HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC – VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish. This is Doug Johnson. On our program today:
We play some award-winning country music …
answer a question about Muslims in the United States …
and report about a historic museum in the southeastern state ofNorth Carolina.
Wright Brothers Museum
HOST:
Americans Orville and Wilbur Wright will always be remembered inhistory as the inventors of modern flight. They made the world’sfirst flight in a machine that was heavier than air and powered byan engine. Shep O’Neal tells us more about the brothers and amemorial that honors their success.
ANNCR:
The Wright brothers did most of their research and test flightson the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was a place with strongwinds, hills from which to launch their flying machines and a softplace to land.
Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled poweredflight in history on December Seventeenth, Nineteen-Oh-Three. Theycarried out four tests in their first airplane they called theWright Flyer. The first flight traveled thirty-seven meters andlasted twelve seconds. The longest and most historic test flightflew two-hundred-sixty meters and lasted fifty-nine seconds.
Visitors to the Outer Banks in North Carolina can see a memorialto the Wright brothers. It is built on the same fields where theydid their research. An eighteen-meter high rock memorial wascompleted in Nineteen-Thirty-Two. It sits on top of Kill Devil Hill.The brothers used this sand hill for more than one-thousand testflights.
Two other buildings near Kill Devil Hill show how the Wrightbrothers lived while doing their research. One building shows wherethey ate, slept, and built test equipment. The other is similar tothe place where they kept their flying machines.
A large rock near the memorial marks where the Wright Flyer firstleft the ground. Numbered signs show the landing points for thefirst four historic test flights. Following those tests, the WrightFlyer was damaged by the wind. It never flew again. However, a modelof the plane is in the visitors center at Kill Devil Hill. Today,the real Nineteen-Oh-Three Wright Flyer belongs to the SmithsonianInstitution. It is hanging in the Air and Space Museum inWashington, D-C.
Islam in the United States
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Indonesia.Suherman Rosyidi asks about Islam and Muslims in the United States.
There are more than one-thousand-million people around the worldwho are Muslims. They practice the religion Islam. About six-millionMuslims live in the United States. Only about one in five Muslims inthe world are Arabs.
Yet some people from the Middle East are having a difficult timein the United States since the terrorist attacks September eleventh.The men responsible for the attacks were Arab. They were part of theMuslim al-Qaeda group led by Osama bin Laden. He is Muslim and hasdeclared a holy war against the United States and the West.
Some Americans believed that all Muslims agreed with what theterrorists did. Because of this, many Muslims and other people fromthe Middle East have said they are being treated unfairly in theUnited States. For example, the newspaper USA Today reported thatthe Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received about seventycharges by Muslim workers. The commission says forty of thosecharges involve workers saying they were wrongly dismissed fromtheir jobs. Some workers say the reason they are being treated thisway is because of their religion or nationality.
After the terrorist attacks, President Bush told Americans not toblame all Muslim people for the acts of a few. He said the UnitedStates-led war in Afghanistan is against terrorism, not Islam.However, the United States government has begun to use unusualmeasures to find and stop future terrorists.
Last week, the State Department said it will carry out increasedinvestigations of Arab and Muslim men seeking permission to come tothe United States. The Justice Department said it will question morethan five-thousand young men. The young men are in the United Statesas visitors from countries where terrorist groups are active.
Civil rights groups and groups representing Arab-Americans haveexpressed concern about this. They want to make sure that people arenot treated differently because of their religion or nationality.
However, not all Muslims in America have reported unfairtreatment since the September attacks. Some say the tragedy hasgiven them a chance to educate other Americans about their religion.And they are able to show that Islam does not agree with what theterrorists did.
Country Music Association Awards
HOST:
The Country Music Association held its yearly awards ceremonyearlier this month at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville,Tennessee. Shirley Griffith plays music by some of the awardwinners.
ANNCR:
The Country Music Association honored Lee Ann Womack with herfirst Female Singer of the Year Award. Mizz Womack was emotional asshe thanked the crowd at the Grand Ole Opry. She told them shethought her chance for the award had passed. Here is Lee Ann Womacksinging “Thinkin’ With My Heart Again.”
((CUT ONE: “THINKIN’ WITH MY HEART AGAIN”))
The Country Music Association presented songwriters Larry Cordleand Larry Shell with the award for Song of the Year. Their winningsong criticizes the music industry. It says producers are destroyingthe traditions of country music. Larry Cordle and his band LonesomeStandard Time perform “Murder on Music Row.”
(CUT TWO: “MURDER ON MUSIC ROW”))
A collection of music from the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”won Album of the Year. The movie takes place in the United Statesduring the Nineteen-Thirties. It includes traditional country songsby several performers. The awards also honored The Soggy BottomBoys, a group of musicians in the movie. We leave you now with theirperformance of the song that was named Single of the Year, “I Am aMan of Constant Sorrow”.
((CUT THREE: “I AM A MAN OF CONSTANT SORROW”))
HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today. And Ihope you will join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC -VOA’sradio magazine in Special English.
This AMERICAN MOSAIC program was written by Jill Moss, NancySteinbach and Caty Weaver. Our studio engineer was Tom Verba. Andour producer was Paul Thompson.