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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
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This is Steve Ember. On our program today, we play some music byVivian Green … answer a listener’s question about the MississippiRiver … and, report about a computer visit to the White House inWashington, DC., WhiteHouse.gov.
HOST:
How would you like to visit the White House in Washington, D-C,and have the President of the United States show you his home? Youcan, if you have a computer. The Web site address isWWW.WhiteHouse.gov. Sarah Long has more.
ANNCR:
The White House Web site lets thecomputer user visit the most famous home in America. One visitbegins with President Bush. The President takes visitors on aseven-minute tour around his office, called the Oval Office. If yourcomputer can play the video it is almost like having a private visitwith the President of the United States.
If your computer can not play the video, you can still visit theOval Office. You can see all of the office using your computer. Youcan make your computer point the camera at famous paintings on thewall of the Oval Office or at the President’s desk. You can also seeother rooms in the White House: the Blue Room, the Red Room, theState Dining Room and many more.
The Web site also offers a collection of famous pictures taken inthe White House. Many are older photographs that show formerPresidents when they lived in the White House.
White House officials say President Bush made the video recordinglast summer. Other videos were made more recently. The most recentones show the White House decorated for the Christmas holiday. Inone video, Laura Bush tells about the decorations in differentrooms, including a small White House made from gingerbread. Onefunny video is called the Barney Cam. It follows Mister Bush’s dogBarney as he runs through the White House decorated for theholidays.
The Web site and the recordings are part of the celebration ofthe one-hundredth anniversary of the part of the White House knownas the West Wing. The West Wing includes offices used by members ofthe Administration who work with the President every day.
So if you would like to visit the White House, the computeraddress is w-w-w dot whitehouse dot g-o-v. White House is all oneword. The address again is w-w-w-w dot whitehouse dot g-o-v.
The Mississippi River
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Guatemala.Alejandro Mata asks about the biggest river in the United States,the Mississippi.
The Mississippi River flows fromnear the northern border of the United States south into the Gulf ofMexico. It flows for four-thousand kilometers through the center ofthe country. The Mississippi is one of the longest rivers in theworld. Only the Amazon in South America and the Nile in easternAfrica are longer.
The name Mississippi came from the Chippewa Indians. They livedin what is now the north central part of the United States. Theycalled the river “maesi-sipu.” This meant “river of many fishes” inthe Chippewa language. The word was not easy for European explorersto say. So they began calling it the Mississippi instead.
The Mississippi River has always been important for the Americaneconomy. Large cities were established along the river. Two of theseare found on the northernmost part of the river that is deep enoughfor trade ships to travel. They are Minneapolis and Saint Paul,Minnesota. The cities today are important centers for business andagriculture.
About two-thousand kilometers south along the river is the cityof Saint Louis, Missouri. It is just a few kilometers from where theMissouri River joins the Mississippi. A French trader firstestablished a business there in seventeen-sixty-four. A few yearslater settlers named their new town after the thirteenth centuryFrench king, Louis the Ninth, who had been made a Christian saint.The city of Saint Louis was a popular starting point for settlerstravelling to the American West.
Perhaps the most famous city on the Mississippi is at the river’ssouthern end. It is the port city of New Orleans, Louisiana. TheFrench explorers who first settled there named the town after theFrench city of Orleans (or-lay-onh). New Orleans was always animportant trade center. A great battle was fought there betweenBritish and American forces during the War of Eighteen-Twelve.Today, New Orleans is probably most famous for its culture, musicand food, and for its place at the end of the great MississippiRiver.
Vivian Green
HOST:
Singer and songwriter Vivian Green has experienced good and badlove relationships. The songs on her first album tell those stories.Here is Shep O’Neal with more about this young singer.
ANNCR:
Vivian Green is twenty-three yearsold. She has been singing and writing songs professionally since shewas fifteen. Vivian wrote all of the songs for her first album, “ALove Story”. It was released last month.
“A Love Story” tells about a relationship gone wrong. It is aboutlearning to love yourself and then finding true love. The song”Emotional Rollercoaster” tells about being in a bad relationshipand not knowing how to end it.
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When Vivian was a child her mother sang different kinds of songsto her. You can hear the influence of popular jazz in this song. Itis called “No Sittin’ by the Phone.”
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Vivian Green says she can write a song very quickly. She wrotesome of her songs the same day she recorded them. We leave you nowwith one of those songs. Here is “Superwoman” from the album “A LoveStory.”
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HOST:
This is Steve Ember. 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 Oliver Chanler, LawanDavis, Nancy Steinbach and Paul Thompson. Our studio engineer wasJim Harmon. And our producer was Paul Thompson.