Thursday, May 22, 2008

Show 740 Thursday 22 May


Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

The video I recommend today is called: Social Injustice: サラリーマンの挑戦

The video is done by Kevin Cooney and Ken Suzuki. And I think it’s really well done – the filming, the editing, the music, the acting ... just the whole idea, it’s very funny.

To understand it you have to know a bit of background: firstly who is Rosa Parks and what is she famous for doing and why did she do it? Go and read about Rosa Parks if you don’t know about her already. Wikipedia’s a pretty good place to start, I think.

Another thing that you might not know is that in Japan on some trains they have some carriages that are only for females. It’s usually just during a certain time, like during rush hour.
Actually I just looked it up in Wikipedia and apparently they have this female-only carriage thing in some other countries too. Like: Egypt, India, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines and they’re going to be in South Korea soon too aparently.

They started in Japan in 2001 and, as it says in Wikipedia: they were introduced to combat illegal obscene conducts ("chikan") including groping.

Personally, I think it’s absolutely the wrong way of going about solving the problem ... but anyway I do like this video so go and check it out.



STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today, a group of female ski jumpers are not happy about being left out of the 2010 Winter Olympics so they’re suing the Organizing Committee.

Nearly all Olympic sports have both a men's and women's event, but ski jumping only has a men’s event.
The President of the International Olympic Committee says that because so few women compete in the sport including it in the games would dilute the value of medals won in other events.
According to Reuters the female ski jumpers argue that they meet all the technical requirements to qualify, and accuse opponents of being sexist and unwilling to force male ski jumpers to share potential sponsorship money athletes get from being part of the Games.

And that was Stick News for Thursday the 22nd of May.
Kia Ora




Word Of The Day
Today’s word is refuse.

Refuse means to say that you will not do something that somebody has asked you to do.
It also means to say that you do not want something that has been offered to you.



conversations with sarah
#452 Who was Rosa Parks?

Step 1: Repeat Junko’s lines.
Step 2: Read Junko’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Junko
Who was Rosa Parks?

Sarah She was a woman who is famous for refusing to give up her seat on a bus.

Junko Why did she do that?

Sarah Because she was tired of being treated badly I think.

Junko Why did they ask her to give up her seat?

Sarah Um, they used to have racial segregation in the United States.

Junko What does racial segregation mean?

Sarah It means that people were treated differently because of their race, and people with pale skin were treated better. So, for example, if there weren’t enough seats on the bus, the bus driver could ask, ah, an African American to stand up so that a Caucasian person could sit down.

Junko Wow. That sucks.

Sarah Yeah, it did suck and that’s why there was the American Civil Rights movement.



Rosa Parks sat on the front seat of the bus and then she became a civil rights icon.
What if I got on (a) women only train car?
I will stand against segregation by sitting on the train.
I don’t think I’m a hero, I’m just doing what’s right.
We shall overcome, we shall overcome.


notes

car (AmE) = carriage (BrE, NZE)
"I don't think I'm a hero, I'm just doing what anyone would do", (or a version of this) is a typical thing people say to the media when they have done something heroic.
We Shall Overcome is a "a protest song that became a key anthem of the US civil rights movement".



links

today's STICK NEWS pictures

music

show start
artist: BrunoXe
album: aprendiendo desde 2004
track: Mandrake
from: Jerez, Spain
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

WOD start
artist: DJ iPep's
album: Home Mix 2007
track: Game Toy
from: EVREUX, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: Groovetracks
track: groovetracks ending
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: Nokom electro
album: Nokom
track: Bonnobaize
from: grenoble/lyon, France
artist at Jamendo
artist site

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