TEXTOS PARA O 2º COL NOT – CAD 04

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.

Standing Room On Airplanes a Possibility

The latest cost-cutting idea from inexpensive airlines is for passengers to stand. Michael Ryan, the CEO of Ryanair, is seriously considering this option. Ryanair is one of Europe is biggest airlines. It carried 5.84 million passengers in June, which is 13% more than a year earlier. Mr. Ryan says his airline is so popular because it is so cheap. Most of Ryanair is flights are short trips to Europe. This makes the idea of standing for an hour or so on an airplane a possible one. Ryan said that many people stand for over an hour on a train, so it should be no problem on an airplane. He told reporters he would even be prepared to offer flights for free to passengers who stood. He said he could squeeze in 50 per cent more people and cut costs by 20 per cent.

Michael Ryan has changed the way many people think about air travel. His focus is on cutting out unnecessary services and so reducing fares. One idea he is still thinking about is to ask passengers to pay one euro (around a dollar) to use the toilet. He said he could remove two toilets on board the airplane and put in extra seats. The extra revenue would reduce costs and therefore the price of airline tickets. He said asking passengers to pay would encourage them to use the toilets at the airports. Ryan has also talked about a “fat tax” on overweight travelers. His standing room idea, however, might no take off. All airlines must stick to strict international safety standards. Everybody over the age of two must have a seat.

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.

PRISON – VS. – WORK

There is something seriously wrong here

@ PRISON	@ WORK
You spend most of your time in a 10 x 10 cell	You spend most of your time in a 6x6 cubicle
You get three free meals a day	You get a break for one meal, and you have to pay for it
For good behavior, you get time off	For good behavior, you get more work
The guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you	You must carry a security card and open all the doors yourself
You can watch TV and play games	You could get fired for watching TV and playing games
You get your own toilet	You have to share the toilet with people who pee on the seat
They allow your family and friends to visit	You are not even supposed to speak to your family
All expenses are paid by the taxpayers with no work required on your part	You must pay all your expenses to go to work, and they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners
You spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out	You spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars
You must deal with sadistic wardens	They are called ‘managers’

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 NASAs 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)

SANTA CLAUS IS TOO UNHEALTHY

An Australian scientist writing in the British Medical Journal thinks Father Christmas is a bad role model for children because he is very fat and drinks too much alcohol.

Father Christmas should get off his sleigh and walk, lay off the mince pies and go easy on the beer and brandy, says research from the University of Monash in Melbourne. Santa Claus, it says, is one of the most widely recognised figures in the world, and it’s about time he started looking after his health, because he’s a terrible role model.

The traditional image of him as a jolly little man with a fat belly promotes the view that obese people are happy. The research isn’t intended entirely seriously, says Nathan Grills, the scientist behind it, but there’s still a good point to make about public health.

Equally worrying, he says, is the vast amount of alcohol Santa consumes on his rounds. All the beer, brandy and sherry left out for him in a billion homes worldwide, it says, must mean he’s in no fit state to drive his sleigh. In fact, says the research, he should abandon it altogether and find a healthier way to deliver presents - like jogging. If that wasn’t bad enough, the study says, Santa’s habits warrant closer scrutiny. More research is needed, it says, before it pronounces him a true public health menace.

(Janet Barrie)

A WAVE OF ANGER IS SWEEPING THE CITIES OF THE WORLD

The protests have many different origins. In Brazil people rose up against bus fares, in Turkey against a building project. Indonesians have rejected higher fuel prices. In the euro zone they march against austerity, and the Arab spring has become a perma-protest against pretty much everything.

Yet just as in 1848, 1968 and 1989, when people also found a collective voice, the demonstrators have much in common. In one country after another, protesters have risen up with bewildering speed. They tend to be ordinary, middle-class people, not lobbies with lists of demands. Their mix of revelry and rage condemns the corruption, inefficiency and arrogance of the folk in charge.

Nobody can know how 2013 will change the world – if at all. In 1989 the Soviet empire teetered and fell. But Marx’s belief that 1848 was the first wave of a proletarian revolution was confounded by decades of flourishing capitalism and 1968 did more to change sex than politics. Even now, though, the inchoate significance of 2013 is discernible. And for politicians who want to peddle the same old stuff, news is not good.

(The Economist, FUVEST)

ARTIST DETAINED IN GROWING CRACKDOWN BEIJING

Ai Weiwei, China’s most prominent dissident after imprisoned Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, was detained April 3 at the Beijing airport as he tried to board a flight to Hong Kong. Perhaps best known for codesigning the 2008 Beijing Olympic stadium known as the Bird’s Nest. Ai is an outspoken critic of the government and has been detained several times. During one period in custody, he was allegedly beaten so badly that he required brain surgery. This arrest comes amid a widespread crackdown touched off by online calls for a Tunisian-style “jasmine revolution.” Over the past several weeks, at least 26 activists have been detained, 200 have been put under house arrest, and more than 30 have disappeared.

                         (ITA)