AMERICAN MOSAIC - Electronic Games for Women / Newport Jazz

AMERICAN MOSAIC¹ - Electronic Games for Women / Newport Jazz Festival / Jesse Owens
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Broadcast: Friday, August 06, 2004

HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.

(THEME)

This is Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

Girls and video games.

Music from the Newport Jazz Festival.

And a question about Jesse Owens, the black Olympian who competed in Nazi² Germany.

Females and Video Games

 
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Americans bought two hundred forty million computer and video games last year. All those electronic games added up to seven thousand million dollars in sales. Most of the game designers are male. Not surprisingly, so are most of the players. But as Bob Doughty⁴ reports, the industry says it wants to get more females interested and involved in its games.

BOB DOUGHTY: Next month, the first National Women's Game Conference will be held in Austin, Texas. The conference is for anyone interested in the video and computer game industry. Discussions will examine the part that women play in the industry and the job situation for them. Conference goers will also discuss how games present women. The event is being produced by an industry group called the Game Initiative⁵.

The Entertainment Software Association says thirty-nine percent of players are women. The average age of all players is twenty-nine. But experts say females enjoy different kinds of games than males do. Males generally like computer games with competition and some kind of violence. Females generally like games with cooperation and social interaction.

One series of games that many girls and women do like to play is The Sims. Sims are simulated⁶ people. Players guide groups of these electronic people through different situations and decide what they will do. There are game titles like The Sims House Party and The Sims Hot Date.

The company that produces them, Electronic Arts, says at least fifty percent of the players are women. A spokeswoman says the games are about building relationships, so they appeal to females. They must appeal to lots of players: The Sims is the best-selling computer game of all time.

Jesse Owens

 
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DOUG JOHNSON: Our VOA listener question this week comes from Borno State, Nigeria. Adamu S. Onakpa asks about the life of American athlete Jesse Owens.

Jesse Owens may be in the thoughts of some American athletes this summer. Those athletes are preparing for the summer Olympic Games that begin next week in Athens, Greece. Jesse Owens competed in the summer Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany in nineteen-thirty-six.

Adolph Hitler was the leader of Germany at that time. He and his Nazi party believed that white people were the best race of people on Earth. They believed that other races were almost less than human, especially those with dark skin.

Jesse Owens was a black American. He said that he was not thinking about Hitler or the Nazis⁷ during the week he competed in four track and field events in Berlin. He became the fastest runner in the world.

Jesse Owens won the highest award – the Gold Medal -- in all four Olympic competitions he entered. He equaled the fastest time ever run in the one-hundred meter race. He set new Olympic records in the long jump and the two-hundred meter race. And he helped set a new world record for the four-hundred meter relay⁸ race as part of a four-man team. He was the first American in the history of the Olympic track and field events to win four Gold Medals in a single Olympics.

Jesse Owens returned to the United States a hero. But he struggled financially all his life. Later, in a book about his life, Jesse Owens wrote about the beliefs that had helped him gain athletic⁹ success. He wrote that people have a chance to succeed if they believe they can do it and really try. He said a person would probably fail without that belief.

Many other athletes also believe in themselves, and will try to become Olympic champions this month in Greece. In a few weeks, we will see if they succeed.

For more information about the life of Jesse Owens, listen to the Special English program "People In America" broadcast on Sunday.

Newport Jazz Festival

 
John Coltrane, who died in 1967, is being honored at this summer's Newport Jazz Festival.
DOUG JOHNSON: The Newport Jazz Festival is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. A party on August twelfth in Newport, Rhode Island, will honor many of the artists presented by the jazz festival over the years. And a special CD has been released. It is called "Happy Birthday Newport! Fifty Swinging Years." Gwen Outen has more.

GWEN OUTEN: The Newport Jazz Festival was the first jazz festival in America. It presented live jazz performances outdoors during the summer in Newport, Rhode Island.

The first Newport Jazz Festival in nineteen-fifty-four was a huge success. Experts say it was one of the most important events in the history of jazz. In the past fifty years, the festival has presented some of the greatest American musicians. They include Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and John Coltrane.

The CD "Happy Birthday Newport!" has twenty-seven songs recorded by famous jazz musicians. Here is Louis Armstrong and His All Stars performing "Tin Roof Blues¹⁰." It was recorded at Newport in nineteen-fifty-six.

(MUSIC)

The CD "Happy Birthday Newport!" also includes a small booklet. It has photographs of the jazz artists and notes about the songs and performers. George Wein [pronounced ween] wrote the booklet. He started the Newport Jazz Festival and continues to produce it.

Ella Fitzgerald was one of the performers at the first Newport Jazz Festival. Here she sings "I've Got a Crush on You."

(MUSIC)

George Wein says there are now probably one-thousand jazz festivals around the world. He says this year's Newport Jazz Festival is honoring John Coltrane. The saxophonist died in nineteen-sixty-seven. We leave you with the John Coltrane Quartet performing "My Favorite Things."

(MUSIC)

DOUG JOHNSON: This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed AMERICAN MOSAIC. Join us again next week for VOA's radio magazine in Special English.

Our program was written by Shelley Gollust and Nancy Steinbach. Paul Thompson was the producer. And our engineer was Jim Sleeman.

1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

3 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。

4 doughty   

adj.勇猛的，坚强的

参考例句：

• Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质：脾气倔强，性格刚强。
• The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。

5 initiative   

n.主动性，首创精神，主动权（的行动），倡议

参考例句：

• He went to see the headmaster on his own initiative.他主动去看望校长。
• His employer had described him as lacking in initiative and drive.雇主说他缺乏进取心和干劲。

6 simulated   

a.伪装的，模仿的

参考例句：

• The effects of weathering can be simulated in the laboratory. 在实验室里可以模拟各种天气产生的影响。
• She showed simulated enthusiasm towards us. 她向我们表示了虚假的热情。

7 Nazis   

n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义

参考例句：

• The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Nazis were responsible for the mass murder of Jews during World War Ⅱ. 纳粹必须为第二次世界大战中对犹太人的大屠杀负责。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 relay   

n.接力赛，中继转播（设备）；vt.转述，转播

参考例句：

• They will relay your message.他们会转达你的口信。
• This metal tower is used to relay television signals to distant villages.这个金属塔是用于向遥远的村子转播电视讯号的。

9 athletic   

adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的

参考例句：

• This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
• He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。

10 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。