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VOASE0707_People In America

07 July 2007

Clare Booth Luce, 1903-1987: News reporter, Magazine Editor, Member of Congress and Ambassador
She was often on the list of the ten most important and admired women in the world.

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Gwen Outen with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about a woman who became famous for her activities in government, the media and the arts. She was a member of Congress and an ambassador. She was a news reporter and magazine editor. And she wrote plays. Her name was Clare Boothe Luce.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Clare Boothe Luce was one of the most influential women in modern American history.

Clare Boothe Luce

Yet she came from simple roots. She was born in New York City in nineteen-oh-three. Clare’s father was a musician and businessman. Her mother had been a dancer.

While Clare was a girl, her parents ended their marriage. She and her brother stayed with their mother. Their mother did not have a lot of money. Yet she was able to send Clare to very good schools. Her mother then married a doctor from Connecticut. Clare’s stepfather, Albert Austin, later served in the United States House of Representatives.

VOICE TWO:

As a young woman, Clare Boothe was known for her intelligence and good looks. She met her first husband through a family friend. George Tuttle Brokaw was a wealthy man. He also was more than twenty years older than Clare. They were married in nineteen twenty-three and had one child – a daughter. However, her husband had a problem with alcoholic drinks. Their marriage ended after only six years.

Clare developed a serious interest in writing. In nineteen thirty, a friend, the magazine publisher Conde Nast, offered her a job. She wrote comments for pictures published in Vogue, a magazine for women about clothes and fashion. A short time later, she accepted a job at another magazine, Vanity Fair. She wrote reports about social events and famous people in New York. Later these reports were published in a book.

VOICE ONE:

Clare Boothe became a top editor at Vanity Fair. She worked there until nineteen thirty-four. By then, she was also writing plays. One play was called “Abide With Me.” It was about a man who mistreats his wife. “Abide With Me” opened in a theater on Broadway in New York City in nineteen thirty-five. Critics hated it.

Clare Boothe Luce with Henry Luce

Two days after the show opened, Clare Boothe married Henry Robinson Luce. He was a famous and important magazine publisher. He published Time and Fortune magazines. She had first met Henry Luce at a party in New York. At the time, he was married and had two children. He and Clare were married a short time after a court order canceled his first marriage. They would stay together for more than thirty years.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Clare Boothe Luce returned to writing plays. Her second play, “The Women,” made fun of rich women. It opened on Broadway in nineteen thirty-six. The show was very popular. It was later made into a movie. Another play, “Kiss the Boys Goodbye,” also was a success. So was her next play, “Margin For Error.” All three plays were noted for their use of sharp language and making fun of human failings.

Clare Boothe Luce was known for expressing her opinions. Her most famous saying was: “No good deed goes unpunished.” She often spoke about the problems of women trying to succeed in a world mainly controlled by men. She said: “Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, ‘She doesn’t have what it takes.’ They will say, ‘Women don’t have what it takes.'” She made these comments in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

CLARE BOOTHE LUCE:

"We women are supposed to be a minority. I’ve never understood that myself because we outnumber the men in actual numbers, and we live five years longer. So I’ve never felt like a minority because, as you know, minorities are never supposed to say anything unkind about one another."

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen forty, Clare Boothe Luce traveled to Europe as a reporter for Life magazine, which was published by her husband. She visited a number of countries and later wrote reports about how people were dealing with World War Two. She wrote a book about this called “Europe in Spring.” In the book, she noted that people were living in “a world where men have decided to die together because they are unable to find a way to live together." She also reported from Africa, China, India and Burma for Life magazine.

In nineteen forty-two, her stepfather, Albert Austin, died. Missus Luce agreed to be the Republican Party candidate for his seat in the House of Representatives from Connecticut. She was elected and entered Congress in January, nineteen forty-three.

Missus Luce was a political conservative. She spoke against the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She criticized the Roosevelt administration’s foreign policy. She said it failed to supervise the war effort.

VOICE TWO:

A tragic event affected Clare Boothe Luce in nineteen forty-four. Her nineteen-year-old daughter Ann was killed in an automobile accident. Missus Luce experienced severe emotional problems. She sought help from a number of people, including a Roman Catholic clergyman, the Reverend Fulton J. Sheen. At the time, he was becoming known for his radio broadcasts.

Missus Luce demanded to know why God had taken her daughter. Reverend Sheen said the young woman had died so that her mother could learn about the meaning of life.

Missus Luce recovered and returned to Congress. She remained popular among the voters of Connecticut and was re-elected to a second term in office. However, she did not seek re-election in nineteen forty-six. Missus Luce said she wanted to spend more time with her husband. She also became a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

Missus Luce returned to writing. She also edited a book about people considered holy by the Roman Catholic Church.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Clare Boothe Luce criticized the spread of communism after World War Two. In nineteen fifty-two, she supported the Republican Party’s candidate for president, former General Dwight Eisenhower. He won the election and appointed Missus Luce as ambassador to Italy. She became one of the first American women to serve in a major diplomatic position. Missus Luce served as the ambassador until nineteen fifty-six. She left Rome after becoming sick with arsenic poisoning caused by paint particles in her bedroom.

VOICE TWO:

Three years later, President Eisenhower nominated Missus Luce as ambassador to Brazil. Most members of the United States Senate supported her nomination. However, some senators were opposed. Among them was Wayne Morse, a Democrat from Oregon.

The Senate approved Missus Luce as the new ambassador. After the debate, she said that Senator Morse’s actions were the result of him being “kicked in the head by a horse.” Many Democrats criticized her comment. A few days later she resigned as ambassador.

VOICE ONE:

Missus Luce remained active in politics. In nineteen sixty-four, she supported Senator Barry Goldwater as the Republican Party’s candidate for president. She also announced plans to be the Conservative Party candidate for the Senate from New York. However, Republican leaders disapproved and she withdrew from the race.

Clare Boothe Luce retired from public life. She and her husband moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Henry Luce died there in nineteen sixty-seven. He was sixty-eight years old.

Missus Luce moved to Honolulu, Hawaii. She lived there until the early nineteen eighties. During that period, she served as an advisor to three presidents. She was a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Then Missus Luce moved to Washington, D.C. In nineteen eighty-three, President Ronald Reagan awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That is the highest honor a president can give to an American citizen.

Clare Boothe Luce had a long battle with cancer. She died at her home in nineteen eighty-seven. She was eighty-four years old. She was buried near the remains of her husband in the state of South Carolina.

Experts said Clare Boothe Luce had enough important jobs in government, the media and the arts to satisfy several women. She was often on the list of the ten most important and admired women in the world.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

This program was written by George Grow. Lawan Davis was our producer. I’m Gwen Outen.

VOICE ONE:

And I’m Steve Ember. Listen again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.

VOASE0706_In the News

06 July 2007

US High Court Takes a More Conservative Turn With Bush Appointees
A look at the results of the Supreme Court term that just ended, and the president's decision to keep Lewis Libby out of prison.

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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Legal experts had a lot to discuss this week. President Bush intervened to keep a former top administration official out of prison. And last week the Supreme Court ended its first full term with two Bush appointees.

A demonstrator holds a sign outside the Supreme Court building in December

Most experts agree that the appointments have created a more conservative high court. Just how much may remain to be seen. But some already think the changes may be remembered as the president's biggest success for the conservative movement.

John Roberts arrived on the court as chief justice after William Rehnquist died in two thousand five. Justice Samuel Alito joined the court at the beginning of last year. He replaced Sandra Day O’Connor who retired.

In the most recent term, which began in October, the four most conservative justices won twice as many cases as they lost. One-third of all cases were decided by votes of five-to-four. Commentators noted it was the highest share in ten years, though not all split liberal and conservative.

The deciding vote was often Justice Anthony Kennedy. He was in the majority in every five-four decision. Over the years he has voted with conservatives as well as liberals on the court.

In this term, Justice Kennedy sided with the liberals in their most important case. The court ruled that the government has the power to restrict the release of greenhouse gases. But he took the side of the conservatives in their most important decisions.

These included upholding a federal ban on a late-term abortion method. Another decision limited the free speech rights of public school students. And last week the court limited the ability of school systems to consider race in efforts to balance student populations.

On the last day of the term, the Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The court had denied an earlier request in April. The detainees seek the right to appeal their detainment in federal court.

The administration says they are enemy combatants and should not be given such rights. The Supreme Court will hear the arguments after its next term begins in October.

This week Americans debated another legal issue after President Bush commuted the prison sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby. He was the top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and a presidential assistant.

A jury found he lied in the investigation into who leaked the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency officer married to an Iraq war critic.

The president said a thirty-month term was severe. He said he has not decided about using his constitutional right to also give a pardon. Monday's action came hours after a court refused to delay the prison sentence while Lewis Libby appealed his conviction.

He has already paid a fine of two hundred fifty thousand dollars as part of his sentence. The judge also ordered probation. Now the judge asks how someone could serve two years of supervised release without first going to prison.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.

VOASE0705_American Mosaic

05 July 2007

Live Earth Concerts Aim to Raise the Heat on Issue of Climate Change
Also: a listener in Taiwan asks if urban legends are true. And this summer's crop of sequel movies.

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HOST:

Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

We answer a question from a listener about stories called urban legends…

Play music by groups taking part in worldwide Live Earth concerts to fight global warming…

And report about some movie sequels being released this summer.

Summer Sequels

HOST:

A sequel is a movie that continues a story begun in an earlier movie or tells another story using the same characters. This summer, there are a lot of them. Barbara Klein explains.

BARBARA KLEIN:

Movie studio officials say they expect sequels this summer to earn a huge amount of money. They say three such movies released in May earned more than one hundred million dollars each in ticket sales in just one month. The three movies are "Shrek Three," "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End" and "Spider-Man Three."

"Spider-Man Three" continues the story of the superhero who fights evil in New York City. The movie earned more than one hundred fifty million dollars in its first three days of release. Reports say movie officials expect it to earn about nine hundred million dollars around the world.

"Shrek the Third" continues the story of the green cartoon creature and his wife, Princess Fiona. It has earned more than three hundred million dollars in the United States since it opened in May.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End" is the third story about pirate Captain Jack Sparrow. He was captured by the evil Davy Jones in the earlier movie. In the latest one, his friends rescue him from death on the high seas. The latest "Pirates" movie earned one hundred fifty million dollars in the United States on its opening weekend. And it earned more than two hundred forty million dollars outside the United States during that same period.

But movie officials are disappointed that the third movies in these series are not doing as well in the United States as the second movies did. They say one reason for this may be that the three movies opened very close to each other. Still, they expect all three movies to do extremely well around the world.

Several other movie sequels were released recently. They include “Ocean’s Thirteen,” "The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," and "Live Free or Die Hard." Still to come this summer: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.”

Urban Legends

HOST:

Our VOA listener question this week comes from Taiwan. Sandra wants to know if urban legends are true.

An urban legend is a story that many people believe to be true. Some of these stories may have had some truth to them at one time. But they usually change over time and many are not true anymore. In the past, people read such stories in magazines and newspapers. Today, the Internet spreads them around the world much faster.

Many urban legends warn about something. One very old one is about a woman who tied up her long hair and never washed it. Spiders were said to have made a nest in her hair and killed her by eating her head. Other examples include warnings about eating two different foods or medicines at the same time, like taking an aspirin with Coca Cola.

One urban legend is about ships and planes that mysteriously disappear in an area of the Atlantic Ocean called the Bermuda Triangle. Another is about people in New York City who got rid of their small pet alligators by flushing them down the toilet. These alligators lived in New York's underground waste water system and grew to be huge. Other urban legends involve famous movie stars.

Some urban legends are false, yet are extremely difficult to stop. For example, one story said a major American company gave some of its money to the Church of Satan that worships the devil. Many people who believed this story stopped buying the company’s products even though the story was false.

Some Internet sites investigate the truth of urban legends. One is called Snopes dot com. It lists the twenty-five most popular urban legends. Many are spread through the Internet. The top one is about plastic bottles you can buy that contain water. An urban legend says that these bottles release cancer-causing substances when they are re-used. Snopes says this urban legend is false.

Live Earth

HOST:

On Saturday, musicians around the world will perform a series of concerts to raise attention to global warming. The twenty-four hours of music will take place in New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai and Johannesburg; also Hamburg, Germany, and Sydney, Australia. On Thursday a Brazilian judge ruled that the concert in Rio de Janeiro could go on as planned. She accepted security guarantees from organizers, but the decision may not have been final. The Live Earth shows will be broadcast on television, radio and the Internet in more than one hundred countries. Faith Lapidus tells us more about the events.

FAITH LAPIDUS:

They are being called "the concerts for a climate in crisis." Producer Kevin Wall, working with former Vice President Al Gore, came up with the idea for Live Earth. Wall has produced concerts for many famous performers including Bob Dylan. He founded SOS, Save Our Selves, to develop events to influence people to fight climate crisis. Wall was also the man behind Live Eight, a series of concerts last year to fight poverty.

Live Earth is taking place on the seventh day of the seventh month of two thousand seven. It represents all seven continents. More than one hundred famous musicians will perform. They include the Police, Madonna and Bon Jovi.

Lenny Kravitz will be the lead act at the concert in Rio de Janeiro. His hits include "American Woman" and "Let Love Rule." Here Kravitz sings "Are You Gonna' Go My Way."

(MUSIC)

The Black Eyed Peas will be among the performers at the show in London. Here lead singer Fergie performs a song from her solo album, "The Dutchess." "Big Girls Don't Cry" is one of the top songs on Billboard Magazine's Hot One Hundred List.

(MUSIC)

If you are near Hamburg, Germany you can see Shakira perform at the Live Earth show there. We leave you with Shakira singing "Illegal."

(MUSIC)

HOST:

I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.

Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver wrote the program. Mario Ritter was our producer. To read the text of this program and download audio, go to our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

VOASE0705_Economics Report

05 July 2007

How Subprime Home Loans Become Risky Investments
The world of mortgage-backed securities.

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

As the American housing market has cooled, worries about investments based on risky home loans have heated up.

Last month, two hedge funds operated by the investment bank Bear Stearns nearly collapsed under debt. They had borrowed billions of dollars from lenders and invested in securities tied to subprime mortgages.

Bear Stearns agreed to provide over one and one-half billion dollars to rescue one of the funds. Investors in the other could lose everything.

The trouble at Bear Stearns is an example of the risks involved with mortgage-backed securities. These investments have helped drive home ownership rates in the United States to nearly seventy percent. But as interest rates have risen, some homeowners now find it hard to pay their mortgages, and keep their homes.

Americans usually need a mortgage loan to buy a house. Subprime borrowers are people without strong credit histories. Lenders can charge them more because there is a greater chance they will not be able to pay back the loan.

Subprime lenders often depend on credit to make the loans. Once processed, the loan is usually sold to an investment bank. Loans with similar levels of risk are grouped together and then sold to investors worldwide as mortgage-backed securities. The higher the risk, the higher the return.

The Government National Mortgage Association, known as Ginnie Mae, and two other organizations known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac produce most mortgage-backed securities. But investment banks have increased their share, led by Lehman Brothers. Last year, it processed more than fifty billion dollars in securities backed by subprime mortgages.

Being able to sell their loans offers mortgage lenders a way to raise money to make new loans. But being able to spread their risk can also be seen as an invitation to make bad loans.

Last week, federal agencies released the final version of a statement on subprime lending. It provides guidance to lenders to make sure borrowers are able to pay back mortgages with adjustable interest rates. The aim is to avoid payment shock as the rates increase, often after a low starting rate. The agencies also warn against lending activities that harm the interests of homeowners.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. Transcripts and archives of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.