【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障4系列】【4-15】文史哲

Threesu

速度

Senior Citizens Sing for Health and Fifteen-Year-Old Kyla Ross Heads to the Olympics

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JUNE SIMMS: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

I'm June Simms. This week, we play new music from singer John Mayer.

We also tell you about fifteen year old Kyla Ross. She is the youngest member of the American Olympic gymnastics team.

But first, we tell about some older Americans who are singing for their health.

Seniors Citizens Sing For Health

Over ten years ago, America's National Endowment for the Arts began to study creativity and aging. The NEA, the National Institutes of Health and four other programs launched the Creativity and Aging study. It examined the effect of participatory art programs on the physical and mental health of older individuals.


The study took place in three parts of the country, including Washington, DC. More than one hundred older adults from the Washington area were taught to sing and perform together. They were compared to a control group of individuals who did not sing.

Jeanne Kelly directed the singing program. She says the study found that those working with her were happier and suffered less from depression than the inactive adults. The singers also took fewer medicines and visited the doctor less. And they had fewer falls because their bodies were strengthened.

What began as a study has grown into the Encore Creativity for Older Adults program. Currently, the program has more than five hundred fifty participants. The average age is seventy-three, but some of the individuals are ninety years old or older.

There are now eleven choral groups in the Washington area and one in Ohio. Members do not have to prove their singing ability, and no experience is necessary. Jeanne Kelly talks about the program.

JEANNE KELLY: "Our singers, some of them have sung their entire life. Some haven't sung for 40 years, because they've been busy with a career, they've been busy raising families. And then some have never sung."
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The eleven groups all study the same song, which makes it easy during when a performance date nears. They can be combined into a larger chorus if the theater or concert hall is very large. After the concert season, Jeanne Kelly directs two summer programs in New York and Maryland
. Singers have only four days to learn five songs before they perform in public.

Eighty-two year old Jeanne Heather has attended the summer programs. She explains why she went.

JEANNE HEATHER: "Because it's fun and because I learn so many things. They teach us here, not only about the music, but how to sing, and how to sing better. And they don't really get mad if you miss a note."

Seventy four year old Margo Newhouse joined Encore last year. She says the program was very helpful when she recovered from a fall.

MARGO NEWHOUSE: "Definitely, I was very tired each day at the end of the day, and it was a healthy tiredness, which I am sure has helped me with my activity level."

The Creativity and Aging study may have ended years ago, but the choral groups that were studied have continued and expanded. I'm Faith Lapidus.

American Olympian Kyla Ross Heads to the Olympics

JUNE SIMMS: Fifteen-year-old Kyla Ross of California is the youngest member of the American Olympic gymnastics team. She says that going to the twenty-twelve Summer Games is like a dream come true. But, as we hear from Bob Doughty, getting to London means she has had to work harder than most girls her age.

BOB DOUGHTY: Kyla Ross does not live the life of an average teenage girl. She spends thirty to thirty-five hours a week training at the Gym-Max Academy of Gymnastics, south of Los Angeles. She goes to school only part-time.
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KLYA ROSS: "Of course, it's always hard to fit in homework, especially this year. I had to cut back on a lot of school. It sort of feels unreal. I mean, I've been working for the Olympics all my life, and it's something that I've been training for. So to be able to say that is such a dream come true."

Kyla Ross has stayed in school so that she can finish her studies and graduate in four years. Her father, Jason Ross, says it has not been easy.

JASON ROSS: "You have to be a very disciplined person. I mean from practice to going straight to do your homework. You might want to rest or, disciplined in the fact that oh you want to hang out with your friends, and people are going out. But you have to stay home and finish your homework or get rest because you have a competition. So (it) definitely takes a lot of discipline."

Kyla Ross's training coach, Jenny Liang, says it takes discipline of a different kind to deal with the pressure at the Olympics. She says the biggest issue at the Olympic Games will be in the young gymnast's own mind. Mrs. Liang says her mind has to be even stronger. She has to think, ‘I've practiced this one thousand times before. It's just changing the venue.' The gymnastic coach says if you think too much, you cannot do anything."

Jenny Liang and her husband Howie have coached Kyla for the past seven years. They met in China as gymnasts for the Chinese National Team. They later moved to the United States
, where they opened the Gym-Max Academy of Gymnastics.
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Kyla Ross was born in Hawaii. Her parents put her in a gymnastics class when she was three years old to help her burn off energy. Jason Ross says he never expected his daughter to compete at the Olympics.

JASON ROSS: "You just recollect on all the times, you dropped her off (at) practices, (the) to struggles she's had, also the time she's invested into (gymnastics), and just the gratifying feeling that she achieved her goal and really put a lot of work into it, and it's actually happened..."

Again, Kyla Ross:

KYLA ROSS: "From this experience, it's definite been a really long journey and as my dad tells me, ‘You always have to enjoy the moment.' I definitely want to have fun when I go to London and enjoy being with the team competing, and hopefully representing Team USA
as well as we can."

The United States women's gymnastics team won its first ever gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics. That is the same year Kyla Ross was born. Maybe this year she can help the women's team bring home another gold. Kyla Ross will be training with her four team members in Texas before flying off to London for the Summer Games. I'm Bob Doughty.

John Mayer Returns With Shadow Days

John Mayer seems to hit all the right notes when he sings. But, the singer has been known to miss the mark more than a few times when he opens his mouth to speak. He made news a few years ago after speaking with Playboy magazine about former girlfriends Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston. He also made some not so nice comments about black women.

Now, the seven-time Grammy Award winning singer is back. He has a new album, a new sound and possibly a new attitude. Faith Lapidus has more.
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"Shadow Days" is the first release from John Mayer's latest CD, "Born and Raised." It is the fifth studio album from the singer, songwriter and musician. It also is his third album to reach number one on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart. And it is his first release since his Playboy comments made news headlines two years ago.

Recently, he explained those comments as a failed attempt to make himself sound more exciting. While not actually apologizing for what he said, he did seem to express some sense of regret. The same can be said of his latest CD.

On the song "Shadow Days," John Mayer sings "it sucks to be honest and it hurts to be real." He also says his "shadow days are over now," and goes on to declare himself a "good man with a good heart."

Some critics have called John Mayer's new album his most honest, sincere and emotional work to date. Songs like "Love is a Verb" are praised as perfect examples.

A new attitude is not the only thing that seems different about John Mayer. The sound of his music has also taken on a new direction. His traditional pop-rock sound has been replaced with more of a folk music kind of feeling. David Crosby and Graham Nash join him on the album's title track, "Born and Raised."

John Mayer recorded most of the new songs with Grammy Award winning producer John Was before doctors operated on his throat last year. In March, he was forced to cancel a number of performances in the United States after his throat problems returned. He now says he is not sure when he will be able to perform in support of his new album.

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JUNE SIMMS: I'm June Simms. This program was written by George Grow and Kim Varzi. Elizabeth Lee and Susan Logue provided additional reporting.

Go to 51voa.com to find transcripts and MP3s of our programs and to post comments on our relationship advice blog. If you want to ask our audience for advice, write to mosaic@voanews.com. Type "relationship" in the subject line. We won't publish your name but please include your age, gender and country.

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Demosprudence Through Dissent

It is morning, June 28, 2007, in the august amphitheater of the United States Supreme Court. Three prominent black civil rights lawyers wait expectantly. They, along with members of the press and public, are here to bear witness to the Court’s decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1. The case involved two cities separated by thousands of miles: Seattle
, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky. Local communities in these far-flung locales had voluntarily attempted to integrate their public schools.
On this, the last day of his first full Term, Chief Justice John Roberts gavels the room to order. He then strikes down the plans in a matter of sentences. On behalf of himself and four colleagues, he declares Seattle’s and Louisville
’s voluntary school integration plans unlawful because they consider race as a factor in student assignment. With a simple maxim, Chief Justice Roberts and his colleagues destroy what had taken the cities years to build: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race,” his argument goes, “is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Moments after Chief Justice Roberts finishes speaking, a voice both incredulous and distressed pierces the High Court’s etiquette. Bristling with barely concealed anger but tempered by the circumspection of the law professor he once was, Justice Stephen Breyer informs those assembled that he takes strong objection to Chief Justice Roberts’s pronouncements of the law. Justice Breyer, too, offers a simple statement: “The majority is wrong.”

On a nine-person bench where the give and take between judges and lawyers usually involves rapid-fire exchanges, Justice Breyer proceeds to “hold court” alone for the next twenty-one minutes. No lawyers stand before him; no one is poised to answer questions or to persuade him of one side or the other. Indeed, joined in his dissent by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, Justice Breyer is not asking questions. Instead, he forcefully challenges Chief Justice Roberts’s view of “the law” of the land. “The majority is wrong” to conclude that consideration of race is per se unlawful. To the contrary, when used to include rather than exclude, taking race into account is constitutional. The plans in question, adopted democratically to overcome racial isolation by creating racially diverse schools, are “partly remedial, partly educational, partly civic.” “These plans are not affirmative action plans,” he explains. “School placement here has nothing to do with any students’ merits. . . . Until today the law has allowed school districts to implement these kinds of plans.” The Supreme Court has routinely given “significant practical leeway” to democratically elected school boards to make educational policy that “tries to bring people together.” The five Republican appointees, he suggests, are dictating their own policy preferences in the name of the law. Justice Breyer denounces Chief Justice Roberts’s temerity with sixteen memorable words: “It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.”

In this Foreword, the author argues that oral dissents, like the orality of spoken word poetry or the rhetoric of feminism, have a distinctive potential to root disagreement about the meaning and interpretation of constitutional law in a more democratically accountable soil. Ultimately, they may spark a deliberative process that enhances public confidence in the legitimacy of the judicial process. Oral dissents can become a crucial tool in the ongoing dialogue between constitutional law and constitutional culture.

cleotina

haha  呼啦啦 沙发 遇到啦  
明早读   谢谢

草莓葡萄

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p1: 关于宗族法案以及发生的时间
P2: 对于宗族歧视法庭上的辩论和看法
p3:author的argument以及conclusion

ladyMcc

站位~   楼主原来就是我求淘宝地址的那位啊

最近都不怎么写回忆了。。。。。。。。残了
1'40''
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26''


4'02''

暮已央

SORRY，I’m late~~
计时：
1:30；
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自由：00:24；
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法庭上的一次精彩辩论~
关于美国学校的人种、民族和歧视问题
JR提出了一个观点，并认为大多数人是错的
JB很生气，但是克制住自己，然后口头提出异议反驳JR
没有人站在JB一边，他靠自己陈述了21分钟
最后是16个单词的一句话反驳JR
作者提出观点，口头反对在对宪法意义的理解方面是很特色的
口头异议已经成为一项重要工具在宪法法律与宪法文化之间。

lilylolo

1''06 说唱歌有益身心健康
0''55  有个program把大家聚在一起唱歌 很多参与者说虽然累 但给自己减压了
0''50 Kyla Ross是一名很自律的运动员
1''13 Kyla Ross 率领美国女子体操队在奥运中赢得了好成绩
1''20
4''00 一个法庭辩论问题 关于种族歧视 作者说大部分人的观点是错的。。口头异议的问题

小妤儿

1:43
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越障：关于种族歧视的一篇文章，JR提出一种说法，但是JB反对 ，提出了“The majority is wrong.“   然后，作者讲了在法庭上辩论的情况。 最后，提出了了oral dissent。说口头异议成为解决两类实务的的一项关键因素。

风静静

1:48
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越障：种族歧视，法官提出了一个观点，剩下的几个律师不同意

stellapass

1'45
1'30
1'24
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越障  4‘20
法庭上的辩论，美国学校存在种族歧视问题，一方（好像是JJB）自己辩论，没有律师支持他。。。建议学校采取教育措施鼓励学生在一起，而不是实行种族隔离。最后提出口头异议的价值所在，可以在司法裁定的时候提高公众参与自信，成为宪法和宪法文化之间对话的有用工具。

铁板神猴

Threesu的字体格式还需要改进一下~可以尝试下面的办法，看看有没有用：

1）将文章复制到word中，仅保留文字（或去除所有格式）
2）在word中编排好所有内容，但不改动字体、颜色等格式
3）发帖区左上角“黏贴为无格式文本”
4）最后，在发帖区改动格式即可