ENGLISH WORK – TEXTOS PARA O 2º “COL”

4º BIMESTRE – 2013

The Financial District

The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Manhattan. To project themselves from attacks, they built a strong wooden wall. Although it’s now long gone, this wall gave its name to a street in Lower Manhattan and the street, in turn, became synonymous with American capitalism. The street, of course, is Wall Street.

It is easy to see why “Wall Street” means capitalism. The New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange are both in the Wall Street area. So are many stockbrokers, investment banks and other banks, and headquarters of many large corporations. There is also the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a branch of the national bank of the United States – and the only branch that buys and sells government securities.

On any weekday you can visit the New York Stock Exchange, which began with several merchants meeting under a tree on Wall Street, now has over 1,350 members. From the visitor is gallery you can watch as trading goes on at a frantic pace below you.

Outside on the street, the pace is just as frantic (but only during working hours – the city is nightlife is elsewhere). The area is narrow streets and tall buildings can feel confining and can make the crowds seem scared.

To escape the commotion of Wall Street, you can visit the nearby South Street Seaport. The seaport is an open area of low buildings on the East River. In addition to many shops and restaurants, the seaport has a museum. You can tour old houses, ships, and shipyards – reminders of the days when New Yourk was above all a port. At the seaport, you can also tour the Fulton Fish Market, Where city restaurants buy their fish – if you can be there at five in the morning!

Appropriately, the very first business deal in Manhattan was made in what became the financial district. As every American schoolchild knows, the Dutch bought Manhattan from the Indians, for the ridiculously low price of 24 dollars worth of beads and trinkets.

            From: FALK, R. Spotlight on the USA. New York: Oxford University Press, (Adapted) FEPESE – Fundação de Estudos e Pesquisas Sócioeconômicas (BADESC)

The 21 Club

Underage drinking and deaths have prompted a movement for change

NEARLY 5,000 people below the age of 21 die because of excessive alcohol consumption. Each year. Oddly, this has triggered a new movement to lower the drinking age. In America, young people can vote, drive, marry, divorce, hunt and go to war before alcohol is legally allowed to touch their lips. Many states once set their minimum drinking-age at 18. But in 1984 Ronald Reagan oversaw the passage of the “21 law”, which requires states to set 21 as the minimum drinking-age or risk losing 10% of their highway funds. Now campaigners want to move it back.

In the past, states have been too fiscally timid to challenge the 21 law. But calls for change are growing louder.

Supporters of the status quo, including the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving, say that the law has averted thousands of fatalities. But skeptics point out that other countries, like Canada, have seen similar declines, even though their drinking-age is 18. They also argue that barring young people from drinking does not stop the from consuming alcohol: it just makes them drink more quickly.

John Mc Cardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, is part of the Amethyst Initiative, a group of educators who are pushing for 18-year-olds to be allowed to drink. Those who have graduated from high school, have a clean record and completed an alcohol-education programme should qualify for a drinking licence, he says, in the same way that people who go to driving school receive a licence to operate a vehicle.

                                                                            (The Economist)

                                                                                                                         

Letter

Dear Sir,

I am writing to inform you of the kind of services rendered by some of your employees of your company, the Kopeh Omnibus Company.

Firstly, the drivers of some of the buses often do not stop buses directly in front of the bus-stop, as one would expect, but twenty or thirty meters before or after them. This results in the people having to run to catch the bus. I use the word ‘run’ because, after stopping for only about two minutes, the bus starts off again. The bus-driver and conductor seem to be unable to see that people who are walking towards the bus might also be interested in catching it. I know this for certain because, having a heart condition, I try to make it a practice not to run. As a result, I have been left behind by your buses six times.

Secondly, your conductors seem to feel that they are in charge of educating the public. Once, I was rudely told “You are a man. Why do not you stand up for this lady?” by a conductor half my years in age. It was very embarrassing. Let us leave aside the point that, having a heart condition, it was inadvisable for me to stand up for the whole journey. Do you think that the conductor has the right to speak like that to the passengers? Are they not on the buses to serve us rather than insult us?

The Kopeh Omnibus Company has the monopoly of bus services in Kopeh. Thus, perhaps, the question of competition has never occurred to spur your employees on to better service. However, as it manager, I am sure that you will wish the public to have a good impression of the company.

                                                                                     

                                                                                  “lnsulted”

                                                                       (Englishdaily)

HEALTH

WHO ARE THESE ALIENS?

            A spaceship lands on Earth. Inside we find several ugly, fat, hairless beings with no legs. What are these amorphous extraterrestrials? Jabba the Hutt? No, returning human astronauts, according to Dr Lewis Dartnell of University College London. Ease of movement in low or zero gravity will cause muscle wastage, while at the same time causing fluids to gather in their heads, which would make their faces puff up. The benevolent artificial environment inside a spacecraft would result in hair loss. Dr Dartnell even suggested that future astronauts would choose to have their legs amputated as ones lower limbs only get in the way in zero gravity. And if the astronauts had had children during their years in space travelling to other planets they would probably be stunted as well as bald and fat. A study from NASAʼs Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California has found that when newts tails are amputated to re-grow in space, the new tails are only half as long as they would be on Earth. Researchers affirm that gravity plays a role in cell division. Do you still want to grow up to be an astronaut?

                                                                                              (Think in English)

*newts: small semiaquatic salamanders of North America and Europe and northern Asia.

NEW LAW TARGETS FAST-FOOD TOYS

            San Francisco has passed a law banning fast-food restaurants from giving away toys with some children's meals. Supporters say many fast food meals are very unhealthy, but McDonald's called the legislation misguided.

            It could mean the end of the Happy Meal, the fast-food snack that's a hit with children at McDonald's, because it comes with a free toy. City leaders in San Francisco argued the same meals also come with too many calories and they say that has added to a situation where nearly 20% of American children are obese.

            Now San Francisco has become the first major US city to ban fast-food restaurants from giving away toys with meals that don't meet nutritional recommendations. In future, you'll only get the toy if you buy a healthy snack.

            The burger giant McDonald's sent senior executives to the city to oppose the measure. In a statement, the company said: ''Parents tell us it's their right and responsibility, not the government's, to make their own decisions and to choose what's right for their children.''

            McDonald's, Burger King and 15 other food companies have accepted to self-regulate how they advertise

food to youngsters.

                                                           (Rajesh Mirchandani, BBC News)