VOASE0805_This Is America

05 August 2007

Mountain and Cowboy Culture Meet in Jackson Hole
We take you to the popular valley in Wyoming where people go to experience the outdoors and the spirit of the old American West.

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VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. Today we travel to the mountains of Wyoming for a trip to Jackson Hole.

VOICE ONE:

This beautiful valley was named after the nineteenth-century explorer and hunter David Jackson. After he spent a winter in the area, his friends started to call it “Jackson’s Hole.”

VOICE TWO:

The valley looks like a hole in the middle of the mountains that surround it. Over time, the name stuck.

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VOICE ONE:

Grand Teton National Park

Jackson Hole is about forty-eight kilometers long. The valley includes the town of Jackson. About eight thousand people live there. The valley also includes the Grand Teton National Park and much of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Jackson Hole is a popular holiday place. In the summer, people go there to ride horses, climb mountains, catch fish and take trips on the rivers and lakes.

Many visitors take a trip across the valley on the Snake River. The Snake Indians once lived near this river. It turns from side to side, like a snake on the move.

Some visitors bird-watch from sailboats. One of the birds they can see is America’s national symbol, the bald eagle. Other people go white-water rafting. Rubber rafts carry them along the fastest parts of the river. The water moves so fast, it becomes white with foam.

VOICE TWO:

Skiing near Jackson Hole

In the winter, people come to Jackson Hole to ski. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort provides some of the best downhill skiing and snowboarding in the world.

And there are other kinds of skiing. Some people skate ski; they speed across level snow. Others enjoy the slower speed of cross-country skiing.

Some people go dog sledding in Jackson Hole. They get on a sled and are pulled by a team of dogs through the snow. This is one of the many ways to enjoy the extraordinary mountain views.

Some wealthy people have homes near the ski resort. Other people stay in the many hotels nearby. Some of these hotels are new and very costly.

In fact, the average sale price of a single-family home in Jackson Hole is more than one million dollars.

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VOICE ONE:

Visitors to Jackson Hole have many shopping, dining and entertainment choices.

People can imagine they are in a town in the Old West. At the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, instead of chairs, they can sit on saddles as if riding a horse. On some nights there are dance lessons. People can learn the two-step, a kind of Western dance.

Or they can eat dinner and listen to live music at the Mangy Moose Saloon. There, a large dead moose hangs from the ceiling.

At the Silver Dollar Bar, a long table is covered with more than two thousand shiny silver dollars. If you look carefully, you see that the coins are all from the year nineteen twenty-one.

Visitors can also enjoy an evening at the Jackson Hole Playhouse. In the summer, actors perform musicals and other plays. This brightly painted old theater is one of the oldest wood buildings in town. It has been a popular entertainment place since the nineteen fifties.

VOICE TWO:

Some of the stores in Jackson Hole sell unusual things, like furniture made of deer antlers. Antlers are the hard and bony points that grow on the heads of male deer. These stores sell chairs, lights and other objects made from antlers. They look more like pointy sculptures than furniture.

Many stores in Jackson Hole sell winter sports equipment and clothing. Some sell cowboy clothing. C.J. James owns the Jackson Hole Hat Company. Her Web site describes the cowboy as a "symbol of American independence and strength."

She will sell you a cowboy hat made to fit the exact size of your head. There are many shapes, colors and materials to choose from.

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VOICE ONE:

Rodeo in Jackson Hole

Some of the ways of the Old West cowboy are kept alive in Jackson Hole. In the summer, visitors can go to a rodeo to see competitions based on traditional cowboy skills. Some people say it is the truest of American sports.

The rodeo usually begins with a parade of cowboys and their horses. Then comes the competition. In one event, riders try to stay on a wild animal for eight seconds. They ride wild horses and large bulls. The animals try to throw the cowboys to the ground. The cowboys try not to fall off.

VOICE TWO:

In another event, the cowboy throws a rope around the neck of a young cow. Then he tries to tie the rope around three of its legs. The cowboy who does this in the shortest amount of time wins.

Visitors to Jackson Hole can experience different parts of cowboy life. They can ride horses. They can eat meals cooked outdoors over a fire. In the summer, they can watch actors dressed as cowboys perform “The Shootout.” This short Western play has been performed since the nineteen fifties.

VOICE ONE:

Arts and culture are important in Jackson Hole. Each summer, musicians from around the country perform classical music at the Grand Teton Music Festival.

Musical guests also visit local schools while they are in town.

Each autumn, Jackson holds the Fall Arts Festival. This event celebrates many examples of visual and performing arts. It also provides many examples of fine local foods.

VOICE TWO:

Visitors to Jackson Hole can explore the National Museum of Wildlife. When this museum opened, it was located in the center of town. But soon the museum space was not large enough to hold the art collection.

In nineteen ninety-four the museum reopened in a new building made of stone. It looks like a fortress built centuries ago. The museum contains over two thousand artworks showing nature and animals.

There are many paintings, photographs and sculptures of antelope, deer, birds, horses and other animals. The museum says its art celebrates the powerful connection between animals and humans.

VOICE ONE:

This art shows the natural beauty of the land and its creatures. To see this beauty in real life, all you have to do is walk outside the museum.

The building sits on a hillside overlooking the National Elk Refuge. The refuge contains the largest wintering population of elk in the world. It had an estimated seven thousand elk this season.

The refuge has ten thousand hectares of land. It was started in nineteen twelve to help protect the local elk population.

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VOICE TWO:

Six kilometers north of Jackson, Wyoming, is the Grand Teton National Park. Congress created this park in nineteen twenty-nine. In the nineteen forties the wealthy John D. Rockefeller bought a great amount of land nearby. Then he gave it to the federal government.

Both Rockefeller and the government added to the park later. Today, the government controls about ninety-seven percent of all the land in the Jackson Hole area.

VOICE ONE:

The park is named for the Grand Teton Mountains. These mountains rise directly from the floor of the valley. They are part of the Rocky Mountains. The Grand Tetons are about four thousand meters high and sixty-five kilometers long. Many artists have captured images of these beautiful mountains.

The Native Americans who lived in the area many years ago called the mountains Teewinot, meaning “many pinnacles.”

Fur trappers from Canada had their own idea of what the three largest mountains looked like. These French-speaking hunters named them “les Trois Tetons” -- "the Three Breasts."

VOICE TWO:

The Grand Teton Mountains were formed about ten million years ago. This makes them some of the youngest mountains in North America. The Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, for example, are about two hundred million years old.

Many of the lakes around the Grand Tetons were formed millions of years ago by slow-moving sheets of ice. Some small glaciers are still active in the mountains.

VOICE ONE:

People come to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, from around the world to enjoy the best of cowboy and mountain culture. If you ever go, just don’t forget your cowboy hat.

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VOICE TWO:

Our program was written by Dana Demange and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. Read and listen to our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. And join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

VOASE0804_People In America

04 August 2007

Lady Bird Johnson 1912-2007: The Former First Lady Was an Environmental Activist Who Made America More Beautiful
She showed great strength during a very tense period in American history.

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Lady Bird Johnson. She is best known for being the wife of President Lyndon Baines Johnson who led the nation during the nineteen sixties. But Missus Johnson was also an influential environmental activist, tireless campaigner and successful businesswoman.

She showed great strength and heroism during a tense period in American history. Her work to make America beautiful can still be seen today in flowering fields, roads, and parks across the country.

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VOICE ONE:

Claudia Alta Taylor as a young child. The picture was taken around 1915.

Lady Bird Johnson was born Claudia Alta Taylor in nineteen twelve. The Taylor family lived in the small town of Karnack, Texas. Claudia’s father, Thomas Jefferson Taylor, owned two stores as well as thousands of hectares for cotton production. Her mother, Minnie Taylor, died when Claudia was only five years old. A woman who worked for the Taylor family gave Claudia her nickname. Alice Tittle said the small child was “as purty as a lady bird.”

VOICE TWO:

Claudia had two older brothers who went away to school. She spent many hours by herself exploring the natural beauty of the fields and forests near her home. She said she grew up listening to the wind in the pine trees of the East Texas woods. She said her heart found its home in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth.

Claudia attended public schools and worked hard at her studies. But she was very shy and did not like attention. When she graduated from high school, she had the third highest grades in the class. She reportedly made sure she finished third to avoid giving the graduation speech required by the top two students in the class.

VOICE ONE:

In nineteen thirty-four Lady Bird graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with

Lady Bird Taylor at her graduation in 1934.

degrees in history and journalism. She planned to teach or work as a theater critic. But then she met an energetic congressional assistant named Lyndon Baines Johnson. The young politician from Texas asked her to marry him on their first date. After weeks of pressure from Mister Johnson, Lady Bird accepted his marriage proposal. Here is Missus Johnson talking about her first meeting with her future husband:

LADY BIRD JOHNSON:

“We had a breakfast date, but we wound up by spending the whole day together, riding and talking. Well, he really let me know before the day was over that he wanted to marry me. And I thought this impossible. But on the other hand, there was one thing I knew I just couldn’t bear to have happen and that was to say goodbye, goodbye period.”

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Lyndon Johnson was busy planning his political career. Within three years, he ran for a seat in the United States Congress and won. Lady Bird Johnson had given him ten thousand dollars to get his campaign started.

When Japanese planes attacked American ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in nineteen forty-one, Mister Johnson joined the navy to fight in World War Two. Missus Johnson stayed in Washington, D.C. and supervised his congressional office during the eight months he was away. Her excellent organizational skills and smart political sense made her perfect for the job.

VOICE ONE:

After Mister Johnson returned, Lady Bird Johnson soon found a new project. She used about seventeen thousand dollars of family money to buy a small radio station in Austin, Texas. The radio station was in debt and had a small broadcast range. Missus Johnson used her husband’s connections with the Federal Communications Commission to increase the radio station’s power and range.

Soon, the station started making money and the company expanded into television as well. Missus Johnson was president of the family company, LBJ Company. She traveled from Washington to Austin every week to take care of business.

Lynda Bird Johnson, Luci Baines Johnson, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson in a photograph taken in 1963.

During this time the Johnson family started to grow. Lady Bird had a daughter, Lynda Bird, in nineteen forty-four. A second daughter, Luci Baines, was born three years later. Lyndon Johnson’s power in politics also continued to grow. In nineteen forty-eight he was elected to the United States Senate.

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VOICE TWO:

In nineteen sixty, John F. Kennedy ran for president of the United States with Lyndon Johnson as vice president. Missus Kennedy was unable to travel and campaign for the candidates because of her pregnancy. Missus Johnson bravely accepted the job. She visited eleven states to help express the goals of the candidates. They won the election.

Missus Johnson was also at her husband’s side when he visited Texas with President and Missus Kennedy on November twenty-second, nineteen sixty-three.

After the tragic shooting of President Kennedy in Dallas, security officials led the Johnsons to the presidential plane to fly back to Washington. During the flight, Missus Johnson and Missus Kennedy watched as Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States.

VOICE ONE:

In the weeks after this national tragedy Lyndon Johnson worked hard to show Americans that he could be a strong president. With his strong support, he got Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four. This law banned discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin” in public places and federal programs. But the law was not popular with many white voters in the southern part of the country.

Once again, Lady Bird Johnson came to the rescue. As part of Lyndon Johnson’s nineteen sixty-four campaign for president she became a spokesman for the law. Lady Bird Johnson visited important southern states although Democratic governors feared for her safety. She traveled through poor areas talking to angry crowds who were against her husband’s civil rights policies. Lady Bird Johnson knew how to give a powerful and expressive speech.

She won over the loud crowds with her gentle manner and calming southern accent. She told them that it was time to end the South’s racist past and move into the modern world. The media later wrote that she stood as a fearless moral representative of her husband. And, her work paid off. Lyndon Johnson won the election.

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VOICE TWO:

The historian Lewis Gould has said Missus Johnson and her press secretary Liz Carpenter were the first to establish the job of the modern first lady. Missus Johnson realized that the wife of the president needed to have her own team of workers. She made sure she had a director of employees as well as a social director. Lady Bird Johnson’s business experience and sense of organization helped create a very effective system for future first ladies and their causes.

VOICE ONE:

Lady Bird Johnson in 1968 in a classroom at Kemper School for Project Headstart.

As first lady, Missus Johnson became an energetic activist for educational and environmental issues. She helped support Head Start, a public program aimed at giving educational and health services to young children from poor families.

She started the Society for a More Beautiful National Capitol. Its aim was to improve the beauty of Washington by planting trees and flowers in public areas and parks. Missus Johnson understood that these improvements were also linked to important issues such as pollution, public transportation, mental health, and crime rates.

VOICE TWO:

But she is most well known for helping to create The Beautification Act of nineteen sixty-five. It aimed to protect America’s natural beauty by limiting advertising signs and cleaning up waste areas on the country’s roads and highways. The law also supported the planting of local flowers and trees. Here is Missus Johnson talking about her environmental efforts:

LADY BIRD JOHNSON:

“Clean water, clean up the rivers, wilderness areas, more national parks, all of that was a part of our aim and thrust and what we tried to do. I’ve had a life long love affair with nature, a particular accent on wildflowers, native plants for the whole broad face of America. I hope everybody could enjoy their little piece of America as much as I have enjoyed mine.”

VOICE ONE:

Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson had a difficult four-year term. The president faced strong opposition about the United States involvement in the war in Vietnam. In nineteen sixty-eight, President Johnson surprised the nation by announcing that he would not seek reelection as president. The Johnsons left politics and returned home to Texas. Mister Johnson died of a heart attack in nineteen seventy-three.

VOICE TWO:

Lady Bird Johnson continued her tireless work to improve the country’s natural

Lady Bird Johnson in 1990

environment. She created the National Wildflower Research Center in nineteen eighty-two. The center helps to educate people about the environmental importance and value of native plants. Missus Johnson died in two thousand seven at the age of ninety-four. Her memory lives in the many fields of wildflowers that color the roads of America.

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VOICE ONE:

This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I’m Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. You can download scripts and audio of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.

VOASE0805_Development Report

05 August 2007

Should HIV-Infected Mothers Breastfeed?
The World Health Organization recommends HIV-infected mothers substitute breastfeeding with replacement feedings if several conditions can be met.

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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

The HIV virus can be transmitted through breastfeeding

The World Health Organization says that breastfeeding is the best way to provide babies with the nutrients and protection against infection they need to be healthy. However, a woman with HIV can spread the virus that causes AIDS to her child during pregnancy, delivery or through breastfeeding. The WHO estimates up to twenty percent of babies born to HIV-infected mothers become infected through breastfeeding.

However, stopping breastfeeding puts children at risk of other problems. These include poor nutrition and increased risk of other life-threatening infections. These risks were shown in Botswana last year. Water supplies made dirty by flooding led to high rates of diarrhea and poor nutrition among babies fed liquid baby food called formula. More than five hundred children died. The number of deaths from diarrhea increased twenty times from earlier years.

Investigators from the United States Centers for Disease Control discovered the link between formula feeding and infant deaths from diarrhea. They also found that babies who were not breastfed were fifty times more likely to have diarrhea.

Peggy Henderson is a child health and development expert with the World Health Organization. She spoke to us from Geneva, Switzerland. Miz Henderson says the choice of feeding depends on the individual situation of each woman with HIV.

The WHO recommends replacement feeding instead of breastfeeding if several conditions can be met. The replacement feeding must be acceptable, financially and physically possible, continued over a period of time and safe for both the mother and baby. If these conditions cannot be met, the WHO recommends that HIV-infected mothers give their babies only breast milk for the first months of life.

Miz Henderson says there are several promising studies on use of anti-retroviral medicines by HIV-infected mothers and their children. But she says the safety of the process is not clear. She says she hopes the WHO will examine ongoing research of the medicines in two thousand nine. New public health recommendations could be announced then. But for now, Miz Henderson says the WHO does not recommend that HIV-infected mothers use anti-retroviral drugs only to reduce transmission of the virus through breastfeeding.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss. I’m Shep O'Neal.