Then, Paley searched for the best people he could find to produce the radio shows and news programming he wanted.  He paid them well.  William Paley was always looking for people with special skills.

One night, he attended a show by the popular Tommy Dorsey Band.  A young man with the group sang during the performance. His name was Frank Sinatra.  Sinatra soon had his own program with CBS, Paley's radio network.

(MUSIC)

Radio was extremely popular in the United States between the late 

nineteen twenties and the early nineteen fifties.  This period is 

known as the Golden Age of Broadcasting.

During this period, families gathered in their living rooms every night to listen to radio shows.  Children hurried from school to hear shows created for them.  In the daytime, millions of women listened to radio plays called soap operas.  They were called soap operas because companies that make soap paid for the shows.

Radio influenced the way many people felt about their community and the world.  It permitted them to sit at home and hear what was happening in other areas. During World War Two, people could hear the voices of world leaders, such as American President Franklin Roosevelt. 

 

(SOUND)

 

Listeners also could hear the voices of reporters covering World War Two.  Edward R. Murrow became famous for reporting about the war.  People sometimes could hear guns and bombs exploding during his report. 

 

(SOUND)

In nineteen thirty-seven, Edward R. Murrow was the only representative of CBS in Europe.  Murrow built a team of news reporters whose names would become well known to listeners.

Murrow and reporter William Shirer made broadcasting history in nineteen thirty-eight.  They organized a special broadcast with European reaction to the seizure of Austria by Nazi Germany.  The show had reports from London, Berlin, Paris and Rome.  It was a huge success. 

 

In the United States, the rise of television in the nineteen fifties ended the Golden Age of Radio Broadcasting. More and more people started to watch television.  Most of the popular shows disappeared from radio.

Many people believed television would cause radio broadcasting to become unimportant.  However, the number of radio listeners continues to grow.  Most experts say radio will continue to be important during this century. 

 

(MUSIC) 

 

 

This program was written by George Grow. It was produced by Caty Weaver.  I'm  Steve Ember. 

 

 

And I'm Barbara Klein.  Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.

Family Album,63

Source: Family Album

AFFORDABLE ART

Source: www.speakup.com.br
Standard: American and British accent
Language level: Pre-intermediate

AFFORDABLE ART

The Affordable Arts Fair (AAF) is one of London’s most important and popular contemporary art events. It’s an art fair with a difference. The atmosphere is relaxed, and the prices are low. That’s because there is a maximum price limit of £3.000 (€3.400).The fair is at the Battersea Evolution arena in Battersea Park., in south London, from March 10^th to 13^th.

A GREAT IDEA

Will Ramsey is the founder of the AAF. Interest in art increased in the 1990s, and Ramsey, wanted to open the exclusive art world to everyone. In 1996, he opened the gallery Art Warehouse in Putney, London. He created a relaxed atmosphere and sold new artists’ work at relatively low prices – from €55 to £2.800.

The Art Warehouse was a big success. Ramsey decided to organise the first AAF in October 1999. The fair attracted 150 artists and over 10.000 visitors. Today the London fair attracts 25.000 visitors and the AAF is a global phenomenon. There are also AAF events in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, New York and Singapore.

THE ART OF LOVE

Artist Rachael Edgar is a five-year participant at the AAF. She says, “It’s brilliant! People come and buy art for the first time in their lives. And there’s a rest mix of work, from painting to sculpture to photography to printmaking.” This year Edgard brings “Love is a Wager in an Open Car” (far left): it will cost you just €255.

New artist Orlando Lund has visited the fir several times, and he bought a Peter Blake print five years ago. He says. “The AAF definitely inspires me, and influenced the type of work I do.” He explains. “You see the wok of a new artist and think ‘Wow!’ and then you think ‘I could do that.’

PASSION

The fair offers new and experienced collectors a wide range of works, from Paul Bower’s inexpensive print. “You Are Free” (€187) to established artist Christine Reliton and Tom Marine’s Three Fish XI” (bellow) at €2.550. art advisor Thea Westreich says. “For some people, it’s a party, and everyone loves a party! For some, it’s an investment. And, for others, it’s their passion.”

Affordable Arts Fair

Battersea Evolution

Battersea Park, London

Information +44 (0) 870 777 2255

Website: www.affordableartfair.co.uk

Will’s Art Warehouse

180 Lower Richmond Road.

Putney, London SW15 1LY

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8246 4840

Email: info@ills-art.com