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BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.
This is Bob Doughty. On our show this week:
Music from the group Seven Mary Three …
A question about presidential term limits …
And a report about an action sport that Olympic fans haven’t seenin Athens, except maybe on the local streets.
Skateboarding
The Summer Olympics end Sunday inAthens. Over the years, new sporting events have been added to theGames. Others have been taken away. It all depends on popularity.But one popular activity that is not in the Olympics — at least notyet — is skateboarding. Phoebe Zimmermann has our story.
PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN: Skateboards were developed in SouthernCalifornia in the early nineteen fifties. Children, mostly boys,built their boards themselves. They attached four clay or metalwheels to a long, narrow piece of wood.
The earliest versions were said to have been about thirtycentimeters wide and close to two meters long. They would havelooked much more like surfboards than modern skateboards. In fact,the first skateboarders were probably surfers. Back then,skateboarding was called “sidewalk surfing.”
Skateboarding was popular through the early sixties. There waseven some competitive skateboarding. But the boards were relativelyslow and difficult to turn, and the ride was rough. By the end ofthe sixties, skateboards took a bad fall in sales.
All that changed in nineteen seventy with a young man named FrankNasworthy. He was a skater in Virginia. He discovered that wheelsmade of a plastic called urethane created a faster, smoother ride.Soon all skateboards had urethane wheels and the number of fansbegan to grow again.
Today, skateboarding is popular internationally. Skaters fromJapan, Malaysia, the Netherlands and other countries competed lastyear in the X-Games Global Championship in San Antonio, Texas. X, asin “extreme” — maybe too extreme for Olympic traditionalists.
But skateboarding has grown up in the past thirty years. Manyskaters now wear helmets and other protective equipment. Also, thereare parks built especially for their sport. These parks usuallyinclude smooth concrete hills, bowl-shaped areas and jumps. In fact,a skate park is being built right now in the area where FrankNasworthy often skated. The local government in Arlington, Virginia,plans to open it in October. And as for Frank, we understand he isnow an engineer … in California.
Presidential Terms in Office
BOB DOUGHTY: Our VOA listener question this week comes from twoplaces: Mysore, India, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Mohamud Abdiand Vincent Nguyen both want to know why American presidents cannotserve more than two terms in office.
This is a good time to answer that question. The Republican Partyopens its presidential nominating convention on Monday in New YorkCity. Delegates will nominate President Bush and Vice President DickCheney for a second term in the elections in November.
The United States Constitution never said anything about how manytimes a president could be re-elected. The idea of serving only twofour-year terms began with the first president, George Washington.He chose not to campaign for a third term. The presidents whofollowed him did the same. But there was no law that would havestopped them from serving longer, had they sought more terms.
Franklin Roosevelt did not followthis tradition. He served longer than any other president, fromMarch of nineteen thirty-three until April of nineteen forty-five.Political opponents criticized his elections to a third term and afourth. They said no one person should have so much power for solong. But others believed his leadership and experience were neededduring the Great Depression and World War Two.
Franklin Roosevelt died during his fourth term. After his death,Congress proposed to amend the Constitution to limit the number ofyears a president could serve. States approved the change innineteen fifty-one.
The twenty-second amendment to the Constitution says no one maybe elected president more than two times. It also says no one whohas served as president for more than two years of someone else’sterm may be elected more than once.
All this guarantees that no American will serve as president formore than eight years, unless the Constitution is ever changedagain.
Seven Mary Three
HOST:
A new school year means a newchance to make friends — and maybe even start a band. The groupSeven Mary Three started that way. Gwen Outen has more.
GWEN OUTEN: Three of the four current members of the band met innineteen ninety-two at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.They started with a fourth member who also went there.
The name of the band comes from a television show from the latenineteen seventies. It was a police show about California HighwayPatrol officers on motorcycles. The show was called “CHiPs.” But oneof the actors used the radio call sign “Seven Mary Three.”
Seven Mary Three released its first album with a record companyin nineteen ninety-five. The album was called “American Standard.”It included this single, “Cumbersome.”
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In two thousand one, the band released an album called “Economyof Sound.” One of the songs was used in the movie “Crazy/Beautiful.”The name of the song is “Wait.”
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The members of Seven Mary Three live in Orlando, Florida. Butthey travel a lot. In fact, drummer Giti Khalsa asked his father totake care of his dog for a little while, which has stretched intoten months.
Last month, Seven Mary Three appeared in a show during MajorLeague Baseball’s All Star Week in Houston, Texas. They performedtwo songs from “Dis/Location,” their newest album. We leave you withone of those songs, “Settle Up.”
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BOB DOUGHTY: This is Bob Doughty. Send your questions aboutAmerican life to mosaic@voanews.com. Or write to American Mosaic,VOA Special English, Washington, D.C., two-zero-two-three-seven,USA.
Please include your name and postal address. We’ll send you agift if we use your question.
Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and Caty Weaver. PaulThompson was our producer. And our engineer was Jim Sleeman.
I hope you enjoyed AMERICAN MOSAIC. Join us again next week forVOA’s radio magazine in Special English.