1)The word of the week:blunt
The recent news that caught my attention is a suicide issue on Caltrain tracks. Reviewing the past articles about this issue, I found out that suicide by train is not a new phenomenon in California as well as where I’m from, Japan. However, it must be a rare case that the four teens from the same high school committed suicide within a half year using same method. Sadly, throwing one’s body into a running train is indeed getting be a disturbing trend among teens. According to the article, Caltrain has spent more than $17 million for pedestrian gates, fencing and signs to improve safety at their street crossings and help keep people off the tracks. However, no matter hard they work on physical prevention, it won’t solve the root of this problem.
Caltrain officials said today that the best way to discourage teen suicides on Caltrain tracks is to address mental health issues on a community level and tone down news coverage of the deaths of several young people at a Palo Alto crossing since May. I totally agree with this approach, but I also think that giving them an ethical education in terms of suicide is also important to teach kids how important their lives is or how committing suicide can affect others. Some kids might think that committing suicide is only a matter of them, but it is absolutely not true. They should also be able to consider how this experience could affect to the rest of the people such as operators, passengers, local residents, teachers, their classmates and their family member. Especially, it must be very upsetting for the engineer and the conductor as well as the passengers that are on the trains. Although they have no responsibility, technically they were part of the objects that killed kids.The article says that the engineer and the conductor can get counseling and even talk to peer counselors, people who have been through the same kind of situation, who can talk with them about what it feels like.
It is indeed a community’s responsibility to take care of their kids and educate them to prevent these disasters. Adolescent mental health is already a sensitive topic and mental illness makes it more complicated. I really hope the prevention plans that the city made will work out well and won’t see a new case regarding to suicide on Caltrain again.
I read the first piece called "Brownies," which is about a Brownie troop of fourth-grade African American girls from suburban Atlanta, Georgia, who go to summer camp. And they decide to creep up on a troop of white Brownies who are "ponytailed and full of energy, bubbling over with love and money" and "teach them a lesson" for a racial insult they inflicted.
(1)The word of the week:derogatory
I didn’t know that this kind of website exists. You can see the transcripts as you listen to the radio and even download stories into your mp3 player! Wow that’s impressive! I choose a story “Charles Strouse’s Big Scores, From ‘Annie’ To ‘Birdie’” from Fresh Air. Although I didn’t know much about this famous music composer and the musicals he worked on, it was still interesting to hear how this talented guy, Charles, worked on pop music, having his background as a serious musician, of classic music. And I also enjoyed some pieces of music from the musicals played during the interview. Playing these songs during the interview would make audiences who knows about this old musical remind the old days, and it would be also entertaining for the audiences who are not familiar with musicals.
Ok, back to the assignment.
Obviously the host, Terry Gross has watched the original musical “Annie,” and I bet she was a big fan of this play since she told Charles that she remembered words to songs when she listened to the songs of this play for the first time in a long at the beginning of the interview. She was not only naturally prepared to this interview, she also had some insights about his music and the musical. As she did, showing one’s interest to an interviewee is a good way to start off an interview. Since she actually saw the play at that time and was really familiar with it, Charles must have thought that she was not a rough- and-ready interviewer.
Reading a transcript briefly, I noticed that Terry really didn’t speak much. She just let Charles talk and talk, and picked up some interesting episodes and asked more details about them. I think that’s her strategy to make this interview more interesting. Rather than just keep asking a set of questions, hearing more about what he says made it more interesting.
She is the lady who dresses pink the best in the world. She is thoughtful, kind, positive and has guts to conquer any difficulty she faces. She is driven to do her best, no matter how ridiculous it may be. She gives hope for women everywhere to emulate her persevering character by believing in what may seem like the impossible. Many would have doubted her success, but she proved them wrong by working hard while still staying true to herself. She firmly stands up for what she believes in and encourages others to do the same. One of her exceptional characteristics is that she does not care what others think of her. She does as she pleases, and she does not let anyone get in the way of her pursuit of a dream.
