Andre Agassi on 'Open'

Andre Agassi retired from tennis in 2006 and has published his memoir, "Open." He tells Steve Paulson about his father who was driven to make him a champion, but whom he does not consider to have been abusive, and says he's ultimately a different sort of person than his great rival Pete Sampras. You can listen to the excerpt here.

The danger of a single story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice - and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature. Listen to the talk and answer the following questions:

1. Complete these sentences as you listen:

a. Her ............................... position towards me, as an African, was a .............................. well meaning pity.
b. This story about Africa ................................. comes, I think, from western literature.
c. My chracters drove cars, they were not .................................., therefore, they were not authentically African.
d. There were endless stories of Mexicans as people who were ........................ the health care system, ..................... across the border, being arrested at the border, that sort of thing.
e. I had ................................. the single story of Mexicans.
f. What if my roommate knew about Nollywood? Full of innovative people making films despite great technical ..........................
g. People who .................... despite the government, rather than because of it.

2. Can you find an example of a cleft sentence in this talk?

3. What impression do John Locke and Rudyard Kipling contribute to create of the Africans?

4. In what way does she confess the media influenced her view of Mexicans? How is a single story of a people created by the media?

5. What is the relation between storytelling and power?

6. What examples does she provide to exemplify how different peoples have been dispossed by the white people?

7. In what way does the speaker say reclaiming stories is important?

The Search for the Perfect Office

More and more of us work in open plan offices, which can be noisy and lead to strife between those staff who are tidy and their neighbours who like to leave papers and dirty plates on their desks and between those who are quiet and their colleagues who talk loudly on the phone.

Claudia Hammond explores what the perfect office would look like if the latest psychological research was applied. She discovers that it is possible to work in open plan spaces and be able to concentrate, be creative and communicate well with colleagues. And she asks why many architects aren't aware of the research of psychologists or ignore it. You can listen to it through this link.

As you listen notice the use of the following phrases. What is the overall conclusion of what people value in the workplace?

The Search for the Perfect Office

A vast desk for my mess

Retractable roof and windows

Pretty grim to work in

Bundled up in the other side of the office

Open plan is the way forward

Non-territorial office spaces

Hot desks where the early birds get the best desks

Efficiency diminishes by about 10-20%

This very subject; organizational psychology

Employers are often under enormous pressure to make offices cheaper

A false economy

Lack of privacy

Sitting in close proximity to others

It’s not conducive to being able to concentrate

Supervisors are less willing to give feedback

Architects favour certain kinds of materials

It gets a little bit jumbled in the middle

Interference from that sound doesn’t diminish

If you happen to sit next to someone with a loud telephone voice

If you have a pin quiet office it is absolutely intimidating

What people use for masking sound is pink noise

One size does not fit all

The more wacky offices

Move from individual to open plan offices

Rules: no bins, no pictures on the walls, plants in drawers

Hot desking

A free for all

No space personalizing

No personal effects

Personalizing space helps people cope with stress

Owner occupied offices or speculative developers

You have to future gaze

Acoustics is a rather difficult science

Activity based working

National Association of Pension Funds

It was masterminded by Alex…

Putting Profit in its Place

Jane Burston: Putting Profit in its Place

Wed, 13 Nov 13 http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fourthought

 

Jane Burston argues that by placing too much emphasis on profit, companies behave in an unethical way, and it is time for social purpose to take centre stage. Listen to the extract up to minute 6:16 and try to answer the following questions.

     1. Some of the language Ms. Burston uses has been extracted in the following lines. Since some of it refers to banking scandals and circumventing labour regulations, you may need to check some of the meaning through the links provided:

My hopes had been pinned on a lecture called Business and social purpose

Zero-hours contracts

Sub-prime mortgage crises

Libor rate rigging

Large scale oil spillages

A stationery company that had developed a terrible reputation for running the small companies in its sector aground

Reality bites

Cut corners and cut costs

2. According to the speaker in what ways do Friedman and Smith believe capitalism to benefit society?
 

     3. In Ms. Burston’s experience at Harvard, what was the solution put forward to make up for and dispel the company’s reputation?

      4. How does the speaker justify and exemplify the following statement: ‘So long as businesses have profit as the end goal, they will inevitably be unethical’?

     5. What threefold solution does Ms. Burston suggest in order for this business model to be changed?

Drugs in sport

Paul Dimeo: Drugs in Sport

Mon, 14 Oct 13 http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fourthought

 

Paul Dimeo (Scottish accent) argues that drugs made modern sport what it is today. Listen to the programme up to minute 8:14 and notice both the language used and the ideas conveyed through the following questions:

1. Some of the expressions you will hear in this talk are:

A major sporting event

The glories of human achievement and endurance

Performance enhancing drugs

Part and parcel

A household name

Twenty-five years after Johnson’s ignominy

This is one of the most famous, or infamous, events in sports history

The level playing field

Excellence and rivalries fuelled by steroids

  

      2. Why are Johnson and Armstrong said to have doped?

     3. What reason does Mr. Dimeo provide for the prevailing spread in the use of drugs in sport over the last few decades in the 20^th century?

     4. In what way does Mr. Dimeo say the use of drugs in sports has supported the Olympics and made them appealing to current audiences?

If you want, you can continue listening to the argumentation to the end and we can discuss the arguments provided in this talk, the conclusions reached and their relevance to the current situation in sporting competitions in class. You can find a loose transcript of this talk at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24329252

What Mandela stood for

No doubt we've all been reading about Mandela's significance and legacy since his death last week. The media will, however, obliterate any mention of the ANC being considered a terrorist organization by Margaret Thatcher, or her support of the apartheid government, except for some independent comentators such as Victor Grossman who, while discussing the situation of the SDP in Germany, does not fail to remember the 20th century towering figure Mandela was and how he had to face the fact that most 'western democracies' backed apartheid: 

 'In the midst of such debates and discussions came the news of Nelson Mandela’s death. All the media joined in the mourning, of course, outdoing one another in praising the old leader, mostly painting a rosy picture of a great conciliator and western-style democrat, somehow smoothing over or ignoring his clear endorsement of armed struggle, his support for Cuba and the Palestinians, his lasting alliance with the Communists. And what they also forgot: while the East German Democratic Republic supported the African National Congress in countless ways, printing its vital exile newspaper Sechaba and providing training to many of its members and future leaders, government and business interests in the Federal Republic, joining those in Britain, the USA and most western countries, backed the apartheid governments almost till the end. Despite all UN resolutions, Daimler, Krupp, the Deutsche Bank and others made over 4 billion euro in profits from dealing with South Africa. This included weaponry of many kinds used to intimidate and kill people and destroy the freedom movement. In those days they castigated the ANC, including Mandela, as Communist terrorists.

But memories are short. Forget that sometimes nasty or dangerous past, bury the truth, turn poor Mandela into a sweet - and harmless - angel of peace, just fitting for the Christmas spirit. Ho ho ho!'

There are also those who flag up Mandela's endorsement of anti-apartheid in Palestine and his criticism of the US as laid out in these quotes to be found in commondreams.org. You can continue reading about this at voltairenet.org.

The Spirit of 45

This documentary by Ken Loach chronicles how the welfare state came about. It covers the period running up to and after the 1945 election where Clement Atlee introduced dramatic reforms to improve people's lives. The reforms included the regulation of the workforce and its rights, the creation of the NHS, public education, nationalisation of public infrastructure, public housing and all the social improvements we have benefited from up to the beginning of the 21st century. Although all the areas covered by the documentary are interesting, I would recommend watching the short clips on life conditions in the 1920s and 30s through the Sam Watts 'Impossible Conditions' and 'We are the greatest empire in the world' videos and more current reflections on the Labour Manifesto where citizens and members of UK Uncut express their views on it in the two clips entitled 'Reflecting on the Labour Manifesto'. You can find them in the Welfare section.