VOA慢速英语2010年-American Mosaic - A Visit to Several U

FAITH LAPIDUS: Welcome to American Mosaic¹ in VOA Special English.

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I’m Faith Lapidus.

Today, we listen to music from Kenna.

And we answer a question about marriage between people of different races.

But, first we tell about some unusual museums in the United States.

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Unusual Museums

FAITH LAPIDUS: Americans love museums. We have art museums, history museums, car museums, train museums and space museums. Many are famous. Millions of people from around the world visit them each year. And then we have those other museums. The kind that make you ask, “Did they really build a museum for that?” Mario Ritter tells us about some of these unusual museums.

MARIO RITTER: It may be yellow, brown, grey, mild, or hot and spicy². We put it on sandwiches, squirt it on hot dogs and even dip pretzels in it. No American picnic would be complete without mustard.

Welcome to the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin

People in the town of Middleton, Wisconsin love it so much, they built a museum in its honor. The National Mustard Museum has over five thousand kinds of mustard from sixty countries. You can even have a taste and buy containers of mustard in the museum.

If you visit the Banana Museum in Auburn, Washington you could learn everything you ever wanted to know about bananas. There are almost four thousand objects in honor of this favorite fruit.

Another unusual museum is in Independence, Missouri. It has over one hundred fifty wreaths and two thousand pieces of jewelry³ made with human hair. Leila Cohoon owns the museum and says some of the objects are over one hundred years old. The human hair wreaths were considered pieces of art long ago.

If you are ever in Haines, Alaska you might want to visit the Hammer Museum. There you will find over one thousand five hundred different kinds of hammers. Dave Pahl started the museum in two thousand two. He says some of the hammers on display were used thousands of years ago by the ancient Egyptians.

And then there is the Twine⁴ Ball Museum in Darwin, Minnesota. It has only one object on display – what it calls the largest twine ball in the world. A man named Francis Johnson began winding⁵ twine, or thick string, into a ball in March of nineteen fifty. He wound for four hours a day for twenty-three weeks. The ball got so big, he needed a crane to lift it so he could wind some more. Mr. Johnson wound the ball for about thirty years. When he was finished, the twine ball was four meters across and weighed seven thousand nine hundred kilograms.

Or you could visit Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Yes, it is what you think it is! Mr. Smith says he has painted or decorated about one thousand toilet seats. Many of the seats have personal meaning to him. Some show his travels around the world.

Then there is the Museum of Sex in New York City. That museum has …sorry, we are out of time!

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Interracial Marriages

FAITH LAPIDUS: Our listener question this week comes from Nigeria. David Odoviano wants to know about the history of interracial marriages in the United States, especially those between blacks and whites.

Marriages between people of different races were extremely rare in early American history. The first one on record took place in the state of Virginia in sixteen fourteen. A white tobacco farmer named John Rolfe married the famous Indian Pocahontas.

Interracial marriages were illegal in many states. Miscegenation⁶ laws made it a crime for people of different races to marry. The state of Maryland passed the first miscegenation law in the early sixteen sixties.

Charles Robinson is with the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He is vice⁷ provost for diversity, director of African-American studies and a history professor. He has done extensive studies on interracial relationships and miscegenation laws.

Professor Robinson says the Maryland law carried a severe punishment for white women who married black slaves.

CHARLES ROBINSON: "It punished them by making them servants to the master of the slave man for the length of that man's life."

FAITH LAPIDUS: Professor Robinson says it is not clear when the first marriage between a black person and a white person took place. But he says it appears to have been sometime in the sixteen sixties.

CHARLES ROBINSON: "It's pretty obvious that blacks and whites had married by sixteen sixty-four in Maryland because that law was instituted as a reaction to white women marrying slave men. But no one knows actually who was the first person or people to do it."

FAITH LAPIDUS: At least thirty states had miscegenation laws at one time or another. Many of the laws remained in force until nineteen sixty-seven. That was when the United States Supreme⁸ Court ruled the laws unconstitutional in the miscegenation case of Loving vs. the state of Virginia.

Richard P. Loving and his wife, Mildred in 1965. They won a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 that overturned laws prohibiting interracial unions

At the time, Virginia was one of sixteen states that still banned interracial marriages. The Supreme Court ruling made the laws unenforceable. Still, several of the laws remained on the books for years to follow. In the year two thousand Alabama became the last state to withdraw its miscegenation law.

Since the ruling in nineteen sixty-seven, the number of interracial marriages has been steadily⁹ increasing. In the nineteen sixties and seventies, interracial marriages were fewer than one percent of all marriages in the United States.

In June, the Pew Research Center released a new report based on information from the United States Census¹⁰ Bureau. It said more than fourteen percent of all new marriages in two thousand eight were between people of different races or ethnic¹¹ groups. This is more than double the rate in nineteen eighty.

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Kenna

FAITH LAPIDUS: The music of Kenna is very hard to define. He calls it experimental. Author Malcolm Gladwell wrote about Kenna in his two thousand five book “Blink.” Bob Doughty¹² has more.

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BOB DOUGHTY: That was “Hell Bent,” the first single from Kenna’s two thousand three album “New Sacred Cow.” It was his first album release. The album included everything from hip-hop, to rock, to pop to electronica.

Kenna Zemedkun was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio with his family when he was three years old. But he spent most of his childhood in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He became interested in music after hearing “The Joshua Tree” album from the rock band U2. He began to teach himself to play the piano.

Kenna

Kenna released his second album in two thousand seven. It was called “Make Sure They See My Face.” The single “Say Goodbye to Love” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Urban/Alternative Performance in two thousand nine.

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In January, the musician climbed to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. He did it to bring attention to the worldwide clean water crisis. He took a team of scientists, activists¹³ and celebrities¹⁴ with him. This was Kenna's second attempt to reach the top. It was the largest group ever to complete the climb.

Kenna will release a new album later this year called "Songs for Flight." Until then, we leave you with “Baptized in Blacklight.”

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FAITH LAPIDUS: I'm Faith Lapidus. Our program was written by June Simms and Jim Tedder¹⁵. Dana Demange was the producer.

You can get transcripts¹⁶, MP3s and podcasts of our shows at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.

 

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 spicy   

adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的

参考例句：

• The soup tasted mildly spicy.汤尝起来略有点辣。
• Very spicy food doesn't suit her stomach.太辣的东西她吃了胃不舒服。

3 jewelry   

n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝

参考例句：

• The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
• Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。

4 twine   

v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕

参考例句：

• He tied the parcel with twine.他用细绳捆包裹。
• Their cardboard boxes were wrapped and tied neatly with waxed twine.他们的纸板盒用蜡线扎得整整齐齐。

5 winding   

n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈

参考例句：

• A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
• The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。

6 miscegenation   

n.人种混杂；混血

参考例句：

• It was only in 1967 that the United States finally struck down its anti miscegenation laws.直到1967年，美国才废除了反种族通婚的法律。
• In contemporary times,Brazilians have come to regard miscegenation as a defining national trait.在当代，巴西人已经把种族通婚看作是鲜明的国家特征。

7 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

8 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

9 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

10 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

11 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

12 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。

13 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

15 tedder   

n.（干草）翻晒者，翻晒机

参考例句：

• Jim Tedder has more. 吉姆？特德将给我们做更多的介绍。 来自互联网
• Jim Tedder tells us more. 吉姆？泰德给我们带来更详细的报道。 来自互联网

16 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句