“Weed” is the name of a small town in California with about 3,000 residents (people who live there). “Weed” is also a slang or informal term for marijuana, an illegal plant whose leaves are dried and smoked. “Weed” is the name of a beer made by a small brewery (factory where beer is made) in the city of Weed that is in trouble with the U.S. Government.

The reason the company is in trouble is that the company uses the slogan (short phrase to sell a product) on its beer bottle caps that reads: “Try Legal Weed.” The government says that the slogan is talking about using marijuana, which is illegal, and has told the company to stop using the slogan. If it doesn’t, the company could be fined (punished by having to pay money) or be sanctioned (legally not allowed to do certain things).

The man who owns the brewery says that he used the slogan only to grab (to get) attention. Besides, he says, the town was named after a man named Abner Weed who founded (started) the town, and not after the marijuana plant.

According to the government agency, the label is a problem because:
“We consider it to be a drug reference (saying one thing when you mean something else), and find it to be false (not true) and misleading (giving the wrong idea) to the consumer in terms of what may or may not be the properties (characteristics; parts) contained within that product…”

What do the people of the town think?

“It’s just plain goofy (silly) to me the federal government is making so much of a fuss (unnecessary excitement and interest) over this,” said Chuck Sutton, Weed’s mayor (elected leader of the town). “I can sort of (partly; kind of) understand their point, but it all seems a little overboard (too much).”

Read the full story from the Los Angeles Times.

~ Lucy

Yesterday’s Podcast, ESL Podcast 374, was about a graduation ceremony.

In 1997, an article by a writer, Mary Schmich, was published in the Chicago Tribune newspaper. It was called, “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.” In the writer’s introduction to the article, she said that this was the commencement address or speech she would give if she were ever asked to give one.

This speech became very popular. Many people thought it was clever and funny. In fact, it became so popular, that in 1999, Baz Luhrmann, the well known Australian movie director (of the movie Moulin Rouge) put the speech to music.

Here is the article and the song.

~ Lucy

“Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young”
by Mary Schmich

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘97: Wear sunscreen (lotion to protect you from the sun).

If I could offer you only one tip (piece of advice) for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis (foundation) more reliable than my own meandering (not on a straight path) experience. I will dispense (give) this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded (become pale; no longer with bright color). But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall (remember) in a way you can’t grasp (understand) now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous (wonderful) you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation (math problem) by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt (likely) to be things that never crossed your worried mind (became a thought in your mind), the kind that blind side (happen to you when you don’t expect it to) you at 4 pm on some idle (not busy) Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless (careless) with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with (tolerate) people who are reckless with yours.

Floss (clean between your teeth with string).

Don’t waste your time on jealousy (wishing you had/are what other people have/are). Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments (good things other people say about you) you receive. Forget the insults (bad things other people say about you). If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch (make straight your body and muscles, usually before exercise).

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t know.

Get plenty of calcium (a mineral that is good for building strong bones in your body). Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken (funny looking dance) on your 75th anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate (criticize) yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good (completely; finally).

Be nice to your siblings (brothers and sisters). They’re your best link (connection) to your past and the people most likely to stick (stay) with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious (valuable) few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps (make the distance smaller) in geography (land and people on Earth) and lifestyle (the way you live), because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable (cannot be take away) truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander (have love affairs). You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize (dream) that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble (show fine qualities), and children respected their elders (people who are older). Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund (amount of money left to you by parents or other wealthy relatives). Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse (husband or wife). But you never know when either one might run out (have nothing left; disappear).

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia (looking back at good, past times). Dispensing it is a way of fishing (finding and taking out) the past from the disposal (the machine under your sink that cuts up food into small pieces to wash away), wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling (using again) it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

I received the following email from Huang, one of our listeners who lives in the area affected by the terrible earthquake in China recently. I thought it would be good to share this note with all of you:
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Dear Jeff,
I am Huang from the city of Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, near where a terrible earthquake happened. Thank goodness! Because of being in the urban area of Chengdu, my family, my relatives, my friends, and colleagues are fine and safe now, even there still are minor tremors at times.

On the night of May 12th, in order to avoid being hurt by potential minor earthquakes, I had to sleep on the street outside, with many residents in Chengdu, but I could not get any sleep, because I wanted to keep alert and guard my family. How could I kill time during the long night? I had copied some episodes onto my cell phone and at that time your voice also gave me relief. I used my cell phone to receive the radio and listen to your Podcast if there was no new news.

An insomnious night, with the Podcast, I have experienced. I hope all people could be fine and the more people could be rescued from the disaster. God, please bless them!

Also, thanks very much for your good work. I will continue to listen to your great podcasts.

Thanks you, Lucy and Jeff!

Best regards from China,
Huang

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Lucy, I, and all of us here at ESL Podcast wish the best to those affected by this earthquake, and all of the other recent natural disasters. We especially hope that Huang and his family are well, and thank him for sharing his thoughts with us.

~Jeff

If you are an artist in the U.S., your artwork (piece of art) may be protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act, which became law in 1990. If you live in California, your artwork may also be protected by the California Art Preservation Act (1979). Both of these laws prohibit (make something unlawful, not legal) the alteration (changing) or destruction (destroying) of certain types of public artwork without first notifying (telling) the artist so that the artist can remove the artwork if he or she wants to.

In Los Angeles yesterday, an artist by the name of Kent Twitchell received a $1.1 million settlement (decision or compromise between the two sides in a lawsuit) in his lawsuit against the U.S. government and 11 other people who managed the building. He filed the lawsuit because his six-story (floor) mural (painting on a wall) on the side of a government building in downtown Los Angeles was painted over, so that a new layer of paint covered the mural. The mural was painted between 1978 and 1987 and is of another artist. It was painted over in 2006.

For the artist, the good news is that art experts say that it is still possible to restore (bring back) the mural. It’s not clear, though, if that will happen.

~ Lucy

It’s very common these days to search the Internet to find out more about people and companies. Many people talk about “googling” or searching for the name of someone or something they know. But what if there’s something on the Internet about you that you don’t want others to see?

No problem. There is now a new business that claims it can polish or improve search results about you on the Internet, and improve your reputation (what others generally feel and think about you). These companies say that they can hide or make it more difficult for those negative search results to appear. Here’s what they do:

The company you hire creates hundreds of links (online connections) between third-party Websites and positive content or information about you or your business. This pushes your negative search results off the first page of results; most people don’t look beyond the first page of results. This is very labor intensive, which means it takes a lot of time and work. The cost? - Between $4000 to $30,000.

Another less expensive service finds where the negative content is stored and asks that information to be removed. These services cost about $30 per item.

This strategy or method doesn’t always work, however. In 1996, the U.S. passed a law called the Communications Decency Act, which says that hosts (owners) of a website are not responsible for what users post on that website. Since many people post anonymously (without using their real names), it is often difficult to find the person who wrote that post, or to convince the host to remove it.

~ Lucy

I just discovered this very cool web service called Shared Copy. It allows you to make notes on web pages and share them with others. I tried using it and I think it may be useful for what we do here at ESL Podcast.

I took a news article from today’s Voice of America website and highlighted (made a different color) in yellow certain difficult words. Then on the side I put the definitions of these words so you can get some help if there is a word you don’t understand. It is even possible for you to go on to the page and put your own comments or questions (although in this first experiment, I turned the comments option off).

The article is about the subject of yesterday’s post, the sex scandal involving Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York. Take a look at it here and tell me what you think.

~Jeff

A scandal is when someone does something wrong, usually a well-known person such as a politician or a movie star. There can be many different types of scandals, including scandals involving sex. In today’s U.S. papers, the American press is reporting on a story about the Governor of the State of New York, Eliot Spitzer. Governor Spitzer is accused (is said to be guilty of) visiting a prostitute (a man or woman who provides sex in exchange for money) while on a trip to Washington DC. The governor has admitted to doing something wrong, and will probably resign (give up his job) very soon.

Sex scandals are nothing new to American politics, or probably the politics of any country. One newspaper ran (published) an editorial cartoon (a visual joke usually involving politics) showing the governor in his underwear with his pants down on the ground. We have an expression, “to be caught with your pants down,” which means to be discovered doing something wrong, often while committing the act. Although the expression relates obviously to a sexual situation, it can also be applied to any situation where you are discovered by other people doing something wrong.

So whatever you do today, try not to get caught with your pants down.

~Jeff

Well, the results are in (are available): Hillary Clinton won the elections in Texas and Ohio that I discussed in yesterday’s post, and so the fight for the presidential nomination in the Democratic Party will continue. The next big election will be in Pennsylvania, seven weeks from now.

So far (up to this point in time), neither Barak Obama nor Hillary Clinton has enough votes to win the nomination. For the Republicans, John McCain will be their nominee (the person who has been named or nominated as the candidate) for president. I talked about McCain a few years ago on English Cafe #40.

One expression that I heard watching the election coverage (news) last night was buyer’s remorse. A buyer is someone who buys or purchases something. Remorse is when you feel sorry for something you did, when you regret doing something. Buyer’s remorse is an expression we use when we buy something (a new car, a new house, a new MacBook Pro with a 15″ screen and 250 gigabyte hard drive!) and then later regret our purchase. We wish we had not bought it.

So how is this related to the election? Well, Hillary Clinton’s opponent, Barak Obama, has become very popular, very quickly in the past two months. He has become so popular that some people think that he has not been as carefully scrutinized (examined closely) as Senator Clinton. For this reason, some news commentators (people who give their opinion on the television and radio news shows) were suggesting that perhaps voters were sorry for supporting him earlier, that they changed their minds and instead are now supporting and voting for Hillary Clinton.

Of course, no one actually buys a political candidate. We should probably say “voter’s remorse.” We will have to see what happens in the upcoming (future) elections to know if the commentators are right.

~Jeff

Today is a very important primary election in the states of Texas and Ohio (see my explanation of the U.S. election system here). One expression that you can read in the American newspapers today is “do or die.” People are saying that these elections today are do or die for one of the candidates, Hillary Clinton.

When something is do or die, we mean that if the person fails now, their chances of winning or succeeding are over, that they will not win in the future. This is often said of situations where the person has one last chance to try to win something. Clinton has lost 11 primaries in a row (one after the other) to her competitor, Barak Obama. If she loses in Texas and Ohio, it will be almost impossible for her to win the race (election) to be the nominee of the Democratic Party in the November elections.

We’ll know the answer to that question by tomorrow morning.

~Jeff

Last Sunday the annual awards for the best movies were given out (awarded, given to the winners) in Los Angeles. The awards are popularly called the Oscars, because the statue you win is called “Oscar.”  But no one is exactly sure why is it called Oscar.  (Why the Jeff or Lucy?)   The Oscars are presented by the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences (hence (therefore), the ceremony is often called the Academy Awards). There is a separate category for the Best Foreign (non-American) Film, but actors and actresses from any movie, foreign or U.S.-made, can be nominated (named as a finalist) for the acting awards. The top or highest awards for acting are Best Actor (a man) and Best Actress (a woman). There are also awards for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, meaning the actors who weren’t the lead or most important actors in the movie, but were still important.

Many times in the past, actors from other countries have won acting Oscars, but this year, for the first time in more than 40 years, all of the top acting prizes - Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress - were won by non-Americans.

Best Actor was given to an Irish actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, for the movie There Will Be Blood. Best Actress went to the young French actor, Marion Cotillard, for the movie La Vie en Rose. Best Supporting Actor went to the Spaniard, Javier Bardem, for the movie No Country for Old Men. Best Supporting Actress went to a British actress, Tilda Swinton, for her work in the movie Michael Clayton.

Movies are an international art form, so although Hollywood makes many of the most popular movies, I think it is a good thing that we recognize the great acting talents from all countries.

The Best Picture award went to No Country for Old Men, which was made by two people from my home state, Minnesota! So I guess Hollywood was the loser this year.

~Jeff