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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
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This is Doug Johnson. On our program today,
We answer a question about the history of the American flag …
Play music from the group Kindred the Family Soul …
And report about new government efforts against criminals whoprint false money.
New Twenty Dollar Bill
HOST:
Criminals often print false money. This kind of criminal activityis a big problem in many countries around the world. The UnitedStates will soon begin printing money that will be very difficult tocopy. Steve Ember explains.
ANNCR:
The United States government recently announced new efforts tohalt the printing of false money. This kind of criminal activity iscalled counterfeiting. The government says about forty-four-milliondollars in counterfeit money was produced last year. Experts saymodern computers and printing methods have made counterfeitingeasier than ever before.
Government officials recently showed the public a new design forthe American paper money most often illegally copied. That is thetwenty-dollar bill. The announcement was part of an educationprogram to help make sure people all over the world know about thenew money and understand its security designs.
One of these security designs is the use of different colors.American money has always been mostly green. For the first time inhistory the new twenty-dollar bill will be blue and orange as wellas green.
The new bill will also have a device called a security threadinside the paper. The thread can be easily seen if the money is heldup to the light. And a special colored number twenty will be printedin the lower right side of the bill. This number changes color whenthe bill is moved.
A picture of American PresidentAndrew Jackson will still be printed on the front of the newtwenty-dollar bill. However, his picture can also be seen if youhold the bill up to the light. It is printed again using a methodcalled a watermark inside the paper.
The United States TreasuryDepartment says the new twenty-dollar bill will be in public uselater this year. New fifty and one-hundred dollar bills will beprinted next year and the year after. New ten-dollar and five-dollarnotes are also being considered. However, officials say they have noplans to change the American one and two-dollar bills.
Flag Day
HOST:
Our VOA question this week comes from two listeners, KasemPhumphong in Chainat Province, Thailand, and Song Bin in GuizhouProvince, China. They would like to know about the American flag.
This is a good time to answer that question because Junefourteenth is Flag Day. It is the anniversary of the day America’sfirst lawmakers approved the design of a new flag for a new nation.
The United States of America beganas thirteen British colonies. Each colony had its own flag. But thecolonists fought under a common flag during the Revolutionary Waragainst Britain. It looked a lot like the American flag today. Ithad thirteen red and white stripes for the thirteen colonies. It hada square blue area in the upper left corner. Inside the blue areawere the red cross and white lines of the British flag.
On July fourth, seventeen-seventy-six, the American colonistsdeclared their independence. The United States of America was born.The Continental Congress of the new nation approved a new flag onJune fourteenth, seventeen-seventy-seven. The thirteen red and whitestripes remained. Thirteen white stars replaced the British flaginside the blue area. The thirteen stars represented, in the wordsof Congress, “a new constellation.”
In eighteen-eighteen, Congress approved a law that said a newstar would be added to the flag for each new state that joined theunion. Today, there are fifty states, and fifty white stars in theblue area of the flag.
Francis Hopkinson, a delegate to the Continental Congress, saidhe designed the flag. Most historians accept his claim.
Just about every American knowsthe story that a woman named Betsy Ross made the first Americanflag. Betsy Ross was a sewing expert in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.She was the official flag maker for the Pennsylvania navy.
In eighteen-seventy, the grandson of Betsy Ross, William Canby,wrote a paper about her. He wrote that when he was eleven years old,his grandmother told him the story of how she made the first UnitedStates flag. She said a committee led by George Washington visitedher in June of seventeen-seventy-six. The men asked Betsy Ross tomake a flag based on a design they gave her. The stars had sixpoints but Missus Ross suggested that stars with five points wouldbe easier to sew.
No proof has ever been found to confirm this telling of whathappened. But we think it makes a nice story!
Kindred the Family Soul
HOST:
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is home to many performers in themusic industry. They include singers Patti LaBelle, TeddyPendergrass, and Jill Scott. Phoebe Zimmermann tells us about thelatest success from Philadelphia.
ANNCR:
Singers and songwriters FatinDantzler and Aja Graydon are partners in music. They are alsohusband and wife. The two perform with a ten-piece band. They arecalled Kindred the Family Soul. Their first album, “Surrender toLove,” was released recently. Listen to a song from that album –“Far Away.”
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The members of Kindred the Family Soul bring influences fromdifferent kinds of music to their songs. These include soul, jazz,hip-hop, blues, folk and classic rock. The song “We” includes spokenwords by guest artist Ursula Rucker.
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Music critics say very good things about Kindred the Family Soul.They also say the band has a sound of its own. They say the groupperforms with the power and energy of popular soul bands of thenineteen-seventies such as Earth, Wind and Fire. We leave you withthe title song from the album “Surrender to Love.”
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HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.
Our program was written by Lawan Davis, Nancy Steinbach and PaulThompson. Our studio engineer was Rick Barmes. And our producer wasPaul Thompson.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radiomagazine in Special English.