VOASE0826_This Is America

26 August 2007

Two Years After Katrina, Revisiting New Orleans, and Its Struggles
Progress continues, but concerns are raised about the physical as well as the mental recovery from the floods. 'There's no way you can tell me to get over it,' says one man.

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

VOICE TWO:

Two breeches in the Florida Street levee, looking toward the Mississippi River, are shown Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005, in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina moved through the area

And I'm Steve Ember. Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Floodwalls around New Orleans, Louisiana, failed. Soon, eighty percent of the city was underwater.

VOICE ONE:

Today New Orleans is making progress. But it still faces major problems as people work to rebuild their homes and their lives.

(MUSIC)

RAY NAGIN: "Our city was totally devastated after Katrina. And after two years we are still trying to recover. But our citizens, they continue to suffer."

VOICE TWO:

That was New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, speaking this month at a congressional hearing in Washington.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin speaking on Capitol Hill in Washington

Mayor Nagin continues to meet with federal and state officials about ways to rebuild his city and help its citizens. He has expressed dissatisfaction with levels of financial help for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region.

RAY NAGIN: "I implore, I ask, I beg this committee to really do something to help us.

VOICE ONE:

Congress has already approved tens of billions of dollars in Gulf Coast aid.

That includes seven billion dollars for the Army Corps of Engineers to repair the city's flood protection system. Last week federal officials described proposals for an additional seven and a half billion dollars of improvements by two thousand eleven.

They say the plan would sharply reduce the chances of a repeat of what happened after Katrina.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Hurricane Katrina hit land three times in the final days of August of two thousand five. Its third landfall, on August twenty-ninth, was the one that caused the most damage by breaking through the flood barriers.

Katrina was blamed for almost one thousand seven hundred deaths. Most of the deaths happened in Louisiana.

It was the most costly hurricane in American history with estimates of at least eighty-one billion dollars in property damage. Whole communities were destroyed.

VOICE ONE:

Many people living in the Lower Ninth Ward remain homeless two years after Hurricane Katrina

The floodwaters in New Orleans tore through areas including some of the poorest in the city, such as the Lower Ninth Ward.

Local resident Glen Madison expresses his dissatisfaction with the way officials are dealing with the problems in the Lower Ninth Ward.

GLEN MADISON: "Instead of sending all that money over there -- more troops. What about us? Because most of the damage was right here. The Lower, Lower Ninth Ward. Had more damage than anybody. And this is the last place they dealing with when it should have been the first."

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Rebuilding has begun. But workers have yet to clear away many of the homes and other buildings wrecked by the storm.

Thousands of people are still living in trailers provided as emergency housing by the government. But there are concerns that the trailers may be making some people sick.

The people have reported headaches, nosebleeds and other problems. Officials have been investigating reports that the cause may be high levels of formaldehyde used in building materials. That chemical gives off a gas that can cause breathing difficulties. But there are no national rules about acceptable levels of formaldehyde in trailers.

Still, hundreds of people in Louisiana are taking legal action against trailer manufacturers. They accuse them of providing the government with poorly built trailers.

Some families in Louisiana and Mississippi have asked to be moved out of their temporary housing because of the concerns. Government officials say they are working to move people from trailers to hotels and other places.

VOICE ONE:

Many homeowners are still waiting for insurance payments or government help to rebuild.

And many people are dissatisfied with a state program, financed mainly by the federal government, called Road Home. This program was designed to help aid the citizens of New Orleans in rebuilding their homes.

Homeowners could be approved to receive as much as one hundred fifty thousand dollars to rebuild their home. Or the government could buy their property.

As of now, the program is five billion dollars short of what is needed.

Residents like Lucas Simmons question if the money is being spent properly.

LUCAS SIMMONS: "They keep putting it on the back burner. Then they claim and come back later and say ‘Oh look, we short.’ I guess you is short if you steady lacing everybody’s pocket that don’t need it from the ones that need it. They ain't getting no help."

VOICE TWO:

Lucas Simmons says two years later, some people do not really understand the lasting mental effect of Katrina and the floods.

LUCAS SIMMONS: "Lot of them, they didn’t lose nothing but they always saying ‘Get over it.’ I lost everything. There's no way you can tell me to get over it."

VOICE ONE:

The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, told lawmakers that he has received shocking reports from city health officials. One report said that since Katrina, New Orleans had seen a forty-seven percent increase in deaths.

The medical examiner says there is no question that the after-effects of Katrina are killing people. Stress levels are extremely high and Mayor Nagin said resources for mental health care are limited.

Before Katrina, New Orleans had around four hundred fifty thousand people. Many left after the storm. Large numbers relocated to Texas. But in the last two years, thousands of people have returned to New Orleans. Mayor Nagin said the population now is about three hundred thousand.

VOICE TWO:

Recently a congressional delegation traveled to parts of the Gulf Coast for a two-day visit. The lawmakers promised to work with state and local governments to set goals and time limits to improve health care. That includes mental health services.

The lawmakers also said their visit to Louisiana will help them decide what to do about the financially troubled Road Home program.

In addition to the federal government, state governments have also provided money for Gulf Coast recovery efforts.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Last year, HBO television showed a documentary by movie director Spike Lee called "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts."

(SOUND)

The four-part movie centered on the Lower Ninth Ward.

Jazz musician and composer Terence Blanchard wrote and performed for the film. But his connection with the project was far more involved. He had lived in the Lower Ninth Ward for sixteen years. His family's home was among those destroyed. His family lost everything.

Earlier this month Terence Blanchard released an album called "A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina.)"

The songs on the album express the pain caused by the disaster two years ago. This song "Levees" does not need any words to describe feelings both of deep sadness and inner strength.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Undoing the damage to New Orleans after Katrina has been slow in some cases but not so slow in others. Officials of the city known as the Big Easy are proud to talk about the progress that has been made. For example, crowds have returned to traditions like the yearly Mardi Gras parades.

Resident Glen Madison says the hurricane may have destroyed parts of New Orleans but not the spirit of its people.

GLEN MADISON: "You have mishaps and this is one of those things that just happen. So you just got to regroup and survive."

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written and produced by Lawan Davis. To learn more about American life, go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can download transcripts and audio archives of our programs. I’m Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

VOASE0826_Development Report

26 August 2007

Mercy Corps Seeks to Expand Its Services
Youth development and climate change are among new areas of interest for US-based humanitarian aid group.

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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Often, when a natural disaster strikes, one of the first groups to offer help is Mercy Corps. This American nonprofit organization has assisted people in more than one hundred countries.

It grew out of the Save the Refugees Fund. A man named Dan O'Neill started that organization in nineteen seventy-nine. He wanted to help Cambodians who fled the rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Soon, he established Mercy Corps with the help of another man, Ellsworth Culver. Today it has programs in more than thirty countries.

A man holds a baby near a destroyed house in the town of Pisco, Peru, 16 Aug. 2007

Joy Portella is the head of communications for Mercy Corps. She says the strengths of the group lie, first of all, in emergency relief services. For example, Mercy Corps partnered with a local aid group to provide help to families affected by the deadly earthquake this month in Peru.

Mercy Corps also works in areas of conflict such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Darfur, Sudan.

In Iraq, the group says it is helping populations to identify their rights and work for economic independence. Mercy Corps also supports microlending, small business development and technical assistance. And Mercy Corps is expanding its programs in areas of civil society building and democracy.

A congressman has nominated the group for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Its leaders hope to expand into several new areas. These include youth development, climate change issues and poverty reduction through technology.

Charity Navigator, an independent group that rates American charities, has given its highest rating to Mercy Corps. The American Institute of Philanthropy says Mercy Corps could be more open in reporting which groups receive its donated goods and how those goods are used. But it says the financial performance of Mercy Corps is excellent.

A big help is the fact that the group does not have to spend as much to raise money compared to many other charities. More than half of its budget comes from the United States government. Mercy Corps had a budget last year of two hundred twenty million dollars.

The group employs more than three thousand people. About fifty percent are Muslim and about ninety percent are citizens of the countries where they work. Joy Portella at Mercy Corps says the group has learned the importance of working with local people who have expert knowledge of a country and its culture.

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

VOASE0825_People In America

25 August 2007

Nellie Bly, 1864-1922: Newspaper Reporter Used Unusual Methods to Investigate and Write About Illegal Activities in New York City
She also was famous for traveling around the world in seventy-six days.

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VOICE ONE:

I'm Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Ray Freeman with the Special English program, People in America. Every week we tell about a person important in the

history of the United States. Today, we tell about a reporter of more than one hundred years ago.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Nellie Bly

The year was eighteen eighty-seven. The place was New York City. A young woman, Elizabeth Cochrane, wanted a job at a large newspaper. The editor agreed, if she would investigate a hospital for people who were mentally sick and then write about it.

Elizabeth Cochrane decided to become a patient in the hospital herself. She used the name Nellie Brown so no one would discover her or her purpose. Newspaper officials said they would get her released after a while.

To prepare, Nellie put on old clothes and stopped washing. She went to a temporary home for women. She acted as if she had severe mental problems. She cried and screamed and stayed awake all night. The police were called. She was examined by doctors. Most said she was insane.

VOICE TWO:

Nellie Brown was taken to the mental hospital. It was dirty. Waste material was left outside the eating room. Bugs ran across the tables. The food was terrible: hard bread and gray-colored meat.

Nurses bathed the patients in cold water and gave them only a thin piece of cloth to wear to bed.

During the day, the patients did nothing but sit quietly. They had to talk in quiet voices. Yet, Nellie got to know some of them. Some were women whose families had put them in the hospital because they had been too sick to work. Some were women who had appeared insane because they were sick with fever. Now they were well, but they could not get out.

Nellie recognized that the doctors and nurses had no interest in the patients' mental health. They were paid to keep the patients in a kind of jail. Nellie stayed in the hospital for ten days. Then a lawyer from the newspaper got her released.

VOICE ONE:

Five days later, the story of Elizabeth Cochrane's experience in the hospital appeared in the New York World newspaper. Readers were shocked. They wrote to officials of the city and the hospital protesting the conditions and patient treatment. An investigation led to changes at the hospital.

Elizabeth Cochrane had made a difference in the lives of the people there. She made a difference in her own life too. She got her job at the New York World. And she wrote a book about her experience at the hospital. She did not write it as Nellie Brown, however, or as Elizabeth Cochrane. She wrote it under the name that always appeared on her newspaper stories: Nellie Bly.

VOICE TWO:

The child who would grow up to become Nellie Bly was born during the Civil War, in eighteen sixty-four, in western Pennsylvania.

Her family called her Pink. Her father was a judge. He died when she was six years old. Her mother married again. But her new husband drank too much alcohol and beat her. She got a divorce in eighteen seventy-nine, when Pink was fifteen years old. Pink decided to learn to support herself so she would never need a man.

Pink, her mother, brothers and sisters moved to a town near the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pink worked at different jobs but could not find a good one.

One day, she read something in the Pittsburgh Dispatch newspaper. The editor of the paper, Erasmus Wilson, wrote that it was wrong for women to get jobs. He said men should have them. Pink wrote the newspaper to disagree. She said she had been looking for a good job for about four years, as she had no father or husband to support her. She signed it "Orphan Girl".

VOICE ONE:

The editors of the dispatch liked her letter. They put a note in the paper asking "Orphan Girl" to visit. Pink did. Mister Wilson offered her a job.

He said she could not sign her stories with her real name, because no woman writer did that. He asked news writers for suggestions. One was Nellie Bly, the name of a girl in a popular song. So Pink became Nellie Bly.

For nine months, she wrote stories of interest to women. Then she left the newspaper because she was not permitted to write what she wanted. She went to Mexico to find excitement. She stayed there six months, sending stories to the Dispatch to be published. Soon after she returned to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, she decided to look for another job. Nellie Bly left for New York City and began her job at the New York World.

VOICE TWO:

As a reporter for the New York World, Nellie Bly investigated and wrote about illegal activities in the city. For one story, she acted as if she was a mother willing to sell her baby. For another, she pretended to be a woman who cleaned houses so she could report about illegal activities in employment agencies.

Today, a newspaper reporter usually does not pretend to be someone else to get information for a story. Most newspapers ban such acts. But in Nellie Bly's day, reporters used any method to get information, especially if they were trying to discover people guilty of doing something wrong.

Nellie Bly's success at this led newspapers to employ more women. But she was the most popular of the women writers. History experts say Nellie Bly was special because she included her own ideas and feelings in everything she wrote. They say her own voice seemed to speak on the page.

Nellie Bly's stories always provided detailed descriptions. And her stories always tried to improve society. Critics said Nellie Bly was an example of what a reporter can do, even today. She saw every situation as a chance to make a real difference in other people's lives as well as her own.

VOICE ONE:

Nellie Bly may be best remembered in history for a trip she took.

In the eighteen seventies, French writer Jules Verne wrote the book “Around the World in Eighty Days.” It told of a man's attempt to travel all around the world. He succeeded. In real life, no one had tried. By eighteen eighty-eight, a number of reporters wanted to do it. Nellie Bly told her editors she would go even if they did not help her. But they did.

VOICE TWO:

Nellie Bly left New York for France on November fourteenth, eighteen eighty-nine. She met Jules Verne at his home in France. She told him about her plans to travel alone by train and ship around the world.

From France she went to Italy and Egypt, through South Asia to Singapore and Japan, then to San Francisco and back to New York. Nellie Bly's trip created more interest in Jules Verne's book. Before the trip was over, “Around the World in Eighty Days” was published again. And a theater in Paris had plans to produce a stage play of the book.

VOICE ONE:

Back home in New York, the World was publishing the stories Bly wrote while travelling. On days when the mail brought no story from her, the editors still found something to write about it. They published new songs written about Bly and new games based on her trip. The newspaper announced a competition to guess how long her trip would take. The prize was a free trip to Europe. By December second, about one hundred thousand readers had sent in their estimates.

Nellie Bly arrived back where she started on January twenty-fifth, eighteen ninety. It had taken her seventy-six days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds. She was twenty-five years old. And she was famous around the world.

VOICE TWO:

Elizabeth Cochrane died in New York in nineteen twenty-two. She was fifty-eight years old. In the years since her famous trip, she had married, and headed a business. She also had helped poor and homeless children. And she had continued to write all her life for newspapers and magazines as Nellie Bly.

One newspaper official wrote this about her after her death:

“Nellie Bly was the best reporter in America. More important is the work of which the world knew nothing. She died leaving little money. What she had was promised to take care of children without homes, for whom she wished to provide. Her life was useful. She takes with her from this Earth all that she cared about -- an honorable name, the respect and affection of her fellow workers, the memory of good fights well fought and many good deeds never to be forgotten. Happy the man or woman that can leave as good a record.”

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This VOA Special English program, People in America, was written by Nancy Steinbach. Your narrators were Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman.

VOASE0824_In the News

24 August 2007

Dangerous Weather, Unforgiving Seas Add Up to Deadliest Job
Commercial fishermen have the highest rate of deadly injuries among US workers. Pilots and flight engineers had the second highest in 2006.

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This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Two tragedies at coal mines on opposite sides of the world remind us all how dangerous some jobs can be.

In China last week, floodwaters from a river trapped one hundred eighty-one miners in two mines. An official in Shandong province said Thursday that there was no hope of finding them alive. Almost five thousand people died in coal mine accidents last year in China.

The Crandall Canyon mine in the American state of Utah collapsed on August sixth, trapping six miners. Last week, another collapse at the mine killed three rescuers and injured six others.

Coal mining deaths have been decreasing in the United States. But last year there were forty-seven, more than double the number the year before. Twelve of the deaths resulted from an explosion at the Sago mine in West Virginia.

A commercial fishing boat strikes rocks near Ketchikan, Alaska, in September 2004

The Labor Department has a newly published report on work-related deaths last year in the United States. The construction industry had the largest number. But the single deadliest job in the United States is commercial fisherman.

Fifty-one workers in the fishing industry were killed, a rate of about one hundred forty-two deaths for every one hundred thousand workers. It was by far the highest rate of deaths when compared with other jobs.

A popular television program on the Discovery Channel, "Deadliest Catch," takes people inside the dangerous world of professional fishing.

NARRATOR: "A boat with a full stack of pots is at its most vulnerable. When loaded, the [Alaskan crab boat] Time Bandit will have one hundred ten thousand pounds of steel stacked above deck, increasing the risk of rollover. In the past, the combination of top-heavy boats and rough seas has consistently led to tragedy."

FISHERMAN: "We're laying way over on our side! Five people on the boat, repeat, five people."

In all, the Labor Department says five thousand seven hundred three people in the United States died from work-related injuries last year. There were thirty-one fewer deaths than the year before. And the death rate was the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting this information in nineteen ninety-two.

But deadly injuries increased in some jobs. Aircraft-related deaths were up sharply. Pilots and flight engineers had the second highest death rate of all jobs last year. The third highest was among workers who cut down trees.

Other jobs with high death rates were iron and steel workers, waste collectors and farmers and other agricultural workers. Power-line workers, roofers and professional drivers also had high death rates.

Road accidents were down last year but were still the most common cause of work-related deaths in America.

Congress approved mine-safety reforms last year after the Sago disaster. But mine operators have another two years to put in place two-way communication and tracking devices to help locate trapped miners.

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